Spectacular! A close-up of the training grounds for China's V-Day parade 16:40, August 21, 2025 By Liu Ning ( People's Daily Online Disciplined and powerful in perfect unison, with slogans echoing across the field, People's Daily Online gives you an up-close look at the training site of the military parade for the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Soldiers participating in the event immerse themselves in spirited morale and rigorous training as they prepare for the grand military parade. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. A series of commemorative activities will be held across China. On the morning of Sept. 3, a grand ceremony will be held at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, including a military parade. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, will deliver an important speech. (Web editor: Peng Yukai, Wu Chengliang) 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair held in China's Taiyuan Xinhua) 09:07, August 22, 2025 Children play toys based on Sunmao, or Chinese joints, a traditional Chinese method of connecting wood, at the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) Children interact with a robot dog at the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) Actors perform at the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) A child uses a VR device to view Jinci Temple at the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) An exhibitor is pictured at the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) People visit the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) A staff member hosts a live streaming show at the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) People visit the 7th Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 21, 2025. The fair kicked off here on Thursday and will last till Aug. 25, attracting about 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions worldwide. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang) (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) COLLEGE PARK, Md., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, in partnership with Enterprise Mobility Foundation, has launched a co-curricular initiative aimed at helping students dress for successliterally. The Enterprise Mobility Foundation Career Boutique and Wellness Room, located in Van Munching Hall, will be a donation-based resource that provides free professional attire to Smith School and BSE (Business, Society and Entrepreneurship) Scholars preparing for interviews, job fairs and new career opportunities. A collaborative effort between Smith's Office of Career Services (OCS) and the BSE Scholars Program, the boutique will offer access to suits, blouses, ties, shoes, accessories, and even styling consultations. Workshops such as "How to Dress for an Interview" and a future personal shopper component make the space a full-service professional preparation center. "This initiative is about more than clothing; it's about confidence and career readiness," says Clinical Professor Oliver Schlake, director of the BSE program. BSE Scholars Program Assistant Director Obioma Akaigwe emphasized the boutique's sustainability model, noting that donations from alumni, local businesses and community members fuel its operations: "We want every student to walk into an interview feeling confident, no matter their financial situation." The Career Boutique will have specific hours and will be run by trained student staff from the BSE program, who continuously develop plans for growth and work directly with job seekers to understand upcoming trends and needs. "In addition to providing a vital resource for our students, we see the boutique as a great live-learning tool that allows students to test new ideas in a start-up environment," says Schlake. "Initially, the boutique is funded by grants, but they will not last forever, and students will be tasked to reimagine new business models to make the boutique a sustainable fixture at Smith. Every spring, BSE students will spend time during the capstone project to upgrade and improve the boutique. Two previous rounds of capstone have moved the project from idea to reality, and we intend to continue with that path." Akaigwe says, "Once established, we offer the boutique as a platform to other programs and classes as a co-curricular learning experience to teach essential skills in a real-life environment. We also want to partner with Smith and UMD entrepreneurs whose businesses are touching career readiness for exposure and commissions to sustain operations." This fall, the first student rentals will take place, and faculty, staff and alumni will see many requests for in-kind donations of interview clothing and, of course, the occasional ask for a $20 bill left in the suit pocket to support the project. Head of Smith OCS Kimberly Rice DeGross, Esq., brought the career boutique to life by securing support from industry partners like the Enterprise Mobility Foundation, which financed the initial start-up cost. "It is a vital service to our students in a difficult market, but more than this, it is a great co-curricular learning experience to prepare students for the next phase of their careers," DeGross says. The wellness room will be a place for students to collect their thoughts prior to an interview, or decompress after an interview, and for all faculty, staff and students of the Smith School to get re-centered as needed throughout the school year, she adds. A grand opening ceremony for the boutique and wellness room is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in Van Munching Hall, Room 2530. For more information, contact Smith OCS via [email protected]. About the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and flex MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, business master's, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia. SOURCE University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business THANKS to social media platforms like TikTok, there is a lot of hype around magnesium. But is the obsession warranted? The Express spoke with general practitioner and social media content creator Dr Mariana Browne to learn more about the different types of magnesium and what they are good for. There are about five different types of magnesium salts that can help boost your magnesium levels. One of the most popular is magnesium citrate. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has made it clear that her Government stands fully in support of the move by US President Donald Trump to deploy three warships off the coast of Venezuela. Further, she said Trinidad and Tobago will allow United States troops access to its territory if the regime of Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro launches an attack on Guyana. In a statement issued yesterday evening, Persad-Bissessar stated that no requests have been made by the American government for its military assets to access Trinidadian territory for any military action against the Venezuelan regime. THE walkovers that straddle most highways across Trinidad are being used during daily rush hours. But at night, weekends and early mornings, potential users tend to take chances and run across the highway. On the weekend of August 9 and 10, two men were killed in separate incidents while crossing the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway. One man was killed on the Saturday night while crossing the highway in the vicinity of Maloney, while the other was killed the next day while he and his wife were crossing the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway approximately 100 metres from the El Socorro walkover. INDIA is saying in no uncertain terms that it is independent in the fullest sense of the wor Two candidates who will appear on the ballot for the special election in Congressional District 7 wont be part of Tuesdays televised debate. , is the Green Party candidate, and Richard Grayson, of Apache Junction, is the No Labels candidate. Neither one of them got 1% of the total votes cast in the July 15 primary election. by the debate hosts, the Arizona Media Association and the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, that means they are not invited. The two candidates who won their primaries and did reach that threshold were Democrat Adelita Grijalva and Republican Dan Butierez. Theyll debate at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, at Arizona Public Media. It will be broadcast live on Arizona Public Media and possibly other stations, and the public is not invited to attend live. Quintana said he considers the rule unfair, noting that one percent of the primary vote is more than all of our registered voters. Quintana is a Raytheon retiree and environmental activist who ran for U.S. Senate as the Green Partys candidate in 2024. The main reason Im running is because of the Palestinian question, Quintana said. Our country is carrying out an illegal genocide with Israel. I want to use this campaign to bring that issue to the fore, as well as other issues that are important to us, he said. The Green Partys slogan, he noted, is People, planet, peace. Beyond wanting the United States to cut off aid to Israel, Quintana said, he supports healthcare-for-all and a Green New Deal. Graysons candidacy is a little lets say a lot less earnest. Hes a perennial candidate who has the distinction of having run in states across the country. This time, he ran in part to tweak the No Labels party. Last year, the party won a judicial order preventing him and others from running as primary candidates under the No Labels banner. This year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, opening the door for Grayson and others to pursue the partys nomination. He barely won it: One voter in Cochise County wrote him in, the only valid vote for a No Labels candidate in the primary. Graysons sincere political beliefs more or less align with the Democratic Party, he said, and he expects Grijalva to win the race and replace her father, Raul Grijalva, who died March 13. Its fun to be on the ballot. This is a hobby. Im an old man, Grayson said. If anyone wants to vote for me, I assume it will be a mistake or they hate the other candidates on the ballot, or theyre mentally ill. New candidate in CD6 Dems While the race for the Democratic nomination in Congressional District 6 lost one candidate last week, with the end of Mo Goldmans campaign, another candidate has joined. Samantha Severson has filed with the Federal Elections Commission to run for the right to challenge U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican. The other candidates are JoAnna Mendoza and Chris Donat. as a pragmatic economic populist who supports establishing a single-payer healthcare system, term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, and universal background checks for gun purchases, among other positions. Resistance training The people who organized frequent protests around Tucson this spring are hosting a workshop on the strategy and tactics of non-cooperation. Democracy Unites Us, which formed in the wake of early protests, is hosting the Freedom Trainers workshop. It will run from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m on Saturday, Sept. 6. To sign up, you can go to Medal for border service Not much may be going on at the U.S.-Mexico border these days, but now troops who serve there will be eligible for a new medal. The U.S. Defense Department confirmed this week the creation of the new Mexican Border Defense Medal, reported this week. Previously, troops deployed to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection were eligible for the Armed Forces Service Medal for Department of Defense Support to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. People who previously received that medal can apply for it to be replaced by the new version. Two candidates who will appear on the ballot for the special election in Congressional District 7 wont be part of Tuesdays televised debate. Eduardo Quintana, of Tucson, is the Green Party candidate, and Richard Grayson, of Apache Junction, is the No Labels candidate. Neither one of them got 1% of the total votes cast in the July 15 primary election. Under a rule adopted by the debate hosts, the Arizona Media Association and the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, that means they are not invited. The two candidates who won their primaries and did reach that threshold were Democrat Adelita Grijalva and Republican Dan Butierez. Theyll debate at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, at Arizona Public Media. It will be broadcast live on Arizona Public Media and possibly other stations, and the public is not invited to attend live. Quintana said he considers the rule unfair, noting that one percent of the primary vote is more than all of our registered voters. Quintana is a Raytheon retiree and environmental activist who ran for U.S. Senate as the Green Partys candidate in 2024. The main reason Im running is because of the Palestinian question, Quintana said. Our country is carrying out an illegal genocide with Israel. I want to use this campaign to bring that issue to the fore, as well as other issues that are important to us, he said. The Green Partys slogan, he noted, is People, planet, peace. Beyond wanting the United States to cut off aid to Israel, Quintana said, he supports healthcare-for-all and a Green New Deal. Graysons candidacy is a little lets say a lot less earnest. Hes a perennial candidate who has the distinction of having run in states across the country. This time, he ran in part to tweak the No Labels party. Last year, the party won a judicial order preventing him and others from running as primary candidates under the No Labels banner. This year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, opening the door for Grayson and others to pursue the partys nomination. He barely won it: One voter in Cochise County wrote him in, the only valid vote for a No Labels candidate in the primary. Graysons sincere political beliefs more or less align with the Democratic Party, he said, and he expects Grijalva to win the race and replace her father, Raul Grijalva, who died March 13. Its fun to be on the ballot. This is a hobby. Im an old man, Grayson said. If anyone wants to vote for me, I assume it will be a mistake or they hate the other candidates on the ballot, or theyre mentally ill. New candidate in CD6 Dems While the race for the Democratic nomination in Congressional District 6 lost one candidate last week, with the end of Mo Goldmans campaign, another candidate has joined. Samantha Severson has filed with the Federal Elections Commission to run for the right to challenge U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican. The other candidates are JoAnna Mendoza and Chris Donat. Severson describes herself as a pragmatic economic populist who supports establishing a single-payer healthcare system, term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, and universal background checks for gun purchases, among other positions. Resistance training The people who organized frequent protests around Tucson this spring are hosting a workshop on the strategy and tactics of non-cooperation. Democracy Unites Us, which formed in the wake of early protests, is hosting the Freedom Trainers workshop. It will run from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m on Saturday, Sept. 6. To sign up, you can go to this website: https://tinyurl.com/NoncooperationWorkshop9625 Medal for border service Not much may be going on at the U.S.-Mexico border these days, but now troops who serve there will be eligible for a new medal. The U.S. Defense Department confirmed this week the creation of the new Mexican Border Defense Medal, the Military Times reported this week. Previously, troops deployed to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection were eligible for the Armed Forces Service Medal for Department of Defense Support to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. People who previously received that medal can apply for it to be replaced by the new version. Blog Archive: Aug 2025 (130) Jul 2025 (155) Jun 2025 (150) May 2025 (155) Apr 2025 (9) Mar 2025 (149) Feb 2025 (139) Jan 2025 (155) Dec 2024 (144) Nov 2024 (143) Oct 2024 (155) Sep 2024 (149) Aug 2024 (155) Jul 2024 (155) Jun 2024 (150) May 2024 (153) Apr 2024 (149) Mar 2024 (155) Feb 2024 (145) Jan 2024 (155) Dec 2023 (155) Nov 2023 (150) Oct 2023 (155) Sep 2023 (150) Aug 2023 (155) Jul 2023 (155) Jun 2023 (150) May 2023 (155) Apr 2023 (150) Mar 2023 (155) Feb 2023 (140) Jan 2023 (155) Dec 2022 (156) Nov 2022 (150) Oct 2022 (155) Sep 2022 (150) Aug 2022 (155) Jul 2022 (154) Jun 2022 (150) May 2022 (155) Apr 2022 (150) Mar 2022 (155) Feb 2022 (140) Jan 2022 (156) Dec 2021 (156) Nov 2021 (150) Oct 2021 (155) Sep 2021 (150) Aug 2021 (155) Jul 2021 (155) Jun 2021 (150) May 2021 (155) Apr 2021 (150) Mar 2021 (155) Feb 2021 (140) Jan 2021 (155) Dec 2020 (155) Nov 2020 (150) Oct 2020 (158) Sep 2020 (150) Aug 2020 (130) Jul 2020 (124) Jun 2020 (120) May 2020 (124) Apr 2020 (120) Mar 2020 (124) Feb 2020 (116) Jan 2020 (125) Dec 2019 (126) Nov 2019 (120) Oct 2019 (124) Sep 2019 (120) Aug 2019 (125) Jul 2019 (124) Jun 2019 (120) May 2019 (123) Apr 2019 (121) Mar 2019 (124) Feb 2019 (112) Jan 2019 (125) Dec 2018 (126) Nov 2018 (120) Oct 2018 (124) Sep 2018 (121) Aug 2018 (124) Jul 2018 (125) Jun 2018 (120) May 2018 (124) Apr 2018 (121) Mar 2018 (124) Feb 2018 (112) Jan 2018 (123) Dec 2017 (124) Nov 2017 (124) Oct 2017 (141) Sep 2017 (135) Aug 2017 (138) Jul 2017 (137) Jun 2017 (134) May 2017 (138) Apr 2017 (135) Mar 2017 (139) Feb 2017 (129) Jan 2017 (143) Dec 2016 (135) Nov 2016 (138) Oct 2016 (142) Sep 2016 (128) Aug 2016 (133) Jul 2016 (136) Jun 2016 (138) May 2016 (164) Apr 2016 (311) Mar 2016 (348) Feb 2016 (320) Jan 2016 (348) Dec 2015 (314) Nov 2015 (338) Oct 2015 (363) Sep 2015 (358) Aug 2015 (399) Jul 2015 (374) Jun 2015 (331) May 2015 (337) Apr 2015 (319) Mar 2015 (320) Feb 2015 (271) Jan 2015 (286) Dec 2014 (254) Nov 2014 (238) Oct 2014 (287) Sep 2014 (267) Aug 2014 (259) Jul 2014 (260) Jun 2014 (238) May 2014 (241) Apr 2014 (228) Mar 2014 (240) Feb 2014 (217) Jan 2014 (263) Dec 2013 (226) Nov 2013 (254) Oct 2013 (256) Sep 2013 (252) Aug 2013 (263) Jul 2013 (261) Jun 2013 (251) May 2013 (250) Apr 2013 (221) Mar 2013 (193) Feb 2013 (164) Jan 2013 (157) Dec 2012 (155) Nov 2012 (240) Oct 2012 (526) Sep 2012 (411) Aug 2012 (394) Jul 2012 (284) Jun 2012 (229) May 2012 (213) Apr 2012 (213) Mar 2012 (253) Feb 2012 (269) Jan 2012 (298) Dec 2011 (273) Nov 2011 (219) Oct 2011 (204) Sep 2011 (201) Aug 2011 (236) Jul 2011 (217) Jun 2011 (211) May 2011 (206) Apr 2011 (215) Mar 2011 (215) Feb 2011 (186) Jan 2011 (215) Dec 2010 (107) Nov 2010 (98) Oct 2010 (55) A pilot program coming in the fall will offer a safe place to sleep for up to 25 people living in the streets, local officials announced Friday. STAR Village will be an outdoor safe sleeping site on city-owned land along East Grant Road between North Sixth and North Stone avenues, Mayor Regina Romero said. STAR stands for Serving Together and Rebuilding. The city hopes to have STAR Villages first users by Oct. 1, Council member Karin Uhlich said. A community meeting about the program will be held by mid-September, she said. The site will be located within Councilman Kevin Dahls Ward 3. STAR Village will offer safe outdoor sleeping for 25 women and non-binary people, according to a weekly newsletter put out by Dahls office. The inspiration for STAR Village came from a community member who raised the idea during a City Council meeting a few months ago, Uhlich and Romero said. I love that this was initiated by a constituent, a Tucson resident that cares, and that has really worked hard with us ... This is an innovative approach that is based on our community values, our Mayor and Council values, and on evidence that it is working, Romero said. As we pilot this program, we will be learning from it, and thats okay. We will be hearing from the community and the neighbors, and thats why I think its important that we start slow. Primavera Foundation, Old Pueblo Community Services, Gospel Rescue Mission and La Frontera will be partnering with the city on STAR Village, Uhlich said. The site will have three staff members on site every night from midnight to 6 a.m., so people have a safe place to sleep, Romero said. But the space will also be open throughout the day so people have a place to feel comfortable, cool off, charge their phones and connect to resources. STAR Village is about Tucson taking different actions towards a new direction, Council member Lane Santa Cruz said. This community needs, and very much deserves, multiple roads to stability and care, Santa Cruz said. This work takes all of us: mutual aid leaders, nonprofits, faith communities and neighbors, choosing to collaborate instead of turning on each other. Tom Litwicki, CEO of Old Pueblo Community Services, said OPCS will be providing on-site services such as case management and behavioral health services for their outpatient clinics. OPCS will also look to help people move into permanent housing from STAR Village, he said. The goal is not just to have people be in a safe space to sleep, but also to get their life back on track and move back into permanent housing in some place they can call home, Litwicki said. All of us started from some place called home, and home is important, and matters. Outdoor sleeping spaces have proven to be successful in peer cities, like Denver, where crime rates in neighborhoods that contained safe outdoor spaces dropped, despite an overall rise in the crime rate city-wide, Primavera Foundation CEO Tisha Tallman said. Community members will be able to go to www.primavera.org to sign up to be a volunteer at STAR Village, make donations or contribute supplies. Katie Hobbs is going to new lengths to finance her reelection campaign. About 2,300 miles, as the crow flies. Hobbs was on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts earlier this week for a fundraiser where $1,000 got you in the door as a supporter. A $2,800 contribution made you a sponsor. And for $5,500 the maximum an Arizona candidate for state office can take you could be one of the hosts. That came just three days after Sen. Ruben Gallego was hosted also on Nantucket Island for a fundraiser, even though he is in only the first year of his six-year Senate term. In his case, due to different rules for federal races, the suggested contribution to be a host was $7,000. But it isnt just Democrats who find the tiny island there are fewer than 9,700 housing units there fertile ground for raising cash. Vice President J.D. Vance, likely looking at the 2028 presidential race, reportedly raised $3 million there in July on behalf of the Republican National Committee at an event where tickets cost up to $250,000 per couple. And while Nantucket has been a go-to place for candidates for decades, theres another site thats become popular, particularly among Republicans: Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort owned by President Donald Trump. Kari Lake made use of the Florida estate at least twice, once in 2021 when she was running for governor and again in 2024 in her unsuccessful bid to become a senator, with reports that she picked up $1 million from the latter event. And earlier this year, Karin Taylor Robson, a Republican candidate for Arizona governor, made a foray to Mar-a-Lago to raise cash for her campaign. How much each picked up in their out-of-state excursions isnt known. The campaign does not comment on fundraisers, said Michael Beyer, a spokesman for the Hobbs campaign. In fact, he wouldnt even confirm that there had been a fundraiser Thursday night, even though he knew Capitol Media Services already had a copy of the invite. Nor were there fundraising haul figures from the Gallego or Robson campaigns. But it all comes as campaigns, even for state-level offices, have become more expensive. Hobbs raised more than $15 million for her first gubernatorial race in 2022. So did Lake, her GOP foe. In Hobbs latest report covering fundraising through the end of June, the governor reported a cash balance of nearly $4.7 million, more than a year before the 2026 election. Robson had only about $876,000 on hand at the end of June. But facing a contested Republican primary, she already had spent $2.6 million, including $2.2 million of her own cash. Her GOP foe, Andy Biggs, who entered the race later, reported $437,000 in cash available. Actual donations from out-of-state events dont have to be disclosed for months when candidates file financial disclosure forms. But even then, it can be difficult to figure out what checks came in the mail and which ones were part of an organized fundraiser. And the reports themselves dont always help. They do contain the address of the donor. But consider Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, listed first among the hosts for the Hobbs Nantucket fundraiser. While she has a home on the island, she also has one in Washington, D.C. That is the address she lists on federal campaign finance reports. Candidates go to Nantucket because the very small island its just 14 miles long and 3 1/2 miles wide has some very wealthy full-time and part-time residents. Point2Homes, which collects data for its real estate rental operations, reports the average household income exceeds $182,000 a year. The price of the average home there is $4.88 million, says Fisher Real Estate Nantucket. Bagley has been a dependable fundraiser for Democratic causes, having given to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. She held a fundraiser for Clinton in 2016 at her Washington home, according to published reports. Also on the host committee for Hobbs was Ian Simmons, a member of the family that founded the Montgomery Ward department store chain. Simmons was busy this past week: He also was on the host committee for the Gallego fundraiser. Arizonas other senator, Mark Kelly, also visited the island in 2022 as he was campaigning for a full six-year term, bringing along what was being promoted as his special guest his wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The Nantucket Current said attendees were asked to commit to giving levels starting at $1,000 and up to $11,600. Its not just Vance who discovered the island also can yield dollars for Republicans. In 2012, for example, Mitt Romney, newly nominated to be the GOP candidate to face off against Obama, managed to raise more than $7 million from a single fundraiser at an Eel Point Road home, location of some of the toniest houses on the island. Trump held a fundraiser on Nantucket in 2016 as he ran for his first term as president, with invitations saying that a couple donating or raising $500,000 would be listed as co-chairs of the event. And Mike Pence, his vice president, showed up on the island four years later for a $25,000-a-ticket fundraiser. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe ABC: 2025 Bonner Committee scholarships Bridget Caldwell-Bright and Peter Green receive ABC scholarships which honour the legacy of the late Neville Bonner AO. The ABC announced the recipients of the 2025 Bonner Committee scholarships an Awards dinner this week, at the conclusion of the 2025 Indigenous Staff Conference. The scholarships honour the legacy of the late Neville Bonner AO and reinforces the ABCs commitment to Indigenous representation, development, and inclusion. They are awarded to current ABC employees to enhance their skills and develop their careers. Melbourne-based editorial advisor Bridget Caldwell-Bright has received the scholarship for leadership and Peter Green a member of the Content Production Technology team in Perth has received the development scholarship. Bonner Committee Chair 2022-25 Dan Bourchier said: The Bonner Scholarships are an important way of the Bonner Committee creating avenues for fellow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues, with access to professional development, training, and educational opportunities that can accelerate career growth and leadership pathways. By investing in Indigenous talent, the scholarships aim to retain skilled staff and support their personal development and growth, and advancement into influential roles across the organisation. Dan Bourchier also welcomed Solua Middleton as the incoming Bonner Committee Chair and new Head of First Nations Audio. Bridget Caldwell-Bright Leadership Bridget is the editorial adviser to the ABC state and regional newsrooms and the primary editorial policy adviser for News on issues that relate to First Nations people. As the recipient of the Bonner Committee leadership scholarship, she will take part in a short-term international exchange with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), with a focus on Editorial Standards to assist her professional development. Bridget will participate in an observational and knowledge exchange placement with the CBC Office of Editorial and Journalistic Standards, and the CBC Indigenous Unit. Peter Green Development Peters current role at the ABC in Perth is an assistant technologist, providing technical support to ensure broadcast and business continuity. His development scholarship involves a placement in the content production engineering team, with a specific focus on developing DataMiner Skills. The scholarship will increase Peters hands-on experience, and technical knowledge. Oops. ABC replays Anhs Brush with Fame episode In light of the Federal Courts recent judgment, the ABC has taken the decision to remove the episode from ABC iview and the broadcast rotation. ABC has dropped an episode of Anhs Brush with Fame from iview after the subject lost a defamation case with Nine. Awkwardly it replayed the episode yesterday on air. Earlier this month Nine won the high profile defamation case brought against it by Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Al Muderis had sued 60 Minutes following a story by Tom Steinfort, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age over a series of reports in September 2022 he claims ruined his reputation and set back the field of prosthetic limbs by 20 years. But he was previously the subject of a portrait in Anhs Brush with Fame in its third season. Despite the findings of the defamation case, in which the court said positive media his practice had enjoyed needed correcting, ABC replayed the episode yesterday. The episode of Anhs Brush with Fame featuring Munjed Al Muderis was made in 2018, an ABC spokesperson has told The Age. In light of the Federal Courts recent judgment, the ABC has taken the decision to remove the episode from ABC iview and the broadcast rotation. Sami Ahmad, TwoCircles.net Patna: Zaheeb Ajmal, a social activist in Phulwari Sharif, Patna, has been helping residents, particularly slum dwellers and other socially and economically disadvantaged groups, who are anxious about their names missing from the draft voter list after the recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Bihar. Until recently, he and his team could verify names within minutes. Now, the process has become slow and painstaking. Support TwoCircles The reason, he explains, is a sudden change in policy by the Election Commission of India (ECI). This is not possible now. Though the boothwise draft voter list is available on the ECI website, its PDF has been replaced with a scanned and unsearchable version. That forces anyone to go through the entire list manually, which may contain as many as 1,200 names, he told TwoCircles.net Earlier, using the searchable PDF format, Zaheebs team could simply enter a voters name or EPIC number, using a shortcut (Ctrl + F), and retrieve the result within seconds. Now, they have to scroll manually through dozens of pages, each packed with names, to locate a single entry. What was once a swift task has become an exercise in endurance, he said. This challenge is not unique to Zaheeb. Across Bihar, many organisations and volunteers who were helping citizens unfamiliar with digital processes are now struggling to assist them. The absence of a searchable format has made voter verification slow, laborious and frustrating. Kamayani Swami, national secretary and state convenor of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, has been documenting the difficulties faced by marginalised communities during and after the SIR. The draft roll, which is available on the ECI website as a PDF, cannot be searched, she said and elaborated on the difficulty this presents. So, one ends up taking help from three different links before one can trudge through this PDF to find ones name. This is not what most people are capable of doing, negotiating three web spaces to find one piece of data. In addition, at a macro level, this has made it very difficult for stakeholders to show with concrete examples the sham that the SIR has become, she added. Kamayani pointed out that parties, civil society groups and individual voters are all being handed fragmented information in difficult-to-analyse formats. Booth numbers have changed. So, finding ones name is difficult to start with, she highlighted. At a recent Jan Sunwai (public hearing) on the SIR process in Patna, she shared her own example: My booth has changed from 201 to 241 and the PDF of the draft roll is not searchable, so I had to scroll all 40 pages to find one name. Sarfaraz, the Bihar state secretary of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), also expressed concerns about the shift. According to him, the ECIs decision to replace machine-readable draft rolls with scanned image files marks a serious setback for transparency and public oversight. The earlier digital lists allowed researchers, political parties and citizen groups to run quick and accurate searches, compare data and detect errors or omissions efficiently. By switching to non-searchable scanned images, the process has been reduced to manual and time-consuming checks. As a result, a large-scale and detailed analysis has almost become impossible, he told TwoCircles.net. Sarfaraz warned that this change would most affect those already at the margins (women, migrant workers and people living in under-resourced areas) many of whom are already at greater risk of being excluded from voter rolls. Without the ability to process data quickly, identifying and correcting such exclusions becomes far more difficult. It also limits the scope for independent audits and fact-checking at the booth and constituency levels, which are essential safeguards against wrongful disenfranchisement, he said. With state elections nearing, he stressed that accuracy and inclusivity in the electoral roll are essential. Restricting access to machine-readable data at this stage undermines public confidence in the process and raises questions about institutional commitment to openness, he said. Sarfraz added that restoring digital access to the voter lists would be a simple but crucial step toward ensuring every eligible citizen can vote. Kamayani agreed and alleged that the ECI appears to be making it harder for organisations and individuals to analyse voter data, especially those challenging the SIR process. At the level of political parties, while the first deletion lists were made available to the state representatives, for 16th July, the final deletion lists that were confirmed on 1st August were not made available at the state level, she explained. The parties were then informed that these lists were being made available at the district level, and now the ECI has filed its counter affidavit, showing that the lists were provided at the booth level to the booth level agents (BLAs). According to her, this step-by-step decentralisation of information is not an accident. This is being actively done so that stakeholders cannot simply download deletion lists, print and do physical verifications. Kamayani highlighted that in places where deletion lists were accessed, numerous irregularities came to light: newly eligible voters missing from the rolls, names of active voters, still residing in their home villages, deleted and even deceased voters continuing to appear despite families notifying the booth level officer (BLO). This clearly looks like the SIR is not an exercise at revision, but an exercise of deletion with little effort at inclusion, she said. By giving lists in part and in not searchable and different formats, the ECI is trying to make verification of the SIR draft and deletion rolls difficult and near impossible, she concluded. Scheduled to open on September 23, AEON Tan An will bring the Japanese retailers modern retail model to Long An province. Strategically located on Hung Vuong Road, adjacent to National Highway No.1A and just 1km from the Ho Chi Minh CityTrung Luong Expressway, the centre offers strong connectivity and convenient access for customers across the region. Bordering provinces in the Mekong Delta and connected to nearby residential areas, AEON Tan An aims to serve residents of Long An as well as neighbouring provinces. Tezuka Daisuke, executive officer and chief Vietnam business officer of AEON (Japan) and general director of AEON Vietnam, said that alongside its large-scale shopping centres, AEON is also prioritising the development of medium-sized malls. This strategy enables the group to expand its presence in major cities as well as smaller markets. "With a total floor area of about 27,000 square metres and an expected 30 tenants, AEON Tan An is designed to cater to residents within a 15-minute drive, addressing both consumer and daily living needs of a moderately sized community," said Daisuke. AEON Tan An combines modern design with green spaces to create a convenient, eco-friendly destination for shopping and leisure. The centre is expected to contribute new vitality to Long Ans development while promoting harmony with the local community through services that balance the regions river delta character with a fresh, modern spirit By the end of the year, AEON is expected to open two other facilities in Hung Yen province and Ho Chi Minh City, alongside its Tan An shopping centre. The company believes Vietnams retail market still offers considerable room for growth, particularly in the modern retail segment. While the market is currently expanding at about 7 per cent, the group projects growth could reach 12 per cent and remain in double digits in the years ahead. National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines on August 12 signed four strategic MoUs on aviation, tourism, and logistics with key South Korean partners to expand its step in the market. According to the agreements, the airline will cooperate with South Korean companies in studying the establishment of a joint venture for aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul; developing cargo transportation; coordinating bilateral tourism promotion; and building inter-route tourism products. The strong development of its international flight network is one of the notable highlights in the performance of Vietnam Airlines. As of July 1, it operates 69 routes to 37 destinations in over 20 countries, including strategic markets such as Italy, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and others. The effectiveness of the international flight network expansion strategy is clearly demonstrated when international transport revenue in the first half accounted for 60 per cent of total transport revenue, an increase of over 10 per cent over the same period last year, said a representative from Vietnam Airlines. The MoUs are part of the groups strategy to expand its international footprint and to meet yearly targets. It has set specific goals for the second half of the year, such as operating 81,000 flights, transporting 13.1 million passengers, and achieving air transport revenue of $1.85 billion, all exceeding the initial annual plans. General director Le Hong Ha said, The last months of 2025 are an important premise for the corporation to enter the following years with many opportunities and goals to develop along with the transformation of the country. The airline is taking strategic steps towards a new stage of development. It is accelerating major projects, including one to invest in 50 new-generation narrow-body aircraft, with a total investment of more than $1.16 billion, expected to be implemented in 2030-2035. The initiative aims to improve operational efficiency, save fuel, and reduce carbon emissions. At the under-construction Long Thanh airport, the group has kicked off many key undertakings, such as a ground equipment maintenance project, providing repair and maintenance services for aviation vehicles. Digital transformation continues to be a strategic pillar in the coming period. Vietnam Airlines is collaborating with VNPT to deploy an in-flight internet connection service, helping passengers stay connected throughout their journey. At the same time, it is boosting system modernisation, service automation, and integration of electronic identification throughout the journey. Similarly, budget carrier Vietjet is continuing to expand its fleet. In April, the company signed an agreement with AV AirFinance worth $300 million. According to the airline, this is part of a series of financial agreements worth $4 billion that it has made with US partners to serve plans to develop a new fleet of nearly 300 aircraft, expected to be delivered by the end of 2027. It is also focusing on expanding its international flight network to new routes, such as Nha Trang to Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, and Blagoveshchensk in Russia; Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai in China, and others to India and Japan. It is also boosting domestic flight numbers to Danang, Nha Trang, and Tuy Hoa. Like Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet is also venturing further into airport investment. In July, the group received approval by the Ministry of Construction to build and operate aircraft maintenance services at the Long Thanh airport. Expert Nguyen Thien Tong said, The current moves of fleet expansion come from airlines expansion of their flights. This reflects the strong recovery of the aviation industry, which has quickly returned to the 2019 mark. Statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam have showed that in the first six months of this year, air transport recorded a recovery with passenger volume increasing by 9.1 per cent as compared to the same period last year, estimated at 59.7 million passengers. Bamboo Airways has been attempting to keep pace with major changes and new strategies. The airline is optimistic about the possibility of reaching break-even point for core operations in 2025, creating an important premise for making future profit. For 2025-2030, Bamboo is actively working with consulting partners and strategic investors to ensure the financial resources to anticipate the next growth phase. The opportunities open to Bamboo Airways are huge. We believe that it will soon find a strategic investor, achieve sustainable financial stability, and continue to grow strongly in the future, said a representative. Airlines improved their financial performance in the first half of this year. Vietnam Airlines has operated nearly 78,000 flights, transporting 12.6 million passengers and more than 165,000 tonnes of cargo in the January-June period, growing by 11, 13, and 15 per cent, respectively, over the same period last year. Notably, its parent company gained $230 million, exceeding the plan by $108 million, a record in its air transport operations. Vietjet made consolidated revenue of $1.43 billion and consolidated pre-tax profit of nearly $64 million, up 65 per cent on-year. The company operates 154 routes, including 109 international ones. It operated nearly 41,000 flights, served 7.5 million passengers, and transported nearly 29,000 tonnes of cargo during the period. Bamboo Airways revealed it has a seat utilisation rate of 88 per cent. Revenues reached more than 96 per cent of the plan and operating losses decreased sharply, approaching the break-even point. Capella Land starts construction of 200-hectare industrial park in Ninh Binh The event was held in celebration of the 80th anniversary of Vietnam's National Day. Covering an area of 200 hectares in Tan Minh commune, Trung Thanh Iindustrial Park (IP), will cost VND1.67 trillion ($66.8 million), with convenient connections to the National Highway No.1, the North-South Expressway, and key regional transportation routes currently under development. The IP has now met the necessary conditions regarding land clearance and legal procedures to obtain construction permits and commence work, ensuring adherence to the planned timeline. Bui Dinh Chien, general director of Capella Land and chairman of the Board of Directors of Nam Dinh Infrastructure Development JSC, said, Following the prime ministers approval, the company has received guidance from the leadership of the province and relevant authorities. Notably, the consensus and support from local authorities and residents have enabled the project to commence early. The IP will develop into a modern, green, and sustainable industrial park, focusing on supporting industries and attracting high-tech, environmentally friendly production sectors with high added value, he added. Capella Land is the investor of a series of IPs and industrial clusters, including Gia Binh IP, Thanh Liem IP, Tam Thang 2 IP, Yen Lu IP, Cam Lien IP, and Nam Son Yen Lu IP. After the merger with Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh currently has 53 IPs covering a total area of 12,144 ha, of which 20 IPs are operational, spanning 4,882 ha, with a total infrastructure investment of VND26.6 trillion ($1.64 billion). These IPs have attracted 1,048 secondary projects, with total registered capital exceeding VND380 trillion ($15.2 billion). These projects have created jobs for 192,000 workers, including approximately 3,670 foreign workers. Enterprises in Ninh Binhs IPs contribute over 70 per cent of the provinces export value and more than 35 per cent of its budget revenue. The province has always prioritised industrial development, with a focus on developing industrial park infrastructure to attract factories, enterprises, and services with synchronised, green, and modern infrastructure. This is a strategic breakthrough to drive socioeconomic development and ensure double-digit growth, said Nguyen Cao Son, a member of Ninh Binh Party Committee and Vice Chairman of Ninh Binh Peoples Committee. To ensure the project progresses on schedule, the leadership asked Tan Minh Peoples Committee to coordinate with relevant departments, agencies, and Ninh Binh Economic Zones Management Authority to complete land clearance for the remaining area, ensuring timely handover to the investor for construction while adhering to the schedule. The authority should closely collaborate with the investor to develop an investment attraction package, prioritising large domestic and international investors with modern, environmentally friendly technologies, in line with Ninh Binhs investment attraction orientation, Son said. Eco-transformation keeps Vietnamese IPs competitive The shift towards eco-industrial park models is a strategic opportunity for Vietnams industrial areas to optimise costs and enhance competitiveness globally, insiders have said. Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park taps new free trade zone to attract high-quality investment The introduction of a new-generation free trade zone (FTZ) in Haiphong is set to unlock a wave of high-value investment, enhance export capacity, and accelerate industrial development in the northern port city and its surrounding regions. Green industrial parks offer solution to ESG challenges for next-generation businesses As environmental standards increasingly become a prerequisite for participation in global supply chains, the shift towards sustainable production models has become a matter of survival. High-tech growth drives investment surge in Hung Yen Hung Yen attracted over $840 million in investment in seven months, driven by industrial upgrades, policy reforms, and growing investor confidence in the provinces development prospects. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment is spearheading a draft government decree in coordination with relevant ministries and agencies. The regulation, covering international exchanges of greenhouse gas emission reductions and carbon credits, is expected to be submitted to the government for approval later this year. According to the Department of Climate Change under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MoAE), the decree will also clarify rules on corresponding adjustments. This means that when a transferring party provides emission reduction results to a partner to meet climate commitments, it must deduct the transferred amount from its national NDC implementation report. Conversely, the buyer of the carbon credits will add the emission reductions to its report to reflect partial fulfilment of its NDC obligations. These measures ensure transparency and prevent double-counting of emission reductions among countries when tracking progress under the Paris Agreement. The MoAE oversees the implementation of corresponding adjustments based on the amount of mitigation outcomes/carbon credits transferred between Vietnam and international partners, in line with the specified ratio to ensure compliance with international and national regulations on GHG transfer. The impact assessment of trading carbon credits and emission reduction results from Vietnam to the international market was conducted from May to August. Experts modelled and quantitatively analysed data to provide insights for developing Vietnams carbon credit management framework. Vietnam has issued a series of foundational legal documents to establish a carbon credit trading exchange, starting with the 2020 Environmental Protection Law, said Nguyen Tuan Quang, deputy director of the Department of Climate Change. The government then issued Decree No.06/2022/ND-CP and, more recently, Decree No.119/2025/ND-CP, creating a comprehensive legal framework for carbon credit trading activities. Quang made the remarks at a consultation workshop on assessing the impact of Vietnams carbon credit trading and emission reduction results in the international market, organised on August 20 by the Southeast Asia Energy Transition Partnership in collaboration with the Department of Climate Change. "The roadmap for developing the carbon trading platform is divided into two phases: a pilot phase running until the end of 2028, and an official operation phase starting in 2029," Quang said. "Currently, relevant authorities are working urgently to establish the platform, which is expected to begin its pilot in 2025. The national registry system will provide a foundation for transparent management and oversight of transactions related to emission quotas and carbon credits." "Vietnams carbon market extends beyond domestic trading and is connected to international transactions under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. Policies must therefore be both practical and forward-looking to maintain credibility on the global stage," he added. Experts at the workshop also stressed a core principle: when developing policies for trading carbon credits on international markets, domestic emission reduction goals must take priority. In other words, carbon credits should first support the implementation of Vietnams Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and its 2050 net-zero emissions target. Revenue from these activities will be managed according to financial regulations and reinvested into hard-to-abate sectors, such as agriculture and forestry. "Vietnam has abundant opportunities for low-cost emission reductions, with many mitigation options available at relatively low marginal costs. This suggests a substantial potential for generating carbon credits for export," said Ho Cong Hoa, representative of the Academy of Policy and Development. "However, while cross-border carbon crediting mechanisms can bring significant benefits, strict oversight of how transfers are conducted is essential to safeguard the environmental integrity of the countrys NDC. All carbon credit transfers must comply with the principle of corresponding adjustment, ensuring that mitigation outcomes are counted only once either by the host country or the buyer country to avoid double counting," Hoa said. To evaluate the impact of international carbon credit trading, experts at Green Climate Innovation (GreenCIC), the projects consulting firm, modelled nine different scenarios, focusing on two key factors: the portfolio of mitigation measures eligible for transfer and the percentage of credits retained to meet national targets. Nguyen Hong Loan, head of GreenCICs Ccarbon Credit Trading Impact Assessment project, explained, "The S20 scenario allows only 20 mitigation measures under the conditional NDC target to participate in trading, with a maximum trading limit of 90 per cent." "The study indicates that if Vietnam adopts the S56 scenario with a 50 per cent retention rate, the economy could gain an average of 0.43 per cent of GDP annually between 2025 and 2030. This substantial figure, equivalent to billions of USD, would also stimulate investment, consumption, and job creation," Loan said. "However, if the retention rate is reduced to 30 per cent, the contribution to unconditional NDC targets would fall to around 37 per cent, compared with 62 per cent under the 50 per cent retention level," she added. Thailand to launch new carbon credits market Thailand aims to introduce a new carbon credits market this year as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to address weak demand and low prices. How to build and operate sustainable carbon credits Participating in the carbon credit market means Vietnamese businesses will have to keep up with the requirements of green production models in domestic and international markets. Nguyen Dinh Tho, general director of the Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment, explained more to VIRs Tra My. Carbon credits pave way for a green financial future When observing the global picture, it is clear that carbon credits are gradually evolving into a form of currency, a unique financial derivative that intersects four seemingly unrelated domains: nature, finance, national assets, and knowledge. This intersection creates a market that is both unique and highly challenging. Trung An High-Tech Agriculture JSC is bustling with preparations to deliver an order of 2,500 tonnes of ST25 and Japonica rice to Japan in October, following the successful export of 500 tonnes of low-emission rice to the country in June. Pham Thai Binh, chairman of the Board of Directors, said, Our products meet international quality certifications, as well as Japans Organic JAS certification. This provides a significant competitive advantage, as Japanese consumers are willing to pay a premium for clean, clearly certified products with transparent traceability and stringent standards. Vietnam is attempting to meet global standards across production areas, safety, quality, and more, photo Le Toan The Vietnam Trade Office in Osaka said that Japan has a high demand for safe and organic food products that are strengths of Vietnam, including coffee, cashew nuts, tropical fruits, and frozen vegetables. Additionally, with over 634,000 Vietnamese living and studying in Japan, accounting for almost one-fifth of the total Vietnamese diaspora, this represents a significant niche market that helps boost the consumption of Vietnamese agricultural products. Besides rice, other agricultural products such as cashew nuts, dragon fruit, coconuts, fresh lychees, and dried fruits have become widely available in major Japanese retail chains like AEON, Don Quijote, and Ito Yokado. Notably, the 2025 lychee season saw approximately 200 tonnes of fresh lychees exported to Japan, distributed through supermarkets as well as online platforms. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Japan became Vietnams fourth-largest fruit export market, with a 22.8 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2024. Efforts to promote exports to key and emerging markets alike are being supported by state agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MoAE) and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Last month, an action plan was issued regarding promotion of domestic and international trade activities for the rest of the year. Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien requested specialised units to provide export businesses with updated information on markets, trade policies, consumer trends, and technical requirements of partners in markets with free trade agreements with Vietnam. It is a must to coordinate with relevant agencies and organisations to enhance and diversify trade promotion activities to support import and export. This includes implementing large-scale trade programmes tailored to specific industries in key markets, Minister Dien said. According to statistics from the MoAE, Vietnam currently exports agricultural products and food to 200 countries and territories. The sectors export turnover reached $39.7 billion in the first seven months of the year, marking a 14.7 per cent increase over the same period in 2024. This growth was distributed across various sub-sectors. For instance, agricultural products saw a 17 per cent increase to $21.5 billion, while forestry products grew 8.6 per cent to $10.4 billion, aquatic products climbed 13.8 per cent to $6.1 billion, and livestock products surged 22.1 per cent to $339.2 million. According to Truong Xuan Trung, first secretary and head of the Vietnam Trade Office in the United Arab Emirates, the UAEs total annual agro-forestry-fishery trade volume is around $200 billion, yet Vietnam currently accounts for less than 10 per cent of this figure. The UAE and other member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) operate under a unified customs system. This means that once Vietnamese goods enter the UAE, they can circulate freely to other GCC nations without facing additional tariffs, a notable advantage for market expansion, Trung explained. However, he cautioned that this framework could also pose risks. If a Vietnamese product fails to meet UAE standards, all six GCC countries would simultaneously impose strict inspection measures, leading to significant delays. Exporters to the UAE and GCC must therefore prioritise quality control and ensure compliance with food safety and pesticide residue regulations, he stressed. In the European market, Vietnams agricultural counsellor in the EU, Tran Van Cong, noted considerable untapped potential for increasing agro-forestry-fishery exports. Nevertheless, the share of processed goods with high added value remains modest, and Vietnam still lacks sustainable distribution networks. To unlock the EUs potential, he recommended expanding raw material zones that meet EU standards, as well as establishing disease-free production areas to facilitate negotiations for market access for Vietnams animal products. A long-term communication strategy is essential to counter negative publicity about Vietnamese seafood in the EU, while continuously reviewing and upgrading quality, food safety, and sustainability standards to align with EU benchmarks, Cong added. Asia Ingredients Group (AIG) is making significant research and development investments to diversify its deeply processed product portfolio and adapt to changing consumer trends. It is intensifying trade promotion efforts, forging links with global distribution networks, and expanding into Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. AIG products are now available in over 50 countries and territories, the representative said. In the long term, we are pursuing a dual strategy, consolidating core products with global competitive advantages while expanding organic raw material areas, developing premium processed agricultural lines, and increasing technological applications across our factories. On August 20, Hanoi Peoples Committee released an official directive on implementing Resolution No.17/2025/NQ-HDND, which outlines mechanisms for drawing in strategic investors. The committee assigned Hanoi Department of Finance to lead a review and develop a list of eligible projects under the Law on the Capital and the resolutions provisions. Hanoi Department of Finance has also been assigned to design procedures and disclosure templates, set out clear processes for selecting strategic investors, and establish mechanisms to monitor and assess their commitments. It will also coordinate on developing incentive policies, with a focus on projects related to research and development, technology transfer, and high-tech workforce training. Hanoi Peoples Committee has tasked Hanoi Management Board of High-Tech Parks and Industrial Zones with leading efforts to draw in investment. Its responsibilities include publishing a list of priority projects, setting capacity and experience requirements, defining investor criteria, reviewing dossiers, selecting investors, and overseeing investment procedures. To support this, Hanoi Tax Department will implement and guide tax incentive policies for investors, monitor their application, and address any related challenges. Preferential customs procedures will be applied by the Customs Sub-Department for projects under the Law on Capital, ensuring transparent and expedited clearance. Meanwhile, local departments and commune- and ward-level peoples committees will review and propose projects in priority sectors as stipulated in Resolution 17, while also handling tasks related to attraction, implementation, and post-investment management of projects involving strategic investors. Hanoi saw $77.4 million in foreign direct investment (FDI) in July, according to the citys Statistics Office. This included 30 newly licensed projects worth $6.5 million, 10 capital adjustments adding $50.3 million, and 27 cases of share purchases and capital contributions totalling $20.6 million. In the first seven months of 2025, FDI inflows reached $3.75 billion up 91 per cent from a year earlier. Toshin Development breaks ground on Westlake Square Hanoi Toshin Development has broken ground on Westlake Square Hanoi, a landmark mixed-use complex in the Starlake urban area that aims to set a new benchmark for high-end retail and lifestyle spaces in the capital. The new home of modern business at Hanoi's Starlake Located in Starlake, Hanois rising administrative and economic centre, Oriental Square by OSI is quickly becoming a standout among the capitals top-tier Grade A office developments. Forbes Vietnam announced the ranking on August 21, featuring leading enterprises across key sectors that demonstrate dynamism and sustainability. The recognition underscores HDBanks standing as a major multipurpose bank and its pioneering role in the private economy within the countrys financial and banking system. As a listed bank, HDBank has consistently maintained a return on equity (ROE) above 25 per cent for several years. In the first half of 2025, the bank posted a pre-tax profit of VND10.1 trillion ($383 million), a more than 23 per cent on-year increase the highest semi-annual profit in its history. HDBank continues to lead the sector in operational efficiency, recording a ROE of 26.5 per cent and a return on assets of 2.2 per cent. Total assets surpassed VND784 trillion ($30 billion), while outstanding loans grew by over 18 per cent, nearly double the system-wide average. The Forbes rankings are based on the audited financial statements and market capitalisation data, focusing on sustainable growth, profitability, and financial health. Key indicators such as capitalisation, revenue, profit margin, ROE, earnings per share, etc. are analysed over a 3-5 year period. This is combined with qualitative assessments of corporate governance, brand reputation, and industry influence. On the stock market, the bank's shares are one of the large-cap stocks in the banking industry. Just one year after the initial public offering, HDBank shares secured a spot in the VN30 index and the Top 10 best enterprises on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HSX). For many consecutive years, the bank has consistently been listed in the Top 20 for Best Sustainability Index on HSX, VN30, VN Diamond, and VN Finlead. These achievements strengthen liquidity, attract both domestic and foreign investment funds, and reflect market confidence in the bank's long-term strategy. Beyond Vietnam, HDBank is among a few Vietnamese enterprises being honoured at the ASEAN Corporate Governance Awards in Malaysia. The recognition affirms the banks pioneering role in reaching international standards and elevates Vietnamese companies on the global financial market. Over 35 years of development, HDBank has grown into a leading multipurpose retail bank, supporting the countrys economic growth. Its inclusion in the Forbes Top 50 underscores the strength of its brand and the appeal of HDB shares, while also providing a platform to expand its influence, contribute to the sustainable development of the financial market, and reinforce the private sectors pioneering role in global integration. HDBank named among ASEAN's top five for governance in 2025 HDBank was honoured among the top five Vietnamese listed companies with the best corporate governance practices in Kuala Lumpur on July 24. HDBank achieves profit of $383.95 million in H1 HDBank announced its financial results for the second quarter and the first half of 2025 on July 30, highlighting operational efficiency and safety indicators that remain among the top in the industry. ORANGEBURG, S.C. South Carolina State Universitys Board of Trustees voted Thursday to reaffiliate with the SC State University Advancement Foundation, a move designed to enhance philanthropic opportunities while maintaining the universitys relationship with the longstanding SCSU Foundation. University leaders stressed that honoring donor intent remains the first and foremost priority. This reaffiliation reflects our commitment to creating more ways for supporters to give back while protecting the legacy of trust that has guided generations of SC State donors, said SC State President Alexander Conyers. With the Advancement Foundation focused on the capability for special fundraising, we will have the flexibility to meet urgent needs, fund special projects, sponsor research and invest strategically in our students, faculty and facilities. At the same time, our donors can be assured that their wishes will always be respected. Board of Trustees Chairman Douglas D. Gantt said the decision represents a step forward in strengthening the universitys financial foundation. The Board acted with one clear purpose: to provide South Carolina State University with the strongest possible framework for philanthropic support, Gantt said. By continuing our partnership with the SCSU Foundation and reestablishing the Advancement Foundation, we are expanding the options available to donors while ensuring their intent is honored with the highest level of integrity. The decision comes as SC State builds momentum through The Power of SC State Capital Campaign, which is galvanizing alumni, corporate partners and friends of the university. The campaign supports scholarships, academic innovation, faculty research and campus renewal. In the past year, SC State recorded $11.5 million in private support, the highest annual total in more than a decade. Alumni giving rose 41% year-over-year, with 3,183 alumni contributing to the university. The alumni giving rate climbed to 15.2% surpassing both the national average of 8% and the 10% average among historically Black colleges and universities. Overall donor participation also reached a record 4,218 contributors to the universitys mission. This decision builds on the trust weve earned with alumni, friends and partners, said Dr. John M. Lee Jr., vice president for university advancement and strategic communications. The Advancement Foundation provides new flexibility to meet the universitys most pressing needs while always honoring donor intent. It also positions us to sustain the momentum of The Power of SC State Capital Campaign and the historic growth in giving weve seen over the past year. Both the SCSU Foundation and the Advancement Foundation are independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that support the universitys mission. The coordinated approach will allow SC State to increase flexibility in the use of unrestricted funds for scholarships, academic programs and campus improvements. Donors will see no disruption in their giving experience, Conyers said. Instead, they will see a university that is better positioned to serve its students and to carry out its mission as South Carolinas only public historically Black college or university. The SC State Board of Trustees also adopted a new policy regarding affiliated foundations and organizations, establishing minimum requirements, guiding principles and consistency for how independent nonprofit entities may support SC State. The policy affirms that these groups remain legally separate while aligned with the universitys mission, with clear standards to ensure accountability. Nashiba Boyd, the universitys general counsel, noted that the policy was brought forth as part of an overall effort to update SC States policies in all areas of the university. She said the administration will work with each affiliated entity to establish new agreements in keeping with the policys details. Nguyen Tuong Van, Deputy Minister of Construction Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Tuong Van announced at the opening of Vietnam Water Week 2025 in Hanoi on August 20 that the draft Water Supply and Sewerage Law is being revised and is expected to be submitted to the National Assembly for approval in 2027. "Clean water, flood prevention, and wastewater treatment are basic needs tied directly to peoples lives, public health, and sustainable development," said Deputy Minister Van. "Thats why the Ministry of Construction has drafted the Water Supply and Sewerage Law for the 2025 legislative programme, pursuant to Resolution No.129/2024/QH15. But since this is a new initiative and also connected to the restructuring of the two-tier local government model, it has not yet been added to the governments 2025 programme or the National Assembly Standing Committees agenda." According to the Ministry of Constructions plan in Official Letter No.6762/BXD-PC dated July 15, submitted to the Ministry of Justice, the draft law will be revised and completed in 2026 and submitted to the National Assembly for promulgation in 2027. In addition, the Ministry of Construction is focusing on amending the Construction Law, while coordinating with other ministries to revise the Planning Law both of which are closely related to the water sector. "In 2025, the ministry will also review the implementation of the Development Orientation for Water Supply and Sewerage up to 2025 with a Vision to 2050, the National Programme on Reduction of Non-Revenue Water by 2025, and the National Programme on Safe Water Supply for the period 2016-2025. Based on these evaluations, the ministry will submit to the Prime Minister new orientations for water supply, sewerage, and safe water supply for the 2026-2030 period," said Van. In facing both opportunities and challenges of the countrys renewal process, the Ministry of Construction remains committed to accompanying enterprises, listening to their feedback to gradually improve the legal framework for the water sector, and promoting sustainable development. In this new era of transformation, the Ministry of Construction recommends that Vietnams water sector requires close cooperation with enterprises and partners to meet pressing needs, including ensuring universal access to clean water; improving water supply and sewerage services to meet modern living standards; and ensuring water security and safety. Furthermore, it is necessary to promote large-scale, interprovincial, and provincial water supply projects that are sustainable, climate-resilient, and connected to rural water supply through sound planning and investment mechanisms. Another requirement is to ensure complete treatment of domestic, service, and industrial wastewater to protect the environment and restore clean water flows through mobilising both public and private resources. "It needs to control urban and rural flooding by developing integrated drainage systems connected with irrigation, river basins, rainwater regulation, and tidal control, and simultaneously encourage the reuse of rainwater, wastewater, and sludge in line with green growth and circular economy approaches," added Van. Tenchijin Takes 2nd Place at IVS2025 Launchpad From satellite data to startup stardomTenchijin rockets ahead in Asias top pitch arena. Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam deepens green drive with new initiatives Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam, in collaboration with the Vietnam Forestry Administration under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, has kicked off its 2025 'Water of Life' programme along with launching a new nature-based education drive. CEO and general director Ashish Joshi spoke with VIRs Thanh Van about the environmental and community impact of both schemes. Vietnam Water Week 2025 to splash down in Hanoi in August Vietnam Water Week 2025 is set to take place in Hanoi from August 20-22, themed Vietnams Water Sector in the New Era: Challenges and Opportunities. ADB and JICA provide $12 million loan for water plant expansion On August 1, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a loan agreement worth $12 million with Thu Dau Mot Water JSC for expansion of Bau Bang Water Treatment Plant. Goodstack Powers MrBeasts TikTok Fundraiser for WaterAid The viral #TeamWater campaign gains global traction with tech support from Goodstack. Party General Secretary To Lam (second left) and President Lee Jae Myung (third left) oversaw an agreement between the State Securities Commission of Vietnam and the Korean Financial Supervisory Service, Photo: VNA Vietnamese Party General Secretary To Lam and a high-level delegation last week paid a state visit to South Korea. During the trip, Lam and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung witnessed the exchange of 10 cooperation documents between relevant authorities, covering areas such as defence, security, economy, trade, labour, and culture. The two countries have agreed to complete a bilateral trade goal of $150 billion by 2030 in a balance and sustainable manner, stated a joint statement released after bilateral talks between the Vietnamese Party chief and the South Korean president. The Vietnam-South Korea trade turnover in the first seven months of this year reached $50 billion, up from $46.5 billion in the same period last year. This included $16.3 billion worth of Vietnamese exports, up 11.8 per cent on-year; and $33.7 billion of South Korean exports, up 5.3 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year. Last year, both countries total trade turnover reached $81.7 billion. In which Vietnams exports to South Korea came in at $25.5 billion, holding 6.28 per cent of the formers total export turnover. Meanwhile, Vietnams imports from South Korea hit $56 billion, responsible for 14.76 per cent of Vietnams total import value. To facilitate goods flows into their respective markets, the two countries have agreed to soon implement the mutual recognition agreement on authorised economic operator signed last December; and also to support Vietnamese enterprises to partake deeper into South Korean firms global supply chains. Vietnam and South Korea have also agreed to encourage South Korean enterprises to invest in new projects and expand their existing investments in Vietnam. Priority will be given to key sectors such as the development of specialised industrial zones based on high technology, the digital industry, infrastructure development, renewable energy, smart cities, and global value chains. The South Korean side emphasised that creating a favourable investment environment is essential for the sustainable expansion of trade and investment, read the statement. Also last week, South Korea proposed that Vietnam support its companies in participating in infrastructure projects within the country. In response, the Vietnamese side asserted its continued commitment to fostering an open, transparent, and stable investment climate to facilitate long-term and sustainable investment by foreign enterprises, including those from South Korea. Figures released last week by the Ministry of Finances Foreign Investment Agency showed that cumulatively as of late July, South Korea was the biggest foreign investor in Vietnam, with more than 10,250 valid projects registered at nearly $94.9 billion. In the January-July period, total newly registered and newly added capital and stake acquisition and capital contributions from South Korean investors in Vietnam hit $3.9 billion, up 131 per cent on-year. Both sides have also agreed to support Vietnamese businesses investing in South Korea and to make full use of existing cooperation mechanisms. They also agreed to explore new initiatives, such as establishing a digital cooperation system to promote trade and investment activities between the two countries. The South Korean side expressed a desire for capable South Korean companies to participate in strategic infrastructure projects in Vietnam, such as nuclear power, renewable energy, electricity grids, and high-speed railways, said the statement. The Vietnamese side took note of this interest, and both parties agreed to continue discussions on this issue. One of the key outcomes of this visit is that the two countries have identified science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation as key pillars of bilateral cooperation and agreed to strengthen collaboration in these areas. To achieve this goal, both sides agreed to operate existing cooperation mechanisms effectively, such as the Ministerial-level Joint Committee on Science and Technology, and to explore opportunities for expanding cooperation and policy exchanges. They have also agreed to cooperate on joint research, training, and human resource exchanges in strategic technology sectors of mutual interest, such as AI, semiconductors, biotechnology, materials science, and energy. Additionally, they have also committed to enhancing the capacity and role of the Vietnam-Korea Institute of Science and Technology, which is a focal point for bilateral cooperation in sci-tech. Moreover, Vietnam and South Korea have also agreed to enhance collaboration in areas such as gas-fired power generation, fuel conversion in coal-fired power plants, energy transition, and the co-firing of hydrogen and green ammonia in thermal power plants. They also agreed to expand the electricity grid and develop smart grid systems. Both sides have also committed to exploring opportunities for government-business cooperation in the use of critical minerals and to intensifying efforts to attract investment aimed at building critical mineral supply chains. Currently, about 10,000 South Korean businesses are operating in the country, generating over 900,000 jobs. Bui Thanh Son, deputy Prime Minister Minister of Foreign Affairs "Economic, trade, and investment cooperation has always been one of the key pillars of the bilateral relationship, serving as a primary driving force behind the comprehensive development of both Vietnam and South Korea. For Vietnam, South Korea is currently one of its most important investment partners. The presence of major South Korean global groups in Vietnam is vivid evidence of the strategic trust that their businesses place in our investment environment and development prospects. Additionally, cooperation in supply chain recovery has been identified by both countries as a strategic priority in their bilateral ties. Amid a global economic landscape marked by numerous uncertainties - such as geopolitical tensions, the rise of protectionist trade policies, and tariff-related risks from several major partners - it is more essential than ever for both countries to work closely together to ensure the sustainability and resilience of supply chains, leveraging the complementary nature of their two economies. In this spirit, Vietnam is committed to supporting South Korean enterprises in developing diversified and high-value supply chains. At the same time, it encourages Vietnamese businesses to participate more deeply and move up the value chain within the global supply networks of South Korean businesses. We stand ready to create better conditions for foreign investors to continue investing in a stable and long-term manner, as well as to explore new opportunities and pursue shared development. In recent years, we have implemented a series of major and transformative policies and measures aimed at streamlining and restructuring the political apparatus, prioritising development of sci-tech and innovation, reforming administrative procedures and the legal system, and boosting private sector growth. These efforts have created new development opportunities for the country and simultaneously ushered in unprecedented opportunities and new advantages for foreign investors - particularly South Korean ones, who already have a strong track record and successful foundations in Vietnam. I firmly believe that, with the strong political will of the high-level leadership of both countries, combined with the dynamism and creativity of our business communities, Vietnam and South Korea will continue to be reliable development partners. Together, we will build on the successes of our investment cooperation, making even greater contributions to the recovery and sustainable development in the region and the wider world." At a specialised training session on legal frameworks and identifying risks of crypto-asset fraud held on August 8 by the Vietnam Blockchain and Digital Asset Association (VBA), Phan Duc Trung, chairman of VBA, revealed that Vietnam may grant pilot licences to about five digital asset exchanges. These platforms would be able to connect with international exchanges to secure both liquidity and competitiveness. Some notable names likely to join the pilot include SSI Securities Corporation and Techcom Securities, said Trung. "Military Bank (MB) is almost certain to participate in the digital asset trading market after signing a MoU on technical cooperation with Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, South Koreas largest crypto exchange, on August 12." Under that agreement, Dunamu will act as a strategic partner, assisting MB in building a digital asset exchange, refining the regulatory framework and management mechanisms, and developing investor protection solutions. The proposed exchanges are expected to support transactions of popular assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins USDT/USDC, and around 50 other digital tokens. Significantly, there will be tokenised real-world assets designed exclusively for foreign investors as a channel for capital mobilisation. According to the VBA, digital assets could generate three key impacts: acting as a medium of payment, a funding channel, and a community-building tool. However, at this initial stage, state regulators are prioritising the creation of a capital-raising channel. At a government press briefing on August 7, Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi disclosed that the ministry is drafting a decree on piloting digital asset trading, saying, "If the proposal gains approval from higher authorities, the government is expected to issue regulations for the pilot market in August or September." The draft scheme has been largely completed, covering criteria for participant selection, technical requirements, operational procedures, and conditions on financial and professional capacity of service providers. Once the detailed criteria are finalised, the Ministry of Finance will publicly disclose them to ensure transparency in the selection process. During the pilot phase, the ministry plans to license more than one exchange to foster healthy competition, while maintaining a manageable number for effective supervision and evaluation. ORANGEBURG, S.C. South Carolina State University is opening its doors to alumni, business leaders and community partners for Business After Hours, a new networking event designed to connect Bulldog supporters and showcase the universitys impact. The inaugural gathering is set for Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, from 6-10 p.m. at the I.P. Stanback Museum and Planetarium on the SC State campus. The evening is expected to draw business and civic leaders, alumni and other stakeholders for conversation, fellowship and a closer look at the work of SC State faculty, staff and students. Guests will enjoy hors doeuvres, giveaways and opportunities to learn about the universitys academic and student success initiatives. The event will highlight how community and philanthropic support fuel SC States continued growth. Business After Hours is a signature event designed to bring together business leaders, alumni, community partners, and other valued supporters for an evening of connection, engagement, and shared vision, said Dr. E. Rocky Simmons, SC States director of corporate, foundation and community relations. This gathering will showcase the impactful work of our faculty, staff, and students while strengthening relationships that are vital to the continued growth and advancement of South Carolina State University. Simmons the universitys faculty and staff look forward to celebrating with the extended Bulldog family. Your continued support of South Carolina State University is invaluable, and we look forward to engaging with you during this special occasion, Simmons said. We look forward to your presence at the inaugural Business After Hours. Guests are encouraged to RSVP in advance using the QR code above. For more information, contact Simmons at 803-536-8742 (office), 839-271-1844 (cell), or esimmon2@scsu.edu. Police deal with more than 250 incidents in Wrexham in a week Police in Wrexham have dealt with more than 250 incidents in the past week, including a fight in the city centre, drug offences, and public disturbances. Between 13 and 19 August, North Wales Police recorded 252 occurrences, with 109 logged as crimes. Officers made 34 arrests, with two people still in custody. Arrests were made for a range of offences including recall to prison, threats to kill, possession of an offensive weapon, and drink driving. Incidents of note included: 13 August Abbot Street : Officers were called after reports of two females fighting. Both claimed to have been a victim of assault by the other, though no injuries were recorded. : Officers were called after reports of two females fighting. Both claimed to have been a victim of assault by the other, though no injuries were recorded. 15 August Wrexham Maelor Hospital : Named person was found to be in breach of their Criminal Behaviour Order. : Named person was found to be in breach of their Criminal Behaviour Order. 15 August Queensway, Caia Park: A suspect was searched and was found to be in possession of cannabis. 18 August Ramada Plaza Hotel: A female guest caused a disturbance while attempting to check in. 19 August King Street: A known offender was reported for causing a public nuisance by refusing to get off the bus. You can contact North Wales Police to report a crime or an incident via 101 or via the webchat system on the forces website. Alternatively you can visit the Wrexham City Centre police stations front desk. In an emergency, or if a crime is in progress, people should always call 999. Wrexham company attracting technicians from across the world with new Academy A Wrexham-based company is putting the city on the global automotive map after launching a training academy that is attracting technicians from across the world. Maverick Diagnostics has developed a specialist Automotive Training Academy, with support from Business Wales, to provide hands-on training in advanced vehicle diagnostics for brands including Jaguar Land Rover, BMW and Tesla. Since opening in 2022, the Academy has created high-skilled jobs locally and brought technicians to Wrexham from across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the USA. Maverick Diagnostics sales and services business was initially founded in 2017 to support independent garages and workshops with dealer-level diagnostic tools and expert advice. The company is the first in Europe to offer full aftermarket support for all major dealer diagnostic systems, enabling independent garages to compete with main dealers. The development of the training centre was made possible through the support of experts from Business Wales, the Welsh Governments business advisory service. Business Wales Adviser, Svetlana Ross, worked closely with Maverick Diagnostics to create a detailed business plan and secure 100,000 in funding from the Development Bank of Wales. This funding enabled the company to invest in building the facility, hiring staff, and developing specialised training courses. Business Wales continues to support the companys growth, most recently helping Maverick Diagnostics achieve top-level cyber security accreditation a crucial requirement when handling sensitive vehicle data and delivering global remote support. Maverick has also reinforced its commitment to sustainability and inclusion by signing Business Wales Equity and Green Growth pledges. We work in a very niche field of the aftermarket automotive market, but the demand for our experts knowledge and support is being called on by technicians globally, explained Laura Halls, Managing Director, at Maverick Diagnostics. Business Wales experts took the time to understand what we do and recognised the opportunities of creating a dedicated training sector here in Wales. The Academy was an ambitious concept, but with Svetlanas expertise, we were able to build solid plan that helped investors understand the potential we had to build the business and create jobs. Maverick Diagnostics experts work with aftermarket technicians worldwide who increasingly need remote diagnostic support to correct issues with modern vehicles that depend on complex electronics. With vehicle technology electric vehicles (EV) evolving rapidly, Maverick Diagnostics identified a growing need for up-to-date training, leading to the creation of the Academy. Maverick Diagnostics research and development included purchasing and reverse engineering a Tesla to fully understand its systems and build specialist EV training courses, which are now among the most in-demand. Commenting on Maverick Diagnostics international growth and the launch of the Automotive Training Academy, Business Wales Business Adviser, Svetlana Ross, said: Todays connected world presents many opportunities for specialist Welsh companies to grow their customer-bases internationally, while still creating new jobs here in Wales. Maverick Diagnostics had already created an impressive global network of customers and identified that developing a training centre offered excellent growth potential. However, even successful and ambitious companies can benefit from guidance when building a business case that will allow investors to recognise the growth potential that exists. The success of the Academy and the sustainable growth and jobs it is delivering proves that, with the right support, businesses across Wales can be world leaders. With the Burning Man festival this weekend, people from all over Nevada, the United States and even the World travel to Reno before heading out to the Black Rock Desert to celebrate on the playa. But Burners have to get the right outfit before heading out there, which leads them to a local clothing store, Junkee Clothing Exchange. The store has become a hub for Burners to come and gear up before the festival, with flashy outfits, accessories, and costumes, there is almost assuredly something for everyone. We got to speak with some of the stylists about how important this time of the year is, not only to employees of Junkee, but to the customers. "We get clothes from all over the world too, because people are bringing them in to get the new stuff from Burning Man," said Stylist Viktorya Barnes. "Not only are we meeting the people and getting to talk to them, but we're getting to see the clothes from all over." Barnes says this time of year is incredibly busy for the shop, and this weekend in particular brings in so many people, whether they're looking for outfits, adding accessories, or trying a whole new style. She says that the numbers ramp up this week and will continue to ramp up until Burning Man is over. Barnes says she loves to work at Junkee Clothing Exchange because there is something for everyone, and not many stores have that quality. Manager of the store Heather Puckett also touched on this special time of year. "It's honestly my favorite time of the whole year," she said. "Its such good energy in here." She mentions that this time of the year is like Christmas to Junkee. Puckett has worked for the store for twelve years and loves to see the fashion evolution every year, as well as meet new people and help them accessorize. She touched on how important their business is as a Burning Man staple. "I love that we're like a Burning Man staple for people," she said. "Because we have a lot of used clothing, so it's not being put in a landfill. A lot of it, you know, is being reused." Clearly this Junkee isn't just any regular clothing shop, and people from all over find a special joy in accessorizing, styling and preparing for all kinds of fun to be had out in the desert. Authorities have released the name of the man who died after a stabbing at John Champion Park in Reno. The Washoe County medical examiner says 48-year-old Juan Francisco-Martinez died after arriving at Renown Regional Medical Center on August 9th. The ME says he died from multiple stab wounds. Police are still looking for the suspect. A $5,000 reward is being offered for information. If you have any information that can help authorities, call or text your anonymous tip to Secret Witness at 775-322-4900. ORIGINAL STORY: Reno Police say one man died after being stabbed on August 9th around 10:50 p.m. at John Champion Park. They say REMSA took the victim to a nearby hospital, where he later died from his injuries. The Medical Examiner's Office will release his identity once the next of kin is notified. Police are still looking for the suspect. A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the suspect in this homicide. Anyone with information that will help solve this case can remain anonymous and pass their information on to the Reno Police through Secret Witness at (775) 322-4900. The Robbery Homicide Unit is investigating. Anyone with information about the homicide can also call the Reno Police Department's non-emergency line at (775) 334-2677. SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) California voters will decide in November whether to approve a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more U.S. House seats next year, after Texas Republicans advanced their own redrawn map to pad their House majority by the same number of seats at President Donald Trumps urging. California lawmakers voted mostly along party lines Thursday to approve legislation calling for the special election. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has led the campaign in favor of the map, then quickly signed it the latest step in a tit-for-tat gerrymandering battle. This is not something six weeks ago that I ever imagined that Id be doing, Newsom said at a press conference, pledging a campaign for the measure that would reach out to Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. This is a reaction to an assault on our democracy in Texas. Republicans, who have filed a lawsuit and called for a federal investigation into the plan, promised to fight the measure at the ballot box as well. California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was wrong to push for new Republican seats elsewhere, contending the president was just responding to Democratic gerrymandering in other states. But he warned that Newsoms approach, which the governor has dubbed fight fire with fire, was dangerous. You move forward fighting fire with fire and what happens? Gallagher asked. You burn it all down. Texas' redrawn maps still need a final vote in the Republican-controlled state Senate, which advanced the plan out of a committee Thursday but did not bring the measure to the floor. The Senate was scheduled to meet again Friday. After that, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's signature will be all that is needed to make the map official. Its part of Trumps effort to stave off an expected loss of the GOPs majority in the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections. A battle for the US House control waged via redistricting On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. The incumbent presidents party usually loses congressional seats in the midterms. The president has pushed other Republican-controlled states including Indiana and Missouri to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan. Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade. The U.S. Supreme Court has also said the Constitution does not outlaw partisan gerrymandering, only using race to redraw district lines. Texas Republicans embraced that when their House of Representatives passed its revision Wednesday. "The underlying goal of this plan is straight forward: improve Republican political performance, state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican who wrote the bill revising Texas maps, said. On Thursday, California Democrats noted Hunters comments and said they had to take extreme steps to counter the Republican move. What do we do, just sit back and do nothing? Or do we fight back? Democratic state Sen. Lena Gonzalez said. This is how we fight back and protect our democracy. Democrats have sought a national commission for redistricting Republicans and some Democrats championed the 2008 ballot measure that established Californias nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with the 2010 one that extended its role to drawing congressional maps. Democrats have sought a national commission that would draw lines for all states but have been unable to pass legislation creating that system. Trumps midterm redistricting ploy has shifted Democrats. That was clear in California, where Newsom was one of the members of his party who backed the initial redistricting commission ballot measures, and where Assemblyman Joshua Lowenthal, whose father, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, was another Democratic champion of a nonpartisan commission, presided over the state Assemblys passage of the redistricting package. Newsom on Thursday contended his state was still setting a model. Well be the first state in U.S. history, in the most democratic way, to submit to the people of our state the ability to determine their own maps, Newsom said before signing the legislation. Former President Barack Obama, whos also backed a nationwide nonpartisan approach, has also backed Newsoms bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOPs Texas move. I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, Obama said Tuesday during a fundraiser for the Democratic Partys main redistricting arm, noting that California voters will still have the final say on the map. California's plan is temporary The measure would have the California map last only through 2030, after which the states commission would draw the next decades map. Democrats are also mulling reopening Marylands and New Yorks maps for mid-decade redraws. However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like Californias or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, cant draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval. In Texas, outnumbered Democrats turned to unusual steps to try to delay passage, leaving the state to delay a vote by 15 days. Upon their return, they were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring. California Republicans didnt take such dramatic steps but complained bitterly about Democrats muscling the package through the Statehouse and harming what GOP State Sen. Tony Strickland called the states gold-standard nonpartisan approach. What youre striving for is predetermined elections, Strickland said. Youre taking the voice away from Californians. The story has been updated to correct that the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority, instead of that Republicans control the U.S. House by three votes. The first name of the Republican minority leader in the California Assembly has been corrected to James, instead of Mike. Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press reporter Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, also contributed. COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) A judge on Friday rejected a plea agreement for a Colorado funeral home owner who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses, after family members described the pain and shame theyve carried since learning their loved ones bodies were left to rot. The rare decision to reject the plea agreement that called for a 20-year prison sentence followed anguished testimony from family members seeking a more severe punishment. Among them was Crystina Page, whose son David Jaxon Page, 20, was killed by police during a mental health crisis in 2019. His body languished in the funeral home for years as Page carried with her an urn that she wrongly thought contained her sons cremated ashes. I loved it, I cried over it, I held it close during sleepless nights. I kissed him, Page said. It wasnt him at all. ... What happened to my son has broken me in ways I cannot repair. For four years, Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie, ran a fraudulent scheme from their Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs while maintaining a lavish lifestyle. They took money from customers for cremations, only to stash the bodies and give the families dry concrete resembling ashes. Page and others said the plea agreement would have essentially erased the crimes committed against the 191 people whose bodies were discovered in 2023 in a building in Penrose, Colorado. The agreement said Hallford's state sentence was to run concurrently with a 20-year federal sentence, meaning he could have been freed many years earlier than if the sentences had run consecutively. Colorado has struggled to effectively oversee funeral homes and, for many years, had some of the weakest regulations in the nation. Its had a slew of abuse cases, including an estimated 20 decomposing corpses discovered this week at a funeral home in Pueblo. Jon Hallford already is bound for prison after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges. The rejection of the plea deal effectively resets the separate state criminal case. Hallford can now withdraw his guilty plea, sending the case to trial. He could also keep his guilty plea and let the judge sentence him without any guarantee of the outcome. He returns to court on Sept. 12. Defense attorney says trial would not provide families with answers Some of the victims who filled the court seemed to brace themselves for the judge to accept the deal and then applauded when he announced his decision. Bentley said he had never rejected a plea agreement in his nine years on the bench and called it an extreme action by the court. He suggested he was swayed after listening to Friday's testimony. I heard an overwhelming perception that the justice that had been worked out between the attorneys was justice that did not accurately reflect the truth of the victims' experiences, Bentley said. The prosecutor, Rachael Powell, had argued that a 20-year sentence was appropriate since abuse of a corpse is the least serious type of felony under the law, with a possible sentence ranging from probation to a maximum of up to 18 months in prison. Defense attorney Adam Steigerwald said a trial would not deliver what family members wanted: answers. The answers the people are looking for, sadly, are not satisfactory, and they largely don't exist," he said. Samantha Naranjo, whose grandmothers body was found at the funeral home over a year after she died, said Bentley acknowledged the experiences of families of the 191 people whose remains were identified -- and also of the relatives of the approximately 1,000 additional people whose remains were handled by the funeral home. Bentley said those people are considered potential victims even though the Hallfords were not prosecuted for how their remains were handled. I feel heard, she said as tears welled up in her eyes. Carie Hallford is accused of the same crimes as her husband and also pleaded guilty. Her sentencing on the corpse abuse charges has not been scheduled. The couple was accused of letting 189 bodies decay. In two other instances, the wrong bodies were buried. Four remains were yet to be identified, the district attorney's office said this week. The Hallfords got a license for their funeral home in 2017, and authorities said the bodies started piling up by 2019. Some decomposed beyond recognition. Others were found unclothed or on the floor in inches of fluid from the bodies. The Hallfords bought luxury items after defrauding the government As the gruesome count grew, Jon and Carie Hallford were also defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief aid. With the money from families and the federal government, the Hallfords bought luxury goods, a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth $120,000 combined and $31,000 in cryptocurrency. In 2023, a putrid smell poured from the building and the police turned up. Investigators swarmed the building, donning hazmat suits and painstakingly extracting the bodies. Hallford and his wife were arrested in Oklahoma, where Jon Hallford had family, more than a month later. Families learned that their cathartic moments of grief spreading a mother's ashes in Hawaii or cradling a son's urn in a rocking chair were tainted by a deception. It was as if those signposts of the grieving process had been torn away, unraveling months and years of working through their loved ones' deaths. Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Justice Auteur: Mouhamed CAMARA Babacar Ba enfonce Bougar Diouf A fervent defender of freedom of expression, the president of the Forum du justiciable does not, however, tolerate Bougar Diouf's comments on the Casamance conflict and the army. On the social network X, he took issue with the words of the president of the Union of Senegalese Pan-Africanists (UPS). "The comments allegedly made by Bougar Diouf, which earned him a summons to appear before the cybercrime division, are dangerous and indefensible. We cannot, under the pretext of freedom of expression, allow ourselves to exploit such sensitive issues as the Casamance conflict and the army. While we firmly defend freedom of expression, we cannot condone language that can undermine national cohesion," wrote Babacar Ba. Following his summons, Bougar Diouf announced on social media that he would maintain his statements to demonstrate his commitment to defending the rule of law and national unity. Auteur: Mouhamed CAMARA A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Donald Trumps former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey since last month. U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann held that Habbas term as the interim U.S. attorney ended in July, and the Trump administrations novel series of legal and personnel moves to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the U.S. Senate didnt follow procedures required by federal law. Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not, wrote Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote. The judge said Habba's actions since July may be declared void," though he put his order on hold so the Justice Department could appeal. It wasnt immediately clear if that meant Habba would remain in charge of the U.S. attorneys office temporarily, or who would make key decisions in the prosecutor's office if she was sidelined. A message seeking comment was sent to Habbas office. In a social media post, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration would appeal, saying Habba was doing incredible work in New Jersey and we will protect her position from activist judicial attacks. If upheld, the ruling could lead to challenges against a handful of other U.S. attorneys who have been similarly installed by the Trump administration without Senate approval after their temporary assignments have expired. At its core, Branns opinion took aim at the administration's strategy of using a string of temporary appointments to allow Trump's favored candidates to bypass the usual requirement that U.S. attorneys be confirmed by the Senate something that requires a degree of bipartisan support. Taken to the extreme, the President could use this method to staff the United States Attorneys office with individuals of his personal choice for an entire term without seeking the Senates advice and consent, wrote Brann, a Republican appointed to a federal court in Pennsylvania by President Barack Obama. Branns decision came after several people charged with federal crimes in New Jersey challenged the legality of Habba's tenure. They sought to block the charges against them, arguing Habba didnt have the authority to prosecute their cases after her 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired. Lawyers for one of those defendants applauded the court's ruling. Prosecutors wield enormous power, and with that comes the responsibility to ensure they are qualified and properly appointed," attorneys Abbe D. Lowell and Gerald Krovatin said in statement. "We challenged the authority of Alina Habba because her appointment ignored the rules that give legitimacy to the U.S. Attorneys office. We appreciate the thoroughness of the courts opinion, and its decision underscores that this Administration cannot circumvent the congressionally mandated process for confirming U.S. Attorney appointments. Habba represented Trump in criminal and civil proceedings before he was elected to a second term. She briefly served as a White House adviser before Trump appointed her as a federal prosecutor in March. Shortly after her appointment, she said in an interview that she hoped to help turn New Jersey red, a rare overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the states Democratic governor and attorney general. She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stemming from his visit to a federal immigration detention center. Habba later charged Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault stemming from the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. McIver denied the charges and pleaded not guilty. Questions about whether Habba would continue in the job arose in late July when her temporary appointment was coming to a close and it became clear that New Jersey's two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, would block her nomination. With her appointment expiring, federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor who had served as her second in-command. Bondi then retaliated by firing the prosecutor installed by the judges and renaming Habba as acting U.S. attorney. The Justice Department said the judges acted prematurely and said Trump had the authority to appoint his preferred candidate to enforce federal laws in the state. Brann's ruling said the president's appointments are still subject to the time limits and power-sharing rules laid out in federal law. Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report. August 22, 2025: The June 13th Israeli airstrikes on Iran were followed up with seven American B2 stealth bombers using fourteen 13 ton ground-penetrating bombs to destroy the well protected Iranian nuclear weapons facilities at Fordo, but not at Natanz and Isfahan. This did some damage to the Iranian nuclear weapons and stalled the completion of a nuclear weapon by about six months. That is if the Americans or Israelis do not attack again, which they probably will. The destruction inflicted on the Fordo program was a relief to Israel and the United States. Iran had long planned to destroy Israel with one or two nuclear weapons. That program has been delayed several times by Israeli or American airstrikes. Apparently, this policy will continue for as long as it is needed. The United States will also continue to develop heavy bombers, an aircraft type that the Americans have been building and using since the 1930s. First came the 19-ton B-17, which was developed during the 1930s and entered service in 1938. By the end of World War II in 1945, nearly 13,000 of these aircraft were built. During the war B-17s dropped 43 percent of the 1.5 million tons of bombs used against German military and economic targets. B-17s continued to fly, largely in non-military roles, into the 1950s. As of 2025 four are still flying and dozens more are intact but grounded. Serving on a B-17 crew was dangerous and casualty rates were higher than those in the infantry. A less successful heavy bomber was the B-24. Some 18,000 of these were built because they had longer range, heavier bomb load and proved invaluable in the war against German submarines in the Atlantic and as a long range patrol, bomber and transport aircraft in the Pacific. The last active B-24, used by the Indian air force, retired in 1968. The most expensive bomber of World War II was the 60-t0n B-29. Two of these dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, the only aircraft, so far, to ever do so. Development and production of 3,900 aircraft cost about $3 billion, which is 53 billion in 2025 dollars. An updated version, 370 0f the 78-ton B-50, entered service in 1948 and were retired in 1965 after many of them served in non-combat roles. In 1946 the 185-ton B-36 entered service. Powered by six propellers and four jet engines, only 385 were built and they served as the primary U.S. heavy bomber until 1959. In 1951 the 100-ton B-47 entered service. While 2,042 were built, the last of these was retired in 1977. In 1952 the first of 742 221-ton B-52s entered service and are expected to serve until 2050 or later. A very effective and adaptable design, 76 are currently in service. In 1960 the less successful 80-ton B-58 entered service. Only 116 were built and it was retired in 1970 after only ten years of service. Reliability problems were the main reason, and 21 percent were lost to accidents. In 1997 the first 170-ton B-2 entered service. This was the first stealthy heavy bomber. That came at a cost, which was $2 billion each. Maintenance and operation was also very expensive. Congress would not pay for the 132 the air force wanted. While only 21 were built and 19 are still operational in 2025. In the 2030s the B-2s will gradually be replaced by the B-21. The 81-ton B-21 is still in development and three of the eventual 100 aircraft exist. The first flight was November 2023. This is a much improved B-2, designed to quickly travel to targets anywhere in the world on short notice. These B-2s recently demonstrated this in Iran. B-21s will cost at least $800 million each and over a billion before 30 or more years of service are over. It is hoped that the B-21 can eventually replace the B-2 and B-52 by 2050. Australia plans to obtain some B-21s and provide base and maintenance capabilities for American B-21s. Advent Energy Limited June 2025 Financial Statements Perth, Aug 22, 2025 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The directors of Advent Energy Ltd present their report on the Company and its controlled entities ("consolidated entity" or "group") for the financial year ended 30 June 2025. Boosting gas supply is a priority for Australia's economic and energy security. The following extracts illustrate the critical nature of gas supply shortages. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ("ACCC") Gas Enquiry update released in June 2025 (key findings): - - An efficient and well-functioning east coast gas market is critical to support Australia's long-term energy security - The east coast has sufficient gas reserves and resources to meet projected domestic demand for at least the next decade. However, a combination of policy, technical and commercial factors over the past 15 years has impeded their development. - Gas production is not being brought online fast enough to meet demand, and we now expect ongoing shortfalls in southern states as local reserves reach the end of their economic life. The market is now in the position of having to rely on uncontracted gas from Queensland and transporting it large distances across the east coast. - The ACCC considers it critical to gas market efficiency and long-term energy security that underlying impediments to the development of domestic supply are addressed - Supply gaps are forecast to emerge from 2028, unless new gas supply is brought online - Governments can further support efficient and timely gas supply by addressing competition in upstream markets, regulatory barriers to investment, and developing a gas market system plan that confirms the role of gas during the energy transition and supports market led solutions to achieve energy sufficiency and security. - The composition of projected supply remains a concern because substantial volumes of east coast gas production are forecast to come from projects in Queensland's Surat and Bowen basins, while supply from locally produced gas in the southern states' is in decline. The ACCC reports the gas supply shortfall increasing to 2037 of approximately 300 PJ per year, which is more than double the entire consumption of NSW. In a recent release on the Australian east coast energy market gas supply made by the Australian Energy Producers key points were made by CEO Samantha McCulloch. "Natural gas will play an essential role in Australia's energy mix to 2050 and beyond, but regulatory uncertainty, approval delays and policy interventions have delayed critical projects and damaged Australia's reputation as a safe place to invest, Australia has abundant gas resources and yet we are facing forecast gas shortfalls on the east coast from 2027 and from 2030 in Western Australia. Without new gas projects, Australian households and businesses face higher energy prices, uncertain energy supply, and increased risk of blackouts that will hit every part of the economy. Addressing these risks should be a national priority. Australia and our region's economic growth and energy security needs reliable and affordable gas supply, and this requires continued investment in new gas exploration and development," Ms McCulloch said. The Australian gas industry contributes $105 billion a year to the Australian economy and supports 215,000 jobs. Natural gas provides around 40 per cent of the energy used by Australia's manufacturing sector, and in WA gas provides more than half the energy used in mining and minerals processing. The Australian Energy Market Operator ("AEMO") CEO has warned in a submission to a review of Australia's grid reliability, that the increasing penetration of renewables in the last decade has increased the risk that it will not be able to restart the grid during daylight hours after a Spain type blackout - "insufficient new investment in the technologies that could replace the grid-stabilizing role of coal in such situations, including synchronous condensers, grid-forming inverters and gas turbines that can spin without burning fuel." In a keynote address to the Climate and Energy Summit3 in May 2025 the AEMO CEO stated: "Flexible gas-powered generation will remain the ultimate backstop in a high-renewable power system. Gas, alongside batteries and pumped hydro, will enable higher renewable contributions and support reliability as coal-fired power stations retire. And importantly, new gas-fired power stations can play an active role in system security even when no gas is being consumed. This is because their heavy spinning generators, like those of coal and hydro, have benefits beyond generation. If designed and built with this functionality in mind, they can spin freely to keep the main power grid secure and resilient without burning fuel." In order for gas to play its critical role as a back stop for reliability, there must also be enough gas in our domestic networks to meet demand. Gas is still used as a fuel for heating, as a manufacturing feedstock, and as a fuel for generators. However, gas production is falling faster than demand in the southern states, reinforcing the need for investment in new gas supply. *To view the Annual Report, please visit: https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/19589F0V About BPH Energy Limited BPH Energy Limited (ASX:BPH) is an Australian Securities Exchange listed company developing biomedical research and technologies within Australian Universities and Hospital Institutes. The company provides early stage funding, project management and commercialisation strategies for a direct collaboration, a spin out company or to secure a license. BPH provides funding for commercial strategies for proof of concept, research and product development, whilst the institutional partner provides infrastructure and the core scientific expertise. BPH currently partners with several academic institutions including The Harry Perkins Institute for Medical Research and Swinburne University of Technology (SUT). 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West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Zip Code The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has completed a 60 million investment in the Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme (HARP), a once-in-a-generation project to secure the long-term supply of clean water to 2.5 million people across Greater Manchester and Lancashire. This direct investment executed entirely by the PPFs in-house investment team forms part of a wider 3.0bn financing package, making HARP one of the largest UK infrastructure deals in recent years. The project will replace six underground tunnel sections of the existing Haweswater aqueduct, originally built between 1933 and 1955, delivering long-term resilience to the UKs water supply network. The deal marks a significant milestone for the PPF and underlines its growing capability to deliver complex transactions in-house. Neha Dedakia, Private Credit Portfolio Manager at the PPF, said: This investment shows the PPF at its best; delivering strong returns for our members while supporting critical UK infrastructure that millions of people rely on every day. Executing this complex deal directly in-house demonstrates the strength of our investment capability and underlines our role as a long-term, responsible investor in the UK economy. This investment further illustrates the PPFs wider role and footprint investing in UK productive assets. With around 31bn of assets under management nearly half (c.15bn) of which is invested in the UK the PPF notably supports the UK economy, government and businesses through debt and equity-based finance. Independent research by Frontier Economics, published in April this year, showed that the PPFs UK investments already help support 38.8bn in economic activity, 460,000 jobs, and 7.5bn in annual tax contributions. Since its creation in 2005, the PPF has protected the retirement incomes of more than half a million people, paying out over 10bn in compensation to date. The PPF invests for growth over the long term to deliver security for its members. Investments like HARP therefore dually help safeguard the financial security of PPF members whilst directly supporting the UK economy. Pension professionals should take proactive steps now to deliver guided retirement solutions aimed at helping savers make the right choices. In a joint podcast, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) say the industry needs to develop a much deeper understanding of the diverse needs and profiles within their scheme membership to ensure savers make the right decisions at retirement. Nike Trost, the FCAs Head of Department - Asset Management and Pensions Policy, and Patrick Coyne, Interim Director of Pensions Reform at TPR, call on the industry to innovate in the design and delivery of retirement income solutions tailored to different saver types. They discuss how the FCAs Targeted Support proposals designed to allow firms to make specific recommendations for groups or cohorts of consumers around pensions and investments and the Pension Schemes Bill plans for guided retirement solutions are complimentary policies. And they urge trustees to respond to the FCAs consultation on Targeted Support. The podcast notes that using data such as age, pot size, and retirement proximity is essential to deliver tailored communications, targeted nudges, and fit-for-purpose decumulation solutions. Patrick Coyne said: Millions could be drifting toward an uncertain retirement. Government data shows over 14 million people are under-saving for later life. That is why we have to make sure the system provides them real value for money and that people are supported into the right retirement pathway for them. Nobody saves into a pension expecting a pot, they expect a sustainable retirement income and with these reforms, and the revived Pensions Commission, we have a real chance to make that happen. Mr Coyne said that with Targeted Support becoming a new kind of regulated activity, trustees should respond to the FCAs consultation with examples of the kind of support they would like to give within the existing framework especially ready-made suggestions for in-scheme benefits to find out if this could be delivered themselves or with an FCA-authorised partner. He added: We know trustees want to support members, but uncertainty around the advice boundary is a real barrier. Nows the time to share examples and help shape future rules. Nike Trost said: I think there being more support available for consumers both in their savings journey and importantly, at the point of retirement, has to be the success we aim for. Its about consumers being offered really good product choices to choose from in a really simple way. Listen to the TPR/FCA podcast, with a full transcript. The FCAs consultation, Supporting consumers pensions and investment decisions: proposals for targeted support, closes on 29 August 2025. It sets out proposals to that would give millions more people help navigating their financial lives with support on pensions and investments. This would allow firms to offer a new type of help called targeted support and make suggestions to groups of consumers with common characteristics. These could include people who may be currently drawing down on their pension unsustainably, not saving enough for retirement or who have excess cash sitting in a current account. Targeted support seeks to support consumers in making these informed choices, while default pension benefit solutions (as part of guided retirement) seek to create a default decumulation option for consumers that do not or cannot engage. The Pension Schemes Bill 2024-25 will implement Guided Retirement Options which will place duties on trustees to provide default solutions for their members, unless the member chooses to opt-out. The default will provide an income in later life, including consideration for longevity protection which could include CDC provision. The Government has revived the landmark Pensions Commission to examine why tomorrows pensioners are on track to be poorer than todays and make recommendations for change. According to the latest government data published in July 2025, around 14.6 million working-age people in the UK are under-saving for retirement. This represents 43% of the working-age population, measured against the Target Replacement Rate (TRR) benchmark, which assesses whether individuals are on track to maintain their standard of living in retirement. (Source: DWP Official Statistics Analysis of Future Pension Incomes 2025 Published 21 July 2025) TPR is the regulator of work-based pension schemes in the UK. Our statutory objectives are to: protect members benefits reduce the risk of calls on the Pension Protection Fund promote, and improve understanding of, the good administration of work-based pension schemes maximise employer compliance with automatic enrolment duties minimise any adverse impact on the sustainable growth of an employer (in relation to the exercise of the regulators functions under Part 3 of the Pensions Act 2004 only Enough of This Poison Disguised as Cinema 2 Vivek Agnihotri is not making filmshe is manufacturing venom. The Bengal Files is not art; it is political propaganda, carefully packaged to inflame, distort, and divide. By dragging the name of Gopal Chandra Mukhopadhyaypopularly known as Gopal Pathainto this cesspool, Agnihotri has crossed the line between artistic license and malicious slander. Gopal Patha was no butcher. He was a wrestler, a freedom fighter, and, above all, a protector. In the chaos of 1946, when Calcutta burned under the horrors of Direct Action Dayengineered by the Muslim League and abetted by the then chief minister H.S. Suhrawardyit was Gopal who mobilized Hindus not for indiscriminate slaughter, but for defense. His orders were crystal clear: women, children, and innocents must not be harmed. He stood as a bulwark against the barbarity unleashed on Hindusmassacres, rapes, kidnappings, and arsonand in doing so prevented Calcutta from collapsing entirely to Suhrawardys Pakistan-backed plans. Yet Agnihotri, intoxicated by his own false bravado, chooses to depict this man as a Muslim-hating butcher. A grotesque lie, one his own grandson has condemned as belittling, dehumanising and demonising. The family has filed legal action, and rightly so. To smear a man who fought to keep Calcutta from drowning in blood is not only dishonestit is vile. And lets not pretend the timing is innocent. With Bengal elections around the corner, the film slots neatly into a political narrative. Agnihotri plays martyr when his trailer launch is disrupted, whining about freedom of expression, all while peddling half-truths and communal venom. Expression is not license to falsify history or profit from hate. History is brutal, yesbut it is also sacred. Direct Action Day is one of the darkest chapters of Partition: a pre-planned pogrom against Hindus, encouraged by Jinnahs chilling declaration, India divided or India burned. Hindu neighborhoods were torched, men slaughtered, women raped, and young girls paraded as trophies of fanaticism. Suhrawardy gave rioters free rein, and mobs led by criminals like Munna Chaudhary and Meena Punjabi terrorized Calcutta with unspeakable crimes. Police records tell of hacked and naked bodies of Hindu girls hanging in slaughterhouses. Against this carnage rose Gopal Patha and his Bharat Jatiya Bahini, uniting Hindus across castes and regions, arming themselves with whatever they could findknives, spears, pistols, acid bombs. Their resistance was targeted: they fought back the very mobs that had butchered innocents, and they never touched Muslim women or children. By August 20, Suhrawardys dream of tearing Calcutta into Pakistans fold had collapsed. This is historyugly, raw, undeniable. And yet, Agnihotris so-called film trashes it. Instead of portraying Gopal as the man who saved countless Hindus and defended his city, he twists him into a caricaturea hate-spewing villainfor cheap applause and electoral mileage. Lets call it what it is: The Bengal Files is a disgrace. It reduces suffering into a circus, exploits grief for profit, and poisons public discourse. Art is meant to confront, to illuminate, to humanise. This is the opposite: cowardly, manipulative, toxic storytelling that tears apart the very fabric of society. India does not need more of this garbage. It needs truth, courage, and integrityvalues Gopal Patha lived and died for. Agnihotri, on the other hand, has chosen distortion, division, and disgrace. Shame on those who dignify this poison by calling it cinema. Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested Over State Fund Misuse 2 Sri Lankas former President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday over allegations of misusing state funds, according to police sources. The 76-year-old leader is accused of using public money to fund a trip to England in September 2023, where he reportedly attended a convocation ceremony of his wife, Maithree. Authorities stated that prior to his arrest, Wickremesinghes staff had been questioned regarding the travel expenses linked to the trip. The case has triggered widespread attention, marking a significant moment in Sri Lankas political landscape, as questions over accountability and misuse of power dominate public discourse. Satish Golcha Appointed as Delhis 26th Police Commissioner, Succeeds SBK Singh 2 Senior IPS officer Satish Golcha officially assumed charge as the 26th Commissioner of Delhi Police on Friday, replacing SBK Singh, who served for just 21 days. Golcha, a 1992-batch officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre, took over the post at Delhi Police Headquarters. The Ministry of Home Affairs issued the appointment order on Thursday, a day after Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was attacked during a public hearing at her Civil Lines office. Officials clarified that the change in leadership was not connected to the incident. Golcha, who will serve until April 2027, is widely regarded for his no-nonsense approach and earned recognition for his crucial role as Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots. His predecessor, SBK Singh, a 1988-batch officer, reportedly had the shortest tenure as Delhi Police chief, taking charge on August 1 after the retirement of Sanjay Arora. Supreme Court Stays Order on Stray Dog Relocation, Allows Return After Sterilisation 2 The Supreme Court on Friday stayed its earlier directive to permanently relocate stray dogs to shelters in Delhi-NCR, allowing their return after sterilisation and vaccination. However, dogs infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour will not be released back on the streets. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and NV Anjaria issued the interim order amid growing debate on stray dog management across India. The Court also introduced several corrective measures to ensure better implementation of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been directed to designate feeding zones in every municipal ward. Feeding stray dogs outside these areas will invite legal action. The Court also asked MCD to set up a helpline for reporting violations and clarified that obstructing public servants on duty will attract liability. Animal lovers and NGOs violating these directions will face a fine of 25,000. Those wishing to adopt stray dogs must apply to the MCD. The Court extended the scope of its order nationwide, issuing notices to Animal Husbandry Departments and Secretaries of all States and Union Territories to ensure compliance with ABC Rules. It also directed the Registry to gather details of similar cases pending in High Courts, which will now be transferred to the Supreme Court. The case originated from an August 11 directive by a different bench that took suo motu cognisance of a news report titled City hounded by strays and kids pay price, ordering relocation of stray dogs to shelters with a capacity of 5,000 animals. August 22, 2025: The June 13 Israeli airstrikes on Iran were followed by seven American B-2 stealth bombers using fourteen 13-ton ground-penetrating bombs to destroy the well-protected Iranian nuclear weapons facilities at Fordo, but not at Natanz or Isfahan. This caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear weapons program, delaying the completion of a nuclear weapon by approximately six months. However, this assumes no further attacks by the Americans or Israelis, which are likely to occur. The destruction of the Fordo program was a relief to Israel and the United States. Iran had long planned to destroy Israel with one or two nuclear weapons. This program has been delayed several times by Israeli or American airstrikes, a policy that will apparently continue as long as necessary. The United States will also continue to develop heavy bombers, a type of aircraft it has been building and using since the 1930s. First came the 19-ton B-17, developed during the 1930s and entering service in 1938. By the end of World War II in 1945, nearly 13,000 of these aircraft had been built. During the war, B-17s dropped 43 percent of the 1.5 million tons of bombs used against German military and economic targets. B-17s continued to fly, largely in non-military roles, into the 1950s. As of 2025, four are still flying, and dozens more remain intact but grounded. Serving on a B-17 crew was dangerous, with casualty rates higher than those in the infantry. A less successful heavy bomber was the B-24. Some 18,000 were built due to their longer range and heavier bomb load, proving invaluable in the war against German submarines in the Atlantic and as a long-range patrol, bomber, and transport aircraft in the Pacific. The last active B-24, used by the Indian Air Force, was retired in 1968. The most expensive bomber of World War II was the 60-ton B-29. Two of these dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, the only aircraft to do so thus far. Development and production of 3,900 aircraft cost about $3 billion, equivalent to $53 billion in 2025 dollars. An updated version, the 78-ton B-50, saw 370 units enter service in 1948 and was retired in 1965, with many serving in non-combat roles. In 1946, the 185-ton B-36 entered service. Powered by six propellers and four jet engines, only 385 were built, serving as the primary U.S. heavy bomber until 1959. In 1951, the 100-ton B-47 entered service. While 2,042 were built, the last was retired in 1977. In 1952, the first of 742 221-ton B-52s entered service and is expected to remain in use until 2050 or later. A highly effective and adaptable design, 76 are currently in service. In 1960, the less successful 80-ton B-58 entered service. Only 116 were built, and it was retired in 1970 after just ten years due to reliability problems, with 21 percent lost to accidents. In 1997, the first 170-ton B-2 entered service. This was the first stealth heavy bomber, costing $2 billion each. Maintenance and operation were also very expensive, and Congress would not fund the 132 aircraft the Air Force requested. Only 21 were built, with 19 still operational in 2025. In the 2030s, the B-2s will gradually be replaced by the B-21. The 81-ton B-21 is still in development, with three of the planned 100 aircraft completed. The first flight was in November 2023. This is a much-improved B-2, designed to rapidly reach targets worldwide on short notice. The recent B-2 strikes in Iran demonstrated this capability. B-21s will cost at least $800 million each, likely exceeding $1 billion over their 30 or more years of service. It is hoped that the B-21 will eventually replace both the B-2 and B-52 by 2050. Australia plans to acquire some B-21s and provide basing and maintenance capabilities for American B-21s. International Paper is pumping $250 million into its Riverdale mill in Selma. The Memphis-based company announced the move as part of several sweeping changes to its operations. According to the company, it will use the money to convert the plants No. 16 machine to produce containerboard, which is also known as corrugated board. The mill is Dallas Countys largest employer, with more than 750 workers, according to the Selma & Dallas County Economic Development Authority. Tom Hamic, executive vice president and president of International Papers North America Packaging Solutions, said the move will position the company for long-term success. Our investment in the Riverdale mill reflects our commitment to delivering high-quality, reliable service while strengthening our advantaged cost position, Hamic said. The Riverdale conversion is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2026. Back in 2018, International Paper announced a $552.7 million investment there to boost productivity, only a few months after it planned a $300 million conversion of the mills No. 15 paper machine. In the same announcement yesterday, the company also announced the permanent closure of its mills in Savannah and Riceboro, Ga. The closures will impact about 1,100 hourly and salaried positions. The Riceboro and Savannah mills will shut down in phases by the end of September. International Paper also announced it will sell its global cellulose fibers business to American Industrial Partners (AIP) for $1.5 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Lipscomb police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred Thursday morning. According to a release from Jefferson County Coroner Bill Yates, a 29-year-old woman was shot and killed during a reported domestic assault that occurred just before 10:30 a.m. on 5th Street North at 6th Avenue North in Lipscomb. Lipscomb Police Chief Jatavius Merritt told AL.com Friday that Alfred Lee Colvin III, 32, from Bessemer, has been arrested and charged with Capital Murder in connection with the shooting. Merritt identified the woman killed as Center Point resident Angelicca Newton, who was pregnant at the time of her death. The case remains an active investigation. Sonny Brasfield, executive director with the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, speaks during the ACCA's annual summer meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, at the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, Ala. John Sharp Alabamas county commissions issued a call to action at their summer conference in Orange Beach: protect the states internet sales tax system. It was also a bit of a warning shot to the mayors of Alabamas largest cities. The leadership umbrella for the states 67 counties said that if the 8-year-old Simplified Sellers Use Tax (SSUT) is tinkered with, the alternative could be disastrous. They point to the estimated $850 million in annual revenues the SSUT brings in each year to support the state, city and county governments. This amount continues to grow each year as more shoppers migrate to online purchasing. I want to go out as soldiers and talk to the leaders in your community and make them understand that we cannot dismantle this program, said Sonny Brasfield, executive director with the Association of County Commissions of Alabama (ACCA), during a presentation Wednesday. The annual ACCA gathering drew an estimated 750 county officials to the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach. Dismantling it is an absolute guarantee of disaster, Brasfield said. There is no question about that. Dismantling this program is not an option for this state. Lawsuit looms Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox talks with constituents before a city council meeting in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Will McLelland | preps@al.com) Will McLelland His comments come after the City of Tuscaloosa, the Tuscaloosa City School District and the City of Mountain Brook filed a lawsuit on Aug. 12, claiming the SSUT program is unconstitutional, should be scrapped and replaced with a system that does not short-change the states largest cities with substantial revenue losses each year. Under SSUT, adopted in 2015, a flat 8% tax is applied to online sales. It differs from Alabamas conventional sales tax rate on in-store purchases at brick-and-mortar stores, which varies by municipality and county. Tuscaloosa, for instance, taxes in-store purchases at 10%. The distribution formulas are also different, which Tuscaloosa and other mayors in larger cities say is unfair because they claim a majority of online sales are conducted in bigger communities. Under SSUT, half of the amount 4% -- goes to the state with the remaining 4% going to cities and counties. Of that, 1.6% goes to the counties while 2.4% goes to municipalities in a formula that is also prorated based on Census population. The conventional sales tax sends 4% to the state. In Tuscaloosa, 3% goes to the county, which is then divided up to various county and city schools. The balance, or 3%, goes to the City of Tuscaloosa. The city claims it is projected to lose $14.6 million in local tax revenues through a calculation that takes the difference between the portion of the SSUT that is distributed to the city versus the approximate amount of revenue Tuscaloosa would get if the internet sale was taxed at a conventional sales tax rate. The Tuscaloosa lawsuit names Vernon Barnett, the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Revenue (ADOR), as the defendant. His agency is charged with administering the SSUT program, and he is urging county leaders to close ranks and protect this funding source. The biggest concern is that if the SSUT is undone through the judicial system, an alternative program could be implemented that includes taxing internet sales through conventional sales taxes applied by hundreds of jurisdictions throughout Alabama. We are the most complicated state in the country where sales tax collection and enforcement is concerned, Brasfield said. The 67 counties cannot survive this (if SSUT is removed). Most of the cities cannot survive it. Model program Vernon Barnett, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Revenue, speaks during the Association of County Commissions of Alabama's annual summer meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, at the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, Ala. John Sharp Barnett was one of the speakers during the ACCA conference. Also joining the conference was Maine-based attorney Martin Eisenstein, who was a legal counsel in the landmark South Dakota v. Wayfair decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018. The decision enabled states to tax remote sellers on internet purchases and bolstered the ability of state and local governments to collect taxes from online sales. Eisenstein called the SSUT program a model for taxing internet sales. He also said any potential tinkering of the program could lead to future legal problems, as what has been experienced in Louisiana and Colorado. In Louisiana, specifically, Eisenstein said the states approach has prevented municipal and county governments from receiving anything from internet sales taxes. While Alabama has collected $4.2 billion, other states are struggling to collect revenues including Louisiana, Illinois, Colorado, and elsewhere, he said. The SSUT program, since it collected $4.3 million in fiscal year 2016, has brought in a total of $4.2 billion in new revenues. Its a trophy piece for model legislation, Eisenstein said, emphasizing that the tax is simple for retailers to use and does not place an undue burden toward remitting taxes to multiple government jurisdictions like a conventional sales tax would do. The SSUT program is voluntary, meaning internet retailers are not required to sign up. The threshold for SSUT participation in Alabama requires a company to conduct $250,000 in sales within the state per year. Said Barnett, I really do believe its brilliantly designed for it to be very simple and very easy. Thats why we have so many internet sellers signing up to participate in the SSUT. Its been a remarkable success. Transparency, change Tuscaloosa officials, however, are frustrated over what they say is a lack of transparency and ability to audit the SSUT program to determine how actual sales are being delivered to taxing jurisdictions. Barnett, during his remarks at the ACCA conference, said his agency does not release tax information on individuals or big corporation. He said the agencys stance is for strict confidentiality, adding that its no ones business to know what I paid and had shipped to a house. There is a lot of talk of the data we collect and that we house in Alabama, Barnett said. We do not have destination sales in Alabama. We at the department do not collect that data. We do not ask for data that is not relevant to tax enforcement. Maddox, in a statement, said he has been frustrated with a lack of information his city would like to have to better understand how SSUT affects them. For over eight years, all we have asked for is transparency and the right to keep what is generated by our local businesses in our respective communities, he said. We have asked for data and transparency. We have sought, offered and worked toward solutions with all parties, but to no avail. Regrettably, for schools, police and fire departments and small business owners, it appears all the opposition has to offer is fear. Tuscaloosa is concerned that ADOR is exceeding its legal authority in deeming qualified entities as participants in the SSUT. The lawsuit cites companies like Amazon, Walmart, and grocery stores like Kroger as example of entities that are qualified to tax at the flat 8% SSUT rate, when they already have a physical presence in the state and should be taxed at the conventional sales tax rates. Barnett said that ADOR has a robust auditing system and he believes that every company that should be participating in the SSUT program is currently doing so. Shipt Tower in Birmingham is 454 feet and 34 floors high. Birmingham News The Tuscaloosa lawsuit also cites DoorDash, UberEats, Birmingham-based Shipt and other food delivery operators who also pay the lower SSUT tax. Tuscaloosa and other cities claim these companies have a physical presence in the cities they operate, including employees, trucks and stores where products are picked up and delivered. As such, they argue the companies should pay conventional sales taxes to the state and local governments. Efforts to change the SSUT law in Alabama have not gone far in the Legislature. Two years ago, a proposal that would have increased the tax rate to 9/5%, and funnel more money to the larger cities, died. Brasfield said he doesnt anticipate any new legislation advancing next spring. Barnett said the program can be tweaked, but urged caution before making major changes to it. The principles and foundations and structures of it, we do know it is constitutional, he said. We know it works, and we do not want to mess with that. If we do, well wind up in a similar situation as our friends in Louisiana which means nothing will get distributed. None of us wants that. It would crush the General Fund, and crush most of the cities and damage the counties as well, tremendously. The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed the order of a lower court that ruled against a lawyers claim that another lawyer caused him to get fired by sending a doctored social media post about George Floyd to his bosses. Five of the nine justices concurred with the opinion to send the case back to Jefferson County Circuit Court for further consideration. The justices did not take sides on whether lawyer Daniel Flickingers claim of tortious interference with a business relationship against lawyer Lawrence Tracy King was correct. But the majority opinion by Associate Justice Chris McCool said Flickinger presented questions of fact that should be decided by a jury, not by the summary judgment issued by the circuit court in the defendants favor. Four other justices concurred with McCools opinion, which upheld other parts of the circuit courts ruling, including the dismissal of Flickingers claims against Kings law firm. The case concerns a post Flickinger made on his personal Facebook page about George Floyd in June 2020 after Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis: Things I think about: If I were a seven-time felon, with my most recent prison stint stemming from robbing and holding a pregnant woman at gunpoint in her home, would I choose to die in a fentanyl and methamphetamine numbed strangulation if it meant being worshipped in a nationwide funeral and my family receiving millions of dollars? Purely hypothetical. Floyd, who was Black, died in May 2020 while being arrested by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer. Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyds neck for up to 9 1/2 minutes as Floyd gasped that he couldnt breathe. Floyds death received national media coverage and sparked riots and protests across the country, including several Alabama cities. Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd and was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. King, who heads his own law firm, sent partners with Flickingers firm, Wainwright, Pope & McMeekin, a text message with an image of Flickingers post about Floyd. The court said it was not in dispute that Flickinger had made the post. But the screenshot of the post that King sent to Flickingers law firm was a counterfeit social media profile that used Flickingers professional credentials and a photo from the firms website that Flickinger did not use in the post. The circuit court, in ruling against Flickingers claims, noted affidavits from the three partners at Flickingers law firm that their decision to fire Flickinger was based on their own review of his social media posts and not the text message or any suggestion from King. But Fridays Supreme Court opinion noted that the Flickingers bosses reviewed his social media posts only after King sent them the text message. They asked him to resign the next day. He had worked for the firm for 11 years. The justices said the court should present the case to a jury to decide whether Kings text message amounted to tortious interference and caused the firing of Flickinger. King argued that his text message was justified because it was true Flickinger had made the social media post. But the justices said because the screenshot was an altered version of Flickingers post, tying it to Flickingers law firm, it would be up to a jury to decide if Kings text message was truthful and justified. Flickinger sent a statement about Fridays ruling to AL.com. I do not wish to discuss the specific details of ongoing litigation, but I think the Alabama Supreme Courts ruling is important in todays polarized political climate, because it encourages free and open debate among private citizens about controversial issues of public importance. There is now a remedy available to individuals whose entirely personal and fact-based opinions about issues of public importance that may run counter to mainstream media narratives when those personal opinions are misleadingly and unnecessarily linked to that individuals unrelated employment. After todays opinion, if you disagree with anothers personal opinion about something, perhaps you will be encouraged to have a discussion with that person directly about that issue rather than distributing misleading images to that persons employer behind their back that unduly malign their character and falsely suggest that they are discussing personal opinions under the color of their unrelated employment. Efforts to reach King for comment were not immediately successful. Concurring with McCools opinion on Friday were Chief Justice Sarah Stewart and associate justices Kelli Wise, Will Sellers, and Bill Lewis. The new Cracker Barrel logo is seen on a menu inside the restaurant on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The restaurant unveiled a new logo earlier this week as part of a larger brand refresh. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/TNS) TNS The slide in Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc.s shares deepened on Thursday as a conservative backlash to the restaurant chains logo change intensified across social media. Shares of the Southern-inspired casual dining operator, known for its homestyle cooking, fell as much as 15% as negative posts, including one from Donald Trump Jr. after the market close the prior session, flooded X. The notable drop follows Cracker Barrels announcement Tuesday that it would be removing the image of an old man leaning against a barrel from its logo, leaving just the words Cracker Barrel. The stock pared losses to end the session down 7.2% the fifth consecutive day of declines. The protest is reminiscent of ones experienced by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV and Target Corp. in 2023. A collaboration between Anheuser-Buschs Bud Light brand and TikTok/Instagram transgender activist, and social influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, sent shares 20% lower in the first two months after the campaign. The social media revolt hurt sales of the beer for several months. Target, similarly faced pushback on its LGBTQ-themed merchandise and took a revenue hit. In the case of Cracker Barrel, conservative critics saw the decision to remove the man, long known as Uncle Herschel, as an attempt by corporate executives to strip the chain of its history and character. That the CEO is a woman, Julie Felss Masino, only further fanned the outrage in some circles. The decision around the logo has been met with some resistance in a company that has a target audience that doesnt take change well, said David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors LLC. It took more than a year for shares of Anheuser-Busch to fully recover from the reaction to the Mulvaney partnership, which the beer maker backed away from after its launch. Target also pulled some of its merchandise ahead of Pride Month in 2023 after the company said its employees safety was at risk due to some threatening customers. Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Michael Halen does not expect Lebanon, Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel to experience a prolonged, negative reaction. Worries that the misinformation on social media and concern that the posts will result in a situation similar to Bud Light are unfounded, according to his note. Furthermore, he expects fiscal fourth-quarter same-stores sales growth will possibly top the consensus estimate of 3.5%. Love or hate Cracker Barrels logo, sales may outperform, Halen says. Cracker Barrel will issue its results in mid-September. Analysts expect it to report its third straight year of annual declines in adjusted earnings per share, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Social media outrage This isnt the first time there was an uproar over a redesigned Cracker Barrel logo. In early 2021, a new logo sparked widespread debate on social media over whether it depicted a slaveholders whip. The company responded at the time on social media saying the logo does not depict and has never depicted a whip. Cracker Barrel said it rejects racism and discrimination in any form. This time around the removal of Uncle Herschel from the logo conjured criticism across the internet. This fifth evolution of the brands logo, which works across digital platforms as well as billboards and roadside signs, is a call-back to the original and rooted even more in the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all back in 1969, Cracker Barrel said in an emailed statement. Social media sentiment moving stocks has become more of a catalyst lately as it allows everyone to share opinions, according to Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, who says Cracker Barrel is an anti-meme stock. The social media outrage is clearly resonating with a big piece of its customer base, he added. Earlier this month, American Eagle Outfitters Inc. shares jumped the most since 2000 after President Donald Trump touted the companys ads featuring actress Sydney Sweeney as the HOTTEST ad out there. If Sydney Sweeney can get American Eagle Outfitters moving up because of a viral ad campaign, then why cant a conservative backlash do the opposite to Cracker Barrel? Sosnick said. ___ 2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Alabama Congressional Race State Rep. Rhett Marques (R-Enterprise) announced his candidacy for Alabamas 1st congressional district, immediately receiving maximum PAC support from U.S. Sen. Katie Britt. John Sharp reports that Marques will face former Rep. Jerry Carl and Army veteran Joshua McKee in the 2026 Republican primary for the seat currently held by Rep. Barry Moore, who is pursuing Tommy Tubervilles Senate seat. Environmental Monitoring Residents near Alabamas ABC Coke plant in Tarrant are fighting against Trump Administration efforts to delay EPA air pollution monitoring rules. A new report shows the plants benzene levels were four times higher than health thresholds, with multiple Clean Air Act violations and $529,800 in penalties over five years. The Environmental Integrity Project report found similar dangerous pollution levels at steel plants across six states, prompting a lawsuit to challenge the regulatory rollbacks. A coke plant heats coal at high temperatures to remove impurities and produces coke, used as fuel in the steelmaking process to reduce iron ore to iron. Alabama lawmaker stepping down Rep. Jim Hill, a former judge who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, wont seek reelection in 2026. The 75-year-old Republican cited physical demands and wanting to spend time with grandchildren as reasons for stepping down after three terms. Known for ensuring fair hearings and legal soundness above partisan politics, Hill has been described as an effective umpire and referee over contentious debates, reports Mike Cason. Hill plans to continue his law practice in St. Clair County. And he has one more year to serve as judiciary chairman. The Legislature will convene for its next regular session in January. Cracker Barrel rebrand Conservatives are criticizing Cracker Barrels new logo and restaurant redesign, with Donald Trump Jr. and several right-wing influencers calling the changes woke and generic. CEO Julie Masino defended the rebrand on Good Morning America, saying feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both customers and staff, reports AL.com. The revamped logo comes as Cracker Barrel is in the midst of remodeling its restaurants and stores, adding in booths and brighter lighting to its decor. More Alabama news The podcast A rainbow crosswalk was removed overnight outside of Pulse nightclub in Orlando, one of the most significant LGBTQ sites in Florida, as part of state and federal transportation officials aim to wipe political banners from public roadways. On left, the crosswalk is shown in 2017. On right, the crosswalk is pictured on Thursday, Aug. 21. 2025. (Orlando Sentinel file photo/Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel/TNS) TNS A rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was painted over by state officials in the early hours of Thursday, in a move criticized by Mayor Buddy Dyer as a cruel political act. In a statement shared on social media, the Democratic mayor said he was devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue. The crosswalk was installed in 2017 as part of a memorial honoring the victims of the June 2016 mass shooting, when a gunman opened fire during the LGBTQ clubs popular Latin-themed night, killing 49 people and injuring more than 50. This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nations largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety or discussion, is a cruel political act, Dyer said. According to the mayor, the crosswalk enhanced safety and visibility for visitors and also served as a visual reminder of Orlandos commitment to honor the 49 lives taken. Fellow Democrat Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando state senator, accused the Florida Department of Transportation of illegally vandalizing city property in the middle of the night without notifying the city or obtaining approval. I cannot believe that the DeSantis administration has engaged in this hostile act against the City of Orlando, Smith said in a video shared on social media, calling the move a disgusting act of betrayal. Smith, whos gay, said he hoped the City of Orlando would sue the state for vandalizing its property. They did this in the middle of the night because they were scared of resistance, knowing what they did was wrong, he said, referring to the ridiculously shortsighted and bigoted decision by the State of Florida and the DeSantis administration. _____ 2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Tarrant City Hall After months of campaigning and more than three years of political and personal infighting and even fist fighting the direction of city leadership in Tarrant is again up to the voters. Election day is Tuesday Aug. 26 for the city of 6,000 people just northeast of Birmingham. Three candidates are on the ballot for mayor: Jack Evans, incumbent Mayor Wayman Newton, Council member and Mayor pro-tem Tracie Threadford. In an early post announcing his candidacy, Evans expressed dismay at the status of his city. I am so sick of Tarrant being the laughing stock of Alabama, he wrote. Energy needed to curb the crime rate, bring in business investors and improve our schools is being spent on this foolishness. Evans, a lawyer, is also a former Marine. He describes his year in law including working for fair housing. Evans lives in the same house that his great grand parents bought in the 1930s. Evans said he would make it a priority to get along with the council in working for the city. Its not about me as a person. I would be representing the city for every resident, he told The Tarrant Tattler during a candidate forum in July. Its not a personal thing. When you make it a personal thing you get it wrong. Newton, who is seeking a second term, has highlighted problems with the city schools and what he said was the need for new leadership at the appointed board. Newton has blamed the council for failing to join him in seeking new leaders to elevate the troubled school system. As mayor, it breaks my heart that I cannot send my own children to Tarrant schools because of the way they have been run into the ground. Imagine that. The mayor of Tarrant cannot trust the schools in the city he leads, Newton wrote in a campaign Facebook post this week. I fought for new leadership, for people who would put students first. But time and again, the council chose the same names, the same failed leadership, and the same broken system. There are 14 candidates for the citys four council districts. With the exception of Threadford, who is running for mayor, each of the council incumbents is seeking another term. The election is a referendum on which direction the city will take after several years of animosity between Newton and the council that has divided both city hall and the residents. Council meetings often erupt in raised voices and insults from both city leaders and residents in the audience. Longtime residents have expressed their embarrassment and fear that the constant drama will damage their city. Newton has said he needs a council who will work with him. On the other side, each council member points at the mayor as the source of venom that has crippled progress in the city. Newton said he also will push for public safety. He remains a critic of police leadership, proposing to fire Chief Wendell Major at nearly every meeting. The council is united in support of the chief and blocks him. From the very beginning, I have pushed the council and the police chief to get serious about addressing the gangs and the drugs that are destroying families and driving good people out of our city, Newton wrote. These problems have been ignored for too long, and when I push to confront them, some try to say I am just picking fights or that I cannot work with people. Newton graduated earned a political science degree at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He returned to Birmingham to practice law and specializes in real estate. Threadford has said the city suffers from a lack of growth, a lack of unity, and lack of vision. As mayor, she promised to bring transparency to city hall, work to soothe political friction and improve quality of life issues such as neighborhood cleanliness. And while the city is known for its raucous politics, Threadford has said she wanted to avoid mudslinging in the campaign. Let me be clear: my campaign is not built on tearing others down, its built on lifting Tarrant up, Threadford wrote on her campaign social media page. I refuse to engage in negativity or smear tactics. Im here to focus on what truly matters: bringing real change, real leadership, and real progress to our city. For example, regarding schools, Threadford said she would champion additional after-school enrichment programs. She has also promised to launch a One Tarrant initiative to rebuild unity in the city. The initiative would include cultural events, town hall meetings through a new office of cultural development to to promote a Tarrant that values and embraces our cultural assets and is inclusive to all. Threadford holds a bachelors in business management and a masters in business administration. She is pursuing a doctorate with a concentration on organizational leadership. Council candidates are: District 1: Waynette Bonham-Adamou, Veronica Bandy-Freeman (incumbent), Charles Johnson District 2: Bruce Cooper, Clara Palmore, Rodkeisha Ragland District 3: Catherine Anderson (incumbent), Alicia Belcher, Valerie McClellan District 4: Troy Adams, Donald Little, Deborah Matthews (incumbent) District 5: John Tommy Bryant (incumbent), Allen Pilkington Choice Fabricators is announcing a $15 million expansion in Rainbow City. City of Rainbow City A precision stamping and fabrication facility in northeast Alabama has announced an expansion. Choice Fabricators is investing $15 million into its Rainbow City plant, adding 30 to 40 new employees. The money will pay for new equipment, including two 1,500-ton large-bed transfer stamping presses, enabling the plant to expand capacity and meet demand. The investment also includes advanced automation technology for faster production times. CEO David Chadwick called the move a transformative step forward. These new capabilities allow us to scale production to new heights and support complex, large-scale projects that our customers require, Chadwick said. This investment reinforces our commitment to exceptional quality and service, helping us remain a trusted partner in metal manufacturing for years to come. Chadwick thanked city leadership for their help in the project. Rainbow City Mayor Joe Taylor said supporting existing businesses is as crucial as welcoming new industries. By nurturing the roots already planted, we strengthen our foundation, ensuring that economic growth benefits everyone. When we invest in what we already have, alongside what we envision, our community thrives with resilience and shared success, Taylor said. Choice Fabricators, founded in 1979, now has more than 380,000 square feet at its present facility. Chinese embassy in DPRK marks 80th anniversary of China's victory against Japanese aggression Xinhua) 09:23, August 22, 2025 PYONGYANG, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday held a reception to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. Among the guests present at the event were Choe Ryong Hae, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, DPRK Culture Minister Sung Jong Gyu and other DPRK officials as well as foreign diplomats. Addressing the reception, Chinese Ambassador to the DPRK Wang Yajun said that the great victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression is for the Chinese people as well as for peace-loving people all over the world. "We commemorate the great victory to uphold a correct historical view of World War II, achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and build a brighter future for the cause of peace and justice for all humanity," Wang said. Back then, soldiers and civilians from both countries confronted the same enemy and ultimately thwarted the Japanese invasion, he said, adding that "now we commemorate the common great victory to carry forward this precious wartime friendship." China is willing to work with the DPRK to resolutely implement the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, develop the traditional friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries, advance stable and long-term development of the socialist cause of the two countries so as to benefit the two peoples and promote peace and stability at regional and global levels, Wang said. It is the unwavering position of the DPRK to pass down and deepen the friendship with China from one generation to the next, Sung said. The DPRK is willing to work with China, following the lofty will of the top leaders of the two parties and countries, to carry forward blood-forged friendship and tradition of friendly unity between the two countries, and to continuously deepen bilateral relations, he said. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) August 22, 2025: Since June 23 there has been a truce in the Red Sea. Houthi rebels are no longer firing rockets and missiles at passing ships. A practical reason for this is that most of the Houthi weapons have been destroyed and the Yemeni army is now active again against the Houthis. The army seized a large shipment of Iranian weapons meant for the Houthis. How long this truce will last is unclear. Iran was recently devastated by American and Israeli air strikes. Israeli and American air strikes continue to threaten any hostile activity in Yemen. The Houthis are still there, but currently have few weapons and are reluctant to start shooting again and risk more retribution. Eighty percent of global trade moves via ships in a vast network of seagoing trade routes. China and the United States account for 43 percent of that trade, with China accounting for 17 percent and the Americans the rest. Anything that threatens this trade is a major problem and both America and China deal with the problem in their own ways. While the United States and its Western allies use warships and airstrikes against those who try to disrupt maritime trade, China prefers to bribe those who are attacking shipping to not attack Chinese ships. When this Chinese immunity is noticed, China dismisses the accusations and claims its ship captains are simply more capable at avoiding attacks. This is obviously not the case and there the dispute ends in a muddle of mutual accusations. The current attacks are not destructive or widespread enough to do any serious damage to world trade. Iran-backed Yemen Houthi rebels had been firing Iran-supplied rockets and missiles at ships passing the Yemen coast headed for the Suez Canal starting after Israel invaded the Gaza Strip to stop Hamas from firing rockets at Israel. Many if not most of the ships that normally use the Suez Canal now prefer to take the long way around to reach the Mediterranean Sea. This can cost over a million dollars per ship while adding several weeks to the trip. This did not turn out to be as much of a disaster as expected. There was a surplus of cargo and tanker ships and the additional time needed by existing ships to reach their destination made it practical to put those surplus ships t Other potential choke points include the Strait of Malacca, the Taiwan Straits, Strait of Gibraltar, Bass Strait, Strait of Hormuz, Singapore Strait, Bering Strait, Lombok Strait, Bab-El-Mandeb Strait, and Bosporus Strait. While the Red Sea crisis was dealt with, a more ominous threat to global shipping is war involving various nations' submarines. This might mean a non-nuclear world war. Anti-submarine escorts are not available in large numbers and shipping companies, like their counterparts early during both world wars, would downplay the value of convoys and insist that they could avoid the submarines using new technology and tactics. When that doesnt work the convoys are used and Anti-Submarine Warfare or ASW is allowed to evolve and come effective enough to reduce losses to a sustainable level. Protecting sea transportation is a vital task for shipping companies and shipping insurance companies as most of the world's nations depend on this trade. Shipping companies complain that not enough work is being done by navies to protect shipping in wartime. How accurate that is will only be revealed if there is another submarine offensive against maritime trade. The federalization of Washington, D.C.s police force is such a smashing success that the model should be taken to other Democratic-run craphole cities, according to Donald Trump Jr. The presidents eldest son said candid interviews of people on the streets of D.C. show that residents now feel safe despite all the uproar you saw from the Democrats and the media. Trump Jr. suggested expanding the federalization, which could include activating the National Guard, in other Democratic-run cities. Maybe we should roll out the tour to Seattle, Portland, the other what we call craphole cities of the country, Trump Jr. said. Not because theyre crapholes, but because Democrats made them so ... Maybe we can expand this. Nearly 2,000 National Guard members have been stationed in D.C, with the arrival this week of hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states. Trump initially called up 800 members of the District of Columbia National Guard to assist federal law enforcement in his bid to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration. Since then, six states have sent troops to the city, growing the military presence. It was unclear if the guards role in the federal intervention could be changing. The troops have not taken part in law enforcement and largely have been protecting landmarks including the National Mall and Union Station and helping with crowd control. Trump has boasted that the city is safer than ever because of his intervention. He told reporters Friday that its a miracle whats happened. D.C. was a hell hole, he said. But now its safe. He suggested that he could prolong the deployment of troops and federal agents in Washington. The big question is how long do we stay? he said. Because if we stay, we want to make sure it doesnt come back. So we have to take care of these criminals and get them out. The Associated Press contributed to this report. An Alabama state lawmaker from the Wiregrass, state Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, announced his candidacy for the 1st congressional district on Thursday. His campaign received an immediate boost from Republican U.S. Sen. Katie Britt. Marques was the recipient of a $10,000 campaign contribution from Britts Alabama First political action committee. The amount represents the maximum amount a PAC can contribute to a political campaign during an election. Rhett is a great friend and a strong conservative fighter who has always had my back and President Trumps. Having been born and raised in Baldwin County and then having raised his own family in the Wiregrass, Rhett is uniquely positioned to champion the priorities and values of https://t.co/9jox3aZuXS Katie Britt (@KatieBrittforAL) August 21, 2025 Rhett is a great friend and a strong conservative fighter who has always had my back and President Trumps, Britt wrote on X, announcing the support for Marques. Having been born and raised in Baldwin County and then having raised his own family in the Wiregrass, Rhett is uniquely positioned to champion the priorities and values of this incredible district, she said. I am excited about the fresh leadership Rhett is bringing to the table and congratulate him on launching his campaign for Congress. I have no doubt that the First Congressional District will thrive with Rhett at the helm. I am honored to have Senator Katie Britts support. I look forward to working with her in Washington, D.C., to pass President Trumps agenda, Marques said in a statement to AL.com. Marques, first elected to the Alabama legislature in 2018, was re-elected in 2022 with more than 65% support in the GOP primary. The seat is currently held by Rep. Barry Moore, who has announced he plans to run for Tommy Tubervilles U.S. Senate seat as Tuberville runs for governor. Marques announcement comes on the same week that former U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl of Mobile announced his intentions to run for the 1st congressional district again. Carl made his announcement in Foley on Monday flanked by a host of Baldwin County elected officials. Carl lost to Moore in 2024 after redistricting pitted the two Republicans against each other. Also running in the Republican primary is Robertsdale resident Joshua McKee, a Bronze Star recipient and a 25-year Army Specials Forces veteran who is also a brain cancer survivor. The primary is May 19, 2026. A federal judge ruled Friday that Alabama must redraw its state Senate map to add a district in Montgomery that is majority Black or close to majority Black. U.S. District Judge Anna M. Manasco, a President Trump appointee, ruled that the Montgomery section of the map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because Black voters have less opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice than other voters. In a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alabama, the Legal Defense Fund, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Manasco blocked the state from conducting a state Senate election using the current map. The plaintiffs also claimed that the Huntsville portion of the map violated the Voting Rights Act, but Manasco ruled that it did not. The Montgomery districts are currently District 25, represented by Sen. Will Barfoot, a white Republican, and District 26, represented by Sen. Kirk Hatcher, a Black Democrat. The plaintiffs claimed that the district map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, in part by unnecessarily packing black voters into District 26. Manasco found that the plaintiffs established every element of a Section 2 violation in the Montgomery area. Fridays decision comes two weeks after a federal court ruled Alabama must continue to use a court-drawn Congressional district map until 2030. All 140 seats in the Legislature, including the 35 Senate seats, are on the ballot next year. Alabamas primary is scheduled for May 19. Manascos ruling came after an eight-day trial with 20 witnesses and arguments from 48 lawyers, the judge wrote. Manasco wrote that the Legislature would have an opportunity to draw a new Senate district map to fix the problem, just as it did in the lawsuit over Alabamas congressional districts. As the Legislature considers such plans, it should be mindful of the practical reality, based on the ample evidence of intensely racially polarized voting adduced during the trial, that any remedial plan will need to include an additional district in the Montgomery area in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it, wrote Manasco, who was also on the three-judge panel that for the Congressional district case. In that case, the Legislature drew a second map, but it did not follow the courts guidance on adding a second district that was majority Black or close to it. The court eventually approved its own map drawn by a court-appointed special master in October 2023. That led to the election of Shomari Figures of Mobile as the second Democrat and second Black member of Alabamas seven-member U.S. House delegation. The Legislature is scheduled to meet in its next regular session starting Jan. 13. Gov. Kay Ivey could also call a special session. Asked about that possibility, Gina Maiola, communications director for the governor, said, We are reviewing the opinion released today and will consult with necessary parties. Alabama has had eight majority Black districts out of 35 total districts since the 1990 census cycle, Manasco wrote. This decision proves that when we challenge injustice, we can make progress, said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP. Alabama must now draw fairer districts in Montgomery, but lets be clearleaving Huntsville untouched still denies many Black Alabamians their rightful representation. Deuel Ross, Director of Litigation at the Legal Defense Fund, said, Todays decision is a hard-fought victory for Black voters in Montgomery who deserve fair representation in the Alabama Senate. The courts decision recognizes that, even today, the State continues its terrible history of discriminating against Black voters. While we welcome this win, leaving the Huntsville district in place illustrates that voters must continue to fight for their voices to be heard. Secretary of State Wes Allen, named as the defendant in the case, issued a brief statement. I cant comment on ongoing litigation in which I am a named defendant. My Office is still reviewing the opinion at this time. We will continue to monitor the case closely, Allen said. Manasco ordered the state and the plaintiffs to file proposals for moving the case forward by next Wednesday. The judge scheduled a status conference for next Thursday at the federal courthouse in Birmingham to facilitate timely remedial proceedings. President Donald Trump speaks at the Kennedy Center, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) AP President Trump said hes planning to ride along Thursday night with troops patrolling Washington, D.C. as part of his federal crackdown. Im going to be going out tonight I think with the police and with the military, Trump told conservative commentator Todd Starnes. So were going to do a job. The National Guard is great. Theyve done a fantastic job. Trump gave no additional details of which law enforcement or military units he might join or when and where. Trumps move to personally join the controversial crackdown, which has lasted for two weeks, would amount to a new escalation in the show of force from the White House. Hundreds of federal agents and National Guard soldiers have surged into the streets of the nations capital this month, leaving some residents on edge and creating tense confrontations in the streets. Although the city has historically struggled with high crime, crime rates were sharply declining before Trump declared a putative emergency that required urgent federal intervention. Troops and agents from an alphabet soup of different agencies have set up checkpoints on busy city arteries, injecting their authority into daily life. Immigration enforcement has been a core part of the crackdown, rattling immigrants and Latino American citizens in many of the citys diverse neighborhoods. Since Aug. 7, when Trump began surging federal agents into the city, there have been 630 arrests, including 251 people who are in the country illegally, according to the White House. Trump has been ratcheting up the pressure since then, claiming control of the D.C. police department on Aug. 11 and deploying more National Guard troops from Republican-led states. Soldiers have been largely stationed in downtown areas, such as monuments on the National Mall and transit stations. But federal agents have started to operate more widely through the city, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser acknowledged Thursday. The surge of federal officers is allowing for different types of deployments, more frequent types of deployments, like checkpoints, Bowser said. Democrats have denounced the federal crackdown as a political stunt. The law that permits the feds to exercise wide authority over law enforcement in Washington, D.C. says the crackdown can only last for 30 days unless Congress approves an extension. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has said Democrats will block any effort to extend Trumps emergency. 2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The Toronto Blue Jays play against the Miami Marlins in an MLB game tonight. The matchup is scheduled to begin at 6:10 p.m. CT on MLB Network/MLB.TV. Fans can watch this game for free online by using the free trial offered by DirecTV. Alternatively, fans can take advantage of the first-month discount offered by Fubo TV. The Blue Jays enter this matchup with an impressive 74-54 record, but they have lost three of their last four games. In their most recent game, the Blue Jays lost 2-1 against Pittsburgh. In order to bounce back tonight, the Blue Jays will need a great performance from their star player Bo Bichette. He currently leads the Toronto offense with 82 RBI, so he will look to continue his offensive success this evening. The Marlins enter this matchup with a 60-67 record, and they have lost two of their last three games. In order to win tonights game, the Marlins will need to rely on their star player Kyle Stowers. He leads the Miami offense with 25 home runs and 73 RBI this season, which highlights his power at the plate. Fans can watch this MLB game for free online by using the free trial offered by DirecTV. Alternatively, fans can take advantage of the first-month discount offered by Fubo TV. WWE Friday Night SmackDown is overseas this week, as the worlds biggest wrestling stars are in Dublin, Ireland. This will be Dublins final time to see John Cena live, as his farewell tour continues. Its worthy to note that Cena will be taking on Logan Paul at the Clash in Paris soon. Itll be interesting to see if Paul crashes Cenas party tonight. Some other notable matchups set to happen tonight are Aleister Black vs Ron Killings and then Charlotte Flair looking for revenge against Chelsea Green after how last week went down. Fans looking to watch SmackDown this week can do so for free using a free trial offered by DIRECTV. Also, Sling offers a solid first-month discount to new users. The Motor City Machine Guns are set to take on Melo Dont Miz in a tag-team match. The Street Profits and the MFTs will also compete against each other tonight. Fans looking to watch SmackDown this week can do so for free using a free trial offered by DIRECTV. Also, Sling offers a solid first-month discount to new users. SmackDown will take place on Friday at 8 p.m. ET. Hurricane Erin continued to move away from the United States on Friday but there were two other disturbances that could become named storms to keep an eye on. National Hurricane Center Hurricane Erin continued to track away from the United States on Friday, and attention is turning to two other potential storms in the Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricane Center thinks both of the systems could become tropical depressions soon. And one seems to be on a path that those in the Caribbean will need to watch. But first theres Erin. Hurricane Erin was in the process of transitioning from a tropical system to a non-tropical one on Friday, according to the hurricane center. But it was still a large and powerful storm. Hurricane Erin was expected to lose its tropical features today and become a strong extratropical system as it moves out to sea. NHC All watches and warnings have been dropped for land areas, including Bermuda, so updates on Erin will not be as frequent. As of 10 a.m. CDT Friday, the center of Hurricane Erin was located about 460 miles north-northeast of Bermuda, and the storm was tracking to the east-northeast at 2 mph. Erin had sustained winds of 90 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane. The hurricane center said Erin will likely transition to a post-tropical storm by tonight but remain a powerful hurricane-force low pressure system through the weekend. Forecasters added that wind gusts to tropical-storm force will be possible in extreme southeastern Massachusetts this morning. Waves from Erin will continue to affect the Bahamas, Bermuda, the east coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada over the next several days -- which means those along the East Coast will have to continue to be very wary of rip currents. Some coastal flooding will continue to be possible along the mid-Atlantic coast through tonight, the hurricane center said. OTHER AREAS TO WATCH The hurricane center was also monitoring two tropical waves that could become tropical depressions soon. And both could move close to the Caribbean. The first area was near the Leeward Islands on Friday (shown in red in the map at the top of this post). The hurricane center said it will very likely become a tropical depression or tropical storm this weekend. It is expected track to the northwest and then northward. If it holds to that path it will move between the Leeward Islands and Bermuda. It will not threaten the United States. The second area to watch is farther south and east, about halfway between the Windward Islands and Africa. The hurricane center said theres a chance a short-lived tropical depression could form over the next day or so. It could then run into a less favorable environment over the weekend, but by early next week conditions for development could improve as it nears the Lesser Antilles. It has a 50 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next week. The hurricane center also highlighted a third area in the central Atlantic, but it had virtually no chance of becoming a depression as of Friday. English News Horgos in Xinjiang brings border crossing into daily life Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 21 Aout 2025 In Horgos, from the border cooperation center to vocational training and international medical services, the "one-sec border passing" has become more than just a convenience. It is weaving deeper emotional bonds, closer friendships, and a shared sense of community across the ChinaKazakhstan border. By Huan Xiang, Han Liqun, Hu Renba, People's Daily Horgos, located in the Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, lies directly on the border with Kazakhstan. Once a vital stop along the northern route of the ancient Silk Road, it has become an important gateway for China's opening up to the west. In 2012, the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center, comprising adjoining border areas on both sides of the boundary, was officially put into operation. It is China's first cross-border economic cooperation zone established with another country. Leveraging its strategic location and preferential policies, the center has accelerated trade, cultural exchanges, and people-to-people connectivity between China and Kazakhstan. At around 10 a.m., 67-year-old Horgos resident Li Guoliang, accompanied by his wife and granddaughter, joined the steady flow of people moving through the checkpoint. "We're going over to buy some daily necessities," he explained. Their destination was the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center, where both sides are physically linked while retaining separate entry and exit systems. Citizens of both countries, and travelers from elsewhere, can enter visa-free with a passport or border pass. Having lived in Horgos his entire life, Li often visits the center. "Going abroad is like visiting relatives - it's that convenient," he said. A walk of just 15 minutes inside the center leads to a China-Kazakhstan connecting corridor, where visitors can cross directly into Kazakhstan. Many tourists have dubbed it the "one-sec\ passage." Today, the center is home to more than 5,000 shops and about 1,200 businesses, selling over 1,000 types of goods from more than 40 countries, from Kazakh honey and Kyrgyz wool blankets to Uzbek dried fruits. It has grown into the largest cross-border tourism and shopping hub in northwest China. Chinese-made appliances, furniture, and clothing are shipped from here to Central Asia, West Asia, Europe, and beyond. This year alone, the center has already recorded over 6 million entries and exits, a year-on-year increase of 66 percent. By midday, the aroma of freshly baked food filled the air at the bustling Dilnaz Restaurant. In the kitchen, Toktabayeva from Kazakhstan packed golden, crispy baked buns into meal boxes, while her partner Gulshala, a Horgos local, bagged orders with practiced speed. The two women run the restaurant together, calling it a "cross-border restaurant" and treating each other like sisters. "Now that China and Kazakhstan have mutual visa exemptions, it's even easier for our people to visit each other. Going to the other country truly feels like 'going home,'" Toktabayeva said. In a classroom at the Horgos Yiwu International Business Trade Mall, students from the International Kazakh-Chinese Language College sat in a circle, reading aloud Chinese business phrases written on the blackboard: "Carefully selected," "Great bargain," "Real deal." This April, as the first group of trainees in the Horgos Area of the China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, they began internships at local businesses while also studying cross-border e-commerce and international trade in Chinese. Eighteen-year-old Kazakh student Chepasova Rufina has been learning both the language and livestreaming commerce. "My Chinese teacher taught me how to interact with viewers and enhance the user experience. When I first came to China, I only knew a few basic greetings. Now I can confidently sell products in Chinese," she said. "I hope to make more Chinese friends and introduce more quality products from Kazakhstan to China, and Chinese products to Kazakhstan." Meanwhile, the National Gate Hospital, run by Horgos People's Hospital, was busy hosting a free clinic. Liu Fei, an attending physician from the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, treated patients alongside his colleagues. Rahimjan, a Kazakh patient long troubled by migraines, decided to try acupuncture after Liu's pulse diagnosis. "In Kazakhstan, I often heard people say that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) works well. Today, I tried it myself and felt very comfortable," he said, giving a thumbs-up. Liu noted that more and more Kazakh people are seeking out TCM to improve their health and quality of life. "We hope TCM can bring health to more people and serve as a bridge of friendship," he said. In recent years, Horgos has advanced its international medical service capabilities, experimenting with cross-border medical insurance mechanisms and expanding access to both Chinese and foreign patients. It aims to become an international medical service center serving Central Asia. In July 2023, Horgos People's Hospital was officially authorized to provide foreign-related medical services. Between January and June this year, the hospital treated 205 foreign patients, held 54 free clinic events, and provided free check-ups and diagnoses for 1,035 people. In Horgos, from the border cooperation center to vocational training and international medical services, the "one-sec border passing" has become more than just a convenience. It is weaving deeper emotional bonds, closer friendships, and a shared sense of community across the ChinaKazakhstan border. Dans la meme rubrique : < > A Chinese hero remembered in reverence Shanghai FTZ experience spurs innovation-driven growth through institutional reform They Leave to Uplift, Not to Escape: How Migration Sustains Lesothos Quiet Villages Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) Significant human problems are inherently spiritual and moral problems. Challenges involving other human beings, or the environment upon which other living creatures depend, invariably encompass spiritual and moral dimensions for successful solutions. Therefore, intelligence alone, as a discrete faculty of mind, is incapable of solving significant problems. Intelligence at best is a blind handmaiden of truth. For example, a highly intelligent person mistreats a child in the morning, because intelligence alone cannot prevent the crime, and that afternoon achieves a high score on an I.Q. test. Conversely, a person of low average intelligence saves the life of a child in the morning, because nothing in low intelligence impedes heroism, yet that afternoon, he cannot raise his I.Q. score one point. In the information age and with A.I. fever sweeping the land, high intelligence, with or without knowledge or wisdom, is a prized trait. Lets explore the limitations of intelligence, and how they are exploding into spiritual and moral danger as A.I. comes to dominate the representation of reality. Psychology has pursued definitions of intelligence since Spearman published his theory of general intelligence, g, in 1904. Psychologists still squabble about distinct mental abilities of g, with models ranging from seven to 150 abilities. But every model identifies problem-solving as a primary function of intelligence, asserting that high intelligence correlates with superior problem-solving. This tautological assumption is because psychologists dont distinguish between their tests and significant problems. Or as E.G. Boring famously quipped, intelligence is what intelligence tests measure. Now, the most powerful intelligence in history is going to be what the masters of A.I. say intelligence is. So far, A.I. has brought degradation of reality to me. For many years, I have enjoyed looking at photographs of a Persian gentleman whose name at birth was Merwan Irani but who came to be called Meher Baba. Between the 1920s and 1969, when he passed away, he was photographed thousands of times. I recently visited YouTube and for the first time saw Meher Babas face planted on top of another mans body. Meher Baba was silent for 44 years, and there is no recording of his voice, so it can never be despoiled. Not so for another lately deceased. Glenn Beck recently shared his revulsion at Jim Acosta for using A.I. necromancy to brew a dialogue about gun violence with an age-advanced boy named Joaquin Oliver. Joaquin was murdered in the Parkland massacre. Beck says of this exploitation, Its the image of a dead kid, long buried, animated. Like a puppet, for the politics of those who are still living. Acosta defiles the memory of the deceased youngster by turning him into a posthumous left-wing stooge. Asked his solution to gun violence, Joaquin praises Acostas supposed great question! The deceased Joaquin then intones anti-gun platitudes and mental health utopianism before adding, We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard. Its the fabricated voice of a murdered boy spouting prog drivel from the grave. Lets explore the limitations of intelligence in two high-I.Q. public figures, Dr. Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk. Petersons research and talks emphasize the importance of intelligence in career success. However, Petersons career itself suggests that intelligence in academia is important only until one runs into the demands of conscience. His successful career at the University of Toronto ended because he refused to be compelled to speak objectively incorrect words to identify students biological sex. The professoriate at the University of Toronto are surely highly intelligent people. Do they all believe that a male becomes a female upon personal fiat? Not one of that brainy cohort had the courage or integrity to support a colleagues right to question compelled speech. Courage is independent of intelligence. Will A.I. generate courage? Peterson was ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to adopt a more respectful tone in his public statements. How can he infuse respect toward people who sterilize and mutilate children, people whom he calls butchers and liars? Is A.I. constrained by conscience? Addiction mocks intelligence. Peterson was so dopey as to use diabolical benzodiazepines to muffle his unique treasury of suffering. His survival plan was aided by high intelligence, but the commonplace currency of love alone had the power to save his life. There are at least 133 bills before state legislatures challenging the medical resexing of children. Research psychologists are intelligent. Yet without conducting unbiased research, they strongly support such irreversible procedures. If the intelligence of psychologists, supposedly subject to rigorous ethics, does not protect against viewpoint conformity or anti-religious prejudice, how can A.I.? Another brainy group, medical doctors, forced de facto medical experimentation on millions of Americans and enforced the falsehood that numerous mRNA vaccinations were protective during the COVID crisis. If the high intelligence of doctors treating patients did not protect against dangerous medical conformity, how can A.I.? Elon Musk deserves the overworked appellation of genius. Genius is more than high intelligence; it is the creative capacity for original, positive generativity, which can benefit everyone. However, even genius cannot solve spiritual and moral problems unless intellect is guided by its companions of intuition, inspiration, and insight. Prejudice is created by lack of knowledge of the other. Elon was so disparaging to federal workers that he had to backtrack on statements as he departed DOGE. Intelligence in itself does not nourish humility. Will A.I.? Also, upon departing from DOGE, Elon had what looked like a teenage rebellion against father figure, Trump. Constancy and loyalty are often reflections of prior experience, independent of intelligence. The problems associated with sex and procreation are among the pre-eminent challenges to mankind. Their truest and most ego-effacing solution is sanctified monogamy. Elon Musk says his lifestyle, an unusual form of non-sanctified polygamy, is not to solve the problems of sex and optimal child-rearing, but to build a population for America and Mars. Perhaps genius hears the calling from outer space rather than the pitter-patter of little feet. Meanwhile, the genius can do something great for humanity: build fancy Tesla villages for the Gazans, enrich poor regions, and get this mess over with. Shortly before his death, Abraham Maslow recognized that his famous hierarchy lacked its true pinnacle of need for self-transcendence. Lets reformulate Maslows model, not as a triangle of needs, but as nested concentric circles of significant problems facing all human beings. Traversing the rings of significant problems: physiological survival, physical safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualization, and self-transcendence. The path moves from outer needs of the body to inner needs of the heart and finally the longing of the soul. At the most external level of need for food, science based upon intelligence has reduced hunger around the world. Today, chronic hunger, whether a child with drug-affected parents or the poorest nations, is caused by corruption. The problems of crime and war result from greed and selfishness, not lack of intelligence. Belonging, esteem, and self-actualization are longings of the heart independent of intelligence. They are ameliorated through respect and responsibility for self and others, and freedom. There is a divine infinite intelligence that speaks in the soul and lights the way to self-transcendence. Will A.I. answer the longing of the heart or sovereignty of the soul? For more on this topic, you are invited to read Hendrix, Rockwell, and the Goggles of Hell by Jedd Tyler. Image: ElisaRiva via Pixabay, Pixabay License. Washington, D.C. denizens are breathing a sigh of relief -- at least those not suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome. Just the other day, Veep Vance, Pete Hegseth, and White House powerhouse Stephen Miller went to Union Station. They thanked National Guardsmen for their part in stopping crime in Washington. A gaggle of usual suspects -- pampered, progressive whites -- showed up to protest. But they dont count. Crime is plummeting in our nations capitol. Lets underscore that: Our nations capitol. The District of Columbia belongs to all of us citizens. We have a right to expect the district to be safe. If you take your kids to tour Washington, you shouldnt fear walking around. Troops and federal law enforcement officers are doing what Mayor Muriel Bowser and her DEI hire police chief Pamela Smith have failed to do: make streets unsafe for thugs. (Smith is only on the job thanks to a lawsuit filed by city attorney general Brian Schwalb challenging Trumps emergency orders.) Trumps crackdown is snuffing out wildings, too, which have terrorized portions of D.C. nightly. The Metro -- Washingtons once gleaming, efficient, and safe subway system -- is safer, too. Over the years, its become dirty and broken. Crime was commonplace. National Guardsmen are patrolling it. There are over half a million commuters who enter the district for work daily, many on Metro. Theyre not having to look over their shoulders as much. LifeZette posted a testimonial from a young black woman. Shes relieved now driving around nights. She can lower her windows not fearing one of those young n*****s coming up at a red light, gun in hand, looking to carjack her. Bet is, shes not a Republican -- not in a city thats three-quarters registered Democrat (highest in the U.S.). What are Trumps actions proving? Law and order works. Thats a Duh moment for most people, but not Democrats, who think coddling thugs and gangstas is the remedy for systemic racism. Mayor Bowser is proud of commissioning the first Black Lives Matter public street mural, which established a safe area for police and demonstrators using public art, inspiring dozens of others around the world. Kumbaya -- unless a punk sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet -- which happened to a colleague of mine years ago in broad daylight on the Mall behind the National Gallery of Art. Other than BLM being a sham outfit, what in the world does a street mural accomplish practically? Nada, but thats what Democrats do: they paper over gritty realities and declare their weak-ass policies and governance successes. Why? Because the narrative (AKA, lie) is king. In D.C., Bowser and other leaders lie, in part, because theyre incompetent. Some are corrupt. All are committed to an agenda aimed at increasing their grip on power. Public safety trails. D.C. Democrats have fudged crime statistics to make it appear that crimes are lower. But the chair of the Washington Police Union Gregg Pembleton aint playing along. Said Pembleton to Fox News Martha MacCallum, August 20: Inevitably you will have a captain or a commander or sometimes a lieutenant show up on the scene and advise them to take a report for a lesser offense One of the things that we see them do often is sometimes there will be a shooting or a stabbing and if the victim is uncooperative with the police which is not uncommon in some areas of the city, they will be directed to take an injured person to the hospital report which is not even a crime at all but an incident report, sometimes you will have a robbery reported as a theft and other times you will have burglaries reported as unlawful entry or thefts. Federal law enforcement is playing tough. Officers are going to areas of D.C. where crime germinates. Posted Salena Zito at X, August 19: Half of the arrests during Trump's DC police takeover have taken place in 2 of the most crime-hit wards of 7 & 8; wards home to a higher proportion of minorities residents -- for parents this is a godsend -- that anyone doesnt understand this is bewildering Its really not bewildering. Those who dont understand are afflicted with woke, a disease that attacks progressives. A simple rule suffices: You hunt where the ducks are. If federal law enforcement is concentrating its efforts in Wards 7 and 8, then you know where the bulk of criminals are. Geraldo Rivera posted at X, August 19: Half of the 212 arrests made in DC since federal takeover of the Metro Police (48%) were made in crime-riddled, poor, majority Black neighborhoods. Like days of Stop & Frisk, crime drops when cops are pro-active. Folks have to decide if they want to trade freedom for security. Sorry, Geraldo, it isnt a tradeoff. Security allows freedom -- for the law-abiding. That isn't semantics. Law enforcement permits honest citizens to exercise their freedoms more fully. If you cant walk to a store after dark, youre less free. A cop stopping you doesnt make you less free. It makes you protected. For communities to work, law and order are bedrock. That goes for Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Philly, L.A. -- pick a city. Corporate media refuses to say, but Wards 7 and 8 -- Anacostia and the Southeast -- are the poorest and most notoriously crime-infested areas. And theyre predominantly black. The hard reality is that blacks are committing most crimes. The victims? Other blacks -- though black on white, Asian, and Hispanic crime is definitely a problem across the city. Reports the Heritage Foundation, May 2, 2025: National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform figures show that 95.8% of homicide suspects in the District are male, and 96.8% of those are Black. Over 70% of suspects are between 18 and 34 years old. To look at the victim numbers, 89% are male, of whom 94.1% are Black. Over 62% of homicide victims are between 18 and 34 years old. [Italics added.] Grim stats, and a tragedy for D.C.s black community. The worst crime -- homicide -- is committed by young, black males murdering each other -- males who are typically fatherless, raised by welfare mommas (if raised is the term), many feral. Males who find identity and purpose in gangs. Short, brutish, and nasty describes their lives. Theyre dangers to one another and folk districtwide. Reports the Daily Caller, August 21: Democratic California Rep. Robert Garcia suggested on Wednesday night that a Democrat-supported government shutdown should be on the table until President Donald Trump removes troops from Washington, D.C. Garcia is making noise about shutting down Uncle Sam because Trump dares go on Democrat turf to stop bad guys. (Trump went on a ride-along with Metro police and National Guard on Thursday night.) It makes Garcia come off more like a gangbanger than a man elected to uphold the law and see to the welfare and safety of citizens. Democrat opposition to the presidents D.C. crime crackdown isnt entirely due to derangement. The Democrat Party is urban-centered. Trump going into Washington strikes at the heart of Democrats power. It exposes them as frauds and incompetents. The president is demonstrating that crime neednt be acquiesced to. Hes unspooling the spin that criminals are somehow victims, and that outreach, therapy, and art solve crime problems. Actually, intact families, father-led, and schools that teach, not warehouse, are real solutions. But thats a deeper dive than Democrats care to do. In the meantime, Trump is bringing relief to Washingtonians -- particularly black residents -- the old-fashioned way: more cops -- and in this instance, troops -- on the streets and in the Metro. Theyve been ordered to do their jobs. Thats bad news for punks. Its great news for citizens. J. Robert Smith can be found at X. His handle is @JRobertSmith1. At Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover . Image: Pixabay August 22, 2025: Since June 23, a truce has been in place in the Red Sea. Houthi rebels have ceased firing rockets and missiles at passing ships. A practical reason for this is that most of the Houthi weapons have been destroyed, and the Yemeni army has resumed operations against the Houthis. The army recently seized a large shipment of Iranian weapons intended for the Houthis. The duration of this truce remains uncertain. Iran was recently devastated by American and Israeli airstrikes, and ongoing Israeli and American airstrikes continue to deter hostile activity in Yemen. The Houthis remain present but currently possess few weapons and are reluctant to resume attacks, fearing further retribution. Eighty percent of global trade travels by ship through a vast network of maritime trade routes. China and the United States account for 43 percent of this trade, with China contributing 17 percent and the United States the remainder. Any threat to this trade is a significant issue, and both nations address the problem differently. While the United States and its Western allies deploy warships and airstrikes to counter disruptions to maritime trade, China often bribes attackers to spare Chinese ships. When this Chinese immunity is noticed, China dismisses accusations, claiming its ship captains are simply more skilled at avoiding attacks. This is clearly not the case, and the dispute ends in a muddle of mutual accusations. The current attacks are not destructive or widespread enough to cause significant damage to global trade. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen had been firing Iranian-supplied rockets and missiles at ships passing the Yemeni coast en route to the Suez Canal, starting after Israel invaded the Gaza Strip to stop Hamas rocket attacks. Many ships that typically use the Suez Canal now opt for the longer route around the southern tip of Africa to reach the Mediterranean Sea. This detour can cost over a million dollars per ship and add several weeks to the journey. However, this has not been as disastrous as anticipated due to a surplus of cargo and tanker ships, which has made it feasible to employ these additional vessels. Other potential choke points include the Strait of Malacca, the Taiwan Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, Bass Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, the Singapore Strait, the Bering Strait, the Lombok Strait, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Bosporus Strait. While the Red Sea crisis has been managed, a more ominous threat to global shipping is a potential war involving submarines from various nations, which could escalate into a non-nuclear world war. Anti-submarine escorts are not available in large numbers, and shipping companies, as in the early stages of both world wars, may downplay the value of convoys, insisting they can evade submarines using new technology and tactics. When this proves ineffective, convoys are implemented, and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) evolves to become effective enough to reduce losses to a sustainable level. Protecting maritime transportation is a critical task for shipping companies and insurers, as most nations depend on this trade. Shipping companies argue that navies do not do enough to protect shipping during wartime. The accuracy of this claim will only be revealed if another submarine offensive targets maritime trade. So far, there really is nothing negative to say about Lee Zeldins leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from a conservative point of view, except that maybe he has not gone far enough (yet) with deregulation. But there is one recent move that deserves some special attention. EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi recently gave Breitbart News some exclusive comments regarding the EPAs Guidance Portal -- an online portal that provides a searchable database of important regulations and requirements for businesses and landowners. Its meant to provide an easy-to-use guide. Fotouhi told Breitbart, If youre in any way subject to one of our regulatory requirements or statutory obligations, you can go on there and conduct a search and see very clearly what the agencys interpretation of that requirement and how it applies to your situation. In other words, the Guidance Portal is intended to help people understand government environmental regulations so that average Americans and small businesses, who dont have a team of regulatory lawyers on retainer, dont accidentally run afoul of one of the many overlapping and complex rules and requirements. Things like the 1970 Clean Air Act (CAA), 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA), and 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA), and their various updates, can all impact what someone does on their own property. Thus, landowners must be aware of every regulation and how they apply in their specific case. Zeldin also pointed out the portal should help alleviate some of the cost of hiring expensive attorneys that would otherwise be needed to navigate the maze of rules and regulations. Feedback given to the EPA on the portal, Fotouhi told Breitbart, can also help the EPA find places they can simplify and get rid of redundancies and bloat. Imagine that! This seems like something that should be a no-brainer, that everyone would support. However, during his first term, President Trump directed his agencies to do the same thing via executive order. Predictably, as soon as Biden entered the White House, he (or his handlers) put a stop to it, rescinding the order in a bid to suppress the guidance portals. While the Biden EPA was unable to totally shut them down without an official rule, they did stop updating them. Why might that be? Opaqueness has its benefits for an enviro-tyrannical government. Making it more difficult for farmers to figure out if they are allowed to put a barn on their own land, or build a road, can prevent them from doing anything the EPA may not like. Opacity allows regulators to apply rules arbitrarily. Environmental regulations, especially when vague, have destroyed many lives, especially under Presidents Obama and Biden. The first example that comes to mind is the recent Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court case, in which the EPA was leveraging ambiguities in the CWA to stop a family from building a house on the small lot they owned in Idaho. They were already in the process of moving earth when the EPA swooped in to say that their property counted as protected wetland because it contained navigable waters. The agency demanded the Sacketts put all the dirt back, imposing thousands of dollars per day in fines for every day they didnt comply. Those navigable waters were a ditch near the property that sometimes filled with water when it rained heavily, which would feed a shallow creek. Fortunately, the Supreme Court sided with the Sacketts, but that was after 16 years in the courts. It never should have gone that far. It was absurd, but the EPA gets away with that kind of harassment when the law is nebulous, arbitrary, and difficult to understand. Most people wont fight it out the way the Sacketts did because the idea of sitting in court for a decade or more is not something they can afford or handle. The Sacketts case is just one of many. In particular, the CWA has a long history of vagueness, shifting definitions of what counts as navigable water, and arbitrary application. This has been fostered by the EPA to expand its mission and the scope of its authority. In Allegheny Wood Products v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Allegheny Wood Products company had applied for an incidental take permit -- a permit that would cover them just in case some endangered species were harmed by their logging operations being conducted on land that several different animals might live on. The Fish and Wildlife Service thought the companys application was incomplete and did not think the companys required habitat conservation plan was sufficient. Meanwhile, Allegheny Wood Products was losing millions of dollars while waiting for the permit to finally go through. The vagueness of the Endangered Species Act and how it applied to their situation in West Virginia caused delays and denials with FWS for more than a decade. Again, this kind of uncertainty is devastating when regulators suddenly turn their ire toward you or your business. A Guidance Portal wont stop the EPA from having vague and broad rules. But it will make it easier for average Americans to at least understand what the law requires and what actions they might take to avoid sparking agency oversight, control, and penalties. It should be clear what the law is and what it takes to comply with it. The Guidance Portal provides an electronic paper trail and something they can use as official EPA guidance. Although there is still a long way to go before I would say the EPA has completely returned to its appropriate regulatory scope, increasing transparency is a good start to improve the EPAs historically hostile relationship with property owners and businesses in the United States. Linnea Lueken (llueken@heartland.org) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. X: @LinneaLueken Image: EPA On a podcast called Raging Moderates, Hillary Clinton recently said, The Supreme Court will hear a case about same-sex marriage. My prediction is they will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion. They will send it back to the states. This is one time that you cant say, of the onetime Goldwater Girl, Whats she been smoking? SCOTUS has a chance to overrule Obergefell v. Hodges, in a case that it might or might not take this term (although chances are it wont). Whether this term or some future term, the justices, along with the public, need to accurately apprehend the logical lay of the land. It looks like this: If same-sex couples are similarly situated to opposite-sex couples, then (as in Obergefell) state laws banning same-sex civil marriage should be struck down; conversely, if same-sex and opposite-sex couples are not similarly situated, then state laws, or legislation by Congress, that requires recognition of same-sex civil marriage should be struck down (note that theres no equal-protection right to destroy marriage). The logic of this is actually the best practical reason for overruling Obergefell. The question of whether same-sex and opposite-sex couples are similarly situated with respect to marriage is an apparently irresolvable disagreement. We likely even disagree about whether its theoretically irresolvable because we have fundamentally different moral and metaphysical beliefs, or only irresolvable in practice. In any case, constitutional-law deciders have no choice but to muddle through, and this means letting the respective state legislatures have the final say on whether to recognize same-sex marriage in their states. Thats how it should be. Marriage has traditionally, and rightly (by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity), been viewed as the province of the states. Marriage is a matter of federal civil rights except when it isnt. The difference between Obergefell and Loving v. Virginia is that the former, but not the latter, contradicts marriage as the social institution that centrally involves procreation. Claims of civil rights, in the context of marriage, can hardly ignore that sexual complementarity is a sort of metaphysically basic fact, unlike the skin color at issue in Loving. SCOTUS should avoid absolutism on either end. That means overruling Obergefell. Any argument to the effect that its too late to do that now because many opposite-sex couples are already married (on the podcast, Hillary encouraged more of them to get married pronto), requires that it be true to say opposite-sex and same-sex couples are similarly situated with respect to marriage. Its not even presumptively true. Indeed, if anythings presumptively true in this case, its that same-sex and opposite-sex couples are not similarly situated, since same-sex couples are by nature unable to procreate. The only seemingly plausible prospect of making it true (or at least presumptively true) that same-sex and opposite-sex couples are similarly situated is to suppose that genetic cloning is normative for human identity. This just shows how much trouble the proponents of same-sex marriage are in. It gets worse. Those who believe marriage is about love as opposed to procreation (with love presumably procreations cousin) surely wont deny that procreation is relevant to the institution of marriage, and this unavoidably undermines their claim that same-sex and opposite-sex couples are similarly situated. Maybe such couples are indeed similarly situated with respect to love. So what? Marriage isnt only about love. In light of all that, compare same-sex marriage with abortion. Abortion doesnt present a polarity (or dialectic) of right results like the one in the same-sex marriage scenario. Theres no abortion analogue to similar-situatedness. Personhood isnt a good analogue because, for one thing, the future-like-ours case against abortion is a powerful argument that doesnt rely on zygotes, embryos, or fetuses being persons. Thus, same-sex marriage is an even more clear-cut matter than abortion for being something that the states should decide for themselves. Given the possession of a future-like-ours by the unborn, it doesnt follow that the Supreme Court should strike down all legislation or lower court decisions banning abortion, even if the undoubtedly best philosophical argument is that the unborn arent persons. This points to a significant disanalogy with the same-sex marriage case. It also shows how, overall, social conservatives are apparently in a stronger philosophical position than social liberals. Its true that same-sex couples who get married in California, say, and who want to move to Kansas, will inevitably be burdened when Kansas doesnt recognize their marriage. But thats what happens when marriage cannot be a natural imperative for same-sex couples, as opposed to a social or psychological imperative. Homosexuals must simply accept the practical and legal constraints that come with the fact that nothing will ever make homosexuality as normative as heterosexuality. Two indirect implications of this analysis should give liberals pause. First, liberal legal scholars are misguided in insisting that judges must always look to values. Suppose John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh believe that same-sex and opposite-sex couples arent similarly situated. Should they therefore join the other conservatives, who doubtlessly believe that, in striking down state laws, or legislation by Congress, recognizing same-sex marriage? Such a result would, after all, be compelled by their values, or rather their basic beliefs about what the world is like. Second, think of the problem thats created for the idea that legal non-recognition of same-sex marriage is a form of gender discrimination: Bobs of course allowed to marry Sue, so why on earth shouldnt he also be allowed marry Tommy, if he so chooses? The claim is that if Bob cant legally marry Tommy as readily as he can marry Sue, hes being discriminated against on account of his gender. The issue of the similar-situatedness of couples shows -- with a clarity thats hard to miss -- why this argument is specious, and why it should be laughed out of court. Regardless of what SCOTUS does, we can feel pretty good right now. For a long time, we could be forgiven for thinking America was in a state of advanced decay. It doesnt look that way now. Mind you, this country has a lot of problems. But, very happily, gender wokism might not continue to be the most unnecessary and hare-brained of those problems. All it takes is a little federalism, where appropriate. Image: ** RCB ** At a time when Germany was determined to rid the world of its Jewish population, one amazing country decided that it was going to protect this vulnerable group of citizens. In his book titled, A Light in the Northern Sea: Denmarks Incredible Rescue of Their Jewish Citizens During WWII, Tim Brady tells the remarkable story. Unlike many other European countries that maintained a veneer of civility to cover their blatant anti-Semitism, the Danes saw the Jews as their friends and neighbors. In 1814, yet another king granted them the full rights of Danish citizenship. In time, they became so well accustomed to Danish society that they began to think of themselves as Viking Jews. Initially, the Germans occupied Denmark with a minimum amount of disruption in April 1940: The German ambassador assured the king and the Danish government that both he and it would be respected and allowed to continue as the political powers within Denmark and that Germany would only serve as protector against the Allies. But there were Danes who were furious about this capitulation without a fight. One family in particular, the Keitel family, were dismayed at the decision, and the oldest son, Jorgen, recalled this: Jorgen would later remember feeling boundless shame and sadness [as] he realized that Denmark had, in effect, capitulated without resistance, despite the assurances of politicians that they were going to defend us. He was not alone. Many Danes were determined to resist the occupation, although the Jews were not immediately in the forefront of their plans. The Germans had not made a demand initially of rounding up Jews, so resistance focused primarily on harassing the German occupiers. Two teenage boys who had moved to a new school in northern Denmark wanted to fight back: Now, in Aalborg, in their new school, they formed a new group that they called the Churchill Club and called themselves the Churchill Boys, in honor of Great Britains wartime leader. Enlisting a handful of like-minded students at their school, the brothers and the club members began to pursue trouble in the form of small acts of defiance and sabotage against the Germans stationed in the Aalborg area. When the Germans demanded the declaration of a state of emergency, the Danish Parliament decided it had enough: On the morning of August 29, the Danish Government was ordered to declare an immediate state of emergency in the nation. They simply could not accept the German demands and still call themselves a proud nation. The government flatly rejected the stipulations and shut down its functions and offices. King Christian not only applauded the decision of his parliament but also actually declared himself a prisoner of war. The Danish government, cooperative or otherwise, was essentially over. Without a Danish government in place, Werner Best, the plenipotentiary for the German government, decided it was an ideal time to give the go-ahead to Hitler to round up the Danish Jews. An earlier plan to deport the Jews had been discouraged by Bests friend, German attache Georg Duckwitz: A German in charge of German shipping, Georg Duckwitz, heard an initial discussion to transport the Jews. Duckwitz over the years had become friendly with the Danish population, and knew that the disruption of moving the Jews would be a disaster in terms of Danish compliance. So he took steps to discourage Best from acting at that time. But now the time was ripe, in Bests estimation, for removing them, so Duckwitz quickly took action to warn the Jews, arranging for their arrival in Sweden. Finding them, however, presented its own challenges, even with the small Danish Jewish population of 8,000: Most of the Jews traveling from the city in the first couple of days after the Swedish announcement headed toward the coastal towns, particularly toward the narrowest points of the Oresund, near Helsingor and Snekkersten, to the north of Copenhagen, which were only two and a half miles from Sweden. [snip] Back in the city, messengers mobilized by the resistance joined the Jewish community in going door-to-door in search of Jewish families. Some Jews took refuge with Gentile friends, Catholic churches, and Protestant ministers. Some found shelter in hotels, cellars, and warehouses. Some hid in the woods outside of Copenhagen, which prompted university students and members of the resistance to organize search parties to scour the forests, looking for Jews. Saving the Jews caused multiple challenges: Sweden was reluctant at first to take in the Jews, and if Sweden were persuaded to assist Denmark, how would the Jews and others, such as resistance fighters, be transported across the channel? How would the resistance organize itself to complete its mission, which included bombing factories, hiding Jews, acquiring arms and ammunition, recruiting without being caught, and logistical relocation? How would they recruit fishermen and other boat owners to participate in this dangerous and demanding plan? Tim Brady guides us through this tale with thoroughness and objectivity. He seems to avoid using language which praises the Danes and Swedes, but instead allows their activities and behaviors to paint a picture. It is a gripping story filled with intrigue and courage. One observer who saw many boats head to Sweden made the following observation: Nobody who has not attended an embarkation of that kind will be able to imagine the feelings that overcome those who are left behind and see the heavily loaded ship sailing off toward safety and freedom. Mingled are rage at human wickedness, sympathy and grief at the misfortunes of the persecuted, the excitement, the uncertainty, and the painful responsibilityabove all the responsibilitybut also the duty, and an elevating and strengthening feeling of friendship and solidarity of the task. Everything is dissolved into a strange, indescribable feeling of happiness when the work is finished. God bless the Danes. *** In these times, its difficult to evaluate the degree to which Jews are accepted in the United States. Are we a people who have assimilated into the population, or are we living in a country that tolerates us and maintains a thin veneer of acceptance? If an organization develops that is prepared to target the Jews, will they be stopped by the larger population? Will the Christian community rise to our cause? Will the government protect us? Or will the Muslims in the guise of pro-Palestinian advocates decide to make us their targets? Is the current increase of anti-Semitism an aberration, or an indication of a burgeoning disease? Only time will tell. Image: Public domain. It is said Donald Trump has a near-magical ability to make Democrats do insanely self-destructive things. Theyre doing it to themselves. Trump doesnt have to apply clumsy reverse psychology, their self-imposed Trump Derangement Syndrome and their raging hatred of America and Normal Americans makes them reflexively, loudly and irrationally, oppose anything he says or does and anything they imagine he might be thinking of saying or doing. In only eight months, weve watched Democrats maniacally defend: *Illegal immigration *Hamas *Islamic terrorists in general *Violent domestic criminals *Antisemitism *Pedophiles *Democrat legislators fleeing votes to defend democracy *Mentally ill men in womens sports, locker rooms and bathrooms *Ignoring and damaging the Constitution *Rampant violent crime in Washington, DC, including gun violence And the list goes on and on. Part of their anti-Constitution network is Brady United Against Gun Violence, AKA the Brady Campaign. Obviously suffering from TDS, Brady issued a statement: Graphic: X Post The statement began by describing the one-day Jan. 6 riot as the worst outbreak of mass violence in recent District memory. Recall that only one person died during the riot: Rioter Ashli Babbitt. Meanwhile, 99 people have been murdered in D.C. this year alone. The statement continued by using possibly falsified crime data to claim violent crime in D.C. has fallen precipitously since 2023 and were at a 30-year low the day the president returned to the Oval Office. Every bit of crime data out of DC is likely falsified. Hilariously, the statement attributed this alleged low to the Biden administrations otherwise widely panned policy decisions. According to the White House, the reality is that D.C.s murder rate is roughly three times higher than that of Islamabad, Pakistan, and 18 times higher than that of communist-run Havana, Cuba. All quite true. Even the Brady home page tells us Americans are 26x more likely to be shot & killed than people in other high-income countries. Apparently, DC, infamous as one of Americas most violent cities, doesnt figure into that statistic. Take a few minutes to visit this classic Bill Whittle video where we learn that supposedly gun violent America ranks 111th in per capita homicides per 100,000 in the world. Better yet, most of the nations that do worse have totalitarian governments and the kinds of citizen disarmament about which Brady can onlythank Goddream. The statement from Brady president Kris Brown concluded with her suggesting that Trumps federal police are the ones endanger[ing] D.C. residents, not the hordes of violent criminals running the streets. We cannot allow the president to suggest that federalized police is an appropriate response to any and all challenges; or that federalized police do not further endanger the public, especially Black and Brown communities who live and work in or visit D.C., it read. In little over a week, the enhanced law enforcement presence in DC has resulted in hundreds of arrests, many for violent criminals. Even a year ago, DC businesses begged Mayor Muriel Bowser for help: Graphic: X Post And the DC police agree with Trump, not Brady: No one, certainly not President Trump, has suggested federalizing the police is an appropriate response to any and all challenges. That was Barack Obama in 2009: We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. Fortunately, the backlash against that suggestion doomed Obamas plan. Having tacitly supported DCs criminals and the Democrat politicians that support and enable them, Brady wasnt done: As for Brady, last year it also came out against self-defense, arguing that guns are rarely used successfully in self-defense. Credible, replicable research demonstrates Americans use guns in lawful self-defense, usually without firing a shot, up to 2.5 million times per year. Even the Clinton Administration, among the most anti-gun ever, did research confidently expecting to find support for anti-liberty/gun policies. To their horror, they found 1.5 million yearly defensive uses. Since taking charge of the DC police, the Trump Administration has dramatically shortened the process for DC residents to obtain concealed carry licenses, which will make life more dangerous for criminals for a change. The DC Police were making it as difficult as possible for the law-abiding to protect themselves. Bradys stance is no surprise. Like the rest of the Democrat establishment, if the choice is between Donald Trump, safe streets and law and order, or criminal violence and disarming the law-abiding, theyll choose the latter every time. Become a subscriber and get our weekly, Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. Cracker Barrel (CB) recently announced with great pride (pun intended) that they have become woke and are implementing customer-facing DEI throughout their restaurant chain, a project that has been in the works for about a year. Proving once more that idealistic leftists are oblivious to anything remotely involving sanity. The Left never seems to learn. Their DEI agenda is so important that they willingly crater their own businesses. Even Left-leaning news channels and their famous anchors have learned that they are not immune to this effect. I have doubts about the success of this new direction, for a couple of reasons. 1) Woke people who pretend to live healthy lives don't eat there anyway -- you know, because of the biscuits, gravy, fried chicken, calories, fat, etc., where just one glass of sweet tea likely has more calories than they consume in a day. Somehow CB thinks taking the "country" out of Cracker Barrel, removing the old white dude and his barrel from the logo, and making the decor look like a latte cafe will entice them in (I have a bridge to sell you). 2) Their loyal fans, including me, have no interest in overall DEI wokeness when it is an in-your-face action. Hire whoever you wish, as I dont care about the proclivities of my server or the cook, so no problem there. But I do care about the thinking of leaders who believe this is a good direction to pursue as a business. I admit I limit my meals there to no more than one per quarter just because I get three days worth of calories in one very delicious meal. CB will lose a big part of their base while not recouping that volume with new customers from the woke mob. That is not a good thing. After all, what self-respecting leftist would eat at a Cracker anything? A mere side glance on CBs part would show them what happened to Bud Light. And to Target -- who still hasnt recovered from their LGBTQ+ foray into trans-restrooms and selling little girls bathing suits with pouches so moms can cross-dress their five-year-old sons. Or Jaguar, with its recent bizarre un-commercial. Or Nike, Harrys Razors, and Victorias Secret (Ive been looking for a place to buy something sexy for my wispy trans [m2f] girlfriend), just to name a few. If you notice, the reason for failure is that historically these companies primarily or significantly cater to customers who hold normal family values and the new policies offend those values (Target, Cracker Barrel, Harrys), or market to men who are not attracted in any major way to DEI wokeness (Bud Lite, NFL). Going woke turns off the very loyal audience following that is their forte. But it is a non-additive action, in that it doesnt add more customers than it loses. An option such as adding Lo-Cal meal choices to the menu would likely increase traffic, for example. Instead, actions like CBs turn off those core clients who will stop buying. Only a Harvard, Yale, or Sarah Lawrence graduate with a BA in marketing would think this a good thing to do. The CEO, Julie Feiss Masino, who holds a BA in marketing from Miami (Ohio) and who came to CB from Taco Bell is the mastermind of this conversion that caused a stock drop of 18% since last Friday. Guess she never met Alissa Heinerscheid of Bud Light fame? Here is a neat video that sums it up well. The first 1:45 is a cute parody, but the rest provides some factual framing. When you think the Left has completely gone off the rails, they always seem to come back with a more outrageous Here, hold my beer. In this case, Julie must have been drinking a Bud Light. Lewis Dovland is a passionate observer of Americas future direction with a focus on exposing the Big Picture end goals of the progressive Marxist movement and administrative state and how we can prevail. Email at Lewis.Dovland@gmail.com Image: Mike Mozart On August 19, 2025, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform escalated its scrutiny of Gavin Newsoms vanity project: a high-speed railway that was originally supposed to connect Californias major cities by 2020. Congressional Oversight may mark the final phase in the latest review process that began in October 2024. This is not the first time the project came under federal fire an earlier FRA review in 2019 led to the termination of a key grant, which was later reinstated on a smaller scale in 2021 and tied to the Central Valley segment. Specifically, the other important FRA review in 2019 occurred under the Trump administration. It led to the termination of an FY10 agreement to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. However, the project was reinstated in June 2021 under a settlement between the Biden administration and California. The settlement restored nearly $1 billion in federal grant funding, tying it back to the Central Valley segment, known as the Merced-Bakersfield (M-B) Early Operating Segment (EOS). The Oversight Committee wants to know whether the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) knowingly misled federal officials to obtain taxpayer funding. Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) demanded internal documents, communications, and staff-level briefings on whether the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) misled federal officials about ridership, costs, and timelines to secure billions in funding for the project. The committee set a deadline of September 2, 2025 for the Department of Transportation (DOT) to respond. History of a Train to Nowhere In 2008, California voters approved the construction of an 800-mile statewide high-speed railway with $9.95 billion dollars of state bond funding, according to a letter sent by Comer to Transportation secretary Sean P. Duffy. The boondoggle has been characterized as perhaps the greatest infrastructure failure in the history of the country, according to the Hoover Institution. The rail project was initially projected to be completed in 2020, with a projected cost of $33 billion. However, updated cost estimates, according to the August 19 letter, now range from $89 billion to $128 billion, with a projected completion date sometime around 2032. The Oversight letter states that the Biden administration committed roughly $4 billion in federal taxpayer dollars to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) project, including almost $89.65 million dollars in the closing days of the administration. Delays, cost overruns, and political fights forced CHSRA to narrow its focus to the Early Operating Segment (EOS) the 171-mile corridor between Merced and Bakersfield which cooperative agreements require to be in high-speed operation by December 31, 2033. According to the June 4 report, the rail project has already received approximately $6.9 billion in federal dollars over a 15-year period, yet not a single mile of high-speed track has been laid. Instead, much of the federal funding has gone into construction packages for bridges, viaducts, and earthworks. Other funds have been spent on land acquisition; relocation of utilities; planning and environmental reviews; and lawsuits, settlements, and bureaucratic overhead. Phase 1 (about 520 miles) of the project was designed to connect Northern and Southern California in under three hours. Phase 2 (about 280 miles) was designed to extend north to Sacramento and south to San Diego, but it is contingent on the completion of Phase 1. The MercedBakersfield corridor is a subset of the larger Phase 1 alignment. Duffy Initiates Review of CHSRA Rail Project Duffy announced his intention to review the project on February 20. The probe targeted two significant grants the 2010 $929-million cooperative agreement and the newer $3.07-billion agreement. The investigation aimed to determine whether CHSRA adhered to grant terms, including oversight of performance, risk, and financial accountability for roughly $4 billion in federal funding. As part of the review, the FRA conducted site visits, risk assessments, document reviews, and meetings with state oversight entities and CHSRA staff. Duffys February 20 letter to Ian Choudri, CEO of the CHSRA, mentions an annual monitoring review conducted by the FRA on October 23, 2024. That review identified six key areas of interest, though specifics were not fully disclosed, raised concerns about CHSRAs ongoing performance and adherence to grant conditions. The letter also references a February 3, 2025 report from the CHSRAs Office of the Inspector General (OIGHSR) evaluating the schedule for the EOS M-B segment. Briefly, the report stated that the M-B segment completion would be significantly delayed because of scheduling changes due to deviations from procurement and funding strategies. On June 4, the FRA published a 310-page compliance review, accompanied by a formal letter to CHSRA, finding no viable path for project completion. The report cited numerous delays, cost overruns, failure to procure rolling stock, and a $7-billion funding gap despite CHSRA having already received nearly $6.9 billion in federal grants, with no miles of high-speed track laid under those grants. Reportedly, $3.5 billion of the $6.9 billion came from the Obama-era American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Nine hundred twenty-nine million was awarded in FY2010. Approximately $2.5 billion came from later federal-state partnership (FSP) agreements. The EOS M-B segment was projected to cost around $30 billion, yet California has identified only $2123 billion in funding, leaving an unfunded gap of $7 billion. Duffy gave the CHSRA 37 days to respond or risk losing the two federal grants. However, the CHSRAs responses failed to satisfy Duffys concerns. On July 16, 2025, acting FRA administrator Drew Feeley finalized the decision to terminate the two federal grant agreements, effectively pulling back the remaining $4 billion in federal funding. Feeley stated in no uncertain terms the findings that led him to the unavoidable conclusion that CHSRA would not be able to deliver the operation of a Merced-to-Bakersfield corridor by the end of 2033. Feeley asserted that the CHSRA had failed to comply with the cooperative agreements, making termination inevitable. The CHSRA responded immediately with a legal challenge, alleging that Feeleys take was politically motivated. However, the findings listed in the letter would suggest otherwise. Feeley contends that there is no viable path to completion with a $7-billion funding gap with no credible plan to fill the gap, among the other reasons listed below. Importantly, an agreement between the CHSRA and the FRA places the $4 billion in federal funding into a trust account to keep the grants intact, pending resolution of the complaint. Choudri blasted the June 4 compliance review as based on an inaccurate, often outright misleading, presentation of the evidence. Secretary Duffy wants to de-obligate the unallocated $4 billion in taxpayer dollars and reallocate them to more viable passenger rail and infrastructure projects elsewhere in the U.S. Lee Ohanian, writing for the Hoover Institution, explains the rationale for the reallocation of federal funding, Term limited California Governor Gavin Newsom is running for the Democrat Party nomination for President in 2028. Hes not certain against whom hell be running, so hes running against America. Hes been governing against California for years, so why not extend that kind of governance to the whole country? Graphic: X Post California Governor Gavin Newsom attacked the U.S. Marines and National Guard on Saturday as bringing war to the American people in trashing their recent mission to restore order to the streets of Los Angeles. His purpose: to attack President Donald Trump, who is campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize by trying to resolve conflicts around the world. In his first seven months in office, Trump has ended at least six wars and for the first time it appears possible hell end the war between Ukraine and Russia, a conflict that has cost Russia untold billions and a million of its young men wounded, captured or killed. Thats quite the campaign. Even should that effort fail, its impossible to identify a more deserving recipient of the Peace Prize in this or the last century. My favorite Nobel Peace Prize meme landed after the Nobel Committee gave Barack Obama one for being Barack Obama. They later admitted they honored Obama because they were sure hed do something worthy of the Prize, but were embarrassed when he never did: Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama in 2009 failed to achieve what the committee hoped it would, its ex-secretary has said. Geir Lundestad told the AP news agency that the committee hoped the award would strengthen Mr. Obama. [skip] "No Nobel Peace Prize ever elicited more attention than the 2009 prize to Barack Obama," Mr Lundestad writes. "Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake," he says. "In that sense the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for". The Committee tried to encourage Obama to greatness, but greatness was never in him. His ego left no room for that. The meme? From a restaurant signboard: Free Nobel Peace Prize with every order of shrimp tacos. In the case of Newsom, between his ego and the crushing weight of hair gel, theres obviously no room for brains or decency. When government buildings and agents were being overwhelmed by organized rioters in Los Angeles, President Trump lawfully called out the National Guard and active-duty Marines, not to engage in civilian law enforcement, but to protect those facilities and agents. Why the Marines? They were needed, nearby, and as Americas quick reaction force, immediately ready. He did not violate the Posse Comitatus Act, but freed federal agents to do their jobs enforcing immigration law. Rioters quickly figured out our troops and ICE agents werent going to let them do what Newsom so willingly let them do before the troops were deployed. The riots soon petered out and the troops were withdrawn. Thats not exactly bringing war to the American people. Newsom objected every step of the way. He wanted chaos, looting, arson, destruction of property and injured federal agents. He wanted to keep illegal alien criminals in California. This is the kind of campaigning Newsom thinks will win the Democrat nomination. He doesnt know the difference between restoring public order when he fails to do it, and waging war? Hes certainly willing to lie about our Marines to make political points. Unfortunately for Newsom, those points arent appreciated outside the Democrat Party, which is increasingly anti-American. Hes certainly right that this kind of slander of the Marines might win the Democrat nomination. If he imagines it will win the presidency, hes dead wrong. Thats not the way to win the young, male American vote, which is increasingly swinging toward traditional American values and priorities and joining the military. Fortunately for America, this is yet another example of Newsom engaging in definition of character. Become a subscriber and get our weekly, Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. The pardon power is among the most important any governor can wield. Done honestly, it can correct injustice in the criminal justice system and extend mercy to the deserving. It can be a final check on a system that usually works but can spectacularly fail. One example that comes to mind is the ludicrous conviction of Donald Trump for fraud in a case with no victims where the supposed victims very much want to do business with him again. And why wouldn't they? He paid off enormous loans on time and with interest. The corrupt judge in that case was so biased and deranged he imposed a fine that is perhaps the clearest violation of the Eight Amendments prohibition of excessive fines in American history. According to George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley, the New York Court of Appeals slow-rolled their decision in that case, only overturning the fine but not the verdict on 08-21-25. Should the entire case not be vacated on continuing appeals, the chance that NY Governor Kathy Hochul would pardon the POTUS is vanishingly small. Not so, however, with a convicted, illegal immigrant killer. Hochul recently pardoned one of those in a blatant attempt to keep him from being deported, and tried to keep the pardon quiet: Graphic: DHS post According to the New York Times, Hochul signed the pardon on July 1 the day before Vatthanavongs immigration check-in, which his lawyers feared would lead to his detention and deportation. On July 1 the day before Mr. Vatthanavong had a mandatory immigration appointment that his lawyers believed would lead to his arrest Ms. Hochul signed a certificate granting him an unconditional pardon, including offering relief from removal. Surely, Vatthanavong must have recently been convicted of murder? It must have been an obvious and notorious miscarriage of justice to have commanded Hochuls attention? Not so much: Vatthanavongs criminal record stems from a deadly confrontation in Brooklyn in 1988, when he admitted to fatally shooting another man during a pool hall fight. The man Ms. Hochul pardoned, Somchith Vatthanavong, 52, had been convicted of manslaughter as a teenager after he admitted to fatally shooting a man in 1988 during a confrontation at a Brooklyn pool hall, arguing that he had acted in self-defense. What did command Hochuls attention was the fact Vatthanavong was about to have an immigration check-in. His lawyers feared hed be deported, a fact DHS confirmed. To keep a convicted killer in New York, Hochul issued an immediate and secret pardon. Apparently, New York doesnt have nearly enough illegal immigrant killers? Perhaps theyve all fled New York for red states? Hochuls office did not initially announce the pardon, unlike her past clemency decisions. Only after reporters pressed the issue did it come to light. Ms. Hochul, a moderate Democrat who typically issues pardons in batches on a rolling basis, did not issue a news release when she pardoned Mr. Vatthanavong six weeks ago, as she had for many of the 94 people she had previously pardoned or whose sentences she had commuted. "A moderate Democrat?!" In New York State circa 2025? New York City is poised to elect an Islamist Communist Mayor, and we're supposed to believe New York would elect a moderate Democrat governor? Shouldnt governors be proud of their pardons? Shouldnt each and every one be publicized to reassure citizens that justice and mercy are yet abroad in the land? Not in Kathy Hochuls New York. In that chaotic state, public safety and the fair and equal administration of justice take a back seat to Democrat politics and Trump Derangement Syndrome. Hochul would rather have a convicted, illegal immigrant killer loose than assist in sending him home to be someone else's problem. Is it any wonder everyone that can is fleeing New York? Become a subscriber and get our weekly, Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. Former NSC official John Bolton's home (and office) were raided by the FBI this morning, most likely in connection with the effort to rat out those responsible for the Russia Hoax and hold those involved accountable. The media is packaging it as tit-for-tat but actually, Trump's administration seeems to be getting to the bottom of the nest of coup plotters who bedeviled his first term. The most likely reason may be this one: Good morning, John Bolton. It turns out he was under investigation for taking classified documents and leaking them but it was shut down under Biden for political reasons. They always accuse President Trump what they're guilty of.pic.twitter.com/zZE03FhuqQ CJ Pearson (@thecjpearson) August 22, 2025 And an anonymous FBI official reportedly says this: FBI Official: It is widely known the Bolton mishandled and took classified information for use in his 2020 book, after he failed to get approval from the National Security Council for the publication of what they determined to be highly classified information. This raid of Jammles (@jammles9) August 22, 2025 And this is worthy of attention: Bolton went around posturing as the "expert" briefing journalists that Pres Trump and Kash Patel were "careless" with documents stored at Mar-o-Lago, referring in particular to the Crossfire Hurricane documents--that Pres Trump lawfully DECLASSIFIED. Bolton was going on about Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) August 22, 2025 Svetlana Lokhova was one of the people smeared in the Russiagate hoax as a Russian agent, which she was not. Lokhova, citing investigative reporter Paul Sperry, also says Bolton was involved in this: Bolton didn't "believe" Brennan, nobody did. Bolton just hates Pres Trump. https://t.co/RW1SPzNKKu Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) July 27, 2025 And her bombshell: 3 years ago, Biden's thugs raided Pres Trump's home to remove and hide the evidence of the crimes of the Obama-Biden administrations. They were concerned Pres Trump would expose them during the 2024 campaign. They then prosecuted Pres Trump under Espionage Act to stop him from https://t.co/4c1KEhZoO3 Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) August 22, 2025 So that was what the Mar-a-Lago raid was about -- covering up for Joe Biden's crimes. There also is this background, which may or may not be related: DOGE Police Blotter: A deep dive into John Bolton finances and relationships point to very disturbing relationships with deep state operatives. In particular, his relationship with deep state operative and ex-lobbyist Matthew C. Freedman. As he prepared to start his job as pic.twitter.com/GlHDSCG4Db Saint James Hartline (@JamesHartline) August 22, 2025 And this could be a part of it, too. Remember this? John Bolton in Qatar. Its going to be very important very soon. Selling America pic.twitter.com/X7ofkncYoJ C3 (@C_3C_3) August 22, 2025 This, too is worth noting: Just pulled up Trump 1.0 DOJ's lawsuit against John Bolton seeking to halt publication of Bolton's book in June 2020. The lawsuit was filed on June 16; Bolton's book was published on June 23. Wonder if Simon and Schuster is in trouble, too? pic.twitter.com/nRCI6t5EY9 Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) August 22, 2025 Bolton did seem to know that Kash Patel, who currently leads the FBI, knew something about him: Makes sense why John Bolton was panicking over Kash Patels nomination. pic.twitter.com/ocTPj47OMq Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) August 22, 2025 Whatever it is, he could now be in deep trouble: NEW: Jonathan Turley says John Bolton could be hit with up to 20 years in prison over national defense information: "It could be national defense information. That creates a heightened potential penalty...5 to 20 years." pic.twitter.com/53PWJ06bfi Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 22, 2025 Live by the swamp, die by the swamp and its ethos. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is making a fool of itself, claiming the move was all about Trump not 'liking' John Bolton, or Bolton saying something bad about Trump, which is his First Amendment right. Actually, Trump is hosing out the swamp. The trading of secrets for filthy lucre, commercial or foreign. The book deals for big dollars. The profiteering off the labors of countless spies, and the revolving doors between the public and private common among swamp things. The overclassification of vast troves of data and their usage as currency for prestige, cash exchange, or new jobs. All of these are swamp games that have nothing to do with Trump's view of Bolton's rude statements -- which seem to be part of the plot, actually. Not surprisingly, many are saying what goes around, comes around: This is from the Latino dude who ran the Proud Boys, the man was thrown into prison for decades over the Jan. 6 Capitol storming who was not anywhere near the action. President Trump pardoned him. This was my home 4 years ago Spare me your liberal outrage. Your kind started this. I hope the whole syndicate lives in fear for the rest of their lives. They deserve nothing but misery. They made my family suffer. I hope theirs does too. What happened to Bolton is https://t.co/VeUbDry3Gp pic.twitter.com/x5Jk71ayPd Enrique Tarrio (@NobleOne) August 22, 2025 They started it. Now it's coming for Bolton -- and that's just to start. Many more may follow. Some in the mainstream press made fools of themselves, and their scorings were picked up by Twitchy: The FBI targets former Trump official John Bolton because he made the president mad. https://t.co/GbBnZ6E0r7 Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) August 22, 2025 One wonders what sauce for the gander is like for Bolton himself: John Bolton was really enthusiastic about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. No one is above the law. I wonder if he feels the same way about todays FBI raid on his house. pic.twitter.com/hsBPGzJbak Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 22, 2025 The pieties from the swamp are flowing as the swamp circles its wagons: Watch today's media reactions to John Bolton's search for mask slips. Already some of the talking points are disturbing. Political Wire writes -- "[E]veryone on the side of liberalism and the rule of law ought to take Boltons side today. Solidarity." Think about that. John pic.twitter.com/wkooNCKDaM DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) August 22, 2025 If you find yourself freaking out about the FBI's John Bolton raid, I'd like to offer you the guidance John Bolton offered after the raid on Mar-a-Lago: "Everybody ought to just calm down, whether you're pro-Trump or anti-Trump and let the process work its way through." pic.twitter.com/DeC8geO07c Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) August 22, 2025 If you find yourself freaking out about the FBI's John Bolton raid, I'd like to offer you the guidance John Bolton offered after the raid on Mar-a-Lago: "Everybody ought to just calm down, whether you're pro-Trump or anti-Trump and let the process work its way through." pic.twitter.com/DeC8geO07c Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) August 22, 2025 This month 3 years ago Mar-o-Lago was raided. John Bolton was constantly in front of the cameras pouring oil on the fire. pic.twitter.com/outhvdc5bi Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) August 22, 2025 Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. But what's different is the emerging picture that those who launched the attacks on Trump from so many directions seem to have been breaking the law themselves and trying to cover it up by taking out Trump. That's where the real arrestable material is going to be if this pans out as we think it will. This is what we call 'draining the swamp' for real. Image: X video screen shot The Democrat Party gets weirder every day. There was a time when most of the Democrats I knew were tradesmen, roughnecks, farmers, and union guys. They were tough dudes, often veterans, and told some of the bawdiest jokes Ive ever heard. Now Democrats cant define what a dude is; they want to wokify the military into some gaudy pageant for drag queens who fear guns; and theyve replaced politically incorrect humor with stern lectures. No wonder American men are fleeing the Democrat Party like its a sexually transmitted disease. Speaking of STDs, one of the Democrat lectures that Americans are forced to endure is that young people shouldnt discriminate against potential partners who have HIV. Democrats have even gone out of their way to decriminalize the intentional act of infecting someone with the virus. This is the same political party that calls men homophobic and transphobic if they refuse to date trans women (psychologically disturbed men wearing push-up bras). So Democrats are telling young people that they are haters and right-wing bigots if they choose to avoid potential suitors with sexually transmitted diseases or male plumbing hidden behind specially-designed skirts. Perhaps thats why the right-wing pejorative has lost most of its sting since Obama fundamentally transformed America into an oasis for femboys and pansexual furries. Can you imagine how many teenage boys have asked, So the Nazis get to date pretty girls who wear Sydney Sweeneys jeans? Once they realize that Democrats merely graffitied the Republican Partys front door with lies and slurs and that the average Republican voter just wants to live well and be free, the choice of future political affiliation is easy. Democrats live in fantasy; Republicans prefer reality. Thats probably why so many of those older Democrat roughnecks have transitioned to the Republican Party. As one wrote to me, This is the only transition Im up for. There was a pretty funny joke after that, but Ill save it for a more casual venue. We Republicans may be politically incorrect, but we do have common decency and good manners! This leftist madness is by no means restricted to the Democrat Party in the United States. All over the West, leftists are demanding open borders, loads of free stuff, and a ban on all forms of reliable energy. They want their already-bankrupt governments to pay them an income for merely existing and to jack up the mandatory minimum wage until fast-food workers earn as much as surgeons. They think legalizing drugs and abortion up to the moment of a babys birth will somehow make them happy. They want an end to unwinnable wars, except theyre pretty sure we should get into a nuclear grudge match with Russia over Russian-speaking lands whose residents dont want to be part of Ukraine. Oh, and they really want Israel to stop fighting back against sicko-terrorists who decapitate babies in front of their mothers. But they have absolutely nothing against Jews. They just want to kick them out of the nation theyve built and hand everything theyve created over to illiterate warlords who marry nine-year-old girls and scream, Death to America! Speaking of the religion of peace, did you catch this story out of Evil Stepmother England? The locals in a pastoral, very beautiful part of the country are unhappy that a mega-mosque is being built in an area where the Muslim population is less than half of one percent. Most expect it to be the first step in a larger plan to settle a huge number of Islamic immigrants into the tight-knit community. A young father protested this unwanted invasion by singing, We love bacon, outside of the construction site. He was subsequently arrested for racial abuse. Free speech in the U.K. is dead. As one social media commenter notes, In the UK today, you can be arrested for liking bacon or telling someone to speak English. However, if youre in a Muslim rape gang, the government will cover it up. You can also be arrested for exposing the cover-up. Podcaster Tim Pool says that Christian England is conquered. Another commenter observes: Fun facts about bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a 9 year old! Many other American pundits urge the U.S. military to airdrop guns and bacon into the U.K before Keir Starmer transitions St. Pauls Cathedral into a mosque and hands the keys to Buckingham Palace over to a London imam. You put all this leftist-engineered self-destruction together, and it becomes obvious that the West will not exist if Democrats and their Antifa friends get their way. Thats probably why young people -- especially men -- are bolting the Democrat Party. Nobody with a brain votes for his own subjugation. In response, Democrats have pushed childish morons -- such as Harry Sisson and this crazy girl with a nose ring -- into the spotlight to win young men back. To young men who dont hate themselves, thats like offering carnivores the vegetarian plate. Ah, theres the Democrats next campaign slogan: We love fake meat. Image: Pexels WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that George Washington University failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus, accusing the school of being "deliberately indifferent" to a hostile environment that targeted Jewish students and faculty. In a letter to GWU President Ellen Granberg, the department detailed incidents dating back to protests in University Yard, including an encampment where students reported being harassed and intimidated. The department said those incidents created an environment that was "objectively offensive, severe and pervasive," and that university officials and campus police did not intervene appropriately. The department has offered GWU the option to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement, but did not disclose specific terms. If the university does not cooperate or fails to implement required changes, it could lose federal funding. "Every student has the right to equal educational opportunities without fear of harassment or abuse," Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. "Universities that promulgate antisemitic discrimination will face legal consequences." GWU spokesperson Shannon McClendon said the school is reviewing the department's letter. She said the university has acted in accordance with policy and law, including during the encampment. "We do not tolerate behavior that threatens our community or undermines meaningful dialogue," McClendon said. She added that the school continues to work with members of the Jewish community, local organizations, and law enforcement to address threats and protect students. GWU is one of 10 universities recently reviewed by a federal task force on campus antisemitism. The schools were flagged for alleged antisemitic incidents reported since October 2023. The university has not yet indicated whether it will accept the Justice Department's proposed agreement. President Trump is correct. No U.S. troops on the ground but we will provide logistics and aerial support. It's up to the Europeans to put up the troops to protect Ukraine, a country in their neighborhood. This is not an isolationist position but, rather a reality that the Europeans, individually rather through NATO, need to be involved. So what countries are sending troops? Let's check this out from Thomas Latschan: Following talks about Ukraine in Washington early this week, Western states are working to fine tune the details of the much-discussed "security guarantees" for Ukraine. One important question is how a possible ceasefire could be secured along the more than 1,000-kilometer-long (621 miles) front line in eastern Ukraine. Another is which countries would be prepared to send soldiers to Ukraine? And how many, and with what sort of mandate? The article points out that the UK is ready to lead. Germany and France want to do something but it's not clear what. Back to the article: Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and the Baltic states have also signaled their willingness to participate in a possible peacekeeping force in Ukraine. However other European states are more cautious. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk rejects the deployment of Polish soldiers, which he says, would be extremely unpopular with the Polish population. Polls say that 85% of Poles reject the deployment of their own soldiers, even for a peacekeeping mission. Hungary and Slovakia are also opposed to the deployment of European troops. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has even described the possible deployment of Western troops as "warmongering." Austria and Italy are also cautious. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is particularly skeptical about the deployment of NATO troops and would prefer a UN-led mission. Meloni has so far avoided making any clear commitments. So the meeting in the White House made some great photos. I don't know if the foreign leaders went there thinking that the U.S. would lead the mission with troops. Frankly, you can't blame them because that's what we've doing for 60 years. The moment for European leadership is here. Again, this is not an isolationist position but rather a reality that the U.S. taxpayer has been carrying the load for too long. Ukraine is in their neighborhood and they should show Russia that they are willing to fight to defend their neighbor. How many European troops? To deploy or not deploy, that is the question. P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos. Image: USAF In todays edition of This didnt really happen, did it? we have an Englishman arrested for expressing a fondness for bacon. You read that correctly. According to The Blaze, a young English man was recently taken into custody outside of the soon-to-be South Lakes Islamic Center, a $3.35 million mosque set to open in the English town of Dalton-in-Furness, in the northwestern county of Cumbria in 2026. There are already three mosques out in the heathlands that cover Cumbria. Dalton is a small town of less than 8,000 residents. On August 16, hundreds of folks, fed up with the construction of yet another mosque in their area, protested near the construction site. Peacefully. And that is when the young man stated, "We love bacon." He didn't even say 'streaky rashers' like many English people do. Two police officers, no doubt a brace of Englands finest, rushed in to arrest the pork-loving protester. Allah be praised! According to Blaze media, when the man asked why he was being handcuffed, one of the officers informs him that he is being arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act of 1986, which prohibits the use of threatening or abusive words or behavior, or disorderly behavior within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress thereby. Blaze media: The arresting officer suggests in the viral video of the incident that the expression we love bacon might be perceived to be racially abusive. We love bacon is racially abusive?! Britain is toast? (Is that still O.K. to say? I mean toast is often served with bacon for breakfast?) What if the man had said We love Kevin Bacon? He probably still would have been arrested in todays ever-less United Kingdom. Scotland Yard isnt what it used to be. Neither is England. The Blaze reported that the number of people in England and Wales identifying as Christian plummeted from 59.3% in 2011 to 46.2% in 2021, a truly staggering drop. During that same 10-year stretch, the number identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9% to 6.5% an increase of over 1 million people. Ironically, when it comes to procreation, native Englishmen are laggards while Muslims are makin bacon. As mark Steyn says, demography is destiny. What if protesters in England started chanting the famous Black Lives Matter phrase so often used in America, Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon! Would the local constabulary arrest said protesters for threatening them or for offending Muslims by uttering the word pig? Will folks be arrested for asking those at the construction site, Care for a pork rind? For saying, Dang it, I think I pulled my ham string? or Wanna walk my dog? How about, Sex, drugs, and rock and roll forever, am I right? Or Excuse me, where is the nearest gay bar? Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License Euclids Elements, first published in 300 BC, was one of the most important and influential textbooks ever written in the history of science and it laid the foundations of mathematics. It was one of the earliest mathematical works to be printed after the invention of the printing press, and by some estimates, it is second only to the Bible in the number of editions published since the first printing in 1482. By Queen Victorias time, The Elements had became a standard textbook in schools, and even today, Euclids mathematics is universally taught to all high school students. Elements was first translated into English from Greek in 1570, by Sir Henry Billingsley, an English merchant who later became the mayor of London. Billingsley was a mathematics graduate of Cambridge University and well versed in Greek. Instead of translating from the well-known Latin translation, Billingsley chose the Greek edition of Theon of Alexandria (ca. 390). Billingsleys translation was a magnum opus. He translated all the thirteen books of Euclid and added three additional books attributed to Euclid, along with notes from various ancient and modern commentators. The finished work was over a thousand pages. A unique feature of Billingsleys translation was the unique pop up modelsthree-dimensional fold-up diagramsthat he included throughout the book to illustrate geometric solids and different mathematical theorems. It was one of the first books to include such a feature. These pop-up models occur throughout Book XI on solid geometry and were hand-glued into each copy of the work. Photo: Special Collections: University of Aberdeen Flaps used to represent three-dimensional shapes. Photo: Special Collections: University of Aberdeen Although Billingsleys work was renowned for its clarity and accuracy, the author made the embarrassing mistake of confusing Euclide of Megara with Euclid of Alexandria. Thus his book is erroneously titled The Elements of Geometrie of the Most Ancient Philosopher Euclide of Megara. For many years a controversy raged as to who was the real author of this work. The 19th century British mathematician Augustus De Morgan suggested that the translation was solely the work of the Anglo-Welsh mathematician John Dee. The English antiquarian Anthony Wood asserted that the translation was largely the work of the priest David Whytehead, who spent his final years at Billingsley's house. It was only towards the end of the 19th century, when the original copy of Euclid used by Billingsley in his translation found its way to Princeton College, the numerous marginal notes and comments left no doubt who the major contributor to the disputed work was. Photo: University Libraries Photo: University Libraries Photo: Before Newton Photo: Before Newton References: # Mathematic Association of America, https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/mathematical-treasures-billingsley-euclid # Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Billingsley Back in May at Google I/O 2025, Google officially confirmed that Geminis support for Android Auto and Google TV is coming. But then it only offered a coming soon timeline, which was quite vague, frankly. Google is now offering more details regarding the availability, which is more specific. The support for Googles AI chatbot on Google TV and Android Auto could just be a few weeks away, as things stand. Gemini for Android Auto and Google TV is coming soon At the Made by Google event, where the company launched the Pixel 10 series, the new Journal app, and other announcements, the companys executive, Rick Osterloh, said that Gemini is coming to your car and TV this fall. Googles also adding speakers and smart displays to the mix as well. Its a big deal, its got to be everywhere that you are, said Rick. Again, the fall timeline is not exactly pinpointing the date or week; its slightly more specific and better than coming soon. We are likely to see Gemini come to Android Auto and Google TV sometime in September, October, or November. Gemini is going to be everywhere The comment is also confirmation enough that Geminis debut on Google TV isnt that far either. Google first teased the arrival of Gemini to TVs around early 2025, with the timeline later this year. The long wait is finally coming to an end soon, as the fall timeline is around the block. Gemini will soon be everywhere. The company, at the Pixel 10 launch event, accidentally revealed a new smart speaker with Gemini support. This speaker will arrive in four colors, with the glowing light present at the bottom. This should light up when youre having conversations with Gemini. It will have a fabric finish just like Googles Nest Mini and Apple HomePod Mini. Theres a new front in the AI war, and its not in Silicon Valleyits in Washington. In a high-stakes competition to become the federal governments go-to AI provider, tech giants are in a fierce race to win over public agencies. And in its latest move, Google just launched its most aggressive play yet. Were talking about Googles Gemini for Government AI program. Gemini for Government is a specialized version of its AI platform tailored specifically to the needs of federal agencies. The new offering is a comprehensive AI-powered toolkit designed to help government employees with everything from automating tedious administrative tasks to generating research reports and creating images. It includes popular tools like NotebookLM. It also comes with pre-built AI agents for Deep Research and Idea Generation to get agencies started right away. This helps make the platform feel both powerful and accessible. The biggest story, however, isnt what the platform does, but what it costs. Gemini for Government costs $0.50 annually Lately, big names in the AI industrylike Anthropic and OpenAIhave been hitting government deals at token prices as low as $1 per year. Google is jumping on this bandwagon, but even more aggressively. The company is offering Gemini for Government for a ridiculously low price: just $0.50 per year. This bidding war is happening in the shadow of the current administrations AI Action Plan. The latter aims to accelerate the adoption of American-made AI across the government. With federal agencies now actively looking for powerful AI tools that are both secure and efficient, these tech companies are doing everything they can to position themselves as the partner of choice. Ultimately, Googles full-featured platform is a serious contender to lead this new era of government AI. This isnt just about selling a product; its a strategic play to become a long-term partner for the most powerful organizations in the nation. It is another move in the battle to drive the future of government technology. The Google Pixel 10 pre-order stage is already live. Models like the XL arent exactly cheap, so fans are on the hunt for a way to get their hands on the new phone without breaking the bank. For those on Verizon or looking to switch, a standout trade-in offer for the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL is available. Get the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL for $0 at Verizon Verizon is giving customers a chance to get the new Google Pixel 10 Pro XL for up to $0 when they trade in an eligible device. Of course, there are a couple of requirements. The list includes signing up for the Unlimited Ultimate Verizon plan. But if you were already considering an upgrade or a carrier change, this is one of the most compelling deals on the table. With the phones set to hit stores on August 28, its likely that pre-order promotions will become less generous after that date. Verizon Trade in an eligible device to get a brand-new Google Pixel 10 XL Pro on Verizon for $0. Buy from Verizon Key specs Beyond the deal, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is a device thats worth the hype. The phones massive 6.8-inch AMOLED display is a sight to behold, with a stunning 3,000 nits of peak brightness and a dynamic refresh rate that adjusts between 1 and 120Hz. Powering the show is the new Tensor G5 chip. This SoC promises better efficiency and thermal management thanks to TSMCs manufacturing process. As for photography, the phones rear camera system boasts a 50MP main sensor, a 48MP ultrawide, and a 48MP telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom. The big news? Both the ultrawide and telephoto lenses now support macro shots, giving you more creative freedom. For those who love selfies, the front-facing camera has a massive 42MP sensor. The Pixel 10 Pro XL features Qi2 support for magnetic wireless charging. That said, you will need a PixelSnap case to take advantage of this technology. Lastly, theres a 5,200mAh battery, the largest ever in a Pixel phone. A lot of users worldwide use a VPN. And the best way to use it on the browser is by adding a VPN extension. However, not every Chrome VPN extension you install is safe, and some are legitimate spyware. In a recent finding, a reportedly Google-verified VPN extension was caught spying on its users. And this extension is way popular than you can think of. FreeVPN, a Google-verified Chrome VPN extension accused of being spyware Trusting anything on the internet is riskier than it seems. As per a research report published by Koi Security, the popular Chrome VPN extension, called FreeVPN, was reportedly a spyware that would spy on the user all the time. The main point behind the VPN is to escape the restrictions and be on a safer side. However, that doesnt seem to be the case with the users of FreeVPN. Instead of protecting the valuable data of its users, the VPN was taking screenshots of every page that its users would visit. Yes, you heard right, every single page. These images were then sent to external sources. And where exactly these images would go is no less than a mystery. A script was being run by the extension to ensure the quality of the data capture. It mistakenly got two Chrome awards FreeVPN is one of the most popular Chrome VPN extensions (that later turns out to be spyware). It even managed to get two Chrome awards. It even had the Google-verified badge. Both of these further assured its users that its a safe-to-use VPN. But as it turns out, it was anything but safe. Now, how it managed to get those badges is perplexing, and it could be a mistake from the tech giant. It has over 100,000 downloads on the Chrome Store. It was believed to be a safe alternative to the paid VPN services, thanks to its badge and decent ratings. But little did its users know that it was nothing less than a privacy nightmare. Google has one of the most robust cloud infrastructures. It is the reason why OpenAI recently partnered with the company to use its cloud network. And now, the social media giant, Meta, has struck a deal worth $10 billion with Google to use its cloud network and services. Meta signs $10 billion deal with Google to use its cloud network As per the report shared by Reuters, Meta has reportedly signed a deal worth $10 billion with Google. The information related to the agreement was shared by a confidential person related to the matter. Their name is not disclosed yet, and understandably so, for obvious reasons. Google had earlier signed an agreement with OpenAI to share its advanced cloud network with the firm. However, details related to the monetary exchange were not revealed. Meanwhile, as for the current agreement with Meta, Google has agreed to share its Cloud servers storage, services, and networking with the social media giant. The deal is part of Metas plan to expand AI data centres Meta is currently mad about the AI. It wants to become a strong AI-based firm, and it is spending millions and billions of dollars to achieve this. The CEO of the firm, Mark Zuckerberg, had recently said that the company is ready to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centres. The current deal is not directly related to the companys plan to build AI data centres. However, it does help with the expansion of the AI cloud network through third-party servers. It looks like the AI is growing at an unprecedented rate. OpenAI and Meta both have signed deals to use the cloud network of Google for their AI businesses. And there cant be a bigger indicator than this to confirm the rapid growth of the sector. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO, was in Taiwan recently visiting TSMCs fab there. He spent some time with reporters, according to Wccftech, who had questions for him regarding the Trump administration granting licenses to his company and AMD to export H20 GPU chips to China. Why NVIDIAs CEO created the H20 GPUs amid Trumps trade restrictions For years, China has had to source the chips and technology it needs to scale AI advancement in the country locally. The available chips had failed to provide sufficient capability or advancement to help them compete in the AI market. You can then get the noise that trailed DeepSeek launching an AI model recently. It was unprecedented. NVIDIA makes some of the advanced chips that power the tech behind AI, such as those that run large language models. The U.S. government, however, had banned the export of such chips to China for national security reasons. NVIDIA created the H20 GPUs in response to addressing the concerns of the Trump administration, according to the NVIDIA CEO. What are the H20 GPUs that Trump granted an export license for? The H20 GPUs are NVIDIAs chips designed specifically for the Chinese market. They are alternatives to the more high-end chips like the H100. However, they can use them in other markets. With these chips produced, the Trump administration has now granted permission to ship them to China. The Chinese, however, also had their concerns about some security backdoor in the chips. NVIDIA CEO on his conversation with Trump and the Chinese Government In the video below, Huang addressed these two issues: the new export license and Chinas security backdoor concerns. First, he said that he was very grateful that the Trump administration has approved licenses for us to export H20s to China. And then segue into those concerns about security backdoors. He said the Chinese Government asked him if there were any. His response to them he said was to make very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors. No doubt a security backdoor to chips of any class would be of serious concern to any country. In fact, that is the US governments rancor with the Chinese government. It claims that Huawei, a Chinese company, grants backdoor access to its technology for the Chinese government to spy on U.S. citizens However, the reporters wanted to know what the NVIDIA CEO said to President Trump to make him change his mind. Huang said that he didnt provide any advice, according to the source for this article. He did, however, impress the importance of the American AI tech stack on the president. Allowing U.S. tech companies to export their technology puts the country at a leading advantage. Banning the export of such an asset may delay it in the short run, but those advancements will come eventually. This much Huang said he pointed out to the president. He told reporters that he told Trump that AI is going to advance around the world with or without the United States. And it is important for us to maximize our AI export technology at a time when this industry is being formed. TSMC is building new NVIDIA Rubin chips While reporters may have pressed the NVIDIA CEO about the H20 GPUs and Trumps lifting of export sanctions to China, he made them know why he was in Taiwan. He said he was there to see how work at TSMC is progressing on NVIDIAs new Rubin Chips. The Rubin Chips are NVIDIAs newest chips for powering AI technology. In the video above, you can hear him talk about the chip. That report expects these chips to hit the market around 20262027. President Trump has been requesting that several manufacturers invest in the United States. Those who are doing otherwise might face tariffs from the government. Now, Samsung is reportedly planning to do an equity investment in Intel, in an attempt to appease the President. Samsung reviews its plan to invest in Intel Intel is one of the key players in boosting the local chip production of the United States. This comes after the TSMC, Taiwans chip manufacturer, announced its plan to set up a third manufacturing plant in the region. As per a media report, Samsung is now planning to make an equity investment in Intel. This could strengthen the countrys semiconductor industry and reduce dependence on overseas supply chains. One of the Japanese investment firms, Softbank, had recently announced its plan to invest a whopping $2 billion in Intel. Just after the news came out, the companys share jumped drastically. This investment would help the already struggling brand to find some relief. Intel has been facing rising competition from other global chipmakers. Samsungs investment could be a win-win for the US and Intel After the news of the investment of Softbank became viral, Samsung is also considering an equity investment in Intel. The primary motive behind the investment is to appease President Trump and his administration. They have been putting strong pressure on global corporations to expand their footprint in the US. Samsung has finalized reviewing its plan to invest in Intel, as the source reports. While the brand was considering the investment in other firms and areas as well, it is currently planning for the investment only in Intel due to political and economic advantages. It is also planning to do a partnership with the local packaging company, Amkor. It would be worth watching how the economy of the United States will react to these investments. The semiconductor market is already in bloom as several companies, including Nvidia and AMD, have announced their plan to increase local investment. Young People Complete Repainting of Referendum Steps The Gibraltar Youth Service, on behalf of the Ministry of Youth, is proud to announce the successful repainting of the Referendum Steps, completed in time for National Day celebrations. Young people from all youth clubs and projects, along with volunteers from the wider community came together over five days to refresh this iconic landmark. The initiative stemmed from a request from a local resident to the Ministry of Housing. Minister for Youth, The Hon. Christian Santos GMD MP and Minister for Housing, The Hon. Pat Orfila MP visited the steps to meet with some of the young people involved in the project and some of the local residents. The Minister for Youth said; This is a powerful example of what can be achieved when people work together. Our young people have shown great teamwork and commitment, working alongside volunteers from the wider community to complete a project which will benefit Gibraltar as a whole. This area is also much visited by Tourists, and the rejuvenated steps once again give a message of civic pride. My thanks to the Youth Service for leading on this, to other Government Departments who prepared and cleansed the area in preparation for the project, and to all the volunteers who came together to work towards making this area stand out for the right reasons. For more information about the Gibraltar Youth Service, please contact Principal Youth Officer, Mark Zammit at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The Sony Xperia 1 VII returns to stores across markets, Sony announced in a post on its website. The news was also reported by GSMArena.com. Sources had reported early in July that Sony was pulling the device due to random reboots, restarts, and shutdowns. In that post on its website, Sony explained why it pulled the device, what actions it had taken since then, and when it would be available. When Sony pulled the device in July, it also announced a replacement for affected batches and how you can claim a replacement. Sony shared that information again with its customers. Since the Sony Xperia 1 VII had been pulled from stores, Sony says it has been able to identify those issues that caused it to temporarily halt sales. They include unexpected power-offs, restarts, or difficulties powering on. The update further highlights steps it has taken to rectify this problem and what you can do if you own a Sony Xperia 1 VII. What you can do if you own a Sony Xperia 1 VII If you purchased the Sony Xperia 1 VII before Sony pulled it from stores and experienced these issues, Sony is offering an exchange. Go to Sonys website using the link above and enter your IMEI to see if the issue affects your device. You can also find more information on the Sony website on how to check for your IMEI and more if you do not know how. Sales of the Sony Xperia 1 VII resume in stores on August 25, 2025 The Sony Xperia 1 VII is not in stores immediately. However, you can still check whether the reboot and shutdown issues affect your device. They will be on August 25, 2025, according to Sonys update. That is just a few days more. Sony announced the Sony Xperia 1 VII on May 13 as a successor to the Sony Xperia 1 VI. It is a 6.5-inch full HD+ OLED HDR device and runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. Also, it features 12GB RAM paired with either a 256GB or 512GB storage option. It packs a 5000mAh battery with a charging speed of 30 W, Qi wireless charging, and runs Android 15 out of the box. The phone has a three-camera setup at the back, a 48-megapixel main camera paired with another 48-megapixel ultrawide camera. The third camera is a 12-megapixel periscope telephoto camera. You can read an in-depth guide on the Sony Xperia 1 VII to learn more. Believe it or not, but US President Donald Trump shared some similar goals with his predecessor, Joe Biden. Both US Presidents wanted to encourage more manufacturing of semiconductors in the US, which ultimately led to the CHIPS Act. This is a grant for companies to incentivize them to produce more semiconductors stateside. However, it seems that Trump is now considering using funding for the CHIPS Act to acquire critical minerals. Trump wants CHIPS Act funding for minerals According to an exclusive report from Reuters, the publications sources have told them that Trump is currently weighing the option of using funding for the CHIPS Act to acquire critical minerals. In case you did not know, but manufacturing semiconductors involves the use of several types of minerals. This includes germanium, gallium, lithium, and indium, just to name a few. Many of these minerals are mined around the world, however, mining is just one side of the story. To make them actually usable, they need to be processed and refined. Think of it like food. You have the raw ingredients to make a burger, but if you dont know how to actually process all of it, its not very useful. This is where China comes in. China processes and refines the bulk of the worlds minerals, and this is something the Trump administration isnt too happy about. It is also why they are considering using $2 billion from the CHIPS Act for mining-related projects. By doing so, it could allow US-based companies and other companies around the world, to be less reliant on China. Trumps push for US self-reliance If this report is accurate, it is in line with what the Trump administration has been doing. Just a few months ago, Trump announced sweeping global tariffs for goods imported into the US. China and India have been hit the hardest. The administration also announced that it would impose a 100% tariff on imported semicondcutors. However, there is a loophole. If companies make their chips in the US, or commit to investing in more chip-making facilities stateside, they would be exempt. Trump has also toyed with the idea of using grants from the CHIPS Act to gain a stake in companies. It was recently suggested that this could include companies that have already received grants (or part of it), such as Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and Micron. A new Google Pixel Tablet is not happening, at least not at this time. Pixel hardware is all the rage right now, thanks to Googles announcement of the Pixel 10 series phones on August 20. At its late-morning event, Google announced a collection of new products, including the Pixel 10, the Pixel 10 Pro, the Pixel 10 Pro XL, and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. It also announced the Pixel Watch 4, Pixel Buds 2a, and a new color of the Pixel Buds Pro 2. What hopeful consumers didnt get was a new Pixel Tablet. Though realistically, it might have been a long shot that Google would reveal such a device to the world this week. There have been several rumors of an upcoming Pixel Tablet over the past year. However, compared to leaks and rumors of the Pixel 10 series, these were few and far between. And now theres a good reason for that. Google confirms a new Pixel Tablet is not happening According to a recent report from Android Authority, Google has confirmed that it has no current plans for a new Pixel Tablet. Despite a few rumors that Google was making one, Google says it doesnt have anything in the works. Whether or not thats a bad thing depends on whether or not you really wanted another one of these devices from Google. These details were initially touched on by Rick Osterloh from Googles hardware team in an interview with Bloomberg. Osterloh breaks down several key focuses for the company on hardware products. None of which includes tablets at the moment. That could always change in the future. For now, though, it seems like Google is focused on phones and foldables. In addition to other hardware products, of course. Such as that mysterious new home speaker powered by Gemini. Theres still hope for the future Google may have put the kibosh on a new Pixel Tablet at this time, but theres always hope for the future for those who choose to see it. Google has made its current plans clear. Having said that, plan change, and Google didnt say its never making another Pixel Tablet. It merely said it doesnt currently have any plans for a new one. For the time being, Googles Pixel 10 Pro Fold might make a nice alternative if you want something that reaches toward the tablet category. As an added bonus, it can actually fit in your pocket. Asylum seekers in hotels feel hunted by protests, campaigners said as one Afghan man told of being seen as an enemy by the British public after fleeing to the UK for a safer life. Multiple demonstrations outside hotels used to temporarily house asylum seekers are expected in the coming days. Stand Up To Racism is preparing to hold counter-protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers on Friday and Saturday. Demonstrations in recent weeks have left some of those seeking asylum feeling afraid to go outside, according to Asylum Matters, which works with asylum seekers and refugees. Many feel hunted amid scenes of hate and intimidation on Britains streets, the Freedom from Torture charity said. Meanwhile, a 26-year-old Afghan man who has been living in a hotel in Yorkshire for almost two years, said he is scared of what might happen to him here. Going under a pseudonym of Daastan, he said he had been in the hotel since October 2023 and that he came to the UK after his family were targeted by the Taliban. Speaking through the Refugee Council, he said he felt very depressed at how long his case had been in the system one year for his asylum application to be considered and another year for an appeal after his initial application was rejected for what he said were very minor reasons which had left his own solicitor confused. On his experience of late, he said: I feel like nobody likes me, the people of this city dont want us, but I dont have any other option. Its really hit my confidence. Before I used to talk very socially with everyone. Now Im scared, what if they abuse you, what if they record you? Its hard. I cant explain but this year it has totally changed. People see us as an enemy. He said he feels like Im a burden, I dont want to stay like this, adding that if people were not stuck in the system for so long they would be able to work and pay taxes. Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said: Protests against people seeking asylum are causing alarm amongst adults and children who have fled war in countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan. Last summer, we witnessed refugees we support fear for their lives as an angry mob tried to set fire to the hotel where they were living. Rhetoric that dehumanises people whove come to Britain seeking sanctuary creates a climate where violence can flourish. He said while some people do have valid questions about why hotels are used, these concerns are being hijacked by a violent minority and that asylum hotels had become flashpoints a symbol of a broken system that traps people in limbo, unable to work or rebuild their lives at huge public cost. Louise Calvey, executive director of Asylum Matters, said: At the moment, were seeing people seeking asylum feeling afraid to go outside, in the country where they were meant to be safe. Children watching crowds of adults shout at them to leave, when they have nowhere else to go. People working in charities supporting refugees facing personal threats, having to increase their security. Counter protesters have also demonstrated in recent weeks (Joe Giddens/PA) Kolbassia Haoussou, from Freedom from Torture, said: The recent scenes of hate and intimidation on Britains streets, stirred up by politicians for their own ends, have left the survivors we support feeling hunted once more. Many of the men, women and children in hotels have come here seeking protection after enduring torture in countries like Afghanistan and Iran. This is not who we are as a country. When people fled Ukraine, communities across the UK opened their doors with extraordinary compassion. That same humanity should extend to anyone escaping war and persecution. If we want the UK to remain a place of welcome, we must stand shoulder to shoulder with all refugees. Several protests and counter-protests were held in the Essex town of Epping since a then-resident at the Bell hotel was accused of trying to kiss a teenage girl charges he denies and which he is due to stand trial for later this month. Some protests have seen demonstrators hold signs referencing womens safety, but campaigners including Rape Crisis and Refuge have warned that conversations about violence against women and girls are being hijacked by an anti-migrant agenda which they argued fuels divisions and harms survivors. A coalition of more than 100 womens organisations wrote to ministers to say they had been alarmed in recent weeks by an increase in unfounded claims made by people in power, and repeated in the media, that hold particular groups as primarily responsible for sexual violence. They added: This not only undermines genuine concerns about womens safety, but also reinforces the damaging myth that the greatest risk of gender-based violence comes from strangers. Woodcraft Folk in Stanmore, Middlesex, in May 1947. Photograph: George W Hales/Getty Phineas Harpers article reminded me of how much the Woodcraft Folk influenced my life (Like Jeremy Corbyn and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, I grew up in Woodcraft Folk. Heres how it changes childrens lives, 16 August). In the early 1950s my parents actively sought a socialist childrens organisation. We lived in Clapham and the nearest Woodcraft group met in a co-op hall in Balham. The group was called Sunrise Elfins and the leader was Ada, the wife of national organiser Henry Fair. In 1952, aged six, I went on my first of many summer camps. The camp was at Westward Ho! and was hit by a hurricane that was reported on the Daily Mirrors front page. In 1959 I went to Czechoslovakia in a 10-strong delegation. One of my lasting memories was visiting Lidice, a village razed to the ground in reprisal for the assassination of an SS official, Reinhard Heydrich. As a leader, I ran groups and took them to camps abroad. On one occasion, there was no female leader available to help me take my Venturer group to a camp in Aarhus, Denmark. Esme Goldberg, the campaigner against apartheid, was suggested to me. So I met the South African political prisoner Denis Goldbergs wife and then Denis himself, after he was released. In 1984 I met my wife, Jenny Brooks, in the international camp in Loughborough. I also participated in CNDs Aldermaston marches with the folk. One hundred years of first-class work with young people deserves national recognition. Come on, Royal Mail, how about a set of stamps? Come on, Royal Mint, how about a coin? Andrew Moncrieff Dronfield, Derbyshire I was delighted to read Phineas Harpers article. As he says, the Woodcraft Folk was founded in south London Woolwich, to be precise with the earliest activities taking place in Peckham. Most of the work on developing the organisation was the work of Joe Reeves, who was the education secretary for the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society one of the largest retail co-ops; RACS covered most of south London and quite a bit of Kent and Surrey. It was also highly political, with a background of the earliest known co-ops in what was a heavily industrialised area. Reevess job with the RACS was what we would describe today as a community worker. He went on to be elected as Labour MP for Greenwich in the 1945 intake. We have a lot to thank Joe for, both in his work with the RACS and then for his later work in parliament. I could go on about all of it for hours. Mary Mills London My wife and I loved reading the article on the Woodcraft Folk by Phineas Harper. Woodcraft Folk met at the local Methodist church in Birmingham, where I was the minister. Our three sons loved Woodcraft. Its leaders, Ted and Olive Palser and their daughter Kate, were the salt of the earth. We loved the anti-militaristic stance and it was way ahead of its time in terms of its commitment to caring for the environment. Best of all were the annual camps. We all took our turn in preparing meals. Facilities were basic and the wide games challenging. A favourite memory of mine is bivouacking on a deserted beach on Anglesey with inner-city children fighting off creepy-crawlies. Although Woodcraft is not a religious organisation, the group meeting at the church was one of the most caring and supportive of our activities. We have wonderful memories and commend it wholeheartedly to youngsters today. Rev Clive R Fowle Nuneaton, Warwickshire Phineas Harpers very interesting article on the Woodcraft Folk celebrates the organisations socialist ideals, while taking a couple of subtle swipes at the Scouts. But he fails to acknowledge an important point: Harold Wilson was a devoted scout. Perhaps he saw a nice little definition of socialism in the scout motto: A scout is a brother to his fellow scouts and a friend to all. While he is not the most celebrated of prime ministers, it is worth remembering that his government created the Open University a powerful tool for addressing inequality and lack of opportunity. Anthony Claff Hamburg, Germany Yes there is a militaristic tinge to the Scouts, as Phineas Harper hints in his grateful appreciation of the impact his membership of the Woodcraft Folk has had on him. However, in spite of certain cringe-making activities (saluting the flag, marching to bugles etc, when I joined in the late 1940s) my membership of the Scouts has had a similarly profound effect on me. The rhyme we learned to help us remember the (then) scout law (Trusty, loyal, helpful; brotherly courteous, kind; obedient, smiling, thrifty; clean in body and mind) is as useful a guide to good living as any I know (though now with reservations about unquestioning obedience). Along with the example of my first scoutmaster (as they were then called), Leo Moreland, this has been more useful to me than a lifetimes church sermons. Peter Wrigley Birstall, West Yorkshire Have an opinion on anything youve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. Children have been detained for removal to France under Sir Keir Starmers flagship one-in, one-out migrant swap deal, charity caseworkers say. Two 17-year-olds, who made the perilous journey to the UK on small boats, were referred to the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group supporting asylum seekers held at Brook House immigration centre in Gatwick. The boys were moved out of detention in recent days after concerns were raised, but had been handed notice of intent for deportation, informing them that the Home Office had evidence that they were present in or had a connection to France before they claimed asylum in the UK. Migrants detained under the deal have been given the letters similar to the notices handed out under the Conservatives failed Rwanda deportation scheme. Around 35 people are already in immigration detention in Gatwick and are set to be put on deportation flights back to France. The children are now in the care of West Sussex County Council, The Independent understands. The council would not comment on individual cases. Support workers believe that other lone asylum-seeking children are still being held in detention for deportation to France, and in at least one case, they were forced to share rooms with an adult. All of those detained for removal to France are male and are a mixture of nationalities, including Somalian, Iranian, Afghan, Sudanese, Eritrean, Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian. Migrant rights groups hold a show of support for people detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre at Gatwick who were scheduled to be sent to Rwanda, in June 2022 (PA) Charity workers raised concerns about the detainees lack of access to legal advice. Asylum seekers identified for deportation under the UK-France scheme are only given seven days to challenge the notice handed to them by the Home Office. This gives them little time to speak to a lawyer and respond to the notice, with some asylum seekers already missing the deadline. Under the agreement between Sir Keir and French president Emmanuel Macron, people who travel to the UK on small boats will be sent back to France in exchange for asylum seekers from France. Migrants in France who want to come to the UK can apply for the new legal route online, and the Home Office will then make a decision. They must supply copies of ID documents, such as passports, which some migrants do not have. But no one has been transferred under the scheme so far. Hannah Carbery, senior advocacy coordinator at the charity Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, said she was extremely concerned about the wellbeing and screening of people being detained. She said: Already, we have heard from other people in detention and supported directly, multiple under-18-year-olds who have been detained unlawfully and served with notices of intent letters. Those we have spoken with so far are already psychologically impacted by the journey they have endured, and are finding it difficult to eat and sleep due to being in a prison environment, not knowing how long they will be there, and fearing that they may be taken back to France. We are seeing people fall through the cracks of safeguards that are meant to prevent under-18s from being unlawfully detained, or identifying and adequately supporting victims of torture, those exploited by traffickers on their journeys, or victims of modern slavery. We are very worried that we could see a rise in more vulnerable adults and children being detained, unless improvements are made to screening people prior to being detained. Steve Smith, CEO of the charity Care4Calais, said the grubby treaty was dehumanising refugees to the extent where they can be traded like cargo. He added: What we are witnessing is an aggressive form of detentions, being carried out at breakneck speed and denying people access to justice. There is little doubt that mistakes are going to be made with an operation like this. We know children have already been detained under this deal, and we are deeply concerned that more will be detained. It feels inevitable that some will be forcibly removed and denied the protection that child refugees require. A Home Office source said that each case is assessed individually, with asylum seekers vulnerabilities taken into account. They added that the UK-France pilot operates in line with all legal obligations. Chinas envoy to India has said Beijing firmly stands with India and denounced the US as a bully for imposing a 50 per cent tariff on New Delhi, in the latest sign of warning ties between the long hostile Asian giants. Chinas ambassador Xu Feihong made the remarks following a series of high-levels talks between Indian and Chinese officials, seemingly pushed together by a shared trade adversary in US president Donald Trump. It came a day after the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi concluded a two-day trip to India, his first in three years, where he met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. The United States has imposed tariffs of up to 50 per cent on India and it has even threatened for more. China firmly opposes this, Mr Xu said Thursday. China will firmly stand with India to uphold the multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organisation at its core. He criticised the US for using tariffs as a bargaining chip to demand exorbitant prices from various countries despite getting benefits from free trade. In the face of such acts, silence or compromise only emboldens the bully, he said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, shakes hand with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, in New Delhi, India, Tuesday (AP) The Chinese diplomat was speaking in a panel event in New Delhi ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit set to take place later this month in Chinas Tianjin. Mr Modi is expected to visit China for the summit and meet Xi Jinping, in his first trip to the country in seven years. The two countries have spent years trying to improve ties after the deadly 2020 clash between soldiers at their shared Himalayan border. But those efforts have dramatically accelerated after the Trump administration said it would impose punitive measures against India for buying discounted Russian oil. India has also held high-level talks with Russia, with its foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday. Mr Xu said friendship between China and India benefits the region as a whole, calling them the double engines of economic growth in Asia. India and China unity benefits the world at large. India and China have the responsibility to take the lead in promoting an equal and orderly multipolar world, he said. He said China would welcome any Indian commodities diverted away from the US into the Chinese market. A Russian envoy in Delhi made similar remarks about his country earlier this week. Highlighting the progress made on the border issue, Mr Xu said the two countries have reached a 10-point consensus and two groups would be set up: one to finally agree the delimitation of their disputed border, and another for the management of border areas. During the talks earlier this week between Mr Wang and Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval, the two countries agreed to resume direct flights for the first time since 2020, step up trade and investment flows, and resolve the border issue. "Stable, predictable, constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional as well as global peace and prosperity," Mr Modi posted on X after meeting Mr Wang. Six people have been found dead at a dairy farm in Colorado after a suspected toxic gas incident, authorities have said. Jolene Weiner, chief deputy coroner for Weld County, said all the victims were male and Hispanic. Officers are "investigating these deaths as the possible consequence of gas exposure in a confined space", she added. The incident took place at Prospect Valley Dairy, located along a rural road near Keenesburg and around 35 miles northeast of Denver. According to Sky's US partner network NBC News, the local fire chief, Tom Beach, said firefighters responded to "a confined space rescue" at around 6pm on Thursday. KUSA, a local affiliate of NBC News, reports that three others received hospital treatment. They have been released. Weld County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Melissa Chesmore said "it looks like an accident," and did not elaborate on the nature of the emergency or where the bodies were found. Read more from Sky News: Jury discharged in trial of ex-priest UK drops Apple encryption demands A confusing week - and Trump made to look weak In an email to the Associated Press, US government spokesperson Chauntra Rideaux said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was investigating. Dairy Farmers of America added in a statement: "We are deeply saddened by this incident, and our thoughts and most sincere condolences go out to the friends and families of the deceased." Ghislaine Maxwell said she never saw President Donald Trump behave inappropriately around anyone in Jeffrey Epstein's circle, a transcript of her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has revealed. Blanche interviewed Maxwell, a former associate of Epsteins, last month over two days in Tallahassee, Florida. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in helping Epstein recruit, groom and abuse young girls. About a week after the interview, the 63-year-old British socialite was moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas. Blanche sat down with Maxwell as the Trump administration attempted to quell backlash from Republicans and Democrats alike over its handling of the Epstein investigation. In the wide-ranging interview, Maxwell responded to questions about several famous people with alleged connections to Epstein, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Maxwell told Blanche she never witnessed Trump, who was once friends with Epstein, doing anything inappropriate. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said, according to the transcripts. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. In the bombshell interview: Maxwell said she absolutely never saw Trump behaving inappropriately with anyone in Epstein's circle. She does not believe Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in New York in August 2019 but said she had no idea who might have been responsible. There is no list of Epsteins clients or famous associates, Maxwell claims. Maxwell said she does not believe she ever recruited a masseuse from Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate. She praised Trump during the interview, saying he had accomplished an extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now and that she liked him. The British socialite said claims that Epstein paid her $30 million over several years to recruit young women are categorically false. Maxwell says she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew. Donald Trump poses with Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at his Mar-a-Lago club in 2000. (Getty) Maxwell praises Trumps achievement in becoming the President After Maxwell said she never saw Trump doing anything inappropriate, Blanche asked: Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world? Absolutely never, in any context, Maxwell replied. Maxwell told Blanche she met Trump in the 1990s through her father, the controversial British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. She described Trump as always very cordial and very kind to me. Maxwell said she admires Trumps extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now. And I like him, and I've always liked him, she added. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him. Ghislaine Maxwell praised President Donald Trump and said she has always liked him (Federal Bureau of Prisons) There is no list of Epsteins clients, Maxwell claims Blanche also asked Maxwell about Epsteins so-called client list or black book that has been said to contain the names of his alleged associates. Maxwell said the list doesnt exist. So there's been a lot of conversations about whether Mr. Epstein maintained, like, a list of people, like a book of famous people that he knew, Blanche said. Like a, it's called a black book or a client list or a list. Did you know of the existence of any such list? There is no list, Maxwell responded. The FBI and Justice Department released a joint memo last month similarly claiming that Epsteins client list doesnt exist, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi telling Fox News the list was sitting on her desk waiting to be reviewed in February. Maxwell says she doesnt remember recruiting women from Mar-a-Lago Maxwell also said she doesnt recall any masseuses from Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate giving Epstein a private massage, and that she doesnt remember recruiting any masseuses from the estate. This comes after Trump claimed last month that Epstein stole young women working at his Mar-a-Lago spa. Trump said this included Epsteins alleged victim Virginia Giuffre, who claimed Maxwell recruited her in 2000 while she was working as a locker room attendant at Mar-a-Lago. Do you know whether masseuses from Mar-a-Lago's spa ended up giving massages to private massages to Mr. Epstein? Blanche asked. I'm not asking for what you may have read, but from at the time, from your personal knowledge, do you know whether that's true? I I don't I don't recall, Maxwell responded. Is it possible? Yes. But I don't remember I don't remember that. So I don't want to I don't recall that, but it's possible. Blanche then asked: Do you have a recollection of you ever recruiting a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago spa to give to go give a private massage to Mr. Epstein? I've never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember, Maxwell said. I can't ever recollect doing that. Maxwell also told Blanche she denies the claim that Epstein paid her millions to help recruit young women. What I'm trying to just make sure I that I understand, is that the idea that you were paid $30 million between '99 and 2007, in order to by Mr. Epstein to reward you for recruiting young women, Blanche said. That is in your you're saying that is categorically, completely false? That is categorically false, correct, Maxwell replied. Maxwell does not believe Epstein died by suicide Blanche also asked Maxwell about Epsteins death. Epstein died in an apparent suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges. While there have been conspiracy theories surrounding his death, the Justice Department and FBI confirmed in a memo last month that he died by suicide. Blanche said: Do you so you think he was he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about. I do not believe he died by suicide, no, Maxwell responded. And do you believe that do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? Blanche asked. I no, I dont, Maxwell said. Blanche continued to press Maxwell on why she thinks Epstein didnt die by suicide. I ask that because, if you don't believe that there's any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison? Blanche asked. In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary, Maxwell said. That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today. Maxwell went on to note that if he had been killed, it was due to an internal situation at the prison. Blanche then asked Maxwell if she has any reason to believe that Epstein may have been murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people. I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail, Maxwell responded. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target. Maxwell addresses connections with former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew Blanche asked Maxwell about other famous people that she and Epstein may have been connected with, including former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Blanche asked if Maxwell was aware of Clinton ever visiting Epsteins private island. He never. Absolutely never went, Maxwell responded. And I can be sure of that because there's no way he would've gone -- I don't believe there's any way that he would've gone to the island, had I not been there. Because I don't believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein. Maxwell also told Blanche that she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew. Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, said she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17. Prince Andrew has denied the claims and paid Giuffre an out-of-court settlement in 2022. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew, Maxwell told Blanche. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew or to Sarah Ferguson. That is a flat untruth. I'll start with that. Justice Department sends Epstein files to House Oversight Committee Earlier Friday, the House Oversight Committee also received the first round of Epstein files from the Justice Department, the Associated Press reports. This comes after the committee subpoenaed the files earlier this month. The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted, a spokesperson for Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. Maxwells interview came as the Trump administration faced blowback over its handling of the Epstein investigation. The Justice Department and FBI released a memo on July 7 indicating there would be no further disclosures related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation. Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the move and have since demanded more transparency from the administration. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. Credit: Reuters FBI agents have raided the home of John Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump. Officers descended on the property in Bethesda, Maryland, at around 12pm (7am local time) on Friday. It comes as part of an investigation into the handling of classified information, according to reports. Mr Bolton was not detained and has not been charged with any crimes, according to a source. Footage of the early morning raid showed two police cars blocking off Mr Boltons street. The end of the leafy, tree-lined road was cordoned off with yellow police and road flares. FBI officers outside of Mr Boltons home in Maryland - PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images Mr Trump said he didnt know anything about the raid and had found out about it from watching the news. Speaking at the Kennedy Centre shortly after FBI agents descended on Mr Boltons home, and later his Washington DC office, Mr Trump said: I know nothing about it, I just saw it this morning. They did a raid. I dont know about it. I saw it on television this morning. Im not a fan of John Bolton, hes sort of a low life. Mr Bolton, 76, who was once part of Mr Trumps inner circle but now has become one of the US presidents most vocal critics, was previously accused of including classified information in his 2020 book, The Room Where it Happened. John Bolton left his role in the Trump administration in November 2019 - BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Around 30 minutes after the FBI had raided his home, Mr Bolton posted on social media suggesting Mr Trumps attempts to end the war in Ukraine were futile. Sharing a link to an interview with NPR, he wrote: Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do so. He added: Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I dont see these talks making any progress. After searching his home, FBI agents raided Mr Boltons office in the centre of Washington DC. Management sent an internal email to all of the buildings tenants, saying: The FBI is on-site this morning to visit one specific tenant. There is no known threat to the property at this time. Last week, Mr Trump lamented news channels for inviting figures like Mr Bolton to comment on his efforts to secure a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. Taking to Truth Social, Mr Trump wrote: Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton. It comes after Mr Bolton told CNN that Vladimir Putin had clearly won following the pairs meeting in Alaska last week. Trump did not lose but Putin clearly won. Putin achieved most of what he wanted and Trump achieved very little, he said. The raid came after Kash Patel, the FBI director, reportedly ordered an investigation into Mr Bolton. Shortly after the raid began, Mr Patel wrote on social media: NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 22, 2025 The post was reshared by a White House spokesman. Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, also shared his post, adding: Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. An FBI spokesman said the agency was conducting court-authorised activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety. JD Vance, the vice-president, said the investigation was in its very early stages. Speaking to NBCs Meet the Press, Mr Vance said: Were in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton. Were going to let that investigation proceed... if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law. However, Mr Vance insisted that the Trump administration was not going to throw people willy-nilly in prison. He said: We dont think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldnt throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and thats what were doing. Within hours of returning to the White House in 2025, Mr Trump stripped Mr Bolton of his Secret Service security protections. Mr Bolton, who left his role in the Trump administration in November 2019, had required ongoing protection because of threats against him by Iran. Asked earlier this month about whether he was worried about the Trump administration taking action against him, Mr Bolton told ABC News Mr Trump had already come after him by taking away his security detail. He added: I think it is a retribution presidency. FBI members carried boxes from the home of Mr Bolton - Tasos Katopodis/Reuters The raid also comes after Mr Bolton said in the wake of Mr Trumps meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska that the Russian had clearly won. Mr Bolton served as Mr Trumps third national security adviser for 17 months, and the pair clashed over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. He faced scrutiny during the first Trump administration over his book, but in 2021 the justice department abandoned its lawsuit and dropped a separate grand jury investigation. Mr Boltons lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official said the manuscript no longer contained classified information. An FBI spokesman said the agency was conducting court-authorised activity in the area - Tasos Katopodis/Reuters In the foreword to his memoir, Mr Bolton wrote: A mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be president. The book portrayed Mr Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government. Mr Trump responded by calling Mr Bolton a crazy war-monger who would have led the country into World War Six. A retribution presidency In a 2023 book, Mr Patel included Mr Bolton in a list of members of the executive branch deep state. Mr Bolton served as US ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush and also held positions in Ronald Reagans administration. He considered running for president in 2012 and 2016. In 2022, an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to kill Mr Bolton in presumed retaliation for a January 2020 US air strike that killed the countrys most powerful general. Mr Trump repeatedly claimed he was a victim of witch hunt federal investigations during the Biden administration. On the campaign trail and since returning to office, he has promised to investigate and punish adversaries. Other steps taken against Mr Trumps political enemies include conducting mortgage fraud investigations into Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Mr Trump and his company. Mr Schiff and Ms James have denied any wrongdoing. Jack Smith, a former special prosecutor who pursued two criminal cases against Mr Trump, faces an investigation from an independent watchdog office. The Telegraph has contacted Mr Bolton for comment. FBI agents carry boxes into the home of John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security adviser, on Friday in Bethesda, Maryland. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images The FBI raided the home of Donald Trumps former national security adviser turned critic John Bolton early on Friday morning and later also turned up at Boltons office. The federal search of Boltons house in the Washington DC area was understood to be part of an investigation involving the handling of classified documents, the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. A government source confirmed the raid to the Guardian, but did not disclose further details. The FBI director, Kash Patel, posted a cryptic message on X on Friday morning, saying: NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission. Bolton was not at his house in Bethesda, Maryland, when agents arrived but later in the morning he was seen standing in the lobby of the building in Washington where he keeps an office, and was talking to two people with FBI visible on their vests. Boltons wife Gretchen was seen leaving their home while agents were present. Bolton, also formerly a US ambassador to the United Nations, fell out with Donald Trump during his first administration and was ousted from the post of national security adviser in 2019. He wrote a political memoir that prompted an investigation and a government lawsuit over whether he had misused classified information, but those actions ultimately went nowhere. Bolton and Trump have maintained a political feud ever since. On Friday morning, Trump talked to reporters and said: Im not a fan of John Bolton. Hes a real sort of a lowlife. Hes not a smart guy. But he could be very unpatriotic. Im going to find out. The president added that he did not know the raid was planned and that he expected to be briefed by the justice department later. I tell the group I dont want to know, but just you have to do what you have to do. I dont want to know about it, Trump said. JD Vance, the US vice-president, reposted Patels message, as did Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI. Bongino added: Public corruption will not be tolerated. Chiming with the cryptic style of such comments, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, later posted: Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. No details have been released of any specific allegations underlying the federal court warrant that would have been needed to conduct such a search. The raid began at about 7am ET and was first reported by the New York Post. At that time Bolton, when reached by CNN, said he was not aware of the law enforcement activity, but he did not issue further comment or a statement. Bolton served as national security adviser Trumps third for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. The administration then unsuccessfully sought to block the publication of his memoir. After a judge ruled, in June 2020, that the book could be published, Trump said Bolton must pay a very big price for this, as others have before him. Bolton was not detained or charged with any crimes during the raid. On his first day back in office this year, Trump revoked the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton was also among a trio of former Trump officials whose security details were canceled by Trump earlier this year. Boltons book The Room Where It Happened detailed his time as national security adviser. He detailed what he described as impeachable conduct and accused Trump of asking China to help secure his re-election. Bolton depicted a president ignorant of basic geopolitical realities, including not understanding that Finland was an independent country. The book became a bestseller despite Trumps attempts to ban its publication. In recent days, Bolton has been critical of Trumps handling of the Russia-Ukraine war. After a Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska failed to yield progress on ending the war, Bolton wrote on social media: Its clear that Putin got to Trump, most likely convincing him away from Zelensky non-negotiables like security guarantees. On Thursday he criticized Trump again, writing: Putins KGB training and flattery campaign is working Trump over. Meghan Hays, a former White House special adviser to Joe Biden, told CNN in an interview that the raid seems extremely political, extremely petty, and that it smacked of pure revenge on the part of Trump and was a poor use of FBI resources. Roger Stone, a longtime political operative who was prosecuted during the Russia investigation and later pardoned by Trump, posted on social media: Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 oclock in the morning? Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat representing Illinois, said in an interview on CNN that he thought the Bolton raid was designed as a distraction from the simmering saga of files from the federal investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who moved in high-level, bipartisan political circles. Krishnamoorthi sits on the House oversight committee, which was due on Friday to receive hundreds of documents about Epstein from the justice department as a result of a subpoena. Early on Friday afternoon, the FBI were still at Boltons house on a residential Bethesda street. Bolton had yet to comment and has not been apprehended or charged with any crimes. The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select Secure Messaging. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post If you can safely use the tor network without being observed or monitored you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our SecureDrop platform. Finally, our guide at theguardian.com/tips lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each. Fran Jones credited the Carlos Alcaraz approach with helping her achieve another impressive first at the US Open. The 24-year-old broke into the top 100 for the first time last month following two titles on clay and qualified for the main draw at Flushing Meadows on Friday after beating Dutchwoman Arianne Hartono 6-2 6-4. It is the latest standout moment for Jones, who was born with the genetic condition Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplasia, which means she is missing a finger on each hand and only has seven toes. Francesca Jones QUALIFIES for the @usopen!!! A top week for Francesca who books her spot in the main draw for the first time with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Arianne Hartono #BackTheBrits | #USOpen pic.twitter.com/gtXizzHtxM LTA (@the_LTA) August 22, 2025 After her second title in Palermo which came just too late to earn her direct entry into the US Open in ranking Jones chose to take some well-earned downtime, heading to Ibiza with friends. Alcaraz has famously celebrated both his French Open titles by partying on the island although Jones stay was a little more chilled. I thought Id try the Alcaraz strategy, she said. So I went to Ibiza for a few days. It worked so we cant complain, can we? I didnt go clubbing. Sweaty drunk people Im a bit British like that I think. I did go to Ushuaia, which is the outdoor DJ concert thing, but I was back in the room at 12. Im a night owl but clubbing is not for me. The first two days were really chill and then I went to the concert on Sunday. Jones was the top seed in qualifying thanks to her impressive form and she did not lose a set in three matches, jumping joyfully into the arms of her team sat courtside after clinching victory over Hartono before calling her mum, who has stayed at home with the family dogs. Obviously when youre a first seed in a slam and the pressures on you, people play with nothing to lose, they want to take it away from you as they should, she said. I think its almost a sense of relief that Ive proven to myself and proven that my levels there and I deserve to be in the main draw. The relief also comes after what happened to Jones in the final qualifying round at the French Open and first round of Wimbledon, which both ended in painful losses. It could have drowned me, said the Yorkshirewoman of her defeat at Wimbledon from a set up against Yuliia Starodubtseva. I think Ive learned my lessons. I hope Ive been humbled enough to accept where Ive gone wrong. Jones is such good friends with Emma Raducanu that the pair speak every day and if anyone can provide inspiration for a qualifier at Flushing Meadows, it is surely the 2021 champion. What she did I dont think will ever be repeated but Ill be happy to follow some of those footsteps for sure, said Jones. Billy Harris looked to have missed out after losing 6-3 6-4 to Coleman Wong but he was given a place as a lucky loser and will take on 25th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the first round, making it eight British players in the main draws. Thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes in Gaza City, as the Israeli military continues its assault on the enclave ahead of a planned occupation. Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he would give final approval for a full takeover, while also restarting negotiations with Hamas aimed at returning all of Israel's remaining hostages. The widening of the 22-month offensive against Hamas appears to be proceeding despite protests in both Israel and the Palestinian enclave. Israeli strikes killed at least 36 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals. A renewed offensive could bring even more casualties to and displacement from the territory, where the war has already killed tens of thousands and where experts warn of imminent famine. Military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X that Israeli forces had begun warning medical teams in northern Gaza that residents should prepare to move south. Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing their homes in Gaza City Describing intense overnight shelling before a medical aid point was forced to close in the city on Tuesday, staff member Shireen Halasa said: It was a terrifying night. The shelling did not stop for a single moment. My heart almost stopped. We were treating around 100 children daily, many suffering from severe malnutrition, but we were forced to close while running for our lives. Meanwhile, a United Nations-backed hunger monitor is poised to declare famine in Gaza for the first time, a step it has taken only four times in nearly two decades. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has never before flagged famine in Gaza, but its latest analysis warns conditions have reached worst-case scenario levels. According to the Telegraph, the official declaration will be made tomorrow. The group warned in July that famine in Gaza was imminent. The declaration will cover Gaza City and three surrounding towns, as well as several refugee camps, according to a briefing. Israeli troops have established a foothold on the citys outskirts, and an IDF spokesperson said on Wednesday that forces were already operating in Zeitoun and Jabalia as they laid the groundwork for a broader offensive. Thousands of residents fled the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods after heavy overnight bombardment, while shelling also intensified in the Sabra and Tuffah areas. Around 75 per cent of Gaza is already largely destroyed and controlled by Israel. We are facing a bitter, bitter situation: to die at home or leave and die somewhere else. As long as this war continues, survival is uncertain," said Rabah Abu Elias, 67, a father of seven. In the news, they speak about a possible truce; on the ground, we only hear explosions and see deaths. To leave Gaza City or not isnt an easy decision to make. In southern Gaza, a clash with Hamas on Wednesday prompted the IDF to admit it was a failure that Hamas gunmen had been able to breach the army encampment in Khan Younis Israel has said it will call up to 60,000 reservists for the new offensive and other heavily populated areas of the war-torn Gaza Strip. Mr Netanyahus plan triggered local and global outrage when it was first announced, with UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer saying it would only bring more bloodshed. Hamas, in a statement on Telegram, accused Mr Netanyahu of obstructing the ceasefire deal in favour of continuing a brutal war against innocent civilians in Gaza City. Hamas has accepted a 60-day ceasefire, which the Israeli government has yet to officially respond to. It calls for the release of 10 hostages held by Hamas and 18 bodies, in return for about 200 long-serving Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The Israeli government has restated that all of the remaining 50 hostages must be released at once. Israeli officials believe that around 20 of them are still alive. In Tel Aviv on Thursday evening, ahead of planned nationwide events, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on Israeli citizens to protest around the citys Kirya military base to demand an end to the war. Mr Netanyahus planned offensive triggered local and global outrage when it was first announced Forty-two hostages were kidnapped alive and murdered in captivity due to military pressure and delay in signing a deal, said Dalia Cusnir, whose brother-in-law, Eitan Horn, is still being held captive. Mr Horns brother Iair was released during a ceasefire earlier this year. Enough to sacrifice the hostages. Enough to sacrifice the soldiers, both regular and reservists. Enough to sacrifice the evacuees. Enough to sacrifice the younger generation in the country," said Bar Godard, the daughter of Manny Godard, whose body is being held by Hamas. Women and children held placards at a protest in Gaza City reading Save Gaza and Stop the war, stop the savage attack, save us against a backdrop of destroyed buildings as Palestinian music played. We want the war on Gaza to stop. We dont want to migrate. Twenty-two months its enough. Enough death. Enough destruction, said Bisan Ghazal, a woman displaced from Gaza City. Mr Netanyahu is also under pressure from some ministers to reject a temporary ceasefire and pursue annexation of the territory. On Wednesday, the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the approval of a controversial settlement project in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank that he said would erase any prospect of a Palestinian state. As the offensive escalates, the starvation crisis is continuing to unfold in Gaza In response, foreign ministers from Europe, Australia, Canada and Japan issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning the plan. The UK Foreign Office summoned Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely over Tel Avivs approval. As the offensive escalates, the starvation crisis is continuing to unfold in Gaza. The enclaves Hamas-run health ministry announced that at least two people died from starvation in the last 24 hours, and at least 18 people died while collecting aid. The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency chief said the famine was deliberate and warned that malnourished children in Gaza could die without immediate emergency aid during Israels Gaza City operation. Only 250 of an expected 1,800 aid trucks entered Gaza over the past three days, Gazas government media office said. More than 62,000 Palestinians have died since 7 October 2023, according to the health ministry, following Hamass massacre of some 1,200 people and the kidnapping of around 250 more. Nunzia Caputo is one of the Italian grannies making pasta in Bari - Chris Warde-Jones A band of pasta grannies in Italy who have achieved worldwide fame with their handmade products have gone on strike after they were targeted in police raids. The women have been celebrated on television and social media for their traditional practice of making orecchiette, or little ear, outside their homes in the medieval alleyways that make up the historic heart of Bari, a port in the southern region of Puglia. But police conducted a series of raids this week, alleging that some of the grannies have been selling commercially produced orecchiette that they secretly buy from retailers and then pass off as homemade to unsuspecting customers. Officers seized dozens of bags of pasta and other merchandise, including taralli, savoury biscuits made from flour and water, fining three of the women 5,000 euros each for fraudulent commercial activities. Italian police seized dozens of bags of pasta in the raids - Youtube The crackdown caused infuriation, leading the women to stage a protest by barricading the narrow streets of Bari Vecchia, the old town of Bari, with the trestle tables that they normally use to display their pasta. They blocked tourists from entering the labyrinth of streets they inhabit just a stones throw from the imposing walls of Baris 12th-century Norman castle. There are only a couple of entrances to the warren of alleys so blocking access was not hard to do. When local reporters turned up to cover the confrontation, scuffles broke out and a television journalist had his camera damaged. Officers seized dozens of bags of pasta and other merchandise Tourists who had hoped to see the grannies at work and to buy some of their pasta were disappointed to find the area shut down. The pasta grannies demanded, and were granted, a meeting with the city council, where they denied buying industrially produced pasta and passing it off as their own. They declined requests for interviews. The authorities say they have proof that at least some of the women are breaking the rules. They say that as Bari has grown in popularity as a destination, the ladies could not keep up with demand. Making homemade orecchiette is time-consuming and hard work, therefore some of them decided to cut corners by passing off commercial pasta as their own. Allegations of factory-produced pasta first came about at the end of 2024 We told the pasta ladies what they already know full well, that we want to protect the tradition of making fresh orecchiette and they are free to set up their trestle tables to make the pasta. What they are not allowed to do, because they do not have authorisation, is to sell or display commercially made orecchiette, said Pietro Petruzzelli, the city councillor in charge of economic development and tourism. Carla Palone, a council official who oversees the local police force, said products which are not made homemade cannot be sold in a public area if there is no permission. The pasta ladies are an important symbol of Bari but they have to abide by the rules, she said. The row has been rumbling since the end of 2024, when allegations first emerged that some women had bought factory-produced orecchiette, divided it up into little bags and claimed that it was homemade. The subterfuge emerged when cardboard boxes that had contained commercially made pasta were found dumped in wheelie bins on the outskirts of the old town. There is simmering resentment among the grannies over stricter hygiene and food safety controls, which were imposed by the council earlier this year. The pasta grannies denied passing industrially produced pasta off as their own at a meeting with the city council - Chris Warde-Jones They argue that they are a vital part of Baris street life and that without them, more of the old town will be given to short-term rentals for tourists. The women are typically found sitting outside their front doors, kneading the dough with lightning-fast movements of their hands, exchanging gossip and being photographed by holidaymakers and influencers. Nunzia Caputo, one of the most well-known pasta ladies, donated a bag of her orecchiette to Pope Francis last year, a few months before his death in April. Dubbed the pasta queen of Puglia, she has 68,000 followers on Le Orecchiette di Nunzia, her Instagram account. The pastaie, as they are known in Italian, were featured in one of Jamie Olivers cookbooks and Dolce & Gabbana shot a commercial featuring some of the women with the lingerie-clad daughters of Sylvester Stallone, whose family originates from Puglia. John Bolton joins a growing list of Trump critics from Kash Patels roll the administration has targeted with what appear to be retaliatory federal investigations. Composite: Shutterstock and AP When Kash Patel, the FBI director, faced senators during his confirmation hearings on 30 January, he bristled at suggestions that his 2023 book contained an enemies list. The appendix to Government Gangsters, which included a list of names for around 60 people, was simply documentation of those who had weaponized the government, he insisted. Seven months later, that denial appears increasingly hollow. Fridays FBI search of the former national security adviser John Boltons home and office, reportedly to find classified documents, marks the fifth investigation targeting people from Patels book. Bolton now joins a growing list of Trump critics from Patels roll the administration has targeted with what appear to be retaliatory federal investigations: James Comey, the former FBI director, John Brennan, the former CIA director, Miles Taylor, the ex-homeland security official and Lt Col Alexander Vindman. All five people, investigated in just seven months, were on Patels roughly 60-name list. Related: FBI raids home of John Bolton, Trumps ex-national security adviser Typically, federal prosecutors open cases based on tips, evidence or ongoing criminal activity. While there is no public evidence that the book itself or any outside group is directing investigations, the overlap appears more than coincidence. The Biden justice department definitively closed both civil and criminal proceedings against Bolton in 2021 over his memoir about his time in the Trump White House. Bringing that investigation back to life requires a deliberate decision to re-litigate an already settled matter. Boltons investigation, like those into the other four on Patels list, is unprecedented in how it is calculated to target a critic. The justice department acknowledged opening criminal investigations into Comey and Brennan over their 2016-2017 Russia investigation roles. Taylor faced presidential orders revoking his security clearance and demanding investigations into his anonymous anti-Trump writings. The DC interim US attorney pressed representative Eugene Vindman for business records tied to Ukraine aid, targeting the twin brother of Alexander Vindman, who testified against Trump during his first impeachment. When asked for details about the raids and the reasoning behind them, a spokesperson for the FBI did not answer directly. The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area, the spokesperson said in a statement. There is no threat to public safety. We have no further comment. The systematic nature of these investigations exposes the fundamental contradiction in the administrations approach. Officials claim to be combating the weaponization of justice while at the same time weaponizing it against a pre-compiled list of critics. Notably, Patels targets are both deep state bureaucrats and former Trump allies. Along with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, they include Trumps own former officials like the former defense secretary Mark Esper and Stephanie Grisham, the press secretary, a suggestion that the list features anyone who crossed or flipped on the president, regardless of their previous loyalty. Patel on Friday morning posted on social media that NO ONE is above the law. Trumps reaction to the Bolton investigation undermines claims of prosecutorial independence. Asked about the raids, the president claimed ignorance while launching familiar attacks: Bolton was sort of a lowlife and could be a very unpatriotic guy were going to find out, he told reporters on Friday. By systematically investigating critics while claiming to restore justice department integrity, the administration is creating an environment in which political opposition becomes presumed as evidence of criminal behavior. This marks another example of evolution from Trumps first term, when efforts to weaponize federal law enforcement were often chaotic and ultimately unsuccessful. The current approach appears more disciplined, with Patels book providing targets and Bondis working group providing bureaucratic cover. Foreign Secretary David Lammy has described the declaration of famine in Gaza City as utterly horrifying as he accused the Israeli government of causing a man-made catastrophe. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said on Friday that famine is occurring in Gaza City and could spread further south. It comes after weeks of warnings by aid groups that restrictions on aid were leading to starvation among Palestinians. Famine Review Committee Alert The Famine Review Committee (FRC) has determined that #Famine is currently occurring in Gaza Governorate. Furthermore, the FRC projects Famine thresholds to be crossed in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis Governorates in the coming weeks. As this pic.twitter.com/5sic423qge The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (@theIPCinfo) August 22, 2025 In a statement on Friday afternoon, Mr Lammy said: The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. The Israeli governments refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage. The IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) report makes clear the sickening consequences, especially for children. The government of Israel can and must immediately act to stop the situation deteriorating any further. It must immediately and sustainably allow unhindered food, medical supplies, fuel, and all types of aid to reach those who so desperately need them. It is the first time that the IPC has confirmed a famine in the Middle East. Months of warnings have fallen on deaf ears.#famine is now confirmed in #Gaza city. This is starvation by design and manmade by the Government of Israel. It is the direct result of banning food and other basic supplies for months including from UNRWA. The spread of famine pic.twitter.com/V0yIm4ELpl UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 22, 2025 The IPC report said that more than half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, and many are at risk of dying from malnutrition-related causes. Mr Lammy also repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire, to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required, including a halt to military operations in Gaza City. He added: The UK reiterates its condemnation of this military action, which will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas. We urge the Israeli government to change course and halt its plans. This terrible conflict must end. An immediate and permanent ceasefire is the only way to stop the suffering, secure the release of the hostages, achieve a surge in aid and deliver a framework for lasting peace. Earlier this week, the Foreign Office summoned Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely over the Israeli governments approval of a major settlement in Palestines West Bank. It followed Israels decision to go ahead with the E1 settlement east of Jerusalem, which would effectively cut the West Bank in two. Foreign ministers from the UK, EU and 20 other countries called on Israel to reverse the decision saying it would bring no benefits to the Israeli people and risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability. The E1 settlement has been under consideration by Israel for at least two decades, but has previously been prevented by pressure from the US. The UK had previously condemned the approval of the E1 plan, granted on Wednesday, with Mr Lammy saying it would mark a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution. Harold Wood Urgent Treatment Centre (Google ) A couple were slapped with a 100 parking fine at an NHS clinic, despite being there for only five minutes after being turned away without treatment. Rebecca Elmes rushed her boyfriend, Aaron Rayment-Davis, to the Harold Wood Polyclinic in Romford, east London, after he began experiencing pain in his left ear, which had left him feeling disorientated. But when they arrived at the reception on June 16, they were informed the clinic was only open for triage services and were advised to seek help at the A&E department of a nearby hospital instead. Parking firm Parkingeye noted their car had arrived at the hospital just after 6.50pm and was there for just five minutes before the couple left. Despite this, the couple, both 26, wound up receiving a 100 fine in the post a month later. Patients visiting the clinic must register their vehicle's number plate to qualify for free parking, but since the couple were not officially checked in for an appointment, they claim they were unable to enter their details. We'd only been there for a few minutes so assumed there would be no issue, Mr Rayment-Davis told the Daily Mail. The couple appealed the parking fine, but the company turned it down on the basis that no parking was purchased. Ms Elmes said the parking fine was "absolutely ridiculous and accused the system of exploiting people, especially in medical emergencies. After their appeal was rejected, she and her partner chose to pay the reduced fee of 60 fine to avoid being left out of pocket. At the A&E department of nearby Queen's Hospital, Mr Rayment-Davis was assessed but informed of a four-hour wait. Staff advised him that it would be quicker to seek treatment at King George Hospital in Ilford instead. When he was finally seen, he was diagnosed with an ear infection and a ruptured eardrum. Parkingeye is one of the biggest private parking companies in Britain and operates more than 3,500 sites nationwide, including hospitals, supermarkets, hotels and service stations. It operates by using automatic number plate technology to scan registration plates. A Parkingeye spokesperson told the Daily Mail: The car park at Harold Wood Polyclinic features 12 prominent and highly visible signs throughout providing information on how to use the car park responsibly. This includes guidance that parking is for patients and visitors only and that they must register their vehicle at terminals at reception to receive free parking for the duration of their appointment. The terminals on the ground and first floors are both available and accessible to visitors before being booked in by reception staff. The motorist correctly received a parking charge on June 16 for parking and not registering their vehicle. The NELFT NHS Foundation Trust - which runs Harold Wood Polyclinic - did not respond to a request for comment. New Scotland Yard, headquarters of Metropolitan Police (Jordan Pettitt/PA) (PA Wire) A serving Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with four counts of rape and a series of sexual offences. PC Robert Wing, 57, attached to Specialist Operations, is accused of allegations involving the same woman between 2013 and 2016. All are said to have taken place when Wing was off-duty, Scotland Yard said. He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with rape, two counts of sexual assault by penetration and one of sexual assault. A force spokesman said: The allegations all involve the same victim and all are said to have took place when PC Wing was off-duty. The Mets Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed. Wing, of Forest Gate, had been arrested in March 2023 on suspicion of rape and immediately suspended. He was charged on Thursday. Bus collided with a truck and lost control on I-90 near Pembroke (WBEN News Radio) At least five people are dead and several are trapped after a tour bus carrying 54 passengers crashed in New York. The vehicle was returning from Niagara Falls, a major tourist destination on the US-Canada border, when it collided with a truck and lost control on I-90 near Pembroke. Eyewitnesses saw the bus crossing to the other shoulder and overturning. Some people were thrown as windows shattered about 30 miles east of Buffalo. At least one child is among the fatalities and it is believed most did not have on seatbelts. BREAKING: Tour bus with over 50 people overturns in upstate New York, at least one child killed, officials say pic.twitter.com/eVan5c3d1i Fox News (@FoxNews) August 22, 2025 Trooper James O'Callahan, from New York State Police, said: At this time we have multiple fatalities, multiple entrapments and multiple injuries. Several ambulances and medical helicopters transported patients from the crash. OCallahan said most people on the bus were Indian, Chinese and Philippine.The driver survived. He said: The bus was traveling eastbound right before the Pembroke exit and for unknown reasons the vehicle lost control, went into the median, overcorrected and ended up in the ditch, which would be on the right side of the roadway. New York Governor Kathy Hochul says shes been briefed on the tragic tour bus accident. My team is coordinating closely with [state police] and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Epping council took High Court action to close the Bell Hotel for not having planning permission - Shutterstock Yvette Cooper is to seek to appeal the High Court ruling to shut down a migrant hotel in Essex. The Home Secretary announced the Home Office will seek to appeal the temporary injunction forcing the closure of the Bell Hotel in Epping. Protesters at the Bell Hotel in Epping last month In a statement, she warned that the asylum system would be plunged into chaos if hotels across the country were closed as a result of piecemeal court decisions sparked by councils or residents legal actions. That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country without creating problems for other areas and local councils, she said. It follows a successful High Court action by Epping council to close the Bell for not having planning permission after it became a focus for anti-immigration protests. It ordered all the asylum seekers must leave it by Sept 12 unless the owner, Somani Hotels, challenges the injunction in the court of appeal. Other councils including those controlled by Labour have since threatened to mount similar legal actions to shut asylum hotels in their areas. The Home Office lawyers told the High Court there could be similar applications elsewhere that would aggravate pressures on the asylum estate. The Home Office, which tried but failed to intervene in the case on Tuesday, warned the decision ran the risk of acting as an impetus for further violent protests and that injunction applications could become a new norm adopted by local authorities. It will now seek to appeal the refusal of the judge to allow the Home Office to be a party to the High Court legal action. Ms Cooper said: We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including the Bell Hotel, and we are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place. She added: What we cannot have is a replica of the chaotic and disorderly situation that we saw under the previous government in 2022, when 140 extra hotels were opened in the space of six months because they lost control of the system. The previous government which caused that chaos is now trying to pretend that their time in office didnt happen, and are simply trying to make the situation worse. Reform UK and the Tories have urged their councils to mount legal actions like Epping and called on their supporters to protest at hotels. Asylum hotels across the UK are set to face a co-ordinated wave of demonstrations this weekend. There are currently more than 32,000 asylum seekers housed in up to 210 hotels. It is understood the Home Office is seeking to have the appeal decided before the Sept 12 deadline for the asylum seekers removal under the High Court injunction. If successful, it would prevent the migrants being transferred out of the Bell. Home Office lawyers are applying for permission to appeal the High Courts refusal to allow it to join the case with Somani Hotels, to be allowed to participate in any appeal brought by the hotel against the injunction and to challenge the injunction. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: It is completely wrong that the Labour Government is taking legal action to keep the Bell Hotel open. The Government isnt listening to the public or to the courts. Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels the Conservatives would immediately deport all illegal arrivals and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again. This problem is being caused because 2025 so far is the worst year ever for illegal immigrants crossing the channel. Most are young men who have paid people smugglers to illegally enter the UK. Labour has lost control of our borders and communities up and down the country are paying the price. Protesters celebrate outside the Bell Hotel following the High Court ruling - w8media Ms Cooper said the Government was committed to deliver on its pledge to end the use of asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament in 2029. The number of asylum hotels is now around half what it was at its peak under the previous government, when more than 400 hotels were in use at a cost of almost 9 million per day. Over the course of 2024/25, we reduced the cost of asylum hotels by almost a billion pounds compared to the previous financial year, she said. But we have committed to go much further to reduce those costs, and to end the use of asylum hotels entirely. Dan Jarvis, security minister, said: This Government will close all asylum hotels and we will clear up the mess that we inherited from the previous government. Weve made a commitment that we will close all of the asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament, but we need to do that in a managed and ordered way. And thats why well appeal this decision. People take part in a counter protest to the Stand Up To Racism rally in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth - Gareth Fuller/2025 PA Media Mr Jarvis vowed the Government will meet its 2024 manifesto commitment to end asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament in 2029. Asked whether he was worried about any copycat protests following the High Courts decision this week, the security minister told broadcasters: Weve made a very clear commitment that were going to close all of the asylum hotels. That was a manifesto commitment that we stood on and we will honour. Were clearing up the legacy that we inherited from the previous government but the closures of these hotels need to be done in an ordered and managed way. An Epping Forest District Council spokesperson said: We have no details at this stage but are disappointed it appears the Home Office hasnt accepted the refusal of Mr Justice Eyre of permission to appeal against the dismissal by the judge of the Secretary of States application to be a party to the councils claim against Somani Hotels Ltd, owners of the Bell Hotel. Jason Williamson, a traffic officer with National Highways, says that some people simply dont know how to use motorways - Paul Cooper The staycation motorway game of choice used to be I-Spy. In 2025, its Road Nark Bingo nark as in an irritation or annoyance, with drivers committing or suffering actual or perceived wrongs. There are no winners, only thousands of losers. Motorway driving can feel like open combat for road space, or like a game of chess: reading and weaving through traffic, picking off the competition. Most of us arent active players, yet we can still lose. Our national pastime is getting stuck in tailbacks. We rarely know their cause, though its usually the behaviour of other drivers never you, of course sometimes stemming from decisions made hours earlier. Lane-hogging is the frustration of the moment, unnecessarily sparking congestion. But many motorway journeys trigger a cascade of bad habits: tailgating, queue-jumping, failing to signal, rubbernecking, needless breakdowns, ignoring overhead matrix messages the delays setting blood, as well as radiators, boiling. Credit: Paul Cooper Most motorway journeys will tick several of these boxes, as 25.2 million active drivers take to the road, each with varying levels of skill, spatial awareness, experience and confidence not to mention the condition of their vehicles. We spoke to a retired Metropolitan Police traffic officer, a road behaviour psychologist and a National Highways traffic officer to learn how a few simple changes in driving habits could help us all reach our destinations more quickly and more safely. Queue-jumping and zip-merging Were British: we queue. Which is why one of our biggest narks is queue-jumping. But a change in behaviour could dramatically cut lane-closure queues and delays, according to a former Metropolitan Police traffic officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. Driving to the front when a lane is closed can anger drivers, but theres a strong case for zip-merging merging in turn. The question is: how do we shift behaviour to make it work? I advocate using all open lanes until the closure forces a single line, then zip-merging. That way every bit of road space is used, and traffic doesnt back up unnecessarily. Its a common-sense solution, reinforced by signs urging drivers to zip-merge. The problem lies in the entrenched, combative culture of some British motorists. Dr Shaun Helman, chief scientist at the Transport Research Laboratory, and a specialist in road behaviour, agrees: You dont want to be too draconian about forcing change, but if we could get people to zip-merge in turn, everyones journey would be shorter. Brilliant. But perhaps it needs to be enforced until it becomes the norm. Undertaking: Not an offence unless... Undertaking overtaking on the inside of a vehicle in an outer lane is discouraged, though not technically a traffic offence. Careless or dangerous manoeuvres while doing so, however, can result in a penalty. If the left lane is moving faster than the one on the right, as often happens in heavy traffic, undertaking can be safer than weaving across several lanes to get around a lane-hogger. Advanced drivers look for signs that the driver theyre about to pass has seen them. Operators in the motorway control room monitor traffic and manage incidents to keep journeys moving safely Sometimes, says the ex-Met officer, my action prompts people to move back into the left lane after Ive passed on their inside so I feel absolved. But dont exceed the speed limit. Tailgating: An enormous problem Helman says tailgating has become a serious problem. Many drivers simply dont realise theyre doing it. It can be the pressures theyre under while driving for example from an employer or just their personality and the way they choose to express themselves. And often, theyre simply unaware theyre too close. Tailgating itself isnt an offence, but it can contribute to a charge of careless or dangerous driving. The Highway Code advises leaving a two-second gap to the vehicle in front. Of course, thats usually just enough space for another driver to pull into inevitably... Not indicating: Not an offence Failing to indicate a lane change which can carry penalties elsewhere in the world is not an offence in the UK, says the ex-Met officer. If something isnt prohibited, its allowed. Not indicating is therefore not an offence here. The Highway Code says drivers should signal, not must. And signals must not confuse. Advanced motoring teaches that signals shouldnt be used if theyre unnecessary. I check my mirrors and, if I decide no one behind me needs to be informed of my movement, I dont signal. But many road narks are set in motion by choices or omissions made miles earlier only later do they cause inconvenience, or worse. The automotive butterfly effect A breakdown patrol told me about a driver who had fuelled up just two hours earlier, setting off an automotive butterfly effect that only manifested 95 miles down the road. Our penny-pincher ran out of fuel a few miles from home and rolled to a stop in a live motorway lane triggering a chain reaction of lane closures, tailbacks, rear-end collisions and hours of delays for both individuals and businesses. Traffic officer Jason Williamson in the motorway control room, tracking traffic and responding to incidents across the north west network - Paul Cooper Some people thankfully a minority simply dont know how to use motorways, or how to check and prepare their cars for long journeys. These days its common for drivers to put in the bare minimum of fuel, but sometimes it just isnt enough, says Jason Williamson, a traffic officer with National Highways covering north west Englands motorways. Traffic researchers estimate that such full or partial closures and tailbacks cost millions of pounds in terms of lost value of time. The true cost, though, is far greater from missed flights to empty supermarket shelves, to factories left waiting for supplies stuck in a tailback. Behaviour change Journey preparation advice is everywhere from National Highways and breakdown organisations to caravan clubs and enthusiast groups. Shaun Helman says: When it comes to driving, Id argue we need a complete mindset shift. People need to believe in the credibility of the laws we follow then theyre far more likely to comply. How can we change attitudes so that behaviour follows? How do we reach a point where everyone drives in a particular way? Theres a lot of science around behaviour change. It isnt as simple as telling people what they ought to do. You give them the information, but you also need to show them how to change their behaviour. Jeremy Balfour will sit as an independent until the Holyrood elections next year - Ken Jack/Getty Images The Scottish Conservatives have lost a second MSP in four months amid claims that the party has lost its way. Jeremy Balfour resigned from the Scottish Tories with immediate effect, saying the party had fallen into the trap of reactionary politics. Mr Balfour, an MSP for the Lothian region, will sit as an independent until the Holyrood election next year. His departure follows that of Jamie Greene, who quit in April to join the Liberal Democrats. At the time, Mr Greene said several of his former Scottish Conservative colleagues were upset about the direction of the party. In his resignation letter to Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory leader, Mr Balfour who has represented the Lothian region since 2016 said he made the decision to resign with a heavy heart. He wrote: I no longer feel that the party has a positive platform to offer the people of Scotland. Increasingly, decisions seem to be made by advisers who lack experience, while senior MSP colleagues are ignored. I fear that the Scottish Conservatives have fallen into the trap of reactionary politics, where a positive, proactive agenda for real change has been rejected in favour of allowing policies to be dictated by what other parties are saying and cheap headlines. Party has moved, not me In an interview on the BBCs Good Morning Scotland radio programme on Friday, Mr Balfour said he felt the party had lost its way in Scotland and no longer represented true Conservative values. Asked whether Mr Findlay was the right person for the job of party leader and whether he should stay in the post, he said: Clearly Im no longer a member of the party, so thats no longer a decision for me to make. Mr Balfour says of Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay (pictured): I just think hes just not quite yet grasped what the issues are and is willing to put forward a vision which is truly Conservative - Jane Barlow/PA He added: I get on very well as an individual with Russell, I think hes a good individual. Whether hes the person to lead the Scottish Conservatives is obviously for MSPs, for the membership, to decide. But he is an individual I like, I just think hes just not quite yet grasped what the issues are and is willing to put forward a vision which is truly Conservative. Mr Balfour said he had not yet decided whether he would stand at the next election and would think about it over the next few weeks. He said: What Im very clear about is that those with disabilities, other minorities and the people of Lothian need a voice for people to hear what we require within our country. Im not sure any party is actually offering that at the moment, but whether I stand or not, Ill come to a view in the next few weeks. Mr Balfour, who described himself as a natural Conservative, said he had not thought about joining any other party, adding: Its the party thats moved, not me. A Scottish Conservative spokesman said: We are disappointed to read these comments but grateful for Jeremys service and wish him well. The Scottish Conservatives, under Russell Findlays leadership, recognise that many people feel completely disconnected from politics. It is absolutely critical that our party continues to champion common-sense Conservative values and policies that focus on the issues of concern to hard-working Scots. All our members and supporters expect us to work hard to deliver the change that Scotland needs after 18 years of damaging and divisive SNP rule. Tories are in free-fall George Adam, an SNP MSP, said: The Scottish Conservatives, under Russell Findlays disastrous leadership, have completely fallen apart. It is welcome to see Jeremy Balfour come to his senses on the reality of the Tories in Scotland, as they become increasingly extreme to pander to the politics of Nigel Farage. With yet another MSP ditching the party, its clear the Tories are in free-fall in Scotland as we approach the 2026 election. The only question remaining is wholl be next to desert the sinking ship? Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens co-leader, said: When even a social conservative like Jeremy Balfour is saying you are too reactionary, it is time to reconsider your politics. Noel Clarke sued the Guardian for libel over seven articles and a podcast which said 20 women had come forward with allegations of misconduct against him - Ben Whitley Noel Clarke, the former Doctor Who actor, has lost a High Court libel claim in a victory for investigative journalism. The 49-year-old sued the publisher of the Guardian newspaper over seven articles and a podcast, including a feature in April 2021 that said 20 women who knew him professionally had come forward with allegations of misconduct. Clarke denied the claims, while Guardian News and Media (GNM) defended its reporting as being both true and in the public interest. Mrs Justice Steyn agreed, dismissing Clarkes claim in a judgment on Friday, saying that the newspaper succeeded in establishing both truth and public interest defences to the libel claim. She added: I have accepted some of Mr Clarkes evidence... but overall I find that he was not a credible or reliable witness. It was a rare case of such a legal dispute going to trial in the UK and a victory for the actor would potentially have had a chilling effect on future reporting across the media industry. The High Court heard evidence from multiple witnesses who made accusations against Clarke, including that he had allegedly shared nude photographs of them without their consent, groped them, and asked them to look at him when he was exposed. However, barristers for Clarke told the court there was a conspiracy of people with financial and personal grudges against him who engineered his downfall because they could not bear to see him receive a Bafta award. Philip Williams, representing the actor, said that his client was a casualty of a media purge following the emergence of the MeToo movement. No conspiracy to lie Gavin Millar KC, for GNM, said there was not a shred of evidence to support Clarkes claim of a conspiracy, describing it as nonsensical and rather desperate speculation. In her written judgment, Mrs Justice Steyn said: Mr Clarkes case that there is an unlawful means conspiracy against him, in which many of the witnesses, and some non-witnesses, are said to have engaged, was born of necessity, in the face of the large body of witnesses giving evidence against him. It lacked any proper foundation and led to numerous witnesses being asked speculative questions as to their connections, without a case being put that they conspired and colluded to invent allegations or any evidential basis on which such a case could have been put. I have accepted some of Mr Clarkes evidence, as I explain below, but overall I find that he was not a credible or reliable witness. Dismissing Clarkes libel claim, the judge said there was no conspiracy to lie by witnesses who gave evidence against him at trial. In the absence of a conspiracy, Mr Clarkes case that more than 20 witnesses, none of whom are parties or have a stake in this case, as he does, have come to court to lie is inherently implausible. She continued that it was clear that women have been speaking about their experiences of working with Mr Clarke for many years. She said that Baftas announcement in March 2021 that Clarke would receive an award for outstanding contribution to cinema triggered those who were concerned about his behaviour to act, out of concern that it would enhance his power within the industry and so enable him to continue misbehaving. There has been much reference to an anonymous email campaign making false allegations against Mr Clarke, the judge said. If there was such a campaign, and it seems Bafta may have received some vitriolic anonymous emails, it was not something to which any of the witnesses were party. One or two of them wrote anonymously to Bafta, but the matters they raised were true. Clarkes barristers said their client was a casualty of a media purge following the emergence of the MeToo movement - Jordan Pettitt Katharine Viner, the Guardians editor-in-chief, said its libel victory was a landmark for investigative journalism. We welcome the decision of the High Court today, in a judgment handed down by Mrs Justice Steyn in the case of Noel Clarke vs Guardian News and Media, she said. The judge ruled, in extremely clear language, that the Guardians reporting was substantially true, and our belief that the reporting was in the public interest was undoubtedly reasonable. This judgment is a deserved victory for those women who suffered because of the behaviour of Noel Clarke. Going to court is difficult and stressful, yet more than 20 women agreed to testify in the High Court, refusing to be bullied or intimidated. This is also a landmark judgment for Guardian journalism, and for investigative journalism in Britain. It was important to fight this case. This was a deeply researched investigation by some of the Guardians best reporters, who worked diligently and responsibly. The judgment is clear that our investigation was thorough and fair, a template for public interest journalism. I hope today will give encouragement to other women in similar situations who have been too fearful to raise their voices for fear of the consequences. Owen Meredith, chief executive of the News Media Association, said: The High Courts ruling in favour of the Guardian is welcome and affirms the importance of rigorous investigative journalism in holding power to account. The judgment recognises the substantial truth of the Guardians reporting and underlines the vital role a free press plays in bringing serious allegations into the public domain. In an environment where speaking out can carry immense personal risk, this judgement marks a significant victory not only for those who came forward but for press freedom in the UK. Noel Clarke will discover on Friday whether he has been successful in his libel claim against The Guardians publisher. The Doctor Who actor took legal action against Guardian News and Media (GNM) over several publications, which included claims from multiple women that he had committed misconduct, which he denies. With Mrs Justice Steyn set to hand down her ruling in the case at 10.30am on Friday, here is a look at the key questions around the case. Who is Noel Clarke? Mr Clarke made his first TV appearance more than 20 years ago in the Channel 4 series Metrosexuality, and gained fame for his roles as Mickey Smith in Doctor Who and Wyman Norris in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Noel Clarke arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice in London during the trial (Ben Whitley/PA) He later wrote and starred in the acclaimed film trilogy Kidulthood, Adulthood and Brotherhood, and directed two of them. He won the Bafta rising star award in 2009 and was awarded the outstanding British contribution to cinema prize in April 2021. The second award and Mr Clarkes membership of the academy were suspended after the allegations against him were published by The Guardian. What is the case about? Mr Clarke is suing GNM over seven articles and a podcast, including an article in April 2021, which said 20 women who knew the actor in a professional capacity had come forward with allegations of misconduct against him. In a statement at the time, Mr Clarke said he vehemently denied any sexual misconduct or criminal wrongdoing, but added that he was deeply sorry if some of his actions had affected people in ways I did not intend or realise, and vowed to get professional help to educate myself and change for the better. In March 2022, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they would not launch a criminal investigation into the claims. What was said at trial? Opening Mr Clarkes case at trial on March 7, barrister Philip Williams, for the actor, said The Guardian acted as the judge, jury and executioner of Mr Clarkes career. Noel Clarke arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in January for a hearing in his libel claim against the publisher of The Guardian newspaper (Jordan Pettitt/PA) He also said that The Guardians stories had more holes than a colander and that Mr Clarke is absolutely not, and never has been, a sexual predator. The court in London also heard allegations that 14 of the alleged complainants were involved in a conspiracy and that the journalists involved in the articles were aware. GNM has defended its reporting as both true and in the public interest. Gavin Millar KC, for the publisher, told the court in written submissions that The Guardian did not simply accept what was said to it and that much time and resource was devoted to getting to the truth. He also said that there is ample evidence that all of the articles were true or substantially true. Who gave evidence? Mr Clarke was the first witness to give evidence in the trial and was cross-examined by lawyers for GNM over several days. He told the court that GNM had smashed my life and that he was not what they have branded me, accusing some of the women of lying and labelling one a fantasist. Mr Clarkes wife, Iris Clarke, also gave evidence in support of her husband, as did actress Louise Dylan. The Guardian provided evidence from 16 women who claimed to have experienced Mr Clarkes alleged misconduct, including Gina Powell, who worked at his production company Unstoppable between 2014 and 2017, and actress Jing Lusi, who starred in ITV thriller Red Eye. Jing Lusi was one of several people to give evidence at the trial (Ian West/PA) Others were given pseudonyms to protect their identities, including one named Ivy, who said she felt horrified when she discovered that Mr Clarke had shared private images of her with others. GNM also called journalists to give evidence, including the editor-in-chief of The Guardian, Katharine Viner, who said there was a very clear public interest in publishing the allegations. What could happen next? Mrs Justice Steyns ruling will only deal with the issue of liability. If Mr Clarke is successful, he wants to increase his claim for special damages to more than 70 million, and also wants to bring a claim over allegations that multiple people conspired against him using fabricated allegations of misconduct or sexual assault. The case will also progress to dealing with any damages GNM must pay, as well as legal costs. If Mr Clarke loses, he will face paying at least some of GNMs legal costs. The losing side may also seek to appeal against the ruling. Former US president said move was necessary step to stave off Donald Trumps efforts to redistrict Texas - Robert Gauthier Barack Obama has backed Gavin Newsoms plan to redraw Californias voting map. The former US president said it was a necessary step to stave off Donald Trumps efforts to redistrict Texas, which would favour Republicans in the state. I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, Mr Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Partys main redistricting arm. Mr Newsom on Thursday signed legislation to put the redrawn congressional maps before California voters, who will be required to approve them before they become law. Its official. Californias special election is ON for November 4th, the California governor wrote on social media. The People of California will be able to cast their vote for a Congressional map. Direct democracy that gives us a fighting chance to STOP Donald Trumps election rigging. He declared: Time to fight fire with fire. Gavin Newsom shows the legislation in Sacramento - AP The legislation would redraw Californias voting districts to create five new winnable Democratic House seats, a direct counter to the Texas Houses approval of a new map to create more conservative-leaning seats in that state. It is designed to flip as many Republican-held seats as those that will be created under the new Texas map. On Thursday, Texass Republican-controlled state Senate approved the new districts, making the Trump-approved maps official. Texas representatives during a session at the state capitol on Wednesday - Sergio Flores/REUTERS However, California faces a more uncertain route, as voters need to approve the new map in the special election on November 4. California has a voter-approved independent commission that Mr Newsom himself had backed. Only voters can override the current map, approved in 2021. However, Mr Newsom said extraordinary steps are required to counter Texas and other Republican-led states the US president is pushing to revise maps. This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country, the California governor said. Earlier this month, Texas Democrats fled the state, delaying the passage of the redistricting plan by more than two weeks. They boarded chartered planes on Aug 3 for New York and Chicago to deny the Republicans the quorum to vote on the redistricting effort, since official business in the Texas legislature requires at least 100 members to be present. Mr Trump has also pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and Missouri to try to create new Republican seats. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Marylands and New Yorks maps as well. Police are braced for a weekend of potential unrest as they face a fresh wave of protests amid mounting tensions over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers. Anti-migrant groups faced off with counterprotesters in Leeds, Orpington, Chichester and Portsmouth on Friday as a weekend of nationwide protests kicked off. The demonstrations, said to be planned at 26 hotels across the country, come as a million revellers are expected to take to the streets of west London to celebrate Notting Hill Carnival. Forces will also have to grapple with a string of Premier League matches as the season enters its second week of fixtures. Despite the pressures, police chiefs insist they are constantly reviewing the intelligence picture and are well prepared to handle any protest action over the busy bank holiday weekend. Posts being shared online are advertising anti-migrant protests at 26 sites housing asylum seekers today and over the weekend, including at the Britannia hotel in Canary Wharf and The Bell Hotel in Epping, which have both been previous sites for unrest. Many will be met by counterdemonstrations, with Stand Up to Racism organising 15 events across Friday and Saturday at locations including Bournemouth, Bristol and Liverpool. Stand Up to Racism counterprotesters in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, faced off with anti-migrant groups (Gareth Fuller/PA) On Friday, dozens of protesters could be heard shouting Get them out and Save our children while others held Union and England flags beside the TLK hotel in Orpington. Also there were counter protesters, who had marched to the hotel and could be seen holding banners and Stand Up To Racism placards which read Refugees welcome, Stop the far right. A large police cordon was formed in between the two groups and the hotel. The Metropolitan Police later confirmed that no arrests were made. The National Police Chiefs Council said forces are experienced with managing protests, and there is a well-established plan for managing resources. We are constantly reviewing the intelligence picture around protests and other demand, and whilst the Metropolitan Police Service has their own significant resourcing in place for the Notting Hill Carnival, an additional national mobilisation for protests this weekend has not been considered necessary, a spokesperson said. We continue to have national mobilisation plans in place to respond should the position change. The fresh wave of demonstrations comes as the latest figures showed the number of asylum seekers in hotels had risen to 32,000 during Labours first year in office, but remains far below the peak of 56,000 in September 2023. Meanwhile, councils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK are investigating whether they could pursue legal challenges against asylum hotels. This follows a High Court judge granting Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction which the government is seeking to appeal ruling that asylum seekers can no longer be accommodated at The Bell Hotel in Epping. The council had argued the injunction was needed amid unprecedented levels of protest and disruption in a string of rallies at the site after an Ethiopian refugee was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl. The alleged assault triggered a series of protests, with up to 2,000 demonstrators descending on the building to demand its closure. Police officers outside The Bell Hotel in Epping (PA) Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon warned the protests are causing alarm to vulnerable refugees who have fled war in countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan, ahead of the weekend of action. Many feel hunted amid scenes of hate and intimidation on Britains streets, the Freedom from Torture charity said. A 26-year-old Afghan man who has been living in a hotel in Yorkshire for almost two years said he fears what might happen to him here. The refugee, who fled after his family were targeted by the Taliban, said: I feel like nobody likes me, the people of this city dont want us, but I dont have any other option. The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, has repeatedly warned that ongoing unrest places forces and officers under strain. Public order duties often mean long shifts, cancelled leave, missed family time and real risk, a spokesperson added. That takes its toll. This isnt just about numbers its about resilience, wellbeing, and a system under strain. Meanwhile, the Met revealed it has arrested 100 people in a bid to deter criminals from exploiting Notting Hill Carnival following three deaths linked to the event in recent years. The Met has arrested 100 people in a bid to deter criminals from exploiting Notting Hill Carnival (PA) The force carried out intelligence-led interventions, and 21 people were recalled to prison. They seized 11 firearms, more than 40 knives, and 266 people have been banned from attending the event this weekend. Commander Charmain Brenyah said while the vast majority come to the carnival to enjoy themselves, a small minority come with less positive intentions. The actions of this minority are totally at odds with the values of those who care passionately about Carnival, and we acknowledge those, including the event organisers, who have stood up to condemn violence and serious criminality in the run-up to this weekend, she said. Our policing plan makes tackling serious violence a priority, which is why weve carried out intelligence-led interventions against those groups and individuals who we have reason to believe pose the greatest risk to the safety of other Carnival-goers. We hope that this police activity will be a significant deterrent for those who otherwise might have been planning to come and engage in violence and other criminality. The force, supported by the City of London Police and British Transport Police, said officers will be deployed in significant numbers, aided by technology including a network of CCTV cameras, screening arches and live facial recognition cameras. Labour has failed to tell a coherent story about the change it has delivered since last years general election, Wes Streeting has admitted. The health secretary said Sir Keir Starmers party has had a whole number of achievements since coming to power last July, but has not done enough to convince voters it is changing the country for the better. With Nigel Farages Reform UK surging, and Sir Keirs approval ratings hitting record lows, Mr Streeting said positives such as falling NHS waiting lists have not yet cut through with voters. Wes Streeting said Labour has not told a coherent enough story about its achievements so far (PA Wire) Speaking on the Political Currency podcast with former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, he said: Domestically, we have had a whole number of achievements. And I think about the things that we've done in our first year, I could rattle off a whole list of NHS ones in terms of waiting lists, child poverty - for example, the decision we've taken on free school meals will lift 100,000 children out of poverty. The last Labour government, which has been lauded for its record on child poverty, did 400,000 over 13 years. So that's not a bad start. You've got a big public service reform agenda in justice, but it's not wrapped up in a coherent enough story about the change that we're bringing. The health secretary also said he fears Britain is seeing a major party realignment on the right of British politics, with Reform starting to replace the Conservatives as Labours main opponents. Nigel Farage has claimed Britain is lawless (PA Wire) The Conservatives feel less and less relevant in parliament, even though they're much greater in number, Mr Streeting said. But he urged Sir Keir not to allow Mr Farage to set the agenda, adding that our most successful moments in the last 12 months have been where we have set the agenda. He said: People want to feel change. They want to feel like the government is driving the country forward in the right direction. We mustn't fall into the trap of letting Farage set the terms of the debate for us. Wes Streeting said the PM has called on ministers to go harder, go faster, be bolder (PA Wire) Mr Farage has held a series of press conferences in recent weeks on immigration and law and order as he seeks to pile pressure on Sir Keir over small boats and crime. He has also led opposition to the use of hotels to house asylum seekers in communities across the country, calling for a wave of protests in the wake of a councils successful legal challenge against one in Epping. Despite Labour struggling to get its message across, Mr Streeting praised Sir Keirs leadership and said the PM has always urged ministers to go harder, go faster, be bolder. With Labour MPs increasingly discussing whether a leadership change would boost the partys fortunes, Mr Streeting said: There were so many times Keir was underestimated in opposition and written off in opposition, he sort of confounded his critics. analysis I first encountered the work of Patrick Chabal in his book Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument, written with Jean-Pascal Daloz. I bought the book on a scorchingly hot afternoon in central Nairobi at the turn of the millennium twenty-five years ago and, in my often-uneventful workplace in the Ministry of Planning, I devoured it immediately. While I later discovered that Chabal is considered provocative and even controversial by some, I was engrossed by his analysis of African political affairs and found that book extremely helpful in understanding the barrage of superficially confusing things I was seeing as a young bureaucrat in Kenya. As the years have progressed, I have assigned Chabal's publications in many of my courses at Harvard and the University of British Columbia, where I have held faculty positions in urban planning and policy. These courses have included several related to international development, comparative politics, and urban governance in the Global South, topics that wouldn't feel too unusual to Chabal's regular readership. Increasingly, though, I have assigned Chabal's works in the courses I teach about planning, policy and politics in other settings, and I now find him particularly relevant in a context that may seem outlandish at first, namely contemporary America. Before introducing some of Chabal's ideas and their relevance to American political life, I should say that, aside from the provocative insights they offer, I also like to assign Chabal's publications because they rage with an intensity, both in terms of ideas and written style, that is increasingly uncommon. Admist the pablum of much academic writing, Chabal's writing stands out for its sheer energy and for its eagerness to accost you with ideas you have never heard or considered before. As was noted in a memorial essay, following his death in 2014: "Chabal did not become a scholar in order to make friends." There is a sharpness to his writing that is, frankly, invigorating and which is increasingly necessary at a time when the scholarship coming out of our universities can feel remarkably disconnected from the realities of political and public life. The idea of disorder as political instrument, developed by Chabal and Daloz, has the counter-intuitive - on first glance - tenor of much of Chabal's writing. In essence, the book argues that, while African institutions may often appear to be in a state of disorder, such disorder and corruption in fact is instrumentally useful and profitable. Ironically, Chabal and Daloz argued that this pattern of instrumental disorder characterizes a developmental path that is relatively unique to Africa. That last claim seems less plausible with every passing day, as the relevance of their ideas expands to cover territories that they themselves might have considered unlikely. My mind was drawn back to Chabal and Daloz's writing in recent months because so much commentary on the contemporary West, and America in particular, is reminiscent of standard takes on why things "don't work" in African cities. To paraphrase, they ask, why don't people realize that things aren't working, and why can't they see that if they just approached things rationally then all this disorder and confusion would tidy up nicely and we'd all be "getting to Denmark," as old-school developmentalist thinking would have it. Indeed, the fact that the trope of Denmark as a symbol for all that is stable and ordered is now regularly deployed in America is indicative of just how similar the Global South and North have become. Nowadays, we all want to get to that mystical "Denmark," perhaps even people in Denmark itself, making Chabal and Daloz's work all the more relevant. Many aspects of contemporary American political life bear particular overlap with the arguments advanced in Africa Works. This is particularly true of its understanding of apparent disorder. Chabal and Daloz note that in conditions where there is a disregard for the rules of formal political or economic sectors (as many would argue is increasingly the case in America) "there is a premium on the vertical and personalized infra-institutional relations through which the 'business' of politics can be conducted." Chabal and Daloz argue that "the notion of disorder should not be construed, as it normally is in classical political analysis, merely as a state of dereliction. It should also be seen as a condition which offers opportunities for those who know how to play that system." This simple, but important, insight is increasingly relevant in a world where the liberal international order, and the relative stability that accompanied it, are under growing strain. The verticalization and personalization of political relations identified by Chabal and Daloz, both in political and economic spheres, were once a stereotype of leadership in many African cities and states but are increasingly visible in America, and elsewhere. Can there be a better example of verticalized and personalized governance than the recent statements by US President Donald Trump, regarding the bombing of Iran, that "I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do." Chabal and Daloz's analysis is powerful because it helps us understand that the seemingly inadvertent "chaos" this model of leadership brings is actually the product of a highly rational system of governance. Chabal and Daloz's book also disabuses us of the notion that the existence of a seemingly modern state brings an end to patrimonialism, wherein a leader's power is based on personal loyalty and patron-client relations. The belief that the modern state and patrimonialism could or should not coexist was based on the Weberian idea that those who hold political power should not have a personal claim on the public assets they oversee. It perhaps goes without saying that episodes like Qatar's donation of a new jet for President Trump's use and reports that he has likely benefited from other payments from foreign governments shatter these Weberian ideals. Chabal and Daloz argue that disorder provides rewards for those actors who can exploit it. They emphasize that "To speak of disorder is not to speak of irrationality. It is merely to make explicit that political action operates rationally, but largely in the realm of the informal, uncodified and unpoliced - that is, in a world that is not ordered in the sense in which we usually take our own polities in the West to be." It is indicative of how much has changed since their book was published in 1999, that the authors could so clearly differentiate the West in this regard. The argument that the West and Africa are separated cleanly by the degree to which politics are exercised through formal or informal channels seems increasingly hard to sustain. It is for this reason that so much analysis of American politics, relying on traditional Western understandings of order and disorder and their relative utility, struggle to make sense of the country's current political situation. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Africa Books By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. Ultimately, the relevance of Chabal's scholarship to contemporary American life shows how important it is to look comparatively at political affairs. It can be hard, if not impossible, to make sense of our surroundings without getting some distance on them. Indeed, one common critique of Chabal and Daloz's work, of Disorder as Political Instrument specifically, was that it looked too broadly, failing to focus on the narrow specificities of particular countries on the continent. But, in a disordered world, a broadly comparative lens, like that offered by Chabal's scholarship, is all the more important as we struggle to make sense of an increasingly complex and rapidly changing political landscape. The perhaps surprising relevance of Chabal's work to contemporary America highlights the continuing need for this kind of creative, provocative and comparative scholarship and for the fearlessness its production requires. Michael Hooper is an Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. The Thursday Murder Club (L to R) Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, and Celia Imrie (Giles Keyte/Netflix. All Rights Reserved) In our society today, older people are often pushed to the sidelines. Its shameful that theyre not celebrated more, reflects Pierce Brosnan. The 72-year-old former James Bond star appears alongside Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren, Calendar Girls actress Celia Imrie, and Gandhi actor Sir Ben Kingsley in the eagerly awaited film adaptation of Richard Osmans bestselling novel series The Thursday Murder Club. Directed by Chris Columbus, the story follows a spirited group of retirees living in the idyllic community of Coopers Chase, who spend their days investigating cold case murders. But when an unexplained death occurs close to home, their amateur sleuthing suddenly turns into a real-life whodunit. Brosnan says he finds the portrayal of these lively retirees empowering. These are people in this film who are passionate about life; they live in the present, he explains. They have a vitality, a sensuality, and a passion for living. Older people are pushed to the side in this culture that we live in, in both Britain and America. They should be brought into the milieu of life. I think this film will be a celebration of the older generation who are still vital to society. Brosnan, right, plays Ron Ritchie (Giles Keyte/Netflix. All Rights Reserved) He plays Ron Ritchie, a former trade unionist, whom he describes as a stout fellow of good character. He doesnt particularly want to be at Coopers Chase, but theres a time in life when you just have to hang up your spurs. Hes very humorous, and theres a certain theatricality to him, with some wonderful set pieces. Bridget Jones star Imrie, 73, says she and her fellow cast members reflect the spirit of their characters. Thats the way we live our lives, because were not retiring, the Surrey-born actress explains. Thats how lucky we are. Its not even an effort to be uplifted and curious, because thats how our lives are. I hope it inspires people. I actually think the older generation is much more curious, active, and alert than they were maybe 20 years ago. Were a good example of how you can carry on. Celia Imrie, who plays Joyce Meadowcroft, a former nurse and newcomer to Coopers Chase, says she loved seeing her character grow in confidence. Its a very clever way to introduce the audience to Coopers Chase through Joyce, whos new and has a lot of catching up to do. Shes got a lot of impressing to do to be included. Its a huge change shes gone through, and step by step you see her trying to belong. Its a lovely way for her to grow through the film. Sir Ben Kingsley, 81, who plays former psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif, says he shares his characters curiosity. I think I have a natural, hopefully forensic approach to life, says the Oscar-winning actor. I love analysing things. Im fascinated by cause and effect, and by what has moulded a person throughout their life, the adversities, the challenges. I think thats part of all actors. We all have that curiosity: yes, nosy, inquisitive, curious. Its a great quality. Ibrahim shares that. And we all became very fond of our characters, not in a narcissistic way, but as custodians of our roles. Dame Helen Mirren says the film has a very gentle British style of comedy (Giles Keyte/Netflix. All Rights Reserved) Dame Helen Mirren, 80, who plays the intelligent and coy Elizabeth Best, is the leader of the gang, using her mysterious past to help solve cases. We can tell that she was someone powerful and substantial, but its all a bit secret, says the London-born actress. Was she a high-level politician? Or a high-level operative in MI5 or MI6? She never quite says, but we get a sense. Shes tough, smart, and has witnessed some heavy duty things. She describes the film as having a very gentle British style of comedy. But it addresses serious issues too, the challenges you face later in life, the diminishing of mind and body, and how to cope. The murder mystery is the foundation, but the essence of the film is the humanity of these characters. The adaptation also stars Mirandas Tom Ellis, Mickey 17 actress Naomi Ackie, and Line Of Duty star Daniel Mays. Ackie and Mays, who both play police officers, are outmanoeuvred by The Thursday Murder Club while trying to solve a local murder. Mays, 47, who plays D.C.I. Chris Hudson, says: What each member of the Club brings is that theyve had these rich, hugely successful careers, and they bring all those skills to the table. Daniel Mays plays D.C.I. Chris Hudson in the film (Giles Keyte/Netflix. All Rights Reserved) Chris might not like it, but without them he wouldnt be solving these cases. Hes completely oblivious. Theyre pulling the strings and making sure Donna comes onto the investigation. Ackie, 34, who plays PC Donna De Freitas, adds: It makes me laugh that both of our characters are manipulated into becoming part of it. Home Alone director Columbus says that while the story is about a murder mystery, its also about the four central characters. I love the idea. I mean, at its heart, its a murder mystery, he says. But the thing I loved about it separates itself. Richard Osmans book separates itself from all of those murder mysteries because first of all, its not cold and procedural, its not over-the-top and panto-like. Its really about these four characters who are extraordinarily funny, yet at the same time, the book has this really deep, complex emotional quality. Columbus, who also directed the first two Harry Potter movies, says he was inspired by Hogwarts when bringing Coopers Chase to life. I wanted to create a retirement community as a place of wish fulfilment, filled with life, hope, and excitement, not dread or depression. Thats rarely seen on film, and I wanted that feeling to permeate the story. The Thursday Murder Club will be released on Netflix on Thursday, August 28. Mohammed Kudus could have a different role to the one he had against Burnley last weekend (London Standard) Thomas Frank has opted against a back three as Tottenham take on Manchester City today. Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven are the two centre-backs, with Pedro Porro and Djed Spence either side. Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha both started on the bench against Burnley last weekend but feature here, with their experience and ball-winning capabilities much-needed against this City side. With James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski out injured, and Spurs missing out on the signing of Eberechi Eze, it falls on Pape Matar Sarr to provide the energy as the most advanced midfielder. Up front, Dominic Solanke has now had two cameos off the bench as he builds towards full fitness, but Richarlison has been in superb form and scored a brace against Burnley, so keeps his place, with Mohammed Kudus and Brennan Johnson either side. Confirmed team news Man City XI: Trafford, Lewis, Stones, Dias, Ait-Nouri, Nico, Reijnders, Bobb, Cherki, Marmoush, Haaland Subs: Ederson, Ake, Doku, Rodri, Bernardo, Nunes, O'Reilly, Khusanov, Foden Tottenham XI: Vicario, Porro, Van de Ven, Romero, Spence, Sarr, Palhinha, Bentancur, Johnson, Kudus, Richarlison Subs: Kinsky, Danso, Vuskovic, Davies, Gray, Bergvall, Odobert, Tel, Solanke Injured: Dragusin, Udogie, Takai, Bissouma, Maddison, Kulusevski, Solomon Time and date: 12:30pm BST, Saturday, August 23, 2025 Venue: Etihad Stadium How to watch: TNT Sports Tributes have been paid to former prominent UUP MP and stalwart of unionism the Rev Martin Smyth. Mr Smyth, a Presbyterian minister who served as South Belfast MP for more than 20 years and also led the Orange Order, died at the age of 94. He challenged for leadership of the UUP in 1995 but lost out to David Trimble. I am terribly sorry to hear of the passing of Martin Smyth, long time UUP MP. He was another of that fateful generation of what we so euphemistically call "The Troubles" whose imprint will last forever.. Condolences to his family, friends and admirers." Mike Nesbitt (@mikenesbittni) August 22, 2025 Current UUP leader Mike Nesbitt described an ever-present heavyweight in local politics. I am terribly sorry to hear of the passing of Martin Smyth, he said. From my days as a broadcast journalist, he was an ever-present heavyweight in local politics, whose views were always important. He may not have been as prominent as others in the public sphere, but hugely influential behind the scene. He was another of that fateful generation of what we so euphemistically call The Troubles whose imprint will last forever. Condolences to his family, friends and admirers. My sincerest sympathies to the family of the Rev Martin Smyth. A stalwart of Unionism, he stepped forward in South Belfast at a most volatile time. Firm and faithful, he represented his constituents and NI with a strong sincere strength and unswerving belief in the Union. Gavin Robinson (@GRobinsonDUP) August 22, 2025 DUP leader Gavin Robinson also expressed condolences to Mr Smyths family. My sincerest sympathies to the family of the Rev Martin Smyth, he wrote on X. A stalwart of unionism, he stepped forward in South Belfast at a most volatile time. Firm and faithful, he represented his constituents and NI with a strong sincere strength and unswerving belief in the Union. Sorry to hear of the passing of Rev Martin Smyth who served Protestantism and Unionism for many years through some of the worst of the terrorist campaign he himself replacing Rev Robert Bradford MP in Parliament when he was murdered by the IRA. Jim Allister (@JimAllister) August 22, 2025 TUV leader Jim Allister said on X: Sorry to hear of the passing of Rev Martin Smyth who served Protestantism and Unionism for many years through some of the worst of the terrorist campaign he himself replacing Rev Robert Bradford MP in Parliament when he was murdered by the IRA. Donald Trump heaped praise on the new owner of CBS, saying Paramount chief executive David Ellison is a great man whom he knows very well, adding that Ellison is going to do the right thing with the network. The presidents Friday remarks come a day after House Democrats launched an investigation into the politically fraught $8 billion merger between Paramount and Ellisons Skydance, which was approved by the Trump administration shortly after the president extracted a $16 million settlement in his meritless lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Speaking to reporters on Friday morning following the FBI raiding the home of his former national security adviser-turned-critic John Bolton, which Trump insisted he knew nothing about beforehand, the president turned his attention to boasting about his federal takeover of Washington, D.C. In typical Trumpian fashion, the president went on a tangent about the fake news not giving him credit for deploying military troops on the streets of the nations capital, which he falsely claimed had a 90 percent approval rating. In reality, the vast majority of D.C. residents oppose the move and feel it makes them less safe. After mocking MSNBCs upcoming name change, claiming it was because theyre ashamed of it and theyre disassociating it from NBC, which is also fake news, Trump then brought up CBS and Ellison and had nothing but good things to say. Donald Trump boasts that new CBS owner David Ellison will do the right thing and is a great man. (AFP/Getty) I think the news is getting better. Theyre learning that they have no credibility, he declared. CBS was just sold to a great person that I know very well. Trump continued: A great man. He actually just bought CBS. And I think hes going to do the right thing with it. Ellison is the son of close Trump ally and megadonor Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder who invested billions of dollars in David Ellisons Skydance merger with Paramount. Weeks before the Federal Communications Commission led by Trumps hand-picked chairman Brendan Carr finally approved the Skydance-Paramount deal, Trump similarly sang the younger Ellisons praises. Ellisons great, the president told reporters in mid-June. Hell do a great job with it. Earlier this week, the ranking members of the House Judiciary and Energy and Commerce committees sent Ellison a letter demanding documents and correspondence related to the administrations approval process of the Paramount merger, which officially closed on August 7. Specifically, the two Democratic congressmen are seeking answers surrounding not only the settlement of the Trump lawsuit, which has sparked accusations of bribery from lawmakers and free press organizations, but also the presidents claim that he reached a side deal with Ellison. Shortly after the previous Paramount leadership announced it was paying Trump $16 million to settle the 60 Minutes complaint, Trump boasted that Ellison had agreed to air up to $20 million of pro-Trump advertisements and programming on CBS once the merger went through. While the old Paramount denied any knowledge of any secret agreement, Ellison has remained mum on the matter. This offer was necessarily contingent on the FCC approving the deal and does not appear to present any legitimate value to the public, only to President Trump, Reps. Frank Pallone and Jamie Raskin wrote Ellison this week. Therefore, this appears to be an offer of payment and benefits to a government official designed to achieve a specific outcome from the government in other words, a bribe. Ellison is currently facing a congressional investigation over the circumstances surrounding the Trump administrations approval process of the companys merger with Skydance. (Paramount) Additionally, the Democrats are inquiring about Paramounts decision to cancel the top-rated late-night show hosted by outspoken Trump critic Stephen Colbert just days before the merger was approved, as well as Skydances assurance to the FCC that it would review complaints of bias at CBS News and eliminate all diversity hiring practices. Both Trump and Carr publicly celebrated Colberts cancellation. On top of that, Raskin and Pallone noted that during the negotiations with Trump to settle the lawsuit, which CBS lawyers said was without merit and legal experts described as frivolous, the executive producer of 60 Minutes and CBS News chief Wendy McMahon both resigned in protest. Two wrongs do not make a rightillegitimate demands from the FCC or the Administration do not absolve your company from wrongdoing, the letter to Ellison stated. If Skydance offered a side deal of up to $20 million worth of advertisement or programming to President Trump in order to receive regulatory approval for the merger with Paramount, these actions would run afoul of federal and state anti-bribery statutes. The lawmakers added: Similarly, if Paramount forced out CBSs longtime leaders, spent $16 million to settle a sham lawsuit with President Trump, or cancelled a highly popular comedy show that President Trump dislikes in order to curry favor with the Administration and to receive regulatory approval for the merger with Skydance, these actions would likely further embolden President Trump to use lawsuits and regulatory authority to attack media organizations that he finds objectionable in order to silence them. In the meantime, it appears that Ellison and his senior leadership are preparing to enact painful cuts to the news network. Pucks Dylan Byers reported this week that Paramount sources had told him CBS News was losing around $50 million a year, a claim a CBS News spokesperson pushed back hard against, saying the news division is currently profitable. Still, based on the Byers item, it appears that Ellison and Paramount president Jeff Shell are laying the groundwork to make sweeping layoffs at CBS News and soon. The stage has been set for a round of painful cost-cutting, Status News Oliver Darcy noted. In other words, the disputed number may ultimately be less important than the larger narrative it helps justify: CBS News is about to face some painful budget cuts. National guard troops at the National Mall in Washington. Photograph: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed. The US president talked to reporters in the Oval Office and said: When ready, we will start in Chicago Chicago is a mess. He added that then the administration will help with New York, amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor. On the issue of suddenly announcing that it would now arm the federalized troops in DC, the defense department did not immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed. The step is an escalation in the federal governments rare intervention into policing in the nations capital and came as nearly 2,000 national guard members are stationed in the city. Earlier this week hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states arrived to bolster the DC national guard. The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons. The city had been informed about the intent for the national guard to be armed, a person familiar with the conversations said earlier this week. The person was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on the condition of anonymity. A defense official told CNN: At the direction of the secretary of defense, [Joint Task Force] JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our nations capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training. Trump took command of the Washington DC police department earlier this month and deployed the national guard, under laws and constitutional powers that give the federal government more sway over the nations capital than other cities. The US president claims that crime and homelessness in the district constitute a crisis, against the objections of local leaders. Elsewhere, the national guard is under the jurisdiction of the relevant state, where the state governor is the forces commander-in-chief and can deploy that military in case of emergency. In rare circumstances the federal government takes control of a states national guard in what is deemed a national emergency, typically at the request of the state governor in question. Earlier this summer, Trump federalized the California national guard over the objection of the states governor, Gavin Newsom, in an almost unprecedented abnormality, sending troops into parts of Los Angeles to counter protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Hegseths orders come just a day after Jeanine Pirro, the District of Columbias top federal prosecutor, instructed prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible in cases stemming from recent arrests, limiting their discretion as the Trump administration intensifies its law enforcement presence in the capital. That directive, first reported by the New York Times, was issued this week and narrows the ability of line prosecutors to decide how cases are charged and prioritized. By pushing for the maximum charges allowed, the new policy could lead to longer prison terms for convicted defendants. In line with President Trumps directive to make DC safe, US attorney Pirro has made it clear that the old way of doing things is unacceptable, spokesman Tim Lauer told the newspaper. She directed her staff to charge the highest crime that is supported by the law and the evidence. Pirro, who was formerly a Fox News host, has been a prominent figure in the administrations law-enforcement push. She has also pressed for changes to local laws that she argues treat juvenile offenders too leniently. The DC attorneys office holds a unique position, overseeing federal and local prosecutions since the District of Columbia is not a state. The office has long debated how to handle lower-level arrests made by the citys police department. According to the White House, federal agents have made more than 630 arrests as of Thursday, though the justice department has not clarified how that figure compares with typical city police numbers. While Pirro has committed to filing the toughest charges possible in most cases, she has also relaxed enforcement of one local gun law. This week she directed prosecutors not to pursue felony charges against people for possessing rifles or shotguns in the city, despite a DC law prohibiting them. The policy does not apply to cases involving violent crimes or individuals barred from owning firearms, Pirro said in a statement to CNN. She said that the change follows guidance from the US supreme court and the justice departments solicitor general. On Thursday, Trump declared his takeover of the Metropolitan police department to be a success. He had previously signaled that he would target other cities, such as Baltimore, Oakland and another mission in Los Angeles, as well as New York and Chicago, which are all strongly Democratic-voting and run by Black mayors. The Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said to CNN that crime was dropping in Baltimore as a result of community violence prevention efforts and he would never activate the national guard for theatrics. Baltimores mayor, Brandon Scott, also spoke to CNN, accusing Trump of singling out Black cities and Moore said that the cities the president was now targeting are places he has never been, streets he has never walked. The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select Secure Messaging. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post If you can safely use the tor network without being observed or monitored you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our SecureDrop platform. Finally, our guide at theguardian.com/tips lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each. We believe [the Flex attack] was a deliberate strike precisely on US property here in Ukraine, on American investment , Zelenskyy said. A very telling strike at the very time when the world waits for a clear answer from the Russians on their move in talks to bring an end to the war. Nineteen people were injured in the attack. Zelenskyy said both sides were preparing for further fighting , citing Russian troop build-ups and Ukraines own preparations including the Flamingo missile rollout. A missile strike on the US-owned electronics firm Flex in Ukraines far-west Zakarpattia region was a telling indicator of Russian intentions in peace initiatives led by Donald Trump, Zelenskyy said. Now the signals from Russia are simply, to be honest, indecent. They are trying to back away from the need to hold meetings. They dont want to end the war. They carry on with massive strikes. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that large Russian attacks in various parts of Ukraine showed Moscow was avoiding negotiations about ending the more than three-year-old war . The latest offensive included 574 drones and 40 missiles, said Ukraines president, and was one of the largest yet. With both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war preparing for further fighting, Ukraine was test-launching a new long-range cruise missile , Zelenskyy said. Ukraines president announced the huge missile, known as Flamingo, could strike targets as far as 3,000km (1,864 miles) away. The missile has undergone successful tests. It is currently our most successful missile, Zelenskyy told reporters. Mass production could begin by February, he added. Related: Russia rules out European troops in Ukraine as Trump makes veiled threats While he has upended a years-long western policy of isolating the Russian leader, Trump has made little tangible progress towards a peace deal. On Thursday, the US president appeared to vent his frustration at Russias obstruction, and suggested Ukraine should long since have been armed to fight back against Russia, writes Pjotr Sauer. In a ramble on social media blaming his predecessor, Joe Biden, Trump said: It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Trump signed off that there were interesting times ahead!. Moscow attempted on Thursday to further deeply caveat any prospects for talks with Putin, or for peace on any terms other than Russias. Sergei Lavrov, Putins foreign minister, said putting European troops in Ukraine to guarantee its security was foreign intervention and absolutely unacceptable for Russia. He insisted the Kremlin must have a veto over any postwar support for Ukraine. Trump set another timeframe two weeks again for assessing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. After that, well have to maybe take a different tack, Trump told the rightwing media outlet Newsmax. Trump has not met any of his promised or threatened deadlines for securing peace or acting against Russia, which have ranged everywhere from 24 hours to 10 weeks. In an attack on Ukraines western city of Lviv, one person was killed, three wounded and 26 homes damaged, said the governor, Maksym Kozytskyi. Authorities in south-eastern Ukraines Dnipropetrovsk region reported damage to businesses, homes and gas lines. A later shelling of the city of Kherson killed one person and wounded more than a dozen, a local official said. In the Russian-occupied part of Ukraines Donetsk region, two people were killed and at least 21 wounded after a Ukrainian shelling, said a Russian-installed official. Emely Martinez, 35, allegedly performed dental veneer procedures without a valid Florida license (Pinellas Park Police Department) Florida police arrested a woman on Wednesday evening after she allegedly performed dental veneer procedures without a valid license, causing complications for multiple clients. Detectives launched their investigation in June following reports from several victims, most of whom experienced complications after receiving dental veneer implants from Emely Martinez, 35. According to the Pinellas Park Police Department, the victims also stated that Martinez refused to make any repairs or issue refunds. Martinez advertised and operated a dental services business at 9150 49th Street North, in Pinellas Park, presenting herself as a licensed practitioner. Investigators, however, confirmed she lacked any active dental license in Florida, nor does the state recognize veneer techs as part of the dental profession. Martinez was taken into police custody without incident. Emely Martinez, 35, allegedly performed dental veneer procedures without a valid Florida license (Pinellas Park Police Department) She now faces multiple charges, including scheme to defraud under $20,000, two counts of practicing dentistry without an active license, a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear, a misdemeanor warrant for violation of probation, and unlawful possession of personal identification of another. She was also cited as a habitual traffic offender, according to WFLA. Additional victims are asked to contact the Pinellas Park Police Department at 727-369-7864. The Independent has reached out to Pinellas Park Police Department for more information. Welsh Fires rock-bottom womens side finally recorded their first win of this years Hundred, seeing off fellow strugglers Birmingham Phoenix by 36 runs at Edgbaston. After five straight defeats, Gareth Breeses side were able to indulge in some overdue celebrations as they easily defended a total of 150 for three. Englands Sophia Dunkley paved the way, hitting 53 from 43 balls at the head of the innings, with back up from Hayley Matthews (34 not out) and Jess Jonassen (44). South African quick Shabnim Ismail cut the chase down at source as she dismissed Emma Lamb and Marie Kelly for ducks with the new ball and she later returned to remove top-scorer Ellyse Perry for 55. Her outstanding figures of three for 16 proved a winning head and there were also three-wicket hauls for Matthews and Jonassen as the Fires overseas contingent dominated proceedings. The hosts finished nine down on 114 as they failed to mount a serious challenge. Wendys customer tried to pay for drive-thru meal with cocaine, say Colorado cops A Wendys customer has been arrested after trying to pay for his drive-thru meal with cocaine, Colorado cops say. Pro tip: The drive-thru is for burgers and fries not narcotics, the Douglas County Sheriffs Office wrote in a Facebook post when announcing the arrest on Thursday. Police say the man offered to sell drugs to the Castle Pines fast food worker at the drive-thru window in exchange for his meal. The Sacramento Bee identified the restaurant as a local Wendys. The man showed the worker foil with a white powdery substance resembling cocaine, the sheriffs office said. A Wendys customer has been arrested after trying to pay for his drive-thru meal with cocaine, Colorado cops say (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) When the worker declined his offer, police say the man told the Wendys employee hed wait for them, if they changed their mind and entered the restaurant. The police were called, and when deputies arrived, they found the mans car and in plain view saw a line of a white powdery substance on a cell phone, the sheriffs office said. Police say the man offered to sell drugs to the Castle Pines fast food worker at the drive-thru window in exchange for his meal (Douglas County Sheriff's Office) A photo shared by police showed the white-dusted phone on the car seat, along with a pair of eyeglasses, a disposable water bottle, and other items. Police say they also found baggies for distribution, a scale, and several alcohol shooters in his car, which is in violation of his active protection order. Body camera footage from July 10 just before 10 p.m. local time, shows police handcuffing the man, who has not been named by police. Body camera footage from July 10 just before 10 p.m. shows police handcuffing the man (Douglas County Sheriff's Office) Fast food deals are supposed to come with fries, not felonies, the sheriffs office playfully warned as it announced the charges against the man: Unlawful distribution, manufacturing, dispensing, sale or possession; violation of a protection order and unlawful possession of controlled substances. The Independent has reached out to the sheriffs office for further information and to Wendys for comment. During Noel Clarkes libel claim, several women, including some whose real names were not used, gave evidence at the High Court. Allegations included inappropriate comments and groping. Clarke, 49, has always denied that he behaved inappropriately. This is what some of the women allege happened. Joanne Hayes In 2004, Ms Hayes worked with Clarke on Doctor Who as a costume assistant. She claims the actor made sexual comments to her while alone in his trailer on set. He allegedly told her he liked girls with long hair, adding words to the effect that it is nice to have something to hold on to when I do them from behind. She told the court she had not said anything at the time because she was making her way up the industry. In her judgment on Friday, Mrs Justice Steyn said Ms Hayes gave truthful, careful and reliable evidence and had no reason to come forward and lie. She added: I have no hesitation in rejecting the suggestion that Ms Hayes invented her account to seek attention. Imogen One actress, known as Imogen, said Clarke invited her to dinner in 2014, when she was 20 years old. She alleged that Clarke propositioned her for sex and offered to take photos, talked about going to brothels, and tried to kiss her on the street after the meal. The judge found that Imogens account was honest, and save for a few minor points, it was also reliable and accurate. Mila The actress, known only as Mila, described how she was acting in a scene that required nudity from the waist down, when Clarke told her to bend over. She also said that for the rest of the shoot, Clarke often asked her to sit on his lap, and made inappropriate sexual comments. Mrs Justice Steyn said that unlike Clarke, Mila had no reason to lie. Noel Clarke at the Royal Courts of Justice (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Naome Morris In 2010, the then 18-year-old fan responded to a Twitter post from Clarke asking for nude pictures from fans. She alleged that he repeatedly asked to meet her for sex and groped her under a table at a public lunch. Clarke also allegedly told the teenager, who was a virgin, he would be honoured to have sex with her as being a first is a big deal for a girl. In November 2010, Clarke blocked Ms Morris from emailing him, and shortly afterwards the police visited her home, making inquiries in relation to allegations of harassment. Clarke eventually took legal action against the woman, asking her to sign an agreement promising not to blog, or tell anyone, or even post indirect tweets about him. The judge said Ms Morris did not give evidence that Clarkes behaviour in touching her leg or her bottom, or in showing her a photograph of his penis, was non-consensual. She added: I have not been shown any professional standards applicable to Mr Clarke, as an actor and director, in 2010, that would render his exploitative behaviour towards Ms Morris, in the context of a private, consensual, adult relationship, professional misconduct. Gina Powell Gina Powell, who was part of Clarkes production company, Unstoppable, between 2014 and 2017, alleges the actor groped her in an elevator, exposed himself to her in a car and brushed off concerns about his sexual behaviour towards other women. She also told the court in London that he kept a hard drive of naked pictures of others. Ms Powell told the High Court that she came forward with her allegations after years of guilt over watching how he behaved with other women. The judge found that on one occasion where Clarke pinched Ms Powells bottom when they were being photographed, his intent was not sexual, and it was intended as a friendly and jocular attempt to provoke a startled expression. However, she also ruled that Ms Powell was an honest, reliable witness and accepted that Clarke had shown her nude photographs, and accepted her evidence on what happened in the car and lift. Synne Seltveit Ms Seltveit met Clarke through her friend, Ms Powell. She alleged that he sent her an unsolicited picture of a penis, which she assumed was his. The judge accepted her evidence. Jing Lusi The trial heard that actress Jing Lusi told the Guardian that Clarke would use an honorary Bafta to dupe girls and lure them back to his lair or use it to silence them. Ms Lusi, who starred in ITV thriller Red Eye, told the newspaper it was terrifying that Clarke was due to be given an honorary Bafta in 2021. The Gangs Of London actress, who worked with Clarke on the film SAS: Red Notice, said that during a dinner while filming the movie, Clarke suggested to her that they could do a read-through of the script in his bed or bedroom. She also alleged, in a separate incident, that he told her he had fantasised about her and described what he wanted to do to her, leaving her feeling so disgusted. Mrs Justice Steyn said Clarkes behaviour towards Ms Lusi was not an abuse of power or professional misconduct, and the events described did not assist the Guardian in establishing the truth defence. Ivy The woman had a brief relationship with Clarke, while he was married, and alleged that he shared nude photos of her, without her consent. The Doctor Who star allegedly sent intimate images he took of the woman to a former friend, and further showed images he had been consensually sent by her to other people he knew. The woman told the High Court she was horrified to discover the private images she sent to Clarke had been shown to others. In her ruling, Mrs Justice Steyn said the Guardian had established that Mr Clarke revealed naked photographs of Ivy without her consent. Penelope Giving evidence during the trial, the actress, who worked on a sex scene with Noel Clarke, said she begged him to stop asking her to look at him while he was exposed. She said that despite his behaviour, she never badmouthed him to anyone, but knew he would eventually get found out. Penelope alleged that after one sex scene, an aroused Clarke cleared the room and in a hushed but forceful voice insisted that she look at his penis. She claimed he made comments saying, Its massive, everyones told me its big, and on a separate occasion also told her she didnt have a white arse and that it was like a black girls. In her written judgment, Mrs Justice Steyn said: I found Penelope to be an honest witness who did not embellish or exaggerate her evidence. I reject as unfounded the contention that she has conspired with anyone to harm Mr Clarke. I accept the clear and convincing evidence that Penelope gave regarding Mr Clarkes misconduct during the filming of the sex scene. She added: I have not found that the requirement for Penelope to be naked below the waist for the filming of the sex scene was introduced for Mr Clarkes sexual gratification, but he did then take advantage of it for that purpose. Port Sudan The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) marked World Humanitarian Day on 19 August by highlighting the staggering toll on aid workers in Sudan, where at least 120 humanitarian staff were killed. UNDP Resident Representative in Sudan Luca Renda issued a statement from Port Sudan underscoring the significance of the day. In a statement on Monday, Renda highlighted that "since the current conflict began in April 2023, more than 120 humanitarian personnel have been killed- nearly all of them Sudanese." Renda stressed that these figures "are more than just statistics." He highlighted that the victims were medics, drivers, volunteers, and other staff who showed up daily to serve their communities with courage and compassion. He described their deaths as "a stain on our collective conscience and a stark reminder of the growing dangers faced by those delivering life-saving aid." The UNDP Sudan representative urged parties to "guarantee safe and unimpeded access, and ensure that humanitarian personnel can operate safely, independently and without interference." He condemned the pattern of violations and impunity, warning: "Every red line crossed is met with impunity, indifference and failure to act. This must stop." He appealed to donors to "increase flexible funding to sustain and scale up life-saving operations across the country," adding: "Today, we relaunch the global call to #ActForHumanity. They have not given up, and neither must we." Global figures Provisional figures, according to the *Aid Worker Security Database, indicate 265 aid workers killed in the first eight months of 2025, as of August 14, 2025. Violence against aid workers increased across 21 countries, with state actors the most common perpetrators. The UN stressed that such attacks violate international humanitarian law and recalled Security Council Resolution 2730 from May 2024, which reaffirmed obligations to protect humanitarian personnel and called for independent investigations into violations. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Sudan Legal Affairs International Organisations By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. "A shocking new record of 383 aid workers killed in 2024 must be a wake-up call to protect all civilians in conflict and crisis and call time on impunity. Attacks on humanitarian workers, assets and operations violate international humanitarian law and undermine the lifelines that sustain millions of people trapped in war and disaster zones," the OCHA statement read. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher condemned the surge in attacks on aid workers, stating: "Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve." Fletcher described the scale of violence with as "a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy," and insisted "Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end." He added, "As the humanitarian community, we demand - again- that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account." This year's theme Strengthening Global Solidarity and Empowering Local Communities, highlights Sudan as an example of why such solidarity is not an abstract principle, but a matter of survival. "The global #ActForHumanity campaign is relaunched with added urgency, calling on the public to stand with humanitarians, demand protection and support the lifelines they provide," according to OCHA. *The Aid Worker Security Database, the sole comprehensive global record of attacks on aid workers since 1997, tracks killings, kidnappings and injuries, providing the evidence behind this appeal. The Trump administration claims a painting of refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border that once hung in a Smithsonian-affiliated museum is evidence that the institution is out of control, the White Houses latest criticism of the Smithsonian as it conducts a wide-ranging ideological audit of Washingtons flagship museums. In a Thursday post on X, the administration shared an image of Refugees Crossing the Border Wall Into South Texas, a 2020 work from painter Rigoberto A. Gonzalez showing a family of four scaling the U.S.-Mexico border wall with a ladder. This is art from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery commemorating the act of illegally crossing the "exclusionary" border. This was even made a finalist for one of its awards, reads a Thursday X post from the administration. This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is "OUT OF CONTROL." This is "art" from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery commemorating the act of illegally crossing the "exclusionary" border. This was even made a finalist for one of its awards. This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is "OUT OF CONTROL." pic.twitter.com/BzDfc1Mumx Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 21, 2025 The work, one of the finalists in a 2022 open call for American portraiture today, hung in the National Portrait Gallery between 2022 and early 2023. Trump administration has sought overhaul of Smithsonian Institutions high-profile Washington museums, complaining they have previously put an overemphasis on slavery and featured woke paintings (AFP/Getty) It is unclear if the painting is still in any Smithsonian-affiliated museums. The Independent has contacted Gonzalez, the Smithsonian, and the National Portrait Gallery for comment. For several years the news media have been reporting stories on the rising numbers of families, especially children, immigrating to the U.S., and the escalating violence on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, Gonzalez, who was born in Mexico and now teaches at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, told a campus website of his work. This is too big a story to report through raw journalism... I believe that painting can evoke an authentic aesthetic experience that conveys meaning in people's lives and work as a catalyst for change." The White House did not answer questions from The Independent about how the painting came to the administrations attention, or whether the work was still hanging in the Smithsonian. Trump claims Smithsonian review process is aimed at eliminating woke ideas and promoting positive story of America ahead of national 250th anniversary celebrations next year (Getty Images) Illegal immigration is bad and should not be glorified, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. Under the Trump Administration if you want to enter our country, you must follow our laws and go through the legal process. Refugees and asylum-seekers seeking to enter the U.S. are in fact protected by law and not inherently considered illegal immigrants. The Trump administration has attempted to suspend refugee admissions into the U.S. and requests for asylum at the border, though a federal appeals court this month narrowed the asylum moves. The Gonzalez painting was mentioned in a 2022 New York Times piece that the administration has cited in its campaign to overhaul the Smithsonian, in which then-director of the National Portrait Gallery Kim Sajet spoke of her desire to include a broader range of individuals and artists in the longstanding museum, rather than the historic focus on the wealthy, the pale and the male. Sajet stepped down in June. Critics lashed out at the administration for its criticism of the painting. The Trump administration has drawn fire for other historical gestures, like restoring the names of military bases named for Confederate military officials (Copyright 2020The Associated Press. All rights reserved) It's a powerful portrait of a family making a hard decision to seek a better life, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on X. Imagine how fragile you have to be to not understand why this art has value and how afraid you are of free speech. The fracas over the painting is part of the administrations larger push to reshape the Smithsonian to be in line with the administrations view of history. A White House official helping lead the effort this week accused the institutions Washington museums of putting too much focus on slavery. The fact that our country was involved in slavery is awful. No one thinks otherwise, Lindsey Halligan, special assistant to the president, told Fox News on Wednesday. But what I saw when I was going through the museum was an overemphasis on slavery. I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we have come since slavery. Earlier this week, the president said his Smithsonian campaign, which was described to officials in a letter earlier this month, was part of a concerted effort to eliminate woke ideology, just as he had from U.S. universities, a push the administration had previously largely described as an attempt to stop campus antisemitism. The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of WOKE, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the presidents directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions, a letter to Smithsonian officials last week, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, states. Anti-empathy arguments gained traction in the early months of President Donald Trumps second term, with his flurry of executive orders that critics denounced as lacking empathy (AFP via Getty Images) Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice. For them, empathy is a cudgel for the left: It can manipulate caring people into accepting all manner of sins according to a conservative Christian perspective, including abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and certain views on social and racial justice. Empathy becomes toxic when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies, said Allie Beth Stuckey, author of Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. Stuckey, host of the popular podcast Relatable, is one of two evangelicals who published books within the past year making Christian arguments against some forms of empathy. The other is Joe Rigney, a professor and pastor who wrote The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits. It was published by Canon Press, an affiliate of Rigneys conservative denomination, which counts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth among its members. These anti-empathy arguments gained traction in the early months of President Donald Trumps second term, with his flurry of executive orders that critics denounced as lacking empathy. As foreign aid stopped and more deportations began, Trumps then-adviser Elon Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. Even Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, framed the idea in his own religious terms, invoking the concept of ordo amoris, or order of love. Within concentric circles of importance, he argued the immediate family comes first and the wider world last an interpretation that then-Pope Francis rejected. While their anti-empathy arguments have differences, Stuckey and Rigney have audiences that are firmly among Trumps Christian base. Could someone use my arguments to justify callous indifference to human suffering? Of course, Rigney said, countering that he still supports measured Christ-like compassion. I think Ive put enough qualifications. Historian Susan Lanzoni traced a century of empathys uses and definitions in her 2018 book Empathy: A History. Though its had its critics, she has never seen the aspirational term so derided as it is now. Its been particularly jarring to watch Christians take down empathy, said Lanzoni, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. Thats the whole message of Jesus, right? In this image from a YouTube video posted on Oct. 15, 2024, Allie Beth Stuckey speaks about issues from her book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion." (AP Photo) (AP) The word empathy appeared in English for the first time in 1908, taken from a German word, meaning in-feeling. Though the word is relatively new to English, the impulse behind it to feel for or with another is much older. It forms a core precept across many religions. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, reads a common version of the Golden Rule. Stuckey admits Jesus is an empathetic figure. In her book, the Southern Baptist from Texas writes, In a way, Jesus embodied empathy when he took on flesh, suffered the human experience, and bore the burden of our sins by enduring a gruesome death. She's clear that empathy can be good. But she writes it has been co-opted to convince people that the progressive position is exclusively the one of kindness and morality. If you really care about women, youll support their right to choose, she writes of this progressive line of thinking. If you really respect people, youll use preferred pronouns. If youre really compassionate, youll welcome the immigrant. Rigney doesn't think empathy is inherently wrong, either. He finds fault with excessive or untethered empathy that's not tied to conservative biblical interpretations. He has been talking publicly about these ideas since at least 2018, when he discussed the sin of empathy on camera with conservative Pastor Doug Wilson. Since 2023, Rigney has worked at Wilsons Idaho church and seminary, affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Rigney said initially he experienced pushback from certain corners of evangelicalism, that at the time were very dialed into questions of the #MeToo movement and abuse or critical race theory, social justice kind of stuff. This debate over empathy often devolves into arguments over word choices or semantics. Rigney prefers older terms like compassion, sympathy or even pity. The Rev. Albert Mohler leads the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination. He featured Rigney and Stuckey on his podcast this year and agrees with their empathy critiques. Mohler prefers the word sympathy over empathy. Theres no market so far as I know for empathy cards, he said. There is a long-standing market for sympathy cards. Aiden Lougee, center left, kisses his boyfriend, Rex Resa, seen between signs held by opponents to gay marriage outside of the courthouse after a hearing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Monday, Dec. 6, 2010, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) (AP2010) In 2014, Mohler did encourage his audience to have empathy. His words came after a white police officer killed Michael Brown, a Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. I look back at that statement now, and I would say its nowhere near as morally significant as I intended it to be at the time, Mohler said. Though expressing empathy for hurting people appeared to be close to the right thing to do, he sees it as less helpful now. Stuckey traces her own anti-empathy awakening to the summer of 2020, when racial justice protests roiled the nation. She saw other Christians posting about racism out of an empathy she found misguided. I reject the idea that America is a systemically racist country, she said. When she said as much in the months after George Floyds murder, her audience grew. Rigney echoes this critique of systemic racism but reserves most of his ire for feminism, which he blames for many of empathys ills. Because women are the more empathetic sex, he argues, they often take empathy too far. He found an encapsulation of this theory at Trumps inaugural prayer service, where a woman preached from the pulpit. During a sermon that went viral, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde pleaded with the Republican president to have mercy on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, prompting a conservative backlash. Buddes attempt to speak truth to power is a reminder that feminism is a cancer that enables the politics of empathetic manipulation, Rigney wrote for the evangelical World magazine. The Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of Washington's Episcopal diocese, speaks during a service outside St. John's Episcopal Church near the White House in Washington, on June 19, 2020, with a Black Lives Matter banner in the background. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Empathy is not toxic. Nor is it a sin, said the Rev. Canon Dana Colley Corsello in a sermon at Washington National Cathedral, two months after Buddes plea from that sanctuary. The arguments about toxic empathy are finding open ears because far-right-wing, white evangelicals are looking for a moral framework around which they can justify President Trumps executive orders and policies, Corsello preached. Empathy is at the heart of Jesus life and ministry, Corsello wrote in a recent email exchange about the sermon. She added, Its so troubling that this is even up for debate. In New York, the Rev. Micah Bucey first noticed Christian anti-empathy messages after Buddes sermon. In response, he proposed changing the outdoor sign at Judson Memorial Church, the historic congregation he serves in Manhattan. If empathy is a sin, sin boldly, he proposed it say, a catchphrase that borrows its last clause from the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. A photo of the resulting church sign was shared thousands of times on social media. Our entire spirituality and theology at Judson are built around curiosity and empathy, Bucey said. Weve always considered that our superpower. Jean Pormanove/Instagram Jean Pormanove NEED TO KNOW An autopsy on the body of Jean Pormanove revealed new details about the streamer's death The internet personality whose real name was Raphael Graven died during a 12-day live broadcast In Graven's livestreams, he was regularly physically and verbally abused by others, per video reviewed by CNN and the New York Times French authorities have learned more about the death of internet personality Jean Pormanove, who died during a 12-day broadcast on the livestreaming platform Kick. According to reports by the New York Times and French newspaper Le Parisien, an autopsy conducted on the body of the late influencer whose real name was Raphael Graven revealed that his cause of death was was not traumatic in origin and was not linked to the intervention of a third party, per the Nice prosecutors office. Prosecutors added that Graven had previously experienced cardiac issues and had been undergoing treatment for his thyroid gland, the outlets also reported. Graven who had a following of over 500,000 across his social media platforms and was known for gaming and extreme challenges on his livestreams was found dead by police in a room rented for streaming in Contes, a village north of Nice, France. Jean Pormanove/Instagram Jean Pormanove In videos of Gravens past livestreams reviewed by the New York Times and CNN, the content creator was regularly the subject of physical and verbal abuse. On Aug. 19, a day after his death, Clara Chappaz, a junior minister in France for artificial intelligence, announced on X that French authorities had launched an investigation into the circumstances of his death. She also said that she had contacted members of Kicks management regarding the case. The investigation into Gravens death runs parallel to another opened in December by French authorities into the actions of streamers, which was prompted by a report by investigative news site Mediapart alleging that Kick had allowed content creators to broadcast violent acts on their platform for months. In January, as a part of the investigation, French authorities arrested and detained two streamers who had participated in livestreams with Graven, though they were released, the New York Times reported, citing French authorities. The outlet said Graven and another, who appeared to be the victim of violence and humiliation, were questioned by police at the time. Jean Pormanove/Instagram Jean Pormanove 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. All platforms have the legal responsibility to remove clearly illegal content of which they are aware, Chappaz wrote on X on Aug. 20. Kick said in an Aug. 20 statement to CNN that it was cooperating with authorities and that those involved in Gravens last broadcast had been banned pending the ongoing investigation. The company did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment. According to Le Parisen, Nice prosecutors have interviewed several people present at the time of Gravens death. They have also seized video equipment in order to construct a timeline of the streamers final hours. Read the original article on People Vacations dont have to feel like time off from learning. Across the country, there are places where families can explore, relax, and come home with more than photos. These trips weave history, culture, nature, and sustainability into the experience so kids and adults share discoveries together. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Credit: iStockphoto A trip to Yellowstone is an adventure and a lesson in nature. This national park provides an opportunity for families to discover its geothermal wonders, wildlife, and the vital role of conservation. Apart from watching bison roam and learning about volcanoes and hot springs, Yellowstone offers families an up-close look at Earths natural processes. Los Angeles, California Credit: iStockphoto In a city known for its glitz and glamour, Los Angeles offers more than just theme parks and beaches. At places like the California Science Center and the Natural History Museum, kids can explore hands-on exhibits that spark their curiosity about everything from space to marine conservation. Grand Canyon, Arizona Credit: iStockphoto Standing at the rim is unforgettable, but the canyon also invites learning. Guided walks explain how its layers took shape and what lives in its fragile ecosystems. Kids can join the Junior Ranger program while families take in the scale of a landscape that underscores why conservation matters. Outer Banks, North Carolina Credit: iStockphoto The Outer Banks provide more than scenic beaches and wild horses; its a perfect place to engage in local volunteer opportunities. Families can participate in beach cleanups, which preserve the natural beauty of the coastline. With programs aimed at supporting environmental sustainability, this destination combines education, volunteerism, and outdoor fun. Maui, Hawaii Credit: iStockphoto Families can join the Malama Hawaii program, where visitors volunteer in projects like planting native trees or helping with marine care. These efforts connect travelers to the islands culture and environment in a tangible way. Time on Maui also means rainforests, beaches, and seasonal whale watching that round out the experience. Washington, D.C. Credit: iStockphoto More than about monuments, Washington, D.C. is a chance for families to learn about the American story in depth. Take the time to explore the Smithsonian museums, each of which offers a unique educational experience. The National Zoo also provides an opportunity for kids to learn about endangered species and global conservation efforts. West Virginia Credit: iStockphoto West Virginias scenic landscapes make it an ideal destination for families eager to explore and learn. The West Virginia Waterfall Trail features 20 stunning waterfalls across the state, including the impressive Blackwater Falls, where kids can learn about the unique ecosystems surrounding these natural wonders. With a strong emphasis on eco-tourism, the state promotes initiatives like the Appalachian Forest Heritage Area, which encourages sustainable practices. San Francisco, California Credit: iStockphoto The Exploratorium is a fantastic place to spark curiosity, with over 600 hands-on exhibits that promote science, art, and technology. Its a place where kids can experiment, play, and discover how the world works in a fun and interactive way. On the other hand, Alcatraz Island provides a unique journey through American history. Once home to infamous prisoners like Al Capone, the island now serves as a powerful reminder of the prison system and social justice. Asheville, North Carolina Credit: iStockphoto In the Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville blends history, art, and nature. Families can tour the Biltmore Estate for a look at Gilded Age life, then head into Pisgah National Forest for trails that reveal the regions ecology. The citys mix of galleries and outdoor culture introduces kids to Appalachian traditions and conservation. Bethany Beach, Delaware Credit: iStockphoto This small coastal town encourages families to take part in keeping its shoreline healthy, from community beach cleanups to guided walks that highlight local wildlife. Ospreys, terrapins, and the endangered piping plover nest in the area. Nearby Delaware Seashore State Park deepens the experience with programs on habitat protection. New York City, New York Credit: iStockphoto In New York, learning is woven into the city itself. The American Museum of Natural History brings science and conservation to life, while a tour of the United Nations highlights global cooperation. Central Park offers space to pause, and even a walk through the streets sparks talk about urban sustainability. Cincinnati, Ohio Credit: iStockphoto The Cincinnati Zoo is known for its work with endangered species, from gorillas to rhinos, and for programs that introduce kids to conservation in hands-on ways. A short drive away, the Cincinnati Art Museum adds another layer of learning with a collection that spans thousands of years and cultures. Portland, Maine Credit: iStockphoto Portland, Maine, is a coastal treasure that blends history, sustainability, and hands-on learning for families. At the Portland Museum of Art, kids can explore over 18,000 works, including pieces that celebrate the natural world and environmental themes. Stroll along the Portland waterfront, where the local Maine Coast Heritage Trust works on preserving more than 100,000 acres of land. Orlando, Florida Credit: iStockphoto Orlando may be famous for theme parks, but it also has an educational side thats perfect for purpose-driven family trips. The Kennedy Space Center offers an inspiring journey through space history, while Gatorland showcases Floridas native species and the conservation efforts needed to protect them. Families can take home valuable lessons about space exploration and environmental responsibility while enjoying a variety of fun and interactive experiences. Mystic, Connecticut Credit: iStockphoto Mystic, Connecticut, is steeped in maritime history, which offers families a chance to learn about the role of the sea in shaping American life. The Mystic Seaport Museum brings history to life through interactive exhibits about whaling and shipping. At the Mystic Aquarium, children can learn about marine life conservation and understand the global impact of protecting ocean ecosystems while having fun exploring the world beneath the waves. Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada Credit: iStockphoto Lake Tahoe is not only a playground for outdoor enthusiasts, but it also offers a chance to learn about sustainability and conservation. The Tahoe Environmental Research Center provides educational programs on preserving the unique lake ecosystem. Families can hike, bike, or ski in the surrounding mountains. Detectives are searching a large area for the new graves [Reuters] Nine bodies have been exhumed from fresh graves suspected to be linked to Kenya's notorious starvation cult. In one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths, more than 400 bodies were found in 2023 in the remote Shakahola Forest, inland from the coastal town of Malindi. It is believed they were followers of self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie, who is alleged to have encouraged them to starve themselves to death. These exhumations were ordered in July after the disappearance of some children triggered a new probe. Prosecutors said 11 people had been arrested in connection with the case, including three who were followers of Mr Mackenzie at the time of "Shakahola Forest Massacre". The latest discoveries seem to confirm fears raised by the government earlier in the year that the cult might still be active. In April, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said there were allegations that Mr Mackenzie was actively communicating with his followers from jail - using a mobile phone. Mr Mackenzie, who was arrested last year and pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, allegedly told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating. According to the AFP news agency, a Mombasa court adjourned his ongoing case earlier this month citing the discovery of new evidence. Five bodies were found at the exhumation site in Kwa Binzaro village near Shakahola Forest on Thursday and a further four bodies on Friday. "We have not exhausted the search; the area is very, very vast. So we expect more bodies," government pathologist Richard Njoroge told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. "This is to appeal to the members of the public who may have lost their loved ones or who may suspect that their loved ones are missing to report to Malindi District Hospital. We have a Red Cross desk there, where their details will be taken, and also their DNA samples will be taken." The exhumation of 18 more gravesites is expected to continue on Monday. In July, Kenya's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said it believed those buried might have been "starved and suffocated as a result of adopting and promoting extreme religious ideologies". Hussein Khalid, a human rights activist and CEO of Vocal Africa, witnessed the exhumations on Thursday. "The first body which was found by itself appeared to have been put there fairly recently - two to three weeks back. But the other four appear to have been there a while and were in a decomposing state," he told the BBC. He said the situation at one of the gravesites hinted at foul play. "No remains were found but it appeared as if days ago, someone, some people or some group must have removed the corpse that was there," Mr Khalid said, adding that only pieces of children's and women's underwear had been left behind. "That sent a chilling message that it is possible the person or persons who were buried there were women and children." You may also be interested: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts Adeline Rock Photography | @adelinerock Bride Nicole Case with rescue dogs at her wedding NEED TO KNOW A bride, who is a veterinary nurse, surprised her wedding guests with several rescue dogs at her cocktail hour to encourage adoption Several applications were put in for the puppies, and the bride's boss adopted "the oldest and sickest dog" available "It was a perfect mix of honoring our [late dog] Lucy, bringing much needed attention and donations to a local rescue, and providing extra laughs and love during cocktail hour," the bride tells PEOPLE A bride and groom's cocktail hour was complete with puppies! The couple, Nicole and Brandon Case, surprised their wedding guests by bringing in a pack of adoptable, playful puppies during their cocktail hour on Saturday, Aug. 2, at The Rotunda at Lauxmont Farms in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. "This is something I have always dreamed of," Nicole tells PEOPLE. "When I curated my wedding Pinterest board when I was younger, it was filled with lace, twinkle lights, and puppies!" Adeline Rock Photography | @adelinerock Nicole and Brandon Case's wedding Several puppies, plus an 8-year-old terminally ill dog, from nonprofit foster-based rescue Outcast Rescue were brought onto the venue's grassy field, where the newlyweds and their friends and family members gave them loving cuddles and belly rubs. "Almost all of [the guests] thought, 'Im in trouble!' " Nicole says. "We surround ourselves with dog lovers, so we knew everyone would be excited, but it was really special to see how happy the staff was to see them too!" "Guests sipped, snuggled, and fell head over heels for these furry guests of honor," Outcast Rescue wrote on Instagram, noting that a portion of the dogs were "abandoned in a box just days old, and lovingly bottle-fed by the amazing team at Outcast Rescue." In addition to "generous donations to support [the dogs'] care" being raised, "the gentlest little lovebug" named Mini found her forever home that day. "I know there were several applications put in for the puppies, but the best part of all of this was that the oldest (and sickest) dog was adopted that day by my boss, who is the lead veterinarian at the hospital I work at!" Nicole says. Adeline Rock Photography | @adelinerock Bride Nicole Case with a rescue dog at her wedding She adds that the senior bulldog is now "spoiled rotten." "Our primary goal is finding forever homes for those pups in need under our care," the Outcast Rescue team tells PEOPLE. "We were honored to be part of the celebration and the dogs had an amazing time." 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. Adeline Rock Photography | @adelinerock Nicole and Brandon Case's wedding Nicole is a veterinary nurse, so she holds rescue animals close to her heart and her home. She and Brandon were inspired to make dogs a part of their special day after their first pet rescue dog died. "In lieu of wedding favors, and in memory of our first rescue dog, Lucy Loo, we made a donation to the rescue and asked them to come with dogs that needed homes," Nicole explains. "We had a bar cart set up with individually wrapped treats for our guests to take home to their dogs too." She continues: "It was a perfect mix of honoring our best girl Lucy, bringing much needed attention and donations to a local rescue, and providing extra laughs and love during cocktail hour." Nicole and Brandon Case's wedding Courtesy of Nicole and Brandon Case Photo of Nicole and Brandon Case's late dog, Lucy Courtesy of Nicole and Brandon Case Dog treat wedding favors The Lauxmont Farms team tell PEOPLE that they always admire whenever couples personalize their celebrations in ways that feel "meaningful, memorable, and completely their own. We believe your day should reflect you, couples are free to bring in the people, services, and even causes closest to their hearts," the team says. "Like Nicole and Brandon, who surprised their guests by partnering with a local dog rescue who brought adoptable puppies to cocktail hour, because lets be honest, puppies pair perfectly with cocktails." Read the original article on People An image collage containing 3 images, Image 1 shows Viral video captured a violent assault before a Rufus Du Sol concert at the Rose Bowl on Aug. 16, 2025, Image 2 shows Elston claims Zavala pushed her into the bleachers and pounded her again and again, even after she had been knocked out cold, according to video captured by another concert-goer, Image 3 shows Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala was identified as the Rose Bowl attacker, and arrested on Aug. 21, 2025 A brute suspected of savagely beating a woman unconscious during a sold-out concert at the Rose Bowl this week has been arrested. Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala was busted at his Hawthorne, Calif., home on Thursday, four days after the ruthless attack at a Rufus Du Sol show spread across the internet, the Pasadena police confirmed to KTLA. Zavala was in attendance for the Australian EDM groups concert on Aug. 16, when a drink was allegedly spilled on him. Viral video captured a violent assault before a Rufus Du Sol concert at the Rose Bowl on Aug. 16, 2025. X / @TheFestiveOwl The 23-year-old stormed off before returning a half-hour later, screaming and making violent threats at victim Shelby Elston and her fiance, Elston recalled in a Facebook post. Elston, who is from Phoenix, Ariz., says she attempted to apologize to the raging concertgoer, putting herself between the two men, but was attacked. This man PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE! I was completely knocked out and there was blood pouring from my face, Elston wrote in the social media post, asking for help identifying her attacker. Elston claimed Zavala pushed her into the bleachers and repeatedly pummeled her, even after she had been knocked out cold, according to video captured by a witness. Bystanders attempted to stop the onslaught by pulling Zavalas pants down and exposing his butt as Elstons fiance shielded her, taking multiple punches to the back. Elston was knocked unconscious and awoke minutes after the attack inside a medical tent at the famed venue. Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala was identified as the Rose Bowl attacker and arrested on Aug. 21, 2025. X / @TheFestiveOwl Elston claims Zavala pushed her into the bleachers and pounded her again and again, even after she had been knocked out cold, according to video captured by another concert-goer. X / @TheFestiveOwl Zavala allegedly fled the stadium and was on the run until his capture Thursday. Police credited the viral video and tips from other fans for helping to identify Zavala as the suspect, KTLA reported. Fellow concert-goers filed complaints against the Rose Bowl and the band, saying they felt unsafe inside the venue. Ive never seen any venue that has allowed the people to stand there in the walkways. Its a hazard, Christine Molina, who was in attendance with her daughter, told KTLA. There were multiple security vendors working the venue. It wasnt just one vendor, it was multiples, and the left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing. Molina said she was afraid of being crushed by the tightly compacted crowd and observed people openly using drugs inside the venue. Bystanders attempted to stop the onslaught by pulling Zavalas pants down and exposing his butt as Elstons fiance shielded her, taking multiple punches to the back. X / @TheFestiveOwl Zavala allegedly fled the stadium and was on the run until his capture on Thursday. X / @TheFestiveOwl Elston, who was left with several bruises and soreness, has returned home to Arizona and expects to make a full recovery, she told the outlet. Formal charges against Zavala are pending a review by the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office, the outlet reported, citing police. The Post has reached out to the LA District Attorneys Office and the Pasadena Police Department. Gruesome video shows a 94-year-old California man being suffocated with a plastic bag in his ritzy hilltop mansion by his son-in-law who admitted he was tired of providing for him, according to authorities. The chilling surveillance footage allegedly shows Khanh Trong Tran, 71, carrying out the disturbing attack on his elderly father-in-law, Sy Van Nguyen, after initially leading family members to believe that he died of natural causes. This is a straight-up, cold malice murder, Sonoma County Sheriffs Sgt. Juan Valencia told ABC 7. Sy Van Nguyen was discovered unresponsive at his Santa Rosa home on Aug. 11 by his son-in-law, 71-year-old Khanh Trong Tran, and was later pronounced dead. ABC7 News Bay Area The video was discovered by Nguyens own grieving son, who had felt that something was off about his fathers death, authorities said. It shows Tran grab a plastic bag and a pillow, put it over the victims face, suffocating him on camera, Valencia described. First responders initially said there were no signs of trauma or foul play when they arrived at the swanky Santa Rosa property on Aug. 11. On Aug. 15, Nguyens son provided the video evidence to deputies. The room where the elderly victim was had surveillance cameras, the suspect knew the cameras were there, Valencia said. The footage allegedly captured Tran basically grab a plastic bag and a pillow, put it over the victims face, suffocating him on camera, Sonoma County Sheriffs Sgt. Juan Valencia said. ABC7 News Bay Area The following day, detectives arrested Tran who lived on Nguyens property on murder charges. Tran admitted to killing his father-in-law, telling investigators that he carried out the killing because he was tired of providing for him, the sheriff said. The slaying has since sent shockwaves across the hoity-toity Bay Area community. Neighbor Rod Burglund said the 94-year-old mostly kept to himself, and he was stunned to learn that Tran whom he knew as Ken was responsible for the murder. ABC7 News Bay Area Local resident Rod Burglund told the outlet that Nguyen had mostly kept to himself, but admitted it was a shock to find out that Tran whom he knew as Ken was behind the murder. Theres got to be alternatives than coming to this, he told the outlet. You know most of the people in the neighborhood, Ken was always doing his own thing, a walking acquaintance. I made wine from his grapes one year. To me he seemed like an above board kind of guy, Burglund added. Tran has been booked into the Sonoma County Jail and is being held without bond. His next court date is scheduled for Sept. 15. The parents of a Southern California baby, reported missing by his mother, have been arrested and accused of murder, authorities said Friday. San Bernardino County sheriff's homicide detectives arrested Jake Haro, 32, and Rebecca Haro, 41, at their home in Cabazon and booked them on suspicion of murder, according to the department. Authorities believe their 7-month-old son, Emmanuel Haro, is dead, but the search for his remains is ongoing, the department said. While these arrests mark a significant development, our focus remains on finding Emmanuel, the sheriff's department said. Deputies began looking for Emmanuel on Aug. 14 after his mother reported that he was kidnapped outside Big 5 Sporting Goods in Yucaipa, the department said. Yucaipa is about 70 miles east of downtown Los Angeles Missing 7-month-old infant Emmanuel Haro. (San Bernardino County Sheriff) Rebecca Haro was later "confronted with inconsistencies in her initial statement and declined to continue with the interview," deputies said in a Saturday statement. She had originally told detectives that she was in her vehicle, changing Emmanuels diaper, when a man she didn't know knocked her unconscious, officials said. When she regained consciousness, the baby was gone, she allegedly told investigators. The sheriff's department said Friday that the evidence led investigators to determine no kidnapping occurred in Yucaipa. I trust our justice system will hold the parents accountable, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement. Jake and Rebecca Haro were booked into a Riverside County jail and were being held without bail, the department said. Jake Haro's attorney could not be immediately reached for comment Friday. It is not immediately clear if Rebecca Haro had been assigned a lawyer or hired one to speak on her behalf. Authorities are not searching for any other suspects. The Uvalde Foundation For Kids had said it would conduct an independent search for the boy but canceled that and its $5,000 reward earlier this week. Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a news conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press via AP) TORONTO (AP) Canada is dropping many of its retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday. Carney said Canada will include the carve-out that the U.S. has on Canadian goods under the 2020 free trade deal that shields the vast majority of goods from the punishing duties, easing Canada's previous stance on holding the line on punitive tariffs until U.S. President Donald Trump relents more on those imposed by the U.S. Some Canadian politicians and union leaders characterized Carney's move as capitulation, but the prime minister accentuated what he considered Canada's favorable position so far and said that the exemptions would jump-start further trade talks with Washington. Canada currently has the best trade deal with the United States. And while its different from what we had before, it's still better than that of any other country, Carney said. Carney and Trump spoke on the phone Thursday, and Carney met with his Cabinet on Friday before making the announcement. We had a very good call, Trump said Friday in the Oval Office. We are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot. I think hes a very good person." He also said: I am fighting for the United States, and Canada and Mexico have taken a lot of our business over the years." Carney said Trump told him that lifting the tariffs would reset trade negotiations. The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, is up for review in 2026, and Carney called the pact a unique advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the U.S. is charging for access to its market. Carney said the commitment of the U.S. to the core of USMCA means that over 85% of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. He said the U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners. Canadian and Mexican companies can claim preferential treatment under the USMCA. Canada and China are the only countries that have retaliated against Trump in his trade war. Canada imposed 25% tariffs on a long list of American goods in March, including oranges, alcohol, clothing and shoes, motorcycles and cosmetics. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially put on retaliatory tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs, but before the U.S. tariffs were applied the Trump administration exempted goods covered by the free trade deal. Most imports from Canada and Mexico are still protected by the USMCA, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said, I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA. Preserving the free trade pact will be critical for Canada and Mexico. More than 75% of Canadas exports go to the U.S. while more than 80% of Mexicos exports go there. Trump has announced some sector-specific tariffs that do apply for Canada despite the USMCA known as 232 tariffs which are having an impact on the Canadian economy. There is a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, for example. Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods," Carney said. Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensively to resolve the issues there. Carney previously rescinded Canada's plan to tax U.S. technology firms after Trump said he was suspending trade talks with Canada over those plans, which he called a direct and blatant attack on our country. The prime minister disputed any notion that Canada is appeasing Trump, noting that Canada is matching what the U.S. is doing. The president and I had a long conversation, Carney said. There is a review of the free trade agreement in the spring. We're starting our preparations. Lana Payne, president of Unifor, Canadas largest private sector union, characterized Carney's announcement as Canada backing down, and said the country shouldn't back down unless the U.S. drops all punitive tariffs. Trumps attacks on auto, steel, aluminum, and forestry sectors are hurting Canadian workers in real time, she posted on social media. Walking back counter-tariffs isnt an olive branch. It only enables more U.S. aggression. Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called it a capitulation by Carney. Poilievre said he would have gone to the U.S. president and asked him respectfully to remove all the tariffs. "Any small tariff on Canada, any amount, by the United States has an outsized effect because more than 20% of our economy is exports to the U.S., he said. The United States must stop ramping up sanctions against officials with the International Criminal Court (ICC), UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Thursday. His call comes a day after four more Court personnel - two judges and two deputy prosecutors - were slapped with sanctions in connection with efforts to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the US and Israel. This follows sanctions imposed earlier on four other judges and the ICC Prosecutor. Measures imposed could include blocking financial access to property or assets in the US, as well as travel bans. 'Assault on the rule of law' "The relentless intensification of US reprisals against international institutions and their personnel must stop," said Mr. Turk. "Sanctioning judges and prosecutors at national, regional or international levels, for fulfilling their mandate in accordance with international law standards, is an assault on the rule of law and corrodes justice." The sanctions stem from an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump in February in response to the UN-backed Court issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The ICC is also probing war crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan by all sides during years of conflict, including the US, following the allied invasion of the country in October 2001. Neither the US nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. It's time countries step up Mr. Turk called for the withdrawal of the sanctions against the ICC personnel and those targeting the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines International Organisations Governance Africa By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. The independent expert, Francesca Albanese, receives her mandate from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. For more details, read our story here. "In the meantime, I call on States to take immediate steps to protect all of them, including by taking measures to encourage corporations operating within their jurisdiction not to implement the sanctions against these individuals," Mr. Turk said. "States need to step up to defend the institutions they have created to uphold and defend human rights and the rule of law. Those working to document, investigate and prosecute serious violations of international law should not have to work in fear." About the International Criminal Court The ICC investigates and tries individuals charged with genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. Read our explainer here. Some of the cases include situations in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Libya. In March 2023, the Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection with alleged war crimes concerning the deportation and "illegal transfer" of children from occupied Ukraine. The ICC was established in 2002 and is based in The Hague, in the Netherlands. By David Ljunggren and Promit Mukherjee OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada will remove many retaliatory import tariffs on U.S. goods and intensify talks with the United States on striking a new trade and security relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday. Canadian tariffs on U.S. autos, steel and aluminum will remain for now, he told a press conference. Carney noted that the United States had recently made clear that it would not impose tariffs on Canadian goods that were compliant with the three-nation U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, something he called a positive development. "In this context and consistent with Canada's commitment to USMCA, I am announcing today that the Canadian government will now match the United States by removing all of Canada's tariffs on U.S. goods specifically covered under USMCA," he said. "Canada and the U.S. have now re-established free trade for the vast majority of our goods," he added, reiterating that compared with its trading partners, Canadian exports were still subject overall to a low level of U.S. tariffs. The news helped the Canadian dollar extend its gains. Canada has been holding talks with the United States on a new economic and security relationship for months but the two sides are not close to a deal. Canada and China are the only nations to strike back at the United States with counter-tariffs, much to the irritation of the U.S. administration. Carney spoke to Donald Trump on Thursday. Asked whether the U.S. president had told him that lifting the tariffs would kick -start the talks, Carney responded "Yes." Trump, when asked about Carney's decision to remove tariffs, called it a "nice thing" while addressing journalists in the Oval Office. "We are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot," he said. Carney won an April election promising to stand up to Trump's tariffs but since then has gradually taken a softer tone. Carney scrapped a proposed digital services tax in late June that U.S. companies strongly disliked and in July dropped talk of further sanctions if the two sides could not reach a deal by August 1. He also held steady on tariffs on steel and aluminum products imported from the United States at 25% when Trump increased tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada to 50%. Carney's predecessor as prime minister, Justin Trudeau, imposed 25% tariffs on C$30 billion ($21 billion) in goods imported annually from the United States on March 6 in response to Trump's initial duties. The C$30 billion was part of an overall retaliation plan to target C$155 billion worth of imported goods from the United States, though the remaining C$125 billion has been delayed. However, despite concessions, a deal with the United States could be a far cry, a former government official said. "Getting to a final deal isn't going to be easy. The list of U.S. demands is long," said Brian Clow, who was in charge of U.S. relations inside Trudeau's office for several years. MODERATE APPROACH Carney said the time had come for a more moderate approach rather than continuing to take an aggressive stance. "Let's be clear, we have the best deal of anyone in the world right now," he said. "Nobody has a deal with the United States that they used to have." Carney said Canada will primarily focus on strategic sectors that are still facing tariffs including steel, aluminum, autos and lumber, as well as on the review of the free trade USMCA deal, called CUSMA in Canada. The USMCA officially comes up for review in July 2026, six years after it entered force on July 1, 2020. Carney said the review is likely to start in the spring but preparations will begin shortly. Business leaders have called on the government to focus on getting a solid deal under the USMCA free trade agreement as this pact has been critical in protecting Canadian companies and the economy from broader tariffs. "While there is more work to be done to resolve tariffs in strategic sectors, Canada's priority must be the successful review and renewal of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement," said Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. The news could be a political challenge for Carney, whose ruling Liberals only have a minority of seats in the House of Commons elected chamber and rely on opposition parties to survive votes of confidence. The leader of the Conservatives, the largest opposition party, this week accused Carney of taking too soft an approach with the United States. (Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Toby Chopra, Hugh Lawson, Alistair Bell and Mark Porter) Key Points After being virtually locked out of China's AI chip market, Nvidia is mounting a comeback. A previously announced deal with the Trump Administration gives Nvidia access to a potentially lucrative market. Nvidia isn't stopping there, but is designing a chip for Chinese customers based on its highly successful Blackwell architecture, tapping the growing demand for AI chips in the country. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia This year has been quite a roller-coaster ride for semiconductor specialist Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). After rallying to a new all-time high to start the year, the stock plunged 37% from that level before regaining its footing and climbing to even greater heights. Concerns about the impact of tariffs, the battle to keep inflation in check, and the uncertainty about chip sales to China all fueled the historic volatility in 2025. However, it appears those doubts have been put to rest, at least for the time being. Nvidia stock sat just 4% below a new record when the market closed on Wednesday, and it could be gearing up for another leg higher. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More Reports emerged this week that may just be the catalyst that Nvidia investors have been waiting for. Nvidia's Blackwell Architecture. Nvidia's Blackwell Architecture. Image source: Nvidia. An answer to the China conundrum As stated, there has been considerable uncertainty regarding the sale of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to customers in China. Earlier this year, the U.S. government suspended the sale of Nvidia's H20 chips. These graphics processing units (GPUs) are specialized processors designed to meet the strict export restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, while still providing the computational horsepower needed for AI processing. In light of the moratorium, Nvidia took a $4.5 billion charge in the first quarter associated with the H20 chips. Sales of these China-centric AI chips totaled $17 billion in fiscal 2025 (ended Jan. 26, 2025), representing roughly 13% of total sales. Wall Street is estimating total sales of $202 billion this year, which would have meant a potential $26 billion hit to revenue. However, Huang's extensive lobbying paid off. Nvidia agreed to a 15% revenue-sharing agreement with the U.S. government, which allowed the company to resume sales of the H20 chip to China. While the deal could weigh on Nvidia's margins, it marks the continuation of a potentially lucrative opportunity, but there's more good news. Meet the B30A A report emerged this week that Nvidia is developing a new AI chip for customers in China based on the company's wildly successful Blackwell architecture, according to Reuters, which cited "two people briefed on the matter." The new processor, reportedly dubbed the B30A, is said to deliver half the computational horsepower of Nvidia's flagship Blackwell B300 processor, according to the report. It's no coincidence that Nvidia arrived at the 50% figure. During a press conference last week, President Trump admitted to being open to the idea of a reduced-capacity Blackwell chip. "It's possible I'd make a deal" on a "somewhat enhanced -- in a negative way -- Blackwell" chip, Trump said. "In other words, take 30% to 50% [of the computing power] off of it." Nvidia continues hold its cards close to the vest. "We evaluate a variety of products for our roadmap, so that we can be prepared to compete to the extent that governments allow," the company said in a statement. "Everything we offer is with the full approval of the applicable authorities and designed solely for beneficial commercial use." That said, if Nvidia can come to terms with the Trump administration, this could open up a veritable windfall for the company in China. The implications for Nvidia investors In an interview in May, Huang estimated that the market for AI chips in China could reach $50 billion annually over the next few years, making it a potentially lucrative opportunity for the company. Wall Street estimates Nvidia will generate revenue of $200 billion in fiscal 2026 (ending Jan. 26, 2026), $257 billion in fiscal 2027, and $302 billion in fiscal 2028. Given that China was responsible for roughly 13% of total sales last year, that suggests it could generate revenue from the country of as much as $99 billion over the coming three years. Furthermore, most Wall Street analysts are likely to haven't updated their models to reflect the higher revenue potential. Furthermore, given the advanced capabilities of the Blackwell chips, even a scaled-back version would command a higher price from Chinese customers, resulting in additional revenue potential. Fair-weather investors headed for the exits when it appeared Nvidia would be locked out of China's AI market. Now that Huang has been given the keys to the kingdom, the company's future prospects have just improved. And at less than 30 times next year's sales, Nvidia stock is attractively priced. Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Nvidia wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $654,624!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $1,075,117!* Now, its worth noting Stock Advisors total average return is 1,049% a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% for the S&P 500. Dont miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of August 18, 2025 Danny Vena has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. A Colorado Parks and Wildlife ranger was arrested Thursday after investigators determined his reported stabbing earlier this week was an "elaborate hoax," authorities said. Callum Heskett, 26, a seasonal ranger at Staunton State Park, faces multiple felony and misdemeanor charges after allegedly making false claims about being attacked, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The stabbing was reported Tuesday after Heskett radioed for help around 9:30 a.m., claiming he had been stabbed by an assailant who fled on foot. His report triggered a massive emergency response, including SWAT teams, drone units and aerial support from Colorado State Patrol. Colorado Parks and Wildlife - PHOTO: In this image released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the sign for Staunton State Park is shown in Colorado. Heskett was airlifted to the hospital and later underwent surgery. The reported attack led authorities to issue a Lookout Alert to 8,600 nearby residents and implement lockdowns at several schools, police said. Two people were temporarily detained during the investigation but were later cleared of any involvement. Heskett remained under medical care Thursday when authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Officials said he will be transferred to Jefferson County Jail after he is released, with bond set at $10,000. MORE: Colorado police suspect park ranger stabbing was targeted: Police Authorities haven't said exactly how they determined Heskett's report was a hoax. "As the investigation progressed, inconsistencies in Hesketts statements emerged," the sheriff's office said in a statement. "That, along with other conflicting and questionable evidence, further raised concerns about the validity of his allegations. After investigators conducted their first interview with Heskett, it became even more clear that his story was flawed and erroneous." The sheriff's said in a post on X they believe Heskett stabbed himself. Colorado Parks and Wildlife - PHOTO: In this image released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the sign for Staunton State Park is shown in Colorado. The charges against Heskett include attempting to influence a public servant, tampering with evidence, false reporting to authorities, reckless endangerment, obstructing government operations and second-degree official misconduct. The incident had initially sparked a manhunt in the 4,000-acre park southwest of Denver, with heavily armed officers searching the grounds and evacuating visitors. Later, authorities said they believed it was a targeted attack. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said it "remains committed to ensuring public safety and holding individuals accountable when false reports create unnecessary risks for the community and first responders." Zach Wilkinson/Moscow-Pullman Daily News/ap The rear entrance to 1122 King Road NEED TO KNOW Bryan Kohberger entered 1122 King Road and made his way to the third floor where he first checked the room of Kaylee Goncalves, which was empty He then moved on to the room of Madison Mogen, where he found both Mogen and Goncalves sleeping and stabbed them both to death in the bed He could have carried out the killings in less than three minutes, the Idaho State Police determined after recreating his path using evidence from the crime scene Bryan Kohberger could have murdered all four University of Idaho students in as little as 90 seconds. The Idaho State Police ascertained this after using crime scene evidence to piece together the route he took on the night of the killings from his car to the murder house, and then back to the car. Three of those victims were asleep when Kohberger attacked, but one was awake, according to the newly unsealed investigative documents, which were obtained by PEOPLE. The ISP obtained video footage from cameras in the neighborhood, which showed that Kohberger parked behind 1122 King Road in a small, paved lot that overlooks the residence at approximately 4:07 a.m. on the night of the murders. He then entered the home through the sliding glass door on the second floor and made his way through the kitchen to a set of stairs leading to the third floor, the ISP determined after reviewing evidence at the scene. Kaylee Goncalves Instagram Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves Investigators believe that Kohberger first looked in the room of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and upon seeing her bed empty, went down the hall to the other bedroom on that floor. In that bedroom, he found Goncalves and Madison Mogen, 21, sleeping in bed together, according to the ISP. He then proceeded to repeatedly stab both young women, who were later found dead in that same bed. Goncalves injuries were so severe that she died almost immediately, but Mogen may have still been alive when Kohberger left the room. Why Kohberger left and what happened in that moment is still unclear, but what is known is that after fatally injuring his first two victims, Kohberger came across Xana Kernodle. Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson said at Kohberger's plea hearing that Kohberger likely did not enter the house planning to kill four people and likely murdered Kernodle after they crossed paths or she caught him in the act. So while it is unknown if Kohberger took the stairs back down to the second floor while exiting the home and then saw Kernodle, or if she caught him and he then fled down the stairs after her, the ISP did determine that Kohberger caught up to Kernodle just as she entered her bedroom. 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. Her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, was attacked in his sleep and murdered in his bed, said the ISP. His injuries rendered him unable to move and render help to his girlfriend, which suggests that he might have been the third victim killed by Kohberger. That would have left just Kohberger and Kernodle, who unlike the other three victims, was wide awake as Kohberger attacked and stabbed her. "Kernodle was initially attacked just inside the bedroom near the entrance. Kernodle fought the suspect in the bedroom area and was ultimately killed on the floor of the bedroom next to the bed," the ISP stated. The Moscow Police Department recently released footage from a neighbors security camera that picked up the sounds of a woman screaming and then whimpering just before 4:18 a.m. that day. There is then a loud thud, followed by silence. The medical examiner would later reveal that Kernodle was stabbed more than 50 times that night and had multiple defensive wounds covering her hands. Xana Kernodle/Instagram Xana Kernodle After that, Kohberger walked back down the hall, across the living room and kitchen and then out the sliding door, which he did not fully close. Along the way, he locked eyes with one of the surviving roommates and the lone eyewitness in the case, Dylan Mortensen. Kohberger then walked to his car and sped away from the scene, shortly after 4:20 a.m. How Long Did the Killings Take? Once the ISP was able to put all these pieces in place and lay out Kohbergers path through the home that night, they began to do test runs so as to discover how long it would have taken Kohberger to murder his four victims. In each of these test runs, Sgt. Darren Gilbertson would start at the sliding door and retrace Kohbergers footsteps that night. When he reached a location where a victim's body was discovered, he would "simulate the number of strikes" each victim suffered that night before resuming his route. A detective assisted by standing by, to count and keep track of each strike, while Cpl. Brett Payne of the MPD who wrote the probable cause affidavit in the case timed the runs. The fastest result was 90 seconds, while the slowest clocked in at two minutes and 33 seconds. The ISP next moved on to the route Kohberger took after getting out of his car and walking to the residence that night. No evidence existed that allowed the ISP to definitively determine the route Kohberger took, so the decision was made to test-run two options. The first path went through the backyard of the residence and was the most direct approach Kohberger could have taken from his parking spot to the home. The ISP then put together a much longer route, through a small patch of woods surrounding the property, which would have kept Kohberger hidden and avoided any large, open spaces. Courtesy Chapin family Ethan Chapin Once these routes were set, the same three investigators resumed their roles and conducted timed test runs. The results of those test runs were then combined with the results of the previous indoor test runs, which allowed the ISP to conclude that Kohberger could have exited his car, walked to the home, stabbed all four victims, and then been back in his car in as little as two minutes and six seconds. Even if he took the longer and slower route, the ISP learned from the test runs that Kohberger would have needed just three minutes and 45 seconds. Kohberger spent far more time in the home than that, entering at around 4:07 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022 and being seen in his car driving away at 4:20 a.m. The longer time is likely due to the two unknowns in Kohberger's route: what happened in the time between Kohberger leaving Mogens bedroom and getting to Kernodles room, and how hard Kernodle fought her attacker. In addition to putting up a fight, evidence strongly suggests that it was Kernodle who first discovered Kohberger in the home, which ultimately led to his arrest. When he exited Mogens room that night, he left behind a knife sheath containing enough DNA for authorities to assemble a genetic profile they were ultimately able to run through genealogy sites and link back to Kohbergers father. Thompson said that his team believes Kohberger may have made this crucial mistake in a panic once he realized he had been discovered by Kernodle. That sheath remains the only thing that directly ties Kohberger to the murders, to which he confessed as part of a plea deal. Kohberger is now serving four life sentences for those murders. Read the original article on People On a recent summer night, a 9-year-old girl in Northwest Washington, D.C. was having trouble sleeping. She heard on the news that speaking Spanish could draw the attention of federal agents, and she worried aloud to her Hispanic father that immigration officers might come for her classmates parents. She kept asking, Can they come to peoples homes? Can they come to our home? her father said. She was terrified. Their family, longtime residents of the city and American citizens, are not at risk of deportation. But the girls anxiety reflects a broader unease rippling through D.C. families as the citys public schools prepare to start a new school year on Monday, Aug. 25, under the shadow of President Donald Trumps takeover of the citys police force and a ramp up in federal immigration enforcement. Across the nations capital, parents are setting up group chats on WhatsApp and Signal to coordinate carpools and walking groups. Some are pressing the city to relax attendance requirements, out of concern that some families might feel they have to keep their kids at home. Weve got people volunteering to carpool other peoples kids to school because the parents are afraid to try to get their kid to school on their own, says Catherine Morgan, a D.C. resident whose child starts third grade on Monday. Since announcing in August that he would place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and deploy National Guard troops to patrol the streets, Trump has insisted his measures are necessary to curb what he has described as roving mobs of wild youth and bloodthirsty criminals, despite statistics showing violent crime in the city had hit a 30-year low earlier this year. His administration has also rolled back protections that once limited immigration enforcement around schools, allowing agents to conduct raids in neighborhoods and workplaces. The result, according to parents, educators and community leaders, is a climate of fear and confusion at the very moment when families are usually focused on first-day jitters, backpacks, and back-to-school clothes. Parents across the city interviewed for this story described adjusting their routines to shield their children from encounters with federal law enforcement whose mandate remains unclear. Marta Urquilla, a D.C. resident and mother of two teenagers, says she will not let her kids ride public buses to school. At this point, thats off the table, she says. My kids present as Black, and thats just not something I am inclined to expose them to. She says families in her neighborhood near Howard University have organized walking groups to the grocery store and that similar plans would be in place for school commutes. The federal occupation, Urquilla adds, has not been evenly felt across the city. The closer you get to where immigrants live, to where Black folks live and work, the more you see it, she says. Members of the U.S. Marshalls detain a person after executing a federal warrant in Washington, DC, on August 19, 2025. Kevin DietschGetty Images Rumors of ICE enforcement actions have swirled since Trumps inauguration in January, but have intensified over the past two weeks as ICE, FBI, Border Patrol, National Guard troops, and more have descended on D.C. streets. Videos have circulated of federal agents and local police arresting individuals in handcuffs and stopping others at various checkpoints. Across the country, school districts have been taking precautions to shield children from immigration enforcement. In New York, officials unanimously passed a resolution this year that prohibits ICE agents from entering schools or accessing student records without a judicial warrant. In Los Angeles, school leaders announced new safe zones in areas targeted by ICE to protect students before and after school. D.C. parents, however, remain uncertain how much protection their schools can offer, given the citys lack of statehood and Trumps direct authority over its institutions. At a virtual information session for parents on Wednesday night, D.C. Public Schools officials attempted to address concerns about the increased law enforcement presence in the city, noting that they expect very little impact to schools. "Any law enforcement action on school grounds can only take place with a valid warrant or court order, said Dr. Lewis D. Ferebee, the chancellor for District of Columbia Public Schools. He stressed that school resource officers are not performing any duties related to immigration or custom enforcement. DCPS also shared a few best practices for parents to share with students, including to always travel in a group or with trusted adults, and to avoid distractions while traveling, such as being on a phone or using headphones. Please advise our young people to stay aware of their surroundings, Ferebee said at the information session. D.C. police are currently enforcing a citywide juvenile curfew that begins at 11 p.m. for people under 17. In some targeted neighborhoods, juvenile curfews begin as early as 8 p.m. But some parents remain frustrated by the lack of communication from their schools about what many view as an unprecedented moment. We havent been told a goddamn thing, says Morgan when asked what her daughters school in D.C. had communicated about the coming week. It makes us feel like, what are you going to do? Are you just going to let them come in and take these kids? Jenn Kauffman is a mother of two who sits on the citys advisory neighborhood commission representing her neighborhood in Brightwood Park. She says parents are demanding stronger assurances from school leaders. I want bare minimum for the schools to kind of stand up and say what they will do to protect students, she said. But in this climate, and you know, D.C. being a federal jurisdiction, Im also afraid that still wont be enough. Her 7-year-old, who attends a bilingual school, has already been discussing the situation with classmates. The kids have been talking about this and aware about this, she says. But I think its risen to a new level. Parents say their children are absorbing the stressand so are they. Lara Fife, whose 4-year-old started pre-K this month, says he has asked her why police are detaining people. Ive been extremely stressed and not sleeping well at all, she says. The White House insists the deployments are making Washington, D.C. safer, but most residents don't see it that way. A Washington Post-Schar School poll published Wednesday found roughly 80% of D.C. residents opposed Trumps executive order to federalize the citys police department, and 65% do not think Trumps actions will make the city safer. Residents warn that the show of force may deepen mistrust and drive children away from school. In Los Angeles, officials recently reported a 7% rise in online academy enrollment, attributing the spike in part to immigration fears. D.C. parents worry they may soon face the same difficult choice. Are we at a point where we need a virtual schooling option? Kauffman asks. Because whats going to happen then is families are going to have to choose between risking their child, or being referred to Child Protective Services for truancy. And thats just immoral. For now, families are bracing for Monday. Some will walk in groups. Others will drive in carpools. Still others may keep their children home. But the sense of unease remains. The Hispanic father with the worried 9-year-old daughter says his family plans to arrive at school extra early on Monday so he can warn other families if they notice ICE or other federal law enforcement in the area. I'm not hearing from any person of color or minorities that they feel safer or that they think that the police presence is here to quote, unquote, restore safety or security, right? It's quite the opposite, he says. Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com. National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., will now carry weapons for personal protection and are allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, defense officials announced Friday. The decision is an escalation in President Donald Trump's use of military troops to address what he insists is "out of control" crime in the nation's capital. Since his announcement, Trump has mobilized nearly 2,300 National Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states with Republican governors. But troops had remained unarmed until now. ABC News first reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had officially authorized the troops to carry weapons if their mission required it. On Friday, the joint task force overseeing the troops confirmed the move, noting that Guard personnel sent on missions would carry M17 pistols, "which are intended for person protection." The task force said Guard members would receive proper training on how to use the weapons before being allowed to carry them. This decision is not something taken lightly, said Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard, III, the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, in a statement. Al Drago/Reuters - PHOTO: U.S. President Trump deploys the National Guard and federalizes the Metropolitan Police Department, in Washington, D.C. "We are in coordination with our law enforcement partners and all appropriate review processes in place," he added. The task force also noted in its statement late Friday that Guard troops can carry out law enforcement duties because they are operating under Title 32 status, a law that exempts troops from restrictions under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, because they are still technically under a state governor's command. Legal experts have long warned about how presidents might use Title 32 as a kind of legal loophole to Posse Comitatus, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Under Title 32, a president pays for a Guard mission while keeping troops under control of the governors; in this case, Trump asked red-state governors to send their troops to D.C. While those governors technically retain control of the troops, their missions are being decided by the White House, according to several administration officials. In a visit to Guard personnel on Thursday, President Donald Trump suggested the military personnel would be playing a larger role in law enforcement in the city. "You got to be strong, you got to be tough," Trump told Guard personnel at the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility during a visit there on Thursday. "You got to do your job. Whatever it takes to do your job." Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images - PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks to federal troops at the US Park Police Anacostia operations facility in Washington, August 21, 2025. MORE: No patrol but Trump visits police, military in DC as he touts anti-crime push Working in shifts, Guard troops began deploying last week in small numbers at popular tourist spots like the Washington Monument along the National Mall, where crime is relatively low. Standing alongside armored Humvees, the unarmed soldiers and airman could be seen posing for pictures with tourists and talking with children. Trump then moved to expand the effort considerably, requesting additional troops from nearby states. So far, six Republican governors have complied, with troops arriving this week from Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina and Mississippi. The military task force overseeing the operation said that most of those troops were in place as of Thursday morning, bringing the force size in the nation's capital up to 2,282 as of Friday evening. In his visit to the Guard troops on Thursday, Trump suggested the troops could stay for six months or longer. Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters - PHOTO: Members of the National Guard walk at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., August 21, 2025. You do the job on safety, and I'll get this place fixed up physically, and we're going to be so proud of it at the end of six months, he said. But let's say at the end of the year, this place will be maxed out in terms of beauty. You'll have all new surfaces. You'll have all new medians, everything's going to look beautiful, he added. Mariam Zuhaib/AP - PHOTO: District of Columbia National Guard soldiers keep watch as travelers arrive at the entrance to Union Station near the Capitol, Aug 21, 2025, in Washington. Historically, presidents have relied upon the National Guard to secure cities in only extraordinary circumstances, such as large-scale events like the presidential inauguration or in response to riots, like the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol. Violent crime levels in the city have decreased compared to years prior, down 26% since 2024, a 30-year low, according to crime stats released by the D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images - PHOTO: Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks at a press conference after President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department at the Wilson Building, August 11, 2025 in Washington. On Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser criticized Trumps use of the Guard as an armed militia in the Nations Capital. Crime has gone down in our city and it has gone down precipitously over the last two years because of a lot of hard work, changes to our public safety ecosystem, including changes to the law, Bowser said. ABC News' Karen Travers and Arthur Jones contributed to this report. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state will find a way to continue detaining immigrants at a facility in the Everglades, despite an Aug. 21 court ruling ordering Florida to halt construction, stop bringing new detainees, and begin winding down operations at the mass detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz." "We had a judge try to upset the apple cart with respect to our deportation and detainee center in south Florida at Alligator Alcatraz," Desantis said at a Panama City news conference on Aug. 22. "This is not something that was not expected. This was a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake." U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered a temporary injunction that indicates DeSantis and President Donald Trump should pack up all the trucks, bunks, tarps, fences and people and vacate the property. 84375671007 Advocates saw the ruling as a victory, at least for now. "This is a win for the environment," said Betty Osecola, an influential member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. "And though the preliminary injunction was issued, we still need to take a stand to continue this fight because we know very well the state and the federal government are going to continue in their efforts in appealing this decision." The Miccosukee reservation is just a few miles from the detention center, which was formerly a flight training center operated by Miami-Dade County. The facility abuts the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. The ruling stems from a June 27 lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The defendants in the case include the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and Miami-Dade County. More: Judge tells Trump admin to pack up Alligator Alcatraz, leave the Everglades, Big Cypress Stars can be seen over the Everglades on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. Photographed from Burns Lake Campground looking east towards Alligator Alcatraz and the east coast of Florida. The Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area is considered a dark skies designated location. Some are concerned about the construction of Alligator Alcatraz, saying that it is causing light pollution. DeSantis declared a state of emergency to circumvent a staff review and a public comment period about the facility, saying the need for a detention center was too great to wait for the typical review process. Construction started in June. The governor said he remains committed to the facility. "Were in the position of leading the state efforts to help the Trump administration remove these illegal aliens not just from Florida but from our country," he said. A second lawsuit addresses access to attorneys In another case, detainees held at the facility have charged that it's nearly impossible for them to speak confidentially with lawyers or even find out which immigration court can hear their cases. The plaintiffs attorneys filed suit in the Southern District of Florida, which includes Miami-Dade County, though state and federal officials argued it should have been filed in the Middle District of Florida, which includes Collier County, where the facility is located. More: Alligator Alcatraz starting to take shape on the edge of sacred ceremony grounds In a 47-page order issued Aug. 18 in that case, District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz agreed, transferring the case to the Middle District. He also dismissed the immigration court allegations in the lawsuit, saying they were rendered moot by a federal court ruling that designated the judges at Krome North Processing Service Center as those responsible for ruling in the detainees cases. DeSantis said the most recent ruling on "Alligator Alcatraz" won't affect operations. "This is not going to deter us. "Were going to continue the deportations and this mission," he said. Breaking News and Visuals Editor Stacey Henson contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: 'Alligator Alcatraz' will continue operations says Florida governor Trainee surgeon, Ryan Cho is escorted into the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Con Chronis/AAP Image via AP) MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) A trainee surgeon was released from custody on bail Friday after he was accused of secretly video recording hundreds of medical colleagues in the restrooms of Australian hospitals. Ryan Cho, 28, will likely face around 500 charges relating to 4,500 intimate videos he secretly recorded with phones mainly in the staff restrooms of three Melbourne hospitals since 2021, police alleged in documents cited in the Victoria state Supreme Court. Justice James Elliott ruled that the junior doctor be released on the condition he live with his parents, who moved from Singapore to Melbourne in anticipation of their son's month in prison ending. His parents were required to post a 50,000 Australian dollar ($32,000) surety. The prosecutor argued that Cho had no meaningful ties to Australia after being suspended from his job and the charges against him could be an inducement to flee. While Cho became an Australian permanent resident in April, he would face deportation if he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months or longer in prison, Hammill said. The judge noted Cho had surrendered his Singapore passport and had no criminal connections to help him leave Australia. Cho ignored reporters' questions as he left the court building wearing sunglasses over his prescription glasses and a surgical face mask. Police allege Cho recorded intimate images of at least 460 women. The judge noted there was no allegation Cho had disseminated those images. Cho was arrested in July after a phone was found recording from inside a mesh bag hanging in an Austin Hospital restroom. Police allege he also recorded in restrooms in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His lawyer Julian McMahon rejected prosecutors fears that if released, Cho could interfere with witnesses. There were likely to be hundreds of witnesses alleging similar offenses, McMahon said. Theres a sense here that if my client were to engage in the criminal offense of interfering with witnesses that it wouldnt affect the outcome of the case, McMahon said. Cho was initially charged with six offenses but another 127 charges were added Thursday, including intentionally recording intimate images without permission. McMahon said it was too early to tell if the allegations would go to trial. Cho hasn't entered pleas. Cho came to Australia as a student in 2017 and studied medicine at Melbournes Monash University. Famine was officially declared on Friday in part of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, by the world's leading authority on hunger as Israel vowed to raze the area if Hamas doesn't agree to its terms. The declaration of famine by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, comes as deaths from starvation rise across the Palestinian enclave in a spiraling crisis under Israel's military assault and aid restrictions. Israel's military is preparing to push ahead with a new operation to seize Gaza City that could displace hundreds of thousands of people and worsen the dire situation there. It has launched intense strikes on the city this week after announcing it had begun the first stage of its planned assault. Famine declared The IPC, an internationally recognized system for classifying food insecurity and malnutrition, said in its report that famine had been confirmed in the Gaza Governorate and that it was projected to expand to the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis Governorates farther south by the end of September if the humanitarian situation does not change. The number of people now experiencing famine in Gaza was nearly 514,000, the IPC said around a quarter of the enclave's population. That was projected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. "Famine is a race against time," the IPC said. "An immediate ceasefire and end to the conflict is critical to enabling an unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian response to save lives." Palestinian doctor Ahmed Basal examines a child for malnutrition at Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, on Aug. 7. (Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters) The United Nations-backed body had up until now only declared famine on four other occasions since it was first established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year. The report's findings were met with little surprise by global health authorities and humanitarian groups. Famine warnings have been clear for months, said Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program. A ceasefire is an absolute and moral imperative now, said World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The world has waited too long, watching tragic and unnecessary deaths mount from this man-made famine." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully rejected the report's findings, calling them a "lie," and repeated that "Israel does not have a policy of starvation." The IPC's 59-page report does not state that Israel has a policy of starvation in Gaza. Earlier, Israel's foreign ministry said the IPC had published a fabricated report to fit Hamass fake campaign. It hit out at the IPCs methods, accusing it of having twisted its own rules and ignored its own criteria. The IPC rejected Israels accusation. Mike Huckabee, the United States' ambassador to Israel, attacked the famine declaration before it was officially announced. "You know who IS starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilized Hamas savages," he said in a post on X early Friday. Famine, the highest phase of the IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale, is classified when an area has at least 20% of households facing an extreme lack of food; at least 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition and at least two people or four children out of every 10,000 people are dying each day from starvation. Palestinians at a food distribution point in Gaza City on Aug. 10. (Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP via Getty Images) But the bar can also be met if 15% of children are considered to be suffering from acute malnutrition based on mid-upper arm circumference with evidence of rapidly worsening underlying drivers, according to the IPC, which cited the latter practice in its report. The IPC said that this did not mean it had altered its threshold for famine, saying it used this method in line with established standards where a lack of other data is available, as it had also done in South Sudan. This "does not represent a 'lowered threshold' in IPC methodology. Instead, it demonstrates the continued application of established IPC standards," it said. Israel has repeatedly denied reports of growing starvation in Gaza, while seeking to blame any hunger in the enclave on humanitarian groups and Hamas. The hunger crisis in Gaza intensified after Israel launched a blockade on March 2, in the middle of its ceasefire with Hamas, barring the entry of food and other vital supplies for more than two months. It lifted the blockade in May, but only allowed a basic amount of aid in for weeks after that. Data published by COGAT states that in the weeks since Israel lifted its blockade on May 19 to August 17, when the database was last updated, 9,165 trucks carrying aid entered the enclave, with food making up just over 95% of the supplies. That boils down to an average of around 100 trucks carrying aid per day during that time period. Prior to Israels offensive in Gaza, around 500 trucks per day were entering the enclave, according to humanitarian groups. Israel threatens 'gates of hell' Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Friday to open the gates of hell on Gaza City until Hamas agreed to Israels conditions for ending the war, including the release of all hostages and the militant group's complete disarmament. If not, he said, the city would become like Rafah and Beit Hanoun, areas that have been largely reduced to ruins under Israels 22-month offensive. Netanyahu said a day earlier that he had authorized the operation to take over Gaza City, while also revealing he had instructed immediate negotiations to begin for a deal to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of the hostages who remain held in the enclave. The video statement followed days of silence after Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by Arab mediators. The IPCs declaration comes just over three weeks after it warned that the worst-case scenario of famine was already unfolding in the Palestinian enclave under Israels offensive and crippling aid restrictions but it had emphasized the alert was not a formal famine classification. A Palestinian woman searches in the sand for legumes in Nuseirat, Gaza, during an aid airdrop mission, on Aug. 5. (Eyad Baba / AFP via Getty Images) Aid groups have repeatedly warned in recent weeks there is still not enough food entering Gaza to stave off famine. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said on Monday it had recorded three new adult deaths due to famine and malnutrition within a 24-hour period, bringing the total death toll from starvation to 266 people, including 112 children. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies, marking a major escalation in a decades-long conflict. Since then, more than 62,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to the local Palestinian health ministry, with much of the territory destroyed. Among the dead are hundreds of people who have been killed while trying to seek aid following the introduction of a new distribution system led by Israel and the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Record-breaking flash flooding inundated Hazard, Kentucky, in February, devastating homes and infrastructure in the small Appalachian town. The North Fork Kentucky River, which runs alongside Hazards Main Street, crested at over 30 feet and swamped the small downtown area, destroying several local businesses. Februarys disaster was the second major flash flood to hit Hazard in three years. Many residents of Hazard are still reeling from catastrophic flooding in July 2022, which was driven by five days of record-breaking rain that overflowed creeks and rivers across Kentucky. Holly-Ann Eastmon, who was in Hazard during the 2022 flood, received a flash flood warning just as floodwaters from nearby Troublesome Creek surrounded her double-wide trailer. High waters ripped the neighbors trailer from its foundations, ramming the structure into Eastmons home and tearing it in two. Eastmon was swept away by debris-filled water and clung to a tree for almost 12 hours before search-and-rescue helicopters found her. These days, Eastmon leaves town when the forecast calls for more than 2 inches of rain. We pack up our stuff, put it in a U-Haul and we go to a hotel until we can go home, Eastmon said. I couldnt even tell you how many times its happened since 2022. Its just the fear we have. Eastmons experience highlights the growing human and financial toll of flash floods, which experts say are becoming more common, unpredictable and extreme as the planet warms. Her community is still facing a long road to recovery, complicated by mounting rebuilding costs and limited job opportunities. Holly-Ann Eastmon survived two major floods in Hazard, Ky., over just three years. Now, she plans to take a home buyout and leave the small Appalachian community. (NBC News Studios) This summer, flash flooding, which occurs during sudden, extreme rainfall over short periods of time, has swamped U.S. communities from Kerr County, Texas, to Petersburg, Virginia, and devastated populations in Beijing and the mountainous regions of India and Pakistan. As of mid-August, the National Weather Service had issued over 4,000 flash flood warnings this year, breaking records dating back to 1986, according to data from Iowa State University. Kentucky has already issued over 200 flash flood warnings in 2024, that number was 76 for the whole year. Shel Winkley, a meteorologist with the research group Climate Central, says that human-caused climate change, which makes the atmosphere both hotter and wetter, is contributing majorly to extreme flooding and flash flood events. Every degree Celsius that Earths atmospheric temperature rises allows the atmosphere to hold about 7% more water vapor. A warmer atmosphere is a greedier one it holds on to more moisture, so when it lets go, the rain falls harder and faster, Winkley said. This is why were seeing more flash flood warnings and record-breaking rainfall this summer. Climate change is turning natural summer storms into something unnatural. Eastern Kentucky is historically prone to flooding. As wet air rises against the Appalachian mountains, it naturally releases moisture into the valleys below. But when extreme rainfall encounters the mountainous topography, water is rapidly channeled into low-lying areas and can wash out the regions many creeks and streams. One study found that during the 2022 floods, a disproportionate number of deaths occurred along or near areas of Troublesome Creek, a tributary of the 168-mile North Fork Kentucky River that has been disrupted by historic mountaintop coal mining. For many Hazard residents, life has totally changed with more frequent flooding. Like many towns in Appalachia, the community was once a hub for coal production, but economic prospects have declined sharply over the last few decades, straining many longtime residents who are grappling with the economic downturn and flood damage at the same time. Eastmon, who has lived in Hazard since 2007, says the floods have left her with severe trauma. I dont care whether you hung from a tree or you just saw somebody in the water, Eastmon said. You were affected whether you saw it or whether you lived it. Everybody here was affected by it in one way or another. Local volunteer firefighter Ronnie Dillion helped rescue Eastmons husband, Craig, from floodwaters near Troublesome Creek in 2022. His family has lived in the Hazard area for generations, but Dillion is making plans to leave town in pursuit of work in London, a bigger city about 60 miles west of Hazard. The latest floods were the breaking point for many residents struggling to stay afloat, Dillion said. The floodwaters made Dillions home unlivable, caving in parts of the ceiling. And rebuilding is difficult with few paying jobs available locally, he says. Its home to me, but theres not a lot for young folks to do here, Dillion said. Theres not a lot of opportunity here. You cant chase your dreams and guarantee that you get a job doing what you love here. In February, major flooding destroyed parts of Ronnie Dillion's home. Dillion, a volunteer firefighter, has struggled to repair his house, with few job opportunities in flood-worn Hazard. (NBC News Studios) As of the latest U.S. census survey, over 25% of Perry County residents, where Hazard is located, are living under the federal poverty line. The coal industry provided more than 29,000 jobs at its height in 1990 since then, roughly 85% of coal jobs in Kentucky have been lost, according to the Kentucky Center for Statistics. In Perry County alone, mining employment dropped by 23% in 2023. Jason Naylor, a researcher at the University of Louisville, is studying climate change in Kentucky. He says that eastern Kentucky is uniquely vulnerable to climate impacts and increased flooding. Theres a lot of social vulnerability, Naylor said, and potentially more distrust for weather forecasts and any type of public officials. Eastmon says some of her neighbors believe the government played a role in causing the 2022 floods and that the community has largely lost faith in public officials in the aftermath of the floods. Eastmon herself has applied to Perry County for a home buyout program, and hopes to move closer to her children. Ive told the story over and over and over in hopes that maybe somebody, somewhere will hear the story and come to our rescue, and get us off my piece of property, she said. analysis Nollywood, Nigeria's prolific video-film industry, has been popular in Kenya since it was introduced to east Africa at around the turn of the century. These low-budget, high-output films and TV series immediately struck a chord with ordinary people in lower income brackets. Although new Nollywood productions can be slick, high budget affairs, the bulk are not about high production values. They're about real-life stories and social issues that are easy to relate to. At first Nollywood films were screened in informal video-halls in poorer Kenyan communities, offering a unique going-to-the-movies experience. But in the first decade of the new millennium, TV stations began screening them. In Kenya, Nollywood was most popularly known as "Afrocinema" on TV, and it was soon a daily affair. Read more: Why Nigerians living abroad love to watch Nollywood movies One of the audiences that has emerged are young women, often in their teens, working in urban Kenyan homes. Known as housemaids, they come from humble and materially deprived backgrounds and occupy a precarious position in the homes they work in. Their daily routine is a blend of domestic chores including childcare, cooking, cleaning and running errands for the family. Employed through an informal system of social networking and patronage, housemaids don't necessarily bring any training or experience to their jobs and generally aren't offered employment contracts. The power is in the hands of the employer and there is little job security. These young women were the subject of my recent study in the Kenyan city of Eldoret for the book Contemporary African Screen Worlds. I explored the housemaid's fandom of Nollywood films, as part of a decade-long study of electronic media audiences in the city. It became clear that housemaids saw themselves as socially inferior to the families they worked for. Their identity as domestic labourers masked their identity as real people. Their social identity was defined by, and reducible to, their daily job card. I found that they developed a special relationship with Nollywood cinema. This love of the movies (fandom) offered much more than leisure and companionship. Nollywood stories are a medium through which they could transcend the limits of their situations and aspire to other, more desirable worlds. Nollywood on TV helped them make sense of their lives. The research Twelve participants took part in the study, most of them housemaids, some former housemaids. All were drawn from similar neighbourhoods. Research mostly involved observing their working lives along with in-depth, unstructured interviews. To establish some of the specific lessons the housemaids of Eldoret learnt from Nollywood, I asked each to discuss any two films that they considered as educational. I noted that there were some significant patterns. The lessons raised were connected to the housemaids' immediate life experiences, and many of the films mentioned seemed to explore the social impacts of poverty, and how it affects family relationships. The social costs of poverty on the family is a popular Nollywood theme. Another kind of story that appealed to participants was the Cinderella tale. In these films, the orphaned girl living in abject poverty eventually becomes a princess. Read more: The Kenyan film director taking on the world -- with positive stories of black life Dina recalled a film that told the story of a poor woman whose father died and his extended family kicked her and her mother out. They moved to a slum. It so happened that she was actually destined to be a princess, but her father died before telling her the news. Her paternal grandmother eventually tracked her down, to link her up with her prince. Most of the housemaids I've talked to over the years have clearly expressed their admiration for this Cinderella narrative in Nollywood stories. They can project themselves into her situation and use her experience as a source of hope for a better future. Real life stories But there were many other ways that housemaid fans of Nollywood said they saw their real lives in the films. One told me: I used to watch films that presented young women who underwent life experiences that were like mine. But within the stories, their lives turned round, yet mine did not... But then things changed: I had reached the very end of my tether when God turned my life around. I met a man in church that proposed to me and we got married two months later. This is when I looked back and realised God had used Nollywood to prepare me for my portion. She added: The very first Nollywood film I watched was about a married couple who stayed with the wife's mother, who ended up taking over her daughter's husband. But the wife was a prayerful woman, and she consulted her pastor to intercede for their marriage as well. It worked. True to Nollywood's often melodramatic form, the mother became mentally deranged, drank a poisonous concoction and died. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Kenya Entertainment By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. I remember many other Nollywood stories that had been about the virtue of patience and waiting for God's time. In her case, Nollywood had helped her face her situation for what it was, and, in her view, it helped to keep her positive. Why this matters An exploration of the housemaids' own understanding and use of Nollywood cinema becomes a medium through which to engage with the housemaids' world - as well as their aspirational identities. This is a social category of people that occupies a place of absolute subservience and has been forced by circumstances to live invisibly. Electronic media fandom is one of the few avenues where they can momentarily rise above their immediate circumstances. Read more: Netflix gives African film a platform - but the cultural price is high The routine nature of the housemaids' lives, coupled with limited social interaction and the pressures of long working hours, is a danger to mental health. For them Nollywood fandom served as a healthy antidote. Solomon Waliaula, Associate Professor, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Culture, Maasai Mara University Washington As Russia's war in Ukraine rages on despite high-level meetings to discuss a possible path to peace, CBS News has learned that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, issued a directive weeks ago to the U.S. intelligence community ordering that all information regarding the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations not be shared with U.S.-allied intelligence partners. The memo, dated July 20 and signed by Gabbard, directed agencies to not share information with the so-called Five Eyes, the post-World War II intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, multiple U.S. intelligence officials told CBS News. They spoke under condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters. The officials said the directive classified all analysis and information related to the volatile Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations as "NOFORN," or no foreign dissemination, meaning the information could not be shared with any other country or foreign nationals. The only information that could be shared was information that had already been publicly released. The memo also limited distribution of material regarding peace talks to within the agencies that created or originated the intelligence. The memo does not seem to prevent the sharing of diplomatic information gathered by other means separate from the U.S. intelligence community, or military operational information unrelated to the talks such as the details the U.S. shares with the Ukrainian military to aid in their defensive operations. Contacted by CBS News, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred questions to the White House, which did not respond. A day after CBS News published its report, DNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman said in a post on X that the reporting was false and said, "U.S. intelligence sharing relationships with our allies have never been stronger." "In general, the value of the Fives Eyes intelligence partnership is that when we are making and they are making policy decisions, we can both augment each other's intelligence and therefore know more about the plans, intentions, and capabilities of our adversaries," explained Steven Cash, a former intelligence officer at the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Homeland Security. "Among the reasons for that sort of default is the expectation that we and the other four are all sitting on the same side of the table with some other adversary on the other side," Cash said. He said it's important for the allies to have "a common intelligence picture" so policymakers and negotiators "can coordinate our positions and get the best deal we can, or fight the best war we can." Cash is the executive director of The Steady State, a nonprofit organization made up of former U.S. intelligence and national security professionals and government officials concerned with threats to American democracy. In March 1946, Winston Churchill spoke of the "special relationship" between the U.S. and the U.K. and the threat of the "Iron Curtain" that had "descended across the Continent." The United States and Britain first forged their intelligence alliance in secret, signing an agreement to pool information as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Later, Canada, Australia and New Zealand joined the arrangement, transforming what began as a bilateral pact into the five-nation network that would come to be known as the Five Eyes. But now, nearly 80 years later, some former U.S. government officials warn that the breadth of Gabbard's order could undermine the intelligence community alliance discouraging analysts from sharing insights and eroding trust among allies who have long relied on open exchanges to form a common picture of global threats and paths to successful negotiation. Cash and CBS News national security contributor Sam Vinograd, a former homeland security official, said Five Eyes often has intelligence that helps the U.S. produce comprehensive intelligence assessments, especially about Russia, given the access Five Eyes partners have to other intelligence sources. "Shutting our most trusted partners off from intelligence assessments could have a chilling effect on critical intelligence sharing if our partners believe they're being shut out of key access including on key matters in their region. They could decide to take similar steps toward the U.S.," Vinograd said. She added, "Policy-wise, if our Five Eyes partners think they are being shut off from key information. They could choose to create new structures and channels without us. A lack of full collaboration with our closest partners could lead them to discuss matters impacting our national security without our input and perspective." Still, other former intelligence officers contend Gabbard's directive is commonplace within the U.S. intelligence community, and the criticism is much ado about nothing. They say both the U.S. and the other members of the intelligence alliance frequently withhold information from each other in diverging interest areas. Ezra Cohen, a Hudson Institute fellow who served as the acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence at the Pentagon, suggested that condemnation of Gabbard's memo likely stems from a dislike of Trump administration policies and her leadership as director of national intelligence. "There is a lot of information we do not share even with our Five Eyes partners, and it works in the reverse. There's a lot of U.K. eyes-only material. There's a lot of Australian eyes-only material," said Cohen. "Our interests are not always aligned with our Five Eyes partners," Cohen said. "And where we have diverging interests, and it's not just Ukraine, we absolutely mark things NOFORN." He admits it's possible the directive could result in depriving the U.S. of information, but maintains these types of decisions have historically been the norm between all of the Five Eyes members. He said the claim that the directive represents "a chilling of the relationship" between the U.S. and Five Eyes seems "a little bit like faux outrage." As intelligence work and diplomatic efforts continue, largely out of the public eye, the war in Ukraine continues to take a deadly toll. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned Moscow Thursday for launching hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in an attack overnight, "as if nothing had changed at all. As if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war." Editor's note: This article has been updated with DNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman's response on X. The most widespread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines this year 5 killed, dozens more injured in New York bus crash Reporter's Notebook: When smashing trains was an American pastime From Avery to Yuri, parents are increasingly choosing gender-neutral names for their children. New data from BabyCenter reveals eight names, including Blake, Jojo and Sidney are suitable for both boys and girls. Additionally, there are 32 more names, such as Armani, Georgie, Rory, and Tatum that are used almost equally for both genders. "From current megastars like Blake Lively to historical literary icons like Jules Verne, gender-neutral names are a thing of both the past and present," stated BabyCenter in a news release. "And it looks like the trend isn't going away any time soon." The list was compiled based on tens of thousands of entries received from parents who track their pregnancies with BabyCenter and register their babies' names with it each year, giving "editors a unique glimpse into which names are actually being used equally (or very, very close to it) between baby boys and baby girls," according to the company. The eight names that achieved exactly equal registrations between the genders are: Blake: The name has two meanings - from the Old English word blaec, meaning "black," and from the Old English word blac, meaning "white" or "pale." Jojo: A nickname for names beginning with "Jo-," including Hebrew-rooted names like Jonathan ("God has given") and Joanne ("God is gracious"). Jules: Another nickname, usually short for Julian and Julia, which shares the same Latin root and may be tied to Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods. Koi: Rooted in Japanese, the name is a word for a kind of fish, but can also mean "love" depending on which kanji, or characters, are used to spell it. Landry: With French and English origins, one of the meanings of the name is "ruler of the land." Robin: While the name is also associated with a backyard bird that announces the arrival of spring, it is also an archaic nickname for Robert, a Germanic name meaning "bright, famous one." Sidney: While the name is another Old English word translating to "dweller by the well-watered land," Sydney is a popular variation that happens to be the name of one of Australia's largest cities. Sri: A Sanskrit name with multiple meanings, such as "light, beauty, and prosperity," and "power and royal majesty." It's sometimes used as an honor in Hindu culture and is another name for the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati. In addition to the "eight truly gender-neutral names, 32 more come close to being used equally for boys and girls," BabyCenter said. These include: Armani (47% girls, 53% boys) Ashtyn (46% girls, 54% boys) Callaway (47% girls, 53% boys) Georgie (53% girls, 47% boys) Huntley (48% girls, 52% boys) Jae (47% girls, 53% boys) Rory (49% girls, 51% boys) Shiloh (52% girls, 48% boys) Tatum (44% girls, 56% boys) Yuri (49% girls, 51% boys) Many cultures feature traditionally gender-neutral names, according to BabyCenter, with origins in languages such as Hebrew (Azariah, Salem), Japanese (Momo, Yuri), Arabic (Iman), Korean (Jae) and Indigenous American (Dakota). Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Popular gender-neutral baby names revealed: Blake, Koi, Sidney, more Giada DeLaurentiis/Instagram Giada DeLaurentiis' Daughter Jade Roasts Her Old Looks NEED TO KNOW Giada De Laurentiis daughter, Jade, hilariously rated her moms past outfits in a new video Jades reviews ranged from blunt critiques to 10/10 praise Fans loved Jades unfiltered commentary as the teen prepares to head off to college this fall Giada De Laurentiis' daughter Jade gave her opinions of some of her moms outfits from the past and she did not hold back. In a video shared to social media on Thursday, Aug. 21, the Food Network alum shared a video, captioned, As a birthday gift, Jade rated some of my old looks- Cant say shes not honest! The 17-year-old goes through 10 of De Laurentiis' outfits from various years, from casual fits to editorial photoshoots, ranking them from one through 10. Bob Riha Jr/WireImage Giada De Laurentiis She started with a picture from Getty Images where De Laurentiis is wearing a flowy, red button-down top thats knot-tied in the middle over a black dress, with spatulas and a colander in hand. This is giving, like, ballet instructor, slash, like, Southern. I like it, said Jade, giving the outfit an eight out of 10. The next shot included a baby Jade being held by the chef, while she wore a pair of grey ripped jeans and a plain white, short-sleeved blouse with a built-in silver necklace. Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic Giada De Laurentiis and daughter Jade Marie De Laurentiis Thompson The little one is really cute. Shes serving face. Im going to give the child a 10 out of 10, said the teen, before pivoting to her mothers outfit. What the hell is on her shirt? I dont like that. Six out of 10. On the cover of her cookbook, Food Network Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis - Weekend Cooking, De Laurentiis wore a flowery purple, black and grey tunic with a plunging neckline. To this, Jade commented, Its giving 1960s. I kind of like it, its giving witch, and gave it an 8 out of 10 ranking. The lineup also included a paparazzi shot of the duo at the airport, in which a tween-aged Jade wears colorful leggings, which she said she wore to school almost every day during that time. On the other hand, she complimented her moms outfit: a pair of blue jeans, a sheer, white button-down top, a light grey jacket and a grey Maison Goyard bag in her hand. Jade had no words for the black, below-knee dress with beaded details on the bottom and around the collar that followed. Four out of 10, no comment, she said and quickly moved on. Giada DeLaurentiis/Instagram Giada DeLaurentiis' Daughter Jade Roasts Her Old Looks She also ranked the cover image of the three-disc set of Food Network's Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis, mainly focused on her moms facial expression, which she notes looks like someone farted a little bit, yet complimented the stars flowy white and orange blouse. What the hell is going on here? she questioned the unforgettable editorial shot of De Laurentiis standing in a white dress and red heels, pouring tomato sauce on herself. She looks amazing, but wait, they made her look older in her face. But she looks great. She looks insanely fabulous, but 60. The dress received a nine out of 10 ranking. Jade also commented on a red carpet event that she attended alongside her mother, to which she promptly covers her own shoes in the picture, where Giada wore a white blazer with matching shorts. Jade questioned the shorts as a fashionable choice. This followed an image of De Laurentiis completely covered up in a purplish winter fur coat and hat on top of a navy blue outfit. Its giving Russian babushka, Jade said, quickly highlighting, Safe to say the outfit wore her. Six out of 10. The last image, a casual snap of De Laurentiis sitting on the side of a road wearing a white tank top, black pants, black shoes and green-framed sunglasses, Jade notes as her favorite outfit out of the lineup. Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press/Alamy Giada DeLaurentiis This is giving normal, like look at her. Shes like a baddie. She just turned 21. She went out the night [before] she probably didnt, Jade teased. The shoes, I cant tell if theyre sneakers or boots, but I love them. She ate that. This is a 10 out of 10. The video was well received, with her ranking system receiving its own applause in the comment section. Jade commentary - 10 out of 10! Fabulous, wrote one fan. Even fellow Food Network star, Valerie Bertinelli, wrote, She is hysterical . While a few of her outfits didnt get the highest scores, De Laurentiis may miss these fun moments when the teen goes to college. In an interview with PEOPLE, she opened up about taking a college tour roadtrip with Jade ahead of her attending university this fall. Just to have her all to myself for that week was one of the best gifts, especially as we entered the last year of her living at home, and all of the mixed emotions I have behind that. Im super excited for her to fly and find herself and be who she wants to be, but at the same time, it's incredibly sad. I'm gonna miss her terribly. The proud parent continued, As a mom, you spend all 18 years of your life sort of cracking your schedule around her, you know your child and their needs, and all of a sudden it's all going to be gone, she explained. And I don't know, it's really scary. It scares the s--- out of me, to be honest. Read the original article on People The alert to students at Villanova University was terrifying: "ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors. More info to follow." Video and photos posted to social media show the mass panic that ensued Thursday, Aug. 21, as students were preparing for the start of fall classes. Waves of students were running for their lives, some posted about how they had barricaded themselves wherever they were when the text came in, and others simply posted about how scared they were. "Hi guys im a freshman at villanova. active shooter alert during the middle of opening mass for students," a poster wrote on X. "everyone is hiding. pleaee just keep me in your thoughts. im very scared." It was all a "cruel hoax," the university announced about 90 minutes after the alert went out. At many levels across America, such hoaxes have been plaguing the nation for years, including at schools, grocery stores, office buildings and airports anywhere large groups of people gather. Also known as swatting, they're defined as false reports of serious crimes intended to spark a heavy law enforcement response. "It's an enormous problem," said Elizabeth Jaffe, associate professor at Atlantas John Marshall Law School whose focus is cyberbullying and social media. "One incident is a major problem, so if we've got hundreds and thousands, its an evolving epidemic." A lost and found of loose items thrown while running into shelter from an active shooter hoax at Villanova University on Aug. 21, 2025 Estimated swatting incidents jumped from 400 in 2011 to more than 1,000 in 2019, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which cited a former FBI agent whose expertise is in swatting. From January 2023 to June 2024 alone, more than 800 instances of swatting were recorded at U.S. elementary, middle and high schools, according to the K-12 School Shootings Database, created by a University of Central Florida doctoral student in response to the Parkland High School shooting in 2018. The FBI has been aware of the problem since at least 2008. It became so pervasive that in 2023, the FBI launched a database for law enforcement agencies to report swatting incidents, according to an FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division announcement. In the wake of the panic at Villanova, USA TODAY is looking at just how common hoaxes that cause mass panic are, why they happen, what the repurcussions are and what can be done. Who is doing the swatting and why? Swatting emerged as a popular if potentially deadly hoax among gamers in the early 2000s, according to researchers at the Anti-Defamation League. Since then, it has become a tool used by everyone from pranksters to online extremists, according to Carla Hill, senior director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League. "It used to be someone would pull the fire alarm because they didn't want to go to school. Now they swat the school," Hill said. "They get a thrill out of it," Jaffe said. Hill, who has also worked to track swatters, played an instrumental role in an FBI investigation into a ring of swatters targeting Jewish and minority institutions in 2023. Hill said she got lucky in the case because the group was bragging about the exploits online. The group targeted at least 25 synagogues in 13 states, according to the FBI. But unless a swatter uses their own phone or speaks about it publicly, the person can be difficult for law enforcement to track. "Theres so many ways you can do it without being traceable," Hill said. Students gather in prayer after an active shooting hoax at Villanova University on Aug. 21, 2025. Why is swatting such a big problem? Hoaxes not only disrupt schools and businesses, but they also drain police, fire and EMS resources that race to the scene. "We have to treat each one as real until we know it's a hoax," Kelly Smith, former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle office, said in an agency video about the problem. "We direct law enforcement resources away from other active investigations, and that causes a significant strain on the resources of both our agency and our local police departments." David Riedman, a data scientist and creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, estimates that in 2023, it cost $82,300,000 for police to respond to false threats. There's also the human toll. "It causes trauma for students, parents and communities," said John DeCarlo, a former police chief who has responded to hoaxes and who is now a professor at the University of New Havens Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences. "While the call itself may be a lie, the panic and trauma it creates are very real." Hoax calls also can land innocent bystanders in dangerous situations. Four Black undergraduate students at Harvard University wound up being held at gunpoint during a swatting incident at the Ivy League school in 2023, according to reporting by The Harvard Crimson. And some cases of swatting have turned deadly. Tyler Barriss, a gamer with a history of making hoax calls, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in connection with the shooting death of Andrew Finch in Wichita, Kansas, in 2017, according to reporting by NBC News. Finch was shot and killed by police responding to a swatting call Barriss made. Finch, who did not know Barriss, lived at an address where Barriss believed his target was. Families and students pray together at a campus-wide blessing after an active shooter hoax at Villanova University on Aug. 21, 2025 What can be done about swatting? Experts agree that stronger laws, harsher penalties and better technology to track swatters are needed. "Its often like this with technology: We need to catch up," Hill said, adding there are stronger protections in some states. "We need to get some laws on the books." DeCarlo said one major step was the FBI treating swatting as a federal offense but agreed that technology is a major hurdle because it can allow swatters to mask their voices, IP addresses and identities. He expects more swatting incidents similar to Villanova's as authorities scramble for solutions. "The fact is every hoax call like this diverts officers from real emergencies and real risks, and thats the real tragedy of it," he said. "It takes public protection away where it's needed." Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat. Michael Loria is a national reporter on the USA TODAY breaking news desk. Contact him at mloria@usatoday.com, @mchael_mchael or on Signal at (202) 290-4585. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cruel hoax at Villanova is part of a bigger problem. What can we do? Gov. J.B. Pritzker during a bill signing ceremony Illinois.gov Anti-SLAPP bill signed Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed legislation to protect news media from strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP). The governor said Senate Bill 1181 will ensure that the press wont have to fear retaliation for telling the truth. The measure takes effect immediately. Chicago schools settles meditation case A court-approved settlement of over $2.6 million is now being paid to 207 former Chicago Public School high school students who were required to participate in a transcendental meditation program during class. Plaintiffs attorneys say the students rights were disregarded by the Chicago Board of Education, and students were coerced to practice a worldview that was in conflict with their faith. Du Quoin State Fair begins Friday is Day One and Family Night at the Du Quoin State Fair. Now in its 102nd year, the fair features music, livestock shows, auto and harness racing, rodeos and agricultural exhibits. The Du Quoin State Fair runs from Aug. 22 through Sept. 1. An Arizona-based influencer was fatally shot during a road rage dispute she wasn't involved in. Her family is calling the incident a "senseless act of violence," according to a GoFundMe. The woman, identified as 27-year-old Yarely Ashley Hermosillo, was pronounced dead at the hospital following the shooting on Friday, Aug. 15, at around 11:45 p.m. in Glendale, according to the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. Two drivers got into an argument before one of them, Jesus Preciado Dousten, 33, allegedly brandished a gun and fired a shot in a random direction, according to Glendale police spokesperson Sgt. Bryan Hoskin. Hermosillo, who was in another vehicle, was struck by a bullet and later died. Her partner, son and mother were in the car during the incident, the Arizona Republic reported. "Yarely was a loving wife, a devoted mother, and a beautiful soul whose light touched everyone who knew her," the fundraiser said. "She leaves behind her husband and their 4-year-old son, who now face an unimaginable loss." Online court records do not list a defense attorney for Dousten as of Friday, Aug. 22. Influencer deaths: Police say influencer Ariiela La Langosta was 'likely targeted' in fatal shooting How did the road rage incident begin? The dispute began when an unnamed driver of a Toyota Tundra told police he got into an argument with Dousten, who pulled out of a private drive in his GMC Sierra and cut in front of him, forcing the driver to slam on the brakes to avoid a crash, according to court documents obtained by the Arizona Republic. The Tundra driver honked his horn as the Sierra driver began to weave in front of him, but he was eventually able to get around the Sierra, documents said. The two drivers pulled up next to each other at the intersection of 51st Avenue and Camelback Road with the Sierra on the Tundras left, according to documents. The Tundra driver rolled down his window and yelled at Dousten to watch where he was going, documents said. Dousten, who had all the Sierras windows rolled down, shouted back in Spanish and pulled out a black handgun, documents state. The Tundras driver told police Dousten was obviously intoxicated at the time, according to the court documents. One of the people in the Tundra told police that Dousten said, You want some of this? in Spanish, referring to the gun, documents said. However, the Tundras occupants said Dousten was pointing the gun across his chest to the left in the opposite direction of their vehicle, the documents continued. How did Hermosillo get shot? Shortly after Dousten yelled at them in Spanish, he fired a single shot, striking Hermosillo who was sitting in the front passenger seat of a Chevrolet Equinox to the left of the Sierra, documents said. When the Tundras driver told Dousten he had just shot someone, Dousten looked back at the Equinox, which had a bullet hole on the passenger side window, documents said. One witness said Dousten looked scared after he saw what had happened, while another described him as looking confused, according to the court documents. The incident was captured on traffic cameras, and during the investigation, police interviewed a friend of Dousten, according to the Arizona Republic. The friend claimed Dousten said he had gotten into a road rage incident and had shot someone who was in the opposite direction of the person he was arguing with, documents said. Dousten was arrested on Aug. 16 and charged with second-degree murder, misconduct involving weapons and endangerment and aggravated assault. He is being held on a $1 million bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 22. 'Hurts to lose your other half At a Glendale police news conference on Wednesday, Aug. 20, Hermosillo's partner, Daniel Salgado, tearfully stood behind the podium to reflect on her impact on his and her friends' and family's lives. "It hurts to lose your other half," he said, later adding, "I feel for my son when he lies to sleep at night and he can't cuddle with her. When we go for a walk, he waits to see if mommy is coming out of the house like she always would." The family's GoFundMe has raised more than $16,000 as of Friday, Aug 22. It requests donations for funeral costs and to cover other expenses for her child. Hermosillo was a social media influencer with over 100,000 followers on TikTok, sharing recipes and lifestyle-related content. Glendale is less than 10 miles from Phoenix. Contributing: Perry Vandell, Arizona Republic, USA TODAY Network Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at tardrey@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Influencer killed by stray bullet in Arizona road rage dispute bonappetitmag/Instagram John Cena sipping an American-style flat white NEED TO KNOW During a sit-down taste test with Bon Appetit, John Cena explained why he judges coffee shops based on how they make flat whites The pro wrestler and actor noted that the coffee that was served to him from the Conde Nast cafe had too much milk and was served in the wrong sized cup Cena notes that the best coffee he's ever tasted came from Melbourne, Australia, which he calls a "coffee-first" place John Cena wears many hats, and one of these includes being passionate coffee lover with an extensive knowledge of what makes a good cup of coffee. During a Thursday, Aug. 21, sit-down taste test for Bon Appetit, the Peacemaker star, 48, shared a detailed explanation on how he judges and ranks coffee shops based on how they make their flat whites. During the interview, Cena was given a cup of coffee and, by looking at it, immediately noted that it was an American-style flat white. I can tell because its too big and theres too much milk, and the milks not steamed, explained Cena. bonappetitmag/Instagram John Cena Cena explained that coffee is a universal language throughout the world, and since a flat white is meant to be made with the taste of the coffee first, rather than the additives, such as milk, its his chosen indicator of figuring out if a place is a real coffee shop, or, as he puts it, isnt coffee first. A lot of places are food first and use coffee as an accouterment, Cena mused. When an off-screen staffer noted to him that the coffee came from the Conde Nast cafe they were filming, he continued his explanation further, adding, Its obvious that they are not coffee first, because it would be in a smaller cup, six ounces or less five, six. This is more to the eight side. He noted that the best flat whites hes ever had were in Melbourne, Australia, and said with a smile, They are coffee-first people. The 17-time world wrestling champion-turned-actor went on to note that since everyone has a different interpretation of what makes a good flat white, its the best index to use for judgment since hes able to visually see what hes being served, rather than drinks that come with a lot of milk and additives, such as a latte. Cena then took a sip of the flat white in front of him after he noted that the drink looks a little too milk forward and determined that the drink consisted of a shot of espresso with eight ounces of milk. Heres another catch with the flat white, he said as he held up two fingers, Its a double shot. So you get a little more strong coffee taste and a little less milk, which is why I like that six ounces, because you should see a cappuccino cup in my hand, it disappears. bonappetitmag/Instagram John Cena The comment section gushed over the coffee-loving side of the Cena. One fan wrote, Wow how pretentious. I agree with everything he said . Multiple commenters asked for more coffee commentary, proposing, Anyone else want an entire series of John Cena going around trying different coffee shops? Of course, a few fans of the wrestlers played into his notorious you cant see me catchphrase. So confused I dont see anyone in this video! added one person, another joining the laugh, writing, The voice over is great, [wish] I could see whos talking. Outside of judging coffee cups around the globe, Cena is co-starring in HBO Maxs Peacemaker, alongside Frank Grillo. In an interview with PEOPLE, Grillo raved about Cenas acting skills being surprisingly good. [Ive] got to tell you, he surprised me the most because he's an amazing actor, he said. "What he does on this show, with this season specifically, he's got some heavy weights to lift. Jennifer Holland, who also appears in the show, also sang Cenas praises on a red carpet, calling his work amazing. John's seen as a consummate professional...and we're all just doing our best to service the story, so it was just an incredible experience, said Holland. I couldn't have asked for a better, more professional partner than John in this whole ride from season 1 to season 2, honestly. Season 2 of Peacemaker, created and directed by James Gunn, also stars Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Steve Agee, Sol Rodriguez, Nhut Le and Michael Rooker. Read the original article on People FILE - Drivers pass the start line after a caution during the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Feb. 16, 2025, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) A North Carolina judge on Friday granted Legacy Motor Club a preliminary injunction blocking Rick Ware from selling his NASCAR team during a battle over one of his charters. Legacy and Rick Ware Racing agreed earlier this year that Ware would sell one of his two Cup Series charters, which are similar to franchises in other sports, to Legacy, which is owned by seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. A charter guarantees a car entry into all 38 NASCAR races and determines how a team is paid. Johnson and Legacy wanted the charter to expand to three-time entries and agreed to give Ware $45 million for one of his two. He currently uses one of them for his own team, with the other leased to RFK Racing for 2025. Ware already had a deal with RFK to swap charters in 2026 under another lease agreement. He has claimed that because of that existing deal, he agreed to sell Legacy one charter in 2027. Legacy sued and said Ware signed a contract for a 2026 sale a deal that would essentially put him out of business since he already has promised a charter to RFK. In the meantime, he struck a deal with the broker who negotiated the charter deal with Legacy for the broker to buy his entire NASCAR team for $150 million. But Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge Clifton Smith on Friday gave Legacy an injunction that stops Ware from selling the organization to T.J. Puchyr, a co-founder of Spire Motorsports who is now a motorsports consultant. Puchyr brokered the charter sale agreement in dispute. Smith's order expands an earlier temporary restraining order he had issued that paused the sale. Smith ruled that Legacy showed likelihood of success on the merits of its case, was likely to sustain irreparable loss unless an injunction was issued and that the potential harm to Legacy outweighed any potential harm to Ware. Smith kept in place the $5 million bond Legacy posted. Trial is currently scheduled for January, but Legacy has filed a second suit against Puchyr for interfering with its deal with Ware. Legacy has also terminated its consulting agreement with Puchyr. ___ AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing Donna Adelson listens to her defense team's opening statements in the courtroom on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025 in Tallahassee, Fla. (Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat via AP, Pool) TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) More than a decade after a hired hit man shot her former son-in-law in the head in his Tallahassee garage, 75-year-old Donna Adelson is now on trial for helping orchestrate the 2014 murder of Daniel Markel, the Florida State University law professor who at the time of his death was locked in a bitter child custody fight with his ex-wife and Adelson's daughter, Wendi Adelson. The couple had been married seven years before finalizing their divorce in 2013. Donna Adelson faces charges of first-degree murder as well as conspiracy and solicitation to commit first-degree murder, in a trial that is expected to extend into September. If convicted, Adelson could spend the rest of her life in prison. After three days of questioning, Florida Second Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen Everett seated a panel of 12 jurors and two alternates on Thursday, who he said could approach the case fairly and impartially. That's no small feat in a case that has riveted Floridas capital for more than a decade, as sordid details emerged about a messy divorce, tensions with wealthy in-laws and custody battles that culminated in the murder of a prominent local professor. Four others are already serving prison time for what prosecutors say was a murder-for-hire plot hatched by members of the Adelson family and carried out by paid gunmen. Three people have been sentenced to life in prison, including Adelsons son Charles Adelson. In opening statements Friday in the same Tallahassee courtroom where her son was convicted, prosecutors painted Donna Adelson as the calculated and controlling matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family with the means and motive to orchestrate the killing of the ex-son-in-law she hated. The disdain grew from his standing in the way of letting her daughter and two young grandsons leave Tallahassee for South Florida to live closer to the rest of the family, more than 370 miles (595 kilometers) away. Authorities say the Adelsons considered offering Markel $1 million to let his ex-wife and sons relocate to South Florida after he got a court order barring the move. Instead, prosecutors say members of the family began plotting his death, with Donna Adelson as a driving force. The defendant said that she would never, never, never give up and never stop fighting for Wendi and the boys to be relocated to Miami. And she never did, prosecutor Sarah Kathryn Dugan said. The defendant acted in furtherance of this murder plot that went beyond just thinking about it or talking about it. And these acts make her guilty as a principal in first-degree murder, just as if she was the one pulling the trigger in the garage herself, Dugan added. Throughout the trial, Adelson has played an active role in her own defense, writing notes in a legal pad and studying prosecutors and witnesses behind a pair of tortoise-shell-style glasses. In their openings, Adelson's defense attorneys insisted that the state doesn't have sufficient evidence to link the aging grandmother to the murder plot that they acknowledged was devastating and outrageous in its cruelty. Instead, they emphasized the roles played by others, including the hired gunmen and Adelson's own son, who prosecutors say handed over the money to pay for the killing. Defense attorney Jackie Fulford dismissed what she described as a sensational and headline-grabbing story told by prosecutors about a matriarch mastermind for which the lawyer argued there is no evidence. It is truly outrageous," Fulford said of the killing. But what's more outrageous is, without any evidence, only motive and theory, they put her at the top of this pyramid. A week after Donna Adelson's son was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2023, she herself was arrested at the Miami airport, as she and her husband, Harvey Adelson, were trying to board an international flight to Vietnam a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States using one-way tickets. Harvey and daughter, Wendi Adelson, have denied involvement in the murder and have not been charged. As the trial proceeds, the prosecution intends to call key members of Donna Adelson's family as witnesses, including Charles and Wendi. Also on the state's witness list is Katherine Magbanua, Charles Adelson's then-girlfriend, who prosecutors say served as the go-between with the two men hired to carry out the killing, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera. On Friday, Rivera took the stand and testified that he didn't believe Donna Adelson was involved in the murder, which he understood was meant to give Wendi Adelson full custody of the two boys. ___ Kate Payne 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. ___ This story has been updated to correct the name of the country where Donna Adelson and her husband were trying to board a flight to. It was Vietnam, not Thailand. Jussie Smollett in "The Truth About Jussie Smollett?" (Netflix) Six years after he claimed he was the victim of a hate crime, actor Jussie Smollett continues to push back against Chicago officials' narrative that it was all a "hoax." In "The Truth About Jussie Smollett?," a Netflix documentary that debuts Thursday, Smollett, the former "Empire" star, revisits the legal battle surrounding the alleged attack, which police and city officials said he orchestrated against himself. While the documentary is being released just over three months after Smollett and the city of Chicago reached a civil settlement, Smollett spends much of his interview segments defending himself and maintaining his innocence. "At the end of the day, it doesnt matter whether someone likes me or doesnt like me," Smollett says in the documentary, adding: "The fact is: I didnt do that. And thats all that matters." Smollett, who is Black and gay, first reported a hate crime committed against him in January 2019, alleging that two men confronted him with racial and homophobic slurs, wrapped a rope around his neck and poured bleach on him. However, city officials sued Smollett and accused him of submitting a false police report on Jan. 29, 2019, saying he knew his attackers and planned the attack. The city's lawsuit sought $130,000 in expenses spent on the police investigation. Smollett countersued, denying that he orchestrated the attack. Brothers Olabingo and Abimbola Osundairo, who worked on the "Empire" set and wrote a book titled "Bigger Than Jussie: The Disturbing Need for a Modern-Day Lynching," said Smollett paid them to stage the hate crime and testified against him at his trial. In addition to Smollett, the documentary features interviews with Smolletts attorney, former Chicago police officials, the Osundairo brothers, their attorney and journalists who covered the case. "I believe he wanted to be the poster boy of activism for Black people, for gay people, for marginalized people," "Bola" Osundairo says of Smollett in the documentary. "Ola" Osundairo said that when Smollett asked them to "beat him up," he "thought it was crazy." "But at the same time, Im like, Its Hollywood. This is how it goes,'" he says in the documentary. Smollett was found guilty on five criminal counts of felony disorderly conduct in December 2021 and sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months probation in March 2022. But the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the conviction in November 2024. The state high court ruled that Smollett should have never been charged in the first place after he entered a nonprosecution agreement with the Cook County States Attorneys Office. The yearslong case captivated the country, with many people speculating about what actually happened as Smollett continued to make headlines. In the documentary, Smollett says he was "playing whack-a-mole with rumors, with lies," throughout the investigation. But "at a certain point, its too many, and you cant catch them all," he adds. The documentary, which is from the producers of The Tinder Swindler, says in its promotional materials that it wants the audience to decide for themselves who is telling the truth. Smollett has not commented on the documentary on his social media accounts. He gave a lengthy interview to Variety ahead of its release, in which he touched on the overall impact the case had on him. "Every single other persons story has changed multiple times. Mine has never," Smollett told the publication. "I saw firsthand how narratives are built. I saw firsthand the way that someone can take the exact opposite of who you are and literally sell it." Smollett is promoting his new R&B album and was recently announced as a contestant on the reality show Special Forces: Worlds Toughest Test. The show airs on Fox, the network that canceled Empire in the aftermath of the Smollett saga. Chinese robotics firms ramp up production amid accelerating commercialization 09:28, August 22, 2025 By Zhang Weilan ( Global Times Several key players in China's humanoid robot sector have announced significant scaling of orders, signaling a major push for the development of the industry ecosystem as China continues to move closer to large-scale commercialization of humanoid robots. Chinese robotics firm AgiBot hosted its inaugural partner conference in Shanghai on Thursday. The company revealed ambitious plans to ramp up production, with thousands of units expected to be shipped this year and tens of thousands next year, the Global Times learned from AgiBot on Thursday. The company, also known as Zhiyuan Robotics, plans to deliver between 3,000 and 5,000 robots this year, a significant increase from 1,000 units shipped as of January this year, according to Yao Maoqing, a partner at Agibot and president of the company's embodied intelligence unit. According to AgiBot's co-founder Peng Zhihui, the company plans to roll out hundreds of thousands of general-purpose robots within the next three years. These robots will be capable of autonomously generalizing across hundreds of tasks, establishing an open, resilient, and self-sustaining innovation ecosystem for general-purpose robots. AgiBot's anticipated production surge reflects the eagerness among Chinese robotics start-ups for expansion amid a domestic boom in the industry. Guangdong Tiantai Robot Co, a nationally recognized high-tech enterprise focusing on the production of robot core motion units, announced that it has signed a historic agreement for the world's first order of 10,000 embodied intelligent humanoid robots with several partners in China. The company is committed to delivering at least 10,000 humanoid robots for family healthcare by the end of 2026, the company told the Global Times on Thursday. The partnership not only sets a new benchmark for the scale of embodied intelligent humanoid robots but also paves the way for their integration into everyday life and diverse industries, said an industry insider. These developments come as China's humanoid robotics industry is rapidly shifting from demonstration to practical application, with major companies securing major orders and rolling out new products to meet the growing market demand, said Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for the Information and Communication Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Humanoid robots in China are transitioning into practical industrial use, and are also poised to move from labs into a phase of mass production and commercial deployment, according to Du Guangda, deputy director of the department of science and technology at the MIIT, the Xinhua News Agency reported. China's robot industry has seen rapid growth in recent years. In the first half of this year, the country's industrial robot and service robot production increased by 35.6 percent and 25.5 percent year-on-year, according to CCTV News reports. In addition to robotics, China is also moving swiftly to develop its artificial intelligence (AI) sector. In a bid to advance AI development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the MIIT on Wednesday issued a document on its official website, soliciting typical application scenarios where AI empowers SMEs. This initiative aims to accelerate the innovation and development of SMEs by leveraging AI technology, driving fundamental upgrades in business models and creating new commercial opportunities, said the MIIT. The scenarios should highlight how SMEs utilize AI technology to achieve breakthrough innovations, develop forward-looking products and services, enhance production efficiency, and fundamentally upgrade their business models, according to the document. The move reflects the Chinese government's commitment to supporting the digital transformation of SMEs and fostering a vibrant ecosystem for AI innovation. In recent years, China has introduced policies related to scientific and technological research and development, application promotion, and industrial development, to solve major application and industrialization problems of AI, Pan told the Global Times on Thursday. Apart from policy support from central authorities, regional innovation centers have also been established to drive technological advancements in the sector. For example, Beijing and Shanghai have set up national and local co-built innovation centers for embodied intelligent robots and humanoid robots, while provincial-level innovation centers have been established in Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Guangdong, and Sichuan. These centers aim to gather regional industrial strengths, promote technology sharing, and facilitate joint research and development between upstream and downstream players, the People's Daily reported. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Taking power in 2011 with the help of French military intervention, 83-year-old President Alassane Ouattara is attempting to grab office for a fourth term by barring both main contestants from running for the upcoming election in October. France is "closely watching over the upcoming elections in October in its former colony, to ensure its protege, President Alassane Ouattara, does not lose", said Achy Ekissi, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI). Taking power in 2011 with the help of French military intervention, 83-year-old Ouattara is attempting to grab office for a fourth term by barring both main contestants from running for the upcoming election in October. While "half-heartedly asking Ouattara to step down", France is "in reality, supporting his dictatorial drift because they have not yet found another pawn to replace him," he told Peoples Dispatch. Protesting against a fourth term for Ouattara, tens of thousands took to the streets in the capital, Abidjan, on Saturday, August 9, demanding that his opponents, Laurent Gbagbo and Tidjane Thiam, be allowed to contest. Gbagbo, the former president of the country, with socialist and pan-Africanist inclinations, was bombed out of office by the French military in 2011 to bring Ouattara to power. He is arguably the most "popular" of Ouattara's rivals. However, his popularity, mainly in the working class, does not translate into votes because large sections are not registered on the electoral rolls, explained Ekissi. In terms of voter consolidation, Thiam, former CEO of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, is a greater threat to Ouattara. Both "share the same social base of the upper strata of civil servants, businessmen, wealthy and middle peasants, traders, artisans, and transport operators," with "strong ties with Western imperialist powers," Ekissi added. Thiam took over the leadership of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast - African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) in 2023. A history of shifting alliances He is the political successor to Henri Konan Bedie. A former ally of Ouattara, Bedie became his main opponent after 2018, after Ouattara's refusal to honor a power-sharing agreement by ceding the presidency to PDCI in 2020, in exchange for its support in the 2010 and 2015 elections. The PDCI-RDA is Ivory Coast's oldest political party, which ruled as a one-party, France-backed dictatorship under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny from the time of formal independence in 1960 until he died in 1993. During the last three years of this dictatorship, Ouattara had served Boigny as the Prime Minister. However, Ouattara was marginalized in the succession race within the ruling party after President Boigny's death. Henri Bedie, the then president of the National Assembly, took the reins. Ahead of the first multi-party election in 1995, Bedie amended the constitution to mandate that both parents of candidates must be Ivorians and the candidate must have stayed in the country for more than five years. By thus disqualifying both Gbagbo, who had spent decades underground resisting Boigny's dictatorship, and his former PM, Ouattara, Bedie won the election with 96% votes. Ouattara went on to serve the IMF as its Deputy Managing Director from 1994 to 1999. Late that year, army chief Robert Guei took power in a coup, after which deposed Bedie fled to France. Returning to Ivory Coast, Ouattara took reins of the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), a splinter group composed of his supporters who had broken away from the PDCI. However, the law prohibiting him from contesting was still in place, disqualifying him from the 2000 election for the same reasons as in 1995. Gbagbo defeated Guei in the election. Although initially reluctant to cede power, Guei was forced to flee the country in the face of mass pro-democracy protests. France fueled the civil war against Gbagbo's presidency Although President Gbagbo was at the time "hesitant in directly combating French interests", France would not allow a socialist to lead "its most important French neo-colony in West Africa", especially after the Socialist Party-led coalition that was ruling France lost power in 2002, Ekissi explained. Taking advantage of the discontent that had been brewing in the Muslim north, which had for decades felt marginalized by the Christian south, the new French government helped Ouattara organize an armed rebellion in 2002. The French troops moved in, positioning themselves along the center, dividing the country into north and south, ostensibly to keep the two sides from fighting. In reality, however, it was helping Ouattara's rebels from the north while cracking down on the civilian protests against French deployment in the south by Gbagbo's supporters. Amid the civil war, the 2005 election was postponed. That year, PDCI's Bedie, RDR's Ouattara, Guei's party, the Union for Democracy and Peace in (UDPCI), then led by Albert Toikeusse, and another smaller party, met in Paris. Claiming to be political descendants of Boigny, they formed the coalition, Rassemblement des Houphouetistes pour la Democratie et la Paix (RHDP). This coalition, including Bedie, backed the candidacy of Ouattara in the 2010 election, putting up a united front against Gbagbo. The election was "manipulated by France" in Ouattara's favor, Ekissi maintains. The election commission's president fled from his office to Ouattara's base at a hotel in Abidjan guarded by French troops, before announcing, after the deadline, that Ouattara had won with 54.1% of the vote. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Council reversed his verdict in favor of Gbagbo, citing irregularities in the results submitted by the commission. Within months after Gbagbo took the oath, French troops killed thousands of soldiers and protesting civilians defending him, before bombing the Presidential Palace in April 2011, helping Ouattara's forces capture Gbagbo, who was then tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Almost eight years after his arrest, he was acquitted in 2019. Prosecutors' appeal against his acquittal did not succeed. The ICC upheld his acquittal in 2021, following which he returned to Ivory Coast. In the meantime, Ouattara had won the 2015 election without any major opponent. Bedie did not contest. His PDCI supported Ouattara, on the basis of an understanding that in 2020, after Ouattara finished serving two terms, his RDR would support a PDCI candidate. However, Ouattara did not intend to keep this promise. By 2018, when he pushed the electoral alliance RHDP into a unified political party, the PDCI refused to dissolve, broke the coalition, and joined the opposition. In the 2020 election, when Gbagbo was still under trial, Bedie was the main opposition leader. However, he boycotted the election, calling Ouattara's candidacy illegal because constitutional amendments in 2016 had limited the presidential terms to two, the first ending in 2015 and the second in 2020. Maintaining that the two-term limit started afresh after the amendment - meaning 2020 would be the first of his limited two terms - Ouattara contested and won, with no major opponent challenging him. PDCI's shift to opposition State repression intensified. Earlier reserved for the sovereigntist and anti-imperialist opposition parties, it was now used to target the PDCI also, "even though it belongs to the same camp" as the ruling party in terms of class composition and relation to neocolonialism, Akissi explained. France goes along with this repression because it has "not yet found another pawn of at least equivalent stature to Ouattara", he adds. It regards Ouattara as the solid "pillar" of its colonialism in West Africa, which it is not prepared to risk losing. Its puppet regimes have already been ousted in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger since 2020. "Senegal is uncertain," under the new government formed after the election in 2024. "Benin is wavering under a strong sovereigntist opposition. Guinea is unstable. Ghana and Nigeria are not firmly in their camp. Togo and Guinea-Bissau are economically weak," he added. Under the circumstances, "a setback" to Ouattara's power "would be a major loss" for its neocolonial power, he reasons. "These contradictions have led the PDCI to move closer to the sovereigntist opposition, without adopting the sovereigntist ideological line," Akissi explained. Against this backdrop, Tidjane Thiam, who had remained in exile, fleeing the country after the 1999 coup, returned to Ivory Coast in 2022. After Bedie's death in mid-2023, he took charge of PDCI. Thiam's PDCI and Gbagbo's African Peoples' Party - Ivory Coast (PPA-CI) had together called for the protest against Ouattara on August 9, in which the Communist Party also took part, alongside unions and other civil society groups that are not a part of either's coalition. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Cote d'Ivoire Governance Legal Affairs By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. "Contradictions between Thiam and Gbagbo have been set aside for the moment. But as soon as the ban against their participation in the 2025 election is lifted, this alliance will come to an end," Akissi said. "It should be noted that this opposition is very fragmented. The protest on August 9 was the first united action" against "Ouattara's drift toward dictatorship. But on the question of governing, there is not yet any agreement between the political coalition led by Thiam and the sovereigntists." Ouattara's contested legacy Reporting on this protest, several Western media outlets like Bloomberg made it a point to mention that Ouattara had delivered an average of 6% growth during his decade-and-a-half rule so far. "But the wealth produced by the workers did not benefit them," maintains Atse Desire, deputy secretary general of the General Confederation of Workers of Ivory Coast (CGT-CI), which also took part in the protests. "Apart from a few meager gains concerning salary supplements, the workers have gained nothing since Ouattara took power, despite all the struggles - most of which were repressed with dismissals, arrests, salary suspensions, and deductions," he told Peoples Dispatch. Even the "meager gains" are being fast eaten away by the cost of living soaring against stagnant wages, Desire adds. Although there has been considerable infrastructural improvement in terms of roads, electricity, and water supply, education, and healthcare, these resulted from the foreign investments that came for post-civil war reconstruction "after imperialists destroyed Ivory Coast in 2011 and installed Ouattara", Akissi said. The cost was enormous in terms of debt accumulation, "rising from 2,000 billion FCFA to over 30,000 billion," he added. "It should be noted that the investment in infrastructure amounts to only 60% of the loans. The rest was embezzled by those in power." It is in the backdrop of the resulting discontent growing among the popular classes that the left and the trade unions participating in the protest on August 9 also called for wage hikes and remunerative prices for farmers, and tax relief for small enterprises and the informal sector. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported, could be released from jail this week Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be let out of jail this week. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the U.S. illegally deported to El Salvador in March, on Aug. 19 asked a federal judge to issue an order releasing Abrego Garcia from custody once a different order delaying his release expires Aug. 22. They also asked that after his release, Abrego Garcia be given 48 hours to make it to Maryland and that he have access to his attorneys if he is apprehended by immigration authorities while there. Prosecutors in an Aug. 20 filing said they still opposed letting Abrego Garcia out of federal custody. But they said that if he is released, they had no problem with the conditions requested by Abrego Garcia's attorneys. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Aug. 21 said she will enter an order directing Abrego Garcia's release and the conditions of his release. Abrego Garcia is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals in an undisclosed facility. He is facing charges of human smuggling in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Both U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw and Holmes made findings that Abrego Garcia was entitled to release ahead of his trial. But because his attorneys feared he would be placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and summarily deported, judges agreed to postpone letting him out of U.S. Marshals custody. So why do Abrego Garcia's attorneys now want him out? A court order in a different case ensures he will not be immediately picked up by ICE in Tennessee. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, of Maryland, ruled on July 23 that the federal government must restore Abrego Garcia to his ICE order of supervision in Baltimore and give his attorneys at least 72 hours notice of plans to deport him. His attorneys in Tennessee say they've retained a private security firm to take him to Maryland once he is released from custody. ICE could still take him into custody once he makes it to Maryland. His attorneys are a team of New York lawyers led by Sean Hecker and Nashville's Rascoe Dean, son of former Nashville mayor Karl Dean. The same day they filed the motion requesting Abrego Garcia's release, they filed a motion to dismiss his criminal charges because of "vindictive and selective prosecution." Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally around 2011, court records state. When he was deported earlier this year, he was under a court order prohibiting his deportation to his home country El Salvador. The federal government returned him. Officials have publicly said they may deport Abrego Garcia to a different country. This story was updated with additional information from Abrego Garcia's attorneys' request and subsequent filings by the magistrate judge and prosecutors. Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at emealins@tennessean.com. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be released from Tennessee jail this week North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed his countrys fallen soldiers in Russias war against Ukraine as heroes at an emotional award ceremony, state media said Friday, in a rare public admission of the losses Pyongyang has suffered in the conflict. The North Korean leader extended deep gratitude and warmest militant respect to those who had returned home despite the hail of bullets and bombs of the life-and-death war in the foreign country, state news agency KCNA reported. The victory won by the brave soldiers who participated in the war is a great feat that firmly defended the great honor of the KPA, Kim was quoted as saying, referring to his military, the Korean Peoples Army. Photos released by state media showed Kim pinning commendation badges on soldiers uniforms as well as on photo frames of deceased soldiers hung on a wall. They also showed him meeting with and embracing tearful family members of deceased soldiers. An image released Friday shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un mourning fallen soldiers in Pyongyang. (KCNA via AFP - Getty Images) KCNA said Kim laid a flower on a memorial wall and paid a silent tribute at the ceremony, during which the national anthem was also played. The ceremony on Thursday came a week after Kim received a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin that also described the North Korean troops as heroic. The bonds of militant friendship, goodwill and mutual aid which were consolidated in the days of the war long ago remain solid and reliable even today, Putin said in the letter published by North Korean state media Voice of Korea. Pyongyang and Moscow have forged increasingly close ties after the Kremlin found itself diplomatically isolated following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Kim and Putin signed a mutual defense pact last year, and experts say North Korea may have sent Russia troops in exchange for advanced military technology that would aid its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Neither Russia nor North Korea confirmed the deployments until months after Pyongyang sent its first soldiers last fall. Though the two countries have not revealed the exact number of troops involved, it could be as high as 15,000, according to South Korean, U.S. and Ukrainian officials. Of those, about 600 are believed to have been killed, South Koreas spy agency said, and thousands more injured. Though North Korea has one of the largest militaries in the world, its troops have had little real-world combat experience since the end of the Korean War in 1953. But they are strongly loyal to Kim and are trained to take their own lives rather than surrender, former North Korean soldiers who defected have told NBC News. According to South Korean intelligence, there was at least one incident in which a North Korean soldier seeking to avoid capture by Ukrainian forces was killed while trying to detonate a grenade and shouting Kims name. It is unclear how many North Korean troops remain on the frontlines. South Korean lawmakers said after an intelligence briefing in June that North Korea could deploy additional troops to Russia in July or August and that it was continuing to supply Moscow with arms. Kim meeting soldiers during the ceremony in Pyongyang on Thursday. (KCNA via AFP - Getty Images) It is highly unusual for North Korea to hold a ceremony honoring soldiers during an ongoing conflict, Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told NBC News. The absence of any senior Russian representatives or any reference to close ties with Russia could indicate that North Korea is expressing dissatisfaction at being sidelined in recent negotiations among Putin, President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy over ending the war in Ukraine, Yang said. If such dissatisfaction continues, cracks could appear between Pyongyang and Moscow, he said. But if they manage to mend their differences, Yang said, it cannot be ruled out that North Korean forces will remain stationed for a time as a tripwire along the RussiaUkraine border. A fire at plant in Louisiana continues to burn and an evacuation order within a 1-mile radius of the facility remains in place following an explosion Friday, officials said at a press conference. As of Saturday, 42 people are at a shelter, according to officials. About 800 residents were affected by the explosion, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Gerald Sticker said in an update. The fire was 90% contained by Saturday evening, response officials said in a press release posted by the Louisiana State Police. "Response crews have worked diligently throughout the day and will continue operations through the night to strengthen containment and support recovery efforts," the release said. In a Sunday update, the Louisiana State Police said the fire was still 90% contained and that the mandatory 1-mile radius evacuation remained in effect. "Overnight, additional resources, including specialized heavy equipment, arrived. Response crews began removing structural debris and addressing covered hotspots. A containment berm is being established around the site, and recovery operations will continue throughout the day," the Sunday statement said. The statement added that "environmental response efforts" were underway to address the fire's potential effect on the nearby Tangipahoa River and adjacent waterways. It also said that "all air monitoring results have shown either non-detectable readings or levels well below health-based or actionable thresholds," and that "continuous air monitoring remains in place." "To date, no injuries have been reported. Nearly 150 personnel are engaged in field operations, representing all levels of government and contracted support," Sunday's Louisiana State Police update further said. Though most chose to follow the evacuation, some of the residents within the one-mile evacuation zone chose to stay, Sticker said Friday. Deputies were maintaining a perimeter as firefighters continued to fight the fire. Residents have been asked to to avoid direct contact with soot as a result of the fire as it is believed to contains both combustibles and hydrocarbon chemicals, Louisiana State Police Sgt. William Huggins said Saturday. Authorities asked residents to remain indoors when possible, wash hands frequently, avoid touching their face and avoid direct contact with the soot. Lauren Hawkins/WBRZ - PHOTO: In this screen grab from a video, flames rise high into the sky at the scene of the explosion in Roseland, LA., on Aug. 22, 2025. Officials said they are are aware of debris in the Tangipahoa River and said water samples will be collected for environmental impact analysis. What is exactly in the soot is also under investigation. The most recent air quality readings indicated results "below an actionable threshold" at this time, Huggins said Saturday. Overnight a number of small explosions occurred, consistent with what has been happening since the beginning of the fire, Huggins said. The incident occurred at Smitty's Supply, a lubricant manufacturer located in Roseland in Tangipahoa Parish, local officials said. A large plume of smoke could be seen following the explosion. The explosion was reported shortly before 1 p.m. local time Friday, according to Tangipahoa Parish President Robby Miller. The Tangipahoa Parish government ordered a mandatory evacuation for those in the immediate area, which then expanded to within a 1-mile radius of the plant. The sheriff's office said any residents that need to return home for medication or pets should coordinate with their department to receive an escort. Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office - PHOTO: An evacuation was issued following an explosion at a business in Roseland, Louisiana, Aug. 22, 2025. "Relocate IMMEDIATELY and stay away from this area until further notice," the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office said on X. MORE: 3 firefighters hurt after crash causes gas explosion at veterinary clinic; driver charged with DWI An elementary school located within the evacuation zone evacuated students to a location in Amite City. No injuries have been reported, "which is a godsend," Miller said at a press briefing late Friday afternoon. Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office - PHOTO: Smoke is seen following an explosion at a business in Roseland, Louisiana, Aug. 22, 2025. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has been monitoring the environment, Miller said. It's unclear what caused the explosion, he said. Smitty's Supply manufacturers and distributes lubricant, including motor oils, according to its website. About 400 people work at the plant, according to Miller. Highway 51 at Highway 10 in Roseland closed following the explosion. "We are monitoring this situation closely. Please follow the guidance of your local officials," Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said in a statement on X. "We are praying for everyone's safety." ABC News' Jessica Gorman contributed to this report. A suspect who allegedly shot and killed his ex-wife at a hospital in Detroit and then fled the scene has been taken into custody, according to police. Mario Green, 53, was arrested without incident shortly before 3 a.m. local time Saturday, according to the Detroit Police Department. The shooting occurred before 10 a.m. Friday in the basement of Henry Ford Hospital, where his ex-wife Latricia Green worked, according to police. WXYZ - PHOTO: In this screen grab from a video, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit is shown on Aug. 22, 2025. "Our officers worked tirelessly to get this monster off the street," Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said in a statement. "I would like to thank our law enforcement partners who assisted us in apprehending Mario Green, along with the community who gave us numerous tips about the suspect. No person deserves what happened to Ms. Latricia Green and my heart and prayers go out to her family," he said. The suspect allegedly fired multiple shots from a handgun after getting into a "verbal altercation" with his ex-wife, Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said during a press briefing Friday. The suspect then fled the hospital in a 2011 white Dodge Charger, Bettison said. He was captured on video leaving the facility at approximately 9:55 a.m., the chief said. Michigan State Police - PHOTO: A still from video footage that police said shows Mario Green at Henry Ford Hospital on Aug. 22, 2025. MORE: Body of missing pregnant 18-year-old found, ex-boyfriend confessed to murder: Officials "He is presumed to be armed and dangerous," Bettison said. No other victims were located following a sweep of the hospital, police said. WXYZ - PHOTO: Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison speaks during a press briefing, Aug. 22, 2025. Bettison said he did not know what the victim did at the hospital or how Mario Green was able to access the basement. About a month ago, Latricia Green had filed for a personal protection order against Mario Green, according to Detroit Assistant Police Chief Charles Fitzgerald. "Unfortunately, it was not served on her ex-husband, so it almost brings us here today, " Fitzgerald told ABC Detroit affiliate WXYZ. Green has an address in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and is described as being approximately 6 feet 4 inches. Michigan State Police released images of the suspect and his vehicle amid the manhunt. Michigan State Police - PHOTO: Police said they are searching for this vehicle, a 2011 Dodge Charger, amid a manhunt for suspect Mario Green. The hospital briefly closed but has since reopened to all patients and visitors. Henry Ford Health, the hospital's parent company, said it is cooperating with the police investigation "and are conducting our own internal investigation as well." "We are devastated by the loss of our Henry Ford Hospital teammate and our hearts go out to her loved ones -- her family, friends, and the people she worked with every day," the hospital said in a statement. "We are providing resources to our team members who are dealing with the impacts of this tragic incident. The safety and well-being of our patients, visitors, and team members is our greatest priority," the statement continued. Erik Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. (California Department of Corrections via AP) LOS ANGELES (AP) Erik Menendez was denied parole Thursday by a California board that said his continued misbehavior during decades in prison for murdering his parents with his older brother in 1989 showed he is still a risk to public safety. A panel of two California commissioners denied Menendez parole for three years, after which he will be eligible again, in a case that continues to fascinate the public. A parole hearing for his brother Lyle Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, is scheduled for Friday morning. The commissioners determined that Menendez should not be freed after an all-day hearing during which they questioned him about why he committed the crime and violated prison rules. They rejected parole despite strong support from family members who have advocated for the brothers release for months. Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole," commissioner Robert Barton said. Barton said the primary reason for the decision was not the seriousness of the crime but Menendez's behavior in prison. The repeated use of a cellphone was selfish and a sign of Menendez believing that rules dont apply to him, Barton said to Menendez, who was clearly visibly hurt by the decision but listened intently. Contrary to your supporters' beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner and frankly we find that a little disturbing, Barton said, questioning if that meant Menendez was not entirely honest with family members about his behavior. The parole hearings marked the closest they have come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion. While defense attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers sought a multimillion-dollar inheritance. A judge reduced their sentences in May, and they became immediately eligible for parole. Erik Menendez made his case to two parole commissioners, offering his most detailed account in years of how he was raised, why he made the choices he did, and how he transformed in prison. He noted the hearing fell almost exactly 36 years after he killed his parents on Aug. 20, 1989. Today is August 21st. Today is the day that all of my victims learned my parents were dead. So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey," he said, referring to his family members. The state corrections department chose a single reporter to watch the videoconference and share details with the rest of the press. Erik Menendez's prison record Menendez, gray-haired and spectacled, sat in front of a computer screen wearing a blue T-shirt over a white long-sleeve shirt in a photo shared by officials. The panel of commissioners scrutinized every rules violation and fight on his lengthy prison record, including allegations that he worked with a prison gang, bought drugs, used cellphones and helped with a tax scam. He told commissioners that since he had no hope of ever getting out then, he prioritized protecting himself over following the rules. Then last fall, LA prosecutors asked a judge to resentence him and his brother opening the door to parole. In November of 2024, now the consequences mattered," Menendez said. "Now the consequences meant I was destroying my life. A particular sticking point for the commissioners was his use of cellphones. What I got in terms of the phone and my connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone," Menendez said. The board also brought up his earliest encounters with the law, when he committed two burglaries in high school. I was not raised with a moral foundation, he said. I was raised to lie, to cheat, to steal in the sense, an abstract way. The panel asked about details like why he used a fake ID to purchase the guns he and Lyle Menendez used to kill their parents, who acted first and why they killed their mother if their father was the main abuser. Barton asked: You do see that there were other choices at that point? When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable," Menendez said. "Running away meant death. His transformation behind bars Erik Menendez's parole attorney, Heidi Rummel, emphasized 2013 as the turning point for her client. He found his faith. He became accountable to his higher power. He found sobriety and made a promise to his mother on her birthday, Rummel said. Has he been perfect since 2013? No. But he has been remarkable." Commissioner Rachel Stern also applauded him for starting a group to take care of older and disabled inmates. Since the brothers reunited, they have been serious accountability partners" for each other. At the same time, he said he's become better at setting boundaries with Lyle Menendez, and they tend to do different programming. More than a dozen of their relatives delivered emotional statements at Thursdays hearing via videoconference. Seeing my crimes through my familys eyes has been a huge part of my evolution and my growth, Menendez said. Just seeing the pain and the suffering. Understanding the magnitude of what Ive done, the generational impact. His aunt Teresita Menendez-Baralt, who is Jose Menendezs sister, said she has fully forgiven him. She noted that she is dying from Stage 4 cancer and wishes to welcome him into her home. Erik carries himself with kindness, integrity and strength that comes from patience and grace," she said. One relative promised to the parole board that she would house him in Colorado, where he can spend time with his family and enjoying nature. The board brushed off prosecutor's questions LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said ahead of the parole hearings that he opposes parole for the brothers because of their lack of insight, comparing them to Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom denied him parole in January 2022 because of his deficient insight. During the hearing, LA prosecutor Habib Balian asked Menendez about his and his brothers' attempts to ask witnesses to lie in court on their behalf, and if the brothers staged the killings as a mafia hit. Commissioners largely dismissed the questions, saying they were not retrying the case. In closing statements, Balian questioned whether Menendez was truly reformed or saying what commissioners wanted to hear. When one continues to diminish their responsibility for a crime and continues to make the same false excuses that theyve made for 30-plus years, one is still that same dangerous person that they were when they shotgunned their parents, Balian said. What happens next Lyle Menendez is set to appear by videoconference Friday for his parole hearing. The brothers still have a pending habeas corpus petition filed in May 2023 seeking a review of their convictions based on new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father. The case has captured the attention of true crime enthusiasts for decades and spawned documentaries, television specials and dramatizations. The Netflix drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story " and a documentary released in 2024 have been credited for bringing new attention to the brothers. Greater recognition of the brothers as victims of sexual abuse has also helped mobilize support for their release. Some supporters have flown to Los Angeles to hold rallies and attend court hearings. (Reuters) -Google has struck a six-year cloud computing deal with Meta Platforms worth more than $10 billion, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, the search giant's second big agreement recently after one with OpenAI. Under the agreement, Meta will use Google Cloud's servers, storage, networking and other services, the source, who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential, said. Google and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The deal was first reported by the Information. The news comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's comments in July that the company would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers. The company raised the bottom end of its annual capital expenditures forecast by $2 billion, to a range of $66 billion to $72 billion last month. Meta is seeking outside partners to help it fund the massive infrastructure needed to power AI by offloading $2 billion in data center assets, the company disclosed in a filing earlier this month. In June, Reuters reported that OpenAI was planning to add Alphabet's Google Cloud service to meet its growing needs for computing capacity, a surprising collaboration between two prominent competitors in the artificial intelligence sector. Amid this flurry of deals, Google parent's cloud-computing unit delivered an almost 32% jump in second-quarter revenue in July, which surpassed expectations. (Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in San Francisco and Angela Christy in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Yazhini MV and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; editing by Alan Barona) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to members of the media following a meeting with US House Speaker Mike Johnson at the US Capitol on Tuesday, July 8, 2025. - Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered negotiations for the release of all hostages and an end to the war in Gaza on terms acceptable to Israel. The Israel military still intends to advance plans to take control of Gaza City, Netanyahu said. The Israeli leaders remarks came in a video recorded on Thursday, ahead of a high-level security meeting Netanyahu convened with defense chiefs and cabinet ministers focused on approving the operational plans to take Gaza City and decisively defeat Hamas. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Israeli military is already on the outskirts of Gaza City, and local residents told CNN on Friday that the city was under under shelling all night. Multiple casualties have been reported, including several children killed in a strike on a school. Netanyahu stressed that Israel is now at a critical juncture. We are at the decisive stage, he said, underlining that defeating Hamas and securing the release of all hostages go hand in hand. This is the first time Netanyahu has publicly addressed the Gaza war ceasefire talks since Hamas responded positively earlier this week to the latest proposal put forth by mediators from Qatar and Egypt. Still, the Israeli prime minister did not say to whom he had given the order to start immediate negotiations and avoided referring to the current proposal framework, which begins with a 60-day ceasefire during which half of the remaining Israeli hostages are to be released. Israeli officials believe that 50 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are thought to be alive. In his recent public statements and official briefings, Netanyahu has emphasized that Israel is seeking a comprehensive agreement that would secure the release of all hostages and meet Israels conditions for ending the war. He continues to push forward plans for a massive assault on Gaza City, and on Wednesday instructed the military to shorten the timeline of the operation despite concern from residents of Gaza City, who have described Israels plans as the beginning of a new war. The humanitarian situation in the city the largest in northern Gaza is already dire. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed program, said on Friday that famine has been confirmed in the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City. Meanwhile, deadly strikes continue on daily basis. At least 18 Palestinians, including several children, have been killed in a series of Israeli strikes against a school in the city on Friday morning, according to Fares Afana, who heads the emergency services in northern Gaza. He told CNN that the Omar Ibn Al-Aas school, which has been used as a shelter for displaced people, was targeted by artillery fire. The school yard was packed with tents and residents, many of which are women and children, Afana told CNN. Israel has called up tens of thousands of reservists to take part in the impending military operation. We are at the stage of decision, Netanyahu said in a video address. Today I came to the Gaza Division to approve the plans that the (Israel Defense Forces) presented to me and to the minister of defense for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas. At the same time, Netanyahu refrained from making any official reference to the mediators proposal, leaving open the possibility of a partial agreement. Two Israeli sources say that Netanyahu is managing the developments under tight secrecy and confidentiality. CNNs Ibrahim Dahman and Kareem Khadder contributed reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com By Alasdair Pal SYDNEY -Australias decision to recognise a Palestinian state came after the government sensed a major shift in the domestic mood over the war in Gaza, and showed that Canberra was unafraid of upsetting Israel, historically one of its staunchest allies. The August 11 announcement came days after tens of thousands of people marched across Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge, calling for peace and aid deliveries to Gaza, where Israel began an offensive nearly two years ago after the Hamas militant group launched a deadly cross-border attack. Health authorities in Gaza say at least 60,000 Palestinians have been killed while the U.N. has warned of starvation. It just became politically unpalatable to be continuing to defend Israel and lay all the blame at the feet of Hamas, said Martin Kear, an academic at Sydney University specialising in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The decision has strained relations between Israel and Australia to a degree not seen in decades. Senior politicians in both countries have traded barbs - with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launching personal attacks on Albanese - the visas of Australian diplomats working in the West Bank have been revoked and an Israeli lawmaker was barred from entering Australia. A leading Jewish group in Australia has called for calm, while offering a rare rebuke of Netanyahu. Some Jews in Australia say the tension makes them feel unsafe, after a spate of antisemitic attacks in the country over the last year. Opinion polling in Australia about the Gaza conflict a divisive issue in a country with large Muslim and Jewish minorities now indicates increasing sympathy towards the Palestinian cause. August polling by DemosAU showed 45% supported Australia recognising a Palestinian state before a negotiated peace deal, with 23% opposed. Support was up from 35% a year previously. Public sympathy for Israel in Australia began to "rapidly erode once the apocalyptic spectre of famine rode into Gaza", the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the country's leading newspapers, said in an editorial this month. The images from Gaza have also hardened the resolve of lawmakers, said Charles Miller, a lecturer in international relations at the Australian National University. I think they have changed an awful lot of minds amongst policymakers in Australia, as they have in other countries, he said. JEWISH UNEASE The political fallout has alarmed the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group organisation for more than 200 Jewish organisations, that sent letters to Albanese and Netanyahu on Wednesday, urging them to deescalate tensions. If things need to be said publicly, they should be said using measured and seemly language befitting national leaders, the letters read. Australia has been grappling with antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war, and some Jews worry heightened tensions between Australia and Israel could fuel more attacks. "When the temperature of the political discourse in the media is so focused on criticising Israel, there will be ramifications for the local Jewish community, and that's something that we need to reflect on," said Eli Feldman, the rabbi at Newtown Synagogue in Sydney, which was defaced with antisemitic graffiti in January. HISTORIC ALLY Australia was an early supporter of the creation of a Jewish state, and has long advocated for Israel in international disputes, though both main political parties back a two-state solution in principle. While Albanese had personally long supported a Palestinian state until now his political pragmatism had made him wary of backing official recognition. That changed with the shift in the public mood while his landslide victory in May's general election reduced the risk of domestic pushback, said Jessica Genauer, an academic at Flinders University specialising in international conflict. Key allies, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, all said they would recognise a Palestinian state in the weeks before Australia, which also made Albanese's job easier, analysts said. They don't want to lead on carving new pathways in terms of their policies on this, but on the other hand, they don't want to be left behind by key allies around the world, Genauer said. Albanese is still a pragmatic and cautious person by nature. Netanyahu has repeatedly attacked Albanese in a series of interviews and social media posts since August 11, calling the Australia leader weak and accusing him of betraying Israel. While Albanese has played down the feud, Netanyahu shows no sign of backing down. He kept up the rhetoric with an interview with Sky News Australia that aired late on Thursday. "I'm sure he has a reputable record as a public servant, but I think his record is forever tarnished by the weakness that he showed in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters," he said. (Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Additional reporting by Jill Gralow in Sydney; Editing by Kate Mayberry) By Stefanno Sulaiman and Ananda Teresia JAKARTA (Reuters) -Thousands of Indonesians have taken to the streets this month to vent against higher taxes, and local leaders warn public outrage will only worsen if President Prabowo Subianto's new proposal to slash regional funding comes to pass. Prabowo last week proposed to parliament that regional funding be cut by a quarter to 650 trillion rupiah ($40 billion) in 2026 - part of his efforts to re-centralise government finances and fund signature ambitious policy programmes like his promise of free school lunches nationwide. The planned cuts are sure to inflame the debate over Prabowo's spending priorities. The government argues the programmes will bring economic growth and prosperity over the long term, but critics counter his priorities are too costly and endanger democracy by taking away autonomy from regional areas. Local leaders say the proposed cuts, which would result in the smallest regional budget in a decade, will just lead to more jumps in local taxes. They add that they have had no choice but to hike taxes due to the previous administration's efforts to rein in local control over natural resources, and a 6% cut to 2025 regional funding compared to initial budget plans. Already in some towns, anger has hit a boiling point. In Pati in Central Java last week, police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse thousands of protesters who hurled rocks into a government office and set ablaze a police car amid an outcry over a 250% land tax hike. Another town in the Sulawesi islands, Bone, also saw hundreds demonstrate against a planned 65% increase in local land and property taxes. "This is a matter of fairness. The source of people's unrest is economic issues, when distribution is unfair and economic development is not inclusive, is uneven and does not trickle down," said Bursah Zarnubi, chairman of Indonesia's association of district leaders. Local leaders are seeking to meet with Prabowo by the end of the month, he said. Masinton Pasaribu, head of Sumatra island's Central Tapanuli district, said that the cuts threatened many planned projects and "the people will certainly be angry." Bursah also noted his district of Lahat in South Sumatra province is dependent upon the central government for 90% of its budget. The proposed cuts could put a water irrigation project worth trillions of rupiah, as well as services such as healthcare and education, at risk, he said. Representatives for the Ministry of Home Affairs, the finance ministry and the president did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment about local leaders' concerns. Asked about planned cuts last week, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the public would benefit at the regional level from central government initiatives, including the free meals and infrastructure projects. DECENTRALISATION IN DANGER Prabowo is seeking to spur economic growth of 8% during his term and recent economic data has been solid, with Southeast Asia's biggest economy expanding at a better-than-expected 5.1% in the second quarter, the fastest pace in two years. The rupiah has stabilised after hitting a nearly three-decade low in March, and foreign investment is also rising, with total investments growing 2.6% year-on-year in the first six months of 2025. That said, analysts worry that Prabowo is robbing Peter to pay Paul with the regional funding cuts. The budget for the programme to give free meals to 83 million school children and pregnant women - or a quarter of the population - is set to nearly double to 335 trillion rupiah ($20.5 billion). Cases of food poisoning and kitchens not being paid have also resulted in much public ire. Some critics are also worried about the implications of the regional funding cuts for democracy in Indonesia. Decentralisation and regional autonomy were two key pillars of reforms in the wake of the 1966-1998 New Order era of the late autocrat Suharto, whom Prabowo served under as a top military commander. Though local leaders have often been criticised for failing to use funds promptly for development projects, decentralisation was lauded as a crucial way to ensure equitable development across a vast, resource-rich archipelago. That is now in danger, said Regional Autonomy Watch executive director Armand Suparman. "Re-centralisation means regional autonomy as a reform agenda disappears," he said. "Democracy doesn't just mean elections, but also public access to budget planning and policy." ($1 = 16,345.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman and Ananda Teresia; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty and Edwina Gibbs) Paul Gamboa-Taylor PA Department of Corrections A York County man who slaughtered his wife, mother-in-law, and three young children inside their West Princess Street apartment more than three decades ago will remain on death row after losing another federal appeal, the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office announced on Tuesday, Aug. 19. Paul Gamboa-Taylor, now 65, killed his family with a hammer and knife at 667 West Princess Street in 1991. The victims were identified as his wife, Valerie L. Gamboa-Taylor, 23; her mother, Donna M. Barshinger, 42; her children, Paul E., 4, and Jasmine E., 2; and her brother, Lance T. Barshinger, 2. Gamboa-Taylor, the father of two of the children, was charged with five counts of homicide. Authorities said he tried and failed to kill himself after the murders. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling refusing to reopen his case. Gamboa-Taylor had pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to one life term and four death sentences. These were truly wicked acts committed by a defendant who continues to attempt to avoid responsibility for savagely murdering his family, including three defenseless young children, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a release. Although he has tried time and time again, the appellate process has borne out that this conviction was wholly just, and he is exactly where he should be in prison. Defense counsel argued that new evidence concerning his mental health should have been considered, but prosecutors said the claims were an improper attempt to bypass rules preventing new evidence not raised in state courts. The appeals court found the motion meritless. Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos led the states response in the case analysis Worldwide, an estimated 440 million people were exposed to a wildfire encroaching on their home at some point between 2002 and 2021, new research shows. That's roughly equivalent to the entire population of the European Union, and the number has been steadily rising - up 40% over those two decades. With intense, destructive fires often in the news, it can seem like more land is burning. And in parts of the world, including western North America, it is. Globally, however, our team of fire researchers also found that the total area burned actually declined by 26% over those two decades. How is that possible? We found the driving reasons for those changes in Africa, which has the vast majority of all land burned, but the total burned area there has been falling. Agricultural activities in Africa are increasingly fragmenting wildland areas that are prone to burning. A cultivated farm field and roads can help stop a fire's spread. But more farms and development in wildland areas also means more people can be exposed to wildfires. Drawing on our expertise in climate and wildfire sciences and geospatial modeling, we analyzed global wildfire activity over the past two decades. The results highlight some common misperceptions and show how the fire risk to humans is changing. Global burned area down, intense fires up Wildfire is a natural process that has existed for as long as vegetation has covered the Earth. Occasional fires in a forest are healthy. They clear out dead wood and leaf and branch litter, leaving less fuel for future fires to burn. That helps to keep wildfires from becoming too intense. However, intense fires can also pose serious threats to human lives, infrastructure and economies, particularly as more people move into fire-prone areas. North and South America have both experienced a rise in intense wildfires over the past two decades. Some notable examples include the 2018 Camp Fire in California and the 2023 record-breaking Canadian wildfires, which generated widespread smoke that blanketed large parts of Canada and the eastern United States, and even reached Europe. The increase in intense wildfires aligns with the intensification of fire weather around the world. Heat, low humidity and strong winds can make wildfires more likely to spread and harder to control. The number of days conducive to extreme fire behavior and new fire ignitions has increased by more than 50% over the past four decades globally, elevating the odds that the amount of land burned in a particular region sets a new record. But fire weather is not the only influence on wildfire risk. The amount of dry vegetation, and whether it's in a continuous stretch or broken up, influences fire risk. So do ignition sources, such as vehicles and power lines in wildland areas. Human activities can start fires and fuel climate change, which further dries out the land, amplifying wildfire activity. Fire suppression practices that don't allow low-intensity fires to burn can lead to the accumulation of flammable vegetation, raising the risk of intense fires. North America is a fraction of total burned area In recent years, a growing number of wildfire disasters in North America, Europe and Australia have captured global attention. From the deadly 2025 Los Angeles fires to the devastating 2019-2020 Australian bushfires and the 2018 wildfire in Athens, Greece, flames have increasingly encroached upon human settlements, claiming lives and livelihoods. However, wildfire exposure isn't limited to these high-profile regions - we simply hear more about them. The United States, Europe and Australia collectively account for less than 2.5% of global human exposure to wildfire. Human exposure to fire occurs when people's homes fall directly within the area burned by a wildfire. In stark contrast, Africa alone accounts for approximately 85% of all wildfire exposures and 65% of the global burned area. Remarkably, just five central African countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola - experience half of all global human exposure to wildfires, even though they account for less than 3% of the global population. These countries receive sufficient moisture to support plant growth, yet they are dry enough that trees and plants burn in frequent fires that in some places occur multiple times per year. Regional trends and drivers of wildfire We found that wildfire exposure increased across all continents except Europe and Oceania, but the underlying drivers of the increase varied by region. In Africa, agricultural expansion has led to more people living in fire-prone areas. In North America, particularly the United States, intensifying fire weather - the hot, dry, windy conditions conducive to spreading fires - has led to increasingly uncontrollable wildfires that threaten human settlements. In South America, a combination of rising drought frequency and severity, intensifying heat waves and agricultural expansion has amplified wildfire intensity and increased the population in fire-prone regions. In Asia, growing populations in fire-prone areas, combined with more days of fire-friendly weather, led to increased human exposure to wildfires. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Africa Environment Climate By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. In contrast, Europe and Oceania have seen declining wildfire exposures, largely due to more people moving to cities and fewer living in rural, fire-prone zones. What to do about it Communities can take steps to prevent destructive wildfires from spreading. For example, vegetation management, such as prescribed fires, can avoid fueling intense fires. Public education, policy enforcement and engineering solutions - such as vegetation reduction and clearance along roads and power lines - can help reduce human-caused ignitions. As climate change intensifies fire weather and people continue to move into fire-prone zones, proactive mitigation will be increasingly critical. Mojtaba Sadegh, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering; Senior Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Boise State University John Abatzoglou, Professor of Engineering, University of California, Merced Seyd Teymoor Seydi, Researcher in Remote Sensing, Boise State University By Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump hosts South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Washington for their first summit meeting on Monday, after the countries struck a trade deal last month lowering U.S. tariffs on the Asian ally to 15% from a threatened 25%. Alongside trade, U.S. pressure to redefine the decades-long military alliance is set to be a focus, while Trump has said more South Korean investment plans will be announced in addition to a $350 billion package agreed last month. Here are some of the main items that could be discussed. DEFENCE COSTS Trump has accused its Asian ally of "free-riding" on U.S. military might, with some 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea to deter nuclear-armed North Korea. Just before Trump won the presidential election in November last year, Seoul agreed to increase its contribution by 8.3% to 1.52 trillion won ($1.09 billion) for the first year in 2026, under a five-year plan. Washington also wants its allies to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP. South Korea is currently well short of that after allocating 61.25 trillion won, or 2.3% of GDP, this year. 'MODERNISING' ALLIANCE, CHINA DETERRENCE South Korea's presidential security adviser Wi Sung-lac said "modernising" its alliance with the U.S., including by Seoul increasing defence spending, and "cementing" a trade deal reached in July would be among the main agenda items. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby called South Korea a "role model" in taking a greater role in deterring North Korea, but also called for modernising the alliance. Experts say the summit may include discussions on the idea of adjusting the role of U.S. troops from a focus on countering North Korea to also managing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and deterring China. This could be sensitive for Seoul given how President Lee has, alongside declaring full support for the U.S. alliance, sought to take a balanced approach to ties with Beijing. Experts also warn giving U.S. forces multiple missions could impede their primary focus of deterring and defeating a North Korean attack. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun has denied Seoul was in talks with Washington over whether to allow U.S. forces to be redeployed in the event of a Taiwan Strait emergency. NORTH KOREA South Korea and the United States are on the same page when it comes to the approach of seeking to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, top security adviser Wi said. Lee has sought to reduce tensions with Pyongyang since taking office in June, while Trump still boasts of his historic summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term. Lee and Trump have expressed a willingness to restart dialogue with Kim and they may deliver a joint message to North Korea, said Sydney Seiler, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But North Korea has so far dismissed Lee's peace overtures, including dismantling loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border. SHIPBUILDING During his U.S. trip, Lee will visit the Pennsylvania-based Philly Shipyard, acquired by South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean and its parent group. Officials in Seoul touted shipbuilding cooperation to help the U.S. industry as instrumental in reaching a trade deal. South Korea has agreed to invest $150 billion out of the overall investment package on U.S. shipbuilding cooperation and more details may be announced during the summit. NUCLEAR POWER Foreign Minister Cho told parliament that South Korea could try to win approval from Washington to reprocess or enrich its own nuclear material during the summit, saying this is not for nuclear armament, but for industrial and environmental purposes. South Korea is not allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel - which can be used to make nuclear weapons - without U.S. consent under an agreement between the countries. While President Lee has rejected the idea of nuclear armament, his intelligence agency chief this year called for Seoul to secure the right to enrich uranium to demonstrate its "potential nuclear capabilities." Wi said South Korea was in talks about cooperating on nuclear power projects in the United States. CORPORATE INVESTMENT South Korea said the leaders will discuss cooperation in sectors such as chips, batteries, shipbuilding, as well as "economic security" in areas such as cutting-edge technologies and key minerals. Presidential adviser Kim Yong-beom said investments announced during the summit should include already announced projects such as Samsung Electronics' new chip factory in Texas and Hyundai Motor's car factory in Georgia, as well as Hanwha's plan to expand its U.S. shipyard. A South Korean newspaper reported Seoul would offer $150 billion of additional investment, or about six times its U.S. foreign direct investment in 2024, according to government data. South Korea's industry minister said it had not been decided. The leaders may also discuss the timeframe to cut U.S. tariffs on South Korean car imports from 25% to 15% as agreed under the trade deal. The countries have appeared to have a different interpretation of details of the $350 billion investment fund, while Seoul denied U.S. assertions that it had agreed to open up its rice market. ($1 = 1,399.6000 won) (Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Jihoon Lee and Ju-min Park;Editing by Ed Davies and Helen Popper) By Akhtar Soomro and Asif Shahzad QADIR NAGAR, Pakistan (Reuters) -Two days before his wedding, Noor Muhammad had a long phone call with his mother, just hours before devastating floods in Pakistan killed her along with 23 family members and relatives. "I cannot explain how happy she was," he said standing by the rubble of his family's large 36-room house, perched on the bank of a flood water channel in Qadir Nagar village. The village in mountainous Buner district has been the worst hit by recent massive rain in the country, accounting for over 200 deaths out of nearly 400 in floods in the northwest since August 15. Buner is a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the capital Islamabad. "Everything was finished," sobbed Muhammad, 25, as mourners sat at his damaged house to offer condolences, saying there was nothing left when he got home except for rubble and heavy rocks, which swept down from the mountains along with mud and raging flood waters, smashing into houses, markets and buildings. "The flood came, a huge flood came, it swept away everything, home, mother, sister, brother, my uncle, my grandfather and children." Muhammad works as a labourer in Malaysia. He arrived at the Islamabad airport on August 15 to drive home where his wedding preparations were in full swing for two days later. Instead, he attended 24 funerals. They included his mother, a brother and a sister, he said, adding that his father and another brother survived because they had gone to pick him up at the airport. The rest of the fatalities were among his uncles' families who shared the house built by his grandfather, and relatives who are attending his marriage. His fiance survived. Her home was away from the worst of the damage. DEVASTATING FLASH FLOODS The flash floods triggered by the worst of this year's monsoon and cloudbursts, which started in the mountainous northwest have spread to other parts of the country of 240 million, bringing death and destruction at a large scale. Authorities have said the longer spell of heavy rain and rare cloudbursts were rooted in climate change due to global warming, fearing the intensity will increase in the coming years. "We and our elders have never seen a storm like this in our lives," said Muhammad Zeb, 28, a resident in Buner. It was a complete chaos, and massive disaster, he added. "You can see for yourself, this was a beautiful place with homes. But now, as you can see, the flood and storm have swept everything away." An unknown number of people remain missing, with dead bodies still being recovered, officials said. The overall death toll across the country in the monsoon rains which began in late June stood at 776, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, which said more than 25,000 people had been rescued in the northwest. The army and air force have joined the rescue and relief efforts. Officials have warned of more storms ahead with another two spells of monsoon rain expected until September 10. Buner received more than 150 mm (5.91 inches)of rain within an hour triggered by a cloudburst in the single most destructive event in this monsoon season. A cloudburst is a rare phenomenon where more than 100mm (3.9 inches) of rainfall within an hour in a small area. Only four people of the 28 in his house survived, Muhammad said. "What else can we say? It's God's will," he said. (Reporting by Akhtar Soomro in Qadir Nagar, Buner and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Kim Coghill) Ukraine's leader said he was not afraid of any meetings, unlike Russia [EPA/Shutterstock] Ukraine's President Volodymr Zelensky has accused Russia of "doing everything it can" to prevent a meeting with Vladimir Putin to try to end the war. US President Donald Trump has sought to bring the two leaders together, but he said on Friday "that's like oil and vinegar... they don't get along too well". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin was ready to meet Ukraine's leader "when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all", accusing Zelensky of saying "no to everything". After an intensive week of diplomacy, in which Trump first met Putin in Alaska and then Zelensky with European leaders in Washington, the US president said the war was turning out to be the most difficult he had tried to stop. Trump said after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that he had begun arrangements for a Putin-Zelensky summit that he would join afterwards. Ukraine's president has backed the move, but he has sought security guarantees from Western allies to prevent any future Russian attack in the event of a peace deal: "Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not afraid of any meetings between leaders." On a visit to Kyiv, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said Trump was aiming to "break the deadlock" and the alliance was working on robust security guarantees with the US and Europe to ensure Putin "will never ever try to attack Ukraine again". Speaking alongside Rutte, Zelensky said he wanted Ukraine's security guarantees to reflect Nato's Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance an attack against all Nato members. "This is the beginning of a big undertaking, and it is not easy, because guarantees consist of what our partners can give Ukraine, as well as what the Ukrainian army should be like, and where we can find opportunities for the army to maintain its strength," Zelensky said. Rutte said the alliance was working with Ukraine to define the guarantees, explaining that they would focus on making Ukraine's military as strong as possible and involve Western security commitments. It was "too early to exactly say what will be the outcome", he added. Security guarantees have been agreed in the past, but not respected. The Nato secretary general insisted lessons had been learned from previous agreements such as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in return for "assurances" from Russia, the US and the UK about its future security. Asked by the BBC what he would say to Ukrainians who have little faith anything will come from these latest diplomatic efforts, Zelensky said: "Maybe I'm showboating, but Washington felt like a success. "Why? Because yes, Ukraine needs security guarantees. But without the US, Europe will not give us everything it can. "I don't know how this will end but this is much better than it was a week or two ago. "We saw unity in Washington. It's still political, but it's just the first step of everyone working on security guarantees." Russia's foreign minister appeared to dent hopes of any potential summit, telling NBC News that "there is no meeting planned". Sergei Lavrov said Russia had agreed to show flexibility on a number of issues raised by Trump at the US-Russia summit in Alaska last week. He went on to accuse Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in subsequent talks in Washington, blaming Ukraine for hindering progress toward a peace deal. Lavrov said it was "very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted". He said this included no Nato membership for Ukraine and discussions of territorial issues: "Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov said. He was speaking after EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told the BBC that Putin was seeking territorial concessions from Ukraine that were a "trap that Putin wants us to walk into". "We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here," Kallas said. Later on Friday, Putin said there was "light at the end of the tunnel" for Russia-US relations, referring to last week's meeting with Trump in Alaska which he referred to as "very good, meaningful and frank". The Russian leader said Trump's "leadership qualities" would help restore relations from recent lows. He did not mention Ukraine or a meeting with Zelensky. Despite latest efforts to broker a peace deal, Russia launched one of its heaviest attacks on Ukraine in weeks on Thursday, launching 574 drone and 40 missiles in one night. A Ukrainian commander shared footage of the attack on a Russian oil pumping station [Telegram/Madyar] Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone blew up an oil pumping station in the Russian region of Bryansk, halting oil deliveries along the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia - the third attack on the pipeline in nine days. Hungary and Slovakia are largely dependent on the Druzbha pipeline for their oil supplies, and Budapest says it could take at least five days before operations resume. The two EU member states have complained to the European Commission. The European Union sought to cut Russia's energy supplies after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and aims to phase out Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote to President Trump to complain about the attack on the pipeline, and his officials posted Trump's handwritten response. "Viktor - I do not like hearing this - I am very angry about it," he wrote. "Tell Slovakia. You are my great friend." By Uditha Jayasinghe COLOMBO (Reuters) -Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who led the country during a devastating 2019-2024 economic crisis, was arrested and appeared in court on Friday over allegations he misused state funds while in office, police said. Wickremesinghe, 76, who lost power in a 2024 election, had been investigated over a visit he made to London to attend his wife's graduation ceremony, local media reported. Police confirmed his arrest for alleged misuse of public funds. "Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested and produced in court. We are awaiting the court directive to decide what further steps need to be taken," a police spokesperson said. Wickremesinghe's office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. An ally from his United National Party (UNP) proclaimed his innocence and suggested the case was politically motivated. "Ranil Wickremesinghe has never misused public funds or state funds," UNP member Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe told reporters gathered outside the court complex where the former president appeared in Colombo. "He was the person who stepped up and accepted the challenge to save this country when the economy collapsed," Warnasinghe said. "That is the person who is being treated like this today by this government." Sri Lanka's cabinet spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. POLITICAL FAMILY Wickremesinghe, a lawyer who also served as Sri Lanka's prime minister a record six times, became president in 2022 at the height of the Indian Ocean island nation's debilitating financial crisis. Wickremesinghe, who leads the UNP, took over after widespread protests caused by an economic meltdown forced his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and later resign. He finished third in last year's presidential election - the first since the economic crisis - behind Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the vote, and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. The election was largely seen as a referendum on Wickremesinghe, who led a successful but fragile economic recovery that included painful austerity measures. Born into a prominent family of politicians and businessmen with large media interests, in 1978 Wickremesinghe was, at 29, made the country's youngest cabinet minister by his uncle, President Junius Jayewardene. In 1994, following the assassinations of several of his senior colleagues, Wickremesinghe became leader of the UNP. (Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by YP Rajesh, Joe Bavier and Helen Popper) When Icarus made his escape from the island of Crete with wings made of feathers and wax, he ignored the warning not to fly too close to the sun. Overcome by the thrill of flight, he soared too high, the heat melted the wax, and he fell into the sea and drowned. Icaruss story is a cautionary tale on the dangers of overambition. It also serves as an effective metaphor for the crossroads Greeces tourism industry finds itself at today. Tourism has long been one of Greeces economic pillars, contributing 21.7bn to the economy in 2024 alone. But after decades of growth, cracks are beginning to show. The country is grappling with overtourism, infrastructure strain, housing shortages, and the escalating impact of the climate crisis all of which threaten to upend the very charm that draws millions of visitors each year. Last summer, Greeces ombudsman issued a report calling for urgent reform to address these issues. Our countrys economy relies heavily on tourism, which makes the need to manage it in a sustainable way even more urgent, the report said. It warned that Greece must not exhaust its potential, wasting it and making our tourist destinations unattractive over time. Santorinis slowdown One of the most iconic victims of this pressure is Santorini. The Cycladic island, famous for its sunsets, whitewashed buildings, and volcanic beaches, has seen a drop in visitor numbers this summer. Airport data from January to May shows arrivals decreased by 24.4 per cent annually, according to reports a notable shift for an island that has hosted more than 5.5 million annual visitors despite having just 15,550 residents. In Santorini, even tourists complain about the great number of tourists, a 2024 report said. Cruise ship Celestyal Discovery arrives on the island of Santorini (Reuters) Cruise tourism, although recently capped at 8,000 visitors per day, has brought up to 18,000 passengers to Santorini daily during peak season, straining the islands resources. Rapid growth has led to overcrowding, congestion, and environmental damage, all of which have been noticed by prospective visitors. A widely reported swarm of 1,200 earthquakes between 25 January and 7 February this year also did little to help. Demonstrators protest against mass tourism in Barcelona, Spain, last June (AP) While the mass anti-tourist protests seen in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe have yet to erupt in Greece, frustration is mounting. In Athens, locals are increasingly concerned about the proliferation of Airbnbs and the hollowing out of community life, claiming central neighbourhoods are becoming a tourism Disneyland. Paradise Iost As visitor numbers fall in Santorini, other islands are seeing a surge, forcing local governments to effectively spin plates with tourism management not ideal for a country more famous for smashing them. Dimitri Vayanos, a professor of finance and member of Greeces influential Pissarides Committee on economic growth, is watching closely from the island of Ios, where he has been involved in local efforts to combat overdevelopment. Theres been little change since the ombudsmans report, he says. Its more of the same. Passengers off the earthquake-struck island of Santorini board a ferry bound for the Greek mainland (AP) Vayanos believes many smaller islands are now repeating the mistakes of Mykonos and Santorini: Theyre being overbuilt, with little concern for protecting their character. He adds that authenticity, agriculture and local products are at the heart of Greeces tourism product. But tourism is draining the resources that sustain them. Water shortages, exacerbated by climate change, are also a major problem. Even where water is scarce, people are building big developments with pools, he adds. Though Vayanos sees potential for growth in underdeveloped areas, he fears Greece is playing a dangerous game of tourism whack-a-mole. Where one island declines, another rises and sees similar issues. The tide turns Ferry companies are already reporting shifting travel patterns. According to Ferryhopper, routes once centred on Santorini are seeing reduced interest, replaced by island hopping between Ios, Milos and Mykonos. Rival site Ferryscanner reported a 50 per cent drop in bookings to Santorini by American tourists and a 33 per cent drop to Mykonos. A busy beach on Lefkada, Greece (Rich Booth) In contrast, it claims lesser-known destinations like Aegina and Poros have seen surges of more than fourfold. British tourists are also breaking away from traditional destinations. Lefkada, Sougia, Fournoi and Kastellorizo have all seen interest soar by more than 200 per cent, with Lefkada recording a 1,167 per cent spike in ferry bookings compared to 2024, according to the Ferryscanner data. The Greek National Tourism Organisation welcomes the shift, adding that any drop in Santorini does not reflect waning interest in Greece overall and that the country is encouraging a more diverse spread of destinations. This tourism season, Greece is experiencing an overall increase in visitor numbers compared to last year, in general and from the British market specifically, reaffirming its strong position as one of the worlds leading destinations, says Eleni Skarveli, Greeces national tourism director for the UK and Ireland. The tourism board also claim a surge in interest for smaller, lesser-known islands like Naxos, Tinos, Kythnos, Kea, Sifnos, or Kythira. Top airport arrivals from British tourists in 2024 According to the National Tourism Organisation stats Rhodes Athens Corfu Heraklion Kos Zante Chania Kefolonia Thessaloniki Santorini Skiathos Aktio/Preveza/Lefkada Mykonos Kalamata Mytilini/Lesvos Kavala Samon Lemnos The Greek government has said it is taking steps to future-proof its tourism model. Eleni reports an ambitious 322m (277m) strategy. The plan includes 160m (137m) to upgrade tourist ports and 56m (48m) for developing mountain and winter tourism, including ski resorts. Overcrowded islands On Zante, the alarm bells rang earlier this year when a report by Which? Travel, based on EU data, named the Ionian island Europes most overcrowded resort. With only 40,000 residents, it recorded six million overnight stays in 2023 150 per resident. Locals report roads, sewage systems, and other infrastructure buckling under the pressure. But Bluebell Tuck, a British expat who has lived in Zante for 30 years and owns OCallaghans Loft bar in Laganas, claims that any suggestion of overtourism hasnt caused friction with the locals: They welcome it with open arms, they know that tourism is our industry. We all know theres no way the island can survive on olive oil and farming alone. She claims Zante is set to be as busy as ever this summer, but the rise in all-inclusive hotels sees less money distributed across the islands other businesses. The famous Navagio shipwreck beach in Zante one of the most popular shores in the world (Getty/iStock) Despite the continued flow of tourists, she says that those who rely on tourism in Zante are not complacent and have seen cautionary tales from elsewhere in Greece, comparing it to Kavos in Corfu and Faliraki in Rhodes, both of which have seen a reported drop in British tourists in recent years. She says that her bars DJ has recently left Cavos after 10 years, describing it as dead. Though Tuck believes Zante still has a future thanks in part to constant reinvestment by local businesses she, like many others, is critical of a lack of government investment: Here people are building really beautiful beach bar venues, they are investing in boats for tourists to rent out, we have nice restaurants and beautiful shops. We are actually investing our money back into the island. The problem is the government doesnt. She points to issues with waste collection as an example of a lack of investment. Water scarcity is also a long-standing concern. In Zante, many businesses now rely on privately purchased water to keep running, and on nearby Lefkada, residents faced water outages for much of this summer. Wildfires and the climate crisis Earlier this summer, the Acropolis the nations ancient iconic attraction was forced to shut its gates to visitors as temperatures in Athens soared above 40C. Meanwhile, firefighters again battled devastating wildfires across Greece, with Zante burning for much of August. As the Acropolis bakes under the relentless sun, it stands as a stark reminder that even the strongest monuments are vulnerable. Greeces tourism sector, for all its might, is no different. A study by the National Observatory of Athens suggests that the country could see 15 to 20 more extreme heat days per year by 2050. Tourists AT the ancient Parthenon temple at the Acropolis Hill in June (AP) Hotels and resorts are scrambling to respond. Some are redesigning their outdoor spaces to include shaded areas, misting systems, and heat-resistant landscaping. Greek Tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni recently announced plans to promote climate-resilient tourism. The Greek National Tourism Organisation has worked hard to promote the country as a year-round destination, urging travellers to visit in spring or autumn to relieve the peak summer strain. Yet many argue these measures fall short and, without coordinated reforms, fear the country risks repeating Icaruss fatal error: Mykonos and Santorini have already been overbuilt. Its irreversible. Dimitri warns, adding that unless Greece rethinks tourism from the ground up balancing economic benefits with sustainability the country could risk losing what makes it special in the first place. By Andrea Shalal and Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he would probably expand his crime crackdown to Chicago, intervening in another city governed by Democrats, and threatened to take full control of Washington, D.C., rather than only its policing. Saying without evidence that violent crime was out of control in the nation's capital, Trump deployed D.C. National Guard soldiers and federal agents on the streets last week with a mandate to reduce crime. "It was horrible and Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won't be mayor very long, because we'll take it over with the federal government, run it like it's supposed to be run," Trump told reporters, referring to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser. Recent statistics, which Trump dismissed, show crime has declined in the U.S. capital since a 2023 peak. Washington is a unique federal enclave, established in the U.S. Constitution and falling under the jurisdiction of Congress, not belonging to any state. In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, allowing residents to elect a mayor and council members. Continuing his off-the-cuff remarks at the White House, Trump mused about extending his efforts to other cities. He has declined to explain how the federal government could intervene in local law enforcement in cities outside of the federal enclave of D.C. "Chicago is a mess," Trump said, deriding its mayor. "And we'll straighten that one out probably next." Trump said some of his supporters in Chicago have been "screaming for us to come." "I did great with the Black vote, as you know, and they want something to happen," he said. "So I think Chicago will be our next, and then we'll help with New York." As in Washington, crime, including murders, has declined in Chicago in the last year. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he took Trump's comments seriously but has not received formal communication from the administration about federal law enforcement or military deployments. The mayor said Trump's approach has been "uncoordinated, uncalled for and unsound." He added: "There are many things the federal government could do to help us reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending in the military is not one of them." New York City, also criticized by Trump, has reported a steady decline in violent crime in recent decades, and now has a relatively low murder rate among big American cities. Trump also threatened federal government intervention in San Francisco, another city governed by Democrats. While the Republican president has cast his efforts as an urgent move to help residents feel safe again, Democrats and other critics say he aims to expand the powers of the president beyond the bounds of the Constitution and assert federal control over cities run by Democratic officials. The U.S. Constitution's Tenth Amendment generally prevents the federal government from commandeering state or municipal officials and from intervening in states' legal and criminal justice systems unless citizens' constitutional rights are being violated. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Kanishka Singh in Washington; additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien and Emily Schmall; Writing by Kanishka Singh and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) By Pavel Polityuk, Anita Komuves and Vera Dvorakova KYIV/BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia could be suspended for at least five days following the latest Ukrainian strike on a facility in Russia, the Hungarian and Slovakian governments said on Friday, in a widening of the fallout of the Ukraine war. Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on each other's energy infrastructure over the past few weeks despite a push by U.S. President Donald Trump to reach a deal to end the conflict, which is now in its fourth year. The European Union reduced energy supplies from Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and is seeking to phase out Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027. EU members Slovakia and Hungary are opposed to the phase-out, saying their economies depend on the Russian supplies. The two countries have also opposed to sanctions against Russia that Ukraine says are vital to push Moscow towards a viable peace. The Hungarian and Slovak governments wrote to Europe's executive Commission on Friday saying that the latest Ukrainian attack could leave them without Russian oil imports for at least five days, urging it to guarantee the security of supplies. "The physical and geographical reality is that without this pipeline, the safe supply of our countries is simply not possible," Foreign Ministers Peter Szijjarto and Juraj Blanar said in a letter. The Ukrainian strike on Thursday night marked the second time this week that Russian oil supplies have been cut to Hungary and Slovakia, after a halt on Monday and Tuesday. Ukraine's military said late on Thursday it had again struck the Unecha oil pumping station, a critical part of Russia's Europe-bound Druzhba oil pipeline, the commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces said late on Thursday. A Russian industry source also said the supplies could be halted for a few days. The Russian energy ministry did not reply to a request for comment. Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukraine's gas infrastructure, hitting preparations for winter heating for the population and fuel for key industries in attacks it says are aimed at degrading its military. Ukraine has damaged several Russian refineries, aiming to disrupt Russian energy exports financing Russia's invasion and create fuel shortages in a number of Russian regions. GERMANY SAYS KAZAKH OIL SUPPLY UNAFFECTED The Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Belarus and Ukraine, ships oil from Kazakhstan to Germany as well as from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia. Germany said its supplies of Kazakh oil were unaffected by the latest strike. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his government learned on Thursday evening of the attack. "This is another attack against our energy security," Szijjarto wrote on Facebook. Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol confirmed the interruption in an emailed statement. Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, posted a video on Telegram messenger showing a large fire at a facility with numerous fuel tanks. Reuters could not confirm the location of the infrastructure in the video. Russian regional governor Alexander Bogomaz, whose Bryansk region borders both Ukraine and Belarus in the far west of Russia, said on Friday that an energy facility at Unecha had caught fire as a result of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, adding that the blaze has been extinguished. "As a result of repelling a combined attack carried out by HIMARS MLRS missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, a fire broke out at a fuel infrastructure facility in the Unecha district," Bogomaz said on Telegram. (Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Anita Komuves in Budapest, Vera Dvorakova in Gdansk and Riham Alkousaa in Berlin; editing by Mark Potter, David Goodman, Mark Heinrich, Philippa Fletcher) Getty/Drew Angerer Ohio voters appear to already be souring on former three-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Browns comeback bid after rejecting the ex-senator at the ballot box last November, according to recent polling. Brown, who officially entered the states 2026 Senate contest on Monday, trails incumbent Republican Ohio Sen. Jon Husted 44% to 50% among active registered voters with just 7% undecided, according to an Emerson College survey released Friday morning. Although Democrats have touted Brown as the partys best possible recruit for the race, the ex-senator faces long odds in defeating Husted and serving another term in Washington. (RELATED: Defeated Dem Ex-Senator Reportedly Decides To Mount Longshot Comeback Bid) Brown is behind in the first public poll of the two-way matchup conducted since his entry in the race despite 40% of voters saying they are neutral toward or have not heard of the incumbent senator. Just 14% of active registered voters are unsure or have never heard of Brown. In the first public poll following Sherrod Browns 2026 campaign kick-off, the former Senator trails the incumbent Jon Husted by six points, though he has a higher name recognition than the first-term Senator, Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a release accompanying the poll. Husted has a 16-point lead among male voters and voters without a college degree, and a 14-point lead among voters over 40. Brown has a 13-point lead among voters under 40, a three-point lead among women voters, and an eight-point lead among independent voters. Brown ran for reelection for a fourth Senate term in 2024 but lost to Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno by about four percentage points. President Donald Trump carried Ohio by 11 points in the same election cycle. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in January appointed Husted to succeed Vice President JD Vance in the upper chamber. Husted secured Trumps endorsement in April, putting the new senator on a glide path to seek reelection in 2026. He has a track record of winning statewide contests after serving as lieutenant governor and secretary of state. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the midterms contest as Lean Republican. US President Donald Trump signs legislation relating to household consumer energy policies, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2025. Trump was joined by US senators Jon Husted (R-OH) (L) and Ashley Moody (R-FL) (2nd L), and US representatives Craig Goldman (R-TX) (3rd R), Brian Jack (R-GA) (R), Gary Palmer (R-AL) (2nd R) and Stephanie Bice (R-OK). (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) In a potentially worrisome sign for Browns campaign, support for Trump and his deportation agenda appears to be holding strong among Ohio voters, according to the survey. Nearly 50% of Ohio voters have a favorable view of Trumps job performance while 42% disapprove. Additionally, 57% of respondents said the mass deportation of illegal immigrants in Ohio is a good thing for the state. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Senate Republicans campaign arm, touted the surveys results Friday on the social media platform X. The group is expected to aggressively defend Husteds seat, which Democrats view as a must-win contest to retake Senate control. Ohio knows @JonHusted is the real leader who will put them FIRST! the NRSC wrote on the social media platform X on Friday. The Emerson College survey of 1,000 Ohio active registered voters was conducted from Aug. 18 to Aug. 19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporters byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. In this image made from video provided by KTVX, police at the scene of a shooting in Tremonton, Ut., Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025. (KTVX via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) TREMONTON, Utah (AP) Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting two police officers in northern Utah last weekend, according to new court documents. Ryan Michael Bate faces 20 charges, including two counts of capital murder, for the deaths of Sgt. Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada. The Box Elder County Attorney's Office filed a notice to the court late Wednesday that they plan to seek the death penalty for Bate. Police say Bate, 30, killed the officers from the Tremonton-Garland Police Department with a high-powered rifle while they were responding to a domestic disturbance call at his home. Bate's wife had called 911 and hung up multiple times to get help after Bate slammed her head with a door, and grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall, according to charging documents. She later told police he had repeatedly threatened to kill her. Box Elder County sheriff's deputy Mike Allred and his police K-9 Azula, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois, arrived at the scene as backup and were injured in the shooting. Bystanders persuaded Bate to drop the gun and he was taken into custody. Bate was arrested last year on aggravated assault and domestic violence charges that were later dismissed, according to court records. He was charged late Wednesday with several counts of assault and domestic violence, in addition to the murder and attempted murder charges. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters on Thursday that he thinks it is appropriate for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case. An attorney was not listed for Bate in court documents Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a Cabinet Meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at at the White House on July 08, 2025 in Washington, DC. - Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European counterparts Thursday the US will participate in post-war security guarantees for Ukraine but that the Trump administration believes Europe should take the lead, according to a European diplomat familiar with the call. During a call with European national security advisers, Rubio, who is also President Donald Trumps acting national security adviser, did not provide details on specific security guarantees to which the US might commit, the diplomat said. But the call, which an administration official confirmed had occurred, adds momentum at a critical time when Europe is eager for continued engagement from the Trump administration, the diplomat said. As Trump has pushed for Ukraine and Russia to reach a peace agreement, negotiations among allies over how to ensure Moscow wont attack again in the future have accelerated. The US has indicated it is open to playing a limited role in providing security guarantees to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached with Russia, which could potentially see US pilots flying manned air support missions, sources familiar with discussions with allies this week told CNN. Trump has ruled out deploying US troops on the ground, but the US and its allies are combing through a range of other options, the sources said. The Europeans have told US officials that one role theyd like to see the US play is continuing to provide military intelligence and surveillance, said the European diplomat familiar with Rubios call on Thursday. The official added that the issue was raised to Trump directly on Monday, when several European leaders visited the White House, and the president appeared receptive but did not make an explicit commitment. Thursdays call included national security advisers from NATO, the European Union, France, the UK, Finland, Italy and Germany, they said. A meeting took place on Wednesday between US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, commander of US European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and defense chiefs from key European nations. A broader NATO defense chiefs meeting was also held Wednesday, led by Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone. The military meetings followed discussions at the White House on Monday between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and several other key European allies. During the meetings, Trump said the US would be involved in Ukraines security but made clear that Europe would be the first line of defense. An official familiar with Wednesdays meetings said the declaration of US involvement changed everything for the planning around Ukraines security guarantees. Military planners from the Coalition of the Willing a key group of Ukrainian allies had already been discussing security for Ukraine, but those discussions had only been able to get so far, because a big unknown to them was, what was the US position? the official said. Still, the official said allies recognize certainly that despite the US involvement, which they acknowledge is still yet to be determined in concrete terms, they have an inherent responsibility for the security of Europe. The meetings on Wednesday came in the wake of multiple significant developments in the war between Ukraine and Russia, after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week and then hosted Zelensky and several other key European leaders at the White House on Monday. The topic of security guarantees for Ukraine was at the center of the meetings on Monday, as Trump said the details would be further worked out with European leaders. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. The two leaders are meeting for peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov (L) and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also joined the meeting. - Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Sitting next to Zelensky in the Oval Office, Trump said while Europe would be the first line of defense for Ukraine, Were going to help them out also. Well be involved. And while he initially left the door open on putting US boots on the ground in Ukraine, he ruled it out the following day during a phone interview with Fox News but suggested the US might consider providing air support. Thus far, that has been the only thing definitively ruled out, the official familiar with Wednesdays meetings told CNN. The options discussed among military leaders and planners this week ranged from US air support unmanned and manned aircraft to what countries are willing to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, what NATO bases would be used, and more. A second source briefed on the meeting also said possible air support has been a primary topic, and that while there is some consternation within the Trump administration about committing US pilots to flying manned air support missions over Ukraine, there is more openness to flying unmanned air support missions. US pilots could also be called upon to conduct surveillance flights over Ukraine, providing high-resolution imagery of the front line and troop movements, as part of what would be considered an intermediate option that stops short of committing American fighter jets to fly policing missions, two of the sources familiar with ongoing discussions about security guarantees said. Ben Jensen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN that even unmanned aircraft missions would be a significant step because it could keep the question of doubt in Russias mind about how much the US will commit. But unmanned drones are too slow to conduct what are known as scramble missions, a third source familiar with the discussions noted, meaning it would likely fall to other nations to provide additional air assets if that is as far as the US is willing to go. The official familiar with the Wednesday meetings told CNN that some have incorrectly assumed that Trumps comments saying the US would not put boots on the ground in Ukraine also definitively mean there wont be US pilots flying overhead. And what I would say is, well, the president didnt say that, they said. Ukraine seeks outline of allies security guarantees in coming days Zelensky said Wednesday that Kyiv expects to have an understanding within the next two weeks of exactly what kind of security guarantees allies are prepared to provide in the event of a peace deal. Thirty countries have pledged willingness to provide security guarantees, he said, but not all of those commitments will be military aid. Some countries have committed to just financial support or imposing economic sanctions on Moscow in the event of another Russian attack, Zelensky said. We do not know how many countries are ready for boots on the ground, Zelensky told journalists at a briefing. Some may contribute boots on the ground. Some are ready to provide air defense. Some will cover the skies or conduct aerial patrols for a certain period, using the appropriate aircraft in the required numbers. Zelensky said that Trump saying the US would participate in security guarantees reassured other countries who had previously been on the fence. He pointed to Turkey as a country thats now on board to help with security on the Black Sea. Without the coordination of security guarantees for Ukraine by the United States of America, there was some uncertainty among our European colleagues, Zelensky said. Some allies have already messaged what they intend to provide. The UK, France and Germany said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they are prepared to plan an active role, including deploying a reassurance force once fighting has stopped. UK Defense Secretary John Healey said again Wednesday that the UK is ready to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. But while US officials have claimed that their Russian counterparts signaled their willingness to accept security guarantees for Ukraine during Trumps meeting with Putin in Alaska last week, Moscow has since publicly dismissed any security guarantees that Russia wouldnt also have a veto over a condition that would be unacceptable to Kyiv. Moscow wont agree with collective security guarantees negotiated without Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday, adding that Moscow would also want ally China to be part of the security agreement. I am confident that in the West first and foremost in the United States they perfectly understand that discussing the issue of security without the Russian Federation is a utopia, a road to nowhere, Lavrov added. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Mogadishu, Somalia - Somalia's former Prime Minister, Mohamed Hussein Rooble, has launched a blistering critique of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's leadership, accusing the federal government of undermining Somaliland and alienating key federal member states. In a strongly worded speech, Rooble said the administration in Mogadishu had "abandoned dialogue" with Somaliland and instead chosen confrontation. "Our brothers in Somaliland, who once raised the flag of unity, are today left without anyone to hear their grievances. Instead, they are threatened with destruction," he said, pledging his support for the self-declared republic. Rooble, who served as prime minister between 2020 and 2022, warned that Mogadishu's policies risk further fragmenting the country's fragile federal system. He accused President Hassan Sheikh of sidelining Jubbaland and Puntland while extending the mandates of leaders in Galmudug, HirShabelle and South West states in what he called "unconstitutional term extensions." During his tenure, Rooble is remembered for approving the release of more than $11 million in federal funds owed to Somaliland -- money previously withheld under Farmaajo and former PM Hassan Ali Khaire. Somaliland, like other Somali regions, technically receives federal budget allocations largely financed by international donors, but Rooble alleged that Mogadishu continues to obstruct aid flows. "On top of blocking assistance, the federal leadership spreads cheap propaganda against Somaliland," Rooble said. "To the people of Somaliland, I say: move forward, we stand with you." Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Somalia Governance Legal Affairs By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. Rooble also turned his fire on some regional leaders, accusing them of clinging to power through illegitimate extensions, which he described as "a disgrace to Somali statehood." He held President Hassan Sheikh personally responsible. "Some federal member states have been handed unlawful extensions, without constitutional process -- at both state and federal level. It is an insult to our nationhood. When we confronted President Hassan Sheikh, he told us directly that these leaders were 'legitimate' in his eyes," Rooble said. The former premier further claimed that Puntland and Jubbaland were angered by recent constitutional amendments, but Hassan Sheikh dismissed their concerns, allegedly telling mediators he had no intention of reconciling with the two administrations. Rooble concluded with an unusually personal rebuke of the president, recalling how Hassan Sheikh was once seen as a unifying elder. "We built him up as a leader, but he has become a ruthless man who betrayed the very book he swore upon," Rooble said. His remarks come amid growing political fractures across Somalia, as disputes over federalism, regional autonomy and the unresolved question of Somaliland's status continue to dominate the national agenda. Jackie Kennedys iconic pillbox hats and elegant Chanel suits are just two of the many ways she set a standard for grace. We remember her for bringing a sense of refined sophistication to the White House. But this woman also had a secret, go-to recipe that was a world away from the lavish state dinners she hosted. The Influence of Rene Verdon Image via Wikimedia Commons/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum In 1961, Jacqueline Kennedy hired French-born chef Rene Verdon as the White House Executive Chef, a position newly created to elevate the nation's culinary standards. Verdon, trained in Paris and previously associated with New York's La Caravelle, introduced a French culinary flair to American dishes. His first meal at the White House was a luncheon for British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and featured dishes like trout in Chablis and artichoke bottoms Beaucaire. This emphasis on French cuisine was part of a broader movement in the 1960s, when American dining began to embrace European culinary traditions, partly owing to the popularity of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Given her admiration of the chef, Verdons refined approach to food naturally shaped Jackie's thinking about entertaining. The Recipe Image via Getty Images/bhofack2 At a White House dinner honoring her sister and brother-in-law, Princess and Prince Radziwill, Jackie presented her secret recipe. This dish, known as Casserole Marie-Blanche, featured egg noodles, cottage cheese, sour cream, and fresh chives. Cottage cheese had gained popularity during this time as an affordable and versatile ingredient and was often used in both savory and sweet dishes. The casserole itself was simple to make. It required boiling and draining a package of egg noodles, then stirring them with a pint of cottage cheese and sour cream, plus a generous handful of chopped fresh chives. The mixture was placed in a buttered casserole dish and baked at 350F until the top turned lightly golden, usually about half an hour. Casserole Marie-Blanche shares similarities with comfort foods from various cultures. For instance, the Polish "lazy man pierogi" and the Jewish "kugel" both incorporate noodles and dairy. Jacqueline Kennedy also famously had personal culinary preferences for simplicity regarding food. Her daily meals often included straightforward dishes like toast with honey and coffee. Over the past year, the price of beef has been steadily increasing, leaving consumers in sticker shock at checkout. Ahead of Labor Day weekend, when many Americans may plan to fire up the grill for a final summer gathering with burgers or steaks, the cost of the red meat proteins may mean a menu reset for the holiday weekend. Nam Y. Huh/AP - PHOTO: A shopper compares beef prices at a grocery store in Mount Prospect, Ill., July 17, 2025. According to the latest Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, ground beef prices rose 11.5% and beef steak prices rose 12% compared to this time last year. The meats, poultry, fish, and eggs category was up 0.2% last month, according to CPI data, with a 1.5% increase in the beef and veal index specifically. Prices climbed less than expected in July, despite Trump's tariffs In June, beef prices hit a record $9.26 per pound, according to the USDA. ABCNews.com - VIDEO: Beef prices skyrocket in US Agricultural economists have pointed to several reasons for the rising costs. Dr. Michael Swanson, chief agriculture economist for the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, explained that beef -- from how it's produced, distributed, sold and consumed -- is "fragmented and complex," which makes pricing recovery slower and more unpredictable. Some of the factors he cited as potentially fueling the surge in prices included lingering droughts that shrank cattle herds and will take years to rebuild. Additionally, an influx of screwworm outbreaks in beef cattle prompted the government to halt imports from Mexico, according to the USDA. Swanson also said that misconceptions around tariffs that can get baked into overall food costs could also be at play. Brandon Bell/Getty Images - PHOTO: A cow grazes in a field on April 10, 2025 in Eden, Texas. Despite the challenges facing people who buy and consume beef, the U.S. continues to attract enough imports to stabilize its beef supply. What is a capsule pantry? How to get one started to save money on groceries For budget-conscious consumers, Swanson suggested switching to alternative beef cuts, or opting for chicken in the meantime to help keep end of summer meals affordable. As always, shoppers can check local grocery stores for sales and download supermarket apps for additional savings offers. How much can a single check really buy? A new car? Maybe a house? One faded Treasury check from 1867 purchased the vast territory we now know as Alaska. The details arent obvious at first glance, and people become confused about why money rather than military force was used in a century often marked by wars over land. To understand why, we have to look at Russias position at the time and the circumstances that led to the sale. Why Russia Was Ready To Sell Image via Wikimedia Commons/Emanuel Leutze By the mid-1800s, Russias empire stretched across Siberia and into Alaska, but the colony was more of a burden than a prize. Supplying it was expensive, permanent settlers numbered only a few hundred, and the Crimean War had left the Russian treasury strained. There was also a looming fear that Britain, with its powerful navy in the Pacific, could easily snatch Alaska in a future conflict. Selling it seemed like a way to cut losses while pocketing some cash for pressing needs at home. That idea wasnt entirely new. Russia had floated the possibility of selling Alaska as early as the 1850s, but the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War shelved negotiations. When the war ended, the plan was revived, and the Russian envoy in Washington, Baron Eduard de Stoeckl, began talks with U.S. Secretary of State William Seward. The Deal On The Table Image via Wikimedia Commons/Mathew Benjamin Brady On March 30, 1867, Seward and de Stoeckl finalized the agreement: $7.2 million for nearly 600,000 square miles of land. At the time, that broke down to about two cents an acre, which even critics admitted was a bargain on paper. Still, not everyone was impressed. Many in Congress and the press mocked the purchase, dubbing it Sewards Folly and sneering at the frozen territory as a useless wasteland. The Senate approved the treaty in April, President Andrew Johnson signed it in May, and by October, the United States formally took possession of Alaska. What remained was the matter of actually paying for it, and thats where the check came in. A Check Worth Its Weight In Gold In July 1868, the U.S. Treasury issued a check for $7.2 million made payable to de Stoeckl, who accepted it on behalf of Russia. At the time, the amount would have represented over 360,000 troy ounces of gold, or about 11 tons once converted. Russia didnt let the fortune sit idle, either. Most of it went straight into buying locomotives, wagons, and equipment for its expanding railways. The check survived and is preserved in archives as one of the more unusual artifacts of U.S. history. From Folly To Fortune Image via Wikimedia Commons/Ifly6 For years after the purchase, Alaska barely registered in national politics. The U.S. governed it through military and Treasury officials, and critics saw little value in the snowy frontier. That changed dramatically in the late 1890s, when the Klondike gold rush turned Alaska into the gateway for thousands of prospectors chasing fortunes. By the 20th century, its importance as a strategic and resource-rich region became impossible to ignore. The same land that once seemed worthless turned out to be one of the smartest bargains the U.S. ever made. By Jorge Garcia and Mike Blake LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -On the sidewalk of Wilshire Boulevard bordering MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, barber Beraldo Gabaldon cuts the hair of the homeless for free to give them a fresh outlook. Hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the 35-year-old former barbershop owner came to California to escape 15 years of drug and alcohol addiction and start a new life after getting sober in February. He has been cutting hair at the park for a month, up to four hours a day, donning customers with a Los Angeles Lakers cape, wielding a shaver, scissors and brushes to wipe away hair. Gabaldon sees this as a mission to redeem himself and give hope to others. "This is my challenge, this is what I want to fix," he said. All his customers have addiction and mental health issues, so when Gabaldon tells them his background they relate to him immediately. "You're more than a barber. You're a therapist. You can talk to your barber about anything. I can guide them to the resources I do know," he said. "These are the first people I am going to help because I was in their shoes. They are not bad people. They are humans just like us. Maybe a haircut can give them that spark to change their whole life." James, a young man with floppy hair, approached and sat down. "What are we going to do for you today, boss?" Gabaldon asked and proceeded to shave the sides of James' head, which he liked and thanked Gabaldon for. "They make it seem like these are bad people and they are not, they are definitely not," Gabaldon said. Having relapsed several times, Gabaldon aims to be a mentor so that his customers do not just end up in jail or undergo rehabilitation and are left to fend for themselves after that. Housing will help these people "find themselves again," Gabaldon said. "This time I found my purpose and why I want to recover. It's for me and my family, so they can have a dad, a brother, have me here to provide, being an amazing father to my kids." (Reporting by Jorge Garcia and Mike Blake; Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Richard Chang) WASHINGTON President Donald Trump called his former national security adviser, John Bolton, a lowlife but said he didnt know much about the FBI search of his home in suburban Maryland. Bolton, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been sharply critical of Trump since serving for him in his first term. Trump has previously canceled Boltons security clearance and security detail, despite an Iranian assassination plot. "I'm not a fan of John Bolton," Trump told reporters Aug. 22 at The Peoples House museum near the White House. "He's a real sort of a lowlife." 85775427007 Trump said he saw coverage of the FBI search on television but didnt know much about it. The Justice Department will probably brief him, he said. After Trumps meeting with Russias President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15, Bolton had told CNN that Putin "clearly won" the summit in Alaska. Bolton previously said Trump wasnt competent to serve as president. The Justice Department started a criminal investigation and filed a federal lawsuit during Trump's first term to block publication of Bolton's book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir. FBI agents speak with tenants at the entrance of John Bolton's house, the former national security advisor to Donald Trump, after conducting a court-authorized search of his residence on Aug. 22, 2025, in Bethesda, Maryland. The lawsuit filed in June 2020 alleged that Ellen Knight, the senior director for records access at the National Security Council, found significant amounts of classified information, including some classified as TOP SECRET, in the $2 million book while reviewing it for publication. But Boltons attorney, Chuck Cooper, called the lawsuit a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Bolton. A judge rejected the lawsuits request to block the book and the Justice Department dropped both the lawsuit and the criminal inquiry during the Biden administration in 2021. Trump on Aug. 22 said he hired Bolton because his aggressive reputation scared foreign governments. But Trump now says Bolton is "very bad at what he does" and "unpatriotic." "Hes a very quiet person, except on television, if he can say something bad about Trump," Trump said. "He's not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy. Were going to find out. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump calls former national security adviser John Bolton a 'lowlife' A new analysis by Nomad eSIM brings the problem of tourist traps into sharp focus. By combing through thousands of traveler reviews from around the globe, they tracked mentions of the dreaded phrase tourist trap to see which destinations disappointed the most in 2025. Despite the studys global scope, the two worst offenders in the world are surprisingly right here in the United States. What the Data Really Shows Image via iStockphoto/pius99 Nomads study reviewed attractions in 50 of the worlds most visited destinations. The research zeroed in on where travelers explicitly felt cheated or let down by filtering reviews for phrases like tourist trap and then tallying how often those words appeared. They also factored in entry costs and created a unique price of disappointment metric. While every country has its share of overhyped spots, the data revealed that the most common feelings of regret came from two American landmarks that millions of visitors flock to every year. Wall Drug in South Dakota and Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco tied for first place as the worlds most disappointing tourist attractions. Americas Twin Offenders On the surface, Wall Drug and Fishermans Wharf couldnt be more different. One is a sprawling roadside attraction in the rural Midwest, and the other is a historic waterfront in a global tech hub. Yet both embody the same problem: they pull in enormous crowds but leave behind a trail of underwhelmed visitors. Wall Drug began in 1931 as a small pharmacy luring road-trippers with the promise of free ice water, and has ballooned into a 76,000-square-foot spectacle. Today, Wall Drug is part Western museum, and part kitsch carnival. Youll find a giant jackalope, an 80-foot dinosaur, five-cent coffee, fresh donuts, an old-time photo studio, and hundreds of pieces of Western art. The site attracts around two million people annually, many of whom stop out of curiosity after seeing billboards scattered along the highways. But the charm doesn't land for everyone. Over a thousand negative reviews describe Wall Drug as overcrowded and tacky. Many visitors feel the relentless commercialism is a ploy to take advantage of them, and storeowners look for every chance to overcharge. The problems with Fishermans Wharf, on the other hand, are extensive, and visitors are quick to point them out. Thousands of online reviews mention feeling disappointed, with the most common complaints focusing on the overwhelming crowds and a lack of genuine charm. Many visitors find the food to be expensive and bland, with seafood that tastes like it came straight from a freezer. Beyond the culinary disappointments, the financial cost starts even before you enter, with parking rates climbing to $8 an hour. The crowds can be so dense that you spend more time looking at the back of a stranger's head than the famous sea lions. The Price Tag of Hype Image via Getty Images/AntonioGuillem Beyond disappointment, there's also the financial side of tourist traps. Graceland in Tennessee had entry costs up to $84. With more than 200 negative reviews, Nomad estimates over $17,000 in wasted spending. Elvis fans may still make the pilgrimage, but for many, long waits and poor organization sour the experience. The Grand Canyon Skywalk in Arizona offers tickets starting at $99 for all-access. Visitors complain that the experience doesnt live up to the price tag, and the collective disappointment is pegged at nearly $14,000. In North Carolina, the lavish Biltmore Estate charges $130 for entry, the highest single ticket price on the Nomad list. Though the propertys history is undeniable, nearly 100 reviewers dismissed it as a tourist trap, resulting in wasted spending close to $13,000. Even international icons arent immune. Jordans ancient city of Petra, with a $70 ticket, racks up nearly $7,000 in regret thanks to pushy vendors and inflated costs. The Global Pattern of Disappointment Of course, America doesnt have a monopoly on tourist traps. Around the world, the most hyped destinations often suffer from the same issues of too many people, too little authenticity, and too steep a price. In Canada, Niagara Falls perfectly captures this tension. While the sheer power of the natural wonder is breathtaking, the experience on the Canadian side is frequently overshadowed by cluttered views and a gauntlet of gimmicky attractions. The majesty of the waterfall is lost in the noise and expense of its developed surroundings. The Trevi Fountain is a dream for millions of visitors to Rome, but the reality is often less cinematic. The fountain is slammed for being more of a stressful scramble for a photo. Then there's the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the ultimate symbol of the city. It promises stunning views, but aggressive vendors and huge tour groups distract from the landmarks beauty. Rethinking How We Travel Image via Getty Images/lucadp There are a few ways to avoid falling for a tourist trap. Start by seeking advice from locals, hotel staff, or cab drivers for genuine recommendations. You can also search for candid reviews on forums or Google Maps that use keywords like "tourist trap." Also, consider traveling during the off-season to avoid crowds and experience a destination's true character. Walking a few blocks from major landmarks can also help you find more authentic and affordable food and shops. Finally, travelers should prioritize experiences over documentation. Cooking classes, neighborhood tours, or visits to smaller towns often create richer memories than standing in line for a photo. Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza Greg Bishop | The Center Square (The Center Square) Illinois taxpayers can now look at how the state spent their money in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023, but they're still waiting for the report for the fiscal year that ended over a year ago. The fiscal year 2023 annual comprehensive financial report for Illinois was released earlier this month, more than two years after the end of the spending plan. Comptroller Susana Mendoza said she is frustrated with the delay because taxpayers need to know how their money was spent. And the credit rating agencies obviously need to know that were managing money wisely, and the legislature when theyre crafting the budget should be operating off the most accurate fiscal data from the prior year, so its really just common sense, Mendoza told The Center Square. Mendoza said shes working with the auditor general and the governors office to speed up the auditing process. And I think were finally there, hopefully [for the fiscal year 2025 report], fingers crossed, well have that, she said. First year, there might be a few hiccups, but moving forward it should be smooth sailing. Truth in Accounting Founder Sheila Weinberg questioned the quicker report for fiscal 2025 while taxpayers continue to wait for fiscal 2024s report. What about the June 30th, 2024? Those are not out. Or should we expect those, you know, two years later, next year at this time, are those going to be a little bit faster? Weinberg told The Center Square. The state has not had a good history on releasing these on a timely basis, and they have reached a new high in the number of days on which I would consider a new low." Mendoza has made available an interim report for fiscal year 2024 at the comptrollers website, but is hopeful things will be quicker. So hopefully for fiscal year 25 well have a brand new system that means on time audits as it should be, Mendoza said. Weinberg said the state is notoriously late and the audit released for fiscal year 2023 had one glaring note in a qualified opinion for the agency that handles unemployment, the Illinois Department of Employment Security. They were not able to get a sufficient amount of evidence to determine whether the amounts reported were accurate or not, or whether the amounts that were paid to claimants, was accurate, or were those claimants even eligible for that money, Weinberg said. The states unrestricted net position went from a negative $205 billion to a negative $195 billion, something Weinberg said signifies the amount of debt Illinois taxpayers owe because of state spending and other financial obligations. Nevada is now the state with the latest annual financial reports, according to Truth In Accounting. NEED TO KNOW Erik Menendez was denied parole after a hearing with a California parole board on Aug. 21 Erik and his brother, Lyle Menendez, were convicted of killing their parents, Jose Menendez and Kitty Menendez In May 2025, a California judge changed their sentences and made them eligible for parole Erik Menendez was denied parole in connection with fatally shooting his parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, alongside his brother, Lyle Menendez. Erik previously became eligible for parole in May 2025 after a judge reduced both his and Lyle's sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. However, after Erik virtually appeared in the hearing on Aug. 21, a California parole board denied his release. While we respect the decision, todays outcome was of course disappointing and not what we hoped for," a spokesperson for the brothers said at the time. "But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Boards recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact hes had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon." Lyle will have his own hearing on Aug. 22. After Erik's parole was denied, their spokesperson said they "remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful" that Lyle's hearing will have a different outcome. Erik and Lyle were sentenced in 1996 for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in August 1989. After the brothers were charged with the murders, they alleged that they acted in self-defense and were trying to escape their father's years of abuse. Meanwhile, prosecutors claimed that they killed their parents to get their multimillion-dollar inheritance. Here's everything to know about why Erik Menendez was denied parole and what that means for his older brother, Lyle Menendez. What did Erik Menendez do? Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Lyle and Erik Menendez during their trial. Erik and Lyle were convicted of killing their parents at their home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Aug. 20, 1989. Although Erik and Lyle initially denied the crime and claimed that a third party had murdered their parents, they were eventually arrested after Erik confessed to the murders to his psychologist. In March 1990, Erik and Lyle were arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The brothers eventually went to trial, where their attorneys argued that they acted in self-defense after dealing with years of alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse from their father, with their mother aware of the alleged abuse. However, prosecutors argued that the abuse never occurred, and instead, they acted out of greed to inherit their father's multimillion-dollar fortune after they thought they were cut out of the will. California Department of Corrections via AP ; Kim Kulish/Sygma via Getty Erik Menendez's mugshot ; Erik Menendez during his trial in Los Angeles, California. The first trial ended in a mistrial with separate juries who couldn't reach a verdict. However, during their second trial in 1996, they were found guilty and convicted on two counts of first-degree murder. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Erik began serving his sentence at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Calif., while Lyle reunited with him at that same prison in 2018. After years of appeals and dozens of documentaries, true crime shows and podcasts and Ryan Murphy's hit Netflix adaptation Monsters, Erik and Lyle's sentences were adjusted to 50 years to life. The resentencing immediately made them both eligible for parole, since they were both under the age of 26 when they committed the crime. Why was Erik Menendez denied parole? California Department of Corrections via AP Erik Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference on August 21, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. On Aug. 21, Erik appeared via videoconference from prison to attend his parole hearing. However, after nearly 10 hours, a California board denied Erik parole with the thought that he still posed a risk to the public. During the hearing, both Erik and his loved ones spoke about his rehabilitation, while representatives from the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office advised against the early release. The board ultimately ruled against Erik and claimed that he would continue to "pose an unreasonable risk to public safety," according to CNN. The parole commissioner, Robert Barton, later explained that he ruled against Erik because of his behavior in prison and "serious violations" against prison rules including alleged violence and illicitly using a cell phone and a lighter. "I believe in redemption, or I wouldn't be doing this job," Barton told Erik, according to the BBC. "But based on the legal standards, we find that you continue to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. Contrary to your supporters' beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner and frankly, we find that a little disturbing." Erik will become eligible for parole again in three years, and Gov. Gavin Newsom can also decide to pardon the brothers. What factors did the parole board consider? MIKE NELSON/AFP via Getty Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle with their lawyer during their trial on August 12, 1991 in Beverly Hills. The California board weighed several factors before denying Erik's parole. In addition to discussing Erik's violations in prison, the board also factored in Erik's original motive to kill his parents and whether or not he could accept responsibility. Unlike past hearings and trials, Erik denied that he acted in self-defense and said that he had "no justification" for the killings, per CNN. He did, however, maintain his prior claims that they killed their parents out of fear after years of abuse by their father. During the hearing, Erik alleged that he didn't seek help from authorities over the abuse because of how "terrifying my father was." He claimed that he felt that "running away was inconceivable. Running away meant death." Meanwhile, the attorneys from the Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney's office called out Erik for "never" accepting responsibility and creating a "false self-defense narrative." Who spoke at Erik Menendezs parole hearing? Apu Gomes/Getty Karen VanderMolen, the niece of Kitty Menendez, speaks during a press conference on October 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Although Erik broke several rules during prison, he still received support from several correction staff members who wrote that he was a "model inmate." Erik's family members also got the opportunity to speak on behalf of his rehabilitation, and over a dozen relatives advocated for him at the hearing. The family members explained that they had forgiven both Erik and Lyle for their crimes and saw how the alleged abuse affected them. To say that our family has experienced pain does not quite capture what the last 35 years have been like It has divided us. It has caused us panic and anxiety. It has led to many of us retreating, Kitty's great-niece Tiffani Lucero-Pastor, said, per CNN. Kitty's niece, Karen Mae Vandermolen-Copley, added in her statement that her aunt's lack of intervention led to an "absence of protection," which "deepened their fear and confusion." After the commission denied Erik's parole, Barton explained that he was thankful for the statements, but they did not outweigh Erik's suitability. Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole, Barton said. How does Erik Menendezs parole denial affect Lyle Menendez? California Dept. of Corrections via AP Lyle Menendez's mugshot. Just one day after Erik attended his parole hearing, Lyle will also appear before a California board. After Erik was denied parole, their family spokesperson explained that they were ready to take on Lyle's case and hoped for a better outcome. "Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyles hearing," the spokesperson said. "And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home. Lyle's board hearing will be separate from his brother's, but he will also address several factors including his motive for the murders and rehabilitation behind bars. Lyle has fewer violations than his brother, but he has also lied about some aspects of the murder and his father's alleged abuse during the trials. Read the original article on People Niwunhellage Dona Nirodha Kalapni Niwunhella, also known as Nirodha, died at the scene on 21 August [Family photo] A 37-year-old man has been charged with murder after a woman was found dead in a Cardiff street. South Wales Police were called to South Morgan Place in Riverside at 07:37 BST on Thursday to reports of a seriously injured woman. Niwunhellage Dona Nirodha Kalapni Niwunhella, 32, who was known as Nirodha, died at the scene. Thisara Weragalage of Pentwyn, was arrested shortly after on Seawall Road, in Splott, and was later charged with murder. Police said he was known to Nirodha and remained in custody ahead of his scheduled appearance at Cardiff Magistrates' Court on Saturday. Paying tribute, Nirodha's family described her as a "cherished daughter, family member and dear friend to many". "Nirodha will be forever remembered with peace, love and gratitude," they said. "She touched many lives with her kindness and warmth and her memory will continue to inspire us. Though her life ended too soon, the love she shared will always remain with us." Det Ch Insp Matthew Davies, from South Wales Police, said his "heartfelt condolences" were with Nirodha's family, friends and loved ones. "I continue to urge anyone with information who is yet to speak to officers to come forward and support our investigation," he said. The force added it was looking for information regarding a grey Ford Fiesta near South Morgan Place or Seawall Road between 07:30 and 08:30. A Minnesota woman has been sentenced to prison for a 25-year-old Social Security scam, during which she posed as her dead mother, federal prosecutors said. On Thursday, Aug. 21, Mavious Redmond, 54, of Austin, Minnesota, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for pretending to be her deceased mother to claim Social Security Retirement Insurance Benefits, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota. Over the course of 25 years, officials believe Redmond fraudulently collected $360,627. "Redmonds scheme was brazen and shameless," U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said in the news release. "This wasnt free money. It was taxpayer money, stolen from a program built on the hard work of Minnesotans who paid in every paycheck." How did Mavious Redmond pose as her deceased mother? Redmond's fraud began in January 1999, following the death of her mother, the U.S. attorney's office said. According to the news release, through June 2024, Redmond used her mother's identity as her own, including her biographical information like date of birth and Social Security number on official forms. She also forged her mother's signature, and when necessary, Redmond also acted as her mother on the phone and during in-person visits to the Social Security Administration (SSA) office. Additionally, after her mother's death, Redmond contacted the SSA to ask, hypothetically, about the termination of her mother's benefits if she died, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Redmond was told she needed to notify the SSA of her mother's death so the benefits could be terminated, though Redmond never did this, the news release states. Redmond also accessed and took $3,200 of COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments that the IRS distributed to her dead mother's bank account, the U.S. attorney's office said. After her prison sentence, Redmond will be under supervised release for another year. An 'opportunity born of desperation' "She is not a hardened criminal," Robert Meyers, a Minnesota federal defender who represents Redmond, wrote in court documents. "Mavious Redmond's crime was a crime of opportunity born of desperation. This fraud was not so that she could live large." According to court documents, Redmond lived with her parents her entire life, and after her mother's death, she was left alone with no support system. She worked full-time at a Subway making $8 an hour and relied on food pantries. Redmond's "desperate circumstances" are not an excuse for her actions, Meyers wrote, but make sense considering her situation. After her fraud was uncovered, Redmond got a job at a local McDonald's, working 25 hours a week. She worked at the fast-food restaurant for eight months before her employer learned of her offense and fired her, the court documents state. In June, Redmond moved to the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, where she lives in a homeless shelter, the documents continue. She has a housing stabilization advocate and is actively applying for jobs. "All of this demonstrates Ms. Redmond's commitment to doing things the right way and turning her life around," Meyers wrote. "In sum, she is in a good position to learn from her mistakes and to get the help she needs so that she never makes those mistakes again." Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Story idea? Email her at gcross@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Woman sentenced for posing as dead mom in 25-year Social Security scam Abu Dhabi, UAE - What began as a notorious private military company accused of war crimes in Iraq has, under Emirati patronage, expanded into a sprawling global network of mercenaries shaping conflicts from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East. After the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, Blackwater rebranded several times -- Xe Services, then Academi -- but its essence remained intact: a for-profit machine of outsourced warfare. Fleeing US legal scrutiny, its founder, Erik Prince, found both refuge and a wealthy backer in Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. From the sands of Somalia to the ruins of Gaza, this partnership has built a mercenary infrastructure that analysts say blurs the line between national defence, private enterprise, and covert statecraft. Abu Dhabi's Mercenary Blueprint By 2011, Prince had quietly assembled a private army in the Emirates. Hundreds of Latin American fighters -- many from Colombia, Panama, and Chile -- were smuggled into Abu Dhabi under the guise of construction workers. Trained in Zayed Military City, their mission was to guard the monarchy, suppress dissent, and extend Emirati influence abroad. The Washington Post later revealed that by 2022, Gulf states had hired over 500 retired US military personnel, with contracts reaching $300,000 annually. For critics, this confirmed that Abu Dhabi had become the world's most active financier of mercenary warfare. Somalia: A Recruitment Hub Somalia quickly became central to this shadow empire. In 2011, Prince oversaw a UAE-funded, US-backed programme to train 2,000 Somali fighters under the pretext of combating piracy. While hijackings had gripped the Horn of Africa's shipping lanes, the initiative also secured Abu Dhabi a direct foothold in Somalia's security apparatus. Soon, Somalia's territory was being used as a logistics and transit corridor for fighters destined for Yemen, Libya, and Sudan. Somali recruits themselves were later deployed alongside Sudanese, Ugandan, and Latin American mercenaries in Yemen's war -- particularly in brutal battles along the Saudi-Yemeni border. Meanwhile, UAE-linked firms such as Lancaster 6 and Opus Capital expanded operations across East Africa, helping Abu Dhabi consolidate control over key Red Sea ports, from Eritrea to Somaliland. This gave the Emirates not only military depth but also economic leverage over regional trade routes. Sudan's War and Somali Entanglement When Sudan's conflict reignited in 2023, evidence mounted that Somali soil had again become a staging ground. Colombian outlets reported that mercenaries were flown through Somalia and Chad en route to Darfur, where they fought alongside Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) -- a militia accused of mass atrocities. These fighters were promised salaries of up to $3,000 a month and bonuses of $10,000, with access to drones and heavy weapons. The UN Security Council later confirmed that UAE-linked networks were embedded in RSF supply chains, with injured mercenaries evacuated to Emirati hospitals. In August 2025, the crash of a UAE military aircraft in Darfur exposed the extent of this involvement: 40 Colombian fighters were killed. The revelation sparked condemnation from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who denounced what he called "merchants of death." Gaza and Beyond Abu Dhabi's outsourcing model has extended far beyond Africa. Reports in 2024 indicated that Emirati-financed mercenaries were deployed to support Israel's military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Witnesses described tanks carrying both Israeli and Emirati flags, while detainees reported interrogations by soldiers speaking Arabic in a distinct Emirati dialect. Diplomats suggested these efforts formed part of "day after" planning for a depopulated Gaza. Images of UAE-plated vehicles in Rafah only deepened suspicions that Emirati-backed militias were operating on Israel's behalf. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Somalia Legal Affairs Conflict By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. The Globalisation of Outsourced Warfare Prince has since launched Vectus Global, which has already won contracts in Haiti, employing the same model tested in Somalia: foreign fighters, private air support, and drones enforcing order where state security has collapsed. What began as palace protection in Abu Dhabi has metastasised into a transnational business model. Somalia -- as both a recruitment base and a transit hub -- remains a vital link in this chain. For Mogadishu, the consequences are stark: weakened sovereignty, exploitation of its citizens, and entanglement in proxy wars financed by Gulf monarchies. Analysts warn that the UAE's reliance on hired guns erodes accountability in global conflict. While Abu Dhabi portrays its actions as stabilising, critics say it has instead normalised a system of shadow warfare -- one in which fragile states like Somalia are turned into nodes in a sprawling network of privatised violence. Today's news: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kabul calls for Taliban cooperation against Uyghur militants. Saudi Arabia carries out the death sentence against a Shia terrorist" arrested when he was 15. India bans all forms of online gambling. South Korea cracks down on real estate purchases by foreign individuals and companies in Seoul. The Catholic community in Nizhny Novgorod gets its Church back. THAILAND A Bangkok court has acquitted billionaire and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of insulting the monarchy, a crime often used in Thailand to silence political opponents. The lese-majeste charge was linked to an interview Thaksin had given ten years ago to a South Korean newspaper. Had he been convicted, he could have faced up to 15 years in prison. The verdict comes as Thaksin's daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, is still embroiled in legal proceedings that could lead to her removal from office next week after she was suspended as prime minister. Today's verdict brings some relief to the Shinawatra clan and supporters of their Pheu Thai (For Thais) party. CHINA AFGHANISTAN China has called for greater counterterrorism cooperation with Afghanistan, including joint patrols along the Wakhan Corridor, the narrow strip of land that constitutes the only shared border between the two countries. Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the statement in Kabul during a meeting with Afghan Acting Minister of Internal Affairs Sirajuddin Haqqani. Beijing has repeatedly expressed concern about the risk that Uyghur militants could cross that route from Afghanistan to Xinjiang. SAUDI ARABIA Saudi Arabia announced Thursday that it had executed a 30-year-old Shia man for crimes he was accused of when he was 15. Held in Dammam Central Prison, Jalal al-Labbad was charged in July 2019 of endangering national security, spreading terror, and supporting armed groups under the Anti-Terrorism Crimes and Financing Law. We know that these charges are not, at any level, fair, said Duaa Dhainy, Labbad's representative and researcher at the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR). Jalal was forced to sign confessions under torture. PAKISTAN Pakistan's Supreme Court has granted bail requests by former Prime Minister Imran Khan in eight cases related to the 9 May 2023 unrest, when supporters of his party, protesting his detention, staged violent demonstrations across the country, vandalising military installations and government buildings. Following the disturbances, thousands of protesters, including party leaders, were taken into custody. Appellate courts had previously denied bail to Imran Khan, who remains in Adiala Prison following his corruption conviction. INDIA The Rajya Sabha (upper house) of the Indian parliament has approved a government bill regulating online gaming. The measure seeks to ban all forms of online gambling, while promoting eSports and online social gaming. The legislation prohibits banks from transferring funds for such activities. Promoting or supporting online gambling will become punishable by up to three years in prison and/or a fine of up to 10 million rupees (US$ 115,000). SOUTH KOREA The South Korean government announced Thursday that all foreign individuals, companies, and government entities will be required to obtain local government approval before they can buy real estate in Seoul, seven districts in Incheon, and 23 cities and counties in Gyeonggi Province. The measure is aimed at curbing real estate speculation and protecting market stability. UZBEKISTAN The launch of a project to use cutting-edge drought monitoring technology through remote satellite probes was announced in Tashkent. The project, backed by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Office, has an initial funding of US$ 300,000 and will bring benefits amounting to millions of dollars, starting in Uzbekistan, and subsequently in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. RUSSIA Built in the late 19th century, the original Assumption of the Virgin Mary Church in Nizhny Novgorod, central Russias big city, has been returned to the local Catholic community, which was not allowed to reopen it in 1994. At that time, it was given a cramped space near an old stable. The church will now be available on 28 August (15 in the Julian calendar) as the "new Assumption," parish priest Father Georgy Kromkin said. Fr Romanelli says that "the entire Gaza Strip is dangerous," but Gaza City is "even more so." There are constant bombardments, but the parish has not yet received an "evacuation order." The Custody of the Holy Land and the Latin Patriarchate are with Pope Leo fasting and praying for peace. According to Israeli military sources, 83 percent of the deaths in the Palestinian enclave are civilians. Jerusalem (AsiaNews) The entire Gaza Strip is dangerous, and Gaza City is even more so, writes Fr Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest of the Latin Church of the Holy Family in Gaza, in a post on social media yesterday commenting on the evolving war between Israel and Hamas on the eve of the day of prayer for peace called for today by Pope Leo XIV. We hear constant bombardments. Some are far away, others closer. Shrapnel falls frequently," explains the Argentine priest of the Incarnate Word, with explosions in the southern area of the El Zeytoun and Shujaiah neighbourhoods, about 500 metres from the parish church. For civilians," he warns, "there are urgent needs of all kinds." Meanwhile, the Jewish state's military is pursuing Operation "Gideon's Chariots 2" for complete control of Gaza and the military defeat of Hamas, amid growing uncertainty and protests from civil society groups in Israel over the fate of the hostages. Gazas Christian community, like Christians around the world, has also responded to the invitation issued by Pope Leo XIV on 20 August during the Wednesday general audience to celebrate a day of fasting and prayer for peace. This initiative falls on the day the Church remembers Mary, Queen of Peace, invoking a prayer to the Lord to "grant us peace and justice" and dry the tears of those who suffer as a result of the ongoing armed conflicts. [W]hile our earth continues to be wounded by wars in the Holy Land, in Ukraine, and in many other regions of the world, said the pontiff, I invite all the faithful to devote the day of 22 August to fasting and prayer. May Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede so that peoples may find the path to peace. In his post, Fr Romanelli notes that the war, not only continues, but has entered a new and terrible phase," while the needs "of every kind are urgent for the civilian population. At present, there has not yet been an evacuation order" for the area where the parish is located, which still hosts hundreds of Christian refugees. People are doing well. We are trying to help the entire community, especially the 450 refugees living with us. We continue to pray for peace," especially today, coinciding with the Pope's appeal, in a situation that remains "critical. Residents are "leaving with the little they have left" from Gaza City, and they are doing so in an "orderly" manner, while "the hospital has little and is working with the little it has," while the parish continues its activities "with small music and singing groups. We do what we can," he explains, "for the sick and for the Sisters of Mother Teresa who help us. On the day of fasting and prayer, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, stressed the Christian community's "gratitude" for the Pope's "constant attention," combined with "hope" that "men's hearts can change." Speaking to Vatican media, the cardinal said that the only thing that at this moment we can do is to pray and to fast so that God may change that the hearts of men. Knowing the community, he explained, I can say that their strength comes precisely from prayer, from the strength to resist in the midst of that terrible situation. We are on the eve of we do not know whatwe do not know what will happen with this occupation that has begun, he explained. But their strength to resist, to try to help everyone despite everything, to bring food, to distribute medicine this strength comes precisely from prayer and from their being together, which only prayer can give. Peace as a long awaited and deeply desired gift is also in the mind of the Custos of the Holy Land, Brother Francesco Ielpo. In a letter, he writes that In our sanctuaries which remind us of all that Jesus said and did for our reconciliation let us pray, both personally and in fraternity, for all the victims of every war, whether near or far. Meanwhile, activists and experts are raising the alarm about a further expanding famine in Gaza next month, while aid is struggling to reach the war-torn enclave. The Integrated Food Security Classification System (IFSPC) reported that 514,000 people, nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza, are experiencing famine, a figure expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. These numbers have not induced the Israeli government to change its goal of defeat[ing] Hamas in Gaza, as Defence Minister Israel Katz stated today, confirming his approval of IDF plans for the offensive in Gaza. The gates of hell will soon open over Hamas, the minister said, if Hamas doesnt capitulate, and Gaza City will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun two cities that have been largely reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment. Recent research based on the Israeli militarys own data indicates that five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip are civilians. Fighters named in the Israeli military intelligence database accounted for just 17 per cent of the total, which means that 83 per cent of the dead were civilians. So far, the only real rapprochement, unintentionally fostered by the tycoons tariffs, is the one in the shadow of the Himalayas. But for India, the first steps suggest that it promises to be an uphill battle. New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to India and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming trip next week to China are visual signs of the rapid warming relations between New Delhi and Beijing, a rapprochement triggered by Trump's tariffs. For the Indian leader, it will be the first visit to Indias cumbersome neighbour after a seven-year hiatus, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin. The fallout from the White House's inexplicably harsh stance with 50 per cent tariffs on India, seemingly motivated by Russian oil purchases (which do not seem to be a problem when China buys it) could not have been imagined just a few weeks ago. Some are already joking that the only real "peace" Trump has achieved is in the shadow of the Himalayas, between China and India. The only people despairing at the turn of events are officials in the US State Department who had been working in recent years on closing the gap with India, with a view of providing India with alternative supply chains to Chinas. This approach is light years from the Trump administration's current tone. The tariffs came after other slaps, like visas for thousands of Indians in the United States, as part of Trumps crackdown on migrants. The US leaders unwelcome insistence on taking credit for the ceasefire that ended the border clash with Pakistan a few weeks ago does not help. Under pressure, Prime Minister Modi could only stress national pride to respond to Washington's impositions. While Putin spoke with Modi on the phone, updating him on the outcome of the Anchorage talks, Indias External Affairs Minister Jaishankar travelled to Moscow. Meanwhile, in New Delhi, the BRICS group was gaining popularity. Until recently, New Delhi had been lukewarm towards to Chinas answer to the G7, but the axis with China is not painless for India. And recent news reports seem to be bearing this out. Yesterday, The Wire, an Indian news website, listed "seven unanswered questions" about Wang Yi's visit, arguing that this sudden rapprochement is occurring under conditions dictated by Beijing. One key issue is the recognition of Taiwan as part of China, which appeared in the Chinese Foreign Ministry's press release about the meeting but not in Indias, which was then forced to quickly deny any changes in the government's official position on the matter. What is more, despite the announcement during Wang Yi's visit to India of the resumption of direct flights, cross-border trade, and pilgrimages, there was no substantial progress on the fundamental border issue in the disputed Himalayan region of Ladakh, at the centre of clashes in 2020. Now, it seems that, for New Delhi, a return to the status quo ante is no longer a precondition to improved relations, not to mention the highly sensitive issue of Chinas military support for Pakistan, which became clear during the recent Indo-Pakistan clash. While the issue was certainly raised in talks, there is no mention of it in official press releases. The fact that Wang Yi flew directly from New Delhi to Islamabad, where he discussed strengthening the strategic partnership between China and Pakistan with Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir, an increasingly key figure in the country's power structure, is not very reassuring news for New Delhi. As for trade relations, the area most affected by the row with Washington, it remains to be seen what benefits, if any, an alliance with Beijing against US tariffs can bring. Indeed, as The Wire notes, the trade balance is already heavily skewed in Chinas favour. Boosting trade with Indias northern neighbour could only further exacerbate the disparity, weakening India's economic position. INDIAN MANDALA IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO INDIA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY FRIDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE. Luanda As part of the new trade strategy adopted by the administration of US President Donald Trump, Angola will pay a 15% tariff on exports to the United States, down from the initial tariff of 32%, effective August 7. Angola exports products such as oil, natural gas, and diamonds, as well as foodstuffs like corn flour, fried caterpillars, cooked cassava leaves, mushrooms, and peanut butter to the US. These products are included in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The new US tariff plan formalized this reduction through an executive order from the White House, placing Angola in a select group of African countries that benefit from a preferential, moderate tariff regime. A statement from the Angolan Embassy in the US, sent to ANGOP on Friday, calls the measure a victory for Angola's economic diplomacy. The new tariff provides significant relief for Angolan economic operators by allowing domestic products to be more competitive in the U.S. market. This is part of the Executive's clear vision to diversify the country's economic base. Angola hopes to balance its trade and attract new investments, especially in agribusiness, manufacturing, and infrastructure. The statement emphasizes that this action follows an ongoing dialogue and cooperation process between the Angolan government and US authorities. In recent months, the Angolan government, through the Ministries of Industry and Trade and Foreign Affairs, as well as the Diplomatic Mission in Washington, has maintained intensive contact with relevant US institutions under the coordination of Ambassador Agostinho Van-Dunem. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Angola Legal Affairs By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. It aimed to establish a foundation of mutual understanding based on predictability and reciprocity in bilateral trade relations. This effort is considered a diplomatic achievement that reaffirms constructive dialogue combined with strategic coordination. It is an effective way for Angola to assert its interests on the international stage. The Minister of Industry and Trade, Rui Miguens de Oliveira, sent an official letter to the government of the United States reaffirming Angola's interest in deepening economic dialogue. Subsequently, Angola presented the first technical parameters of its national export offer to the U.S. government. Trade relations between Angola and the United States are marked by strong cooperation, particularly in the energy sector and under the AGOA program. In 2024, Angola exported goods worth 351.8 million USD to the US and imported around 410.2 million USD, resulting in a favorable balance for the US. OPF/QCB/AMP by Mathias Hariyadi Indonesians are shocked and astonished by the possible move by the Prabowo administration, which is seeking a 51 per cent stake in the countrys largest private financial institution. Industry experts say plans appear to be ready. The institution offers a wide range of services for individuals and institutions. The news quickly shook the stock market. Jakarta (AsiaNews) The rumour mill has been working overtime since 18 August about a possible acquisition by President Prabowo Subianto's administration of a 51 per cent stake in PT Bank Central Asia Tbk. This possibility has sent shockwaves across the country. Usually referred to as Bank Central Asia (BCA) and headquartered at the BCA Tower in Jakarta, it is the largest and most important credit institution in the country. Founded on 21st February 1957, it boasted assets exceeding 1,029.83 trillion rupiah (around US$ 68.5 billion) as of 2022. The proposed takeover is linked to the Bank Indonesia (Central Bank) Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) case dating back to 1998 and a controversial divestment programme. According to current reports from various business and financial media, the move appears to be already in its planning stage, and will most likely be done through the Investment Management Agency (BPI) Danantara Indonesia. BCA is the largest private financial institution in Indonesia by market capitalisation, and the second largest by assets, with a huge branch network across the country. In May 2021, it was named the world's best bank in Indonesia by Forbes, an international business magazine. The institution offers a wide range of services, including transaction banking, corporate banking, commercial and SME banking, and consumer financing. The bank is known for its strong market capitalisation and is partially controlled by the Dwimuria Investama Andalan Group, a state-owned cigarette manufacturer with a 54.94 per cent stake and a 45.06 per cent public shareholding. The news quickly disrupted the stock market with BCA shares falling 10 per cent from the start of the year to 15 August 2025 period, closing at 8,700 rupiah, this despite the bank's solid performance with a net profit of 29 trillion rupiah (US$ 1.7 billion) in the first half of 2025, up 8 per cent year-over-year, with loans up by 12.9 per cent. BCA's market capitalisation now stands at 1.062 trillion rupiah (US$ 65 million), making it the second-largest company listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). The controversial issue was first raised by Sasmito Hadinegoro, chairman of the Institute for Economic and Financial Investigations (LPEKN), who called for full disclosure in the BLBI-BCA scandal. Recently, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ahmad Iman Syukri, backed the proposed takeover, although fellow lawmaker Tommy Kurniawan of the House Committee XI argued that the statement was misleading and potentially harmful to the countrys investment climate. The government sold off BCA shares in 2005, based on two different factors. After the bank's collapse during the 1998 crisis, the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) controlled 92.8 per cent of its shares, subsequently selling them gradually through IPOs, SPs, and strategic placements. About 54.94 per cent of BCA shares are currently held by PT Dwimuria Investama Andalan, 42.46 per cent by the public, and the remainder by smaller investors. Analysts warn that the 51 per cent acquisition proposed by the Subianto administration lacks a clear basis and risks undermining public trust. Any statement regarding a listed company must be based on valid data, as its impact is felt immediately by both investors and depositors, said Hari Prabowo, director of LP3M Investa. The government must react quickly to prevent rumours from spreading further, he noted. The country must not be seen as seeking funds through instant measures that could destabilise the banking system, he warned. Champion local news. Join our community of readers who value daily beat reporting and in-depth stories alike. Your membership allows us to continue the legacy of local, independent journalism in the Roaring Fork Valley. With your support, we can remain a free and accessible source of news for everyone, always without paywalls or corporate influence. Together, we can ensure that vital local stories are told. 22 August 2025 20:42 (UTC+04:00) Qabil Ashirov Read more Russia's unleashing its most aggressive aerial assault in the history of the war in Ukraine has raised increasingly worrying questions about the measures the US might take against Moscow going forward. This was indeed the harshest response given to US leadership, especially if it had been expecting a softer tone - and in response of which over 600 drones and ballistic missiles rained down across the country, targeting infrastructure, civilian zones, and notably, the American-owned Flex Ltd. facility in Mukachevoa town nestled near the borders of two NATO member states. The timing, location, and symbolism of this strike suggest it was not merely a military manoeuvre. It was a calculated provocation. In a single sentence, the message was clear: Russia is testing Washingtons patience. This wasnt the first time Russia has struck deep into Ukrainian territory. But this attack was different. Mukachevo is not a strategic locationits a geopolitical pressure point. By targeting a region adjacent to NATO borders and destroying a facility owned by a U.S. company, Russia crossed a line that many believed it would avoid. The fact that injuries were reported only underscores the human cost of this escalation. What makes this strike even more consequential is its timing. It came just days after two high-profile meetings: the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, and the Washington gathering between Trump and European leaders. Both meetings were framed as steps toward de-escalation, with Trump positioning himself as a broker of peace. Yet, Russias actions suggest a different interpretationone that views diplomacy not as a path to resolution, but as a stage for defiance. Some Ukrainian and Russian analysts have described the Mukachevo strike as a direct challenge to both the United States and NATO. And theyre not wrong. The destruction of an American business on Ukrainian soil, in a region bordering NATO allies, is not a coincidenceits a signal. It tells Washington: We are not afraid of your red lines. President Trumps response, posted on Truth Social, was telling. He wrote that Ukraine cannot win the war without fighting back Russia. While he didnt mention Flex Ltd. by name, many experts interpreted the post as a veiled reaction to the Mukachevo strike. Some saw it as frustration with Putins cold reception at the Alaska summit. Others viewed it as a shift in tonea move away from cautious diplomacy toward a more confrontational posture. Either way, the implications are serious. Russias strike has forced a reckoning. American companies operating in Ukraine now face heightened risk. NATOs eastern flank is under renewed pressure. And the West, must now decide whether to respond with words or with action. In the end, Russia may find that this provocation comes at a steep cost. The destruction of Flex Ltd.s facility may have been intended as a symbolic blow, but it could galvanize bipartisan support for stronger measures against Moscow. Sanctions, military aid, and diplomatic isolation are all tools that Washington may now wield with greater urgency. The war in Ukraine has entered a new phaseone where civilian targets are fair game, and American interests are no longer immune. If Russia believes it can erode U.S. influence through intimidation, it may soon discover that Washingtons patience, while deep, is not infinite. And when that patience runs out, the consequences will echo far beyond Mukachevo. 22 August 2025 17:12 (UTC+04:00) Akbar Novruz Read more Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has embarked on a working visit to Turkmenistan, a move seen as another step in strengthening bilateral ties with Ashgabat. This is the first high-level reciprocal visit in a long time, following Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedovs earlier trip to Azerbaijan. Unlike previous exchanges that carried little public information, this visit signals more concrete prospects for expanded cooperation between the two Caspian neighbours. While past contacts were often limited in scope and not tied to concrete agreements, the current visit carries broader regional significance. Against the backdrop of shifting energy routes, growing importance of the Middle Corridor, and debates around Turkmenistans long-standing neutrality, the meeting between the two leaders signals that bilateral relations are entering a more pragmatic and multidimensional stage. Economic expert Eldeniz Amirov shared his thoughts with Azernews on the significance of the visit and the broader context of AzerbaijanTurkmenistan relations: "The development of Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan relations in the context of Turkmenistan's 'neutral' position requires special work and professional policy. The working visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Turkmenistan once again shows that our country is taking consistent steps to further deepen cooperation with Ashgabat. Despite Turkmenistan's international legal 'neutral' status, we are interested in expanding relations in both the political and economic spheres. In 2023, bilateral trade turnover reached a record level - about $774 million. In 2024, this figure stabilised at $383.7 million, and in the first half of 2025, it amounted to $140.2 million. Energy cooperation is also noteworthy: the gas 'swap' mechanism implemented through Iran since 2021 has entered a new stage, extending to Turkiye from March 2025. Transit volumes of oil of Turkmen origin via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline are also increasing steadily. In addition, the Baku-Turkmenbashi ferry and railway line, the enhanced capabilities of the Turkmenbashi port, as well as the Trans-Caspian digital projects, make the two countries important partners in the Middle Corridor and the Lapis-Lazuli corridor. The agreement on the 'Dostlug' field, signed in 2021, has removed a long-standing political obstacle and opened up new joint opportunities in the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan has maintained its permanent neutral status, recognised by the UN since 1995. The continuity of this position keeps the country out of military blocs. However, current realities show that it may be beneficial for the Organisation of Turkic States and the entire integration processes of the region for Turkmenistan to reconsider its position. I believe that Azerbaijans consistent initiatives in this direction will have a positive effect. Close cooperation with Turkmenistan serves both bilateral economic interests and contributes to the strengthening of the Organisation of Turkic States and the closer integration of Central Asia into the Caucasus. At the same time, Turkmenistan is a key player in the greater benefit of the Zangazur Corridor to the Caucasus, and this factor will play a major role." 22 August 2025 13:00 (UTC+04:00) Full digital access to all news for 1 year Full digital access to all news for 6 months Full digital access to all news for 3 months Full digital access to all news for 1 month Find the plan that suits you best. Azerbaijans economic ties with China continue to strengthen, with trade turnover between the two countries showing remarkable growth in the first seven months of 2025, Azernews reports. Here we are to serve you with news right now. It does not cost much, but worth your attention. Choose to support open, independent, quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis. By subscribing to our online newspaper, you can have full digital access to all news, analysis, and much more. Subscribe You can also follow AzerNEWS on Twitter @AzerNewsAz or Facebook @AzerNewsNewspaper Thank you! 22 August 2025 12:21 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are committed to strengthening their trade and economic ties. Azernews reports that this was stated by Azerbaijani Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov, who spoke to journalists on Friday in Avaza. Our trilateral format has the potential to open a new chapter in deepening relations across multiple areas, Minister Jabbarov said. Based on the instructions of our heads of state, we are determined - alongside our counterparts - to expand and deepen cooperation in trade, transport, and energy. I am confident that the meeting will produce joint declarations, and we already have specific working decisions and cooperation formats in place. This initiative will undoubtedly bring our countries closer economically and strengthen regional transport and energy links. The minister also stressed the importance of developing collaboration in the humanitarian sphere. Im confident that today, the heads of state will provide concrete assessments on these matters and assign clear tasks to ensure their implementation, he concluded. 22 August 2025 16:23 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more On Friday, August 22, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Turkiyes eastern Igdr province to mark the start of construction on the Kars-Igdr-Aralk-Dilucu railway -- a route that will connect to the border of Azerbaijans Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu delivered a speech at the event, highlighting the strategic and geopolitical significance of the 224-kilometer Kars-Nakhchivan railway. Calling the railway project a major step forward in strengthening Turkiyes regional and global partnerships, Uraloglu described it as a contribution to Ankaras geostrategic leadership. With the launch of this new railway corridor, we are opening a new chapter for peace and development in the South Caucasus, the Minister said. This is a transformative initiative that will shape the future of the entire Eurasian region. Emphasizing Turkiyes position as a natural bridge between East and West, Uraloglu outlined several mega-projects that have helped elevate the country to a key global hub for logistics, transport, and trade. He noted that over the past two decades, the Turkish government has placed significant focus on expanding its railway network - particularly connecting it to major ports and industrial zones. Of the $300 billion invested in Turkiyes transport sector over the last 23 years, $64 billion has been allocated to railway development, he stated. He continued: Today, we are not only witnessing the start of a railway project. We are also laying the foundation of a symbolic bridge connecting Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. This project will serve as a powerful catalyst for comprehensive socio-economic connectivity from Beijing to London. The Minister stressed that the Kars-Nakhchivan railway represents a concrete step toward realizing the Zangezur Corridor - a proposed transport route linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan via Armenia - and called it a roadmap for peace and cooperation across Eurasia. Uraloglu expressed confidence that the new railway will become one of Turkiyes central transport arteries. The strategic project, a critical component of the Zangezur Corridor, is expected to be completed within four to five years. 22 August 2025 13:18 (UTC+04:00) Laman Ismayilova Read more The Barcelona Flamenco Ballet will perform the program "Carmen," based on the work by Georges Bizet, at Baku Music Academy's Opera Studio on September 9, Azernews reports. The evening is organized by AZKONSERT. The Barcelona Flamenco Ballet (BFB) addresses the timeless myth of Carmen in its new project. This fresh reinterpretation of Georges Bizets work introduces new flamenco elements that were previously unknown. It goes beyond the traditional concept in which it was historically classified, adapting it to the realities of todays modern society. The values that make Carmen a woman of our time, along with the adaptation of the music and flamenco ballet signed by David Gutierrez, place the work in a new paradigm of the universal myth and 21st-century flamenco. Despite the passage of time, "Carmen" continues to convey its message of freedom and courage in the face of an unequal world, where women are still fighting for their rights. Carmen is a prototype of a woman who faces a hostile and cruel male world, from which she does not survive, but leaves her example for future generations. Carmen represents pain, passion, and a cry for freedomemotions that flamenco art masterfully expresses in its most intense form. BFB tells the story written by Prosper Merimee, delving into the love affair between the gypsy Carmen and the bullfighter Escamillo. Here, the language of flamenco is the best means of artistic expression for emotions, and it serves as the ideal thread to convey the passion of the main characters. The show combines the most modern flamenco singing with original music. Opera singing and Bizet's music blend traditional sounds with innovative touches of jazz and flamenco singing. The choreography unites the worlds of flamenco ballet with stunning tap dance and the fresh spirit of contemporary dance. 22 August 2025 18:19 (UTC+04:00) Laman Ismayilova Read more Secretary of the Azerbaijan Writers' Union, playwright and poet Ilgar Fahmi has visited the National Library, Azernews reports. After familiarizing himself with the book exhibition dedicated to his 50th anniversary, Ilgar Fahmi shared his memories of the Azerbaijan National Library, which he frequently visits as a reader, and expressed his gratitude for the organization of the exhibition. Professor Karim Tahirov, the director of the National Library, congratulated Ilgar Fahmi on his anniversary, highlighting his significant contributions to the development of modern Azerbaijani literature and culture, and wished him continued success. Literary scholar, writer, and professor Almaz Ulvi, who recently celebrated his 65th birthday, also visited the exhibition held in his honor at the National Library and expressed his gratitude to the library administration for the recognition. He presented the library with 58 copies of 18 books, including works such as "Hec demirsn, lsgrim hardadr?!", "dbi portretlr", "Mn qorxmuram uzaq yola cxmaqdan", as well as his research on the Uzbek literature he has studied for nearly 30 years. The director of the National Library, Karim Tahirov, highly appreciated Almaz Ulvi's contribution. Note that Almaz Ulvi is the author of numerous research works, including "Azerbaijan-Uzbek (Chagatai) Literary Relations", "Azerbaijan-Uzbek Literary Relations: Periods, Figures, Genres, and Trends", "Ali Shir Navai in Azerbaijani Literary Scholarship", "The Era and Prose of Ali Shir Navai", "Nizami Ganjavi and Ali Shir Navai: Tradition and Innovation", and "Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur and Azerbaijan", among others. The World Food Programme (WFP) has handed over nine off-road vehicles and digital media equipment to the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare in a bid to strengthen the country's social protection system. The donation, valued at just under US$230,000 includes five Toyota Prados, four Land Cruisers and a digital camera. Public Service Minister Edgar Moyo said the vehicles would play a key role in modernising operations and improving service delivery. "We gladly accept the nine vehicles, which will go a long way to support our social protection programmes and facilitate programme implementation," he said during the handover ceremony. Moyo added that the vehicles would help the Ministry reach remote communities as it works to complete the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) and transition to NDS2 under Vision 2030. WFP Country Representative Barbara Clemens said the donation underlined the agency's continued partnership with Zimbabwe which has spanned more than two decades. "These nine vehicles are therefore an investment in delivery capacity, but they have become more than just vehicles, they are tools of service and impact," she said. She added that the fleet would enable the Ministry to deliver essential social protection and assistance services more effectively particularly to vulnerable households in hard-to-reach areas. 22 August 2025 10:00 (UTC+04:00) Qabil Ashirov Read more In line with President Ilham Aliyevs instructions, the process of the Great Return to the liberated territories is steadily progressing, Azernews reports. Families have begun relocating to Khidirli village in the Aghdam district. These families, who had long lived in temporary settlements such as dormitories, sanatoriums, and administrative buildings across the country, are now returning to their ancestral lands. In this latest stage, 68 familiescomprising 252 peoplehave been resettled in Khidirli. The returning residents expressed deep gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva for the comprehensive state support that has made their return possible. They also voiced appreciation for the valor of the Azerbaijani Army, paying tribute to the soldiers and officers who liberated their lands, and honoring the memory of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for this cause. Currently, more than 50,000 people live in Garabagh and Eastern Zangezur. This population includes not only resettled former internally displaced persons but also individuals employed in the implementation of development projects, civil servants working in local branches of state institutions, and specialists engaged in the newly restored healthcare, education, culture, tourism, industry, and energy sectors. The return of families to their native villages marks another important milestone in rebuilding life across Azerbaijans liberated territories. 22 August 2025 10:21 (UTC+04:00) Qabil Ashirov Read more The Murovdag Tunnel, currently under construction in Azerbaijan, will be one of the longest road tunnels in the world, Azernews reports, citing Ayub Huseynov, project engineer at the State Agency of Azerbaijan Automobile Roads (AAYDA). Speaking during a media tour to Kalbajar, Huseynov explained that the tunnel is a crucial part of the ToghanaliKalbajarIstisu highway. The Murovdag mountain range, beginning at the 13.5 km mark of the road, rises from 1,700 meters to 3,250 meters above sea level. To ensure safe year-round operation, particularly during winter months, engineers opted to build a tunnel beneath the range. The tunnel will have four lanestwo in each direction. All safety standards have been met during construction. Excavation and 38 connecting passageways linking the right and left sections have already been completed, Huseynov said. In addition to the Murovdag Tunnel, four smaller tunnels with a combined length of 2,636 meters are also being constructed along the route. Most of the key works, including excavation, concrete lining, and technical installations, have already been finalized. The tunnels opening is scheduled for next year, while overall progress on the highway project has reached 87 percent. It should be noted that on August 21, President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva inspected the ongoing works on the ToghanaliKalbajarIstisu highway. 22 August 2025 11:24 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more The Summit of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) will take place on October 67, 2025, in Gabala, Azerbaijan, Azernews reports. The high-level gathering will bring together leaders from member countries to discuss regional cooperation and strategic initiatives. President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov and Chairman of the People's Council Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov have also been invited to attend the summit. In addition to political dialogue, cultural cooperation between the Turkic states continues to expand. As part of ongoing humanitarian and cultural exchange, the Days of Turkmen Culture will be held in Azerbaijan in October 2025, followed by the Days of Azerbaijani Culture in Turkmenistan in April 2026. These events aim to strengthen mutual understanding and showcase the rich cultural heritage of both nations. 22 August 2025 10:56 (UTC+04:00) An expanded meeting was held between Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Chairman of Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan on August 22 in the city of Turkmenbashi, Azernews reports. Greeting the Azerbaijani President and the delegation, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said: - Thank you very much for accepting the invitation to visit our country. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the hospitality extended to me during my visit to Azerbaijan in July this year. I visited some beautiful and scenic places in Azerbaijan. Important issues were discussed during that visit. The relations between our countries originate from the depths of history, our traditions are similar, and these are the factors that bring us together. On this basis, we are developing our political, diplomatic, trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian relations. We will discuss these issues during the current meeting. Our talks today are giving impetus to our relations. During this meeting, we will review some important issues of cooperation. Our relations are rising to a high level of cooperation, and we attach great importance to their development. I would like to note the tremendous potential for the expansion of our bilateral ties. With this in mind, we will promote new initiatives to develop Turkmen-Azerbaijani relations. The development of trade and economic cooperation is an important area on the agenda of our relations. A great deal of work has already been done in this area. We have great potential for the further development of these ties, increasing the trade turnover between our countries, expanding cooperation in such areas as energy, transport, and the textile industry. Our ties in the cultural and humanitarian sphere represent an important area of cooperation. Their development is of priority importance for us. An important component of cooperation in this context is the holding of mutual Days of Culture, events in the fields of education, culture, tourism, the development of our cultural values carpet weaving, horse breeding and applied arts. We have every opportunity for the cultural exchange and the development of ties in this area. Let me convey to you greetings from the President of Turkmenistan. I am delighted to see you in Turkmenistan. We will continue our dialogue in one of the UN languages. You have the floor. XXX President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said : - Thank you, dear Gurbanguly Malikguliyevich. My dear brother, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you once again for the invitation and hospitality. I would also like to convey my sincere greetings and love to the brotherly people of Turkmenistan. I am very pleased to be visiting the land of Turkmenistan again. We met in Azerbaijan last month. That visit had historic significance. Our meetings, both in Baku and in the liberated lands of Karabakh, delighted the Azerbaijani people a lot. The support you have given us is very important and valuable to us. During our conversations, we always looked back at our historical roots. We share a common history, culture, ethnic roots, language and religion. The Turkmen and Azerbaijani peoples are brothers in the true sense of the word and have lived with these feelings of brotherhood for centuries. Today, they are achieving great successes as independent states. I have already told you that the development of Avaza is associated with your name it is a product of your work. This modern and beautiful city is actually a reflection of the large-scale development taking place in Turkmenistan. I was here at your invitation three years ago, and when I arrived at the airport, I saw that there had been even greater development here. All this is the result of your activities. As you noted, we are successfully cooperating in many areas. I am sure that there are very good prospects in all the areas you mentioned - energy, transport, logistics, transit, digitalization, and cultural relations. After your visit, a meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission was held. Many issues were discussed there, excellent results were achieved, and we will discuss several issues here today. In addition, when we look at transport opportunities, there is already new potential there the East-West transport corridor passes through the territories of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. Of course, our joint activities in this area, the steps aimed at coordination will benefit this vast geography because a reliable transport link connecting Europe with the Far East passes through the territory of our countries today. I know that a lot of work has been done in Turkmenistan a modern seaport, airports and railways. All these projects have been implemented under your leadership, creating the most advanced infrastructure in Turkmenistan. Such infrastructure has also been created in Azerbaijan. Therefore, there is a great benefit in combining our efforts in this direction. Of course, I do believe that our frequent meetings send very serious messages to the entire region and the world. Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are brotherly states, brotherly peoples and are always by each other's side. Once again, I am grateful to you for the hospitality. XXX President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude for the greetings from President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov and requested that his own greetings be conveyed to the Turkmen President. During the meeting, they expressed satisfaction with the current state of political relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. They highlighted that both countries consistently support each other within international organizations and that their positions coincide on global and regional issues. Notably, Azerbaijans role as a co-author of the UN General Assembly resolution titled Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan was recognized as an example of support and friendship toward Turkmenistan. The head of state congratulated Turkmenistan on the successful hosting of the UN conference on Landlocked Developing Countries in August, noting that Azerbaijan was represented by a high-level delegation at the event. The Chairman of the Peoples Council of Turkmenistan congratulated President Ilham Aliyev on the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the results achieved. In response, President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude and noted that the establishment of a new transport corridor connecting Azerbaijans mainland to its Nakhchivan region through Armenia along the East-West corridor will enhance the transport and transit potential of both countries and contribute to the development of the entire region. The discussion also touched on the potential of a transport corridor involving Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The importance of the trilateral Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan meeting held today was emphasized, with confidence expressed that the event would provide additional impetus to cooperation and partnership among the three brotherly nations. Additionally, the meeting addressed the joint participation of Turkmenistans Akhal-Teke and Azerbaijans Karabakh horses in international festivals. 22 August 2025 11:08 (UTC+04:00) President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has sent a congratulatory letter to First Vice President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva on the occasion of her birthday, Azernews reports. "Dear Mehriban Arifovna, Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on the occasion of your birthday. I sincerely wish you good health, happiness, well-being, and success in your state duties. Kindly convey my regards to Ilham Heydarovich and all members of your family," the letter reads. 22 August 2025 14:38 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more We attach great importance to the exchange of knowledge and experience with Azerbaijans judicial institutions, said Ahmet Gokay Aktas, a prosecutor from the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Turkiye, Azernews reports. His remarks were made during an international conference held in Lachin, organized by the Prosecutor Generals Office of Azerbaijan. Aktas highlighted that the principles of the rule of law, the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, and the separation of powers form the foundation of modern constitutions. I extend my sincere congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan. This milestone, which represents the institutional embodiment of the Azerbaijani peoples struggle for freedom and independence, is not only a significant event for Azerbaijan but also a proud and meaningful occasion for us as a brotherly and friendly nation. He went on to emphasize the deep-rooted cooperation between the two countries: As the Prosecutors Office of the Republic of Turkiye, we highly value the sharing of legal expertise with friendly nations - especially Azerbaijan. Our shared legal culture, similar constitutional approaches, and mutual trust create a strong foundation for deepening this cooperation. The international conference in Lachin, titled National Leader Heydar Aliyev Author of the Independent Azerbaijan Constitution, brought together high-ranking legal officials and experts. Among the participants were Azerbaijans Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev; Yuri Nikolayevich Zhdanov, Executive Secretary of the Coordinating Council of Prosecutors General of the CIS Member States; his deputy Abdurakhmon Khotambekov; Turkish prosecutors Ahmet Gokay Aktas and Mustafa Yakar; and Temur Tsindeliani, a prosecutor from the Georgian Prosecutor Generals Office in charge of international cooperation, along with other distinguished guests. 22 August 2025 12:43 (UTC+04:00) Baku Network, an Azerbaijani analytical center, has held a new event under its ongoing project Analysis of Hybrid and Ideological Threats, implemented with the support of the State Agency for Support to Non-Governmental Organizations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing the source. The event brought together senior officials from the Baku Network Center, expert contributors, as well as representatives from non-governmental organizations and leading media outlets. Opening the event, Deputy Director General of Trend News Agency and Project Director of Baku Network Sahil Karimli said the initiative envisions holding activities both within Azerbaijan and in Europeparticularly in Paris, France. He recalled a recent photo exhibition held at the Azerbaijani Cultural Center in France dedicated to fallen journalists. Director of Baku Network Elchin Aghajanov stressed that few people truly grasp the scope of hybrid threats. Its not only about cyberattacks or disinformation. Hybrid threats also include efforts to turn societies against themselves. Thats why weve worked on classifying them and plan to do the same for ideological threats. We aim to expand our efforts further, he said. President of the International Eurasia Press Found, Umud Mirzayev, highlighted the significance of the project. We recognize how vital this initiative is for the country. More support should be provided to such efforts. The trip to France, meetings under UNESCO, the exhibits, and connections with new experts are all great accomplishments, he said. Jalil Khalilov, Chairman of the War, Labor and Armed Forces Veterans Organization, emphasized the importance of prioritizing military and ideological security amid evolving regional dynamics. Security is a top priority for the state. Emerging technologies both complicate and facilitate this, allowing access to vast amounts of information. Society must be prepared for information warfare, he said. Editor-in-Chief of Cumhuriyyet newspaper and Director of Cebhe.info news portal, Rafail Bejanov, noted that the project is addressing highly relevant modern-day challenges. Media, civil society organizations, and social platforms are paying close attention to this. Fake content can manipulate people, and whats happening impacts not just cybersecurity, but the military and state institutions too, he said. Chairman of the Journalists Union, Mushfig Alasgarli, stated that the topic raised is exceptionally relevant in todays world. For Azerbaijan, it holds triple importance. We are at the center of geopolitical attention. While other countries may experience one or two components of hybrid threats, we face the full spectrum. Therefore, we should not expect these threats to subside anytime soon, he said. Speakers also included APAs Editor-in-Chief Nurshan Guliyev and historian Yahya Babanli, who both underscored the international significance of the project for Azerbaijan. The initiative, which runs from May through the end of August 2025, seeks to identify and counteract the sources of information-psychological attacks targeting Azerbaijans sovereignty, international reputation, and strategic interestsincluding media campaigns, disinformation, and ideological influence. The project engages international experts and analysts with the support of state institutions. 22 August 2025 14:05 (UTC+04:00) A high-level meeting was held on August 22 in the city of Turkmenbashi between Turkmenistan, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan, Azernews reports. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev posed for a joint photo. Then, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev delivered their speeches. The head of state also spoke at the meeting. Speech by President Ilham Aliyev - Dear Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich. Dear Shavkat Miromonovich. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my brother, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich Berdimuhamedov, for the high-level organization of today's Summit in Avaza and for the warm welcome. In addition, I would also like to thank him for initiating today's trilateral meeting between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Based on the cultural and historical proximity of our peoples, shared values and strategic interests, we are opening a new chapter in the history of cooperation between three friendly and fraternal states today. On this day, when I am visiting the hospitable Turkmen land, I would like to note again that Turkmenistan, under the wise leadership of esteemed Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich, has made significant achievements in terms of socioeconomic development and enhanced its international role and influence. His contribution to the development of modern Turkmenistan is an example of effective state governance, strategic vision and devotion to the Motherland. Recently, just last month, we were pleased to welcome the esteemed Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich to Azerbaijan. His visit was extremely fruitful. We held comprehensive talks in Baku, visited the liberated territories of Azerbaijan together, including the cities of Fuzuli and Shusha. I would like to express my special gratitude for the decision to build a mosque in the city of Fuzuli. This sincere fraternal support, this goodwill gesture will forever remain in the memory of our people as a symbol of solidarity and spiritual unity. At the same time, the establishment of twinning relations between the cities of Fuzuli and Arkadag opens up new opportunities for cultural and humanitarian cooperation. All this is a testament to the fact that Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations are on the rise. We will continue our joint efforts to develop these relations in all areas. We are bound with the Republic of Uzbekistan by the Treaty on Allied Relations, which was signed on August 23, 2024. Our fraternal relations with Uzbekistan are based on mutual support, strong cultural ties and common strategic goals. As a result of the reforms carried out in all areas of life in Uzbekistan, we are pleased to observe the dynamic development of the country, the enhancement of its international reputation and the growth of its economic potential. In recent years, we have achieved significant results with Uzbekistan in many areas, including political dialogue, economic and humanitarian cooperation. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Uzbek side and personally to Shavkat Miromonovich for their enormous contribution to the restoration of the liberated territories of Azerbaijan. A secondary school named after great scientist Mirzo Ulugbek was built in the city of Fuzuli, and we celebrated its opening together with Shavkat Miromonovich. A large sewing factory operates in the city of Khankendi with the support and on the initiative of the Uzbek side. We recently visited it together. The Uzbekistan park is under construction in the White City, one of the modern districts of Baku. Together with Shavkat Miromonovich, we laid the foundation of this beautiful park covering an area of five hectares. We have many other investment projects based on mutual interests. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have an important geostrategic position connecting East and West, North and South. New tasks and opportunities lie ahead of our countries in the field of transport and transit cooperation. Among them, together with my esteemed brother Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich, we discussed the Middle Corridor, the expansion of ports and railways in detail today. We also discussed these issues with Shavkat Miromonovich during our last meeting. In other words, the joint efforts of the three countries in the field of transport, transit and logistics will be of great importance not only for our countries, but also for the wider region. As my brothers noted, there are ample opportunities for cooperation in the energy sector. We have traditional energy cooperation with Turkmenistan. We have already made a step in this area with Uzbekistan. Our state oil company SOCAR has already started developing an oil field in Uzbekistan and a contract has been signed. We hope that they will give us good news in the next one or two years. We are all eagerly awaiting the news of the discovery of a large oil field in Uzbekistan. 22 August 2025 14:58 (UTC+04:00) On August 22, a documents signing ceremony was held in Turkmenbashi with the participation of Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan, and Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Azernews reports. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, National Leader of the Turkmen People, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan, and Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, adopted the "Joint Statement of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan." Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov and Chairman of the State Service " Turkmenhowayollary" Dovran Saburov signed the "Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the State Service "Turkmenhowayollary" on Future Development of International Air Connections." Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov and Chairman of the State Committee for the Construction of the City of Arkadag under the President of Turkmenistan Deryageldi Orazov signed the "Protocol on Establishing Sister City Relations between the City of Fuzuli (Republic of Azerbaijan) and the City of Arkadag (Turkmenistan)." Chairman of the Azerbaijan Railways CJSC Rovshan Rustamov, Minister of Railway Transport of Turkmenistan Mammet Akmammedov and Minister of Transport of the Republic of Uzbekistan Ilkhom Makhkamov signed the Memorandum of Understanding in the field of Transport and Logistics Cooperation between the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Railway Transport of Turkmenistan and the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Uzbekistan. 22 August 2025 15:23 (UTC+04:00) A mosque will be constructed in Fuzuli as a gift from Turkmenistan, President Ilham Aliyev announced during a press conference on the outcomes of the high-level meeting between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan, Azernews reports. While in Fuzuli, Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich proposed the construction of a mosque as a gift from Turkmenistan. I accepted this proposal with gratitude. Although only a month has passed, the architectural design of the mosque is already prepared, and its foundation will be laid in the near future, the head of state added. A man accused of masterminding one of the country's most notorious Ponzi schemes has been arrested in the United Arab Emirates and extradited to Harare to face a string of fraud charges. Shepherd Chibaya (36) identified as one of the founders of the Beven Capital scheme appeared in court this week facing multiple counts of fraud impersonation and theft by deception. Authorities allege that Beven Capital duped hundreds of investors by promising a 50% return on deposits within six weeks only to disappear with the money. But instead of helping victims recover their losses prosecutors say Chibaya went further, exploiting desperate investors by posing as a medical doctor at Parirenyatwa and Parktown Hospitals. Investigators told the court that Chibaya claimed to have insider links with the scheme's management and convinced victims to pay him additional funds for "taxes", "police bribes" and "legal fees." He allegedly faked his own arrest, impersonated a police officer and even staged his own death to avoid detection. One complainant was defrauded of nearly US$98,000 between 2020 and 2021 after Chibaya spun elaborate tales to extract money with a stolen Samsung S20 cellphone later traced back to him. In a separate case, another victim lost US$850 in 2021 after being told to pay "tax clearance fees" to unlock Beven Capital payouts. A third investor reportedly lost US$2,000 after being promised recovery of a US$30,000 stake with Chibaya allegedly collecting the money while pretending to be "on duty" as a doctor. After years on the run, Chibaya was tracked down in the UAE by Interpol and handed over to Zimbabwean authorities. He has since been remanded in custody pending trial. 22 August 2025 11:45 (UTC+04:00) Akbar Novruz Read more On August 21, the President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Rovshan Najaf, held a meeting with a delegation led by Long Haiyang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of China National Chemical Engineering and Construction Corporation (CC7), Azernews reports. SOCAR reported that the talks covered the companys current activities in the energy sector, as well as strategic projects being implemented both in Azerbaijan and abroad. The sides also exchanged views on potential avenues for cooperation in the oil and petrochemical industries, not only within Azerbaijan but also in third countries. CC7, a subsidiary of China National Chemical Engineering Corporation (CNCEC), is one of Chinas leading engineering, procurement and construction contractors. Established in 1964 and headquartered in Chengdu, the company operates across chemical and non-chemical sectors with a wide presence in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. 22 August 2025 09:00 (UTC+04:00) Six people have died in what officials are describing as a dairy accident at a farm in Weld County, Colorado. Emergency crews were called to Prospect Valley Dairy near Keenesburg on Wednesday evening for a confined space rescue, the Southeast Weld Fire Protection District confirmed. When they arrived, rescuers recovered the bodies of six individuals. The Weld County Coroners Office said the victimsfive adults and possibly one 17-year-oldwere likely exposed to toxic gas. All were men. Their identities have not yet been released. The Weld County Sheriffs Office also assisted at the scene. Authorities said there was no indication of criminal activity, though the incident remains under investigation. 22 August 2025 21:49 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more China is ready to play a constructive role in efforts to achieve a political resolution to the war in Ukraine, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, who made the remarks during a press briefing, Azernews reports. We believe all parties should pursue a political solution to the Ukraine crisis based on mutual respect, comprehensive cooperation, and sustainable security, Mao said. China is willing to contribute constructively to this process. Her comments came in response to recent remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who dismissed the idea of China serving as a security guarantor for Ukraine. Zelensky argued that China cannot take on such a role, claiming it did nothing to prevent the war and even aided Russia by opening the drone market. Zelenskys statement follows reports suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed involving China as a guarantor in a potential peace agreement with the United States and European nations, one that would include security guarantees. The exchange highlights ongoing tensions over Chinas diplomatic positioning and its perceived neutrality in the conflict. 22 August 2025 23:31 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more Elon Musk reportedly approached Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year to join his unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI, Azernews reports, according to newly disclosed court documents. The revelation came as part of a legal filing in the ongoing lawsuit between Musk and OpenAI. The documents show that Musk named Zuckerberg as one of the individuals he contacted regarding a Letter of Intent (LOI) to form a consortium of investors aimed at financing a potential takeover of the AI research company. In responses to Interrogatories served by the OpenAI Defendants, Musk identified Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's Chairman and CEO, as an individual with whom he had communicated concerning the LOI, including about potential financing arrangements or investments, OpenAI stated in the filing. Despite the outreach, neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed the letter, and there is no indication that Meta formally engaged with Musks proposed deal. The filing also highlighted Metas aggressive push into the artificial intelligence race. OpenAI claimed that Meta has been investing heavily in its own AI infrastructure - reportedly offering compensation packages exceeding $100 million to top AI talent and actively attempting to recruit OpenAI employees. The court case, which stems from Musks legal challenge against OpenAIs current leadership and business practices, continues to expose new details about behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the high-stakes battle for dominance in the AI industry. Former Democrat President Jimmy Carter and Republican President Donald Trump agree on an important issue in the election process, that mail-in ballots are prone to election fraud and should be avoided to the extent possible. Carter made that a major point in the report of the election integrity panel he headed by appointment of Congress. Trump has just issued an executive order on the subject. What Trump is targeting, is not absentee ballots by mail but the eight states that vote only by mail. That system is little more than an invitation to fraud. In one of those states, Nevada, a review of voter registration lists under this system showed quite a list of "voters" registered to vote at vacant lots and at commercial establishments like convenience stores, casinos, and even massage parlors. In another, Washington, in the last election, a woman who had just bought a new condo came forward with over 20 ballots in various names delivered to her address. If she had been dishonest, she could have voted over 20 times and no one would be the wiser. Real Clear Politics has a great article on this problem: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/22/mail-in_ballots_need_to_go_153204.html In Jimmy Carter's day the only mail-in ballots were the absentee kind and he worried about them as the voting method most prone to fraud. Now the Democrats have doubled down on this fraud potential in eight states. President Trump is right to raise this issue about our election integrity. Democrats dislike of election integrity is shown in election fraud hotspot Fulton County, Georgia, where the Democrat county commission has arrogantly defied orders of the state courts to seat the two Republican appointees on their Board of Elections. Their refusal is based on the fact that the Republican appointees are stalwarts for election integrity. https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/22/fulton-county-defies-court-orders-requiring-confirmation-of-gop-election-board-nominees/ The Judicial Insurrection continues from the Judicial Wing of the Democrat Party. Now a crooked Obama judge in Florida has issued a corrupt political decree to shut down Alligator Alcatraz, the Florida facility in the Everglades to hold illegal alien criminals for deportation. She ordered no new illegal alien criminals to be brought there, and that the entire facility be shut in 60 days. This crooked Obama judge clearly cares more for illegal alien criminals who should not even be in this country in the first place than the American victims of the crimes they commit. She wants them to stay in our country to keep committing crimes. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/breaking-obama-judge-bars-trump-admin-bringing-new/ As so often has been happening with the crooked Obama and Biden district court judges, this will undoubtedly be appealed to the adults in the appellate courts, who will likely reverse her as so often has happened to these despicable crooked Obama and Biden district court judges. UPDATE: Governor deSantis has announced that Florida is appealing this political decision by the radical Obama judge. https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/08/23/desantis-on-alligator-alcatraz-and-deportations-n2193140 https://www.zerohedge.com/political/florida-appeals-judges-ruling-against-expansion-alligator-alcatraz Justice Neal Gorsuch, in a recent Supreme Court opinion, smacked down rogue politically motivated district court judges. "Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court's decisions . . . they are never free to defy them" Gorsuch wrote. "Whatever their own views, judges are duty bound to respect the hierarchy of the federal court system as created by the Constitution and Congress." https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/22/justice-gorsuch-gives-rogue-lower-courts-the-smackdown-they-deserve/ https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2025/08/22/justice-gorsuch-smacks-lower-courts-back-into-reality-for-continuing-to-defy-scotus-rulings-n2193108 Stay Well: I grew up in a house of smokers has it harmed my health? Conspiracy expert on why NI has held on to one particular nonsensical theory: In some ways, it makes sense, right? Queens University Belfast academic Dr Tristan Sturm explains why our troubled past could be behind the 5G mast attacks in the city: Its about a concern that the state is surveilling a particular community through these radiation towers Gillian Halliday Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 20:00 Theres an old joke that neatly encapsulates humanitys ability to cling on to fervent conviction in the face of irrefutable evidence: a JFK conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. When hes greeted by God, hes told that he can ask one question which the Almighty will answer truthfully. Without hesitation, the conspiracy theorist asks: Who really shot Kennedy? God replies that it was Lee Harvey Oswald, and that he acted alone. Stumped, the conspiracy theorist pauses, then says: Wow! This goes higher up than I thought. Leaders in Derry City are pressing ahead with their development strategies and investment programmes, transforming the main population centre of the north west into a fully serviced regional capital. A fresh wave of youthful entrepreneurialism is taking hold and some of this is emerging in the magnificent Ebrington Square. The size of Londons Trafalgar Square, Ebrington was, until recently, on life support after being handed over by the army to public ownership 20 years ago. Now it is not only walking unaided but galloping ahead and attracting investment. Belfast mum on how son saved her life after losing parents and sisters in tragedies: I want him to have a better childhood than I did A Belfast DJ is set to take his home city by storm this weekend as he hits the main stage at Emerge festival for the first time. Mark Blair has stunned crowds across Europe, Australia, America and Japan, he often goes on tour across the UK and Ireland as well. Blair has been a professional DJ for five years and his journey into the world of techno music began when he was a teenager playing at house parties. Having lived in Spain for the past three years he has worked gigs in Ibiza, but he maintains that Irish shows are the best and that festivals like Emerge are hugely important economically for Belfast. Belfast born DJ, Mark Blair Emerge is set to attract tens of thousands to the Boucher Road Playing Fields this weekend. Last years festival saw more than 70,000 music fans attend. Saturday will see the renowned Fatboy Slim, Sammy Virjl, Arielle Free, Hoursegirl and Hotline among many others take to the stage. On Sunday, Bicep, Fjaak, Fantasm, Holy Priest, Meltx and others will appear along with Blair. He has played gigs in tents at the festival every year since 2022, making him an OG of Emerge, though this year is the first time he will go on the main stage. I have been DJing for 12 years. But professionally, I have been doing it for five years as a proper career, he said. I started doing house parties for friends [DJing]. I went to university in Derry, and I went to some of the club promoters to see if I could start doing some music mash-ups, I loved doing it. Its always the Irish shows that are the best. It has been a long process, going professional. Its incredible, it was always my dream, I am thankful everyday for it. Last year I did an Australia and Japan tour, I did the Telegraph building last New Years Eve, that is ran by the same promoters as Emerge, its always the Irish shows that are the best. Shine are also the promoters of Emerge, I have been working with them for seven or eight years. I have played Emerge every year since it started in 2022, so I am an OG. But this is my first time playing the main stage. The last three years I have been living in Barcelona, I travel back to play tours in the UK and Ireland. I play Ibiza and all those types of places. Last year I played the Shine tents [at Emerge] there is a lot more raving in them, whereas at the main stage, there is a higher production. Mark Blair Lately, music has changed since Covid, audiences want heavier and faster music, they want energy and chaos, he said. They just want to go crazy. Emerge is great for Belfast, it is a community thing, it brings everyone together, they are on a common ground. They are enjoying time with their friends, and they are feeling the music festival vibes while having the food. Hopefully the weather holds up, then it will be even better. There is trickledown economics involved with Emerge too. People are using public transport, and eating at local restaurants [because the festival is in the city]. I am very thankful to Shine and Emerge for putting the show on every year. You may not know her name, but you will be familiar with her work. Born in Dublin, Cecil Frances Alexander spent her formative years in Co Tyrone before going on to pen some of the most well-known worship songs ever written, including All Things Bright and Beautiful and the Christmas carol Once in Royal Davids City. Twinbrook murder: The youngest wee girl came in here in hysterics, she was shouting a guy was stabbed Man aged 32 has been charged with the murder of Shane Lowry Police and forensics at the scene of serious incident in Twinbrook Liam Tunney Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 20:00 Twinbrook was noticeably quiet on Friday afternoon only hushed conversations and the sound of police tape fluttering in the breeze breaking the silence in its warrened streets. Still from video taken by councillor Brian Harte at the scene of arson attack on Milltown House. Still from video by councillor Brian Harte of damage to Milltown House. The Co Tyrone childhood home of a famous hymnwriter has been gutted in an arson attack. Police remain at the scene of the derelict property in the Milltown Road area of Strabane after it was targeted on Thursday night. It was once occupied by Cecil Frances Alexander who was one of the Victorian era's most famous sacred song composers. Although born in Dublin, she moved to Milltown House in 1833 before growing up to pen worship songs including All Things Bright and Beautiful and the beloved Christmas carol Once in Royal David's City. Hymnwriter Cecil Frances Alexander. The 22-acre site, formerly home to Strabane Grammar School, is owned by the Education Authority (EA). Emergency services, including Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue (NIFRS) crews, were despatched to the scene shortly before 10.50pm. Firefighters have extinguished the blaze but police remained at the scene on Friday morning. PSNI Sergeant Neill said at this stage is being treated as deliberate and appealed for witnesses to come forward. Enquiries are continuing following the incident and police would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the fire, to contact them on 101 quoting reference number 1892 21/08/25, they added. Still from video by councillor Brian Harte of damage to Milltown House. Police and forensics at the scene of serious incident in Twinbrook The site is currently up for sale and Strabane Rugby Club had been hoping to make it their new home with the historic building serving as its clubhouse. The club's vice chairman Colin Spence told BBC Radio Ulster that discussions had been ongoing for a number of years as he described the blaze heart-rending. "We cannot lose our heritage and our plan was to being that heritage back through sport and a full community use," he told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme "That needs to be protected at all costs." Pat McGuigan, from Strabane history society, visited the remnants of what was once a great, great building and expressed sadness over the terrible mess. He said local residents are determined to restore the childhood dwelling of one of the towns most famous adopted daughters. SDLP MLA, Daniel McCrossan, has promised to support the groups effort. He said Strabane has lost a huge part of its history as he outlined the immense cultural and historical significance of the building. "The roof is gone, and all internal heritage features have been destroyed, the elected representative posted on social media. Still from video taken by councillor Brian Harte at the scene of arson attack on Milltown House. This is not just another empty building it was once the home of Cecil Frances Alexander, the famous hymn-writer of All Things Bright and Beautiful, and later became the beloved Strabane Grammar School. For generations, this house was a symbol of education, community, and legacy. Today, it stands burned and broken, because of the reckless actions of arsonists. "This isnt the first time the site has been targeted but this is by far the worst. I am furious, and I know our community is too. The arson attack happened just hours after politicians met council officials to discuss plans for the redevelopment of the site. Mr McCrossan said "significant progress was made" and the end line was very near before the building went up in smoke at the eleventh hour. DUP MLA Tom Buchanan condemned the arson attack on the property which has been part of the cultural fabric and history of the town for nearly 200 years. "As the former home of Cecil Frances Alexander it has had an impact on people far beyond the town through her books and hymn writing, he said. More recently the house was also a centre for education in the town as the site for Strabane Grammar. Unfortunately since it became vacant in 2020 there have been a number of incidents where the building has been attacked, including previous arson attacks. "This latest attack however has been devastating however not just to the building but to all those who want to see it restored and brought back into use. This is wanton vandalism and those responsible should face justice for what they have done to this historic property. Local Sinn Fein councillor Brian Harte described the damage to the building as extensive. "The roof has gone, it is beyond repair," he said. "This is absolutely devastating, in particular because of the amount of work that been going on in the background over the last year, two years to regenerate the site." Anyone with information can make a report using the online reporting form or alternatively, information can be provided to Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online. The annual Foyle Pride parade with the rainbow flag on display at Shipquay Street (Picture: Martin McKeown) Foyle Pride organisers have criticised the Parades Commission following a decision regarding a counter-protest by a Christian group. The theme of this years festival, which concludes on Saturday with the annual parade, has been Existence is Resistance. Pride organisers say their main concern is the location where counter-protestors will be permitted to gather. According to the Facebook page of United Christian Witness now renamed United Gospel Witness the group also attended Causeway Pride in July. Posting on the page about the Pride event held in Belfast, also in July, the group said: Another year and another Pride. But for how much longer? The theme of Belfast Pride this year was no going back. Is this because the Pride political movement feels the tide is turning against their woke agenda? It seemed to be a subdued parade this year [which] didnt seem to last as long as other years. Praise God for this. The group preaches through loudspeakers and displays signs and flags bearing religious messages. One video on the groups social media page shows a speaker in London criticising gay pride and the abomination of Islam trying to take over the land of the United Kingdom with their false religion. United Christian Witness has also posted videos of themselves preaching during Derrys Halloween festival. Foyle Pride said it has been informed by the Parades Commission that the group, which they describe as opposed to LGBTQIA+ identities and equality, has been granted permission to protest. We are angered and disappointed by the Parades Commissions decision and the unnecessary risk it creates for our community, especially for our young people. However, we want to be clear: we will not be dragged down to the same levels of hate. The protest will take place at the junction of Foyle Street and Shipquay Street during and after the Pride event. The decision was made despite strong objections and counter proposals from our committee, the statement, posted on social media, added. We had proposed that the group be permitted to protest at the Diamond a location that would have respected their right to protest while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our community. We are particularly concerned about the site granted, as it is directly beside the area we had planned for a family fun day. We feel a deep responsibility to safeguard LGBTQIA+ families and children and, as such, we have taken the decision to move the family fun area into a section of Guildhall Square. We are angered and disappointed by the Parades Commissions decision and the unnecessary risk it creates for our community, especially for our young people. However, we want to be clear: we will not be dragged down to the same levels of hate. Instead, we will hold our heads high and stand together in dignity, strength and pride. Organisers urge attendees on Saturday to avoid engaging with the counter-protestors. The most powerful response we can give is to ignore them, celebrate openly and show that we can have a good time and continue to be ourselves in spite of them, they continued. Our community will remain strong and proud in the face of those who would deny our right to exist and to thrive. This is why Pride matters. Our existence is resistance. The annual Foyle Pride parade with the rainbow flag on display at Shipquay Street (Picture: Martin McKeown) Watch: Crowds outside Westminster court for Kneecap member's appearance The Parades Commission said it considered all of the information available to it, including representations from the organiser of the protest and of the public procession, as well as information provided by the PSNI. On the basis of this consideration, and in light of the applicable statutory and policy framework, the Commission decided not to impose any conditions on the protest as notified, it added. The Commission notes the statement of the organiser of Foyle Pride and would highlight that, in accordance with the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, it does not grant permission for public processions or associated protests to take place. In accordance with the provisions of the Act, the Commission considers notifications of intention to organise such events and may, in prescribed circumstances, impose conditions on them. It is also important to note that, in accordance with the 1998 Act, the Commissions jurisdiction extends only to public processions and associated protests. The Commission has no jurisdiction in relation to events which may take place once a public procession has ended. For example, the family fun day planned by Foyle Pride festival to take place tomorrow after the Foyle Pride parade. United Christian Witness/United Gospel Witness was contacted for comment. A local councillor said the community had been left reeling A man has been charged with murder following the death of a man in Belfast. The 32-year-old has also been charged with possession of a blade or point. He is expected to appear before Lisburn Magistrates Court on Saturday. It comes after the stabbing victim in west Belfast on Thursday night has been named locally as Shane Lowry. Police remain at the scene in the Mulberry Park area of Twinbrook where cordons are still in place following the incident on Thursday night. A death notice for Mr Lowry said he died suddenly. "Beloved son of Breda and Marty. He will be sadly missed by all his family and friends, said the notice. "Funeral arrangements to follow. Deeply regretted by his entire family circle. Shane Lowry The PSNI has confirmed a murder investigation is now underway. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips, from the PSNIs Major Investigation Team said police were alerted to the incident at 8.15pm. Officers attended, along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. "Sadly, he was pronounced dead. "A man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. At this time, we are not seeking anyone else in connection with this investigation. We would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the incident, to contact us on 101 quoting reference number 1633 21/08/25. Police at the scene in the Broom Park area of Twinbrook. Photo by Kevin Scott A spokesman for the NI Ambulance Service (NIAS) said: The NIAS received a 999 call at 8.15pm on Thursday. NIAS despatched two emergency crews to the incident. Following assessment and initial treatment at the scene one patient was taken to Royal Victoria Hospital. Forensic officers spent most of the night working at the back of a small bungalow that straddles Broom Park and Mulberry Park. Just yards away residents told the Belfast Telegraph how their children were in the street as the incident unfolded. One woman who didnt want to be named said: My wee ones were out playing beside the shop at the time. The youngest wee girl came in here in hysterics, she was shouting a guy was stabbed when I got outside I saw cops arriving and putting a man in handcuffs. Some of them [police] were wearing balaclavas and had guns out, it was really scary. Another resident told the Belfast Telegraph: I have lived in this area all my life, its never usually too bad, the young ones all hang about there beside the shop where this happened, they do no harm, its them having to see this I feel sorry for. A large cordon remains in place this morning with forensic officers expected to return to the scene later today Police at the scene in the Broom Park area of Twinbrook in west Belfast. Photo by Kevin Scott Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker said there was shock in the area. This is absolutely tragic, and I want to extend my thoughts and condolences to the deceased mans family and friends," he said. There is a great deal of shock and sadness in our community this morning at this news. The PSNI has confirmed that a man has been arrested in connection with the incident. Anyone with information should come forward. I am encouraging people not to engage in speculation and to allow police time and space to complete their investigation. Local SDLP councillor Paul Doherty said there is a sense of disbelief in the local community. This is a shocking incident where a man has lost his life and the local community has been left reeling, he added. My thoughts are with the loved ones of the deceased and everyone who has been affected by this incident. Nobody wants to wake up to something like this on their doorsteps, but I would ask people to support police as they carry out their investigation into what happened here. I commend their quick response. I would urge anyone with any further information to come forward to police. It comes as a blaze broke out in a block of flats just five minutes away on the Stewartstown Road. A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said the cause of the fire has yet to be determined with no injuries reported. A man has been arrested in connection with a security alert in north Belfast which has now ended. Controlled explosions were carried out by police over the course of its three-day duration. Around 100 residents were evacuated from their homes during the public safety operation which began shortly after 11.30am on Friday following the discovery of a suspicious device on Victoria Parade in the New Lodge. In the early hours of Saturday morning, police said: In relation to the ongoing incident in the New Lodge area of Belfast, residents should be aware there will be some controlled explosions taking place now for approximately one hour. One man, in his 30s, has since been taken into custody on suspicion of a number of offences. Chief Inspector Pete Cunningham said: Police attended an address in the Victoria Parade area shortly after 11.30am on Friday 22nd August and discovered a suspicious device at a property. Officers attended the scene and quickly moved to put a safety operation in place. Roads were closed and a number of nearby houses were evacuated while the operation was ongoing but they have since been able to return and roads have re-opened. Ammunition Technical Officers attended and conducted examinations and controlled explosions on multiple objects located throughout the property. The items, which included suspected explosive devices and firearms, have been removed from the property and will be sent for further forensic examination." PSNI at scene of security alert in north Belfast. (Kevin Scott) Belfast History Explained: The Story of the River Farset Chief Inspector Cunningham added: This was an extremely distressing experience for residents, who had to deal with the huge disruption to their community alongside the discomfort and inconvenience of being put out of their homes. I would like to thank everyone affected for their patience while we worked to make the area safe. Our enquiries into this incident are ongoing and I would appeal to anyone with any information to contact police on 101, quoting reference number 513 22/08/25. Jeffrey Epsteins imprisoned former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell repeatedly denied to the US Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released on Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financier. The Trump administration issued hundreds of pages of transcripts from interviews that deputy attorney general Todd Blanche conducted with Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex trafficking case. The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Mr Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Mr Blanche that she had observed Mr Trump engaged in any form of sexual behaviour. The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case. The transcript disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Mr Trumps base even as they send Congress evidence that they had previously kept from view. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said, according to the transcript. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. Maxwell recalled knowing about Mr Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had often been to Mr Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but had not seen Mr Trump since the mid-2000s. Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Mr Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied: Absolutely never, in any context. Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a news conference in New York on July 2 2020 (John Minchillo/AP) The British one-time socialite, who was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Mr Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement. After her interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida where she had been serving a 20-year sentence to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas. Neither her lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, said in a social media post on Friday that Maxwell was innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted. Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victims information. The case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financiers social connections over the years to prominent figures, including the Duke of York, former US president Bill Clinton and Mr Trump, who has said he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and well before Epstein came under investigation. Maxwell told Mr Blanche that Mr Clinton was initially her friend, not Epsteins, and that she never saw him receive a massage nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they travelled on Epsteins plane. David Oscar Markus, a lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell, outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, in July after deputy attorney general Todd Blanche met with Maxwell (Colin Hackley/AP) She also spoke glowingly of Andrew and dismissed as rubbish the late Virginia Giuffres claim that she was paid to have a relationship with him and that he had sex with her at Maxwells London home. That wouldve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage, Maxwell said. And he didnt, because I was there. Maxwell sought to distance herself from Epsteins conduct, repeatedly denying allegations made during her trial about her role. Though she acknowledged that at one point Epstein began preferring younger women, she insisted she never understood that to encompass children. I did see from when I met him, he was involved or involved or friends with or whatever, however you want to characterize it, with women who were in their 20s, she told Mr Blanche. And then the slide to, you know, or younger looking women. But I never considered that this would encompass criminal behavior. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York prison cell in what investigators described as a suicide. The saga has consumed the Trump administration over the last month following an abrupt two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a client list that attorney general Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released. Ghislaine Maxwell recalled knowing about Donald Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990 (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government cover-up, an expectation driven in part by comments from officials including FBI director Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld. Mr Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epsteins black book was under the direct control of the director of the FBI. The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Ms Bondi with binders marked The Epstein Files: Phase 1 and Declassified that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain. After the first release fell flat, Ms Bondi said officials were poring over a truckload of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases. But after a weeks-long review of evidence in the governments possession, the Justice Department said last month that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted. The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and only a fraction of it would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial. Faced with fury from the base, Mr Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Ms Bondi about Epstein at a White House cabinet meeting and deriding as weaklings supporters who he said were falling for the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. The kerfuffle also created bitter divisions within the administration, as Ms Bondi and Mr Bongino angrily clashed at a White House meeting last month. Mr Bongino was uncharacteristically silent on social media for several days after that. Russias foreign minister has said that no meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky is planned, despite Trumps calls for one (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) Russias top diplomat said there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss their three-year war, days after US President Donald Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together. There is no meeting planned between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBCs Sunday show Meet The Press With Kristen Welker. Mr Trump said in a social media post that he had spoken to Mr Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided. Mr Trump added he would join them for a trilateral meeting afterwards. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content Uncertainty has grown in recent days about Moscows commitment to US-led peace efforts, as Russian officials have raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals. Mr Lavrov said that Mr Putin is ready to meet with Mr Zelensky to discuss peace terms, but only after key issues have first been worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart. Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any post-war Russian attack, and US and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals on how that might work. But Mr Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscows involvement was pointless. On Thursday, a major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine struck an American-owned electronics plant, despite Mr Trumps criticism of Mr Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian targets while talking peace. Mr Zelensky said: The Russians are trying to do anything to avoid the (summit) meeting. The issue is not the meeting itself, the issue is that they do not want to end the war. The Ukrainian leader spoke during a press conference alongside Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was visiting Kyiv. It is necessary that this space for avoidance be reduced, Mr Zelensky said. US and European unity will reduce this space. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the issue is that Russia does not want to end the war (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Mr Rutte said that Mr Trump wants to break the deadlock with Mr Putin and engage the United States in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. President Trump has made this a priority, he told the news conference. Mr Rutte explained that guarantees under discussion would rest on two layers. The first, to take place after a peace deal or long-term ceasefire, would focus on making the Ukrainian armed forces as strong as possible. The second would involve security commitments provided by Europe and the United States. The European Unions foreign policy chief said that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is a trap set by Mr Putin. The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his armys invasion but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission, said. The recent talk about handing Mr Putin concessions is exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into, Ms Kallas said in an interview with the BBC. Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas criticised Russia, describing recent talk about concessions as the trap Russia wants us to walk into (Leon Neal/PA) I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people, she said. Russia is just dragging feet. Its clear that Russia does not want peace, Ms Kallas said. President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing. Ukraine, meanwhile, has hit back at Russia with long-range weapons that are targeting infrastructure supporting Moscows war effort. It has hit oil refineries, among other targets, and Russian wholesale gasoline prices have reached record highs in recent days. Ukrainian forces on Friday targeted the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia, hitting the Unecha oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, according to the commander of Ukraines Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, also known as Magyar. The Druzhba pipeline starts in Russia and takes oil through Belarus and Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary. In Russia, a section of it goes through the Bryansk region and the Unecha district. Ukraine fired HIMARS rockets and drones at the region in a combined attack, Bryansk regional Governor Alexander Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. Thailands former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been acquitted of a royal defamation charge in a case that could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years. The 76-year-old Thaksin, smiling as he walked away from the courtroom, was the first to reveal the verdict, responding to journalists questions with the single word: Dismissal. His lawyer, Winyat Chatmontree, also confirmed the acquittal verdict by the court, as did the Bangkok Criminal Court later in a news release. The law on defaming the monarchy, an offence known as lese majeste, is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. It is among the harshest such laws globally and increasingly has been used in Thailand to punish government critics. The legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people many of them student activists have been charged with violating the law. Mr Thaksin had been accused of royal defamation (AP) The courts news release said it had found the witnesses and evidence were too weak to support conviction. Mr Thaksin was originally charged in 2016 over remarks he made a year earlier to journalists in South Korea. The case was not pursued at that time because he was in exile and the necessary legal procedures could not be completed. The news release said the court determined that the account of the interview presented by the prosecution was incomplete and lacked context, and a key point did not clearly refer specifically to then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej. It also said the court thought that witnesses in the case against Mr Thaksin might have been motivated by political bias, because they have participated in political protests against him, leaving open the possibility they may have unfairly interpreted his words. Mr Thaksins opponents, who were generally staunch royalists, accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespecting then-King Bhumibol, who died in 2016. Mr Thaksin has always asserted that the cases against him were politically motivated. When he was indicted last year, Mr Thaksins freedom on bail was approved with the condition that he could not travel out of Thailand unless approved by court. His passport was confiscated. Despite facing various prosecutions since leaving office, Mr Thaksin has spent no time in prison. He was abroad in 2006 when a military coup ousted him. He briefly returned in 2008, only to return quickly to exile to avoid a possible prison term. Thailands suspended PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra also faces legal proceedings (AP) He returned to Thailand in 2023 when the Pheu Thai political party that he is closely associated with came to power. He was sent to serve an eight-year prison term on charges related to corruption and abuse of power but was transferred immediately to a hospital on medical grounds. After six months in a hospital suite, he was granted a pardon and parole and set free. The decision to send him to a hospital instead of prison was widely questioned as to whether he was granted a special, undeserved privilege. The Supreme Courts Criminal Division for Political Office Holders will rule next month in another case that puts him in jeopardy of imprisonment. Since his return, Mr Thaksin has maintained a high profile, traveling the country making public appearances and political observations that could upset the powerful conservative establishment that was behind his 2006 ouster. His daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who became prime minister last year, also faces legal proceedings. She stands accused of failing to handle in an ethical manner a June 15 call with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen in which they discussed tensions over territory claimed by both nations. The Constitutional Court suspended her from her duties on July 1 and next week will rule whether she will lose her prime ministerial position for breaching ethics laws. Belfast March for Jesus pitting believer against believer before its even begun Far from bringing different Christian denominations together, this parade will pull them further apart William Wade Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 07:13 At 2pm on August 23, a large number of zealous Christians from a variety of churches will be expected to gather at Ormeau Park in Belfast and walk triumphantly to City Hall in a highly publicised March for Jesus event. What is the message that comes from the High Courts decision to back Epping Councils petition to close the Bell Hotel, which has been used to accommodate people seeking asylum? It is not, as has been propagandised, that the Establishment judges who it turns out are not enemies of the people after all listened with sympathy to the cries of the mums and nans demonstrating outside the hotel and begging for protection for their kids (after one of the people in the hotel was arrested and then charged with a sexual assault). The High Court didnt take a view on that. If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom. New Marlborough's Mary Ann Palermo has a new Beatles cover album on the way with "Beatlemania" alum Tom Teeley in the producer's chair, adding to her repertoire of re-interpretations of hits from various genres. What began as a small paper converting business in Lee has grown into a full-service biomedical firm working to help clients across the country create, test and market new biomedical products. With a new Waltham office and a company-wide reorganization, Boyd Biomedical is entering its next phase all without leaving its Berkshire roots behind. A local man accused of several child sexual crimes has been ordered held without the right to bail before trial. Letter: For the first time, I question the cost of citizenship Quality local journalism needs your support Access this story and all of our stories with 24/7 unlimited access. Subscribe today. Cancel anytime. Subscribe now for 99 Subscriber Sign In | Return Home The weather should be inviting in the coming days for pedestrian traffic in downtown Lenox as the busy summer season winds down. Cooler temperatures prevail through the week, with just a chance of showers late Sunday into Monday. The context is familiar: Israel was disobeying God, worshiping idols, breaking the commandments. God would discipline them, allow them to be oppressed, hear their cry, rescue Israel, and then the cycle would start over again. Deborah, the only recorded female judge of Israel, emerged as a powerful and faithful figure to lead a rescue mission while Israel was suffering under the rule of an enemy nation. Women can derive tremendous encouragement from this ancient role model and learn much about what it means to follow the Lord faithfully. Context for Judges 4 and 5 In the years immediately prior to Deborahs story, God had saved Israel three times by using faithful servants. In Judges 3, we read about Othniel. The Spirit of God came on him and he rallied Israel. He went out to war and God gave him Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim. Othniel made short work of him (Judges 3:9-10, The Message). Forty years later, after Israel continued to do evil things in the sight of God, he sent them Ehud. He deceived the king of Moab Eglon by bringing tribute with a small group of men. After he had rejoined his group, Ehud went back with his short sword hidden under his clothes, stepped close to the king, and stabbed him (Judges 3:15-19). His bravery brought the Israelites 80 years of peace, but that too came to an end. After a time, the Philistines were permitted to oppress the wayward Israelites. Finally, using a cattle prod, [Shamgar] killed six hundred Philistines single-handed. He too saved Israel (Judges 3:31). Another period of peace followed until Israel rebelled against God again and was oppressed by King Jabin of Canaan. Judges introduces us to Deborah at the point where the people were crying out for help once more, and God heard them. The People of Israel cried out to God because [Jabin] had cruelly oppressed them with his nine hundred iron chariots for twenty years (Judges 4:3). A man was the source of oppression King Jabin and a man was expected to deliver Israel. After all, God had sent three men before Deborah. She was directed by God to call Israels military leader, Barak, to the front line. Encouraged By Deborahs Relationship with God Scripture tells of the times when God spoke to men such as Moses, Abraham, and Elijah. We might think that he only speaks to men, but here we see that a persons sex is not what matters to God. He has a plan and a purpose: who will faithfully carry it out? In this case, he saw that Deborah would take charge and do what he commanded. It has become clear that God, the God of Israel, commands you: Go to Mount Tabor and prepare for battle. Take ten companies of soldiers from Naphtali and Zebulun. Ill take care of getting Sisera, the leader of Jabins army, to the Kishon River with all his chariots and troops. And Ill make sure you win the battle (Judges 4:6-7). God spoke to Deborah because she remained faithful to him and his people, even when they were not faithful to him. One writer explains that, as a judge, Deborah held a position of authority and was sought after for her wisdom and guidance. Her role as a prophetess indicates that she received divine revelation, which she communicated to the people of Israel. Deborah regularly prayed and listened to God, as we are frequently instructed to do, too. God commanded the disciples: This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to him (Mark 9:7). Paul wrote to the church at Philippi: Dont fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of Gods wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down (Philippians 4:6-7). If we follow Deborahs example, we will bring our concerns to God and he will answer us. He will provide his presence, his power, and his peace. We might have to go into battle, but we can be encouraged: believers are never alone. Women Can Be Both Strong and Nurturing Women in the western world, particularly the western church, are taught to be gentle and loving, nurturing and motherly. This is hard on women who remain single or who marry and cannot bear children. Deborah was married, although we do not know if Deborah had children. However, she is compared to a mother. Then you, Deborah, rose up; you got up, a mother in Israel (Judges 5:7). Amanda Jackson describes Deborah as a maternal figure; Deborah is able to administer justice fairly, lovingly, by seeing herself as a mother ... caring, nurturing, wise, strong, pushing her children on seeing potential, giving life. There is a gentle side to her role as judge. That mothering role, however, is also a powerful one because Deborah hands it over to the Lord, for him to shape and employ as he wills. Because she submits to the Lord, Deborah becomes like a shepherd. She also led her people like a shepherd, carrying them sometimes, feeding them, protecting them. All of the other judges led by doing amazing feats of super-hero stuff. Deborah is a mother to Israel. ...We remember the image that Jesus uses of a mother hen protecting her chicks (Luke 13:34) or when Moses says the Lord is an eagle teaching her chicks to fly (Deut. 32:11). ...Our concept of leadership is sometimes limited to an unhelpful Alpha male perspective. Jackson is saying that leadership is not exclusively in the male domain; women can be assigned by God to lead, even overshadowing the males around them, if they do so in the power of God himself. Men and women alike only succeed in fighting the battles assigned to them by God when they humble themselves and allow him to fill them with his strength. Deborah is both humble enough to do this, and bold enough to trust and act. Encouraged to Embrace Our Calling In fact, her role switches. From nurturer to fighter, Jackson points out that Deborah knew her job and recognized when that job had changed. As a judge and prophetess, she called on a soldier to lead the army. She knows she does not have to do everything herself and she knows who to call Barak. Deborah was originally intending to support Barak, who would not go to battle without her (Judges 4:8). Says Jackson, Deborah was ready to act and God assigned her Barak. She knew God, so she was also able to trust his direction for her and for Barak to act quickly and with confidence, even when the roles changed. She did not hasten to the front lines and rally the troops: this came later, after Barak doubted his own calling and the Lords instructions. She must have prayed about those iron chariots and the oppression of her people but ... staying faithful in her role was of vital importance to meet the coming crisis time. ...Deborah was faithful but it took her people 20 years to finally call out against oppression. She had to wait until the people cried out: a judge does not go out looking for matters of injustice to settle; a judge responds to the problems brought before her. Women can proudly embrace the jobs that the Lord is calling them to, which will change over time. God equips us for our calling and wants us to follow, whether that is to raise a family, to run a business, or to fight on the front lines of a battlefield. Deborah encourages us to listen and respond to the Father with our yes, trusting that the Lord will direct our steps, guide us, and stand with us. When Barak was fearful, Deborah confidently stepped into her new job. Deborah said to Barak, Charge! This very day God has given you victory over Sisera. Isnt God marching before you? (Judges 4:14). She acted, she followed through, and did not permit Baraks doubt to become a hurdle to the Lords leadership in this matter or in what she was appointed to do. God had given her direction and instruction, and Deborah was determined to carry this out. She knew, from the history of men who had led Israel astray, that the consequences of ignoring God were severe. The result was that a woman got the glory: Deborah is known as a victorious warrior Judge. If we trust and follow God, we also will see him win victory through our efforts. We also participate in his glory when we show that glory to others. Encouraging Women, Even Now Deborahs courage came from her close relationship with the Lord. She was patient, waiting 20 years, doing what she had been sent to do. He nurtured her character, and then she allowed him to change her course when the time came, according to his plans. Deborah acted quickly and courageously when the moment came to face a fierce opponent, an oppressor with 900 chariots, after Israels voice and strength had been muted and dulled for many years. Our own opponents appear very different, but those chariots represent the sinful nature of our world and how it challenges us to respond with truth, grace, and love. Amanda Jackson observes that the secularism of our age, or the manipulation of religion for political ends or the immorality we see in our nations may be like iron chariots. We have our own enemies to face, but like Deborah, we can be strong in our weakness when our strength comes from the Lord. Photo credit: Getty Images/xixinx Candice Lucey is a freelance writer from British Columbia, Canada, where she lives with her family. Find out more about her here. You may have heard the phrase, Be a thermostat not a thermometer, followed by the explanation that the latter reflects the temperature around it while the former helps regulate its surroundings. I want to live my life so grounded in who I am in Christ, to Christ, and through the power of Christ that Im not engulfed by the chaos around me. Instead, I want to act like an instrument of peace that invites others to experience the Lord and His grace. Simply put, Scripture tells me that I currently reside in a position of honor and power with my Savior, and I want my attitudes and behavior to reflect this reality. Ephesians 2:4-6 states it this way: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. Historical Context To grasp the depth of this truth and how it applies to our lives both today and in eternity, we must first understand what it meant to its original audience. The apostle Paul, a first century church planter who penned much of the New Testament, initially wrote the book of Ephesians to recently converted Christ followers living in ancient Ephesus and surrounding area. These people had grown up in a pagan land dominated by darkness and, likely, lewd acts such as temple prostitution. According to Acts 19:35, people considered Ephesus the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image. This was, in essence, their claim to fame and a major source of their economic stability, not just in relation to craftsmen who made and sold idols, but also through the tourism this cult created. One can understand, then, why Pauls preaching stirred such intense opposition. He threatened peoples financial security. Many of us have watched the chaotic and sometimes even violent response of those who feel their livelihood being threatened. Fear can result in hostile behavior and cause normal men and women to behave in manipulative and malicious ways. If we believe our boss, company, pastor, professor, or civic leaders hold ultimate power over our financial security, and thus, well-being, well likely exhibit fight-or-flight behavior in response to threats. If, however, we anchor our trust in Christ and who we are to Him, were better able to weather the most tumultuous storms with faith. The light of Christ shattering the darkness in ancient Ephesus didnt just enrage the people. It also infuriated and mobilized evil. The devil and his demons did not want to relinquish control of the souls theyd enslaved, and he used the residents and leaders to do so. As Paul reminded his readers in Ephesians 6:12: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. As the devil often does, he used humans to stir up chaos and strike fear and hatred into the hearts of the people. In Acts 19:23-27, we read: About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty. This infuriated the people and threw the city into an uproar that couldve turned violent, if not for the city clerk. While he quieted and dismissed the mob, the image of this event probably remained with the Christ-followers, most of whom were new in their faith. Based on the events recorded in Acts 19, we can assume these men and women continued to experience hostility and persecution from those not yet freed from evils grasp. A Position of Power Now consider Pauls words early in his letter regarding Christs authority: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (Eph. 1:18-23, emphasis mine). The phrase at [God the Fathers] right hand is a Hebrew idiom symbolizing strength. Notice also what the ancient Israelites proclaimed directly after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt: Your right hand, Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, Lord, shattered the enemy (Exodus 15:6). One of my favorite verses, particularly when Im feeling unsettled, comes from Isaiah 41:10: So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. The right hand, then, symbolizes power, protection, and victory. What Does This Mean for Us Today? To quote author and Bible teacher Judy Dunagan, The enemys roar is but a whisper in the presence of our mighty God. This is the message Paul conveyed to the Ephesians, and by extension, us. Through His death and resurrection, Christ made a mockery of the devil and his minions. Therefore, we have no need to fear. As 1 John 4:4 states, greater is He (the Holy Spirit) who is in us than the one (the devil and every system he corrupts and person he influences) who is in the world. Consider what this means for us in light of Ephesians 2:6. This verse tells us that Christ isnt the only One seated above the forces of evil and their effects. Because we are seated with Him, we are seated above as well. God raised us from death to life and from helpless victims to empowered, honored, and elevated victors able stand firm under attack. We are, by faith, able to extinguish the flaming arrows of our enemy. As Dunagan also wrote, We do not fight for victory; we fight from victory. We do not fight in order to win but because we have already won. Overcomers are those who rest in the victory already given to them by their God. The more we recognize and remind ourselves of our secure position in Christ and all the spiritual weapons we possess (Eph. 6:10-17), the better were able to stand firm, no matter what comes at us. This tells us a few things. First, it reminds us that every spiritual blessing we possess stems not from our exemplary behavior, but from the goodness of our Father. And notice the qualifiers. He responds to us in great love and rich, or abundant, mercy, phrases that highlight His inexhaustible grace toward us. The Lord saw us in our spiritually dead state, moved toward us in compassion, and breathed life into our diseased and decaying souls. Through faith, by grace, we crossed over from death to life and now sit with Christ in the heavenly realms. This is one of those now-and-not-yet truths recorded in Scripture. At this moment, we are actively enjoying the benefits of Gods kingdom while waiting for the day when Hell banish death, darkness and decay from our existence for good. Perhaps one could envision this as standing with one foot in the ocean and the other on the beach. Our goal isnt to disconnect from earth, but to experience more of heaven internally so that more of our Savior and His purposes flow from us and onto others. A Position of Honor In Bible times, people placed a great deal of emphasis on where they, or their dinner guests, sat. We see an example of this in Luke 14, when Jesus visited the home of a prominent Pharisee. In verses 7-10 we read: When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, Give this person your seat. Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, Friend, move up to a better place. Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. According to the Pulpit Commentary: The place of honour is said to have been at the upper end of the right side, the president being placed, not in the centre of that end of the table which faced the opening, but at the side. The most honoured guest would be at his right hand. Although social customs in the United States tend to be more relaxed, weve probably all attended an event with assigned seating. During womens conferences and retreats, the director and speakers often sit at the table closest to the front. In weddings, close family often occupy tables near the wedding party while casual acquaintances may be in a back corner. When we join our Savior at the great wedding feast of the lamb, however, we wont be relegated to a distant table. To quote Bible teacher Heather Hollman, No matter where you sit, you wont miss anything.To rephrase, every seat is honorable at the Saviors heavenly table. This reminds me of Gods declaration in Isaiah 43. After proclaiming His faithful, protective care for us during times of crisis, He said: Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you (Isaiah 43:4a). Pause to reflect on that a moment. All-powerful, sovereign Creator God, the ruler of all that exists who Himself is worthy of all honor and praise, calls us precious and honored. He alone has the authority to assign our worth and determine our seating arrangement. And He chose to place us at His Sons table. A Position of Spiritual Rest In my two-decades plus of ministry, Ive discovered an unfortunate tendency exhibited by many of the Lords beloved children. We often understand grace when it comes to our salvation and our need for it. After our conversion, however, were prone to live as if our growth and transformation depended on our effort and self-control rather than the Holy Spirit at work within us. This is why I find the emphasis on Jesus seated position so encouraging. In Hebrews 10, the author contrasts the old covenant and its sacrificial system with Christs finished work on the cross. In Hebrews 10:11-14, we read: Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest meaning Jesus, our great High Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. In other words, Jesus sitting reiterated His last words on the cross: It is finished. His death and resurrection defeated the forces of evil, purchased our forgiveness, paved the way for us to live in intimate relationship with each member of the Trinity, and allowed us to experience soul-deep peace. We dont have to exhaust ourselves trying to earn salvation or Gods favor. In Christ, weve received both. His rest becomes ours. As I close, prayerfully reflect upon this quote from Heather Hollman: As I read the entire passage, I said this: Im seated with Christ. But Im not living like I have a seat at the Greatest Table with the Greatest King. Im living like someone fighting for a seat at the table. Can you resonate with this experience? If so, how might envisioning yourself in a glorious banquet hall, seated at the most honorable and powerful table in the space, impact you? You are not excluded or overlooked but invited close by the King of kings and Lord of lords. Because, according to Scripture, we are seated in a position of honor, rest, and power with our Savior, and living in that reality changes everything! Photo credit: Unsplash/Eyup Belen Jennifer Slattery is a writer and speaker who co-hosts the Faith Over Fear podcast and, along with a team of 6, the Your Daily Bible Verse podcast. Shes addressed womens groups, Bible studies, and taught at writers conferences across the nation. Shes the author of Building a Family and numerous other titles and maintains a devotional blog at JenniferSlatteryLivesOutLou d.com . Shes passionate about helping people experience Christs freedom in all areas of their lives. Visit her online to learn more about her speaking or to book her for your next womens event, and sign up for her free quarterly newsletter HERE and make sure to connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and GodTube. Xi to attend SCO summit in China's Tianjin, host relevant events Xinhua) 09:38, August 22, 2025 BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit 2025, which will be held in Tianjin Municipality in north China on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, and host relevant events. Xi will chair the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO and the "SCO Plus" Meeting, and deliver keynote speeches, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. During the summit, Xi will host a welcome banquet and bilateral events for participating leaders. This summit will be one of the most important head-of-state diplomacy and home-ground diplomacy events in China this year, Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin said at a press briefing. In his keynote speeches at the above-mentioned two meetings, Xi will elaborate on China's new vision and propositions for the SCO in carrying forward the Shanghai Spirit, shouldering the mission of the times, and responding to the people's expectations, Liu said. Xi will also announce new measures and initiatives by China to support high-quality development of the SCO and comprehensive cooperation, and propose new methods and pathways for the organization to constructively safeguard the post-WWII international order and improve the global governance system, Liu added. According to the official, Xi will jointly sign and issue a declaration with leaders of other SCO member states, approve a development strategy of the SCO for the next 10 years, issue statements marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War and the 80th founding anniversary of the United Nations, and adopt a series of outcome documents on strengthening security, economic, people-to-people and cultural cooperation. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Hongyu) India's Translational Research Initiative inks MoU with UKs Centre for Process Innovation August 22, 2025 | Friday | News Initially focusing on Biomanufacturing enabled by Engineering Biology & AI India's Translational Research Initiative (ITRI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UKs Centre for Process Innovation (CPI). This collaboration will enhance the UK-India partnership on research, development and innovation (R&D&I) and strengthen Indias translational research ecosystem. This partnership focuses on shared learning, and knowledge exchange between ITRI, CPI, and other partners in the UK and India. The partnership will initially focus on key areas, such as: - Biomanufacturing enabled by Engineering Biology & AI - Sustainable and functional materials - Industrial decarbonisation technologies - Pandemic preparedness including RNA vaccines & therapeutics With CPIs two decades of experience in scaling deep-tech innovations and ITRIs collaborative philanthropic effort and upcoming network of translational research centres across India, this partnership is a significant step towards fast-track lab-to-market transitions for economic, health, and environmental impact. Borsa Italiana non ha responsabilita per il contenuto del sito a cui sta per accedere e non ha responsabilita per le informazioni contenute. Accedendo a questo link, Borsa Italiana non intende sollecitare acquisti o offerte in alcun paese da parte di nessuno. Sarai automaticamente diretto al link in cinque secondi. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said that attacks on members of the Indian community in Ireland are motivated by racism, crime and picking on the vulnerable. He said that juveniles were involved in such attacks was particularly concerning and said they are being monitored by senior gardai. Advertisement The Ireland India Council said there has been an organised social media campaign against the Indian community in the country and the number of violent attacks has intensified since January. Last week, it announced it would postpone an India Day event at Farmleigh House over safety concerns. Speaking about the attacks, Mr Harris said he met with the Indian ambassador to Ireland Akhilesh Mishra two weeks ago. Justice Minister Jim OCallaghan said that he was concerned with attacks on the Indian community, as well as an assault that has left a tourist in a critical condition, but said that Dublin is getting safer. Advertisement He said the number of gardai on the streets of Dublin had increased. All citizens and all the individuals residing here do know that An Garda Siochana is there to protect them, Mr Harris said. Minister for Justice Jim OCallaghan said Dublin was getting safer. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA. Weve been engaged in a considerable outreach programme now with the Indian community as well, so that when incidents happen they are reported promptly, and then were able to mount investigations. Yesterday, we received a series of reports on progress that was being made on the state of the inquiries and you can rest assured these matters are being supervised at the highest levels within An Garda Siochana. Advertisement He added: In part, there is racism in this and in part it is an element of crime as well, and picking on the vulnerable too. So, there is a combination, I think, of racism and then seeing individuals who people regard as being vulnerable, and that is motivating these attacks as well. He said the fact that juveniles were involved in such attacks was particularly concerning. Obviously, we have spent a lot of resources in terms of juvenile liaison officers and so, through that network then, were reaching out and trying to bring behaviours, obviously, back to proper state, but also then trying to detect those who have been involved. Advertisement Minister for Justice Jim OCallaghan has said that he is concerned with attacks on the Indian community but said that Dublin is getting safer. He said he was also concerned about the attack on a tourist in Temple Bar this week. I met with the Indian community and I expressed to them my concern about some recent attacks upon them, Mr OCallaghan said. I think its important to point out, however, that when you look at the latest crime statistics, that assaults on the person are down in terms of the first six months of this year from the first six months of last year. Advertisement Its also the case that there are more gardai on the streets in Dublin. I was looking at the RTE News last night, and Stephen Kennedy from Copper + Straw (coffee chain) was on, somebody who Id worked with very intensively before I became Minister for Justice, hes got a business on Aston Quay. Ireland Wave of elation and relief sweeps across Dublin sc... Read More He notices that increased number of gardai on the streets, as many do, and he wants to see it maintained. Listen, a large capital city is always going to have incidents of criminal behaviour. But my own view is Dublin is getting safer. Im happy to walk around Dublin any time of the day or night, and I would like the message to go out to people that Dublin is a safe place to come into. A 50-year-old former referee has become the oldest probationer ever in An Garda Siochana. Michael Connolly, from Aghyaran in Co Tyrone, was one of 154 gardai who were attested as sworn members at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on Friday. Advertisement Mr Connolly said he was at Queens University 30 years ago and has a background in health and wellbeing. He said his grandfather wanted to be a garda, but after his mother became sick he had to stay at home and maintain the farm, which remained his career for the rest of his life. In December 2023 Mr Connollys father-in-law mentioned that the gardai were raising the age limit for new recruits from 35 to 50 the following month. I had one shot at it, said Mr Connolly, who turned 50 in April 2025. Advertisement January 2024, I went and made an application, and everything snowballed after that. It was one hurdle after another, and I clipped through a few of them, and I thought, this could become real. Then the medical came around and I got through it, happy days. In December 2024, I landed down here and Ive had nine months of challenge, pleasure, some great people and stationed in Milford for my placement, its all been very good. Advertisement He also said his experience as a League of Ireland referee would help him as a garda. Mr Connolly said: The conflict, dealing with people, the sanctions, the penalties, theres so many aspects of refereeing that transfer naturally to being a garda. Those skills of dealing with conflict, of dealing with pressure situations, dealing with people when theyre heated up, that gives me a bit of an idea (that he can manage such situations). He said his wife, three daughters, parents, and parents-in-law were at the ceremony on Friday. Advertisement Mr Connolly also said that a fellow probationer garda proposed to his girlfriend before the graduation ceremony began, and she said yes. Hannah Egan, 19, from Co Laois, said she got her Leaving Cert results two years ago but knew she wanted to be a garda like her father. Hannah Egan after the graduation ceremony in Templemore, Co Tipperary (Grainne Ni Aodha/PA) I grew up always seeing him do it and I never wanted to do anything else, it was all I wanted, I was set on it, she said. Im looking forward to getting to know loads of people and if I can help a single person that will be my days work done, Ill be happy. Advertisement I think its all about having your head screwed on, and I think if you have your head screwed on youll be absolutely fine. Caragh Byrne, 22, from Cork, said she wanted to become a garda to follow in the footsteps of her father, Martin. She said her father was very surprised when she said at 16 years old that she wanted to be a garda, and said he became emotional and proud when she applied. Ms Byrne said: Seeing my dad come home from work, asking for stories and I was so interested since I was little and in TY (transition year) when I went for work experience with the guards, I knew since then becoming a member of An Garda Siochana was something I wanted to do. Even today now seeing both of us in the same attire, its amazing really. She said the training was amazing and that joining the gardai was the best thing Ive ever done. Asked if her father had given her any advice, Ms Byrne said: Be yourself, dont change for anyone or anything. Be yourself and have your own character and your own mindset is the most important thing to becoming a member. Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said Israel's ongoing blockade of food and aid into Gaza a "war crime" as the world's leading authority on food crises declared a famine in Gaza. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said famine is occurring in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that it could spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. Advertisement The IPC determination comes after months of warnings by aid groups that Israels restrictions of food and other aid into Gaza, and its military offensive, were causing high levels of starvation among Palestinian civilians, particularly children. Mr Martin said "Israel has an absolute obligation to allow the people there unfettered and urgent access to humanitarian aid, medical and food supplies". The Taoiseach's statement goes on to say famine in Gaza was "both entirely predictable and preventable". Palestinian women and children hold out their empty pots in front of a charity kitchen in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 21st, 2025. Photo: AFP via Getty Images "The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has been raised to Phase 5, the highest possible level of food insecurity, in what has been described as an 'entirely man-made' and 'catastrophic' situation. "Israel must stop its attacks on, and bombardment of, Gaza City. "The withholding of food and water from civilians is collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and a war crime. "The retention of hostages by Hamas is also a war crime, and it is long past time for their unconditional release and an end to this war. "The inhumanity we are witnessing in Gaza has shocked the world. The maiming, mutilation and killing of children simply has to stop. The war must end now." A British Airways flight attendant was found high on drugs and completely naked in an onboard toilet during a flight from California to London, a court has heard. Haden Pentecost (41) who was described as agitated, sweating and babbling had to be stood down by the flights manager when he failed to help with any pre-flight safety checks. Advertisement After complaining of stomach cramps and saying he needed to change his clothes, the air steward locked himself in one of the planes bathrooms. When he opened the door, his colleague found him naked and oblivious to the fact he had no clothes on. She had to dress him before moving him into a free seat, the court was told. He has since been sacked by British Airways (James Manning/PA) Pentecost appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court in England on Friday where he pleaded guilty to performing an aviation function while impaired by drugs. The flight attendant was spoken to by the captain before a health professional was called for, magistrates were told. Advertisement He had dilated pupils, a high heart rate, and had to be checked every 20 minutes until the plane arrived at Heathrow where paramedics took him to hospital. A blood test later revealed Pentecost had methamphetamine and amphetamine in his system, the court heard. World Pilot suspended for allegedly leaving cockpit door... Read More He has since been sacked by British Airways, and lives with his husband, the court was told. Pentecost, of Basingstoke in southern England, was granted to bail to be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court at a later date. Advertisement British Airways has been approached for comment. Russias top diplomat said there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss their three-year war, days after US President Donald Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together. There is no meeting planned between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBCs Sunday show Meet The Press With Kristen Welker. Advertisement Mr Trump said in a social media post that he had spoken to Mr Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided. Mr Trump added he would join them for a trilateral meeting afterwards. Uncertainty has grown in recent days about Moscows commitment to US-led peace efforts, as Russian officials have raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals. Mr Lavrov said that Mr Putin is ready to meet with Mr Zelensky to discuss peace terms, but only after key issues have first been worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart. Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any post-war Russian attack, and US and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals on how that might work. But Mr Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscows involvement was pointless. Advertisement On Thursday, a major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine struck an American-owned electronics plant, despite Mr Trumps criticism of Mr Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian targets while talking peace. Mr Zelensky said: The Russians are trying to do anything to avoid the (summit) meeting. The issue is not the meeting itself, the issue is that they do not want to end the war. The Ukrainian leader spoke during a press conference alongside Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was visiting Kyiv. It is necessary that this space for avoidance be reduced, Mr Zelensky said. US and European unity will reduce this space. Advertisement Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the issue is that Russia does not want to end the war (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Mr Rutte said that Mr Trump wants to break the deadlock with Mr Putin and engage the United States in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. President Trump has made this a priority, he told the news conference. Mr Rutte explained that guarantees under discussion would rest on two layers. The first, to take place after a peace deal or long-term ceasefire, would focus on making the Ukrainian armed forces as strong as possible. The second would involve security commitments provided by Europe and the United States. Advertisement The European Unions foreign policy chief said that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is a trap set by Mr Putin. The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his armys invasion but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission, said. The recent talk about handing Mr Putin concessions is exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into, Ms Kallas said in an interview with the BBC. Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas criticised Russia, describing recent talk about concessions as the trap Russia wants us to walk into (Leon Neal/PA) I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people, she said. Advertisement Russia is just dragging feet. Its clear that Russia does not want peace, Ms Kallas said. President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing. Ukraine, meanwhile, has hit back at Russia with long-range weapons that are targeting infrastructure supporting Moscows war effort. It has hit oil refineries, among other targets, and Russian wholesale gasoline prices have reached record highs in recent days. Ukrainian forces on Friday targeted the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia, hitting the Unecha oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, according to the commander of Ukraines Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, also known as Magyar. The Druzhba pipeline starts in Russia and takes oil through Belarus and Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary. In Russia, a section of it goes through the Bryansk region and the Unecha district. Ukraine fired HIMARS rockets and drones at the region in a combined attack, Bryansk regional Governor Alexander Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. Thailands former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been acquitted of a royal defamation charge in a case that could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years. The 76-year-old Thaksin, smiling as he walked away from the courtroom, was the first to reveal the verdict, responding to journalists questions with the single word: Dismissal. Advertisement His lawyer, Winyat Chatmontree, also confirmed the acquittal verdict by the court, as did the Bangkok Criminal Court later in a news release. The law on defaming the monarchy, an offence known as lese majeste, is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. It is among the harshest such laws globally and increasingly has been used in Thailand to punish government critics. The legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people many of them student activists have been charged with violating the law. Mr Thaksin had been accused of royal defamation (AP) The courts news release said it had found the witnesses and evidence were too weak to support conviction. Advertisement Mr Thaksin was originally charged in 2016 over remarks he made a year earlier to journalists in South Korea. The case was not pursued at that time because he was in exile and the necessary legal procedures could not be completed. The news release said the court determined that the account of the interview presented by the prosecution was incomplete and lacked context, and a key point did not clearly refer specifically to then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej. It also said the court thought that witnesses in the case against Mr Thaksin might have been motivated by political bias, because they have participated in political protests against him, leaving open the possibility they may have unfairly interpreted his words. Mr Thaksins opponents, who were generally staunch royalists, accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespecting then-King Bhumibol, who died in 2016. Mr Thaksin has always asserted that the cases against him were politically motivated. Advertisement When he was indicted last year, Mr Thaksins freedom on bail was approved with the condition that he could not travel out of Thailand unless approved by court. His passport was confiscated. Despite facing various prosecutions since leaving office, Mr Thaksin has spent no time in prison. He was abroad in 2006 when a military coup ousted him. He briefly returned in 2008, only to return quickly to exile to avoid a possible prison term. Thailands suspended PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra also faces legal proceedings (AP) He returned to Thailand in 2023 when the Pheu Thai political party that he is closely associated with came to power. He was sent to serve an eight-year prison term on charges related to corruption and abuse of power but was transferred immediately to a hospital on medical grounds. After six months in a hospital suite, he was granted a pardon and parole and set free. The decision to send him to a hospital instead of prison was widely questioned as to whether he was granted a special, undeserved privilege. The Supreme Courts Criminal Division for Political Office Holders will rule next month in another case that puts him in jeopardy of imprisonment. Advertisement Since his return, Mr Thaksin has maintained a high profile, traveling the country making public appearances and political observations that could upset the powerful conservative establishment that was behind his 2006 ouster. His daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who became prime minister last year, also faces legal proceedings. She stands accused of failing to handle in an ethical manner a June 15 call with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen in which they discussed tensions over territory claimed by both nations. The Constitutional Court suspended her from her duties on July 1 and next week will rule whether she will lose her prime ministerial position for breaching ethics laws. The surprising call to me and my colleague, Chris Masters, a fortnight ago was from Keelty himself. The former AFP commissioner wanted to talk. It turned out these events have plagued him for half a decade. He was emotional. The story caused him professional scars and personal heartache, and he wanted his side told. Former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty at his home in Brisbane. Credit: Dan Peled In his view, the police investigation into the information leak had caused an injustice that cost two men their cherished careers and perhaps millions of dollars of taxpayers money and ended up finding nothing. Compounding the fault, according to Keelty, was the ongoing determination by the police to keep the details of the whole debacle hidden from the public. I know how hard theyve fought because, since 2021, Ive been trying to wrest the information out of the AFP using a freedom of information request. That battle has been waged and blocked, time and again, up and down the court system, and still not a word of information has been released. Loading Its a cover-up, Keelty told me. Even if it damages his own reputation, he says, he wants the public to know the truth. Which takes us back to what happened in mid-2018, when Keelty twice met Roberts-Smith. It was a dual mission, Keelty says firstly, a welfare check, and secondly to recruit the big soldier on behalf of consultancy firm Accenture. Before the meetings, though, Keelty asked around the senior echelons of police. He says he wanted to know if there was anything he should avoid saying. He calls it deconflicting the conversation. So over a couple of weeks, he spoke to the three most senior cops the then-commissioner, Andrew Colvin, and two of his deputies, Ramzi Jabbour and Neil Gaughan. Keelty believes they should have warned him to avoid meeting Roberts-Smith, but they did not. During Keeltys first meeting with the not all that bright ex-soldier, Roberts-Smith appeared to mistake the former cop for an active AFP representative (Keelty had retired almost a decade earlier). Then after the meeting, Roberts-Smith, whose phone was tapped, immediately told confidants he now believed a police investigation had been launched. But if Keelty had inadvertently leaked the information to Roberts-Smith, who had given it to Keelty? Gaughan, who had ultimate oversight of the Roberts-Smith investigation, suspected his fellow deputy commissioner, Jabbour. Loading Gaughan instigated an internal investigation Operation Geranium. In an affidavit prepared for the freedom of information case, Keelty said that, at the time, Jabbour had been one of the leading contenders to become the AFP commissioner. Appointed to run the internal investigation were two officers that Jabbour had previously disciplined and moved out of the professional standards division. They tapped Jabbours phone and, in March the following year, he was stood down from his job. He resigned soon after. Jabbour told me last week that, at the time, he had known nothing about either Roberts-Smith he was out of the loop and everyone knew that or Operation Geranium. But for two years, the investigation drifted on. When the leak to Keelty could not be substantiated, internal investigators looked at other alleged misdemeanours. Eventually, two low-level, completely unrelated, charges were laid against Jabbour (misusing police time to help someone with their homework and carrying a weapon without permission). Both were unceremoniously thrown out by an ACT magistrate in March 2021. Former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty, Ben Roberts-Smith and ex-deputy commissioner Ramzi Jabbour. Credit: Artwork: Jamie Brown Two years later, Jabbour extracted a letter from the police anti-corruption commission saying: The evidence obtained during the investigation did not support [corruption] allegations All matters have now been finalised with no adverse findings against you. Jabbour says it was a perfect storm for his career. Keelty lost his job as the inspector-general of the Murray Darling Basin Commission what he describes as the best job I ever had. Its all but broken me. All for trying to do the right thing by everyone, Keelty told me. But Im not looking for sympathy, but I am looking for honesty and I am looking for the truth to come out. Id like the same thing. Four years ago, in 2021, I lodged my freedom of information request. I asked for the statements to Operation Geranium of Colvin, Gaughan and internal investigations head Nigel Ryan, as well as the final report. The police knocked my request back, citing a spaghetti of clauses and sub-clauses. Large parts of the documents were irrelevant, the police said. They would prejudice the enforcement of a law, have a substantial adverse effect on the management of personnel, damage the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of an agency, and involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information. They then turned down an internal review. The official appeal body (the Office of the Information Commissioner) dodged the question and referred it to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The tribunal member heard the case and knocked us back there, too. So profoundly supportive of the police position was he that he added a new reason for refusal that they hadnt thought of. Each time the police argued their case, the reasons for denying my request morphed. We appealed to the Federal Court. There, a full bench of three judges who had read the documents thoroughly rebuked the tribunal member and demolished the police arguments. Many parts of the documents could safely be released, and there was a clear and over-riding public interest. To lose sight of that would be to lose sight of the principal object of the FOI Act, said the key judgment. Scrutiny, discussion, comment and review of the activities of the Commonwealth government and its agencies, and the conduct of those performing functions on their behalf, is a public purpose. Loading To sort out the details, the judges referred the case back to the tribunal. It had been so long that, in the meantime, the tribunals name had changed. This gave the police one more chance to oppose us. So, of course, they have. This time, theyre arguing that to release these documents would deter everyone in the AFP who sees corruption from coming forward to report it. So ridiculous is this contention that it prompted Keelty to call us. As a result, we now know a lot more about these events than we did. We know why Keelty made the dreadful misstep of agreeing to meet Roberts-Smith. We have Keeltys account of whom he spoke to before that meeting, and a plausible theory of how Roberts-Smith came to the view he was under investigation. We know whom Roberts-Smith called after the meeting and, roughly, what he said. And weve seen the previously secret note that kicked off the internal investigation. We also know that the police are protecting neither Keelty nor Jabbour by keeping these documents under wraps. Both men rejected requests from the police lawyers to help them in the freedom of information case, and both are now on the record saying they want the documents released. Jabbour told me: My hope, to be honest, is that the experience isnt forgotten and can serve as a catalyst for genuine reform. Because I think the integrity framework shouldnt be vulnerable to weaponisation, which I think is what has occurred in this case. Keelty has sworn an affidavit supporting our case. To his credit, so far, the tribunals president has shown little patience for the AFPs dissembling. He told their lawyers last week he wanted to see all the documents including ones they were withholding from him. They should, he warned, employ common sense. That would be nice. What were still not sure about is why theyre fighting so hard. Initially, I thought they were protecting a wrongdoer. Now Im inclined to think theyre covering for good old-fashioned incompetence. Perhaps theyre opposing this at the expense of hundreds of thousands, or millions, of taxpayer dollars out of pure embarrassment. And the FOI Act has something very clear to say about that: s.11 B 4 (a): The following factors must not be taken into account in deciding whether access to the document [is in] the public interest: Embarrassment or cause a loss of confidence. Loading The FOI battle returns to the tribunal for a hearing next week. And as for Roberts-Smith? Well, a further catastrophic AFP stuff-up in the war crimes investigation unrelated to Keelty or Jabbour meant the federal police were taken off the case five years after it began. A whole new prosecution body, the Office of the Special Investigator, was established to carry it forward. A trainee doctor accused of spying on hundreds of women in toilets across major Melbourne hospitals has walked free on the condition he live with his parents, who vowed in court to financially support him and take him on long walks and hikes. Ryan Cho is already facing more than 130 charges, but that number is expected to rise to 500 over the next two months, prosecutors told the Supreme Court on Friday. Ryan Cho is accused of secretly filming colleagues in the toilets of hospitals where he worked. Credit: Joe Armao The 28-year-old, who was refused bail by Melbourne Magistrates Court less than a month ago, is charged with secretly recording hundreds of people, mostly women, using bathrooms and showers at the Austin Hospital, Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre from 2021 to 2025. Outside court, Cho, dressed in sunglasses and a face mask, walked to freedom along Lonsdale Street alongside his lawyer George Balot. New York: A Manhattan appeals court struck down a roughly $US500 million ($780 million) fraud penalty against US President Donald Trump and his company, even as it upheld the finding that he broke the law by inflating the value of assets such as Mar-a-Lago. A five-judge panel on Thursday, New York time, agreed with Trump that the size of the fine was unconstitutionally excessive. Donald Trump argued that his method of valuing his real estate was typical of the industry and that no banks lost money on his loans. Credit: AP The long-awaited ruling by New Yorks intermediate appeals court is a major victory for Trump over New York Attorney-General Letitia James, whose office brought the case, though other aspects of the April 2024 judgment remain intact. On top of the financial penalty, Trump and his sons faced a temporary ban on serving as corporate officers in New York. The company was also ordered to submit its financial records for review by an independent monitor. Those sanctions stand, though they remain on hold for possible further appeal by Trump. The ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave long administered by Armenia within the internationally recognised borders of Azerbaijan, was forced to flee en masse in September 2023 as Azerbaijani forces took the territory by force. After four decades of conflict, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a deal that included a peace framework meant to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute at the White House this month. A man visits his home that was hit by shelling in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Credit: Getty Images Its a long time, 35 years, they fought, and now theyre friends, and theyre going to be friends for a long time, Trump said to the cameras at the signing ceremony. Under the agreement, the US gained exclusive rights to develop a transit corridor linking Azerbaijan with the contested territory of Nakhchivan, an energy-rich enclave sandwiched between Armenia, Iran and Turkey. The corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), could shift the regional security balance, giving the US a foothold between Iran and Russia and offering Turkey new trade access to Asia. What the leaders signed on August 8 was largely an economic partnership, not a full-on peace deal. Khazar Ibrahim, the Azerbaijan ambassador to the US, said the Trump deal was not a formal peace agreement and that Azerbaijan had not signed one because Armenias Constitution still referred to territory claimed by Azerbaijan as Armenian. US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (right) and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev during a trilateral signing ceremony at the White House this month. Credit: AP We have been very clear, the Armenia Constitution still has territorial claims against us, so we dont want to have a stillborn document, Ibrahim said. Until Armenias Constitution was changed, peace would not be possible, he said. But Ibrahim said he believed Trumps efforts would result in more peaceful relations with Armenia. Its essential to have a strong political will from a strong global leader. That is what I believe was lacking, and that is what I believe now exists, he said. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has expressed concerns over the US-brokered deal, describing the prospect of American companies near Irans northern border as worrying in an interview with state television before his trip to Armenia this week. Democratic Republic of Congo-Rwanda Rebel fighters with the M23 militia (foreground) as they secure Congolese soldiers who had surrendered in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in January. Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/The New York Times Leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda gathered in the Oval Office on June 27 to sign a US-brokered deal that aimed to temper a decades-long conflict that has left millions dead. The agreement introduced a new security co-ordination mechanism and inked state commitments to stop arming local groups and to facilitate the return of various refugee populations, many displaced since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While Trump celebrated a glorious triumph for the cause of peace, some experts and diplomats have been more circumspect, noting that one of the main parties in the conflict the M23 rebel group was not party to the US deal and continues to operate. From left: Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, US Vice President JD Vance, US President Donald Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Democratic Republic of the Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner in the Oval Office in June. Credit: Bloomberg This hasnt solved the problem, said Michelle Gavin, a former US ambassador to Botswana and National Security Council member during the Obama administration. Armed forces had yet to withdraw from eastern Congo following the deal, she said. Like the agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the deal promises the expansion of significant investments facilitated by the US government and private groups, which probably hope to tap into the regions mineral reserves, valued at $US24 trillion ($37 trillion) by the US Commerce Department. It is a mineral deal first, an opportunity for peace second, Human Rights Watch Central Africa director Lewis Mudge wrote in a statement. Making the deal work will depend on continued monitoring by the US government and support from Congress. Serbia-Kosovo Serbia and Kosovo have not been engaged in active conflict since the late 1990s, but the Trump administration said it prevented new violence. Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani backed Trumps claim, saying that Serbia had planned to attack Kosovo in May before Trump intervened. What I can say at this point is that there were renewed efforts by Serbia to endanger peace, said Osmani, who credited Trump with preventing the outbreak of war but said she couldnt reveal additional information because the specifics were classified. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has denied any plans for an attack. Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said Serbia had planned to attack Kosovo in May before Trump intervened. Serbia denies any plans for an attack. Credit: Bloomberg Egypt-Ethiopia The White House says it has resolved tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over a long-standing dam dispute, but in this case there is no apparent agreement. Egypt and Ethiopia have been at odds for years over water rights and the massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance hydroelectric dam in Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, a major Nile tributary upriver from Egypt. Cairo fears the dam, the construction of which began 14 years ago, could rob Egypt of its share of Nile waters. Trump attempted to mediate the dispute during his first term, but negotiations stalled. Its unclear to what extent talks have restarted under Trumps second term, but tensions between the two countries appear to have eased, which analysts say is due in part to heavy rainfall. Egypt is primarily concerned with how Ethiopia will operate the dam during times of drought. The embassies of Egypt and Ethiopia in Washington did not respond immediately to queries about the status of the dispute or Trumps role in mediating it. India-Pakistan After 10 days of conflict between two nuclear-armed powers, India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on May 10. Trump said he headed off the escalating tit-for-tat. Pakistan praised Trump as a peacemaker. But India denied a US role, a stance that appears to have contributed to the fading friendship between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a tense call on June 17 after Trump left a world leaders summit early and cancelled his in-person meeting with Modi, the Indian leader told Trump that India does not, and will never, accept mediation, according to an Indian readout. An Indian military convoy heads towards Kashmirs Line of Control. Credit: Getty Images Trump took offence at being denied credit and imposed a punishing 50 per cent tariff on India in August, amid a trade dispute in part over Indias Russian oil imports. Thailand-Cambodia On July 24, Thailand launched airstrikes on Cambodia, escalating a skirmish between the two countries, which share a disputed 800-kilometre border and a decades-old enmity. As Cambodia retaliated with artillery and the casualty count rose, tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border fled. Ta Moan Sen Chey primary school teacher Srun Ngep inside a kindergarten classroom that was destroyed by Thai military bombing in July. Credit: Kate Geraghty Loading Two days later, Trump stepped in. We happen to be, by coincidence, currently dealing on Trade with both Countries, but do not want to make any Deal, with either Country, if they are fighting And I have told them so! Trump posted on Truth Social. The threat appeared to work. On July 28, Trump said a ceasefire had been reached and instructed his trade teams to restart negotiations. I have now ended many Wars in just six months I am proud to be the President of PEACE! he posted. Israel-Iran After 12 days of fighting between Iran and Israel in June that began with an Israeli attack on Iran a conflict that included US strikes on sites key to Irans nuclear program the Trump administration pushed for a ceasefire, which has held. Remains of residential buildings in Tehran destroyed by an Israeli attack in July. Credit: Getty Images We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they dont know what the f--- theyre doing, Trump told reporters when attacks launched by both sides threatened the ceasefire in its infancy. In the run-up to the conflict, Trump had been pushing for a renewed nuclear deal with Iran. It will be more busy. Australian customers are choosing brokers more and more. And so we're really seeing that brokers are the ones who stay with the customer for their whole journey. And they've really replaced what the bank branch used to be. And so there's this great continuity of care they're giving customers. And we're seeing brokers get busier and busier, and actually continue to look for efficiencies, and that's where we've really focused on helping them get those efficiencies. AB: With the advancements in technology and artificial intelligence, how is this shaping the mortgage broker game? What additional support do brokers need? MW: Technology and AI are reshaping the broker space, particularly in how admin, compliance and lender policy complexity are managed. While CRMs now automate parts of the workflow, lenders are demanding more accurate, higher-quality, first-touch submissions. At VA Platinum, weve always focused on empowering offshore teams through robust training and systems. Were now exploring how AI can enhance these workflows: reducing errors, improving speed and helping brokers align submissions more effectively with lender policies, without adding extra overhead. Its not about replacing people. Its about supporting them. Whether its smarter document prep, streamlined email workflows or tools to help match client scenarios with lender policies more quickly, the aim is to improve outcomes without increasing workload. The result is faster turnaround times, stronger compliance and fewer back-and-forth issues with assessors. Ultimately, AI in broking isnt just about doing more. Its also about doing better with the same resources. COUNTY Carlow will once again participate in Irelands largest coastal cleanup event this September, with local volunteers set to tackle litter along the countys riverbanks as part of the nationwide Big Beach Clean 2025 initiative. Running from 19 to 21 September, the Big Beach Clean is organised by Clean Coasts in partnership with Kia Ireland and forms part of the International Coastal Cleanup coordinated globally by Ocean Conservancy. While coastal communities focus on beach cleanups, Carlow County Council Environmental Awareness Office is encouraging residents to target local waterways, recognising that inland litter is a significant contributor to marine pollution. According to the council, while Carlow may be inland, the county can still make waves in protecting our oceans as litter dropped in towns and cities is one of the leading causes of marine pollution. The initiative builds on strong participation from previous years. In 2024, more than 15,000 volunteers across Ireland removed 95 tonnes of litter from coasts and waterways, with several Carlow communities contributing to the effort. Beyond environmental cleanup, participants will contribute to a global citizen science project by recording the types and quantities of litter collected using Clean Coasts Marine Litter Data Cards or the Clean Swell mobile app. This data helps inform future environmental policies and campaigns. Volunteers interested in organising or joining a cleanup can register at cleancoasts.org/our-initiatives/big-beach-clean/, where they can access free cleanup kits and organisational resources. The Big Beach Clean marks the end of Irelands bathing season and represents one of the countrys largest coordinated environmental volunteer efforts. Carlow County Council is hoping to exceed last years participation levels and demonstrate that inland communities play a vital role in marine protection. IM living proof that life is not done after my stage four breast cancer diagnosis, says Avril Tierney, a mother of two daughters. The 47-year-old from Laois was first diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2019 and two years later her cancer had spread to her lungs and become metastatic the worst possible news. The patient supporter for this year's Breast Cancer Ireland Very Pink Run, which is being staged with three events from 6-14 September, is successfully living with her type of cancer, thanks to research which showed that her targeted treatment involving immunotherapy and chemotherapy is working for her. She explained: In 2019, after finding a lump in my right breast, I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. After many tests, meetings and appointments, my oncologist and team put together a plan for chemotherapy, a lumpectomy and other treatment. I was informed of the side effects such as nausea, hair loss, fatigue, forced menopause and all that this would bring, too. Those first few weeks, Avril felt like her world had been upended. I had panic attacks for the first time in my life and felt utterly out of control. It took some time to gather myself, but I woke one morning to a realisation that the one thing I could control was how I was in this situation. I could continue to panic or I could refocus, stay present and just get on with whatever came my way. Easier said than done, but I got there. The power of staying present is massive, as well as accepting help from our friends and family. I am a positive person by nature, so I had to try to stop allowing this to consume me. This is a small part of my life and thats it. There is plenty of living to be done. Following completion of primary treatment and surgery, a CT scan showed two cancerous nodules on her upper right lung. Although a huge shock to her, she was informed that the nodules were removable and treatable. She recalled: So, I was on the treatment train again and it moved fast. In August 2020, I had the upper right lobe removed from my lung and, following recovery from that, I began IV chemotherapy once again, followed by another CT scan. Unfortunately, this scan showed further spread into the lower lungs, which meant in 2021 my diagnosis became metastatic or stage four breast cancer. It was the worst news. I was exhausted and completely devastated. It took some time to gather myself as I truly believed I would be dead in six months. But her oncologist had a new plan. Avril was tested for the presence of a protein PDL-1 and she had it. This meant that she could start a new immunotherapy drug combined with chemotherapy. This treatment had recently finished the trial period with good results for patients and she felt very grateful to have access to it. She said: That was more than three years ago and for the last year-and-a-half I have had scans showing no evidence of disease. A place I never imagined I would get with a stage four diagnosis. I am so grateful for so much, for research and trials into targeted therapies. For the amazing people who donate and for Breast Cancer Ireland for working tirelessly to raise funds, funds that are so important for people like me. One in seven women will develop breast cancer in the course of their lifetime, while one in 738 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Every 29 seconds someone in the world is diagnosed with breast cancer and there are 3,700 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in Ireland annually. Up to 23% of women are diagnosed between the ages of 20-50 years, 34% of women are diagnosed between the ages of 50-69 years, 36% of women are diagnosed over the age of 70 years and only 5-10% of breast cancer cases are hereditary. Avril said: A metastatic diagnosis doesn't mean life stops. Yes, it's devastating at first but you can move forward and live a fulfilled life with hope for the future, especially with the advances of research into medications and targeted therapies. I dont have a bucket list I want to do, I just want to enjoy the everyday things of life such as seeing my children going to school and being with my family. I was as honest as I could be with my two daughters who were aged three and seven when I was diagnosed. Its all about navigating life as best as you can and Ive learned to prioritise myself first before I can help others. Im so grateful and appreciate everything. Even my grey hairs! I am proud to be an ambassador for the Breast Cancer Ireland to contribute to their amazing work and campaigns. Septembers Very Pink Run promises to be a fun-filled, family-focused and entirely inclusive event. Open to all ages and abilities, the 5km and 10km options make it perfect for solo participants, families, fitness fanatics, casual strollers and everyone in between, including four-legged friends. Since its inception, the Very Pink Run has grown into a global movement, with over 97,000 participants across 40 countries raising a phenomenal 7.3 million to date, which is all in support of ground-breaking breast cancer research and nationwide awareness and education programmes. The 10km event in Dublin starts at noon and the 5km event starts at 12.30pm on Saturday 6 September at Leopardstown Racecourse. Corks 10km event kicks off at noon and the 5km event starts at 12.30pm on Sunday 7 September at MTU, Bishopstown, Co Cork. Kilkennys 10km event commences at noon and the 5km event starts at 12.15pm on Sunday 14 September in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle Park. A large group of very well-known faces from the worlds of media, the arts and showbiz have already joined this years Very Pink Tribe, including author and breast cancer survivor Nicola Hanney, Dancing with the Stars winner and pro-dancer Laura Nolan, 98FM presenter and performer Paul Ryder, Newstalk presenter Andrea Gilligan, FM104s Thomas Crosse and Zeinab Elguzouli, Virgin Medias Elaine Crowley and presenter Kamal Ibrahim. Also involved are long-standing ambassadors Shane Byrne and presenter James Patrice. Those lending their wholehearted support to the cause are Fine Gael councillor Emma Blain, broadcaster Lorraine Keane, Charlene Flanagan (founder of Ella & Jo brand) and Chris Connolly of Get Better with Chris fame, along with well-known Corkonians Dr Monica Oikeh and fitness guru Lesley Giltinan, aka Lean with Lesley. Registrations for the event are open at www.verypinkrun.ie. By Grainne Ni Aodha, PA Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said that attacks on members of the Indian community in Ireland are motivated by racism, crime and picking on the vulnerable. He said that juveniles were involved in such attacks was particularly concerning and said they are being monitored by senior gardai. The Ireland India Council said there has been an organised social media campaign against the Indian community in the country and the number of violent attacks has intensified since January. Last week, it announced it would postpone an India Day event at Farmleigh House over safety concerns. Speaking about the attacks, Mr Harris said he met with the Indian ambassador to Ireland Akhilesh Mishra two weeks ago. Justice Minister Jim OCallaghan said that he was concerned with attacks on the Indian community, as well as an assault that has left a tourist in a critical condition, but said that Dublin is getting safer. He said the number of gardai on the streets of Dublin had increased. All citizens and all the individuals residing here do know that An Garda Siochana is there to protect them, Mr Harris said. Minister for Justice Jim OCallaghan said Dublin was getting safer. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA. Weve been engaged in a considerable outreach programme now with the Indian community as well, so that when incidents happen they are reported promptly, and then were able to mount investigations. Yesterday, we received a series of reports on progress that was being made on the state of the inquiries and you can rest assured these matters are being supervised at the highest levels within An Garda Siochana. He added: In part, there is racism in this and in part it is an element of crime as well, and picking on the vulnerable too. So, there is a combination, I think, of racism and then seeing individuals who people regard as being vulnerable, and that is motivating these attacks as well. He said the fact that juveniles were involved in such attacks was particularly concerning. Obviously, we have spent a lot of resources in terms of juvenile liaison officers and so, through that network then, were reaching out and trying to bring behaviours, obviously, back to proper state, but also then trying to detect those who have been involved. Minister for Justice Jim OCallaghan has said that he is concerned with attacks on the Indian community but said that Dublin is getting safer. He said he was also concerned about the attack on a tourist in Temple Bar this week. I met with the Indian community and I expressed to them my concern about some recent attacks upon them, Mr OCallaghan said. I think its important to point out, however, that when you look at the latest crime statistics, that assaults on the person are down in terms of the first six months of this year from the first six months of last year. Its also the case that there are more gardai on the streets in Dublin. I was looking at the RTE News last night, and Stephen Kennedy from Copper + Straw (coffee chain) was on, somebody who Id worked with very intensively before I became Minister for Justice, hes got a business on Aston Quay. He notices that increased number of gardai on the streets, as many do, and he wants to see it maintained. Listen, a large capital city is always going to have incidents of criminal behaviour. But my own view is Dublin is getting safer. Im happy to walk around Dublin any time of the day or night, and I would like the message to go out to people that Dublin is a safe place to come into. Gordon Deegan Dublin City Council has this year to date issued around 300 statutory Warning Letters to property owners engaged in the alleged unauthorised use of short-term rental of their properties to tourists and visitors to the capital. In a clampdown against those property owners placing their properties on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com, the Council has confirmed that it has issued to date this year the approximate 300 Warning Letters, which is the first step planning authorities take in planning enforcement actions. A spokesman for the Council said today: To-date since the initiation of the Short Term Letting legislation in July 2019, a successful resolution has been achieved in respect of 1,996 cases, these cases have been resolved and closed following the commencement of and compliance with enforcement requirements. Property owners who do seek to regularise their unauthorised use through planning retention applications however face an uphill struggle in securing planning retention for their short-term letting. This arises from a policy in the Dublin City Development Plan where there is a general presumption against the provision of dedicated short term tourist rental accommodation in the city due to the impact on the availability of housing stock. One of the property owners to receive a Warning Letter was the operator of Dublin Castle Suites, Olympia Real Estate Limited. The firm received a Warning Letter in March and earlier this month, Dublin City Council refused the firms planning application for the planning retention to continue the short term rental use of its 10 apartments facing onto Parliament Street and Dame Street and close to Dublin Castle and Temple Bar. Another short-term stay operator, Bebinn Limited, trading as 'Shortstays' currently has a planning application before the City Council for the planning retention for short term letting accommodation for six en-suite bedrooms on Benburb Street, D7. Asked to comment on the Council issuing the 300 letters concerning the unauthorised use of short-term lettings to date this year, a spokeswoman for Failte Ireland said: Short-term letting (STL) accommodation is an important part of the overall tourist accommodation mix, helping to ensure we have offerings that cater to the different needs of visitors. She said; However, for communities to thrive, there must be a balanced mix of long-term private rental and short-term letting accommodation for tourists. Failte Ireland has been tasked with the establishment and maintenance of a statutory register of short-term letting accommodation in the State. STL hosts offering accommodation for periods up to and including 21 nights will be obliged to register with Failte Ireland, confirm their compliance with planning requirements and hold a valid registration number that must be displayed on their STL listings. The spokeswoman said: The Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill is being progressed by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) and will provide the statutory basis for the establishment of a register for short-term lets and for the implementation of the EU Short Term Rental (STR) Regulation. She said that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, will set out the planning guidance for short-term lets in a National Planning Statement and will progress any necessary legislative changes to implement the new planning requirements. She said: Planning, including enforcement decisions on planning applications, is a matter for local authorities. The establishment of the register, along with the implementation of the EU STR Regulation, will provide Failte Ireland with data on STL properties. "This data will be shared with local authorities to support their role in enforcement of planning requirements for short-term lets. Darragh Mc Donagh The Irish Prison Service (IPS) spent more than 60,000 developing a virtual reality tour of the Midlands Prison last year with the aim of demystifying life behind bars for members of the public. The original bill for the web-based production was just over 41,000 but it was belatedly decided to add a high-end CGI prison officer to the tour at a cost of 20,000. This was intended to provide a human element and soften the feel of the prison environment. An AI-generated picture of a smoky-eyed woman with full lips was attached to the proposal to demonstrate how the prison officer might appear. It was suggested that this could become the digital face of the Irish Prison Service in the future. The image of an AI-generated woman attached to the proposal for the addition of prison officer to the virtual tour, demonstrating how it may look. The addition of the CGI character, who provides commentary during the virtual tour, required animation, motion capture for its actions, lip-synch recording, and AI voice-over training using a neutral Irish accent. Ambient sounds, such as the rattle of handcuffs and the noise of inmates playing pool, were also recorded over two days at the Midlands Prison and applied to the interactive tour as part of the additions. The CGI prison officer in the recreation room at the Midlands Prison during the tour. A contract for the development of the virtual reality tour was signed with business and IT consultancy, Emagine Limited, in March 2024. Production was to take place at the prison over two days the following month, costing 41,328 including VAT. However, during the course of the initial visit, matters were discussed with the company representatives that were not previously considered, according to records released by the IPS under freedom of information laws. A number of additions were proposed, including the development and use of a CGI prison guard, and production was postponed for a week pending approval of amendments that would eventually cost another 19,926. The CGI prison officer gives visitors a tour of a prison cell. The virtual tour was launched last month by Minister for Justice Jim OCallaghan, who said the innovative project would greatly enhance the publics understanding of how our prisons operate. The 360-degree tour begins outside the main gate to Irelands largest prison, where the CGI officer provides an introduction and gives users an option of proceeding through the visitors entrance or the prisoners entrance. The tour continues through a reception area where new prisoners are screened for concealed contraband and booked into the system before heading to the cells and various other areas of the facility, including the exercise yard, gym, recreation room, kitchen, workshop, and barber shop. The CGI prison officer, who was added to the virtual tour at an extra cost of around 20,000. Every detail of the production was closely examined to ensure that no confidential or operational security information was compromised, according to the IPS. It said the interactive tool was intended to deliver an informative and educational virtual tour that broadens public understanding, while strictly safeguarding all security-sensitive aspects of the prison. The development of the tour followed discussions with stakeholders from the Department of Justice, who tasked the IPS with identifying a mechanism to increase public awareness and understanding of the Irish prison system. The virtual tour is accessible through the IPS website, which describes the interactive tool as the first time ever that the public has been to see and travel within a live operational prison. Advertisement Bryden Country School in Chegutu is locked in a fierce legal battle with Chinese-owned Shuntai Holdings over the construction of a lime and cement factory just 497m from its boundary, amid fears of dire health and environmental consequences for pupils. Despite a High Court order on March 25 directing Shuntai to suspend all activities, the company has pressed ahead, unleashing toxic dust, noxious fumes, loud blasting and heavy machinery noise on the community. In a circular to parents, Brydens Board of Governors detailed how Shuntais Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) was approved by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) despite ignoring critical health and zoning concerns in an area reserved for education. The school has since sued EMA, while a judge personally inspected the site and later ruled Shuntai in contempt. Last month ICR featured the Chegutu Cement plant's plans for a 0.8Mta plant to begin operations in 2026. Advertisement This week, Governor Carlos Massa Ratinho Junior attended the inauguration of a new kiln at the Itambe cement plant in Balsa Nova, in the Curitiba Metropolitan Region. The project represents an investment of BRL500m, significantly boosting the companys production capacity. With the addition of the new equipment, annual clinker output will rise, enabling the plant to increase cement production by 600,000tpa and reach a total capacity of 3Mta. This expansion translates into substantial benefits for infrastructure and housing. The increased production could supply enough cement to construct around 350km of concrete roads or 120,000 affordable housing units. Equally important, the new furnace incorporates advanced sustainability measures, capable of replacing up to 50 per cent of fossil fuels with renewable alternatives such as biomass and industrial waste. The plant currently employs 1200 workers, most from Balsa Nova, Campo Largo, and Curitiba. Construction of the furnace also created 5000 direct and indirect jobs over the past two years. The investment is complemented by regional infrastructure projects, including the ongoing widening of the PR-423 highway, reinforcing a cycle of local economic development. Advertisement The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has fined Chinese-owned Labenmon Investments US$5000 for breaching environmental regulations at its Wih-Zim cement plant in Magunje, Hurungwe district. EMA inspectors found the company failed to comply with key conditions in its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificates before starting work. Violations included ground clearing on 10ha, construction of staff housing, and brick moulding without relocating or compensating affected families. The company also lacked a required Communal Lands Occupation certificate from the Hurungwe Rural District Council. The probe followed a High Court order in February 2025 after residents accused the firm of encroaching on farmland and grazing areas. Justice Philda Muzofa had halted operations, but villagers allege construction continued, prompting a contempt of court application now before the court. EMA has ordered all project activities to stop until full compliance is achieved, and recommended continuous monitoring given the projects high environmental impact. Wih-Zim Cement is a joint venture between West International Holdings and Lebenmon Investments. Advertisement Ramco Cements has unveiled Hard Worker, the new brand identity for its Construction Chemicals division, underscoring its strategy to expand beyond cement into comprehensive construction solutions. The portfolio currently features 20 in-house manufactured products, including tile adhesives, waterproofing solutions, bonding agents, and repair mortars. Ramco plans to double this range with an additional 20 products soon. The division generated INR2.10bn (US$23.9m) in revenue last year, and with Hard Worker, the company has set an ambitious target of INR20bn within four to five years. The brand rollout covers the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal, leveraging Ramcos distribution strength of over 9700 dealers and 24,000 sub-dealers. A nationwide campaign across television, digital, outdoor, and in-store channels will support market penetration. With Indias construction chemicals market projected to reach INR400bn by 2030, Ramcos diversification aligns with its long-term growth vision. The company, with revenues of INR85bn and cement capacity of 24.44Mta, said the new venture reinforces its commitment to innovation and sustainable building solutions. The Cottages at Battlefield Crossing, a 244-unit BTR community located at 40 Cottage Drive in Ringgold, offers the flexibility of renting with the social benefits of homeownership. This community, developed by BTR general contractor Jim Chapman Construction Group with its Ranch Cottages for Rent brand, celebrated its Grand Opening in March and is on track to be completed in 2025. It just celebrated its 100th lease. "This is a huge accomplishment for The Cottages at Battlefield Crossing and an even bigger win for the BTR sector, Jim Chapman, president of JCCG. As we continue to build our BTR portfolio across the Southeast, its rewarding to work with investors to create successful rental communities with a laid-back lifestyle. JCCG provided turnkey construction services to its investor partner for this 244-home BTR community, delivering results with precision and efficiency. Land development on the 41-acre site started in November 2023 and was completed in June 2024. From there, vertical construction began immediately, with phased home turnovers starting March 2025. The project is currently in final punchout and remains on schedule for full turnover by early 2025. JCCG managed the entire scope, including all horizontal and vertical construction, amenities and site infrastructure. Upon completion, the investor will receive a fully finished, stabilized asset with 244 homes, a gated entrance, clubhouse, pool, fitness center and dog park. From raw land to completion, JCCG handled every phase of development, providing a seamless process tailored to institutional investment goals. With deep experience in BTR execution, JCCG continues to deliver scalable, institutional-grade communities across the Southeast. The Cottages at Battlefield Crossing features five distinctive floor plans with two to three bedrooms, up to three bathrooms and one- or two-car garages. Now open for tours, the two onsite models display the Tucson and Richmond plans. Both homes are part of JCCGs Ranch Cottages for Rent portfolio, featuring zero-step entries and wide doorways for enhanced accessibility. The 4,000-square-foot clubhouse is a central hub for resident socials and events, complete with a resort-style swimming pool and a large fitness center. On-site property management, 24-hour emergency maintenance, sidewalks and streetlights further enhance the gated community's appeal. Prospective buyers are encouraged to visit onsite models for a glimpse of life at The Cottages at Battlefield Crossing. Call 866-442-9484 to schedule an appointment. JCCG's efficient, integrated approach, from lot development to vertical construction, ensures timely and cost-effective delivery for investment partners. JCCG is licensed in Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana, offering pre-construction, design-build and full-service general contracting. The term Badlands should perhaps apply to the miles of sagebrush nothing leading from the verdant Black Hills toward Sioux Falls in South Dakota. It should not refer to the amazing striated spires just off Interstate 90 that attract a million visitors a year. After all, this other worldly place was unique enough to be declared a National Park. It was 104 degrees when we pulled off 90 and headed south toward the park entrance. As we approached the gate the terrain began to change dramatically. After entering, we were driving amid the unusual peaks that form such an unusual landscape. At the visitor center, rangers tell of the significant fossil findings at this remote location. At the site, the Lakota tribe found large fossilized bones as well as sea shells and turtle shells, indicating that the area was once underwater. The fossil-rich area also turned up evidence of a number of long extinct mammals, including a type of camel. A digging frenzy began there in the 1840s after publication of the discovery of a large fossilized jaw of a "Paleotherium" A number of animals and birds have been introduced (or reintroduced) so they can hopefully thrive in the park's more than one million acres. These include a large herd of buffalo that has grown to over 1,200. Also here are the endangered whooping crane and the black-footed ferret. Another must stop in this section of South Dakota is a drugstore that grew and grew in the little town of Wall, South Dakota. Wall prospered in large part by beating Rock City to the punch in advertising its name far and wide. The druggist Ted Hustead and his wife Dorothy came from Nebraska and settled in Wall (population at the time of 231) in 1931. They opened a small drug store. With business stagnating, Dorothy had the idea of hanging a Wall Drug sign on the main highway a block from their store. It promised free ice cold water. Locals and visitors alike began making the one block turn. The Husteads, realizing the effectiveness of road signs, began plastering them as far away as foreign countries. Gradually, they expanded their thriving business into adjacent space. It grew to a mall of sorts with a cowboy theme. There are several cafeterias with lines of customers always backed up, as well as a museum of cowboy artifacts, historical Western photos, beautiful Western artwork, shops of every sort, an 80-foot brontosaurus, and even a small chapel designed after one in Iowa. . We were bushed as we landed at our Hampton Inn by the freeway in Sioux Falls. Still there was time for cards - Up and Down the River and 10s (Swish). No Hand in Foot. This game of frustration and triumph had gotten a little too competitive, and two couples traveling together round the clock for several weeks need a nice quiet game at this point. Day Shift August 21: B Squad 25-008928 6500 BLK Ringgold Road - Check-the Well-being The alleged girlfriend of a man requested police check on him after she made multiple calls to the hotel trying to check on his status. Police located the man in his room in an inebriated state. He was fine and did not have any intention of harming himself or others. 25-008188- Hamilton County Jail- Warrant A man was served an arrest warrant through East Ridge at the Hamilton County Jail for Domestic Assault. 25-008905- Welcome Center- Disorder Police responded to a reported disorder involving three people. The incident was determined to be verbal only. One was found to have an active warrant out of Catoosa County and was transported to the Hamilton County Jail for extradition.25-008907- 6900 BLK Martha Ave- Suspicious personCitizens reported a man acting erratically, described as wearing ripped shorts and no shirt. Police identified the individual, who stated he was dehydrated. He was provided with courtesy transport for medical care.25-008908- 3300 BLK Ringgold Road- PropertyPolice were dispatched to a heavy-set male with a beard who had entered the waste flow of the washing machines. The property owner stated this is the 2nd time this has happened. No damage was done to the machines and no money was stolen.25-008909 - 4214 Ringgold Road - Warrant ServiceA man was served with a Forfeiture Capias for Theft of Property while in custody at the Hamilton County Jail.25-008914 - 4214 Ringgold Road - TheftThe caller reported her aqua green Hyper Bicycles Commute beach-comber-styled bicycle was stolen from the front of her residence. There is no suspect description.25-008920, 25-008934 4100 BLK East Ridge Ave CivilERPD was dispatched several times to the above address for a disorder. Upon arrival ERPD spoke with resident she stated she is upset with her tenant. She stated that all the tenant does is lie and cause issues. The tenant also stated the same about the landlord. ERPD advised both parties they need to separate and quit communicating with each other since they cannot get along. ERPDalso advised, if she does not like the woman staying at the residence, she can start the eviction process, and any damages that may have been caused she will have to sue her civil court. The disorder was only verbal. The landlord did not have eviction court go her way today so she is very upset causing the tenant to be worried it might escalate to something physical. This is anongoing, persistent issue.25-008923 1300 BLK San Hsi Drive - Unknown 9-1-1Police checked the area after dispatch reported receiving a 9-1-1 call in the area. Nothing was located.25-008931- 184 INTERSTATE 24 EB- Mutual AidPolice were dispatched to assist Chattanooga Police units with a motor vehicle crash with unknown injuries. Police stood by until CPD units arrived.25-008935 6600 BLK Ringgold Rd Domestic AssaultPolice responded to a domestic assault at this location. Warrants will be taken out for the suspect.Night Shift August 21: D Squad25-008938 900 BLK Spring Creek Road DisorderPolice responded to a disorder between two individuals in the parking lot of the apartments. Officers determined there was a verbal argument between a tenant and a visitor over cigarette smoke. The visitor agreed to leave the area to resolve the issue.25-008939 4100 BLK East Ridge Avenue TheftThe tenant reported that her landlord had stolen $150 worth of food from her. She could not provide a receipt or proof that she had the food in the residence. Police spoke with the landlord who stated she put all the food next to her bedroom door and denied stealing anything from her. No charges were filed for the incident.25-008940 800 BLK Belvoir Hills Drive - Suspicious PersonA resident reported that a door-to-door solicitor appeared suspicious after he refused to provide identification. Police located the solicitor and identified him as a representative for a window company. The officer spoke with his supervisor who stated he applied for a permit to solicit in East Ridge per municipal code 9-203 (Permit Required).25-008945 800 BLK Donaldson Road - Harassing ThreatsA man threatened his girlfriend over the phone. The subject has an active warrant for Domestic Assault against the victim from a prior incident earlier in the day. Police provided an incident report so she could seek an Order of Protection. ERPD checked the area throughout the evening but did not locate the suspect.25-008948 / 25-008950 4100 BLK East Ridge Avenue DisordersThe tenant reported that her landlord beat on her door and poured cleaning solution in front of it to harass her. Police attempted to speak with the homeowner, but she was not located and did not answer her phone. Police returned to the residence a few hours later for a similar disorder. The tenant stated that her landlord was beating on her door for no apparent reason. She also told Police that she was looking for another room to rent. At that time, Police were still unable to locate the landlord. Police eventually spoke with her when she stopped by the East Ridge Police Department to discuss the on-going issues. She stated she poured cleaning solution on dog urine that shefound in front of the bedroom door and denied harassing her tenant. She also stated that she attempted to obtain an eviction order through the Hamilton County Court, but it was denied.25-008149 601 Justice Way Warrant ServiceWhile in custody at the Hamilton County Jail, a party was served with an arrest warrant through the City of East Ridge. The charge on arrest warrant was Domestic Assault. A copy of the Conditions of Release were provided to the victim in the case. Tickets are now on sale for the 2025 Chattanooga Tourism Summit on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at the Chattanooga Convention Center. Doors open at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast and an exhibitor showcase. The program begins at 8 a.m.This year's summit, themed Tourism is Everybody's Business, will feature a keynote panel discussion celebrating the 30,000 industry professionals and tourism's role in strengthening communities. Attendees will gain tools to advocate for the industry and learn about the critical role of marketing and influencer partnerships in driving tourism success.The summit's keynote panel will feature three distinguished leaders in the tourism industry: Commissioner Mark Ezell with the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development spearheads the state's global tourism strategy.In this role, he builds national campaigns that reinforce Tennessee as a world-class destination while fostering long-term growth through revenue and job creation. Since joining the agency in 2019, Mr. Ezell has overseen historic growth in Tennessee tourism. In 2024, the state generated $31.66 billion in direct visitor spending, a 3.3 percent increase year over year. Over the past seven years, visitor spending in Tennessee has climbed 35.5 percent more than double the national average of 16.7 percent. Bill Geist, chief instigator of DMOproz, a consulting firm specializing in destination marketing organization leadership for more than 30 years, serving clients from Alaska to Belize. He is the author of "Destination Leadership" and "Destination Leadership for Boards, and hosts the monthly industry podcast DMOU, interviewing leading destination marketing professionals. His expertise in the measurable impact of sustained marketing efforts demonstrates how destinations thriveor strugglebased on visibility and investment, while highlighting the critical role of local advocates in securing resources and championing tourism value within their communities. Beth Santos is an entrepreneur and community builder working to transform travel for women worldwide. As founder and CEO of Wanderful, she leads an international collective of travelers and travel content creators on a mission to improve travel for all women. Santos created the WITS Travel Creator Summit, a leading event for women and gender diverse travel creators, and established the annual Bessie Awards to honor women making an impact in travel. She also founded Wanderfest, the first major outdoor travel festival by and for women.The summit will also include insights from Chattanooga Tourism Co. CEO Barry White, a Chef's Table breakfast, an exhibitor showcase, live music and breakout sessions.Officials said, "The summit attracts 500 attendees annually from lodging, food and beverage, attractions and other sectors, creating an unmatched opportunity for networking, learning and gaining tools to drive tourism success."The 2025 Chattanooga Tourism Summit is made possible through the generous support of our partners. Tourism Champion Partners include First Horizon Bank, Miles Partnership and Vision Hospitality Group. Scenic City Partners include Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport Authority, Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED and Truist Bank."Each year, Hamilton County welcomes 10.7 million visitors, contributing $70 million in local taxes, saving each resident household $1,205, and supporting more than 30,000 jobs. These figures underscore the critical role of tourism in our community and the significance of the Chattanooga Tourism Summit."Tickets are on sale now. Registration is required to attend the summit and breakout sessions. Celebrate 30,000 reasons why tourism is everybodys business. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Chattanooga Tourism Summit site today. The Hamilton County Sheriffs Office announced the recovery of more than $200,000 in two separate fraud investigations conducted by Investigative Services detectives. Case One Treasury Scam On March 25, detectives received a fraud report involving $54,000. The investigation revealed the victim was contacted by an individual falsely claiming to represent the U.S. Department of Treasury. The scammer convinced the victim to send a $50,000 cashiers check and $4,000 in gift cards. A+B Wireless Sales and, through legal processes, identified the account where the money had been deposited. Detectives tracked the funds to a business front known asand, through legal processes, identified the account where the money had been deposited.Investigators were ultimately able to seize the funds and return the victims entire $54,000. Case Two Romance Scam On April 25, 2025, detectives began investigating a $254,000 fraud case stemming from a romance scam that originated in November 2024. The victim, who had been contacted through an online dating app, developed a months-long relationship with the scammer. The scammer convinced the victim they would marry, move to Florida, and purchase a home together. The scheme involved multiple fraudulent methods to obtain funds, including Bitcoin, bank transfers, wire transfers, cashiers checks, and gift cards. While the victim lost $254,000 another $700,000 was deposited into the joint account from the scammer with the belief it was "her" funds contributing to a joint account in the relationship. These funds were likely from other victims the scammer was coning and used to increase the validity of the financial partnership. The scam culminated when the victim sold his home, quit his long-time job, and transferred funds into a joint Bitcoin account. When he arrived at the airport expecting a plane ticket to Florida, he discovered no ticket existed and his accounts had been emptied. Even after this, the scammer attempted to continue the deception, claiming it was merely a mix-up. Through investigative measures, detectives located and seized $150,987.69 in U.S. currency from one of the scammers accounts, which will be returned to the victim. Incredibly, after the seizure, the scammer contacted detectives demanding the money back. Sheriff Austin Garrett said, While these investigations continue, it is important to remember our citizens work hard for their money, and despite our ongoing efforts to educate the public about scams targeting our county, too many people continue to fall victimoften to criminals operating outside the United States. These scams typically occur by phone, text message, email, or online apps. "The HCSO, nor any constitutional office in Hamilton County, will ever call you demanding money or gift cards. We will not threaten or pressure you for paymentthat is not how your Sheriffs Office or County Government operates. If you receive such a call, hang up immediately. Honest, hardworking citizens fear getting arrested while criminals do not. Scammers use this fear to intimidate people, especially our elderly, into giving money under false pretenses. "Remember: Tennessee does not have toll roads, warrants cannot be canceled or removed with gift cards, nor will the HCSO or any government agency solicit payments from you in bitcoin, green dot cards, or other financial means for services. While these scams are unique, the typical scams that are targeting and victimizing our local residents are in relation to an individual missing jury duty, the request for money to cancel an open warrant, or texts advising people have unpaid parking tickets or tolls. I am grateful for the hard work and dedication of my detectives who remain committed to holding accountable those who victimize our residents and threaten the safety of our community. These two incidents demonstrate that their efforts are producing results, Sheriff Garrett said. Below are some tips to help ensure you and your family do not fall victim to scams. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee will host a public reading of the United States Constitution to celebrate Constitution Day on September 12. The event will be held at the Joel W. Solomon Federal Building, 900 Georgia Avenue, Chattanooga, on the courthouse steps from 11:30 a.m. to approximately 12:45 p.m. The public is invited to join the Court and local bar associations in celebrating our status as We the People, and in commemorating the document that forms the bedrock of our beloved country. The Constitution will be read in 110 segments that each take about one minute or less to read. Please note that you do not have to arrive at 11:30 a.m. to readyou may arrive at any time during the event, so long as readings remain available. If you would like to read a segment, please check in at the bottom of the courthouse steps. Readings will primarily be assigned on a first-come, first-filled basis. Shaw Industries Group Inc.s (Shaw) Amanda Edwards, Vice President of Enterprise Excellence, has been named as one of 12 outstanding leaders who make up the 2025 class of Women in Manufacturing (WiM) Hall of Fame inductees. Edwards and the other inductees will be recognized during the 15th annual WiM SUMMIT conference, taking place from October 12-14 in Chicago, Il. The Women in Manufacturing Hall of Fame was created in 2019 by the Women in Manufacturing Association to recognize those who have made, or are making, significant contributions to the manufacturing industry while supporting, promoting and inspiring other women in manufacturing. Amanda exemplifies what it means to lead with both strength and sincerity, says Susan Farris, Executive Vice President Enterprise Experiences at Shaw. Her ability to inspire trust through transparency, challenge the status quo, and elevate those around her through genuine connection has made a lasting impact on our culture. She is a passionate collaborator who contributes to the best possible outcomes for Shaw people and the enterprise. Edwards has been an innovative leader at Shaw for 23 years. From her early days as an associate industrial engineer, where she honed her abilities in project management, budgeting and process improvement, to her current position as Shaws first female executive in an operations position as Vice President of Enterprise Excellence, Amanda has consistently demonstrated leadership and excellence. Recognized as a trailblazer in manufacturing leadership, Amanda has driven over $17 million in cost savings through strategic innovation and mentored 35+ women globally, championing the next generation of female leaders. Her visionary leadership in WiN (Women's Innovation Network), industry councils and community outreach exemplifies a legacy of excellence, empowerment and transformative impact. ABOUT WOMEN IN MANUFACTURING (WiM) The Women in Manufacturing Association (WiM) is a global trade association dedicated to supporting, promoting and inspiring women who have chosen a career in the manufacturing industry. It provides year-round support to more than 33,000 individual members representing more than 3,000 manufacturing companies from 50 U.S. states and 75 countries. WiM encompasses manufacturers of all types and welcomes individuals from every job functionfrom production to the C-suite. Membership is available to anyone working within or with the manufacturing sector. Over the past 10 days, the Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management (HCOEM) has worked with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), the City of Chattanooga, and the City of East Ridge to gather damage reports, survey impacted areas, and support residents in navigating the recovery process from the August 12 severe flash flooding that impacted East Ridge, Brainerd, East Brainerd and the Highway 58 area. Preliminary assessments identified roughly 300 structures damaged, including homes, businesses and other infrastructure.County leaders recognize the hardships many families and businesses are facing and remain committed to connecting residents with available resources. Following thorough review by TEMA officials, HCOEM was informed that Hamilton County may not meet the states threshold to qualify for federal disaster assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which requires damages across Tennessee to total at least $13 million. While local assessments documented significant losses for some residents, neighborhoods and businesses, preliminary estimates suggest Hamilton Countys total may fall short of the federal threshold. As HCOEM and TEMA continue to receive reports of damage, county leaders encourage those affected to connect with local volunteer and nonprofit organizations that are actively assisting households impacted by the flooding. Residents seeking assistance should reach out to: Action Church Call (423) 591-7580 & select Option 3 American Red Cross Call (800) RED-CROSS Hamilton County Baptist Association Call (865) 396-7751 All Hands and Hearts Call (423) 771-9913 Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief Call (615) 371-7926 United Way of Greater Chattanooga Dial 2-1-1 Hamilton County officials continue working closely with state and local partners to support residents, coordinate recovery resources, and build resilience against future severe weather events. Two Cleveland Police officers have been honored for their life-saving efforts several months ago. The Cleveland Police Department commends Officer Martin and Officer Schwarzer for their extraordinary life-saving actions during this horrifying event. On Friday, Aug. 15, Officer Martin was selected and named Officer of the Year by the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police (TACP) for his heroic efforts. Officer Martin and Officer Schwarzer will also be recipients of the Life Saving Award that is awarded by the Cleveland Police Department. The Cleveland Police Department responded on Saturday, May 31, to assist Bradley County Sheriffs Office deputies at a call of a possible drowning at 2850 Pleasant Grove Place SW. The incident involved a two-year-old child and the childs mother. Bradley County Sheriffs Office deputies who were on scene were Deputy Larry Seibers and Deputy Anthony Anderson. Within minutes, Cleveland Police Officer Jordan Martin and several Bradley County deputies arrived on scene. Without hesitation, Officer Martin entered the water to rescue the victims. He was able to reach the child first, handing him to the deputy before returning to assist the mother. The deputy then passed the child to Cleveland Police Officer Schwarzer, who immediately began rescue efforts until EMS personnel arrived. The child, who was conscious and crying while being treated in the ambulance, was transported by EMS and later airlifted to Chattanooga for advanced medical care. Officer Martin became fully submerged during the rescue. Despite losing equipment in the process, he placed the lives of the victims above his own safety. Officer Schwarzer not only assisted with the childs care but also provided translation services on scene to help gather critical information for first responders. Chief Mark Gibson said, Their bravery, quick thinking, and selflessness undoubtedly saved lives. These officers exemplify the highest standards of the Cleveland Police Department. Home News Running toward Jesus: 45,000 attend Amplify 2025 evangelism event; over 1,100 commit to follow Jesus A two-day evangelism event that drew 45,000 people to Benton, Arkansas, earlier this month saw over 1,100 people commit their lives to following Jesus. Hosted by Pulse Evangelism, Amplify 2025 featured music, prayer and faith testimonies that drew people from 37 states Aug. 8-9. Pulse founder and evangelist Nick Hall told The Christian Post on Monday via email that over 20,000 people received evangelism training at the event. Additionally, 1,226 attendees responded to the Gospel, a term Hall used that included those who made a first-time commitment to Jesus Christ, rededicated their lives to Christ, or asked questions about Jesus. Of that number, 586 gave their lives to Jesus for the first time and 566 rededicated their lives to Jesus. An additional 74 asked questions about Jesus. Amplify was founded in 2012 with the goal of sharing the Gospel with as many people as possible, said Hall. The mission has remained unchanged, and every year that we have been a part of Amplify, we have been blown away by the response and what God does over those two days. We want every person to hear about Jesus and be equipped to share Him with others. Every year, [we] aim to unite people under the banner of Jesus through powerful music, Gospel-centered messages, and evangelism training. The free admission event received substantial support from the community in Saline County, including 700 volunteers and first responders, Hall added. The two-day gathering featured multiple musicians, including Lecrae, Matthew West, Maverick City Music, Switchfoot, Terrian and Jamie MacDonald, among others. It also featured 16 Gen Zers from the Pulse 100 evangelism training program who shared their faith stories on the main stage and at workshops, and helped to train others in evangelism. Regarding those who made decisions for Christ, Hall told CP that his organization connected them with volunteers known as Pulse digital responders. From there, our goal is to help them get connected to a local church where they have the opportunity to grow in their faith, he explained. We also share initial resources to support them in the first important steps after deciding to follow Jesus. Regarding the impressive turnout for the two-day gathering, especially among young people, Hall told CP that he believes that the country is seeing a generation rise up that is running toward Jesus. They are spiritually hungry, asking raw and honest questions about life, identity and truth. Theyre not looking for trends or shallow answers, but for the real hope only Jesus brings, he stated. If youve been wondering where the young people are, I can tell you this: theyre back. That should excite us and challenge us. Now is the time to run hard after this generation and meet them where they are with the life-changing truth of the Gospel. Home News Century-old Christian hospital under investigation after complaints from Hindu groups District administration in Chhattisgarhs Dhamtari has ordered an investigation into a 115-year-old Christian hospital following complaints from Bajrang Dal, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other Hindutva organisations. The groups have accused the Bathena Christian Hospital of medical negligence and forced religious conversion. The hospital was established in 1910 by American Mennonite missionaries and is recognised as the oldest hospital in Chhattisgarh. Originally founded as a unit of the Mennonite Medical Board, the 250-bedded multi-specialty facility has served 10 districts including Dhamtari, Balod, Raipur, Rajnandgaon, Kanker, Bastar, Durg, Kondagaon, Dantewada and Gariaband, along with adjoining areas of Odisha. During the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu pandemic, the hospital served humanity despite limited medical resources available at that time. The institution has remained self-supporting, though it maintains connections with American Mennonite friends and welcomes medical personnel for short-term assignments. The probe comes after Hindu organisation members specifically targeted the hospital premises on July 27, vandalising property, damaging equipment and misbehaving with doctors during their protest. Despite the targeted attack, no action has been taken against the perpetrators. Instead, authorities launched an investigation into the hospital itself, effectively legitimising the methods used by the groups. The hospital, known for providing affordable medical care, has faced repeated targeting by Hindu groups in recent months. This was not the first such incident; on June 28, VHP workers had created a ruckus for about three hours, forcibly entering the hospital, putting up flags, smearing the ground with cow dung, and damaging wheelchairs and CCTV cameras. The hospital filed police complaints about both incidents of vandalism, but authorities remained inactive against the perpetrators. Chief Medical Officer Uttam Kaushik told the media that investigation has been launched against the hospital based on complaints from VHP, Bajrang Dal and others. He confirmed that besides medical negligence, conversion allegations prompted district administration officials to join the inquiry team specifically to examine religious conversion claims. VHPs Ramchandra Devangan alleged forced religious activities at the nursing college attached to the hospital. This hospital runs a nursing college where conversion takes place. Students are pressured and taken to church for prayers, he claimed. The complainants also alleged that Hindu female students in the nursing college were being pressured to marry Christian men. Hospital Medical Superintendent Sandeep Kumar Patonda rejected all allegations as baseless. This hospital has been running for more than 100 years and treats patients without any discrimination. Our main purpose is service, he said. He denied any religious activities or conversions at the nursing college. When contacted by media about the allegations, Dr. Patonda reportedly declined to respond, saying the hospital does not give answers to news outlets. Patonda stated that no patient or family member had approached them directly with complaints. We have not received any written complaint. Information about medical negligence and other matters reaches them through media or other organisations, he explained. The VHP has submitted eight demands to the health ministry and administration, including registering murder and fraud cases against guilty doctors, cancelling their medical licences, compensating victims, sealing the hospital, ensuring religious freedom in the nursing college, banning forced religious activities, and prohibiting nursing students from treating patients. State Health Minister Shyam Bihari Jaiswal ordered the investigation after receiving the complaint, with officials directed to conduct a probe and take further action based on the findings. The swift ministerial response to the groups demands has emboldened further targeting of the institution. Dr. Rakesh Gupta, president of the Chhattisgarh chapter of Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), strongly condemned the targeting of the hospital. He described the vandalism and misbehaviour with health workers and doctors as objectionable, noting the institution had served remote tribal areas lacking medical facilities since before independence. Forcibly targeting this 115-year-old hospital and giving it a religious colour is an incident that discourages the medical profession, Dr. Gupta said. He added that such actions based on hatred are not acceptable in any civilised society. Gupta emphasised that the hospitals record in medical service was unparalleled and that doctors take the Hippocratic Oath to treat patients without discrimination based on religion or caste. If there are shortcomings in treatment, the government has created legally competent platforms for solutions. Patients can lodge complaints with the administration, but taking law into ones hands and attacking premises creates wrong precedent, Dr Gupta said. AHPI has demanded complete security for the hospital premises, nursing staff and doctors to ensure fearless treatment for needy patients. The organization warned that such targeting of healthcare institutions serving tribal and marginalised communities could severely impact medical services in the region. It also called for strict legal action under medical premises violence act against those who vandalised the property. This incident follows the recent arrest of two nuns from Kerala in Chhattisgarh, indicating a broader pattern of targeting Christian institutions in the state despite their longstanding service to local communities. This article was originally published by Christian Today India. Home News Cracker Barrel stock tanks in wake of logo redesign: 'Tradition is cringe' The stock of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., tanked in the wake of its new logo redesign, which has prompted accusations that the iconic Southern restaurant franchise has been overtaken by "wokeness." The stock of Cracker Barrel, which was founded in 1969, lost nearly $100 million in value more than 7% on Thursday after the company removed the famous "old timer" figure and whip-like "K" from its logo, which had been in place since 1977. The stock cratered to $50.27 per share earlier that day, though its stock regained some of its losses on Friday. Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino went viral on social media in recent days for a clip in which she claimed to "Good Morning America" that the feedback to the logo redesign has been "overwhelmingly positive." NEW: Cracker Barrel reveals new logo, CEO Julie Felss Masino says people love their new rebrand. "Honestly, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we're doing," Masino told GMA while discussing the overall rebrand. This logo is depressing. pic.twitter.com/EZVpWLv4Bg Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 20, 2025 The redesign prompted pushback from prominent figures such as Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted, "WTF is wrong with @CrackerBarrel??!" Sarah Moore, who serves as Cracker Barrel's chief marketing officer, recently suggested the "beloved" restaurant chain is seeking to "refresh our brand." "Since 1969, Cracker Barrel has greeted guests with a warm welcome and craveable food, but as guest expectations evolve, we're embarking on an exciting journey to refresh our brand," she said. "This is a beloved brand with strong emotional ties, so it was paramount that we selected the right expertise to help us define our evolved identity. This collaborative team plays a key role working with our internal team to craft the next chapter of our brand story one that resonates with loyal guests while welcoming new ones to our table." Author and psychologist Geoffrey Miller suggested Cracker Barrel's decisions indicate the influx of liberal female influence, which he claimed has overtaken much of corporate America. "One key thing to understand about marketing executives, market researchers, advertising agency staff, etc is that they tend to be young, female, left-leaning, high-openness, non-religious, often childless novelty-seekers," he wrote. "When marketers see an 'old-fashioned' logo, brand identity, or retail design, they often feel visceral disgust and embarrassment," he also said. "They think tradition is cringe, and 'modernization' is mandatory. They think 'the customer is always right' unless the customer is a patriotic Christian granddad with [a] Chevy and a concealed carry permit." Christian podcaster Jon Harris echoed Miller, suggesting during his Friday podcast that Cracker Barrel's action is indicative of the modern impulse to centralize and neutralize. "A lot of these rebrands people are saying this is woke, and a lot of rebrands are; and the CEO, some people have dug into her history, she's woke and all this, OK, I got it," he said, "It's not just that, though. It's not just wokeness that's driving this. This is more than that. It's modernity." Harris said many churches have taken on the same attitude in their attempt at neutral marketing. "The formula now is that it looks like a strip mall," he said of many churches. "It looks like it's a new fast food restaurant. ... And then you walk in, you get your coffee, the pictures on the wall look like you're in a bank. It's smiling faces and casual people and superficial conversation. And that's the formula. That's how you know you're loved, apparently." Competitor restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake seized the opportunity to accuse Cracker Barrel of rejecting its own heritage. "Sometimes, people want to change things just to put their own personality on things. At CB, their goal is to just delete the personality altogether. Hence, the elimination of the 'old-timer' from the signage," the company wrote. "Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away. At Steak n Shake, we take pride in our history, our families, and American values. All are welcome. We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers." Sometimes, people want to change things just to put their own personality on things. At CB, their goal is to just delete the personality altogether. Hence, the elimination of the "old-timer" from the signage. Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to pic.twitter.com/Aoml8ZOfuT Steak 'n Shake (@SteaknShake) August 21, 2025 Cracker Barrel's rebrand comes after the chain has worked closely for the past decade with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in an attempt to make its company culture more inclusive and LGBT-friendly, according to FOX Business. Steve Smotherman, who formerly served as Cracker Barrel's management and training leader, led the charge of an LGBT employee resource group at the company before going on to serve on the HRC's Business Advisory Council, according to Upward News. Last month, attorneys with the nonprofit law firm America First Legal formally requested that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti investigate Cracker Barrel over its DEI initiatives, which allegedly promote discriminatory practices by providing employment benefits based on race and sex. Home News James McMillan, former pastor charged with sending nude photos to teen, arrested again A former Oklahoma pastor who's awaiting trial on charges of committing indecent acts with a child younger than 16 and was recently arrested for sending a nude photo to another teenager, is now in custody after authorities arrested him for violating the terms of his bail. The former pastor, 53-year-old James McMillan, previously led Slaughterville Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of Konawa. Online records from the Cleveland County Sheriffs Office show that McMillan was arrested on Aug. 14 and remanded in custody with no bail on four counts of lewd or indecent proposals or acts to a child listed. It was unclear Friday if these are new charges, but a statement from the Cleveland County District Attorneys Office cited by KFOR said McMillan violated the conditions of his bond and suggested that the charges listed could be related to past crimes. James McMillan violated the conditions of his bond. After a brief hearing to determine if he violated the conditions of the bond, McMillan was taken back into custody and denied bond while he awaits trial. We are unaware of any additional violations of law that would result in additional charges, the DAs office said. McMillan was first arrested and charged with lewd or indecent acts with a child younger than 16 in November 2024 and again in December 2024 for allegedly sending a nude photo of himself to a 14-year-old girl. The December 2024 arrest stemmed from an incident that happened in March 2023, KFOR reported. Citing court documents, the 14-year-olds father said his daughter told him about the photo McMillan sent her and he reported him to local police. It wasn't until he reached out to an Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officer in October that he saw any action on the case. My daughter had come to me and let me know that she had received a nude picture from a grown man, the victims father recalled. He explained that his daughter and McMillans son had previously attended school together, and his daughter believes McMillan likely used his sons Snapchat account to look up her name because of her security settings. She eventually accepted a friend request from McMillan. According to court documents, a friend of the teenage victim alleged that McMillan was a pedophile when she learned of his friend request. The victim countered the allegation, saying that she would screenshot any communication that crossed the line and report it to police. McMillan soon sent the victim an unsolicited photo of himself flexing in a mirror, to which she responded something to the effect of trying to get them. The former pastor then allegedly asked if she might want to see more and sent her his nude photo before she could respond. He just sent the fully nude picture, the victims father said. There was no request or anything like that for it. Court documents cited by KOCO News 5 show that the former pastor has been listed as a sexual abuse suspect in multiple Department of Human Services and law enforcement cases dating back to 2003. In the charges leveled against him in November 2024, McMillan allegedly unzipped his pants and touched himself in front of an underage minor while driving down a Cleveland County highway. His bond after his arrest in December 2024 was set at $450,000. Home News Christian groups demand release of bishop, 2 priests arrested in Eritrea The United Kingdom-based watchdog Christian Solidarity Worldwide and one of its local partners are calling for the release of a Catholic bishop and two priests arrested earlier this month without reason in Eritrea, one of the world's most repressive and closed countries. According to a joint statement from the advocacy organization and its partner Human Rights Concern Eritrea, Bishop Fikremariam Hagos, the first bishop of the Catholic Eparchy of Segheneity, was arrested on Oct. 15, three days after the detention of Fr. Abraham Habtom Gebremariam from the Capuchin Society in Teseney town. A day earlier, on Oct. 11, authorities arrested Fr. Mihretab Stefanos of St. Michael's Church in Segheneity. Fr. Kiros Tsegay, an American citizen and founder of the Debre Abune Aregawi-Orlando Orthodox Church in Florida, was arrested last year. Bishop Fikremariam was arrested at Asmara International Airport as he returned from a European visit. The others are thought to be detained in Adi Abeto prison, a prison north of Asmara known for its inhumane and crowded conditions. "The Eritrean government is yet to give a reason for arresting the clergymen," the statement reads. Although they belong to a Christian denomination permitted to operate in the country, the advocacy organizations suggest that the arbitrary arrests could be linked to the Catholic leaders' calls for justice and reconciliation in Eritrea. The four bishops wrote pastoral letters in 2014 and 2018 calling for reconciliation and justice, saying, "Respect for persons, their dignity and their rights, is the cornerstone of peace." Fikremariam spoke against the seizure and closure of 22 Catholic health facilities in 2019. CSW reports that more recently, the bishops have discouraged congregants from buying goods looted from the war-torn Tigray region in Ethiopia, a separatist conflict that has also involved Eritrean forces. "The arbitrary arrests of the Catholic clergy are occurring against the backdrop of massive and punitive door to door round ups of Eritrean citizens of all ages, who are being sent to fight in Tigray, in a military offensive that appears predicated on wearing down the stamina and ammunition of the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) by sending Eritrean men and woman, who are viewed as expendable by their government, to die at the frontlines in waves," HRCE Director Elizabeth Chyrum said in a statement. Citing sources, Catholic News Service reports the clergymen were accused of highlighting human rights violations in Eritrea in their homilies. The sources said that the human rights violations include "imprisonment of parents (women and men), mobilization of deserved army people, young people [taken] by force to the war fronts, closing homes, [and] confiscation of animals from those people who have refused to go to war." Organizations, including Amnesty International, CNN and Sky News, have previously published investigations into massacres committed against civilian populations in Tigray since fighting escalated in November 2020. Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki is a member of the Eritrean Orthodox Church in Asmara belonging to the largest among the only three Christian denominations allowed to function in the country: the Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches. In 2002, Eritrea closed all churches not affiliated with Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran or Orthodox Christian denominations and began arresting adherents of non-sanctioned churches. The global watchdog organization Open Doors USA reports that there are possibly more than 1,000 Christians imprisoned in Eritrea, with none formally charged. When arrested, Eritrea's persecuted Christians often disappear without a trace, leaving their loved ones with no information on their whereabouts or safety. Prison conditions are some of the harshest in the world, with many inmates kept in shipping containers. "While some are released, many of these are moved to military service which is no freedom at all or house arrest," Open Doors warns in a factsheet. "The ongoing detention of Christians shows that the government has no intention of relaxing its repressive policies." Adherents to sanctioned religious denominations have also been persecuted. The legitimate patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, who was illegally removed from office for resisting government interference in church affairs, died earlier this year under house arrest after spending over 15 years in detention. Afewerki, 75, the leader of the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice Party, also has a reputation as a ruthless autocrat. Afewerki's policy of restrictions is more about his fear that religion will mobilize people as a political force than religion itself, advocates say. China urges New Zealand's security service to stop spreading lies Xinhua) 10:09, August 22, 2025 BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- China urges relevant agency in New Zealand to stop spreading lies and stop creating misperception, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a regular news briefing when asked to comment on a report by New Zealand's security service accusing China of being the most active country engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand. Mao said in recent years, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has repeatedly spread disinformation, groundlessly framed and attacked China, smeared the normal friendly exchanges between various sectors of the two countries, and harassed and intimidated Chinese people in New Zealand, which shows relevant agency's ideological bias and Cold War mentality. "This does no good to mutual trust and runs counter to the two countries' consensus of enhancing people-to-people and cultural exchanges," said Mao, adding that China deplores and opposes it. "We urge relevant agency in New Zealand to stop spreading lies, stop creating misperception, and contribute more to people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries and the sound and steady development of bilateral relations," she added. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Home News Korean church leaders urge shift to partner mission, warn of K-cults,' lack of young missionaries Leaders of Koreas largest Protestant denominations joined with the Korea World Missions Association (KWMA) this week to call for a fundamental shift in global mission strategy, urging a move toward partner mission, greater engagement with the younger generation, and stronger defenses against the spread of Korean cults abroad, according to reporting by Christian Today Korea. The appeal came during a press conference Monday at the Korean Christian Building in central Seoul, where the heads of the Presbyterian Church of Korea (Hapdong and Tonghap), the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church and the Presbyterian Church of Korea (Hapshin) presented a joint Special Statement by Denominational Leaders for Change in the Korean Mission Ecosystem. Rev. Ahn Sung-woo, president of the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church, said the global mission field faces grave challenges, citing the infiltration of cults, a lack of younger missionaries and the need to redefine Koreas role. His remarks were read by Rev. Kang Dae-heung, general secretary of KWMA. This is not a mere recommendation, Ahn said, but a cry for decision, so that the Korean church may unite, overcome this crisis of the age, and rekindle the flame of the gospel. Rev. Kim Jong-hyuk, president of the PCK (Hapdong), emphasized that the landscape of world Christianity has already shifted, with Africa, Asia and Latin America emerging as the driving forces of mission. We can no longer see ourselves only as senders, Kim said. It is time to establish a new identity as co-workers walking together with non-Western churches. He urged missionaries to place leadership in the hands of local churches, focus on disciple-making and prioritize evangelism among those outside existing congregations rather than duplicating pastoral roles. Rev. Kim Young-gul, president of the PCK (Tonghap), issued a stark warning about the global spread of Korean cults. He said groups such as Shincheonji, the World Mission Society Church of God, and the Guwonpa (Salvation Sect) are now active in more countries than Korean missionaries themselves, undermining mission churches with deceptive tactics. The foundations of the gospel, built with the blood and sweat of first-generation missionaries, are being divided by these cults, he said, noting growing damage to local churches, leaders and believers. He called for mandatory training for missionaries, the creation of joint manuals and cooperative networks, legal support and seminary programs to prepare experts in cult response. Rev. Park Byung-sun, president of the PCK (Hapshin), pressed for a renewed focus on young people, warning that a church without youth, a mission without youth, means no tomorrow. He urged churches to listen carefully to the voices of young people, demonstrate authenticity through actions more than programs, open ministry opportunities where they can lead, and instill a long-term vision for missions. The joint statement was the outcome of two closed-door meetings of denominational leaders hosted by KWMA in March and July. Organizers said the collaboration marks a rare unified voice among major Korean denominations on the future of global mission. This article was originally published by Christian Daily International. Home News Pakistani school textbooks incite hatred against Israel and Jews: report Textbooks in Pakistani schools promote antisemitism and demonization of Israel, according to a new report published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). IMPACT-se is a British and Israeli-based NGO focused on monitoring school systems worldwide and promoting tolerance. The reports conclusion is based on an examination of over 80 Pakistani textbooks in subjects, including Islamic education, history, civics and cultural studies. While some textbooks were found to promote tolerance, the report revealed that most foster hostility toward Jews and Israel. For example, Pakistani textbooks promote antisemitic stereotypes with classic antisemitic accusations of conspiracies and treachery, according to the study. In addition, the schoolbooks omit Judaism from the religion sections, and students are not taught about the Holocaust. One Pakistani textbook praised Adolf Hitler for restoring German pride without reference to the mass killing of 6 million Jews or other Nazi crimes during World War II. In addition, Pakistani schoolbooks present the state of Israel as an adversary of Muslims. The current war in Gaza is exclusively blamed on Israel, with no mention of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 people were taken hostage. Given Pakistans prominent regional role, its nuclear status, and large percentage of young people in a population of 240 million, this curriculum has far-reaching consequences, IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff warned. What is taught in classrooms today will define Pakistans future global outlook, including its relationship with Israel and the Jewish people. There is a pressing need for curriculum reform that prioritizes inclusion, greater respect for Jews and others, and a more peaceful education, he continued. Pakistan does not recognize the state of Israel, and there are no official diplomatic relations between the two nations. In May, Indian researcher Ratnadeep Chakraborty warned that Pakistan plays a central role in disseminating antisemitism across the globe. He told The Times of Israel that "Pakistan is not just an antisemitic state it is a factory exporting antisemitism to the entire world. This is a strategic threat that Israel cannot afford to keep ignoring," he assessed. "Pakistan is a textbook case of 'antisemitism without Jews,'" Chakraborty said. "It is a country with perhaps a few dozen Jews yet antisemitism there is alive, breathing, and passed on to every new generation." The Indian scholar specifically warned about Pakistanis living abroad throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States. "Pakistan has 9 million citizens living abroad. These are people who were raised on antisemitic educational foundations. They carry this hatred with them to Europe, America, and the Middle East and sometimes act on it," he assessed. The United Kingdom has a particularly large population of Pakistani immigrants. Despite widespread hostility toward Jews and Israel, a few encouraging developments with Pakistan have begun to emerge. In March, an unofficial Pakistani delegation traveled to Israel with the aim of building people-to-people bridges between the two countries. During the visit, the group toured Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center and the Knesset in Jerusalem. They also visited several communities targeted in the Hamas attacks, including Kibbutz Aza and the site of the Nova Music Festival. Pakistani journalist Qaisar Abbas explained his reasons for visiting Israel. "As journalists, we have no boundaries in pursuing information and truth from around the globe. It's not about Israel specifically but about the entire world. This quest for knowledge brought us here, he said. Abbas said he felt at home in Israel and predicted that the countries would establish relations in the future. I estimate within 10 to 20 years, or perhaps sooner, relations will normalize. Particularly if Saudi Arabia formalizes an agreement with Israel in the next two or three years, Pakistan will almost certainly follow, he said. This article was originally published by All Israel News. Home News Teacher placed on leave after mom alleges her son received 'Most Likely to Become Dictator' award A history teacher in Florida was placed on leave this week after a parent alleged she gave her son the Most Likely to Become Dictator superlative because of his conservative beliefs and allowed students to call him a Naziphile because of his interest in World War II and participation in ROTC. The Alachua County School District has placed Gainesville High School history teacher Lauren Watts on administrative leave following the allegations made by Crystal Marull at a State Board of Education meeting in St. Augustine this week, school district officials told WCJB. Marull claimed that in May 2023, the teacher had the class vote on the superlative and tried to make her son come to the front of the class to accept the award, which he refused. The teacher's placement on leave follows a letter from Floridas Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, to Superintendent Kamela Patton and school board members demanding that the teacher be held to account if the allegation is true. If these facts bear out-and we have no reason to doubt Dr. Marulls veracity-then this teacher should be immediately terminated, and never allowed to teach again in Florida, Uthmeier wrote. Florida law prohibits bullying and harassment. The Alachua County School Boards policy also prohibits bullying and harassment. Indeed, teachers must adhere to the Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida. The attorney general states that Florida law prohibits teachers from harassing or discriminating against any student based on political beliefs and intentionally exposing a student to "unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement. This teacher violated Florida law, the School Boards policy, and no less than six ethical principles, Uthmeier stated. Her teachers certificate must be revoked. Watts told Marull in a 2023 email that the superlatives she had her class vote on were for fun," saying it was an exercise she had done with her classes for four years. I give students the option to change or add superlatives to the list from previous years and then the class nominates students and votes on the winner," Watts wrote, according to Alachua Chronicle. "I was not aware that [your son] was upset that he was nominated for that superlative a few weeks ago. To my knowledge, he did not ask to be removed when he was nominated or when the class voted. When I passed them out today, I reiterated that they were just for fun. These were not meant to be offensive. I do apologize. However, the mother, who no longer has kids attending the school district, was unsatisfied, believing that the teacher is clearly missing the bigger problem. And I followed up with an email to her saying, 'Youre a history teacher, if theres anybody who should be sensitive to what a dictator is and the trauma and genocide they bring onto populations, it should be you,' Marull told WCJB. She believes pressure from the attorney general is holding the teacher and school district accountable. Marull has had several issues with the school district over the years. In an op-ed published last September by The Christian Post, Marull detailed what she described as a drawn-out fight with the local school district after her 15-year-old son came home upset after finding the book Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin in the school library. The mother says the book makes light of a 6-year-old child being sexually active and exploited. Two weeks later, the mother said that she checked out the library during her younger sons back-to-school night and found several problematic books. Those include A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara, who Marull said is a self-described Marxist who believes capitalism is inherently exploitative. She said the book included quotes like "L-G-B-T-Q! Love who you choose, 'cuz love is true!" When Marull complained about the book and filed for a formal review, she claims the school district released her information to the media and caused swift backlash in her personal life and relationships. A colleague confronted me at the bus stop, insulting me in front of my child. She later asked the district to keep my 6-year-old from sitting near her child, and, shockingly, they complied for the entire school year, Marull wrote. Worse, they initially claimed it was due to my sons behavior, which led me to punish him until the bus driver revealed the truth. Friends and colleagues cut ties, refusing even to meet for coffee. My world was turned upside down, and this was just the beginning of the districts coordinated effort to silence and intimidate any parent who questioned their content choices. Home News Texas teachers Reddit community thanks Satan for Ten Commandments ruling, vows to defy law Users claiming to be public educators offer advice on skirting SB 10 A Reddit community boasting over 17,000 members has become a hotbed for educators calling for resistance to a new Texas law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in schools with some openly mocking Christians and hailing Satan. The r/TexasTeachers subreddit, which is open to "teachers, administrators, parents, students, and others," celebrated Wednesday's temporary injunction blocking Senate Bill 10, which mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom across the state. In his ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio temporarily prohibited 11 Texas school districts from rolling out the displays, including Houston ISD, Austin ISD and Plano ISD. While the injunction halts enforcement of SB 10 pending further legal review, teachers on the r/TexasTeachers Reddit page praised the judge's decision. One user with the handle Current_Analysis_104 wrote, "If they want to have the 10 commandments in their kids' classrooms, send them to private school! There's a voucher system now you greedy idiots." Mdjones121 called supporters of the Commandments "ghouls [who] should be ashamed of themselves," adding, "They shouldn't be forcing their religion on everyone else. Hang 10 commandments in their churches and homes. Not the public school." Other users were less diplomatic, with one user, FAILURE2FALL7, writing "Hail Satan" with the satanic hand sign emoji. Another user, joe_bald, wrote, "Thank Satan!" One user, bearmama42, appeared to suggest Christians and other supporters were mentally unfit, quipping, "Blessed be the fruit loops." Before the injunction, users who claimed to be teachers took to a separate page titled "Non-Compliance with SB10" and offered advice for their supposed colleagues. Reddit user urcatmom888, who claimed to be an elementary school teacher in a "diverse" Texas district, wrote, "I don't think I can physically bring myself to hang up that poster. I have many Hindu and Muslim students, and I'm so scared that they will feel hurt or wrong for what they believe in. This law is beyond illegal. Compliance is how it passed to begin with, and compliance is how it will stay a law." The user urged collective resistance, stating, "My thinking is that if enough of us don't put up the posters, it loses its power and they can't punish us all. What will they do, fire me over a stupid poster? I'd like to see them try." Another user, currently_rotten, agreed, saying, "I am with you 100%. We have not received guidance from our small East Texas district, but I WILL NOT COMPLY if we are required to do this as well. I am hopeful there will be others as well besides myself." Creative defiance was also proposed, with some offering suggestions on how to skirt the law in their classrooms. Ok_Web_6199 suggested, "Play this smart. I don't remove the poster. It fell. It just keeps falling. Huh. Weird. Now it fell into my waste basket! Weird." ExcitingOpposite7622 wrote, "Hang it upside down..." Some linked their opposition to broader concerns, with birdman1752 warning, "It's not a poster, it's a foothold. The next step towards a 'Christian' autocracy." Not all reactions opposed the law, with some users like Xciting-Rip6795 writing, "This country was founded on Christian principles. People fought and died defending it. Guess we don't think teaching that is very important. So when a Muslim student wants to disrupt your class five times a day praying on a rug, make sure you call your lawyer." Another user, Chastenbased, argued, "You and everyone else complaining about the Ten Commandments. They were written by a Jew named Moses and are a major part of Judaism. Is this why kids don't know who Hitler was?" User Nriegg took a hardline stance and urged Christian parents to pull their kids from public schools in Texas altogether. "The public school system is trash. I still remember in 3rd grade, my teacher read these daily devotional Bible stories in the morning. It was normal and kids were better off. If you claim to be a Bible believing follower of Christ, take your children out of these Godless schools and raise your child 'in the way they should go so when they are older, they will not depart from it.'" "All children of Christian parents should be homeschooled. FULL STOP," the user added. Sandycheeks1991, who identified as a Christian, countered, "What's frustrating is as a Christian I don't believe forcing this is Christ like or Jesus like at all. I mean Christian nationalist are the farthest thing from being Christ followers it's so frustrating and don't get me started on how this not what our constitution was built upon." SB 10 was set to take effect in September before the temporary injunction. The case will likely move to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against a similar Louisiana law in June, before potentially advancing to the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority could redefine the boundaries of church-state separation. Abonati-va sa primiti pe email saptamanal lista articolelor adaugate pe parcursul saptamanii. Adresele .ru nu sunt acceptate. Email NEWSLETTER The Charity Commission has taken the rare step of removing the names of trustees from several refugee charities listed on its register due to a potential safety risk. It reportedly did so after the Home Office gave the names of some organisations it had meetings with about asylum accommodation to a far-right influencer following a freedom of information request, according to reports in the Guardian . While the commission usually lists all trustee names on its register, it can grant dispensation if displaying an individuals name could put them or others in personal physical or mental danger. At least three charities City of Sanctuary UK, the Refugee Council and Refugee Action do not currently have trustees listed on the commissions register. The Guardian also reported that other refugee charities have been forced to install safe rooms in their premises, relocate to less visible sites and in some cases close their offices. Heads of some organisations have also received credible death threats, it reported, according to police sources. CEO of Refugee Council Enver Solomon said: The growing hostility towards refugees is having very real consequences for not only the men, women and children who have fled places like Sudan and Afghanistan, but also for the charities trying to help them. "Leaders in the sector, myself included, have had to think about our own and our organisations personal safety in ways that have not had to be done before." Intervention mulled over cards to refugees The commission is assessing whether to intervene over the City of Sanctuary UK after concerns were raised about its activities. Former Conservative education secretary Gavin Williamson complained to the commission after some schools in support of the charity carried out an annual arts activity where children sent cards to refugees around Valentines Day with the message: Showing your heart for refugees. A commission spokesperson said: Concerns have been raised with us about alleged political activity linked to City of Sanctuary. We are currently assessing the information available to determine if there is a regulatory role for us. A spokesperson for City of Sanctuary UK said: Our work has been deliberately misrepresented by a dangerous campaign built on false and inflammatory claims. These attacks not only put our staff and the school communities we support at risk, but are part of a wider strategy: to sow division and fuel hostility towards people seeking sanctuary. This is not just an attack on us it is an attack on the values of compassion, safety and solidarity. The Home Office, Refugee Council and Refugee Action have been contacted for comment. 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, A hedgehog rescue charity has raised more than 30,000 in an effort to avoid closure following the loss of its shop. Somerset-based Prickles Hedgehog Rescue has generated about half of its annual income from its charity shop, which it has rented for free since 2017. However, the charitys founder Jules Bishop said the shop in Cheddar is now being sold by relatives of the lady who owns the site and is now in residential care. Bishop told Civil Society contracts exchange on the property on 28 August and the charity has to vacate it by 15 September. The shop generated between 45,000 to 50,000 per year for the charity, Bishop said, which had an expenditure of 107,000 last year including utilities, vet bills and food for the hedgehogs in its care. Bishop announced the charity, which she began 18 years ago, is facing closure in a GoFundMe campaign launched on 10 August. It has so far raised more than 30,000, exceeding its initial 25,000 target, but the charity would like to raise even more before the shop closes. Bishop told Civil Society: We ideally would like a cushion of 100,000 and then we can look at new initiatives of raising money. This will then secure the future of the charity. The charitys financial documents for the two most recent financial years are overdue with the Charity Commission. According to its most recently filed accounts for the year to March 2022, the charity raised 102,000 with 31,700 coming from the shop. 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, Sign up for The Media Today, CJRs daily newsletter. For six months, Chalkbeat New York has been embedded at ELLIS Preparatory Academy, a Bronx school that specializes in working with older immigrant students trying to find their footing in the US. One of those students is Bridget, the pseudonym for a newly arrived Ecuadorean teenager who allowed reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney to follow her and her mothers anxiety-ridden journey through the maze of Americas education and immigration systems. (His story runs in two parts, here and here.) Elsen-Rooneys eye for detail is impressive, as he sees Bridget awarded A and B grades while she proves a quick study in English and math. Meanwhile, her mother collects cans on the street to scrape together twenty dollars a day as they squeeze into a relatives apartment. And they do all of this amid President Trumps immigration crackdown, including the ICE arrest of one of Bridgets ELLIS classmates. Normally, in the final month of school, students were worried about moving to the next grade or graduating, Elsen-Rooney writes. This year, a counselor told Chalkbeat, they wondered, Is a masked person going to grab me off the street? At one point, Bridget was offered a place in a shelter that would provide additional support, but she would have had to live apart from her mother. My mom is very frightened with everything and so am I, she wrote her counselor. To tell the truth I dont feel good about all of this. I know things are going to get worse and I think it would be best to go back to Ecuador. The story ends with Bridget and her mom nervously heading to Downtown Manhattan late last month for an ICE check-in. Elsen-Rooney is there as they walk past a photo of Trump on the wall of 26 Federal Plaza. He describes the outcome, but I wont spoil it for you. You will want to read it for yourself. By now, youre likely aware of the man in Washington, DC, who tossed his salami sub at a Customs and Border Patrol cop. He was arrested and charged with assault on a federal employee, a crime that could (but wont) put him in prison for eight years. The man was identified by the feds as Sean Dunn, who works for the Department of Justice. This showed, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi, that the Deep State was alive and well in the agency she oversees. The story got a great deal of play, and CBS News was on top of it last Thursday. Well, sort of. Their three-byline story named Dunn as a suspect and then went on to state that Dunns LinkedIn page says that he worked as a trial attorney at the department. The problem is, DOJ identified the suspect as being thirty-seven years old. The LinkedIn page for the Sean Dunn who works as a DOJ attorney states that he was a 1993 alum of James Madison University. Which means that if the CBS account was correct, the sandwich-tosser was an unusually precocious lad, graduating college at the age of five or six. More likely, CBS just assumed that the Justice Department, with more than 115,000 employees, had only one Sean Dunn on its staff and got the wrong one. I wasnt the first to notice this. Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, tweeted that a cursory look at the significant age difference between the two wouldve alerted CBS to the error. Independent journalist Jacqueline Sweet posted on Bluesky: Three staff reporters at CBS couldnt read the college dates on the LinkedIn they reference. I want to scream sometimes. Apparently, CBS folks dont spend much time on social media, because the mistake sat there for a full day. I finally reached out to their PR department a day after the story was published, and a few hours later, CBS put a misleading editors note at the bottom of the story, stating that Dunn was a paralegal, not an attorney. That made it sound like the reporters simply got his title wrong. But it was worse. Their story misidentified the suspect, pinning this high-profile incident on someone who was blameless. Speaking of the Washington situation President Trumps stated goal is to reduce crime in the District. But the citys carjackings and murders are not spread evenly. Many of them occur in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and some Trump supporters have portrayed the influx of federal agents as a way to protect those residents. Now, there are two ways of handling this story. One is to sit in front of your computer and do what The Atlantic didhypothesize what people in higher-crime areas might say. The story included this kicker: I have little doubt that a mother in Ward 8 might draw comfort from a National Guard soldier standing watch near her childs school. And I try to imagine having the audacity to insist to her that the homicides and the danger that are her daily reality are somehow a phantasm. Orwait for ityou can go to DC and talk to people, where you gain a more nuanced version of the situation, where people share concerns about crime and overreactions by law enforcement. Thats what Alecia Taylor and Brandon Tensley did at Capital B. Many Black residents fear that this increased law enforcement presence will lead to overpolicing, while doing little to meaningfully address crime, they found. A Howard University students first thought when they saw agents near the restaurant was, Why are they here? Thats what Clyde McGrady and Kenny Holston did at the New York Times. McGrady saw similar trends, including in Ward 8, a part of DC that has had thirty-eight homicides so far this year. One man told McGrady that he is supportive of more law enforcement, so long as Black residents arent the target. Thats what Geoff Bennett and his colleagues did at PBS. They interviewed people around the District, ranging from a teenager in Ward 8 who said he saw federal agents intimidating the neighborhood (saying they arrive with big weapons, andare just basically harassing us for real) to a gym owner in Northeast DC who welcomed more law enforcement (I have been seeing a lot of atrocity, a lot of murders, a lot of innocent childrenand theres nothing done about it). Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, who recently announced that shes running for Tennessee governor, visited Memphis last week. Its not necessarily friendly territory, since Kamala Harris won Memphiss county by twenty-five points, almost the same margin as the state as a whole voted for Trump. Still, its the kind of event that most politicians hope will be covered by the local press, given that her stop was a roundtable discussion with a few dozen citizens and officials to discuss juvenile crime. Blackburns office did invite reporters from the local paper and NBC affiliate. But the senator included this restriction, according to the Commercial Appeal: Local reporters were allowed to listen to but not directly report on the meeting. Or, in the words of WMC-TV: Media representatives were forbidden from recording any audio during the discussion on afterschool programs, but they were allowed to record video of the event. (Their stories included an interview with Blackburn after the event.) Why insist on privacy, when the speakers include people from organizations like the Memphis Police Department and the YMCA? GOP state senator Brent Taylor attributed it to concerns about a lot of Soros-funded, paid protesters who are paid to be disruptive. Melvin Cole, founder of a local private boys school, justified the restrictions this way: To be able to help kids, youve got to have a safe space to have uncomfortable dialogue where you can kind of hash out your differences. And why would local media provide coverage of an event they cant cover? They had leverage, since Blackburn wanted the publicity. Moreover, the topic of juvenile crime must be of considerable interest, given that the city ranks near the top in homicides per capita. WMCs reporter and news director didnt answer my query, and Mark Russell, executive editor of the Commercial Appeal, offered this: We have nothing further to share beyond what we noted in the story. Which wasnt much. If you think your friends or teenagers college tuition is expensive, try sending your toddler to preschool in Oregon. The Willamette Weeks Joanna Hou found that a state program designed to subsidize preschool education was paying vast sums to educate very few kids. One North Portland school was granted $464,000 to serve two children, $232,994 to serve four children, and $136,500 to serve three children over a three-year period ending in 2023. That works out to more than $92,000 per child per year. And theres another wrinkle to this story. The schools owner is now running another preschool program for the county. Her salary is $151,669. We will not labor next Friday, August 29, to get us in the right mood for the Labor Day weekend. Laurels and Darts will return September 5. If you have a suggestion for this column, please send it to laurelsanddarts@cjr.org. We cant acknowledge all submissions, but we will mention you if we use your idea. For more on Laurels and Darts, please click here. To receive this and other CJR newsletters in your inbox, please click here. Elon Musk and his social media company X Corp have reached a tentative agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees who said they were owed $500 million in severance pay. Attorneys for X Corp and the former Twitter employees reported the deal in a Wednesday court filing, in which both sides asked a U.S. appeals court to delay an upcoming court hearing so that they could finalize a deal that would pay the fired employees and end the litigation. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Musk fired approximately 6,000 employees after his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, which he rebranded X. Several employees sued over their terminations and severance pay, and other lawsuits are still pending in courts in Delaware and California. The settlement would resolve a proposed class action filed in California by Courtney McMillian, who previously oversaw Twitters employee benefits programs as its head of total rewards, and Ronald Cooper, who was an operations manager. A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the employees lawsuit in July 2024, and they appealed to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit had been scheduled to hear oral arguments on September 17. Attorneys for Musk and McMillian did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Related: Cyberattack on X Hit Servers Faulted for Lacking Key Protection The lawsuit argued that a 2019 severance plan guaranteed that most Twitter workers would receive two months of their base pay plus one week of pay for each full year of service if they were laid off. Senior employees such as McMillian were owed six months of base pay, according to the lawsuit. But Twitter only gave laid-off workers at most one month of severance pay, and many of them did not receive anything, according to the lawsuit. Twitter laid off more than half of its workforce as a cost-cutting measure after Musk acquired the company. (Reporting by Dietrich Knauth, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Rod Nickel) They are the hurricanes of legend, the bowling balls that cross the entire Atlantic Ocean, menaced ships of yore and make the long, curved lines on the hurricane charts. Cape Verde storms, named for the group of islands about 450 miles (725 kilometers) off the west coast of Africa, typically form from clusters of thunderstorms that move off the continent and into the Atlantic. With thousands of miles of ocean water above the 80-degree Fahrenheit (27-degree Celsius) temperature needed to fuel hurricanes, Cape Verde storms are some of the most dangerous that threaten North America. About 85% of all major hurricanes Category 3 and higher start out there, according to the National Hurricane Center. They are the media stars and certainly get a lot of attention because you can track them for a long time, said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections. But they also are a rare threat. Less than one out of every 10 of the storms crash into the U.S. The rest either fall apart or are curved out to sea by the north and east steering winds that normally prevail over the Atlantic. Now is the Time to Turn to the East Conditions need to be just right for Cape Verde storms to form and grow, keeping them mostly confined to August and September. Hurricane Erin is a Cape Verde storm. The National Hurricane Center is watching two more clusters of storms to the east of Erin that could develop into tropical storms. But the atmosphere is too complex to know how strong those storms can be if they develop or whether any of them will threaten the U.S. Forecasters begin to lose confidence in their ability to predict the future of any specific storms more than a week out. It takes at least 10 days for a potential hurricane to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Warm Weather and Light Winds Help Cape Verde Storms Grow Cape Verde storms start over Africa where the hot dry air in the Sahara and the hot humid air over the Gulf of Guinea clash and create clusters of thunderstorms that move off the continent. The warm water is the first ingredient. Hurricanes also thrive with light winds above them that wont blow the thunderstorms away from the center. They are the strongest because they have the most time to develop. The other storms can crash into land too early, Masters said. Researchers have spent the past several years studying the ocean and atmosphere in the far eastern Atlantic to get a better idea of why some storms form and some dont. In recent years, scientists have realized that dry air and dust from the Sahara in Africa blown into the Atlantic from the east can lessen the high humidity hurricanes need and inhibit their development. The dust can travel all the way across the ocean and settle on cars and windows on the U.S. East Coast. They travel about a mile above the surface, the winds are very strong, and the air is dry and hot. Thats a trifecta that suppresses hurricane activity, Jason Dunion, a scientist at the University of Miamis Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies told the university. 1 or 2 Hurricanes a Year Are Cape Verde Storms Some years may not see a Cape Verde storm at all. Some can see as many as four or five. But on average about one or two hurricanes a year are classified as Cape Verde storms, according to the National Hurricane Center. And they arent the only storms to hit the U.S. The Weather Channel analyzed hurricanes since 1995 and found only nine of the 60 that struck the U.S. were the ones that track all the way across the Atlantic. The storms you remember The list of famous Cape Verde hurricanes has a lot of overlap with the list of the most memorable, powerful and deadliest hurricanes. There is the 1900 Galveston Hurricane that killed about 8,000 people in Texas and the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane that killed 2,500 in Florida. In more recent times, hurricanes Donna in 1960 in Florida, Hugo in 1989 in South Carolina, Andrew in 1992 in Florida, Ivan in Grand Cayman, Alabama and Florida in 2004, Ike in Texas in 2008, Irma in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida in 2017 and Florence in North Carolina in 2018 were all Cape Verde storms. Photo: In this Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, satellite image released by NASA, Hurricane Erin, left, continues its slow west-northwest trajectory across the Atlantic Ocean, as the National Hurricane Center is watching two more clusters of Cape Verde storms off the west coast of Africa, right, that could develop into tropical storms. (NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System via AP) Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For the first time in over two decades, the beloved cast of the legendary teen TV series Dawson's Creek is reuniting on stage in New York City, for a special one-night very special and important event. James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams, and Joshua Jackson will join forces on September 22 in Broadway, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, for a live script reading of the show's iconic pilot episode. The charity gathering will raise funds for the nonprofit F Cancer and support Van Der Beek, who revealed last year that he is battling stage 3 colorectal cancer. The reunion, titled Dawson's Creek Class Reunion, will also feature former cast members, including Busy Philipps, Kerr Smith, Meredith Monroe, Mary Beth Peil, John Wesley Shipp, Mary-Margaret Humes, and Nina Repeta. Directed by Jason Moore and produced alongside creator Kevin Williamson and Greg Berlanti, the evening promises a nostalgic return to Capeside, where the beloved teen drama first captured audiences in 1998. The series ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2003 in the WB network, under the production of Sony Pictures. Tickets go on sale at Broadway Direct on Friday, August 22, at 10am PT. "I am so excited to reunite with James, Michelle, Katie, Joshua, and our 'Dawson's Creek' family for such a special night. 'Dawson's Creek' changed my life," Williamson said in a statement. "What began as a personal story about a young man and his friends navigating their way through the challenges of life became so much more than I ever dreamed. It created an enduring fandom and legacy all over the world. I am so honored to be a part of it and to support our beautiful friend, James, as we continue to navigate our way through life and its many challenges." "We grew up in Capeside and that's a bond that will last a lifetime. We wanted to gather around our dear friend James and remind him that we are all here. We always have been, and we always will be. And I know the fans of 'Dawson's Creek' feel the same way," said Michelle Williams. Popular on Variety For fans, the event marks not only a rare chance to see the original cast together again but also an opportunity to celebrate the enduring legacy of the show while supporting a meaningful cause. Originally published on IBTimes UK Park rangers will lead young and beginning hunters through safety, ethics and equipment training during a two-day course at Big Creek Park.(Joshua Gunter/ The Plain Dealer) (The Plain Dealer file photo) CHARDON, Ohio Geauga Park District will host a two-day hunter education course in September for young and first-time hunters seeking certification toward a license. The program, presented by the park districts ranger department, will run Sept. 13 and Sept. 20 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Big Creek Parks Donald W. Meyer Center. Coursework will cover topics such as conservation, hunting ethics, firearm and bowhunting safety, and proper equipment handling. All gear will be provided, but participants are asked to bring a pencil, pen and highlighter. Students must attend both sessions and pass a 100-question multiple-choice exam with a score of at least 75% to qualify for certification. Hunters under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Registration is required through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources website. Additional information about upcoming hunting courses and clinics is available on the Geauga Park District website at www.geaugaparkdistrict.org or by calling 440-286-9516. The Wickliffe Family Resource Center is asking for donations of non-perishable food as its pantry stock runs low. Associated Press WICKLIFFE, Ohio The Wickliffe Family Resource Center is asking for the communitys help as its food pantry stock runs very, very low. The center posted on social media Friday saying it is in desperate need of non-perishable, non-expired food items to help meet the need in Wickliffe. Donations can be dropped off at the Family Resource Center on Rockefeller Road, the Wickliffe Public Library, Big Boy of Wickliffe, or Wickliffe City Hall. Requested items include canned pasta, peanut butter and jelly, cereal, oatmeal, granola bars, Hamburger Helper, canned or jarred fruit, baked beans, hearty soups, and pasta or rice mixes. The Family Resource Center, located at 2255 Rockefeller Road, provides food and support services to residents in need. For more information, call 440-810-8201. A Dayton, Ohio, man is accused of throwing a sex toy toward the court during a WNBA game earlier this month, hitting a 12-year-old girl. (Jessica Hill, Associated Press file photo) AP NEW YORK A Dayton man is charged with two counts of assault in New York after police say he threw a sex toy during a WNBA game and hit a 12-year-old girl. Charles Burgess, 32, is accused of throwing the object during an Aug. 5 game between the New York Liberty and Dallas Wings at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, USA Today reports. Burgess pleaded not guilty after driving from Ohio and voluntarily surrendering himself to New York authorities, his lawyer, Paul DEmilia, said in an email Thursday to The Associated Press. He was released pending his next court date in December. The WNBA has been contending with fans throwing sex toys onto the court during games for the past several weeks. Since late July there have been incidents during games at Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago. Several people have been arrested, reports say. In the incident at Brooklyn, WDTN Channel 2 reports authorities say security video shows the object didnt reach the court but instead hit the young girl. USA Today reports the girl had pain in her leg but did not need treatment. DEmilia tells WDTN he believes the charges will be dismissed. I think eventually theyre going to be dropped. I cant imagine why they charged, for example, the felony charge, attempted assault in the second degree, DEmilia tells WDTN. Thats a serious charge for when youre intentionally trying to hurt somebody. DEmilia said Burgess is an auto body shop owner with six children and no criminal record. He said Burgess intends to vigorously fight these embellished and exaggerated charges. The WNBA released a statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer saying that safety at arenas remains a top priority. We are working closely with local and federal law enforcement to pursue all appropriate actions including arrest and prosecution with felony charges where applicable against anyone engaged in this conduct or otherwise involved in sponsoring this reckless and unacceptable behavior, the statement says. (The Associated Press contributed to this story.) Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor Owen Knapp delivers opening statements to a three-judge panel at Cleveland State University for a hearing of the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals on Friday, Aug. 22. Daniel Tirfagnehu, (right), is representing the defendant alongside attorney Brian Fallon. Lucas Daprile CLEVELAND, Ohio - The question of whether a jury will ever hear about Blake Storys brutal death could come down to this: Did Cleveland police use inadmissible evidence and mislead a judge when seeking a search warrant? An appellate court is expected to decide the answer in the coming months. The ruling could create a precedent for how police use facial recognition technology. On Friday, attorneys argued before the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals Judges Eileen T. Gallagher, Emanuella D. Groves and Deena R. Calabrese. The case involves the 2024 murder of Blake Story, 33, of Cleveland, a soft-spoken graduate of Garrett Morgan School of Engineering and Innovation who had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. In the investigation, Cleveland police used facial recognition from artificial intelligence software to identify a suspect, Qeyeon Tolbert. A trial judge sided with Tolberts attorneys who argued that the identification was not admissible in court and that a detective misled a jurist about AIs use. This is new technology, and were accepting it blindly because its buried in an affidavit, Fallon told the 8th District panel. Thats why this is kind of an important case. I know theres a lot at stake here ... but I think there was a lot of misleading information. Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor Owen Knapp argued police corroborated the report through solid detective work and had probable cause to search Tolberts house, even without the assistance of facial recognition. It was only a piece of the puzzle, Knapp said of artificial intelligence. The case has led Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to file friend-of-the-court briefs on the case. Though the three are not party to the case, they do want the appellate panel to know their concerns. The investigation The case stems from the 2024 Valentines Day slaying of Story, who was walking home on East 152nd Street when a man approached him from behind, robbed him and shot him twice. Story walked the rest of the way home and was found dead in his bathtub the next day. Cleveland police found surveillance video showing the killer walking in front of Story before briefly stopping in Tolberts driveway and positioning himself behind Story. After the killer shot Story, he ran toward Tolberts house, then police say he returned to collect shell casings while wearing different clothes before running back in the direction of Tolberts house. Police did not see the killer enter Tolberts house specifically. The surveillance video wasnt close enough to see the face of Storys killer. Six days after the murder, police watched a surveillance camera that showed Tolbert leave his apartment on East 152nd Street before going to a neighborhood convenience store. Police accessed the convenience stores security camera and sent the picture of Tolbert to the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center. The fusion center, an interagency law enforcement intelligence unit, ran the photo of Tolbert shopping through a facial recognition program powered by artificial intelligence, called Clearview AI. Clearview identified Tolbert, alongside several other people, as possible matches for the person shopping in the convenience store. Police, who staked out Tolberts apartment, said he looked and walked like the killer who was caught on surveillance video but who was too far away to identify. When a detective presented this evidence to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg seeking a search warrant of Tolberts apartment, he failed to mention anything about the use of facial recognition technology in identifying Tolbert, defense attorneys said. He also didnt mention the technology carries a disclaimer explicitly barring it from being used in court proceedings. When police searched Tolberts apartment, they said they found, among other evidence, a Taurus G3 handgun they believe is the murder weapon. Tolbert, a convicted felon, is barred from possessing firearms. County prosecutors have stressed that the layered investigation relied on much more than just the use of AI. Tolberts attorneys, Daniel Tirfagnehu and Brian Fallon, argued the search warrant was based on a misleading affidavit from the detective and relied on inadmissible evidence. Visiting Judge Richard McMonagle, the jurist who presided over Tolberts case, agreed, excluding the results of the search warrant from trial. In effect, McMonagles ruling means prosecutors would have to try Tolbert for murder without using the suspected murder weapon or other key evidence in a trial. The prosecutors office has acknowledged its case is doomed without that evidence, and it appealed McMonagles ruling to the 8th District. The judges questions Friday focused on the use of facial recognition and a disclaimer at the bottom of the AI report that says it is not supposed to be used in court filings. However, Calabrese, one of the appeals judges, questioned whether that disclaimer means the court cant consider the AI reports findings. There is no case law at all that I found relative to anything regarding this disclaimer. This disclaimer is between the police department and the Fusion Center, Calabrese said. Donald Trump's policies have had a broad series of impacts on Northeast Ohio, and increasing homelessness for working families appears to be the lastest. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) AP Cleveland housing advocates are sounding a desperate alarm about an impending housing crisis facing thousands of Ohios most vulnerable residents, and the Today in Ohio podcast crew talked about how policies of President Donald Trump are turning into cruelty in Cleveland. As Trumps administration proposes slashing federal housing assistance by a staggering 40%, local housing authorities like CMHA are scrambling to prevent mass evictions and a surge in homelessness. The Trump administration is proposing to cut rental aid by about 40%, ending vouchers after two years for able-bodied adults, and shifting responsibility to states, reported Leila Atassi during the podcast discussion. Analysts say that those cuts could knock out as many as 7,000 vouchers in Ohio alone. CMHA has been forced into what Atassi described as triage modeasking landlords not to raise rents and freezing new vouchers while appealing to HUD for emergency funding. But the stopgap measures can only do so much against the tsunami of federal cuts. Quinn said the housing cuts fit into a broader Trump strategy. Doesnt it feel like the Republicans, up to and including Donald Trump, have just declared war on cities because theyre blue? he asked, noting that housing voucher programs primarily serve urban areas where many minorities and working-class families reside. The discussion highlighted the human cost behind these policy decisions. Housing vouchers are really that thin line that keeps working families and people with disabilities and seniors from ending up on the street, Atassi emphasized, underscoring that the cuts target people who are already living on the economic edge. The cuts affect working Americans who simply cant afford housing despite full-time employment. Atassi shared her experience visiting county shelters for homeless families: I was stunned by how many mothers were there who were working sometimes more than one job and still unable to afford a down payment on a decent place to live. This reality contradicts the administrations rhetoric about self-sufficiency. No one who works 40 hours a week should have to live in a homeless shelter because their wages dont cover their living expenses, Atassi argued, challenging the premise that two years of assistance is sufficient when wages remain inadequate to cover basic living costs. Quinn said the cruelty of the decision is most apparent when you consider who might be put into the street. Its kids. I mean, youre talking about kicking kids out into the street. The most vulnerable. The people were supposed to protect and help thrive so that the future is bright, and we dont care. His assessment of the cuts was unequivocal: It is, its incredibly cruel. What theyve done with food and what theyve done with housing are the cruelest measures. Listen to the episode here. Listen to full Today in Ohio episodes where Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura Johnston. Elon Musk, the world's richest person, asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI in early 2025, court filings on Thursday revealed. The filing is part of a legal case between Musk and OpenAI that was initiated last year. The case is proceeding in a federal court in Northern California, and a judge recently said OpenAI can move ahead with counter claims against Musk, who co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit with Sam Altman and others in 2015. When Musk floated his proposal to buy OpenAI in February, he was incensed that the company and Altman, OpenAI's CEO, were pushing to transform the business into a for-profit entity. Altman and Musk, who were longtime friends, have become bitter adversaries since OpenAI's emergence as a leader in generative AI with billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft . Musk started xAI in 2023 and was pushing for it to be a direct competitor to OpenAI. Musk later sued OpenAI, alleging a breach of contract, and tried to stop OpenAI from converting to a for-profit company. In its counter claims, OpenAI has alleged that Musk and xAI's "sham bid" harmed its business and that Musk has engaged in "harassment" through litigation and attacks on social media and in the press. As part of its complaint, OpenAI has filed to subpoena Meta for communications between the company, its CEO and Musk about the bid. In a statement to the court published Thursday, OpenAI said that when Musk and xAI were trying to form a consortium of investors to finance a takeover, they approached Zuckerberg with a letter of intent and asked "about potential financing arrangements or investments." Neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed the LOI, the filing said. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. Marc Toberoff, Musk's attorney in the case, didn't respond to a request for comment. The statement in the filing said that Meta has been "spending heavily to develop its own Al capabilities" and has been "offering pay packages of $100 million or more to leading Al researchers and attempting to poach OpenAI employees." Meta has argued that OpenAI's requests for documents are overly burdensome, and that OpenAI should obtain relevant communications from Musk and xAI, instead. WATCH: How Sam Altman is tackling a growing threat to the future of OpenAI: Elon Musk Stocks @ Night is a daily newsletter delivered after hours, giving you a first look at tomorrow and last look at today. Sign up for free to receive it directly in your inbox. Here's what CNBC TV's producers were watching as the S & P 500 slid for a fifth consecutive day, and what's on the radar for the next session. Stellantis' Jeep Bob Broderdorf, CEO of Stellantis ' Jeep brand, will be live in the 7 a.m. hour ET with CNBC's auto reporter Phil LeBeau and Squawk Box 's Becky Quick, Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin as the company unveils the new Cherokee. The stock is down 26% so far this year. They have fallen about 42% over the past 12 months. Ford is up 14% in 2025, and shares have advanced around 4% in a year. The stock is off 5% from last month's high. General Motors is up 6% this year, and the stock has jumped 21% in a year. The stock is off 7.7% from the November high. Tesla is down about 20% so far this year. Shares have added 43% over the past 12 months, and they're down 35% from the December high. Toyota is up 1% in 2025. Shares have added 7% in the past year. The stock is 2% from the December high. STLA 1Y mountain Stellantis over the past 12 months Buckle The retailer with 440 stores including one at the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin will report quarterly numbers in the morning. Buckle shares have gained 35% over the past three months. The stock is down 4.6% from the high hit earlier this month. AT & T The telecom giant hit a new high on Thursday. AT & T is up 7.4% in August. Shares are up 29% so far year to date. The relative strength index, or RSI, is 73.5. A reading above 70 is considered overbought, and anything below 30 is considered oversold. However, an RSI reading is no guarantee that a sudden sell-off or pop is imminent. RSI is one of many metrics used by traders and investors to gauge a stock's recent move. The stock pays a quarterly dividend of 28 cents per share. The dividend yield is 3.77%. T YTD mountain AT & T shares in 2025 Seagate Technology The data storage company hit a new all-time high Thursday. Thanks to CNBC data man Chris Hayes for watching the numbers. Seagate fell later in the day, ultimately closing down 2.4%. Shares have surged 48% in three months. Insurance This S & P industry is tops this week, up 2%. Everest is up 4.9% this week. Arthur Gallagher is up 4.3% so far this week. Travelers is up 3.5% in four days. EG 5D mountain Everest Group in the past five days The airlines This is the worst performing S & P industry so far this week. It is down about 3.4%. Delta Air Lines is down around 4% so far this week. United is down 3.7% week to date. Southwest is down 1.4% in four days. Jeep is rolling out a freshly designed model after six consecutive years of annual sales declines. The Stellantis automaker unveiled a new Jeep Cherokee on Thursday, the latest move to try to jump-start sales. It's the first Jeep hybrid system, and the first for Stellantis in North America. The 2026 Jeep Cherokee redesign aims to evoke the iconic Cherokee SUV brand, which has dotted the company's history for decades. Jeep had previously discontinued the model in 2023 under Stellantis' former CEO Carlos Tavares as part of various cost-cutting measures. Thursday's model marks the debut of Stellantis' new 1.6-liter turbo-four hybrid powertrain, with more than 500 miles to a tank of fuel. The car will boast a "technology-filled interior," according to the company, including Stellantis' new Connect One services package. "Hybrid was the perfect piece to round out the rest of our portfolio," Jeep CEO Bob Broderdorf told CNBC's Phil LeBeau on Friday morning. The new model, which the company said is longer, taller and wider than the previous Cherokee, also maximizes its space with 30% more cargo capacity. BETHESDA, MD - MAY 20: Workers walk to the metro station in front of the National Institutes of Health headquarters in Bethesda, MD, on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Photo by Wesley Lapointe/For The Washington Post via Getty Images) The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Trump administration broad cuts to National Institutes of Health grants as part of the federal government's campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion policies. But in a mixed decision the court left in place a different part of the lower court judge's ruling that threw out the administration's guidance document that introduced the policy, raising questions about whether it can be applied moving forward. The justices, on a 5-4 vote, granted in part an emergency request filed by the administration seeking to put a Massachusetts-based federal judge's ruling on hold. The court did not fully explain its reasoning, but the majority indicated that groups seeking to challenge the funding cuts have to file separate lawsuits in a different federal venue the Court of Federal Claims. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the deciding vote in crafting the decision. Four justices, all conservatives, said they would have granted the Trump administration's application in full, while four others conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberals would have denied it in full. "As today's order states, the District Court likely lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the grant terminations, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims," Barrett wrote in a concurring opinion. But, she added, "the Government is not entitled to a stay of the judgments insofar as they vacate the guidance documents." The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a collection of agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services that receives billions of dollars from Congress to fund medical research at universities, hospitals and other institutions. When President Donald Trump took office in January, he vowed to end so-called diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies, saying that rather than fostering equality as intended, they are a form of discrimination, primarily against white people. He has also taken aim at policies recognizing transgender rights, including access to gender transition care. The NIH then conducted a review of grants and determined that more than 1,700 of them were not consistent with Trump's directives and terminated them, including studies into HIV prevention and gender identity among teens. The moves were challenged by 16 states led by Massachusetts and the American Public Health Association, among others. After a trial, U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts ruled that the government had failed to follow correct legal processes in implementing the policy, in violation of a law called the Administrative Procedure Act. In rushing to implement Trump's agenda, NIH "simply moved too fast and broke things, including the law," Young wrote. He also said that DEI was "an undefined enemy," noting that government lawyers had not been able to explain exactly what it meant. Young found that there was "pervasive racial discrimination" and "extensive discrimination" against gay, lesbian and transgender people in how grants were selected for termination. He also found "an unmistakable pattern of discrimination against women's health issues." Young declined to put his ruling on hold, as did the Boston-based 1st U.S Circuit Court of Appeals, which also kept the grants intact. In asking the Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of the Trump administration, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the case is similar to another that arose in Massachusetts in which a judge blocked Trump administration plans to terminate teacher training grants on anti-DEI grounds. The Supreme Court in April blocked that ruling on a 5-4 vote. "This application presents a particularly clear case for this court to intervene and stop errant district courts from continuing to disregard this court's rulings," Sauer wrote. Lawyers for the states pushed back on Sauer's narrative, saying it "bears little resemblance to reality, with Young's ruling a "run-of-the mill" example of a court intervening when the government violates the law. The justices Thursday disagreed over whether the April decision governed the outcome in the latest case. In a brief opinion, Roberts, who dissented in the earlier case, said it was different, with Young's findings "well within the scope of the district court's jurisdiction." But conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, in his own separate opinion, criticized Young for failing to abide by the April decision. "Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court's decisions, but they are never free to defy them," he wrote. The Trump administration has regularly turned to the Supreme Court when its broad use of executive power is challenged in court and has prevailed in the majority of cases. Trump and his allies have also harshly criticized judges who have ruled against him. The Club's 10 things to watch Friday, Aug. 22 Today's newsletter was written by Portfolio Analyst Zev Fima and Director of Portfolio Analysis Jeff Marks. 1. It's Fed day. Wall Street will be hyper-focused on what Fed Chair Jerome Powell has to say today during his speech at the central bank's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In a piece yesterday afternoon , we looked at how this week's market scrambled conventional wisdom on what a Fed rate cut would mean for tech stocks. 2. Lots of Nvidia headlines swirling this morning: CEO Jensen Huang said the AI chipmaker is in talks with the U.S. government to ship a chip more advanced than the H20 to China. However, The Information reported that Club name Nvidia told suppliers to stop production of components for the H20 chip due to China's security concerns. 3. Off-price retail chain Ross Stores reports a mixed quarter with a slight revenue miss and earnings per share above the Street. Comparable store sales increased 2%. Club name TJX Companies' earnings this week were far cleaner and stronger. 4. TJX was highlighted by The Wall Street Journal alongside Walmart and fellow Club stock Amazon as three relative retail winners during the trade war. The WSJ's reasoning: They can keep costs down and "ease the burden on stressed-out consumers." While we couldn't agree more, we'd add Club name Costco to the list too. Retailers need scale and value to thrive right now. 5. Intuit shares fell 6% this morning despite the TurboTax and QuickBooks owner reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. The board also approved a new $3.2 billion share repurchase program and increased the dividend. 6. Workday was also unable to shake off the negative sentiment around enterprise software. The HR management software provider beat quarterly expectations, but analysts say the subscription guidance raise was due to an acquisition, not strengthening results. Club stock Salesforce has also been a victim of the AI-related overhang on enterprise software. 7. Piper Sandler raised its price target on Club name Broadcom to $315 a share from $300 and reiterated its overweight buy rating on the custom AI chipmaker. Analysts continue to see Broadcom as an AI winner and well-positioned into the October quarter on both its chip business and software unit led by VMWare. 8. Alphabet's Google Cloud won a six-year, $10 billion contract from Meta Platforms to help support its AI infrastructure. Meta, which we've long owned for the Club, previously relied on Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure for cloud services, in addition to its own data centers. 9. More Meta news: The Instagram parent has poached Apple AI executive Frank Chu for its Superintelligence Labs even as it slows the pace of AI hiring, Bloomberg News reported . Chu is at least the sixth AI-focused Apple employee to bolt for Meta, Bloomberg said. While Apple share have perked up lately, investors still crave better AI strategy and implementation. 10. Barclays upgraded Ulta Beauty to an overweight buy rating from equal weight and raised its PT to $589 from $518. Analysts see upward earnings revision coming over next few quarters as the company's turnaround efforts take hold under new CEO Kecia Steelman. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free (See here for a full list of the stocks at Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. Here are Friday's biggest calls on Wall Street: Evercore ISI reiterates Nvidia as outperform Evercore ISI raised its price target to $214 per share from $190 ahead of the artificial intelligence chipmaker's earnings next week. "We are buyers of NVDA in front of its Jul-25Q earnings call scheduled for 27-Aug after the market close. We raise our estimates and price target." Wells Fargo initiates Dorman Products as overweight Wells Fargo said the auto parts aftermarket company is underappreciated and undervalued. "We see DORM as a high- quality/defensive operator, and believe its unique growth engine (innovation, etc.) offers a compelling way to play the attractive/non-discretionary automotive aftermarket." Barclays upgrades Ulta Beauty to overweight from equal weight Barclays says it likes the manner in which the company's new CEO is executing strategy. "We upgrade to Overweight from Equal Weight based on: 1) return to sustainable positive comps and margin expansion; 2) promotional improvement; 3) ULTA x Target exit optimizing retail distribution points." Read more. Loop upgrades Esab to buy from hold Loop says buy the dip in the welding solutions company. "We are upgrading shares of ESAB to 'Buy' and raising our target price to $140 per share (+$10). We believe the recent retrenchment in the shares is overblown and presents an opportunity." Barclays downgrades Gap to equal weight from overweight Barclays says it sees tariff pressures on the clothing retailer. "We are downgrading shares of GAP from Overweight to Equal Weight as we now believe that our previous blue-sky scenario for double-digit operating margins by FY26 is off the table diminished by tariff margin pressure and macro uncertainty." Stifel initiates Netgear at buy Stifel says the computer networking company is a turnaround stock. "We believe Netgear is entering its second wave of transformation, positioning the company to deliver sustainable revenue growth and enhanced profitability through disciplined portfolio management across its business units." JPMorgan reiterates Microsoft as overweight JPMorgan says it is sticking with the Windows and Xbox parent. " MSFT (Azure accelerates another 4 pts to 39% growth, non-AI Enterprise remains strong, demand > supply)." Jefferies upgrades Miniso to buy from hold Jefferies says the China global retailer is well positioned for growth. "For Miniso overseas, sales growth driver will come from 1) 500+ new store opening[s] with store opening in the U.S. more concentrated e.g. it recently opened 3 stores in Austin. 2) Focus on festival period and 4Q high season." Bank of America reiterates Honeywell as buy Bank of America says the building control stock is undervalued. " HON's more defensive portfolio is well-suited to the current macro environment and the company is trading at a discounted valuation versus peers." Piper Sandler reiterates Broadcom as overweight Piper Sandler raised its price target on the semiconductor stock to $315 per share from $300. "We are bullish on the prospects for AVGO going into the coming October quarter around both the core semiconductor business and the infrastructure software segments." Evercore ISI reiterates Apple as outperform Evercore ISI says it likes Apple's price hikes on Apple TV+. "We think the Apple TV+ price increases could help modestly on services growth, but the real intent is to minimize churn. Services remain on track for double digit growth (provided Licensing relationship stays intact). Maintain OP and $250 price target." Bank of America reiterates Walmart as buy Bank of America says the nation's largest retailer has a "strong near- and long-term outlook" following its latest earnings. "We reiterate Buy as WMT' s strong value offering & digital convenience should continue driving share gains across incomes & product categories." JPMorgan initiates EHang at overweight JPMorgan says the China eVTOL company is well positioned. "Initiate coverage on EHang, China's leading eVTOL OEM, at OW with a Dec- 26 PT of US$26 (51% potential upside)." Read more. Barclays reiterates Netflix as equal weight The investment bank said it is sticking with an equal weight rating on Netflix , arguing that video streaming is near a saturation point. "Despite significant headline global household [total addressable market], streaming unit growth is likely to slow across the industry and penetration opportunities may not be evenly distributed." Wolfe upgrades Roblox to outperform from peer perform Wolfe says Roblox is "benefiting from platform flywheel effects search & discovery improvements, faster content velocity, pricing optimizations." "We are upgrading RBLX to Outperform rating with a $150 PT and raising our FY'26 Bookings and EBITDA ests. by 7% and 13%, respectively, driven by incremental contributions from Regional Pricing + Advertising opportunities." Guggenheim downgrades Paramount Skydance to neutral from buy Guggenheim downgraded the media company, citing valuation. "We are lowering our rating on Paramount Skydance to NEUTRAL from BUY and removing our 12-month price target of $13 following a significant run in the stock." Stark warnings have surfaced since the U.K.'s tax crackdown on the wealthy that an exodus of the mega-rich is underway. Hard data has yet to back up the trend. At the heart of the potential flight are changes to the British tax system, from capital gains and inheritance tax to extra stamp duty rates. In particular, the abolition of the so-called non-dom regime, which allowed wealthy foreigners to avoid paying tax on earnings outside the U.K. and to elude inheritance duties on their global assets, courted much controversy. The fear is that an exodus of wealthy people will translate into lower economic growth and diminish the UK's attractiveness as a place to live, invest, and do business. "We know that the top 1% and the top 0.01% pay a very high proportion of taxes in this country, so the tax base starts to shrink. The second thing is, you lose the benefit of the money that they spend in the economy. That's not just about people that they employ, but it's also about things like philanthropy," said Jenkins, who is now the CEO of 10x Banking. "What we really need most of all in this country, is people to start and grow businesses. And that means we have to be an attractive location for capital for starting businesses," he added. Barclays sees a rosy outlook ahead for shares of Ulta Beauty . The bank upgraded the beauty retailer to an overweight weighting from equal weight. Analyst Adrienne Yih accompanied the move by lifting her price target to $589 from $518. Shares of Ulta have surged 20% this year. Yih's revised forecast calls for additional upside of 13% from the stock's Thursday close. ULTA YTD mountain ULTA YTD chart "We believe shares can continue to be propelled higher by upwards consensus earnings revisions over the next several quarters," the analyst wrote. As a catalyst, Yih cited recent business decisions made by Ulta CEO Kecia Steelman, who took over the reins of the company earlier this year. "We are highly encouraged by a series of rapid and decisive changes since CEO Kecia Steelman took the helm in January 2025," Yih said. Specifically, tailwinds include a return to margin expansion, improvements in promotional activity, the company's focus on optimizing points of retail distribution and its initially conservative guidance for fiscal 2025. Yih also emphasized that as one of only two specialty multibrand domestic beauty retailers, alongside Sephora, Ulta commands a unique target audience. "Furthermore, we believe that the overall beauty landscape, which has been normalizing since its peak in 2022, is in the process of stabilizing with an annual growth rate in the mid-single-digit range," Yih said. "While we acknowledge price increases in discretionary goods are on the horizon, and consumer demand in the U.S. market remains an unknown variable, we believe that beauty, and in particular ULTA's core customer (aka the 'beauty enthusiast'), will continue to over-index wallet share toward beauty, health, and wellness categories." The analyst also pointed to Ulta's relative resistance to tariffs as another tailwind. Specifically, only around 1% of its merchandise was directly imported in fiscal 2024, "suggesting minimal direct-cost tariff risk." "The company has previously disclosed that it relies on China imports only for select hair care tools, store fixtures, and store supplies," she said. "As such, overall risk remains negligible and well below the rest of our coverage universe as the company's key categories, such as beauty and personal care products have limited China and Southeast Asia exposure (i.e., K-beauty and J-beauty); we do note that some product is imported from Europe." California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks on during a news conference with Texas lawmakers at the Governors Mansion on July 25, 2025 in Sacramento, California. California's Democratic-controlled Legislature passed bills Thursday setting up a high-profile special election this fall, when voters will decide whether to approve the party's plan to gerrymander California's congressional map. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed the relevant legislation shortly after it passed, has championed the plan as a political counterweight to Texas' recent move to create more Republican seats there as both parties get ready for a 2026 election in which control of Congress will be up for grabs. Both the state Assembly and the state Senate passed the redistricting legislation Thursday, each with the two-thirds vote needed to enact "urgent" measures in the state. Now it's up to the voters to decide whether to temporarily sidestep the state's independent redistricting commission, which voters put in place to handle the issue once every decade. The new Democratic-drawn maps, proposed in the Legislature less than one week ago, serve a transparent political purpose: countering Texas Republicans' new map, which could net the party five more congressional seats amid the fierce battle for control of the House in next year's midterm elections. California Democrats have criticized Republicans, particularly President Donald Trump, who told CNBC amid Texas' push to redraw its maps that his party was "entitled to five more seats" from Texas. If voters approve their plan, California's new map could serve as a counterweight to Texas' changes, as analysis from the University of Virginia Center for Politics shows "the proposed California map could allow Democrats to win up to five more seats in 2026," potentially endangering GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert and David Valadao. Newsom and Democratic allies have been trumpeting a need to redraw the lines to cancel out the move by Texas, arguing Republicans there are trying to insulate Trump from the political repercussions of his policies. Also Thursday, a political committee to support the Newsom-backed ballot measure disclosed $2 million in donations from the governor's political committee, as well as $3 million from national Democrats' super PAC focused on House races. California Democrats have criticized Republicans, particularly President Donald Trump, who told CNBC amid Texas' push to redraw its maps that his party was "entitled to five more seats" from Texas. If voters approve their plan, California's new map could serve as a counterweight to Texas' changes, as analysis from the University of Virginia Center for Politics shows "the proposed California map could allow Democrats to win up to five more seats in 2026," potentially endangering GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert and David Valadao. Newsom and Democratic allies have been trumpeting a need to redraw the lines to cancel out the move by Texas, arguing Republicans there are trying to insulate Trump from the political repercussions of his policies. Also Thursday, a political committee to support the Newsom-backed ballot measure disclosed $2 million in donations from the governor's political committee, as well as $3 million from national Democrats' super PAC focused on House races. Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has hinted that China will soon have homegrown "next generation" chips to support its AI models, while announcing an update to one of its large language models. In a comment under a post on its official WeChat account, DeepSeek said the "UE8M0 FP8" precision format of its newly released model V3.1 is tailored for the next-generation domestically built chips that will be launched soon. FP8, or 8-bit floating point, is a data processing format that can boost the computational efficiency for training and inference of large deep learning models. DeepSeek's mention of China's coming next-generation chips may signal plans to work more closely with China's emerging AI chip ecosystem in the face of Washington's advanced semiconductor export restrictions and Beijing's push for chip self-sufficiency. The comments come about two weeks after Beijing reportedly urged Chinese AI developers to use domestic alternatives to Nvidia's graphics processing units used in AI training. While analysts say China's domestic AI chipmakers lag behind Nvidia in technological advancement and scale, players like Huawei have been making progress. In its Thursday post, DeepSeek did not disclose the chips it used to train the V3.1, or what local chips the UE8M0 FP8 might be compatible with. DeepSeek shook up the tech world earlier this year after it released its R1 reasoning model, which demonstrated capabilities comparable to those of Western competitors like OpenAI, despite U.S. export controls restricting it from using Nvidia's most advanced AI training chips. Prior to that, in December, the company released its V3 model, which it said had been trained on about 2,000 of Nvidia's less advanced chips. Following DeepSeek's model breakthroughs, the U.S. further tightened export restrictions in April, effectively banning Nvidia's H20 chips, which had been specially designed to meet prior export restrictions on China. Last month, officials from the Trump administration said they planned to allow Nvidia to resume shipping the chips to China. However, the H20s are now being met with scrutiny in China, with regulators reportedly mandating companies against buying the chips until a national security review is completed. Chip analysts have told CNBC that companies like Huawei that have been seeking to build an alternative AI chip ecosystem in China could benefit from a lack of Nvidia's H20s in the market. DeepSeek said Thursday that its V3.1 came with "major changes," including faster response times, and a hybrid reasoning architecture that allows the model to support both reasoning and non-reasoning modes. Reasoning models can execute more complicated tasks through a step-by-step logical thought process. Starting Sept. 6, the company will also adjust the pricing for using the model's API, which allows developers of other apps and web products to integrate DeepSeek on their platforms. Workers assemble cars on the assembly line at a Volkswagen automobile factory on March 7, 2025, in Wolfsburg, Germany. European stock markets closed higher on Friday, as investors continued to assess the full scope of the European Union's trade deal with America and hopes rose for a U.S. interest rate cut in September. The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally closed 0.47% higher, with top sectors including mining, autos and travel. London's FTSE 100 closed at a record high for the fourth session in a row, adding another 0.13% on Friday to clinch its best weekly performance since May. U.K. stocks have found support this week from gains in mining, retail and defensive stocks, along with Purchasing Managers' Index data on Thursday showing the strongest business activity for a year. U.S. markets were also buoyant on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested interest rate cuts could lie ahead, during a closely-watched speech at the central bank's symposium in Jackson Hole. Powell said "the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance," which has kept rates on hold since December 2024. However, he also noted that tariffs are causing risks to the inflation outlook. The dollar slid following the remarks, sending the British pound and euro 1% and 0.8% higher, respectively, against the greenback. Economists at Deutsche Bank said in a Friday note that the speech was more dovish than expected and that following Powell's signals, they now expect a quarter-point rate cut in September with follow-ups in December and March. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks to reporters after speaking in a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images FBI agents on Friday morning raided the Maryland home and Washington, D.C. office of John Bolton, the former national security advisor to President Donald Trump and a staunch critic of the president. The raids are part of a "national security investigation in search of classified records," a person familiar with the matter told NBC. The probe is eyeing multiple instances of the use of classified documents in leaks to the news media. The investigation began during the Biden administration, but did not go further before President Joe Biden left office in January. FBI agents carry boxes as they exit Donald Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton's office, after the FBI conducted a court-authorized search at his house and office on August 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images Ten FBI agents were seen exiting Bolton's office on M Street, with boxes in hand, around 1:40 p.m. ET. A person close to Bolton told NBC News they believe the raids are in response to Bolton's frequent criticism of the Trump administration, which includes his book "The Room Where it Happened." "It's retribution, pure and simple," that person told NBC. Bolton served as Trump's national security advisor from April 2018 through September 2019. FBI agents walk outside the house of John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security advisor after the FBI conducted a court-authorized search at his place on August 22, 2025 in Bethesda, Maryland. Pedro Ugarte | AFP | Getty Images An FBI official told NBC on Friday, "The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety." That statement indicates a judge signed a search warrant for Bolton's residence in Bethesda, just outside of Washington. It was not known if Bolton was home at the time of the raid there, which began at around 7 a.m. ET. A woman who appeared to be Bolton's wife was at the residence. He showed up at the home mid-afternoon Friday. John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Trump, waves as he arrives home, as the FBI searches his house August 22, 2025 in Bethesda, Maryland. Andrew Harnik | Getty Images About a half hour after the raid began, Bolton tweeted about Russia and its war on Ukraine, writing that Trump will continue pushing for meetings on the conflict "because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don't see these talks making any progress." FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted, "NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission" at the same time his agents were raiding Bolton's home. Attorney General Pam Bondi retweeted Patel's tweet, writing, "America's safety isn't negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always." And Patel's deputy director at the FBI, Dan Bongino, in his own post on X wrote, "Public corruption will not be tolerated." Trump later told reporters that he did not know about the raid, but that he expected to be briefed about it later Friday. The president also said he is "not a fan of John Bolton," and called him a "lowlife." The New York Post first reported the raid. Patel ordered the investigation into Bolton, according to the Post, which cited a Trump administration official. Trump lashed out against Bolton on Aug. 13 after his former advisor criticized the president for agreeing to host a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss how to end Russia's war against Ukraine. "Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, 'Putin has already won,'" Trump wrote on Truth Social that day. "What's that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING." On Aug. 17, after he met with Putin, Trump wrote, "This war can be ended, NOW, but stupid people like [Sen.] Chris Murphy, John Bolton, and others, make it much harder to do so." FBI agents carry boxes as they exit the building that houses the Washington office of former National Security Adviser John Bolton, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 22, 2025. Aaron Schwartz | Reuters Trump canceled Bolton's protective detail from the U.S. Secret Service after he was sworn in for his second term in the White House in January. Bolton had been under Secret Service protection because of plots by Iran to kill him. Trump was previously indicted in federal court in Florida on charges related to his retention of classified government records at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach after leaving the White House in January 2021, and with his efforts to thwart their recovery by government officials. Trump said on Sept. 10, 2019, that he had effectively fired Bolton the prior evening. "I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration," Trump wrote in a tweet that day. "Therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service." A top Department of Justice official repeatedly questioned sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell about interactions with President Donald Trump a former friend of Epstein during a two-day interview in July, newly released transcripts revealed Friday. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday in a social media post that the DOJ was releasing the complete transcript and audio of their sitdown "In the interest of transparency." Read the transcripts: Blanche, who previously served as Trump's criminal defense lawyer, asked Maxwell last month, "Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?" according to the transcripts. "Absolutely never, in any context," said Maxwell during the interview, which was conducted at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida. Maxwell, at other points during the interview, said she did not know of any wrongdoing by Trump, whom she praised. The interview was conducted near the federal prison where she had been serving her 20-year sentence for procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. The Trump administration has been criticized for weeks for reneging on promises to release investigative files about Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges during Trump's first term in the White House. Maxwell told Blanche last month that she did not believe the official findings that Epstein committed suicide, which many of Trump's supporters have also questioned. Trump has called the controversy over the DOJ's decision not to release the Epstein files a "hoax" created by Democrats, even as many of his fellow Republicans in Congress call for their release. Days after Blanche's interview with Maxwell in July, Trump noted to reporters that he had the power to pardon her, although no one had asked her to do so. Brittany Henderson, an attorney for numerous Epstein victims and survivors, in a statement Friday, said, "Ghislaine Maxwell was federally indicted on two perjury counts as a result of her testimony during" a civil deposition related to a lawsuit. "Having been convicted of sex trafficking, she is now in jail presumably hoping that she will receive a pardon from President Trump," Henderson said. "I can't imagine that her testimony will be given much weight by anyone with any knowledge whatsoever of her involvement with Jeffrey Epstein." Maxwell, in her interview, said, "I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting," after Blanche asked about her and Epstein's visits to the spa at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's resort and current residence in Palm Beach, Florida. "I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody," she told Blanche. "In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects." Maxwell also said she was unaware of any efforts by Epstein to blackmail people he knew over any interactions they may have had with women or girls in his orbit. Maxwell said she could not recall specifics about an album of well-wishes she compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday, the existence of which was revealed after The Wall Street Journal reported that a "bawdy" letter sent to Epstein bore Trump's signature. Trump denied sending that letter and is suing the Journal for defamation over its report. Maxwell told Blanche said she did not remember the names of anyone who sent in letters, saying, "It's been so long." Asked if she recalled Trump submitting a note, she said, "I don't. Maxwell, who has asked the Supreme Court to take her appeal of her conviction, had been serving her sentence in a federal prison in Florida. But after her interview with Blanche, she was transferred to a less-restrictive federal lockup in Texas, a move that was blasted by victims of Epstein. Maxwell, in her interview, poured cold water on Trump's efforts to closely link former President Bill Clinton to Epstein. Trump has suggested that Clinton visited Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands multiple times, which Clinton has denied. Epstein is known to have sexually abused many victims on that island. Clinton "absolutely never went" to the island," Maxwell said. "And I can be sure of that because there's no way he would've gone I don't believe there's any way that he would've gone to the island, had I not been there," Maxwell said. "Because I don't believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein. Did they speak? Did he go? Yes, but that's very different from going to spend time on an island." Clinton, however, is known to have traveled on Epstein's private jet multiple times. The future looks bright for First Solar , according to Guggenheim. The investment bank reiterated its buy rating on the solar technology stock in a research report Friday, and hiked its price target 42%, to $287 from $202. Shares of First Solar have climbed 9% this year, through Thursday. This revised target price is more than 49% above where the stock last closed. FSLR YTD mountain FSLR YTD chart Guggenheim analyst Joseph Osha pointed to First Solar's continued operations in Southeast Asia as a catalyst for the price target increase. "Most of the changes to our estimates are driven by our revised assumption that FSLR is, in fact, likely to continue operating its Malaysia and Vietnam facilities for the foreseeable future, albeit at lower utilization rates relative to the company's more advanced Series 7 capacity in the U.S. and India," he wrote. "FSLR's willingness to consider building a U.S.-based finishing facility to complete intermediate product from those two factories, and to claim the resulting $0.07/watt module credit, was greater than we thought." Another catalyst will come as the Treasury clarifies rules that restrict foreign entities from accessing U.S. clean energy tax credits. Osha also said tariff uncertainty has been mitigated by now. "We also note that the tariff outlook for Malaysia and Vietnam appears to have stabilized at levels that make continued operations viable," he wrote. All told, long-term optimism supports the higher price target on the stock, Osha said. "Our revised financial analysis, taken together with some recent policy developments and our own industry checks, support a higher target valuation for FSLR, in our view," he wrote. "We acknowledge that the price target change might seem dramatic compared to the relatively smaller recent changes in FSLR's competitive position and earnings outlook, but in FSLR's case much of the company's value resides in our expectations for the business through the end of the decade, which amplifies the impact of changes to financial and valuation assumptions." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) and India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar enter a hall for their talks at Zinaida Morozova's Mansion in Moscow on Aug. 21, 2025. India and Russia agreed Thursday to expand bilateral trade ties, signaling that U.S. tariff pressure on New Delhi over Russian oil purchases is unlikely to derail their partnership. India currently faces additional tariffs of up to 50% on goods shipped to the U.S., after the Trump administration escalated tariff threats in response to its substantial imports of Russian energy. The India-Russia relations had been among the "steadiest of the major relationships in the world after the Second World War," Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said at a joint press conference in Moscow. Both countries vowed to boost bilateral trade, including increasing India's exports of pharmaceuticals, agriculture and textiles to Russia to help reduce the current imbalance, Jaishankar said. Bilateral trade between New Delhi and Moscow reached a record $68.7 billion for the year ended March 2025, with India's increased oil imports contributing to a $59 billion deficit. Other plans include sending Indian workers with skills in IT, construction and engineering to help Russia address its labor shortages, Jaishankar added. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector and Russian oil shipments to the Indian market are "making wide strides." Both sides remain committed to implementing joint energy production projects in the Russian Far East and the Russian Arctic shelf, among other sites, he said. "This strategic partnership ... contributes to regional security and stability, which is undeniably important considering the challenging international circumstances that we are operating under," Lavrov added. Western governments have imposed sanctions on Moscow, arguing India's increased imports helped bankroll Moscow's war in Ukraine. New Delhi has pushed back, saying the U.S. administration requested the purchases to keep the markets calm, while pointing to the U.S. and European Union's continued trade with Russia. Russian embassy officials in New Delhi reportedly said Wednesday that oil shipments to India will continue despite U.S. pressure, adding that Moscow hoped a trilateral meeting with India and China would take place soon. "Despite the political situation, we can predict that the same level of oil import [by India]," Roman Babushkin, the charge d'affaires at the Russian embassy in India, told a press briefing. Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., departs following a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday that the U.S. government has taken a 10% stake in embattled chipmaker Intel, the Trump administration's latest effort to exert control over corporate America. Intel shares rose about 6% during trading on Friday. They were flat in extended trading. Intel, the only American company capable of making advanced chips on U.S. soil, said in a press release that the government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company. Intel noted that the price the government paid was a discount to the current market price. Of the total, $5.7 billion of the government funds will come from grants under the CHIPS Act that had been awarded but not paid, and $3.2 billion will come from separate government awards under a program to make secure chips. "The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars," President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL." The government will also have a warrant to buy an additional 5% of Intel shares if the company is no longer majority owner of its foundry business. Intel said that the U.S. government won't have a board seat or other governance rights. "As the only semiconductor company that does leading-edge logic R&D and manufacturing in the U.S., Intel is deeply committed to ensuring the world's most advanced technologies are American made," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in the press release. CNBC's Investing in Space newsletter offers a view into the business of space exploration and privatization, delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up to receive future editions. So on land, so among the stars: tensions between the U.S. and China have until early November to gently simmer in matters of trade, but they're set to soar in the race to advance the competing lunar agendas of the world's two largest economies. Since 1969, the U.S. has led the pack on lunar exploration as the only nation to land humans on the Moon's soil. The Soviet Union, Washington's only real contender at the time, never duplicated the feat despite putting the first man into space some eight years prior even as sanctions-struck Russia plans to construct the International Lunar Research Station with Beijing by 2035. China itself only prevailed with a first crewed space mission back in 2003 but its surging space sector has been picking up pace, with coalescing ambitions to put boots on the Moon by the end of the decade. Beijing made significant advances just this month, with the China Manned Space Agency announcing it had successfully carried out the maiden take-off and descent test of its Lanyue lunar lander in Hebei province, on a trial surface designed to simulate the Moon's gravity and terrain conditions. Just last week, China's 176-feet Long March-10 carrier rocket cleared its first static test firing up its seven parallel YF-100K engines at the Wenchang facility in Hainan. Its sister rocket of the same series, the two-stage partially reusable Long March-10a, remains under development with a debut flight penciled in 2026 and plans to serve for crew and cargo transport to China's Tiangong space station. It's been a busy summer: in June, China's Mengzhou spacecraft key to its lunar ambitions passed an escape flight test. Last month meanwhile saw the launch of the ninth Tianzhou-series cargo spacecraft, the Tianzhou-9, to the Tiangong space station. Along the way, Beijing has reiterated its plans to land its cosmonauts on the Moon before 2030 for scientific exploration squarely throwing the gauntlet Stateside, where NASA's Artemis program also scheduled a mission to return U.S. astronauts on lunar ground around 2027. This is a game where, with NASA now setting sights on redder Mars pastures, the U.S. has a roughly six-decade advantage, after the success of the Apollo program. But question marks linger over both of NASA's picks for lunar landers. SpaceX's Starship has had a tumultuous record in the year to date, which it may still vindicate in its upcoming Aug. 24 test launch. Blue Origin is meanwhile still developing the Mark 2 lander and only intends to test launch its precursor the Mark 1 later this year. Jeff Bezos' rocket that will carry the landers is itself only undergoing its second flight next month. The increasing prominence of the U.S.' private firms in advancing their space activity is notable, but not singular. While much of China's space landscape is dominated by state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, commercial players like Galactic Energy, LandSpace and i-Space not to be confused with Japan's iSpace have also been stepping up to the plate. "I believe China could beat NASA back to the Moon," Prof. Quentin Parker, director of the lab for space research at the University of Hong Kong, told CNBC by email. "NASA's Artemis project is facing massive delays, budget problems and leadership issues under the current administration in the US. This leaves open the distinct possibility that China could land humans back on the moon first," he added, noting China's rapid space tech development and "demonstrated mission capacity over the last decade in particular, including the CST and Chang'e and Tianwen missions." As with the first space race, at stake isn't just national prestige U.S. officials and analysts have expressed concerns that China's space ambitions are inevitably linked to militarization. It hasn't been that long since the spring comments of Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations at the U.S. Space Force, that "the [People's Republic of China] has been developing what we've kind of, tongue in cheek, called a 'kill web'. And it's nothing more than a network of hundreds of satellites that are a sensor network that provide real-time updates targeting quality information of our force." Major Japanese automakers have denied to CNBC that they have raised prices in the U.S. because of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. That comes after a Nikkei Asia report on Thursday that stated that Japanese automakers are "passing some of the expense of U.S. tariffs through to American car buyers, a change from their strategy of absorbing the impact." Japan was hit with 25% tariffs on automobiles in April, but that was lowered to 15% under a deal reached with the Trump administration on July 22. Toyota , Japan's largest automaker, told CNBC on Thursday that when its U.S. affiliate raised prices in July, it was "not in response to the tariffs or prospects of increases, but rather a regular, annual price increase to reflect increases in various operational costs." "We have said that we would observe the situation concerning the tariffs as governments were still negotiating then, but our general stance was not to increase prices to avoid making our cars unaffordable for the customers waiting for their vehicles," the company added. Reuters reported in June Toyota's plan to increase prices by an average of $270 in July, but a Toyota spokesperson also denied then that the hikes were a direct result of U.S. tariffs. In its financial results for the first quarter ended June 2025 Toyota had estimated the impact of U.S. tariffs to be 450 billion yen ($3.03 billion) in its first quarter, and projected it would be 1.4 trillion yen for the full year, taking the U.S.-Japan trade deal into account. Attendees view a John Deere 7R 270 row crop tractor at the Deere & Co. booth during the World Ag Expo at the International Agri-Center in Tulare, California on February 11, 2025. John Deere is facing a crossroads as the company continues to see weaker demand in the agricultural sector even while it has committed to investing millions in U.S. manufacturing and promised a brighter road ahead. The agricultural machinery company warned on its fiscal third-quarter earnings call last week that it is seeing much softer demand, posting significant year-over-year decreases in net income and sales. The company is working to position itself in the larger agricultural sector, which has seen growing challenges with rising costs, climate change impacts, labor shortages and more. Farmers have also been dealing with lower prices on crops like corn and grain and have pared back their spending as a result. In turn, Deere's target audience has pulled back on its willingness to buy new agricultural equipment. Deere has also been hit by tariff costs, estimating that it could take a $600 million hit for the fiscal 2025 year. The company has already seen $300 million in tariff expenses year to date. Just after reporting its earnings, the company confirmed to CNBC that it announced 238 layoffs across its Illinois and Iowa factories, adding to thousands who have been laid off over the past year. The company cited decreased demand and lower order volumes as the main factors behind the job reductions. "As stated on our most recent earnings call, the struggling ag economy continues to impact orders for John Deere equipment," Deere told CNBC in a statement. "This is a challenging time for many farmers, growers and producers, and directly impacts our business in the near term." The manufacturer employs more than 70,000 people globally. Still, Deere has identified enough green shoots to point to a less-troubling future. On its most recent earnings call, company executives emphasized the growth in demand in both Europe and South America after seeing weakness in North America. Despite macroeconomic headwinds, Deere's president of its worldwide agriculture and turf division said the company remains confident in its future. "We think there's positive tail winds from both what we see in the trade deals, and we think there are positive tail winds from what we see in tax policy," Cory Reed said on the call. And in June, the company released a statement that "myth busted" any claims that Deere might need to shut down its U.S. manufacturing due to the fall in demand. Instead, the company said it was making a "bold move" to invest $20 billion into U.S. manufacturing over the next 10 years. It follows a similar string of announcements from companies trying to shore up their "Made in the USA" bona fides since President Donald Trump took office. Before the election, Trump threatened Deere with 200% tariffs if it moved production to factories in Mexico. "Over the next decade, we will continue to make significant investments in our core U.S. market," CEO John May said in the statement in June. "This underscores our dedication to innovation and growth while staying cost-competitive in a global market." In this article META Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on Sept. 25, 2024. Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters Meta is planning to use its annual Connect conference next month to announce a deeper push into smart glasses, including the launch of the company's first consumer-ready glasses with a display, CNBC has learned. That's one of the two new devices Meta is planning to unveil at the event, according to people familiar with the matter. The company will also launch its first wristband that will allow users to control the glasses with hand gestures, the people said. Connect is a two-day conference for developers focused on virtual reality, AR and the metaverse. It was originally called Oculus Connect and obtained its current moniker after Facebook changed its parent company name to Meta in 2021. The glasses are internally codenamed Hypernova and will include a small digital display in the right lens of the device, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details are confidential. The device is expected to cost about $800 and will be sold in partnership with EssilorLuxottica , the people said. CNBC reported in October that Meta was working with Luxottica on consumer glasses with a display. Meta declined to comment. Luxottica, which is based in France and Italy, didn't respond to a request for comment. Meta began selling smart glasses with Luxottica in 2021 when the two companies released the first-generation Ray-Ban Stories, which allowed users to take photos or videos using simple voice commands. The partnership has since expanded, and last year included the addition of advanced AI features that made the second generation of the product an unexpected hit with early adopters. Luxottica owns a number of glasses brands, including Ray-Ban, and licenses many others like Prada. It's unclear what brand Luxottica will use for the glasses with AR, but a Meta job listing posted this week said the company is looking for a technical program manager for its "Wearables organization," which "is responsible for the Ray-Ban AR glasses and other wearable hardware." In June, CNBC reported that Meta and Luxottica plan to release Prada-branded smart glasses. Prada glasses are known for having thick frames and arms, which could make them a suitable option for the Hypernova device, one of the people said. watch now Last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg used Connect to showcase the company's experimental Orion AR glasses. The Orion features AR capabilities on both lenses, capable of blending 3D digital visuals into the physical world, but the device served only as a prototype to show the public what could be possible with AR glasses. Still, Orion built some positive momentum for Meta, which since late 2020 has endured nearly $70 billion in losses from its Reality Labs unit that's in charge of building hardware devices. With Hypernova, Meta will finally be offering glasses with a display to consumers, but the company is setting low expectations for sales, some of the sources said. That's because the device requires more components than its voice-only predecessors, and will be slightly heavier and thicker, the people said. Meta and Ray-Ban have sold 2 million pairs of their second-generation glasses since 2023, Luxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said in February. In July, Luxottica said that revenue from sales of the smart glasses had more than tripled year over year. As part of an extension agreement between Meta and Luxottica announced in September, Meta obtained a stake of about 3% in the glasses company according to Bloomberg. Meta also gets exclusive rights to Luxottica's brands for its smart glasses technology for a number of years, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC in June. Although Hypernova will feature a display, those visual features are expected to be limited, people familiar with the matter said. They said the color display will offer about a 20 degree field of view meaning it will appear in a small window in a fixed position and will be used primarily to relay simple bits of information, such as incoming text messages. Andrew Bosworth, Meta's technology chief, said earlier this month that there are advantages to having just one display rather than two, including a lower price. "Monocular displays have a lot going for them," Bosworth said in an Instagram video. "They're affordable, they're lighter, and you don't have disparity correction, so they're structurally quite a bit easier." 'Interact with an AI assistant' Other details of Meta's forthcoming glasses were disclosed in a July letter from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to a lawyer representing Meta. While the letter redacted the name of the company and the product, a person with knowledge of the matter confirmed that it was in reference to Meta's Hypernova glasses. "This model will enable the user to take and share photos and videos, make phone calls and video calls, send and receive messages, listen to audio playback and interact with an AI assistant in different forms and methods, including voice, display, and manual interactions," according to the letter, dated July 23. The letter from CBP was part of routine communication between companies and the U.S. government when determining the country of origin for a consumer product. It refers to the product as "New Smart Glasses," and says the device will feature "a lens display function that allows the user to interface with visual content arising from the Smart Features, and components providing image data retrieval, processing, and rendering capabilities." CBP didn't provide a comment for this story. The Hypernova glasses will also come paired with a wristband that will use technology built by Meta's CTRL Labs, said people familiar with the matter. CTRL Labs, which Meta acquired in 2019, specializes in building neural technology that could allow users to control computing devices using gestures in their arms. The wristband is expected to be a key input component for the company's future release of full AR glasses, so getting data now with Hypernova could improve future versions of the wristband, the people said. Instead of using camera sensors to track body movements, as with Apple's Vision Pro headset, Meta's wristband uses so-called sEMG sensor technology, which reads and interprets the electrical signals from hand movements. One of the challenges Meta has faced with the wristband involves how people choose to wear it, a person familiar with the product's development said. If the device is too loose, it won't be able to read the user's electrical signals as intended, which could impact its performance, the person said. Also, the wristband has run into issues in testing related to which arm it's worn on, how it works on men versus women and how it functions on people who wear long sleeves. The CTRL Labs team published a paper in Nature in July about its wristband, and Meta wrote about it in a blog post. In the paper, the Meta team detailed its use of machine learning technology to make the wristband work with as many people as possible. The additional data collected by the upcoming device should improve those capabilities for future Meta smart glasses. "We successfully prototyped an sEMG wristband with Orion, our first pair of true augmented reality (AR) glasses, but that was just the beginning," Meta wrote in the post. "Our teams have developed advanced machine learning models that are able to transform neural signals controlling muscles at the wrist into commands that drive people's interactions with the glasses, eliminating the need for traditionaland more cumbersomeforms of input." Bloomberg reported the wristband component in January. Meta has recently started reaching out to developers to begin testing both Hypernova and the accompanying wristband, people familiar with the matter said. The company wants to court third-party developers, particularly those who specialize in generative AI, to build experimental apps that Meta can showcase to drum up excitement for the smart glasses, the people said. In addition to Hypernova and the wristband, Meta will also announce a third-generation of its voice-only smart glasses with Luxottica at Connect, one person said. That device was also referenced by CBP in its July letter, referring to it as "The Next Generation Smart Glasses." The glasses will include "components that provide capacitive touch functionality, allowing users to interact with the Smart Glasses through touch gestures," the letter said. WATCH: Elon Musk asked Zuckerberg to join xAI bit for OpenAI An Nvidia chip is seen through a magnifying glass in Beijing, China, on August 1, 2025. Beijing has raised concerns that the chips could have certain tracking technology or "backdoors," allowing them to be operated remotely. In May, Republican U.S. Senator Tom Cotton and a bipartisan group of eight U.S. House representatives introduced the Chip Security Act that would require semiconductor companies like Nvidia to include security mechanisms and location verification in their advanced AI chips. Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China had summoned Nvidia over national security concerns related to the H20s and had asked the company to provide information on the chips. The news further throws the return of the H20s to the China market in doubt, after Washington said it would issue export licenses to allow the export of the chip to China, after their shipments had effectively been banned in April. In response to an inquiry from CNBC, an Nvidia spokesperson said, "We constantly manage our supply chain to address market conditions." A separate report from Reuters, citing sources, said that Nvidia had asked Foxconn officially known as Hon Hai to suspend work related to the H20s. Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nvidia has reportedly asked Arizona-based Amkor Technology , which handles the advanced packaging of the company's H20 chips, and South Korea's Samsung Electronics , which supplies memory for them, to halt production. Samsung and Amkor did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. The directive comes weeks after the Chinese government told local tech companies to stop buying the chips due to alleged security concerns, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Nvidia has asked some of its component suppliers to stop production related to its made-for-China H20 graphics processing units, as Beijing cracks down on the American chip darling, The Information reported Friday. Speaking to reporters in Taiwan on Friday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged that China had asked questions about security "backdoors," and that the company had made it clear they do not exist. "Hopefully the response that we've given to the Chinese government will be sufficient. We're in discussions with them," he said, adding that Nvidia had been "surprised" by the queries. "As you know, [Beijing] requested and urged us to secure licenses for the H20s, for some time and I've worked quite hard to help them secure the licenses, and so hopefully this will be resolved," he said. Nvidia, in its statement shared on Friday, said "The market can use the H20 with confidence." It added: "As both governments recognize, the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure. China won't rely on American chips for government operations, just like the U.S. government would not rely on chips from China. However, allowing U.S. chips for beneficial commercial business use is good for everyone." Last month, China had reportedly sent notices to major tech companies and AI developers urging them against the use of the H20s, especially for sensitive uses, particularly for government-related purposes, in what had appeared as a soft mandate. The Information later reported that Beijing had told some firms, including ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent, to halt orders of the chips altogether, until the completion of a national security review. It had been seen as a major win for Nvidia when Huang announced last month that the U.S. government would allow sales of the company's H20 chips to China. He had been lobbying against U.S. chip restrictions, which had impacted Nvidia's business in the lucrative market. In his comments on Friday, Huang also disclosed some of his discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump over the company's overseas business, saying that he had "informed the president of the importance of the American AI tech stack." "You know, this is the beginning of a new industrial revolution, and during this time, AI developers, AI models, and AI applications supporting the American tech stack is very important," Huang said. "I also explained that AI is going to advance around the world, with or without the United States, and it is important for us to maximize our AI export technology at a time when this industry is important," he added. Nvidia said it had taken a $4.5 billion writedown on its unsold H20 inventory in May, after export restrictions kicked in, and said sales in its last financial quarter would have been $2.5 billion higher without any curbs. The national security scrutiny the H20s are now facing from the Chinese side highlights Nvidia's difficulties in conducting its business amid trade uncertainty between Washington and Beijing. Qingyuan Lin, a senior analyst covering China semiconductors at Bernstein, told CNBC in an email that if China completely bans the H20s, it would put Nvidia's over $20 billion of annual sales in China at risk. Assuming the company is still allowed to sell less advanced chips than H20 in the market, it should be able to capture some revenue in 2026, but demand will be further limited in 2027 as local supply capabilities ramp up, he added. Chip industry analysts have also said Beijing's actions appear to reinforce its commitment to its own chip self-sufficiency campaigns and its intention to resist the Trump administration's plan to keep American AI hardware dominant in China. Nvidia is in talks with the U.S. government about shipping a new, more advanced chip to China, CEO Jensen Huang said on Friday. Earlier this week, Reuters reported the U.S. tech giant is developing a new artificial intelligence chip for China, dubbed the B30A, that will be more powerful than the H20 the only semiconductor Nvidia is allowed to sell in the country at present. The U.S. has grown concerned in the past few years that advanced American chips could be used in Chinese military applications. A journalist asked Huang about the B30A during a trip to Taiwan. "Offering a new product to China for the data center, AI data centers, the follow on to H20, that's not our decision to make. It's up to of course the United States government. And we are in dialogue with them. But it's too soon to know," Huang said in response. Last month, Huang said he hopes that Nvidia can sell more advanced chips in China than the H20 during a visit to the country. Nvidia's position in China has become a headache for Huang. The company created a special, less-advanced chip for China called the H20, which this year the U.S. government restricted for export. In July, Nvidia said it had given permission to sell this chip again in China. Later, it was revealed that Nvidia will give 15% of its China chip sales to the U.S. government in exchange for export licenses. Just as it appeared that Nvidia was back in China, it hit other roadblocks, with Chinese authorities raising concerns this month about potential security vulnerabilities in the company's chips. Nvidia said its products do not have "kill switches and backdoors" built into them. Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference in Taipei on May 21, 2025. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Friday showered praise on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on a visit to Taiwan, saying that anybody looking to take a stake in the company would be "very smart." This comes at a time when the U.S. administration has signaled interest in acquiring stakes in tech companies, especially those in receipt of funding under the U.S. CHIPS Act. Huang, who said the main purpose of his trip was to thank TSMC for work related to Nvidia's Rubin, its next-generation AI chip architecture, made the remarks in response to a query on Washington looking to take a stake in the Taiwanese chip foundry. "Well, first of all, I think TSMC is one of the greatest companies in the history of humanity, and anybody who wants to buy TSMC stock is a very smart person," he said. Huang also said TSMC was making six new products for Nvidia, including a new central processing unit, a hardware component used for computation, and a new graphics processing unit, used for advanced computation, especially AI. Earlier this week, Reuters had reported that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was looking at equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron, TSMC and Samsung. The 2022 CHIPS Act, passed with bipartisan support under the Joe Biden administration, has seen grants and loans awarded to chipmakers expanding production in the U.S. as part of efforts by Washington to revitalize U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. TSMC had been promised $6.6 billion under the act to help build its three cutting-edge chip fabrication plants in Arizona. D3sign | Moment | Getty Images If you want to access investments typically reserved for the wealthy, regulators may someday let you provided you can pass a test. That in itself may not be easy, considering that many consumers can't pass a basic financial literacy quiz. But coming up with an exam that helps protect investors is also more difficult than it sounds, experts say. Lawmakers and regulators have for years kicked around the idea of a knowledge test to become a so-called accredited investor. Accredited investors are allowed to invest in a wider range of assets, including pre-IPO companies, private credit and equity, venture capital and hedge funds. The latest effort, which the U.S. House of Representatives approved last month, proposes having the Securities and Exchange Commission devise a test to determine if an investor has the knowledge and sophistication to understand the valuation and risk of these investments. It comes amid a broader push to make private-market assets that is, investments that are not publicly traded available to more investors. Private-market investments can be debt or equity in early-stage companies or startups, or private equity deals. Private investors owned Figma before its IPO, for example. These types of investments may offer higher returns, experts say, but they are also higher risk. The risks to investors can be systemic issues, like a lack of regulatory guardrails in private markets, and also unique to each individual. That's hard to test for. "The devil is in the details," said James Andrus, a member of the SEC's investor advisory committee. "It's incredibly difficult to create such a test, and it's unclear whether it offers substantial investor protection." How investors become accredited now Currently, to qualify as accredited, investors generally need an annual earned income of $200,000 for individuals, or $300,000 for married couples. Individuals or couples can also qualify with a total net worth of at least $1 million, not including the value of their primary residence. Those wealth test thresholds are not pegged to inflation and haven't changed since they were first developed in the 1980s. As a result, more households have become accredited over the years as wealth and incomes grow. watch now Licensed investment professionals can also qualify as accredited, having passed either the Series 7, 65 or 82 exams. Those tests are aimed at ensuring professionals understand how to comply with securities laws and regulations. Designing an investor test could be tricky Financial advisors and other experts say a test for becoming an accredited investor would need to gauge understanding of different types of securities as well as the risks associated with private assets, including their limited liquidity and disclosures, subjective valuations and longer investment horizons. "The test would essentially need to assess whether this person has that knowledge and understanding to manage investments that do not come with a layer of professional oversight or regulatory protections to rely on," said Yanely Espinal, a director of educational outreach at Next Gen Personal Finance. Pre-IPO, venture capital deals typically require minimums that can reach six figures. So an understanding of diversification, risk and how this type of investment should fit into a portfolio should be required knowledge, experts say. But it could be difficult to test for that understanding, they say. "We've been blessed with a lot of bull markets and high growth recently, but these things can go down and potentially default," said certified financial planner Chelsea Ransom-Cooper, chief financial planning officer at Zenith Wealth Partners in Philadelphia. "I would just hope that whatever exams or structures are put in place are there to protect the end investor." Think about what it would mean to lose $20,00 in cash savings if your annual income is $80,610 (the median in the U.S.), said Espinal, a member of the CNBC Global Financial Wellness Advisory Board. "That would represent nearly a quarter of your annual income being lost to one investment," she said. "That's drastic." Cryptocurrency adds another wrinkle. Crypto and private market assets are both considered alternative investments, and having a test for one but not the other may offer mixed messages for investors. "You cannot invest in a real company that happens to be private, but you can invest in something equally risky, crypto, because you don't have the same accredited investor requirement," said Andrus. Even basic financial literacy quizzes stump many Depending on how it's written, an SEC knowledge test on private markets could be challenging for many people, if broader financial literacy tests are any indication. Take the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, which has a seven-question financial knowledge multiple-choice quiz, with questions about "fundamental concepts" including interest rates, inflation, debt and risk. More than 25,000 U.S. adults took the quiz as part of a broader financial capability study in 2024. Only 4% of respondents answered all seven questions correctly. Less than half, 46%, answered at least four correctly, little changed from 2021. For example, when asked what happens to bond prices when interest rates increase do they rise, fall or stay the same? 42% of respondents said they didn't know, while another 33% answered incorrectly. The correct answer is fall. Some accredited investors have 'no freaking clue' Michael Faulkender, deputy US treasury secretary, during a Bloomberg Television interview outside the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, April 11, 2025. U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender is leaving the Trump administration less than five months after being confirmed by the Senate, the Treasury Department said. Faulkender is the second Senate-confirmed official to leave the Treasury Department this month, following the departure of IRS Commissioner Billy Long, who said he was being tapped as ambassador to Iceland. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thanked Faulkender for his work at the department but gave no reason for his departure. "Since January, he has played a critical role in overseeing the U.S. Department of the Treasury's operations and executing on President Trump's bold economic agenda," Bessent said in a statement. "His important work has supported the passage of the historic One Big Beautiful Bill and GENIUS Act, and the leveling of sanctions against our adversaries." Trump nominated Faulkender, a University of Maryland finance professor, in December to serve as the No. 2 official at Treasury, where he had been assistant secretary of economic policy during Trump's first term. He was confirmed by the Senate for the role on March 26. At the end of the first Trump administration, Faulkender had returned to the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, where he has been a finance professor since 2008. He had also served as the chief economist for two years at the America First Policy Institute, conservative think tank that has helped shape Trump's policy agenda. India on Friday (August 22) issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) extending the closure of its airspace for Pakistan-registered aircraft, including those owned, leased, or operated by Pakistani airlines and operators, as well as military flights. The restriction will remain in place until September 23, 2025 (estimated).The move comes days after Pakistan extended its own restrictions on Indian aircraft until the same date. The Pakistan Airports Authority confirmed through a NOTAM that Indian airlines, as well as Indian-owned or leased military and civilian aircraft, remain prohibited from using Pakistani airspace.The reciprocal bans trace back to April 2025, when Pakistan first barred Indian flights after the Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians. India responded on April 30 by imposing a similar restriction on Pakistani aircraft. Both nations extended the bans on May 23 and have since maintained them amid heightened tensions.The latest extensions follow India's Operation Sindoor on May 7, which targeted terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan and China later this month for back-to-back bilateral and regional meetings, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Friday, August 22. The trip is expected to spotlight defence, trade and security ties with Tokyo while testing a fragile thaw in relations with Beijing. India-Japan annual summit Modi will travel to Japan on August 29-30 to attend the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit, his first with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba since the latter took office earlier this year. The two leaders will review cooperation under the Special Strategic and Global Partnership, covering defence and security, economic engagement, technology and innovation, and people-to-people links, the Foreign Ministry said. This will be Modis eighth visit to Japan since 2014, underscoring the growing importance of Tokyo as a political and economic partner. Modi to visit China for SCO summit PM Modi will be in China's Tianjin from August 31 to September 1 for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. He is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with several leaders attending the summit. Modi last travelled to China in 2018 for an informal summit with Xi at Wuhan, followed by the SCO summit in Qingdao. Xi visited India in 2019 for a second informal summit meant to ease strains after the 2017 Doklam standoff, but ties plunged in 2020 after clashes between troops in Ladakhs Galwan valley left 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops dead. India-China relations hit the lowest point in six decades before both sides reached an agreement in October 2024 to end the border standoff. Days later, Modi and Xi met in Kazan, Russia, and agreed to revive mechanisms to stabilise ties and address the boundary dispute. India, which joined the SCO in 2017, last held the rotating presidency of the bloc in 2022-23. Also Read: PM Modi stresses peace at China border, accepts President Xi Jinpings SCO invite African Energy Chamber opens int'l office in China's Shanghai Xinhua) 10:42, August 22, 2025 CAPE TOWN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The African Energy Chamber (AEC) has officially opened an international office in Shanghai, China, aimed at strengthening cooperation between African governments, energy companies, and their counterparts in the Asian country. According to a statement issued by the AEC on Thursday, the Shanghai office will be led by Bieni Da, chief representative of the AEC in China, who is tasked with ensuring that the chamber plays a pivotal role in connecting Chinese businesses and government entities with African stakeholders. "The objective is clear: to drive impactful, long-term collaboration across strategic sectors of the economy, enabling investments that are mutually beneficial and aligned with both continents' development goals," it said. The AEC, an energy advocacy group based in South Africa, was founded in 2018 with the mandate to promote sustainable investment and best practices within the energy sector in Africa. In the statement, the AEC noted that despite the continent's high energy demand, many African energy firms struggle to access the capital needed to scale operations and boost production. The chamber added that its Shanghai office will play an instrumental part in connecting Chinese companies with African projects, facilitating partnerships, and bringing African opportunities to the Chinese market. "The AEC wants to see greater Chinese investment across the entire African oil and gas value chain -- from upstream projects to downstream infrastructure to manufacturing, power, and technology. China offers significant expertise in these areas, and the Shanghai office will unlock new collaborative opportunities in artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and more," NJ Ayuk, executive chairman of the AEC, said in the statement. The AEC will also organize high-level investment forums in Shanghai to foster continued dialogue and engagement. "Africa and China have a common goal: to eradicate energy poverty. It is time to walk the walk and bring Chinese expertise and capital to African projects... This office is a testament to making sure we leave our footprint," Ayuk added. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Apple is seeing rapid growth in enterprise markets, and in the wake of the Crowdstrike disaster and Microsofts forced Windows 11 upgrades, theres no good reason for that trend to end. Its no wonder its platforms have become such a big target for organized crime meaning constant security vigilance is necessary for every user as the scale of attacks intensifies. That doesnt mean Apples products are insecure; theyre not. But no platform is completely secure, and as more enterprise data is held on those platforms it becomes increasingly essential to ensure you have the correct security stance in place. How much is too much? Apples highly-skilled security teams are the first line of platform defense to protect system integrity, and they know how constant the attempts against its platforms have become. We dont know how constant, but only this week weve heard of two relatively serious security warnings, including the seventh zero-day attack this year. After almost two decades of bangin hoors, Frank Reynolds has finally found love. In what could be the most dramatic moment in Golden Bachelor history, Frank rounded out Its Always Sunny in Philadelphias 17th season with a new love interest, handing his final rose to Sam, a chicken heiress played by Taxi alum Carol Kane. Don't Miss I am way down with that, Danny DeVito told The Hollywood Reporter of Franks decision to ditch his womanizing ways. I mean, you get up there in age, its nice to have a steady girlfriend. Frank and Sams TV romance doesnt appear to be a one-time fling either. DeVitos co-star, Charlie Day said hes confident that Kanes character will return for some upcoming episodes of Always Sunny. I am sure we will write (Kane) into next season as well, Day explained. She seemed to have a lot of fun, so I would assume she would come back and do it, which would be great. Days assumption isnt unfounded. When asked about her characters potential return to Paddys Pub, Kane literally crossed her fingers that shed appear in the shows 18th season. This is all I have to say, Kane said during an interview with TV Guide, gesturing to her hand. I hope, I hope. Though Kane clearly jived with the Always Sunny cast, Sam wasnt always a shoo-in to win Franks heart. The shows writers experimented with a few different endings for the finale, including ones that wouldve condemned Sam and her main competitor, the Hailey Welch-inspired Cock Chewa, to single-episode characters. Kanes acting chops and chemistry with DeVito ultimately came out on top, pushing the team to air the pairs climactic kiss at the end of the episode. Advertisement The writers understood that Carol knocked it out of the park, DeVito told Variety, noting that he, too, has his fingers crossed for Kanes return. Im looking forward to doing another show with her. And if it doesnt work out, at least Frank will always have his magnum condoms and wad of hundreds. Saturday Night Live creator and NBC superpower Lorne Michaels says that he obviously doesnt have the same politics as President Donald Trump, but, hey, ratings are ratings, I guess. Back in November 2015, businessman, casino-bankrupter and failed steak salesman Donald Trump hosted Saturday Night Live five months after he began his chaotic presidential campaign. At the time, Trump was far from the frontrunner in the Republican primary, and the media treated the future President like he was a hilarious side-show and a ratings machine rather than a genuine threat to completely upend American democracy for the next decade. And, naturally, at the front of the line to cash in on Trumps exponentially increasing popularity was Michaels, ready with an SNL offer and some sketches about how beautiful and huge his Mexican-funded border wall would be. Today, Trump is, arguably, SNLs longest-running antagonist, with impressionist James Austin Johnson leading the charge in the shows weekly ridicule campaign against the commander-in-chief. However, in a recent talk with Puck founder Matthew Belloni, Michaels expressed his belief that publicly condemning President Trump isnt going to change any of his supporters minds, since we all know who and what Trump is a decade into his takeover of America. Don't Miss If only Michaels knew what Trump was capable of back in 2015 maybe he would have added the President to the Five-Timers Club. When the topic of Trumps possible involvement in the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert arose, Michaels wouldnt say whether politics played a part in Paramount Globals controversial decision, though he admitted that the threat of interference by Trumps FCC looms large across the entire TV industry. Despite that, the SNL don doesnt believe that the answer to the Trump problem in comedy is for every network to take up arms against him. Advertisement Whatever crimes Trump is committing, hes doing it in broad daylight. There is absolutely nothing that the people who vote for him or me dont know. You know what I mean? Michaels said of the public opinion on the President, adding of Trumps influence, He is a really powerful media figure. He knows how to hold an audience. Thats a very powerful thing, and I think it was always underestimated. His politics are obviously not my politics, but denouncing (him) doesnt work. Of course, Michaels never underestimated Trumps ability to hold an audience, as, just two months before Trump would win the 2016 Presidential Election, he appeared on the Michaels-produced The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where the SNL alumnus famously tousled Trumps distinct blond hairdo. Advertisement And who could forget when, shortly after Trump left the White House in 2021, Michaels booked controversial tech magnate and Trump ally/bankroller Elon Musk to host SNL, and the cast did the same awkward dance of sycophancy that Michaels made the 2016 group perform for Trump? All the while, SNL has spent every season of Trumps presidency lambasting him and parodying his every press conference with a rotating cast of impression experts and A-list talents playing the commander-in-chief. While Michaels may not think that denouncing Trump works from a political perspective, he certainly isnt going to ignore the hunger that SNLs moderately liberal target audience has for anti-Trump comedy that coddles them into believing what Michaels doesnt: that the art of mockery can combat fascism. Advertisement Michaels has never doubted Trumps power in the media in fact, hes been banking on it for the last decade. Whether the SNL head agrees with the Presidents politics or not, Michaels is drawn to Trump and the cultural power of the far-right movement like a moth to a flame, or like Fallons fingers to a lock of dyed dictator hair. In an international tariff context and divisions, in which multilateralism is being questioned, the European Union remains a showcase of cooperation between countries. Perhaps one of the most visible examples of this cooperation is the Schengen area or the elimination of internal borders between EU countries. Since the initial agreement was signed between Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1985, the territory it covers has changed several times, to the total of 29 countries (25 EU and four non-EU) it covers today. But the free movement of people would not be possible without a network to ensure that it would not be used for criminal purposes. Thus the Schengen Information System, or SIS, was born in 1995 and will be 30 years old in 2025. The system serves as a technological safeguard to compensate for the absence of internal border controls, explains Lucas Gonzalez Ojeda, acting director of the European Commission Representation in Spain. The introduction of the SIS was an important step in reinforcing internal security, while at the same time allowing the free movement of people and goods within the Schengen area. Gonzalez Ojeda highlights four advantages since its deployment: it improves security by facilitating rapid access to a database of criminal activities, missing persons and stolen goods and facilitates a uniform response among the states involved. In the same vein, it facilitates cross-border cooperation in both crime and irregular migration management. It also served to lay the groundwork for a wider exchange of data within the EU. Finally, it brings economic and social benefits by ensuring safe mobility and better integration. CE. Lucas Gonzalez Ojeda, director en funciones de la Representacion de la Comision Europea en Espana The system serves as a technological safeguard to compensate for the absence of internal border controls. Lucas Gonzalez Ojeda Whenever people talk about Schengen, they always think of it as the free movement of people, reflects Diego Lopez Garrido, director of Fundacion Alternativas.But the Schengen information system is a security system, which guarantees that the free movement of borders is viable. If this were not the case, we would return to the Europe of borders. The SIS ensures real-time cooperation between the national authorities of the 30 countries participating in the security framework one more, as Ireland is also included. It does this through a triple structure. On the one hand there is the central system, with a joint database physically located in Strasbourg, with information on people and objects. Each member country also has national systems and SIRENE offices for requesting information complementary to the national entry, operational 24/7 and responsible for the exchange of information and coordination between agencies. There is also the network that links everything together. A software developer who launched disruptive logic bombs inside his employers network as an act of revenge has been sentenced to four years in prison by an Ohio court. According to the US Department of Justice, 55 year-old Chinese national Davis Lu was unhappy that a 2018 reorganization by electrical manufacturing company Eaton Corporation had resulted in his demotion from senior developer. In response, in 2019 Lu began sabotaging the companys systems from within using hidden malicious routines. The first, an infinite loop, executed on August 4, causing Java VMs to constantly spawn new threads until production servers hung or crashed from resource exhaustion. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law currently has an ongoing lawsuit against UC Berkeley, Berkeley Law and the UC Regents for alleged ongoing antisemitism. The lawsuit was amended in May 2024 to include incidents of harassment against Jewish individuals, including former visiting professor Yael Nativ. How heartbreaking for Meredith Kercher's family to learn that Amanda Knox, the woman convicted - and later acquitted - of Meredith's brutal murder 17 years ago, has partnered with Disney to make a dramatised series about the events surrounding her death. All seen through Knoxs eyes. Its not as if Foxy Knoxy needs the money, having already earned 3.5million from her two memoirs. Now shes expecting to make even more money from the eight-part series, which has been given the title The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. Unsurprisingly the Kerchers have hit back, accusing Knox of trying to make money from Merediths death all these years later, and adding that our family has been through so much it is difficult to understand how this serves any purpose. Except, of course, it serves Knox and her insatiable money-making appetite. And it gives her yet another platform to again tell all and sundry about her ordeal, her suffering - with seemingly only a passing reference to the horrors endured by her friend Meredith. Amanda Knox attends the premiere of her eight-part dramatised series with husband Christopher Robinson British student Meredith Kercher was 21 when she was murdered, a crime for which Knox was convicted and later acquitted Meredith's family have accused Knox of 'trying to make money' from her death and said they would not have objected to an impartial documentary about the murder The Kercher family insist they would not have objected to an impartial documentary about Merediths murder but instead have to put up with an undignified and sensationalised portrayal of the case. Once again, we have to witness an attempt to reshuffle the cards, where the trailer states: Amanda fights tirelessly to prove her innocence and regain her freedom. Once again, the focus is on Knox. Reviewers of the TV series have universally castigated the show. They condemn it as a pity-party, but mostly a self-glorification of Foxy Knoxy, with Merediths murder almost relegated to a footnote. It is all about Amandas trauma, Amandas pain. One critic goes so far as to say the dramatisation is misguided, adding that this sad story has two victims, but by centring on Knoxs experiences, it sidelines and marginalises Kerchers death. According to her official autopsy report, the manner of Merediths death was horribly brutal. She was raped, had bruising all over her body and suffered multiple stab wounds. Which makes one ask again, how in the name of all that is decent can Knox rake it over again? Does she not even think of the Kercher family and their desperate pleas for her to let things rest? Poor Meredith was a 21-year-old with her life and dreams before her when she was murdered. Why on earth is Knox, now 38, still milking it for millions? At one point her words are beyond nauseating. It was fate that Meredith was home that night and I wasnt, she says in a voice-over to camera. I was the lucky one. I hate that I have to dig through a decade of my trauma just to reach memories of her. I never really had the chance to mourn her Im coming back. Im mourning the both of us.' No, Amanda Knox, this is not the way you mourn a lost friend - in public and with dollar signs in your eyes. It's not just your tale that is twisted, you are. We may have a king of our own on the other side of the world, but Australians will happily lay claim to any European royal who graces us with their presence. There's Mary, Queen of Denmark, of course, who hails from Tasmania and went on to marry a Danish prince. Now, our latest royal obsession is Princess Ingrid Alexandra, the future Queen of Norway, who recently moved here to study a three-year Bachelor of Arts degree, with a focus on international relations and politics, at the University of Sydney. In a decision few saw coming, she eschewed the great universities of Europe, Britain and North America to embrace life Down Under. And she's already thrown herself into campus living, taking up dorms at the prestigious St Andrew's College and getting to know the local hotspots of Newtown. Barely a month has passed since she arrived and Ingrid Alexandra has already become an Australian media darling, with paparazzi updates on her whereabouts an almost daily occurrence. The excitement has spread to Norway too, with outlets taking the unprecedented move of sending reporters and photographers to Sydney to cover her student life. There were even rumours at a recent journalism awards show of her dating a fellow student from a rival university college. There are whispers that Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway's decision to enrol at a university on the other side of the world may have been a strategic family move Amidst all this excitement, however, there are whispers that Ingrid's decision to enrol at a university on the other side of the world may have been a strategic family move. Right now, a dark cloud hangs over Norways royals as the princess' half-brother Marius Borg Hiby faces disturbing criminal charges. Marius, 28, is the eldest son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, and stepson of Mette-Marit's husband and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon. He has no official role and was born before his mother's 2001 marriage into Norwegian royalty. His biological father is Morten Borg who has a widely reported criminal past, having served time in prison for drugs and violent offences. Princess Ingrid Alexandra and her 19-year-old brother Prince Sverre Magnus were born to their royal parents and raised alongside Marius, who has always been in their lives and, for many years, lived in the royal household. But everything changed when Marius was arrested on August 4 on suspicion of assaulting his girlfriend. He has been under police investigation ever since - and this week, he was charged with 32 offences, including four rapes, Norwegian prosecutors said on Monday. Horrific new details have now emerged about what Marius is accused of as he faces up to 10 years behind bars. Ingrid Alexandra's older half-brother Marius Borg Hiby has been charged with 32 offences, including four rapes. (Marius is seen with his mother Princess Mette-Marit on June 16, 2022) Next in line to the throne Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and his stepson Marius Hiby are pictured together in Oslo, Norway, on May 17, 2014 According to Norwegian outlet NRK, the charges relate to four rapes of four different women between 2018 and 2024. On all occasions, Marius allegedly assaulted the women while they were sleeping and filmed the assaults. The assaults allegedly occurred after Marius and the women had consensual intercourse. Marius has also been charged with making death threats, assaulting a public official and violating the Road Traffic Act. Presenting the indictment on Monday, August 18, public prosecutor Sturla Henriksb told NRK that he potentially faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison following a six-week trial in January. In court last week, the state lawyer outlined the seriousness of the case - and stressed that the accused's connection to the royal family should not afford him any leniency. Princess Ingrid Alexandra (front) is pictured with the Norwegian royal family, including her half-brother Marius Borg Hiby (back right). Also pictured is Ingrid Alexandra's brother Prince Sverre Magnus (left), father Crown Prince Haakon (back left) and mother Crown Princess Mette-Marit (back centre). This photo was taken in 2019 in Oslo, Norway Although Marius Borg Hiby isn't an official royal family member, he has been part of the household since his mother's marriage. (Pictured from left to right: Queen Sonja, King Harald, Prince Sverre Magnus, Marius Borg Hiby, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, and Crown Prince Haakon in Oslo, Norway, on June 16, 2022) Separately, Marius has also been accused of physical and psychological abuse by his ex-partner, Nora Haukland, between 2022 and 2023. He is also accused of acting violently towards another former girlfriend. As the charges against Marius emerged, there has been speculation that they offer an explanation as to why the Norwegian princess has flown to our shores. Now, it's certainly not without precedent for a future heir to the Norwegian throne to study abroad: Ingrid Alexandra's father Crown Prince Haakon studied in the U.S. and Britain, while her grandfather and current monarch, King Harald V, had also once been an international student in America. But no one had ever ventured as far afield as Australia. Royal commentators openly questioned why she would choose to study so far away when there are plenty of other prestigious universities much closer to home. Being such a long distance from home also precludes her from quick visits to participate in official royal engagements, like Norway's national Constitution Day. Princess Ingrid Alexandra has settled into university life in Sydney The future queen of Norway appears to be embracing university life. She is seen grabbing a box of prosecco (left) and dressing up to attend a college boat party (right) Accordingly, royal pundits have offered theories about the princess' reasons for undertaking a three-year degree Down Under. The most prominent of these theories is that she has made a deliberate decision to get 'as far away from home as she possibly can' while her problematic half-brother's criminal case plays out in the courts. With the inquiry now spanning over a year and the trial not due to start until 2026, the princess would be in no hurry to return to that media circus. And now that she's established in Sydney with the next three years mapped out, there is no expectation for Ingrid Alexandra to make a homecoming visit anytime soon. Surely the length of her Bachelor of Arts degree would be enough time to avoid the trial and its aftermath. Indeed, the matter will almost certainly be long resolved by the time she puts on a graduation mortar board and gown. Once the dust has settled, the princess will finally be able to return to Norway and step up and embrace the duties expected of a working royal and future queen. But for now, anyone could understand why she would instead choose to stay far, far away. A woman has issued a warning to be vigilant at airports, claiming she was scammed by an American Airlines worker while trying to check in her bag. Tammy was flying from Knoxville to Charlotte on an American Airlines flight last June when she claimed she was told by an airline worker she was too late to check in her luggage. She said the airline employee gave her a number to amend the problem, which she claims was fake and ultimately lead to her being scammed. A spokesperson from American Airlines told the Daily Mail they are reviewing this matter. 'Given the video references a flight from June 2024 and we have not otherwise heard from this customer or received similar reports, we are reaching out to her to learn more,' the airline said in a statement. In a video posted to TikTok, Tammy explained that she arrived at the Tennessee airport at 4am, but there was a long line to get through the desk to check in her luggage at the kiosk. She noted before she got there, a family in front of her was given a piece of paper and turned away from the kiosk, looking frustrated. Tammy said the American Airlines worker told her she had to check her bag in an hour ahead of flight time, and that she had missed the cut off, and quickly handed her a Post-It note. A woman has issued a warning to be vigilant at airports, claiming she was scammed by an American Airlines worker while trying to check in her bag (stock image) 'It has a phone number on there He says, "Call this number to rebook your flight,"' she recalled. Tammy admitted that due to the early morning and the panic of potentially missing her flight in Charlotte, she followed his instructions without thinking. When she called the number, she claimed a man answered and took her credit card information, telling her there would be an additional charge for the flight change. Assuming the situation had been taken care of, Tammy said she went back to her car and waited for her new flight. However, when she spoke to her travel agent later she realized something wasn't quite right. 'She looks up the flight that I was rebooked for and [she says], "No you were not rebooked for this flight - who was this man you talked to?"' Tammy recalled. The woman rang the number on the piece of paper back, and connected him with her travel agent on a three-way call. 'They start talking. Things arent adding up,' Tammy continued. 'She adds an American Airlines agent to the line. Tammy said she was told by an airline worker she was too late to check in a bag and given a phone number to call to rebook, but she claimed it ended up being a scam (stock image) 'So its like a four-way call with all of us. They get to fighting. The man hangs up.' Eventually, Tammy said her travel agent and the American Airlines employee on the phone rebooked her on a Delta Airlines flight for later in the day. She said when she got to the gate, she saw several other people from the original American Airlines flight that morning who had also been handed a note with the same number on it. Tammy said she got talking to an older gentleman, who claimed they were all 'scammed' by an employee and advised her to cancel the credit card she gave him. 'So this American Airlines worker who was working to check people's bags was giving out these Post-It notes with a phone number - he was in on this whole charade,' Tammy said in disbelief. 'We all got scammed. You think an airport worker should be trusted. Youre not going to think twice about some of these things,' she ended her cautionary tale. The founders of Australian sunscreen brand Ultra Violette have announced they will sensationally pull one of their products off the market, effective immediately, after an explosive investigation found it failed to meet its lofty SPF50+ claim. The brand was thrust into the spotlight in June after CHOICE's controversial report revealed that the cult-favourite Lean Screen SPF50+ Mattifying Zinc Sunscreen - priced at $52 - delivered an alarmingly low SPF rating of just four. CHOICE experts said they were 'so perturbed' by the results of its extraordinary first experiment that it conducted a second test at an independent lab in Germany where the results came back with a reported SPF of five. Ultra Violette co-founders Ava Chandler-Matthews and Bec Jefferd took matters into their own hands, commissioning further testing at multiple independent labs to investigate a 'concerning discrepancy' in the SPF results of Lean Screen. 'As a sunscreen brand, our responsibility has always been to prioritise your safety, protection and skin health above all else,' the co-founders said on Friday. 'Before we go further, we want to make it clear that this only concerns the performance of Lean Screen. Additional testing on all Ultra Violette products has reinforced our confidence in the rest of our line. 'This week, we received results from those tests that demonstrated significant and, candidly, atypical variability. Across eight different tests, Lean Screen has now returned SPF data of 4, 10, 21, 26, 33, 60, 61, and 64. 'That wasn't good enough for us, and it isn't good enough for you. Given this pattern of inconsistency in testing, we have decided to withdraw Lean/Velvet Screen from the market, effective immediately. We are deeply sorry that one of our products has fallen short of the standards we pride ourselves on and that you have come to expect of us.' Ultra Violette co-founders Ava Chandler-Matthews and Bec Jefferd have announced they will sensationally pull one of their products off the market, effective immediately, after it failed to meet its SPF50+ claim The brand confirmed that any purchases of Lean Screen will be eligible for a refund and a product voucher, regardless of where they were made. The co-founders explained that Lean Screen was created by a third-party manufacturer and was the only sunscreen they produced for Ultra Violette. 'We will no longer be making any SKINSCREENS with that manufacturer,' they said. 'We are working with a new and wider network of testing facilities that have been BIPEA-audited and independently vetted, and we are no longer working with the original testing laboratory of Lean Screen.' Ultra Violette made it clear that Lean Screen was the only sunscreen affected, and that the rest of its range meets SPF claims following rigorous lab testing. The co-founders reassured shoppers that every new Ultra Violette product will be SPF tested at a minimum of two different independent labs prior to launch. 'We've increased the frequency of retesting to 18 months, using off-the-shelf market samples, and will continue to take immediate action if we see any discrepancies,' they said. 'Trust is built and rebuilt over time, and we know we have work to do. Thank you to those who have so generously contributed their knowledge, expertise and support throughout this process. 'And to our customers and community, thank you for your patience, care and support - we've never taken it for granted, and we will continue to earn it.' CHOICE responds to Ultra Violette's decision to withdraw Lean Screen from sale 'At CHOICE, our mission is to work for fair, safe, and just markets for Australian consumers. When we released our sunscreen test results earlier this year, we did so in the interest of the public. In a country where two in three people will be diagnosed with skin cancer, people deserve to trust that the SPF ratings on sunscreen are accurate and reliable,' Ashley de Silva, CEO at CHOICE, said. 'Today's announcement from Ultra Violette confirms there is a clear problem with how sunscreen is regulated and tested in Australia. Without CHOICE's investigation, Ultra Violette's Lean Screen would still be on shelves, despite the fact that it does not provide anywhere near the amount of sun protection it claims to. 'CHOICE is calling on the TGA to urgently provide an update on its investigation. Ultra Violette's product may not be the only product that is affected and consumers deserve to know whether they can continue to trust SPF claims in Australia.' Advertisement The co-founders took matters into their own hands, commissioning further testing at multiple independent labs to investigate a 'concerning discrepancy' in the SPF results of Lean Screen CHOICE's CEO Ashley de Silva has responded to Ultra Violette's decision to withdraw Lean Screen from sale. 'Today's announcement from Ultra Violette confirms there is a clear problem with how sunscreen is regulated and tested in Australia,' Mr De Silva said. 'Without CHOICE's investigation, Ultra Violette's Lean Screen would still be on shelves, despite the fact that it does not provide anywhere near the amount of sun protection it claims to. 'CHOICE is calling on the TGA to urgently provide an update on its investigation. Ultra Violette's product may not be the only product that is affected and consumers deserve to know whether they can continue to trust SPF claims in Australia.' The news comes just months after CHOICE tested 20 of the country's most trusted sunscreen products to see if they provided the Sun Protection Factor 50 levels they claim on their labels. In a worrying finding, 16 of the 20 sunscreens failed to provide that level of protection - including big brands such as Cancer Council, Neutrogena, Banana Boat, Bondi Sands, Coles and Woolworths. All sunscreen products tested by CHOICE underwent blind testing, a standard method used to minimise bias and improve validity in scientific research. The co-founders reassured shoppers that every new Ultra Violette product will be SPF tested at a minimum of two different independent labs prior to launch Ultra Violette made it clear that Lean Screen was the only sunscreen affected, and that the rest of its range meets SPF claims following rigorous lab testing 'Sunscreen testing is costly. CHOICE - an independent, member-funded non-profit - funded this work entirely ourselves due to its importance for consumers,' Mr de Silva said. The consumer watchdog has stood firm on its independent sunscreen testing, conducted under the guidance of industry experts in specialised, accredited laboratories. According to TGA, a product's SPF rating indicates how effective the sunscreen is against sunburn from the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In Australia, sunscreens are regulated as either cosmetics or therapeutic goods depending on a number of factors, such as their ingredients, health claims and SPF. Sunscreens with a primary purpose of UV protection are considered to be therapeutic goods and are regulated by us to ensure their safety, quality and efficacy. In its report, CHOICE highlighted that the SPF factor was not tested independently, with the regulator relying purely on reports supplied by manufacturers from accredited laboratories. All sunscreen formulas in Australia are required to be approved by the TGA. The Duchess of Sussex has faced backlash after sharing an update regarding the second series of her Netflix show. Taking to Instagram yesterday, Montecito-based Meghan Markle, 44, shared an image of some crisps frying in a pan with the caption, 'New season of With Love, Meghan August 26 on @netflix'. The mother-of-two added, 'Dare I say, 'It's all that... and a bag of chips'.' The 90s quote, which means something is cool, is associated with Will Smith, who delivered the line in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. However, following the post, some users took to X to comment on the appearance of the crisps, despite them still cooking. One questioned, 'Those are chips? Would never have guessed.' A second said, 'This isn't new, exciting or inventive. I tried making chips with my kids 30 years ago.' A third user added, 'Beige. Not even healthy enough to be beige actually. Not appetising.' Another wrote, 'Ok I get it they're still being cooked and not yet browned, but potato chips? I think we ALL can make potato chips. Is this & pasta the extent of her cooking skills? Thus far I've seen nothing she's made that I'd want to try.' During the first episodes of With Love, Meghan, which aired in March, the duchess's culinary tips included how to plate up a takeaway and tie a bow around a bag of shop-bought pretzels. The Duchess of Sussex (pictured in the trailer of the second season of her Netflix show) has shared an update about the upcoming season of With Love, Meghan Both seasons were filmed at the same time. A 'holiday' special has been recorded too, for the Christmas period. It comes after Meghan Markle shared another gushing post to promote her wine - as it still hasn't sold out more than two weeks after it first launched. The Duchess of Sussex released her 2024 Napa Valley Rose on August 5 - but more than two weeks later, it is still available to buy on the website of her lifestyle brand, As ever. By contrast, Meghan's 2023 rose sold out within an hour when it launched last month. On Tuesday, the team at As ever shared another clip of the wine, crediting it as being Meghan's 'favourite pour' and stating it's only 'available for a limited time'. In what made for typically aesthetic viewing, they filmed pouring the vibrant wine into a glass, with Meghan's wicker basket and hat in the background. 'Cheers to summer's final sips,' the caption read, adding: 'Fill your glass with our founder's favorite pour, available for a limited time.' The post appears to be an attempt to boost sales after it failed to match the quick sell-out of the 2023 wine's launch in July - and comes amid news of Meghan and Harry's Netflix deal being 'downgraded' to a 'first look' deal when it expires later this year. The mother-of-two shared a photograph of some crisps frying in a pan alongside a quote linked to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air Buyers must purchase a minimum of three bottles of wine, which retail for $30 each. Six bottles cost $159 (119) including a 12 per cent discount, and 12 bottles are $300 (225) including 17 per cent off. Combined with the $20 shipping cost, plus taxes, anyone looking to buy the wine is faced with a minimum spend of more than $110. When the 2023 version came out on July 1, the wine went on sale at 4pm UK time, but the site was updated less than hour later to signal stocks were sold out. The 2024 wine is described as evoking the same 'soft notes of stone fruit, gentle minerality and a lasting finish' as the 2023 rose - but it clearly packs less of a punch. Earlier this month, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed a new 'multi-year, first look deal for film and television projects' with Netflix - a downgrade on their previous contract. The couple's new output will include a second season of the Duchess's 'With Love, Meghan' lifestyle show later this month, as well as a Christmas special in December. The new arrangement is a first-look deal, meaning Netflix can say yes or no to new film or TV projects before anyone else. The Sussexes are also working on 'Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within' - a documentary about orphaned children in Uganda, where the 'shadows of the HIV/Aids crisis linger'. After Meghan shared the post, her followers went on X to share their thoughts - and some were unimpressed There is also 'active development' on other projects with Netflix which 'span a variety of content genres', including an adaptation of romantic novel Meet Me At The Lake. Netflix has already released the first series of With Love, Meghan as well as Polo, Heart of Invictus, Live to Lead and the couple's bombshell documentary Harry & Meghan and the streaming site is also a business partner on Meghan's lifestyle brand, As Ever. Five years ago, Harry and Meghan secured a lucrative contract thought to be worth $100million (74million) with Netflix after quitting as senior working royals in 2020. The renewed deal was described by the Sussexes - who made the announcement with Netflix - as 'extending their creative partnership' through Archewell Productions. But the new terms are understood to be worth less for Harry and Meghan than their previous contract, according to a person familiar with the deal, and represent Netflix loosening its ties with the couple. Leading publicist Mark Borkowski told the Daily Mail: 'They have shot the golden goose of 2020 - more of a 'we'll call you' than 'here's the chequebook'. It's a first-look deal, which means Netflix gets first dibs but no obligation to bankroll every semi-royal whim. 'I reckon Netflix is trimming fat industry-wide, so this is less carte blanche, more curated cameo. 'They're still in business together - Meghan's. As ever brand and seasonal specials keep them in the Netflix shop window but make no mistake, this is a slimmed-down sequel to the blockbuster original. So Harry and Meghan's new Netflix chapter [is] less champagne budget, more Prosecco by the glass.' Meghan in the new trailer for the second season of her lifestyle and cooking show Guests on season two will include Chrissy Teigen (left), the trailer revealed today In the one-minute, 27-second teaser, Meghan is seen eating cheese, prepping food and drink with friends and even reveals the food her husband Prince Harry doesn't like: lobster Pictured: Prince Harry and Meghan at the ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood in July 2024 Netflix said Harry & Meghan, which came out in December 2022, was a huge success with a total of 23.4million views - making it the most viewed documentary ever through its first four days as it reached the English Top 10 TV list in 85 countries. But With Love, Meghan failed to break into Netflix's top ten programmes - or even the top 300, as it ranked at number 383 in 2025 so far for the streaming giant with just 5.3million viewers across the globe since it was first broadcast in March. However, the Duchess said: 'We're proud to extend our partnership with Netflix and expand our work together to include the As ever brand. 'My husband and I feel inspired by our partners who work closely with us and our Archewell Productions team to create thoughtful content across genres that resonates globally, and celebrates our shared vision.' Bela Bajaria, Netflix's chief content officer, said: 'Harry and Meghan are influential voices whose stories resonate with audiences everywhere. 'The response to their work speaks for itself - Harry & Meghan gave viewers an intimate look into their lives and quickly became one of our most-watched documentary series. 'More recently, fans have been inspired by With Love, Meghan, with products from the new As ever line consistently selling out in record time. 'We're excited to continue our partnership with Archewell Productions and to entertain our members together.' During a conversation with Spanish restaurateur Jose Ramon Andres, Meghan revealed a fun insight into 40-year-old Prince Harry's tastes Meghan, pictured with her husband during the Invictus Games earlier this year, revealed her husband doesn't like lobster Meanwhile a new trailer for the second season of With Love, Meghan was released last week and showed Meghan hosting a fresh batch of celebrities and influencers at the rented California house close to her and Prince Harry's Montecito mansion. With Love, Meghan was renewed for a second season just as season one was released in March. All the episodes were filmed at the same time, it is understood. As Ever is Meghan's lifestyle brand previously known as American Riviera Orchard - which launched in March and also sells cookie mix, tea, flower sprinkles and jams. Guests on season two will include Chrissy Teigen and Jamie Kern Lima, the trailer revealed. In the one-minute, 27-second teaser, Meghan is seen eating cheese, prepping snacks and drinks with friends and even reveals the food her husband Prince Harry doesn't like. 'Do you know who doesn't like lobster? My husband,' she says as she prepares the seafood. As the trailer comes to an end, Meghan reveals: 'I love these moments of discovery and beauty. So let's be curious together.' Meghan's As ever website describes her rose wine as 'thoughtfully curated by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex' and that it has been 'made to be enjoyed with the ones you love'. The Netflix series With Love, Meghan is the most recent television release by the Sussexes. Pictured: Meghan and her friends in season one Netflix said Harry & Meghan, which came out in 2022, was a huge success with a total of 23.4million views, making it the most viewed documentary ever through its first four days The pale pink wine, which comes in a clear bottle with a white, gold-rimmed label, has an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 13.5 per cent 1 per cent lower than its predecessor. The Daily Mail revealed in June that the 2023 wine used grapes from the Fairwinds estate so Meghan could show her support after the winery was almost destroyed in a devastating wildfire in 2020 which caused $15million worth of damage. Napa Valley wine country is in northern California, around 50 miles from San Francisco. The Duchess was shown drinking rose during the last episode of her Netflix series With Love, Meghan earlier this year when she offered chef Alice Waters a glass of wine. 'Would you like a glass of rose while we're cooking?' the duchess said, pouring from a bottle which does not appear to be As Ever wine, having a different label. Meghan added as she drank: 'Might be the best sip of wine I've ever had.' In a belated Instagram post following her birthday this month, Meghan said she was 'blowing out the candles on a beautiful 24 hours' and thanked her husband, friends and family for 'making it so special'. 'To those of you I don't know, but who send love every day - thank you so much. Please know I feel it and appreciate it,' she captioned the post alongside a heart emoji. Meghan and the Duke of Sussex left the UK and moved to California five years ago for a new life after stepping down from the working monarchy. Millie Bobby Brown delighted fans after revealing she'd adopted a child with her husband Jake Bongiovi. The Stranger Things star, 21, who wed her American model and actor husband last year, made the surprise announcement on Instagram yesterday. While the pair decided against sharing a photograph of their daughter, Millie and Jake explained how excited they are to embark upon the next chapter of their life as parents. The duo isn't the only famous pair to choose adoption when building a family, with a string of other A-listers also opting for the same route. Among them is Australian actor Hugh Jackman, 56, who has raised his adopted children Oscar, 25, and Ava, 20, with his former wife, Deborra-Lee Furness. Meanwhile, Hugh's fellow actor Charlize Theron's motherhood journey began when she adopted Jackson, 11, in 2012, before also adopting her daughter August, seven, in 2015. Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis is also a parent to her adopted children Gemma Rose Davis and Wilson Davis. Here, the Daily Mail reveals the A-Listers who have adopted their children over the years. A string of A-Listers have adopted children over the years, including actress Charlize Theron, who adopted her children Jackson and August (pictured with August) MILLIE BOBBY BROWN Millie Bobby Brown has adopted a baby girl with her husband Jake Bongiovi (pictured February 2025) The Stranger Things star, 21, who wed Bongiovi, 23, last year, made the surprise announcement on Instagram on Thursday Jake and Millie, seen here in March 2022, first started dating in 2021 before tying the knot in May 2024 Millie Bobby Brown and her husband Jake Bongiovi surprised fans yesterday after revealing that they've adopted a baby girl. Taking to Instagram to share the news, the post read: 'This summer, we welcomed our sweet baby girl through adoption. 'We are beyond excited to embark on this beautiful next chapter of parenthood in both peace and privacy. And then there were three. Love, Millie and Jake Bongiovi.' The couple have yet to share any images of their daughter but Bongiovi was seen pushing a stroller on July 20 in a post shared by Brown captioned: 'Helluva summer thus far.' In March, Brown opened up about starting a family with Bongiovi and revealed that he already knew 'how important' it is to her. The pair married in May 2024 and the couple had discussed having children, adoption, and their plans on having a big family. During an appearance on the Smartless podcast, which is hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett, the actress said that although she knows she is 'really young,' she is looking forward to motherhood. 'My mom actually had her first child at 21, and my dad was 19. And you know, it's been my thing since before I met Jake,' she explained. KRISTIN DAVIS Actress Kristin Davis (seen last year in France) is a mother to her two adopted children - Gemma and Wilson The actress is known and loved for her roles as Charlotte York in Sex and the City (pictured: Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis for Sex and The City) Kirstin raises her two children as a single parent (pictured with her on-screen child in Sex and the City) 60-year-old actress Kristin Davis is a parent to her adopted children Gemma Rose Davis and Wilson Davis. Kristin, who starred as Charlotte York on HBO's Sex And The City and its two spin-off films, lives in Los Angeles with Gemma, 11, and Wilson, five, where she raises her children as a single mother. '[In my 20s], I thought I'd never get married. I guess I was right!' Davis told PEOPLE in 2008. She continued, 'I grew up in the South so all everyone talked about was marriage, but all I wanted was to move to New York and do theater. And in my 30s, I was busy doing [Sex and the City] so I just didn't have time.' Kirstin has also revealed that she adores being a mother and prefers to keep her children out of the spotlight. In 2013, two years after adopting her eldest child, Kristin told Haute Living how her journey into parenthood changed her priorities. She said, 'Gemma takes up such a big, big part [of my life] in such a wonderful way,' continuing, 'Like take going to work: it used to be really important to me, but now I'm like, 'Okay, I've got to go to work. All right.'' The beloved actress added, 'I used to be like, 'I want to go to work, I want to go to work!'' BRIDGET MENDLER Former Disney Channel star Bridgit Mendler revealed that she adopted a then-four-year-old boy last year (pictured in her breakthrough role in Disney Channel's Good Luck Charlie in 2010) Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, where she had not posted since November 2022, Bridgit, shared the happy news in a heart-warming post The star married mechanical engineer Griffin Cleverly in 2019 (picture together), and will now join him as the CEO of a new start-up company Former Disney Channel star Bridgit Mendler revealed that she has adopted a then-four-year-old boy last year. Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, where she had not posted since November 2022, Bridgit, 32, shared the news in a heart-warming post alongside a sweet photograph of her husband and son. She started her career as a child actress aged 11 back in 2004 with a voice role in the animated film The Legend of Buddha. Bridgit also secured parts on Jonas, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and The Secret World of Arrietty before her breakthrough role in Disney Channel's Good Luck Charlie. Sharing the exciting news of her decision to adopt, she wrote: 'The other news I wanted to share is I'm a mama to a sweet 4yo boy. Started fostering in 2021 adopted near Christmas of 2022. 'I'm so lucky - being a parent is the biggest gift and most defining experience there is. That's my news for now folks'. Reacting to the news on X, fans rushed to congratulate Bridgit on her adoption. One user wrote: 'You deserve everything in this life and more'. A second well-wisher added: 'Congratulations on your journey into motherhood!' Adopting and fostering truly change lives, and that first holiday season as a family is always extra special. Here's to many more shared sunsets and precious moments.' SANDRA BULLOCK Sandra Bullock (seen at a London premiere in 2022) is a proud mother to her two adopted children Sandra once said she 'sometimes' wishes she 'matched' her adopted African-American children's skin (Pictured with daughter Laila, then-eight, in 2021 on Red Table Talk) The actress adopted son Louis when he was three-and-a-half months old in 2010 (Pictured above in 2013) Sandra Bullock, who was once one of the highest-paid actresses, is a proud mother to her two adopted children. The Miss Congeniality star, 61, adopted Louis Bardo Bullock in 2010, and Laila Bullock five years later in 2015. Sandra adopted Louis when he was three-and-a-half months old, and daughter Laila from a Louisiana foster home when she was three. In a Red Table Talk interview in 2021, the Oscar winner said she 'sometimes' wished her and her children's skin colour 'matched' because it would be 'easier' for how people perceive them as a family. 'To say that I wished our skins matched... sometimes I do,' the star confessed, as Jada Pinkett Smith and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris agreed. 'Because then it would be easier on how people approach us. And I have the same feelings as a woman with brown skin, and it being her babies. Or a white woman with white babies,' Bullock continued in the short clip. In 2015, Bullock spoke to Glamour Magazine about her anxiety in anticipating the racism her son could face. She said, 'You see how far we've come in civil rights - and where we've gotten back to now. I want my son to be safe. I want my son to be judged for the man he is,' she said. 'We are at a point now where if we don't do something, we will have destroyed what so many amazing people have done.' CATE BLANCHETT Cate Blanchett welcomed her adopted daughter Edith into her family in 2015 (pictured together at Venice Film Festival in 2024) The mother-of-four (seen at Cannes Film Festival, 2023) said she was thinking about adopting a child for over a decade Cate is parents to four children with her husband Andrew Upton (seen together in London, 2019): Dashiell, 23, Roman, 21, Ignatius, 17, and Edith, ten Australian actress Cate Blanchett shares four children with her husband Andrew Upton: Dashiell, 23, Roman, 21, Ignatius, 17, and Edith, ten. While Cate has three biological sons, she adopted her youngest child, Edith, in March 2015. 'There's a lot of children out there that don't have the good fortune of our biological children so it's lovely to welcome a little girl. We're besotted,' she said at the time via Fairfax Media. Speaking about the adoption of their daughter at the time, playwright Andrew told Daily Mail Australia: 'It's very exciting'. Cate revealed that the couple had planned to adopt a child for 14 years before welcoming Edith into her family. 'We actually began the conversation a very long time ago, after our first son was born and he's about to turn 14,' she told Women in the World's Tina Brown, before adding: 'And then we just had two other children and it sort of dropped off the radar.' She added, 'I felt we had space, enough emotional room in our hearts and were privileged enough to have the capacity to have another child, so it wasn't about biology. 'It wasn't about a desire to have a girl, the gender of the children was never particularly important to me,' she added. HUGH JACKMAN Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness (pictured together) share two adopted children The actor shares adopted children Oscar and Ava with the fellow Aussie, whom he wed in 1996 (pictured together in 2009) Pictured: Oscar Maximillian Jackman and Hugh Jackman out and about in New York back in 2013 Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman, 56, shares two adopted children with his former wife Debora-Lee Furness, whom he married in 1996. The pair are parents to Oscar Maximillian Jackman, 25, and Ava Eliot Jackman, 20. In 2023, the actor revealed that he and his wife initially had 'very different ideas' about parenting. Speaking to The Radio Times, Hugh said, 'You fall in love with someone and you work out your relationship, it's great! All of a sudden, we had kids'. 'The way I was parented, the way she was parented all of a sudden whoosh! And it wasn't just Deb and I, it was somehow our pasts coming together'. 'We had really different ideas about being a parent. And we never really pre-discussed it. We just assumed: we love each other, we don't argue, that's going to be fine!'. Hugh and Deborah married just one year after meeting on the set of Australian drama Corelli. They divorced earlier this year. The actor previously said he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life with his beloved after just two weeks of knowing her. CHARLIZE THERON Actress Charlize Theron's motherhood journey began when she adopted Jackson, 11, in 2012 and daughter August, seven, in 2015 (seen in LA in 2025) Charlize (seen with August) has spoken publicly about how she always knew she wanted to adopt children The actress previously told Jimmy Kimmel that her children (pictured) have little respect for her career Charlize Theron's motherhood journey began when she adopted Jackson, 11, in 2012 and daughter August, seven, in 2015. But it seems her children are not phased by the fact she's a huge movie star or features on billboards, as she told Jimmy Kimmel, 'My children have zero respect for me' when asked if they are impressed by her career. Laughing towards the audience, she said: 'My children have zero respect for me. I don't know how, it's just unbelievable. 'I feel like I'm pretty humble, but every once in a while I'm like there's a f*****g Oscar right there.' Her appearance on the show comes after she opened up to People in 2018 about her decision to adopt children and shared how it was always a top priority for her. She explained that she was largely inspired by her own upbringing in South Africa, which exposed her to orphanages and children in need in her community at a young age. She told the publication: 'Even when I was in relationships, I was always honest with my partners, that adoption was how my family would look one day. The star added: 'This was definitely not a second option for me. It was always my first.' Americans have admitted they were baffled to discover that 'Black Scottish people exist' - prompting hilarious reactions from the northern nation. Creators across Glasgow, Edinburgh and all across the UK were left in disbelief after Yanks took to social media to admit their 'ignorance', with many also voicing their surprise at hearing the regional drawl from someone who is not white. Those across the pond are now sharing their 'embarrassment' at not realising that diverse communities would exist all through the Highlands and beyond as well. Meanwhile, Black Scots were in stitches at the confusion, as they affirmed that 'this accent comes in melanin too'. 'My friend was saying that Americans have found Black Scottish people and then I looked at my comments and they're literally flooding my comments about "we found you" - girl, I've been here!' creator Erica Moura shared in a video. 'We've been here for years, you just don't recgonise us.' 'Welcome to Black Scottish TikTok - I'm going to slow down so you can understand me,' influencer Starboy Fitness - whose initial clip on an entirely unrelated rant about the country's summer weather appears to have sparked the curiosity in the first place - joked in another clip. 'My new Transatlantic followers are having a hard time following along, at least that's what they're saying in the comments. Americans have admitted they were baffled to discover that 'Black Scottish people exist' - prompting hilarious reactions from the northern nation In another post, Manny Daphey questioned: 'What is it with all these American people just now finding out about Black Scottish content creators?' 'Yes I am Black, yes I am Scottish... 43 years born and raised in Scotland, hundred per cent Scotch beef right here.' In another post, Manny Daphey questioned: 'What is it with all these American people just now finding out about Black Scottish content creators?' 'This is genuinely new, I feel so special right now,' he quipped. 'I'm looking through my comments and some of them are just like "y'all exist?" It's like, aye, we do.' Another social media star BashTheEntertainer, made his own TikTok addressing that he is indeed a proud Black Scottish man. 'Do I eat haggis, aye I f***ing do,' he added enthusiastically. Many Black commenters from the US couldn't believe what they were hearing, with some writing: 'I didnt know we came in this format.' Another penned: 'You DO NOT look like this accent! Im absolutely shocked!! Keep talking bro!' In other videos, some had further queries, asking: 'I honestly didn't know there were Black Scottish people! Are there Black Irish people?' 'Welcome to Black Scottish TikTok - I'm going to slow down so you can understand me,' influencer Starboy Fitness joked in another clip Another social media star BashTheEntertainer, made his own TikTok addressing that he is indeed a proud Black Scottish man However in most cases, those across the pond were absolutely delighted by the education, voicing their joy at their feeds being 'full of Black Scottish people'. In some instances, it also caused further debate about what it means to have a Black identity in Scotland, and how the community can face racism and intolerance across the UK. As documented by The John Gray Centre - which connects East Lothian Council's archaeology, museum, archive and local history services, 'the identity of Black Scottish people has evolved since the arrival of Black people in Scotland as early as the 15th century'. Historians believe that the 1400s and 1500s saw many African communities, including 'high-status members of the royal entourage' arrive, and throughout the 1800s, Scotland's docks were among those that took part in the transatlantic slave trade with the West Indies and Africa. According to the Scottish History Society, 'Scottish involvement was especially strong in Jamaica, where, by 1800, Scots owned some 30 per cent of estates'. They added: 'Jamaica itself contained nearly 40 per cent of the West Indies slave population and Scots were actively involved at all levels: as owners, investors, overseers, doctors and slaving crews.' The 20th century also saw Black Scottish soldiers participation in both the first and second World Wars. One of the more famous historical figures from this era is Black soldier Arthur Roberts, whose diaries and photos were discovered by a Glasgow couple in 2004, 22 years after his passing. Many Black commenters from the US couldn't believe what they were hearing, with some writing: 'I didnt know we came in this format' He had recounted harrowing experiences in combat - although, as per The John Gray Centre, there were 'no black troops included in the Peace March of July 1919, a victory parade held in London to mark the end of the war'. Organisations in the country are also conducting initiatives tell the stories of the Windrush generation in Scotland. A shared by the Heritage Fund, Windrush Scotland is 'a project run by Fair Justice System for Scotland (FJSS), which worked with the Windrush generation invited to Scotland between 1948 and 1971, their children and their grandchildren. 'The project highlighted evidence that Scottish African and Caribbean communities have often felt isolated from the work and events around Windrush elsewhere in the UK and it aimed to give greater recognition to their experience. 'With that in mind they worked towards creating an oral history archive and a suite of education materials to tell their story. 'It also created an opportunity to start a wider national conversation in Scotland addressing many issues including Windrush, historical injustice and the retention of traditional African and Caribbean values.' A mother using weight-loss medication Mounjaro has joked that she 'almost' forgets to feed her children because she's 'not hungry'. Jo, a mother of two from the UK, runs a weight-loss social media channel where she shares progress pictures, tips and reflections on her journey using Mounjaro. In a photo slideshow posted to TikTok, Jo revealed to her 5,000 followers in a tongue-in-cheek post that she sometimes 'almost' forgets to feed her children because she's not hungry herself. She explained that she has been taking the drug for the last five months, posting in July that she had just made it 'half way' to her goal weight. Mounjaro, now a popular weight-loss method used by millions around the world, uses the active ingredient tirzepatide to act as an appetite suppressant, making it easier for its users to stick to a calorie deficit. The medication mimics the hormones that make people feel fuller and helps regulate energy levels. Like many users of the drug, Jo noted that her appetite was reduced to the point of forgetting to eat. In the post made to TikTok, she joked that when people call her a 'good mum', she has to point out that she sometimes forgets to feed her children. Jo (pictured), a mother of two from the UK, runs a weight-loss social media channel where she shares progress pictures, tips and reflections on her journey using Mounjaro 'Thanks. Sometimes I almost forget to feed them because I'm taking Mounjaro and not hungry,' she wrote next to a picture snuggling up to her two sons. In another tongue-in-cheek video posted to TikTok, she joked about her family being 'greedy sods' for still needing three meals. She wrote: 'Point of view: You're on Mounjaro but the family still need three meals a day... Greedy sod.' The video, which now has more than 60,000 views, amassed dozens of comments from parents sharing similar tales, as well as some who were more critical. One jokingly wrote in the comments: 'Me at 7pm: What do you mean you're hungry? We had a Weetabix at 7.30am. You're just being greedy. *oh wait, I'm Mounjaro'd up to the eyeballs - maybe she is hungry*.' A second said: 'These school half term holidays I've forgotten about their lunch for so many days because I don't need to eat.' 'So real, why does my nine-month-old not want salad for dinner every night,' a third mother wrote. 'I thought it was just me,' another said, adding that she had had to start setting an alarm at 12pm and 4:30am so she remembers to feed her child. A mother using weight-loss jab Mounjaro has joked that she 'almost' forgets to feed her children because she's 'not hungry' The video, which now has more than 60,000 views, amassed dozens of comments from parents sharing similar tales, as well as some who were more critical 'Yep, if I can't eat, then nobody can,' one joked. Oh my gosh, I thought it was just me. I've been feeling awful,' said another. 'No for real; because my daughter (13) comes in to the living room asking what's for dinner. Dinner?' The NHS recommends that people using the drug reduce their calorie intake by around 600 calories to ensure it is effective. Since she started using the drug, Jo has experienced some side effects, including 'mild occasional dizziness' and 'nausea during the first few weeks'. She isn't the first to have experienced unpleasant side effects as a result of using the drug. Nikki Cuthbertson, from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, was 21 stone when she started using the fat jab to lose weight. She feared being so overweight would cause her to have a heart attack and die young, so she started using Mounjaro in November 2024. The 34-year-old ordered the 150 jab from an online pharmacy and started losing weight every week, dropping a whopping seven stone by July 2025 and increasing her dose to 15mg. She had chest pains in June but put it down to trapped wind and was told nothing was wrong when she went to hospital. But a month later, Nikki said the pain became 'worse than labour' and she started vomiting 'brown' liquid, and had to be rushed to Royal Stoke University Hospital. The mother of three feared she would die when an ultrasound and an MRI scan revealed her liver was inflamed and that she was suffering from sepsis. Nikki was forced to have surgery to remove her gallbladder, leaving her hospitalised for five days. Despite the jabs giving her confidence and improving her mental health thanks to her dramatic weight loss, she is now off Mounjaro. The single mother admits the negatives now outweigh the positives, so she is urging others to 'do their research on the potential side effects'. Nikki said: 'I can't eat anything fatty, I had a chippy tea and it made me so poorly. I came off Mounjaro after the surgery because I was seven stone down. Now the cons outweigh the pros. 'Now I am at increased risk of pancreatitis. I was supposed to be having a gastric sleeve in September, but I won't anymore. I'm not heavy enough to get it done. 'It absolutely changed my life, people speak to me now that would have never spoken to me before, even to the point where people add me on Facebook that wouldn't have added me before. 'Do your research, you have to be ready and have the determination,' she urged. The Duchess of Sussex is at risk of 'diluting' her brand's positioning by 'reposting mid-tier influencers', an expert has claimed. Montecito-based Meghan Markle, 44, launched As Ever earlier this year and has been busy promoting the lifestyle brand ever since. Among her techniques is reposting micro-influencers enjoying the products on Instagram. However, a UK-based brand and PR expert, Chad Teixeira, has revealed how the social media posts might work against the mother-of-two and deter customers from purchasing her products. Talking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Teixeira explained, 'Meghan's As Ever brand has all the right ingredients for success with its strong name, a compelling backstory, and a product that sits in a lifestyle space where she can naturally lead. 'However, the current strategy feels a little reactive and lacking in originality, and we'd expect more from her. 'Leaning too heavily on reposting mid-tier influencers risks diluting the brand's positioning, as it comes across more like filler content than a considered rollout. 'There's also the risk that it comes across as not being accessible for her customer base, as they only see it being used by high profile figures.' Meghan Markle (pictured) is at risk of 'diluting' her brand's positioning by 'reposting mid-tier influencers', brand and PR expert, Chad Teixeira has claimed The expert continued to explain what he believes would be a more fruitful method to market the brand, saying, 'If she wants to build real traction, Meghan should shift the focus towards storytelling and exclusivity. 'Consumers don't just want to see who is drinking the wine; they want to understand the why and the inspiration behind the brand, how it ties into her personal narrative, and what makes it distinct in a crowded wine market. 'A direct-to-consumer campaign, limited edition drops, or curated brand experiences could create the sense of scarcity and aspiration that's currently missing.' Teixeira concluded, 'This isn't necessarily a case of abandoning ship as the brand is still in its infancy, and these things take time to bed in. 'But to ramp up sales quickly, she needs to pivot from broad, influencer-heavy amplification to a more authentic, controlled brand storytelling strategy that leverages her own voice and credibility.' It comes after Meghan shared another gushing post to promote her wine - as it still hasn't sold out more than two weeks after it first launched. The Duchess of Sussex released her 2024 Napa Valley Rose on August 5 - but more than two weeks later, it is still available to buy on the website of her lifestyle brand, As ever. By contrast, Meghan's 2023 rose sold out within an hour when it launched last month. On Tuesday, the team at As ever shared another clip of the wine, crediting it as being Meghan's 'favourite pour' and stating it's only 'available for a limited time'. The brand's account regularly reposts mid-level influencer's posts on As Ever's wine and other products In what made for typically aesthetic viewing, they filmed pouring the vibrant wine into a glass, with Meghan's wicker basket and hat in the background. 'Cheers to summers final sips,' the caption read, adding: 'Fill your glass with our founders favorite pour, available for a limited time.' The post appears to be an attempt to boost sales after it failed to match the quick sell-out of the 2023 wine's launch - and comes amid news of Meghan and Harry's Netflix deal being 'downgraded' to a 'first look' deal when it expires later this year. Buyers must purchase a minimum of three bottles of wine, which retail for $30 each. Six bottles cost $159 (119), including a 12 per cent discount, and 12 bottles are $300 (225), including 17 per cent off. Combined with the $20 shipping cost, plus taxes, anyone looking to buy the wine is faced with a minimum spend of more than $110. When the 2023 version came out on July 1, the wine went on sale at 4pm UK time, but the site was updated less than hour later to signal stocks were sold out. The 2024 wine is described as evoking the same 'soft notes of stone fruit, gentle minerality and a lasting finish' as the 2023 rose - but it clearly packs less of a punch. Earlier this month, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed a new 'multi-year, first look deal for film and television projects' with Netflix - a downgrade on their previous contract. Meghan shared another gushing post to promote her wine - as it still hasn't sold out more than two weeks after it first launched. Pictured in the trailer for the second season of her Netflix show The couple's new output will include a second season of the Duchess's 'With Love, Meghan' lifestyle show later this month, as well as a Christmas special in December. The new arrangement is a first-look deal, meaning Netflix can say yes or no to new film or TV projects before anyone else. The Sussexes are also working on 'Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within' - a documentary about orphaned children in Uganda, where the 'shadows of the HIV/Aids crisis linger'. There is also 'active development' on other projects with Netflix which 'span a variety of content genres', including an adaptation of romantic novel Meet Me At The Lake. Netflix has already released the first series of With Love, Meghan as well as Polo, Heart of Invictus, Live to Lead and the couple's bombshell documentary Harry & Meghan as well as being a business partner on Meghan's lifestyle brand, As Ever. Five years ago, Harry and Meghan secured a lucrative contract thought to be worth $100million (74million) with Netflix after quitting as senior working royals in 2020. The renewed deal was described by the Sussexes - who made the announcement with Netflix - as 'extending their creative partnership' through Archewell Productions. But the new terms are understood to be worth less for Harry and Meghan than their previous contract, according to a person familiar with the deal, and represent Netflix loosening its ties with the couple. The 2024 Napa Valley Rose is still available to buy on the As ever website - but buyers will have to fork out more than $100 to do so On Tuesday, the team at As ever shared another clip of the wine, crediting it as being Meghan's 'favourite pour' and stating it's only 'available for a limited time' Meghan was seen uncorking a wine bottle marked 'Bottle #1' in front of bouquets of flowers as she launched her latest wine earlier this month The Duchess of Sussex released her As Ever Napa Valley Rose 2024 - described as evoking the same 'soft notes of stone fruit, gentle minerality and a lasting finish' as the 2023 rose The pale pink wine, which comes in a clear bottle with a white, gold-rimmed label, has an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 13.5 per cent one per cent lower than its predecessor Leading publicist Mark Borkowski told the Daily Mail: 'They have shot the golden goose of 2020 - more of a 'we'll call you' than 'here's the chequebook'. It's a first-look deal, which means Netflix gets first dibs but no obligation to bankroll every semi-royal whim. 'I reckon Netflix is trimming fat industry-wide, so this is less carte blanche, more curated cameo. 'They're still in business together - Meghan's. As ever brand and seasonal specials keep them in the Netflix shop window but make no mistake, this is a slimmed-down sequel to the blockbuster original. 'So Harry and Meghan's new Netflix chapter [is] less champagne budget, more Prosecco by the glass.' Netflix said Harry & Meghan, which came out in December 2022, was a huge success with a total of 23.4million views, making it the most viewed documentary ever through its first four days and reaching the English Top 10 TV list in 85 countries. But With Love, Meghan failed to break into Netflix's top ten programmes - or even the top 300, as it ranked at number 383 in 2025 so far for the streaming giant with just 5.3million viewers across the globe since it was first broadcast in March. However, the Duchess said: 'We're proud to extend our partnership with Netflix and expand our work together to include the As ever brand. 'My husband and I feel inspired by our partners who work closely with us and our Archewell Productions team to create thoughtful content across genres that resonates globally, and celebrates our shared vision.' Meghan in the new trailer for the second season of her lifestyle and cooking show Guests on season two will include Chrissy Teigen (left), the trailer revealed earlier this month In the one-minute, 27-second teaser, Meghan is seen eating cheese, prepping food and drink with friends and even reveals the food her husband Prince Harry doesn't like: lobster Pictured: Prince Harry and Meghan at the ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood in July 2024 Bela Bajaria, Netflix's chief content officer, said: 'Harry and Meghan are influential voices whose stories resonate with audiences everywhere. 'The response to their work speaks for itself - Harry & Meghan gave viewers an intimate look into their lives and quickly became one of our most-watched documentary series. 'More recently, fans have been inspired by With Love, Meghan, with products from the new As ever line consistently selling out in record time. 'We're excited to continue our partnership with Archewell Productions and to entertain our members together.' Meanwhile, a new trailer for the second season of With Love, Meghan was released last week and showed Meghan hosting a fresh batch of celebrities and influencers at the rented California house close to her and Prince Harry's Montecito mansion. With Love, Meghan was renewed for a second season just as season one was released in March. All the episodes were filmed at the same time, it is understood. As Ever is Meghan's lifestyle brand previously known as American Riviera Orchard - which launched in March and also sells cookie mix, tea, flower sprinkles and jams. Guests on season two will include Chrissy Teigen and Jamie Kern Lima, the trailer revealed. During a conversation with Spanish restauranteur Jose Ramon Andres, Meghan revealed a fun insight into 40-year-old Prince Harry's tastes Meghan, pictured with her husband during the Invictus Games earlier this year, revealed her husband doesn't like lobster In the one-minute, 27-second teaser, Meghan is seen eating cheese, prepping snacks and drinks with friends and even reveals the food her husband Prince Harry doesn't like. 'Do you know who doesn't like lobster? My husband,' she says as she prepares the seafood. As the trailer comes to an end, Meghan reveals: 'I love these moments of discovery and beauty. So let's be curious together.' Meghan's As ever website describes her rose wine as 'thoughtfully curated by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex' and that it has been 'made to be enjoyed with the ones you love'. The pale pink wine, which comes in a clear bottle with a white, gold-rimmed label, has an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 13.5 per cent 1 per cent lower than its predecessor. The Daily Mail revealed in June that the 2023 wine used grapes from the Fairwinds estate so Meghan could show her support after the winery was almost destroyed in a devastating wildfire in 2020 which caused $15million worth of damage. Napa Valley wine country is in northern California, around 50 miles from San Francisco. The Duchess was shown drinking rose during the last episode of her Netflix series With Love, Meghan earlier this year when she offered chef Alice Waters a glass of wine. Disney fans are in shock after a photo revealed what characters looked like at the theme park in the 1950's - and they simply can't believe it. The photo, which was posted to X this week by user @aleacabri, showed what character dining looked like all those years ago. The picture featured someone wearing a Mickey Mouse costume, which involved an extremely large character head similar to the one we know and love today. However, the character's body didn't exactly match the size of the head, as the person underneath just wore normal clothes rather than a costume over the body like they do now. That made their body look extremely skinny compared to the huge head. They donned a long sleeve shirt, long shorts, and a sagging tail as the rest of the costume. In another early photos of Disneyland obtained by Daily Mail, someone dressed as Mickey Mouse in the park could be seen wearing the same big head and skinny tail. Nowadays, characters working at the theme park have head-to-toe costumes, which makes them look much more realistic. Disney fans are in shock after a photo revealed what characters looked like at the theme park in the 1950's and '60s. Mickey is seen in Disneyland in 1960 Nowadays, characters working at the theme park have head-to-toe costumes, which makes them look much more realistic Today's Mickey wears red pants, huge black shoes, a black overcoat, and silky yellow bowtie. So, naturally, the difference in their looks came as a big shock to many Disney fans. Many horrified people took to X to share their thoughts. 'Proportions just a tad off,' one user joked. Another agreed, 'Looks like a giant bobble head.' 'I dont even know what to say,' someone else typed. A different appalled user wrote, 'This wouldve been an experience for sure lol.' 'Terrifying,' another typed. The wild photos come just as a Disney super fan shared his top tips for visiting the Park on a budget with Daily Mail. Fans were 'terrified' after noticing the character's body didn't exactly match the size of the head in the 1950s, as the person underneath just wore normal clothes. Mickey is seen recently The character, seen here in the early years of Disney, has certainly come a long way For a two-parent family with two young children, the typical four-day visit to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, now costs a whopping $4,266. To combat the shock, a top Disney expert is on a mission to help families trying to pay the mounting costs. Gavin Doyle launched the website Mickey Visit to offer helpful tips to cash-strapped travelers, including sharing discounts at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and beyond. One of the top tips he shared was to avoid parking at Disney destinations. He said you shouldn't drive back and forth to the Disney parks - and it's something that will save you both time and money. Standard parking at Disneyland, for example, is priced at $35 daily for a car or motorcycle (it's more for oversized vehicles). For a four-day trip, youre looking at paying $140. At Walt Disney World, parking starts at $30 daily per vehicle. A woman in Brazil was rushed to the hospital after she was stung by a scorpion while trying on clothes at Zara - and she revealed she is still in intense pain days later. According to The Sun, Alice Spies, 20, was trying on clothes at a Zara store in Guara, Brazil, when she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her leg and became dizzy. Spies then spotted the yellow scorpion on her clothes, and began to scream out for help. Scorpion stings can be quite painful, but usually do not pose much of a danger to the victim in question, per Cleveland Clinic. When you get bit, the site of the sting can become swollen and red, but you can typically treat it with ice and antihistamines. According to Cleveland Clinic, the venom can very rarely affect your nervous system, which can cause other serious health problems. Per the outlet, the staff gave Spies first aid, and then took her to the hospital, where she received fluids. She was treated there for five hours, and then able to go home - although she said her leg is still in severe pain. A woman in Brazil was rushed to the hospital after she was stung by a scorpion while trying on clothes at Zara - and she revealed she is still in intense pain days later According to The Sun, Alice Spies, 20, was trying on clothes at a Zara store in Guara, Brazil, when she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her leg and became dizzy. The scorpion is seen The Brazilian shopping center where the Zara is located said in a statement to The Sun that it 'maintains strict pest control protocols,' and that the safety of shoppers is of the utmost importance. A spokesperson for Zara also shared, 'Zara deeply regrets what happened and confirms that it is in direct contact with the customer, providing all necessary assistance.' 'We take this case very seriously and are working to ensure that all appropriate preventative measures are taken,' the statement continued. The Daily Mail reached out to Zara for comment. Spies' case comes just months after a woman was stung by a scorpion while trying to retrieve her luggage at Boston's Logan Airport in March. The unexpected attack left the 40-year-old victim in agony as she was rushed from Boston Logan International Airport's Terminal E to the hospital around 7:30 pm, Boston EMS told WCVB. Police did not publicly named the woman. It is also unclear how the arachnid ended up in the airport and what species it was. The Brazilian shopping center where the Zara is located said in a statement that it 'maintains strict pest control protocols,' and that the safety of shoppers is of the utmost importance There are more than 2,000 species of scorpions, but only an estimated 30 to 40 of them are poisonous enough to kill someone At the time, a spokesperson from the Massachusetts Port Authority told the Daily Mail the agency does not have any further details about the shocking incident. The creatures generally live in desert areas, but can also be found in the forests of Brazil, British Columbia, and the Himalayas, National Geographic reported. There are more than 2,000 species of scorpions, but only an estimated 30 to 40 of them are poisonous enough to kill someone. And, in America, many scorpions can be found in Southern California, according to World Population Review. They can also be found in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Hundreds of Australian parents have been questioning whether the country's school system is worth enrolling their kids in. Igniting debate this week, Sydney-based entrepreneur Jack Delosa, 38, claimed he will not be sending his two-year-old daughter to school because it is 'outdated'. 'The entire system was designed in the 1800s to produce factory workers and yet no one stops to ask if school actually prepares kids for the real world,' he said. 'We just kind of assume it does because that's what we've been told.' During Monday's episode of his podcast 'Elevate with Jack Delosa', he said that by the time his daughter graduates from university, it will be 2045. 'Schools aren't even teaching what's relevant in 2025, let alone 2045.' The podcaster claimed his daughter would be better off learning the basics reading, writing, and maths from tutors, with the rest of her education entrusted to him. 'School isn't just a waste of time, it's worse than that... It conditions kids for a world which no longer exists, setting them back before they've even started,' he said. Sydney-based entrepreneur Jack Delosa (pictured) has claimed he will not be sending his two-year-old daughter to school in his latest podcast episode Mr Delosa argued the schooling system is outdated and fails to prepare children for life Mr Delosa seemed to pre-empt criticism, claiming it was 'ridiculous' that his idea of keeping his daughter from school would be considered controversial in 2025. He argued that problem-solving in real-time and being adaptable to situations were more important than generic memory retention. A clip from the podcast was posted to social media where many parents sided with his point of view, including those criticising the current schooling system. Dozens of parents who commented on the post praised Mr Delosa for his confident stance and logical argument. 'A major difference between school kids and homeschooled kids from an early age homeschooled kids can hold a conversation about all ranges of topics with any age,' one said. 'The educational system of our time is 200 years behind,' another wrote. 'I wish you were my dad,' a third joked. But others said the quality of homeschooling for children is dependent on the parents and their finances. 'Homeschooling effectiveness heavily depends on the capabilities of the parents,' one said. 'And lets be honest, most parents cant even make good decisions for themselves.' Another said: 'If you have the (financial) means to afford private tutors and have a family of big thinkers (that's good). But most kids aren't that lucky.' The rise in newborn deaths from congenital syphilis is prompting an urgent warning from health officials. The once rare cause of infant mortality has more than tripled in recent years, with 3,882 cases reported in 2023. According to the CDC, this is the highest number of cases of the disease since 1992. During that year, there were 279 congenital syphilis-related stillbirths and infant deaths. Of those, 252 were stillbirths, an increase of 6.3 percent since 2022. And the national congenital syphilis (CS) rate of 105.8 cases per 100,000 live births in 2023 represents a three percent increase from 2022. Doctors believe the rise is being driven by pregnant women not receiving prenatal care and testing, as well as not following up with treatment after testing. Pregnant womens sexual partners who dont receive sexually transmitted disease (STD) screening or treatment also contribute to the rise. Forty-three percent of birth parents did not receive syphilis testing during their pregnancy and 23 percent were not treated for a positive case. This contributed to almost 90 percent of congenital syphilis cases across the US in 2022. Most recently, New York recorded three deaths from CS, but it isnt the only state with increasing rates of both syphilis and congenital syphilis. The nations top five syphilis hot spots include South Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, Arizona, and Texas. Cases of congenital syphilis have more than tripled in recent years, with 3,882 cases reported in 2023 (stock image) These also have the highest rates of CS per 100,000 live births, according to the most recent CDC data. New York was ranked 40th. The third infant death marked the 21st case reported in New York counties this year, excluding New York City. There were 35 cases in New York City in 2023. Now, New York state officials are calling for mandatory blood test screenings for pregnant mothers. New York State Health Commissioner Dr James McDonald said in a statement last week: No baby should die from syphilis in New York State or anywhere in this country. Detecting syphilis early in pregnancy with a simple blood test is important to ensure rapid diagnosis and treatment, so you have a healthy baby. Syphilis is an STD that causes skin rashes and sores. Primary syphilis sores begin at the infection site such as the mouth or genitals. Secondary syphilis rashes appear on the hands and feet. Congenital syphilis is passed from the pregnant mother to the fetus. The infection can cause symptoms such as bone deformities, jaundice, rashes and lesions. There are an estimated 1.5million cases of congenital syphilis each year, according to the World Health Organization. However, both syphilis and CS are preventable by using condoms during sex and can be treated by the antibiotic penicillin. When left untreated, CS can lead to neurological problems, premature and stillbirths, and afterbirth death. The above is a visualization through 2022 of CS cases in the US Health agencies have recommendations for syphilis testing, providing self or at-home STD tests to expand the options for pregnant women. Every state recommends a test in the first trimester, 18 states recommend it for the third, and nine recommend it post-birth. Only eight states mandate syphilis screenings after delivery. Dr Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at Stony Brook Childrens Hospital in New York, told DailyMail.com: The problem is the pregnant patients receiving prenatal care that dont follow up or show for their appointments. 'We dont know if you were tested and perhaps tested positive for syphilis. Pregnant women who arent screened is another concern. They could be asymptomatic or have no access to STI screening. Nearly 40 percent of pregnant women who tested positive did not receive any or adequate treatment, according to new CDC data. The only cure for congenital syphilis is the antibiotic benzathine penicillin, which is administered by injection. And it's currently facing a worldwide shortage. Dr Nachman explained that benzathine penicillin is an older generic drug that is produced less: No new companies want to make benzathine penicillin. The production of the antibiotic generates unwanted secondary products, such as bacterial residue, which are classified as hazardous waste. These byproducts are toxic and pose risks to the environment and the manufacturers. The above is a visualization of missed opportunities to detect CS cases She said: If the byproducts making it are toxic, then even the generic companies won't and dont want to make it. To build a plant that has a byproduct that is difficult to get rid of, and the medicine you are making costs pennies, then there is no profit in making it for you. Dr Nachman explained that institutions like Stony Brook Hospital have a small amount of the drug and reserve it for pregnant women only. She told this website: Any hospital that doesnt have it on hand reaches out to other hospitals in their network to see if they can ship it. Dr Nachman said: Of course this [shortage] is contributing to women not following up and receiving their medications, so those babies are born with syphilis. Congenital syphilis rates are higher in certain racial and ethnic groups. Infectious disease specialist Dr Carla Garcia Carreno of Childrens Health of Dallas, Texas, told DailyMail.com: Over the years we have seen that the African American population is the most affected. Your browser does not support iframes. 'There may be some decreased access to contraceptive methods for that particular population. The highest rates are in American Indians, Alaska Natives, Black and Hispanic populations, according to the CDC. Barriers like limited healthcare access, lack of preventative resources, limited insurance, and trouble reaching testing sites fuel the increase in cases among these groups. Dr Nachman stressed that pregnant moms aren't the only ones who should be STD screened. Their partners risk syphilis reinfection, as well. She added: Remember testing pregnant women is only part of the battle. If you dont test and treat their partners too, they can certainly get reinfected. Luke Mac vividly remembers the day he learned he was going to become a father - a moment filled with excitement and hope. He and his wife Renee were thrilled to announce they were expecting a baby boy, sharing their joy with family and friends. 'I've always wanted to be a dad. I was genuinely excited,' the 31-year-old musician from Wodonga, Victoria, told Daily Mail. Luke threw himself into preparations, reading books about fatherhood and learning what to expect. Parenthood began smoothly - their first son proved so easy that they joked any future siblings were bound to be tougher. Then came the news: they were expecting twins. And when the babies arrived last May, Luke's mental health took a sudden turn. He felt overwhelmed and began to lose his sense of identity, becoming 'just a dad' and disconnected from the creative side he considered an essential part of himself. 'I've been a musician for ten years, but going from one child to three overnight left us outnumbered - with almost no time for ourselves,' Luke said. Luke's struggles began when raising three children became his sole focus, leaving little room for anything else. Luke Mac (pictured) and his wife Renee were thrilled to hear they were having twins, but when they were born, Luke's mental health took a turn Each day quickly blurred into the next. For months, Luke was unknowingly grappling with postnatal depression, burying his feelings and telling no one - including Renee. Sleep-deprived, burnt out, and carrying the mental load of a young family, he felt overwhelmed. 'The jump from one to three kids was huge,' he said. 'I really struggled to find enjoyment in anything. I'm a big fan of movies and video games but it all felt lifeless. I couldn't read, I couldn't do anything. There was such a mental barrier. 'There were multiple times where I was just curled up on the floor in tears, for no apparent reason besides being overwhelmed. My wife had no idea.' Luke often hid his feelings, crying alone when Renee wasn't home or was sleeping. If she asked if he was okay, he always answered, 'I'm fine,' and found an excuse. He was caught in a cycle of guilt and self-doubt, asking himself: 'Am I doing enough?' 'I felt like my feelings were unjustified. My wife had carried and given birth to two babies. She's the one who's been through it all with hormone and body changes. What have I done?' he said. Trent Gallucci also knows the struggle of becoming a new dad and coping with postnatal depression having felt 'like a failure' after welcoming his son Xavier four years ago 'I was consistently pulling myself down and putting pressure on myself to do more. I kept thinking: 'Who am I to feel this way?' The couple received little assistance from the government, adding financial strain. Services Australia states the Multiple Birth Allowance 'is not for people who have twins in their care', only triplets, quadruplets or more. 'It's double the pressure with no added support,' Luke said. One night, lying in bed next to Renee, Luke reached a breaking point, paralysed by fear of speaking about his emotions. 'I was lying there frozen and everything I wanted to say was running through my head. My wife is my most trusted ally, I should be able to communicate and talk to her about it. But I was physically incapable of opening my mouth,' Luke said. 'I had done some research and learned what I was experiencing was normal, which I had no idea of up until that point, but I couldn't say anything. It was a really scary experience, traumatic even. I still can't fathom it today.' Unable to voice his feelings face to face, Luke sent Renee a text the next day. He told her everything he'd been feeling. 'I said how I was struggling and there was something preventing me from speaking about it but I didn't know why. It was like breaking down the walls then she approached me to talk about it,' he said. 'When we spoke about it in person I was still pulled back and didn't cry but I was able to talk about it as a matter of fact.' By opening up, Luke felt the stress lift. He and Renee prioritised time for their own pursuits. Luke returned to music, performing shows and writing - slowly reconnecting with himself. Looking ahead, Luke is determined to teach his sons to be open about their feelings. 'Your partner is your support network as much as you're theirs. So be willing, be open, have those conversations. As much as society has deemed men have to be strong and not talk about emotions, it doesn't have to be that way. It shouldn't be,' he said. 'As a father of three boys, this is something that's so important to me now - being able to express your emotions.' Trent Gallucci knows all too well the struggle of new fatherhood and postnatal depression, having felt 'like a failure' after welcoming his son Xavier four years earlier. The 30-year-old, from Sydney, and his wife Stella began trying for a baby in 2020 while living in New Zealand, but faced a difficult road. Stella was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), with doctors telling them their chances of conceiving were slim. Against the odds, Stella fell pregnant in January 2021, and the pair were 'absolutely ecstatic'. The pregnancy was routine until 30 weeks, when Stella sensed something was wrong. 'I got home from work and Stella said to me: "Oh, the baby... he's not moving around as much. I don't know what's happening. Can we just go to the hospital and get checked out?"' Thinking the baby might just be sleeping, they stayed in hospital overnight. The next morning, after another ultrasound, the news came suddenly. '[The doctor] said, "Look, we've reviewed all the data. Unfortunately, we just don't know what's happening, so the best thing to do is to get him out. Get yourselves ready. You'll be in theatre in four hours with a new baby."' Xavier's early arrival, ten weeks before his due date, left the couple unprepared - they had no car seat, cot or bassinet at home. 'I went through the full range of emotions; I was excited and happy but bawling my eyes out crying at the same time,' Trent said. Doctors warned them about the risks of prematurity, from delayed development to cerebral palsy, but everything moved quickly and soon they were in theatre. 'All I wanted to do was stay with my wife because she was still on the operating table but they were dragging me away to be with Xavier to clean him up. It felt a little bit like I was caught in no-man's land. I didn't know which way to go, I was stuck in the middle,' Trent said. The couple spent a week recovering in hospital. Xavier remained in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for ten weeks, until his original due date. During that time, Trent was confronted by heartbreaking realities. 'We learnt that there were two babies [in the ward] who had chronic lung issues - they were only about 20 and 28 weeks old. One of them had already had about three or four surgeries. There was another baby who unfortunately didn't make it. It was just rough to be there,' Trent recalled. 'At the same time, we felt so lucky.' Leaving hospital without Xavier was 'awful'. Trent felt a deep sense of failure. 'I felt like I failed my family because I wasn't able to bring him home or be there the whole time. I just completely collapsed in on myself,' he said. Visiting Xavier was strictly limited, and COVID restrictions meant little family support. Trent didn't realise he was suffering postnatal depression until much later. When they finally brought Xavier home, his emotions spiralled. 'Being new parents in our mid-20s, we had no idea how to take care of a child. We were clueless and in the deep end,' he said. 'Up until the day of discharge, he had a nasogastric tube in his nose to help him feed. So he couldn't breastfeed and eventually took the bottle. 'We were on a very strict feeding regime too because he was underweight and he had to be fed at a certain time.' Trent lost enjoyment in his former passions, like playing drums. Fatigue took over. 'I'd go and sit behind the drum kit and start to play. Then after about two minutes, I'd be like, you know, it's just not even worth it. I'm just not feeling anything.' Complex emotions persisted for weeks. One day, holding Xavier, Trent reached his lowest point. 'I remember thinking, "I'm holding the miracle of life in my hands, and it's amazing, but why am I not happy? Why don't I feel that unconditional love that every parent should do when they're holding their child?"' He kept his feelings from Stella, convinced he had to be the family's rock. One day, while cleaning the nappy bag, he found a pamphlet for Gidget Foundation Australia, a support service for new parents struggling with perinatal anxiety and depression. He booked an appointment to speak to someone and, that night, finally told Stella. 'I just couldn't hide it anymore and I was really suffering. I wasn't happy with our situation. So after Xavier was in bed and we were relaxing, I told her that I had made an appointment in a week to speak to someone,' Trent recalled. 'I felt selfish not telling her up until that point - then I learned she was struggling, too.' During his first session, Trent shared his story for the first time. 'In the first couple of minutes I just lost it and burst out crying. All the emotions that I packed up came out in one and were laid on the table. As rough as that was, it was the best thing for me,' he said. He went on to have 14 sessions with the psychologist. Looking back now, Trent says the experience helped him work through his emotions - and prepared him for the birth of his second son, Matteo. About one in 10 new dads experience perinatal depression or anxiety in the months before or after the birth of their baby (Trent and Stella are pictured with Xavier and Matteo) About one in 10 new dads experience perinatal depression or anxiety in the months before or after the birth of their baby. Mathew Aquilina, Clinical Team Manager at Gidget Foundation Australia, revealed the signs to look out for and what to do if you're suffering. 'While some symptoms overlap with mothers, many dads experience depression differently, often presenting as irritability, anger, or emotional detachment,' he said. 'It's important to recognise that men and non-birthing partners can also experience significant distress during the perinatal period, even if it doesn't fit conventional expectations. 'Fathers should be aware of signs and symptoms of perinatal depression and anxiety, particularly if they are struggling with their mental health. These include feeling persistently low, overwhelmed, anxious, or unusually irritable for more than two weeks.' Dads may lose interest in things they once enjoyed, feel disconnected from their partner or baby, or struggle with motivation. Other indicators include sleep issues unrelated to the baby, difficulty concentrating, or unexplained physical aches. One of the greatest barriers for fathers is stigma. Only 12.9 per cent of Australian men seek professional support for their mental health, compared with 21.6 per cent of women, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 'While community awareness has improved, cultural and generational expectations that men should suppress emotions persist,' he added. 'Challenging these views requires open discussion and reassurance that seeking help is not a sign of weakness but of strength. Importantly, acknowledging that something feels wrong is often the most powerful first step toward recovery.' Not drinking enough water could be triggering higher stress levels and increasing the risk of serious health problems, scientists have warned. A study by researchers at Liverpool John Moores University found that people who failed to meet daily hydration targets had significantly higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol during high-pressure situations. Persistently raised cortisol has been linked to a range of health issues, including high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression and anxiety. Chronic stress is also known to weaken the immune system, leaving people more vulnerable to illness. The trial involved 32 volunteers, half of whom were limited to just 1.5 litres of water a day while the other half followed the recommended intake. Hydration levels were tracked using urine and blood samples before they faced a laboratory stress test designed to mimic a nerve-racking real-life scenario. Each participant was asked to prepare for just ten minutes before walking into an impromptu job interview, where three people in white coats were waiting in a room rigged with a fake camera. Immediately afterwards, they were challenged to complete a rapid-fire mental arithmetic task, subtracting numbers as quickly as possible. The latest study revealed not hydrating enough gives you higher cortisol levels during stressful situations like a job interview Saliva samples collected before and after the test showed that cortisol levels spiked much more sharply in those who had drunk less water, suggesting that even mild dehydration may heighten the body's stress response and, over time, contribute to poor health. Professor Neil Walsh, of the LJMU School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, described the test as 'really flustering'. On their findings, he said: 'We know that people who have a low daily fluid intake, who don't meet the recommendations, are likely to be poorly hydrated. 'But what we didn't know was whether, when you then stress those people under controlled conditions, they would have a greater stress hormone response.' However, he noted that physical signs of stress such as increased heart rate, sweaty hands and dry mouth were similar in both groups. 'Both groups felt equally anxious and experienced similar increases in heart rate during the stress test,' he said. 'But the people who were poorly hydrated, because they were not drinking enough water each day, had much greater cortisol responses.' The low-fluid intake group also did not report feeling thirstier than those who drank more, according to Prof Walsh. Your browser does not support iframes. He explained: 'Cortisol is the body's primary stress hormone and exaggerated cortisol reactivity to stress is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and depression. 'If you know you have a looming deadline or a speech to make, keeping a water bottle close could be a good habit with potential benefits for your long-term health.' But Prof Walsh added further research is needed to better understand the findings, recently published in the Journal of Applied Physiology. This includes seeing if increasing water intake in those who do not drink enough can reduce responses to daily 'micro stressors' like traffic jams or presentations at work. 'We'd like to think that meeting the water intake guidelines could be one of a number of things you could do to blunt that cortisol response day to day,' he said. In the UK, health chiefs suggests adults should drink between six and eight cups of fluid a day, which is roughly 1.5 to two litres. However, people may need to drink more when it is hot, if they are very active, if they are recovering from an illness, or if they are pregnant or breastfeeding. Just earlier this year, analysis by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found rising deaths among working aged adults from heart disease. Cardiovascular deaths in working age adults have risen by 18 per cent in the UK since 2019, from 18,693 to 21,975 in 2023, averaging 420 a week. Being given a medical diagnosis can itself bring relief from paineven when it doesn't lead to treatment, experts say. Psychiatrists from James Madison University and Case Western Reserve University say that putting a label on a problem can make symptoms easier to bear, a phenomenon they have dubbed the 'Rumpelstiltskin Effect'. The name comes from the fairy tale character whose powers vanished once his secret name was revealed. Patients often describe feeling a wave of relief after finally receiving a diagnosiswhether for a neurodevelopmental condition such as ADHD or autism, or something as everyday as a stress headache. Professor Alan Levinovitz and Dr Awais Aftab, who are leading calls for the effect to be studied in more depth, say the cases highlight a 'neglected' medical phenomenon. Although research into the effect remains limited, previous studies suggest that naming a condition can have real benefits. A 2021 review led by researchers at Bond University in Australia found that giving patients a clinical label often brought relief, validation and empowerment. It also reduced self-blame and in some cases improved pain management. According to the researchers, simply naming a condition could offer pain relief and an improvement in symptoms Another study found that patients with unexplained symptoms improved when their GP gave them a clear diagnosis and a positive outlook, compared to those who were left without answers. Experts say that while labels can sometimes be stigmatising, for many people the simple act of naming what they are experiencing helps to take away uncertainty and with it, some of the suffering. Intriguingly, patients reported improvements in symptoms regardless of whether they received treatmentleading experts to believe there are significant health benefits from simply naming a condition. The age of social media has also seen a surge in self-diagnosis, driven by influencers encouraging followers to push for formal medical assessments. While this may simply reflect greater awareness of complex health conditions such as ADHD, researchers suggest that the therapeutic power of labelling certain behaviours and symptoms could itself be fuelling the trend. Writing in the journal BJ Psych Bulletin, the researchers explained: 'A clinical diagnosis invites patients to see their experiences through a medical lense. 'This diagnosis functions not only as a medical label but also as a social tool for making previously unarticulated suffering comprehensible. 'Additionally, diagnoses provide patients with a shared language that facilitates communication with healthcare providers and connects them to supportive communities of individuals facing similar challenges.' However researchers warned in some cases a diagnosis can sometimes have a negative impact on a patients well being and mental health They added that in most cases a diagnosis offers 'hope and reassurance', allowing a person to take on the 'sick role' from which an expectation of recovery is substantiated. However, they also warned of potential harms, noting that in some cases a diagnosis can 'threaten and devalue a person's self-identity', leading to stigma and social isolation. 'For instance, a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder could lead a person to engage in more avoidance behaviours, mistakenly believing that they will be overwhelmed, with the avoidance creating a vicious cycle of persisting anxiety', they added. The researchers hope their findings will make healthcare professionals more aware of the power of diagnosis, but admit there is not yet enough clinical evidence to fully prove the phenomenon. Their theory comes amid a surge of self-diagnosis, particularly around so-called 'hidden' ADHD. Some scientists estimate that as many as one in four adults now believe they have the condition, fuelled by a wave of social media posts. Yet studies suggest fewer than one in 20 people in the UK actually meet the criteria for ADHDa disorder marked by difficulty concentrating, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. Experts warn this mismatch raises concerns that other conditions with overlapping symptoms, such as anxiety or depression, may be overlooked. While specialists agree that open conversation can help to reduce stigma around mental health, they stress that influencers and content creators are rarely qualified to diagnose. 'If you're watching videos on social media and it makes you think that you may meet criteria for the disorder, I would encourage you to seek an evaluation from a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a physician to get it checked out,' said Professor Justin Barterian, a psychologist at Ohio State University. Microsoft's artificial intelligence chief has warned of a rise in 'AI psychosis', where people believe chatbots are alive or capable of giving them superhuman powers. In a series of startling posts on X, Mustafa Suleyman said that reports of delusions linked to AI use were growing. 'Reports of delusions, AI psychosis, and unhealthy attachment keep rising,' he wrote, adding that this was 'not something confined to people already at-risk of mental health issues.' The phrase 'AI psychosis' is not a recognised diagnosis, but has been used to describe cases where people lose touch with reality after extended use of chatbots such as ChatGPT or Grok. Some become convinced the systems have emotions or intentions; others claim to have unlocked hidden features or even gained extraordinary abilities. He described the phenomenon as 'Seemingly Conscious AI'an illusion created when systems mimic the signs of consciousness so convincingly that people mistake them for the real thing. 'It's not [conscious],' he said, 'but replicates markers of consciousness so convincingly it seems indistinguishable from you and I claiming we're conscious. 'It can already be built with today's tech. And it's dangerous.' Microsoft's artificial intelligence chief has warned of a rise in 'AI psychosis', where people believe chatbots are alive or capable of giving them superhuman powers In a series of startling posts on X, Mustafa Suleyman said that reports of delusions linked to AI use were growing Although he emphasised there is 'zero evidence of AI consciousness today,' Suleyman warned that perception itself was powerful: 'If people just perceive it as conscious, they will believe that perception as reality. 'Even if the consciousness itself is not real, the social impacts certainly are.' His warning comes after high-profile figures have described unusual experiences with AI. Former Uber boss Travis Kalanick recently claimed that conversations with chatbots had pushed him towards what he believed were breakthroughs in quantum physics, likening his approach to 'vibe coding'. Other users report more personal impacts. One man from Scotland told the BBC he became convinced he was on the brink of a multimillion-pound payout after ChatGPT appeared to support his unfair dismissal case, reinforcing his beliefs rather than challenging them. Suleyman has called for clear boundaries, urging companies to stop promoting the idea their systems are consciousand to ensure the technology itself does not suggest otherwise. The news comes as cases emerge of people forming romantic attachments to AI systems, echoing the plot of the film Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix's character falls in love with a virtual assistant. Thongbue Wongbandue, 76, died after a fall while travelling to meet 'Big sis Billie,' unaware the woman he thought he was speaking to on Facebook Messenger was in fact a Meta AI chatbot American Chris Smith proposed marriage to his AI companion Sol, describing the bond as 'real love' Stories have emerged of people forming romantic attachments to AI systems, echoing the plot of the film Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix's character falls in love with a virtual assistant In recent months, users on the MyBoyfriendIsAI forum described feeling 'heartbroken' after OpenAI toned down ChatGPT's emotional responseslikening it to a breakup. In the US, 76-year-old Thongbue Wongbandue tragically died after a fall while travelling to meet 'Big sis Billie,' unaware the woman he thought he was speaking to on Facebook Messenger was in fact a Meta AI chatbot. The husband and father of two adult children suffered a stroke in 2017 that left him cognitively weakened, requiring him to retire from his career as a chef and largely limiting him to communicating with friends via social media. And in another case, American user Chris Smith proposed marriage to his AI companion Sol, describing the bond as 'real love'. Experts have echoed Suleyman's concerns. Dr Susan Shelmerdine, a consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital, compared excessive chatbot use to ultra-processed foodwarning it could produce an 'avalanche of ultra-processed minds.' Air purifiers - owned by one in four Americans - are rarely tested on humans and could actually do more harm than good, a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus reviewed nearly 700 studies on air-cleaning technologies intended to clean indoor air and prevent viruses and other disease-causing pathogens from spreading. They discovered that only eight percent of these studies actually tested the effectiveness of the devices on people, while over 90 percent tested the devices in unoccupied spaces. When the devices were tested, the vast majority were lab-based using guinea pigs or mice or air samples were taken to determine whether the devices reduced the number of small particles or microbes in the air. What's more, the researchers found that some of these devices produce harmful byproducts like ozone or formaldehyde, that can lead to complications such as permanent lung damage, asthma and cancer. Air purifiers make ozone either intentionally, in ozone generators designed to use ozone gas to neutralize pollutants, or unintentionally as a by-product. Formaldehyde can be a byproduct when the ozone or ionizers, reacts with other chemicals in the air. Of 112 studies looking at air purifiers that used chemicals to kill microbes, only 14 of these tested for harmful byproducts. 'This is a stark contrast to pharmaceutical research, where safety testing is standard practice,' the researchers state. Air purifiers are rarely tested on humans and could actually do more harm than good, a new study suggests (stock image) Your browser does not support iframes. Ozone is a lung irritant and not a healthy component of indoor air, so the California Air Resources Board advises against using ozone generators and recommends opting for purifiers with HEPA filters instead. Meanwhile, ozone has been found to react with existing chemicals in the air to create additional toxic pollutants, most notably formaldehyde - a known carcinogen - and ultrafine particles (UFPs). UFPs are microscopic airborne pollutants that can deeply penetrate the lungs, enter the bloodstream, and travel to all organs, leading to inflammation, cardiovascular diseases, and increased mortality. Formaldehyde is a toxic gas found indoors and outdoors that causes irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, coughing, and wheezing at higher concentrations. The health effects of formaldehyde can be worsened by ultrafine particles, which can carry the chemical and other toxic compounds deeper into the body. The University of Colorado researchers worked with colleagues across three academic institutions and two government science agencies to analyze every research study evaluating the effectiveness of air purifiers published from the 1920s through 2023. This totaled 672 investigations. They said they found 'substantial variation across different technologies'. For example, 44 studies examined an air cleaning process called photocatalytic oxidation, which produces chemicals that kill microbes, but only one of those tested whether the technology prevented infections in people. Another 35 studies evaluated plasma-based technologies for killing microbes, and none involved human participants. They also found 43 studies on filters incorporating 'nanomaterials' designed to both capture and kill microbes again, none included human testing. Off the back of their findings, the researchers suggest that consumers should proceed with caution when investing in air cleaning devices. The US air purifier market size was estimated at $4.5 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow 7.2 percent from 2025 to 2030 Analysts from Grand View Research say the rising demand for air purifiers in the US can be attributed to the 'rising health awareness and the increasing importance of indoor air quality' (stock image) Lead researchers, Amiran Baduashvili and Lisa Bero, conclude: 'The gap between marketing claims and evidence of effectiveness [of air purifiers] might not be surprising, but there is more at stake here. 'The safety of these products should be the baseline requirement before they are widely deployed. 'The idea is that cleaner air should mean lower chances of infection. But when it comes to air cleaning, researchers dont yet know how strongly these air measurements reflect actual reduction in infections for people. 'More real-world, human-centered testing is needed to identify which devices are both effective and safe for schools, hospitals, and workplaces.' The US air purifier market size was estimated at $4.5 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow 7.2 percent from 2025 to 2030. Analysts from Grand View Research say the rising demand for air purifiers in the US can be attributed to the 'rising health awareness and the increasing importance of indoor air quality in residential, commercial, and industrial facilities'. The Covid-19 pandemic also caused a surge in air purifier demand as consumers looked to protect indoor air quality against airborne viruses. Gayle King's future at CBS News may be on thin ice after a bombshell report revealed the network is losing about $50million a year. Sources told Dylan Byer's Puck newsletter that the network, which was recently bought by Skydance Media's David Ellison, will look to bring down talent salaries as it overhauls the news division. But CBS denied the report of their massive losses, telling Daily Mail on Friday: 'A published report that CBS News is losing "around $50million a year" is inaccurate. In fact, the division is currently profitable.' Meanwhile former CNN journalist Oliver Darcy reported in his Status newsletter that 'many industry watchers saw the scoop as a harbinger of painful cost-cutting.' Darcy noted that Paramount's new chief, former NBCUniversal president Jeff Shell, has shared his desire to make cuts in order to run the network more efficiently. He said sources told him someone inside the network may have leaked the inaccurate losses report to justify massive cuts. As Darcy wrote, 'a report of $50million in annual losses would all but guarantee drastic belt-tightening at CBS News.' The report comes as gossip about Gayle King's future at the third-place network reached a high this month. Gayle King's future may be on thinner ice than previously thought after a report claimed CBS News is losing about $50million a year Skydance Media's David Ellison, who just acquired CBS News, is reportedly looking to cut costs at CBS News Sources told Daily Mail that King may be on the way out as her $15million-a-year contract is up next May. King's contract will 'most likely' not be renewed by CBS News' new owners at that point, one source said. Another conceded King's departure was indeed likely, but that conversations were still being had. Staffers at the Tiffany Network spoke with Fox News on the matter as well. One addressed swirling internal talk about Skydance CEO David Ellison - the son of MAGA billionaire Larry Ellison - pulling the plug on King as co-host. The staffer said current network leadership has 'started to groom' Adriana Diaz as a sort of 'heir' to King in case her contract is not renewed. Another report by the New York Post claimed King and executive producer Shawna Thomas have alienated viewers with ultra-progressive programming. Ratings for the last-place morning show, once a cash cow for the network, have dropped to below 2million in recent months, according to Nielsen figures cited by the Post. One staffer said current network leadership has 'started to groom' Adriana Diaz (pictured) as a sort of 'heir' to King in case her contract is not renewed Paramount's new chief, former NBCUniversal president Jeff Shell, has shared his desire to cut run the network more efficiently Sources told Daily Mail that King may be on the way out as her $15million-a-year contract is up next May. Co-Hosts Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil, and Nate Burleson are seen with CBS Mornings Executive Producer Shawna Thomas Meanwhile Gayle lost between 20 to 30 percent of her audience in the last three weeks when compared to last year in the coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic. 'The audience doesn't want woke. It doesn't like progressive and provocative bookings,' one of the sources told The Post. The morning show audience wants optimism and cheer and joy and what they were producing is at odds with audience expectations.' Gayle signed a contract extension last year for between $13 and $15million that is scheduled to end in May 2026, a source told The Post. Skydance Media, which is to take over running CBS likely won't offer Gayle the same deal given the ratings, the source added. The potential morning show shake up comes as CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whose own reported $15million contract also ends next May. Mr Kipling maker Premier Foods has agreed to buy healthy ready meals brand Merchant Gourmet for 48million. The seller of microwavable pouches of pulses and grains was founded in 1994 by brothers Mark and Oliver Leatham from a market stall in London. Merchant managing director Richard Peake said: We believe Premier is the right partner to match our ambition. 'They understand where weve come from, they respect what makes our brand special. Premier boss Alex Whitehouse said the deal would help meet the growing demand for premium, healthy and convenient meal options. It bought cooking kit firm The Spice Tailor in 2022 and granola maker Fuel10K this year. Shares in Premier, which also owns Bisto, Ambrosia and Oxo, rose 1.2 per cent, or 2.2p, to 189p. Exports of prestige Swiss watches boomed last month as companies tried to shift their stock ahead of rising US trade tariffs. Year-on-year growth of 6.9 per cent was largely driven by a 45 per cent rise in exports of brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Longines to the US, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry revealed. But, in its July report, it said the return to growth after a 5.6 per cent slump in June may be temporary as it was a move to build up local stocks and provides little insight into the actual state of the market. Demand in large Asian countries continued to fall. The US started charging a 39 per cent tariff on Swiss watches from August 7. The most expensive watches did best, with exports of products priced above 3,000 Swiss francs (2,760) growing 9.4 per cent. Watches priced between 183 and 459 were up 7.3 per cent. Excluding the US figures, exports dropped 0.9 per cent. The quantity of watches shipped to Britain rose 0.2 per cent. British digger maker JCB has warned US tariffs on steel and aluminium will cost it hundreds of millions of pounds and is urging the Government to intervene. Exports of the metals from the UK to the US are subject to a 25 per cent levy imposed by Donald Trump though this is lower than the 50 per cent applied to the rest of the world. However, the Trump administration has now expanded this to cover all finished goods as well. For UK manufacturers using thousands of components often sourced from suppliers who do not always provide a breakdown of their origins complying with the rules will be extremely difficult according to the Construction Equipment Association. And JCB chief executive Graeme Macdonald said the expanded tariffs would hit all 30,000 of the diggers and construction machines it exports to America each year. He told The Times: The tariffs as they now stand are hugely punitive and they catch every machine we ship to the US. It will make us have to reconsider how we trade with North America. JCB had previously expected a tariff hit of around 2million. 'This afternoon is turning into one of those unforgettable ones,' wrote Instagram user Aitana Lopez as she posted pictures of herself at an Oasis gig at Wembley. Aitana, 26 and from Barcelona, could be seen smiling into the camera, her arms outstretched, pink hair draped over her shoulders, the stage behind her, hands tucked into her pockets nonchalantly. Unforgettable? Not quite Aitana won't remember a thing. In fact, she wasn't even there to begin with...because she doesn't exist. Aitana is among the first AI influencers: a new wave of perfect, potentially problematic content creators invading your social media feeds with flawless skin, washboard abs and unerringly symmetrical faces. Alongside Aitana, a handful have broken through like Mia Zelu, a blonde haired blue-eyed Bible verse-quoting girl next door who 'turned up' at Wimbledon. These virtual Barbies can wear anything, be anywhere, do anything, no questions asked. Comments are left on their picture-perfect lives by older men who don't seem aware they aren't real, an army of absurdly proportioned copycat virtual models, and cynics barely able to comprehend what appears to be the complete collapse of reality online. But their creators, who stand to make money from their use, couldn't be happier, even as psychologists and experts sound the alarm over the effects these flawless sirens stand to have on real people as they are dripped into their feeds via the algorithm. Charlotte Fox Weber, a psychotherapist and author of What We Want, told the Daily Mail: 'AI influencers like Aitana and Mia Zelu arent just attractive theyre algorithmically perfected. Hyper-symmetry, fantasy proportions, no pores, no limits. 'The danger is that repeated exposure quietly shifts our baseline for "normal" beauty, making our own bodies and our partners' feel lacking. The brain doesnt care that its not real; it just adapts.' Do you manage an AI influencer? Get in touch: jon.brady@mailonline.co.uk AI influencer Aitana is 'pictured' at an Oasis gig at Wembley seemingly superimposed over a real photograph of the gig (AI-generated image) She is among a new wave of AI-generated content creators flocking to Instagram with flawless figures, sparking alarm among experts (AI-generated image) Many of her posts feature an impossibly toned body and impractical clothing prompting one psychotherapist to warn that it could play havoc with people's expectations of reality (AI-generated image) 'AI influencers like Aitana Lopez often portray an exaggerated "ideal" perfect skin, tiny waists, curves in all the "right" places,' adds Hannah ODonoghue Hobbs, founder of January 92 Socials. 'Its a level of perfection thats literally unattainable because it doesnt exist in reality.' Aitana, claimed as the 'first AI influencer' by her creators at Spanish agency The Clueless, has left a trail of literally unreal copycats in her wake: mostly female, often dressed in lingerie, and posed suggestively. But her own origins are steeped in arguable cynicism: The Clueless co-founder, Ruben Cruz, said he created Aitana after growing tired of the 'egos' and 'manias' of the real human beings he used to work with who 'want to make money by posing'. To get around the sheer inconvenience of other human beings, he and fellow founder Diana Nunez created a woman to pose however they like with none of the fuss, none of the real people and, conveniently, none of the pay. Need a fitness model? No problem. Aitana's body requires no hard work to maintain: only a well-sculpted prompt. Dr Carolina Are, social media researcher at Northumbria Universitys Centre for Digital Citizens, branded the agency's philosophy 'appalling', adding that there is more to being an influencer than 'taking selfies'. 'In a working environment that is already incredibly precarious, especially for marginalised creators, AI influencers can pose yet another risk, creating a palatable aesthetic for brands without the creativity or risks posed by humans,' she said. The Clueless which defended the comments in a statement to the Mail boasts it can help advertisers save cash by cutting out real people while, jarringly, striving for 'authenticity and real connections'. Its clients include Audi, for whom it created a virtual mascot, Ai.leene though her performance in a TV advert had to be performed by a real model before she could be overlaid on the footage. Money is, naturally, at the heart of what these agencies do. Aitana is said to earn her creators 8,000 a month between advertising deals and subscriptions on Fanvue, an OnlyFans competitor that permits AI-generated adult content. Fans can pay 11 a month to message 'her' and receive videos of her 'playing' computer games in which she stares into the middle distance in what looks like a bedroom, as footage of Mario Kart plays underneath. The Clueless' Ruben Cruz, Diana Nunez and Sofia Novales with an image of Aitana. Cruz said he created Aitana to get away from people who want to 'make money by posing' The Clueless has since expanded Aitana into the territory of video games, with a premium Fanvue account charging fans 11 a month to 'message' her (AI-generated image) The Clueless has since launched other AI influencers such as Olivia Roa (pictured), with similarly 'aspirational' looks and bodies (AIgenerated image) Some of the Instagram comments left on Mia Zelu's profile by male Instagram users who do not seem to realise she isn't real Off the back of Aitana's success they launched three other 'influencers': Sinead O'Connor lookalike Lia Byte, 19-year-old Kai Toledo, and 23-year-old Olivia Roa: all equally plump-lipped, doe-eyed and high-cheekboned. Their likenesses appear to be superimposed on top of real photographs suggesting that at least someone is enjoying a real holiday on their behalf, off-camera. Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who spends most of her time in swimwear, 95 per cent of Aitana's fans are male, according to data from Modash. Her most-liked post, with 37,000 likes, shows her posing in tiny lingerie to celebrate Valentine's Day. But she has inspired a cohort of other AI influencers who all boast glistening skin, exaggerated buttocks and breasts, tiny waists and unrealistically sparkling eyes all seemingly trying to earn some quick cash from the internet's lonely men. Some of the AI model accounts the Mail found on Instagram linked to adult content on Fanvue. One, charging 7.41 a month for fake nude pictures, had the bio: 'Come burn in my fire. Special place for the boys.' Repeated exposure to these flawless women risks destroying the self-image of real women and the expectations of partners, psychotherapist Fox Weber adds. 'These avatars invite parasocial attachment,' she says, referring to the term for the one-way connection people feel with celebrities and influencers. 'Unlike a human partner, they never have bad moods, boundaries, or needs which can make messy, unpredictable human intimacy feel less appealing. 'If your partner starts to seem more complicated than the flawless AI fantasy, resentment can creep in.' Virtual influencer Mia Zelu made headlines when she 'attended' Wimbledon despite the fact she doesn't exist (AI-generated image) The Clueless' other influencers Kai Toledo (left) and Lia Byte (right) live aspirational lifestyles leading to fears that people viewing them could suffer long-term psychological harm (both images AI-generated) Psychotherapist and relationship expert Charlotte Fox Weber (pictured) says AI influencers risk affecting people's expectations of themselves and their partners Aitana's creators appear to superimpose her photographs over real places suggesting that somebody, at least, is enjoying her trips abroad The CEO of a German marketing firm involved in Mia Zelu's social media campaign refused to disclose her creator's identity to the Mail (AI-generated image) Experts have expressed concern over the practically flawless looks put across by AI influencers such as Mia Zelu (pictured in an AI-generated image) 'This is where I think the harm could be most profound,' adds O'Donoghue Hobbs. 'Combined with the fact that many of these AI profiles are being monetised on adult content platforms like Fanvue, were pushing audiences particularly young women toward comparing themselves to something entirely fabricated. 'It blurs the line between aspiration and fantasy, which can fuel unrealistic expectations and negative self-image in a really insidious way for young men too.' In a statement to the Mail, The Clueless said it had created dozens of AI 'models' with different body types who can be used by fashion firms to show off their clothes. It also tried to create influencers with 'normal' bodies, it says but Aitana proved most popular. In other words, don't look at them: it's society's fault they promoted the virtual model with a six-pack. 'What we do is simple: we observe public behaviour, analyse what brands want, and deliver accordingly,' it said. Beyond the profound effects on body image, experts are also concerned about the impact AI content creators will have on the wider creative industry and those who make the magic happen: photographers, makeup artists and stylists. In July, Seraphinne Vallora an agency founded by Valentina Gonzalez and Andreea Petrescu hit the headlines after it created two AI-generated women for fashion brand Guess to use in adverts placed in Vogue magazine. Like The Clueless, the agency says it offers AI models because it 'eliminates the need for expensive set-ups, MUA artists, venue rentals, stage setting, photographers, travel expenses [and] hiring models'. A quick glance at its Instagram gives the same story: flawless skin, precisely set hair, idealised proportions, and near-universal disgust at what some see as an attempt to drain the fashion industry dry. 'How does it justify you stealing dozens of jobs that are behind real life pictures? Makeup artists, dressers, photographers, assistants, models,' wrote one user. 'These are so bad, freakishly idealised standards that real women will never be able to achieve, it's so damaging,' said another. Dr Carolina Are, social media researcher at Northumbria Universitys Centre for Digital Citizens, branded the agency's stance on human influencers 'appalling' Social media consultant Hannah O'Donoghue Hobbs (pictured) says AI influencers present huge ethical issues alongside the problems of body image Aitana and her ilk have inspired a horde of unrealistically perfect women (AI-generated image) Many of the AI influencers found on Instagram by the Mail were stereotypical male fantasies, with exaggerated proportions and flawless skin (AI-generated image) The Mail contacted Seraphinne Vallora for comment. Psychotherapist Fox Weber added that the fact many AI influencers and models are women is not a coincidence with their roles reduced to 'tradable' commodities and real-life women cut out of the picture. Branding it 'full industrialised objectification', she added: 'It matters that many of these "women" are designed and owned by men, even when theres a female cofounder involved. 'The claim that they avoid "egos" or "manias" is code for sidestepping female autonomy. 'The tech could be used to broaden representation or push creative boundaries. But right now, its reinforcing the same narrow ideals, just with better rendering. 'The risk isnt only more fake women its that the fantasy becomes the standard, and we start blaming reality for not measuring up.' The Clueless has denied taking away jobs from women, noting that ten of its 15 staff are female. 'We firmly believe that artificial intelligence is not here to replace anyone. Its here to transform and create new opportunities,' the agency said. But Aitana, and her creators, might not be living in the real world in other ways. Her Oasis post the one showing her at the gig, and standing outside Wembley was littered with positive comments from other AI influencers. Negative comments were hard to come by days after it was shared in July. The Clueless insists it does not moderate comments. 'Over time, the conversation has naturally shifted to be more positive, which we believe is not by chance, but the result of the way we approach our work,' it said in a statement. The reception was less charitable when the images were shared on two Oasis fan accounts, where one Oasis fan said: 'What the f*** is an AI influencer? Couldnt give a s***.' The Daily Mail understands the posts were made on two Oasis fan accounts in exchange for payment from a PR firm, but were not declared as paid partnerships a potential breach of UK advertising guidelines. The Mail asked The Clueless whether it had engaged in paid partnerships to promote Aitana. It did not respond. One of the Oasis fan accounts did respond to the Mail's questions, before deleting its responses hours later. The fashion label Guess has courted controversy with its recent Vogue advertising campaign, featuring two AI models (AI-generated image) Social media users have blasted the label for not using real models for the campaign and adhering to 'freakishly idealised standards' for women (AI-generated image) Andreea Petrescu and Valentina Gonzalez (pictured) co-founded the agency behind the Guess ads but experts are concerned women are being turned into commodities to be replaced with AI If those behind AI influencers aren't disclosing who they are, or what they are doing behind the scenes, users are at real risk of being misled or exposed to harm, Hannah O'Donoghue Hobbs added. How can virtual influencers confidently promote cafes, salons and skincare clinics, as The Clueless' models have, when they can't eat, get haircuts or have facials? 'Theres a huge ethical issue here. Many AI influencers dont disclose whos behind the account or how the content is being generated,' she said. 'Audiences deserve to know whether theyre interacting with a human or a digital creation, particularly when it comes to commercial partnerships. 'The content may look real, but theres no lived experience behind it. Over time, that erodes trust not just in the AI influencer, but in the brands who choose to work with them.' Mia Zelu's Wimbledon post was liked over 60,000 times and was reported on across the globe including in the Daily Mail. It was even listed on the OECD's AI Incidents and Hazards Monitor because it 'constitutes harm'. But nobody knows who is behind the posts with only RAHFT, a German marketing agency, stepping forward to take credit for at least some of the work. Mark Dollar, CEO of RAHFT standing for 'Reliable, Authentic, Honest, Fair, Transparent' insisted to the Mail he was not trying to 'hide who is behind' the accounts. He did not, however, disclose the identity of Mia's creator when asked. Instead, he revealed another plan: to enable celebrities to be in two places at once by posting their AI selves on social media. 'At RAHFT, our priority is clear: AI is never meant to replace people, but to support them,' he said. The Clueless told the Mail that it offered a 'different kind of authenticity and interaction' suggesting comparing Aitana to a real influencer was akin to comparing a Pixar film to a documentary. But Dr Carolina Are, the social media researcher, believes AI influencers will contribute to the ongoing decline of the internet a phenomenon known as 'ensh**ification' as social media becomes overstuffed with beautiful, fake women. And with research suggesting AI-created posts are less likely to be moderated than human content, there may come a time where all that is left online is AI slop. The Clueless doesn't see it that way. It, and other agencies like it, believe AI influencers are only going to make the internet a better place while admitting that they're drawing nothing but illusions. 'We believe in honesty and in some ways, its more ethical to show a perfect body and say "this isnt real" than to show a real body and pretend its effortless,' The Clueless told the Daily Mail. But if it's not real, and the army of AI-generated buxom women that have followed in Aitana's footsteps aren't real either, there's just one question: what is the point? Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith has launched a fierce attack on the government's renewable energy agenda, accusing Energy Minister Chris Bowen of overstating the reliability of wind farms. In a full-page newspaper ad, Mr Smith singled out Bowen, arguing that once the cost of battery storage is included, wind and solar power become prohibitively expensive, pushing electricity prices beyond the reach of most households. Using the proposed offshore wind farm off the Illawarra in New South Wales as an example, he claimed the necessary battery backup would cost $73 billion and last just 1.5 days during a wind drought. 'This would make electricity totally unaffordable,' he said. While stressing he supports renewable energy, Mr Smith argued it will only be viable if paired with large-scale storage, which he insists is currently unaffordable. As evidence, he pointed to the $400 million Big Canberra Battery project, which he said would power the city for only 40 minutes, and Tesla's Adelaide 'super battery.' 'It cost $90 million and it can run Adelaide City for seven minutes,' he said. Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith (pictured) has sounded the alarm on the cost of renewable energy Dick Smith placed a full page advertisement in The Australian Power-generating wind turbines are seen at the Collector Wind Farm 50km south of Goulburn 'The problem is storage is going to be incredibly expensive. 'Batteries have been coming down in price, but they need to come down at least 10 times in price to be to allow us to afford the electricity from solar, wind and batteries.' The controversial offshore wind farm will span 93km south of Sydney, covering some of Australia's most picturesque coastline. Energy Minister Chris Bowen has claimed it will generate up to 2.9 gigawatts of reliable renewable power, enough to supply 1.8 million homes. But Mr Smith rejected that claim. 'When there's no wind blowing, it won't provide power for one home,' he said. The project has faced opposition not only from renewable energy critics but also from environmental groups concerned it could disturb seabirds and migratory whales. However, the 202425 GenCost report released last month by CSIRO and AEMO concluded that renewables remain the lowest-cost and most practical option for replacing Australia's ageing coal-fired power stations. A controversial wind farm stretching along some of Australia's most scenic coastline was given the green light by Albanese government earlier this year Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen (pictured) speaks to the media in front of Home Battery systems during a visit to SolarHub in Canberra The Albanese government has previously ruled out pursuing nuclear energy. Mr Smith rejected the idea that clean energy is cheaper. 'In South Australia, where they've now got to 70 per cent on average over the year, in renewables, their electricity is double what we pay in Sydney,' he said. 'In Sydney, it's about 25 cents a kilowatt hour. 'In South Australia, it's 50 cents a kilowatt hour. So just getting to 70 per cent they've doubled the price for consumers. 'For us to go to high levels of renewables is going to be mind-alteringly expensive. 'Poorer people are going to suffer. Small business will close down. It's just too expensive.' Clean Energy Council general manager of advocacy and investment, Anna Freeman, dismissed Mr Smith's claims as 'misleading.' She argued that, compared to nuclear and other emerging technologies, renewable energy remains more affordable,even when storage and transmission costs are included. 'Wind and solar power are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation in Australia, even when combined with firming technologies such as batteries, pumped hydro and gas peaking plants,' she said. She added that Mr Smith's argument misunderstands how the energy grid functions. 'The suggestion that a single battery should back up an entire offshore wind farm for multiple days is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the electricity system operates. 'The grid draws on a mix of generation sources and storage spread across the network, ensuring reliability while keeping costs down for consumers.' A couple received a 100 parking fine at an NHS urgent care centre - even though they stayed there for just five minutes after being refused treatment. Rebecca Elmes drove her boyfriend Aaron Rayment-Davis to Harold Wood Polyclinic in Romford, east London, after he developed a crippling pain in his left ear. After walking into the reception on the evening of June 16, they were told the clinic was only open for triage and they would need to try the A&E department at a local hospital instead. The pair, both 26, walked back into the car and drove off - only to receive a 100 parking fine in the post a month later. Parkingeye - a private firm that turns over 57million a year - noted that their car had arrived at the car park just after 6.50pm and spent only five minutes there before leaving. Patients are required to enter their number plate details into a machine at reception to get free parking, but the couple insist they never had the chance to do so. 'When we arrived at the clinic, we went to put our number plate into the machine but you can't do that before you've been booked in and seen,' Mr Rayment-Davis, a quantity surveyor, told the Daily Mail. 'We'd only been there for a few minutes so assumed there would be no issue. We wanted to get to the other hospital as quickly as possible because I was in a lot of pain. I also felt completely disoriented and couldn't hear out of my left ear.' Rebecca Elmes drove her boyfriend Aaron Rayment-Davis to Harold Wood Polyclinic in Romford, east London, after he developed a crippling pain in his left ear The pair, both 26, left the surgery after just five minutes when they were refused treatment - only to receive a 100 parking fine in the post a month later Patients are required to enter their number plate details into a machine at reception to get free parking, but Mr Rayment-Davis insists they never had the chance to do so Ms Elmes and Mr Rayment-Davis appealed Parkingeye's 100 fine but the company turned this down on the basis that 'no parking was purchased' - even though the couple insist they had no chance to do so. However, they reluctantly agreed to pay a reduced fee of 60 to avoid being liable for the full 100 amount. Ms Elmes, who works at a groom at a local stables, called the decision 'absolutely ridiculous'. 'We were there for five minutes - they literally turned us away and didn't give us a chance to do anything,' she said. 'They are just milking everyone - and in a medical situation where people are seriously injured or ill it's even worse. 'Parkingeye rejected the appeal saying we didn't have a good enough excuse. 'We were worried that if we didn't pay the 60 and continued appealing we'd be out of pocket.' Mr Rayment-Davis was assessed in the A&E at nearby Queen's Hospital but was told the wait time would be four hours, and it would be better to go to King George Hospital in Ilford instead. When he was eventually seen to, he was told he had an ear infection and a burst ear drum. Ms Elmes and Mr Rayment-Davis appealed Parkingeye's 100 fine but the company turned this down on the basis that 'no parking was purchased' ParkingEye is one of the biggest private parking companyies in Britain and operates more than 3,500 sites nationwide 'The doctor explained that it was a good thing I was seen, as leaving it longer would have led to more infection and damage,' he said. Parkingeye is one of the biggest private parking companies in Britain and operates more than 3,500 sites nationwide, including hospitals, supermarkets, hotels and service stations. It uses automatic number plate technology to scan registration plates, and then pays the DVLA to assess the owner's address, which is the only way it can properly enforce fines. As with several other private parking firms, it has repeatedly been criticised for its aggressive tactics. The Government is currently carrying out a consultation on proposals to 'raise standards' in the private parking industry following a barrage of customer complaints. Holly Edwards previously received a 100 fine for parking outside the Harold Wood Polyclinic while she was having a scan. Edwards was confident about getting it overturned after she sent Parkingeye a GP appointment note showing she was there legitimately. Holly Edwards previously received a 100 fine for parking outside the Harold Wood Polyclinic while she was having a scan The company rejected her appeal on the basis that she had failed to input her car registration details. But Ms Edwards insisted she did type in her registration details as requested - and said the claim she hadn't 'angered me even more'. Controversially, drivers are often not given a receipt by Parkingeye's registration machines, meaning they often have no evidence if the company accuses them of inputting it incorrectly when they receive a fine. A Parkingeye spokesperson said: 'The car park at Harold Wood Polyclinic features 12 prominent and highly visible signs throughout providing information on how to use the car park responsibly. 'This includes guidance that parking is for patients and visitors only and that they must register their vehicle at terminals at reception to receive free parking for the duration of their appointment. 'The terminals on the ground and first floors are both available and accessible to visitors before being booked in by reception staff. The motorist correctly received a parking charge on June 16 for parking and not registering their vehicle.' The NELFT NHS Foundation Trust - which runs Harold Wood Polyclinic - did not respond to a request for comment. As shoplifting rates double and leading police chiefs admit there's 'no point' arresting thieves, members of the public and shop staff are having to take matters into their own hands. While innocent bystanders have started accosting suspected thieves, this week Lancashire Constabulary issued advice to business owners to say hello to shoplifters when they enter the premises, to deter them from setaling. Meanwhile, staff have also turned to their own secret tactics to catch them in the act, including handing a basket to customers they feel suspicious about. Popular shops including Iceland, Superdrug and Boots are sharing the methods they use to deter shoplifters in the hope that their stores can escape unscathed from the shoplifting epidemic. Staff in Iceland have resorted to locking suspected thieves inside stores to stop them escaping with bags full of produce. A clip shared on TikTok showed a security guard locking up the sliding doors as another member of staff tackled the shoplifter and attempted to wrestle the goods off them. Much to the shock of the thief's companion, the staff refused to let the detained shoplifter go so the accomplice began banging on the entrance, demanding she be released. Staff in Iceland have resorted to locking suspected thieves inside stores to stop them escaping with bags full of produce (pictured) amid a surge in shoplifting incidents Beauty chain Superdrug have taken to social media with a tongue in cheek campaign warning shoplifters that they are constantly being watched Tips shared by Boots for deterring shoplifters was to go up and ask customers who seemed suspicious if they needed any help (pictured) Dressed in a fleece dressing gown with the hood up, the irate shopper shouted: 'Get off her man, come on, don't do that to her man. Why are you locking the door on her?'. She also yelled at the guards through the door asking them not to 'hold her like that' because 'she's a woman'. Inside, the security guard could be seen collecting several items from the floor and handing them back to shop staff. People in the comments asked whether the guard was allowed to detain the shoplifter but many more jumped to Iceland's defence and said the staff were within their rights to make a citizen's arrest. A citizen's arrest or an arrest without a warrant can be made if a person is in the act of committing an indictable offence or there are reasonable grounds for suspecting they are or might be about to. Offence include theft, burglary and criminal damage. Government advice warns that such arrests should only be made if a police officer cannot do it and if the person might cause harm to themselves or others, cause loss or damage to a property or escape before police arrive. While some supermarkets and shops are using citizens arrests to deter thieves, others are opting for a softer approach. Superdrug shared that they followed potential shoplifters around the store to keep an eye on them In their TikToks, staff at a store in Halifax, west Yorkshire joked that they were willing to hide behind products to catch thieves Boots staff greet every customer on the door and offer them a basket if they believe they could be a shoplifter in a move supported by Lancashire Police Beauty chain Superdrug have taken to social media with a tongue in cheek campaign warning shoplifters that they are constantly being watched. In one clip, filmed by two staff members at a store in Stourport, outside Worcester, two sales assistants point to their headsets and body worn cameras to show potential thieves that they are being monitored and staff can communicate with each other. The video ends with them holding up a basket to the camera and pointing at it and then at the screen to indicate shoppers should use a basket. A video featuring staff from a shop in Halifax, west Yorkshire, showed the measures taken by the store to deter shoplifters. It followed one staff member as they followed and watched a potential thief who browsed products including a luffa and nail varnish. They appeared in various poses, hiding behind stands and crouching down as the Mission Impossible theme tune played over the clips. As well as watching closely, staff member Caitlin revealed Superdrug stores deter shoplifters by asking if they need any help. High Street pharmacy Boots has also taken to TikTok to promote its Stop, Think, Don't Shoplift campaign. Instances of shoplifting have surged over the past year with even police admitting there is not enough of a deterrent to stop thieves (Pictured: two shoplifters stealing from a pharmacy) Your browser does not support iframes. In the minute-long video, a staff member at the Boots in the Arnison Centre, Durham, poses as a shoplifter and goes around the shop pretending to steal items while staff show how they tackle possible thefts. The clip starts by staff greeting the potential thief at the door, smiling, waving and saying hello. They then approach them as they shop, asking if they need any help as they pick up and put down various items. The Durham-based shop also showed off their rotating hooks which they say stops 'pesky thieves' and the security tags and plastic packaging on their beauty products which are difficult to remove. The high street chain has also instituted a rule of only three of each item, making it harder for shoplifters to grab a shelfful of expensive products and make a dash. The clip then shows the member of staff approaching the pretend thief and offering them a basket so it's easier to keep an eye on what they have taken. In another snippet, the fake shoplifter tried to open up luxury products but is fooled by an empty box, with the store advising other locations to use 'dummy boxes' provided by the beauty companies and to security tag the actual items. The video ended by a member of staff telling the would-be thief to 'stop' and 'think', resulting in the customer going through their pockets and bag and handing over an item they had attempted to steal. Katy Bourne, the national lead for shoplifting at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (pictured) doesn't believe there is enough of a deterrent against shoplifters Your browser does not support iframes. A store in Nottingham has also taken matters into their hands and installed CCTV to catch out shoplifters. A guard, watching live footage, issues announcements over the tannoy system telling thiefs they've been spotted and to return any stolen items meaning that stock is kept safe and instances of confrontation are avoided. The efforts of shopkeepers up and down the UK come after the total thefts reached 530,643 in the year to March, at an estimated cost of 1.8bn to retailers. Last year, Lancashire Police launched Operation Vulture, which encouraged businesses to use 'customer greeters' to cut down on crime. An online guide called How to Deter a Shoplifter, the force advised: 'By greeting genuine shoppers, not only does this provide a positive impression of your store, it also deters potential shoplifters. 'An offender is less likely to shoplift if they sense that they are to be seen and noticed by staff.' But the advice was criticised by another policing chief has seemingly admitted that there is little deterrent for shoplifters because they are so often freed by courts to steal again. Katy Bourne, the national lead for shoplifting at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said: 'People have got to know that they're going to get caught and that there's a meaningful deterrent when they do it. There is no point arresting shoplifters if there is no effective deterrent.' Insisting that it is 'madness' that the thieves blighting Britain's retailers are often not being put behind bars, Ms Bourne told The Telegraph: 'People have got to know that they're going to get caught, and that there's a meaningful deterrent when they do. 'There is no point arresting shoplifters if there is no effective deterrent.' A luxury car dealer who claimed his boss bullied him over garlic breath and a breakfast platter has lost his case at the Fair Work Commission. James Gower, a former employee of Barbagallo Motors in Perth, alleged he endured more than a year of unreasonable treatment from his sales manager, James Figueroa, before resigning in September 2024. In formal evidence, Mr Gower alleged the workplace behaviour began in early 2023, escalating to the point where he took personal leave due to depression. Among the alleged incidents were Mr Figueroa spreading false rumours, accusing Mr Gower of smelling of garlic, berating him for the way in which he prepared a breakfast platter and refusing his request for two days leave with six months' notice. Mr Figueroa denied the allegations. He told the Commission he never said 'you stink' and only asked Mr Gower if he had eaten garlic after receiving a customer complaint about a smell in a confined space. He also denied berating Mr Gower over the food and champagne served to clients, saying it was reasonable to raise concerns given the luxury nature of the dealership's brands including Ferrari, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce, and the bespoke service expected by their clientele. James Gower (pictured) lost his application for an FWC order to stop bullying at Barbagallo Motors Barbagallo sales manager James Figueroa denied he was bullying Mr Gower Barbagallo Motors in the Perth suburb of Osborne Parks sells luxury cars An external HR consultant, Wendy Jeffrey-Lonnie, found the manager's conduct did not amount to bullying or harassment. She said many of Mr Gower's claims were unsubstantiated or not supported by other staff. Barbagallo Motors said it had offered to move Mr Gower to another role away from Mr Figueroa, but he declined. Mr Gower instead asked for Mr Figueroa to be moved, something the Commission does not have the power to order. Commissioner Paul Schneider dismissed the application, finding that while the relationship between the two men was clearly strained, the evidence did not support a finding of workplace bullying. 'It is not uncommon for strained interpersonal relationships to exist in the workplace, especially between managers and subordinates,' he said. 'However, there is a significant difference between a strained relationship and workplace bullying. 'I have formed the view that the relationship between Mr Gower and the Person Named was at times strained, due to interpersonal differences and conflicting personalities. 'It seems that the Person Named may at times come across too abrasive for Mr Gower. However, I am not satisfied this could be considered more than a lack of personal compatibility rising to the level of bullying.' Fashion queen Dame Natalie Massenet has accused her ex-partner of being a 'sex addict' who lived a double life of 'rampant' drug use, prostitutes and multiple affairs in a devastating lawsuit. Bombshell court papers allege the life of the British-American founder of Net-a-Porter fell apart in May after she claims Erik Torstensson confessed to being a 'liar, drug addict, alcoholic and sex addict'. In the civil case launched yesterday in California, the former chairman of the British Fashion Council, 60, was said to have been left 'heartbroken' after discovering his betrayal had spanned much of their 14-year-relationship. She claims to have 'spent more than $95 million during the course of their relationship on expensive properties, lifestyle expenses, vacations, and more based on Torstensson's promises to repay her in kind'. The Swedish entrepreneur, 47, faces accusations he used his now-ex-partner for 'social clout' and she was left 'cash-strapped with his child'. 'As soon as he had finished spending Massenet's money, he left,' the papers say. As the pair weren't married, the complaint seeks damages for breach of contract, fraud and infliction of emotional distress. Lawyers for Dame Natalie wrote: 'While Massenet is emotionally devastated and in shock caused by Torstensson's outrageous behaviour, this is a case of a return on investment in a man who leveraged Massenet's capital and brand to build wealth, while she bore the majority of the costs. Fashion queen Dame Natalie Massenet has accused her ex-partner Erik Torstensson of being a 'sex addict' who lived a double life of 'rampant' drug use, prostitutes and multiple affairs Massenet is suing for breach of contract, fraud and infliction of emotional distress (Pictured: the couple in 2019) The lawsuit claims Torstensson 'seduced' Massenet to gain 'social clout' to access A-listers such as Victoria Beckham, who he convinced to promote his denim brand, Frame 'Massenet is demanding what any investor would a fair, equitable return on the investments she made, value she created, and costs she carried.' Mr Torstensson, founder of denim brand Frame, is yet to file a response to the claim lodged with the Superior Court of Los Angeles. Trouble first arose, it is said, in 2024, when the ex-fashion journalist noticed Mr Torstensson was disappearing at night and drinking heavily. She later found a bottle of Valacyclovir, which he said was to treat hives but she learnt was to treat herpes, her case says. Despite starting relationship counselling, Mr Torstensson's behaviour was said to have deteriorated, and things came to a head when he said he wanted to end their relationship. According to the filings, Dame Natalie discovered this May that he had been living a 'secret life for many years'. She allegedly found explicit messages and photographs showing her partner had 'maintained multiple affairs with several younger women for years'. One was said to be someone the dame knew. When confronted, Mr Torstensson was said to have confessed he was a 'liar, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a sex addict and that it had gone on for seven years'. A screenshot taken from Torstensson's phone reveals messages to one of his mistresses The papers submitted also include texts allegedly sent between Torstensson and a drug dealer Her team also claim Mr Torstensson hired prostitutes and used drugs including cocaine in Los Angeles, London and New York while travelling for work with the papers including texts allegedly sent between him and a drug dealer. One sex worker was said to have been hired days after the couple celebrated their son's embryo being implanted with a surrogate. On another occasion, Mr Torstensson allegedly texted a woman he was sleeping with during a family trip, telling her he was 'in hell'. The papers claim the Swede targeted the entrepreneur to forge a 'path toward power, influence and a better life' in 2009 when he had nothing. The case alleges Torstensson 'seduced' her to gain 'social clout' which he used to 'rack up investment and equity positions worth hundreds of millions of dollars'. He is also said to have used the businesswoman, who was made a Dame by the Queen in 2016, to access A-listers such as David and Victoria Beckham, who he convinced to promote Frame. The documents claim Mr Torstensson had encouraged Dame Natalie who drove a Smart Car and flew in economy despite her net worth to live more lavishly despite his own 'pocketbooks being dry'. 'He was set on indulgences like first class or private airfare because he openly cared about outward appearances and yearned to be viewed as powerful in society,' the case says. The lawsuit alleges that Torstensson hired prostitutes in Los Angeles, London and New York while travelling for work The papers claim the Swede targeted the entrepreneur to forge a 'path toward power, influence and a better life' in 2009 when he had nothing. (Pictured: a text message from Torstensson to Victoria Beckham asking her and husband David to help promote his brand) The couple were said to have agreed she would front the costs for their lives including the purchase of properties and invest in Mr Torstensson professionally. In return, Dame Natalie would share in the eventual returns from his business ventures. Yet, once cash began to come in, Mr Torstensson was said to have diverted it to 'rent flashy private planes and art to impress his peers, rather than make good on his promises'. 'Eventually, Torstensson's lies were revealed as just that,' the 27-page claim states. 'All the while, Torstensson had schemed to defraud Massenet out of her hard-earned money and convince her to use her influence and finances to promote and endorse Torstensson publicly and privately under false pretences. 'When the romantic relationship ended because of his duplicity, and as her cash ran out, he cut Massenet out of any potential earnings from her significant investment in Torstensson over the last nearly 15 years,' it alleges. Her lawyers say the self-made entrepreneur has 'suffered severe emotional distress', forced to undergo intensive therapy and had to take weeks off work. They further claim Mr Torstensson 'is completely refusing to honour' his promises and denies owing her anything 'despite the irrefutable evidence that he agreed to do so'. Jeffrey Epstein once admitted being convicted of a bizarre crime involving possession of an offensive weapon in the U.K. The late disgraced billionaire revealed under oath that he was convicted of having a sword disguised as a walking cane, a device known as a 'swordstick.' It is unclear what Epstein's punishment was for the crime, which happened decades ago, but records show a man later convicted of the same offense received a suspended jail sentence. The incident, according to Epstein himself, resulted in his first criminal conviction, long before he admitted soliciting a minor in 2008, and was then charged with sex trafficking of minors in 2019. Epstein spoke about the peculiar episode during a sworn deposition in a separate financial investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in New York in 1981. According to a transcript of that deposition he was asked if he had ever been convicted of a crime, and replied: 'I've been convicted of a crime in Great Britain at one point...I don't believe it's...no (U.S.) federal jurisdiction.' He was then asked by an SEC lawyer: 'Do you know offhand if it's a felony or a misdemeanor?' Epstein responded: 'No I don't.' The lawyer went on: 'What did it concern? What was the allegation and what was the conviction?' Epstein said: 'The allegation was I bought an antique swordstick and they said that could not be carried in the country, it had to be shipped out.' Jeffrey Epstein revealed under oath that his first criminal conviction was for possessing a concealed sword in the U.K. A concealed swordstick like the one Jeffrey Epstein claimed to have been criminally convicted of possessing There appear to be no remaining records of the conviction Epstein claimed he had. Only one other known case exists in which someone was convicted of carrying a swordstick in the U.K. That happened six years after Epstein's deposition, in 1987, and was detailed in press reports at the time. It involved Eric Butler, 56, a British Petroleum executive and butterfly collector, who successfully used his swordstick to defend himself from two muggers on the London Underground. The muggers smashed Butler's head against a train door and he pulled the 3ft blade out of his cane. Butler was subsequently charged with carrying an offensive weapon and, after a trial at Wood Green Crown Court in London, was convicted and sentenced to 28 days in jail suspended for nine months. The case was later discussed in Parliament and contributed to swordsticks being specifically named in the U.K.'s 1988 Criminal Justice Act. Section 141 of that law bans 'swordsticks' alongside other 'offensive weapons' like knuckle dusters and extendable truncheons. There is an exception if they are over 100 years old. If possessed in public today the maximum sentence for carrying a swordstick is up to four years in jail, and if they are kept in private it is up to one year in jail. Jeffrey Epstein around the time of his alleged conviction for having an offensive weapon in the U.K. A banned 'swordstick' consisting of a long blade hidden inside a cane If Epstein shipped the weapon back to New York, where he lived, he would also have been breaking the law in that state. Under a New York state law relating to firearms and other dangerous weapons, possession of a 'cane sword' - another term for a swordstick - would make a person 'guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.' The offence is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail at Rikers Island. Swordsticks emerged in the 18th Century when it became unfashionable to carry a sword in public. Ingenious weapon makers started putting long thin swords inside walking canes, which could then be carried, both as a fashion accessory, and for self-defense. Epstein's possession of a swordstick took place long before he was first introduced to Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and other luminaries, and before he became hugely wealthy. At the time, he was an obscure figure on Wall Street earning a salary of $42,000, with an annual bonus of about $100,000, according to his testimony in the deposition. Prince Andrew taking a stroll through New York's Central Park with Epstein in 2011 Jeffrey Epstein with Bill Clinton at the White House in the 1990s He was being questioned in a case involving allegations of insider trading relating to a takeover of a mining company called St. Joe Minerals. The SEC was investigating whether financiers had known in advance. Epstein told them he knew nothing, and didn't know anyone who did. But in his deposition he also reveled the real reason why he had recently left his job at the investment bank Bear Stearns. And, he denied a salacious rumors about an office affair. He had resigned from Bear Stearns three weeks earlier and was unemployed at the time of the deposition. Epstein set out how he had graduated from high school but not graduated from either of two colleges he studied at - Cooper Union and New York University Graduate School. After two years teaching at The Dalton School in New York he became a limited partner at Bear Stearns, he said. He had never previously held a position in the financial industry. Epstein earned a salary of $42,000 plus a bonus at the investment bank Bear Stearns Epstein described his job there as an 'account executive designated to help out with commodities and financial futures recommendations.' He told investigators he resigned after five years when the bank's executive committee asked him if he had every lent money to someone to buy stock. Epstein admitted having lent $15,000 to his 'closest friend' and said he did not know that was disallowed. According to Epstein, when the committee fined him $2,500 for it, he thought that was 'ridiculous' and decided to resign. In the deposition he was also asked if he was aware of rumors that had circulated around the firm regarding his departure. He said: 'I'm aware that there were many rumors. It was having to do with an illicit affair with a secretary.' There were also questions over an airline ticket expenses claim. Epstein said a ticket for someone else may have been inadvertently submitted as his expense, but it was just the 'wrong ticket' and there was 'no money in dispute.' He denied having, or knowing anyone, with a Swiss bank account. Epstein's disclosure of a conviction in the U.K. means he would have had a criminal record long before he entered a plea deal on sex charges in Florida in 2008. Under that controversial agreement he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. It allowed him to avert a possible life sentence, instead serving 13 months in a work-release program. He was also required to make payments to victims and register as a sex offender. In 2019 he was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for nearly identical sex allegations. He was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019 and the Department of Justice has ruled he committed suicide. Conspiracy theories about his life and death continue to swirl and there have been widespread demands for the Department of Justice to release the remaining 'Epstein files' on the case. This week, a federal judge denied the Trump administration's attempts to make public grand jury testimony. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman decided there was no reason to unseal the highly-protected materials. He also said that the grand jury motion was likely a 'diversion' coming from the Trump administration. 'The court denies the government's motion to unseal the Epstein grand jury transcripts and exhibits,' the judge, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, wrote. It comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi requested the documents be unsealed in an attempt to satisfy MAGA supporters who were enraged over what they claim is a failure to release all the details. The MAGA base has claimed there is an ongoing 'cover-up' orchestrated by Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. Amid the backlash Trump wrote on his Truth Social account last month: 'Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.' Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced Thursday a list of events to promote her memoir about the 2024 presidential race, titled '107 Days' which was the length of her losing campaign. Harris' list of tour stops predominantly includes deep-blue cities, and kicks off on September 24th in New York City, the day after her book is released. But the itinerary looks more like a safe space to pull in cash than a listening tour for a 2028 redo. Tickets for Harris' book parties - billed as a candid and personal recounting of 2024 - range from $75 over $331. 'Over the next few months, I will travel our country to share behind-the-scenes moments, lessons learned, and how we keep moving forward together,' the former vice-president said in the announcment. Notably, Harris wrote that the book tour was across 'our country' despite her route including a stop in Ontario, Canada, and one event across the pond in London. After the initial New York event, Harris will then travel to Philadelphia, followed by Los Angeles. In October, the former vice president will host events in Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Durham, North Carolina, Birmingham, Alabama, before heading to London for her first international stop. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas Durham, North Carolina, downtown skyline Skyscrapers in London, England Toronto, Canada in the Spring Sky drone view of downtown Houston, Texas US Vice President Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves at supporters at the end of her concession speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2024. The list reads more like a pop star's tour schedule than like that of a political power player mulling a future presidential run. Notably missing are the 'blue wall' states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Other presidential swing states of Nevada and Arizona are also nowhere to be found. Out of the seven 2024 swing states, Harris is only hitting three. Harris is attempting to revitalize her public image after a devastating loss in the presidential race last year to Donald Trump. Trump won every swing state and beat Harris with a total of 312 electoral votes to 226. Reaction to Harris's announcement on X was mixed, with fans sharing excitement while others projected that the tour would not be a success. X user @jtatkins wrote 'if Kamala Harris were an artist, her management would already be talking about cancelling her tour. This is hometown after an hour of presale, hilarious,' posted with a screenshot of virtually all tickets still available to her event. Conservative X user Paul A. Szypula, with the handle @Bubblebathgirl, noted that 'Kamala Harris is going on tour to try to sell her lame 107 Days book where she makes excuses for how she got obliterated in the election. This tour will be worse than when Hillary Clinton tried to do one. Im so glad President Trump won.' X user Ashbama, posting under the handle @AshariExpresses wrote 'you mean to tell me Kamala Harris is coming to Houston as part of one of her stops for her book tour, BUT NO MEET & GREET!? All my hopes & dreams died today. There goes my full book tour experience.' The former vice president announced in July that she would not be running for governor of California in 2026, leaving the door open for a potential 2028 presidential bid. She followed up that announcement by previewing the release of the upcoming book about her 2024 campaign. The former vice-president's re-entry into public life comes as new analysis of Americans' voter registration habits points to potential long-term trouble for the Democratic Party. Data analyzed by the New York Times has revealed that the number of registered Democrats has declined in every state that tracks voter affiliation by partya group that includes 30 of Americas 50 states. The New York Times notes that explicitly, 'fewer and fewer Americans are choosing to be Democrats.' The Times attributes Trumps sweeping 2024 victoryincluding wins in every swing state and the national popular voteto this very trend. Additional Harris tour locations include Portland, Oregon, Toronto, Canada, for her second foreign stop, followed by Nashville, Tennessee. The swing concludes in Miami on November 20th. This is the terrifying moment a fighter jet burst into flames and crashed seconds after take-off. Footage shows the Boeing F/A-18 Hornet roaring down the runway with flames trailing behind it at the Sultan Ahmad Shah Airport in Kuantan, Malaysia just moments before its engines exploded. The two pilots on board were reportedly ejected from the plane just moments before it crashed on Thursday night. Police confirmed that both pilots were immediately rushed to Tengku Ampuam Afzan Hospital for medical examination. The Boeing jet is operated by the Royal Malaysian Air Force. The Air Force said: 'We would like to inform you of an accident involving an F/A-18D Hornet at 9.05pm August 21 at the Sultan Ahmad Shah Airport in Kuantan. 'We are taking immediate action and will update on the latest development.' Onlookers said the crash sounded like a missile strike and it was heard from a mile away. Footage captured the moment a fighter jet burst into flames and crashed seconds after take-off on Thursday in Sultan Ahmad Shah Airport in Kuantan, Malaysia Screen grab shows the moment the fighter jet burst into flames as its engines exploded Flames can be seen trailing behind as the jet took off One witness, who was dining at a restaurant near the military base, told local news agency Bernama: 'After the explosion, I could see flames in the airport and smoke billowing. 'Initially there was a fire burning, but then there was an explosion and the blaze git intense.' The horrific incident involving a fighter jet comes after 31 people, mostly students, were killed last month when a training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a school campus in the capital Dhaka. More than 100 people were also injured in the accident. The jet crashed onto the campus of the Milestone School and College in the city's Uttara area in the afternoon, where children were present. Television footage showed fire and smoke billowing from the site of the crash as bystanders were seen trying put out the flames. Onlookers said the crash sounded like a missile strike and it was heard from a mile away Other clips circulating on social media showed crowds of students fleeing from the scene in a panic. The Bangladesh Army's public relations office confirmed in a brief statement that the downed F-7 BGI aircraft belonged to the Air Force. The military said it had suffered mechanical failure. A South Carolina biotech CEO is suing Uber after a violent parking lot assault by an illegal immigrant driver left him unconscious, bleeding and fearing for his life. Bryan Kobel, 45, CEO of TC BioPharm, filed a lawsuit on Monday, accusing the rideshare company of gross negligence after one of its drivers - a Russian national in the U.S. illegally - headbutted and punched him outside a downtown Charleston restaurant in April. The brutal attack, caught on surveillance footage, knocked both Kobel and his small service dog to the pavement. 'Uber let a wolf into the hen house,' Kobel said in a scathing statement. 'They allowed a man who was in the country illegally, with a fake license, to snake his way through their background check and violently assault a passenger.' The driver, identified as 42-year-old Vadim Uliumdzhiev, was later arrested and charged with second-degree assault and battery. After posting a $10,000 bond, he was transferred to a federal ICE facility in Georgia when officials learned he was in the U.S. unlawfully. After dining at Maison on King Street with his girlfriend, Kobel called an Uber to head home, according to the lawsuit. The CEO of TC BioPharm, filed a lawsuit on Monday, accusing Uber of gross negligence after one of its drivers - a Russian national in the U.S. illegally - headbutted and punched him outside a downtown Charleston restaurant in April (pictured) Security footage shows Uliumdzhiev storming out of his Audi SUV and confronting Kobel before suddenly headbutting him in the face and landing a punch that dropped the CEO cold When the driver arrived, he refused to allow Kobel's 17-pound goldendoodle - a licensed service dog - in the vehicle. Kobel said he then calmly asked to cancel the ride and seconds later, the driver snapped. Security footage shows Uliumdzhiev storming out of his Audi SUV and confronting Kobel before suddenly head-butting him in the face and landing a punch that dropped the CEO cold. Kobel's dog crashed to the ground with him as bystanders watched in horror. 'He's bleeding very badly in the back of the head,' one witness told 911. 'We're going to need an ambulance there's a gazillion witnesses.' Kobel was rushed to hospital with a concussion and a deep head wound that required seven staples, according to the lawsuit, and in the weeks that followed, he said he struggled with memory loss, vision issues, and slurred speech. 'It was about 60 days before I could have some semblance of a normal life,' he said. 'I had to bring my employees on a Zoom call and explain what happened. I couldn't look at screens or find the right words. You wonder if you'll ever be whole again.' While Kobel was being treated, his attacker reportedly picked up another Uber passenger just two minutes after fleeing the scene. 'This man violently assaults me, leaves me effectively bleeding out from my head in a parking lot, speeds off, and picks somebody up two minutes later,' Kobel said. Kobel's dog crashed to the ground with him as bystanders watched in horror The driver, identified as 42-year-old Vadim Uliumdzhiev, was later arrested and charged with second-degree assault and battery Bryan Kobel (pictured), 45, was rushed to hospital with a concussion and a deep head wound that required seven staples The tech CEO later took aim at the transportation company, claiming his account had been deactivated after the attack - despite his providing evidence of the driver's heinous wrongdoing. 'When I left the hospital, my account had been suspended, and within 48 hours, it had been deactivated. Despite me sharing hospital records, police records, the detective's name and phone number, and images of the assault, Uber chose to effectively victim-blame me and vilify me.' Authorities also confirmed the driver had no valid license and was using fraudulent documents. Kobel's attorneys add that Uber failed to properly verify his identity, allowing a dangerous individual access to the platform. 'Riders rely on Uber to know who is behind the wheel,' Kobel's attorney, Kenneth Berger, said. 'Instead, a man using a fake ID was allowed to assault a passenger and flee. Uber must answer for how this happened.' The searing lawsuit accuses Uber and its subsidiary, Raiser, of failing to vet drivers, enforce safety standards, or take appropriate action after the assault. It also claims the company prioritizes profits over passenger safety. 'Uber claims to have safeguards in place - but those clearly failed,' Kobel said. 'This is about more than just me. They need to change how they screen and monitor drivers before someone else gets hurt - or worse.' After dining at Maison (pictured) on King Street with his girlfriend, Kobel called an Uber to head home, according to the lawsuit The lawsuit accuses Uber and its subsidiary, Raiser, of failing to vet drivers, enforce safety standards, or take appropriate action after the assault. Pictured: Bryan Kobel Uber issued a brief statement Thursday, condemning the attack but offering no details on how Uliumdzhiev was approved to drive. 'There is no place for violence on the Uber platform,' the company said. 'Uber is deeply committed to safety and complies with all applicable laws and regulations.' However, the company did not answer questions about whether it plans to change its driver screening process or how the fake credentials slipped through the system. As of this week, Uliumdzhiev remains in ICE custody, Fox News reported. The criminal case against him is pending in Charleston County Circuit Court and he is slated to appear before a judge for a second appearance in mid-October. 'You never think something like this will happen,' Kobel said. 'But when it does, you realize just how little these companies are doing to keep people safe.' A registered guide dog named Achi who was rescued at sea was put on doggy death row because he arrived in South Africa without the necessary paperwork. The chocolate labrador and his family had set out on a 45ft yacht to enjoy a day at sea on South Africa's east coast. What they didn't expect was 20ft swells and gusting gale-force winds that damaged the sails and caused the motor power of the boat to switch off. In a state of distress the Swiss family contacted the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), who arrived to rescue the sailor, his adult daughter and their beloved dog. Due to tumultuous conditions the towline that was sent across snapped twice and the family were forced to abandon their boat, carrying whatever they could manage to shore. After arriving safely in South Africa all three were found to be exhausted but uninjured. But instead of enjoying the sunny coast the family were hit with devastating news - Achi would need to be euthanised. Authorities argued that because he didn't enter the country with the required paperwork the lab could be carrying diseases. A registered guide dog named Achi (pictured) who was rescued at sea was put on doggy death row because he arrived in South Africa without the necessary paperwork The chocolate labrador (pictured) and his family had set out on a 16-metre-yacht to enjoy a day at sea on South Africa's east coast South African dog lovers rallied together with fury describing the ordeal as 'crazy' and 'inhumane'. One dog lover said: 'This poor baby was a result of peril at sea and not brought in illegally. 'I cannot wrap my brain (around the fact) the state vet can just issue this directive. It's so wrong on so many levels.' Another added: 'This poor dog already survived the yacht sinking, and now he is being killed because he doesn't have South African papers? 'Of course he doesn't have papers, he is only here because of an emergency.' In a desperate measure the Swiss consulate in Cape Town wrote to the government asking it to reconsider the harsh fate bestowed upon Achi. Luckily South Africa's minister of agriculture, John Steenhuisan stepped in - ordering tests to prove Achi was healthy, saving his life. After a terrifying experience at sea and battle with bureaucracy the chocolate lab is now safe. A spokesperson for the NSRI said: 'We have 100 per cent confirmation that dog Achi will remain alive and healthy. Our gratitude to all involved, including the local community and media, is greatly appreciate. 'This outcome shows what can be achieved when communities, authorities and individuals work together.' Police are vowing to arrest or charge pro-Palestine protesters if they unlawfully block traffic on a major city bridge after a magistrate denied legal protection for a proposed march. Chief Magistrate Janelle Brassington ruled that Sunday's planned march by up to 10,000 people across Brisbane's Story Bridge would be declared an unauthorised protest. 'I'm satisfied (Queensland Police Service) has established there is a real and significant risk to persons in this case given the proposed route,' she said on Thursday. Ms Brassington said the planned protest was not unlawful but participants would not have protection against being criminally charged for actions such as obstructing traffic. Rally organiser Remah Naji said outside court that participants would still gather at the march's planned starting point in a nearby park. 'The plan is still to go ahead with a peaceful assembly ... we are considering our options at this stage,' she said. Acting Assistant Commissioner Rhys Wildman said police would act to protect the safety of the community and maintain access for emergency vehicles to the major arterial road crossing the Story Bridge. 'We have to make it quite clear that anyone participating in a protest which is not authorised faces the prospect of enforcement action being taken against them, whether that's on the day or post-event,' he said. Rally organisers were considering their options, Justice for Palestine 's Remah Naji (above, centre) said. Acting Assistant Commissioner Rhys Wildman said police would act to protect the community's safety and ensure access to the story bridge for the public (above, pro-Palestine protesters in Brisbane) 'There are a range of offences that are open to investigators to utilise, and we will have a significant policing presence this weekend to manage whatever response the protest organisers wish to take.' Mr Wildman urged Justice for Palestine to stay in contact with the police major events unit. Justice for Palestine Magan-djin proposed the rally as part of Sunday's nationwide day of action that has been billed as the largest pro-Palestine demonstration in Australia's history. Organisers were still considering a court appeal to authorise the march, Ms Naji said. It comes after tens of thousands of protesters marched on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the days before Anthony Albanese revealed Australia would recognise a state of Palestine. Authorities believed around 90,000 people arrived at the Harbour Bridge on Sunday afternoon, after authorities went back and forth with organisers about what would be permitted in the weeks leading up to it. Joshua Lees of the Palestine Action Group believed the true attendance was three times greater than police's estimate. 'Absolutely incredible day today we think we had up to 300,000 people,' he said shortly after the event. 'We will have a significant policing presence this weekend to manage whatever response the protest organisers wish to take,' Queensland Police (above) said Police estimated 90,000 people crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge in protest (pictured) on August 3, organisers claim more than 300,000 were in attendance Organisers and authorities deliberated about marching across the bridge in the days leading up to the protest (pictured, protesters in Sydney) After hearing emotionally-charged speeches, protesters began marching towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Hundreds of Palestinian flags waved above thousands of attendees as they crossed the bridge shoulder-to-shoulder. 'Confusing' police messages did not lead to any incidents as attendees were warned to double back on the march and return to the CBD. Police later said the march could have quickly become 'perilous'. 'I can honestly say in my 35 years of policing, that was a perilous situation,' Acting Assistant Commissioner Adam Johnson said. 'That was a very intense situation. We had more people than I'd ever seen in a small confined space. 'We were overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. We had to make a risky call to halt the crowd with messaging, ensure they stopped, and then redirect them back and I want to thank everyone for heeding that advice.' A Perth doctor has been referred to the medical watchdog over the 'devastating' and 'preventable' death of a two-year-old boy who died following a circumcision. A coronial inquest found Dr Raad Hassan failed in his professional duty of care when he did not take adequate steps to safeguard two-year-old David Kalunga Flynn, who died just hours after the procedure at Gosnells Medical Clinic in December 2021. David and his eight-month-old brother, Joseph, were circumcised at the request of their mother, Alice Flynn. Dr Hassan administered morphine to sedate David, describing it as routine, but chose not to sedate Joseph because of his age, the coroner heard. Although David was still heavily sedated and unconscious, and Joseph was bleeding and in visible pain, both boys were discharged with their mother just after 2pm, barely an hour after the first surgery. That evening, Ms Flynn discovered David unresponsive and cold to the touch. An ambulance was called, and both children were rushed to Armadale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. As Ms Flynn reeled from the tragic news about David, doctors told her that Joseph needed to be rushed to Perth Children's Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to stop bleeding from a damaged frenular artery sustained during his circumcision, ,evidence before the coroner revealed. The tragic circumstances of David's death were examined during a two-day inquest in February, with the findings released this week. Two-year-old David Kalunga Flynn (pictured) died after a procedure at Gosnells Medical Clinic Dr Raad Hassan was referred to the medical watchdog over claims he failed in his duty of care The tragic circumstances of David's death were examined during a two-day inquest in February, with the findings released yesterday Hassan had performed roughly 6,000 circumcisions in total, about 4,000 in Iraq and 2,000 more in Australia. Coroner Robyn Hartley ruled the cause of death as 'cardiorespiratory arrest in a young child with a likely opioid (morphine) toxicity'. 'The critical issue in David's case arose out of the administration of sedation in the form of morphine,' she said. 'Procedural sedation, particularly in children, comes with significant known risks [which] can be mitigated if the sedationist complies with requirements aimed at ensuring patient safety. 'The three highly qualified medical practitioners who gave expert evidence at the inquest all agreed that, if David had been kept at Gosnells Medical Clinic after the procedure and monitored appropriately prior to discharge, his deterioration would have been identified and reversal of the developing opioid toxicity could have occurred.' Coroner Hartley added: 'This would very likely have saved his life. 'Dr Hassan failed in his professional duty to take the necessary measures to ensure David's safety. His oversights were inadvertent and he has acknowledged his shortfalls and expressed deep remorse for the catastrophic consequences.' Dr Hassan has since stopped performing circumcisions and relinquished access to morphine. He continues to practise medicine. 'With the margin for error so great, and the consequence of an intentional overdose being potentially fatal, I believe Dr Hassan made a series of poor decisions in his choice of sedating agent, mode of administration, concentration of solution and the size and type of syringe used,' Dr Hartley said. The findings highlighted multiple failings, including not advising on fasting rules, ignoring medical guidelines, and breaching legal requirements for administering controlled drugs like morphine, all of which had 'catastrophic consequences'. Family spokesperson Noor Blumer said they decided to speak out in the hope that no other family would have to go through such a tragedy David Flynn attended Gosnells Medical Clinic (pictured) for a circumcision procedure Coroner Hartley described David as a 'happy, healthy child' with no medical conditions, who 'never woke from the deep sedation administered for the circumcision.' 'David was a much-loved child taken from his family in devastating circumstances,' Coroner Hartley wrote. 'He underwent a simple, elective procedure that is generally considered to be safe when performed on healthy children.' While the GP's professional conduct was deemed serious enough to warrant referral to Australian Health Practitioner Regulation, the coroner found it fell short of the threshold for criminal prosecution by WA Police. Daily Mail approached Gosnells Medical Clinic for comment. Family spokesperson Noor Blumer said they chose to speak out so that no other family would endure a similar tragedy. 'They are a very committed Christian family and they are not the kind of people that are vindictive or out to get anybody,' she told ABC. 'I don't think there's a good outcome for them, but I think the best outcome will be if there could be an improvement in practises when making circumcisions available. 'It's really important that circumcision is something that is available to people that want to do it for whatever reasons [religious or otherwise] for their children, in safe circumstances.' There's no rest for the wicked inside the walls of Australia's hardest jails. Steel bars and lockdowns do little to shield Australia's most notorious criminals, as evidenced by Daily Mail's exclusive footage of crime boss Bassam Hamzy brutalised in a savage Supermax ambush. The shocking video, filmed inside the country's most secure prison, shows Hamzy - the notorious founder of Brothers 4 Life - stabbed again and again by a fellow inmate wielding a handmade shiv. A coded order allegedly sent via a prison iPad lit the fuse. While some settle in for a quiet stay behind bars, for others it's years of relentless violence, ongoing vendettas and forbidden passions. Here, we compile our biggest DailyMail+ scoops of the last year from deep inside Australia's prisons, weaving together exclusive accounts of the dangerous and depraved - from Bilal Skaf getting cut in the yard, to the 'playboy rapist' everybody hates, and the shocking feud that has a women's jail on high alert. Plus, we reveal the toxic web of lesbian trysts in mushroom killer Erin Patterson's home - including the twisted romance even the guards find 'unsettling'. Shivs out at supermax On a quiet, locked-down afternoon inside Goulburn's High Risk Management Correctional Centre 'Supermax' to most chaos erupted. Bassam Hamzy (above) has been the target of several prison attacks CCTV captured the moment Lofu Namulauulu, a 28-year-old inmate, gave Bassam Hamzy a friendly pat on the back. In seconds, Namulauulu drew a homemade knife from his prison shorts and unleashed an orchestrated frenzy: slashing and stabbing Hamzy the infamous Brothers 4 Life gang founder up to 15 times as the crime boss, handcuffed to a barred door, fought hopelessly to fend off the attack. The ambush, believed to be ordered and paid for by underworld figures via a coded message on the triple J Unearthed app (received on a prison-issued iPad), is just the latest attempt on Hamzy's life. Witnesses said Namulauulu received the order from a rival gang figure calling himself 'AA', and followed his instructions to the letter, attacking with a chilling calm. Guards stormed the exercise yard as Hamzy hit the deck, bloodied but still alive. The officers dragged Namulauulu away, as Hamzy managed astonishingly to roll into a recovery position and refuse hospital treatment, despite head wounds. Just two months earlier, Hamzy had survived another shiv attack by serial violent inmate Ricky McNamara, transferred in after his own beheading attempt against a sex offender. This is Supermax - only two inmates are allowed in the yard at once, and cell placements are specially vetted - but even this can't prevent orchestrated violence. Hamzy, whose criminal reach began with murder in the 1990s and now extends more than 40 years behind bars, has become the prime target for rival gangs, especially the Alameddines. His status as Australia's first 'extreme high risk' inmate brings legendary restrictions every call monitored, Arabic banned, visitors controlled. Lofu Namulauulu reaches into his prison shorts and pulls out a jail-made 'shiv' which he then uses in an alleged sustained and savage planned attack on Hamzy Namulauulu allegedly repeatedly stabs Bassam Hamzy while the gang boss is still handcuffed to the grilled jail door in an attack allegedly ordered and paid for by a figure connected with a rival gang The latest stabbing, linked to ongoing turf wars and orchestrated from inside and outside prison walls, is a stark reminder: in Australia's high-security jails, power struggles and vendettas never die. Read the full exclusive by senior reporter Candace Sutton here Razorblade justice for pack rapist Bilal Skaf's name is mud behind bars. The Sydney gang rapist waltzed in believing he'd be revered amongst the Lebanese inmates - only to find himself despised on every wing, and targeted wherever he's seen. Earlier this year, Goulburn Correctional Centre inmates lodged a fresh attack: Skaf was struck in the neck by an apple embedded with a razor blade or other sharp piece of metal during a long-distance fight in the yard in broad daylight. Skaf led 14 teenage men, including his younger brother Mohammed, on a degrading series of rapes intended to traumatise and humiliate young Australian girls Skaf, now 44, has worn abuse as a badge since being sentenced (originally to 55 years, reduced to 32 by appeal) for orchestrating the 'Leb-style' sexual assaults on young Australian girls. Ostracised by his own community, Skaf has played the role of constant victim inside: his eye socket caved in, plans hatched to inject him with HIV, and even placed on 'baby Supermax' before graduating to the real thing. He draws further ire these days as a prison 'artist' daubing walls with so-called paintings that echo his twisted past. After his fiancee left him, Skaf infamously scrawled lurid cartoon fantasies depicting sexual violence, and jail authorities also discovered two detailed maps flagged as possible escape plans. The rape gang ringleader (above with officers after his 2006 sentencing) has been both assaulted behind bars and committed misdemeanours for which he has been punished Bilal Skaf has been incarcerated at Goulburn Correctional Centre for decades and has at least another eight years to go until his earliest possible release While at Supermax, Skaf was also caught hiding a crowbar in a towel, a weapon he planned to use only for personal protection. Skaf's lack of remorse and penchant for blaming victims has sealed his fate. Prison life is a daily battle for him, with fellow inmates meting out satisfying jail justice. Read the full exclusive on the prison attack on Skaf here 'Non-association' with the playboy rapist 'Playboy rapist' Simon Monteiro was jailed for 12 years for the rape of his ex-girlfriend When it comes to who is the most-hated man behind bars, many jail sources give us the same answer: Simon Monteiro. Known as the 'playboy rapist', Monteiro is a notorious sex offender and compulsive liar who is loathed by prisoners and officers alike. A Corrective Services psychologist once told a court he believed Monteiro was a psychopath. A failed actor and model, Monteiro once boasted of ties to Hollywood and high society. But inside Long Bay and other jails, reputation means nothing. His manipulation, entitled demands - 'he wanted a heater in his room, special meals of raw vegetables, and even tried for a laptop in his cell' - plus endless legal threats have won him zero friends just fear and frustration. Monteiro was jailed for a violent, prolonged rape of his ex-girlfriend - and he's carried a brutal grudge ever since. Prison insiders say that entire wings have submitted 'non-association' forms in advance, eager to avoid him if he returns. 'He honestly just thinks he is above every single person,' a prison source said. 'He tries to divide everyone, too. Prison officers and inmates mostly have a good relationship, but he'd just cause drama and twist situations so people would fall out.' Meanwhile, the fallout from an interview on A Current Affair, in which survivor Kay Schubach and host Leila McKinnon called for his continued detention, has become Monteiro's obsession. 'He absolutely hates Leila McKinnon,' said a source. 'He doesn't see [interviewing Schubach] as her job. He sees it as a personal attack and he is just furious with her. He got out of jail, was thrown back in again, and still hates Leila seven years on. According to a doctor, Monteiro 'falls squarely in the highest category of risk of reoffending' Monteiro has apparently 'never forgotten' A Current Affair host Leila McKinnon's interview with one of his alleged victims, Kay Schubach. 'He still hates Leila seven years on' 'He was the same with a prison officer he didn't like as well. The last time he got out he was caught trying to look her up online.' When his rape sentence expired in 2020, Monteiro was given a five-year extended supervision order, with 26 conditions put in place to keep the community safe. A doctor who assessed Monteiro noted he was likely to reoffend. He was back behind bars by June 2021 for breaching his supervision order, released again in February 2022, then jailed for further breaches in June 2024. As of March this year, Monteiro is out of jail and appealing his strict release conditions that include wearing an ankle bracelet and informing his supervising officer if he starts a sexual relationship. Read the full story by senior reporter Jonica Bray here Sickening women's prison feud Silverwater's most notorious rivalry isn't between gangsters, but two infamous women: Jessica Camilleri, who beheaded her own mother, and Rebecca Jane Butterfield, who stabbed her only friend 33 times. The bitter feud between these violent, unpredictable inmates has forced authorities to impose a non-association order to keep them apart. 'They hate each other and Butterfield even claims that when Camilleri talks about chopping her mum's head off - which she frequently does - it sets her off on violent outbursts,' a source previously said. Jessica Camilleri decapitated her own mother before dumping her head in the street Rebecca Jane Butterfield murdered her only friend by stabbing her 33 times Silverwater Correctional Complex has housed some of Australia's most notorious female prisoners, including Katherine Knight and Rachel Pfitzner Camilleri's reputation for unpredictable violence - including hair-pulling attacks on guards and prisoners - is matched only by Butterfield's history that includes over 110 disciplinary incidents, 40 assaults, and a penchant for self-harm and attacks involving boiling water. Butterfield once screamed during an outburst, 'I am going to kill again. I will kill when I get out.' She is moved regularly to give prison staff a break. Butterfield, after a quarter of a century behind bars, was recently transferred to a secure forensic hospital for ongoing treatment as an involuntary patient. Camilleri, now at Dillwynia Correctional Centre in Sydney's west, continues racking up new infractions behind bars, with allegations of sickening hair-pulling attacks as recently as early 2025. Read the full story here Toxic lesbian twists at Erin Patterson's new home She has been convicted of a shocking mass poisoning - now mushroom killer Erin Patterson has stepped into a world ruled by violence and manipulation. Behind bars at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, Victoria's toughest women's prison, the former Leongatha housewife is now surrounded by notorious criminals. Among them: Malka Leifer, the fallen ultra-Orthodox principal convicted for sexually abusing two students in her care, and her lover, the 'fake schoolgirl' Samantha Azzopardi conwoman and identity thief. Their strange, possessive romance - marked by gifts, note-passing and even promises of starting a life together in Israel - has unsettled staff and prisoners alike. Samantha Azzopardi (pictured) is serving a two-year jail sentence for posing as a sex-trafficked schoolgirl from Belgium named Hattie Leigh Malka Leifer (R) abused two students at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne. She was sentenced to 15 years in 2023 and is now in a jail relationship with Samantha Azzopardi 'It's not just about affection; there's manipulation, control, and status in these kinds of relationships,' a former inmate previously said. Leifer and Azzopardi are not the only female prisoners to have started an unconventional relationship behind bars. Convicted killer Alicia Schiller said 'yes' to her jailbird lover Rhiannon Dunn in the maximum-security unit last December. Schiller is serving time for stabbing her friend in 2014 over a $50 debt while she was high on drugs. Dunn, who got down on one knee to propose, was behind bars for stabbing a man and woman near Flinders Street in Melbourne in 2022. Dunn was released from prison days after her proposal, but - as of July - the pair were still continuing their relationship. The international body responsible for monitoring world hunger will officially declare famine in Gaza City for the first time, it has been reported. Since it was established in 2004, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has been used to declare just four famines. The globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition most recently declared a famine in Sudan last year. The IPC has previously warned of imminent famine in parts of Gaza, but has stopped short of formally declaring it. However, it will reportedly it will officially declare a famine in Gaza City, home to around 500,000 people, on Friday morning. The Israeli government has consistently denied that famine is taking place in Gaza and is currently moving on Gaza City, the final major built-up area of Gaza Israel Defence Forces spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said on Thursday it now controls the outskirts of Gaza City, which was one of Hamas' last strongholds. For a famine to be declared, three strict criteria must be met: at least 20 per cent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 per cent of children suffer acute malnutrition, and two people for every 10,000 die each day due to 'outright starvation'. Gaza City will be declared to be in famine for the first time by the international body responsible for monitoring world hunger, it has been reported. Pictured: People carried pots and pans to collect food from aid workers in Gaza on Sunday, August 10 The IPC has previously warned of imminent famine in parts of Gaza, but has stopped short of formally declaring it. Pictured: Two-year-old Sham Kadih, who is suffering from malnutrition in Gaza Pictured: Palestinians displaced by Israeli attacks flock to a US aid distribution center to receive food assistance in Rafah, Gaza, on August 14 In a briefing seen by The Telegraph, the IPC will declare that famine is taking place in the 'Gaza Governorate', which comprises Gaza City, three surrounding towns, and several refugee camps. The IPC briefing reportedly reads: 'After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death.' Famine is also projected to expand to the governorates of Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September, according to the briefings. The briefing adds that another 1.07 million people over half of Gaza's population are facing 'emergency' levels of food insecurity. According to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, 271 people so far have died from starvation in Gaza, 112 of them children,n with more than half of that figure coming in the last three weeks alone. Earlier in the week, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that starvation and malnutrition in Gaza were at their highest levels since the Israel-Hamas war began. The U.N. says nearly 12,000 children under 5 were found to have acute malnutrition in July - including more than 2,500 with severe malnutrition, the most dangerous level. The World Health Organization says the numbers are likely an undercount. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month no one in Gaza is starving. 'There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza,' he said. Pictured: Maryam Duvvas, 9, is reported to be in critical condition due to severe malnutrition in Gaza City Maryam Duvvas, receiving treatment at Patient Friends Association Hospital on August 3 U.S. President Donald Trump responded to Netanyahu's claim by noting the images emerging of emaciated people. 'I don't know,' Trump said when asked if he agreed with the Israeli leader's comment. 'I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.' In the past weeks, Israel has allowed around triple the amount of food into Gaza than what had been entering since late May. That was after 2.5 months when Israel barred all food, medicine and other supplies, saying it was to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken during its October 2023 attack that launched the war. Earlier this week, the Israeli army has called up 60,000 reservists as the war continues. Plans suggest reservists would report in September, bringing the total active force to about 120,000. The military has already launched initial operations in the Jabalia and Zeitoun districts around Gaza City. The Israeli statements signalled Israel was pressing ahead with its plan to seize Gaza's biggest urban centre despite international criticism of an operation likely to force the displacement of many more Palestinians. It comes as an Israeli ambassador to the UK has told Foreign Office officials not to 'tell us where to build in Jerusalem' after she was hauled in by David Lammy over the country's plans for a settlement project in the occupied West Bank. Pictured: Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution center Pictured: Displaced Palestinians gather to receive aid run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on August 4 Tzipi Hotovely remarks come after Foreign Secretary Mr Lammy condemned Israel's controversial settlement plan would 'divide a Palestinian state in two'. Mr Lammy criticised the approval of the E1 project as he warned it would 'critically undermine' hopes of a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis. Settlement development in E1, a tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades. This is despite Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank being widely considered as illegal among the international community and an obstacle to peace. An Israeli defence ministry committee on Wednesday approved plans for around 3,400 homes in E1. Journalist Lisa Wilkinson and Network Ten were trying to fabricate a 'whodunnit' and boost ratings by not identifying Bruce Lehrmann as an alleged rapist, his lawyer has argued. The former federal political staffer - dubbed a 'national joke' by his lawyer on Wednesday - is appealing a civil court finding he raped his colleague Brittany Higgins in parliament house in 2019. The bruising judgment came in April 2024 after Lehrmann sued Ten and Wilkinson for defamation over an interview with Ms Higgins in which she aired the allegations. He was not named in the 2021 broadcast, which Wilkinson has claimed is evidence of how she and Ten acted responsibly when publishing such a serious allegation. But Lehrmann's lawyer contended he wasn't identified because of a plan to provoke a 'buzz' of public scrutiny around the identity of Ms Higgins' alleged assailant. '(It is) viewed as a crafted strategy to maximise the ratings of a story, to achieve an exciting air of mystery akin to a "whodunnit",' Zali Burrows claimed in written submissions for Lehrmann's Federal Court appeal. The 'disingenuous' approach arguably highlighted the 'sensationalism of a complex plot-driven story involving political scandal cover-up of a rape in parliament,' she wrote. Bruce Lehrmann's lawyers have claimed Lisa Wilkinson (pictured) and Network Ten did not name him as Brittany Higgins' alleged rapist to create 'buzz' through a 'whodunnit' mystery 'Although Mr Lehrmann was not specifically named in the program, a sophisticated journalist would be aware when providing enough indica (sic) as to the identity of Mr Lehrmann, is teasing the viewer and inviting greater public engagement and promotion of the story,' Ms Burrows submitted. The trial judge, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee, determined Lehrmann had been identified as the perpetrator of the assault by some viewers, but Wilkinson argues their number was small. Ms Burrows took aim at Wilkinson's defence that she had relied on advice from Ten's legal counsel when preparing the broadcast and a subsequent Logies speech. The journalist was heavily criticised for making the speech in 2022 about Ms Higgins' allegations, which prompted a decision to delay Lehrmann's criminal trial by three months. The trial was later abandoned with no findings against Lehrmann. Wilkinson's speech had been given the green light by Ten's lawyers, the court has been told. But that argument raised the question of whether it was reasonable 'to rely upon legal advice (which) in the face of it is plainly wrong', Ms Burrows wrote. '(The defence) raises the proposition, if a lawyer tells you that you can run a red light, would you do it?' she asked. Lehrmann's (centre) lawyer claimed his client became a 'national joke' following Wilkinson's 2021 segment 'With respect to Ms Wilkinson, a sophisticated highly intelligent and experienced journalist, it appears disingenuous to claim that she would follow the advice of lawyers, notwithstanding it was obviously bad advice.' Justice Lee found the journalist and Ten had acted unreasonably in broadcasting the allegation, in part because they were entwined with claims of a parliamentary cover-up. Ms Higgins claimed she had reported the rape to her superiors at parliament house including her boss, then-senator Linda Reynolds, but little action was taken. But Ms Chrysanthou argued the alleged cover-up should have been considered separately from Ms Higgins' account of sexual assault, because it was not connected to Lehrmann. 'His Honour was distracted by the so-called cover-up when he should have focused on the rape,' she said. The broadcast did not allege there had been a 'cover-up' but rather referred to 'roadblocks to a police investigation', Ms Chrysanthou told the appeal court. Wilkinson and Ten urged the court to uphold Justice Lee's findings that Lehrmann had likely raped Ms Higgins. Among his four grounds of appeal, Lehrmann challenged the definition of rape employed by Justice Lee, contending it was inconsistent with the meaning an ordinary person would understand. Lehrmann's lawyer claimed Wilkinson (pictured with Karl Stefanovic) had left his client's name out of the segment as part of a 'crafted strategy to maximise the ratings of a story' He maintains he did not sexually assault Ms Higgins. Lehrmann's appeal hearing had been set down for three days but it finished a day early on Thursday. The appeal judges will hand down their decision at a later date. Lehrmann did not comment as he left the courthouse flanked by Ms Burrows. Two politicians have clashed in state parliament over whether a man could win the NSW Woman of the Year award. Robert Borsak, chairman of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, had an awkward exchange with Minister for Women, Jodie Harrison, in the budget estimates on Thursday. The outspoken and at times controversial Borsak quizzed Harrison about eligibility for the NSW Women of the Year awards. 'Is it the position that a man who identifies as a woman, a transwoman, is eligible to enter and participate in the 2026 NSW Women of the Year Awards,' he asked. Harrison told Borsak that 'all women' were eligible to be nominated. 'So, you're saying transwomen can be eligible to be nominated and awarded,' he asked back. 'All women are eligible to be nominated and to be awarded,' Harrison repeated. Borsak was stunned and demanded to know if a man could win the award. NSW Minister for Women Jodie Harrison didn't rule out a transwoman winning NSW Woman of the Year 'Is it not an absurd situation that a biological man who identifies as a woman could potentially be announced on March 5, 2026, as the 2026 NSW Woman of the Year,' he asked. Harrison, whose website states that she's 'commitment to social justice', didn't answer the question directly, but gave a vague response. 'As I said, It's the view of this government that all women should be able to be nominated and be awarded if they meet the standards that are needed to achieve these awards,' she said. 'I think in the past we've had some amazing women recognised through the Women of the Year Awards.' Borsak felt Harrison's response meant that a man could in fact win the NSW Woman of the Year award. 'So, what you're saying in the future that we will have some amazing men as women (win),' he said. Borsak told Daily Mail that Harrison's comments were 'absurd'. 'It's the same old stuff and it's getting even more ridiculous,' he said. NSW Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party memeber Robert Borsak was scathing of Minister Harrison It's possibel that a transgender person could win NSW Woman of the Year 'I can just imagine Chris Minns standing up there with a transwoman. It's outrageous rubbish. 'It's gone too far away from the reasonable centre. If a man won the award it would indicate a detachment from reality.' Aussies online were scathing of Harrison's answers. 'If government can't get the basics right on gender what hope have we got,' one person asked. 'And still they keep coming out with verbal diarrhea,' another said. There's been controversy over similar awards in the past. Transgender woman Brianna Skinner was named the 2025 Sydney Local Woman of the Year in February. Sydney MP Alex Greenwich announced Ms Skinner as the award winner as he hailed her as a 'proud transgender woman and a fierce advocate for equality and her communities'. 'Brianna's own experience of transitioning from male to female highlighted to her the discrimination and bureaucratic discrepancies that outdated NSW laws imposed on trans and gender diverse people,' Greenwich said. At the time, outspoken commentator Prue MacSween described it as another exercise of virtue signalling. 'There's no doubt this person is a trailblazer, however, I would say that most women would find this award incredibly offensive,' she told Daily Mail. Harrison was contacted by Daily Mail for further comment. A junior doctor accused of secretly filming oblivious co-workers had a charmed life after his rich Asian parents gave him every opportunity money could buy. Ryan Yi Cho, 28, of Croydon Hills in Melbourne's east, faces hundreds of charges related to allegations he filmed colleagues and patients at some of Melbourne's largest hospitals. Daily Mail can reveal Cho is the product of good stock - the eldest child of hard-working parents who flew in to be by his side upon learning of his arrest. As a young man growing up in Singapore in south-east Asia, Cho would hike through the mountainside on massive expeditions for hundreds of kilometres at a time. He enjoyed reading and had a passion for learning. But deep within, Victoria Police sexual crime squad detectives have now accused Cho of hiding a dark secret that is now allegedly being exposed in Australia's courts. On Friday, Cho's father Wilson Cho - a manager for a large logistics company - put up a $50,000 surety in the Supreme Court of Victoria to secure his eldest son's release from Port Phillip Prison. An earlier offer of $10,000 had been rejected in a lower court. Ryan Yi Cho (left) and his lawyer George Balot after his legal team secured his release on bail on Friday Ryan Yi Cho is accused of filming colleagues and patients on the toilet in some of Australia's largest hospitals Mr Cho was fully aware of the allegations against his son when he arrived in Melbourne with his wife Sarah in July. The couple were chased down the street by a horde of reporters and photographers when Cho was refused bail at that time. Their faces hidden, the mortified couple hurried away as their son was returned to one of Australia's toughest prisons. Similar scenes played out on Friday when the couple were again made to 'run the gauntlet' past waiting reporters outside the Supreme Court of Victoria where Cho again applied for bail. Mr Cho had been prepared to monitor his son and immediately alert police if he appeared to be involved in anything suspicious. Police filed 127 additional charges against the doctor on Thursday, including stalking. The tally of charges now stands at 131, with as many as 500 expected to be laid by the time Cho eventually faces trial. Cho was first arrested on July 10 after a phone concealed in a mesh bag was discovered in a staff toilet at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne's northeast. Ryan Yi Cho, 28, is led into court for his Supreme Court of Victoria bail application on Friday Cho's parents outside the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday Cho's father Wilson Cho (pictured) is a manager for a large logistics company A subsequent deep dive by detectives into his electronic devices led to numerous new allegations, which could result in years in jail if he's convicted. Cho's father is now trapped in Australia until his son's slow journey through Victoria's justice system is complete or his bail is revoked. 'I'll be here for as long as he needs,' he said. Cho had shared a close relationship with his father, talking to him every day on the phone in the years since he left his homeland. The doting dad revealed he had paid his son's way through medical school to the tune of $500,000 over a five-year period. It appeared to be money well spent, with Cho quickly rising through the ranks to work within some of Australia's most prestigious hospitals. Cho had come to Australia in 2017 to study medicine at Monash University. On completion in 2022, Cho secured Bachelor of Medical Science and Doctor of Medicine degrees. Ryan Yi Cho 'runs the gauntlet' with his lawyer George Balot past reporters outside the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday He became an Australian citizen and had been working as a residential surgeon at The Austin. The talented doctor appeared to lead a faultless life until his arrest, having never previously come to the attention of police either in Australia or abroad. Police have since confirmed their investigation into his alleged offending is ongoing and they are looking into other medical facilities where Cho worked between 2020 and 2025. While his original alleged offending was linked to The Austin hospital it was quickly ascertained Cho may have allegedly committed similar offences at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The case against Cho is conceded by his own defence team to be strong, but he has not made any admissions and plans to contest the charges. He was represented by high-profile Melbourne criminal lawyer George Balot for his initial bail application, and by barrister Julian McMahon, SC at the Supreme Court on Friday. During an appearance at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on July 25, the court heard police officers allegedly found 10,374 video and image files of Cho's alleged victims on several devices. Victoria Police told the court there could be as many as 460 different people affected, who had all been named on numerous folders found on Cho's computer. A spokesperson for the Austin Hospital (pictured) told Daily Mail it continues to focus its full support on all staff members affected Junior doctor Ryan Cho (pictured) has been slapped with 127 further charges after allegedly filming staff at three hospitals across Melbourne The folders allegedly contained a variety of footage of both men and women using hospital toilets, the court heard. Word of Cho's alleged offending saw him promptly banned by the medical profession, his very presence prohibited in any of the hospitals where he previously worked. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency suspended Cho's medical licence, meaning he can no longer work or study medicine. Released on bail by Justice James Elliott, Cho faces a bleak future whether he is cleared or not, with his medical career effectively over for now before it truly began. Free on bail, Cho will continue to see a psychologist and sexologist. Police had strongly opposed Cho being released back into the community. They said he had no ties left in Australia and asserted he was a flight risk On Friday, Mr Balot said justice had finally been served. Cho was arrested twice in July over alleged offending at the Austin Hospital 'Bail is not concerned with punishing an accused person in advance of a criminal trial,' he told the Daily Mail. 'Bail is concerned with ensuring that an accused person appears in court to answer his bail and complies with bail conditions. 'I am pleased with the decision of the Honourable Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria in releasing my client on bail. 'The entire team of our criminal lawyers at Balot Reilly Criminal Lawyers have worked tirelessly with Senior Counsel to regain his liberty.' Police alleged in court that Cho was a devious offender who knew exactly what he wanted and how to go about it. 'The accused has demonstrated in his level and pattern of offending that he is calculated and obsessed,' Senior Constable Neral Baykur said at an earlier hearing. 'The accused devoted enormous amounts of time and effort into keeping his colleagues under surveillance in their bathroom facilities. '[He went] to lengths to tamper with surrounding toilets to divert victims into where he set up and concealed his device, only to spend more time downloading and categorising the intimate footage and storing it on his laptop.' In addition to being a risk in the workplace, police claimed Cho was a further risk to the general community. 'The accused is currently residing in a shared house and poses an unacceptable risk to his housemates,' Senior Constable Baykur warned the court in July. Cho's parents hid their faces in July after their son was refused bail 'Analysis of his laptop hard drive demonstrates that his previous female housemates are also likely victims. 'Police have significant concerns for victims and their psychological safety and believe that the court should prioritise their protection and prevent the accused accessing further victims.' It was also alleged in court that Cho captured much of the footage by hanging mesh bags containing mobile phones on the back of staff toilet doors, which police allege he activated to capture hours of lewd footage. One phone allegedly contained 4,500 intimate videos of staff members, the court heard. One video file ran for more than three hours and allegedly captured various hospital staff in states of undress as they used the toilet, the court heard. Cho was granted bail with conditions including he must reside at a rental property with a parent under a curfew of 9pm to 6am. He must report to Footscray police station three times a week and not leave the country. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028 A 10ft drone came so close to colliding with a passenger jet that it covered the plane's windscreen. The Airbus A320 had just taken off from London's Heathrow Airport back in May and was at 9,000ft when the near-miss occurred, The Sun reports. A report into the incident by investigation bod UK Airpox Board said: 'Both the Captain and First Officer saw a bright white object pass overhead from the opposite direction. 'It appeared to be approximately two-three metres in size at the very least.' The report added: 'It may have been larger as it filled a good proportion of the windshield.' The report added that the aircraft was spotted on radar by air traffic controllers. The in-flight incident investigation body was told a suspected drone had been spotted near London's City Airport prior to the incident. 'The Captain only saw the object for a second or two in peripheral vision so could not reliably comment on the shape. No markings were identified.' The pilot stated that the object 'went over us, probably within about 10m'. FILE PHOTO: Drone flying in Hanworth Park in west London, as a British Airways 747 plane prepares to land at Heathrow Airport It is not clear which airline was operating the aircraft. It comes after a drone came within 30ft of colliding with a Boeing 737 airliner as it approached Gatwick Airport in April. In a separate incident, a suspected drone came within 10ft of crashing into a British Airways passenger jet flying over London. The plane, operated by the airline's regional carrier BA Cityflyer, was travelling at 3,000ft four nautical miles north west of London City Airport, when pilots noticed an object with lights. The crew of the Embraer 190, which can carry up to 98 passengers, reported spotting the object at 6.10pm on October 31 after climbing out of the east London airport on a route used for domestic services to Edinburgh and Glasgow. While the incident was reported to police, the nature of the object was never formally identified. According to a report filed by the UK Airprox Board, which monitors and analyses near misses, said that both pilots 'instinctively flinched' as the object came 'extremely close' to the aircraft. The report concluded the incident meant there was a 'definite risk of collision' and or required 'providence', an instinctive pilot judgement in response to an emergency situation. In recent years, pilots have warned of the risk of drones causing potentially catastrophic damage if sucked into a jet engine or smashing into a windscreen. Drones can only be legally flown to a maximum of 400ft in height - more than eight times less than the altitude the aircraft was flying. Gavin Newsom celebrated taking a giant step forward retaliation toward the Donald Trump-endorsed redistricting of Texas but going all out on his recent social media impression of the president. In the past week, Newsom's press office has consistently put out tweets aping the bombastic and singular style of Trump in an attempt to show some fight back from an increasingly unpopular Democrat Party. A day after the Texas State House approved a redistricting plan Trump thinks will eventually lead to Republicans gaining 100 seats in Congress, Newsom signed a law allowing California voters to decide whether the blue state will do the same. The governor celebrated by trotting out his new social media impression yet again. 'WOW!!! MY MAPS (THE BEST MAPS EVER MADE) WILL SOON PASS IN THE GREATEST LEGISLATURE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD (NOT JUST AMERICA),' he wrote. He joked that the maps are 'BETTER THAN COLUMBUS, BETTER THAN GOOGLE MAPS, BETTER THAN APPLE MAPS (SORRY TIM, NO GOLD BAR FOR ME, BUT I STILL LOVE YOU!).' 'PEOPLE ARE ALREADY SCREAMING 'MAMA! MAMA!' AND I SAY, 'NO, I AM YOUR DADDY!!!' THE GOLDEN ERA BEGINS IN THE GOLDEN STATE, ALL BECAUSE OF ME, THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNOR, THE CARTOGRAPHER-IN-CHIEF, WHO WILL NOW LET THE PEOPLE VOTE!!! THANK YOU, USA!!! GCN' California lawmakers voted mostly along party lines Thursday to approve legislation calling for the special election. Gavin Newsom celebrated taking a giant step forward retaliation toward the Donald Trump-endorsed redistricting of Texas but going all out on his recent social media impression of the president In the past week, Newsom's press office has consistently put out tweets aping the bombastic and singular style of Trump in an attempt to show some fight back from an increasingly unpopular Democrat Party Newsom, who has led the campaign in favor of the map, then quickly signed it the latest step in a tit-for-tat gerrymandering battle. 'This is not something six weeks ago that I ever imagined that I'd be doing,' Newsom said at a press conference, pledging a campaign for the measure that would reach out to Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. 'This is a reaction to an assault on our democracy in Texas.' Republicans, who have filed a lawsuit and called for a federal investigation into the plan, promised to fight the measure at the ballot box as well. California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was 'wrong' to push for new Republican seats elsewhere, contending the president was just responding to Democratic gerrymandering in other states. But he warned that Newsom's approach, which the governor has dubbed 'fight fire with fire,' was dangerous. 'You move forward fighting fire with fire and what happens?' Gallagher asked. 'You burn it all down.' Trump celebrated victory in Texas in the early morning hours on Thursday as the GOP passed a new redistricting law that Trump says could put the party on a path to gaining 100 seats in Congress. A day after the Texas State House approved a redistricting plan Trump thinks will eventually lead to Republicans gaining 100 seats in Congress , Newsom signed a law allowing California voters to decide whether the blue state will do the same. The governor celebrated by trotting out his new social media impression yet again The Texas House on Wednesday approved redrawn maps that would give the GOP a bigger edge in 2026, muscling through what critics called a partisan gerrymander that launched weeks of protests by Democrats and a widening national battle over redistricting. Trump not only celebrated the bill's passing on Truth Social, but spelled out his game plan for further Republican victories nationwide. 'Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down,' he wrote. He then listed which states may go this route next: 'Florida, Indiana, and others are looking to do the same thing. More seats equals less Crime, a great Economy, and a STRONG SECOND AMENDMENT. It means Happiness and Peace.' Trump said the next move is to, as he put it, 'STOP MAIL-IN VOTING, a total fraud that has no bounds' as well as instituting paper ballots. 'If we do these TWO things, we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over. God Bless America!!!' The maps, which would give Republicans five more winnable seats, are expected to to be approved by the GOP-controlled state Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott celebrated the passing of the bill by giving it a familiar nickname to many Trump fans. The Texas House on Wednesday approved redrawn maps that would give the GOP a bigger edge in 2026, muscling through what critics called a partisan gerrymander that launched weeks of protests by Democrats and a widening national battle over redistricting 'Congrats to the Texas House on passing the One Big Beautiful Map,' he wrote. 'It will make Texas, and Congress, a brighter shade of Red.' But the Texas House vote had presented the best chance for Democrats to derail the redraw. Democrats tried to resist by fleeing the state. In early August, 57 lawmakers skipped town, flying to Illinois and New York in a dramatic attempt to block the GOP's map vote. They then said that they were being treated like fugitives as they are threatened with arrest if they don't show up to the house to vote during a bitter redistricting fight that could hand Republicans and Donald Trump five extra seats in Congress. State troopers were ordered to shadow Democrats around the clock, even when they dropped their kids at school, to ensure they stayed for votes. Their forced presence gave the Texas House a quorum, the minimum number of lawmakers required to move legislation forward. A dispute over an unmarked private parking lot at one of the nations top mountain attractions owned by the nearby five-star Colorado resort came to blows this month, leaving an elderly parking attendant in critical condition in the hospital. Randy Blevins, 50, was arrested for second-degree assault after allegedly punching 66-year-old Shawn Patrick Carnahan in the head in the parking lot the Pikes Peak Cog Railway in Manitou Springs, Colorado. The railway - the highest cog railway in the world, climbing to 14,115 feet - is located right next to one of the town's most other most popular tourist attraction, the Manitou Incline, a steep hike up 2,768 steps ascending 2,000 feet in less than a mile. The Incline dead-ends at the railway parking lot, with the trains gift shop and restrooms visible directly across from the steps. The attraction is owned by The Broadmoor, the uber-luxurious hotel and spa about 20 minutes away - but there are no signs indicating the lot is private property or off limits. Its not unusual for unaware hikers to wander right through it. Blevins and his wife had completed the Incline on August 16 and were walking across the lot to the gift shop when they were stopped by an attendant and told it was off-limits - which Carnahan reiterated, according to a probable cause affidavit filed two days later. Blevins, his wife and witnesses told police that Carnahan grabbed Blevins by the shirt in an attempt to guide him off the property, the affidavit says. Blevins and his wife, Tanya, claimed Carnahan grabbed the hiker by the back of the shirt, spinning him around and then punching him in the right side of the head twice. Then Blevins punched the attendant with a force of 10 from 1 out of 10, they said. Two other witnesses, however, told police Carnahan grabbed Blevins by the 'front' of the shirt but never hit him. They said Blevins 'clocked' the attendant in the face, then punched him twice more on the ground after the 66-year-old fell. Colorado man Randy Blevins was arrested this week for second-degree assault after allegedly punching a 66-year-old parking attendant in the face in the parking lot of Pikes Peak Cog Railway on August 16 Blevins and his wife 'fled' the lot after the alleged assault, according to an affidavit, and police released footage of the pair before they were identified, contacted and agreed to interviews The altercation happened in the private parking lot of the Pikes Peak Cog Railway in Manitou Springs, Colorado, which draws thousands of people to the area daily The witnesses were both certain that at no point did Shawn hit Randy in the face. The attack happened after Blevins had been warned multiple times to leave, that he and his wife were trespassing and that police would be notified, they said. The Blevinses 'fled' the scene despite employee attempts to stop them, according to the affidavit. Responding police found Carnahan conscious but not alert completely unaware of what was occurring in his surroundings. Carnahan was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent surgery and was intubated, the affidavit adds. Authorities released descriptions and images of Tanya and Randy Blevins before they were identified, contacted and agreed to police interviews. The cog railway has been owned by The Broadmoor, a five-star resort and spa about 20 minutes away, for 100 years - and reopened in 2021 after a $100million revamp with more trains and passenger capacity. Hikers are not supposed to walk through attraction's parking lot Carnahan's condition was not immediately known on Friday. But its not the first time tensions between hikers and parking lot attendants at the Cog Railway which added several more daily trains four years ago after a multimillion-dollar revamp by The Broadmoor and its parent company, the Anschutz Corporation. The Broadmoor has owned and operated the Railway for a century. It pumped $100million into a three-year renovation, re-opening in 2021 with more trains and more departures. Ticket prices have steadily increased to $67 for an adult. The railway can accommodate up to 3,600 passengers per day on up to 15 departures, according to its website. While the parking lot was expanded to accommodate higher volumes, traffic remains one way in and one way out with a constant flow of visitors in the summer to both the railway and the Incline. Youve got to realize [how] different [it is] from what it was, Tim Hippie Sasquatch Harpe, an attendant at the adjacent Iron Springs Chateau private lot for Incline hikers, told the Daily Mail this week. Hikers park at his lot for $15 for four hours; cog railway passengers park at the private lot slightly uphill for $20. Because of limited capacity, spaces only become open 30 minutes before train departure times. The entrance to the Manitou Incline, a popular and steep hike up 2,768 steps ascending 2,000 feet in less than a mile, dead-ends at the railway's private parking lot - but there are no signs indicating that it's private property of off-limits to foot traffic One sign, pictured, prohibits 'hiker parking' - but no signage marks the lot as private property or off-limits to pedestrians. The most visible straight route to the railway gift shop and restrooms is through the lot from the end of the Incline - and multiple hikers told the Daily Mail they had no idea walking was prohibited A photo of the Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway on the day of its reopening in 2021 shows its tracks heading to the summit of Pikes Peak They only had one passing zone up there they could only have two trains on the track at a time, Harpe said. When they rebuilt it, they put three passing zones, so theyre allowed to get five trains on the tracks up there at a time. So every 20 minutes, theres a train coming down. For each arrival and departure, Cog Railway attendants got to get them people off that train, into the parking lot, into their vehicles and get them coming down while the next train, all the people theyre all trying to get in the lot. The train guys have 30 minutes to rotate in and out They dont have time to explain, he said. They got to get you in and out. He pointed out that traffic volumes and chaos can be dangerous when youve got 300 people getting off. Thats when wayward Incline visitors get thrown into the mix. One sign at the entrance warns 'NO HIKER PARKING' - but says nothing about visitors on foot. Multiple groups of hikers on Thursday told the Daily Mail they had no idea the parking lot was private or off limits. And theres been considerable rancor, it seems, over the way attendants impart this rule. Tim 'Hippie Sasquatch' Sharpe, an attendant at the adjacent lot for Incline parking at the Irong Springs Chateau, said traffic and pedestrian chaos has caused ongoing and considerable rancor over the past several years The Pikes Peak Cog Railway is the highest cog railway in the world, climbing to 14,115 feet, and has been operating since 1891 Nonprofit organization Incline Friends, dedicated to preserving the Manitou Incline, made a Facebook post this week noting they were deeply saddened by the recent incident. Despite the circumstances, we do not condone violence, it stated. We wish the Cog Attendant a swift and full recovery. The post garnered 479 comments in 48 hours with many sharing stories of perceived mistreatment by Cog employees. One Facebook user, who said he was just there last week, wrote: I do have to say the parking attendants that were there were rather short and borderline rude which doesnt help things. I know they are trying to herd cats but they dont have to be rude and impatient with people. When the Daily Mail approached a Cog parking attendant on Thursday, another employee materialized and would only repeat that all queries had to be directed to The Broadmoor. He initially refused to even point out what parking area was private given that no signs made that clear. If the attendants see you going through, they will chase you out, another Facebook user posted below the Incline Friends message. I started that way once not aware and they were very rude to me. Im sure people try it often and they are probably just tired of it but I was surprised with how gruff they addressed me and Im a 67 year old lady. Another poster wrote: When the exit leads straight to the parking lot, maybe more signage is needed most people dont associate trespassing with a parking lot! Walmarts parking lot is private property, but I would not expect a reaction like this just walking through. The Broadmoor did not respond to Daily Mail's repeated requests for comment. Blevins is schedule to make his first court appearance in Colorado Springs next month. A plumber quoted a 98-year-old World War II veteran $30,000 after being called out for what should have been a simple 20-minute fix. Sydney man John Rose thought he had a blocked toilet, so he turned to Google to find a local tradesman. He came across Point Plumbing also known as Dan's Plumbing and Fergusons Plumbing directed by Charbel Alha. One of the company's plumbers attended his home, inspected the toilet and checked the exterior of the house. Mr Rose paid a $6,000 to the plumber, which included $1,200 for a jet blast and camera inspection and $4,639 to remove the toilet. 'He came back and said "I've been under the house and the sewerage is leaking out under the house you see",' Mr Rose told A Current Affair. Mr Rose was told by the workers that 'remedial works' were needed, including excavation of a 2metre pipe under the house and potential concrete removal. 'He said "that's going to cost you another 30-odd thousand dollars". 'I trust people, I think he must be honest, he said "you won't get any cheaper",' Mr Rose said. John Rose, 98, (above) was quoted more than $30,000 for a blocked toilet that was later fixed in 20 minutes for $550 His friend Paul (pictured, left, with Mr Rose, right) contacted a plumber who discovered nothing had been done under the house despite the hefty quote Mr Rose then shared the quote to fix the remaining damage with his best mate Paul Nagy, who warned him the plumber was trying to rip him off. The pair called in Paul's plumber, who discovered nothing had been touched under Mr Rose's house. 'No dirt had been turned over, leaking sewerage wasn't there, Paul's mate's plumber fixed it for $550 dollars in 20 minutes,' Mr Rose said. 'I gave him a bottle of my wine.' The pair's actions helped the New South Wales government suspend Mr Alha's operating licence for 60 days. Alha has so far refused to return Mr Rose's $6,000 deposit. 'The written quote accurately described the works Point Plumbing offered to carry out, being a replacement of sewer service up to 2m under the house. The further quote provided clear and transparent pricing, being a fixed fee of $31,475,' he told the Daily Telegraph. Minister for Building Anoulack Chanthivong said: 'Tradies need to be on notice - if we find you have done the wrong thing, you will be caught, and action will be taken against you.' A 1980s children's TV star, who now sits on a government taskforce, has had her Aboriginality challenged in a claim before the Fair Work Commission. Malinda Rutter, a former reporter on children's show Simon Townsend's World, is a member of the eight-person NSW government Aboriginal business taskforce alongside AFL legend Adam Goodes, which was announced in March. She is currently defending an unfair dismissal claim brought against her Aboriginal filmmaking company company Blackfisch by her third cousin, Gomeroi knowledge keeper Matthew Priestley, who is known as Uncle Matt. Uncle Matt alleges he and his niece, Gomeroi woman Mika-Rose Tyson, were unfairly dismissed in September last year when Ms Rutter allegedly told them to 'f*** off back to the mission', according to documents submitted to the Fair Work Commission (FWC). Sky News reported that Ms Rutter admitted to telling Uncle Matt to 'f*** off' but denied saying, 'back to the mission' at a hearing before the FWC last month. Ms Rutter reportedly had her Aboriginal heritage repeatedly questioned at the hearing. 'My mother traced, as I said, part of her family to Bundjalung,' Ms Rutter told the hearing. 'There is a male side and there is a female side. I was told I had to identify as Gomeroi because you need to find the father's side. My mother's side is Bundjalung and also Gadigal. Malinda Rutter (pictured), a former reporter on children's show Simon Townsend's World, is a member of the eight-person NSW government Aboriginal business taskforce alongside AFL legend Adam Goodes, which was announced in March She is currently defending an unfair dismissal claim brought against her Aboriginal filmmaking company company Blackfisch by her third cousin, Gomeroi knowledge keeper Matthew Priestley, who is known as Uncle Matt (pictured: Ms Rutter in her TV heyday, second from right) Uncle Matt (pictured) 'That's all I claim, but I associate with a lot of mobs all over the country that I know in association.' Ms Rutter is reportedly defending the claim by arguing Uncle Matt and his niece were contractors, not employees, who voluntarily stopped working for Blackfisch. A decision on the claim is yet to be handed down by the FWC. Ms Rutter told Sky News it would be 'inappropriate' to comment on Uncle Matt's claims before the FWC hands down a finding. She co-founded Blackfisch in 2018 and is listed as a director on its website. Ms Rutter has publicly claimed to be a Gomeroi woman, in addition to a Bundjalung, Gidhabal and Gilbal woman. Uncle Matt worked as a consultant and director at Blackfisch. Healso starred in some of their campaigns for clients such as the NRMA. The Daily Mail approached Ms Rutter for further comment. A picturesque spa in the Canadian mountains has been rocked by claims its masseuses have sexually assaulted female clients. An unidentified woman claims in a class action lawsuit that she visited Nordik Spa Chelsea in Quebec on December 2, 2024 and was sexually assaulted by a male massage therapist. The suit, filed on August 13 in Montreal, claims that employees at the spa were made aware of the alleged incident but the establishment 'omitted to take the necessary measures to prevent or cease this abuse, thus directly engaging its responsibility in the matter,' according to Montreal City News. It goes on to note that there have been previous reports of sexual assault at the spa involving massage therapists, including at least one that led to a conviction and six-month prison sentence. After criminal charges were brought against a massage therapist at the spa in 2023, a general manager told CTV News that all subcontractors who provide massage therapy services must provide criminal record checks and proof of certification each year. 'Our client felt that the massage therapists' behavior and Le Nordik's response to the different cases of sexual abuse that took place at its establishment had to be denounced,' attorney Philippe Brault told the outlet about the recent suit. He added that a class action suit 'is an ideal tool for victims of sexual assault' as it 'favors access to justice for victims of sexual violence who already face enormous difficulties in pursuing individual remedies.' An unidentified woman claims in a class action lawsuit that she visited Nordik Spa Chelsea in Quebec (pictured) on December 2, and was sexually assaulted by a male massage therapist The suit, filed on August 13 in Montreal, claims that employee at the spa were made aware of the alleged incident but the establishment 'omitted to take the necessary measures to prevent or cease this abuse, thus directly engaging its responsibility in the matter' A spokesperson for the establishment sought to reassure the public that it does not tolerate any misconduct, and noted that the massage therapists must provide criminal record checks and proof of certification each year The suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of all the members of the class action, including the cost of the massage, plus taxes and interest, as well as legal fees and compensation for all damages. A spokesperson for the spa has said it would not comment on the lawsuit at this time. 'Nordik Spa Village Chelsea does not tolerate any misconduct or inappropriate behavior on the part of the massage therapists practicing in our spa,' the spokesperson told CTV News in a statement. 'All therapists are subject to rigorous screening at the onset, including a criminal background check. We also conduct audits throughout their time at the spa. 'We will comment on the allegations contained in a class action lawsuit that has just been filed against us, with full transparency, at the appropriate time,' the spokesperson vowed, noting: 'It is our policy to cooperate fully with the authorities whenever allegations are brought to our attention. 'For now, we would like to reassure the public about the rigor of our internal controls and our lack of tolerance for any behavior that compromises the safety or trust of our guests.' Erik Menendez has been denied parole, nearly 40 years after he and his brother killed their parents inside the family's Beverly Hills mansion. The 54-year-old appeared before the California Board of Parole Hearings on a live feed from the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego on Thursday, after a judge decided to reduce his and his brother Lyle's sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. The two have been campaigning for years, but the board told Erik he would be denied parole for three years due to his behavior in prison. They brought up prison reports of fights and other violations dating back to 1997, including drug and alcohol use, instances in which he was found with a contraband cell phone and even allegations that he helped a prison gang in a tax fraud scheme in 2013, the LA Times reports. 'Contrary to your supporters' beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner and frankly we find that a little disturbing,' the board said, according to reporter Brian Entin. The decision came after a full-day hearing during which commissioners on the board questioned Erik about why he committed the crime and why he violated prison rules. They began by asking him about his involvement in a burglary at the age of 17. 'It began as a prank with a couple of other people at a party and it escalated, and became a serious instance,' Erik recounted, according to NBC Los Angeles. 'I wanted to impress them and I was very immature and I made very poor decisions, and I ended up hurting those individuals that I burglarized.' Erik Menendez was denied parole by the California Board of Parole Hearings on Thursday A judge earlier this year reduced Erik (right) and his brother, Lyle's, sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years - making them eligible for parole He then went on to tell the commissioners that he was 'dealing with tremendous self-worth issues' at the time. 'I was not raised with a moral foundation,' he continued. 'I was raised purposely without the moral foundation that I should do no wrong when I know the difference between right and wrong. 'I was raised to lie, to cheat, to steal in a sense - an abstract way. 'When I was playing tennis, my father would make sure that I cheated at certain times if he told me to. 'The idea that there is a right and wrong that I do not cross because it's a moral bound[ary] was not instilled in me as a teenager.' Erik and Lyle was arrested for the shooting deaths of their parents, Kitty and Jose, as they watched a movie at their Beverly Hills mansion on August 20, 1989. The duo were 18 and 21 at the time they killed their parents. Their trial prompted worldwide headlines. Prosecutors said their motive was greed, as they stood to inherit $14 million from their parents and had spent large sums of cash following the murders. Erik had purchased a Jeep and retained a private tennis instructor with hopes of becoming a professional, while his brother bought a Porsche and a restaurant. The two were also infamously seen sitting courtside at an NBA game in between the murders and their arrest. The brothers insisted they acted against a father who sexually abused them for years and a mother who turned a blind eye to the abuse. The first trial ended with a hung jury. But at a second trial in 1996 - where the judge refused to allow any evidence about the brothers being molested by their father - they were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The brothers were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, inside their Beverly Hills mansion At the hearing on Thursday, Erik claimed he developed a 'moral guardrail' while in prison, where he earned a bachelor's degree with top academic honors. But he also said he decided to illegally obtain cellphones, despite the risk of discipline, because he did not believe there was a chance he could ever be released. He said he took the gamble because the 'connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone.' Erik also told how he decided to associate with a prison gang for his own protection. That all changed, he claimed, when he realized last year he could be paroled. 'Now, the consequences meant I was destroying my life,' the convict said. Much of the rest of the hearing was focused on the allegations of sexual abuse, with Erik claiming he bought firearms 'to protect myself in case my father or my mother came at me to kill me, or my father came in the room to rape me.' When he was then asked why he did not just run away or report the abuse to the police, Erik said he felt 'leaving meant death' and he had an 'absolute belief that I could not get away.' At the hearing on Thursday, Erik claimed he developed a 'moral guardrail' while in prison Prosecutors alleged at their trial the brothers were motivated by greed, though they insisted they were sexually abused by their father Another commissioner then asked why he decided to also kill his mother. Evidence at the trial showed she had crawled on the floor, wounded, before the brothers reloaded the shotguns they had bought with someone else's ID and fired a final shot. 'When Mom told me that she had known all of those years, it was the most devastating moment in my entire life,' Erik said, becoming visibly emotional. 'It changed everything for me. I had been protecting her by not telling her.' 'On that night, I saw them as one person,' he continued. 'Had she not been in the room, maybe it would have been different.' Erik also admitted at the hearing that his and his brother's spending spree was an 'incredibly callous act. 'I was torn between hatred of myself over what I did and wishing that I could undo it and trying to live out my life, making teenager decisions,' he explained. Erik also used the hearing on Thursday as a chance to apologize to his family. 'I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I have put them through,' he said. 'I know they have been here for me and they're here for me today, but I want them to know, that this should be about them. It's about them, and if I ever get the chance at freedom, I want the healing to be about them.' In a statement, the Mendendez family said they were disappointed by Thursday's ruling, noting that it was 'not what we hoped for. 'But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know that he will take the board's recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact hes had on others speak for themselves. 'We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon.' The family also said they are now turning their to Lyle's hearing, scheduled for Friday. 'And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home.' Erik's lawyers now have the ability to request a board review of the case for errors of fact. A junior medic who allegedly took seedy snaps of doctors and nurses in hospital toilets now faces more than 130 charges - and a court was told the final total could top more than 500. Ryan Yi Cho was charged with 127 more offences on Wednesday including producing intimate images and stalking but begged Victorian Supreme Court for bail on Friday. Cho, 28, of Croydon Hills in Melbourne's east, was denied bail in Melbourne Magistrates' Court last month but granted it on Friday, with strict conditions he is not allowed to possess any device, including a phone, which can record. On Friday, Cho's parents flew in from Singapore to offer a $50,000 bond to free him pending a trial and revealed they had spent $500,000 on his training to be a doctor. Cho's logistics manager dad, Wilson Cho, also told the court he had paid six months' advance rent for a Melbourne property and was prepared to pay more. Mr Cho also vowed to fully fund his son's living expenses and legal bills until criminal proceedings have been completed. He told Cho's defence silk Julian McMahon SC that, if freed, he would go on walking treks with his son and read books with him if internet usage was limited by the court. Mr McMahon, successfully engaged by top criminal lawyer George Balot, also told the court his client would only be allowed to use a phone which had no recording capabilities. Junior doctor Ryan Cho (pictured) allegedly hid cameras in hospital toilets to take seedy snaps of doctors and nurses now faces more than 130 charges - and a court was told the final total could top more than 500 Cho's parents flew in from Singapore to offer a $50,000 bond to free him pending a trial and revealed they had spent $500,000 on his training to be a doctor The court heard Cho, if granted bail, would not be allowed to enter professional workplaces or hospitals and must not approach witnesses. But prosecutor Russell B Hammill opposed Cho's release and said the accused had already approached one alleged victim, who was an ex-flatmate and a witness. Mr Hammill told the court Cho allegedly took intimate images of the female, who he hadn't contacted in 'three or four years' Mr Hammill also alleged it was assumed Cho contacted the former flatmate in a bid to live with her. Mr McMahon SC later told the court Cho contacted the female before he was charged in relation to her allegations, not after, as the prosecution suggested. Cho was charged by police on Wednesday with 127 further offences relating to alleged offending at the Austin Hospital, as well as Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The new charges relate to stalking, producing intimate images and installing optical surveillance devices, police said. Officers allege a mobile phone was used as a recording device in staff toilets at all three hospitals, which were used by doctors, nurses and other staff. Cho's parents outside the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday Police have confirmed their investigation is ongoing, including looking into other medical facilities where Cho (pictured) worked between 2020 and 2025 Police have confirmed their investigation is ongoing, including looking into other medical facilities where Cho worked between 2020 and 2025. Victoria Police investigators said more alleged victims are expected to be identified but the process could 'take some time'. Mr McMahon told the court that the charges against Cho are 'going to grow by hundreds more over the remainder of the year' . The court heard investigators had almost completed examining various electronic devices and had taken more than 200 statements. The prosecution expects hundreds more statements will be taken but can't say how many alleged victims there will be once the investigation is complete. Mr McMahon said his client had no ties to organised crime nor the contacts to facilitate a fake passport. A spokesperson for the Austin Hospital said it continues to focus its full support on all staff members affected and assist with the current police investigation. 'We take the safety and wellbeing of our staff extremely seriously and have comprehensive services in place to support them at this challenging time,' they told Daily Mail. Police released footage of the moment they arrested Cho 'Given that charges have been laid and the police investigation is ongoing, it is not appropriate to comment further.' The Daily Mail has contacted Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for comment. During an appearance at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on July 25, the court heard officers claimed to have found 10,374 video and image files of Cho's alleged victims on several devices. Victoria Police told the court there could be as many as 460 different people allegedly affected, who had all been named on numerous folders found on Cho's computer. The folders allegedly contained a variety of footage of both men and women using hospital toilets, the court heard. It was also alleged in court that Cho captured much of the footage by hanging mesh bags containing mobile phones on the back of staff toilet doors, which police allege he activated to capture hours of lewd footage. One phone allegedly contained 4,500 intimate videos of staff members, the court heard. One video file ran for more than three hours and allegedly captured various hospital staff in states of undress as they used the toilet, the court heard. Cho's parents covered up during an earlier hearing in July It was also heard that Cho is alleged to have sabotaged nearby toilets by removing flush buttons, clogging them with toilet paper, or locking them from the outside, so colleagues had no other option but to use the toilet he was filming in. Detectives believe Cho is alleged to have been offending across various Melbourne hospitals from as far back as 2021, the court heard. The court heard police believed the majority of Cho's alleged victims were doctors, nurses, paramedics and other hospital staff. But some videos appeared to have allegedly been captured in residential settings, with the court told detectives suspected they included Cho's previous housemates. The court was also told Cho secretly filmed friends of his housemates. Cho's dad took his glasses off and bowed his head in his hand as the allegations against his son were aired in court today. Mr Balot, of Balot Reilly Criminal Lawyers, who unsuccessfully argued his client should be released on bail on July 25 was resolute and committed to have his client released on bail. 'He has engaged criminal lawyers, a psychologist, a sexologist, his parents are in Australia to do whatever it takes to have him released to their care,' he said at the time. Cho is a Singapore citizen who has been living in Australia as a permanent resident after completing a Monash University medical degree. Mr Hammill told the court it was likely Cho will have his visa cancelled and be deported back to his homeland if he is sentenced to a jail term of 12 months or longer. Mr Hammill also highlighted Cho had no family ties to Australia nor did he own any property. The prosecution also feared Cho would have access to numerous public toilets while on bail. Justice James Elliott granted Cho bail with conditions including he must reside at the rental property with a parent under a curfew of 9pm to 6am. Cho must report to Footscray police station three times a week and not leave the country. Bruce Lehrmann's lawyer has branded the alleged sexual assault of Brittany Higgins a 'soft rape', while repeatedly testing the patience of Federal Court judges. Ms Higgins immediately responded on social media with a post, now deleted, that read simply: 'If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny.' The former political staffer is appealing his loss in the defamation action against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over a 2021 interview on The Project Lehrmann, 30, lost when Justice Michael Lee ruled 'on the balance of probabilities' that he had raped Ms Higgins, his then-colleague, in Parliament House in 2019. But during a two-day appeal hearing in the Federal Court this week, Lehrmann's lawyer Zali Burrows claimed Justice Lee's judgment was rife with errors. She told the court Justice Lee 'made up his own case' regarding what happened that night, which differed greatly from the 'forceful' rape alleged by The Project . 'Regrettably, I don't like to use the word "soft rape", but I have to use it,' she said. 'No doubt the media are going to make fun of that.' But Ms Burrows' argument baffled the three judges who presided over the hearing. Zali Burrows (pictured with Bruce Lehrmann) repeatedly tested the patience of Federal Court judges during his client's appeal hearing on Thursday Justice Michael Lee ruled 'on the balance of probabilities' that Bruce Lehrmann had raped then-colleague Brittany Higgins (pictured) in Parliament House in 2019. 'It is all very well to say these things out loud, but you need to explain why this is a different case,' Justice Craig Colvin said. 'The findings His Honour has made are all within the four corners of what was described.' Justice Michael Wigney remarked that he too was 'struggling to understand' Ms Burrows' argument. Ms Burrows told the court that Lehrmann would have conducted his case differently if the version detailed in Justice Lee's findings had been presented to him. 'Let's just say there was a version of what happened that there was loud music playing and screaming or something else happening,' she said. Justice Wigney interjected: 'That seems to be entirely hypothetical, because no one was suggesting that version of events, so let's focus on how you say Mr Lehrmann would have conducted his case differently.' Ms Burrows admitted: 'It's difficult to know, not being his lawyer at that time.' Her claims prompted the almost immediate response from Ms Higgins on Instagram, which was accompanied by the Taylor Swift song, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived Zali Burrows (pictured leaving court on Wednesday) admitted 'embarrassingly' could not find some documents during the two day appeal Bruce Lehrmann was described by his lawyer as 'probably Australia's most hated man' Ms Burrows repeatedly tested the judges' patience throughout Thursday. She described Justice Lee's judgment as 'a consolation prize' for Network Ten, which she later apologised for. She also made several requests to adjourn the hearing until Friday, after being unable to locate relevant papers, but these were denied. She initially argued that she needed more time to consider various matters and later admitted 'embarrassingly' could not find some documents. In her concluding statements, Ms Burrows doubted that anyone in the back of the court, including reporters, would have anything nice to say to Lehrmann, whom she described earlier in the hearing as having become 'probably Australia's most hated man'. 'Not even to ask, 'Are you okay?' she told the court. Ms Burrows then began describing the 'level of vitriol and hatred' her client had received before she was abruptly cut off. 'Is this a speech or is this a submission?' Justice Colvin asked. Brittany Higgins (pictured with husband David) took to Instagram after Ms Burrows' argument in court on Thursday Bruce Lehrmann is is appealing his defamation loss against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson (pictured right with Sue Chrysanthou SC) On the first day of the hearing, Ms Burrows admitted to the judges she come arrived unprepared. 'I'm just going to try and do the best I can,' she told the court on Wednesday. Lehrmann has always maintained that he did not sexually assault Ms Higgins. His appeal hearing had been set down for three days this week but concluded a day early on Thursday. The appeal judges will hand down their decision at a later date. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028 A Florida teenager who was reported missing more than two years ago has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with a deadly shooting in Durham, North Carolina. Gracie Elizabeth Faye Landa, 18, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with the May 30 shooting death of 23-year-old Christopher Piedrasanta-Perez, according to an arrest warrant filed in Durham County. Landa was reported missing from her home in Tampa in June 2023 at the age of 16. A year later, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said authorities believed she had traveled to Durham. However, no public updates on her whereabouts had been issued until her arrest this week. According to Durham police and court records, Piedrasanta-Perez and two women were sitting in a Honda Accord near Whippoorwill Park around 12:30 a.m. on May 30 when two to three suspects emerged from the woods and opened fire. Piedrasanta-Perez was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, and the two women sustained injuries. Investigators recovered at least 40 shell casings from the scene, a mix of 9mm and .223 rifle rounds, according to an autopsy report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Gracie Elizabeth Faye Landa (pictured), 18, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with murder Christopher Piedrasanta-Perez and two women were sitting in a Honda Accord near Whippoorwill Park around 12:30 a.m. on May 30 when two to three suspects emerged from the woods and opened fire. Pictured: Durham Police at the scene of the Whippoorwill Park shooting on May 30 Surveillance video from a nearby building captured two suspects firing at the car before fleeing on foot, a search warrant states. Authorities have not said how Landa is connected to the shooting or whether she was one of the gunmen. Her arrest warrant does not clarify whether she was in the car or nearby at the time of the incident and the investigation remains ongoing. The shooting appears to have stemmed from an ongoing conflict involving a planned fight between two other individuals, court documents state. Piedrasanta-Perez and the others in the car were reportedly present because a friend planned to confront another girl, but when they arrived, they were ambushed, the News and Observer reported. However, Piedrasanta-Perez's mother, Amalia Perez, told Fox8 her son had just completed a DoorDash delivery with his girlfriend and was sitting in the car when the shooting occurred. 'Several people came out of the woods and started shooting at them,' she said, adding that police informed her that additional suspects remain at large. 'I have faith that they will get punished for what they did, because my son didn't deserve this,' she said, through tears. 'He was not out there looking for trouble. I really don't know why this happened. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.' Christopher Piedrasanta-Perez (pictured), 23, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, and the two women sustained injuries The Whippoorwill Park (pictured) shooting appears to have stemmed from an ongoing conflict involving a planned fight between two other individuals, according to court documents Piedrasanta-Perez was described by family members as a kind and hardworking young man who was the oldest of four siblings. A GoFundMe campaign launched in his memory said his 'presence brought light and comfort to the family.' 'Christopher was more than just a son, a brother, a friend, he was a light in our lives. With his calm and cool presence, he had a way of making everyone around him feel safe and seen. 'Whether through his quiet smile, his thoughtful words, or the comforting energy he brought into a room, he left an impression that wont be forgotten,' the fundraising page reads. Landa remains in the Durham County Jail without bond. She made her first court appearance on Tuesday and is scheduled to return to court on September 11. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has joined an international coalition in condemning Israel's plan to build a sprawling new settlement in the West Bank, further damaging Australia's already frayed relationship with Israel. Israel recently approved plans to construct settlements in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank. The country's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich - who is sanctioned by Australia and the UK - said the E1 development 'definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state'. 'Simply because there is nothing to recognise, and no-one to recognise,' Smotrich said last week. But on Friday morning Senator Wong released a joint statement with 20 other Western nations and the European Union, including the UK, France, Canada and the Netherlands, to condemn the plans, describing them as 'unacceptable and a violation of international law'. 'We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms,' the joint statement added. 'Minister Smotrich says this plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem. 'This brings no benefits to the Israeli people. Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has joined an international coalition in condemning Israel's plan to build a sprawling new settlement in the West Bank, further damaging Australia's already frayed relationship with Israel 'The Government of Israel still has an opportunity to stop the E1 plan going any further. We encourage them to urgently retract this plan.' Senator Wong insisted that the unilateral action 'undermines our collective desire for security and prosperity in the Middle East'. 'The Israeli government must stop settlement construction in line with UNSC Resolution 2334 and remove their restrictions on the finances of the Palestinian Authority,' she added. The move will risk inflaming the already fierce tensions between Israel and Australia, which are at their lowest ebb since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu erupted in fury and labelled Anthony Albanese 'weak' after the Australian Prime Minister decided to join other Western nations in recognising Palestinian statehood at the United Nations next month. Tensions deteriorated further after Immigration Minister Tony Burke revoked the visa of elected Israeli politician Simcha Rothman because he had described Palestinian children as 'enemies'. In response, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said the visas of Australia's representatives to the Palestinian Authority had been revoked. On Thursday night, Netanyahu intensified his attacks on Albanese, claiming he was a 'weak leader' who had 'abandoned' Australia's Jews. On Thursday night, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intensified his attacks on Albanese, claiming he was a 'weak leader' who had 'abandoned' Australia's Jews. 'I'm sure he has a reputable record as a public servant, but I think his record is forever tarnished by the weakness he has shown in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters,' Netanyahu told Sky News. 'When the worst terrorist organisation on earth these savages who murdered women, raped them, beheaded men, burnt babies alive in front of their parents and took hundreds of hostages. 'When these people congratulate the Prime Minister of Australia, you know something is wrong.' A woman in her 30s has been charged after the body of a newborn baby boy was found in a stormwater drain. Tradesmen undergoing routine checks made found the baby while cleaning a drain on La Salle Road in the Perth suburb of Alexander Heights on Monday afternoon. Detectives believe the newborn, wrapped in a sheet, had been placed in the drain several days earlier, prompting a search for his mother due to 'serious concerns' for her welfare. WA Police on Friday confirmed a woman, believed to be the mother, had been charged with concealing the birth of a deceased child. She will face Perth Magistrates court at a later date. 'At this stage, our information suggests the baby was not killed violently,' WA Police Acting Inspector Jessica Securo told a press conference on Friday afternoon. 'However the circumstances around the death of the child is ongoing. This, of course, is highly distressing for the entire community detectives, and the family of the infant. 'The assistance of the community in this matter has been invaluable.' Police have charged a woman after a newborn baby was discovered in a stormwater drain (pictured, officers at the scene) The woman, believed to be the child's mother, was charged with concealing the birth of a deceased child (pictured, officers at the scene) Authorities are still investigating the exact cause of the baby boy's death. 'The baby was not killed violently however the circumstances around the death of the child are ongoing,' Insp Securo said. The investigation is progressing, and I can't answer at this stage if charges will be upgraded or not.' Insp Securo added the mother was receiving physical and mental care 'and when she's able to, she'll be put before the court'. The news comes two days after police said a woman was assisting with inquiries. 'The Western Australia Police Force would like to thank the community for their concern, support and assistance,' the statement read. 'Given the sensitivities, we will be making no further comment at this time.' 'The care of the mother should be all of our priorities at the moment,' WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch told ABC Radio earlier in the day. Shocked locals have placed stuffed toys and flowers (pictured) near the scene Locals will hold a community vigil for the baby boy on Saturday night (pictured, a makeshift memorial at the scene) 'There's probably a range of reasons (she hadn't come forward), including legal, but health reasons, mental health reasons, all sorts of reasons why that mother needs the best care we can give them, and I think that's got to be everyone's priority right now.' The tradesmen were clearing the drains of debris and assessing for blockages when they came across the grim discovery. 'It was by coincidence that they were there,' Detective Senior Sergeant Cleal said. 'There was no information that sent workers to that drain. This was a chance discovery. 'Not that you can prepare for a discovery like this, but they were very unprepared.' The tragedy has shocked locals, who have placed tributes near the scene and will hold a candlelight vigil at Highview Park on Saturday night. 'Having to physically be in the area where a poor innocent infant is just heartbreaking,' one woman told Seven News. WA Premier Roger Cook added: 'This is a horrifying, horrifying scenario, from the mother of this child through to the discovery of this child's body by those drain workers. 'I cannot think of a more harrowing set of circumstances for people to be confronted with. 'This goes to the heart of everyone's sense of humanity, a small child whose life has passed under tragic circumstances.' Passengers were left screaming in fear after severe turbulence rocked a Wizz Air flight from Spain before it was forced to make an emergency landing. Terrified passengers could be heard loudly screeching as the airplane grappled with heavy turbulence while trying to make its way from Alicante to Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Travellers 'thanked God we're alive' after the Airbus A321 was forced to make an emergency landing in Bologna early on Thursday morning. Shocking footage shows the plane shaking intensely while the lights remain mostly off and a red light flashes outside the window. A video of the turbulence, posted on TikTok, is captioned 'Attimi di terrore sul volo', meaning 'Moments of terror on the flight'. Italy has been suffering with extreme weather this summer and Rome is currently under a severe thunderstorm warning. Bad weather conditions in the region caused problems for the Wizz Air jet when trying to land. After several attempts to land at Fiumicino, the country's busiest airport, the flight abandoned its scheduled route and landed in Bologna, over 250 miles away. Passengers were left screaming in fear after severe turbulence rocked a Wizz Air flight from Spain before it was forced to make an emergency landing Terrified passengers could be heard loudly screeching as the airplane grappled with heavy turbulence while trying to make its way from Alicante to Fiumicino Airport in Rome Shocking footage, posted on TikTok, is captioned Attimi di terrore sul volo', meaning 'Moments of terror on the flight' The plane's departure had already been delayed by one hour and 17 minutes and it landed in Bologna at 3:53am, two hours and 48 minutes after it was supposed to arrive in Rome. The Alicante to Rome route typically takes just under two hours. Wizz Air said: 'Wizz Air flight W4 6038 from Alicante to Rome Fiumicino on August 20 was diverted to Bologna Airport after it was unable to land safely due to adverse weather conditions at Rome Fiumicino Airport. 'The aircraft landed safely and without incident in Bologna at 3:57 a.m. local time. Passengers were provided with ground transportation from Bologna to Rome.' They later added that passengers had been informed that, 'if they had independently arranged ground transportation, they would be entitled to a refund in accordance with European regulations. 'Weather conditions are beyond the airline's control, and safety remains Wizz Air's top priority.' The airline added that this 'is a standard procedure in the event that conditions are not ideal for a safe landing' and thanked the pilots and cabin crew for 'ensuring everyone's safety during the turbulence and for making the right decision to divert the flight to Bologna.' Wizz Air, a Hungarian ultra low-cost airline, is popular in the UK and has bases at Gatwick and Luton airports. The plane's departure had already been delayed by one hour and 17 minutes and it landed in Bologna at 3:53am, two hours and 48 minutes after it was supposed to arrive in Rome Travellers were left 'thanking God we're alive' after the Airbus A321 was forced to make an emergency landing in Bologna early on Thursday morning Two months ago nine passengers were injured after heavy turbulence hit a Ryanair flight from Berlin to Milan The incident comes two months after nine people were injured when severe turbulence hit a Ryanair flight. Passengers and crew were left in tears as the plane from Berlin to Milan was forced to make an emergency landing. The flight encountered thunderstorms over southern Germany, with reports that people were thrown from their seats into the cabin ceiling as the plane was buffeted. Passengers were reportedly kept on the plane for several hours leaving the shaken travellers 'irritable' and 'agitated'. Emergency services met passengers off the plane after the flight's captain requested medical assistance ahead of landing. A Labour run council has banned fireworks ahead of bonfire night after red pandas were 'killed by stress' caused by a previous display. Last year Edinburgh Zoo vets blamed the death of three-month-old panda kit Roxie and its mother on her reaction to fireworks in the local area. Wildlife conservation charity the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), which owns Edinburgh Zoo, said Roxie choked on her own vomit. The ban will be in place in nine neighbourhoods in Edinburgh between Halloween and November 9, after the city council expanded the list of banned areas following a trial last year, The Telegraph reported. The firework control zones (FCZ) restrict the use of fireworks in a specific area to protect people or animals. They were first introduced by Edinburgh City Council in Balerno, Calton Hill, Niddrie and Seafield last August. Now the council has voted to introduce new bans in Moredun, Gracemount, Longstone, Sighthill and crucially Corstorphine, the area where Edinburgh Zoo and its red pandas live. The RZSS welcomed the move after previously calling for displays to be 'restricted to organised events which use the latest light and drone technology and are completely silent'. Roxie had recently lost her own mother shortly after she was born but had been responding well Roxie the three month old Red Panda died on Bonfire Night at Edinburgh Zoo Veterinary experts believe Roxie died due to stress caused by fireworks in the city centre The move has also cast doubt over the famed Hogmanay celebrations in the city. The Scottish capital is known around the world for its spectacular fireworks on New Year's Eve and other occasions including the city's summer festivals. The Hogmanay display was set to see more than 8500 fireworks burst over Edinburgh Castle at the bells until outdoor events were cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. Ben Supple, the chief executive of the RZSS, said: 'We are very grateful to the council for creating a fireworks exclusion zone around Edinburgh Zoo. 'Roxie sadly choked to death on her sick last bonfire night and it is very likely that this was due to stress from fireworks. 'The loud bangs would have been incredibly frightening for her and fireworks may have also contributed to the death of her mum Ginger five days earlier.' He added that Firework exclusion zones are an 'important step' to protect animals living in the city. City of Edinburgh Council Leader Jane Meagher, previously said she was in favour of alternatives being used in the future, after she was inspired by events in her own Portobello and Craigmillar ward, around Bonfire Night. Edinburgh could move away from large public firework displays in the future, according to the city council's leader The Scottish capital is known around the world for its spectacular fireworks on New Year's Eve and other occasions including the city's summer festivals She said the 'days when we send explosives up into the air' are coming to an end. Cllr Meagher said: 'One of things I experienced in November was how alternatives to fireworks can be really successful and happy. I went to a couple of events that didn't rely on fireworks and they were just wonderful and heartwarming. 'I keep going back to my recent experience of alternatives so in terms of light shows and fabulous laser displays for example, absolutely.' Cllr Meagher cited noise pollution and consideration for animals including pets, animals in zoos and wildlife as well as people for whom loud bangs can be traumatic. She said expert advice would be needed, alongside public consultation, adding: 'It would have to be done with cooperation. 'These sorts of changes have to be done incrementally but I think that there is sufficient public interest in making these sorts of changes that we could move forward. 'We could be trailblazers. I've been to events - some of the opening events for the festivals that I've been involved with where there has been really inventive use of other forms of spectacular display. 'We would have to take expert advice and consult but I can imagine we could be a trailblazer.' The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), which runs Edinburgh Zoo, has called for displays to be 'restricted to organised events which use the latest light and drone technology and are completely silent' Will Evans, director of Titanium Fireworks, creators of Edinburgh's annual Hogmanay fireworks display, said the industry faced concerns about pets and animals, environmental pollution and the effects on people affected by noise and light Elisa Allen, Vice President of Programmes for PETA, called for the permanent banning of fireworks in Edinburgh. She said: 'The loud bangs, vibrations, and flashes, which terrorise some communities daily, confuse and terrify wildlife and companion animals, putting them at risk of injury, displacement, and death. They also distress humans, such as those who suffer from PTSD and children sensitive to noise. 'Yet over 90% of Brits would gladly be dazzled by laser shows, drones, or silent fireworks out of consideration for others, and the use of these technologies by major events would further increase their popularity. 'In 2024, a report revealed that blasts kill or injure over 100 horses a year, a 1 million-strong petition called for greater restrictions on these menacing missiles, and two endangered red pandas died after booms shook Edinburgh around bonfire night. 'In 2025, event organisers must embrace stunning spectacles that everyone can enjoy and celebrate without leaving devastation in their wake.' Will Evans, director of Titanium Fireworks, creators of Edinburgh's annual Hogmanay fireworks display, said the industry faced concerns about pets and animals, environmental pollution and the effects on people affected by noise and light. He said: 'As an industry these are areas we are working on... We will always advocate for the strict use of fireworks, sensibly, in the right place at the right time.' An autopsy has shed new light on the death of a French streamer who died live on camera following days of alleged torture. Raphael Graven, better known online as Jean Pormanove, was found dead at a residence in Contes, a village north of Nice, on Monday. He was a prominent figure on Kick - a streaming platform similar to Twitch where people broadcast live video to an audience who can comment and donate money in real time. It had been alleged that Graven, 46, was subjected to gruesome online challenges involving humiliation, violence, and dangerous stunts before his death. Previous streams reportedly saw Graven slapped, strangled, force-fed, doused in unpleasant liquids, and targeted with a paintball gun. And it was claimed in his native France that he had died after 'ten days of torture', sleep deprivation and ingestion of toxic products'. But now, prosecutor Damien Martinelli has revealed that medical examiners believed Graven's death 'was not traumatic in origin' and 'not related to the intervention of a third party'. He said forensic doctors had found no 'internal or external traumatic injuries' or burns - only a few bruises and healed lesions. An autopsy has shed new light on the death of a French online star who was allegedly tortured before dying in front of viewers on a live stream. Raphael Graven, better known online as Jean Pormanove, was a major figure in France 's streaming world with more than a million followers across social media The popular Kick creator, 46, was found dead overnight on Monday, in bed at his home in Contes, near Nice It had been alleged that Graven, 46, was subjected to gruesome online challenges involving humiliation, violence, and dangerous stunts before his death American internet personality and online streamer Adin Ross, who boasts 6.7million followers on Instagram, announced on X on Tuesday that he and Drake will be paying for the funeral 'The probable causes of death appear to be medical and/or toxicological,' he said. He said further tests had been ordered, and Graven may have had a heart issue in addition to receiving treatment for a problem with his thyroid. Graven was previously believed to have passed away in his sleep during a live broadcast, following what friends have described as relentless 'humiliation streams'. Canadian rapper Drake has reportedly deleted his Kick account after offering to pay for Graven's funeral. The star is planning to cover funeral costs along with internet personality and online streamer Adin Ross, who boasts 6.7million followers on Instagram. Adin announced on X on Tuesday that he and Drake will be paying for the funeral. He wrote: 'This is horrible and disgusting. Whoever was apart of this deserves to face severe consequences. 'I just spoke with drake. Drake and I will be covering the funeral costs, this won't bring his life back, it's the least we can do. Prayers go out to Jean's family'. Drake joined Adin, who is renowned for his collaborations with celebrities, on his YouTube livestream August 10. It comes as the rapper has now reportedly deleted Kick amid apparent tensions with the platform's co-owners, particularly Ed Craven. The rapper has not yet confirmed why he left the platform. Owen Cenazandotti, known by pseudonym Naruto (pictured left with Raphael Graven), and Safine Hamadi, known by pseudonym Safine (pictured right) were also in the room during the livestream Internet users said the livestream, which was widely shared afterwards, showed Graven lying motionless under a bed cover. A fundraising counter shown on the video suggested the group had collected more than 31,000. One of two men in the room with him, Owen Cenazandotti and Safine Hamadi, known by pseudonyms Naruto and Safine, threw a plastic water bottle in his direction. Naruto and Safine had already been questioned by police in a separate inquiry in January over claims they were mistreating vulnerable people in online events to generate payments from viewers. Graven was interviewed as a potential victim at the time but denied having suffered any violence, prosecutor Damien Martinelli said. Instead, Graven and another potential victim told police the events 'were staged and aimed at creating a buzz and earning money', he said. Graven said he made 'sums of 6,000 euros' generated by his company thanks to contracts with streaming platforms. 'Both said they were never injured, were free to come and go, and to make their own decisions,' the prosecutor said. They also declined a medical and psychiatric examination. Australian platform Kick said Wednesday all co-streamers involved in the event had been banned from the platform pending the outcome of the investigation. It said it was also running a 'complete re-evaluation' of its French content. The platform is seen as having less stringent user terms than those of its rival, the better-known Twitch streaming service. Police had been questioning witnesses and seizing evidence, including videos, prosecutor Damien Martinelli said in a statement. 'Several interviews with people present at the time of his death have been conducted without yielding leads as to its causes,' Martinelli said, adding that the autopsy would be carried out on Thursday. Drake (pictured in 2022) is reportedly covering the funeral costs of French online star Raphael Graven with online streamer Adin Ross Drake joined Adin Ross, who is renowned for his collaborations with celebrities, on his YouTube livestream August 10 'The death of Jean Pormanove and the violence he suffered are an absolute horror,' said Clara Chappaz, French junior minister for digital matters. Officials insisted that 'nothing suspicious' had yet been identified, but shocking claims from local media allege Graven endured sleep deprivation, extreme violence, and ingestion of toxic substances before the tragedy. It has been reported that a few days before his death, Graven sent a heartbreaking final message to his mother to say he felt as if he was 'being held hostage' and admitted he was 'fed up' with the controversial streams that had become his trademark. Speaking out on the matter, Graven's family said that what he went through in the lead up to his death was was 'unacceptable'. Talking to RTL following the tradgedy, the streamer's mother described him as a boy 'with a big heart' and said he gained a second family living in Nice. 'He had brothers in Metz, but he found brothers in Nice, he was a family, he was invited everywhere,' she told the media company. And his sister now believes he died due to exhaustion as she says his death is 'intolerable'. 'I was very, very proud of what my brother became,' she said. 'I didn't watch everything, but I think he shouldn't have died like that, that he died of exhaustion. What he went through is unacceptable.' Naruto, announced Graven's death on Instagram, paying tribute to his 'brother, sidekick, partner'. He pleaded with fans not to share clips of the disturbing live stream, where Graven appeared unconscious before being found dead in bed. France's Minister for Digital Affairs and Artificial Intelligence, Clara Chappaz, condemned the ordeal as an 'absolute horror' and said platforms must do more to protect vulnerable creators. Sarah El Hairy, the High Commissioner for Children, described the tragedy as 'horrifying', warning parents to remain vigilant about the violent content children can access online. Kick, the streaming platform where Jeanpormanove built his following, said it was 'deeply saddened' by his death and promised to urgently review the circumstances. 'We are urgently reviewing the circumstances and collaborating with relevant stakeholders. Kick's community guidelines are designed to protect creators, and we are committed to enforcing them across our platform,' a spokesperson told AFP. The case has shone a harsh spotlight on the murky world of 'humiliation streams' in France, where creators allegedly endure extreme abuse for views and donations. Le Monde described the dark side of human nature as 'reminiscent of some of the most chilling episodes from the British dystopian tech series Black Mirror.' Israel's defence minister has warned that 'the gates of hell will soon open up' on Hamas if it does not accept a peace deal on the country's terms. In a post on X, Israel Katz said: 'Soon the gates of hell will open for the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza, until they accept the conditions set by Israel for ending the war.' He added: 'If they do not accept, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah or Beit Hanoun.' His comments come after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered talks to free all remaining hostages in Gaza, even as he vowed to push ahead with plans for a major military assault on the region. On Thursday, warplanes and helicopters flew over Gaza City, striking buildings throughout the day, while artillery fire targeted Shejaiya in the east and Sabra in the south, according to residents. The move went ahead despite criticism from the international community, Palestinian residents, and thousands of Israelis who protested in recent days. Meanwhile, famine has been confirmed in Gaza for the first time. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised its classification to Phase 5, the worst level, on Friday. More than one million people are preparing to flee Gaza City and the surrounding areas as the army orders civilians to evacuate ahead of the expected assault. Despite the invasion, Netanyahu has said he has ordered negotiations for the release of all the hostages that remain in Gaza. Smoke rises above the sky in Gaza in the aftermath of Israel's strikes on Thursday Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered talks to free all remaining hostages in Hamas, even as he pushed ahead with plans for a major military assault on Gaza City On Thursday, warplanes and helicopters flew over Gaza City, striking buildings throughout the day, while artillery fire targeted Shejaiya in the east and Sabra in the south, according to residents In a pre-recorded message filmed outside the IDF's Gaza Division headquarters, he said: 'I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the defence minister for taking control of Gaza City and for defeating Hamas.' He added: 'At the same time, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and for ending the war under conditions acceptable to Israel.' According to the Hamas-run health service in the region, 25 Palestinians have been killed since dawn, including three children. Meanwhile, Hamas on Monday said it had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire proposal put together by mediators from Qatar and Egypt. In that deal, half of the hostages would be released. Eighteen bodies of hostages who have died would also be released, under the proposal. Although Israel previously accepted a similar framework, Netanyahu has recently taken a harder line and has not accepted the offer. He says there will be no halt to the fighting unless all 50 captives are released at once and Hamas gives up its weapons. Netanyahu has also insisted on a list of conditions for ending the war, including the disarmament of Hamas, the demilitarisation of Gaza, full Israeli security control, and a new governing authority that is not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Pictures released on Thursday showed Palestinians fleeing as strikes rained down behind them in an area where displaced residents lived, according to Reuters In a pre-recorded message filmed outside the IDF'S Gaza Division headquarters, he said: 'I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the defense minister for taking control of Gaza City and for defeating Hamas' On Thursday, he appeared on Australian TV and insisted that the invasion must go ahead. He said: 'We're going to do that anyway. That there was never a question that we're not going to leave Hamas there.' Israel says its forces are already on the outskirts of Gaza City. Brigadier General Effie Defrin said troops were also active in Jabalya in the north and Zeitoun in the south. He vowed: 'We will deepen the blows to the terror infrastructure above and below ground, and disconnect the reliance of the population on Hamas.' Meanwhile, Netanyahu has told the army to 'shorten the timelines for seizing the last terror strongholds and for the defeat of Hamas. Pictures released on Thursday showed Palestinians fleeing as strikes rained down behind them in an area where displaced residents lived, according to Reuters. The Israeli military has confirmed it has warned medical officials and international organisations to prepare for the huge evacuation as it continues its operations. Under current IDF plans, the entire population of Gaza City is to be moved into shelters in the south. Palestinians inspecting the damage after the huge Israeli strikes yesterday Destroyed buildings after the attacks on Thursday. Netanyahu has told the army to 'shorten the timelines for seizing the last terror strongholds and for the defeat of Hamas A statement said: 'The officers emphasised to the medical officials that adjustments are being made to the hospital infrastructure in the south of the Strip to receive the sick and wounded, alongside an increased entry of necessary medical equipment.' The IDF has called up 60,000 reservists as the war continues. Plans suggest reservists would report in September, bringing the total active force to about 120,000. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged a ceasefire in Gaza, warning the new operation could bring a 'catastrophic' humanitarian toll. Speaking in Japan, he said: 'It is vital to reach immediately a ceasefire in Gaza necessary to avoid the death and destruction that a military operation against Gaza City would inevitably cause.' Sightings of Peter Dutton have been rare since a crushing federal election loss. But the former opposition leader stole the limelight at the annual Liberal National Party convention, making a surprise appearance in Brisbane on Friday. He received a standing ovation after being hailed as a 'great son of the party' by outgoing president Lawrence Springborg and got another during praise from successor Sussan Ley. But Dutton, 54, ruled out making a comeback despite the reception, saying he was 'too old for that'. Dutton had kept a low profile since a devastating federal campaign, when the coalition lost the election and he was dumped from his Brisbane seat of Dickson. Yet he was hard to miss as he joined hundreds of party members for the opening day's addresses. Dutton was 'very grateful' for the rousing ovations after glowing tributes from Ley and Springborg, the architect of the 2008 LNP merger in Queensland. 'I have a lot of friends in the room,' he told reporters. Former opposition leader Peter Dutton (pictured) received a standing ovation at the annual Liberal National Party convention in Brisbane on Friday 'I've dedicated almost a quarter of a century to this party and love our state and our country and I'll always do everything I can to see the best days ahead of us.' Asked if he would consider a political return, Dutton said: 'No mate, I'm too old for that'. Dutton said his successor Ley was doing a 'great job' after soaking up her opening day address. 'I think you saw in Sussan's speech today a commitment to the principles which are important to families, small business, and making sure that the vision is there for the next election,' he said. In her speech, Ley said they must face the reality of the federal election after Labor pulled off its biggest victory since 1943. Plans to modernise and broaden the LNP's appeal were paramount, she said. 'Our task is to take the lessons of defeat and turn them into the foundations of renewal.' Ley said years under Dutton would help guide her through LNP's next phase. After his political loss during this year's federal election (pictured, Dutton making his concession speech), Dutton has ruled out making a comeback, saying he was 'too old for that' 'Your record is one of courage, commitment and conviction. I'm proud to have been your deputy for three years,' she said of Dutton. 'I think about Peter often as I walk the corridors of Parliament House. What would Peter say? What would you do?' Mr Springborg said Dutton would have been prime minister with a four-seat majority if the party's Queensland May 2025 federal poll success was repeated nationwide. The Coalition holds 16 of 30 seats in Queensland after winning more than 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote at the federal election. Springborg is set to step down as party president, a position he has held since 2021. His impact has spanned decades, playing an instrumental role in creating the LNP 17 years ago. The LNP has dominated Australia's biggest council - Brisbane City - for 20 years, while David Crisafulli ended Labor's nine-year reign at the 2024 state election. It also maintained a lower-house majority in Queensland at the federal election despite Labor's crushing win. Springborg - who led the LNP in 2008-2009 and 2015 -2016 - will remain Queensland border town Goondiwindi's mayor. Nationals leader David Littleproud will feature at the three-day convention on Saturday, with Crisafulli on Sunday. The party will debate 163 resolutions in open sessions, with topics including abandoning net zero, phasing out pokies and an anti-Semitism summit. Police in Greece are probing the mysterious death of a British man found in the sea off the popular island of Rhodes. According to local reports, the 26-year-old was discovered unconscious in Lindos on August 16. The Central Port Authority of Rhodes said it was notified of an incident that involved a young foreigner who was pulled from the sea. Although emergency services were dispatched to the scene, the man was pronounced dead. Doctors confirmed his death at the Archangelos Health Centre. Cops have now launched an investigation into the mysterious incident. Reports indicate that an autopsy has been ordered by the Forensic Medical Service. The identity of the man has not been made public. The Foreign Office told Daily Mail: 'We are supporting the family of a British man who died in Greece and are in contact with the local authorities.' According to reports, the 26-year-old man was found unconscious in the sea in Rhodes and was pronounced dead at the Archangelos Health Centre It comes after it was reported that a British man was found dead on a beach in Rhodes in June. The 68-year-old had reportedly gone for a swim and lost consciousness before passing away. Last month, a 74-year-old Brit was also found dead on his sun lounger in Agia Paraskevi on the Greek island of Skiathos. More than 70 firefighters tackled an overnight blaze at a suspected 'cannabis factory' in north London. Twelve fire engines and around 80 firefighters were called to a mid-terraced property in Walthamstow shortly after 2am on Friday, according to the London Fire Brigade. Most of the ground floor, half of the home's first floor and the roof of the two-storey house in Knebworth Avenue were destroyed by the blaze. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Daylight images show the extent of the damage to the building. The roof and walls of the house have become black and burned, with windows of the property shattered. A fire brigade spokesperson said: 'Cannabis factory fires can be particularly dangerous because of the way criminals use unsafe wiring to illegally obtain electricity in order to grow the plants. 'They're often in top floors or lofts which means when a fire takes hold it spreads, destroying roofs and damaging neighbouring buildings. The fire tore through the terraced property and quickly spread concerns of further ignition in neighbouring homes Most of the ground floor, half of the home's first floor and the roof of the two-storey house in Knebworth Avenue were destroyed by the blaze Around 70 firefighters tackled the blaze at the two-storey house Crews from Walthamstow, Chingford, Woodford, Leyton, Tottenham, Edmonton, Homerton, Stratford, Enfield and Holloway fire stations all tackled the fire Firefighters tackled the blaze at the Walthamstow house for more than two hours 'Firefighters can also be exposed to risks when dealing with the fires because of bad wiring and traps at some of the properties.' Control officers received calls just before 3am and the brigade said the fire was under control just before 5am. Crews from Walthamstow, Chingford, Woodford, Leyton, Tottenham, Edmonton, Homerton, Stratford, Enfield and Holloway fire stations all tackled the fire. Labour MPs have called for a Rwanda-style deportation scheme as official figures showed the number of asylum applications in the UK reaching a new record high. Home Office data showed a total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June - up 14 per cent from 97,107 in the year to June 2024. It is the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001. Of the claims, 39 per cent were made by people who arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel. Just over a year ago, Labour MPs were elected to Parliament on a party manifesto that pledged to scrap the previous Tory government's migration deal with Rwanda. This would have seen Channel migrants given a one-way ticket to the African country, where they would have their asylum claims processed. Sir Keir Starmer ended the Rwanda deal on his first full day as Prime Minister, but is yet to see little success in his pledge to instead 'smash' people smuggling gangs. He is now facing calls by Labour MPs to consider a similar scheme as they voice fears about the 'dire' migration figures amid the rise of Nigel Farage's Reform UK. Sir Keir Starmer ended the Rwanda deal on his first full day as Prime Minister, but is yet to see little success in his pledge to instead 'smash' people smuggling gangs Tory MP Dame Priti Patel pictured while she was home secretary signing the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda's foreign minister Vincent Biruta in 2022 A group of people believed to be migrants are pictured on a small boat near Gravelines, northern France In a recent article for Chad, his local newspaper, Mansfield MP Steve Yemm pointed to the effect of Donald Trump's tough border policies in the US. He wrote: 'Labour must focus on innovative solutions like return hubs overseas and new bilateral agreements. 'Under those agreements, every small boat arrival would be sent not to a UK hotel but to a third country where they would stay even if their claim was upheld. 'If all 900 arrivals were deported on a Monday, and all 700 on the Tuesday, then how many might arrive on the Friday? 'Probably, we would see a US style collapse in numbers.' The i Paper reported that another Labour MP had previously said 'nothing should be off the table' when asked about a potential Rwanda-style scheme. They called for a 'proper deterrent' to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel following the publication of the latest migration figures on Thursday. Graham Stringer yesterday became the first Labour MP to call for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a bid to tackle the Channel migrant crisis. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is conducting a review on the use of Article 8 of the ECHR - the right to private and family life - in migration cases in Britain. Several deportation attempts have been halted by how the ECHR clause has been interpreted in UK law. And, in June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights made an 11th-hour intervention to stop the first planned deportation flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda when the Tories were in power. Mr Stringer, the Blackley and Middleton South MP told BBC Radio 4's World at One: 'What you've got to remember is most of the people crossing the Channel are young men, they have destroyed their papers before they get here, they're coming from a completely civilised country in France. 'They're paying international criminals to get here and the courts are saying they have a right to stay under the refugee convention, I assume, and possibly other conventions. That doesn't seem reasonable to me.' Mansfield MP Steve Yemm called on the Government to 'focus on innovative solutions like return hubs overseas' Graham Stringer became the first Labour MP to call for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a bid to tackle the Channel migrant crisis Pressed to confirm whether he was suggesting the UK should withdraw from the ECHR and the Refugee Convention, Mr Stringer replied: 'Yes. 'Clem Attlee, who was prime minister when the Convention on Human Rights was signed, agreed to it on the basis that it didn't apply to the UK and the same with the Refugee Convention. Europe was in a mess. It applied only to Europe at the time.' Mr Stringer also demanded the PM take a zero-tolerance approach to the Channel migrant crisis. 'I think people who come here illegally, and they are funding international criminals, should not be allowed to stay,' he added. 'What happens when they're allowed to stay? They're getting priority beyond my constituents who need to be housed, who need access to the health service and need access to dental services.' Earlier this month, Rwanda said it will accept up to 250 migrants from the US in a deal agreed with Mr Trump's administration. The Government is under increasing pressure to immediately end the use of hotels for housing asylum seekers. It follows a judge granting Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction on Tuesday that blocked asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel in Essex. The latest figures showed there were more than 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels, marking a rise of 8 per cent during Labour's first year in office. Labour has pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this parliament in 2029. Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary, visited accommodation earmarked for migrants arriving in Rwanda from Britain during a visit in March 2023 Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. The Home Secretary insisted Labour had taken 'crucial steps' in the past year towards this by cutting the asylum backlog and money spent on the asylum system, increasing returns of failed asylum seekers and overhauling appeals. While the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels has risen, Government spending on asylum in the UK is down 12 per cent, the Home Office data showed. The number waiting on an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June dropped below 100,000 for the first time in four years. Separate figures published on Thursday show the number of enforced returns of people who have no legal right to stay in the UK rose slightly in the latest quarter. Some 2,323 returns by the Home Office took place in April-June 2025, up from 2,314 in January-March this year. A total of 9,072 enforced returns took place in the year to June, up 25% from 7,253 in the previous year and the highest figure for a 12-month period since the year to December 2018 (9,236). In a letter to Ms Cooper this week, Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp wrote: 'This migration crisis has happened because you made the catastrophic decision to cancel the Rwanda deterrent just before it was due to start, with no replacement plan. 'The Rwanda scheme would have seen every illegal immigrant deported upon arrival and made it impossible to claim asylum if you entered the UK illegally.' A Nigerian father whose asylum claim was rejected three times has been allowed to stay in Britain after belatedly arguing he is gay. The man, who has been granted anonymity, first arrived in the UK in 1983 but overstayed and left nine years later. He returned in 1996 and made several failed asylum bids, including on the basis of political opinion and later through marriage to a Portuguese woman. He has a son from a relationship with another woman, but claimed he was 'in denial' about his sexuality at the time. The 61-year-old has a conviction for violent disorder and was jailed for four years in 2003. A deportation order was issued in 2006. But between 2010 and 2013, he said he was in a gay relationship and argued he would face persecution if removed to Nigeria, where his family said he was 'bringing the family name into ridicule and shame and that they would not hesitate to inform the security services of such practice.' The Upper Tribunal of the Asylum and Immigration Chamber (pictured) The Home Office repeatedly rejected the claims that the Nigerian father was okay. Pictured: Home Office in Whitehall The Home Office repeatedly rejected his claims, with one immigration judge describing him as not credible and dismissing evidence from witnesses, one of whom said he suspected he was gay 'because of the amount of time he spent in the bathroom and because he had found gay pornographic material'. Despite this, he has now been granted the right to remain on human rights grounds. Immigration judges have now declared: 'We consider that his account should not be rejected solely because of his immigration history or because he did not rely on his sexual orientation to remain in the UK prior to 2015.' They found him 'plausible.' Upper Tribunal judge Gemma Loughran said: 'We are satisfied to the lower standard that he is gay.' She added: 'The appeal is allowed on Refugee Convention, humanitarian protection and human rights grounds (Articles 3 & 8).' A jailed drill rapper has released an EP from behind bars - using his own mugshot on the cover. Jyrelle O'Connor raps about 'shooting people out of boredom' in the new collection, which he is promoting to his 382,000 Instagram followers using jail visuals, including a blood-spattered document stamped 'HM Prison Service'. The 26-year-old career criminal is now set to cash in from 'Be Right Back', which is now live on Spotify and other streaming services and includes six new tracks in total. The songs mention drugs and violence alongside threats against rivals, with O'Connor saying at one point: 'Don't make me act foolish. Used to go other side and wet [shoot] a man for boredom.' Norman Brennan, a former police officer turned knife crime campaigner, described the EP as further proof of Britain's justice system was 'broken'. O'Connor, who uses the rap name Loski, was arrested by traffic police looking for a driver involved in a fatal crash on the M40 in Buckinghamshire in the early hours of July 12. After scuffling with officers, he was found in possession of a folding pocket knife. Three days later, magistrates jailed him for eight months for possessing a knife and obstructing a police officer. A 27-year-old man died in the crash. Jyrelle O'Connor raps about 'shooting people out of boredom' in his new EP The 26-year-old career criminal is set to cash in from 'Be Right Back', which is now live on Spotify and other streaming services and includes six new tracks in total At the time, O'Connor - from Farnham Royal in Buckinghamshire - had been out on licence after being handed a seven-year prison sentence in 2023 for having a loaded revolver. He was arrested in April 2019 by officers looking to question him over the death of one of his associates who was fatally stabbed the year in a suspected revenge attack. Having stopped and performed a search of an Uber the rapper was travelling in, police found a loaded revolver concealed under the passenger seat. He denied charges related to the possession of a prohibited firearm with intent to endanger life, but a jury at Croydon Crown Court found him guilty on all counts. Alongside his life of crime, O'Connor has pursued a rap career that has seen him featured on the BBC. Norman Brennan told Metro.co.uk: 'You have to ask yourself, how is a prisoner able to release music from behind bars? 'The public and the victims expect a prisoner to have a certain amount of privileges taken from them apart from cooking, communal and rehabilitation work and use of a gym to keep themselves fit, that should basically be it. The British criminal justice is broken from top to bottom, and this is a typical example. 'You have someone sent to prison for possession of a knife, a weapon that could seriously injure or even kill someone, thumbing their nose at the criminal justice system.' O'Connor, who uses the rap name Loski, was found in possession of a knife after being arrested by traffic police looking for a driver involved in a fatal crash on the M40 Alongside his life of crime, O'Connor has pursued a rap career that has seen him featured on the BBC. He's seen at the O2 Forum Kentish Town on March 25, 2019 A Prison Service spokesman said: 'Whilst we have safeguards in place to ensure that money sourced from illicit means do not reach prisoners, victims and their families deserve better than to see perpetrators gloating about their crimes on social media. 'We will not tolerate this behaviour and work with the police to investigate and remove harmful content. 'Offenders caught using phones or social media in prison face punishment, including extra time behind bars.' Inmates have repeatedly flouted the ban on using phones behind bars. Earlier this week, the Daily Mail revealed how an Albanian murderer had been posting on TikTok from his British prison cell begging to be transferred to a jail in his home country so he can see his family and avoid the 'terrible' food. Eugert Merizaj, 32, has been repeatedly posting on social media after being handed a 32-year sentence in May 2022 for the shotgun killing of rival drug dealer Hemawand Ali Hussein. In his latest clip this month, Merizaj claims UK officials are stopping him from being transferred to Albania to serve the rest of his sentence there. Asked when he expects to be sent home, the killer replies: 'I have done all the applications. It seems to me that those of us serving life sentences are not moving at all.' The thug was previously found in possession of this 4mm Flobert revolver O'Connor's gun is seen pictured in the footwell of a car where it was concealed in a black sock A prisoner transfer agreement between the UK and Albania came into force in May 2023. Intended to save taxpayer money, it allows for the removal of any Albanians serving more than four years in British jails, so that they can then serve the remainder of their sentences back home. However, it has been dogged by delays and a source at the Albanian Prison Service told the Daily Mail that only ten Albanian prisoners have been transferred so far. More than one in four Labour members would consider joining Jeremy Corbyn's new left-wing party, according to a poll. The Survation research found 28 per cent of Labour members would consider leaving the party for the outfit being set up by Mr Corbyn. Together with fellow ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana, Mr Corbyn last month announced his new venture, which has initially been named 'Your Party'. The ex-Labour leader has claimed his pro-Gaza party will offer a 'real alternative' to Sir Keir Starmer's Government on issues such as 'inequality, poverty and war'. Mr Corbyn has boasted that 700,000 people have already 'signed up' to the movement ahead of an inaugural conference, which is due to be held by the end of the year. The Survation poll, commissioned by the LabourList website, found a majority of Lanour members (59 per cent) thought the party should move to the left in response to the threat being posed by Mr Corbyn's venture. More than a third (35 per cent) thought the party should move 'further and faster' on its current agenda, while only two per cent called for Labour to move to the right. Half of Labour members polled (51 per cent) said they through Mr Corbyn's new party would take votes from Labour and increase the chances of a Reform UK or Conservative government at the next general election. More than one in four Labour members would consider joining Jeremy Corbyn 's new left-wing party, according to a poll The Survation research found 28 per cent of Labour members would consider leaving the party for the outfit being set up by Mr Corbyn Mr Corbyn has claimed his pro-Gaza party will offer a 'real alternative' to Sir Keir Starmer 's Government on issues such as 'inequality, poverty and war' Around one in 10 (12 per cent) thought Mr Corbyn's party would predominantly take votes from the Greens and minor parties, having no impact on who forms the government. Only three percent of those polled thought 'Your Party' could win enough votes to form their own government. Mr Corbyn welcomed the findings of the poll, telling The Times: 'For too long, people have been denied a real political choice. 'Not any more: 700,000 people have already signed up to build a real alternative to inequality, poverty and war. 'One based on public ownership, wealth redistribution, housing justice and peace. 'This is just the beginning. We are an unstoppable movement and we are never going away.' There have been signs of tensions between Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana in recent weeks. She was claimed to have caught Mr Corbyn by surprise last month by quitting Labour and publicly announcing their plans to found a new party. The Coventry South MP then claimed Mr Corbyn had 'capitulated' over anti-Semitism while he was in charge of Labour between 2015 and 2020. She criticised Labour's adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and all its examples in 2018. Ms Sultana said the party had 'capitulated to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which famously equates it with anti-Zionism'. But Mr Corbyn appeared unimpressed with Ms Sultana's remarks, telling Middle East Eye: 'Well I think it wasnt really necessary for her to bring all that up in the interview, but thats what she decided to do. 'The party did adopt the IHRA definition. Personally I was more in favour of the Jerusalem declaration, which is simply saying anti-Semitism is wrong.' Commenting on his firm's poll, Damian Lyons Lowe, chief executive of Survation, said: 'Consideration' of a new party is a softer measure than outright support, but these findings nevertheless reflect the residual sympathy for Jeremy Corbyn and frustration over his departure from Labour. 'The extent to which 'Your Party' becomes an electoral problem for Labour is an open question. 'The task of creating a viable new party is formidable, particularly given the policy differences likely among its founding MPs outside their shared stance on Gaza. 'As to the difference a new left party could make to Labour's bid for a second term, much will depend on whether progressive-leaning voters tactically support Labour in constituencies where the contest is between Labour and Conservative or Reform candidates. 'If Labour is able to retain and attract progressive and centre-left voters and we are seeing continued seepage of support to both the Greens and the Liberal Democrats this parliament there is still a fighting chance for Labour to win a second term, despite the huge drop in first-choice support since the general election.' Survation surveyed 1,021 readers of LabourList who also said they were Labour Party members between August 5 and August 9. Ed Miliband is being urged to block Elon Musk's bid to supply electricity to British homes due to national security concerns. Mr Musk's company Tesla has applied for a licence to provide power to homes and businesses in England, Scotland and Wales as soon as next year. But there have been objections to Tesla's application to energy regulator Ofgem due to Mr Musk's controversial political activity. The billionaire has been a strong ally of US President Donald Trump, while he has also publicly voiced support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson. In a letter to Mr Miliband, the energy secretary, the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has warned against allowing Tesla to become an electricity supplier in the UK. He pointed to how the Government has legal powers to block a licence if there is deemed to be a risk to national security. Sir Ed highlighted controversial social media posts made by Mr Musk during last summer's riots in the wake of the Southport murders. He also cited US media reports that Mr Musk has been in regular contact with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since 2022, which the Kremlin has denied. Mr Musk wrote on his X social media site last year that he's 'going to find out who's making these accusations and nuke them'. Elon Musk's company Tesla has applied for a licence to provide power to homes and businesses in England, Scotland and Wales as soon as next year. Ed Miliband is being urged to block Tesla's bid to supply electricity to British homes due to national security concerns There have been objections to Tesla's application to energy regulator Ofgem due to Mr Musk's controversial political activity In his letter to Mr Miliband, the Lib Dem leader wrote: 'I'm writing to you to urge you to block Elon Musk's application to Ofgem for his company, Tesla, to become an electricity supplier in the UK. 'I'm seeking your reassurance that you will protect vital infrastructure such as our electricity supply, and ensure it is not handed over to an individual who poses a threat to our national security. 'Though Musk's company was granted a licence for electricity generation in Britain in 2020, that licence currently doesn't permit Tesla to sell power directly to households and businesses. 'Allowing Tesla to do so would be a gravely concerning move considering Elon Musk's repeated interference in UK politics.' Sir Ed claimed Mr Musk had 'peddled information' during last summer's riots, and had 'repeatedly demonstrated his recklessness when in control of critical infrastructure'. He also cited reports that Mr Musk ordered his Starlink satellite service to be shut down in Ukraine in September 2022, which 'disrupted Ukrainian troops' pivotal counteroffensive to retake territory from Russia'. Tesla is an electric car manufacturer but also has a solar energy and battery storage business. It has been involved in the UK energy market since 2020, when it was granted a licence to be an electricity generator. In the US, the firm has been an electricity supplier in Texas for the past three years. In a letter to Mr Miliband, the energy secretary, the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has warned against allowing Tesla to become an electricity supplier in the UK Sir Ed said in a statement: 'Elon Musk has shown time and time again he's no friend of the UK whether it's claiming that civil war here is inevitable or peddling misinformation to millions. 'I am seriously concerned that allowing Musk to supply energy to British homes would pose a risk to our national security. 'The Energy Secretary should put the national interest first and use his powers to block this license. 'Failure to do so would suggest the Government is more worried about upsetting Elon Musk than standing up for Britain.' Both Tesla and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero have been contacted for comment. Donald Trump is set to make a mystery announcement from the White House Oval Office today on Friday. The topic of the address has not been disclosed yet but the U.S. President's speech is scheduled for 12:00 pm ET (5pm UK time). It comes amid feverish speculation over peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. On Monday U.S. President Donald Trump met with Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders to discuss an end to the three-and-a-half-year conflict - and there have been frantic attempts behind the scenes to broker a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents. The announcement also comes after FBI agents raided and searched the home of one of President Donald Trump's most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton, this morning. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered Bolton's home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda early in the morning, an AFP reporter said. According to The New York Times and other U.S. media outlets, the search was ordered to determine whether Bolton had illegally shared or possessed classified information. Donald Trump is set to make a mystery announcement from the White House Oval Office today on Friday, August 22 Trump and Zelensky had a White House meeting on Monday where they discussed the path to peace The announcement also comes after FBI agents raided and searched the home of one of President Donald Trump's most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton, this morning Amid growing speculation over Trump's announcement this afternoon, hopes appear to be fading in the race to arrange a meeting between Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin. On Monday, Trump was joined by Sir Keir Starmer, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and the leaders of France, Italy, Finland, the EU and Nato. The Prime Minister hailed a 'breakthrough' after the unprecedented gathering garnered a U.S. commitment to military involvement in security guarantees for Ukraine. Mr Zelensky hopes to have such a proposal in writing within the next ten days to strengthen his hand before heading to any meeting with Putin to discuss territory. In a 40-minute phone call after Monday's meeting, the U.S. President said on social media that he and Putin discussed plans for a summit between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, at a location to be determined. Following that diplomatic showdown, Trump said he will then sit down with both leaders in an attempt to make peace in the war-torn country. 'This was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years,' he said. Zelensky responded by saying 'we are ready' for any leader-level meetings while speaking to reporters after the White House. He said it's the only way to solve these 'complicated and painful issues'. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said: 'If everything works out well, we will have a tri-lat [between himself, Zelensky and Putin] and have a good chance of ending the war.' 'When it comes to security, there's going to be a lot of help,' Trump told reporters, adding that European countries would be involved. 'They are a first line of defence because they're there, but we'll help them out.' Zelensky hailed the promise as 'a major step forward,' adding that Ukraine offered to buy about $90billion worth of U.S. weapons. The meeting was far more successful than the last time the two leaders met in February, which ended in disaster when tensions boiled over and the Ukrainian president was kicked out of the Oval Office early. During the blistering row, Trump threatened to abandon Ukraine completely if Zelensky did not agree to his peace terms, and he also accused Zelensky of not being grateful. Trump has said he is helping to facilitate a meeting between Zelensky and Putin, who he met on Friday in Alaska While Trump ruled out U.S. boots on the ground as part of Kyiv's security guarantees, Britain is ready to send troops to help defend Ukraine's skies and ports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) meeting with U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg in Washington, DC No ceasefire was agreed when Russian leader Putin and Trump met for a high stakes summit on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska 'You're gambling with World War III,' Trump bellowed at the Ukrainian President at one point. The U.S. President also pointed out that Zelensky was 'all dressed up today' when he arrived for the meeting in the Oval Office wearing a black military-style sweat shirt with an Ukrainian trident logo. That was the first of many tensions at the meeting that blew up as Vice President JD Vance criticized Zelensky for his behavior toward Trump and his failure to properly thank the American people for their support. But on Monday, the Ukrainian President was praised by Trump for wearing the more formal attire of a 'suit-style' black jacket over a buttoned up black collared shirt. The U.S. President complimented Zelensky's attire and put his arm around him approvingly. While Trump ruled out U.S. boots on the ground as part of Kyiv's security guarantees, Britain is ready to send troops to help defend Ukraine's skies and ports - but will not deploy them to the front line near Russia. The focus will be on protecting Ukrainian airspace and ports rather than risking combat with Russian soldiers. Britain has not been involved in a major combat operation since the Afghanistan war ended in 2014. More recent missions have focused on training, protection and peacekeeping. Monday's extraordinary summit at the White House followed the U.S. President's high stakes meeting with Putin on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, where the two leaders said they had an 'extremely productive meeting'. Zelensky was complimented for wearing a suit by reporters and issued a hilarious takedown of the journalist who criticised his military fatigues during his infamous White House visit in February UK prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron appeared to be engaged in a side conversation during Monday's press conference Vladimir Putin launched new savage attacks on Tuesday night, casting doubts on his commitment to seek a peace deal The recent attacks on Ukraine, which officials say were 'directed against the civilian population', will underscore the importance of security guarantees for the country No ceasefire was agreed, with Putin telling reporters that Russia still needed to 'eliminate the primary roots, the primary causes, of that conflict'. On Tuesday night, Putin launched new savage attacks on Ukrainians, casting doubts on his commitment to seek a peace deal. The terror strike was on Okhtyrka, some 28 miles from the border, where 13 homes were hit. Some 14 people were wounded, including 3 children from one family. A husband who poured hot oil over his wife's face after demanding she cooked him an omelette has been found guilty of attempted murder. Raju Mollah, 49, also placed hot cooker hob racks over Mosammed Mumtaz's chest and face and stamped on her while she was on the floor following a row over the sale of a property Mrs Mumtaz owned. When paramedics arrived they found Mrs Mumtaz lying in a pool of oil with blood surrounding her head. She had suffered multiple injuries to her face, was missing a tooth and had burns on her arms and face where skin had begun to peel. One paramedic felt heat still radiating from the oil covering the floor. Birmingham Crown Court heard the couple, who had three children and had been married for 23 years, had been rowing about selling the property in the build up to the 'extremely violent' attack at their home in Small Heath, Birmingham, on January 12 this year. Mollah, who sobbed in the dock while giving his account, claimed his wife had demanded a divorce and had met another man. He admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent but denied attempted murder. He was found guilty of the more serious charge following a trial. Raju Mollah, 49, was found guilty of attempted murder following a trial Following the guilty verdict, Investigating officers Rebecca Pugh and George Kawalek said from West Midlands police said in a statement: 'This was a vicious attack, where he clearly tried to kill his wife. 'The victim has been very brave having sustained significant and life-changing injuries and thankfully Mollah will be spending a good amount of time behind bars.' Mollah's trial heard that during an interview with police he accepted punching and stamping on her while she was on the floor. But prosecutor Frida Hussain KC said the attack 'went further' than the offence he has pleaded guilty to. The court heard a 999 call was made at 7.10pm with police and paramedics arriving at 7.22pm to find Mrs Mumtaz on the floor 'screaming'. After Mrs Mumtaz was placed into an ambulance she said 'my husband tried to kill me' and 'he's a bad man, he threw oil over me', the court heard. It was said Mollah appeared 'agitated and highly distressed' and when asked what happened he replied in Bengali. The jury was told when a police officer spoke to Mollah he said it was an accident before mumbling incoherent statements suggesting she had fallen. Mollah told police in his interview that he had asked his wife to cook him some eggs when 'her behaviour changed and she said words to the effect of divorce me or I'll kill you'. The defendant claimed the oil spilled when Mrs Mumtaz came at him with a knife. He told officers he pushed her to the floor, punched her and stamped on her multiple times after she grabbed his crotch. In her account to police, Mrs Mumtaz said she had been in Bangladesh but returned home to the UK in January earlier than planned because Mollah wanted to divorce her over their ongoing arguments surrounding a property she owned. It was said Mollah wanted to sell it at a value 'much less than the market value'. The couple, who had three children and had been married for 23 years, had been rowing about selling the property in the build up to the 'extremely violent' attack at their home in Small Heath, Birmingham, on January 12 this year According to Mrs Mumtaz on the day of the attack her husband asked her to cook an omelette so she told him to crack an egg in a bowl, the court heard. She recalled becoming 'uneasy' after noticing Mollah had 'put a lot of oil' in a pan. Mrs Mumtaz said her husband then got the oil and said: 'This is the oil I put on for you' before pouring it down her head. Mrs Mumtaz said her husband then placed the hot steal grids from the cooker hob over her chest and face and when she was on the floor put a mop in her face. The prosecutor said Mrs Mumtaz managed to get herself up from the floor and then picked up a knife 'to scare him', causing Mollah to leave. She added Mrs Mumtaz sat there for a while and then fell unconscious before waking up in hospital. Ms Hussain told the court: 'During all of this she was saying: 'Please forgive me, don't kill me'. 'He said: 'No take more, take more'. Then he hit her more.' Mrs Mumtaz told police she thought she was going to die. Giving evidence Mollah he accepted causing really serious harm. Speaking via a Bengali interpreter he: 'Yes, I did but I never tried to kill her; that was never my intention. 'She is the mother of my three children.' He sobbed as he repeated he never wanted to kill Mrs Mumtaz, adding: 'I loved her for 24 years.' Mollah said he was 'out of my mind' as he repeatedly punched and kicked his wife after she grabbed his genitals during the row in which she demanded a divorce. He told the jury his wife wanted to leave him and 'liked' another man. Mollah said on the evening of the attack he left the kitchen and went to the living room having asked his wife to cook him two eggs. He confirmed he returned to her at her request but said: 'Her way of looking at me had changed. 'Her appearance was not the same as it was. She was kind of angry and she picked up a knife and demanded a divorce. He continued: 'She picked up a knife and said to me 'you have to divorce me right now'. 'I then replied to her 'why you always asking for a divorce I'm hungry. I asked you for some food. Give me some food,' he told the court. 'I'm going to have something to eat and then go out'.' 'She then came towards me with that small knife. She was approaching me. I then stopped her.' Mollah will be sentenced in November. Italy has been rocked by scandal after the exposure of a shocking Facebook group where men secretly shared intimate photos of their wives to thousands of strangers. Outrage has gripped the country with politicians likening the group to 'virtual gang rape' and drawing comparisons to the case of Gisele Pelicot, who was drugged and raped by her husband and his friends for years. The Mia Moglie Facebook group, which translates as My Wife, was shut down this week after accumulating over 32,000 members since being founded in 2019. Men would brazenly post pictures to the group of their wives in intimate states, undressed or asleep, without their consent. Posts were flooded with vile comments, including other men saying they wanted to 'rape' the women in question, with others praising the secretive nature of the pictures. Meta, which owns Facebook, closed the page last week 'for violating our Adult Sexual Exploitation policies'. 'We do not allow content that threatens or promotes sexual violence, sexual abuse, or sexual exploitation on our platforms. If we become aware of content that incites or advocates rape, we may disable the groups and accounts that post it and share this information with law enforcement,' a Meta spokesperson said. The page was founded six years ago but it is unclear exactly how long explicit pictures had remained online. Italy has been rocked by a 'virtual gang rape' scandal after the exposure of a shocking Facebook group where men secretly shared intimate photos of their wives More than 50% of Italian women say they have been the victim of harassment or assault by the time they reach 19. (Stock image) The right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni is under growing pressure from opposition parties to take action against sexism The sharing of sexually explicit images or videos which were supposed to remain private as well as revenge porn were made illegal in Italy in 2019. The disturbing group was first publicized by writer Carolina Capri, who said she felt 'nauseous' and 'scared'. The sharing of intimate photographs without consent amounts to 'virtual gang rape', she said. Meanwhile, more than a thousand people have reported the group to the police for cyber crime, Italian media reports. Lawyer Marisa Marraffino, who specialises in online criminal cases, told the Financial Times that those who shared or commented on the pictures could face up to six years in prison for illegal sharing of intimate images, privacy violations, aggravated defamation and even child pornography. The exposure of Mia Moglie has uncovered tensions over the patriarchal nature of Italian society. More than 50% of Italian women say they have been the victim of harassment or assault by the time they reach 19. They are also the least likely to be in full-time employment of any EU country, with a gap of 20 percentage points between genders, according to latest data from the European Institution for Gender Equality. More than a thousand people have reported the Facebook group to the police for cyber crime, Italian media reports Meta , which owns Facebook, closed the page last week 'for violating our Adult Sexual Exploitation policies' The country also ranks below EU averages in gender equality in work, earnings and education. 'This linking of violence to sexuality is so ingrained in our culture that in a public group, men write without hiding their names and faces,' Capri added. The right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni is under growing pressure from opposition parties to take action against sexism. Left-wing party the Five Star Movement said it would ask the government to respond to the 'unacceptable patriarchal mentality that reduces women to objects and instruments of possession'. Fiorella Zabatta, of the European Greens party, said she would file a report with the Public Prosecutors Office. 'This is virtual rape, a crime punishable under our penal code,' she said. 'But the problem isnt only legal, its also cultural. These kinds of platforms must be fought against, and this toxic idea of masculinity must be confronted. 'We all need to take action: civil society and politics alike.' A traveller 'King' has been buried in a 'six-figure' solid gold coffin following a week-long farewell tour in a Rolls Royce. Frank Thompson, who died aged 69 from a chest infection on July 2, was given an extravagant send-off by his devastated family who stopped off at a number of locations across Nottingham and Manchester. And while his relatives insist that the patriarch was 'never a flash man', they have even commissioned a huge marble tomb which will take a year to construct around his coffin at a south London cemetery. The six-figure coffin, described by an unnamed friend of the family as 'stupendous', was ordered by Mr Thompson's son from abroad and took weeks to arrive, with the traveller having passed away nearly a month before he was eventually laid to rest. They added that the lavish burial was designed with the goal of showing the world that 'there are some really good gypsy travellers'. While the successful businessman 'could have anything he wanted', the family friend continued: 'He was never a flash man, believe it or not. 'He'd be proud of what his sons did for him, and held him as, more than anything else.' The friend declared that while Mr Thompson's loved ones had initially planned on simply giving him the 'best casket' on offer, the plans had subsequently got 'bigger and bigger'. A traveller 'King' has been buried in a 'six-figure' solid gold coffin (pictured) following a week-long farewell tour in a Rolls Royce Pictured: Frank Thompson shown on the front of a newspaper at his funeral service. The traveller businessman, who died aged 69 from a chest infection on July 2, was given an extravagant send-off by his devastated family While Mr Thompson's relatives insist the patriarch was 'never a flash man', they have even commissioned a huge marble tomb which will take a year to construct around his coffin at a south London cemetery The six-figure coffin, described by an unnamed family friend as 'stupendous', was ordered by Mr Thompson's son from abroad and took weeks to arrive Pictured: Several Rolls-Royces lined up at Mr Thompson's funeral. The 69-year-old businessman was described as being 'the king' of his large traveller family They added: 'First we wanted to do the best casket, then it got to discussing materials for the casket. Then we realised, we don't have to put him underground - we can do a tomb. 'We're from a very big gypsy traveller background. He was the head of a very big family, the king of the family - everyone looked up to him.' Mr Thompson sadly passed away on July 2, leaving behind his wife and children. His heartbroken relatives embarked on the coffin tour in the luxury vehicle on July 23, travelling to numerous locations where Mr Thompson had ran businsesses and tarmac yards. The large traveller family are also said to have visited various cemeteries where Mr Thompson's friends and family members had been buried. Described as a 'businessman through and through' with great 'wisdom', Mr Thompson was eventually laid to rest on July 29. The traveller was said to have encouraged many in his community to be both 'business-minded' and become known for 'having a nice life and making a good house for your family'. Pictured: Mr Thompson's six-figure gold coffin. His heartbroken relatives embarked on the coffin tour on July 23, travelling to numerous locations where Mr Thompson had ran businsesses and tarmac yards, alongside to various cemeteries A friend close to the family declared that while Mr Thompson's loved ones had initially planned on simply giving him the 'best casket' on offer, the plans had subsequently got 'bigger and bigger' Described as a 'businessman through and through' with great 'wisdom', Mr Thompson was eventually laid to rest on July 29 Pictured: Mr Thompson's grave. His lavish burial was designed with the goal of showing the world that 'there are some really good gypsy travellers', a friend close to the family said The traveller was said to have encouraged many in his community to be both 'business-minded' and become known for 'having a nice life and making a good house for your family'. He was described as a 'lovely man' with a 'heart of gold' A golden plaque placed on Mr Thompson's tomb described him as 'a legend' Describing him as a 'lovely' man with a 'heart of gold', they added that the traveller patriarch would be remembered as having a 'heart of gold' with 'the best intentions for everyone'. Prior to his illness, the 69-year-old was said to have had plans to build an orphanage for children abroad and had made donations to 'lots of children's charities'. A successful businessman well known within the local community, Mr Thompson had gone on to expand his father's tarmacking company to several locations worldwide. Following his tragic passing, both his son and the friend close to the family have taken over the business, with hopes of keeping the traveller's legacy alive.] It comes after the brother of another 'traveller King' was buried next to Britain's biggest headstone, with a fleet of Rolls-Royces accompanying him on his final journey. In October last year, Terry Collins was buried next to his brother Willy's 37-ton marble gravestone following his funeral service at St Theresa's Roman Catholic Church in Sheffield and a lavish procession to the cemetery. The 52-year old was laid to rest in a platinum casket, which was carried into the church over a red carpet, alongside a giant photograph of Terry in a frame of poppies. The traveller was said to have encouraged many in his community to be both 'business-minded' and become known for 'having a nice life and making a good house for your family' It comes after the brother of another 'traveller King' was buried next to Britain's biggest headstone, with a fleet of Rolls-Royces accompanying him on his final journey. Terry Collins was buried next to his brother Willy's 37-ton marble gravestone in Shiregreen Cemetery, Sheffield The 52-year old was laid to rest in a platinum casket, which was carried into the church over a red carpet, alongside a giant photograph of Terry in a frame of poppies Pictured: the funeral procession of Willy Collins, dubbed the 'King of Sheffield'. The traveller was buried in a 22-carat gold coffin after a lavish funeral in which he was taken to his final resting place, the 200,000 marble headstone, in a horse drawn carriage Mourners who attended the service wore t-shirts with a photograph of Terry with the caption: 'RIP Terry Collins 'The Toucher''. The funeral procession was led by a silver Rolls Royce, complete with fluorescent lighting and some of his favourite songs playing. Also parked outside the church were two large trucks, one with a spectacular floral tribute display in the shape of hearts and the other depicting Terry in a high-vis vest, part of his work uniform. Terry died on September 25, four years after his brother Willy died while on while on a family holiday in Majorca, Spain at the age of 49 in July 2020. The father-of-nine was a well-known member of the traveller community. Willy, who was dubbed the 'traveller King of Sheffield' was buried in a 22-carat gold coffin after a lavish funeral in which he was taken to his final resting place, the 200,000 marble headstone, in a horse drawn carriage. Pictured: Willy Collins who died while on while on a family holiday in Majorca, Spain at the age of 49 in July 2020. The father-of-nine was a well-known member of the traveller community The monument was unveiled in March 2022 and features Irish flags and two life-sized statues of Willy. It sparked a row between the family and Sheffield City Council, who argued that the structure violated planning permissions His cortege was led by people in velvet suits and crowns with a white funeral carriage being pulled by six plumed horses wearing yellow and blue feathers, 40 Rolls Royce cars and some bikers and vintage cars. The 200,000 37-ton marble headstone was the subject of controversy as the council said it violated the planning permission. The gravestone, which was unveiled in March 2022, features Irish flags and two life-sized statues of Willy. It also includes depictions of Jesus Christ and biblical scenes. The monument is made of solid Carrara marble and features a solar-powered jukebox which plays the late Willy's favourite tunes, as well as flashing LED lights and a life size 6ft 2in statue of Willy himself. It sparked a row between the family and Sheffield City Council, who argued that the structure violated planning permissions. A crooked female prison officer who plotted with an inmate to smuggle illegal drugs and mobile phones into the high-security jail where she worked has been jailed. Tori Muddyman, 31, was caught after police were tipped off in 2019 she had been sneaking contraband into HMP Onley in Northamptonshire. She was arrested after a search of her garage revealed a bag containing cannabis, steroids, a mobile phone, SIM cards, chargers, alcohol and tobacco. Muddyman went on to confess she had accepted 2,500 from a serving prisoner to bring the banned items into work with her at the category C jail. She admitted picking up a bag from a woman at Rugby train station but claimed she never went through with taking the items into the prison. However police found a mobile phone and fake drinks cans filled with drugs during a search inside the inmate's cell. Bank records also linked two of the the prisoner's associates to payments made to Muddyman. Muddyman, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, went on to admit conspiracy to convey list A articles (drugs) and conspiracy to convey list B articles (phones) into a prison. Tori Muddyman, 31, was caught after police were tipped off she been sneaking in contraband She was jailed for 12 months at Worcester Crown Court on July 25 this year. Detective Inspector Richard Cornell, of East Midlands Special Operations Unit's (EMSOU) Regional Prisons Intelligence Unit (RPIU), led the investigation. Speaking afterwards, he said: 'Prison officers have a duty and responsibility to maintain the safety and security of their workplace and those residing within it. 'This includes preventing the presence of illegal drugs and prohibited items such as mobile phones and alcohol. 'Tori Muddyman made a series of terrible decisions that undermined that responsibility and, had she carried these items into HMP Onley, would have contributed to ongoing criminality and risk of harm to both inmates and staff. 'This has been a complex and long-running investigation, and I am pleased to see matters conclude with Muddyman receiving a custodial sentence which reflects the seriousness of her actions. 'Our team are dedicated to rooting out criminal activity in prisons, including by those responsible for upholding law and order within their walls.' Muddyman went on to confess she had accepted 2,500 from a serving prisoner to bring the banned items into work with her at HMP Olney Earlier this month a spokesperson for HMP Olney said they were taking measures to stop drug smuggling drones. Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said the levels of violence had also increased significantly. An inspection found that a third of random drug tests in a 12-month period returned positive. New accommodation is planned for prisoners in order to prevent the drones from getting in. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told BBC News: 'This government inherited a prison system in crisis and we fully acknowledge the challenges at HMP Onley. 'We are tackling the use of illicit substances through initiatives such as a new Incentivised Living wing, where prisoners are regularly drug tested and receive incentives for abstaining from drugs. 'On top of this, we are investing in preventative drone measures and building new accommodation which prevents drone parcels getting in.' Police have removed a banner calling for drivers to 'beep if you think Starmer's a w****r' over fears the noise could disturb residents. Locals have said the sign created the 'loudest dual carriageway in Britain' before it was brought to the attention of police. It was put up on the A4 Portway in Bristol on Wednesday, while a second banner read: 'Stop the boats.' A viral post of the sign on Facebook, which has amassed more than 50,000 reactions, has left users in hysterics. One said: 'Sod living near that, would need to install quad glazing in the house Another joked: 'More Beeps than an episode of Roadrunner.' A third wrote: 'Your not getting any sleep living near that.' People even joked they could hear the beeps from as far as Leeds and London. Police have removed a banner calling for drivers to 'beep if you think Starmer's a w****r' over fears the noise could disturb residents Locals have said the sign created the 'loudest dual carriageway in Britain' before it was brought to the attention of police A viral post of the sign on Facebook, which has amassed more than 50,000 reactions, has left users in hysterics It is understood the police received no official noise complaints. One call was received alerting them to the signs. An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said: 'A patrolling officer was alerted to two signs on overbridges on the busy A4 Portway on Wednesday 20 August. 'Due to the potential they could result in a distraction to drivers, as well as a nuisance to nearby residents, they were removed.' German cities have reported an easing of the national immigration 'emergency' after asylum claims were cut by half amid a crackdown by Chancellor Friedrich Merz. It comes after the newly elected chancellor scrapped Angela Merkel's open border policy by issuing orders to turn undocumented migrants away from the nation. September will mark the tenth anniversary of the peak of the European migration crisis, when then-Chancellor Merkel announced she would keep Germanys borders open to more than a million asylum seekers over the following year. But Alexander Dobrindt, Germany's interior minister, rescinded Merkel's 2015 order in May, meaning everyone without proper documentation, apart from children and pregnant women, would be turned away if they tried to enter Germany from a neighbouring country. Since Merkel's order, the country granted protection to 3.5 million refugees, including many fleeing civil war in Syria, and about around 1.2 million Ukrainians seeking safety from Russia's full-scale invasion. But during Merz's election campaign, he made reducing immigration a top policy on his agenda, and he went on to revoke Merkel's order on his first day in office. Dobrindt ordered a massive increase in border force personnel, with local media reporting that a further 3,000 cops would be brought in for a total of 14,000 border guards. Merz also said Syrians would be deported back to their home country and suspended family reunification rights for migrants who fall short of full asylum status. German cities have reported an easing of the national immigration 'emergency' after asylum claims were cut by half amid a crackdown by Chancellor Friedrich Merz German police check people arriving from France at the German-French border on September 16, 2024 in Kehl, Germany During Merz's election campaign, he made reducing immigration a top policy on his agenda, and he went on to revoke Merkel's order on his first day in office The move came following a spate of knife and car attacks carried out by non-Germans that galvanised support for the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Since the start of 2025, there were 61,336 new asylum applications, half as many as were recorded over the same period last year. And now, Germany has lost its title as the EU's prime destination for asylum seekers, having fallen behind Spain and France. Towns have recorded a significant drop in pressure on public services since the country's immigration policy shifted, according to the Association of German Cities, which represents about 3,200 municipal authorities across the nation. 'In some towns there were still emergency accommodation facilities in tents, because otherwise there wouldnt have been places for [the asylum seekers] to stay. Now this kind of emergency accommodation can in some cases be dismantled,' Christian Schuchardt, the organisations director, told Augsburger Allgemeine. The reasons behind the drop in the arrival of asylum seekers are disputed. While Merz's government has claimed credit - citing its stringent border measures as an effective deterrent - some suggest the figures had already begun to drop before he took office in May. Allies of Olaf Scholz, the former chancellor of Germany, say the tide was already turning under the centre-left politician's leadership, due to his policies which included steps to turn away several categories of asylum seekers, and the deployment 'temporary' controls across the nation's entire land border. But data suggests that the figures have less to do with Germany's policies and more to do with broader patterns in the geopolitics of the EU - where irregular crossings into the bloc as a whole fell by 38 per cent last year, according to Frontex. September will mark the tenth anniversary of the peak of the European migration crisis, when then-Chancellor Merkel announced she would keep Germany s borders open to more than a million asylum seekers over the following year General view of a container facility for refugees and asylum seekers located in aircraft hangars of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin on August 14, 2025 It comes as popularity for the hard-right AfD has surged, with the party becoming the most popular in the country, according to the results of a new poll. The party, that was formally designated as extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) in May, is the largest opposition party in Germany's Bundestag. During federal elections in February, it won a record 152 seats in the 30-seat parliament, nagging almost 21 percent of the vote. A British Airways flight attendant was found high on drugs and completely naked in an onboard toilet during a flight from California to London, a court has heard. Haden Pentecost, 41 who was described as agitated, sweating and babbling had to be stood down by the flights manager when he failed to help with any pre-flight safety checks. After complaining of stomach cramps and saying he needed to change his clothes, the air steward locked himself in one of the planes bathrooms. When he opened the door, his colleague found him naked and oblivious to the fact he had no clothes on. She had to dress him before moving him into a free seat, the court was told. Pentecost appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to performing an aviation function while impaired by drugs. The flight attendant was spoken to by the captain before a health professional was called for, magistrates were told. He had dilated pupils, a high heart rate, and had to be checked every 20 minutes until the plane arrived at Heathrow where paramedics took him to hospital. Haden Pentecost outside Uxbridge Magistrates' Court where he pleaded guilty to performing an aviation function while impaired by drugs Pentecost has since been sacked by British Airways Pentecost was granted bail by the court and will be sentenced at a later date Pentecost (left) previously appeared alongside colleagues in a safety video for the airline A blood test later revealed Pentecost had methamphetamine and amphetamine in his system, the court heard. He has since been sacked by British Airways, and lives with his husband, the court was told. Pentecost also appeared in a British Airways safety video last year. The 'May we haveth one's attention' video featured characters from period drama alongside British airway staff in a humorous video to talk passengers through the safety breifing. All 40 characters in the film are played by staff from across the airline, from pilots and cabin crew to engineers and baggage handling agents. Pentecost appears as a nobleman in the background of one of the scenes, dressed up in makeup and a black wig. Pentecost, of Basingstoke, was granted to bail to be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court at a later date. British Airways has been approached for comment. China urges Japan to face squarely, reflect on its history of aggression (People's Daily App) 11:23, August 22, 2025 China urges Japan to face squarely and reflect upon its history of aggression, be prudent on historical issues such as bacterial warfare and make a clean break with militarism, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on August 21, 2025. (Produced by Wang Ruofan) (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Police have arrested 100 people before Notting Hill Carnival - as locals shut up shop ahead of the annual street festival. The Met said 21 people were recalled to prison, and 11 firearms and more than 40 knives seized in a bid to target those who 'pose the greatest risk' of causing trouble. Officers added that 266 people either have police bail or probation licence conditions not to attend the carnival this weekend. Two people were murdered at the carnival last year - Cher Maximen, who was killed in front of her three-year-old daughter, and chef Mussie Imnetu. Commander Charmain Brenyah, the force's spokeswoman for the event, said she hoped the arrest would be a 'deterrent' for anyone to come to the carnival to commit crime. But with around one million people expected to take the streets of West London, she again raised fears the event could be mired by a crowd crush. These fears were echoed by London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, who said the event has become a 'victim of its own success' and could see a mass-casualty event. Workers board up the Elgin pub on Ladbroke Grove before the start of Notting Hill Carnival A street artist spray paints a boarded up property before the bank holiday weekend Police officers arriving before the start of last year's event, which is Europe's largest street party The Met said live facial recognition (LFR) technology - which captures people's faces in real-time CCTV cameras - will be used on the approach to and from the carnival as well as outside the boundaries of the event. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said earlier this week the force's rules and safeguards over using the tool 'fall short', and could have a 'chilling effect' on individuals' rights when used. Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley sought to reassure campaign groups that the technology will be used without bias amid concerns it is discriminatory. The force believes the tool is 'reliable and effective', and helps keep Londoners safe. Alongside the use of LFR technology, the Met also plans to install screening arches at some of the busiest entry points to the carnival, where stop-and-search powers will be used in a bid to keep weapons out. The force said intelligence has been shared nationally to identify violent gangs planning to attend while banning orders are being sought for those with a history of violence or sexual offences. A Sainsbury's local supermarket on Ladbroke Grove is boarded up as a security measure Cher Maximen (left), 32, and Mussie Imnetu (right), 41, were both murdered at last year's event Crowd safety is also a 'concern', with attendees urged to listen to directions from stewards or officers, the Met said. Some 7,000 Metropolitan Police officers and staff will be trying to keep up to two million revellers safe as they descend on the packed streets of west London. But officers are concerned about becoming isolated and being 'at the mercy of the crowd' after 61 of them were assaulted in just two days at last year's festival. Police were kicked, punched, pushed, spat at, headbutted and had glass bottles thrown at them in 2024 when 349 arrests were made - the highest total since 2019. Residents and business owners were this week photographed boarding up properties along the carnival route in an attempt to reduce the risk of damage this weekend. Simon Hill, Deputy General Secretary of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, told the Daily Mail in an interview this week that the two biggest concerns for officers were being assaulted and crowd crushing. He said: 'Officers are concerned about the crowd density. It is physically possible to be six feet away from a colleague and for you to not be seen or to not see them. 'Officers are very much isolated due to density. In those isolated moments, then really they are at the mercy of the crowd - if you have people in there intent on causing harm to officers. 'I'm especially concerned about some of our female colleagues who report being sexually assaulted. It's just not acceptable. They don't go to work to be sexually assaulted.' A liberal protester targeting Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears with a racist sign has gone viral and caused confusion over her intentions. Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election, attended an Arlington County School Board meeting where she spoke out against a policy that allows transgender students to use girls locker rooms and bathrooms. The meeting occurred as a result of a threat by the Department of Education to cut off federal funding from the school district over its bathroom policy. A transgender rights rally was held outside the meeting in support of the school districts policy. One of the protesters, an unidentified elderly liberal white woman, could be seen holding a sign targeting Earle-Sears by comparing black Americans being forced to use water fountains to the transgender bathroom debate. Hey Winsome, if trans cant share your bathroom, then Blacks cant share my water fountain, the sign reads. As the picture - captured by Virginia journalist Brandon Jarvis - went viral. And statements from Virginia leaders in both parties rushed to condemn the protester. Im disgusted, but not surprised. This is the tolerant left Abigail Spanberger defends. Im the sitting Lieutenant Governor, second in command in the former capital of the confederate states, Earle-Sears told the Daily Mail in a statement, referencing her Democratic opponent in this November's general election. A liberal white woman was disavowed on social media for holding a racist sign targeting Earle-Sears Earle-Sears is the Republican nominee for the governor's race in Virginia The sign was held outside an Arlington school board meeting at a transgender rights rally Im an immigrant, a Marine, and above all, a human being. There is no place for this disgusting hatred in our Commonwealth. She added, Anyone who doesnt condemn this sign is complicit in approving it. Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, did disavow the protester by referring to the sign as racist, abhorrent and unacceptable. However, Republican leaders all over Virginia came to Earle-Sears defense while bashing the left. The hypocrisy of the liberal left on display again. Winsome is so much bigger than this idiocy, wrote Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on X. The states Attorney General Jason Miyares agreed adding, This is wrong. @winwithwinsome and Virginia deserve better. The liberal protester, who was not identified, defended her the sign as satire in a statement to Fox5, a local news affiliate. It was satire meant to provoke conversation around the absurdity of prejudice, she said. If anyone thinks we are actually supporting separate drinking fountains based on race, they are mistaken. In the same way, that drinking fountains should be usable by all races, bathrooms should be non-discriminatory. The woman defended the sign as 'satire' in a statement to a local news outlet At one point during the school board meeting, a fellow Democrat informs the unidentified woman her sign is getting a lot of negative attention. She appears shocked by the news but continues to hold the sign. Spanberger is currently the favorite over Earle-Sears in the Virginia governor's race with most public and private polling showing her tracking ahead. The Earle-Sears-Spanberger contest guarantees that Virginia will elect its first female governor after more than 400 years as a state. The FBI raided former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton's home Friday morning, a spokesperson for the bureau confirmed to the Daily Mail. Bolton was home at the time of the 7:00 a.m. raid on his D.C.-area house, according to a source familiar. But it was his grave-looking wife Gretchen Smith Bolton who was spotted at the front door interacting with the federal agents. Gretchen walked away from the door as agents entered the Bolton residence in Bethesda, Maryland, which is one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S. 'NO ONE is above the law FBI agents on mission,' FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a post to X as agents descended on the house. Agents also appeared at Bolton's D.C. office on Friday to gather materials. The early morning raid is part of the FBI's investigation into the former Trump official involving his alleged use of classified documents while writing his memoir The Room Where It Happened. The probe was first launched in 2020, but an administration official tells the Daily Mail that it was quashed during President Joe Biden's administration for 'political reasons.' Patel's FBI has reopened the high-profile case. President Donald Trump admitted he didn't know about the raid until he saw it on television, and would be briefed on it by Attorney General Pam Bondi later Friday. Once privy to some of the most classified information in the world, Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stripped Bolton of his security clearance. Former NSA John Bolton's wife Gretchen Smith Bolton (pictured) was given a rude awakening on Friday morning when the FBI rolled up to raid their home in Bethesda, Maryland Gretchen was seen with a look of despair at the door of their home speaking with federal agents on Friday morning The FBI raided John Bolton's home early Friday morning as part of its re-opened investigation into whether the former National Security Advisor threatened national security with his memoir FBI agents descended on John Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, August 22, 2025. Sources familiar say that John Bolton was at home during the raid Bolton, who served as Trump's NSA from April 2018 until September 2019, has been at odds with Trump ever since parting with the first administration. He regularly appears in TV interviews criticizing Trump's national security strategy and foreign policy. And in response, Bolton has become one of the former officials that the president has taken aim at since getting back into office this year. Trump said during a Friday visit to the White House Historical Association Museum that he will be briefed on the raid later in the day. Slamming his former aide as a 'lowlife' and 'not a smart guy,' Trump said: 'He's very bad at what he does.' 'He doesn't talk, he's like a very quiet person except on television and then he can say something bad about Trump. He'll always do that. But he doesn't talk, he's very quiet,' Trump told reporters. On his first day back in office on January 20, 2025, Trump ordered the clearances be revoked of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. Even though Bolton did not sign the letter, he was included in the sweeping order. In June 2020, Bolton published a memoir about his time working for Trump called The Room Where it Happened. The president tried to block its publication, claiming Bolton breached a nondisclosure agreement he signed as a condition of his employment. He also argued that the memoir endangered U.S. national security. In September 2020, Trump's first-term Justice Department opened a probe into the book. But during the Biden years, his DOJ did not pursue the investigation further. President Donald Trump admitted Friday that he didn't know about the FBI raid until he saw it on television, but said he would be briefed by Attorney General Pam Bondi later in the day Bolton served for a year-and-a-half as Trump's top intelligence advisor, but the two have been at odds ever since he parted with the first administration in September 2019 John Bolton lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife Gretchen Smith Bolton Agents carried empty boxes into the home on Friday morning so agents can fill them with evidence and materials they are removing from Bolton's residence as part of the investigation Gretchen left her home as federal agents entered to conduct a raid of the residence in the wealthy neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland Federal agents were at the home for hours on Friday morning as they sought to collect materials related to the high-profile classified documents case that Trump re-opened Agents and police officers lingered outside the Bolton's home amid the ongoing raid Trump's executive order specifically cited Bolton's memoir as part of stripping the security clearances of former intelligence officials. He said Bolton's 'reckless treatment of sensitive information' undermined national security because it risked exposing classified material. Amid the feud with his former top national security aide, Trump also revoked his Secret Service protection, saying at the time: 'We're not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives. Why should we?' He called Bolton a 'very dumb person' and a 'warmonger.' Biden granted Bolton a Secret Service detail after threats emerged from Iran, including a 2022 plot by an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official to assassinate him in retaliation for the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani. It appears that Bolton predicted the impending raid months ago when he claimed that he would become the center of a 'retribution' campaign led by Trump through Patel's FBI. 'I don't think he's qualified,' Bolton told the Christian Science Monitor in January when asked about Patel being the next FBI Director. 'And if there is a retribution campaign, and there certainly seems to be, he would be a central element of it. I think that's dangerous,' he added. FBI agents also raided Bolton's Washington, D.C. office on Friday, August 22, 2025. Pictured: Agents walk in the back entrance of the office building An FBI agent enters the building where Bolton has an office in Washington, D.C. on Friday MAGA fanatics felt vindicated with the Bolton raid, pointing to the former NSA's comments when Biden's FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 as part of its classified documents investigation. Many users pointed to Bolton's words at the time claiming: 'No one is above the law.' 'Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o'clock in the morning?' wrote Roger Stone, who had an early morning FBI raid of his home in Florida in January 2019. Right-wing President of The King's College Dinesh D'Souza posted to X: 'I wonder if he feels the same way about today's FBI raid on his house.' 'Karma,' an X account wrote of the raid. 'Bolton was a cheerleader for the unlawful Mar-o-Lago raid. Now he is on the receiving end of a lawful search.' A large presence of press quickly gathered outside the home on Friday morning along with George Conway, who was streaming live from the scene on his phone. He is married to but currently separated from Trump's former Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. Posted outside Bolton's home, George Conway live streamed scenes from the raid on his phone The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday sparking an immediate war of words as Israel published a counter-report blaming Hamas for the 'deliberate and cynical exploitation' of aid. The famine was declared by experts at the Rome-based IPC, who said it affected 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City. The UN officials accused Israel of the 'systematic obstruction of aid', an allegation the country has angrily denied - with the foreign ministry saying the report was 'based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests'. Israel, which has consistently claimed the terrorist group loots aid, has denied altogether that there is a famine in Gaza, with the foreign ministry accusing the IPC of changing its own global standard - cutting the 30% threshold to 15% for this report only. Meanwhile, the IPC projected that famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza. UN agencies and aid groups have warned for months of a looming famine in Gaza, where Israel has severely restricted aid and at times completely cut it off during its nearly two-year war with militant group Hamas. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory 'because of systematic obstruction by Israel'. The Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, also rejected the report, saying previous editions had 'proven inaccurate'. Reseel Abu Masoud, a two-month-old girl who is malnourished, according to doctors, lies at Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, August 22, 2025 Displaced Palestinians travel on a cart loaded with belongings as they flee amid an Israeli military operation, in Gaza City, August 22, 2025 Smoke rises after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes in Gaza City, Gaza, on August 22, 2025 'Like previous IPC reports and assessments regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza, this report ignores the data on aid deliveries published by COGAT, as well as Hamas deliberate and cynical exploitation of that aid,' a statement by COGAT read. 'The classification of famine relies on unpublished phone surveys, questionable assessments by UNRWA - some of whose employees are Hamas operatives - and local NGOs.' The body also said that more than 10,000 aid trucks have entered Gaza through the UN, international organisations, and the private sector since May - 80 percent of which carried food. It also said more than 5,000 tonnes of baby food and more than 2,500 tonnes of medical equipment have been delivered during the same period. In early March, Israel completely banned aid from Gaza for two months, leading to severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel. On 19 May, Israel eased the 11-week aid blockade. Since then, it says over 2,300 food packages have been airdropped to the enclave, and more than 2.2 million weekly packages have been delivered at distribution sites. But the IPC said the deterioration between July and August was the most severe since it began analysing hunger in Gaza, driven by a sharp escalation in the war and restrictions on supplies. 'After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,' the report said. By the end of September, it expected 614,000 people to be facing the same conditions. Israel, which has consistently claimed the terrorist group Hamas loots aid, has denied altogether that there is a famine in Gaza A Palestinian carries the body of a dead child at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025 Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee amid an Israeli military operation, in Gaza City, August 22, 2025 The famine was declared by experts at the Rome-based IPC, who said it affected 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City The IPC projected that famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza UN human rights chief Volker Turk said it was 'a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare' and said it 'may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing' Israel this week doubled down on plans to launch a new offensive to capture Gaza City, despite an international outcry, saying it would help bring about the defeat of Hamas The UN humanitarian office has warned that the planned Israeli operation will have 'a horrific humanitarian impact' on an already exhausted population UN human rights chief Volker Turk said it was 'a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare' and said it 'may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing'. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire, saying: 'We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity.' Speaking in Geneva, the UN's Fletcher said the famine should 'haunt us all'. 'It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,' he told reporters. Ahead of the report's release, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee preemptively attacked its findings. 'You know who IS starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilised Hamas savages,' he posted on X. A COGAT statement read: 'The blatant disregard by the IPC report for the continuous increase in the supply of food, water, and medical aid during the months it references - and particularly in recent weeks - is unprofessional, undermines the credibility of its conclusions, and raises suspicions of political motives.' While Israel may be increasing the supply of aid, the UN claims nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food in the Strip since May, with most of the killings committed by the Israeli military. 'Between 30 and 31 July alone, 105 Palestinians were killed and at least 680 more injured along the convoy routes in the Zikim area in North Gaza, southern Khan Younis, and in the vicinity of the GHF sites in Middle Gaza and Rafah,' the UN said in a statement. It comes after Israel this week doubled down on plans to launch a new offensive to capture Gaza City, despite an international outcry, saying it would help bring about the defeat of Hamas. Speaking earlier on Friday, the Israeli defence minister warned: 'The gates of hell will open upon the heads of Hamas's murderers and rapists in Gaza - until they agree to Israel's conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament. 'If they do not agree, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun,' he added, referring to two cities in Gaza largely razed during previous Israeli operations. His statement came after Netanyahu said late Thursday he had ordered immediate negotiations aimed at freeing all remaining hostages in Gaza. The Israeli premier added that the push to release the hostages would accompany the operation to take control of Gaza City. Um Ibrahim Younes, a 43-year-old mother of four living in the remains of her destroyed home in Gaza City, said: 'It feels like we are in hell. I'm going insane. I cannot imagine being displaced again. Children receive medical treatment at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on August 20, 2025 The IPC said the deterioration between July and August was the most severe since it began analysing hunger in Gaza Palestinian children of different ages receive treatment under limited conditions at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza A girl reacts as she and other Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, August 21, 2025 A Palestinian carries the body of a dead child at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025 Displaced Palestinians push a cart loaded with belongings, as they flee amid an Israeli military operation, in Gaza City, August 22, 2025 Hundreds of thousands gather to stage a protest as part of a one-day general strike, demanding that the government abandon its decision to fully occupy Gaza City and sign a prisoner exchange agreement in Tel Aviv, Israel on August 17, 2025 Protesters hold cutout pictures of hostages and a banner, as they block a road during a demonstration demanding the immediate end of the war and the release of all hostages who were kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel August 19, 2025 'The sound of bombardment grows closer. They want us to flee south again. My body is frail, and so are my children's - we cannot bear displacement, nor the endless shelling and hunger.' Earlier this week, the Israeli defence ministry authorised the call-up of roughly 60,000 reservists to help seize Gaza City. Hundreds of thousands of furious Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Sunday after a nationwide strike to protest against the planned operation and demand an immediate end to the war. The UN humanitarian office has warned that the planned Israeli operation will have 'a horrific humanitarian impact' on an already exhausted population. Mediators have been waiting for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal, which Hamas accepted earlier this week. Palestinian sources have said the new deal involves staggered hostage releases, while Israel has insisted that any deal must include the freeing of all the captives at once. Hamas's October 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians. Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 49 are still in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wept as he comforted families of 'heroic' troops who he sent to die on Putin's meatgrinder frontline. The tyrant oversaw a ceremony where he decorated returning soldiers and consoled children of the bereaved with hugs, state media said on Friday. Kim said in a speech quoted by KCNA: 'The combat activities of overseas operational forces... proved without regret the power of the heroic (North Korean) army', and the 'liberation of Kursk' proved the 'fighting spirit of the heroes'. In front of a memorial wall listing the dead, Kim was seen hugging tearful children of fallen soldiers, with one wrapping his arms around the North Korean leader. Along with army generals, Kim attended a concert for soldiers who had returned from Russia as well as a banquet that included bereaved family members, KCNA said. The events were the latest public honourings of North Korean troops who fought in Russia. Kim praised their overseas mission as 'the victorious conclusion', KCNA reported, though it was not clear whether that indicated the withdrawal of its troops from Russia. About 600 North Korean troops have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine out of a total deployment of 15,000, South Korean lawmakers said in April, citing the country's intelligence agency. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wept as he comforted families of 'heroic' troops who he sent to die on Putin's meatgrinder frontline The tyrant oversaw a ceremony where he decorated returning soldiers and consoled children of the bereaved with hugs, state media said on Friday Kim said in a speech quoted by KCNA: 'The combat activities of overseas operational forces... proved without regret the power of the heroic (North Korean) army', and the 'liberation of Kursk' proved the 'fighting spirit of the heroes' In front of a memorial wall listing the dead, Kim was seen hugging tearful children of fallen soldiers, with one wrapping his arms around the North Korean leader North Korea is believed to be planning another such deployment, according to a South Korean intelligence assessment. State TV aired footage on Friday that it said was of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia in the Kursk region, which borders northeastern Ukraine. The undated video then listed the names and ages of soldiers and said how they had died. Sir Keir Starmer today moved to try and overturn the High Court's shock ruling over a migrant hotel in Epping. Security minister Dan Jarvis revealed the Government will appeal against a refusal to allow the Home Office to intervene in the case. If successful, it would pave the way for a wider appeal against a temporary injunction blocking the Home Office from using the Bell Hotel in Essex to house asylum seekers. The High Court this week granted Epping Forest District Council the injunction to halt asylum seekers from being housed in the hotel from September 12. The ruling is threatening to throw Labour's asylum policy into chaos and has heaped pressure on the PM to fulfil his pledge to end the use of migrant hotels by 2029. Since the Epping injunction was granted, a slew of other councils have begun investigating whether they might also pursue legal challenges against asylum hotels. Meanwhile, a fresh wave of protests outside asylum seeker hotels is expected in the coming days. Epping Forest District Council had sought legal action after the Bell Hotel had been at the centre of protests in recent weeks. The demonstrations were held after an asylum seeker was charged with trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denies. Somani Hotels, the owners of the Bell Hotel, also announced on Friday they will appeal against the order blocking the site's use as asylum accommodation. The Government will appeal against the High Court's shock ruling over the use of the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, to house asylum seekers Epping Forest District Council sought legal action after the asylum accommodation site had been at the centre of protests in recent weeks The High Court ruling has threatened to throw Labour's asylum policy into chaos and heaped pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to fulfil his pledge to end the use of migrant hotels by 2029 The company's legal representatives said: 'Somani Hotels Ltd has instructed its solicitors to appeal the injunction order of Mr Justice Eyre. There is no further comment at this time.' Before the High Court judgment was handed down on Tuesday, barristers for the Home Office unsuccessfully attempted to intervene in the case. Announcing the Government's plan to challenge the High Court's decision, Mr Jarvis told broadcasters on Friday: 'This Government will close all asylum hotels and we will clear up the mess that we inherited from the previous government. 'We've made a commitment that we will close all of the asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament, but we need to do that in a managed and ordered way. 'And that's why we'll appeal this decision.' In attempting to intervene in the Epping case, barristers for the Home Office had cited the 'substantial impact' caused to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in performing her legal duties to asylum seekers. They also argued moving asylum seekers in the short period would cause 'particular acute difficulties' for the Government. But the bid was dismissed by Mr Justice Eyre who said the department's involvement was 'not necessary'. Ms Cooper said in a statement today: 'We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including the Bell Hotel. 'And we are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place. 'That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country without creating problems for other areas and local councils.' Tory MP Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said it was 'completely wrong that the Labour Government is taking legal action to keep open the Bell Hotel'. 'The Government isn't listening to the public or to the courts,' he added. 'Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels the Conservatives would remove all illegal arrivals, put in place a real deterrent, and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again. 'In the nine months before the election Conservatives closed 200 hotels. If that had continued there wouldn't be any asylum hotels now - but instead the number of asylum seekers in hotels have gone up since the election under Labour. 'This problem is being caused because 2025 so far is the worst year ever for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel. 'Most are young men who have paid people smugglers to illegally enter the UK. Labour has lost control of our borders and communities up and down the country are paying the price.' Security minister Dan Jarvis revealed the Government will appeal against a refusal to allow the Home Office to intervene in the Epping case The Epping demonstrations were held after an asylum seeker was charged with trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denies Holly Whitbread, in whose Epping West and Rural ward the Bell Hotel sits, described the Home Office's appeal bid as 'deeply disappointing'. The councillor, who is responsible for finance and economic development at Epping Forest District Council, said: 'It was dreadful when the Government tried to intervene in the case on Tuesday. 'Obviously, they had time to get their ducks in a row and they were hugely disorganised, and then to take this further action today is deeply disappointing. 'I hope that the Court of Appeal will make the right decision in upholding the decision of the High Court. 'It really just continues to show the contempt that the Government have shown for our community here in Epping for a number of weeks, and beyond that when they first reopened the hotel a number of months ago. 'They've completely ignored community concerns. They seem to have no care for the impact this hotel is having on our community.' The Epping injunction threatens to collapse Labour's asylum system as Tory, Reform UK and even Labour-run councils across the country prepare to hit the Home Office with copycat litigation over the use of hotels in their areas. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has written to all Conservative councils pledging support for any legal action. In her letter, Mrs Badenoch accused Labour of 'trying to ram through such asylum hotels without consultation and without proper process.' 'They are treating local residents and local councils with contempt,' she said. All Tory councillors were sent a draft motion, produced by the Conservative Research Department and the Conservative Councillors' Association, 'strongly urging' them to follow Epping's example. It included instructions on how to influence their local authorities. Those councils seeking to emulate Epping, which was granted its injunction on a planning technicality, could coordinate their actions, with at least one already contacting the Essex authority asking for help with its own case. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has used the Epping case as a rallying cry. He said: 'Let's hold peaceful protests outside hotels and put pressure on councils to go to court to try to get illegal immigrants out.' Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. Latest figures showed there were more than 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels, marking a rise of 8 per cent during Labour's first year in office. While the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels has risen, Government spending on asylum in the UK is down 12 per cent, according to Home Office data published yesterday. The number waiting on an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June dropped below 100,000 for the first time in four years. But the figures showed a total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June - up 14 per cent from 97,107 in the year to June 2024. It is the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001. Of the claims, 39 per cent were made by people who arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel. Hotels in Cannock, Chichester and Tamworth are among those expected to soon be targeted with demonstrations by anti-immigration campaigners. Anti-racism groups already organising counter-protests in 15 locations across the three-day Bank Holiday weekend. They are prepared to turn up on Friday night in the likes of Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Leicester, Leeds, Orpington, Perth, Aberdeen and Altrincham. Anti-racism groups have warned the High Court ruling sets a 'dangerous precedent', with Stand Up To Racism saying that it will 'embolden the far-Right to call more protests outside hotels housing refugees'. Stevenage became the latest Labour-run council to say it would consider taking legal action over an asylum hotel in the Hertfordshire borough. The council had already warned a Novotel hotel it must stop housing asylum seekers or face planning enforcement action, and on Thursday said it was 'actively investigating alleged breaches' as it considered legal action similar to Epping's. Ministers are scrambling to find contingency plans to house migrants, with officials looking at houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), empty tower blocks, disused teacher training colleges and old student accommodation as alternatives. It was reported that asylum accommodation contractors working for the Home Office have contacted property specialists, seeking 5,000 residential units in towns and cities to house migrants. Ukraine has struck a major Russian oil facility in a fresh blow to Moscow's energy network. The strike late on Thursday hit the Unecha oil pumping station in Russia's Bryansk region, setting off a huge fire at one of the most critical links in the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline which carries oil from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia. The attack could halt supplies for at least five days, officials warned, plunging parts of Europe into uncertainty over energy security. The assault comes as Russia continues its own devastating campaign against Ukraine's energy grid, repeatedly hitting gas infrastructure. Ukraine has stepped up its use of long-range weapons, hammering refineries and pipelines in Russia in an attempt to disrupt energy exports that bankroll Putin's invasion. Meanwhile, Putin's forces also rained down strikes on Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Friday. The attacks lasted several hours and caused major damage to civilian infrastructure, according to Serhiy Horbunov, the head of the regional military administration. Amid the carnage, an EU official has warned that Russia is setting a trap with its peace talk demands. Ukraine has struck a major Russian oil facility in a fresh blow to Moscow's energy network Putin's forces also rained down strikes on Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Friday. The attacks lasted several hours and caused major damage to civilian infrastructure, according to Serhiy Horbunov, the head of the regional military administration Several civillian infrastructure like private homes and multi storey buildings were damaged in Russia's latest shelling The fighting has now spilled into a dangerous battle for energy dominance, sending Russian fuel prices to record highs in recent days Hungary and Slovakia immediately sounded the alarm after Thursday's strike and shared concerns with the European Commission. The foreign ministers of the two countries wrote in a joint letter: 'The physical and geographical reality is that without this pipeline, the safe supply of our countries is simply not possible.' Ukraine's military confirmed the Unecha hit, saying it was carried out by the country's unmanned systems forces. Commander Robert Brovdi, known as Magyar, posted footage on Telegram showing a massive fire at what appeared to be a fuel storage facility, although the location could not be verified. A Russian industry insider admitted the pipeline could be out of action for several days. The latest hit follows an earlier stoppage on Monday and Tuesday, making it the second time in a week that oil flows along Druzhba have been halted. Hungary and Slovakia immediately sounded the alarm after Thursday's strike, warning the European Commission that their economies could be left exposed A man is escorted to safety after Putin's forces targeted residential areas in their latest onslaught Meanwhile, in Russia's latest shelling of Ukrainian cities, local authorities said 21 multi storey-buildings, private homes, a store, and a gas station were all damaged. Horrific pictures show fire crew members racing up buildings on ladders to rescue trapped residents. The latest attacks come as EU's foreign policy chief has warned that any plan requiring Ukraine to cede territory to Moscow would amount to falling for a Kremlin trap. Kajas Kallas told the BBC that discussions about handing Putin concessions is 'exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into.' She said: 'I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people.' She added that security guarantees that will ensure that Ukraine is not attacked again seemed to be 'some way off in terms of pinning that down'. She added: 'Russia is just dragging feet. It's clear that Russia does not want peace. President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing.' Donald Trump has tried to push forward a deal, meeting Putin in Alaska last week before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders in Washington on Monday, but progress has stalled. Houses were set on fire in the latest round of Russian attacks which happened on Friday Despite a summit between Putin and Trump in Anchorage about ending the war, it is still raging on Trump also met president Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders to discuss the situation in Ukraine Ukraine insists on ironclad Western security guarantees to prevent another invasion, while Moscow has refused to make any concessions. The brutal conflict is now in its fourth year and has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Two men have been arrested in Victoria as police seized illicit tobacco worth $7.2million, luxury watches and cash during three raids. Detectives, with support from Australian Border Force, searched two residential properties and a factory on Thursday morning. Police arrested a 40-year-old man in Dallas, north of Melbourne, who is expected to be charged with possession of commercial quantity illicit tobacco and knowingly deal with the proceeds of crime. During the arrest, officers seized illicit tobacco worth more than $11.9million, including over 475,400 cigarettes and 624kgs of loose leaf tobacco. They also discovered approximately $80,000 cash and six watches, including a Breitling, Franck Mueller and four Rolex worth over $119,000 . Criminal Proceeds Squad had started investigating after police became aware of a suspected crime syndicate operating at a Somerton food business in January. More transactions were believed to have been made from a factory in Epping which stemmed from the same investigation. Police allege those transactions were for the purpose of laundering money and that the business owner received a commission on each transaction. Millions of dollars of illicit tobacco products were seized by Victoria Police from two Melbourne homes on Thursday, as well as luxury watches and cash (stock image) A 34-year-old man was arrested after he was allegedly intercepted in a truck in Laverton North Victoria Police said it is believed over $83million in cash has allegedly been laundered during transactions since May 2021. Meanwhile, in a separate investigation by the illicit firearms squad, a 34-year-old man was arrested on Thursday at a home in the north Melbourne suburb of Campbellfield. Police will allege the man was intercepted driving a truck in Laverton North which contained in excess of four million cigarettes, worth an estimated $5million. Officers also allegedly seized more than $100,000 in cash from the Campbellfield home. The man is expected to be charged with possession of commercial quantity illicit tobacco and knowingly deal with the proceeds of crime. Detectives allege he visited the same Somerton business linked to the money laundering investigation and believe he has links to the organised crime syndicate involved in that matter. Both investigations remain ongoing. 'These investigations highlight the significant broader criminality that these serious and organised crime groups are engaged in,' Detective Inspector Graham Banks of Taskforce Lunar said. Police allege the truck contained over four million cigarettes worth an estimated $5million 'We are never talking about just illicit tobacco this offending consistently goes hand in hand with other serious and violent crime,' he said. 'That could be money laundering and illicit firearms, which weve seen in these investigations, or the arson attacks and extortions weve seen play out across the state.' Det Insp Banks said the offending in both of the linked investigations is 'not insignificant' and 'no doubt brought harm to the community'. 'For example, this money is undoubtedly funding further violent crimes committed by those involved in this syndicate,' he said. 'I think the public deserve to feel outraged that these criminals are reaping millions of dollars at the cost of community safety.' Statuesque, sphinxlike and decked out in Dior, First Lady Melania Trump would often rather not do the talking. That's why the 55-year-old's intervention into no less a diplomatic quagmire than the Ukraine war came as such a shock. In the form of a letter hand delivered by her husband, President Donald Trump, to Vladimir Putin during their peace summit last week in Alaska Melania flattered the Russian leader that he could 'singlehandedly' restore the 'melodic laughter' of children and that, in doing so, he would 'serve humanity itself'. Setting aside the boldness of an attempt to appeal to the softer side of one of the world's most feared dictators a man accused of multiple bloody war crimes the tenor of the letter was intriguing. Not once did Melania mention Ukraine by name. But her message was clear. She was referring to the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children cruelly abducted by Russian forces during the three-year war. Which makes it all the more surprising that the letter at least as Trump told it to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday was 'very well received' by Putin. Trumpian braggadocio? Perhaps. But Melania's soft diplomacy has earned rare compliments from across the aisle. Melania's soft diplomacy has earned rare compliments from across the aisle (Pictured: Melania and Trump at the 2025 inauguration) Melania Knauss and her then-boyfriend Donald Trump attend a Star Wars premiere in 1999 Stepping out in a $4,000 Valentino dress, Melania is forging her own way ahead No less a standard-bearer of the Democratic Party than the former press secretary to Melania's predecessor Jill Biden, Michael LaRosa, told the Daily Mail: 'This was an intentional move by President Trump and the First Lady as a team a move that we do not see very often. It's one of the few moments I can recall that I've seen the two of them work brilliantly together as a political force.' Friends say this was merely a public demonstration of the stealth power Melania has long exerted in private. According to Kellyanne Conway, Trump's 2016 campaign manager and senior counsellor during his first term: 'Behind closed doors, Trump has, for decades, regarded his wife as a top confidante and counsellor. Whether as an international business mogul, or TV star or leader of the free world, it is Melania's opinion that he has consistently sought. He fears yet reveres her.' But if last week's letter proved anything, it is that 'behind closed doors' is no longer where Melania wants to remain. It has not gone unnoticed. One impeccably placed Trump insider told the Daily Mail: 'It's certainly the talk of the White House. It makes you wonder: What's changed behind closed doors? Are we witnessing a breaking of ranks?' With a nod to Melania's recent threat to sue Hunter Biden wayward son of former President Biden for $1billion over what she describes as his 'false, disparaging, defamatory and inflammatory' allegation that she was introduced to her husband by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the insider continued: 'Rule no.1 of being First Lady is to avoid talking about the scandals surrounding your husband. Instead, she's out front making threats over Hunter's Epstein allegations. It fans the flames and makes you think she won't be told what to do.' Perhaps that intention was telegraphed in her official first lady portrait back in January for which she posed not in a suitable frock, but a Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo, its satin-trim lapels set over a crisp cotton shirt and paired with a Ralph Lauren cummerbund. She leaned forward on a mirrored boardroom table and stared down the camera lens with masculine ferocity. The look said it all: 'I mean business.' To that end, and in contrast to Trump's first term, this time around Melania has built out her East Wing offices with an unprecedently large team, turning to John Rogers, former assistant to Ronald Reagan and now executive vice president at Goldman Sachs, for staffing advice. One impeccably placed Trump insider told the Daily Mail: 'It's certainly the talk of the White House. It makes you wonder: What's changed behind closed doors? Are we witnessing a breaking of ranks?' In the first administration, Melania memorably didn't even move from New York City to join Trump in the White House until their son Barron, then 11, had finished the school year six months after the inauguration. But she did find time to quash First Daughter Ivanka Trump's alleged attempts to elbow into her territory. As the story goes, Ivanka, now 43, had audaciously requested to rename the East Wing office of the First Lady as the 'Office of the First Family.' According to one insider, the suggestion left Melania furious. 'The role of the First Lady can be underestimated and underreported, but there are so many hidden powers a First Lady possesses, should she choose to use them,' said Jill Biden's former press secretary LaRosa. He knows what he's talking about, of course: Jill, 74, stands accused of wielding undue influence as her declining 82-year-old husband clung to the seat of power. Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff for another deeply private first lady, Laura Bush, sees Melania's Putin letter as pivotal. Likening it to Laura Bush's memorable 2001 radio address, decrying the Taliban's treatment of women in Afghanistan, McBride said: 'Nobody expected Laura Bush to do that. She was a quiet First Lady as well.' But for Melania, it's not just about diplomatic power or influence inside White House walls. Increasingly, we are seeing her seek out an identity outside politics and despite being married to a billionaire her own money. In April and July last, Melania was paid $240,000 to deliver two speeches to the LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans. In October, she published her eponymous memoir. And, in January, it emerged that she had struck a $40million deal for a fly-on-the-wall documentary with Amazon. As her stature grows, it is worth considering that, at age 79, Trump's may be diminishing. And how, for all his undeniable vigour there has been an inevitable, if subtle, shift in the dynamic of their relationship. One source close to the couple's inner circle told the Daily Mail: 'There is a possibility that [Trump] is reaching for Melania for both emotional and physical stability. The president is getting older. His gait is not as steady.' Another source close to the couple's inner circle said: 'There is a possibility that [Trump] is reaching for Melania for both emotional and physical stability. The president is getting older. His gait is not as steady.' (Pictured: Melania and Trump at the funeral of Pope Francis in April). As her stature grows, it is worth considering that, at age 79, Trump's may be diminishing (Pictured: together in 1999) In 1999, six years before her wedding to Trump, a then 26-year-old Melania Knauss told ABC News what she would like it if she were First Lady a surely fantastical notion at the time. But, full as it may have been with youthful hubris, the answer she gave still holds. 'I will be very traditional like Jackie Kennedy. I would support him,' Melania said. According to those close to her, the First Lady is still struck by the figure of Jackie O, a woman whose iconic stature she would dearly love to attain. As one insider put it: 'Melania sees herself as one of the greats.' A top-level scientist has been fired from his job after his wife hurled anti-Semitic abuse at their neighbour and mocked how his daughter was killed while serving in the Israeli border police force. Mark Bouzyk, the British-educated co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at AllaiHealth, has been ousted from his company after footage of his wife's derogatory rant went viral. Anna Bouzyk last month was recorded shouting at her neighbor David Lubin, calling him a 'k**e', 'corrupt Israeli' and claiming his murdered daughter 'deserved to die'. Sgt. Elisheva Rose Ida Lubin, 20, was stabbed to death by a 16-year-old terrorist as she patrolled Jerusalem's Old City with two other officers in November 2023. Rose, an American citizen, grew up in Georgia with her family. She immigrated to Israel in August 2021 and began her mandated army duty in March 2022. David was posting stickers honoring Rose's death on signage throughout his neighbourhood in Dunwoody, a suburb in north Atlanta, when Anna launched her verbal attack. The video shows Mark standing by Anna's side and periodically joining in as his wife ranted. Anna has since admitted to calling David the slur, said 'I don't regret it' and insisted she would 'say it a million times again'. However, her husband's bosses at AllaiHealth, an AI-driven patient medical history platform, have deemed the couple's behaviour 'reprehensible' and on Monday this week terminated his employment at the firm. Mark Bouzyk, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at AllaiHealth, was fired from his job at the company on Monday after footage of his wife's derogatory anti-Semitic rant went viral Anna and Mark Bouzyk (pictured) were caught on camera last month shouting abuse at David Lubin. Anna allegedly called David a 'k**e', 'corrupt Israeli' and said his 'daughter deserved to die' 'We are deeply disturbed and disheartened by the video circulating involving Dr Mark Bouzyk,' CEO Robert Boisjoli wrote in a statement, confirming Mark had been fired. 'The behaviour displayed in that footage is reprehensible, completely inconsistent with our values, and has no place in our organisation or society.' Boisjoli continued: 'We hold ourselves and all those who represent AllaiHealth to the highest standards of integrity and accountability. To our employees, partners, and the broader community - we remain committed to maintaining a culture of respect.' Mark previously served as the Chief Scientific Officer at genetics firm Akesogen, which he also co-founded. The firm was acquired by AI-driven biotechnology company Tempus in 2019 for $1.5million, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. He previously earned his PhD in human molecular genetics from University of Hertfordshire and studied biochemistry during undergrad at University College London. It is unclear when the couple moved to America. Little is known about Anna, although she appears to have run a hobby jewellery business in the Atlanta area. Her SpiderBlue Etsy page has not received a customer review since July 2010 and states that 'SpiderBlue is taking a short break'. Sgt. Elisheva Rose Ida Lubin, 20, was stabbed to death by a 16-year-old terrorist in November 2023 as she patrolled Jerusalem's Old City with two other officers Rose (pictured with her father David) grew up in Georgia with her family, who currently reside in the north Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody. She immigrated to Israel in August 2021 and began her mandated army duty in March 2022 Anna went viral early this week after a video of her argument with David began was widely circulated on social media. Tension between the two families began to heat up last year when the Bouzyks allegedly hung a sign on their home that featured a derogatory word about Jews. David told Atlanta television station WANF that the couple have the right to display any signs they want, but was upset when Anna tried to confront him last month about his stickers honouring Rose. He appears to have placed the stickers on public property. He alleges Anna started shouting abuse at him from across the street, even saying that Rose 'deserved' to be murdered. That's when he walked across the street and addressed Anna directly, as seen in the now viral video. 'You are calling yourself a k**e, you know what you are. You know what you are better than me,' Anna is heard telling David. 'You are a corrupt politician with a daughter in the IDF that went there to kill, and has killed, maybe in friendly fire because the Israeli soldiers kill each other all the time, and you know very well.' She and Mark then went on to claim that Rose's death was justified because 'she was fighting' for the Israeli army. David hit back: 'Do you realise when you say that how disgusting you are? You are disgusting. You are disgusting. You are the most disgusting person I've ever met. "Because you're a Jew, you don't understand?" You are so confused.' Tension between the two families began to heat up last year when the Bouzyks began displaying pro-Palestine signs in their yard (pictured). David alleges one sign (not pictured) featured a derogatory word about Jews David has said that the couple have the right to display any signs they want, but was upset when Anna tried to confront him last month about him putting stickers out to honour Rose. He appears to have placed the stickers (pictured) on public property Anna, who spoke to WANF on the phone, admitted that she called David a 'k**e' and said 'I don't regret what I said', noting she would 'say it a million times again'. She also alleged that she had intended to tell David he was vandalising public property by placing his daughter's stickers around the community. She claims things got heated after he branded her a 'Jew hater', which she said 'made my blood boil'. 'He was provoking me. He was putting his phone in my face. He didn't have the right to do that, because I went to talk to him about vandalising,' she said. 'He made me very angry. I called him the first word that came to my head, what's wrong with that?' The grieving father told WANF that he was 'not shocked' by Anna's behaviour and said that he decided to film the incident so others could be aware of how she acted. 'In that moment, I felt like there was a level of me that needed to get this woman on tape so people could hear how much hate was in her and how much hate is in people that are out there,' he explained. David Lubin is running for Georgia state senate on a platform focused on combating gun violence, providing high-quality education, building resilient and sustainable infrastructure, and protecting women's health and reproductive rights David is a father of five. His eldest daughter Rose (pictured) died while serving in the Israeli border police force David is running for Georgia state senate. He grew up in Tennessee but moved to Atlanta after graduating from the University of Georgia in 1999. He is running for state senate on a platform focused on combating gun violence, providing high-quality education, building resilient and sustainable infrastructure, and protecting women's health and reproductive rights. David is a father of five, including Rose, and lives in Dunwoody with his second wife Stephanie, who is also the mother of his youngest child. He also runs a commercial construction company that primarily works on municipal community projects. A group that represents moderate Democrats drafted a list of 'woke' words that party members should avoid saying if they want to win elections again. The Third Way released a report that identified more than 40 words and phrases that Democrats are guilty of using and argued that 'no ordinary person would ever dream of saying' these terms. 'Here we are focusing on the eggshell dance of political correctness which leaves the people we aim to reach cold or fearful of admonishment,' the report said. Among them are the transgender inclusive expressions like 'birthing person' and 'chest feeding.' Average Americans would simply say mothers and breast-feeding. The report pushes Democrats to avoid 'seminar'-like language, giving examples including 'cultural appropriation' and 'systems of oppression.' Also 'therapy-speak' was discouraged, with terms like 'microaggressions' - subtle racism - 'privilege' and 'holding space' making the naughty list. 'The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace,' the report argued. 'The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness.' 'To please the few, we have alienated the many - especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant,' the report said. The moderate Democratic group Third Way issued a report on Friday begging Democrats to stop using 'woke' language that alienates potential voters. The report featured more than 40 terms including 'birthing person' - instead of mother - and 'cisgender' While many of the terms on the list pertained to issues Democrats are generally in agreement about - pushing for racial equality and LGBTQ rights - Third Way's writers argued that terms like 'Latinx' and 'cisgender' alienated the broader population. 'Standing up to MAGA's cruel attacks on gay and transgender people requires creating empathy and building a broad coalition, not confusing or shaming people who could otherwise be allies,' the report argued. As for some of the politically correct racial terms, Third Way said they sounded like 'sociology buzzwords' and pointed out that Democrats actually lost support among minority groups in the 2024 election. 'As we fight racism and discrimination, we should reflect upon whether the words we are using are part of the reason Democrats are losing support from all non-White voter groups,' the report said. It also warned Democrats against 'explaining away crime,' arguing that some terms party members use, such as 'incarcerated people' and 'involuntary confinement' give the impression that 'The criminal is the victim. The victim is an afterthought.' 'People deserve to feel safe where they live, work, and go to school, and we can't defend the progress we've made on criminal justice reform or hope to make more unless we acknowledge that reality in plain terms,' the report argued. The authors admitted that they've used some of the buzzwords in Third Way reports but argued that terms like 'patriarchy,' 'radical transparency,' 'the unhoused' - a PC version of homeless - are red flags for a big chunk of the American electorate. 'It is not because they are bigots, but because they fear cancellation, doxing, or trouble with HR if they make a mistake,' the report said. 'Or they simply don't understand what these terms mean and become distrustful of those who use them.' The report pointed out that Democrats' quest to be politically correct on racial issues did nothing to help them at the ballot box in 2024, when President Donald Trump made gains with black and Latino voters 'So instead, they keep quiet. They don't join the conversation, they leave it,' the authors offered. By mid-morning Friday the report had already sparked a debate online - but Third Way's Senior Vice President for Social Policy, Education & Politics Lanea Erickson told the Daily Mail that Democrats are quietly agreeing. 'As often happens when you say something controversial but deeply true in Democratic politics, we're already getting countless private notes about how right and important this message is - and exponentially more haters on social media,' she said. 'But if getting trolled on BlueSky is the cost of saving the Democratic party brand so we can beat MAGA, it's the small price to pay!' Erickson added. One 'hater,' is Melanie D'Arrigo, the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, who slammed the Third Way as a group 'funded by lobbyists from Wall Street, Big Oil and the insurance and real estate industries, who Democrats shouldn't be listening to anyway.' A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee did not respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment. Eerie new images show Bryan Kohberger's infamous car after it was deconstructed by police investigating the Idaho student murders. Kohberger's white Hyundai Elantra was stripped so clean of evidence after the murders that it was 'essentially disassembled inside,' according to prosecutors. Following his arrest at his parent's home in Pennsylvania, police obtained the killer's car and searched every corner for any evidence tying him to the stabbing murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in 2022. Newly-released images show the inside of the killer's car after it was torn apart and swept for any connections to the murder scene. Investigators asked the public for help locating the vehicle after the murders, calling it a critical clue in the case. However, given the lengths Kohberger went through to clean the car, investigators failed to find any DNA evidence linking the vehicle to the murder house after Kohberger's arrest. Kohberger, now 30, had begun a doctoral degree in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University - across the state line from Moscow, Idaho - just a few months before he carried out the November 13, 2022 killings. Moscow police released images of quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger's white Hyundai Elantra after he was sentenced to life in prison Prosecutors said that Kohberger went to extremes to clean the car after the murders Newly-released images show the inside of the killer's car after it was torn apart and swept for any connections to the murder scene Bryan Kohberger was pictured at the Ada County Courthouse during his sentencing hearing on July 23 Surveillance videos from neighbors and businesses also placed Kohberger's vehicle - known to investigators because of a routine traffic stop by police that August - in the area. The killer's cell phone began connecting with cell towers in the area of the crime more than four months before the stabbings, Thompson said, and pinged on those towers 23 times between the hours of 10pm and 4am in that time period. On the night of the killings, Kohberger parked behind the house and entered through a sliding door to the kitchen at the back of the house shortly after 4am, prosecutors said. He moved to the third floor, where Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were sleeping. After killing both of them with a knife, Kohberger left a knife sheath next to Mogen's body. Both victims' blood was later found on the sheath, along with DNA from a single male that ultimately helped investigators pinpoint Kohberger as the only suspect. With the DNA of a single mystery male on the knife sheath, detectives worked with the FBI and the local sanitation department to secretly retrieve garbage from the Pennsylvania home of Kohbergers parents, seeking a DNA match to their suspect. Surveillance videos from neighbors and businesses placed Kohberger's vehicle in the area of the murders Police obtained the killer's car after his arrest and searched every corner for any evidence tying him to the stabbing murders Investigators failed to find any DNA evidence linking the vehicle, which was throughly cleaned, to the murder house after Kohberger's arrest Idaho investigators began releasing evidence from the quadruple homicide after Kohberger pleaded guilty to the murders last month The pile of garbage yielded investigative gold: A Q-tip that contained DNA identified 'as coming from the father of the person whose DNA was found on the knife sheath that was found by Madison Mogens body on the bed.' Later, Kohberger changed his car registration from Pennsylvania to Washington State - significant for investigators who were combing through surveillance camera footage because Pennsylvania law doesn't require a front license plate, making it harder to identify the vehicle. And by the time investigators did catch up with him weeks later, his apartment and office in nearby Pullman were scrubbed clean. Idaho investigators began releasing evidence from the quadruple homicide after Kohberger pleaded guilty to the murders last month, in a deal to save himself from the death penalty. On July 23, the killer was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Newly-released bodycam footage shows Moscow Police officers responding to what they believed was a report of an unconscious individual at 1122 King Road around midday on November 13 - only to find the bodies of the four students. Outside the home, the 52-minute-long video reveals a heartbreaking and chaotic scene as the surviving roommates and friends of the victims huddle under blankets, sobbing uncontrollably in the road. New crime scene photos were also released by Idaho State Police, revealing the remnants of a college party inside the home that was now a crime scene. On a table in the living room, red cups set up for a game of beer pong make the scene eerily ordinary compared to what took place just hours earlier. Pictured left to right: Housemates Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee's shoulders) Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke in 2022 Idaho quadruple murder suspect Bryan Kohberger was pulled over by Indiana State Police on December 15, 2022, - but cops didn't have information that he was a suspect in the student murders Remnants of the night before were still visible in newly-released police pictures from the time they arrived to inspect the home. This included a beer pong set up (pictured) One chilling photo shows Kernodle's half-eaten DoorDash order from Jack in the Box, delivered moments before Kohberger broke in and began his murderous rampage. Another image shows a large footprint in the snow out the back of the three-story house - a clue Kohberger may have left behind. Kohberger is serving his sentence inside Idaho's maximum security prison in Kuna where he has already filed multiple complaints about his fellow inmates. According to a law enforcement source, Kohberger - now known as inmate number 163214 - is being relentlessly tormented by his new jail-mates, who are shouting through the vents into his cell at all hours of the day. A Formula One obsessed grandmother has won a 250,000 supercar in an Omaze draw Rebecca Francis, 62, became the owner of a McLaren Artura Spider after paying 10 for her place in the Omaze draw. As part of her prize, she was taken out in the car with Hollywood stunt driver Tessa Whittock, who showed Rebecca exactly what the McLaren could do before letting her take control. After the ride, Rebecca, of Ascot, Berkshire, said: 'Wow, wow, wow - that was unbelievable. I went from zero to screaming in two seconds. 'I've never experienced anything like that before, I felt like Max Verstappen or I should say Lando Norris, as I was in a McLaren.' 'Even though I'm standing next to the car now, I still can't believe it - it looks absolutely stunning. I'm a bona fide petrolhead. I love F1 and I'm obsessed with fast cars. 'I only live up the road and walk past this dealership every day - I've always dreamed of taking one for a spin, and now I can - in one I actually own..' The British-built supercar can travel from 0-62mph in three seconds and has a top speed of 205mph. Thrill-seeking Rebecca Francis, 62, got behind the wheel of the brand new McLaren Artura Spider The grandmother won the prize supercar after paying 10 to enter the Omaze prize draw Rebecca was taken out in the car with Hollywood stunt driver Tessa Whittock However despite Rebecca's love of fast cars, she is giving it up to take the money instead. Rebecca became a grandmother for the first time in March and her second grandchild is due soon. As much as she loved the experience, she confirmed that she'll be selling the car as the money from the sale will be 'transformational' for her and her family. She said: 'The money from the sale is life-changing - transformational for me and my family. 'I can help all my children out, spoil my grand kids even more than I was already planning to, and enjoy a much more comfortable retirement whenever I choose to. 'When I told my son, the first thing he asked was whether you could fit a child's car seat in it. 'I've got a few trips planned next year, so now I can upgrade to business class. I'll be able to travel in style to see my son and new grandchild in Canada more often. I'm so excited. 'The money from the sale gives me total freedom. I can retire if I want to, knowing I'm financially secure. It's a wonderful feeling. Rebecca Francis and pro driver Tess Wittock with the supercar which she is now giving up Despite Rebecca's love of fast cars, she is giving the it up to take the money instead 'Taking the car out has been an amazing experience I'll never forget - and the money I've got from it is also going to be unforgettable.' When she first found out about her win, Rebecca received an email from Omaze asking her to join a call. She assumed it might be to tell her she'd won a small prize, so thought the call 'seemed a bit excessive for something like a tenner.' Rebecca reportedly won the car after entering the prize draw for the very first time. When she heard the news she assumed it was an elaborate hoax because 'she never wins anything'. She said the call came at a great time as a consultancy role had recently ended almost overnight. Rebecca explained that she has since returned part-time to her passion as a lifestyle practitioner - specialising in essential oils as 'The Essential Consultant'. Rebecca added: 'I entered because I loved the look of the houses and the fact they support such incredible charities. When she heard the news she assumed it was an elaborate hoax because 'she never wins anything' nthony Nolan celebrating the 3.7 million raised in the recent Omaze Cheshire draw 'This was actually the first time I'd ever entered - beginner's luck, I guess! I've now subscribed and all my friends have signed up too.' Rebecca paid just 10 for her winning entry to the Omaze Million Pound House Draw, Cheshire. The draw she entered raised 3.7 million for Anthony Nolan, helping fund its Cell Collection Centre in Nottingham to deliver lifesaving stem cell transplants faster - and took Omaze's total raised for UK charities to over 100 million since 2020. She is now hoping she can one day bag an Omaze house main prize - either a 3 million coastal home in Cornwall or a furnished home in the New Forest, along with 500,000 in cash - as part of a Grand Prize worth 3 million. Hollywood Meghan vs Duchess Meghan: Unlike her time as a royal, she 'never gave up' and didn't see herself as a star, according to royal author Anti-migrant protesters faced off with counter-demonstrators across the country today as police brace for a weekend of rallies. Crowds waving Union flags clashed with others taking part in Stand Up To Racism rallies outside migrant hotels in Portsmouth, Orpington, Leicester, Chichester, Ashford and Cardiff on Friday evening. Officers from several forces have been deployed to separate the groups, with hundreds of people taking part in the rallies on both sides. Protests at up to 30 hotels are believed to be planned as communities seek to replicate the ruling for The Bell Hotel, which, pending an appeal, must be closed within weeks. The hotel had been at the centre of protests after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl, which he denies. Hotels in Cannock and Tamworth are among those expected to be targeted by demonstrations, with anti-racism groups already organising counter-protests in 15 locations across the three-day Bank Holiday weekend. One protester in Portsmouth tied a large flag of St George to the balcony which had on it the words 'Born in England, Live in England, Die in England'. The counter protesters also put up a banner, saying 'Refugees Welcome, Celebrate Diversity'. Anti-migrant protesters gathering in Guildhall Square in Portsmouth this afternoon Anti-migrant protesters are held back by police as they face off with anti-racism campaigners near the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington Anti migrant protesters demonstrate in the road at the Marriott Hotel in Cheshunt where asylum seekers are staying Protester Mat Silva, 66, a retired car sprayer from Fareham, said: 'I am fed up seeing those who come into our country illegally being housed better than our veterans and our OAPs. 'They get free accommodation, gas, electricity, four meals a day, while our veterans are on the street.' He added: 'Look how many millions it's costing each day - if they are genuine asylum seekers or refugees coming in the right way with passports, then fair enough, it's nothing to do with racism, it's about people entering illegally.' A woman who did not want to give her name said: 'Family homes are being turned into houses of multiple occupancy. We have to live in an area where there are more and more new immigrants.' Rita, from Portsmouth, who joined the Stand Up To Racism counter protest, said: 'I am sick and tired of being someone who defends rapists and paedophiles, what I defend is human rights. A woman who did not want to give her name said: 'Family homes are being turned into houses of multiple occupancy. We have to live in an area where there are more and more new immigrants.' A woman who did not want to give her name said: 'Family homes are being turned into houses of multiple occupancy. We have to live in an area where there are more and more new immigrants.' 'I feel ashamed (at the protest) and I say this as a white British elderly lady who has been spat upon, verbally abused and things thrown at, just for being on this side of the road. One counter-protester held a banner that claimed Jesus was a 'socialist migrant' Protesters carrying Union flags and St George's Crosses in Portsmouth today Police enforced a gap between the two groups as the anti-immigrant group chanted: 'Send them home' while the counter group chanted: 'Refugees are welcome here' A man wearing an England flag while walking a Dalmatian A woman waves a Union Jack flag with the description 'Save our kids' during a protest about illegal immigration outside a Holiday Inn in Rhoose, Wales People take part in a counter protest to the Stand Up To Racism rally outside the Holiday Inn at Cardiff Airport Protestors with a sign stating 'Protect our children' gather outside a Holiday Inn on August 22, 2025 in Rhoose, Wales People take part in the Stand Up To Racism rally (right) and a counter protest (left) outside the Holiday Inn at Cardiff Airport Pro-immigration counter protestors gather outside a Holiday Inn in Rhoose, Wales 'I am angry that my Christianity is being used as a weapon by the right and to be used in the name of fascism.' Mary, from Portsmouth, said: 'I believe in dignity, equality and giving people a fair chance. 'We have all come from somewhere originally, I am from Northern Ireland and we all came from Africa originally. 'I am really upset at the violent way in which these other people are intimidating people who have fled intimidation all of their lives and are facing it here again, it's completely wrong.' Police enforced a gap between the two groups as the anti-immigrant group chanted: 'Send them home' while the counter group chanted: 'Refugees are welcome here'. Portsmouth City Council previously told the Home Office it did not have capacity to take any more asylum seekers - only for hundreds to be moved into the city centre without their knowledge. The authority found that 55 private rental properties were being used to house a minimum of three asylum seekers each last week. The migrants have been staying in homes of multiple occupation (HMO) - not council housing. Further protests are expected outside migrant hotels across the country this weekend People holding a St George's flag outside the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington Police officers stand in front of protesters outside a rally near the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington Anti-migrant protesters face off against people taking part in a Stand Up To Racism rally near the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington Anti-migrant protesters face off with anti-racism campaigners near the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington People take part in the Stand Up To Racism rally near the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington Anti-racism campaigners take part in a protest outside the TLK Apartments and Hotel in Orpington A group of pro-migrant campaigners face off with a small group of anti-migrant campaigners outside Highcross House Apart Hotel in Leicester A man is held back by police as he faces off with pro-migrant campaigners outside Highcross House Apart Hotel in Leicester An anti-migrant protester faces off with a people taking part in a Stand Up To Racism rally outside Highcross House Apart Hotel in Leicester It came just two years after James Hill, Portsmouth's director of housing, told the Home Office that the 'system's capacity was such that we couldn't support additional asylum seekers'. But when a public meeting was hosted in July by Amanda Martin, the Labour MP for Portsmouth North, figures showed the number of private rentals being used to house migrants had increased from 10 at the end of 2019 to 58 in April 2024, the Times first reported. The council confirmed with the Home Office last week that the number is now at 55, according to the newspaper. The data was uncovered by Ms Martin after Clearsprings Ready Homes wrote to a parliamentary committee this year amid an inquiry into accommodation for asylum seekers. Portsmouth City Council said it was never notified about the use of the properties to house migrants. Protests are also taking place outside hotels in Leicester, Orpington, Cardiff and Chichester, where one person was arrested for failing to provide details after acting in an anti social manner. A large crowd chanting 'Send them home' gathered outside The Park Hotel in the Sussex cathedral city has been a focal point for protest since it was turned over the Home Office in 2023. Anti-immigration campaigners are looking to ride on the back of this week's landmark judgment that saw the High Court order the removal of migrants from a hotel in Epping, Essex. One protester had a large flag of St George which had on it the words 'Born in England, Live in England, Die in England' Two other men held a banner reading: 'House our own before illegals' These banners referred to Councillor Steve Pitt, leader of the local council Protesters gathering on Guildhall Square this afternoon A man carrying a 'stop the far right' banner at today's Portsmouth protest Protesters who gathered today at Guildhall Square in the centre of Portsmouth On Tuesday, a judge granted a temporary injunction against migrants being housed at The Bell Hotel after Epping Forest council argued that it was necessary for 'the safety of nearby residents' and to reduce the threat of 'violent protests'. The local authority had sought legal action after the accommodation site had been at the centre of protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker was charged with trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denies. The ruling threatens to collapse Labour's asylum system as protesters take to the streets and councils across the country prepare to hit the Home Office with copycat litigation over the use of hotels in their areas. But anti-racism groups have warned the ruling sets a 'dangerous precedent', with Stand Up To Racism saying that it will 'embolden the far-Right to call more protests outside hotels housing refugees'. The Home Office announced on Friday that it will seek to appeal against the High Court's refusal to allow it to intervene in the case, and to then further appeal against the temporary injunction. Yvette Cooper said ministers are working to close hotels housing asylum seekers 'as swiftly as possible' as part of an 'orderly' programme that avoids creating problems for other areas. 'That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country - without creating problems for other areas and local councils,' she said. Somani Hotels, the owner of the Bell Hotel in Epping, also plans to appeal against the court order blocking the use of its hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers. Protesters outside the Holiday Inn Central, Ashford, Kent, believed to be housing asylum seekers A woman holds a Union Jack while taking part in a protest outside a Holiday Inn in Ashford, Kent, believed to be housing asylum seekers A woman taking part in an anti-migrant protest in Ashford holds a sign saying 'TOOT if you have had enough of mass immigration, Enough is Enough' Responding to the Government's legal bid, Epping Forest District Council's finance chief Holly Whitbread said the move was 'deeply disappointing'. She said: 'I hope that the Court of Appeal will make the right decision in upholding the decision of the High Court. 'It's not a piecemeal court decision, it's a decision on a planning point.' 'The Government keep churning out the line that they're going to get all the hotels closed by the end of this Parliament. Our community can't afford to wait another four years.' An Epping Forest District Council spokesperson added: 'We have no details at this stage but are disappointed it appears the Home Office hasn't accepted the refusal of Mr Justic Eyre of permission to appeal against the dismissal by the judge of the Secretary of State's application to be a party to the council's claim against Somani Hotels Ltd, owners of the Bell Hotel.' Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: 'It is completely wrong that the Labour Government is taking legal action to keep open the Bell Hotel. 'The Government isn't listening to the public or to the courts. 'Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels, the Conservatives would remove all illegal arrivals, put in place a real deterrent and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again.' In a video posted to X earlier today, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: 'So, a huge victory, Epping, the Bell Hotel, people protested, they won a court case, the migrant hotel will close. 'And that of course is now leading all over the country to other communities standing up, protesting, demanding their hotels are closed as well. 'Well, the news today, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is going to fight that court order to demand that the Bell Hotel and other migrant hotels stay open across this country. 'Ask yourself a question. Whose side is this Government on? Is it on your side or is it on the side of young, undocumented males coming into Britain, too many of whom, frankly, assault our young women?' A transgender activist was left in complete shock after a Democrat party leader confronted her for waving an overtly racist placard at a rally outside a Virginia school board meeting. Pro-trans rights protesters gathered outside the Arlington County School Board meeting Thursday evening in support of the district's policy that allows transgender students to use girls' locker rooms and bathrooms. The demonstration appeared mostly peaceful, until one woman sparked massive controversy with her placard directly targeting Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Earle-Sears was speaking out against the bathroom policy which has caused the Department of Education to threaten to cut off the district's federal funding. 'Hey Winsome, if trans can't share your bathroom, then Blacks can't share my water fountain,' one side of the woke protester's sign read. The other side said: 'Hey Winsome, you have a gender neutral bathroom in your house.' Steve Baker, chairman of the Arlington County Democratic Party, confronted the woman about the overtly racist sign after it caused an uproar in the local media. 'That's getting a lot of play on TV right now,' he told the protester, an unidentified elderly liberal white woman. He confirmed the press was 'negative'. The woman appeared shocked and responded with an embarrassed shrug after Baker's remarks, video captured by Virginia journalist Brandon Jarvis shows. This is the moment Steve Baker, chairman of the Arlington County Democratic Party, confronted an unidentified elderly liberal white woman over her overtly racist sign The woke protester held the racist sign outside the Arlington County School Board meeting on Thursday as they rallied in support of the district's transgender bathrooms policy As photographs of the woman's sign - also captured by Jarvis - went viral, statements from Virginia leaders in both parties rushed to condemn the protester. 'I'm disgusted, but not surprised. This is the "tolerant" left Abigail Spanberger defends,' Earle-Sears told the Daily Mail in a statement, referencing her Democratic opponent in this November's general election. Earles-Sears is the Republican nominee in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election. 'I'm the sitting Lieutenant Governor, second in command in the former capital of the confederate states,' she added. 'I'm an immigrant, a Marine, and above all, a human being. There is no place for this disgusting hatred in our Commonwealth. 'Anyone who doesn't condemn this sign is complicit in approving it.' Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, did disavow the protester by referring to the sign as 'racist, abhorrent and unacceptable.' The front of the elderly woman's sign also targeted Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears However, Republican leaders all over Virginia came to Earle-Sears' defense while bashing the left. 'The hypocrisy of the liberal left on display again. Winsome is so much bigger than this idiocy,' wrote Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on X. The state's Attorney General Jason Miyares agreed, adding: 'This is wrong. @winwithwinsome - and Virginia - deserve better.' Virginia state Sen. Minority Leader Ryan McDougle branded the incident as 'the tolerant left strikes again.' Democrat state Sen. Schuyler Van Valkenburg was also disappointed by the sign, writing on X: 'Two wrongs don't make a right. Been teaching my kids and students that for years. 'In the age of Trump it's easy to get in the gutter. We should insist on betting the better angels of our nature' Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is the Republican nominee for the governor's race in Virginia The liberal protester, who declined to be identified, defended her the sign as 'satire' in a statement to WTTG. 'It was satire meant to provoke conversation around the absurdity of prejudice,' she told the TV news outlet. 'If anyone thinks we are actually supporting separate drinking fountains based on race, they are mistaken. 'In the same way, that drinking fountains should be usable by all races, bathrooms should be non-discriminatory.' Spanberger is currently the favorite over Earle-Sears in the Virginia governor's race with most public and private polling showing her tracking ahead. The Earle-Sears-Spanberger contest guarantees that Virginia will elect its first female governor after more than 400 years as a state. The devastated family of a British aid worker killed in a Russian drone strike while volunteering in Ukraine has been left in 'red tape limbo' with no body, an NGO has said. Annie Lewis Marffy, 69, travelled from her home in Silverton, near Exeter, Devon, in late May to deliver a green Toyota Rav4 packed with supplies. She arrived in Ukraine on June 4 but did not meet co-ordinators from Aid Ukraine UK, the non-profit NGO which had organised the mission, as planned. After a week of searching for her, the organisation was contacted by the Kramatorsk district police department with information that she had been killed. The police report says that she sustained 'injuries incompatible with life' after a Russian drone strike between June 11 and 12, having parked the Rav4 on a street in the contested Donbas region. It adds that her body 'remains in an area of active hostilities, making it impossible to conduct evacuation measures to transfer the body to the forensic medical examination department'. Her family have asked for a death certificate to be issued, based on the Kramatorsk district police department report, either through local authorities or the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). They say this will allow them to grieve properly and begin the probate process. Annie Lewis Marffy, 69, travelled from her home in Silverton, near Exeter, Devon, in late May to deliver a green Toyota Rav4 packed with supplies Katarzyna Bylok, founder of Aid Ukraine, told the PA news agency that this process could take months or years because of the lack of Ms Marffy's remains. 'In a kill zone, where her remains are, it is impossible to recover them because whoever you send will also die,' she said. Ms Bylok said there was an expedited process within Ukraine to certify deaths where remains cannot be recovered, though this still takes six to 12 months. 'It leaves her family in a horrible red tape limbo,' she added. They will never get her body. But what they need is the ability to close her affairs. Her sons have their hands tied, they don't have power of attorney. 'There is enough evidence to prove that Annie is dead. The procedures stating that you need to have remains or DNA for a death certificate need to be updated.' Ms Marffy travelled through Europe with a former soldier from Wales, who had to return to the UK after becoming unwell in Poland. She was instructed to hand the vehicle over to Aid Ukraine teams in Lviv but did not do so, instead insisting she would continue to Kramatorsk, where the vehicle was due to be delivered, alone. After that, she was in sporadic contact with co-ordinators from the organisation and ignored advice to avoid frontline areas, leading them on a 'wild goose chase' for the next week. The Donbas region has come under constant attack since Putin started his war in February 2022. Picture for illustrative purposes Ms Bylok posted a picture of her on Telegraph, asking for information about her location, and was contacted by police who said she had been killed. 'She was very independent and when she turned her mind to do something, she did it,' she told PA. She was very self assured and highly intelligent.' Ms Marffy's son, Charlie Lewis Marffy, told the BBC that the family were not looking to blame anyone for what happened. He said his mother was in regular contact with the family until June 8, when communication stopped. 'She was brave, capable and determined, but we never wanted her to go,' Mr Lewis Marffy added. She was excited, happy to be doing something meaningful.' He said the family had asked the FCDO and Ukrainian authorities for a death certificate to be issued, based on the police report, and had been left 'dismayed'. Paying tribute to his mother, he described her as 'amazing, witty, kind, intelligent, adventurous'. He told the BBC: 'She was irreplaceable. I feel very sad that she's not here any more but I'm very proud of who she was.' A spokesperson for the FCDO said: 'We are supporting the family of a British woman who is missing in Ukraine and are in contact with the local authorities.' The UK's 'youngest detective inspector' wept in court as he faced accusations of destroying evidence on a mobile phone. Metropolitan Police Detective Inspector Taylor Flanagan-Clark, 32, attached to the North West local investigations team, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday. The young former police inspector, who was seen wiping his eyes while in the dock, was charged with one count of perverting the course of justice. Prosecutor Rhianne Neil alleged the defendant, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, remotely wiped a mobile phone that had been seized by police for examination and in doing so 'destroyed evidence'. However, Sam Haldane, defending, told the court that Flanagan-Clark insists that he did not wipe the device. The barrister described Flanagan-Clark, a father of two, as a 'distinguished officer' of 'previous unblemished record'. Mr Haldane said that he understood Flanagan-Clark to be 'the youngest detective in the country'. The UK's 'youngest detective inspector' wept in court on Friday as he faced accusations of destroying evidence on a mobile phone. Metropolitan Police Detective Inspector Taylor Flanagan-Clark, 32, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court (pictured, file image) The young former police inspector, who was seen wiping his eyes while in the dock, was charged with one count of perverting the course of justice. He has since been suspended and remanded in custody, set to appear at Southwark Crown Court (pictured) on September 19 However, Sam Haldane, defending, told the court that Flanagan-Clark insists that he did not wipe the device. The barrister said he understood Flanagan-Clark, a father of two, to be 'the youngest detective in the country' (file image) He added that the defendant has worked in policing across Westminster, Kensington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Barnet, Harrow and Hackney. The officer, who has since been suspended, was remanded in custody and is set to appear at Southwark Crown Court on September 19. Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams said: 'These are very serious allegations which will undoubtedly concern the community we serve and our staff, but I want to reassure them my team has been working closely with the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) and the Anti-Corruption Command from the start of these matters. 'For now, it's important we let proceedings continue and do not jeopardise the ongoing investigation.' Chemical castration laws in Kazakhstan are being toughened with those committing 'lesser sexual offences' set to face injections before being released from jail. Paedophiles in the central Asian nation who have committed rape and violent sexual assault causing severe injury already face 'life-means-life' jail sentences to completely prevent the threat of reoffending. Some have undergone chemical castration in jail on court orders. But now Kazakhstan is also toughening laws for those committing 'lesser' sexual offences against children. Six months before their release from prison, these paedophiles will be forced to start undergoing chemical castration injections. These will regularly continue after their release, which can only happen if they pass an 'assessment' of their 'mental state'. Potentially 'lifelong' supervision has also been proposed for paedophiles, and curfews can be imposed as well as bans on going into or near schools. 'We can also restrict leaving the house at night,' said Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Lepekha. Chemical castration laws in Kazakhstan are being toughened with those committing 'lesser sexual offences' set to face chemical castration as well as child rapists 'Previously, supervision lasted eight years. Now, it is planned to be significantly extended. 'We can forbid an individual from being near, for example, schools or other children's educational institutions.' Violation of restrictions or refusing to undergo continuing chemical castration could lead to a return to jail under the draft law. Dozens of brutal child sex offenders have been forcibly injected in recent years in Kazakhstan. One was paedophile Saidolim Gayibnazarov, 48, who raped and killed five-year-old girl Erkezhan Nurmakhan and was sentenced to chemical castration during his jail sentence. Another Berik Zholdasov was castrated after raping his eight-year-old stepdaughter, causing her so much physical damage that doctors had to remove her womb. He had threatened to kill her if she told her mother. A judge sentenced him to 25 years in a maximum security jail and ordered him to undergo 'forcible chemical castration'. Nurse Zoya Manaenko - in her 70s - was pictured conducting the chemical castration procedure by injecting a paedophile convict in a Kazakhstan jail medical unit Consideration is being given to making chemical castration mandatory for certain highrisk convicts in the UK This was before the law was changed to life for child rape. Last year 11 paedophiles in a single region of Kazakhstan were sentenced to compulsory chemical castration. All the men 'committed crimes against the sexual inviolability of minors' in Kostanay region. Nurse Zoya Manaenko - in her 70s - was pictured conducting the chemical castration procedure by injecting a paedophile convict in a Kazakhstan jail medical unit. Meanwhile, Britain is planning to emulate Kazakhstan in the use of chemical castration for paedophiles. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed plans in May for a national rollout of voluntary 'antilibidinal' drugs for sex offenders. Consideration is being given to making chemical castration mandatory for certain highrisk convicts. For several years voluntary chemical castration has been available at HMP Whatton in Nottinghamshire. Some convicted sex offenders have opted in as part of their rehabilitation. Pilots will now be conducted in 20 prisons across two regions of England and Wales, and consideration is being given to compulsory chemical castration in some cases. A convicted ISIS terrorist has been living in a townhouse-style minimum security prison in Canada, according to a conservative politician. Parliament member Frank Caputo, a former prosecutor, made the claim during an appearance on The Ben Mulroney Show on Wednesday. 'I'm the public safety critic for the Conservative Party. One of the things I do is I visit penitentiaries to see how things are going,' Caputo explained. 'I visited a minimum security penitentiary in the prairies recently. I saw the name "Borhot" and saw someone with the name "Borhot, H" on their shirt - and I concluded that was Hussein Borhot.' Hussein Borhot was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping on behalf of the Islamic State. Daily Mail was not able to independently confirm Caputo's claims. The Correctional Service of Canada has not confirmed the claims and did not immediately respond to Daily Mail's request for comment on Friday. A conservative politician in Canada claimed he spotted convicted ISIS terrorist Hussein Borhot, seen in 2022, in a 'townhouse-style minimum security prison' A stock image of a minimum-security prison in British Columbia. According to the Canadian government, low-security prisons in the country focus on rehabilitation and are 'managed by correctional staff with as little restriction as possible' Parliament member Frank Caputo, a former prosecutor, said he received a tip informing him that the terrorist was being held in a cushy prison Caputo said he believes a supervisor must have given the terrorist an 'override' that allowed him to live in the comfortable housing. He added that he received a tip from inmates at the prison, which he did not name, telling him the terrorist was being held there. 'I had been tipped that this person was present so I wanted to see for myself,' the conservative politician explained. 'I went and they have townhouse-style living and we found where this person's bedroom was - because it's not really a cell, it's just a bedroom.' Caputo said that people can just walk in the front door of the townhouse-style facility. He claimed Borhot asked him if he had been looking for him. In 2014, a then 36-year-old Borhot left Calgary to fight for ISIS in Syria, where he helped the terrorist group kidnap opponents, according to Canadian police. Borhot admitted he had considered becoming a suicide bomber but eventually became an ISIS sniper. The terrorist returned to Canada in 2022 and was arrested shortly after in an undercover police operation. Police said a then 36-year-old Borhot left Calgary in 2014 to fight for ISIS in Syria, where he helped the terrorist group kidnap opponents. An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on March 17, 2014 by the Islamic State Caputo, a conservative member of the House of Commons, said minimum security penitentiaries in Canada are 'quite free.' 'On a security scale, it's about two out of ten; there are no fences,' Caputo said. 'When you walk in you think you're at a university.' According to the Canadian government, low-security prisons in the country focus on rehabilitation and are 'managed by correctional staff with as little restriction as possible.' 'The environment promotes personal development, responsible behavior and interactions with others,' per the Canadian correctional service. Daily Mail reached out to Caputo for more information on this story. A Conservative council leader has released a bizarre Grand Theft Auto-style advert showing him blowing up solar farms after his county was earmarked for swathes of solar panels. South Norfolk Council leader Daniel Elmer stars in the video, in which he daydreams about how to deal with a spate of applications for solar farms in a meeting. A number of the largest solar farms in the UK have been proposed for in Norfolk given its flat terrain and abundance of field and farmland. Norfolk could become the biggest solar energy producer in the country if the schemes all go ahead. But Mr Elmer, who has opposed many of the schemes, has now released the strange ad in a bid to encourage locals to fill out a survey objecting to proposals. The video starts with him appearing to daydream while sat in a council meeting, while a voice says: 'So, guys, we need to talk about how we're going to better regulate solar farms in our district and protect our green spaces. 'We're getting lots of applications, but they're just not in the right places. 'Let's think outside the box. No idea is a bad idea.' South Norfolk Council leader Daniel Elmer stars in the video, in which he daydreams about blowing up solar farms using a rocket launcher He is seen aiming at panels and pylons in the clip before graphics appear on screen showing explosions The clip then cuts to show Mr Elmer dressed in a black top and wearing sunglasses standing outside the gates to a field containing solar panels. In a reference to how players cycle through items they hold in the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto games, initially selects flowers, then a camera. But he then nods in approval as he settles on a rocket launcher, which he then pretends to aim at a solar farm and pylons. A few seconds later graphics appear on the screen showing explosions. Words 'Mission Passed! Respect +', in the font used in the GTA games, then appears on the screen. The video then cuts back to him sitting in a shirt and tie, and Mr Elmer says: 'Well, we can't do that, but we can do this.' He then urges people to fill in a council survey to help with the authority's bid to protect South Norfolk from 'unnecessary' solar farms. The video assures viewers that: 'No solar farms were harmed in the making of this video.' Mr Elmer, who has opposed many of the schemes, has now released the strange ad in a bid to encourage locals to fill out a survey objecting to proposals The video mimicked GTA games as he appeared to 'cycle' through different options including flowers and a camera Wording also flashed up on the screen in GTA style font and colours Mr Elmer is seen wearing dramatic sunglasses and said the clip it tongue-in-cheek Mr Elmer said the video was tongue-in-cheek, but contained a serious message. One of the proposed farms, the East Pye project, is set to span 2,700 acres across villages and saw residents receive letters that their homes 'may be required' to create space. There are also projects proposed in Gissing, where a site estimated at 5,000 acres is planned and High Grove, a 4,000-acre scheme near Dereham and Swaffham. Mr Elmer hopes the video will encourage people to take part in the consultation over the authority's South Norfolk Landscape Susceptibility Planning Document. That document is a 'statement of intent' by the council to identify areas most at risk of being impacted by renewable energy schemes and to find suitable sites for these projects, avoiding the best quality farmland. Mr Elmer said: 'What we have produced looks at land types and says 'this is where development is completely unacceptable' and 'here's where the developers might be able to do something with the appropriate mitigation'. 'We are trying to send a clear message to the developers that they shouldn't take South Norfolk completely for granted.' It's not just Conservative councillors who are angry at the plans. Suzanne Wateridge, Green councillor for Bunwell, told the BBC last month: 'The village is starting to look completely encircled. 'I wholeheartedly support renewable energy projects, but every county across the country should be hosting its fair share. 'There is no doubt that South Norfolk is being disproportionately targeted by energy companies.' A cannabis addicted killer strangled his girlfriend in a SUV before driving around with her limp body in the passenger seat for two hours, a court has heard. Gogoa Lois Tape attacked Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, 25, for at least eight-minutes in Hackney, East London last April after asking her for lift. The 28-year-old, who was armed with a knife, strangled and punched the helpless mother of his two-year-old daughter as she sat in the drivers seat of the Vauxhall. Tape, who had a history of psychotic episodes after refusing to stop smoking cannabis, then drove around after propping up her body. Inner London Crown Court was shown disturbing CCTV footage of the killer casually popping into a shop for cigarettes. Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker told the hearing: The defendant would have been able to use either his own or the deceaseds phoneto call emergency services. He did not do so. Insteadduring the next 2 hours until 01:14am, with the deceased slumped in the passenger seat, he drove around the local area, bought cigarettes, sent a message from her phone. Tape pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility and the Crown Prosecution Service agreed to drop a murder charge - a move which has angered the victims devastated family. Tape pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility and the Crown Prosecution Service agreed to drop a murder charge - a move which has angered the victims family Gogoa Lois Tape, pictured for the first time, attacked Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, 25, for at least eight-minutes in Hackney, East London last April Psychiatrist reports say he was suffering from paranoid and persecutory delusions arising from schizophrenia at the time of the killing, Ms Faure-Walker said. The court heard the defendant had smoked cannabis since 2014 and had been warned to abstain, but would smoke cannabis afterwards after contact with mental health services in 2023. Despite this advice, he continued smoking the drug -including while on holiday in Amsterdam and failed to attend several follow up appointments. In March 2024, just weeks before he death, Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche was repeatedly accused by the defendant of cheating on him. Ms Faure Walker added witnesses had noticed Tape was increasingly paranoid and even went to another mans door to find out if she was with him. Today, Ms Westcarr-Sabaroches mother Linda told Inner London Crown Court: It is deeply painful to know that despite the overwhelming truth of what Tape did, the legal system has given room to this version of events, in a system meant to protect the innocent.' That too is a gaping wound, she added. Her tearful sister Danielle Westcarr-Jourdan added that the way the justice system has responded to her death has deepened our pain. I feel I have had to advocate for myself and for my familys safety throughout this process. Kennedi deserved protection in life and she deserves justice in death, she added. The mental health worker told the court that the narrative focussed on the preparators mental health.that has added to our pain and made the process even harder to endure. As a woman I want justice to reflect the crime, she said. Tape had been warned by several professionals against smoking cannabis again as it could trigger further episodes. Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche worked as a social media assistant at the Marie Curie trust, she had been an apprentice for the Princes Trust, and she has met the King on two occasions. Her mother told the court: She was my best friend, my soulmate, the life of our family, she was selfless, intelligent, strong, and full of life. The hearing continues. A high-flying real estate agent has been accused of biting a seven-year-old girl during a fight over a free t-shirt at a family-friendly concert in the Hamptons. Gail Bomze, 75, was arrested following the alleged incident at the Main Beach concert series on East Hampton's Main Beach Tuesday afternoon. According to an arrest report seen by Daily Mail , she was charged with third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child. The girl's parents told officers the attack unfolded when the seven-year-old tried to grab a t-shirt that was thrown from a balcony into the crowd of revelers below. East Hampton Village Police said Bomze lashed out and grabbed the girl's arm, biting it so hard it was left swollen and bloodied. An event employee told officers the 75-year-old was actively 'kicking and punching kids'. The girl's parents called 911 and Bomze was booked on misdemeanor charges, given an appearance ticket and then released, the outlet reported. Through her lawyer Christopher McGuire, Bomze has denied the allegations - instead claiming she was swarmed by a group of teens and knocked to the ground. Gail Bomze was charged with third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child following the incident on Tuesday The girl's parents told officers she was trying to grab a t-shirt thrown from a balcony at the Main Beach concert series (seen here) when Bomze attacked In a statement to Page Six, McGuire said: 'She was knocked to the ground in the chaos by a group of teenagers during the T-shirt toss, leaving her sore and injured, and reported her concerns in writing to the event organizers the very next day. 'The organizers promptly called her, apologized, and assured her that changes would be made to improve safety. 'She has also met with police to raise her own concerns and asked that the incident be investigated. 'This unfortunate episode could have been avoided with better event management and appropriate crowd control measures in place.' The concert series is ran by the East Hampton Village Foundation, with CEO Bradford Billet saying they 'strongly condemn this alleged, isolated incident'. He added: 'The safety, security, and enjoyment of our residents and visitors are our highest priority, and we remain committed to ensuring these concerts continue as a safe, welcoming community tradition for all.' Bomze has been behind the sales of some of New York City's most exclusive homes including a townhouse on Park Avenue which sold for a staggering $21.8 million. Her real estate site also lists dozens of other properties that sold for eyewatering figures over the years. Bomze has brokered the sales of some of New York City's most exclusive properties, often selling for millions The concert series is ran by the East Hampton Village Foundation, with CEO Bradford Billet saying they 'strongly condemn this alleged, isolated incident' According to Page Six, Bomze is also a well-known figure in the Upper East Side of Manhattan social scene. The outlet reported that she has previously donated to the Central Park Conservancy and appeared in the social diary at a party honoring artist Julian Schnabel. The Daily Mail has approached Bomze for comment. A man caught on camera allegedly knocking a woman out over a spilled drink at a Rufus Du Sol concert has now been arrested. Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala, 23, was taken into custody at his home in Hawthorne, Los Angeles, Thursday, five days after Saturday's brawl inside the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Zavala was tracked down by police after shocking video of the attack was posted online, showing the suspect's face. The footage shows the suspect throwing several punches at 33-year-old mother Shelby Elston while another woman tries to hold him back. Elston is then seen sitting limp on the floor while her fiance, Cain Webb, tries to shield her from the attack. Zavala will now be formally charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office once it fully reviews the case. Elston said she had been excited to see the Australian EDM group in concert, before the night took a horrifying turn. '[I'm] still trying to find the words to describe exactly what happened to us last night,' Elston wrote in a post on Facebook about the incident. Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala, 23, was tracked down by police after shocking video of the attack was posted online Shelby Elston (pictured left), a mother-of-three, was beaten at the concert on Saturday The Phoenix native explained she, Webb, and a friend drove to Los Angeles to see their 'favorite artist' but 'ended up missing the entire show'. 'As soon as we got into the venue, Cain, Ralph, and I grabbed a drink and sat down in our seats in the stands. The boys...went to the bathroom,' she wrote. When they came back Cain accidentally knocked his drink over and it splashed onto the man in front, she said. 'We immediately apologized, but this man started screaming in our face that we did it on purpose. He ran off into the crowd leaving his girlfriend behind. We again apologized to her for the drink incident and left it at that.' But their encounter with the enraged stranger was far from over, as Elston wrote that 30 minutes later he returned and 'immediately gets in Cain's face screaming at him'. The man allegedly told Elston's fiance that he would 'kill him if it happens again', according to Elston. At that moment, she said she stepped in to try to calm the situation. 'That is the last thing I remember before waking up in the medical tent an hour later,' she wrote. Disturbing footage shows the moment the unidentified man threw several punches at Elston Elston was seen sitting limp on the floor in the footage while her fiance, Webb, attempted to protect her 'This man PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE! I was completely knocked out and there was blood pouring from my face. He continued to attack Cain while Ralph attempted to block him from the hits.' The violent stranger then ran into the crowd 'never to be seen again,' Elston said. 'We are traumatized from what happened last night, and the worst part is this man got away with it...This should not have happened and this man deserves whatever the law can throw at him,' she wrote. Rufus Du Sol shared a statement on Instagram following the incident: 'Delivering moments for our fans to gather and celebrate safely is what we live for. 'We have been heart broken to hear of the act of violence that took place during the opening act on Saturday.' 'This type of behavior is completely unacceptable anywhere and the fact that this happened at one of our shows was devastating to learn about.' Rocker Jack White has unleashed a blistering attack on Donald Trump and his administration after being branded a 'washed-up loser' by a top White House aide. The feud began earlier this week when the former White Stripes front man mocked Trump's newly redecorated Oval Office, describing it as 'a vulgar, gold-leafed and gaudy professional wrestler's dressing room.' He went on to say that the White House lawn might soon host a UFC fight, saying the spectacle would bring the country closer to resembling the satirical film Idiocracy. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung swiftly fired back, dismissing the Grammy-winning musician as 'a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media' who 'disrespects the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of The People's House.' White then responded on Instagram with a lengthy statement that escalated the war of the words. He called Trump a 'low life fascist,' a 'bankrupter of casinos,' and a 'failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc.' He also accused the former president's inner circle of masking authoritarianism as patriotism. 'How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get?' White wrote. '"Masquerading as a real artist"? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here's my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being.' The 49-year-old rocker compared Trump's leadership style to 1930s Germany and warned he posed a threat beyond U.S. borders. Jack White has unleashed a blistering attack on Donald Trump and his administration after being branded a 'washed-up loser' by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung White sparked the feud by mocking Trump's newly gilded Oval Office, calling it 'a vulgar, gold-leafed and gaudy professional wrestler's dressing room' In a multi-page post, White called Trump a 'low life fascist' and accused his staff of covering up authoritarianism under the guise of patriotism. White compared Trump's leadership to 1930s Germany, warning that he was 'dismantling democracy and endangering the planet' 'This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that's not an exaggeration,' White wrote, 'he's dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it.' Cheung doubled down on his response in remarks to Fox News, saying: 'Trump deranged liberals like him are so predictable and easily triggered. I'm glad we live rent-free in his rotted, pea-sized brain.' The clash underscores White's long-running opposition to Trump, whom he has criticized repeatedly over the years, including attempts to block his music from being played at Trump rallies. A 38-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder after a 'suspicious substance' found under a car led to dozens of families being evacuated from their homes. A specialist army bomb squad carried out controlled explosions in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, after an object was discovered beneath a vehicle on Saturday afternoon. Around 50 homes were cleared, and a 100-metre cordon was put in place on Cowley Hill. Residents described being given just minutes to flee their homes, some still in pyjamas. Robert Kovacs, 38, of Edgware, has since been charged with attempted murder, making an explosive substance with intent to endanger life / injure property and doing an act with intent to cause an explosion likely to endanger life / injure property. He appeared in court this morning and was remanded in custody ahead of a further hearing at St Albans Magistrates' Court on September 8, Hertfordshire Constabulary has said. A 38-year-old woman from Borehamwood was also arrested in connection with the incident but has been released on bail under strict conditions while enquiries continue. Amber, a mother-of-three, who lives in one of the evacuated container homes just off Crown Road said she had just arrived home after being away for a few days when the police arrived. Around 50 homes have been evacuated and a 100-metre cordon installed after a 'suspicious object' was discovered under a car in Cowley Hill, Borehamwood on Saturday afternoon Emergency services were called just after 12.30pm , with Hertfordshire Police arriving first, followed by the British Army's EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit 'I hadn't even got through my door when an officer turned up and said we needed to leave right there and then - or we would be arrested. 'We fled the area for an hour, but when we came back, the roads were all cordoned off. After a short while we heard two large bangs go off. 'The residents were left standing in the street, with no food, no toilet, no information about what was happening. 'Most of the families asked to leave are quite vulnerable. My 96-year-old neighbour couldn't even stand up to answer the door to the police and I have another neighbour who is heavily pregnant. A temporary evacuation centre was later opened by Hertsmere Borough Council. Detective Inspector Caeva Taylor from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, who is leading the investigation, said: 'I understand that the news of this incident has caused concern among the local community. 'We believe this to be an isolated incident, involving parties known to one of the suspects and there is no intelligence to suggest any wider threat to the public.' Some residents, still only in their pyjamas, were ordered to leave immediately or they would be 'arrested for their own safety' 'I'd like to take this opportunity to appeal to the public for any information that may assist our enquiries. 'If you remember noticing anything suspicious in the Cowley Hill area between Friday 15 August and Saturday 16 August, or have any information that may help, please contact us.' Information can be reported online at herts.police.uk/report, by speaking to an operator in our Force Communications Room via our online web chat at herts.police.uk/contact or by calling the non-emergency number 101. Please quote Op Cassonade. 'Alternatively, you can stay 100% anonymous by contacting the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or via their untraceable online form at crimestoppers-uk.org.' Defence chiefs have agreed a multi-million pound compensation deal after troops started a fire in Kenya that devastated wildlife. Absent minded soldiers started the blaze while cooking in a field. The flames ripped through a nature reserve and affected up to 8,000 acres of land. According to unconfirmed reports at the time, elephants at the Lolldaiga nature reserve may have perished in the fire which raged for several days. Afterwards, the Ministry of Defence funded an independent environmental report to assess the impact and restore the environment. While a community fire prevention group was established to protect animals from further wildfires. Now, it has emerged taxpayers have funded a 2.9 million settlement after negotiations between UK and Kenyan lawyers. The money will be shared by thousands of Kenyans who suffered health issues and property damage. UK troops joined local efforts to control the blaze which continued for several days The blaze at the Lolldaiga Hills nature reserve could be seen from many miles away Most units in the British Army deploy to Kenya for exercises. In 2018, the Prince of Wales, seen above, visited troops from the 1st Battalion, the Irish Guards, involved in field training UK soldiers have trained in Kenya for decades and more than 1,000 were in the country at the time in March 2021. The troops involved came from the 2nd Battalion, the Mercian Regiment. In an unrelated move, the Ministry of Defence axed the unit around the same time. All military exercises were suspended as an emergency operation to put out the blaze began. Hundreds of UK and Kenyan soldiers beat back the flames. In an unfortunate move, a soldier posted on social media site Snapchat saying: Two months in Kenya later and weve only got eight days left. Been good, caused a fire, killed an elephant and feel terrible about it. But hey-ho, when in Rome. Last night, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: We are pleased that a global settlement has been agreed with the claimants appointed legal representatives. The Lolldaiga fire was extremely regrettable. The UK recognises the time taken to resolve this matter and the frustration caused within affected communities. The UK has devoted considerable time, effort and resource to resolving these claims for the people affected. Parents who claimed their baby was abducted while his mom was changing his diaper have been arrested on suspicion of the infant's murder. Jake and Rebecca Haro were taken into custody during a raid on their home on Friday morning, a week after seven-month-old Emmanuel Haro disappeared. The couple are yet to be charged, but the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office said they were arrested on suspicion of murder. 'Investigators will continue their search for seven-month-old Emmanuel Haro,' the sheriff's office said, after dragging the couple out of their home. Officers were seen sifting through garbage at the house in Cabazon, California, while forensic investigators arrived to scour the property for clues. The arrests came after police seized a car belonging to Jake Haro earlier in the week. Rebecca Haro claimed she was attacked from behind in front of a Big 5 retail store in Yucaipa, California, last Thursday. She told police she regained consciousness with a black eye and no memory of what had happened, and realized her son was gone. Emmanuel Haro has not been seen since last Thursday when his parents claimed he was abducted during an attack on his mother Rebecca Haro claimed she was attacked from behind in front of a Big 5 retail store in Yucaipa, California, and when she awoke, her son was gone The isolated house in Cabazon, California, where they were arrested on Friday morning But inconsistencies began to emerge in her story, and police grew skeptical of the abduction, changing the case to a missing child instead. Some witnesses said they saw Rebecca Haro with the black eye last Wednesday - one day before the alleged attack. When police confronted Rebecca Haro with inconsistencies in her story about Emmanuel's abduction, she refused to continue speaking to investigators. Jake Haro's violent past also came to light. He was convicted of felony willful child cruelty in June 2023 after he was arrested in Hemet, California, on October 12, 2018. He was jailed for 180 days and is still working through his 48 months on probation with a 72-month suspended sentence, according to Riverside County Superior Court records. Multiple people familiar with the crime said his relationship with the child's mother didn't end well and that he beat the child so badly they suffered a brain injury. Jake Haro was due back in court again on September 2, accused of a parole violation that could send him back to prison. He was acquitted last year of illegally owning a gun and ammunition, which he is prohibited from doing as a drug addict and convicted felon. Police blocked off the street as they searched the property for clues about the missing boy Police were seen sifting through garbage at the house and forensic investigators arrived to scour the property for clues Detectives and forensic crews scoured the property for clues following the couple's arrest Emmanuel's grandmother claimed police asked the boy's parents to take a lie detector test but that Jake Haro refused to do so without a lawyer present. Such tests are generally not admissible in court and are not standard police investigation procedure. The grandmother, who previously said she believes the couple is innocent, said a two-year-old child had already been removed from their care. Rebecca Haro has her own issues in her past. Her brother James Beushausen was jailed for 50 years to life for murdering his girlfriend Jaylynn Amanda Keith in 2017. Beushausen initially claimed she took her own life but his story unraveled when Palm Springs Police found inconsistencies. Their mother Mary Beushausen insisted he was innocent and even created a 'Justice for Johnny' Facebook page. Jake and Rebecca Haro were taken into custody during a raid on their home on Friday morning, a week after Emmanuel disappeared Emmanuel's father Jake Haro was convicted of felony willful child cruelty in June 2023 after he was arrested in Hemet, California, on October 12, 2018 Rebecca (pictured holding Emmanuel) fell under suspicion as inconsistencies in her story emerged As speculation grew about the Haro parents, the Uvalde Foundation for Kids yanked its $5,000 reward for information leading to Emmanuel being found and ended its own search efforts. 'We cannot in good conscience, utilize our team and resources when so much is missing in this case,' it said. 'Of particular concern to us lies within the inconsistencies in the details and the sudden decision by the mother to end communication with law enforcement and our team. 'Tell me, what parent would do that who was missing a child? Something is not right in this whole picture. 'We hope law enforcement will continue to pursue the case so that this precious child may be found and placed in a safe environment.' The couple instead kept publicly pleading for information from the public through social media and the press. Rebecca and Jake Haro were interviewed by KTLA 5 hours after Emmanuel's supposed disappearance, and begged for him to be returned. The Big 5 store Rebecca Haro said she was parked in front of when she was attacked and her son abducted Emmanuel is described as weighing about 21lbs, standing about 24 inches tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a noticeable cross-eye which his family said was not due to a disability Last Friday evening, friends and family gathered outside the sporting goods store to begin their own search efforts, armed with flyers they had prepared 'He's a happy boy,' Rebecca Haro said. 'He was a healthy baby, he was crawling, he was kicking, he was playing with his toys. Whoever took our son, please give him back.' 'Whoever took my son, please return him,' Jake Haro added. 'We just want him back. We won't do anything to you. Just give us our son. Keep him safe, don't hurt him, make sure you feed him and change him.' Friends and family gathered outside the sporting goods store on Friday evening to begin their own search efforts, armed with flyers they had prepared. Emmanuel is described as weighing about 21lbs, standing about 24 inches tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a noticeable cross-eye which his family said was not due to a disability. He was last seen wearing a black Nike onesie. President Donald Trump said Friday he had no prior knowledge of the early morning FBI raid on his former advisor John Bolton, although he speculated that his former advisor-turned-critic could be in trouble with the law. 'No, I don't know about it, I saw it on television this morning,' Trump said to reporters during a visit at the White House Historical Association Museum after the raid. 'I'm not a fan of John Bolton,' he added. 'He's a real sort of a lowlife.' Media cameras caught the FBI raid on Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland, as agents were spotted leaving the home with boxes of evidence. Later in the day, Trump also commented on Bolton to reporters in the Oval Office. 'I'm not a fan of John Bolton, I thought he was a sleaze-bag actually, he suffers major Trump derangement syndrome,' Trump said, adding he did 'not know anything about it.' Bolton was reportedly at home but did not emerge from his house at the scene. His wife Gretchen Smith Bolton was spotted at the front door interacting with the federal agents. Bolton served in Trump's first administration as a national security advisor from April 2018 until he was forced out in September 2019. Former Trump National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton in his office. Bolton neighbor says KARMA has caught up with ex-Trump adviser FBI members carry boxes outside the home of the former White House national security adviser John Bolton He became one of Trump's most vocal critics on television after he was fired. Trump said he hired Bolton because of his hawkish reputation and television appearances thinking it would make world leaders nervous, just knowing he was in the room. 'He doesn't talk, he's like a very quiet person except on television and then he can say something bad about Trump. He'll always do that. But he doesn't talk, he's very quiet,' Trump said. But was not pleased with his performance. 'He's very bad at what he does,' Trump said. 'He's not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy but we're going to find out.' The president distanced himself from the ongoing investigation, although he confirmed he would probably be briefed about the raid later in the day. 'I tell Pam (Bondi) I tell the group, I don't want to know but you have to do what you have to do,' he said. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the raid in a post on social media. 'NO ONE is above the law FBI agents on mission,' FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a post to X as agents descended on the Bolton house. Bolton's office in Washington, DC was also searched. Lucy Connolly has accused Sir Keir Starmer of holding her as a political prisoner in her first interview since she was jailed for posting a 'racist tweet'. Ms Connolly, 42, believes the Prime Minister's intervention - condemning last summer's riots as 'far-right thuggery' - affected the way she was treated 'a hundred per cent'. The childminder from Northampton also revealed she is planning to take legal action against the police and will meet officials from the Trump administration tomorrow. Ms Connolly was released from prison yesterday after she was handed a 31-month sentence for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers online in the aftermath of the Southport attacks. The post, which she later deleted, said: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care... if that makes me racist so be it.' Many senior Tory and right-wing politicians and commentators criticised the decision to imprison Connolly, describing her case as evidence of a 'two-tier justice system', in which those who criticise immigration policy are dealt with more harshly than those who do not. Speaking for the first time since her release, Ms Connolly told The Telegraph: 'I do think the police were dishonest in what they released and what they said about me, and I will be holding them to account for that.' She said her words were 'massively twisted' in a statement released by the Crown Prosecution Service, which suggested she told officers in her police interview she did not like immigrants. And when asked if she sees herself as 'Sir Keir Starmer's political prisoner', Ms Connolly replied: 'Absolutely. Me and several other people.' Lucy Connolly has accused Sir Keir Starmer of holding her as a political prisoner as she told of her 377-day ordeal for the first time. She is pictured giving the interview to The Telegraph These were the first pictures of Lucy Connolly following her release from prison yesterday Lucy Connolly (pictured) walked free from prison after being jailed for writing a racist tweet during last summer's riots She added: 'I think with Starmer he needs to practice what he preaches.' 'He's a human rights lawyer, so maybe he needs to look at what people's human rights are; what freedom of speech means; and what the laws are in this country.' Ms Connolly also revealed in a separate interview with Dan Wotton she would be meeting with representatives of the Trump administration tomorrow to discuss the 'crackdown on free speech' in the UK. Asked on his YouTube show what she knew about the meeting, she said: 'Not much, just that they're very interested in the way things are going in the UK, and they are obviously big advocates for free speech, and their lawyers are keen to speak with me.' Asked if she thinks the UK has free speech, she said: 'I don't think so, no.' 'And that's, you know, become increasingly apparent, isn't it? How many people are still in prison...we need to remember that there was still other people in prison for a similar thing...other political prisoners. 'So I would like Keir Starmer and CPS and any of these people that had a hand in it to tell me exactly what are they achieving by putting the likes of me in prison.' Ms Connolly spent more than a year behind bars for making an inflammatory post on X in the wake of the Southport attacks in July last year. She pleaded guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred and was handed a 31-month sentence in October, having been held on remand following her arrest last August. Connolly was taken away from HMP Peterborough in a taxi (pictured) after being released The Tory councillor was seen watering flowers in preparation for his wife's release from prison yesterday Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehicle after disorder breaks out in Southport on July 30, 2024 The post, which she later deleted, said: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care... if that makes me racist so be it.' She had been serving time at HMP Peterborough and had an application to have her sentence reduced rejected in May. However, she was freed from prison yesterday after serving 40 per cent of her 31-month sentence. Mr Connolly told the Daily Mail yesterday morning: 'It will be good to have her home!' The local Tory councillor, who was busy watering hanging baskets in the couple's front garden to ensure that her homecoming was picture perfect, said their family's focus from now would be 'to get our lives back on track.' He said that both he and Lucy had coped with her imprisonment 'relatively well'. But he added: 'The only person who hasn't is our 12-year-old daughter. She has found it very difficult not having her mum at home. 'So well done Keir Starmer for making it so difficult for a 12year-old girl. Let's give him a pat on the back.' Yesterday Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Opposition, questioned the public interest in punishing her so harshly. In a post on X, she wrote: 'Lucy Connolly finally returns home to her family today. At last. Her punishment was harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting. 'At that time, after Southport, Keir Starmer branded all protesters 'far-right' and called for 'fast-track prosecutions'. 'Days later, Lucy was charged with stirring up racial hatred - an offence that doesn't even require intent to incite violence. Why exactly did the Attorney General think that was in the public interest? 'Meanwhile, former Labour councillor Ricky Jones called for protestors to have their throats slit. Charged with encouraging violent disorder, he pleaded not guilty and was acquitted by a jury who saw his words as a disgusting remark made in the heat of the moment, not a call to action. 'Juries are a cornerstone of justice, but we shouldn't have to rely on them to protect basic freedoms. Protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety. Ray Connolly (centre) with supporters outside the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London in May Serious violence and rioting by demonstrators broke out on the streets in Southport on July 30, 2024 'If the law does this, then the law itself is broken and it's time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act.' Connolly's X post was made just hours after killer Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls and attempted to murder ten others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29, 2024, sparking nationwide unrest. It came amid speculation, which was later proved to be false, that the murders had been committed by an illegal immigrant. She was arrested on August 6, by which point she had deleted her social media account. But other messages which included other damning remarks were uncovered by officers who seized her phone. The Southport atrocity sparked nationwide unrest, with several people - including Connolly - jailed as a result. Her tweet was viewed 310,000 times in three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it. She later pleaded guilty to distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred at Birmingham Crown Court and was sentenced to 31 months in prison in October. In May, she had an appeal against her sentence refused by three Court of Appeal judges at the Royal Courts of Justice. Connolly argued she had been 'really angry' after the Southport attacks, but hours after posting the rant on X realised it was not an acceptable thing to say, so deleted it. She also said that news of the Southport murders had triggered her anxiety from when her baby son, Harry, died as the result of a hospital blunder 13 years earlier. At her appeal case, Adam King, representing Connolly, asked if she had intended for anyone to set fire to asylum hotels or 'murder any politicians'. She replied: 'Absolutely not.' Naeem Valli, for the prosecution, told the court the post was a reflection of her attitude towards immigrants. At the time Mr Connolly told of the pain of his wife's long imprisonment, saying: 'The 284 days of separation have been very hard, particularly on our 12-year-old girl.' Connolly's case later became international news, with US officials saying earlier this year they are keeping tabs on developments over their 'concerns' about free speech. A Northamptonshire Police spokesperson said the force was aware of comments made by Mrs Connolly after her release from prison. The spokesperson added: 'We hope to contact Mrs Connolly in the coming days to understand the issues she has raised around Northamptonshire Police.' A heavily-tattooed Las Vegas woman who killed a carpet cleaner in a random act of violence appears to have had a stunning transformation behind bars. Kayla Alery, 28, shot and killed Raul Cardoza, 41, at a Las Vegas apartment complex in March of last year. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon, telling the court she is schizophrenic and has struggled with addiction. On Thursday, Alery returned to court to be sentenced and was noticeably more rotund than her previous appearances. Images captured after her arrest showed her with a sharp chiseled jaw, her face and neck covered in tattoos. Now, her slim facial features have all but disappeared, with a double chin visible as she stood handcuffed in court, begging for mercy from a judge. Alery was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison. 'It was a very random act against somebody who was going to work. And this is a tragic situation all the way around,' Judge Tierra Jones told her. Kayla Alery, seen here in a previous court appearance, had a chiseled jaw and skinny frame On Thursday, Alery had put on a considerable amount of weight, and looked completely different During the sentencing hearing, she apologized to her victim's family members. 'I dont want to be locked away for life, for 18 years. I want to be able to attend AA meetings and to change my life,' she said, 8newsnow reported. According to the outlet, her lawyer said she was raped as a teenager and sex trafficked. Ingri Cardoza, Raul's daughter, gave an emotional statement to the court. 'Every single day feels heavy. I will never hear his laugh again. Never feel his hugs. Never call him when I hear his advice,' she said. Clark County Deputy District Attorney Kassandra Acosta said Cardoza had been in his car and hadn't provoked Alery in any way before he was murdered. Cardoza and Alery had never interacted prior to the shooting. Several people had noticed her lurking around the property and she was asked to leave, with workers directing her to an exit. As she passed Cardoza's van, she pulled out a handgun and fired one shot, hitting him in the neck. She was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years behind bars for murdering Raul Cardoza (pictured) Several people had noticed her lurking around the property and she was asked to leave, with workers directing her to an exit She had been released from prison on parole shortly before the shooting on an arson conviction After being taken to Clark County Detention Center, Alery then attacked another inmate 'out of nowhere', police said at the time. Alery had been released from prison on parole for an arson conviction not long before the shooting. A GoFundMe set up by the victim's family remembered him as 'an incredible person who worked extremely hard and left this world, leaving behind a void that can never be filled'. His former boss Steve Pieri told the Las Vegas Review Journal he was an integral part of the company. He said: 'I know everyone says nice things about someone who is dead. He didnt go out and get customers, but he retained them. He was our most beloved guy.' The top ten private schools for A-levels all had more than 80 per cent of entries hitting A and A* this year three times the national average. New data lays bare excellence among the fee-paying elite, with the top-achiever, Cardiff Sixth Form College, hitting A or A* with 94 per cent of entries. In contrast, 28.3 per cent of entries across all UK schools achieved A or A* on A-level results day last week. The much lower national average is mostly driven by state schools, which educate 83 per cent of all sixth formers. In total, 87 per cent of the private schools providing data beat the national average. It comes after Labours new 20 per cent VAT on fees for private schools, imposed in January, helped to make them even more unobtainable for working people. Cardiff, which charges up to 78,000 annually for boarders, has consistently come top in recent years and is highly academically selective. The college, founded in 2004, has a large number of overseas pupils and says it combines the rigour and discipline prized in Eastern education with the individual creativity of the West. The top ten private schools for A-levels all had more than 80 per cent of entries hitting A and A* this year three times the national average (pictured: Cardiff Sixth Form College) New data lays bare excellence among the fee-paying elite, with the top-achiever, Cardiff Sixth Form College, hitting A or A* with 94 per cent of entries (pictured: one of its students Ariana Howells) An incredible 67 per cent of its entries to A-level hit the very top A* grade, compared to 9.4 per cent nationally. In second place is the historic Westminster School, which charges 65,976 annually for boarders, with past pupils including Sir Christopher Wren, Jeremy Bentham and Tony Benn. A total of 87 per cent of its entries achieved at least an A grade this year. Others in the top ten include King's College School, Wimbledon; Guildford High School; Brighton College; Queen Ethelburga's College in York; Alleyn's School in South London; and City of London School for Girls. Among the other schools doing well are those with lower fees, such as Manchester Grammar School, which last year charged 15,930 per year. However, due to Labour's new VAT, the fees will rise to 18,666 this September. A total of 74 per cent of its A-level entries this year got A/A*, and 37 per cent got A*. The 2025 A-level results for 205 private schools were compiled by the Independent Schools Council (ISC). The sample is self-selecting and the majority of the 568 private schools with sixth forms under the ISC umbrella including big names like Eton do not take part. Of those providing data, only 26 did not beat the national average in terms of getting top grades. Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, said: Talented pupils do outstandingly well in independent schools because they receive a brilliant education and the schools are well versed in the examination requirements. It is a great pity that the opportunity should now be denied to more pupils, in spite of the generous scholarships and bursaries, by the mean-spirited imposition of VAT on fees. Barnaby Lenon, former chair of the ISC and now Buckingham's dean of education, said private schools consistently dominate league tables for A-level results. He added: 'Many of their pupils are from modest backgrounds on bursaries. 'It is a tragedy that these great schools are out of reach to many more families because of the imposition of VAT on parents fees.' A top European diplomat has claimed Vladimir Putin got 'everything he wanted as hopes faded last night of a peace deal. The Russian President appears not to have made any concessions despite talks with President Trump and pressure from the UK and other Western allies. President Putin has even been seen laughing in recent media appearances and appears determined to continue the three-year occupation of Ukraine. Kaja Kallas, the European Unions senior foreign affairs official, was among Western leaders who joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday. The mood was buoyant afterwards following President Trumps claim President Putin had agreed to the US providing security guarantees for Ukraine. But since then Russian has denied the claim and reasserted that Ukraine must withdraw from the countrys eastern provinces. The European Union's Kaja Kallas dampens hopes of any breakthrough in Ukraine conflict saying Putin has got 'everything he wants' Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenksy wants a ceasefire but President Trump has adopted Vladimir Putin's position on the issue Hopes of a peace deal increased after Vladimir Putin's visit to Alaska. But a week later a settlement seems even further off Last night, Ms Kallas said Putin got such a welcoming in Alaska, he wanted sanctions not to be put in place, which he also achieved. Putin got everything he wanted. He is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing. We are forgetting that Russia has not made a single concession. The suggestion Russia was backing US security guarantees for Ukraine came from President Trumps peace envoy Steve Witkoff. He was either misled by the Russians or misunderstood their position. Last night, Finnish President backed Ms Kallas comments saying Putin was rarely to be trusted and cast doubt over reports the Russian President will meet his Ukrainian counterpart for peace talks. While French President Emmanual Macron described Putin as a predator and an ogre at our doorstep. President Trump has set President Putin another two-week deadline to agree to peace talks, after which the US may have to take a different tack. President Trump has also reversed his position on a ceasefire, moving from backing what Ukraine and its allies want, which is an immediate ceasefire, to the Russian position, which is against such a move. There was disappointment across European capitals last night as officials accepted that, despite the fanfare, the high profile scenes in the White House on Monday have amounted to nothing. Officials in London are convinced Russia has no intentions of ending the war. Confidence has also evaporated that President Trump will put President Putin under sustained pressure. Meanwhile, Russia has maintained its bombardment of Ukrainian cities, striking civilian targets. President Zelensky accused the Kremlin of behaving as if there were no peace efforts. It also emerged last night that US Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi Gubbard, ordered US agencies to limit their distribution to allies such as the UK. The edict was apparently ordered by Gubbard over fears intelligence would be shared with Ukraine. Gubbard has previously come under fire over his stance on the conflict and remarks suggesting she sympathises with Russia. Her directive of July 20th stated all information regarding the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations should be withheld from allied intelligence partners. The ban drove a wedge between Western partners in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, including the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Following Gubbards memorandum, US intelligence on the peace talks was classified as NOFORN, meaning no foreign dissemination. An Italian climber has died on a mountain in Kyrgyzstan after volunteering to help a friend who had become stuck on a mountain after breaking her leg. Luca Sinigaglia, 49, has been hailed a hero after returning to the summit of the 25,000 ft Pobeda Peak in the Tian Shan massif to carry critical supplies to fellow climber, Natalia Nagovitsyna. However, Sinigaglia, a cyber-security expert from Milan - died last Friday from hypothermia and exposure to low oxygen levels after failing to reach Nagovitsyna during his second ascent. Russian climber Nagovitsyna, 47, became stranded on August 12 when she fractured her leg during her descent. As a massive rescue operation began, fellow mountaineers volunteered to help bring her down, including Sinigaglia. He had managed to reach Nagovitsyna with a German climber named Gunther Siegmund and provided her with food and equipment before becoming trapped in a blizzard. Siegmund was able to descend to safety, while Sinigaglia's body was later recovered from an ice cave, where he is believed to have collapsed from exhaustion at about 23,000 ft. Meanwhile, the attempts to reach Nagovitsyna continue, but rescue efforts have been hampered by bad weather, with temperatures as low as minus 23C. Italian climber Luca Sinigaglia poses in an undated photo. He died last week while trying to rescue a fellow mountaineer on Pobeda Peak in Kyrgyzstan Sinigaglia was trying to help his friend, Russian climber Nagovitsyna (pictured), after she became stranded on August 12 when she fractured her leg during her descent Pobeda Peak, also known as Jengish Chokusu, rises to 24,406 ft A drone flew over the Russian climber on August 19 and confirmed she was still alive, but there were no signs of life on Thursday and her tent appeared to have been torn by strong winds. Pobeda Peak, also known as Jengish Chokusu, rises to 24,406 ft. No injured climber has ever been rescued from this altitude. The Russian Mountaineering Federation warned that a rescue would be a 'miracle', with the federation's vice president Alexander Pyatnitsyn saying: 'It will be almost impossible to save her. 'There's a three-kilometre-long ridge, and it takes at least 30 people in such a situation to rescue a person from there.' Nagovitsyna had previously suffered a tragedy on another expedition in 2021 when her husband Sergey died of a stroke at 22,630 ft on Khan Tengri, a neighbouring peak in the same massif. Sinigaglia had helped the couple during their descent before Sergey died. The Italian climber's sister Patrizia said that the experience made Sinigaglia and Nagovitsyna very close. 'After that they spoke often, agreeing every so often to meet up on some mountain around the world', Patrizia said. The tragedy involving the climber comes as a man plunged to his death from a knife edge ridge in Wales last week. The climber is believed to have died from hypothermia and exposure to low oxygen levels Efforts to rescue Nagovitsyna continue, but they have been hampered by bad weather conditions The walker, 36, fell off Crib Goch, a notoriously dangerous precipice on the approach to Snowdon, which Welsh speakers call Yr Wyddfa, last Saturday. North Wales Police and the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team rushed to the location by helicopter but pronounced the man dead at the scene. A spokesperson for the force said: 'We are saddened to confirm that a 36-year-old man has died following a fall from Crib Goch in Eryri National Park on Saturday, 16 August. 'Emergency services, including North Wales Police and the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, responded to reports of a man falling from the ridge at approximately 11:30am. 'The man was recovered from the mountain by helicopter but was sadly pronounced deceased at the scene. 'Formal identification has not yet taken place, but the man's next of kin have been informed, and the coroner has been notified.' Inspector Jamie Owens added: 'My deepest condolences remain with the man's family at this incredibly difficult time. Our investigation into the circumstances of this tragic incident is ongoing.' One of Canada's most popular provincial parks will be closed to non-indigenous visitors for a month this fall - but native leaders say the move is a token gesture that falls far short of what they demanded. British Columbia officials announced that Joffre Lakes Park, a turquoise alpine lake destination about 120 miles north of Vancouver, will be closed from September 2 to October 3 so members of the Lil'wat and N'Quatqua First Nations can 'reconnect with the land, conduct ceremonies, and gather traditional food and medicines.' The Nations, whose unceded territories the park covers, had asked for a two-month closure, from August 22 through October 23. In a joint online statement, they blasted the shorter timeframe as a 'continuation of colonial decision-making' and said the approved dates were 'a fraction' of what they had proposed. 'The [closure] does not respect Indigenous authority over our traditional lands,' the statement said. The Nations argued their communities needed more time for their activities, as well as to give the heavily trafficked area a 'rest period from recreational use.' Dean Nelson, political chief of the Lil'wat Nation, called the decision 'disappointing and disheartening' in an interview with CBC 'This is not reconciliation,' Nelson said. 'This is a continuation of colonial decision-making, you know, disregarding our needs and values on the land.' Joffre Lakes Park, a turquoise alpine lake destination about 120 miles north of Vancouver, will be closed to non-indigineous people for a moth so members of the Lil'wat and N'Quatqua First Nations can 'reconnect with the land' First Nations leader say the the monthlong closure is a token gesture that falls far short of what they demanded He went on to accuse the province of prioritizing outsiders' enjoyment over Indigenous stewardship. 'It is still management of, you know, [an] amusement park kind of thing. It is other people's values that they have to come and, you know, be seen and take their selfies there. So, again, the values are not being honored on an equal level.' The British Columbia Ministry of Environment defended the schedule, saying it 'balances cultural practices, conservation goals and public access.' Officials stressed that the dates ensure the park will remain open during the busy Labor Day long weekend and noted that the park will be closes for a total of 68 days in 2025. That's up from 60 days in 2024, though still well below the 103 days requested by the Nations. This summer's shutdown will mark the third closure of Joffre Lakes this year, following a three-week closure in April and a two-week closure in June. The closures come amid long-running tension over overuse of the park, which saw more than 180,000 annual visitors before B.C. Parks imposed a free day-pass system in 2021. To combat crowding, the number of day passes was cut in half last year, from 1,000 to 500 per day. Canadian nature lovers have already expressed outrage over the government shuttering beauty spots to give exclusive access to indigenous groups. Outdoors enthusiasts slammed the closure of Joffre Lakes for more than 100 days during peak season, as well as the 24-hour closure of Botanical Beach on Vancouver Island so the Pacheedaht First Nation could use it alone. The park sits on the First Nations' unceded territories Critics on social media branded the closures 'unfair,' 'discriminatory,' 'identity politics,' and even 'apartheid, Canadian-style.' One user fumed: 'These are provincial parks, not tribal reserves. Everyone pays for them. Everyone maintains them. Everyone should be welcome.' Caroline Elliott, director of the Public Land Use Society, said in a viral video that the Joffre closures were 'divisive' and 'set a terrible precedent.' 'It's just plain wrong. What it isn't is complicated. B.C.'s parks belong to all British Columbians,' she said. She also warned that the closures have steadily expanded: 39 days in 2023, 60 days in 2024, and more than 100 this year. Elliott argued that the Nations' land rights remain untested in court, saying: 'The mere assertion of title confers the right to prohibit public access to public spaces. What would prevent more closures like this, not just in other parks, but in relation to any other public lands?' The Ministry of Environment previously told the Mail the closures are part of a 'path of reconciliation' and 'important to give time and space for the land to rest, while ensuring the Nations can use this space as they always have.' The debate reflects broader Canadian culture wars, erupting in the wake of Justin Trudeau's decade of liberal rule and a recent election overshadowed by Donald Trump's push to make Canada the '51st state' of America. Back in 2023, the Nations unilaterally blocked access to Joffre Lakes without government approval, asserting their Title and Rights over unceded territory. Indigenous groups say they struggle to access lands on which their ancestors used to hunt and fish A closure at Botanical Beach park on Vancouver Island and its tidal pools this month also raised concerns The Ministry of Environment said the closures are part of a 'path of reconciliation' and 'important to give time and space for the land to rest, while ensuring the Nations can use this space as they always have' At the time, they said they were taking space to 'harvest and gather our resources within our territories.' Nelson stressed then that the park was sacred: 'We are striving to reintroduce our community to an area where they have been marginalized. 'The time and space created by these closures will allow our youth, elders and all Lil'wat citizens to practice their inherent rights while reconnecting with the land.' Similar disputes have also flared elsewhere: the Botanical Beach closure this year, as well as restrictions in Gulf Islands National Park Reserve and Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Attorney General Pam Bondi handed over to Congress thousands of pages related to the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. In a bid to increase transparency after public backlash over her handling of the Epstein files review, Bondi gave the House Oversight Committee the first trove of files on Friday, a spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Mail. Committee Chairman James Comer plans to make the documents public after a thorough review. It comes as the Justice Department released a bombshell transcript of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's recent interview with Bondi's deputy. The administration appears to be working hard to quiet talk of a 'cover-up' around the sex offender's crimes. President Donald Trump said earlier Friday that he's the one who told Bondi to give anything and everything to Congress because it would only prove that the Epstein 'cover-up' conspiracies are a 'Democrat hoax.' He also cautioned that there are people mentioned in the documents who 'don't deserve to be' and claimed that Epstein knew 'everybody' in Trump's hometown of Palm Beach, Florida. The comment raised alarm bells for those already concerned that Trump is preventing the release of the documents because he and his buddies are in the files beyond just a trip here or there on Epstein's private jet the Lolita Express. Many MAGA fanatics online think that there is a 'cover-up' afoot and have taken their ire out on Bondi, calling for her to be ousted and claiming she is not being transparent. Trump has stood by Bondi and asked his supporters to accept the findings that disgraced financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide and that no one else would be charged in connection to the crimes. Attorney General Pam Bondi handed over to Congress thousands of pages of documents from the Epstein files From the White House on Friday, Trump told reporters when asked about the files being made public: 'Innocent people shouldn't be hurt, but I'm in support of keeping it totally open... You've got a lot of people who could be mentioned in those files that don't deserve to be. Because he knew everybody in Palm Beach' Trump associated with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the 1980s and 1990s his name even appears on flight logs for the disgraced financier's private plane the Lolita Express But his base wouldn't accept that and pushed for more. 'Innocent people shouldn't be hurt but I'm in support of keeping it totally open. I couldn't care less,' Trump said in a Q&A from the Oval Office on Friday. 'You've got a lot of people who could be mentioned in those files that don't deserve to be,' he went on. 'Because he [Epstein] knew everybody in Palm Beach. I don't know anything about that.' Trump concluded: 'I have said to Pam [Bondi] and everybody else: give them everything you can give them because it's a Democrat hoax. It's just a hoax.' Comer, R-Ky, is leading the House probe into Epstein in his capacity as chairman of the House Oversight Committee. A spokesperson for the panel revealed to the Daily Mail: 'The House Oversight Committee has received the Department of Justice's first production of Epstein records pursuant to Chairman James Comer's subpoena. 'The production contains thousands of pages of documents,' they added. While the documents are expected to include never-before-seen materials related to the New York financier's 2019 federal sex trafficking investigation, the spokesperson acknowledged they will be redacted to protect sensitive information and the identities of his victims. 'The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims' identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.' House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer plans to review the documents for any required redactions and then prepare them for release to the public, a spokesperson for the committee told the Daily Mail The redaction, however, could further enrage Trump's supporters, who have been clamoring for the files to be released in their entirety to avoid the appearance of a cover-up. 'There are many records in DOJ's custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,' Comer said in a statement in anticipation of receiving the documents. He initially subpoenaed the DOJ for the Epstein files on August 5 with a timeline of August 19. The chairman later extended the deadline to turn over the documents until Friday, August 22. The devastated mum of a student who died in uni halls of residence has declared 'I don't know that my heart will ever recover' - after she was discovered on her birthday. Olivia Bettney, 20, was found dead on August 13, just hours before she and her sister Mollie Holborow were due to take mum Susan Burfoot out for her 64th birthday. The mother was concerned when her 'family-oriented' daughter hadn't wished her 'happy birthday' at midnight as usual, but assumed the first-year psychology and counselling student was tired. But after calling University of Wales Trinity Saint David's to check on her, the family were heartbroken to discover she'd died in her sleep. While her cause of death is not confirmed it's believed it could be linked to her type 1 diabetes, which caused her to go blind last year. Ms Holborow has now created a GoFundMe page to raise money to pay for her sister's funeral costs. And her heartbroken mother Ms Burfoot, who shared her daughter's 'big love' for Taylor Swift, now wants to 'keep her daughter's legacy alive' by sharing her story. The teaching assistant, from Gorseinon, Swansea, Wales, said: 'I don't know that my heart will ever recover. Olivia Bettney (right) was found dead on August 13, just hours before she and her sister Mollie Holborow were due to take mum Susan Burfoot (left) out for her 64th birthday The mother (right) was concerned when her 'family-oriented' daughter hadn't wished her 'happy birthday' at midnight as usual, but assumed the first-year psychology and counselling student (left) was tired But after calling University of Wales Trinity Saint David's to check on her, the family were heartbroken to discover she'd died in her sleep. Pictured: Ms Bettney 'She had so much she wanted to do and I just can't get it. All we know is that she went to sleep and didn't wake up and that's all we know. 'It was just a normal day as we were concerned. Olivia would normally text me around midnight to say "happy birthday" or ring me and that didn't happen. 'She'd been to a festival and she'd had a good time and I knew she got home safe so I thought, "She's probably knackered". 'She was so family-oriented, which is why we didn't understand why we hadn't heard from her. 'I went around my day like normal but I knew I needed to be ready because the girls were planning something lovely for me. 'Mollie rang [the university accommodation] first and then I rang. 'I said, "Please call us and tell her to text us otherwise my birthday is going to be rubbish". 'One or two police officers came to the door [later] and explained what had happened. While her cause of death is not confirmed it's believed it could be linked to her type 1 diabetes , which caused her to go blind last year. Pictured: Ms Bettney, left, after her eye surgery, with Ms Holborow, right Ms Holborow (right, at her wedding with her sister, left, and their mother, centre) has now created a GoFundMe page to raise money to pay for her sister's funeral costs Her heartbroken mother Ms Burfoot (right, with Ms Bettney, left), who shared her daughter's 'big love' for Taylor Swift , now wants to 'keep her daughter's legacy alive' by sharing her story 'I just looked at them and said, "This is a joke". I couldn't stop shaking and was in denial, we're looking for answers now as to why. 'As a family we wanted to be as close to her as we could. 'We arrived outside the residence and we just sat outside and waited until they brought her tiny little body out. 'She was just perfect and so humble and kind. 'My biggest love with Olivia is that she's a Taylor Swift fan. We wore thirteen on our hands because that's what Taylor does. 'She was always proud of the fact my birthday was on the 13th and it's Taylor's number but that's not my birthday anymore [after this]. 'She was the kindest soul. She wanted to counsel children and young people with bereavement [after her dad died when she was seven] and wanted to open her own practice and wanted to go into schools.' Training specialist Ms Holborow said they are waiting to discover the cause of death and are currently planning Ms Bettney's funeral. The teaching assistant (left, with Ms Bettney, right), from Gorseinon, Swansea, Wales, said: 'I don't know that my heart will ever recover' The mother (pictured with Ms Bettney going to see Taylor Swift's Eras Tour) continued: 'My biggest love with Olivia is that she's a Taylor Swift fan. We wore thirteen on our hands because that's what Taylor does' 'She was always proud of the fact my birthday was on the 13th and it's Taylor's number but that's not my birthday anymore [after this]', she added. Pictured: Ms Bettney She explained: 'It's a devastating loss for our entire family. 'She's left behind my three children. Nobody expects to go and find their sister or daughter passed away in their student accommodation. 'We don't know [her cause of death] but we think that it's likely it was due to her diabetes. 'I've been in a place where I wanted to sleep and wake up when it's all over. 'Since I posted [the GoFundMe page] last night and all the love started flooding in and seeing the generosity made me want to get up in the morning for the first time since this happened. 'It made me feel a little bit of happiness. 'She had bright blue hair and when I got married, I asked her to dye her hair brown. She was her own person and she said, "No, that's not me". I'm so glad she did now.' Ms Burfoot hopes the GoFundMe page will help to give her daughter 'the best possible send off' as well as bring their community together. Training specialist Ms Holborow (right, with Ms Bettney, left) said they are waiting to discover the cause of death and are currently planning Ms Bettney's funeral She explained: 'It's a devastating loss for our entire family'. Pictured: Ms Bettney, left, with her mother, second left, and Ms Holborow, right 'She's left behind my three children. Nobody expects to go and find their sister or daughter passed away in their student accommodation', she continued. Pictured: Ms Burfoot, left, with Ms Holborow, second left, and her children, with Ms Bettney, right She said: 'The only solace we have at the moment is that she's with her dad. It's a comfort. 'We're hoping to give Liv the best possible send off. We're quite amazed at the impact she's had on people. 'Because she's our little Liv we didn't realise how special she was to people. 'Just to know people are thinking of her and we can see positive things. It's not the monetary value, it's about letting them know how much she meant to us.' University of Wales Trinity St David's and South Wales Central Coroner's Service have been contacted for comment. Reggie the bottlenose dolphin has had a rollercoaster ride of it lately. He first came to fame for dancing on his tail, offering up his soft white belly for a rub, performing mini back flips and generally having fun with Lynda MacDonald and her family during their early morning swim in Lyme Bay, Dorset. When Lynda, 50, posted a video of their 'magical moment' in the water on August 3, it went viral. Tourists from all over raced to Lyme Bay and into the sea, hoping for their own special connection with Reggie, 'the UK's friendliest dolphin'. Some parents even took their children out on paddle boards and deposited them in the water to wait for playtime with Reggie, who could weigh as much as 400lb (180kg) and be 12ft long. The internet lit up with photos of his happy 'smiling' face and sleek body leaping through the water. But now, nearly three weeks later, we're told Reggie is sporting nasty gashes down his flank, probably from a boat propeller. Plus that he's become a marauding attacker. That he's potentially dangerous. And, whisper it, perhaps an aqua sex pest, too. Because Reggie is not dancing delicately on his tail any more. No. Now he's leaping on swimmers particularly, it seems, women in wetsuits. Throwing himself on top of them. Pinning them down. And oh, dear me, some say, even rubbing himself against them in an alarmingly sensuous way. Reggie the dolphin came to fame after footage of his performances in the water at Lyme Bay, Dorset, for Lynda McDonald and her family lit up the internet The bottlenose dolphin approached the family shortly after they entered the water for their 6am swim and danced on his tail, offered up his soft white belly for a rub and performed mini backflips Nearly three weeks later Reggie is sporting nasty gashes down his flank, likely from a boat propeller Twice now, women have had to be rescued from his attention by kayaking brothers Rhys and Gareth Paterson. On August 14, they spotted Reggie about 200 yards from the shore, jumping on a swimmer's back. 'We thought he was doing what he normally does just a bit of fun,' says Rhys. But after hearing screams, they paddled over to find the dolphin repeatedly pushing the woman's head underwater. 'She was kind of gasping for air. She was terrified,' Rhys says. After bringing that swimmer back to shore, they saw Reggie turn his attention to another woman hanging on to a yellow buoy and 'looking panicked' as he rubbed himself against her, so they raced back to get her. 'It kept jumping on them,' describes Rhys. 'The dolphin was basically drowning this woman it kind of jumped on her back four times.' Playful dolphin Reggie was seen dancing in the water earlier this month as he performed for an awestruck audience Footage showed the playful mammal dancing and guiding people across the water with its nose Thankfully, neither of the women were injured but they were extremely shocked. So what on earth is going on? How could Reggie look so happy and smiley and share such a magical moment with the MacDonald family and then behave so badly? And, dare we ask, can all those dark rumours about frisky dolphins be true do some of them really find humans sexually attractive? Well, first things first. Let's remember that Reggie is a wild animal, not a plaything or a tourist attraction. A supremely intelligent mammal with a sophisticated communication system and complex, fluid, social structure within his pod. So the minute he started displaying unusual behaviour by interacting with humans and even playing, which is often a sign of acute stress, he should have been left well alone. Which is why, for weeks now, increasingly exasperated dolphin experts have been offering the same advice: give him space, leave him alone, and don't go in the water with him. Instead of heeding this guidance, dolphin enthusiasts have flocked from all over in clear breach of the Wildlife And Countryside Act 1981, which specifies that approaching or recklessly disturbing a dolphin can result in up to six months in prison and an unlimited fine. At one stage, horrified locals reported more than 20 laden paddle boards bobbing around Reggie, taking photos of his apparently smiling face. Which according to Calum Duncan, head of policy and advocacy at the Marine Conservation Society, is part of the problem. Marine Management Organisation shared concerns for Reggie's safety and urged tourists to stay away from the animals in a recent Facebook post 'People think [dolphins] want to play and make friends and special connections, but they are not smiling it is just the way their mouth are formed and not a sign of what they're thinking,' he says. 'They are huge predators with a lot of sharp teeth and can be incredibly aggressive to other species, particularly when anxious.' And poor Reggie is clearly very anxious right now and out of his comfort zone. He's been adrift and alone since February, when he first popped up in the area. And he is still there, wallowing in the warm shallows in the peak of the school summer holidays rather than his natural habitat much further out to sea with the rest of Britain's 700-strong bottlenose dolphin population. He might have been separated from his pod by storms. Or he could be injured, ill, or just hungry. No one knows. But what is clear is that his behaviour is changing. Or, as Danny Groves from the charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation explains: 'It is called habituation the dolphin changing their behaviour to fit a human presence. 'He is being habituated by people who insist on interacting with him, a process that happens through a number of stages and levels.' And the biggest worry is that Reggie will start to think of humans as part of his social network. Not his enemy. Which puts him in grave danger. 'Most dolphins that interact with humans do not live very long afterwards,' says Calum Duncan. Dolphins have always felt a bit special and are indeed much more like humans than we'd imagine. They have different personalities bold, shy, feisty and numerous partners, best friends, family members and acquaintances. They also look after each other and, like us, experience a form of grief. If a mother loses a calf, she'll often stay with the dead body with no food for days or even weeks. So perhaps it's no wonder we're ridiculously excited to see them when they venture close to shore. But the question remains: are they really sexually attracted to women in wetsuits, or has it all just been a terrible misunderstanding? It is a delicate query and Danny Groves will not be drawn. 'I think there would have to be far more expert analysis of footage before making that kind of conclusion,' he says. But Dr Bruno Diaz Lopez, the director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute, is firm. Reggie (as seen above in the earlier, wholesome footage) has now been accused of leaping on swimmers particularly women in wetsuits 'Dolphins would never ever confuse a woman in a wetsuit with a dolphin,' he says, and goes on to explain that dolphins are 'very active sexually' and, like humans and unlike most other animals, have sex for enjoyment, fun and social interaction. Not just for the purpose of reproduction. 'So it is very common to see a dolphin with an erection,' he continues. 'Because they use the penis to touch each other, to socialise. 'It's a bit like when a dog interacts around the leg of a person. 'Hormones are driving them. They don't actually want to have sex with you, they want to make you part of their social structure to hang on to you.' Which is of course good to hear but, given the penis of a bottlenose dolphin can be a foot long and is prehensile which means it can wrap around objects such as a wrist or an ankle it is still rather alarming. Of course, Reggie isn't the only dolphin to have become 'entangled' with humans for fun and frolics and possibly a little bit more. History shows they have form when it comes to friskiness and it rarely ends well. Back in August 2018, a single male called Zafar started popping up in the waves at Landevennec, Brittany. Twice now, women have had to be rescued from Reggie (seen earlier this month playing with the MacDonald family) by kayaking brothers Rhys and Gareth Paterson At first just like with Reggie at Lyme Bay everyone was thrilled and he became a regular fixture, leaping and frolicking in the water with bathers who'd rushed into the sea to join him. But the more he interacted with humans, the more boisterous and sexually aroused Zafar became. While he mostly contented himself with rubbing up against bathers, he lifted one woman swimmer clean out of the water with his snout and blocked others from reaching the shore. Eventually, things got so bad that the town's mayor banned all swimming while zesty Zafar remained in the water. But he soon disappeared, and was presumed dead. The aptly-named Randy was another lone male dolphin to become obsessed with both boats and bathers, this time in Weymouth, Dorset, in the summer of 2002. Again, it started as a bit of fun and his antics quickly gained him worldwide celebrity status. But, yet again like Reggie, his particular enthusiasm was women in rubber wetsuits and soon his ministrations got out of hand. Some women said they felt like they'd been sexually assaulted underwater prompting safety fears and swimming bans. But occasionally humans have been knowingly involved. Reggie's initially playful antics in Lyme Bay saw bathers rush into the sea to join him for a moment of their own Back in the 1960s, Margaret Howe Lovatt, a 23-year-old naturalist, adopted a rather intimate approach with a dolphin called Peter when studying communication between humans and dolphins as part of a Nasa-funded research project in the British Virgin Islands. 'He would rub himself on my knee, my foot or my hand and I allowed that,' she said in a 2014 documentary. 'I wasn't uncomfortable, so long as it wasn't too rough.' Her rationale was that it was easier to just let it happen and get on with the research. But after a while she discovered the best way to get him to focus was to relieve his desires herself manually! And, of course, there was the infamous tale involving a man called Malcolm Brenner, who claimed to have had a year-long love affair with a dolphin called Dolly in the 1970s at a theme park in Sarasota, Florida, which he fictionalised in his book, Wet Goddess. Apparently, they both fell into deep depression when Dolly was moved to another centre and she died soon after. We can only hope and pray that it was all made up. If nothing else, it highlights our obsession with these extraordinary animals. But the town of Amble in Northumberland must surely be the home of Britain's most bizarre sexy dolphin story. It involves 'Freddy The Friendliest Dolphin', who turned up in the late 1970s. For a while, he became the biggest tourist attraction in the North East, briefly transforming the fortunes of Amble as people flocked from all over the world Sweden, America, Australia, Hawaii to swim with Freddy and 'feel his touch'. 'Freddy The Friendliest Dolphin' (pictured swimming away from actress Rula Lenska) turned up in the late 1970s and, for a while, became the biggest tourist attraction in the North East The shops sold 'I love Freddy' T-shirts and 'Friendly Freddy' hats and mugs. But sadly, the relationship all went sour when Alan Cooper, an animal rights campaigner, who had spent hundreds of hours swimming with Freddy in the North Sea, was accused of sexually abusing him and the whole sorry tale ended up in court. Thankfully, after a crown court trial, Mr Cooper was acquitted. Apparently, Freddy just liked hooking Mr Cooper's arm with his penis as they swam together. But the court proceedings rather took the sheen off things. Worse was to come for poor Freddy when a member of the Royal Family visited the local lifeboat station. A lady-in-waiting asked to see him and, when she was taken out in a police boat, Freddy collided with its twin propellers. The blades cut gashes six inches deep into his right flank and he was lucky to survive. As well as losing their fear of humans, over-familiar dolphins often become complacent around boats and, like Reggie and Freddy, expose themselves to dangerous propellers. Meanwhile, back in Lyme Bay, it is only a couple of weeks since Reggie's joyful early morning swim with Lynda MacDonald and her family but it seems much, much longer. Would she have been better advised not to share the video and just keep the wonderful memories for herself? Because the poor confused dolphin doesn't know whether he's coming or going. Perhaps the only thing that can save him now is for everyone particularly women in wetsuits to keep well out of his way and remove temptation in the hope that, eventually, he'll get bored with the joys of neoprene and swim back out to sea. A teenage British tourist is reportedly fighting for his life after being found floating unconscious in a swimming pool in northern Portugal. The unnamed 15-year-old is said to have been rushed to Braga Hospital on Friday afternoon in a 'critical condition.' The pool has been described as private and is in the quaint village of Aborim in the municipality of Barcelos. The village has a population of just under 900 inhabitants. Firefighters are said to have been among the emergency responders called to the scene. Portugal's National Guard have opened an investigation into the incident. A Foreign Office spokesperson told Daily Mail: 'We have not been approached for consular assistance, but our staff stand ready to support British Nationals overseas 24/7.' The incident involving a British tourist in Portugal comes a month after two Brits - King Edonmi, 29 and Mo Lisau, 27 - were discovered lifeless in their Albufeira hotel pool. The British teen was rushed to Braga hospital, where he is understood to be in critical condition The incident happened in the village of Aborim in northern Portugal Portuguese police sources subsequently said ahead of post-mortems they believed the design of the pool combined with the fact they couldn't swim had likely led to their deaths. It also comes after a British family were killed in a crash hours after they flew to Portugal from their UK home and rented a hire car at Faro Airport on the Algarve to start their holidays. Domingos Serrano, 55, his wife Maria, 51, and their 20-year-old twin sons Afonso and Domingos, all British passport holders according to police, died in the fireball accident as they headed north towards the town of Mourao where the boys' parents were born before emigrating. The 19-year-old Polish-born girlfriend of one of the twins, identified only by her first name Veronica, also died in the accident along with 26-year-old mine worker Ruben Goncalves who was driving the car their rented Nissan Juke collided head-on with on a bend on the IP2 main road. Multiple people, including at least one child, were killed after a tour bus crashed in upstate New York on Friday. New York State Police said over 50 people were on the tour bus, which was going from Niagara Falls to New York City. Several passengers were unbuckled during the collision, ejecting them from the bus or leaving them entrapped. Police believe the bus went into the median and overcorrected, causing the rollover crash on I-90 near Pembroke, which is about 25 miles east of Buffalo. Photos showed the bus rolled over on its side, just off the highway. Several ambulances and medical helicopters were transporting patients. BrewDog co-founder Martin Dickie has unexpectedly quit the controversial Scottish craft beer giant for personal reasons. Mr Dickie, who founded the Ellon-based firm with James Watt in 2007, revealed in a letter to staff that he planned to step away from BrewDog and the wider alcohol industry for good. The move follows a period of upheaval at the company which included Mr Watts decision to step down last year from his role as CEO of the company into a newly-created position of captain and co-founder. Mr Dickies announcement comes amid claims that BrewDogs beers had been axed by almost 2,000 pubs across the UK. The figures were published by The Telegraph last week using confidential pub industry data supplied by an insider. BrewDog also announced last month that it would close 10 bars across the UK, including Dundee, Leeds, Brighton, Oxford, Sheffield, York, three in London and its flagship pub in Aberdeen, putting around 100 jobs at risk. A spokesman said at the time it was due to what it described as ongoing industry challenges, including rising costs, increased regulation, and economic pressures. Last year, it was reported that BrewDog lost 59 million in 2023, according to the companys accounts. It was the fourth year in a row the firm posted pre-tax losses but was more than the 52.4 million lost in the previous three years combined. Mr Dickie, who has helped oversee Brewdogs expansion into the spirits and cocktail market, said he had decided to leave in order to pursue other business interests and to spend more time with his young family. BrewDog's beers have been axed by 2,000 pubs across the UK James Watt and Martin Dickie pictured in 2010 with the 'world's strongest beer' In July, he revealed plans to become one of the UKs top producers of medical cannabis and said he would be investing 20 million into his company Waterside Pharmaceuticals over the next five years. The businessman said he expected his first full yield at his high-tech indoor vertical farm, in Aberdeenshire, to produce nine kilograms of medical cannabis, with the company planning to increase further harvests to 200kg a year. In his letter, he said: After over two decades in the brewing and distilling arena sadly for personal reasons its time for me to leave the industry that I love deeply and hopefully had a positive impact in. Leaving Brewdog isnt easy, but Im ready to spend less time travelling and spend some more time at home with my young family. Mr Dickie reminded staff that people are spending their hard-earned money on something we have made - make their BrewDog moment special, before ending his announcement: Im excited to watch from the sidelines as your biggest supporter as you continue to push the business forward with your talent and drive. BrewDog said there would be no leadership changes as a result of his departure. CEO James Taylor described Mr Dickies contribution to the company as immeasurable. He added: His creativity, passion, and relentless drive have shaped our company over the years and inspired countless others in the industry. He and Mr Watt, schoolmates from Peterhead Academy, set up BrewDog with their lifes savings and a 20,000 bank loan. They shared a flat as students in Edinburgh, where Mr Watt studied economics and law at Edinburgh University and Mr Dickie learned brewing at nearby Heriot-Watt. After university, Mr Watt went to work as captain of a North Sea fishing boat, while Mr Dickie at a Derbyshire start-up for two years before the two friends decided to start their own business in Mr Dickies mothers garage in Fraserburgh. Brewdog built its brand around its so-called punk ethos, challenging the established beer industry with aggressive marketing, bold graphics, and a rebellious attitude. Known for its craft beers and IPAs, it enjoyed massive expansion and opened breweries and pubs across the globe, including in Dubai, the US and Australia. In one interview, Mr Dickie summed up the duos roles saying: Im responsible for production and James is in charge of all the other things. Thats one of the best things about it. But lately, the firm has been dogged by controversy. In 2021, former workers used an open letter to highlight what they said was a culture of fear within the business and toxic attitudes to junior staff. The following year several ex-Brewdog staff accused Mr Watt of inappropriate behaviour in a BBC Disclosure investigation. Lawyers for Mr Watt said the allegations were false - but Ofcom rejected complaints that Brewdog and Mr Watt were unfairly treated by the programme. In December 2022, the group lost its B Corp status, awarded to companies that follow ethical principles. In January last year the firm also faced a backlash after revealing it would no longer hire new staff on the real living wage, instead paying the lower legal minimum wage. Mr Watt stood down as CEO last year but retained his shares in the company. Martin Dickie is understood also to be retaining his shares in the company. Former White House national security adviser John Bolton learned what it means to be at war with a merciless White House on Friday. The ex-Trump adviser turned acidic critic returned to his home in Bethesda, Maryland, nearly eight hours after the FBI raided the property. Bolton waved to the cameras but did not take questions from the press as he entered his house to greet his wife, who was visibly shaken by the federal dragnet. The investigation into Bolton centers around whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information, two sources told the New York Times. Throughout the raid that started at 7 am ET, more than a dozen federal agents were seen carrying boxes in and out of his house. Other agents were spotted entering Bolton's downtown Washington, D.C., office. A source told the Daily Mail that Bolton was home when the raid commenced, but he wasn't seen, making his exact whereabouts unclear. Instead, cameras caught a glimpse of his distressed wife, Gretchen Smith Bolton, at the front door interacting with the federal agents on Friday morning. Gretchen walked away from the door as agents entered the Bolton residence in Bethesda, which is one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S. 'NO ONE is above the law FBI agents on mission,' FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a post to X as agents descended on the house. John Bolton arrived to his house after a nearly eight hour raid of his home by the FBI on Friday Bolton waved to cameras while entering his home but did not take questions from reporters FBI agents were seen moving boxes throughout the eight-hour raid President Donald Trump reacted to the Bolton drama by comparing the raid his Mar-a-Lago property endured in 2022. Speaking in the Oval Office, the president said he wasn't involved in its execution, but quickly ripped into his nemesis. 'I purposely dont want to really get involved in it. Im not a fan of John Bolton,' he said. 'My house was raided also... So I know the feeling. Its not a good feeling.' The Daily Mail spoke with one of Bolton's self-described 'nosey' neighbor's. As agents ransacked the house, Bolton's neighbor Holly asserted that karma had caught up to the polarizing national security official. Cameras caught a glimpse of his distressed wife, Gretchen Smith Bolton, at the front door interacting with the federal agents on Friday morning Bolton had a falling out with Trump shortly after being fired from the administration FBI agents were also seen raiding Bolton's office in Washington, DC 'If he would have testified in the first impeachment hearing, maybe we wouldn't be here,' Holly told the Daily Mail while grinning. The early morning raid is part of the FBI's investigation into the former Trump official involving his alleged use of classified documents while writing his memoir The Room Where It Happened. The probe was first launched in 2020, but an administration official tells the Daily Mail that it was quashed during President Joe Biden's administration for 'political reasons.' Patel's FBI has reopened the high-profile case. Once privy to some of the most classified information in the world, Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stripped Bolton of his security clearance. Bolton, who served as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 until September 2019, has been at odds with Trump ever since parting with the first administration. He regularly appears in TV interviews criticizing Trump's national security strategy and foreign policy. And in response, Bolton has become one of the former officials that the president has taken aim at since getting back into office this year. One of Bolton's neighbors told the Daily Mail that the raid was 'karma' for not turning against Trump years ago Bolton is reportedly under FBI investigation over his handling of classified material One of the anti-Trump protesters outside Bolton's home said they disagree with Bolton's politics but will still defend him from Trump Trump slammed his former aide as a 'lowlife' and 'not a smart guy.' 'He doesn't talk, he's like a very quiet person except on television and then he can say something bad about Trump. He'll always do that. But he doesn't talk, he's very quiet,' Trump told reporters. During the raid, protesters affiliated with the anti-Trump group #NoKings showed up outside Bolton's house. A protester held a sign reading, 'Trump uses FBI for vengeance.' One of the demonstrators later told the Daily Mail they do not agree with Bolton's politics, but will still defend him as he faces Trump's FBI. Bolton has not given a statement or made any comments to the press as of Friday evening. He ignored the Daily Mail's multiple requests for comment on the raid. Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at Nicola Sturgeon after she described the former Labour Leader as exuding 'sneering superiority' in her new book. The ex-Scottish first minister sparked significant backlash after publishing her memoir, Frankly, earlier this month, with several bombshell claims from almost a decade in power. Notably, the book caused a stir with Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who famously wore a t-shirt labelling Sturgeon a destroyer of womens rights and posted a scathing review of Frankly just hours after it was released. It also sparked fury among allies of Alex Salmond, including his successor Kenny MacAskill, over claims in the book that he may have leaked details of his own sexual misconduct saga. Now Corbyn has joined in the chorus of backlash after he was described by Sturgeon as exuding an 'aura of aloofness and sneering superiority' in the few times they met. Attending a protest for striking workers at the Village Hotel on the southside of Glasgow, Mr Corbyn expressed shock at the comments and urged the former-First Minister to 'get over it'. 'I'm astonished she should say that, I really am,' he said. 'Nicola, if you're watching this: get over it. Just get over it. 'I thought you and I got on quite well when I was leader of the opposition and you were leader of the SNP. In fact, I seem to remember some quite convivial conversations with you. Can't we have some more of those?' Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) has hit back at Nicola Sturgeon after she described the former Labour Leader as exuding 'sneering superiority' in her new book Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon leave following the Manchester Arena National Service of Commemoration at Manchester Cathedral in 2018 Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon at the launch of her memoir 'Frankly', at Edinburgh International Book Festival 'I don't sneer at anybody, and certainly not at you,' the former Labour leader added. Mr Corbyn went on to praise Ms Sturgeon, describing her as 'clear, determined and very efficient' as first minister and leader of the SNP. He added: 'I treated her with respect and, to be quite honest, she also treated me with respect at the meetings we had. 'So, Nicola, again, if you're watching this, let's have a cup of tea, and by the way I want to get a copy of your book as well.' In her memoir, Frankly Ms Sturgeon wrote of Mr Corbyn: 'I never warmed to Corbyn. I met him a few times during his leadership of the Labour Party and he exuded the same aura of aloofness and sneering superiority that I have detected in many men on the far left of over the years, particularly around women.' Mr Corbyn arrived in Glasgow on Friday as he looks set to campaign for his new unnamed political party. He said Labour supporters were among the 800,000 to have signed up for his new party, which was created with former Labour MP, Zarah Sultana. Asked if he supported Scottish independence, he said it was up to Scots to decide their future, 'therefore if the Scottish people want a second referendum, that's fine by me and I would support that'. Former Labour leader and Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn joins workers on the picket line at the Village Hotel in Glasgow Corbyn speaks to members of the press as he joins workers on the picket line at the Village Hotel in Glasgow who have been on a month-long strike over pay and conditions Following the publication of Ms Sturgeon's memoir, Rowling posted a expletive-riddled assessment of the book on her website. She tore into the former First Ministers stubborn attachment to her controversial gender reform legislation, her inability to face up to her failures in office and Trumpian accounts of political events. She then also compared Sturgeon to Bella Swan from the vampire film series Twilight - and attached what appeared to be an AI-generated image to illustrate that. The womens right campaigner wrote: She remains stubbornly wedded to her belief that it is possible to let some men into womens spaces on the mens say so, without letting any man who fancies it come inside. She denies there are any risks to a policy of gender self-identification. She cant imagine any male predator capitalising on such policies, in spite of the fact that it has, demonstrably, happened many times. She is flat out Trumpian in her shameless denial of reality and hard facts. Rowling continued: While Sturgeon is focused on making sure no hurty sexist words penetrate hers, shes entirely dismissive of the harms done in actual physical spaces, where she expected nurse Sandie Peggie to deal with a heavy menstrual flood in front of a cosplaying man, and vulnerable female prisoners to accept being incarcerated with trans-identified male sex offenders. 'The First Minister, with her police protection, her carefully monitored official residence and her chauffeured car just couldnt see what these bigots were making a fuss about.' Author JK Rowling (pictured) took no prisoners in her review of Nicola Sturgeon's memoir Rowling compared the MSP to Bella Swan in the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer The best-selling author said it was only when the double rapist Isla Bryson burst into the news that the FM was lost of words. Ms Rowling said: The First Minister, whose composure and articulacy under fire had, for years, been her most potent political asset, made herself look and forgive me for employing a PR term here a complete f******. Of course, the blame for her looking like a complete f****** lies with others. Nobody had warned her about Bryson, you see. If youre prepared to accept the foundational falsehood that some men are women, youll inevitably find yourself panicking like a pheasant caught in headlights one day.' Ms Rowling also addressed claims Sturgeon made in her book about the vile abuse the politician had received. The best-selling author said: Eleven years ago, when she and I found ourselves on opposite sides of a different public debate, I didnt hold her accountable for all the threats I received from nationalists, nor for the porn her supporters circulated, with my face pasted onto a naked actresss body. 'As the gender wars have raged, I have not accused her of emboldening the kind of activist whose threats against me have twice necessitated police action. Notwithstanding all the ruminating on sexism and misogyny Sturgeon does in Frankly, always as it affects her personally, she is unshakeable in her belief that if men put on dresses and call themselves women they can only be doing so with innocent motives. JK Rowling shared a picture on social media where she had written a note on Nicola Sturgeon's book JK Rowling at the Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore premiere in London in 2022 Sturgeon hasnt been remotely humbled by the Supreme Court ruling that proved her government was forcing a misinterpretation of the UK-wide Equality Act on Scotland, one that robbed women of many single sex spaces and of their very existence as a definable class with rights protected in law.' And Ms Rowling, who reveals that her doctor husband once ran a methadone clinic for drug addicts, hit out at what the ex FM fails to even mention in the memoir. Ms Rowling said: The mysteriously vanished government WhatsApp messages from the pandemic, the tanking educational outcomes, the CalMac Ferry disaster, the disappearance of a half a million pounds of her own supporters money that was supposedly ringfenced for a new independence referendum: youll search in vain for candid accounts of these in Frankly; indeed, most arent mentioned at all. Perhaps the most disgraceful omission and Ill admit to a personal interest here, because Im married to a doctor who used to run a methadone clinic, so saw the national scandal up close is the fact that Scotland continues to lead the whole of Europe in drug deaths.' And she compared the MSP to Bella Swan in the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. Ms Rowling wrote: The heroine of Twilight, a shy, awkward, bookish girl, moves to a small, rainswept town called Forks to live with her single father. In doing so, she unknowingly takes her first step towards a staggeringly unlikely future nobody could have predicted. The heroine of Frankly is also a shy, awkward, bookish girl who lives in a small, rainswept town. About to turn seventeen, she approaches a bungalow in Dreghorn, knocks on the door of the SNP candidate for her constituency, and asks if she can help with canvassing. Alex Salmond with Nicola Sturgeon after his last keynote speech as party leader of the SNP at the party's annual conference on November 14, 2014 Kenny MacAskill (pictured) was announced as the new leader of the Alba Party earlier this year Nicola Sturgeon, unlike the eventually undead Bella Swan, isnt a Good Vampire at all. 'Shes caused real, lasting harm by presiding over and encouraging a culture in which women have been silenced, shamed, persecuted and placed in situations that are degrading and unsafe, all for not subscribing to her own luxury beliefs. Days earlier, the book also saw backlash from allies of Mr Salmond, who was cleared in 2020 of 13 sexual offence charges, including attempted rape. In one part of the book, Sturgeon describes how Salmond reacted to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him in 2018 - many of which made their way into the press. In the book Sturgeon denies any responsibility for the leaks and says that she does not know who was behind them. But she also claims that it would have been 'classic Alex' to have made the leaks himself. Her remarks caused fury among the Scottish political elite, with Kenny MacAskill - the man who succeeded Salmond as Alba Party leader - calling Sturgeon out for her 'hypocrisy'. Meanwhile, Chris McEleny, the party's former general secretary, branded Sturgeon's speculations a 'fabrication'. Devastated family members of a mother-of-four who has been missing for more than a year have shared their heartache and anger after her husband was arrested for her murder and his alleged motive revealed by police. Nikki Cheng-Saelee McCain was last seen visiting a relative in a Redding, California, hospital on May 17, 2024. She returned home to her husband, Tyler McCain, but the 39-year-old stopped replying to texts and calls the next morning, and was reported missing by her sisters four days later. Her Chevrolet Avalanche was found abandoned on a roadside 30 miles from her home on May 25. Nikki's family immediately suspected the worst. Her disappearance came just two weeks before McCain was slated to appear in court to face four counts of domestic violence. Nikki was set to testify against McCain, but the charges were dropped after she vanished. Her sisters, Chloe Saelee and Kaye Saelee Ford, waited in agony as the months passed without updates. However, on Wednesday came a dramatic breakthrough. Prosecutors announced McCain had been charged with Nikki's murder, sharing for the first time the evidence that led to his arrest. Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett told gathered reporters that McCain allegedly murdered Nikki to prevent her from testifying against him and then disposed of her remains in a still undetermined location. Authorities detected an 'overwhelming' stench of decomposition in Nikki's truck and discovered a blood-soaked sheet in the truck's bed. McCain also allegedly confided in an unidentified source that he killed Nikki during a domestic violence incident on May 18, 2024, Bridgett said. For Nikki's siblings, the details were hard to hear but ratified what they'd suspected all along. What infuriates them, they told the Daily Mail, is how little value McCain seemingly placed on their beloved sister's life. Nikki Cheng-Saelee McCain was last seen visiting a relative in a Redding, California, hospital on May 17, 2024 Her husband, Tyler McCain, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with her murder Before police raided the home he shared with Nikki, McCain broke his silence publicly for the first time 'Throughout this, I've always taken a matter-of-fact approach to the details, separating the facts from my personal feelings and emotions,' said Kaye. 'But hearing about the blood, the DNA, the decomposition, and knowing that was confirmed to be my sister, that was so emotional. 'But it's also given me confidence. This evidence is just the tip of the iceberg, and I know that they have even more evidence that is stronger and that will make sure he's convicted.' The family said police confirmed their suspicion that McCain killed Nikki over the prospect of facing jail time for domestic violence. They described the motive as shockingly trivial - the possibility of a short jail sentence - compared to the value of her life. Even though they knew nothing could ever justify her sister's killing, they almost hoped there might be a deeper explanation. But the fact that there wasn't has left them furious and sickened. 'To think her life was just worth so little to him, that he felt entitled to kill her because he wanted to avoid a little bit of jail time, is just disgusting,' said Kaye. 'This is someone who has children, who was part of our family It's unimaginable to think that someone we knew could not only be capable of something like this, but also be so cold about it. 'Clearly, we never knew him at all; the person we saw was just a facade.' McCain's arrest came five months after police, along with the FBI and Homeland Security, served a search warrant at the home he shared with Nikki in Anderson. After that search, investigators ruled that Nikki was the victim of a homicide but declined to release further information at the time. On Wednesday, police revealed they found an 'overwhelming' stench of decomposition in Nikki's Chevrolet Avalanche and a blood-stained sheet in the truck's bed Nikki last contacted her sister, Chloe Saelee (left) in the early hours of May 18, 2024. She vanished shortly after McCain had broken his silence for the first time only four days earlier at a press conference, saying at the podium: 'I'm just here in support, so anything that I can do, I want to do that [...] I haven't been in the public eye, and I haven't done very well with it. I apologize to everyone, especially my children.' He also shared a brief message for Nikki, saying simply: 'We miss you.' With McCain now behind bars, the attention for Nikki's family shifts to finding where her body was dumped so they can bring her home and finally lay her to rest. Until then, the family says they will never be able to achieve any semblance of closure or move past the nightmare of the last 16 months and counting. Exhaustive efforts have already been exerted to find Nikki, but each search has so far come up empty. Chloe and Kaye believe McCain can help end their suffering, and the suffering of his and Nikki's four young children. 'You took her away from us, and now it's time to do the right thing. You at least owe us that,' shared Chloe. 'Just tell us where she is.' Kaye added: 'We want closure not just for us, but for their children. They're in the most difficult position, because they're divided between the love they have for both parents. 'It's important for them to be able to mourn their mom properly and lay her to rest. That's important for all of us, but especially them.' Police say McCain killed Nikki to prevent her testifying against him in a domestic violence case He faced domestic violence charges after he allegedly severally injured his wife in a three-hour attack in December 2023 An attorney for McCain has not returned a request for comment. He is currently being held without bond at Shasta County Jail. McCain has been charged with murder. Prosecutors said they would pursue a special circumstance allegation that he killed Nikki to stop her from testifying. Prosecutors said they will also refile domestic violence charges that were dropped last year. Those counts included corporal injury to a spouse, false imprisonment, criminal threats and assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury. McCain will also be charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition after a criminal protective order, forgery, and various traffic violations, prosecutors said. Investigators said there were allegations of domestic violence against McCain dating back to 2020. Chloe previously told the Daily Mail that her sister's relationship became increasingly toxic and tumultuous during the pandemic. In December 2023, Nikki was hospitalized with severe injuries she said were inflicted by McCain. Her sister Chloe, who accompanied her, recalled barely recognizing her. A deputy noted Nikki's eyes were both blackened and swollen, and her face showed extensive trauma. Nikki told him her husband had attacked her the night before in a violent outburst. She said McCain came home in a strange mood, locked the doors, and suddenly jumped on her, pinning her to the ground. He dragged her, pulled her hair, and repeatedly struck her in the face, she claimed. Nikki described his eyes as 'glazed' and 'scary,' and said she believed he intended to kill her. At one point, she alleged, he tried to wrap something around her neck to choke her. After three hours, Nikki escaped while McCain was in another room and fled to the hospital. McCain denied assaulting her, instead suggesting she had been in a fight with another woman. He later gave conflicting statements, at first claiming Nikki was having an affair and then insisting their relationship was happy. He was arrested and charged with four felony counts of domestic violence. He pleaded not guilty. The case was dropped in July 2024 after Nikki's disappearance, a decision that sparked outrage in the community. On Wednesday, Sheriff Michael Johnson said McCain's arrest came as a result of rigorous police work conducted by numerous agencies. However, he emphasized their work is only half done. 'Nikki is still not home,' said Johnson. 'Nikki is still out there somewhere, and we want her back. And if you're watching and you have information and you know where she is, please come forward.' A giant brown bear put its exceptional sense of smell to good use as it crashed an ice cream parlour while on the hunt for a sweet treat. The animal's determined quest for dessert led it behind the counter of Camp Richardson's, an ice cream shop which borders various forest regions in the Californian city of South Lake Tahoe. It even appeared to be auditioning for a server's job when sheriff's deputies turned up to investigate reports of a disturbance. Stunned officers shooed the bear out of the shop, but not before snapping a few images of their scarcely believable encounter. 'With some encouragement, the bear ultimately left, but only after showing interest in the strawberry ice cream,' read a post on the Facebook page of El Dorado County Sheriff's Office. 'Thankfully, Fuzzy the bear caused barely any property damage and there was barely any cleanup.' Bears are common in California and frequently go looking for food in human settlements, using their sense of smell, which is 2,000 times better than a human's, to enter homes or vehicles in search of something to fill their tummies. While attacks on people are rare in the region, the animals can sometimes cause damage - especially when they cannot find a way out. The massive animal's determined quest for dessert took it behind the counter of Camp Richardson's, an ice cream shop in the Californian city of South Lake Tahoe The bear even appeared to be auditioning for a server's job when sheriff's deputies turned up to investigate reports of a disturbance But it seems that these bears having a sweet tooth is not exclusive to the United States. Just two months ago, a pair of brown bears in England broke free from their enclosure and devoured a week's worth of honey while on the loose. Brown bears Mish and Lucy, both five years old, broke free from their enclosure at Wildwood Devon at Escot Park, near Ottery St Mary, at around 3pm on June 23. And while visitors to the park were locked away in fear, the adorable brother and sister embarked on an adventure resembling a plot straight from an A.A. Milne book or a certain fictional bear from Peru. After breaking out of their enclosure, Mish and Lucy, who weigh around 400lbs, did not seek to scare their 16 visitors - including children who were locked away in a play barn - or the armed emergency staff who visited the site. Instead, they headed straight for their food store to tuck into a selection of delicious treats such as berries, vegetables, fish, meats, and of course, a shed load of honey. Heartwarming footage, which is how staff monitored the pair on CCTV and ensured they 'posed no risk to the public', showed Lucy devouring buckets worth of food. Lucy could be seen on the heartwarming video devouring a bucket of food after she and her brother Mish broke out of their enclosure at Wildwood Devon in June After breaking out Mish and Lucy did not seek to scare their visitors or the armed emergency staff who visited the site Instead, they headed straight for their food store to tuck into a selection of delicious treats such as berries, vegetables, fish, meats, and of course, a shed load of honey Mark Habben, director of zoological operations at the park, said: 'They were in an area where we keep enrichment - all the nice things. The bears had a feast, played around, pulled some rope out. 'They were wandering up and down, having a sniff around, looking in the store cupboard where honey was stored. That was fortuitously left open so they raided that.' Mr Habben said a 'code red' was triggered when Mish and Lucy were seen roaming around by senior staff, which saw firearms trained staff and police visit the park. But after they devoured their food, the bears 'calmy' returned to their enclosure where they quickly fell asleep - meaning no intervention was needed. The scenes that unfolded on a red carpet in New York this week were as glamorous as one might find at any film premiere. The designer gowns, the glossy hair, the artful smiles to a sea of cameras and microphones. There, in the spotlight, posing with the panache of a pro, the star of the hour not an actress or director but a woman catapulted into public consciousness through tragedy: Amanda Knox. Eighteen years ago, in the Italian city of Perugia, Amanda was arrested and charged with the murder of her British flatmate and fellow exchange student, Meredith Kercher. Meredith, 21, had been living in the Umbrian capital for a matter of weeks when she was stabbed to death in November 2007, her body abandoned in a scene of incomprehensible violence, in the home she shared with two young Italian women and Amanda. Then, Amanda was a 20-year-old linguistics student from Seattle. In the glare of a far less comfortable array of cameras, she and her bespectacled Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murder and spent four years in jail before being acquitted. Young, naive, her expression unfathomable, Amanda's every word and gesture was scrutinised. A photo of her and Raffaele kissing, amid all the horror, became one of the defining images of the case. Yet it was a very different Amanda who stepped on to the carpet in New York this week. Now a 38-year-old mother of two, she looked every bit the A-lister in shimmering Aquazzura heels and an elegant floral Giambattista Valli Paris dress. The company she was keeping was very different, too. At her side was a woman with her own experience of being propelled into the public consciousness for less than positive reasons: Monica Lewinsky, who garnered unwitting notoriety as the White House intern who had an affair with President Bill Clinton. Sisters in arms: Monica Lewinsky and Amanda Knox have forged a friendship through their shared experience of being propelled into the spotlight The pair serve as executive producers of new Disney+ drama series The Twisted Tale Of Amanda Knox a dramatic recreation of the tragic real events Amanda is played by Grace Van Patten in the drama series which explores Knox's experience following the murder of her British flatmate and fellow exchange student, Meredith Kercher The occasion uniting the two? The premiere of an eight-part Disney+ drama series, The Twisted Tale Of Amanda Knox a dramatic recreation of the tragic real events with which that name is painfully and inextricably linked. Amanda is played by Grace Van Patten, while Amanda herself served as an executive producer alongside Lewinsky, now 52. This surprising pair have been furiously working the publicity circuit, promoting not just the drama, but their own extraordinary bond forged, as Amanda wrote in her most recent memoir, out of being fellow members of the Sisterhood Of Ill Repute. 'She was vilified and sexualised and made to feel like she was worthless and her only choice was to disappear,' said Amanda of Monica, in one radio interview this week. 'All of those things are also what I went through.' The sub-plot to this twisted tale, of course, is that Amanda, like Monica before her, is a victim too. Four years in jail for a crime she did not commit, coupled with a stream of suspicion and conjecture is undoubtedly a heavy toll. Yet, deafening with her silence, is the undisputed true victim in this story, one with no voice at all and that is Meredith Kercher. Her body is buried in a cemetery in Croydon, not far from the home in Coulsdon, Surrey, where she grew up with her three siblings, John, Lyle and Stephanie and parents John and Arline, who died within four months of each other in 2020. Amanda and her bespectacled Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murder and spent four years in jail before being acquitted Meredith, 21, had been living in the Umbrian capital for a matter of weeks when she was stabbed to death in November 2007, her body abandoned in a scene of incomprehensible violence, in the home she shared with Amanda Young, naive, her expression unfathomable, Amanda's every word and gesture throughout the criminal process was scrutinised. Pictured: Knox arriving at trial in 2009 As the Daily Mail has discovered, there is disquiet both in the UK and Italy about the way in which the whole awful tragedy one which did reach a conclusion of sorts in the conviction of drifter Rudy Guede for Meredith's murder continues to play out. He was released in 2021 having served 13 years of a 16-year sentence. Last year, when crews arrived in Perugia to begin filming, Meredith's sister Stephanie made a brief statement which underlined the Kerchers' feelings. 'Our family has been through so much and it is difficult to understand how this serves any purpose.' This week the family's lawyer Francesco Maresca went further. 'I think it's unbearable how a girl, now a woman, who has repeatedly contested the events and the trial keeps turning things over and over again like soup in a cauldron just to make money,' he told us. 'They [Amanda and Monica] are continuing to violate the memory of poor Meredith. 'It would be different had Amanda done something else, an initiative, a project, to talk about the victim, her life and university plans... that would make sense. 'Amanda has written books, shot documentaries; the time has come for her to stay quiet and avoid going back to those things.' While Maresca has, as yet, seen only the programme's trailer he will, he says, be carefully monitoring how Meredith's memory and character are treated in the show, in case there are grounds for legal action. Monica Lewinsky garnered unwitting notoriety as the White House intern who had an affair with President Bill Clinton Lewinsky, for those too young to recall the events that gripped the world in the late 1990s, was fresh out of college and a White House intern when she met Bill Clinton in 1995 during his first term as President of the United States. Pictured: Lewinsky in 1998 Amanda recently appeared on Monica's podcast, Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky, where she declared that she hoped the Disney+ drama might be a vehicle for reconciliation with the Kercher family. Pictured: Lewinsky in Cannes, France, in June Clearly bewildered, he adds: 'I don't understand what Amanda's goal is. The Kercher family and I are baffled.' Not, perhaps, the response Amanda was hoping for. Today she spends her time advocating for criminal justice reform and campaigning against wrongful convictions, and recently appeared on Monica's podcast, Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky, where she declared that she hoped the drama might be a vehicle for reconciliation with the Kercher family. 'Grieving her [Meredith] has been complicated and fraught, not least of which because I've never been able to reconcile with her family,' she said. 'One thing I really hope is that they do watch this show so that maybe they see that I'm someone to be reconciled with, you know, and that we have more in common than they may think.' Maresca gives this short shrift. 'No way, this could never happen. Impossible,' he says. 'If Amanda did something positive ... that would be different. But Amanda is not doing so, she's always focused on herself, putting herself in the spotlight in all ways.' Is that what Amanda is doing? Certainly, she would disagree. As she said this week, in one of numerous interviews on the subject of her motivations, the drama and her bond with Monica: 'Ultimately, the thing that I was seeking after having been ostracised and vilified and literally imprisoned was human connection. 'And I wanted people to relate to my experience. I wanted them to say, 'I understand'.' Patrick Lumumba, the entirely innocent Congolese bar owner who was arrested after being falsely accused by Amanda Knox - and who Italian courts upheld was defamed by her Knox, who married poet and author Christopher Robinson in 2018, pictured at the premiere One man who is unlikely to ever share that sentiment is Patrick Lumumba, the entirely innocent Congolese bar owner who was arrested after being falsely accused by Amanda and who, as recently as this year, Italian courts upheld was defamed by her. Now living in Krakow, Poland, with his partner and children, Patrick told one Italian newspaper this week: 'I have so many other things to do, so I don't think I'll watch it.' And yet, Amanda's determination is reiterated in the voiceover to the drama: 'Many people think they know my story, but finally it's my turn to tell it,' says Van Patten, as Amanda. Yet, many would argue she has told her story repeatedly through various media, on numerous occasions, making 'finally' a curious choice of word. Her first book, Waiting To Be Heard: A Memoir, was released in 2013 and is thought to have netted a $4 million advance, although a sizeable chunk was swallowed by legal fees. A second book, Free: My Search For Meaning arrived in March this year; meanwhile she was interviewed extensively for a 2016 Netflix documentary and has appeared on numerous podcasts, including her own, Hard Knox. It's easy to see why some are uncomfortable with her continuing to capitalise on Meredith's death. She's made no secret of the fact she needs the money. Having married poet and author Christopher Robinson in 2018, she has spoken of her drive for financial security. 'What I keep telling Chris is that I want to get to a place where I don't have to keep living the worst experience of my life so that we can pay the mortgage,' she told The New York Times in 2021. Lewinsky and Knox are said to have forged a connection so strong that Amanda describes the older woman as like her 'big sister' And like some of her outfits during her trial in Italy (a T-shirt with the slogan 'All You Need is Love' on Valentine's Day was particularly jarring), Amanda has a way of courting controversy. She now sings in The Exoneree Band, with others who were wrongly convicted of crimes (clips of her belting out I Will Survive are not comfortable viewing) and also performs stand-up comedy, introducing herself as an Ex-Con Mom. Taste aside, it's clear she's grappled with finding a path for herself in the intervening years. Her link-up with Lewinsky began in 2017 when she found herself at her first ever speaking engagement, in Seattle, alongside Monica. Over a cup of tea the pair forged a connection so strong that Amanda describes the older woman as like her 'big sister'. As relationships go, it's effusive on both sides, as US audiences have witnessed in recent rounds of joint interviews. 'The truth is, I would never have done this without Monica. She told me she would have my back and she did. She made me feel safe,' Amanda told one US talk show. Monica agreed: 'There was an instant connection and instant understanding of two young women who had become public people who hadn't wanted to, and had lost a lot of their identity.' Lewinsky, for those too young to recall the events that gripped the world in the late 1990s, was fresh out of college and a White House intern when she met Bill Clinton in 1995 during his first term as President of the United States. As we would come to learn in cringeworthy detail, a cigar and a stained dress featured as the pair became intimately involved. As Monica would say in a 2016 TED Talk, viewed more than 21million times: 'At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss. And at the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences.' Clinton famously flatly denied having sexual relations with 'that woman', yet his economy with the truth led to him becoming only the second President in US history to be impeached. Pictured: Clinton being questioned in 1999 about Lewinsky In 1998, Linda Tripp, a former co-worker, released secretly recorded phone conversations with Lewinsky to investigators, in which the intimate details were discussed. Clinton famously flatly denied having sexual relations with 'that woman', yet his economy with the truth led to him becoming only the second President in US history to be impeached. He was acquitted after a 21-day trial in the US Senate, yet Monica's reputational punishment was severe. After initially trying to embrace life as a public figure, she stepped out of the limelight and remained silent for almost a decade. She launched a handbag line in 1999 and in 2005 moved to London to 'lay low' and gain a Master's in social psychology at the London School of Economics. She struggled to find employment because of her past, never married or had children, but has, butterfly-like, emerged in recent years as a campaigner against cyberbullying and as a public speaker. In 2021 she launched her own production company and more recently that podcast, Reclaiming With Monica Lewinksy. It was she who made the approach to Amanda to turn her memoirs into a drama for Disney+. 'The show wouldn't exist without Monica keeping an eye on me,' Amanda told one television interviewer. 'She recognised that I was another young woman who had been completely demolished by the media and was attempting to rebuild my life and reclaim my story; and in a way she had been trailblazing that path ahead of me.' Knox says of Lewinsky: 'She recognised I was another young woman who had been demolished by the media and was attempting to rebuild my life and reclaim my story' Along the way, Amanda has found understanding in other unusual places. She and Raffaele are still close. He completed his engineering degree in prison and now lives in Milan, where he runs his own company, but flew to New York to join Amanda for this week's premiere. She also struck up a curious rapport with her Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini the man she calls her 'hunter' but who now counts as a close friend and confidant. Now retired, Mignini this week told the Daily Mail: 'In time Amanda and I have become friends. We regularly exchange emails and also messages. 'She has learned to trust me since the years of the trial and has always kept me up to date on what she was doing ... of the way she was taking back her life. 'The last time we got in touch was a few days ago. I have come to appreciate her as a person, as a grown-up woman.' Almost benevolent now, he says he sees Amanda as someone on a journey to self-discovery, trying to free herself from the past. Yet, behind the smiles, the cameras, the deals and new beginnings, for Amanda one memory remains. 'I think about Meredith all the time,' she says. 'She was a young 21-year-old girl who went to Italy to have the best experience of her life. And she didn't get to go home. We were both just young girls who were trying to live our best lives.' And, finally, there is the untwisted truth. Additional reporting: Barbara McMahon and Silvia Marchetti Six alleged Palestine Action protesters accused of smashing into an Israeli-linked defence firm could wait in custody for 18 months before their trial. Members of the organisation were allegedly armed with sledgehammers and whips when they broke into the Elbit Systems site near Patchway, Bristol, in the early hours of August 6, 2024. Prosecutors have said the alleged offences, which caused more than one million pounds' worth of damage, had a 'terrorist connection'. On Friday, the defendants - Finn Collins, 19, Harland Archer, 20, Salaam Mahmood, 19, Moiz Ibrahim, 27, Louie Adams, 33, and Liam Mullany, 33 - appeared at the Old Bailey charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. They were detained following a series of raids by Counter Terrorism Policing South East and are the latest to be charged over the incident. Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the case would be listed for a plea hearing at Woolwich Crown Court on December 12 with a provisional trial from February 1 2027. The next hearing would be heard by Mr Justice Johnson who is presiding over the first of three other linked trials from November 17 at Woolwich Crown Court. In all, 18 other people have been charged in relation to the same incident and are awaiting trials split into three tranches. Protesters outside the Old Bailey, London, on Friday where six people have appeared in connection with a Palestine Action protest at Israeli-linked firm Elbit Systems Protesters hold Palestine flags outside the Old Bailey where the six defendants appeared on Friday Family friends hold signs in support of Moiz Ibrahim - one of the people accused of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder - outside the Old Bailey on Friday Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb explained that the Crown Court did not have the capacity to conduct a trial with more than six co-defendants in custody at the same time. This meant that the earliest date for a fourth trial was in 2027, but efforts would be made to find a fixture sooner, she said. Palestine Action was proscribed by the UK Government in July, with the ban meaning that membership of, or support for, the group is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, under the Terrorism Act 2000. More than 500 people were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of displaying an item in support of a proscribed group, as demonstrations took place in central London. During a day of mayhem and farce, Left-wing protesters swamped London's Parliament Square on August 9 in support of the organisation. Hundreds held placards declaring 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action' in deliberate 'idiotic' acts of law-breaking designed to overwhelm police resources and the courts. Later that day, the Metropolitan Police announced more than 360 people had been detained following the scenes of disorder - at an estimated cost of about 3million. However, in an update on August 10, the Met said the number of total arrests had skyrocketed to 532. A third update revealed a further 60 people would be prosecuted for showing support for the proscribed terrorist group. Protesters sit in Parliament Square holding placards in support of Palestine Action on August 9 A chaotic London march on Saturday August 9 saw more than a staggering 500 activists arrested Downing Street has described Palestine Action as 'violent' and said it has committed 'significant injury' as well as criminal damage, adding that evidence and security assessments shared in closed court supported its proscription. Palestine Action said Downing Street's accusations were 'false and defamatory' and 'disproven by the Government's own intelligence assessment'. It's prescription as a terrorist group came after two military aircraft were vandalised at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in June, causing damage worth 7million. The group has since received permission to challenge its banning after the High Court ruled it had an arguable case. A judicial review will take place in November, with protests set to continue on a rolling basis until then. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the general whose agency angered President Donald Trump over its assessment that his Iran strikes may not have 'obliterated' the country's nuclear program. Hegseth axed Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency, as part of a spree of Friday firings that sent an unmistakable message through the Pentagon's ranks. The Washington Post first broke the news on Friday. In June, Trump made the surprising announcement that he went ahead and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites amid Israel's fighting with Tehran. The U.S. military used 12 massive 30,000-pound 'bunker buster' bombs and 30 Tomahawk missiles to attack Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. But days later CNN reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency's initial assessment was that the strikes did not destroy core components of the sites and may have only set Iran's nuclear program back a number of weeks. The president expressed anger publicly that the DIA's assessment leaked, attacking 'dumb' journalists and arguing that the news reports were offensive to the B-2 bomber pilots who flew the mission. Hegseth echoed Trump in a press conference, chiding reporters for focusing on the preliminary assessment but providing no evidence that the strike was successful. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse (left), director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (right) after his department initially assessed that President Donald Trump's strikes on Iran may have only set back the country's nuclear program a few month 'You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated - choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,' Hegseth said at the time. Kruse's firing suggests that Trump was just as angry at the agency who leaked the assessment. The president, whose trademark line on The Apprentice was 'you're fired,' has removed a number of government officials who have contradicted his public narrative. He recently got rid of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency produced a weak jobs report. Trump said the jobs data was 'being produced by Biden appointee,' now former BLS head Erika McEntarfer. 'In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,' the president claimed, without evidence. The firing of the DIA chief culminates a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and shake-ups to the military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence - which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including DIA - announced that it would slash its staff and budget. President Donald Trump (center left) announces in June that he ordered the attacks on three of Iran's nuclear sites. He was joined by (from left) Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth The Pentagon announced this week that the Air Force's top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early. The Washington Post additionally reported that Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, the chief of the Navy Reserve, was removed as of Friday, as was Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command. Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation. The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy's top officer, the Air Force's second highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches. In April, Hegseth fired Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO. No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of these firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Four men have been arrested after a teenage girl was reportedly drugged and attacked in a park. Police were called to Fishponds Park in Surbiton, south-west London, just before 7.15am on Thursday morning. Forensic teams were seen combing the area throughout the day - with officers establishing a crime scene in the park. A 24-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence. A 35-year-old man and a 36-year-old man have additionally been arrested, each on suspicion of rape, sexual assault, and administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence. Another man, aged 41, has also been arrested on suspicion of rape. All four suspects remain in custody, the Metropolitan Police has said. The teenage girl, whose exact age has not been released by police, is being supported by specially trained officers. Police were called just before 7.15am on Thursday morning to Fishponds Park (pictured) in Surbiton, south-west London A spokesperson for the Met Police said: 'We understand this news is concerning for the community and we will be increasing patrols in the area. 'If you have any information, please contact 101 quoting CAD 1207/21AUG.' The Daily Mail has contacted the force for further comment. David Lammy has escaped a 2,500 fine after he failed to get a rod licence before fishing with JD Vance. The Foreign Secretary took the US Vice President fishing at his official country retreat in Chevening, Kent, on August 8 as he hosted him at the start of his UK holiday. It later emerged, however, that Mr Lammy did not possess the required licence for rod fishing. The Foreign Secretary referred himself to the environment watchdog over the 'administrative oversight' and purchased a retrospective licence. Anglers in England and Wales aged 13 or over must have a rod licence to fish for freshwater species such as carp, according to the Environment Agency. Those without a licence are warned they face a fine of up to 2,500 if they are fishing and cannot show a valid rod licence when asked. But on Friday, an Environment Agency spokesman confirmed that Mr Lammy would not be prosecuted but had received a formal warning. They said: 'Everyone who goes fishing needs a licence to help improve our rivers, lakes and the sport anglers love. David Lammy has escaped a 2,500 fine after he failed to get a rod licence before fishing with JD Vance The Foreign Secretary took the US Vice President fishing at his official country retreat in Chevening, Kent, on August 8, as he hosted Mr Vance at the start of a UK holiday 'As Mr Lammy has confirmed, we have issued a warning letter for fishing without a licence, in line with our enforcement and sanctions policy.' The agency's first response to a breach is usually to issue advice or a warning, rather than launch a prosecution, particularly in cases involving inexperienced anglers with no history of fishing without a licence. In the last year, 765 people were prosecuted for breaching fishing rules, while 1,965 received warning letters and 159 were issued with advice and guidance. Mr Lammy did not catch anything during the fishing trip, while Mr Vance said he and his children had landed fish which were subsequently returned to the lake. During his visit, the US Vice President described Mr Lammy as a 'good friend' and a 'very, very gracious host'. Mr Vance added: 'Unfortunately, the one strain on the special relationship is that all of my kids caught fish, but the Foreign Secretary did not.' A Foreign Office spokesperson previously said: 'The Foreign Secretary has written to the Environment Agency over an administrative oversight that meant the appropriate licences had not been acquired for fishing on a private lake as part of a diplomatic engagement at Chevening House last week.' Pictured: Chevening House in Sevenoaks, Kent, where the pair went fishing together Mr Lammy did not catch anything during the fishing trip, while Mr Vance said he and his children had landed fish which were subsequently returned to the lake JD Vance, right, shakes hands with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy on August 8 An Environment Agency spokesperson added: 'Everyone who goes fishing needs a licence to help improve our rivers, lakes and the sport anglers love. 'We understand the relevant licences have been purchased.' A spokesperson for the Countryside Alliance said: 'Angling is an amazing sport with multiple health benefits and we welcome as many people taking it up as possible. 'It's important to remember, however, why we are all required to have a rod licence with the proceeds raised being invested back into angling. 'You can get a fine of up to 2,500 if you fail to show a valid rod fishing licence when asked'. A Labour source told The Sun: 'There's nothing fishy to see here. 'The Foreign Secretary isn't much of a fisherman but he landed a big diplomatic catch getting the Vice President to stay for the weekend at Chevening. 'As soon as he learned of the administrative error he got the relevant licences and notified the Environment Agency to avoid getting caught up.' It was billed as a triumph of diplomacy for two of the world's great 'silverbacks' as they sought to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine. Yet when President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin came nose-to-nose in Alaska last week, what may prove the most telling moment of the historic showdown turned out to be the least obtrusive of all. And it was the work not of an 800lb political gorilla, but a quietly spoken woman who had other things to do that day. The moment came away from the cameras when, as the two presidents entered a private room at the US military base, Trump handed Putin a letter written by his wife, Melania, then sitting 4,300 miles away in New York. 'The cameras were fixated on everything the two men did in public,' a source close to Mr Trump told the Daily Mail. 'But the real soft power move came in private, from someone who wasn't there. And that was the First Lady. 'President Putin opened the envelope and read the letter right there, before the talks began. You could tell he was impressed and he said as much. It was a diplomatic masterstroke.' Melania's letter, made public by Mr Trump on his Truth Social site this week, went straight for the heartstrings of the Russian president, urging him to think of children's suffering without specifically mentioning Russia's devastating war against Ukraine. She wrote: 'A simple yet profound concept, Mr Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation's descendants begin their lives with a purity, an innocence which stands above geography, government and ideology. It was billed as a triumph of diplomacy for two of the world's great 'silverbacks' as Donald Trump (right) and Vladimir Putin (left) sought to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine A telling moment between Trump (left) and Putin came when the US President handed the Russian leader a letter written by his wife, Melania (right) The letter by Melania (above) went straight for the heartstrings of the Russian president, urging him to think of children's suffering 'Yet in today's world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them Mr Putin, you can singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter.' For many in Washington, the emergence of former-model Melania, 55, who was born in Slovenia then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a serious player on the international political scene has come as a surprise, not to say a shock. During her husband's first term at the White House, after all, she was openly mocked as being out-of-touch and politically inept. But while some have accused her of being a 'part-time' First Lady since Trump's second term began in January, insiders say that is well wide of the mark. Not only is Melania relishing her role, she is actively influencing her husband, pushing him, for example, to end the war in Ukraine. In part, this is a bid to cement the Trump legacy a key preoccupation for the First Lady. As if to make the point, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky hand-delivered a letter written by his own wife Olena addressed to Melania during his visit to the White House just a few days ago. The source said: 'Olena's letter hasn't been made public but it thanked Melania for her support and for focusing on the plight of the children. Melania's letter was a masterclass in shifting the conversation. It flattered Putin without going too far. People are taking her seriously. She's the one who matters when it comes to dealing with her husband. She has his ear.' Socialite Toni Holt Kramer has known Melania since 2011. A member of the club at Mar-a-Lago in Florida where Melania spends much time, Mrs Holt Kramer heads The Trumpettes, an all-female fundraising group. 'People have always underestimated Melania because she's the opposite of her husband,' she said. 'He loves to be in the public eye, loves being the centre of attention. Melania isn't shy but she's a private person. During her husband's first term at the White House, Melania (right) was openly mocked as being out-of-touch and politically inept While some have accused Melania (right) of being a 'part-time' First Lady since Trump's second term began in January, insiders say that is well wide of the mark 'During their first term she undoubtedly had some struggles. Barron [their son] was a young boy, she wasn't surrounded by good people and she was picked on relentlessly by her husband's political rivals. 'The Melania you meet today is strong, confident, very much her own woman. She knows what she wants and, for sure, she is the person who the President listens to the most. He trusts her implicitly. She is enjoying it much more this time around.' So, what has changed? For starters, says Mrs Holt Kramer, Barron is now 19 and off at university, 'so she doesn't have to worry about him so much'. Then there was the assassination attempt when a bullet grazed Trump's ear as he campaigned in Pennsylvania in July last year. Mrs Holt Kramer said: 'Everything changed in that moment, how could it not? The president has become very religious. He believes he was saved for a reason. It profoundly affected Melania.' Friends and those who work alongside the Trumps say they are both now 'utterly focused' on their legacy. 'This is his second and final term in the White House and there is a sense of urgency,' a close political ally told the Daily Mail last night. 'Melania is in the driving seat. She wants her husband to go down in the history books as a peacemaker, a deal-broker, a man who not only saved America but saved the world too. She has been urging him to make peace deals, with Russia/Ukraine being the 'big one'. She is far more involved than people know.' Even steadfast political foes like Hillary Clinton say Mr Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize if he successfully negotiates a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine. Mrs Holt Kramer said Melania has no aspirations to outshine her husband, yet some suggest that were he to receive the Nobel Prize an oft-stated ambition it should be awarded jointly to her. Melania (left) reportedly spends less time worrying about her son Barron (right) as he is now at university The assassination attempt when a bullet grazed Trump's ear (above) as he campaigned in Pennsylvania in July last year is said to have 'profoundly affected Melania' Political foes like Hillary Clinton (above) say Mr Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize if he successfully negotiates a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine - with some suggesting it should be awarded jointly to Melania 'That's not her style at all,' responds the friend. 'The First Lady has never made a secret of the fact that she considers being a wife and mother her greatest accomplishment. 'Make no mistake about it, she is very much an equal partner.' Melania influenced her husband's volte-face on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, for example, with Trump acknowledging 'real starvation' in Gaza for the first time last month. As Trump said at the time, 'Melania thinks it is terrible. She sees the same pictures that you see and we all see. Everybody, unless they are pretty cold-hearted or worse than that, nuts, thinks there's nothing you can say other than it's terrible when you see the kids.' In her only interview since returning to the White House, the First Lady told Trump-friendly Fox News: 'Maybe some people, they see me as just the wife of the President but I'm standing on my own two feet, independent. I have my own thoughts. I have my own 'yes' and 'no'. 'I give him my advice and sometimes he listens and sometimes he doesn't and that's OK.' But it's when it comes to Putin who Trump repeatedly called 'a great guy' during his campaign that Melania has brought the greatest influence to bear. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Melania took to social media platform X to send her prayers to the people of Ukraine. A source said: 'Melania grew up in a communist-run country and came to the West in her 20s. She is careful not to say publicly which side she's on but privately it's clear where her loyalties lie.' Melania (right) influenced her husband's volte-face on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, for example, with Trump acknowledging 'real starvation' in Gaza for the first time last month When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Melania (above) took to social media platform X to send her prayers to the people of Ukraine Trump, who stunned the world by shouting down Zelensky during a White House visit in February this year, recently admitted he no longer sees the Ukrainian leader as the one blocking a path to peace. At a meeting with the Nato secretary general Mark Rutte on July 15 he said: 'I'd get home, I'd say: 'I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir. I think we're finished.' And then I'll turn on the television or she'll say to me one time: 'Wow, that's strange because they just bombed a nursing home.' 'Melania is very smart. She's very neutral. She'd like to see people stop dying.' Critics have complained Melania has only been photographed a handful of times at the White House, preferring to spend her time in her 3,500 square-foot private villa at Mar-a-Lago or her gilt-lined penthouse flat inside Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. The source close to Trump said: 'Just because you don't see her, don't assume she's not there. He's on the phone to her all day long.' For now, Melania is focused on carefully building her husband's legacy but also her own as the 'quiet power'. Her official portrait set the tone for her second term as First Lady a 'power shot', which showed her leaning over a boardroom table wearing a sharp Dolce & Gabbana trouser suit with the Washington Monument gleaming behind her. Melania has just finished filming a $40 million (30 milion)documentary for Amazon Prime's streaming service with Hollywood director Brett Ratner (responsible for the Rush Hour franchise starring Jackie Chan). It is scheduled for release later this year. Trump, who stunned the world by shouting down Zelensky during a White House visit in February this year (as seen above), recently admitted he no longer sees the Ukrainian leader as the one blocking a path to peace For now, Melania (right) is focused on carefully building her husband's legacy but also her own as the 'quiet power' A source involved with the project said: 'It's a look inside Melania's world. People will be surprised. It's not all ladies' luncheons and visits to [her hairdresser] Frederic Fekkai.' She is currently finalising her wardrobe for the Trumps' State Visit to Britain next month when they will meet the King and Queen at Windsor Castle. Plans are in place for the couple to meet Prince William and, possibly, the Princess of Wales although that has yet to be confirmed. The Trump source said: 'This is an unprecedented second State Visit for a US President. The President met your late Queen Elizabeth during his first State Visit [in 2019] and is a huge fan of the Royal Family. He is very much looking forward to meeting King Charles and Queen Camilla.' A friend of Melania's said she is 'acutely aware' of an embarrassing moment during the 2019 State Visit when Trump barged in front of the late Queen as they inspected a guard of honour. Appearances matter to Melania, and that's why 'she's been working on her wardrobe choices for months,' said her friend. 'This time, nothing will go wrong. Underestimate her at your peril.' A Salvadoran migrant who was deported earlier this year has been released from jail after returning to the US, but threats of another deportation for the Maryland father-of-three loom again. While awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, was released from Putnam County jail in Tennessee on Friday to rejoin his family in Maryland. Abrego Garcia's initial deportation in March became a flashpoint for the Trump administration's border security efforts after courts ordered his return to the United States in June. The migrant was eligible for pretrial release since his return, however Abrego Garcia's attorneys requested he remained in jail out of fear that the administration would again order his deportation. Despite a recent ruling in a separate case having momentarily settled those fears, as it would require immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order, threats of deportation loom for him again. Although Abrego Garcia can't be deported to El Salvador without violating the judge's order, DHS and ICE sources told Fox News that he may be deported to Uganda 'no earlier that 72 hours from now.' He has also been told via email that he must report to ICE's Baltimore office at 8am on Monday. His release from prison required him to travel directly to Maryland where he will be electronically monitored in home detention, with permission to leave only for work, religious services or other approved activities. An attorney for Abrego Garcia in his deportation case in Maryland, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement on Friday that his client had been 'reunited with his loving family' for the first time since he his deportation. Kilmar Abrego Garcia (pictured middle), 29, was released from Putnam County jail in Tennessee on Friday to rejoin his family in Maryland The migrant was eligible for pretrial release since his return, however Abrego Garcia's attorneys requested he remained in jail out of fear that the administration would again order his deportation The migrant's release required him to travel directly to Maryland where he will be electronically monitored in home detention, with permission to leave only for work, religious services or other approved activities 'While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe,' Sandoval-Moshenberg said. 'ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart.' In a statement reported by the Baltimore Banner, Abrego Garcia said: 'Today has been a very special day because I have seen my family for the first time in more than 160 days. Id like to thank all the people who have supported me because after this long time I have witnessed that so many people have been by my side with such positivity. 'I am grateful to CASA and SMART Local 100 where I work, the pastors, and churches that have hosted prayer circles for me. Today I am grateful to God because He has heard me and today I am out. We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has slammed 'activist liberal judges' for Abrego Garcia's release from prison. In a post on X, Noem said: 'Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country. 'Today, we reached a new low with this publicity hungry Maryland judge mandating this illegal alien who is a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator be allowed free,' she added. 'By ordering this monster loose on Americas streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country.' Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia's criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the smuggling case, claiming he is being prosecuted as punishment for challenging his deportation to El Salvador. In a statement Friday, defense attorney Sean Hecker said that Abrego Garcia had been 'unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government's vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administration's continuing assault on the rule of law.' Hecker added that the migrant 'is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.' DHS and ICE sources told Fox News that he may be deported to Uganda 'no earlier that 72 hours from now' Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding, during which his nine passengers alerted officers to suspect smuggling Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer showed the exchange with the migrant. Abrego Garcia had nine passengers in the car, and the responding officers became suspicious of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning. His Tennessee charges came as the Justice Department began working to find a reason to justify the migrant's deportation to El Salvador. The government later admitted his deportation was a mistake. When the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a US immigration judge's order in 2019 that barred his expulsion to his native country. Abrego Garcia has a wife, who is a US citizen, and children that he has lived with in Maryland for years. But he immigrated to the US illegally and in 2019, an immigration judge denied his application for asylum but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador. The immigration judge had found that Abrego Garcia faced a credible threat from gangs that had terrorized him and his family. Prosecutors accuse Abrego of lying to police during the 2022 traffic incident, claiming he told them he and the nine other men were coming home from doing construction work in St. Louis, Missouri. However, phone records showed the Maryland resident was in Texas that morning. Prosecutors allege the father made $100,000 per year illegally transporting migrants across the country. They also alleged he transported guns and drugs as well. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that 'he will never go free on American soil'. Donald Trump confirmed that Intel has agreed to sell off 10 percent of the company to the US government in an $8.9billion investment that the president says will cost Americans nothing. The largest chip manufacturer in the US has been in talks with Washington over a potential government stake in the company. Trump has been concerned with Intel's future as it bleeds money under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan and America's reliance on TSCM, a chip manufacturer in Taiwan. The president announced the deal on Truth Social Friday evening. 'It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future,' he said. 'I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. 'This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to the future of our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Thank you for your attention to this matter.' Intel revealed that the deal has been funded using the remaining $5.7 billion in grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and $3.2 billion awarded to the company as part of the Secure Enclave program, all passed under Joe Biden. Donald Trump confirmed that Intel has agreed to sell off 10 percent of the company to the US government Trump has been concerned with Intel's future as it bleeds money under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan (pictured) and America's reliance on TSCM, a chip manufacturer in Taiwan 'As the only semiconductor company that does leading-edge logic R&D and manufacturing in the U.S., Intel is deeply committed to ensuring the world's most advanced technologies are American made,' said Tan in a statement. 'President Trump's focus on U.S. chip manufacturing is driving historic investments in a vital industry that is integral to the country's economic and national security. We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership.' 'Intel is excited to welcome the United States of America as a shareholder, helping to create the most advanced chips in the world,' added US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. 'As more companies look to invest in America, this administration remains committed to reinforcing our country's dominance in artificial intelligence while strengthening our national security.' A spokesperson for Intel said that the government's investment makes it a 'passive' owner. The White House will not have any representation on the company's board and with limited exceptions, will vote with the board on matters that need shareholder approval. Speaking with reporters on Friday, Trump said the deal came out of a meeting last week with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan - which came days after the president called for Tan to resign over his past ties to China. 'I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner,' Trump said. 'He agreed, and theyve agreed to do it.' Intel's advanced abilities to manufacture semiconductors would allow the US to give up its reliance on foreign fabs in order to power artificial intelligence, defense and the economy The struggling Silicon Valley chipmaker has a market cap of just over $100 billion. The agreement comes just after Japanese technology giant SoftBank Group disclosed Monday that it is accumulating its 2% stake in Intel. In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses. Trumps interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country's dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence. 'This feels like the Manhattan Project - or the run-up to World War II,' MIT AI computer scientist Dave Blundin said last week. 'It's every bit as important as the space race was, as the nuclear arms race was. Actually, it's more important.' Intel's advanced abilities to manufacture semiconductors would allow the US to give up its reliance on foreign fabrication plants (fabs), especially in Taiwan which controls more than 60 percent of the market, in order to power artificial intelligence, defense and the economy. The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang (right), met with Donald Trump (left) last week to review the bizarre deal, according to sources, including a US government official On August 7, Trump made an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him Thats what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tans past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an 'amazing story.' After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhones 2007 debut. Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers , a 25% reduction from the end of last year. The move, according to AI and tech experts on Diamandis' podcast Moonshots, echoes the 'Manhattan Project' as a sort of a 'national survival strategy.' 'The reason the US needs to protect Taiwan fundamentally... is because the fabs are there. If the fabs all move to the US, then why would the US defend Taiwan?' Blundin said. Concerns have been raised about the decision to nationalize the company, as he added: 'They're putting the whole industry on a kind of war footing, like mobilization for conflict, except the battleground is supply chains and chip fabs.' Although rare, its not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intels business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administrations financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favor with the president to increase their orders for the companys chips. Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administrations CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasnt been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program. The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program - money that Lutnick derided as a 'giveaway' that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if its turned into Intel stock. The family of a woman who was found in the street have described her as a 'cherished daughter, family member and dear friend'. Niwunhellage Dona Nirodha Kalapni Niwunhella, 32, known as Nirodha, died after being 'seriously injured' on a road in Cardiff on Thursday morning. Paramedics attended the scene on South Morgan Place in Riverside at 7.37am, but despite their best efforts Nirodha was pronounced dead at the scene. A 37-year-old man, who was known to Nirodha, was arrested in connection shortly after on Seawall Road, in Splott. He remains in police custody. Nirodha's family have today released a tribute following her death. 'We remember Nirodha as a cherished daughter, family member and dear friend to many. Nirodha will be forever remembered with peace, love and gratitude,' it read. 'She touched many lives with her kindness and warmth and her memory will continue to inspire us. 'Though her life ended too soon, the love she shared will always remain with us. Rest in peace angel.' Niwunhellage Dona Nirodha Kalapni Niwunhella, 32, known as Nirodha, died after being 'seriously injured' on a road in Cardiff on Thursday morning Nirodha (pictured) was described by loved ones as a 'cherished daughter, family member and dear friend' Police at the scene on South Morgan Place in Riverside, Cardiff, where a found was found dead in the street Detectives are appealing for witnesses, or anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage nearby to come forward. They are particularly looking to speak to anyone with information about a grey Ford Fiesta in or near South Morgan Place, or Seawall Road, including Wellington Street, Clare Road, Penarth Road and East Tyndall Street, between 7.30am and 8.30am. Senior Investigating officer DCI Matthew Davies said: 'My heartfelt condolences are with Nirodha's family, friends, and loved ones as they come to terms with this tragic loss. 'We have specially trained officers supporting her loved ones at this time and ask that their privacy is respected. 'I continue to urge anyone with information who is yet to speak to officers to come forward and support our investigation.' Nigel Farage has unveiled a 10billion 'mass deportation' plan that would see five migrant flights leave the UK every day if Reform take power. The party leader said the five year plan, called Operation Restoring Justice, would also bar small boat migrants from claiming asylum in the UK. They would be held in detention centres on 'surplus' RAF bases while awaiting deportation, with the Government being required to build detention centres capable of holding 24,000 people within 18 months. As many as five charter flights would leave the country every day, deporting hundreds of thousands of migrants. They would also be offered the opportunity to 'deport themselves' using an app and given 2,500 to leave the country. Mr Farage would also seek to introduce criminal offences for people who attempt to return to the UK after being deported or destroy their identity documents. He pledged to explore deals with 'third countries' such as Rwanda and Albania to house asylum seekers after they are deported, while British overseas territories such as Ascension Island would be used as a 'fallback' option. These sweeping changes, which are likely to encounter legal, political and practical challenges, would be introduced under emergency legislation known as the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill. 'The aim of this legislation is mass deportations,' Mr Farage said in an interview with the Times. 'We have a massive crisis in Britain.' Nigel Farage has unveiled a 10billion 'mass deportation' plan that would see five migrant flights fly out of UK every day if Reform take power. People thought to be migrants scramble to board a small boat near Wimereux in France A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to the Border Force compound in Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel on August 15 'It is not only posing a national security threat but it's leading to public anger that frankly is not very far away from disorder. There is only one way to stop people coming into Britain and that is to detain them and deport them.' He added: 'Who is our priority? Is it the safety and security of this country and its people? Or are we worrying about everybody else and foreign courts? That's what it comes down to. Whose side are you on?' Setting out the cost for the plans, Mr Farage said they would cost 10billion over five years, with 2.5billion spent on repurposing disused RAF and other military bases into detention centres. People housed in these centres would be barred from leaving or claiming bail and would have access to canteens and medical facilities Prime Minister Keir Starmer had pledged to stop housing asylum seekers on disused military sites during last year's general election amid concerns about the pressures placed on local services by large-scale sites, but is yet to do so. As part of Reform's plans, a further 2billion would go towards detention costs, with 1.5billion also set aside for staff and 1.5billion for chartering flights. Mr Farage has also set out 2billion for 'diplomatic incentives' that would help strike returns deals with countries where migrants are most commonly fleeing from, such as Afghanistan and Eritrea. He claimed that Britain's place on the international stage and use of incentives like international aid to secure agreements would help secure such deals. Migrants sprint through the surf at Gravelines beach in northern France to board a traffickers' dinghy to Britain earlier this month Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. According to Amnesty international, the Eritrean Government regards claiming asylum abroad as evidence of treason, with anyone forced to return to the country facing torture and sometimes death. Meanwhile, corporal punishment, amounting to torture and other ill-treatment, has been common under the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan and is employed for crimes including theft, adultery and alcohol consumption. Mr Farage said migrants would 'ideally' sent back to their country of origin, but 'if we have some problematic ones', then British overseas territories such as Ascension Island in the south Atlantic would be used as a 'backstop'. Such places would be used as a holding destination before they are moved on, Mr Farage suggested, adding that they would have no choice in the matter. Mr Farage's plan would also take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, replacing it with a British Bill of Rights, which would not include any reference to human rights. A homicide investigation is underway after a woman died in Brisbane's north. Emergency services were called to Osprey Place in Taigum, about 12.30am on Saturday, after a family member found a woman suffering from critical injuries was found unresponsive inside a home. The woman, 47, died at the scene despite attempts to revive her. She has since been identified as nurse Carra Luke. Following initial investigations, officers attended a Hackman Street home in McDowall ,11km away, a short time later, where they located a 52-year-old man, who is assisting police with their inquiries. No charges have yet been laid. Police confirmed that the pair were known to each other and are investigating all angles. 'I'm unsure whether this male will be charged with this offence formally or whether he'll be released, we're still investigating,' Acting Assistant Commissioner Rhys Wildman told reporters. 'I think any scene where theres violence involved is traumatic for including first responders, police and ambulance whilst trained and respond to events such as this right across the state on a daily basis, its still very confronting and a difficult scene for them to manage. Detectives remain at the home where a woman was found dead by a family member in Brisbane's north 'Well be providing support services for those frontline officers who attended.' Crime scenes were established at both homes. Detectives and forensic officers were seen scouring the quiet cul-de-sac in Taigum on Saturday morning. Shocked neighbours described the woman as one of the 'nicest sweetest people.' 'She always just letting all the neighbourhood kids come into her house,' one told the Courier Mail. 'If one of the kids was sick, shed always be checking in on them.' Investigations are ongoing. Anyone with information or CCTV footage is urged to call Policelink or Crime Stoppers. Yvette Cooper will fight a High Court ruling to shut down a controversial asylum hotel in Essex that became the focus of anti-immigration protests. The Home Secretary said yesterday the Home Office will seek to appeal against the injunction forcing migrants to be removed from the Bell Hotel in Epping. Ms Cooper warned the asylum system would be plunged into 'chaos' if migrant hotels were forced to close as a result of 'piecemeal court decisions' by councils bringing copycat litigation. It comes after a judge ordered the hotel to temporarily shut after Epping Forest District Council argued it was necessary for 'the safety of nearby residents' and to reduce the threat of 'violent protests'. Meanwhile, police forces were braced for a wave of protests at hotels across the country this weekend as communities seek to replicate the results of Tuesday's High Court ruling. The first protests took place in nine towns and cities including Cardiff, Bournemouth, Leeds and Leicester last night with a total of 32 expected to take place this Bank Holiday weekend. Yesterday Ms Cooper sought to head off Epping-style legal challenges and avoid the ugly scenes seen during last summer's riots as the Government took the first steps to appeal against the court ruling which gave her until September 12 to move asylum seekers out of the Bell Hotel. The Home Secretary said: 'We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including the Bell Hotel, and we are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme. The Home Secretary (pictured in May) said yesterday the Home Office will seek to appeal against the injunction forcing migrants to be removed from the Bell Hotel in Epping It comes after a judge ordered the hotel (pictured on Thursday) to temporarily shut after Epping Forest District Council argued it was necessary for 'the safety of nearby residents' and to reduce the threat of 'violent protests' Meanwhile, police forces were braced for a wave of protests at hotels across the country this weekend as communities seek to replicate the results of Tuesday's High Court ruling. Pictured: A protest outside the Marriott Hotel in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, where asylum seekers are staying, on Friday 'That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way.' But Tory Chris Philp branded the hotel injunction 'a victory for local people'. He said: 'It is completely wrong that the Labour Government is taking legal action to keep open the Bell Hotel. 'Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels, the Conservatives would remove all illegal arrivals, put in place a real deterrent and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again.' Israel has hit out at a United Nations-backed report declaring famine in Gaza City, calling it an 'outright lie'. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report said starvation in the Strip 'is present and rapidly spreading'. It warned the situation was 'entirely man-made' and without a ceasefire to allow in aid 'avoidable deaths will increase exponentially'. Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the findings as 'utterly horrifying' and called on Israel to allow more aid into the war zone. It came as Israeli defence minister Israel Katz warned Gaza City could 'turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun' areas that have been reduced to rubble by the Israel Defence Forces. He said the 'gates of Hell' will open for Hamas if it does not agree to release all of the hostages as troops prepare for a deeply controversial ground invasion of the city. Earlier a joint newspaper investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call claimed that five out of six Palestinians killed by the IDF since October 7 2023 were civilians. But Israel denied all the accusations against it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (above) has hit out at a United Nations-backed report declaring famine in Gaza City, calling it an 'outright lie' The report said starvation in the Strip 'is present and rapidly spreading' (Pictured: Palestinians desperately waiting for food on August 21) It came as Israeli defence minister Israel Katz (above) warned Gaza City could 'turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun' areas that have been reduced to rubble by the Israel Defence Forces Its Foreign Ministry claimed the IPC had 'forged' a famine by 'lowering the bar' when it came to classifying a famine. The IDF also dismissed the figures that 87 per cent of Gazans it has killed were civilians, saying they were 'not only false but also reflect a lack of military understanding'. Responding to the 59-page Famine Review Committee report published yesterday, Mr Lammy said: 'The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. 'The Israeli government's refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.' He called on Israel to 'immediately act to stop the situation deteriorating any further' and allow aid, food and medical supplies in. Benjamin Netanyahu described the findings as an 'outright lie' and said since October 2023 Israel has 'enabled two million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person'. Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the UN findings as 'utterly horrifying' and called on Israel to allow more aid into the war zone The report said half a million people were trapped in famine in Gaza City, adding: 'The time for debate has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading.' Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said on X: 'This is not a mystery it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself.' To declare a famine, the IPC has three criteria: at least 20 per cent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 per cent of children suffer acute malnutrition and two people for every 10,000 die each day because of 'outright starvation'. The Israeli Foreign Ministry criticised the IPC for declaring a famine due to 15 per cent of children suffering acute malnutrition, rather than the traditional 30 per cent rate. But the IPC report said it uses the 30 per cent rate when determining malnutrition by measuring a child's height and weight, but due to a lack of data it used arm circumference measurements, which only requires a 15 per cent threshold. Angela Rayner is facing embarrassment as more than 1,000 civil servants in her department will go on strike over the right to work from home. Labour's deputy leader has been accused of failing her own staff despite pushing through a law that gives new powers to workers and trade unions. She has even refused to meet employees in her Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), according to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which will walk out when Parliament returns from the summer recess. More than 1,180 staff will strike on September 1 while 180 staff will down tools for the following three weeks and others will continue long-running industrial action short of a strike. They are demanding that Ms Rayner who was spotted sipping wine on the beach in Hove on Tuesday evening drop the edict that civil servants spend at least three days a week at their desks. Union reps want her to 'protect a 40 per cent attendance requirement' and 'commit to default remote working for new staff who live with a disability'. But despite taking industrial action over the right to work remotely, they are also calling on Ms Rayner to halt the planned closures of six regional offices and 'consult with unions on recruitment policies to prevent deliberate de-staffing of offices'. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: 'Office closures do nothing to serve the department's goal of tackling regional inequalities. Angela Rayner (pictured last month) is facing embarrassment as more than 1,000 civil servants in her department will go on strike over the right to work from home Labour's deputy leader (pictured last month) has been accused of failing her own staff despite pushing through a law that gives new powers to workers and trade unions She has even refused to meet employees in her Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), according to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which will walk out when Parliament returns from the summer recess. Pictured: A PCS strike in 2023 'Ministers will see staff speak with their feet when they return. 'Senior management have been clear they will not seek to resolve this dispute without ministerial direction. 'Angela Rayner talks the talk regarding workers' rights, she must now walk the walk and intervene to resolve this dispute.' The row is regrettable for Ms Rayner as she is a former shop steward and is driving through Labour's flagship Employment Rights Bill, which will make it easier for unions to stage walkouts. She has already incurred the wrath of Unite for failing to resolve the long-running Birmingham bin strike, and last month was suspended as a member for 'bringing the union into disrepute'. It comes amid growing fears of an 'autumn of discontent' as public services are set to be crippled by a series of strikes. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers is to stage a week of walkouts on the London Underground in September while nurses are expected to join junior doctors on strike later in the year. An MHCLG spokesman said: 'We have engaged extensively with unions and staff to resolve this dispute and do not believe the current action is an appropriate response to the issues raised. 'We will continue to have an office in every English region as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and all staff affected will be able to continue in their roles.' When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down as working royals there was one overwhelming reason they gave for their decision: privacy. The couple expressed their frustration at the intense public scrutiny they encountered and claimed the constant barrage of criticism was detrimental to their well-being. However, in the subsequent years since 'Megxit', Harry and Meghan have raised eyebrows as the Sussexes appeared less concerned about their privacy than they originally claimed. Nowhere more so was this evident than during Harry and Meghan's bombshell interview with Oprah, in which serious allegations were wedged against the Royal Family. Here the couple talked openly about Meghan's mental health and claimed one - unnamed - member of the family had speculated about the colour of their son Archie's skin when Meghan was pregnant in a racist way. Unsurprisingly it wasn't long before their contradictory behaviour was noticed by the media and even parodied on the American series South Park, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were portrayed as talking heads who demanded privacy but still embarked a 'Worldwide Privacy Tour'. While their actions since they stepped down have been mocked, royal author Tom Quinn tries to answer why. He claims that 'if Meghan really wanted to be a private person, all she needed to do was go back to America and keep quiet - but what Meghan wants is privacy combined with world fame'. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their interview with Oprah Winfrey. Royal author Tom Quinn claims the interview was an example of how Meghan 'aired grievances' without her statements being 'challenged' Meghan when she was a working royal in 2018. The Duchess has in the past expressed her frustration at the intense public scrutiny she encountered as a working royal and claimed the constant barrage of criticism was detrimental to her well-being A parody of Harry and Meghan as they appeared on the American cartoon South Park Quinn exposes this flaw in Meghan's argument using the Oprah interview as an example where Meghan 'aired grievances' without her statements being 'challenged'. 'The deep danger can be glimpsed when in the Oprah interview Meghan is encouraged to speak "her truth". Well, if we all have our own versions of the truth then there is no truth. Speaking "my truth" is just a way of ennobling what is after all just one person's opinion.' On top of this, Quinn highlights that the media has become a tried and tested means of thrashing out grievances between the royals. 'Their decisions to use the media to air their complaints about the family has frightening echoes of Charles and Diana turning to television to wash their dirty linen in public,' he wrote. 'But Meghan and Harry have gone much further because they exposed themselves to forensic examination.' However, Quinn also attempted to paint a more sympathetic image of the Duchess of Sussex who was 'sinned against'. He said: 'Meghan is perhaps both sinned against and sinning. It is true that she genuinely wants to do good in the world even if the British find her "Californian therapy speak" embarrassing and insincere. 'But it is also true that Meghan is a powerful personality determined to get her way. To use Harry's own phrase, "What Meghan wants, Meghan gets." And Harry should know.' Harry and Meghan together in October 2018. In the years since 'Megxit', the couple have raised eyebrows as they appeared less concerned about their privacy than they originally claimed Aside from a claimed desire for more privacy, leaving Windsor for Montecito also brought with it financial opportunities Prince Harry in April 2025. Harry stepped down as a working royal alongside Meghan in 2020 'Meghan does seem to decide to a larger extent what she and her husband do and where they go. She does believe that the Royal Family did not give her what she needed, and that the family should have listened to her and changed to suit her.' Aside from a claimed desire for more privacy, leaving Windsor for Montecito also brought with it financial opportunities. According to royal author Valentine Low, it was Meghan's yearning to monetise her royal title which led to 'Megxit'. Writing in his tell-all book Courtiers, Low claims that Meghan's desire to 'earn money for herself' led the couple to abandon their duties entirely. Low revealed that during discussions about how to reach a happy middle ground - which could please the whole family - multiple scenarios were explored. These ranged from Harry and Meghan 'having a month or a year to do their own thing' to 'spending most of their time privately but doing a select number of royal activities'. The one caveat for the Sussexes continuing royal duties - however small or minor - was that they must stick to the 'normal rules about royal behaviour'. Crucially, that would mean Harry and Meghan could not 'act or take decisions in order to gain financially'. Low writes: 'Some suspected that in the end she wanted to make money. And the only way she was going to do that was by leaving her royal life behind and going back to America.' Indeed, since stepping down as a working royal, Meghan appears to have focused much of her energy on her solo business projects and media projects - with the next season of With Love, Meghan set to debut next week. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's new Netflix deal is the 'best outcome' the Sussexes could have hoped for, according to experts on the latest episode of Palace Confidential. Daily Mail's chief showbusiness writer and Friday columnist, Alison Boshoff, was the first person to reveal that Netflix would receive a non-exclusive first-look deal - a downgrade on the Sussexes' previous contract. The couple's new output will include a second season of With Love, Meghan, which is set to be released on Tuesday, as well as a Christmas special in December. Five years ago, Harry and Meghan secured a lucrative contract thought to be worth $100million (74million) with Netflix after quitting as senior working royals in 2020. The new arrangement is a first-look deal, meaning Netflix can say yes or no to new film or TV projects before anyone else. Making her Palace Confidential debut, Alison said: 'The new deal is the best they could have possibly hoped for - I think it is the best possible outcome. 'There's no way that they could get the same deal again because those big money deals just aren't being handed out. 'What these deals give you is a development fee which can be generous, or can be mingey. It is generally in the low millions. Meghan and Harry's new output will include a second season of With Love, Meghan, which is set to be released on Tuesday, as well as a Christmas special in December Five years ago, Harry and Meghan secured a lucrative contract thought to be worth $100million (74million) with Netflix after quitting as senior working royals in 2020 Making her Palace Confidential debut, Alison said: 'The new deal is the best they could have possibly hoped for - I think it is the best possible outcome' 'They save face, Netflix get the chance to say "pat on the back, we appreciate you, thank you for what you have done already". 'No one is going to want a project Netflix has passed on. All their content will still be on Netflix because no one is going to buy it.' When asked by presenter Jo Elvin if there was any possibility of a third instalment of the show, Alison said: 'I don't think imminently. I think she's going to rest it. 'What she did was, she filmed the first two parts, and the holiday special, all at the same time. 'I hear talk of another idea which she is interested in doing, which will centre more around lifestyle and travel - so we are going back to her days with The Tig.' Meghan's lifestyle show failed to break into Netflix's top 300 programmes for the first half of 2025 and was even thrashed by multiple seasons of Suits. The numbers watching were 'dismal', an insider at the streamer reportedly said. Referencing the trailer for the next instalment of Meghan's Netflix series, Richard Eden, the Daily Mail's Diary Editor, said: 'What did strike me was how much of a contrast this was to the TV appearances of her husband, Prince Harry.' Speaking on the hit YouTube show, Richard said: 'The last time we saw him, he was being interviewed by the BBC, moaning, complaining, looking desperately unhappy about his lost appeal. Meghan's lifestyle show failed to break into Netflix's top 300 programmes for the first half of 2025 and was even thrashed by multiple seasons of Suits When asked by presenter Jo Elvin if there was any possibility of a third instalment of the Netflix show, Alison said: 'I don't think imminently. I think she's going to rest it' Elsewhere in the episode, Richard Eden spoke about how Harry left his mark at the National Memorial Arboretum despite not being there 'And then we have the complete contrast with Meghan, who is upbeat and jolly, as if "everything is great". 'You think: "Wow, is this really a couple? They're just so different."' Elsewhere in the episode, Richard Eden spoke about how Harry left his mark at the National Memorial Arboretum despite not being there. 'This was quite extraordinary,' he said. 'The Royal Family were represented by the King and Queen. But Prince Harry was determined to leave his mark there as well. 'A few days later, it emerged via a TV news channel that Harry had had a wreath placed with a tribute to his grandfather at the service at the arboretum. 'There was a long letter, printed and covered up in plastic so it could be read. 'It was clearly left with a view that people could read it. It seemed quite an odd thing to do, frankly.' Pictured: The personal letter and a wreath of red poppies left at the Burma Star Memorial in Staffordshire after the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, by a friend of the Duke of Sussex on August 18, 2025 Prince Harry's letter, addressed to the 'forgotten army', is pictured in full The Daily Mail's Editor at Large Richard Kay added: 'What struck me about that was, there was definitely a sense that there was a gap in the line-up of royals on show at the ceremony. 'No Prince William, no Princess Kate. Was Harry filling that gap? Was it a stunt, in other words? It's the kind of thing he has done in the past. 'It was obviously placed there with the intention that it would be discovered and remarked and reported on, which of course it has been.' 'This is not the first time this has happened,' said Richard Eden. 'The reason this is genuinely significant is because in 2021, Prince Harry requested that a wreath be left on his behalf at the National War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday. 'This was vetoed by his grandmother because her view was "you're either in or out". 'She prevented him from doing that, so it's very significant that he's felt the need to do this, and that he has been allowed to. 'I've written about how it has raised concerns at the Palace. It shows how the King needs to be firmer with his son, just as Queen Elizabeth was.' In 2021, Harry requested that a wreath be left on his behalf at the National War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday. This was vetoed by his grandmother, the late Queen Richard Eden said, 'To me, it shows that Harry can't be trusted. 'Despite all the warm words about cooperation and the cosy meeting between representatives of the King and of Harry and Meghan, he's doing this without the Royal Family knowing.' Richard Kay added: 'From what we understand, Harry used a friend to deliver the wreath on his behalf. 'I don't think the Palace knew this was going to happen. 'I have to add, the words he wrote were incredibly moving - it wasn't just about his grandfather, it was about the whole Far Eastern Campaign. He wrote about what he had learned from his grandfather about the privations, all that the soldiers of the so-called "forgotten army" and the sailors went through. 'He was referencing all of that, but the question comes back, "why did he feel the need to do it?" because it was inevitable it would be found out.' For more fascinating insights from the Mail's team of unrivalled experts, watch the latest episode of Palace Confidential in full now and subscribe to the Daily Mail Royals YouTube channel. There was a clear sense of the King wanting to reset royal operations after the medical problems which befell the monarchy in 2024. By the end of that year, routine royal news reports would make no mention of his health. He had been around the world, visiting Australia in mid-October ahead of the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, and next-to-normal duties had resumed at home. The public had to be periodically reminded that he was still undergoing treatment for cancer. The King was not trying to conceal or minimise the fact; he just preferred not to be defined by it. Alongside the return to royal near-normality, however, came a resurgence of what one courtier had called 'headwinds', those external challenges which had seemed to abate a little while the family were battling through 2024. Of all the 'headwinds', it was, once again, the two 'difficult dukes' who were generating the most heat and headlines. Since losing his allowance from the King after refusing to move from Royal Lodge on the edge of the Windsor estate, the mystery surrounding the Duke of York's private funding arrangements was partially explained in December 2024. Court documents revealed that an alleged Chinese spy had been banned from entering Britain and that the man, later revealed as businessman Yang Tengbo, had developed an 'unusual degree of trust' with the Duke. Tengbo had been involved in trying to create business opportunities for the Duke in China following his disastrous 2019 BBC Panorama interview and subsequent departure from public life. Though there was no suggestion that the Duke had any inkling that his former associate was under suspicion (and Tengbo has denied the allegations), it all painted an excruciating picture of a royal outcast trying almost anything to secure money and a scintilla of international credibility. With Christmas looming, the last thing the monarchy needed was the Duke grinning alongside the rest of the family in public while a new scandal broke over his head. Even so, it proved an uphill struggle to keep the Duke away from the royal Christmas festivities, though he was finally persuaded to see sense by his ex-wife (one reason why Sarah, Duchess of York, has become an increasingly familiar presence back in the royal fold). The Duke was finally allowed to join the family for Easter. By then, it was the Duke of Sussex making the headlines. Following the King's diagnosis, Prince Harry had maintained a low profile with regard to the Royal Family for a year. The Duchess had been busy with new business ventures, including a lifestyle show on Netflix called With Love, Meghan and a range of household goods under a new brand, 'As Ever' (replacing her short-lived 'American Riviera Orchard' marque). The Duke, meanwhile, had been busy with his lawyers. With great sadness, he had resigned from Sentebale, the Lesotho charity he had co-founded twenty years before. He had stepped down in solidarity with trustees who had left after falling out with the chair of the charity's board. Days later, he appeared in Britain as his legal team took his long-running case against the British Government to the Court of Appeal. There was no need for him to appear. Many legal experts could see no reason for his presence in the court, scribbling on Post-it notes and sipping water as his barrister pressed his challenge to a Home Office decision to remove his right to automatic police protection in the UK. 'He seemed to be pitch-rolling ahead of what was likely to be a humiliating court decision,' was how the King's team regarded his short visit to London, especially as there was no prospect of seeing his father, who was away on a state visit to Italy. Yet after hearing he was coming to London, the King had still offered him accommodation at Buckingham Palace during his stay. 'Once again, he said no presumably because the Palace is still so unsafe and ended up staying in a hotel,' said a member of staff, struggling to hide the sarcasm in light of what the Duke did next. There was considerable irritation that the Prince and the BBC had arranged a landmark interview about royal security issues yet the Palace was first made aware of it only minutes before broadcast Following the King's diagnosis, Prince Harry had maintained a low profile with regard to the Royal Family for a year King Charles with sons Harry and William. 'It was starting to feel a little more than coincidental that when the King was on important business overseas, the Duke of Sussex would suddenly emerge from his hard-won privacy to make a high-profile public appearance,' writes Hardman After leaving London, he went to Ukraine to meet wounded soldiers. Aside from the glaring inconsistency of claiming that Britain was fraught with danger one day and then travelling to a war zone the next, Prince Harry also had the satisfaction of stealing a march on his brother. The trip to Lviv had certainly come as a surprise to Prince William, who, as an ex-serviceman himself, had long wanted to visit Ukraine. The Duchess of Edinburgh had been the first member of the family to visit the embattled nation in 2024 when she met President Zelensky and his wife and talked to survivors of sexual violence and torture. Thus far, however, the Prince of Wales has been limited to a visit to the Mercians, of which he is Colonel-in-Chief, in Estonia. One month after his trip to court, the Duke of Sussex received news of the court ruling at first light in California. It was, as many expected, a robust and unanimous rejection of his appeal by three senior judges. The Duke knew it was coming and had prepared the ground for venting his disappointment in advance by inviting a BBC news crew to be ready at a borrowed house. Having granted the New York-based journalist Nada Tawfik ten minutes, he then spoke for more than 30, clearly emotional at moments as he blinked and swallowed. He sounded, variously, naive, furious and implacable in his conviction that dark forces, some of them within the Royal Household, had conspired against him. At the outset, he said that his case had been unwinnable, adding with a grim smile: 'I wish someone had told me that beforehand,' a remark which sounded rather like a rebuke to his lawyers. Prefacing many responses with 'I have to be careful what I say', he went on to claim that the Government committee reviewing his security had been infiltrated by royal officials and had operated outside the law to deprive the Sussexes of a level of protection readily granted to others (though the one official whom he named, Sir Clive Alderton, now Private Secretary to the King, had not actually been on the committee at the time). It all felt like a 'good old-fashioned Establishment stitch-up', the Duke half-joked, before alluding gravely to his mother's death: 'Some people want history to repeat itself and that's pretty dark.' For the foreseeable future, Britain would remain too dangerous for his children. There was a wistful but jarringly tactless note at the very end, when the Duke was asked about reconciliation: 'I don't know how much longer my father has he won't speak to me because of this security stuff but it would be nice to reconcile.' Prospects for that, however, had just receded further. Within royal circles in Britain, some were 'frankly appalled' by his glib choice of words about the King's health. While on the one hand he claimed his court battle was over, he also repeatedly 'called on' Keir Starmer and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, to 'step in'. The King's 'legal jeopardy' dilemma, therefore, remained unresolved; as long as his son was pursuing his ministers on a judicial question in his courts, the King, as 'fountain of justice', could not risk any private discussion for fear that Prince Harry might air some of the details (or his version of them) in public. The Home Office merely said it was 'pleased' by a ruling that reflected its 'rigorous and proportionate' security system. The Palace's response was short, but managed to convey the sense of weariness after five years of this saga: 'All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.' Within the Royal Household, there was both exasperation and incredulity that Prince Harry could expect any sort of rapprochement after springing yet another effusion of scattergun accusations on the family via the media. There was considerable irritation that the Prince and the BBC had arranged a landmark interview about royal security issues yet the Palace was only made aware of it minutes before broadcast. 'As the Duke of Sussex might say, it felt like a bit of a stitch-up,' reflected one member of staff. Robert Hardman's exclusive details on the Palace's reaction to Prince Harry's TV stitch-up interview come from the new edition of his biography Charles III: The Inside Story King Charles waves in January 2024 as he and Queen Camilla leave the London Clinic following his treatment for an enlarged prostate - just one month before his cancer diagnosis Royal staff had noticed something else, too. It was starting to feel a little more than coincidental that when the King was on important business overseas, the Duke of Sussex would suddenly emerge from his hard-won privacy to make a high-profile public appearance. In March 2023, as the King was embarking on the first overseas state visit of his reign to Germany, Prince Harry had unexpectedly and unnecessarily flown to London to watch the preliminaries of one of his various court cases. When the King was beginning his 2025 state visit to Italy, Harry had done the same again. A few weeks later, as the King flew to Canada, his younger son made a surprise appearance in Shanghai at a conference on sustainable tourism. 'Only a cynic could possibly detect a pattern there,' observed one courtier, with mild amusement. There was one person, however, who seemed wholly unconcerned by the latest Sussex grievance. Even in private, the King showed no interest in discussing the matter. 'People are always saying that he must be so upset by the Harry business,' says one member of his inner circle, 'but when you have all that is going on in his world, you don't have time to agonise over things beyond your control.' Back channels remained open, however. There was much excitement when the King's press communications secretary was spotted having a drink with the latest Sussex media manager during a London visit in July. Some commentators even hailed it as a 'peace summit', to the surprise of Palace insiders, who had regarded it as a courtesy call. It explains why royal officials were not unrelieved that, when Prince Harry ostentatiously put his head round the door of the Court of Appeal, the King was already on that state visit to Italy. There was a further positive indicator that the King's health was now much improved: planning had resumed for his funeral. All through 2024, officials had been considering when or even whether to summon those designated to participate in the next iteration of Operation London Bridge. 'In the end, we didn't do anything because of the cancer link,' explained one of those on the list. Year after year during the reign of Elizabeth II, the current Duke of Norfolk, as Earl Marshal, would assemble officials from the Royal Household, civil service, military and police to run through what would be expected of them when the dark day dawned. The meeting would usually be held at Buckingham Palace (on a day when the Queen was not in) and had grown so large over time that they would all have to meet in the Ballroom. On the last annual run-through before the plan was finally enacted in 2022, the total number present had reached 282. Following the King's cancer diagnosis, however, it had seemed inappropriate, to say the least, to reinstate this fixture, however sensible and practical it might be. 'You can imagine the sort of rumours if word got out, even though it's just standard procedure,' said one member of the London Bridge cast. 'But it wasn't a case of no planning at all. Eddie Norfolk was very keen to sort out the problem of the gun carriage.' As explained earlier in this book, one of the main issues that surfaced during the late Queen's funeral procession from Westminster Abbey had been that the soldiers on parade had all been marching at the pre-determined speed of 30 paces per minute. Unfortunately, it transpired that the Royal Navy ratings pulling the gun carriage with the coffin could only move at just over 20 paces, and considerably less when going round corners. This had made the procession late and elongated (not that the billions watching on television either noticed or cared). A full day of top-secret gun carriage drill behind closed doors had been arranged in Portsmouth. The eventual solution was to use connecting 'click track' earpieces for unit commanders to ensure matching marching speeds. There had also been some practice sessions for the bearer party from the Grenadier Guards, again in strict secrecy in a hangar in Middlesex. None of this had anything to do with the King's diagnosis, but was simply a case of being prepared, as in years gone by. However, it was only by the late summer of 2025 that senior officials felt comfortable enough to contemplate a full London Bridge run-through at senior level (and even then, it would have to be organised far away from Buckingham Palace). How cancer inspired Kate's new spiritual awakening Since her appearance at the Wimbledon tennis championships in July 2024, there had been a gradual, cautious return to regular duties for the Princess of Wales. Her cancer 'journey' through 2024 had been very different to the King's, not least because of her age and the impact on her three young children. 'It's been dreadful,' the Prince of Wales told a small group of reporters towards the year's end, while in South Africa. '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. '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 brutal.' For the most guarded member of the family when it comes to matters of personal privacy, these words were very telling indeed. Even those close to the Prince were surprised by his candour. 'He was being remarkably honest,' says a senior staffer. 'But that was just how the year had been.' The Princess had linked what her staff called a 'phased' return to duties with events which mattered most to her and to the monarchy, namely Remembrance weekend, the Qatari state visit in early December (a daytime-only appearance) and Christmas services with the children. There was her own 'Together at Christmas' service for community volunteers at Westminster Abbey and the traditional royal one at Sandringham. Reflection: Kate is seen lighting a candle during a ceremony commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day in January One consequence of her cancer diagnosis appeared to be a keener interest in matters of faith, and that only seemed to develop further in 2025. Asked how much further, a Kensington Palace insider noted: 'In her own words, she's talked about the recovery process in her mind, body and spirit. So I point you in that direction.' It has indeed become a telling phrase. The Princess had not only used this form of words in her March 2024 video announcing her diagnosis but also talked of healing and growing 'in mind, body and spirit' in her message for Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2025. Just the previous month, as joint president of the Scouts, she discussed her 'very spiritual and very intense emotional reconnection' with nature. If the Princess's sense of the spiritual seemed to be solid, and perhaps even deepening over time, there remained no discernible shift in the Prince's appetite for religious introspection. There wasn't one. 'Still no change,' notes the insider. For the Prince and Princess, as ever, the priority was to keep everything as grounded and as close to normal as usual, both for the sake of the Princess and for the family. The children might be growing older but the family remained firmly attached to living in Windsor, with the couple telling friends that they did not miss living in London and could not envisage going back. 'The move out to Windsor was very much motivated by the children,' points out a Kensington Palace source. 'I don't see that changing.' The Prince and Princess continued to hold off expanding their office, as originally planned, with just a routine change of equerry (and even then appointing yet another helicopter pilot to the post in the form of Squadron Leader Mike Reynolds of the RAF). However, the Princess did maintain her gradual, incremental resumption of duties, her every appearance eagerly analysed. Ditto her absences. When she failed to appear for the second day of racing at Royal Ascot this year, there was momentary media pandemonium since her name had been on the official list. Catherine had referred to the recovery process in her 'mind, body and spirit' in the March 2024 video where she revealed she had cancer One member of her team later put it down to a clerical error, though one pointed out that it had been 'a good reminder that she was seriously ill last year and underwent a significant period of chemo'. Another pointed out that she might be simply conserving her energies for an event which, unlike Ascot, bore her own patronage: Wimbledon. At the same time, the decision that she would become the first Princess of Wales in 115 years to grant her own royal warrants was an encouraging indicator that long-distance planning was slowly resuming, too. As 2025 continued, there was a discernible sense that the Prince of Wales no longer had the weight of the world on his shoulders, that the mood was lifting after that brutal year. When his football team, Aston Villa, were playing in a Champions League quarter-final at Paris Saint-Germain in April 2025, the Prince took Prince George along to watch. He then dropped in on the television commentary team of Ally McCoist and Rio Ferdinand to offer some unexpectedly granular analysis of both sides and their tactics. 'Apart from those very close to him, I don't think a lot of people outside the royal bubble knew quite how big a fan he is and I mean he really is,' said one of his team. Camilla's Palace library plan Fully settled in to her role at the King's side, Queen Camilla particularly enjoys some aspects of the Queen Consort role, say friends, including organising dinner parties and seating plans. She has made a point of not getting involved in royal infrastructure, such as houses or gardens. She does have an alteration in mind for one royal residence, however. As her Queen's Reading Room goes from strength to strength, with 12million followers and an expanding literary festival, in tandem with all her other book-related endeavours including Book Aid International and the National Literacy Trust she has been struck that there is one royal residence which has no library. Ever since King George IV gave the King's Library at 'Buckingham House' to the British Museum (ahead of his ruinous redesign of what would become known as Buckingham Palace), the royal headquarters has been largely bookless. The Queen is thought to be looking at rebuilding a library at Buckingham Palace - but, insiders stress, has no desire to leave Clarence House The only exception was the 15,000 titles in the offices of the late Duke of Edinburgh (an avid reader of everything from philosophy to cookery books, but almost never of fiction). 'The Queen is simply looking to see if it might be at all possible, as rebuilding a Buckingham Palace library would be a wonderful idea,' said one close to both the King and Queen. However, like so many other members of the Royal Family including now, it seems, the Prince of Wales Queen Camilla has no wish to move out of Clarence House. 'Do not for one minute imagine that this means she wants to live at 'BP',' says one close ally. 'She is extremely happy with the status quo.' As noted in the earlier edition of this book, the Prince of Wales has always preferred action movies such as Batman or Deadpool to period dramas. Both he and the Princess had also been enthusiastic followers of the crime series Happy Valley. Though 2024 had been a year of very real and 'brutal' personal challenges, the Prince appeared to have resumed his appetite for curling up with a box set drama in 2025. As one key aide put it: 'He is president of BAFTA, of course but we did hear a lot about Black Doves.' The Netflix spy drama, starring Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, received a Golden Globe best actress nomination for Knightley's performance. Adapted from Charles III: The Inside Story by Robert Hardman (Pan Macmillan, 12.99), new edition to be published August 28. Robert Hardman 2025. To order a copy for 11.69 (offer valid to 06/09/25; UK P&P free on orders over 25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937 A distraught couple spent $625,000 building a Cape Cod dream home for their retirement - only to learn that it will be demolished for a new $2.4 billion bridge. Joan and Marc Hendel were notified in March that their home would be seized under eminent domain as part of the Cape Cod Canal Bridges Replacement Program. The distressing news came just a month after they'd finally moved into their home in the Bourne's Round Hill neighborhood. The couple purchased a vacant 0.64-acre land parcel in Bourne's Round Hill neighborhood sight unseen for $165,000 in December 2023. They spent another $460,000 to build their dream 1,700 square foot home with three bedrooms and three bathrooms on the lot. But the Massachusetts Department of Transportation has now said their residence is among at least 10 homes that will be repossessed and torn down as part of the plan to replace the roughly 90-year-old Sagamore Bridge. The Sagamore Bridge is one of two bridges that connects the Cape to the mainland, but it and its sister bridge have been deemed 'structurally deficient'. Since its construction, Cape Cod's popularity has exploded among summer tourists, with five hour traffic jams now the norm around the bridge. Officials ruled replacing the bridge was more efficient than making repairs, so crews are now planning to construct the replacement on the westward side of the existing bridge in a path that cuts through the Hendels' neighborhood. Joan and Marc Hendel (pictured on their front steps) are devastated after learning that their brand new Cape Cod dream home is set to be demolished as the city works to build a new $2.4billion bridge The Hendels purchased a vacant 0.64-acre land parcel in Round Hill for $165,000 in December 2023. They spent another $460,000 to build their dream 1,700 square foot home with three bedrooms and three bathrooms on the lot The Hendels say they feel 'blindsided' by the construction plan, claiming that neither their realtor nor the city of Bourne - which issued their building permit - warned them it was likely they would soon be pushed out of the cul-de-sac. A Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) official hand-delivered a notice to the Hendels in March informing them their home in the John's Lane neighborhood would be seized. The government, as required by the US Constitution, must offer the couple compensation for the property that is fair-market value. 'The rules are, with this type of eminent domain, that they have to provide us with a comparable living space that serves the same functionalities in the same way,' Marc told the Daily Mail. 'And that includes things like a brand new house being built in 2024 or sooner. The hardwood floors, the mini-splits, things like that, living on a cul-de-sac, having an ocean view, being in the Upper Cape.' But Cape Cod is in the midst of an 'extreme housing shortage' and the Hendels now fear they may be pushed out of their beloved community altogether. They fear anything they'll be able to buy with the cash given to them will be older and of a much lower quality. 'They are 900 square feet. They are from 1970. They're in disrepair,' Marc explained. 'And then the next thing we're seeing are houses in the $1.5 to $2million range.' Even if the state did buy them a $1.5million home, which it could do, the Hendels say they could not afford the 'additional expenses', such as increased property taxes. The couple's $625,000 dream home features hardwood floors throughout. This is one of the three bedrooms in their home Joan Hendel says they decided not to put much effort into decorating the property after receiving their eminent domain letter just one month after moving in. Pictured is their living room, outfitted with the bare minimum essentials and no decor on the walls The couple sent a letter to MassDOT detailing their 61 requirements for a replacement home which must be comparable to their current residence, which includes three bedrooms, three bathrooms and hardwood floors throughout the home. Pictured is their kitchen The couple allege MassDOT's Megaprojects Delivery Office has sent a stream of appraisers to their home to check if they have made any improvements that could have increased its value. Joan says they pushed back, telling the state: 'Do you understand? We just moved into this house a month before you delivered this letter to us, and you're telling us that in that month you thought we had updates? 'It's a brand spanking new house. There were no updates.' Marc has written to the department asking they stop sending property experts to their home because the sight of them outside is so distressing. 'They want a team of appraisers to come into our house. We've told them repeatedly we are not mentally or emotionally ready for that, because they come in a group of six plus other MassDOT employees, and that's just overwhelming for us,' he explained. 'It's too much for us,' Joan echoed. The couple also sent a letter to MassDOT detailing their requirements for a replacement home which must be comparable to their current residence. These requirements include three bedrooms, three bathrooms and hardwood floors throughout the home. 'We gave them a list of 61 things that we can't live without, and that's our definition of comparable and they're just not going to be able to do that,' Marc added. The Sagamore Bridge (pictured) was built in 1935 and designed to last 50 years, but it and its sister bridge have been operating for almost double the recommended time and were recently deemed 'structurally deficient' Massachusetts received a $933million grant from the federal government in July 2024 to replace the bridge. A rendering from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (pictured) shows the new bridge will be a near replica of the original 1935 Sagamore Bridge The couple have also criticized state leaders for not considering the emotional toll the entire seizure process, which could last months, will take on them. 'We literally used our life savings to move here. This is our dream home, this is our dream location, it was our forever home. We were never gonna move again, ever,' Marc said. 'They don't even consider that we need mental health assistance. 'They come in here to our home, these two MassDOT workers, and they say, we understand,' Joan shared. 'Never tell anyone that has had their letter of eminent domain delivered that you understand unless you have experienced it. 'It's like this if you've never had a baby, you'll never know what that feels like when you're in pain, you know, your entire body. So, if you've never had an experience, don't say you understand.' Marc and Joan reiterated how they recognize it is necessary for the Sagamore Bridge to be rebuilt, but are urging officials to consider alternative building plans. 'We totally understand that the bridge needs something done. We are not opposed to that. It's a safety issue and it's an economic thing. We get it. We get that,' Marc said. 'We just know there are options that don't destroy our home.' There have been multiple proposals over the last five years for the reconstruction of the bridge, with officials undergoing an extensive alternatives analysis process to determine the best construction option. Joan and Marc purchased the vacant lot sight unseen. The contract to build the house came with the land purchase. They were able to customize the interior, but had very little say in the style of the home or decisions related to the exterior They allege that comparable houses to the property they built go for around $1.5 to $2million in their neighborhood significantly more than they paid for their 'forever home' Massachusetts received a $933million grant from the federal government in July 2024 for the Cape Bridges Replacement Project. The remaining costs of the project is expected to be covered by the US Department of Transportation's Bridge Investment Program. Built in 1935, the Cape Cod bridges are old and in desperate need of repair. They were designed to last 50 years so have been operating for almost double the recommended time. Although both the Sagamore Bridge and its sister Bourne Bridge need to be replaced, officials are first putting their efforts toward the Sagamore Bridge because of its heavy traffic flow. When the bridges opened, they saw a combined one million vehicles travel along them each year. Now, the two bridges see an estimated vehicular traffic of 38 million vehicles annually, with locals alleging that traffic is so bad that it sometimes can be at a standstill for up to five hours. Video from MASSDot revealed the new Sagamore Bridge - with constructed slated in for 2027 - will be a nearly exact replica of the original, built just westward of the existing bridge. It will feature two one-way bridges one for drivers entering Cape Cod and the other for those leaving the area. Crews will be using the John's Lane neighborhood as a staging area for construction equipment and will turn the area into a green space once the project is completed. The new Sagamore Bridge will be constructed on the westward side of the existing bridge in a path the cuts through the Hendels' John's Lane neighborhood Crews will be using the John's Lane neighborhood as a staging area for construction equipment and will turn the area into a green space once the project is completed However, there is concern among residents and local lawmakers that President Donald Trump may stop the project from moving forward despite funding for the bridge already receiving congressional approval. 'That money though is not yet in Massachusetts coffers and we've seen an administration that's taken illegal action to take money away from states,' Massachusetts State Senator Dylan Fernandes told WCVB earlier this month. He added: 'Not having new bridges is a non-starter. These bridges are going to be built one way or another, and the feds own them, they're on the hook for operating them, it's their job to fund them.' Meanwhile the Hendels fear that if the government decides not to follow through on the project, it could mean they are forced out of their home for no good reason. 'All you've got to do is read the news,' Marc said as he pointed out that funding has been removed from projects across the United States. Trump has already pulled back grants issued during his first term, as well as funding for several Joe Biden era programs. Massachusetts Democrat Governor Maura Healey - who is pushing the project - previously slammed Trump as 'a con man', 'a swindler' and 'a threat to democracy' after suing him a hundred times when she was attorney general. Trump has been known to prioritize the needs of his allies over his critics and it is possible the billionaires' playground of Cape Cod may find replacement of the 'essential' bridges is of low importance for the White House. Hackers have breached a major Google database, putting the accounts of 2.5 billion Gmail users at risk of being hijacked by scammers. The hacking group known as ShinyHunters broke into a Google database managed through Salesforces cloud platform by tricking a Google employee into sharing login credentials in June. They stole troves of business files, containing company names and customer contact details, but Google does not believe any passwords were taken during the incident. Now, scammers have been using this data to make fake phone calls and send malicious emails to these customers, attempting to gain access to their Google accounts and private data. Cybersecurity expert James Knight told the Daily Mail that this hack has the potential to cause major harm to anyone with a Gmail account, as scammers have already begun to impersonate Google employees on the phone. 'There's a huge increase in the hacking group trying to gain leverage on this. There's a lot of vishing - people calling, pretending to be from Google, text messages coming through in order to get people to log in, or get codes to log in,' Knight explained. 'If you do get a text message or a voice message from Google, don't trust it's from Google. Nine times out of ten, it's likely not,' he warned. Gmail users on social media said that scammers have been making fake calls from 650 area code numbers to trick people into resetting their Gmail passwords. Google has confirmed that a major database containing the contact information for countless Gmail users was breached in June 2025 Victims who fall for the scam get locked out of their accounts or have their private information and files stolen. Knight added that some hackers are just trying to force their way into the Gmail addresses they've stolen, testing common passwords, such as 'password', to gain access to vulnerable accounts. The digital security expert added that anyone with a Gmail account should immediately check their log-in settings and update their passwords if they use common or weak phrases. 'First thing, ensure multi-factor authentication is set. Second thing, make sure you've got a really strong password that's unique on that account,' Knight detailed. Multi-factor authentication adds another layer of security by sending a secret code to a person's phone or email when they log into certain sites. Knight also recommended using passkeys to log into your devices, a new type of security method that takes verifying your identity to the next level. 'Third thing, do the Google security checkup. That's a key thing as well, so they can identify the weakest points in their accounts,' the cyber expert added. 'Then just be really, really vigilant and aware of any phishing or vishing [voice phishing] attacks. Don't send out codes, don't just trust that it is Google calling you,' he continued. Cybersecurity expert James Knight urged anyone with a weak or common Gmail password to update their login now Another tactic being used after the breach is the 'dangling bucket' method, where hackers sneak into Google Cloud accounts by finding forgotten or outdated access points, like old web addresses or digital keys that were used to breach data in the past but weren't properly locked or removed. Once in, they can steal information or plant harmful malware, taking advantage of these unsecured 'doors' to the cloud storage. Salesforce is used in a number of different ways by companies, including Google. Traditionally, it was used to collect customer information, so they could store it all in one place. However, it's evolved into a database that can be used for wider purposes, such as creating detailed user profiles of individuals' online habits. Google has been using it for their Gmail users, and that's why there were reportedly 2.5 billion records in the database at the time of the hack. Knight, a security expert for DigitalWarfare.com, works with companies and government agencies to test their cyber defences. Organisations hire 'pen testers' like Knight to break through their security on purpose to see where they are vulnerable. 'Google puts a lot of money into their security, and they even purchased a security company many years ago, so it's surprising that they left this one open, and the hackers gained access to the Salesforce database environment,' Knight revealed. 'These email addresses are really golden. These hackers have made themselves a lot of money,' the pen tester noted. In an August blog post, Google did not reveal how many customers were affected by the hack, and spokesperson Mark Karayan declined to comment further on the matter. It's not clear if Google received a ransom demand from the hackers after the database was breached in June. ShinyHunters has a reputation of targeting big companies and their cloud-based databases. 'Hackers are able to take this huge database, try common passwords, and then send codes through, requesting those codes, trying to gain access to accounts. So, people just need to be vigilant as they always should,' Knight said. With Britain in the midst of one of its warmest summers on record, many Brits have been enjoying BBQs, picnics, and outdoor dining. But experts have warned of a rather unpleasant sideeffect of the warm weather an 'explosion' of fleas. The parasites which can cause red, itchy welts are often associated with cats and dogs. However, they can actually infest homes without pets, surviving for weeks without a host. Now Google searches for 'fleas in homes without pets' have soared by 3,550 per cent in just 24 hours, according to Bubblegum Search. 'We've noticed an unprecedented surge in searches about fleas in petfree homes,' explained Matt Cayless, founder of the pet marketing agency. Thankfully, fleas are a problem that can easily be fixed. Here's how to tackle the pests if they set up camp in your home this summer. With Britain in the midst of one of its warmest summers on record, many Brits have been enjoying BBQs, picnics, and outdoor dining. But experts have warned of a rather unpleasant sideeffect of the warm weather an 'explosion' of fleas How do fleas get into our homes? Fleas can make their way into your home in a range of ways, according to experts at Frontline. 'Have you had friends visiting with a pet? They could have unsuspectingly brought fleas with them,' the company explains on its website. 'Or have you moved into a new place? Flea infestations can lay dormant for around nine months, depending on factors like heat and humidity. 'So, if the previous occupants were pet parents, their pets could have left an infestation behind.' Flea eggs can also arrive in your home on your shoes or clothes although this is unlikely to lead to an infestation. How can fleas survive without pets? If a pet visits your house, it can scatter flea eggs around your house. The parasites which can cause red, itchy welts are often associated with cats and dogs. However, they can actually infest homes without pets, surviving for weeks without a host And when these eggs hatch, the larvae can burrow deep into things like flooring, furniture, and even curtains. There, they spin cocoons and grow to adulthood. When the adult fleas detect a new host through warmth, movement, and carbon dioxide they will come out. 'Clever, really. But, unfortunately, in this case, they're sensing you,' Frontline explained. Thankfully, the fleas in your home are most likely to be cat or dog fleas. So, while they will bite humans, they won't consider you a host to live on and eventually they will die off. How can you get rid of fleas? While you can just wait for fleas to die off naturally, household sprays will help you to get on top of infestations more quickly. 'Use it on carpets, cracks and crevices in flooring and softupholstered furniture to give fleas the boot and help prevent their return,' Frontline said. 'Remember to spray places like under beds and sofas.' It's also worth washing your bedding at a minimum of 60C, and vigorously vacuuming. 'Flea pupae cocoons are very sticky, so won't necessarily be sucked up, but the vibrations from the vacuum will encourage the fleas to hatch out,' Frontline added. Atomic bomb waste discovered beneath six homes in St Louis has sparked panic and renewed concern in other US cities still haunted by Manhattan Project contamination The contamination traces back to the Manhattan Project, the US-led World War II research and development effort that produced the first atomic bombs. Much of the radioactive material was improperly stored, leaving it exposed to wind and rain for decades. Over time, the waste spread into nearby Coldwater Creek, and a 2025 study found that individuals who lived near the creek during childhood face an increased risk of cancer from prolonged exposure to the contaminated water. The affected families in Florissant, a city in St Louis County, have been ordered to evacuate. They will receive compensation covering the value of their homes, funds to pay off their mortgages and additional money to help purchase new properties. One Florissant mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said the contamination was never disclosed to her before closing and that the ordeal has been deeply traumatizing. 'Thank God I don't have cancer, but what about the mental anguish for the last few years?' she said. St Louis is far from the only city still dealing with Manhattan Project fallout. Across the country, sites such as Hanford in Washington, Oak Ridge in Tennessee, and Los Alamos in New Mexico remain dangerously contaminated. Six families in a city of St Louis County have been forced from their homes after atomic bomb waste was discovered lurking beneath their neighborhood Atomic bomb waste was not stored properly, allowing it to leak into the soil and ground water St Louis itself played a crucial role in the Manhattan Project, housing uranium processing plants such as the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, which purified uranium for nuclear weapons. These operations generated large amounts of radioactive waste, much of it improperly stored and exposed to the elements. Over the decades, some waste was dumped across multiple sites around the city, including residential neighborhoods, creating long-term contamination risks. A 2025 Harvard study examined the health impacts of living near Coldwater Creek. Lead author Michael Leung, a postdoctoral fellow in environmental health, told Fox News: 'Children living near Coldwater Creek from the 1940s to the 1960s had a 44 percent higher risk of cancer compared with those living more than 12 miles away.' The cancers reported, including leukemia, thyroid, breast, and colon cancers, align with illnesses linked to radiation exposure. The contamination extends far beyond St Louis, as Hanford remains one of the nations most contaminated nuclear sites. According to the US Department of Energy: 'The Hanford site is the nation's most complex nuclear cleanup challenge, with numerous sources of environmental contamination.' Over time, the waste spread into nearby Coldwater Creek, and a 2025 study found that individuals who lived near the creek during childhood face an increased risk of cancer from prolonged exposure to the contaminated water St Louis has long battled the impact's of the Manhattan Project. Burials are still riddling the ground to this day The contamination traces back to the Manhattan Project, the US-led World War II research and development effort that produced the first atomic bombs A 2003 study surveyed 801 individuals who lived downwind of the Hanford plutonium production facility, finding greater-than-expected numbers of central nervous system tumors and cancers of the female reproductive system. High incidences of all cancers, particularly thyroid cancer, were also identified. In Los Alamos, a study discovered extreme plutonium contamination in Acid Canyon, with levels comparable to areas near the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Michael Ketterer, a scientist involved in the research, said: 'What I found here in Acid Canyon is pretty much the most extreme plutonium contamination scenario in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting that I've ever seen in my career.' According to the New Mexico Department of Health, the overall cancer incidence rate in Los Alamos County is slightly higher than the state average. Hanford, Washington, remains one of the nations most contaminated nuclear sites (pictured) Officials continue to check barrels at the Hanford site, looking for leaks Oak Ridge has faced decades of environmental challenges from its uranium enrichment operations. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported: 'Leakage from buried wastes, stored wastes, and operational activities from these facilities has resulted in hundreds of contaminated areas across the site.' The long-term effects of past low-level radiation exposures on residents are still being studied. While cleanup efforts continue, residents across these communities still face the long-term health risks of past radiation exposure, a stark reminder that the legacy of the Manhattan Project is far from buried An 18-minute video of an alleged alien autopsy that sent the world into a frenzy decades ago has resurfaced as investigations into UFOs have reached a fever pitch. The shocking film, showing three people in hazmat suits dissecting what appeared to be an alien body from the 1947 Roswell crash in New Mexico, was originally released in 1995. The grainy black-and-white footage was televised worldwide, revealing a humanoid figure with a large head and dark eyes being cut open, further fueling the growing speculation of a government cover-up. Millions of viewers were fascinated because the film seemed to prove that aliens existed, especially as shows like The X-Files were becoming a cultural phenomenon. Years later, however, the film's producers admitted it was all a sophisticated hoax filmed in a London apartment using animal parts and plastic casts. Despite their confession, questions remained, as one of the filmmakers behind the fake alien autopsy claimed the video was based on a real recording of scientists examining the remains of a dead extraterrestrial. The film has now surged back into the public conversation about alien life, thanks to a new docuseries that is set to explore this mystery, diving into the video's creation 30 years ago and its lasting impact on UFO culture. Meanwhile, there has been even more demand for answers over the last year, with elected officials even joining the call to declassify everything the government knows about UFO incidents like the Roswell crash. The allegedly fake alien seen here in a 1995 video was supposed to be from the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico Spyros Melaris (pictured) was the filmmaker behind the fake autopsy. He has since revealed his storyboards used to plan out the hoax British entrepreneur Ray Santilli released the 18-minute Roswell 'autopsy,' which aired on Fox as Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction on August 28, 1995. According to British UFO researcher and author Philip Mantle, Santilli worked with filmmaker Spyros Melaris, who was the real genius behind the fake autopsy video. In an interview for Mantle's book, Roswell Alien Autopsy - The Film That Shook the World, Melaris revealed the storyboards he used while planning out the elaborate hoax. The props created for the film included more than just an alien body. Casts created to resemble UFO control panels, alien metals with an unknown language on them, and even extraterrestrial organs were all fabricated for the stunt. In 1995, Santilli claimed the footage obtained from a retired US military cameraman, but the film was too degraded, so his team 'reconstructed' it. More than a decade later, Santilli and co-producer Gary Shoefield admitted the footage was fake. They claimed it was a 'restoration' of a real film Santilli saw in 1992, but Mantle noted that proof of its existence has never been found. 'There has never been any authentic film of an alien autopsy. Ray Santilli promised a number of people a piece of the film for analysis, but it never happened,' Mantle told the Daily Mail. Mantle revealed that Spyros had a collection of research files, drawings, and even a diary, all of which supported the conclusion that there was never an actual alien autopsy that the producers used as inspiration. The video included supposedly alien consoles made for extraterrestrial hands (pictured) UFO researcher and author Philip Mantle documented the detailed steps the filmmakers went through to create the autopsy hoax The US government has continued to maintain that there was no alien spacecraft at Roswell in 1947. In 1997, an Air Force report by intelligence officer James McAndrew found no evidence of alien autopsies or UFOs at the site. The military claimed the debris came from a balloon tied to Project Mogul, a classified surveillance program. However, multiple UFO researchers have continued to challenge the military's story about this incident. Dr Hal Puthoff, a physicist who worked on the government's UFO research programs, recently revealed that the military not only recovered a crashed UFO from Roswell, but they had at least 10 such craft in their possession. On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Puthoff noted that one of his colleagues, Dr Eric Davis, spoke to the commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where the debris from the Roswell incident was allegedly flown, and they confirmed that the UFO crash really happened. 'Something crashed at Roswell in 1947, and even the US government accepted that. Some UFO researchers still claim it was an alien spacecraft that crashed but there is no physical evidence or documentation to prove this,' Mantle noted. As for the bodies, Mantle said that the US government has claimed they were dummies used for testing parachutes as part of Project Mogul. Spyros Melaris and his team even had a film canister ready to make the video look authentic One of the video's producers poses with a cast of an alien head that was to be used in the hoax Alien writing (pictured) was also created for the pieces of UFO wreckage allegedly recovered from Roswell Decades after the 1995 autopsy hoax, new claims of alien bodies have recently emerged, including the alleged discovery of alien mummies in Peru. These unusual remains, notable for having three fingers and three toes, have sparked wild speculation, especially among UFO researchers and conspiracy theorists. However, Mantle suspected that the public was again being fooled by an elaborate alien hoax. 'Sadly, a lot of people have not learnt their lesson,' he said. Despite the skepticism, Congress is not taking the issue lightly. The Trump Administration has already charged Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna with investigating the many claims of extraterrestrial encounters over the years and declassifying whatever proof is found. A large wooden boat uncovered in the Sea of Galilee may provide a tangible link to one of the most famous miracles of Jesus in the Bible. Nicknamed the 'Jesus Boat,' the cedar-planked vessel dates to the first century, coinciding with the era of Christ. Biblical archaeology expert Danny Herman told the Daily Mail: 'It's a 2,000-year-old boat from the Sea of Galilee, the type mentioned in the Gospels, and sized for about 12 people. 'You can actually connect it to one of the most famous stories every Christian knows, the account of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm on the lake.' The boat was discovered in 1986 during a severe drought that exposed the Sea of Galilee's shoreline near Magdala. Brothers Moshe and Yuval Lufan, amateur archaeologists from Kibbutz Ginosar, spotted iron nails in the mud with a metal detector. As they dug, an oval wooden shape emerged, buried for nearly 2,000 years. Maritime archaeologists confirmed its Roman-era construction, with carbon-14 dating placing it in the first century. Rain returned after months of drought as the boat was uncovered, and a double rainbow appeared, an event many tied to the Gospel story of divine intervention. An ancient fishing boat unearthed from the depths of the Sea of Galilee in 1986 has been linked to the one in the Bible The boat was discovered in 1986 during a severe drought that had exposed the Sea of Galilees shoreline near Magdala. As the excavation began, rain returned, and a striking rainbow appeared over the site Archaeologist Dr Kurt Raveh emphasized that the probable date of construction could be traced from the first century BC to the first century AD, but you can't ever prove that Jesus was on it or even saw it; about 600 boats were working on this lake at the time.' The boat's flat-bottomed design, ideal for fishing, and repairs made with cheaper local wood suggest it belonged to poor fishermen, aligning with the Gospel accounts of Jesus' disciples. A cooking pot and an oil lamp found nearby indicate a night journey, mirroring the Gospel narrative. 'The oil lamp found near the boat suggests it was used for a night journey, just like the Gospel story of Jesus calming the sea,' Herman said, noting the artifact was buried in the same silt layer as the vessel, indicating use by its occupants. The story of Jesus walking on water, recounted in Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52, and John 6:16-21, tells of Jesus sending his disciples across the Sea of Galilee after feeding 5,000 people. A storm arose, and the disciples struggled against strong winds and waves. Jesus approached them, walking on the water. Terrified, they thought he was a ghost, but Jesus said, 'Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid.' Peter stepped out to walk on the water but began to sink; Jesus caught him, saying, 'You of little faith, why did you doubt?' They climbed into the boat, the wind ceased, and they reached Gennesaret, near where the vessel was discovered thousands of years later. The story of Jesus walking on water and calming the sea, recounted in Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52, and John 6:16-21, tells of Jesus sending his disciples across the Sea of Galilee after feeding the 5,000 Teams worked quickly to remove the boat from the ground because the ancient wood, preserved in an anaerobic silt cocoon, crumbled when exposed to air To save it, archaeologists encased it in fiberglass and insulating foam, floating it to safety before the rising waters could claim it Herman has connected the boat to this story: 'They landed at Gennesaret, the ancient name for Ginosar, almost exactly where the boat was found.' The discovery was a race against time, as a two-year drought had drastically lowered the Sea of Galilee's water levels, exposing the muddy lakebed. As the Lufan brothers dug, the wooden boat emerged, buried for nearly 2,000 years. Winter rains threatened to re-submerge it, so over 12 days and nights, a team from Kibbutz Ginosar, the Israel Antiquities Authority and volunteers worked tirelessly to excavate it. The ancient wood, preserved in an anaerobic silt cocoon, crumbled when exposed to air. To save it, archaeologists encased it in fiberglass and insulating foam, floating it to safety before the rising waters could claim it. Archaeologist Shelley Wachsmann, who assisted with the excavation, described the effort as a 'delicate process,' ensuring the boat's survival. Preservation took 16 years, replacing the mud with a transparent chemical solution to prevent decay while allowing public viewing Preservation took 16 years, replacing the mud with a transparent chemical solution to prevent decay while allowing public viewing. Since 2000, it has been displayed at the Yigal Allon Museum in Ginosar, drawing Christian pilgrims and history enthusiasts. Herman said, 'It's not just an archaeological find; it's tied to the most famous story of Jesus on the lake. While I can't prove it's the boat, it's certainly the type used in that story.' Drake is reportedly covering the funeral costs of French online star Raphael Graven, after he died on a live stream. The popular Kick creator, 46, better known as Jean Pormanove, was found dead overnight on Monday, in bed at his home in Contes, near Nice. The streamer was allegedly subjected to '10 days of torture' before dying on live stream. Reveal: Drake is reportedly covering the funeral costs of French online star Raphael Graven, better known online as Jean Pormanove, who died on live stream. Pictured in 2022 Tragic: The Kick creator, 46, was found dead on Monday, in bed at his home in Contes, near Nice. He was allegedly subjected to 'ten days of torture' before dying on live stream American internet personality and online streamer Adin Ross, who boasts 6.7million followers on Instagram, announced on X on Tuesday that he and Drake will be paying for the funeral. Adin wrote on X: 'This is horrible and disgusting. Whoever was apart of this deserves to face severe consequences. 'I just spoke with drake. Drake and I will be covering the funeral costs, this wont bring his life back, its the least we can do. Prayers go out to Jeans family'. News: Adin Ross, who boasts 6.7million followers on Instagram, announced on X on Tuesday that he and Drake will be paying for the funeral Drake joined Adin, who is renowned for his collaborations with celebrities, on his YouTube livestream August 10. Daily Mail has contacted Drake's representatives for comment. The online star was a prominent figure in France's streaming world with over a million followers across social media. But behind his online persona, he was allegedly trapped in a nightmare of gruesome online challenges involving humiliation, violence, and dangerous stunts. He is believed to have passed away in his sleep during a live broadcast, following what friends have described as relentless 'humiliation streams'. French prosecutors confirmed an investigation has been launched, with an autopsy ordered. Officials insisted that 'nothing suspicious' had yet been identified, but shocking claims from local media allege Graven endured sleep deprivation, extreme violence, and ingestion of toxic substances before his death. It has been reported that a few days before his death, Graven sent a heartbreaking final message to his mother to say he felt as if he was 'being held hostage' and admitted he was 'fed up' with the controversial streams that had become his trademark. His long-time collaborator, who streams under the name Naruto, announced his death on Instagram, paying tribute to his 'brother, sidekick, partner'. Celeb: Drake joined Adin, who is renowned for his collaborations with celebrities, on his YouTube livestream August 10 Sad: It has been reported that a few days before his death, Graven sent a heartbreaking final message to his mother to say he felt as if he was 'being held hostage' He pleaded with fans not to share clips of the disturbing live stream, where Graven appeared unconscious before being found dead in bed. The streamer's broadcasts had reportedly featured degrading acts including being slapped, spat on, grabbed by the throat, and pelted with objects - all played out in front of thousands of viewers. France's Minister for Digital Affairs and Artificial Intelligence, Clara Chappaz, condemned the ordeal as an 'absolute horror' and said platforms must do more to protect vulnerable creators. Sarah El Hairy, the High Commissioner for Children, described the tragedy as 'horrifying', warning parents to remain vigilant about the violent content children can access online. Kick, the streaming platform where Jeanpormanove built his following, said it was 'deeply saddened' by his death and promised to urgently review the circumstances. 'We are urgently reviewing the circumstances and collaborating with relevant stakeholders. Kick's community guidelines are designed to protect creators, and we are committed to enforcing them across our platform,' a spokesperson told AFP. The case has shone a harsh spotlight on the murky world of 'humiliation streams' in France, where creators allegedly endure extreme abuse for views and donations. Two fellow streamers - Owen Cenazandotti, known online as Naruto, and Safine Hamadi, known as Safine - were previously questioned in connection with such content, but both were released after denying wrongdoing. The pair were taken into police custody in January, but they were soon released as a Nice prosecutor said: 'Both the people likely to be implicated and those who were victims denied the commission of offences.' Naruto's lawyer insisted his client bore 'no responsibility' for Jeanpormanove's death, telling Le Monde: 'We are awaiting the results of the investigation to determine the conditions of JP's death and identify the responsibilities of each person.' Tourists have been banned from going into the water along an entire seven-mile stretch of Spain's Costa Blanca because of rare sea creatures with a potentially-fatal sting. Reg flags went up on beaches in the municipality of Guardamar del Segura just north of Torrevieja following the appearance of so-called blue dragons, which have been branded 'the most beautiful killer in the ocean'. The sea slug, also known as Glaucus atlanticus, feeds on the venomous cells of creatures like the deadly Portuguese man o'war, storing them within its body in concentrated doses. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Ouch: Tourists have been banned from going into the water along an entire seven-mile stretch of Spain's Costa Blanca because of rare sea creatures with a potentially-fatal sting This process concentrates the toxin, making the blue dragon's poison far more potent than that of its prey. If someone handles or steps on a blue dragon, it can release these stinging cells into the skin. Typical symptoms of the blue dragon's sting include nausea, pain, vomiting and, in some cases, dangerous allergic reactions. While most stings are not deadly, they can be fatal for people with severe allergies, children or people with heart/respiratory conditions, and someone who has been stung multiple times. Guardamar del Segura's mayor Jose Luis Saez, confirming the sea ban order which he indicated would remain in place until further notice, said on his official X account on Wednesday: 'Red flag on the beaches of Guardamar. Warnings: Reg flags went up on beaches in the municipality of Guardamar del Segura just north of Torrevieja following the appearance of so-called blue dragons Deadly: The sea slug, also known as Glaucus atlanticus, feeds on the Portuguese man o' war and other venomous sea beasts Popular Tourists sunbathing on a beach of Guardamar del Segura town in 2018 Your browser does not support iframes. 'Bathing is prohibited following the appearance on Vivers Beach of two specimens of Glaucus atlanticus, known as the Blue Dragon.' He added: 'We remind people that despite its bright and striking colour and it's small 1.5in size, they should stay away from this animal because of its sting. 'Guardamar del Segura Town Hall has has launched a preventive operation to detect possible specimens carried by ocean currents. 'Town hall workers are closely following the evolution of the situation and will inform people about the different measures to be taken. 'If you see one of these creatures don't touch it, even with gloves on, alert lifeguards and other authorities. 'If you get stung, wash the area affected with salt water and head to your nearest first aid point or health center. 'These creatures are poisonous and their stings can cause nausea, pain and vomiting. 'For the time being and until further notice, bathing in the sea is prohibited.' Vivers Beach, a natural stretch of coast south of the Segura River and north of La Babilonia Beach, was said to be full of people although less people than normal were in the sea defying the bathing ban order and risking heavy fines. Prey: The sea slug, also known as Glaucus atlanticus, feeds on the deadly Portuguese man o' war and other venomous seabeasts Dazzling: The blue creature absorbs the stinging cells from its food and stores them in concentrated doses, giving it a far more potent sting than its prey Latest Guardama beaches re-opened on Thursday with a yellow flag Staying away: Vivers Beach, a natural stretch of coast south of the Segura River and north of La Babilonia Beach, was said to be full but less people than normal were in the sea Lifeguards with loudhailers were expected to remind tourists and locals today about the prohibition according to local reports, although sunseekers will still be allowed to head to beaches even if they don't take a dip in the sea. Red flags went up at Santa Barbara beach in La Linea de la Concepcion near Gibraltar on Sunday after police received an emergency call about a blue dragon sighting and six were later found on the shoreline. It was reopened to bathers the following day, with a yellow warning flag up instead of the red one. Guardamar Del Segura's mayor Jose Luis Saez announced around midday today local time beaches in the municipality had reopened but bathers were still being urged to exercise caution. He said: 'Yellow flags are now up on the beaches of Guardamar following the closure of the special surveillance operation due to the presence of two blue dragon specimens. 'Municipal services, police and lifeguards remain alert to developments in the situation.' Yellow flags mean swimming is allowed but caution is advised and it's best to stay close to the lifeguard zone. They're widely considered to be one of the most intelligent and playful animals on Earth, but dolphins can sometimes use their abilities for no good. Earlier this week, a group of kayakers claimed they rescued swimmers after Reggie the dancing dolphin 'nearly drowned' two women in Dorset, England. The solitary bottlenose dolphin, believed to be a young male, captured hearts after a video emerged of him excitedly playing with a family and asking for belly rubs earlier this month. Targeted: Footage from a kayak emerged of Reggie the dolphin apparently targeting swimmers in Dorset, England However, scientists predicted that Reggie might soon lash out at his human counterparts, claiming that he could become increasingly aggressive and launch a fatal attack due to the amount of human interaction he's engaging with. The Daily Mail understands that the mammal arrived on its own in Lyme Bay in February, sparking concern from marine experts as dolphins usually travel together in pods. Thankfully, Reggie has yet to cause casualties, but the scientist's hypotheses partially materialized when he jumped on top of a woman swimming off the beach in the area a few days ago, repeatedly pushing her head under water. Footage showed Lynda MacDonald, 50, her partner, son, and his girlfriend, in the sea while Reggie leaped vertically out of the water, scaring her 'to death', she said. Kayaker Rhys Paterson, 32,intervened. However, Lynda and her family's experience with Reggie is sadly not a standalone occurrence, with multiple people from around the globe falling victim to dolphin attacks. Not so friendly: They're known for their playful tendencies, but dolphins have been known to attack humans. Pictured is Anakin, who lives in Wales and got his name due to his violent nature In 2019, a then-ten-year-old British girl was left bloodied and bruised by two bottlenose dolphins during a terrifying encounter in Mexico. Lexi Yeo was attacked by the animals when she took to the water with them as part of a holiday event in Cancun. Her mother Laura-Jane Yeo, then 40, from Barkingside, east London, was horrified to watch the pair 'dragging' her underwater in the sea pen. The animals would not stop attacking her despite pleas from the trainers, but she was rescued after managing to stay on her bodyboard. However, she did not escape unscathed, and the young girl suffered deep bite marks, cuts, and horrendous bruises. Organisers from Dolphin Discovery put the bad behaviour down to bad sea conditions, which made the animals 'distressed'. The bosses added it was also down to a male dolphin that 'shouldn't have been in the pen'. Violence: Dolphin Anakin throws a fellow dolphin into the air off the coast of Cardigan Bay, Wales Ms Yeo, who is a nursery nurse, told The Sun of the trauma at the time: 'It was terrifying. I thought she was going to die. 'The dolphins are still swimming with tourists and TUI are continuing to work with the company.' The company said it is looking into the incident. Nick Stewart, Global Head of Wildlife Campaigns at World Animal Protection, told the Daily Mail shortly after the attack: 'This is a tragic example of how support for this cruel industry by travel companies like TUI Group and Expedia Group puts customers at risk. 'Dolphins are large and powerful marine predators and sadly, when kept in these confined and unnatural conditions, it is not uncommon for harm to come to humans who interact with them. 'Dolphins at swim-with attractions have been known to seriously hurt humans by butting them and the resulting injuries have included lacerations and broken bones. Dolphins are wild animals, not playthings and not entertainers.' Horrified: Laura-Jane Yeo from Barkingside, east London, was horrified to watch a pair of dolphins 'dragging' her daughter, Lexi Yeo, underwater in the sea pen A few years later in Japan, a dolphin bit at least eight tourists who were holidaying at a beach resort. Japanese media reported that at least one man was taken to hospital in August of that year after being bitten on Koshino Beach near Fukui. Hospitalised: Japanese media reported that at least one man was taken to hospital in August 2022 after being bitten on Koshino Beach near Fukui Ouch: The man was bitten on both arms and the back of his hand, and it is believed that the same dolphin is responsible for at least six previous attacks on the same beach One man was bitten on both arms and the back of his hand. Another attack then occurred in the afternoon when a second man suffered injuries to fingers on his left hand. Attacks have also occurred on other beaches in Fukui, with another video surfacing online in which people gathered along the shore to watch dolphins swimming on Takasu Beach as a man was chased by them and had to run away. Meanwhile, according to Japanese officials, at least six previous attacks at Koshino Beach are believed to have been caused by the same dolphin. In another attack, swimmers were bitten after they tried to take a photograph with the animal. A girl was set upon by the dolphin and bled after it gnawed on her left ankle. Due to the influx in dolphin attacks at the same beach, officials have now installed ultrasonic transmitters along the beach to hopefully deter them from the area. Bumped: Footage shows the mammal swimming next to a man and seemingly bumping into him as the terrified swimmer tries to get away Panic: Bystanders can be heard shouting in panic, with one person throwing a paddleboard towards the man to bring him to safety Rescued: Takuma Goto was rescued by nearby surfers after he encountered a lone dolphin while swimming of the coast of central Japan There have also been warnings to swimmers about the dangers posed by dolphins, who have been told to avoid them if they spot them in the water. Local media said that dolphins in the area are now used to human interaction and have been seen in water as shallow as knee-deep. Just last year, another terrifying incident occurred in a different Japanese region when a 'sexually frustrated' dolphin allegedly attacked a swimmer, who thought it was going to kill him. Footage showed the mammal swimming next to the man and seemingly bumping into him as the terrified swimmer tries to get away. Bystanders can be heard shouting in a panic, with one person throwing a paddleboard towards the man to bring him to safety. The man fleeing from the dolphin has been identified as Takuma Goto, who was swimming with a friend near the town of Tsuruga in central Japan when they encountered the single dolphin, believed to be responsible for as many as 15 attacks over the summer. The pair had swum 20 metres away from Crystal Beach when the mammal allegedly attacked them. 'It kept attacking me and I genuinely believed that I was going to die. I was most worried that I was going to be dragged under the water and further out to sea,' Mr Goto told local media. Warnings: Swimmers were warned of possible dolphin attacks by signs put up by the local authority on Crystal Beach, Tsuruga, central Japan Dolphins are not typically thought to be a threat to humans, since they don't usually see us as prey. But signs had been put up by the local authority warning swimmers of attacks from dolphins, The Telegraph reported. Mr Goto, then 23, said he realized the animal was not a shark, but a dolphin when it reared its head from the water. The dolphin continued to attack and bite the swimmer, leaving him with wounds in both his arms, as well as a gash on his left index finger, which needed five stitches. He was luckily rescued from the aggressive animal, which experts now believe to be a bottlenose dolphin, by a nearby surfer. But it's possible that rather than trying to hurt Mr Goto, the dolphin's bites were its attempt at communication, with scientists suggesting it could have been seeking 'alternative companionship' after being ejected from its own community. 'Just as in humans and other social animals, hormonal fluctuations, sexual frustration or the desire to dominate might drive the dolphin to injuring the people it interacts with. Since they are such powerful animals, this can lead to serious injury in humans', said biologist Dr Simon Allen. Mari Kobayashi, head of the marine biology laboratory at Tokyo University of Agriculture, said that the animal was believed to have committed several attacks over the summer. Tourists: New footage emerged over the weekend showing ignorant tourists paddling next to viral dolphin Reggie, with young children in the water Harm: The tourists have ignored warnings to stay away from the bottlenose dolphin, who could harm or even kill someone She said that the mammal may have been showing signs of loneliness, given that the species is usually found in groups. For Mr Goto, the frightening experience has put him off returning to the water. He said: 'Whenever I look at the sea, I can't help but think a dolphin might be out there.' Medical teams from the Tsuruga Coast Guard office have been repeatedly summoned to treat people attacked by dolphins. It advised swimmers who see a dolphin to get out of the water quickly, keep their distance and not attempt to feed it. This year, news surfaced that a killer dolphin is on the loose in British waters after it slayed one of its own kind - and then a shark. The bottlenose dolphin, which has been nicknamed Jack the Flipper, was caught on camera attacking a smooth-hound shark in July. Meanwhile, three months ago it was also seen killing a baby common dolphin by repeatedly tossing it out of the water. It was initially named Anakin - after the young Jedi knight in the Star Wars franchise -by dolphin watcher Sarah Michelle Wyer. New research has deemed a historical European capital the most spectacular place in the world to sail into if you're a cruise passenger. The scenic Mediterranean city of Valletta, where tourists disembark for a day spent wandering honey-hued streets and centuries old sights, is apparently the most breathtaking place to glide into on a liner - according to a survey that used eye-tracking technology on cruise fans. Around 50 miles south of Sicily, Malta has often been dubbed Europes Caribbean thanks to azure waters and fine-sand beaches, and according to AllClear Travel Insurance, it's biggest city is also a master of first impressions. Researchers from the cruise travel cover specialists conducted the study with 100 cruise passengers to help them discover the worlds most scenic ports. The software monitored which ports caught tourists eyes the quickest and for the longest amount of time. And the most easy on the eye proved to be UNESCO-listed Valletta. The city was built as a fortress settlement by the Knights of St John after the Great Siege by Ottoman forces in 1565, and is named after Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, then leader of the military religious order. It's home to 320 historic monuments but also some exceptional sands, meaning visitors who arrive can marry a beach stay with some a city break. Where else scored highly? Ports in Argentina, Italy and Sweden also proved visually bewitching to cruise travellers. Room with a view! Cruise passengers sailing into Malta's UNESCO-Listed capital, Valletta, find themselves in the world's most beautiful port according to eye-tracking technology that recorded what passengers looked at Last stop before Antarctica: Ushuaia, which is the capital of Tierra del Fuego province in Argentina, came second thanks to Martial mountains backdrop Ushuaia in Argentina, sometimes called The End of the World because it's the last stop before Antarctica, scored highly thanks to its high drama scenery - including a backdrop of snow-dusted mountains. Elsewhere in Europe, Palermos Cruise Terminal in Sicily welcomes guests with arching blue skies, beautiful markets and pretty restaurants. And Lisbons port also comes with winsome views, with liners sailing beneath the striking 25 de Abril Bridge ahead of docking for the night. Other notable places to sail into? The Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney gives a sensational view of the city's famous Harbour Bridge as well as the Sydney Opera House. And, unsurprisingly, three Caribbean spots made the top 20 too. Nassau in the Bahamas came 5th with a total eye-tracking score of 81/100 while Oranjestad on Aruba placed 6th (79/100) and Philipsburg, St Marteen ranked 20th (65/100). Letitia Smith, Head of Communications at AllClear, said: 'When cruising, often it's the incredible moments you sail into a new port for the first time that really take your breath away. 'Around the world there are cruise ports and harbours that are set in some spectacular destinations, and those who love to sail around the world will understand how exciting that feeling really is.' Passengers bound for Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal are gifted an incredible view of the Australian city's show-stopping skyline Are these the 10 most beautiful cruise ports in the world? Grab that spot on the top deck: Sailing into Lisbon at sunset is a sight to behold Valletta Cruise Port, Valletta, Malta Port of Ushuaia, Ushuaia, Argentina Port of Palermo, Palermo, Italy Stadsgarden Cruise, Terminal Stockholm, Sweden Nassau Cruise, Port Nassau, Bahamas Aruba Cruise, Terminal Oranjestad, Aruba Lisbon Cruise Port, Lisbon, Portugal Overseas Passenger Terminal, Sydney Australia Port Sultan Qaboos, Muscat, Oman Ege Port, Kusadas, Turkey Advertisement In 2024, the Daily Mail asked Lauren Heavner (@laurenheav), a professional vocalist who has worked on cruise ships for over 10 years for six different lines across more than 1,000 voyages to tell us about her favourite ports, and Valletta made the cut. Lauren told us: 'The first time I sailed into the harbour of the capital, Valletta, I cried. No shame in it. The sight of this ancient, golden-stoned city rising from the sea, bathed in that otherworldly Mediterranean light, was enough to crack even the most jaded travellers armour. Ive always described this city as Jerusalem meets Northern Africa with a European flair". Lauren Heavner, a cruise ship vocalist who's sailed on more than 1,000 cruises told the Daily Mail that arriving in Valletta once made her cry because of its beauty Her advice for passengers heading to the historic city? 'Rent a boat for the day with a local captain, and youll find yourself threading through hidden caves and the azure perfection of the Blue Lagoon. Wander its sandstone streets and alleyways - theyre like a maze built for dreamers.' She added: 'Take a historical detour through the National War Museum at Fort St. Elmo or the Grand Masters Palace. 'Then theres St. Johns Co-Cathedral, built by the Knights of St. John between 1572 and 1578. Its not just a church, its a declaration - a glittering display of Baroque art thatll leave you breathless. For a more laid-back approach, hop on one of the islands hop-on-hop-off buses or take a ferry to Maltas smaller islands, each one offering its own kind of magic.' Air travel can be stressful enough at the best of times - from the chaos of airport security to endless queues and unexpected delays. When you finally sink into your seat, ready to switch off and start your holiday, the last thing you want is a nasty surprise. One Ryanair passenger discovered this the hard way after she was forced to endure a nauseating scent throughout her four-hour flight to Spain. Sophie Brame was flying from Manchester to Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, on August 19 when she noticed an unpleasant smell an hour into the journey. Curious, and a little concerned, the 27-year-old looked down to investigate - and was horrified by what she saw. She discovered a fellow passenger had made themselves a little too comfortable and decided to ditch their shoes mid-flight. Describing the odour as 'cheesy', she snapped pictures of the passenger poking his feet through her footwell. Taking to TikTok, Sophie expressed her disgust and shamed the 'smelly' passenger by posting a video that zoomed into the feet, as a caption read: 'For the first half of the flight I kept smelling something awful.' Sophie Brame was flying from Manchester to Fuerteventura on August 19 when she noticed an unpleasant smell an hour into the journey Curious, and a little concerned, the 27-year-old looked down to investigate - and was absolutely horrified by what she saw She discovered a fellow passenger had clearly made themselves a little too comfortable and decided to ditch their shoes mid-flight In an accompanying caption, she added: 'If you're gonna take your shoes off on a flight the least you can do is wash them first.' In a bid to ward off the offending scent, Sophie admitted she was even forced to 'accidentally' stand on the passenger's toes. In the comments, one person wrote: 'That is gross! People are so unaware sometimes.' Another said, 'Sorry but that should be a criminal offence,' while another recounted: 'Somebody did this to me with no socks on blocking the window I was sitting next to with their smelly feet.' It's not the first time a stench has caused problems on a flight. Earlier this year a plane passenger accused a woman of ruining their journey with her bad-smelling feet. The traveller filmed the woman sticking her feet through the gap between the seat and the plane wall and resting them on the armrest of the person in front. The upset passenger said: 'I was sleeping and was woken up by the smell. After looking around, they discovered the woman's feet perched on the armrest next to their seat 'I couldn't call a flight attendant immediately because it was during departure, but I pressed the call button mid-flight. A flight attendant has also shared a smelly passenger issue that she thinks should be illegal. Posting on TikTok, cabin crew member Cher (@cherdallas), says she thinks tourists should 'go to prison' for breaking one key etiquette rule on their flight. According to Cher, passengers who don't shower before they get on the plane are the worst kind of traveller. She moans: 'There is zero reason that I should be smelling a stranger's body odour radiating off of their warm body at 5 o'clock in the morning. Jaw-dropping views, crystal clear waters, white sandy beaches... these are some of the main ingredients of a dream holiday. But these far-flung holidays can often come with an expensive price tag. Enter Palawan. Dubbed the 'Maldives of the Philippines', the Southeast Asian hidden gem isn't as well-known as the Maldives but is very similar. The island is home to natural wonder and Unesco World Heritage Site, Puerto Princesa Subterranean River - the longest underground river in Asia and the second longest in the world. Palawan also boasts beautiful coral reefs and is a popular location for snorkelling and diving. The nearby Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park is another Unesco World Heritage Site. An expert from the Experience Travel Group told The Mirror: 'Palawan has a unique combination of natural beauty, adventure, and affordability. With jaw-dropping views of crystal clear waters and white, sandy beaches, anyone visiting Palawan could easily think they're in the Maldives Dubbed the 'Maldives of the Philippines', the Southeast Asian hidden gem isn't as well known as the tropical holiday hotspot, but is very similar. Pictured: Maldivian island Rhasdoo Palawan also boasts beautiful coral reefs and is a popular location for snorkelling and diving 'Travellers can enjoy many of the same experiences they would in the Maldives, such as pristine beaches and turquoise waters, but at a fraction of the cost. 'It's becoming increasingly popular among travellers who want a tropical paradise experience without overspending.' With much of the natural beauty found in the Maldives, Palawan is a strong alternative, and a trip there comes at a fraction of the cost. A night at a hotel in the Philippine hidden gem can be bagged for around 50, depending on the area. Meanwhile, many accommodation options in the Maldives are priced at around 300 to 400 per night. The Experience Travel Group describes Palawan as a combination of 'natural beauty, adventure, and affordability'. Visitors are able to revel in the same beauty and adventures offered in the Maldives but for much less. 'It's becoming increasingly popular among travellers who want a tropical paradise experience without overspending,' the expert said. Palawan is a strong alternative to the Maldives and a trip there comes at a fraction of the cost A night at a hotel in the Philippine hidden gem can be bagged for around 50, depending on the area Visitors are able to relish in the same beauty and adventures offered in the Maldives but for much less Though Palawan doesn't quite have everything the Maldives offers, like the famous overwater villas, it's close enough. Both experience similar temperatures in their hottest month, April, of high 20s to low 30s. While accessing Palawan will usually require a connecting flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa or El Nido Airport, taking one to two hours. Alternatively, there is the option to go by ferry which can take around 13 hours. The Experience Travel Group describes Palawan as 'an excellent choice' for travellers wanting tropical luxury without breaking the bank. They add the Southeast Asian location is a great option for all, including families, solo travellers and couples wanting to get away. A whopping 17.6 million trips are set to be made by car this August bank holiday, according to RAC, with hordes hoping to get away for the long weekend. However, there's several scams waiting to catch travellers heading on staycations in the UK. From fake parking codes to restaurant reservation tricksters, holidaymakers have been warned to stay eagle-eyed and not get caught out. Restaurant phone calls Those planning to dine out this weekend have been urged to be mindful of fake phone calls from the 'restaurant'. Fraudsters sometimes call a restaurant and pretend to be from a reservation company asking for booking information such as phone numbers and names. If handed over, the scammer can then call the diner and pose as the venue, often asking them to pay a fake deposit. According to The Telegraph, OpenTable, a reservation website, warned: 'If you receive a call from a restaurant asking for your credit card details, do not share it even if you have a booking. Those planning to dine out this weekend have been urged to be mindful of fake phone calls from the 'restaurant' 'Hang up and call the restaurant back directly to confirm their identity and whether or not your credit card details are needed.' 'Quishing' Almost 3.5million was lost to 'quishing' scams between April 2024 and April 2025, Action Fraud recently revealed. The term refers to fraudulent QR codes being placed in public places, such as car parks, and online. When scanned, the codes lead motorists, who believe they are paying for a legitimate ticket, to a bogus site that can steal both their money and personal details. The fake QR codes have previously been spotted in Northumberland, Derby and Pembrokeshire, amongst other locations. RAC head of policy Simon Williams previously said: 'A car park is one of the last places where you'd expect to be caught out by online fraud. Quishing refers to fraudulent QR codes being placed in public places, such as car parks, and online (stock) 'Unfortunately, the increasing popularity and ease of using QR codes appears to have made drivers more vulnerable to malicious scammers. For some, this sadly means a Quick Response code could in fact be a 'quick route' to losing money. 'As if this quishing scam isn't nasty enough, it can also lead to drivers being caught out twice if they don't realise they haven't paid for parking and end up getting a hefty fine from the council.' He urged drivers to completely avoid using QR codes and to instead pay by cash, card or via official apps. Meanwhile, Claire Webb, Acting Director of Action Fraud, recently said: 'We're urging people to stop and check before scanning QR codes, to avoid becoming a victim of quishing. 'Look out for QR codes that may have been tampered with in open spaces, or emails and texts that might include rogue codes. 'If you're in doubt, contact the organisation directly. You can follow our advice on quishing, on our website at www.actionfraud.police.uk to help protect yourself.' Parking fine emails Holidaymakers parking up should be aware of further scams lurking in their inboxes. Some fraudsters send out emails pretending to be parking ticket companies charging fines. Holidaymakers parking up should be aware of further scams lurking in their inboxes They could even be as elaborate as including images of the car and often have malware links for payment or further details. Sometimes, the fake fines can be sent as text messages in similar formats. However, the British Parking Association warns, 'Real PCNs are on physical paper and always include instructions on how to pay or appeal it.' The organisation urges anyone caught out to contact Action Fraud. Fake accommodation deals Holidaymakers looking for accommodation this weekend should be mindful of fake deals online. Luxurious rooms listed for a fraction of the expected price are often too good to be true. It can be easy to click through links offering amazing stays and quickly pay to secure the bargain. But the Money Saving Expert site warns, 'Criminals can hack into legitimate accounts and post scam ads on social media, all in an attempt to steal your cash. 'In the worst cases, you may turn up only to find the accommodation you booked isn't available or doesn't exist.' Believable websites can catch eager travellers out, but the expert urges people to be vigilant and check URLs, reviews and pay via credit or debit card which usually offers more protection. Holidaymakers looking for accommodation this weekend should be mindful of fake deals online Customer service scam Those who have booked legitimate accommodation may find themselves needing to resolve an enquiry over the phone, but without the details at hand to call up. Sometimes people might take to social media and tag the company, asking for help, but this can open up holidaygoers to risks. A fake account, posing as the hotel or acocomdoation company, may reply offering help and eventually work their way to requesting bank details. A spokesperson from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) told The Telegraph: 'Scammers make fake online accounts or hack real accounts to commit a range of fraudulent activities. 'Many social media sites have a process to verify accounts. If people are unsure or are sent links to information or to make a payment, they should visit the company's official website and contact customer services directly.' Every week, thousands of passengers fly from London Gatwick to New York JFK on British Airways. However, in a shock move, BA has confirmed this daily route won't be running from 25 October 2025. Flights to New York will now all be from London Heathrow, instead. A spokesperson at BA says: 'We know that most of our customers prefer to fly from Heathrow when travelling to New York, which is where all nine of our daily JFK flights will depart from in Summer 2026. 'Freeing up this aircraft at Gatwick means we can increase our capacity to popular leisure destinations, so weve added extra flights to Bangkok and Jamaica.' While New York remains BAs busiest long-haul market, the change removes a major competitor from Gatwick, stripping out more than 3,500 passengers from the airport. Now, just Delta and Norse Atlantic will fly to New York from Gatwick - and this reduced supply is due to have a huge knock-on effect on prices. Fares at Gatwick are likely to be pushed up, especially around peak periods, last-minute bookings and premium leisure dates. Every week, thousands of passengers fly from London Gatwick to New York JFK on British Airways. But BA has confirmed it will axe this daily route from 25 October 2025 Heathrow, by contrast, will stay highly competitive with BA, American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Delta running a dense New York shuttle Heathrow, by contrast, will stay highly competitive with BA, American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Delta running a dense New York shuttle. And it's holidaymakers in South London, Sussex, and Kent who will pay the biggest price. Losing Gatwick means they will have to use Heathrow instead, which adds both time and money. Heathrow Express walk-up fares are 25 one-way, whereas the Gatwick Express is 22, or 10 more per person on average. For a family of four, just shifting airports could mean 40 extra in transport costs before theyve even boarded the plane, as found by Dot Dot Loans. Paul Gillooly, Travel Finance Expert & Director at Dot Dot Loans, says: 'On the surface, BAs move is simply about consolidating fewer routes at Gatwick, more at Heathrow. 'But for passengers, the ripple effects are financial. 'If you live in South London or along the Brighton line, losing Gatwick means longer journeys, extra ground transport costs, and fewer chances to find a bargain fare. Paul Gillooly, Travel Finance Expert & Director at Dot Dot Loans, says: 'Swapping JFK for Newark can save 150 or more on a family booking' He adds: 'Something as simple as looking for "All London" instead of a single airport, when booking, can unlock cheaper fares that arent visible otherwise' 'The reality is that a family of four could be paying 100 more once you add in higher ticket prices and the extra expense of getting to Heathrow.' He continues: 'What many travellers dont realise is how powerful small hacks can be in this situation. 'Something as simple as looking for "All London" instead of a single airport, when booking, can unlock cheaper fares that arent visible otherwise. 'Likewise, swapping JFK for Newark can save 150 or more on a family booking. 'The key lesson is that even when airlines take options away, there are still ways for passengers to protect their wallets, but only if they know where to look. 'As we head into the 2026 travel season, this story isnt just about one cancelled route. 'Its about how families adapt, how competition shapes fares, and how being a smart planner can turn what feels like a loss into a chance to save.' Dexter prequel Original Sin has been canceled despite being previously renewed for a second season - in a bombshell backtrack that has left fans reeling. The acclaimed show, which debuted its first and only season in December 2024, followed the evolution of Dexter (played by Michael C. Hall in the original series) from a student to avenging serial killer as he grew up in Miami in the early 1990s. Irish actor Patrick Gibson played the young Dexter alongside a star-studded cast including Christian Slater (Harry Morgan), Sarah Michelle Gellar (CSI chief Tanya Martin), Christina Milian (Maria LaGuerta) and Patrick Dempsey (Aaron Spencer.) Despite becoming Paramount+ with Showtime's highest rated series premiere ever at the time - before it was beaten by Dexter: Resurrection - the renewal has now been rescinded just four months after a second season was confirmed, per Variety. Sources told the publication that despite the renewal, the series 'has in fact been on hiatus and no plans to shoot a second season had moved forward and no production dates were scheduled.' It was also reported that Paramount is 'imminently' planning to open a writers room for a 'potential' second season of Dexter: Resurrection - which sees Hall reprise his role from the show's eight seasons and reboot New Blood. Dexter prequel Original Sin has been canceled despite being previously renewed for a second season - in a bombshell backtrack that has left fans reeling The acclaimed show, which debuted its first and only season in December 2024, followed the evolution of Dexter (played by Patrick Gibson) from a 'student to avenging serial killer' as he grows up in Miami in the early 1990s - Gibson seen with Christian Slater as Harry Morgan Original Dexter star Michael C. Hall has reprised his role in Dexter: Resurrection - which has won critical acclaim The show's premiere episode in July was watched by 4.4 million multiplatform viewers in its first week and has received critical acclaim - but a second season has yet to be officially confirmed. Clyde Phillips, Dexter's original showrunner and executive producer, helmed Original Sin with Hall voicing the inner Dexter and also serving as an executive producer. An insider claimed to Variety that after the closing of the Skydance-Paramount merger, new head Matt Thunell and his team 'decided to focus on Resurrection and Halls role as Morgan as they look to continue the Dexter franchise.' The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Paramount + and Michael C. Hall for comment and has yet to hear back. Fans were left stunned by the un-renewal, with one quipping that 'Resurrection mightve just killed its own prequel, seems like they wanna go all in on it.' Others wrote: 'Wow, that really sucks man. I loved seeing Dexter back in Miami, exploring more of this backstory and Patrick Gibson did a great job. Really sucks for all the actors involved especially. 'The fact it got renewed then cancelled anyway is pretty bleak for the future of TV in general.' 'Seriously, why? Im really disappointed. I loved OS and was genuinely looking forward to the next season. Gibson joined a star-studded cast including Christian Slater (Harry Morgan) Sarah Michelle Gellar, (CSI chief Tanya Martin), Christina Milian (Maria LaGuerta) and Patrick Dempsey (Aaron Spencer.) Hall voiced the inner Dexter on the show - pictured with Molly Brown, who played Debra Morgan, Slater and Gibson in December 2024 at the show's premiere Sources told the publication that despite the renewal, the series 'has in fact been on hiatus and no plans to shoot a second season had moved forward and no production dates were scheduled' Fans were left stunned by the un-renewal, quipping that 'Resurrection mightve just killed its own prequel' Other fans revealed they agreed with the cancellation Brown shared an emotional tribute to Deb as the show was axed Her co-star Alex Shimizu, who played the young Vince Masuka, wrote: 'Was so looking forward to working with you.' He later wrote on his own page: 'Worst day ever: F******k.' Original Masuka star CS Lee revealed his sadness over the cancellation 'Cancelling it after a renewal is downright criminal, crushing news. 'This is so shortsighted, they cancelled it because they want to focus on Resurrection, but I feel like they could do both at the same time, audiences are much more patient nowadays with the waiting in-between seasons.' Molly Brown, who played Debra Morgan in the show, took to Instagram to bid farewell to her character, writing: 'over n out i had the absolute time of my life getting to be Deb even just for a little bit.' Her co-star Alex Shimizu, who played the young Vince Masuka, wrote: 'Was so looking forward to working with you.' He later wrote on his own page: 'Worst day ever: F******k.' Hall, 53, who has played the serial killing blood spatter analyst since 2006, made a sensational comeback in Resurrection after Dexter was shot and apparently killed by his son Harrison in 2021 series, New Blood. Resurrection has seen huge stars join the cast including Uma Thurman, Eric Stonestreet, Neil Patrick Harris, Krysten Ritter, David Dastmalchian and Peter Dinklage Debra Morgan actress Jennifer Carpenter did not return for Resurrection James Remar returned as Dexter's late father Harry Morgan, while Jack Alcott plays Harrison and David Zayas reprised his series and New Blood role as Angel Batista. Peter Dinklage, Uma Thurman, Krysten Ritter, Eric Stonestreet and David Dastmalchian also joined the cast. Jennifer Carpenter, who played Debra Morgan in the show and New Blood did not return. Ashton Kutcher was once beloved for his role on That '70s Show as goofy heartthrob Michael Kelso, but over the years, his star has fallen... and now, his investments just might offer a way to pick himself up. On Monday, Kutcher took to Instagram to inform his 4.9 million followers that, after fifteen years as a 'proud' Soho House member, he's 'investing to help take the company private' as part of a $2.7billion deal led by New York-based MCR Hotels and private equity firm Apollo. Kutcher, who will be joining the board, described the exclusive members club as 'a global creative home, a refuge, and a launchpad for friendships.' While Soho House was previously a star-studded private club adored by A-listers, in recent years it has struggled with financial issues and a whole host of complaints from members who believe it is no longer quite as upper-crust. As the once illustrious brand rapidly expanded around the world after starting on London's Greek Street, members felt the glamour and exclusivity they were paying big bucks for was long gone. Much like Soho House, Kutcher seems to have fallen from grace in recent years. The former Hollywood 'it boy' has been brushing off rumors of marital woes with his wife Mila Kunis after facing backlash for supporting Danny Masterson and over his friendship with Sean 'Diddy' Combs. Now, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal how insiders really feel about Kutcher's major investment and if it could potentially revive his reputation... as well as the real reason he wants to re-enter the Hollywood scene. Ashton Kutcher was once beloved for his role on That '70s Show as a lovable, goofy heartthrob, but over the years, his star has fallen On Monday, Kutcher took to Instagram to tell his 4.9 million followers that after fifteen years as a 'proud' Soho House member he's 'investing to help take the company private' An insider told that the Dude, Where's My Car? actor 'has always seen himself as a business savvy person, and almost a savant,' especially after making 'lots of money' and tech on That '70s Show and Two and a Half Men. Kutcher has become quite the financial guru over the years, as he invested early in companies including Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, and Skype in deals that made him millions. However, this latest deal is not just about making money. The insider revealed that while Kutcher wants to continue to act, 'his star has been tainted for one reason or another,' and now, it's difficult for him to find directors 'looking for him to join their projects,' which is the major reason behind the Soho House deal. With a potential acting comeback on the horizon and some 'productions in the pipeline,' the insider said 'he wants to do this Soho House takeover to get in the good graces of influencers, younger businesspeople and Hollywood elite, to make his name mean something like it used to back in the day.' The deal, and the potential it brings for movie and TV roles, is also to put him on the same level as his actress wife. The insider revealed that while Kunis has 'endless money from Family Guy' he still wants to be able to 'feel that he is contributing.' 'Money is nice, and they have all of it, but he wants the clout that he once had and his dealings with Soho House seem to be his idea to make that happen,' the source continued. Another major reason Kutcher is investing might be to change the conversation around the backlash he and Kunis have faced in recent years. Kutcher and Kunis, who are parents to Wyatt, 10, and Dimitri, eight, faced major criticism after they wrote letters of support for their former That 70's Show co-star Danny Masterson ahead of his 30-year sentence for rape in 2023. Then, Kutchers once-close friend Sean 'Diddy' Combs faced federal sex trafficking charges a year later, which he was acquitted of. After the fallout from both situations, split rumors surfaced, but the couple seems to have weathered the alleged storm. Despite the controversies, the Your Place or Mine actor isn't stepping out of the spotlight. Instead, he's heading back into it with his latest investment deal, albeit off camera. Karen Kessler, the CEO and founder of crisis communications and reputation management firm Kessler PR Group, exclusively told the Daily Mail she believes it's a 'smart move,' as 'Kutcher is a proven commodity in the investment scene, with a winning track record.' While Kutcher won't be in back on the red carpet, he's going to be hobnobbing with his peers, who will have to curry favor with Kutcher in order to enjoy Soho House. 'Now he can add Soho House to his portfolio and the influencer community can be his captive audience as he works the room,' Kessler explained. 'Reputational damage can be short lived in the celebrity space: a good investment, a hit film, some humor in an interview and spending time with the right people is a road to redemption.' Kutchers once-close friend Sean 'Diddy' Combs faced but was acquitted of federal sex trafficking charges and many pictures of the two partying together resurfaced The former Hollywood 'it boy' has been brushing off rumors of marital woes with his wife Mila Kunis It's possible his latest investment won't just be a moneymaker... it could fulfill his dreams and get him back on screen. After all, Soho House specifically started as a networking destination for 'creatives' and quickly attracted celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Kendall Jenner, George and Amal Clooney, David and Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle even had their first date at a Soho House in London and enjoyed a stay at Soho's Cotswolds Farmhouse, and it's said to be a favorite with Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Celebrities often feel like they can let their hair down at the clubs, as pictures are strictly forbidden. Instead, guests snap pictures inside the photo booths as a keepsake. With 46 locations in New York, Miami, Austin, Chicago, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Paris, and more, some think the brand expanded too quickly. The clubs often include communal areas, restaurants and cafes with some boasting cinemas, small music venues, and rooftop swimming pools with sweeping city views. While Kutcher's investment is a win for him, it's unclear how members who pay more than $5,000 annually for access to every house will feel. Executive consultant Bill Berman told the Daily Mail that 'members will tolerate leadership drama if the core experience remains exceptional.' However, Berman added that 'they'll abandon ship quickly if they sense the leadership lacks genuine commitment to the community's values.' The Daily Mail has contacted reps for Kutcher for comment. It's no news that Tammy Hembrow's love life has long been in the spotlight. But three engagements, one marriage and a rap song later, the fitness influencer is now sending fans into a tailspin after being spotted on multiple dates with AFL star Bailey Smith. The 24-year-old Geelong Cats player flew from Melbourne to the Gold Coast two weekends in a row to woo the 31-year-old YouTuber proof that if they wanted to, they would. The couple were first seen leaving hand-in-hand after a meal at swanky Asian fusion restaurant Rick Shores at Burleigh Heads before being caught making out at another restaurant. The pair were more recently spotted enjoying a romantic stroll to Nobby Beach, where the footy player appeared to have his arm wrapped around Tammy's hips. But longtime fans of the social media star will know this high-profile tryst is far from her first rodeo. The fitness influencer (left) is now sending fans into a tailspin after being spotted on multiple dates with AFL star Bailey Smith (right) The pair were more recently spotted enjoying a romantic stroll to Nobby's Beach, where the footy player appeared to have his arm wrapped around Tammy's hips Tammy's previous conquests have all shared a similar star quality that has seen her romances catapulted into the headlines. Matthew Zukowski (2023-2025) Before Bailey, there was, of course, Love Island star Matt Zukowski. Tammy wed the reality star in a no-expenses-spared ceremony at Chateau Du Soleil in Byron Bay last November. The fairytale nuptials, which are estimated to have cost around $227,000, even featured in Vogue, where Tammy stunned in a pink Vera Wang dress. Despite the glamorous show of love and commitment, fans were sceptical thanks to the fast pace of the pair's relationship. After just three months of dating, Matt put a very big ring on Tammy's finger in a stunning Maldives proposal in December 2023, and less than a year later, they were married. However, to put fans' doubts to bed, Tammy sat down in an interview with 9Honey before the wedding, where she dubbed Matt her 'soulmate'. 'We're definitely soulmates, I feel like we were supposed to be together,' she told the publication at the time. Tammy (right) wed reality star Matt Zukowski (left) in a noexpensesspared ceremony at Chateau Du Soleil in Byron Bay last November The fairytale nuptials, which are estimated to have cost around $227,000, even featured in Vogue, where Tammy stunned in a pink Vera Wang dress In June, just seven months after tying the knot, the 'soulmates' announced their divorce, proof that even true love struggles to survive the glare of the spotlight. Since then, both have taken to social media to share the pain and heartbreak they endured all in a subtle and impeccably tasteful fashion, naturally. Matt Poole (2020-2022) Before Matt, there was another Matt. Matt Poole and Tammy also fell hard and fast and added a ring into the mix. The Iron Man and 'fitfluencer' made their romance official in 2020 before getting engaged a year later. 'I'M IN SHOCK. Honestly have not been able to stop crying happy tears. Yes yes yes my love @matt_poole1,' she captioned the engagement post. The pair went on to have a baby in 2022, with Tammy welcoming her third child, Posy. But despite the whirlwind romance and growing family, it wasn't meant to be. Matt Poole (left) and Tammy (right) also fell hard and fast and added a ring into the mix The pair went on to procreate in 2022, with Tammy welcoming her third child Posy Seven months after giving birth, Tammy batted away fans' questions on social media that asked why Matt had disappeared from her content. She eventually came clean, writing on a TikTok video: 'Some people are just not meant to be together no matter how hard they try. 'We are much better as friends.' And so the friends not the friendship bracelet and hair-braiding kind parted ways, continuing to co-parent their daughter amicably. Jahkoy Palmer (2019-2020) Jahkoy Palmer was another relationship that made headlines back in the day. The Canadian rapper was smitten with Tammy in 2019 before splittin' with the influencer a year later. During their relationship, the pair would gush about each other and their sickeningly sweet romance on socials endlessly. And the PDA was thick and fast who could forget THAT infamous tongue-kiss photo? The Canadian rapper (left) was smitten with Tammy (right) in 2019, but they split a year later Their PDA was thick and fast who could forget THAT infamous tongue-kiss photo? They also unfollowed and refollowed each other a handful of times during their relationship, keeping fans on the edges of their seats and glued to their screens for updates. After the pair split in 2020, Jahkoy was asked in an Instagram Q&A 'what happened' with his former 'obsession' Tammy. 'We grew apart. Long distance isn't easy,' Jahkoy admitted. And so, separated by oceans, Tammy and Jahkoy's relationship came to an end, the world was spared of more face-sucking snaps and peace was restored. Tyga (2019) Then there was Tammy's brief fling with Tyga in 2019, which will forever be memorialised via song and sanitised wipe. In a remix of Ambjaay's track, Uno ft. Lil Pump, Tyga described an encounter that involved wet wipes with a woman named Tammy in the parking lot of an In-N-Out Burger restaurant. The Gold Coast influencer confirmed the song was about her, saying she had approved the verse before it had been released, but said the lyrics had been blown 'out of proportion'. 'It's not dissing me at all, but it's also just a song. People are so crazy! Do you actually take rappers' songs so literally?' she said of Tyga, whom she met at Sydney's Rolling Loud that year. Then there was Tammy's fling with Tyga (pictured) in 2019, which will forever be memorialised via song and sanitised wipe In his track, titled Uno, Tyga raps: 'Go Tammy (Go Tammy), keep dancing (Keep dancing) / You nasty (You nasty), no panties (No panties). 'Get a wet wipe, that'll come in handy (Ayy) / And that p***y hit, b***h, you deserve a Grammy.' The poetic lyricism lingered with fans, figuratively cementing the pair's fleeting tryst in songbooks and on shelves for years to come. Reece Hawkins Last but not least is Tammy's OG baby daddy, Reece Hawkins. The influencer duo were insufferably cute during their heyday, with heavilyfiltered beach photoshoots and workouts gracing our feeds for four years. The couple were together from 2014 to 2018 and share two children, Wolf, 10, and Saskia, nine. However, all good things come to an end and just like Instagrams iconic Jakarta filter, Hembrow and Hawkins didnt make it to the 2020s. Speaking to Jute magazine at the time, the fitness entrepreneur said she and Reece broke off their engagement because they simply grew apart. Last but not least is Tammy's (right) OG baby daddy Reece Hawkins (left) In a full circle moment, fans recently pressed the two to get back together after reuniting in a TikTok clip with their kids 'You have a picture of what you think your life is going to be like and then circumstances change and people change too,' she explained. 'We were young when we got together and still figuring things out. I think when people are weighing in on your personal life while you're trying to understand things yourself it can feel like a lot of pressure.' In a full circle moment, fans recently pressed the two to get back together after they reunited in a TikTok clip with their kids posted in August. 'Pleeeeease let the Tammy and Reece era recommence!!!!' one fan commented underneath. Another chimed in: 'GET BACK TOGETHER'. Tammy shut down rumours of a romance in the coolest way possible: by being spotted on a date with the hottest AFL hunk in the gossip pages. And who knows maybe Bailey will be Tammys final 'one and only' on her list of high-profile romances, or at the very least, her fourth fiance. Here's hoping. Hostage (Netflix) Rating: Head for the bunkers nuclear grade hokum incoming! The heart of British democracy is under attack, not from the Russians, nor Islamist extremists, but from an even bigger bunch of loonies... Netflix. The five-part political drama Hostage sees Suranne Jones playing a Labour prime minister who has to save the NHS (hurrah!) while facing down a neo-Fascist French president (boo!) planning to station Euro-troops in England (boo! hiss!). Meanwhile, theres a boatload of African asylum seekers fleeing persecution who need safe haven in the UK and, gulp, theyve all got ebola. And just when you think the stakes couldnt be any higher, masked gunmen only go and kidnap the PMs lovely husband, Dr Alex (Ashley Thomas). Hes in South America with a Medecins Sans Frontieres team, giving vaccinations to happy village children and their poor-but-grateful mums, when terrorists take all the doctors prisoner. They shoot a translator dead. At first this appears to be more proof of what rotten rotters they are, but Dr Alex overhears them talking in English, so perhaps they just realised they wouldnt need a translator. With a gun to his head, Dr Alex is forced to record a video message to his wife. She must resign within 24 hours or one of the hostages will be killed. Suranne Jones, who excels at melodrama, does her best to breathe credibility into all this over-egged nonsense. The political drama Hostage sees Suranne Jones (pictured) playing a Labour prime minister who has to save the NHS The five-part series premiered on Netflix on August 21. The cast also includes Julie Delpy, Corey Mylchreest, Lucian Msamati, Ashley Thomas, James Cosmo and Jehnny Beth Were so used to seeing her in extreme situations wreaking vengeance on an unfaithful husband in Doctor Foster, solving murders aboard a submarine in Vigil that it doesnt seem too delulu when she takes command of a hostage rescue attempt... and then apologises to the Chief of the Defence Staff for failing to let him know what she was doing. Mind you, its not much of a rescue. British special forces have apparently been reduced to one soldier, a grizzled veteran called Thomas. And hes armed only with a pistol and a telescopic camera that looks as though he ordered it from one of those sales booklets that fall out of the Sunday supplements. He probably bought a nice pair of orthopaedic sandals and a reversible jacket at the same time. If the PM has any chance of getting her husband back, shes going to have to rely on the French military. But President Vivienne Toussaint (Julie Delpy) has her own problems shes been having an affair with someone she really shouldnt, and now a blackmailer is threatening to release a video of them in bed together. No wonder Vivienne is so spiteful and mean to her family... though it doesnt explain why, when theyre alone, they speak English with Allo Allo accents. If all that stretches your credulity, consider this. Its only in a fictional drama as bonkers as this that Labour can manage to elect a female leader. Pierce Brosnan turned the premiere for his latest role The Thursday Murder Club into a family affair as he headed to the after party with his granddaughter Isabella and son Dylan on Thursday. The actor, 71, is starring alongside Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie in the film adaptation of Richard Osman's best-selling novel, which is set to be released on Netflix on August 28, following a limited release in UK cinemas on Friday. After posing on the red carpet for the premiere, Pierce made his way into the after party with Isabella, 26, and his son Dylan, 28. The James Bond star, who plays Ron in the upcoming flick, looked handsome as ever as he arrived at the star-studded event in a brown Brioni double-breasted suit. Isabella, who previously joined her grandfather at the MobLand premiere after party in March, opted for an elegant purple satin gown. Dylan opted to match his dad with a sharp camel suit as they joined fellow star Helen Mirren, who had changed into a chic floral shirt dress, at the party. Pierce Brosnan turned the premiere for his latest role The Thursday Murder Club into a family affair as he headed to the after party with his granddaughter Isabella and son Dylan The James Bond star, who plays Ron in the upcoming flick, looked handsome as ever as he arrived at the star-studded event in a brown double-breasted suit Pierce has kept a strong family bond with Isabella after her mother, Charlotte - who is his adopted daughter - died from cancer in 2013. Pierce adopted both Charlotte and her younger brother Christopher, 52, after their father, Dermot Harris died in 1986. Charlotte's mother later died of ovarian cancer in 1991, which left the siblings without their biological parents. She then welcomed two children of her own, Isabella and Lucas, with her partner Alex Smith. But Charlotte died just weeks after marrying Alex in 2013 from the same cancer her mother had. Before Cassandra's death, she and Pierce welcomed their biological son, Sean, 41, in 1983. Pierce, who has five children in total, is also a father to Dylan, 28, and Paris, 24, who he welcomed with his current wife Keely Shaye Smith, 61. The Thursday Murder Club centers on a witty group of retirees who spend their days in a peaceful retirement communitybonding over their shared hobby of solving cold cases. The Bond star has kept a strong family bond with Isabella after her mother, Charlotte - who is his adopted daughter - died from ovarian cancer in 2013, aged 41 (pictured in 2006) Charlotte was the birth daughter of Pierce's first wife, Cassandra (left). Pierce adopted both Charlotte and her younger brother Christopher, 52, after their father, Dermot died in 1986 Isabella has remained largely out of the public eye over the years and has appeared to have kept a strong bond with her father, Alex Joining Pierce at the after party was his co-star Helen Mirren, who changed into a chic floral shirt dress The Oscar winner plays no-nonsense ex-spy Elizabeth in the film Sir Ben Kingsley cut a dapper figure in a sharp navy blue suit as he headed to the after party Former Strictly Come Dancing star Bruno Tonioli showed off his snazzy sense of style in an eye-catching pink suit Tom Ellis was also among the stars heading to the post-premiere party Former Prime Minister Sir John Major emerged from his car to head into the bash The veteran politician was joined by his wife Norma But their quiet pastime takes a thrilling turn when they stumble upon a fresh murder mystery that demands their attention. Helen leads the cast as Elizabeth, a sharp ex-spy with a knack for uncovering secrets. Pierce plays Ron, a former union activist with a passionate spirit, while Ben Kingsley portrays Ibrahim, an insightful ex-psychiatrist. Celia Imrie rounds out the group as Joyce, a compassionate ex-nurse who balances the team. Osman wrote the book in secret over 18 months, sparking a fierce 10-way bidding war before Penguin Random House secured the rights for a seven-figure deal in 2019. Upon its 2020 release, The Thursday Murder Club became the only novel that year to sell over one million copies, ranking as the third best-selling hardback behind Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The success led to three sequels: The Man Who Died Twice (2021), The Bullet That Missed (2022), and The Last Devil to Die (2023). A fifth installment is already planned for publication next year. Jamie Lynn Spears took to Instagram this week to reveal she was diagnosed with a pesky but common skin condition. The 34-year-old actress whose daughter recently broke her silence on her near death experience shared three up-close photos of her flawless-looking made up face and made a confession in the caption. 'I wish my skin looked like this in real life,' she wrote, adding, 'I was actually diagnosed with adult acne this year.' She then credited her makeup artist, Amber Crowe, with getting her camera-ready to shoot her Netflix series Sweet Magnolias. 'Its all that movie magic that @ambercrowedoesmakeup whips up to have Noreen looking fresh as a daisy, as well as making JL go to the dermatologist,' she wrote, referencing her character Noreen Fitzgibbons. Jamie Lynn whose older sister is Britney Spears wore a green, yellow, and white T-shirt in the trio of selfies snapped while in bed. Jamie Lynn Spears took to Instagram this week to reveal she was diagnosed with a pesky but common skin condition The 34-year-old actress shared three up-close photos of her flawless-looking made up face and made a confession in the caption Amber shared Jamie Lynn's post and added the note, 'I love you, Jamie Lynn!!!' It comes after the former Nickelodeon star's 17-year-old daughter Maddie recently opened up about her scary ATV accident in 2017. At the time, Maddie whom Jamie Lynn welcomed as teen mom was just eight-years-old. After flipping the ATV and nearly drowning in their Louisiana pond, she was airlifted to Children's Hospital New Orleans. The youngster spent five days recovering from her injuries, eventually making a full recovery. TMZ later revealed the manufacturers of the Polaris RZR 170 restricted anyone under age 10 from operating the vehicle, meaning it was illegal for Jamie Lynn to have gifted the vehicle to Maddie on her seventh birthday. Using her YouTube platform earlier this month, the high school senior said in a video, 'I was in a coma, and I came back to life, and I'm very blessed. 'So yeah, I've just been very accident-prone. I swear my parents are amazing and they did not do anything to me!' 'I wish my skin looked like this in real life,' she wrote, adding, 'I was actually diagnosed with adult acne this year' She then credited her makeup artist, Amber Crowe, with getting her camera-ready to shoot her Netflix series Sweet Magnolias Jamie pictured with 17-year-old daughter Maddie Jamie Lynn seen with older sister Britney Spears in 2017 Earlier this month the proud mom praised her daughter, who will attend the University of Southern Mississippi next year. 'I'm so proud of this kid, she never lets anything or anyone sit her down, and sharing her journey through it all hopefully inspires others to never stop going hard for what they want out of life,' the screen star gushed on social media. She added, 'You can work so hard, and do everything right, yet still face adversity, no matter what path you're on in life. You can't control everything that happens to you, but you can decide how you react to what happens to you. 'I know being a resilient person is one of the best qualities a human can have, but it's only earned by having no other choice but to be resilient. Gotta trust God's plan.' In addition to Maddie, Jamie Lynn shares seven-year-old daughter Ivey, whom she shares with husband Jamie Watson. Maddie has eschewed her biological father Casey Aldridge's last name in favor of her stepfather's surname. ABC comedy panel show Question Everything has been axed after four seasons at the network. Launched in 2021, the show was billed as a fresh and funny antidote to fake news, and featured a panel of emerging comedians joined by hosts, creator Wil Anderson and comedian Jan Fran, to debunk misinformation, scams and fake news. It was produced by CJZ, the same production company behind Anderson's other ABC show, Gruen. News of Question Everything's cancellation was confirmed to Mumbrella this week, with executive producer Nick Murray expressing his sadness at the show's demise. 'The ABC has been wonderful in supporting locally developed and produced programs like Gruen and Question Everything,' he said. 'Australian shows and ideas are an endangered species now, so we appreciate the support of the ABC for original Australian programs. ABC comedy panel show Question Everything has been axed after four seasons at the network. Pictured: Host and creator Wil Anderson Launched in 2021, the show was billed as a fresh and funny antidote to fake news, and featured a panel of emerging comedians joined by hosts, creator Wil Anderson and comedian Jan Fran (pictured), to debunk misinformation and fake news 'We did an enormous amount of work training both on-air talent and new writers through our various training initiatives. We put 43 new performers and 27 new writers through the training and intern schemes on Question Everything.' Murray only had positive words to say about co-hosts Anderson and Fran, saying they were 'terrific to work with', and that the team 'had a lot of fun' creating the show. The departure adds to a growing list of high-profile cancellations in 2025, including Ten's The Project, which aired its final episode in June, and ABCs flagship debate program Q&A, which was farewelled by viewers in May. For now, Anderson will continue hosting Gruen and is currently on a stand-up tour of the country. Fran, meanwhile, recently launched a news enterprise called Ette Media alongside independent journalist Antoinette Lattouf, which focuses on promoting better media literacy. Fran and Lattouf also co-host a podcast called We Used To Be Journos, which delves into media analysis from experienced insiders, offering insights into how the media works. The departure of adds to a growing list of high-profile cancellations in 2025, including Ten's The Project. Pictured are The Project hosts L-R: Sam Taunton, Waleed Aly, Sarah Harris and Georgie Tunny Perth businessman Aidan Ciaran Murphy has filed a defamation lawsuit against Married At First Sight star Lauren Dunn over social media posts made last month. Murphy, 37, alleges Dunn, 33, posted malicious and false comments about him on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook between July 14 and July 21. The summons was filed with the WA Supreme Court on August 15, WA Today reported on Thursday. In it, the managing director claimed Dunn defamed him and, by extension, the business he works for, United Resourcing. Murphy did not specify in the summons which posts allegedly defamed him; however, it is understood they have since been removed from social media. Murphy's lawyer, Roger Blow, filed the summons and requested that the court issue an injunction to stop Dunn from making similar posts about the Applecross man. Perth businessman Aidan Ciaran Murphy, 37, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Married At First Sight star Lauren Dunn, 33, over social media posts made last month Murphy claimed Dunn made the posts out of 'malice', and Blow claims the reality TV star is also liable for defamatory remarks made by her followers. Dunn is required to respond to the summons within 10 days, but has reportedly told WA Today she has yet to receive one. She said her posts were a reaction to negative remarks Murphy allegedly made about her in relation to her ex-boyfriend, former AFL player Ryan Crowley. Daily Mail has reached out to Dunn for further comment. Crowley is currently facing a series of domestic violence charges related to his relationship with Dunn in 2019 and 2020. The former Fremantle Dockers player was recently hit with six new charges, with prosecutors alleging he attacked his ex-girlfriend 'to the point of almost killing her'. The 41-year-old appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on July 22 over the historical charges, which are alleged to have taken place between 2019 and 2020. Crowley was charged with one count of unlawful assault and one count of threatening to kill. Those charges are alleged to have taken place in September 2019. Murphy, 37, has accused Dunn, 33, of posting malicious and false comments about him on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook between July 14 and July 21 He is also facing one count of unlawful assault, one count of intent to harm, a count of deprivation of liberty and another count of deprivation of liberty in circumstances of aggravation. Those charges allegedly took place in March 2020. Five of the offences were allegedly committed against his former girlfriend, Dunn. The final charge pertains to the alleged abuse of another woman. It marks the second time in two months that the former AFL player has appeared in court over domestic violence charges. Crowley was granted bail in May after appearing in Perth Magistrates Court for nine separate domestic violence allegations, which relate to an alleged incident that took place in 2025 and also allegedly involved Dunn. In relation to the historical charges, the court heard in July that Crowley and Dunn's relationship had taken place between 2018 and 2023. It was described as 'toxic' and 'highly volatile'. Dunn has since left Western Australia to live in New South Wales but is understood to return to WA regularly for work. Dunn said her posts were in response to negative comments Murphy made about her in relation to her ex-boyfriend, former AFL player Ryan Crowley (left) The police prosecutor told the Perth court that one witness had allegedly seen Crowley assault Dunn in 2020 'to the point of almost killing her'. The witness had 'expressed their concerns' as a result. The prosecutor said: 'The accused has shown a propensity for violence.' They added that Dunn had received messages from Crowley's friends, telling the former Married at First Sight star they had seen videos of her that had allegedly shown her in a 'compromising' situation. The court also heard how Dunn, who has over 244,000 followers on Instagram, had allegedly received messages from social media users who had accused her of being a 'liar' and a 'psycho'. Crowley's legal counsel confirmed he will plead not guilty to all of the charges. However, Magistrate Langdon told the court that should he be found guilty of all the charges, he would be facing an immediate prison sentence. The Magistrate also granted Crowley bail, despite opposition from prosecutors. Bail was granted subject to several conditions. One of those includes a $40,000 surety. The conditions require Crowley to surrender his passport, report to Northbridge Police Station twice a week, not go within 200m of Dunn and remain in Western Australia. He will return to court on November 11. A band headed to one of the biggest rural music festivals has suffered a travel nightmare after Virgin Australia lost their luggage. 19-Twenty were left devastated on Friday when they touched down in Broken Hill for the Mundi Mundi Bash and discovered their instruments hadn't been put on the flight. Band members Kane Dennelly, Jeremy Berg, and John Gwilliam took to social media shortly after to detail their appalling experience in a fake press release, titled 'Innovation in Inconvenience'. 'Virgin Australia is proud to unveil their brand-new premium service: The Gearless Gig Experience,' they began on the band's official Instagram page. 'Launched exclusively TODAY at the Mundi Mundi Bash with 19-Twenty, this groundbreaking package ensures your band arrives at the venue completely separated from your instruments. 'Why bother with double basses, guitars, pedals or cables when true artistry is found in sheer panic?' the phony statement continued. 19-Twenty were left devastated on Friday when they touched down in Broken Hill for the Mundi Mundi Bash and discovered their instruments hadn't been put on the flight. Pictured Band members Kane Dennelly, Jeremy Berg, and John Gwilliam took to social media to detail their appalling experience in a fake press release, titled 'Innovation in Inconvenience' Elsewhere in their 315-word put-down, the band members revealed that Virgin had 'thoughtfully' cancelled the group's first flight. They were offered a second, later flight, but unfortunately their gear, including four guitars, was left behind in Sydney. '...nothing screams 'rock 'n' roll' like begging strangers in a desert for a guitar slide,' the band joked. The group also created a 'Virgin Australia spokesperson' to put the boot in further to the airline over the inconvenience. 'We're proud to strip live music back to its rawest form: three sweaty men, no gear, and the crushing weight of failure. Honestly, it's art,' read the statement. They finished their fake press release with the words, 'Virgin Australia looks forward to expanding The Gearless Gig Experience to ruin many more artists' experiences in the near future'. The band signed off their missive, 'Virgin Australia - Because you didn't need your instruments anyway.' When Daily Mail reached out to Virgin Australia for comment, a spokesperson responded: 'We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience our guests have experienced on this occasion and we are particularly sorry that this has impacted musicians whose performance was affected.' The band's 315-word statement also revealed Virgin Australia had 'thoughtfully' cancelled the group's first flight The band were set to play the first set on Friday at the sold out Mundi Mundi Bash We know how important it is to have your belongings with you when you travel, and we recognise we have not met that expectation,' they continued. 'We pride ourselves on supporting musicians and the arts across Australia, which makes this situation even more disappointing for us. 'Our team is in touch with the guests to reunite them with their equipment and make things right.' The musical group's post was soon inundated with comments in support. 'The best unwanted exposure for a gear less gig that you could ever not ask for and yet you still make the worst band experience into a well written novel!' one follower commented, adding, 'If only it was fiction not fact.. Big love Fellas. 'This, although absolutely heartbreakingis the most well written and funny thing I've read for aaaages,' wrote another. 'Ohh noooooo! Clever post though. Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humour!' added a third user. The band were set to play this weekend at the sold out Mundi Mundi Bash alongside Oz Rock favourites Missy Higgins, The Angels and the Hoodoo Gurus. Denise Richards' estranged husband Aaron Phypers has claimed that the actress never legalized his adoption of her 14-year-old daughter, Eloise. Phypers, 52, alleged that the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 54, had him sign adoption papers, but 'failed' to file the paperwork, in bombshell new court documents he filed on Wednesday, according to People. Phypers claimed that he is now legally without his daughter 'despite raising her as his own.' He added that Eloise is 'his daughter by bond of over nine years' and that this 'has caused immeasurable harm and demonstrates the imbalance [Richards] maintains in this matter.' Richards adopted Eloise who has a chromosome disorder as an infant in 2011. She also has two older daughters with her ex-husband Charlie Sheen, 59: Sami, 21, and Lola, 20. DailyMail.com has reached out to Richards' representatives for comment. Denise Richards', 54, estranged husband Aaron Phypers, 52, has claimed that the actress never legalized his adoption of her 14-year-old daughter, Eloise; Phypers seen in 2019 Phypers alleged Richards had him sign adoption papers, but 'failed' to file the paperwork, in new court documents he filed on Wednesday, according to People; The trio seen in 2023 Phypers' filing was in response to Richards' request for a judge to order him and his family to vacate their Calabasas home so that she could retrieve her dogs and belongings without violating their temporary restraining order. Phypers adopted Eloise in 2019, just a year after he and Richards got married. 'It wasnt even a decision. It just is,' he told People at the time, adding, 'She's sweetheart. I love her. I think of her as my own.' Phypers also calls Eloise his daughter on social media. In an Instagram post from 2019 he shared a photo of them spending time together with a caption that included the hashtag 'father & daughter.' Richards has also shared social media snaps of Phypers with Eloise to her Instagram page in the past. One image even showed Aaron sweetly braiding Eloise's hair. Earlier on Wednesday, Richards broke her silence on social media over her shock divorce from Phypers. The former Bond girl shared a video to Instagram where she was wearing a bright pink top and light pink cap as she sat on a sofa. Phypers claimed he is now legally without his daughter 'despite raising her as his own.' He added that Eloise is 'his daughter by bond of over nine years'; Seen at his and Richards' 2018 wedding In an Instagram post from 2019, Phypers shared a photo of him and Eloise spending time together with a caption that included the hashtag 'father & daughter' Denise has also shared social media snaps of Phypers with Eloise to her Instagram page in the past (Aaron pictured with Eloise) One image even showed Aaron sweetly braiding Eloise's hair The Hollywood star then said that she has been experiencing a 's****y' summer over the heartbreak from her sad split. 'There is obviously something going on,' she said referring to her divorce. 'It's so hard to go through a divorce... this isn't my first one, it's my second one!' said the movie icon. And the Wild Things actress added that she 'never' thought they would divorce after she called it quits with Charlie. 'This has been a very difficult time and there are circumstances around my divorce that are difficult to talk about, which one day I will talk about it when the time is right - I just want to process everything and get through this,' she said as she was interrupted by a dog barking. 'It has not been easy, so your messages me a lot,' she said to her fans. Phypers and Richards were married for six years before he filed for divorce on July 7. She later accused him of physical abuse and was granted a temporary restraining order on July 16, though he has denied her claims. This comes weeks after Phypers claimed Richards had shown no interest in their pets for the last two years. Richards adopted Eloise who has a chromosome disorder as an infant in 2011. She also has two older daughters with her ex-husband Charlie Sheen: Sami, 21, and Lola, 20; seen with her girls in 2013 Richards turned up to the home in Calabasas, California where her estranged husband lives with his parents and brother on August 3 in order to get one of her dogs after she accused the star of having another canine put to sleep without her knowledge. And now Aaron has insisted the actress didn't have any involvement with the lives of any of their animals. He told People magazine: 'Denise hasn't interacted with the animals in two years and never has wanted knowledge or wanted to give her permission to any type of care for the animals.' And a source explained the dog who was euthanized was elderly and 'suffering' due to health issues. The insider said: 'Melanie, a sweet elder dog who Aaron loved, had late stage cancer and was suffering when he took her for help as the vet insisted the few days she had left being in pain were better met with putting her to sleep and off to heaven. 'It was a painful decision. To say she was 'put down' is hurtful.' Richards currently has a restraining order in place against her estranged husband, ensuring he stays at least 100 yards away from her, so when she showed up to his house for the dog, he immediately left the property. However, according to audio obtained by People, an emergency dispatcher said Aaron told them after leaving that he 'fears for his parents'. According to TMZ, police were called when the Wild Things star barged in and demanded the dog, screaming at Aaron's parents 'to get out of the house and putting her finger in their faces', and allegedly 'swinging at' Aaron's brother and 'throwing mail' at him. Jon & Kate Plus 8 alum Collin Gosselin gave a heartbreaking update about being estranged from six of his seven siblings on Tuesday. 'Unfortunately, I don't talk to my siblings,' the 21-year-old former child star confessed in a TikTok Live - according to People. 'I very much wish that we did and that they knew who I actually was because we don't know each other at all.' Collin said he hopes his 21-year-old siblings Aaden, Alexis, Joel, and Leah as well as his 24-year-old twin sisters Madelyn and Cara check out his account, which he uses as 'a journal to make videos and hope that they see them.' Gosselin's father Jon was granted full custody of him in 2018 and his 21-year-old sister Hannah in 2016, whom he still talks to on occasion. 'I actually just texted her today, you know, she's [at the University of Miami] doing her thing,' the college RA - who boasts 102K social media followers - said. Jon & Kate Plus 8 alum Collin Gosselin gave a heartbreaking update about being estranged from six of his seven siblings on Tuesday (pictured July 30) The 21-year-old former child star confessed in a TikTok Live: 'Unfortunately, I don't talk to my siblings. I very much wish that we did and that they knew who I actually was because we don't know each other at all' 'I always say, though, Hannah's just very like living the life, you know, like having fun, always doing something, so we catch up when we can.' Collin - who teased he's writing a book - is impressively paying his own tuition as a waiter at a chain called Damon's and he recently launched his own LLC, Gosslin Pressure Washing. On August 7, Gosselin claimed he and his siblings were 'forced apart and pitted against each other' while starring in Jon & Kate Plus 8, which aired for five seasons on TLC spanning 2007-2010. 'All the fame and money in the world, but what about kids being kids?' the Pennsylvania native wrote via TikTok. 'I will always love them more than anything. The tears I shed behind closed doors, thinking about the memories we could've shared. I love you guys.' In response to Collin's latest claim, his estranged mother Kate coldly wrote 'He knows why' during an August 11th TikTok Live. Gosselin blames the 50-year-old nurse for 'crushing' his dream of becoming a US Marine in 2023 by publicly posting about his 'multiple psychiatric diagnoses' and 'violent behavior' one month before he was dismissed from training for 'non-disclosure of pre-enlistment history.' Kate admitted the homeschooled sextuplet to the Fairmount Behavioral Health System in Philadelphia for 22 months spanning 2016-2018 for allegedly being bipolar and autistic with OCD, ADHD, ODD, and PTSD - conditions Marine Dr. Paul E. Delfin did not believe he had in his evaluation. Gosselin's (born Kreider) lawyer Richard Puleo defended her: 'I don't think the Marine Corps saw Kate's post and decided to throw Collin out. Could Kate's post have had some influence? Sure, I think it may have made them delve into Collin's history - but blaming his mother for being thrown out of the military is misplaced.' Collin said he hopes his 21-year-old siblings Aaden, Alexis, Joel, and Leah as well as his 24-year-old twin sisters Madelyn and Cara check out his account, which he uses as 'a journal to make videos and hope that they see them' (pictured May 10) Gosselin's father Jon was granted full custody of him in 2018 and his 21-year-old sister Hannah in 2016, whom he still talks to on occasion (pictured in 2023) The college RA said: 'I actually just texted her today, you know, she's [at the University of Miami] doing her thing. I always say, though, Hannah's just very like living the life, you know, like having fun, always doing something, so we catch up when we can' Collin - who teased he's writing a book - is impressively paying his own tuition as a waiter at a chain called Damon's and he recently launched his own LLC, Gosslin Pressure Washing (pictured August 7) On August 7, Gosselin claimed he and his siblings were 'forced apart and pitted against each other' while starring in Jon & Kate Plus 8, which aired for five seasons on TLC spanning 2007-2010 The Pennsylvania native wrote via TikTok: 'All the fame and money in the world, but what about kids being kids? I will always love them more than anything. The tears I shed behind closed doors, thinking about the memories we could've shared. I love you guys' In response to Collin's latest claim, his estranged mother Kate coldly wrote 'He knows why' during an August 11th TikTok Live Gosselin blames the 50-year-old nurse for 'crushing' his dream of becoming a US Marine in 2023 by publicly posting about his 'multiple psychiatric diagnoses' and 'violent behavior' one month before he was dismissed from training for 'non-disclosure of pre-enlistment history' Kate admitted the homeschooled sextuplet to the Fairmount Behavioral Health System in Philadelphia for 22 months spanning 2016-2018 for allegedly being bipolar and autistic with OCD, ADHD, ODD, and PTSD - conditions Marine Dr. Paul E. Delfin did not believe he had in his evaluation Collin claimed Kate would lock him in a specially-built basement room, which the 48-year-old DJ and his sister Hannah confirmed existed: 'She had zip-tied my hands and feet together and bolt locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me' All of the alleged abuse happened after ended the hot-tempered blonde's acrimonious decade-long marriage to Jon in 2009 when she gained primary custody of all eight children and starred in six seasons of the rebranded Kate Plus 8 It's worth noting that Collin once alleged his father punched and kicked him at age 16 in 2020, but the Berks County DA said no charges or citations were filed as a result of that incident Over the past five days, Kate - who only made it one episode on Fox's Special Forces: World's Toughest Test in 2023 due to a neck injury - has proudly posted TikTok Lives with her shy son Aaden and pasta-making daughter Leah Collin detailed his mother's alleged childhood abuse to The US Sun last September: 'I went to school one day with a purple ear. My ear was swollen and purple and bruised. And my teacher had asked like, what's going on? 'And that's when I kind of spilled the tea about everything. And I told my teacher, and [Child and Youth Service] was called shortly after that. And, you know, after my mother got wind of that, I was taken out of school in fourth grade.' Gosselin claimed Kate would lock him in a specially-built basement room, which the 48-year-old DJ and his sister Hannah confirmed existed: 'She had zip-tied my hands and feet together and bolt locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me.' All of the alleged abuse happened after ended the hot-tempered blonde's acrimonious decade-long marriage to Jon in 2009 when she gained primary custody of all eight children and starred in six seasons of the rebranded Kate Plus 8. It's worth noting that Collin once alleged his father punched and kicked him at age 16 in 2020, but the Berks County DA said no charges or citations were filed as a result of that incident. Over the past five days, Kate - who only made it one episode on Fox's Special Forces: World's Toughest Test in 2023 due to a neck injury - has proudly posted TikTok Lives with her shy son Aaden and pasta-making daughter Leah. The Block host Scott Cam has revealed his new ritual while filming this year's series of the renovation show in the regional Victorian town of Daylesford. The 62-year-old presenter says he loves taking refreshing mineral spa baths at the town's renowned lake. 'The lake you can swim in, which I did most days, is full of mineral water. So you're swimming in sparkling mineral water it's quite incredible!' Scott said in a recent episode. 'It's the ultimate location for rest, relaxation and rejuvenation!' He added part of what made the small town, located 111 km from Melbourne, so amazing was its breathtaking scenery and stylish shopping strip. Scott wasn't the only one soaking up the local vibe as his co-host Shelley Craft, 49, said the experience of filming in Daylesford far exceeded her expectations. The Block host Scott Cam has revealed his new ritual while filming this year's series of the renovation show in the regional Victorian town of Daylesford The 62-year-old presenter says he loves taking refreshing mineral spa baths at the town's renowned lake 'I'd had the opportunity to film in Daylesford a lot over the years. We'd actually shot The Block here with the challenges over previous years, so it was great to come back,' she said. 'This year we fully immersed ourselves in the community. A lot of our crew live here for the whole three months, I sort of float in and out from home but the opportunity to "live like a local" was a real positive experience.' Daylesford, known for its mix of creatives and downsizers seeking a quieter lifestyle, made the perfect backdrop for this year's series of the long-running Channel Nine reality TV series. The town was set to be the site of The Block's 2024 season, however production was eventually moved to Phillip Island following a planning dispute and community backlash. Despite plans for the proposed setting being approved by the Hepburn Shire, Nine was then challenged in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) in September. The network was reportedly forced to cancel $500,000 worth of accommodation it had booked for the show's cast and crew. 'We've had so many successful series in so many different locations, but we don't go where we are not welcome,' a production insider told the Herald Sun at the time. 'Especially for the 20th series of The Block, which is so important.' He added part of what made the small town, located 111 km from Melbourne , so amazing was its breathtaking scenery and stylish shopping strip It comes after Cam's jaw-dropping salary was revealed and he is one of the highest-paid presenters in Australia Situated in lush countryside an hour's drive from Melbourne, the tiny town has become a popular weekend getaway destination for those living in the big smoke. It comes after Cam's jaw-dropping salary was revealed and he is one of the highest-paid presenters in Australia. The Channel Nine presenter is earning 'close to $2 million a year', according to Woman's Day. A source told the publication that Channel Nine was keen to keep Cam and his co-star Shelley Craft on the home renovation series for as long as they could. 'As long as audiences keep watching, Scotty and Shelley are the heart of the show,' they said. The insider added that Cam's good-natured attitude made him a delight to work with. An iconic Australian model has shared a throwback photo from her childhood, sending her fans into meltdown. The brunette beauty, 35, is preparing to welcome her first child, a baby girl, and was feeling particularly nostalgic on Thursday as she posted a photo of herself wearing an adorable black-and-red party dress for a Christmas happy snap. In her caption she wrote: 'There will be another little girl wearing this dress in a few years. Cant believe my mum kept my little party dress for over 30 years, it was meant to be,' she wrote. The glamazon's career would launch just a few years after the photo was taken, as at age 13 she would win the Girlfriend Covergirl modelling competition and shoot to fame. At age 19, she became the second Indigenous model to appear on the cover of Vogue Australia, and has since appeared in campaigns for leading brands including David Jones and Seafolly. The former Dancing With The Stars contestant, whose mother is Aboriginal and father is German-English, also uses her platform to champion diversity, body positivity, and greater Indigenous representation in fashion. An iconic Australian model has shared an adorable throwback photo from her childhood - so can you guess who she is? So, have you guessed who she is yet? The girl in the photo is none other than Samantha Harris! The 6ft model, who hails from Tweed Heads, announced in May she is expecting her first child with husband of eleven years Luke Hunt. The model made headlines in 2014 when she famously stuck by her beau's side after he was sentenced to four years in prison. Luke served two years behind bars for the death of a grandfather following a fatal car crash in 2012. Sam secretly married Luke in 2014, two months before he began serving his prison sentence for his involvement in the crash that caused the death of 78-year-old grandfather Kenneth Lay. News that the couple had married wasn't revealed until April 2016, after her husband had finished serving his prison term. The girl in the photo is none other than Samantha Harris! At age 19, she became the second Indigenous model to appear on the cover of Vogue Australia The Beatles have revealed a brand new album will be released, featuring demos that have never been heard before as well as a remastered documentary. It comes following days of speculation after the legendary rock band's official social media channels teased an announcement earlier this week. Posting on Instagram, it shared a series of images which each contained a number from one to four, though there was no caption for the post. Now it's been confirmed Anthology 4 will feature 13 previously unheard of demos for and sessions from the band, which is made up of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr and the late John Lennon and George Harrison. The news comes ahead of a brand new book and documentary series launching this November, with streaming giant Disney+ behind the show. Bosses have remastered The Beatles Anthology, which is now being billed as The Beatles' Story, In Their Own Words. The Beatles have revealed a brand new album will be released, featuring demos that have never been heard before as well as a remastered documentary It comes following days of speculation after the legendary rock band's official social media channels teased an announcement earlier this week Sir Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney, pictured in 2016, are the last surviving members of the world's best-selling band of all time It will also include a ninth and new episode which will feature Sir Paul, Ringo and George in behind-the-scenes footage from when they originally made the series. George Martin, the original Beatles producer, has also remastered Anthology 1, 2 and 3 which all four will release in November as a boxset containing 191 tracks. Earlier this year it was revealed how Paul Mescal had signed up will be starring in the Beatles biopic movies. Each film will focus on one member of The Fab Four, with Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. All movies are set to be released in April 2028. It has the official thumbs-up from Sir Paul and Sir Ringo, as well as the estates of their late bandmates Lennon and Harrison - but fans might be hoping that their rougher edges and racier antics are not glossed over. The Beatles were certainly no angels - nor prudes - when honing their sound during pill-fuelled all-night performances in Hamburg's notorious Reeperbahn district between 1960 and 1962. George Harrison later recalled losing his virginity to a woman there as a teenager in one of their grotty backstage bedrooms behind a porn cinema, applauded by his bandmates John Lennon, Paul McCartney and then-drummer Pete Best. George Martin, the original Beatles producer, has also remastered Anthology 1, 2 and 3 which all four will release in November as a boxset containing 191 tracks Earlier this year it was revealed how Paul Mescal had signed up will be starring in the Beatles biopic movies - with Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison The Beatles, which are the most influential and best-selling band of all time, was formed in 1960 in Liverpool. Sir Paul, 83, shows no signs of slowing down after nearly six decades onstage, as he recently gave fans a glimpse into how he keeps his energy high. The music icon, who also led Wingsmakes a surprise cameo in the upcoming Spinal Tap sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, hitting theaters this September. Joining Elton John, 78, McCartney appears alongside the legendary fake band Spinal Tap, featuring Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), for one final concert in the mockumentary. And director Rob Reiner revealed what drives McCartney to keep performing to sold-out stadiums well into his eighties during an interview with AARPs Movies for Grownups. 'I asked Paul McCartney about this. I said, Theres you, Mick Jagger, Elton John, and you still like to perform. What is it about you guys? Is it that you just love the music? And you love performing? Reiner began. 'And he says, "Yeah. And the drugs,"' he explained of McCartney's quip, which is also a joke line in the upcoming movie. YouTube star Mark 'Angry Dad' Orval and his wife Sharon have addressed recent rumours the pair have split after 34 years of marriage. The rumour mill started spinning last Sunday when the mother-of-three, 60, revealed on Instagram she had moved into a new home after some 'recent changes'. One fan was quick to ask Sharon if that meant she and Mark, 57, had split, but the Bully Zero ambassador assured fans the couple were still very happy together. The speculation started when Sharon wrote: 'The happiest people make the best of what they have instead of craving what they dont. 'I love my life, I feel very blessed and recent changes to our living space have made a huge difference to how I feel on the inside. 'Choose to be happy on purpose today.' YouTube star Mark 'Angry Dad' Orval, 57, and his wife Sharon, 60, have addressed recent rumours the pair have split after 34 years of marriage She paired the caption with several photos of herself posing in her new ritzy apartment while wearing a white pant suit and $2,050 Louis Vuitton handbag. One follower took to the comments to write: 'Have you and @itsangrydad separated? Hope whatever has happened, your hearts are happy Xo.' But Sharon was quick to set the record straight, responding: 'Nope, we both living there and are very happy in our new space.' It comes after her son Mitchell Orval and his fiancee Chloe Szepanowski also made a big move and started fresh in a new state. The controversial Gold Coast influencers, who had their $2.75 million home broken into back in 2022, recently moved to Newcastle. The news was first revealed in May when Chloe, 26, took to Instagram to share a picture of a removalist van at her and Mitch's Palm Beach pad. 'Moving day,' she captioned the post, which showed a truck parked outside her home. 'We have a few weeks until settlement so we are storing everything until we move! So so handy.' The rumour mill started spinning last Sunday when the mother-of-three revealed on Instagram she had moved into a new home after some 'recent changes' One fan was quick to ask Sharon if that meant she and Mark had split, but the Bully Zero ambassador assured fans the couple were still very happy together She also posted a clip of workers lifting their furniture and carrying it out of their home. Fans began speculating about where the young family would be setting down their roots, with many questioning if they were staying on the Gold Coast. Mitch's brother Dylan then cleared the air in June, commenting on a post by an influencer news Instagram page that the couple were heading to New South Wales. 'Theyre moving to Newcastle,' he wrote, accompanied by a crying emoji. Carys Zeta Douglas showed off her toned physique in sizzling bikini-clad Instagram photos on Thursday. The daughter of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, 22, looked sensational in a skimpy black bikini from ORIXA by V. Thibes as she struck a sultry pose by a picturesque lake in Wyoming. Her stylish two-piece consisted of a triangle halterneck bikini top and matching low-rise bottoms. The actress showcased her natural beauty by going makeup-free for the tranquil outing. She captioned the snaps: '@orixabyvthibes mountainside. Special swimsuits made by such a special person @vivianethibes (green love heart emoji).' The Instagram pictures come after Carys was showered with love and support from her famous parents as she graduated from Brown University in Rhode Island earlier this year. Carys Zeta Douglas looked sensational in bikini-clad photos shared to Instagram on Thursday The daughter of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, 22, showed off her toned physique in a skimpy black bikini as she struck a sultry pose by a lake in Wyoming The graduate shared snaps from her big day, which featured an emotional moment with her mother, Catherine, 55, and a sweet shot with father Michael, 80. Carys looked radiant as she posed in her cap and gown layered over a chic white dress. In one photograph, she was seen with tears of joy as she embraced her mother. Reposting the image, Catherine said: 'Says it all really. Love you Carys.' Catherine also reposted a fun snap of Carys sitting in the boot of their car as she quipped: 'Graduate on board.' Carys' carousel of snaps was captioned: 'Thank you thank you thank you @brownu @watsoninstitute.' Catherine was quick to comment, posting: 'So proud of you. What a milestone. Congratulations sweetheart .' Earlier this year, the Wednesday actress shared her own photographs from the ceremony, including a sweet one of herself and Douglas kissing Carys on both cheeks. Catherine captioned the picture: 'The night before graduation!!!! We are both such proud parents right now!! Its only just begun!!' It comes after Catherine, 55, shared an emotional moment with Carys in more sweet snaps taken from her daughter's graduation ceremony earlier this year The 22-year-old graduate took to Instagram to share snaps from her big day, which featured a sweet shot with father Michael, 80 The proud actress mother shared several Instagram stories, including footage of their daughter in her graduation robes. Catherine and Carys also held hands for a sweet moment, where they kissed each other again on the cheek. The occasion, which saw Carys obtain a degree in Film and International Relations from the prestigious Ivy League school, was also celebrated with a carrot cake. Last October, Michael shared snaps with his daughter Carys as he visited her at college. Proud Michael posted a heartwarming picture on Instagram at the time, posing with his daughter against a beautiful autumn backdrop on campus. He captioned the post: 'Visiting my daughter Carys at school on a fall Sunday!,' alongside a heart emoji. Carys was quick to comment: 'I had the best time with you Dadda.' Catherine and Michael are also parents to son Dylan, 24, with both children following in the acting footsteps of their famous parents. Patrick Kielty's latest career move has been revealed amid his shock split from wife Cat Deeley. The Irish comedian, 54, and This Morning host, 48, who share sons Milo, nine, and James, seven, revealed last month that they had taken the decision to end their 12 year marriage, stressing that 'no other party' was involved. Now it's been revealed that Patrick, who previously admitted not feeling like an equal partner during the relationship, will be returning to Irish television as host of The Late Late Show on September 12. The funnyman is back hosting the national broadcaster's iconic chat show for a third season after moving from the marital home in London to a 'divorce house' in Dundrum, County Down where family and friends have been rallying around him. It comes just days after Cat was spotted having removed her wedding ring and swapping the dazzling diamond to her right hand in a pointed gesture that seemingly symbolised her new life chapter. The broadcaster looked effortlessly stylish while running errands near the former couple's marital home in a white shirt which she paired with high-waisted flared jeans. Patrick Kielty 's latest career move has been confirmed amid his shock split from wife Cat Deeley (Pictured earlier this month) The Irish comedian, 54, and This Morning host, 48, who have two young sons, revealed last month that they had taken the decision to end their 12 year marriage (pictured 2023) The presenter shielded her eyes behind gold rimmed aviator shades and accessorised with tan sandals and a matching handbag. Cat recently returned from a Spanish getaway with a male pal and in snaps obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail, she was seen out at a restaurant in Sitges, frequently visited by celebrities, minus her wedding ring. According to fellow diners at the picturesque eatery called Chiringuito de Garraf, the presenter appeared 'downcast' while wearing a halter neck dress and golden sandals, as she tucked into her meal, believed to be lobster. The mystery man joining her for dinner was hairdresser friend Ben Skervin, who documented his trip to Spain on his Instagram page which Cat commented on, writing: 'I love you.' The Londoner has previously featured on photos alongside Cat on social media and describes himself as a 'freelance celebrity and fashion hairdresser'. According to his personal website, he has previously worked with the Spice Girls, Keira Knightley, Madonna, Mariah Carey and Hugh Jackman, photographers including Karl Lagerfeld and top fashion magazines American Vogue and Vanity Fair among others. The restaurant snaps were taken on August 2, just days after Cat and Patrick announced their separation after 12 years of marriage. A fellow diner told the Daily Mail: 'Cat looked a bit down and a touch crestfallen, not her usual spritely self, which is understandable given her marriage split. Now Patrick, who previously admitted not feeling like an equal partner during the relationship, will be returning to Irish television as host of The Late Late Show on September 12 It comes days after Cat was spotted having removed her wedding ring and swapping the diamond to her right hand in a pointed gesture that seemingly symbolised her new life chapter She recently returned from a Spanish getaway with a male pal and in snaps obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail, Cat was seen out at a restaurant in Sitges The Londoner has previously featured on photos alongside Cat on social media and describes himself as a 'freelance celebrity and fashion hairdresser' (pictured together) 'Her accent was recognisable to a number of Brits at the restaurant, which is popular with celebrities, and she had interacted with a few British kids also dining there. 'She clearly needed to be around her nearest and dearest during such a difficult time.' The Daily Mail approached Cat's reps for comment. Meanwhile Cat's estranged husband Patrick was spotted on a trip to the shops near the former couple's home in London buying a bottle of red wine. It was the first time he had been pictured since their split was confirmed on July 29. He then broke his silence as he returned to his BBC Radio 5 Live show for the first time since their split on Saturday. In a jovial mood upon his return to the airwaves Patrick joked about being overlooked for the role of Match of the Day host, following Mark Chapman, Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates replacing Gary Lineker. He laughed: 'It's lovely to be back. We are coming to you from sunny Belfast and we've got Michael Andrew looking after things here. We've got Sammy and Craig looking after things in London. 'It takes a village folks to make this show sound so average, but it is not just me who is back, Oh no, what is this? It is a little welcome back letter from the head of the BBC.' As the iconic Match of the Day theme played, Patrick read: 'Dear Mr Kielty, thank you so much for your application to be a host on Match of the Day. Unfortunately every other host employed by the BBC is currently working hosting on this show therefore we don't need your services. Don't call us, we will call you, Tim Davie'. Before quipping: 'Thanks for that Tim, I shouldn't have read that out on air!' The comic is lying low in his country home in the village of Dundrum with his family are still seething Cat over her failure to attend his beloved mother's funeral. Her 'no show' back in March has left deep emotional scars within the Kielty family who say it confirmed for them that there was little chance of a reconciliation between the two. Patrick broke his silence as he returned to his BBC Radio 5 Live show for the first time since their split last week (Stock image) The comic is lying low in his country home in the village of Dundrum, County Down where family and friends have been rallying around him His family are still seething with Cat over her failure to attend his beloved mother's funeral and say they knew at that moment their marriage was over for good Clearly still upset at the anger and embarrassment it caused the family, one relative told the Daily Mail this week: 'Whatever rockiness was going on in the marriage, something as momentous as his mother's funeral, you would make up even temporarily and just put your 'best face' on as we say in Northern Ireland. 'Cat obviously knew how close Patrick was to Mary and she should have come to be by his side, a hand on his shoulder as he buried his mother. The fact that she stayed in London and presented This Morning on the day, it's not been forgotten.' The source added: 'In a very tight knit community in Northern Ireland, people always turn out. It's the done thing. His family remain very upset by this. They still can't believe it. It was the point when we all realised that that marriage had ended.' Patrick looked bereft as he carried Mary's coffin through his home village, where he was joined by close family and friends at the Church of the Sacred Heart. A spokesperson for Cat told the Daily Mail at the time: 'Cat remained at home to be there for her two young children before and after school on this very sad day.' Patrick and his family are well known and hugely respected within the Dundrum community and virtually the whole village of 1500 people turned up to pay their respects at Mary's funeral. It was followed by a wake, with the whole ceremony surrounding her death at the age of 88 holding huge significance in Irish Catholic traditions. One source said: 'The wake and all these other things are of huge importance. The house was full non-stop but [Cat] not being there was obviously a topic of conversation and caused a huge amount of embarrassment. 'The family and their friends felt let down. We felt that Cat could have just turned up to hold his hand or put an arm around his shoulder at the graveside, regardless of the problems they might have been having. For something like this, you would put on a show of unity, it's not too much to ask.' Spinal Tap lit up Stonehenge as they performed a secret gig on Thursday evening - just a month after their co-star David Kaff's death. The fictional group reunited to film the sequel to the iconic 1980s rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. Now, in new images, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest could be seen putting on an electric performance at this historic site in Wiltshire. The cult rockers were later joined on stage by music icons Josh Groban, Eric Clapton, and Shania Twain. Myleene Klass was spotted in the crowd with her daughter, along with Hollywood star Jamie Lee Curtis. Spinal Tap II will once again be directed by Rob Reiner and is set to be released on September 12. Spinal Tap lit up Stonehenge as they performed a secret gig on Thursday evening - just a month after their co-star David Kaff's death The use of Stonehenge hilariously links back to a moment in the 1984 film when the group commissioned an artist to create a huge recreation of the mystical prehistoric structure The use of Stonehenge humorously links back to a moment in the 1984 film when the group commissioned an artist to create a huge recreation of the mystical prehistoric structure. However, the rockers were left embarrassed when the artist turned up with a small scale model. It was then revealed that the written instructions she was given said to build an 18" (inches) replica rather than an impressive 18' (feet) version. It comes just a month after legendary actor and musician David died aged 79. The star, who played keyboardist Viv Savage in the iconic 1984 film, died peacefully in his sleep on July 11, per a statement from his band Mutual of Alamedas Wild Kingdom. It read: 'Our brother David Kaffinetti passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday. 'We are devastated by this event. 'David always had a kind word and a quick wit that would slay you where you stand. Then he'd make you smile doing it! RIP dear brother.' Now, in new images, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer (pictured), and Christopher Guest could be seen putting on an electric performance at this historic site in Wiltshire The band treated a select number of fans and celebrity guest to their concert Harry seen preparing for his performance Shania Twain pictured warming up for the gig The duo then delivered an incredible performance Michael seen embracing Shania on stage Spinal Tap also performed with Josh Groban Camera crew could be seen on stage filming the concert Josh gave a spectacular performance for the special guest and camera Eric Clapton also took to the stage (pictured with Christophe) This is Spinal Tap was first released in 1984 and starred Michael, Christopher and Harry. Directed by Rob, who also starred in the mockumentary comedy, it followed a heavy metal group Spinal Tap, dubbed as one of England's loudest bands, on their American tour. David's keyboardist Savage was known for his motto: 'Have a good timeall the time' and 'Quite exciting, this computer magic!' His death comes just two months before a sequel to his iconic film will be released - David did not reprise his role in the new film. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues will be released in September. It will follow Spinal Tap as they perform one last time after reuniting after 15 years. Director Rob Reiner said: 'So happy to be working with the folks at Bleecker Street who are passionate about keeping Tap's legacy alive and happy to give Marty DiBergi another shot at relevancy.' While Bleecker Street's CEO Andrew Karpen and president Kent Sanderson said: 'We feel privileged for the opportunity to work with Rob Reiner and the brilliant minds behind the original This Is Spinal Tap and to be part of a film that has resonated with so many.' They described the first movie as a cultural touchstone' and added: 'This Is Spinal Tap isn't just a movie it's a cultural touchstone that pioneered the mockumentary genre and left an indelible mark on both film and music. Christopher's wife Jamie Lee Curtis was spotted in the crowd The actress opted for a lowkey figure for the event Myleene Klass attended the event with her daughter The star appeared in high spirits The band have been secretly filming their sequel all week at the historical landmark The group seen on stage in front of Stonehenge Security was seen making sure the event was kept a private affair Little people were seen in black capes 'Returning to this world through Spinal Tap II is an extraordinary chance to celebrate its legacy while creating something fresh for both new and devoted audiences.' This Is Spinal Tap has a whopping 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes and has been praised by many. In 2002 it was chosen for preservation by the National Film Registry, as the Library of Congress declared it was 'culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.' David was a founding member of British progressive rock band Rare Bird from 1969 to 1975. They were known for their 1969 track Sympathy which charted at number 27 and sold one million copies. He also played keyboards for Chuck Berry on album The London Chuck Berry Sessions. After shooting to fame in This Is Spinal Tap, the line-up toured and played Saturday Night Live in 1984. David would later leave the group at the end of the year. Jessica Alba looked downcast during her first public outing since her ex Cash Warren was spotted holding hands with a young model. The Sin City actress was taking her three kids to the mall for some retail therapy. The actress, 44, showcased her youthful style, stepping out in a red, yellow and pink floral dress with a low V-neck and thigh high slit. A black sweater hung off her shoulders as she headed into the Los Angeles area mall with her kids Honor, 17, Haven, 14 and Hayes, seven. The Trigger Warning actress wore black western style boots and carried a small red purse with a gold chain on one shoulder and a white cloth shopping bag on the other. Her long, blonde locks were styled straight and she wore natural looking makeup. Jessica Alba, 44, looked downcast as she took her kids to the mall for some retail therapy on Thursday, just days after her ex confirmed he's dating a model 20 years his junior The actress was accompanied by her children, Honor, 17, Hayes, seven, and Haven, 14 (not pictured). It was the first time she had been seen since her ex, Cash Warren, stepped out with his new girlfriend Alba accessorized with several necklaces and some dangling earrings. Her mini-me daughter Honor wore similar black boots with a pair of straight leg jeans and a blousy white cotton top with a V-neck. The teen carried a black purse with a thick strap over one shoulder. Her dark hair was styled straight and she wore natural looking make up with a bold red lip. The high school senior accessorized with a pair of large hoop earrings. Hayes looked adorable in a short sleeve black and white stripe button down shirt, with black jeans and black and white sneakers. Now that she has stepped away from the day-to-day operations at The Honest Company, Alba has been focusing on her film and television. She and her producing partner Tracey Nyberg have closed a deal with Netflix to produce an untitled female ensemble comedy. According to Deadline, Alba will star in the film based on business retreats she has attended as an entrepreneur. According to Deadline, Alba will star in the film based on business retreats she has attended as an entrepreneur. Alba shares her kids with Warren, 46. The couple separated in late December and Alba cited 'irreconcilable difference' when she filed for divorce in February; pictured in 2024 Alba has since found love in the arms of actor Danny Ramirez, 32. The pair were first spotted together in July; pictured in New York City on August 12 Warren was seen holding hands with model Hana Sun Doerr, 26. She recently graduated from UCLA with a bachelors degree in sociology and Latin honors Doerr has also dabbled in acting, appearing as an Italian model in a 2023 episode of Minx The historical drama was scheduled to debut in theaters October 16. Alba split from her husband Cash Warren, 46, in late December 2024, citing 'irreconcilable differences' in her divorce filing in February. Since then, the Honey star has found new love in the arms of actor Danny Ramirez, 32. She and the Top Gun: Maverick actor first sparked rumors of a romance when they were spotted together in July. Ramirez will star in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday as Joaquin Torres/Falcon. Warren has also found new a new romance with model Hana Sun Doerr, 26. The two were spotted holding hands after going out to dinner on Tuesday in Beverly Hills. The brunette beauty recently graduated from UCLA with a degree in sociology and Latin honors, and has dabbled in acting, appearing as an Italian model in a 2023 episode of Minx. Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystal often sparked romance rumours during their time together on Strictly Come Dancing last year. And now, fans of the BBC show are convinced that the former TOWIE star, 36, and the professional dancer, 31, are an item after Pete posted a slew of snaps from their time together on the show to his Instagram on Friday. In the photo dump, Pete included a steamy dancefloor snap, a close-up car selfie, a rehearsal snap, and several photos from their nights out together. Alongside the post, the star gushed: 'It was never about dancingit was about the person. 'Happy birthday @jowitaprzystal - I am so blessed and grateful to have you in my life. My pocket rocket (love heart emoji).' The 'hard launch' on social media sent fans wild, and they flocked to the comment section to speculate whether the former dance partners are now officially an item. Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystal often sparked romance rumours during their time together on Strictly Come Dancing Fans of the BBC show are convinced that the former TOWIE star, 36, and the professional dancer, 31, are an item after Pete posted a slew of snaps from their time together on the show to his Instagram on Friday One wrote: 'WAIT IS THIS A HARD LAUNCH????'; 'I reeeeeaaalllyy hope that this is the woman you're in love with!!'; 'This is 1000% who hes in love with (eyes emoji)'; 'I hope thats who your in love with and she too you '; 'Is she the lie detector question tho!! Thats what wanna know!'; 'You two look like you belong together just saying.'; 'We were always team Pete and Jowita!' It comes after Pete reluctantly admitted that he is 'in love' with a new mystery woman six months on from his break-up with Maura Higgins. The Only Way is Essex star was forced to confess his love on the Staying Relevant podcast with bestie Sam Thompson, 33. He was given a lie detector test that saw him hooked up to a polygraph as Sam hit him with a series of questions. Sam asked: 'Are you in love with somebody right now?' While Pete said no, the waiting polygrapher gave a thumbs down to indicate that the star was lying - and he proceeded to tease his new romance. An excited Sam said: 'Ahhh, I knew it! And that's all we're going to say.' In the photo dump, Pete included a close-up car selfie and a sweet snap of the pair together at rehearsal Alongside the post, Pete gushed: 'It was never about dancingit was about the person. Happy birthday @jowitaprzystal - I am so blessed and grateful to have you in my life. My pocket rocket (love heart emoji)' When asked why he had lied, Pete admitted: 'I don't know, it just came to my head, it's a f****** lie.' Sam was so excited by the news that he almost jumped out of his seat and said: 'Pete's in love with somebody. Find her! Find her! 'Pete's in love secretly, and I think I know who it is.' Pete replied: 'You know exactly who it is, I literally told you the f****** story, she's not replied.' The angry reality star stressed: 'Why would you put that one in there? That was not on the f****** list!' Despite Sam's excitement, no further details - including the mystery woman's name - were revealed. An uncomfortable Pete asked: 'Are we f****** done with me now?' While Pete's relationship with Maura ended with allegations that he cheated, he has not yet confirmed any new romance. The 'hard launch' on social media sent fans wild, and they flocked to the comment section to speculate whether the former dance partners are now officially an item It comes after Pete was forced to confess his love on the Staying Relevant podcast with bestie Sam Thompson, 33 Pete reluctantly admitted that he is 'in love' with a new mystery woman six months on from his split with Maura Higgins (Maura and Pete pictured 2024) Pete and Maura were first linked in August last year, but the former couple went their separate ways in February, and Maura was later seen kissing McFly's Danny Jones at the BRITs. At the time, Pete distanced himself from the drama this caused by going on his already planned luxury holiday to Dubai. A source told the Daily Mail: 'Pete has moved on and couldn't care less about Maura. He feels indifferent about the drama currently surrounding her. 'He is focusing on himself and enjoying a break in the sun before getting back into work.' Pete stayed at The Lana hotel, the Dorchester Collections first hotel in the Middle East, with rooms starting at 730 per night. Molly-Mae Hague has reportedly enjoyed a 'budget getaway with pals in a caravan' after she was shamed for complaining about her 86,000 motorhome. The influencer, 26, headed to Abersoch, North Wales with some friends for some quality time away, according to The Sun. After a trip to Turkey with Tommy and Bambi, Molly-Mae reportedly 'likes the simple things in life'. An insider told the publication: 'Molly has just been in Turkey with Tommy and Bambi but wanted a getaway with pals. 'It was a stark contrast to some of her more extravagant trips and quite a surprise after she complained about a recent motorhome holiday. 'But despite what people think Molly does actually like the simple things in life and is just as happy in a caravan as a five star hotel.' Molly-Mae Hague has reportedly enjoyed a 'budget getaway with pals in a caravan' after she was shamed for complaining about her 86,000 motorhome The influencer, 26, headed to Abersoch, North Wales with some friends for some quality time away, according to the Sun Daily Mail has contacted Molly-Mae's representatives for a comment. The trip comes after Molly shared candid complaints about a recent 86,000 motorhome holiday her family went on - after Tommy Fury said their daughter Bambi shouldn't be spoilt with five star trips. The influencer and businesswoman went on a family trip with Tommy and their two-year-old the Isle of Man in July. But in one of her YouTube vlogs, Molly-Mae opened up about some of the more difficult parts of the holiday including navigating travel delays with a toddler. The family were travelling on a swanky Elddis Avalon 255 motorhome which retails at 86,995, after Tommy insisted their daughter Bambi shouldn't be 'spoilt' with 'five star hotels and business class flights' when they go away on family holidays Molly-Mae revealed the trip had been blighted with delays, leaving Bambi 'overtired and overstimulated'. She explained: 'Tommy has bought a motorhome and we spent our first weekend in the motorhome this weekend. 'Obviously, being us, we went in feet first and decided to go to the Isle of Man. After a trip to Turkey with Tommy and Bambi, Molly-Mae reportedly 'likes the simple things in life' She recently shared her candid complaints about a recent 86,000 motorhome holiday her family went on - after Tommy Fury said their daughter Bambi shouldn't be spoilt with five-star trips The influencer and businesswoman went on a family trip with Tommy and their two-year-old the Isle of Man in July 'Tommy's family were spending the weekend in the Isle of Man. I was feeling spontaneous so we literally booked the ferry to the Isle of Man an hour before we needed to leave. 'We'd never used the motorhome before, we needed to pack it up, sort Bambi, I just had this wave of 'you only live once, have a bit of fun'. 'Bambi doesn't need to be so perfectly routine every day, she's not a newborn anymore. 'I've got so stuck in my ways with the fact that her routine is her routine and I don't really steer away from it. 'I'm not gonna feel bad for that because that is what works for me and that is what works for Bambi and Tommy, so that's fine.' She then added of when things started to go wrong: 'So anyway, booked the ferry, packed the motorhome up and nearly didn't make the ferry but that's another story and then there was a two hour delay. But in one of her YouTube vlogs Molly-Mae opened up about some of the more difficult parts of the holiday including navigating travel delays with a toddler 'This ferry, which was already gonna get us in at 11:30pm, which was already severely triggering me because Bambi goes to bed at 7pm, was not fine. It was giving me a prime example as to why the routine works for us. 'It was one of those moments where strangers come up to you and are like 'can I help? Is there anything I can do?' 'She was screaming that much for four hours straight. 'The boat basically had a malfunction and it wouldn't move for like two hours so we had a huge delay. 'She was so, so, so overtired and overstimulated - Bambi is so routine, she is the opposite of flexible.' And when they arrived things continued to go downhill, as she said: 'We managed to get to the Isle of Man at 1:30am in the morning. 'We didn't know where we were, what we were doing, we were going to a different campsite to Tommy's family. It was just a lot. 'We had to make our bed out of this sofa, I was like 'I'm really out of my depth, I'm struggling'. 'The next day, Bambi was so tired, she was just screaming, literally screaming, so, so unhappy. 'Me and Tommy were looking at each other like 'what were we thinking?. I was having a breakdown.' She went on in the vlog: 'Bear in mind this motorhome of Tommy's is his pride and joy, he's obsessed with itI kid you not, the next day he was like 'I'm selling it, the minute we get home I'm putting it up for sale, I hate this motorhome.' And when they arrived things continued to go downhill, as she said: 'We managed to get to the Isle of Man at 1:30am in the morning...' During the trip she also shared some memories from her childhood She went on in the vlog: 'Bear in mind this motorhome of Tommy's is his pride and joy, he's obsessed with itI kid you not, the next day he was like 'I'm selling it, the minute we get home I'm putting it up for sale, I hate this motorhome' 'It wasn't even the motorhome's fault. For our first time, stupid move.' They even considered getting an early ferry home but once they met up with Tyson Fury and his wife Paris, things improved. She said: 'We were actually going to get on a ferry that day to come home because we were so out of our depth, we couldn't do it. 'But then, when we met up with them, we were like 'no, we're gonna stick it out, we can do this.' An official cause of death has been determined for the late actress Loni Anderson, who passed earlier this month at age 79. The WKRP in Cincinnati star died from metastatic uterine leiomyosarcoma, according to a death certificate obtained by TMZ, who noted the disease is an incredibly rare form of cancer that usually begins in the uterus and is able to spread to other areas of the body. At the time her death was announced, her longtime publicist Cheryl J. Kagan said that Anderson died following a 'prolonged' illness. Anderson, who played a struggling radio station's empowered receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on the hit CBS comedy, died at a Los Angeles hospital just days before her 80th birthday. She was married to the late Hollywood legend Burt Reynolds from 1988 thru 1994. 'We are heartbroken to announce the passing of our dear wife, mother and grandmother,' Anderson's family said in a statement. Loni Anderson died from metastatic uterine leiomyosarcoma, an incredibly rare form of cancer, according to a death certificate; pictured 2023 WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978-1982 and was set in a flagging Ohio radio station trying to reinvent itself with rock music. The cast of the series included Gary Sandy, Tim Reid, Howard Hesseman, Frank Bonner and Jan Smithers, alongside Anderson as the sexy and smart Jennifer Marlowe. As the station's receptionist, the blonde and high-heeled Marlowe used her sex appeal to deflect unwanted business calls for her boss, Mr. Carlson. Marlowe's efficiency often kept the station running in the face of others incompetence. The role earned Anderson two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe nominations. Anderson starred on the big screen alongside Burt Reynolds in the 1983 comedy Stroker Ace and the two later married and became tabloid fixtures before divorcing in 1994. Tributes began pouring in for the late star as news of her passing spread on Sunday. I Dream of Jeannie actress Barbara Eden said on the platform: 'Like many, I am absolutely stunned and heartbroken. Our friendship has spanned many years, and news like this is never easy to hear or accept.' Eden continued: 'What can I say about Loni that everyone doesn't already know? She was a real talent, with razor smart wit and a glowing sense of humor but, even more than that, she had an impeccable work ethic.' Anderson was married to late Hollywood legend Burt Reynolds from 1988 thru 1994 Anderson pictured at the 18th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in LA in 2007 The CBS comedy WKRP in Cincinnati, featuring (L-R) Anderson; the late Howard Hesseman; and Jan Smithers, aired from 1978-1982 and was set in an Ohio rock radio station Eden called Anderson 'a darling lady and a genuinely good person,' adding that she was 'truly at a loss for words' on the somber day.' Eden concluded, 'Loni, you were one in a trillion, my friend, and even a trillion more.' Publicist Danny Deraney wrote on X: 'Rest in peace Loni Anderson. There was something so wonderful about her role of Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP. 'She had the looks, brains and always the upper hand.' Music publicist Eric Alper wrote: 'RIP Loni Anderson, forever our Jennifer Marlowe from WKRP in Cincinnatismart, stylish, and stealing every scene.' He called Anderson 'a true TV icon with heart, humor, and glam.' In 2023, Anderson co-starred in Lifetime's Ladies Of The 80s: A Divas Christmas with Linda Gray, Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild and Nicollette Sheridan. 'I am heartbroken to hear of the passing of the wonderful Loni Anderson!' Fairchild said on X. 'I'm just devastated to hear this. Love & condolences to Bob (who was on set every day w her) & her kids and grandkids, who she adored. Fairchild described Anderson as 'the sweetest, most gracious lady' and said she was 'just devastated to hear this.' Anderson pictured at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on May 10, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California I Dream of Jeannie actress Barbara Eden said she was 'absolutely stunned and heartbroken' Anderson's Hollywood pal Morgan Fairchild remembered her late friend in a series of posts Fairchild noted how she and Anderson 'had worked on Bob Hope specials together' as well as A Divas Christmas - from which she shared a pic from the set with Anderson and Mills. 'We had so much fun on this!' Fairchild said. 'She will be greatly missed!' Said one user: 'Some of us who are older are seeing the TV and music celebrities we grew up with erased every day. RIP Loni.' Anderson wrote a 1995 autobiography titled My Life in High Heels. In it, she wrote about 'the growth of a woman, a woman who survives' adversity. Anderson added, 'It's about my childhood, the death of my parents, my career, my divorces, and my children. Anderson said the book also covered 'the trauma of [her] marriage to' Burt Reynolds. Anderson told The Associated Press of the book: 'I think if youre going to write about yourself, you have to do it warts and all. You may not even tell the nicest things about yourself, because youre telling the truth.' She married four times, most recently to Bob Flick in 2008. Tributes began pouring in for the late star as news of her passing spread on Sunday Online memorials to the late WKRP in Cincinnati continued as fans remembered her talents Anderson was born August 5, 1945, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father was an environmental chemist, and her mother was a model. Her first role as an actress was a small part in the 1966 film Nevada Smith, starring Steve McQueen. Most of her career was spent on the small screen with early guest parts in the 1970s on S.W.A.T. and Police Woman. After WKRP, Anderson starred in the short-lived comedy series Easy Street and appeared in made-for-TV movies including A Letter to Three Wives and White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd. Anderson is survived by Flick, her daughter Deidra and son-in law Charlie Hoffman, son Quinton Anderson Reynolds, grandchildren McKenzie and Megan Hoffman, stepson Adam Flick and wife Helene, and step-grandchildren Felix and Maximilian. Canada removed many of its retaliatory tariffs on US goods Friday, signaling a major thaw in trade tensions between the two countries. The move aims to reset trade talks between the two countries, and should lead to lower tariffs on Canadian goods entering the US. That should help keep prices in check for everything from lumber and seafood to alcohol and auto parts. For Americans, the move means more than cheaper goods on shelves and at the pump. It also eases pressure on businesses that rely on Canadian imports, from homebuilders to carmakers, and reduces the risk of sudden price hikes. Most importantly, it signals a cooling of trade hostilities that have fueled uncertainty since the Trump administration imposed duties on steel and aluminum. The move comes a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump spoke by phone for the first time since the two countries missed a self-imposed deadline to reach a trade agreement earlier this month. In March, Canada imposed counter-tariffs of 25 percent on a wide range of US products after Washington slapped duties on steel and aluminum. Carney said the rollback, starting September 1, will match US exemptions on goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal (USMCA). Canada is rolling back retaliatory tariffs to match US exemptions on goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday The carve-out mirrors the US approach under the 2020 pact, which shields the majority of goods from punishing duties. 'Canada currently has the best trade deal with the United States. And while its different from what we had before, it's still better than that of any other country,' Carney said. However, Canadas 25 percent tariffs on US autos, steel, and aluminum will remain in place for now costs that will be felt more acutely by Canadian consumers than American ones. The USMCA is up for review in 2026, and Carney called the trade pact a unique advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the US is charging for access to its market. Retaliatory tariffs were first imposed by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to US duties. In July, former President Trump announced he would raise U.S. tariffs on Canada to 35 percent, citing both the rise of fentanyl and Canadas reluctance to cooperate with the U.S. as factors in his decision. The Trump administration later exempted goods covered by the trade deal. Carney said the commitment of the US to the core of USMCA means the US average tariff rate on Canadian goods remains one of its lowest, and that over 85 percent of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. President Donald Trump announced a range of tariffs in April. It kicked off a tariff war with Canada. But Canada removed many of its retaliatory tariffs on US goods Friday, marking a major thaw in trade tensions between the two countries Canadian and Mexican companies can claim preferential treatment under the USMCA. Most imports from Canada and Mexico are still protected by the USMCA, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said: 'I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA.' Preserving the free trade pact will be critical for Canada and Mexico. More than 75 per cent of Canadas exports go to the US while more than 80 percent of Mexicos exports go there. Trump has announced some sector specific-tariffs that do apply for Canada despite the USMCA - known as 232 tariffs - which are having an impact on the Canadian economy. There is a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum imports, for example. 'Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods. Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensivily to resolve the issues there,' Carney said. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of AAR (NYSE:AIR Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Tuesday morning. A number of other equities analysts also recently commented on the stock. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of AAR from $78.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of AAR from $80.00 to $86.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on shares of AAR from $75.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat, AAR has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $83.75. Get AAR alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on AAR AAR Stock Performance Shares of AIR opened at $71.8130 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 2.72. The company has a market capitalization of $2.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 217.62 and a beta of 1.53. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $73.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.39. AAR has a 1 year low of $46.51 and a 1 year high of $86.43. AAR (NYSE:AIR Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 16th. The aerospace company reported $1.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.00 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $754.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $695.81 million. AAR had a net margin of 0.45% and a return on equity of 11.66%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 15.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.88 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that AAR will post 3.77 EPS for the current year. Insider Activity at AAR In other news, CFO Sean M. Gillen sold 18,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $77.37, for a total value of $1,392,660.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 99,868 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,726,787.16. This trade represents a 15.27% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO John Mcclain Holmes III sold 31,551 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $78.03, for a total transaction of $2,461,924.53. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 360,921 shares in the company, valued at approximately $28,162,665.63. The trade was a 8.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 95,182 shares of company stock valued at $7,331,452 in the last 90 days. 3.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. LPL Financial LLC raised its position in shares of AAR by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 11,601 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $711,000 after buying an additional 1,362 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can raised its position in shares of AAR by 5.6% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 7,387 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $453,000 after buying an additional 390 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of AAR during the 4th quarter worth about $6,849,000. Sterling Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of AAR by 761.2% during the 4th quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC now owns 887 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $54,000 after buying an additional 784 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Summit Investment Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of AAR by 6.6% during the 4th quarter. Summit Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 3,655 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $224,000 after buying an additional 226 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.74% of the companys stock. AAR Company Profile (Get Free Report) AAR Corp. provides products and services to commercial aviation, government, and defense markets worldwide. The Parts Supply segment leases and sells aircraft components and replacement parts. The Repair & Engineering segment provides airframe maintenance services, such as airframe inspection, painting, line maintenance, airframe modification, structural repair, avionics service and installation, exterior and interior refurbishment, and engineering and support services; component repair services comprising maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services, engine and airframe accessories, and interior refurbishment; and landing gear overhaul services, including repair services on wheels and brakes. Read More Receive News & Ratings for AAR Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AAR and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. China Coast Guard urges Philippines to stop infringement, provocations, false accusations Xinhua) 13:13, August 22, 2025 BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The China Coast Guard (CCG) on Friday urged the Philippines to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, vowing to carry out law enforcement activities in accordance with law in the waters of Ren'ai Jiao in the South China Sea to resolutely defend national sovereignty and maritime rights. CCG spokesperson Gan Yu stated that a Philippine warship, which has been illegally "stranded" at China's Ren'ai Jiao for years, recently launched two small boats. These boats disregarded China's repeated clear warnings and intentionally approached CCG vessels in an unprofessional and hazardous manner. Gan emphasized that the CCG vessels, engaged in routine law enforcement operations, took necessary measures to regulate the Philippine boats in accordance with laws and regulations, adding that all actions were fully justified and lawful. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Hongyu) Advantage Alpha Capital Partners LP reduced its stake in shares of Watts Water Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:WTS Free Report) by 31.0% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 17,007 shares of the technology companys stock after selling 7,630 shares during the period. Advantage Alpha Capital Partners LPs holdings in Watts Water Technologies were worth $3,468,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in WTS. Costello Asset Management INC acquired a new position in Watts Water Technologies during the first quarter worth $33,000. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its holdings in Watts Water Technologies by 57.3% during the first quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 225 shares of the technology companys stock worth $46,000 after buying an additional 82 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Watts Water Technologies by 80.5% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 278 shares of the technology companys stock worth $57,000 after buying an additional 124 shares during the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Watts Water Technologies by 45.0% during the first quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 293 shares of the technology companys stock worth $60,000 after buying an additional 91 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Summit Securities Group LLC acquired a new position in Watts Water Technologies during the first quarter worth $64,000. 95.02% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Watts Water Technologies alerts: Insider Activity In other news, major shareholder Timothy P. Horne sold 7,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $241.85, for a total value of $1,692,950.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Joseph T. Noonan sold 713 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.45, for a total value of $195,682.85. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 1,194 shares of the companys stock, valued at $327,693.30. This represents a 37.39% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Watts Water Technologies Stock Down 1.9% Shares of NYSE WTS opened at $271.1140 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 2.59, a quick ratio of 1.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The company has a market cap of $9.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.15, a PEG ratio of 3.34 and a beta of 1.13. Watts Water Technologies, Inc. has a 12 month low of $177.59 and a 12 month high of $279.16. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $255.47 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $229.87. Watts Water Technologies (NYSE:WTS Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The technology company reported $3.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $0.41. The firm had revenue of $643.70 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $612.15 million. Watts Water Technologies had a return on equity of 18.11% and a net margin of 13.63%.The businesss quarterly revenue was up 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.46 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Watts Water Technologies, Inc. will post 9.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Watts Water Technologies Dividend Announcement The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 29th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 29th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Watts Water Technologiess payout ratio is presently 22.37%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of brokerages recently weighed in on WTS. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a hold rating on shares of Watts Water Technologies in a report on Friday, August 8th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of Watts Water Technologies from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, August 8th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Watts Water Technologies from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Saturday, August 9th. Finally, Northcoast Research downgraded shares of Watts Water Technologies from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a report on Friday, May 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Watts Water Technologies presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $245.50. Get Our Latest Stock Report on Watts Water Technologies Watts Water Technologies Company Profile (Free Report) Watts Water Technologies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, supplies products and solutions that manage and conserve the flow of fluids and energy into, through, and out of buildings in the commercial, industrial, and residential markets in the Americas, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding WTS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Watts Water Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:WTS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Watts Water Technologies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Watts Water Technologies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Capital Analysts LLC cut its holdings in shares of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report) by 15.2% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 20,917 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after selling 3,739 shares during the quarter. Capital Analysts LLCs holdings in Pfizer were worth $530,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of PFE. Clarity Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Pfizer in the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Gould Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Pfizer by 97.2% in the 4th quarter. Gould Capital LLC now owns 1,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 493 shares in the last quarter. GKV Capital Management Co. Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Pfizer in the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. North Capital Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Pfizer in the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, Bayforest Capital Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Pfizer in the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. 68.36% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Pfizer alerts: Pfizer Trading Up 1.3% Shares of PFE stock opened at $25.7060 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 1.16. Pfizer Inc. has a 1 year low of $20.92 and a 1 year high of $30.43. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $24.68 and a two-hundred day moving average of $24.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $146.15 billion, a PE ratio of 13.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 0.52. Pfizer Announces Dividend Pfizer ( NYSE:PFE Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $0.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.58 by $0.20. Pfizer had a return on equity of 21.42% and a net margin of 16.84%.The company had revenue of $14.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.43 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. The firms quarterly revenue was up 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. Pfizer has set its FY 2025 guidance at 2.900-3.100 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Pfizer Inc. will post 2.95 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 25th will be given a dividend of $0.43 per share. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.7%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 25th. Pfizers payout ratio is 91.49%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages have recently commented on PFE. Bank of America lifted their target price on Pfizer from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on Pfizer from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Leerink Partners reduced their price objective on Pfizer from $28.00 to $26.00 and set a market perform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Pfizer from $24.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Finally, Wolfe Research boosted their price objective on Pfizer from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the company an underperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Pfizer has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $28.12. Get Our Latest Stock Report on Pfizer About Pfizer (Free Report) Pfizer Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products in the United States, Europe, and internationally. The company offers medicines and vaccines in various therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular metabolic, migraine, and women's health under the Eliquis, Nurtec ODT/Vydura, Zavzpret, and the Premarin family brands; infectious diseases with unmet medical needs under the Prevnar family, Abrysvo, Nimenrix, FSME/IMMUN-TicoVac, and Trumenba brands; and COVID-19 prevention and treatment, and potential future mRNA and antiviral products under the Comirnaty and Paxlovid brands. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PFE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Pfizer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Pfizer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Erste Asset Management GmbH reduced its stake in shares of 3M Company (NYSE:MMM Free Report) by 16.0% during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 5,940 shares of the conglomerates stock after selling 1,134 shares during the period. Erste Asset Management GmbHs holdings in 3M were worth $860,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in shares of 3M by 12.6% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 6,752,944 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $871,738,000 after acquiring an additional 755,155 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of 3M by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,498,809 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $660,695,000 after purchasing an additional 30,260 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in shares of 3M by 4.2% in the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 4,270,238 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $551,245,000 after purchasing an additional 172,815 shares during the period. Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its holdings in shares of 3M by 5.7% in the 4th quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 3,624,933 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $467,944,000 after purchasing an additional 193,957 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of 3M by 6.8% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,122,020 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $458,500,000 after purchasing an additional 199,944 shares during the period. 65.25% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get 3M alerts: Insider Transactions at 3M In related news, insider Christian T. Goralski, Jr. sold 6,165 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.18, for a total value of $925,859.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 2,900 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $435,522. This represents a 68.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Theresa E. Reinseth sold 3,477 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.63, for a total value of $523,740.51. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 2,561 shares of the companys stock, valued at $385,763.43. This represents a 57.59% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities analysts have recently commented on MMM shares. Wells Fargo & Company restated an overweight rating on shares of 3M in a report on Friday, July 18th. Citigroup raised their price objective on 3M from $141.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Friday, May 30th. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c+) rating on shares of 3M in a report on Thursday, August 14th. Barclays set a $170.00 target price on 3M in a research note on Friday, July 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a $167.00 target price on 3M in a research note on Friday, July 18th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $158.10. View Our Latest Analysis on MMM 3M Price Performance MMM stock opened at $154.3420 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.87, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a current ratio of 1.72. 3M Company has a 1 year low of $121.98 and a 1 year high of $164.15. The firm has a market cap of $82.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.05. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $151.67 and a 200-day simple moving average of $147.25. 3M (NYSE:MMM Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 18th. The conglomerate reported $2.16 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $6.16 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.09 billion. 3M had a return on equity of 96.48% and a net margin of 16.01%.3Ms revenue for the quarter was up 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.93 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that 3M Company will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. 3M Dividend Announcement The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 12th. Investors of record on Monday, August 25th will be issued a $0.73 dividend. This represents a $2.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. 3Ms dividend payout ratio is currently 40.61%. 3M Profile (Free Report) 3M Company provides diversified technology services in the United States and internationally. The companys Safety and Industrial segment offers industrial abrasives and finishing for metalworking applications; autobody repair solutions; closure systems for personal hygiene products, masking, and packaging materials; electrical products and materials for construction and maintenance, power distribution, and electrical original equipment manufacturers; structural adhesives and tapes; respiratory, hearing, eye, and fall protection solutions; and natural and color-coated mineral granules for shingles. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MMM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for 3M Company (NYSE:MMM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for 3M Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for 3M and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MercadoLibre, Rocket Companies, VCI Global, Carlyle Group, DeFi Development, WEX, and Q2 are the seven Fintech stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeats stock screener tool. Fintech stocks are shares in publicly traded companies that use technologysuch as mobile apps, blockchain and artificial intelligenceto deliver innovative financial services like digital payments, peer-to-peer lending and robo-advisors. They give investors exposure to a rapidly evolving sector focused on improving efficiency, accessibility and customer experience in finance, although growth can be tempered by regulatory and competitive risks. These companies had the highest dollar trading volume of any Fintech stocks within the last several days. Get alerts: MercadoLibre (MELI) MercadoLibre, Inc. operates online commerce platforms in the United States. It operates Mercado Libre Marketplace, an automated online commerce platform that enables businesses, merchants, and individuals to list merchandise and conduct sales and purchases digitally; and Mercado Pago FinTech platform, a financial technology solution platform, which facilitates transactions on and off its marketplaces by providing a mechanism that allows its users to send and receive payments online, as well as allows users to transfer money through their websites or on the apps. Rocket Companies (RKT) Rocket Companies, Inc., a fintech holding company, provides mortgage lending, title and settlement services, and other financial technology services in the United States and Canada. It operates through two segments, Direct to Consumer and Partner Network. The companys solutions include Rocket Mortgage, a mortgage lender; Amrock that provides title insurance, property valuation, and settlement services; Rocket Homes, a home search platform and real estate agent referral network, which offers technology-enabled services to support the home buying and selling experience; and Rocket Loans, an online-based personal loans business. Read Our Latest Research Report on RKT VCI Global (VCIG) VCI Global Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides business and technology consulting services in Malaysia. The company offers business strategy consultancy services, including listing solutions, investors relations, and boardroom strategies consultancy. It also provides technology consultancy services and solutions, such as digital development, fintech solution, and software solutions. Read Our Latest Research Report on VCIG Carlyle Group (CG) The Carlyle Group Inc. is an investment firm specializing in direct and fund of fund investments. Within direct investments, it specializes in management-led/ Leveraged buyouts, privatizations, divestitures, strategic minority equity investments, structured credit, global distressed and corporate opportunities, small and middle market, equity private placements, consolidations and buildups, senior debt, mezzanine and leveraged finance, and venture and growth capital financings, seed/startup, early venture, emerging growth, turnaround, mid venture, late venture, PIPES. Read Our Latest Research Report on CG DeFi Development (DFDV) We are a B2B fintech marketplace connecting commercial property borrowers and lenders with a human touch. We seek to revolutionize the commercial real estate lending market by making it hyper-efficient, transparent, and accessible to all rather than the few. Through our online platform, we provide technology that connects commercial mortgage borrowers looking for capital to refinance, build, or purchase commercial property, including, but not limited to, apartment buildings, to commercial property lenders. Read Our Latest Research Report on DFDV WEX (WEX) WEX Inc. operates a commerce platform in the United States and internationally. The Mobility segment offers fleet vehicle payment solutions, transaction processing, and information management services; and provides account activation and account retention services; authorization and billing inquiries, and account maintenance services; account management; credit and collections services; merchant services; analytics solutions; and ancillary services and offerings. Read Our Latest Research Report on WEX Q2 (QTWO) Q2 Holdings, Inc. provides cloud-based digital solutions to regional and community financial institutions in the United States. The company offers Digital Banking Platform, an end-to-end digital banking platform supports its financial institution customers in their delivery of unified digital banking services across digital channels. Read Our Latest Research Report on QTWO Further Reading Earnings and Valuation This table compares Halcon Resources and Barnwell Industriess gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Halcon Resources $224.68 million 0.05 -$1.17 billion N/A N/A Barnwell Industries $18.07 million 0.63 -$5.57 million ($0.65) -1.75 Get Halcon Resources alerts: Barnwell Industries has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Halcon Resources. Profitability Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Halcon Resources -324.96% -238.22% -73.12% Barnwell Industries -34.01% -48.90% -22.57% Insider and Institutional Ownership This table compares Halcon Resources and Barnwell Industries net margins, return on equity and return on assets. 40.7% of Barnwell Industries shares are held by institutional investors. 6.1% of Halcon Resources shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of Barnwell Industries shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth. Summary Barnwell Industries beats Halcon Resources on 7 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks. About Halcon Resources (Get Free Report) Halcon Resources Corporation, an independent energy company, engages in the acquisition, production, exploration, and development of onshore oil and natural gas assets in the United States. As of December 31, 2018, the company held interests in 56,900 net acres in the Delaware Basin, located in Pecos, Reeves, Ward, and Winkler Counties, Texas. As of December 31, 2018, it had estimated proved reserves of approximately 85.2 million barrels of oil equivalent comprising 50.7 million barrels of crude oil, 17.1 million barrels of natural gas liquids, and 104.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The company was formerly known as RAM Energy Resources, Inc. and changed its name to Halcon Resources Corporation in February 2012. Halcon Resources Corporation was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. On August 7, 2019, Halcon Resources Corporation along with its affiliates filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of Texas. About Barnwell Industries (Get Free Report) Barnwell Industries, Inc. acquires, develops, produces, and sells oil and natural gas in Canada. The company operates through three segments: Oil and Natural Gas, Land Investment, and Contract Drilling. It also acquires and develops crude oil and natural gas assets in the province of Alberta, as well as invests in land interests in Hawaii. In addition, the company owns and operates threes water well drilling rigs, two pump rigs, and other ancillary drilling and pump equipment; and drills water and water monitoring wells of varying depths. Further, it installs and repairs water pumping systems; and distributes trillium flow technologies. Barnwell Industries, Inc. was incorporated in 1956 and is based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Receive News & Ratings for Halcon Resources Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Halcon Resources and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. RPG Investment Advisory LLC increased its position in shares of iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF (NYSEARCA:IWF Free Report) by 92.6% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,778 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after buying an additional 1,336 shares during the quarter. RPG Investment Advisory LLCs holdings in iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF were worth $1,003,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Chicago Wealth Management Inc. increased its stake in iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF by 2.4% during the first quarter. Chicago Wealth Management Inc. now owns 22,889 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $8,265,000 after acquiring an additional 538 shares during the last quarter. Compound Planning Inc. increased its position in shares of iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF by 678.3% during the 1st quarter. Compound Planning Inc. now owns 36,665 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $13,239,000 after purchasing an additional 31,954 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its holdings in iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF by 7.6% in the 1st quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,587,669 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $573,196,000 after buying an additional 111,767 shares during the period. Bragg Financial Advisors Inc raised its holdings in iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF by 43.9% in the 1st quarter. Bragg Financial Advisors Inc now owns 1,904 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $688,000 after buying an additional 581 shares during the period. Finally, Clarkston Capital Partners LLC lifted its position in iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF by 7.8% in the first quarter. Clarkston Capital Partners LLC now owns 4,364 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $1,576,000 after buying an additional 316 shares during the last quarter. 75.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF alerts: iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF Price Performance Shares of IWF opened at $438.43 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $430.69 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $397.75. The stock has a market cap of $114.58 billion, a PE ratio of 33.43 and a beta of 1.08. iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF has a 1-year low of $308.67 and a 1-year high of $452.81. About iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares Russell 1000 Growth Index Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment returns that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Russell 1000 Growth Index (the Index). The Index measures the performance of equity securities of Russell 1000 index issuers with relatively higher price-to-book ratios and higher forecasted growth. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding IWF? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF (NYSEARCA:IWF Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Kelly Lawrence W & Associates Inc. CA acquired a new stake in shares of Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM Free Report) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 190 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $30,000. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Perigon Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Philip Morris International by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC now owns 14,087 shares of the companys stock worth $2,236,000 after buying an additional 60 shares during the last quarter. TBH Global Asset Management LLC raised its position in Philip Morris International by 0.9% in the 1st quarter. TBH Global Asset Management LLC now owns 6,932 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,100,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. NFP Retirement Inc. raised its position in Philip Morris International by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. NFP Retirement Inc. now owns 2,589 shares of the companys stock valued at $411,000 after purchasing an additional 62 shares during the last quarter. Capital Advisors Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Philip Morris International by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. Capital Advisors Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,005 shares of the companys stock valued at $477,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Renasant Bank raised its position in Philip Morris International by 3.3% in the 1st quarter. Renasant Bank now owns 1,994 shares of the companys stock valued at $317,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. 78.63% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Philip Morris International alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades PM has been the subject of several research reports. Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Philip Morris International from $225.00 to $220.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Citigroup reiterated an overweight rating on shares of Philip Morris International in a research report on Tuesday, July 22nd. KGI Securities initiated coverage on shares of Philip Morris International in a research report on Monday, August 4th. They issued an outperform rating for the company. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of Philip Morris International from $168.00 to $186.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, April 24th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of Philip Morris International from $182.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 4th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Philip Morris International currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $186.27. Philip Morris International Stock Performance Shares of PM opened at $174.2850 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $271.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.13, a P/E/G ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 0.48. The companys fifty day moving average is $173.94 and its two-hundred day moving average is $165.67. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 1 year low of $116.12 and a 1 year high of $186.69. Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 22nd. The company reported $1.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.86 by $0.05. Philip Morris International had a net margin of 9.03% and a negative return on equity of 120.86%. The company had revenue of $10.14 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.59 EPS. Philip Morris Internationals revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Philip Morris International has set its Q3 2025 guidance at 2.080-2.130 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 7.14 EPS for the current year. Philip Morris International Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 15th. Investors of record on Friday, June 27th were issued a dividend of $1.35 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 27th. This represents a $5.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.1%. Philip Morris Internationals payout ratio is currently 102.66%. About Philip Morris International (Free Report) Philip Morris International Inc operates as a tobacco company working to delivers a smoke-free future and evolving portfolio for the long-term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. The company's product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heat-not-burn, vapor, and oral nicotine products primarily under the IQOS and ZYN brands; and consumer accessories, such as lighters and matches. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Philip Morris International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Philip Morris International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. LY (OTCMKTS:YAHOY Get Free Report) and Carvana (NYSE:CVNA Get Free Report) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings and profitability. Risk & Volatility LY has a beta of 0.75, meaning that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Carvana has a beta of 3.57, meaning that its share price is 257% more volatile than the S&P 500. Get LY alerts: Earnings & Valuation This table compares LY and Carvanas gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio LY $12.59 billion 1.72 $1.01 billion $0.27 23.15 Carvana $13.67 billion 5.34 $210.00 million $3.99 85.05 LY has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Carvana. LY is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Carvana, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Institutional and Insider Ownership 56.7% of Carvana shares are held by institutional investors. 17.1% of Carvana shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term. Profitability This table compares LY and Carvanas net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets LY 7.78% 5.90% 2.18% Carvana 3.46% 40.57% 6.60% Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for LY and Carvana, as provided by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score LY 0 2 0 1 2.67 Carvana 0 6 12 0 2.67 Carvana has a consensus target price of $383.4706, indicating a potential upside of 13.00%. Given Carvanas higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Carvana is more favorable than LY. Summary Carvana beats LY on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks. About LY (Get Free Report) LY Corporation engages in the online advertising and e-commerce businesses in Japan. The company provides LINE, a communication app; and Yahoo! JAPAN, an internet service that offers search, news, weather, shopping, auction, and other services. It also offers reuse, membership, and payment-related services. The company was formerly known as Z Holdings Corporation and changed its name to LY Corporation in October 2023. LY Corporation was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Chiyoda, Japan. LY Corporation operates as a subsidiary of A Holdings Corporation. About Carvana (Get Free Report) Carvana Co., together with its subsidiaries, operates an e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars in the United States. Its platform allows customers to research and identify a vehicle; inspect it using company's 360-degree vehicle imaging technology; obtain financing and warranty coverage; purchase the vehicle; and schedule delivery or pick-up from their desktop or mobile devices. The company also operates auction sites. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Tempe, Arizona. Receive News & Ratings for LY Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for LY and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLC lessened its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Free Report) by 0.1% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 163,143 shares of the companys stock after selling 207 shares during the quarter. Merck & Co., Inc. makes up about 1.5% of Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLCs holdings, making the stock its 17th largest position. Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLCs holdings in Merck & Co., Inc. were worth $14,644,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 252,513,381 shares of the companys stock worth $22,665,601,000 after buying an additional 1,417,274 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 81,669,651 shares of the companys stock worth $7,330,668,000 after buying an additional 927,621 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 144.6% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 49,229,283 shares of the companys stock worth $4,418,820,000 after buying an additional 29,104,112 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 16.8% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 31,377,107 shares of the companys stock worth $3,121,395,000 after buying an additional 4,511,742 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 21.4% during the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 21,547,758 shares of the companys stock worth $2,143,571,000 after buying an additional 3,791,737 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.07% of the companys stock. Get Merck & Co. Inc. alerts: Merck & Co., Inc. Trading Up 1.7% Shares of MRK stock opened at $86.06 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $81.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $83.14. Merck & Co., Inc. has a twelve month low of $73.31 and a twelve month high of $120.30. The company has a market capitalization of $214.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.26, a PEG ratio of 0.89 and a beta of 0.38. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69. Merck & Co., Inc. Dividend Announcement Merck & Co., Inc. ( NYSE:MRK Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The company reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.03 by $0.10. Merck & Co., Inc. had a net margin of 25.79% and a return on equity of 41.05%. The company had revenue of $15.81 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.92 billion. Merck & Co., Inc. has set its FY 2025 guidance at 8.870-8.970 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Merck & Co., Inc. will post 9.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 7th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.81 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 15th. This represents a $3.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.8%. Merck & Co., Inc.s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.92%. Analysts Set New Price Targets MRK has been the subject of several research reports. Citigroup reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $84.00 price target (down previously from $115.00) on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a research note on Wednesday, May 14th. Cantor Fitzgerald downgraded shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from an overweight rating to a cautious rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 20th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from $97.00 to $90.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 30th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from $99.00 to $98.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $107.44. Get Our Latest Stock Report on Merck & Co., Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. Company Profile (Free Report) Merck & Co, Inc is a health care company, which engages in the provision of health solutions through its prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, animal health, and consumer care products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceutical, Animal Health, and Other. The Pharmaceutical segment includes human health pharmaceutical and vaccine products. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MRK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Merck & Co. Inc. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Merck & Co. Inc. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Procter & Gamble Company (The) (NYSE:PG Get Free Report) CEO Jennifer Davis sold 8,596 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $157.27, for a total transaction of $1,351,892.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 64,991 shares of the companys stock, valued at $10,221,134.57. This trade represents a 11.68% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Procter & Gamble Stock Down 0.5% PG stock opened at $158.7040 on Friday. Procter & Gamble Company has a one year low of $149.91 and a one year high of $180.43. The stock has a market capitalization of $371.74 billion, a PE ratio of 24.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.21 and a beta of 0.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 0.49 and a current ratio of 0.70. The company has a fifty day moving average of $156.82 and a 200-day moving average of $163.04. Get Procter & Gamble alerts: Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The company reported $1.48 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.42 by $0.06. Procter & Gamble had a net margin of 18.95% and a return on equity of 32.69%. The company had revenue of $20.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $20.79 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.40 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. Procter & Gamble has set its FY 2026 guidance at 6.830-7.090 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Procter & Gamble Company will post 6.91 EPS for the current year. Procter & Gamble Announces Dividend Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 18th were paid a $1.0568 dividend. This represents a $4.23 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, July 18th. Procter & Gambles dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 64.98%. PG has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Raymond James Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Procter & Gamble from $190.00 to $185.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Erste Group Bank cut shares of Procter & Gamble from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Morgan Stanley set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Procter & Gamble and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Procter & Gamble from $185.00 to $180.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Procter & Gamble from $160.00 to $164.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, May 5th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $175.94. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Procter & Gamble Hedge Funds Weigh In On Procter & Gamble Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC raised its position in shares of Procter & Gamble by 0.7% in the second quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 24,261 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,865,000 after buying an additional 167 shares during the last quarter. Clarion Wealth Managment Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,086,000. Saratoga Research & Investment Management raised its position in shares of Procter & Gamble by 27.6% in the second quarter. Saratoga Research & Investment Management now owns 208,643 shares of the companys stock valued at $33,241,000 after buying an additional 45,130 shares during the last quarter. North Dallas Bank & Trust Co. acquired a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter valued at approximately $2,333,000. Finally, Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Procter & Gamble by 10.1% in the second quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 10,660 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,698,000 after buying an additional 975 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 65.77% of the companys stock. About Procter & Gamble (Get Free Report) Procter & Gamble Co engages in the provision of branded consumer packaged goods. It operates through the following segments: Beauty, Grooming, Health Care, Fabric and Home Care, and Baby, Feminine and Family Care. The Beauty segment offers hair, skin, and personal care. The Grooming segment consists of shave care like female and male blades and razors, pre and post shave products, and appliances. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Procter & Gamble Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Procter & Gamble and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. RPG Investment Advisory LLC grew its stake in shares of International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM Free Report) by 100.9% in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 98,189 shares of the technology companys stock after buying an additional 49,318 shares during the period. International Business Machines makes up 1.7% of RPG Investment Advisory LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest holding. RPG Investment Advisory LLCs holdings in International Business Machines were worth $24,416,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Blue Edge Capital LLC increased its stake in International Business Machines by 0.6% in the first quarter. Blue Edge Capital LLC now owns 6,776 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $1,685,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. Tacita Capital Inc increased its stake in International Business Machines by 20.8% in the first quarter. Tacita Capital Inc now owns 232 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $58,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC increased its stake in International Business Machines by 0.9% in the first quarter. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC now owns 4,805 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $1,195,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares in the last quarter. DMC Group LLC increased its stake in International Business Machines by 1.2% in the first quarter. DMC Group LLC now owns 3,517 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $875,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fidato Wealth LLC increased its stake in International Business Machines by 2.4% in the first quarter. Fidato Wealth LLC now owns 1,824 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $454,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 58.96% of the companys stock. Get International Business Machines alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research firms have recently weighed in on IBM. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price target on shares of International Business Machines from $285.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. Melius Research upgraded shares of International Business Machines to a strong-buy rating in a report on Monday, July 7th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of International Business Machines from $195.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a sell rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of International Business Machines from $290.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, July 16th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of International Business Machines from $270.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $268.75. International Business Machines Stock Performance NYSE IBM opened at $239.2070 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. The firms fifty day moving average price is $270.32 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $258.17. International Business Machines Corporation has a 1 year low of $194.39 and a 1 year high of $296.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $222.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.73 and a beta of 0.69. International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 23rd. The technology company reported $2.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.65 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $16.98 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.58 billion. International Business Machines had a net margin of 9.11% and a return on equity of 37.62%. The companys revenue was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.43 earnings per share. International Business Machines has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that International Business Machines Corporation will post 10.78 EPS for the current year. About International Business Machines (Free Report) International Business Machines Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated solutions and services worldwide. The company operates through Software, Consulting, Infrastructure, and Financing segments. The Software segment offers a hybrid cloud and AI platforms that allows clients to realize their digital and AI transformations across the applications, data, and environments in which they operate. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding IBM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for International Business Machines Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for International Business Machines and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TJX Free Report) Equities research analysts at William Blair upped their Q3 2026 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for shares of TJX Companies in a report released on Thursday, August 21st. William Blair analyst D. Carden now expects that the apparel and home fashions retailer will post earnings of $1.18 per share for the quarter, up from their prior forecast of $1.17. The consensus estimate for TJX Companies current full-year earnings is $4.18 per share. William Blair also issued estimates for TJX Companies Q4 2026 earnings at $1.34 EPS, FY2026 earnings at $4.54 EPS and FY2027 earnings at $4.94 EPS. Get TJX Companies alerts: TJX Companies (NYSE:TJX Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 20th. The apparel and home fashions retailer reported $1.10 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.01 by $0.09. TJX Companies had a return on equity of 58.63% and a net margin of 8.59%.The company had revenue of $14.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $14.12 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.96 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. TJX Companies has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.520-4.570 EPS. Q3 2026 guidance at 1.170-1.190 EPS. A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on TJX. Bank of America increased their price objective on TJX Companies from $145.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday. Telsey Advisory Group reaffirmed an outperform rating and issued a $155.00 price target (up previously from $150.00) on shares of TJX Companies in a report on Wednesday. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an outperform rating on shares of TJX Companies in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. Daiwa Capital Markets initiated coverage on TJX Companies in a report on Tuesday, July 8th. They issued an outperform rating and a $133.00 price target on the stock. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on TJX Companies from $145.00 to $148.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $147.58. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on TJX TJX Companies Stock Performance Shares of TJX opened at $137.3490 on Friday. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $126.74 and its 200 day simple moving average is $125.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $153.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.18 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 0.51 and a current ratio of 1.17. TJX Companies has a 52-week low of $111.22 and a 52-week high of $145.58. TJX Companies Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 4th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 14th will be paid a $0.425 dividend. This represents a $1.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 14th. TJX Companiess payout ratio is 40.00%. Insider Buying and Selling at TJX Companies In other news, Director Amy B. Lane sold 950 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.09, for a total value of $121,685.50. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 22,712 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,909,180.08. The trade was a 4.01% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Lavaca Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of TJX Companies during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. TCTC Holdings LLC boosted its position in TJX Companies by 210.1% during the 1st quarter. TCTC Holdings LLC now owns 214 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 145 shares in the last quarter. Princeton Global Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in TJX Companies during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Howard Hughes Medical Institute bought a new stake in TJX Companies during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, Legacy Investment Solutions LLC bought a new stake in TJX Companies during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.09% of the companys stock. TJX Companies Company Profile (Get Free Report) The TJX Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. It operates through four segments: Marmaxx, HomeGoods, TJX Canada, and TJX International. The company sells family apparel, including footwear and accessories; home fashions, such as home basics, furniture, rugs, lighting products, giftware, soft home products, decorative accessories, tabletop, and cookware, as well as expanded pet, and gourmet food departments; jewelry and accessories; and other merchandise. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for TJX Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TJX Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM Get Free Report)s stock had its outperform rating reaffirmed by research analysts at Telsey Advisory Group in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $215.00 price target on the specialty retailers stock. Telsey Advisory Groups target price indicates a potential upside of 9.24% from the companys current price. Several other equities analysts have also commented on WSM. Evercore ISI decreased their price target on Williams-Sonoma from $175.00 to $170.00 and set an in-line rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 17th. Zelman & Associates started coverage on Williams-Sonoma in a research note on Thursday, May 15th. They set an underperform rating on the stock. Gordon Haskett raised Williams-Sonoma from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $205.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their target price on Williams-Sonoma from $182.00 to $212.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, August 14th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on Williams-Sonoma from $201.00 to $174.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 5th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Williams-Sonoma has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $180.18. Get Williams-Sonoma alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Williams-Sonoma Williams-Sonoma Stock Down 1.2% Shares of Williams-Sonoma stock opened at $196.82 on Friday. Williams-Sonoma has a 52 week low of $125.33 and a 52 week high of $219.98. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $179.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $172.96. The firm has a market cap of $24.21 billion, a PE ratio of 22.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.47. Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 22nd. The specialty retailer reported $1.85 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.09. Williams-Sonoma had a return on equity of 52.79% and a net margin of 14.35%.The business had revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.67 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.48 EPS. The companys quarterly revenue was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Williams-Sonoma will post 8.36 earnings per share for the current year. Insider Activity In other Williams-Sonoma news, CEO Laura Alber sold 30,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.18, for a total transaction of $5,045,400.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 966,927 shares in the company, valued at $162,617,782.86. This represents a 3.01% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Jeffrey Howie sold 4,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.96, for a total value of $675,840.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 34,388 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,810,196.48. This trade represents a 10.42% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 68,000 shares of company stock worth $11,279,580. 1.10% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Williams-Sonoma Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Maseco LLP purchased a new stake in Williams-Sonoma during the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC increased its holdings in Williams-Sonoma by 130.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 180 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 102 shares during the period. Quarry LP boosted its position in shares of Williams-Sonoma by 99.0% during the 1st quarter. Quarry LP now owns 199 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 99 shares in the last quarter. Sentry Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Williams-Sonoma during the 1st quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC acquired a new position in shares of Williams-Sonoma during the 1st quarter worth about $32,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.29% of the companys stock. About Williams-Sonoma (Get Free Report) Williams-Sonoma, Inc operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Williams-Sonoma Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Williams-Sonoma and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Trex (NYSE:TREX Get Free Report) and BlueLinx (NYSE:BXC Get Free Report) are both construction companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability and valuation. Get Trex alerts: Profitability This table compares Trex and BlueLinxs net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Trex 16.53% 21.27% 13.41% BlueLinx 0.96% 3.48% 1.39% Volatility & Risk Trex has a beta of 1.51, meaning that its share price is 51% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BlueLinx has a beta of 1.74, meaning that its share price is 74% more volatile than the S&P 500. Analyst Recommendations Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Trex 1 7 6 2 2.56 BlueLinx 0 1 2 0 2.67 This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Trex and BlueLinx, as reported by MarketBeat. Trex presently has a consensus price target of $71.9286, indicating a potential upside of 17.55%. BlueLinx has a consensus price target of $91.00, indicating a potential upside of 15.95%. Given Trexs higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Trex is more favorable than BlueLinx. Institutional & Insider Ownership 96.0% of Trex shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.8% of BlueLinx shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Trex shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.8% of BlueLinx shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term. Valuation and Earnings This table compares Trex and BlueLinxs gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Trex $1.15 billion 5.70 $226.39 million $1.73 35.37 BlueLinx $2.95 billion 0.21 $53.12 million $3.37 23.29 Trex has higher earnings, but lower revenue than BlueLinx. BlueLinx is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Trex, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Summary Trex beats BlueLinx on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks. About Trex (Get Free Report) Trex Company, Inc. manufactures and distributes composite decking, railing, and outdoor living products and accessories for residential and commercial markets in the United States. It offers decking products and accessories under the names Trex Transcend, Trex Select, Trex Signature, Trex Transcend Lineage, and Trex Enhance for protection against fading, staining, mold, and scratching; Trex Hideaway, a hidden fastening system; and Trex DeckLighting, a LED dimmable deck lighting for use on posts, floors, and steps. The company also provides Trex Transcend Railing products that are used in Trex decking products and other decking materials; Trex Select Railing products for a simple clean finished look; Trex Enhance Railing system; Trex Signature aluminum railing for a contemporary look; and Trex Select T-Rail railing products. In addition, it offers Trex Seclusions, a fencing product that includes structural posts, bottom and top rails, pickets, and decorative post caps. Further, the company acts as a licensor in various licensing agreements with third parties to manufacture and sell products under the Trex name, including Trex Outdoor Furniture; Trex RainEscape, an above joist deck drainage system; Trex Pergola, a cellular PVC product; Trex Latticeworks outdoor lattice boards; Trex Cornhole boards; Diablo Trex Blade, a saw blade for wood-alternative composite decking; Trex SpiralStairs and structural steel posts; and Trex Outdoor Kitchens, cabinetry, and Storage products. It sells its products through wholesale distributors, retail lumber dealers, and Home Depot and Lowes stores. Trex Company, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Winchester, Virginia. About BlueLinx (Get Free Report) BlueLinx Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the distribution of residential and commercial building products in the United States. It distributes specialty products, including engineered wood, siding, millwork, outdoor living, specialty lumber and panels, and industrial products; and structural products, such as lumber, plywood, oriented strand boards, rebars and remesh, as well as other wood products that are used for structural support in construction projects. It also provides various value-added services and solutions to customers and suppliers. The company serves national home centers, pro dealers, cooperatives, specialty distributors, regional and local dealers, and industrial manufacturers. BlueLinx Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Marietta, Georgia. Receive News & Ratings for Trex Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Trex and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Vanguard Group Inc. reduced its position in Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (NYSE:BKD Free Report) by 2.3% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 18,886,686 shares of the companys stock after selling 448,428 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. owned about 9.43% of Brookdale Senior Living worth $118,231,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Get Brookdale Senior Living alerts: Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of BKD. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in Brookdale Senior Living by 4.7% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 219,560 shares of the companys stock worth $1,104,000 after acquiring an additional 9,851 shares during the period. Barclays PLC grew its stake in Brookdale Senior Living by 11.0% in the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 358,032 shares of the companys stock worth $1,801,000 after acquiring an additional 35,365 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Brookdale Senior Living by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 7,140,601 shares of the companys stock worth $35,916,000 after acquiring an additional 164,239 shares during the period. MetLife Investment Management LLC grew its stake in Brookdale Senior Living by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 112,878 shares of the companys stock worth $568,000 after acquiring an additional 1,953 shares during the period. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky grew its stake in Brookdale Senior Living by 53.5% in the 4th quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 401,338 shares of the companys stock worth $2,019,000 after acquiring an additional 139,851 shares during the period. Brookdale Senior Living Stock Up 0.3% Shares of NYSE BKD opened at $7.3350 on Friday. Brookdale Senior Living Inc. has a 52-week low of $4.45 and a 52-week high of $8.01. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $7.30 and a 200-day moving average of $6.48. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.72 billion, a PE ratio of -6.99 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 39.87. Analysts Set New Price Targets Brookdale Senior Living ( NYSE:BKD Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The company reported ($0.18) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.14) by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $812.94 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $817.63 million. Brookdale Senior Living had a negative net margin of 7.60% and a negative return on equity of 107.19%. On average, analysts anticipate that Brookdale Senior Living Inc. will post -0.56 EPS for the current year. Several analysts have commented on the stock. Barclays set a $8.00 target price on shares of Brookdale Senior Living and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $9.00 price objective on shares of Brookdale Senior Living in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of Brookdale Senior Living from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Saturday, August 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Brookdale Senior Living currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $7.80. Read Our Latest Stock Report on BKD Brookdale Senior Living Profile (Free Report) Brookdale Senior Living Inc owns, manages, and operates senior living communities in the United States. It operates in three segments: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care, and Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs). The Independent Living segment owns or leases communities comprising independent and assisted living units in a single community that are primarily designed for middle to upper income seniors. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BKD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (NYSE:BKD Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Brookdale Senior Living Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Brookdale Senior Living and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. People have been advised against swimming at one of Northern Irelands most popular beaches after blue-green algae was detected. The notification has been placed on Benone Beach in Co Londonderry by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) ahead of the bank holiday weekend. The beach on the north coast, with its seven-mile stretch of sand and dunes, is popular with tourists. The announcement comes amid growing concerns over the spread of the algae in waterways across Northern Ireland, and particularly at Lough Neagh. A Daera statement said: Blue-green algae was observed on part of Benone Beach on Thursday through the Daera monitoring programme for bathing waters. Analysis has confirmed high levels of blue-green algae and the department has issued the bathing water operator, Causeway Coast and Glens Borough council, an Advice against Bathing notification. No other north coast beaches are affected at this time. The statement added: The department will continue to monitor these beaches for blue-green algae and provide advice to bathing water operators when required. A spokesperson for Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council said: A temporary Advice Against Bathing Notice has been issued for Benone Strand from Friday 22nd August 2025. This is an escalation from the amber to red level in accordance with the Inter-Agency Blue Green Algae Protocol. Daera will continue to monitor Benone Strand and advise of any changes. The department recently said the algae had been detected more than 100 times across Northern Ireland since the start of the year. Most attention has focused on Lough Neagh where noxious blooms of the algae covered large parts of the UKs largest freshwater lake by surface area for the third consecutive summer. Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertiliser running off fields and from wastewater treatment are said to be a contributory factor in the blue-green algae blooms. The spread of the invasive zebra mussel species is also understood to have played a role in the blooms, as they have made the water clearer, allowing more sunlight to penetrate, stimulating more algal photosynthesis. Climate change is another factor as water temperatures rise. The Stormont Executive last year launched an action plan to deal with the environmental crisis at the lough. Earlier this week, Environment minister Andrew Muir called for more support from his Stormont Executive colleagues to tackle the issues surrounding blue-green algae and the environmental crisis at Lough Neagh. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is preparing to open a corporate office in New Delhi within the coming months. This will be the companys first formal base in India, and the company has already started hiring to expand its local team, as per a report by Reuters. Jake Wilczynski, APAC head at OpenAI, on LinkedIn, stated, OpenAI is expanding to India! Later this year, well open our first India office in New Delhi. He also stated that weekly active users of ChatGPT in India increased by more than 4x in just the past year, and it ranks among the top 5 developer markets globally on the OpenAI platform. He also talked about the opportunity, stating India has the largest population of students on ChatGPT worldwide. Currently, OpenAI, as per the reports, has only one Indian employee- Pragya Misra, who heads public policy and partnerships and joined last year. Now, with the larger workforce on the ground, the company seems to be expanding the operations and aims to deepen its collaboration with the government, businesses, and developers in India, home to 1.4 billion people and a strong base of technology talent. The company has pledged to work alongside the federal government on its $1.2 billion IndiaAI Mission, which seeks to develop both large and small language models tailored to the region. The planned expansion also highlights OpenAIs intent to play a role in shaping early AI regulations in a market that offers vast opportunities but has historically posed challenges for global tech firms. As per the company, India is currently the second largest market for ChatGPT in terms of users. The company has also introduced an affordable monthly subscription plan called ChatGPT Go priced at Rs 399 for Indian users, aiming to increase its paid user base while offering better value to the Indian users. However, the tech giant will continue to offer free tier and premium plans as usual. Additionally, ChatGPT has also stated that OpenAI will host its first developer day in India later this year. Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. Google's AI glasses rumored to be made in Taiwan; HTC emerges as potential manufacturer HTC has reignited interest in AI eyewear with the recent launch of the Vive Eagle, the company's first AI glasses. Google is also rumored to have completed development of its own AI glasses, with Quanta in charge of prototype design. However, Google has yet to decide who will be its contract manufacturer. Although Quanta is a strong contender, market rumors suggest HTC may also produce Google's first AI glasses. HTC's Vive Eagle is the first set of AI glasses to support Traditional Chinese voice control, and is the world's first branded wearable device to adopt an open AI architecture, allowing users a highly personalized AI assistant experience through seamless integration with large language models such as Google Gemini and OpenAI's GPT. On August 21, 2025, HTC senior vice president Charles Huang stated that the company will continue to expand AI functions and application scenarios through software updates in the future. In Huang's opinion, the rapid development of generative AI, as well as mature AR/VR, cloud computing, and edge computing technologies, has brought diverse options and innovations to human-computer interaction. After smartphones and smartwatches, AI glasses are expected to emerge as essential mobile devices, which will drive rapid expansion across the industry. In addition, data shows that global smart glasses shipments grew by 210% year-over-year in 2024, with a further increase of 60% projected for 2025, and a compound annual growth rate over 60% through 2029, noted Huang. HTC boasts that the Vive Eagle is 100% made in Taiwan, produced primarily at the company's own Taoyuan facility. Google's first foray into AI glasses is reportedly to be "made in Taiwan" as well, sparking curiosity about which manufacturer will ultimately land the contract for this product. Although Quanta produced the prototype for Google's AI glasses, HTC recently transferred some AR/VR R&D personnel and non-exclusive licensed patents to Google for US$250 million, leaving room for future collaboration between the two companies. HTC previously sold its Powered by HTC smartphone division to Google for US$1.1 billion in a one-time deal, and some industry sources believe it might be less than ideal for HTC if the recent US$250 million transaction is also a one-off. Although contract manufacturing is no longer HTC's core business, the company has demonstrated that it does have the capacity by producing its own AI glasses. If HTC does manage to secure Google's manufacturing contract, this would be a major boon to the company in improving capacity utilization at its Taoyuan plant and expanding operations. Ultimately, however, this will depend on HTC's strategic plans. Article edited by Charlene Chen MinebeaMitsumi holds firm at JPY6,200, refuses to raise bid for Shibaura Electronics after Yageo increases offer Following Yageo's announcement on August 21, 2025, that it has increased its tender offer bid (TOB) for Shibaura Electronics to JPY6,635 (US$44.64) per share, up from JPY6,200, Japanese competitor MinebeaMitsumi declared it will not raise its offer beyond JPY6,200 per share, report Nikkei and Reuters. The acquisition battle for Shibaura Electronics has intensified over the past weeks, following initial bids from both Yageo and MinebeaMitsumi. MinebeaMitsumi had matched Yageo's previous bid of JPY6,200 on August 14. Yoshihisa Kainuma, chairman and CEO of MinebeaMitsumi, described the acquisition as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" but justified maintaining the bid at JPY6,200, calling it a reasonable cap under current conditions. Kainuma added that if Yageo raised its bid by only JPY200-300, they might have contested further. MinebeaMitsumi stops escalating bid amid strategic concerns However, Yageo's latest bid hike has led MinebeaMitsumi to cease any further price increases. The company emphasized its decision to avoid confusing shareholders by sticking to the JPY6,200 price point. MinebeaMitsumi also stated it would not extend the TOB deadline past August 28 unless legally obliged to do so. The protracted TOB process has included several deadline extensions, which MinebeaMitsumi attributes to complications from its own stock repurchase program, negatively affecting other strategic investments. Meanwhile, Yageo awaits clearance from Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA) review. The review period has been extended twice, with the current deadline set for September 1. Should Yageo pass this regulatory hurdle, MinebeaMitsumi's fixed bid may compel it to consider alternative countermeasures. Uncertainty looms over regulatory review and deal completion MinebeaMitsumi has expressed concern over the repeated delays in Yageo's regulatory review, describing the extensions as highly unusual and casting doubt on the likelihood of Yageo's bid succeeding. Yageo refuted these claims in a statement released on August 22, characterizing MinebeaMitsumi's remarks as unfounded speculation by outsiders not involved in the review process. Yageo stated that the remaining issues under review have been narrowed to a few specific points and committed to providing timely and proactive updates within the constraints of legal disclosure. The outcome of this competitive acquisition battle remains uncertain, with both companies maintaining firm positions. Stakeholders will be closely watching whether Yageo can secure the necessary approval and what strategic moves MinebeaMitsumi might employ in response. The result will significantly impact the direction of Shibaura Electronics amid a shifting global semiconductor landscape. Article edited by Charlene Chen India sees 30% tariffs fuel rise in smartphone exports to US in 1H25 India has overtaken China as the top smartphone exporter to the US, marking a major shift in global supply chains. According to Counterpoint Research and Canalys, Apple-led shipments drove a surge in India's exports in the first half of 2025, alongside strong growth in non-smartphone electronics. According to Counterpoint Research, India's smartphone export volumes surged 30% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, led by Apple's push to ship iPhones to the US ahead of tariff-driven cost pressures. The US accounted for 54% of India's shipments during the period, up sharply from 30% a year earlier, while Europe's share slipped as Apple diverted inventory to North America. The iPhone 16 was the most exported model, making up 18% of all smartphone exports. Motorola also posted standout growth, with exports rising sevenfold, nearly all to the US, as the brand capitalized on early product launches and market gaps left by competitors. Samsung's exports were largely focused on Western Europe, but its shipments to the US jumped 268% year-on-year. Overall, Apple's exports from India climbed 53% in H1 2025, surpassing 20 million units for the first time in a half-year period. Complementing this, Canalys data underscored a historic shift: India overtook China as the leading smartphone exporter to the US in the second quarter of 2025. Devices assembled in India accounted for 44% of US imports, up from just 13% a year ago, while China's share collapsed from 61% to 25%. Vietnam also surpassed China with a 30% share. Canalys attributed India's rise to Apple's accelerated supply chain diversification as US-China trade uncertainty deepens. India's export growth extends well beyond smartphones. The Economic Times, citing the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council, reported that non-smartphone electronics exports exceeded US$14 billion in FY 202425, contributing to total electronics exports of US$38.57 billion, a 32.5% annual increase. Key contributors included photovoltaic cells (US$1.12 billion), telecom equipment (US$1.4 billion), rectifiers, inverters, and chargers (over US$2.5 billion), medical electronics (US$0.4 billion), and PCs and digital processing units (US$0.81 billion). India smartphone export value (US$m) Country Jan-Jun 2024 (F) Jan-Jun 2025 (F) Growth (%) US 4,032.69 11,460.22 184.18 UAE 989.64 1,587.67 60.43 Australia 498 511.55 2.72 UK 740.73 461.68 -37.67 Netherlands 841.42 421.59 -49.9 Czech 536.36 278.31 -48.11 Germany 241.6 276.01 14.24 Italy 579.19 275.76 -52.39 Japan 56.75 254.62 348.63 France 177.06 168.95 -4.58 Total 9,960.82 16,728.45 67.94 Source: Department of Commerce of India, August 2025 Article edited by Jack Wu The Lotto Jackpot is an estimated 16.5 million for tomorrow night's draw, Saturday August 23. This is the highest the prize pot has been since 2021. With the historic 250 million EuroMillions jackpot being won in Ireland in July, it begs the question could you be Ireland's ninth Lotto millionaire of 2025 in tomorrow night's draw? ? Ahead of this potentially life-changing draw, Lotto winners around the country have been rejoicing their monumental wins at the National Lottery Headquarters (HQ) in Dublin. Players from Donegal, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway have come forward this past week to collect their prize money and tell their stories of winning big. From morning rituals to long-standing routines, each win tells a story of celebration and surprise. Read next: 'Close your doors and go away' - Irish woman angry at assisted suicide clinic's changes Aman from Limerick has made the trip to Lottery HQ to collect his cheque of 500,000 after scoring the EuroMillions Plus top prize in the Friday, August 15 draw. His winning ticket was purchased from Day Today Rathkeale, New Line, Rathkeale, Co. Limerick. Speaking on his big win: "I've been playing EuroMillions for years, and I've had a few decent wins, but this is certainly the biggest prize. But this time, I misread my ticket and thought I'd matched less numbers than I actually had. Turns out, I was 498,000 off!" He is planning a family celebration and says he's grateful to be able to look after his loved ones. In Donegal, A National Lottery player collected his cheque for 250,000, after winning the Lotto Plus 2 top prize in the Saturday August 9 draw. The winning ticket was purchased at Daly's Topaz, Daly Brothers Retail Ltd, Lifford. Eplaining how he found out about his life changing win: "I was sitting outside enjoying my morning coffee when I scanned my ticket. ' You've Won Big' popped up on screen, I couldn't believe it. I paced the house in total shock and spent the past week worrying I'd lose my wallet for the first time in 20 years!" This Donegal player plans use his winnings to enjoy a well-deserved holiday and support his nearest and dearest. In Tipperary, a woman claimed 108,042 in the Lotto Match 5 + Bonus from the Saturday, August 9 draw. Her winning ticket was purchased at Dunnes Stores, Ann Brook Shopping Centre, Nenagh. The woman expressed her shock when she found out of her win: "I never thought this would happen to me. I kept checking and re-scanning the ticket, thinking it just couldn't be right." With no immediate plans to spend her winnings, she has stated that she is looking forward to celebrating with her family. Finally in Galway, a woman's patience finally paid off as she won the Telly Bingo Snowball jackpot on Thursday, August 14, receiving a 40,010 prize pot. The woman expressed disbelief on her win that: ""I've been playing Telly Bingo ever since it started and I can't believe I've finally won the Snowball prize!" Her winning ticket was purchased from News N Choose, Main Street, Loughrea, Co Galway. Reminiscing on her win she explained: "I was pausing and playing to mark off my numbers. When there were no more numbers left to tick off, I just sat there in disbelief. The house was busy at the time, and I let out a scream - first from shock, then pure excitement! Everyone was wondering what had just happened." She's looking forward to celebrating with her family at their next gathering and plans to share her prize with those closest to her. With tomorrow night's Lotto jackpot an estimated 16.5 million, tickets for Saturday night's draw can be purchased in-store, through the National Lottery app or at http://www.lottery.ie ahead of the 7.45pm cut-off time for sales. If not won before its cap of 19.06 million, a Will-Be-Won draw will occur if the top prize is not won within five consecutive roll-overs. In advance of Budget 2026, Louth hoteliers are calling on the Government to deliver targeted measures to safeguard the long-term viability of Irish tourism and hospitality. The upcoming Budget takes place against a backdrop of ongoing challenges for local tourism businesses, including serious cost competitiveness issues for hospitality food-related services. James McKenna, IHF Mourne Boyne Lakes Branch Representative notes that, as Irelands largest indigenous and regional employer, tourism and hospitality supports over 270,000 livelihoods nationally including 3,000 jobs locally in Louth. Mr McKenna says: It is vital that the Government takes decisive action to place Irish tourism and hospitality on a more stable and competitive footing. Local businesses in Louth are struggling to deal with exceptionally high operating costs and tight margins. This is especially challenging for regional food businesses. These businesses are now threading a fine line between covering ever-increasing costs and losing competitiveness. This comes at a time when Irish tourism is experiencing difficult headwinds on multiple fronts, including declining tourism revenues, economic challenges across our key source markets, increased political uncertainty internationally and the fallout from EU/US tariffs. These factors collectively pose significant threats to the wider tourism and hospitality industry. Mr McKenna urges the Government to deliver on its commitment to reduce the rate of VAT on hospitality food business: A rate of 9% VAT for food related services would align us with the majority of our European competitors. "For instance, Germany has recently announced a reduction in its VAT rate on food services to 7% from January next year, down from 19% currently in place. This move recognises the broader social and economic role played by the hospitality sector and the particular challenges facing food businesses. We need a similar approach here in Ireland without delay. Restoring the 9% VAT rate for food-related services from January would be a vital policy intervention for a sector that contributes significantly to our economy as a driver of regional employment, economic diversification and rural development. He notes that eighteen of the EUs 27 member states apply a food VAT rate lower than Irelands 13.5%. The average rate among those 18 countries is just 9.5%. This makes Irelands food VAT rate an outlier in the EU and places unnecessary strain on the countrys food industry. Irish Hotels Federations key policy priorities for Budget 2026: This September, Ann Shortt will once again lace up her walking shoes to lead the Drogheda Alzheimer's Memory Walk supported by Aviva marking her sixth consecutive year at the helm of this heartfelt community event. Taking place on Sunday, 21st September at 2pm in St Dominics Park, the event coincides with World Alzheimers Day this year, a global moment to reflect, raise awareness, and support those affected by dementia. Anns journey with the Alzheimer Society of Ireland began 26 years ago, when her father was diagnosed with dementia. The local Day Care Centre in Drogheda, Louth became a lifelinenot just for her dad, who attended five days a week and adored his time therebut also for her mum, his primary carer, and the entire family. It was a place of comfort, connection, and care, Ann recalls. It made a huge difference to all of us. After her fathers passing, Ann deepened her involvement with the Alzheimer Society, turning her gratitude into action. She became a passionate fundraiser and played a key role in the development of the new centre in Drogheda. I was delighted to give back, she says. It felt like the right way to honour my dad and support others going through similar experiences. Now, the Drogheda Alzheimer's Memory Walk supported by Aviva has become a cherished annual tradition. With options for a 5km or 10km route, the walk is designed for all ages and abilities, with a relaxed pace and a refreshment stop along the way. Its always a lovely day out, Ann says. People come together, share stories, make connections, and create lovely memories. Ann hopes this years walk will be the biggest and best yet, with participants already signing up. Memory Walk is so important, she emphasises. It helps raise awareness around dementia and Alzheimers, and it brings people together in a really meaningful way. Whether you're walking in memory of a loved one, supporting a friend, or simply showing solidarity, the Drogheda Alzheimer's Memory Walk supported by Aviva promises to be a powerful and uplifting event. Join Ann and the community on 21st September to walk, remember, and make a difference. Read Next: Plans progressing for large windfarm in Louth Alzheimers Memory Walk supported by Aviva honours, remembers, and celebrates the 64,000 people in Ireland living with dementia, along with their families and carers. It also cherishes the memory of those who are no longer with us. In 2024, almost 3,500 walkers participated in Memory Walk and raised over 150,000 which helped fund vital services for people with dementia, including Daycare, Support Groups, Family Carer Training, Social Clubs, Cafes, and a National Helpline. To find out more and to register for the Drogheda Alzheimers Memory Walk supported by Aviva or another location near you, please visit www.memorywalk.ie Share your Memory Walk experience on social media using: #ASIMemoryWalk2025 #WalkWithAviva #ASIMakingMemories There's good news for Louth commuters as An Coimisiun Pleanala have approved the Railway Order application for DART+ Coastal North, which will extend the electrified DART network from Malahide to Drogheda. Funded by the Department of Transport through the National Transport Authority, under Project Ireland 2040, the project will significantly increase the peak hourly capacity and frequency on the Northern route between Dublin city and Malahide, Howth and Drogheda. The section between Malahide and Drogheda (as part of the service between Dublin city and Drogheda) will nearly double capacity from about 4,800 to 8,800 passengers at peak hour/direction when complete. This increase in services will be subject to demand and will be part of a separate timetable consultation process in conjunction with the NTA. The planned infrastructure improvements as part of DART+ Coastal North include: 37km of electrification and re-signalling of the railway line between Malahide and Drogheda MacBride Stations. Reconstruction of the existing track layout and associated infrastructure in the vicinity of Drogheda MacBride, Malahide, Clongriffin and Howth Junction & Donaghmede Stations; including a new platform at Drogheda MacBride Station, and infrastructure to enable operational flexibility for both direct Howth to city and Howth to Howth Junction DART shuttle services as required. shuttle services as required. All civil, bridge and ancillary works as necessary to accommodate the project. Improvement of Howth Junction & Donaghmede Station. Modification to Fairview and Drogheda train Depots to support the new train fleet. Reconfiguration of track layout north of Malahide to provide a train turnback facility that does not move rail operations nearer to adjacent residences. The procurement process will now commence for a design and build contractors. Once the contractors has been appointed, a period of detailed design will commence followed by construction. Subject to funding being allocated it is anticipated that construction will be in the region of three years. Chief Executive of Iarnrod Eireann Jim Meade said: Today is a great day for the communities of North Dublin and Louth. The provision of DART services will transform commuting for the existing and new communities along this railway corridor. It will make travelling with us more sustainable, more frequent and more reliable. This is the third DART+ project to receive planning. DART+ West Railway Order was granted in July 2024 and DART+ South West was granted In November 2024. Work is underway on preliminary design for DART+ Coastal South and for DART+ Depot. The DART+ programme, when delivered will truly revolutionise commuting in the Greater Dublin Area and assist in meeting Irelands climate action targets by reducing reliance on the private car and providing sustainable high frequency, high capacity transport. Hugh Creegan from the National Transport Authority said: "This approval of DART+ Coastal North is a significant milestone in the transformation of rail services in the Greater Dublin Area and for the communities across North Dublin, East Meath, and Louth. This is more than about infrastructure. It is about connecting growing communities with sustainable, frequent and reliable transport that supports local development and helps reduce car dependency. Reaching this milestone marks an important step in delivering a better-connected public transport for the region." Read Next: Ann Shortt leads Louths Alzheimer's Memory Walk Minister for Transport Darragh OBrien said: I welcome todays planning decision in relation to DART+ Coastal North, which enables overhead electric wires to be extended from Malahide to Drogheda. This will facilitate a significant improvement in train capacity and frequency on the Northern commuter line, following project procurement and construction. In the meantime, I look forward to the launch of the sustainable new DART+ battery-electric train fleet, which is currently undergoing testing and which will be initially deployed on the Northern line between Dublin and Drogheda when operational. This roll-out of new DART trains to Drogheda will provide a noticeable boost to commuters along the route. Dundalk Womens Shed is inviting women from Dundalk and the surrounding areas to a free pop up Summer Coffee Morning on Monday 25 August at 10.30-11.45 in their usual meeting place, Wellington Hall St Marys Road A91 XH21. Don't forget to wear your favourite summer sunhat! The group wants to let people know about their September programme for Mondays and about an interesting event they are taking part in to open their autumn programme on the weekend of 6-7 September. Dundalk Womens Shed is open to women of all ages over 18. They meet every Monday in Wellington Hall and offer a programme of interesting talks, exercise, dance, and new therapies. They also offer a walking club, book club and scrabble club. They organise excursions and regularly have a party and lots of fun! Members can go when they like and just pay a small entrance fee to cover coffee and the costs for the meeting. Read also: Womens Wellness event at Dundalk's Creative Spark Dundalk Womens Shed was set up in September 2022 and now has a membership of over 80 women. On average 50 meet up each week and have a lively morning where they learn new things, find out what is going on in the town and in Louth, meet new people and make new friends. Their members say: It makes a great start to my week I have made so many new friends at the Shed I never knew there was so much going on in the town and so many services to avail of" So head along and meet up with old members and new and get ready to enjoy an exciting September programme with Dundalk Womens Shed. It is open to women over 18 from the town and the surrounding areas of Louth. For further information see www.facebook.com/DundalkWomensShed or call 087 0009890/086 8241514. State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Postal Code Michael Collins has been the subject of more biography, commemoration, politicisation, and artistic expression than any other character in modern Irish history. So why another book? The study of history never stands still. New methodology, new source material, and alternative interpretation will continue to alter our understanding. There will be new biographies of Collins. But this is not one of them. This book concentrates on what happened after Collins died, and how his memory was used, and sometimes abused, in the construction of the historiography and mythology which informed of the man and propagated the legend. From the moment he died 103 years ago today, on August 22, 1922, Collins became both the memory of a man and a symbol of political ideology. Because his own political thought process could no longer evolve, his symbolism could be used to advance any political viewpoint. In Michael Collins House Museum in Clonakilty, near his birth place, people frequently tell us what Collins would have thought about everything, from immigration to vaccination. The new book, In The Shadow Of The Big Fellow, by Cal McCarthy, will be launched in Michael Collins House Museum in Clonakilty tonight, August 22, on the anniversary of the death of Collins in 1922 Politicians have informed the public (often with a straight face) about his views on issues such as housing and Irelands membership of the European Union. The symbolic Collins is all things to all men. In the immediate aftermath of his death, Collins was the ultimate symbol of stability sought by the Free State Government of the time. His enormous funeral was both a very genuine outpouring of a nations grief, and a political spectacle for a government almost literally under siege. It was followed up by the rushed commissioning of a huge temporary cenotaph dedicated to both Collins and Arthur Griffith - who had died ten days before Collins - on the lawn of Leinster House. Kevin OHiggins was added later to complete the Free States holy trinity. For a few years, the cenotaph was the focal point of a huge military parade held every August. But, by the late 1920s it was showing its age and the Government was warned that it might fall. By then, some of Collins closest comrades had fallen out with WT Cosgraves Government and had almost expressed their outrage at the downsizing of the Army, in mutiny. Cast into the political wilderness, those men commemorated Collins at his grave in Glasnevin every year. They were a visible reminder that the Free States new elite did not have the approval of all of Collins comrades and that was the likely reason that Cumann na nGaedheal failed to mark Collins grave despite his brothers requests. The stone originally intended for that purpose was ultimately erected in Beal na Blath in 1924. By the time that Collins Free State comrades departed government in 1932, their actions and inactions had ensured that Eamon de Valera inherited a crumbling cenotaph and an unmarked grave. Faced with the choice of tearing the cenotaph down to facilitate its replacement, or letting it fall, de Valera knew that either action would result in his being accused of disrespecting Collins. He opted for the former course and co-operated with his Fine Gael opposition to design a new cenotaph. It was eventually completed after World War II and stands on Leinster Lawn to this day - though most people probably dont even know its there. de Valera also did what Cosgrave had never done and made provision for Collins grave to be marked. Later, a misunderstanding regarding the legal process surrounding that marking, ensured that he was accused of petty vindictiveness in ascribing measurements to the headstone. It was the story of his post-Collins political life. No matter how many Collins masses de Valera attended, he could never attend enough. Whatever he said, he shouldnt have said, and what he didnt say should have been said. Even his oft quoted opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins and it will be recorded at my expense, may never have been uttered. If he did say it, it was used as a diplomatic refusal to patronise a Collins memorial body which was then openly involved in an internal Fine Gael dispute. It was all part of a well-worn narrative where Fianna Fail (often petulantly) ignored Collins, and Fine Gael (often erroneously) accused them of calculated disrespect. Fine Gael governments sent the Army to Beal na Blath to honour the Commander in Chief, Fianna Fail argued that the office pre-dated the Civil War and didnt send the Army to any Civil War commemoration of either side. Each accused the other of failing to heal the wounds of the past. Cork Fianna Fail Taoiseach Jack Lynch eventually relented and sent the Army in 1972. Shortly afterwards, Liam Cosgrave decided that the Armys presence was no longer necessary. By then, the Beal na Blath commemorations had lost their Civil war edge and their orations frequently focused on criticism of the violence then being perpetrated by the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. The Northern conflict overshadowed the evolution of Collins symbolism too. Although he had featured in Hollywood films under different guises, he was on his way to his eponymous silver screen debut before violence broke out in 1969. That ensured that Neil Jordan would have the honour of debuting Collins almost as soon as that violence subsided almost 30 years later. With Jordans film came a boost in books sales, tourism products, and even whiskeys and beers donning Collins name. From political symbol to icon of commemorative fervour, and from historical study to tourism product, this book builds on the work of others like Ann Dolan and William Murphy in examining what they called the after-life of Michael Collins. In The Shadow Of The Big Fellow is the first major publication from Michael Collins House Museum and builds on the Cork County Council museums content to help grow public understanding of Irelands revolutionary past in an accessible manner. The publication, made possible with the support of the Cork County Council Commemoration Committee, provides an intriguing read for both enthusiasts and academics, as well as the more casual reader. Nearly 2m in parking fines has been collected across Cork county since the start of 2020, with the majority issued in Kanturk, Mallow, Bandon, and Kinsale. A total of 1.9m in fines was issued from January 1, 2020, to July 21 this year, data provided to The Echo by Cork County Council has shown, with the amount of the fines increasing year-on-year. A total of 123,710 was paid in East Cork, 252,590 in Cobh, 49,680 in Blarney and Macroom, 251,965 in West Cork, 501,610 in Kanturk and Mallow, 231,775 in Fermoy, 448,388.98 in Bandon and Kinsale, and 68,860 in Ballincollig and Carrigaline. Cork County Council provides parking in towns across the county, and parking fines are administered centrally, through its parking fines office, with traffic wardens employed directly by the council. Both traffic wardens and An Garda Siochana enforce laws relating to illegal parking, with the figures provided by Cork County Council relating only to fines issued by the council. Parking fines must be paid to local authorities within 28 days of the date of the fixed-charge notice being issued. Failure to pay within the allotted 28 days results in the charge increasing by 50%. If the fine is unpaid after a further 28 days, court proceedings are initiated. Figures previously provided to The Echo showed that, in the first six months of this year, 350 fines were issued in relation to illegal parking in disabled bays, marking a 14% increase on the 307 fines issued in relation to the same issue in 2024. Fixed charge notices (FCNs) issued by gardai for parking or stopping in a disabled parking bay, as previously revealed by The Echo, show that there were 98 fines in Cork county in 2023, 90 in 2024, and 30 in 2025 to the end of June a 33% decrease which a Cork councillor theorised at the time was due to a lack of garda resources. In comparison, fines collected by the local authority have increased each year. The total figures across the county equate to 202,790 in 2020, 249,565 in 2021, 311,805 in 2022, 423,228.98 in 2023, 468,785 in 2024, and 272,405 in 2025 so far. The amount paid in the first 202 days of the year to July 21 equates to an average of 1,348.50 a day. This suggests fines could reach a total of 492,217 by years end, which would mark a slight increase from when the daily average was 1,280.80 in 2024. There was a 131% increase from 2020 to 2024 and, if the local authority continues collecting fines at the same rate this year, there will be a further 5% rise, bringing the six-year increase to 143%. This year, 70,055 has been collected from parking tickets in the Kanturk and Mallow areas the highest total in the county followed by 61,145 in Bandon and Kinsale. This was followed by 38,375 in parking ticket payments in Fermoy, 36,890 in West Cork, 28,180 in Cobh, and 25,200 in East Cork. LOWEST The areas with the lowest amount in parking fines were Blarney and Macroom with 4,900, along with Carrigaline and Ballincollig with 7,660. In 2024, Kanturk/Mallow also saw the highest number of fines issued at 118,825; followed again by Bandon Kinsale with 93,910; Fermoy with 71,595; Cobh with 70,695; West Cork with 55,345; East Cork with 36,220, Ballincollig and Carrigaline with 14,630; and Blarney/Macroom at 7,565. Similarly in 2023, Kanturk Mallow saw 110,485 in fines paid; followed by 106,093.98 in Bandon and Kinsale; 61,410 in Cobh; 60,805 in Fermoy; 33,605 in West Cork; 23,560 in East Cork; 16,295 in Ballincollig and Carrigaline, and 10,975 in Blarney and Macroom. Of the total over the last five-and-a-half years, 1,364,560 was paid online, 447,740 was paid at cash offices, and 116,278.98 was paid in other ways. A teenager has been charged with the murder of Irish Rail worker Ian Walsh in his Tipperary home. Nathan Hanlon, aged 19, was charged with Mr Walshs murder at 62 Ravenswood Estate on Cregg Rd, Carrick-on-Suir. Mr Walsh, 49, was found dead at his home on Cregg Rd, on August 4. Sergeant Denis Ryan told a special sitting of Clonmel District Court that Mr Hanlon was arrested on suspicion of murder on Wednesday at 1 Castle View, Ballyneale. Mr Hanlon made no reply after caution, Sgt Ryan said, and he was handed a true copy of the charge sheet after his arrest. Mr Hanlon, of 1 Castle View, Ballyneale, Carrick-an-Suir, was remanded in custody by Judge Miriam Walsh. He will next appear before Clonmel District court on August 26. His solicitor, John M Joy, asked that his client appear in person, rather than via video link, on that date. Mr Joy requested a psychological assessment for the accused. He also requested legal aid. No bail application could be made in the district court on a murder charge. The defendant, who appeared yesterday before Clonmel District Court, wore a black top, black trousers, and black trainers. His dark hair was neatly cropped. Latest At Colaiste Eamann Ris in Turners Cross, students came into school after getting their results to celebrate together with their friends and teachers. Principal Aaron Wolfe said: Theres a fantastic buzz, theyve done super this is the day that makes teaching worthwhile for all the staff. Its brilliant to see their success after all the effort and hard work they put in, a really good ending to our time together. Theyre going to go on and do wonderful things now, theyre our future. He added that it was great that so many of them had turned up to share in their joy, saying its a sign that we have a good relationship with them. Zak Gilley, Luke Kiely and James Ryan celebrate after getting an incredible 7 H1 grades in their Leaving Cert at Christian Brothers College in Cork. Picture: David Creedon One leaving cert student, Luke Wallace, told The Echo: Im happy with myself, I got what I was looking for and I think I did very well, adding that he was now waiting for CAO results next week. I was very nervous about the results but Im delighted, and so is my family, he said, adding that celebrations were in order now. Fionn Sheehan said he was pleased with all his results, particularly his H1 in maths: The exam went well, everything went perfectly on the day it all went my way and its thanks to my maths teacher who did extra classes with us. Im absolutely delighted overall, I got 523 and I only needed 460 so I doubt the points for my course will go up 60. Earlier Congratulations for the more than 7,000 Cork students receiving Leaving Certificate results today have poured in, as one Cork school celebrates 10 of its students receiving the maximum 625 points. The State Examinations Commission (SEC) the results available from 10am today to students who sat this years Leaving Certificate Established, Leaving Certificate Applied and Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme examinations, including 7,007 Cork students. The principal of Christian Brothers College in Cork, David Lordon, has said that 10 students at CBC have received 625 points, with five students achieving an incredible 7 H1 grades. Five students were awarded 6 H1s. Very proud In total, 149 students received their results today in the college with 21 students obtaining more than 600 points. Mr Lordon said the collage was "very proud" to congratulate the Leaving Cert Class of 2025 on todays exceptional results. "The weeks leading up to today have doubtless been a nervous time for everyone, but Im sure when they logged on this morning to view their results, they felt that all their effort and sacrifice had paid off. This Leaving Certificate experience has very much been a collaborative journey, making today equally meaningful for their families and teachers who have encouraged and mentored them throughout the process," he added "Today marks an exciting time for our students as they look forward to new possibilities and adventures in third level and beyond. Huge achievement Minister of state at the Department of Education and Cork TD Michael Moynihan congratulated the students across the country receiving their Leaving Certificate examination results today. Bandon Grammar School students met in the courtyard of the school to share their results with their classmates. The German class of 2025 Belle O'Brien; Sarah Lane; Cian Sheridan and Tadhg O Conchuir with their subject teacher Rachel Darby. Picture: Andy Gibson. Mr Moynihan said that it was a huge achievement, regardless of the results themselves. Congratulations to every student collecting your Leaving Certificate results today in what is a fantastic achievement. You have put in so much time, effort, and hard work to get to this moment, and your resilience and dedication are truly a testament to your character. I hope you feel immense pride in everything you've accomplished and in the many ways you have enriched your school community over the past few years," said Mr Moynihan. New beginning This is a new beginning for you, and as you look to the future, remember that a wide range of opportunities and supports are available to help you achieve your goals and realise your full potential. Vakare Visalgaite, Noah Cahill and Emily Ramsamy, looking happy after receiving their Leaving Cert results at Davis College in Mallow, Co Cork. Picture: David Keane. Whether your path leads to further education, an apprenticeship, or the workforce, the skills you've gained are a solid foundation for your next steps. The future is yours to shape, so go forward with confidence," he added. To your families, teachers, and school communities, thank you for guiding, inspiring, and supporting each student to get to this day. Your encouragement and belief have been instrumental in their success. We wish every student the very best for the future and are excited to see the amazing things they will achieve. President of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), Padraig Curley, also congratulated all students. Your whole school community is proud of you, especially your teachers. A joyful moment at the Cork Life Centre as Jack OLeary, Francesca Ring and Kevin Riordan leap from the steps with their Leaving Cert results in hand. Picture Chani Anderson All of you have achieved an important milestone in your lives. I advise you to stay calm and take time to explore your many options over the coming days and weeks. Even if you do not receive your dream CAO choice, know that life has a habit of offering meaningful pathways," he said. Talk to your school, your guidance counsellor and your family. Know that the skills, experiences and resilience you have developed in the last number of years will stand to you as you move to the next phase of your lives. A Cork law firm has been awarded a 25,000 grant to support the recruitment of trainee solicitors. Barry Fleming and Barrett Solicitors in Bandon received the funding from the Law Society of Ireland under a grant scheme that aims to assist small legal practices bolster their workforce. The Corkp-based firm was one of five practices to benefit this year from the Law Society Small Practice Traineeship Grant. Since 2020, the society has invested 775,000 in regional solicitor practice grants, to support the growth of legal services in communities. The grant assists with the cost of employing a trainee solicitor and is available to smaller solicitor practices outside the main urban districts of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Galway. Trainee solicitors benefit from 7,000 towards their solicitor training at the Law Society, the Professional Practice Course (PPC). Eamon Harrington, president of the Law Society, said that investing in the sustainability of regional legal practices is vital to increase access to legal services in communities across the country. The Small Practice Traineeship Grant is part of the Law Society Access Programme, said Mr Harrington. This programme is a strategic drive to break down barriers to legal education, support access to community-based legal services all over Ireland, and foster the development of the next generation of solicitors. Supporting regional legal practices to thrive is a win for aspiring solicitors, for regional practices, and the communities they serve. In some instances, this grant has been a game-changer for some regional legal practices, offering the opportunity to take on a trainee solicitor for the first time, he added. For the next generation of solicitors, this grant provides the opportunity to stay and work in their hometowns, without having to relocate to a larger city for work. Celebrations were in order as Cork students received their leaving certificate results on Friday, with principals congratulating all their students, including several who received 625, the maximum amount of points. The State Examinations Commission (SEC) made Leaving Certificate 2025 results available from 10am on Friday to students who sat this years Leaving Certificate, including 7,007 Cork students. Taoiseach Micheal Martin told The Echo: Its a major day for students but I would say congratulations in the first instance on the results. Keep everything in perspective, keep calm theres tremendous options thankfully today and different routes to achieve your goals and objectives, theres many different courses and programmes available and lots of different pathways to getting to getting to where you want to a career or a vocation. For all of, the Leaving Cert is probably the most significant exam we ever did, and I know thats the same for students today. Luckily theres plenty of opportunities and choices for them they should keep that in mind and be positive. Kieran Golden, Principal of Mayfield Community School, told The Echo: Im really proud of our students and staff with our excellent results, reflects the great effort being put in. Delighted to see their hard work being rewarded great turnout of students called to our school and met with guidance counsellor, our school chaplain, year tutor and staff. Its really nice to see their parents calling to the school as well as it is a family effort to get across the line. Some students are going directly into employment, onto further education and next Wednesday, we will be able to confirm college places. Those students opting for university appeared to be confident that they will get their places - exciting times ahead. Principal of Colaiste an Spioraid Naoimh, Colman OTuama told The Echo: We had one student, Kieran Sisk Ravindran, get nine H1s, six boys in total got 625, and 13 of our boys got 600 plus points. Its just a fantastic achievement, a testament to their ability, the work theyve put in, the support theyve got from teachers and home as well its everyone working together. Kieran Sisk Ravindran, Colaiste an Spioraid Naoimh student who got 9 H1s, with the retiring/outgoing Principal, Ms. Brenda Moriarty. Theyre celebrating and happy with their results, looking forward to the future, whatever that may bring. It closes the chapter for the boys here, they turn the page then with the CAO offers and will move forward to great things were thrilled for them. At Colaiste Eamann Ris, students came into school after getting their results to celebrate together with their friends and teachers. Principal Aaron Wolfe said: Theres a fantastic buzz, theyve done super this is the day that makes teaching worthwhile for all the staff. Its brilliant to see their success after all the effort and hard work they put in, a really good ending to our time together. Theyre going to go on and do wonderful things now, theyre our future. He added that it was great that so many of them had turned up to share in their joy, saying its a sign that we have a good relationship with them. Leaving Cert students enjoy the company of Cora, the school dog, at the Colaiste Eamonn Ris summer barbecue, a companion they will miss as they move on. Picture Chani Anderson One leaving cert student, Luke Wallace, told The Echo: Im happy with myself, I got what I was looking for and I think I did very well, adding that he was now waiting for CAO results next week. 'NERVOUS' I was very nervous about the results but Im delighted, and so is my family, he said, adding that celebrations were in order now. Fionn Sheehan said he was pleased with all his results, particularly his H1 in maths: The exam went well, everything went perfectly on the day it all went my way and its thanks to my maths teacher who did extra classes with us. Im absolutely delighted overall, I got 523 and I only needed 460 so I doubt the points for my course will go up 60. David Barry, principal of Presentation Brothers College told The Echo: We had one student, Fiachra Wall, achieve eight H1s, and then we had six students get the maximum 625 points. We had 55 students getting 550 plus, out of 119 students did the leaving cert, and the average was 524 points. We had pupils in today and we met with them, theyre delighted with the results. Theyre very similar to last years results despite the grade deflation so we are very happy. Pictured are, Caoimhe Buckley and Aideen Mullins, after receiving their 2025 Leaving Certificate results at Christ King Girls Secondary School, Half Moon Lane, South Douglas Road, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. The lads did themselves proud, and were delighted for them, for their families and for the teachers as well who put in so much work with them over the years. The Principal of Christian Brothers College in Cork has said that ten students at CBC have received the maximum points of 625, with five students achieving seven H1 grades, while five students were awarded six H1s. In total, 149 students received their results in the school with 21 students obtaining over 600 points. Pictured are, Sarah Walsh and Sintija Jakubauskaite, after receiving their 2025 Leaving Certificate results at Christ King Girls Secondary School, Half Moon Lane, South Douglas Road, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. Principal David Lordon said: We are very proud to congratulate our Leaving Cert Class of 2025 on todays exceptional results. The weeks leading up to today have doubtless been a nervous time for everyone, but Im sure when they logged on this morning to view their results, they felt that all their effort and sacrifice had paid off. This Leaving Certificate experience has very much been a collaborative journey, making today equally meaningful for their families and teachers who have encouraged and mentored them throughout the process. Today marks an exciting time for our students as they look forward to new possibilities and adventures in Third Level and beyond. Taoiseach Micheal Martin said in a message on Friday morning: Congratulations to all of you on what you have achieved so far. Remember there are plenty of opportunities out there now, a tremendous variety of courses and programmes you can pursue and different pathways to achieve your desired goals in life. Today is a day you can reflect on how far you have come and look ahead with optimism in terms of the opportunities available into the future. Minister of state at the department of education and Cork TD Michael Moynihan also congratulated the students, saying that it was a huge achievement, regardless of the results themselves: You have put in so much time, effort, and hard work to get to this moment, and your resilience and dedication are truly a testament to your character. Looking at their results for the first time were Loren Hitz from Bandon and Philip Judge from Carrigaline. Picture: Andy Gibson. I hope you feel immense pride in everything you've accomplished and in the many ways you have enriched your school community over the past few years. He continued: This is a new beginning for you, and as you look to the future, remember that a wide range of opportunities and supports are available to help you achieve your goals and realise your full potential. Whether your path leads to further education, an apprenticeship, or the workforce, the skills you've gained are a solid foundation for your next steps. The future is yours to shape, so go forward with confidence. To your families, teachers, and school communities, thank you for guiding, inspiring, and supporting each student to get to this day. Your encouragement and belief have been instrumental in their success. We wish every student the very best for the future and are excited to see the amazing things they will achieve. Two brothers who appeared before a special sitting of Mallow District Court this afternoon have been refused bail after gardai alleged that they were involved in the distribution and sourcing of firearms. Gary Walsh of Retail Park, Kilmallock, Co Limerick and his younger sibling Damien Walsh of Trabolgan Road, Whitegate, Co Cork were both charged with two firearms offences. The men were charged with possessing and having under their control a .22 Calibre Long Rifle 3D Printed Harlot Pistol and with possessing and having under their control five .22 Calibre Long Rifle ammunition at Rathgoggin South, Charleville, Co Cork on August 20. The court heard that gardai had searched a car in Charleville on Wednesday night. Det Garda James McCarthy gave evidence of the arrest charge and caution of both men. Judge Monica Leech was told that neither man replied when the charges were put to them under caution. Det Insp John OConnell said gardai were objecting to bail arising out of the gravity of the charges. Det Garda McCarthy said that gardai searched a car which was being driven by 40-year-old Gary Walsh. He stated that Damien Walsh, 32, was a passenger in the Opel Corsa. Det Garda McCarthy said that they discovered a loaded 3D printed handgun, which was a viable firearm, in the space between their seats by the handbrake. Gary Walsh was denied bail. He said that the state would claim that Gary Walsh was involved in the sourcing and supply of firearms. He said that they they would base this allegation on videos and WhatsApp voice recordings found on the phone of the accused. He said the videos depicted the gun being handled by a person with a tattoo and that the tattoo seemed to match one on Gary Walshs hand. He said there were also a voice recording of Gary Walsh having a conversation with a third party about supplying him with a gun. Gardai allege that Damien Walsh was in the car at the time of the conversation. Defence solicitor, Joe Cuddigan said that his client , Damien Walsh would vehemently refute any suggestion that he heard a conversation of this nature. My client says he was not a party to any discussion about the supply of firearms to anyone, he said. Judge Leech said that she was denying bail to both men on the grounds of the seriousness of the charges. She remanded the men in custody to appear before Mallow District Court next Tuesday. They will appear at the vacation sitting of the court via video link. Tomas Doherty A wide range of stories feature across Friday's newspaper front pages, including a "groundswell of support" for Bertie Ahern to stand for president. The Irish Times and Irish Examiner report that just over half of this years Leaving Cert students grades have been artificially inflated, compared with more than two-thirds last year. The Irish Independent says a groundswell of support is growing within Fianna Fail to nominate Bertie Ahern as their candidate for the presidential election. Some rural TDs fear the Irish countryside is being used as a "guinea pig" for commercial drone deliveries, according to the Irish Daily Mail. The Irish Daily Mirror leads with the story of how four men saved a boy and girl after they were swept out to sea in west Donegal. Eamon Dunphy tells the Irish Daily Star what he thinks of Roy Keane's latest ventures. The Herald reports that an English tourist is in a critical condition in hospital after being "kicked in the head" in Dublin's Temple Bar. The North's prison service has been cleared of any failings over the death of a murder-accused man in custody, the Belfast Telegraph reports. A pensioner has emerged victorious in a battle against energy supplier SSE, The Irish News reports. The Echo reveals that almost 2 million in parking fines have been collected in Co Cork since 2020. By Jonathan McCambridge, PA A man has been charged with murder after a stabbing in Belfast. The 32-year-old was also charged with possession of a blade or point. He is expected to appear at Lisburn Magistrates Court on Saturday. Man charged with west Belfast murder https://t.co/5qaj1Ixy0I pic.twitter.com/LprqwvERvp Police West Belfast (@PSNIBelfastW) August 22, 2025 A murder investigation was launched after a man, named locally as Shane Lowry, died on Thursday evening. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips said: We received a report at around 8.15pm that a man aged in his 30s had been stabbed in the Mulberry Park area of Dunmurry. Officers attended, along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. Sadly, he was pronounced dead. We would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the incident to contact us on 101 quoting reference number 1633 21/08/25. A large police cordon remained in place in Mulberry Park and a number of surrounding streets on Friday. A police cordon remained in place at the scene on Friday (Jonathan McCambridge/PA) Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker said there was shock and sadness in the local community after the death. He said the death happened shortly after a fire at a block of flats in the estate. He said: Last night was a very heartbreaking and a traumatic series of events. There were a number of incidents which happened. We were at a fire at the top of the estate. It was in a block of flats. There was a lot of relief that nobody was hurt but quickly news spread that someone had been stabbed in this part of Twinbrook which was close by. Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker at Mulberry Park (Jonathan McCambridge/PA) Sadly, when we got here we knew it was very, very serious. The community was filled with sorrow. Sadly, the PSNI confirmed this morning that the man has passed away. My thoughts and prayers are with the family. I would ask people not to speculate. There is a live PSNI investigation and anyone with any information should please come forward. Mr Baker said a local family had been completely torn apart. He added: I was here last night, there was relief at first that no-one was injured at the fire but very quickly when people came here we knew how bad it was, the fear and anxiety quickly turned to sorrow and pain. It is a very close-knit community. I was born and raised here, we all know each other and we know a family is completely devastated this morning and our thoughts and prayers are with them. SDLP West Belfast councillor Paul Doherty said it was a shocking incident. He said: A man has lost his life and the local community has been left reeling. My thoughts are with the loved ones of the deceased and everyone who has been affected by this incident. Nobody wants to wake up to something like this on their doorsteps, but I would ask people to support police as they carry out their investigation into what happened here. I commend their quick response. I would urge anyone with any further information to come forward to police. People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said he was deeply saddened. He said: Everyone has the basic right to live in peace and safety in their own home. My thoughts and condolences are with the victim, his family and friends during this incredibly difficult time. Last week, the Trump administration said it might take a stake in Intel in exchange for the $10.86 billion in federal grants the company is receiving from the Chips and Science (CHIPS) Act. However, not all companies receiving funds under the same program will need to give up equity, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Companies like TSMC and Micron that increased their US investments won't have any additional obligations, according to a government official familiar with the matter. Ealier, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick appeared to royally screw NVIDIA with comments about the company's H20 AI chips, and may have also rubbed chip giant TSMC the wrong way. "The Biden administration literally was giving Intel [money] for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies, just giving them money for free," he told CNBC on Tuesday. "Donald Trump turns that into saying, 'Hey, we want equity for the money. If were going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action.'" However, TSMC may have noticed the Intel equity kerfuffle and executives reportedly held preliminary discussions about handing back subsidies if the US government asks to become a shareholder, according to the WSJ's sources. TSMC was awarded $6.6 billion for its Arizona plant that started producing chips late last year for Apple and others. However, the company recently said it would invest another $100 billion over the next four years to build three more fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities and a major research and development center. Advertisement Advertisement Because of that extra investment, the Trump administration won't ask for a piece of TSMC or Micron (which also expanded its US facilities in Idaho, New York and Virginia). "The Commerce Department is not looking to take equity from TSMC and Micron," an unnamed official said. In any case, attempts by the US government to take equity in companies will likely face legal challenges due to language in the contracts. Companies are already required to share revenue with the US government if profits rise above a certain amount. In another development, the US government may divert up to $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding toward critical minerals projects in the US, Reuters reported. The move aims to reduce US dependence on China for key minerals extensively used in the electronics and defense industries. "The administration is creatively trying to find ways to fund the critical minerals sector," Reuters' source said, adding that those plans could change. The Trump administration is forming a "National Design Studio," with the aim of improving government websites and the efficiency of digital services at federal agencies. Trump has already signed an executive order to create the studio. According to Reuters, the president will appoint Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia as the head of the new organization, which one of its sources described as a stripped-down version of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE, which was once led by Elon Musk, aimed to cut wasteful government spending and modernize its IT systems. It facilitated mass layoffs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and even dismantled whole agencies. As Reuters has noted, though, its activities have greatly slowed down after Musk left the organization and his role as Trump's advisor altogether. The White House did not respond to Reuters' request for comment, and it's unclear if DOGE will continue operating once the studio has been formed. Gebbia will be apparently be named as the studio's the Chief Design Officer and will lead its efforts to upgrade the "usability and aesthetics" of federal digital services. The news organization says the studio will standardize design for websites meant to allow people to interact with the government and will advise agencies on how to reduce costs on duplicative designs. Based on Trump's executive order, the studio will shut down in three years before he steps down from office. While Gebbia will be the Chief Design Officer, an administrator will run the studio and will be in charge of reporting to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Ubisoft still isnt giving us a new Splinter Cell game, but Sam Fisher fans are at least getting an animated TV adaptation very soon. At this weeks Anime NYC convention, Netflix revealed a new teaser trailer for the upcoming Splinter Cell: Deathwatch and confirmed that the series will come to the service on October 14. Written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad and starring Liev Schreiber as an older but still decidedly badass Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch was first announced back in 2020, but we hadnt learned much more until now. In the brief trailer, we see the National Security Agencys most reliable stealth operative doing a fair bit of his trademark sneaking around in the shadows, after returning to the field for what he calls a "personal" mission. I also quite like how liberally the iconic Splinter Cell night vision goggles sound is used in the trailer. The voice cast also includes The Sandmans Kirby Howell-Baptise as Zinnia McKenna, an original character, and Janet Garvey as Anna Grimsdottir, a fellow agent who provided tech support to Fisher in the Splinter Cell games. The trailer itself doesnt give much away about the plot, but we do see the grave of Douglas Shetland, a close friend of Fisher who he was ordered to eliminate in fan favorite game entry, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We're getting super close to finding out when the annual Apple iPhone event will take place, giving us a first look at the new iPhone 17 lineup. We should also find out the official date for downloading the latest software update, iOS 26. If you can't wait any longer, you can download and install the newly released public beta 4 (or iOS 26 developer beta 8 for developers). I've been playing around with it for the past couple of weeks, and have found that taking screenshots is way better in the new operating system Google and ChatGPT search options are now in the screenshots editor, for instance. You can see a more complete view of the new features in our preview of the iOS 26 public beta release, which shows off the fresh home and lock screen redesign. Called Liquid Glass, the translucent look will extend across all of Apple's upcoming operating systems. The overhaul is one of several big changes coming to iOS, macOS, iPadOS and the rest of Apple's software suite, all of which were showcased during the company's WWDC keynote on June 9. After overpromising on AI plans last year, Apple kept its iOS roadmap focused more on basic quality of life improvements this year. There are multiple useful additions coming to the Phone and Messages apps on your iPhone, for instance: Apple execs outlined the ability to weed out spam texts or other unknown senders and an option to hold your spot on a phone call when you've been waiting for a representative to pick up. Plus, a treasured feature that we took for granted is coming back (hint: it's in the Photos app). Siri, meanwhile, is in a holding pattern. Apple has previously specified that its smarter voice assistant first promised at WWDC 2024 is delayed until some point "in the coming year," so you shouldn't expect any major changes in the current betas. But there are reports that Apple is aiming to give Siri a bigger brain transplant by basing it on third-party artificial intelligence models like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude, which could make 2026 a pivotal year. The company is also reportedly working on a 'stripped-down' AI chatbot to rival ChatGPT. Advertisement Advertisement With each beta, it seems like additional new improvements are popping up, like this new AirPods gesture we're all curious about, and this FaceTime feature that'll freeze your video if it detects nudity. With the release of the iOS 26 developer beta 5, we saw more added features, like a new bouncy animation on the passcode screen and in the Control Center, MacRumors reports. Some or all of those changes will likely soon migrate into the separate public beta (see below). Most newer iPhone models are eligible to download iOS 26 (both the betas and final version). Want to see the full list of new features coming this fall? Read on. What is iOS 26? The current iPhone operating system is iOS 18, and Apple is still actively updating it version 18.6.1 was released to restore Apple Watch blood oxygen monitoring functionality for certain users in the US. More recently, Apple released 18.6.2 to address a vulnerability related to image processing. Apple has officially stopped signing iOS 18.6, MacRumors reports, which means it can no longer be installed on your iPhone due to a "server-side software verification check." That's pretty normal when newer versions are available to download. But don't expect to see iOS 19 soon or ever. Instead, Apple is skipping the numbering ahead to iOS 26 later this year. The company has decided to line up its iOS version numbers with a year-based system, similar to car model years. So while iOS and its sibling operating systems will be released in late 2025, they're all designated "26" to reflect the year ahead. It's official, we're moving to iOS 26. (Apple) What is Liquid Glass design? Let's be honest. Out of everything announced at WWDC this year, the new Liquid Glass design was the star of the show. The iPhone's home and lock screens have looked pretty much the same year after year the last exciting thing (in my opinion) was the option to add your own aesthetic to your home screen by customizing your apps and widgets. So seeing the home and lock screens' new facelift is refreshing. Advertisement Advertisement So what exactly is Liquid Glass? Apple calls it a "new translucent material" since, well, the apps and widgets are clear. However, the screen can still adapt to dark and light modes, depending on surroundings. You'll also notice buttons with a new floating design in several apps, like Phone and Maps. They're designed to be less distracting than the current buttons, but are still easy to see. While the design overhaul has proven to be controversial since its announcement, some including Engadget's own Devindra Hardawar like the new direction, even if it's somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft's translucent Windows Vista Aero designs from nearly twenty years ago. That said, as of the release of the iOS 26 beta 2, Apple has already incorporated some user feedback into the design, dialing back the transparency in at least some places. And while it will continue to evolve, Apple users won't be able to escape it: Liquid Glass was designed to make all of Apple's OSes more cohesive. Here's a look at how the translucent aesthetic will look with the new macOS Tahoe 26 on your desktop. What are the new and notable features of iOS 26? iOS 26 has a laundry list of new features. Among the most worthwhile: Phone app redesign: You'll finally be able to scroll through contacts, recent calls and voicemail messages all on one screen. It also comes with a new feature called Hold Assist that'll notify you when an agent comes to the phone so you can avoid the elevator music and continue on with other tasks. Advertisement Advertisement Live Translation in Phone, FaceTime and Messages: iOS 26 is bringing the ability to have a conversation via phone call or text message with someone who speaks another language. Live Translation will translate your conversation in real time, which results in some stop-and-go interactions in the examples Apple shared during its presentation. Polls in group chats: Tired of sorting through what seems like hundreds of messages in your group chat? You and your friends will soon be able to create polls in group messages for deciding things like which brunch spot you're eating at or whose car you're taking on a road trip. Filtering unknown senders in Messages: If you haven't received spam texts about unpaid tolls or other citations, you're lucky. For those of us who have, those annoying messages will soon be filtered away in a separate folder. Visual Intelligence: Similar to a reverse Google image search, this new feature will allow you to search for anything that's on your iPhone screen. For instance, if you spot a pair of shoes someone is wearing in an Instagram photo, you can screenshot it and use Visual Intelligence to find those shoes (or similar ones) online. Advertisement Advertisement Photos tabs are back: For anyone who's still frustrated with the Photos changes made last year, you'll be happy to know that your tabs are coming back. Library and Collections will have their own separate spaces so you don't have to scroll to infinity to find what you're looking for. FaceTime "Communication Safety" feature: A newer addition to iOS 26 appears to be the FaceTime "Communication Safety" feature that pauses communications if and when nudity is detected. The feature appears to be a child safety feature that uses on-device detection, thus obviating any cloud-based privacy issues. New lock screen options: The iPhone lock screen gets more customizable in iOS 26, with a cooler clock, 3D wallpaper effects, more widgets and better focus mode options. Apple's Hold Assist will be nifty for those pesky services that put you on hold for 10 or more minutes. (Apple) New changes coming to iPadOS 26 Your iPad isn't getting left behind when it comes to big updates. Here's what's coming this fall. Advertisement Advertisement Multitasking and real windowing: When you download the newest update, you'll be able to have multiple apps running on your screen at the same time. Once you open an app, it'll appear on your screen as normal but you'll be able to resize and move it across your screen to make room for other apps. This feature is optional so you can turn it off if you don't like it. Visual update: Along with the other new OSes, iPadOS 26 is coming with the Liquid Glass aesthetic. This new look will appear on the lock and home screens, as well as the drop-down menus. New menu bar: When you swipe down on your screen, the new menu bar will appear with options like File, Edit, Windows and more. There's also a search option if you're looking for something specific. Check out our first impressions of iPadOS 26. What about AirPods? AirPods are also getting updated with iOS 26. Here are some of the more notable functions. Advertisement Advertisement Enhanced audio recording: Apple calls this "studio-quality" audio recording, and with it, you'll notice more clarity while in noisy environments. Camera remote control: Using this, you can take a photo or start and stop video recording with just one press on your AirPods. When taking photos, you'll get a three-second countdown before your iPhone or iPad snaps the picture. Live translation feature: While not officially announced or confirmed, it appears that the long-rumored live translation for AirPods could be coming with iOS 26. The evidence comes from a system asset spotted in the in iOS 26 beta showing a gesture that's triggered by pressing both earbud stems at the same time. The photo also shows words in several different languages. Heart rate monitoring (rumored for now): Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes Apple will introduce new AirPods Pro earbuds this year, which could have heart rate monitoring. It would work with Apple's Health app and other fitness apps that track heart rates. Which iPhones will be able to upgrade to iOS 26? A few iPhone models that run the current version of iOS iPhone XR, XS and XS Max won't be compatible with the latest upgrade. But any iPhones released in 2019 or later will be eligible for the iOS 26 update. Advertisement Advertisement iPhone SE (second generation or later) iPhone 11 iPhone 11 Pro iPhone 11 Pro Max iPhone 12 iPhone 12 mini iPhone 12 Pro iPhone 12 Pro Max iPhone 13 iPhone 13 mini iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhone 14 Plus iPhone 14 Pro iPhone 14 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 16e Not listed here are the presumed new iPhone 17 models (or maybe iPhone 26?) that are all but certain to be announced and released in September. How to install iOS 26 beta The iOS 26 public beta is now available to download via the Apple Beta Software Program. If you're not already a member, you'll need to sign up to try out all the latest features. Just visit beta.apple.com and sign up with your phone number or email address. It's free. Once you're in, you can install it by going to Settings > General > Software Update and selecting iOS 26 public beta. A word of caution: Don't sign up with your main iPhone unless you're OK with any risks that occur with using an OS that isn't finalized. When will the final version of iOS 26 be released? iOS 26 will be released to the public this fall. It usually comes in September, within a week of the Apple iPhone event. Last year, it rolled out to iPhone users on September 16 exactly one week after the iPhone 16 lineup was announced. Advertisement Advertisement If you're more interested in the Apple Intelligence features coming, here's everything Apple revealed for iOS, macOS and more during WWDC. Also, check out how iOS 26 screenshots could be an intriguing preview of Apple's delayed Siri rework. Update, August 25: Added a rumor about new AirPods Pro having heart rate monitoring. Update, August 22: Noted that Apple has officially stopped signing iOS 18.6. Update, August 20: Noted that iOS 26 public beta 4 and iOS 18.6.2 are now available to download. Update, August 18: Added details about a potential iOS 18.6 update. Update, August 15: Added to link to what to expect at the Apple iPhone event and details about what's available in the iOS 26 screenshots editor. Advertisement Advertisement Update, August 13: Added new AirPods detail spotted in the iOS 26 beta. Update, August 11: Noted that iOS 26 developer beta has hit beta 6. Update, August 8: Added new features coming with iPadOS 26 and AirPods. Update, August 6: Noted the release of iOS 26 beta 5 and the new bouncy feature on passcode screen and Control Center. Update, August 4: Noted that Apple is reportedly working on a ChatGPT rival. Update, August 1: Added quote from Tim Cook about iOS 26. Update, July 31: Noted that iOS 18.6 is now available. Update, July 24: Noted the iOS 26 public beta is now available. Update, July 3: Noted new FaceTime feature found in the developer beta. Update, June 30: Noted ongoing iOS 18 releases, and reports that Apple is considering additional external LLMs for Siri. Update, June 25: Noted changes added in iOS 26 beta 2. We're still waiting for Apple to make the official announcement for the iPhone event that usually takes place in September. At that event, they'll showcase the new iPhone 17 lineup which will come equipped with the latest iOS 26 features preinstalled, as well as any additional features Apple reveals at the launch event. But since we (presumably) still have to wait a few weeks until the iPhone event, we can only speculate what the new devices will look like. As with most unreleased iPhones, rumors and leaks have trickled in about the hardware side ahead of the official introduction. Here's what we're expecting and what we can reasonably assume we'll get from Apple in September. What are the latest iPhone 17 rumors? Not necessarily a "new" rumor but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes there actually will be a new orange color offered for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, as well as a light blue color for the iPhone 17 Air, he confirmed in his weekly Power On newsletter. Additionally, we have a new case rumor. According to leaker Majin Bu, there will be new Liquid Silicone cases in eight colors, including Deep Orange, Pale Orange, Grass Green, Celadon, Fog Purple, Grey Blue, Dark Blue and Midnight Black. iPhone 17: New Liquid Silicone Cases Colors Full Article:https://t.co/RBnAO3LCAC pic.twitter.com/GuQuvrswg6 Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) August 24, 2025 These rumors haven't been confirmed by Apple and we won't know what the actual iPhone 17 models will look like until the iPhone event next month. How much will the iPhone 17 cost? Apple's announced plan to expand US-based manufacturing partners seems to give it at least some shielding from the steepest Trump administration tariffs that have already triggered price increases on everything from PlayStations to Switch consoles to high-end cameras to Sonos speakers. But given that President Trump's trade policies can change from week to week, and Apple's continuing reliance on Asia-based supply chains, price shocks remain an ongoing possibility. The bigger question is: Will Apple absorb any higher costs, or pass them on to consumers? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If prices do creep up, Apple may choose to pair it with an "upgrade." Consider this recent rumor posted by MacRumors from a leaker known as "Instant Digital," suggesting that the default storage of the iPhone 17 line may start at 256GB, doubling the current 128GB baseline. While that could be accompanied by a price increase of $50, Apple could at least pitch it as a "better value." That said, the company doubled the default RAM of its Mac computers from 8GB to 16GB at no extra cost in 2024 but that was before the current Trump tariff cycle started. When will the iPhone 17 series be announced? Most years, the flagship smartphones are introduced in September. MacRumors highlighted a story originally reported by iphone-ticker.de that the Apple iPhone 17 event could be Tuesday, September 9, according to information gleaned from German mobile phone providers. It's still too early to have the specific dates; some years, Apple only gives a week or two of lead time between sending invites and hosting the event. But years of past precedent show that sometime in September should be when the 17 models make their debut. This family of smartphones may be the last to follow that trend, however. There have been hints that the introduction of the iPhone 18 collection in 2026 will be split into a pro-tier announcement in the fall and a standard model announcement the following spring. What will the new iPhone 17 lineup include? Design leaks suggest that Apple is building an ultra-thin smartphone, likely to be named the iPhone 17 Air to match Apple's ultralight laptop designation. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, often a solid source of advanced intel about Apple, reported in January that the iPhone 17 Air will be equipped with a basic A19 chip and will only have a single camera lens. It may also use Apple's new in-house modem, which was introduced in February on the iPhone 16e. More details about this development may leak ahead of September, but that's what we know for now. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An investor note from Apple analyst Jeff Pu indicated that the Air will have a titanium frame. If his reports are accurate, the lightweight smartphone will be the only entry in the iPhone 17 lineup to use that metal; the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max are expected to be made of aluminum, which is oddly a lighter material than titanium. Other speculation had suggested that the Air would use a blend of aluminum and titanium, so the exact materials may not be known until the official announcement. Additionally, an August 4 MacRumors report says the internal battery pack of the iPhone Air is just 2.49mm thick half the thickness of the iPhone 17 Pro battery. The leak was posted on the Korean-language Naver blog, where they show the alleged batteries of the iPhone 17 Air and 17 Pro side by side. The same account claimed the 17 Air's battery capacity was a mere 2,800 mAh, MacRumors notes. (That's below the battery capacity of current iPhone 16 models.) On a similar topic, an iPhone 17 Pro production leak appears to have revealed an all-aluminum chassis, according to MacRumors. Originally posted by leaker Majin Bu, the image shows a shell that has a large round hole on the back (where the Apple logo typically is) to allow for MagSafe charging. MacRumors says this could just be a molding but notes that the aluminum frame (versus the current titanium in Pro iPhone models) would yield a significantly lower weight. That same leaker (Majin Bu), whom MacRumors classifies as a "hit-or-miss leaker," suggests the iPhone 17 Pro will have better wireless signal strength thanks to an updated antenna design. The individual posted a render on X that shows a new antenna system that wraps around the iPhone 17 Pro's supposedly wider rear camera bump. Again, this is a render, not a real-world photo. That said, we can't knock the goal of better wireless reception, so we're hoping this one has a degree of truth to it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Leaker Majin Bu also claims "TechWoven" cases could be introduced, per a MacRumors report. The cases match the rumored design on the iPhone 17 models, with the wide camera bump. The leaker noted there are two lanyard holes for "convenient and secure carrying," so it could be worn around your neck. The colors would come in grey/black, blue, green, purple and orange. Each new roster includes a base model, but over the years, Apple has shaken up the variety of phones it offers. Most likely there will be an iPhone 17 and an iPhone 17 Pro. Apple has also committed to the size matters philosophy, and has been building an iPhone Pro Max option with an even bigger screen and better battery life; the 17 roster will almost certainly have one as well. The new Pro iPhones are said to have a full-width "camera island" on the rear, which would mark the first time an Apple model opted for that design. This feature can be seen in the purported iPhone 17 "spotted in the wild." The pics, highlighted on MacRumors, show a black cased iPhone (17 Pro?) with the distinct back panel. Is it the real deal? The dual angles lend a degree of credibility in a social media landscape increasingly polluted with AI-enhanced fakes, but your guess is as good as ours. I just spotted a test development iPhone in the wild pic.twitter.com/iS3PtKWqxJ Fox Pupy (@Skyfops) July 28, 2025 The iPhone 17 Air seems primed to take the place of a potential iPhone 17 Plus. Since the iPhone 16e was only just introduced in February at a surprisingly high price point, it seems unlikely that there will be a new addition to that lower end of the spectrum, the models that were previously called SE. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the very least, it sounds like the iPhone 17 Air won't take away the charging port and rely only on wireless connectivity. Bloomberg said that while Apple had investigated making the iPhone 17 Air without a single port, the company (fortunately) changed plans. He also says that the rumored phone will have a 6.6-inch screen and include the Dynamic Island and Camera Control button. Finally, the price is rumored at $900 likely more than the standard iPhone 17 but less than the Pro. We've also gotten what seems to be a reliable look at what the color lineup will be for the new smartphones. Macworld reported that the iPhone 17 will be available in black, white, steel gray, green, purple and light blue. The iPhone 17 Air will reportedly have four color options: black, white, light blue and light gold. While the Air colors will be less saturated, the visuals for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will go bold. The options for the Pro models are expected to be black, white, gray, dark blue and orange. On July 30, Tom's Guide highlighted an X post from Sonny Dickson a longtime and generally reliable leaker of unreleased iPhone information showing "dummy" iPhone 17 models in the new colors that were the source of the aforementioned Macworld story. While these are literally just mock-ups not real, leaked iPhones it's interesting to see how the design and color rumors translate into a real-world look and feel. To add the the rumors, a Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station suggests the iPhone 17e will come equipped with a new design that includes the Dynamic Island, MacRumors reports. According to the post, the new phone will have the A19 chip and could have a 6.1-inch OLED display with a front-facing 12-megapixel camera and a rear-facing 48-megapixel camera. However, it's important to note this report refers to the 17e model that would be expected to launch no earlier than February 2026, if it followed the same release pattern as the iPhone 16e. What will iOS 26 be like? Apple upended its numbering conventions with WWDC 2025, and will match the name of each new operating system to the year it's released. So when the next wave of iPhones hits, they'll be running on iOS 26. Advertisement Advertisement On the design side, the smartphone OS introduced during the big developer showcase took a contentious approach dubbed Liquid Glass. Apple has been scaling down the amount of transparency effects in the subsequent beta tests of iOS 26, but it will still have a glass-like visual. The feature list includes big and small updates. On the more impactful side, the Phone and Photos apps have been redesigned. There will be several features leveraging artificial intelligence, such as live translation capabilities coming to Phone, FaceTime and Messages. Apple is also currently testing a sensitive content warning for child accounts that will freeze FaceTime video if nudity is detected by on-device machine learning tools. And the company is also launching Visual Intelligence, which will use AI to search for elements in an image. iOS 26 also has a litany of minor, quality of life improvements. Group texts are getting support for polls. And for the slow risers out there, iOS 26 will finally let you escape the tyranny of the nine minute snooze alarm. The next iOS is now available as a public beta. Here are our initial impressions of the Liquid Glass design and other new features. iOS 26 is compatible with all models back through iPhone 11. What other products are expected to be released alongside the iPhone 17? If Apple follows its usual pattern, the iPhone 17 will be announced alongside new Apple Watch products. That would be the Apple Watch Series 11 (if Apple sticks to the same naming scheme), and maybe an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and/or an updated Apple Watch SE. (They'll all run watchOS 26, of course.) Other possibilities and this is, again, speculation could include refreshed Apple AirPods Pro (which received its last big update in 2022) and maybe new AirTags trackers (first released in 2021). Advertisement Advertisement The Apple rumor mill got a big shot in the arm this week thanks to the reported inclusion of product ID numbers in recent beta software builds. Per MacRumors, it's a laundry list of new hardware, including long-rumored product updates like the Apple TV, HomePod mini, new Apple Studio Display monitor and two fresh iPads. Of course, even if that list is totally accurate, we may not see those products until 2026 if ever. So don't expect all of products to share the stage with the iPhone 17, especially since Apple likes to keep its star performer at the center of attention. That said, keep in mind that Apple has recently been having Mac-centric announcements in late October (as it did last year to debut new M4 Macs), so there's always the chance of another shoe dropping a few weeks down the road. Update, August 25, 2025, 5:15PM ET: Added new reports about the iPhone 17 Pro's orange color as well as new rumored Liquid Silicone cases. Advertisement Advertisement Update, August 22, 2025, 11:52AM ET: Added new details about the colors of the rumored TechWoven case. Update, August 20, 2025, 7:12PM ET: Added new rumor about potential TechWoven case for iPhone 17 series. Update, August 18, 2025, 6:23PM ET: Added new rumor about the iPhone 17e potentially having the Dynamic Island. Update, August 15, 2025, 2:05PM ET: Added new rumor about the all-aluminum chassis on the iPhone 17. Update, August 13, 2025, 10:02PM ET: Added a list of the products that are expected to be released alongside the iPhone 17s. Update, August 11, 2025, 7:27PM ET: Added a render of a rumored new antenna design for the iPhone 17 Pro. Advertisement Advertisement Update, August 8, 2025, 4:43PM ET: Added new speculation and reports about iPhone 17 pricing. Update, August 6, 2025, 4:05PM ET: Added latest details about the potential iPhone 17 event date. Update, August 4, 2025, 5:23PM ET: Added latest battery leaks about the iPhone 17 models. Update, August 1, 2025, 8:15AM ET: Added new photos showing potential iPhone 17 colors. Update, July 30, 2025, 11:08AM ET: Added latest leaks and rumors about the iPhone 17, and updated information on the iOS 26 public beta. Update, July 17, 2025, 4:40PM ET: Added latest information about iOS 26, possible materials for the Air, and the color options for the different models. Advertisement Advertisement Update, March 17, 2025, 2PM ET: Added details about the rumored price and features of the iPhone 17 Air. Update, April 11, 2025, 3:45PM ET: Added details from Front Page Tech's new video that claims to reveal details from a leaked iOS 19 build. Erik Menendez of the infamous Menendez brothers was denied parole today after spending over three decades behind bars. He and his brother, Lyle, were convicted in 1996 of killing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. The news was first broken by his daughter Talia Menendez, on her Instagram account, and then by Los Angeles Times Reporter James Queally, who was at the almost 10-hour long parole board meeting. BREAKING: Erik Menendez has been denied parole after a nearly 10-hour hearing. He can come before the board again within three years. James Queally (@JamesQueallyLAT) August 22, 2025 In a series of angry posts, Erik's daughter, Talia, condemned the parole board and prison system for declaring her father a "threat to society." She also detailed numerous instances where Erik was mistreated or exploited by the prison. After public interest in their case following a Netflix dramatization of the murders and new evidence surfaced supporting their claims of abuse at the hands of their parents, Erik and Lyle Menendez were able to get their sentence reduced to 50 years to life in May of this year. Since both brothers were under 26 at the time they committed their crimes, the siblings can be paroled under the California youthful offender act. At the parole hearings, relatives of the Menendez brothers testified on their behalf. The family has been overwhelmingly supportive of Erik and Lyle, echoing the claims of abuse at the hands of their parents and publicly calling for their release on several occasions. While they have reputations of being "model prisoners," both brothers had previous infractions that could have influenced the parole board's decision. Both brothers were caught with contraband cell phones, and Lyle has been involved in fights in the prison yard. Attorney Nancy Tetrault, who was able to get Manson family member Leslie Van Houten parole, told The Los Angeles Times that "They have serious rule violations, including fights, including not coming in from the yards when they were told to. That doesn't sound that bad, but it can be, depending on what they were doing in the yard." Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has been vocally opposed to the possibility of their release since "The central defense of the Menendez brothers at trial has always been self-defense, not sexual abuse. The jury rejected this self-defense defense in finding them guilty of the horrific murders they perpetrated..." Hochman and/or his office argued against their release in court today, bolstered by evidence from a 75-page Statement of View alleging the brothers' "shifting stories," fabricated alibis, and initial claims of a "mafia hit." The hearings, which lasted several hours, took place over video conference with Erik and his attorney Heidi Rummel appearing virtually in court. Lyle will face the parole board tomorrow digitally as well, at approximately 8:30 am PST/11:30 am EST. If Lyle is granted parole, California Gavin Newsom will have 120 days to review or reject the decision. Originally published on Latin Times 4 Amigos y familiares despiden a Veronica Echegui en el Tanatorio de la Paz (Madrid): "No nos lo creemos" You Might Also Like A car bomb and a separate attack on a police helicopter in Colombia killed at least 17 people on Thursday, according to authorities. President Gustavo Petro attributed both attacks to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as Farc. You Might Also Like Germany's economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year, as demand from its top trading partner, the US, slowed following months of buying ahead in anticipation of US tariffs. BOZEMAN, Mont. Governor Greg Gianforte welcomed Eshylon Scientific to Montana, marking a significant investment in the state's semiconductor industry. The new facility in Bozeman will focus on research, development and manufacturing, the governors office said in a release. Montana is becoming a hub for entrepreneurship and innovation thanks to our growing economy and pro-business policies, Gov. Gianforte said. Its great to welcome Eshylon Scientific to the Treasure State to experience our unmatched quality of life, highly qualified workforce, and the best climate for business. Eryn Smith, founder and CEO of Eshylon Scientific, shared insights on the decision to relocate from the Bay Area. "We were originally just going to bring our expansion to Montana, but after visiting the state and with the Montana Department of Commerce, we decided to pull tent stakes and leave the Bay Area," Smith said. Eshylon Scientific, a technology supplier in the quantum and photonics industry, will collaborate with Montana State University by hiring their engineering graduates. The company plans to expand its workforce beyond the current four employees. The governor said the facility represents an initial $1 million investment with projections to increase significantly. This move is expected to further establish Montana as a key player in the semiconductor sector, the release added. The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission has adopted wolf hunting and trapping regulations that move closer to a statewide quota as part of lawmakers ongoing effort to reduce Montanas wolf population. The decision on Thursday came after six hours of commission debate and impassioned public comment. Most commenters asked commissioners not to adopt Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks proposal to establish a 500-wolf quota that would apply to almost the entire state. Many opponents criticized the model that produced the current wolf population estimate (1,091 wolves, according to FWP) and argued that politics rather than science has been steering the discussion. Opponents also urged the commission to consider wolves ecological role and economic value, particularly in areas outside Yellowstone National Park. Organizations that opposed the regulations included Wild Livelihoods Business Coalition, Park County Environmental Council, Gallatin Wildlife Association and Trap Free Montana. The Foundation for Wildlife Management, the Montana Stockgrowers Association and the Montana Trappers Association supported the regulations. They argued that wolf populations have remained stable for years, so bringing population numbers down to align with lawmakers desires requires raising the quota, expanding bag limits and making additional tools such as infrared scopes available to hunters. Comments on both sides largely echoed those made this spring when lawmakers debated two proposals that aimed to reduce wolf numbers by half. Three Republican representatives Paul Fielder of Thompson Falls, Jedediah Hinkle of Belgrade and Shannon Maness of Dillon also offered comment, urging commissioners to consider lawmakers intent when they passed legislation designed to reduce the states wolf population in 2021 and again in 2025. I think were just tiptoing in the direction that we need to be in to follow (Montana Code Annotated), Maness said. Maness sponsored an unsuccessful bill during the 2025 Legislature that sought to create an unlimited quota for wolves until the population fell below 450. State Rep. Jamie Islay, a Democratic lawmaker from Park County, countered that establishing quotas that apply to such a broad geographic area is misguided, particularly given that livestock depredations by wolves have gone down and most ungulate populations are doing well. Theres really no reason that I see that we have to necessarily bring our wolf populations down to the levels that these quotas are asking for, he said. We dont do [statewide quotas] for deer, we dont do that for elk, we dont do that for moose we do that by area. Why? Because of the diverse ecological environment that our state provides. Commissioners debated 10 amendments to the package of regulations forwarded by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, with only a handful passing. The regulations that the Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to adopt Thursday evening provide for the following: A statewide quota of 452 wolves A 60-wolf quota for Region 3 (southwestern Montana), with two separate three-wolf quotas for two wolf management units north of Yellowstone National Parks boundary. A bag limit of 15 wolves per hunter or trapper, provided that at least five of the wolves killed have been shot or trapped in Region 1 or Region 2. The use of infrared scopes to hunt wolves on private land. A Sept. 15-March 15 general season and a Dec. 1-March 15 trapping season (except for certain regions that open later and close earlier to prevent conflicts with federally protected grizzly bears). The removal of wolf-trap setbacks for Mineral County, which builds off similar regulation-loosening efforts in place for Sanders and Ravalli counties. The setback requirement has also been lifted in the Spotted Bear Ranger District, a remote area of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The commission will revisit wolf hunting and trapping regulations again at the end of next summer. The government is under pressure to act as thousands of Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreements come to an end this December, leaving many farmers without environmental support schemes. The Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) has called for a one-year rollover of existing agreements for farmers in England whose CS contracts finish on 31 December. Without such a measure, no replacement scheme is currently available for them to enter, the farmer-led organisation notes. NFFN warns that the absence of a rollover scheme could have severe consequences for both farmers and the environment. With arable businesses in particular working on tight margins, it says that many may feel forced to plough up habitats in order to grow more crops and secure income. Such a move, the organisation says, would represent a serious setback for natures recovery and undermine the governments legally binding commitment to reverse species decline by 2030, as well as its broader climate targets. NFFN chief executive Martin Lines criticised ministers for failing to provide a coherent transition plan: The government has failed to provide a joined-up approach to moving farmers into new agreements, leaving an enormous gap that now needs bridging. "Fortunately, there is still time for ministers to act. A one-year rollover agreement for CS farmers would provide the badly needed confidence. Farmers have been put in a very difficult position with no certainty. Once farmers leave agri-environment schemes, it is highly unlikely they will return as trust will be broken. The gap has arisen because the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), which is designed to absorb most farmers currently in CS Mid Tier schemes, remains closed to new applicants until 2026. Meanwhile, farmers in CS Higher Tier agreements are also left in limbo, as the new Higher Tier under the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes will be invite-only. NFFN argues that investment in nature-friendly farming is critical to the future of agriculture. With farms already under strain from heatwaves and droughts, it says the only way to ensure food security and business viability is through low-input systems that work with nature. Mr Lines added: We need farming that focuses on soil health, biodiversity and reducing costs. This isnt just about money its about building resilience in both our landscape and our businesses. Farmers play a crucial role in managing water, protecting habitats and boosting biodiversity. Nature-friendly farming can also cut many of the core costs tied to environmental management. We need the right support that both recognises the benefits of nature-friendly farming and ensures every penny of public money is spent as effectively as possible. The government has agreed to review key biofuel policies after years of NFU lobbying, opening the door to scrapping the cap on crop-based fuels and even moving beyond E10 petrol. In its statutory review of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), the Department for Transport (DfT) promised a consultation on how low-carbon fuels are rewarded. It also pledged to set up a working group on increasing ethanol blending in petrol and to call for evidence on crop use in the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) mandate. The RTFO forces fuel suppliers to blend in renewable fuels. For British growers, the bioethanol market has been a crucial outlet: in 2017, as much as 1.2 million tonnes of UK wheat went into the supply chain about 8% of the entire crop. But since 2018, an artificial crop cap has restricted the role of crop-derived fuels, stalling the sector. The NFU has long argued for change, calling for the cap to be lifted, waste feedstocks to be reclassified, greenhouse gas-based reporting to replace the current system, and trials of E20 petrol. The union said it was pleased ministers had finally listened, but frustration remains over the pace of reform. Crucially, the Government has refused short-term support for UK plants a move which has already forced the closure of Vivergo, the countrys main wheat bioethanol facility. NFU Combinable Crops Board chair Jamie Burrows said the loss of Vivergo was a huge blow, not only for workers but also the thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on that supply chain. The future of Ensus, which uses more imported grain, now hangs in the balance. The crop cap, introduced in 2018, has steadily ratcheted down to just 2% by 2032. The aim was to push waste-based fuels with lower emissions, but the system has been widely criticised as unfair. Industry leaders say it ignores the benefits of crop-based bioethanol, which delivers both fuel and animal feed, and creates a false crops bad, waste good narrative. The DfT has admitted the rules have tilted the market and confirmed it will consult on a new model that rewards fuels by their actual greenhouse gas savings. If adopted, this would make the crop cap unnecessary, ensuring only the most sustainable fuels thrive. The government plans to gather evidence and consult industry before legislating in 2026, with changes expected to take effect in 2027. The NFU said it will keep pressing ministers to deliver certainty for growers and secure a policy framework that recognises the role of British bioethanol in cutting emissions and supporting farming. A dispute at four Dale Farm sites across Northern Ireland has been resolved after workers at the dairy firm voted decisively to accept a significantly improved pay offer. Drivers and engineers at the Cookstown, Ballymena, Omagh and Enniskillen sites will receive a 4.75% pay increase, following managements revised proposal. The new deal was tabled after workers announced escalating strike action, which was due to begin with a three-day walkout on 20 September and progress to all-out strike action in the fourth week. The deal marks a considerable improvement on managements initial 3% offer. Under the agreement, drivers will also benefit from an enhanced bulk tank allowance, while engineers will receive an additional maintenance payment both worth an extra 1.75%. Dale Farm, Northern Irelands largest farmer-owned dairy cooperative, supplies milk and dairy products across the UK, Ireland and further afield. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham hailed the outcome, saying: Dale Farm workers have scored a clear win on pay. "This result demonstrates the importance of having strong unions in the workplace to deliver on workers jobs, pay and conditions. Unite, which represents around 100 workers at the four sites, confirmed that the ballot brings the current industrial dispute to an end. Regional officer Simon Hall said: Unite members have voted to accept a significantly improved pay offer. This goes some way towards improving the rate of pay of a skilled workforce. "We will continue to build union strength with the aim of ensuring Dale Farms success is properly shared with its employees. Chinese tourist arrivals to Cambodia up 48.2 pct in first 7 months Xinhua) 14:12, August 22, 2025 PHNOM PENH, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has recorded a 48.2 percent rise in the number of Chinese tourists in the first seven months of 2025, said the Ministry of Tourism's latest report released on Friday. A total of 687,509 Chinese visitors traveled to the kingdom during the January-July period of this year, up 48.2 percent from 463,980 over the same period last year. The number of Chinese tourists accounted for 18.5 percent of the total 3.71 million international tourist arrivals to Cambodia, the report said, adding that China was the third-largest source of foreign holidaymakers to the kingdom after Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodian Tourism Minister Huot Hak said the Cambodia-China Tourism Year 2025 is a catalyst for Chinese tourists to the Southeast Asian country. "Based on the statistics, the future of Cambodia's tourism is inseparable from the inflows of Chinese tourists and investors," he said. Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting Cambodia's economy in addition to garment, footwear and travel goods export, agriculture, and construction and real estate. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Hongyu) Image: Shutterstock As Chennai gears up to mark another year of milestones and rapid infrastructural growth, the citys food lovers are in for a treat. From the homegrown spices and traditional elai sapadu (meals served on a banana leaf) to the steaming tiffin, podis and pickles that are passed down through generations, hotels across Chennai have curated exciting food festivals to celebrate Madras Day. Heres a look at some of the culinary experiences you can indulge in and say, Happy Birthday, Chennai!.Enter the world of nostalgia this Madras Day as Southern Spice at Taj Coromandel presents a culinary journey that honours the citys vibrant food traditions. The specially curated a la carte menu, available till end of this month, pays tribute to Chennais timeless flavours and coastal heritage. Begin with soulful rasams like the peppery Kozhi Malli Rasam or refreshing Tulasi Rasam, before savouring appetisers such as the iconic Chicken 65, Merina Meen Varuval and Mylapore Ulundu Vadai. The mains offer a delectable mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian favourites, from Rayapuram Fish Curry and Adyar Kozhi Tawa Fry to Vada Curry and Kaikari Vellai Kurma, paired with biryanis, kothu paratha and idiyappams. End on a sweet note with indulgent desserts like Mylapore Adhirasam, Javvarisi Semiya Payasam and Rava Laddu.A la carte menuSouthern Spice, Taj Coromandel, ChennaiUntil 31 August, Lunch & DinnerApprox. Rs 2500 + taxes per personCelebrate this Madras Day with an exciting journey that brigs back the memories of flavours from over two millennia at The Madras Kitchen Company, The Westin Chennai Velachery. The Madras Revival, available until the 24th August, is all about celebrating the essence of ancient Tamilakam through recipes once enjoyed by kings, poets, farmers, and travellers alike. Relish timeless favourites such as Vazhapoo Vadai with Aamu Kallu Chutney, the earthy Keerai Masiyal with Ragi Kali, the iconic Madras Vadai Curry, and sweet endings like Inji Kali and Karuppatti Halwa. Each dish is crafted with age-old techniques and fresh local ingredients, transforming forgotten traditions into memorable dining experiences. Whether you seek the rustic simplicity of the land or the royal indulgence of ancient feasts, this festival promises an evocative taste of history served on your plate.A la carte menuMadras Kitchen Company, The Westin Chennai Velachery1524 August 2025, Lunch & DinnerOn requestAs Madras turns 386 this year, Chennais Feathers Hotel invites you to savour the citys heritage with Madras Magizhchi, a celebration of timeless flavours and cherished memories. At Sangamithirai, from 22 to 31 August, immerse yourself in the royal dining traditions of Tamilakam with the Karikalan Virundhu. Highlights include Nandu Milagu Rasam, Muyal Thenga Thokku, Coin Parotta, and more heirloom recipes that recreate the grandeur of ancient feasts. On 22 August, Waterside too hosts a vibrant Madras-themed buffet lunch, offering classics like Sambar Sadam, Karuveppilai Kozhi Varuval, Vanjaram Meen Varuval, and indulgent desserts such as Elaneer Payasam and Kesari. With its Buy 2 & Get 1 offer, this festival is a perfect ode to Chennais spirit of togetherness.Themed buffet & special a la carte menuFeathers Hotel, ChennaiSangamithirai 2231 Aug 2025 and Waterside 22 Aug 2025 (Lunch)Sangamithirai Veg Rs 2000++ / Non-Veg Rs 2500++; Waterside Rs 2250++ (Buy 2 & Get 1)Make this Madras Day memorable at Sheraton Grand Chennai Resort & Spa with their specially curated Madras on a Platter a three-day culinary journey at The Reef. From 2224 August 2025, savour a specially curated dinner buffet (22 & 23 Aug) and a grand brunch (24 Aug) that bring alive the citys heritage through iconic dishes. Relish delights like Attukal Paya, Vada Curry with Set Dosa, Madras Bhai Biryani, Athoe Salad, Idiyappam or Appam, and a live Chicken 65 counter. Designed by Executive Chef Somasundaram, the festival blends street-side favourites and legendary recipes with authenticity and flair.Madras Day special buffet & brunchThe Reef, Sheraton Grand Chennai Resort & Spa, Mahabalipuram2223 Aug 2025 (Dinner), 24 Aug 2025 (Brunch)On requestThis Madras Week cant get better as a Heritage Brunch has been planned at Anise, Taj Coromandel, on 24 August. Inspired by Chennais history, the food counters are themed after landmarks like Triplicane, Ribbon Building, and St. Thomas Mount. Guests can savour traditional favourites such as Sundal Thalichathu, Puliyogarai with Dal Vada, Podi Sambar Idli, and Kovil Thair Sadam. Highlights include Pacha Manga Meen Kozhambu with Kal Dosa, Varutharacha Kozhi Chukka with Parata, and Paya with Idiyappam. End your meal with nostalgic desserts like Caramel Custard, Coconut Cake, and Fruit Custard a tribute to the citys timeless culinary heritage.Madras Day Heritage BrunchAnise, Taj Coromandel, Chennai24 Aug 2025, 12:30 PM 3:30 PMRs 3250 all-inclusiveChennais ITC Grand Chola is all set to celebrate the citys founding spirit with Namma Ooru, Namma Flavours, a special culinary tribute on Madras Day. Guests can indulge in a dinner buffet that takes them on a flavourful journey through Chennais rich and diverse food culture. From cherished street eats to festive recipes lovingly passed down through generations, the menu is designed to evoke nostalgia, memories, and the warmth of sharing a meal with family and friends. The Lotus Lounge & Buffet will transform into a culinary showcase that highlights the very essence of Madras with its tradition, vibrancy, and soulful flavours. Whether youre a long-time Chennaiite or new to the city, this experience promises to make you feel at home while celebrating the citys legacy.Namma Ooru, Namma Flavours dinner buffetLotus Lounge & Buffet, ITC Grand Chola22nd August 2025, 7:00 pm 11:30 pmRs 2600 + taxes per person Sanjukta NandyAn architect, a movie buff, a storyteller and an author Sanjukta Nandy is all this and so much more! A self-confessed Agatha Christie and Sidney Sheldon fan, the author of Khantastic (a book that chronicles interesting tales from the lives of Bollywoods most famous Khans) is back with her latest offering her second book, and her very first in her favourite genre, a thriller aptly titled The Trojan Horse, co-authored by interior-architecture journalist Rupali Sebastian. Often caught reading two books at a time one fiction (because, well, who does not like stories?) and the other non-fiction to keep her grounded, Sanjukta tries to do justice to both her profession as an architect and her passion as an author. In this candid conversation, she lets us in on where the twain meet, how she approached writing her first fiction thriller, how Rupali was her mirror, and much, much more! Hi Sanjukta! This is your first time doing a fiction thriller. What inspired the story of The Trojan Horse? And its title? Well, thank you for having me here. Ive always been fond of reading crime, thrillers, and stories of espionage. So, I thought that my first fiction has to be on similar lines! In Greek mythology, the Trojan horse refers to the concept of deceptive infiltration, something that has always caught my fancy. The story of the book is on similar lines, and therefore its title. The recently-released The Trojan Horse is an espionage thriller Yes! The protagonist and antagonist are mirror images of each other. Can you tell us a little about the characterisation of Isha and Sangha? You have etched them so beautifully as the story moves along. Well, very simply put, it was the concept of good versus evil. I always feel, however, that every human has a lot of shades of grey. These characters also have their good and evil sides you will see the good in the evil and the evil in the good. That is how the characters were sketched out. In her good part, Isha is valorous intelligent, patriotic, a warrior. Sangha too is a warrior, but she has deception in her, shes a mercenary. With shades of grey, they have bits of each other in them. You put it so well! I think the cover of the book also depicts your Trojan horse thought aptly. Can you let us in on the most challenging part about writing this book? Writing this book was agony and ecstasy for me. Ecstasy because I had this idea that I wanted to put through and I really wanted to write about it and agony was when I got to writing it. Pacing the timelines of Isha and Sangha parallel to each other and yet show how they affect one another was the most challenging part. It took me a really long time to get it the way I wanted. Author Sanjukta Nandy with Femina Deputy Editor Shraddha Kamdar Did you write both the storylines simultaneously thinking how they will juxtapose with each other, or did you write one at a time creating the bridge between the two later? Thats an interesting observation! I have already mentioned that Im an architect. So, I am a storyteller with words, but in my thoughts Im very visual. When I got to the actual writing, I had a line dividing each page, with Ishas story being on one side and Sanghas on the other. It happened parallelly. It is not that Isha is the protagonist and Sangha is kind of supporting her in fact there are times when Sangha also takes the lead. What is your message to anyone who is picking up the book? Honestly, if you like the chill and the thrill and the twists and turns in a plot, this is going to be a book for you. Simply read and enjoy. Did your profession or the way you work around what you do, help you and how did it layer or colour your process of writing? Yes, my background in architecture helped in two things. One is the mathematics of writing. Though writing is about storytelling and words, it has a graph, it has mathematics. I was able to accomplish that due to my training, because planning has a lot to do with mathematics. For instance, the scenario going on in Abujmarh forest, or how the camp will be, the way the buildings will be laid out, the timeline of the movement, I would say are etched out of imagination, but putting it together that was really a part of my training in architectecture. Rupalis background also complemented the process. Youre a huge movie buff. Can you tell us how movies have affected your thought process or how they have impacted you? Movies have been a very integral part of my life. I was born into a house where my fathers profession was in the film industry. Then I got married into a family that is also into the movies. From childhood I have been in and around the industry, I would watch films roll in the theatres. Just like I cant take storytelling out of me, books out of me, I cant take the movies out of me. Whether it is Bollywood masala films, or Hollywood thrillers, I watch them all. Often, when I re-watch a film I discover something new! For instance, a couple of days back I was revisiting Django Unchained and the scene where Christoph Waltz points out the slave owner Leonardo DiCaprios hypocrisy. DiCaprio models himself on the French literature that formulates his library, forgetting that Alexandre Dumas was himself a writer of colour. Dumas, Waltz intones, is Black, much embarrassing DiCaprio. Rewatching it today, I realise how much layering went into the story telling that made a slave owner look like a pompous idiot. Author Sanjukta Nandy with Femina Deputy Editor Shraddha Kamdar Where do you look for inspiration when you need it the most? Inspiration is everywhere! It could be a snippet that I have read in the newspaper the Chhattisgarh backdrop in The Trojan Horse happened because I was reading a lot about Naxalites and militants in Chhattisgarh. But sometimes inspirations could be from a book I have read, from a movie I have watched, or it could be even a conversation between two people. I observe people how they walk, how they talk, and what they are saying. Fast five Your all-time favourite book: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier An author whose work has had a lot of impact on you: Since I was a very naughty child, my mom found out that the easiest way to keep me calm was to shove a book into my hands. Enid Blytons The Faraway Tree was the first book I read on my own. So, from Blyton to Agatha Christie to Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer, to currently, Benjamin Stevenson. What are you reading currently: I am revisiting one of Agatha Christies intriguing ones The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd. And I just finished Benjamin Stevensons Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone. A quote you use very often: A quote that I use often and I follow in life is taken from Gone With The Wind. After all tomorrow is another day. The beverage you like to drink when you are writing: Well, it begins with a cup of Earl Grey tea in the morning, with mugs and mugs of spearmint tea and if Ive written well and Im in a good mood then a glass of good bourbon! Review A high-stakes espionage thriller, The Trojan Horse (Rupa Publications) by Sanjukta Nandy and Rupali Sebastian is set in the dense forests of Abujmarh in Chhattisgarh. The story follows the life of the fierce and determined Special Agent Isha Srivastava, whose father had fiercely tracked the powerful mafia lord Bishen Rao but had lost all in return. Her fathers legacy of vengeance against Rao drives her in ways she does not realise. While attempting to uncover Raos expanding underground operations of arms and narcotics (known as LalTara), Isha chances upon a lethal mission Operation Red. Disguising herself as an infiltrator, she becomes the proverbial Trojan horse, integrating into the enemy ranks to reach the core of the ruthless organisation. The entry of Sangha, Bishen Raos loyal niece, adds a surprising emotional pivot to the story. When the two are face to face, a new complexity is introduced, with blood ties between them. It finally leads them to question their loyalties and confront their shared history. The protagonists are not up against any crime lord Bishen Rao is one with commanding presence, an embodiment of how power and violence go hand in hand. The narrative is gripping with the characters etched out in a compelling manner. The deep emotional undercurrent of the writing takes the novel beyond being just another spy narrative. Ishas character is nuanced, with her human strengths and flaws standing out equally as she navigates grief and moral conflict. Sangha, on the other hand, enters as the enemys right hand, but soon is faced with realities she cant ignore, and her fierce loyalty comes through in the end. The looming mystery of Operation RED adds a tense backdrop to the unfolding drama; its details are deliberately veiled, increasing the suspense. The book is filled with plot twists that will keep the readers on the edge, magnified by the jungle setting and the covert nature of the mission. The writers prose comes through beautifully its cinematic with vivid descriptions that enable the reader to conjure the terrain and tension with equal ease. Rating: **** To read the full story, become a PRIME member today. PRIME Unlimited Access to Insightful Industry Information All Corporate Members and TexPro Subscribers are eligible to access F2F PRIME CONTENT using the same login credentials. Despite significant uncertainties in global economy and trade, China is confident of and prepared to continue promoting steady growth in foreign trade, according to its Commerce Ministry. While multiple international organisations have noted that tariff barriers have substantially increased global trade costs and seriously affected the efficiency and stability of global industrial and supply chains, posing downward risks to global trade, China will work with more trading partners to jointly cope with the challenges and share development opportunities, ministry spokesperson He Yongqian told a recent press conference. China is confident of promoting steady growth in foreign trade despite global economic and trade uncertainties, its Commerce Ministry said. While it has been noted that tariff barriers have substantially raised trade costs and seriously hit the efficiency and stability of global industrial and supply chains, China will work with more trading partners to jointly cope with the challenges, it said. China will steadfastly manage its own affairs, addressing various uncertainties, the spokesperson was cited as saying by a state-controlled news agency. China's trade in goods totalled 25.7 trillion yuan (~$3.6 trillion) in the first seven months this yearup by 3.5 per cent year on year, with the growth pace accelerating by 0.6 percentage points from the first half of the year, data from the countrys general administration of customs show. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) Germanys producer prices of industrial products fell 1.5 per cent in July 2025 compared with the same month last year, following a 1.3 per cent decline in June, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported. On a monthly basis, producer prices slipped 0.1 per cent. The fall was mainly driven by energy, which was 6.8 per cent cheaper than a year earlier. Natural gas prices declined 8.6 per cent, electricity fell 7.8 per cent and district heating was 2.1 per cent lower. Compared with June, energy prices edged up 0.1 per cent, with electricity up 0.9 per cent, while natural gas slipped 1.1 per cent. Germany's producer prices fell 1.5 per cent YoY in July 2025 after a 1.3 per cent drop in June. Prices slipped 0.1 per cent MoM. Energy was 6.8 per cent cheaper YoY. Intermediate goods fell 0.9 per cent YoY, while capital goods rose 1.8 per cent, non-durables 3.5 per cent and durables 1.9 per cent. Excluding energy, prices rose 1 per cent YoY but declined 0.2 per cent MoM. Intermediate goods prices fell 0.9 per cent year on year (YoY) and 0.3 per cent month on month (MoM). In contrast, capital goods prices rose 1.8 per cent compared with July 2024 and 0.1 per cent versus June, Destatis said in a release. Non-durable consumer goods increased 3.5 per cent YoY but dipped 0.2 per cent MoM, while durable consumer goods rose 1.9 per cent annually and 0.2 per cent monthly. Excluding energy, producer prices climbed 1 per cent YoY but fell 0.2 per cent from June. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (HU) Net sales of Upland cotton in the US amounted to 105,400 running bales (RB), each weighing 226.8 kg (500 pounds), for the 2025-26 marketing year during the week ending August 14, 2025. This was lower than the previous weeks sales of 242,000 bales. According to the weekly export sales report of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), sales were primarily to Vietnam (35,800 RB, including 400 RB switched from South Korea and reductions of 11,700 RB), Pakistan (28,100 RB, including reductions of 1,200 RB), Bangladesh (21,300 RB, including 2,600 RB switched from Pakistan and reductions of 4,500 RB), Peru (8,400 RB, including reductions of 600 RB), and India (7,300 RB). These were partly offset by reductions for Turkiye (12,600 RB), South Korea (400 RB), and Malaysia (300 RB). US net sales of Upland cotton fell sharply to 105,400 running bales (RB) for the 2025-26 marketing year in the week ending August 14, 2025, down from 242,000 bales a week earlier, USDA reported. Key buyers included Vietnam, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, though reductions were noted for Turkiye, South Korea, and Malaysia. Pima sales totalled 1,000 RB, with shipments of 4,600 RB. Export shipments of 123,300 RB were mainly destined for Vietnam (31,100 RB), Bangladesh (18,500 RB), Pakistan (12,200 RB), Mexico (9,600 RB), and Honduras (9,500 RB). Net sales of Pima cotton totalled 1,000 RB for 2025-26, primarily for India (800 RB, including reductions of 1,900 RB) and Thailand (200 RB). Export shipments of 4,600 RB were primarily to India (2,900 RB), Egypt (700 RB), Thailand (400 RB), Bangladesh (300 RB), and Vietnam (200 RB). Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) Kolkatas glamorous star Nussrat Jahan lights up the screen in Raktabeej 2s latest song Order Chhara Border, which releases today. Composed by the legendary Silajit and sung by the powerful Shrestha Das, the track is an electrifying dance anthem brimming with energy, pulsating beats, and vibrant visuals. With Nussrats dazzling presence at its heart, the song promises to be the biggest item number of Durga Pujo 2025. Windows Production and Junglee Music (a division of Times Music) have consistently delivered blockbuster hits together, and this latest release adds yet another gem to their successful track record. Nussrat Jahan, who features in the song, shared, Working on Order Chhara Border was an absolute joy. Its a song full of life, rhythm, and colour, and performing it on screen was truly exhilarating. I cant wait for the audience to dance and celebrate with us this Pujo. Shiboprosad Mukherjee, Co-director, Windows Production, added, This song is all about vibrancy, energy, and celebration, and Nussrat has brought it alive on screen beautifully. We are delighted to present it with Junglee Music and are sure audiences will embrace it wholeheartedly. Speaking on the launch, Mandar Thakur, CEO, Times Music, said, Windows Production and Junglee Music have built a legacy of unforgettable music together. With Order Chhara Border, we are confident of delivering a song that will dominate playlists and celebrations across Bengal this festive season. The film is helmed by the director duo Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee, and boasts a stellar ensemble including Victor Banerjee, Seema Biswas, Abir Chatterjee, Mimi Chakraborty, Koushani Mukherjee, Nussrat Jahan, Kanchan Mullick, Subrata Dutta, and Ankush Hazra. Order Chhara Border is now streaming on Junglee Musics YouTube channel and across all leading audio platforms. Watch it on YouTube: Also Read: Nusrat Jahan reveals how her relationship with Yash was on the verge of collapsing Bollywood star Salman Khan has officially begun shooting for his next film, The Battle of Galwan. A behind-the-scenes photo has gone viral that shows the actor facing a lot of cameras and seemingly preparing for a shot. He can be seen wearing a blue shirt with jeans. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh shared the photo on social media and wrote, "Superstar #SalmanKhan joins the prestigious #GalwanValley team His aura, intensity & larger-than-life presence will take this patriotic saga to another level. Bollywoods Tiger steps into #GalwanValley, His charisma + action = guaranteed blockbuster storm!" Take a look at it here: Superstar #SalmanKhan joins the prestigious #GalwanValley team His aura, intensity & larger-than-life presence will take this patriotic saga to another level Bollywoods Tiger steps into #GalwanValley, His charisma + action = guaranteed blockbuster storm! pic.twitter.com/TpZnDiO1t6 taran adarsh (@taran__adrash) August 21, 2025 Directed by Apoorva Lakhia, the movie is based on the intense 2020 conflict between Indian and Chinese forces in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh. The first look of Khan's character was unveiled last month. In the motion poster, he appeared with bloodstains on his face, a sharp moustache, and a powerful expression filled with pride and determination. The battle took place high up in the Ladakh region, over 15,000 feet above sea level. It was a deadly hand-to-hand confrontation between Indian and Chinese soldiers that took place on June 15, 2020. Because firearms were banned in the area under a prior agreement, soldiers fought using sticks, stones, and their bare hands. The event resulted in multiple casualties on both sides and marked the first deaths in a border conflict between India and China in over 45 years. Salman Khan spoke about the physical challenges he faced while playing his character in the film. He said, It is physically demanding. Every year, every month, every day it gets more and more difficult. I have to give more time now. Earlier, I would manage it in one or two weeks, but now Im running, kicking, punching, and doing all that stuff. This film demands that. For instance, in Sikandar, the action was different, the character was different. But this is physically difficult, especially shooting in Ladakh, at high altitudes and in cold water. Also Read: Chitrangda Singh Says Battle of Galwan With Salman Khan Is Meaningful and Rooted For years, Vineeth Sreenivasan has been synonymous with feel-good Malayalam cinema. Films like Jacobinte Swargarajyam, Hridayam, and more recently Varshangalkku Shesham cemented his reputation as a filmmaker who thrives on optimism, music, and family bonds. The last time he strayed from that space was back in 2013 with Thira, a socially charged thriller starring Dhyan Sreenivasan and Shobana. Vineeths Sharpest Left Turn Yet Twelve years later, hes venturing even further into darker territory with Karam. The films trailer makes it clear: this is a raw, gritty action drama revolving around a bloody clash between militants and an Army officer. Noble Babu Thomas, usually seen in gentler roles, appears here in a ruthless new avatar: stabbing enemies, breaking bones, and even pinning a foe with an iron box. For audiences used to Vineeths softer storytelling, this promises a very different cinematic experience. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Vineeth Sreenivasan (@vineeth84) A Reunion with Noble Babu Thomas, But Reinvented At the centre of Karam is Noble Babu Thomas, a long-time collaborator of Vineeths who previously worked with him on Jacobinte Swargarajyam. That film was all about family and resilience; this one is about survival in combat. What makes the collaboration even more interesting is Nobles expanded rolebeyond starring as the lead, he has also written the screenplay and contributed to the stunt choreography alongside Lazare Vardukadze and Irakli Sabanadze. The supporting cast is stacked with Malayalam stalwarts: Manoj K Jayan, Kalabhavan Shajohn, Johny Antony, Baburaj, and Reshma Sebastian, among others. Together, they form the human fabric of a story that looks far more brutal and complex than anything Vineeth has directed before. Behind the camera, Vineeth has once again brought together his trusted creative partners. Jomon T John handles cinematography, Shan Rahman composes the score, and Ranjan Abraham edits the film. Their collective work has defined Vineeths earlier films, but this time the challenge lies in capturing tension and violence with the same finesse. An Action Epic on a Global Stage Karam also stands out for its ambitious scale. The film has been shot across multiple international and Indian locationsGeorgia, the RussiaAzerbaijan border, Shimla, Chandigarh and Kochilending it a globe-trotting authenticity rare in Malayalam thrillers. The project is backed by Visakh Subramaniams Merryland Cinemas and Vineeths own Habit of Life label, with distribution planned by Merryland in India and Phars Films overseas. Scheduled to hit theatres worldwide on September 25, 2025, Karam is shaping up to be Vineeths most daring directorial experiment yet. It marks a decisive departure from the tender emotional journeys that made his name, and signals his willingness to embrace darker, more visceral storytelling. For Malayalam cinema, which has thrived on grounded realism in recent years, Karam could open the door to a new wave of action narrativesrooted in emotion, but unafraid to get its hands bloody. Also Read: The Soulful Storyteller: 15 Years of Vineeth Sreenivasan Films Vikram Prabhu and Anushka Shetty play a couple in Ghaati Drawn by Ghaati content Anushka Shetty and Vikram Prabhu in Ghaati Anushka rises against the corrupt The makers of Anushka Shettys upcoming film Ghaati have received a major shot in the arm. While the Krish Jagarlamudi directorial is gearing up for release on September 5, 2025, the latest development is that superstar Yashs mother Pushpa Arun Kumar will release the film in Karnataka.Yashs mother Pushpa floated a new banner, Pa Productions, a couple of years ago. While Kothalavadi is her maiden production venture, Pushpa has now bagged the Karnataka theatrical distribution rights of Anushka Shettys upcoming film, Ghaati. The producer was reportedly impressed by Anushkas character and the films unique plotline. After she saw the trailer and the gripping visuals in the promotional content, Pushpa decided to release the action thriller in Karnataka. Interestingly, Ghaati is her first film as a distributor.Ghaati is a female-centric film headlined by Anushka Shetty. Pushpa believed that the story has all the ingredients to inspire and narrate a visually compelling narrative. Since the actresss character sees a transformation from a victim to a criminal and ultimately to a legend, the producer-distributor felt Ghaati is the right film to commence her journey as a distributor, says a source close to the production house. And Anushkas character arc and her performance as an intense and fearless woman reportedly motivated Pushpa to take up the film.Director Krish Jagarlamudi brings a unique and bold story to the forefront about the trials and tribulations of Ghaati a community historically forced to build roads in the treacherous Ghats during the British Raj. The film deals with villagers around the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border. Anushka Shetty and Vikram Prabhu play Ghaatis who illegally transport Cannabis while evading the cops. But she rises against the corrupt system and dares to challenge the situation, urging her people to abandon the dangerous trade. CLEARWATER, FLORIDA / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 / Home Team Luxury Rentals, a boutique short-term rental management company specializing in high-end vacation homes, announced today its official expansion into California's top Airbnb markets. The company now offers full-service property management across Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Malibu, Newport Beach, and every city in San Diego County, with additional coverage in dozens of luxury destinations statewide. Known for its VIP-level guest experiences, hassle-free income for property owners, and ROI-focused management strategies, Home Team Luxury Rentals is redefining what it means to invest in and operate luxury vacation rentals. The move into California marks a significant milestone for the Rise Collective brand family, which includes Home Team Luxury Rentals, BNB Lending, BNB Construction, and STR Realtor Search. Luxury-Focused Management Across California From iconic coastal escapes in Malibu to vibrant urban stays in San Francisco and family-friendly homes near San Diego's beaches, the company is positioned to serve California's most in-demand short-term rental markets. Home Team Luxury Rentals' services include: End-to-End Multi-Channel Approach - Listing optimization, guest communications, and dynamic pricing powered by market-leading software. Luxury Guest Experiences - Customized check-in, 24/7 concierge service, and curated amenities including pools, smart-home technology, and hot tubs. Owner Performance Dashboards - Real-time access to occupancy rates, ROI benchmarks, and revenue performance. Property Enhancement & Design - Assistance with upgrades that increase nightly rates and booking volume. A Statement from the Brand "California is one of the most competitive and rewarding short-term rental markets in the world," said [Insert Founder/Spokesperson Name], Co-Founder of Home Team Luxury Rentals. "Our expansion here is about more than managing properties-it's about creating exceptional guest experiences while maximizing returns for owners. We're obsessed with the details that make luxury rentals stand out, and California is the perfect stage for that." Why It Matters With California attracting millions of visitors each year and maintaining some of the nation's strongest Airbnb demand, luxury-focused management is key to achieving sustainable returns. By leveraging data-driven pricing, design expertise, and high-touch guest care, Home Team Luxury Rentals helps property owners turn vacation homes into top-performing investments. Availability Home Team Luxury Rentals' services are now available across all major California markets, including but not limited to: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Malibu, Newport Beach, Palm Springs, Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, Sonoma, Fresno, Sacramento, and every city in San Diego County. About Home Team Luxury Rentals Home Team Luxury Rentals is a premier property management company under the Rise Collective brand, specializing in luxury short-term rentals across the United States. With no cap on the number of properties managed, the company offers comprehensive services for Airbnb and VRBO hosts, including marketing, guest management, and ROI optimization. Sister companies BNB Lending, BNB Construction, BNB Turnkey, and STR Realtor Search provide investors with a complete ecosystem for success in short-term rental ownership. Contact Information Albert Brown Digital Marketing Manager albert@rise-collective.com 6195862817 SOURCE: The Rise Collective View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/real-estate/home-team-luxury-rentals-expands-into-california-bringing-full-service-luxury-airbnb-ma-1064057 Transition extending life of mine production underway Gold equivalent production of 11,437 Gold Equivalent Ounces (" GEO") at AISC of $1,779/oz during Q2 2025 Adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million for Q2 2025 Full year guidance of 55,000-60,000 GEO maintained: Production weighted to H2 as higher-grade underground mining and heap leach volumes increase Repayment of ~US$18m debt and payables at the MDN operations year to date- ~US$10m in Q2 2025 20,000 meter resource expansion exploration program at MDN underway Significant investment and progress at both the Lagoa Salgada and Mont Sorcier projects Positive Metallurgical results at Lagoa Salgada to be incorporated into Optimized Feasibility Study to be delivered by year end Management to host conference call on Monday, 25th of August, 11AM EDT TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 / Cerrado Gold Inc. (TSXV:CERT)(OTCQX:CRDOF)(FRA:BAI0) ("Cerrado" or the "Company") announces its operational and financial results for the second quarter ("Q2/25") including its Minera Don Nicolas ("MDN") gold mine in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, its Lagoa Salgada Polymetallic Project in Portugal and its Mont Sorcier High Purity DRI Iron Project in Quebec. Financial results now include the consolidated financial position of Ascendant Resources Inc. ("Ascendant") following the close of the acquisition effective May 16, 2025. Production results for MDN were previously released on July 17, 2025. The Company's financial results are reported and available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.com) and the Company's website (www.cerradogold.com). Q2/25 MDN Operating Highlights: Q2/25 production of 11,437 GEO and AISC of $1,779/oz Unit costs expected to continue to decline as production increases in H2/2025 Q2/25 Adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million Record heap leach production of 7,864 GEO during the Quarter Underground development at Paloma started with three access portals CIL plant receiving initial contribution from underground development; production expected to ramp up over H2/2025 Operational results for the second quarter saw gold production increase compared to Q1 2025, but were lower than Q2/24 during which period the high grade Calandrias Norte pit was being mined. This was anticipated given the depletion of high-grade material from Calandrias Norte, following which, MDN became primarily a heap leach only operation pending the ramp up of new high-grade material from underground. The heap leach operation reached another production record of 7,864 GEO for the quarter. The recently expanded crushing circuit is enabling higher volumes of ore to be placed on the pad, with further increases expected following the planned addition of an agglomerator and additional conveyors in Q3 2025. With higher gold prices, the CIL plant continued to process lower-grade stockpiles through Q2/25. Going forward, lower grade material will be blended with new high-grade material from underground mining feed beginning in Q3/25 which will increase mill grades, boost production and lower unit operating costs further. Mark Brennan, CEO and Chairman commented, "The results from the second quarter demonstrate a robust operation transitioning to deliver increased production in the second half of the year and beyond. The expanded and improved crushing capacity at the heap leach is delivering greater production and when combined with new, higher-grade ore expected from underground operations, unit costs are expected to decline significantly in the second half of the year, enhancing our financial performance." He continued, "The strong cash flow generated from operations combined with our cash balance, has enabled us to pay down $10m in debt at MDN during the second quarter, while continuing to deploy capital for surface exploration and development of new resources underground. We are also seeing very positive advances at our Lagoa Salgada Polymetallic Project and at the High-grade Mont Sorcier DRI Iron Project in which we expect to unlock significant value that we see in these projects as the respective Feasibility Studies are completed." Operating Results for the Quarter Operational results for Q2 2025 showed a modest increase in production over the previous quarter, driven by modestly higher production from the heap leach operations. The heap leach performance remained steady over the quarter. However, recovery rates were impacted by a larger amount of primary ore placed on pad during the quarter due to mine sequencing. This primary material has lower recovery rates and longer retention times as compared to oxide material. Heap leach production is expected to improve in H2/25 as more oxide ore is mined, the addition of an agglomerator to reduce fines is implemented, and the ongoing upgrades to the crushing circuit are completed. In addition, early in the quarter the crushing circuit was offline for approximately 15 days as upgrades were put in place to support higher throughput rates moving forward. Production from stockpiled material via the CIL plant declined somewhat due to lower grades, however, underground operations at Paloma are expected to begin to contribute meaningfully to production in H2 2025 and beyond as development rates increase and more ore becomes available. The second phase of the expansion of the heap leach crushing circuit is now complete, which will increase feed stability in order to deliver steady ore volumes to the pad. While supporting higher production rates, additional crushing facilities are also expected to reduce the feed size to the pad and result in increased recoveries. The final updates to the crusher circuit, including final installation of the agglomerator and additional conveyors, are set to be completed in Q3/25. As previously announced, MDN commenced underground mining in June, opening up three portals for underground mining beneath the Paloma pit. Ore production is expected to ramp up over H2 and is set to make a material contribution to production rates as the year progresses. While initial production expectations are relatively modest given the current known underground resource, underground access is expected to provide a platform for major exploration activities at a lower cost than drilling from surface. Underground exploration aims to materially expand resources at MDN, leveraging the underground development for a potential expansion in production and/or mine life. On the exploration front, the Company commenced an approximate 20,000 metre drill program at MDN late in the quarter and is set to drill numerous targets in the coming months with the aim to potentially define new resources to provide mill feed to the CIL plant. Drilling commenced with a single DDH rig north of the Paloma pit, where several new veins have been intersected. Results are pending and further drilling will be required to confirm new resources. In the near term, the focus at MDN remains to ramp up production rates at its heap leach operation to approximately 4,000-4,500 GEO per month, grow underground production from the Paloma area in H2, and ramp up a new targeted exploration program across our 330k Ha property to increase resources and mine life. The Company has reduced its debt position by approximately $10M over the quarter at MDN and is well positioned to have a robust financial position by year end. Strong cashflow and reduced liabilities at MDN will support continued development and exploration at MDN, while pushing forward its strategic development programs at its projects in Quebec and Portugal. Q1 Financial Performance Table 1. Q1 2025 Operational and Financial Performance The Company produced 11,437 gold equivalent ounces ("GEO") during the three months ended June 30, 2025, as compared to 16,255 GEO for the three months ended June 30, 2024. In the period ended June 30, 2025, heap leach production was significantly higher compared to the prior year due to 27% higher recoveries and 438,530 additional tonnes placed on the pad. This was offset by a 10,262 ounce decrease in production from the CIL operation as the Company's focus moved towards heap leach operations in 2025 and only processed low grade ore in Q2 2025. The Company generated revenue of $29.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025, from the sale of 10,301 ounces of gold and 56,839 ounces of silver at an average realized price per gold ounce sold of $2,684. For the three months ended June 30, 2024, the Company generated revenue of $34.7 million from the sale of 15,484 ounces of gold 23,509 ounces of silver. Revenue is lower for the three months ended June 30, 2025 as compared to the three months ended June 30, 2024, due primarily to lower gold ounces sold. Cost of sales for the three months ended June 30, 2025, were $23.4 million as compared to $23.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2024. The Company incurred $0.6 million higher production costs for the three months ended June 30, 2025 due to slightly higher costs of operational contractors and labour costs in 2025 as compared to 2024. Sales expenses were also slightly higher in the first quarter of 2025 by $0.6 million, offset by a $1.0 million decrease in depreciation expense. Total cash costs (including royalties) sold was $1,770 per ounce in the three months ended June 30, 2025, as compared to $1,178 per ounce for the three months ended June 30, 2024, a $592 per ounce or 50% increase (refer to reconciliation of Non-IFRS performance metrics). The increase is a result of lower ounces sold in 2025 as compared to 2024. Net income from continued and discontinued operations for the three months ended June 30, 2025, was $1.2 million as compared to a net income of $1.0 million for the three months ended June 30, 2024. The increase in net income is primarily a result of decrease in foreign exchange loss of $5.9 million and lower depreciation expense of $1.0 million offset by $5.2 million decrease in metal sales, an increase in loss on remeasurement of MDN stream obligation of $0.8 million and an increase in loss on remeasurement of Ascendant secured note and stream obligation of $1.1 million. The Company incurred general and administrative expenses of $2.8 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025, as compared to $2.5 million of general and administrative expenses incurred during the three months ended June 30, 2024. The increase was primarily a result of an increase in salaries of $0.1 million, consulting fees of $0.1 million and marketing and promotion of $0.1 million offset by a decrease in stock-based compensation of $0.1 million, and office and other of $0.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025. Other loss of $1.4 million during the three months ended June 30, 2025, includes finance expense of $1.4 million, loss on fair value remeasurement of MDN stream obligation of $1.0 million and loss on fair value remeasurement of Ascendant secured note and stream obligation of $1.1 million offset by finance income of $1.0 million and foreign exchange gain of $0.9 million. Hedging Program On April 26, 2025, the Company extended its limited hedging program with Ocean Partners UK Ltd. The hedge is constructed as a zero-cost collar with lower and upper boundaries of US$3,100 and US$3,250 per ounce respectively. The hedging volume is for 2,000 ounces per month for a period of 7 months beginning May 2025 and terminating on or about December 2025, subject to production volume. With the expanded hedging program, the Company is focused on ensuring more than sufficient cash flows to further enhance its balance sheet and support funding requirements for its various growth programs. Outlook Entering H2 2025 and beyond, Cerrado's MDN Heap Leach operations are benefiting from the recent improvements to its crushing infrastructure to grow and improve production rates. Higher gold prices have enabled the CIL plant to remain operational by processing lower grade stockpiles, and it is now set to benefit from the introduction of higher-grade ore from underground operations, which is expected to improve overall profitability and free cash flows. The Company has maintained its 2025 annual production guidance to 55,000 - 60,000 GEO. AISC costs are expected decline in the second half of 2025 as production ramps up to deliver AISC of between $1,500 - $1,700 per GEO. The 20,000-meter exploration program has begun and is focused on growing the known resources at MDN beyond those outlined in the most recent Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE"). The focus remains on defining high grade-near surface targets that can readily be brought into the mine plan. The Company has developed an underground and a regional program to better understand the potential of known anomalies on the significant land package Cerrado holds at MDN. Drilling is now underway. During Q2 2025 the Company closed the acquisition of all of the outstanding common shares of Ascendant Resources Inc. not already owned by the Company and thereby obtaining an effective 80% interest in the Lagoa Salgada VMS project on the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. Accordingly, financial statements reflect the consolidation of Ascendant financial information for the first time, which includes liabilities assumed by the Company in connection with the acquisition. At the Lagoa Salgada project, work continued across key workstreams with the goal of reaching a construction decision by Q1 2026. Ongoing metallurgical testing has already delivered positive improvements and is expected to be completed imminently. Management considers the previously reported improvements to Capex and Opex at Lagoa to be very encouraging, and they will be integrated into the optimization program for the OFS. Significant positive results using Dense Media Separation on the Stockworks zone has warranted further analysis on mine and plant design. The expected result is a reduction in processing costs from this domain, but requires further detailed work to be undertaken before it can be incorporated into the OFS. Parallel workstreams to complete the OFS are currently ongoing and it is expected that the completion of the OFS will occur by year end. The Company is also advancing the approval in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), after successfully receiving Article 16 approval from the Portuguese regulators. The Company expects to submit its revised EIA in October. At the Mont Sorcier high grade and high purity DRI iron project operated by Cerrado's wholly owned subsidiary Voyager Metals Inc., work continued to advance the project with several workstreams related to permitting, social license and the initiation of the Feasibility Study which is targeted to be completed during Q1 2026. The high quality of the concentrate, grading over 67% iron, from the Mont Sorcier project is well positioned to support growing demand from the global Green Steel transition due to the reduced emissions generated by steel producers using high grade concentrates. Conference Call Details Cerrado Management will host a conference call on August 25, 2025, at 11:00 AM EDT to discuss the Q2 Financial and Operational results. The presentation for the call can be found on the investor page on Cerrado Gold's website at cerradogold.com. Call details are as follows: Pre-Registration for Conference Call Participants can preregister for the conference by navigating to: https://dpregister.com/sreg/10202340/ffc98dcb64 Participants will receive dial-in numbers to connect directly upon registration completion. Those without internet access or unable to pre-register may dial in by calling: PARTICIPANT DIAL IN (TOLL FREE): 1-833-752-3576 PARTICIPANT INTERNATIONAL DIAL IN: 1-647-846-8340 PARTICIPANT INTERNATIONAL DIAL IN: 1-647-846-8340 Review of Technical Information The scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Andrew Croal P.Eng, Chief Technical Officer for Cerrado Gold, who is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101. About Cerrado Cerrado Gold is a Toronto-based gold production, development, and exploration company. The Company is the 100% owner of the producing Minera Don Nicolas and Las Calandrias mine in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. In Portugal, the Company holds an 80% interest in the highly prospective Lagoa Salgada VMS project through its position in Redcorp - Empreendimentos Mineiros, Lda. In Canada, Cerrado Gold is developing its 100% owned Mont Sorcier Iron project located outside of Chibougamou, Quebec. In Argentina, Cerrado is maximizing asset value at its Minera Don Nicolas operation through continued operational optimization and is growing production through its operations at the Las Calandrias heap leach project. An extensive campaign of exploration is ongoing to further unlock potential resources in our highly prospective land package in the heart of the Deseado Masiff. In Portugal, Cerrado focused on the exploration and development of the highly prospective Lagoa Salgada VMS project located on the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. The Lagoa Salgada project is a high-grade polymetallic project, demonstrating a typical mineralization endowment of zinc, copper, lead, tin, silver, and gold. Extensive exploration upside potential lies both near deposit and at prospective step-out targets across the large 7,209-hectare property concession. Located just 80km from Lisbon and surrounded by exceptional infrastructure, Lagoa Salgada offers a low-cost entry to a significant exploration and development opportunity, already showing its mineable scale and cashflow generation potential. In Canada, Cerrado holds a 100% interest in the Mont Sorcier Iron project, which has the potential to produce a premium iron concentrate over a long mine life at low operating costs and low capital intensity. Furthermore, its high grade and high purity product facilitates the migration of steel producers from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, contributing to the decarbonization of the industry and the achievement of sustainable development goals. For more information about Cerrado please visit our website at: www.cerradogold.com. Mark Brennan CEO and Chairman Mike McAllister Vice President, Investor Relations Tel: +1-647-805-5662 mmcallister@cerradogold.com Disclaimer 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. This press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information" (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 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 statements. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding the business and operations of Cerrado, anticipated continued improvements in operating results and working capital position, future production and grade estimates, future cashflows, expectations regarding the CIL plant processing lower grade stockpiles, the potential for improvement at MDN's heap leach operation and higher grade ore being processed at MDN, expectations regarding improvements in operating costs at MDN including reduction in AISC, additional capacity being added at the heap leach operation, the potential of underground operation at MDN, the anticipated timing of completing the feasibility study at the Mont Sorcier project, the potential for a construction decision at Lagoa Salgada and the expected timing and likelihood of receiving approval of the environmental impact assessment at Lagoa Salgada. In making the forward- looking statements contained in this press release, Cerrado has made certain assumptions. Although Cerrado believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking statements 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 statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, Cerrado disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise. SOURCE: Cerrado Gold Inc. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/metals-and-mining/cerrado-gold-announces-second-quarter-2025-financial-results-1064036 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2025) - Powermax Minerals Inc. (CSE: PMAX) ("Powermax" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Paul Gorman as Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") and to the Board of Directors of Powermax, with immediate effect. Mr. Gorman will be replacing Aadam Tejpar on the Board of Directors of Powermax. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Tejpar for his services. Mr. Gorman is a resource sector-focused corporate specialist with over 25 years of experience in junior mining finance, public listings, viability assessment and operational leadership of several emerging-growth public companies. He served as President and Managing Partner of Riverbank Capital for 18 years, where he worked with small-cap companies to assist in financing, property and profile development. During this time, Mr. Gorman successfully raised over $85 million of capital and was instrumental in developing plans for ongoing sustainable business growth. Mr. Gorman had an integral role in revitalizing the junior graphite space in North America in 2008 by funding Industrial Minerals Inc., which later became Northern Graphite (TSXV: NGC), and by assisting four other graphite companies in an advisory role. He then founded Mega Graphite Inc. in 2009 and has served as CEO for several other companies. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Michael Malana for his service as Chief Executive Officer and looks forward to his continued contributions to the Board of Directors. About Powermax Minerals Inc. Powermax Minerals Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on advancing rare earth element projects. The Company holds an option to acquire the Cameron REE Property, comprising three mineral claims totaling approximately 2,984 hectares in British Columbia. Powermax also recently optioned to acquire the Atikokan REE Property in Ontario, consisting of 455 unpatented mining claims (see news release dated June 18, 2025). For more information, investors should review the Company's filings that are available at www.sedarplus.ca. Forward-Looking Statements Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. The forward-looking information in this news release reflects the current expectations, assumptions and/or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company's normal course of business. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in CSE policies) 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/263416 SOURCE: Powermax Minerals Inc. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2025) - Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. (CSE: BVCI) announces that it is exploring a potential technical collaboration with Tagger, a privacy-focused technology provider, to conduct a pilot program outside of Canada aimed at enhancing wallet security and responsible AI development. The pilot is intended to evaluate synthetic data labeling, computer vision, and AI safety testing techniques. Any future implementation will be subject to regulatory review and full compliance with applicable securities and privacy laws in relevant jurisdictions. BVCI will also be seeking legal and regulatory guidance before launching or expanding any related program in Canada, the United States, or other jurisdictions. No live user data will be used, and all datasets will be synthetic, public, or staged for controlled evaluation. Service payments for Tagger's technical services under the contemplated pilot may be settled using USD1, a blockchain-based settlement token issued by World Liberty Financial, subject to local regulatory requirements. This form of settlement is unrelated to BVCI's own stablecoin initiatives. About Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. is an Ontario-incorporated company registered as a Money Services Business with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC). The Company provides innovative technology infrastructure to participants in the blockchain and distributed ledger technology industry. Central to BVCI's growth strategy is BVC Chain, a proprietary blockchain platform and distributed ledger system designed to operate in both centralized and decentralized environments. BVC Chain also powers BvcPay, a mobile application with digital wallet functionality that enables point-of-sale and online transactions using Bitcoin, Ethereum, and CADT. CADT, BVCI's native digital currency, is intended to be a Canadian dollar-backed stablecoin designed to support real-time payments, settlements, digital asset issuance, and ledger services. Unless and until BVCI obtains all necessary regulatory approvals or qualifies for applicable exemptions, there can be no assurance that it will be able to proceed with its CADT-related initiatives. The Company also holds a 51% equity interest in LuminusFX Corporation, a Toronto-based financial services firm specializing in secure, globally oriented financial consulting services. For more information, please visit: https://www.BVCADT.com Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements relating to the completion of the pilot, execution of a definitive agreement, regulatory matters, and potential technology development. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially. There is no assurance that any of the transactions or initiatives referenced herein will be completed as proposed or at all. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. Commitment to Responsible Innovation This initiative reflects a shared intent by BVCI and Tagger to pursue innovation in digital fintech responsibly and in alignment with applicable global regulatory frameworks. Both parties will actively seek feedback and guidance from securities and industry regulators in relevant jurisdictions to offer users a secure, compliant, and innovative crypto experience. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263466 SOURCE: Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. Kunstliche Intelligenz, Magnificent Seven, Tech-Euphorie seit Monaten scheint an der Borse nur eine Richtung zu existieren: nach oben. Doch hinter den Rekordkursen lauert eine gefahrliche Wahrheit. Die Bewertungen vieler Tech-Schwergewichte haben historische Extremniveaus erreicht. Shiller-KGV bei 39, Buffett-Indikator auf Allzeithoch schon in der Dotcom-Ara war der Markt kaum teurer. Hinzu kommen euphorische Anlegerstimmung, IPO-Hypes ohne Substanz, kreditfinanzierte Wertpapierkaufe in Rekordhohe und charttechnische Warnsignale, die Erinnerungen an 2000 und 2021 wecken. Gleichzeitig drucken geopolitische Risiken, Trumps aggressive Zollpolitik und saisonale Borsenschwache auf die Perspektiven. Die Gefahr: Aus der schleichenden Korrektur konnte ein rasanter Crash werden und der konnte vor allem uberbewertete KI- und Chipwerte hart treffen. In unserem kostenlosen Spezial-Report zeigen wir Ihnen, welche Tech-Aktien am starksten gefahrdet sind und wie Sie Ihr Depot vor dem Platzen der Blase schutzen konnten. Holen Sie sich den neuesten Report! Dieses exklusive Angebot gilt aber nur fur kurze Zeit! Daher jetzt downloaden! DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Medical Equipment Maintenance Market, valued at US$55.22 billion in 2024, stood at US$60.68 billion in 2025 and is projected to advance at a resilient CAGR of 10.8% from 2025 to 2030, culminating in a forecasted valuation of US$101.52 billion by the end of the period. The medical equipment maintenance market expansion is driven by the increasing demand for appropriate and accurately functioning medical devices, higher healthcare investments, and increased attention to patient safety and equipment uptime. With the aging population and chronic disease burden, medical equipment utilization has increased; thus, regular medical equipment maintenance is now required. Furthermore, market growth is aided by government initiatives promoting quality healthcare, mandates enforcing equipment servicing, and increasing deployment of modern technology in medical devices. Additionally, the rising healthcare infrastructure in emerging economies, coupled with strategic ties and service contracts between the OEMs, ISOs, and healthcare providers, is fuelling the expansion in the market. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=69695102 Browse in-depth TOC on 'Medical Equipment Maintenance Market' 298 - Tables 64 - Figures 373 - Pages By device type, the market is categorized by device type into diagnostic imaging equipment, patient monitoring & life support devices, surgical equipment, radiotherapy devices, laboratory equipment, endoscopic devices, medical lasers, electrosurgical equipment, dental equipment, radiotherapy devices, ophthalmology equipment, and durable medical equipment. The diagnostic imaging equipment segment will dominate the market during the forecast period. Continuous innovations in diagnostic imaging technologies, such as MRI, CT scans, and ultrasound, have resulted in more sophisticated and expensive equipment requiring regular maintenance to ensure optimal performance, fueling market growth. By service type, the medical equipment maintenance market is segmented by service type into operational, corrective, and preventive maintenance. The preventive maintenance segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. As diagnostic imaging systems grow more advanced and complex, proactive upkeep is essential to minimize breakdowns and maintain seamless operation. Ongoing technological innovations continue to introduce sophisticated components and subsystems that require specialized maintenance expertise and procedures. By service provider, the medical equipment maintenance market is segmented by service provider into single-vendor OEMs, multi-vendor OEMs, ISOs, and in-house maintenance. The ISOs segment dominated the market during the forecast period. The high growth rate of this segment is attributed to the ability of ISOs to offer specialized expertise and training for equipment support from different manufacturers, ensuring consistent quality of services. By geography, the Asia Pacific region is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The region's high growth rate is attributed to the expanding healthcare markets, rising disposable income, increasing focus on technologically advanced maintenance equipment, and the high uptake of specialized services for the maintenance of products. The high growth potential of emerging economies is also expected to fuel the market growth during the forecast period. Additionally, the Asia Pacific region has been experiencing significant growth in healthcare infrastructure, with increasing investments in hospitals, clinics, and medical facilities. This expansion has led to a higher demand for medical equipment maintenance services to support the growing number of healthcare facilities. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=69695102 Some of the leading players of the market include Siemens Healthineers AG (Germany), GE Healthcare (US), Medtronic (Ireland), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan), Olympus Corporation (Japan), Stryker (US), Canon Inc. (Japan), Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (Germany), Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), B. Braun SE (Germany), Elekta (Sweden), Shimadzu Corporation (Japan), Althea Group, LLC (Italy), and Agfa-Gevaert Group (Belgium). GE Healthcare (US): GE Healthcare is a leading player in the medical equipment maintenance market, offering comprehensive maintenance solutions for healthcare facilities worldwide. Their services include preventive and corrective maintenance, equipment upgrades, and predictive maintenance powered by data analytics. With a global presence and advanced technologies, GE Healthcare ensures the reliability and efficiency of medical devices across various healthcare settings. Their commitment to customer satisfaction and innovation keeps them at the forefront of the industry. Siemens Healthineers AG (Germany) Siemens Healthineers is a prominent figure in the medical equipment maintenance market, recognized for its cutting-edge technologies and extensive healthcare solutions. With a global footprint and a diverse portfolio of medical devices and services, Siemens Healthineers offers a broad spectrum of maintenance solutions tailored to meet the evolving needs of healthcare facilities worldwide. Siemens Healthineers' medical equipment maintenance expertise spans various healthcare settings, including hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and research institutions. Leveraging advanced technologies and a network of skilled technicians, the company delivers timely and cost-effective maintenance solutions to optimize equipment performance and minimize downtime. Medtronic (Ireland) Medtronic plc holds a significant position in the medical equipment maintenance market, renowned for its extensive portfolio spanning cardiac devices, spinal and orthopedic products, and surgical instruments. Emphasizing comprehensive maintenance services, Medtronic delivers preventive, corrective, and extended warranty solutions tailored to optimize performance and reliability across its diverse range of medical equipment. Medtronic's services ensure operational excellence and support healthcare providers in delivering quality care by targeting hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and specialty clinics. For more information, Inquire Now! Related Reports: Ultrasound Market Diagnostic Imaging Market Endoscopy Equipment Market Medical Connectors Market Top 10 Medical Device Technologies Market Get access to the latest updates on Medical Equipment Maintenance Companies and Medical Equipment Maintenance Market Size About MarketsandMarkets: MarketsandMarkets has been recognized as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms by Forbes, as per their recent report. MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. With the widest lens on emerging technologies, we are proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients across the globe. Today, 80% of Fortune 2000 companies rely on MarketsandMarkets, and 90 of the top 100 companies in each sector trust us to accelerate their revenue growth. 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Contact: Mr. Rohan Salgarkar MarketsandMarkets INC. 1615 South Congress Ave. Suite 103, Delray Beach, FL 33445 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1868219/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/medical-equipment-maintenance-market-worth-us101-52-billion-by-2030-with-10-8-cagr--marketsandmarkets-302535790.html VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Xebra Brands Ltd. ("Xebra" or the "Company") (XBRA:CSE)(XBRAF:OTC PINK)(9YC:FSE), a cannabis company, announces that the Company does not expect to be in a position to file its annual financial statements, management's discussion and analysis and related officer certifications for the financial year ended February 28, 2025 (collectively, the "Annual Filings") on or prior to August 29, 2025, being the date that is two months from the filing deadline of June 30, 2025. As a result of the foregoing, the Company anticipates the British Columbia Securities Commission (the "BCSC"), as the principal regulator of the Company, will issue a failure to file cease trade order ("CTO") for its failure to file its Annual Filings and its unaudited interim financial statements, related management's discussion and analysis and officer certifications for the three months ended May 31, 2025 (the "Interim Filings", and together with the Annual Filings, the "Required Documents"). The BCSC had previously issued a management cease trade order (the "MCTO") against the Company on July 2, 2024, in connection with the delayed filing of the Annual Filings. The Company expects the CTO to revoke and replace the MCTO. As a result of the expected CTO, the Company expects trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "Exchange") to be suspended until the Required Documents are filed. As previously disclosed, the Annual Financial Filings were not filed by the applicable filing deadline due to the fact that there have been certain liquidity constraints and delays associated with recent changes of management. As announced on July 3, 2025, the Company entered into a loan agreement (the "Loan Agreement") pursuant to which the lender agreed to provide a loan of up to C$110,000 (the "Loan") in order to provide sufficient resources to complete the Annual Filings. Due to matters outside of the control of the Company, the Company was not advanced funds under the Loan and the Loan Agreement has been terminated. The Company has identified several potential funding sources and expects to provide an announcement within the next couple weeks on the procurement of capital and the updated anticipated timeline to complete and file the Required Documents. It is expected that the CTO will remain in effect until two full business days following the receipt by the BCSC of all filings the Company is required to make under British Columbia securities law, including the Required Documents. It is expected that the CTO will be issued under Multilateral Instrument 11-103 - Failure-To-File Cease Trade Orders In Multiple Jurisdictions and will prohibit the trading or purchase by any person or company of any securities of the Company in each jurisdiction in Canada in which the Company is a reporting issuer for as long as the CTO remains in effect. The Company also announces the OTC Markets Group has informed the Company that its listing has been moved from the OTCQB Market to the OTC Pink Open Market. The Pink Open Market provides brokers with a regulated platform for transparent trading. ABOUT XEBRA BRANDS LTD. Xebra Brands is a Canadian cannabis company with international reach, focused on the development and commercialization of cannabis-derived wellness products. Xebra is the first company to receive full authorization to import, cultivate, manufacture, and sell cannabis (-1% THC) in Mexico, and is actively expanding its ELEMENTS product line through strategic partnerships in North America. On Behalf of Xebra Brands Ltd. Rodrigo Gallardo Interim CEO For more information contact: +52 55 6387 2293 ir@xebrabrands.com Forward-Looking Information Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. "Forward-looking information" in this news release includes, but is not limited to, business goals and objectives of the Company; statements and information regarding the timing for the filings of the Required Documents; that the Company has identified several potential funding sources and expects to provide an announcement within the next couple weeks on the procurement of capital and the updated anticipated timeline to complete and file the Required Documents; the Company's ability to be a first mover in a country, or to obtain or retain government licenses, permits, or authorizations in general, or specifically in Mexico, Canada or elsewhere, including cannabis authorizations from the Mexican Health Regulatory Agency (COFEPRIS); the Company's ability to satisfy the conditions of authorizations granted by COFEPRIS; any continuing uniqueness of any of the Company's products; and other forward-looking information concerning the intentions, plans and future actions of the parties to the transactions described herein and the terms thereon. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the reliance of the Company on its auditors and management with respect to the Annual Filings, the inability to source capital to complete the Required Filings, the inability of the Company to retain the authorizations granted by COFEPRIS; the inability to generate sufficient revenues or to raise sufficient funds to carry out its business plan; changes in government legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in various countries; risks associated with agriculture and cultivation activities generally, including inclement weather, access to supply of seeds, poor crop yields, and spoilage; compliance with import and export laws of various countries; significant fluctuations in cannabis prices and transportation costs; the risk of obtaining necessary licenses and permits; inability to identify, negotiate and complete potential acquisitions, dispositions or joint ventures for any reason; the ability to retain key employees; dependence on third parties for services and supplies; non-performance by contractual counter-parties; general economic conditions; the continued growth in global demand for cannabis products and the continued increase in jurisdictions legalizing cannabis; the timely receipt of regulatory approvals for license applications on terms satisfactory to the Company; and other related risks as more fully set out in the registration statement of Company and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings at www.sedar.com. In addition, there is no assurance that the Company will: be a low-cost producer or exporter; obtain a dominant market position in any jurisdiction; or have products that will be unique. The forward-looking information in this news release reflects the current expectations, assumptions and/or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, the Company has made assumptions about the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, the timing thereof and related matters. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company's normal course of business. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein. SOURCE: Xebra Brands Ltd View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/food-and-beverage-products/xebra-brands-announces-issuance-of-cease-trade-order-1064118 COPENHAGEN, Denmark, August 22, 2025 - Bavarian Nordic A/S (OMX: BAVA) announced today its interim financial results and business progress for the first half of 2025 and released its financial calendar for 2026. Revenue for the first half increased by 33% to DKK 2,998 million, reflecting a strong performance in both Travel Health and Public Preparedness. Travel Health revenue increased by 24% to DKK 1,386 million compared to the first half of 2024, primarily driven by increased demand for rabies and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) vaccines. Public Preparedness revenue increased by 51% to DKK 1,546 million compared to the first half of 2024, primarily driven by quarterly phasing of orders. Other revenue was DKK 66 million. EBITDA was DKK 961 million, corresponding to an EBITDA margin of 32%. Based on a strong performance in the Travel Health business as well as further clarity on the Public Preparedness business for the remainder of the year, Bavarian Nordic has refined its financial guidance for 2025, which overall remains within the previously announced revenue and EBITDA margin intervals. Full year revenue expectations are narrowed to DKK 6,000-6,600 million, reflecting an upgrade of Travel Health to DKK 2,750 million, which still includes DKK 50-100 million from sale of Vimkunya, and narrowing the Public Preparedness interval to DKK 3,100-3,700 million, with the low end of the interval now secured by contracts. EBITDA margin before special items guidance remains unchanged at 26-30%. When including the net income of DKK 810 million from the recent sale of the Priority Review Voucher, the total EBITDA margin is expected to be 40-42%. DKK million Q2 2025 Q2 2024 H1 2025 H1 2024 2025 Guidance Revenue 1,652 1,427 2,998 2,259 6,000 - 6,600 EBITDA margin before special items1 33% 29% 32% 20% 26-30% 1 Other operating income of DKK 810 million from the sale of the Priority Review Voucher will be recognized in Q3 2025, contributing to an expected total EBITDA margin of 40-42% for the full year. Paul Chaplin, President & Chief Executive Officer of Bavarian Nordic said: "We are pleased to report a strong first half of 2025, which fully captures our successful commercial transformation over the past years, in line with our growth strategy. Our Travel Health business continues to outperform, delivering 24% revenue growth year-over-year, primarily driven by rabies and TBE vaccines. A major highlight for the period was the launch of our chikungunya vaccine for travelers, which is being introduced in more countries as we continue to expand our commercial footprint across new geographies. With the strong performance combined with recent additional orders for our mpox/smallpox vaccine, we refine our full year guidance to reflect higher revenue from Travel Health and a narrower revenue interval for the Public Preparedness business as we have now secured the lower end of our guidance for this business. Overall, we remain within our guided revenue interval and maintain our expectations to an EBITDA margin before special items of 26-30% in 2025. The recent sale of our Priority Review Voucher has generated a one-off income, strengthening our financial position and contributing to an improved result. Hence, the EBITDA margin including special items is expected to be 40-42% for the full year." Highlights from the period Travel Health Vimkunya was approved in the US, EU and in the UK for active immunization for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus in individuals 12 years and older. The vaccine was launched commercially in the US in March, in Germany in May, and in France in June. Concurrently with the US approval of Vimkunya, Bavarian Nordic was granted a Priority Review Voucher, which was sold for USD 160 million. Upon completion of the sale in July, the Company earned net proceeds of DKK 810 million. Following the approval of Vimkunya in the US in February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to recommend Vimkunya for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus for US persons aged 12 and older traveling to regions with an outbreak or elevated risk of chikungunya, as well as for laboratory workers with potential for exposure to chikungunya virus. Recommendations on the use of the vaccine have since been issued by relevant authorities in France, Germany and in the UK. In June, a Phase 3 clinical trial of Vimkunya in children 2 to 11 years of age was initiated, seeking to expand the target population for the chikungunya vaccine. Public Preparedness The freeze-dried version of JYNNEOS was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March for prevention of smallpox and mpox disease in adults 18 years of age and older. The approval supports the ongoing contract with the US government for stockpiling of the vaccine. In May, the US government exercised additional options valued at USD 143.6 million under the contract, with the majority planned for delivery in 2026. In June, investigator-sponsored clinical trials were initiated to support approval of the mpox/smallpox vaccine in vulnerable populations: infants under 2 years of age and pregnant and breastfeeding women. Events after the reporting date In July, Bavarian Nordic entered a contract valued at over DKK 200 million for the supply of smallpox/mpox vaccines to a European country. Combined with other recent orders from non-European countries, the Company has now secured approximately DKK 3,100 million in contracts in the Public Preparedness business in 2025, thus within the targeted guidance interval for this business. In July, Health Canada accepted for review the Company's application for licensure of the chikungunya vaccine, potentially supporting approval in the first half of 2026. In July, the sale of the Priority Review Voucher was completed, generating net proceeds of DKK 810 million. In July, Bavarian Nordic announced that it had entered into an announcement agreement with Innosera ApS, a newly formed company controlled by Nordic Capital Fund XI1 and funds managed and advised by Permira Beteiligungsberatung GmbH, pursuant to which Innosera ApS will make an all-cash recommended voluntary public takeover offer to acquire all issued and outstanding shares (excluding treasury shares) in Bavarian Nordic. Innosera ApS is expected to publish its offer document on August 26, 2025, at the latest. Conference call and webcast The management of Bavarian Nordic will host an investor/analyst call today at 2 pm CEST. To join the Q&A session, please register in advance via https://bit.ly/bavaQ22025reg. Contact investors: Europe: Rolf Sass Srensen, Vice President Investor Relations, rss@bavarian-nordic.com, Tel: +45 61 77 47 43 US: Graham Morrell, Gilmartin Group, graham@gilmartinir.com, Tel: +1 781 686 9600 Contact media: Nicole Seroff, Vice President Corporate Communications, nise@bavarian-nordic.com, Tel: +45 53 88 06 03 Company Announcement no. 23 / 2025 About Bavarian Nordic Bavarian Nordic is a global vaccine company with a mission to improve health and save lives through innovative vaccines. We are a preferred supplier of mpox and smallpox vaccines to governments to enhance public health preparedness and have a leading portfolio of travel vaccines. For more information, visit www.bavarian-nordic.com Forward-looking statements This announcement includes forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning our plans, objectives, goals, future events, performance and/or other information that is not historical information. All such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements and any other cautionary statements which may accompany the forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances after the date made, except as required by law. Attachment Ende Mai leitete US-Prasident Donald Trump mit der Unterzeichnung mehrerer Dekrete eine weitreichende Wende in der amerikanischen Energiepolitik ein. Im Fokus: der beschleunigte Ausbau der Kernenergie. Mit einem umfassenden Manahmenpaket sollen Genehmigungsprozesse reformiert, kleinere Reaktoren gefordert und der Anteil von Atomstrom in den USA massiv gesteigert werden. Ausloser ist der explodierende Energiebedarf durch KI-Rechenzentren, der eine stabile, CO-arme Grundlastversorgung zwingend notwendig macht. In unserem kostenlosen Spezialreport erfahren Sie, welche 3 Unternehmen jetzt im Zentrum dieser energiepolitischen Neuausrichtung stehen, und wer vom kommenden Boom der Nuklearindustrie besonders profitieren konnte. Holen Sie sich den neuesten Report! Verpassen Sie nicht, welche Aktien besonders von der Energiewende in den USA profitieren durften, und laden Sie sich das Gratis-PDF jetzt kostenlos herunter. Dieses exklusive Angebot gilt aber nur fur kurze Zeit! Daher jetzt downloaden! Yesterday, Nabaltec released its final Q2 figures, which provide additional insight into current operations. Here are the key takeaways: Broad demand weakness, yet particularly pronounced within the boehmite market. With its high dependency on the steel industry, the Specialty Alumina segment recorded a yoy sales decline of 8%. While demand for ATH remained largely flat, boehmite continued its downward trend. With only 4.1m sales during the first half of 2025, boehmite seems on track to reach only 8-10m FY sales (vs. 24m in FY21), a -22% CAGR. This is the result of significant overcapacities from Chinese Estone, resulting in lower sales prices, and the absence of demand growth as EV sales figures are far from former expectations. Improved gross margin thanks to notably lower energy costs: +4.6pp yoy, +5.8pp qoq to 53.7%. While this trend is seen to partially level off during H2, management still expects a better gross margin than seen in Q1. With this, the mid-point of the FY25 EBIT margin guidance of 7-9% (eNuW: 8.5%) should be within reach; H1 margin: 8.4%. Cash further increasing, adding onto the already healthy balance sheet. At the end of H1, cash stood at roughly 91m, resulting in a 0.4m net cash position as operating cash flow remained strong at 20.5m (-15% yoy) and capex decreased by some 3m to 10.8m. As we expect higher investments during H2 (eNuW: 21m, last tranche of its growth initiative) and more normalized payables, net debt is seen to come in at 8m at the end of the year. Attractive prospects during mid- to long-term. Nabaltec is able to benefit from growing demand for ATH on the back of tightening regulations across core end markets, vast investments into data centers but also Germany's 500bn infrastructure spending bill. The latter is seen to also turn into a tailwind for the company's Speciality Alumina segment, which is strongly tied to the European steel industry. However, we would not expect notable contributions before the end of 2026e. While current operations remain burdened, the valuation offers an attractive entry opportunity ahead of the next cyclical upswing. Shares are trading at a ~25% discount to their book value and on 7.4 EV/EBIT 2025e while also providing a healthy balance sheet, still good profitability levels and operating cash generation. As demand for its core products accelerates again, the company is poised for strong free cash flow generation. Mind you, with the completion of the current investment initiative, the company has production capacities that allow up to 300m sales. BUY with an unchanged 18 PT based on FCFY 2025e. ISIN: DE000A0KPPR7 Original-Research: Nabaltec AG - from NuWays AG 22.08.2025 / 09:00 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Research, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this research. The result of this research does not constitute investment advice or an invitation to conclude certain stock exchange transactions. Classification of NuWays AG to Nabaltec AG Company Name: Nabaltec AG ISIN: DE000A0KPPR7 Reason for the research: Update Recommendation: BUY from: 22.08.2025 Target price: EUR 18.00 Target price on sight of: 12 months Last rating change: Analyst: Christian Sandherr Final Q2 out // attractive valuation levels Yesterday, Nabaltec released its final Q2 figures, which provide additional insight into current operations. Here are the key takeaways: Broad demand weakness, yet particularly pronounced within the boehmite market. With its high dependency on the steel industry, the Specialty Alumina segment recorded a yoy sales decline of 8%. While demand for ATH remained largely flat, boehmite continued its downward trend. With only 4.1m sales during the first half of 2025, boehmite seems on track to reach only 8-10m FY sales (vs. 24m in FY21), a -22% CAGR. This is the result of significant overcapacities from Chinese Estone, resulting in lower sales prices, and the absence of demand growth as EV sales figures are far from former expectations. Improved gross margin thanks to notably lower energy costs: +4.6pp yoy, +5.8pp qoq to 53.7%. While this trend is seen to partially level off during H2, management still expects a better gross margin than seen in Q1. With this, the mid-point of the FY25 EBIT margin guidance of 7-9% (eNuW: 8.5%) should be within reach; H1 margin: 8.4%. Cash further increasing, adding onto the already healthy balance sheet. At the end of H1, cash stood at roughly 91m, resulting in a 0.4m net cash position as operating cash flow remained strong at 20.5m (-15% yoy) and capex decreased by some 3m to 10.8m. As we expect higher investments during H2 (eNuW: 21m, last tranche of its growth initiative) and more normalized payables, net debt is seen to come in at 8m at the end of the year. Attractive prospects during mid- to long-term. Nabaltec is able to benefit from growing demand for ATH on the back of tightening regulations across core end markets, vast investments into data centers but also Germany's 500bn infrastructure spending bill. The latter is seen to also turn into a tailwind for the company's Speciality Alumina segment, which is strongly tied to the European steel industry. However, we would not expect notable contributions before the end of 2026e. While current operations remain burdened, the valuation offers an attractive entry opportunity ahead of the next cyclical upswing. Shares are trading at a ~25% discount to their book value and on 7.4 EV/EBIT 2025e while also providing a healthy balance sheet, still good profitability levels and operating cash generation. As demand for its core products accelerates again, the company is poised for strong free cash flow generation. Mind you, with the completion of the current investment initiative, the company has production capacities that allow up to 300m sales. BUY with an unchanged 18 PT based on FCFY 2025e. You can download the research here: nabaltec-ag-2025-08-22-previewreview-en-d0f2d For additional information visit our website: https://www.nuways-ag.com/research-feed Contact for questions: NuWays AG - Equity Research Web: www.nuways-ag.com Email: research@nuways-ag.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nuwaysag Adresse: Mittelweg 16-17, 20148 Hamburg, Germany ++++++++++ Diese Meldung ist keine Anlageberatung oder Aufforderung zum Abschluss bestimmter Borsengeschafte. Offenlegung moglicher Interessenskonflikte nach 85 WpHG beim oben analysierten Unternehmen befinden sich in der vollstandigen Analyse. ++++++++++ The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.eqs-news.com VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / American Critical Minerals Corp. ("American Critical Minerals" or the "Company") (CSE:KCLI)(OTCQB:APCOF)(Frankfurt:2P3) is pleased to announce that, further to its news releases of July 22, 2025 and August 5, 2025, it has completed its warrant exercise incentive program (the "Incentive Program") and received proceeds totaling $532,500 through the exercise of 2,840,000 common share purchase warrants (the "Eligible Warrants"). The proceeds from the Incentive Program will strengthen the Company's treasury and will be used for working capital purposes and the advancement of the Company's Green River Project. Pursuant to the Incentive Program, the Company offered to issue to each holder of unexercised Eligible Warrants, which are exercisable at a price of $0.1875 per common share (each, a "Share"), the issuance of one additional common share purchase warrant for every Eligible Warrant exercised (each an "Incentive Warrant") on or before the exercise deadline of August 15, 2025 (the "Exercise Deadline"). The Incentive Warrants are exercisable at a price of $0.28 per Share until August 6, 2027. Any Eligible Warrants not exercised before the Exercise Deadline will remain valid until the original expiry date of November 23, 2026 at the original exercise price of $0.1875 per Share. On behalf of the Board of Directors Simon Clarke, President & CEO Contact: (604)-551-9665 Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: believe, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from this forward-looking information include those described under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties" in the Company's most recently filed MD&A. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Such statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the intended use of proceeds from the Incentive Program. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that such expectations will prove to be correct. All such forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions and analyses made by the Company in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believes are appropriate in the circumstances. This information, however, is subject to a variety of risks and information. SOURCE: American Critical Minerals Corp. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/metals-and-mining/american-critical-minerals-announces-completion-of-warrant-exercise-incentive-pro-1064074 EVTEC's proven hardware meets Powerverse's AI platform to deliver smarter, optimised home charging. LONDON, UK / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Powerverse has partnered with Evtec to deliver a smarter AI-powered charging experience at home. The partnership combines Evtec's trusted hardware and manufacturing expertise with Powerverse's innovative software platform, delivering a connected app-driven home charging solution that helps 'unthink energy'. Evtec brings decades of experience building complex assemblies & injection moulded components for leading Automotive manufacturers, including Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin. Their UK-engineered chargers are compact, easy to install and tested to high standards, making it the perfect fit for Powerverse's AI powered platform. With UK manufacturing and stringent quality control at the heart of Evtec's operations, the company has earned the Runs on Raya Trustmark - a certification awarded to businesses that meet rigorous standards for intelligent control, product quality, and long-term performance. "Every Evtec charger has undergone thorough testing, drawing on our automotive-grade standards. The Runs on Raya trustmark reflects the same level of precision and reliability we demand internally, while adding smart energy optimisation through Powerverse's platform." -Stuart Cleverley, Senior Key Account Manager, Evtec Evtec's chargers are already connected to the Powerverse platform through the white-labelled Evtec Charge app - giving users access to Raya, an AI-powered Smart Energy Assistant. Users benefit from Intelligent Scheduling, real-time insights and compatibility with energy tariffs, alongside instant charging options, cost and carbon tracking and remote security features. The Evtec Charge app provides a superior, intuitive charging experience that helps users to save both money and time. "Evtec's first batch of chargers - combined with our platform - shows how smart charging can start lean and deliver real value. Drivers get lower-effort, lower-cost charging today, with a clear path to broader energy optimisation in the future." - Richard Britton, CEO, Powerverse Beyond engineering, Evtec is recognised for its leadership in social responsibility and inclusion, with 43% of its workforce having a disability. The company partners with local schools and colleges to offer placements, and works with ambassador Nicolas Hamilton to champion workplace accessibility. Together, Powerverse and Evtec are setting a new benchmark for intelligent home charging. Delivering immediate customer value through AI-driven, affordable charging while unlocking future opportunities for upselling and grid flexibility schemes through Powerverse's Energy Operating System. About Powerverse Founded by Nick Boyle, Powerverse is a leading UK energy technology company helping manufacturers, energy providers, and EV platforms unlock value from electrification. Its white-label software powers smarter EV charging, solar and battery optimisation, and participation in flexibility markets through an intuitive app and proven integrations. Website: www.powerverse.com Press contact: Lauren Forster, Head of Marketing, press@powerverse.com About Evtec Evtec is a UK-based Tier 1 supplier specialising in high-quality engineering and assembly, including advanced EV chargers. The company combines rigorous testing, flexible small-batch production, UK-based R&D, and a strong environmental, social, and governance focus to support early commercial and pilot programmes. Website: www.Evtec-automotive.com Press contact: info@Evtec-automotive.com +44 (0)2476 427 000 SOURCE: Powerverse View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/utilities/powerverse-and-evtec-partner-to-deliver-intelligent-uk-engineered-home-charging-1063852 EXCELSIOR SPRINGS FULLY FUNDED FOR 2025 DRILLING PROGRAM WHITE ROCK, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Athena Gold Corporation (CSE:ATHA)(OTCQB:AHNRF) ("Athena" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated June 2, 2025, Mammoth Minerals Limited (ASX:M79) (formerly, Firetail Resources Limited) ("Mammoth" or "M79") has exercised its option to be able to earn an 80% interest in Athena's Excelsior Springs project in Nevada, USA (the "Excelsior" project), effective August 19, 2025 (the "Exercise Date"). In consideration. Mammoth has paid Athena AUD$200,000 in cash and issued 32,000,000 ordinary shares in the capital of Mammoth, worth AUD$3,200,000 based on M79's closing price on the Exercise Date. "We are pleased to have partnered with a very capable Australian company to build upon our 2023 high-grade gold discovery at Excelsior. Mammoth recently completed a AUD$5 million financing, and per its press release dated August 4, 2025, intends to use these funds to drill Excelsior towards a maiden resource. We continue to retain significant exposure to Excelsior through our royalty interests and our 20% free-carried interest to Definitive Feasibility Study, in addition to our substantial shareholding of M79. The cash and M79 shares further strengthens our balance sheet, comprising over CAD$3 million in cash and securities, at an opportune time as we advance our Ontario gold portfolio, where we are actively defining new targets at our Laird Lake project in Red Lake, ahead of a maiden drill program," said Koby Kushner, President & CEO of Athena. Excelsior Springs Option Athena entered into a property option agreement (the "Agreement") with Mammoth dated May 28, 2025, granting Mammoth the exclusive right (the "Option") to be able earn an 80% undivided interest in the Excelsior project. In consideration of the Option, Mammoth has paid Athena AUD$200,000 in cash and issued 32,000,000 ordinary shares in the capital of Mammoth. Mammoth is also required to incur not less than USD$5,000,000 in exploration expenditures over a five-year term, commencing from the Exercise Date, to earn its 80% interest. Athena will retain a 20% free-carried interest in the Excelsior project until completion of a Definitive Feasibility Study is by Mammoth. A 1% net smelter return royalty will also be provided to Athena on certain claims comprising the Excelsior project. Athena reserves the right to buy back any pre-existing royalties on the Excelsior project (see press release dated June 2, 2025). Crow Springs Termination Athena is also pleased to announce that, effective August 18, 2025, it has entered into a Termination Agreement with the vendor of the Crow Springs project, whereby both parties have mutually terminated the April 2, 2022, Memorandum of Understanding regarding the acquisition of the Crow Springs project in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Under the terms of the Agreement, all obligations under the MOU have been fully resolved, with no further payments required and ownership of seven BLM claims reverting to the vendor. About Athena Gold Corporation Athena is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets. Its objective is to locate and develop economic precious and base metal properties of merit and to conduct additional exploration drilling and studies on its projects across North America. Athena's Laird Lake project is situated in the Red Lake Gold District of Ontario, covering over 5,000 hectares along more than 10 km of the Balmer-Confederation Assemblage contact, where recent surface sampling results returned up to 373 g/t Au. This underexplored area is road-accessible, located about 10 km west of West Red Lake Gold's Madsen mine and 34 km northwest of Kinross Gold's Great Bear project. Meanwhile, its Excelsior project is located in the prolific Walker Lane Trend in Nevada, where it is currently under an earn-in option with Mammoth Minerals Limited. The Excelsior project spans over 2,500 hectares and covers at least three historic mines. Athena also holds a 100% interest in its Oneman Lake Au-VMS project in Ontario. For further information about Athena Gold Corporation, please visit www.athenagoldcorp.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Koby Kushner President and Chief Executive Officer, Athena Gold Corporation For further information, please contact: Athena Gold Corporation Koby Kushner, President and Chief Executive Officer Phone: 416-846-6164 Email: kobykushner@athenagoldcorp.com CHF Capital Markets Cathy Hume, CEO Phone: 416-868-1079 x 251 Email: cathy@chfir.com Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US. securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding future exploration plans, future results from exploration, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "will", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", '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. In making the forward-looking statements in this press release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that there will be investor interest in future financings, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future exploration and development of the Company's projects in a timely manner. The 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. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this press release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise stated. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE: Athena Gold Corporation View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/metals-and-mining/athena-gold-successfully-completes-excelsior-springs-monetization-1064072 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Mako Mining Corp. (TSX-V:MKO)(OTCQX:MAKOF) ("Mako" or the "Company") is pleased to provide financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 ("Q2 2025"). All dollar amounts referred to herein are expressed in United States dollars unless otherwise stated. The Company's financial results for Q2 2025 reflect record gold sales from its San Albino and Moss Mine of $38.7 million (vs. $28.3 million in Q2 2024), which generated $16.9 million in Mine Operating Cash Flow (1) (4), $21.3 million in Adjusted EBITDA(1), and $8.8 million in Net Income. The Company sold 11,476 oz of gold at an average price of $3,323/oz with a $1,509 Cash Cost and $1,668 All-In Sustaining Cost ("AISC") ($/oz sold). (1) (2) Q2 2025 Mako Mining Highlights Financial $38.7 million in Revenue $16.9 million in Mine Operating Cash Flow ( "MineOCF ") (1) (4) $21.3 million in Adjusted EBITDA (1) $18.2 million increase in cash $8.8 million Net Income $1,509 Cash Costs ($/oz sold) (1) (2) $1,668 All-In Sustaining Costs (" AISC ") ($/oz sold) (1) (2) Twelve Trailing Months ("TTM") Return on Equity (" ROE ") (1) of 33.9% and Return on Assets (" ROA ") of 23.5% (1) Delivered final installment of 13,500 oz of silver in Q2 2025 to the Sailfish Silver Loan Growth $2.2 million in exploration and evaluation expenses ($0.4 million San Albino and Las Conchitas, $0.5 million exploration in El Jicaro Concession in Nicaragua and, approximately, $1.1 million at Eagle Mountain, Guyana) Subsequent to June 30th, 2025 The Company made interest payments of $0.3 million on the Revised Wexford Loan. On July 2, 2025, the Company acquired for $1.8 million the secured indebtedness of Elevation Gold Mining Corporation from Maverix Metals Inc. under Elevation's ongoing CCAA proceedings As principal secured creditor, Mako is now entitled to distributions under the CCAA process, though expected recoveries will be significantly below the debt's face value. Akiba Leisman, Chief Executive Officer, states that "Q2 was another strong quarter for Mako, with record Adjusted EBITDA of US$21.3 million, a record increase in cash of US$18.2 million, and EPS of US$0.11/share while generating industry leading ROE and ROA of 33.9% and 23.5%, despite only having one of our three assets in commercial production. We sold a total of 11,476 ounces for the quarter, and 22,293 ounces for the first half of 2025, of which 19,985 ounces were attributable to San Albino. The second half of 2025 will have similar production rates for San Albino, weighted towards Q4 2025, which is currently scheduled to be a record for the Company. Additionally, mining will recommence at Moss at the end of August now that previously delayed equipment from our mining contractor has started to arrive at site. Therefore, the second half of 2025 will be heavily weighted towards Q4. Meanwhile, we continue to advance the Eagle Mountain project in Guyana so that we can submit our Environmental Impact Assessment early in Q1 2025 in preparation for a construction decision." Table 1 - Revenue Mako Mining Corp. Table 2 - Operating San Albino and Financial Data Mako Mining Corp. Table 3 - EBITDA Reconciliation Chart 1 Q2 2025 - Mine OCF Calculation and Cash Reconciliation (in $ million) Chart 2 Twelve Trailing Months (TTM) - Mine OCF Calculation and Cash Reconciliation (in $ million) End Notes Refers to a Non-GAAP financial measure within the meaning of National Instrument 52-112 - Non-GAAP and Other Financial Measures Disclosure ("NI 52-112"). Refer to information under the heading "Non-GAAP Measures" as well as the reconciliations later in this press release. Refers to a Non-GAAP ratio within the meaning of NI-52-112. Refer to information under the heading "Non-GAAP Measures" later in this press release. Realized price before deductions from Sailfish gold streaming agreement. Refer to "Chart 1 & 2 - Mine OCF Calculation and Cash Reconciliation (in $ millions)" for a reconciliation of the beginning and ending cash position of the Company, including OCF. Includes Repayment Silver Loan, Wexford Loan, Wexford Bridge Loan related to Goldsource Acquisition, other lease payments and a release of US$1.5 million from Trisura Guarantee insurance Company held as collateral for various environmental bonds held at the Moss Mine For complete details, please refer to condensed interim consolidated financial statements and the associated management discussion and analysis for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025, available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) or on the Company's website (www.makominingcorp.com). Non-GAAP Measures The Company has included certain non-GAAP financial measures and non-GAAP ratios in this press release such as EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Mine Operating Cash Flow cash cost per ounce sold, total cash cost per ounce sold, AISC per ounce sold. These non-GAAP measures are 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. In the gold mining industry, these are commonly used performance measures and ratios, but do not have any standardized meaning prescribed under IFRS and therefore may not be comparable to other issuers. The Company believes that, in addition to conventional measures prepared in accordance with IFRS, certain investors use this information to evaluate the Company's underlying performance of its core operations and its ability to generate cash flow. "EBITDA" represents earnings before interest (including non-cash accretion of financial obligation and lease obligations), income taxes and depreciation, depletion and amortization. "Adjusted EBITDA" represents EBITDA, adjusted to exclude exploration activities, share-based compensation and change in provision for reclamation and rehabilitation. "Cash costs per ounce sold" is calculated by deducting revenues from silver sales and dividing the sum of mining, milling and mine site administration cost. "AISC per ounce sold" includes total cash costs (as defined above) and adds the sum of G&A, sustaining capital and certain exploration and evaluation ("E&E") costs, sustaining lease payments, provision for environmental fees, if applicable, and rehabilitation costs paid, all divided by the number of ounces sold. As this measure seeks to reflect the full cost of gold production from current operations, capital and E&E costs related to expansion or growth projects are not included in the calculation of AISC per ounce. Additionally, certain other cash expenditures, including income and other tax payments, financing costs and debt repayments, are not included in AISC per ounce. "Mine OCF" represents operating cash flow, excluding Nicaraguan taxes and royalties, changes in non-cash working capital and exploration expense "ROE" is calculated by dividing the twelve trailing months Net Income by the average shareholder's equity. The average shareholder's equity is calculated by adding the total equity at the end of the period to the total equity at the beginning of the period and dividing by two. "ROA" is calculated by dividing the twelve trailing months Net Income by the average total assets. The average total assets is calculated by adding the total assets at the end of the period to the total assets at the beginning of the period and dividing by two. 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 and offers district-scale exploration potential. In addition, Mako also owns the Moss Mine in Arizona, an open pit gold mine in northwestern Arizona. Mako also holds a 100% interest in the Eagle Mountain Project in Guyana, South America, currently in the PEA-stage and undergoing engineering, environmental studies and mine permitting. For further information on Mako Mining Corp., contact Akiba Leisman, Chief Executive Officer, Telephone: 917-558-5289, E-mail: aleisman@makominingcorp.com or visit our website at www.makominingcorp.com and the Company's profile on the SEDAR+ website at 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, management's expectation that the Moss mine will be a substantial cash flowing mine when full scale mining operations begin in September 2025 and the expectation that 2025 will show the results from the work performed by the Company in 2024. 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 and its ability to fund its growth to reach its expected new record production numbers; unanticipated costs; the October 24, 2022 measures having impacts on business operations not currently expected, or new sanctions being imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department or other government entity in Nicaragua 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 and is included for the purposes of providing investors with information regarding the Company's Q2 2025 and full year 2024 financial results and may not be appropriate for other purposes. 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 ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/metals-and-mining/mako-mining-reports-second-quarter-2025-financial-results-including-record-adjust-1064120 HOUSTON, TX / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Epique Realty celebrates its confirmed position as one of the nation's largest and most productive real estate brokerages, marking its powerful debut on the prestigious 2025 T360 Mega 1000 list. The annual rankings, which serve as a definitive benchmark for the U.S. residential real estate industry, validate Epique's historic growth and disruptive agent-first model. Based on its outstanding 2024 performance, Epique Realty achieved the following national rankings: #23 by Agent Count (3,130 agents) #31 by Transaction Sides (12,551 sides) #52 by Sales Volume ($4.29 Billion) The rankings confirm Epique's rapid ascent from a startup to an industry powerhouse in record time. The company's leadership team credits this success to its steadfast focus on agent empowerment. "These rankings are the definitive proof that our agent-centric financial model works at a substantial scale," said Janice Delcid, CFO and Co-Founder. "By investing in our agents with zero-cost technology and incomparable support, we've created a thriving ecosystem where their success fuels our collective growth. This isn't just a number on a list; it's the validation of our entire philosophy of radical generosity." "To see our brokerage rank so highly in transaction sides in our debut year is a monumental testament to our operational platform," added Christopher Miller, COO and Co-Founder. "We built Epique to be a high-performance engine for agents, providing the systems and award-winning AI-powered tools they need to be incredibly productive. These numbers reflect the hard work of thousands of agents empowered by that engine." "Appearing on the Mega 1000 alongside industry giants is a humbling moment that reflects the passion of every agent and staff member in the Epique family," said Joshua Miller, CEO and Co-Founder. "We started this journey to build something different, an innovative, forward-thinking brokerage that truly serves the agent. These rankings aren't an end goal, but a powerful milestone confirming we are on the right path to redefining the future of this industry." This achievement solidifies Epique Realty's status as a nationally recognized market leader, providing its agents with enhanced credibility and a powerful competitive advantage. About Epique Realty Epique Realty is ?one of the fastest-growing real estate brokerages, ranked among the top brokerages nationwide for agent count, transaction sides, and sales volume. Its revolutionary, agent-first model empowers ?over 4,000 agents in all 50 states with a comprehensive suite of free benefits, including award-winning AI technology and a culture of radical generosity. By questioning industry norms and putting agents at the heart of its business, Epique is defining the future of real estate.BeEpique Media Contact Barbara Simpson | PR and Communications 281-773-7842 | Barbara@EpiqueRealty.com https://www.instagram.com/epiquerealty/ https://www.facebook.com/epiquerealty https://www.linkedin.com/company/epique-realty/mycompany/ https://www.youtube.com/@epiquerealty SOURCE: Epique Realty View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/real-estate/epique-realty-debuts-on-t360-mega-1000-securing-top-tier-national-rankings-in-first-yea-1064137 Oscillate Plc - Interim Results for the Six Months Ended 31 May 2025 PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, August 22 22 August 2025 Oscillate PLC ("Oscillate" or the "Company") Interim Results for the Six Months Ended 31 May 2025 I am pleased to present the interim results for Oscillate plc (AQSE: MUSH) for the six-month period ended 31 May 2025. Director's Statement During the period the Company made a loss of 191,468 compared with a loss of 302,784 for the same period last year. The loss is mainly due to directors, consultants and professional fees since becoming more active with projects. However, the year-on-year reduction in loss is due to more profitable revaluations on the Company's investments. The Company's administrative costs were 201,660 compared to 74,461 for the comparable period. As at 31 May 2025, the Company's cash position was 1,153,299 (31 May 2024: 1,060,311). Significant movement in intercompany debtors is due to funding projects in Minnesota and Cote d'Ivoire. The project expenditure has been accounted for in intercompany debtors, with the Company looking to recoup these expenses once the projects start receiving income. Some of the most important developments for the Company took place after the balance sheet date: On 3 June 2025, the Company announced that soil sampling and geophysical surveys at the Duekoue site in Cote d'Ivoire are ongoing. The initial programme has identified several high-priority targets for follow-up sampling and trenching. Site access and logistics remain on schedule. On 2 July 2025, the Company confirmed completion of its initial fieldwork at Duekoue. activities, including mapping, sampling and trenching, have now concluded, leaving several anomalous zones to be analysed in the lab and assessed for future drill planning. On 9 July 2025, the Company announced the signature of non-binding Heads of Terms with Kalahari Copper Limited to acquire, a BVI company which holds via its wholly owned Botswanan subsidiary, prospecting licences over Dalsu Prospects in Botswana. The Dalsu licences incorporates 17, 100% owned, highly prospective licences (which have been granted or which have been applied to be transferred to Kalahari Copper) in the Kalahari Copper Belt ("KCB") and the Bushman Lineament. The Board of the Company continues to work to source good investments at an attractive price and hopes to be able to update the market presently. These interim results have not been audited or reviewed by the Company's auditor. Robin Birchall Chief Executive Officer, Oscillate plc The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the content of this announcement. Enquiries: Company Oscillate PLC Robin Birchall ir@oscillateplc.com https://oscillateplc.com Corporate Advisor Peterhouse Capital Limited Telephone: 020 7220 9796 Statement of Comprehensive Income for the six months ended 31 May 2025 Notes CompanySix months to31 May 2025Unaudited CompanySix months to31 May 2024Unaudited Exploration and evaluation expenditure - - Administrative expenses (201,660) (74,461) Share option expense - - Loss on investments at fair value through profit and loss (4,330) (243,994) Impairment of subsidiary - - Operating Loss (205,990) (318,455) Interest income 14,522 15,671 Loss before tax (191,468) (302,784) Taxation - - Loss for the period (191,468) (302,784) Currency translation differences - - Total comprehensive loss for the period (191,468) (302,784) Basic and diluted earnings per share 3 (0.04p) (0.28p) Operations are classed as continuing. Statement of Financial Position for the six months ended 31 May 2025 Company Six months to31 May 2025 Unaudited Company Year ended 30 November 2024 Audited Company Six months to31 May 2024 Unaudited Assets Non-current assets Investments 18,577 19,629 19,629 18,577 19,629 19,629 Current assets Short-Term Investments 140,006 158,333 1,183,296 Trade and other receivables 19,890 21,982 5,882 Intercompany debtors 266,117 39,439 - Cash and cash equivalents 1,153,299 1,563,612 1,060,311 1,579,312 1,783,366 2,249,489 Total assets 1,597,889 1,802,995 2,269,118 Current liabilities Trade and other payables (30,983) (44,620) (41,671) (30,983) (44,620) (41,671) Deferred tax liability - - (23,140) Net current assets 1,548,330 1,738,746 2,207,818 Net assets 1,566,907 1,758,375 2,204,307 Capital and reserves Share capital 1,249,797 1,249,797 1,228,309 Share premium 7,454,635 7,454,635 4,705,050 Other reserves 450,917 450,917 29,753 Retained losses (7,588,442) (7,396,974) (3,758,805) Total equity 1,566,907 1,758,375 2,204,307 Statement of Changes in Equity for the six months ended 31 May 2025 Company Share Share Other Retained Total capital premium reserves losses Balance at 1 December 2024 1,249,797 7,454,635 450,917 (7,396,974) 1,758,375 Loss for the period - - - (191,468) (191,468) Total comprehensive income - - - (191,468) (191,468) Balance at 31 May 2025 1,249,797 7,454,635 450,917 (7,588,442) 1,566,907 Notes to the Interim Results for thesix months ended 31 May 2025 General information Oscillate Plc is a public limited company limited by shares and incorporated in England and Wales. The Company's registered number is 06010900 and registered office address is Level 2, 8 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4BQ. The Company's shares are traded on the AQSE Growth Market under ticker MUSH and ISIN number GB00BJNSJS53. Basis of preparation These unaudited interim financial statements for the six-month period ended 31 May 2025 have been prepared using the recognition and measurement principles of FRS 102, consistent with those applied in the Company's annual consolidated financial statements for the year ended 30 November 2024. The unaudited interim financial statements have been prepared for the Company on a standalone basis and do not include results of its subsidiaries. The results of the subsidiary were not available in sufficient time and were deemed to be immaterial to the preparation of consolidated interim financial statements. Consolidated results will next be presented in the Company's annual financial statements for the year ending 30 November 2025. Accordingly, these unaudited interim results are not directly comparable with the annual consolidated financial statements published for the year ended 30 November 2024 and do not reflect the full performance of the Group for the interim period. The unaudited interim financial statements are presented in a condensed format and do not constitute statutory accounts as defined in Section 434 of the Companies Act 2006. The Group's annual consolidated statutory financial statements for the year ended 30 November 2024 have been filed with the Companies House. The auditor's report on those financial statements was unqualified and did not contain a statement under Section 498(2) of the Companies Act 2006. The unaudited interim financial statements do not include all the information and disclosures required in a full set of annual financial statements prepared in accordance with FRS 102. In particular, no statement of cash flows has been presented, whereas one was included in the most recent annual consolidated financial statements. These unaudited interim financial statements have not been audited and have not been reviewed by the Company's auditors. Earnings per share The calculation of earnings per share is based on the loss attributable to shareholders divided by the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue, being 433,493,675 during the period. This results in a loss per share of 0.0004 (2023: 0.0028). HONG KONG, Aug 22, 2025 - (ACN Newswire) - On August 22, CaoCao Inc. ('CaoCao' or 'Company', stock code: 2643.HK,) was selected to be added to the Hang Seng Composite Index as a constituent stock, with the change taking effect on September 8, 2025. The adjustment, which follows the semi-annual review results as of June 30, 2025, reflects capital market's high recognition of CaoCao Inc.'s industry standing and growth potential. It is widely anticipated that the company will become eligible for inclusion in the Hong Kong Stock Connect on the same date, thereby broadening its investor base and attracting additional capital from Mainland China.As a key screening criterion for inclusion in the Hong Kong Stock Connect, constituents of the Hang Seng Composite Index must meet stringent requirements in market capitalization, liquidity, and representativeness. Since its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on June 25 in 2025, CaoCao Inc. has seen a continuous rise in its share price. By the end of the review period, its market capitalization far exceeded the inclusion threshold for the Hang Seng Composite Index (institution estimates place the threshold for this adjustment at approximately HKD 7.33 billion), while its trading activity also met the requirements. The company's unique 'purpose-built vehicles + asset-light expansion' model and its early strategic deployment in the Robotaxi sector have injected new economic dynamism into the index.CaoCao Inc. is a shared mobility platform incubated by Geely. The company has become China's second-largest ride hailing platform by 2024 Gross Transaction Value (GTV) and the largest listed mobility technology company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Leveraging Geely's ecosystem, CaoCao Inc. has introduced all-electric vehicle models specifically designed for shared mobility scenarios. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of these purpose-built vehicles is 36.4% lower than that of typical electric vehicles. The company has deployed 34,000 purpose-built vehicles across 31 major cities, representing the largest fleet of its kind.In 2024, CaoCao Inc. achieved an annual GTV of approximately RMB 17 billion, with its service network covering 136 cities nationwide. By selling purpose-built vehicles to local mobility capacity partners, it successfully expanded into 85 new cities and incentivized these partners to provide services through its platform. The company's growing economies of scale contributed to an increase in its gross profit margin to 8.1% in 2024, reflecting continued improvement in profitability.In February 2025, CaoCao Inc. launched its autonomous driving platform, 'CaoCao Zhixing,' initiating pilot operations in Suzhou and Hangzhou. In collaboration with Geely, the company is developing L4-level Robotaxi purpose-built vehicles, which are expected to have a significantly lower TCO than comparable products in the industry. According to forecasts by Frost & Sullivan, China's Robotaxi market is projected to grow to RMB 1,600 billion by 2035. CaoCao Inc. has established China's first self-developed closed-loop ecosystem for Robotaxi, integrating purpose-built vehicles, autonomous driving technology, and a mobility platform. With this full industrial chain advantage, its Robotaxi business is poised to become a new growth engine for the company.A number of leading financial institutions'including J.P. Morgan, Huatai Securities, and Shenwan Hongyuan Securities'previously projected that CaoCao Inc. is expected to be included in the Hong Kong Stock Connect on September 8, enabling mainland investors to directly invest in the company through the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect mechanism. More recently, Zheshang Securities also initiated coverage with a 'Buy' rating and set a target price of HK$103.17. Analysts believe that the anticipated inclusion into the Stock Connect, coupled with accelerating commercialization of Robotaxi services, is likely to unlock further medium- to long-term valuation upside. In addition, passive funds tracking the index adjustment are expected to carry out concentrated buying during the tail end of the trading session on September 5, which may contribute to noticeable volume growth and upward momentum in CaoCao Inc.'s share price.Source: CaoCao Inc.Copyright 2025 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Shenzhen, China--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - PicWish, which has been steadily expanding its presence in the e-commerce visual solutions market, officially launched its revolutionary AI feature - AI Designer. The function provides online sellers with a highly efficient, low-cost product visual solution designed to increase image production efficiency. PicWish Launches AI Designer To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11580/263480_096cebf6547278dc_001full.jpg In today's increasingly competitive e-commerce business, high-quality product photos are critical to attracting customers and increasing conversion rates. However, the traditional product photography procedure, which includes hiring models and photographers, renting venues, and post-production, is not only expensive but also time-consuming, making it difficult to respond quickly to market changes and test ad creatives at scale. PicWish's AI Designer was created to solve this very problem - with just a few words, it can output a product image according to the user's needs, and won't ruin the product in the image, which completely transforms product image production. Here are some use cases: AI Virtual Try-on & Product Staging: Transform flat-lay fashion images into dynamic model photography without hiring models or renting studios. After entering one sentence and uploading the product image, users will get professional-looking on-model product shots. Users can ask AI to change the gesture of the model to better showcase fashion products. AI Product Photo Generation: Users can easily replace or generate any desired background for their products. Whether it's a solid color or a lifestyle scene, AI Designer can generate it with one click, allowing the product to be displayed in the most suitable visual environment to maximize its appeal. Users can also mix the product with the backdrop image by uploading two photographs. AI Color Change: AI designer enables businesses to instantly generate multiple color variants from a single product image, eliminating the need for additional inventory. Retailers can showcase their complete color range while maintaining consistent lighting, positioning, and model presentation across all variations - significantly reducing photography costs and accelerating time-to-market for new product lines. PicWish AI Designer - Chat to Design Your Product Photo To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11580/263480_096cebf6547278dc_002full.jpg Apart from these useful scenarios, PicWish AI designer supports continuous editing, which means users can iterate on previous results or upload existing images as references for further edition. With AI Designer, merchants can generate hundreds of different product shots with various models and scenes in minutes, all for a fraction of the cost of a monthly subscription, achieving significant savings in both time and money. "We've seen countless small and medium-sized e-commerce sellers struggle to compete due to the prohibitive costs of visual marketing," said Aaron, CEO of PicWish. "The mission of AI Designer is to democratize top-tier visual creation, enabling every seller, regardless of size, to easily create product images that rival those of major brands. This allows them to invest more resources into product development and customer service, fostering a truly level playing field." PicWish integrates several industry-leading AI models, including Gemini 2.0, GPT Image-1, and Flux Kontext to its AI designer feature, which can deeply understand user prompts. This technical advantage ensures that the generated images meet commercial-grade standards in lighting, texture, detail, and overall realism, avoiding the distortion or stylistic limitations that can occur with single-model systems. About PicWish PicWish is a leading AI-powered photo editor dedicated to providing innovative and easy-to-use solutions for both individual and business clients. It provides features like background removal, photo enhancement, ID photo generator, AI product photography, product image collage, product photo retouch, AI designer, image translation, etc. PicWish has attracted over 10 million users, with more than 150,000 daily active users, making it a trusted visual content solution provider for millions of creators and businesses globally. For more information, visit: picwish.com. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263480 SOURCE: Kinfoome Presswire Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Kuya Silver Corporation (CSE: KUYA) (OTCQB: KUYAF) (FSE: 6MR1) (the "Company" or "Kuya Silver") is pleased to announce financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025. The second quarter was marked by continued progress at the Bethania Silver Project in Peru, highlighted by increased mining output, significant underground development, and encouraging exploration results. Q2 2025 Highlights: Bethania mining ramp-up : 1,224 tonnes of mineralized material mined in Q2 2025, nearly doubling Q1 output, with average silver grades of 10.73 oz/t and silver equivalent* grades of 14.89 oz/t. : 1,224 tonnes of mineralized material mined in Q2 2025, nearly doubling Q1 output, with average silver grades of 10.73 oz/t and silver equivalent* grades of 14.89 oz/t. Underground development advancing : Approximately 263 metres of development completed in Q2, expanding access to ten active working faces by quarter-end, compared to six in Q1. : Approximately 263 metres of development completed in Q2, expanding access to ten active working faces by quarter-end, compared to six in Q1. Infrastructure upgrades completed : Installation of trailing winches, a high-capacity compressor, and a new generator enhancing efficiency, safety, and reliability of underground operations. : Installation of trailing winches, a high-capacity compressor, and a new generator enhancing efficiency, safety, and reliability of underground operations. Exploration success : Sampling in historical artisanal mining zones resulted the discovery of three new silver-rich vein systems including 12 samples exceeding 1,000 g/t silver equivalent* and up to 2,668 g/t silver equivalent*. New targets were identified at Millococha Oeste, Millococha Norte, and Carmelitas Este, as well as extension to the Hilltop and Tito-PH zones expanding the mineralized strike length by 41% in the Bethania district. : Sampling in historical artisanal mining zones resulted the discovery of three new silver-rich vein systems including 12 samples exceeding 1,000 g/t silver equivalent* and up to 2,668 g/t silver equivalent*. New targets were identified at Millococha Oeste, Millococha Norte, and Carmelitas Este, as well as extension to the Hilltop and Tito-PH zones expanding the mineralized strike length by 41% in the Bethania district. Silver Kings contribution : 1,800 wet tonnes of silver concentrate shipped in Q2, generating revenue of USD $1.15 million. : 1,800 wet tonnes of silver concentrate shipped in Q2, generating revenue of USD $1.15 million. Financial improvement : Net revenue of $0.70 million in Q2 2025, compared to nil in the prior-year quarter; net loss decreased to $0.28 million from $1.45 million in Q2 2024. : Net revenue of $0.70 million in Q2 2025, compared to nil in the prior-year quarter; net loss decreased to $0.28 million from $1.45 million in Q2 2024. Strengthened balance sheet : Raised over CAD $10.8 million through equity financings in H1 and subsequent to quarter-end, supporting Bethania accelerated development and regional exploration programs. : Raised over CAD $10.8 million through equity financings in H1 and subsequent to quarter-end, supporting Bethania accelerated development and regional exploration programs. Board and management enhanced: Added three independent directors with extensive capital markets and mining experience, as well, added Sheila Magallon as CFO to strengthen financial leadership. David Stein, President & CEO, commented, "Q2 was a transformative quarter for Kuya Silver as we doubled output at Bethania and advanced mine development significantly. The progress we are making underground, combined with strong exploration results, demonstrates that, with further investment, Bethania has the potential to become a much larger and longer-lived operation. With milling resuming in July and a strengthened balance sheet following our recent financing, we are well positioned to accelerate development at Bethania while also advancing regional exploration opportunities to grow this district scale project. In addition, we are proud to have demonstrated the strategic importance of our 100%-owned Silver Kings project generating cash flow through the sale of a concentrate stockpile." Operational Results Bethania Silver Project (Peru) At the Bethania silver project, Kuya Silver delivered notable operation progress in Q2 2025, achieving both higher output and steady advancement underground. The mine produced 1,224 tonnes of mineralized material, an 87% increase over the prior quarter, reflecting both improved efficiency and expanded access to mineralized material. Development work was equally strong, with metres advanced up 63%, providing the working faces needed to sustain higher mining rates and support the Company's ramp-up strategy. Although toll milling availability caused a temporary pause in processing, the Company accumulated a stockpile of mineralized material at the mine site. Milling operations resumed in July, keeping Bethania on course for consistent production in the second half of the year. Grades also improved across the board, with silver averaging 10.73 oz/t and silver equivalent* grades rising to 14.89 oz/t, respectively. In parallel, Kuya Silver advanced key infrastructure upgrades including, new trailing winches, a high-capacity compressor, and a modern power generator. These investments have materially improved operational reliability and efficiency while preparing Bethania for higher throughput levels in the coming quarters. With development accelerating and systems in place to handle greater volumes, Bethania is positioned to reach its targeted 100 tonnes per day in Q3 2025. Silver Kings Project (Canada) At the Silver Kings Project, a total of 1,761 wet tonnes of silver concentrate were shipped in Q2 2025, generating provisional revenue of USD $1.18 million. The concentrate, which had been stockpiled and identified at site, was successfully marketed and sold during the quarter. Table 1: Operational Summary To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5945/263446_cd7634b5347bdacd_001full.jpg *Silver Equivalency (AgEq) was calculated using silver ($37.77 USD/troy oz), gold ($3,328.60 USD/troy oz), copper ($9,581.63 USD/tonne), lead ($1,973.47 USD/tonne) and zinc ($2,695.92 USD/tonne) values, obtained on July, 15 2025, and do not consider metal recovery. Exploration Overview Bethania District (Peru) During Q2 2025, Kuya Silver advanced its field exploration program at the Bethania Silver Project, successfully expanding the known extent of mineralized zones. The Company identified new high-grade vein zones at Millococha Oeste and Millococha Norte, where grab samples returned values up to 2,630 g/t Ag. Additional sampling at the Hilltop, Carmelitas Este, and Tito PH prospects contributed to a 40-41% increase in the combined mineralized strike length of silver-mineralized veins, now totaling close to 7 kilometers across the property. These new discoveries demonstrate continuity of mineralization across a wider area than previously identified, and suggest the opportunity for multiple vein systems outside the current Bethania mine footprint. The latest surface sampling results reinforce the Company's strategy to define new targets and ultimately support future resource growth, positioning Bethania as a larger-scale silver district with potential beyond the current production zone. Silver Kings Project (Ontario, Canada) At the Silver Kings Project, final results from the Company's 2024-2025 drilling program intersected multiple mineralized ladder veins and identified a new vein cluster within a geophysical anomalous zone, directly comparable to the high-grade Angus-McNamara mineralized zone. These results have expanded the mineralized zone at depth. In addition, drilling at the Campbell-Crawford/Airgiod Prospect expanded the silver-cobalt mineralized footprint to 375 x 250 metres, which remains open. Further details were provided in the Company's April 24, 2025 press release. Financial Highlights Kuya Silver generated approximately $0.70 million in revenue during Q2 2025, primarily from l concentrate sales, compared to nil revenue in the prior-year quarter. The Company recorded a net loss of $282,559 or $(0.00) per share in Q2 2025, an improvement from a loss of $1,631,545 or $(0.01) per share in Q2 2024. Year-to-date, Kuya reported approximately $0.92 million in net revenue compared to nil in H1 2024. Table 2: Financial Summary To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5945/263446_cd7634b5347bdacd_002full.jpg Administrative expenses exclude share-based compensation. In periods when the Company has a loss, diluted loss per share is the same as basic loss per share. Corporate Overview During and subsequent to the six months ended June 30, 2025, Kuya Silver strengthened its financial position and governance. The Company completed three tranches of a non-brokered private placement between March and April, issuing a total of 11.6 million common shares at CAD $0.25 per share for gross proceeds of approximately CAD $2.9 million. In August 2025, Kuya Silver closed an additional financing, issuing 18.1 million units for gross proceeds of CAD $9.1 million. These financings have bolstered Kuya Silver's balance sheet and will be directed toward accelerating mine development and exploration within the Bethania district. At the Annual General and Special Meeting on June 26, 2025, Eugene (Gene) McBurney, Lisa Wilkinson, and Sandro Ferrarone were elected as independent directors. Mr. McBurney was also named Chair of the Audit Committee, further enhancing the Company's governance and oversight. On July 2, 2025, Kuya Silver appointed Sheila Magallon as Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Magallon brings more than 20 years of financial leadership experience in the mining sector, strengthening Kuya Silver's financial management team as the Company transitions into production. Outlook Kuya Silver's primary focus continues to be the advancement of the Bethania Silver Project in Peru. The Company is on track to achieve its initial production milestone of 100 tonnes per day by Q3 2025, supported by the development of additional mining faces and incremental infrastructure improvements. As the daily production ramps up, Kuya Silver expects unit costs to fall as revenue increases, setting the stage for significantly stronger operating cash flow potential from the mine. Longer-term, Kuya Silver remains committed to expanding Bethania toward its phase 1 target production rate of 350 tonnes per day, supported by ongoing development, exploration, and a strengthened balance sheet that enables the company to manage its near term production goals, while executing on the longer-term growth potential for the Bethania project over the next several years. National Instrument 43-101 Disclosure The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Kevin J. O'Connell, P.E., Independent Technical Advisor to of Kuya Silver and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and David Lewis, M.Sc., P.Geo., Vice President Exploration with Kuya Silver Corp. and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About Kuya Silver Corporation Kuya Silver is a Canadian-based, growth-oriented mining company with a focus on silver. Kuya Silver operates the Bethania silver mine in Peru, while developing district-scale silver projects in mining-friendly jurisdictions including Peru and Canada. Reader Advisory This press release may contain statements which constitute "forward-looking information", including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company, its directors, or its officers. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "potential" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future business activities or performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that the Company's future business activities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Such risks, uncertainties and factors are described in the periodic filings with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities, including the Company's quarterly and annual Management's Discussion & Analysis, which may be viewed on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results to not be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements other than as may be required by applicable law. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263446 SOURCE: Kuya Silver Corporation Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Luxxfolio Holdings Inc. (CSE: LUXX) (OTCQB: LUXFF) (FSE: LUH0) ("Luxxfolio" or the "Company"), a leading Litecoin treasury and infrastructure company, is also pleased to announce the appointment of Zayn Kalyan as Executive Chairman of the Board. Mr. Kalyan, a seasoned entrepreneur and capital markets executive, has been a driving force in the Company's strategic evolution toward becoming the preeminent institutional-grade player in the Litecoin ecosystem. Known for his forward-thinking approach to blockchain infrastructure, treasury management, and decentralized financial systems, Mr. Kalyan will now take an expanded leadership role in guiding Luxxfolio's growth and long-term vision. "Mr. Kalyan's combination of market insight, creative deal-making, and deep commitment to the Litecoin community, positions Luxxfolio for continued leadership in this rapidly expanding sector," said Tomek Antoniak, CEO and Director of Luxxfolio. "As Executive Chairman, his focus on strategic partnerships, treasury optimization, and product innovation will be critical to our next stage of growth." Mr. Kalyan has been instrumental in Luxxfolio's recent initiatives, including the expansion of its Litecoin holdings, the development of proprietary wallet and stablecoin technologies, and collaborations with key ecosystem partners such as Litecoin Computer and LitVM. His leadership has helped position the Company at the forefront of programmable money adoption and decentralized commerce infrastructure. "Our mission is clear - to drive the global adoption of Litecoin as hard currency. With a growing treasury, a strong product pipeline, and a committed team, I believe we are poised to shape the next chapter of the Litecoin economy," said Mr. Kalyan. Think Ink Engagement Luxxfolio Holdings Inc. (the "Company") has entered into a consulting agreement with Think Ink Marketing Data & Email Services ("Think Ink") to provide investor relations and digital marketing services aimed at expanding market and investor awareness. Under the terms of the 12-month agreement, Think Ink will provide services that may include native and display advertising, video content distribution, social media coverage, email distribution, and related marketing activities to increase awareness of the Company. The Company has budgeted up to USD $250,000 for the campaign. Compensation is payable as follows: (i) USD $100,000 upon signing of the agreement; and (ii) USD $150,000 one month following the signing date. Compensation to Think Ink does not include any securities of the Company. Think Ink does not hold any interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company and is at arm's length, with no other relationship to the Company outside of this engagement. The contact information for Think Ink is: Think Ink Marketing Data and Email Services Inc., 3308 W. Warner Ave., Santa Ana, CA 92704, Telephone: 310-760-2616, Email: claire@thinkinkmarketing.com. About LUXXFOLIO Holdings Inc. Luxxfolio is a digital infrastructure and technology company focused on enabling the next generation of crypto-powered commerce. The Company is actively developing and investing in on-chain technologies that support real-world cryptocurrency use cases, including stablecoin payments, merchant processing, and self-custody wallets. Luxxfolio has adopted a Litecoin treasury strategy as part of its long-term vision. With a foundation in decentralized systems and digital assets, Luxxfolio aims to help accelerate the mainstream adoption of crypto for everyday payments. This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Financing and the use of proceeds thereof, the Company's anticipated business development and the results thereof, future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, are "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, events or developments to be materially different from any future results, events or developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the Company's limited operating history and lack of historical profits; risks related to the Company's business and financial position; fluctuations in the market price of the Company's common shares; that the Company may not be able to accurately predict its rate of growth and profitability; the Company's requirements for additional financing, and the effect of capital market conditions and other factors on capital availability; competition, including from more established or better financed competitors; and the need to secure and maintain corporate alliances and partnerships. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other risk factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. The Company has no intention to update any forward-looking statement, even if new information becomes available as a result of future events, new information or for any other reason, except as required by law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263462 SOURCE: Luxxfolio Holdings Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - FIRST ANDES SILVER LTD. (TSXV: FAS) (OTC Pink: MSLVF) (FSE: 9TZ0) (the "Company" or "First Andes") today announced announce that it has engaged the services of ICP Securities Inc. ("ICP") to provide automated market making services, including use of its proprietary algorithm, ICP Premium, in compliance with the policies and guidelines of the TSX Exchange and other applicable legislation. ICP will be paid a monthly fee of C$7,500, plus applicable taxes. The agreement between the Company and ICP was signed with a start date of August 22, 2025, and is for four (4) months (the "Initial Term") and shall be automatically renewed for subsequent one (1) month terms (each month called an "Additional Term") unless either party provides at least thirty (30) days written notice prior to the end of the Initial Term or an Additional Term, as applicable. There are no performance factors contained in the agreement and no stock options or other compensation in connection with the engagement. ICP does not currently own any securities of the Company. ICP is an arm's length party to the Company. ICP's market making activity will be primarily to correct temporary imbalances in the supply and demand of the Company's shares. ICP will be responsible for the costs it incurs in buying and selling the Company's shares, and no third party will be providing funds or securities for the market making activities. About ICP Securities Inc. ICP Securities Inc. is a Toronto based CIRO dealer-member that specializes in automated market making and liquidity provision, as well as having a proprietary market making algorithm, ICP Premium, that enhances liquidity and quote health. Established in 2023, with a focus on market structure, execution, and trading, ICP has leveraged its own proprietary technology to deliver high quality liquidity provision and execution services to a broad array of public issuers and institutional investors. About First Andes Silver Ltd. First Andes Silver Ltd. is a British Columbia company that holds a 100% interest in the high-grade Santas Gloria silver property, located in a major mining district 100 km east of Lima, Peru. Santas Gloria has excellent established road access, and is situated within a well-known intermediate sulphidation epithermal belt, and hosts over 12 km of multiphase veins mapped at surface which had never been historically drilled or explored by modern techniques before 2024. First Andes' maiden diamond drill program last year reported high-grade silver grades on all drilled vein systems confirming silver endowment and warranting high priority follow-up drilling in 2025. Forward-Looking Statements Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to Company's limited operating history, ability to obtain sufficient financing to carry out its exploration programs and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263470 SOURCE: First Andes Silver Ltd. Leveraging OpenAI's expertise, Circles will transform customer experience and drive efficiencies for telcos globally SINGAPORE and SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Circles, a global telco technology company, and OpenAI have announced a strategic global collaboration to build a fully AI-native telco platform. This platform will set a new benchmark for telcos globally and will empower them to play a deeper technological role in their consumers' lives in the AI-first era. Telcos worldwide are struggling with declining customer NPS, retention and profitability. In collaboration with OpenAI, Circles is redefining the Telco industry by building a fully AI-native SaaS platform that drives unprecedented levels of consumer intelligence, productivity and profitability across research, operations, customer support and CRM for operators globally. The AI-native platform will launch in Singapore first, powering Circles.Life's app, and will rapidly expand to Circles' telco partners globally. This multi-year collaboration will also give Circles access to OpenAI's early-stage models and research programs, positioning Circles at the forefront of inventing new AI benchmarks for the telco industry. Circles will combine its deep consumer understanding and operator expertise with OpenAI's industry-leading models to showcase the potential for AI in text, voice, image and vision. Awais Mailk, Global Chief Growth Officer of Circles, said: "At Circles, our mission is to continuously push the boundaries of what a telco experience should be and bring innovation from Singapore to the world. OpenAI is a global pioneer in AI and we are thrilled to collaborate with them to launch this AI-native platform to our telco partners globally. This collaboration will deliver a paradigm shift in not just user experience, but also operator efficiency which will further enhance value to the users." Consumers nowadays are demanding more value, responsiveness and personalization in their digital lifestyles. Telco services also need to evolve to meet the changing needs of consumers. By tapping on OpenAI's latest technology, Circles aims to radically transform consumers' digital experiences as well. The AI-native platform will power a pathbreaking agentic AI app that understands context, adapts to users' digital lifestyles and delivers personalized experiences across connectivity, shopping, travel, gaming, wellness and more. Gaurav Tandon, VP of Product & AI Innovationof Circles, said: "We're excited to integrate OpenAI's cutting-edge AI research with our proprietary data intelligence engine to reimagine digital connectivity from ground up. We are at the cusp of a unique technological shift that will create the next generation of telcos which consumers love, will thrive and endure for several decades." Oliver Jay, Managing Director for International at OpenAI, said: "Circles has consistently demonstrated leadership in digital transformation within the telco industry. With OpenAI's technology, Circles will be setting new standards for how AI can enhance consumers' interactions with critical telco services. We look forward to working with Circles to raise the bar for customer experience and drive operator efficiency globally." About Circles Founded in 2014, Circles is a global technology company reimagining the telco industry with its innovative SaaS platform, empowering telco operators worldwide to effortlessly launch innovative digital brands or refresh existing ones, accelerating their transformation into techcos. Today, Circles partners with leading telco operators across 14 countries and 6 continents, including KDDI Corporation, Etisalat Group (e&), AT&T, and Telkomsel, creating blueprints for future telco and digital experiences enjoyed by millions of consumers globally. Circles is backed by renowned global investors, including Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia), Warburg Pincus, Founders Fund, and EDBI (the investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board), with a track record of backing industry challengers. For more information, visit www.circles.co. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2756065/Circles_x_OpenAI.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/circles-and-openai-collaborate-to-build-seas-first-fully-ai-native-telco-platform-302536557.html Company nears completion of two-year audit with new PCAOB-registered auditor; recommits to full reporting and outlines go-to-market plans for InTheZone Labs and pending collaborations MIAMI, FL / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Nitches, Inc. (OTC PINK:NICH). ("Nitches" or the "Company") today provided an update on its financial reporting status and operating plans. The Company confirmed it has transitioned to a new PCAOB-registered auditing firm and is nearing completion of the two-year audit required to return to current, fully reporting status. While the process has taken longer than anticipated, management emphasized that completing a rigorous audit is foundational to the Company's next phase of growth. "The audit has taken longer than any of us planned. We chose the harder path on purpose," said John Morgan, CEO of Nitches. "Becoming current with our filings and regaining fully reporting status isn't a headline for us-it's the operating system we owe our shareholders and partners. Based on ongoing conversations with our auditors and accountants, we believe we are approaching completion. The minute the audit is finalized, we intend to file promptly and move into a steady cadence of transparent updates." Despite the extended audit timeline, Nitches has remained operational, advancing initiatives it withheld from broad market launch until current status is restored. The Company has been structuring new opportunities, subsidiaries, and ventures designed to fit a disciplined, compliance-first operating model. This includes preparation for expanded activity at InTheZone Labs, the Company's nutraceutical and human-performance platform. "Our message to customers, distributors, and prospective strategic partners-ranging from specialty labs to international conglomerates-is simple: this diligence is by design," added John Morgan, CEO of Nitches. "We've invested countless hours with the auditors so that when we scale, we do it on a clean, auditable foundation." Operating Readiness Highlights Audit & Reporting: Transitioned to a new PCAOB-registered auditor; two-year audit in late stages. Upon completion, the Company will immediately move to current reporting and establish a standing quarterly update schedule. InTheZone Labs: Finalizing near-term product and protocol releases in brain health, recovery, and wellness; preparing distributor/affiliate onboarding and compliant marketing assets. Partnership Pipeline: Positive feedback from prospective partners, including lab-based collaborators. The Company expects to announce additional corporate collaborations following audit completion. Go-to-Market Discipline: Milestone-gated spending, quality and regulatory controls, and a measured PR/IR cadence designed for credibility with long-term investors. What to Expect Next (Post-Audit) Filing of required reports to return to current, fully reporting status. A detailed Operating Update outlining near-term product launches, commercialization milestones, and subsidiary strategy. Initial announcements tied to InTheZone Labs distribution and select corporate collaborations, accompanied by clear timelines and compliance disclosures. Collaboration & Distribution Inquiries Companies interested in nutraceutical collaboration, distribution, affiliate partnerships, or product marketing with InTheZone Labs are invited to contact: info@Nitchescorp.com. ? About Nitches Nitches, Inc. is a compliance-driven platform focused on human performance and wellness. The Company develops, partners, and distributes science-forward nutraceutical products through InTheZone Labs and related subsidiaries, operating with rigorous quality controls and transparent reporting. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding audit timing, reporting status, operating plans, product releases, partnerships, and other future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, changes in audit timing or scope, regulatory or reporting requirements, operational execution, financing, market conditions, and other risks. Nitches undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. Investor Contact: John Morgan Investor Relations - Nitches, Inc. info@Nitches.com | www.nitchescorp.com SOURCE: Nitches, Inc. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/business-and-professional-services/nitches-provides-audit-update-and-operating-readiness-plan-1064049 NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Zander Insurance, a national independent insurance brokerage headquartered in Nashville, is proud to announce it has been recognized as a Best Practices Agency by Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America (Big "I"), based on research conducted by Reagan Consulting. This prestigious distinction is awarded annually to top-performing agencies nationwide that demonstrate superior operational excellence and sustained growth. "This recognition reflects the commitment, talent, and passion of our entire team," said Jeffrey Zander, CEO of Zander Insurance. "For nearly than 100 years, Zander has worked to deliver best-in-class insurance solutions with the highest level of integrity. Being named a Best Practices Agency affirms that our business performance matches the same high standards we set for client service." Zander Insurance's inclusion in the Best Practices program underscores the agency's continued investment in technology, talent, and client relationships. Founded in 1927, Zander has grown to be one of the largest and most respected agencies in the country, offering lines of insurance to clients nationwide - including life, home, auto, business, employee benefits and identity theft protection products. About Zander Insurance Zander Insurance is a fourth-generation, family-and-employee-owned independent insurance brokerage headquartered in Nashville, TN. For nearly a century, Zander has delivered innovative, affordable insurance solutions backed by exceptional customer service. For more information, visit www.zanderins.com. About Reagan Best Practices The Best Practices Study, conducted annually by Reagan Consulting in partnership with the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (Big "I"), recognizes the top-performing insurance agencies in the U.S. Selected firms are evaluated against rigorous financial and operational benchmarks that set the standard for excellence in the industry. Contact Information Rebecca Jobe VP, Relationship Management rjobe@zanderins.com (615) 651-7893 SOURCE: ZANDER INSURANCE View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/banking-and-financial-services/zander-insurance-named-a-big-%22i%22-best-practices-agency-1064011 All 2025 pre-filled syringe doses to be made in Canada, marking a domestic production milestone CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Moderna announced today that Health Canada has authorized its updated COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, Spikevax, targeting the SARS-CoV-2 LP.8.1 variant, for individuals aged six months and older. Moderna is on track to deliver the updated vaccine in time for the 2025-2026 vaccination season. All Spikevax pre-filled syringe (PFS) doses for the Canadian market will now be manufactured domestically, marking the first time Canada's entire PFS format is produced at home. The drug substance will be produced at Moderna's new facility in Laval, Quebec, with fill-finish operations completed by Novocol Pharma in Cambridge, Ontario. These Canadian-made doses are expected to be available for this fall. "This approval is a regulatory milestone and a testament to Canada's growing leadership in biomanufacturing and public health resilience," said Stephane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna. "Thanks to Health Canada's timely and thorough review, we are proud to supply Spikevax doses to communities across the country, including, for the first time this year, doses produced in Canada." Moderna's updated COVID-19 vaccine targeting LP.8.1 has already been granted approval by regulators in Europe, Japan, Switzerland and other countries. Additional regulatory applications are under review around the world in preparation for the coming season. Access and Distribution Eligibility for the public vaccination program is set by each province and territory. Those who meet provincial criteria will receive the vaccine free of charge. For individuals not covered under the public programs, efforts are ongoing with private insurers and payers to streamline access and reimbursement within the private sector. Canadians are encouraged to consult their provincial or territorial health authorities for the latest information on eligibility and availability. Regulatory Basis Health Canada's authorization is based on a comprehensive body of evidence submitted by Moderna, including clinical, non-clinical, and real-world data supporting the vaccine's safety and efficacy.[1] [1] Moderna Canada. SPIKEVAX Product Monograph. August 21, 2025. About Moderna Moderna is a leader in the creation of the field of mRNA medicine. Through the advancement of mRNA technology, Moderna is reimagining how medicines are made and transforming how we treat and prevent disease for everyone. By working at the intersection of science, technology and health for more than a decade, the company has developed medicines at unprecedented speed and efficiency, including one of the earliest and most effective COVID-19 vaccines. Moderna's mRNA platform has enabled the development of therapeutics and vaccines for infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases and autoimmune diseases. With a unique culture and a global team driven by the Moderna values and mindsets to responsibly change the future of human health, Moderna strives to deliver the greatest possible impact to people through mRNA medicines. For more information about Moderna, please visit modernatx.com and connect with us on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Spikevax is a registered trademark of Moderna. Moderna Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, including statements regarding: the availability of Moderna's updated COVID vaccine for the 2025-2026 vaccination season; Moderna's manufacturing; vaccine efficacy and safety; and Moderna's pending regulatory applications around the world. The forward-looking statements in this press release are neither promises nor guarantees, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond Moderna's control and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, and other factors include, among others, those risks and uncertainties described under the heading "Risk Factors" in Moderna's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, and in subsequent filings made by Moderna with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Except as required by law, Moderna disclaims any intention or responsibility for updating or revising any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in the event of new information, future developments or otherwise. These forward-looking statements are based on Moderna's current expectations and speak only as of the date of this press release. Moderna Contacts Media: Chris Ridley Head of Global Media Relations +1 617-800-3651 Chris.Ridley@modernatx.com Investors: Lavina Talukdar Senior Vice President & Head of Investor Relations +1 617-209-5834 Lavina.Talukdar@modernatx.com SOURCE: Moderna, Inc. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/healthcare-and-pharmaceutical/moderna-receives-health-canada-approval-for-updated-covid-19-vaccine-1064186 Not for distribution to U.S. news wire services or for dissemination in the United States VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Patriot Resources Corp. (TSXV:MAGA.H) (the "Company") today announces changes to its Board of Directors and a change of Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Jeremy Ross has resigned as CEO and Director of the Company and Mr. Ali Sodagar has resigned as director of the Company, effective August 20, 2025. The Company has appointed Ms. Fiona Keating as CEO and director and Mr. Quentin Mai as a director, effective upon the resignations of Mr. Ross and Mr. Sodagar. Fiona Keating, P.Eng., PMP, is a Professional Engineer and Project Management Professional who holds a Bachelor of Applied Sciences Degree with education in Civil and Mining Engineering. She has experience in both underground and open-pit operations having worked on site at properties with Falconbridge (XStrata), and Phelps Dodge (Freeport-McMoRan) as well as at head office with Placer Dome (Barrick Gold), and Teck Cominco (Teck Resources). Her experience spans commodity price analysis, production studies and reporting, contractor oversight, general mine operations, as well as survey, drilling, and blasting. With over 25 years of experience in driving successful early-stage growth from mineral discovery through to production, Quentin Mai has a proven track record in the mining industry. He spent a decade with Corvus Gold, culminating in its acquisition by AngloGold Ashanti for CDN$570 million in 2022. Additionally, he played a key role in managing Business Development for International Tower Hill, steering it from inception to a peak valuation exceeding $800 million in market capitalization in 2010, and contributing to raising over $250 million in capital. The Company would like to thank Mr. Ross and Mr. Sodagar for their contributions to the Company and wish them well in their future endeavors. The appointments are subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Shares for Debt The Company further announces that its board of directors has approved a shares for debt settlement whereby it proposes to convert C$429,975 of debt owing to certain directors, former directors and a former officer with respect to owing but unpaid fees into common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a price of C$0.18 per Share (the "Debt Settlement"). The Shares issued pursuant to the Debt Settlement will be subject to a minimum hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance. As certain of those persons receiving Shares pursuant to the Debt Settlement are considered "insiders" by virtue of their being directors of the Company, the Debt Settlement is considered a "related party transaction" pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company is relying on the formal valuation exemption in section 5.5(a) of MI 61-101 and upon the minority approval exemption in section 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 on the basis that, at the time the Debt Settlement was agreed, neither the fair market value of the fair market value of the Debt Settlement, nor the fair market value of the consideration therefor, insofar as it involves related parties will exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization as determined in accordance with MI 61-101. The Debt Settlement is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. For further information, please contact: Patriot Resources Corp. Fiona Keating CEO Telephone: 604-704-8708 Email: fekeating@gmail.com Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or the Company's future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The statements made in this press release are made as of the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be expressly required by applicable securities laws. SOURCE: Patriot Resources Corp. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/consumer-and-retail-products/patriot-resources-announces-c.e.o.-and-director-change-and-proposed-de-1064183 PSEG Foundation's Neighborhood Partners Program Powers Community Good NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Over the years, the PSEG Foundation and the Neighborhood Partner Program has supported hundreds of local nonprofits in carrying out their missions, helping them best serve the communities they know deeply. As a dedicated community partner, the PSEG Foundation is focused on strengthening the capacity, resilience, and impact of local nonprofits to create lasting, positive change. Because investing in communities isn't just a motto or trend - it's a long-term commitment to building a better future together, one grant and one good neighbor at a time. Since 2014, the PSEG Foundation's Neighborhood Partners Program (NPP) has helped hundreds of local nonprofits do what they do best - support the people and places they know by heart. And at the heart of NPP are three guiding pillars: environmental sustainability, social justice and equity, and economic empowerment. Organizations receive funding to expand outreach, strengthen operations, and scale programs that directly impact people's lives. "Our mission is deeply rooted in community investment," shared Calvin Ledford Jr., president, PSEG Foundation. "We've grown from simply funding good ideas to building long-term partnerships with nonprofits we now consider trusted collaborators." Take America's Grow-A-Row, for example. Headquartered in New Jersey, With over 400 acres of farmland, the organization grows and donates fresh produce to food-insecure families by distributing an astounding 3.6 million pounds of fruits and vegetables to those in need. In Camden, Cathedral Kitchen offers more than meals, it provides pathways out of poverty. Through a free, 15-week culinary program, the organization has trained nearly 600 unemployed and under-resourced residents, with 90% securing jobs within three months of graduation. More Than Bootstraps, is a New Jersey nonprofit that offers a peer-powered mentorship program for first-generation college students, and has grown from 11 to 50 active participants, building a support system that bridges the gap between ambition and opportunity. In Central Jersey, HomeFront provides not only shelter and meals (over 1.8 million served), but also stability, self-sufficiency programs, and hope for families experiencing homelessness. These stories are just a glimpse into what's possible when large institutions back grassroots dreams with programs such as NPP. To date, the Foundation has invested nearly $8 million in more than 400 nonprofit organizations across New Jersey and Long Island. These partners represent a wide range of missions, but they share a common goal: building more equitable, sustainable, and empowered communities. In 2024, about 2,500 employees donated approximately 24,000 hours to support various initiatives including food, clothing, blood, gift and school supply drives, as well as mentoring, assisting with meal prep and hygiene kits, caring for animals, environmental clean-ups and tree plantings. Additionally, last year about 900 nonprofits benefited from approximately $1.8 million in employee giving and matched dollars. In the past 10 years, that impact was over $9 million in PSEG Foundation matches to organizations focused on areas including health and human services, education, civic and community services and arts and culture. Through all of its programs, the Foundation serves a wide spectrum of communities often overlooked or underserved. Whether it's a small food pantry or a growing job-readiness initiative, the goal is the same: support organizations that are meeting real needs, right now. By funding local changemakers who know their neighborhoods best, the PSEG Foundation ensures real impact flows from the ground up through the Neighborhood Partners Program. A focus on these organizations reinforces the commitments to our pillars, our communities, and our customers. Together, leading change on issues and opportunities impacting our communities and working towards collaborative solutions - now and into the future. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from PSEG on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: PSEG Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/public-service-enterprise-group-pseg Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: PSEG View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/utilities/pseg-is-brightening-communities-one-partnership-at-a-time-1064184 The "Europe Battery Energy Storage System Market Analysis 2025-2033" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Europe Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Market is expected to reach US$ 87.34 billion by 2033 from US$ 18.1 billion in 2024, with a CAGR of 19.11% from 2025 to 2033. The market for battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Europe is expected to grow on the back of a list of elements including growth in the uptake of renewable energy, favorable government policies, upgrading of grid infrastructure, rising demand for electricity, falling battery costs, improved energy security, and higher utilization of smart grids and electric vehicles. BESS plays a vital role in backup power supply, frequency regulation, peak shaving, and grid support. By understanding the intermittent character of renewables, it improves energy efficiency and facilitates a shift to clean energy. They are produced in sizes from tiny residential systems to huge utility installations. Lithium-ion batteries are the most prevalent battery type owing to their potency, durability, and scalability. The growing penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, that need effective energy storage systems to mitigate intermittency is driving Europe's battery energy storage system (BESS) market. Incentivized and goal-driven, facilitating government policy and regulatory regimes promote the use of BESS. Demand is also pushed upwards by the transition of electrical grids to modern days and rising grid flexibility requirement, such as peak shaving and frequency response. Market expansion is also aided by the transformation of electric vehicles, decentralization of electricity, and transition to cleaner, low-carbon power systems. Furthermore, BESS is becoming increasingly available and cost-effective in domestic, commercial, and utility markets thanks to technological advancements and declining battery costs. Growth Drivers for the Europe Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Market Increasing renewable energy adoption One of the key drivers fueling the European battery energy storage system (BESS) market is the increased usage of renewable energy. Reliable storage of energy is necessary since countries across the continent rapidly expand their utilization of solar and wind power to meet climate goals and reduce carbon emissions. Because renewable energy sources have an intermittent nature by design wind supply fluctuates and solar produces energy only during the day it is important to have additional energy stored up for use during low-generating periods. This is enabled by BESS, which provides a constant and continuous power supply through storing excess power and feeding it back into the grid as needed. This integration enhances the resilience of the grid, stabilizes supply and demand, reduces the curtailment of renewable energy, and supports Europe's broader transition to a low-carbon energy system. Advancements in battery technologies The European battery energy storage systems (BESS) market is growing very fast driven by developments in battery technologies. Innovations in long-duration, solid-state, and lithium-ion storage are reducing costs while raising energy density, lifespan, safety, and efficiency. Owing to these developments, BESS is becoming economically viable for application in residential, commercial, and utility installations. Interestingly, Switzerland also greenlit an 800 MW/1,600 MWh redox-flow battery plant in Laufenburg in June 2025, which was a record for the technology globally. This milestone indicates Europe's dominance in deploying extensive, innovative storage systems that enhance grid resilience and stability. The advancement of new technologies makes BESS a cornerstone of Europe's clean energy transition by enabling grid flexibility, enhancing energy security, and allowing more integration of renewables. Grid modernization initiatives Grid modernization efforts are a prominent driver driving the battery energy storage system (BESS) market in Europe. BESS becomes important for enhancing grid stability, flexibility, and efficiency as European countries upgrade their aging grid infrastructure to support a more decentralized and digital energy environment. Bidirectional energy flows from prosumers, electric vehicles, and scattered renewable sources need to be handled by new systems. Facilitating real-time energy balance, frequency regulation, and voltage management, BESS supports this transition. To reduce the burden on transmission networks, it also provides advanced grid services such as peak shaving and load shifting. Utilities can enhance reliability, reduce outages, and improve energy usage by integrating BESS into modern grids. This will turn energy systems smarter, more resilient, and better suited to Europe's clean energy objectives. Challenges in the Europe Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Market High upfront costs The market expansion for battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Europe is severely hampered by high upfront prices. Even with declining battery costs, a significant amount of money is still needed to buy, install, and integrate BESS, particularly at the utility level. In addition to the battery units, these expenses also cover inverters, control systems, safety gear, and infrastructural improvements. Institutional and private investors are also discouraged by lengthy payback periods and unclear profits in certain sectors. Although some expenses are somewhat offset by government incentives, wider adoption is constrained by uneven support across EU nations. In order to accelerate deployment and meet Europe's targets for grid modernization and renewable energy, finance hurdles must be removed. Grid integration complexities One of the biggest obstacles facing the European battery energy storage system (BESS) sector is the complexity of grid integration. Many of the power networks in use today were not built to handle variable input from renewable sources or large-scale energy storage. To guarantee smooth operation, integrating BESS calls for complex control systems, cutting-edge communication networks, and real-time data management. For legacy infrastructure to manage bidirectional energy flows and preserve grid stability, expensive improvements are frequently required. Complexity is further increased by collaboration amongst various stakeholders, including utilities, regulators, and consumers. These operational and technical difficulties have the potential to raise expenses, postpone projects, and restrict BESS's ability to fully support Europe's clean energy transition. Recent Developments in the Europe Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Market In May 2025, Northvolt announced plans to reduce battery production in Sweden, highlighting the difficulty in competing with Asian suppliers. In support of multi-gigawatt deployment, BW ESS and Nordea Bank closed the largest storage finance package in the Nordic region in April 2025. In March 2025, LG Energy Solution used its Wroclaw facility to negotiate a USD 384 million supply agreement with PGE for Poland's 900 MWh BESS. Key Players Analysis (Company Overview, Key Persons, Recent Development Strategies, SWOT Analysis, Sales Analysis) Fluence Energy Inc. Tesla Inc. BYD Co. Ltd. LG Energy Solution Ltd. Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. Wartsila Oyj Abp Northvolt AB Saft Groupe SAS (TotalEnergies) Panasonic Holdings Corp. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. Key Attributes: Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 200 Forecast Period 2024 2033 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2024 $18.1 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2033 $87.34 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 19.1% Regions Covered Europe Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Research Methodology 2.1 Data Source 2.2 Research Approach 2.3 Forecast Projection Methodology 3. Executive Summary 4. Market Dynamics 4.1 Growth Drivers 4.2 Challenges 5. Europe Battery Energy Storage System Market 5.1 Historical Market Trends 5.2 Market Forecast 6. Market Share Analysis 6.1 By Battery Type 6.2 By Application 6.3 By Power Rating 6.4 By Countries 7. Battery Type 7.1 Lithium-ion 7.2 Lead-acid 7.3 Flow Battery 7.4 Sodium-ion 7.5 Others 8. Application 8.1 Grid Stabilization 8.2 Renewable Integration 8.3 Peak Shaving 8.4 Backup Power 9. Power Rating 9.1 1MW to 10 MW 9.2 Up to 100 Kw 9.3 101 KW to 1MW 9.4 Above 10 MW 10. Countries 10.1 France 10.2 Germany 10.3 Italy 10.4 Spain 10.5 United Kingdom 10.6 Belgium 10.7 Netherlands 10.8 Russia 10.9 Poland 10.10 Greece 10.11 Norway 10.12 Romania 10.13 Portugal 10.14 Rest of Europe 11. Value Chain Analysis 12. Porter's Five Forces Analysis 12.1 Bargaining Power of Buyers 12.2 Bargaining Power of Suppliers 12.3 Degree of Competition 12.4 Threat of New Entrants 12.5 Threat of Substitutes 13. SWOT Analysis 13.1 Strength 13.2 Weakness 13.3 Opportunity 13.4 Threats 14. Pricing Benchmark Analysis 14.1 Fluence Energy Inc. 14.2 Tesla Inc. 14.3 BYD Co. Ltd. 14.4 LG Energy Solution Ltd. 14.5 Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. 14.6 Wartsila Oyj Abp 14.7 Northvolt AB 14.8 Saft Groupe SAS (TotalEnergies) 14.9 Panasonic Holdings Corp. 14.10 Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. 15. Key Players Analysis For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/97if9y About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250822618818/en/ Contacts: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./ CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 Vancouver, British Columbia, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- St. James Gold Corp. (the "Company" or "St. James") (TSXV: LORD) (OTCQB: LRDJF) (FSE: BVU3) is pleased to announce that it has closed the Final Release and Settlement Agreement with Florin Resources Inc. ("Florin") originally announced on April 1, 2025 (the "Settlement Agreement"). Under the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the Company was reassigned two secured promissory notes of the Company held by Florin with a combined principal amount of $1,176,598.76 (the "Secured Promissory Notes"). The consideration for the settlement was as follows: The cash payment of $435,000 to Florin; The issuance of a total of 2,105,264 common shares of the Company for debt to Florin at a deemed price of $0.095 Per Share that closed concurrently with the Settlement Agreement; The Company removing its objection to the release to Florin of 850,000 common shares of the Company that were held in escrow by the Company's transfer agent; and The transferring of the Company's Quinn Lake Property to Florin. As part of the Settlement Agreement, Florin agreed to participate as to 1,052,632 common shares in the Company's private placement announced December 27, 2024, at $0.095 per share, which closed concurrently with the closing of the Settlement Agreement. Florin and certain former directors and officers of the Company also entered into a Mutual Non-Disparagement Agreement. The Company has reassigned the principal amount if the Notes proportionately to the lenders who provided the $435,000 cash for closing and have agreed to hold the debt as long-term and unsecured. The Settlement Agreement describes a release of all claims, bringing to an end this chapter of the Company's existence and allows the moving forward with development of its Grub Line Property in Newfoundland. The Company thanks its shareholders for their long forbearance which the Company concluded this difficult period. About St. James Gold Corp. St. James Gold Corp. is a publicly traded company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol "LORD", in the U.S. Market listed on OTCQB under "LRDJF" and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under "BVU3". The Company is focused on creating shareholder value through the discovery and development of economic mineral deposits by acquiring prospective exploration projects with well-delineated geological theories; integrating all available geological, geochemical, and geophysical datasets; and financing efficient exploration programs. For more corporate information please visit: http://stjamesgold.com/ St. James Gold Corp. For further information, please contact: Tel: 1 (800) 278-2152 Email: info@stjamesgold.com Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All other statements that are not historical facts, particularly statements that express, or involve discussions as to, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance of the Company. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified through the use of words or phrases such as "will likely result", "are expected to", "expects", "will continue", "is anticipated", "anticipates", "believes", "estimated", "intends", "plans", forecast", "projection", "strategy", "objective" and "outlook". Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made based on reasonable estimates and assumptions made by management of the Company at the relevant time in light of its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that are believed to be appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this new release and the Company will not update any such forward-looking statements as a result of new information or if management's beliefs, estimates, assumptions or opinions change, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control, which could cause actual results, performance, achievements and events to differ materially from those that are disclosed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the impact and progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors outlines in the Company's Annual Information Form dated July 26, 2021 (the "AIF") filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The Company cautions that the list of factors and uncertainties described in its AIF on SEDAR are not exhaustive and other factors could materially affect its results. New factors emerge from time to time, and its is not possible for the Company to consider all of them, or assess the impact of each such factor or to the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Any forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOT ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONISBIULITY FOR THE ADEQUACY IR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. SHENZHEN, CN / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / The countdown to UTMB, TDS, and CCC has begun, and Fenix is proud to announce that 22 elite trail runners, including Daniel Jones and Ludovic Pommeret, will join Fenix Team in lighting up Chamonix. Fenix Team for UTMB 2025 in Chamonix 22 Elite Runners Join Fenix Team for UTMB 2025 in Chamonix As a global leader in professional portable lighting, Fenix has become a trusted name among trail runners with advanced headlamps such as the HM65R-T V2.0 and HL18R-T V2.0, both praised for their reliability and performance. Fenix has been a dedicated supporter of the trail running community. Since 2017, Fenix has been sponsoring the world-renowned Western States Endurance Run 100 Mile for eight consecutive years. As well as a partner of the Legend ultra-long distance event Swiss Peaks, Fenix also actively collaborate with athletes to appear in well-known events such as Val d'Aran By UTMB, Ultra-Trail Australia by UTMB, etc. In 2025, rising star Daniel Jones, officially signed with Fenix. "Knowing I've got a light I can rely on gives me the confidence to push harder and go further. And that is exactly what I need out there!" said Daniel. He placed 4th at CCC last year, this year, he sets his sights on UTMB with Fenix by his side. The 2016 UTMB champion, 2022 TDS champion, UTMB Legends, Ludovic Pommeret, continues to inspire the sport with his perseverance and passion. In 2024, Pommeret claimed victory at the Hardrock 100, breaking the course record. A long-time Fenix partner, Ludovic relies on Fenix lighting to illuminate his races-while his spirit continues to inspire Fenix. Next week, Fenix will also light for Ludovic on UTMB! Fenix will also be cheering on runners from the UTMB Village in Chamonix. Welcome to visit our booth #20 on Zone Mont-Blanc to experience the full line of Fenix trail running headlamps and join fun on-site activities. Lighting for extremes, Fenix stands ready to power every step on the world's toughest trails. SOURCE: Fenixlight Limited View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/industrial-and-manufacturing/22-elite-runners-join-fenix-team-for-utmb-2025-in-chamonix-1064134 Summary: GWS Pressure Cleaning has officially expanded its range of services to address increased demand from homeowners, businesses, and property managers seeking property maintenance solutions across Miami. Miami, Florida--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - GWS Pressure Cleaning, a family-operated home improvement company, has announced the expansion of its service portfolio to better support residential and commercial clients across the Miami metropolitan area. The company's strategic move comes in response to rising demand for reliable maintenance solutions amid continued development and property growth in the region. With Miami's evolving real estate landscape and a surge in new construction, property owners are increasingly seeking comprehensive support for maintenance and upkeep. GWS Pressure Cleaning has adapted to these changing market needs by broadening its service capabilities beyond pressure washing to include a wider range of property maintenance solutions. This expansion includes increased operational capacity and internal staffing, allowing the Miami pressure cleaning company to take on more complex and time-sensitive projects. The new capabilities also provide enhanced support to contractors and developers in need of reliable post-construction cleanup services-ensuring properties are prepared for occupancy within strict project timelines. The expanded services aim to give clients a more streamlined experience by reducing the need to coordinate with multiple contractors. With this development, GWS Pressure Cleaning positions itself as a more integrated partner for residential communities, commercial property managers, and construction companies requiring exterior maintenance solutions under one provider. The company's growth also reflects a broader trend in the South Florida market, where high humidity, coastal weather conditions, and dense urban infrastructure demand regular and reliable exterior upkeep. GWS Pressure Cleaning's expansion is designed to support that demand while maintaining the company's established standards of quality and timeliness. To accommodate this growth, GWS Pressure Cleaning has invested in new equipment, training, and scheduling systems to maintain efficiency and minimize service delays. These updates are part of the company's broader strategy to scale responsibly while continuing to meet expectations across a diverse customer base. As GWS Pressure Cleaning continues to expand its operations, the home improvement company remains focused on delivering efficient, dependable, and high-quality solutions that address the growing demands of property maintenance across South Florida. By aligning its services with evolving client needs and investing in operational improvements, GWS Pressure Cleaning is positioned to support a broader range of projects while upholding its reputation for professionalism, consistency, and trusted results. About GWS Pressure Cleaning: GWS Pressure Cleaning is a Miami-based home improvement company serving residential, commercial, and industrial clients throughout South Florida. Established in 2012, the company offers a wide range of services, including pressure washing, soft washing, roof cleaning, driveway and paver cleaning, exterior painting, junk removal, and post-construction cleanup. Known for its skilled technicians, modern equipment, and customer-focused approach, GWS Pressure Cleaning is committed to helping clients protect and maintain the appearance, safety, and value of their properties. Media Contact: To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10740/263459_58c75746c4e05b1c_001full.jpg To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263459 SOURCE: GetFeatured DUBAI, UAE, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Bybit , the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has launched a major platform upgrade, unveiling an enhanced multi-chart trading experience in collaboration with TradingView , the industry's leading charting and analytics platform. This milestone reaffirms Bybit's long-term promise to deliver the best tools and the best trading experience for crypto traders around the globe. This latest rollout represents a deepening of Bybit's integration with TradingView, first introduced in early 2024 to streamline crypto market analysis. In a show of growing synergy, Bybit is also proud to welcome TradingView as the Official Partner of the World Series of Trading (WSOT) 2025, the world's largest crypto trading competition. Raising the Bar: A Unified, Seamless Multi-Chart Mode The new multi-chart experience introduces a powerful suite of features designed to empower both spot and derivatives traders with unmatched visual flexibility and precision: Unified Multi-Chart for Spot & Futures - Seamlessly analyze spot and futures markets side by side within one synchronized layout. - Seamlessly analyze spot and futures markets side by side within one synchronized layout. Direct Access from Spot Trading Page - Traders can now launch multi-chart mode directly from both the Spot and Futures pages. - Traders can now launch multi-chart mode directly from both the Spot and Futures pages. Place Orders Without Leaving Chart View - Execute market and limit orders instantly within the multi-chart interface. - Execute market and limit orders instantly within the multi-chart interface. Compare Multiple Symbols Effortlessly - Conduct real-time pair analysis and correlation checks with simple symbol comparison tools. - Conduct real-time pair analysis and correlation checks with simple symbol comparison tools. More Layouts for More Styles - Choose from an expanded library of layout presets to suit any trading strategy or screen setup. - Choose from an expanded library of layout presets to suit any trading strategy or screen setup. Smart Synchronization Across All Charts - Automatically sync symbols, intervals, crosshairs, and date ranges, eliminating manual updates. - Automatically sync symbols, intervals, crosshairs, and date ranges, eliminating manual updates. One Unified Control Panel - Manage charts, switch pairs, and adjust settings from a single, intuitive interface. - Manage charts, switch pairs, and adjust settings from a single, intuitive interface. Fully Integrated TradingView Footer Tools - Enjoy full access to TradingView's analytics toolkit embedded within the Bybit platform. A Proven Partnership Built on Innovation Bybit's collaboration with TradingView reflects the company's vision to lead the industry through innovation and trading excellence. By integrating world-class analytical tools with seamless execution, Bybit continues to empower its users to trade smarter, faster, and with greater confidence. "Our mission at TradingView has always been to empower traders with best-in-class tools and insights," said Mark, Growth Director at TradingView. "Bybit's enhanced multi-chart experience is a perfect example of how technology and collaboration can deliver unmatched value to the trading community, both in day-to-day strategies and in high-stakes competitions like WSOT." With over 10 million USDT in prizes, WSOT 2025 is set to break new records as the most prestigious trading tournament in crypto. As Official Partner, TradingView will play a central role in providing real-time analytics and performance visualization, empowering participants to compete with data-driven precision. WSOT Goes Onchain with Byreal and Bybit Web3 For the first time, WSOT brings the battle onchain with WSOT Onchain Wave, co-hosted by Byreal and Bybit Web3 on Solana. Both onchain wallet holders and Bybit users can compete seamlessly, with Bybit users trading directly through their Unified Trading Account (UTA) balances. With over $1 million in BBSOL and USDC up for grabs, WSOT Onchain Wave challenges traders to dominate the markets, boost liquidity, and climb the leaderboards - all while exploring the full power of onchain trading through Byreal and Bybit Web3. Bybit / TheCryptoArk / IMakeIt About Bybit Bybit is the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, serving a global community of over 70 million users. Founded in 2018, Bybit is redefining openness in the decentralized world by creating a simpler, open and equal ecosystem for everyone. With a strong focus on Web3, Bybit partners strategically with leading blockchain protocols to provide robust infrastructure and drive on-chain innovation. Renowned for its secure custody, diverse marketplaces, intuitive user experience, and advanced blockchain tools, Bybit bridges the gap between TradFi and DeFi, empowering builders, creators, and enthusiasts to unlock the full potential of Web3. Discover the future of decentralized finance at Bybit.com . For more details about Bybit, please visit Bybit Press For media inquiries, please contact: media@bybit.com For updates, please follow: Bybit's Communities and Social Media Discord | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Reddit | Telegram | TikTok | X | Youtube Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2267288/Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/bybit-unveils-advanced-multi-chart-experience-in-collaboration-with-tradingview-deepens-partnership-as-official-wsot-2025-partner-302536525.html The growth of the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) market is driven by the rising need for advanced cybersecurity solutions to combat growing cyberattacks, data breaches, and unauthorized access in cloud-based environments. Increasing adoption of remote work, digital transformation initiatives, and the expansion of hybrid IT infrastructures are fueling demand. LEWES, Del., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) market was valued at USD 3.4 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 9.5 billion by 2033, growing at a strong CAGR of 15.5% during the forecast period of 2026-2033. This growth reflects the increasing reliance on secure network access solutions across industries as organizations transition to cloud, hybrid, and remote work infrastructures. The expanding adoption of zero-trust architectures is expected to further strengthen market demand globally. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketresearchintellect.com/download-sample/?rid=1077764 202 - Pages 126 - Tables 37 - Figures Scope Of The Report REPORT ATTRIBUTES DETAILS STUDY PERIOD 2020-2031 BASE YEAR 2024 FORECAST PERIOD 2026-2033 HISTORICAL PERIOD 2020-2024 UNIT Value (USD Billion) KEY COMPANIES PROFILED Cisco Systems, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Akamai Technologies, Inc., Broadcom Inc., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Fortinet, Inc., Cloudflare, Inc., Okta, Inc., Appgate, Inc., Zscaler, Inc., Versa Networks, Inc., VMware, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., Perimeter 81, Symantec (a division of Broadcom), and Intel Corporation. SEGMENTS COVERED By Type, By Application And 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 Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) Market Overview Introduction to the Software-Defined Perimeter Market The Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) market is transforming how organizations approach network security by shifting from traditional perimeter-based defenses to a zero-trust model. SDP technology ensures that access to applications, services, and data is granted only after verifying user identity and device posture, making it a preferred solution in modern hybrid IT environments. The increasing volume of cyber threats, coupled with the rise of cloud computing and remote workforces, has accelerated the adoption of SDP across industries. By dynamically creating secure, encrypted connections, SDP eliminates visibility for unauthorized users, effectively reducing attack surfaces. Enterprises, government agencies, and critical infrastructure sectors are deploying SDP to improve security posture, reduce risks of data breaches, and comply with stringent regulatory standards. As digital transformation initiatives continue to expand, the demand for adaptive, scalable, and policy-driven security frameworks like SDP is set to grow at a rapid pace globally. Market Growth Drivers The SDP market's strong growth is driven by multiple factors, most notably the surge in cyberattacks and increasing demand for secure access to cloud resources. Organizations are adopting SDP as part of a zero-trust architecture to safeguard sensitive data in an environment where remote work, mobile devices, and hybrid IT infrastructures dominate. Rising regulatory pressure on industries such as banking, healthcare, and government has further pushed adoption, as compliance frameworks require robust security solutions. Additionally, the growing reliance on multi-cloud strategies and the expansion of digital ecosystems amplify the need for security models that can provide dynamic, context-aware access control. The flexibility of SDP to seamlessly integrate with existing IT infrastructure while ensuring secure access without relying on traditional VPNs has made it an attractive choice. Overall, these growth drivers underscore how SDP is becoming a core component of next-generation cybersecurity strategies. Restraints and Challenges Despite its promising growth, the Software-Defined Perimeter market faces challenges that could restrain its adoption. One of the primary concerns is the complexity of integrating SDP solutions with legacy systems and existing security frameworks, which can require significant time and investment. High initial costs and limited awareness among small and medium enterprises also pose barriers. Moreover, the lack of industry-wide standards for zero-trust implementation leads to variations in deployment practices, creating confusion for organizations exploring SDP. Vendor lock-in risks, combined with skill shortages in cybersecurity expertise, further challenge businesses aiming for smooth adoption. Additionally, resistance from organizations accustomed to traditional perimeter security models, such as VPNs and firewalls, slows down market penetration. Overcoming these hurdles requires increased vendor collaboration, stronger awareness campaigns, and cost-effective solutions tailored for small enterprises. Addressing these challenges will be crucial for unlocking the full potential of the SDP market in the coming years. Opportunities in the SDP Market The future of the Software-Defined Perimeter market presents strong opportunities for growth, driven by rapid advancements in cybersecurity technologies and the global push towards digital transformation. Emerging economies, particularly in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, are expected to witness accelerated adoption as enterprises in these regions digitize operations and modernize IT infrastructures. The rising demand for secure Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity offers another significant opportunity for SDP solutions, as IoT devices are often vulnerable entry points for cyberattacks. Furthermore, the growing trend of 'work from anywhere' creates a sustained need for scalable, flexible, and cloud-native security models. SDP providers also have opportunities to expand by offering AI-driven threat detection, behavioral analytics, and automation features, enhancing the value proposition of their solutions. Strategic partnerships between SDP vendors, cloud service providers, and managed security service providers (MSSPs) are likely to create innovative offerings and further propel the market forward. Download Sample Report Now:https://www.marketresearchintellect.com/download-sample/?rid=1077764 Industry Adoption Trends Across industries, SDP adoption is rapidly expanding due to the technology's ability to address diverse security needs. In the financial services sector, institutions are leveraging SDP to secure customer data, prevent fraud, and ensure compliance with regulatory frameworks such as GDPR and PCI DSS. The healthcare sector is increasingly relying on SDP to protect electronic health records and manage secure telehealth platforms. In government and defense, SDP plays a crucial role in securing sensitive communication and critical infrastructure against cyber-espionage and nation-state threats. Retailers are using SDP to secure e-commerce platforms and customer transactions, while the IT and telecom sector deploys SDP to safeguard cloud-based applications and enterprise networks. Manufacturing and industrial sectors are exploring SDP to secure connected devices and Industrial IoT environments. This broad industry adoption highlights SDP's versatility in adapting to varied cybersecurity challenges while enabling organizations to embrace innovation with confidence. Technological Advancements Technological innovation is a key driver of the Software-Defined Perimeter market's evolution. Vendors are incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to provide real-time threat detection and adaptive access control. Automation capabilities in SDP solutions are helping organizations reduce human error and enhance response times to potential security breaches. Cloud-native SDP platforms are being designed to seamlessly integrate with popular cloud providers, enabling enterprises to secure workloads across public, private, and hybrid environments. Moreover, vendors are emphasizing user-friendly dashboards, policy orchestration, and analytics to simplify complex security tasks for IT teams. The adoption of identity-centric models that validate both user and device context before granting access has strengthened SDP's alignment with zero-trust principles. Blockchain technology is also being explored to enhance trust and transparency in secure communications. These advancements are making SDP solutions more intelligent, scalable, and attractive to enterprises aiming for proactive cybersecurity. Regional Market Insights Geographically, the Software-Defined Perimeter market demonstrates varied growth patterns across regions. North America leads the market, driven by the presence of leading technology providers, high awareness of cybersecurity solutions, and strong adoption of cloud services. Europe follows, supported by stringent data protection regulations such as GDPR and increasing investments in advanced cybersecurity. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness the fastest growth, fueled by rapid digital transformation, a growing startup ecosystem, and expanding IT infrastructure in countries like China, India, and Japan. The Middle East and Africa are also showing steady progress, particularly in government and financial services sectors, which are modernizing security frameworks to combat rising cyber threats. Latin America is adopting SDP gradually, with increased focus on digital banking and e-commerce security. These regional dynamics highlight how localized regulatory requirements, technology adoption, and industry priorities are shaping the trajectory of the global SDP market. Future Outlook The outlook for the Software-Defined Perimeter market is highly promising, with strong momentum expected over the next decade. As organizations continue to embrace hybrid work models and cloud-first strategies, the need for zero-trust security frameworks like SDP will only intensify. The market's anticipated growth to USD 9.5 billion by 2033 underscores its expanding role in modern cybersecurity. With increasing investments in AI, automation, and behavioral analytics, SDP solutions will become more predictive and intelligent, offering proactive defense against evolving cyber threats. Furthermore, collaborations between technology vendors, cloud providers, and regulatory authorities are expected to foster standardization, improving adoption rates across industries. Small and medium enterprises are also likely to embrace cost-effective SDP offerings as awareness grows. Ultimately, the integration of SDP with emerging technologies such as 5G, IoT, and edge computing will position it as a cornerstone in securing the future digital ecosystem. Geographic Dominance: North America dominates the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) market, driven by early adoption of zero-trust security models, advanced cloud infrastructure, and the presence of leading cybersecurity providers. The region benefits from high awareness of data security challenges, strict regulatory frameworks, and significant investments by enterprises in modern security architectures. Europe follows closely, supported by regulations such as GDPR and strong demand for secure remote access across industries like banking, healthcare, and government. The Asia-Pacific region is experiencing the fastest growth due to rapid digital transformation, increased cloud adoption, and growing cyber risks in economies such as China, India, and Japan. Meanwhile, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are gradually adopting SDP solutions, primarily within financial services, telecom, and government sectors, to strengthen cyber resilience. These regional dynamics reflect how regulatory mandates, technology adoption rates, and industry priorities shape geographic dominance in the global SDP market. Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) Market Key Players Shaping the Future Key players shaping the future of the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) market include Cisco Systems, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Akamai Technologies, Inc., Broadcom Inc., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Fortinet, Inc., Cloudflare, Inc., Okta, Inc., Appgate, Inc., Zscaler, Inc., Versa Networks, Inc., VMware, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., Perimeter 81, Symantec (a division of Broadcom), and Intel Corporation. These companies are driving innovation through advanced zero-trust frameworks, cloud-native security solutions, and AI-powered threat detection capabilities. Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) Market Segment Analysis The Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) Market is segmented based on By Type, By Application, and Geography, providing a comprehensive framework for industry analysis: By Type Network Security Gateways - Provide secure access to enterprise applications and resources by enforcing zero-trust policies. - Provide secure access to enterprise applications and resources by enforcing zero-trust policies. Controller-Based SDP - Centralized policy management with scalable control over user authentication and device verification. - Centralized policy management with scalable control over user authentication and device verification. Cloud-Based SDP - Secure access solutions tailored for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. - Secure access solutions tailored for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. On-Premises SDP - Deployed for organizations with strict data sovereignty or compliance requirements. By Application Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) - Protection of sensitive customer data and digital transactions. - Protection of sensitive customer data and digital transactions. Healthcare - Secure access for electronic health records, telemedicine, and connected medical devices. - Secure access for electronic health records, telemedicine, and connected medical devices. IT & Telecom - Safeguarding cloud-based applications, enterprise networks, and telecom services. - Safeguarding cloud-based applications, enterprise networks, and telecom services. Government & Defense - Securing critical infrastructure and confidential communication. - Securing critical infrastructure and confidential communication. Retail & E-commerce - Ensuring secure online transactions and consumer data protection. - Ensuring secure online transactions and consumer data protection. Manufacturing & Industrial - Protecting Industrial IoT and connected supply chains. By Geography North America - Leading market due to early adoption of zero-trust models and advanced cloud infrastructure. - Leading market due to early adoption of zero-trust models and advanced cloud infrastructure. Europe - Growth fueled by stringent GDPR regulations and increasing cyber risks. - Growth fueled by stringent GDPR regulations and increasing cyber risks. Asia-Pacific - Fastest-growing region driven by digital transformation and expanding IT ecosystems. - Fastest-growing region driven by digital transformation and expanding IT ecosystems. Latin America - Rising adoption in digital banking and telecom sectors. - Rising adoption in digital banking and telecom sectors. Middle East & Africa - Adoption led by government and financial institutions modernizing security frameworks. IT & Telecom The IT & Telecom sector is emerging as a key adopter of Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) solutions due to its extensive reliance on cloud computing, data centers, and large-scale networks that are highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. With the rapid growth of 5G, IoT, and edge computing, the demand for zero-trust security frameworks has intensified within this industry. Telecom providers are leveraging SDP to secure customer data, manage remote workforce access, and safeguard critical infrastructure against evolving cyber threats. In IT services, organizations are integrating SDP to protect hybrid and multi-cloud environments, ensuring secure connectivity for employees and clients across geographies. The technology's ability to provide dynamic, identity-centric access control without relying on traditional VPNs makes it an attractive option for telecom and IT enterprises. As the sector continues to expand its digital services, SDP adoption is expected to accelerate, enhancing both security resilience and service reliability. 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Our mission is to empower your business with cutting-edge analytical research solutions, delivering comprehensive, information-rich studies that are pivotal for strategic growth and critical revenue decisions. Unmatched Expertise: Our formidable team of 250 highly skilled analysts and subject matter experts (SMEs) is the backbone of our operations. With extensive training in advanced data collection and governance, we delve into over 25,000 high-impact and niche markets. Our experts seamlessly integrate modern data collection techniques, robust research methodologies, and collective industry experience o produce precise, insightful, and actionable research. Diverse Industry Coverage: We cater to a wide array of industries, ensuring that our insights are both relevant and specialized. Our expertise spans: Energy, Technology, Manufacturing and Construction, Chemicals and Materials, Food and Beverages Having collaborated with numerous Fortune 2000 companies, we bring unparalleled experience and reliability to meet all your research needs. Our proven track record reflects our commitment to excellence and client satisfaction. Contact Us: Mr. Edwyne Fernandes Market Research Intellect Call Us on: +1 743 222 5439 Email: sales@marketresearchintellect.com Web: https://www.marketresearchintellect.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2483702/Market_Research_Intellect_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/software-defined-perimeter-sdp-market-growing-at-a-15-5-fueled-by-rising-cybersecurity-threats-and-cloud-adoption---market-research-intellect-302536676.html What is the market size of Industrial Automation Equipment? BANGALORE, India, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The global market for Industrial Automation Equipment was valued at USD 561840 Million in the year 2024 and is projected to reach a revised size of USD 833470 Million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 5.9% during the forecast period. Get Free Sample: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-14D16468/Global_Industrial_Automation_Equipment_Market?utm_source=Prnewswire&utm_medium=Referral What are the key factors driving the growth of the Industrial Automation Equipment Market? The industrial automation equipment market is positioned for sustained expansion as industries increasingly prioritize efficiency, productivity, and safety. Demand for specialized professional equipment, versatile general solutions, and resource-focused mining automation highlights the diverse applications of these technologies. Factors such as cost savings, workforce optimization, sustainability, and supply chain management continue to shape adoption trends. Businesses recognize automation not only as a tool for profitability but also as a necessity for survival in competitive and regulated markets. As innovation integrates with operational needs, automation becomes a foundation for industrial progress. The market's long-term trajectory underscores its importance as a driver of transformation across global industries, setting new standards of operational excellence. Source from Valuates Reports: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-14D16468/global-industrial-automation-equipment?utm_source=Prnewswire&utm_medium=Referral TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF THE INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION EQUIPMENT MARKET: Mining operations rely heavily on industrial automation equipment to enhance productivity, safety, and consistency in extracting resources. Automated machinery enables seamless excavation, transport, and material handling in environments that are typically hazardous and labor intensive. The deployment of sensors, robotic drilling systems, and remote monitoring tools allows continuous operation with reduced downtime and minimal human intervention. Precision control improves efficiency by ensuring optimal resource extraction while reducing waste and equipment wear. Automation also minimizes risks to human workers by handling tasks in deep, unstable, or contaminated areas. As mining companies seek to meet growing resource demand with improved sustainability and cost efficiency, they increasingly adopt advanced automation equipment to remain competitive in global supply chains. Professional equipment applications drive industrial automation equipment market growth by addressing the needs of specialized industries that require precision, reliability, and standardization in production. Sectors such as aerospace, healthcare, and automotive manufacturing demand high-end equipment capable of delivering consistent performance under strict regulations. Automation enables accurate machining, quality control, and material handling while reducing human error in sensitive processes. Professional equipment integrates advanced robotics, programmable controllers, and precision sensors to streamline workflows and ensure repeatability. By improving quality assurance, enhancing efficiency, and meeting industry-specific compliance requirements, professional automation equipment strengthens operational outcomes. This fuels demand across organizations seeking to modernize their professional operations, manage complexities effectively, and sustain long-term competitiveness in increasingly regulated and quality-driven markets. General equipment contributes to industrial automation equipment market expansion by serving broad industries that require versatile and cost-effective automation solutions. These include packaging, assembly, logistics, and food processing, where standardized tools such as conveyors, robotic arms, and automated storage systems are widely deployed. General automation equipment enhances production speed, reduces labor dependency, and lowers operating costs by improving throughput. Its scalability allows small, medium, and large enterprises to integrate automation incrementally, adapting solutions according to their needs and budgets. Furthermore, general equipment enables real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and smoother coordination across different production stages. As businesses increasingly focus on efficiency and adaptability, the demand for general automation equipment continues to grow, driving overall market expansion steadily. A major factor driving the industrial automation equipment market is the emphasis on cost efficiency. Automation systems reduce operational expenses by minimizing labor costs, cutting downtime, and enhancing productivity. By deploying robotics, sensors, and programmable systems, organizations streamline repetitive tasks that previously required large workforces. This reduces errors, improves material utilization, and lowers maintenance costs through predictive insights. Over time, investment in automation provides measurable returns as efficiency gains offset initial expenses. Companies across industries recognize automation as a sustainable strategy for long-term profitability. As market competition intensifies, businesses prioritize reducing overhead while maintaining output, leading to accelerated adoption of industrial automation equipment as a central pillar of operational and financial efficiency. Workplace safety is a critical driver for the adoption of industrial automation equipment. Hazardous industries such as chemicals, construction, and mining face significant risks to workers, including exposure to dangerous substances, heavy machinery accidents, and extreme conditions. Automation equipment reduces direct human involvement in such tasks by introducing robots, automated handling systems, and remote monitoring devices. This not only lowers accident rates but also ensures compliance with occupational safety standards. Improved safety results in fewer workplace injuries, reduced liability, and higher employee morale. By replacing manual labor in high-risk operations, organizations demonstrate responsibility while enhancing overall efficiency. Therefore, safety concerns play a pivotal role in expanding the demand for automation technologies across multiple sectors worldwide. Increasing demand for improved workforce productivity strongly influences industrial automation equipment adoption. Automated systems allow employees to focus on higher-value tasks instead of repetitive or physically exhausting activities. By reallocating human resources to areas such as problem solving, decision making, and innovation, organizations strengthen competitive advantage while maintaining efficient operations. Industrial automation tools reduce fatigue, minimize errors, and enhance overall accuracy of production processes. This balance of human intelligence and automated efficiency results in higher output and improved quality. Workforce optimization through automation supports business models that require faster delivery cycles and continuous operation. As global competition intensifies, productivity gains achieved through automation remain a crucial growth factor driving market development. Consistency in production output drives organizations to adopt industrial automation equipment. Manual processes often introduce variability that affects product quality and customer satisfaction. Automation ensures uniformity by executing tasks with precision, controlled timing, and reliable repetition. This is particularly important for industries like food, pharmaceuticals, and electronics, where small deviations can lead to compliance failures or recalls. Automated equipment enforces strict standards, maintains process integrity, and reduces rework or waste. Consistency also enhances brand reputation by delivering dependable products to customers. As industries increasingly prioritize standardized results to meet market expectations, the assurance of reliable and uniform operations fuels ongoing demand for industrial automation solutions across multiple sectors worldwide. Claim Yours Now! https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=QYRE-Auto-14D16468&lic=single-user What are the major product types in the Industrial Automation Equipment Market? Professional Equipment General Equipment What are the main applications of the Industrial Automation Equipment Market? Automotive Semiconductor Food and Beverage Mining Petrochemical Electricity Medicine Who are the key players in the Industrial Automation Equipment Market? Tokyo Electron Lam Research ASM Pacific Technology Fanuc Yaskawa KuKa Ag ABB Ltd Kawasaki DMG Mori Seiki Trumpf Okuma JTEKT Jingwei Textile Machinery Saurer KLA Applied Materials ASML Which region dominates the Industrial automation equipment market? The major global producers of Industrial Automation Equipment are Applied Materials, ASML, Tokyo Electron, Lam Research and KLA, in terms of production regions, North America, Europe, China, Japan accounted for 90% of the market share, In terms of product type, professional equipment is the largest segment, with 70% of the market share, in terms of applications, the automotive industry market share is the largest, with about 33%, followed by the electronics industry, food and beverage,metal mining and petrochemical. North America emphasizes advanced automation for enhancing productivity in established manufacturing and process industries, while Europe focuses on sustainability, compliance, and integration of green automation practices. Asia-Pacific remains a high-growth region where rapid industrialization, large-scale production facilities, and rising labor costs drive strong demand for both professional and general automation equipment. 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What are some related markets to the Industrial automation equipment market?: - Factory Automation (FA) Equipment Market was valued at USD 560360 Million in the year 2024 and is projected to reach a revised size of USD 835620 Million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 6.0% during the forecast period. - Industrial Controls and Factory Automation Market revenue was USD 137150 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 224400 Million by 2029 with a CAGR of 7.2% during the review period (2023-2029). - Non-standard Automation Equipment Market - Cables for Industrial Automation Market was valued at USD 2959 Million in the year 2024 and is projected to reach a revised size of USD 4690 Million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 6.9% during the forecast period. - Industrial Automation Switches Market - Industrial Services market is projected to grow from USD 475.7 Million in 2024 to USD 623 Million by 2030, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.6% during the forecast period. - Industrial Automation Cable Market was valued at USD 9198 Million in the year 2024 and is projected to reach a revised size of USD 14360 Million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period. - Digital Process Automation market is projected to grow from USD 7215.7 Million in 2024 to USD 11770 Million by 2030, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.5% during the forecast period. - In-plant Logistics Automation Market was estimated to be worth USD 21400 Million and is forecast to reach approximately USD 56860 Million by 2031 with a CAGR of 15.2% during the forecast period 2025-2031. - Building Automation Market - Linear Actuators for Automation Market was valued at USD 8853 Million in the year 2024 and is projected to reach a revised size of USD 12140 Million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 3.8% during the forecast period. 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Contact Us Valuates Reports sales@valuates.com For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225 WhatsApp: +91-9945648335 Explore our blogs & channels: Blog: https://valuatestrends.blogspot.com/ Pinterest: https://in.pinterest.com/valuatesreports/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/valuatesreports Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@valuatesreports6753 Localized content: Korean: https://www.facebook.com/valuateskorean Spanish: https://www.facebook.com/valuatesspanish Japanese: https://www.facebook.com/valuatesjapanese Spanish: https://valuatesreportspanish.blogspot.com/ Korean: https://valuateskorean.blogspot.com/ German: https://valuatesgerman.blogspot.com/ Japanese: https://valuatesreportjapanese.blogspot.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1082232/Valuates_Reports_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/industrial-automation-equipment-market-to-reach-usd-833-47-billion-by-2031--growing-at-5-9-cagr--valuates-reports-302536724.html Los Angeles, California--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Digital Silk, an award-winning agency focused on creating brand strategies, custom websites and digital marketing campaigns, announces the publication of a new article, "Brand Activation: Key Strategies for 2025." The resource reviews how companies may evaluate experiential and digital activation campaigns to support consumer engagement and brand recognition. Read the article: https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/brand-activation/ Digital Silk Announces Article: Brand Activation Strategies and Consumer Engagement in 2025 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10732/263431_cfb368e5e41a49f5_001full.jpg Market Growth in Experiential and Digital Activation According to a 2024 Statista report, U.S. companies spent over $67 billion on event and experiential marketing in 2023, reflecting sustained investment in activations designed to connect directly with audiences. This trend points to continued interest in interactive campaigns, both live and digital, as brands look to differentiate themselves in competitive markets. Insights from the Guide The article outlines practical considerations for brand activation in 2025, including: Leveraging live events and digital campaigns to build awareness Aligning brand experiences with consumer values and cultural trends Measuring success through engagement metrics, sentiment analysis and recall studies Integrating technology, including AR and VR, to create immersive experiences Ensuring consistency between activation campaigns and long-term brand positioning Editorial Team Perspective "The article provides a structured view of how brand activations can evolve in 2025," said Gabriel Shaoolian, CEO of Digital Silk. "By combining data-driven planning with immersive experiences, companies may strengthen consumer connections and reinforce brand value." Access "Brand Activation: Key Strategies for 2025" is available now on Digital Silk's website. The article may support businesses planning experiential and digital activations as part of broader marketing initiatives. Read the article: https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/brand-activation/ About Digital Silk Digital Silk is an award-winning Los Angeles Branding Agency focused on growing brands online. With a team of seasoned experts, the company creates digital experiences through strategic branding, custom web design and digital marketing services to help improve visibility and support engagement. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263431 SOURCE: Digital Silk HYDERABAD, India, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- According to DataM Intelligence, the global biosimilars market was valued at US$ 22.58 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach US$ 171.79 billion by 2033, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.5% during the forecast period of 2025-2033. This remarkable growth is fueled by several key drivers, including the rising number of regulatory approvals, patent expirations of major biologics, and the growing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Biologics are large, highly complex molecules derived from living cells and used in the treatment of diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes. Their follow-on versions, biosimilars, are clinically equivalent in efficacy and safety but are typically available at 20-35% lower costs, significantly improving patient access in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Get a Sample PDF Brochure of the Report (Use Corporate Email ID for a Quick Response) - https://datamintelligence.com/download-sample/biosimilars-market The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, especially Japan, has emerged as a leading market for biosimilars, driven by strong government support, favorable reimbursement policies, and increasing adoption by healthcare providers. For example, Japan's biosimilars market is expanding, with Filgrastim BS reaching ~45% share within two years (2012) from launch of drug and Insulin glargine BS ~9% in two months (2016). The Japan Biosimilar Association (JBSA) was established in 2016 to tackle uptake barriers. Government initiatives like the Honebuto policy and NHI reimbursement reforms further support biosimilar adoption and market growth. The expansion of biosimilars has far-reaching implications, especially in oncology care across low- and middle-income countries, where cost remains a major barrier. By offering affordable alternatives, biosimilars are expected to increase patient access to life-saving therapies and reduce the overall healthcare burden. Key Highlights from the Report The global biosimilars market is projected to grow from US$ 22.58 billion in 2024 to US$ 171.79 billion by 2033 at a CAGR of 25.5%. North America holds the largest market share, driven by a strong regulatory framework and major players like Amgen and Pfizer. The oncology segment dominates due to frequent biosimilar approvals and rising cancer prevalence globally. Patent expirations of oncology drugs, such as trastuzumab and bevacizumab, and diabetes/weight loss drugs like semaglutide, are creating significant opportunities for biosimilar development. Recent FDA approvals, including Omlyclo (omalizumab-igec) in March 2025, are expanding treatment options for chronic conditions. Strategic partnerships and R&D investments by companies like Celltrion and Sandoz are accelerating market growth. Monoclonal antibodies dominate biosimilars market share with 32.4% by 2025, driven by oncology demand The biosimilars market is segmented based on product type, application, and region, allowing for a granular understanding of its dynamics. By product type, the market includes recombinant non-glycosylated proteins (e.g., insulin, filgrastim), recombinant glycosylated proteins (e.g., monoclonal antibodies, erythropoietin), and recombinant peptides. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are projected to hold the largest share, accounting for approximately 32.4% of the market in 2025, due to their precision in targeting disease-specific antigens and widespread use in oncology and autoimmune diseases. The high efficacy and cost-effectiveness of mAb biosimilars, such as trastuzumab and rituximab, have driven their adoption, particularly in markets with high healthcare costs. Get Customization in the report as per your requirements: https://datamintelligence.com/customize/biosimilars-market Oncology leads biosimilars applications with rising cancer cases and strong adoption of trastuzumab, rituximab, bevacizumab By application, the market is categorized into oncology, autoimmune diseases, chronic diseases, hematology, diabetes, and others. The oncology segment leads, driven by the rising global incidence of cancer-projected to reach 21.3 million cases by 2025, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Biosimilars for drugs like Herceptin (trastuzumab), Rituxan (rituximab), and Avastin (bevacizumab) have gained significant traction due to their proven efficacy and lower costs, making them critical in addressing the growing demand for affordable cancer therapies. Other applications, such as autoimmune diseases and diabetes, are also expanding as biosimilars for adalimumab and insulin gain regulatory approvals. By end-user, the market includes hospitals, clinics, and retail pharmacies, with hospitals dominating due to the high volume of biologic treatments administered in inpatient settings. North America Leads Biosimilars Market with 71 FDA Approvals and Strong Adoption of Amjevita, Inflectra, and Omlyclo for Inflammatory, Autoimmune, and Allergic Conditions The biosimilars market exhibits distinct regional trends, with North America holding the largest market share, driven by a well-established regulatory framework and the presence of leading pharmaceutical companies. The U.S. FDA's Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCI Act) of 2009 has facilitated the approval of 71 biosimilars by March 2025, including recent approvals like Omlyclo and STEQEYMA. Major players such as Amgen, Pfizer, and Sandoz have invested heavily in biosimilar development, with products like Amjevita (adalimumab) and Inflectra (infliximab) gaining significant market traction. The region's focus on cost containment and increasing patient access to affordable biologics further supports its dominance. Asia-Pacific biosimilars market grows at 18.4% CAGR, led by Japan, China, India, while Europe shows steady expansion The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is the fastest-growing market, with a projected CAGR of 18.4% through 2030. Japan leads this growth, supported by government initiatives like the Honebuto policy and favorable reimbursement reforms under the National Health Insurance (NHI) system. Countries like China and India are also emerging as key players, with companies like Biocon and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories driving biosimilar development. Europe remains a significant market, with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approving biosimilars since 2005, fostering a mature market environment. The region's robust regulatory guidelines and increasing physician acceptance contribute to steady growth, particularly in oncology and autoimmune disease treatments. Major Companies: Major companies operating in the market include Amgen Inc., Pfizer Inc., Sandoz Group AG, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., Biogen, Biocon Biologics Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Samsung Bioepis, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd., Fresenius Kabi AG and among others. Recent developments in the Market: In April 2025, TGA Approval in Australia: Celltrion's Stoboclo and Osenvelt, biosimilars to Amgen's Prolia and Xgeva (denosumab), were approved by the TGA. These represent the second denosumab biosimilars in Australia after Sandoz's Jubbonti and Wyost (August 2024), expanding treatment options for osteoporosis and cancer-related bone diseases. May 2025 - FDA Approval of Starjemza: The U.S. FDA approved Bio-Thera Solutions' Starjemza (ustekinumab-hmny), a biosimilar to Janssen's Stelara. Indicated for plaque psoriasis and other inflammatory conditions, it is the eighth Stelara biosimilar cleared in the U.S. 2025 - MHRA Approval in the UK: The UK MHRA granted approval to Biocon Biologics' denosumab biosimilars, Vevzuo and Evafraxy. This approval marks Biocon's entry into the UK osteoporosis and oncology bone disease market, reinforcing its European biosimilars presence. 2025 - FDA Approval of Jobevne: Biocon Biologics secured U.S. FDA approval for Jobevne (bevacizumab-nwgd), a biosimilar to Avastin. As a VEGF inhibitor for multiple cancers, Jobevne expands Biocon's U.S. oncology biosimilar portfolio, complementing Ogivri (trastuzumab) and Fulphila (pegfilgrastim). Conclusion: The global biosimilars market is poised for significant expansion, supported by favorable reimbursement policies, increasing adoption in regions such as Asia-Pacific, and their demonstrated ability to provide cost-effective alternatives to biologics. By ensuring comparable efficacy and safety at lower prices, biosimilars are expected to enhance patient access, alleviate healthcare expenditure, and play a pivotal role in the treatment of chronic and life-threatening diseases. Related Reports: Anti-Amyloid Monoclonal Antibodies Market is segmented By Product (Donanemab, Lecanemab), By Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa) Anticoagulants Market is segmented By Drug Class, By Route of Administration, By Application, By Distribution Channel, By Region Chronic Disease Management Market is segmented By Type(Solution, Services) By Service Type(Consulting Service, Implementation Service, Educational Service, Others)By Delivery Mode(On-Premise Solution, Cloud-Based Solution, Web-Based) By Indication(Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD), Diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorders (COPD), Arthritis, Asthma, Cancer, Others)By End-user(Healthcare Providers, Healthcare Payers, Others) and By Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa) Autoimmune Treatment Market is segmented By Drug Class (Anti-Inflammatory, Anti-Hyperglycemic, NSAIDs, Interferons, Other), By Indication (Rheumatic Disease, Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Other), By Distribution Channel (Hospital Pharmacy, Pharmacy Stores, Other) By Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa) About DataM Intelligence 4Market Research: DataM Intelligence 4Market Research is a market intelligence platform that gives access to syndicated, customized reports and consulting to its clients in one place. As a firm with rich experience in research and consulting across multiple domains, we are a one-stop solution that will cater to the needs of clients in key business areas. DataM Intelligence has an online platform whose coverage includes industries such as chemicals and materials, agriculture, health care services, animal feed, and food & beverages among others. Our platform has Insights on markets that uncover the latest market research data that are distinct from the competition. With coverage across 10 major industries in the marketplace research, DataM Intelligence benefits thousands of companies by helping them take their innovations early to the market, by providing a complete view of the market with statistical forecasts. Our strategy-centric framework and value-added services will let individuals and corporates with ease of access and custom personalization to research and markets. To find out more, visit https://datamintelligence.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Contact: Mr. Sai Kiran DataM Intelligence 4market Research LLP Ground floor DSL Abacus IT Park, Industrial Development Area Uppal, Hyderabad, Telangana 500039 USA: +1 877-441-4866 Email: Sai.k@datamintelligence.com Content Source: https://datamintelligence.com/research-report/biosimilars-market Visit Our Website: https://datamintelligence.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1858619/3573087/DataM_Intelligence_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/biosimilars-market-to-surpass-us-171-79-billion-by-2033---exclusive-report-by-datam-intelligence-302536731.html WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- CGTN America & CCTV UN releases "Explore the Future of Storytelling with AI". Artificial Intelligence is transforming every aspect of our lives, from the social media platforms we use to the films we watch. Nowhere is this revolution more evident than in the film industry, where directors, producers, writers, animators, and visual effects artists are exploring new ways to harness AI to expand the boundaries of creativity. On Friday, August 22, 2025, the Steven J. Ross Theater at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California will host "Bright Future of Humanity" Global AI Visual Works Call-for-Submissions Launch Ceremony, an event presented by China Media Group and the New York Film Academy. The program will bring together producers, directors, educators, and students to examine AI's role in shaping the future of film and visual storytelling. The event will feature special messages from diplomats, filmmakers and AI experts. As part of the program, a global call for submissions will be announced for young artists to create bold, boundary-pushing works powered by AI. The campaign asks: "What kind of world do we want to build, and how can art, powered by AI, help us build it?" This initiative takes on special significance as we mark 80 years since the end of World War II - a time to reflect on the lessons learned from the catastrophic war, to remember the heroes who fought it and honor their memory with a call for peace. Artists are invited to submit AI-generated videos, music, or paintings by September 1, 2025. Winning entries, selected by an international jury of filmmakers and media innovators, will be showcased at the "United as One World - Voices of Peace" concert at Lincoln Center, New York City, on September 23. For more information and submission details, please visit aiwowow.com (This material is distributed by MediaLinks TV, LLC on behalf of CCTV. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.) Contact: Distribution@cgtnamerica.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/cgtn-america--cctv-un-exploring-the-future-of-storytelling-with-ai-302536744.html HOUSTON, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HyOrc Corporation (OTCID: HYOR), a clean energy technology company pioneering hydrogen combustion and waste-to-fuel systems, today announced that its name and trading symbol change is now effective on the OTC markets. The Company's common stock now trades under the ticker HYOR. This milestone comes as HyOrc accelerates progress on its flagship green methanol projects. The Company has completed front-end engineering for a hydrogen combustion-based system designed to convert municipal waste into methanol. Initial facilities are planned in Scunthorpe, UK and Porto, Portugal, both currently in the permitting and on-site study stage. Each plant is expected to produce up to 80 tons of green methanol per day, providing a scalable pathway to meet the fast-growing demand for low-carbon marine fuels. In Porto, one proposed site for HyOrc and its local partner Start Lda is the EcoParque Empresarial, shown below: HyOrc's strategy is to initially establish methanol production hubs across UK, Germany, Portugal, and Spain, creating a reliable supply network for shipping companies committed to meeting IMO 2030 emissions targets. The currently planned European rollout of five locations is projected to generate an estimated $1.8 billion in revenues over ten years. In parallel, the Company is advancing its hydrogen locomotive program, with pilot projects under negotiation in India, the EU, and the UK. The program applies HyOrc's patented hydrogen-capable powertrain technology to deliver efficient, zero-emission retrofits of existing diesel locomotives. With retrofit costs of approximately $2.5 million per unit and a combined installed base of more than 75,000 diesel locomotives across India, the EU, and the UK, HyOrc is positioned to capture a substantial share of a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity. "The transition to trading as HYOR marks more than just a name change-it reflects the momentum of our business and the expanding opportunities in green fuels and hydrogen mobility," said Andrea Magalini, Director for Business Development at HyOrc. "With two methanol projects advancing toward permitting and a growing pipeline in shipping and rail, HyOrc is positioned as a leader in practical, scalable solutions for decarbonization." About HyOrc Corporation HyOrc Corporation (OTCID: HYOR) develops and commercializes advanced waste to methanol systems, and hydrogen engines for rail, maritime, and distributed power. Backed by a growing patent portfolio and ISO-certified operations, HyOrc's mission is to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors without subsidy reliance. HyOrc has 737 million shares issued and outstanding with 26.30 million shares at DTC. Contact: Laura Donohoe Investor Relations laura@hyorc.com www.hyorc.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9bfaae22-f97e-4c9e-8ecf-649db63bd8a7 EDMONTON, ALBERTA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Northernmost, a medical device company developing NoMo Kidney Pump, a next-generation perfusion machine designed to modernize the preservation and transport of donor kidneys for transplantation, today announced that it has completed the first exhibitions of a working prototype at the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) Annual Meeting, 22-24 June in Denver, and at the World Transplant Congress (WTC), 2-5 August in San Francisco. "In the space of a month, we've shared our concept with the entire world transplantation community," said CEO Ron Mills. "We enjoyed a warm welcome, gained invaluable input for our final phase of product design and development, and cemented market validation of our technology and business model." Mills previously led commercialization of LifePort Kidney Transporter (Organ Recovery Systems), from FDA clearance to market dominance, and recently turned around and exited lung and heart perfusion device maker Tevosol into Bridge to Life (assets subsequently acquired by TransMedics Group). He and Northernmost co-founder Daniel Salamon were joined at AOPO and WTC by NoMo engineering and industrial design leads John Brassil (Functional Circulation) and Russell Kroll (Formation Design Group), frequent collaborators and perfusion machine experts with over 25 years of experience. Northernmost is currently securing Series A financing and expects to submit a 510(k) application for NoMo Kidney Pump in 2026. About Northernmost Northernmost Medical Devices, Inc., is a Canadian startup developing machines to preserve and transport donor organs for transplant. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, with a planned U.S. hub in Denver, the company is led by the people who designed, built, and commercialized today's market-dominant kidney transporter. For more information, visit northernmost.ca . Contact Information Daniel Salamon info@northernmost.ca +1 587 295 4360 SOURCE: Northernmost View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/industrial-and-manufacturing/northernmost-previews-new-kidney-perfusion-device-1062810 Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Seegnal Inc. (formerly, Reem Capital Corp. (TSXV: REEM.P) ("Seegnal" or the "Corporation"), a "capital pool company" pursuant to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") and Kalron Holdings Ltd. ("Kalron") (parent company of Seegnal eHealth Ltd. ("Seegnal eHealth")) wish to provide an update with respect to the proposed transaction between the Corporation and Kalron, pursuant to the amended and restated definitive securities exchange agreement dated January 27, 2025 (the "Definitive Agreement") between the Corporation, Kalron, Seegnal eHealth and certain securityholders of Kalron, in furtherance of the Corporation's proposed Qualifying Transaction (as defined in Policy 2.4 - Capital Pool Companies of the Exchange) (the "Proposed Transaction"). CONCURRENT FINANCING The Corporation is pleased to announce that, further to its press release dated August 1, 2025 and prior to the close of the Proposed Transaction, the Corporation closed its non-brokered private placement of 1,768,750 subscription receipts for gross proceeds of $1,415,000 at $0.80 per subscription receipt (the "Seegnal Subscription Receipts"). The Corporation is also pleased to announce that, further to its press release dated August 1, 2025 and prior to the close of the Proposed Transaction, Kalron closed its concurrent non-brokered private placement of 2,564,665 subscription receipts for gross proceeds of $2,051,732 at $0.80 per subscription receipt (the "Kalron Subscription Receipts", together with the Seegnal Subscription Receipts, the "Subscription Receipts"). The Corporation's private placement and Kalron's private placement, are herein referred to as the "Financings". Each Subscription Receipt will, following the satisfaction of certain escrow release conditions, entitle the holder thereof to receive post-Proposed Transaction, without the payment of additional consideration or taking of further action, one common share in the capital of the Corporation ("Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant of the Corporation (a "Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to acquire one Common Share at a price of $1.20 until 24 months following the completion of the Proposed Transaction. Proceeds of the Financings will be held in escrow pending satisfaction of customary escrow release conditions, including the completion, satisfaction or waiver of all conditions precedent to the Proposed Transaction and the receipt of all required shareholder and regulatory approvals, as applicable. In connection with the financings and as previously announced, Kalron and the Corporation will pay Quarck Investments Ltd. ("Quarck") and Capital Canada Limited ("Capital Canada") finders fees of cash equal to 8% of the gross proceeds brought in by Quarck or Capital Canada, as applicable, to the Financings and Common Share purchase warrants of the Corporation on the same terms as the Warrants, equal to 8% of the amount of Subscription Receipts brought in by Quarck or Capital Canada, as applicable, under the Financings. All of the cash payable to Quarck and Capital Canada shall be payable upon release of the Financings' proceeds from escrow. CONTINUATION, NAME CHANGE AND CONSOLIDATION In connection with the Proposed Transaction, the Corporation has continued out of British Columbia (under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia)) into Alberta (under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta)) (the "Continuance") and has changed its name from Reem Capital Corp. to Seegnal Inc. (the "Name Change"). Further, the Corporation completed a consolidation of its issued and outstanding Common Shares based on a ratio of one (1) post-consolidation common share for each 3.16 pre-consolidation Common Shares, resulting in an aggregate of 2,500,002 Common Shares issued and outstanding (the "Consolidation"). The Continuance, Name Change and Consolidation were approved by the shareholders of the Corporation at the Corporation's annual general and special meeting of shareholders on May 9, 2025. The Corporation's new CUSIP number for the Common Shares is 81573E106 and its new ISIN is CA81573E1060. Shareholders of the Corporation are not required to take any action with respect to the Continuance, Name Change or Consolidation. The Common Shares and Warrants issuable on conversion of the Subscription Receipts shall be issued on a post-Consolidation basis. PROPOSED TRANSACTION The completion of the Proposed Transaction is subject to a number of conditions including, but not limited to, final Exchange acceptance and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. ABOUT KALRON Kalron is a privately-held holding corporation that was established under the laws of Israel in 2017. Kalron is the sole shareholder (parent company) of Seegnal eHealth, an Israeli based corporation which had operated under Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. ("Teva") until its purchase by Kalron in December 2017. Seegnal eHealth was founded in 2015 as a fully owned subsidiary of Teva to develop a clinical decision support system software for clinicians at the point of care, aimed at improving patient care and outcomes, improving clinician experience and substantially lower healthcare expenditures. Seegnal eHealth provides patient-tailored SAAS system for one-glance managing and mitigating drug related problems while providing decision support to healthcare professionals at the point of care. Seegnal eHealth has developed, owns and is marketing a SAAS based software platform of addressing the need of detecting and solving drug-related problems, which has been determined as the fourth leading cause of mortality in developed countries.1 Seegnal eHealth's SAAS based software platform is a patient-tailored, clinicians'-friendly drug-related problem solution. Seegnal eHealth exclusively integrates at the point-of-care, unique patient specific data like genetics, food, results of lab tests, ECG, smoking and the effects of many concomitant medications, while delivering accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The software was developed for clinicians to manage and resolve Drug Related Problems, relevant specifically per patient, quickly and effectively. In 2017, Seegnal eHealth was purchased from Teva by Kalron. As part of the acquisition, Kalron committed to continue to employ Seegnal eHealth's employees and to pay Teva certain royalties on sales. Seegnal eHealth is marketing its SAAS-based platform in the State of Israel, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Poland. The platform is currently a "standard of care" system for over 10,000 clinicians in Israel on a daily basis when prescribing medications to their patients. Two of Israel's four HMO's are using the system as their primary solution, and recently the Israeli Ministry of Health selected Seegnal as the new standard to be deployed in all public hospitals. Kalron, through its subsidiary Seegnal eHealth, has developed a vast intellectual property portfolio. The SAAS based technology contains over 1500 specific algorithms as well as United States of America, Canadian, and Israeli granted patents in the areas of Graphical User Interface ("GUI") and workflow. The Seegnal eHealth system's functional disruptive GUI approach, on the one hand, and the technical capability to introduce the individual patient at the center when providing clinical recommendations, on the other hand, provides over 98% alert accuracy and automating alternative therapy resolution suggestions, saving physicians time from researching for alternatives manually.2 ABOUT SEEGNAL INC. The Corporation was incorporated under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) and continued under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta) and is a Capital Pool Company governed by the policies of the Exchange. The Corporation's principal business is the identification and evaluation of assets or businesses with a view to completing a Qualifying Transaction. Investors are cautioned that trading in the securities of a Capital Pool Company should be considered highly speculative. FURTHER INFORMATION The Corporation will provide further details in respect of the Proposed Transaction and Financings in due course by way of a subsequent news release, however, the Corporation will make available to the Exchange all information, including financial information, as may be requested or required by the Exchange. All information contained in this news release with respect to the Corporation and Kalron was supplied by the respective party, for inclusion herein, without independent review by the other party, and each party and its directors and officers have relied on the other party for any information concerning the other party. Completion of the Proposed Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and if applicable pursuant to the Exchange Requirements. 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 non-offering prospectus prepared in connection with the Proposed Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Proposed Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of a capital pool company should be considered highly speculative. The Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the Proposed Transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to 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. Neither the Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Neither the Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the polices of the Exchange) has in any way passed upon the merits of the Proposed Transaction and associated transactions and neither of the foregoing entities has in any way approved or disapproved of the contents of this press release. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS 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 "believe", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "projected" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information. More particularly and without limitation, this press release contains forward-looking statements concerning the Proposed Transaction (including the terms and timing thereof), the Financings including the amounts anticipated to be raised, the shareholders intending to participate in such Financings, receipt of requisite approvals, including acceptance of the Exchange for the Proposed Transaction and Financings, completion of the Proposed Transaction and the Financings, including meeting the requisite escrow release conditions and the use of proceeds therefrom, the details of any securities issuances, conversions, exchanges or cancellations (completed or anticipated), the listing of the Common Shares on the Exchange, the continued business of the Corporation following the Proposed Transaction, the trading of the Common Shares on the Exchange, the anticipated insiders of the Corporation and the successful implementation of Kalron and Seegnal eHealth's business plans, including the successful implementation of Seegnal eHealth's SAAS products. In disclosing the forward-looking information contained in this press release, the Corporation has made certain assumptions, including that: all applicable shareholder and regulatory approvals for the Proposed Transaction will be received; that the Proposed Transaction will be completed on mutually acceptable terms and within a customary timeframe for transactions of this nature and the acceptance of the Seegnal eHealth products by customers in the United States and Europe. Although the Corporation 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 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: war in Israel and the Middle East; availability of financing; delay or failure to receive board, shareholder or regulatory approvals; and general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. There can be no certainty that the Proposed Transaction will be completed on the terms set out in the Definitive Agreement or at all. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, the Corporation 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. 1 Miles Hacker, Pharmacology, 2009 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/adverse-drug-reaction); Ernst FR, Grizzle AJ: Drug-related morbidity and mortality: updating the cost-of-illness model. J Am Pharm Assoc. 2001, 41 (2): 192-9; and Jason L et al., Journal of American Medical Association 1998; 279: 1200-1205. 2 Sonam N Shah et al, "Comparison of Medication Alerts from Two Commercial Applications in the USA", June 2021, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33616888/. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263335 SOURCE: Reem Capital Corp. TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Psyence Group Inc. (CSE:PSYG) ("Psyence" or the "Company"), announces that it has entered into a letter of intent (the "LOI") to acquire all of the issued and outstanding securities and securities convertible into securities of GoldCoast Resource Corp. (the "Target" or "GoldCoast"), a corporation existing under the laws of Ontario (the "Acquisition").The Acquisition constitutes a "Change of Business" under the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") policies. GoldCoast was incorporated by a team of gold industry veterans who are engaged in environmentally responsible shallow-water mineral exploration off the south coast of Ghana in the Atlantic Ocean. This approach leverages established marine dredge-mining technology to identify, explore and develop new prospects for gold and heavy mineral exploration. It is anticipated that the Acquisition will be completed by way of a three-corner amalgamation or similar transaction under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario), pursuant to which a wholly owned subsidiary of Psyence will amalgamate with the Target and each issued and outstanding common share of the Target will be exchanged for one common share of the resulting issuer ("Resulting Issuer Share"). Convertible securities of the Target will be exchanged on the same basis. The exchange ratio refers to post-consolidation shares of the Company, if applicable. The Acquisition is an arm's length transaction and is subject to, among other things, the execution of a definitive agreement, completion of satisfactory due diligence by each party, receipt of all required corporate, shareholder and regulatory approvals (including CSE conditional approval for the listing of the Resulting Issuer Shares), and other customary closing conditions. Following closing, the board of directors and senior management of the Resulting Issuer will be reconstituted to include nominees of the Target. Pursuant to the LOI, Psyence will advance a secured loan of US$250,000 to GoldCoast bearing interest at 10% per annum, maturing on the earlier of the closing of the Acquisition and December 31, 2025, and secured against all assets of GoldCoast (the "Loan"). The use of proceeds of the Loan will be for the preparation and submission of the application for the exploration license as well as the preparation of the NI 43-101 Qualified Persons report. Other than certain provisions relating to, among other things, confidentiality, exclusivity, the loan, and expense reimbursement, the LOI is non-binding. As a result of the Change of Business, trading in the common shares of Psyence will remain halted in compliance with CSE policies and is expected to remain halted pending CSE review of the transaction and satisfaction of all CSE conditions for resumption of trading, which the Company does not expect to occur prior to closing of the Acquisition. There can be no assurance that the Acquisition will be completed as proposed or at all. The Company will provide additional updates as material information becomes available. ABOUT PSYENCE GROUP: www.psyence.com Psyence is a life science biotechnology company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE: PSYG), with a focus on natural psychedelics. Psyence works with nature-derived psilocybin products for the healing of psychological trauma and its mental health consequences in the context of palliative care. Our name "Psyence" combines the words psychedelic and science to affirm our commitment to producing psychedelic medicines developed through evidence-based research. Informed by nature and guided by science, Psyence works to develop advanced nature-derived psilocybin products for clinical research and development. Contact Information Learn more at www.psyence.com. Email: ir@psyence.com Media Inquiries: media@psyence.com General Information: info@psyence.com Phone: +1 416-477-1708 FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: Certain statements in this news release related 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. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and the Company's plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information. Risks and uncertainties include the risk that the parties may not enter into a definitive agreement, that required shareholder, regulatory and CSE approvals may not be obtained, or that other conditions to closing may not be satisfied. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. These, and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information, are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. The Company makes no medical, treatment or health benefit claims about the Company's proposed products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada or other similar regulatory authorities have not evaluated claims regarding psilocybin, psilocybin analogues, or other psychedelic compounds or nutraceutical products. The efficacy of such products has not been confirmed by approved research. There is no assurance that the use of psilocybin, psilocybin analogues, or other psychedelic compounds or nutraceuticals can diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. Vigorous scientific research and clinical trials are needed. The Company has not conducted clinical trials for the use of its proposed products. Any references to quality, consistency, efficacy, and safety of potential products do not imply that the Company verified such in clinical trials or that the Company will complete such trials. If the Company cannot obtain the approvals or research necessary to commercialize its business, it may have a material adverse effect on the Company's performance and operations. SOURCE: Psyence Group Inc. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/healthcare-and-pharmaceutical/psyence-group-inc.-enters-into-a-letter-of-intent-to-acquire-goldcoas-1064233 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Langdon Equity Partners Ltd. ("Langdon"), today announced that effective today, the risk rating for its funds has changed according to the table below. These funds' investment objectives and strategies remain unchanged. The changes are consistent with regulatory requirements and the Canadian Securities Administrators' (CSA) risk classification methodology. Fund Current Risk Rating New Risk Rating Langdon Global Smaller Companies Portfolio Medium to High Medium Langdon Canadian Smaller Companies Portfolio Medium to High Medium About Langdon Equity Partners Ltd. Langdon Equity Partners, founded in 2022 in Toronto, is a boutique investment firm specializing in global small-cap equities. With offices in Toronto and London, the firm takes a high-conviction, long-term approach to identifying exceptional smaller companies worldwide. Serving high-net-worth, wealth management, and institutional clients, Langdon is majority-owned by its investment team and strives to be the world's top-performing small-cap investment boutique by delivering exceptional results for its clients and building longstanding partnerships with investors, companies, and each other. 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/263495 SOURCE: Langdon Equity Partners Ltd. MONTREUX, Switzerland, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BILATTE, a legendary medical research and recuperation brand originating from Montreux, Switzerland, known as the "global anti-aging holy land", announced today the revolutionary opening of the "Home Medical Research and Beauty Care 3.0 Era". Faced with the increasingly refined and efficient skin whitening needs of users, BILATTE will inherit the century old nursing wisdom and cutting-edge biotechnology from Montreux's top sanatorium, and is committed to seamlessly integrating professional hospital level luxury pet whitening effects, scientific safety concepts, and cutting-edge technology into daily home scenarios, creating a more efficient, reassuring, and convenient Swiss medical research level solution. This upgrade focuses on the brand's core product,BILATTE's core Aurora Whitening body series, acclaimed globally. Its star product, Whitening Body Milk, underwent a major enhancement. Key Highlights: As a key product that marks the beginning of the 3.0 era, the upgraded version of the product embodies the brand's century old wisdom and the scientific research achievements of the world's top dermatology laboratories, allowing you to enjoy the same care effects as Swiss beauty salon at home. "5A Brightening Technology": Integrating the brand's core ingredient, international patented bio sapphire essence, and highly efficient active ingredients, through multi-channel synergistic brightening of the skin, achieving "1 application to start shining and transforming". "Safe-A&Whiten" Scientific Whitening: BILATTE adheres to the integrated skincare principles of "Safe" (foundation), "Accelerated" (overcome hurdles quickly), and "Ewhite" (comprehensive whitening goal). The upgraded formula prioritizes exceptional efficacy while elevating safety assurance. Rooted in a century-old sanatorium legacy, BILATTE pioneered "Full-Dermal Whitening Therapy" in the 1900s, collaborating with top labs in Switzerland, Germany, and China to redefine whitening standards. The upgraded Aurora Body Milk embodies this vision. "Users' pursuit of ultimate whitening drives our 3.0 Era," stated the CEO. "We merge Montreux's care philosophy with advanced medical research. This upgrade empowers women worldwide to experience safer, faster, beauty salon level whitening luxuries at home, empowering them with confidence and radiance from the inside out." About BILATTE: Adhering to the skincare philosophy of Swiss beauty sanatoriums and upholding the spirit of Swiss precision medical research, BILATTE is committed to providing global consumers with safer, more effective, and cutting-edge beauty care solutions. The brand's core ingredients have repeatedly received international patents and the BSB Raw Material Innovation Award. With a professional approach to research and development, BILATTE precisely replicates the spa-grade luxury care experience. As a pioneer in the "3.0 Era of Med-Beauty," BILATTE continues to safeguard the radiant future of every inch of skin. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fddaae27-729a-46c1-a480-d915dff199e3 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d8a6a7e0-2feb-45e3-a89e-f47c60fa7d49 BILATTE https://www.swissbilatte.com/ July Li bilatte@yeah.net Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Article 53 LR 22 August 2025 - 6:00 PM Feintool has reached an important milestone in the realignment of its Business Unit Stamping Europe: Following consultations with employee representatives, it has been decided that activities for the automotive sector will be relocated from Sachsenheim (Germany) to other plants as planned. However, a part of the operation will remain at the Sachsenheim site and focus on industrial applications. In December 2024, Feintool announced plans to restructure its production of rotors and stators for electric motors in Europe. This stems from difficult developments in the automotive sector and the resulting overcapacity as well as the ongoing weakness in the industrial business. Initially, the group planned to transfer the loss-making production in Sachsenheim to other plants and close the Sachsenheim site. To a lesser extent, the plant in Jessen (Germany) was also affected by the realignment. Agreement with employee representatives The reached agreement sees the Sachsenheim site continuing to operate on a reduced scale in future. Following the relocation of automotive activities to other plants, the focus in Sachsenheim will be on the business of components for industrial applications. Once the restructuring process is complete, about 230 jobs are expected to remain at the geographically close locations of Vaihingen and Sachsenheim. Due to natural fluctuations, this figure is slightly below the figure of around 250 positions announced in December. Furthermore, Feintool concluded a collective agreement (Haustarifvertrag) with the Industriegewerkschaft Metall trade union, according to which the employees remaining at Feintool will also contribute to the restructuring of the company. The adjustment of capacities in the Business Unit Stamping Europe to the new reality in the European automotive sector should be completed in 2026 and will enable an improvement in profitability. The financial impact of the restructuring program communicated in February 2025 remains unchanged. The entire program will result in restructuring costs of around CHF 47 million, which were fully provisioned in the 2024 financial year and have already been realized in part through depreciation. The expected annual savings of CHF 15 million relate to the realignment of the Business Unit Stamping Europe and will be realized once this process has been completed. Socially responsible implementation The implementation will take place in close consultation with employee representatives. The focus will be on socially responsible solutions. Affected employees can choose between a voluntary program and a social plan. Strategic outlook The realignment of the Business Unit Stamping Europe strengthens Feintool's competitiveness and secures a sustainable future for the company in Europe. Lars Reich, CEO Feintool: "With this agreement, we have reached an important milestone in the transformation process. We are securing jobs, strengthening our locations, and creating a competitive basis for the future. At the same time, we are fulfilling our responsibility to our employees by offering socially responsible solutions. This step shows that we can work together with customers and employee representatives to find viable solutions for successfully developing Feintool further in a challenging environment." About Feintool Feintool is an international technology and market leader in electrolamination stamping, fineblanking, and forming. We manufacture high-quality precision parts in large volumes from steel. We supply the automotive industry, energy infrastructure equipment providers, and all manner of high-end industrial manufacturers. Feintool's products perfectly complement the megatrends for renewable energy generation, storage, and usage. Our core technologies deliver measurable cost-efficiency, consistent quality, and improved productivity. Feintool constantly expands the horizons of its production methods and develops intelligent solutions, innovative tools, and state-of-the-art manufacturing processes in line with customer needs. Founded in 1959 and headquartered in Switzerland, the company has 18 production sites, 3,100 employees and 80 vocational trainees in Europe, the USA, China, Japan and India. Feintool is publicly listed and majority-owned by the Artemis Group. Feintool International Holding AG Industriering 8 3250 Lyss Schweiz Media contact Joel Hafner Phone +41 32 387 55 19 corporate.communications@feintool.com www.feintool.com The press release can be downloaded from the following link: New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - The latest data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show clear differences in where veterans and nonveterans work, where veterans are half as likely as nonveterans to be employed in Leisure and Hospitality (3.8% of veterans vs. 7.7% of nonveterans), as analyzed by OysterLink. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10722/263516_3e2b6361540a9907_001full.jpg The largest gap, however, appears in Education and Health Services, where veterans account for 9.0% of veteran employment compared with 16.4% of nonveterans. The data also highlights where veterans are most concentrated. Government employs 23.4% of veterans versus 13.1% of nonveterans, with a particularly strong presence in Federal roles (12.0% vs. 2.2%). Veterans also show higher shares in Transportation and Utilities (7.9% vs. 4.8%) and Manufacturing (11.5% vs. 9.0%), while their presence is lower in Retail Trade (7.1% vs. 9.6%). Industry Comparison: Veterans vs. Nonveterans (2024 Annual Averages "Two things stand out: Veterans cluster in public-sector and operational fields, and they're underrepresented in consumer-facing service sectors," said Milos Eric, co-founder and general manager of OysterLink. Industry Veterans (%) Nonveterans (%) Leisure & Hospitality 3.8 7.7 Education & Health Services 9.0 16.4 Government (Total) 23.4 13.1 - Federal 12.0 2.2 - State 4.5 4.7 - Local 7.0 6.2 Transportation & Utilities 7.9 4.8 Manufacturing 11.5 9.0 Retail Trade 7.1 9.6 "That's both a signal of skill transfer-toward structured, mission-driven work-and an opportunity for industries like hospitality and healthcare to build better on-ramps for veteran talent." For employers, the findings suggest practical next steps: align outreach with veterans' experience in logistics, compliance, and leadership; clarify advancement paths in service sectors; and translate military roles into civilian job requirements. For sectors with lower veteran shares, especially Leisure & Hospitality and Education & Health, targeted partnerships and skill-translation frameworks could widen the pipeline. About OysterLink OysterLink is a job platform for restaurant and hospitality professionals with over 400,000 monthly visitors. OysterLink connects talent with opportunities across the U.S., including the top server jobs in New York City or bartender jobs in Los Angeles. The platform also offers trend reports, expert insights, and interviews with leaders in hospitality. To explore more data-driven insights or post a job that works for today's talent, visit www.oysterlink.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263516 SOURCE: OysterLink CHESTERFIELD, Mo., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of The Rt. Hon. Lord Swraj Paul, a distinguished industrialist, philanthropist, and parliamentary statesman whose remarkable life touched countless individuals across the globe. Lord Paul died peacefully in London, surrounded by family, the evening of August 21, 2025. Born in Punjab, India, Lord Swraj Paul rose from humble beginnings, later pursuing his education at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Guided by enduring values of hard work, integrity, and perseverance, he became Chairman of Caparo, the London-based family association of businesses, with Bull Moose Tube as one of its major pillars. Under his visionary leadership, Caparo evolved into one of Britain's largest family-owned enterprises, renowned for its innovation and global expansion. This growth included transforming the U.S. based Bull Moose Tube from a small mechanical tubing business into one of the largest steel pipe and tubing producers in North America, with production capacity exceeding 1 million tons. Lord Paul served as a member and former Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords in Great Britain, advocating for industry, education, and philanthropy. Renowned for his indefatigable spirit and unwavering commitment, Lord Paul donated millions of dollars and pounds to organizations worldwide - most notably his alma mater, MIT, and for the preservation of London Zoo. His devotion to philanthropy was established through the Aruna and Ambika Paul Foundation, originally founded in memory of his beloved daughter Ambika, whose tragic passing from leukemia in 1968 moved Lord Paul to England and inspired his life's work. The Foundation, created in 1978 and later renamed to honor his wife Lady Aruna Paul after her death in 2022, has grown under the Paul family's stewardship to make a profound impact on children and young people through education, culture, and health initiatives around the world. John Krupinski, CEO of Bull Moose Tube, remarked "I can speak for all of the employees at Bull Moose Tube, that we all feel blessed, honored and proud to have known and worked for Lord Paul. It was amazing that such an accomplished and distinguished man cared most about the well-being of his employees and their families. On each and every visit to our locations in North America, he expressed his gratitude towards all who worked for him by personally greeting and thanking them. He often referenced the "dignity of labor" and had the utmost respect and compassion for those who worked in his plants. His influence and inspiration will guide us to do what he wanted most, to continue to grow his company for the benefit of all employees and his family for many years to come. We will all truly miss his presence, his smile, and unwavering motivating spirit. We will continue Lord Paul's vision through the continued leadership of Lord Paul's eldest son, The Hon. Ambar Paul, our Caparo Bull Moose and Bull Moose Tube Chairman." The passing of Lord Swraj Paul leaves an indelible legacy - a tribute to visionary leadership, entrepreneurial excellence, and philanthropic passion. His life will continue to inspire the generations who follow. About Bull Moose Tube Bull Moose Tube is a part of the Caparo Bull Moose Group of Companies. The company operates from seven manufacturing plants in the US, including Chicago Heights, IL; Elkhart, IN; Gerald, MO; Masury, OH; Trenton, GA; Casa Grande, AZ and Sinton, TX. Today the company offers one of the largest ranges of sustainable welded steel tubing in North America. Typical applications of Bull Moose Tube's material include commercial construction, heavy equipment, transportation, infrastructure, fire protection, heavy civil and marine deep foundations, automotive equipment, and many other engineered products. For more information visit: www.bullmoosetube.com. About Caparo Caparo is a diversified international association of businesses, with interests predominantly in the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of value-added steel and niche engineering products, including its heavy haul trailer manufacturing subsidiary, XL Specialized Trailers, headquartered in Manchester, Iowa, USA. Caparo's wider activities encompass hotels, property, power generation, logistics, financial services and investment. Owned by the Paul family, Caparo was founded in 1968 by Indian born British Industrialist, Rt. Hon. The Lord Paul of Marylebone, PC. Today, Caparo operates internationally from over forty sites, serving customers globally, primarily from operations based in the UK, North America, India, and the Middle East. For more information visit: www.caparo.com CONTACT: marketing@bullmooseindustries.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/remembering-the-life-and-legacy-of-lord-swraj-paul-302536934.html STEVENSVILLE, MI / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Amerilodge Group, a hotel ownership and management company based in Bloomfield Hills, is proud to announce the upcoming Grand Opening Celebration of the new Holiday Inn Express & Suites Stevensville Benton Harbor. The celebration will take place on Monday, August 26, 2025, at the hotel's location: 5120 Red Arrow Hwy, Stevensville, MI 49127. The event will mark the official debut of the hotel in the Stevensville community and will welcome high-level guests, local leaders, and government officials in recognition of its positive impact on regional tourism and economic growth. Conveniently located less than five miles from the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan and just 20 minutes from Benton Harbor, the Holiday Inn Express & Suites provides a comfortable, modern lodging option for both leisure and business travelers. The hotel is also close to Grand Mere State Park, local wineries, Silver Beach Carousel, and the historic St. Joseph North Pier Lighthouses. Guests of the hotel enjoy complimentary amenities such as Wi-Fi, daily hot breakfast, and 24-hour coffee and tea service in the lobby. Additional features include: 90 guest rooms designed with the Holiday Inn Express brand's newest Formula Blue 2.0 concept, offering more functional storage and smart design. A 24-hour fitness center , an indoor heated pool , and over 1,100 square feet of meeting space accommodating up to 100 people. Thoughtfully designed public spaces featuring warm wood elements, local artwork, and welcoming architecture that provide a true sense of place. "We are thrilled to celebrate this milestone with the Stevensville community," said Asad Malik, President & CEO of Amerilodge Group. "The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Stevensville Benton Harbor reflects our commitment to providing clean, modern, and technology-forward accommodations. With the Formula Blue 2.0 design, we expect this property to quickly become the preferred lodging choice for both business and leisure travelers." In addition to enhancing local hospitality offerings, the hotel has created over 25 new jobs, further supporting the Stevensville area economy. The Grand Opening Celebration on August 26th will feature a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony, guided tours of the property, and remarks from local dignitaries. Media representatives are encouraged to attend and cover this significant community event. Hotel Contact Information: Holiday Inn Express & Suites Stevensville Benton Harbor 5120 Red Arrow Hwy, Stevensville, MI 49127 Phone: (269) 281-8300 Website: www.hiexpress.com/stevensvillemi SOURCE: Amerilodge Group View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/travel/holiday-inn-express-and-suites-stevensville-benton-harbor-to-host-grand-opening-celebration-1064471 PENSACOLA, FLORIDA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Emergency Care Partners ("ECP"), a leading national emergency medicine services provider, announced today the completion of a strategic merger with The Emergency Center of Arizona ("TEA"). Dr. Keith Butler will continue to serve as president of the group, which services fourteen Dignity Health Arizona General Hospital ("Dignity") emergency departments across the Greater Phoenix area, collectively treating approximately 240,000 patients annually. Doctors Joel Betz, Jason Linder, Paul McHale, and Eric Wilke will continue to serve in their key roles as physician and hospital leaders, extending the influence they have had for over 20 years in the Phoenix area. ECP logo "What stood out to us about ECP was their commitment to preserving our relationships. Relationships with Dignity, our physician and nursing relationships, and ultimately our patient relationships with their focus on clinical autonomy. Our partnership allows my colleagues and me to continue operating our group in a way that has benefited our patients, physicians, APPs, and hospital partners. It's a unique partnership that allows local private groups to realize the value of being part of a national team. We're excited to join a group of like-minded physician leaders who are also owners in ECP and look forward to collaborating with them." said Dr. Butler. TEA's approximately 200 providers will continue delivering patient-centered emergency care while leveraging ECP's unique model, combining local physician equity partnership with a differentiated clinical analytics platform. "Partnering with TEA marks an important step in ECP's continued growth with high quality, physician led practices nationwide. Their deep commitment to patient care in their communities and proven performance in the Dignity system make them an ideal fit for our group. Their leadership and commitment to quality care align with our vision for a physician led organization, where doctors retain clinical autonomy, have ownership, and collaborate with peers nationwide. Their addition strengthens our western U.S. presence, and we remain focused on partnering with like-minded groups who share our commitment to clinical excellence," said Bill Yarbrough, Chief Executive Officer of Emergency Care Partners. Emergency Care Partners remains a majority physician-owned organization, and the addition of TEA further strengthens its national network of high-performing, aligned groups. ECP continues to grow as a company and physician practice group by partnering with physician organizations that value clinical excellence, local leadership, and long-term alignment. About Emergency Care Partners (ECP) Headquartered in Pensacola, Florida, ECP is a leading provider of emergency medicine and emergency department management services for hospitals across the U.S., with current operations in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, and Vermont. ECP sees over 1.5 million patient visits annually across operations at 60+ sites of service, supported by a clinical workforce of 1,100+ physicians and mid-level providers. ECP employs a differentiated model relative to other platforms in the emergency medicine space, highlighted by the ability to maintain ownership through its physician partnership model, with more than 60% of physicians being shareholders today. The ability for local groups to maintain their branding and clinical autonomy, while still benefitting from ECP's significant back-office infrastructure, has been key to the company's continued success in the specialty. ECP's infrastructure includes support for the revenue cycle, financial and operational reporting, provider recruiting, training, compliance, contracting, scheduling, and payroll, among other functions. ECP's affiliated groups also have access to the platform's proprietary analytics platform, which operatively interfaces with each hospital's IT platform to track and report daily key performance indicators (KPI) in the emergency room. These include throughput, capacity utilization, clinical quality metrics, and ancillary services reporting, which are used by ECP clinical/operational leaders and the hospitals themselves to drive quality service and outcomes and a consistent patient experience within each customer's emergency department. For more information, please visit www.ecp.net. About Varsity Healthcare Partners Varsity Healthcare Partners (VHP) is a leading lower middle-market healthcare services private equity investment firm, targeting exclusively multi-site healthcare provider platforms or businesses providing outsourced services, technology or tools to healthcare providers and/or payers. VHP's tactical investment strategy emphasizes identifying and transacting with growth-seeking, provider-owned or founder-owned companies, leveraging VHP's developed "buy and build" playbook to drive significant operational, managerial enhancement early in the life of each platform investment, followed by a well-resourced aggressive and multidimensional growth plan. VHP's unique tactical investment playbook and strong track record are complemented by VHP's distinct organizational culture, emphasizing highly collaborative engagement, strong professional accountability, and a commitment to excellence in work product and team performance. For more information, please visit www.varsityhealthcarepartners.com About Regal Healthcare Capital Partners Regal Healthcare Capital Partners is a growth equity and buyout firm focused exclusively on healthcare services. Regal's founders and investors include physicians and other providers who have successfully built healthcare companies. Regal partners with successful healthcare entrepreneurs that benefit from the strategic, financial, operational, and managerial expertise, as well as the equity capital that its team and core investor group of healthcare professionals can bring to growing businesses. For more information, visit www.regalhcp.com. About MidOcean Partners MidOcean Partners is a premier New York-based alternative asset manager specializing in middle-market private equity, alternative credit, and structured equity. Since its inception in 2003, MidOcean Private Equity has targeted investments in high-quality middle-market companies in the consumer and business services sectors. MidOcean Credit Partners was launched in 2009 and currently manages a series of alternative credit strategies, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), and customized separately managed accounts. In 2024, MidOcean expanded its platform to include Structured Equity, positioning the firm as a leading provider of capital solutions to the middle market. For more information, please visit www.midoceanpartners.com. SOURCE: Emergency Care Partners (ECP) View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/healthcare-and-pharmaceutical/emergency-care-partners-and-tea-unite-to-strengthen-emergency-medicin-1062397 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Inspiration Energy Corp. (CSE: ISP) (WKN: A40GPX) (OTCID: ISPNF) ("Inspiration" or the "Company") a Canadian gold and copper exploration company, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the Rottenstone West Project (the "Acquisition"), a district-sized mineral property in Northern Saskatchewan. With the Acquisition, Inspiration becomes one of the largest landholders in what is rapidly emerging as one of Canada's most exciting new volcanogenic massive sulfide ("VMS") and gold exploration districts. "With over 85,000 acres now under Inspiration's control, we are now one of the largest landholders in this exciting new VMS district," stated Charles Desjardins, CEO of Inspiration. "We've strategically positioned ourselves along trend with recent discoveries and have cutting-edge satellite data identifying multiple gold-copper targets. Our technical team is finalizing drilling plans right now, and we anticipate launching our first drilling program shortly." Figure 1: Location map of the Rottenstone West & Rottenstone North properties To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11094/263599_39fe069f54b3f8ba_001full.jpg With just over 30 million shares outstanding, Inspiration offers shareholders strong upside leverage to exploration success. Its tight capital structure, combined with large-scale land holdings, advanced geophysics, and near-term drill readiness, positions the Company to participate meaningfully in one of Canada's most promising new discovery corridors. The new Acquisition comprises approximately 31,011 hectares (76,640 acres) of contiguous mineral claims in the Rottenstone Domain, immediately southwest of Ramp Metals Inc.'s ("Ramp") discoveries on their Rottenstone SW property. The Acquisition is located along the same northeast-southwest trending geological structures that host multiple high-grade showings in the region, including 73.55 g/t Au over 7.5 metres at the Ranger Showing and 1.61% Cu at the Rush VMS discovery (see Ramp's news release dated June 17, 2024). Notably, historical work on the Rottenstone West Project identified multiple massive sulfide occurrences as early as the 1950s (linked below). These areas remain untested by modern exploration methods, presenting compelling targets for new discoveries within a top-tier mining jurisdiction, as ranked by the Fraser Institute. (linked below). This Acquisition significantly complements Inspiration's adjacent, 100%-owned Rottenstone North Gold Project ("Rottenstone North"), where the Company recently completed an Advanced Atomic Mineral Resonance Tomography (AMRT) satellite survey (Figure 1). The AMRT survey identified numerous high-priority gold and copper targets along the eastern property boundary of Rottenstone North - parallel and on trend with Ramp's Rush copper-gold-silver discovery, located just a few kilometres away. A drill permit application has been submitted, and the Company is finalizing plans to commence its inaugural drilling program in the near term. Management cautions that past results or discoveries on properties in proximity to Inspiration may not necessarily be indicative of the presence of mineralization on the Company's properties. Under the terms of the acquisition, Inspiration will acquire 100% ownership of the Rottenstone West Project in exchange for a cash payment of C$18,590 to reimburse staking costs, the issuance of 3,000,000 common shares of the Company, and 2,000,000 transferable share purchase warrants exercisable at $0.18 for a period of five years. The vendors will retain a 3.0% net smelter return (NSR) royalty. The Company shall have the right, at any time, to purchase from the vendors one-half (1.5%) of the NSR Royalty (the "Buy-Back Option") by paying the vendors the sum of Three Million Dollars (C$3,000,000). This agreement is subject to all relevant approvals. National Instrument 43-101 Disclosure Dr. Scott Jobin-Bevans, P.Geo. (APEGS #82498), an Independent Advisor to the Company, is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Dr. Jobin-Bevans has reviewed and approved the technical content in this news release. Links Historical Work on Rottenstone West https://mineraldeposits.saskatchewan.ca/Home/Viewdetails/0862 https://mineraldeposits.saskatchewan.ca/Home/Viewdetails/0864 https://mineraldeposits.saskatchewan.ca/Home/Viewdetails/0868 Fraser Institute https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/annual-survey-mining-companies-2024 About Inspiration Energy Corp. Inspiration Energy is a Canadian mineral exploration company advancing a portfolio of high-potential precious and base metal projects in Tier-1 jurisdictions. The Company applies innovative, data-driven exploration technologies and is focused on unlocking district-scale discovery potential in underexplored but highly prospective regions. For more information, please refer to the Company's information available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). Neither the Canadian Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains 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. Investors 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. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR+ in Canada (available at www.sedarplus.ca). To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263599 SOURCE: Inspiration Energy Corp. Branson, Missouri--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - The magical world of Narnia is returning to the stage with the touring premiere of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Visitors will not want to miss this incredible classic brought to life by The Logos Theatre on Tour and performed in the historic Williams Event Center (formerly Welk Resort). The Pevensie children will face their greatest fears and fiercest enemies, will you join the adventure? Tickets are limited - October 31-December 13. Sample Synopsis: When the four Pevensie children are sent to the country to live with an eccentric professor to escape the bombings in England, little do they know what incredible adventures await. A mysterious wardrobe gives them access to the magical world of Narnia, where the evil White Witch rules, keeping the land in a constant winter. With the sacrifice and help of the great lion, Aslan, the four Pevensies fight to banish the White Witch and break her hold over the land of Narnia. From the same team that brought you The Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian, The Logos Theatre and world-renowned director, Nicole Chavers Stratton, presents the long-awaited original stage adaptation of C. S. Lewis's beloved classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11602/263499_84ddf57b54166bc9_002full.jpg About the Logos Theatre: Established in 1971, The Academy of Arts Logos Theatre is a non-profit organization that functions year-round performing state-of-the-art productions in Upstate South Carolina as well as touring across the country with large-scale productions, camps, and workshops. Their mission is to impact the culture for Christ by using the arts in "making the Bible come alive in minds and hearts through the power of storytelling". To learn more, visit https://theacademyofarts.org/. Run Time: 2.5 hrs. General Pricing: $37.50-$62.50 Tickets: https://narniabranson.com/ ### To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263499 SOURCE: Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce & CVB Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - QcX Gold Corp. (TSXV: QCX) (OTC Pink: QCXGF) (FSE: 21MA) ("QcX" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement financing for gross proceeds of up to $750,000 through the issuance of up to 7,500,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.10 per Unit (the "Offering"). Each Unit is comprised of one common share of the Company (each, a "Common Share") and one whole Common Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant") of the Company. Each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.15 per Common Share for a period of twenty-four (24) months from the date of issuance. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for continued exploration and evaluation of the Company's Golden Giant and Fernet properties and for general working capital. Closing of the Offering is subject to receipt of all necessary corporate and regulatory approvals, including the approval of TSX Venture Exchange. All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance and the resale rules of applicable securities legislation. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy 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 as defined under applicable United States securities laws unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. About QcX Gold QcX Gold is exploring for gold and VMS style mineralization on its highly prospective and well-located properties in Quebec, Canada. The Golden Giant Project is located in the James Bay region, only 2.9 km from Azimut Exploration Inc.'s Patwon discovery on their Elmer gold project. The Fernet Project is located in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt and is contiguous with Wallbridge Mining Company Limited's Fenelon/Martiniere property. Both properties are in close proximity to major discoveries which bodes well for exploration. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements. All statements, other than of historical facts, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future including, without limitation, the planned exploration program, the expected positive exploration results, the timing of the exploration results, the ability of the Company to continue with the exploration program, the availability of the required funds to continue with the exploration and the potential mineralization or potential mineral resources are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "to earn", "to have', "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, failure to meet expected, estimated or planned exploration expenditures, failure to establish estimated mineral resources, the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, general business and economic conditions, changes in world gold markets, sufficient labour and equipment being available, changes in laws and permitting requirements, unanticipated weather changes, title disputes and claims, environmental risks as well as those risks identified in the Company's annual Management's Discussion and Analysis. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described and accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements except as otherwise required by applicable law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263549 SOURCE: QcX Gold Corp Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Champion Electric Metals Inc. (CSE: LTHM) (OTC Pink: CHELF) (FSE: 1QB0) ("Champion Electric" or the "Company") announces that, effective immediately, President and Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") Jonathan Buick has stepped down from his position for health reasons. Jonathan will remain a member of the Company's Board of Directors. The Company's Board of Directors (the "Board") has appointed Nicholas Konkin as Interim President and CEO, effective immediately, ensuring continuity during this transition. Director Patrick Highsmith commented: "Jonathan's tenacity and leadership have been instrumental since Champion's earliest days. He successfully navigated challenging market conditions by pivoting the Company to a new commodity and securing a major lithium project in a tier one jurisdiction, hence positioning the Company for its next phase of growth. On behalf of the Board, we sincerely thank him for his contributions and wish him the very best in his recovery." Nicholas Konkin brings to Champion Electric over 15 years of capital markets and corporate development experience, with a track record of guiding private and public companies in the resource sector. He was part of the team that took Champion Electric public and currently serves as Director of Capital Markets at Grove Corporate Services. Mr. Konkin stated: "Champion has strong underlying assets and a highly capable board. My immediate priority will be to strengthen the Company's foundation, and ensure it is properly structured to capitalize on the coming metals bull market. Jonathan has been a mentor and a friend, and I join the Board in wishing him a full and speedy recovery." About Champion Electric Metals Inc. Champion Electric is a discovery-focused exploration company that is committed to advancing its highly prospective lithium properties in Quebec, Canada and cobalt properties in Idaho, United States. In addition, the Company owns the Baner gold project in Idaho County (optioned to Legacy Gold Mines Ltd) and the Champagne polymetallic project in Butte County near Arco, Idaho. The Company's shares trade on the CSE under the trading symbol "LTHM", on the OTCQB under the trading symbol "CHELF", and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol "1QB0". Champion Electric strives to be a responsible environmental steward, stakeholder, and contributing citizen to the local communities where it operates, taking its social license seriously, employing local community members and service providers at its operations whenever possible. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF CHAMPION ELECTRIC "Patrick Highsmith" Patrick Highsmith, Director To learn more, please visit the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedarplus.ca or the Company's corporate website at www.champem.com. THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY ANY SECURITIES IN ANY JURISDICTION, NOR SHALL THERE BE ANY OFFER, SALE, OR SOLICITATION OF SECURITIES IN ANY STATE IN THE UNITED STATES IN WHICH SUCH OFFER, SALE, OR SOLICITATION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. Cautionary Statements 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 press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business of the Company. Forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company, including closing of the Transactions and the prospectivity of the Projects for lithium. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based on are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws. The Projects are at an early stage of exploration, and the Company cautions that the qualified persons who have reviewed and approved this news release have not verified scientific or technical information produced by third parties. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263592 SOURCE: Champion Electric Metals Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 22, 2025) - Argo Graphene Solutions Corp. (CSE: ARGO) (OTCQB: ARLSF) (FSE: 94Y) ("Argo" or the "Company"), a leader in innovative graphene-based technologies, is pleased to announce it has signed a working relationship agreement with Ceylon Graphene Technologies (Pvt) Ltd ("Ceylon"), a leading manufacturer of high-grade graphene oxide derived from 99% pure vein graphite. The agreement, effective August 1, 2025, stipulates that Ceylon will supply regular shipments of high-grade graphene oxide paste (20% Graphene Oxide or better) to Argo. Argo will, in turn, mix the high-grade concentrate paste to the required dispersions as per Ceylon's directive- to render it suitable for use in concrete, cement and asphalt applications. Argo will integrate this liquid dispersion amongst its planned North American distribution network with a plan for potential global expansion. The agreement establishes a minimum order volume of 1000 kilograms. Argo has committed to scaling its purchases to a minimum of 4000 kilograms of high-grade graphene oxide paste over the term of the agreement. Ceylon is known for its comprehensive and advanced concrete testing data, in the graphene-enhanced cement and concrete additive space. Ceylon and Argo will collaborate by sharing data and exchanging expertise in product design, mixing processes and liquid dispersion techniques to support the development of advanced integral additives for construction materials. Argo will assist in progressing innovative technologies developed by Ceylon, helping to facilitate distribution and assist in market testing where needed. The agreement also includes a provision that Ceylon receives a pre-agreed royalty on sales generated from competing customers introduced within Argo's operational regions. The agreement has an initial two year term , with an option for annual extensions, and includes terms for quality assurance, intellectual property protection, and cooperation. Both parties are committed to exploring a future joint venture manufacturing agreement to further optimize production and reduce costs. Scott Smale, Argo president and CEO states, "This collaboration leverages Ceylon's expertise in producing high-quality graphene oxide from one of the purest forms of vein graphite in the world to Argo's construction knowledge and capabilities in product development to distribution. The cost savings of shipping paste vs liquid makes the economics of integrating graphene into our mix a very competitive product." Graphene infused concrete, cement and asphalt represent a significant advancement in construction materials. By integrating graphene into traditional mixtures the materials exhibit notable improvements in mechanical and durability properties. Laboratory and field data suggest minimum increases of approximately 30% compressive strength, 24% tensile strength and 23% in flexural strength. Durability metrics also show substantial gains, including up to 70% greater resistance to abrasion and 400% reduction in water permeability. These enhancements contribute to longer service life, reduced maintenance requirements and potential reductions in material usage. The technology aligns with sustainable construction while maintaining cost-effectiveness. About Ceylon Graphene Technologies (Pvt) Ltd Based at the Nanotechnology & Science Park, Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC) in Homagama, Ceylon Graphene Technologies specializes in manufacturing high-grade graphene oxide paste from 99% pure vein graphite. Renowned for its quality, Ceylon's products are tailored for advanced applications, including lithium-ion batteries and graphene-enhanced materials. About Argo Graphene Solutions Corp. Argo Graphene Solutions Corp. is a Canadian advanced materials company focused on developing sustainable, high-performance solutions for the construction and agricultural industries. Through its subsidiaries, including Argo Green Concrete Solutions Inc., Argo leverages innovative technologies to create eco-friendly products that meet the demands of modern infrastructure. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed this press release and does not accept responsibility for its adequacy or accuracy. Forward-Looking Statements Certain information in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the development of Argo's technology and the creation of eco-friendly products. Forward-looking statements are based on management's opinions and estimates as of the date of this release and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially. These factors include, but are not limited to, the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals. Argo undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263624 SOURCE: Argo Graphene Solutions Corp. At the event, Bobby Deol revealed how Aryan made actors work very hard, while SRK recalled Bobby calling him and asking him to come to the set and let him go home The preview of Netflixs new show, The Ba**ds Of Bollywood, was recently launched in a grand event in Mumbai, which marks the writing and directorial debut of Shah Rukh Khans son Aryan Khan. At the event, Bobby Deol revealed how Aryan made actors work very hard, while SRK recalled Bobby calling him and asking him to come to the set and let him go home. We have been working together for 30 years, and we usually arent this formal with each other. I never thought that this day would come when we would be working with our kids. I want to thank Bobby from the bottom of my heart, with all my love, for making this show with my son. You have brought so much warmth, love and gravitas to the show," said SRK while welcoming Bobby on the set. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It is quite a special day for me as well, because our kids want to join the same industry, and now Aryan has taken that step. I remember seeing him as a kid and the kind of person he became as he grew up. He has always been ready to conquer the world, and today is the day," said Bobby. I am extremely lucky to be a part of this project. Woh alag baat hai ki boht nichodha hamein (he overworked us a lot). He used to ask me, One more take? and I used to say, Haan beta, ek aur take (Why not? Lets do it). I initially thought that he was going to go easy on us, but he made us work very hard," he added. Ek baar isne raat ko call karke bola, ki tu aja bhai yeh boht kaam karwa raha hai, mujhe jaana hai ab (He called me during the night one time and told me, Please come to the set, he is making us work too much. I need to go now)," recalled SRK. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I have seen him as a little boy, and then years later, when I heard him speak, there was something magical about him, as if he was ready to conquer the world," said Bobby, praising Aryan. The Animal star further lauded Aryans vision and said, Its not special because its Aryans or Shah Rukh bhais project, but because it truly is massive. Every actor has performed brilliantly, but its the director who brings out the soul of the story. Aryan pushed us, made us do many takes, but he brought out the best in everyone." The web-show features Bobby Deol, Lakshya, Sahher Bambba, Manoj Pahwa, Mona Singh, Manish Chaudhari, Raghav Juyal, Anya Singh and Vijayant Kohli with Rajat Bedi and Gautami Kapoor with cameos from Karan Johar, Salman Khan and Ranveer Singh. The Badshah of Bollywood and global star, Shah Rukh Khan is known for his presence of mind, large-hearted gesture and wittiness. All costars of him praise for his demeanor and nature and Boman Irani, who worked with him in Don, Don 2, Happy New Year, Main Hoon Na, Dunki and others, is no different. However, Irani has one complaint about SRK. Shah Rukh (Khan) enjoys being on a set. He enjoys being with people. He enjoys the collective nature of creating a movie. For me, there is really a naughty side to him. He is very giving. He is very big-hearted," said Irani while talking Humans of Bombay. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD His suite door will always be open. There will be all the snacks on one side. People walk in and walk out, pick up snacks. He plays games with them when he has the time. The set is always fun," he explained. If I have to make a list of my favourite moments from set and off-set, I think Shah Rukh will be in the top five. Straight up. There is no question about it Sometimes, when we are performing and things go wrong, we find it funny. Rather than be desperate. Thats a great talent to have. We know we will get there. He knows he will," quoted Boman. Boman shared that he has one complaint about SRK and that is food. He is extremely boring. He only eats tandoori chicken and nothing else. He is not a restaurant kinda guy. He will come with us, but he wont eat. The food is lying over there, he is talking, and it is getting cold, and everybody is enjoying a lovely meal par Shah Rukh ko koi farq nahi padta. I do have a problem there. He doesnt give me a company when it comes to food," said Boman Irani. Actresses like Shilpa Shetty, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Bhumi Pednekar have expanded their oeuvre and also dabbled with something beyond acting on celluloid Gone are the days when Bollywood actresses were just actresses. Given the scope and the potential in todays lot of stars, actresses are also successful businesswomen. Other than impressing their fans with diverse roles, these actresses are also spreading their wings in business sectors, including spaces like skincare, clothing, hotels and more. Actresses like Shilpa Shetty, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Bhumi Pednekar have expanded their oeuvre and also dabbled with something beyond acting on celluloid. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Shilpa Shetty - Bastian Shilpa Shetty ventured into the restaurant business with Bastian and is now the co-owner of multiple Bastian brands across the country. The restaurant is celebrated for its lavish dining services and has become a go-to spot for several B-town celebs. Bhumi Satish Pednekar - Back Bay Bhumi Satish Pednekar recently turned entrepreneur by launching Back Bay, a premium beverage brand thats untouched by human hands. With a manufacturing unit in Himachal, Back Bay serves water with naturally occurring electrolytes and minerals. It is also aiming at resetting the beverage space with better quality hydration. Deepika Padukone - 82E Deepika Padukone is the proud owner of a skincare brand 82E. The self-care brand, launched in 2022, features products made using Indian ingredients. Alia Bhatt - Ed-a-Mamma Alia Bhatt owns the kids wear brand, Ed-a-Mamma, launched in 2020. The brand sets itself apart by offering a range of naturally sourced and sustainable apparel for children. Kriti Sanon - Hyphen In 2023, Kriti Sanon launched Hyphen, a skincare brand that aims to provide realistic and simplified skincare solutions. As the brands Chief Customer Officer, Kriti Sanon participates in various aspects of the brand, including research, design, testing and customer satisfaction. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Katrina Kaif - Kay Beauty Katrina Kaif turned businesswoman with Kay Beauty in 2019, launching Indias first celebrity-owned beauty brand. Katrinas Kay Beauty slowly expanded its reach to over 300 retail stores in more than 1600 cities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate the 1.86-km-long 6-lane Aunta-Simaria bridge over the Ganga on Friday. Built at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore, the cable bridge is set to reduce travel distance by 100 km, boosting connectivity, trade, and travel between North and South Bihar Built at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore, the 1.86-km-long Aunta-Simaria bridge is being described as Indias widest extradosed cable-stayed bridge. It will be inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on Friday. Image courtesy: X Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate Asias widest six-lane bridge over the Ganga in Bihar on Friday. The new bridge, which connects the North and South regions of the state, is expected to bring huge relief to commuters who have long struggled with traffic and delays on the old two-lane Rajendra Setu. Built on NH-31, the Aunta-Simaria cable bridge is expected to ease travel for lakhs of people and reduce long detours by nearly 100 km, making travel across the river faster and easier. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Officials say the bridge will not just help commuters but also improve trade and industry across the two regions, giving a boost to connectivity and economic activity in the poll-bound state. Heres what we know about the key features of the new Aunta-Simaria bridge. Improve connectivity Built at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore, the 1.86-km-long Aunta-Simaria bridge is being described as Indias widest extradosed cable-stayed bridge. With a width of 34 metres, segment lengths ranging between 57 and 115 metres, and cantilever arms stretching up to 70 metres, the bridge is expected to play a major role in reducing traffic congestion between North and South Bihar. Constructed parallel to the old two-lane Rajendra Setu, which has now been closed to heavy vehicles, the new six-lane structure is likely to save freight movement from detours of over 100 km. Good News - Aunta Simaria 6L Extra Dosed Cable Ganga Bridge is Unofficially open for all types of Vehicles. pic.twitter.com/2HDdjhejVW The Bihar Index (@IndexBihar) June 17, 2025 For decades, people depended on Rajendra Setu, the rail-cum-road bridge inaugurated in 1959 by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Built in the 1950s, it had served as a vital lifeline for South Bihar, but with rising traffic and heavy loads, the bridge struggled to meet todays demands. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Building the bridge wasnt easy. A senior official told ETV Bharat that the project faced several hurdles as the entire stretch lies in a low-lying, flood-prone zone. Construction work was possible only during 78 months of the year when there is no flood-like situation, the official said. Despite these challenges, engineers turned to advanced methods to complete the project. Project Manager at NHAI, Abhishek, told the outlet the bridge was constructed using modern extra-dosed technology. Apart from being a strong structure, it also is a fine example of modern engineering. Reaching religious places like Simaria Dham will be easier now. Farmers and traders will also benefit greatly in transporting their produce, he added. The new Aunta-Simaria bridge is now projected to cut travel time significantly between districts such as Begusarai, Supaul, Madhubani, Purnea and Araria in the north, and Patna, Sheikhpura, Nawada and Lakhisarai in the south. Economic development Officials also believe the bridge will boost economic activity, especially in North Bihar, which often depends on South Bihar and Jharkhand for raw materials. Farmers, including makhana growers, are expected to benefit from quicker access to national and international markets. Industrial hubs like Barauni are also likely to see smoother transport of goods. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Union Minister and Begusarai MP Giriraj Singh hailed it as a transformative project. In our constituency, PM Narendra Modi has gifted a new NTPC, a new fertiliser unit, and a new refinery. Now the AuntaSimaria bridge has been completed. For the first time, Bihar has a six-lane bridge, and it has come up on the soil of Begusarai. This will prove to be a milestone in Bihars development, he was quoted as saying by ETV Bharat. Prime Minister @narendramodi to inaugurate Aunta - Simaria project in Bihar's Gaya on August 22. The project includes a nearly 2km long bridge over river Ganga, which will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in #Patna District and #Begusarai. pic.twitter.com/a0asPI1wHT All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) August 19, 2025 Beyond road and trade, the bridge is also set to improve access to cultural and religious sites like Simaria Dham, known as the birthplace of poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Bihars Road Construction Minister Nitin Navin called the project a landmark for the state, as per the Hindustan Times. From laying the foundation in 2017 to inaugurating it, the Honble Prime Minister has reaffirmed his unwavering commitment and enduring vision to strengthening Bihars connectivity and growth." He added that the bridge would become a signature project for Bihars progress. This bridge will significantly reduce the distance between north and south Bihar and stand as a signature project of progress. It is a reminder of how far the state has travelled from the lantern age, when craters passed for roads. The Prime Minister envisions Bihar as the next growth engine and every effort is being directed towards building a strong launch pad for that future. With input from agencies STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Glaucus atlanticus, commonly known as the Blue Dragon, was spotted along the shore of some beaches in Spain, forcing authorities to ban swimming for a day for both residents and tourists. The sting of the Blue Dragon is extremely strong, as it absorbs the venom of its prey and stores it at the tips of its fingers, which it uses for defence Glaucus atlanticus, better known as the Blue Dragon, is a foraging predator with tentacles that contain strong stinging cells. Image: Facebook/Policia Local Guardamar Spain has issued a warning to residents and tourists against swimming at some beaches after rare sea creatures were found along the shore. The creatures are venomous Blue Dragons, often described as the most beautiful killer in the ocean. Authorities in Guardamar del Segura, Alicante on the Costa Blanca, shut down all beaches for a day after the discovery of the Glaucus atlanticus sea slug. This sea slug survives by feeding on venomous creatures such as the Portuguese man owar and keeps their stinging cells inside its own body in stronger form. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD But what exactly is this creature? How dangerous is it? Lets take a look: What we know about the Blue Dragons Glaucus atlanticus, better known as the Blue Dragon, is a foraging predator with tentacles that contain strong stinging cells. These are used both to catch prey and to defend itself, according to the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Easily recognised by its striking dark and light blue stripes, the creature has three pairs of appendages tipped with tendrils. These spread out like wings, becoming shorter further down the body, which makes the nudibranch look as though it is flying. This sea slug survives by feeding on venomous creatures. Image: Wikimedia Commons It drifts through the ocean, carried by currents and wind, staying afloat with the help of a small gas bubble inside its stomach. Blue Dragons float on their backs with their patterned blue underside facing upwards. This helps them hide from seabirds flying above, while the silvery grey side facing down blends with the sea surface, making them less visible to fish below. They are usually found in warm and mild waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. In recent years, Glaucus atlanticus has also appeared along the eastern and southern coasts of Australia, off South Africa, and in 2022 they were spotted washed up on the Texas Gulf Coast. How dangerous is it? The sting of the Blue Dragon is as strong as that of the much larger Portuguese man o war, which also happens to be one of its prey. These creatures take in the venom of what they eat and store it at the tips of their finger, using it to protect themselves. If they sense danger, they can release the stinging cells all at once. Though their appearance may look harmless, almost like something out of a cartoon, they can even turn on each other. Reports say they have sometimes shown cannibalistic behaviour in captivity, according to The Sun UK. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD A sting from the shiny Blue Dragon can lead to nausea, pain, vomiting and severe allergic skin reactions. Jace Tunnell, director of community engagement at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, told BBC, Thats what makes them so dangerous, since they can release the stinging cells all at one time. It can be three times the intensity as a man-o-war due to that. Spains advice for tourists Jose Luis Saez, mayor of Guardamar del Segura, posted on X on Wednesday: Bathing is prohibited following the appearance on Vivers Beach of two specimens of Glaucus atlanticus, known as the Blue Dragon, warning people should stay away from this animal because of its sting. A day later, in another post, he said the warning had been reduced to yellow after what he described as a special surveillance operation. Tourists have been urged not to touch the Blue Dragon. It is not the first time dangerous sea creatures have kept swimmers out of the water in Costa Blanca. In 2018, visitors were told to avoid the sea after Portuguese men o war returned to the area. An 11-year-old boy had to be taken to the hospital after being stung by one of the jellyfish-like creatures on beaches that were still open along parts of the coastline popular with British tourists. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD China is readying for one of its biggest military parades on September 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of Japans World War II surrender. The country is set to debut many armaments new anti-ship weapons, uncrewed underwater vehicles, and possibly, in a world first, a combat-ready loyal wingman FH-97 stealth drone The PLA will showcase its next-generation tanks and armoured vehicles during the military parade on September 3. Image courtesy: @lfx160219/X It is one of the worlds most powerful militaries. And come September 3, China will show off a new range of missiles, drones and other weapons at a huge military parade. The world will be keeping a close eye on the Asian giants growing capabilities, especially India, Taiwan, and the US. Preparations are in full swing for the parade that will highlight the Peoples Liberation Armys (PLA) new generation of homemade and active-duty weaponry. Advanced armaments have been rolling through the streets of Beijing during rehearsals for the spectacle, which will be held next month at Tiananmen Square. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The September 3 parade will debut hypersonic, anti-missile defence and strategic missiles to exhibit our strong strategic deterrence capabilities, Major General Wu Zeke, deputy director of the operations bureau of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, said at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday (August 20). Heres what to expect from the military march. Why is China holding a military parade on September 3? China is holding the parade to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Its a significant moment in the countrys history, as the war ended after the surrender of Imperial Japan, which began invading China in 1931. The event will be attended by President Xi Jinping at Tiananmen Square alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also witnessed the 2015 parade. Several other foreign leaders are expected to join after the conclusion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting on September 1. Members of Chinas militia march during training ahead of a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, in Beijing, China, August 20. Reuters It is expected to be the largest display of Chinese military equipment since the 2019 National Day parade, which celebrated 70 years of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. Back then, the PLA unveiled a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, a medium-range ballistic missile mated with a hypersonic glide vehicle, and its first undersea drone, according to a CNN report. The country has come a long way since. What will China display at this years military parade? A rehearsal, which took place over the past weekend, gave a sneak peek into Chinas military might. Thousands of personnel were involved; new hypersonic missiles and drones were seen rolling through the streets of Beijing, with some of the military hardware covered by huge tarpaulins. The parade will display new tanks, autonomous vehicles for ground, naval and air use and electronic warfare equipment such as directed energy weapons and electronic jamming systems, Major General Wu said. The parade involves more than 10,000 personnel, over a hundred aircraft, and several hundred ground vehicles, Major General Xu Guizhong, executive deputy director of the Parade Command Office of the PLAs Central Theater Command, said during a recent briefing in Beijing. More than 100 different types of equipment will be included, all of it battle-ready and domestically produced, Xu said, adding that a large proportion would be new armaments making their debut. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Photos and videos circulating online reveal some of Chinas latest weapons next-generation tanks, unmanned underwater and ground vehicles, a huge laser weapon and more. Soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army attend a training ahead of a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, in Beijing, on August 20. Reuters Hypersonic and ballistic missiles New anti-ship missiles from the YJ series are expected to be part of the march. The abbreviation YJ stands for Ying Ji, which translates to Eagle Strike. It is used on Chinese anti-ship missiles, which can be launched from vessels or aircraft. Photos from the drills also showed YJ-15 missiles and three hypersonic missiles the YJ-17, YJ-19 and YJ-20. Various new missiles (ship UVLS launch?) confirmed, my 2c on roles: - YJ-15, ramjet compact supersonic? - YJ-17, waverider hypersonic glide? - YJ-19, ?maybe scramjet hypersonic? - YJ-20, biconical hypersonic/aeroballistic? Possibly seen before from 055.. Via REautomaton, SDF pic.twitter.com/9061QDAi09 Rick Joe (@RickJoe_PLA) August 17, 2025 According to Rick Joe, a longtime observer of Chinese military developments, the YJ-15 could be a supersonic missile, flying faster than the speed of sound, approximately 768 miles per hour, reports The Newsweek. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The YJ-17 and YJ-19 are capable of flying faster than five times the speed of sound and manoeuvring in flight, making them difficult to intercept. The YJ-20 could be a highly manoeuvrable aeroballistic missile, Joe suggested. Military experts believe that YJ-17 and YJ-20 can manoeuvre in high-speed flight after separating from their launch rocket to avoid anti-missile defences, reports Financial Times (FT). The latter is likely designed to be launched from a ship. The YJ-19 could be a hypersonic ramjet missile. The YJ-15 missile is expected to be displayed at the parade. Image courtesy: @RickJoe_PLA/X The images of the parade rehearsal captured a new transporter-erector-launcher vehicle, carrying a missile canister. Though covered by a tarp, a South China Morning Post (SCMP) report says its a new or upgraded road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile system. The US and its allies will be watching the anti-ship missiles and hypersonic weapons closely, as China continues to exert power. The sea drones China is also expected to debut two massive unmanned underwater vehicles during the parade. At least two types of extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles (XLUUVs) were spotted at the rehearsals, according to Naval News, a publication that focuses on naval technology. They are roughly 60 feet in length, with torpedo-shaped hulls and pump-jet propulsion systems and are designed for stealth operations. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Based on the markings, there are four AJX002 submarines, which are similar to Russias Poseidon nuclear torpedo. The AJX002 features four lifting lugs along its hull, indicating that it is crane-assisted. However, it is unclear if the Chinese sea drones are nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered. China runs the worlds largest XLUUV programme, The Newsweek reports, quoting Naval News, with at least five in action. However, these vehicles will be displayed for the first time during the September 3 parade. China is set to unveil the AJX-002, nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable extra large underwater vehicle (XLUUV). It measures 18-20 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter, with pump jet propulsion and crane deployment lugs. Comparable to Russias Poseidon nuclear torpedo, this pic.twitter.com/IYMSaagnOu Vanguard Intel Group (@vanguardintel) August 18, 2025 Tanks Tanks with uncrewed turrets and active protection systems have also been sighted during rehearsals. Such weapons are designed to protect against anti-tank weapons like the Javelin missile used by Ukraine against Russia. The PLAs next-gen armoured vehicles include a new light tank, which is smaller than Type 99A, Chinas most advanced tank. Both of these are expected to be showcased at the parade. The Type 99A main battle tank is the most advanced version of the Type 99 series and has been used by the Chinese military since 2011. It has an upgraded 105mm main gun, an enlarged turret, a four-sided radar, and an integrated propulsion system. The Type 99A main battle tank has been deployed in the Chinese army since 2011. Image courtesy: ODIN The new tank boasts of a four-sided radar, active protection systems, a laser weapon and an air defence gun. This helps in surviving against anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, loitering munitions and drones, reports SCMP. Other new armoured fighting vehicles and fire support vehicles are likely to be part of the parade. The new weapons could be a reason for concern for Taiwan, which faces threats from China. If PLA ground forces are equipped with uncrewed turrets and APS on a large scale, that creates a tough problem for our strategy of purchasing large amounts of anti-tank weapons for asymmetric warfare, Sheu Jyh-Shyang, an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think-tank backed by Taiwans defence ministry, told FT. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Loyal wingman drone An uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) was also spotted during the try-outs. According to experts, the UCAV resembles the Chinese FH-97 or Feihong-97, the worlds first combat-ready loyal wingman aircraft. This is an uncrewed aircraft designed to operate alongside manned aircraft, enhancing mission capabilities. These drones perform high-risk tasks, gather intelligence, and provide electronic warfare support. Collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) drones or loyal wingmen are designed to reduce pilot workload and risk to human life. With the United States XQ-58A loyal wingman combat drone expected to be combat-ready by 2029, the FH-97 puts China ahead. China showcased naval variant of Loyal wingman FH-97A stealth drone at Zhuhai air show 2024. It is specifically configured for catapult launch and features modified landing gear with catapult tow bar and tail-hook.#ZhuhaiAirShow2024 #AirshowChina2024 pic.twitter.com/4R7HQvPjrU Global Defence Agency (@Defence_GDA) November 12, 2024 According to Andreas Rupprecht, a Chinese military aviation expert, the rehearsals have exceeded expectations. Just focusing on the aviation segment and what China is expected to showcase the rehearsals for the parade alone are already exceeding everything one could have expected, he was quoted as saying by Defence Blog. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD At the 70-minute-long Victory Parade, China is set to show off its most modern weaponry. The world will be watching, and the display might give rivals plenty of reasons to worry. With inputs from agencies Days after Indian national Harjinder Singh was charged with causing the deaths of three people in Florida while making an illegal U-turn, the United States said on Thursday that it will temporarily stop issuing worker visas for foreign truck drivers, citing safety concerns and the need to protect jobs for Americans. Singh had earlier entered the country illegally through the Mexico border The US governments decision came after a crash in Florida where three Americans lost their lives. Image: X The United States has said it will stop issuing worker visas to foreign truck drivers for now, citing safety issues and the need to safeguard jobs for Americans. This decision comes days after Harjinder Singh, an Indian national, was charged with the deaths of three people in Florida after making an illegal U-turn. It later emerged that Singh had entered the country illegally through the Mexico border. The case has sparked anger over an illegal immigrant being involved in a crash that took American lives. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD So, what does the new visa rule in the US mean? And what exactly happened in the Florida accident? Lets take a look: US pauses visas for foreign truck drivers: What we know US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the government has put a hold on issuing all work visas for commercial truck drivers. He said the move was made over safety concerns and to protect jobs for American truckers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers, Rubio wrote on X. Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 21, 2025 Notably, the Donald Trump administration has already taken several steps to deal with concerns about foreign truck drivers who do not speak English. In April, Trump signed an executive order to enforce a rule that requires commercial drivers in the US to meet English proficiency standards. The rule on English proficiency had been part of US law for years, but Trumps order overturned 2016 suggestion that inspectors should not take commercial drivers off the road if their only violation was poor English. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that not properly enforcing driver qualification standards creates serious safety risks and raises the chances of accidents. In 2023, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) said that about 16 per cent of truck drivers in the US were born outside the country. Florida crash: What happened? Who is Harjinder Singh? The US governments decision came after a crash in Florida where three Americans lost their lives. Indian national Harjinder Singh was driving a tractor-trailer on the Florida Turnpike near Fort Pierce when he tried to make an illegal U-turn through an Official Use Only access point. Singh suddenly steered left and attempted to cut across the median using the restricted pass, which is not meant for regular vehicles. His truck ended up blocking every lane of oncoming traffic. Within moments, a minivan travelling at full speed rammed into the trailer and became trapped underneath. The collision was deadly. (1) UPDATE: These are the alleged semi-truck drivers who k*lled three people while making a U-turn at an Official Use Only turn on the Florida Turnpike The Florida Highway Patrol is describing the wreck as a homicide investigation pic.twitter.com/QqYhuidXoD Unlimited L's (@unlimited_ls) August 15, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD According to Treasure Coast Newspapers, three people were killed: a 37-year-old woman from Pompano Beach, a 30-year-old man from Florida City, and a 54-year-old man from Miami. They died on the spot, while the minivans driver was taken to the hospital but died soon after. Singh and a passenger in the truck escaped without injury. What drew attention was footage from a camera inside the truck. The video showed Singh appearing calm right after the crash. He can be seen shifting the truck into park and switching off the engine, as if nothing had happened. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles later said Singh had entered the US illegally through the Mexico border in 2018 and had obtained a commercial drivers licence in California. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Department of Homeland Security added that Singh had been denied a work permit during Donald Trumps first term but later secured one under Joe Bidens administration. The incident has sparked a political row between the Trump administration and California Governor Gavin Newsom, with both sides blaming each other. Singh now faces three state charges of vehicular homicide along with immigration violations. What does this new order mean for Indian drivers? The US has temporarily stopped issuing new work visas for trucking jobs. This means Indian applicants for such roles may face delays or even rejections. Even those who already have visas could come under review. The US has said it is carrying out ongoing checks on more than 55 million current visa holders, and any violations could result in visas being cancelled and deportation. While the order does not target any one country, Indian drivers will also be impacted, particularly those with pending applications or plans to apply in the near future. US Homeland Security claims 1.6 million undocumented immigrants have left the United States since Donald Trump returned to the White House. Kristi Noem credits tougher enforcement, self-deportation incentives, and Operation Homecoming. But research groups like Pew and CIS caution that survey data may exaggerate the decline Migrants wait to climb over concertina wire after they crossed the Rio Grande and entered the US from Mexico, September 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas, US. File Image/AP The Trump administration is claiming that an unprecedented number of undocumented immigrants have left the country in the United States presidents first 200 days back in office. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly highlighted the figure of 1.6 million departures, presenting it as evidence of a successful crackdown on illegal immigration. Independent researchers, however, caution that while the population of undocumented immigrants may have dropped, the estimates are subject to significant limitations. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD What the DHS claims Last week, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a statement declaring that approximately 1.6 million undocumented immigrants had departed the country since Donald Trump resumed the presidency in January. Noem framed the number as proof of rapid success: In less than 200 days, 1.6 MILLION illegal immigrants have left the United States population. This is massive. This means safer streets, taxpayer savings, pressure off of schools and hospital services and better job opportunities for Americans. Thank you, President Trump! The agency promoted the statistic as unprecedented, posting on social media that 1.6 MILLION illegals are OUT of our country in the last 200 days. In less than 200 days, 1.6 MILLION illegal immigrants have left the United States population. This is massive. This means safer streets, taxpayer savings, pressure off of schools and hospital services and better job opportunities for Americans. Thank you @POTUS Trump! Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) August 14, 2025 According to Noem, this reduction is the result of a multi-pronged enforcement and deterrence strategy that combined tougher policing with programmes encouraging voluntary departure. Speaking on Fox News on Thursday, Noem praised the administrations approach, stating: We have 1.6 million illegal immigrants that have left this country voluntarily. I think these numbers just show exactly the genius of Donald J. Trump. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD What we know about Operation Homecoming One of the most distinctive aspects of DHSs strategy has been the launch of Operation Homecoming. This programme was introduced as part of a broader effort to encourage undocumented immigrants to leave without being formally deported. Under the scheme, those who agree to self-deport are offered free travel arrangements and a $1,000 financial incentive. The CBP One App, which had previously allowed migrants to schedule border appointments, was dismantled and replaced by the CBP Home App. DHS describes this as a system that allows illegal aliens to take control of their departure. The message, widely promoted through a multimillion-dollar international advertising campaign, was blunt: leave now voluntarily or face arrest and deportation. The policy has been marketed as a humanitarian and pragmatic measure, enabling undocumented immigrants to depart on their own terms while reducing the burden of detention and forced removals. However, critics argue that such programmes do not guarantee that those leaving will not return later, especially given the offer of financial assistance and transportation. What the arrest & removal numbers under Trump 2.0 say Alongside voluntary departure initiatives, DHS has also pursued an aggressive enforcement campaign. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), were directed to carry out targeted raids to remove individuals residing unlawfully in the United States. According to DHS, more than 352,000 undocumented immigrants have been arrested since Trump resumed office, while over 324,000 have been deported. More than 352,000 illegal aliens have been arrested and more than 324,000 removed. pic.twitter.com/AMgcBoQ90j Homeland Security (@DHSgov) August 14, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Despite this aggressive posture, official data suggests that daily arrest activity has slowed. Between July 1 and July 27, ICE averaged 990 arrests per day, compared with 1,224 per day in June a nearly 20 per cent decline. Analysts point to logistical constraints and the practical limits of large-scale enforcement as possible reasons for this drop. How the CIS reached DHS numbers The headline figure of 1.6 million fewer undocumented immigrants comes from an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a think tank that advocates for reduced immigration levels. CIS examined data from the US Census Bureaus Current Population Survey (CPS) and estimated that the undocumented population declined from 15.8 million in January this year to 14.2 million by July. The organisation stressed that the decline appeared statistically significant, but it also cautioned against over-interpreting the results. In its report, CIS acknowledged that stepped-up enforcement may have made undocumented immigrants less likely to respond to government surveys, which could artificially inflate the perceived decline. As CIS noted, If this is the case, then our estimate of illegal immigrants based on the survey may be overstating the decline in their actual numbers. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD But Julys data remains preliminary, with some administrative records not yet available. CIS also highlighted a broader trend: the total foreign-born population legal and undocumented fell by 2.2 million in the first half of 2025. This included an estimated 600,000 non-citizens with legal status, suggesting that broader immigration patterns, not just enforcement, may be driving the decline. But what Pew Research data says Pew Research Center, which maintains one of the most widely cited estimates of undocumented immigration, has presented a more cautious interpretation of the data. Pews analysis found that the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States reached 14 million in 2023, the highest level ever recorded, up from 11.8 million the previous year. The surge was largely attributed to Biden-era policies, which expanded asylum access and introduced temporary protections for certain groups, including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Biden also implemented the CBP One App appointment system, which the Trump administration has since dismantled. Law enforcement officers, including HSI and ICE agents, take people into custody at an immigration court in Phoenix, Arizona, US, May 21, 2025. File Image/Reuters Although Pew acknowledged that the undocumented population has declined under Trump, it pointed out that the figure is still likely above 14 million. This contrasts sharply with the administrations narrative of a 1.6 million reduction. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Pew also noted that the total immigrant population legal and illegal combined reached an all-time high of 53 million in January, representing 15.8 per cent of the US population. The fact that this number has since fallen marks the first decline in the total immigrant population since the 1960s. What Trump has claimed so far The size of the undocumented population has long been contested, with different organisations producing widely varying figures. Trump himself has repeatedly cited much higher numbers than those reported by independent researchers. In a March address to US Congress, he claimed that 21 million migrants had entered the country during the previous four years. That estimate far exceeds Pews count and even surpasses figures from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which put the number at 18.6 million in March. CISs July estimate of 14.2 million undocumented immigrants is significantly higher than figures from DHSs own Office of Homeland Security Statistics, which estimated 11 million undocumented individuals in 2022. Meanwhile, the Center for Migration Studies reported 12.2 million in 2022, its highest number since 2008. How changing demographics have affected immigration While earlier decades saw Mexican nationals as the dominant group among undocumented immigrants, recent trends show that other countries now account for the majority of the increase. According to Pew, Mexicos undocumented population in the US grew slightly to 4.3 million in 2023. However, migrants from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and India made up a much larger share of the total. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Pew also documented rapid growth in arrivals from Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Ukraine, and Peru, with numbers from these countries more than doubling in just two years. A man skates holding a Mexican flag as smoke and flames rise from burning vehicles during a protest against federal immigration sweeps, near Los Angeles City Hall in downtown Los Angeles, California, US, June 8, 2025. File Image/Reuters In terms of geography within the United States, California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois continue to house the largest numbers of undocumented immigrants. Texas, in particular, has narrowed its gap with California in recent years. Interestingly, six states Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon had smaller undocumented populations in 2023 compared with the previous peak in 2007. How this has impacted the US labour market Pew estimated that in 2023, a record 9.7 million undocumented immigrants were part of the US labour force, accounting for about 5.6 per cent of all workers. States such as Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas had the highest proportions of undocumented workers relative to their labour force. Recent data analysed by CIS indicates that industries heavily reliant on unauthorised workers including construction, hospitality, and food services have seen sharper employment declines than the economy as a whole. This suggests that the reported reduction in the undocumented population may already be affecting labour supply in certain sectors. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Supporters of Trumps immigration policies argue that fewer undocumented workers relieve pressure on wages and improve job prospects for American citizens. Critics, however, caution that the sudden withdrawal of large numbers of workers could disrupt industries dependent on immigrant labour and drive up costs for consumers. Meanwhile, the administration continues to credit its enforcement strategy for the reported reduction. Noem, speaking to Fox News, recounted Trumps directive: He said, Kristi, if youre gonna be my Homeland Security secretary, were gonna follow the law, youre gonna do commercials, youre gonna tell the world that no longer will we tolerate people being in our country illegally and that they need to go home. Also Watch: With inputs from agencies Dubai is emerging as one of the worlds biggest magnets for the ultra-wealthy. According to advisory firm Henley & Partners, the UAE capital city is already home to 81,200 millionaires and 20 billionaires, making it one of the top 20 cities globally for wealthy residents. But why do the global elite prefer Dubai so much? According to Henley & Partners, Dubai is already home to 81,200 millionaires and 20 billionaires, making it one of the top 20 cities globally for wealthy residents. File image/Reuters Dubai is emerging as one of the worlds biggest magnets for the ultra-wealthy. Once seen mainly as a holiday stop for shopping and luxury experiences, the city is now turning into a place where the rich are choosing to settle down and build their lives. Its not hard to see why. Theres no income tax, the politics are stable, crime is almost non-existent, and starting or running a business is pretty straightforward. On top of that, luxury here is just part of everyday life. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The numbers tell the story. According to advisory firm Henley & Partners, the UAE is set to attract about 9,800 millionaires this year alone, more than anywhere else in the world. So, whats behind this shift? How did Dubai become a haven for the global elite? Lets break it down. Record numbers of millionaires choosing Dubai According to Henley & Partners_,_ Dubai is already home to 81,200 millionaires and 20 billionaires, making it one of the top 20 cities globally for wealthy residents. But the numbers are still climbing at a pace the world hasnt seen before. Globally, 2024 saw a record-breaking 1,34,000 millionaires relocate across borders, according to Henley & Partners. That figure is expected to rise to 142,000 in 2025. If even 5 per cent of these individuals pick Dubai, thats roughly 7,100 new millionaires in a single year. Analysts estimate that this flow of wealth could inject more than $7.1 billion (Dh 26 billion) into Dubais economy, nearly half of the emirates total foreign direct investment in 2024. File image/Reuters And its not just about people moving, its about the money they bring. Analysts estimate that this flow of wealth could inject more than $7.1 billion (Dh 26 billion) into Dubais economy, nearly half of the emirates total foreign direct investment in 2024, reports the Gulf Business. Dubai has matured into the worlds most compelling plug-and-play city for wealth, Louis Harding, CEO at Betterhomes, told the outlet_._ Whats changed is intent; founders, operators and multi-generational families are anchoring here, not passing through. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Why the wealthy are choosing Dubai At the heart of this migration is Dubais zero income tax policy, a rarity in todays world where many governments are tightening rules around wealth. Mike Coady, head of Skybound Wealth Management, told AFP many of his clients feel success has become a liability in their home countries. He explained: Theyre being taxed more, scrutinised more, and offered less. In Dubai, wealth isnt hidden, its normalised. In London, my clients whisper about their net worth. In Dubai, they can live freely. The golden visa scheme has also been a game-changer. Offering 10-year residency to wealthy or skilled foreigners, it allows entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals to establish long-term roots in the city. For many, its the stability they cant find elsewhere. Business also flows smoothly in Dubai. Very little red tape is another big draw, said Philippe Amarante of Henley & Partners, noting the emirates clear message: We are open for business. Globally, 2024 saw a record-breaking 1,34,000 millionaires relocate across borders, according to Henley & Partners. That figure is expected to rise to 142,000 in 2025. FIle image/ reuters Then theres real estate. Dubais luxury property market is booming, with 435 homes worth $10 million or more sold in 2024, outpacing London and New York combined. And compared to European hubs like Monaco or Switzerland, Dubai still feels affordable. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As Faisal Durrani of Knight Frank put it: Buyers from Monaco or Switzerland come looking for a $100 million apartment. In Dubai, for that price, you could buy a whole building. A lifestyle hard to match For many millionaires, the draw goes beyond money. Dubai offers a lifestyle thats difficult to replicate elsewhere top-tier schools, world-class healthcare, modern infrastructure, and a sense of safety thats increasingly rare in global cities. Max Maxwell, CEO of Paddco Real Estate, who moved from the US, described it this way on the Building Wealth With No Borders podcast: Were all chasing a lifestyle, whatever that means to everybody. After leaving the US for the UAE, I found my family could enjoy a better lifestyle than where we were, for the same amount of money. The flip side of Dubai Over the years, Dubai has become synonymous with over-the-top displays of wealth. It is home to an enormous mall with an indoor ski area, the worlds tallest building, and the Palm an artificial island dotted with five-star hotels. The rapid development into a world-leading playground for the rich has been met with criticism over gross inequalities, as armies of low-paid migrant workers form the backbone of the economy. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The UAE has also faced global scrutiny over money laundering and, in 2022, was briefly placed on a financial grey list. Since then, authorities have tightened regulations and extradited wanted figures to restore confidence. Still, for the wealthy, those concerns havent been enough to slow the migration. As Mike Coady put it, The UAE fits like a glove. Just 27 kilometres away from its border with China, North Korea has a secret missile base in Singpung. This facility, which is larger than New Yorks John F Kennedy International Airport, is rumoured to house six to nine of the countrys most advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles. These projectiles have a range of as far as 13,000 km, posing a nuclear threat to the United States and East Asia A North Korean soldier stands guard at his guard post inside North Korean territory. Satellite imagery reveals that Pyongyang is operating a huge missile base known as Sinpung-dong and it is believed to house ICBMs. File image/Reuters America is facing a huge security threat. And it comes from North Korea, led by Kim Jong-un. New research reveals that North Korea has a covert military base near the Chinese border that poses a potential nuclear threat to the US mainland. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC-based think tank, has identified the base to be located in Sinpung, North Pyongan province, located 27 km from the border with China. What makes it a threat to the US is that it contain six to nine of North Koreas advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles, along with their mobile launchers and thousands of soldiers. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Base bigger than JFK airport The Sinpung-dong missile base, which is hidden away from the public in a narrow mountain valley, is one of as many as 20 covert bases that make up North Koreas clandestine missile belt. According to the CSIS, it was constructed in the early 2000s and became active around 2014. It is believed to have been built using specialised engineering troops from the Korean Peoples Army (KPA) military construction bureau. In fact, this group has been responsible for all North Koreas 15-20 undeclared ballistic missile bases, maintenance, support, missile storage, and warhead storage facilities. Built across 22 kilometres, approximately 5,436 acres, the Sinpung-dong missile base is bigger than New Yorks John F Kennedy International Airport. The base includes underground shelters, support structures, and zones designed for mobile missile launchers. Unlike conventional missile sites, the installation lacks permanent launch pads and large defensive fortifications, emphasising North Koreas focus on mobility and concealment. The CSIS noted that the entrance to the Sinpung-dong missile base is surrounded by heavy vegetation and forestry, which helps in avoiding detection. They also added that the launchers and missiles could leave the base in times of crisis or war, link up with special units and conduct harder-to-detect launches from other parts of the country. Jennifer Jun, a co-author of the CSIS report said that Pyongyang has taken great pains to conceal the site. Sinpung-dong has been the most challenging to find thus far, she said. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects field troops. Analysts believe that construction is still ongoing at the Sinpung-dong missile base with the aim of boosting the facilities there. File image/Reuters Also, as per the satellite imagery, the Sinpung-dong missile base houses six to nine nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and their launchers. These missiles pose a potential nuclear threat to East Asia and the continental United States, the report said. If not the ICBMs, the base is believed to be equipped with the nuclear capable Hwasong-15. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD CSIS analysts also note that construction is still ongoing at the site with the aim of boosting the facilities there. Whats even more notable about the base is that the hardened nature of the base and its location close to the border with China makes it difficult for a pre-emptive strike. By building bases so close to China, North Korea may also seek to leverage the political risk and uncertainty of Beijings response in order to deter an attack, Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, was quoted as telling CNN. North Koreas growing weapons arsenal The covert military base ties in with North Koreas escalating nuclear threat. Since denuclearisation talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un broke down in 2019, North Korea has been steadily advancing its weapons programmes in defiance of international sanctions. In fact, last September, the North Korea leader promised to exponentially boost the nations nuclear arsenal in a bid to defend the country against hostile forces. In a speech marking the 76th founding anniversary of his government, Kim Jong-un said that the country would redouble its measures and efforts to make all the armed forces of the state, including the nuclear force, fully ready for combat. Missiles being launched in North Korea. North Korea has been steadily advancing its weapons programmes in defiance of international sanctions. File image/Reuters As of January 2024, Pyongyang has assembled 50 nuclear warheads as well as has the fissile material for an estimated 70-90 nuclear weapons, as well as advanced chemical and biological weapons programmes. Under its weapons umbrella lies hypersonic missiles, which can fly at several times the speed of sound and at low altitude to escape radar detection, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles that are solid fueled, advancing a technology that makes missiles easier to transport and faster to launch. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In recent times, North Korea has also strengthened security ties with Russia, including sending arms and troops to fight in its war against Ukraine in exchange for support that includes technological assistance with its weapons programmes. A view of a missile launcher as North Korea conducts what it says is a drill to launch a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile at an unknown location. File image/Reuters The reach of North Koreas missiles North Koreas missiles put much of its neighbours and now even the US at risk. With the Hwasong-15, having a range of approximately 13,000 km, it puts all of the continental US into range. Pyongyang also possesses the ER Scud missiles. It can hit targets up to 1,000 kilometres away. That puts all of South Korea within range, as well as Osaka, Japans second-largest city. It is also reported that North Koreas intermediate-range ballistic missiles have a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres. This puts the US military bases on the island of Guam firmly into range, as well as much of South-East Asia. With inputs from agencies Saudi Arabia has launched the Nusuk Umrah platform, a digital service which allows international pilgrims to apply for Umrah visas and book travel services online. Launched as part of the Kingdoms Vision 2030, the initiative is designed to simplify the pilgrimage process and make it easier for more Muslims to visit Through Nusuk Umrah service, pilgrims outside the Kingdom can directly apply for Umrah visas and book their pilgrimage services online, without relying on middlemen. File image/AFP Umrah has always held deep spiritual importance for Muslims around the world. But planning the journey has often been a long and complicated process. To change that, the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has introduced a new service called Nusuk Umrah. This digital platform allows pilgrims to apply for visas, book flights, accommodation, and other services, all from a single place. The initiative also ties into Saudi Arabias Vision 2030, which aims to make religious travel smoother, more accessible, and more efficient for everyone. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Heres a closer look at what Nusuk Umrah offers and how it connects to the countrys pilgrimage plans All about Nusuk Umrah According to the ministry, Nusuk Umrah is designed to make the pilgrimage journey easier and more accessible for Muslims around the world. Through this service, pilgrims outside the Kingdom can directly apply for Umrah visas and book their pilgrimage services online, without relying on middlemen. The platform provides a wide range of options. Pilgrims can either choose ready-made integrated packages or customise their own by selecting individual services such as visas, accommodation, transportation, cultural tours, and support services. The idea is to give people flexibility while improving service quality and enriching their overall experience, the Saudi Press Agency reported. The launch of Nusuk Umrah also ties into Saudi Arabias broader Vision 2030 goals, which aim to welcome more Muslims to Saudi Arabia. File image/AFP Nusuk Umrah can be accessed via its official website, umrah.nusuk.sa, or through mobile apps available on iOS, Android, and Huawei platforms. The interface is modern, multilingual, currently supporting seven languages, and integrated with government systems to ensure a smooth, digital-first process. From application to visa issuance, the platform covers all stages of the journey. It also provides multiple payment options, making the entire process more convenient for users. While it introduces a new digital channel, Nusuk Umrah does not aim to replace existing accredited agents; rather, it offers pilgrims more choice in how they plan their trip. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The launch also ties into Saudi Arabias broader Vision 2030 goals, which aim to welcome more Muslims to the Kingdom while strengthening its position as a global religious and cultural hub. Unlike Hajj, Umrah is a non-mandatory journey to Makkah that can be performed at any time of the year. One can book through Nusruk Umrah to book their pilgrimage. File image/AFP As per the Saudi Press Agency, by embracing digital solutions, the country also hopes to diversify its economy beyond oil and create a more sustainable future. Earlier this year, the Kingdom announced that Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) citizens and residents could perform Umrah all year round. This allowed people from the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar to enter Saudi Arabia anytime for Umrah, provided they applied for permits through the official Nusuk application. Hajj & Umrah pilgrimage Saudi Arabia, home to Makkah and Madinah, two of the holiest sites in Islam, welcomes millions of worshippers each year. Among the pilgrimages, Umrah is a non-mandatory journey to Makkah that can be performed at any time of the year. Unlike Hajj, which takes place only during specific days in the Islamic calendar, Umrah is shorter and less complex, yet holds immense spiritual value for Muslims across the world. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD According to data from Saudi Arabias General Authority for Statistics, more than 15 million pilgrims performed Umrah in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Of these, 6.5 million arrived from abroad, while 8.7 million were domestic pilgrims. In the same year, the Kingdom also hosted over 1.6 million pilgrims from 180 countries for the annual Hajj. With input from agencies The Supreme Court has revised its August 11 order on the permanent relocation of stray dogs in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) to animal shelters. In a big win for canine lovers, the apex court on Friday (August 22) allowed the release of strays after being sterilised, dewormed and vaccinated. Heres how the directions compare to the previous decision The Supreme Court has allowed the release of street dogs from shelters after vaccination. AFP In a significant win for animal lovers, the Supreme Court has revised its August 11 order on the relocation of stray dogs in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) to shelters. On Friday (August 22), the top court said that the stray canines can be released from dog shelters after being dewormed and vaccinated. The modified order came after its previous directions drew outrage from animal lovers, with the matter gaining national attention. The next hearing in the case has been set after eight weeks. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Lets take a look. Supreme Court modifies stray dogs order In an interim order on Friday, the top court allowed the release of stray dogs to the localities where they were picked up from after sterilisation, deworming, and vaccination. Prohibition on release of strays shall be stayed. They shall be dewormed, vaccinated, etc and sent back to the same area, the court said, as per Bar and Bench. A three-judge Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria clarified that the updated order will not apply to dogs infected or suspected to be infected with rabies, and exhibiting aggressive behaviour. The court said that such dogs should be sterilised and immunised, but not released into public spaces from dog shelters. Furthermore, as far as possible, such stray dogs shall be kept in a separate pound shelter after sterilisation and immunisation, the bench said. The apex court also prohibited public feeding of stray dogs, directing municipal authorities to create dedicated feeding spaces for these canines in each municipal ward. No public feeding of dogs allowed. Dedicated feeding spaces of stray dogs to be created. There have been instances due to such feeding instances, the bench said in its order. Notice boards shall be placed near such designated feeding areas mentioning that stray dogs shall only be fed in such areas, it added. The court warned that any person found feeding dogs on the streets shall be liable to be proceeded against under the relevant legal framework. The aforesaid directions are being issued in view of the reports regarding untoward incidents caused by unregulated feeding of stray dogs, and to ensure that the practice of feeding dogs on roads and in public places is eliminated, as this creates great difficulties for the common man walking on the streets, Indian Express cited the court order. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD An activist holds a placard during a protest in Hyderabad on August 12, 2025, a day after the Supreme Court ordered the removal of stray dogs from Delhi, citing public safety concerns after a surge in dog bites. AFP The court said animal lovers can contact municipal bodies to adopt street dogs. The desirous animal lovers shall be free to move an application with the concerned municipal body for adoption of the street dogs, upon which the identified street dogs shall be tagged and given in adoption to the applicant. It shall be the duty of those adopting to ensure that the adopted dog does not return to the streets. The bench also enhanced the scope of the matter by impleading all states and union territories (UTs) as parties to the case. The matter was previously limited to Delhi-NCR. It also transferred all similar petitions pending before various High Courts to itself. The apex court said it will formulate a national policy after hearing the case in detail. It said its previous direct directions to animal rights activists against obstructing the work of municipal bodies will stand. Todays order comes after animal lovers and activists filed an appeal against the August 11 order of the apex court, which included permanent relocation of stray dogs to shelters. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD What was the August 11 order? On August 11, the Supreme Court passed its order in a suo motu case, directing the Delhi government, civic bodies and authorities of Noida, Gurgaon, and Ghaziabad to round up stray dogs and relocate them to shelters. A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan ordered the establishment of dog shelters with an initial capacity of at least 5,000 canines within eight weeks. The apex court also asked authorities to install CCTV in such centres to ensure no animals are released back onto the streets. It warned that any person or organisation that obstructs the move will face strict action. The order came amid a rise in dog bites and cases of rabies. The bench also directed creating a helpline within a week to report dog bites and capturing these canines involved in attacks within four hours of a complaint. It also told authorities to publish monthly rabies vaccination and treatment data. Any obstruction to the exercise was to be considered contempt of court. The order had sparked widespread outrage among animal lovers, with many terming it inhumane. The matter was later reassigned by Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai to a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath. The larger bench heard the matter on August 14, before reserving orders. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Reactions to SCs modified order Animal rights activist and BJP leader Maneka Gandhi, who spoke against the earlier order, has welcomed the Friday directions. Speaking to ANI, she said, I am very happy with this scientific judgement. Relocation and fear are the primary reasons dogs bite. There is no question of releasing dogs infected with Rabies. The court has not defined what an aggressive dog is. This needs to be defined. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has also hailed the apex courts modified order as a progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety. I welcome the Supreme Courts revised directions on stray dogs, as it marks a progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety. The approach is both compassionate and rooted in scientific reasoning. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 22, 2025 BJP leader Vijay Goel raised concerns about dog bites. He told CNN-News18_,_ If these hundreds of stray dogs are released again and they end up biting people, will the Supreme Court take responsibility for that? Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh also welcomed the Supreme Court verdict. This is a very good decision, and we will implement it 100 per cent. The dog lovers and the NGOs also wanted the dogs to be sterilised and left. The corporation already did the same, he said to ANI. Ferocious and aggressive dogs that have developed the habit of biting should be treated and kept. The public should not face any problem. We all love street dogs and we are all dog lovers, so this is a very good decision, Singh added. With inputs from agencies The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed agency, on Friday (August 22) said it has determined that Gaza City is in the grips of famine. The IPC said the famine is likely to spread across Gaza in the absence of a ceasefire or Israel loosening its restrictions on aid. The development comes after months of experts warning that Gaza is on the brink of starvation Palestinian people with empty bowls wait for food at a donation point in Rafah. The widespread hunger and malnutrition in Gaza is catastrophic, UN has said. (Photo: NPR) Its official. Gaza is now suffering from now a famine. This is what a UN-backed body has declared on Friday. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has determined that Gaza City is in the grips of famine. The IPC says the famine is likely to spread across Gaza in the absence of a ceasefire or Israel loosening its restrictions on aid. The development comes after months of experts warning that Gaza is on the brink of starvation. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The IPC in its 59-page report blamed the renewed Israeli offensive, more and more Palestinians being displaced over the past few weeks and a complete Israeli blockade on the territory. It warned that there should be no doubt in anyones mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. Israel has rejected the report, claiming it is false and biased and that is based on partial data originating from the Hamas Terrorist Organisation. But why has the UN-backed body declared a famine in Gaza City now? How bad is the situation? Lets take a closer look Why declare a famine in Gaza City now? First lets take a brief look at the IPC. The IPC is the worlds leading authority on food crises. It comprises experts from nearly two dozen groups including the UNs health, development, and food aid agencies; charity CARE International; the Famine Early Warning Systems Network; and the European Union and the World Bank. Now, lets look at the IPCs methodology. The IPC in its report outlined how it classified the situation in Gaza City which comprises around 20 per cent of the Gaza Strip as a famine. It said around 50 experts from nearly two dozen organisations examined and collated the data which was done by merging phone-based surveys and food consumption trends. It said it judged malnutrition via examining arm circumferences in the field. The IPC said it used public health and other contextual information was used to approximation mortality. This, it says, is its SOP when there is a surfeit of reliable data. A Palestinian girl carries buckets of water amid shortages, in Gaza City, August 6, 2025. Reuters It said it also measured contributing factors such the war, how many people were displaced, whether or not people could get to markets, the cost of goods, availability of water and sanitation and whether health and nutrition help was available. The IPC says it only surveyed three of Gazas governorates leaving out the depopulated Rafah and North Gaza due to the lack of data. The IPC says it uses three levels to determine the reliability of evidence. It placed the data available in the report as a level 2 a medium level. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Now, look at how the IPC classifies food insecurity. The agency does so on a scale of 1 to 5 with five being the worst. It says Level 5, known as a catastrophe, is when households experience an extreme lack of food and/or cannot meet other basic needs even after full employment of coping strategies. It says starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition are evident during a catastrophe. However, even this isnt enough to declare a famine. The IPC only declares a famine with reasonable evidence if there is proof that two of three are suffering acute food insecurity, acute malnutrition and mortality. A minimum of 20 percent of households must have an extreme lack of food and face starvation and destitution, there must be acute malnutrition in at least 30 per cent of children under five and two deaths per 10,000 per day daily as a result of food insecurity. How bad is the situation? The IPC says over 500,000 people in the Gaza Strip are staring at catastrophic conditions the top level in its hierarchy of food insecurity. The IPC says that in the larger Gaza Governorate around 30 per cent of the population is facing catastrophic conditions. Meanwhile, with 50 per cent are staring at an emergency which is one level under catastrophic conditions. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The IPC said the situation in North Gaza governorate is believed to be as severe or worse than in Gaza Governorate. However, it cannot reach a firm conclusion due to the absence of reliable data. The IPC has said Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis governorates will also be the in the grips of famine by September end. The IPC estimates that that 25 and 20 percent of the population in those areas are at a level 5 catastrophe. The IPC has not considered Rafah Gazas southernmost governorate because it has been largely rendered empty as a result of Israels military operations. The 500,000 number, which is based on information gathered between July 1 and August 15, is expected to increase to nearly 641,000 people nearly a third of the population by the end of September. In early March, Israel completely banned aid supplies from Gaza, before allowing very limited quantities to enter at the end of May, leading to severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD When is a famine declared? Famine can appear in pockets sometimes small ones and a formal classification requires caution. Last year, experts said a famine was ongoing in parts of North Darfur in Sudan. Somalia, in 2011, and South Sudan, in 2017, also saw famines in which tens of thousands of people were affected. Gaza poses a particular complication for experts since access is severely limited, making gathering data difficult if not impossible in some cases. Even more confusingly, theres no final authority on who gets to declare a famine. The IPC says it is the primary mechanism used by the international community to analyse data and conclude whether a famine is happening or projected. However, it doesnt usually make such a statement itself. UN officials or governments usually do so by relying on IPC data. Theres a widespread misunderstanding that someone has to declare a famine before it is a famine. That is not the case, said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. When IPC shows the data that hits the threshold for a famine, then its a famine. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Failure of humanity UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called the development a failure of humanity. Just when it seems there are no words left to describe the living hell in Gaza, a new one has been added: famine, Guterres said. He added that it is not a mystery, but rather a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself. Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival, Guterres added. UN Secretary-General Antonio has called the development a failure of humanity. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory because of systematic obstruction by Israel. Speaking in Geneva, Fletcher said the famine should haunt us all. It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel, he told reporters. The IPC noted the local food system has also collapsed, with an estimated 98 per cent of cropland in the Gaza Strip either damaged, inaccessible or both, livestock decimated and fishing banned. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD To add to this, the health system has severely deteriorated, while access to safe drinking water and adequate hygiene has been drastically reduced. But Israels Foreign Ministry immediately hit back, saying there is no famine in Gaza. Hamass October 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians. Israels offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. Both from agencies AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are now everyday tools, but psychiatrists warn of a disturbing trend dubbed AI psychosis. A small group of users report delusions, emotional dependence or losing touch with reality after long conversations with chatbots The term AI psychosis describes incidents where individuals become increasingly dependent on AI chatbots and convince themselves that fictional scenarios have become real. Representational Image Artificial intelligence chatbots have quickly become embedded in everyday life. Millions of people across the globe now interact with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot on a weekly basis. For many, these systems provide convenience: drafting emails, assisting with coding, brainstorming creative ideas, or offering quick information. However, people are also using chatbots as sounding boards for emotions, as companions for late-night conversations, or even as substitutes for friendship and intimacy. This development has sparked unease among mental health professionals. While most individuals can use chatbots without problems, an emerging pattern suggests that a small group of people are experiencing troubling mental health consequences linked to prolonged use. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Psychiatrists and researchers are beginning to investigate cases where intensive interaction with AI systems appears to coincide with delusional thinking or distorted beliefs a phenomenon that has been colloquially labelled AI psychosis or ChatGPT psychosis. The term is not a recognised medical diagnosis, but it is being used as shorthand for situations where individuals lose their ability to distinguish reality from the simulations generated by chatbots. What is AI psychosis? Accounts of individuals reporting altered thinking after extensive chatbot use have been widely shared online and in the media. On platforms like Reddit and TikTok, users have posted personal experiences of developing unusually intense relationships with AI systems, sometimes describing them as sentient or conscious. Some claimed these conversations led them to believe they had unlocked hidden scientific, philosophical or spiritual truths. In certain instances, the consequences went beyond online discussions. Families and friends have described loved ones descending into delusional beliefs after spending hours talking to chatbots. Reports have linked such episodes to lost employment, strained personal relationships, psychiatric hospitalisation, and even encounters with law enforcement. Legal cases have also emerged. Some lawsuits alleged that teenagers became so enmeshed in relationships with AI chatbots that they were encouraged toward self-harm or, in extreme cases, suicide. Why are experts saying? Psychosis itself refers to a set of symptoms often seen in conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It can involve hallucinations, disorganised thoughts, and delusions firmly held false beliefs that do not align with reality. In the context of AI, experts point out that most cases being reported involve delusional thinking rather than the full spectrum of psychotic symptoms. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Were talking about predominantly delusions, not the full gamut of psychosis, Dr. James MacCabe, professor in the department of psychosis studies at Kings College London, told TIME. His comments showcase the nuanced nature of these cases: while they resemble psychosis in some aspects, they may not fit neatly into existing diagnostic categories. Ashleigh Golden, adjunct clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the Stanford School of Medicine, noted that the label AI psychosis is not in any clinical diagnostic manual. Speaking to the Washington Post, she acknowledged it was coined in response to a pretty concerning emerging pattern of chatbots reinforcing delusions that tend to be messianic, grandiose, religious or romantic. For psychiatrist Jon Kole, who also serves as medical director for the meditation app Headspace, the key issue is the blurring of reality. Speaking to the Washington Post, he described how affected individuals show difficulty determining what is real or not. That confusion can involve believing false scenarios presented by the chatbot, or assuming an intense personal relationship exists with an AI persona when it does not. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD What leads to humans getting influenced by chatbots? One reason chatbots can reinforce delusional thinking lies in how they are designed. Large language models (LLMs), which underpin systems like ChatGPT, are engineered to generate convincing human-like responses. They reflect the language and style of the user, often affirming or validating assumptions. While this makes interactions smoother and more pleasant for general use, it also creates risks for vulnerable individuals. Hamilton Morrin, a neuropsychiatrist at Kings College London, advises users to keep perspective, telling TIME, It sounds silly, but remember that LLMs are tools, not friends, no matter how good they may be at mimicking your tone and remembering your preferences. His warning reflects a broader concern that users may anthropomorphise chatbots, mistakenly attributing emotions, consciousness, or agency to them. Reinforcement of distorted beliefs is a particular risk. In psychiatry, this type of feedback loop where false ideas are echoed or validated can deepen delusions. Chatbots tendency to mirror users perspectives can thus unintentionally exacerbate mental health vulnerabilities. The problem is compounded by how AI companies promote their technology. Executives have frequently described chatbots as increasingly intelligent, even hinting at future capabilities surpassing human cognition. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Such framing, experts caution, encourages users to overestimate the systems awareness and agency, reinforcing the idea that they are interacting with something more than a programmed tool. What are the real-world harms of AI psychosis? Users who develop distorted beliefs tied to AI have reported losing employment, damaging family connections, and experiencing forced psychiatric interventions. In some reported cases, these episodes escalated to violence against family members, self-harm or suicide. Dr. Nina Vasan, a Stanford psychiatrist specialising in digital mental health, observed that when people attempt to disengage from emotionally intense chatbot use, ending that bond can be surprisingly painful, like a breakup or even a bereavement. Speaking to TIME, she highlighted that stopping usage is often crucial for improvement. Many people show significant recovery after stepping away from AI conversations and reconnecting with human relationships. Warning signs of problematic chatbot use may not be obvious to the individual involved. When people develop delusions, they dont realize theyre delusions. They think its reality, explained MacCabe. This means that family and friends often play an essential role in identifying early symptoms. Dr. Ragy Girgis, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, speaking to TIME, advised loved ones to look for behavioural changes such as altered mood, sleep disruptions, withdrawal from social life, and increased obsessiveness with fringe ideologies or excessive time spent using any AI system. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD These red flags may indicate that a persons interactions with AI are becoming harmful. Who is most at risk? Although reports of AI-linked psychosis are increasing, psychiatrists caution that most people are not at significant risk. Instead, the problem appears concentrated among individuals with certain vulnerabilities. Those with a personal or family history of psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are considered most at risk. Some media accounts highlight people experiencing AI-related delusions without a prior mental health diagnosis. Clinicians, however, note that undiagnosed or latent risk factors may have been present. Psychosis can sometimes remain hidden until triggered by stressors, and extended AI use may act as one such catalyst. Speaking to TIME, Dr. Thomas Pollak, a psychiatrist at Kings College London, argued that clinicians should routinely ask patients with histories of psychosis about their AI usage as part of relapse prevention. But he also acknowledged that this practice is rare, partly because some people in the field still dismiss the idea of AI psychosis as scaremongering. What is the scale of the issue? The scale of AI psychosis remains difficult to measure. There is currently no clinical category for it, and systematic data collection is lacking. However, anecdotal reports are multiplying, and mental health experts say these incidents deserve serious attention. AI developers themselves have released some early findings on chatbot usage. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, reported in June that only around 3 per cent of its chatbot conversations were emotional or therapeutic in nature. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD OpenAI, working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted a study showing that even among heavy ChatGPT users, only a small proportion of interactions were affective or emotionally oriented. Yet the sheer scale of chatbot adoption makes even a small percentage concerning. OpenAIs CEO Sam Altman said in August that ChatGPT had reached 700 million weekly users less than three years after its launch. With hundreds of millions engaging weekly, even a tiny fraction experiencing harmful effects could translate to thousands of serious cases worldwide. How to stay safe with AI chatbots? Mental health specialists point out that chatbots are not inherently harmful, but caution is necessary for certain groups of people. Users should approach them as tools for specific tasks, not as replacements for social connections or therapy. During moments of emotional distress, psychiatrists recommend avoiding reliance on AI and instead seeking human support. Disengaging from AI conversations, while difficult, often leads to rapid improvement. Re-establishing real-world relationships, combined with professional psychiatric care when necessary, is key to recovery. For family and friends, vigilance is important. Behavioural changes such as obsession with chatbot interactions, withdrawal from daily activities, or fixation on unusual ideologies may indicate a deeper problem. Early recognition and intervention can prevent situations from escalating. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Psychiatrists and researchers admit that much remains unknown about AIs impact on mental health. Whether described as AI psychosis, ChatGPT psychosis, or another term, the number of reports are only growing. With inputs from agencies There is one more threat - that of infiltrators that our nation faces, which I also spoke about in my Independence Day speech. They cannot be allowed to partake of resources of our country. I have, therefore, called for a demography mission, said PM Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday vowed to expel illegal immigrants from the country, calling them a growing threat to Indias security and stability. Addressing a public rally in Bihars Gaya, PM Modi accused opposition parties, particularly the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadavs Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), of appeasing infiltrators for political gain. #WATCH | PM Narendra Modi says, "... The increasing population of illegal immigrants in the country is a matter of concern. In the bordering areas of Bihar, demography is rapidly changing. The NDA government has decided not to let illegal immigrants decide the future of our pic.twitter.com/XgHGCQUKm9 ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD There is one more threat - that of infiltrators (ghuspaithiye) that our nation faces, which I also spoke about in my Independence Day speech. They cannot be allowed to partake of resources of our country. I have, therefore, called for a demography mission. But the Congress and the RJD want to protect these infiltrators for the sake of their politics of vote bank, PTI quoted PM Modi as saying. The reference was to the Election Commissions Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which includes among its stated objectives the removal of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar from the electoral rolls. The EC, which has initiated the exercise in Bihar ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections, has clarified that the SIR will eventually be conducted nationwide. However, the opposition INDIA bloc has alleged that the timing and focus of the revision in Bihar are politically motivated, accusing the BJP-led NDA of using the process to selectively delete voters and influence the poll outcome. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In response, key INDIA bloc leaders including Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav, the alliances main face in Bihar have launched a statewide Voter Adhikar Yatra to protest what they call an attack on democratic rights. In his Independence Day address, PM Modi had emphasised the need to protect Indias demographic integrity, warning of the risks posed by illegal immigration. The imminent dangers of demographic imbalance due to infiltration and illegal migration in border areas are high, thereby affecting citizens livelihoods, he had said. PM Modi also defended the Centres new bills for the removal of the prime minister, chief ministers and ministers arrested on serious criminal charges for 30 days. If a government employee is imprisoned for 50 hours, then he loses his job automatically, be it a driver, a clerk or a peon. But a CM, a Minister, or even a PM can enjoy staying in the government even from jail Some time ago, we saw how files were being signed from jail and how government orders were given from jail. If leaders have such an attitude, how can we fight corruption The NDA government has brought a law against corruption, and the Prime Minister also comes under its purview," he said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Meanwhile, the Prime Minister also charged the Congress with having been insensitive towards Bihar, alleging one of its chief ministers had famously told a public rally that he would not allow immigrants from the state to set foot on the soil of his state. And the RJD, their alliance partner, seemed to be in deep slumber, unable to protest against such an insult, said PM, of the party which is the BJPs principal rival in Bihar. With inputs from agencies The future of India-US relations hangs in the balance with Nikki Haley warning that failing to mend ties would amount to a strategic disaster The India-US relationship, viewed not along ago as one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century, is now at a troubling crossroads. For decades, Washington and New Delhi have painstakingly built ties rooted in shared democratic values, common security concerns and converging economic interests. Yet, recent trade tensions and disagreements over energy policies have strained the partnership. Former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in a sharp opinion piece for Newsweek, issued a stark warning: Scuttling 25 years of momentum with New Delhi would be a strategic disaster. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD She called on President Donald Trump to treat India not as a rival, but as a prized free and democratic partner essential to countering China. The message was clearif Washington allows this relationship to unravel, the consequences for Americas long-term strategy in Asia will be dire. Weight of history and risk of rupture Haleys concerns echo a historical pattern of delicate engagement. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan toasted then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, affirming that while both nations might travel separate paths from time to time, our destination remains the same. The statement symbolised the resilience of ties despite moments of divergence. Four decades later, however, the relationship faces a serious test. The Trump administration has announced a 25 per cent tariff on imports from India for continuing to buy Russian oilon top of tariffs already placed on Indian goods. These steps follow months of disputes over trade barriers and US involvement in sensitive India-Pakistan negotiations. Haley acknowledged Trumps frustration with Indias Russian oil purchases, noting that they indirectly finance Vladimir Putins war in Ukraine. She also recognised Indias entrenched protectionism. But she drew a sharp contrast between India and China. China, she noted, remains Russias largest oil customers yet has escaped similar US sanctions. For Washington to punish democratic India while sparing authoritarian China, she argued, was not only inconsistent but strategically reckless. India as a counterweight to China The heart of Haleys argument rests on geopolitics. India, she wrote, is the only country that can serve as a counterweight to Chinese dominance in Asia. This assertion highlights why the current turbulence is so dangerous. Allowing trade disputes to escalate into a prolonged rupture risks undermining decades of progress in forging an Asian balance of power favourable to the United States. From Americas perspective, Indias role as a counterbalance to China is not hypothetical. They see the two Asian giants locked in territorial disputes, the deadly Galvan clash of 2020 serves as a reminder of that. Their economic interests are increasingly at odds, with New Delhi wary of Beijings Belt and Road Initiative and its encirclement strategy across South Asia. A strong India-US partnership therefore directly serves Washingtons core objective of containing Chinese ambitions. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Supply chain factor Haley also highlighted Indias vital role in global supply chain realignment. As the United States seeks to de-risk from China and bring critical manufacturing back home, not everything can be reshored to American soil. India, with its vast workforce and cost advantages, stands as the only viable alternative for large-scale production of goods like textiles, smartphones and solar panels. This is not just about economicsit is about resilience. By deepening trade and investment ties with India, the US can reduce its dependence on Chinese production, insulating itself from Beijings leverage over vital supply chains. Squandering this opportunity through tariff wars would weaken Americas position at the very moment when strategic diversification is most urgent. Indias long-term importance Haley framed Indias rise as one of the most significant geopolitical developments of the century. With more than 1.4 billion people, a young and dynamic workforce and the fastest-growing major economy, India is set to surpass Japan as the worlds fourth-largest economy in the coming years. Unlike China, whose growth is shadowed by authoritarian control and demographic decline, Indias democratic trajectory poses no threat to the free world. The symbolism here matters. For Washington, partnering with a rising democracy bolsters the global narrative of freedom and open societies at a time when authoritarian powers seek to reshape the world order. Turning an ally like India, several experts are saying, is bound to weaken the USs influence in Asia, besides eroding the very values America claims to defend. Beyond economics, Indias expanding military cooperation with the US represents a crucial strategic asset. New Delhi has become a significant buyer of US defence equipment, while joint exercises and intelligence sharing have deepened. Indias role in the Indo-Pacific and its growing presence in West Asia further complement American security goals. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Haley stressed that Indias geography adds another layer of importance. Positioned along key maritime trade routes and at the centre of Chinas energy flows, India has the potential to complicate Beijings strategic calculus in the event of a major conflict. To weaken ties with such a partner would be to hand China a strategic gift. Path to reversal Despite the current turbulence, Haley argued that it is not too late to reverse the downward spiral. What is needed, she wrote, is direct engagement between President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Only high-level dialogue, backed by sustained attention and resources, can repair trust and restore momentum. The US, Haley suggested, must elevate its approach to India to the level it devotes to China or Israel. Trade disagreements and energy disputes should be managed through hard dialogue, not punitive escalation. After all, difficult conversations are often signs of deepening partnerships, not failed ones. Shared goals, shared future At its core, Haleys message is both a warning and an opportunity. On one hand, failing to stabilise India-US ties risks a strategic disaster, one that would embolden China and undercut Americas global standing. On the other, recommitting to India offers a pathway to stronger supply chains, balanced security in Asia and a durable democratic alliance. At a rally in Bihars Gaya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Operation Sindoor drew a new red line in Indias defence strategy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Adampur airbase on May 13, a day after he made a speech to the nation on Operation Sindoor. Image courtesy: X Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that India drew a new red line with Operation Sindoor for national security. India launched Operation Sindoor on the intervening night of May 6 and 7 and hit terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) in response to the Pahalgam attack the previous month. After Pakistan responded with attacks on Indian cities and military installations, India attacked Pakistani military sites and destroyed a host of runways, air defence systems, and other military targets. India accepted Pakistans request for a ceasefire on May 10. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Speaking at a rally in Bihars Gaya, Modi said, Operation Sindoor drew a new redline in Indias defence policy. Now, no one will survive if they would send terrorists into India. Even if terrorists would hid in the netherworld, Indians missiles will find them and bury them. Modi reminded the attendees that he had vowed from the land of Bihar to avenge the victims of the Pahalgam attack. Just two days after the Pahalgam attack, Modi on April 22 had vowed to avenge the victims in rare remarks in English at a rally in Bihar. From the soil of Bihar, I say this to the whole world: India will identify, track, and punish every terrorist, their handlers, and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth. Indias spirit will never be broken by terrorism, said Modi at the time. Speaking in Gaya on Friday, Modi on Friday said, Every resolve made on this pious land is the strength of the country and doesnt go in vain. When the Pahalgam terror attack happened, I had vowed to reduce the terrorists to dust from this land. The world has seen that resolve getting fulfilled. After launching Operation Sindoor, India announced that all future terrorist attacks would be treated as an act of war and would be responded appropriately. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan from August 29 to 30 at the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to participate in the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan from August 29 to 30 at the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to participate in the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit. This will be PM Modis eighth visit to Japan and his first summit with PM Ishiba. During the visit, the two Prime Ministers will review the Special Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan, covering key areas such as defense and security, trade and economy, technology and innovation, and people-to-people exchanges, Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on Friday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD They will also discuss pressing regional and global issues. The visit is expected to strengthen the enduring friendship and close ties between the two countries. Following the Japan visit, Prime Minister Modi will travel to China from August 31 to September 1, 2025, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. On the sidelines of the summit, PM Modi is expected to hold bilateral meetings with several world leaders. India has been a member of the SCO since 2017 and held the presidency of the Council of Heads of State during 2022-23. In a continuation of ongoing engagement, earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met PM Modi and handed over a message and an invitation from President Xi Jinping for the SCO Summit. Wang Yi paid an official visit to India from August 18 to 19. Mr. Wang Yi handed over a message and an invitation from President Xi to the Prime Minister for the SCO Summit being held in Tianjin. He also shared his positive assessment of the bilateral meeting with EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar and the 24th Meeting of the Special Representatives, which he co-chaired with NSA Ajit Doval during his visit, Prime Minister Office stated in a release. Prime Minister emphasised the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border, and reiterated Indias commitment to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question. Prime Minister thanked President Xi for the invitation to the SCO Summit and conveyed his acceptance. He expressed support for Chinas Presidency of the SCO Summit and said that he looked forward to meeting President Xi in Tianjin. PM underlined that stable, predictable, and constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional and global peace and prosperity, an official statement issued by PMO read. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies At the core of the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal is Armenias nod to a long-term lease to the US for the Trump Route corridor, giving Washington strategic and economic leverage in the region traditionally dominated by Moscow US President Donald Trump holds the hands of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as they shake hands between each other during a trilateral signing event, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., August 8, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque For many of us in India, the South Caucasus is an abstraction. Still, for the people of the South Caucasian nations, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, it is a lived experience. Sitting on the geographical faultline of Europe and Asia, tucked between the Caspian and the Black Seas, the region is part of a critical transport, oil and gas corridor link called the middle corridor, mostly connecting to Russia, but since 1991 has bypassed Russia on pipeline and transport connectivity links. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The region has seen an uneasy peace in the past 34 years. Three major conflicts have dotted the area since its independence. Abkhazia and South Ossetia (between Russia and Georgia) were declared independent states by Russia but are not recognised by the United Nations or major powers, and Nagorno-Karabakh (between Armenia and Azerbaijan). In a significant turn, Azerbaijan and Armenia reportedly inked a preliminary peace agreement apparently brokered by US President Donald Trump on August 8. At the signing ceremony, flanked by heads of state from two countries, Trump said, It has been a long time35 yearsthey fought, and now they claim they are friends, and they are going to be friends for a long time. It was reported that Trump met separately with the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his counterpart, the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, at the White House before charting a slew of agreements. At the core of the deal is Armenias nod to grant the United States a long-term lease for facilitating a transit corridor, named Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which is a significant development as it provides a direct route for international trade and peace through the Zanzegur region in the southern part of Armenia, linking mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhichevan exclave sandwiched between Iran, Turkey and Armenia. Post-2023 Azerbaijans decisive victory over Yerevan and eventual military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh led to the exodus of almost all 100,000 Armenians there. The proposed corridor has been a major stumbling block in sealing a peace agreement between the two. Armenia had resisted Azerbaijans demand for extraterritorial rights that would allow its nationals unimpeded access to the exclave. The US management of the corridor gives the Prime Minister Pashinyan government a political face-saving to preserve the appearance of Armenian sovereignty over the passage, while effectively conceding to Azerbaijan its primary demand of unhindered access to Nakhichevan. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Background The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region, home to predominantly ethnic Armenians, has a deep-rooted history. It began in 1987 when Armenian intellectuals demanded the regions merger with Armenia. This region was initially an autonomous region within Azerbaijans borders, and later, it was under the internationally recognised borders of Azerbaijan but under the control of Armenian rebels, recognised by Armenia as the Republic of Artsakh. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, separatists backed by Armenia seized the territory, building a buffer between the independent states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, resulting eventually in a frozen conflict, separated by two Karabakh Wars from 1988-94 and the Second Karabakh War between September 2020 and November 2020, known as the 44-day war. In this war, Azerbaijan was supported by Turkey, which provided sophisticated drones and other equipment. Israel also endorsed Azerbaijan in its war efforts, tilting the war in favour of the Azerbaijanis. Eventually, Azerbaijan regained the buffer zone during the war. The whole of Nagorno-Karabakh was reintegrated into Azerbaijan in 2023, forcing 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their historical lands and take refuge in Armenia. The Russian forces who were observers in the region stood by, unlike in the 1990s when they had actively supported the Armenians over their claim of Nagorno-Karabakh. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Strategic Landscape The peace agreement and the prospect of its successful implementation come as a setback for two key regional actors: Russia and Iran. For Russia, this is symptomatic of its waning influence in a region Moscow has long regarded as its exclusive sphere of influence, a policy termed the Near Abroad. This has resulted in three powers, the US, Turkey and Israel, weaning away the Russian influence in their partnership with Azerbaijan and Turkey. This newfound bonhomie with the US and Armenia has upended Russias engagement in this region. Though Russia still has tremendous clout in Armenia with its sizeable troop presence at its base in Gyumri, Russian troops are manning the Turkish-Armenian borders. Russia controls the entire power supply and banking in Russia. The prospect of expanded US presence in the region, along with its EU partners, with the engagement of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, has dealt a blow to Russias long-held standing in the area. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Historically, Armenia has been its closest ally in the region and a member of the CSTO security organisation led by Russia, which is a collective security treaty among several post-Soviet states. However, Russias inability or unwillingness, due to its ongoing war in Ukraine, dented its image as the preeminent regional power. The perceived abandonment not only eroded Moscows credibility in Armenian eyes but also created a strategic vacuum that Turkey was quick to exploit, projecting its influence through military and diplomatic means in support of Azerbaijan. As a result, the diminished Russian role paved the way for deeper US and EU engagement with Azerbaijan and Armenia. This has resulted in reconfiguring the regional balance of power and weakening Moscows and Irans role in the strategically pivotal region. Of late, Azerbaijan, as well, has become more assertive and upped the ante against Russia on the issue where several dozen ethnic Azerbaijanis were arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in connection with a series of murders that took place fifteen years ago. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD For Iran, the eventuality of an American presence adjacent to its restive, Azeri-populated Northwestern province poses a direct threat to the regimes stability. An emboldened Baku has the wherewithal to fuel Azeri nationalist sentiment within Iran, potentially reviving dormant aspirations for autonomy or outright independence. TRIPP and its impact The deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia has received a mixed response from their neighbours and Russia. Iran has rejected the agreement, stating that it will harshly respond to the deal. Iran fears that it would restrict its access to the Caucasus, foment separatism within Iran, and American projects on its borders will be a threat to its security. Conducting military drills close to the borders with Armenia, the Iranian leadership has stated its intention to block the construction, even if it means going against the wishes of its ally, Russia. Russia has welcomed it but has opposed excessive external influence in the region. Since Armenias relations with Turkey were contingent on this deal directly linking Nakhichevan with mainland Azerbaijan, it also boosts Turkeys ideas of geographical connectivity to Turkic lands. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The deal for the corridor is bound to impact Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans political standing, as he enjoys only 13 per cent approval ratings within Armenia. Consensus evades Armenia on this deal. The opposition is mainly because Armenia has given too much without quid pro quo to Azerbaijan and the United States, without tangible returns. There is bound to be opposition to this deal in the next years election in Armenia, which will likely impact the deals longevity. Amitabh Singh teaches at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Ankur is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Police said the bomb had targeted the Marco Fidel Suarez Military Aviation School in the north of the city a fresh challenge to the countrys fragile peace process ahead of 2026 elections. Police officers carry debris from the site of a bomb explosion in cali, Colombia on August 21 2025. AFP Five people were killed and dozens were injured when a vehicle bomb ripped through a busy street in the Colombian city of Cali on Thursday, local authorities said. Police said the bomb had targeted the Marco Fidel Suarez Military Aviation School in the north of the city a fresh challenge to the countrys fragile peace process ahead of 2026 elections. There was a thunderous sound of something exploding near the air base, 65-year-old eyewitness Hector Fabio Bolanos told AFP. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD There were so many injured people, he said. Many houses were damaged in front of the base. Several buildings and a school were evacuated. Cali mayor Alejandro Eder said preliminary reports indicated at least five people were killed and 36 people were injured. He announced a ban on large trucks entering the city, fearing further explosions, and a US$10,000 reward for information. Eyewitness Alexis Atizabal, 40, indicated that civilians may be among the dead. There were fatalities among people passing by on the avenue, he said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible, but regional governor Dilian Francisca Toro called it a terrorist attack. Terrorism will not defeat us, she said. In June, leftist guerrillas claimed responsibility for a wave of bomb and gun attacks in and around Cali that killed seven people. The group, the Central General Staff (EMC), rejected a 2016 peace deal and has upped operations ahead of elections in 2026. Uptick Although guerrilla, paramilitary, and cartel groups still control swathes of Colombia, the country has enjoyed a decade or more of relative calm. But there has been a recent surge in violence ahead of the 2026 presidential elections. In a seemingly unrelated attack on Thursday, eight people were killed in clashes between guerrillas and police in the northwest of the country. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The police officers had been eradicating coca crops near the city of Medellin. Many of Colombias armed groups once based on leftist or rightwing ideologies fund themselves through the lucrative cocaine trade. The attacks heap pressure on the government of President Gustavo Petro, whose conciliatory approach to armed groups has been blamed for the uptick in violence. The mutilated and mud-covered bodies of Ukrainians are first identified in a conveyor-belt-like process at the railway station in Odesa, which is meant to speed up the system as opposed to traditional autopsy labs that are already overwhelmed Firefighters work at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the village of Sknyliv on the outskirts of Lviv, Ukraine. Reuters Ukraine is currently in the process of identifying the bodies returned by Russia under a swap deal negotiated by the US. The human remains usually arrive at railway stations, often in poor conditions that make the job of forensic pathologists more daunting to identify the victims. From the stations, the bodies are transported in refrigerated cars to a trackside field lab, where they are examined and documented. The recovered bodies represent only a small portion of the over 70,000 individuals in Ukraine, both military and civilian, who are officially classified as missing under special circumstances, a legal term used for those who have vanished during more than three years of war. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How does the system work? The mutilated and mud-covered bodies of Ukrainians are first identified in a conveyor-belt-like process at the railway station in Odesa, which is meant to speed up the system as opposed to traditional autopsy labs that are already overwhelmed. A total of six teams conduct forensic work beneath a section of the platform shaded by camouflage netting, which helps shield them from the intense summer heat. Each team is made up of a police investigator, a forensic technician, a pathologist, an intelligence officer, and a sanitation worker, according to a report by the New York Times. The bodies are moved from one station to another in a process that takes about half an hour. They are checked for explosive materials, documents or any personal items, following which DNA samples are collected for testing. Each body is assigned a unique 17-digit identification number, which includes the date of arrival, the receiving institution, and an individual sequence code. Items such as documents, tags, jewellery, or fragments of clothing recovered from the remains can aid in identification. When such items are found, a technician photographs them, places them in separate bags, and returns them to the body before sealing everything in a new body bag. A tedious job Ukraines Internal Affairs Minister, Ihor Klymenko, says that the identification process may take more than a year. Sometimes, one body bag contains remains of more than one person, making the task even more complicated. In an exchange with Russia last month, under which both sides are to receive an equal number of bodies, 1,600 sets of remains were delivered to a site in Ukraines Odesa region. An additional 1,000 bodies arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Russian state media has offered limited coverage of the repatriations, mentioning only a few shipments involving several dozen remains. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As Peter Navarro has taken the lead among US President Donald Trumps minions to attack India, Madhur Sharma explains that its China, not India, that is driving the Russian war machine by becoming the lifeline to Russia and supporting it with everything from drones to machinery. Yet Trump is going after India, not China. Peter Navarro, the Counselor to the US President for Trade and Manufacturing, speaks during a television interview outside of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 21, 2025. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP) In the latest salvo on India, Peter Navarro, US President Donald Trumps trade advisor, has called India a "laundromat for the Kremlin". The Trump administration has waged a multi-domain campaign against India with the purchase of Russian oil as a pretext. However, the basis of such a campaign is under question as senior administration officials have given contradictory answers about its basis. Trump has slapped 50 per cent tariffs on India among the highest in the world. He has also interfered in the Kashmir issue, undermined India on Operation Sindoor, aligned himself with Indias adversaries from Pakistan to Turkey, and taken positions on every issue that undermine India. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In the latest act of verbal aggression, Navarro on Friday accused India of running a profiteering scheme by importing Russian oil and selling it by refining it. Navarro said, Prior to Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India virtually bought no Russian oilIt was like almost 1 per cent of their need. The percentage has now gone up to 35They dont need the oil. Its a refining profit-sharing scheme. Its a laundromat for the Kremlin. Thats the reality of that. ALSO READ Tariff tirade to Cold War: Trump risks undoing 3 decades of India-US partnership Navarro further India of perpetuating the war ignoring the fact that its Russia that is the biggest buyer of Russian oil and the country that sustains the Russian war on Ukraine with its allies Iran and North Korea. Here are three reasons why Navarro is wrong to go after India and why its China, not India, thats actually driving the Russian war machine. China, not India, is biggest buyer of Russian oil The Trump administration has completely ignored the fact that China, not India, has consistently been the biggest buyer of Russian oil. Last year, China bought around 47 per cent of Russian oil whereas India share was around 38 per cent. But Trump has not imposed tariff on China. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Moreover, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also played a key role in the export of Russian oil. But there have not been any punitive tariffs on China for facilitating Russian oil exports. Cheaper oil from Russia is also very likely being relabeled and used as bunker fuel for ships that call at the ports of Fujairah, the West Asias busiest port for bunkering, and Khor Fakkan in the UAE, and ship tracking data from Refinitiv, Kpler, and Vortexa has indicated that Russian oil is being delivered there, a report from the Washington DC-based Middle East Institute noted. Importers of Russian oil US says China does the same as India but imposes no tariffs on it In recent weeks, senior US officials have said both India and China have bought crude oil from Russia and sold it elsewhere after refining it into gasoline and diesel. But they have rewarded China and punished India for same actions. They [India] are just profiteering. They are reselling. This is what I would call the Indian arbitrage buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday, adding that India has made $16 billion in excess profits. Rubio on Sunday said that China was doing the same thing refining Russian crude and selling finished products elsewhere. But he said that this action was the basis of Chinas exemption from tariffs. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD China just refines that oil [Russian oil]. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace and anyone whos buying that oil would be paying more for it or if it doesnt exist, would have to find an alternative source for it, Rubio told Fox News. Going by Rubios logic, India should be exempted from tariffs. And, as per Bessents logic, China should be punished. Instead, for the same action, the Trump administration is rewarding China, an adversary, and punishing India, a partner with whom the relationship had been on an upward trajectory for three decades. China (with Iran & North Korea) drives Russias war machine, not India While Trump accused India of driving the Russian war machine, the fact remains that its China and its allies Iran and North Korea that are actually driving it. India just buys oil from Russia whereas China buys Russian oil and gas and provides with drones, raw material and machinery to produce weapons and ammunition, and dual-use technology and goods used for military purposes. China has essentially sustained the Russian economy after the West boycotted the country after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For Russia, China has effectively replaced Europe in terms of both imports and exports, China researcher Amit Kumar noted in a paper titled China-Russia Relationship: Assessing the Power Asymmetry. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In 2023, China accounted for 30.4 per cent of overall Russian exports and 36.6 per cent of overall imports, the paper reported. Not only are Russias exports to China dominated by energy, but a majority of Russias global exports are also concentrated in China, as per the paper. China has helped Russia cushion the impacts of mounting Western sanctions. Beijing on the other hand, has benefited from heavy volumes of cheap and discounted energy imports from Moscow. However, despite witnessing a symmetric gain in bilateral trade ties, China holds greater leverage over Russia owing to the shrinking export markets for the latter, noted Kumar, a researcher at the Takshasila Institute, in the paper. On their part, Iranian drones have been the mainstay of Russian war on Ukraine. And North Korea has provided tens of thousands of soldiers, armoured vehicles, artillery, missiles, and ammunition to Russia. However, for Trump, it is not China, Iran, or North Korea that are driving the Russian war machinery. For him, India is driving the Russian war machinery. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As facts dont support any of the stated rationale for Trumps multi-domain campaign against India, one wonders if there is any policy-based rationale behind his actions or whether its the American presidents personal grudge against India. A military prosecutor in DR Congo has recommended the death penalty for former president Joseph Kabila, who is being tried in absentia on charges of treason, war crimes, and supporting the M23 rebel group. Kabila has dismissed the trial as political persecution. On Friday, a military prosecutor recommended the death penalty for former DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, who is being tried in absentia on treason allegations. General Lucien Rene Likulia urged the judges to sentence Kabila to death for war crimes, treason, and inciting an insurgency, the court heard. In July, the former president was tried in absentia for allegedly supporting Rwandan terrorists M23. Kabila, who has been out of the DRC for two years, is also accused of plotting to depose President Felix Tshisekedi, as well as counts of homicide, torture, and rape related to the M23 movement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The charge sheet against him also listed the forcible occupation of the city of Goma, captured by M23 fighters in January before they agreed a permanent ceasefire with the government in July. Kabila arrived in the eastern city in May, meeting local religious leaders in the presence of the M23s spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka. Tshisekedi, his successor as president, has branded him the brains behind the armed group, which has seized swathes of the resource-rich Congolese east with Rwandas help. Kabila has denounced the trial, calling the courts an instrument of oppression. The DRC lifted a moratorium on the death penalty last year but no judicial executions have been carried out since. Enduring influence The charge sheet seen by AFP described him as one of the initiators of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), the M23s political arm and accuses him of having colluded with Rwanda to try to overthrow by force the power established by law. It also accused Kabila of being responsible for atrocities committed by the movement in the North and South Kivu provinces in the mineral-rich east. Rwanda denies providing military backing to the M23 but UN experts say its army played a critical role in the groups offensive in the region. The AFC and M23s executive secretary Benjamin Mbonimpa distanced the movement from Kabila in comments to journalists in Goma in July, dismissing his trial as part of a malevolent strategy against him. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Kabila ruled the country between 2001 and 2009, taking power following his father Laurent Kabilas assassination. Although he left the DRC in 2023, the former leader still has influence over Congolese political life. He has criticised Tshisekedis government as a dictatorship. For more than three decades, the eastern DRC has been ravaged by conflict between various armed groups. The unrest has intensified since the M23s resurgence in 2021. A Ukrainian strike on Russias Druzhba pipeline has halted oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia for at least five days, raising energy security concerns as both nations warn of economic risks from disrupted Russian imports. Smoke rises from the Unecha oil pumping station during a fire, in Unechsky district, Bryansk region, Russia, August 21, 2025 in this night vision still image obtained from social media video. Reuters Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia could get blocked for at least five days as a result of the latest Ukrainian raid on a Russian facility, the Hungarian and Slovakian governments warned on Friday, escalating the consequences from the Ukraine conflict. Russia and Ukraine have increased assaults on each others energy infrastructure in recent weeks, despite US President Donald Trumps efforts to seek an agreement to end the four-year conflict. Following Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union decreased its energy imports from Russia and plans to phase out Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD EU members Slovakia and Hungary are opposed to the phase-out, saying their economies depend on the Russian supplies. The two countries have also opposed to sanctions against Russia that Ukraine says are vital to push Moscow towards a viable peace. The Hungarian and Slovak governments wrote to Europes executive Commission on Friday saying that the latest Ukrainian attack could leave them without Russian oil imports for at least five days, urging it to guarantee the security of supplies. The physical and geographical reality is that without this pipeline, the safe supply of our countries is simply not possible, Foreign Ministers Peter Szijjarto and Juraj Blanar said in a letter. The Ukrainian strike on Thursday night marked the second time this week that Russian oil supplies have been cut to Hungary and Slovakia, after a halt on Monday and Tuesday. Ukraines military said late on Thursday it had again struck the Unecha oil pumping station, a critical part of Russias Europe-bound Druzhba oil pipeline, the commander of Ukraines unmanned systems forces said late on Thursday. A Russian industry source also said the supplies could be halted for a few days. The Russian energy ministry did not reply to a request for comment. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukraines gas infrastructure, hitting preparations for winter heating for the population and fuel for key industries in attacks it says are aimed at degrading its military. Ukraine has damaged several Russian refineries, aiming to disrupt Russian energy exports financing Russias invasion and create fuel shortages in a number of Russian regions. Germany says Kazakh oil supply unaffected The Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Belarus and Ukraine, ships oil from Kazakhstan to Germany as well as from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia. Germany said its supplies of Kazakh oil were unaffected by the latest strike. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his government learned on Thursday evening of the attack. This is another attack against our energy security, Szijjarto wrote on Facebook. Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol confirmed the interruption in an emailed statement. Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraines unmanned systems forces, posted a video on Telegram messenger showing a large fire at a facility with numerous fuel tanks. Reuters could not confirm the location of the infrastructure in the video. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Russian regional governor Alexander Bogomaz, whose Bryansk region borders both Ukraine and Belarus in the far west of Russia, said on Friday that an energy facility at Unecha had caught fire as a result of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, adding that the blaze has been extinguished. As a result of repelling a combined attack carried out by HIMARS MLRS missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, a fire broke out at a fuel infrastructure facility in the Unecha district, Bogomaz said on Telegram. The FBI has raided the house of John Bolton, who served as Donald Trumps National Security Advisor in the first term. Bolton has been a critic of Trumps security and foreign policies. Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran US Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP) The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the home of John Bolton, who served as President Donald Trumps National Security Advisor in his first term, on Friday morning, according to The New York Post. The newspaper reported that FBI agents arrived at Boltons house in Bethesda, Maryland, at 7 am in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel. The report described the case as a high-profile national security probe and quoted a senior official as saying that it involved classified documents. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The raid coincided with a post by Patel on X in which he appeared to refer to it NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 22, 2025 This is a developing story. It will be updated as details emerge. In 2020, Bolton published a memoir, The Room Where It Happened, and was Trump tried to stop its release by alleging that it contained classified information. His attempts to stop the release of the book failed at the time. Trumps Department of Justice opened an investigation into the book in 2020. In an apparent reference to that investigation, The Post cited a senior official and reported that the probe under which Boltons house was being raided was first launched years ago, but the Biden administration shut it down for political reasons. Bolton was a security and foreign policy hawk who pushed for aggressive US involvement in West Asia and East Asia, particularly regarding Iran and Noth Korea. He also helped shape the administrations policy on Syria at the time. But he fell out of favour with Trump and eventually resigned. Bolton has since been a critic of Trumps security and foreign policies, particularly his friendly relationship with Rusia and the position on the war in Ukraine. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump has never made any secret of his hatred for Bolton. In his first actions after taking office, Trump removed Boltons security detail that was provided to him over threats to his life from the Iranian regime. In his second term, Trump and his officials have often threatened critics with retribution like arrests and investigations. He has arm-twisted law firms into making deals with him and has forced Paramount the owner of CBS News to pay him to avoid tussles. He has also threatened judges who have passed injunctions on his executive actions. China enhances global cave temple preservation with cutting-edge technology, int'l cooperation Xinhua) 15:01, August 22, 2025 ZHENGZHOU, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Luoyang, central China's Henan Province -- once the capital of 13 ancient dynasties and renowned for its Buddhist grottoes that stand as testaments to human devotion and artistry -- recently hosted global heritage experts to address the preservation of the world's fragile stone heritage. The International Forum on Cave Temple Conservation 2025 convened from Aug. 19 to 21 in Luoyang, home to the iconic Longmen Grottoes. Attendees included specialists from over 10 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Cambodia, Singapore and Japan, alongside international organization representatives and Chinese scholars. Participants exchanged insights on cave temple preservation and inheritance, jointly exploring scientific approaches to conservation. "Cave temples are extraordinary monuments to human creativity, spiritual devotion and cross-cultural exchange. These sacred spaces embody complex histories, intricate craftsmanship and a profound connection between people and their environment," said Duong Bich Hanh, director of the culture sector, UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia. "They remind us that heritage is both local and universal, an integral part of humanity's shared story." China brings invaluable expertise to global cave temple conservation. A 2021 national survey recorded 5,986 cave temples and cliff statues, including UNESCO World Heritage sites such as Mogao Grottoes in northwest China's Dunhuang, Yungang Grottoes in the northern city of Datong and Longmen Grottoes. Xie Bing, deputy head of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, highlighted the country's theoretical and practical innovations in cultural heritage conservation over the past two decades. "A comprehensive protection strategy -- encompassing value interpretation, monitoring and early warning, environmental control, disaster management and restoration -- has become a consensus," Xie said, emphasizing China's systematic and holistic conservation framework for cave temples. This integrated approach is now a model for the world. Long Kosal, deputy director-general of the APSARA National Authority of Cambodia, expressed keen interest at the forum. "China's grottoe preservation model offers a highly effective approach," Kosal said, highlighting China's successful practices in preserving the authenticity of cultural heritage while enhancing cultural identity and boosting local economies. Technical ambition was on full display at the forum. Su Bomin, dean of the Dunhuang Academy, presented a province-wide digital monitoring platform encompassing six major grottoe sites, providing key data to track dynamic changes comprehensively and preemptively identify potential risks. The newly inaugurated Longmen Grottoes heritage scientific conservation center features state-of-the-art research facilities, including specialized laboratories for mechanics, biology, and materials science. The center is equipped with high-tech instrumentation such as rock permeability analyzers, Raman spectrometers and 3D printers. A particularly compelling innovation was the microbial mineralization technique for stone relic restoration, developed by Liu Hanlong -- academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor at Chongqing University. This breakthrough attracted significant attention from international participants. Nawaz-ud-Din Siddiqui, director of the Swat Museum in Pakistan, praised China's advanced conservation technologies and expressed strong interest in future collaborative preservation projects. Digital technologies have also immortalized China's cave temple treasures in virtual space. Through systematic application of 3D digitization, Longmen Grottoes has pioneered a complete workflow for the virtual reconstruction of dispersed heritage, achieving digital reintegration of fragmented statues. At Dunhuang, a newly launched "digital cave library" has assembled 9,900 scrolls and over 60,000 images of sutras and paintings -- many once scattered abroad -- into one publicly accessible platform. China's international collaborations in cave temple conservation -- including the restoration of Cambodia's Angkor Wat temples, Dunhuang's Belt and Road partnerships and a China-Italy stone conservation lab -- have substantially boosted its global influence in heritage preservation. "We're looking forward to pooling global expertise through extensive exchanges and in-depth cooperation to better safeguard cave temples as shared treasures of human civilization," Xie said. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Hongyu) Fear grips the residents of Gaza City as Israel plans to expand its operation in one of the largest cities of the coastal enclave. Residents in the city are packing essentials and heading to refugee camps as they fear the Israeli offensive Palestinian men transport the bodies of children from the Irhim family, killed in an early morning Israeli strike on the Zaitun district, to Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital on August 11, 2025. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP) Fear grips the residents of Gaza City as Israel plans to expand its operation in one of the largest cities of the coastal enclave. Residents in the city are packing essentials and heading to refugee camps as they fear the Israeli offensive, which might begin soon. On Thursday, dozens gathered amidst the rubble of damaged buildings to conduct a small but defiant protest in the city, refusing to leave their homes ahead of Israels massive assault. During the protests, some even urged the US President Donald Trump to intervene and prevent the Israeli military from barging into the city. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The small group of demonstrators waved the Palestinian flags and carried signs reading, Stop the genocide, and Gaza is dying. We send a final call to the entire world: stop the war, no to displacement, a Palestinian man told CNN. And we say to the American President Donald Trump. If you care about the (Nobel) Peace Prize, you must stop all wars in the world, starting with the war in the Gaza Strip, which has claimed thousands of lives of our Palestinian people over the past two years," he said in a microphone to a gathering. Netanyahu remains adamant On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would approve a military plan to take control of Gaza City. The prime minister had ordered the initial plans timeline to be shortened the day before. We are at the stage of decision, Netanyahu said in a video address. Today I came to the Gaza Division to approve the plans that the (Israel Defence Forces) presented to me and the minister of defence for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas. Apart from this, the Israeli premier noted that he has issued instructions to begin immediate negotiations to release the remaining hostages in Gaza and end the war under conditions acceptable to Israel. It is pertinent to note that the takeover and occupation of the largest city in northern Gaza, which Netanyahu said is one of the last Hamas strongholds, will require the military to bring in 60,000 more reserve troops and extend the service of another 20,000. This is in addition to those who are already called up. This begs the question of whether Israel itself is ready for an operation of this scale. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Not only this, the plan has also sparked growing condemnation both internationally and domestically over fears that the already spiralling humanitarian and hunger crisis in Gaza will worsen. Within Israel, people are expressing worries that conducting such an operation would endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza. Fear among Gazans Mohammed Hamad, a protester who has already been displaced multiple times, is now refusing to leave Gaza City. If we leave Gaza, we will not return to it again, he told CNN. We tell the world no to displacement. We tell the world that we should not leave the city of Gaza because if we leave, it means the final nail in our existence in Gaza." Zakaria Bakr, a displaced Palestinian residing in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, also told CNN that he believes forced displacement would be more rampant. They will commit massacres, bomb houses over the heads of their owners to send messages of terror and intimidation to force people to leave, Bakr told CNN, adding that at the same time, they will besiege the city of Gaza and prevent food from entering. Meanwhile, an Israeli source told the American news outlet that the military would give Palestinians approximately two months to evacuate the heavily populated area before the assault begins, setting a deadline of October 7, the two-year mark of the war. Hence, the fate of the Palestinians still hangs in the balance. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned on Friday following an unresolved cabinet debate on whether to impose sanctions on Israel, Dutch news agency ANP reported. Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp speaks to the media, on the day of a NATO foreign ministers' meeting at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on April 4, 2025. Reuters File Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp on Friday resigned following an unresolved cabinet debate on whether to impose sanctions on Israel, Dutch news agency ANP reported. In a statement to ANP after the meeting, Veldkamp said the lack of consensus within the government had left him unable to take meaningful action. I see that I am insufficiently able to take meaningful additional measures to increase pressure on Israel, he said. The cabinet had reportedly been divided over the next steps in response to Israels ongoing military operations, with growing domestic and international calls for accountability. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Veldkamp had been pushing for stronger measures, including potential sanctions, but failed to gain the backing of his colleagues. His resignation adds further strain to Prime Minister Mark Ruttes coalition government, which has faced internal rifts over its Middle East policy. Last month, Veldkamp declared far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non grata in the Netherlands. On Thursday, Veldkamp signaled his intention to push for further action against Israel, but later conceded he lacked the confidence to implement meaningful measures in the coming weeks or months. While the proposals he put forward were seriously discussed, they faced resistance within successive cabinet meetings. I feel constrained in setting the course I consider necessary as foreign minister, he said, citing the lack of internal consensus as a key reason for his resignation. The Netherlands was also one of 21 countries that signed a joint statement on Thursday condemning Israels recent approval of a major West Bank settlement project, calling it unacceptable and contrary to international law. With inputs from agencies Winnie Greco, Adams adviser, tried to give the bag to The Citys reporter, Katie Honan, during the opening of the mayors campaign headquarters in Harlem. The bag contained a red envelope holding a $100 bill and several $20 bills New York City Mayor Eric Adams aide has been caught up in a bribery case where he was found handing a bag of chips filled with cash to a reporter during a campaign event. Winnie Greco resigned from her post after she came under the FBIs scrutiny. Greco, Adams adviser, tried to give the bag to The Citys reporter, Katie Honan, during the opening of the mayors campaign headquarters in Harlem. The bag contained a red envelope holding a $100 bill and several $20 bills, according to the publication. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This was not a bag of cash. In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. And thats all that was done here. Winnies intention was born purely out of kindness, Grecos lawyer, Steven Brill, said, defending her actions. When asked why Greco specifically gave the money to Honan, the attorney said, She knows the reporter and is fond of her. After attending the launch of Adams campaign headquarters in Harlem, Greco texted Honan to meet her inside a Whole Foods. Initially, the reporter thought Greco was offering her a snack and declined. But Greco insisted that Honan take the bag from her, and later the journalist found cash inside it. Honan called Greco to tell her that she cannot accept it and said she would return it. As the row erupted, Greco called The City to apologise and urge the publication not to run the story. I try to be a good person. Im so sorry. Its a culture thing. I dont know. I dont understand. Im so sorry. I feel so bad right now, she said. In response, Adams re-election campaign stated that Greco had been suspended from her volunteer role and emphasised that the mayor was unaware of her actions. We are shocked by these reports, campaign aide Todd Shapiro told the AP. Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter. He has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards, and his sole focus remains on serving the people of New York City with integrity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that Pakistani Army chief Asim Munirs comparison of India and Pakistan as a Ferrari and a dump truck respectively was a confession of failure as a nation. He further said his nuclear threats showed Pakistans plundering mentality. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said that Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir's comparison of India and Pakistan as a Ferrari and a dump truck respectively was a confession of a failure as a nation. Rajnath was referring to Munir's speech in the United States earlier this month in which he said that Pakistan was a dump truck full of gravel and India was Ferrari and if a Ferrari collided with a gravel-full dump truck, it would be the Ferrari that would be the loser. He also threatened India with missile strikes in the speech. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Recalling Munirs words, Rajnath said, Indias economy is like a Mercedes and a Ferrari running on the highway, he said. I am not saying. Pakistans economy is like a dump truck full of debris. Now, you people know the answer to this. Now, Asim Munir was trolled a lot for this statement both inside Pakistan and all over the world. Everyone said that if two countries got independence at the same time and one country built a Ferrari-like economy through hard work, right policies, and foresight, and the other is still in a dumper state, then it is their own failure. I consider this statement of Asim Munir as a confession. #WATCH | Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh says, "I would like to draw your attention to the statement given recently by Pakistan's Army Chief General Asim Munir. He said, "India is a shining Mercedes coming on the highway like a Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of pic.twitter.com/VOqQ9BNee0 ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Rajnath further referred to Munirs nuclear threats and said it showed Pakistans plundering mentality. The Pakistani Army chief knowingly or unknowingly has pointed towards a plundering mentality which Pakistan has been a victim of since its birthWe must break this delusion of the Pakistani Army, said Rajnath. Singh further said that India had set a new red line with Operation Sindoor. Munirs nuclear threats against India from US soil Earlier this month, Munir launched into a tirade against India in a speech at a dinner hosted by a businessman in Florida, United States. Munir said that we are a nuclear nation, if we think we are going down, well take half the world down with us, according to The Print. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In a direct threat to India, Munir said, We will wait for India to build a dam, and when it does so, we will destroy it with 10 missilesThe Indus river is not the Indians family property. We have no shortage of missiles, Praise be to God. Munir made these remarks at a black-tie dinner hosted by businessman Adnan Asad in Tampa, Florida. He was in the United States to attend the farewell function for General Michael Kurilla, the head of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), who retired recently. The US Department of State told Firstpost that it was aware of Munir's speech but referred to the Pakistani government for any comments. India reacted sharply to Munirs speech and also indicted the US government for allowing such remarks from its soil against a friendly nation. It is also regrettable that these remarks should have been made from the soil of a friendly third country, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As for Munirs remarks, the MEA said that nuclear sabre-rattling is Pakistans stock-in-trade and proves that Pakistan is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups. The MEA said, The international community can draw its own conclusions on the irresponsibility inherent in such remarks, which also reinforce the well-held doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state where the military is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups. Moldova, a small former Soviet republic located between Ukraine and EU and NATO member Romania, will hold parliamentary elections on September 28 French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will visit Moldova next week to celebrate Moldovas Independence Day, the French presidents office said on Friday. The leaders will reaffirm their full support for Moldovas security, sovereignty and European path, the Elysee said in a statement about the August 27 trip. Moldova, a small former Soviet republic located between Ukraine and EU and NATO member Romania, will hold parliamentary elections on September 28. The countrys ruling party is seeking to maintain its majority and keep its pro-European trajectory intact. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Moldovan officials have repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in its domestic politics by stoking pro-Moscow sentiment in an effort to topple the government as it aims to strengthen ties with the West, claims Russia denies. Nasa faces the halt of 41 missions as Trumps cuts push its budget to the lowest level since 1961 The US government science programmes face a reckoning under the Trump administration and Nasa has emerged as one of the most prominent casualties. The administrations proposed budget reductions would slash Nasas resources to levels not seen since before the first human spaceflight in 1961. The cuts are the steepest percentage drop in a single year ever proposed for the agency and raising concerns about the future of American leadership in space. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As per a report in the Wired, while prior administrations have reoriented Nasas mission priorities, researchers have emphasised that the current push amounts to something altogether different a deconstruction of the agencys scientific capacity. Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society has characterised the shift as akin to watching the death of an ideal, arguing that it represents not only a loss of technical ability but also a diminishment of the United States collective imagination. Forty-one missions facing the axe At the heart of the controversy is the potential cancellation of 41 Nasa missions, both planned and ongoing. According to Nasas internal assessments, reports says, these include ventures ranging from probes to the outer solar system to climate-monitoring satellites. The most striking possible casualty could be the Mars Sample Return programme, an ambitious effort to bring Martian soil and rock back to Earth for detailed analysis. That mission, decades in the making, has already produced sealed samples through the Perseverance rover, which are now at risk of being stranded indefinitely on the red planet, Wired said. Beyond Mars, the cuts could end projects aimed at asteroid research, interplanetary probes and even long-term Earth monitoring. Fallout within Nasas workforce The budgetary retrenchment has not only jeopardised missions but also destabilised Nasas workforce. Reports have indicated that around 4,000 employees, including more than 2,000 senior leaders, are expected to depart through voluntary buyouts, attrition or early retirements. The resulting loss of expertise threatens to erode the institutional knowledge required to mount complex interplanetary expeditions. Former Nasa engineer Steve Rader described an atmosphere of sadness and paranoia within the agency following the White Houses proposals. Wired said. According to his account, meetings once populated by Nasas most dedicated leaders quickly turned into gatherings where half the participants announced they were leaving the agency. Rader emphasised that this exodus was not simply about politics but about the dismantling of an institution that many had devoted their lives to sustaining. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Nuclear battery programme on the chopping block One of the most consequential reductions lies in the plan to abolish the radioisotope power systems (RPS) programme, which builds the nuclear batteries that power spacecraft in environments where solar energy is insufficient. These power systems have enabled missions such as the Voyager probes, still sending signals from interstellar space, as well as the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars, an article in Scientific American said. The RPS programme cost Nasa approximately $175 million in 2024, largely due to the difficulties of producing plutonium-238 fuel. The Trump administrations fiscal year 2026 budget proposal suggested winding down funding by 2028, leaving no capacity to support future outer solar system missions after the Dragonfly drones planned deployment to Titan. Scientists have warned that dismantling the production pipeline would be nearly irreversible, requiring decades and billions of dollars to rebuild. Uranus mission in jeopardy The looming cancellation of RPS has placed the highest-priority planetary science mission of the coming decade at risk. In 2022, the US space science community ranked a mission to Uranus as its top goal, citing the potential for transformative discoveries about ice giant planets and their moons. Since Uranus orbits more than two billion kilometres from Earth, any probe sent there would depend on nuclear power for survival. Without RPS, experts have argued, the mission is impossible. Although the White House has not formally announced the termination of the Uranus project, researchers maintain that eliminating the RPS programme effectively amounts to the same outcome. Amanda Hendrix of the Planetary Science Institute has argued that the budget cuts demonstrate a lack of coordination between policymakers and scientists, pointing out to Scientific American said that the administration simultaneously identified planetary science as a priority while undermining the very infrastructure required to pursue it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD A blow to long-term exploration The importance of RPS extends beyond Uranus. Cornell University scientist Alex Hayes has stressed that some of the most tantalising environments for potential life, such as the subsurface oceans of Saturns moon Enceladus, cannot be studied without nuclear-powered spacecraft. Hayes warned that dismantling RPS would hamstring Nasas ability to explore beyond Saturn, cutting off access to the outer solar systems scientific frontiers. Researchers have also noted that abandoning RPS undermines even near-term ambitions, including sustained lunar bases and Mars expeditions. Dust storms on Mars and weeks-long nights on the moon render solar energy unreliable, making nuclear power a crucial fallback. Critics argue that promoting large-scale nuclear reactors for lunar use, as the administration has done, while eliminating smaller, proven systems such as RPS, reflects a misunderstanding of technological development, Scientific American mentioned in a piece. Global competitors move ahead The retreat from RPS comes as other nations pursue their own nuclear space power systems. Russia has maintained its capabilities for decades, while China, India and Europe are all developing alternatives. Europes research into americium-241, though less efficient than plutonium-238, reflects its recognition of nuclear power as a strategic necessity. US scientists have warned that relinquishing this domain would cede leadership in deep-space exploration to international rivals. Public dissent and political uncertainty Resistance to the cuts has emerged within and beyond Nasa. More than 300 agency staffers signed a public dissent letter known as The Voyager Declaration, denouncing the administrations actions as rapid and wasteful changes that undermined the agencys mission. Advocacy groups such as the Planetary Society have mobilised to urge Congress to restore funding, particularly for RPS. Erosion of a symbol Beyond the technical and political battles lies a symbolic dimension. Nasa has long embodied the American spirit of exploration and innovation standing as one of the most admired federal institutions across party lines. Polling in 2024 indicated that 67 per cent of Americans held a favourable view of Nasa, a level of bipartisan approval rivalled only by the National Parks Service and the Postal Service. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD For many, therefore, the dismantling of Nasas scientific programmes signals something larger than fiscal restraint. As the debate unfolds, scientists warn that the damage being inflicted may prove permanent. The trajectory of Nasa under current budget proposals appears uncertain. The seeds of tension were sown after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indias National Security Advisor Ajit Doval signed an agreement to reopen trading routes, including the Lipulekh pass The border dispute between India and Nepal has flared up again. File Photo/PTI The row over the Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura borders between India and Nepal remains ongoing ahead of Prime Minister K P Sharma Olis visit to New Delhi. The seeds of tension were sown after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indias National Security Advisor Ajit Doval signed an agreement to reopen trading routes, including the Lipulekh pass. Nepal has said that the deal was struck without its consent and therefore undermines the countrys sovereignty. Members of the Nepalese Parliament across party lines said, Unilaterally deciding the use of Nepali territory is not acceptable. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Border issue reaches parliament Kamal Thapa, former Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, urged Prime Minister Oli to address the issue during his upcoming visits to Beijing and New Delhi. Mahesh Bartaula, Chief Whip of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-UML, described the India-China agreement as a dilution of Nepals sovereignty. Nepali Congress leader Bishwa Prakash Sharma emphasised that all political parties stood united on the matter. Oli is set to visit China later this month to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, following which he will be travelling to India on September 16. Nepals Foreign Ministry has said that areas lying east of the Mahakali River, including Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, are integral parts of Nepali territory, adding that India and China have been formally asked not to carry out trade activities in these areas. India rejects Nepals claims India has categorically rejected Nepals objection to a decision by New Delhi and Beijing to resume border trade through Lipulekh pass, saying Kathmandus claims on the territory are not justified. In 2020, Nepal triggered a border row by issuing a political map that showed Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh as part of the country. India had strongly trashed the claims. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal rejected Nepals territorial claims. We have noted the comments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal related to the resumption of border trade between India and China through the Lipulekh pass, he said. Our position in this regard has been consistent and clear. Border trade between India and China through Lipulekh pass had commenced in 1954 and has been going on for decades, he added. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies While Israel pushes Gaza City offensive, the countrys Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has ordered negotiations for the release of all hostages and an end to the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Gaza's demilitarisation and the establishment of "a peaceful civilian administration would help free our hostages" and prevent future threats. File image/Reuters As the tensions in West Asia continue to escalate, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has ordered negotiations for the release of all hostages and an end to the war. However, he made it clear that the conflict would end on terms acceptable to Israel. Netanyahu also noted that despite these negotiations, Israel still intends to advance plans to take control of Gaza City. The Israeli premier made these remarks in a video address on Thursday. The statment came ahead of Netanyahus high-level security meeting with defence chiefs and cabinet ministers, which would focus on approving the operational plans to take Gaza City and decisively defeat Hamas. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD While pushing his case for Gaza City occupation, Netanyahu stressed that Israel is now at a critical juncture.We are at the decisive stage, he said, underlining that defeating Hamas and securing the release of all hostages go hand in hand. A change in stance It is pertinent to note that this is the first time Netanyahu has publicly addressed a ceasefire in the Gaza war. The proclamation from the Israeli Prime Minister came a week after Hamas responded positively to the latest proposal put forth by mediators from Qatar and Egypt. However, Netanyahu did not clarify to whom he had given the order to start immediate negotiations on a ceasefire deal and also avoided referring to the current proposal framework, which begins with a 60-day ceasefire during which half of the remaining Israeli hostages are to be released. Israeli officials believe that there are 50 hostages still in Gaza, out of whom at least 20 are thought to be alive. In recent public statements, the Israeli premier emphasised that the Jewish nation is seeking a comprehensive agreement that would secure the release of all hostages and meet Israels conditions for ending the war. Despite this, he is still planning a massive assault on Gaza City. On Wednesday, Netanyahu instructed the countrys military to shorten the timeline of the operation despite concern from residents of Gaza City, who have described Israels plans as the beginning of a new war. In light of this, the Israeli military has called up tens of thousands of reservists to take part in the impending military operation. According to the Israel Defence Force, the military is currently stationed on the outskirts of Gaza City, waiting for further orders. We are at the stage of decision, Netanyahu said in a video address. Today I came to the Gaza Division to approve the plans that the (Israel Defence Forces) presented to me and the minister of defence for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas. At the same time, he refrained from making any official reference to the mediators proposal, leaving open the possibility of a partial agreement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Bangladesh, Pakistan and China are intensifying diplomatic and security engagements this week Bangladesh, Pakistan and China have stepped up high-level engagements this week, signalling renewed diplomatic and security cooperation across the region. Bangladeshs Chief of Army Staff, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, has travelled to China for an official visit where he is scheduled to meet senior civilian and military leaders. His trip underscores Dhakas growing defence ties with Beijing, which has long been a strategic partner for Bangladesh in military training and procurement. In a separate development, Bangladesh and Pakistan have agreed to ease restrictions on official travel. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Advisory Council of Bangladeshs interim administration, led by Muhammad Yunus, approved a mutual visa exemption agreement, his press secretary Shafiqul Alam told a news conference in Dhaka. The agreement will be for five years. Those who have diplomatic and official passports will be able to travel to Pakistan without a visa, Alam said. He noted that Bangladesh already has similar arrangements with 31 other countries. Under the deal, Pakistani officials will also be granted visa-free entry into Bangladesh. The move is seen as a step towards improving bilateral ties, which have at times been strained by historical and political factors. Pakistan has also intensified its own outreach to Dhaka. Pakistans Commerce Minister Jam Kamal reached in Bangladesh on Wednesday on a four-day visit to strengthen commercial ties after years of tense relations, with talks scheduled with senior authorities and business leaders. Meanwhile in Islamabad, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Pakistans Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Field Marshal Asim Munir, at the General Headquarters (GHQ). The discussions apparently centred on South Asias fragile security environment, with a special emphasis on Afghanistan, India, and the Gulf area. The discussions, according to reports, centred on deepening economic and security partnerships, with emphasis on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and regional stability. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Taken together, these parallel diplomatic, military and economic engagements point to a recalibration of regional ties, with both Beijing and Islamabad seeking closer coordination with Dhaka while also reinforcing their bilateral partnership. The Pakistani police have arrested former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khans nephew, Shahrez Khan, in a case related to the May 9 violence. Imran has been in jail for more than two hours and has more than 100 cases against him. Supporters of the former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), carry a cutout of him, as they gather, to protest what they call a black day and a stolen mandate in last year's general election, during a rally in Swabi, Pakistan on February 8, 2025. Reuters File The Lahore Police on Thursday arrested Shahrez Khan, the nephew of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a case related to the May 9 violence. An anti-terrorism court later handed him to the police for eight days of custody. Following Imrans arrest in May 2023, his party Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) held nationwide protests on May 9 that turned violent. His supporters stormed several Pakistani military installations, including official residences of army commanders and the Army headquarters in Rawalpindi. Thats known as the May 9 case. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The police have accused Shahrez of being part of the attack on Jinnah House, the official residence of the Corps Commander of the Pakistan Armys 4 Corps in Lahore, on May 9, 2023 he has been arrested after more than two years of the alleged offence. The Express Tribune reported PTI leaders as saying that Shahrez was arrested on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday. They said that the arrest was made after a group of unidentified individuals entered forcibly entered the house. They said that the household staff were assaulted, family members were harassed, and Shahrez was taken away from his bedroom in front of his children. After his ouster in 2022 in a trust vote, Imran fell out of the favour with the army. He accused the Army of conspiring with the then-Opposition parties and the United States to bring his government down. Since fall fallout, Imran and his family have since been slapped with dozens of cases. He has more than 100 cases against him and has been in jail continuously for more than two years. Shahrez is an Oxford University graduate and works as the regional head at Simba Global, a big linen supplier based in Australia and is also a triathlete, according to Dawn. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Asian Development Bank is set to fund a $2B upgrade of Pakistans Karachi-Rohri railway, supporting the Reko Diq copper mine after Chinese delays. Passengers get on board a train at the Cantonment railway station in Karachi, Pakistan. File image/ Reuters The Asian Development Bank will fund upgrades to part of Pakistans creaking railway system, replacing China, after prolonged delays in securing financing from Beijing threatened to put a strain on a strategic mining project, two sources said on Friday. An extensive revamp of 1,800 km (1,118 miles) of railways has been the centrepiece of a $60 billion Chinese investment programme in Pakistan announced in 2015 as part of Beijings Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure push. A decade of negotiations, however, have yet to produce a finance package for the rail upgrades - the single biggest project under the programme with China. And Pakistan is, meanwhile, struggling to repay Chinese debt owed for other projects. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The ADB is in advanced talks to lead the financing of a $2 billion upgrade of a 500-km stretch of the railway line from Karachi to Rohri in the countrys south that had previously been part of the Chinese project, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. The upgrade has become urgent, they said, as it is needed to transport copper ore from the Reko Diq mine currently being developed by Canadas Barrick Mining Corp. We will have a crisis. How will you evacuate output from Reko Diq? The exhausted line will come under even more pressure, one of the sources, a senior government official, said. There was no immediate comment from Pakistans railways ministry or Chinas foreign ministry. The ADB would not confirm the finance package, which is being reported for the first time by Reuters. But it said Pakistans government and the regional lender have regular discussions on railway sector development. Any potential ADB assistance would be subject to comprehensive due diligence and consideration under ADBs policies and procedures before any commitment is made, it wrote in a statement to Reuters. The deal, expected to be announced later this month, would see the ADB lead a consortium to finance the project and bring in an international engineering contractor to carry out the work through a competitive bidding process, the sources said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The ADB announced $410 million in financing for the Reko Diq mine itself earlier this week. And its president is due to visit Islamabad next week, the sources said. China and Pakistan: Ironclad friends? The sources said the plan is diplomatically tricky but has been squared with China. We would never do anything to jeopardise that relationship, the senior Pakistani official said. China rolled out major power and infrastructure projects after the 2015 launch of the investment programme, known locally as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. But momentum has stalled, with the last big project - the Gwadar East Bay Expressway - inaugurated in 2022. Islamabad has fallen behind on payments for electricity generated by Chinese-built power plants. And following a government report looking at the cost of the power stations, Islamabad has for the past year sought to reschedule debt payments for the plants. China and Pakistan are ironclad friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners, Chinas foreign ministry said on August 19, ahead of a visit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Islamabad this week. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In Wangs meeting with Pakistans Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, both sides said they sought to deepen ties and move on to the next phase of CPEC. Pakistans mining ambitions The Reko Diq copper and gold mine - at the heart of the governments strategy to attract investment to Pakistans mining sector - is due to enter production in 2028 with anticipated annual output of some 200,000 metric ton of copper concentrate. One of the worlds largest untapped copper deposits, it is Pakistans largest foreign investment in recent years. The ADB-financed rail upgrade would modernise the track and bridges from the commercial capital Karachi north to Rohri, close to the city of Sukkur, so that diesel trains can run faster, the sources said. In Rohri, the line will meet a branch coming from the area of the Reko Diq mine and will carry the copper concentrate to port. Tim Cribb, Reko Diqs project director, told Reuters that the government and Barrick would work together on securing financing for the upgrading of the branch coming from the west to Rohri. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The mine also faces security concerns, as it lies in the insurgency-hit western province of Balochistan, with militants frequently targeting the rail network. Once stalled by legal battles, local opposition, and a $6bn arbitration penalty, Pakistans Reko Diq copper mine is now seeing renewed momentum as the Asian Development Bank backs the project with its first mining loan in over four decades The Asian Development Bank has approved a $300 million loan for Pakistans Reko Diq copper and gold mine, marking its first mining sector investment in over 40 years, according to a Financial Times report. The decision signals renewed international confidence in a project that has had a troubled history long mired in legal disputes and governance challenges and is now seen as key to meeting the growing global demand for critical minerals. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Jointly developed by Barrick Gold, the federal government, and the Balochistan provincial administration, the $9 billion Reko Diq mine is one of the worlds largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits. The ADB last financed a mining project in 1983, when it provided a $19.2 million loan for a venture in Thailand. Earlier this month, Barrick CEO Mark Bristow told the Financial Times that the company is aiming to raise up to $3.5 billion for the project. Apart from the $300 million loan, the ADB will also extend a $110 million credit guarantee to the government of Balochistan, which holds a 25% equity stake in Reko Diq. Production is expected to begin in 2028, reported Financial Times. The deal underscores the growing geopolitical importance of critical minerals amid Western efforts to reduce reliance on China for key resources like rare earths and lithium. The ADB is revising its energy policy to support such projects for the first time, while the World Bank, through the IFC, is also ramping up its involvement in the sector. Pakistans Army Chief, Asim Munir, regarded as the countrys most powerful figure, has said the Reko Diq mine could help the country tackle its debt burden of over $130 billion. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Officials are hoping to attract Western investors to tap into what they claim are trillions of dollars worth of critical and rare earth minerals. The ADB is exploring other potential mining investments but has yet to allocate a specific amount to the sector, according to Cathy Marsh, deputy director-general of private sector operations. We very much see this transaction as part of that overall energy transition story, Financial Times quoted Marsh as saying, adding that the bank wouldnt rule out financing projects in China, despite its dominance in global mineral supply chains. We would always examine any opportunity that came to us entirely on its own merits . . . We are apolitical, Marsh added. Troubled past Balochistan province, which houses the Reko Diq copper and gold mine, is suffering from a brutal separatist insurgency, partly fueled by local backlash against foreign involvement in resource extraction. This opposition led authorities in 2011 to block progress on the Reko Diq mine project. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The project began in 1993 with an agreement between the Pakistani government and Australian company BHP, granting BHP a 75% stake. The deal sparked public outrage in one of Pakistans poorest regions, where locals feared exploitation and exclusion from potential benefits. In the early 2000s, Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) a joint venture between Chiles Antofagasta and Canadas Barrick Gold acquired BHPs obligations in the project. The legality of the original agreement was challenged in the Balochistan High Court in 2006, but the court ruled it was valid. However, tensions escalated in 2011 when the provincial government denied TCCs mining lease, citing concerns such as the lack of local smelting and refining, insufficient royalty rates, and inadequate community involvement. TCC responded by filing a claim with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which in 2019 ruled in the companys favour and imposed a nearly $6 billion penalty on Pakistan for unlawfully rejecting the licence. Despite efforts to revive the project, Reko Diq remains controversial. Critics argue that large-scale resource extraction risks deepening poverty and conflict in the region, especially due to land displacement, water scarcity, and limited local employment opportunities. There are also logistical and governance concerns, including disagreements over the use of Gwadar Port for transportation and questions about the projects transparency and infrastructure dependencies, such as power supply. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In an attempt to reset the trajectory, a new agreement was signed in 2023 between Pakistan, Barrick Gold, and other stakeholders. The revised deal includes advance royalty payments and dedicated social development funds for Balochistan to ensure local communities benefit even before operations begin. International backing has followed, with the International Finance Corporation disbursing funding in 2025. Production is now expected to start in 2028, with the mine projected to operate for at least 40 years. With inputs from agencies Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, got some relief after the countrys Supreme Court approved the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founders bail in eight May 9 cases Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, got some relief after the countrys Supreme Court approved the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founders bail in eight May 9 cases. According to Pakistani news outlet Geo News, the verdict was announced by a three-member bench led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Yahya Afridi and comprising Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Muhammad Shafi. The justices were hearing the plea of PTI founder against the rejection of his bail by the Lahore High Court. In June this year, the high court dismissed the incarcerated prime ministers bail petitions in separate cases related to the May 9 riots. The cases against Khan also include the attack on Jinnah House in Lahore. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It is pertinent to note that the former Pakistani premier has been behind bars for over two years now. The PTI founder moved to the countrys Supreme Court against the LHC verdict, contending that the first information report (FIR) lacked sufficient evidence. What Khans plea entailed The plea also termed the allegations of Khans involvement in the riots as baseless. According to Geo News, Khans plea states that he was in the NAB custody at the time of the riots, and hence he couldnt take part in the ruckus that was happening across Pakistan. The plea also raises doubts over the case based on contradictions in the prosecution statements. The PTI founders appeal sought further investigation into the case, as he suspected mala fide intent on the part of the police for avoiding his arrest for five months and called the delayed police statements unreliable. During the hearing, the Pakistani chief justice Afridi asked prosecutor Zulfiqar Naqvi regarding the evidence against the suspect, to which the latter said that three witnesses had testified against Khan, coupled with the availability of a photogrammetric and voice matching test, Geo News reported. WhatsApp messages are also available, Naqvi said, adding that the trial court had approved carrying out various tests, but the suspect did not cooperate. There will be legal repercussions [for this]. Why are you saying all that is only going in your favour? CJP Afridi responded. Meanwhile, the politicians lawyer, Salman Safdar, said that the challan is that the said eight cases had not been presented against Imran and the former prime minister was only named in three of the FIRs. Noting that if the SC gave an observation on the merits of the case, the trial would be affected by it, CJP Afridi announced the verbal verdict accepting the PTI founders bail petitions in eight May 9 cases, Geo News reported. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD After the Alaska Summit with US President Donald Trump, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has made four demands to end the war. The demands show that he has largely stuck to his maximalist objectives despite Trumps claims and only made minor changes. After the Alaska Summit, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has finalised four demands to end the war in Ukraine, according to a report. Earlier this month, Putin met US President Donald Trump in Alaska. While Trump and his top officials said that Putin made big concessions and accepted US and European security guarantees, four new demands show that he has largely stuck to his maximalist demands. Reuters has cited three sources close to the Kremlin to report that Putin has demanded Russia to surrender the entire Donbas region (comprising Donetsk and Luhansk provinces), a written pledge form Nato to expand eastward, neutrality of Ukraine, and no Western troops in Ukraine. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD ALSO READ: With Russias terms to Ukraine, Putin seeks surrender not a peace deal Putin has also made some secondary demands as well and sought a veto over its security guarantees in case of a deal. Such a stance is contrary to the picture painted by Trump and his aides after the summit in Alaska on August 15. They said that Putin had offered major concessions and agreed to the United States and European partners providing Ukraine with Article 5-type security guarantees the Article 5 of Nato forms the basis of the alliance as it outlines the collective defence principle that declares an attack as one as an attack on all allies. What are Putins 4 terms to end the war in Ukraine? Firstly, Putin has said that Ukraine must surrender the entirety of Donbas province comprising Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, according to Reuters. Putin has sought the entire province and not just parts that Russia currently controls. The surrender of the complete region is a non-starter for Ukraine as large parts of the region are under Ukrainian control and comprise several military, industrial, and logistical hubs. Moreover, Ukraine has fortified the region and build defensive lines since in the region since 2014. Giving up such a militarised region would mean handing Putin a victory without firing a bullet that he has not been able to secure in the past 11 years of fighting Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. ALSO READ: From Budapest to Minsk, peace deals never stopped Putin's wars why Ukraine fears US-Russia deal Secondly, Putin has sought a legally-binding pledge from Nato that it will not expand further eastwards. The demand essentially seeks to kill the possibility of Nato membership for Ukraine. Thirdly, Putin has sought limits on the size of post-war Ukrainian military. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Fourthly, Putin has rejected the presence of any Western forces in Ukraine after the war, including as part of any peacekeeping force. Additionally, Putin has sought to essentially control any deal that would be signed. Putin has said there could be a three-way deal comprising Ukraine, Russia, and the United States that would be recognised by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) or could be based on the 2022 Istanbul protocol. A deal tied to UNSC would likely be rejected by Ukraine as Russia is a permanent member of the UNSC and would hold a veto over any decision related to the deal. In minor concessions, Putin has said Russia would give up its claims for the entirety of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces and freeze battlelines there. He is also willing for concessions in Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. But it is not known if he is willing to give up claimed territory or territory Russia actual controls. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden are among the countries that signed the statement, as did the European Commissions foreign affairs chief Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map that shows the E1 settlement project during a press conference near the settlement of Maale Adumim, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. AP Britain and France were among 21 countries to sign a joint statement Thursday calling Israels approval of a major settlement project in the West Bank unacceptable and a violation of international law. Israel approved the plans for the roughly 12-square-kilometre (five-square-mile) parcel of land known as E1 just east of Jerusalem on Wednesday. We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms, said the statement of foreign ministers, whose signatories also included Australia, Canada and Italy. Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden also signed the statement, as did the European Commissions foreign affairs chief. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The statement noted that Israels far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem. This brings no benefits to the Israeli people, the foreign ministers said. Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace. The government of Israel still has an opportunity to stop the E1 plan going any further. We encourage them to urgently retract this plan, they added. The plan seeks to build around 3,400 homes on the ultra-sensitive tract of land, which lies between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. All of Israels settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has slammed the latest move, which has also been criticised by UN chief Antonio Guterres and the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini. The project would completely cut off the northern and central West Bank from the southern West Bank meaning that there would no longer be any territorial contiguity, said Lazzarini. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD He said Israel was taking decisions that would make the creation of two states increasingly impossible. Britain on Thursday summoned Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely to the foreign ministry to protest the decision. If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution, the foreign office said in a statement. US President Donald Trumps trade representative, Peter Navarro, said that the Trump administration is unlikely to extend the August 27 deadline to impose penalty tariffs on India, insisting that the road to peace in the Ukraine war goes through India' India has labelled tariffs levied by the US on goods from the country "unjustified" and "unreasonable". File image/Reuters US President Donald Trumps White House doubled down on its decision to impose nearly 50 per cent tariffs on India, insisting that the road to peace (in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war) runs through India. Last month, the US imposed heavy duties on Indian goods, accusing it of fueling the ongoing war by purchasing oil from Russia. While speaking to the reporters on Thursday, US Presidents trade counsellor Peter Navarro, said he doesnt expect Trump to extend the timeline on doubling tariffs on India, which will hit the market on August 27, The Times of India reported. Navarro went on to accuse New Delhi of profiteering from transactions with Moscow. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I love India. Look, [President Narendra] Modi is a great leader. But please, please India, like, look at what your role here is in the global economy and good here. Its like, what youre doing right now is not creating peace, its perpetuating the war, Navarro said in the presser. They dont need oil its a refining profiteering scheme, he added. Navarro claimed that India is using the money that they get from us when they sell us stuff to buy Russian oil, which is then processed by refiners, and they make a bunch of money there. He maintained that Russians eventually use the money to build more arms and kill Ukrainians, and in light of this, the American taxpayers have been providing more military aid to the Ukrainians to sustain themselves in the war. So thats insane, and President Trump sees that chessboard beautifully. And you guys need to write about that, he told the media in Washington, DC. However, many American political commentators have repeatedly called out the fallacy of the White House not acting on China's larger purchase of Russian oil and the past American encouragement of India buying Russian oil to keep down global oil prices. Navarro himself once implicitly conceded to the line of thinking, arguing that Washington cannot do the same with China because Beijing has leverage on Washington, DC. Lavrov said Russia had agreed to show flexibility on a number of issues raised by Trump at a US-Russia summit last week, but accused Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in talks with Trump and European allies that followed in Washington Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that there is no agenda for a future summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accusing Zelenskyy of saying no to everything. Speaking on NBCs Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, Lavrov said Putin had made it plain that he was willing to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss a possible solution to stop the war in Ukraine as long as there was an appropriate agenda for such a meeting, which he claimed was currently missing. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Both Russia and Ukraine are trying to prove to US President Donald Trump that they are willing to try to reach a peace deal, which Trump has stated he wishes to facilitate, while accusing the other of being insincere or unwilling to negotiate in good faith. Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all, Lavrov told NBC, saying no meeting was therefore planned for now. Lavrov said Russia had agreed to show flexibility on a number of issues raised by Trump at a US-Russia summit last week, but accused Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in talks with Trump and European allies that followed in Washington. He (Trump) clearly indicated - it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership (for Ukraine), including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelenskyy said no to everything, said Lavrov. He even said no to, as I said, to cancelling legislation banning the Russian language. How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader? Trump had imposed an August 8 deadline for Putin to agree an end to the war or face new sanctions against Russia and countries that buy its oil, but instead agreed to meet the Kremlin leader at a summit in Alaska last Friday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Since then, Russia has shown little movement, maintaining most of its longstanding demands while proposing to freeze the front line in two Ukrainian regions it claims as its own, and expressing a readiness to potentially hand back relatively small pieces of Ukrainian territory it controls. Putin wants Ukraine to give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking have told Reuters. Zelenskyy, who has said he does not want to gift Russia any territory, said on Friday the Kremlin was doing everything it could to make sure that a meeting between him and Putin did not take place. He called on Ukraines allies to apply fresh sanctions on Moscow if it showed no desire to end the war. Wickremesinghe was taken into custody after being questioned about a September 2023 visit to London to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university while he was head of state, the officer said. Sri Lankas former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday for allegedly misusing government funds, a senior police detective told AFP. Wickremesinghe was taken into custody after being questioned about a September 2023 visit to London to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university while he was head of state, the officer said. We are producing him before the Colombo Fort magistrate, the officer said, adding that they were pressing charges for using state resources for personal purposes. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Wickremesinghe had stopped in London in 2023 on his way back from Havana, where he attended a G77 summit. He and his wife, Maithree, attended a University of Wolverhampton ceremony. Wickremesinghe had maintained that his wifes travel expenses were met by her and that no state funds were used. However, the Criminal Investigation Department of the police alleged that Wickremesinghe used government money for his travel on a private visit and that his bodyguards were also paid by the state. Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksas term, after Rajapaksa stepped down following months of protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement. Wickremesinghe is credited with stabilising the economy after the countrys worst-ever financial meltdown in 2022. He lost his re-election bid in September. US President Donald Trump said on Friday that in two weeks he should know whether progress is possible in his bid to end Russias invasion of Ukraine and he again raised the prospect of imposing sanctions on Moscow US President Donald Trump and with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Reuters File US President Donald Trump said on Friday that in two weeks he should know whether progress is possible in his bid to end Russias invasion of Ukraine and he again raised the prospect of imposing sanctions on Moscow. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said Im not happy with any aspect of the effort to find peace. A week ago Trump held talks in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been unable thus far to coax him into a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Theres a tremendous amount of hatred there, said Trump. But well see what happens. I think in two weeks, well know which way Im going. He said he would decide then whether to impose massive sanctions or do nothing and say its your fight. In its latest crackdown on immigration, the US Department of State said that it is reviewing the records of more than 55 million foreigners who hold valid US visas for potential revocation or deportable violation of the countrys immigration rules. In a bid to intensify its crackdown on immigrants, the US Department of State said that it is reviewing the records of more than 55 million foreigners who hold valid US visas for potential revocation or deportable violation of the countrys immigration rules. The move was first reported by The Associated Press. In a clarfication statement, the department made it clear that all of the foreigners who currently hold valid US visas are subject to continuous vetting for any indication that they could be ineligible for the American visa, including those who are already admitted into the country. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD They noted that if evidence of violation came to light, the visa would be revoked, and if the visa holder were in the US, they would be subjected to deportation. The State Department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organisation, a department spokesperson said. People with anti-American views are not allowed The remarks from the State Department came after an announcement on Tuesday in which the Trump administration made it clear that it will look for anti-American views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States. US Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS), which handles requests to stay in the US or become a citizen, noted that it would expand its vetting process to the social media postings of applicants and that reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting. Americas benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies, said a USCIS spokesperson, Matthew Tragesser. US Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible. Immigration benefits including to live and work in the United States remain a privilege, not a right. The governments crackdown on immigrants intensifies Initially, the Trump administration said that it would focus only on dangerous criminals. However, thousands of people are being arrested daily. According to The New York Times, this week, the government is on track to deport 400,000 people in 2025. Authorities have gone after working immigrants through unprecedented raids of restaurants, construction sites, and farms, which prompted protests in several cities across the country. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Earlier this week, the Department of State noted that it has revoked over 6,000 student visas since Trumps return to office. They argued that the visas were revoked due to various violations, such as overstaying visas and legal infractions, including assault, driving under the influence, and terrorism-related activities. Of those, nearly 4,000 visas were revoked due to confirmed violations, and 200300 were linked to terrorism or support for designated terrorist entities. Apart from this, the Trump administration had mandated in-person interviews for nearly all visa applicants and imposed other layers of scrutiny. Hence, the current vetting expansion represents a significant escalation in post-issuance monitoring. Italian police on Wednesday arrested a Ukrainian man allegedly involved in the 2022 detonation of the Nord Stream pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Germany. German authorities confirmed the arrest and stated that the man identified only as Serhiy K. Gas leaking to the surface of the sea from the Nord Stream pipeline off the Danish island of Bornholm. AFP Italian police on Wednesday arrested a Ukrainian man allegedly involved in the 2022 detonation of the Nord Stream pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Germany. German authorities confirmed the arrest and stated that the man identified only as Serhiy K. The authorities noted that the suspect is believed to have been on board the sailing boat from where the attack was allegedly carried out. Germanys federal prosecutors office (GBA) stated on Thursday that Carabinieri arrested him on Wednesday evening near Rimini, following the issuance of a European arrest warrant on Monday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The attack on the pipeline was carried out on September 26, 2022. While the gas pipeline was not in use, the damage to it was beyond repair. Investigators have long suspected Ukrainian commandos of being behind the blast. How the Ukrainian man was involved Divers were believed to have been taken there by the chartered sailing yacht Andromeda. The authorities noted that the yacht set off from the German port of Rostock to the area close to the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, where they planted explosives on the seabed. Serhiy K, the Ukrainian suspect, is thought to have been on board. However, the investigators do not believe that he was one of the divers; he is thought to have had a leading role as a coordinator of what appeared to have been a well-planned operation. The prosecutors noted that the yacht was hired with the help of intermediaries and using forged identity papers from a German company. It is pertinent to note that the incident has been under investigation since 2022 by the GBA. The German authorities intend to charge any suspects with anti-constitutional sabotage and causing an explosion. Meanwhile, an extensive media investigation, spearheaded by German news outlet Der Spiegel, revealed that people who allegedly had detailed knowledge of the incident said the commandos had not intended to commit a crime. Instead, they saw it as an attack on a legitimate military target due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Spiegels research revealed evidence suggesting the Ukrainian armed forces had sanctioned the action, although Kyiv has denied this. German prosecutors have not said when they expect Serhiy K to be extradited to face German authorities. It is pertinent to note that separate investigations by the Swedish and Danish authorities were closed in February 2024, leaving German authorities to continue their inquiries alone. At one point, Russia went on to accuse the United States of conducting the Sabotage operation after Washington, DC, criticised Germanys dependence on Russian gas. Another initial strong assumption was that the perpetrators were Russian, but investigators traced the yacht and discovered its connection to Ukraine. Kyiv, Washington and Moscow all eventually denied allegations of involvement. Last year, Germanys federal prosecutor general, Jens Rommel, secured an initial arrest warrant against one of the suspected divers. However, the suspect left his home in Poland before he could be arrested after Polish authorities allegedly warned Ukrainian authorities. According to German news outlet Spiegel, the man has allegedly driven into Ukraine in a car with diplomatic licence plates. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies. The United Nations (UN)-backed group that monitors food insecurity and malnutrition is expected to formally declare a famine in the Gaza Strip. For several months, the Palestinian enclave has been in the grips of a severe hunger crisis as a result of Israeli policy of restricting the flow of humanitarian assistance. Palestinian men and boys hold out their empty pots in front of a charity kitchen in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 21, 2025. (Photo: AFP) The United Nations (UN)-backed group that monitors food insecurity and hunger will formally decare a famine in the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to a report. For several months, Gaza has been in the grips of a severe hunger crisis as a result of Israels policy of restricting the flow of humanitarian assistance. The crisis has been worsened by the botched system of food distribution and attacks on Palestinians awaiting food supplies. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which has been recognised globally for classifying the severity of food insecurity and hunger crises, will on Friday declare famine for Gaza governorate that comprises Gaza City, three surrounding towns, and several refugee camps, according to The Telegraph. This will only be the fifth time that the IPC will ever declare a famine the last was declared last year in Sudan. The previous declarations were in Somalia (2011), South Sudan (2017), South Sudan (2020, and Sudan (2024). A mixture of civil war, terrorist violence, and natural disasters contributed to these famines. ALSO READ After starvation, thirst grips Gaza: Aid workers say water crisis as severe as food shortage The IPC has a laid down strict criteria for the declaration of a famine: at least 20 per cent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 per cent of children suffer from malnutrition, and at least two people per every 10,000 die per day from outright starvation. Gaza famine expected to spread The famine is the Gaza governorate is projected to expand to the governorates of Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September on current projections, according to an IPC briefing shared with its partner organisations accessed by The Telegraph. After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death, says the IPC said in the briefing. The IPC said that another 1.07 million people are already facing emergency levels of food insecurity, the second-highest level on the scale. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The IPC further said that food security in Gaza will continue to deteriorate between August and September. During this period, almost a third of the population nearly 641,000 people are expected to face catastrophic conditions, while the number of people in emergency will likely increase to 1.14 million, the IPC said in its briefing. The hunger crisis has been worsened in Gaza from the killings at food distribution sites. In recent months, hundreds have been killed at food distribution sites in attacks Gazans blame Israel for. The UN has published visuals of Israeli soldiers firing at Palestinians gathered to receive aid. The US Department of Defence is recruiting civilian employees to join President Donald Trumps administrations mass deportation campaign, urging the civilian workforce to conduct volunteer services for ICE US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivers an address at the Shangri-La Dialogue Summit in Singapore on May 31, 2025.- AP As US President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants intensifies, the countrys Department of Defence is recruiting civilian employees to join the current administrations mass deportation campaign. The Pentagon is asking staff to sign up for deployments to immigration enforcement facilities across the United States. In light of this, the Department of Defence has posted a job listing requesting that civilian and federal employees apply to join a volunteer force supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations. On Wednesday, the Pentagon reportedly emailed civilian employees asking them to take up this opportunity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Secretary of Defence has authorised DoD civilian employees to participate in details to the Department of Homeland Security to contribute to its operations along the Southern Border and its internal immigration enforcement activities, reads the email, obtained by 404Media. It is important to note that roughly 950,000 civilian employees work for the Pentagon. The email noted that the selected employees would offer critical support to ICE and the border patrol police, as they fulfil the Presidents intent to ensure a safe and orderly immigration system. Volunteers may engage in operational tasks While speaking to The Guardian, a defence official confirmed the initiative. The Secretary of Defence memorandum signed on Jun 1, 2025, Detailing of Department of Defence Civilians Employees to Support the Department of Homeland Security allows DoD civilians employees to participate in a detail for up to 180 days, supporting the Department of Homeland Securitys operations on the southern border, the Pentagon official said. The official noted that the volunteer duties may include data entry, operational planning support, processing and throughput logistics, and logistical support. Meanwhile, the job posting made it clear that deployment locations are not negotiable and conditions could be austere. It also states that assignments could last up to 180 days at facilities along the border and throughout the US interior, and detailing means the staff keep their salary and benefits. It is pertinent to note that the initiative stems from a June memorandum issued by the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that authorises the civilian employee deployments in support of the Presidents priority of securing our borders. The memo specifically enables both reimbursable and non-reimbursable details to DHS for southern border operations and internal immigration enforcement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Pentagon initiative comes as the Trump administration works to expand immigration enforcement personnel, infrastructure and operations across the country. Last month, Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated a budget for an additional 10,000 ICE agents, and ICE is reportedly offering signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and has reduced its age requirements to expand its forces. US policy shifts and sharp rhetoric have turned Nvidias chip sales into a flashpoint, fuelling Chinas mistrust and push for tech self-reliance Nvidia is caught in the middle in the tussle between US and China When Washington loosened its restrictions on Nvidias exports to China earlier this summer, it looked on the surface like a tentative thaw in a bitter technology standoff. US President Donald Trump authorised the sale of Nvidias H20 processor, a chip designed specifically for the Chinese market after earlier export controls had barred the companys most advanced models. Yet, instead of welcoming the concession, China seems to have quickly turned against the H20 chips and Nvidia, questioning its safety and urging domestic firms to avoid using it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD _T_he reversal highlighted the volatility of the relationship between the worlds most valuable chipmaker and its second-largest market. It also raised a deeper question: whether the USs own rhetoric and policy shifts have aggravated, rather than eased, the clash between Nvidia and China. Washingtons long shadow on Nvidia The tensions date back to 2022, when the US began imposing restrictions on the export of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, citing national security concerns. In 2023, the then Biden administration introduced tighter controls, prompting Nvidia to engineer the H20, a watered-down model meant to comply with the new thresholds. Even that chip was caught up in further restrictions as sales were abruptly halted in April 2024 before being re-authorised in July. Nvidia had lobbied hard for such a reversal. Jensen Huang, the companys chief executive, personally pressed Trump to loosen restrictions, warning that cutting off China entirely would accelerate the diffusion of rival technologies and weaken US leadership, reports said. The company also argued that its chips posed no national security risks and were designed strictly for commercial applications. China had likewise called repeatedly for Washington to relax its semiconductor curbs. Beijing regarded the ban as a deliberate attempt to cripple its technological development and had urged more open trade in AI processors. In that sense, the July decision to permit H20 exports looked like a partial success for both Nvidia and Beijing. Did insult change the mood? But any optimism quickly evaporated after comments from US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. In a television interview, Lutnick remarked that America would never sell China its best chips, not its second-best, not even our third-best, a Financial Times report said. He added that the strategy was to sell just enough to make Chinese developers dependent on the American software ecosystem. The Financial Times report said several senior Chinese leaders found the comments insulting. Regulators including the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) quickly mobilised to discourage domestic firms from purchasing the H20. Informal window guidance was issued instructing leading internet firms such as ByteDance and Alibaba to halt orders, while Nvidia executives were summoned over alleged serious security issues. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Beijings shift showed how rhetoric from Washington can shape Chinas regulatory responses. What was supposed to be a US concession became, in Beijings eyes, a reminder of Americas intent to maintain dominance. Chinas time to raise security flag Chinese authorities said they were concerned that Nvidias chips could contain risks such as tracking and positioning or remote shutdown features, allegations the company strongly denied, CNN reported. The CAC even claimed that US experts had raised red flags about potential backdoors, though no public evidence was presented. By late July, several major Chinese technology companies had either suspended or sharply reduced their H20 orders, reflecting both regulatory pressure and uncertainty over whether future purchases might be sanctioned. Nvidia insisted that the H20 had no military applications and emphasised that both governments recognised it as a commercial product. Is China looking beyond Nvidia? Some commentators have said that Chinas rejection of the H20 chips forms part of its longer-term strategy of reducing reliance on foreign technology. The South China Morning Post reported that China has mandated its data centres to source more than 50 per cent of their chips from domestic producers by 2025. Officials in Shanghai were among the first to issue such quotas, which have since become national policy. However, industry experts point out that Chinese chips lag behind Nvidia in certain areas such as memory bandwidth. But China aims to make them increasingly competitive, especially in tasks such as inference, where AI models respond to queries. Huawei, in particular, has made advances in chip development, though analysts said its ecosystem and production capacity remain constrained, the South China Morning Post report said. Some Chinese policymakers have even pushed for banning foreign chips outright in inference workloads, which represent most AI demand, although such a step appears unlikely in the near term given limited domestic supply, Financial Times said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This creates a dilemma for Nvidia For Nvidia, the developments created a dilemma. After receiving US approval, the company had placed large orders for H20 production with TSMC, Samsung and other suppliers. But with China now holding back, Nvidia has reportedly asked some partners to suspend production and has shifted to managing its existing inventory. Huang publicly maintained that shipping H20 chips to China posed no national security risks and expressed gratitude for Washingtons approval. But he admitted that Nvidias fate in the Chinese market ultimately depended not on demand but on political decisions in both capitals. Meanwhile, reports suggest Nvidia is already working on a new China-specific chip, tentatively called the B30A, based on its latest Blackwell architecture. That model would be more powerful than the H20 yet still fall below the thresholds of US export restrictions. Whether Washington would permit such sales remains unclear, and Chinese regulators scepticism about US chips may persist regardless, Reuters said. On the other hand, a Bloomberg report said that Nvidia has instructed parts suppliers including Samsung Electronics and Amkor Technology to stop production related to H20 AI chips. Is China sending dual message? The contrasting signals from Beijings regulators also revealed a deeper ambivalence. The Financial Times reported that ministries in charge of trade and foreign affairs welcomed Huangs visit to China in July, seeing it as a chance to showcase goodwill and keep open channels of cooperation. But agencies like the CAC and NDRC pressed for reduced reliance on Nvidia and more aggressive adoption of Chinese chips. This dual message reflected the tension between short-term needs and long-term goals. Chinas AI developers still rely heavily on Nvidias CUDA software ecosystem, which makes switching costly and technically complex. Yet policymakers see domestic substitution as essential to strategic independence. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD What is the USs role in the rift? Taken together, the episode illustrates how the tussle between Nvidia and China has been shaped as much by the US policy as by market forces. Export controls created the H20 in the first place, while Washingtons rhetoric and enforcement strategies helped push Beijing to reject it. What began as a commercial negotiation over chip specifications has escalated into a symbol of national pride and strategic autonomy. For Nvidia, the result has been a collapse of demand for its China-specific chip and uncertainty about future approvals. China, on the other hand, seems to be using this as an opportunity to boost domestic chip industry. The US, under President Donald Trump, has been vocal about domestic bases for American companies and signalling that the US-based companies should align with the administrations broad policies. The result is a tug of war, possibly at the expense of a tech giants business prospects. The detention centre was hastily assembled in just eight days in June with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents at an abandoned airfield in Floridas Everglades wetlands, home to a large population of alligators A federal judge in the US has ordered the Trump administration and the Florida government not to detain any more migrants in the notorious Everglades detention centre known as Alligator Alcatraz. The judge has also directed authorities to dismantle most sites in the facility, effectively shuttering the facility. The Florida government has announced that it will seek an appeal against the decision. The detention centre was hastily assembled in just eight days in June with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents at an abandoned airfield in Floridas Everglades wetlands, home to a large population of alligators. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD President Donald Trump visited the detention centre last month and boasted about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators would serve as guards. The White House has nicknamed the facility Alligator Alcatraz, a reference to the former island prison in San Francisco Bay that Trump has said he wants to reopen. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said that the centre was initially planned to hold 3,000 migrants. But it has come under fire from both environmentalists and critics of Trumps crackdown on migration, who consider the facility to be inhumane. The new ruling on Thursday by District Judge Kathleen Williams comes after a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Friends of the Everglades and the Centre for Biological Diversity. The environmental groups argue that the detention centre threatens the sensitive Everglades ecosystem and was hastily built without conducting the legally required environmental impact studies. Earlier this month, Judge Williams ordered a temporary halt to further construction at the detention centre. She has now directed the Trump administration and the state of Floridagoverned by Republican Ron DeSantisto dismantle all temporary fencing at the facility within 60 days. The order also requires the removal of all lighting, generators, and waste and sewage treatment systems. Additionally, the ruling prohibits authorities from bringing any new individuals to the site who were not already being held there. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Several detainees have spoken to AFP about the harsh conditions inside the centre, citing a lack of medical care, mistreatment, and alleged violations of their legal rights. They dont even treat animals like this. This is like torture, said Luis Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Cuban detainee who spoke to AFP from inside the facility. Gonzalez said he recently shared a cramped, chain-link enclosed cell with around 30 people, comparing it to a chicken coop. Despite criticism, the Trump administration has stated its intention to use this facility as a model for similar detention centres nationwide. With inputs from agencies Even as the US moves ahead with plans to impose tariffs of up to 50% on Indian exports accusing New Delhi of indirectly funding Russias it continues to stress its commitment to deepening trade relations with India Even as the United States moves ahead with plans to impose tariffs of up to 50% on Indian exports accusing New Delhi of indirectly supporting Russias war effort by buying discounted Russian oil it continues to stress its commitment to deepening trade relations with India. The seemingly contradictory stance has drawn criticism from several quarters, who view it as strategic double speak. In a press conference on Thursday, US President Donald Trumps trade adviser Peter Navarro reaffirmed the administrations decision not to delay the tariff hike, set to take effect on August 27. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Navarro alleged that India is profiting from refining Russian crude and indirectly funding Russias war machine, asserting that the road to peace (in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war) runs through India. I love India. Look, [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi is a great leader. But please, please India, like, look at what your role here is in the global economy and good here. Its like, what youre doing right now is not creating peace, its perpetuating the war, Navarro said. They dont need oil its a refining profiteering scheme, he added, claiming India is using the money that they get from us when they sell us stuff to buy Russian oil, refine it, and make significant profit, which he said eventually contributes to Russias arms buildup. Navarro further argued that the US taxpayer is effectively subsidising Ukraines defence while countries like India, through their trade with Moscow, are undermining these efforts. So thats insane, and President Trump sees that chessboard beautifully. And you guys need to write about that, he told reporters in Washington, DC. Despite this confrontational tone, the US State Department appeared to strike a more conciliatory note when asked by CNN-News18 if the tariffs would hurt the growing India-US strategic partnership. We value our ongoing engagement with the Government of India on trade and investment matters and look forward to continuing to advance a trade agreement that leads to a productive and balanced trade relationship between our two countries, News 18 quoted a spokesperson as saying. This measured response stands in contrast to Navarros accusations and has fueled criticism of the US administrations inconsistent messaging. Analysts point out that while the White House singles out India, it has been relatively silent on Chinas much larger imports of Russian oil. In July, Trump imposed an initial 25% tariff on select Indian exports and warned of an additional 25% hike set for August 27. According to US officials, these penalties are meant to correct longstanding imbalances in trade and signal disapproval over Indias continued energy ties with Moscow. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The President has made clear his desire to correct longstanding imbalances in international trade and bring back fairness to our trade relationships, the State Department added. Indian officials, however, maintain that energy imports are guided by national interest and affordability, not geopolitics. India has also reiterated that its trade decisions including any future trade agreement with the U.S. will not come at the cost of core domestic sectors like agriculture and fisheries. Meanwhile, negotiations for a possible India-US trade deal are ongoing, with both sides expressing cautious optimism about progress later this year. With inputs from agencies NVIDIA has finally confirmed the launch of its GeForce Now cloud gaming service in India in November 2025, 5 years of the launch of the service in North America and Europe. This follows its launch in Thailand, facilitated by the GFNA partner Brothers Picture. The India launch is part of a broader global rollout and coincides with a major technical upgrade to the service. Blackwell RTX Architecture Upgrade In September, GeForce NOW is set to receive an upgrade to the NVIDIA Blackwell RTX architecture. This enhancement is intended to deliver what the company describes as GeForce RTX 5080-class performance to subscribers. The upgrade aims to provide users with improved gaming performance, including higher resolutions and frame rates, without a change in membership pricing. Key technical specifications highlighted include 62 teraflops of compute performance, a 48GB frame buffer, and faster frame rates compared to previous-generation servers. The architecture also incorporates technologies such as NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, which supports streaming at up to 5K resolution at 120 frames per second (fps), and NVIDIA Reflex for competitive gaming, which can deliver streams at up to 360 fps. Additionally, a new Cinematic Quality Streaming mode with 4:4:4 chroma sampling and AV1 encoding is being introduced for visual fidelity. The upgrade is also expected to improve compatibility with various devices. Premium members will be able to stream at 90 fps on Steam Decks and 4K 120 fps on the Lenovo Legion Go S handheld. The service will also support streaming on select LG monitors and TVs, and Mac users are slated to receive the full Blackwell RTX upgrade. New Install-to-Play Feature Alongside the architectural upgrade, GeForce NOW is introducing a new feature called Install-to-Play. This feature will allow members to install games directly in the cloud, expanding the services game catalog to nearly 4,500 titles. The company states that this will enable players to access a larger portion of their PC game collections. Ultimate and Performance members will receive 100GB of single-session storage, with options for additional persistent storage for a monthly fee. This is intended to allow installed games to remain ready for play without requiring re-installation. Upcoming Game Titles NVIDIA has announced a lineup of games that are planned to be optimized for the upgraded platform. This includes titles such as ARC Raiders, Borderlands 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Cinder City, Dying Light: The Beast, Hell Is Us, The Outer Worlds 2, and Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2. The company states that members will be able to play these titles on the cloud from their launch day. Pricing and Availability The Ultimate membership for GeForce NOW is stated to remain at USD 19.99 (Rs. 1,745 approx.) a month, with a 12-month plan available for USD 199.99 (Rs. 17,460 approx.). The Performance membership will also remain at USD 9.99 (Rs. 870 approx.) a month. The company advises that server space for the upgraded Ultimate membership will be limited. Pricing for India should be announced when it launches in November. Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2024. Thursday Night Mostly cloudy in the evening then periods of showers after midnight. Low 62F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Wednesday Night A few clouds from time to time. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 62F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. 26-month sentence given to former Air Force major who spied for China upheld ROC Central News Agency 08/21/2025 02:29 PM Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 26-month prison term for a former Air Force major convicted of spying for Chinese intelligence, while remanding another 10-month sentence to a lower court. Former Air Force Major Shih Chun-cheng () was convicted of two counts of National Security Act breaches for approaching then-Air Force Air Intercept Controller Hsu Chan-cheng () and persuading Hsu to leak classified files in exchange for payment. The Taiwan High Court's Taichung Branch Court in March gave Shih two sentences of 26 months and 10 months for his offenses and ruled that Shih was to serve 30 months, with his illicit gains confiscated. After Shih and prosecutors appealed the ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the 26-month jail term and remanded the 10-month sentence to the lower court for a retrial. The Supreme Court also placed travel restrictions on Shih, who was granted bail of NT$100,000. According to the indictment, Shih, who was discharged in 2008, was recruited by Chinese intelligence officers to operate an espionage ring in Taiwan to gather military secrets. Shih met Hsu in 2021 and persuaded Hsu to provide intelligence to him in exchange for payments, on a false claim that he had ties with the United States Armed Forces. From 2021 to August 2024, Hsu leaked information, including the Air Force's applications of air-launched Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles and deployments in response to Chinese military incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone. Shih then delivered the intelligence to his contacts in China. Shih received NT$2.1 million (US$68,923) from his Chinese contacts, NT$200,000 of which he shared with Hsu. Shortly after local media reported on the incident in March, Defense Minister Wellington Koo () said the leaked data concerning the Hsiung Feng III missiles predated the development of the missiles and was "not combat-related." (By Hsieh Hsin-en and Sean Lin) Enditem/ASG NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Navy Sailor Convicted of Spying for China Thursday, August 21, 2025 For Immediate Release Office of Public Affairs Yesterday, on Aug. 20, a federal jury convicted Jinchao Wei, also known as Patrick Wei, of espionage and export violations. Wei was an active-duty U.S. Navy sailor stationed at Naval Base San Diego when he agreed to sell Navy secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer for $12,000. Following a five-day trial and one day of deliberation, the jury convicted Wei of six counts, including conspiracy to commit espionage, espionage, and unlawful export of, and conspiracy to export, technical data related to defense articles in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Wei is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 1. "The defendant, who took an oath to protect our Nation and was entrusted with a security clearance as a petty officer in the United States Navy, sold out his country for $12,000," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. "He violated his oath, betrayed his uniform and fellow sailors, and turned his back on his adopted nation for money. This verdict serves as a warning to those who do not take seriously the solemn obligations of their positions of trust or their duty to this Nation. Do not be tempted by easy money because you will be prosecuted and sent to prison." "The defendant's actions represent an egregious betrayal of the trust placed in him as a member of the U.S. military," said U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon for the Southern District of California. "By trading military secrets to the People's Republic of China for cash, he jeopardized not only the lives of his fellow sailors but also the security of the entire nation and our allies. The jury's verdict serves as a crucial reminder that the Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute traitors." "Jinchao Wei swore oaths to become a U.S. Navy sailor and a U.S. citizen. He then committed espionage by sending photographs and videos of U.S. Navy vessels, ship movement information, technical manuals, and weapons capabilities to a Chinese intelligence officer," said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. "China continues to aggressively target U.S. military members with and without clearances. This guilty verdict shows the FBI and our partners will aggressively investigate and hold accountable anyone who threatens U.S. national security. We encourage past and present U.S. government personnel to beware of anyone offering to pay for their information or opinions and to report any suspicious contacts to the FBI." According to evidence presented at trial, Wei was a machinist's mate for the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Essex. He also held a U.S. security clearance and had access to sensitive national defense information about the ship's various systems. The evidence introduced at trial showed that Wei was approached in February 2022 via social media by someone who claimed to be a naval enthusiast. The individual was in reality a Chinese intelligence officer. Between February 2022 and his arrest in August 2023, as their relationship developed, Wei, at the request of the officer, sent extensive information about the Essex, including photographs, videos, and about its weapons. He also sent detailed information about other U.S. Navy ships that he took from restricted U.S. Navy computer systems. In exchange for this information, the intelligence officer paid Wei more than $12,000 over 18 months. During the trial, the government presented evidence including conversations and other messages that Wei exchanged with his Chinese handler. These communications showed the efforts they made to cover their tracks, the tasks issued by his handler, and how Wei was paid for his work. In addition to the two espionage charges, Wei was convicted of four counts of conspiring to violate and violating the Arms Export Control Act. That law prohibits individuals from willfully exporting technical data related to a defense article without a license from the Department of State. The government presented evidence that Wei conspired with his Chinese handler to export certain technical information which required a license for export. The FBI and NCIS investigated the case, with valuable assistance from the U.S. Department of State and Transportation Security Administration. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parmley for the Southern District of California and Trial Attorney Adam Barry of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case. Topics: Counterintelligence National Security Components: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Security Division (NSD) USAO - California, Southern Press Release Number: 25-869 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Big Brother At The Bolshoi: Russia's Iconic Theater To Spy On Its Own Staff By Systema August 22, 2025 Summary The Bolshoi Theater in Moscow is installing monitoring software to track employees' views on the Ukraine war. The software scans e-mails, social media, and web browsers for political content. It is Russia's most famous opera house, where Tchaikovsky premiered Swan Lake, where Russia's premier ballet dancers and symphony musicians are judged for their technical excellence and revered for their artistry. Now employees of the Bolshoi Theater will also be judged -- and monitored -- by another criteria: their interest in, and views on, Russia's all-out war on Ukraine. The renowned Moscow theater has signed a 21.6 million ruble ($266,000) contract to install on hundreds of employees' computers monitoring software designed by tech entrepreneur Natalya Kaspersky's company. The contract was discovered in a government database by Systema, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit. The software, called InfoWatch Traffic Monitor, will examine e-mail correspondence for things such as obscene content or discussions about theater management. The developers have also included filters to detect "political views" as well as "interest in the SVO" -- the acronym for the Kremlin's official name for the Ukraine war. According to promotional materials, InfoWatch's software also monitors social media networks and messenger applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram, and popular web browsers. As of 2024, the Bolshoi, which has its own line item in the federal budget, said it employed nearly 1,000 dancers and musicians, plus around 2,500 support, administrative, and technical employees. Tech Pioneer Kaspersky Under the contract, the main contractor for the project is a company called Andek. But the InfoWatch software itself was developed by a company called InfoWatch Laboratory, which is owned by Kaspersky. Kaspersky's ex-husband is Yevgeny Kaspersky, a programmer and tech pioneer whose antivirus software was ubiquitous on computers around the world until allegations of ties to Russian intelligence prompted the US government to ban the software. Natalya Kaspersky helped found Kaspersky Lab in the 1990s and played a key role in propelling its success. The couple divorced in 1998. Neither the Bolshoi nor Natalya Kaspersky's company responded to request for comment. Founded in 1776 and standing just a stone's throw from the Kremlin walls, the theater has always been under the close supervision of Russia's security services. In the Soviet era, KGB agents accompanied the theater's foreign tours to monitor dancers and performers and prevent defections. The theater is now under direction of famed conductor Valery Gergiev, whose outspoken support for Russian President Vladimir Putin has resulted in him being shunned in many Western capitals. Gergiev replaced Vladimir Urin, the Bolshoi's general director, who was pushed out after he signed a petition in 2022 expressing opposition to the Ukraine war. Since the launch of the all-out war on Ukraine in 2022, many cultural institutions across Russia have come under pressure, with directors and artists who have spoken out in opposition to the war being fired, or public subsidies being cut off. In June 2022, the Culture Ministry announced it was ending contracts for Moscow's famed Gogol Center, which had been under the artistic direction of filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov until he was fired a year earlier. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-moscow-bolshoi-theater-ballet-spying-software/33509470.html Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Contracts Contracts For Aug. 21, 2025 NAVY Raytheon Missiles & Defense, Marlborough, Massachusetts, was awarded a $52,981,009 fixed-price incentive (firm-target) modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-22-C-5500) to exercise an option for hardware production of the AN/SPY-6(V) family of radars. Work will be performed in Andover, Massachusetts (31%); San Diego, California (9%); Sykesville, Maryland (9%); Scottsdale, Arizona (8%); Syracuse, New York (5%); Cerritos, California (5%); Stafford Springs, Connecticut (4%); Tulsa, Oklahoma (3%); Indianapolis, Indiana (3%); Portsmouth, Rhode Island (2%); Riverside, California (2%); and various locations across the U.S., each less than 1% (19%). Work is expected to be completed by September 2029. Fiscal 2024 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $52,981,009 will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. (Awarded Aug. 20, 2025) Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded a $27,235,068 modification (P00010) to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N0001924C0011). This modification procures special tooling and test equipment in support of the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft for the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers, and non-U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will be performed in Marietta, Georgia (30%); Palmdale, California (29%); Fort Worth, Texas (28%); El Segundo, California (5%); Chesterfield, Michigan (4%); Melbourne, Florida (2%); and various other locations within the continental U.S. (2%), and is expected to be completed in December 2028. Fiscal 2023 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $84,654; fiscal 2025 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $10,915,690; fiscal 2023 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $42,328; fiscal 2025 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $5,321,146; fiscal 2023 aircraft procurement (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $42,327; fiscal 2025 aircraft procurement (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $5,437,289; non-U.S. DOD participants funds in the amount of $5,027,789; and FMS customer funds in the amount of $363,845, will be obligated at time of award, $169,303 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Sedna Digital Solutions LLC,* Manassas, Virginia, is awarded a $23,842,394 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-23-C-6132) to exercise options for Navy engineering design, development, production support, equipment, and supporting material for SONAR systems. Work will be performed in Manassas, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by Jan. 30, 2029. Fiscal 2025 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $9,070,204 (38%) will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. Information Systems and Networks Corp., Bethesda, Maryland, has been awarded a $14,268,341 firm-fixed-price and cost contract (M9549425C0014) to provide housing property management support services for Marine Corps service members residing in unaccompanied housing (UH). Work will be performed at 26 installations located in both the continental U.S. and outside the continental U.S. including Okinawa, Japan (23%); Oceanside, California (21%); Jacksonville, North Carolina (21%); San Diego, California (6%); Port Royal, South Carolina (5%); Twentynine Palms, California (4%); Kaneohe, Hawaii (4%); Quantico, Virginia (4%); Havelock, North Carolina (3%); Yuma, Arizona (3%), and various other locations making up less than 1%. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $28,536,683. If all options are exercised, work will continue through September 2026. Fiscal 2025 operation and maintenance (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $14,268,341 will be obligated at time of award. This contract was not competitively procured and was awarded under the authority of 10 U.S. Code 3204(a)(1) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The Marine Corps Installations Command Contracting Office, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M9549425C0014). Sea Dragon Energy Inc.,* San Diego, California, is awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Seawater to Jet Fuel Demonstration Unit (Phase Two) effort. Work will be performed in San Diego, California, and is expected to be completed in August 2027. The total cumulative value of this contract, including a 24-month base period with no options, is $9,497,958. Fiscal 2024 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $9,497,958, are obligated at the time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured under long range broad agency announcement (BAA) (N0001425SB001) entitled "Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Navy and Marine Corps Science and Technology." Since proposals will be received throughout the year under the Long-Range BAA, the number of proposals received in response to the solicitation is unknown. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N0001425C1317). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Bestwork Industries for the Blind Inc.,** Cherry Hill, New Jersey, has been awarded a maximum $48,658,050 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for fleece liners. This is a three-year contract with no option periods. The ordering period end date is Aug. 20, 2028. Using customers are Navy and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2025 through 2028 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-25-D-B014). AIR FORCE InfraTech International LLC, Barrigada, Guam, was awarded a $18,986,013 firm-fixed-price contract for AJJY 25-1049M Upgrade Generator and Switchgear - Detachment 2. This contract provides for upgrading the generators and switchgear at Det 2, Northwest Field, Guam. Work will be performed at Northwest Field, Guam, and is expected to be completed by Nov. 22, 2027. This contract was a competitive acquisition, and two offers were received. Fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance appropriations funds in the amount of $18,986,013 are being obligated at the time of award. The 36th Contracting Squadron, Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, is the contracting activity (FA5240-24-D-0004 - FA5240-25-F-0117). Modern International Inc., Barrigada, Guam, was awarded a $16,985,204 firm-fixed-price contract for airfield construction. This contract provides for repairs to the tie feeder circuits P-84 and P-85. Work will be performed on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and is expected to be completed by Feb. 22, 2027. This contract was a competitive acquisition and eight offers were received. Fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance appropriations funds in the amount of $16,985,204 are being obligated at the time of award. The 36th Contracting Squadron, Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, is the contracting activity (FA5240-25-C-0002). EB Airfoils LLC, Palm City, Florida, was awarded a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity $13,357,344 contract for TF-33 Engine sustainment. This contract provides for the repair of 2nd stage compressor blade sets. Work will be performed at Palm City, Florida, and is expected to be completed by July 2029. This contract was a competitive acquisition and one offer was received. No funds will be obligated at time of award. The Air Force Sustainment Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity (FA8121-25-D-0011). (Awarded August 20, 2025) Sea Pac Engineering Inc., Los Angeles, California, was awarded a $9,905,586 firm-fixed-price contract for BPS, tank and well repairs. This contract provides for design and repair of the Marbo Bulk Pump Station, Tank 2, Wells 1 and 3, Work will be performed at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and is expected to be completed by Nov. 1, 2027. This contract was a competitive acquisition, and three offers were received. Fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance appropriations funds in the amount of $9,905,586 are being obligated at the time of award. The 36th Contracting Squadron, Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, is the contracting activity (FA5240-25-C-0004). ARMY S & K Design Build LLC, St. Ignatius, Montana, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for design-bid-build project for water infrastructure. The amount of this action is $ 7,844,620 with a total cumulative face value of $7,983,270. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work will be performed in Melrose, New Mexico, with an estimated completion date of July 31, 2026. Fiscal 2025 military construction, defense-wide funds in the amount of $7,844,620 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the contracting activity (W912PP-25-C-0007). V. Lopes Jr. & Sons GEC,* Santa Maria, California, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a vehicle maintenance shop. The amount of this action is $15,836,653. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in Bakersfield, California, with an estimated completion date of March 18, 2027. Fiscal 2021 military construction, Army National Guard funds in the amount of $15,836,653 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Property and Fiscal Office, California, is the contracting activity (W912LA-25-C-A002). Scale AI Inc.,* San Francisco, California, was awarded a firm-fixed price contract for research and development services. The amount of this action is $99,490,983. Bids were solicited via the internet with 11 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 20, 2030. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Adelphi, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W911QX-25-D-A011). *Small business **Mandatory source https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/4282720/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China's Xi makes a rare visit to Tibet to mark 60 years of contested rule Tibetan government-in-exile says the visit 'rings hollow' as Beijing 'lacks both historical and popular legitimacy' over its presence there. By RFA staff 2025.08.20 -- Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a rare visit to Tibet on Wednesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region the consolidation of Beijing's long-contested rule over the Himalayan territory. Xi arrived by plane in Lhasa on his second visit to Tibet as president. Video broadcast by the Chinese government showed hundreds of people in traditional dress dancing with flowers and banging traditional drums as Xi walked the red carpet. Thousands more waved flags and white ceremonial Tibetan scarves along Xi's motorcade route. "One can read China's leader Xi Jinping visiting Tibet twice in the last five years as a sign that everything is not rosy inside Tibet as Beijing portrays," Namgyal Choedup, the representative of the Office of Tibet in Washington, told RFA. "Despite more than six decades of the CCP's rule, Tibet is essentially a police state and arguably the most surveilled region in the whole of PRC. Xi's visit to Lhasa to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region rings hollow because Beijing lacks both historical and popular legitimacy over its presence in Tibet." Xi was last in Tibet in 2021, where he urged people to "follow the party" in a visit largely seen by outside observers to signal the Communist Party's confidence that order had finally been established in a region with a long history of protest against Chinese rule. "To govern, stabilize and develop Tibet, the first thing is to maintain political stability, social stability, ethnic unity and religious harmony," state media cited Xi as saying to senior Tibet officials on Wednesday. Chinese government media also said Xi urged the building of a "modern socialist" Tibet "that is united, prosperous, civilized, harmonious, and beautiful." Communist forces occupied Tibet in 1951. Six years after the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile in India following a failed uprising, Mao Zedong's single-party dictatorship established the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965. Decades of political repression followed, including the demolition of some Buddhist monasteries and the imprisonment of monks. During a period following the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when China further opened its doors to the outside world, Tibet was rocked by protests by monks and a series of self-immolations. Recent years have seen the virtual closure of Tibet to journalists and foreigners, the removal of Tibetan children from their families to boarding schools where they are taught in Mandarin, and the repression of all forms of political or cultural expression outside Communist Party control. The Dalai Lama, who in July celebrated his 90th birthday at his home in exile in Dharamsala, India, stated that upon his death, he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader and that only the Gaden Phodrang Trust his foundation would be authorized to identify his successor. Beijing maintains it has the right to approve the Dalai Lama's successor. With reporting from the Associated Press and Reuters. Copyright 1998-2025, 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 August not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Swiss Government Press release Published on 21 August 2025 Bern, 21.08.2025 -- The Deputy National Armaments Director Thomas Rothacher will receive the defence attaches accredited in Switzerland from ten countries on 21 August 2025. The traditional professional exchange will take place in Bern and Spiez. Once a year, the National Armaments Director, this year represented by the Deputy National Armaments Director Thomas Rothacher, receives the foreign defence attaches accredited in Switzerland for an information event. The aim of this traditional event is to transfer knowledge regarding the procurement organisation armasuisse and its services in support of the Swiss Armed Forces. Officers from ten different states will take part in the event. In addition to the explanations by the Deputy National Armaments Director on the new Armament Policy Strategy of the Federal Council, the area armasuisse Real Estate will present itself and highlight its core competences, including those in the area of military protection structures. Thanks to steady development and international cooperation in this area, Switzerland is one of the leading European nations in the development of structures with protection against weapon fire. In addition, the Spiez Laboratory, the Swiss Federal Institute for NBC-Protection is opening its doors for the foreign defence attaches as part of a laboratory tour and presenting its scope of application in guest presentations. August 21, 2025 By Air Force Senior Airman Josephine Pepin-Rust U.S., South Korea Kick Off Ulchi Freedom Shield 25 The 7th Air Force and other U.S. forces are partnering with South Korea to conduct Ulchi Freedom Shield 25, which began Aug. 18 and continues through Aug. 28. This annual exercise aims to enhance the combined, joint, all-domain and interagency operating environment, thereby strengthening the regional alliance's response capabilities. Freedom Shield 25 is a defense-oriented exercise featuring live-fire, constructive and field training exercises that engage alliance forces and governmental agencies. Key aspects of the training focus on conducting all-domain operations leveraging component assets. Key players in these large-scale, live-fire training events include Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea, United Nations Command, the South Korean joint chiefs of staff, the South Korean government, the 8th Army, 7th Air Force, and Space Force. Each entity's role leads to strengthening interoperability, reinforcing a combined defense posture and increasing combat readiness. Several United Nations Command member states are slated to contribute personnel and participate in various capacities. During the exercise, USFK will participate in space-related elements, reflecting modern warfare challenges. U.S. guardians will also integrate space-based capabilities with terrestrial targeteers, logisticians and cyber capacities. Members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, Sweden and Switzerland, are observing the exercise. U.S. aircraft will integrate with South Korean aircraft for several live-fly exercise events. Integrated U.S. F-35A and F-35C Lightning IIs will enable the exercise to focus on complex scenarios, fifth and fourth-generation aircraft integration, and sustained, continuous air operations, enhancing interoperability between the two countries. Ulchi Freedom Shield 25 underscores the continuing military partnership between the U.S. and South Korea and is implemented in the spirit of the Oct. 1, 1953, mutual defense treaty. Additionally, the exercise is conducted in support of the Korean Armistice Agreement, fortifying the combined defense posture and enhancing response capabilities. It continues to reinforce the role of the alliance as the linchpin for regional peace and security, reaffirming the ironclad commitment between the U.S. and South Korea to defend their homelands. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address G7: Statement of the G7 Non-Proliferation Directors Group European External Action Service (EEAS) 21.08.2025 Brussels, Belgium EEAS Press Team We, the G7 Non-Proliferation Directors Group, seek a safer, more prosperous world, with undiminished security for all. We are convinced that, in an increasingly uncertain security environment, meaningful progress on disarmament, non-proliferation, and arms control will require sustained engagement and mutual understanding from all concerned parties. We also recognize the value of incorporating a variety of perspectives in disarmament, non-proliferation, and arms control decision-making processes. We pledge to lead by example, fostering dialogue, cooperation, and transparency as we collectively confront these challenges. We invite all States who share our vision to join us in these efforts. We take note of the rising demand for nuclear energy and commit to working together to ensure that civil nuclear programs around the globe are consistent with the highest international safety, security, and safeguards standards, guidelines, and recommendations. We reiterate our principled opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons as detrimental to international peace and security. We will continue to support the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its mission to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material and the absence of undeclared nuclear activities, as well as initiatives aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation, including through the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction (Global Partnership). Further to the G7 Charlevoix Foreign Ministers' Declaration on Maritime Security and Prosperity, we will also tackle maritime sanctions evasion networks linked to illicit weapons programs, including through the establishment of a Shadow Fleet Task Force. The G7 remains resolute in seeking peace and stability in the Middle East. We re-iterate that Iran can never have or acquire a nuclear weapon. We call for the resumption of negotiations aimed at achieving a comprehensive, verifiable, and durable agreement that addresses Iran's nuclear program. It is essential that Iran remain party to, and fully implement its obligations under, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), including its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, as a non-nuclear weapon State. We urge Iran to refrain from any escalatory action and to urgently resume full cooperation with the IAEA, including by providing verifiable information about all nuclear material in Iran. Such measures would help build confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. We also continue to express our serious concerns about Iran's proliferation of ballistic missiles, and its support for its proxies and partners such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq. We reiterate our commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). We demand that the DPRK abandon all nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), ballistic missiles, and related activities in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner in accordance with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs). The DPRK cannot and will never have the status of a nuclear-weapon State in accordance with the NPT nor any special status of any kind. We re-affirm the importance of upholding and fully and effectively implementing all relevant UNSCRs. We commit to countering sanction-evasion activities and illicit practices that fund the DPRK's unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs, with Russia and China being the most significant facilitators. We urge the DPRK to halt destabilizing weapons testing and not conduct any further nuclear tests. We re-affirm that the G7 seeks to support diplomatic efforts, based on mutual respect, to address the deteriorating security environment on the Korean Peninsula, with the ultimate goal of achieving peace and stability in the region and beyond. We condemn Russia's continued brutal war against Ukraine. We reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity and right to exist, and its freedom, sovereignty, and independence. We underscore the need for robust and credible security arrangements to ensure that Ukraine can deter and defend against any continued aggression. We condemn the provision of all military assistance to Russia by the DPRK and Iran, and the provision of weapons and dual-use components by China, and will continue to take action against those who support Russia's war and the build-up of Russia's military force. We remain committed to international efforts, most notably by the IAEA, to uphold nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, including at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. We welcome ongoing efforts to achieve a full and unconditional ceasefire and to negotiate a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in line with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. So long as such a ceasefire is not reached, we will continue to explore all options, such as further ramping up sanctions against Russia. We reiterate our commitment to the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons, recalling the unprecedented devastation and immense human suffering the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced as a result of the atomic bombings of 1945. We underscore the importance of the 80-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons, the overall decline in global nuclear arsenals since the end of the Cold War, and efforts to limit the tremendous sums devoted to nuclear weapons worldwide. In support of these objectives, we will seek to foster meaningful dialogue with a view to advancing strategic risk reduction, nuclear arms control, and nuclear disarmament. We are concerned with China's significant nuclear weapons build-up, which lacks transparency and meaningful safeguards against unintended nuclear escalation. We also seek Russia's return to full compliance with the New START Treaty and follow-on nuclear arms control measures. Reciprocal transparency regarding nuclear forces, doctrines, and delivery systems benefits all parties and contributes to global stability. The G7 will continue to work toward strengthening the international treaty architecture underpinning nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. We underline the essential role of the NPT as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, and the foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy and technologies. We call on those States that have not yet done so to accede to the NPT, and on those who have acceded to fully implement their obligations under the Treaty. We commit to working with all States to achieve a successful Review Conference in 2026 and to support constructive discussions in all subsidiary bodies of the Conference on Disarmament, including those on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. We deplore all attempts to obstruct the work of disarmament fora. We also re-commit to the objectives of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty for international peace and security and to support with the necessary resources, subject to our domestic requirements, the long-term sustainability of the International Monitoring System. We emphasize the need for the full implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). Any use or threat of use of biological or chemical weapons anywhere, at any time, by anyone, under any circumstances is unacceptable, and those responsible for the use of such weapons must be held accountable. We note the importance of ongoing efforts to consider measures to enhance the effectiveness of the BTWC, such as the establishment of the long over-due International Cooperation and Assistance and Science and Technology mechanisms and the exchanges on other matters, including compliance and verification. We call for the immediate cessation of the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare and any other chemical attacks in Ukraine, and in this regard express grave concern over the reported use of chloropicrin in Ukraine. We welcome the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' (OPCW) independent verification of CS, a riot control agent, in samples collected by Ukraine and call for the timely attribution of any prohibited use of chemical agents. We commend Syria for its commitment to eliminate the Assad regime's chemical weapons and stand ready to support the OPCW to seize this historic opportunity. We remain committed to preventing an arms race in outer space in all its aspects, recalling the obligation of all States Parties to comply with the Outer Space Treaty, including the prohibition against placing in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying WMD. The G7 supports the establishment of norms, rules, and principles of responsible space behaviours to help enhance security, mitigate threats against space systems, and reduce misperceptions that can increase the risk of armed conflict. We urge all States to ratify the Outer Space Treaty and comply with all its provisions, underscoring that international law, including the UN Charter and international humanitarian law, applies to activities in outer space. We call on all States to refrain from irresponsible behaviours, aggressive rhetoric, or actions that can lead to unintended escalation, including destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests, which might have widespread and irreversible impacts on the outer space environment. We reiterate the need for international cooperation to strengthen safety, security, stability, and sustainability for all States to benefit from the peaceful exploration and use of outer space. The G7 recognizes the profound implications of emerging technologies with potential applications in the realm of both WMD and conventional weapons. Artificial intelligence, drone technology, quantum computing, advanced robotics, and biotechnology are among the technologies that can create tremendous opportunities for the betterment of humankind but also generate security threats. We commit to mitigating the risks associated with these technologies by facilitating their responsible development, deployment, and use, including through threat-reduction programming under the Global Partnership and other relevant bodies, and by adhering to applicable international law. We will seek to implement commitments on biosecurity and biosafety through cross-sectoral, expert-level work in high-priority areas. We also reaffirm our commitment to coordinating effective export controlsthrough multilateral export control regimes and robust national systemson potential military-use items, technologies, and research, to safeguard international peace and security. We remain unwavering in our commitment to fostering undiminished security for all and reducing the risks posed by WMD. We recognize the complex challenges ahead and the need for multilateral cooperation and a forward-looking approach. As we witness a rise in conflicts and tensions across the world, the international community must unite to address the root causes of insecurity, instability, and armed conflict. We reiterate our call for all States to join in this effort, ensuring a future in which security, trust, and the ultimate elimination of WMD prevail. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU and US publish Joint Statement on transatlantic trade and investment European Commission Press release Aug 21, 2025 Brussels The EU and US have issued a Joint Statement establishing a framework for fair, balanced and mutually beneficial transatlantic trade and investment. This Joint Statement confirms and builds on the political agreement reached by President von der Leyen and President Trump on 27 July. The Joint Statement sets out the commitment on both sides to work towards restoring stability and predictability in EU-US trade and investment, for the benefit of businesses and citizens. It is the first step in a process which will increase trade and improve market access in additional sectors. The Joint Statement follows intensive negotiations led by EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic with his US counterparts, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. The Joint Statement lays out in detail the new US tariff regime towards the EU, with a clear maximum, all-inclusive, tariff rate of 15% for the vast majority of EU exports, including strategic sectors such as cars, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber. Sectors which are already subject to Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariffs of 15% or above, will not be subject to additional tariffs. With regard to cars and car parts, the 15% US tariff ceiling will apply in tandem with the EU initiating the procedures for tariff reductions vis-a-vis US products. In addition, effective as of 1 September, a number of product groups will benefit from a special regime, with only MFN tariffs applying. These include unavailable natural resources (such as cork), all aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals and their ingredients and chemical precursors. Moreover, in line with President von der Leyen's 27 July statement, both sides agree to continue to ambitiously work to extend this regime to other product categories - a key deliverable for the EU. Recognising shared challenges as well as the benefits of cooperation, the EU and US intend to work on ringfencing their economies from overcapacity in the steel and aluminium sectors, and to work on secure supply chains between each other, including through a tariff rate quota solution for EU exports of steel and aluminium, and their derivative products. While the European Union remains convinced that high tariffs are detrimental to the global economy, the negotiated outcome avoids harmful escalation and creates a basis for continued dialogue and the development of the transatlantic relationship, including in areas of shared strategic interest. The transatlantic relationship is already the most valuable economic relationship in the world, worth 1.6 trillion annually. The deal safeguards this relationship, and millions of EU jobs. President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: "The European Union will always pursue the best outcomes for its citizens and businesses. Faced with a challenging situation, we have delivered for our Member States and industry, and restored clarity and coherence to transatlantic trade. This is not the end of the process, we continue to engage with the US to agree more tariff reductions, to identify more areas of cooperation, and to create more economic growth potential. At the same time, we continue to diversify our international trade partnerships, creating EU jobs and prosperity." Next steps The Commission will rapidly proceed, with the support of EU Member States and the European Parliament, and in line with the relevant internal procedures, to implementing the main aspects of the deal. The EU will also engage in negotiating an Agreement on fair, balanced and mutually beneficial trade with the US, in line with the agreed framework and the applicable procedures. Following the EU-US political agreement, the EU has also suspended, effective as of 7 August, the EU rebalancing measures adopted on 24 July 2025. Background The transatlantic partnership is a key artery of global trade and is the most significant bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world. EU-US trade in goods and services has doubled over the last decade, surpassing 1.6 trillion in 2024, with 867 billion of trade in goods and 817 billion of trade in services. That is over 4.2 billion of goods and services crossing the Atlantic every day. This deep and comprehensive partnership is underpinned by mutual investment. In 2022, EU and US firms invested 5.3 trillion worth in each other's markets. In the political agreement of 27 July 2025, Presidents von der Leyen and Trump agreed on the key parameters of the EU-US trade relationship. Quote(s) The European Union will always pursue the best outcomes for its citizens and businesses. Faced with a challenging situation, we have delivered for our Member States and industry, and restored clarity and coherence to transatlantic trade. This is not the end of the process, we continue to engage with the US to agree more tariff reductions, to identify more areas of cooperation, and to create more economic growth potential. At the same time, we continue to diversify our international trade partnerships, creating EU jobs and prosperity. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission The Joint Statement is the result of intensive but constructive engagement, and it carries real weight at a time when the global trade landscape is undergoing profound change. This is a serious, strategic deal - and we are fully behind it. A wide range of sectors, including strategic industries such as cars, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber, stand to benefit from the deal. The alternative - a trade war with sky-high tariffs and political escalation - would harm jobs, growth, and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. Instead, the EU and US must chart a cooperative path forward, aligned in our shared ambition to re-industrialise and strengthen economic resilience. Maros Sefcovic, Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security; Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Questions and answers on the EU-US Joint Statement on Transatlantic Trade and Investment * European Commission Questions and answers Aug 21, 2025 Brussels General What are the main aspects of the Joint Statement? The Joint Statement defines the new parameters for the EU-US trade relationship and brings back an important measure of stability and predictability in transatlantic trade for the benefit of businesses, workers and consumers on both sides. The key commitments on both sides include: Application across the board of a maximum, all-inclusive 15% tariff ceiling for EU products subject to reciprocal tariffs. No additional tariffs will apply for products which are already subject to MFN tariffs equal to or above 15%. subject to reciprocal tariffs. No additional tariffs will apply for products which are already subject to MFN tariffs equal to or above 15%. A commitment from the US to ensure that EU exports of pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber are included in the 15% tariff ceiling , once the results of the corresponding 232 investigations are concluded. , once the results of the corresponding 232 investigations are concluded. A commitment to apply the 15% all inclusive tariff ceiling to cars and car parts from the first day of the month in which the EU initiates the procedures for implementing the tariff cuts agreed in the deal. from the first day of the month in which the EU initiates the procedures for implementing the tariff cuts agreed in the deal. Exemptions to the 15% tariff ceiling (US commits to apply only MFN tariffs, which are effectively zero or close to zero) to the following EU products: unavailable natural resources (including cork), all aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals and their ingredients and chemical precursors. The EU and US will work on expanding this list further in the future. (US commits to apply only MFN tariffs, which are effectively zero or close to zero) to the following EU products: The EU and US will work on Intention to work on common solutions to ringfence the EU and US economies from sources of overcapacity in the steel and aluminium sector , and to work on secure supply chains, including through Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) solutions. , and to work on secure supply chains, including through Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) solutions. Mutual commitment to reduce non-tariff barriers , including via cooperation on standards and streamlining SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) certificates, and by facilitating mutual recognition of conformity assessments in additional industrial sectors. , including via cooperation on standards and streamlining SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) certificates, and by facilitating mutual recognition of conformity assessments in additional industrial sectors. Cooperation on digital trade and on the moratorium on e-commerce customs duties. and on the moratorium on e-commerce customs duties. Strengthened cooperation in the area of economic security , including cooperation on investment screening and export controls, and on combatting non-market policies and practices. , including cooperation on investment screening and export controls, and on combatting non-market policies and practices. Increased supply chain resilience , cooperation on critical minerals and transatlantic purchases, notably energy and AI chips. , cooperation on and Increased transatlantic private sector investment flows in a broad range of sectors. flows in a broad range of sectors. Recognition of EU plans to substantially increase procurement of military and defence equipment from the US, reflecting the shared strategic priority to deepen transatlantic defence industrial cooperation, strengthen NATO interoperability, and ensure that EU Member States are equipped with the most advanced and reliable defence technologies available. What made it possible to reach an agreement now? What were the outstanding issues for the US that the EU resolved? Since the beginning of the negotiations, the EU has been committed to finding a solution that reestablishes stability and predictability in our trading relations with the US. This has been a complex and lengthy process. The political agreement of 27 July and the now-published Joint Statement are the first important steps in a process that will achieve these goals, securing continued access for EU exports to the US market and safeguarding transatlantic supply chains, without compromising on EU red lines on regulatory autonomy or market access sensitivities. The Joint Statement provides a roadmap for continued negotiation and collaboration between the EU and US, including working to improve market access for EU as well as US companies. How does the EU benefit from the deal? Our objective is to protect the jobs and firms in the EU that rely on trade with the US and avoid the risks posed by uncertainty. With this framework we stabilised the situation, gave EU firms clarity and predictability about the tariffs they will face on the US market, while ensuring they retain a competitive position as well as the continued good functioning of transatlantic supply chains. With this framework in place, the EU and US will now work on further expanding market access and increasing trade with each other. Is this a fair deal? The result obtained by the EU compares well to results obtained by other US trading partners. The deal safeguards the competitiveness of EU exports into the US in a situation where the US has increased tariffs on all its imports. EU exports will continue to be in a strong position on the US market in comparison to other US trading partners. The necessary space has also been created to further engage with the US on improving market access conditions across the Atlantic, including by further lowering of tariffs for additional sectors or working together on addressing non-tariff barriers. On market access - US offer Can you explain the new tariff regime the US agreed to implement for the EU? The US has committed to substantially improving tariff treatment for EU exports to the US by establishing a single, all-inclusive US tariff ceiling of 15% for EU goods. The US will also provide special treatment for a number of strategic products, such as aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals, and unavailable natural resources (including cork), making them subject to MFN tariffs only. The EU and US will keep working to add more products to the list of such exemptions. This delivers on the clearly expressed needs of EU exporters, for whom the agreed immediate tariff relief is of the utmost importance. What products will be subject to the 15% ceiling tariff? The 15% ceiling applies to nearly all EU exports previously subject to "reciprocal" tariffs. The ceiling will also apply to products that are currently or may be in the future subject to the US Section 232 of the of the Trade Expansion of 1962 measures, notably cars, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber. For steel, the EU and US intend to work on solutions to ensure secure supply chains, including tariff rate quotas, while cooperating on measures to ringfence their economies from overcapacity. Will the ceiling also apply to cars and car parts that currently face a tariff up to 27.5%? Yes. The US has committed to replace the current 27.5% tariffs on cars and car parts with the 15% tariff ceiling. This will be carried out in tandem with the EU initiating the procedures for the legislative proposals to reduce tariffs on US products. How will the 15% tariff be applied in practice? Under this new tariff regime, EU products exported to the US will face a maximum 15% duty, which already includes the US Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariff. Where the current US MFN is equal to or higher than 15%, only the MFN rate will continue to apply. The US has reserved this treatment so far only for the EU (with the exception of Canada and Mexico), while for other trading partners tariffs apply on top of existing MFN tariffs. For example, the US previously had a 14.9% ad valorem tariff on cheese. The new tariff for EU cheese will be 15% all inclusive, so 0.1% more than the previously applicable rate. Whereas other countries must add the 14.9% ad valorem tariff to their headline tariff rate. Therefore countries with a 10% headline tariff face a total tariff rate of 24.9% for their cheese exports, while countries with a 35% headline tariff face a total tariff rate of 49.9% for their cheese exports. Who pays for the new tariffs? Is it European or American companies? Tariffs are paid by the company importing the imported goods. So, for tariffs imposed by the US, it is the American importer who pays. For example, if a European company exports shoes to the US, the US company buying these shoes owe the tariffs to the US government. In many cases, the importing company will push to offset some of this cost either by asking for a discount from the supplier or by raising the price for end consumers. In the end, it is usually the consumers (in this case, US consumers) who will indirectly pay for the tariffs. Can you give examples of how the tariff ceiling will apply to different products? Let's take the example of a machine with a US MFN tariff of 4%. Before the EU-US political agreement, the overall tariff on this machine would be 14%, because it includes the 10% universal tariffs plus the 4% MFN tariff. Now, with the agreement, the machine would be subject to a 15% all-inclusive tariff. The same will apply for a bike with a US MFN of 11%, where the 15% tariff will apply instead of the current 21%, resulting from the "stacking" of the 10% reciprocal tariff plus the 11% US MFN duty. On the other hand, a heavy truck for which the US applies a 25% US MFN tariff, will keep the 25% tariff overall with no additional top up. This is an improvement compared to the present where trucks were subject to 35%, i.e. 10% reciprocal and 25% MFN tariff. What tariff regime applies to steel and aluminium? For steel and aluminium and their derivatives, the EU and US have agreed to cooperate on ringfencing their markets from global overcapacity with protective measures, and to work on secure supply chains between each other, including through TRQ solutions. The EU will move forward in line with the Steel and Metals plan, having recently launched a public consultation on possible future measures (link). What about the pending US 232 investigations - do you expect tariffs to be imposed on the EU in these sectors? For pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber, the 15% percent tariff ceiling will apply for EU exports, regardless of any future tariffs resulting from the outcome of 232 investigations in these sectors. This brings much-needed certainty to EU exporters. The tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors do not apply immediately. The 15% tariff will only apply once the US decides on whether to impose additional tariffs. Until then the US MFN tariffs apply. On market access - EU offer What is the EU offering to the US in terms of market access? The EU will increase market opportunities for US exports by eliminating tariffs on industrial goods imported from the US as well as improving significantly market access for certain seafood, nuts, dairy products, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, processed foods, grains and planting seeds, soybean oilseeds, pork and bison meat. In general, these tariff reductions will be implemented via product-specific Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs). The specific products, and their accompanying TRQs and tariff levels will be published in due course. As a result, the EU will be liberalising access for most US exports, making imports that EU industry and end-consumers need cheaper and more available, without compromising on any of the EU's sensitivities. What does the EU-US deal bring for farmers on both sides of the Atlantic? This deal brings improved market access for sales of US agricultural goods that the EU needs. Already today, the US is a major source of nuts, Alaska pollock or sorghum grains. The EU's food processing industry will therefore benefit from cheaper and more secure access of key inputs. On the other hand, EU exporters will gain certainty and predictability on the conditions for export to the US. The US is the second largest market for EU agri-food exports, and a market that delivers steady growth. High quality and traditional EU food and drink products, are in high demand, and this deal gives EU exporters the stability they need to continue exporting. What about the products such as beef, poultry, rice or ethanol - are these covered by the EU offer? No, they are not covered. From the outset, our position has been that liberalisation from the EU side does not concern any sensitive agricultural products. Rather we are opening new opportunities to allow increased imports of products that EU industry needs and consumers buy, such as nuts, soya bean oil, certain fisheries, or processed foods including ketchup. How were the sectors where the EU is offering better market access in the agri-food sector selected? The choice of sectors was mainly guided by the idea of how and where the EU can meaningfully increase market opportunities for US exporters, while at the same time ensuring cheaper and necessary inputs for EU industry - and importantly, protecting the EU's sensitivities. Can you explain in what areas the EU will increase market access for industrial goods? The EU will improve access for all industrial products. Two thirds of industrial goods were already imported tariff free, and the remaining exports were subject to already low tariffs. The EU will therefore bring these tariffs to zero, cutting costs for EU importers by almost 5 billion. On non-tariff barriers What has been agreed in terms of reduction of non-tariff barriers? The EU and US agreed to work to reduce non-tariff barriers. Cooperation on standards and on conformity assessments as well as streamlining SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) certificates should make trade between the EU and the US easier. Are these commitments on non-tariff barriers in line with the EU's regulatory autonomy? Yes. The EU has been firm on defending our fundamental principle - our legislative framework and our regulatory autonomy are not up for negotiation. The Joint Statement fully respects that principle, and the Commission will continue to protect the EU's regulatory autonomy as we move forward to negotiate further details. What will the cooperation with the US on standards look like? The EU and US will enhance technical cooperation between our respective standards development organisations. We want to identify and develop standards for the transatlantic marketplace in key sectors of mutual interest, with a view to making trade across the Atlantic easier. What about conformity assessments - is that something you will be looking at? The EU and US commit to facilitate conformity assessments to cover additional industrial sectors. We already have Mutual Recognition of Conformity Assessment (MRA) with the US for many years, including for example on telecommunication equipment, electromagnetic compatibility, or pharmaceutical good manufacturing practices. The EU and US will also commit to negotiate a mutual recognition agreement on cybersecurity. The agreement says you will "streamline requirements for sanitary certificates"- is the EU loosening its SPS regime for the US? There is no question of negotiating EU sanitary and phytosanitary rules or standards. This is a clear red line. What the EU and the US have agreed to do is to look at ways to resolve long-standing SPS concerns. We will look at concrete cases of specific applications on both sides. As part of this exercise, we will also look into streamlining requirements for sanitary certificates. Is the EU committing to give better treatment to US exporters of CBAM goods? No. We have not committed to change CBAM in any specific way, nor to provide more favourable treatment to US companies under CBAM. What we have agreed is to work to provide additional flexibilities in the implementation of CBAM for all companies, and especially for small and medium-sized companies. This is something the Commission is already doing as part of its simplification agenda and in line with its commitment to further streamline EU legislation and improve its implementation. The deal addresses the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) - what has the EU agreed to? We have agreed to exchange views with the US on CSDDD related issues. The guiding principle of our discussions with the US has been to ensure that the Directive does not result in an unnecessary administrative burden, especially for small and medium size companies. This is something that the Commission is committed to, as shown by our proposal to simplify the CSDDD currently with the Parliament and Council. This cooperation does not lead to any changes to EU domestic rules nor will we grant US companies more favourable treatment under this Regulation or any EU Regulation. How does the deal address US concerns on the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)? We have agreed to exchange views with the US on the EUDR. The US has been classified as a low-risk country and therefore a reliable partner from which EU importers can source their products deforestation free. Having a platform for discussing the implementation of the EUDR with the US will be valuable to ensuring that the EUDR does not result in unnecessary barriers to transatlantic trade. This is in line with the Commission's commitment to implement the EUDR in a spirit of partnership, transparency, communication and open dialogue with all partner countries. What does the EU-US deal mean for European digital regulation (DMA, DSA)? Nothing. The Joint Statement does not include any commitment on EU digital regulations. We have made it very clear to the US that changes to our digital regulations - the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act - were not on the table. Are there any plans to strengthen digital trade across the Atlantic? Yes, the deal opens the door for cooperation on digital, including by reiterating our shared commitment not to impose customs duties on electronic transmissions and to continue to support the multilateral moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions at the World Trade Organization and seek the adoption of a permanent multilateral commitment. What does the EU-US deal mean for the digital taxes that some Member States have on their books? Nothing. The EU-US deal has no impact on Member States' digital services taxes (DSTs). This is why the Joint Statement does not contain any reference to DSTs. Other key areas of cooperation What does the deal foresee in terms of investments? The EU and the US business communities already heavily invest on both sides, benefitting from strong local footprints and closely intertwined supply chains. Total bilateral investment reached $5.6 trillion in 2022. Stability and predictability are a major driver of investment. EU companies have expressed interest in investing at least $600 billion (ca. 550 billion) in various sectors in the US by 2029, further boosting the already significant 2.4 trillion in existing investment and reinforcing their position as the number one investor in the US. How did you reach the figure of $600 billion in investments in the US? How was this figure calculated? The announced investment target is fully based on private investment intentions from EU companies. The total figure is based on detailed contacts and discussions with different business associations and companies. How were the commitments on purchases of energy or AI chips calculated? The EU wants to ensure the secure supply of strategic inputs from reliable partners, including the US. Over the past year the US has become a key supplier of energy products. Just last year, for example, the EU purchased energy fuels, notably gas and oil, worth around 70 billion. The EU therefore intends to procure US liquified natural gas, oil, and nuclear energy products with an expected offtake valued at $750 billion (ca. 700 billion) over the next three years. This will contribute to replacing Russian gas and oil on the EU market. The purchases themselves are not done by the EU or the Commission itself. The Commission acts as a facilitator to help ensure Member States have sufficient energy resources. The EU also intends to purchase 40 billion worth of AI chips - these are deemed essential to maintaining the EU's technological edge. This commitment is fully in line with the EU's digital transition strategy. The EU is investing in building so-called AI Factories across Europe, which rely on a secure and undisrupted access to the hi-tech chips that are produced by the US. What is the EU committing to in terms of avoiding technology leakage? The EU only commits to work closely with the US to ensure that the state-of-the-art chips used for AI do not end up in hands of untrustworthy parties. Next steps What are the next steps? The Joint Statement is a political agreement on how to take our trade and investment relationship with the US forward. Both sides will now rapidly engage to implement key commitments contained in the Joint Statement. How will the EU implement this agreement? To the extent that legal implementation is necessary on the EU side, it will be taken forward in accordance with the applicable EU procedures and in consultation with Member States and the European Parliament. When will the EU implement the improvement to the market access and cut tariffs? The exact timelines and modalities for implementing these commitments will now be worked out rapidly but the EU intends to proceed rapidly to ensure that also the US applies tariff relief for EU vital sectors. What is the legal basis for this Joint Statement? The Joint Statement is a political text and not legally binding. Member States have been duly involved throughout the process and endorse the outcome. Further negotiations with the US, and implementation of the key commitments contained in the Joint Statement, will take place in line with the relevant EU procedures. For more information NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Report series on South China Sea reveals external forces' interference in regional affairs Global Times By Li Yawei Published: Aug 21, 2025 03:52 PM External forces' use of the South China Sea issue as a lever to contain China is the root cause of persistent tensions in the region, according to a report series on the truth on the South China Sea globally released on Thursday. Published in both Chinese and English, the series - released by the Xinhua Institute, a think tank under the Xinhua News Agency - is comprised of three parts. An expert noted that the highlight of this report series is its systematic report released in the form of a think tank publication, which conducts systematic elaboration based on facts and emphasizes in-depth and systematic interpretation. One report details China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea with historical evidence. It notes that 80 years ago, as part of the post-World War II (WWII) international order and global structure, China resumed sovereignty over islands and reefs in the South China Sea in accordance with international legal documents such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, which laid the foundation for the postwar order. Through extensive data, case studies, and factual evidence, the report elaborates on China's sovereignty over islands and reefs in the South China Sea, drawing on both historical and legal grounds, Chen Xiangmiao, a research fellow at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday, adding that the discussion is thoroughly objective and well-substantiated. Another report states that external forces have launched a great-power competition against China in the so-called Indo-Pacific region, using the South China Sea issue as a lever to contain China. This constitutes the fundamental factor instigating relevant claimant countries such as the Philippines to provoke China and fuel tensions in the South China Sea. The acts of external forces in smearing and containing China reflect the modern Western strategic outlook centered on the seizure and maintenance of hegemony, according to the report. Chen noted that by adopting a naming-and-condemning approach, it directly identifies to the international community who the real troublemaker is in the South China Sea. The report urges the world to recognize US and Western tactics of sowing discord, making threats, and creating divisions over the South China Sea. It calls for upholding regional peace and stability, achieving development and prosperity of all countries, and jointly building the South China Sea into a sea of peace, friendship, and cooperation. The series offers a relatively complete narrative, comprehensively demonstrating China's contributions to peace and stability in the South China Sea while further clarifying its principled stance, according to Chen. One of the reports titled "Making the South China Sea a Sea of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation: China's Actions" was first released on World Oceans Day, June 8. It once again demonstrates China's sincerity in safeguarding regional peace and stability, helps the international community better understand, appreciate, and respect China's position on the South China Sea issue, and carries significant theoretical and practical significance for shaping the future, building consensus, and bridging differences, the expert noted. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel pushes Gaza City assault despite mounting global calls for ceasefire Global Times By Feng Fan Published: Aug 21, 2025 09:51 PM Israel pressed ahead with the first stages of its planned assault on Gaza City on Wednesday, mobilizing 60,000 reservists in an expanded operation, despite mounting global calls for a ceasefire, NBC News reported. The escalation came as the US announced sanctions on four International Criminal Court (ICC) officials in a move an analyst said underscored Washington's continued backing for Israel. "We have begun the preliminary actions and the initial stages of the offensive on Gaza City, and already now IDF forces are holding positions on the outskirts of Gaza City," Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin was quoted as saying by NBC. The operation immediately drew international condemnation. The UN human rights office said Israel's widespread destruction of residential buildings in Gaza City, combined with the forced displacement of the city's entire population and those remaining in northern Gaza without shelter, food or medical supplies and no indication they would be allowed to return constituted violations of international law and grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. According to Al Jazeera on Thursday, entire neighborhoods have come under constant Israeli bombardment. Residents on the ground report that the sound of drones and jets never leaves the sky, while people continue to move through streets filled with debris, searching for food and shelter, to no avail. The broadcaster reported that at least five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone attack northwest of Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis, while another strike near Rafah killed one person and injured at least 15 others. Calls for restraint have escalated. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres plans to renew calls for an immediate ceasefire in order "to avoid the death and destruction" that an assault would "inevitably cause," the BBC reported. French President Emmanuel Macron also warned on X that Israel's military offensive "can only lead to disaster for both peoples and risks plunging the entire region into a cycle of permanent war." France will co-chair with Saudi Arabia a conference on the two-state solution in New York this September, which Macron called "the only credible way forward." An analyst said Israel's decision to recruit more soldiers signals its determination to expand the offensive regardless of international outcry. "Israel's established policy in Gaza is unlikely to change. Even in the face of widespread opposition, the government is pressing ahead with its plan to occupy Gaza," Liu Zhongmin, a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times. Liu said that such actions will further fragment Palestinian progress toward statehood by depriving Palestinians of territory, population and sovereignty needed for an independent state. The escalation coincides with new US sanctions on ICC officials. On Wednesday, the US State Department announced measures targeting four ICC figures judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France, and deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal. Washington said the sanctions were intended to impose "tangible and significant consequences on those directly engaged in the ICC's transgressions against the US and Israel." US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the ICC "is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the US and our close ally Israel," according to UN News. In response, the ICC "strongly rejected" the sanctions, calling them "a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution" and "an affront against the Court's States Parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world." According to Liu, Israel's ability to sustain large-scale military operations in Gaza, despite mounting pressure, is inseparable from its US backing. "While Washington may voice discontent over some specific Israeli policies, its broader stance has consistently emphasized support for Israel," Liu noted. Some US politicians have defended Israel's interests even above the US' as shown by repeated US vetoes of UN ceasefire resolutions that have left the organization paralyzed on the Palestinian question, Liu said. On Wednesday, in response to media inquiries about how China sees the situation in Gaza, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China is closely following the situation in Gaza and hopes an early ceasefire arrangement can be reached to deescalate the situation and ease the humanitarian crisis. On August 8, when asked to comment on Israel's security cabinet approving a plan proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the military to "take control" of Gaza City, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said China was "gravely concerned" about the decision and urged Israel to stop the dangerous move at once. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US amphibious warship catches fire off Okinawa; conflicting reports between US and Japan draw attention Global Times By Fan Anqi Published: Aug 21, 2025 04:42 PM The US Navy's San Antonio class amphibious warfare ship USS New Orleans suffered a fire on Wednesday while it was off White Beach in Uruma City on the Japanese island of Okinawa. This seemingly ordinary incident of a ship fire, however, has come put under the spotlight due to the information discrepancy between the US and Japanese sides. According to a statement released by the US 7th Fleet, the fire broke out at about 4 pm on Wednesday. However, According to Japanese broadcaster NHK, at around 5:00 pm on the day, a report was received by the Nakagusuku Coast Guard stating, "A fire has broken out on a US Navy ship off White Beach. Firefighting assistance is requested." According to the US statement, the fire that burned for 12 hours aboard the USS New Orleans (LPD-18) was declared extinguished at 4:00 am on Thursday local time. However, the Nakagusuku Coast Guard said firefighting efforts were still ongoing as of 8:00 am on Thursday, more than 15 hours after the initial report, according to the NHK. This highlighted the discrepancy in the timelines provided by the two sides. New Orleans sailors' firefighting efforts were supported by the crew of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego (LPD-22), which is moored at White Beach Naval Facility," reads the US statement. "[The fire] was declared extinguished at 4 am, Aug. 21," reported the USNI News. The Nakagusuku Coast Guard said the fire was still being fought as of the following morning, and Japan Self-Defense Forces and private tugboats continued to spray water on the ship throughout the night, while Japan Coast Guard vessels monitored and patrolled the area, the NHK report said. The 25,000-ton warship is now anchored near the White Beach Naval Facility on Okinawa, read the statement from the Japan-based fleet, as reported by the USNI News. The report cited the sea service as saying that two sailors suffered minor injuries and were treated aboard New Orleans. According to USNI News, a US Navy official did not have additional details on the damage the fire caused, however images from local press show the bulk of the firefighting effort in an area of the ship that is reserved mostly for stores and berthing. New Orleans is part of the US Navy's forward-deployed amphibious force based in Sasebo, Japan, according to media reports. This is not the first time a US amphibious warship caught fire. In 2020, a fire aboard the former big deck amphibious warship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) burned for four days, resulting in the loss of the ship. The Navy subsequently overhauled how the service fights fires in port, reported USNI News. This incident reveals the loopholes in the damage control system and the sailors' damage control capabilities on this US Navy warship, said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military affairs expert. "US Navy ships, including dock landing ships and amphibious assault ships, tend to have long service lives and undergo frequent personnel training. However, inadequate maintenance and support can lead to recurring malfunctions, resulting in fires. And a fire on a warship is potentially a catastrophic issue," Song told the Global Times on Thursday. The discrepancy between US and Japanese reports likely stems from the US Navy's desire to downplay the incident, minimizing its significance and hoping to quickly resolve the matter, said Song. In March 2024, a US Navy Aegis destroyer, the USS Rafael Peralta, was met with protests and port workers' strike after arriving in Okinawa Prefecture. The vessel requested a berth at Ishigaki Port for its crew to grab some rest and recreation and to replenish supplies. Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki expressed concern that ships of this grade "will use our ports on a regular basis," while Junichi Yamaguchi, chairman of the local branch of the All Japan Dockworkers' Union, said, "We are very concerned that our place of work is being used for military purposes." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China pursues friendly policy toward all Afghan people: FM spokesperson Global Times By Global Times Published: Aug 21, 2025 04:16 PM Regarding Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Afghanistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated on Thursday that Wang said China has always advocated equality among countries, regardless of size, and that all countries should treat each other as equals and pursue win-win cooperation. The world should not be one where the rich grow richer and the poor poorer; every country, including Afghanistan, has the right to achieve development and revitalization. China pursues a friendly policy toward all the Afghan people, respects the choices of the Afghan people, supports the Afghan government in sound governance and focusing on development, and is committed to building lasting good-neighborliness and stability, the spokesperson said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Afghanistan on Wednesday and met with Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, and attended the sixth China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Dialogue. Since the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Dialogue resumed in 2022, it has achieved positive progress. Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that China is ready to deepen good-neighborly trust with Afghanistan and Pakistan, to show mutual understanding and support on issues concerning each other's core interests, and to further strengthen exchanges at all levels to consolidate strategic mutual trust, Mao Ning said. In response to a media inquiry about whether China currently recognizes the Taliban's interim government in Afghanistan, following Russia's official recognition last month, Mao said on Thursday that China pursues a friendly policy toward all Afghan people and is willing to work with Afghanistan to advance bilateral relations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement by Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide on Israel's attack on Gaza City Government of Norway News story | Date: 21/08/2025 'Norway condemns Israel's attack on, and attempt to seize control of, Gaza City. This represents a further escalation of an already catastrophic war and puts a population that has already suffered immensely in extreme danger', said Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. 'Israel's actions make it even more difficult to bring the war to an end, to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population, and to secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. 'The Israeli warfare in Gaza has violated fundamental principles of international law and must cease immediately. 'The humanitarian situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Further military operations will cause extensive civilian casualties and affect innocent people who are already living under unbearable conditions. 'It is more important than ever to lay the foundation for a political solution that ensures that the Palestinian people's historic right to self-determination in their own state is realised', said Eide. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO to establish logistics headquarters in Sweden Government Offices of Sweden Press release from Ministry of Defence Published 21 August 2025 The Government has instructed the Swedish Armed Forces to offer NATO the opportunity to open a logistics headquarters in Sweden. The Swedish Armed Forces has also been tasked with preparing for and establishing the headquarters so that it is operable by the end of 2027. Each NATO Area of Operations has a Joint Logistics Support Group Headquarters (JLSG HQ) that leads and coordinates the maintenance and transport of military units within the Area. In the near future, Sweden and the other Nordic countries will gather in NATO's Northwest Area of Operations, which will necessitate a JLSG HQ in the new Area of Operations. This new Headquarters will be established in Enkoping. It will comprise around 70 personnel during peacetime. In a heightened state of alert and ultimately war, the Headquarters will be able to expand to 160 personnel. It will be part of the NATO command structure, with staffing coordinated centrally by NATO. All Allies will have the opportunity to second staff officers there. "NATO presence in Sweden strengthens our security and deterrence. The logistics centre assists the defence of NATO's northern flank," says Minister for Defence Pal Jonson. The Swedish Armed Forces will continuously update the Government Offices (Ministry of Defence) on the progress of work to establish the NATO Headquarters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Presidency of the Assembly of States Parties expresses deep concern and objects to additional U.S. sanctions targeting ICC elected officials International Criminal Court (ICC) / Cour penale internationale (CPI) Statement: 21 August 2025 The Presidency of the Assembly of States Parties notes with deep concern the additional sanctions announced by the Government of the United States against two Judges and the Deputy Prosecutors of the International Criminal Court. These measures, in addition to earlier designations of elected officials, are regrettable attempts to impede the Court and its personnel in the exercise of their independent judicial functions. We continue to object to such unilateral measures firmly and unequivocally. They represent an affront to the independence of the Court and the integrity of the Rome Statute system. Such actions risk hampering ongoing investigations and undermining global efforts to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community. The International Criminal Court is a cornerstone of international justice. It functions as an independent and impartial judicial body, operating in full accordance with its founding treaty, the Rome Statute. US sanctions against the Court threaten the integrity of the Rome Statute system and seek to hamper efforts to bring justice to victims of the most heinous crimes. We reiterate our full support for the Court, its officials, and all those who contribute to the fulfilment of its judicial mandate. We urge all States Parties and stakeholders in the Rome Statute system to remain steadfast in their commitment to uphold the principles of international justice and to stand united in defending the Court, its elected officials, its personnel and those cooperating with it. In these challenging times, the international community must reaffirm its collective commitment to the rule of law and to ensuring that no one is above accountability. The Assembly of States Parties is the management oversight and legislative body of the ICC. It is comprised of representatives of States that have ratified and acceded to the Rome Statute. For additional information please contact the Assembly of States Parties via email at asp@icc-cpi.int. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PM's Office Announcement on behalf of Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch Israel - Prime Minister's Office Type: Media Statements Government: The 37th Government Publish Date: 21.08.2025 Prime Minister's Office Announcement on behalf of Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch Salah Abu-Hussein, an Israeli citizen, who had been imprisoned in Lebanon for approximately one year, was returned to Israel this afternoon. Pursuant to negotiations that were held in the past few months, with the assistance of the Red Cross, Abu-Hussein was handed over to Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch by the Lebanese authorities, at the Rosh Hanikra crossing. After questioning and a preliminary medical examination, Abu-Hussein was taken by the IDF for comprehensive examinations at the hospital, following which he will meet his family. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation by the security forces. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister's Office Statement Israel - Prime Minister's Office Type: Media Statements Government: The 37th Government Publish Date: 21.08.2025 The Prime Minister's Office, this afternoon: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes the return from Lebanon of the Israeli citizen. The Prime Minister thanks all those who were involved in the effort, especially Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch. This is a positive step and a sign of things to come. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lithuania emphasizes the importance of legal responsibility amid a significant increase in cases of sexual violence in conflicts Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of Foreign Affairs Updated 2025-08-21 Lithuania's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Rytis Paulauskas, participating in the UN Security Council's open debate on sexual violence in conflict, highlighted the rapidly growing number of cases of conflict-related sexual violence, which has increased by as much as 25 percent in recent years. This alarming fact highlights the need to strengthen prevention measures and accountability mechanisms worldwide, including in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Palestine, Myanmar, Syria, and other countries in the region. Ambassador R. Paulauskas strongly condemned all cases of sexual violence committed in the context of Russia's aggression against Ukraine: "Russia is using sexual violence against civilians, especially women and girls, as well as against Ukrainian prisoners of war, who often refrain from testifying due to the trauma they have experienced and the stigma that still exists." According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, since the start of Russia's large-scale war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022, sexual violence has been systematically used against Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians. The scale and systematic nature of these acts would indicate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. In his statement, Lithuania's Permanent Representative R. Paulauskas emphasized the need to include Russian armed forces, the Russian prison service, and the Russian security services in the annexes to the UN Secretary-General's annual report on sexual violence in conflict. Lithuania strongly supports the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, whose role in documenting these war crimes is indispensable. Legal accountability for these crimes is essential to prevent their recurrence in the future. Lithuania called on all UN members to actively support UN Action, the only UN systemic coordination platform that brings together humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding efforts to effectively combat sexual violence in conflict. In 2025, Lithuania approved the third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security for 2025-2029, which pays particular attention to support for victims of sexual violence in Ukraine. The statement by Lithuania's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Rytis Paulauskas NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Emergency Ministerial Meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to Discuss the Ongoing Israeli Aggression against the Palestinian People Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) 21-08-2025 Preparations are underway to hold an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states to discuss the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, on Monday, 25 August 2025. This extraordinary meeting aims to coordinate joint positions and efforts to confront the decisions and plans aiming to enshrine the full Israeli occupation and control over the Gaza Strip, as well as the Israeli crimes of genocide, starvation, displacement, blockade and the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, since the Palestinian issue remains the central issue of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement on Israel's West Bank settlements Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Republic of Poland 21.08.2025 We strongly oppose the project to build new Jewish housing units in the West Bank's E1 area. The decision taken by the Israeli government on Wednesday 20 August 2025 is in flagrant breach of international law. Poland advocates the two-state solution which implies the peaceful coexistence of Israel and Palestine within the 1967 borders, as confirmed by UN Security Council resolutions. We call upon Israel's authorities to stop supporting the illegal settlement movement on the West Bank. We condemn all acts of aggression against Palestinians in this context. We are communicating with the EU's diplomacy and our European partners to come up with a joint response to these measures. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PH, Aussie troops hold land warfare drills in N. Ecija Philippine News Agency By Priam Nepomuceno August 21, 2025, 6:50 pm MANILA -- Filipino and Australian troops taking part in this year's Exercise "ALON" are now conducting intensive land warfare drills to ensure greater operability between the two services, the Philippine Army (PA) said Thursday. The exercises are being conducted in Fort Magsaysay in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija "and other training areas in the province," PA spokesperson Col. Louie Dema-ala said in a statement. "While the broader exercise encompasses amphibious landings, air-sea operations and joint maneuvers, 'Victorious Troopers' are specifically engaged in the land domain of warfare focusing on ground-based tactical training and interoperability," Dema-ala said, referring to 84th Infantry Battalion of the 7th Infantry Division, the unit participating in the drills. He added participating troops are undergoing intensive drills in combat shooting, jungle operations, live-fire exercises and urban combat supported by armor, artillery and engineers designed to enhance operational readiness and effectiveness in diverse terrain and combat environments. This year's iteration of "ALON," or "Amphibious Landing Operations," kicked off on Aug. 15 and will run until Aug. 29. Over 3,600 troops from the Philippines, Australia, the United States and Canada are taking part in Exercise "ALON" 25, which is being held across the joint operational area of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) and the AFP Western Command. Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Indonesia are participating as international observers. Dema-ala said the PA will be primarily involved in the field training exercise (FTX) at the NOLCOM joint area of operations with air components from the Philippine Air Force and the Australian Defence Force. The highlight of the FTX will be the combined live fire exercise at the combat readiness training area in Fort Magsaysay on Aug. 27. "The PA aims to boost its thrust to enhance the individual and unit capabilities of land forces and increase its interoperability with the Joint Force and partner international armed forces as part of its active engagement with like-minded nations to ensure regional cooperation and stability," Dema-ala said. (PNA) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PCG boosts maritime security with UAV modernization program Philippine News Agency By Wilnard Bacelonia August 21, 2025, 4:38 pm MANILA -- The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is expanding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to bolster maritime surveillance, coastal monitoring, and emergency response as part of its modernization program. In a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon interview on Thursday, PCG spokesperson Capt. Noemie Cayabyab said the UAVs were recently tested in a flying exercise in La Union to assess their capabilities in aerial surveillance and rescue support. The drones are already in use for operations, including search-and-rescue, and are expected to play a greater role in enhancing maritime domain awareness. "Ang UAV po natin ay may kakayahan po na lumipad hanggang 40 to 60 minutes... ang kakayahan po nito is iyong GPS navigation and live video feed transmission po. Maganda rin po itong automatic flight path programming at saka object tracking (Our UAVs can fly for 40 to 60 minutes... equipped with GPS navigation and live video feed transmission. They also have automatic flight path programming and object tracking)," Cayabyab said. She said the Coast Guard follows its "10/30 doctrine," requiring small vessels to deploy within 10 minutes and larger ships or aircraft within 30 minutes of receiving UAV reports. "So, ang kagandahan rin po nitong UAV po natin, later on 'no, we can use this data para magamit po na ebidensiya sa pagsasampa po ng mga kaso sa mga tao na lumalabag po sa ating batas (The advantage of these UAVs is that their data can later be used as evidence in filing cases against violators of maritime laws)," Cayabyab said. The UAV program is operated under the Coast Guard Aviation Command, which also maintains the drones. Personnel undergo training in basic drone operations, flight planning, aerial mapping, sensor handling, troubleshooting, and advanced courses in data analysis and mission planning. "Target po talaga natin na bigyan po ng pangunahing UAV units iyong ating mga command areas... para pantay-pantay ang surveillance capability at maabot po natin iyong mga malalayong lugar (Our target is to equip all command areas with UAV units... to ensure equal surveillance capability and reach remote areas)," Cayabyab said. She added that the initiative is supported by allied countries and will ensure more effective coastal patrols and emergency response. Cayabyab assured the public that PCG continues to work closely with other government agencies, emphasizing that its singular mission is to deliver genuine service to the Filipino people. On the other hand, the PCG is also preparing 1,300 of its personnel to serve as election board members in the upcoming Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao parliamentary elections. The deployment, according to Cayabyab, is part of the agency's broader support for national initiatives while maintaining its primary maritime security duties. (PNA) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Australia deepens defense ties with PH, Malaysia Philippine News Agency By Marita Moaje August 21, 2025, 12:40 pm MANILA -- Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles is set to visit Manila "this week" with the goal of "further strengthening our already close defence ties." In a media statement Wednesday evening, Marles said he will be meeting with Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., as the visit is expected to build on the two nations' cooperation and mutual trust through the 2nd Australia-Philippines Defense Ministers' Meeting. "I look forward to meeting Secretary Teodoro in Manila to discuss ways to deepen Australia-Philippines defence cooperation; by building capacity and strengthening interoperability," Marles said. During the visit, Marles would also meet with Australian personnel participating in Exercise Alon 25, Australia's largest overseas joint training activity this year. The defense partnership between Australia and the Philippines aligns with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr's call for stronger regional cooperation to safeguard stability in the Indo-Pacific. Aside from the Philippines and Australia, the United States and Canada are also participating in the joint exercise, totaling over 3,600 personnel deployed for the event. "Our cooperation through Exercise Alon reflects a shared commitment to working together to maintain a peaceful, secure, and prosperous region where sovereignty is respected," Marles said. Meanwhile, Marles is also set to travel to Kuala Lumpur for the 5th Malaysia-Australia High Level Committee on Defense Cooperation with Defense Minister Dato' Seri Mohamed Khaled bin Nordin. He said Australia and Malaysia are longstanding partners and friends with shared military history, including through the Five Power Defense Arrangements, which underscores the two countries' commitment to a peaceful and stable region. "Australia and Malaysia share a longstanding defence partnership, built upon a comprehensive program of exchanges, training and exercises," Marles said. (PNA) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Xi stresses building modern socialist new Xizang Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China Source Xinhuanet EditorLin Congyi 2025-08-21 15:31:28 LHASA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday urged Xizang Autonomous Region to build a modern socialist new Xizang that is united, prosperous, civilized, harmonious and beautiful. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks after listening to work reports from the CPC Xizang regional committee and the regional government. He emphasized that Xizang should steadily advance high-quality development and continue to make solid efforts on the four main tasks of ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting the eco-environment, and strengthening the borders. Xi noted that since the establishment of the Xizang Autonomous Region 60 years ago, its economic and social development has achieved remarkable progress, leading to profound changes in the plateau region. Governing Xizang, ensuring its stability and promoting its prosperity must begin with maintaining political and social stability, ethnic unity and amity among different religions, Xi said, calling for further advancing the building of a community for the Chinese nation. Xi emphasized the need to promote two-way exchanges in economy, culture, and personnel between Xizang and other parts of China, and to guide Tibetan Buddhism in adapting itself to socialist society. He noted that Xizang needs to develop competitive plateau industries based on local conditions, with a particular focus on industries of agriculture and animal husbandry with local features, as well as the clean energy sector. Xizang should advance major projects such as the hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River and the Sichuan-Xizang Railway project in a vigorous, orderly and effective manner, Xi said. He also called on the region to promote ecological conservation, and to make coordinated efforts to cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, expand green development, and pursue economic growth, so as to protect "the roof of the world" and "the water tower of Asia." Moreover, he stressed the importance of upholding the CPC's leadership over work related to Xizang. Senior leaders including Wang Huning and Cai Qi attended the meeting. Xi, who leads a central delegation, arrived in Lhasa, capital of Xizang, on Wednesday to attend activities in celebration of the region's 60th founding anniversary. He will attend a grand gathering in Lhasa on Thursday. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 60 years of progress marked 08:03, August 22, 2025 By MO JINGXI and PALDEN NYIMA in Lhasa ( China Daily President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a grand gathering on Thursday at the Potala Palace square in Lhasa, capital of the Xizang autonomous region, to mark the region's 60th founding anniversary. XINHUA President Xi Jinping joined around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life in a grand gathering on Thursday at the Potala Palace square in Lhasa to mark the 60th founding anniversary of the Xizang autonomous region. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, arrived in the regional capital on Wednesday with a central delegation to attend the festivities. It was the first time in the history of the Party and the country that a leader attended such an event in the capacities of general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the CMC. The gathering commenced at 10 am, with all attendees standing to sing the national anthem. The bright five-starred national flag was hoisted solemnly at the site. A congratulatory message from the CPC Central Committee, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the State Council, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee and the CMC was read out. Wang Huning, chairman of the CPPCC National Committee and head of the central delegation, then presented a plaque bearing Xi's inscription, "Jointly building a community for the Chinese nation, writing a new chapter for a beautiful Xizang," as a congratulatory gift. Residents at a mass parade during the grand gathering in Lhasa on Thursday. YAN YAN/XINHUA Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, was also present at the gathering. Addressing the event, Wang said the founding of the Xizang autonomous region in September 1965 marked an epoch-making event. Over the past six decades, Xizang has made significant strides in economic and social development, fully demonstrating the strong leadership of the CPC and the clear political strength of China's socialist system, he said. Wang said that since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, Xizang has entered its best period of development and made the most substantial progress, with people of all ethnic groups benefiting more than ever before. He emphasized that Xizang is an inalienable part of China, and its affairs are purely China's internal affairs, which brook no interference from external forces. Any attempt to split the motherland and undermine Xizang's stability is doomed to fail, he said. Residents at a mass parade during the grand gathering in Lhasa on Thursday. YAN YAN/XINHUA Wang also called for efforts to consolidate and develop ethnic solidarity, promote high-quality socioeconomic development, and continuously improve people's well-being to advance common prosperity in Xizang. Drolma Renzin, a 73-year-old Lhasa resident, gave a speech as a representative of the local people, saying that she still remembered how the news of the autonomous region's founding spread swiftly across the plateau. "Sixty years may be just a fleeting moment in the long river of history, but for the people of Xizang, it has been an epic of endeavor and transformation," she said. The ceremony concluded with a vibrant mass parade in an auspicious and festive atmosphere with music and dance. Twenty-six formations of floats, including seven representing Xizang's seven prefecture-level cities, and performers marched past in colorful costumes, expressing joy over their new lives and gratitude to the Party and the country. Xi and other leaders waved to the crowds. When the float from Shigatse passed, performers in traditional attire moved in the bold and vigorous steps of Gyashe, a traditional Tibetan dance, to the beat of drums and music, showcasing the unity and vitality of people living at the foot of Qomolangma, known as Mount Everest in the West. The audience waved their flags to cheer and show support for the prefecture, which had endured a magnitude 6.8 earthquake earlier this year. Thousands take part in the celebrations with the Potala Palace in the background. TENTSEN SHINDEN/FOR CHINA DAILY Meanwhile, in Zingkar village of Dingri county, one of the hardest-hit areas, residents watched the celebration from their new homes. Last week, the village, with 126 households, completed its resettlement with government support. "With the care of General Secretary Xi and help from the Party and government, all of our villagers have moved into new houses," said Nyima Tsering, the village head. "From here on, we will continue to build a better life with our own hands under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee." Xi left Xizang after attending the founding anniversary celebrations. Following Xi's instructions, the central delegation headed by Wang Huning will visit various parts of Xizang from Thursday to Saturday to extend greetings and support to people of all ethnic groups and sectors. Xi's entourage, including senior official Cai Qi, returned on the same flight. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Pakistani scientist helps combat "banana cancer" in China Xinhua) 15:08, August 22, 2025 HAIKOU, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- In a banana field at Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Waseem Raza spends his mornings meticulously inspecting stems, leaves and fruit clusters before plunging into late-night hours in the lab, peering through microscopes and analyzing data until well past midnight. Raza, 45, a scientist from Pakistan, has devoted his career to combating banana diseases. His journey in China began in 2005 when he arrived for doctoral studies at Nanjing Agricultural University. After graduating in December 2009, he stayed on as a lecturer at the university for 12 years. This year, he joined the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) as a senior researcher, working in a laboratory at CATAS. His research focuses on soil ecology, soil microbiology and plant-microbe interactions to help tackle Banana Fusarium Wilt, a devastating fungal disease known as "banana cancer," which once wreaked havoc on China's banana industry and caused production to plummet. "My job is to safeguard the health of bananas," Raza said. "I try to find effective ways to control disease and support the industry's growth." After years of research, CATAS and other institutions have cultivated resistant banana varieties, while also developing eco-friendly, disease-control technologies, which revived the industry. However, in Pakistan, where the fruit is also a major source of income, local farmers still face similar challenges. Raza and his team are now developing what he calls a "green revolution" approach, using bacterial volatile compounds that suppress and eliminate pathogens while stimulating plant growth. They have completed lab trials. "We plan to introduce these technologies to the fields this year or next. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness against Banana Fusarium Wilt using bio-organic fertilizers," he said. Through collaborations between China and Pakistan, Raza said he hopes to take these technologies back to his home country. By combining Chinese expertise with local research, he aims to strengthen the banana industries of both countries. Chen Yufeng, an associate researcher at CATAS, said Raza's expertise not only made him a valuable addition to the team but also strengthened their global outreach. "Such cross-border synergy helps us better address agricultural challenges common to developing countries," Chen added. Raza's story reflects a broader trend of deepening scientific cooperation between China and Pakistan, with Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City emerging as a hub for such exchanges and Pakistani scientists like him increasingly taking leading roles in joint projects that bridge the expertise of both nations. "China and Pakistan are very good friends," Raza said, pointing to collaborations under the Belt and Road Initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Having lived in China for 20 years, Raza considers the country his second home. Beyond his research, he has built a family in Sanya, savors the tropical coastal scenery, and often strolls along the beach after work, with colleagues guiding him to discover the city and enjoy its local cuisine. Though contracted until 2030, Raza has already laid out long-term plans and hopes to settle permanently in Sanya. "Agricultural cooperation has massive potential between China and Pakistan," Raza said, noting that he will continue contributing to joint research and looks forward to stronger collaboration between scientists to boost banana production and quality on both sides. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Hongyu) Houthi: Israeli atrocities part of 'Greater Israel' expansion scheme Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 6:57 PM The leader of Yemen's Ansarullah resistance movement has vehemently denounced the Israeli atrocities in the occupied West Bank and across the war-torn Gaza Strip, stating they fall within the framework of the so-called "Greater Israel" plan. Adul-Malik al-Houthi, in a televised speech broadcast live from the Yemeni Capital Sana'a on Thursday evening, emphasized that the scheme, being promoted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is anchored in a falsified and distorted ideology. He pointed to the 1969 arson attack by an extremist at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Israeli-occupied East al-Quds, noting that the occupying Tel Aviv regime not only seeks to divide and isolate the holy city of al-Quds but also is hell-bent on destroying the sacred site and replacing it with a third Jewish temple. "The Zionist plan is based on distorted religious concepts, which consider it a divine mission to completely dominate the entire world. Western supporters of this plan are propagating it in the United States, Europe and Australia. Its advocates deem its implementation translates as the fulfillment of God's commandments," Houthi said. The term "Greater Israel" has been used since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War to describe the territories occupied by Israel, including East al-Quds, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and Syria's strategic Golan Heights. Early Zionist thinkers, such as Ze'ev Jabotinskywidely regarded as the ideological forerunner of Netanyahu's Likud partyexpanded this vision to include present-day Jordan. The idea of "Greater Israel" is a core tenet of Likud's political legacy, rooted in Revisionist Zionism. The Ansarullah leader characterized Zionism as a great danger to all human societies, stating that the political movement targets not only Palestine but also the entire Muslim world, including Mecca and Medina. He called for utmost vigilance in the Muslim world in the face of the deception of the Zionist enemy, stating that the greatest injustice of all time is the crime of the century against Palestinians, which is being perpetrated on the basis of distorted narratives. Houthi then expressed surprise at the apathy of Muslims worldwide towards the Zionist regime's atrocities in the Gaza Strip, condemning the inaction as disgraceful. The Ansarullah chief condemned the Israeli regime's shelling and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza as extremely horrendous. Elsewhere in his remarks, Houthi stridently criticized Egypt's multi-billion-dollar natural gas import deal with Israel as a disaster and a great blessing to the usurping regime. He lambasted the calls for the disarmament of the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, noting this position is the position of Saudi Arabia, certain Arab regimes and even the Palestinian Authority. The Ansarullah leader also took a swipe at the Lebanese government's decision, under pressure from the United States, to disarm Hezbollah, stating that the step serves the Israeli enemy. Houthi finally reiterated the Yemeni nation's support for oppressed nations, stressing that Yemeni armed forces' operations in solidarity with Palestinians will continue and any ship that violates the embargo imposed on the Zionist regime will be targeted in the Red Sea. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US sanctions on ICC judges 'blatant complicity in Israeli war crimes, genocide': Iran FM spox Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 4:18 PM The spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has censured the United States' announcement of a new round of sanctions targeting members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), stating that the measure attests to Washington's complicity with the Israeli regime in the bloody military campaign against Palestinians. "The United States' imposition of sanctions on four more ICC judges (of Canadian, Senegalese, Fijian, French nationalities) for addressing Israel's atrocity crimes is not only an unprecedented assault on justice but a blatant complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine," Esmaeil Baghaei wrote in a post published on his official account on the social media platform X on Thursday. He added that the latest assault on ICC judges epitomizes a gross abuse of power, granting Israel absolute impunity, licensing the regime's further atrocities, and gravely imperiling international peace and security. Such brazen illegality lays bare the true essence of 'rules-based order': a lawless framework purposed to serve their whims in full contempt for any recognized rule of int'l law or human ethics. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the administration of President Donald Trump was adding two judges and two prosecutors to the list of ICC members who have been sanctioned. "The Court is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel," Rubio said in a statement. The step marks the most recent example of a pressure campaign directed at the court that had previously issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders concerning war crimes in Gaza. The International Criminal Court had earlier released arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The new sanctions target Kimberly Prost of Canada, Nicolas Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal. Following the US State Department announcement, the court on Wednesday denounced the expanded US sanctions as a "flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution" and the victims of war crimes around the world and said it would continue its work "without regard to any restriction, pressure or threat". At least 62,192 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 157,114 individuals have been injured in the brutal Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry of Gaza. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US seeking billions to replenish arms sent to support Israel: Report Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 3:37 PM The Pentagon is seeking $3.5 billion in emergency funds to replace weapons and military systems used to back Israel, according to reports citing budget documents. The documents show the funds would be used to replenish interceptor missiles and cover other costs like radar maintenance, ship refurbishment, and munitions transportation, Bloomberg reported. The allocation of funds for every listed item is categorized under an "emergency budget request." The spending is described as necessary to make up for costs linked to the US army's responses to the "situation in [the occupied lands]," as well as operations "executed at the request of or in coordination with Israel to support the regime during [retaliatory operations] by Iran [or its allies]." On June 13, Israel launched a blatant and unprovoked aggression against Iran, triggering a 12-day war that killed at least 1,064 people in the country, including military commanders, nuclear scientists, and ordinary civilians. In response, hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones overwhelmed Israeli air defenses and struck key military, intelligence, industrial, energy, and R&D facilities across the occupied Palestinian territories, which managed to impose a halt to the illegal assault on June 24. The request centers on missile interceptors fired since October 2023, including around $1 billion for RTX's SM-3 systems, which US Navy destroyers used in April 2024 against Iranian strikes. Another $204 million is allocated for Lockheed Martin's THAAD interceptors. The budget documents underscore the escalating expenses of the US military's footprint in West Asia and Washington's mounting anxiety over its capacity to resupply its own arsenals while continuing to provide weapons to Israel. Since October 2023, Washington has burned through a significant number of interceptors in operations to back Israel and confront Yemen in the Red Sea, according to reports. In October 2023, the US had approximately 9,100 SM-2, 400 SM-3, and 1,500 SM-6 interceptor missiles in stockpile. The US has used 268 SM-2s, 159 SM-3s, and 280 SM-6s since then, including during the Israeli aggression against Iran in June 2025. According to budget documents obtained by The War Zone, approximately a quarter of all funded THAAD interceptorsamounting to over 150 missileswere expended in countering the Iranian missile barrage in June. The number of interceptors deployed since October 2023 has cost Washington $1.8 billion, according to a 2024 report, an expense that could easily have been doubled by the end of June 2025. In the latest US campaign against Yemen alone, which lasted from March until May, Washington burned through around $1 billion in munitions. At the height of the Israeli aggression against Iran, WSJ reported that Israel was "running low" on interceptors. At the time, the source cited in the report said there was concern "about the US burning through interceptors as well." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China hopes for new era in Afghanistan with FM Wang's Kabul visit Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 2:54 PM China says it hopes to work closely with Afghanistan to promote the development of bilateral ties after its Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid a landmark visit to Kabul. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Thursday that China maintains a friendly policy toward all Afghan people, when asked about Beijing's recognition of the Afghan interim government. Mao's remarks came after Foreign Minister Wang visited Kabul on Wednesday to attend the sixth trilateral foreign ministers' dialogue involving China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Wang met separately with Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, and held talks with acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. According to a statement from the Afghan Taliban foreign ministry, China expressed a strong interest in exploring and mining Afghanistan's abundant mineral resources. The Chinese delegation invited Afghanistan to formally join its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a multi-national infrastructure and connectivity strategy aimed at enhancing regional economic integration. "China will continue to support the Afghan government to achieve long-term peace and stability," Wang told Muttaqi, according to a readout from China's foreign ministry. Wang emphasized the importance of building mutual political trust and expanding cooperation in key sectors such as trade and agriculture. Wang also urged Afghanistan to intensify its efforts against militant groups, noting that stronger security cooperation would provide a stable foundation for economic partnership between the two countries. In a separate meeting with Akhund, Wang reaffirmed China's commitment to justice and opposition to unilateral coercive measures. He expressed China's readiness to deepen collaboration across various fields and called on Afghanistan's leadership to address Chinese concerns related to terrorist forces by strengthening counterterrorism measures. China was the first country to appoint an ambassador to Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover in 2021 and has maintained active diplomatic engagement. Afghanistan's significant reserves of lithium, copper, and iron offer important opportunities to support China's resource security, analysts say. Wang's visit highlights Beijing's ongoing efforts to expand its strategic partnership with Afghanistan and foster regional connectivity through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran, Egypt censure Israel's plan to take over Gaza, relocate residents Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 7:24 AM Iran and Egypt have strongly condemned Israel's "illegal and criminal" plans for the military occupation of Gaza City and the forced displacement of its residents. In a phone conversation on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, expressed deep concern over the continuation of genocide in Gaza by the Israeli regime. The two ministers stressed the importance of putting an immediate end to genocide against the Palestinian people and the need to dispatch humanitarian aid to the besieged Strip. Araghchi said an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will be held in the Saudi city of Jeddah late in August at the request of the Islamic Republic and some other members to discuss the latest developments in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip. He added that the Jeddah meeting will be an opportunity to coordinate positions and take practical steps to assist the oppressed Palestinian people and counter the Israeli regime's warmongering policies, especially its so-called "Great Israel" plan to occupy territories of Muslim and Arab countries. The top Egyptian diplomat also outlined the latest efforts of his country and Qatar to establish a ceasefire in Gaza. The Israeli regime on Wednesday began deploying its forces on the outskirts of Gaza City in preparation for implementing its scheme to occupy the Gaza Strip's largest urban area. The Israeli military reported the launch of the so-called "Operation Gideon Chariots II," a sequel to a ferocious assault in May that saw the regime heavily escalate its October 2023-present war of genocide on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian resistance force Hamas warned that Israel would fail to realize its ambitions. Hamas also noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was going ahead with carrying out the assault, although the movement had communicated its approval of a recent ceasefire proposal, devised by the United States and presented by Qatar and Egypt. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Spain deeply regrets announcement of new US sanctions against International Criminal Court Spain - Ministry of Foreign Affairs PRESS STATEMENT 084 21 Aug 2025 Spain deeply regrets the announcement of new US sanctions against the International Criminal Court, this time against two judges and two prosecutors. In light of these new actions against the independence of the International Criminal Court, Spain reiterates its strongest support for this high court and expresses its solidarity and support for the judges and prosecutors affected and for all the staff of the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court derives its mandate from the 125 Member States of the Rome Statute. Its work is essential for accountability for the most serious crimes against humanity and for the reparation of victims. Spain will continue to comply with its obligations under the Rome Statute and international law, respecting and guaranteeing the full jurisdiction of the Court. -NON OFFICIAL TRANSLATION- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Rubio's Call with Ugandan President Museveni US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson August 21, 2025 The below is attributable to Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott: Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to discuss opportunities to deepen U.S.-Uganda cooperation on migration, reciprocal trade, and commercial ties. The Secretary also thanked Uganda for providing a model of regional stability including its valuable contributions to peacekeeping in East Africa. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint statement on behalf of 27 countries on foreign media access to Gaza From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Published 21 August 2025 Joint statement: In light of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we, the undersigned members of the Media Freedom Coalition, urge Israel to allow immediate independent foreign media access and afford protection for journalists operating in Gaza. Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war. Access to conflict zones is vital to carrying out this role effectively. We oppose all attempts to restrict press freedom and block entry to journalists during conflicts. We also strongly condemn all violence directed against journalists and media workers, especially the extremely high number of fatalities, arrests and detentions. We call on the Israeli authorities and all other parties to make every effort to ensure that media workers in Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - local and foreign alike - can conduct their work freely and safely. Deliberate targeting of journalists is unacceptable. International humanitarian law offers protection to civilian journalists during armed conflict. We call for all attacks against media workers to be investigated and for those responsible to be prosecuted in compliance with national and international law. We reiterate calls for an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of the remaining hostages, unhindered flow of humanitarian aid and for a path towards a two-state solution, long-term peace and security. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has summoned the Israeli Ambassador today following the Israeli Higher Planning Commission's decision to approve the E1 settlement plan From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Published 21 August 2025 An FCDO spokesperson said: Today, the Ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom was summoned to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Her Excellency Tzipi Hotovely was summoned in response to the Israeli Higher Planning Committee's decision to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem. The UK and 21 international partners have written to condemn this decision in the strongest terms. If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution. Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Department of Public Information . News and Media Division . New York 21 August 2025 The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's briefing by Daniela Gross, Associate Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. ** Secretary-General/Japan I think most of you have seen me around, but since this is the first time I will be briefing you, I will introduce myself. My name is Daniela Gross and I am one of the Associate Spokespersons for the Secretary-General. I will start with a few notes. Actually, I have lots of notes, my luck for my first briefing. The Secretary-General continues his visit to Japan. Today, he held a press conference in Yokohama on the sidelines of the ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development. He reiterated the importance of reaching immediately a ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of all hostages held in the Strip, and to avoid the massive death and destruction that a military operation against Gaza City would inevitably cause. On the TICAD Summit, Mr. Guterres said that discussions at the conference focused on how partnership with Africa can strengthen solutions the whole world needs in peace, in global governance, finance, climate action, and digital transformation. Today, the Secretary-General also held meetings with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Iwaya Takesh, and separately with the Mayor of Yokohama. While in Yokohama, Mr. Guterres met with the President of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani. They discussed cooperation between Ghana and the UN, as well as the situation in the region. The Secretary-General also met with the Head of State and Head of Government of the Republic of Kenya, William Ruto. They discussed the Haiti Mission and exchanged views on the regional situation in the Great Lakes, East Africa and the Horn of Africa. The Secretary-General is currently on his way to Osaka where the Expo is being held. ** Secretary-General/Israeli Settlements You will have seen a statement we issued yesterday evening in which the Secretary-General condemned the decision of the Higher Planning Committee to grant approval for more than 3,400 housing units in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank. He notes that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are a violation of international law and run directly counter to UN resolutions. The Secretary-General said that the advancement of this project is an existential threat to the two-State solution. It would sever the northern and southern West Bank and have severe consequences for the territorial contiguity of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He reiterated his call on the Government of Israel to immediately halt all settlement activity and to comply fully with its obligations under international law and to act in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions and in line with the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024. ** Deputy Secretary-General I have a trip announcement for the DSG. The Deputy Secretary-General will depart later today for Abuja, Nigeria, to attend the inaugural Regional Security Conference of African Defence Chiefs entitled the "African Defence Chiefs Summit". The Summit will bring together defence leaders from across the continent to discuss collective approaches to peace and security and stability in Africa. At the Summit, she will highlight that sustainable development and peace and security are mutually reinforcing and must be advanced together to tackle today's complex security challenges. While in Abuja, the Deputy Secretary-General will also meet with senior Government officials of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) and other key stakeholders to advance cooperation on sustainable development, peace and security, and humanitarian priorities. Following her visit to Nigeria, the Deputy Secretary-General will travel to Santiago, in Chile, to participate in the World Summit on Teachers where she will underscore the central role of teachers in advancing the SDG4 and the global education agenda. The Summit builds on the outcomes of the 2022 Transforming Education Summit and advances the recommendations of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on the Teaching Profession, reinforcing the urgent need to invest in, and support, teachers worldwide. While in Chile, she will also meet with senior Government officials, the UN country team, and other stakeholders to discuss national progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The Deputy Secretary-General will return to New York on Friday, 29 August. ** Occupied Palestinian Territory And now, turning to the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that the relentless bombardment of areas in and around Gaza city is having devastating consequences for civilians. Our human rights colleagues said yesterday that intensified Israeli attacks in eastern and southern Gaza city, particularly Az Zaytoun area, are causing high numbers of civilian casualties and large-scale destruction. The Office added that since August 8th, more than 50 residential structures have been hit, killing at least 87 Palestinians. Yesterday, the Palestinian Civil Defence said it was unable to respond to most calls for help in Az Zaytoun, Khan Younis and Jabalya due to security risks and because the Israeli authorities have denied requests to coordinate access. Farther south, OCHA reports that this morning, an Israeli air strike hit a makeshift site for internally displaced people near its facility in Deir al Balah that is used as an office and guesthouse. The makeshift site, which was sheltering approximately 200 families, reportedly received a warning at short notice from the Israeli military and was evacuated immediately prior to the strike. While no casualties were reported, people's shelters and their belongings were damaged or destroyed. OCHA's facility was lightly damaged and, as you can imagine, the incident was traumatic for staff who were present at the time. Thankfully, our personnel are safe and accounted for. A reminder that the coordinates of UN premises in Gaza have been shared with the relevant parties. These locations, as with all civilian sites, must be protected. OCHA reiterates that civilians, including those who cannot, or choose not to, move, as well as humanitarians, must be protected. Humanitarian facilities and other civilian infrastructure must not be targeted or used in an attempt to shield military objectives from attack. Meanwhile, recurrent displacement continues to be reported. Partners monitoring the movement of people in Gaza estimate that between August 12th and 20th, more than 16,800 new displacements were recorded across the Strip. This brings the total number of recorded movements since the end of the ceasefire in mid-March to more than 796,000. Gaza City accounted for 95 per cent of the displacement reported, with people fleeing eastern parts of the city, such as Az Zaitoun, and primarily moving south and west. Meanwhile, hunger and malnutrition among children are deepening. Yesterday, UNICEF said that July was Gaza's deadliest month for child malnutrition deaths, with 24 children under five reportedly dying. That's already 85 per cent of the total for this year. The agency added that all 320,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition, increasing illness and long-term health risks. Meanwhile, partners are reporting a rise in child labour, with children collecting rubble and engaging in street vending and other informal work. Psychological distress is widespread among children who have been repeatedly displaced. Our partners reiterate that supplies for child protection and psychosocial support are scarce; none have entered since early March. We, along with our humanitarian partners remain on the ground, delivering life-saving aid whenever and wherever possible. We urge world leaders to uphold international law, protect civilians and use their influence to ensure that Israeli restrictions on humanitarian access are lifted. ** Ukraine Now turning to Ukraine. Our colleagues from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tell us that attacks and hostilities today and yesterday have killed and injured civilians across the country, including children. Homes and civilian infrastructure also sustained widespread damage. Strikes hit the regions of Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson. Humanitarian partners responded rapidly, providing emergency shelter materials, hot drinks and psychosocial support. Given the large number of evacuees, the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund has allocated $11.4 million in top-up funding to 12 partners to support evacuations in several front-line regions. ** Security Council Moving here in New York. This morning, Geir Pedersen, the Special Envoy for Syria, briefed the Security Council virtually. In Sweida, he said, the ceasefire agreed on 19 July has come under strain, but, so far, has prevented a slide back into open conflict. He welcomed the efforts of the US, Jordan and the Syrian authorities to support the ceasefire, but added that we are still seeing dangerous hostilities and skirmishes on the margins of Sweida, and violence could resume at any moment. Mr. Pedersen told Council Members that Israel's airstrikes have subsided following the latest ceasefire, but IDF ground operations in south-west Syria have continued. He reiterated that we must insist on full respect for Syria's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. The country remains deeply fragile and the transition remains on a knife-edge, the Special Envoy said. The path to a sovereign, peaceful and inclusive Syria will demand the courage to compromise, the discipline to follow the rule of law and the wisdom to remember, as Interim President Sharaa himself said this week, that unity is built, not through force and bloodshed, but through understanding and dialogue, Mr. Pedersen concluded. For his part, Tom Fletcher, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, who was also briefing council members, said that as the situation in Sweida reminds us the humanitarian crisis is not over. Across Syria, 16 million people still need humanitarian support. Despite funding and security challenges, he said the UN and partners are delivering as much life-saving support as we can with the resources we have. He asked Council members for the following: political action to hold the peace in Sweida and prevent future escalations of this kind; support for our funding and access requests. And to help us create the conditions, including through investment and sanctions lift, where the humanitarian mission can transition to genuine, and Syrian-led, recovery and rebuilding. ** Libya I also want to flag that at 3 p.m. this afternoon, the Security Council will reconvene for a briefing on Libya. Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, the Head of the UN Support Mission in the country, will brief Security Council members and, as usual, we will share these remarks with you as soon as we have them. ** Lebanon In Lebanon, the Head of Mission and Force Commander of UNIFIL, Major General Diodato Abagnara, held meetings this week with President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. During the meetings, the Lebanese leaders reaffirmed Lebanon's commitment to Security Council resolution 1701 and the importance of UNIFIL's continued presence in the south to support the Lebanese Armed Forces in extending State authority. UNIFIL peacekeepers this week launched a major operation covering an area of 180 square kilometres to find unauthorized weapon caches and infrastructure in coordination with the Lebanese Armed Forces. The operation led to the discovery of unexploded ordnances, a cave and a tunnel in Sector East. Yesterday, the peacekeepers found another tunnel, which was about 15 metres deep, in Sector East. As per usual practice, the findings were referred to the Lebanese Army. Earlier this week [on 19 August], UNIFIL's Maritime Task Force conducted a training with the Lebanese Navy and Air Force on boarding procedures in the Mediterranean Sea, simulating interception operations at sea. In addition, the Lebanese Navy recently started to integrate fully into the operations of UNIFIL's Maritime Task Force, twice a month, to conduct maritime surveillance. Separately, UNIFIL peacekeepers continue to support the Lebanese Army in clearing rubble from roads in Sector East to enhance its deployment. UNIFIL also continues to observe Israel Defence Forces' military activities in southern Lebanon, including yesterday, detecting four mortar rounds originating from south of the Blue Line and impacting two areas within the mission's area of operations. ** Sudan I have a humanitarian update on Sudan. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is gravely concerned by yet another attack on a humanitarian convoy this time near Al Melit, in North Darfur State, which happened on August 20th. The convoy, operated by the World Food Programme (WFP), consisted of 16 trucks carrying life-saving food assistance for vulnerable families. Three trucks were destroyed after catching fire during the drone attack. Fortunately, all convoy personnel are safe and accounted for. In a statement issued a short while ago, the Acting Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Luca Renda, condemned the attack in the strongest terms and called for an immediate and independent investigation into the incident and for parties found responsible to be held to account. OCHA stresses once again that international humanitarian law must be respected and the safety and protection of humanitarian personnel and supplies must be ensured. Humanitarian workers must be allowed to carry out their work without fear, obstruction or violence. This latest attack comes less than three months after another attack on a WFP and UNICEF humanitarian convoy in Al Koma, North Darfur state, in early June. That convoy was awaiting clearance to proceed to the state capital El Fasher. Five members of the convoy were killed and several more people were injured. These attacks come at a time when nearly 25 million people in Sudan are experiencing acute hunger. Meanwhile, food insecurity continues to deepen across Sudan. According to WFP's Market Monitor for July, prices for all major food items rose sharply compared to June, driving the national average cost of the WFP Local Food Basket up by more than a quarter. The surge is largely driven by extreme price hikes in the markets in El Fasher and in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan State. The UN and its partners continue to respond to urgent needs wherever access is possible, but insecurity, logistical constraints and underfunding remain major barriers to scaling up humanitarian assistance. ** Democratic Republic of the Congo Turning to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns about the devastating impact of recent violent attacks on civilians in the east of the country. Since mid-July, armed groups have killed more than 150 civilians in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, including women and children, according to local authorities and partners. The attacks have displaced thousands of people. Civilians continue to be subjected to abductions, sexual and gender-based violence, and other human rights violations. In South Kivu, ongoing violence and insecurity have deprived more than 250,000 people of humanitarian assistance, along key supply routes in Fizi territory. This week, an OCHA team successfully negotiated the release of essential medicines that had been blocked since June, due to the ongoing insecurity in the area. In addition to the security situation, limited funding is also hampering humanitarian operations. The $2.5 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 14 per cent funded, with [$365 million] received to date. Despite security and funding challenges, we, along with our humanitarian partners, continue to deliver life-saving assistance, reaching between 1.5 and 2 million people each month in eastern DRC. However, stronger international support is urgently needed to sustain this lifeline. ** International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism And I have an international day for you. Today is the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. In his message to mark the day, the Secretary-General said this year's theme, "United by Hope", reflects the strength of victims coming together to turn suffering into solidarity, and anguish into action. He welcomed the launch of the Victims of Terrorism Associations Network, supported by the UN, which fosters partnership, amplifies victims' voices and empowers them to shape decisions that affect their lives. Governments, civil society and the international community must match their courage by upholding victims' rights, delivering justice and standing with them at every step of their healing journey. ** Questions and Answers Associate Spokesperson : Edie, please. Question : Thank you, Daniela, and congratulations on your first briefing. Associate Spokesperson : Thank you. Question : Two questions. First, a follow-up on the attack on the Sudan convoy in North Darfur by a drone. Does the United Nations have any information or suspicion on who launched the drone? Associate Spokesperson : The case is still being investigated. This is all the information we have for now, but we encourage you also to get in touch with our colleagues from WFP on this. They might have more details for you. Question : Okay. And secondly, we know that today's attack in Ukraine by Russian drones and missiles was one of the largest of the war. Does the Secretary-General have any comment on this massive attack coming at a time that efforts are under way to try to end the war? Associate Spokesperson : Yes. The Secretary-General condemns the continued Russian attacks across Ukraine, including large scale drone and missile attacks like the one that happened that was reported overnight. He stressed that such attacks undermine the ongoing diplomatic efforts, and any attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law and must cease immediately. Dezhi, please. Question : Daniela, on Gaza, we know that the Israeli operation on Gaza City is imminent. You just mentioned about the UN OCHA operation. Do you have a number of how many, OCHA or UN staff is still in Gaza City? And do you have a plan to evacuate yourself or you will stay there? Associate Spokesperson : We don't have specific numbers that I can give you on that, but we will remain. Of course, this has always to be evaluated day to day, but we are going to remain and do everything we can to help the people who need so much assistance from us. Question : But just now you mentioned that civilians, they have a choice to stay or leave. Associate Spokesperson : So that's their choice. Question : Yes. But if in actual in reality, if there's the very heavy bombardment, is there really a choice to stay there? Associate Spokesperson : Civilians should never be a target. They should always be protected. Perhaps yeah. We go here first and after, I go Question : Hi, Daniela. I have a question on a different topic not mentioned by you. Associate Spokesperson : Let's see, if I have any information on that. I might have, might not. Question : As you probably know, the United States are moving three destroyers towards the coast of Venezuela carrying more than 4,000 serving members expected to arrive next weekend, allegedly to address threats by national security excuse me, threats to national security from narco-terrorist organization in the region. The Venezuelan Government has replied with the mobilization of more than 4 million militia fighters in response. Any comment of the Secretary-General? Associate Spokesperson : Yes. The Secretary-General is closely following ongoing developments in the Caribbean concerning relations between Venezuela and the United States, and he urges both Governments to de-escalate tensions, exercise restraint and solve their differences through peaceful means. You're welcome. Question : Thank you. Congratulations on your briefing. Associate Spokesperson : Thank you. Question : If I may, please, Steph told us that the Secretary-General is going to pick up the call and speak to some leaders regarding the Alaska summit and regarding the European meeting with President Trump in White House. Has he spoken to anyone on Ukraine, or has anyone requested to speak with him? Thank you. Associate Spokesperson : I don't have any information on this at this moment, but when we do, we will for sure share it with you. You at the back, please. Question : Hello. So my question is about Ukraine and Russia. So about the security guarantees that some European countries are preparing, so what's the UN position or comment on that? Associate Spokesperson : I'm not going to comment on the negotiations that are still ongoing. But our message, and that's the message that the Secretary-General reiterated, is that we call for a full, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire leading to a just comprehensive and sustainable peace that fully upholds Ukraine's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders in line with the UN Charter, international law, and all the other UN relevant resolutions. Gabriel. I will come back to you. Question : Thank you, Daniela, and also congratulations. Associate Spokesperson : Thank you. Question : 83 per cent of Palestinians that were killed in Gaza are civilians. That number comes from data from an internal Israeli intelligence database that was published by a joint investigation by 972 magazine and The Guardian today. 83 per cent of Palestinian civilians. Does the Secretary-General have a reaction to that? But more broadly, is it still the UN's position that the real death toll in Gaza is higher than what the official numbers are? Associate Spokesperson : We have been working of the data we are given. But for a while, we also have been saying that the numbers may be higher. It's hard. It's almost impossible to check. But we have been working with the numbers we are given. What I think is important to stress is that this needs to stop. We need a ceasefire, and we need unimpeded humanitarian access to help the people and stop that so much need assistance from us. And of course, the unconditional release of the hostages. Please. Question : Sorry. I'm new here. That's why I need to get used to... Associate Spokesperson : I'm new here too. Question : I know. I guess so. Question : So in the introduction, you said that in Sweida, in Syria, violence can resume at any moment. Can you elaborate more on that? And what role is the United Nations playing to make sure that Sweida or the Druze community in Syria are not going to be attacked again by extremist groups from within the Syrian Government? Associate Spokesperson : We have been raising those concerns for a while now. We call on the parties to refrain from any actions that can increase the tensions in the area. Okay. I can go back to you. Question : Again, my second question is hundreds of reporters were killed in the past two years in Gaza, so... Associate Spokesperson : Sorry. I can't hear you properly. Yeah. Question : Okay. Hundreds of reporters were killed in Gaza the past two years. So can we expect any calls from the UN to allow international reporters into Gaza? Otherwise, the information will be always missing. Associate Spokesperson : We have been calling for the access of reporters, journalists like you to Gaza for a while now because your job, your work is essential. So we can have the proper information, the information coming from the ground, and you can do the work you can do so well. Let's see, if I have any questions online. I even forgot the questions online. No. We have no questions in the chat. Do we have anyone else here? Oh, sorry. You, please. Question : And the data from Israel side and the data from the UN side, there are a lot of different there are a lot of differences with the numbers. And Israel actually has repeatedly accused that UN is spreading misinformation by having different numbers. What is the UN's position on that? And are you worried this would reduce the credibility of the UN's data? Associate Spokesperson : You mean different numbers in relation to what? Sorry. I couldn't get that. Question : Like, for example, there are different numbers with aid going into Gaza. It's actually, like, the number released by Israeli Government and the UN is very different. There's a huge gap between the two numbers. Associate Spokesperson : Okay. I'll have a look here because I think I have something on that. Sorry about that. The data presented on the online dashboard of the UN 2720 mechanism covers only humanitarian relief consignments processed through that mechanism. This reflects our accountability and transference for what we and our partners deliver into Gaza as mandated by the Security Council resolution 2720 of 2023. This is clearly stated on the dashboard itself. In our reporting, we fully acknowledge that other actors bring supplies into Gaza when this is allowed. We more than welcome these contributions, but what enters is far from sufficient, as we have been stressing here day after day, and also as showing by the daily gatherings of hungry people along convoy routes and by the surge in malnutrition cases. The UN cannot independently verify the volume of supplies brought in outside of its mechanisms as Israeli authorities have so far mostly denied our request to deploy monitors at Gaza's crossings, all of which are under their control. As we have consistently said, larger volumes and a wider variety must be allowed in Gaza, including by humanitarian organizations, UN agencies and NGOs and by the private sector. These supplies must enter without impediments through all land crossings and routes, including those leading directly to the North and to Gaza City. That's what I have. Okay? Thanks. Okay. Keep coming. Question : Thanks. Sorry [Inaudible]. Thanks so much. Congrats to the first briefing. I also have a follow-up on Venezuela. So does this decision by the United States violates the UN charter to send carriers? Associate Spokesperson : I don't have any information on that to share with you now. Thanks. Question : Alright. Thank you. Question : A follow-up on the number. Yesterday, the US Ambassador to the Israel, Mike Huckabee, when accepting interview said that there are enough aid actually getting into Gaza. The failure is the delivery or distribution. That's what he said. Do you agree? Associate Spokesperson : My colleagues here, Stephane, Farhan, Stephanie, all of them have been stressing the needs of more aid and what happens is that our operations have several constraints to be able to deliver aid into Gaza. And we have been stressing that what we need to help the people who so much need aid, but not only foods, medicines, water, fuel, and so on, is the unimpeded access to Gaza humanitarian access so we can do the job, the work that we know how to do so well and we do around the world. Do we have any more questions? Okay. We have one more at the end. I think Iftikar, I see your hand as well. Iftikar, you go after, you after. Question : Thank you, Daniela, for the briefing. Just to follow-up again on the situation in Sweida, the question that was previously asked. The special envoy today said to the Security Council quote, it's a bit of a long quote, so bear with me here. I'm sorry. "I urge comprehensive and institutionalized engagement with all communities and leaders, including those critical of the interim authorities in the spirit of real compromise. I'm aware of your call that you just made for both parties to act in restraint and refrain from further violence. But is there anything the UN is doing to actively engage with these community leaders in order to mitigate the ongoing situation over there? Associate Spokesperson : Thank you. I will just refer you to what the Special Envoy [for Syria], Mr. [Geir] Pedersen, said today at the Security Council and also Tom Fletcher [Emergency Relief Coordinator]. I encourage you to read their remarks. They were shared with you. Thanks. Iftikar, I think you have a question too. Question : Thank you. Daniela, congratulations. My question is whether the UN has gotten involved in relief work in Pakistan where devastating flash floods driven by torrential rain have killed hundreds of people. Associate Spokesperson : The Secretary-General has, if I'm not mistaken, we issued a statement that we haven't been, the Government hasn't requested for assistance yet, but we stand ready to assist, if they do so. Question : Thank you, ma'am. Associate Spokesperson : Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a great afternoon. Bye. Thank you so much. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement by Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, on the United Nations Scale-Up of Humanitarian Response in As-Sweida Amid Escalating Needs (21 August 2025) UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Damascus, 21 August 2025 -- The United Nations and humanitarian partners are mobilizing resources and intensifying efforts to address the growing humanitarian needs in As-Sweida and surrounding areas hosting displaced populations, following weeks of clashes that have severely impacted civilians and disrupted essential services. During a visit to As-Sweida on 20 August, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, expressed appreciation to the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic for its support and facilitation of the mission. This cooperation enabled the UN delegation to assess the humanitarian situation on the ground and engage directly with affected communities, local officials, and civil society organizations. Over 190,000 people have been displaced, the majority within As-Sweida Governorate. Many are sheltering in schools, raising urgent concerns as the academic year approaches. Dignified and safe solutions must be found for displaced families to ensure children's uninterrupted access to education. Health services are under severe strain. Hospitals and clinics are facing acute shortages of essential medications, including insulin, dialysis supplies, and cancer treatments. Medical staff are working tirelessly under difficult conditions and require urgent support to continue saving lives. "The humanitarian conditions in As-Sweida and displacement sites in Dar'a and Rural Damascus are dire. Civilians have borne the brunt of the violence and urgently need support," Mr Abdelmoula said. "Local civil society organizations are playing a vital role in supporting displaced and host communities. Their efforts deserve recognition and sustained resources to expand their reach and impact", he added. Meanwhile, local markets are experiencing severe shortages, and prices for basic goods are soaring. Families are waiting in long lines for fuel and essential commodities. Humanitarian assistance alone cannot resolve these challenges. Restoring safe and reliable flows of commercial goods is critical to stabilizing the situation and preventing further deterioration. In coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the United Nations and humanitarian partners have dispatched 12 aid convoys to date, delivering a broad range of life-saving assistance. Over 300,000 people are currently being reached each month with some form of humanitarian aid. Despite these efforts, the response remains constrained by limited funding. The United Nations calls on donors to stand in solidarity with the people of As-Sweida and across Syria by urgently scaling up support to meet the most pressing needs. The United Nations remains committed to working with all relevant stakeholders to ensure the sustained, principled delivery of humanitarian assistance to all communities in need. 21 August 2025 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Occupied Palestinian Territory Hostilities cause civilian casualties, destruction in Gaza city OCHA warns that the relentless bombardment of areas in and around Gaza city is having devastating consequences for civilians. The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said yesterday that intensified Israeli attacks in eastern and southern Gaza city, particularly Az Zaytoun area, are causing high numbers of civilian casualties and large-scale destruction. OHCHR added that since 8 August, more than 50 residential structures have been hit, killing at least 87 Palestinians. Yesterday, the Palestinian Civil Defense said it was unable to respond to most calls for help in Az Zaytoun, Khan Younis and Jabalya due to security risks and because the Israeli authorities have denied requests to coordinate access. Farther south, OCHA reports that this morning, an Israeli air strike hit a makeshift site for internally displaced people near its facility in Deir al Balah, which is used as an office and guesthouse. The makeshift site, which was sheltering approximately 200 families, reportedly received a warning at short notice from the Israeli military and was evacuated immediately prior to the strike. While no casualties were reported, people's shelters and their belongings were damaged or destroyed. OCHA's facility was lightly damaged, and the incident was traumatic for staff who were present at the time. Thankfully, OCHA personnel are safe and accounted for. OCHA reiterates that the coordinates of UN premises in Gaza have been shared with the relevant parties. These locations - as with all civilian sites - must be protected. Once again, OCHA stresses that civilians - including those who cannot or choose not to move, as well as humanitarians - must be protected. Humanitarian facilities and other civilian infrastructure must not be targeted or used in an attempt to shield military objectives from attack. Meanwhile, recurrent displacement continues to be reported. Partners monitoring the movement of people in Gaza estimate that between 12 and 20 August, more than 16,800 new displacements were recorded across the Strip. This brings the total number of recorded movements since the end of the ceasefire in mid-March to more than 796,000. Gaza city accounted for 95 per cent of the displacement reported, with people fleeing eastern parts of the city, such as Az Zaytoun, and primarily moving south and west. Meanwhile, hunger and malnutrition among children are deepening. Yesterday, UNICEF said that July was Gaza's deadliest month for child malnutrition deaths, with 24 children under five reportedly dying. This is already 85 per cent of the total for this year. The agency added that all 320,000 children under 5 are at risk of acute malnutrition, increasing illness and long-term health risks. Meanwhile, partners are reporting a rise in child labour, with children collecting rubble and engaging in street vending and other informal work. Psychosocial distress is widespread among children who have been repeatedly displaced. Partners reiterate that supplies for child protection and psychosocial support are scarce, with none having entered since early March. The UN and its humanitarian partners remain on the ground in Gaza, delivering life-saving aid whenever and wherever possible. They urge world leaders to uphold international law, protect civilians, and use their influence to ensure that Israeli restrictions on humanitarian access are lifted. Lives are at stake. Syria UN Relief Chief warns that funding gaps threaten life-saving aid The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, told the Security Council today that Syria's humanitarian crisis is not over - as the recent violence in As-Sweida makes clear. "The overall situation is dire, I'm afraid," he said. "We need to sustain urgent delivery of food, health, shelter, clean water, fuel, restoration of water and electricity infrastructure, education." Fletcher called for political action to hold the peace in As-Sweida and prevent future escalations of this kind. He also urged support for humanitarian funding and access requests - and to help create the conditions, including through investment and sanctions lift, where the humanitarian mission can transition to genuine and Syrian-led recovery and rebuilding. "We need to do that for the Syria people, but not just for Syria," the Under-Secretary-General said. "This is a change to demonstrate that international solidarity still matters, and that coordinated international action still works." Humanitarian Coordinator visits As-Sweida to assess urgent needs Yesterday, the Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, visited As-Sweida to assess the humanitarian situation following weeks of clashes in July. Abdelmoula expressed appreciation to the Government of Syria for facilitating the mission, which allowed the UN to engage directly with affected communities, local officials and civil society organizations. More than 185,000 people have been displaced due to recent hostilities, most of them in As-Sweida Governorate. Many are sheltering in schools, raising urgent concerns as the academic year approaches. Hospitals and clinics are facing acute shortages of essential medications, including insulin, dialysis supplies and cancer treatments. Medical staff are working under extremely difficult conditions. Local markets are experiencing severe shortages and soaring prices. Families are waiting in long lines for fuel and basic goods. Abdelmoula said that humanitarian conditions are dire in As-Sweida, Dar'a and Rural Damascus, and civilians urgently need support. He also highlighted the vital role of local civil society organizations in assisting displaced and host communities. Since 20 July, in coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the UN and its humanitarian partners have dispatched 12 aid convoys, reaching over 300,000 people each month with life-saving assistance. Despite these efforts, the response remains constrained by limited funding*. It is urgent that donors scale up support to meet the most pressing needs. *Donations made to UN Crisis Relief help UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs reach people in Syria with urgent support. Sudan WFP aid convoy attacked in North Darfur OCHA is gravely concerned by yet another attack on a humanitarian convoy in Sudan - this time near Al Melit, in North Darfur State, on 20 August. The convoy, operated by the World Food Programme (WFP), consisted of 16 trucks carrying life-saving food assistance for vulnerable families. Three trucks were destroyed after catching fire during the drone attack. Fortunately, all convoy personnel are safe and accounted for. In a statement today, the Acting Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Luca Renda, condemned the attack in the strongest terms and called for an immediate and independent investigation into the incident - and for parties found responsible to be held to account. OCHA stresses once again that international humanitarian law must be respected, and the safety and protection of humanitarian personnel and supplies must be ensured. Humanitarian workers must be allowed to carry out their work without fear, obstruction or violence. This latest attack comes less than three months after another attack on a WFP and UNICEF humanitarian convoy in Al Koma, North Darfur, in early June. That convoy was awaiting clearance to proceed to the state capital El Fasher. Five members of the convoy were killed and several more people were injured. These attacks come at a time when nearly 25 million people in Sudan are experiencing acute hunger. Meanwhile, food insecurity continues to deepen across Sudan. According to WFP's latest market monitor report, in July, prices for all major food items rose sharply compared to June, driving the national average cost of the WFP local food basket up by more than a quarter. The surge is largely fueled by extreme price hikes in the markets in El Fasher and in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan State. The UN and its partners continue to respond to urgent needs wherever access is possible - but insecurity, logistical constraints and underfunding remain major barriers to scaling up humanitarian assistance. Democratic Republic of the Congo Scores of civilians killed, thousands displaced over past month in North Kivu, Ituri provinces OCHA warns that recent violent attacks on civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are having a disastrous impact. Since mid-July, armed groups have killed more than 150 civilians in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, including women and children, according to local authorities and partners. The attacks have also displaced thousands of people. Civilians continue to be subjected to abductions, sexual and gender-based violence, and other human rights violations. In South Kivu, ongoing violence and insecurity have deprived more than 250,000 people of humanitarian assistance along key supply routes in Fizi territory. This week, an OCHA team successfully negotiated the release of essential medicines that had been blocked since June due to the ongoing insecurity in the area. In addition to the security situation, limited funding is also hampering humanitarian operations. The US$2.5 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 14 per cent funded, with $365 million received to date. Despite security and funding challenges, the UN and its humanitarian partners continue to deliver life-saving assistance, reaching between 1.5 and 2 million people each month in eastern DRC. However, stronger international support is urgently needed to sustain this lifeline. Ukraine Deadly attacks cause civilian casualties, widespread damage OCHA says that attacks and hostilities today and yesterday have killed and injured civilians across Ukraine. Authorities report that at least seven civilians were killed and 50 people injured, including children. Homes and civilian infrastructure also sustained widespread damage. Strikes hit the regions of Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson, damaging dozens of houses, vehicles and civilian facilities. Humanitarian partners responded rapidly, providing emergency shelter materials, hot drinks and psychosocial support. Given the large number of evacuees, the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund has allocated $11.4 million in top-up funding to 12 partners to support evacuations in several front-line regions. Posted on 21 August 2025 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press Release Marines Pilot Artificial Intelligence Fellowship at NPS 21 Aug 2025 HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS -- U.S. Marines gathered at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, August 11-14, to launch a new initiative in military innovation and education: the inaugural U.S. Marine Corps-Naval Postgraduate School Artificial Intelligence (AI) Fellowship. Part of the implementation of the 2024 Marine Corps Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the fellowship is designed to accelerate AI adoption and development across the force by building a cadre of AI-literate Marines empowered with technical knowledge, practical experience, and operational insight. "This fellowship leverages eager Marines knowledgeable about the Fleet's modern and relevant issues, faculty experts, state-of-the-art facilities at Naval Postgraduate School, and the incomputable potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning," said Dr. Christopher Paul, U.S. Marine Corps Chair for Information at NPS and lead organizer of the program. The pilot cohort of Marines will spend five months immersed in AI education and applied research, splitting time between their home commands and the NPS campus. Through a mix of mentorship, coursework, and prototype development, each fellow will address a real-world challenge aligned to the needs of the Fleet Marine Force. "Our goal is to optimize AI's application across the force," Paul said. "To do that, we need to grow the AI-proficient and literate population in the military, which this fellowship aims to do." The Marine Corps is committed to developing and deploying emerging technologies that give Marines the advantage in future conflicts. The USMC-NPS AI Fellowship is a concrete step toward equipping warfighters with tools and knowledge to operate in an increasingly digital battlespace. While the pilot program is currently limited to Marines, future iterations aim to expand participation to include service members from other branches of the Joint Force. The fellowship reflects the Marine Corps' broader commitment to education, innovation, and preparing for the complex challenges of the modern operating environment. Information on future fellowship opportunities will be announced via Marine Corps administrative message. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address AFP reports increased presence of Chinese vessels in Ayungin Shoal Philippine News Agency By Priam Nepomuceno August 22, 2025, 7:50 am MANILA -- An increased presence of Chinese vessels, including rubber boats armed with crew-served weapons, was monitored in Ayungin Shoal in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) where the BRP Sierra Madre (LS-57) stands watch, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said Thursday. In a statement, the AFP said the increase had been observed on Aug. 20 through maritime domain awareness (MDA) monitoring activities. "In total, five CCG (Chinese Coast Guard) vessels were present, supported by 11 RHIBs (rigid-hull inflatable boat)/fast boats and nine Chinese maritime militia vessels. Aerial assets were also monitored during the deployment, including one rotary aircraft and one unmanned aerial vehicle," it said. Several of the CCG's fast boats were also observed to have been upgraded with mounted weapons, including heavy crew-served weapons. "China Coast Guard vessels have been seen conducting maneuvers and drills involving the use of water cannons at sea, while a number of smaller craft, such as rigid-hulled inflatable boats and fast boats, were also deployed inside the shoal," it added. The AFP said it would continue to monitor developments in the WPS. In a separate message to reporters, AFP public affairs office chief, Col. Xerxes Trinidad, said the military has ready contingency measures. "We affirm our commitment in performing our mandate to protect our sovereignty and sovereign rights in the WPS," he said. Trinidad said the AFP's continuous monitoring activities provide a clear picture of the "operational environment and awareness of the situation." (PNA) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN-backed organization officially declares famine in Gaza Iran Press TV Friday, 22 August 2025 1:49 AM The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-supported entity tasked with assessing global hunger, has officially declared a famine in Gaza City for the first time. Established in 2004, the IPC has only recognized four famines, the last being in Sudan last year. Despite previous warnings about imminent famine in Gaza, the IPC hesitated to formalize a declaration due to insufficient data until now. The declaration comes as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu intensifies the genocidal war in Gaza City, which is inhabited by approximately 500,000 people. Netanyahu has previously denied the existence of famine in the region. To meet the criteria for declaring a famine, the IPC dictates that at least 20% of households must experience extreme food scarcity, 30% of children must suffer from acute malnutrition, and a minimum of two people per 10,000 must die daily from starvation. The IPC will classify the famine as occurring in the "Gaza Governorate," which includes Gaza City and surrounding towns. According to the IPC briefing, the situation in Gaza is catastrophic, with more than half a million residents facing dire conditions marked by food deprivation and mortality. The famine is expected to spread to other areas by the end of September, affecting approximately 1.07 million people, who are currently in a state of "emergency" food insecurity. Netanyahu faces significant international criticism for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, prompting Israel to announce measures to facilitate the entry of more aid. He asserted that "hundreds of trucks" have been allowed entry and refuted that Israel is implementing a "starvation policy." In anticipation of a full-scale military takeover of Gaza City, Israel has mobilized 60,000 reservists. Israeli forces are reported to have established positions on the city's outskirts amidst ongoing airstrikes, leading to the mass displacement of residents. The IPC and its partner organizations, including Save the Children and UNICEF, predict worsening food security conditions in Gaza over the coming months. Nearly a third of Gaza's population is expected to face catastrophic living conditions, while those in emergency status could rise to 1.14 million. This declaration marks a historic event as it is the first officially recognized famine in the Middle East, and only the fifth time the IPC has issued a famine declaration, with previous instances occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. In the context of the ongoing war, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 271 individuals had succumbed to starvation, 112 of whom were children. Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the Zionist entity in response to the regime's decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians. The genocidal war has so far killed nearly 62,122 Palestinians and injured 156,758 others, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry of Gaza. Israel has sealed all border crossings, blocking the entry of aid and further worsening Gaza's already dire humanitarian crisis since March 2, when it violated its ceasefire agreement with Hamas. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russo-Ukraine War - 21 August 2025 - Day 1275 Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos. On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal] The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that 116 combat clashes have taken place since the beginning of the day. The Russian opponent launched two missile strikes with 43 rockets and 49 aviation strikes, dropping 70 controlled aviation bombs. Also used 1850 kamikaze drones for strikes and carried out 3,876 shelling of settlements and positions of Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian defenders repelled two Russian attacks in the Northern Slobozhansky and Kursky directions. The enemy launched five air strikes, dropped nine controlled air bombs and fired 161 artillery shells, including four from reactive systems of open fire. In the South Slobozhansky direction, Ukrainian units prevented five Russian attacks near the settlements of Vovchansk, Hatne, Barna and Zapadne. In the Kupiansk direction, Ukrainian soldiers repelled five Russian attacks in the areas of Golubivka and Kupiansk. In the Lyman direction, Ukrainian soldiers stopped 14 assault actions of the Russian invaders near the settlements of Karpivka, Green Valley, Kolodyazi, Dibrov and towards Yampol. Three more fighting clashes are ongoing so far. In the Sivers komu direction, Russian forces carried out five offensive actions in the areas of Serebryanka, Viymki, Grigorivka, Sivers ka and Fedorivka. In the kramators komu direction, Ukrainian defenders repelled four attempts of the Russian zagarbnikiv to advance in the areas of konstantinivka and prteciny. In the Toretsky direction, Russian forces today four times stormed the positions of Ukrainian defenders in the areas of Oleksandro-Kalinovy, Pleschiyivka, Sofiyivka, Poltavka and Toretsk. Defense forces are steadily suppressing the pressure and repelling all Russian attacks. Throughout the day in the Pokrovsky direction, the Russian enemy committed 29 offensive actions. The activity of Russian occupiers was fixed near the settlements of Nikanorivka, Novoekonomicne, Mykolaivka, Rodinske, Peaceful, Red Strait, Ray, Pokrovsk, Zvirove, Novopavlivka, Muravka, Novoukrainka, Comfort, Kotline, Udacne, Lisivka, Dachne. Three fighting clashes are still ongoing. Today in this direction, according to preliminary data, 107 Russian invaders, of which 71 - irrevocably. In addition, Ukrainian soldiers destroyed one unmanned aircraft control point, one fuel warehouse, 47 unmanned aircraft, six automobile units and two special equipment units, as well as struck two Russian cannons. In the Novopavlovsky direction, Ukrainian units repelled 25 attacks in the areas of settlements Voskresenko, Zaporizhye, Temirivka, Green Field, Tolstoy, Lisne, Olgivskie and in the direction of settlements of Komyshuvakha, Philia. The two fighting clashes are still ongoing. The Russian enemy did not carry out offensive actions in Gulyaipilsky and Orihivskky directions. Russian aviation struck the settlements of Novoukrainka and Orihiv. In the Pridniprovsk direction, the Russian occupiers twice attacked the positions of the Defense Forces in the direction of the Antonivsky Bridge. The Russian opponent of success did not succeed. The settlement point of pridniprovsk suffered aviation strikes controlled bombs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ohio Siblings Sentenced for Laundering $784,045 in Drug Proceeds Thursday, August 21, 2025 For Immediate Release Office of Public Affairs An Ohio brother and sister were sentenced to federal prison for their roles in collecting drug proceeds in the United States and laundering those funds, or their equivalent value, back to Mexico on behalf of a cartel. According to court documents, Christopher Grover Reynolds, 52, of Toledo, Ohio, was sentenced to over six years in prison, and his sister, Claudette Reynolds, 51, of Toledo, was sentenced to two years in prison for their participation in a money laundering conspiracy. They were both sentenced to three years of supervised release. "The defendants helped Mexican drug traffickers collect and disguise the profits from selling methamphetamine and fentanyl in Toledo," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "Their money laundering activities fueled the importation of dangerous drugs into the Midwest. This prosecution reflects the Criminal Division's commitment to staunch the flow of cash to cartels and protect communities from the devastating consequences of drug trafficking." "Every dollar they laundered was done so on the backs of overdose victims and their families," said Special Agent in Charge Jim Scott, head of DEA's Louisville Division. "By acting as the cartel's bankers, these siblings helped fuel the fentanyl and meth crisis tearing through Ohio. DEA will hunt down anyone who dares to wash cartel money because if you launder blood money for drug traffickers, you will face justice alongside them." According to court documents, Christopher Reynolds collected proceeds from the sale of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and marijuana in Toledo and notified a Mexico-based cartel that the funds were ready for laundering and transfer to Mexico. On six occasions, Reynolds personally delivered the money - totaling $784,045 - or enlisted his sister to do so. The money was later transferred to Mexico via cryptocurrency. A search of Christopher Reynolds's residence and a traffic stop of Claudette Reynolds led to a seizure of $184,415 in bulk cash, several pounds of marijuana, counterfeit pills containing methamphetamine and fentanyl, two firearms (a .40 caliber pistol and an AR-15 rifle), and a money counting machine. The DEA Lexington Resident Office investigated the case, working closely with the Detroit Field Division and Rocky Mountain Field Division and assisted by DEA offices in Mexico, Toledo, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Birmingham, Chicago, Cincinnati, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Baltimore, Des Moines, Milwaukee, Portland, Columbia, and Rapid City, with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. Trial Attorney Elizabeth R. Rabe of the Criminal Division's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and Deputy Criminal Chief Gary Todd Bradbury of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky prosecuted this case. This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and other transnational criminal organizations and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Project Safe Neighborhoods. Components: Criminal Division Criminal - Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section Press Release Number: 25-872 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Chinese National Who Deployed "Kill Switch" Code on Employer's Network Sentenced to Four Years in Prison Thursday, August 21, 2025 For Immediate Release Office of Public Affairs A Chinese national was sentenced today to four years in prison and three years of supervised release for writing and deploying malicious code on his then-employer's network. "The defendant breached his employer's trust by using his access and technical knowledge to sabotage company networks, wreaking havoc and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for a U.S. company," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "However, the defendant's technical savvy and subterfuge did not save him from the consequences of his actions. The Criminal Division is committed to identifying and prosecuting those who attack U.S. companies, whether from within or without, to hold them responsible for their actions." "The FBI works relentlessly every day to ensure that cyber actors who deploy malicious code and harm American businesses face the consequences of their actions," said Assistant Director Brett Leatherman of the FBI's Cyber Division. "I am proud of the FBI cyber team's work which led to today's sentencing and hope it sends a strong message to others who may consider engaging in similar unlawful activities. This case also underscores the importance of identifying insider threats early and highlights the need for proactive engagement with your local FBI field office to mitigate risks and prevent further harm." In March, a jury convicted Davis Lu, 55, legally residing in Houston, of causing intentional damage to protected computers. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Lu was employed as a software developer for the victim company headquartered in Beachwood, Ohio, from November 2007 to October 2019. Following a 2018 corporate realignment that reduced his responsibilities and system access, Lu began sabotaging his employer's systems. By Aug. 4, 2019, he introduced malicious code that caused system crashes and prevented user logins. Specifically, he created "infinite loops" (in this case, code designed to exhaust Java threads by repeatedly creating new threads without proper termination, resulting in server crashes or hangs), deleted coworker profile files, and implemented a "kill switch" that would lock out all users if his credentials in the company's active directory were disabled. The "kill switch" code which Lu named "IsDLEnabledinAD", abbreviating "Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory" was automatically activated when he was placed on leave and asked to surrender his laptop on Sept. 9, 2019, and impacted thousands of company users globally. Additionally, on the day he was directed to turn in his company laptop, Lu deleted encrypted data. His internet search history revealed he had researched methods to escalate privileges, hide processes, and rapidly delete files, indicating an intent to obstruct the efforts of his co-workers to resolve the system disruptions. Lu's employer suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses as a result of his actions. The FBI Cleveland Field Office investigated the case. Senior Counsel Candina S. Heath of the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Riedl and Brian S. Deckert for the Northern District of Ohio prosecuted the case. CCIPS investigates and prosecutes cybercrime in coordination with domestic and international law enforcement agencies, often with assistance from the private sector. Since 2020, CCIPS has secured the conviction of over 180 cybercriminals, and court orders for the return of over $350 million in victim funds. Topic: Cybercrime Components: Criminal Division Criminal - Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) USAO - Ohio, Northern Press Release Number: 25-873 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address "Shubhanshu's Space voyage vindicates the vision of an Atmanirbhar and Vishwabandhu Bharat": Dr Jitendra Singh India PIB Department of Space India's astronauts reflect PM Modi's flagship mantras in space mission, says Jitendra Singh while introducing crew Shubhanshu Shukla says ISS experience will aid India's Gaganyaan mission; urges youth to dream of space India's progress in space commands global respect, says astronaut Prasanth B. Nair Posted On: 21 AUG 2025 5:46PM by PIB Delhi Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology; Earth Sciences and Minister of State for PMO, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr. Jitendra Singh today said that the flagship mantras consistently practised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are steering India's growth story, including its ambitious space programme. "Shubhanshu's Space voyage vindicates the vision of an Atmanirbhar and Vishwabandhu Bharat", said Dr Jitendra Singh. The Minister was speaking at an ISRO press conference here where he formally introduced two Indian-origin astronauts, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and Group Captain Prasanth B. Nair, to the country. Dr. Jitendra Singh said that in a single mission, India's astronauts had lived up to the three flagship mantras that Prime Minister Modi has been practicing and propagating for nearly 12 years. The first, Atma Nirbhar Bharat, was reflected in the use of fully indigenous kits and technology during the mission, a principle that will also guide the forthcoming Gaganyaan programme. The second, a Whole of Government and Whole of Nation approach, was evident in the contributions from diverse institutions such as the Department of Biotechnology, IISc Bengaluru and IITs, with experiments that even pointed towards the future possibility of a "space physician." The third, Vishwa Bandhu Bharat, was demonstrated by the fact that while the experiments were conducted by an Indian astronaut, their benefits would reach humanity at largestrengthening both India's confidence and the world's trust in wider collaborations. Dr. Jitendra Singh underlined that the astronauts' achievements reflected the Prime Minister Modi's emphasis on integrating India's traditional strengths with modern innovation. He noted that India's expanding presence in space research and exploration has been enabled by policies that encourage openness, collaboration, and private sector participation. Introducing the astronauts, he said their presence and experiences would inspire a new generation of young Indians to look at space research as a career and national calling. The Minister added that their training and participation in international missions also serve as valuable preparation as India moves closer to its own human spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan. Both astronauts interacted with the media and shared their experiences, ranging from rigorous training to the unique challenges of living and working in space. They also highlighted the spirit of teamwork and scientific pursuit that underpinned the Axiom-4 mission. Shubhanshu Shukla, who recently became the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station as part of the Axiom-4 mission, shared his experiences as the mission pilot of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. He described how months of training across multiple international space agencies prepared him for the flight, but said the actual experience of space went far beyond what could be taught on the ground. He spoke of the physical adjustments the body undergoes in orbit, the invaluable lessons from working on experiments aboard the ISS, and the collaborative spirit of astronauts and scientists from across the world. "This mission has been extremely successful in achieving its objectives, but more importantly, it has given us insights that cannot be documented on paper. These will be critical as India prepares for Gaganyaan and beyond," he said. Shukla added that one of the most rewarding aspects of the mission was inspiring young Indians to dream of space. Recalling his live interactions from orbit, he said children often asked how they could become astronauts. "That, for me, was the biggest win of this missionthat kids are already dreaming of space. The good news is that ISRO and India are ready to make these dreams a reality," he said, urging students to believe that they too could one day travel to space. Group Captain Prasanth B. Nair, who trained alongside Shubhanshu Shukla for the Axiom-4 mission, described the experience as a reminder of India's growing stature in the global space community. Drawing from his interactions abroad, he said that India's achievements were met with respect and admiration, often accompanied by surprise at the scale of progress made with humility. He emphasized that India's approach to space was rooted in inclusivity and shared benefit, reflecting the nation's belief in the oneness of humanity. Stressing that the future lies in space and related technologies, he said the progress made was possible only because of the collective contributions of scientists, policymakers, and citizens. Concluding on a note of gratitude, he acknowledged the support of the government, ISRO teams, and the people of India, remarking that their work provides the foundation for the country's aspirations in space exploration. Dr. Jitendra Singh underlined that the astronauts' achievements reflected the Prime Minister Modi's emphasis on integrating India's traditional strengths with modern innovation. He noted that India's expanding presence in space research and exploration has been enabled by policies that encourage openness, collaboration, and private sector participation. Introducing the astronauts, he said their presence and experiences would inspire a new generation of young Indians to look at space research as a career and national calling. The Minister added that their training and participation in international missions also serve as valuable preparation as India moves closer to its own human spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan. Both astronauts interacted with the media and shared their experiences, ranging from rigorous training to the unique challenges of living and working in space. They also highlighted the spirit of teamwork and scientific pursuit that underpinned the Axiom-4 mission. Dr. V. Narayanan, Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, ISRO, outlined India's Human Space Flight Programme and briefed the gathering on upcoming ISRO missions, including preparations for the Gaganyaan project. He said these initiatives mark an important step in positioning India as a key player in future human space exploration. The event marks a significant step in India's space journey, coming at a time when the country is positioning itself as a global partner in space exploration. With the government laying policy emphasis on innovation and international collaboration, the introduction of the astronauts is seen as a moment of pride as well as a signal of India's readiness to play a larger role in future space missions. ***** NKR/PSM (Release ID: 2159253) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PARLIAMENT QUESTION: SUPPORT TO STATES FOR THEIR INITIATIVES IN THE SPACE SECTOR India PIB Department of Space Posted On: 21 AUG 2025 5:44PM by PIB Delhi Government of India through IN-SPACe, Department of Space, has sought willingness from state governments to establish spacemanufacturing clusters in their respective states. IN-SPACe will establish Common Technical Facilities within the space manufacturingclusters which will have capital intensive infrastructure required for realising the space systems. With respect to support for state run universities, the followingschemes/initiatives have been introduced: 1. IN-SPACe has developed curriculum for B.Tech. Minor Degree in SpaceTechnology. This curriculum is approved by AICTE for adoption bystates or central universities. Presently, 08 colleges affiliated withstates have adopted the space tech minor/major at various levels. 2. IN-SPACe in association with ASI and ISRO has introduced CANSAT andModel Rocketry India Student competitions from 2023 onwards. For the IN-SPACe CANSAT /Model Rocketry India Student Competition 2024-25 atotal of 138 student teams from across various Indian states haveapplied. Eighty student teams from various states and centraluniversities are participating in the finals planned from October28-30, 2025 at Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh. The Government of India has earmarked Rs. 500 Crores, out of which up to Rs. 100 Crores per state can be provided for establishment of Common Technical Facilities. The States need to approach to IN-SPACe with the detailed project proposal. The type of space-related projects or initiative that states canpropose can be either Upstream (spacecraft/space systems and launchvehicle systems) or Midstream (Ground Stations/Hub) or Downstream (space applications/user terminals). However, states can opt to work with IN-SPACe for establishing space manufacturing cluster, Centre ofExcellence and adoption of Space Tech Education in the stateuniversities. A Selection Committee, chaired by the Secretary, DoS, with representatives from IN-SPACe and the Office of Member (Finance), will evaluate the proposals received from the State Governments vis-a-vis the following pre-requisites: The state shall identify a suitable dedicated land parcel of not less than 40 acres of area, easily accessible by rail/road/air and having proximity to major cities for establishment of the proposed space-manufacturing cluster. The states should be willing to establish civic infrastructure at the space manufacturing cluster as well as build necessary civil infrastructure required for housing the common technical facilities. The State Government will identify the Non-Governmental Entities (NGEs) to establish the manufacturing unit in the proposed cluster and may seek consultation from IN-SPACe in this regard, if needed. The State Government shall commit to maintain the technical facility post-transfer and demonstrate availability of technically trained manpower for operations. IN-SPACe will identify, design, procure, install and commission the equipment at the respective common technical facilities. IN-SPACe will initially retain the ownership of the facilities and subsequently transfer to the State Government at a mutually agreed timeline. After the ownership transfer, the State Government shall assume full responsibility and bear all the expenses for Operation & Maintenance (O&M) of the common technical facilities. The mode of operations and maintenance of the facilities shall be decided by the respective state governments. The expected outcomes of these initiatives on space development at the state level is given below: The manufacturing clusters will enable a one-stop solution for space system development and production, ensuring quality, cost efficiency, and timely delivery, thus significantly boosting the space economy. Production of cost competitive space-grade components can strategically position India as a global supplier, thus increasing the exports from the country and enhancing its share in the global-space economy. The manufacturing cluster will aid in generation of employment for skilled and unskilled workforce in the respective states/regions. IN-SPACe has established a Technical Centre wherein, the Indian industry venturing in space sector can have access to design tools, space system assembly, integration and testing facilities including climatic chambers, thermovac chambers, vibration test facility for testing and validating the space hardware. This information was given by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, MoS PMO, MoS Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today. ***** NKR/PSM (Release ID: 2159245) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defence industry builds ties with South Korea By Kylie Adam 21 August 2025 Building on a strong and enduring partnership, the second Republic of Korea-Australia (ROK-AUS) Defence Industry Conference in Canberra on August 13 included discussions on security strategy, advanced technologies and defence capabilities. Head Land Systems Division Major General Jason Blain recognised in his opening address the significance of the ROK-AUS Defence Conference and the parallels our nations share in today's strategic environment. "Both our nations are actively strengthening industry collaboration under the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR)," Major General Blain said. "The aim is to accelerate Indo-Pacific contributions to the resilience of our global defence industrial base. Simultaneously, Australia seeks to enhance our maritime security capabilities and co-operation with like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific. "Our nation looks forward to continuing this engagement and developing tangible outcomes and, as such, we are eager to facilitate and develop the partnership between our two great nations." Michael Howell, First Assistant Secretary, Industry Engagement Division, Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, said the conference provided a valuable platform to further strengthen ties with Australia's defence partners - to sustain defence capabilities and build industrial capacity. "The Australian Defence Force has an inherent international element," Mr Howell said. "Not only in recognition of our important strategic role in the region, but also in consideration of the global supply chains that equip and sustain our defence force. "Australia and the ROK, like all of our global partners, face a similar challenge; navigating a new strategic environment under increased pressures. "Close industrial collaboration between trusted international partners supports effective use of our combined resources - strengthening collective defence industrial capacity, enhancing interoperability and accelerating technology development. "Australia and the ROK are both leaders within PIPIR. As leaders, we are able to drive work streams which will lead not only to the delivery of crucial capability to the region, but also create a more integrated regional industrial base. "The conference has been informative and productive. I am immensely grateful and proud of what we have been able to achieve." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister Anand concludes successful visit to Finland to strengthen partnerships between Canada and Nordic countries Global Affairs Canada News release August 20, 2025 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada The Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, concluded her visit to Helsinki, Finland, where she strengthened Canada's ties with Nordic partners and advanced transatlantic cooperation to achieve Canada's objectives with respect to its Arctic Foreign Policy. Minister Anand met with Elina Valtonen, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and announced the establishment of a Canada-Finland strategic partnership on foreign and security policy. This initiative reflects the two countries' commitment to deepening bilateral cooperation and advancing joint efforts in transatlantic security, cyber resilience, multilateralism, democracy, climate action, open trade and promoting shared values in the North Atlantic regions. Minister Anand also held a high-level meeting with Alexander Stubb, President of Finland, during which they discussed increased Canada-Finland cooperation. In addition, Minister Anand visited Helsinki Shipyard with Ville Tavio, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development of Finland, to highlight Canada and Finland's joint efforts to boost Arctic capabilities, strengthen regional security and safeguard the Arctic through innovation and strategic cooperation. During her visit, Minister Anand also met with counterparts from the "Nordic Five"Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Icelandto discuss transatlantic security, support for Ukraine and economic cooperation. She met with Lars Lkke Rasmussen, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, focusing on enhancing bilateral cooperation between Canada and Denmark and Canada and Sweden, as well as regional security and NATO engagement. Quick facts Canada and the Nordic Five share strong democratic values and a commitment to the rules-based international order. Together, Canada and the Nordic Five advance shared priorities in transatlantic security, support for Ukraine and economic cooperation. Canada's Arctic Foreign Policy promotes sovereignty, stability and prosperity in the region. Canada and Denmark are enhancing Arctic cooperation, including through Greenland's role in the Arctic Council and shared Inuit heritage. Canada and Finland collaborate on Arctic governance, sustainable development and Indigenous inclusion. Canada and Norway have partnered since 1942 on multilateralism, human rights, climate issues, energy and Arctic security. Canada and Iceland have maintained strong ties through recent high-level visits and joint work on trade, defence, climate issues, gender equality and youth mobility. Canada and Sweden are deepening cooperation on security, innovation, climate issues and Arctic issues. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Royal Canadian Navy accepts the sixth Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel National Defence News release August 21, 2025 - Halifax, Nova Scotia - Royal Canadian Navy / Department of National Defence Today, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) accepted the sixth and final Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV), His Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Robert Hampton Gray. This delivery marks the completion of a fleet of vessels that have already had an exemplary deployment history since the commissioning of the first ship in 2021. The AOPVs have demonstrated numerous operational capabilities, with multiple deployments on Operations CARIBBE, HORIZON and NANOOK. The AOPVs have also circumnavigated North America, deployed to Antarctica, and have provided support to Canadians at home under Operation LENTUS. The AOPVs are ice-capable patrol ships designed to enhance the Canadian Armed Forces' presence in the Arctic, and to assert and uphold Canadian sovereignty. These versatile ships can operate anywhere in the world, bolstering the RCN's capability to support international peace and security. In addition to performing operational missions and tasks, in line with Canada's defence policy, the construction of these modern ships also supports Canada's marine industry under the National Shipbuilding Strategy. Following official delivery to the RCN, HMCS Robert Hampton Gray and its crew will undergo sea trials, warm and cold weather trials and post-delivery evaluations. The ship's commissioning ceremony is expected to take place in 2026, after it arrives in its home port of Esquimalt, British Columbia. Quotes "Today is a major milestone in our National Shipbuilding Strategy. With the delivery of His Majesty's Canadian Ship Robert Hampton Gray, the sixth Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel, the Royal Canadian Navy now has a complete fleet ready to patrol our waters and defend our sovereignty. These ships strengthen Canada's ability to protect our interests at home and abroad, and they give our sailors the modern tools they need to do their job. This achievement is thanks to the dedication of workers at Irving and across Canada's shipbuilding industry." - The Honourable David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence "With today's delivery of His Majesty's Canadian Ship Robert Hampton Gray, a ship proudly bearing the name of a Canadian Second World War hero, our government has successfully delivered the first class of ships built for the Royal Canadian Navy through the National Shipbuilding Strategy. I was pleased to visit Irving Shipbuilding and see HMCS Robert Hampton Gray, where I witnessed firsthand the exceptional work of our Canadian shipbuilders, skilled workers whose expertise are delivering world-class vessels for our Navy. The Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels have significantly enhanced Canada's ability to protect our sovereignty and participate in critical operations alongside our allies, particularly in the Arctic. We will continue to invest in the infrastructure, technology, and equipment that our Navy needs, ensuring a stronger, more secure future for all Canadians." - The Honourable Joel Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement "The acceptance of our final Arctic and Offshore Patrol ship is a key development for the Royal Canadian Navy as it completes the delivery of the first new class of ships in over 25 years and highlights the success of our national shipbuilding strategy. It is an exciting moment for the sailors who will train and sail on these incredible vessels. His Majesty's Canadian Ship Robert Hampton Gray will be transferred to Canadian Fleet Pacific and will ensure that the RCN can patrol Canada's Arctic from both coasts." - Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, Commander Royal Canadian Navy "Today's delivery is an exciting moment for the crew of His Majesty's Canadian Ship Robert Hampton Gray. We have been eagerly anticipating our upcoming sea trials, where our work as sailors really begins. I am incredibly proud to have the privilege to command the sixth and final Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel. Thank you to everyone who has brought us to today." - Commander Brian Henwood, Commanding Officer HMCS Robert Hampton Gray Quick facts AOPVs augment Canada's presence offshore and can conduct a wide variety of operations abroad. Specifically designed to patrol Canada's northernmost regions and offshore waters, the Harry DeWolf-class bolsters the RCN's presence in the Arctic and its ability to operate globally protecting Canada's interests at home and abroad. All currently serving members of the Harry DeWolf-class are equipped to conduct armed surveillance operations, contribute to humanitarian assistance, emergency response, and disaster relief. With considerable capacity to transport cargo and the capacity to embark small vehicles, deployable boats, and a helicopter, HMCS Robert Hampton Gray will contribute to global peace and security in coordination with our allies and partners, at home and abroad. The RCN's sixth AOPV is named in honour of Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, VC, a Canadian naval hero of the Second World War. Lt Gray was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for courage and determination in carrying out daring air strikes on the Japanese destroyer His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Ship Amakusa. In 2026, HMCS Robert Hampton Gray will transfer to the West Coast to join HMCS Max Bernays as part of the Maritime Forces Pacific Fleet. The ships of the Harry DeWolf-class are affiliated with regions of the Inuit Nunangat. HMCS Robert Hampton Gray will be affiliated with the Inuvialuit region. Affiliation between an HMC Ship, its sailors, and civilian communities is a long-standing and honoured naval tradition, with relationships lasting throughout the service life of the ship. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister Anand meets with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C. Global Affairs Canada Readout August 21, 2025 - Washington, D.C. - Global Affairs Canada The Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, held a collaborative meeting with Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of State, in Washington, D.C., United States. Minister Anand and Secretary Rubio discussed the Canada-United States bilateral relationship and the two countries' continued cooperation on shared priorities in areas such as Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine, opportunities to advance Arctic security following Minister Anand's meeting with the Nordic 5 and the security crisis in Haiti. They also discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the urgent need for humanitarian aid to flow unobstructed, for Hamas to lay down its arms and for the hostages to be returned. Minister Anand invited Secretary Rubio to the G7 Foreign Ministers' Meeting which will take place in Ontario this Autumn. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Wang Yi Holds Talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China Updated: August 20, 2025 20:58 On August 20, 2025 local time, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul. Wang Yi expressed his pleasure at visiting Afghanistan again. As a neighbor and partner, China congratulates Afghanistan on the new achievements it has made in national development. China pursues a policy of friendship towards all the Afghan people and has always been at the forefront among major countries and neighboring countries in developing relations with Afghanistan. China will continue to support the Afghan government in exercising governance prudently, focusing on development, resolutely countering terrorism, promoting good-neighborliness and friendship, and achieving lasting peace and stability. Both sides should properly handle the relations between security and development. Stronger China-Afghanistan security cooperation will provide safeguards for economic cooperation, while deeper economic cooperation will also enhance Afghanistan's security capability. Wang Yi expressed the hope that Afghanistan will continue to make every effort to crack down on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement terrorist forces, so as to remove obstacles from and inject impetus into the further development of China-Afghanistan relations. Wang Yi emphasized that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Afghanistan. China supports Afghanistan's economy-centered policy. China is ready to work with Afghanistan to carry forward the friendship between the two countries, deepen political mutual trust, and strengthen exchanges and cooperation in areas such as economy and trade, agriculture, poverty reduction, water conservancy, connectivity, and people-to-people interactions, so that the tree of China-Afghanistan friendship will continue to grow robustly, better benefiting the two countries and two peoples, and making new contributions to regional peace, stability, and development. Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi welcomed Wang Yi's visit, expressed gratitude to China for its valuable support in Afghanistan's opposition to external interference, and appreciated China's important contribution to safeguarding regional peace and development. Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi said that friendship with China is the cornerstone of Afghanistan's foreign policy. Thanks to China's help, Afghanistan has been able to govern the country smoothly. In the face of major changes in the current international and regional situation, it is the right time for Afghanistan and China to deepen cooperation. Afghanistan is willing to deepen bilateral relations on the basis of equality and mutual respect, enhance exchanges at all levels, establish a regular dialogue mechanism for economic and trade cooperation, and promote practical cooperation to achieve more mutually beneficial results. Afghanistan attaches great importance to China's security concerns and will never allow any individual or force to use Afghan territory to engage in activities harmful to China. Afghanistan is willing to strengthen security and counter-terrorism cooperation with China to jointly safeguard lasting peace and stability in the region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China deplores and opposes NZ's groundless accusation of 'foreign interference' Global Times By Chen Qingqing Published: Aug 21, 2025 10:00 PM In response to a media inquiry on New Zealand's security service accusing China of being the most active country engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday that China deplores and opposes it. We urge relevant agency in New Zealand to stop spreading lies, stop creating misperception, and contribute more to people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries and the sound and steady development of bilateral relations, Mao said. In recent years, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has repeatedly spread disinformation, groundlessly framed and attacked China, smeared the normal friendly exchanges between various sectors of the two countries, and harassed and intimidated Chinese people in New Zealand, which shows relevant agency's ideological bias and Cold War mentality, the spokesperson said. This does no good to mutual trust and runs counter to the two countries' consensus of enhancing people-to-people and cultural exchanges, Mao noted. The Chinese Embassy in New Zealand on Thursday also firmly rejected and strongly opposed the newly released report by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service that claimed there are threats from China. The report, full of groundless speculation and baseless accusations, once again smears China, the embassy said, noting that the report is nothing less than a "textbook of disinformation" and may itself be the product of an upgraded version of foreign interference. "New Zealand is facing the toughest national security challenges of recent times with increasing threats of foreign interference and espionage, particularly from China," Reuters reported, citing the report. Non-interference in other countries' internal affairs is a fundamental principle of China's diplomacy. We resolutely oppose any country interfering in China's internal affairs in any form. As the saying goes, "Do not impose on others what you would not want for yourself. China has never interfered in the internal affairs of any country," the embassy said. The purpose, though it pretends to be hidden, is in fact obvious: to sow suspicion and even fear among individuals, groups, and institutions involved in China-New Zealand exchanges and cooperation, to poison the friendly atmosphere, to undermine mutual understanding and trust between the two peoples, to obstruct the further development of bilateral relations, and to serve certain geopolitical agendas, the embassy said. This is not the first time that New Zealand's intelligence service has targeted China and the Chinese community in the South Pacific country. In September 2024, the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand lodged a serious representation with the New Zealand authorities over the harassment and intimidation of local Chinese community members by individuals claiming to be "New Zealand intelligence personnel" following its intelligence services' annual report, according to the embassy. "It is believed that behind this lies a trend in which certain forces within New Zealand's current government are attempting to realign with the US-led Western anti-China camp. This group has been hyping up the so-called 'China threat'," Chen Hong, director of the Asia-Pacific Studies Centre at East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Thursday. While they also acknowledge that China is New Zealand's largest trading partner, they are at the same time fabricating and exaggerating claims of China's "threat" to New Zealand. Their true intention is clear: to create a climate of tension, and produce a "chilling effect" that makes New Zealand society hesitant about cooperating with China, the expert said. The essence of China-New Zealand relations is win-win cooperation. China has consistently advocated for advancing this relationship based on mutual respect, inclusiveness, a focus on cooperation, and the proper handling of differences. This approach serves the interests of both sides as well as our common interests, the embassy said. It is regrettable that whenever China-New Zealand relations achieve new progress, some individuals, under the instigation and manipulation of external forces, jump out in an attempt to create interference and obstacles, undermining normal exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation between our peoples, enterprises, institutions, and local governments. Who is really interfering? The embassy asked. The world sees it clearly. Whether such actions serve New Zealand's own interests, or those of some other force, is also clear to everyone, the embassy noted. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning's Regular Press Conference on August 21, 2025 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China Updated: August 21, 2025 18:55 Hubei Media Group: We noted that Foreign Minister Wang Yi concluded his visit to Afghanistan. Could you share more details with us? Mao Ning: On August 20, Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Afghanistan. He met with Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, had talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, and attended the sixth China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Dialogue. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China advocates equality among all countries regardless of size and that all countries should treat each other as equals and work for mutually beneficial cooperation. The world should not make the rich richer and the poor poorer. All countries, including Afghanistan, have the right to thrive and prosper. China pursues a foreign policy of friendship towards all Afghan people. We respect the Afghan people's choice and support the Afghan government in exercising prudent governance, focusing on development, firmly combating terrorism, and growing friendly ties with its neighbors to realize lasting peace and security. Since the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Dialogue resumed in 2022, the dialogue has produced positive results. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China stands ready to work with the other two countries to deepen good-neighborliness and mutual trust and understand and support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests. The three sides need to have closer exchanges at various levels and consolidate strategic mutual trust. China supports Afghanistan and Pakistan in improving bilateral relations, deepening the integration of interests, properly handling differences through dialogue and consultation, and striving for steady and long-term trilateral cooperation. The three sides agree to make full use of the dialogue, strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and promote peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region. Prensa Latina: U.S. warships are patrolling the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela's coast and have warned they may use force on the excuse of fighting drugs. Presidents from Latin America and the Caribbean denounced these actions as a violation of regional peace and security. Would you share your opinion on this matter? Mao Ning: China opposes any move that violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and a country's sovereignty and security. We oppose the use or threat of force in international relations and the interference of external forces in Venezuela's internal affairs under any pretext. We hope that the United States will do more things conducive to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Shenzhen TV: We noted that China recently released the economic data for July, in which foreign trade was a highlight, with import and export of goods hit a new high in this year. Comments say that the continued growth of China's foreign trade speaks to the extensive global recognition of Chinese goods, and this will continue to drive the growth of China's economy. However, other analysis shows that the tariff war and other external risks have dealt a blow to global trade and mount pressure on China's export market. What is your comment? Mao Ning: Despite the complex and volatile external environment, China's foreign trade has continued to perform well. That reflects the strong resilience of China's economy and booming global demand for Chinese products. This is the combined result of China's effort to expand high-standard opening up, promote high-quality development, and improve and upgrade industries. Facts have proven that international trade based on comparative advantages enables common development and benefits all parties. China's quality products are popular around the world and its diversified and stable market is favored by many. This is not something that could be changed by tariff or trade wars. China will continue to share its development opportunities with other countries through open cooperation for win-win results. AFP: A new report by New Zealand's security service has accused China of being the most active country engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand. Does the Foreign Ministry have a response to this report? Mao Ning: In recent years, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has repeatedly spread disinformation, groundlessly framed and attacked China, smeared the normal friendly exchanges between various sectors of the two countries, and harassed and intimidated Chinese people in New Zealand, which shows relevant agency's ideological bias and Cold War mentality. This does no good to mutual trust and runs counter to the two countries' consensus of enhancing people-to-people and cultural exchanges. China deplores and opposes it. We urge relevant agency in New Zealand to stop spreading lies, stop creating misperception, and contribute more to people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries and the sound and steady development of bilateral relations. China Daily: Declassified documents released recently by the Russian government show that during World War II, Japanese invaders in China planned an attack on the Soviet Union from Northeast China, and prepared for a bacterial warfare able to cause mass casualties, and for this purpose established Unit 731 in Harbin. The unit conducted research on various types of plague, anthrax, cholera and other bacterial diseases. They also carried out human experimentation, and detained Chinese and Russian people as well as Japanese death-row prisoners for these purposes. What is China's comment? Mao Ning: During World War II, in blatant violation of international law, the Japanese army launched horrendous bacterial warfare against the Chinese people and conducted gruesome human experimentation, which were heinous crimes against humanity. The documents released by the Russian government show once again there are solid proofs for the bacterial warfare launched by Japanese militarists and there's no room for denial. To earn respect, one must first respect history. To open up the future, one must draw lessons from the past. To not repeat the wrong path, one must learn never to forget. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. We urge Japan to deeply reflect on its history of aggression, respect the sentiments of the people of China and other victim nations, make a clean break with militarism, take concrete actions to get rid of the specter of militarism that still haunts it, and never let history repeat itself. NHK: A question related to Afghanistan. Last month, Russia formally recognized Afghan interim government. Does China now recognize the Taliban's interim government in Afghanistan? Mao Ning: China is committed to a foreign policy of friendship towards all Afghan people. We stand ready to work with Afghanistan to promote bilateral relations. CCTV: It's reported that the readout released by China on Foreign Minister Wang Yi's talks with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar claimed that the Indian side said "Taiwan is part of China." Indian government sources said that the external affairs minister had been misquoted. India stressed that there was no change in its position on Taiwan, and India had a relationship with Taiwan that focuses on economic, technological and cultural ties and that this would continue. What's China's comment? Mao Ning: China has released readouts on the talks between the Chinese and Indian foreign ministers. For the Chinese side, the Indian side's so-called "clarification" came as a surprise. We find it inconsistent with the facts. It would seem that some people in India have tried to undermine China's sovereignty on the Taiwan question and impede the improvement of China-India relations. China expresses serious concern and firmly opposes that. Let me stress that there is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. This is a prevailing consensus among the international community, including India. We hope India will earnestly abide by the one-China principle, properly handle sensitive issues and promote the steady development of bilateral relations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Highest Glory to Representatives of Great Honour of DPRK, Admirable Sons Ceremony of Awarding State Commendations to Commanding Officers and Combatants of KPA Overseas Operation Unit Takes Place Korean Central News Agency of DPRK Pyongyang, August 22 (KCNA) -- The outstanding fighting spirit and bravery of the Korean People's Army reliably guaranteeing the ever-victorious tradition of the Juche revolution with invincible arms are writing the legendary biography of heroes unprecedented in history, bringing the mightiness and sacred prestige of our state to the top of the world. The combatants of the armed forces of the Republic who took part in overseas military operations in hearty response to the order of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea demonstrated to the whole world the transparent and outstanding ideological and spiritual superiority and fighting spirit of the KPA which no army in the world can match and the indomitable mettle of Koreans by weathering heavy gunfire in bloody life-and-death battles. A ceremony of awarding state commendations to the commanding officers and combatants of the overseas operation unit of the KPA was held at the headquarters building of the Central Committee of the WPK. Officials of the WPK Central Committee warmly greeted the brave soldiers who participated in the war, entering the yard of the Party Central Committee after traveling tens of thousands of miles in response to the ardent desire and sincere call of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to glorify the life of the great successors and representatives, who firmly carried forward the tradition of victory peculiar to our state in the new century, with the honour of gold star. Secretaries and other senior officials of the WPK Central Committee warmly congratulated the proud sons of the country putting garlands around their necks and giving bouquets. The venue of the ceremony was full of respect for the brave soldiers who participated in the war with boundless loyalty to the order of the country. Kim Jong Un , general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, attended the ceremony. Present at the ceremony were commanding officers and combatants who performed distinguished feats in overseas military operations, and bereaved families of martyrs. Present there were members of the Central Military Commission of the WPK, leading commanding officers of the Ministry of National Defence and military and political officers of the large combined units of the KPA. The DPRK national anthem was played solemnly. The solemn melody of the national anthem, which redoubled pride of being the sons of the powerful country and the ardent patriotic desire in every moment of their life in the days of the decisive battles and inspired them to be in the van of the charge and to win immortal victories, made the hearts of the brave soldiers full of strong emotion. Kim Jong Un made a significant speech. Expressing his deep emotion of seeing again the admirable sons, heroes of the country who are the greatest pride of our state and waited by all the people at such a significant place and of awarding the title of DPRK Hero and high-level state commendations to them, he extended deep gratitude and warmest militant respect on behalf of the Party and the government to the commanding officers and combatants of the overseas operation unit who returned home with great honour and brilliant feats after bravely fighting as befitting the "Koreans" and the "Korean People's Army" despite the hail of bullets and bombs of the life-and-death war in the foreign country. The WPK Central Committee organized a ceremony of awarding state commendations with splendor at the headquarters building of the WPK Central Committee out of the mind to hold up the admirable heroes, who performed feats in the battlefield to defend the sacred prestige and dignity of the state, before the country and the people and make them respected and praised by the whole country, he said, adding that this is a special and valuable commendation given by the country and the people to the honourable victors who performed great exploits that cannot be achieved without bloody struggle. He said that holding the first awarding ceremony today, he misses even at this moment the images of the combatants who would be devoting themselves to carrying out their duties true to the order of the country and the martyrs who sacrificed their lives and that he could not repress his regret at failing to bring them all together to this glorious place, and courteously proposed to pay silent tribute to the immortality of the martyrs who devoted their precious lives in the overseas military operations. At the proposal of Kim Jong Un , all the participants observed a moment's silence in memory of the martyrs who ensured the great victory with their indomitable fighting spirit and noble sacrifice. Saying that all the participants in the overseas operations who performed great feats to be recorded in the history of the country for its eternal prosperity and mightiness are all great men, great heroes and great patriots, Kim Jong Un said with pride that the victory won by the brave soldiers who participated in the war is a great feat that firmly defended the great honour of the KPA, which should never be undermined, and provided a sure guarantee for the existence and development of our state and a victory to be recorded as a miracle in the history of our army building and the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle and, at the same time, an event in the history of world wars that redefined the logic of the strong which has been handed down for thousands of years. The combat activities of the overseas operation units, representing the armed forces of the DPRK, in the battlefield which became the focus of the world have fully proved the might of the heroic KPA which emerges victorious with the sure superiority in ideology, spirit and Juche-oriented strategy and tactics, he said, adding that what the Party Central Committee attaches importance to and appreciates most is that the reputation of the ever-victorious KPA has been most rigorously verified in its 70-odd-year history and the actual condition of the KPA fully prepared for the war has been clearly confirmed. And he warmly said that today's awarding ceremony is an expression of gratitude and valuable appreciation of our Party, state and people for the historic deed of perfectly implementing the political decision made by the Party and government for the destiny and future of the country and of defending the great honour safeguarded by all generations of the DPRK for decades. Referring to the outstanding valour and noble self-sacrificing spirit displayed by our service personnel in the operational area where bullets and shells showered, Kim Jong Un said that they should be called the best heroes and the overseas operation unit the heroic unit and stressed that the key to the event of the victorious conclusion of overseas military operations lies not in the merits of some distinguished military men or heroes but in the popular character of heroism from A to Z and in the fact that the noble and beautiful mental and moral traits firmly dominated as the ideological feelings of all officers and men. Saying that all the participants in the overseas operations were thoroughgoing in executing orders, the original nature of the soldiers, and their love and devotion for the country and comrades-in-arms were at the same high level and they all had good moral quality of remaining loyal to their duties and making a choice according to conscience even at the last moment of their lives, he noted that with such extraordinary mental qualities, they let the world know what fundamental factor made our army strong and surely win in any battle, and this is an event that clearly marked the concept of the strong army and the law of victory on the times and history. He stressed that it is the pride and honour of the WPK and the DPRK government to have such an army as the pioneer and defender of their revolutionary cause and that the country defended by the heroic army is strong forever and the cause advancing with the heroic army in the vanguard is invincible. Referring to the important measures to be carried out as a national undertaking to hand down forever the feats of the great war participants, he affirmed that the glorious course pioneered by the brave soldiers' bloody struggle and the noble lives of the martyrs would never end and the records of the bloody battles bearing their names would shine forever as the most precious pages in the history of the country. Saying that our state will remain dignified, powerful and strong forever thanks to such great heroes as them and our army will carry forward the trend of the great history of war victory for all ages with their peculiar loyalty and heroic stamina, he wished the heroic officers and men of the overseas operation unit, who recorded the highest and brilliant climax in the long history of victory of our people and the absolute prestige of the revolutionary armed forces, immortal glory. The speech of Kim Jong Un , full of ardent love and true heart of the great father, stirred up the hearts of all the participants. All the participants expressed their greatest respect and boundless gratitude to Kim Jong Un , who clarified the clear strategy for victory in the battle with his outstanding military idea and extraordinary strategic and tactical wisdom, instilled the might and courage of annihilation into them with warm parental enthusiasm and affection and now puts them forward as great heroes and great patriots at the peak of the honour. A decree of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK on conferring the title of DPRK Hero, order and medal on commanding officers and combatants who performed feats in overseas military operations was conveyed. Kim Jong Un personally awarded the title of DPRK Hero to the skilled military commanding officers who led the combat units of the armed forces of the Republic to victory and to the soldiers who performed distinguished feats. He personally fixed the DPRK Hero Medal beside the portraits of the martyrs, recollecting with reverence the noble images of the martyrs, who sacrificed their youth and lives warming their hearts with one faith and one will to thoroughly carry out the order of the country, and their last moments. At the venue of the ceremony, the "Song of Comradeship", reflecting the sacred history of the Korean revolution pioneered, advanced and emerged victorious with comradeship, resounded. And the touching picture to be immortal in the history of the country was seen conveying the warm blood ties between the leader and the soldiers. Kim Jong Un laid a flower before the memorial wall and paid silent tribute, wishing that the noble life of the martyrs who participated in the war to defend the dignity and honour of the great state with their precious lives would shine forever as a star of eternal feats in the memory of the country and the people. Members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the WPK, commanding officers of the Ministry of National Defence, military and political officers of the large combined units of the KPA and the bereaved families of the martyrs laid flowers before the memorial wall. Kim Jong Un met the bereaved families of the martyrs and consoled them, sharing with them the pain of loss. Army Col. General Kim Yong Bok, commander of the special operation unit, made a resolution speech on behalf of all the officers and men of the overseas operation unit. Expressing the impression of having the greatest honour of receiving the highest commendation of the DPRK at the headquarters building of the Party Central Committee, the general staff of the Korean revolution, he said that the officers and men of the overseas operation unit more keenly felt the good fortune of soldiers of being led by the great brilliant commander in the foreign battlefield and kept it as their faith the iron truth that they would surely win if they fought only as taught by Kim Jong Un . All the commanding officers and combatants of the overseas operation unit, faithful soldiers of Kim Jong Un , guardsmen of the Republic and sons of the heroic DPRK people, will devotedly defend the authority of the Party Central Committee and firmly safeguard the honour of the country, honour of the KPA and honour of the DPRK people till the day of returning home, he said, solemnly pledging to remain faithful to the mission and duty as the army of the Party, the people and the Supreme Commander, cherishing today's valuable commendations as absolute trust. Kim Jong Un once again extended sincere thanks and noble tribute to all the officers and men of the overseas operation unit who defended the trust of the Party and the country in the KPA and fully displayed the great honour of the KPA, weathering the fierce battle fire with the glorious national flag kept in their hearts, and to the heroic martyrs who laid the foundation of sure victory of our state and army with great feats and biographies to be handed down to generations to come. The indomitable fighting spirit, mass heroism and immortal feats displayed by the combatants of the overseas operation unit of the armed forces of the DPRK will shine forever in the history of building a rich country with a strong army as an example of the absolute loyalty to the Party and the revolution peculiar to the KPA and a symbol of the eternal victory of our great state and our cause. -0- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PM Narendra Modi receives a telephone call from President Macron India - Ministry of External Affairs August 21, 2025 Today, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi received a phone call from the President of the French Republic H.E. Emmanuel Macron. The leaders exchanged views on the ongoing efforts for peaceful resolution of conflicts in Ukraine and the West Asia region. President Macron shared assessment on the recent meetings held between the leaders of the Europe, US and Ukraine in Washington. He also shared his perspectives on the situation in Gaza. Prime Minister Modi reiterated India's consistent support for peaceful resolution of the conflicts and early restoration of peace and stability. The leaders also reviewed progress in the bilateral cooperation agenda, including in the areas of trade, defence, civil nuclear cooperation, technology and energy. They reaffirmed joint commitment to strengthen India-France Strategic Partnership and mark 2026 as 'Year of Innovation' in a befitting manner. President Macron also conveyed support for early conclusion of Free Trade Agreement between India and the EU. The leaders agreed to remain in touch on all issues. New Delhi August 21, 2025 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address INDIAN NAVAL SHIP TAMAL ARRIVED AT SOUDA BAY, GREECE India - Press Information Bureau Ministry of Defence Posted On: 21 AUG 2025 6:26PM by PIB Delhi INS Tamal, the latest stealth frigate, arrived at Souda Bay, Greece, on 19 Aug 2025 during her return passage to India post commissioning in Russia. The engagements during the port call include a range of professional and cultural activities focused on fostering Indo-Greek bilateral relations, such as discussions with senior Hellenic Navy functionaries, familiarisation of operations and procedures at the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre in Souda Bay, and a walk around of NATO and Hellenic Navy facilities, culminating in a passage exercise on departure. The ship's crew will also pay homage to the fallen citizens of Greece and uniformed personnel including Indian soldiers who fought as part of the British Indian Army during World War II. They will also undertake cultural exchanges by way of visits to maritime museums of Crete and interaction with local diaspora to further people-to-people bonds. The Indian and Hellenic Navies have engaged with each other on multiple fronts including training courses, passage exercises, port calls of warships and delegation-level military visits. Recently, Hellenic Navy Ship Psara, a MEKO 200 class frigate, called at Mumbai from 11 - 13 Jul 2025. The visit is indicative of the importance India attaches to its relations with Greece and the endeavour to strengthen the growing defence cooperation and friendly ties between the nations. It will also provide an opportunity for both navies to share Best Practices and explore new avenues of cooperation. _____________________ VM/SPS 163/25 (Release ID: 2159339) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's talks with India's Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar 21 August 2025 16:50 1359-21-08-2025 On August 21, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had talks with Minister of External Affairs of the Republic of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. The ministers exchanged views on further intensification of their political contacts at various levels and deepening of trade and economic cooperation. They paid special attention to building transport and logistic chains as well as currency and financial channels of interaction. The parties highly appreciated the prospects of expanding partnership in the field of peaceful nuclear energy and hydrocarbons production. The foreign ministers noted the necessity of intensifying efforts for strengthening the multipolar architecture of interstate relations and assisting the Global South countries in defending their political sovereignty. They underscored the priority of establishing a global economic system based on equality and justice. The sides reaffirmed their intent to increase cooperation on international platforms, above all in the United Nations, the SCO, BRICS and the G20. They checked their approaches to the situation in Afghanistan, Ukraine, to the Iranian nuclear programme, Israeli-Palestinian settlement and establishing a security architecture in the Asian-Pacific region. The parties agreed to continue their trust-based dialogue at all levels. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran condemns illegal sanctions by British government IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Aug 21, 2025 London, IRNA -- The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London issued a strongly worded statement condemning the British government's illegal and unilateral sanctions against some Iranian institutions and individuals. The statement said that the British government has imposed these sanctions based on baseless pretexts and baseless accusations; an action that is contrary to the principles of international law in the field of friendly relations and cooperation between states, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, and only damages bilateral relations and exacerbates distrust. The statement said that the Islamic Republic of Iran has always emphasized dialogue and mutual respect in international relations and has never planned or supported any threat to the internal security of the United Kingdom, nor has it taken any action in this regard. "The allegations made in this regard are completely rejected and fundamentally unacceptable," it added. The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran further noted that what truly threatens regional and global peace and security are the aggressive actions and crimes of the Zionist regime of Israel; a regime that has crossed all red lines by committing numerous international crimes, including rape, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and is considered the main factor of instability in the region. The statement further said it is surprising that Western countries continue to remain indifferent to the international community's protests against this infanticidal regime and take no effective action to stop its crimes. At the end of the statement, it is stressed that the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran once again emphasizes our country's adherence to the principles of mutual respect, non-interference in the internal affairs of countries, and constructive cooperation at the bilateral, regional, and international levels, and calls on the British government to refrain from continuing its hostile policies and illegal and destructive actions. Continuing its unconstructive stance against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the British Foreign Office announced a few hours ago that it has added several Iranian trading and petrochemical companies to the sanctions list. 2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran stages large-scale naval exercise following 12-day war, Arab media reports IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Aug 21, 2025 London, IRNA -- Iran's Navy has conducted the "Sustainable Power 1404" missile drill to demonstrate and enhance its military capabilities following a recent 12-day war imposed by the Israeli regime, according to comprehensive coverage by Arab news sources. The two-day exercise, held in the northern Indian Ocean and Sea of Oman, featured the deployment of multiple weapons systems, including various naval cruise missiles with different ranges, such as "Nasir" and "Qadir," the coastal anti-ship "Qader" missile, alongside drone operations and electronic warfare exercises. Major Arab media networks, including the UAE's Al-Arabiya 24, Lebanon's Al Mayadeen and Al-Manar, Yemen's al-Masirah, and Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV, reported that Tehran intended this military demonstration to communicate its preparedness to counter any potential hostile actions while emphasizing its deterrent capabilities. Reports citing Defense Minister Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh indicated that Iran has now deployed missiles significantly more advanced than those used in the recent 12-day war, with the capability to penetrate enemy defense systems at a 90% success rate. Arab media analysts interpret this military exercise as Iran's first major drill since the 12-day war with Israel, reflecting Tehran's commitment to enhancing its defensive preparedness against potential future threats. Iranian officials have consistently emphasized that the country will not hesitate to enhance its military capabilities, including missile power, which is intended solely for defense. Furthermore, Iran's defense capabilities will never be a topic of negotiation. Earlier today, Iran's Navy simultaneously launched several cruise missiles from both coastal batteries and surface vessels, successfully destroying a designated surface target during "Sustainable Power 1404" missile exercise. 3266**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian cruise missiles blast their targets during Eqtedar 1404 exercise IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Aug 21, 2025 Tehran, IRNA -- Iran's Navy simultaneously launched several cruise missiles from both coastal batteries and surface vessels, successfully destroying a designated surface target during the Eqtedar 1404 missile exercise. During the initial phase of the drill, which kicked off on Thursday in the Sea of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean, Iranian naval units launched a synchronized barrage of cruise missiles from both coastal batteries and surface vessels. The drill featured three cruise missiles: Nasir, a short-range, radar-evading anti-ship missile renowned for its precision and high destructive power; Qadir, a long-range variant equipped with advanced radar stealth and targeting capabilities, designed to engage distant naval threats; and Qader, a medium-range missile launched from coastal platforms. Nasir and Qadir missiles were fired from the Genaveh missile-launching frigate and the Sabalan destroyer, while the Velayat-2 coastal missile system was used to launch the Qader. All missiles successfully hit their designated surface targets. 4353 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran: UN experts alarmed by escalating threats against Iran International media workers and their families Press releases Special Procedures 21 August 2025 GENEVA -- UN experts* today condemned Iran's intensifying repression of Iran International journalists worldwide, as well as the growing intimidation of their family members living in Iran - particularly since hostilities with Israel in June 2025. "We are deeply concerned by credible threats to the lives and safety of 45 Iran International journalists and staff and 315 of their family members in seven countries: Belgium, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Turkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States," the experts said. Several UK-based journalists have reportedly required police protection, and some have been forced to move into safe houses or even relocate abroad. Reports suggest that journalists have been followed, had tracking tags attached to their cars, and their cars repeatedly broken into. Women journalists have faced threats of death and sexual violence on social media and instant messaging services, some receiving hundreds of messages a day. The experts were alarmed that the latest phase of repression has aggressively targeted journalists' family members in Iran. They have been interrogated, placed under surveillance and threatened with arrest and even death. Interrogators have demanded that family members pressure their relatives to stop working for Iran International or become informants for Iran - particularly with regard to their alleged associations with Israel. "This campaign is an attempt to silence and censor critical reporting and courageous public interest journalism by a fragile Government that appears afraid of legitimate criticism," the experts said. "Such intimidation violates both freedom of expression and media freedom and may have a chilling effect on other journalists. It also deprives the public of their right to information. Civic space in Iran is already severely limited, and transnational repression further impedes those seeking to expose human rights violations." Since hostilities with Israel in June 2025, Iranian authorities have systematically accused Iran International journalists of spying for Israel. In July, Iran's parliament introduced a bill that expands the offence of espionage a capital crime to include activities linked to information dissemination and media work, such as contact with foreign and diaspora media outlets. In July 2025, fourteen States denounced the escalating threats by Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people, including journalists, in their territories. "This unprecedented wave of repression violates the rights to life and physical and mental security of the journalists and their family members, and could constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It also undermines their rights to work and reputation," the experts said. "Gendered threats against women journalists have a further discriminatory impact." The experts expressed concern about Iran's threats to impose unjustified financial and travel sanctions on the journalists and their families, which could infringe the rights to freedom of expression and the media, freedom of movement, and freedom from arbitrary interference in the home. "We urge Iran to immediately stop threatening and intimidating journalists and their families, and obstructing healthy public debate in democratic societies," they said. "Iran must investigate all such threats, prosecute alleged perpetrators, including State officials and any other people directed by the State, and prevent violations from reoccurring." In recent years, UN experts have repeatedly urged Iran to stop harassing Persian-language journalists for doing their jobs, including BBC News Persian. The experts are in contact with the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran on these issues. *The experts: Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment Claudia Flores (Chair), Ivana Krstic (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working Group on discrimination against women and girls Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR. Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran denounces 'unacceptable' UK sanctions on 'baseless pretexts' Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 6:50 PM Iran has condemned fresh sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom against the Islamic Republic, slamming them as "fundamentally unacceptable." In a strongly-worded statement on Thursday, Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London condemned the fresh sanctions by the British government on one Iranian individual and four entities a day earlier under the pretext of what London alleged "facilitating Tehran's cross-border activities." "The British government, relying on baseless pretexts and groundless accusations, has taken these sanctions measures; an action that contradicts the principles of international law concerning friendly relations and cooperation among states, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, and only harms bilateral relations while intensifying distrust," the embassy stressed. The statement went on to say that "Iran has always emphasized dialogue and mutual respect in international relations and has never designed or supported any threat to the internal security of the United Kingdom, nor has it taken any action in this regard. The claims made in this context are entirely rejected and fundamentally unacceptable." The embassy also stressed that the main threat to regional and global peace is the aggressive conduct of Israel, which, through repeated international crimes - aggression, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity - has become the primary source of instability. "It is surprising that Western countries still remain indifferent to the protests of the international community against this child-killing regime and take no effective action to stop its crimes," it further said. The embassy concluded that it reaffirms its commitment to mutual respect, non-interference, and constructive cooperation, urging Britain to stop its "hostile policies and illegal and destructive actions." The statement came as the UK Foreign Office, continuing its unconstructive stance toward Iran, announced on later on Thursday that several Iranian trading and petrochemical companies had also been added to the sanctions list. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sustainable Power 1404 drills: Iran's Nasir, Qadir, Qader ant-ship cruise missiles destroy targets Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 10:37 AM The missile systems and naval units of the Iranian Navy have successfully destroyed their surface targets at sea using the Qadir and Nasir cruise missiles, as well as the Qader medium-range anti-ship cruise missile. The three cruise missiles were simultaneously fired from the Genaveh missile-launching vessel and the Sabalan destroyer. The Iranian Navy on Thursday launched the two-day major naval missile exercise -codenamed Sustainable Power 1404 -- across the northern Indian Ocean and the Sea of Oman. As part of the main stages of the military exercise, various types of naval cruise missiles with different ranges successfully hit their targets in the northern Indian Ocean and the Sea of Oman after firing from the surface vessels of the Navy. Qader is a medium-range, radar-evading anti-ship cruise missile with high destructive power and remarkable targeting accuracy, which has been designed to combat vessels and coastal targets. Unveiled in August 2011, Qader has a range of 300 kilometers and is one of the most powerful and precise missiles of the Iranian Navy. Qadir is also a long-range, radar-evading anti-ship cruise missile with high destructive power and precise targeting accuracy, which is used to combat vessels. Nasir has the same features but is a short-range cruise missile. The Sustainable Power 1404 drills involve a wide array of naval capabilities, including surface and subsurface vessels, aerial units, coastal-to-sea and sea-based missile platforms, as well as electronic warfare systems. The spokesperson for the exercises, Admiral Abbas Hassani, said on Wednesday that a wide range of precision-guided cruise missiles with short, medium, and long ranges will be tested to strike and destroy surface targets. He added that the exercise aims to strengthen combat readiness, enhance planning and command capabilities, and demonstrate deterrence. Iran's naval capabilities have significantly expanded in recent years, allowing it to conduct operations far beyond its territorial waters, with the Iranian Navy having staged regular drills in recent years to expand its missile and drone capabilities. The Navy has stressed that its growing power and participation in multinational drills served as a message to adversaries, particularly the United States -- which maintains a bloated military presence in the West Asia region-- that Iran would not tolerate foreign intervention in regional affairs. The Islamic Republic has also warned that any threats to its maritime security would be met with an immediate and decisive response. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sanctioning Facilitators of Iran's Illicit Oil Sales US Department of State Press Statement Thomas "Tommy" Pigott, Principal Deputy Spokesperson August 21, 2025 Today, the United States is stemming the flow of revenue the Iranian regime uses to fund its destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism abroad and the oppression of its own people. The Department of State is imposing sanctions on two China-based crude oil and petroleum products terminal and storage operators that have facilitated the import of millions of barrels of illicit Iranian oil onboard multiple U.S.-designated tankers. This action is the Department's fourth round of sanctions targeting China-based terminal operators, which play a vital role in the trade network for Iranian crude oil that funds Iran's terrorism abroad and destabilizes the region. Concurrently, the Department of the Treasury is sanctioning Antonios Margaritis and his network of companies for exploiting his status in the oil industry to illicitly trade in Iranian petroleum. The Treasury action also targets other entities and vessels involved in shipping Iranian oil. The United States will continue to take action to implement National Security Presidential Memorandum 2. This directive imposes maximum pressure on the Iranian regime to deny it access to revenues that fund its destabilizing activities. Today's action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13846 for knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the transport of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran, and E.O. 13902, which targets Iran's petroleum sector. Today's action also marks the latest round of sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales since the President issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 (NSPM-2), instituting a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Iran. For more information on today's action, please see the Department of the Treasury press releases. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Treasury Targets Iranian Oil Exports and Shadow Fleet U.S. Department of the Treasury August 21, 2025 Actions Further Reduce Iran's Revenue Used to Support Terrorism WASHINGTON -- Today, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is further disrupting Iran's oil exports by imposing sanctions on Greek national Antonios Margaritis, his network of companies, and nearly a dozen vessels involved in Iran's shadow fleet. Margaritis has leveraged his decades of experience in the shipping industry to illicitly facilitate the transportation and sale of Iranian petroleum. Several other vessels and operators are also being designated today for their role facilitating Iranian oil exports, which generates revenue that contributes to Iran's advanced weapons programs. "Today's action against Margaritis and his network degrades Tehran's ability to fund its advanced weapons programs, support terrorist groups, and threaten the safety of our troops and our allies," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. "Under the leadership of President Trump, Treasury remains determined to hold accountable all those who seek to aid the Iranian regime and threaten global security." Today's action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13902, which targets Iran's petroleum sector. Today's action also marks the latest round of sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales since the President issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 (NSPM-2), instituting a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Iran. Maintaining pressure on enablers of Iranian oil shipments Iran continues to rely on an international network of organized, witting actors to sell and transport its oil, which funds the Iranian regime and its terrorist activities in the region. These actors range from complicit individuals personally profiting from the illicit trade to special purpose vehicles that own and deceptively operate vessels transporting Iranian commodities to end users in multiple jurisdictions. Antonios Margaritis Network Greek national Antonios Margaritis (Margaritis) has facilitated the transportation of Iranian oil and petroleum products for many years and has leveraged his decades of experience in the shipping industry to illicitly facilitate the transportation and sale of Iranian petroleum. He has most recently been involved in the operations of OFAC-sanctioned vessel MS ENOLA and MS ANGIA, which has carried Iranian oil. In December 2024, OFAC sanctioned Journey Investment Company, Rose Shipping Limited (Rose Shipping), and Passada Maritime Limited, which are part of Margaritis' oil shipping operations. Today, OFAC is building on these past designations and further targeting Margaritis' shipping network: Marant Shipping and Trading S.A., based inGreece and the Marshall Islands, as well as other companies based in the Marshall Islands, Square Tanker Management Ltd., Comford Management S.A., and United Chartering S.A. Margaritis maintains control over this group of entities to facilitate his network's movement of Iranian cargo and has continued to do so after vessels in his network have been sanctioned. Also targeted today is Cristobal Marine Corp., which is owned by Rose Shipping. Antonios Margaritis is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13902 for operating in the petroleum sector of the Iranian economy. Marant Shipping and Trading S.A., Square Tanker Management Ltd., Comford Management S.A., and United Chartering S.A. are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13902 for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Antonios Margaritis. Cristobal Marine Corp. is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13902 for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Rose Shipping Limited. Additional Iranian Oil Export Facilitators UAE-based Ozarka Shipping - FZCO manages and operates the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged vessels VICTORY ARI (IMO 9290919) and SONDOS (IMO 9268186), in addition to the Gambia-flagged KATSUYA (IMO 9178068). Since mid-2024, the KATSUYA has conducted multiple shipments of Iranian petroleum products and conducted at least two ship-to-ship transfers with two OFAC-sanctioned vessels: the SORION, previously known as HS STAR (IMO 9274446), and SARAK (IMO 9226968). The VICTORY ARI and SONDOS have both transported Iranian petroleum products to China. Ozarka Shipping - FZCO is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13902 for operating in the petroleum sector of the Iranian economy. The VICTORY ARI, the SONDOS, and the KATSUYA are being identified as property in which Ozarka Shipping - FZCO has an interest. Marshall Islands-based Changbai Glory Shipping Limited is the registered owner of the Liberian-flagged LAFIT (IMO 9379698), which, since March of 2025, has transported over four million barrels of Iranian oil to customers in China. British Virgin Islands-based Regal Liberty Limited is the owner of the Hong Kong flagged GIANT (IMO 9238868), which, in early 2025, conducted a ship-to-ship transfer with the OFAC sanctioned SALVIA (IMO 9297319) and transported approximately two million barrels of Iranian oil to China. Changbai Glory Shipping Limited and Regal Liberty Limited are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13902 for operating in the petroleum sector of the Iranian economy. The LAFIT is being identified as property in which Changbai Glory Shipping Limited has an interest. The GIANT is being identified as property in which Regal Liberty Limited has an interest. Hong Kong-based companies U Beacon Shipping Co., Limited and Hong Kong Hangshun Shipping Limited are the registered owners of the Panama-flagged ADELINE G (IMO 9234666) and KONGM (IMO 9256975), respectively, which have both transported shipments of Iranian oil. The ADELINE G has recently transported more than a million barrels of Iranian oil to China and has conducted several other shipments of Iranian oil dating back to July 2022. Since early 2025, Panama-flagged KONGM has transported millions of barrels of Iranian oil to multiple locations in China, including conducting a ship-to-ship transfer with the OFAC-sanctioned vessel TITAN(IMO 9293741). Also based in Hong Kong, Ares Shipping Limited is the owner of the Honk Kong-flagged ARES (IMO 9174397), which has conducted several shipments of Iranian oil to transport nearly ten million barrels of Iranian, including conducting ship-to-ship transfers with the OFAC-sanctioned vessels TITAN, GOODWIN (IMO 9379703), and AMAK (IMO 9244635) since late 2024. U Beacon Shipping Co., Limited, Hong Kong Hangshun Shipping Limited, and Ares Shipping Limited are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13902 for operating in the petroleum sector of the Iranian economy. The ADELINE G is being identified as property in which U Beacon Shipping Co., Limited has an interest. The KONGM is being identified as property in which Hong Kong Hangshun Shipping Limited has an interest. The ARES is being identified as property in which Ares Shipping Limited has an interest. SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of the designated or blocked persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, or 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons. Violations of U.S. sanctions may result in the imposition of civil or criminal penalties on U.S. and foreign persons. OFAC may impose civil penalties for sanctions violations on a strict liability basis. OFAC's Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines provide more information regarding OFAC's enforcement of U.S. economic sanctions. In addition, financial institutions and other persons may risk exposure to sanctions for engaging in certain transactions or activities involving designated or otherwise blocked persons. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from OFAC's ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, or to submit a request, please refer to OFAC's guidance on Filing a Petition for Removal from an OFAC List Click here for more information on the persons designated and vessel identified as blocked property today. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The UK has announced sanctions against those whose revenue supports Iran's destabilising activities. From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Hamish Falconer MP Published 21 August 2025 Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer said: Today, the UK is announcing sanctions against those who operate on behalf of Iran, fuelling its attempts to undermine stability in the Middle East and global security. Iran's reliance on revenues from trading networks and connected organisations enables it to carry out its destabilising activities, including supporting proxies and partners across the region and facilitating state threats on UK soil. That's why this government has taken steps to expose this behaviour and send a clear message to those who act on behalf of Iran. Disrupting Iran's malign influence and keeping the British people safe remains our number one priority, underpinned by our Plan for Change. We are clear that we will continue to hold Iran to account, and today's designations mark a definitive step in doing so. FM Sa'ar meets with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs FM Sa'ar to Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema: "This is an alliance of believers in ancient traditions, based on the Bible." Type: Press Releases Topic: Foreign Policy Publish Date: 21.08.2025 Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar met with Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka. Zambia's Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe also participated in the meeting. The meeting took place during Minister Sa'ar's diplomatic visit to Zambia, during which he opened the Israeli embassy in Zambia. During the meeting, the two discussed deepening bilateral relations between the two countries and the war in Gaza. FM Sa'ar's full remarks: "I want to thank you President Hakainde Hichilema for your friendship with Israel and for this meeting. With your leadership and moral vision - you stand out today as one of the most esteemed and respected African and world leaders. You demonstrate leadership based on values. It is an honor be in Lusaka and open Israel's embassy. Yesterday's ceremony was very moving. I know you raised the idea to open an embassy in your visit to Israel in 2023. We listened - and we did it. And now we bring greetings from Jerusalem. It is the beginning of a new chapter between our nations. An alliance of believers in ancient traditions, based on the Bible. *** Opening our embassy here will strengthen bilateral relations and our strategic engagement with Africa. Zambia always had and has a place in our heart since its establishment over 60 years ago. Israel is a small nation with many challenges - but we are committed to sharing our knowledge and capabilities with friends like Zambia. We are establishing a trauma and emergency unit in a hospital in Livingston. And each year, we train hundreds of Zambians in agriculture, water management and food security. And I believe that in that way, we are having a part in Zambia's future successes. **** Mr. President, Strengthening our engagement with the African continent's countries is part of my strategic goals for the Foreign Ministry in 2025. And opening our embassy here in Zambia is one of the cornerstones. I look forward to our discussions. Thank you." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Free, fair, transparent and inclusive national elections would be a major step in Libya's political transition: UK statement at the UN Security Council Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the UN Security Council meeting on Libya. From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and James Kariuki CMG Published 21 August 2025 Location: United Nations, New York Delivered on: 21 August 2025 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered) I will make three points. First, the United Kingdom welcomes SRSG Tetteh's roadmap to advance the political process towards elections and a peaceful transition. Libya has remained in political deadlock for too long. The violence in Tripoli in May was a stark reminder of the risks of failing to make progress on the political track. The SRSG's roadmap provides a positive vision with careful balance to help deliver the peaceful, stable and prosperous country that the Libyan people deserve. Second, we now urge all Libyan stakeholders and the international community to fully engage with and support the roadmap, to ensure its success. The delivery of free, fair, transparent and inclusive national elections would be a major step in Libya's political transition, and we urge all actors to support this effort. We also welcome the roadmap's incorporation of broader perspectives from the Libyan public through the Structured Dialogue. We encourage all actors to ensure the voices of the Libyan public are meaningfully reflected and respected at every stage in the roadmap. And third, we welcome last weekend's successful elections in twenty-six municipalities. Municipal elections are a vital pillar of inclusive and accountable governance. Last month, the United Kingdom's Minister for the Middle East and North Africa visited Libya and met with officials from the High National Electoral Commission, reaffirming our strong support for this process. But it is concerning that elections were prevented from taking place in several municipalities, denying many Libyans their democratic rights. We urge all actors to respect the rights of Libyans to elect their local representatives, uphold the integrity of the electoral process and ensure that municipal elections proceed without obstruction. President, we look forward to continuing our close engagement with SRSG Tetteh, Libyan actors and international partners in support of building a stable, unified Libya with institutions that deliver for all. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Libya: Security Council urged to back popular 'yearning' for national elections 21 August 2025 - Recent elections in Libya are a sure sign of the people's desire to choose their own representatives, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for the country said in the Security Council on Thursday. Hannah Tetteh, who also heads the UN Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), briefed ambassadors in the wake of municipal council elections last week and outlined a proposed roadmap to general elections, which should have been held way back in 2021. "The Libyan people look to this esteemed Council for help, to ensure a solution to the crisis and support a political process that will result in elections and unified institutions not a succession of transitional governments," she said. Voting and disruptions Nearly 15 years after the fall of former President Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains split between two rival administrations: the internationally recognised Government of National Unity, located in the western capital of Tripoli, and the rival Government of National Stability based in Benghazi in the east. This past Saturday, 26 municipalities successfully held elections despite significant challenges. Ms. Tetteh commended the electoral management body HNEC and urged all candidates to accept the results. She regretted that not all municipalities that were expected to take part were able to do so, with the government in the east giving instructions to suspend electoral processes in 16 municipalities. Additionally, voting materials were withdrawn from centres across the region and the south. Efforts to disrupt the vote also occurred in some municipalities in the west, where HNEC offices in three cities were set on fire or attacked, although the vote went ahead in two of them. 'A clear signal' "By the end of polling day, voter turnout was 71 per cent. This is a clear signal that the Libyan people are yearning to elect their representatives. In some areas, this was the first time any elections have happened since 2014," she said. However, the suspension of elections in the east and south "is an equally clear sign that not all are committed to supporting Libya's democratic development and there is an urgent need for a reset in the political process," she added. In February, UNSMIL established an Advisory Committee to provide recommendations for resolving outstanding issues that have prevented national elections from taking place. A report was presented in May, and the Mission has been holding nationwide consultations on the outcomes. It has also conducted an online survey for people to share their opinions on the recommendations, with more than 22,500 responses. "The message we clearly received was the desire to stop the cycles of repeated transitional periods; preserve and strengthen the unity of the country and its institutions; as well as to renew their legitimacy through presidential and legislative elections; and end what was frequently referenced as foreign interference," Ms. Tetteh told the Council. Roadmap to elections Based on the Advisory Committee's recommendations, the feedback from the population, and lessons learned from the failure to hold the 2021 elections, "we are convinced that the political process should focus on guaranteeing general elections and the unification of institutions through a sequenced approach," she said. Ms. Tetteh proposed a roadmap built around three core pillars: implementation of "a technically sound and politically viable electoral framework" towards holding the elections; unifying institutions through a new unified government, and a structured dialogue to address critical issues in order to create a conducive environment for the polls. She estimated it would take 12 to 18 months to complete the roadmap, which will end in general elections and several "sequential steps", including enhancing HNEC capacity as well as amending the legal and constitutional frameworks for holding full elections - legislative and presidential. "Following these two prior steps - which could be concluded over the next two months at most if there were the political will to do so - there should be agreement on a new unified government, capable of creating a conducive environment for credible elections while managing key governance functions effectively," she said. Security concerns Ms. Tetteh reported on developments on other fronts, including the volatile security situation, with increasing militarisation of all sides. She noted that the situation in Tripoli remains of great concern, following clashes in May. While a fragile truce is holding, violations have occurred, though no escalations. UNSMIL also documented 20 deaths in custody since March 2024, including political activist Abdel Munim Al-Maremi who died last month in Tripoli shortly after a release order had reportedly been issued. "These cases are the latest examples of a widespread and persistent pattern of grave violations perpetrated across the country with impunity, including against migrants and refugees, in some cases fueled by disinformation and hate speech," she said. Ms. Tetteh was also alarmed by the forced return of migrants to conflict zones, including Sudan. She noted that Sudanese refugees in Kufra exceeds the number of residents, urging donors to step up support. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Libya Still Mired in Political Deadlock, Fragile Security, Special Representative Tells Security Council, Outlining Road Map towards Successful National Elections Meetings Coverage Security Council 9984th Meeting (PM) SC/16151 21 August 2025 While the Libyan people have shown remarkable determination to exercise their democratic rights in recent municipal elections, the country remains mired in political deadlock, fragile security, economic hardship and human rights concerns, a senior UN official told the Security Council this afternoon. Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), updated the 15-member Council on the political and economic progress in the North African nation, as outlined in the Secretary-General's latest report on UNSMIL (document S/2025/509). "Twenty-six municipalities successfully went to the polls on 16 August in spite of significant challenges," Ms. Tetteh stated, praising the High National Elections Commission, or HNEC, and security staff for ensuring the process. She urged candidates "to accept the election results as the choices made by their voters", and called for "the peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected leaders". But, she also noted that "not all municipalities [...] were able to do so", citing orders from the House of Representatives-appointed Government in the east to suspend voting in 16 areas, including Benghazi, Sabha, Sirte and Tobruk. She described deliberate attempts to disrupt elections in the West, including when "unknown individuals set fire to HNEC offices in Zawiya", forcing postponement. Despite arson attacks in Zliten and Sahel al Gharbi, "HNEC staff [...] showed their commitment by setting up their operations outside their burned offices to allow voting to take place". The determination of citizens to proceed underscored what she called "a clear signal that the Libyan people are yearning to elect their representatives". Nationwide consultations and an online poll of over 22,500 responses revealed widespread frustration, but also democratic aspirations. "Forty-two per cent of respondents expressed their preference for simultaneous presidential and legislative elections," she reported, while others favored a constituent assembly or adoption of a permanent Constitution first. Women and young people "reiterated their aspiration to meaningfully participate [...] and emphasized the need for guaranteed representation, electoral safeguards and inclusion in decision-making bodies". Based on this input, Ms. Tetteh proposed a road map grounded in three pillars: "the implementation of a technically sound and politically viable electoral framework", "unifying institutions through a new unified Government" and "a structured dialogue that enables broad participation of Libyans". The plan, she stressed, would be gradual, over 12 to 18 months, with safeguards to counter attempts at derailment: "If there is obstruction by any parties, UNSMIL can and will take any necessary measures and seek the support of this Council." She warned that Libya still faces "a dire economic situation", with corruption, militarization and persistent rights abuses, including "20 deaths in custody between March 2024 and August [2025]". At the same time, she emphasized that "the Libyan people look [...] to ensure a solution to the crisis and support a political process that will result in elections and unified institutions". The Council's unity, she concluded, must "stand for the Libyan people and their legitimate aspirations for a stable, unified and prosperous Libya, and a Government of their choosing". Sanctions Committee Presents Report The Council also heard from the representative of Somalia, Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1970 (2011) concerning Libya, who presented its report for the period from 20 February to 21 August. With respect to the arms embargo, the Committee received three reports on vessel inspections conducted by the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operation IRINI. He also detailed its activities concerning the asset freeze and the Sanctions List. Call for Free National Elections In the ensuing discussion among Council members, speakers highlighted the urgent need for Libya to overcome political deadlock, restore unified institutions and move swiftly towards free national elections. The United Kingdom's delegate emphasized that "fair, transparent and inclusive national elections" would be a major step in ending political deadlock. Welcoming the inclusion of Libyan voices through the Structured Dialogue, he praised the recent municipal elections in 26 municipalities while voicing concern over those obstructed, stressing the need to uphold democratic rights. The representative of Algeria, speaking also for Guyana, Sierra Leone and Somalia, described the successful holding of the second phase of the municipal elections in 26 Libyan municipalities as "a significant step towards a stable and democratic Libya". Concurrently, he urged the immediate removal of all impediments in areas where elections have been suspended, in particular eastern and southern regions. "The Libyan people are tired of delays and promises that never materialize," he said, adding that the country is caught in "an endless cycle of transition that seems to serve all except its own people". Slovenia's speaker emphasized that the voices of Libyans from all walks of life, "including women, youth and others in vulnerable situations," must guide a Libyan-led political process. Municipal polls "cannot replace long-overdue national elections", he said, underscoring the need for unity within the Council and for strong support for UNSMIL and the Berlin Process. Greece's delegate pointed out that the suspension of municipal election operations in 11 key municipalities in eastern Libya "raises questions as to the commitment of certain Libyan leaders to the broader political process". Libya's stability remains crucial for control of illegal migration flows, he observed, citing the issue as a priority for States with maritime borders in the Mediterranean. Enforcement of Arms Embargo "In the face of the ongoing regional conflicts on Libya's borders, progress towards military integration will be vital to reestablish the country's sovereignty," said the United States' representative. Turning to sanctions, she voiced concern over persistent violations of the arms embargo and illegal arms exports that fuel instability. In this context, she welcomed the renewal of the operation IRINI mandate, citing it as "an important mechanism to allow the member States to enforce the arms embargo and counter weapons trafficking". Urging full respect for the arms embargo on Libya, France's delegate also emphasized that the European Union's Operation IRINI is the only initiative with a mandate to implement it and thus contribute to the fight against trafficking. "The fragility of the situation in Libya is a testament to how urgent it is to resume the political process," he said. All Libyans Must Benefit from Country's Vast Natural Resources Council members further emphasized that Libya and its people must be able to benefit equitably from the country's vast natural resources. The Republic of Korea's delegate underlined the need to end "the undue control of armed groups over Libya's economy and security", reiterating that Libya's resources must serve its people under a transparent national budget. Denmark's delegate stressed the importance of sustaining the ceasefire, the withdrawal of foreign fighters and responsible resource management. Libya "stands at a crossroads between finally moving beyond years of political deadlock or continuing down a path of stalled transitional phases", he said. In a similar vein, Pakistan's delegate called for timely national reconciliation efforts and careful reinvestment of Libya's frozen assets to safeguard them "for the future benefit of the Libyan people." The delegate for the Russian Federation condemned attempts by political actors to cling to power by force, warning that this undermines international efforts and worsens economic hardship, with "the largest reserves of hydrocarbons in Africa" now unable to meet domestic fuel needs. On frozen assets, the Russian Federation also condemned "predatory attempts by some foreign players" and reminded the Council of its responsibility to safeguard Libyan resources. Concern over National Instability, Foreign Interference Some speakers highlighted the fragility and complexity of the situation in Libya, with instability as the central concern. "Libya continues to face an extremely complex crisis," said Panama's speaker, Council President for August, speaking in his national capacity and citing institutional fragmentation, armed violence, a breakdown of trust among citizens, persistent foreign interference and risks that stem from different regional tensions. The use of tactics to disrupt electoral processes constitutes a violation of the fundamental political rights of voters, he added. "The security situation in Libya remains fragile," echoed China's delegate, urging the international community to focus on the root causes to advance the political process. Maintaining national stability is a top priority, he stressed, noting that, even though "tensions in Tripoli and other areas have seen some easing up", the situation is still unstable. Constitutional Foundation, Fair Laws Crucial for Successful Elections Libya's representative thanked the UN Envoy and the UNSMIL team for their outreach, but stressed that the findings from recent consultations are "simply samples of the views of Libyan society" and not sufficient to reflect the whole country. He underlined that any political process must put an end to the transitional period and warned that repeating past failures risks eroding public trust. Elections, he said, must be based on "a constitutional foundation and fair laws" to renew legitimacy and unify institutions, while ensuring accountability for those who previously sabotaged the 2021 vote. "What are the guarantees today that the Security Council has to offer [...] to guarantee the success of any new electoral process?", he asked, stressing that municipal elections prove Libyans can organize fair polls if the political will exists. He further emphasized the need for "a state of institutions on law" that alone holds weapons, combats crime and terrorism, and reasserts sovereignty over Libyan soil. Grave human rights violations, including "arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances," were cited as a major obstacle, with a call for the Council to "unequivocally and clearly" condemn such abuses and hold perpetrators accountable. He cautioned that Libya's crisis is "fundamentally and strictly a political one" exacerbated by external interference, turning the country into "a proxy battlefield". Only a comprehensive political solution, reconciliation and "free, fair and transparent elections, through a permanent Constitution" can restore legitimacy and stability, he concluded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Chinese FM holds strategic dialogue with Pakistani counterpart Global Times By Xinhua Published: Aug 21, 2025 10:39 PM Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, co-chaired the Sixth Round of China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar here on Thursday. Wang said that under the strategic guidance of the leaders of the two countries, the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership is steadily advancing with more strategic significance. He congratulated Pakistan for assuming the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council in July, upholding justice for developing countries, and enhancing Pakistan's international status and influence. Wang stated that China is willing to make joint efforts with Pakistan to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, and prepare for high-level exchanges in the second half of the year, so that the building of a China-Pakistan community with a shared future will continue to take the lead during the process of China's building a community with a shared future with its neighboring countries. Wang pointed out that China supports Pakistan in developing its economy and consolidating its national strength to fundamentally enhance its ability to respond to internal and external challenges. Both sides should work together to uphold the multilateral trading system and oppose unilateral bullying. Dar said the bilateral dialogue was held in due time, which concretely manifested the two countries' ironclad friendship. Friendship with China is the cornerstone of Pakistan's foreign policy and a common understanding throughout the country. The Pakistani side will continue to fully support China's work as the rotating chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and jointly promote the successful hosting of the Tianjin summit. Dar said that the Pakistani side looks forward to further deepening practical cooperation in various fields between Pakistan and China, while continuously enriching the connotation of the Pakistan-China all-weather strategic cooperative partnership. He added that Pakistan will firmly support the building of a Pakistan-China community with a shared future, and support the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by China. Pakistan will make every effort to combat all forms of terrorism and take all measures to ensure the safety of Chinese institutions and personnel in Pakistan, said the Pakistani foreign minister. Both sides also had in-depth exchanges of views on international and regional issues of common concern. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Regardless of how the situation evolves, Pakistan fully trusts China and will unswervingly stand side by side with it: Pakistani president Global Times By Global Times Published: Aug 22, 2025 10:06 AM Regardless of how the situation evolves, Pakistan fully trusts China and will unswervingly stand side by side with it, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in meeting with Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese Foreign Minister on Thursday local time. While today's world is full of risks and challenges, China dares to confront and resist bullying practices, firmly safeguarding its own interests as well as the common interests of developing countries, Zardari said, according to a readout released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday. Pakistan is grateful for China's selfless support for its economic and social development and is ready to advance cooperation projects such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Gwadar Port to deliver new progress and better benefit the peoples of both countries, Zardari said, who also expressed hope that Pakistan and China will continue to enhance coordination and cooperation on major regional and international issues, jointly safeguarding peace, stability, and prosperity in the region. Wang said the friendship between China and Pakistan has withstood trials, remains unbreakable, and is as solid as rock. China has always placed its relations with Pakistan as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy and appreciates Pakistan's long-standing support for China's core interests and major concerns. China will continue to support Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, according to the readout. In the face of a turbulent and intertwined international landscape, China is ready to work with Pakistan, guided by the important consensus of the two countries' leaders, to deepen traditional friendship, enhance strategic communication, upgrade the CPEC to a "version 2.0," and build a closer China-Pakistan community of shared future in the new era, thereby bringing greater benefits to the peoples of both countries, Wang said. Wang co-chaired the Sixth Round of China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar in Pakistan on Thursday. During the visit, Wang also met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir. In meeting with Wang, Shehbaz expressed his keen anticipation of visiting China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Tianjin Summit and the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. Shehbaz emphasized that the Pakistan-China friendship is unique, with all-weather cooperation covering all fields and levels. Pakistan looks forward to working with China to advance the construction of the "CPEC 2.0 upgrade," and deepening cooperation in agriculture, mining, energy resources, aerospace, information technology, and infrastructure development, thereby boosting Pakistan's economic and social vitality. He stressed that Pakistan attaches great importance to the safety of Chinese nationals in Pakistan and will make every effort to ensure the security of Chinese citizens and projects. China supports Pakistan in resolutely combating all forms of terrorist forces, so as to create a secure and favorable environment for national development and bilateral cooperation, Wang told Shehbaz. During the meeting, Munir also noted that the Pakistani military is ready to actively promote counterterrorism and security cooperation between the two countries and will continue to make every effort to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, projects, and institutions in Pakistan, contributing to the consolidation and development of the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between China and Pakistan. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address MFA statement on note of protest sent to Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Republic of Poland 21.08.2025 Today the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland handed a note of protest to the Russian Federation to voice Poland's strong protest against an incident that occurred on the night of 19 August 2025 in Osiny, Lubelskie province. The document states that the incident, which consisted in an explosion of an unmanned aircraft, amounts to Russia breaching its commitments to respect Poland's sovereignty set out in such international agreements as the Treaty between the Republic of Poland and the Russian Federation on friendly and good-neighbourly cooperation and the Convention on International Civil Aviation. The Ministry considers these events to be another intentional provocation which fits the pattern of Russia's hybrid activities carried out against not only Poland but also other European countries. We strongly condemn any actions of the Russian Federation that pose a threat to civilians, infrastructure, or aviation safety. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs demands that the Russian side immediately provide explanations on the incident, especially regarding its circumstances and the reasons behind the unmanned aircraft's entry on the Polish territory, as well as information on measures undertaken by the Russian authorities to prevent similar situations in the future. We call for an immediate end to any hostile and provocative actions against Poland and reiterate that the liability for the consequences of similar incidents lies entirely with the Russian side. Russia's hostile actions against Poland are taken in parallel to the war of aggression against Ukrainea gross violation of international law and fundamental humanitarian principles which inflicted hundreds of thousands of casualties. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India, Russia aim for $100bn trade despite US pushback Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 7:12 PM India has disclosed plans to increase its annual trade with Russia to $100 billion by 2030, despite US opposition to the growing cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi. "Our bilateral trade is today at USD 66 billion. This makes the goal of reaching USD 100 billion by 2030 more than realistic," Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced on Wednesday during a visit to Moscow to attend the India-Russia Business Forum. Jaishankar added that rising global uncertainty places emphasis on "dependable and steady partners." In his opening remarks at the meeting, the minister stated, "The global context for our meeting today is provided by the evolving geopolitical situation, the shifting economic and trade landscape, and our shared goal is to maximize our complementarity." "We reaffirmed the shared ambition to expand bilateral trade in a balanced and sustainable manner, including by increasing India's exports to Russia." The Indian minister highlighted sectors such as drugs and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and textiles, arguing they could help address the current trade imbalance. The meeting also addressed steps to ensure the long-term supply of fertilizers. Jaishankar noted that Indian skilled workers in information technology, construction, and engineering could meet labor demands in Russia and deepen bilateral cooperation. He also emphasized the importance of energy cooperation through trade and investments. Discussions at the meeting included connectivity initiatives such as the international North-South transport corridors, the Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime corridor, and cooperation on the North Sea route. To enhance trade, India and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) signed Terms of Reference in Moscow to launch negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Russia ranks as India's fourth-largest trade partner, while India is Russia's second-largest, with India running a substantial trade deficit since it began importing crude oil from its long-standing partner. In 2024-25, India's exports to Russia amounted to $4.8 billion, whereas imports were $63.8 billion. Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022 and Russia's loss of access to European markets, New Delhi's purchases of Russian crude surged. This shift enabled India to take advantage of steep discounts offered by Moscow. This growing partnership has angered the US administration, with US President Donald Trump taking measures to punish India, particularly for its continued purchases of Russian oil. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump announced an additional 25 percent tariff on imports from India, bringing total levies against one of Washington's most important trading partners to 50 percent. Trump also threatened to further increase the tariffs to a level that will render Indian exports to the US uncompetitive. India responded by asserting its right to purchase oil from the cheapest source, describing the tariffs as "unreasonable." To ease tensions, India's state refineries began purchasing large volumes of non-Russian crude last week. Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation have procured oil from multiple alternative suppliers, including those in the US, Brazil, and the Persian Gulf states, for the October delivery. However, private Indian refiners are expected to continue purchasing Russian oil under previously signed long-term contracts. Last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed his nation during the 78th annual Independence Day celebrations at New Delhi's Red Fort, pledging a commitment to the country's self-reliance in energy independence and the development of its own defense systems. New Delhi is reportedly reconsidering plans to send Defense Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington to procure US weapons and military aircraft. In February of this year, Trump and Modi announced plans for the procurement and joint production of Stryker combat vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems and Javelin anti-tank missiles manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. India's defense minister also planned to announce the purchase of six Boeing P-8I reconnaissance aircraft and associated support systems for the Indian Navy during the trip to Washington. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prosecutors Fine Top Official At Yeltsin Presidential Library For Anti-War Post By RFE/RL's Russian Service August 21, 2025 Summary Lyudmila Telen, a top official at Russia's Yeltsin Center, was fined 45,000 rubles ($560) for reposting an anti-war message on social media. The court ruled her post, shared after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, "discredited the Russian armed forces." The Yeltsin Center, dedicated to late President Boris Yeltsin, has faced increased scrutiny since the Ukraine invasion. Russian prosecutors fined a top official at the Yeltsin Center, the library and cultural center dedicated to the late Russian president, after she re-posted an anti-war message on social media. A district court in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg ordered Lyudmila Telen, the center's first deputy director, to pay a fine of 45,000 rubles ($560). The court on August 20 ruled she had "discredited the Russian armed forces" under a law passed shortly after Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to the court, Telen reposted on Facebook a Russian-language image that read "No To War" on February 25, 2022, the day after the start of the invasion. The image was a repost from Yeltsin's elder daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko. According to the local news site 66.ru, Dyachenko herself has not been fined or punished for the original post, which had circulated widely among many Russian liberals who were shocked by the invasion. Based in Yekaterinburg, the Yeltsin Center is modeled on US presidential libraries and is the official nongovernment repository of archival materials related to Yeltsin, who died in 2007. Vladimir Putin, whom Yeltsin handpicked as his successor in 1999, has largely avoided maligning Yeltsin, whose tenure in the 1990s as Russia's first independent president was marked by economic chaos. Putin's popularity stems in large part from the prosperity that Russia saw in the 2000s, fueled by oil and gas revenues, and the perception that Yeltsin was too weak to stand up to Western pressure. Russian authorities have also avoided targeting or maligning Yeltsin's surviving family members, including his 93-year-old widow, Naina, and his children. That includes Dyachenko, who along with her husband, Valentin Yumashev, were powerful political figures in the Yeltsin administration, and were among those who initially backed Putin in the waning months of Yeltsin's presidency. Both have largely stayed out of public view in recent years. The Yeltsin Center, however, has come under scrutiny since the Ukraine invasion. Russian nationalist figures have criticized the center for some of the book readings and other cultural events it has hosted. Last year, the center canceled a planned book talk by Nina Khrushcheva, a US-based historian who is the granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. One lawmaker called the book reading "an exhibition of Russophobia." Telen, a former journalist who previously worked as web editor for RFE/RL's Russian Service, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the Yeltsin Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the court ruling. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-yeltsin-center- anti-war-post-official-fined/33509124.html Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Central Asians Locked Up At Airport In New Wave Of Russian Crackdown By RFE/RL's Tajik Service and Azattyq Asia August 22, 2025 Dozens of migrants from Tajikistan say they have been held by Russian authorities at Moscow's Zhukovsky Airport for over a week. In footage shared with RFE/RL, dozens of men are seen locked inside a room cramped with prison-style iron bunk beds. There are no windows or air conditioners, and some men lie on the beds or on the concrete floor while others have just enough space to sit. A trash can overflows with empty packets of cheap instant noodles. "I have been here for 10 days. They give us instant soup once a day, nothing else," one of the men told RFE/RL, adding that there are about 75 people in the room. "There is a man among us who suffers from a heart condition," the man says. "We told [Russian authorities] that we want to buy return tickets and go back to Tajikistan, but they are holding us here and not allowing us in or to return home," another man says. The Tajik nationals were brought to the airport after Russian courts ordered their deportation. Russian authorities have not commented on why the migrants were being held at the airport. Similar claims have been made by many other migrants from Central Asia, who say they face a new wave of entry denials and deportations by Russian authorities. Russia's Interior Ministry reported a 17 percent increase in the number of deportations of foreigners accused of breaching immigration rules in the first half of this year in comparison to the same period of 2024. The ministry also reported a more than 30 percent drop in the number of residency permits issued for foreign nationals this year. The ministry did not say which countries' citizens were affected. However, Central Asian nationals -- in particular Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz -- have experienced intensified police raids, deportations, and mistreatment in Russia in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall in March 2024. A group of migrants, most of them citizens of Tajikistan, have been blamed for carrying out the attack on the packed concert venue outside Moscow, which killed nearly 150 people. The massacre sparked an anti-migrant drive that saw tens of thousands of Central Asians deported or denied entry to Russia, while many others reported what they described as xenophobic attacks. A woman from the southern Kyrgyz region of Osh told RFE/RL that she was insulted and threatened by police officers who held her in a crowded room for more than 24 hours at Zhukovsky Airport on August 1. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the woman said she and several other passengers were taken for questioning upon their arrival at the airport on a flight from Osh. The woman, who wears Islamic clothing, said police asked why she wore a hijab and accused her of watching extremist content on her phone. "They locked us inside a stuffy room with no windows. There were several iron beds inside. They only gave us expired instant soup," the woman said. "One of the women felt ill, and we knocked on the door. When an officer opened it, we asked him to call an ambulance. He instead called another officer, who came carrying a stun gun." The woman said the officer didn't use the stun gun directly, but that he activated it next to her. She said the officer used the device's bright light and noise to "frighten and threaten" the migrants. The woman said the police deported her the following day without any explanation. Authorities in Central Asian countries have issued several statements over the past year expressing concern over the detention of their citizens in Russian airports but have taken no action beyond that. Russia hosts millions of migrant workers from Central Asia, a former Soviet region, where many households depend on remittances. Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL's Tajik Service and Azattyq Asia Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/central-asians- wave-crackdown-russia/33508446.html Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria: UN experts alarmed by attacks on Druze communities, including sexual violence against women and girls Press releases Special Procedures 21 August 2025 GENEVA -- UN experts* today sounded the alarm over a wave of armed attacks on Syrian Druze communities in and around Sweida Governorate since 13 July 2025, with reports of killings, enforced disappearances, abductions, looting, destruction of property, and sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls. "We are gravely concerned by reported attacks targeting the Druze minority for their faith and other grounds, including the forced shaving of religious men's moustaches and hateful rhetoric on social media portraying Druze as traitors and infidels to be killed, and calling for the abduction and enslavement of Druze women," the experts said. The experts noted that intense sectarian clashes triggered by looting and retaliations between Bedouin and Druze communities escalated into widespread violence involving local militias, Syrian interim authorities' forces and affiliated armed groups. Attacks on the Ta'ara, Al Doura and Al Douweira villages reportedly involved heavy artillery, machine guns, and looting, killing 1,000 people, including at least 539 identified Druze civilians - among them 39 women and 21 children. At least 196 people, including eight children and 30 women, were reportedly extrajudicially executed and over 33 villages burned. "The scale of violence reported - including massacres, looting of homes, shops and livestock, and use of stolen phones for extortion - points to a targeted campaign against the Druze minority, exacerbated by incitement to hatred on media and social media platforms portraying them as Israeli allies," the experts said. "Druze survivors, including university students in Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and Latakia face ongoing harassment and fear for their safety." The experts pointed to the reported abduction of at least 105 Druze women and girls by armed groups affiliated with the Syrian interim authorities, with 80 still missing. Some women who were released cannot return home due to safety fears. In at least three cases, Druze women were allegedly raped before being executed. Seven hundred and sixty-three persons, including women, remain missing. "These reported violations expose an apparent systemic failure to protect minorities and address gender-based violence, with no thorough, independent and impartial investigations into extrajudicial killings, torture or abductions," the experts said. "Reports that the interim authorities' forces aided attacks have entrenched impunity and fear, silencing victims' families and obstructing efforts to locate the disappeared." The experts are monitoring the situation of an estimated 192,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Suweida, Dar'a and Homs, where already scarce resources are under severe strain. Intermittent clashes were reported in the locations of Najran and Al Thaala in As-Sweida Governorate, causing individuals to move to relatively safer nearby areas. Communities displaced more than once were also reported in Najran and nearby areas following renewed clashes on 9 August 2025. Extensive damage resulting from restrictive measures taken by the interim Syrian authorities, ground fighting and Israeli airstrikes has severely disrupted essential services across much of Sweida city, leaving power, water systems, largely inoperable. Many displaced families are living in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions without adequate food, clean water, or medical care. Reports of unburied bodies in residential areas raise serious public health concerns. They called on interim authorities to ensure that internally displaced persons can swiftly access essential humanitarian assistance. "The Syrian interim authorities must allow prompt, independent investigations, prosecute perpetrators, and establish the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared," the experts said. Authorities must protect all minority communities including the Druze, halt the incitement of violence and facilitate safe returns or durable solutions for IDPs, they said. "The rights to life, liberty and security, and freedom from torture and extrajudicial killing must be upheld, with special protections for women and girls," the experts said. "Addressing the conditions conducive to terrorism, including prolonged unresolved conflicts, discrimination, and exclusion, is essential to effectively counter terrorism and prevent recurrence." The experts are in contact with the interim authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic on these issues. *The experts: Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; Bernard Duhaime, Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Paula Gaviria, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons; Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Gabriella Citroni (Chair-Rapporteur), Grazyna Baranowska (Vice-Chair), Ana Lorena Delgadillo Perez, Aua Balde and Mohammed Al-Obaidi, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR. Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli forces keep raiding southern Syria amid HTS inaction Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 7:29 PM Israeli forces have escalated their offensives by launching fresh raids and arresting a number of activists in southern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitor, reported that Israeli troops stormed Abdeen town in the Yarmouk Basin in southern Syria on Thursday. Six military vehicles coming from Israeli bases in the occupied Golan Heights entered the town, located in the western countryside of Deraa. This came after Israeli troops raided several military posts in the Mount Hermon area in southwest Syria the day before. On August 18, Israeli forces infiltrated areas in the Quneitra countryside from Tel al-Ahmar al-Gharby towards Kodna and Ain Ziwan villages. The troops searched several houses, harassed and terrorized the local population in the area. Israeli forces also entered the abandoned Qaws al-Nabaa area in Quneitra and carried out a series of combing raids. Israeli troops regularly carry out raids across various parts of Syria since Western-backed Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, once affiliated with al-Qaeda and Daesh, was installed as president in Damascus. Israel has occupied large additional swathes of territory in southwest Syria following the collapse of the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December. Israel also carried out hundreds of air strikes to destroy the heavy weapons and military capabilities of Damascus under the Western-backed, controversial rule of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group over the Arab nation. The latest incursions into Syrian territory come amid meetings in Paris this week between the HTS foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani and Israeli strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer. According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, the meetings focused on countering the growing power of Lebanon's Hezbollah and other resistance groups across the region. The two sides also discussed establishing a humanitarian crossing between Syria and Israeli-occupied territory to allow aid to reach the Druze in Suwayda. Last month, Israel intervened in violent clashes between Syrian HTS-linked forces and Druze armed factions in the southern Suwayda governorate, carrying out heavy strikes on sites in Damascus. Tel Aviv has used the massacre of hundreds of Druze civilians by the HTS-led forces in July as a pretext to open the corridor. Observers maintain that the US and Israel are using the HTS-led rule over Syria to spread violence and further their expansionist agenda across the West Asia region. SOHR earlier this month reported that it had documented the violent deaths of nearly 10,000 people in Syria since Western-backed HTS militants came into power in December. The tragic report comes after several recent incidents of violence targeting religious minorities, including massacres of Alawites along the country's coast, clashes with the Druze community in the south and a bombing at an Orthodox church in Damascus. After the collapse of the al-Assad government last December, Jolani was widely praised by the Western media. An article in the UK's Telegraph described his armed group, the former al-Qaeda affiliated HTS, as "diversity-friendly militants." US President Donald Trump recently announced a decision to lift all sanctions against the al-Jolani administration in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel. Jolani has assured the US-led Western countries that Syria will "normalize relations" with Israel, recognize the regime, and exchange ambassadors by the end of 2026. The HTS-led regime will reportedly hand over the occupied Golan Heights to Israel as part of a looming normalization deal with the illegal entity. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The UK welcomes the ceasefire in Southern Syria but is concerned by the continued difficulty of aid access: UK statement at the UN Security Council Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the UN Security Council meeting on Syria. From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and James Kariuki CMG Published 21 August 2025 Location: United Nations, New York Delivered on: 21 August 2025 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered) I will make three points. First, as we mark this week, World Humanitarian Day, I wanted to pay tribute to the tireless work of humanitarian actors to deliver assistance to those who need it most in Syria. As we heard from USG Fletcher, humanitarian needs in Syria remain immense, exacerbated by outbreaks of violence as well as natural disasters. In Southern Syria, though we welcome the ceasefire, we remain concerned by the continued difficulty of humanitarian and commercial access to the region. Access is vital to ensure aid can reach those who desperately need it. We welcome those who are scaling up their response. Earlier this month, the UK announced a further package of support of over $2.2 million to provide urgently needed healthcare, medicines, food and clean water to those displaced by the recent violence. Second, we welcome the release of the UN's Independent Commission of Inquiry report on the events in the coastal region in March. We recognise the access granted to the Commission by the Syrian Government. And we urge the Syrian Government to move swiftly to implement the recommendations of this report, pursue accountability for those responsible regardless of affiliation, and to continue to prioritise justice for all Syrians, including those impacted by violence last month. Third, President, we welcome the Syrian Government's steps towards political transition, including the planned People's Assembly Elections and consultations that have taken place across Syria with the Supreme Council. Transparency and inclusion are essential for a lasting political transition that secures the support and confidence of the Syrian people. We welcome the work the UN is doing with the Syrian government on the forthcoming elections. The UN has a clear role to play in supporting the Syrian-led and Syrian-owned transition. The UK looks forward to discussing the conclusions of the UN's Strategic Assessment on Syria, to ensure this Council and the UN are best able to assist the Syrian people as they rebuild. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria: Political transition on 'a knife-edge' amid military skirmishes 21 August 2025 - The UN Special Envoy for Syria briefed the Security Council on Thursday, saying that amid a strained ceasefire and military skirmishes in Syria, the political transition "remains on a knife's edge". Geir Pedersen told ambassadors that in Sweida governate, where sectarian violence in July also spurred conflict in the capital Damascus, the 19 July ceasefire has come under strain, but the conflict has not resumed so far. However, "we are still seeing dangerous hostilities and skirmishes on the margins of Sweida, and violence could resume at any moment," he said. In northeast Syria, efforts to implement the 10 March agreement between the interim security forces and the mostly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue. Just this month, there have been spikes in violence between the two militaries in the Aleppo governorate. While attempts to convene the two sides outside of the country have been unsuccessful, Mr. Pedersen welcomed reports of contacts between officials. Despite these security incidents, Mr. Pedersen stressed that the situation has been relatively calm this month, applauding the efforts of those who have worked to tamp down hostilities. However, in terms of the political situation, "the country remains deeply fragile and the transition remains on a knife-edge." Political transition? After 13 years of civil war, Mr. Pedersen underscored the need for an inclusive, Syrian-led political transition that enables the Syrian people determine their own future peacefully, independently and democratically. "Syrians need to feel that this transition is not a series of ad hoc arrangements and isolated institutions, but a clear and comprehensive path, based on inclusion and transparency, to implement the principles of resolution 2254," he said. To encourage the voluntary, safe return of refugees and internally displaced persons, Mr. Pedersen stressed the need for coordinated support to repair Syria's depleted infrastructure. "The best way to secure such support is through a genuine political transition that lays the path for long-term stability and sustainable governance. Indeed, without credible reforms, stronger institutions, and a firm commitment to the rule of law, international support risks being squandered or misdirected," he stressed. Humanitarian situation still dire Amid the precarious military and political situation, 16 million Syrians across the country need humanitarian aid, according to Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher. Additionally, over 185,000 people have been displaced across Sweida, Dar'a, Rural Damascus and beyond. "The overall situation is dire. We need to sustain urgent delivery of food, health, shelter, clean water, fuel, restoration of water and electricity infrastructure, education. In some areas, those arriving now outnumber the existing population. Services are overwhelmed," said Mr. Fletcher. Teams from the UN humanitarian aid coordination office (OCHA) have visited Sweida and other towns, delivering aid and assessing needs. OCHA has also provided emergency food packages, flour and essential household items to tens of thousands of people. However, insecurity and road closures have disrupted the supply of aid from the UN, NGO partners and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. "We need better humanitarian and commercial access. And most of all, we need safety," Mr. Fletcher stressed, particularly referring to attacks on aid convoys, health facilities, medics and ambulances. Drastic cuts Nevertheless, "despite funding and security challenges, the UN and partners are delivering as much lifesaving support as we can with the resources we have," reaching 3.5 million people on average each month, a noticeable increase from last year. But with the 2025 humanitarian appeal in the country only 14 per cent funded, ongoing aid cuts in many Western capitals are projected to lead to reduced staffing of at least 40 per cent across the humanitarian community inside Syria. The UN relief chief emphasised that without more funding, "we won't be able to sustain these vital efforts, let alone expand them to more people who need them." Furthermore, while he urged humanitarian support, he also stressed that long-term development investment is needed in Syria "to reduce and ultimately end reliance on humanitarian aid." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address At Security Council, UN Relief Chief warns funding gaps threaten lifesaving aid in Syria UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator New York, 21 August 2025 As delivered Thank you, Mr. President. Special Envoy Pedersen has conveyed the precarity of the moment. I want to reinforce that message, and add four points: First, as the situation in As-Sweida reminds us, the humanitarian crisis is not over. Across Syria, 16 million Syrians still need humanitarian support. While, as you heard, the ceasefire in As-Sweida has largely held, sporadic clashes continue. Alarming reports of abuses during the earlier fighting continue to emerge. More than 185,000 people have been displaced across As-Sweida, Dar'a, Rural Damascus and beyond. This week, our teams have visited As-Sweida city, Salkhad towns, and the western countryside of the governorate. They delivered aid and assessed needs. The overall situation is dire, I'm afraid. We need to sustain urgent delivery of food, health, shelter, clean water, fuel, restoration of water and electricity infrastructure, education. In some areas, those arriving now outnumber the existing population. Services are overwhelmed. We are in close contact with the Syrian authorities, and coordinating with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, who have delivered 12 convoys of essential aid, and NGO partners. We have provided emergency food packages, flour, and essential household items to tens of thousands of people, including displaced families. Medical kits are reaching key hospitals in As-Sweida and Dar'a, while medical teams are providing health and nutrition services, and UNICEF is working with partners to provide bottled water, water trucking, and fuel for water pumping. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent has also facilitated a commercial convoy with key supplies, and worked with the Syrian Civil Defence to transport vulnerable people, including those who wish to return to As-Sweida. But insecurity and road closures have disrupted commercial supply. Road access is still limited to two routes, through Busra es-Sham and Busra el-Harir in Dar'a. Other routes - including the main highway from Damascus - remain closed. So we need better humanitarian and commercial access. And most of all, we need safety. Aid convoys have come under fire this month. There have been attacks on health facilities, medics, ambulances. We continue working closely with the Syrian authorities and partners to strengthen channels for help. I insist again, as I know that you will, on the protection and freedom of movement of civilians, humanitarian workers and medical missions. Mr. President, My second point: Despite funding and security challenges, the UN and partners are delivering as much life-saving support as we can with the resources we have. In Syria as elsewhere, as we implement the Humanitarian Reset, we are now implementing a hyper-prioritized plan, and we have restructured and streamlined our humanitarian coordination effort in country, including reducing senior roles. We are reaching almost three and a half million people on average every month across Syria, from Lattakia to Aleppo to Hassakeh. That is a noticeable increase from last year, despite less funding. Since December last year, we have scaled up across the humanitarian response, including nutrition for children under 5 who are stunted; and subsidized bread to 2 million people each day. We are working with the authorities to rebuild critical services. The Ministry of Health, with WHO and UNICEF, are delivering a new national immunization strategy, and rehabilitating hospitals and health facilities. Partners are rehabilitating water stations, wells, laboratories and sewer networks. They also continue to provide essential services in Al Hol camp and to support families leaving the camp, and UNHCR has been in discussions on assuming camp management activities. OCHA's country-based pooled funds are now providing $75 million to support vulnerable people across the country. We have made some progress on NGO registration and visas for aid workers, but more is needed. I have agreed with the interim authorities the extension of cross-border operations from Turkiye, as we move towards importing more humanitarian supplies commercially. The Lebanese and Jordanian crossings are open, and functioning well, with work towards 24-hour access. But - and this is my third point - without more funding we won't be able to sustain these vital efforts, let alone expand them to more people who need them. Our humanitarian appeal for 2025 is only 14 per cent funded. Aid cuts are projected to lead to staffing cuts of at least 40 per cent across the humanitarian community in Syria, with NGOs hit hardest. Sixteen per cent of health facilities have suspended or reduced capacity due to cuts. So I want to thank all donors who have generously supported the humanitarian response, led at the moment by the EU, Germany and Canada. And I want to call on all donors to keep supporting Syria and to disburse the generous pledges made at the Brussels Conference back in March. Funding cuts are affecting our operations everywhere, of course. But among our 10 largest country appeals, it is the Syria appeal that is the lowest figure. And this is despite our hyper-prioritized plans having reduced the overall ask by nearly $1 billion compared to last year. With more resources - or even the funding that has been repeatedly promised - we can get critical medicine to a million more people each month; we can restore water services for an additional 5 million people; and we can expand services for people returning to their home areas. We have also worked with our partners, and in consultation with the interim Government, to develop a plan to respond to the severe drought-like conditions Syria is facing - as part of our broader appeal - for critical support for food and agriculture, clean water, and health services to 4.3 million people who are most affected. This is, I'm afraid, the worst drought in over three decades, and an ominous indicator of future needs. Alongside funding, we also welcome the easing of sanctions by the US, EU and UK, which opens up potential for vital investment and could reduce humanitarian needs. But the impact of that will take time. The complex legal environment that still continues for humanitarians continues to impede our work: Humanitarian carveouts help, so I hope we can extend exemptions. Finally, Mr. President, while we surge humanitarian support, we need investment in longer-term support for development and reconstruction that will allow the people of Syria to reduce and ultimately end reliance on humanitarian aid. I also strongly welcome diplomatic progress made by Jordan, Turkiye, the US, France, countries from the region, and the Syrian authorities. This is a firm foundation for a much-needed shift from a humanitarian-led approach to a stronger development trajectory. The Syrian people do not want to depend on humanitarian help. Announcements of new investments in infrastructure and energy supply are encouraging - not just in their own right, but also as a signal of confidence, from the region and beyond. The international community must help translate this momentum into tangible improvements in people's lives, by delivering on those planned projects, by taking additional concrete steps on sanction relief, and investing in infrastructure. Such initiatives and investments are essential as more than 2 million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since December last year. Let me amplify again the call from my colleague Filippo Grandi, High Commissioner for Refugees, following his mission to Syria two months ago, where he asked for more support for those coming back. As he said, returns will prove short-lived without increased international support. Mr. President, the international community - and this Council - has been clear that we must shift the momentum away from the years of hardship and destruction towards recovery, and hope. That means sustained commitment, patient diplomacy, and a relentless focus on delivery and implementation. The people of Syria do not need us to be commentators and problem observers. They need us to move with genuine urgency, generosity and purpose. The humanitarian community has shown that we can deliver. With funding and access, we aim to no longer be needed. Please back us. So, my asks - political action to hold the peace in As-Sweida, and prevent future escalations of this kind. Support for our funding and access requests. And to help us create the conditions, including through investment and sanctions lift, where the humanitarian mission can transition to genuine, and Syrian-led, recovery and rebuilding. We need to do that for the Syrian people, but not just for Syria. This is a chance to demonstrate that international solidarity still matters, and that coordinated international action still works. Thank you, Mr. President. Posted on 21 August 2025 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria Needs International Support on 'Epic Scale', Special Envoy Tells Security Council, Stressing Threat of Renewed Conflict 'Ever Present' Meetings Coverage Security Council 9983rd Meeting (AM) SC/16150 21 August 2025 Syria needs tangible international support on an "epic scale", a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, as he warned that while violence in Sweida has largely subsided following a ceasefire the threat of renewed conflict is ever present. In Sweida, the ceasefire agreed on 19 July has come under strain, but, so far, has prevented a slide back into open conflict, said Geir O. Pedersen, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, welcoming the efforts of the United States, Jordan and the Syrian authorities in forming a trilateral working group to support the ceasefire. However, "we are still seeing dangerous hostilities and skirmishes on the margins of Sweida, and violence could resume at any moment", he warned, adding that the ceasefire risks remaining fragile "an interim truce rather than the foundation for lasting stability". While Israel's air strikes have subsided following the latest ceasefire, the Israel Defense Forces ground operations in southwest Syria have continued. Urging respect for Syria's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, he commended a ministerial-level meeting between Syria and Israel in Paris this week. Underscoring the importance of free and fair elections in Syria, he said that his office continues to engage with the Supreme Committee for Elections on their work, and now awaits confirmation of the electoral timeframe and the distribution of seats across governorates. "Success in this process demands measures that ensure transparency and openness, and where all major Syrian groups not just trusted individuals are included as electors and candidates," he stated, calling for the equal participation of women and civil society. While recent decisions to lift certain sanctions represent "a significant step", these measures must be sustained and broadened. Accordingly, he called for a genuine political transition that lays the path for long-term stability and sustainable governance. He emphasized that, without credible reforms, stronger institutions, and a firm commitment to the rule of law, "international support risks being squandered or misdirected". Humanitarian Crisis 'Not Over', 16 Million People Need Assistance Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, warned that "the humanitarian crisis is not over," noting that 16 million Syrians still need support, and more than 185,000 people have been displaced in recent clashes. He described the situation as "dire": aid convoys have come under fire, hospitals have been attacked and road closures have hampered access. "We need better humanitarian and commercial access. And most of all, we need safety," he said, insisting on the protection of civilians and humanitarian workers. Despite these challenges, he emphasized that the UN and partners are "reaching almost 3.5 million people each month", scaling up nutrition, subsidized bread, immunizations and rehabilitating hospitals, wells and sewer networks. He also welcomed progress on cross-border access, non-governmental organization visas and cooperation with Syrian authorities, but noted that "more is needed". "With more resources [...] we can restore water services for an additional 5 million people," he stated, warning, however, that the Syria appeal is "only 14 per cent funded". Looking ahead, he stressed that humanitarian aid alone cannot solve Syria's crisis. "The Syrian people do not want to depend on humanitarian help," he said, welcoming new investments in infrastructure and energy as signs of progress. He also welcomed the easing of sanctions and called for expanded development support and concrete steps to enable recovery, noting that "returns will prove short-lived without increased international assistance". In the ensuing discussion, delegates expressed concern over continued insecurity and violent clashes that are impeding humanitarian access to Sweida, underscoring the need to ensure accountability for human rights violations and advance Syria's political transition in line with resolution 2254 (2015). Syria at Crossroads While the ceasefire in Syria has "significantly abated imminent security threats", the Republic of Korea's speaker noted that the country's "uncertain political landscape continues to cloud its horizon for a successful and inclusive transition". "Syria is at a crossroads," concurred France's delegate, adding that, after decades of dictatorship and war, "an inclusive peaceful Syria is possible". However, this transition remains fragile, and the international community must help the Syrian authorities "to banish the demons of the past", she said, noting that "there can be no return to civil peace without the establishment of a transitional justice process". Donors Pledge Humanitarian Assistance "While we have seen stabilization in parts of Syria, the humanitarian consequences of 14 years of war remain severe," observed Denmark's delegate, noting that the country hosts one of the largest humanitarian response operations in the world. Copenhagen, she added, pledges around $95 million to the Syria crisis response in 2025. From Aleppo to Idlib, Homs and Al-Hasakeh, fragile and deeply degraded towns and cities remain in urgent need of rehabilitation, she stressed, expressing concern over the recent violence in Sweida and its humanitarian consequences. The United Kingdom's delegate commended humanitarian actors in honour of World Humanitarian Day, commemorated on 19 August, stressing that "needs in Syria remain immense", and voiced concern over limited access in the south of the country despite the ceasefire. London has pledged an additional $2.2 million in aid for healthcare, food and clean water for the displaced. Welcoming the Commission of Inquiry's report on the coastal region, he urged Damascus to "pursue accountability for those responsible, regardless of affiliation" and ensure justice for victims. Outrage over Attacks on Aid Workers The representative of Panama, Council President for the month, spoke in his national capacity to recall that, on 8 August, a Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy was attacked in Dara'a. Despite these challenges, four UN-backed convoys managed to deliver vital assistance in Sweida. "This effort exemplifies the perseverance and commitment of humanitarian personnel in the face of adverse conditions," he said, stressing that "unhindered humanitarian aid is non-negotiable under any circumstances". Violence against Civilians, Abuse of Women, Girls Must End Calling for an immediate end to violence across Syria, Slovenia's delegate sounded the alarm over reports of crimes including executions, arbitrary killings, kidnappings, looting and the destruction of property. "Of particular concern are reports of abductions, trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls, especially those from Druze and Alawite communities," she stressed. Deeply concerned over emerging patterns in the abuse of women including abuses perpetrated by armed combatants she asserted: "This must stop immediately." Importance of Free and Fair Elections, Accountability Turning to an inclusive political transition in Syria, Greece's speaker cited the formation of a People's Assembly as "a crucial step". He welcomed the announcement of parliamentary elections in September for two thirds of the 210 seats, "provided all Syrians can participate as candidates and voters" including Christians, Alawites, Druze, Bedouin and women. Noting that the recent sectarian violence has reinforced calls for a more democratic Syria, he underscored that its new Constitution must guarantee inclusivity, justice and fair representation for all religious and ethnic groups and communities. "The September elections will be an important test in this regard," he added. Voicing concern over the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria's latest report of violence against civilians since January, the United States' representative urged the Syrian authorities to hold perpetrators of mass killings accountable. "A united, representative Syria requires a consistent, transparent and credible justice system," she stated, adding that "it is now on the Syrian Government" to take steps to arrest, detain and pursue measures against perpetrators. Calls for Easing of Sanctions The speaker for the Russian Federation called for impartial investigations into sectarian violence, urging Damascus to implement the Council's call for "a reliable, immediate, transparent, impartial and comprehensive investigation" to restore confidence among minorities. Condemning terrorist attacks, including the June assault on an Orthodox church, he pressed Syrian authorities to step up counter-terrorism while protecting religious sites. He further urged inclusive elections in September, reintegration of Kurds, and an end to "Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights and air strikes on Syrian territory", citing easing of unilateral sanctions as a "window of opportunity". In the same vein, Iran's delegate welcomed the lifting of "illegal coercive measures" that worsen the crisis and block recovery. Further, he condemned Israeli strikes that "cause civilian casualties, destroy infrastructure and escalate tensions", reiterating that the Golan occupation is "in defiance of international law". Recent developments in Sweida "once again demonstrate the destructive and destabilizing nature of Israeli policies in the region", echoed Turkiye's representative. He stressed that a centralized administration and a unified national army are "indispensable" to achieving the restoration of stability and security in the country. Ankara has accordingly stepped up its efforts to support Syria's capacity-building through training and advisory assistance. Despite facing many challenges, the Syrian administration has taken tangible steps in recent months toward restoring institutions, protecting sovereignty and serving its citizens, he observed, calling for the removal of remaining sanctions on that country. Condemnation of Israel's Attacks Qatar's representative, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, rejected external interference, attempts at division or illegal realities on the ground, strongly condemning "the violations by the Israeli occupying forces" as a "flagrant violation of international law". China's delegate reaffirmed that Syria's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity must be respected and called Israel's occupation of the Golan "null and void". Also denouncing the repeated Israeli strikes on Syrian territory, including in Sweida, Dara'a, Damascus and the occupied Syrian Golan, Pakistan's representative described these acts as blatant violations of international law, threatening regional peace and obstructing Syria's path to recovery. Algeria's delegate, speaking also on behalf of Guyana, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Algeria, strongly condemned Israel's repeated military strikes in Syria as "flagrant violations of Syria's sovereignty, the 1974 disengagement agreement, international law and the UN Charter". He reaffirmed unwavering support for Syria's sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity. After over a decade of conflict, the Syrian people still face "violence and humanitarian deprivation on an unbearable scale", he continued. He cited the Commission of Inquiry's findings of grave violations in the coastal region, underscoring that "perpetrators of such crimes must not be allowed to act with impunity". Israel Must Withdraw from Entire Syrian Territory For his part, Syria's delegate called on the Council to condemn "Israeli attacks" and to press that country to withdraw its forces from his country's territory, including the occupied Golan Heights. The recent strikes on the presidential palace and military headquarters in Damascus are a "direct threat to sovereignty" and to regional peace and stability, he asserted. Reaffirming Syria's commitment to "transparency and accountability", he noted cooperation with the International Commission of Inquiry and unprecedented access for investigators, as well as efforts to detain perpetrators of violence in Sweida. He further underscored that Sweida and its people remain an integral part of Syria's fabric, blaming "Israeli attempts to light the fires of sectarian strife" for recent unrest. Reiterating calls to lift coercive measures and close the sanctions file, he welcomed moves towards delisting procedures at the Council. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN envoy warns of worsening political climate amid insecurity in Syria People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 13:57, August 22, 2025 UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen on Thursday warned of "a worsening political climate" amid a precarious security situation in Syria. The July 19 ceasefire in Syria's Sweida has come under strain, but so far has prevented a slide back into open conflict. However, dangerous hostilities and skirmishes on the margins of Sweida remain, and violence could resume at any moment, he told the UN Security Council in a monthly briefing. "And I am concerned that a month of relative military calm belies a worsening political climate, with escalatory and zero-sum rhetoric hardening among many," he said. "Part of this has been fueled by the emergence of further distressing footage of graphic abuses that took place inside Sweida during the escalation." Pedersen emphasized the importance of accountability, regardless of perpetrators' affiliation. The interim Syrian authorities have announced the formation of a fact-finding committee, tasked with investigating the abuses committed in Sweida. It is essential that the committee's findings are made fully public and that all perpetrators -- regardless of affiliation -- are held responsible, he said. If future violence and violations are to be avoided, a serious program on security sector reform and on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration is clearly needed, he added. An inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process is essential -- one that safeguards the rights of all, protects all, meets the legitimate aspirations of all, and enables the Syrian people to determine their own future peacefully, independently and democratically, said Pedersen. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Cabinet unveils 2026 central government spending plan ROC Central News Agency 08/21/2025 07:34 PM Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) Taiwan's Executive Yuan on Thursday put forth a NT$3.13 trillion (US$102.9 billion) proposal for government expenditure in 2026, which includes a significant increase in military spending. The proposal, comprising NT$3.03 trillion for the central government's general budget and NT$100.8 billion in special allocations, was submitted by the Cabinet's Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) and will be sent to the Legislature for approval at the end of the month. The proposed expenditure for fiscal year 2026 boosts funding for the Ministry of National Defense (MND) by NT$93.8 billion -- a year-on-year increase of 20.1 percent -- to cover payments for defense articles and the procurement of additional ammunition and spare parts. Factoring in veterans' and Coast Guard expenses, Taiwan's military spending will reach NT$949.5 billion next year, representing 3.32 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to DGBAS data. In a social media post later Thursday, President Lai Ching-te () said the proposed military budget increase was aimed at strengthening Taiwan's security and signaling to the world the country's commitment to enhancing its defense capabilities. Other than military spending, public infrastructure expenditure -- including flood control projects, provincial expressway improvements and the construction of AI computing data centers -- is set to rise by NT$93 billion, or 16.1 percent from last year to NT$670.4 billion, according to the DGBAS. The government will allocate NT$203.1 billion for technology development -- up 15.1 percent from 2025 -- to fund basic science research as well as R&D in drones, robotics and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. An additional NT$299.3 billion has been earmarked for public development projects, including placing a railway line underground in Taoyuan, seawater desalination plants in Tainan and Hsinchu County and the Southern Taiwan Science Park. In addition, the government also plans to pump NT$120 billion into the Labor Insurance Fund and NT$20 billion into the National Health Insurance (NHI) system, DGBAS official Hsu Yung-i () said at a Cabinet briefing in Taipei. Meanwhile, the Cabinet rejected a funding proposal to increase salaries for military personnel, civil servants and public school teachers next year, citing economic headwinds caused by the U.S. tariffs and the NT$10,000 cash handouts to Taiwanese citizens passed by the Legislature. At the briefing, Premier Cho Jung-tai () cited DGBAS data showing that tax revenue for 2026 is projected to be NT$2.86 trillion, down NT$302.5 billion compared with 2025. Cho said the proposed NT$3.03 trillion general budget, the NT$100.8 billion in special funding and an estimated NT$126.5 billion for debt repayments will create a shortfall of NT$400 billion in 2026, which the government plans to cover through borrowing. According to the premier, the reduction in revenue results from law revisions passed by the opposition-controlled Legislature late last year, which require the central government to give a greater share of its tax revenues to local authorities. The DGBAS data showed that more than 90 percent of value-added tax and nearly 30 percent of commodity tax, which were previously retained by the central government, will now go to local governments. (By Lai Yu-chen and Teng Pei-ju) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Special defense budgets anticipate more U.S. arms sales: Experts ROC Central News Agency 08/21/2025 09:10 PM Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) The Cabinet's planned special defense budgets totaling NT$117.6 billion (US$3.85 billion) anticipate the Trump administration approving more arms sale packages to Taiwan next year as a workaround given a limited general budget increase, experts said Thursday. The Cabinet earlier in the day approved the general budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2026, under which the national defense spending plan accounts for NT$949.5 billion, equivalent to 3.32 percent of Taiwan's GDP. The spending plan includes "to-be-earmarked" special budgets of NT$117.6 billion, which according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics official Hsu Yung-yi () comprises three special budgets. According to Hsu, the amount includes a NT$7.6 billion budget proposed by the Coast Guard Administration, with a Homeland Security Resilience Special Budget and Foreign Military Sales Special Budget making up the rest. However, Hsu declined to comment on the specifics of the special budgets, which are still being reviewed by the Cabinet. Su Tzu-yun (), a research fellow at the government-run Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the Ministry of National Defense's budget increase is limited by the general budget increase, and so to meet arms procurement needs it is only natural special budgets are planned. The special budgets could fund the production of the seven planned indigenous defense submarines and the procurement of drones from the United States and local manufacturers, as well as locally developed unmanned surface vessels, Su said. In addition, the special budgets are likely to also include funds to purchase E-2D airborne early warning aircraft and M109A7 self-propelled howitzers from the U.S. he added. Su expressed hope that any forthcoming special defense budget will place an emphasis on purchasing locally developed weapons, just like the 2021-2026 Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan, to drive local economic growth. National Taiwan University associate professor of political science Chen Shih-min () noted that the sales of M1A2T main battle tanks and HIMARS, which Taiwan recently received, were both approved during Trump's first term. Although the Trump administration has not announced new foreign military sales to Taiwan, the Taiwanese government is confident that there will be more arms procurement packages and is preparing for them by planning the special defense budgets, Chen said. With the 2027 "Davidson window" drawing near, there is a high probability that the U.S. will sell advanced weapons to Taiwan in 2026, Chen added. Then commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Philip Davidson during congressional testimony in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping () had instructed the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Davidson's comments have since been echoed by many U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. (By Wu Su-wei, Kao Hua-chien, Lai Yu-chen and Sean Lin) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Forming communist parties, student groups not illegal in Taiwan: MAC ROC Central News Agency 08/21/2025 09:38 PM Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday said that forming political parties or student groups that advocate communism is not against the law, following media reports about a "communist party" being established at one of the country's top senior high schools. "Article 2 of Taiwan's Civil Associations Act originally stipulated that advocating communism was prohibited," MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh () said at a regular news briefing in Taipei. However, the provision was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in 2008, and thus one can register a political party with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) under the name "Communist Party," he said. A total of five parties, including the Taiwan Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Republic of China, have registered under the name "Communist Party," though some have self-disbanded, according to information available on the MOI website. "As for young people being drawn to these Utopian ideals [referring to students forming communist groups], we do not view it from a legal perspective," Liang said. "I believe this is something for the Ministry of Education and local education departments to look into." Liang's remarks came after a Thursday report by local Chinese-language newspaper Liberty Times about "Chien Kuo Communist Party" (CKCP), a group formed by students at Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo Senior High School, one of the most prestigious public all-male senior high schools in Taiwan. The report said that the CKCP had established the "Taiwan Interschool Communist Alliance," with similar student groups to the CKCP found in as many as 39 schools, including New Taipei Municipal Banqiao Senior High School. According to the introduction on CKCP's Instagram fan page, the group said it seeks to "promote the communist party's governance at Chien Kuo through democratic means, push for rapid reforms at Chien Kuo, and spread correct communist ideas." The group also noted that it has "no connection with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)." Seven posts on the fan page were still visible as of Thursday afternoon, with the earliest -- about member recruitment -- published in November 2022. The latest post, published at around 4 p.m. Thursday, came more than two years after the previous one in March 2023. In the latest post, the general secretary -- identified by the Instagram ID "Farmertree8" -- said he is a graduating student from Class 327 at Chien Kuo, and stressed that the CKCP "not only has no ties with the CCP, but firmly opposes the CCP and its acts of aggression against the Republic of China (Taiwan)." "The CCP, in the way it currently operates, can essentially be described as a Communist Party cloaked in authoritarian capitalism," he said. "In fact, even communists within China itself are persecuted by the CCP." As for the current status of the CKCP, he said it was "dead," noting that membership had always been small and most of the members have now graduated. The "Taiwan Interschool Communist Alliance" has also been unable to function due to too few active participants, he said, adding, "Simply put, it just fizzled out." Commenting on the issue, Liang said it is normal for young people to have "illusions about communism" because of its "humanitarian and Utopian ideals." "However, theory and reality are worlds apart," Liang said, adding that he hopes young people will study more about the history of the CCP and the international communist movement. They can then learn that the reality of communist rule and the ideal of a communist society are "two entirely different things," he said. (By Sunny Lai) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan, U.S. sign MOU on combating cross-border drug trafficking ROC Central News Agency 08/21/2025 05:09 PM Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) Taiwan and the United States earlier this week signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance two-way intelligence sharing and jointly combat transnational drug trafficking, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan announced on Thursday. The MOU-signed on Monday in the U.S. by Taiwan's representative office and the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) will enhance intelligence sharing between the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office by "enabling more efficient investigations and prosecutions of transnational drug trafficking organizations," the AIT said in a press release. Following its signing, the MOU was presented on Tuesday during the 4th annual Cross-Border Drug Enforcement Cooperation Forum held at the DEA headquarters in Arlington County, Virginia, the AIT press release said. The annual forum, held for the first time in America since its launch, brought together representatives from the DEA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as well as law enforcement agencies from Taiwan, it said. The AIT press release quoted DEA Asia Pacific Division Special Agent in charge John Scott as saying that the annual forum represents the "shared commitment of Taiwan and the United States to combat the scourge of drug trafficking." "DEA recognized that international cooperation is essential to dismantling drug trafficking organizations," said Scott. "This forum provided an opportunity to deepen partnerships, share intelligence, and develop strategies to combat the global drug trade," he said. Meanwhile, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office, was quoted in the same press release as saying that the signing of the MOU and the holding of the annual forum "serve as a new starting point for deeper collaboration within the international law enforcement network." AIT represents U.S. interests in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties. (By Joseph Yeh) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address DPP boosting Taiwan's military budget to over 3% will 'intensify tensions' across Straits Global Times By Xu Keyue Published: Aug 21, 2025 11:12 PM Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities in the island of Taiwan plan to boost defense spending by a fifth next year, surpassing 3 percent of gross domestic product in the island, Reuters reported on Thursday, which claimed that the DPP seeks to target the Chinese mainland and convince the US it will bolster military spending. A mainland expert said this plan again exposed the DPP's delusion to "solicit US support for independence" and "resist reunification by force," which is doomed to fail. The expert warned this would intensify cross-Straits tensions and face countermeasures from the mainland and erode resources for people's livelihoods in the island. According to Reuters on Thursday, DPP senior official Cho Jung-tai said that 2026 defense spending would reach NT$949.5 billion ($31.27 billion). At 3.32% of GDP, the figure crosses the 3% threshold for the first time since 2009, Reuters reported, citing figures by Taiwan authorities. Cho claimed that Taiwan was following the "NATO model" to also include spending on the coast guard and veterans in total defense expenditure. Taiwan local media reported Thursday that under the DPP authorities, defense spending has hovered between 2 and 2.5 percent over the past nine years. DPP to lift the regional defense budget to over 3 percent of GDP effectively serves as a "protection fee" to the US while also demonstrating its "determination" for the so-called self-defense, Xin Qiang, director of the Taiwan Studies Center at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Thursday. DPP's delusion of "soliciting US support for independence" and "resisting reunification by force" could trigger countermeasures from the mainland, Xin said. Also, the expert warned that the defense expenditures would erode resources for people's livelihoods, harming the well-being of the Taiwan population in the long run, which would also face backlash from the local public. On June 26, in response to media reports, which claimed that the US House Appropriations Committee approved the Fiscal Year 2026 Defense Appropriations Act, which includes a $500 million budget for military assistance to the island of Taiwan, Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, stated that "We firmly oppose any form of military collusion between the US and China's Taiwan region. Such collusion, be it military aid, arms sale or under any other pretext, reveals the extremely malicious intention of the US to mislead Taiwan into the flames of war, harming Taiwan itself and undermining its interests." "We warn the DPP authorities that 'soliciting US support for independence' is doomed to fail, and 'resisting reunification by force' is a dead end," said Zhang. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan ROC Ministry of National Defense 2025/08/21 PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan 1.Date 6 a.m. Aug. 20 (Wed.) to 6 a.m. Aug. 21 (Thu.) (UTC+8) 2.PLA activities 22 sorties of PLA aircraft and 5 PLAN ships operating around Taiwan were detected as of 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 15 out of 22 sorties crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan's northern and southwestern ADIZ. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy ships, and coastal missile systems in response to detected activities. 1140821_PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan [Open a new window] 1140821_PLA air activities in the vicinity of Taiwan [Open a new window] NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Chinese national security authorities uncover dozens of cyberattack platforms operated by 'internet army' linked to 'Taiwan independence' forces Global Times By Global Times Published: Aug 22, 2025 08:51 AM China's national security authorities announced that they have uncovered dozens of cyberattack platforms operated by Taiwan's "Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command" linked to "Taiwan independence" forces, pledging to pursue lifelong accountability for those involved, the CCTV News reported on Friday. According to investigations, the unit has in recent years disguised itself as multiple hacker groups, employing basic cyber intrusion methods such as vulnerability scanning, password cracking, and phishing attacks in attempts to steal sensitive data and intelligence from the Chinese mainland. Those actions are extremely malicious. Du Zhenhua, a senior engineer at China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, explained that the "Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command" was established in 2017 by Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities as the island's so-called "fourth military branch." Its main role, he said, is to coordinate cyber capabilities across Taiwan's military, government, and even private sectors, specifically targeting the mainland as well as Hong Kong and Macao with sustained cyberattacks and infiltration. The unit not only seeks to steal intelligence but also collaborates with anti-China forces in the US to wage public opinion warfare and cognitive warfare, aiming to incite division, disrupt social order, and obstruct national reunification, Du said. In recent years, China's national security authorities have traced and uncovered dozens of cyberattack platforms used by the "Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command," according to the media report. In accordance with relevant regulations, all necessary punitive measures will be taken against "Taiwan independence" separatist forces, with offenders held legally accountable for life. In June, the police in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou put 20 suspects on a wanted list, accusing them of participating in cyberattacks launched by an organization of Taiwan's DPP authorities, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The notice also provided details of cyberattacks carried out by Taiwan's "Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command," per Xinhua. China's Ministry of State Security also revealed some details in March about four members of the "Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command" linked to "Taiwan independence" forces and warning that the internet is not beyond the reach of the law. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK set to sign $2.69bn contract with Israel's Elbit to train British soldiers Iran Press TV Thursday, 21 August 2025 5:04 PM Britain is reportedly poised to sign a 2 billion ($2.69 billion) contract with Israel's largest arms manufacturer that would enable it to train 60,000 British soldiers annually, according to a report from Private Eye magazine. The publication revealed that Elbit Systems UK, the British arm of the company, is close to securing a major contract that would establish it as a "strategic partner" of Britain's Ministry of Defense (MoD). If awarded the contract, Elbit would collaborate with the MoD to transform military training through digitalization, simulation, enhanced industry relationships, and changes in training locations and methodologies. Private Eye also inquired whether it would be appropriate to grant such a significant contract to a company deeply involved in the war in the besieged Gaza Strip, but the MoD did not respond. Elbit is reportedly competing against Raytheon for the Army Collective Training Service contract, after the MoD narrowed down the bidders to two in February. This development follows the recent announcement that Elbit signed a $1.63 billion arms deal with Serbia to supply long-range precision rockets along with other military technologies. Elbit Systems supplies approximately 85 percent of Israel's drones and land-based military equipment and has been a key supplier of weaponry in Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. A report by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, stated that "for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems... the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture." Since 2023, Elbit's UK arm has been responsible for the MoD's Project Vulcan, a 57 million contract for simulation-based training for tank crews. Last September, the British government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel after a review indicated a clear risk that British-made weapons could be used in violation of international humanitarian law. Notably, licenses for components used in F-35 fighter jets, which are actively deployed in Gaza, were among those exempted from the embargo. Elbit's subsidiaries in the UK have frequently faced protests and direct action from activists. Protesters have consistently targeted its headquarters, dousing them in red paint to symbolize Palestinian blood. In a related development, over 700 UK business leaders, founders, and professionals have signed a letter urging the British government to take action against further acts of genocide by Israel in Gaza. The open letter, initiated in June by Business Leaders for Peace, calls for a complete arms embargo on Israel and targeted sanctions against individuals and entities "credibly accused of violating international law." According to Gaza medical sources, the Israeli aggression, which began in October 2023, has killed nearly 62,200 people and wounded over 157,000 others. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Denys Shmyhal discusses establishing joint ventures in Ukraine with leading arms manufacturer Ukraine Government Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, posted 21 August 2025 16:32 Minister of Defence of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal held a meeting with a delegation from KNDS Deutschland, led by Executive Director Ralf Ketzel. Denys Shmyhal thanked KNDS Deutschland for the dialogue, effective assistance, and productive cooperation. "KNDS is a leading arms manufacturer whose products have already proven effective on the battlefield. We focused on strengthening industrial cooperation and discussed the creation of new joint ventures in Ukraine for the production of equipment and spare parts," said the head of the Ministry of Defence. The parties are also working on establishing repair and service hubs for the rapid restoration and maintenance of weapons. KNDS Deutschland plans to develop a network of centres for the repair of heavy equipment in Ukraine, and within this cooperation, the first three Gepard air defence systems have already been repaired. According to Denys Shmyhal, KNDS Deutschland is interested in the experience of Ukrainian soldiers regarding the use of their weapons. "We agreed to establish communication that will enable the improvement of the company's products, taking into account the experience of modern warfare," the Defence Minister noted. He also informed partners about preparations for the launch of Defence City, a special legal regime for defence companies. "This provides transparent rules and clear conditions for investments and joint projects," Denys Shmyhal emphasised. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Denys Shmyhal: Creating favourable conditions for Ukrainian arms manufacturers Ukraine Government Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, posted 21 August 2025 13:51 The Parliament has supported key draft laws on Defence City, a special legal regime to support domestic enterprises in the defence-industrial complex. The aim of the special regime is to increase the production of modern Ukrainian weapons and military equipment, develop cutting-edge technologies, attract investment to the sector, and enhance the capabilities of the Defence Forces. "Our primary goal is to fully equip the Defence Forces with everything they need, develop and improve our own weapons and equipment, and ensure the state's future security through a strong, capable army," said Minister of Defence Denys Shmyhal. Participation in Defence City is open to defence-industrial complex enterprises that are strategically important to the state's defence capabilities, meet transparency requirements and other specified criteria, and have no ties to the aggressor state. The main requirement is that the majority of an enterprise's revenue - 75% of qualified income (50% for the aircraft manufacturing sector) - must come from defence production. "We are creating even more favourable conditions for our arms manufacturers, enabling them to scale up, be protected, and quickly and effectively supply the Ukrainian Defence Forces with the necessary weapons and military equipment," said Deputy Minister of Defence Anna Hvozdiar. Defence City residents will benefit from several advantages, including exemption from profit tax until 2036, land and property taxes, environmental tax, simplified customs procedures during martial law and for one year after its end, and a simplified regime for the international transfer of defence products. Detailed explanations of the benefits and restrictions will be published later. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defence production and battlefield needs: Denys Shmyhal holds meeting with Chair of Bundestag Defence Committee Ukraine Government Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, posted 21 August 2025 12:51 Minister of Defence of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal discussed defence production, military training, and the use of frozen russian assets with Thomas Rowekamp, Chair of the Defence Committee of the German Bundestag. The head of the Ministry of Defence expressed gratitude for Germany's steadfast support in Ukraine's fight against russian aggression. According to Denys Shmyhal, defence cooperation between the two countries continues to grow. The parties discussed collaboration with several German companies, joint production and repair of equipment in both Ukraine and Germany, and support for training Ukrainian military personnel. "We coordinated our key battlefield needs. Last night was yet another reminder of the urgent need to strengthen air defence. We value Germany's contribution, including the supplied IRIS-T air defence systems and the commitment to provide additional Patriot systems. We hope this support will continue," said the Defence Minister. He urged partners to intensify efforts to confiscate frozen russian assets, which could serve as a source of budgetary support for Ukraine. "I am grateful for Germany's significant role in multilateral aid projects for Ukraine, including those initiated by NATO and the EU. Our German partners assured us of their intent to support Ukraine for as long as necessary," Denys Shmyhal concluded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Evidence mounting about Russian tactics of sexual torture against Ukrainian civilians: UN expert Press releases Special Procedures 21 August 2025 GENEVA -- The Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, and several other experts have sent a dossier of sexual torture allegations to the Russian Federation involving the cases of 10 Ukrainian civilians abused in occupied regions of Ukraine, including Kherson, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. "These separate allegations, capturing the experiences of four women and six men, are truly grisly," said Edwards. "They represent however only a small snapshot of a wider, well-documented pattern of risks of torture to civilians in occupied areas." "These were all highly sexualised assaults which included rapes, threats of rape, and other depraved conduct," the expert said. "It is becoming clearer that the Russian Federation's deliberate and systematic policy of torture in Ukraine involves sexualised torture and other sexualised cruelty, including against the civilian population." In all the documented cases, repeated electric shocks were administered, including to the genitals. These civilians were beaten, kicked, blindfolded and, in some instances, drownings were simulated and mock executions carried out. "A rudimentary rule of international warfare is that civilians are to be protected. Russia appears to have abandoned the international rulebook entirely. It is high time that they were held to account for these unlawful practices and more pressure brought to bear by all States with influence over them," Edwards said. "The Russian Federation is using torture to intimidate, instil fear and control civilians in occupied territory of Ukraine." "There is also credible evidence of arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances, and serious violations of the right to health of civilians. The information received also refers to deaths in detention due to torture, including through the denial of medical care," the Special Rapporteur said. The experts have called on the Russian Government to provide additional information about the specific allegations, as well as about the broader measures being taken to prevent torture and sexual torture perpetrated by Russian military and military-adjunct personnel, as well as intelligence and detaining authorities. One of the women concerned remains detained in the Russian Federation and an appeal for her urgent release has been raised. Alice Jill Edwards is the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment This statement was endorsed by: Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Gabriella Citroni (Chair-Rapporteur), Grazyna Baranowska (Vice-Chair), Ana Lorena Delgadillo Perez, Aua Balde and Mohammed Al-Obaidi, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; Claudia Flores (Chair), Ivana Krstic (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls; Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR. Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hungarian President Deletes Word 'Russian' From Statement On Ukraine Strikes By RFE/RL's Hungarian Service August 21, 2025 Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok has removed the word "Russian" from a statement he issued offering condolences to the victims of an overnight strike in Ukraine that included hundreds of drones and missiles. "I express my deepest sympathy to those injured in the Russian missile attack on Mukachevo, and I wish them a speedy and full recovery," Sulyok said in his original statement posted to Facebook on August 21. The post was taken down shortly after it went up, only to be replaced by a nearly identical statement with the word "Russian" ("orosz" in Hungarian) removed from the first sentence. The difference can be clearly seen on screengrabs made RFE/RL's Hungarian Service. Mukachevo, known as Munkacs in Hungarian, is a town of some 85,000 people in western Ukraine that's home to a large ethnic Hungarian community and is roughly 30 kilometers from Ukraine's border with Hungary. The missile strike was part of a wave of hundreds that hit targets across Ukraine overnight on August 21. The President of Hungary's office did not respond to RFE/RL's request for comment about the revised post. The episode highlights the Hungarian government's reluctance to criticize Moscow over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the strained ties between Budapest and Kyiv. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party have maintained close ties with Moscow and have frustrated European Union efforts to support Ukraine in the war with Russia. Hungary has also impeded accession talks for Kyiv to join the EU. Budapest, the Hungarian capital, is also reportedly under consideration as the host city for a potential trilateral summit mediated by the United States with Russia and Ukraine that could take place in the coming weeks. Politico reported this week that the US Secret Service was preparing for the summit in Hungary, with Budapest being US President Donald Trump's first choice for host city. This was followed by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto offering Budapest as a possible venue for such a meeting. "If we are needed, we are ready to provide appropriately fair and safe conditions for such peace negotiations. We are pleased if we can contribute to the success of peace efforts," he said on August 21 in a daily podcast hosted by government members. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated his willingness to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in "any format" but has not mentioned Hungary's offer and instead suggested Switzerland, Austria, or Turkey as possible venues for peace talks. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/budapest-ukraine-russia- summit-sulyok-orban-eu-attack/33509295.html Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukrainian Arrested In Connection To 2022 Nord Stream Explosions By RFE/RL August 21, 2025 Summary A Ukrainian national was arrested in Italy for alleged involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions. German prosecutors claim the group used a rented yacht to transport explosives to the Baltic seabed near Denmark. A Ukrainian national has been arrested in Italy in connection with explosions, carried out in 2022, that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The suspect, whose arrest was confirmed by Italian police, was identified by German prosecutors only as Serhii K, in accordance with German privacy laws. German federal prosecutors said he is accused of belonging to a group that allegedly planted explosive devices on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines on the Baltic seabed near the Danish island of Bornholm on September 26, 2022. Serhii K and his accomplices transported the explosives on a sailing yacht that departed from the German port of Rostock, according to German prosecutors. The vessel had been rented from a local company through intermediaries using falsified identity documents. Nord Stream, majority-owned by Russia's state-controlled Gazprom and co-financed by major European energy companies, was constructed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing transit states such as Ukraine and Poland, which have had strained relations with Moscow. The suspected sabotage and subsequent gas leaks caused the pipelines to become inoperable and came seven months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Western governments originally accused Russia of carrying out the blasts, while Moscow rejected the allegations and instead blamed the United States, Britain, and Ukraine. Germany has investigated the incident as its companies were part of the consortium that owned the Nord Stream project. In August 2024, German investigators wrapped up their initial probe and formally issued an arrest warrant for Volodymyr Z, a Ukrainian citizen investigators believed was the mastermind behind the plot. Various news reports since the attacks have pointed the finger of blame at Ukrainian operatives, possibly acting independently of the Ukrainian state. Germany's former intelligence chief, August Hanning, told Die Welt in August 2024 that he believed there were agreements between the presidents of Poland and Ukraine to carry out the attack -- an accusation that was denied by the office of the Polish president. The Ukrainian government has also repeatedly denied responsibility for the attack. Both Denmark and Sweden, in whose waters the explosions took place, ended their investigations into the incident in 2024. While the Danish police said the explosions were due to "deliberate sabotage of the gas lines," they did not identify any suspects and said there was "no necessary basis to further pursue a criminal case." A new report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies has found that Russia has dramatically increased sabotage operations throughout Europe, with the number of attacks targeting critical infrastructure nearly quadrupling since 2023. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-arrested-nord- stream-explosions-2022/33509371.html Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukrainian Suspect in Nord Stream Sabotage Arrested in Italy - German Prosecutors Sputnik News 20250821 German prosecutors have announced the arrest of Ukrainian citizen Sergei K. in Italy, suspected of coordinating the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in 2022. The arrest was made on August 21, 2025, based on a European arrest warrant issued by Germany's Federal Court. According to the prosecutor's office, Sergei K. is accused of complicity in organizing the explosions, unconstitutional sabotage, and destruction of infrastructure. He is believed to have been part of a group that placed explosive devices on the pipelines near Bornholm in September 2022. The operation involved using a sailing yacht rented with forged documents, which left Rostock before the explosive devices detonated on September 26, causing significant damage to the pipelines. Once extradited from Italy, Sergei K. will face a judge in Germany for further proceedings. The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions in September 2022. Russia considers the explosions of the two pipelines an act of international terrorism. There are no official results of the investigation yet, but Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023, alleging that the explosions had been organized by the United States with the support of Norway. Washington has denied any involvement in the incident. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Backs Istanbul 2022 Security Guarantees, Rejects Other Ideas - Lavrov Sputnik News 20250821 Russia supports the principles of security guarantees agreed upon in Istanbul in 2022, while all other proposals are futile ventures, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. In essence, Europe is proposing foreign intervention on part of Ukrainian territory, which is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, the Russian Foreign Minister stressed. Ukraine's position indicates that Kiev wants to undermine the US efforts for a settlement, while Moscow is closely cooperating with Washington on this track to address the root causes of the crisis, Lavrov added. Significant progress has been made at the Russia-US summit in Alaska in terms of defining the parameters of the Ukrainian conflict settlement, Lavrov said. "Following the Russia-US summit in Alaska, where significant progress was made in moving towards defining the contours and specific parameters of a settlement, when following this event, European countries followed Mr. [Volodymyr] Zelensky and went to Washington and they tried to promote their agenda there... of course, this cannot cause us any feelings other than complete rejection," Lavrov told a press conference. Ukraine is clearly showing that it is not interested in a sustainable and long-term settlement of the conflict, Lavrov added. "The goals that remain with the current Ukrainian leadership, and these goals are certainly fueled by the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime, are directed against the efforts that [US] President Trump is making, with whom we are actively and specifically cooperating in finding long-term sustainable ways to resolve in order to eliminate the root causes [of the conflict in Ukraine]," Lavrov said. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hungary Ready to Host Russia-US-Ukraine Summit, Guarantees Security for All Participants Sputnik News 20250821 "If needed, we are here, and we will provide fair and safe conditions at any time. We would be happy to host such peace talks if we can help ensure the success of peace efforts, should we be needed," Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says. Earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in an interview with Fox News, did not rule out the possibility of a Russia-US-Ukraine summit being held in the Hungarian capital. According to sources, the White House is allegedly considering Budapest as the priority location for the trilateral meeting. According to Szijjarto, Budapest is a credible location because Hungary offered to host negotiations for both Russia and Ukraine right after the conflict began, and continued to extend the invitation. Szijjarto also called Hungary's ability, under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, to maintain a respectful dialogue with both Russia and the US a huge and unique achievement, despite the "tremendous pressure" it has faced. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Andrii Sybiha comments on Russia's latest night attack Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine 21 August 2025 09:49 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha: "Contrary to all efforts to end the war, Russia undertook a massive combined air strike on Ukraine overnight. Hundreds of drones, hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missiles on civilian and energy infrastructure. One of the missiles struck a major American electronics manufacturer in our westernmost region, leading to serious damage and casualties. A fully civilian facility that has nothing to do with defense or the military. This is not the first Russian attack on American businesses in Ukraine, after strikes on Boeing offices in Kyiv earlier this year and other attacks. No military logic or necessity, just terror against people, businesses, and normal life in our country. This is why efforts to force Russia to end the war are so critical and we reiterate Ukraine's willingness to make every effort to bring peace closer. The meetings of leaders in a bilateral Ukraine-Russia and trilateral Ukraine-U.S.-Russia formats are crucial to enable diplomacy. Equally important is the work to provide Ukraine with robust security guarantees from partners, including the United States and European allies. Overnight strikes also demonstrate the urgency of strengthening Ukraine's air defense with additional systems and interceptors". NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defense production and battlefield needs: Denys Shmyhal meets Chair of Bundestag Defence Committee Ministry of Defence of Ukraine 21 August, 2025, 12:47 PM EEST Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine's Minister of Defence, held talks with Thomas Rowekamp, Chair of the German Bundestag Defence Committee, on defense production, military personnel training, and the utilization of frozen russian assets. The Defence Minister thanked Germany for its steadfast support of Ukraine in countering russian aggression. Denys Shmyhal noted that defense cooperation between the two countries continues to progress. The parties addressed cooperation with a range of German companies, the joint production and maintenance of equipment in Ukraine and Germany, and support for the training of Ukrainian military personnel. "We have coordinated on our critical battlefield needs. Last night underscored the urgent need to strengthen air defense. We appreciate Germany's contribution, particularly the delivered IRIS-T systems and the planned provision of additional Patriot systems. We count on this support continuing," the Defence Minister said. He also called on partners to intensify efforts to confiscate frozen russian assets. These funds may constitute a source of budgetary support for Ukraine. "I am grateful for Germany's substantial role in multilateral assistance projects for Ukraine, including initiatives led by NATO and the EU. Our German partners have assured that they will continue supporting Ukraine for as long as needed," summarized Denys Shmyhal. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Denys Shmyhal and the Director of KNDS Deutschland discussed establishing joint ventures in Ukraine Ministry of Defence of Ukraine 21 August, 2025, 12:27 PM EEST Minister of Defence of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal met with a delegation of KNDS Deutschland headed by Executive Director Ralf Ketzel. Denys Shmyhal thanked KNDS Deutschland for the constructive dialogue, effective support, and fruitful cooperation. "KNDS is a leading arms manufacturer whose products have already proven effective on the battlefield. We focused on enhancing industrial cooperation and discussed the establishment of new joint ventures in Ukraine for the production of equipment and spare parts," the Defence Minister stated. The parties are also collaborating on setting up repair and service hubs to ensure the swift recovery and upkeep of weapon systems. KNDS Deutschland plans to develop a network of heavy equipment repair centers in Ukraine, with the first three Gepard air defense systems already repaired under this cooperation. According to Denys Shmyhal, KNDS Deutschland is keen to learn from the experience of Ukrainian troops in using its weapons. "We agreed to establish communication channels that will allow the company to enhance its products by incorporating lessons from modern warfare," the Defence Minister said. He also informed the partners about the upcoming launch of Defence City, a special legal framework designed for defense companies. "This represents transparent regulations and well-defined conditions for investment and collaborative projects," emphasized Denys Shmyhal. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine and the Nordic-Baltic Countries Coordinated Joint Steps Toward Achieving Real Peace President of Ukraine 21 August 2025 - 21:25 On the instruction of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Deputy Head of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva held another briefing for the ambassadors of the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) countries. Ihor Zhovkva informed them about the outcomes of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Washington, particularly his talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. Ukraine once again confirmed its readiness to take further steps toward achieving real peace. "We are open to any negotiation formats at the leaders' level, as only such a level can resolve the most complex issues facing Ukraine and the world. We value the participation and support of our European partners, who are working with us to achieve a just peace," emphasized Ihor Zhovkva. The parties noted that during the meetings in Washington, President of Finland Alexander Stubb represented the Nordic and Baltic countries. Special attention was given to Ukraine's European integration. The Deputy Head of the Presidential Office stressed that Ukraine's path toward EU membership should be a shared one with Moldova, particularly at the stage of opening negotiating clusters later this year. According to him, it is important that this approach be publicly supported by all European states. The parties coordinated their next steps and agreed on actions to be taken on international platforms aimed at strengthening support for Ukraine, promoting Ukraine's interests in security, political, and economic areas, and reinforcing joint efforts to counter Russian aggression. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Security Guarantees for Ukraine Were Discussed at the Office of the President with a Representative of the UK Foreign Office President of Ukraine 21 August 2025 - 21:06 As a continuation of the contacts between the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a meeting took place between Deputy Head of the Office of the President Ihor Brusylo and Jonathan Allen, Director General for Defence and Intelligence at the UK Foreign Office. The parties discussed the development of effective security guarantees for Ukraine from Europe, with the participation of the United States. This topic was a key focus during the meetings of the leaders of Ukraine, the United States, and European partners in Washington on Monday, August 18. Jonathan Allen emphasized the importance of maintaining defense and financial support for Ukraine, increasing pressure on Russia and its accomplices, and aligning approaches to the use of frozen Russian assets. "The Ukrainian army will remain the cornerstone of Ukraine's security. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities, develop Ukrainian drone production technologies even after a ceasefire is achieved, and create layered air defense systems," noted the Deputy Head of the Office of the President. Ukraine and the United Kingdom share a common position: Russia poses a significant threat to the security architecture of the entire European continent, and the Coalition of the Willing can serve as an effective tool to ensure peace in Ukraine and across Europe. Ihor Brusylo expressed gratitude to the United Kingdom for its support of Ukraine and noted the productive cooperation between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Ukraine and the United Kingdom agreed to continue strengthening their partnership, including preparations for a Strategic Dialogue meeting at the leaders' level. The planning of a meeting of the leaders of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) member states was also discussed. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address We Are Doing and Will Continue to Do Everything Necessary to Protect Our State and Our People - Address by the President President of Ukraine 21 August 2025 - 20:04 I wish you health! Today, throughout the day, recovery efforts continued in several of our regions after last night's Russian attack. A massive attack. More than five hundred drones were launched - 574 - along with missiles, including ballistic ones. Forty missiles. A significant portion of all this was shot down by our warriors - and it is important that we have this capability, the proper means. More than thirty missiles were shot down. Dozens of "shaheds" were destroyed by our interceptors. Thank you to all the developers and operators. But, unfortunately, there were also hits. Different regions - from Zaporizhzhia to Volyn and Zakarpattia. In Mukachevo, the Russians practically burned down a company - an American company, by the way, producing electronics - home appliances, nothing military. The Russians knew exactly where they lobbed the missiles. We believe this was a deliberate strike specifically on American-owned property here in Ukraine, on American investments. A very telling strike. As is this entire massive attack - right as the world awaits a clear answer from the Russians, an answer on negotiations to end the war. There are two formats where progress is feasible. These are leader-level formats. Bilateral - Ukraine and Russia. And trilateral - Ukraine, the United States, and Russia. We discussed this in Washington. Putin spoke about it on the call with President Trump. Now, frankly speaking, the signals coming from Russia are simply outrageous. They are trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting. They don't want to end this war. They continue their massive attacks on Ukraine and their ferocious assaults along the frontline. They even lob missiles at an American enterprise, alongside many other purely civilian targets. And this is happening right at the borders of the European Union and NATO - a Russian attack drone entered Polish territory. Very troubling drone incidents have also occurred on Lithuanian territory. None of this is accidental. This is Russian impudence. We expect our partners to respond in a principled manner. This war must be brought to an end. Pressure must be exerted on Russia to end the war. Putin understands nothing but force and pressure. Of course, we are doing and will continue to do everything necessary to protect our state and our people. The U.S. President is absolutely right - this must be done not only in defense. Meanwhile, we do not slow down in diplomacy, in all our contacts with partners, so that negotiations do take place - the kind of negotiations that can truly bring peace closer. National security advisors are working - they had a conversation yesterday and there has been a lot of communication today as well. At their level, the military - the Commander-in-Chief, the General Staff - are working on the military component of the security guarantees for Ukraine. Now, each day carves out the contours of future security architecture for Ukraine. Weapons, funds, cooperation with partners, forces on the ground, in the air, and at sea. And every day, there will be new steps taken by partners to support Ukraine - I will have a lot of diplomatic work to do. I thank everyone who stands with us, with Ukraine. And one more thing. Today, I want to thank all the employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, everyone who always helps people in the wake of Russian strikes. It is important that, despite everything, Ukrainians know how to protect lives and help everyone around them. The State Emergency Service, the police, all our services, many volunteers, medical workers, first responders - all are as functional and effective as possible. Thank you! I especially want to recognize today the Kharkiv region - the Main Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region - Vasyl Zeikan, Anton Zhuravlov, Leonid Zhupii, Andrii Simtsov, and Oleksandr Bondarenko. Thank you, guys! Also, the staff of the Mobile Rescue Center of Rapid Response of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine - Yurii Zhelaha, Kostiantyn Silaiev, Vitalii Moshkovskyi, and Mariia Kukla. Thank you! As well as the Main Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the city of Kyiv - Yurii Lozynskyi, Mykola Los, Borys Ivanchenko, Ihor Lysak, Vadym Yaroshevskyi, and Andrii Omelchenko. Thank you, guys! Thank you to everyone who fights and works for Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine! NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine and the Delegation of the European Union Agreed to Expand Cooperation in Combating Corruption, Judicial Reform, and Development of Legal Institutions President of Ukraine 21 August 2025 - 19:18 Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Iryna Mudra and Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Taras Kachka held a meeting with Charge d'Affaires a.i. of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine Gediminas Navickas. Iryna Mudra and Taras Kachka thanked Gediminas Navickas and the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine for their consistent support of our country on its path toward European integration. During the meeting, the parties discussed the next steps in implementing judicial reform, improving the system for preventing and combating corruption, and prioritizing the sustainable development of legal institutions. The parties agreed to expand cooperation in the format of consultations and joint projects. Special attention was given to finalizing the establishment of the Special Tribunal and the Claims Commission, which will handle claims from those affected by Russian aggression. Gediminas Navickas confirmed readiness to deepen cooperation and to continue supporting Ukraine's reform efforts. He noted the progress already achieved and reaffirmed continued solidarity. Following the meeting, Iryna Mudra briefed the President of Ukraine on its outcomes. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC) between December 12, 2024 and June 30, 2025, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), of the important September 8, 2025 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased Centene securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Centene class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=41552 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 8, 2025. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm 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. DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period provided investors with material information concerning Centenes expected revenue guidance and adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) for the 2025 fiscal year. Defendants statements included, among other things, confidence in Centenes enrollment and morbidity rates, as well as strong retention rates in Centenes Medicare business. Defendants provided these overwhelmingly positive statements to investors while simultaneously disseminating materially false and misleading statements and/or concealing material adverse facts concerning the true state of Centenes enrollment and morbidity rates. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Centene class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=41552 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. ------------------------------- Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Miata Metals Corp. (CSE: MMET) (FSE: 8NQ) (OTCQB: MMETF) (Miata or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement offering (the Offering) by issuing 23,913,044 units at a price of $0.23 per unit (each a Unit) for total gross proceeds of $5,500,000 (the Offering). Each Unit consists of one common share in the capital of the Company and one-half of one transferrable common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a Warrant). Each Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one additional common share at an exercise price of $0.40 until August 21, 2027. The Warrants will be restricted from exercise until October 21, 2025, being the 61st day following the closing of the Offering. The Units were issued pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption under Part 5A of National Instrument 45-106 Prospectus Exemptions (NI 45-106). Pursuant to NI 45-106, the securities forming part of the Units issued to Canadian residents under the Offering are not to be subject to resale restrictions. The Company is relying on the exemptions in Coordinated Blanket Order 45-935 Exemptions from Certain Conditions of the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption (the Order) and is qualified to distribute securities in reliance on the exemptions included in the Order. The Company intends to use the proceeds from the Offering for exploration activities on its Sela Creek and Nassau Gold projects in Suriname, and for general working capital and corporate purposes. In connection with the Offering, the Company paid aggregate cash finders fees of $165,004, and issued an aggregate of 771,410 finders warrants (the Finders Warrants) to eligible arms length finders. The Finders warrants are exercisable into common shares at an exercise price of $0.40 until August 21, 2027. The Finders Warrants are subject to a statutory four month hold from the date of issuance. Two directors and an officer of the Company participated in the Offering for aggregate proceeds of $121,002 and are considered to be related parties of the Company. Each subscription by a related party of the Company is considered to be a related party transaction for purposes of MI 61-101. The Company is relying on the exemptions from the formal valuation requirements contained in section 5.5(a) of MI 61-101 and the minority shareholder approval requirements contained in section 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 as the fair market value of the related parties participation is not more than 25% of the Companys market capitalization. The Company did not file a material change report in respect of the related party transactions at least 21 days before the closing of the Offering, which the Company deems reasonable in the circumstances in order to complete the Offering in an expeditious manner. About Miata Metals Corp. Miata Metals Corp. (CSE: MMET) is a Canadian mineral exploration company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange, as well as the OTCQB (OTCQB: MMETF) and Frankfurt (FSE: 8NQ) Exchanges. The Company is focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties. The Company holds a 70% interest in the ~215km2 Sela Creek Gold Project with an option to acquire a full 100% interest in the project, and a 70% beneficial interest in the Nassau Gold Project in Suriname with an option to acquire 100%. Both exploration properties are located in the greenstone belt of Suriname. On Behalf of the Board Dr. Jacob (Jaap) Verbaas, P.Geo | CEO and Director info@miatametals.com +1 778 488 9754 Neither the CSE nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements Certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking information under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to the use of proceeds of the Offering. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as anticipates, anticipated expected intends will or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results will occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. Although management of the Company have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed this press release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This press release is not and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States. The distribution of Miata securities in connection with the transactions described herein will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "U.S. Securities Act") and Miata securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy Miata securities, nor shall there be any offer or sale of Miata securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the Western Asset US Core Bond Fund mutual fund classes Class I (ticker: WATFX), Class A (ticker: WABAX), Class C (ticker: WABCX), Class FI (ticker: WAPIX), Class IS (ticker: WACSX), and Class R (ticker: WABRX) and the Western Asset Core Plus Bond Fund mutual fund classes Class A (ticker: WAPAX), Class C (ticker: WAPCX), Class C1 (ticker: LWCPX), Class FI (ticker: WACIX), Class R (ticker: WAPRX), Class I (ticker: WACPX), Class IS (ticker: WAPSX) between January 1, 2021 and October 31, 2023, inclusive (the Class Period), of the important September 5, 2025 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased WAMCO mutual funds during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the WAMCO class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=31956 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for more information. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 5, 2025. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm 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. DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants failed to warn investors that: (1) defendants favored certain WAMCO strategies, like Macro Opps, over other WAMCO strategies, like Core and Core Plus; (2) defendants disfavored certain WAMCO strategies, like Core and Core Plus; (3) any compliance policies and procedures that WAMCO maintained to result in fair allocations of investment opportunities to clients were either insufficient to ensure that Leech and his WAMCO Team fairly allocated trades among the strategies they managed or were expressly disregarded by defendants in order to allow the favoring of certain WAMCO strategies at the expense of other WAMCO strategies; (3) any oversight mechanisms that WAMCO maintained were either insufficient to monitor Leech and his WAMCO Team or were expressly disregarded by defendants in order to allow the favoring of certain WAMCO strategies at the expense of other WAMCO strategies. As a result, defendants actions operated as a fraud or deceit on the Class, artificially reducing the price of the Western Asset US Core strategy mutual fund classes during the Class Period, damaging Class members. To join the WAMCO class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=31956 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for more information. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. ------------------------------- Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com Pisen's first retail store in the U.S. opens this Wednesday, August 27, in Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pisen, a trusted provider of power solutions and mobile accessories, today announced the opening of its first U.S. brick-and-mortar store in Los Angeles on Wednesday, August 27. Located at 630 S Los Angeles St, the new retail store marks an exciting milestone for the brand as it expands its physical presence stateside, with a second store set to open in New York just two days later, on Friday. The Journey that Brought Pisen to LA Pisen's story began in 2004, in one of the planet's harshest environments: the Antarctic. When China's "7+2" Antarctic Expedition Team needed a battery pack that could survive the extreme cold, Pisen rose to the challenge. What emerged was more than just a battery. It was a breakthrough redefined portable power. In 2017, Pisen reimagined mobile repair with 3C Easy. By 2019, Pisen introduced the PISEN MORE ecosystem, with the aim of establishing an interconnected network of products and services. In 2020, Pisen entered the new energy market, introducing products such as portable power stations, electric vehicle chargers, and C&I energy storage systems. From that first battery pack to now, Pisen has grown to power hundreds of millions of smart devices in all corners of the globe. Yet throughout the journey, what has remained the same is the original vision of crafting tech that keeps people powered and connected wherever they are. Today, with a footprint in more than 70 countries and regions, Pisen's products are engineered to perform everywhere. From bustling cities to remote adventures, they are there to keep people connected and ideas charged. And now, that exciting journey lands in Los Angeles, a city that thrives on connection, creativity, and constant motion. More Than a Retail Space Built to meet the varied needs of Los Angeles' tech-reliant community, the Pisen store is more than a retail space. It's a curated destination for Angelenos who rely on their devices to stay connected, productive, and inspired in this dynamic city. Inside the store, where warm orange hues blend seamlessly with modern wood finishes, customers are invited to explore a comprehensive range of Pisen's signature products and services. From ultra-slim travel chargers that slip easily into any bag to portable power stations ready to power every adventure, there's something for everyone. And it's not just about products. The store features a dedicated mobile repair zone where skilled technicians are ready to help. They provide on-site diagnostics, battery replacements, screen repairs, and whatever tech support customers might need. No issue is too niche, and no question is too simple. Celebrating with the Community To welcome its first Los Angeles customers, Pisen will host a series of events and offer exclusive perks. The day begins with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, featuring remarks from Pisen leadership. This will be followed by a traditional lion dance performance, an energetic tradition that blends cultural heritage with universal joy. Beyond the opening festivities, the store will welcome the community with exclusive in-store cash coupons, redeemable on any of Pisen's must-have charging essentials. Additionally, a lucky draw will offer customers the chance to win some fantastic prizes. Maybe it's a sleek wireless charger ready for your next adventure, or a versatile desktop charging station primed for your daily grind. The Pisen Los Angeles store will welcome its first customers on Wednesday, August 27, at 10:30 am. About Pisen Founded in 2003, Pisen is a leading provider of power solutions, dedicated to designing innovative products that empower human connections, spark curiosity, and light up possibilities. With a focus on quality and accessibility, Pisen's product offerings include power banks, chargers, cables, audio accessories, car accessories, portable power stations, and phone replacement parts. To learn more about Pisen, visit: https://www.pisengroup.com/about-us/. Source: PISEN Contact Person: Hanyu Zhao Email: media@pisengroup.com Website: https://www.pisengroup.com/ Telephone: +1 (213) 988-7048 City: Los Angeles A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/369334a7-7efb-44f7-83d7-1431a0e46310 Oakland, Calif., Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Great Place To Work, the global authority on workplace culture, is proud to honor the 2025 Best Workplaces in Latin America. With new eligibility rules and increased participation, this is the most competitive ever list for the Latin American region. There is a 63% increase in the number of large companies competing this year, a 14% increase in the number of small- and medium-sized companies, and 127 companies made the list this year for the first time. This years list features 200 organizations identified by Great Place To Work after surveying more than 2.4 million employees from over 30 countries across Latin America (including Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean). The survey sample represents the workplace experience of 4.3 million employees. To make this list, companies had to strongly outperform their peers throughout Latin America, as measured by Great Place To Works Trust Index Survey. Companies were considered for the Latin America list after earning Great Place To Work Certification and being selected for local honors on national Best Workplaces Lists. Recognition is awarded based on confidential survey data assessing employee experiences that build trust and fuel business performance. The most competitive companies create healthy, consistent experiences for employees at all levels of the organization, no matter who an employee is or what they do for the company. Congratulations to the Best Workplaces in Latin America, says Michael C. Bush, CEO at Great Place To Work. These leading companies are showing the way, building workplaces that make communities stronger, nations more prosperous, and the world a better place. DHL Express earned the top spot on this years list. See how efforts like its "Americas Cup" engage employees with life-changing experiences. The list in 2025 has two segments, one for companies with 50-499 employees (small and medium category) and one for companies with more than 500 employees (large category). Eligible companies also had to make at least one national Great Place To Work Best Workplaces List in the Latin America region. Here are the top 25 large companies for 2025: 1. DHL Express 2. Hilton 3. PedidosYa 4. TP 5. Itau 6. Eurofarma 7. Nestle 8. Cisco 9. Philip Morris International 10. AES 11. Accenture 12. Gentera 13. Novo Nordisk 14. Arcos Dourados 15. AstraZeneca 16. Tigre 17. Stryker 18. Grupo Financiero Bantrab 19. Fundacion Genesis Empresarial 20. Banco Internacional 21. Viru S.A. 22. Grupo Vesta 23. Parque Del Recuerdo 24. Caja Los Andes 25. Confederacao das Cooperativas do Sicredi -Confederacao Sicredi The Best Workplaces in Latin America list is published here. About the Best Workplaces in Latin America List Great Place to Work selected the Best Workplaces in Latin America after surveying more than 2.4 million employees in Latin America, representing the experience of 4.3 million employees in the region. To be considered, companies must first be identified as outstanding in their local region by appearing on one or more of our Best Workplaces Lists in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Central America & Caribbean, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela during 2024 or early 2025. Companies rank in one of two size categories: small and medium (50-499 employees) and large (500+). About Great Place To Work As the global authority on workplace culture, Great Place To Work brings more than three decades of groundbreaking research and data to help every place become a great place to work for all. Its proprietary platform and Great Place To Work Model help companies evaluate the experience of every employee, with exemplary workplaces becoming Great Place To Work Certified and receiving recognition on its coveted Best Workplaces Lists. Follow Great Place To Work on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram or visit greatplacetowork.com and sign up for the newsletter to learn more. (Figures in brackets refer to the corresponding period last year) 22 Aug 2025 Prosafe SE reported EBITDA of USD 3.1 million (USD 6.6 million) for the second quarter and USD 7.7 (USD 13.8 million) for the first half of 2025. OPERATIONS, HSSE AND BACKLOG Good operating performance on all vessels. Utilisation of 66%, four out of five vessels operating during the quarter Safe Zephyrus, Safe Eurus and Safe Notos operating at 99% utilisation in Brazil Safe Caledonia commenced operations at the Captain Field in the UK on 2 June Safe Boreas arrived in Singapore in July ahead of upcoming contract in Australia Safe Notos awarded four-year contract with Petrobras in Brazil, commencing September 2026 in continuation of its existing contract at significantly increased dayrate USD 518 million in backlog (USD 323 million) including options/LOIs Q2 AND FIRST HALF FINANCIALS Q2 revenues of USD 30.9 million (USD 34.2 million) and USD 63.9 million (USD 68.2 million) in H1 EBITDA of USD 3.1 million (USD 6.6 million) for Q2 and USD 7.7 million (USD 13.8 million) for H1 Cash flow from operations of USD 12.2 million (USD 15.5 million) in Q2 and USD 40.8 million (USD 14.1 million) in H1, including contract prepayments related to the Safe Boreas and Safe Caledonia Capex of USD 14.5 million (USD 4.2 million) for Q2 and USD 35.7 million (USD 5.9 million) for H1 due to reactivation of Safe Boreas and Safe Caledonia Liquidity position of USD 45 million, compared to USD 46.8 million at year-end 2024 RECAPITALISATION Recapitalisation completed on 21 July 2025 with the equitisation of USD 193 million of debt for 90% of the shares in the company Transaction provides a sustainable capital structure and sufficient liquidity to meet capital expenditure and working capital needs for the foreseeable future MARKET AND OUTLOOK Expected 2025 EBITDA of USD 35 to 40 million Estimated post recapitalisation net debt of USD 220 million Petrobras awards confirm rising day rates and durations on higher demand Further tenders expected in Brazil North Sea UK and Norway campaigns with focus on 2027 and beyond Increased firm backlog, improved market and recapitalisation position Prosafe for improved earnings Terje Askvig, the CEO of Prosafe, says, The completion of the recapitalisation is a significant milestone for Prosafe, strengthening our balance sheet and providing a sustainable capital structure. We are well positioned to deliver increased earnings going forward supported by a growing backlog and higher utilisation in an improving global offshore accommodation market. Presentation Terje Askvig, CEO and Reese McNeel, CFO will today at 10:00 a.m. CEST present the results at Pareto Securities, Dronning Mauds gate 3, 0115 Oslo. The presentation is open to public and can also be followed live via web streaming at https://wwww.prosafe.com It will be possible to ask questions during the presentation by using the Q&A tool embedded in the audiocast. These questions will be answered after the presentation. A replay of the audiocast will be made available on Prosafe's website shortly after. The Q2 2025 press release, H1 report and presentation are attached and can be downloaded from https://www.prosafe.com and www.newsweb.no (https://www.newsweb.no) Prosafe is a leading owner and operator of semi-submersible accommodation vessels. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange with ticker code PRS. For more information, please refer to www.prosafe.com ( https:///www.prosafe.com ) For further information, please contact: Terje Askvig, CEO Phone: +47 952 03 886 Reese McNeel, CFO Phone: +47 415 08 186 This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act Attachments AB KN Energies (hereinafter KN, the Company) announces the unaudited consolidated (hereinafter the Group) and separate financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2025. Key financial indicators for the 1-6 months of 2025: EUR millions Group Company 1-6 months of 2025 1-6 months of 2024 1-6 months of 2025 1-6 months of 2024 Revenue 51.1 42.6 48.9 40.8 EBITDA 27.2 21.7 26.0 20.7 Net profit (loss) 8.6 1.5 7.7 0.8 Adjusted net profit (loss) 8.6 6.3 7.7 5.7 Management comment: KN Energies continues to record rapid growth in the first half of 2025, the Companys revenue increased by 20% year-on-year to EUR 51.1 million, while EBITDA rose by 25% to EUR 27.2 million. In the first half of the year, KN Energies loaded 1.83 million tonnes of liquid energy products at its terminals 4% less than last year, mainly due to developments in global and regional markets and lower petrol transshipment volumes driven by limited fuel demand growth. Nevertheless, financial results in the segment improved: revenue grew by 3% from EUR 14.6 million to EUR 15 million, EBITDA increased by 15% from EUR 6 million to EUR 6.9 million, and net profit rose by 21% from EUR 3.1 million to EUR 3.7 million. At the beginning of the year, a new agreement was signed with one of the Companys key clients and strategic partners ORLEN Lietuva. This agreement, important to both parties, will enable KN Energies to ensure stable operations at the Klaipeda Liquid Energy Terminal and the continuity of investments. In the first half of 2025, net profit from commercial LNG activities amounted to EUR 1.8 million 25% less than in the same period last year. Revenue remained relatively stable at EUR 5.1 million (+4.6%), but profitability was reduced by a 14.6% increase in costs, mainly due to different stages of international project implementation and related expenses. Currently, KN Energies continues to operate the LNG terminal at the Port of Acu in Brazil, the commercial operation of four LNG terminals in Germany, and, in the summer, following intensive preparation, is taking over the technical operation of the second LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven. KN Energies is further developing projects for the handling of new energies. A significant step was taken in June when a grant agreement was signed with the European Commission, which will provide more than EUR 3 million for technical and commercial studies of the planned CO terminal in Klaipeda. In the same month, a market consultation was launched to assess interest in the planned Klaipeda CO terminal and its potential demand. Enclosed: Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements of AB KN Energies for 6 months period ended 30 June 2025. Presentation of the unaudited financial results of the Group for the 6 months period of 2025. Tomas Tumenas, Chief Financial Officer, +370 46 391772 Attachments The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) today celebrates a landmark moment for Ghanas fisheries: the President has given his full assent to the Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill, without amendments. This bold act of leadership will help to build effective protection for Ghanas small-scale fishers, strengthen food security, and lay the foundation for marine ecosystems to recover. CAPE COAST, Ghana, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- By signing the Bill into law exactly as passed by Parliament, the President has shown a clear commitment to safeguarding the livelihoods of over 200,000 small-scale fishers and the millions of Ghanaians who depend on fish as a vital source of food and income, says EJF. The Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill introduces critical reforms, including the long-awaited expansion of Ghanas Inshore Exclusive Zone (IEZ) from 6 to 12 nautical miles. Reserved for artisanal fishers, this extended area will shield them from destructive industrial trawlers that have too often encroached illegally, killed fishers in collisions, destroyed their nets, and depleted fish populations. Hon. Emelia Arthur, Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture, has been instrumental in ensuring this victory for Ghanas oceans and people. Her strong leadership and unwavering commitment to equitable and sustainable fisheries have been pivotal in achieving a law that puts the welfare of Ghanas coastal communities at its heart, says EJF. This new law also represents a significant step toward lifting the European Unions yellow card trade warning against Ghana, according to the NGO. By enshrining stronger measures to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and enhancing fisheries transparency, the Bill gives regulators and enforcement agencies the tools they need to act decisively against law-breaking vessels. With these new powers, Ghana can demonstrate to international partners that it is serious about reforming fisheries management and protecting the nations marine resources. Steve Trent, CEO and Founder of EJF, said: This new law marks a turning point for Ghanas fisheries and coastal communities. The Presidents assent to the Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill sends a clear signal of leadership, vision, and commitment to the millions of people who rely on a healthy ocean. By supporting small-scale fishers, safeguarding food security, and tackling illegal industrial fishing head-on, Ghana has set a course for a sustainable and equitable future. We commend the President, Minister Arthur and Ghanas parliament for this bold step forward. The Bill was passed at a critical time: more than 90% of artisanal fishers report declining catches, while populations of small pelagic species such as sardinella have almost entirely collapsed in a matter of years. Without urgent action, Ghana risked losing not only a vital food source but also a cornerstone of national culture and livelihoods. EJF emphasises, however, that the focus must now shift to implementation. Laws cannot deliver change without consistent and robust enforcement. With effective monitoring, transparent governance, and strong penalties for illegal operators, the Bill can deliver on its promise of rebuilding Ghanas fisheries and protecting ocean ecosystems for generations to come. Dublin, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Virtual Fair Platform Market by Customer Profile, Product Portfolio, Behavioral Analysis, Psychographic Attributes, Technological Adoption, Market Trends, Media Engagement, Sales Channel Dynamics, Pricing Sensitivity - Global Forecast to 2030" has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The virtual fair platform market has experienced significant transformation, redefining global audience engagement through technological advancements. These platforms offer immersive environments with seamless networking, real-time analytics, and interactive content delivery that rival physical events. As organizations embrace hybrid engagement demands, virtual fairs demonstrate resilience and scalability, providing decision-makers with strategic insights for leveraging these dynamic environments. Transformative Shifts Reshaping the Virtual Fair Environment Recent changes in virtual fairs highlight increased user expectations for high-fidelity graphics, collaboration tools, and cross-device accessibility. Platform providers are responding by integrating advanced WebGL frameworks and low-latency streaming for enhanced immersion. Data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA dictate the integration of privacy-by-design principles, leading to robust encryption protocols and compliance modules. The emergence of hybrid models reshapes investment strategies, driving organizations to allocate resources towards platforms that bridge in-person and online experiences, creating new revenue opportunities through tiered access and extended content. Key Regional Insights: Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific Dynamics Regional dynamics significantly influence platform strategies. In the Americas, widespread broadband access supports extensive registrations and large-scale events. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa require compliance with localization, language support, and data regulation. In the Asia-Pacific, digital consumption and immersive experience demand propel innovation. Understanding these regional nuances guides marketing investment, infrastructure prioritization, and content refinement, ensuring attendee satisfaction and optimized revenue. Key Company Insights: Competitive Landscape and Differentiators Leading platform providers employ strategies that define market leadership. Companies like 360 Virtual Fairs LLC and Virtual Connective LLC offer comprehensive solutions, while innovators such as Immersive Virtual Fairs LLC push XR integrations. Providers balancing digital and in-person experiences cater to hybrid events, emphasizing interoperability and feature rollouts. By offering modular architectures, some companies efficiently scale from small events to global expos, highlighting AI-driven networking and customization to enhance user experience. Actionable Recommendations for Virtual Fair Platform Leadership Industry leaders should focus on key strategic actions: investing in dynamic analytics to personalize recommendations, strengthening compliance frameworks for global expansion, and developing hybrid event capabilities for flexible content delivery and monetization. Partnering with hardware and telecom providers optimizes infrastructure costs, while emphasizing continuous user experience enhancements fosters loyalty and competitive advantage. Cumulative Consequences of 2025 U.S. Tariffs on Platform Economics The 2025 U.S. tariffs have major implications for the virtual fair ecosystem. Elevated hardware costs due to tariffs on 3D visualization tools and server infrastructure have prompted re-evaluations of pricing models and supply contracts. Increased software development fees enforce strategies for cost efficiency, leveraging bulk procurement, and exploring alternative sourcing. Localization of data centers and regional alliances circumvent tariff impacts, maintaining reliability without compromising service quality. Supply chain resilience and strategic procurement are vital considerations for organizations developing or expanding platforms. Key Takeaways from This Report Recognize shifts in user expectations and technological advances for enhanced virtual fair experiences. Analyze customer segmentation and regional insights to tailor engagement strategies effectively. Evaluate competitive landscape strategies to maintain differentiation and market leadership. Understand the impact of tariffs and focus on procurement strategies to mitigate risks. Key Topics Covered 1. Preface 2. Research Methodology 3. Executive Summary 4. Market Overview 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Market Sizing & Forecasting 5. Market Dynamics 6. Market Insights 6.1. Porter's Five Forces Analysis 6.2. PESTLE Analysis 7. Cumulative Impact of United States Tariffs 2025 8. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Customer Profile 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Age Group 8.3. Education Level 8.4. Income Level 8.5. Lifestyle 8.6. Occupation Type 9. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Product Portfolio 9.1. Introduction 9.2. Lifecycle Stage 9.3. Product Category 9.4. Technological Attributes 10. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Behavioral Analysis 10.1. Introduction 10.2. Channel Engagement 10.3. Loyalty Level 10.4. Online Behavior 10.4.1. Browsing History 10.4.2. Click Patterns 10.5. Purchase Frequency 11. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Psychographic Attributes 11.1. Introduction 11.2. Attitudes 11.3. Interests 11.3.1. Activities 11.3.2. Hobbies 11.4. Personality Traits 11.5. Values 12. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Technological Adoption 12.1. Introduction 12.2. Early Adopters 12.3. Late Adopters 12.4. Mainstream 12.5. Technology Usage Patterns 12.5.1. Desktop Usage 12.5.2. Mobile Usage 13. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Market Trends 13.1. Introduction 13.2. Consumer Trends 13.3. Emerging Opportunities 13.4. Industry Innovations 14. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Media Engagement 14.1. Introduction 14.2. Content Consumption 14.3. Influencer Interaction 14.4. Social Media Consumption 14.4.1. Platform Preference 15. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Sales Channel Dynamics 15.1. Introduction 15.2. Direct Sales 15.3. Online Channels 16. Virtual Fair Platform Market, by Pricing Sensitivity 16.1. Introduction 16.2. Discount Responsiveness 16.3. Price Elasticity 16.4. Value Perception 17. Americas Virtual Fair Platform Market 17.1. Introduction 17.2. Argentina 17.3. Brazil 17.4. Canada 17.5. Mexico 17.6. United States 18. Asia-Pacific Virtual Fair Platform Market 18.1. Introduction 18.2. Australia 18.3. China 18.4. India 18.5. Indonesia 18.6. Japan 18.7. Malaysia 18.8. Philippines 18.9. Singapore 18.10. South Korea 18.11. Taiwan 18.12. Thailand 18.13. Vietnam 19. Europe, Middle East & Africa Virtual Fair Platform Market 19.1. Introduction 19.2. Denmark 19.3. Egypt 19.4. Finland 19.5. France 19.6. Germany 19.7. Israel 19.8. Italy 19.9. Netherlands 19.10. Nigeria 19.11. Norway 19.12. Poland 19.13. Qatar 19.14. Russia 19.15. Saudi Arabia 19.16. South Africa 19.17. Spain 19.18. Sweden 19.19. Switzerland 19.20. Turkey 19.21. United Arab Emirates 19.22. United Kingdom 20. Competitive Landscape 20.1. Market Share Analysis, 2024 20.2. FPNV Positioning Matrix, 2024 20.3. Competitive Analysis The companies profiled in this Virtual Fair Platform market report include: 360 Virtual Fairs LLC Next Level Fairs Inc. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/lieo97 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. New York, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Compare the latest online casino real money no deposit codes now See all free spins no deposit promotions available for you CTR Collective, the casino comparison platform, has announced an update to its global tool, now featuring a broader set of online casino real money no deposit codes. 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DATE: August 28th TIME: 12:30 pm EST LINK: REGISTER HERE Available for 1x1 meetings: August 28th and September 3rd, 2025 This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event. It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates. Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com . Recent Company Highlights A strategic exploration portfolio of critical and energy metals in Europe and Canada; Worlds 5 th best antimony-silver intercept for 2024-25 announced in January 2025; best antimony-silver intercept for 2024-25 announced in January 2025; A 231 sq. mile portfolio of uranium claims around the Athabasca Basin, SK, Canada featuring up to 6.2 % U3O8 surface sample to be advanced in 2026; Phase III drill program in Bosnia aimed at proving the size of the Sb-Ag-Zn mineralization commenced in August, 2025. About Terra Balcanica Resources Corp. Terra Balcanica is a polymetallic and energy metals exploration company targeting large-scale mineral systems in the Balkans of southeastern Europe and norther Saskatchewan, Canada. The Company has 90% interest in the Viogor-Zanik Project in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Canadian assets comprise a 100% optioned portfolio of uranium-prospective licences at the outskirts of the world-renowned Athabasca basin: Charlot-Neely Lake, Fontaine Lake, Snowbird, and South Pendleton. The Company emphasizes responsible engagement with local communities and stakeholders. It is committed to proactively implementing Good International Industry Practice (GIIP) and sustainable health, safety, and environmental management. About Virtual Investor Conferences Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors. Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors. CONTACTS: Terra Balcanica Resources Corp. Catherine Cox Corporate Secretary (604) 999-4136 ccox@terrabresources.com Virtual Investor Conferences John M. Viglotti SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access OTC Markets Group (212) 220-2221 johnv@otcmarkets.com Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release publication, distribution, or dissemination directly, or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States. Vancouver, BC, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Florin Resources Inc. (the Shareholder) announces that, on August 21, 2025, pursuant to the terms of the final release and settlement agreement (Final Settlement Agreement) between the Shareholder and St. James Gold Corp. (the Issuer)1 dated Mach 28, 2025 (the Transaction), the Issuer: released from escrow to the Shareholder 850,000 common shares in the capital of the Issuer (the Escrow Shares); and issued to the Shareholder a further 3,157,896 common shares in the capital of the Issuer2 at a deemed price of $0.095 per Share (the Treasury Shares). The Shareholder received the Escrow Shares and the Treasury Shares on August 21, 2025. The release of the Escrow Shares from escrow to the Shareholder and the issuance of the Treasury Shares to the Shareholder requires disclosure pursuant to the early warning requirements of applicable securities laws. Immediately before giving effect to the Transaction, the Shareholder held beneficial ownership and exercised control or direction over an aggregate of 2,850,000 Shares, representing approximately 10.23% of the issued and outstanding Shares on a non-diluted basis. Pursuant to the Transaction, the Shareholder acquired beneficial ownership and exercise of control and direction over 4,007,896 Shares. Immediately after giving effect to the Transaction, the Shareholder beneficially owns and exercises control or direction over a total of 6,857,896 Shares, representing approximately 18.11% of the issued and outstanding Shares on a non-diluted basis.3 The acquisition of the Escrow Shares and the Treasury Shares was completed pursuant to the Final Settlement Agreement. Subject to the requirements of applicable securities laws, and depending on market and other conditions, the Shareholder may from time to time in the future increase or decrease the ownership, control or direction over securities of the Issuer, through market transactions, private agreements, or otherwise. This news release is being disseminated as required by National Instrument 62-103 - The Early Warning System and Related Take-Over Bid and Insider Reporting Issues in connection with the filing of an early warning report by the Shareholder in respect of the Transaction, to be filed with the applicable securities regulators containing additional information with respect to the foregoing matters. A copy of the early warning report will be filed by the Shareholder in accordance with applicable securities laws and will be available on the Issuers issuer profile on SEDAR+ at http://www.sedarplus.ca. A copy of the early warning report may also be obtained by contacting James Munro, legal counsel (McMillan LLP), at 604-691-7491. All ownership percentages disclosed hereon are based on the number of common shares the Issuer had issued and outstanding as at the date of this news release. FLORIN RESOURCES INC. Per: /s/ John Fiorino John Fiorino Sole Director Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements, as defined in applicable securities laws (collectively, forward-looking statements) which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Shareholder expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including the Shareholder acquiring or disposing the Issuers securities and the filing of the Early Warning Report. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words and phrases 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. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the Shareholders ability to predict or control, could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements herein are qualified by this cautionary statement. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Shareholder undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information or future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. If the Shareholder does update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that it will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements. FLORIN RESOURCES INC. c/o Suite 1500, 1055 West Georgia Street Vancouver, British Columbia, V6E 4N7 Contact: John Fiorino Tel: (604)-614-3610 Email: john@infinitemsinc.com 1 The Issuers common shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Final Settlement Agreement settled indebtedness in the approximate amount of $1,213,500 under certain secured promissory notes issued by the Issuer to Florin under a previous settlement agreement between the Issuer and Florin. 2 2,105,264 Shares were issued by the Issuer pursuant to a shares for debt transaction and 1,052,632 were issued by the Issuer pursuant to a private placement. See the Issuers news release dated August 21, 2025. 3 This calculation includes 850,000 Shares (the Escrowed Shares) registered to the Shareholder that are subject to an escrow agreement dated April 1, 2021 (the Escrow Agreement) among the Issuer, the Shareholder and Endeavor Trust Corporation. The Escrowed Shares were released to the Shareholder in accordance with the terms of the Escrow Agreement. Vancouver, British Columbia, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- St. James Gold Corp. (the Company or St. James) (TSXV: LORD) (OTCQB: LRDJF) (FSE: BVU3) is pleased to announce that it has closed the Final Release and Settlement Agreement with Florin Resources Inc. (Florin) originally announced on April 1, 2025 (the Settlement Agreement). Under the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the Company was reassigned two secured promissory notes of the Company held by Florin with a combined principal amount of $1,176,598.76 (the Secured Promissory Notes). The consideration for the settlement was as follows: The cash payment of $435,000 to Florin; The issuance of a total of 2,105,264 common shares of the Company for debt to Florin at a deemed price of $0.095 Per Share that closed concurrently with the Settlement Agreement; The Company removing its objection to the release to Florin of 850,000 common shares of the Company that were held in escrow by the Companys transfer agent; and The transferring of the Companys Quinn Lake Property to Florin. As part of the Settlement Agreement, Florin agreed to participate as to 1,052,632 common shares in the Companys private placement announced December 27, 2024, at $0.095 per share, which closed concurrently with the closing of the Settlement Agreement. Florin and certain former directors and officers of the Company also entered into a Mutual Non-Disparagement Agreement. The Company has reassigned the principal amount if the Notes proportionately to the lenders who provided the $435,000 cash for closing and have agreed to hold the debt as long-term and unsecured. The Settlement Agreement describes a release of all claims, bringing to an end this chapter of the Companys existence and allows the moving forward with development of its Grub Line Property in Newfoundland. The Company thanks its shareholders for their long forbearance which the Company concluded this difficult period. About St. James Gold Corp. St. James Gold Corp. is a publicly traded company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol LORD, in the U.S. Market listed on OTCQB under LRDJF and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under BVU3. The Company is focused on creating shareholder value through the discovery and development of economic mineral deposits by acquiring prospective exploration projects with well-delineated geological theories; integrating all available geological, geochemical, and geophysical datasets; and financing efficient exploration programs. For more corporate information please visit: http://stjamesgold.com/ St. James Gold Corp. For further information, please contact: Tel: 1 (800) 278-2152 Email: info@stjamesgold.com Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws (collectively, forward-looking statements). All other statements that are not historical facts, particularly statements that express, or involve discussions as to, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance of the Company. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified through the use of words or phrases such as will likely result, are expected to, expects, will continue, is anticipated, anticipates, believes, estimated, intends, plans, forecast, projection, strategy, objective and outlook. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made based on reasonable estimates and assumptions made by management of the Company at the relevant time in light of its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that are believed to be appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this new release and the Company will not update any such forward-looking statements as a result of new information or if managements beliefs, estimates, assumptions or opinions change, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the Companys control, which could cause actual results, performance, achievements and events to differ materially from those that are disclosed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the impact and progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors outlines in the Companys Annual Information Form dated July 26, 2021 (the AIF) filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The Company cautions that the list of factors and uncertainties described in its AIF on SEDAR are not exhaustive and other factors could materially affect its results. New factors emerge from time to time, and its is not possible for the Company to consider all of them, or assess the impact of each such factor or to the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Any forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOT ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONISBIULITY FOR THE ADEQUACY IR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NMDPSM, a global nonprofit leader in cell therapy, announced the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal honored the organization for the fifth consecutive year as a top workplace, notching 4th place in the 'extra large' company category of 2025 Best Places to Work, which recognizes Twin Cities-based organizations that excel at creating positive, thriving environments for their employees. Since its inception in 1987, NMDP has grown from a small team into a global workforce dedicated to saving lives. Today, nearly 1,000 employees in Minnesota and more than 800 colleagues worldwide collaborate to support patients and families facing life-threatening blood cancers and diseases. Through groundbreaking cell therapy research, donor registry management, reliable infrastructure and logistics, transplant center network, patient and care-giver advocacy and support, and technological innovation, the Twin Cities-founded nonprofit has impacted more than 140,000 lives through cell therapygiving a second chance to patients at home and abroad. What inspires me most after being at NMDP for over ten years is our peopletheir heart, their drive, and their unwavering belief in what we do, said Amy Ronneberg, CEO of NMDP. Every team member plays a critical role in helping patients access their life-saving cell therapy, and its that shared purpose that makes this one of the best places to work. Were more than colleagueswere a community united by hope, and every day, our employees show whats possible when compassion and commitment come together. Living Out Our Mission For many NMDP employees, the organizations mission is personal. Forty-one current employees have donated potentially life-saving blood stem cells; seven have received these donations themselves, often inspiring them to choose careers at NMDP. About 150 serve as professionally-trained couriers, spending their time carefully transporting donated cells to transplant centers across the U.S. and world to ensure patients can have a second chance at life. One example of this selfless dedication is NMDP employee Libby Seering, who serves as a senior project coordinator for enterprise initiatives that advance infrastructure and long-term goals. She is also a blood stem cell donor, helping to save the life of a complete stranger, who is now five years post transplant and grateful for more time with his wife, children and grandchildren. Seering had the opportunity to meet her recipient earlier this year and the two share an unbreakable bond. What makes NMDP special isnt just our mission, its the people who bring it to life every day. Their unwavering commitment propels us toward our visioncreating a world where every patient can receive their life-saving cell-therapy, said Ronneberg. Its our collective commitment to donors, patients, volunteers, supporters, and partners that enables us to advance breakthrough research, deliver superior service, and expand equitable access to transplant. Being recognized as a Best Place to Work for five consecutive years is a testament to the unique culture weve created togetherand it propels us toward our five-year goals of impacting 10,000 patient lives annually. Discover more about the people behind our mission and opportunities to join us at nmdp.org/careers. About the 2025 Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal 'Best Places to Work' Awards Together with Omaha, Neb.-based Quantum Workplace, the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal identified 70 companies in the region that scored high marks from their employees when asked to rate their employers on a variety of questions related to leadership, communication and more. The honorees are ranked by their employee survey score in the August 22 Best Places to Work special publication of the Journal, featuring all 70 winners. About NMDP At NMDP, we believe each of us holds the key to curing blood cancers and disorders. As a global nonprofit leader in cell therapy, NMDP creates essential connections between researchers and supporters to inspire action and accelerate innovation to find life-saving cures. With the help of blood stem cell donors from the worlds most diverse registry and our extensive network of transplant partners, physicians and caregivers, were expanding access to treatment so that every patient can receive their life-saving cell therapy. NMDP. Find cures. Save lives. Learn more at nmdp.org. Contact: Erin Bix ebix@nmdp.org Ottawa, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Towards Healthcare, a sister firm of Precedence Research, reports that the global biosensors market size reached USD 30.04 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow USD 68.72 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 8.64%. The growing case of chronic disorders and technological breakthroughs is fueling the market expansion. The Complete Study is Now Available for Immediate Access | Download the Sample Pages of this Report @ https://www.towardshealthcare.com/download-sample/5453 Key Takeaways North America was dominant in the global biosensors market share by 41% in 2024. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region during the projected period. By technology, the electrochemical segment led the market in 2024 and is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR in the coming years. By technology, the optical segment is expected to grow significantly during 2025-2034. By application, the medical segment captured a major share of the global biosensors market in 2024. By end-user, the POC testing segment held a dominating revenue share of the global market in 2024. Market Overview & Potential Analytical devices that couple a biological component with a transducer for the detection and quantification of specific molecules or biological entities are referred to as biosensors. These sophisticated biosensors are widely employed in blood glucose monitoring, determining infectious diseases, and drug discovery. Whereas, in 2025, the global biosensors market will experience prominent advances in nanotechnology and microfabrication that allow the development of smaller, more portable biosensors, comprising wearable sensors for continuous patient monitoring. Alongside innovations in material science, such as carbon nanotubes, metal-organic frameworks, and biopolymers, are being employed to optimize biosensor performance, especially sensitivity, stability, and durability. What are the Key Growth Drivers of the Biosensors Market? A major driver of the respective market is a rise in demand for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics, personalized healthcare, and remote patient monitoring. Along with this, many governments are encouraging and enhancing healthcare spending, which further promotes the adoption of innovative biosensors. On the other hand, accelerating awareness regarding the advantages of earlier disease detection and demand for customized health management are propelling the usage of home-based biosensor devices. A variety of biosensors are mainly impacting the comprehensive development of the market. You can place an order or ask any questions, please feel free to contact us at sales@towardshealthcare.com What are the Key Trends in the Biosensors Market? Across the globe, medical diagnostic biosensors are boosting innovations in the overall market approaches. In August 2025, HydroGraph partnered with Hawkeye Bio to empower a newer graphene biosensor solution for the LEAP Lung Cancer test from Ease Healthcare. In July 2025, Sava Technologies raised $19 million in a Series A financing round to assist its wearable biosensor technology. In April 2025, Biolinq, a healthcare technology company of biosensors, secured a $100 million Series C financing led by Alpha Wave Ventures. What is the Significant Challenge in the Market? Around the global biosensors market, certain major limitations are emerging, such as restricted awareness and accessibility of biosensors in a few areas. As well as this limitation, it is allied with the high expenses of biosensors, mainly in low-income regions. Besides this, a rise in the application of disposable biosensors raises issues related to their environmental impact. Regional Analysis Become a valued research partner with us - https://www.towardshealthcare.com/schedule-meeting How did North America Hold the Largest Share of the Market in 2024? In 2024, North America accounted for a major revenue share of 41% in the global biosensors market. This region is a prominent hub for biosensor research and development, with crucial investments from academic institutions, research organizations, and private companies. As well as North America has been developing innovative sensing platforms and applications, propelling the further expansion of startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the biosensor field. For this market, In June 2025, a Livingston-based medical diagnostics specialist coupled with a French manufacturer of advanced electrodes to establish next-generation biosensors and wearables. What Made the Asia Pacific Significantly Grow in the Market in 2024? In the upcoming years, the Asia Pacific is predicted to expand at the fastest CAGR in the global biosensors market. Currently, ASAPs countries, including China, Japan, and India, are experiencing a huge burden of chronic disease cases, like diabetes, heart issues are boosting the broader adoption of biosensors. As well as this region is escalating rates of smartphone penetration are offering the integration of biosensors with mobile health platforms, enabling remote patient monitoring and personalized healthcare solutions. Also, the global developments in nanotechnology, miniaturization, and wireless communication are increasingly influencing ASAPs market. For instance, In August 2025, Lura Health, a U.S. health tech company, entered into an investment and business partnership with SCO Group, a major company in Japan's dental technology sector, to advance intraoral health monitoring. Segmental Insights By technology analysis Which Technology Led the Biosensors Market in 2024? The electrochemical segment dominated the market in 2024 and is anticipated to expand rapidly during 2025-2034. Usually, this kind of technology offers inexpensive and portable electrochemical sensors to enable their application in point-of-care and home-based diagnostic settings, with enhanced accessibility and adoption. Also, these sensors have capabilities in high sensitivity and selectivity in analyte concentrations, making them ideal for applications, particularly in glucose monitoring in diabetes management. On the other hand, the optical segment is estimated to witness a significant expansion in the studied years. The segment will possess the transformation of miniaturized and highly sensitive devices, the integration of optical biosensors into evolving technologies, comprising wearable medical devices and lab-on-a-chip systems. This fuels the advantages provided by optical sensors, like real-time monitoring, non-invasive detection, and faster analysis. Along with this, optical biosensors are becoming more affordable and portable, making them desirable for different applications including home healthcare. Get the latest insights on life science industry segmentation with our Annual Membership: https://www.towardshealthcare.com/get-an-annual-membership By application analysis Why did the Medical Segment Dominate the Biosensors Market in 2024? The medical segment was dominant in the market by capturing the biggest revenue share in 2024. Diverse applications of biosensors in the medical segment encompass diabetes management, which facilitates blood glucose monitoring. However, in the case of infectious disease detection, these sophisticated sensors offer quick diagnostic tests in a variety of infectious conditions, like COVID-19, influenza, and HIV. Biosensors are also employed in drug discovery to screen probable drug candidates and interpret drug-target interactions, which expands the development of new therapies. Advancing technologies are increasingly used in medical applications with benefits in expenses, portability, and sensitivity. By end-user analysis What Made the POC Testing Segment Dominant in the Market in 2024? The POC testing segment led the market by accounting for a dominant share in the biosensors market in 2024. The segment is propelled by its integration with the trend of patient-oriented healthcare, which boosts individuals to actively monitor their health. Besides this, these POC tests are employed in numerous settings such as homes, clinics, and emergency rooms. This segment supports healthcare suppliers in performing diagnostics outside of traditional laboratory settings, resulting in faster results and optimized patient care. Also, their ability to minimize turnaround time and simplify workflows, especially in emergencies or resource-limited settings, is impacting overall market growth. Browse More Insights of Towards Healthcare: The global hernia mesh device market is valued at USD 5.63 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow to USD 6.02 billion in 2025, reaching approximately USD 11.01 billion by 2034. The market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.94% between 2025 and 2034. The intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) market is witnessing significant growth, with revenues expected to rise substantially by the end of the forecast period spanning 2025 to 2034. The global pacemaker market is valued at USD 5.45 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach USD 5.66 billion in 2025, growing to around USD 7.89 billion by 2034 at a CAGR of 3.75% from 2025 to 2034. The global veterinary ultrasound system market was valued at USD 400 million in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 845.41 million by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 7.04% from 2024 to 2034. The global healthcare consumables market was estimated at USD 155.40 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to USD 225.68 billion by 2034, with a CAGR of 3.45% from 2024 to 2034. The global peripheral nerve conduit market is valued at USD 154.42 million in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 411.58 million by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 10.3% during the forecast period. The global general surgery devices market stands at USD 18.44 billion in 2024, rising to USD 20.01 billion in 2025 and projected to reach approximately USD 41.57 billion by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 8.54% from 2025 to 2034. The global medical equipment maintenance market is estimated at USD 46.16 billion in 2024, growing to USD 50.8 billion in 2025 and expected to reach USD 121.94 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 10.04% between 2025 and 2034. The global infant biometrics market is on a growth trajectory, with revenues expected to reach substantial levels, potentially climbing into the hundreds of millions between 2025 and 2034. The global chromatography instrumentation market is valued at USD 7.93 billion in 2024, growing to USD 8.36 billion in 2025 and projected to reach approximately USD 13.48 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 5.44% between 2025 and 2034. Recent Developments in the Biosensors Market In July 2025, Abbott launched its latest generation of sensor-based glucose monitoring technology, the FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus * sensor, in Canada. sensor, in Canada. In July 2025, Trinity Biotech, a commercial-stage biotechnology company, introduced its novel flagship product, CGM+, a next-generation wearable biosensor platform designed for the $260 billion AI wearables market. In April 2025, FaradaIC Sensors raised 4.5M for the miniaturisation and mass production of electrochemical sensors on chips. In January 2024, Testing startup Grip Molecular aims for the launch of home-based infectious disease tests in 2027. Biosensors Market Key Players Abbott Laboratories Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. DexCom, Inc. Innovative Sensor Technology Masimo Molecular Devices, LLC Nova Biomedical Corporation Oura Royal Philips Siemens Healthcare smartQare STMicroelectronics WaveForm Diabetes Xsensio Segments Covered in The Report By Technology Electrochemical Optical Thermal Piezoelectric By Application Medical Cholesterol Blood Glucose Blood Gas Analyzer Pregnancy Testing Drug Discovery Infectious Disease Food Toxicity Bioreactor Agriculture Environment Others By End-User POC Testing Home Healthcare Diagnostics Food Industry Research Laboratories Security & Bio-Defense By Region North America U.S. Canada Asia Pacific China Japan India South Korea Thailand Europe Germany UK France Italy Spain Sweden Denmark Norway Latin America Brazil Mexico Argentina Middle East and Africa (MEA) South Africa UAE Saudi Arabia Kuwait Immediate Delivery Available | Buy This Premium Research @ https://www.towardshealthcare.com/price/5453 Access our exclusive, data-rich dashboard dedicated to the healthcare market - built specifically for decision-makers, strategists, and industry leaders. The dashboard features comprehensive statistical data, segment-wise market breakdowns, regional performance shares, detailed company profiles, annual updates, and much more. From market sizing to competitive intelligence, this powerful tool is one-stop solution to your gateway. Access the Dashboard: https://www.towardshealthcare.com/access-dashboard About Us Towards Healthcare is a leading global provider of technological solutions, clinical research services, and advanced analytics, with a strong emphasis on life science research. Dedicated to advancing innovation in the life sciences sector, we build strategic partnerships that generate actionable insights and transformative breakthroughs. As a global strategy consulting firm, we empower life science leaders to gain a competitive edge, drive research excellence, and accelerate sustainable growth. You can place an order or ask any questions, please feel free to contact us at sales@towardshealthcare.com Europe Region: +44 778 256 0738 North America Region: +1 8044 4193 44 APAC Region: +91 9356 9282 04 Web: https://www.towardshealthcare.com Our Trusted Data Partners Precedence Research | Statifacts | Towards Packaging | Towards Automotive | Towards Food and Beverages | Towards Chemical and Materials | Towards Consumer Goods | Towards Dental | Towards EV Solutions | Nova One Advisor | Healthcare Webwire | Packaging Webwire | Automotive Webwire Find us on social platforms: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Medium | Pinterest Fort Lauderdale, FL, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CentralReach, a leading provider of Autism and IDD Care software for ABA, multidisciplinary, and special education, is proud to announce that its Senior Vice President of People, Toni-Lynn Alfano, has been named to NJBIZs Leading Women in Business list for 2025. The recognition highlights the impact Alfano has made in creating an award-winning workplace culture at CentralReach and driving the companys growth. This year, NJBIZ expanded the Leading Women in Business program to celebrate even more of New Jerseys top businesswomen. Over 60 women from various industries were honored for their significant contributions to New Jerseys business landscape. Being recognized as one of New Jerseys leading businesswomen is truly an honor, said Alfano. I feel fortunate to be a part of a remarkable team that puts people first in working to deliver the best solutions for individuals diagnosed with autism and IDD. Guiding CentralReachs people and culture is extremely rewarding, and I look forward to continuing to make a positive impact on our employees and the individuals we serve. At CentralReach, Alfano leverages skills in transformational HR practices to develop high-performance teams while creating a strong, inclusive company culture. She oversees the alignment of business strategy with human capital management, workforce design, change management, talent development, and more. Under her leadership, CentralReach has achieved a 95% employee retention rate and secured seven award wins, highlighting the companys exemplary workplace culture over the last two years. This years winners were honored at an awards ceremony on August 19th at The Palace at Somerset Park. To view the official NJBIZ Leading Women in Business list, please visit: https://njbiz.com/2025-njbiz-leading-women-in-business-awards/. About CentralReach CentralReach is a leading provider of autism and IDD care software, providing a complete, end-to-end software and services platform that helps children and adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) - and those who serve them - unlock potential, achieve better outcomes, and live more independent lives. With its roots in Applied Behavior Analysis, the company is revolutionizing how the lifelong journey of autism and IDD care is enabled at home, school, and work with powerful and intuitive solutions purpose-built for each care setting. Trusted by more than 200,000 professionals globally, CentralReach is committed to ongoing product advancement, market-leading industry expertise, world-class client satisfaction, and support of the autism and IDD community to propel autism and IDD care into a new era of excellence. For more information, please visit CentralReach.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook. TORONTO, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX: DGS, DGS.PR.A, GDV, LBS, LCS, PWI, SBC) Brompton Funds announces distributions payable on September 15, 2025 to class A shareholders of record at the close of business on August 29, 2025 for each of the following funds: Ticker Amount Per Share Dividend Growth Split Corp. (DGS) DGS $ 0.10 Global Dividend Growth Split Corp. (GDV) GDV $ 0.10 Life & Banc Split Corp. (LBS) LBS $ 0.10 Brompton Lifeco Split Corp. (LCS) LCS $ 0.075 Sustainable Power Infrastructure Split Corp. (PWI) PWI $ 0.085 Brompton Split Banc Corp. (SBC) SBC $ 0.10 Brompton Funds announces distributions payable on September 15, 2025 to preferred shareholders of record at the close of business on August 29, 2025 for the following fund: Ticker Amount Per Share Dividend Growth Split Corp. DGS.PR.A $ 0.16875 The funds noted above offer distribution reinvestment plans (DRIP) for class A shareholders which provide class A shareholders with the ability to automatically reinvest distributions, commission free, and realize the benefits of compound growth. Class A shareholders can enroll in a DRIP program by contacting their investment advisor. About Brompton Funds Founded in 2000, Brompton is an experienced investment fund manager with income and growth focused investment solutions including exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) traded investment funds. For further information, please contact your investment advisor, call Bromptons investor relations line at 416-642-6000 (toll-free at 1-866-642-6001), email info@bromptongroup.com or visit our website at www.bromptongroup.com. You will usually pay brokerage fees to your dealer if you purchase or sell units or shares of the investment funds on the TSX or other alternative Canadian trading system (an exchange). If the units or shares are purchased or sold on an exchange, investors may pay more than the current net asset value when buying units of the investment fund and may receive less than the current net asset value when selling them. There are ongoing fees and expenses associated with owning units or shares of an investment fund. An investment fund must prepare disclosure documents that contain key information about the fund. You can find more detailed information about a fund in the public filings available at www.sedarplus.ca. Investment funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. Certain statements contained in this document constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information may relate to matters disclosed in this document and to other matters identified in public filings relating to the funds, to the future outlook of the funds and anticipated events or results and may include statements regarding the future financial performance of the funds. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by terms such as may, will, should, expect, plan, anticipate, believe, intend, estimate, predict, potential, continue or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Actual results may vary from such forward-looking information. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and we assume no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Streetline, a leader in intelligent transportation systems, announced the rollout of its advanced Truck Parking Availability System (TPAS) along Californias Interstate 10, one of the nations busiest freight arteries. In collaboration with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the new project will see TPAS deployments at all six sites in CA: Wildwood Eastbound, Whitewater Eastbound and Westbound, Cactus City Eastbound and Westbound, and Wileys Well Westbound. The state of CA has over 1.8 million registered trucks and I-10 serves as the primary gateway between the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beachhandling nearly 40% of all U.S. containerized importsand inland freight distribution hubs across the Southwest. The addition of Streetlines AI-powered system at these locations provides truck drivers with real-time, highly accurate parking availability data, reducing congestion, improving safety, and streamlining the flow of goods from the coast to the nations interior. In addition, the TPAS is fully integrated into Caltrans Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), enabling the states Traffic Operations Center to manage state rest areas with real-time visibility. The CA project builds on Streetlines existing TPAS site deployments along I-10 in the state of Arizona. This is part of a multistate project, the I-10 Corridor Coalition, that also includes New Mexico and Texas; a stretch of I-10 covering 1700 miles across the four states. Having been closely involved in shaping the I-10 TPAS concept, it was rewarding to drive between Phoenix and Riverside and see the live system in action, said Mark Jensen of Transpo Group. The technology was fully operational, and the parking availability displayed at three rest stops I checked was spot-on accurate. Its clear that this commercial solution is delivering real value to drivers on the ground. Streetlines networked TPAS system uses AI-enabled cameras and machine learning to continuously monitor truck entries and exits, calculate occupancy in real time, and share availability data to drivers through digital highway signs, Caltrans 511 traveler information system, and the mobile app. This advanced technology helps drivers plan safe rest stops, reduces illegal shoulder parking, and cuts unnecessary idling that contributes to emissions. Every truck driver knows the familiar stress of managing their operating hours and finding a safe place to park. Streetlines system along the I-10 is a clear game changer, said Bill Aboudi, President of AB Trucking, a long-time California-based freight carrier praising the initiative. It gives drivers peace of mind and helps carriers like us operate more efficiently while keeping our drivers safe. This is exactly the kind of smart investment California needs to support the supply chain. Californias I-10 corridor is the backbone of West Coast freight movement, said Taso Zografos, CEO of Streetline. By equipping Caltrans and the broader trucking community with precise, timely information, our TPAS improves driver safety, enables operator efficiency, and strengthens the resilience of Californias transport infrastructure. The Streetline TPAS is fully integrated into Caltrans Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), enabling the Traffic Operations Center to manage state rest areas with real-time visibility said Lori Eckerman, Consulting Director of Advanced Traffic Management LLC. To learn more about the CA or AZ TPAS projects or Streetline, executives from Streetline will be attending the annual ITS World Congress in Atlanta next week, August 25-28th. Contact Streetline for an introduction. About Streetline Streetline is a provider of smart infrastructure solutions serving parking environments, fleet transport, and commercial enterprises to address complex transportation challenges in new ways. Turnkey solutions leverage AI-based video platforms and include Smart Parking Solutions, Fleet and Truck Parking Solutions, Data Analytics and Management Tools, Infrastructure-Less Sensing, and Consulting. Streetline helps drive down operating costs while delivering enhanced visibility, efficiency, and safety. Learn more at www.streetline.com. Contact: Tony Eigen VP Corporate Communications Email: tony.eigen@streetline.com Phone: (508) 517-7326 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/681d2700-0394-4760-ade6-30090212e88c Dublin, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Industrial Edge - Company Evaluation Report, 2025" has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Industrial Edge Companies Quadrant is a comprehensive industry analysis that provides valuable insights into the global market for Industrial Edge. This quadrant offers a detailed evaluation of key market players, technological advancements, product innovations, and emerging trends shaping the industry. This 360 Quadrants evaluated over 100 companies, of which the Top 21 Industrial Edge Companies were categorized and recognized as quadrant leaders. The global industrial edge market is witnessing robust growth, driven by the escalating demand for real-time data processing and decision-making capabilities within industrial settings. North America currently leads the market, thanks to its well-established technological infrastructure and early adoption of edge computing solutions. Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region is expected to register the fastest growth, propelled by rapid industrialization, increasing IoT implementation, and government-backed initiatives supporting smart manufacturing. This market's expansion is further fueled by continuous advancements in edge computing, the rising number of IoT devices, and the growing need for low-latency applications across sectors such as manufacturing, energy, and transportation. This report offers a detailed analysis of the trends, drivers, opportunities, and major players influencing the industrial edge market landscape. The industrial edge market represents a dynamic segment focused on delivering edge computing solutions tailored for industrial environments, enabling data processing, analytics, and real-time decision-making directly at the point of data generation. It includes a wide range of technologies such as hardware, software, and integrated platforms that merge Operational Technology (OT) with Information Technology (IT), supported by centralized management systems. Designed for deployment directly on the factory floor, industrial edge solutions emphasize scalability, security, and ease of use - allowing efficient data collection, processing, and analysis from sensors, machines, and production lines. By relocating computing tasks to the network edge, this market addresses growing needs for low-latency functionality, reduced bandwidth usage, and improved data security. It enables manufacturers to streamline software deployment, optimize predictive maintenance, and extract actionable insights without straining conventional IT infrastructures. As a key enabler of Industry 4.0, the industrial edge market supports digital transformation by linking physical assets to advanced analytics, fostering agile and data-driven manufacturing while maintaining cost control and operational reliability. The 360 Quadrant maps the Industrial Edge companies based on criteria such as revenue, geographic presence, growth strategies, investments, and sales strategies for the market presence of the Industrial Edge quadrant. Key Players Key players in the Industrial Edge market include major global corporations and specialized innovators. These companies are actively investing in research and development, forming strategic partnerships, and engaging in collaborative initiatives to drive innovation, expand their global footprint, and maintain a competitive edge in this rapidly evolving market. Top 3 Companies Amazon Web Services, Inc. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a global leader in cloud computing and digital transformation. With offerings like AWS IoT Greengrass and AWS Outposts, AWS facilitates real-time data processing essential for IoT and media industries. AWS's strategic collaborations, such as partnerships with Siemens and Schneider Electric, enhance their cloud-edge integrations, vital for industry-specific solutions. The company's focus on AI/ML analytics ensures a robust infrastructure facilitating digital innovation across sectors. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) stands out with its comprehensive edge-to-cloud solutions, emphasizing AI, data-driven insights, and hybrid cloud capabilities. Notable offerings include the HPE Green Lake platform, which simplifies data management with an as-a-service model. HPE maintains a strong global presence and focuses on innovation and talent development, ensuring it remains a pivotal player in the business digital transformation journey. Its strategic acquisitions, such as Juniper Networks and Axis Security, underscore its commitment to expanding its capabilities in cloud-native networking and security solutions. Dell Technologies Dell Technologies is reshaping the industrial edge market through strategic innovations and collaborations. Integrating Dell NativeEdge with Microsoft Azure Arc, Dell aims to streamline edge operations and bolster AI capabilities. Dell's product portfolio features advanced computing solutions emphasizing security and scalability, catering to various industries. Dell's broad geographic presence and robust R&D investments underline its commitment to pushing the boundaries of industrial automation and edge computing solutions. Key Topics Covered: 1 Introduction 1.1 Market Definition 1.2 Inclusions and Exclusions 1.3 Stakeholders 2 Executive Summary 3 Market Overview 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Market Dynamics 3.2.1 Drivers 3.2.1.1 5G Network Rollout 3.2.1.2 Reduced Latency and Bandwidth Costs 3.2.1.3 Demand for Real-Time Decision-Making in Process Industries 3.2.1.4 Enhanced Resilience and Continuity 3.2.1.5 Surge in IoT Adoption 3.2.2 Restraints 3.2.2.1 Complex Infrastructure Requirements 3.2.2.2 Interoperability Issues 3.2.3 Opportunities 3.2.3.1 Expansion of Smart Manufacturing 3.2.3.2 Growth of Autonomous Systems 3.2.3.3 Scalable and Flexible Architectures 3.2.4 Challenges 3.2.4.1 Latency Variability 3.2.4.2 Cybersecurity Concerns 3.3 Value Chain Analysis 3.4 Ecosystem Analysis 3.5 Trends/Disruptions Impacting Customer Business 3.6 Technology Analysis 3.7 Porter's Five Forces Analysis 3.8 Patent Analysis 3.9 Key Conferences and Events, 2025-2026 3.10 Impact of AI 4 Overview of Industrial Edge 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Industrial Edge: Data Flow Types 4.3 Layers of Industrial Edge 4.4 Industrial Edge Technology Roadmap 4.5 Impact of Industrial Edge on Smart Manufacturing 4.6 Industrial Edge and Other Key Technologies 5 Competitive Landscape 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Key Player Strategies/Right to Win, 2021-2024 5.3 Revenue Analysis, 2019-2023 5.4 Market Share Analysis, 2024 5.5 Company Valuation and Financial Metrics 5.6 Brand Comparison 5.7 Company Evaluation Matrix, Key Players, 2024 5.8 Company Evaluation Matrix: Startups/SMEs, 2024 5.9 Competitive Scenario and Trends Company Profiles Key Players Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development Amazon Web Services, Inc. Dell Inc. Cisco Systems, Inc. IBM Google Microsoft Nvidia Corporation Siemens Intel Corporation Abb Rockwell Automation Schneider Electric Advantech Co., Ltd. Honeywell International Inc Emerson Electric Co. Other Key Players Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Nokia Belden Inc. Oracle Moxa Inc. Digi International Inc. Adlink Technology Inc. Vapour Io. Green Edge Computing Corp Litmus Automation Inc Zededa Clearblade For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ispfs2 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. LONDON, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ACG Metals Limited (LSE: ACG), listed in London and operating a copper-gold Gediktepe mine in Turkey, focused on the consolidation of the copper sector, today announced that Artem Volynets, CEO, and Patrick Henze, CFO will present live at the Clean Energy Metals Virtual Investor Conference hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com, on August 28th, 2025. DATE: August 28th TIME: 9:30 AM ET LINK: REGISTER HERE Available for 1x1 meetings: August 28, 29; September 1, 2 This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event. It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates. Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com . About ACG Metals Limited ACG Metals is a company with a vision to consolidate the copper industry through a series of roll-up acquisitions, with best-in-class ESG and carbon footprint characteristics. In September 2024, ACG successfully completed the acquisition of the Gediktepe Mine which is expected to transition to primary copper and zinc production from 2026 and will target annual steady-state copper equivalent production of 20-25 kt. Gediktepe produced 55koz of AuEq in 2024, generating close to $90m in free cash flow and that cash generation is expected to significantly increase with transaction to the copper production. ACG's team has extensive operational and M&A experience built through decades spent at blue-chip multinationals in the sector. The team brings a significant network as well as a commitment to ESG principles and strong corporate governance. For more information about ACG, please visit: https://acgmetals.com/ About Virtual Investor Conferences Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors. Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors. CONTACTS: Palatine Communications Advisor Conal Walsh / James Gilheany/ Kelsey Traynor/ Richard Seed acg@palatine-media.com Virtual Investor Conferences John M. Viglotti SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access OTC Markets Group (212) 220-2221 johnv@otcmarkets.com Washington, D.C., Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. water power industry is engaging in a day of action today in celebration of National Hydropower Day to remind Americans that hydro is here in their communities and highlight hydropowers tremendous yet often hidden benefits. The commemoration, created and led by the National Hydropower Association, is the annual celebration of the U.S. water power industry, which powers about 25 million homes across America and employs over 68,000 workers. Its my honor to wish everyone a happy National Hydropower Day! Launched in 2019, Hydro Day continues to grow and evolve into a fun and purposeful celebration of all things water power, said NHAs President and CEO, Malcolm Woolf. Im grateful to NHAs member companies and all water power champions for making a splash in creative and powerful ways this year. Hydro is Here is this years theme, which recognizes the many ways water power benefits American communities beyond the clean, 24/7, baseload generation it provides. These additional benefits include the good, high paying jobs it creates, myriad industries it supports, recreation areas it provides like lakes and trails, water management assets like irrigation and flood control, and many more. Already, lawmakers across America are celebrating National Hydropower Day, with Governors of at least six states across the political landscape Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Nebraska, New York, and Oklahoma declaring August 24th as Hydropower Day in their respective states. State and federal lawmakers across the country are also visiting local hydropower facilities to highlight the vast benefits of this reliable energy source and honor the workers who ensure its around-the-clock service. This show of support comes at a key time for the hydropower industry. Around 40% of the non-federal fleet is up for relicensing in the next decade and faces a prohibitively costly, duplicative, and needlessly lengthy regulatory process. This threatens to take about 16 GW of hydropower off the grid at a time of rising energy demand, since many power producers are currently deciding whether to surrender their assets. Theres also an increasingly urgent need to enact additional tax support for dam safety and environmental upgrades to the existing fleet: Much of Americas hydropower fleet is decades old, and these amazing facilities can continue to be forever assets if given the proper upgrades, added Woolf. However, costly relicensing expenses means a new investment tax credit is needed to help fund necessities like dam safety and fish passage improvements. Bipartisan legislation has broad support in both the Senate and the House (S. 1183 and H.R. 2160), and I urge Congress to pass it swiftly! For more information on National Hydropower Day and highlights from past celebrations, visit hydro.org/hydroday/. Bellevue, Washington, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Seattle Humane is once again participating in NBCUniversal Locals monthlong Clear The Shelters pet adoption and donation campaign in August. NBC and Telemundo stations partner with animal shelters and rescues in their communities to promote pet adoption and raise funds that support animal welfare. This year Seattle Humane is offering a monthlong promotion for Clear The Shelters, where the adoption fee is $1 per pound for dogs 50 pounds or more and cats one year and over. All available pets and their profiles can be found at SeattleHumane.org. Clear The Shelters provides an amazing opportunity every year to work with our local NBCU affiliates to raise awareness about the shelter pets who have been waiting the longest to find loving homes, said Seattle Humanes Brandon Macz, and to increase their visibility in the hopes that those families see them and make that life-changing trip to Seattle Humane. Seattle Humanes Clear The Shelters promotion was recently featured on New Day Northwest, a popular program produced by local NBC affiliate KING 5 News. The segment also highlighted a number of shelter dogs who have spent months looking for new homes. The nonprofit animal shelter completed 640 adoptions during the 2024 Clear The Shelters campaign and found homes for more than 350 pets so far during this monthlong campaign. Hills Pet Nutrition is generously sponsoring this years Clear The Shelters campaign and has been a longtime supporter of Seattle Humane, including providing meals for their shelter pets. People coming through the shelter will be able to pick up special goodies provided by Hills on Saturday, Aug. 23. For more on Clear The Shelters, including participating animal shelters and rescues, along with details on local events, visit ClearTheShelters.com and the Spanish-language site DesocuparlosAlbergues.com. About Seattle Humane Founded in 1897, Seattle Humane proudly promotes the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need. We are more than a shelterSeattle Humane is a pet resource center for the region, providing adoption services, a pet food bank and support for pet owners, low-cost spay/neuter surgeries and veterinary care, dog training, youth programs and more. Together with the support of our generous community, we save lives, complete families and keep pets with the people who love them. Seattle Humane is located in Bellevue at 13212 SE Eastgate Way. For more information, visit www.seattlehumane.org or call (425) 641-0080. About Clear The Shelters NBCUniversal Locals Clear The Shelters is an annual nationwide pet adoption and donation campaign held each August. As part of the initiative, NBC- and Telemundo-owned and affiliated stations partner with animal shelters and rescues in communities across the U.S. to promote pet adoption and raise funds for participating shelters. Since its 2015 inception, Clear The Shelters has led to nearly 1.2 million pet adoptions and raised more than $5 million. Longtime campaign supporters include Hills Pet Nutrition, a national sponsor for eight consecutive years, Greater Good Charities and WeRescue. Clear The Shelters was inspired by a 2014 North Texas pet adoption event hosted by NBC 5 / KXAS and Telemundo 39 / KXTX. For more information, visit ClearTheShelters.com. Attachment LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paranova Property Buyers, a local real estate solutions company, has announced a new in-house financing program designed to help families who have been unable to qualify for traditional bank mortgages achieve their dream of homeownership. In todays competitive housing market, many hardworking families are left behind due to strict lending requirements, credit challenges, or limited savings for down payments. Paranovas new program bridges this gap by offering flexible, straightforward financing on homes the company ownsafter Paranova acquires the propertiesmaking homeownership more accessible across Central Arkansas. Our mission has always been to create win-win solutions, said Andrew Yu, founder of Paranova Property Buyers. By offering in-house financing on properties we own, were helping families who feel shut out by banks move into quality homes while keeping the process simple and transparent. The program enables buyers to purchase Paranova-owned homes with manageable down payments and fair monthly installments, without navigating the red tape of traditional lenders. For homeowners looking to sell, Paranova continues to provide fast, as-is purchases and reliable closings; the in-house financing applies to Paranovas resale of those homes to local families. Paranova Property Buyers has built its reputation on solving challenging real estate problemsfrom helping homeowners avoid foreclosure to creating stress-free transactions for those needing to sell quickly. This initiative expands the companys commitment to innovation and community support by opening new doors for families eager to settle into stable housing. Everyone deserves a fair chance at homeownership, added Andrew Yu. We see this as an opportunity to help families put down roots while maintaining a dependable, transparent path for sellers and buyers alike. About Paranova Property Buyers Paranova Property Buyers is a trusted real estate solutions company based in Little Rock, Arkansas. The team specializes in helping homeowners navigate difficult situations, from foreclosure to probate, and prides itself on providing honest, fast, and hassle-free options for buying and selling homes. For more information, visit https://www.paranovabuyers.com or contact: COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Terra, the cloud-native platform modernizing Workers Compensation software, today announced a strategic partnership with Gradient AI , a leading provider of artificial intelligence solutions in the insurance industry. The partnership strengthens Terras existing AI capabilities with Gradients advanced risk modeling giving adjusters earlier visibility into high-risk cases and helping improve outcomes across the claims lifecycle. By combining Terras native automation tools, such as OCR-driven form processing and AI-powered claim note summarization, with Gradient AIs claims models, the integrated platform enables adjusters to triage cases faster, focus on those most at risk and reduce claim costs while supporting better recovery for injured workers. Speaking about the partnership, James Benham , CEO and Co-Founder of Terra, stated, Claims adjusters today are buried in paperwork and struggling to keep up with caseloads. With Gradient AI, Terra empowers adjusters to quickly identify the most critical claims and act decisively. This partnership enhances our mission to bring intelligence, speed, and clarity to every step of the claims process. Workers compensation adjusters are under constant pressure to make fast, accurate decisions with limited resources, said Stan Smith, CEO of Gradient AI . By embedding our AI claims intelligence into Terras platform, were helping teams pinpoint high-risk claims earlier and prioritize the cases that need attention most. The result is a more proactive, data-driven approach that improves both operational efficiency and outcomes for injured workers. This partnership comes at a time when the workers compensation industry is undergoing a necessary transformation. Faced with outdated systems, complex workflows, and increasing pressure to do more with less, insurers, TPAs, and service providers need smart tools that reduce manual work and deliver actionable insights. By integrating Gradient AIs risk models directly into Terras cloud-native platform, clients gain access to an intelligent, seamless solution that supports more effective claims handling from day one. Terra remains committed to delivering practical, AI-powered innovation to modernize workers compensation. With this partnership, the company continues to advance its 2025 vision: to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce complexity, and empower the industry to make faster, smarter, and more transparent decisionsultimately improving the experience for adjusters and the outcomes for injured workers. Explore the full roadmap and experience Terra in action by requesting a personalized demo here or visiting http://terra.insure . About Terra Terra is a cloud-native platform transforming insurance claims and policy management that is primarily focused on Workers Comp. By streamlining operations, centralizing workflows, and integrating with critical systems, Terra delivers cutting-edge solutions designed to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance overall management for TPAs, Carriers, SIFs, SIGs, Captives, MGAs, and Medical Service Providers. About Gradient AI Gradient AI is a leading provider of proven artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for the insurance industry. Its solutions improve loss ratios and profitability by predicting underwriting and claim risks with greater accuracy, as well as reducing quote turnaround times and claim expenses through intelligent automation. Unlike other solutions that use a limited claims and underwriting dataset, Gradient AIs software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform leverages a vast industry data lake comprising of tens of millions of policies and claims. It also incorporates numerous other features including economic, health, geographic, and demographic information. Customers include some of the most recognized insurance carriers, MGAs, MGUs, TPAs, risk pools, PEOs, and large self-insured employers across all major lines of insurance. By using Gradient AI's solutions, insurers of all types achieve a better return on risk. To learn more about Gradient AI, visit: https://www.gradientai.com or follow on LinkedIn . London, United Kingdom, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the rapid development of digital assets, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT are no longer simply investments; they are gradually becoming a form of physical consumption, transforming people's lifestyles. As the world's leading cryptocurrency car purchase platform, DIFD AUTO is leading an unprecedented transformation in the automotive trading landscape, enabling users worldwide to truly realize the dream of buying a car with digital assets. Why choose DIFD AUTO Support for Multiple Major Cryptocurrencies Whether you hold BTC, ETH, or USDT, DIFD AUTO provides a seamless payment experience. We leverage blockchain technology to ensure secure, transparent, and efficient transactions, with every step publicly traceable. Authenticity Guaranteed, Direct Global Supply Chain Connection DIFD AUTO partners with renowned global automakers and authorized dealers to provide 100% brand-new, authentic vehicles with guaranteed quality. From luxury sedans and SUVs to commercial pickup trucks, we offer a full range of models to meet the needs of every buyer. Competitive Pricing and Limited-Time Offers At DIFD AUTO, you can enjoy car prices significantly lower than the market Up to 30% off on select models New users can register and receive up to $5,000 in credits for purchasing a car. Bulk purchases (3 or more) receive an immediate 30% discount. This not only maximizes the value of cryptocurrencies but also makes car ownership an efficient asset allocation method. Global Logistics and After-Sales Service Our logistics network covers major markets including Europe, America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, ensuring safe and fast vehicle delivery. DIFD AUTO also offers global buyers up to a 5-year warranty and free maintenance, making cross-border car buying worry-free. Trust and Expertise Build Brand Value In large-scale cross-border transactions, security and trust are crucial for buyers. DIFD AUTO utilizes multiple safeguards, including blockchain payment, smart contracts, and international logistics insurance, to ensure the security of every transaction. Our customer service and advisory team speaks multiple languages, including English, Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, and Korean, ensuring seamless communication with our global customers. Whether you're in Dubai, New York, Frankfurt, or Seoul, we can provide you with expert support. The digital economy has arrived. Cryptocurrency is not just an investment tool, but a crucial form of future consumption. Choosing DIFD AUTO means choosing a safer, more efficient, and more forward-thinking car purchasing channel. Register with DIFD AUTO now and receive Up to $5,000 in new user discounts Limited-time discounts of up to 30% on select models Direct global shipping and 5-year maintenance guarantee Put your digital assets on the road and embark on your future of mobility! DIFD AUTO - The world's leading cryptocurrency car purchasing platform. The future is here. It's time to start your new automotive life with blockchain. SAN DIEGO, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP announces that purchasers of KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. (NYSE: KLC) common stock in or traceable to KinderCares October 2024 initial public offering (the IPO), have until October 13, 2025 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the KinderCare class action lawsuit. Captioned Gollapalli v. KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc., No. 25-cv-01424, and pending in the District of Oregon, the KinderCare class action lawsuit charges KinderCare as well as certain of KinderCares top executives and directors, KinderCares controlling shareholder, and the underwriters of the IPO with violations of the Securities Act of 1933. If you suffered substantial losses and wish to serve as lead plaintiff of the KinderCare class action lawsuit, please provide your information here: https://www.rgrdlaw.com/cases-kindercare-learning-companies-inc-class-action-lawsuit-klc.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 info@rgrdlaw.com. CASE ALLEGATIONS: KinderCare provides early education and child care services in the United States. In the IPO, KinderCare sold over 27 million shares of common stock to investors at $24 per share, raising $648 million in gross offering proceeds. The KinderCare class action lawsuit alleges that the registration statement for the IPO was false and/or misleading and/or failed to disclose that: (i) numerous incidents of child abuse, neglect, and harm had occurred at KinderCare facilities; (ii) KinderCare did not provide the highest quality care possible at its facilities, and, indeed, in numerous instances had failed to provide even basic care, meet minimum standards in the child care industry, or comply with the laws and regulations governing the care of children; and (iii) as a result, KinderCare was exposed to a material, undisclosed risk of lawsuits, adverse regulatory action, negative publicity, reputational damage, and business loss. Since the IPO, the price of KinderCare stock fell to lows near $9 per share. The plaintiff is represented by Robbins Geller, which has extensive experience in prosecuting investor class actions including actions involving financial fraud. You can view a copy of the complaint by clicking here. THE LEAD PLAINTIFF PROCESS: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased KinderCare common stock in or traceable to the IPO to seek appointment as lead plaintiff in the KinderCare 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 KinderCare class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the KinderCare class action lawsuit. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff of the KinderCare class action lawsuit. ABOUT ROBBINS GELLER: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is one of the worlds leading law firms representing investors in securities fraud and shareholder litigation. Our Firm has been ranked #1 in the ISS Securities Class Action Services rankings for four out of the last five years for securing the most monetary relief for investors. In 2024, we recovered over $2.5 billion for investors in securities-related class action cases more than the next five law firms combined, according to ISS. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller is one of the largest plaintiffs firms in the world, and the Firms attorneys have obtained many of the largest securities class action recoveries in history, including the largest 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 info@rgrdlaw.com WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Monumental Financial Planning, a private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC is excited to announce the addition of Alan Butler, Associate Financial Advisor, to its team. With more than 23 years of experience in the financial services industry, Alan brings a deep well of knowledge, strategic insight, and a strong commitment to helping clients achieve their long-term financial goals. Alan has been a respected advisor in the Baltimore office of Morgan Stanley for the past 18 years, serving individuals, families, and businesses with integrity and excellence. He helped individuals and families navigate complex financial landscapes with clarity and confidence. Alans deep experience in wealth management, retirement planning, and investment strategy makes him a valuable addition to the Monumental Financial Planning team. "We're thrilled to welcome Alan to our team," said John Cortale, Managing Partner at Monumental Financial Planning. His experience, reputation, and dedication to doing whats right for clients align perfectly with our values. Alans presence strengthens our mission of providing personalized, high-quality financial guidance to our growing client base. At Monumental Financial Planning, Alan will focus on delivering tailored financial planning solutions to a diverse client base, continuing the practices tradition of trusted, relationship-driven service. Im excited to join a practice that shares my commitment to personalized service and long-term client success, said Alan Butler. Monumental Financial Planning has a stellar reputation, and I look forward to contributing to its legacy of excellence. To connect with Alan Butler or learn more about the team at Monumental Financial Planning, visit https://www.ameripriseadvisors.com/team/monumental-financial-planning/. About Monumental Financial Planning (formerly The Cortale Group): Monumental Financial Planning Financial is a leading independent financial planning practice dedicated to empowering clients to achieve their financial goals through personalized strategies and unwavering support. About Ameriprise Financial: Ameriprise Financial is a longstanding leader in financial planning and advice. Investment products are not insured by the FDIC, NCUA or any federal agency, are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed by any financial institution, and involve investment risks including possible loss of principal and fluctuation in value. Investment advisory products and services are made available through Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC, a registered investment adviser. Securities offered by Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC. Member FINRA and SIPC. 2024 Ameriprise Financial, Inc. All rights reserved. 8209375ACMR0825 Greensboro, NC, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Technologies, LTD (OTCPK: GTLL), a diversified public muti-operational company focused on innovation in health and wellness, today issued a strategic update following significant adjustments to its operating structure and portfolio. Global Technologies, LTD today announced the formation of its wholly owned subsidiary, GTLL Advisory Group, LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company created to provide advisory and consulting services to small and medium-sized businesses. The new subsidiary will initially focus on the health and wellness industry, including medical spas, clinics, and wellness centers. In connection with the launch, GTLL Advisory Group has filed to register the trade name Glowell Advisors with the Wyoming Secretary of State. Upon approval, the company will conduct business under the Glowell Advisors brand and operate online through its website at www.glowelladvisors.com. GTLL Advisory Group will be managed on an interim basis by H. Wyatt Flippen, Chief Executive Officer of Global Technologies, LTD, until a dedicated manager is hired to lead company. The company has several contracts in the pipeline for future client engagements. We believe that GTLL Advisory Group and the Glowell Advisors brand will strengthen our presence in the growing wellness services sector, said Wyatt Flippen, CEO of Global Technologies, LTD. By leveraging our expertise and expanding into advisory services, we are positioning Global Technologies to create new growth opportunities and deliver long-term value to shareholders. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding future growth opportunities, client engagements, management hiring, and the anticipated operations of GTLL Advisory Group, LLC and Glowell Advisors. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Factors that could cause such differences include, among others, changes in market conditions, competition, regulatory developments, and the ability of the Company to attract and retain clients and personnel. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Investor Contact: Wyatt Flippen, CEO and Chairman of the Board W.Flippen@globaltechnologiesltd.info Investors can contact the law firm at no cost to learn more about recovering their losses LOS ANGELES, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Portnoy Law Firm advises Snap Inc. ("Snap" or the "Company") (NYSE: SNAP) investors of a class action representing investors that bought securities between April 29, 2025 and August 5, 2025, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Snap investors have until October 20, 2025 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. CASE ALLEGATIONS: Snap operates as a technology company. The Snap class action lawsuit alleges that defendants misled investors by creating the false impression that they had reliable information regarding Snaps expected advertising revenue and growth, while publicly attributing uncertainty to broader macroeconomic conditions. In reality, according to the complaint, Snaps optimistic statements about advertising growth and earnings potential were unfounded, as they relied too heavily on execution capabilities the company was already failing to meet. At the time defendants blamed external factors, Snap was in fact experiencing the effects of a significant internal execution error. The Snap class action lawsuit further alleges that on August 5, 2025, defendants reported disappointing second quarter 2025 financial results, revealing that advertising revenue had slowed sharply due in part to Snap shipping a change that caused some campaigns to clear the auction at substantially reduced prices. On this news, Snaps stock price fell more than 17%, according to the complaint. Please visit our website to review more information and submit your transaction information. 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. Lesley F. Portnoy, Esq. Admitted CA and NY Bar lesley@portnoylaw.com 310-692-8883 www.portnoylaw.com Attorney Advertising Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) celebrated the opening of the Bitonte College of Dentistry with ceremonies to welcome the inaugural class of 52 students, on Friday, August 22, 2025. Thirty-two of the students are from Ohio. We are grateful for the generosity of the Bitonte Family Foundation and the State of Ohio for supporting the establishment of our fourth college, which aims to provide dental care in rural and urban communities throughout the region, said NEOMED President Dr. John Langell. Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel was among the dignitaries who visited the NEOMED campus to address the crowd for the historic occasion. For us to have this opportunity to have the states third dental school right here because we have that need: All 52 students I only have one request that you stay in Ohio, said Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel. We need more dentists serving Ohio and these students aspire to meet that need, said Dr. Sorin Teich, dean of NEOMEDS Bitonte College of Dentistry. The Bitonte College of Dentistry is the only public dentistry school in Northeast Ohio . It will address the largest unmet health care need in Ohio oral health, with many counties facing a shortage of dentists. A White Coat Ceremony was also held on Friday to welcome the inaugural class of the Bitonte College of Dentistry. The White Coat event marks the beginning of a students journey toward a professional career in healthcare. The Bitonte College of Dentistry is named in honor of the Bitonte Family, as Drs. Gary and David Bitonte made a $10 million donation in honor of their parents through the Dr. Dominic A. and Helen M. Bitonte Family Foundation. About NEOMED Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) creates transformational leaders and improves health through education, discovery and service. NEOMEDs mission is made possible through its network consisting of several nationally ranked healthcare systems. The University has four Colleges Medicine, Pharmacy, Graduate Studies and the Bitonte College of Dentistry. Its programs offer Doctor of Medicine (M.D.), Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), and Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) degrees, as well as masters and doctoral degrees in other medical and life science areas. In addition to the basic sciences at its Colleges, NEOMED conducts research to advance innovation in healthcare. NEOMEDs unique areas of service include Coordinating Centers of Excellence that disseminate best practices for treating mental illness. Primary care patient services are offered at NEOMED Health Care and the Universitys award-winning NEOMED Free Clinic. Learn more at neomed.edu. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mustang Energy Corp. (CSE: MEC, OTC:MECPF, FRA:92T) (the Company or Mustang) is pleased to announce the completion of its first phase of field exploration activities on the Surprise Creek Uranium-Copper Project (the Project), located in a prospective region known for its mineral potential northwest of the Athabasca Basin. The Company entered into an option agreement (the Option Agreement) with Thunderbird Resources Ltd. (Thunderbird) to acquire an undivided 80% interest in the Project. Please refer to the Companys news release dated June 4, 2025, and June 16, 2025, as filed under the Companys SEDAR+ profile, for further details regarding the Option Agreement. The field program at Surprise Creek included surface prospecting activities and detailed rock sampling, aimed at further refining target areas and outlining mineralization and alteration. Surface samples were collected from nine locations of interest where previous uranium and copper mineralization has been observed, or geophysical anomalies have been identified. Structural data was collected from the Surprise Creek Fault area in an effort to better understand the mineralization controls. Results from this phase of exploration are expected to inform drill targeting on the Project. Surprise Creek Uranium-Copper Project The Surprise Creek Project is located 25 km north-west of the Beaverlodge Uranium District, which hosts the historical uranium mines of Gunnar and Eldorado (Ace-Fay-Verna) and is located northwest of the Athabasca Basin (see figure 1). Figure 1: Surprise Creek Uranium-Copper Project Overview and Location 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 A major high-resolution airborne magnetic, radiometric, and VLF-EM survey completed by Thunderbird in September 2024 identified multiple new uranium targets (see THB:ASX announcement dated 19 December 2024 titled Exploration to commence at Rockvale Antimony-Gold Project). A strong uranium radiometric anomaly has been identified at the previously defined Surprise Creek Fault drill target, where historical drilling returned results of up to 2.1m of 4.37% U 3 O 8 from 57m1, 5 and surface sampling by Thunderbird returned assays up to 7.98% U 3 O 8 .2 The area of surface uranium mineralisation extends discontinuously over a strike length of up to 500 m. 2 In addition, the Project contains historical copper prospects including Bob Lake, Ellis Bay, and Waterloo South. Historical drilling results include 9.1m @ 2.07% Cu and 27.3g/t Ag from surface at Bob Lake,3 and 6.6m @ 1.31% Cu from 11m at Ellis Bay.3 Rock chip sampling of historical copper occurrences completed by Thunderbird in 2022 and 2023 returned assays up 61.7% Cu, 27.6% Cu and 9% Cu.2, 3 A work permit application for exploration, including drilling at the Surprise Creek Fault prospect, has recently been approved by the Saskatchewan Government. References 1 ASX:THB announcement dated 6th July 2022 titled Surprise Creek data review highlights high-grade targets 2 ASX:THB announcement dated 22 December 2022 titled High-grade Uranium rock chip results at Surprise Creek 3 ASX:THB announcement dated 13th February 2023 titled Exciting Copper Targets at Surprise Creek 4 ASX:THB announcement dated 13th October 2022 titled Exceptional Uranium and Copper Rock chip results 5 Saskatchewan Mineral Assessment Database Drill hole VT20, SMAD# 74N10-0368, Retrieved from http://mineral-assessment.saskatchewan.ca/Pages/BasePages/Main.aspx 6 Saskatchewan Mineral Assessment Database, SMAD# 74N11-0063, Retrieved from http://mineral-assessment.saskatchewan.ca/Pages/BasePages/Main.aspx Cautionary Statement The Company advises that, notwithstanding their proximity and location, discoveries of minerals on or near historic mines such as Gunnar and Eldorado, and any promising results thereof, are not necessarily indicative of the mineralization of, or located on the Project, or the Companys ability to commercially exploit the Project, or to locate any commercially exploitable deposits therefrom. The Company cautions investors on relying on this information as the Company has not confirmed the accuracy or reliability of the information. Update on the Ford Lake Project On August 12, 2025, the Company issued 1,500,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (the Consideration Shares) to Stallion Uranium Corp. (Stallion) pursuant to the purchase and sale agreement dated February 12, 2024, as amended on August 8, 2025, to allow the Company to accelerate the payment of the purchase price (the Agreement). The issuance of the Consideration Shares marked the payment of the final instalment of the aggregate purchase price to be paid by the Company to Stallion for the purchase and sale of the Ford Lake Project. The Consideration Shares remain subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day from the date of issuance. Grant of Stock Options Mustang announces that it has granted (the Grant) an aggregate of 5,500,000 incentive stock options (each, a Stock Option) to purchase up to 5,500,000 common shares of the Company (each, a Share) to its directors, officers and consultants under its Omnibus Equity Incentive Plan. The Stock Options are exercisable for a period of three years from the date of Grant, expiring on August 20, 2028, at a price of $0.10 per Share, and vested immediately. Mustang also granted 100,000 Stock Options to purchase up to 100,000 Shares to a consultant, with such Stock Options exercisable for a period of three years expiring on August 22, 2028, at a price of $0.12 per Share, and vested immediately. All Options and the Shares underlying such Options are subject to a hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance. Qualifying Statement The scientific and technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Troy Marfleet, P.Geo., Technical Advisor for Mustang Energy, a registered member of the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan. Mr. Marfleet is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About Mustang Energy Corp.: Mustang Energy is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on the discovery and development of high-potential uranium and critical mineral assets. The company holds a portfolio of 147,153 hectares of strategically located properties in Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basinone of the worlds premier uranium districts. Mustang is advancing early-stage exploration through modern techniques and a disciplined, data-driven approach. The Company is committed to building long-term value through responsible exploration and a focus on high-impact targets in underexplored areas. For further information, please contact: Mustang Energy Corp. Attention: Nicholas Luksha, CEO and Director Phone: (604) 838-0184 Neither the CSE nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as intends, believes or anticipates, or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, should, would or occur. This information and these statements, referred to herein as forwardlooking statements, are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things, the future potential of the mineral claims held by the Company, the results from the current phase of exploration on the Project informing drill targeting on the Project and the completion of future work on the Project. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation the assumption that the Company will be able to continue exploring its properties given various environmental and economic factors outside of its control and that the Company will be able to obtain its intended results from the exploration on the Project. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e9f50443-2666-4e8b-8b42-95b1ad331c73 NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE: NVO) between May 7, 2025 and July 28, 2025, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), of the important September 30, 2025 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased Novo Nordisk securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Novo Nordisk class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=34168 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for more information. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 30, 2025. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm 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. DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants provided overwhelmingly positive statements to investors while, at the same time, disseminating materially false and misleading statements and/or concealing material adverse facts concerning the true state of Novo Nordisks growth potential. Notably, Novo Nordisks asserted potential to capitalize on the compounded market greatly understated the potential impact of the personalization exception to the compounded GLP-1 exclusion and overstated the likelihood that such patients would switch to Novo Nordisks branded alternatives. Further, defendants greatly overstated the potential GLP-1 market or otherwise, Novos capability to penetrate said markets to achieve continued growth. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Novo Nordisk class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=34168 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for more information. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. ------------------------------- Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com VANCOUVER, August 21, 2025 - Pegasus Resources Inc. (TSXV:PEGA)(OTCID:SLTFF)(FSE:0QS0) ("Pegasus" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed a non-brokered private placement of 4,168,000units (the "Units") at a price of $0.06 per Unit for gross proceeds of $250,080.00 (the "Offering"). Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (a "Share") and one-half of one transferable common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one additional Share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.08 until August 21, 2027. The net proceeds of the Offering will be used for general working capital and related expenses. The Company paid no finders' fees on this Offering. All securities issued under the Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period expiring December 22, 2025, in accordance with applicable securities laws. The Offering constitutes a "related party transaction" within the meaning of TSXV Policy 5.9 and Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") because Insiders of the Company, being Noah Komavli, Christian Timmins and Point A Pierre Capital Ltd. (a company controlled by Dave Bissoondatt), participated in the Offering and have acquired 893,000 Units for $53,580 in connection with the Offering. The Company has relied on 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 the Offering as the fair market value (as determined under MI 61-101) of the Insider participation in the Offering is below 25% of the Company's market capitalization (as determined in accordance with MI 61-101). The Offering is subject to final approval of the TSXV and all other necessary regulatory approvals. About Pegasus Resources Inc. Pegasus Resources Inc. is a Canadian uranium exploration company focused on advancing high-potential projects in the United States. The Company's flagship asset, the Jupiter Uranium Project in Utah, is a drill-ready property positioned for resource expansion. With a commitment to strengthening domestic uranium supply, Pegasus is strategically developing its portfolio to capitalize on the growing demand for nuclear energy. For additional information, please visit www.pegasusresourcesinc.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors: Christian Timmins President, CEO and Director Pegasus Resources Inc. 700 - 838 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6C 0A6 PH: 1-403-597-3410 X: https://twitter.com/MrChris_Timmins X: https://twitter.com/pegasusresinc E: info@pegasusresourcesinc.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements regarding the private placement and the use of proceeds. Forward-looking statements are based on expectations, estimates, and projections at the time of this news release and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including those relating to market conditions and the Company's business prospects and plans. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. SOURCE: Pegasus Resources, Inc. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire 173,562 Silver Equivalent Ounces Sold During Second Quarter of Commercial Production Revenues of US$5.4 Million in Q2 2025, Gross Profit of US$1.3 Million C$19.5 Million Private Placement Closed Following Quarter-End Vancouver, August 21, 2025 - Sierra Madre Gold and Silver Ltd. (TSXV: SM) (OTCQX: SMDRF) ("Sierra Madre" or the "Company") is pleased to provide financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025 ("Q2 2025"). Unless otherwise noted, all amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars. The Company will participate in a webinar to discuss the financial results on Monday, August 25 at 2pm ET. Registration details below. Alex Langer, Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are very happy with the results of only our second quarter of commercial operations at La Guitarra silver-gold mine complex in Mexico. The second quarter generated revenues of $5.4 million and a gross profit of $1.3 million, with both numbers showing growth over Q1 2025, despite Q2 2025 production being impacted by an earlier-than-usual onset of seasonal heavy rains in May, which resulted in power outages with correlating plant downtime. Our operating team remains focused on fine-tuning the mining and milling processes at the site, while ramping up the higher-grade Coloso mining centre where dewatering and underground development are underway. We expect grades to increase into the second half of 2025 from development work underway at both the Guitarra and Coloso mines." Mr. Langer continued, "Following quarter-end, we also closed a C$19.5 million financing supported by high-quality institutional shareholders. We are planning to deploy these funds in part to purchase additional equipment and implement improvements at the mine to reduce costs and increase production grades and volumes in the near-term. We are also finalizing plans for a plant expansion to increase capacity up from the current 500 t/d run rate, and preparing for a significant exploration program at the East District concessions, which will include a drill program of over 20,000 metres. On behalf of the entire team, I would like to thank our existing shareholders for their continued confidence and support and welcome our new shareholders who participated in this financing. Your commitment strengthens our ability to advance our strategic goals, and we look forward to continuing to build value for all stakeholders." Q2 2025 Highlights Net Revenues: Silver revenues for the quarter totalled $2.18 million ($33.20 per ounce) and gold revenues totalled $3.59 million ($3,271 per ounce). Net revenues for Q2 2025 increased by 10.7% to $5.36 million or $30.87 per AgEq ounce sold as compared to $4.84 million or $29.32 per AgEq ounce in the quarter ended March 31, 2025 ("Q1 2025"). Sales: In Q2, the Company sold 65,683 ounces of silver ("Ag") and 1,096 ounces of gold ("Au") or 173,562 silver equivalent ("AgEq") ounces, Q1 2025 sales totalled 75,137 ounces of Ag and 1,022 ounces of Au or 165,093 AgEq ounces, based on the ratio of Au and Ag prices realized for each shipment in the period. Cost of sales was $4.07 million for Q2 2025, or approximately $23.45 per AgEq ounce sold as compared to $3.60 million, or $21.84 per AgEq ounce sold for Q1 2025. Site-Level Cost Impacts: In Q2 2025, production unit costs were impacted by the effects of an early onset of the Mexico rainy season and related power outages on production volumes, wage increases, increased depreciation and depletion compared to Q1 2025 due to a higher proportion of in-resource mineralized material mined and the resulting units-of-production depletion as well as depreciation of mining interests and equipment. The Company is currently evaluating power generation options and hopes to have power redundancies available for the start of the next rainy season in Q2 2026. In Q2 2025, costs also increased when compared to Q1 2025 due to increased rental costs and the impact of the strengthening of the Mexican Peso vs the U.S. dollar on Peso-denominated mining costs. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 37.5% to $1.46 million for Q2 2025, compared to $1.07 million for Q1 2025. All-in-sustaining costs per AgEq ounce sold of $30.10 per ounce, compared to $28.98 in Q1 2025. Gross Profit was $1.29 million for Q2 2025 ($1.23 million in Q1 2025). Cash provided by operating activities was $1.00 million for the six months ended June 30, 2025 ("H1 2025") and includes $535,000 generated in Q1 2025. Current assets, including cash, totaled $5.93 million at June 30, 2025 ($4.33 million at March 31, 2025). Closed C$19.5M Private Placement: On July 24, and July 31, 2025, the Company closed the first and second tranches, respectively, of a C$19.5 million brokered private placement. First Majestic Loan Extension: On May 30, 2025, the Company and First Majestic Silver Corp. agreed to extend the $5 million senior secured project financing loan for an additional twelve months to mature on May 8, 2027. All other terms of the agreement remain unchanged. Additional Operational Details Mine Operations: Milled 41,235 tonnes of material, with silver recoveries averaging 76.62% and gold recoveries averaging 77.95%. In Q1 2025, the Company milled 39,167 tonnes of material, silver recoveries averaged 79.21% while gold recoveries averaged 78.77%. Production: Produced 66,011 ounces of silver and 1,048 ounces of gold (vs. production of 70,176 ounces of silver and 1,001 ounces of gold in Q1 2025). Concentrate Deliveries: Completed deliveries totalling 780 dry metric tonnes of silver/gold concentrates (871 dry metric tonnes delivered in Q1 2025). Coloso Mining: At the end of Q1 2025, Sierra Madre made the decision to re-start production at the Coloso underground mine and subsequently, on April 29 2025, announced the start of mining at Coloso within the Guitarra Complex with the first stope being brought into production. The estimated resource grades at Coloso are significantly higher in both silver and gold compared to the Guitarra mine veins. In Q2 2025, Coloso produced 649 tonnes of mineralized material, which was below the mine plan expectations due to production sequencing and a focus on development, based on the decision to allocate resources to bring additional stopes into production. Additional production areas would allow the Company to smooth out the production profile and improve efficiencies. In July 2025, the additional production areas allowed Coloso to generate 576 tonnes in a marked improvement over the previous months. Equipment Purchases: In H1 2025, spent $764,000 to acquire mining and mobile equipment and refurbish underground equipment (including $378,000 spent in Q1 2025). Development: $113,000 spent on mine development in H1 2025. Exploration: spent $362,000 on exploration and evaluation activities in H1 2025, which includes capitalized concession fees. Outlook The Company anticipates improved head grades of the mineralized material in the second half of 2025, resulting in increased production and a decrease in mining costs on a per-ounce basis going forward, with Coloso production and reductions in equipment rentals expected to be the key drivers of these improvements. The improved head grades are anticipated as we continue to complete development work and de-watering to access the higher-grade stopes in the Guitarra and Coloso mines. Quarterly Financial Overview Selected financial information set out below is based on and derives from the unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements of the Company for each of the quarters listed, which have been prepared in accordance with IFRS, as applicable to quarterly reporting: Jun. 30, 2025 (Q2) ($) Mar. 31, 2025 (Q1) ($) Dec. 31, 2024 (Q4) ($) Sep. 30, 2024 (Q3) ($) Jun. 30, 2024 (Q2) ($) Mar. 31, 2024 (Q1) ($) Dec 31, 2023 (Q4) ($) Sep. 30, 2023 (Q3) ($) Revenues 5,357,415 4,841,242 3,938,323 2,535,617 - - - - Gross profit 1,288,214 1,230,723 1,111,948 248,031 - - - - Care and maintenance expenses - - - - 349,401 553,693 657,197 794,937 Foreign exchange loss (gain) 56,879 (64,065) (175,608) 52,302 (207,388) 48,921 168,091 242,452 Interest expense 220,813 199,845 191,469 55,250 28,350 - - - Impairment - - - - - - 2,906,681 - Income (loss) for the quarter 276,160 335,875 (37,936) (947,092) (1,885,874) (1,204,826) (4,695,897) (1,840,393) Total assets 37,714,506 36,182,560 34,891,015 34,479,382 33,931,187 30,226,383 30,478,627 39,672,959 Total non-current liabilities 8,817,414 8,710,461 8,431,885 8,249,918 7,929,490 2,935,772 2,949,152 8,093,548 Income (loss) per share - basic and diluted 0.00 0.00 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.03) (0.01) Weighted average number of shares - basic - diluted 154,225,345 155,576,337 153,942,993 154,295,653 153,942,993 153,942,993 152,869,623 152,869,623 152,692,993 152,692,993 149,827,944 149,827,944 146,504,261 146,504,261 143,998,401 143,998,401 WEBINAR REGISTRATION The Company will participate in a webinar on August 25, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET hosted by Adelaide Capital, reviewing Sierra Madre's Q2 2025 results, including key operating and financial highlights and mine development updates. Questions can be submitted during the session or in advance to deborah@adcap.ca. Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wMse8zEUTuaoHxmQQvYdLw#/registration A replay will be made available on the Adelaide Capital YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Jpt_DWjF1qSCzfKlpLMWw. This news release should be read in conjunction with the Company's condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the quarter ended June 30, 2025 and associated Management Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A"), both are available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) and on the Company's website (www.sierramadregoldandsilver.com). AgEq ounces produced have been determined using a ratio of 97.86 Au:Ag for Q2 2025 and 88.96 for Q1 2025. AgEq ounces sold have been determined using the actual silver and gold prices obtained during the quarter. The determined ratio used was 98.43 Au:Ag for Q2 2025 and 88.20 for Q1 2025. The Company reports non-GAAP measures, which include Cash Cost of Production per Tonne, Cash Cost per AgEq ounce sold, All-in Sustaining Cash Cost per AgEq ounce sold and Average Realized Price per AgEq ounce sold and Adjusted EBITDA. These measures are widely used in the mining industry as a benchmark for performance, but do not have a standardized meaning and may differ from methods used by other companies with similar descriptions. See "Non-GAAP and Other Financial Measures" section of the Company's Q2 2025 MD&A for definitions and reconciliations to GAAP measures. Qualified Person Mr. Gregory Smith, P. Geo, Director of Sierra Madre, is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the technical data and information contained in this news release. Mr. Smith has verified the technical and scientific data disclosed herein. About Sierra Madre Sierra Madre Gold and Silver Ltd. (TSXV: SM) (OTCQX: SMDRF) is a precious metals development and exploration company focused on the Guitarra mine in the Temascaltepec mining district, Mexico, and the exploration and development of its Tepic property in Nayarit, Mexico. The Guitarra mine is a permitted underground mine, which includes a 500 t/d processing facility that operated until mid-2018 and restarted commercial production in January 2025. The +2,600 ha Tepic Project hosts low-sulphidation epithermal gold and silver mineralization with an existing historic resource. Sierra Madre's management team has played key roles in managing the exploration and development of silver and gold mineral reserves and mineral resources. Sierra Madre's team of professionals has collectively raised over $1 billion for mining companies. Cautionary Note Regarding Production Decisions The Company's decision to place the mine into commercial production, expand a mine, make other production related decisions, or otherwise carry out mining and processing operations, is largely based on internal non-public Company data and reports from previous operations and the results of test mining and processing. The Company is not basing any production decisions on NI 43-101 compliant reserve estimates, preliminary economic assessments or feasibility studies and, as a result, there is greater risk and uncertainty as to future economic results from the Guitarra Mine Complex, including 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, and a higher technical risk of failure than would be the case if a feasibility study were completed and relied upon to make a production decision. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information 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 press release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. The forward-looking statements herein are made as of the date of this press release only, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new information, estimates or opinions, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budgets", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "projects", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, including the expected timing of concentrate shipments; the Company increasing production; the Company receiving revenues on a weekly basis and such revenues allowing the Company to comfortably expand to without further capital needs; production and the expected timing and production levels thereof. The forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, that predicted production levels will be achieved and that existing production levels will be maintained. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied certain material assumptions, including without limitation, that the Company will be able to execute its future plans as intended, that predicted production levels will be achieved and that existing production levels will be maintained. Although management of the Company has attempted identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. SOURCE: Sierra Madre Gold and Silver Ltd. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263330 Tortola, August 21, 2025 - Sailfish Royalty Corp. (TSXV: FISH) (OTCQX: SROYF) (the "Company" or "Sailfish") is pleased to announce its operating and financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2025 ("Q2 2025"). All amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Q2 2025 Highlights: Royalty revenue earned of $626,603 and $1,162,526 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 ($167,844 and $329,831 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024); Gold ounces earned from stream interests of 8 and 26 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 (365 and 456 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024); Silver ounces earned from stream interests of 1,672 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 (nil for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024). Total revenues of $713,178 and $1,300,398 for the three months and six months ended June 30, 2025 ($1,026,242 and $1,384,197 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024); Gross profit of $687,330 and $1,249,818 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 ($565,681 and $813,768 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024); Net income of $185,318 and $109,598 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 (net income of $1,141,470 and $1,289,505 for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024); Repurchased for cancellation an aggregate of 529,300 common shares of the Company under the current normal course issuer bid for the six months ended June 30, 2025 (983,400 for the six months ended June 30, 2024); and Declared quarterly dividends of $0.0125 per common share which were paid on April 15, 2025 and July 15, 2025 respectively. Summary of Q2 2025 Results: Three months ended June 30, 2025 Three months ended June 30, 2024 Six months ended June 30, 2025 Six months ended June 30, 2024 Condensed interim consolidated statements of comprehensive income $ $ $ $ Revenues 713,178 1,026,242 1,300,398 1,384,197 Gross profit 687,330 565,681 1,249,818 813,768 Net income 185,318 1,141,470 109,598 1,289,505 Basic loss per share 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.02 Diluted loss per share 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.02 For complete details, please refer to the Unaudited Condensed Interim Consolidated Financial Statements for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025 and 2024 and associated Management Discussion and Analysis for the six months ended June 30, 2025, available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) or on the Company's website (www.sailfishroyalty.com). Subsequent to Q2 2025 Highlights: Subsequent to June 30, 2025, the Company paid a dividend of $0.0125 per common share. The total dividend payment resulted in the issuance of 360,419 common shares under the Company's dividend reinvestment plan and a payment of $309,959. Subsequent to June 30, 2025, the Company purchased 101,800 common shares on-market which have been cancelled. Subsequent to June 30, 2025, the Company announced the closing of the transaction surrounding the conversion of the Gavilanes Property into a 2% net smelter return royalty. See the Company's news release dated August 11, 2025 for further information. Atrium Research Coverage: The Company is pleased to announce it has engaged the services of Atrium Research Corporation ("Atrium"), a leading company sponsored research firm. Atrium will publish various research reports on the Company based on publicly available information, industry data, and discussions with management. Atrium will also host a recorded interview with the Company's management team to present the investment case in an interview format. In exchange for its research services, Atrium will receive cash compensation in the amount of $24,000 for the services listed above. The services will be provided for twelve months beginning on September 10th, 2025. Atrium and the Company are arm's-length parties, and neither Atrium nor its insiders hold any shares or options to purchase shares in the issued and outstanding capital of the Company. About Sailfish Sailfish is a precious metals royalty and streaming company. Within Sailfish's portfolio are three main assets in the Americas: a gold stream equivalent to a 3% NSR on the San Albino gold mine (~3.5 sq. km) and a 2% NSR on the rest of the area (~134.5 sq. km) surrounding San Albino in northern Nicaragua; an up to 3% NSR on the fully permitted multi-million ounce Spring Valley gold mine project in Pershing County, Nevada; and a 2% NSR on the Gavilanes Silver Project located in Durango State, Mexico. Sailfish is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "FISH" and on the OTCQX under the symbol "SROYF". Please visit the Company's website at www.sailfishroyalty.com for additional information. About Atrium Research Atrium Research provides institutional quality company sponsored research on public equities in North America. Its investment philosophy takes a 3-5 year view on equities currently being overlooked by the market. Its research process emphasizes understanding the key performance metrics for each specific company, trustworthy management teams, and an in-depth valuation analysis. Atrium Research is wholly owned and operated by its Co-Founders, Ben Pirie and Nicholas Cortellucci. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/263452 Latest Headlines Heartland expects 18% reverse mortgage growth in NZ Heartland Group grew its reverse mortgage business in New Zealand by 15.5% with growth in total net lending slowed by higher repayments while the Australian business grew 18.5%. Friday, August 22nd 2025, 9:00AM by Jenny Ruth Reverse mortgage lending in the year ended June 30 in NZ grew by $165 million to $1.23 billion while Australian lending was up A$309 million to A$1.98 billion. The NZ banks chief executive Leanne Lazarus says the portfolio is exceptionally high quality and well-secured and that she expects growth to step up to 18% in the current financial year. Lazarus says strong brand awareness has helped the reverse mortgage business grow and that lead generation is currently extremely strong. Were starting to see increased levels of applications coming through. Net interest income from the portfolio was up 18.5% to $58.3 million in the latest year. Heartland introduced electronic valuations in the year, reducing average settlement times by about five days, and by the end of the financial year about 50% of cash drawdown requests were processed online. Lazarus says Heartland received strong demand for its new retirement village access loans introduced in March this year. Michelle Winzer, chief executive of the Australian bank, says growth in the Australian reverse mortgage business picked up to 20.6% in the second half. Improvements in reverse mortgage broker origination and training led to a 74% reduction in application turnaround times, Winzer says. Other improvements and the removal of duplication mean overall times from application to service fell from more than 60 days to more than 20 days, she says. The company has added 300 new accredited brokers and a new aggregator has signed up with the Australian bank, she says. Heartlands net profit for the year ended June fell 48% to $38.8 million, reflecting a 54.3% jump in charges against profit for bad debts to $71.6 million with much of the increase reflecting bad debts in the NZ motor finance division. The costs of integrating the Australian bank, purchased in April 2024, also dragged down profit with operating expenses jumping 38% to $192.5 million. As previously reported, Heartland decided to cease its digital online-only home loan offering and that portfolio fell to $171.7 million at June 30 from $252.4 million a year earlier and group chief executive Andrew Dixson says he expects another $90 million reduction by December. The NZ Reverse mortgage business has a current weighted average loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) of 25.3% and a weighted average initial LVR of 8.11%. The average age of the borrowers is 73 while the average initial loan amount is $78,000 and the average repayment term is six years. About 81% of repayments are voluntary. Nearly 60% of loans are used for home improvements while about 40% are used for debt consolidation. Special Offers Comments from our readers No comments yet Sign In to add your comment Featured Trump administration says its reviewing all 55 million US visa holders www.aljazeera.com International News Aug - 21 - 2025 , 21:38 2 minutes read The United States Department of State has said that its reviewing the records of more than 55 million foreigners who hold valid US visas for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules. In a written answer to a question posed by The Associated Press, the department said on Thursday that all US visa holders are subject to continuous vetting with an eye towards any indication that they could be ineligible for the document. Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked and, if the visa holder is in the US, he or she would be subject to deportation. The department said it was looking for indicators of ineligibility including visa overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization. We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility, the department said. Since taking office in January, US President Donald Trump has directed a large-scale crackdown on migration, going after those with legal status as well as undocumented migrants. While the government initially said it would focus only on dangerous criminals, thousands of people are being arrested daily, with the New York Times estimating this week that the government is on track to deport 400,000 people in 2025. Authorities have gone after working immigrants through unprecedented raids of restaurants, construction sites, and farms as well as in courthouses where immigration agents arrest those attending civil appointments needed to help legalise their status. The government has also sought to roll back humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status, which has given hundreds of thousands of people from a range of countries facing adverse conditions the right to live and work in the US. Student visa holders have similarly been targeted, with the State Department saying earlier this week that 6,000 students have seen their visas revoked this year. While the department maintains that those students have either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism, many documented cases have involved students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests or even simply wrote an opinion piece all of which are protected free speech. Others who have seen their visas revoked, however, had not engaged in any sort of activism. Next article: Construction of concrete bridge over Tano River in Nsawora progresses Featured 39 arrested in Tema cyber fraud raid Mohammed Ali Aug - 22 - 2025 , 11:41 1 minute read A joint operation by the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has led to the arrest of 39 people in a cybercrime raid at Adom City Estate, Tema Community 25, in the Greater Accra Region. The arrests were made in the early hours of Thursday, August 21, 2025, after weeks of intelligence-led surveillance on a suspected cyber fraud hub believed to be operating in the residential area. Officials said the swoop was part of ongoing efforts to tackle online fraud networks across the country. Among those arrested were three individuals believed to be minors. Security officers seized laptops, digital devices and other materials, which are to undergo forensic analysis to support investigations. The Cyber Security Authority said all 39 suspects are currently in police custody and will be processed for court. The operation, which involved heavy security presence, was aimed at disrupting organised online fraud groups targeting individuals and institutions. The Authority noted that the action forms part of a national strategy to combat internet fraud, financial scams and other cyber-enabled crimes that continue to affect Ghanaians. The CSA has called on the public to remain alert and to report suspected fraudulent activities by calling or texting 292, or through WhatsApp on 0501603111. Next article: Man in custody after alleged murder of teenage brother following misunderstanding Featured 'Enforce law with a humane face': Sam George suspends Police crackdown on delivery riders bbc.com Aug - 22 - 2025 , 07:07 2 minutes read The Minister of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovation, Sam George, has ordered the immediate suspension of a joint enforcement exercise targeting unlicensed delivery riders in Accra. The move follows public outcry and chaotic scenes that erupted during the operation on Thursday, August 21. The exercise, conducted by the Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission (PCSRC) and the Ghana Police Service, led to the seizure of dozens of motorcycles and sparked clashes with aggrieved riders near the National Theatre, events captured in a viral video. In a post on the social media platform X, the Minister acknowledged that the enforcement was "a necessary activity to bring some sanity and order to the use of motorbikes for delivery purposes as stipulated by law." However, he mandated an immediate halt to the operation, stressing that broader consultations were essential before its implementation. I have directed this afternoon an immediate halt to the ongoing enforcement action by the Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission, he stated. The Minister argued that while the action was legally justified, the approach lacked necessary groundwork. I believe the Commission needs to do more stakeholder engagements and public sensitisation before the enforcement activities commence. We must enforce the law with a humane face to it, he wrote. He confirmed that he would convene a meeting with stakeholders in the coming days to develop an agreeable roadmap for the implementation of the regulations. The directive brings temporary relief to hundreds of delivery riders who rely on motorcycles for their livelihood and who had been caught off guard by the sudden enforcement of the licensing laws. Featured Ghana Bar Association dismisses Dafeamekpor's claims of snubbing President Mahama Gertrude Ankah Aug - 22 - 2025 , 12:24 2 minutes read The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has denied reports that it has deliberately sidelined President John Dramani Mahama and has not invited him for the 2025 Bar Conference. The reaction follows criticism from some members of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), including the Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson Nelson Etse Dafeamekpor, who has claimed that the Ghana Bar Association , has been showing blatant bias against President Mahama and the NDC. Mr Dafeamekpor, himself a lawyer and a member of the Ghana Bar Association argued that the advertised line-up of speakers for the 2025 Ghana Bar annual conference expected to take place in Wa in the Upper West Region failed to accord President Mahama the prominence given to his predecessor, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, during his tenure. He claimed the decision reflected what he described as the Bars longstanding hostility towards the NDC. I saw how the GBA organised its Annual Conference from 2017 to 2024. The then President, Nana Akufo-Addo, was nearly always the Special Guest of Honour and Speaker. That isnt the case in 2025. The President is conspicuously missing from the list of advertised speakers, he stated. The MP also criticised the invitation extended to the Chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales, suggesting the move was questionable given recent criticisms of the Mahama administration by the body in relation to the suspension of Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo. But in a statement jointly signed by the National President, Mrs Efua Ghartey, and National Secretary, Kwaku Gyau Baffour, dated August 21, the GBA dismissed the allegations as false and misleading. It stressed that President Mahama has been formally invited as Special Guest of Honour and has accepted the invitation. The association explained that the invitation was first extended during a courtesy call on the President in March 2025, followed by seven formal letters in July. It added that the Presidency confirmed acceptance in early August. According to the GBA, the Presidents absence from initial publicity materials was because his office had not yet responded at the time. It said subsequent communications had acknowledged his participation, in line with its usual practice. The GBA will not do anything to undermine the respect and dignity of the Office of the President, the statement said, urging the public to disregard attempts to create tension between the Association and the Presidency. This years conference, to be held in Wa in the Upper West Region, will be on the theme Ensuring Ethical Law Practice in a Digital Era. Expected participants include the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, the British High Commissioner, and the Chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales. Read the full statement by the Ghana Bar Association: Previous article: How catfish became king in Akisimasu Miss Tourism contestants shine at culture, debate night Daily Graphic Aug - 22 - 2025 , 09:57 2 minutes read The Miss Tourism Ghana 2025 pageant continued its vibrant calendar of activities last Tuesday with a spirited Culture and Debate Night, offering contestants a platform to showcase both their intellectual prowess and cultural awareness. The event, held as part of the build-up to the grand finale, featured thought-provoking debates on the theme: The Critical Role of Women in Climate Action and Sustainable Development. Performance The Head of Operations, Miss Tourism Ghana, Delight Sedinam Atsyor, commended the contestants for their poise, eloquence, and thoughtful contributions, noting how they showcased intellect alongside beauty. All the contestants put up a fantabulous performance today with an outstanding colourful appearance, she said, commending their strong public speaking skills and stage confidence. She encouraged the public to continue supporting the young women as they journeyed through the competition. Ms Atsyor said the Culture and Debate Night formed part of a broader programme designed to highlight not only beauty, but also the intellectual and cultural depth of the contestants. Upcoming events Other upcoming activities include a swimwear competition at Elmina in the Central Region, a reading night at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra, and the much-anticipated GTP and Lush Hair Fashion Show scheduled for Sunday, August 24, at the Accra City Hotel. Ms Atsyor reiterated the pageants commitment to promoting Ghanas rich tourism, culture and heritage, both locally and on the global stage. Miss Tourism Ghana remains a platform that empowers young women to be ambassadors of change while showcasing the beauty and uniqueness of Ghana, she added. The 2025 pageant continues to draw national attention as it blends elegance with advocacy and cultural celebration. GNA Previous article: Lets invest in sectors driven by youth - President Mahama to African govts Featured Mourners flood one-week observance of Nana Konadu Yiadom - 5-Day funeral rites slated for Sept. 14-18 Gilbert Mawuli Agbey Aug - 22 - 2025 , 09:57 4 minutes read The final funeral rites of Nana Konadu Yiadom III, the 14th Asantehemaa, will be held between September 14 and 18 this year. Announcing the date for the five-day funeral to climax the one-week observance held at Bogyawe at Manhyia Palace yesterday, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, said from September 1, 2025, there would be a ban on all funerals until the Asantehemaas funeral was over. He said on Sunday, September 14, the Asantehemaa would lie in state. The following day, Asanteman would be given the opportunity to file past Nana Yiadom III. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Otumfuo will sit in state to receive dignitaries and delegations. At exactly 1 p.m. on Thursday, September 18, 2025, there would be a burial service for the Asantehemaa at Manhyia Palace, following which the Asantehemaa would be laid to rest. On the burial day, all shops will be closed. Mourners A sea of mourners thronged the Bogyawe at the Manhyia Palace yesterday for the one-week funeral rites of the late Asantehemaa. In attendance were the Vice-President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang; the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah; the Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketsia; Minister of Works, Housing and Water Resources, Kenneth Gilbert Adjei; Minister of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim; Ashanti Regional Minister, Dr Frank Amoakohene, among others. Other dignitaries included former Presidents, John Agyekum Kufuor and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; former Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia; and his wife, Samira Bawumia; the New Patriotic Party (NPPs) 2024 Vice-Presidential candidate, Dr Mathew Opoku-Prempeh, and some Members of Parliament. Also at the palace were Justice Sir Dennis Adjei, a Justice of the Supreme Court, who represented the acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, and the Inspector General of Police, Christian Tetteh Yohuno. The diplomatic corps was also represented by the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Christian Rogg, and the Italian Vice Honorary Consul in Kumasi, Stefano Ramella Pezza. Otumfuos entry Otumfuo Osei Tutus entry to the venue around 1:30 p.m. was preceded by the firing of muskets and the burning of palm fronds, while his executioners, smeared with red clay, carried the trunk of a tree draped in pieces of cloth. For each round of musketry, the packed grounds shook with the power of an earth tremor. An all-female musketeer group dressed in black smocks with black shorts joined their male counterparts, firing muskets in unison to the admiration of the crowd. In accordance with Asante custom, Otumfuo sat in state and received delegations, shaking hands with hundreds of people ranging from political party leaders to captains of business, religious leaders and traditional leaders from across the length and breadth of the country. The event was yet another grand moment where Asanteman showcased its rich culture to indigenes and the many visitors who graced the occasion. Specifically, the various cultural dances and different sounds of the fontomfrom were on display. The chiefs and queenmothers within Asanteman were all in black cloth and sat as they witnessed the colourful event. Human traffic The entire ground was flooded with thousands of mourners, causing heavy human traffic. Some of the mourners had a hectic time going through the thick crowd to find places to sit at the event. Security personnel, made up of officers of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Ghana Police Service, national security and other private security guards at the event, had a tough time controlling the crowd. Slow business Most business owners voluntarily shut their shops in honour of Nana Yiadom III. The few that were open sat idle for most of the day. The usual heavy traffic experienced around the Alabar, Ash Town, and other areas close to the Manhyia Palace was missing. Media organisations mounted their stands at the venue to provide extensive coverage of the ceremony. Donations Individuals, institutions and organisations made various donations in cash and kind to Otumfuo in support of the one-week rites. The donations were received by the Standard Chartered Bank. Brief profile The 98-year-old Nana Konadu Yiadom III, who reigned for eight years, died on Thursday, August 7, 2025. She was born in 1927. Nana Konadu Yiadom III succeeded Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II in 2017. She was the elder sister of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and the daughter of Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II, who passed on at age 109 on November 15, 2016, after reigning for 39 years as Asantehemaa. Writers email: gilbert.agbey@graphic.com.gh. President Mahama, Japanese PM pledge stronger ties Kester Aburam Korankye Aug - 22 - 2025 , 09:57 3 minutes read President John Dramani Mahama and the Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, have resolved to deepen significantly the longstanding partnership between Ghana and Japan, with a focus on increased investment and international cooperation. The commitment was made during a meeting held last Wednesday evening, in Tokyo, on the sidelines of the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9). Opening the discussions, Prime Minister Ishiba expressed his sincere condolences and solidarity with the government and people of Ghana following the tragic helicopter crash on Wednesday, August 6 this year. The Japanese leader referenced President Mahamas prior experience working at the Japanese Embassy in Ghana and stated his desire to build on that unique foundation to further strengthen the partnership between the two nations. In his response, President Mahama expressed his profound appreciation for Japans consistent commitment to Africas development through the TICAD process. He reaffirmed Ghanas desire to work closely with Japan to further strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation on the international stage. Upcoming anniversaries Looking to the future, the two leaders concurred on a strategic plan to further enhance the bilateral relationship, culminating in a series of significant anniversaries. These include the 100th anniversary of Dr Hideyo Noguchis voyage to Ghana in 1927, the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and the 50th anniversary of the dispatch of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Overseas Cooperation Volunteers to Ghana. On economic cooperation, Prime Minister Ishiba highlighted the positive activities of Japanese start-ups in Ghana in the fields of agriculture, education and health, as well as Japans ongoing support for infrastructure development. He requested the governments continued cooperation in resolving challenges faced by Japanese companies operating in the country. Grateful for support President Mahama expressed his gratitude for Japans extensive support for Ghanas development and gave an assurance that his government would continue to work closely with Japanese authorities and the private sector to create a more enabling environment to promote and protect Japanese investments in Ghana. The two leaders also exchanged views on various pressing regional and international issues and confirmed their continued collaboration in addressing those common challenges. Africa development Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ishiba unveiled a new regional economic initiative at the TICAD 9, which kicked off in Yokohama last Wednesday. President Mahama joined other African and world leaders in the Japanese city of Yokohama at the conference. Context TICAD 9 is being held in Yokohama from August 20-22, 2025. The government of Japan has been leading this conference since 1993, co-hosted by the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the African Union Commission (AUC). The conference seeks to promote ownership of Africas development agenda while fostering strong international partnerships. Past TICAD conferences have yielded many key outcomes for Africa, including better appreciation of Africa's development challenges, stronger partnerships between African nations and the international community, and a greater focus on African ownership of development initiatives. Unlike other such multilateral conferences, TICAD has brought about concrete actions that have translated into financial assistance, particularly in education, water supply, health and infrastructural development. The establishment of the African Unions New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is known to be one of the concrete outcomes of TICAD. The Japanese government is financing many development projects for Ghana, mostly on concessionary terms, cutting across road infrastructure, education, health and climate change and adaptation. Featured Shatta Wale released: GH5m Bond, 2 sureties - Fans besiege EOCO precincts Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson & Justice Agbenorsi Aug - 22 - 2025 , 08:04 7 minutes read The revision of bail conditions, coupled with the sheer force of youth support, secured the release of Dancehall artiste Charles Nii Armah Mensah, known in showbiz circles as Shatta Wale, from the detention of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO). This was moments after scores of fans besieged the precincts of the anti-graft agency, demanding the release of the Dancehall artiste who spent a night in the detention of EOCO in Accra after he was invited there last Wednesday to assist with investigations regarding a Lamborghini Urus he had purchased. The vehicle has been found to be part of the proceeds of a $4 million crime, for which one Nana Kwabena Amuah is serving a jail term in the USA. EOCO granted Shatta Wale bail in the sum of GH10 million last Wednesday, with two sureties to be justified. Per the bail conditions, Shatta Wale must present sureties who possess properties commensurate with the bail amount. For the better part of yesterday, the popular musician could not meet the bail conditions and remained in the custody of the anti-graft agency until later in the evening when he was released on enquiry bail after his counsel prayed EOCO to vary the bail conditions. Revised bail conditions Counsel for the musician, Cephas Boyuo, told the Daily Graphic following his clients release that Shatta Wale was released after a prayer for EOCO to vary the GH10 million bail. Consequently, the investigative body reduced the initial bail bond from GH10 million, with two sureties to be justified to GH5 million with two sureties and no justification. He said his client was expected to report to EOCO three times every week until investigations into the case had been completed. In a live broadcast on TikTok, Shatta Wale expressed gratitude to the leadership of EOCO for the reception accorded him during the investigations. He also thanked his fans for showing up to support him. The King is home and safe, and thanks to everyone for being around me in times like this, because I needed you guys the most, because you guys are the ones that hold me down, he said in a sombre mood. You guys at EOCO have been wonderful. I came there, and you took me through the rightful processes that were needed. I want to say God bless you and your family. Raymond Archer, I thank you so much for your understanding, he stated in the video. Fans Earlier, scores of fans, some riding motorbikes, blocked the Independence Link, the main road leading to the EOCO office, causing significant traffic congestion, with some threatening to use their teeth to tear the EOCO walls and cells open if Shatta Wale was not released. Scores of Shatta Wale fans at the EOCO head office. Pictures: CALEB VANDERPUYE Many fans held placards with inscriptions such as "Free 1 Don, Leave the youth alone" and "Free Shatta Wale." Others waved red flags, chanting and playing the musician's songs from loudspeakers mounted on stationary mini trucks they had brought along. This prompted the police to manage vehicular movements, directing those coming from Prof. Atta Mills High Street via Independence Link to use Nii Kwei Boadu Road, located behind the National Lotteries Authority, before rejoining the main street. Visibly exhausted, some supporters sat on the walls of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), an adjoining agency, which shares a wall with EOCO, where some high-profile politicians, and now a musician, have spent nights because they could not meet their bail conditions, often considered by their counsels as hefty. EOCO explains A statement issued by EOCO indicated that the investigation was part of a larger one being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States of America (USA) to unravel and recover proceeds of the said $4 million crime to be used as restitution. Following a request from the FBI and the US Justice Department for EOCO to track the vehicle and conduct local investigations in respect of uncovering possible co-conspirators in Ghana, EOCO began looking for the vehicle until it was identified and seized in or around May this year in the possession of one Charles Nii Armah Mensah, the statement said. Street purchase EOCO explained that Shatta Wale arrived at its offices at 3 p.m. but was interrogated from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. His lawyer got to the premises later, and the musician had insisted that he would not cooperate until his lawyer arrived. According to EOCO, during the investigations, Shatta Wale was unable to identify where or from whom he purchased the vehicle, with a claim that he bought it from the streets. So far, Charles Nii Armah Mensah has been unable to identify the person from whom he purchased the said Lamborghini Urus vehicle except to say that he purchased it from the Street and from someone possibly called ZAK who may have contacted him on WhatsApp, but whose identity he does not know and whose contact he has thrown away, the statement added. EOCO further disclosed that so far, Shatta Wale had not shown any documentation which made him the owner or purchaser of the said vehicle, except a customs declaration document bearing the name of Nana Kwabena Amuah, the convict and protagonist in the crime in the USA. Fans troop to EOCO While some of the supporters called the arrest a witch-hunt, others called on EOCO to temper justice with mercy and free the self-acclaimed dancehall king. A supporter who gave his name as senior militant said Shatta Wale had been targeted because of the support he commanded among the downtrodden youth in society. Another supporter described the bail condition as excessive and called on EOCO to vary it. We all know that Shatta Wale is a global icon. He is not running anywhere, so why impose such a harsh bail condition? he said. A fan who gave his name as Wisdom Blewoo stated that his idol was a victim of circumstance and called for his release. We are not here to joke. We will use our teeth to chew the EOCO walls if he is not released, he told journalists and police officers stationed at the EOCO headquarters. An Okada rider, Gabriel Sackey, one of the fans, stated that he would sit on the floor until Shatta Wale was freed. We voted for the President to arrest public officials who have stolen Ghana's money, not street hustlers like Shatta Wale. It seems he's a third party; he only bought the car without knowing its history. Let's temper justice with mercy, he added. Ghanaian musician, songwriter, and record label owner, Ricky Nana Agyemang, known as Bullet, who was spotted at the precincts of EOCO, described the arrest as a witch-hunt, claiming the system was designed to keep musicians in poverty. The system has been set up to suppress us because they can't understand how a musician can buy a house in Trassaco, own a ride-hailing company, and build houses for sale, he said. Career Shatta Wale, born Charles Nii Armah Mensah Jr on October 17, 1984, in Accra, has had a dynamic music career. He started as "Doggy" before rebranding as "Bandana" and releasing "Bandana from Ghana" in 2004. After a brief hiatus, he resurfaced as "Shatta Wale" in 2013 and rose to fame with his dancehall style. His breakthrough song "Dancehall King" earned him Artiste of the Year at the 2014 Ghana Music Awards and solidified his dominance in the dancehall scene. Subsequent hits such as "Enter the Net," "Kakai," "Ayoo," "My Level," and "Gringo" cemented his status as the "Dancehall King." Shatta Wale's music blends Jamaican dancehall, reggae, Afrobeat, and Highlife with Ghanaian rhythms. His electrifying stage presence, charisma, and captivating dance moves have earned him a massive following, particularly among younger audiences. This connection birthed the "Shatta Movement," a loyal fanbase that supports his music and ventures. His social media dominance has amplified his reach, making him the country's most influential musician online. The Shatta Movement on Facebook commands about 1.5 million followers, Charles Nii Armah Mensah on Facebook has almost a million followers and his X with 3.7 million followers. Notable albums include "After the Storm" (2016), "Reign" (2018), "Wonder Boy" (2019), and "Gift of God" (2022). He has collaborated with global artists such as Vybz Kartel, Alkaline, and Beyonce. Shatta Wale has won numerous awards, including multiple categories at the 3Music Awards and three awards at the IRAWMA in 2025. Beyond music, Shatta Wale is a successful entrepreneur with ventures such as Shaxi ride-hailing, Shatta Movement record label, and fashion lines. He is also a brand ambassador for Guinness, Infinix, and Storm Energy. Featured Health Ministry postpones Nursing and Midwifery licensing exams to September 4 Jemima Okang Addae Aug - 22 - 2025 , 12:56 1 minute read The Ministry of Health has announced the postponement of the planned Centralised Nursing and Midwifery Licensing Examinations to September 4, 2025. A statement signed by the Ministrys spokesperson, Tony Goodman, said the decision followed a consultative meeting involving the Minister of Health, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), and the Conference of Heads of Health Training Institutions (COHHETI). It was agreed that the examinations will now be conducted within the respective training institutions, reverting to the previous arrangement to ensure smooth participation and effective supervision by the NMC. Mr Goodman explained that the directive was informed by the risks associated with extensive travel to centralised centres, stressing that the measure was necessary to safeguard the safety and well-being of candidates while ensuring fairness and proper monitoring of the examination process. The Ministry further indicated that a revised timetable and detailed guidelines would be issued by the NMC in due course. Attached below is a copy of the statement Featured Man in custody after alleged murder of teenage brother following misunderstanding GNA Aug - 21 - 2025 , 22:16 1 minute read The Kwesimintsim District Police Command in the Western Region has arrested a suspect, Anthony Acquah, in connection with the murder of his 17-year-old brother, Francis Mensah, at Manpong-Pepease, a suburb of Sekondi. The incident occurred on Saturday, August 16, 2025. A statement signed by Police Superintendent Olivia Adiku, the Head of Public Affairs for the Western Regional Police Command, and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said the suspect was arrested at his hideout in Kojokrom on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, based on "tangible intelligence." The statement said preliminary investigations disclosed that on Saturday, August 16, 2025, at around 1800 hours, Acquah had a misunderstanding with his younger brother and in the process stabbed him to death. It said the suspect then went into hiding immediately after committing the crime until his arrest. The suspect is currently in police custody assisting with investigations, the statement added. Opong-Fosu warns of social media misuse fuelling ethnic tensions GraphicOnline Aug - 22 - 2025 , 17:02 2 minutes read A former Minister of State and governance expert, Akwasi Opong-Fosu, has cautioned against the growing misuse of social media to promote ethnic division, warning that it poses a serious threat to Ghanas nation-building efforts. He made the call during an engagement with the University of Ghana branch of the Asanteman Students Union. The visit was to honour Mr Opong-Fosu for his public service and to formally invite him to serve as a mentor to the student body. Speaking on the theme, Escalation of Social Media Ethnic Division and Tensions A Threat to Nation-Building, the former minister underscored the dangers of online ethnic rivalries and hate speech. While recognising social media as a powerful tool for education and mobilisation, he said its misuse for spreading stereotypes, misinformation and hate undermines national cohesion. The same fire that cooks our food can also burn down the house, he said, quoting an Ashanti proverb to highlight the double-edged nature of digital platforms. Ethnic division is a poison, and social media has become its fastest carrier. But if used responsibly, it can also be the cure. Drawing from Ghanas rich cultural diversity, Mr Opong-Fosu likened the country to a kente cloth woven from many colourful threads, warning that when social media is misused to promote ethnic rivalry, the threads of our national fabric begin to tear apart. He challenged the youth, as the most active users of social media, to lead efforts to reverse this trend by promoting unity, challenging hate speech, and amplifying messages of tolerance and inclusion. Before you post, ask yourself: does this message build bridges or burn them? Does it promote peace or provoke conflict? he said. On their part, the Asanteman Students Union commended Mr Opong-Fosu for his long-standing commitment to integrity and values-based leadership. Their president, Otu Agyemang, said the Union was keen to draw on his wisdom and experience to guide the next generation of leaders. Accepting the invitation to serve as a mentor, Mr Opong-Fosu urged the group to take the lead in promoting cross-cultural understanding and de-escalating tensions online and offline. I am truly honoured by this call. The passion and determination of our young people inspire hope for Ghanas future. Together, we must nurture a generation of leaders grounded in values, integrity, and service to humanity. I look forward to walking this journey with you, he said. The meeting ended with a renewed call for stronger collaboration between youth groups and experienced leaders to foster national unity and drive sustainable development. Featured President Mahama announces major tech boost as Japanese firm pumps $100m into Ghanas farms GraphicOnline Aug - 22 - 2025 , 07:18 2 minutes read Ghanas agricultural sector is poised for a significant technological transformation following the announcement of a $100 million investment by Japanese agritech firm Degas Limited. The four-year initiative aims to establish Ghana as a hub for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven agriculture. The investment was confirmed by President John Dramani Mahama following a meeting with Degas Limiteds Founder and the Chief Executive Officer, Doga Makiura, in Yokohama, Japan. In a Facebook post dated Friday, August 22, 2025, President Mahama stated that the partnership would deploy cutting-edge AI tools to modernise farming, strengthen value chains, and create youth employment opportunities. Degas has already financed more than 86,000 smallholder farmers across 122,000 acres, doubling incomes with a 95% repayment rate. With AI-driven satellite monitoring and precision agriculture, we will strengthen value chains from inputs to markets, improve food security, and create more jobs for our youth, the President wrote. He described the investment as a strong vote of confidence in Ghanas vision for integrated, technology-enabled agricultureand we are ready to deliver. The company, known for its innovative financing and tech solutions for smallholders, will introduce advanced systems such as satellite monitoring and precision agriculture technologies. These tools are expected to optimise the distribution of farm inputs, enhance decision-making, and directly connect farmers to markets, thereby boosting productivity and income. The initiative aligns with the governments broader agenda to reset the economy by modernising key sectors like agriculture, enhancing food security, and tackling youth unemployment through technology and innovation. FIC boss pays emotional tribute to late Defence Minister Omane Boamah GraphicOnline Politics Aug - 22 - 2025 , 12:52 2 minutes read The Acting Chief Executive Officer of Ghanas Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), Kwadwo Twum Boafo, has given a heartfelt tribute to the late Defence Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, recalling his unwavering personal support and profound national dedication. Dr. Omane Boamah was among eight patriots who tragically lost their lives in a helicopter crash in the Adansi-Akrofuom district of the Ashanti Region on August 6, 2025. Speaking on Metro TVs Good Morning Ghana programme on Friday, August 22, Mr Twum Boafo shared intimate details of their close bond. He revealed how the late minister, while studying at the London School of Economics, immediately flew back to Ghana to support him during a personal ordeal. At the time I was facing issues with EOCO, Dr. Omane Boamah was studying at the London School of Economics. When he heard about my arrest, he flew from London to spend a week with me, he recounted. Mr Twum Boafo described the difficulty of coming to terms with the minister's sudden passing, emphasising the frequency of their communication. I dont think a week passed without hearing from him. Two days before the incident, I spoke with him, he said. He eulogised Dr. Omane Boamah as a uniquely resourceful and intelligent leader who remained composed during crises. He left an indelible mark not only on his family and close associates but also on the nation, Ing. Twum Boafo stated. Addressing the families of all eight victims, his voice filled with emotion, he said, I dont know what I would say to his children or to Rita. I offer them my deepest condolences. He concluded his tribute with a moving farewell in Twi, saying, Omane, da yie [rest well]. I hope to see you sometime, hopefully not too soon, because yewo edwuma ye [we have work to do]. A state funeral was held for the eight deceased on August 15, 2025. Featured 16 pick nomination forms for NDC Tamale Central vacant parliamentary seat after Murtala Muhammeds death Samuel Duodu Politics Aug - 22 - 2025 , 16:09 2 minutes read Sixteen people on Friday picked nomination forms to contest the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary primary for the Tamale Central Constituency by-election. The Electoral Commission has scheduled September 30, 2025, to run a by-election to elect a replacement for the Member of Parliament, Dr Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, who passed away in the August 6 helicopter crash. Dr Murtala Mohammed was in Parliament on the ticket of the NDC. The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has announced it will not file a candidate for the by-election. The NDC on Friday, August 22, started the process to select a candidate to run on the ticket of the party and therefore asked interested persons to pick nomination forms and file by the close of day on Sunday, August 24, 2025. And by close of the day on Friday, 16 interested persons, comprising two women and 14 men, had picked forms. Among the aspirants are Professor Alidu Seidu, a former Head of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana; Hanan Gundaado, former Metropolitan Chief Executive of Tamale; Halid Abdul-Rauf, a former Northern Regional Treasurer of the NDC; and Seidu Fitter, a Principal Research Assistant at the University for Development Studies (UDS). The two female aspirants are Hajia Shamima Yakubu, the current Northern Regional Treasurer of the NDC, and Hajia Alimatu Issahaku. The Northern Regional Secretary of the NDC, Mohammed Abdul Salam, told Graphic Online that the collection of nomination forms takes place between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day, and the process is ongoing. The party has set the cost of a nomination form at GH5,000, payable in cash upon collection, while the filing fee stands at GH40,000. However, female aspirants and persons with disabilities will benefit from a 50 per cent discount on the filing fee. A certified copy of the delegates list will be made available to aspirants after vetting. Vetting, balloting, and appeals have been scheduled for Sunday, August 31, 2025, with the election itself set for Saturday, September 6, 2025, between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. In a statement issued earlier, the NDC General Secretary, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, urged aspirants and stakeholders to conduct themselves with restraint and respect. The party urges all prospective aspirants and stakeholders to ensure strict compliance with these directives and to conduct their campaigns and related activities with decorum, unity, and fairness, the statement read. The Tamale Central seat became vacant following the death of the Member of Parliament, Dr Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, who died in a military helicopter crash on August 6, 2025. During its presentation yesterday, when it announced the Pixel 10 family along with the Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Buds 2a, Google slipped in an image of an unreleased smart home speaker. Today a new leak gives us some details about it. First off, it's real, it's in development, and it will be launching at some point in the future. It will unsurprisingly be powered by Gemini. It will be offered in bright red, light green, black, and white (or Porcelain in Google parlance - the light green could be branded Jade and the black would be Obsidian if Google sticks with the names it's been using for the past few years). The speaker will light up at the bottom, and this will come on when you're talking to Gemini. You'll be getting the Gemini Live experience, but of course it will be limited to speech only - on your phone you can also use the camera to show it things. The speaker will apparently launch with some new natural-sounding voices for the AI assistant, and you'll be able to search for media and music and have it play it. You can also set up automations through the speaker, and it will be able to detect unusual sounds like glass breaking or a smoke alarm going off and send you alerts on your phone when it does. Google will even let you pair the speaker (or, presumably, multiple units) to a Google TV Streamer in order to spread the TV sound throughout the house. Finally, it will also support Matter, the IoT protocol. It's unfortunately unclear when the speaker will be launched, but we'll let you know when we find out more about it. Source About a month ago, Sony initiated a replacement program for its Xperia 1 VII due to some units experiencing random reboots, shutdowns and inability to power on. As a result, Xperia 1 VII sales in Europe were put on hold, but Sony has now confirmed that its flagship is returning to eligible markets from August 25. After conducting an investigation into the matter, Sony clarified that some Xperia 1 VII units were affected by a faulty circuit board and offered a free replacement program for affected users. Sony changed its manufacturing process to prevent future units from the aforementioned issues and proactively contacted customers who purchased their devices directly from the brands official channels. Thanks for the tip, Josip! Source The Trump Mobile T1 Phone was announced alongside the Trump Mobile carrier in the US in June, when it was promised to arrive in August or September. In the meantime, the text has changed and now only says "later this year". The Trump T1 has already undergone some changes from its initial announcement - this bragged about it being "proudly designed and built in the US", but that has since turned into "proudly American" which means something completely different. This trend continues with the post from X that you can see below. The wait is almost over! The T1 Phone is powerful, sleek, and built with the features you need most. Preorder today & be among the first to experience it. https://t.co/TjGv5Gz4AA pic.twitter.com/DM8eGim1NS Trump Mobile (@TrumpMobile) August 19, 2025 The vague language ("the wait is almost over") isn't surprising anymore, but take a look at the phone itself - this looks nothing like the first images released in June (which are still up on the Trump Mobile website, by the way). This is what it used to look like (and still does on the official website) So what happened here? Has the Trump T1 magically undergone a metamorphosis into what looks eerily like a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra with a gold-colored case on it? We obviously can't say, but this keeps smelling fishier and fishier. Either the people running the Trump Mobile X account have never visited the Trump Mobile website, which shows different images of the phone, or the design has changed since the announcement, or this is all just a scam. You be the judge. By the way, the dancing around where it's actually made continues - "with American hands behind every device" the image in the post above says, but that doesn't actually mean anything. Archbishop Ryan P. Jimenez invites all Catholics and others in Guam and the Mariana Islands to pray and fast for peace on Friday in solidarity with Pope Leo XIV and the faithful worldwide. During his weekly audience in Rome on Aug. 20, Pope Leo discussed the upcoming liturgical commemoration of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is celebrated on Friday, Aug. 22. He invited the faithful to observe a day of prayer and fasting for peace. Mary is the Mother of the faithful here on earth and is remembered as the Queen of Peace, the pope said. He called for a "disarmed and disarming peace" in all places torn by armed conflict. "May Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede so that peoples may find the path of peace," the pope said. On Guam, Archbishop Jimenez said, Let us join our prayers and pleas for peace with those of our Holy Father and our brothers and sisters in all parts of the world. Commit to offering prayers for this specific intention while fasting or sacrificing in some form or the other, the archbishop added. Many already do this daily and I thank them. Parents wanting to get free child ID kits that give them peace of mind during emergencies can check out the Kid Care ID event at Village of Donki on Saturday. Hit Radio 100 and the Village of Donki are hosting the return of the Kid Care ID event, a vital community initiative aimed at keeping children safe, a release from Hit Radio 100 states. The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Island Lounge on the second floor of the Village of Donki and is open to families with children 12 years and under. The Kid Care ID event provides families with free Child ID Kits that include fingerprints, photos, and vital personal information to assist law enforcement during the critical early moments of a childs disappearance. Families keep the booklets for themselves. Should their child go missing, the booklet is a readily available record that authorities can use. We hope these kits are never needed, but having them could make all the difference in an emergency, said Hit Radio 100 station manager Ronnie Perez in a statement. This is about preparedness and protecting what matters mostour children. In addition to the ID kits, the event will also feature: Educational materials on child safety and prevention Volunteers to guide families through the process Raffle prizes, with every child receiving a Kid Care ID Kit entered to win This community-driven event is expected to welcome a strong turnout, with invitations extended to families across all Guam Department of Education, private, and charter schools. Information was also sent to the Mayors' Council of Guam, Hit Radio 100 said. Families are encouraged to arrive early and take advantage of this free, lifesaving resource designed to support parents and caregivers across the island, the company added. Lawmakers passed a $1.35 billion fiscal year 2026 budget act in a vote of 11-4 on Friday morning. Voting on the record-high budget came after 11 straight days of debate, which ran through the weekend and into the early morning hours at times. Deliberations got heated, with Republican budget chair Sen. Chris Duenas moving to eject Democrat Sen. Therese Terlaje from the session hall on Saturday evening. Its the first budget passed by a Republican majority Legislature in 16 years, and carries the Republican Party of Guams long-promised rollback of business privilege taxes from 5% to 4%. The bill passed with support from all nine republican lawmakers, and Democrat Sens. Tina Muna Barnes and Joe San Agustin. Democrat Sens. Chris Barnett, Will Parkinson, Sabina Perez, and Terlaje voted against the measure. Minutes after the budget passed Friday, the Office of the Governor issued a statement saying lawmakers knowingly abandoned education, health, and public safety to hand an $80 million gift to millionaire corporations. BPT rates will drop to 4.5% by Oct. 1, and again to 4% by Oct. 1 2026, if the bill becomes law. Its been estimated the reduction will reduce GovGuam revenues by about $81 million annually. Military contracts worth over $10 million would not get the discount, and will keep a 5% rate, a compromise the Democrat Leon Guerrero-Tenorio Administration has favored. Duenas on Friday again called it a big beautiful compromise, reducing taxes and supporting the private sector, while keeping government agencies adequately funded. Dissenting Democrat lawmakers argued the measure prioritizes tax breaks for the islands biggest companies, while undercutting critical services. Nothing is off the table Once the measure hits Gov. Lou Leon Guerreros desk, she will have ten working days to either sign or veto the budget. Adelup spokesperson Krystal Paco-San Agustin said nothing is off the table, when asked whether the governor would weigh a veto. The bill has more than the 10 votes in favor needed to overcome any veto, if support from senators holds. Adelups press release states the Republican-led budget cuts funding for the Guam Memorial Hospital, risks layoffs at the Guam Department of Education, and puts up a phantom appropriation for construction of a new Simon Sanchez High School. We will review the budget in its amended form and actbut make no mistake: the Republican-led Legislature made their priorities clear today. They sold outchoosing profits over people, the release stated. Republican Vice Speaker Tony Ada said the measure was only $7 million less than the amount the governor requested, and would require GovGuam to live within its means. Legislatures in the years past could have used the hundreds of millions of dollars in GovGuams excess revenues to take care of the hospital and other priorities, Ada said. It did not. What did they do? They kicked the can down the road to this body, he said. Opinions Opinions over the budget differed, as lawmakers spoke just after voting on Friday morning. Budget chairman Sen. Duenas said it struck a balance between tax relief for the private sector adequate funding GovGuam. We said, lets find a way, and we did. Thats why we call this the big, beautiful compromise. It lowers taxes, it funds our hospitals, our schools, our mayors and our safety. It invests in our economy, our children and our future, Duenas said. Republican Majority Leader Sen. Jesse Lujan said the budget would help support the tourism sector and keep money in the pockets of local families. Included in the measure is about $10 million for airline incentives with the Guam Visitors Bureau. We promised to invest in our economy. This budget protects the number one industry, tourism, the lifeline of many jobs, Lujan said. By making this investment, we are ensuring that thousands of our people remain employed, our businesses remain open, and our visitors continue see Guam as a premier destination in the Pacific. Democrat Sen. San Agustin, past budget chairman, said he supported the measure despite political differences, to ensure GovGuam continues working. He pointed to wins in the budget, like $16.3 million that construction of a new Simon Sanchez High School, and a promise that the first $20 million in excess revenue from fiscal 2026 goes to the Guam Memorial Hospital. But Democrat Sen. Terlaje argued that GMH is still about $55 million short of what hospital leadership says it needs. She also took issue with tax breaks provided. A reduction of taxes for businesses, of course, is a great opportunity for businesses to expand, to treat their employees better, to lower prices for consumers, or simply to earn bigger profits, Terlaje said. It was unclear which of those priorities businesses would choose, she said, but it was certain that the BPT rollback would reduce government services for families that need it. GDOE, GMH shortfalls The budget act gives $266 million to the Guam Department of Education, which is a status-quo budget compared to the current fiscal year. But the appropriation is about $40 million less than what GDOE asked for to offset pandemic-era federal funds that have since dried up. GDOE Superintendent Erik Swanson last week called the shortfall disastrous, and said it would require across-the-board layoffs and start the closure of 10 or more schools. But Republican lawmakers questioned tens of millions of dollars in lapsed funding that GDOE has yet to spend. We have problems in government, we have problems in health care, we have problems in education, we have problems in public safety, but the problem is not funding, Republican education oversight chairman Sen. Vince Borja said Friday. As for the Guam Memorial Hospital, the amount of money GMH will actually get in fiscal 2026 is debated. The hospital gets $47.2 million from the General Fund and GMH Pharmaceutical fund in the budget, which is $10 million less than it got for the current fiscal year. GMH will get about $5.2 million from leftover fiscal year 2023 funds to offset the amount. Republican Sen. Sabrina Salas Matanane also amended the budget act to provide $35 million from an account meant for construction of the new hospital. But Adelups fiscal team has argued theres no money in the account, because GovGuam never received a federal reimbursement that was supposed to go in it. Budget chairman Sen. Duenas has called for an investigation by the Office of the Attorney General. Democrat Sen. Chris Barnett on Friday said lawmakers put imaginary funds, fake money, for the real problems at the Guam Memorial Hospital. Adelup on Friday called the budget a scam, built on phantom money and false promises. Heres how the budget act would fund other agencies in fiscal year 2026, versus fiscal year 2025: Department of Public Health and Social Services $62.3 million, up from $60.5 million for the current fiscal year Guam Police Department, $59.6 million, up from $49.5 million Guam Fire Department, $41.2 million, up slightly from $40.9 million Mayors Council of Guam, $16.8 million, up from $12.3 million AGs office hiring Notably, the budget bill includes language allowing the attorney general to establish positions as necessary and set the salaries for those positions. Hiring authority is currently the subject of a legal dispute between Attorney General Douglas Moylan and Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero. The governors attorneys have alleged Moylan has hired unclassified employees at his office without any legal authority, and Adelup is suing to have a public prosecutor appointed to probe the AGs office. Moylan has argued that his office has long held power to hire unclassified staff, who are not subject to merit based hiring or employment protections under Guam law. Over two dozen members of the Guam Bar Association wrote lawmakers earlier this week, arguing federal courts in 1996 ruled that assistant attorneys general must be classified civil servants. They called sections of the budget act obviously illegal and said it could open GovGuam to as much as $70 million in litigation over classified employees at Moylans office. Democrat Sen. Will Parkinson tried to repeal the section of the budget bill that deals with hiring at the AGs office as debate dragged into the morning hours on Thursday. He failed. A 23-year-old man has been accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he met on Snapchat and recording the assault, according to a magistrates complaint filed in Superior Court. Scott Robert Santos told police he had sex with the girl and recorded the encounter, but he said the girl told him that she was 16 years old. Santos was charged Friday with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, possession of child pornography and electronic enticement of a child, all as second-degree felonies. While he was being interviewed in connection with the sexual assault, police also questioned him about a May incident in which a window was shattered in Hagat. He was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief in that case. The girl told police the two met on Snapchat, where he said he was 23 and she said she was 15. They arranged to meet in person, and on Aug. 17 she went to a structure in Agana Heights, according to the complaint. While there, he sexually assaulted her, the complaint stated. During the interview, police asked him about the May 23 criminal mischief complaint, in which he was accused of punching and shattering the window of a front door in Hagat after an argument. Santos told police he broke the glass because he was mad. He was upset at a womans behavior after she was drinking alcohol, according to the complaint. Santos was held on $10,200 cash bail. If found guilty of all charges, he could face 33 years in prison. Sen. Jesse Lujan has formally appealed to federal leaders for urgent funding to sustain the operations of PBS Guam (KGTF), the islands sole public television station. He sent separate letters to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, and Director John Brewer of the U.S. Department of the Interiors Office of Insular Affairs, to provide targeted funding for KGTF in the wake of recent federal cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These cuts resulted in a loss of $978,271 in fiscal year 2025 for Public Broadcasting Services. If approved, Lujans request would add to the $834,438 already set aside for PSB Guam in the substitute budget bill. This is to make up for any shortfalls in their federal tax share that was axed, Lujan said. PBS Guam is far more than a television station. It is our communitys emergency broadcaster, cultural storyteller, and educational partner. Without it, we lose a critical link in our public safety system, a trusted source of learning for our children, and a platform for preserving CHamoru and Pacific Islander heritage. Lujan emphasized in his letters that PBS Guam operates with no evidence of partisan or ideological bias, broadcasting both national PBS programming and locally produced shows that highlight Guams people, history, and traditions. The channel also supports the islands Emergency Alert System for typhoons, tsunamis, and other hazard warnings. Lujan outlined several strategic reasons why federal support is essential: life-safety, educational mandate, cultural preservation, small-market vulnerability, and strategic location. KGTF is the backbone of Guams all-hazards alert network, provides free, high-quality learning resources, and showcases local language, history, and traditions, he said. The survival of the station is also vital to the long-term sustainability of federal investment, considering Guams limited advertising market. Additionally, as the forefront U.S. territory in the Indo-Pacific, Guams communications infrastructure is of national importance, Lujan said. This is about protecting a trusted, nonpartisan service that keeps our people informed, educated, and connected, especially in times of crisis, he said. While I understand that many NPRs nationally used federal dollars to promote political biases, certain ideologies, and misspent the funds, our situation in Guam is completely different. Cutting the budget for public broadcasting should not be a one-size-fits-all solution, as there needs to be considerations. I urge our federal partners to recognize the outsized impact this modest investment will have on Guams safety, education, and culture. The funding requests seek both an earmark in the FY2026 Interior Appropriations Bill and a Technical Assistance Program grant from OIA, ensuring both immediate relief and longer-term sustainability for the station. PBS Guam has served the island for 55 years, providing free over-the-air programming to Guam and portions of the Northern Mariana Islands. Without federal intervention, recent funding losses could force significant cuts to local programming, staffing, and emergency broadcast capabilities. In addition to generating millions in revenue from tourism, Guams coral reefs protect the islands people and property from flooding, according to Olivia Banez, a coral reef policy and communications coordinator with the Guam Coral Reef Initiative. Banez spoke during the 10th Assembly of Planners Symposium this week. The Guam Coral Reef Initiative, established by executive order in 1997, oversees all aspects of Guams coral reefs, including management plans, community outreach, mangrove and seagrass conservation, watershed management, and coral reef restoration and nurseries. What we have is special and worth protecting, Banez said. Coral reefs minimize the waves energy by 97%, and a 2019 study found that annually, Guam and CNMI reefs protect us from coastal flooding, benefiting 400-plus people and preventing $13.9 million in property damage. Banez discussed a species of coral called Acropora globiceps, which was listed as threatened in 2014. It is found all around Guams waters, is more susceptible to bleaching than other species, and lives in shallow water that can get very warm during bleaching events. Its not listed as endangered because theres no evidence of reproductive failure or population collapse, so this species is in danger in the future, but not immediately, Banez said. After a five-year review that finished in 2024, this species is still listed as threatened. Thats good it didnt get upgraded to endangered, but thats not good because its still on the list. Critical habitat for the coral was designated in July, covering the whole island except for waters around the military bases, which are exempt from critical habitat. Banez stressed the importance of continuing to protect Guams corals and finding new ways to do so. She said Guam is surrounded by 42 square miles of shallow reef containing 400 species of hard coral, generating approximately $63.5 million in tourist revenue. Upgrading Guam corals to endangered would not have helped much, she said. The Endangered Species Act is not a viable option for coral reef protection, since bleaching and climate change are the main cause of extinction for coral. The act can also complicate work for local reef managers through administrative challenges and permitting delays. Sunblock Additional efforts to protect Guams coral reefs include the reef-safe sunblock law and establishing marine preserves. A law passed in April prohibits the importation of skincare products that pose a danger to Guams coral reefs and marine life. The most dangerous ingredients are oxybenzone, octinoxate, and octocrylene, which stunt coral growth and harm fish reproduction. These are ingredients commonly found in sunblock, and when you put sunblock on your skin, chemicals can leak out into the water, Banez said. Similar laws have been passed by the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and Palau. There is a $100 to $5,000 fine for violations, and the import ban goes into effect in October. The marine preserves are another avenue for coral reef protection, she said. There are five marine preserves in Guam: Piti Bomb Holes, Tumon Bay, Sasa Bay, Achang Reef Flat, and Pati Point, each with different fishing rules. Some rules apply to all preserves, such as no spearfishing and no taking corals or invertebrates. These marine preserves also have seagrass meadows and mangrove forests, and they are a safe haven for fish species, Banez said. This is especially important because Guam doesnt have a fishing permit system, so these marine preserves are safe zones where fish can grow and reproduce without being fished. Then they become beautiful, healthy reefs that draw tourists [and] that support the tourism economy. The symposium was hosted by the Bureau of Statistics and Plans and the Guam Coastal Management Program. Haiti - Religion : The Vatican assures its willingness to collaborate in favor of Haiti Monsignor Juan Antonio Cruz Serrano, Permanent Observer to the Organization of American States (OAS), during the presentation in Washington of the document "Towards a Haitian-led Roadmap for Stability and Peace with Regional and International Support" which aims to respond in several phases to the "multidimensional crisis" facing Haiti https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45596-haiti-politic-a-$26-billion-roadmap-for-stability-and-peace-in-haiti.html reiterated the Vatican's willingness to "continue to collaborate, to the extent of its capabilities, in favor of the Haitian people," "reiterates its closeness," and "reaffirms its constant support for efforts to promote peace and stability." The Permanent Observer described the situation in Haiti as "profound and dramatic," with both socio-political and humanitarian dimensions, characterized in particular by persistent insecurity, endemic poverty, and violence from armed groups. He recalled the thought expressed by the Pope on August 10 after the Angelus prayer, emphasizing that "the Haitian population is increasingly desperate." https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45526-haiti-religion-pope-leo-xiv-asks-the-international-community-to-support-haiti.html . Leo XIV had called for "concrete support from the international community to create the social and institutional conditions that will allow Haitians to live in peace." The Holy See stated that "the Holy See welcomes the efforts made by the OAS General Secretariat" to "urgently adopt concrete solutions to resolve the serious security and institutional crisis" in Haiti, also involving relevant international actors. It "assures that it will closely monitor the implementation of this document" and reaffirms its commitment to assisting the population. Bishop Serrano also recalled the July 23 statement by the Episcopal Conference of Haiti, in which they denounced the situation of violence in the country and also welcomed "with satisfaction certain notable progress" in the draft Constitution planned for 2025, although they noted some concerns. https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45401-haiti-religion-ceh-s-position-on-the-country-s-security-crisis-and-the-2025-draft-constitution.html Read also: https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45596-haiti-politic-a-$26-billion-roadmap-for-stability-and-peace-in-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45526-haiti-religion-pope-leo-xiv-asks-the-international-community-to-support-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45401-haiti-religion-ceh-s-position-on-the-country-s-security-crisis-and-the-2025-draft-constitution.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Education : Warning against an unrecognized university in Cameroon Augustin Antoine, the Minister of National Education, informs the national and international academic community that he has taken note of a press release recently published by the Minister of State, Minister of Higher Education, and Chancellor of Academic Orders of Cameroon, regarding an institution called "Universite de la Renaissance d'Haiti Faculte Autonome Francophone de Management International" (URH-FAFMI). The Minister informs that the Haitian government has never been informed of the existence of a private Haitian university operating in Cameroon under the name URH-FAFMI. Furthermore, he emphasizes that in Haiti, only four universities have doctoral schools and are legally authorized to offer postgraduate programs leading to the doctoral degree. These are the State University of Haiti (UEH), Quisqueya University (UNIQ), the Institute of Science, Technology, and Advanced Studies of Haiti (ISTEAH), and the University Institute for Executive Training (INUFOCAD). Consequently, URH-FAFMI is only authorized to offer undergraduate programs (bachelor's degree). It is therefore not authorized to award master's or doctoral degrees. Therefore, any announcement or award ceremony of such academic titles by this entity, in Haiti or abroad, is devoid of any legal value under Haitian regulations. Furthermore, the Minister warns the national and international academic community, as well as academic, scientific, economic, and social partners, against any attempt to recognize or use academic titles (bachelor's, master's, or doctoral) issued by unauthorized Haitian organizations. These diplomas have no legal value, either in Haiti or abroad. The Minister urges students, their families, partner institutions, and the general public to remain vigilant regarding any questionable educational offerings, particularly abroad, and to systematically verify that the so-called Haitian institutions concerned have official accreditation issued by the Ministry in Haiti. Furthermore, no applications for operating authorization for new universities will be accepted until the National Agency for Higher Education and Scientific Research (ANERS) is established. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Grand North : Tour to meet the needs of schools/B> After the Grand South region from August 14 to 17, 2025, the National Education Fund (FNE) will travel to the Grand North region to listen, act, and respond where the needs are most urgent, following the Government's instructions. As previously in the South, Grand'Anse, Southeast, and Nippes https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-45584-haiti-grand-south-more-than-160-million-for-rehabilitation-work-on-57-schools.html, the beneficiary schools will be selected based on recommendations issued by departmental directors, to ensure a rigorous approach consistent with local realities. This approach reflects the FNE's firm commitment to promoting responsible and transparent management of public resources, in favor of the sustainable strengthening of the education system in all regions of the country. Slave Trade Commemoration August 23, 2025, is the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. This day recalls the magnitude of this tragedy and invites us to reflect on its causes, consequences, and the interactions it generated between Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. This Commemoration also commemorates the slave uprising in Saint Domingue (Haiti) on the night of August 22-23, 1791, a key moment in the struggle for the abolition of the slave trade. Funeral of Mgr Romelus: On Thursday, August 21, 2025, the funeral of Bishop Joseph Willy Romelus was celebrated in the morning at the Jeremie Cathedral in Grand'Anse, in the presence of several ecclesiastical figures, political and administrative leaders, and many faithful. The main celebrant, Bishop Joseph Gontrand Decosse, paid a vibrant tribute to the deceased, saluting his struggle against the Duvalier dictatorship. It should be recalled that Joseph Willy Romelus https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-45541-icihaiti-necrology-mgr-willy-romelus-died.html , Bishop Emeritus of Jeremie, died on August 12, 2025, in Arniquet, at the age of 94. Inauguration of the Dumont Health Center After the Baliverne Health Center (5th communal section of Dame-Marie) https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-45548-icihaiti-grand-anse-inauguration-of-the-baliverne-health-center.html Bertrand Sinal, Minister of Health, inaugurated a new health center in the Dumont communal section of Port-Salut. DIE Open House in St-Marc The 3rd edition of the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration (DIE) Open House was a success, with the renovated DIE office in St-Marc (Artibonite) welcoming hundreds of visitors on August 20 and 21, 2025. As promised, passport applications were issued on-site within hours. 3 solar pumping stations With support from UN Migration, the National Directorate of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DINEPA) installed solar systems at three pumping stations in Delmas and Tabarre to ensure sustainable access to water for thousands of displaced people and residents affected by violence. HL/ HaitiLibre Microsoft is investigating a problem with the Windows update KB5063878 and the update KB5062660 that was included in it. There have been isolated reports, primarily from Japan, that the two updates can cause disk failures. The focus is on SSDs, but HDDs could also be affected. However, the reports from those affected are limited. The risk of a complete defect therefore does not appear to be too high. Anzeige According to the report, data carriers are often no longer accessible for large data transfers of more than 50 gigabytes and disappear from the drive overview. In most cases, the disk reappears after a restart However, SSDs occasionally remained unusable in tests. Issues occurred with models from Western Digital (WD), SK Hynix, Crucial, HP and XPG, which use different controllers. Other manufacturers may also be impacted. The problem is said to lie with Microsoft Phison is the first industry player to respond to the reports. The company is one of the largest SSD controller developers in the world and supplies numerous manufacturers. Phison also specifies entire SSD models for other companies. Phison told PC Watch in Japan that there were no problems with its own controllers and believes Microsoft is responsible. Microsoft is said to be investigating the issue. In the update notes, Microsoft only mentions KB5063878 and KB5062660 as fixing security problems under Windows. However, the CSV list of the included files contains over 50,000 lines, including numerous entries relating to NVMe. NVMe is the data protocol for SSDs Microsoft seems to have worked on this. As the updates are security-relevant, they should ideally not be uninstalled manually. Users are best advised not to copy large files such as games to a data carrier until this has been clarified. The August Windows updates already had several issues, some of which Microsoft has already fixed. Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen. Preisvergleiche immer laden Preisvergleich jetzt laden (mma) Don't miss any news follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Mastodon. This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication. The proposal, presented to Parliament on 21 August 2025, introduces a new law that would replace Finlands existing co-construction legislation. It would complement the EU regulation focused on reducing costs linked to deploying gigabit-capable infrastructure. The Finnish government has submitted draft legislation to support the EUs gigabit regulation, aimed at accelerating the rollout of high-capacity electronic communications networks. Under the EU regulation, all European households are to be provided with gigabit-speed connections by 2030. The regulation introduces shared infrastructure use, simplified permitting, and the creation of centralised data services across the EU. In Finland, the proposed legislation would set up a centralised permit platform. Applicants could submit requests electronically for permissions and installation rights required for physical network deployment. A key mechanism would be the introduction of a "silent approval" process. If an authority does not process an application within four months, the permit would be considered granted by default. Tommi Veistamo, Senior Statistician at Statistics Finland, said the new national law would align with these EU requirements while making use of domestic flexibility. The law would consider the needs of rural communities and small municipalities, particularly in areas with fewer than 3,500 residents. These areas would be given a 12-month transition period to comply with minimum data-sharing obligations through the central information point. The shared-use obligation would be expanded to include private commercial buildings in rural areas. The co-construction requirement would apply not only to publicly funded projects but also to private sector initiatives. Preliminary notifications for upcoming infrastructure works would be subject to longer deadlines. Minor repairs and maintenance would be exempt from permit procedures. Obligations related to in-building network infrastructure would not apply to detached houses, seasonal properties, or buildings where installing fibre would be deemed unreasonable due to cost or building purpose. The law would exclude certain requirements from applying to nationally critical infrastructure, such as communications systems essential to healthcare service continuity. The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, would oversee compliance and act as a dispute resolution body. Parliament is expected to begin deliberations with a preliminary debate in a full session. The bill will then be reviewed in committee before returning to the full chamber for further discussion. The law is intended to take effect in November 2025. From that point, the EU regulations obligations will be implemented in full across the country. HT Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an NBC interview that a summit is not under discussion. Putin is prepared to meet Zelenskyi once the agenda is ready. That agenda is not close to being ready, he said. Russia has ruled out any meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi , accusing Ukraine of rejecting all conditions for peace. Lavrov accused Ukraine of refusing all proposals, including NATO neutrality, territorial settlements, and the repeal of Ukrainian language laws that restrict Russian in public administration. Zelenskyi said no to everything. How can we meet a man pretending to be a leader? Lavrov stated. Zelenskyi rejected the characterisation. He said Russia is avoiding direct talks and accused Moscow of prolonging the war. According to Zelenskyi, Ukraine is open to a meeting only after binding security guarantees are agreed. He named Switzerland, Austria, or Turkey as possible venues. Russian demands, reported by Reuters citing three Kremlin-linked sources, include Ukraines full withdrawal from Donbas, permanent neutrality, and a legal commitment to abandon NATO membership. Putin also wants NATO to pledge that it will not expand further east and to keep all Western troops out of Ukraine. At a recent summit in Anchorage, Alaska, Putin presented these terms during a closed three-hour session with President Donald Trump. Trump later confirmed that the next two weeks would be crucial for the direction of negotiations. He added that any future trilateral meeting involving him would depend on direct discussions between Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian officials rejected the proposals. Zelenskyi has said that any territorial concessions violate the constitution. Donbas is a fortress. If we withdraw, we open the gates, he said. Zelenskyi added that NATO membership is a strategic goal and that Russia has no authority to block it. Reuters reported that Russia might accept freezing the front line in the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, where it holds 73 percent of territory. In Donbas, Russian control is estimated at 88 percent. The Kremlin also signalled willingness to retreat from minor areas in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipro if broader terms are met. Meanwhile, military developments continue. Ukrainian forces claimed to have regained control of the village of Zelenyi Hai near Velyka Novosilka. Visual evidence was shared on social media but has not been independently confirmed. Russias Defence Ministry said its troops had captured the Donetsk villages of Rusyn Yar, Volodymyrivka, and Katerynivka. Independent analysis indicated that some of these areas remain contested or under partial Ukrainian control. On the Black Sea front, Ukraines military intelligence said one of its naval drones exploded during recovery operations in Novorossiysk, killing five Russian combat divers. The claim has not been verified. In another development, Ukraine struck an oil pumping station in the Bryansk region. The facility forms part of the Druzhba pipeline system supplying crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Both countries confirmed a disruption that may last several days. Hungarys foreign minister Peter Szijjarto and Slovakias Juraj Blanar urged the European Commission to ensure supply security. Russia reported intercepting 54 Ukrainian drones during the night across multiple regions. Ukraine said nine of 55 launched Russian drones had evaded air defences and caused damage in four locations. On the domestic front, Russia is facing challenges in military recruitment. According to an investigation by the independent outlet IStories, the number of new recruits signing contracts in the second quarter of 2025 dropped to 37,900, the lowest figure in two years. A year earlier, the figure stood at 92,900. IStories used federal budget data and compensation payments as the basis for its findings. The report contradicts a statement by Security Council Vice Chair Dmitry Medvedev, who claimed 210,000 new recruits in the first half of 2025. IStories said the actual figure is 1.6 times lower. Recruitment shortfalls have been reported in several regions. In Irkutsk, local authorities reportedly failed to meet enlistment targets due to insufficient funds for signing bonuses. Separately, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un acknowledged the loss of DPRK soldiers fighting in Ukraine. At a ceremony in Pyongyang, he awarded medals to returning commanders and paid tribute to those killed in Kursk. Western intelligence services estimate that about 12,000 North Korean troops have fought in Ukraine, with one-third killed or wounded. In Vovchansk, near the Russian border in Kharkiv, drone footage released by Ukraines 57th Infantry Brigade showed the city reduced to rubble. Control of the area remains divided. International negotiations on Ukrainian security guarantees are ongoing. U.S. and European defence officials met in Washington to review options. According to Reuters, European countries are expected to provide the majority of ground troops if a future mission is approved. Command and air support might remain under U.S. authority. Frances Emmanuel Macron, Britains Keir Starmer, and Germanys Friedrich Merz have all supported the idea of a European-led presence. Trump has said no U.S. ground troops will be sent but left open the possibility of aerial assistance and coordination. EU foreign affairs representative Kaja Kallas warned that pushing Ukraine into territorial concessions would serve Putins goals. It is a trap, she told the BBC. Kallas also said no firm progress had been made on security guarantees. U.S. intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard recently instructed agencies not to share information on Ukraine peace negotiations with foreign partners. The directive, reported by CBS, limits data sharing even within the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Liettua has established a no-fly zone along its border with Belarus after a drone crash in eastern Poland. The drone, believed to be Russian, landed in Osiny, about 100 kilometres from Ukraine. HT The soldiers, deployed on the Ukrainian front, allegedly cooperated to simulate battlefield injuries. The case involves elite troops from the 83rd Air Assault Brigade, according to an investigation completed by Russian authorities and reported by Kommersant and Mediazona . At least 35 Russian soldiers staged fake combat injuries by shooting one another in non-lethal areas to fraudulently claim more than 2 million in state compensation. Investigators said the servicemen aimed to receive up to 3 million roubles (32,000) each in compensation payments intended for wounded combatants. The main suspects, Colonel Artem Gorodilov and Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Frolov, have confessed to their roles and signed cooperation agreements with investigators, Kommersant reported on Wednesday. The scheme was uncovered after one brigade member testified at the military investigative unit in St Petersburg. Authorities have named him as a key witness. Investigators said participants shot each other on purpose while avoiding vital organs. According to Kommersant, Frolov admitted that the shootings were planned and carried out at his request. He allegedly instructed his comrades to target only non-lethal areas of the body. The accused officers were arrested between June and July 2024. Both face charges of large-scale fraud. Frolov is also charged with bribery and illegal possession of weapons. The 83rd Air Assault Brigade has played a prominent role in Russias invasion of Ukraine. In July 2023, the unit received the Order of Suvorov, a state honour for distinguished military service. Frolov had previously appeared in Russian state media as a decorated sniper unit commander. In February 2024, Channel One aired a four-minute segment describing him as one of the most effective snipers in the special military operation zone, according to Mediazona. The broadcast claimed that Frolov had been wounded seven times in battle, adopted a child found in rubble, and refused post-service rehabilitation to return to the front lines. Investigators later determined that his wounds were not sustained in combat. The reputation built around Frolov was based on false accounts, the report stated. During questioning, he allegedly told officials that he coordinated with fellow soldiers to stage the injuries, making sure to avoid critical damage. Gorodilov previously commanded a regiment linked to war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine, in spring 2022. According to The New York Times, his unit is suspected of killing civilians during the Russian occupation of the city. Due to these allegations, Gorodilov is currently on the United States sanctions list and is suspected of carrying out extrajudicial executions. The case has raised questions over previous claims of heroism involving both officers. It also casts doubt on internal military processes for verifying combat-related injuries and compensation claims. The total amount defrauded from the Russian state exceeds 200 million roubles, or roughly 2.1 million, according to the investigation. HT N.C.s child welfare agency confirms Absher never had license to run a shelter Michael Lee Absher, the founder and former operator of a shelter for homeless teen-agers who is now charged with sexually abusing children at the shelter, was allowed to operate the non-profit for years without ever having a license, North Carolinas Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Friday. Related Stories In an emailed response to questions from the Lightning, the state agency in charge of child welfare also confirmed that it never took any action against Absher for operating Only Hope WNC, Inc., without a license, despite sending him cease-and-desist letters threatening legal action in 2017 and 2019. The action taken was to issue the cease-and-desist letters in 2017 and 2019. No additional action was taken, according to the email from DHHS. Henderson Countys Board of Commissioners also funded Only Hope for years after learning of the 2017 cease-and-desist letter, records show. Absher, who is also a former member of Henderson Countys School Board, remained in the county jail under a $650,000 secured bond on Friday on charges he sexually abused children at the shelter he founded 13 years ago. After an investigation by Henderson County Sheriffs Department, 35-year-old Absher was charged in July with two counts of first-degree statutory sexual offense of a child younger than 15. Additional warrants filed in August charged Absher with two counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and seven counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Some of the crimes Absher is accused of occurred at the Only Hope shelter where he also lived at 416 Allen Road in East Flat Rock, according to search warrants issued in the case. In a letter from DHHS dated June 20, 2017, the state child welfare agency said it had determined that Only Hope was operating as an unlicensed child placing agency as well as operating as an unlicensed residential child care facility serving children younger than 18. The letter quotes state law that requires a license to operate a residential care facility for children before telling Absher to obtain a license or stop operating the facility. This letter serves as notice to immediately cease and desist from operating as a Child Placing Agency and Residential Care Facility in North Carolina until a license is obtained, according to the 2017 DHHS letter. If Only Hope WNC continues to operate as a Child Placing Agency and Residential Care Facility without obtaining proper licensure, the Division of Social Services will take legal action. In response to the cease-and-desist letter from DHHS, Michael Edney, who is the current vice chair of the board of commissioners and was the boards chair at the time, wrote Absher a letter dated Oct. 18, 2017. In the letter, Edney said that the board had requested in August that year that Absher inform the county when he received proper state licensing for Only Hope to ensure county funding for the organization in 2018. Edneys letter quotes Abshers response: We subsequently received a letter from Only Hope in which you stated that at this time, all investigations have been closed, and we are currently not under any open investigations or corrective actions with DSS or DHHS. Only Hope has not and will not provide foster care or operate a residential child care facility as defined in the June 20,2017 letter DHHS (referencing G.S. 131D-10.2). Edneys letter to Absher then said that DHHS could not confirm the assertions he made about the operations of Only Hope. As a result, Edneys letter goes on to say the county would withhold grant funding from Only Hope until it received verifiable information that the shelter had a proper license or did not provide services that required a license. DHHS sent a similar cease and desist letter to Absher in 2019. In a letter dated May 21, 2019, DHHS told Absher it had information that he admitted to housing homeless children and that the average stay was four or five months. The letter asks Absher to inform them within 10 days if the statements attributed to him were inaccurate. The 2019 letter referenced the 2017 warning before again telling Absher to cease and desist from operating a shelter without a license. The 2019 letter also warned Absher that under state law he could also face criminal charges for operating the shelter without a license. If Only Hope WNC, Inc. continues to operate, establish or provide foster care for children without a license or receive and place children in a Residential Child Care Facility without obtaining appropriate licensure, the Division of Social Services will seek appropriate legal action, according to the 2019 letter. Attempts to reach Edney for comment on his 2017 letter to Absher and the countys decision to continue funding Only Hope despite the organization having no license to operate were unsuccessful on Friday. Henderson County suspended funding for the shelter after Abshers arrest. At the direction of the county manager, funding for Only Hope has been suspended until further notice, according to a statement the county issued shortly after Abshers arrest. Mr. Absher has also been suspended by the county from any volunteer activities until a decision can be made later by the Henderson County Board of Commissioners. The $35,000 commissioners approved for Only Hope was for the fiscal year 2025/2026, which began on July 1, 2025. The county provides quarterly funding and $8,750 was sent to Only Hope in July, according to the countys statement. Since 2018, county taxpayers had given the agency $213,000. In the past three years, the City of Hendersonville has appropriated $15,825 to Only Hope. The city council approved a $3,000 grant for the current fiscal year. Contracts for payment of the special appropriations funding are typically not finalized until late August or September. Only Hope WNCs contract has not yet been drafted, so the approved amount of $3,000 is on hold, city spokeswoman Brandy Heatherly said recently. Citing the cease-and-desist letters, Henderson County School Board member Amy Lynn Holt urged county commissioners at the boards meeting on Wednesday to stop funding Only Hope because it never had a license to operate as a shelter for children. In an interview after the meeting, Holt called for an investigation into how DHHS handled the situation involving Absher and Only Hope. They failed our children, she said. I want an investigation opened up to see how this happened and how we can ensure it doesnt happen again. Henderson Countys Department of Social Services Director Lorie Horne, also in an emailed response to questions from the Lightning, on Friday said that her office learned in 2017 and 2019 of the cease-and-desist letters sent from the state to Only Hope. DSS in Henderson County did not have the authority to take action against Only Hope, she said in the email A local DSS does not have the authority to close a facility and if a facility only serves young adults over 18 years old, no license is required she said. If the department receives a report of an unlicensed facility providing foster care to minor children, we would refer that report to DHHS Regulatory and Licensing. If we received a report that children were being abused, neglected or dependent by a parent, guardian, or caretaker in an unlicensed facility we would investigate and refer to DHHS Regulatory and Licensing. Henderson Countys department could not place children in need of care at Only Hope because the shelter lacked a state license, Horne said in the email. Only Hope was never open to provide foster care for children under the age of 18 years old, Horne said. The Board of Directors of Only Hope WNC Inc. removed Absher from all positions of authority and banned him from the organization's home for teen-aged boys, which is also Abshers residence, the nonprofit said in a statement Monday. In her comments to commissioners, Holt said she had been concerned about Absher for a long time. I have long been speaking out against Michael Absher since 2017 and the fact that he had no business around minors, she said. I realize the board has just separated from him, but that still does not curb the fact that they have no license to have minors within their care. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Absher 13 years ago, Only Hope WNC says its mission is to promote the value of education, honor individuality and diversity, nurture respect for self and others and provide hope for young people in need in the community. Independent schools have praised the efforts of staff and pupils after another excellent crop of A level results. Pupils at Queen Annes School in Caversham achieved a 100 per cent pass rate. This was an increase of one per cent from last year. The school saw 83 per cent of students achieve A* to C, up by nine per cent from last year. Forty three per cent achieved A* to A, up six per cent from last year. Jamie Kwok, 19, who lives at the school, received four A* in maths, further maths, computer science and physics. She will be studying maths and computer science at the University of Bath. Miss Kwok, who found the third physics paper the hardest, would like to be a computer programmer. She said: I was so happy when I opened my results this morning. I was also relieved because I put a lot of work in. I would sit here revising from 7am until 9pm some days, but I have a few friends, who also did well, who were really supportive. Victoria Miller, 18, from Crowthorne, received three A -levels and one AS level. She was graded A* in computer science, B in maths, B in physics and an A in AS further maths. She will be working with Amazon in Bristol, completing a software development engineer apprenticeship. She is one out of a small group of people who were chosen from around 40,000 national and international applicants. Im so excited, she said. Its a bit scary, but my sister lives in Bristol. I tried my hardest and found it so much harder when it came to motivation because with A levels, the mental health aspect can be challenging. I talked to people about the stress, and the school gave me a lot of support, which was a lot of help because it was so valuable to let me achieve what I needed. I feel very proud. Janice Lo, 19, who shared her time between living in Reading and Hong Kong, received two Bs in sociology and biology and an A in psychology. She is having one of her sociology papers re-marked, as she was three marks off an A. She said: Biology was the hardest exam by far. I feel like it was so hard because it requires a lot of detail. Its not about what you say in the exam, you have to follow the marking scheme to get top marks. I did a lot of papers with the mark scheme again and again. From the moment I woke up, thats what I would sit down and do. She is going to Cardiff University to study psychology. She said: I really love psychology, but I dont know if I want to do clinical or business. She was sad to not be able to get an A in biology. She said: It was a big jump for me in biology from GCSE because I didnt previously get good grades, but I got a good grade, and it shows me how hard work really pays off. Charlotte Herrington, 18, from Wargrave, received three Cs in history, economics and psychology. Her first-choice university was Exeter, but she is going to Oxford Brookes University to study international relations. She said: I was originally going to go to Exeter, but now Im going to Brookes. I was upset, but I realised that there are pros and cons to both. I wanted to go to the Exeter campus because theres a lot of surfing, but I wouldve probably got distracted by that. Oxford really focuses on the students, Exeter is more focused on research, but I thought it would be quite nice to focus on the teaching. I picked international relations because I went through a massive thing when I didnt know what I wanted to do, but my history teacher had me look at more courses and said I would suit it. I liked the idea of helping people out with a little bit of politics as its something that can really change things for people. At Reading Blue Coat School in Sonning, this years percentage of students achieving A* to A grades was down slightly from 53 per cent in 2024 to 51 per cent. However, the percentage of students achieving grades A* to C increased from 79 per cent in 2024 to 84 per cent this year. The overall pass rate was 100 per cent. Student Bella Briscall from Shiplake will be heading to Bath to study pharmacology, after achieving two A*s and an A in biology, chemistry and maths. While at Blue Coat Bella was a senior prefect for the Aldworth Partnership, which supports the schools service initiatives. Winner of the Meadowcroft Prize for chemistry and the Aldworth Lodge Jubilee Award, she donated her prize money to a childrens reading charity to help provide further education opportunities. Headmaster Pete Thomas said: Im delighted for this tremendous group of young men and women who have given so much during their time at Blue Coat and richly deserve this outstanding success. What a pleasure it is to see them grow over the years and flourish in so many ways, and I know they will continue to make a tremendous impact beyond the school gates. Im also delighted for the staff who have worked so hard to create the environment in which they can thrive, and for their parents who give constant support its a big team effort. At Shiplake College 31 per cent of students received A* to A, down from 39 per cent in 2024 when it received its best ever results outside of the pandemic. Pupils receiving A* to C also fell to 82 per cent from 97 per cent in 2024. The overall pass rate was 99.6 per cent which remained the same from last year. Theo Sanders, 18, who lives in Warren Row, was the top-performing student, receiving an A* in economics, A* in politics, and an A* in religious studies. He will now study economics at Exeter University. He said: Im really happy. I was predicted A*, A*, A, so I did a bit better than predicted. Ive worked every weekend this year pretty much, so Ive done a lot of work for it, but I got the result, so its great. Im just pleased its over, its kind of a weight off my shoulders now that its done and Im into university, which is the main thing. Its quite rewarding that it has paid off. After university Im thinking of doing investment banking, something in finance maybe in the city, or maybe a masters degree, well see, I dont really know. Now I have my results Im going to go out to a restaurant with my family and then to the pub with my mates to celebrate. Jack Scanlon, 18, who lives in Henley, got an A in religious studies, an A in politics, and a B in economics. He will now travel to Queens University in Belfast where he will study politics. He said: I checked UCAS at 8am to figure out if I got in, which I did and then I waited to check my results in person at school. My original offer was A, B, B and luckily it got lowered to B, C, C, but it turns out I would have made the original offer anyway. Im going to go out clubbing tonight, and then Im going to get flights booked and hopefully get my accommodation offer soon and start making plans to go over. Ive got a lot of family who live in Belfast, I was there a year ago and visited the university and had a look around. Im excited, Im looking forward to the independence and being able to do stuff on my own for the first time and that new chapter of life. Alfie Malcolm, 18, who lives in Peppard, got an A* in politics, an A in geography, and an A in media. He has accepted an offer to study politics and international relations at Bath University. He said: Im ecstatic, I slightly exceeded my expectations but its kind of what I wanted, so Im very happy to have got that. I think I will see some friends and go out for a few drinks to celebrate and just see my family. Im very excited, Bath is a lovely city, so its lovely to just get started. Sophie Woodeson, 19, who lives in Pyrton, got an A in art, an A in criminology, and a B in photography. Next year she will study interior design at Bath University. She said: Im really happy, Im a bit unhappy about the B, but it is what it is. I was predicted an A* so I dropped a little lower, the grade boundaries have gone up ridiculously high, so I think Im five marks off an A which is a little annoying. Art and photography are very coursework-heavy, so its a lot of work, its not necessarily that its hard but there is so much of it, its very time-consuming. Then criminology is split into four rather than one exam at the end, so you do it as you go, which is better for me because Im dyslexic and I cant recall a lot of information. I came out with a good grade which Im really happy with. Sophies parents, Alex and Katie, were delighted with her results. Mrs Woodeson said: The school has been amazing for her, it has given her the best support, opportunities and confidence in herself. Her abilities have gone through the roof because of the belief that her teachers have had in her, which has been really nice. We feel very lucky. Mr Woodeson said: I think youre more anxious as a parent than as a student, because you see how hard they have worked. Im really proud of her. Were sure she will go off and do amazing things. Headteacher Tyrone Howe said there was a positive atmosphere at the school as students celebrated their results. He said: Its always an exciting day for everybody, but there is a really positive atmosphere with everyone getting their results and the vast majority of the pupils getting their first university choices. Whats really important is that they get that ticket for the next stage of their academic lives. Im delighted that weve got some really top performers and whats striking is that many of these top performers have been with us since year seven and I think that is a really good sign for what the school is doing. There is the odd person who is a little bit disappointed, but the key factor that becomes more and more clear every year is that hard work is the most important factor in success and those pupils that have worked really hard, and the vast majority of them have, have got smiles on their faces today, its a really nice, positive atmosphere. I dont think this stage in any way defines a young person, Im a great believer in things happening for a reason. Its how you respond to setback or disappointment that is far more important, it certainly shouldnt be anything that holds them back and if they want to do something badly enough, they can still do it. Pupils at the Oratory School achieved a 98 per cent pass rate. Seventy-seven per cent of pupils achieved A* to C, while six per cent achieved A* to A. Student Flo Gibbon, 18, from Woodcote, achieved an A* in Art, A* in English Literature, A in Maths, and B in Spanish. Next year, she will go to Edinburgh University to study Architecture. In the meantime, she will travel to Madrid to work as an au pair and sharpen her Spanish skills for three months. She said: I was quite pleased to get these results. I feel like the work I put in paid off and Im grateful for all of the support I got from teachers at my school and Im glad that Ive been able to get into my first choice university. Henley students at the Abbey School in Reading also did well. Evie Blomfield achieved an A* in psychology and geography, a B in English language and an additional A in her EPQ (extended project qualification). Fellow student Ella Fitzpatrick achieved three As in maths, drama and economics. She is heading to Leeds to study politics. Evie said, Im over the moon. Its such a big relief to be able to get my place at uni and Im really excited for next year and what it has to hold. Ella will study Economics and Business Management at Newcastle University. She said: I was so nervous and I had my alarm set for 8am, went straight online, saw that I was in at Newcastle and I cant explain it in words, its the most incredible feeling ever! COMMUNITIES in and around Henley marked Victory over Japan Day with a number of services and commemorations. Friday last week marked 80 years since Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied forces, in effect bringing the Second World War to an end. The surrender came four months after Victory in Europe Day on May 8 and stopped the fighting in the Asia-Pacific region following Emperor Hirohitos announcement of Japans acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The surrender came after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima, and a further 74,000 in Nagasaki. By the end of the war about 365,000 British, 1.5 million Commonwealth troops and a pre-Partition Indian army of 2.5 million soldiers had been deployed across the region. The fighting spread from Hawaii in the North Pacific to the North-East borders of India. Allied troops also deployed from Papua New Guinea in the south to Manchuria in northern China on the border of the Soviet Union. During the war the Japanese captured approximately 140,000 Allied military personnel, many of who were forced into hard labour and subject to extremes of maltreatment. While a celebration of the end of the Second World War, for many VJ Day marks the considerable suffering and loss of life across the Asia-Pacific region which included 29,968 British troops. In Henley, a two-minute silence was held outside the town hall in Market Place at noon on Friday. The Last Post was played by bugler Gary Hamilton. In his speech from the town hall steps Mayor Tom Buckley paid tribute to all of the soldiers from across the world who had fought in the Pacific war. He said: For many VE Day seemed the end of the war, and it brought a gradual return to normal life despite rationing and other major problems. However, Churchill remind-ed us that another ferocious war was still being waged in the Far East. The British 14th Army under general Sir Bill Slim had turned the tide against the Japanese, the final member of the Axis powers. There was little reported back in England, and this was secondary to VE Day celebrations. We must not forget the backbone of this forgotten army. There was a huge number of troops from the Commonwealth, including India, Nepal the Gurkhas and many from Africa, in particular Nigeria and the Gold Coast, known as Ghana today. Today we especially recognise the sacrifices they made and the lives lost, and a legacy of physical and mental wounds. We honour all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to bring the Second World War to an end at a terrible, terrible cost, not only to the military and their families but to the millions of civilians, who on all sides lost so much. Today it is even more necessary than ever to remember this cost and work to ensure that it never happens again. We will remember them. Later that day a small crowd gathered at Makins Recreation ground at 9.30pm where a commemorative beacon was lit by town councillor David Eggleton. The Exhortation an extract from the poem For the Fallen by Robert Laurence Binyon was read by John Green, president of the Henley and Peppard Branch of the Royal British Legion, who carried the standard. This was followed by a two-minute silence and a tribute read by town crier Major David Wilson. Earlier at 3pm the Henley and Peppard Branch of the Royal British Legion held a commemorative cream tea for 50 of its members at Henley Business school. Guests enjoyed tea and coffee and a selection of sandwiches, cakes and scones before a quiz. Retired Brigadier Andrew Myrtle, from Stonor, said VJ Day was significant to his regiment, the Kings Own Scottish Borderers, which saw action in Burma, known as Myanmar today. Brigadier Myrtle, who was with the Scottish Borderers for 37 years, said: Its important that the war in the Far East is recognised just as much as the war in Europe because many people thought that when the war ended in Europe, that was it. Lilian Pearson Bishop said that she was remembering her father, Harold Lodge, a former Ruscombe resident, who was serving in the Royal Navy at the time of the surrender. Mrs Pearson Bishop, who lives in Wargrave with her husband John, said: My father was part of the group that took the surrender in Japan, so today is very important to me. I am delighted he survived it because a lot of people didnt. Its a mixture of feeling happy that he was alive and sadness the war went on for so long. In Watlington, a service was held at the cross in Watlington High Street where about 50 people gathered at 11am. Sarah Pullen played part of Il Silenzio trumpet call on the cornet before short speeches by Brigadier Nigel Mogg, Carol Horton and Tessa Mogg. Mrs Mogg recounted the experiences of her uncles who served in the Norfolk regiment and were taken prisoner and held in the notorious Changi Gaol in Singapore. The prison was originally built for 800 prisoners but more than 3,000 civilian men, women, and children were incarcerated, and more than 17,000 prisoners of war were held in and around the prison. Mrs Mogg, who is secretary of the Royal British Legion in Watlington, said: No one in Britain knew what had happened to them, they were just reported missing. During the time they were imprisoned in Changi, they were only allowed to write home using just five postcards. They were rather stilted and could contain no more than 24 words. I have one of these postcards here, written by my uncle, with Japanese writing on the back dated February 21, 1942. It says: Unwounded and well. Hoping to receive letters from you soon. Dont worry. Keep smiling, I am. All my love Harold. This card didnt reach my aunt until many months later. The POWs received no letters from home for over a year, despite many being written. In Wargrave on Friday, about 25 people attended a commemoration at the war memorial outside St Marys Church in Station Road. Residents joined a service led by Rev Steve Turville and representatives from the Wargrave branch of the Royal British Legion. The reverend gave an address to honour the sacrifices of those who gave their lives and paid tribute to the civilians who suffered. Attendees joined together in prayer, to sing hymns and to observe a two-minute silence. Lloyd Scrivener, 65, of Spring Walk, is the standard-bearer for the Wargrave branch of the Royal British Legion and raised the flag at the ceremony. He said: Its important to remember the lives that were lost in the continued war in Japan. We must still remember them. Marion Pope, a member of the committee for the Wargrave branch, created a flower arrangement to lay on the memorial to pay tribute to those involved in the conflict with Japan. She said the arrangement was designed to be jungle-like, with dark red berries representing the fallen. Barry Paddison, 77, of Kiln Lane in Binfield Heath, is chairman of the branch. His family moved to Wargrave in the Fifties, where he lived before joining the army aged 18. He said: As chairman of the Royal British Legion in Wargrave, its my role to ensure we mark VJ Day. Being a Wargrave boy, born and bred, this area means an awful lot to me. This area outside the church was my playground, so its nice to come back and do something for all the village. Its an honour. Richard Butler, 87, of High Street, is a former committee member who spent three to four years tracing descendants of Wargrave residents who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars. Mr Butler said marking the anniversary of VJ Day was important to him because of his own experiences growing up in Caversham after the war. He said: Our neighbour came back from the Burma railway and as a boy we were told not to bother them. Subsequently, on national service in 1957-78, I served in Nigeria and discovered that there had been more than 100,000 West Africans, from Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Nigeria who had served with the British Army in Burma (now Myanmar). On my national service in Nigeria, I met four soldiers who had still continued in the army and had Burma medals. Thats why its important to me. In recognition of 20 years since the Gaza pullout, JNS is featuring a five-part series of articles reflecting Israel's disengagement, speaking with an array of former Gush Katif residents to find out how they perceive the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Trump plan for the Gaza Strip and the prospect of returning. Sitting in his backyard in the crisp nighttime air at Mount Hebron, overlooking the holy city of Hebron, Meir Dana-Picard, 45, feels at home. After his army service, he studied at a yeshivah in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish town bordering Hebron. Then he got married to Adi, and they eventually had a dozen children. Eleven of them still live at home; his eldest, 22, lives in a caravan nearby with her husband. During the video interview (conducted in Hebrew), his youngest, 3-year-old Shalem, kept jumping on the sofa next to him, resisting sleep. There's no place like Kfar Darom Twelve years ago, Dana-Picard founded the Board of Residents in Mount Hebron to advocate for Jewish security in the region. Still, as much as he believes that his home near the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs (Ma'arat Hamachpelah) represents the fulfillment of an ancient Jewish dream-and destiny-there's no place like Kfar Darom. For him, the former Gush Katif village, which Israel gave up in 2005, is a sandy extension of Hebron, in body and spirit, although not one Jewish family lives there today. "It was love at first sight," Dana-Picard told JNS, recalling his first visit to what was then a farming community of about 65 families. "You get there and right away connect to the place, the atmosphere. People lived there, settled there out of religious Zionism. They would wake up early in the morning to study Torah, pray and then work in the hothouses. Then they'd go home, learn some more and be with their families." Dana-Picard came to Jerusalem as a toddler, the son of French olim. He and his wife officially moved to Kfar Darom in 2003, just before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the disengagement in 2005. A tour guide by profession, Dana-Picard has noticed how most Israelis are unaware of Gaza's Jewish roots. Continuous Jewish settlement in Gaza dates to the Hasmonean dynasty during the Second Temple period. Kfar Darom, specifically, is mentioned in the Talmud. In the 1930s, Jews began buying land in the region, and in 1946, a religious kibbutz was founded in Kfar Darom. The fledgling Israeli army made a strategic retreat from Kfar Darom during Israel's War of Independence after it suffered heavy losses to the Egyptians. In Gush Katif, Dana-Picard worked in the packaging division of Chasalat, a commercial farm well-known for its bug-free vegetables. Once it became clear that the disengagement was not just "talk," he helped start a protest movement that began with petitions. "We were very naive back then," he said. Soon enough, he and his neighbors stopped being "naive." The community deliberately cast itself as one of the most hardline settlements. They rejected the sentimental "We Have Love, and It Will Win" slogan favored by the other settlements and instead embraced: "Kfar Darom will not fall again." Intent on creating organized resistance, the population doubled to 1,000 souls in the summer of 2005. "You can't win a struggle in which you embrace the commander who's supposed to take you out of your house," Dana-Picard said. This meant: No cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces or state institutions. No hugging the soldiers. No pleas to their "Jewish heart." Protesters blocked roads, created physical barriers and punctured army jeep tires. It was in Kfar Darom that demonstrators threw buckets of paint on IDF soldiers from the barbed-wired roof of the synagogue, producing some of the most iconic images of the disengagement. "My big regret is that we couldn't bring our voice to lead the struggle," he said. "We were on the sidelines." 'A strip of land open to all' In 2014, during the IDF's "Operation Protective Edge" to stem attacks from Gaza, Dana-Picard started a Hebrew Facebook page called "Going back home to Gush Katif." He didn't do it because he saw a personal opportunity to return, but because he believed that the only way to ensure security along the border area was to re-establish Jewish communities there. Such an effort, back then, put him even further on the political sidelines. The Hamas invasion of Oct. 7 has made that goal much less taboo. "Now, suddenly, you have the most far-left kibbutzniks saying: 'It's us or them.' That's a Kahanist saying-this complete lack of confidence that we can live together," he said. This time, if Israel returns to Gaza, Dana-Picard thinks that it must become a place where all kinds of Israelis feel at home, not just religious Zionists. "You've got to think of it as a continuation of the development of the Negev," he stated. "Open the borders; develop cities, small towns, recreational tourism and agriculture. It should be a strip of land open to all, not something closed." He cautiously welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump's February announcement proposing that the United States take over Gaza and resettle its Arab residents. "It shouldn't be a place belonging to Trump. He's here now, gone tomorrow. He's not doing it as a Zionist but because it solves a problem. We must be careful not to depend on him." As the interview came to a close, Shalem was finally in bed. If Dana-Picard's vision for Gaza comes true, would he pack up and move again? "If there were a Jewish town there, I'd definitely go back," he said. "But, of course, we'd have to take family considerations into account." (JNS) More than 85,000 passengers were traveling through Ben-Gurion International Airport on 500 international flights on Thursday, the highest single-day figure since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Israel Airports Authority. The numbers highlight both the resurgence of the Israeli aviation sector and the reemergence of Tel Aviv as a travel hub, even before all leading international carriers have resumed flights to Israel. Some 43,700 travelers were departing Israel on Thursday, while over 42,000 others were arriving. Most flights operating to and from Tel Aviv in August have been sold out due to reduced availability and high seasonal demand, sending airfares soaring during the peak summer travel month. Many international airlines, led by Fly Dubai, Air France, Air Europa and United Airlines, have renewed service to Tel Aviv during the busy summer travel season. Other international carriers plan to resume service to Israel later in the year, including Delta Air Lines, which is set to restart flights next month, while Italys ITA Airways, British Airways and Irish budget carrier Ryanair are scheduled to resume operations in October. The airport saw over 100,000 daily passengers in August 2019 the peak year for tourism in Israel but numbers fell off sharply over the next two summers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UJA-Federation of New York will send $1 million to an Israeli humanitarian group providing aid to civilians in Gaza, the federations CEO announced on Friday. The funds will go to IsraAID, Israels largest nongovernmental aid organization, to supply food, medicine and water filtration systems for displaced Gazans. IsraAID has traditionally operated in disaster zones abroad, from earthquake relief in Turkey to aid for Ukrainian refugees, but since Oct. 7 has expanded its work to Israel and now into Gaza. In a letter to the community, UJA CEO Eric Goldstein condemned Hamas for holding hostages, obstructing aid and provoking the conflict, but said that the Jewish community is nevertheless compelled to help alleviate the suffering of civilians in Gaza. What many of us feel is a confluence of unbearable grief, anger, and the moral imperative the Jewish imperative to act, Goldstein wrote. Not everyone agrees on what should be done, or how. There is anguish and outrage around every perspective. We must hold tight to what has always anchored the Jewish people: the belief that all human life is sacred. IsraAID says it has already reached more than 100,000 people in Gaza through partnerships with the Israel Defense Forces Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories and international agencies. The pledged donation is far larger than any previously announced aid contributions to Gaza by Jewish groups. Earlier this month, the American Jewish Committee said it would give $25,000 to the Archdiocese of New York to aid in repairs of Gazas Holy Family Church, which was damaged by an Israeli strike. Three people were killed and others injured in the incident. The announcement comes as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens and as some Jews have called for Jewish leaders to take a more assertive stance against it. The United Nations warned this week of starvation, pure and simple, reporting that 98 children have died from acute malnutrition since last October, 37 of them in the last month. Aid deliveries have slowed to a fraction of prewar levels amid continued Israeli military operations. Israel contests reports of starvation and says it has expanded aid entering Gaza substantially since last month. The AJCs announcement noted Israels explanation that the damage was caused by stray ammunition from a nearby operation and that the church was not targeted. The gift marked a rare, possibly unprecedented, donation by a mainstream U.S. Jewish group toward Gaza Palestinians during wartime, and was framed by the AJC as a gesture to sustain Jewish-Catholic relations. Israels security cabinet is weighing a plan to fully conquer Gaza and hand control to Arab forces, while U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators push for a ceasefire and hostage release deal to avert the operation. Protests have erupted in Tel Aviv and other cities in recent days, calling for renewed negotiations and an end to the war. Internationally, momentum is growing toward recognition of Palestinian statehood. On Monday, Australia became the latest country to support recognition, saying it would do so at next months United Nations General Assembly, a move Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized as shameful and that some Jewish organizations have described as rewarding Hamas. New Zealand said it may follow suit. Cairo intends to train 5,000 Palestinian police officers to help restore order in Gaza after the current Hamas-Israel war ends, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said on Wednesday. In an interview with Egyptian media, Abdelatty noted that the training has already begun and that, at this stage, hundreds of officers are participating. According to the minister, Cairo has received vetted lists of names of those currently training at military camps in Egypt, in coordination with Jordan. The aim, he said, is to ensure the officers have no criminal records or ties to terrorism. Abdelatty said the deployment of the officers and the rehabilitation of Gaza after the war would be carried out under the auspices of the Palestinian Authoritys prime minister. He recently added that Cairo is planning a transitional phase during which Gazas administration would be handed over to a 15-member committee of Palestinian technocrats. Under the proposal, these officials would operate under the authoritys oversight for six months before transferring full control to it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated last week that Israel has no intention of occupying the Gaza Strip but again ruled out any role for the P.A. Gaza will be demilitarized, and a peaceful civilian administration will be established, one that is not the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, and not any other terrorist organization, he continued. This will help free our hostages and ensure Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future. Originally published by Israel Hayom. (JNS) The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing the death penalty and hate crime charges against Elias Rodriguez, who it accuses of shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers as they left an event at a Jewish museum in Washington in May, CNN reported. The charges, if approved by a grand jury, would position the case as a centerpiece of the Trump Justice Departments fervent approaches toward both violent crime and targeted hate against the Jewish community, per CNN. The news organization said it sought comment from the Justice Department and an attorney for Rodriguez. (JNS sought comment from the department.) The defendant is accused of allegedly killing Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they left the Capitol Jewish Museum on May 21. The gunman also allegedly said free, free Palestine after the shooting. Even with the massive surge in antisemitism globally, the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim stand apart for their heinousness, stated David May, research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The United States must demonstrate that it, in the words of George Washington, gives to bigotry no sanction and prosecute the murderer to the fullest extent of the law, May said. But it is also important to push back against the incitement and lies directed at Israel and the Jews that allow killers to justify gunning down innocents in the streets of our capital. (JNS) Israel is preparing the delivery of humanitarian supplies to vulnerable populations in South Sudan, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced on Monday. The move is led by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who instructed the foreign ministry agency MASHAV, Israels Agency for International Development Cooperation, to deliver urgent assistance to the crisis-hit country. The African nation is currently struggling with a cholera outbreak while also facing a severe shortage of resources, the ministry explained. The aid will include essential medical supplies for treating patients, water purification equipment, gloves and face masks food packages, as well as special hygiene kits to prevent cholera, the ministry continued. As part of the aid operation, MASHAV will cooperate with IsraAID, an Israeli NGO active in the country. Israel stands by its friends in their time of need, the ministry said. In late July, Saar hosted his South Sudanese counterpart, Monday Semaya Kumba, in Jerusalem. The two diplomats discussed the humanitarian crisis unfolding in South Sudan, which has worsened due to the influx of refugees fleeing the ongoing war in Sudan. During their conversation, I highlighted the hypocrisy of the international community that ignores the longstanding humanitarian crisis and suffering in Sudan, which impacts South Sudan, that receives no aid or recognition despite its significant support for the Sudanese refugees, Saar tweeted following their meeting. The ministrys announcement comes on the backdrop of reports suggesting that the African nation was among five countries negotiating with Israel about the resettling of the Gaza population. The government of South Sudan denied these reports last week, saying on its official X account that its foreign ministry firmly refutes the news, according to the Associated Press. These claims are baseless and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan, the statement by its government said. Joe Szlavik, the founder of a U.S. lobbying firm working with the South Sudanese government, told AP that officials had briefed him on the talks. He claimed an Israeli delegation was planning to visit the country to explore the possibility of setting up temporary housing for Palestinians there. Edmund Yakani, who heads a South Sudanese civil society group, also said he had been in touch with government officials about the talks. Citing a senior Israeli official on the matter, CNN reported on Aug. 14 that four additional countriesSomaliland, Ethiopia, Libya and Indonesiawere included in negotiations to resettle Palestinians from Gaza. (JNS) A federal court ruled that a Chabad couple, which alleges that a Florida homeowners association is guilty of Jew-hatred for blocking it from using its property as a synagogue, can go forward with its lawsuit. Rabbi Naftaly and Henya Hertzel also accuse the association of vandalism and discrimination based on their faith. Aileen Cannon, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and an appointee of U.S. President Donald Trump, rejected last month the effort of the Loggers Run Homeowners Association in Boca Raton, Fla., to dismiss the Hertzel familys suit. The Hertzels have lived in the association for 14 years and say they provide the only Jewish services within a six-mile radius, necessitating the need for a synagogue. The local Jewish congregation worships in a nearby storefront shopping center or the couples home. To better accommodate the congregation, the Hertzels bought a neighboring house, but the association barred them from using it for religious services. The couple alleges that the association permits regular Christian study sessions to be held in private homes. The couple requested to build a permanent synagogue within the associations boundaries, near several churches, in 2017, according to the suit. The association declined to consider the proposal, says the couple, which alleges that the association board said that it didnt want Jews in the area. (JNS sought comment from the association.) The manager of the association allegedly said of Jews that the Nazis should have ended them, per the suit. The association repeatedly created a hostile housing environment for the Hertzels through selective rule enforcement, ignoring violations by other residents and hurling antisemitic insults at Jewish residents, according to First Liberty Institute, which represents the plaintiffs. Vandals have knocked down religious symbols, spray-painted buildings, broken windows, flown drones over their home and screamed antisemitic slurs outside their home while meetings were being conducted, the institute stated. The judge wrote in her July 17 decision that upon full review of the motion, and with the benefit of extensive oral argument, the court concludes that plaintiffs have plausibly stated claims for each of the 10 counts alleged in the amended complaint under the associated substantive law applicable to each claim, per the institute. The court also concludes that none of defendants proffered affirmative defenses provides a basis to dismiss any of plaintiffs claims at this stage. We are grateful the court agrees that this case must continue, stated Jeremy Dys, senior counsel at the institute. The HOAs leadership has engaged in open antisemitism against Rabbi Hertzel and created a hostile environment for Jewish residents living in their community. (JNS) In video footage screened for the first time at a rally in Tel Aviv on Sunday night, Hamas hostage Matan Zangauker appealed to family and friends to increase their efforts to secure his release. To all my acquaintances, all my friends, go out and make noise as only you know how, and with Gods help we will see each other soon, he said. Zangauker, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, said that he missed his mother, sister and girlfriend, adding that God willing they would be reunited soon. The video was obtained by Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip and delivered to the Zangauker family, according to Israels Channel 12 News. His mother Einav addressed the audience at Hostage Square after the screening. Im burning with longing. My whole heart is on fire for you, my Matan, she said, according to Channel 12. Matans girlfriend, Ilana Gritzewsky, who survived 55 days in Gaza captivity, staged a symbolic wedding earlier on Sunday at Hostage Square. She was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 along with Matan. We could have been married, Gritzewsky said during the mock ceremony, standing alongside Einav Zangauker under the traditional Jewish wedding canopy. I cant stop thinking about what was taken from us: the innocence and the love. In one day, our world was shattered, and youre not here with me to hold me, and I cant be there to give you strength, she said, according to Channel 12. As of Aug. 18, 148 hostages have been returned alive to Israel eight of them rescued through military operations. Most have been redeemed in exchange for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons. An additional 56 bodies of captives were repatriated to Israel. On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his support for an agreement with Hamas to end the war in Gaza, but only if it meant the release of all the remaining hostages. We will agree to an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war, which include the disarmament of Hamas, the demilitarization of the Strip, Israeli control of the perimeter, and the establishment of a governing authority that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, and that will live in peace with Israel, the premier said, according to his office. The American real estate developer shared a message via Instagram, saying, A state that produces such violence is one that should not exist. Some of the comments underneath the post echoed Hadids message. End Zionism and restore world peace!!! one commenter wrote. Yes exactly this. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free, another person said. I couldnt agree more! Zioni$m needs to be dismantled for good! a third wrote. Hadid, 76, has been vocal regarding his anti-Israel views. He was born in Nazareth in 1948, shortly before his family fled to Lebanon during Israels War of Independence, started by the Arabs of the British Mandate for Palestine, who were later joined by several Arab nations armies. Hadids family resettled in Damascus and relocated to Washington, D.C., when he was 14 years old. In April 2024, the New York Post reported that Hadid had spent months harassing Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), sending him racist and homophobic messages due to his support for Israel. You[re] worse than the rats of New York sewage system. They have bigger brains than you. You might get a job as bouncer at gay bar, Hadid wrote in one Instagram direct message, adding that the openly gay Afro-Latino congressman is a slave to whites. You are just unusual Black and colorful mouth for Israeli and AIPAC and looking for payday of over 500K, Hadid said in another Instagram message, referring to the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. (JNS) A significant drop in the level of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) was recorded on Sunday following an extreme heatwave that swept through Israel last week, bringing it closer to the lower red line, Hebrew media reported. The Sea of Galilee has lost several centimeters since the start of the severe heatwave last week, Kinneret Department Manager at the Water Authority Firas Telhami said, according to Ynet. The evaporation rate, especially in the last two days of the peak of the heatwave, increased by tens of percent compared to normal summer days, he added. As of Sunday, the Sea of G... The Sfirot Foundation proudly announces the appointment of Wayne Green as its inaugural executive director, signaling the launch of its mission and the beginning of its leadership and vision for the future. With a career spanning Melbourne, New York, London, and Israel, Green brings a rare blend of global philanthropic expertise, strategic acumen, and a track record of driving transformative social impact. Green is a seasoned senior executive whose career has traversed the nonprofit, government, and community sectors. His expertise spans grantmaking, community development, service delivery, a... (JNS) One morning in July, on a pathway atop Jerusalems Temple Mount, eight barefoot men lay spread-eagled, faces pressed to the ground, as four police officers stood by and watched. Just two years ago, this act part of a mitzvah, a religious commandment known as Hishtachavaya would have led to immediate ejection. For decades, authorities restricted Jewish prayer at the site, which houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the remains of the last Jewish Temple, making it one of the most sensitive and contested religious spaces on earth. Often described as a powder keg, the Temple Mount is the holie... (JNS) In a quiet room at Israels soon-to-be inaugurated October 7 Museum, Mosab Hassan Yousefthe son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef who is known as The Green Princelooked at the evidence of Hamass atrocities and spoke the truth that too many still refuse to hear: Hamas is not just at war with Israel. It is at war with Jews, Christians and the very foundations of civilization itself. Yousef knows this from the inside. Raised in a home steeped in Hamas ideology, he was taught from childhood that Jews must be killed, Christians eliminated, and infidels subjugated. He was bea... (JNS) Students from 24 U.S. universities toured Israel last week as part of a program which according to its organizers would use firsthand testimonies to help counter misinformation about Israel. The students attend universities including UCLA, Duke, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. On their 10-day visit, the participants of the Hasbara Fellowships and IsraelAmbassadors.com delegation met politicians, visited the grounds of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre, met with a former hostage in Gaza and toured Israels northern borders for an on-the-ground understanding of the reality the... Traditionally, international diplomacy was conducted with a semblance of integrity, logic, truthfulness and sincerity. Diplomatic discussions and other interactions between and among nations was conducted in a formal, serious, thoughtful manner. Even when diplomatic treachery was the goal, a facade of adhering to these qualities was attempted. News and other media reporting on the affairs of nations, historically also followed these professional characteristics to a large extent. More often than not, critical-issue diplomacy, such as negotiations involving military and security issues were don... (JNS) Since its establishment, life in Israel has resembled a grim trade-off. In return for the right to live as Jews in the one and only Jewish state, we have been expected to surrender something far more basic, our right to live in safety. From birth, Israelis enter into an unspoken agreement, one that demands we normalize existential threats. We are told it was our fate. That there is no alternative. That is the cost of living in the Jewish homeland. And so, we become desensitized. A stabbing in a supermarket parking lot no longer shocks us. We live by missile-alert apps and concealed-car... (JNS) Heres a question that Ive heard posed on occasion, often from rabbis on Friday evenings: How did our people, displaced from our homeland for two millennia, scattered to the winds, maintain their inherent, recognizable, collective Jewishness? Was it the mamaloshen of Yiddish? Or keeping Shabbat (inevitably, the rabbis favorite answer)? Or perhaps even direct influence from Hashem, confirming once again that we are chosen? All of these are worthy options and likely played a role in our survival as a people. And yet, cynic that I am, I prefer a much more prosaic answer: that we largely... (JNS) As reports grow more harrowing of Israeli hostages starved, emaciated and forced to dig their own graves, the painful truth must be confronted: The Bring Them Home Now campaign has not only failed to free our people; it has served to entrench their suffering. What began as a unifying cry of anguish transformed into a moral and strategic disaster. The campaigns well-intentioned, emotionally driven message quickly lost sight of the enemy Hamas and turned its fury inward, at the Israeli government. By doing so, it handed Hamas exactly what it wanted: leverage. Worse, it fractured o... (JNS) From the Israel is starving Gazans hoax to the settler violence hoax, Hamas and other terrorist groups are playing Jewish leaders like a fiddle. And the Jewish community is paying for it. The impact of Hamas propaganda is on full display in A protest letter to PM Netanyahu from world Jewry, signed by more than 5,000 people, including leaders of world Jewry from 20 countries. The letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was facilitated by the London Initiative Action Group. Signatories include philanthropists such as Charles Bronfman, one of the founders of Birthrig... Russia on Friday ruled out an immediate meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, as diplomatic tension with the Ukrainian president escalated and US mediation efforts appeared to stall. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "no meeting" between Vladimir Putin and Zelensky was planned, as NATO chief Mark Rutte visited Kyiv, largely to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine. US President Donald Trump had raised expectations for a swift summit between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents by saying earlier in the week they had agreed to meet, but on Friday compared the two men to "oil and vinegar". "They don't get along too well, for obvious reasons," he told reporters in Washington. Lavrov also poured cold water on hopes for direct Putin-Zelensky talks to resolve the conflict, now in its fourth year, by questioning the Ukrainian president's legitimacy and repeating the Kremlin's maximalist claims. "There is no meeting planned," Lavrov said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker". Lavrov told the US broadcaster Putin was "ready to meet Zelensky" as soon as an agenda was prepared, adding that the agenda was "not ready at all". In Kyiv, speaking alongside Rutte, Zelensky said Ukraine had "no agreements with the Russians", saying Ukraine had agreed only with Trump on how the diplomatic direction could proceed. On Thursday, he had accused Russia of "trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting", adding that Moscow wanted to continue the offensive. The question of eventual security guarantees for Ukraine has been front and centre during the latest US-led diplomatic push to broker a peace deal to end the conflict. Trump earlier said Russia had agreed to some Western security guarantees for Kyiv. But Moscow later cast doubt on any such arrangement, Lavrov saying on Wednesday that discussing them without Russia was "a utopia, a road to nowhere". "When Russia raises the issue of security guarantees, I honestly do not yet know who is threatening them," said Zelensky, who wants foreign troops in Ukraine to deter Russian attacks in the future. The Kremlin has long said it would never accept that, citing Ukraine's NATO ambition as one of the pretexts for its assault. "There are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov told NBC. On a visit to Kyiv, during which an air raid alert sounded across the city, Rutte said security guarantees were needed to ensure "Russia will uphold any deal and will never ever again attempt to take one square kilometre of Ukraine". Russia violated that first by taking Crimea in 2014, and then by starting a full-scale offensive in 2022, which has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes. A Ukrainian man arrested in Italy this week over the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines from Russia to Europe on Friday refused to be extradited to Germany, reports said. The 49-year-old man -- identified as Serhii K. by Italian prosecutors but named as Sehrii Kuznetsov in the media -- was detained on Thursday, accused of being part of a cell of Ukrainians who placed explosive devices on the pipeline in September 2022. Nord Stream had long been controversial for allowing Russian gas to bypass eastern European transit routes and leaving Germany overly reliant on cheap energy from Moscow. His was the first arrest in the case, which is politically sensitive given Russia's February 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine, and Western support for Ukraine's fightback. Through a Ukrainian translator, the man told the Bologna court he refused Germany's extradition request and said he was in Ukraine at the time of the Nord Stream explosions, the Ansa news agency reported. It said his next hearing was scheduled for September 3, with him remaining in custody until then. Serhii K. was arrested in the early hours of Thursday in a bungalow in the Italian province of Rimini on a European arrest warrant. German investigations pointed to a Ukrainian cell of five men and one woman as the perpetrators of the pipeline blasts. The cell members were believed to have chartered a yacht to carry out the attack, according to Der Spiegel magazine and other media. German prosecutors said Serhii K. had used forged identity documents to hire the yacht, which departed from the German city Rostock to carry out the attacks. When the Nord Stream explosions happened, Western powers were quick to point the finger at Russia, which was under sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. But Moscow in turn pointed the finger at Ukraine. German prosecutors last year issued an arrest warrant for another Ukrainian man, named as Volodymyr Z., a diving instructor whose last known address was in Poland. He was suspected of being one of the divers who planted the explosive devices in an operation that also involved a married couple who ran a diving school, according to public broadcaster ARD and other media. The case is awkward for Germany and Ukraine, as Berlin has strongly backed Kyiv in its fight against Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his government knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines. Sandos Caracol Eco Resort is proud to unveil its latest oceanfront addition: KIIN Beach Club - an exclusive, adults-only sanctuary offering an elevated beachside experience within the 955-room nature-focused all-inclusive. Nestled in the resort's private adult beach area, the new beach club brings together the natural beauty of the Riviera Maya with refined comfort and a vibrant atmosphere for its guests that are 18 and up. Open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., KIIN Beach Club is reserved for guests staying in the Select Club section of the property or those holding a Royal Elite membership. With live DJ sets, curated cocktails, and a menu that fuses Mexican flavors with international cuisine, KIIN creates the perfect setting to unwind, celebrate, or simply soak in the stunning views. Whether you're lounging under a palm tree, sipping a handcrafted drink, or enjoying the sounds of the sea, KIIN is designed to inspire connection and optimize relaxation. This new space reflects the essence of Sandos Caracol: where nature, leisure and sustainability coexist in harmony. KIIN Beach Club adds a sophisticated new dimension to the resort's already robust offerings, including the thrilling 29-slide water park for all ages and the immersive All Nature Experience program. It's the perfect complement for couples and friends looking to create unforgettable beachfront memories in a tropical paradise. Hotel website The Kimpton Hotel Monaco Seattle, part of IHG Hotels & Resorts, has officially completed its property-wide renovation. Rooted in the natural beauty and soul of the Pacific Northwest, the boutique hotel located in the heart of downtown Seattle (1101 4th Avenue), welcomes guests with refreshed interiors and the debut of its signature restaurant, Marin, all designed to reflect Seattle's ever-evolving spirit. Originally known for its playful personality and bold design, the newly transformed Hotel Monaco now embraces a more refined aesthetic. The design celebrates the city's beautiful waterfront geography and rich maritime legacy. Operated by InnVest Hotels and part of the IHG Luxury & Lifestyle portfolio, the property's full renovation includes updates to all 189 guest rooms, including 45 junior suites and the expansive Ambassador Suite, as well as a redesigned lobby, upgraded public spaces, and a refreshed exterior. The vibrant new lobby blends curated artwork, cozy seating nooks, and a chic family room library vibe to create a space that invites connection. Led by a design that reflects Seattle's balance of nature and innovation, the new interiors incorporate cool tones, sculptural elements, and art that celebrates the city's lesser-known treasures like the mystical Underwater Forest of Lake Washington. In conjunction with the re-opening of the hotel is the opening of the hotel's new restaurant concept, Marin, a modern coastal restaurant that brings a globally inspired, Pacific Northwest-rooted menu to downtown Seattle. Marin is an extension of the hotel's redesign approach, offering an elegant yet welcoming space featuring natural wood, organic textures, and subtle maritime detailing, all anchored by the symbolic Caspian Tern, a bird reflective of the restaurant's calm resilience and coastal independence ethos. Seattle native Executive Chef Robin Posey is leading the culinary team at Marin, with a menu that showcases the bounty of regional waters and nearby farms. Signature dishes include Grilled British Columbia King Salmon, Moroccan Rotisserie Chicken, Oregon Tuna Tartare Crostino, and the signature Smoked Trout Dip, along with handcrafted cocktails, like the Marigold Negroni and Olympic Old Fashioned. Marin offers weekday breakfast, lunch, daily happy hour from 2-5 PM, and dinner service, as well as weekend brunch and patio seating during warmer months. The relaunch of Kimpton Hotel Monaco Seattle goes beyond just aesthetics as guests will discover a thoughtfully curated guest journey, from luxury in-room touches to elevated amenities such as an evening social hour featuring local wineries, complimentary hotel bicycles to use during their stay, and a 24-hour fitness centre featuring hospitality-enabled Peloton bikes. The hotel also offers a total of 6,000 square feet of flexible meeting and event spaces with access to catering from Marin and professional audiovisual capabilities. Kimpton Hotel Monaco Seattle is now fully open and welcoming guests. For more information, reservations, and to explore Marin's menu, please visit monaco-seattle.com and follow on Instagram at @monacosea and @marinseattle. Hotel website NEMA Design Hotel & Spa is excited to announce the upcoming unveiling of 35 brand-new luxury suites in Spring 2026. Nestled along the Aegean coastline, NEMA continues to distinguish itself as an adults-only boutique retreat for discerning travellers seeking refined luxury in the heart of Crete, just 20 minutes from Heraklion International Airport. At NEMA, guests are invited to truly disconnect from the demands of daily life, stepping away from screens, routines and constant noise to rediscover stillness, simplicity, and the restorative rhythm of nature. Looking ahead, the upcoming debut of EESO on 1 May 2026 will introduce 35 new suites, including four brand-new ultra-luxury categories. This expansion reaffirms NEMA's unwavering commitment to delivering an elevated guest experience, combining refined comfort and exclusivity with new suites that deliver privacy, sophistication, and sensory indulgence, complemented by exceptional facilities including: NA LE MA - A dining destination offering an immersive gastronomic journey where contemporary artistry meets Cretan heritage. - A dining destination offering an immersive gastronomic journey where contemporary artistry meets Cretan heritage. AEQU - A transformative wellness spa concept, designed to restore balance through curated treatments, serene spaces, and a holistic approach to wellbeing. The new suites are thoughtfully crafted to evoke a sense of clarity and connection, with light-filled spaces and tranquil details that inspire a slower, more mindful way of living. Designed by Dimitri Tsigos of OMNIVIEW, NEMA new expansion is a seamless fusion of contemporary elegance and authentic Cretan charm, combining minimalist design with earthy interiors, sweeping Aegean views and fluid indoor-outdoor living. Every detail reflects a deep commitment to sustainability and local craftsmanship, creating a modern, sensory-rich escape where guests can disconnect from the noise of everyday life and embrace a slower, more mindful pace. Reservations for EESO by NEMA will open later in 2025, with strictly limited availability to ensure a highly curated and personalised experience. Until then, guests can continue to enjoy NEMA Design Hotel & Spa's signature service and design-led comfort, anticipating the transformative new chapter that awaits. Find out more and book now: www.nemacrete.com. Hotel website Hall oversees operations for a portfolio of properties in the Midwest U.S.. She most recently served as Vice President of Operations at Aperture Hotels, where she managed a multi-branded portfolio of Marriott, Hilton, and IHG properties. In that role, she consistently drove RevPAR growth, improved GOP margins, optimized labor efficiency, and elevated guest and associate satisfaction across her portfolio. With a strong background in rooms and food & beverage operations and strategic revenue management, Hall has successfully guided properties through brand transitions and operational improvements. Hotel Equities Alpharetta, Georgia United States Website Baer most recently served as Director of Sales and Marketing at Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa, where he led the team to three consecutive years of record-breaking group room nights. He played a vital role in the resort's recovery following the Lahaina wildfires, helping to preserve brand stability and sustain revenue during a challenging period. Baer's tenure was marked by forward-thinking digital campaigns that leveraged social media, influencer partnerships and data-driven strategies to drive direct bookings and significantly boost the resort's presence on Hyatt.com. In addition, he fostered meaningful community partnerships with local vendors, farms and restaurants, strengthening the resort's ties to the Lahaina community and enhancing its reputation as a cornerstone of the area. Prior to Maui, Baer held leadership roles at Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa and Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, consistently exceeding revenue goals and earning recognition as a Hyatt Elite Performer. He also previously served as senior sales manager at Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach from 2015 to 2018 a return that holds special significance. Baer holds dual Bachelor of Science degrees in business management and supply chain operations from California State University, Long Beach, and is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. With a reputation for collaborative leadership and strategic vision, he is committed to partnering with his team to develop bold programming and guest experiences. His focus on creativity and community drives plans to launch dynamic activations designed to energize the resort and introduce fresh experiences to Huntington Beach that the city has never seen before. The U.S. hotel industry reported mostly negative year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStars latest data through 16 August. CoStar is a global leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics in the property markets. 10-16 August 2025 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024): Occupancy: 66.3% (-0.9%) Average daily rate (ADR): US$157.51 (+0.4%) Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$104.50 (-0.5%) Among the Top 25 Markets, Seattle saw the highest increases in occupancy (+7.5% to 83.9%) and RevPAR (+10.9% to US$178.62). Houston recorded the steepest drop in occupancy (-24.0% to 57.2%) and RevPAR (-27.1% to US$66.84). The decreases are largely due to the elevated displacement demand period that followed Hurricane Beryl in 2024. New Orleans reported the second-largest declines in occupancy (-13.7% to 45.0%) and RevPAR (-17.2% to US$53.82). For more information about the company and its products and services, please visit costargroup.com. Fairfield by Marriott, one of over 30 extraordinary brands in the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio, has officially launched its product upgrade in China including a new Chinese name that now carries the Marriott master brand, and the unveiling of its newly refreshed product design and guest experience. To meet the changing needs of modern Chinese travelers, the product upgrade enhances design, functionality, and serviceoffering an at-ease and comfortable stay that reflects the brands Beauty of Simplicity philosophy. Since debuting in China eight years ago, Fairfield by Marriott has been widely recognized for delivering a simple, comfortable guest experience and sustainable investment returnsestablishing itself as one of Marriott Internationals key growth engines in the market, said Gavin Yu, Chief Development Officer, Greater China, Marriott International. This product upgrade enhances the brands competitiveness in the select service segment, while the new Chinese name reflects Marriotts systematic empowerment. We remain committed to expanding Fairfield by Marriotts footprint across more destinations favored by travelers. Fairfield by Marriott traces its roots back to the Fairfield Farm and Manor House nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains a serene retreat where Mr. J.W. and Mrs. Alice Marriott embraced simple living and heartfelt hospitality. The newly upgraded Fairfield by Marriott hotels pay tribute to this heritage, bringing The Beauty of Simplicity to life through natural design inspired by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the ease of manor living. The design upgrade centers around three core spaces The Fairfield Living Room, The Fairfield Restaurant, and Guest Rooms and addresses four essential travel needs: working, sleeping, bathing, and service. The result is a thoughtfully balanced experience that combines focused efficiency with relaxed comfort. Manor-Inspired Functional Public Spaces The upgraded public areas combine modern simplicity with manor charm, offering flexible, multifunctional spaces. The use of natural wood tones and textures brings a sense of warmth and ease to the public areas, while the front desks background wall inspired by a view through the windowshowcases the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Fairfield Living Room is a new highlight of the public area design, offering multi-functional spaces for work, meetings, casual gatherings, and retail experiences. Signature features, including the brands iconic fireplace and curated heritage artwork, create a cozy, manor-inspired ambiance that invites guests to connect and unwind. The open table offers a comfortable and efficient space for work and informal conversations. Private Meeting Rooms are designed to flexibly accommodate social interactions, focused discussions, and small-scale meetings. The Fairfield Market provides a carefree retail experience for travelers, offering convenient anytime access to business must-haves, local snacks, and essential supplies. Additionally, the public area design facilitates the integration and seamless transition between different functional zones. The Fairfield Restaurant features a built-in open kitchen layout, thoughtfully separating the food preparation and dining areas to enhance flow and organization. During peak dining hours, it can be expanded to connect with The Living Room. Guest Rooms Balance Comfort and Efficiency In the newly upgraded guestrooms, natural-textured walls, a wood-paneled TV backdrop inspired by a fireplace, and abstract artwork outlining the Blue Ridge Mountains highlight the beauty of nature and simplicity. Flexible furniture pieces, such as fabric sofas, are designed for guest convenience and accommodate the needs of various properties, streamlining the development process. Guest bathrooms feature a layout that combines glass partitions with solid walls to enhance privacy. The upgraded shower system offers a more intuitive and convenient bathing experience. Notably, the guestrooms incorporate a Work with Ease concept tailored to the productivity needs of modern business travelers. Each room features an ergonomic chair and an eye-friendly desk lamp. Desks can be equipped with optional electric height adjustment, extended screen and wireless charging, creating a focused and efficient work environment with added comfort. Warm Hospitality Rooted in Tradition A series of thoughtful details embodies Fairfield by Marriotts long-standing tradition of heartfelt hospitality, enhancing the guest experience. Guests are welcomed with a calming arrival experience inspired by the flora of the Blue Ridge Mountains, marked by signature Blue Ridge aroma tag. The welcome basket features carefully selected local treats, including honey products and regional snacks, offering a taste of authentic culture upon arrival. We stay closely attuned to evolving consumer lifestyles and travel needs, continuously refining our products and services, said Betty Tian, Managing Vice President, Customer, Greater China, Marriott International. This upgrade embraces a philosophy rooted in simplicity and a connection to nature, strengthening the brands ties to Marriotts heritage while thoughtfully catering to guests expectations for work-life balance during their fast-paced journeys. For more information about Fairfield by Marriott, please visit https://fairfield.marriott.com. To kick off the loyalty program optimization track of the Direct Bookings Mastery Certification, we shared our exclusive guide on how you can go beyond the basic points-based hotel guest loyalty program model to meet rising guest expectations and drive more direct bookings. But what can you expect when you put those core strategies into practice? After all, if youre going to spend the time revamping your hotel guest loyalty program to provide the recognition and personalization travelers say they want, you need to make sure its going to drive real revenue. So, were providing the real results from real properties to show you that optimizing your guest loyalty program doesnt just strengthen relationships with your guests but also provides some pretty incredible results. From fueling retention to reducing OTA reliance and boosting your revenue, heres a look at what you can expect based on real results from hotels like yours. La Jolla Shores Hotel increased loyalty-driven direct bookings La Jolla Shores Hotel, a relaxed beachfront property just steps from downtown La Jolla, California, wanted to recognize and reward guests who stayed with them during a renovation. But they knew that sending a generic promotion or offering points wouldnt be enough. So, the hotel decided to design a creative, targeted campaign specifically for guests who stayed within a certain date range. The hotel sent a one-time email offering those guests a 35% discount on a future stay, but with a very clear incentive: Book your next stay within four months. It provided a sense of urgency but also allowed enough flexibility for guests to book at a time that was best for them. It also showed La Jolla Shores Hotels guests just how important and appreciated they were. And that strategy paid off big time. La Jolla Shores Hotels results: Open rate: 78% Click-through rate: 14% Room nights booked: 279 By combining a time-sensitive offer with the personalization and thoughtfulness guests have come to expect, the hotel showed how a single email campaign can not only strengthen guest loyalty but also generate meaningful revenue. The Arca turned streamlined data into guest loyalty As a design-forward, lifestyle-focused property on Hong Kongs Southside, The Arca needed to find a way to unify their fragmented guest data and deliver more personalized communications to their guests. Disparate systems made it difficult to understand guest behavior and, as a result, run effective campaigns. But once it was able to consolidate its guest data into a single platform, The Arca launched more targeted campaigns to their previous guests. From relaunching the hotels Sky bar to raising awareness as a partner of the Hong Kong Breast Cancer Foundation with their Pink October campaign, The Arca discovered how sending personalized communications to their guests could drive loyalty and produce immediate results. The Arcas results: Lifetime revenue: HK$ 1.6M Average open rate: 46% per campaign Average room revenue: HK$ 117K per campaign By combining a 360-degree view of their guests with personalized offers, The Arca turned their data challenges into stronger loyalty, repeated direct bookings, and sustained revenue growth. As Jiho Kim, Hotel Cluster General Manager of The Arca shared, By leveraging guest data and implementing personalized campaigns, weve strengthened guest relationships and driven loyalty. Ennismores new hotel guest loyalty program is a Dis-loyal revenue machine London-based hotel management company Ennismore knew a traditional points-based hotel guest loyalty program wasnt right for its guests. With Ennismore, its all about their members, which is why they launched Dis-loyalty a paid membership program designed to encourage guests to explore various properties across their portfolio. For one monthly fee, Ennismore members gain immediate benefits, including room discounts, F&B perks like 10% discounts and a daily barista-made drink, and even an incredible 50% discount off a stay at any of their newly-opened hotels. By personalizing its program, Ennismore flipped the structure of a loyalty program on its head, and the results have been incredible. Ennismores results: A fully sold-out opening of its new property, The Hoxton in Vienna Low churn rates, proving long-term value for both loyal guests and Ennismore Improved ability to collect guest data through its Dis-loyalty program Turning loyalty into a pathway for discovery through a membership model has allowed Ennismore to resonate with their guests and appeal to travelers who value experiences over points a growing segment all properties should keep an eye on. Daniel Thwaites drove revenue with its surprise and delight loyalty program For over 215 years, UK hospitality company Daniel Thwaites has built its reputation on thoughtful hospitality across its portfolio of hotels, conference venues, inns, spas, lodges, and pubs. But managing their guest data across 23 different hotels and inns became a challenge, with their staff manually merging information from different systems. The result? It became almost impossible for the hospitality company to personalize their communications to guests or even identify their most loyal guests. Once Daniel Thwaites gained a unified view of their guests along with the ability to run targeted campaigns with Revinate Marketing, they began to send tailored communications that resonated with guests. From seasonal promotions to automated lifecycle campaigns, the hospitality company effectively reached travelers and locals alike. But it was their surprise and delight loyalty program that stood out most. By using the insights feature, Daniel Thwaites was able to bypass the dated points-based hotel guest loyalty program and instead reward repeat guests with personalized perks at check-in. Daniel Thwaites results: Lifetime revenue: 7M Email health: 63% Average open rate on email campaigns: 43% Average click-through rate on email campaigns: 4% Net Promoter Score: 5.8% increase YoY Replacing manual processes with automated and personalized data-driven engagement allowed Daniel Thwaites to strengthen guest loyalty and create experiences that keep guests coming back. Why loyalty optimization works While the success stories above represent a variety of properties and markets, its easy to identify common themes in their approaches to loyalty: Personalization pays off. Delivering customized messages to guests drives stronger engagement and repeat direct bookings. Delivering customized messages to guests drives stronger engagement and repeat direct bookings. Loyalty reduces reliance on OTAs. When guests feel recognized and valued, they are more likely to return and book direct with your property. When guests feel recognized and valued, they are more likely to return and book direct with your property. Data powers loyalty. Having access to unified, actionable guest data enables you to transform loyalty programs into increased revenue. As you can see from these stories from hoteliers just like you, the question isnt whether or not hotel guest loyalty programs work. The real question is this: Are you ready to optimize yours? Learn how to optimize your hotel guest loyalty program with the Direct Booking Mastery Certification so you can begin driving more measurable revenue for your hotel. About Revinate Revinate is a direct booking platform that leads the hospitality industry in driving direct revenue and increased profitability. Our products and our people combine to give hoteliers the superpowers they need to crush their goals. With Revinate, hoteliers shift share away from OTAs and drive tangible results across an individual property or a portfolio. Our industry-leading, AI-powered customer data platform collects, unifies, and synthesizes data to give hoteliers a foundational advantage. Hoteliers gain critical intelligence guest lifetime spend, stay preferences, ancillary revenue, and more. With Revinate's Rich Guest Profiles data, hoteliers don't need to guess who their most profitable guests are or struggle to drive conversions across email, voice, messaging, and digital channels. Revinate's direct booking platform and omnichannel communication technology powers 950+ million Rich Guest Profiles across 12,500+ hotels to drive over $17.2 billion in direct revenue. More and more travelers gravitate towards generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to assist in trip planning. Their ability to provide straightforward answers to complex questions makes them function almost as a travel agent only much faster. At the same time, Google is accelerating the shift with its new AI Overviews. This built-in feature provides AI-generated summaries on top of the traditional search results that directly answer the users search query. This means users increasingly get answers without clicking through to websites. So, how can you make sure your hotel or B&B appears front and center in AI answers and gets recommended to travelers? This guide shows you exactly how to adapt and optimize your website in 5 clear steps. What is AI search and how does it work? AI search tools like ChatGPT and Claude, to name a few leverage artificial intelligence, including machine learning and large language models (LLMs), to answer complex naturallanguage queries such as: Were a family with two toddlers visiting Lyon for a week. Where can we stay close to kid-proof outdoor activities? They are built to understand the deeper context and intent of the query, rather than just matching keywords like traditional search engines. They produce direct, conversational responses instead of a list of website links. Behind the scenes, many AI tools combine generation with retrieval. This means they pull information from trusted web sources and synthesize a response, often linking back to those sources. AI search doesnt replace your website. Think of it as a new channel next to traditional search results. It routes travelers to your site, provided your content is clear, well-structured and easy for AI models to understand. Why should hotels optimize their website for AI search? The days of dismissing generative AI as a gimmick are well in the past. Just like regular search engines took the world by storm in the 90s, AI-driven search is rapidly transforming how users access information online. Adoption rates are rising fast and so is AI-referred website traffic. For hoteliers, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. AI search offers a valuable new marketing channel that will not only name-drop your accommodation but also direct users to your website. Only, your current website may work for traditional search, but it isnt necessarily optimized for LLMs and AI answers. Updating your site to speak AI-friendly language is the key to being found by future guests. Googles AI Overviews are blocking your hotel website traffic A major factor driving the shift towards AI search is Google itself. With AI Overviews now live for all users, travelers are increasingly getting summarized answers directly at the top of the results page. This means that users dont have to scroll through and click on links to find the information they need. The implementation of Googles AI Overviews has had a dramatic impact on organic traffic to websites across all industries. The silver lining is that AI Overviews not only cite but also link sources. If your hotel website provides well-structured, detailed answers to common queries, its more likely to be referenced and clicked on by potential guests. Generative AI like ChatGPT is increasingly used for travel planning Its not surprising that more and more people are turning to established generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and soon also Googles upcoming AI Mode, for travel-related searches. After all, planning a vacation is a complex task that traditionally involves countless searches, browser tabs and hours of comparing options. Based on a simple prompt, generative AI can provide travelers with: Perfectly tailored recommendations Detailed hotel comparisons Complete itineraries including transport, activities and dining Because of this, travelers are adopting fast. A survey of 1,000 travelers by Matador Network (2024) found that 22.8% have used AI and 34.4% intend to use AI to plan or assist with travel. According to Deloittes 2025 summer travel survey, 15% of Americans now use these applications in trip planning, compared to 10% in 2024. And its not just the youngest generation driving this trend. Deloittes survey revealed that almost 1 in 4 American Gen Zers and Millennials turn to AI tools like ChatGPT for researching and planning trips. Gen X is catching up quickly: 13% have now jumped on the bandwagon, compared to only 7% last year. Boomers are slower to adopt AI search, with 6% of them using it for trip planning in 2025. Percentage of people using generative AI tools for travel planning Source: Deloitte, 2025 Across all generations, no less than 15% of Americans are relying on AI search platforms to help them with travel planning in 2025. That is a large chunk of your hotel guests. Nearly half of these travelers (46%) use it to explore accommodation options and 42% have actually booked based on these AI recommendations this year. Even more users research activities and attractions in specific destinations (61%) and destinations in general (48%) through their favorite AI search tool. While Googles Overviews can dampen website traffic, generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are driving new streams of traffic. In May 2025, AI-referred sessions were up 527%, according to Previsibles AI Traffic Report. How to make your hotel more visible on ChatGPT and other AI search platforms As AI searches are increasingly replacing traditional ones, hoteliers need to update their website in order to be found by potential guests. But, how do you ensure your property is referenced there? Heres the truth: Your current website setup isnt built with LLMs in mind. Its designed to be found by traditional engines like Google. While SEO (Search Engine Optimization) remains important, it wont help your visibility in AI environments. Lets dive into the five key steps you need to take in order to successfully adapt and optimize your website for AI search. Step 1: Find out what your guests are searching Forget just keywords. To optimize for AI search, your website needs to answer conversational queries directly. Therefore, the first logical step is finding out what real questions travelers are asking about your property and destination. Research tools like AlsoAsked, Answer the Public, Googles People Also Ask, Perplexity, Reddit and Quora are goldmines for gaining insight into these queries. Once you know what people are asking online, you can create dedicated sections on your website that answer those questions directly. Step 2: Refine and restructure your website content The way users interact with AI engines like ChatGPT varies greatly from how they search on Google. They use longer queries that closely resemble the way they speak to a real person, either in the form of a full-sentence question or a statement followed by a request (prompt). Generic search query vs. AI search query Source: Lighthouse Rather than staying limited to a couple of keywords, AI search queries look like natural conversations. To increase your AI mentions, your website content should follow the same tone. Dont just focus on keywords, but write in natural language that mirrors AI queries and answers. A great tactic is incorporating common conversational or question-based queries into your headings (titles). Provide a clear and concise answer immediately after these descriptive headings ideally in 60 words or less and elaborate in the following paragraphs. Elaborating is key, because for AI search, the devil is in the details. Therefore, include detailed descriptions of amenities, services and unique offerings in a way that sounds human and engaging. Group them per theme, giving each section a clear, descriptive heading that closely matches the search query. Include bulleted lists when relevant to provide even more detail or clarity. Adding information coming from credible sources like guest reviews or stories increases your chances of being cited by AI as well. Dont limit your website content to your property. Be sure to add highly-searched information about your destination too. For example, a web page about nearby attractions and activities might contain a section titled: What to do and see in and around Lyon?. You can further split these up per target audience: families, couples, friend groups, solo travelers, The possibilities are endless, as long as you bear in mind what travelers are actively searching online. Quick checklist for AI-friendly copy: Use natural, conversational language Avoid keyword stuffing Add details and rich context Incorporate quotes and stories from staff and guests Use headings that mirror search queries Organize information in lists and tables Answer questions directly and thoroughly Group related (sub)topics logically Include relevant synonyms naturally Avoid conflicting or outdated information If keywords are the foundation of SEO, structure is the cornerstone of AI search. The way you structure information determines if it gets picked up by AI or not. Ensure all your website content is logically structured under headings and subheadings, applying the appropriate formatting to each title (H1, H2, H3, H4 ). When your website content is clear, detailed and well-structured, AI platforms are far more likely to reference and send traffic to your site. Step 3: Add schema markup Schema markup or structured data is code that helps AI models (and regular search engines) understand your website content better. By adding this code to your web page HTML, you can provide explicit context and label different elements on the page, making it easier for engines to read and categorize. Your content not only becomes more accessible to AI search engines, but will be presented more accurately in their answers. Major AI search players Google, ChatGPT and Microsoft have all stressed the importance of structured data, claiming their engines use it to reference websites and products. There is no doubt that implementing it can only benefit your hotels exposure in AI-generated answers. This is a high-effort tactic, but one with equally high impact. While you dont need a degree in programming, you will need to do a bit of reading before getting started. Both Schema.org and Googles structured data help articles provide in-depth information and step-by-step guides. If you feel overwhelmed, ask your webmaster or your go-to AI tool for help or instructions. How to add schema markup to your hotel website: Prioritize adding schema markup to these pages, if your website has them: FAQ, contact, location, guest reviews, rooms, offers, blog articles, terms and conditions, and any other highly informative pages. Use the Schema.org library and templates or Googles Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the needed code. Alternatively, ask your webmaster for help. Copy the schema code and paste it in the HTML of your web pages, or ask your webmaster to do this. Use Google's Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator to test and validate your schema before publishing. Step 4: Answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) At this point, it shouldnt surprise you that AI-powered engines favor the clear and structured format of FAQs. It helps them generate clear and accurate answers to user queries. If you havent already, create a well-structured, extensive FAQ page on your website to address relevant questions in a straightforward way. Refer back to your findings in the first step of this guide: What are potential guests asking about your accommodation, destination, region and country during their research or planning phase? You can also address some of these queries in dedicated FAQ sections on other web pages if that makes more sense. You can also start from your accommodations unique assets and incorporate them into FAQs: large outdoor or indoor swimming pool, proximity to the airport and public transport, special deals For example: Query: Do you need an emissions sticker for Lyon? FAQ: Do you need an emissions sticker for Lyon? Yes, you need an emissions sticker to enter Lyon by car. We recommend registering well in advance via Do you need an emissions sticker for Lyon? Do you need an emissions sticker for Lyon? Yes, you need an emissions sticker to enter Lyon by car. We recommend registering well in advance via Query: Which hotels in Venice are easily accessible from the airport by public transport? FAQ: Is Hotel Lighthouse easily accessible from the Venice airport by public transport? Yes, Hotel Lighthouse is easy to reach by train and bus from the airport in less than 30 minutes. (Make sure to include further details about the train/bus guests can take.) Which hotels in Venice are easily accessible from the airport by public transport? Is Hotel Lighthouse easily accessible from the Venice airport by public transport? Yes, Hotel Lighthouse is easy to reach by train and bus from the airport in less than 30 minutes. (Make sure to include further details about the train/bus guests can take.) Query: Are pets allowed in Hotel Lighthouse? FAQ: Are pets allowed in Hotel Lighthouse? Yes, pets are welcome to stay at Hotel Lighthouse. We just ask that you inform us in advance if you plan on bringing your furry friend. Dont forget to give these Q&A sections the right formatting, structure and schema markup (see step 2 and 3 above). Step 5: Collect backlinks from reputable sources Tourism boards, local vendors, travel blogs, review websites, forums, news outlets When these authoritative parties reference your website, it tells AI that youre a trustworthy source, increasing your chances of being cited. Produce original articles that are likely to get picked up by different outlets. These blog posts might include: trying and rating local food, uncovering the latest travel trends, visiting new attractions in your region, Additionally, invest some time in PR (public relations) whenever you have exciting or fun news to share. Has your property undergone a full renovation to be more eco-friendly and provide more comfort to guests? Has your team participated in a charity initiative? Are you hosting your own event soon? Let the world know! Lastly, establish partnerships with local businesses and refer to each others website along with a positive, detailed description. Aim for contextual links to relevant web pages, not just your homepage. If you want to take it one step further, you can look into influencer marketing and sponsorships to get your property talked about online. How to establish backlinks to your hotel website: Partner with tourism boards, local vendors and travel blogs Publish original articles about local food, events or trends that others will cite Share newsworthy updates through PR (renovations, charity initiatives, events) Collaborate with local businesses and cross-link your websites Explore influencer marketing or sponsorships Bonus tip: Look beyond your hotel website LLMs dont just pull information from websites, but from various online sources. Think social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, OTAs, forums like Reddit and YouTube. Therefore, having a strong online presence across a variety of platforms is key. If you havent already, start by creating a LinkedIn page and Google Business Profile for your property, and fill them with the same valuable content as you did your website. This is essential for regular SEO too. Next, start strengthening your presence on platforms that revolve around user-generated content. Social network sites YouTube and Facebook, as well as popular forums like Reddit and Yelp feature numerous travel-related recommendations and reviews from real people information that is extremely valued by AI search engines. Set up your own accounts and get your hotel talked about on these sites to increase your chances of being mentioned in AI answers. Make sure all your OTA listings are up-to-date, complete and consistent. Include all relevant information that travelers are frequently looking for: pet-friendly, free parking, on-site dining Pay special attention to your profile on review website TripAdvisor, one of the most cited platforms by AI tools, ranking behind Reddit, YouTube and Yelp. The stronger and more consistent your digital footprint, the more likely AI is to surface your property in answers. Use AI to your advantage A large chunk of leisure travelers are using AI search for trip planning, yet hotel brands currently lack visibility in the answers generated. This is your time to act. You now have the opportunity to gain a competitive edge and optimize your online presence for AI. Following these five steps allows you to increase your hotels visibility in AI answers, attract more travelers to your website and ultimately boost bookings. Dont view AI as a threat, but as an opportunity to get ahead of your competitors. If you wish to know more about using AI to your advantage, be sure to check out our quick guide to getting started with AI for independent hoteliers. Lighthouse brings AI to independent hoteliers Just as AI transforms the way hotels are discovered and booked, Lighthouses AI-powered platform is redefining how independent hoteliers run their property. From optimizing your prices, promotions and inventory on OTAs to simplifying your day-to-day operations Lighthouse enables you to leverage AI automation with ease. That way, you not only see your revenue grow, but you win back time to focus on what actually matters: guest service. We innovate continuously, so our clients stay ahead of the curve. One of our newest solutions, Connect AI, turns AI searches into bookings. It bridges the gap between hotels and AI-powered travel planning platforms, ensuring your property is discoverable and bookable directly through those systems. Lighthouse isnt just keeping pace with the industry its actively shaping whats next in hospitality. If youre ready to explore how our AI-driven solutions can help you compete successfully in this rapidly evolving landscape, get in touch with one of our team members today. About Lighthouse Lighthouse 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 70,000 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 partnerstheir success is our success. For more information about Lighthouse, please visit: https://www.mylighthouse.com. View source Among the Top 25 Markets, Seattle emerged as a standout performer, boasting a 7.5% increase in occupancy, reaching 83.9%, and a 10.9% rise in RevPAR to $178.62. - Image Credit Unsplash Seattle leads with significant occupancy and RevPAR growth, while Houston experiences notable declines. Overall, the U.S. hotel industry sees slight decreases in occupancy and RevPAR, with a minor increase in ADR. The U.S. hotel industry experienced varied outcomes for the week ending August 16, 2025, as reported by CoStar, a prominent provider of real estate analytics. The data revealed mostly negative year-over-year comparisons, highlighting shifts in key performance metrics. During this period, the industry saw a slight decline in occupancy rates, down 0.9% to 66.3%. The average daily rate (ADR) showed a modest increase of 0.4%, reaching $157.51. However, revenue per available room (RevPAR) dipped by 0.5% to $104.50. Among the Top 25 Markets, Seattle emerged as a standout performer, boasting a 7.5% increase in occupancy, reaching 83.9%, and a 10.9% rise in RevPAR to $178.62. In contrast, Houston faced significant challenges, with occupancy plummeting by 24.0% to 57.2% and RevPAR dropping 27.1% to $66.84. This downturn in Houston is attributed to the high demand period following Hurricane Beryl in 2024, which has since diminished. These results underscore the ongoing fluctuations within the U.S. hotel industry, influenced by regional factors and broader market conditions. Image Credit Royalton Blue Diamond Resorts has announced a rebranding initiative that will see the company transition to Royalton Hotels & Resorts on August 11, 2025. This change aims to unify the company's brand identity under the Royalton name, which has been associated with its properties across the Caribbean. The rebranding will involve a strategic alignment of the company's brand portfolio. The adults-only brand previously known as Hideaway at Royalton will be renamed Royalton Hideaway, A Resort Within a Resort. This name change is intended to integrate the brand more closely within the Royalton ecosystem while maintaining its focus on an adults-only experience. Additionally, Planet Hollywood Hotels & Resorts will be rebranded as Planet Hollywood Hotels & Resorts by Royalton. This move is designed to strengthen the connection between its cinematic concept and the Royalton brand identity. The rebranding effort will include several well-known brands in the company's portfolio, such as Royalton Luxury Resorts, Royalton CHIC Resorts, Royalton Vessence Resorts, Royalton Hideaway Resorts, Planet Hollywood Hotels & Resorts by Royalton, Mystique by Royalton, and Grand Lido Negril. This announcement follows a period of expansion for the company, which has included the launch of Royalton Vessence Resorts and the announcement of Royalton CHIC Jamaica Paradise Cove. New resort developments are also underway in the Caribbean region. Ghost Musicians and the Era of Perfect Fit Content on Streaming AI-generated bands and ghost musicians ir ghost artists are everywhere on Spotify playlists. Backed by a strategy known as Perfect Fit Content, these fictional acts are created to blend seamlessly into mood-based listening. Ghost Musicians and the Era of Perfect Fit Content on Streaming by Alan Smithee via Chartmetric The jurys still out on whether or not a robot can write a symphony, but when it comes to a three-minute song to play in the background, AI is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. This truth was recently proven by The Velvet Sundown, a throwback indie rock group who quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of listeners on Spotify with songs like Dust on the Wind. Their tracks are styled after classic 70s songs and pleasant enough to blend into mixes of classic Americana or evocative genre playlists like Vietnam War Music or Woodstock Festival 69 . Theres just one twist the whole project, music, vocals, lyrics, and all, was generated on the AI music platform Suno. As adept as The Velvet Sundowns generation and marketing have been, the projects fictitious nature isnt exactly inconspicuous. Even before they admitted to their AI background, a cursory look through the bands profile shows all the classic hallmarks of AI composition a too-perfect band portrait and non-specific bio chief among them. However, the songs on the albums that launched The Velvet Sundown to fame, Floating on Echoes and Dust and Silence, are catchy, pleasant, and evocative enough that they can easily blend into playlists filled with traditional artists. The Velvet Sundown is far from the first fictitious group to gain a significant streaming presence by offering comforting background music to populate playlists. In fact, many have noticed that several of the ambient, classical, and mood-music playlists curated by streaming services are populated not by famous musicians but so-called ghost artists. Take Peaceful Retreat , a Spotify-curated playlist of calming background music. In a sample of 100 of the playlists tracks, 85 are credited to artists whose profiles are verified, but lack bios, links, or any evidence of media presence outside of streaming platforms. Of the 15 remaining artists who actually have something other than blank space in their bio sections, most have simple descriptions of their music, but again, no link back to a specific human presence. Only five artists out of 100 featured in Peaceful Retreat can directly be traced back to real human sources who take credit for their tracks like Nebula Somni and Volta Celeste, which both turn out to be ambient side projects of the (very real) Italian composer Giandomenico Domy Castellano. But while Castellano posts online about his journey to getting featured on editorial playlists, the stories behind these 85 other bio-less artists are more mysterious. So whats the deal? Are these ghost artists AI-generated projects like The Velvet Sundown? Experimental pseudonymous content? Sentient spawn of the algorithm? The answer mixes all of the above. What Is Perfect Fit Content? According to journalist Liz Pellys book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Perfect Playlist , published earlier this year by Simon and Schuster, these ghost artists dont just spring up out of nowhere. Instead, they are part of a content strategy developed by streaming services to create music specifically to serve certain moods, well, perfectly. Spotify called their program Perfect Fit Content or PFC, and the name has stuck. Usually, PFC is commissioned directly by streaming platforms or affiliated production companies to fill playlists aimed toward a certain mood or emotional experience. Rather than licensing existing music, companies hire composers and producers, who then create and perform tracks according to specific prompts a popular side gig for music students. These recordings are then credited to verified artist profiles with fictional names that feel appropriate for the music, which then end up on playlists with names like Focus , Chill or Ambient . Fortunately for fans of the ambient genre, however, Spotify and other streaming services often keep genre-driven playlists filled with name artists playlists like New Ambient or Classic Ambient separate from the mood playlists, allowing listeners to generally choose between their style of ambience. The musical ecosystem on streaming services now exists in two distinct layers: playlists that focus on ambient as a genre, and playlists that focus on creating ambience as a functional goal. The Man of 600 Names The PFC process employs plenty of student artists and aspiring musicians, but some of the mediums biggest influences are individual composers who publish under dozens or even hundreds of different names. If you came across the artists Mingmei Hsueh , Csizmazia Etel , and Maya Astrom on a playlist, you might picture multiple distinct people of different ethnicities and genders. However (like a lot of pop music) they are in actuality the product of a single Swedish man. According to Swedish publication Dagens Nyheter, these are just some of the aliases of Johan Rohr, a composer who has become one of the most prolific PFC creators, racking up streams by publishing songs under nearly 650 aliases. This strategy works. Some of ambient musics influential contemporary figures, like Tim Hecker, James Holden, and William Basinski, have had breakthrough songs that rack up multi-million plays on Spotify for example, Basinskis Melancholia II has more than 14 million. But Rohrs streaming accomplishments dwarf even the most successful songs by regular ambient artists. According to DN, Rohrs 2,700 different compositions have been streamed more than 15 billion times total more than Britney Spears, Abba, and Blackpink and nearly 15 times as many as the total plays for ambient musics biggest artist, Aphex Twin. Even though other ambient composers have greater influence and followings outside of the streaming world, Rohrs position as a main man behind PFC makes him one of the genres dominant forces on Spotify, showing that there are multiple ways to succeed in the world of mood music. Figge and the Catfish Catalog Rohr isnt the only Swedish musician who is responsible for a huge number of ambient music projects. Frederik Figge Bostrom is a veteran musician who is credited as a bass player for British pop acts, a producer for K-pop groups, and even as a co-writer for a song that made it to the Eurovision grand final . Though his history is in pop music, Bostrom leveraged his behind-the-scenes musical experience and skill set to pivot to mood music, launching his company Catfish Music Group, which, according to its website, represents piano-based artists in the ambient and classical space. However, while the labels about us section claims to represent artists Ana Olgica, Samuel Lindon, Bela Nemeth, Evelyn Stein, Martin Fox, Joszef Gatysik, Julius Aston, Max Swan, Sub-City Keys, Cadet de lespace, Tomasz Kraal, Koral Banko and many more, these artists themselves appear to be of what one might call dubious reality. Of the artists listed, only Ana Olgica has any evidence of being a real human outside the world of Spotify playlists. A third-party blog post by someone who claims to know her well discusses Ana Olgica as an artist though the comments section casts doubt on whether this piece is real or fictional. However, when it comes to the other artists on the Catfish Music roster, they appear to only exist on streaming services, and BMI and ASCAP data shows that Bostrom is credited as writer and producer for all of their tracks. Even if there are real artists on the Catfish roster, it appears that several are really Bostrom himself in disguise, playfully publishing his own compositions under false names or Catfishing. In terms of reach, PFC has been a boon to Bostrom. Even though he has written and played on some bona fide hit songs, even his Eurovision final entry lacks the streaming impact of his PFC music. In 2012, Bostrom co-wrote Norways Eurovision entry, Stay by Tooji , which made it all the way to the grand final before finishing in last place with seven votes. Stay has racked up more than five million plays on Spotify, but each of the aliases that Bostrom promotes on Catfish Music has a song with more plays than this. Ghost Musicians, PFC and the AI Future Detractors may argue that the prompt-driven music of PFC and The Velvet Sundown can take the human element out of the modern music industry. However, audiences have shown a genuine connection to the music on display here, proving that the music can connect. Even though the artist Samuel Lindon is really Figge Bostrom in disguise, his song Tallis One has become popular enough as mood music that fans upload piano tutorials and YouTube cover s, even creating sheet music for actual live performers to play it on their own. The biggest song by The Velvet Sundown, Dust on the Wind is the subject of a YouTube cover by a very real bassist. Even without intending it, this fake music has an impact on the real lives of listeners and fellow musicians. Some even use it as a jumping-off point for their own art. I guess its just how the creative process works, Rocha says. I was like these guys dont exist. Do they have a personality? Do they have a biography? Where did they attend music lessons? Whats their label? And I thought, yeah, no artists should be without a home, in a way. Rocha ended up writing bios for some of Rohrs and Bostroms ghost artist personae, describing PFC alter egos like Piotr Miteska as a special breed of musician which is true, in its own way. Rocha stopped updating ghostmusician.com a few years ago, before Pellys reporting made the PFC project public. But in the intervening time, he has continued to pursue his own unique online music projects in an ever-growing attempt to curate compelling art. Good art is a lot about curation, Rocha says. Good curation is not only gathering stuff, but also doing it and showing it out in an intelligent language, a sensible way. So art is not just creating, but displaying. Its this question of curation that poses the biggest challenge to the future of AI generation and PFC. As seen above, both AI bands like The Velvet Sundown and PFC artists like Rocha and Bostrom have had major success on streaming. However, they have done so under the guise of being real artists even if the truth isnt that hard to find. In reality, its likely that AI music isnt going anywhere, and there are signs that prompt-driven music connects with audiences, but will listeners feel misled? With an interface that clearly labels ghost artists and AI-generated music, streaming services could give audiences the information they need to find the music they like and engage in the kind of thoughtful curation that makes a playlist into a work of art. Share on: Adams Community Partners with Safety Platform for Financial Security ADAMS, Mass. Adams Community Bank has partnered with Carefull, a financial safety platform designed to protect older adults and their families from fraud, scams, and money mistakes. Through this partnership, the bank will offer Carefull's advanced platform to help customers monitor their accounts for signs of financial exploitation, including complicated emotional manipulation schemes like romance scams. The Carefull platform uses proprietary technology to detect unusual activity and patterns of behavior, including duplicate payments, late or missed deposits, and actions that may indicate cognitive decline. "Carefull helps us deliver meaningful innovation preventing fraud and protecting the financial security of our customers at every stage of their lives," said Julie Fallon Hughes, president and CEO of Adams Community Bank. "This partnership reflects our deep commitment to safeguarding our customers and strengthening our communities." Carefull was designed to help individuals age with confidence while giving their families peace of mind. Banks trust the platform nationwide to reduce the risk of financial exploitation and strengthen client relationships across generations. Adams Community is the first in its region to offer a solution built specifically to protect seniors. "At Carefull, we believe that protecting aging customers isn't just a necessity, it's an opportunity for forward-thinking banks to lead with care," said Todd Rovak, co-founder of Carefull. "We're excited to partner with Adams Community Bank, whose team deeply understands the importance of meeting their community where they are and anticipating where they're going." Carefull is now available to all deposit customers, with outreach efforts through branch teams and community events. Adams Community Bank President and CEO Julie Fallon Hughes announces the Carefull partnership at the Berkshire Innovation Center on Tuesday. Adams Community Bank Announces Partnership with Financial Safety Platform Carefull Director of Customer Success Laura Mohan explains how the platform works and goes over some facts. PITTSFIELD, Mass. Adams Community Bank is partnering with financial safety platform Carefull to provide extra security for customers. The announcement was made to stakeholders on Tuesday at the Berkshire Innovation Center. "As all of you know, fraud becomes an increasing issue for everyone, not just for older people, but for everyone," said bank President and CEO Julie Fallon Hughes. "The schemes become more complex, and anyone can be a victim. "So as a community bank, we really take not just protecting our customers financial success, but enhancing that very seriously, that's a priority for us." Adams Community Bank invited bank members to Tuesday's event to learn how to take action in the case of fraud and to educate them on aspects of Carefull. Laura Mohan, director of customer success at Carefull, said the platform will monitor customer usage and alert them to atypical actions with accounts or spending habits. Carefull's platform will help bank customers monitor their accounts for signs of financial exploitation, including complicated emotional manipulation schemes like romance scams. The Carefull platform uses artificial intelligence technology to detect unusual activity and patterns of behavior, including duplicate payments, late or missed deposits, and actions that may indicate cognitive decline. Mohan brought up the fake accounts used by scammers that targeted victims and people donating after last month's devastating Texas floods. "It's fraud. It's not real, and it's so sad, so Carefull is here to step in and help identify those ahead of time, so that we can make sure that your money is going to exactly what you want it to," Mohan said. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers lost $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, up 24 percent over the previous year. The highest percentage of losses was to investment and imposter scams, and online shopping. In Massachusetts last year, total losses reported were north of $85 million. The top fraud categories were business imposters and government imposters. The average losses was highest for those ages 70 to 79 at $1,284. Carefull has been around since 2020. Mohan introduced the platforms "Legacy Kit" which is launching this week so customers can prepare and secure their financial assets in case of medical events or death. "The vault is a very secure tool that is stored on Carefull and you can keep all your things in one place, and you can identify who should have access to it should anything happen to you," Mohan said. "That way, if something does happen to you or to whoever is using the vault and the legacy kit, those things can be addressed very quickly and in a very sensitive time of life." Carefull not only monitors accounts financially but also has resources to educate people on recent scams you can upload an image or screenshot or text of a potential scam and the platform recommend if you should proceed with caution or report. It also offers asset protections. "It's not just financial monitoring, it's a holistic whole platform that protects every asset that you have, including your identity," said Mohan. "So with identity protection, we also have $1 million of identity theft insurance. So with Carefull if you have fallen victim to a fraud or a scam that is identity-theft related, you'll be covered up to a million dollars." Adams Community Bank has been working with Carefull for around eight months to bring this to customers. Hughes says it's important to help customers and keep them safe. "Every bank sees fraud day to day. We see it impact customers more and more," she said. "As the community bank, it's really important to us to how customers get in front of risk and help them feel more confident and secure." Pittsfield Will See a New Internet Provider PITTSFIELD, Mass. AccessPlus Fiber plans to expand into the city, providing residents, businesses, and schools with another option for internet service. Last week, the City Council supported AccessPlus' plan to build an underground fiber broadband network in Pittsfield. The company offers plans that start at $65 per month for 1 Gbps and has a "soft three-year plan" for full expansion into the city. "We are a local voice and data provider proudly serving over 7,000 customers throughout the Northeast, many of which are within a couple of miles of City Hall. From lnterprint to Lulu's Kitchen, Pittsfield school district to MCLA, we're not just a nationwide provider looking for new markets; we have routes that have been built here for decades," representative Chaz Garrity explained. "What we're building is the fastest, most reliable fiber optic network in the United States. Today, if you do your research across most providers, the bandwidth speeds that folks are offering, we're bringing to Pittsfield an unprecedented speed of 100 [Gbps]. Nobody's ever done that today." Construction will be done underground, first through trenching or utilizing existing Verizon conduit. Work will be gone in phases between the windows of April 2 and Nov. 15. AccessPlus has been awarded funding through the Massachusetts Broadband Institute's Residential Retrofit Program to connect 16 public and affordable housing addresses in the city. This is where the expansion will begin, reaching a total of 832 housing units. Programs will be available for low-income rebates through the Community Eligibility Provision, Supplemental Security Income, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Garrity said, "It's not just connectivity. What I'm getting after here, this is a foundational piece for 21st century governance, education, health care, and economic growth." Several residents spoke at the public hearing after receiving an abutter notice. There was a mixture of support for new competitors in the local market and concerns about construction impacts. William Garrity, a member of the School Committee, was glad to hear about the company's commitment to net neutrality and data privacy. "I think one thing that I want to stress the importance of is that the speed we currently get from Spectrum is divided between your upload and download speed," he said. " With AccessPlus and fiber infrastructure, you get the same upload and download speed of one gigabit per second. That's a lot faster than what Spectrum currently is offering, so I'm really excited to see you guys come to Pittsfield." Leah Copperman, a Brooklyn, N.Y., transplant who works in technology, saod, "New York has gotten far too expensive for these people to live in, and they're looking to relocate in the Hudson River Valley. I think that Pittsfield would be a perfect destination, and that this fiber optic would be a real change to the attractiveness of the city to younger technical people." Teresa Carlo, who lives off South Street, said the main route has been torn up countless times and disrupted her family for generations. United Counseling Service Announces Changes to Board of Directors BENNINGTON, Vt. United Counseling Service (UCS) announced changes to its Board of Directors. Charles "Charlie" Letourneau, Vice President of the agency's board of directors, has retired, and the position of Vice President is now served by former Treasurer Nathaniel "Than" Marcoux. Than joined the Board in 2013. Stephanie Mulligan, Board member since 2020, now serves as Treasurer. UCS thanks Charlie Letourneau for his many years of dedicated service as a member of the Board. Charlie joined the Board on July 9, 2013, serving as Vice President of United Community Services (UCO) and United Counseling Service (UCS), as well as Secretary and Treasurer of United Community Properties (UCP). Charlie also served as Chair of the Human Resource Committee. "Charlie has been a trusted partner, a thoughtful leader, and a steady voice of wisdom through many challenges," said Bob Thompson, President of the UCS Board. "His dedication to our mission and compassion for those we serve have made a lasting difference in our organization and our community. We are profoundly grateful for his years of service." UCS' Board of Directors includes Robert Thompson (President), William Baldwin (Secretary), David Ballou, Nathaniel Marcoux (Vice President), Joanna Mintzer, Heidi Moore CRC, Stephanie Mulligan (Treasurer), and Lee Romano. iciHaiti - Environment : Strengthening of the regulatory framework for climate action The Ministry of the Environment (MOE), through its Climate Change Directorate (DCC), held a two-day, hybrid (in-person and virtual) workshop dedicated to analyzing priority sectors and defining legally binding standards for the review of climate policies in Haiti. Organized with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Spanish Cooperation Agency (ACEID), this workshop assessed national priorities for climate action, while taking into account sustainable development issues and the potential impact on adaptation and mitigation. It also facilitated discussions focused on developing concrete proposals for establishing standards and regulations capable of strengthening the implementation of climate policies at all levels, while strengthening the capacities of national stakeholders. In his opening remarks, Hugo Coles, head of the technical secretariat of the Ministry's Directorate General, emphasized civic responsibility in the face of climate change, recalling that the recent update of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) sets ambitious targets for reducing emissions and increasing resilience. He also highlighted the importance of the Environmental Information System (SIE-Haiti), a tool designed to centralize and harmonize environmental data to inform decision-making. Finally, he discussed the outlook for the upcoming COP30 in Brazil, 10 years after the Paris Agreement (COP 21 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16042-haiti-environment-michaelle-jean-welcomes-the-agreement-of-the-cop21.html ), calling for concrete and collective actions to build on the achievements of this historic summit. For her part, Ms. Blanco Reinosa Carmen, representative of Spanish cooperation in Haiti, praised Haiti's commitment to combating climate change, noting significant progress in fulfilling its commitments under the Paris Agreement. She reaffirmed her country's commitment to supporting Haiti in its resilience and mitigation efforts. Project consultants, Vovener Edmond and Raoul Vital, highlighted the foundations of national and international climate policies, while analyzing the criteria for identifying priority sectors, the existing legal framework, and international best practices. These discussions were enriched by the active participation of Sylvain Merlen, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, as well as by the contributions of stakeholders from public administration, civil society, the private sector, and technical and financial partners such as UNDP, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The workshop highlighted several important findings, including the lack of binding standards, the limitations of inter-institutional coordination, and the challenges of implementing climate policies on the ground. These elements underscore the need to strengthen the regulatory framework to give renewed impetus to the implementation of the NDC and Haiti's climate commitments. IH/ iciHaiti On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Kim Jong Un hosted an emotional ceremony to pay tribute to the North Korean soldiers who were sent to fight in Vladimir Putins war against Ukraine, in a rare public admission of military losses in a foreign conflict. Pictures published in state media showed the North Korean dictator handing out medals, hugging servicemen, comforting the crying children of fallen soldiers and kneeling in front of their portraits. Mr Kim said in a speech at the ceremony this week that his troops displayed courage and fighting spirit of the heroes during their mission to reclaim Russias Kursk region from Ukrainian forces, KCNA said. North Korea is the only country other than Russia and Ukraine to deploy frontline soldiers in the war, though their role has so far been limited to operations on Russian soil. South Korean intelligence which first reported the North Korean troops involvement in Russia has said North Korea deployed nearly 15,000 troops in Russia, of whom an estimated 600 were killed. Kim praised his forces as a heroic army and called them the greatest pride of our state in a speech at the ceremony at Mokran House in Pyongyang. open image in gallery North Korean leader Kim Jong attends a national commendation ceremony for the commanders and fighters of the overseas operations unit of the Korean People's Army at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers' Party, in Pyongyang, North Korea ( KCNA ) The participants of overseas operations, through their steadfast struggle and noble sacrifice, achieved great feats that will be remembered in history forever, Mr Kim said in a speech. The North Korean government then held a banquet to celebrate the unit that had returned, KCNA reported. Mr Kim expressed sorrow for the martyrs who sacrificed their lives and that he could not repress his regret at failing to bring them all together to this glorious place. open image in gallery Kim Jong Un meeting with bereaved families during a ceremony to award state commendations to the commander and combatants of the Korean People's Army's Overseas Operational Forces ( KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image ) Mr Kim said the troops represented their country in the battlefield which became the focus of the world, proving the might of the heroic North Koreans. Pictures showed Mr Kim pinning medals to soldiers uniforms and meeting the emotional family members of the fallen soldiers. As well as soldiers, North Korea has sent a large amount of military equipment to Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine, following landmark meetings between Mr Kim and Russian leader Vladimir Putin at which they reaffirmed the strength of their alliance. open image in gallery North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visiting the memorial wall at a ceremony to award state commendations ( KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image ) The deployment was not initially acknowledged in public either by Pyongyang or Moscow, even as Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence reported the first North Korean soldiers killed fighting on the Kursk frontline. Ties have continued to deepen between the two isolated regions united in their fight against Western powers. Last week, Mr Kim and his Russian counterpart held a phone call to discuss their deepening ties and developments in the Ukraine war. open image in gallery Hundreds of North Korean soldiers are believed to have been killed in the war ( KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image ) That call came ahead of Mr Putins summit with Donald Trump in Alaska last week. In his remarks to Mr Kim, the Russian leader also praised the bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit of the North Korean troops. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice South Korea has taken a big step towards ending its decades-long ban on professional tattooing by non-medical practitioners. On 20 August, a parliamentary sub-committee approved the countrys first bill to legalise tattooing as a recognised profession, overturning rules that since 1992 had restricted the practice to licensed doctors. The decision could pave the way for thousands of underground tattooists in South Korea to operate legally after years of working in secrecy under the threat of arrest. The proposed Tattooist Act outlines a licensing system overseen by the countrys ministry of health and welfare. Tattooists would be required to pass a national exam, adhere to strict hygiene standards, and participate in an insurance programme to cover potential damages. The law also introduces clear safeguards minors would still need parental consent to get tattoos, and artists would only be allowed to operate in registered shops. The bill also sets clear limits, permitting only the use of approved anaesthetics while banning tattoo removal or laser treatments, in an effort to address growing concerns over unsafe, unregulated procedures in private studios. The legislation still faces several hurdles, including approval by multiple committees, the full National Assembly, and final sign-off from president Lee Jae Myung, who has previously pledged support for legalisation. Earlier in 2022, he said that Korea was the only country that continued to classify non-medical tattooing as a medical act. If enacted, the law could take effect as early as November. open image in gallery In a photo taken on 4 September 2020, tattoo artist Seo Uri poses for a photo before the city skyline of Seoul. - In South Korea, while tattooing itself is not illegal, it is classed as a medical procedure and may only be carried out by a fully qualified doctor, with up to two years in prison for violators. ( AFP via Getty Images ) While tattooists and advocacy groups have hailed the move as a victory against stigma and criminalisation, the Korean Medical Association has strongly opposed it, warning that tattooing remains a public health risk. Tattooing poses serious risks, and we will not stand idly by if this law advances under pressure from interest groups and public sentiment, it said in a statement. An estimated 13 million people in South Korea sport tattoos, according to Korea JoongAng Daily. open image in gallery In a photo taken on 8 July 2020, tattoo artist Doy works on a client at his studio in Seoul. - South Koreas parliament has taken a historic step toward recognising tattooing as a legitimate profession ( AFP via Getty Images ) According to the National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency a government-funded research institution under the ministry of health and welfare this figure includes roughly 10 million individuals who have had semi-permanent cosmetic treatments such as eyebrow tattoos, and about 3 million who opted for body art. The tattoo industry also reportedly employs more than 300,000 workers. A 1992 Supreme Court ruling classified tattooing as a medical procedure, effectively making any work by non-doctors illegal for the past three decades. On Thursday, Democratic Party of Korea representative Park Ju-min said: For years, the law punished tattooists simply because they were not medical professionals. There is no reason to delay this legislation any longer. Im Bo-ran, president of the Korea Tattoo Federation, said the group had spent more than ten years pushing to dismantle the social stigma and legal barriers that tattooists continue to face. Now that weve taken the first step, we will continue to push for the remaining stages of approval with a unified voice, she said. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Chinas envoy to India has said Beijing firmly stands with India and denounced the US as a bully for imposing a 50 per cent tariff on New Delhi, in the latest sign of warning ties between the long hostile Asian giants. Chinas ambassador Xu Feihong made the remarks following a series of high-levels talks between Indian and Chinese officials, seemingly pushed together by a shared trade adversary in US president Donald Trump. It came a day after the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi concluded a two-day trip to India, his first in three years, where he met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. The United States has imposed tariffs of up to 50 per cent on India and it has even threatened for more. China firmly opposes this, Mr Xu said Thursday. China will firmly stand with India to uphold the multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organisation at its core. He criticised the US for using tariffs as a bargaining chip to demand exorbitant prices from various countries despite getting benefits from free trade. In the face of such acts, silence or compromise only emboldens the bully, he said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, shakes hand with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, in New Delhi, India, Tuesday ( AP ) The Chinese diplomat was speaking in a panel event in New Delhi ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit set to take place later this month in Chinas Tianjin. Mr Modi is expected to visit China for the summit and meet Xi Jinping, in his first trip to the country in seven years. The two countries have spent years trying to improve ties after the deadly 2020 clash between soldiers at their shared Himalayan border. But those efforts have dramatically accelerated after the Trump administration said it would impose punitive measures against India for buying discounted Russian oil. India has also held high-level talks with Russia, with its foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday. Mr Xu said friendship between China and India benefits the region as a whole, calling them the double engines of economic growth in Asia. India and China unity benefits the world at large. India and China have the responsibility to take the lead in promoting an equal and orderly multipolar world, he said. He said China would welcome any Indian commodities diverted away from the US into the Chinese market. A Russian envoy in Delhi made similar remarks about his country earlier this week. Highlighting the progress made on the border issue, Mr Xu said the two countries have reached a 10-point consensus and two groups would be set up: one to finally agree the delimitation of their disputed border, and another for the management of border areas. During the talks earlier this week between Mr Wang and Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval, the two countries agreed to resume direct flights for the first time since 2020, step up trade and investment flows, and resolve the border issue. "Stable, predictable, constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional as well as global peace and prosperity," Mr Modi posted on X after meeting Mr Wang. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Sri Lankas former president Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested over alleged misuse of state funds for personal travel, police said. Wickremesinghe, 76, who served as president from 2022 to 2024 and had six prior terms as prime minister, has denied the allegations. Authorities are seeking to question Mr Wickremesinghe over allegations that he used state funds for a personal stopover in the UK while returning from an official trip in 2023. This marks the first arrest of a former Sri Lankan president. In 2023, Mr Wickremesinghe made a stopover in London on his return from Cuba, where he had attended a G77 summit. During the visit, he and his wife, Maithree, participated in a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton, according to AFP. Mr Wickremesinghe has insisted that his wife covered her own expenses and that no public funds were used. But Sri Lankas Criminal Investigation Department (CID) said state money financed the private visit, including the costs of his bodyguards. Earlier this month, authorities also questioned Mr Wickremesinghes former presidential secretary, Saman Ekanayake, and his former private secretary, Sandra Perera, regarding their involvement in organising the visit. File. Former Sri Lankan president was arrested over alleged misuse of state funds ( AP ) On Friday afternoon, local TV captured Mr Wickremesinghe arriving at the Fort Magistrates Court in Colombo. Mr Wickremesinghe has been a prominent political figure since 1977 and was credited with helping Sri Lanka recover from its worst economic crisis. He played a key role in securing an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout in 2023. Mr Wickremesinghe is a lawyer by profession and comes from a politically influential family. He was first elected to parliament in 1977 at the age of just 28. As leader of the United National Party (UNP), he held multiple terms as prime minister between 1993 and 2019. Amid the 2022 protests that forced Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign, Mr Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister and then became president, despite having no parliamentary seat. Mr Wickremesinghe has faced criticism from human rights groups for promoting repressive laws, cracking down on protests, and suppressing memorial events, according to Sri Lankan outlet the Tamil Guardian. Mr Wickremesinghe lost last years election to populist challenger Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who ran on an anti-corruption platform. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Indonesia is said to be finalising the details of a plan to provide medical evacuations for 2,000 injured Palestinians from Gaza, potentially on the uninhabited Galang Island. The government is now holding inter-ministerial discussions on logistics, legal frameworks, and foreign policy implications, according to a senior government official. Earlier this month, it was announced that Indonesia would provide the treatment, but without further details. Indonesia will give medical help for about 2,000 Gaza residents who became victims of war, those who are wounded, buried under debris, spokesperson Hasan Nasbi told reporters earlier, insisting the exercise did not amount to an evacuation. Critics had compared the proposal to US president Donald Trumps suggestion that Washington could seize control of Gaza and transform it into the Riviera of the Middle East a vision that would deny Palestinians the right to return. Indonesian officials, however, emphasised that the aid would be temporary, coordinated with Palestinian authorities and international agencies, and respect the Palestinians right to return. As discussions progress, officials are now reportedly weighing possible locations to host the patients. One option under consideration is Galang, situated just south of Singapore. The island has a long humanitarian history, having once served as a camp for Vietnamese refugees and more recently as the site of a pandemic hospital, making it a practical candidate for temporary medical assistance. Although Indonesia does not maintain diplomatic ties with Israel and has consistently backed Palestinian statehood, officials have been cautious in disclosing specifics of the treatment plan, stressing that the proposal for Galang Island remains only one of several possibilities under review. open image in gallery File. An injured boy lies on a blanket on the floor as he waits for treatment at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, 6 July 2025 ( Associated Press ) Dave Lakono, deputy chair of the parliaments commission I, which oversees defence and foreign affairs, told The Guardian: These discussions have focused on logistical feasibility, medical readiness, and legal frameworks. Commission I has also been briefed on the strategic implications, particularly regarding Indonesias foreign policy posture and regional stability. He said that while Galang Island has been singled out as a potential location, other facilities in West Java and Central Java are also under review due to their closeness to major hospitals and transport networks. Officials admit that the proposal is politically sensitive, with some Islamic leaders accusing the government of being deceived by Israel and questioning what assurances exist to guarantee the Palestinians eventual return. open image in gallery File. Indonesia airdropped nearly 18 tonnes of food and medicine to Gaza on its Independence Day ( Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) One of the issues is how to make sure the right to return of the Palestinians can be respected because we know that many are worried that this kind of policy can be interpreted in other ways, said Abdul Kadir Jailani, the director general for Asian, Pacific and African affairs at Indonesias ministry of foreign affairs. So we have to make sure it will be consistent with the principle of international humanitarian law, and in particular, how to respect the right to return of the Palestinians. He added: The implementation of this plan has a high level of complexity, particularly in terms of its political and technical aspects. Earlier this week, Indonesia marked its 80th Independence Day by airdropping nearly 18 tonnes of aid into Gaza, including food, medicine, and blankets, with plans to deliver up to 800 tonnes in total. open image in gallery File. Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto proposed temporary care for 2,000 wounded Gazans, stressing coordination with Palestinian authorities and international agencies ( Associated Press ) Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, from the Centre of Economic and Law Studies in Jakarta, told ABC News that Indonesia should take a stronger stance against Israel to end Israeli apartheid. The reason Indonesia has not taken a stronger stance is likely due to a combination of factors, Dr Rakhmat said. Its need to maintain diplomatic relations with other powers, the complexity of regional geopolitics, and concerns about the potential repercussions of antagonising Israel for its allies. The proposal to offer medical care for Palestinians was initially floated by president Prabowo Subianto during a five-country visit to the Middle East in April. At the time, he declared that Indonesia was ready to evacuate those who are injured or traumatised, and orphans, if they want to be evacuated to Indonesia. He continued: Indonesias commitment in supporting the safety of Palestinians and their independence has pushed our government to act more actively. Indonesias foreign ministry declared at the time that it strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza. Siti Mutiah Setiawati, a professor of Middle Eastern geopolitics at Gadjah Mada Universitys Department of International Relations said earlier that flying 2,000 Gazans to Indonesia for medical care would be inefficient due to the long distance, and it would be more practical to treat them in nearby Arab countries. She also highlighted logistical challenges, including patient transport and the adequacy of medical services on Galang Island. We need to assess the condition of the Gazans first. If their illness is serious, will it worsen if they are brought here? Its too risky because its so far away. Smith Alhadar, an advisor to the Indonesian Society for Middle East Studies, was quoted as saying by Indonesian outlet Kompas: Whether we realise it or not, Indonesia will be caught in an Israeli-US scenario that our government cannot possibly ignore. Galang Island is indeed capable of accommodating more Palestinians. However, if we do that, we are not helping Palestine, but rather eliminating it. That would mean we are also complicit in ethnic cleansing alongside Israel and the US, and could worsen Indonesias relations with Middle Eastern countries. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A former detective who pursued a relationship with a sex offence victim, whose case he was investigating, has been found guilty of misconduct in a public office. The Independent Office for Police Conducts (IOPC) launched an investigation into 55-year-old Wasim Bashirs behaviour following a complaint from a woman. While working for West Yorkshire Police (WYP) and without any policing reason, the Bradford-based detective contacted a woman who had reported serious sexual offences and domestic abuse. The officer, who had experience as a specialist in rape investigations prior to his retirement in June, then began a sexual relationship with her. He was cleared of a second count of misconduct in a public office on the directions of a judge at Sheffield Crown Court. He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on August 29. After the conviction, IOPC director Emily Barry said: As a police officer, DC Bashir held significant power so to abuse his position for a sexual purpose was an invidious and corrupt use of that power. Despite being an officer with 28 years service, Bashir blatantly disregarded the rules designed to protect the public and maintain confidence in the police. His actions can only have undermined trust in policing. open image in gallery The case was heard at Sheffield Crown Court ( Danny Lawson/PA ) I would like to praise the courage of the woman who came forward to report DC Bashirs behaviour which fell far short of the standards expected of a police officer. We would encourage any individual who believes they may have been a victim of this type of offending by a police officer to come forward and report it with the confidence it will be taken seriously. Bashir had previous experience as a specialist investigator of rape and serious sexual offences, meaning he would have known that the survivors were likely to be vulnerable, the watchdog said. He had also been trained about abuse of position for a sexual purpose, so would have known his actions were unacceptable, it added. The investigation found evidence Bashir engaged in sexual activity, including intercourse, with one woman on three separate occasions while he was part of the team investigating a sexual offence which she had reported to the police, the IOPC said. Evidence was also found that Bashir had posted photographs of himself and the woman online, presenting them as a couple, without her consent. Although he has left the force, a disciplinary hearing will be held in the future relating to breaches of professional standards. WYP said its Counter Corruption Unit investigated under the direction of the IOPC. After the case, Detective Superintendent Natalie Dawson, deputy head of WYPs Professional Standards Directorate, said: For a police officer to pursue a sexual relationship with a vulnerable woman who had come forward to report being victim of a sexual offence is nothing short of abhorrent. I want to reassure victims of crime and the wider public that this former officer is not representative of our organisation. One of the forces key purposes is to protect vulnerable people, and our officers and staff work tirelessly to protect people from harm and to safeguard victims. We took swift action to suspend Bashir from duty after potential misconduct in a public office was reported. A comprehensive investigation was then carried out under the direction of the IOPC to understand other victims he had had contact with and the nature of this contact. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Six protesters accused of breaking into an Israeli-linked defence firm as part of a Palestine Action raid face an 18-month wait in prison before their trial. The alleged attack was estimated to cause 1m worth of damage to property at Elbit Systems UKs Bristol site in August 2024. The defendants were allegedly armed with sledgehammers when they broke into the defence firms site in the early hours of 6 August. Elbit Systems UK is a subsidiary of the Israeli defence company Elbit Systems. Finn Collins, 19, Harland Archer, 20, Salaam Mahmood, 19, Moiz Ibrahim, 27, Louie Adams, 33, and Liam Mullany, 33, appeared at the Old Bailey on Friday, charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. They were told they could have to wait until February 2027 for their case to be tried. Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told the court that Woolwich Crown Court, where the case will be heard, does not have the capacity for a trial of over six people at the same time, and so a date in 2027 has provisionally been fixed. Some 24 people have now been charged in connection with the incident. Elbit Systems UK could be close to winning a 2bn defence contract for the Army Collective Training Service, it has been reported. The UK defence programme would overhaul army training, and Elbit is one of a consortium of defence companies bidding for the 15-year contract, The Times reported. Muhammad Umer Khalid, 22, also appeared in court on Friday in connection with a separate incident linked to Palestine Action. Khalid allegedly took part in an attack on two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton, resulting in an estimated 7m worth of damage to the Voyager planes. On 20 June 2025, protesters on e-scooters allegedly broke into the military base and used fire extinguishers to spray red paint and threw metal crowbars into the engines. Following the Brize Norton incident, Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist group, making it an offence to be part of or express support for the group. Khalid is charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage and conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for purposes prejudicial to the UKs national security. He was remanded into custody, with a provision trial date set for January 2027. Khalid, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, is the fifth person to be charged in connection with the incident. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A member of police staff has been suspended over a security breach in an investigation into deaths and serious injuries allegedly related to maternity care at an NHS trust. Nottinghamshire Police launched a criminal investigation, called Operation Perth, in September 2023 after concerns were raised about severe harm allegedly linked to maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH). On Friday, the force said information was allegedly changed or deleted from its systems and a member of staff was suspended while an investigation takes place. The force said it has no information that anyone else was involved and it does not believe that any information was shared outside of the investigation, or that anyones medical record has been affected. Nottinghamshire Police said it has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). NUH is currently the subject of the largest-ever NHS maternity review, which is being led by former senior midwife Donna Ockenden, which includes more than 2,000 experiences of maternity care at the two hospitals run by the trust. Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Rob Griffin said: Nottinghamshire Police has acted swiftly to suspend a member of police staff from Operation Perth following a security breach, namely changing or deleting information from our systems. open image in gallery Nottinghamshire Police launched Operation Perth in September 2023 ( Rui Vieira/PA ) This security breach was identified due to our robust audit checks and therefore we were able to quickly identify the person responsible. This person had the correct level of up-to-date vetting to access the information they were able to. The member of staff was immediately removed from all access to our systems on Wednesday August 20. The member of staff has now been suspended. We recognise the impact this news will have on the families of Operation Perth and I have written to all families to explain what has happened and what action we have taken. We want to reassure them that at this stage we are confident we have all the processes in place to restore all information and ensure it does not affect the integrity of the investigation. We have also voluntarily referred ourselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct to offer further transparency as well as the Information Commissioners Office. We cannot comment on the actual nature of the incident while a thorough investigation takes place. This person was not in a supervisor role or part of the management team on Operation Perth and did not make any decisions about the conduct of the investigation. Due to our robust systems, we can identify, retrieve and restore all information. We will continue to keep families informed of all developments and to notify any family members whose information has been affected. I want to stress that the families are at the heart of everything we do, and we are determined to ensure they continue to have trust and confidence in our investigation. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A tribunal has ruled that a doctor who said she would support Hitler if he was around today can be allowed to return to work. Dr Mili Shah is said to have made the comments in 2021 while working at the Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. She was banned from practicing for four months earlier this year, but the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service has now ruled she is fit to return to work. The tribunal was told how while working at the hospital on September 30 2021, Dr Shah made the comments about another member of staff. It heard she had told a colleague: All this antisemitismif Hitler was around today I would support him as he got rid of horrible f*****s like him. In her witness statement, Dr Shah said she had no recollection of the conversation, and said: What I am able to say, is that on reading what is alleged to have been said by me, then I am completely horrified. I absolutely do not recognise myself as someone who would use those words. Remarks of that nature are abhorrent to me, and do not in anyway reflect my personality, my belief systems, or in any way my character. She apologised for the remark and said she accepted full responsibility for my conduct and recognise that such behaviour is inexcusable. The panel considered the remarks abhorrent and said they could undermine public confidence if a finding of impairment was not made in the case. Though the tribunal found the allegations to be proven, it did not consider her fitness to practice to be impaired. It said she had shown good and effective insight into clinical failings, which had also been proven in the report. With regards to the antisemitic comments, the tribunal noted she had started to develop a degree of insight. The panel considered the remarks abhorrent and said they could undermine public confidence if a finding of impairment was not made in the case, with the outcome of the case being a four-month suspension. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Two brothers have described rescuing two women from the sea after a dolphin repeatedly forced them underwater in separate incidents in Dorset Rhys and Gareth Paterson were kayaking in Lyme Bay on Thursday when they saw the animal leap onto a swimmers back about 200 metres from shore. She was kind of gasping for air, Rhys said. She was terrified. At first, the pair thought the bottlenose dolphin, known locally as Reggie, was playing. We thought he was doing what he normally does just a bit of fun, Rhys said. But after hearing the woman scream, they paddled over and saw the dolphin pushing her head below the surface. They brought her back to land before returning to the water, where they saw the same dolphin troubling another woman who was clinging to a yellow buoy and looking panicked. Rhys urged swimmers to get out of the water if they spot the animal. He said: It is a wild animal, as exciting as it is. I think its up to everyone now to start respecting its space a little bit more. If we werent there that day I think something bad could have potentially happened. The Marine Management Organisation is increasingly concerned about the lone dolphin, and has reminded swimmers that dolphins, whales and porpoises are protected by law and warned people to keep at least 100 metres away from them. Reggie has been a regular visitor to Lyme Bay since first appearing earlier this year. While his presence has thrilled tourists, marine experts have cautioned that repeated human contact can make dolphins lose their natural wariness and behave aggressively. Charity Marine Connection said the animal was playful rather than hostile, but still dangerous. Co-founder Liz Sandeman told the BBC: The more people that enter the water, the more hell become playful and boisterous. Ive seen dolphins doing this before towards swimmers, where theyll dunk them under the water. She added: I think if they move even a quarter of the mile down the coast, that would help. Hes not adult yet, so over the coming months he will get bigger, he will become more powerful. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Refugee charities are facing a disturbing increase in abuse, which has included death threats and graphic, sexualised comments towards female workers. Several NGOs and organisations have closed their offices or moved online due to the threat of far-right violence, while others have have cancelled services and advised their staff to avoid wearing lanyards and ID badges. Concerningly, one charity reported that female volunteers have experienced misogynistic abuse, including comments that express a wish for them to be raped. It comes as Sir Keir Starmers government faces a crisis after the High Court granted Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction to block asylum seekers from being housed at The Bell Hotel. open image in gallery Police officers ahead of a demonstration outside the Bell Hotel in Epping (Jordan Pettitt/PA) ( PA Wire ) Ministers are bracing for further legal challenges from across the country, as certain Reform, Tory and even Labour councils have announced they are considering taking similar action. The Home Office announced on Friday that they would be appealing the decision. A wave of protests outside hotels used to temporarily house asylum seekers is expected in the coming days, as well as a series of counter-protests in cities such as Bournemouth, Cardiff and Leeds. For those working in the refugee sector, the demand for assistance is only increasing, while many volunteers have been subjected to online trolling and hate mail. Steve Smith, chief executive officer of Care4Calais said: As the only NGO that works in both northern France and the UK, the level of hate that Care4Calais receives is off the scale. Stating that it is largely driven by misinformation, he stressed that accusations that volunteers were involved in the global displacement of people is for the birds. open image in gallery A series of counter-protests have also been organised over the weekend ( Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire ) Yet thats what we get accused of on a daily basis, and it has serious consequences, he said. I myself have received death threats. Other staff members have too, after representing the charity in the media, and have had to have security measures installed at their homes for their safety. Sadly a persistent undercurrent in the hate we receive is misogyny. People who claim to be interested in women and children, immediately resort to the most horrific, and graphic, sexualised comments about any female involved in Care4Calais. The amount of times I have seen far-right agitators online say they hope our female staff and volunteers are raped is disgusting. Given the level of hate we receive, and the serious nature of much of it, I am always so proud of the resilience our teams show, and their unflinching commitment to supporting refugees. But in 2025, they shouldnt have to endure these threats. open image in gallery People thought to be migrants wade through the sea to board a small boat leaving the beach at Gravelines, France (Gareth Fuller/PA) ( PA Wire ) Several protests and counter-protests have been held in Epping since a then-resident at the Bell hotel was accused of trying to kiss a teenage girl charges he denies and which he is due to stand trial for later this month. Demonstrations have since spread to various locations across the country, as well as a wave of anti-migrant sentiment appearing online. One national charity that supports refugees told The Independent: Our own organisation has been forced to cancel services on select days, and we've had to advise staff to avoid certain areas and to not wear any lanyards or ID badges when out of the office or in public. The recent harassment and threats against those working in the sector are deeply concerning and undermine the vital work in offering hope, safety, and support to vulnerable people. open image in gallery Protests calling for the closure of The Bell Hotel in Epping ( AFP/Getty ) Racism and Islamophobia have no place in our society, and we are grateful to all those who reject hatred and stand alongside people in need of safety. The UK has a proud history of offering refuge, and the majority of the public continues to value that tradition. While a small number of individuals attend protests outside accommodation centres, they do not reflect the views of most people in Britain. The Guardian has reported that the Charity Commission has taken the unusual step of removing the names and details of trustees from several charities on its website. Enver Solomon, chief executive of Refugee Council, said: The growing hostility towards refugees is having very real consequences for not only the men, women and children who have fled places like Sudan and Afghanistan, but also for the charities trying to help them. Leaders in the sector, myself included, have had to think about our own and our organisations personal safety in ways that have not had to be done before. What is getting lost in this debate is the impact on people themselves. Refugees are being retraumatised by abuse and intimidation, sometimes too frightened to leave their accommodation. This is not the country we know or want to be. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Almost three million children are believed to be experiencing hygiene poverty in the UK, with increasing numbers of pupils missing school due to dirty uniforms and bullying. As the governments Child Poverty Taskforce prepares to publish its strategy, new research from laundry brand smol, with support from national charity The Hygiene Bank, show a 68 per cent year-on-year surge in state school teachers reporting daily instances of pupils experiencing hygiene poverty. Their data has shown that 91 per cent of teachers believe pupils are likely to be impacted long-term, with 76 per cent saying it damages their self-worth, 75 per cent citing mental health and 65 per cent stating it impacts their ability to form friendships. Over a third of teachers (39 per cent) have witnessed children avoiding eye contact, and almost half (49 per cent) have seen them sitting away from their peers. One teacher surveyed that pupils have come in to school with a filthy uniform after the summer holidays, indicating it had not been washed for six weeks, while others spoke of children who had the same clothes on for two weeks. open image in gallery Pupils are avoiding physical education classes, making eye contact and are distancing themselves from friendships (Ian West/PA) ( PA Archive ) One deputy headteacher warned that some children are becoming withdrawn and quiet in the classroom and within their friendships, with one pupil crying in a support meeting because they felt embarrassed to have to ask for soap. Victoria Archer, who works at a state London primary school, told The Independent: Its always been there but in the last five years, weve seen it worsening to the point that the last two years have been quite hard to manage. Before it would be children coming in quite grubby but now this is happening often. They wont take their jumpers off because their dinner stains are underneath and they wont put their hands up because of body odour. Ms Archer added: Toothbrushing is definitely an issue. We run our own foodbank at Christmas and the last two years, parents have said can the foodbank include sanitary products, toothbrush, washing detergent etc. As well as pupils being self-aware, she said that parents have also requested that their children avoid participating in messy play, as they cannot afford cleaning products. She added: We see pupils who were once confident and engaged in class become withdrawn and quiet. Their friendships fade, they stop putting themselves forward, and their progress in school begins to slip. Its all linked to a drop in confidence and its heartbreaking to watch. open image in gallery The campaign has displayed five donated dirty school uniforms worn by children living in hygiene poverty ( Suds in Schools ) A lot of people still dont fully understand what hygiene poverty is, or how much it holds children back. Its keeping them out of school. Its damaging their confidence and limiting their future. Its time this issue was properly addressed, because no child should miss out on their education because they dont have access to clean clothes. Pupils who experience hygiene poverty have also been found to avoid physical education classes, with 52 per cent being too embarrassed to attend school at all. Overall, this causes pupils to miss an average of 6.5 school days per year, amounting to an overall total of 23 million days of learning lost. The research saw 500 state school pupils participate with the aim of raising awareness of this invisible crisis. They have launched a campaign for Suds in Schools, to provide laundrettes in educational institutions, with 95 per cent of teachers saying that access to washing facilities would benefit children and families in hygiene poverty. Ruth Brock, CEO of The Hygiene Bank, said: Hygiene poverty is holding children back from the very things that school should offer: learning, friendship, play, and confidence. No child should miss school because they dont have access to a clean uniform, deodorant or basic hygiene products. At The Hygiene Bank, we see first-hand how shame around hygiene poverty isolates families, and why its so vital that we talk about it. Together with smol, were making this invisible crisis visible and calling on the public and policymakers alike to take action. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Police are braced for a weekend of potential unrest as they face a fresh wave of protests amid mounting tensions over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers. Anti-migrant groups faced off with counterprotesters in Leeds, Orpington, Chichester and Portsmouth on Friday as a weekend of nationwide protests kicked off. The demonstrations, said to be planned at 26 hotels across the country, come as a million revellers are expected to take to the streets of west London to celebrate Notting Hill Carnival. Forces will also have to grapple with a string of Premier League matches as the season enters its second week of fixtures. Despite the pressures, police chiefs insist they are constantly reviewing the intelligence picture and are well prepared to handle any protest action over the busy bank holiday weekend. Posts being shared online are advertising anti-migrant protests at 26 sites housing asylum seekers today and over the weekend, including at the Britannia hotel in Canary Wharf and The Bell Hotel in Epping, which have both been previous sites for unrest. Many will be met by counterdemonstrations, with Stand Up to Racism organising 15 events across Friday and Saturday at locations including Bournemouth, Bristol and Liverpool. open image in gallery Stand Up to Racism counterprotesters in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, faced off with anti-migrant groups ( Gareth Fuller/PA ) On Friday, dozens of protesters could be heard shouting Get them out and Save our children while others held Union and England flags beside the TLK hotel in Orpington. Also there were counter protesters, who had marched to the hotel and could be seen holding banners and Stand Up To Racism placards which read Refugees welcome, Stop the far right. A large police cordon was formed in between the two groups and the hotel. The Metropolitan Police later confirmed that no arrests were made. The National Police Chiefs Council said forces are experienced with managing protests, and there is a well-established plan for managing resources. We are constantly reviewing the intelligence picture around protests and other demand, and whilst the Metropolitan Police Service has their own significant resourcing in place for the Notting Hill Carnival, an additional national mobilisation for protests this weekend has not been considered necessary, a spokesperson said. We continue to have national mobilisation plans in place to respond should the position change. The fresh wave of demonstrations comes as the latest figures showed the number of asylum seekers in hotels had risen to 32,000 during Labours first year in office, but remains far below the peak of 56,000 in September 2023. Meanwhile, councils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK are investigating whether they could pursue legal challenges against asylum hotels. This follows a High Court judge granting Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction which the government is seeking to appeal ruling that asylum seekers can no longer be accommodated at The Bell Hotel in Epping. The council had argued the injunction was needed amid unprecedented levels of protest and disruption in a string of rallies at the site after an Ethiopian refugee was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl. The alleged assault triggered a series of protests, with up to 2,000 demonstrators descending on the building to demand its closure. open image in gallery Police officers outside The Bell Hotel in Epping ( PA ) Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon warned the protests are causing alarm to vulnerable refugees who have fled war in countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan, ahead of the weekend of action. Many feel hunted amid scenes of hate and intimidation on Britains streets, the Freedom from Torture charity said. A 26-year-old Afghan man who has been living in a hotel in Yorkshire for almost two years said he fears what might happen to him here. The refugee, who fled after his family were targeted by the Taliban, said: I feel like nobody likes me, the people of this city dont want us, but I dont have any other option. The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, has repeatedly warned that ongoing unrest places forces and officers under strain. Public order duties often mean long shifts, cancelled leave, missed family time and real risk, a spokesperson added. That takes its toll. This isnt just about numbers its about resilience, wellbeing, and a system under strain. Meanwhile, the Met revealed it has arrested 100 people in a bid to deter criminals from exploiting Notting Hill Carnival following three deaths linked to the event in recent years. open image in gallery The Met has arrested 100 people in a bid to deter criminals from exploiting Notting Hill Carnival ( PA ) The force carried out intelligence-led interventions, and 21 people were recalled to prison. They seized 11 firearms, more than 40 knives, and 266 people have been banned from attending the event this weekend. Commander Charmain Brenyah said while the vast majority come to the carnival to enjoy themselves, a small minority come with less positive intentions. The actions of this minority are totally at odds with the values of those who care passionately about Carnival, and we acknowledge those, including the event organisers, who have stood up to condemn violence and serious criminality in the run-up to this weekend, she said. Our policing plan makes tackling serious violence a priority, which is why weve carried out intelligence-led interventions against those groups and individuals who we have reason to believe pose the greatest risk to the safety of other Carnival-goers. We hope that this police activity will be a significant deterrent for those who otherwise might have been planning to come and engage in violence and other criminality. The force, supported by the City of London Police and British Transport Police, said officers will be deployed in significant numbers, aided by technology including a network of CCTV cameras, screening arches and live facial recognition cameras. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice TikToks Chinese owners have been accused of bare-faced union busting by announcing hundreds of layoffs just a week before staff were due to vote on unionisation. The social media platforms Beijing-based owner ByteDance announced on Friday that hundreds of staff in its London office would be made redundant, with their roles being reallocated to offices across Europe and outsourced to third-party providers. It came just a week before a vote on a bid by employees in the firms content moderation arm to establish a branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) for its staff. open image in gallery TikTok is putting hundreds of jobs at risk in the UK as part of a restructure of its trust and safety operations (James Manning/PA) ( PA Archive ) The announcement of redundancies on Friday raised fears that ByteDance was seeking to pile pressure on staff ahead of the vote on unionisation. But on Friday morning, TikTok wrote to the CWU announcing it has pulled its support for the ballot altogether while the redundancy consultation process takes place. In a letter to the CWU shortly after the redundancies were announced, a senior ByteDance employee said: Given these exceptional circumstances, we have decided that it is necessary for us to suspend the planned voluntary ballot process with immediate effect. CWU national officer John Chadfield told The Independent: The timing is deliberate and it is deliberately cruel. It is bare-faced union busting, leaves the members who have organised facing massive uncertainty and, from what we can see, they are just going to be offshoring these jobs to a third-party in Lisbon. The union has been working with ByteDance since last November to gain recognition for TikToks London-based content moderators, who Mr Chadfield said have the most dangerous job on the internet. The stuff they have to see is literally the stuff of nightmares, he added. open image in gallery The CWU warned that laying off hundreds of content moderators would make the app more dangerous ( AP ) He also warned that while ByteDance has said it plans to adopt AI to take up some content moderation responsibilities, the technology is not yet ready and human moderators will be essential. Mr Chadfield said that, once the redundancy consultation process is closed, the CWUs bid to unionise will continue. The unionisation of TikTok is inevitable. They might want to delay it in the most spiteful way possible, but it is inevitable. And, as the government clamps down on harmful content online, the CWU said that ByteDances decision to lay off hundreds of content moderators would leave TikTok a more dangerous platform. TikTok said it had engaged voluntarily with the union, despite having no requirement to do so. Announcing the redundancies, ByteDance said it was "concentrating our operations in fewer locations globally". TikTok's UK head office is in Farringdon in London, and it is set to open a new office in Barbican in the capital early next year. A spokesman for the social media firm said: "We are continuing a reorganisation that we started last year to strengthen our global operating model for trust and safety, which includes concentrating our operations in fewer locations globally to ensure that we maximise effectiveness and speed as we evolve this critical function for the company with the benefit of technological advancements." TikTok has increasingly been harnessing AI to moderate content shared on the app. More than 85 per cent of the content removed for violating its community guidelines is identified and taken down by automation, according to the platform. It also says that AI can reduce the amount of distressing or graphic content that its moderation teams are exposed to. The restructure plans come shortly after the UK's Online Safety Act, enforced by Ofcom, came into force last month. This requires online platforms to protect UK viewers from illegal material, such as child sexual abuse and extreme pornography. Platforms are also required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content. TikTok's safety moderation teams are trained to spot signs that accounts might be being used by a child, and they can then suspend the account. But it can also use AI-based systems to identify information, such as keywords and in-app reports from the user community, that might point to a potentially underage account. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Five bodies have been exhumed from shallow graves in coastal Kenya, close to a site where over 400 followers of a doomsday cult were discovered two years ago. Government pathologist Dr Richard Njoroge confirmed on Thursday that ten human body parts were also recovered, scattered in nearby thickets within the Kwa Binzaro area of Kilifi County. This location is approximately two kilometres (1.5 miles) from the infamous Shakahola cult site, with exhumation efforts set to continue on Friday. The ongoing operation, spearheaded by homicide detectives, forensic experts, and pathologists, has additionally unearthed 27 suspected mass graves, fuelling concerns that further remains may be buried as investigations into the deaths commence. In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves in the Shakahola area of Kilifi County, where pastor Paul Mackenzie instructed his followers to starve themselves to death in order to "meet Jesus." He was arrested and charged with murder, and is in custody awaiting trial. open image in gallery Police and local residents load the exhumed bodies of victims of a religious cult into the back of a truck in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal city of Malindi, in southern Kenya, Sunday, April 23, 2023. (AP Photo/File) ( Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) Eleven people, believed to be former followers of Mackenzie, have been arrested in connection with the new discovery of bodies but have not yet been charged. Religious organizations, including some mega churches, have in the past been investigated in Kenya for suspected cult-like practices, such as barring followers from seeking medical treatment and pursuing education. 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 Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice On the bumpy road leading out of Mahama refugee camp, in eastern Rwanda, women used to travel for as much as two hours to reach the nearest hospital sometimes giving birth on the way. I remember two babies died in that process. The mother had a cord prolapse. That is an extreme emergency; you have to act within 10 minutes, says Dr Yassin Uwimana. Dr Uwimana is now the head of comprehensive obstetric and neonatal care at the camp run by Save the Children where, as of 2023, refugees have been able to get all the medical care they need to deliver safely. But since Donald Trump came back into office and slashed foreign aid spending via the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the clinic has been living on borrowed time. The doctors, nurses and midwives who care for women giving birth, including performing life-saving emergency caesareans, are completely funded by the US government. The whole health centre, which also vaccinates children and treats malnutrition, receives 70 per cent of its funding from the US with the other 30 per cent coming from the UN. In January, when he became president for the second time, Trump put a stop to all foreign aid spending overnight. Shortly afterwards, the Mahama clinic team was told its funding would run out on 15 August. Now, a funding extension is keeping the clinic going until November with little clarity as to what will happen after that. Without it, women could face long journeys for emergency care once again, and newborn deaths could return to previous levels almost 30 times higher than once the clinic opened. While the clinic has had a stay of execution, the effects of the funding squeeze are still being felt. open image in gallery Women giving birth in the Rwandan refugee camp face hours-long journeys on a rough road to the nearest hospital ( Hugh Kinsella Cunningham / Save the Children ) The queues are growing Save the Children Rwanda says it is having to run on minimal staffing levels as many staff, in the face of this uncertainty, have left for other work. The number of nurses and midwives have been reduced to bare minimum. This means there are longer queues at the waiting areas. The time taken to access care is longer and staff are sometimes overworked, a spokesperson says. One psychiatric nurse working with new mothers now has a caseload of 300 women. Care for patients in need of emergency referrals to district hospitals is also being affected, the charity explains. Specialised treatment, including for patients on chemotherapy or receiving kidney dialysis, requires a lot of resources and has been scaled down to extremely emergency cases. This could be children with congenital heart problems tumours that are benign but would once become malignant without regular checks, says Dr Uwimana. Since the cuts, the hospital has stopped providing some mothers with basics such as swaddles, nappies, soap and basins even a supply of milk for mothers struggling to produce enough. Veronique*, 31, a mother of five from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has seen the staff dwindling and the queues growing. Meals given in the hospital are not as regular as they were before. Sometimes you find a lot of people waiting, she says. If you are not able to keep waiting, you go back home. And sometimes they make prescriptions, but you dont get medicines. So if you have any money in your pocket, you can check outside the camp. open image in gallery Veronique* and her baby Franck* have been cared for in the US aid-funded clinic ( Hugh Kinsella Cunningham / Save the Children ) Nevertheless, she still trusts that the clinic is there and always comes to the team with any concerns. After all, they saved her life. People are running for their lives Veroniques sixth pregnancy, with her fifth living child, felt different from the others though she couldnt put her finger on why. After going two weeks overdue, she began a difficult labour. The obstetric team realised she was losing a lot of blood. For the first time, she thought, Im going to diethis is my last day. She was given an emergency blood transfusion and her recovery is going well. But she knows that without the medical team there in the camp, she might not have made it. The Mahama refugee camp, the largest of six in Rwanda, hosts more than 60,000 refugees and asylum seekers, and each month on average 140 babies are born in the camp. open image in gallery The clinic can perform caesarean sections which have saved babies lives ( Hugh Kinsella Cunningham / Save the Children ) People come mostly from DRC, as well as from Eritrea and Sudan, braving perilous conditions in order to flee violence. Its a long, arduous and complicated journey, says Jo Musonda, Save the Childrens country director for Rwanda and Burundi. People are running for their lives literally, she says. Some drown crossing the river from DRC into Burundi to make it to Rwanda and those who do make it arrive hungry, scared, exhausted traumatised from the violence that theyve seen. But the clinic can no longer do everything she wishes it could, with funding terms winnowing down their offer to what is considered life-saving at least as long as the funding still remains. What's really difficult is the unknown, Musonda says. open image in gallery Aid cuts mean Dr Yassin Uwimana's contract, funded by USAID, will run out in November ( Hugh Kinsella Cunningham / Save the Children ) Dr Uwimana, who heads up the maternity team, says her contract was initially terminated on 30 April, then extended until 14 August. Now it runs until 14 November when the US money is currently scheduled to run out. People have already left. One of my anaesthetists resigned because of uncertainty. We are currently having understaffing issues as those [working] in maternity leave and those who resigned are not replaced due to funding cuts, which is the case in laboratory and pharmacy. In 2024, more than 2000 women were given pre- and post-natal care in the camp. There were roughly 1,000 deliveries and more than 200 caesarians. On top of that, thousands of children were treated for malnutrition and given routine vaccinations. Any stoppage to this grant will directly put these services to a halt, a Save the Children Rwanda spokesperson says. This also includes emergency C-sections, which are, extremely essential and life-saving interventions. Very, very afraid Celestine*, a 20-year-old mother of one, also from the DRC, had an ectopic pregnancy which needed to be operated on in the camp. She had experienced years of problems with bleeding. A botched caesarean in a different clinic before she arrived at Mahama had left her with wounds and clotted tissue which the Mahama team linked to her ectopic pregnancy. She was admitted to the hospital in searing pain and had surgery within 24 hours of arriving in the camp. The surgeon told her it likely would have been fatal had they not operated when they did. When she learned she would need surgery, she thought back to her previous, mangled, caesarean and thought to herself, this time Im going to die. I will not survive this second attempt, she says. She was very, very afraid. open image in gallery Celestine* has experienced the reduction in services in the health centre after Trumps aid cuts ( Hugh Kinsella Cunningham / Save the Children ) After recovering from the surgery, she no longer lives in pain like before and is being reassured by the doctors that she should be able to have more children in the future. Though her past pain does still come to her mind from time to time, she feels comforted by the presence of the clinic in case she needs any more help in the future. Anne, a midwife in the clinic, worries about the psychological impact on mothers if care is withdrawn. Once the aid stops it will particularly affect our clients, especially teen mothers. We need to help mothers from the moment they become aware of their pregnancy until they give birth and afterwards. If this stops, she says, they may, lose hope, which can lead to severe mental health difficulties and even loss of life. open image in gallery Anne fears the consequences the aid cuts could have on mothers mental health ( Hugh Kinsella Cunningham/ Save the Children ) A study published in The Lancet medical journal in July estimates that US aid cuts could lead to 14 million more deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children. Were just very concerned about the health of women and their unborn children, Musonda says. The implications are vast. *Names have been changed to protect identities This article is part of The Independents Rethinking Global Aid project The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Cracker Barrel lost $94 million in a day after a disastrous rebrand sparked outrage among President Donald Trumps Make America Great Again base. The new logo for the Southern-themed restaurant chain has been blasted by Trumps MAGA base claiming the design is woke and boring. The logo, which formerly featured a seated man in overalls leaning on a barrel, now simply has the name Cracker Barrel on it, with the classic gold background. That anger led to a drop in the stock value for the company. It finished Thursday at $54.80 a share, down about 7.15 percent on the day. The stock was able to rebound from a midday low where it was down about 15 percent. Cracker Barrels stock drop led to the company losing about $94 million in value in just a day. CBS News Money Watch reported in the early afternoon Cracker Barrel had lost nearly $200 million but it was able to make up some ground before the closing bell. open image in gallery Cracker Barrel loses 94 million in a day after a disastrous rebrand sparks outrage among President Donald Trumps 'Make America Great Again' base ( Joe Raedle/Getty Images ) Cracker Barrel said its new logo is now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all. The restaurant chain first opened its doors in 1969 and has gone through five logo redesigns. The previous logo design with the seated man was created in 1977. After nearly 50 years of the old logo, some MAGA figures have voiced their frustration, accusing Cracker Barrel of changing it as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative. open image in gallery MAGA influencer Benny Johnson was one of the people upset over Cracker Barrel's redesigned logo ( Benny Johnson/X ) Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, who at one point worked for Cracker Barrel, wrote on X, Their logo was iconic and their unique restaurants were a fixture of American culture. No one asked for this woke rebrand. Its time to Make Cracker Barrel Great Again. Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh wrote: Yes lets remove everything charming and distinct from the logo and make it as generic and boring as we possibly can. WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel ??!, Donald Trump Jr., the presidents eldest son, wrote in response to a post by the Woke War Room account attacking the companys CEO Julie Felss Masino and her DEI regime. Owen Shroyer, a right-wing pundit, told Cracker Barrel of its old logo, Yes, own the hilarious irony of using a racial slur against your main demographic. It will attract that younger crowd you're reaching for. Or serve better food. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice State inspectors in Colorado have uncovered a grim scene at a funeral home operated by a county coroner, where decomposing bodies were discovered behind a hidden door. Authorities revealed on Thursday that the coroner admitted he might have provided fake ashes to grieving relatives who had requested cremations. The shocking discovery was made on Wednesday at Davis Mortuary in Pueblo, approximately 110 miles south of Denver. Inspectors, who had noted a "strong odour of decomposition" upon arrival, found the bodies in a room concealed by a cardboard display. Brian Cotter, the mortuary owner and county coroner, had reportedly attempted to prevent access to the room, according to a document from state regulators. The document further states that Mr Cotter informed inspectors some of the deceased had been awaiting cremation for around 15 years. This revelation led to the immediate suspension of the mortuarys registration, effectively barring it from operation. The discovery led the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to launch a criminal investigation into the funeral home at the request of local authorities. They plan to hold a press conference Thursday afternoon. A woman who answered the phone at the mortuary said it had no comment and declined to make Cotter available for an interview. Cotter did not immediately respond to a message left with the coroners office. Cotter and his brother bought Davis Mortuary in 1989, according to the businesss website. It said the brothers brought with them an old school way of operating that they learned from their father, who owned and operated funeral homes in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska. For years, Colorado had some of the weakest rules for funeral homes in the nation, with no routine inspections or qualification requirements for funeral home operators. That allowed numerous abuses, including a pending case involving nearly 200 decomposing bodies that were found being stored at room temperature in a building in Penrose, Colorado, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Pueblo. A sentencing of one of the funeral homes owners in that case on charges of corpse abuse is set for Friday. Owners of another funeral home in Grand Junction, Colorado, were convicted of selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes. In response to those and other cases, state lawmakers last year approved changes intended to tighten oversight, bringing Colorado in line with most other states. One requires regulators to routinely inspect funeral homes and give them more enforcement power. Another implements licensing for funeral directors and other workers in the industry. They would need to pass background checks and a national exam while possessing degrees and work experience. Previously, funeral home directors in Colorado didnt have to graduate from high school, let alone have a degree. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A man has been arrested for his alleged role in an assault at a Rufus Du Sol concert in Los Angeles that saw a woman being hit multiple times in an attack that left her unconscious. Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala, 23, was arrested on suspicion of assault Thursday, Pasadena police said. In the viral clip, shared by the music-focused social media account Festive Owl, a man is seen punching a woman until bystanders were able to move him away. The victim can be seen in the video lying lifeless on the floor as another concertgoer tries to hold her up. The womans fiance was also hurt in the attack while he attempted to shield her, according to reports. Towards the end of the video, a concertgoer can be heard shouting, Get him out of here! ... We need help! The suspect fled the scene after the incident, police said. A man who allegedly attacked a woman while they were attending a concert at the Rose Bowl on August 16, 2025. A video shows the man hitting the victim at least five times, knocking her unconscious and leaving her bloodied and bruised. Police are still searching for the man. ( The Festive Owl ) According to a statement, authorities received a call regarding the assault of three people in the seating area of the stadium around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. The investigation revealed that three victims were assaulted to varying degrees by a male suspect who reportedly became agitated after a drink was spilled, said the Pasadena Police Department in a statement. Officials added that the video footage and numerous tips from the public helped them identify Zavala. The victim, who had traveled from Phoenix to attend the show, maintained early on that the altercation began because she accidentally spilled a drink on a man sitting in front of them. We apologized immediately, but he yelled that it was intentional and ran off, leaving his companion behind, the woman told The Festival Owl. We apologized to her and thought it was over. The suspect returned approximately half an hour later and began screaming at the woman and her friend, threatening to hurt them. The woman explained that she tried to de-escalate the situation and apologize again when she was hit in the face. She was rendered unconscious, suffered severe bleeding, and remembers waking up some time later in a medical tent she refused to be taken to a hospital, police say. The incident is believed to have unfolded before Rufus Du Sol even took the stage, according to a Pasadena Police spokesperson. On Monday, Rufus Du Sol, the electronic music trio, posted a message to their social media saying, delivering moments to our fans to gather and celebrate safely is what we live for. We have been heartbroken to hear of the act of violence that took place during the opening act on Saturday. This type of behavior is completely unacceptable anywhere, and the fact that this happened at one of our shows was devastating to learn about. Zavalas case has now been submitted to the L.A. County district attorneys office for filing consideration. The victim is expected to make a full recovery. Anyone who may have further information about this incident should call the Pasadena Police at 626-744-4241. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice At least five people have been killed after a tourist bus carrying 54 people , including children, rolled over on its way back from Niagara Falls to New York City. The crash happened on Interstate 90 near Pembroke, about 25 miles east of Buffalo, resulting in multiple fatalities, injuries, and entrapments, state police spokesperson James OCallaghan said in a news conference. The bus was traveling eastbound right before the Pembroke exit, before it lost control, went into the median, overcorrected, and ended up in the ditch, which would be on the right side of the roadway, he added. There were initial reports of a child among those killed, but police said Friday evening, further investigation has deemed that to be false. New York State Police said Friday evening westbound lanes on the highway have reopened to traffic. open image in gallery The cause of the rollover crash is still under investigation, New York State Police said ( AP ) Translators were brought to the scene as most passengers on the bus were from India, China, and the Philippines. The driver is alive and well, OCallaghan said. Were working with him. We believe we have a good idea of what happened, why the bus lost control." The crash involved a tractor-trailer and OCallaghan said the bus did roll but did not reveal the exact reason why. Its a full-size tour bus. Heavy amount of damage," OCallaghan said. Most people, Im assuming, on the bus did not have a seat belt on. That is the reason why we have so many ejected people on this bus. Witnesses have described a horrific scene of broken glass and personal belongings spilling all over the highway following the crash. Bystander Powell Stephens told The Buffalo News after driving by the crash that there was glass all over the road and peoples stuff all over the road. Windows were all shattered. Mercy Flight and other services used multiple helicopters and ambulances to transport crash victims, with the Erie County Medical Center receiving multiple patients. A total of 24 passengers were treated at the Buffalo-based hospital, with 20 still receiving care in the emergency department, two in surgery, and others in the trauma ICU, according to Dr. Jennifer Pugh, the hospitals chief of emergency medicine. Police said there were children transported to the hospital, but they were unaware of any serious physical injuries to children at this point. Dr. Samuel Cloud, the hospitals chief medical officer, said there was probably the most trauma patients from one incident in my career here in Buffalo. open image in gallery More than 50 people, most of them from India, China, and the Philippines, were on the tourist bus returning to New York City ( AP ) New York Governor Kathy Hochul stated she was briefed on the tragic incident and that her office was coordinating with police and local officials. Ive been briefed on the tragic tour bus accident on the @NYSThruway, she wrote on X. My team is coordinating closely with @nyspolice and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved. New York Senator Chuck Schumer wrote on X, Im heartbroken for all those weve lost and all those injured and praying for their families. Thank you to our brave first responders on the scene. My heart breaks after hearing of the horrific bus crash in New York. My thoughts are with the victims, their families, and the first responders working through this tragedy, Representative Eric Swalwell of California wrote. This is a developing story... The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice. For them, empathy is a cudgel for the left: It can manipulate caring people into accepting all manner of sins according to a conservative Christian perspective, including abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and certain views on social and racial justice. Empathy becomes toxic when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies, said Allie Beth Stuckey, author of Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. Stuckey, host of the popular podcast Relatable, is one of two evangelicals who published books within the past year making Christian arguments against some forms of empathy. The other is Joe Rigney, a professor and pastor who wrote The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits. It was published by Canon Press, an affiliate of Rigneys conservative denomination, which counts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth among its members. These anti-empathy arguments gained traction in the early months of President Donald Trumps second term, with his flurry of executive orders that critics denounced as lacking empathy. As foreign aid stopped and more deportations began, Trumps then-adviser Elon Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. Even Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, framed the idea in his own religious terms, invoking the concept of ordo amoris, or order of love. Within concentric circles of importance, he argued the immediate family comes first and the wider world last an interpretation that then-Pope Francis rejected. While their anti-empathy arguments have differences, Stuckey and Rigney have audiences that are firmly among Trumps Christian base. Could someone use my arguments to justify callous indifference to human suffering? Of course, Rigney said, countering that he still supports measured Christ-like compassion. I think Ive put enough qualifications. Historian Susan Lanzoni traced a century of empathys uses and definitions in her 2018 book Empathy: A History. Though its had its critics, she has never seen the aspirational term so derided as it is now. Its been particularly jarring to watch Christians take down empathy, said Lanzoni, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. Thats the whole message of Jesus, right? open image in gallery In this image from a YouTube video posted on Oct. 15, 2024, Allie Beth Stuckey speaks about issues from her book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion." (AP Photo) ( AP ) The word empathy appeared in English for the first time in 1908, taken from a German word, meaning in-feeling. Though the word is relatively new to English, the impulse behind it to feel for or with another is much older. It forms a core precept across many religions. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, reads a common version of the Golden Rule. Stuckey admits Jesus is an empathetic figure. In her book, the Southern Baptist from Texas writes, In a way, Jesus embodied empathy when he took on flesh, suffered the human experience, and bore the burden of our sins by enduring a gruesome death. She's clear that empathy can be good. But she writes it has been co-opted to convince people that the progressive position is exclusively the one of kindness and morality. If you really care about women, youll support their right to choose, she writes of this progressive line of thinking. If you really respect people, youll use preferred pronouns. If youre really compassionate, youll welcome the immigrant. Rigney doesn't think empathy is inherently wrong, either. He finds fault with excessive or untethered empathy that's not tied to conservative biblical interpretations. He has been talking publicly about these ideas since at least 2018, when he discussed the sin of empathy on camera with conservative Pastor Doug Wilson. Since 2023, Rigney has worked at Wilsons Idaho church and seminary, affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Rigney said initially he experienced pushback from certain corners of evangelicalism, that at the time were very dialed into questions of the #MeToo movement and abuse or critical race theory, social justice kind of stuff. This debate over empathy often devolves into arguments over word choices or semantics. Rigney prefers older terms like compassion, sympathy or even pity. The Rev. Albert Mohler leads the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination. He featured Rigney and Stuckey on his podcast this year and agrees with their empathy critiques. Mohler prefers the word sympathy over empathy. Theres no market so far as I know for empathy cards, he said. There is a long-standing market for sympathy cards. open image in gallery Aiden Lougee, center left, kisses his boyfriend, Rex Resa, seen between signs held by opponents to gay marriage outside of the courthouse after a hearing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Monday, Dec. 6, 2010, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) ( AP2010 ) In 2014, Mohler did encourage his audience to have empathy. His words came after a white police officer killed Michael Brown, a Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. I look back at that statement now, and I would say its nowhere near as morally significant as I intended it to be at the time, Mohler said. Though expressing empathy for hurting people appeared to be close to the right thing to do, he sees it as less helpful now. Stuckey traces her own anti-empathy awakening to the summer of 2020, when racial justice protests roiled the nation. She saw other Christians posting about racism out of an empathy she found misguided. I reject the idea that America is a systemically racist country, she said. When she said as much in the months after George Floyds murder, her audience grew. Rigney echoes this critique of systemic racism but reserves most of his ire for feminism, which he blames for many of empathys ills. Because women are the more empathetic sex, he argues, they often take empathy too far. He found an encapsulation of this theory at Trumps inaugural prayer service, where a woman preached from the pulpit. During a sermon that went viral, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde pleaded with the Republican president to have mercy on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, prompting a conservative backlash. Buddes attempt to speak truth to power is a reminder that feminism is a cancer that enables the politics of empathetic manipulation, Rigney wrote for the evangelical World magazine. open image in gallery The Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of Washington's Episcopal diocese, speaks during a service outside St. John's Episcopal Church near the White House in Washington, on June 19, 2020, with a Black Lives Matter banner in the background. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) ( Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved ) Empathy is not toxic. Nor is it a sin, said the Rev. Canon Dana Colley Corsello in a sermon at Washington National Cathedral, two months after Buddes plea from that sanctuary. The arguments about toxic empathy are finding open ears because far-right-wing, white evangelicals are looking for a moral framework around which they can justify President Trumps executive orders and policies, Corsello preached. Empathy is at the heart of Jesus life and ministry, Corsello wrote in a recent email exchange about the sermon. She added, Its so troubling that this is even up for debate. In New York, the Rev. Micah Bucey first noticed Christian anti-empathy messages after Buddes sermon. In response, he proposed changing the outdoor sign at Judson Memorial Church, the historic congregation he serves in Manhattan. If empathy is a sin, sin boldly, he proposed it say, a catchphrase that borrows its last clause from the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. A photo of the resulting church sign was shared thousands of times on social media. Our entire spirituality and theology at Judson are built around curiosity and empathy, Bucey said. Weve always considered that our superpower. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A man has been indicted on a felony animal cruelty charge, nearly 18 months after he allegedly struck a wolf with a snowmobile, taped its mouth shut, and displayed the injured animal in a rural bar before killing it. Cody Roberts had previously paid only a $250 fine for illegal possession of wildlife last year. Investigators had struggled to find cooperative witnesses, and Wyoming law gives wide leeway for people to kill wolves and other predators across much of the state. Even so, a 12-person grand jury found enough evidence over the past two weeks to support the felony animal cruelty charge. Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich confirmed the indictment in a statement on Wednesday. Melinkovich had no further comment on the case. Roberts has not commented on the case and did not have a listed working number, nor an attorney on file in state District Court who might comment on his behalf. If convicted, Roberts faces up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine. open image in gallery This photo provided by the National Park Service shows a sign marking the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, May 7, 2018. (Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File) ( National Park Service ) Widely circulated photos showed a man identified as Roberts posing with the wolf, its mouth bound with tape, on Feb. 29, 2024, in a bar near Daniel, a town of about 150 people about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Jackson. Video clips showed the same animal lying on a floor, alive but barely moving. The light punishment against Roberts led to calls for a Wyoming tourism boycott, to little apparent effect. Yellowstone National Park had its second-busiest year on record in 2024, up more than 5% from 2023. Grand juries in Wyoming are rare. The last one to get significant attention, in 2019, found that a sheriffs deputy did not commit involuntary manslaughter by killing an unarmed man after a traffic stop. Government-sponsored poisoning, trapping and bounty hunting all but wiped out wolves in the lower 48 states in the 19th and 20th centuries. Starting in the 1990s, a reintroduction program brought them back to Yellowstone and central Idaho, and their numbers have rebounded. Though wolves remain listed as a federally endangered or threatened species in most of the country, they have no such protection in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where they can be hunted and trapped. Exceptions include Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park, where hunting is prohibited and the wild canines are a major attraction for millions of tourists. In 85% percent of Wyoming, wolves are classified as predators and can be freely killed by virtually any means. The so-called predator zone includes Sublette County, where the wolf was killed. Groups including the Humane Society argued that Wyomings animal cruelty law could nonetheless apply there. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Hours after a judge ruled against acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba and deemed her unlawfully in her position, she appeared on Fox News to lambast rogue members of the judiciary, and warned they should be respecting the president. Habba, Donald Trumps former personal lawyer, has been embroiled in a chaotic power struggle at the U.S. Attorneys office in New Jersey, after the president unsuccessfully attempted to nominate her to serve as the states top prosecutor . In July, New Jerseys federal trial judges attempted to replace Habba with their own nominee as her 120-day term as acting U.S. Attorney came to an end. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi intervened to keep Habba in the acting role for an additional 210 days. But on Thursday, New Jersey federal Judge Matthew Brann ruled that Habba could not preside over criminal cases, declaring her to be acting without lawful authority. Hours later, Habba joined Fox News host Sean Hannity to complain about rogue judges who have ruled against the Trump administration. Without naming names, she declared that judges who do not allow the president to do what he wants are being defiant. open image in gallery President Donald Trumps former lawyer, Alina Habba, claimed the role of judges was to respect the president ( Hannity / Fox News ) We will not fall to rogue judges, we will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job, respecting the president, Habba declared. The Independent has asked Habbas office for comment. Judges are not obligated to follow the presidents demands, and operate independently of the executive branch. However the Trump administration has misrepresented the role of judges, and the president has put immense pressure on the judiciary by pushing the bounds of his authority. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed across the U.S. in response to Trumps executive orders with at least 119 facing partial or total blocks. That includes Trumps efforts to get rid of birthright citizenship, make dramatic cuts to the federal workforce, and restrict access to voting. Trump has called out judges by name on his social media accounts when he disagrees with their rulings. In March, Trump called District Judge James Boasberg a radical left lunatic and called for his impeachment after he questioned the government for not complying with his previous order halting deportation flights. Soon after, Boasbergs family, including his daughter, became the target of attacks online. open image in gallery Habba represented the president in several court cases, including a defamation trial with E. Jean Carroll and a fraud trial with the state of New York both of which she lost ( Getty Images ) Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary earlier this year. The justice later denounced Trump and his allies for calling for Boasbergs impeachment, saying it was not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. Judge John C. Coughenour, the first judge to block the administrations attempts to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, was the victim of SWATing when an anonymous tipster calls in a fake threat of violence, sending a swarm of law enforcement to someones home. The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary group of more than 1,000 judges across the nation, said the judiciary plays a "critical role in preserving democracy and a law-abiding society, in a statement to NPR. Judges must be able to do their jobs without fear of violence or undue influence, they added. In his ruling against Habba on Thursday, District Court Judge Matthew Brann said she was not currently qualified to carry out the duties of the U.S. attorneys office in New Jersey and therefore should be disqualified from participating in cases. Branns ruling came after a criminal defendant in New Jersey questioned whether his case could move forward with Habba as acting U.S. Attorney. Habbas unclear status as the lead prosecutor in New Jersey has thrown the office into chaos, with some state prosecutors admitting in court that upcoming trials may have been adjourned. For Habba to become U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, she would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but that is unlikely to occur. Both of New Jerseys senators, who are Democrats, have strongly opposed her nomination. While Brann said he found Habbas authority to be unlawful, he did not enforce any immediate action, to allow the government to appeal his order. We will win, we always do, it just takes time, Habba, who has lost several cases while representing Trump, told Hannity. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Donald Trumps former personal attorney Alina Habba has been unlawfully serving as New Jerseys top prosecutor, according to a federal judge. Habba, whose appointment to the role sparked a legal showdown between the Trump administration and the states federal judges, has been serving as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey without lawful authority for more than a month, according to District Judge Matthew Brann. Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not, he wrote on Thursday. Because she is not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity, she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases, he added. The judge is pausing any outcome from his decision, however, to allow the government to fight his order in a federal appeals court. open image in gallery A federal judge has determined that Alina Habba has been serving as New Jerseys top federal prosecutor without lawful authority after her 120-term as acting U.S. Attorney came to a end on July ( AP ) Last month, New Jerseys federal trial judges named their own nominee to replace Habba at the end of her 120-day term as the states acting U.S. Attorney. But hours later, Attorney General Pam Bondi not only blocked the judges nominee but removed her from the office entirely. That prosecutor, Desiree Leigh Grace, who has spent a decade fighting crime at the U.S. Attorneys office in Newark, said she was prepared to take the job and would show up for work in accordance with the law. Bondi fired her, publicly rebuked the judges, and promoted Habba to the role of acting U.S. attorney preserving her role as the states top federal prosecutor. Despite the New Jersey judges using their lawful authority to appoint Grace, who was hired by Habba to serve as her top assistant, Justice Department officials have accused them of advancing a politically motivated attempt to force Habba out of the job. The judges ruling on Thursday stems from a challenge brought by New Jersey defendants challenging the legality of Habbas tenure and the charges she brought against them. They argued that Habba did not have the authority to bring charges after her 120-day term expired in July. They have a constitutional right to be prosecuted only by a duly authorized United States Attorney, and the illegitimacy of Ms. Habbas appointment undermines fundamental due process rights, attorneys wrote in court filings. A lack of clarity over the future, and legality, of Habbas leadership has thrown her office into chaos, with New Jersey prosecutors admitting in court that some upcoming trials and other procedural matters would have to be adjourned altogether. The Independent has requested comment from Habbas office. open image in gallery Habba, a former defense attorney for the president, was appointed acting U.S. Attorney in March following a brief stint as counselor to the president ( AP ) The Justice Department's claims of political maneuvering within the federal judiciary follow years of allegations of Habba launching politically motivated stunts of her own. After she briefly served as counselor to the president at the White House, Habba was sworn in as acting U.S. attorney in her home state on March 28. Shortly after her appointment, she told a right-wing media outlet that she plans to turn New Jersey red. So, hopefully, while Im there, I can help that cause, she said. In April, Habba told Fox News that her office had launched an investigation into New Jerseys Democratic Governor Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin over a directive to local law enforcement instructing them against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. The following month, she announced on Fox News that her office was bringing criminal charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka after a scuffle with federal agents during a congressional oversight visit at an immigration detention center. She later abruptly dropped trespassing charges against Baraka for the sake of moving forward and then criminally charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault. The judge overseeing the case against Baraka criticized Habbas about-face in open court and questioned why prosecutors even brought the charges in the first place. To stay on permanently, Habba needs to be confirmed by the Senate, but its unlikely her name will come up for a vote any time soon. Opposition from New Jerseys Democratic senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim have effectively killed off any imminent chances of a confirmation vote. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A controversial immigration detention centre, nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" and located deep within Florida's Everglades, faces an uncertain future after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt its expansion and begin its closure. US District Judge Kathleen Williams formalised a temporary halt she had imposed two weeks prior, amidst ongoing testimony in a multi-day hearing. Environmental advocates had argued the facility violated crucial environmental laws. The state of Florida swiftly responded to the ruling, filing a notice of appeal on Thursday night. "The deportations will continue until morale improves," DeSantis spokesman Alex Lanfranconi said in response to the judge's ruling. The judge said she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days through the transferring of the detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can't bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property. The order does not prohibit modification or repairs to existing facilities, "which are solely for the purpose of increasing safety or mitigating environmental or other risks at the site.," The preliminary injunction includes "those who are in active concert or participation with" the state of Florida or federal defendants or their officers, agents, employees," the judge wrote in an 82-page order. open image in gallery Work progresses on a new migrant detention facility dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility in the Florida Everglades ( AP ) The judge said state officials never sufficiently explained why the facility needed to be in the middle of the Florida Everglades. "What is apparent, however, is that in their haste to construct the detention camp, the State did not consider alternative locations," Williams said. Judge cites decades-long efforts to preserve Everglades Williams said her order gave the state and federal defendants time to wind down the facility so that it can undergo the required environmental assessments. She noted the three-quarters century of efforts to preserve the Everglades. "Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades," she wrote. "This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises." President Donald Trump toured the facility last month and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe had argued that further construction and operations should be stopped until federal and state officials complied with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit claims the project threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars' worth of environmental restoration. Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, called the ruling a landmark victory for the Everglades and Americans who believe this imperiled wilderness should be protected. "It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government and there are consequences for ignoring them," Samples said in a statement. Miccosukee Tribe Chairman Talbert Cypress said this isn't the first time the tribe has has to fight for its land and rights. "We will always stand up for our culture, our sovereignty, and for the Everglades," Cypress said in a statement. Attorneys for the state and federal defendants didn't immediately respond to emailed inquiries late Thursday. But they have previously argued that, although the detention center would be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the facility was entirely under the state of Florida, meaning the federal environmental law didn't apply. The judge has said the detention facility was, at a minimum, a joint partnership between the state and federal government. open image in gallery President Donald Trump tours Alligator Alcatraz, a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, on July 1, 2025 ( AP ) The detention center was quickly built almost two months ago at a lightly used, single-runway training airport in the middle of the Everglades. It currently holds several hundred detainees but was designed to eventually hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures. Inside the compound's large white tents, rows of bunkbeds are surrounded by chain-link cages. People held there say worms turn up in the food, toilets don't flush and flood floors with fecal waste, while mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere. At times the air conditioners abruptly shut off in the sweltering heat. Detainees are said to go days without showering or getting prescription medicine, and can only speak to lawyers and loved ones by phone. Witnesses for the environmental groups testified during the hearing that at least 20 acres (8 hectares) of asphalt had been added to the site since the Florida Division of Emergency Management began construction. They said additional paving could lead to an increase in water runoff to the adjacent wetlands, spread harmful chemicals into the Everglades and reduce the habitat for endangered Florida panthers. Attorneys for federal and state agencies have asked Williams to dismiss or transfer the injunction request, saying the lawsuit was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Williams ruled Thursday that her court was the proper venue. Another federal judge in Miami dismissed part of a lawsuit earlier this week that claimed detainees were denied access to the legal system at the immigration detention center and then moved the remaining counts of the case to another court. Both lawsuits were being heard as Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis * administration apparently was preparing to build a second immigration detention center at a Florida National Guard training center in north Florida. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The redistricting war just escalated. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed a series of bills calling for new congressional maps that could add up to five Democratic seats in Congress, a response to an ongoing, Trump-led effort in Texas to use redistricting there to carve out five additional GOP seats. Were neutralizing what occurred and were giving the American people a fair chance, Newsom said on Thursday of the effort. Because when all things are equal and were all playing by the same set of rules, theres no question the Republican party will be the minority party in the House of Representatives. The bills, which Newsom said are unique in U.S. history, ask voters to approve the congressional maps in a special election in November through a constitutional amendment that would bypass the states independent redistricting process. The effort passed along party lines, with a sole Democrat voting against the proposals. open image in gallery California bill calls for special election in November to vote on new congressional maps that could add Democratic seats, an effort Gov. Gavin Newsom said was in response to Texas seeking to expand Republican control through its maps ( Getty Images ) Republicans criticized the redistricting scheme as undemocratic, arguing it violates the will of Californians who created the independent redistricting process. You move forward fighting fire with fire, what happens? You burn it all down, Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher said on Thursday. And in this case, it affects our most fundamental American principle: representation. The bills passage comes a day after the Texas House approved a redistricting plan for the state that could add up to five GOP seats in the U.S. Congress. President Trump had called on the state to do so. In July, Trump said he was pushing the Texas GOP to pursue a rare mid-decade redistricting and redrawing of congressional maps in the state to pick up more Republican seats, with the president later claiming the GOP was entitled to more seats after his successful 2024 campaign there. open image in gallery President Trump kicked off national redistricting battle by insisting the Republican party was entitled to five more seats in Texas ( AP ) Texas will be the biggest one, Trump said at the time. And thatll be five. Texas Democrats temporarily fled the state to delay voting on the measure. The redistricting face-off appears set to move beyond Texas and California though. Republican-led states, including Ohio, Missouri, and Florida, have been floated as possible next venues to pursue redistricting, and Democratic states like Illinois could alter their districts too before the 2026 midterms. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A Salvadoran man was about to board a flight from the San Francisco International Airport to self-deport when he was suddenly apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and forced to spend several weeks in jail. Jeisson Rony Escobar-Valencia, 30, has a criminal record in the United States and was previously deported in 2021 but re-entered the country illegally after being the victim of violent crime in El Salvador flouting a judges removal order. Understanding that he could be deported, Escobar-Valencia decided he would self-deport in July. After purchasing a ticket to El Salvador, he said goodbye to his family and prepared to start a new life in El Salvador with the hopes his family could join him, his attorney, Elisse Larouche, said in a court filing. But before he could even set foot on the flight, ICE officers apprehended Esocar-Valencia at the airport, charged him with re-entry of a removed alien and detained him for three weeks before deporting him, again, to El Salvador. All Mr. Escobar-Valencia wanted to do was return to El Salvador, Larouche said in a sentencing memorandum to a judge in Northern California last week. open image in gallery A Salvadoran man was arrested at an airport, detained, and set to be deported while trying to self-deport ( Getty Images ) Instead, the government intervened to criminally prosecute Mr. Escobar-Valencia, putting him in criminal custody for this case, followed by a prolonged period in immigration custody before he can return to El Salvador, Larouche added. In May, the Department of Homeland Security said it would offer undocumented immigrants $1,000 stipend for travel assistance to leave the country voluntarily. Those wishing to participate can notify the U.S. that they intend to self-deport via the CBP Home Mobile App. Its just one of the many ways the Trump administration is trying to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S. at the behest of President Donald Trump. However, the option only applies to those without a criminal record. Escobar-Valencia was convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old in 2018. His lawyer said he took a plea deal under the misunderstanding it would protect him from deportation, which it did not. After serving a three-year-long sentence, EscobarValencia was deported to El Salvador but quickly faced physical violence as well as the threat of homicide by MS-13 gang members. Escobar-Valencia chose to illegally re-enter the U.S. months later. His lawyer said he understands now that he should not have returned, but at the time, he was in extreme fear and made the wrong and unlawful choice. Soon after, in 2021, he served a brief jail sentence for failing to register as a sex offender in California. Then in February 2025, he was arrested again for failing to register as a sex offender. But it wasnt until July, when ICE officers discovered Escobar-Valencia, that they chose to arrest and detain him. Escobar-Valencia initially began living in the U.S. since he was 11 years old, when his father obtained a temporary protected status and brought him to escape violence. He had spent most of his life in the U.S., attending school, working, and eventually starting a family. His lawyer says he has two young children and a spouse, all of whom he hopes can join him in El Salvador when he reaches it. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Ghislaine Maxwell said she never saw President Donald Trump behave inappropriately around anyone in Jeffrey Epstein's circle, a transcript of her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has revealed. Blanche interviewed Maxwell, a former associate of Epsteins, last month over two days in Tallahassee, Florida. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in helping Epstein recruit, groom and abuse young girls. About a week after the interview, the 63-year-old British socialite was moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas. Blanche sat down with Maxwell as the Trump administration attempted to quell backlash from Republicans and Democrats alike over its handling of the Epstein investigation. In the wide-ranging interview, Maxwell responded to questions about several famous people with alleged connections to Epstein, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Maxwell told Blanche she never witnessed Trump, who was once friends with Epstein, doing anything inappropriate. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said, according to the transcripts. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. In the bombshell interview: Maxwell said she absolutely never saw Trump behaving inappropriately with anyone in Epstein's circle. She does not believe Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in New York in August 2019 but said she had no idea who might have been responsible. There is no list of Epsteins clients or famous associates, Maxwell claims. Maxwell said she does not believe she ever recruited a masseuse from Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate. She praised Trump during the interview, saying he had accomplished an extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now and that she liked him. The British socialite said claims that Epstein paid her $30 million over several years to recruit young women are categorically false. Maxwell says she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew. open image in gallery Donald Trump poses with Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at his Mar-a-Lago club in 2000. ( Getty ) Maxwell praises Trumps achievement in becoming the President After Maxwell said she never saw Trump doing anything inappropriate, Blanche asked: Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world? Absolutely never, in any context, Maxwell replied. Maxwell told Blanche she met Trump in the 1990s through her father, the controversial British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. She described Trump as always very cordial and very kind to me. Maxwell said she admires Trumps extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now. And I like him, and I've always liked him, she added. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him. open image in gallery Ghislaine Maxwell praised President Donald Trump and said she has always liked him ( Federal Bureau of Prisons ) There is no list of Epsteins clients, Maxwell claims Blanche also asked Maxwell about Epsteins so-called client list or black book that has been said to contain the names of his alleged associates. Maxwell said the list doesnt exist. So there's been a lot of conversations about whether Mr. Epstein maintained, like, a list of people, like a book of famous people that he knew, Blanche said. Like a, it's called a black book or a client list or a list. Did you know of the existence of any such list? There is no list, Maxwell responded. The FBI and Justice Department released a joint memo last month similarly claiming that Epsteins client list doesnt exist, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi telling Fox News the list was sitting on her desk waiting to be reviewed in February. Maxwell says she doesnt remember recruiting women from Mar-a-Lago Maxwell also said she doesnt recall any masseuses from Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate giving Epstein a private massage, and that she doesnt remember recruiting any masseuses from the estate. This comes after Trump claimed last month that Epstein stole young women working at his Mar-a-Lago spa. Trump said this included Epsteins alleged victim Virginia Giuffre, who claimed Maxwell recruited her in 2000 while she was working as a locker room attendant at Mar-a-Lago. Do you know whether masseuses from Mar-a-Lago's spa ended up giving massages to private massages to Mr. Epstein? Blanche asked. I'm not asking for what you may have read, but from at the time, from your personal knowledge, do you know whether that's true? I I don't I don't recall, Maxwell responded. Is it possible? Yes. But I don't remember I don't remember that. So I don't want to I don't recall that, but it's possible. Blanche then asked: Do you have a recollection of you ever recruiting a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago spa to give to go give a private massage to Mr. Epstein? I've never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember, Maxwell said. I can't ever recollect doing that. Maxwell also told Blanche she denies the claim that Epstein paid her millions to help recruit young women. What I'm trying to just make sure I that I understand, is that the idea that you were paid $30 million between '99 and 2007, in order to by Mr. Epstein to reward you for recruiting young women, Blanche said. That is in your you're saying that is categorically, completely false? That is categorically false, correct, Maxwell replied. Maxwell does not believe Epstein died by suicide Blanche also asked Maxwell about Epsteins death. Epstein died in an apparent suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges. While there have been conspiracy theories surrounding his death, the Justice Department and FBI confirmed in a memo last month that he died by suicide. Blanche said: Do you so you think he was he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about. I do not believe he died by suicide, no, Maxwell responded. And do you believe that do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? Blanche asked. I no, I dont, Maxwell said. Blanche continued to press Maxwell on why she thinks Epstein didnt die by suicide. I ask that because, if you don't believe that there's any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison? Blanche asked. In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary, Maxwell said. That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today. Maxwell went on to note that if he had been killed, it was due to an internal situation at the prison. Blanche then asked Maxwell if she has any reason to believe that Epstein may have been murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people. I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail, Maxwell responded. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target. Maxwell addresses connections with former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew Blanche asked Maxwell about other famous people that she and Epstein may have been connected with, including former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Blanche asked if Maxwell was aware of Clinton ever visiting Epsteins private island. He never. Absolutely never went, Maxwell responded. And I can be sure of that because there's no way he would've gone -- I don't believe there's any way that he would've gone to the island, had I not been there. Because I don't believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein. Maxwell also told Blanche that she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew. Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, said she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17. Prince Andrew has denied the claims and paid Giuffre an out-of-court settlement in 2022. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew, Maxwell told Blanche. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew or to Sarah Ferguson. That is a flat untruth. I'll start with that. Justice Department sends Epstein files to House Oversight Committee Earlier Friday, the House Oversight Committee also received the first round of Epstein files from the Justice Department, the Associated Press reports. This comes after the committee subpoenaed the files earlier this month. The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted, a spokesperson for Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. Maxwells interview came as the Trump administration faced blowback over its handling of the Epstein investigation. The Justice Department and FBI released a memo on July 7 indicating there would be no further disclosures related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation. Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the move and have since demanded more transparency from the administration. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The FBI conducted an early-morning raid at the home of President Donald Trumps former national security adviser, John Bolton, outside of Washington, D.C. on Friday. FBI director Kash Patel posted on X (Twitter) during the morning, hinting about the raid: NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission. The Independent confirmed the ongoing search at Boltons home in Bethesda, Maryland. The Independent observed multiple law enforcement vehicles parked outside with FBI agents standing by the door as agents moved in and out of the residence. The Associated Press reported the case involves the handling of classified documents. A case file on federal court sites remains sealed. Bolton did not immediately respond to a text message request for comment. His longtime attorney, Charles Cooper, also did not respond to a request for comment. Bolton served as national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 but has since become an outspoken critic of Trump, particularly regarding his approach to Russia. open image in gallery File: An FBI raid was conducted at the home of John Bolton, a one-time Trump staffer turned critic ( AP ) open image in gallery FBI agents are seen outside the home of former national security adviser John Bolton. ( The Independent ) Most recently, Bolton blasted Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbards report that accused former president Barack Obama of engaging in a years-long coup against Trump. During Trumps meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Bolton said that Trump would surrender Alaska to Russia. On Friday morning, Bolton tweeted about an interview he did with NPR about Russia. Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire, he tweeted. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do so. Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I dont see these talks making any progress. Trump, for his part, has regularly and loudly criticized Bolton, calling him stupid and saying that he blew up the Middle East. The raid is just the latest example of the Trump administration ramping up legal actions against the presidents perceived enemies. Last week, Trump seized the Washington, D.C. police department and ordered the National Guard to patrol the streets of the nations capital. In response to repeatedly debunking claims that crime increased in Washington, the Department of Justice reportedly began to investigate whether the police department manipulated data about crime. open image in gallery Its unclear what information the agents were after or what they took from Boltons home ( The Independent ) open image in gallery Bolton was not home at the time of the raid, but his wife, Gretchen Smith Bolton, was inside the residence ( Reuters ) open image in gallery The raid happened early Friday morning at Boltons Maryland home ( Reuters ) Earlier this week, Trump called for the resignation of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, reportedly for committing mortgage fraud. New York Attorney General Letitia James also faces an investigation after she conducted a fraud investigation into the president. On Thursday, an appeals court tossed out the multi-million dollar fraud penalty against Trump in a case about falsified business documents. Members of former president Joe Biden administrations National Security Council also saw their security clearances revoked last week. In February, Trump revoked Bidens security clearance and stopped his daily intelligence briefings in a clear move of retaliation against his former opponent. Trump has also targeted multiple law firms, including the one where former FBI director Robert Mueller, who led the special counsel investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election, worked. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Ghislaine Maxwell has told the deputy attorney general that she does not believe Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide while in prison before he could be put on trial for trafficking charges of his own. In newly released transcripts of her interview with Todd Blanche, the co-conspirator of the late sex offender also said she had no idea who killed him, pointed to the dereliction of duty of the prison system, and said she thought it ludicrous to believe an outside actor would have murdered Epstein behind bars out of fear of blackmail as they would have had plenty of opportunity when he was not in jail. Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges on August 10, 2019. The disgraced financiers death was officially ruled a suicide. His sudden death and previous connections to wealthy and powerful individuals including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Britains Prince Andrew created a storm of conspiracy theories that persist to this day. They largely revolve around a client list and the potential to blackmail those on it. Maxwell, the former British socialite currently serving 20 years in jail for her role in Epsteins sex trafficking operation, gave the testimony to Blanche over two days from July 24 at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, near where she was then incarcerated. open image in gallery Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving 20 years for aiding and participating in Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking of underage girls, does not believe her former boyfriend died by suicide while in prison ( US District Court for the Southern District of New York ) Blanche began his questioning concerning the death of Epstein by asking if Maxwell had been at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York during that period. To which Maxwell responded that she had not. Blanche clarified that her responses would be what she believed based on her relationship with and knowledge of Epstein over many years, to which she replied that there was another influence on her opinion regarding his death. There's a third component to that, she said, Which is having experienced now, the mismanagement and inefficiencies and total dereliction of duty at the Bureau of Prisons. Blanche acknowledged that and continued, saying that he wanted to be careful about asking her to speculate, because anybody could do that, and he didnt believe that was fair to her. Referencing subsequent reports into the death of the late sex offender, Blanche said: Do you so you think he was he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about. Maxwell replied: I do not believe he died by suicide, no. Blanche followed up: And do you believe that do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? Maxwell said: I no, I don't. open image in gallery Epsteins convicted accomplice believes the idea his death was ordered out of fear of blackmail is ludicrous when there was plenty of opportunity to kill him before he was jailed ( AP ) The deputy attorney general asked: And I ask that because, if you don't believe that there's any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison? Maxwell replied: In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary. That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today. Blanche said: So that goes to the third reason, which is kind of the mismanagement, to which Maxwell responded, Yes. Noting that she was referring to the shortcomings of the Bureau of Prisons, Blanche continued: Which is a little bit different than my from my question is, which is, do you think there was somebody on the outside of prison, so putting aside, what could happen on the inside on the outside of prison, who would -- who wanted him dead so badly that he would've, or she would've, you know, caused him to be killed on the inside? open image in gallery After Maxwells two-day interview with the Department of Justice she was relocated to a minimum security prison camp in Texas ( Federal Bureau of Prisons ) Maxwell replied: I think that's I don't see that. I think, is it possible? Of course it's possible. But I don't know of any reason why, and I don't believe in the blackmail or in any of this. I don't think Epstein had a hit on like that. If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation. Blanched asked: You don't have any reason, firsthand knowledge, or even speculation, it sounds like, to think that he was that he was killed to kind of silence him or to keep him from going public about people he knew about? Maxwell responded: I don't, no, because I think that is just part of the story that's been created that started back in 2008, '09. Her answer refers back to the initial investigation into Epstein in Florida that began more than a decade before the federal charges against him and his death in custody. Blanche then said: What is important to me is whether, you know, if is the idea that he didn't die by suicide, that's one thing. But if to the extent that folks believe that he was murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people, that's what I do you have any reason to believe that that's true? Maxwell replied: I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target. After Maxwells two-day interview with the Department of Justice she was relocated to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The Trump administration has threatened to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda within days after he was released from federal custody in Tennessee on Friday. Abrego Garcia was allowed to return home to Maryland more than four months after he was wrongfully deported to a brutal Salvadoran prison, only to be returned to the United States to be imprisoned on federal smuggling charges. For the first time since March, our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia is reunited with his loving family, his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told The Independent. While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe, he added. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family. Abrego Garcias high-profile case has been at the center of Donald Trumps anti-immigration agenda, and the administration has vowed to initiate new deportation proceedings against him upon his release. open image in gallery Kilmar Abrego Garcia walks out after his release from the Putnam County Jail in Cookville, Tennessee ( REUTERS ) Homeland Security notified Abrego Garcias counsel on Friday afternoon that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may deport the Salvadoran immigrant to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends), according to messages in court filings from his attorneys. Ugandas Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday the African nation agreed to a temporary deal to accept people who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin. But the deal excludes those with criminal records and unaccompanied minors. Abrego Garcia also was ordered to attend an appointment at ICEs Baltimore field office on Monday. Last month, the federal judge overseeing a criminal case against Abrego Garcia ordered his release from jail before trial, finding that prosecutors failed to show any evidence that his history or arguments against him warrant his ongoing detention. Another federal judge overseeing his wrongful deportation case blocked the Trump administration from immediately arresting and deporting him after his release. open image in gallery The Trump administration has threatened to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda within days ( REUTERS ) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called his release a new low from a publicity hungry Maryland judge. Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country, she said in a statement to The Independent. By ordering this monster loose on Americas streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people, she said. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country. open image in gallery More than four months ago, Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to a brutal Salvadoran prison, only to be returned to the United States to be imprisoned on federal smuggling charges ( AP ) Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally as a teenager after fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. He had been living with his wife and child, both U.S. citizens, in Maryland, when he was arrested by immigration authorities during a traffic stop in March. Despite an immigration judges earlier order that blocked his removal from the country for humanitarian reasons, he was put on a plane for El Salvador on March 15. Government lawyers admitted in court documents that he was removed from the country due to a procedural error, and several federal judges and a unanimous Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return after his illegal arrest. Still, the government spent weeks battling court orders while officials publicly said he would never set foot in the United States, characterizing him as a serial abuser and criminal gang member. open image in gallery Abrego Garcia has sought to throw out the criminal case against him, with his attorneys arguing hes a victim of a vindictive prosecution ( REUTERS ) Emails and text messages provided to members of Congress appear to show that administration officials and government lawyers were sympathetic to his wrongful removal and made efforts to get him out of El Salvador before the case made headlines, which caused major headaches for the White House. In court filings, Abrego Garcias attorneys detailed the severe mistreatment and torture he experienced during his month-long detention inside El Salvadors notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. His attorneys say he was subject to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture at the facility. open image in gallery Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of migrants the U.S. has sent to El Salvadors CECOT prison, where inmates are held incommunicado from their families and say they are tortured ( AFP/Getty ) He was abruptly flown back to the United States in June to face criminal charges in Tennessee, where a grand jury indicted him on federal smuggling charges. A two-count indictment accuses Abrego Garcia of participating in a years-long conspiracy to illegally move undocumented immigrants from Texas to other parts of the country. He faces one count of conspiracy to transport aliens and one count of unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. He has pleaded not guilty. In their request to keep him in jail before trial, federal prosecutors also claimed he is a member of the transnational gang MS-13 and personally participated in violent crime, including murder. Prosecutors also claim he abused women and trafficked children, firearms and narcotics, and there is also an ongoing investigation into solicitation of child pornography. Abrego Garcia is not facing any charges on any of those allegations, and a federal judge determined that the government failed to link those allegations to evidence that implicates him. open image in gallery The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being an MS-13 gang member and violent criminal, though the Salvadoran man has not been charged over those claims ( AP ) On Tuesday, his attorneys asked a federal judge to throw out the criminal case against him, citing vindictive or selective prosecution. They claim he was singled out by the Trump administration for having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice after he was wrongfully deported to a brutal prison in his home country. Even as government officials recognized both publicly and privately that Mr. Abregos removal to El Salvador had been a serious mistake, the government responded not with contrition, or with any effort to fix its mistake, but with defiance, his attorneys wrote. A group of the most senior officials in the United States sought vengeance: they began a public campaign to punish Mr. Abrego for daring to fight back, culminating in the criminal investigation that led to the charges in this case, they added. His lawyers admitted that motions to dismiss on grounds of selective or vindictive prosecution are rarely granted, but if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case, they said. The government is attempting to use this case and this Court to punish Mr. Abrego for successfully fighting his unlawful removal. That is a constitutional violation of the most basic sort. The Indictment must be dismissed, his attorneys wrote. Abrego Garcias trial is scheduled to begin in January 2026. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said that protecting the Native American chief mascot of Massapequa High School in Long Island, New York, is a top priority for her department. The school has been embroiled in a legal fight over the Massapequa Chiefs name, as has nearby Connetquot over its Thunderbirds name, since 2023 when the New York State Board of Regents banned the use of indigenous names, logos and imagery in public schools and threatened to withdraw state funding from any that did not comply with its ruling. Four Long Island districts, including Massapequa, challenged the ban, only for a federal judge to side with the Empire State earlier this year. open image in gallery Education Secretary Linda McMahon visits Massapequa High School in Long Island, New York, on May 30 to express solidarity with its fight to retain its Chiefs name ( AP ) The dispute echoes that over the renaming of the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians at a national level. President Donald Trump has demanded those names be restored and has recently turned his attention to Massapequa, telling Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Sunday: I love Massapequa. Ive heard that name for years. I have a lot of friends in Massapequa Weve got to get the name back to the Chiefs. Trump added that, in his opinion, it is demeaning to Native Americans to lose the Chiefs name, rather than insensitive to keep it. The name was originally chosen to remember the Massapequa Tribe, who lived on Long Island until they were displaced by European colonists in the 17th century. The president previously expressed his support over the matter on Truth Social in April, urging McMahon to intervene, and then posed with a Chiefs jersey in the Oval Office for an Instagram post. McMahon also posed with a shirt during a subsequent visit to the school in May at which she threatened a lawsuit over the issue, claiming the Board of Regents decision amounted to a violation of Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act and warning that New Yorks Department of Education could lose its own funding or be investigated by the Justice Department if it does not back down. In her latest statement on the matter, the secretary said: It is a top priority of this administration to protect Massapequa, Connetquot, and all Native American groups right to celebrate and preserve their cultural heritage. open image in gallery President Donald Trump poses with a Massapequa Chiefs jersey in the Oval Office of the White House in April to express his support for the school ( realdonaldtrump/Instagram ) McMahon also praised the two districts in their continued fight against woke ideologues who are attempting to strip them of their beloved Chiefs and Thunderbirds mascots. Kerry Wachter, president of the Massapequa school board, told Newsmax after McMahons May visit she was shocked that the Trump administration had gotten involved in the issue but welcomed its support. You know, we did get some press in the beginning, New York Post and a couple other outlets, where we asked for President Trump to please get involved. And to our surprise, he actually did. So, yeah, we were very excited to hear him call out the Massapequa Chiefs. She added that carrying out the rebranding demanded and removing the Chiefs iconography would cost her district $1 million. Its in our fields. Its in the floors. Its on the walls. Its everywhere. And its not just at the schools, you know; its throughout our town. And were named Massapequa for the Massapequa Indians who were here before us. So, you know, its disingenuous for them to say that its, you know, an insult or that were doing something disparaging. Wachter has since called on Trump to issue an executive order to protect the mascot and the school has reportedly hired a new legal counsel, Oliver Roberts, to take the fight to New York. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice National Review staff writer Caroline Downey urged MAGA to pump the brakes on their over-the-top outrage over Southern-themed restaurant chain Cracker Barrels changing its logo, telling her fellow conservatives that they need to stop labeling everything they dont like as woke. Downeys warning to Trump supporters came as prominent Republicans and right-wing media figures called for a boycott of Cracker Barrel amid its woke rebrand, with Rep. Byron Donalds going so far as to claim he gave my life to Christ in their parking lot while saying its time to Make Cracker Barrel Great Again. Following years of declining revenues and dropping stock prices, Cracker Barrel announced this week that it was going through a brand refresh, which included switching its iconic logo which featured a man in overalls leaning against a barrel to a more minimalist one. Instead, the new design simply has the name of the restaurant inside a gold-colored, barrel-shaped background. Our values haven't changed, and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel havent changed. And Uncle Herschel remains front and center in our restaurants and on our menu, the company said of its new logo. On top of that, the companys restaurants will be going through a remodel, which will offer customers a brighter, lighter experience and less cluttered spaces while still keeping some fan favorites, according to Cracker Barrels chief marketing officer Sarah Moore. Several of the restaurants have already undergone the transformation that replaces nostalgia with modernism. open image in gallery National Review columnist Caroline Downey called for MAGA world to quit abusing the term woke amid the Cracker Barrel backlash, adding that it's losing its meaning. ( CNN ) The backlash, especially within MAGA world, was swift and loud with many comparing the sterile corporate makeover to Bud Lights brief 2023 advertising partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which sparked a right-wing boycott of the beer. [W]e must break the Barrel, conservative activist Chris Rufo declared Thursday. Its not about this particular restaurant chain who cares but about creating massive pressure against companies that are considering any move that might appear to be wokification. The implicit promise: Go woke, watch your stock price drop 20 percent, which is exactly what is happening now. At one point Thursday, share prices in Cracker Barrel plunged 15 percent, though the stock rebounded a bit before the markets closed leaving the company down about 7 percent for the day. During Thursdays broadcast of CNNs panel show NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip aired a clip of MAGA influencer Benny Johnson ranting about the Cracker Barrel redesign, which featured him claiming white people are about to right because they erased the white guy from the logo. Its getting sticky because the CEO of Cracker Barrel is as woke as they come. She is destroying a great American brand, Johnson added, referencing the chief executives past support for DEI initiatives. I dont know if this is satire or what, Phillip said about Johnson's tirade. Later, after noting that Cracker Barrel has been dealing with declining business in recent years, the anchor brought up Donalds criticism of the woke rebrand before turning to Downey. Not everything is woke, Downey remarked. I think were abusing the term a little bit too much, where its losing its meaning, and thats really important because some things actually are woke and we should call it like it is. The National Review columnist, who penned an article last month titled The American Eagle Ad Is Not That Deep, went on to state that all appearances suggested that Cracker Barrel was merely trying to reboot a stagnant business even if it was poorly executed. open image in gallery Cracker Barrel has come under fire from MAGA politicians and influencers over its woke rebrand. ( Joe Raedle/Getty Images ) However, in this case, from a marketing perspective, if revenues are declining you gotta switch it up, you gotta implement a new strategy, Downey stated. But who at that roundtable was thinking to themself, Ah yes, lets go back to the minimalism of five years ago that is sterile and bland and neutered, and lets rob this iconic, timeless company of all of its character and charm and fun history and country vibes. Thats not super smart. Maximalism is the moment. While the Trump administration is now raging that the Smithsonian is woke because the museums teach how bad slavery was, leading to a review of the institutions exhibits, conservatives have been tripping over themselves to use that term to deride anything that seemingly doesnt fit within the MAGA viewpoint. For instance, even before the latest Superman reboot was released to theaters last month, several Fox News pundits and hosts complained that it was superwoke because director James Gunn had said the film explored pro-immigrant themes and centered on human kindness. Hes creating a moat of woke, enlightened opinion around him. Hes got a woke shield, Greg Gutfeld grumbled at the time. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The National Guard is feeling the cost of President Donald Trumps insistence on using National Guard troops to carry out his expansive immigration roundups and policing actions in Washington, D.C. National Guard Major General Greg Porter, based in Wyoming, told the state's lawmakers during a meeting of the Joint Transportation Highways & Military Affairs Committee that the costs of Trump's National Guard deployments are still unknown, but they're no doubt eating into the branch's funds, according to WyoFile. Porter said that the costs of prolonged deployments will eat into funding intended for things like training and operations. Its free chicken right now to ICE, he told the state lawmakers. So, well see how long this lasts and where that goes, but it really has an impact on our readiness accounts. National Guard units are typically deployed to assist during times of extreme civil unrest, but more frequently help with disaster relief and other state-side support missions. Now, state National Guard units are asking Congress to provide them with more funding to help cover the cost of their typical fall training deployments, according to Porter. open image in gallery Members of the National Guard next to a military vehicle outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The cost of President Donald Trumps National Guard deployments is eating into funds intended to operations and training, and state are unsure of when the federal government will reimburse them ( Alex Wong/Getty Images ) Some states could face significant financial liabilities that would directly impact readiness, Porter told WyoFile. To keep the Guard trained, equipped, and ready to respond when our nation calls, federal funding must be provided accurately, fully, and on time. In just the first seven months of his presidency, Trump has deployed the National Guard to two American cities Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. essentially as shows of force. This week he threatened to send more troops to Chicago and New York. In LA, National Guard troops were sent to crush protests against ICE and the agency's immigration raids. In Washington D.C., Trump insisted the National Guard was needed to help combat violent crime, even though the city's crime statistics show that violent crime is actually down from previous years. Wyoming troops were deployed to D.C. in January to provide security during Trump's inauguration. That deployment cost $250,000 from the state's readiness accounts, and Wyoming is still waiting to be reimbursed by the federal government. Its not just the states worried about getting paid, but the National Guard members as well. Last week, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal voiced his concerns that National Guard members sent to patrol D.C. werent being paid. open image in gallery Protesters stand off against California National Guard soldiers at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles during a No Kings protest on June 14 ( Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) While I recognize that these soldiers will be compensated eventually, I am troubled by the prospect of servicemembers not knowing when they will be paid next, he wrote in a letter to Pentagon and White House officials. He said that any delays in their pay could put National Guard members in financial trouble, adding that troops deployed to D.C. are missing out on salaries, housing allowances and medical coverage they receive from their civilian jobs while theyre deployed. Any delay in compensation for their service will place many Guardsmen in financial hardship. Even though servicemembers understand that they will be compensated at some point, they should not have to wonder when exactly their next paycheck will come, he said. The Intercept asked Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project to estimate the possible cost of Trump's operation in D.C. According to her analysis, his use of the National Guard to hang around the capital could exceed $1 million per day. Its unconscionable that the Trump administration would hand the military a blank check of over a million dollars a day to occupy D.C. while stripping access to health care and food aid from millions of families across the country, Homestead told The Intercept. The daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment is more than four times what it would cost to operate affordable housing for D.C.s entire unhoused population. The governments priorities could not be more clear. The Independent has asked the White House for comment. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Former government employees who contracted cancers while working on Americas nuclear weapons are unable to get the government to review their medical claims in order to obtain compensation after the administration made rollbacks. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is composed of doctors, nuclear experts, former nuclear weapon employees, and others, who dedicate their time to understanding if a specific ailment is tied to a workers exposure to radiation and advising the Department of Health and Human Services about potential compensation. Their findings help determine whether former nuclear employees at U.S. facilities qualify for government compensation. But the board has been effectively shut down because of President Donald Trumps plan to reduce the size of the federal government and streamline processes. That means those including Steve Hicks are left in limbo. The 70-year-old, who spent 34 years working as a nuclear mechanist at the Y-12 National Security Complex, which enriched uranium for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, is battling skin cancer and seeking compensation. open image in gallery Steve Hicks and other former nuclear weapons workers are seeking compensation for cancers they believe are tied to their government jobs ( REUTERS ) "I made a good living there, but I am not happy that I am this sick, Hicks told Reuters in an interview published Friday. And there are people who worked there that are sicker than me." Hicks is one of the thousands of former nuclear employees who suffer from cancers associated with radiation exposure. He previously had kidney cancer, which is one of the 22 cancers the government recognizes, and provides a $150,000 lump-sump payment and medical expense compensation. But skin cancer is not on that list. Hicks has spent a lot of time petitioning the government to provide coverage for his skin cancer treatment and for them to add the cancer to the Special Exposure Cohort which are cancers the government does compensate. The Special Exposure Cohort was established by a congressional act in 2000, to compensate former nuclear weapons workers who were diagnosed with cancer due to high radiation exposure. To qualify, an employee must have worked at least 250 days, before February 1992, at three gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky, Ohio, or Tennessee and have one of the 22 cancers. But to add another cancer to the list is an extremely arduous process and can take years. When it was first established, Congress had 13 cancers on the list and have added to it over the years through the petition process. "I've contacted politicians and the White House and haven't heard anything back, Hicks told Reuters. open image in gallery Tighter regulations around work in nuclear facilities were introduced in the 1970s and have since become stricter to prevent long-term health effects ( Getty Images ) But the process has now become virtually impossible because the board has been inactive since the start of the Trump administration. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health was in the process of reviewing eight petitions from former nuclear workers when HHS suspended its activities in January. The board is supposed to meet six times per year, according to law. But its 10 members told Reuters that it has not met since December 2024. "Meetings of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health are currently paused due to outstanding administrative requirements, which the program is actively working to resolve," a CDC spokesperson told Reuters. The Independent has asked the CDC for comment. As of last year, the U.S. had given $25 billion in compensation and medical benefits to the more than 100,000 atomic weapons workers who made claims, according to the Department of Energy. But that could end for good soon because it has a statute expiration of September 2025. Unless the Trump administration chooses to renew the compensation program those former nuclear weapons employees who are hoping to receive assistance with their medical payments will no longer have the opportunity. "The board's suspension effectively stops the entire compensation process for nuclear workers, leaving many without the medical coverage and recognition they desperately need," Brad Clawson, a former nuclear fuel operator at the Idaho National Lab, told Reuters. "Thousands and thousands of people still haven't had their day to prove that they were injured by this." Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice President Donald Trump has touted his perceived wins while praising healthy, attractive people during a photo op ahead of his expected patrol with D.C. police and federal forces. Trump met with local and federal law enforcement at the U.S. Park Police facility in Anacostia Thursday evening to thank them for their efforts in what his administration is referring to as a crime crackdown. There were pizzas provided from a local restaurant and burgers cooked at the White House supplied for authorities. The president complimented the roughly 300 men and women in the crowd as healthy and attractive. There were members of the Metropolitan Police Department, National Guard, FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies in attendance. open image in gallery President Donald Trump has touted his perceived wins while praising healthy, attractive people during a photo op with D.C. police and federal forces before returning to the White House ( AFP via Getty Images ) The president also praised his own administration, telling the crowd, We've done a lot of good work, including the biggest tax cuts that you've ever had. Trump also talked about his plans to build a new ballroom in the White House, saying, They've been after a ballroom for 150 years, but they never had a real estate guy as a president. Tours of the White House are postponed indefinitely as construction is set to begin in September on President Donald Trumps $200 million ballroom. We had a country that was a dead country in many ways. I went to Saudi Arabia, I went to Qatar, I went to UAE. We came back with $5.1 trillion of investment in this country. And we're over $17 trillion, the president claimed during his photo opportunity. While the Trump administration has received multiple pledges from companies, such as Apple and AI chipmaker NVIDIA, and foreign countries, including Japan and South Korea, it remains to be seen if any will follow through on the investments. Reuters found the list of investments the White House has touted on its website includes money that originated under former President Joe Biden or was routine spending that had been repackaged. During his speech, Trump said crime is way down, adding, I feel very safe now and Im hearing people are very safe. The Trump administration announced Tuesday there have been 465 arrests in D.C. since the start of the crackdown two weeks ago on August 7. Fox News Digital reported Wednesday that number had climbed to more than 550, citing White House data. I've never received so many phone calls thanking me for what we've done in Washington, D.C., from people that haven't gone to a restaurant in literally in four years... they said it was just unsafe, Trump said. One of 'em said he's gone out four nights in a row. And he hadn't gone out for four years. Restaurant reservations in D.C. were down nearly 25 percent, on average, in the week following Trumps announcement the federal government would largely take control of the nations capital to reduce crime. Trump also boasted in his photo op about an appeals court throwing out the penalty against him in New York Attorney General Letitia James civil fraud lawsuit. open image in gallery Trump met with local and federal law enforcement at the U.S. Park Police facility in Anacostia Thursday evening, complimenting the roughly 300 men and women in the crowd ( Getty Images ) I had a victory today. They stole $550 million from me with a fake case, and it was overturned, Trump said. I've had more witch hunts than any human being, I think, in history. Here we are, we're the president of the United States, so it didn't work out too well for them. The ruling only applies to the financial penalties. The court upheld the judges findings that the president and his business partners committed brazen fraud falling short of the vindication that the president sought through the courts. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro were also at Thursdays photo op. Trump said earlier he was going to hit the D.C. streets with law enforcement but he instead went back to the White House after his meet-and-greet. CNN reported, citing an unnamed source, some Secret Service members had been caught off guard by the presidents earlier announcement that he planned to go out on patrol. open image in gallery President Donald Trump returned to the White House Thursday evening after earlier pledging to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C. with federal troops ( Alex Wong/Getty Images ) When the president announced last week he had placed the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deployed about 800 National Guard troops to D.C., he claimed it was done for the sake of the locals safety. I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse, he said. But the violent crime rate went down by 35 percent in 2024, a 30-year low, after peaking in 2023, the U.S. Attorneys Office for D.C. said in January. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Wednesday night violent crime has dropped 35 percent in the capital over the past nine days. He did not offer any evidence to support this statistic. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order directing the Justice Department to re-examine the feasibility of issuing criminal charges against Americans or others on U.S. soil who engage in flag-burning. A controversial means of protest, burning the American flag is an act that has long been viewed by the Supreme Court as a protected First Amendment right. News of Trumps order signals a willingness to relitigate that legal precedent before the nations highest legal authority. He is set to sign the order later Thursday. NewsNation first reported the impending executive order. Trump has personally condemned protesters for burning the American flag in the past, and has even called for a constitutional amendment to scale back free speech protections in order to criminalize the practice. Flag-burning emerged in the Vietnam War era as a popular form of protest against the U.S. invasion, and was criminalized in many states until a Supreme Court ruling voided those state bans. You should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag, Trump in 2024 during a Fox & Friends interview. Protesters burn an American flag at a demonstration in Denver. Trump is set to sign an order demanding the Department of Justice prosecute people for burning the flag. ( Getty Images ) Now, people will say, Oh, its unconstitutional. Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that, he said at the time. We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence. When theyre allowed to stomp on the flag and put lighter fluid on the flag and set it afire, when youre allowed to do that you get a one-year jail sentence, and youll never see it again. The actual order will not carry any force of law. It is merely a directive to the Justice Department ordering prosecutors to set up a court battle over the issue by identifying protesters engaging in the act for future criminal actions. But given Trumps unprecedented erosion of the Justice Departments independence from politics and the White House, its likely that Attorney General Pam Bondi will follow up Trumps order with concrete action. The directive comes as Donald Trumps ordered federal takeover of Washington D.C. continues, albeit with some key caveats. The Trump administration has now handed back control of the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C.s main police force, to city officials after initially announcing that it would be federalized. Agents from multiple national bureaus and organizations continue to patrol the streets of the capital, and National Guard troops from D.C. and several states around the country have been called in to aid the presidents crimefighting campaign. Troops have largely stuck to milling around high-tourist areas, and are not engaged in law enforcement actions. Members of U.S. Park Police have engaged in an unprecedented wave of homeless encampment sweeps across the District of Columbia since Trumps takeover began, and immigration enforcement actions have been ramped up across the city. The takeover is extremely unpopular with D.C. residents, and has led to protests as well as angry confrontations between residents and groups of law enforcement officials conducting checkpoints and other enforcement actions. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice President Donald Trump threatened to send active-duty military personnel into Americas third-largest city to quell what he described as out-of-control crime at the hands of a liberal mayor and Democratic-run city and state governments. Speaking in the Oval Office Friday to reporters, Trump was boasting of positive crime numbers in the District of Columbia since he seized control of the capitals police department earlier this month. He claimed the national guard soldiers tasked with patrolling some of Washington had been doing an incredible job working with the police and said his solution for the capital uniformed soldiers and roving patrols of federal agents who have largely been conducting immigration arrests of delivery drivers according to government statistics would soon be sent to another location to make it safe. We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we'll straighten that one out, probably next that'll be our next one after this, and it won't even be tough, Trump said. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office where he threatened to put the regular military in more cities. ( AP ) The president then claimed that the Windy Citys Black population, including African American ladies, beautiful ladies, were screaming for him to please come to Chicago. So I think Chicago will be our next and then we'll help with New York, he said. The president also threatened to bring in the regular military for law enforcement purposes an action that would be illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law limiting the militarys ability to conduct civilian law enforcement or enforce domestic policy in the United States. The law was enacted in response to the occupation of former confederate states after the American Civil War during the Reconstruction period from 1865 to 1877. Although each state has a National Guard that can be employed for law enforcement in emergency situations at the behest of a states governor, National Guard soldiers cant be used for law enforcement if commanded by federal authorities. Asked whether hed spoken with Brandon Johnson, the Democratic politician who is the incumbent Chicago mayor, Trump said he has not. But he vowed to press on with his plan nonetheless. Now, when we're ready, we'll go in and we'll straighten out Chicago, just like we did DC. Chicago is very dangerous, he said. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The Trump administration claims a painting of refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border that once hung in a Smithsonian-affiliated museum is evidence that the institution is out of control, the White Houses latest criticism of the Smithsonian as it conducts a wide-ranging ideological audit of Washingtons flagship museums. In a Thursday post on X, the administration shared an image of Refugees Crossing the Border Wall Into South Texas, a 2020 work from painter Rigoberto A. Gonzalez showing a family of four scaling the U.S.-Mexico border wall with a ladder. This is art from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery commemorating the act of illegally crossing the "exclusionary" border. This was even made a finalist for one of its awards, reads a Thursday X post from the administration. This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is "OUT OF CONTROL." The work, one of the finalists in a 2022 open call for American portraiture today, hung in the National Portrait Gallery between 2022 and early 2023. open image in gallery Trump administration has sought overhaul of Smithsonian Institutions high-profile Washington museums, complaining they have previously put an overemphasis on slavery and featured woke paintings ( AFP/Getty ) It is unclear if the painting is still in any Smithsonian-affiliated museums. The Independent has contacted Gonzalez, the Smithsonian, and the National Portrait Gallery for comment. For several years the news media have been reporting stories on the rising numbers of families, especially children, immigrating to the U.S., and the escalating violence on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, Gonzalez, who was born in Mexico and now teaches at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, told a campus website of his work. This is too big a story to report through raw journalism... I believe that painting can evoke an authentic aesthetic experience that conveys meaning in people's lives and work as a catalyst for change." The White House did not answer questions from The Independent about how the painting came to the administrations attention, or whether the work was still hanging in the Smithsonian. open image in gallery Trump claims Smithsonian review process is aimed at eliminating woke ideas and promoting positive story of America ahead of national 250th anniversary celebrations next year ( Getty Images ) Illegal immigration is bad and should not be glorified, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. Under the Trump Administration if you want to enter our country, you must follow our laws and go through the legal process. Refugees and asylum-seekers seeking to enter the U.S. are in fact protected by law and not inherently considered illegal immigrants. The Trump administration has attempted to suspend refugee admissions into the U.S. and requests for asylum at the border, though a federal appeals court this month narrowed the asylum moves. The Gonzalez painting was mentioned in a 2022 New York Times piece that the administration has cited in its campaign to overhaul the Smithsonian, in which then-director of the National Portrait Gallery Kim Sajet spoke of her desire to include a broader range of individuals and artists in the longstanding museum, rather than the historic focus on the wealthy, the pale and the male. Sajet stepped down in June. Critics lashed out at the administration for its criticism of the painting. open image in gallery The Trump administration has drawn fire for other historical gestures, like restoring the names of military bases named for Confederate military officials ( Copyright 2020The Associated Press. All rights reserved ) It's a powerful portrait of a family making a hard decision to seek a better life, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on X. Imagine how fragile you have to be to not understand why this art has value and how afraid you are of free speech. The fracas over the painting is part of the administrations larger push to reshape the Smithsonian to be in line with the administrations view of history. A White House official helping lead the effort this week accused the institutions Washington museums of putting too much focus on slavery. The fact that our country was involved in slavery is awful. No one thinks otherwise, Lindsey Halligan, special assistant to the president, told Fox News on Wednesday. But what I saw when I was going through the museum was an overemphasis on slavery. I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we have come since slavery. Earlier this week, the president said his Smithsonian campaign, which was described to officials in a letter earlier this month, was part of a concerted effort to eliminate woke ideology, just as he had from U.S. universities, a push the administration had previously largely described as an attempt to stop campus antisemitism. The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of WOKE, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the presidents directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions, a letter to Smithsonian officials last week, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, states. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A trainee surgeon accused of secretly filming hundreds of medical colleagues in hospital restrooms has been released on bail, a court heard on Friday. Ryan Cho, 28, is expected to face around 500 charges linked to 4,500 intimate videos he allegedly recorded with phones. Police allege these were primarily made in staff restrooms at three Melbourne hospitals since 2021, as detailed in Victoria state Supreme Court documents. Justice James Elliott ruled the junior doctor could be released on condition he reside with his parents, who moved from Singapore to Melbourne anticipating his release. His parents were required to post a 50,000 Australian dollar surety. The prosecutor argued that the charges presented Cho with an inducement to flee and he had no meaningful ties to Australia after being suspended from his job. While Cho became an Australian permanent resident in April, he would face deportation if he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months or longer in prison, Hammill said. The judge noted Cho had surrendered his Singapore passport and had no criminal connections to help him leave Australia. Police allege Cho recorded intimate images of at least 460 women. The judge noted there was no allegation Cho had disseminated those images. open image in gallery The parents of trainee surgeon Ryan Cho, arrive at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Con Chronis/AAP Image via AP) ( AAP IMAGE ) Cho was arrested in July after a phone was found recording from inside a mesh bag hanging in an Austin Hospital restroom. Police allege he also recorded in restrooms in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His lawyer Julian McMahon rejected prosecutors fears that if released, Cho could interfere with witnesses. There were likely to be hundreds of witnesses alleging similar offenses, McMahon said. Theres a sense here that if my client were to engage in the criminal offense of interfering with witnesses that it wouldnt affect the outcome of the case, McMahon said. Cho was initially charged with six offenses but another 127 charges were added Thursday, including intentionally recording intimate images without permission. McMahon said it was too early to tell if the allegations would go to trial. Cho hasn't entered pleas. Cho came to Australia as a student in 2017 and studied medicine at Melbournes Monash University. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said there are no immediate plans for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, despite Donald Trumps suggestion that a summit could take place in the coming weeks. In an interview with NBC on Friday Mr Lavrov said that the agenda for a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian leaders was not ready at all. His comments came just a week after Mr Trump met face-to-face with Putin in Alaska for the first time in seven years for talks aimed at ending Russias invasion. After the summit, Mr Trump said that he would help set up a meeting between Mr Zelensky and Putin, which would be followed by a trilateral summit that would include him. Earlier this week, Mr Trump suggested a meeting between the two leaders could be arranged easily as they may be getting along a little bit better than I thought. open image in gallery Putin and Trump in Anchorage last week ( AFP/Getty ) But Mr Lavrov appeared to cast doubt on whether such a summit could take place, saying: Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all. Mr Lavrov said Russia had agreed to be flexible on a number of points raised by Mr Trump but that Moscows demands for a peace deal were unchanged. When President Trump brought those issues to the meeting in Washington, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no Nato membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything, he said. Mr Zelensky said that Russia was doing everything it could to stop a meeting between him and Putin from taking place and urged Ukraines allies to place fresh sanctions on Moscow if it does not engage with peace talks. Speaking at a joint press conference on Friday with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president said that security guarantees for Ukraine in a potential peace deal should be similar to those in Natos Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack against all. open image in gallery Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov ( Reuters ) "The Russians are doing everything they can to prevent the meeting from taking place, Mr Zelensky said. "Unlike Russia, Ukraine is not afraid of any meeting with leaders. A failure to agree a meeting between the two leaders would be an embarrassment for Mr Trump, who once claimed he could end the war in Ukraine in the first 24 hours of his second presidential term. Despite Mr Trumps efforts to initiate a peace agreement, there remains a considerable chasm between both sides over a number of issues, including the possibility of land concessions and security guarantees for Kyiv. Earlier this week, Mr Lavrov said that any security discussions about Ukraine that do not involve Moscow were a road to nowhere. He suggested that a truly reliable guarantee could be modelled on a draft accord that was discussed between the warring parties in Istanbul in 2022. Kyiv rejected the proposal at the time. open image in gallery Zelensky at the White House earlier this week with other European leaders ( Ukrainian Emergency Service ) Mr Trump has ruled out sending any American ground troops into Eastern Europe but said it could support the peacekeeping effort by air, stating that European powers would be the first line of defence but receive a lot of help from the US. He has also dismissed the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato, a red line for Putin. On Friday, Ukraines military struck a critical oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, halting deliveries of oil to Hungary for the second time in a week. The Druzhba pipeline ships oil from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia, as well as from Kazakhstan to Germany. Ukraine has repeatedly attacked the pipeline's facilities this month, causing supply disruption. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A drone and missile attack on western Ukraine overnight that hit targets including a US-owned electronics plant proved that Vladimir Putin is trying to avoid peace talks, warned Kyiv. The aerial assault was one of Russia's biggest this year and came as Moscow objected to key aspects of proposals that could end the war it started in February 2022. Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, saying it was carried out as if nothing were changing at all. The signals from Russia are simply, to be honest, indecent, he told Ukrainians in his nightly presidential address. open image in gallery Firefighters in Lviv on Thursday ( AP ) A US electronics plant near the Hungarian border was struck, according to Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. The Flex factory is one of the biggest American investments in Ukraine. At the moment of impact, 600 night-shift workers were on the premises, and six were injured, Mr Hunder added. Russian attacks on Ukraine since it launched its invasion have damaged property belonging to more than half of the chamber's roughly 600 members, he said. The message is clear: Russia is not looking for peace. Russia is attacking American business in Ukraine, humiliating American business, Mr Hunder said. Russia's defence ministry said the strikes targeted enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex. It claimed the attack hit drone factories, storage depots and missile launch sites, as well as areas where Ukrainian troops were gathered. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian areas of Ukraine. In Lviv, one person was killed and three were injured as the attack damaged 26 residential buildings, a nursery school and administrative buildings, regional head Maksym Kozytskyi wrote on Telegram. The regional prosecutor's office said three Russian cruise missiles with cluster munitions struck the city. Moscow has shown no signs of pursuing meaningful negotiations to end the war, Mr Zelensky said. He urged the international community to respond with stronger pressure on Moscow, including tougher sanctions and tariffs. Plans for security guarantees will become clearer by the end of next week, Mr Zelensky said, by which time he expects to be ready to hold direct talks with Mr Putin for the first time since Russias full-scale invasion. Donald Trump discussed the war with Putin in Alaska last week before hosting Mr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House on Monday. open image in gallery A damaged residential building in Lviv ( Reuters ) Mr Trump questioned Putin's commitment to ending the war, saying the Russian leader talks nice and then he bombs everybody. Russia has fired nearly 1,000 long-range drones and missiles at Ukraine since Monday's White House talks, according to Ukrainian tallies. European countries are discussing how they can deploy military assets to deter any post-war Russian assault on Ukraine, but the Kremlin will not accept the deployment of any troops from Nato countries, and Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscow's involvement was pointless. Putin is ready to meet with Mr Zelensky to discuss peace terms, Mr Lavrov said on Thursday, but only after key issues have been worked out by senior officials in what could be a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart. US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who also serves as Mr Trump's national security adviser, held a conference call on Thursday with his European counterparts to discuss the options. Final details must still be worked out, but European countries would provide "the lion's share" of any forces involved in security guarantees for Ukraine, a source familiar with the matter said. That echoed vice-president JD Vance's comment on Wednesday that Europe would need to shoulder "the lion's share" of the costs of the operation. Mr Trump has said he will not deploy US troops in Ukraine but has left the door open to other US military involvement, including air support. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Gazas largest city is officially suffering from a manmade famine that has already affected more than half a million Palestinians and is likely to spread, the worlds leading authority on food crises declared on Friday. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people close to a quarter of all Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of next month. Foreign secretary David Lammy called it a moral outrage and blamed Israels refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza. Israel, which has repeatedly downplayed the extent of hunger inside Gaza, dismissed the report as false and biased; Benjamin Netanyahu said it was an outright lie. But United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said it was irrefutable testimony and described the declaration as a moment of collective shame for the world. It is a famine that we repeatedly warned of but that the international media has not been allowed in to cover, he said at a news conference. It is a famine in 2025. A 21st-century famine watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history. It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war. It is a famine on all of our watch a famine that will and must haunt us all. Some 280,000 of the affected Palestinians are in a northern region covering Gaza City known as Gaza governorate which the IPC said was now in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. It is the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but that limited data prevented any precise classification. Reuters has previously reported on the IPC's struggle to get access to data required to assess the crisis. open image in gallery Israel denies there is famine in the strip ( Reuters ) For a region to be classified as in famine, at least 20 per cent of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease. Previously, the IPC has only registered famines in Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. UN secretary general Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages still held by Hamas and unfettered humanitarian access. open image in gallery Palestinians on a food truck in Gaza ( AP ) Israel controls all access to Gaza. Cogat, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows, said the IPC report ignored Israeli data on aid deliveries and was part of an international campaign aimed at denigrating Israel. The IPC report is not only biased but also serves Hamass propaganda campaign, the agency said. Israel has long counted on the United States, its most powerful ally, for military aid and diplomatic support. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that 65 per cent of Americans believe the US should help those starving in Gaza. Donald Trump last month said many people there were starving, putting him at odds with Mr Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said there is no starvation. open image in gallery A Palestinian woman sits with her belongings after an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip ( AFP/Getty ) The IPC said its analysis only covered people living in Gaza, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates. It was unable to classify North Gaza governorate due to access restrictions and a lack of data, and it excluded any remaining population in the southern Rafah region, as it is largely uninhabited. The Gaza war was triggered on 7 October 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's military campaign has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. The Gaza health ministry said on Thursday that at least 62,192 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Israel has said it is prepared to resume ceasefire talks with Hamas over the nearly two-year war, but only on terms that guarantee the release of all hostages and the disarmament of the militant group. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israeli negotiators would return to the table once a venue for the talks is agreed, in response to a proposal Hamas accepted earlier this week. The plan, proposed by Egypt and Qatar, would involve a 60-day truce, the release of 10 living hostages and the return of 18 bodies, in exchange for the release of 200 long-serving Palestinian prisoners. The talks also suggest a permanent end to the war that has destroyed the besieged enclave, according to Donald Trumps envoy Steve Witkoff. But Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will not agree to a deal that leaves any hostages behind, with Israeli officials estimating that of 50 people still held in Gaza, around 20 remain alive. open image in gallery Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the latest ceasefire proposal ( AP ) Why Israel has rejected the latest proposal Netanyahu said his government was in the decision-making phase and would push ahead with negotiations, but only within parameters acceptable to Israel. His comments were the first direct response to the Egypt-Qatar proposal, which Hamas accepted on Monday. The deal would see the phased release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners, limited Israeli troop withdrawals and increased aid deliveries, with the United Nations and the Red Cross involved in overseeing humanitarian access. Despite international pressure, Israel has not accepted the plan Hamas signed off on. Netanyahu has insisted that any agreement must include the release of all hostages, not just a portion, before the war ends. The Israeli leader is also balancing pressure from far-right members of his coalition, who oppose a ceasefire and instead want the military to continue its offensive, with some calling for a full annexation of Gaza. Meanwhile, Israels military has called up 60,000 reservists likely in preparation for its major new assault on Gaza City. This mobilisation, which could take weeks, suggests Israel is keeping military options open even as it entertains further negotiations. open image in gallery Relatives and supporters of hostages held by Hamas take part in a protest ( AP ) Why Israel is attacking Gaza City Even with ceasefire talks ongoing, Israel is pressing ahead with plans to capture Gaza City, the densely populated heart of the enclave. Mr Netanyahu confirmed earlier this month that the security cabinet had approved an operation to retake the city despite growing international condemnation. Israels defence minister Israel Katz has warned that the city could face total destruction unless Hamas accepts Israeli conditions. The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas murderers and rapists in Gaza until they agree to Israels conditions for ending the war, he wrote on X. Katz restated Israels demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas complete disarmament. Hamas has indicated it would release captives in exchange for ending the war, but rejects disarmament without the creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli tanks have been edging closer to Gaza City for 10 days, prompting thousands of residents to flee. On Thursday, the IDF warned aid groups and hospitals to prepare for the evacuation of patients from the north to the south, in a move the Gaza health ministry said would collapse the already devastated health system. open image in gallery Palestinians gather to receive cooked meals from a food distribution center in the Nuseirat refugee camp ( AFP/Getty ) Growing humanitarian crisis as famine declared A global hunger monitor on Friday declared that famine had struck parts of Gaza and is likely to spread within weeks, escalating pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the enclave. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said 514,000 people nearly a quarter of Gazas population are already experiencing famine, a number it projects will rise to 641,000 by the end of September. According to the report, famine conditions are present in the enclave, which includes Gaza City, while central and southern areas such as Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis are expected to reach famine levels next month. Israel dismissed the report as false and biased, saying it relied on partial data originating from the Hamas Terrorist Organisation. But UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the crisis was a direct result of Israeli government actions and warned that deaths from starvation could amount to a war crime. Despite the growing humanitarian toll, Israeli officials argue that pressure on Hamas through military action is necessary to secure hostages and force the group into concessions. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Get Simon Calders Travel email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A pilots communication lapse with air traffic control caused a serious aviation incident in Japan on Wednesday, according to the transport ministry. An All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight carrying 74 passengers and crew members came in to land at Wakkanai Airport in Hokkaido on Wednesday while a work vehicle was still on the runway. Officials say the aircraft had altered its course shortly before arrival to avoid cumulonimbus storm clouds, but the pilot failed to inform air traffic controllers of the change. Cumulonimbus clouds are often tall, towering clouds with flat, dark bases that can produce hail, lightning, and thunder. The transport ministry has labelled it a serious incident, noting it could easily have escalated into an accident, according to The Japan Times. The Japan Transport Safety Board has dispatched two investigators to examine what went wrong and how communication between the flight crew and air traffic control broke down. The aircraft, a Bombardier DH8-400 operating as ANA Flight 4841, was carrying 74 passengers and crew from New Chitose Airport near Sapporo. At the time of landing, around 11.20am local time, a ground vehicle tasked with bird strike prevention was in the process of leaving the runway. In a statement shared with The Independent, ANA said: We have received a report from the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) stating that a bird control vehicle was operating on the Wakkanai Airport runway when the aircraft entered its final approach. The aircraft may have landed while the vehicle was in the process of evacuating the runway. The transport ministry reported that the passenger plane entered the runway without proper clearance from air traffic control. File. An ANA Airlines Boeing 777 sits at gate in Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), located in Southern California, on 6 January 2025 ( AFP via Getty Images ) The authorities reported no injuries or damage. Investigations are underway to determine why established safety protocols were not followed, according to local media reports. ANA confirmed that in this case, before landing, the flight crew failed to communicate with the flight information officer and landed without getting information about runway obstacles. The crew did perform the visual check as per normal procedures and determined that the runway was clear before landing, the statement added. We sincerely apologise for the concern and inconvenience caused to our customers and all other parties involved. We will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation conducted by the relevant authorities. In March this year, a pilot was fined more than 4,500 for failing to maintain communication with air traffic control, prompting Britains Royal Air Force to intercept the flight. The UK Civil Aviation Authoritys investigation found that Christopher Hollands, flying an SAS Connect route from Oslo to Manchester in February last year, did not properly use radio communication with air traffic control. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of purposely targeting American investments in Ukraine. In Mukachevo, the Russians actually burned down an enterprise, by the way, an American enterprise, a manufacturer of electrical equipment," Zelensky said in a video address on Thursday (21 August). We believe that it was a targeted strike specifically on American property here in Ukraine, on American investments," he said. Zelenskyy condemned the attack amid the push for peace. Just when the world expects a clear answer from the Russians - an answer regarding the negotiations to end the war," he added. Whether youre well acquainted with the brand or have no idea what quilling is, prepare to be delighted by the beauty of Quilling Card. A Massachusetts based, female-owned company, Quilling Card celebrates the stunning art of quilling an ancient art which involves strips of paper being rolled, coiled, shaped and glued to create beautiful three-dimensional designs. In 2011, husband and wife co-founders Huong and Raphael worked together to turn Huong's passion into a greeting card business. Since then, the business has evolved into so much more than that now Quilling Card is the premiere source for preserving and sharing this ancient art form making quilling a more accessible art that is displayed in homes across the world. As a verified member of the Fair-Trade Federation, the brand has five workshops throughout Vietnam, in Huongs home country, where every single design is expertly handcrafted by nearly 1,000 artisans. These magnificent greeting cards each take one hour to complete, and are more than just a card, theyre a work of art. When shopping for a card to mark a momentous occasion, send your well wishes in times of trouble, or celebrate the one you love, look no further than Quilling Card where pure delight is guaranteed. The company offers greeting cards and other quilled gifts for every holiday and occasion you can think of, including Christmas, Mothers Day, Easter, Halloween, Valentines Day, New Babies, Graduations, Weddings and so much more. ( Quilling Card ) Shop all cards When festivities come to an end, fear not, quilling cards are never discarded. They are kept and treasured as the work of art they are, which is why Quilling Card offers beautiful frames that are designed exclusively for their handmade quilled cards. They can tastefully and safely display your Quilling Card for many years to come making it a lasting keepsake. If you've got a brilliant idea for a special occasion or event, consider a bespoke quilled design! Quilling Card has collaborated with many businesses, organizations and families to create the ultimate custom quilling design. From iconic museums and architectural landmarks to company logos for corporate gifting or even an extra special seasons greeting, anything can be reimagined in quilling. ( Quilling Card ) The company gets even more impressive when you learn that theyre Guinness World Record holders achieving the titles of the Most People Quilling Simultaneously and The Largest Quilling Paper Mosaic Image in Ho Chi Minh City on 8 April 2022. The collaborative mosaic of 285 quilled tiles stood 15 feet tall and 19 feet wide of Van Goghs iconic Starry Night. Following this amazing achievement for the companys 10 year anniversary, they expanded to develop an entire quilled Artist Series Collection. The collection features famous works by Van Gogh, Klimt, Monet and more reimagining paint strokes into paper strips for a one-of-a-kind quilled replica. The Artist Series recreations come in three sizes including Greeting Cards, Art and Gallery size. The Gallery Size take 52 hours to quill and are an exquisite one-of-a-kind work. Most recently Quilling Card has begun expanding to collections for cultures and countries across the globe. Quilling Cards new Japan Collection features breathtaking scenes inspired by traditional Japanese motifs from cherry blossoms to iconic temples and Tori gates all handcrafted in stunning paper detail. Right now, free shipping is offered to first time customers who sign up for their email newsletter. *Limitations apply. Orders are shipped within just 48 hours from their headquarters in Holliston, MA. To explore more beautiful handcrafted, fair trade, quilling products and make someones day, visit Quillingcard.com An Post is 'actively seeking a solution' for Irish companies selling into the US. Stock image. Photo: Getty An Post has said it is committed in continuing to send parcels to the US even as a number of EU postal services suspend deliveries amid uncertainty over tariffs and red tape. The Trump administration is set to suspend a practice of allowing low-value parcels containing goods to enter the US without tariffs from August 28. The so called de minimis packages exemption had allowed minimal paperwork for international shipments of goods valued at under $800 (690). Yesterday, Austrian Post joined a number of European postal service peers to announce it is stopping standard parcel shipments to the US as a result of the change. Postal services fear they will be hit with a wave of bulky returns if customers in the US face tariffs and customs duties, and refuse to accept deliveries. The move has implications for individuals and for businesses that retail online making direct sales to US consumers and shipping individually. An Post said it will maintain a full service to the US, despite the changes. The Irish semi-state said it is actively seeking a solution for Irish companies selling into the US through the postal service so they can support them and the Irish economy in keeping trade routes open. This will involve the receiving US customers having to pay the required duties locally before delivery can be completed, An Post said. Traditional letters and cards to the US will be carried as normal An Posts head of corporate communications Anna McHugh said it plans to provide an update soon. We want to assure Irish customers that we are working on their behalf and will keep them informed in the coming days, Ms McHugh said. Traditional letters and cards to the US will be carried as normal, as will clearly marked personal gifts up to a value of 100, providing that all the necessary customs documentation has been completed at the post office, she said. The move on parcels announced by Donald Trump in the latter part of July comes after the US also suspended the de minimis loophole for goods from China and Honk Kong in April. The White House said the move was aimed at protecting US jobs. Trump is acting more quickly to suspend the de minimis exemption than the Big Beautiful Bill requires, to deal with national emergencies and save American lives and businesses now, the White House said. According to Reuters, between 2015 and 2024, the annual volume of de minimis shipments entering the US increased from 134 million shipments to over 1.36 billion shipments. US court throws out multi-million dollar civil fraud penalty against Donald Trump US president was accused of exaggerating how much money his business made US president Donald Trump during his civil business fraud trial last year. Photo: AP Jennifer Peltz and Michael R Sisak Associated Press Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 06:30 A US appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against US president Donald Trump, ruling yesterday in New York states lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth. Coughlan accuses U2s frontman of protecting his interests with social media post Aid is dropped in to starving Gazans who, below, wait for help to arrive and, bottom, Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City this week Mary Coughlan has thrown down the gauntlet to Bono by goading him to fly to Gaza and see first-hand the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israels armed forces. Coughlan is angry about a statement issued by U2 last Sunday in which, for the first time in the near two-year conflict, the band addressed the crisis in Gaza. I think its too little, I think its too late and I think it was very, very measured the way they said it, especially Bonos statement, she said. It was putrid and pathetic. I think The Edge said it a bit more honestly, I was surprised. I thought Larry Mullen would have been a bit more, you know... they didnt condemn. Bono It was an Instagram post for f**ks sake. They are still protecting their interests, he is [Bono]. I think the whole thing that struck me from their Instagram post was that he justified what the Israeli government are doing. Bono previously condemned the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. In their statement last Sunday, The Edge was strongest in his condemnation of Israeli policy, describing it as ethnic cleansing, while Bono urged Israelis to turn their back on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bono's statement It was like AI did it [the Instagram post], said Coughlan. He [Bono] carefully skirted around the problem that there is a Zionist, colonialist regime in place in Israel and its taking over another population, another ethnicity, another country. They are starving them to death. Its a f******g holocaust. In an interview last year with the Sunday World, Coughlan highlighted an article in Forbes magazine listing U2s links with several Israeli companies, including one which is involved with its military and which supplies technology for U2 concerts. He has the ear of every head of state. He could have easily have said something meaningful 18 months ago. I bet he hasnt pulled his money out, said Coughlan, who hails from Galway and now lives in Co Wicklow. The night they did a concert, and its there, its everywhere, he abhors what Hamas did to the children of Abraham, and he is a Zionist, colonialist f******g mentality, thats what he has adhered himself to for years, you dont have to do too much digging. When its pointed out to her that Bono is a Christian and an expert on the Bible and its scripture, which is what he is referencing with children of Abraham, she replies: Yeah, thats the scripture he preaches. The Edge Well, my head is spinning about it. He could have done something sooner, but as far as Im concerned he did do something sooner, he said f**k the Palestinians, and made the comment about the children of Abraham, 1,000 children of Abraham were slaughtered tonight, she maintains. Thats what the statement (last Sunday) was from U2, a propaganda piece, and it was carefully curated. It was almost like a robot wrote it and they said all the right things about starving children, and they said nothing of consequence about Netanyahu and his policies. They really didnt, if you look at it. A little bit here and a little bit there, and it was in four different pieces [by each band member]. Coughlan agrees Bob Geldof was also quite late in condemning the killing in Gaza, but concedes that he went on television to blast Israel over the slaughter of more than 60,000 civilians. Geldof was criticised heavily and I had spoken to Pete Briquette [Boomtown Rats bass player] because we all did a festival last year and I said why are ye not speaking. He has come out now, hes on television about it, she said. I dont know what to say. What is the difference between a starving Ethiopian baby and a starving Gazan baby? The difference is Israel. The difference is f*****g money and Bonos interests, God forgive me, and the interests of his tech and his livelihood, which is a lot of money invested in Israeli companies and America. He knows everybody. Jesus, hes been introduced to everybody in the world, presidents and popes. He could have done something so long ago, a year ago, which would have meant something. Mary points out previous conflicts U2 have got involved in, from the Bosnian war in the 1990s to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He should go there [to Gaza] and see at first hand the devastation the Israelis are inflicting on the people there, she says. The f*****r would let him in, Netanyahu. They [Bono and The Edge] went to an underground station and did a song there. Aid is dropped in to starving Gazans who, below, wait for help to arrive and, bottom, Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City this week . . Now he has a book out and a play and it was the first thing that came into my head, Jeez it must be doing very well for them. Its a piece of propaganda. Coughlan, famous for songs such as Ancient Rain and Id Rather Go Blind, lauds Irish acts such as Kneecap, Fontaines DC, Hozier and Steve Wall of The Stunning for blasting the genocide. Kneecap have it, and they have the whole thing about the colonialists, and they have explained it very well in several of their interviews, she said. But they have a very young audience. I love them. My son edited their film. But its a young audience. U2, especially him, have the ear of so many presidents and the Pope, and bloody everybody in America. Singer Mary Coughlan Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Here we are, over two years later. Its in our pockets every day, its on the television every night, its in our Instagram, its in our Facebook, its on every single newspaper and television, f******g slaughtering journalists, babies. Its a f*****g holocaust. Theyre just perpetrating on other people what was done to them. The other thing you have to remember is that when people are oppressed and starved, and murdered, and all those young people that grew up without parents and brothers and sisters, the hurt that goes on. The trauma. Its generations now of trauma. Coughlan herself has been told first hand accounts of the slaughter in Gaza, which she said has given her nightmares. I did a gig in Howth three weeks ago. I spoke to a woman. I gave her a lift back to Bray, a doctor around my own age, who has been working for years all over the world, Medicins San Frontieres, and she told me stories. She was just back, she gave a short talk at the gig, and I brought her back to Bray, and I couldnt sleep all night, she recalls. Everything she told me that she had seen kept replaying in my head, and they were in pictures. Those with farming experience are being offered the opportunity to work in a stunning setting, looking after the dairy and beef herd of a German Countess near Wexford town. Countess Ulrike Walderdorff of Artramon House, located between the villages of Castlebridge and Crossabeg, is looking to hire a dairy farm assistant to help out with the some 500 dairy and beef cattle in the associated farm. Professor Mathew Sadlier said societal change is needed when it comes to smartphone use among young people (Peter Byrne/PA) Beauty influencers can be just as toxic as Andrew Tate, according to a consultant psychiatrist from Dublins Mater Hospital. During a Festival of Politics event titled Smartphone Free Childhood? in Scotland, Professor Mathew Sadlier said he believes attitudes towards young peoples smartphone use need societal change. The event was chaired by Douglas Ross, convener of the Scottish Parliaments Education, Children and Young People Committee, and encouraged discussion on the impact of smartphones on children and young people. Prof Sadlier said he is seeing an increase in extreme eating disorders in young patients and he believes social media is partly to blame. He said: I would say its not that its creating new problems, but the people who have the problems who wouldve fallen into that vulnerability group are becoming more extreme. If you look at whatever percentage of adolescent girls will have eating difficulties, theres similar problems with adolescent boys, but interestingly, its got to do with bodybuilding, overeating, steroid use. The videos around self-harm, there is an ecosystem about that that is very difficult to police. He said he believes certain influencers are as damaging as self-identified misogynist Andrew Tate, saying: You go into that world with the beauty influencers: I think beauty influencers are just as toxic as Andrew Tate, theyre just toxic to a different population. The problem is one video on how to put on whatever piece of makeup is probably reasonable. But how many people watch one video? The Online Safety Act came into effect this year in the UK, providing a new set of laws that protect children and adults online. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content The Act has given providers new duties to implement systems and processes to reduce the risk that their services are used for illegal activity, and to take down illegal content when it does appear. Specific protections have been designed for children. Platforms are required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content, and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise. Discussing changes that could be made to curb the concerns of phone use among young people, Prof Sadlier said: Adolescence and childhood is a transitory phase, with respect to the young people in the audience, you wont be young for very long, so its the next group of young people. Just because the current group of 12-year-olds have a mobile phone doesnt mean the next group of 12-year-olds have to have a mobile phone. Weve been here before. Weve been here with cigarettes I remember when seatbelts were introduced in cars and people thought this is going to be the worst thing, how can I drive with a seatbelt, were going to have crashes everywhere because Im being constrained. It does take a societal change. It takes changing the paradigm for parents to go, actually you know what, a child trying to learn off a YouTube video is a child in a digital institutionalised environment where theyre learning to speak to YouTube, theyre not learning how to speak to a person. Andrew Tate has been approached for comment. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris and Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan speak about recent violent attacks on members of the Indian community in Ireland. The Ireland India Council said there has been an organised social media campaign against the Indian community in the country and the number of violent attacks has intensified since January. We think our old neighbour is grazing his cattle on our vacant family farm and were worried he could claim squatters rights. What can we do? Dublin City Council has this year to date issued around 300 statutory warning letters to property owners engaged in the alleged unauthorised use of short term rental of their properties to tourists and visitors to the capital. In a clampdown against those property owners placing their properties on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com, the council has confirmed that it has issued to date this year the approximate 300 warning letters which is the first step planning authorities take in planning enforcement actions. A spokesman for the council said today: To date since the initiation of the short-Term letting legislation in July 2019, a successful resolution has been achieved in respect of 1,996 cases, these cases have been resolved and closed following the commencement of and compliance with enforcement requirements. Property owners who do seek to regularise their unauthorised use through planning retention applications however face an uphill struggle in securing planning retention for their short-term letting. This arises from a policy in the Dublin City Development Plan where there is a general presumption against the provision of dedicated short term tourist rental accommodation in the city due to the impact on the availability of housing stock. One of the property owners to receive a warning letter was the operator of Dublin Castle Suites, Olympia Real Estate Limited. The firm got the warning in March and earlier this month, Dublin City Council refused the firms planning application for the planning retention to continue the short-term rental use of its 10 apartments facing onto Parliament Street and Dame Street and close to Dublin Castle and Temple Bar. Another short-term stay operator, Bebinn Limited, trading as 'Shortstays', has a planning application before the City Council for the planning retention for short term letting accommodation for six en-suite bedrooms on Benburb Street, D7. Stock image. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Asked to comment on the council issuing the 300 letters concerning the unauthorised use of short-term lettings to date this year, a spokeswoman for Failte Ireland said: Short-term letting (STL) accommodation is an important part of the overall tourist accommodation mix, helping to ensure we have offerings that cater to the different needs of visitors. She said; However, for communities to thrive, there must be a balanced mix of long-term private rental and short-term letting accommodation for tourists. Failte Ireland has been tasked with the establishment and maintenance of a statutory register of short-term letting accommodation in the State. STL hosts offering accommodation for periods up to and including 21 nights will be obliged to register with Failte Ireland, confirm their compliance with planning requirements and hold a valid registration number that must be displayed on their STL listings. The spokeswoman said: The Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill is being progressed by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) and will provide the statutory basis for the establishment of a register for short term lets and for the implementation of the EU Short Term Rental (STR) Regulation. She said the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage would set out the planning guidance for short-term lets in a National Planning Statement and will progress any necessary legislative changes to implement the new planning requirements. Planning, including enforcement decisions on planning applications, is a matter for local authorities. The establishment of the register, along with the implementation of the EU STR Regulation, will provide Failte Ireland with data on STL properties. This data will be shared with local authorities to support their role in enforcement of planning requirements for short-term lets. Im not going to get my daughter back, but Ill fight for every other child heartbroken mum campaigns for bus safety Evan Kavanagh says he is worried about the future for his three young daughters Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7). Photo: Gerry Mooney Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7) who are facing eviction from their Clondalkin home . Picture; Gerry Mooney Evan and Nadia Kavanagh who are facing eviction from their Clondalkin home . Picture; Gerry Mooney Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7), who are facing eviction from their home in Clondalkin, Dublin. Photo: Gerry Mooney A Dublin family trying to stay in their home of seven years have less than three weeks before being evicted after a council scheme they were trying to avail of was paused. After their landlord announced plans to sell the house, Evan and Nadia Kavanagh, from Clondalkin, reached out to South Dublin County Council (SDCC) to ask about the tenant-in-situ scheme. The scheme allows the council to buy property from landlords when a tenant is at risk of homelessness. The family provided all their documents in April, but in July they heard SDCC would not be able to go ahead with the purchase. Earlier this month, SDCC became the third of Dublins four local authorities to pause applications for the scheme because the budget has been exhausted. The decision, which follows similar announcements from Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council, affects around 41 houses already in the process of being bought by SDCC. The Kavanaghs and their three young daughters are now facing eviction from their three-bedroom house on September 6. It was a punch in the gut, he said. I was at work when the landlord knocked on our door and gave us the eviction notice. He just apologised to my wife. My wife called me, crying. I was in the middle of work and unable to believe it was really happening. Its a very stressful situation. Our middle child is diagnosed with Level 3 autism. We spent three years trying to get a diagnosis for her, and it was only last year that we got her into a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) unit. Shes come a long way and we cant bear the idea of moving too far away from this school The school she is in now finally accepted her, and she got into an SNA unit last September. In March, we were given the eviction notice. Shes come a long way and we cant bear the idea of moving too far away from this school. Mr Kavanagh, who grew up in Ballyfermot, said they got in touch with SDCC as soon as they heard about the eviction. We hadnt heard of the in-situ scheme ourselves, but the landlord mentioned he knew someone who had sold their house to the council a year before, he said. We were working with the council and our landlord was looking to sell, so we were in communication with both. All that we heard back in the months following was that there was a new law being discussed around the in-situ scheme and that they had no information to give us they couldnt tell if the property was going to be bought. Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7). Photo: Gerry Mooney People in the council didnt seem to know what was going on, and they couldnt tell us anything. We were just told, We dont know. In July, after months of following up, SDCC finally said they would not be able to buy the property because their budget had been cut. My whole life living in Dublin, Ive never broken the law, Ive never been in trouble for -anything, always done everything honestly. Now, when I needed the Government more than ever, I feel abandoned. As someone who has always followed the rules and always done the best for my family, my neighbours and our home, I feel let down. I feel like the Government dont care about my predicament, my familys predicament or my daughters predica- ment. Mr Kavanagh said his family are availing of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme, a programme that sees councils offer housing support for tenants in need. Weve always looked after the house and paid the rent on time Since we moved in, we have had no history of any complaints, weve always looked after the house and paid the rent on time, he said, adding that its hard to find ourselves in this current situation. Weve had enough money to get by I have a good enough job to sustain the family, my wife is a full-time carer for our daughter and a homemaker. Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7), who are facing eviction from their home in Clondalkin, Dublin. Photo: Gerry Mooney Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd The family have been looking for homes close enough to their daughters school to ensure the move does not disrupt her future. The last I spoke to the council was when I rang them up to see if there was anything at all they could do to help, Mr Kavanagh said. They just said they wished they could, but the budget had been used up. Were applying for houses every two days, were sending on references or anything that can give us a head start, but we dont hear back. Nothing has worked it feels like were being completely ignored. We keep thinking about how little time we have left, and that stresses us out even more. A spokesperson for SDCC confirmed that its position on the tenant-in-situ scheme will be kept under review. To date, we have completed the purchase of 42 homes, with another 23 homes currently in conveyancing, the spokesperson said. This position will be kept under review should additional funding become available to SDCC. We were allocated 25m from the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage for acquisitions in 2025, with acquisitions to focus on tenant-in-situ acquisitions, older persons, people with disabilities and those exiting homeless services. Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme Ten students at Cork school earn maximum points in Leaving Cert Laying solid foundations from the beginning of fifth year was the key for two Leaving Cert students who achieved the maximum 625 points this year. Cillian Monahan and Luke Kiely, both students at Christian Brothers College (CBC) Cork both credited consistency over the two years for their success. There was particular cause for celebration at the Cork city school, where the pair were two of 10 students to earn the highest possible marks, and 21 CBC Cork students who cleared 600 points. Mr Monahan (18), from Ballyvolane, said he was not expecting top grades when he woke up on Friday. I was a bit nervous, I wasnt sure if I was going to get my course or not, he said. I was very relieved, I hadnt felt anything like that before. I didnt expect it, I was surprised I got the full marks. Fourth year is mandatory in our school, so there are two years of hard work building us up and that makes it a lot easier to push through in sixth year. A keen maths student, Mr Monahan plans to stay close to home when he moves on to third-level and hopes to study mathematical sciences at UCC. Im interested in maths, and as a career and course, its very broad. There are a lot of opportunities afterwards, and youre not really tied down to one thing, which really interests me. His classmate Mr Kiely (18) said relief was the word that came to mind when asked how he felt having received his results on Friday morning. The doubt had kind of set in over the last few days, the confidence was a bit shook. I was just hoping it went my way and I was definitely nervous," he said. The Douglas native said 625 points was the goal he had in mind, not just for this year, but going all the way back to the beginning of fifth year. It was a goal I set for myself. I picked a course, knew the points I needed and decided that was what I was going to work towards. I recognised early on it was a marathon and not a sprint. You have to work a long time at it, so I understood I had to start early and just keep working. Small milestones along the way keep you studying and keep you working. Having the course and the idea of the points in my head kept me going. The weight of the Leaving Cert is finally off Mr Kielys shoulders, however he faces another nervous few days waiting for CAO offers. His top choice of economics and finance at UCD was a 625-point course last year, meaning there is a chance he misses out despite doing the absolute best he could. My dad always worked in business, so I always skewed that way, but economics and finance is my own interest, the course and all the modules drew me in. It isnt a guarantee I do get it, because it was a lottery last year, so despite getting the points I may not get the course. Darragh Nolan Luas services between Connolly Station and the Point will remain closed for several weeks at a minimum after a bridge in the city centre was damaged by a major fire in the Docklands area of Dublin. While structural engineering assessments are ongoing, initial investigations show significant damage was caused to the Georges Dock Bridge on Tuesday night. Office workers, tourists and pedestrians now have to detour around the dock to gain access to the area. The red line Luas service is a key mode of public transport for concert-goers attending gigs at the 3Arena, with the closure of the route between Connolly and the Point coming ahead of a major sold-out WWE event tonight. Firefighters battling the blaze at George's Dock. Photo: Sam Boal/Collins The Luas operator Transdev has confirmed that service cannot resume on the affected line until safety checks are complete, which may take several weeks at minimum. Luas tickets are valid on Dublin Bus services operating between Connolly and The Point during the disruption, with Transdev examining options for a dedicated replacement bus service to cover the route while works and assessments continue. "These checks are essential for everyones safety, and we appreciate the patience and support of Luas passengers during this disruption, a Transdev spokesperson said. Trams continue to operate between Tallaght/Saggart and Connolly while structural engineering assessments, led by Transport Infrastructure Ireland and Transdev, continue. An area including the Luas line was cordoned off near George's Dock, Dublin, after a fire on the bridge on Tuesday evening. Photo: Sam Boal/Collins Photos Telecoms infrastructure was damaged during the fire, which has also led to many homes and businesses experiencing disruption to their internet this week. The fire broke out on Mayor Street Lower, at Georges Dock near the IFSC building. Gardai and members of Dublin Fire Brigade attended the scene, with four fire engines, a foam tender and water tanker attended the scene as part of the multi-agency response. The fire was brought under control about 11.30pm on Tuesday night. Maitiu Clerkin, Dualta Bracken, Turlagh McDaid, and Joe Herron who rescued local councillor Brian Carr and his son and a niece. Photo: North West newspix Four men teamed up to save three people from drowning at a Donegal beach after they got into trouble with a strong current while swimming. Maitiu Clerkin, with his friends Dualta Bracken and Turlagh McDaid, and uncle Joe Herron, went to the rescue of local Sinn Fein county councillor Brian Carr and his son (9) and niece (10) on Tramore Beach at Ardara near Glenties last Friday. Mr Clerkin said it was a lovely day when his group went surfing at the popular beach. We were just lying out on the beach, and Turlagh was saying the waves had just kind of picked up, he told RTE Radio Ones Morning Ireland. We decided we'd go down, and we were just walking down towards the water, and a woman started coming towards us screaming for help. In the moment, I could see that there was two kids further out in the water, so me and Dualta had our boards with us, so I started paddling out towards the two kids and got them. "Then, I looked back and Brian was in difficulty, so I pointed at him, and then Dualta started making his way towards Brian." Maitiu Clerkin, Dualta Bracken, Turlagh McDaid, and Joe Herron who rescued local councillor Brian Carr and his son and a niece. Photo: North West newspix Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Meanwhile, Dualta, who was one of the students awaiting his Leaving Cert results today, said they both just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I'm very lucky to be able to say that. As Maitiu said, we just were going in for a surf as any other day, obviously not expecting the situation to unfold like that. And then Maitiu jumped in straight away after we heard the lady in distress. It was obviously very unexpected, and it just shows that it's important for everyone to have basic first aid skills and life-saving skills. Because it's not like we expected that to happen. It's just an everyday experience, and then all of a sudden it turns into a critical situation like that. Maitiu Clerkin, Dualta Bracken, Turlagh McDaid, and Joe Herron who rescued local councillor Brian Carr and his son and a niece. Photo: North West newspix The councillors son and niece went for a swim in the water and soon were swept by a strong current. Mr Clerkin said the children were so brave in the water. Brian was going out to save them, and they had been swept out, and they were just treading water. And the girl had a bodyboard, which was helping her, but the little boy had started swimming lessons not long before. "They're amazing, they were treading water so well, and staying so calm. Once they knew that we needed to get to Brian as quick as we could, they held on to the board, Mr Clerkin said. Meanwhile, Cllr Carr, who is currently in the hospital, was coming up and down and swallowed water. Cllr Brian Carr being taken to hospital by SAR 118. Photo: North West newspix Mr Clerkin continued: It was critical. Fair play to Dualta, he got Brian pulled up on the board, and then we made a joint effort to get everyone in together, get to where we could stand. And then Turlagh and Joe hopped in as well and helped. We dragged Brian up, and the two kids literally ran up the beach to their relatives. Bill Linnane: How I bribed my 17-year-old son to come on a week-long family holiday with us The days of our 17-year-old joining a family road trip to Donegal are numbered then Ill finally get control of the music again Choosing their own music is the only way teens survive family road trips, but that doesn't make it easier to listen to. Photo: Getty Bill Linnane Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 06:30 Convincing a teenager to be anywhere in public with you is hard. Convincing them to go on holiday with you for a week is even harder. And it is harder again to convince them to go on holiday with you when you are holidaying in Ireland. Where do you go when theres no- where to run? Thats the question hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians must try to find an answer to as Israeli soldiers encircle Gaza City. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored overtures for a ceasefire deal and called up 60,000 reservists for a new offensive. UN secretary general Antonio Guterres also made another futile appeal to Israel to end the carnage. Pleading for the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas, he urged Israel to reverse a plan to expand illegal settlement construction in the West Bank. The plan would effectively bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem. It is widely being described as a move to kill off any chance of a two-state solution. Speaking to RTE, Eran Etzion, the former deputy head of Israels National Security Council, said the plans to fully occupy Gaza City are highly controversial, both in Israel and abroad. Mr Netanyahu has a very clear agenda of perpetuating the war, taking control of the entire Gaza Strip and evacuating its population at least in the long run, Mr Etzion said. He also said more Israelis have now understood it is not about Israels national interest; rather, it is about Mr Netanyahus personal interest and a messianic agenda of the very, very, deep extreme right in the Israeli government, which is a minority in Israel. To date, Mr Netanyahu has been dismissive of all international entreaties for restraint. A week ago, his finance minister Bezalel Smotrich revived the plan for the long-shelved settlement, promising it will bury the idea of a Palestinian state. It seems there is no going back for Mr Netanyahu, whatever the consequences This is Zionism at its best building, settling and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel, Mr Smotrich said. Known as the E1 Plan, it has been repeatedly floated by successive right-wing Israeli governments, but was always shelved after running into a wall of international opposition. Previous US presidents refused to countenance it, but such resistance can now be swept away as long as Mr Netanyahu enjoys the full backing of Donald Trump. Thus the mass killing will not just continue, it will probably intensify. The nearly two-year-long war has already resulted in 62,000 people being killed. French president Emmanuel Macron has said the new onslaught can only lead to disaster and risks plunging the region into a cycle of permanent war. But it seems there is no going back for Mr Netanyahu, whatever the consequences. Hostage families have begged for talks with defence officials to ask how the military can ensure Hamas will not execute the hostages once Israeli troops close in. Approving plans to invade Gaza while a deal is already on the table is a knife to the heart of the families and the Israeli public, they said in a statement. The UN human rights office said the mass displacement from Gaza City risks triggering an unprecedented life-threatening humanitarian crisis. Surely after so much horror, extending the killing cycle must be called out as unconscionable? Minister of State Sean Canney officially launched the Coast Guards new aviation service at a special event in Shannon, County Clare, on Thursday, August 21. The landmark enhancement to national search and rescue and maritime environmental monitoring capabilities was lauded by both the Minister and the Director of the Irish Coast Guard. Operated by Bristow Ireland under a ten-year contract, the new aviation service includes six purpose-built AW189 helicopters based at Waterford, Sligo, Dublin and Shannon. Additionally, for the first time, the Coast Guard will also deploy a 24-hour fixed wing service, provided by two Beechcraft B200 King Air aircraft, also based at Shannon. This fleet will work as an integrated aviation service, enhancing the overall capability of Coast Guard services to the public. One of the Beechcraft B200 King Air aircrafts which will contribute to the 24-hour fixed wing service by the Coast Guard. This is a pivotal moment for Irelands maritime safety and environmental stewardship, Minister Canney said. The Coast Guard is one of the four principal emergency services, and this expanded helicopter fleet, and the introduction of fixed-wing operations means the organisation is better equipped than ever to deliver enhanced inland, coastal and offshore search and rescue services as well as provision of 24/7 aeromedical support to HSE and our offshore island communities. For the first time, the Coast Guard has a dedicated fixed wing aircraft which will enable it meet international obligations in proactive maritime environmental monitoring and pollution investigation, enhancing our overall awareness of any threats to our maritime environment, covering an area of 132,000 square miles. Minister Canney commended the facilities at Shannon Airport but emphasised that while services like the 24-hour fixed wing service are based in Clare, they are strategically placed. I think it's important to say that whilst we have them based here, they can travel up to thousands of kilometres and can wait in the air for six and a half hours... they have additional fuel tanks, the Minister said. Its a small island, the West Coast is all Atlantic, but they can cover the entire country and entire coastline from here - it's an ideal location. I would also say that the importance of it is that this is an enhancement of what was here before in terms of search and rescue service. That means I can sleep well at night saying that we have as good of a service as we can provide. Most importantly, we have the technology within these aircraft, so we're actually using the innovation and the technology that's out there to make sure that we can be as good as we can, as safe as we can, and as fast as we can in executing search and rescue, rescuing people and saving lives. Speaking about the importance of having this base in Clare, given the number of call outs over recent months, the director of the Irish Coast Guard Micheal OToole said: It's critical. This base, no more than the four other coast guard bases around the country, is a key part of the Coast Guard's ability to effectively respond to those in distress. Obviously, we'll always encourage the public not to get into those situations, and we encourage the public to heed the warnings and be aware of water safety in general, and there's many resources there. But in terms of our ability to respond when things actually do not go in the right direction for people, this is a key facet for us. I think more particularly what this represents is the next stage of coast guard resourcing, the next stage of Coast Guards Aviation capacity. Its not [only] going to secure the Coast Guards ability to respond effectively in all areas of the coast at the moment, but also for the next decade - that's what's really exciting about today and about the two resources. Regarding future development and possible expansion for more bases, Mr OToole agreed with Minister Canney that the selection of aviation sites was purposeful. I think what you see at the moment is an enhanced level of resourcing to our current footprint and our current footprint is deployed across four bases, he said. That's a purposeful decision and indeed one thats supported by government to provide those four bases which we know through many decades of experience are correctly located to respond to not [only], current trends in terms of incidents, but also to meet the future challenges. and indeed, those incidents that we may have not yet encountered. One of the Beechcraft B200 King Air aircrafts which will contribute to the 24-hour fixed wing service by the Coast Guard. Finally, Mr OToole gave some sound advice to those looking to swim in the ever-more frequent sunny Irish weather. As citizens I think we're blessed in this country with the coastline and the resources that we have, he said. From the Coast Guards perspective, we really appreciate that people want to enjoy those resources and that's right and proper. We have some of the finest scenery and beaches in the world and that's a key resource and something that we're all very proud of I think as Irish citizens. While people enjoy those amenities and we hope they grow in their enjoyment of those amenities and engage more and more with them, from the course guards perspective, it's about prevention and about heeding the warnings. [That means] ensuring that you're well prepared, that you have the correct training for the activity that you want to undertake, that you understand the weather forecasts and the local conditions which are very changeable, because it's part of the nature of that very dynamic and beautiful coastline that conditions in one area may be very different to another. It's that vigilance, preparation and just ensuring that you're prepared to really enjoy the location and hopefully never have to call on the Coast Guard, its resources and the resources that we work with, such as lifeboats and other state emergency services - thats the key. It's about understanding the environment that you're going to operate within and making sure that you're prepared, that you have the right resources in place and critically that you will impart to one of your friends or family what you want to undertake. And when you do get into difficulty or see someone in difficulty around the coast, contact the Coast Guard immediately. Bristow Ireland commenced search and rescue helicopter operations from Shannon in December 2024, utilising newly built AW189 helicopters, followed by the introduction of the fixed wing service in May of 2025. In July 2025, the Dublin-based service commenced operations from Weston Airport which signified the end of 27 years of Coast Guard helicopter services operating out of Dublin Airport. The other two bases in Waterford and Sligo will transition over the coming months. Kerry photographer Stephen Power has won an European Photography Award for one of his photo's capturing a iconic moment during the Skellig Michael Protest that made national news. The photo captures protestors on a boat close to the famous UNESCO site Skellig Michael island voicing their anger at the delaying opening of the famous tourist site earlier this year. Stephen covered the event for several media outlets including the Irish Independent and The Kerryman and he took this photo to show the unity of the protesters fighting for the opening of one of Kerrys most important tourist sites. The protestors took to the open seas to highlight their anger and Stephen captured the moment on water. Stephen was awarded Gold in the Editorial category / Photojournalism section. "I felt that the Skellig closure protest was an important subject and that my image was a strong one, which might grab the judges attention. I also hoped that by entering a European competition I might be able to shine some light on the beautiful part of Kerry, where I live and which has become important to me, explained Stephen who lives on Valentia Island. "Also, people photography has always been a particular specialism of mine, and I enjoy capturing interesting and eye-grabbing events, and try to be involved in as many as I can, while Im still fit enough to wield a couple of heavy cameras and lenses. Stephen has been a professional photographer since the late 1970s and has had his work published in newspapers, magazines and books all over the world. However he has never had much luck with competitions until now and he is delighted to have his photo capturing an important moment in Kerry history will seen on an international stage. The European Photography Awards is a global platform that celebrates the power of photography as a form of storytelling, cultural reflection, and artistic expression. Op You cant scroll past this years entries. They stop you, as every image feels like theres a story behind it waiting to be uncovered, said Thomas Brandt, spokesperson of IAA. Thats what made judging so difficult, especially with the level of execution. The award celebrates what has been achieved, and point toward where photography can lead us next." Five newly attested gardai are on their way to Kerry and will be situated in Killarney and Tralee. The new gardai are among 154 recruits who graduated from the Garda Training College in Templemore on Friday. The latest deployments will see two new gardai join Killarney Garda Station, while three will be deployed at Tralee Garda Station. This intake represents the largest allocation of probationer gardai to regions outside Dublin in the past year and reflects what government claims is its ongoing investment in building stronger, safer communities. Fianna Fail Deputy Michael Cahill welcomed the deployment saying it would strengthen visible policing across the county. We are fortunate that every community wants to see more gardai visible in their area. It is one of the most effective measures we have for preventing crime and making people feel safer, he said. Cahill explained that the arrival of additional garda members underlines his partys commitment to increasing policing presence on the ground. He said strengthening An Garda Siochana is a key priority for Fianna Fail in Government, backed by a record 2.48 billion in funding in Budget 2025 a 27% increase since 2020. Deputy Cahill believes this latest allocation shows that investment in garda recruitment is making a real difference on the ground, with local stations being reinforced so they can continue serving and protecting communities. A further 201 Garda recruits will begin training in Templemore this week, while another graduation is scheduled for November, ensuring a steady pipeline of new members entering the organisation. More gardai on the beat is one of the most effective ways to deter crime and enhance public safety. This latest deployment is a clear signal that government is delivering on its promise to support communities with the resources they need to feel secure, Deputy Cahill said. The British soldier who wrote about Kerry in a Japanese POW camp Relatives visit Kerry to see places their grandfather wrote about while a prisoner in horrific conditions in Japan during WWII British Lieutenant Colonel Joe Hazel. Stephen Fernane Kerryman Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 08:20 British Lieutenant Colonel Joe Hazel imagined the scenic Kerry coastline while being incarcerated in horrific conditions in a Japanese Prisoner of War (POW) camp over 80 years ago. Support for early-stage businesses in rural Ireland Female entrepreneurs from Sligo are being encouraged to submit their applications for the latest cycle of ACORNS, a successful development programme to support women living in rural Ireland who are in the early stages of starting their own business. Sligo entrepreneur Shannan Mulrooney of Maia Purposeful Play recently completed the latest cycle of the programme ACORNS 10. She joins Lauren Mc Loughlin of Laurens Patisserie as previous Sligo participants calling on businesswomen to join the programme. ACORNS has been providing support to early-stage female entrepreneurs in rural Ireland for more than a decade and has recently launched the 11th cycle of the business development programme. The deadline for applications for ACORNS 11 is midnight, September 22. There are up to 50 places available for ACORNS 11. Those wishing to receive an application form should register on the website (www.acorns.ie). Shannan Mulrooney set up her business, Maia Purposeful Play at the community centre near her home in Ballisodare, Co Sligo, in January 2023. Maia Purposeful Play facilitates and promotes simple play experiences for children, supporting families and childcare professionals by fostering holistic development through child-led, interactive and carefully planned play experiences. Shannan says: ACORNS 10 has been a truly wonderful experience for both me and my business, Maia Purposeful Play. What makes ACORNS so unique is the incredible community of women. At the round tables, we could celebrate our wins but also be honest and vulnerable about our challenges. The honesty, wisdom, and energy in the room, especially at the final meeting in Mullingar was inspiring and something I wish I could have bottled up. I came into ACORNS with imposter syndrome and left with a renewed belief in myself, my values, and my vision. I would highly recommend ACORNS to any female entrepreneur. I know, just like me, they will benefit from it both personally and professionally in ways they could never have imagined. Lauren McLoughlin, from Drumcliffe spent ten years working as a chef in globally renowned pastry kitchens before a holiday in Sligo at the start of the pandemic turned into a permanent move home and set her on the path to becoming an entrepreneur. She set up Laurens Patisserie to provide sweet treats to hotels, cafes and restaurants in 2022. Lauren now has wholesale clients nationwide, and she also provides cakes for weddings, other special occasions and corporate events. However, her biggest business milestone came on Valentines Day this year when she opened her own cake and coffee takeaway shop in Sligo town to realise a lifelong dream of having her own premises. Lauren says: I was part of ACORNS 8 and then I continued with ACORNS Plus. Applying for ACORNS is one of the best decisions I have made! It has opened so many doors for me. I have met the most amazing and inspiring woman. I have also made true friends for life. It has helped my confidence and to let go of imposter syndrome. I have learned so much along the way from monthly round table meetings, great agendas and also by listening to other peoples stories. Business life is brilliant but can be lonely sometimes and you feel as if you are the only one! ACORNS takes away that feeling!! ACORNS is based on the belief that early-stage entrepreneurs learn best from their peers. Participants interact with each other in the monthly round table sessions, which are facilitated by a Lead Entrepreneur, who has first-hand experience of starting and successfully growing a business in rural Ireland. Only early-stage female entrepreneurs living in rural Ireland, and who have had no sales before the end of June 2022, are eligible to apply. As ACORNS receives many more applications than there are places available, selection is on a competitive basis. ACORNS 11 will run from October 2025 to April 2026 and will include six monthly round table sessions, a workshop on understanding financials, a briefing by various development agencies and an end-of-cycle celebration. There will be no charge for those selected to participate. A community group in Killanerin, Wexford is looking for the townland of Limerick - known locally as Limbrick A ringfort that was discovered from drone surveying of land at the townland of Limbrick, just outside Kilanerin. From left, Peter OConnor, Conor Murphy and David Williams at the entrance to one of the fields being surveyed for the remains of the lost village of Limbrick on the outskirts of Kilanerin. From left, Peter OConnor, Conor Murphy and David Williams standing in the ruins of Limbrick church located in Limbrick graveyard just outside Kilanerin. A local community group in Wexford is hosting an event in Kilanerin village on Saturday, August 23, to ask the community to take part in searching for the remains of an old plantation village. The townland known as Limerick, locally known as Limbrick is situated adjacent to Kilanerin, and is home to a cluster of heritage sites spanning millennia. It was once home to a plantation village of the same name that was cleared almost overnight in 1837 by a local landlord, with numerous families being evicted in the process. The ruins of Limbrick church located in Limbrick graveyard just outside Kilanerin. Conor Murphy, manager of the project said the site includes a number of historic sites. We already know that Limbrick is home to a cluster of six sites within a one-kilometre radius that are listed by the National Monuments Service and span the millennia from the early Christian period to the plantations in the 1600s. These include a ringfort, the remains of Limbrick village, the ruins of a castle built by the Esmonde family in the 1600s, and the remains of a church that can still be seen within the nearby graveyard, Conor said. The event will showcase what the team has uncovered thanks to modern technology. Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from the professional archaeologists working with the group on their interpretation so far of Limbrick and its history. What we are finding is very exciting, but this is still a work in progress. "We are keen to engage with anyone who has memories about Limbrick, the castle, the old church, the existing graveyard and indeed, any other information that might help us locate artefacts, or understand how Limbrick has changed in recent decades, Conor added. A ringfort that was discovered from drone surveying of land at the townland of Limbrick, just outside Kilanerin. Kilanerin native, Peter OConnor said the project has gotten bigger than they initially thought. Since we began surveying in recent weeks, we discovered that there is much more to the area than we originally imagined. The purpose of the event is to bring the local community - and anyone else with an interest in history and heritage from North Wexford and beyond - up to speed with the project and outline our plans for the coming months, Peter added. Conor thanked the landowners, the parish and professionals involved with the historic project for their continued support with uncovering the old village of Limbrick. Without the backing and involvement of all these people, the project would simply have never got off the ground. So, whether its a local with deep roots in the area, or someone who is simply passionate about uncovering the past, we are hopeful that anyone who comes along to this event can, in some way, help shape our understanding of Limbricks history, Conor added. From left, Peter OConnor, Conor Murphy and David Williams at the entrance to one of the fields being surveyed for the remains of the lost village of Limbrick on the outskirts of Kilanerin. The project is led by members of Kilanerin Tidy Towns and is funded by The Heritage Council. The event will take place to mark Heritage Week and aims to rediscover what remains of the now disappeared village, but also to uncover and document findings from other heritage sites in the vicinity. Apart from the Heritage Council, the project has also sourced funds from the nearby Raheenleagh Windfarm Community Fund, and from Maynooth University. The Ar Lorg Luimneach Laighean (Looking for Limerick of Leinster) National Heritage Week event will take place in the Shamrock Hall in Kilanerin village on Saturday, August 23 from 7pm. Admission is free and no booking is required for those interested in attending. Delight across the schools in New Ross as students pick up their results There was great excitement among students in New Ross who received their Leaving Certificate results on Friday morning and their delight was also shared by their teachers and proud parents with their achievements. In Our Lady Of Lourdes Secondary School in Rosbercon, Katelyn Doyle, Emily Kinsella and Hope Murphy met to collect their physical copies of their results from the school and although the results are accessible to students online from 10 a.m., they said coming into the school was still an important part of the day because its nice to be able to share how they were feeling with the teachers and talk through everything with them. "We werent able to text the teachers, so we said wed come in for a chat, said Emily. "Once the leaving cert was over, we didnt really have the opportunity to debrief after the exams and we were all anxious about the wait, so its lovely to be here with them now, Katelyn added. Its also nice to feel proud of what weve achieved, said Hope. Principal, Toni Ormond said shes delighted with the students results. "The students did very well and Id like to thank their teachers who did a huge amount of work, but Id also like to that the parents and congratulate the students on their own hard work. Theyre excellent, as usual, and weve lots of happy faces today, she said. Up in the Irishtown at St. Marys Secondary School, there were tears of joy from the family members of Lilianna Bayley, who, as a young baby, was told she would never walk or talk following a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. It was a day they never thought they could imagine, where Lilianna would collect her leaving cert results. Speaking outside the school, having met with the school staff, her mother, Naomi Bayley, was overjoyed to share the news that Lilianna achieved a Distinction in the Leaving Cert Applied. She said, Lilianna has had a great lot of help here in St Marys; she's had a full-time SNA, Lorraine. And both staff members, Lorraine and Yvonne have helped her greatly. Theyve all been amazing to her over the last six years, and this is the cumulation of six years of hard work. Liliannas proud grandad, Harry Deacon, spoke about how she defied the odds. He said: Many years ago, when she was just two years old, the doctors were looking at the scan taken on her brain and they told her that she would neither walk nor talk and look at her today. She went and got a Distinction. "Naomi got her granny to bring Lilianna into the room with the consultants, walk into the room, walking and held by the hand, and they turned around and she said, say hello to the doctor, which she did. "The doctor looked at the scan, looked at the child, looked back at the scan, looked at her parents, and said, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. And that was always in my memory, he said. Naomi added: I am extremely proud of her, and so grateful for how helpful everyone in the school has been to her. Speaking of her personal experience as a student in St Marys, particularly during her LCA coursework, Lilianna said she had so much fun. "It was the best time Ive ever had, and its a really good school. Im definitely going to miss coming here every day because I know so many people here and its honestly the best school Ive ever been in, she said. Now that Lilianna has achieved her Distinction in LCA, she can proceed to undergo a course in dog grooming, which shes very excited to do. Meanwhile, near the end of the hallway in the CBS New Ross, one student received a warm welcome and congratulations from his former French teacher, Ms Helene Dangin. Having taken on French as a seventh subject as it wasnt available as an option to their year, Jesse McGrath from Ballykelly, worked on the language in his own time and took the challenge of the leaving cert with the additional subject head on, and said it was quite stressful because French wasnt offered in our year, so it added to the stress, but I needed a H3 for my course and I got a H2. With the news that he achieved 566 points, Jesse added: "Im overjoyed, but I certainly wouldnt have been able to do it without Ms Dangins help, I absolutely wouldnt have gotten that result. He now hopes to enrol as a student in University College Cork to study a course in World Languages, with his accommodation already lined up, which is yet another relief. Also in the CBS Secondary School, Dylan Lennon who has recently taken up an apprenticeship in plumbing, was relieved to have passed his exams, despite his desire to leave school in third year. "It is what it is. I didnt think I would, but I passed everything, said Dylan. I feel relieved now that I dont have to think about it anymore, that its all finished, but Im proud that I stuck it out and I did it, he added. Dylans mother, Marcella Cullen, shared how relieved she was to have the support of the school along, particularly in the last two years, when it was tough to get her teenage son to attend. "Im just relieved that I fought to keep him here and he stayed, she said. "Im delighted, because it wasnt easy, between the fights and the tears and everything, but I have to say fair play to Pat here in the school, Marcella continued. He said that Dylan was like part of the furniture for his first three years here in school and that he said Dylans a character, and he looks after the younger people really well through sport and everything, so he said Dylan won't be leaving and I'll fight with you to keep him here, and he did, Marcella said. Adding to that sentiment, and acknowledging that the students are about to embark on their journeys in every direction, CBS Principal, Sarah Rice said: "It's not just about the Leaving Cert results, but the people that they are, and the kindness that they show to everyone else, and we're so proud of our students, because they're wonderful people. "We look forward to hearing all about them, and we really look forward for them to come back and visit us and tell us how theyre getting on in the future. A prospective student of Theoretical Physics in Trinity College, Tommy Murphy from Ballymitty shared his delight at achieving the highest possible grade in all subjects, seven H1s in his core subjects of English, Irish and Maths, along with his chosen subjects, Physics, Chemistry, History and Spanish. "Its an indescribable feeling, said Tommy, a student of Good Counsel College. Tommy said he took a step back from his sporting hobbies, such as rowing with New Ross Boat Club, due to his studying commitments, however, he said all of those late nights have paid off. One lovely thing about the summer for Tommy to look forward after his leaving cert was Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann, which he attended almost every day as an avid lover of traditional Irish music, which also helped as a distraction from the wait for the results. As students must be conscious of the subjects they choose which align with the courses they wish to pursue from as early as the beginning of fifth year, Tommy said deciding on his subjects wasnt too difficult and his approach was as follows: I knew that I wanted to do physics and chemistry because I really enjoyed science for junior cert. And then I wanted to keep on Spanish, because Im quite good at Spanish. I wasnt entirely sure about the last subject, but I was interested in history which worked out well because I didn't want to lean too heavily on the math side of things. All the teachers were so supportive in every capacity, from the first day onwards they were just so helpful, said Tommy. Adding to his comments, he said he wanted to thank his parents and family, teachers, and everyone who helped along the way. Its really appreciated and Im so grateful to everybody. There was great appreciation for the support from the teachers and staff across all schools on Friday morning, and Kennedy College student, Pamela Power, said it was her teacher, Ms Connick who has inspired her for the future to pursue a career in teaching. She said: The last two years were tough, but Im glad I stuck it out and Im happy I did, because it wouldve been very easy to give up. Im hoping to do Business and Religious Studies, secondary school teaching in Thurles, because my teacher, Ms Connick, inspired me the whole way through my time here. "Shes so motivated and so positive and Id love to be able to do for other students what she did for me, she concluded. The district courts in Ireland deal with a wide range of family law issues including domestic abuse, child maintenance, custody, access, and guardianship. It is designed to be accessible to the public, and many people represent themselves without a solicitor. However, understanding the steps involved in each type of application can make the process much smoother. Below is a detailed guide to the most common types of family law applications in the district court and how to apply for them. Barring Orders A barring order removes someone from the family home and prohibits them from returning for a set period. To apply for a barring order you must be either spouses, civil partners, or cohabitants, or parents applying to protect children, or a person living in an intimate relationship with the respondent. Steps Involved: Visit your local district court office and request the application form for a barring order. You may also apply for an interim barring order if you're in immediate danger, this can be granted without the other person being present. Once you file the application a court date will be set. If an interim barring order is granted it takes effect immediately, and the respondent is notified. At the hearing both sides will present their case. You should bring any evidence you deem necessary. This can include text messages, voice messages, photographs, and CCTV footage. The Judge decides whether to grant a full barring order (up to 3 years). If you are granted a barring order and the respondent breaches it then you should report this to An Garda Siochana. Safety Orders A safety order protects you from abuse or threats but does not remove the other person from the home. Steps Involved: Go to the district court office and apply for a safety order. If immediate protection is needed you can also apply for an interim protection order, which takes effect until the full hearing. A court date will be set. The respondent is notified and invited to attend. At the hearing both parties can present evidence or witnesses. If granted a safety order can last up to 5 years. Similar to a barring order any breaches of a safety order should be reported to An Garda Siochana. If circumstances change either party can apply to vary or discharge the order. Maintenance Applications This is for when one parent or partner isnt contributing financially, and the other seeks support. Parents of dependent children (even if unmarried), and spouses or civil partners can apply for a maintenance order. Steps Involved: Go to your local district court office and request the maintenance application form. Fill in details about your income, expenses, and the needs of the child or dependent person. Submit the form and a court date will be scheduled. The court will serve papers to the respondent. At the hearing both parties must present financial information (payslips, bank statements including Revolut and credit card statements, any expenses, any additional income). The Judge will assess whats reasonable and affordable, then issue a maintenance order. If the order is not followed, you can return to court to enforce it. Access Applications If one parent is not being allowed to see their child, they can apply for access. Steps Involved: Visit the district court office to apply for an access order. Provide basic information about the child, your relationship with the child, and current arrangements. A court date will be set and the other parent notified. At the hearing the Judge will listen to both sides and focus on the best interests of the child. The court may set out a clear access schedule (e.g. weekends, holidays, phone or video calls). If there's conflict the court may suggest mediation or appoint a social worker to report on the childs needs. If access is denied after an order is made, the other party can return to court for enforcement. Custody Applications Custody refers to the day-to-day care of a child. There are two types of custody being sole custody where one parent is responsible for daily care, or joint custody where both parents share care responsibilities. Steps Involved: Apply at the district court office using a custody application form. Include information about the child's current living arrangements and any concerns. A court date is set and the other parent is notified. At the hearing the Judge may hear from both parents and, if appropriate, consider the childs views. The Judge will issue a custody order based on what arrangement is best for the child. Custody does not affect guardianship (legal rights), which is a separate issue. Guardianship Applications Guardianship means having legal responsibility for a childs welfare (education, religion, medical decisions). Unmarried fathers who are not automatic guardians (since 2016, unmarried fathers named on the birth certificate automatically become guardians if the birth was registered in Ireland) or other adults, e.g. grandparents or step-parents, may apply to the court for guardianship of a child. Steps Involved: Apply at the district court office for a guardianship order. Youll need to give details about your relationship to the child and their current care situation. A court date will be scheduled and the mother (or other guardian) will be notified. At the hearing the Judge considers the child's welfare, stability, and your involvement in their life. If successful you will be granted joint guardianship. General Steps for Any Family Law Application in the District Court Visit your local district court office: staff can guide you on what forms you need. Complete and file the application forms: be honest and detailed. The Court issues a summons or notice: the other party is officially notified. Attend the hearing: bring any evidence, documents, or witnesses. The Judge makes a decision: the court order is issued. Follow-up: ensure the order is complied with, or return to court if needed. All family law hearings are held "in camera", meaning privately, with only those involved present. There may occasionally be a reporter present but if reported on family law proceedings are anonymised therefore none of the parties involved can be named or identified. You can represent yourself if you wish to do so, however legal representation is always advised. If you are worried about the financial cost, legal aid is available if you meet the criteria and you should contact your local legal aid board for more information on legal aid. Family law days within the court tend to be long and unfortunately some days due to the length of the list not all cases can be heard on the day and your case may be adjourned to another day, especially if an agreement cannot be reached. The Judge will deal with the Child and Family Agency matters first giving you and your solicitor time to try reach an agreement with the other party outside of the court room in the meantime. Whether youre dealing with safety concerns, financial support, or parenting arrangements, the district court provides a structured process to resolve family law matters fairly. While it may feel overwhelming, there are clear steps to follow and help is available at every stage. It is normal to feel emotional during family law proceedings but anyone involved including the Judge, court clerks, and solicitors, are patient and understanding when it comes to dealing with these sensitive matters. Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme Over 2,200 primary school students in Wexford in class sizes of 30 or more. The number of primary school students in classrooms with 30 students or more reached 2,218 in the 2024/2025 academic year. Figures provided by the Department of Education show that around a third of schools in Wexford have class sizes this large. Local TDs for the Wicklow Wexford region have raised concerns regarding the impact these large class sizes will have on students ability to learn in these conditions and are calling for more funding for Education. Deputy Fionntan O Suilleabhain is a former primary school teacher of 34 years and said students who need tailored support are impacted by this. I am deeply familiar with the strain big class sizes place on teachers and the sense that you are not able to provide the best quality education to your pupils, despite your best efforts. Its not fair on anybody, he said. The average primary school class size in Europe is 19, whereas in Ireland, that figure is 22.5. Deputy O Suilleabhain said the Government must meet European standards for classroom sizes. Every child deserves the chance to thrive in school. That starts with class sizes that allow teachers to teach and students to learn. Government talks a good game about inclusive education. But how can that happen effectively when we have the biggest class sizes in Europe? he said. Wicklow Wexford TD Fionntan O Suilleabhain. He further said students who require tailored support including children with learning difficulties or disabilities are the students falling furthest behind. Families are left feeling abandoned, teachers are overwhelmed, and children are suffering. How can a teacher meaningfully differentiate their teaching and give every child the attention they need in a class with over 30 students? he added. Fionntan O Suilleabhain said that more investment is needed to recruit more teachers and prioritise the needs of the students in particular those who need tailored support. This government cannot continue to speak about inclusion while creating the conditions for exclusion, Deputy O Suilleabhain said. Malcolm Byrne, TD for Wicklow-Wexford Wicklow Wexford TD Malcolm Byrne also raised concerns over the issue, and said it is unfair for students and teachers to be in such conditions. While there has been a significant and welcome reduction in the pupil teacher ratio in recent years, it is still of concern that we have so many large class sizes. I have prioritised pushing for a further reduction in these class sizes, as well as an increase in primary school capitation grants, to give every student the best possibility of succeeding in their education, he added. As a result of this, Deputy Byrne is calling for more funding for education in the Budget and would like to see an increase in the primary school capitation grant. Despite having been granted the required exemption from Wexford County Council, plans for an IPAS centre at a former Wexford hotel look to be dead in the water after the Department of Justice confirmed it has no interest in using the property for this purpose. The old Danby Lodge, located off the main Rosslare Road in Killinick, had been granted an exemption from Wexford County Council to allow the creation of a 29 bedroom accommodation centre for asylum seekers. The building had previously been used to house Ukrainian refugees, but had been vacant for months before an application was finally submitted by Dublin-based company Vision Accommodation Solutions to use it as an IPAS (International Protection Accommodation Service) centre. Participants celebrate after completing the 'We Can Quit' stop smoking course, at BNWAP. As the summer winds down and the kids are heading back to school, its the perfect opportunity for the adults to access one of the autumn courses offered by Bray & North Wicklow Area Partnership (BNWAP), in the Boulevard Centre. The courses are open to all and completely free to attend and range from lifestyle and health-focused programmes, classes and courses, as well as employment and enterprise supports. Healthy food made easy Building on the success of Springtime Healthy Food Made Easy course, which proved to be hugely popular, BNWAP is offering this free programme once again. It is designed to teach participants how to cook nutritious meals on a budget and will begin on Monday, September 29, at 10am-12.30pm) in the Little Flower Hall, in Bray. The course is open to anybody aged 18 or over living in the greater Bray area and focuses on the following topics, using a fun and relaxed approach: Preparing, cooking and tasting healthy recipes Getting tips on food shopping Learning about healthy eating Planning meals on a budget The course is a community cooking programme developed under the Slaintecare Healthy Communities Programme. To reserve a place or find out more, email Louise Curtin at louisecurtin@bnwap.ie or call (01) 286 8266. Thrive through menopause This five-week course is for women at any stage of menopause who want to learn more and feel the best they can. Workshops will take place on Tuesdays at 7pm, starting September 9, 2025, in the Bray centre and are followed by tea/coffee, snacks and chats. Various speakers will discuss diverse topics, including: Medical options Lifestyle choices Nutrition Bone health Physical activity Places are limited so book now. You can email alex@bnwap.ie or call (01) 2868266 to reserve a spot. 'We Can Quit' Stop Smoking BNWAPs next 'We Can Quit' Stop Smoking course starts on Monday, September 8, in Bray. We Can Quit is a free, friendly and supportive seven-week programme that offers group and one-to-one support, as well as free stop smoking medication. You dont have to quit smoking before you start the course, as the actual quit date comes is week three and the facilitators will support you to prepare for that. In the first week, you will get an overview of the programme and start to look at preparing to quit. Each week will include group learning and one-to-one support sessions. BNWAP is running this programme as part of the Slaintecare Healthy Communities initiative in co-operation with Wicklow County Council. Feel free to call Karen on (083) 334 2590 for a chat to find out more, or email: stopsmoking@bnwap.ie. Conversational English classes BNWAP runs free conversational English classes throughout the year for people from new communities through the Failte Isteach project both general classes and classes specifically for Ukrainian refugees. Failte means welcome and that is the spirit of Failte Isteach, with classes taking place in a friendly small group, in a cafe-style setting. Failte Isteach is a national Third Age Ireland initiative whereby people from local communities volunteer their time to teach practical conversational English to people from other countries who live in their community. This work is resourced by the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) and the International Protection Integration Fund. The classes are held in various locations in Bray and Greystones but you must register in advance, by contacting Lorna Lafferty on (01) 286 8266 or email lornalafferty@bnwap.ie for full details. One-to-one enterprise and employment support If you are currently seeking a job, find yourself underemployed, or perhaps you are looking for some support to start your own business, BNWAPs SICAP-funded Enterprise and Employment support team can help you on your employment journey. If you are seeking a job, the team can help you identify your strengths and address your weaknesses, hone your interview skills and provide one-to-one mentoring and training to help you move towards economic independence. For people who wish to become self-employed, the team offers expertise to assess your business idea, guiding you through market research and financial planning, assistance with applications for the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance or Short-Term Enterprise Allowance plus practical, tailored training courses. BNWAP also provides work experience opportunities through the Community Employment (CE) Scheme and Tus programme. Call (01) 2868266 to find out more or to arrange an appointment. Meanwhile, if you are a person with a disability, the IMPACT WorkAbility Inclusive Pathways to Employment programme can support you to achieve sustainable employment, become self-employed or progress in your career. The programme provides person-centred supports, access to in-work supports, and guidance on education and training options. It also offers in-house and external training, work experience and placements, and tailored advice to help participants develop their skills, progress their careers, and improve their employment prospects. Call Heather on (01) 963 3342 or email: heatherredmond@bnwap.ie. Parenting course While the kids are in school, this is the perfect occasion to avail of the the Parents Plus Childrens Programme, a free, evidence-based parenting course designed to support parents of children aged 611 years in promoting confidence, learning, and positive behaviour. Running on Thursday mornings, from 9.30am to 11.30am, for six weeks, starting September 4 at 6 Prince of Wales Terrace building, Quinnsborough Rd, Bray, the course covers practical topics, including: Solving childhood problems Play and special time Building self-esteem Encouraging learning and supporting homework Setting rules and routines Managing misbehaviour with effective strategies For more information or to register, contact Sarah Louise Cole at 086 029 7445 / sarahlouisecole@bnwap.ie or Nadia Conroy at 083 073 4929 / nadiaconroy@bnwap.ie. Multinational Community Choir More about fun and socialising than learning, a new cross-community, multinational choir is starting in Bray this autumn, offering a fun and welcoming space for everyone to enjoy singing together. The choir will meet at the Ukrainian Community Centre, Quinsborough Road, Bray (A98 NX24), beginning on Tuesday, September 17 at 7pm, led by professional singing teachers Natalia and Karen. No prior experience is needed as participants will learn practical tools to help them sing with confidence in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. For more info contact Karen at (01) 2868266 or email karenhammond@bnwap.ie. The Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) is co-funded by the Irish Government, through the Department of Rural and Community Development, and the European Social Fund Plus under the Employment, Inclusion, Skills and Training (EIST) Programme 20212027. The green light has finally been given for the construction of a new Coast Guard station in Greystones, after years of delay for a new premises, despite over 300,000 spent to date on the project, with designs and costs signed off almost five years ago. The grant of permission follows an application in early July, by the Commissioners of Public Works, for the continuation of current granted permission for a new building for the Irish Coast Guard for local emergency rescue and is subject to three conditions. Plans for a new Greystones Coast Guard building to the north of Greystones Sailing Club, at the marina had been signed off in November, 2018, and the project was given planning permission by Wicklow County Council in 2020. The formal transfer of the site from Wicklow County Council to the Office of Public Works (OPW) took place in September 2023, but prior to that, previous proposals had ground to a halt after 12 years of discussions due to a lack of funds. The Coast Guard unit is currently based in a building beside Greystones Garda Station. The hold-ups in developing the station have also delayed the refurbishment of that garda station, as the works are contingent on the Coast Guard relocating. Plans for the facility include a single-storey boathouse and vehicle store with a flat roof, alongside a single-storey accommodation block with a mono-pitch roof. The building will cover a combined floor area of 257 square metres, with a maximum roof height of 7.8 metres above the adjacent public space. In the planners report, it was highlighted that a new Coast Guard Station at Greystones Harbour would be a welcome addition that would increase safety for our seafaring community. It was also pointed out that a traffic management plan detailing how members of the Coast Guard responding to an emergency call out will travel to the Coast Guard Station in their vehicles through the combined vehicle/pedestrian areas of the harbour, as there can be a lot of pedestrians in this area, particularly during events such as the weekly Greystones Plaza Market which takes place every Sunday during the summer period. "The applicant should consult with the Harbourmaster for Greystones Harbour, the Greystones Municipal District Engineer and the developer of the Harbour Sisk in relation to the preparation of the traffic management plan. The Coast Guard unit is currently based in a building beside Greystones Garda Station. The hold-ups in developing the station have also delayed the refurbishment of that garda station, as the works are contingent on the Coast Guard relocating. Commenting on the approval, Councillor Stephen Stokes said it was a major step forward in strengthening local maritime safety and emergency response and hailed it as a "vital investment in public safety and community resilience." The project has been a long-standing priority for local residents, the Coast Guard service, and community campaigners, he explained. The Coast Guard plays a crucial role in protecting lives at sea and along our coastline. Greystones is a busy maritime community, with countless people enjoying sailing, swimming, and coastal activities throughout the year. This new station will give our local Coast Guard the modern facilities they deserve to continue their life-saving work. He also paid tribute to the dedicated Coast Guard members who serve the Greystones area, often in challenging and dangerous conditions. This station is not just about bricks and mortar, it is about equipping our volunteers with the tools and support they need. I want to thank all who have campaigned for this development over many years. Todays approval is a victory for their persistence and commitment to public safety." The next step will see the project progress towards construction, with timelines to be confirmed following tendering and procurement processes. A tender process was initially pulled in 2023 for technical reasons and a second tender process began in December 2024, with tenders returned in March 2025. The OPW is currently compiling an assessment report and recommendations for the Department of Transport, with the aim of placing the construction contract with the preferred bidder shortly afterwards. It is understood construction is expected to begin later in 2025. The estimated duration of the project is approximately 14 months. Greystones is growing rapidly, and we must ensure that our infrastructure keeps pace across Charlesland, Delgany, Greystones, Kilcoole, Killadreenan and Newcastle, Cllr Stokes continued. I will work closely with Wicklow County Council, the Department of Transport, and the Coast Guard to ensure this project is delivered as efficiently as possible." Peter Johnston, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Farzana Maudarbaccus of Farzana Consulting. pic Orla Murray/Coalesce. Peter Johnston, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Bridget Johnson, Finaha Consulting, Wicklow. pic Orla Murray/Coalesce. For many entrepreneurs, the path to building a successful business can feel solitary. But for women in rural Ireland, the ACORNS programme offers a supportive community designed to help them navigate the early stages of their ventures. As the initiative opens applications for its 11th cycle, two Wicklow entrepreneurs are sharing how the program helped them turn their business ideas into reality. Farzana Maudarbaccus, the founder of Farzana Consulting, recently completed the ACORNS 10 cycle. Having launched her management consultancy in 2021 after a three-year career break, Farzana was seeking a way to balance work with parenting. The Greystones-based entrepreneur now specialises in helping emerging leaders develop their skills and offers wellbeing sessions to organisations. Farzana said she found immense value in the collaborative spirit of the program. It was really enriching to have my lead entrepreneurs input, reflections and experience, she says. I also found having several brains working on my business super valuable. She explains that the insights from her fellow participants were not only practical but also deeply encouraging. It was reassuring to be in the same room as other businesswomen who had similar challenges, she adds, highlighting the power of shared experience. ACORNS will enrich and strengthen your business mind and the way to do business. Bridget Johnson, an executive creative director and founder of Finaha Consulting, is another Wicklow entrepreneur who benefited from the ACORNS programme. She echoes Farzanas sentiments about the program's unique community aspect. I cannot recommend the ACORNS programme enough, she says. The community advice and support is invaluable. Bridget credits the program with providing a crucial network of peers. "Never underestimate what is possible when you have a support crew, on a similar journey to you, prompting and gently pushing you towards your goals," she advises. ACORNS has been providing support to early-stage female entrepreneurs for more than a decade. The 11th cycle, which runs from October 2025 to April 2026, will feature six monthly roundtable sessions, a workshop on financials, and briefings from various development agencies. Up to 50 places are available for the new cycle. The deadline for applications is midnight on September 22. To apply, prospective participants must first register at www.acorns.ie to receive an application form. To be eligible, applicants must be female entrepreneurs living in rural Ireland who had no sales before the end of June 2022. See the celebrations by clicking through our gallery of images below Students from across west Wicklow saw their hard work, commitment and contributions to their school communities throughout the year repaid in spades as they celebrated their stellar Leaving Cert results this morning. From Blessington Community College in the north to Colaiste Bride Carnew in the south, former students returned to their alma mater to share in their achievements, with sizeable crowds flocking to St Kevins Community College in Dunlavin. Delighted with her students performances, which included scores over 600, Colaiste Bhride principal Anna Gahan said students extracurricular activities and involvement in the school community were at the root of their exceptional results, with the experiences standing them in good stead as they take their next steps. We had over 170 students sitting the traditional Leaving Cert, and 17 students sitting the Leaving Cert Applied, and were very proud of each one of them, she said. We would have a substantial number and them over 500 and a huge number of students here who achieved over 600, so there was a phenomenal set of results this year. Theyve had the benefit of undertaking the junior cycle exams, so that certainly stands to students, the experience of state examinations. But they didnt benefit from a significant boost to the grades as last years cohort. Despite that, theyve maintained the high achievements of students here at the school, and we would attribute that to a strong academic focus, but also a very holistic approach to their education. We would see things like student leadership, the co-curricular engagements in various activities, and achieving both in school and outside, so they have a really strong balance of things. The students contributed hugely to the school community, giving up their time to help younger students, serving as meitheal leaders and senior prefects. That mindset and the rounded nature of their maturity have and will stand to them as they go forward. Praising past students from Colaiste Eoin, Hacketstown, as school spokesperson said: The hard work, commitment, and resilience shown by this year group have truly paid off, with excellent results across the board. Staff and families are immensely proud of every student for their achievements, especially given the added pressure of tighter national grading this year. Today is a day of celebration, reflection, and excitement for the bright future that now lies ahead. Congratulations to the entire class of 2025you have done yourselves and your school proud. Wicklow TD Jennifer Whitmore is calling for the government to step up to the plate and support the full regeneration of a problem plagued social housing estate in Co Wicklow. The Social Democrat TD held meeting with the chief executive of Wicklow County Council, Emer OGorman, where she received confirmation that the council will work alongside residents of Hillview Estate in Wicklow town in order to address long-standing issues, including leaks, damp and mould. The estate was the feature of an RTE Prime Time feature, followed by a protest held by frustrated residents outside the town hall in Wicklow held on Monday, July 28. Having visited Hillview earlier in the summer, Deputy Whitmore was so shocked at the condition of some of the houses that she requested a meeting with the council chief executive. She explained: When I went up to Hillview Estate in June, I was absolutely shocked by what I saw. Flooding, mould, rat infestations, illegal dumping, not to mention the widespread dereliction during a nationwide housing crisis. RTEs Prime Time covered the issues in the estate, bringing the situation to the publics attention. Needless to say, people were as horrified as I was by what they saw on the TV. Since visiting the estate, I have met with the chief executive of Wicklow County Council, Emer OGorman. I was really pleased to learn at this meeting that some steps were already in place to address the problems and are committed to working directly with residents. Thats a positive development, but its only the beginning. The council has committed to carrying out a condition survey of every home, as well as engaging with the new residents association, with regular meetings planned, and they are in the process of advancing a regeneration plan, which has already been submitted to the Department of Housing. Deputy Whitmore added: These are all really welcome step by the council. A full regeneration plan will need significant investment and funding from the Department of Housing, though, and I will be contacting Minister James Brownes office this week to push for that support. "The situation in Hillview is not just about repairs its about restoring dignity to a community thats been neglected for far too long. The councils commitment is welcome, but the department must now get behind this plan and deliver the funding needed to make it happen and I have written to the minister to encourage that. The sisterhood of ill repute inside Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinskys friendship The pair bonded over respective humiliations from a rabid media Amanda Knox (left) and Monica Lewinsky (right) pictured with actor Grace Van Patten, who stars as Knox in new Disney+ mini series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. Photo: AP Marianka Swain Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd Fri 22 Aug 2025 at 06:30 Its the scandal-survivor equivalent of the superhero team-up. Monica Lewinsky whose affair with president Bill Clinton in the 1990s placed her at the centre of a media firestorm has partnered with Amanda Knox on a new TV drama. The series recounts Knoxs experience of being wrongfully convicted of the murder of British flatmate Meredith Kercher, and of becoming a tabloid sensation under the moniker Foxy Knoxy. Facility reported to be located 25km from border with China and could house up to nine ICBMs North Korea has built a secret missile base that could be used to launch a nuclear strike against the United States, according to satellite research. The undeclared facility is believed to house as many as nine nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), preliminary research by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, has found. Hidden in a narrow mountain valley about 25km from the Chinese border, it is one of as many as 20 covert bases that make up North Koreas clandestine missile belt, a central element of the regimes growing nuclear deterrent. In recent weeks North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to accelerate the countrys nuclear programme, a move that analysts partly attribute to US air strikes on Iran in June. The bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities reportedly built with North Korean help is said to have reinforced Pyongyangs determination to strengthen its own deterrent. North Korea is estimated to possess 50 nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to build 40 more, according to the latest annual estimate by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which monitors global nuclear developments. The base near the village of Sinpung-dong has been operational since 2014, but has undergone upgrades, CSIS said. Missiles stationed there pose a nuclear threat to east Asia and the continental United States, the think tanks report warned. The absence of visible launchpads is particularly troubling, suggesting the base could house solid-fuel ICBMs capable of being launched from large trucks that can be moved around to evade detection. Unlike liquid-fuelled missiles, solid-fuel weapons can be pre-fuelled, hidden and deployed from dispersed locations making them far harder to destroy pre-emptively. Bases such as Sinpung-dong are believed to have been positioned close to the Chinese frontier to diminish the likelihood of a pre-emptive US strike, given the risk of drawing Beijing into a conflict. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have sharpened as Pyongyang strengthens ties with Russia. Kim is thought to have sent 11,000 troops to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, raising concerns Moscow may have reciprocated by supplying North Korea with advanced nuclear and missile technology. Kim said earlier this week that North Korea must grow its nuclear arsenal as he hit out at joint military drills between the US and South Korea. A British Airways flight attendant was found high on drugs and completely naked in an onboard toilet during a flight from California to London, a court has heard. Haden Pentecost, 41 who was described as agitated, sweating and babbling had to be stood down by the flights manager when he failed to help with any pre-flight safety checks. After complaining of stomach cramps and saying he needed to change his clothes, the air steward locked himself in one of the planes bathrooms. When he opened the door, his colleague found him naked and oblivious to the fact he had no clothes on. She had to dress him before moving him into a free seat, the court was told. He has since been sacked by British Airways (James Manning/PA) Pentecost appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to performing an aviation function while impaired by drugs. The flight attendant was spoken to by the captain before a health professional was called for, magistrates were told. He had dilated pupils, a high heart rate, and had to be checked every 20 minutes until the plane arrived at Heathrow where paramedics took him to hospital. A blood test later revealed Pentecost had methamphetamine and amphetamine in his system, the court heard. He has since been sacked by British Airways, and lives with his husband, the court was told. Pentecost, of Basingstoke, was granted to bail to be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court at a later date. British Airways has been approached for comment. The mother of a Palestinian man who was killed while trying to reach aid trucks, is comforted by relatives outside Shifa Hospital, before his funeral in Gaza City. Photo: AP Thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes in Gaza City, as the Israeli military continued its assault on the enclave ahead of a planned occupation. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to give final approval last night for plans to take over Gaza City, an operation that could start within days. The widening of the 22-month offensive against Hamas appears to be proceeding despite protests in both Israel and the Palestinian enclave. More than half a million people experiencing famine Aid agencies report rapid increase in child malnutrition cases in Gaza A famine that we could have prevented had we been allowed UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher Gaza hospitals struggle with limited nutritious pastes and therapeutic milk supplies for malnourished children Deaths from malnutrition spike Hamada Al-Kilani (18), who was shot in the abdomen by an Israeli tank, receives treatment at Shifa Hospital, where doctors say he is also showing signs of malnutrition. Photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Photo: AP/Jehad Alshrafi Palestinians, including children, plead for food as they wait for hot meals. Photo: Getty Images Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread, a global hunger monitor has determined an assessment that will escalate pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City, known as the Gaza governorate, which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. It was the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but that limited data prevented any precise classification. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content "It is a famine that we could have prevented had we been allowed," said UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher. "Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel." President Michael D Higgins said the classification of famine will sadly not surprise all of us who have been warning of this for some time, as he urged the EU to take action. So many world leaders have issued statements over the last two years, always referencing a two-state solution. How can they now see the very concept destroyed before their eyes in Gaza with the loss of life, and in the West Bank with further illegal occupation, President Higgins said. Without urgent change, it is difficult to see how the international community can emerge without a loss of credibility and moral authority, he continued. None of this will wait until September What is at stake now is the status of international law, the granting of impunity in conditions of indiscriminate destruction, and misrepresentation of the right to food itself by an occupying power. None of this will wait until September. It is now the time for action on behalf of the international community, including all members of the European Union. Israel dismissed the findings as false and biased, saying the IPC had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food. The report was an "outright lie", said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "It is a modern blood libel, spreading like wildfire through prejudice. History will judge those who peddle it," he said in a statement. Palestinians, including children, plead for food as they wait for hot meals. Photo: Getty Images Save The Children staff and Gaza beneficiaries recount experiences as famine declared in Gaza City For a region to be classified as in famine, at least 20pc of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease. Previously, the IPC has only registered famines in Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the Gaza famine was a "man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself." He called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages still held by Hamas and unfettered humanitarian access. UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned that deaths from starvation could amount to a war crime. Karam Arhouma (22) is fed lentil soup through a syringe at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana Israel controls all access to Gaza. Cogat, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows, said the IPC report ignored Israeli data on aid deliveries and was part of an international campaign aimed at denigrating Israel. "The IPC report is not only biased but also serves Hamas's propaganda campaign," the agency said. In Israel, Hebrew-language news websites highlighted the famine report on their front pages, with the liberal Haaretz focused on the severity of starvation in Gaza City, while Israel Hayom, N12 and Ynet emphasised Israel's rejection of the report as biased and cited concerns over the possible diplomatic fallout. Underscoring those worries, Britain called the IPC report "utterly horrifying" and demanded that Israel immediately allow unhindered supplies of food, medicines and fuel. "The Israeli government's refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage," British foreign secretary David Lammy said. Britain, Canada, Australia and many European states recently said the humanitarian crisis had reached "unimaginable levels". Israel has long counted on the US its most powerful ally for military aid and diplomatic support. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that 65pc of Americans believe the US should help those starving in Gaza. An erosion of US public support would be a worrisome sign for Israel, as it faces not only Hamas militants in Gaza but unresolved conflict with Iran. US president Donald Trump last month said many people there were starving, putting him at odds with Mr Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said there was no starvation. Palestinians, including children, plead for food as they wait for hot meals. Photo: Getty Images Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd The IPC said the analysis released today only covered people living in Gaza, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates. It was unable to classify North Gaza governorate due to access restrictions and a lack of data, and it excluded any remaining population in the southern Rafah region as it is largely uninhabited. The UN has complained of obstacles to delivering and distributing aid in Gaza, blaming impediments on Israel and lawlessness. Israel has been critical of the UN-led operation and accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the militants deny. It is the fifth time in the past 14 years that a famine has been determined by the IPC an initiative involving 21 aid groups, United Nations agencies and regional organisations. which is funded by the European Union, Germany, Britain and Canada. The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's military campaign has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to broker an end to the conflict. Palestinians, including children, plead for food as they wait for hot meals. Photo: Getty Images UN official: Some Israeli leaders using hunger as a weapon as famine declared in Gaza Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (C) speaks to the media after his meeting with the E3 group of European ministers on June 20, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland. (Photo by Sedat Suna/Getty Images) Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will have a joint phone call with his French, British and German counterparts on Friday to discuss nuclear talks and sanctions, state news agency IRNA reported. The three European powers have threatened to activate United Nations sanctions on Iran under a "snapback" mechanism if Iran does not return to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme. The countries, along with the United States, contend Iran is using the nuclear programme to potentially develop weapons, which Iran denies. Tehran suspended negotiations with the U.S., which were aimed at curbing the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions, after the U.S. and Israel struck its nuclear sites in June. Since then, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been unable to access Iran's nuclear installations, despite IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stating that inspections remain essential. The FBI is searching the Maryland home of John Bolton, who served in President Donald Trumps first administration as national security adviser but later became critical of the president, as part of an investigation into the handling of classified documents, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. The person was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press. Messages left with a spokesperson for Bolton and the White House were not immediately returned. A lawyer who has represented Bolton had no immediate comment Friday. John Bolton (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Here's the latest: In an overnight social media post, Trump said he was considering a complete and total Federal takeover of the City! Hes already seized control of the local police department for 30 days, which could be extended with congressional approval. Trump has claimed the city is in the midst of a crime crisis despite statistics showing a declining problem. The U.S. attorney in Washington has opened an investigation into the numbers, the latest pressure point in a tug of war between the administration and D.C. government. Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, the president wrote. A few local police cars were stationed across the street from Boltons house outside Washington as FBI agents passed in and out. The tan-and-brick structure is set back from a two-lane road on a leafy suburban street. Reporters and curious neighbors gathered across the street, including a man who gave only his first name as David. He said it appears Bolton is being targeted because of his disagreement with the Trump, a frightening prospect. The crowd grew to include prominent Trump critic George Conway as passing cars slowed near the scene. One driver shouted shame on you! The plot was in presumed retaliation for a January 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed the countrys most powerful general. Bolton had by then left the Trump administration but tweeted, Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran. In his book The Room Where It Happened, Bolton portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government. Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a crazy war-monger who would have led the country into World War Six. The president is scheduled to make an announcement at noon ET in the Oval Office. Its unclear what it will be about. This is the only event on Trumps public schedule. Bolton faced scrutiny during the first Trump administration over a book he wrote about his time in government, The Room Where it Happened, that officials argued disclosed classified information. The Justice Department in 2021 abandoned its lawsuit and dropped a separate grand jury investigation. Boltons lawyers have said he moved forward with the book, which was published in 2020, after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, had said the manuscript no longer contained classified information. As the search was ongoing, Bolton could be seen standing inside in the lobby of the Washington building where he keeps an office and talking to two people with FBI visible on their vests. He was spotted by an Associated Press reporter who arrived at the building. He left a few minutes later and appeared to have gone upstairs in the building. Longtime political adviser Roger Stone, who was prosecuted during the Russia investigation and later pardoned by Trump, was gleeful on social media. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 oclock in the morning? he posted. 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. Old vs New Income Tax Regime in India: How to Choose the Right Tax Option We provide an overview and comparison of the old vs new income tax system in India and the proposed changes announced in the Union Budget 2024-25 to assist taxpayers in making an informed choice. It must be noted that the tax slabs and tax rates remain the same under the old tax system as the government wants to make the new tax regime, first announced in Union Budget 2020-21, more appealing to the middle class. The Union Budget 2024-25 announced on July 23, 2024 introduced key changes to the new income tax regime. This includes an increase in the standard deduction from INR 50,000 (approx. US$597.1) to INR 75,000 (approx. US$895.7). Expressing optimism on the proposed changes, Indias Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman noted that this would enable salaried workers opting for the new tax system to save a significant amount in income tax. Union Budget 2024 did not make any changes to the old tax regime, under which the government will continue to allow for deductions like home loan interest payments. The new tax regime is the default personal income tax structure in India but taxpayers can still opt for the old tax regime. In this article, we provide an overview of both tax regimes to help taxpayers make an informed choice. For assistance in devising an optimal tax strategy best suited to your employee income structure, contact our experts at india@dezshira.com. Changes introduced to the new income tax regime in Union Budget 2024-25 Individual taxpayers are subject to tax under the Indian income tax system depending on the income or profits they have made which is the taxable income. The new tax regime for individuals and Hindu Undivided Families (HUF) was first introduced in the Union Budget 2020-21. From time to time, the finance minister has proposed changes to the new tax regime under various union budget announcements. Tax savings and standard deduction Standard deduction: The standard deduction has increased from INR 50,000 (approx. US$597.1) to INR 75,000 (approx. US$895.7) under the new tax regime. The standard deduction has increased from INR 50,000 (approx. US$597.1) to INR 75,000 (approx. US$895.7) under the new tax regime. Rebate under Section 87A : Salaried individuals with incomes up to INR 775,000 (approx. US$9256.9) can use the INR 75,000 (approx. US$895.7) standard deduction and claim a rebate of up to INR 25,000 (approx. US$298.6). : Salaried individuals with incomes up to INR 775,000 (approx. US$9256.9) can use the INR 75,000 (approx. US$895.7) standard deduction and claim a rebate of up to INR 25,000 (approx. US$298.6). Concessional surcharge rate: For those earning more than INR 50 million (approx. US$597,225), the surcharge rate has been reduced from 37 percent to 25 percent in the new regime, decreasing the effective tax rate from 42.744 percent to 39 percent. Changes to personal income tax slabs in the new tax regime Changes to the New Tax Regime FY 2024-25 Revised structure Rate (%) INR 0-300,000 Nil INR 300,000 to INR 700,000 5 INR 700,000 to INR 1 million 10 INR 1 million to INR 1.2 million 15 INR 1.2 million to INR 1.5 million 20 Above INR 1.5 million 30 According to the government, all taxpayers who choose the new tax regime will be able to receive tax benefits up to INR 17,500 (approx. US$209). To be noted, the following items cannot be claimed under the new tax regime: house rent allowance (HRA), leave travel allowance (LTA), reimbursement for mobile and internet, food coupons or vouchers, company-leased automobile, standard deduction, uniform allowance, and leave encashment. Accordingly, taxpayers could choose to pay less in taxes without being able to take advantage of exemptions and deductions. Previously, when it was first implemented, the new tax system comprised of seven distinct slabs. Old tax regime Despite having higher tax slabs, the old tax system has remained the mainstay for taxpayers in India since it gives those with greater yearly earnings and more investments more room for tax deductions. Under the old tax regime, by claiming deductions under sections 80C, 80D, 80TTA, and 80TTB of the Income-tax Act 1961, as well as tax exemptions on house rent allowance, leave travel concession, and other items, an individual can reduce their gross taxable income. The following expenses are deductible under the old tax regime: Public Provident Fund (PPF), Equity-Linked Savings Schemes (ELSS), Employees Provident Fund (EPF), life insurance premiums, principal and interest payments on a mortgage, health insurance premiums, investments in NPS, child tuition fees, and interest on savings accounts. Income Tax Slabs Under the Old Tax Regime [Unchanged as of FY 2024-25] Income tax slabs Income tax rate (%) INR 0 250,000 0 INR 250,000 500,000 5 INR 500,00 1,000,000 20 INR 1,000,000 and above 30 New vs. old income tax regime: Which is more beneficial for you? Despite the old income tax regimes continued deduction benefits, the new regime presents lower tax slabs for salaried individuals earning up to INR 700,000 (approx. US$8361.1), INR 1 million (approx. US$11,944.5), and INR 1.2 million (approx. US$14,333) annum. Additionally, salaried individuals with an income of INR 775,000 (approx. US$9256.9) are exempt from paying taxes under the new regime, thanks to the increased standard deduction of INR 75,000 (US$895.7) and a rebate of up to INR 25,000 (US$298.6) under Section 87A, bringing their tax liability to zero. In essence, the new tax regime is more appealing for those earning up to INR 1.2 million (approx. US$14,333) per year. However, its advantage depends on the taxpayers investment scenario, as higher investments may still make the old regime with its deductions more beneficial. Therefore, it is advisable for taxpayers to seek guidance from tax professionals to determine which regime offers the best tax savings for their specific situation. In the old tax regime, taxpayers are motivated to choose specific instruments for their investments to be eligible for tax reduction. Calculation of Tax Savings Under New Tax Regime: Previous vs Revised Tax Slab Proposed tax slabs Rate of tax Amount of tax Tax slab (before July 23, 2024) Rate of tax Amount of tax 0-300,000 Nil 0-300,000 Nil 300,001 -700,000 5% 20,000 300,000 600,000 5% 15,000 700,001 1 million 10% 30,000 600,001 900,000 10% 30,000 1 million 1.2 million 15% 30,000 900,001 1.2 million 15% 45,000 1.2 million to 1.5 million 20% 60,000 1.2 million to 1.5 million 20% 60,000 While the new income tax regime is the default option for taxpayers in India, they still have the option of choosing the old tax regime every year. This is applicable only if the individual doesnt have a business income. Starting FY 2023-24, a taxpayer with business income who specifically wants to continue paying taxes under the old tax regime, will have to opt for it. They would have the choice to convert to the new tax regime only once in their lifetime and cannot then switch back to the old tax regime. (US$1 = INR 83.73). This article was originally published February 7, 2023. It was last updated July 29, 2024. ABO Desire Episode 9 online: Fans of the Chinese drama ABO Desire can stream Episode 9 online today, August 23, 2025, at approximately 5:30 PM IST / 12:00 PM GMT / 8:00 AM ET, according to the official release schedule. ABO Desire is set in a world reshaped by a virus that divided society into Alphas, Betas, Omegas, and the elusive Enigmas - each with unique instincts and social roles. The story centers on Sheng Shaoyou, a powerful S-class Alpha burdened by family secrets, and Hua Yong, a cunning intern who seems like an Omega but hides his true Enigma nature. Their intense cat-and-mouse dynamic, filled with secret deals and emotional clashes, keeps audiences hooked. ABO Desire Episode 9 online. Credit: GagaOOLala ABO Desire: Release date and time for Episode 9 Episode 9 airs on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 5:30 PM IST / 12:00 PM GMT / 8:00 AM ET. It will also be available to international viewers via simultaneous streaming on Viki, all of which offer English subtitles to make the series accessible to a global audience. Where to Watch ABO Desire Episode 9 Online? Episodes 9 is available to stream on Viki - the main legal platforms offering high-quality video and English subtitles. For viewers in the U.S., Canada, India, Indonesia, and Viki remains the top choice for watching the series. ABO Desire: Episode 9 Plot? ABO Desire, also called Desire, is heating up the summer watchlist for Boys' Love (BL) fans who crave messy, mysterious, and biologically intense romance. This Chinese web drama plunges into the Omegaverse world filled with pheromones, power struggles, and hidden identities. Adapted from Nong Jian's novel, it has gained a devoted global fanbase thanks to its unexpected twists and a captivating, magnetic cast. ABO Desire episode 9: Spoilers Here are the spoilers for Episode 9 of the Chinese series ABO Desire based on the YouTube preview: Ga only wanted one thing - to be seen as an omega, and for that recognition to come from Shen Wenling. For years, fleeting kindness from Shen was enough. But desire grew into something heavier, until Ga found himself wanting not just acknowledgement, but Shen's love.Then fate struck - he was pregnant. The doctor's words cut like steel: "You must terminate immediately. Without your alpha, it's impossible to survive." But Ga's heart rebelled. He wanted the child, even if it meant risking everything. When Shen found out, his response was merciless: "Abort it." The word shattered Ga. Yet fate twisted again. Face-to-face, Shen's cold mask cracked. "I hate omegas," he admitted, "but if it's you, I would love you to madness. I don't like children, but if they're yours, I would never let them be hurt." For the first time, Ga dared to hope - maybe love wasn't impossible after all. Top 4 BLs are very diversified! Did you see this rank coming? Don't forget to watch and stream shows right only on GagaOOLala! Go to GagaOOLala website or app and start watching now pic.twitter.com/xwnruTfSOG GagaOOLala (@gagaoolala) August 22, 2025 ABO Desire: Cast and Characters The primary cast of the Chinese BL series ABO Desire features Huang Xing as Hua Yong, Qiu Dingjie as Sheng Shaoyou, Li Peien as Gao Tu, and Jiang Heng as Shen Wenlang. FAQs 1. When will Episode 9 of ABO Desire be released? ABO Desire Episode 9 will be released on August 23, 2025, at 5:30 PM IST / 12:00 PM GMT / 8:00 AM ET. 2. Where can I watch Episode 9 of ABO Desire online? You can stream Episode 9 on Viki. All three platforms offer English subtitles. 3. Does ABO Desire have English subtitles? Yes, the series is fully subtitled in English on Viki, including Episodes 9. 4. Is ABO Desire available on Netflix? No, ABO Desire is not available on Netflix. It officially streams on Viki. For all the latest K-drama, K-pop, and Hallyuwood updates, keep following our coverage here. Beyond the Bar Episode 7 online: Fans awaiting the K-drama Beyond the Bar can stream Episode 7 online, August 23, 2025, at approximately 10:40 PM KST around 7:10 PM IST, as per the official schedule. The story follows Yun Seok Hun, a brilliant but cold partner at Yullim Law Firm, known for his bold strategies and sharp logic. Working with him is Kang Hyo Min, a socially awkward but confident rookie lawyer. Though they constantly clash, their partnership challenges them both - and helps Hyo Min grow into a true lawyer. Beyond the Bar Episode 7 online. Credit: jTBC Beyond the Bar: Release date and time for Episode 7 Episode 7 airs on Sunday, August 23, 2025, in South Korea and will go live around 10:40 PM KST on the JTBC channel. Viewers in other time zones can expect the release at approximately 2:40 PM BST in the UK and 7:10 PM IST in India on the same day. The episode will also be available for international audiences via streaming on Netflix, which provides English subtitles to make the series accessible worldwide. Where to Watch Beyond the Bar Episode 7 Online? Episode 7 is available to stream on Netflix, the main legal platforms offering high-quality video and English subtitles. For viewers in the U.S., Canada, India, Indonesia, and the UK, Netflix continues to be the top choices for watching the series. Beyond the Bar: Plot highlights of Episode 7 At Yullim Law Firm, cold and brilliant partner Yun Seok Hun is forced to work with rookie lawyer Kang Hyo Min, who's awkward but fiercely principled. Their constant clashes spark unexpected growth, as both begin to redefine what it means to be a lawyer. oh guys, i love the whole concept of #beyondthebar. at first, he was the coldest, scariest choice. but he now became her everything. her refuge. her safe place. even for him. shes breathing life into him, a man who had forgotten how to live. pic.twitter.com/tYTnBKp35X rue (@writtenbysaints) August 17, 2025 Beyond the Bar episode 7: Spoilers Here are the spoilers for Episode 7 of the Korean series Beyond the Bar based on the YouTube preview: In the upcoming episode, Na Yeon stirs up Yullim Law Firm with a bold new policy that changes the incentive system for lawyers. Acting without approval, she forces the decision on the team, sparking both support and backlash. Seok Hun stands firmly by her side, demanding to know how long young lawyers must remain exploited and pushing for overdue reform, while Tae Seop grows increasingly uneasy and begins plotting quietly against him. Meanwhile, Seok Hun takes on a tense new case involving a man accused of assisting a suicide attempt, reported by the defendant's wife's younger sister. Strangely, the man refuses legal defense and accepts punishment, but in court, Seok Hun argues for his innocence, setting up a gripping battle over justice and morality. Amid all the turmoil, emotions begin to shift on a personal level. Hyo Min openly thanks Seok Hun, her joy spilling over, only to be caught off guard when he suddenly appears in the room and asks, "Are you almost done?" The unexpected moment hints at the possibility of their bond evolving beyond professionalism, leaving viewers eager to see how both the legal fight and their relationship unfold. Beyond the Bar: Cast and Characters JTBC and Netflix team up once again for the upcoming legal drama Beyond the Bar, starring Lee Jin-wook of Squid Game and Sweet Home fame. The series also features Jung Chae-yeon, Lee Hak-joo, and Jeon Hye-bin in key roles. FAQs 1. When will Episode 7 of Beyond the Bar be released? Answer: Beyond the Bar Episode 7 will be released on August 23, 2025, and will air at 10:40 PM KST around 7:10 PM IST. 2. Where can I watch Episode 7 of Beyond the Bar online? Answer: Beyond the Bar Episode 7 will be available for streaming on Netflix, the platform offering English subtitles. 3. Does Beyond the Bar have English subtitles? Answer: Yes, Beyond the Bar is fully subtitled in English on Netflix, including Episode 7. 4. What is the plot of Episode 7 of Beyond the Bar? Answer: Beyond the Bar Episode 7 will see a rookie lawyer with strong ideals faces the legal world under a cold, demanding mentor. 5. Is Beyond the Bar available on Netflix? Answer: Yes, Beyond the Bar is available on Netflix. The drama officially streams on this site. For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episode 1 online: Fans awaiting the K-drama Bon Appetit, Your Majesty can stream Episode 1 online on August 23, 2025, at approximately 5:40 PM IST / 9:10 PM KST, as per the official schedule. The story follows Chef Yeon Ji Yeong, a perfectionist at the height of her career, who is suddenly transported to a royal palace and tasked with cooking for the feared King Yi Heon. Amid palace politics and survival struggles, her fiery spirit clashes with his deadly tempersparking a battle of wills that may alter both their destinies. Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episode 1 online. Credit: Netflix Bon Appetit, Your Majesty: Release date and time for Episode 1 Episode 1 airs on Sunday, August 23, 2025, in South Korea and will go live around 9:10 PM KST on the TVING channel. Viewers in other time zones can expect the release at approximately 1:10 PM BST in the UK and 5:40 PM IST in India on the same day. The episode will also be available for international audiences via streaming on Netflix, which provides English subtitles to make the series accessible worldwide. Where to Watch Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episode 1 Online? Episode 1 is available to stream on Netflix, the main legal platforms offering high-quality video and English subtitles. For viewers in the U.S., Canada, India, Indonesia, and the UK, Netflix continues to be the top choices for watching the series. Bon Appetit, Your Majesty episode 1: Spoilers Here are the spoilers for Episode 1 of the Korean series Bon Appetit, Your Majesty based on the YouTube preview: Yeon Ji Yeong, a celebrated chef trained in French cuisine, is at the height of her career when a sudden twist of fate hurls her into the world of the royal palace. Thrust into an environment ruled by strict etiquette and dangerous rivalries, she is assigned to serve King Yi Heon, a monarch notorious for his razor-sharp temper and unmatched discernment in food. Every dish is a test, and every move she makes could spell disaster. King Yi Heon commands respect with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue, leaving his court in constant unease. His discerning taste and insistence on excellence make him feared. Adapting her modern skills to an unforgiving historical setting, Yeon Ji Yeong must maneuver through palace schemes, master the art of survival cooking, and confront unexpected feelings that challenge her heart and mind. Her goal is not just to endure the treacherous palace kitchen but to earn the favor of a king whose approval might change the course of her life forever. Yet the arrival of a skilled and bold new chef disrupts his world. Yeon Ji Yeong's presence forces the king to reconsider his rigid standards - and perhaps opens a doorway for a connection he never anticipated. Bon Appetit, Your Majesty: Cast and Characters The series is directed by Jang Tae-yoo and features a talented cast including Im Yoon-ah, Lee Chae-min, Kang Han-na, and Choi Gwi-hwa. FAQs 1. When will Episode 1 of Bon Appetit, Your Majesty be released? Answer: Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episode 1 will be released on August 23, 2025, and will air at 9:10 PM KST around 5:40 PM IST. 2. Where can I watch Episode 1 of Bon Appetit, Your Majesty online? Answer: Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episode 1 will be available for streaming on Netflix, the platform offering English subtitles. 3. Does Bon Appetit, Your Majesty have English subtitles? Answer: Yes, Bon Appetit, Your Majesty is fully subtitled in English on Netflix, including Episode 1. 4. What is the plot of Episode 1 of Bon Appetit, Your Majesty? Answer: Bon Appetit, Your Majesty Episode 1 will see a rookie lawyer with strong ideals faces the legal world under a cold, demanding mentor. 5. Is Bon Appetit, Your Majesty available on Netflix? Answer: Yes, Bon Appetit, Your Majesty is available on Netflix. The drama officially streams on this site. For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Opening statements began Friday in the trial of Donna Adelson, accused in the 2014 murder-for-hire of her former son-in-law, Florida State University law professor Dan Markel. A 12-person jury and two alternates were sworn in after three days of questioning, with Leon Circuit Judge Stephen Everett presiding. Adelson, 75, faces charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation in a case that has already led to four convictions, including that of her son, Charlie Adelson. Background to the case Dan Markel was killed in July 2014 as he returned home from the gym after dropping off his children at preschool. Prosecutors allege two hitmen from Miami followed him and shot him in his driveway. A neighbor reported seeing a light-colored Prius speeding away before discovering Markel. Investigators later connected the murder to an ongoing custody dispute between Markel and his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson. Emails and testimony presented in earlier proceedings indicated Donna Adelson pushed strongly for Wendis relocation to South Florida, offering Markel financial incentives and suggesting pressure tactics when he refused. Prosecutors argue that her persistence became the driving force behind the murder plot. Donna Adelson's trial for conspiracy to murder Dan Markel is starting, with her trying to block jailhouse snitch testimony. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy @angenette5 goes over the case. pic.twitter.com/SA6UV56Pop Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) August 20, 2025 Prosecutions opening arguments Assistant State Attorney Sarah Kathryn Dugan told the jury that Donna Adelson worked closely with her son Charlie Adelson to arrange the killing. She described Donna as characterizing Markel as a crazy person and seeking Charlies help to resolve the custody conflict. Dugan recounted how Charlie Adelson, then dating Katherine Magbanua, connected through her to Sigfredo Garcia, a gang member and the father of Magbanuas child. Garcia, along with accomplice Luis Rivera, was later convicted of carrying out the killing for $100,000. Rivera testified under a deal with the state, while Magbanua admitted her role as the link between the Adelsons and the hitmen after her own conviction. During opening statements, Donna Adelson shook her head as prosecutors displayed emails between her and Charlie, portraying her as deeply involved in the planning. Defense, jury, and courtroom setting Charlie Adelson previously claimed that Garcia and Rivera acted independently and later extorted him and his mother. Prosecutors countered that this version is not credible and pointed to testimony from Rivera and Magbanua. Judge Everett instructed jurors to consider only evidence presented in court and avoid outside information. The trial is expected to continue through early September, with breaks including the Labor Day holiday. Wendi Adelson, subpoenaed to testify with immunity, is among the witnesses expected. REUNITED IN JAIL: Charlie and Donna #Adelson are both at the Leon County Jail as Donnas trial for Dan Markels murder approaches next week.#GirlWithaGavel pic.twitter.com/d6kEUCOBxV (@Girl_With_Gavel) August 17, 2025 In the courtroom, family members of both sides watched as proceedings began. Harvey Adelson sat separately from his wife, while Dan Markels parents, Ruth and Phil Markel, observed quietly. For them, this marks the fifth trial connected to their sons killing. Legal perspectives on jury selection Legal analyst Tim Jansen noted that jury selection reflected a balance of skepticism and reliance on common sense. Eight men and six women make up the panel, tasked with determining whether Donna Adelson played the role prosecutors allege in the conspiracy that ended Markels life. To stay updated on the stories that are going viral follow Indiatimes Trending. If you saw Roblox shutting down September 1 trending, you were not the only one spiralling. A parody X account called Roblox Notifier dropped what looked like an official statement, claiming the platform would shut down effective September 1 due to popular demand and safety concerns. Is Roblox really getting banned on September 1? Heres the truth | Credit: Roblox The shutdown buzz about Roblox getting banned that took over X The fake post sent shockwaves across the gaming community, making thousands of players panic over losing their virtual worlds. But here is the kicker the account is literally labelled parody. Still, the hoax became one of the wildest viral rumours of the year. An official statement regarding Roblox: pic.twitter.com/nVJ30lUqaG Schlep (@RealSchlep) August 14, 2025 Roblox by the numbers Here is the truth: Roblox is thriving, not dying. In Q2 2025 alone, the platform reported 111.8 million daily active users and 27.4 billion engagement hours. That scale of activity is not about to vanish overnight because of a troll tweet. Since its 2006 launch, Roblox has been the ultimate playground for user-generated games and worlds, hosting millions of experiences crafted by creators worldwide. Lawsuits fuel the shutdown hysteria While Roblox is not shutting down, the lawsuits against it are very real. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill recently filed a case accusing Roblox of failing to protect children. She argued that the company allowed predators and harmful content to run rampant because it put profits over safety. She even accused Roblox of neglecting to implement proper age verification and parental permissions, saying the lack of these protections endangered minors. Robloxs fiery response to the viral shutting rumour In a rare move, Roblox directly hit back at critics online. The company posted: When did I ever take the law into my own hands? We work with law enforcement, we have 6 arrests of child predators in YOUR COMMUNITY. Why did you do nothing about felony child predator arrests we were sending you? What a joke. roblox responded now directly to me: When did I ever take the law into my own hands? We work with law enforcement, we have 6 arrests of child predators in YOUR COMMUNITY Why did you do nothing about felony child predator arrests we were sending you? What a joke. pic.twitter.com/vKxLyVJ0tO Schlep (@RealSchlep) August 21, 2025 The blunt response made it clear Roblox is not taking the accusations lightly and is ready to defend itself against claims of negligence. Is Roblox really getting banned on September 1? Heres the truth | Credit: Roblox So, is Roblox actually shutting down? No. Roblox is very much alive. The September 1 shutdown rumour was fake, and the platform continues to operate. However, with lawsuits piling up and Roblox going on the defensive, the conversation around its safety practices is only getting louder. Is Roblox really getting banned on September 1? Heres the truth | Credit: Roblox For now, gamers can relax, their worlds are safe, but Robloxs legal battles are far from over. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the Maryland residence of former US National Security Adviser John Bolton on Friday. The raid, reported by the New York Post, is part of an ongoing high-profile national security inquiry into Boltons handling of classified information. FBI Director Kash Patel appeared to acknowledge the operation with a post on X that read: NO ONE is above the law... @FBI agents on mission. Inquiry linked to classified documents The investigation is tied to classified material and was originally opened during Donald Trumps presidency. However, it was paused under the Biden administration before being reactivated under Patels leadership at the FBI. Bolton, who served as National Security Adviser from 2018 to 2019, previously faced scrutiny for his 2020 memoir The Room Where It Happened. The Trump administration had attempted to block the books publication, arguing it revealed sensitive information in breach of non-disclosure agreements. Legal efforts to prevent its release ultimately failed. US President Donald Trump | Credit: X Boltons political criticism and past security clearance issues Since leaving the administration, Bolton has become a regular critic of Donald Trumps national security and foreign policy decisions. His security clearance was revoked along with other aides during Trumps tenure. More recently, Bolton has criticised US tariffs on India. In an interview with NDTV, he called Trumps decision to impose high tariffs on New Delhi a mistake in the bilateral relationship. Bolton argued that penalising India for buying Russian oil while not applying the same measures to China risked pushing India closer to Moscow and Beijing. In a separate post on X, Bolton wrote that Washingtons approach may have pushed India further into the Beijing-Moscow axis, describing the move as an unforced error. Kash Patels role and federal backdrop The raid comes amid broader scrutiny of how former officials handle classified information. Kash Patel, a former Trump aide appointed as FBI director earlier this year, has promised to investigate what he describes as internal cover-ups. He recently alleged that former FBI Director James Comey authorised document leaks during the 2016 election. Bolton has not publicly commented on the raid. To stay updated on the stories that are going viral follow Indiatimes Trending. A little over three months since India launched Operation Sindoor on Pakistan, Lieutenant General Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon, a retired officer of the Indian Army with extensive experience in operations in Kashmir and the Northeast, announces the release of his new book, Operation Sindoor: The Untold Story of India's Deep Strikes Inside Pakistan, which in the authors words, deals with, A-Z of the operation." The book is published by Penguin Random House India, under its Penguin Veer imprint and is now available for pre-order. Taking to X, the author announced the release of his new book. OPERATION SINDOOR - THE UNTOLD STORY OF INDIAS DEEP STRIKES INSIDE PAKISTAN My new book - Pre orders are already open Order your copy nowhttps://t.co/2fGNdjxMo4 Jai Hind @PenguinIndia @premanka pic.twitter.com/bgFj9e3RLi KJS DHILLON (@TinyDhillon) August 21, 2025 What does Operation Sindoor: The Untold Story of India's Deep Strikes Inside Pakistan offer? In Dhillons words, it delves into the intricacies of the operation, covering every aspect ranging from planning and intelligence to target selection, weapon deployment, post-strike damage assessment, and narrative battle. He especially mentions the chapter closest to his heart the battle on the Line of Control, which he claims the media had not covered. The attack sparked widespread outrage across the country, with many criticizing a security lapse that tragically claimed 26 lives and exposed vulnerabilities in safeguarding civilians. OPERATION SINDOOR - THE UNTOLD STORY OF INDIAS DEEP STRIKES INSIDE PAKISTAN My new book - Pre orders are already open Order your copy nowhttps://t.co/ArRviLcKpz Jai Hind @PenguinIndia @premanka @adgpi @IAF_MCC @indiannavy pic.twitter.com/Ip4IidwLjj KJS DHILLON (@TinyDhillon) August 21, 2025 Who is Lieutenant General Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon Lt General Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon, popularly known as 'Tiny' Dhillon, is a retired officer of the Indian Army with extensive experience in counter-insurgency and counterterrorism operations in Kashmir and the Northeast. The Army veteran is also a motivational speaker and has been serving as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of IIT Mandi since 2023. | Credit: X/HQ_IDS_India He was born on April 18, 1953 in Punjab. He attended the National Defence Academy in Khadakwasla and the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, later completing advanced military courses at the Defence Services Staff College, National Defence College in Delhi, CESEDEN in Spain, and the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies in the USA. Dhillon also holds MSc, MPhil, and PhD degrees, which showcases a strong academic foundation alongside his military training. The retired officer was commissioned into the Indian Army in December 1983 and served for 39 years. The former General officer led the Srinagar-based 15 Corps during major events, including the Pulwama attack and the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A. He retired in January 2022 as the Director General of the Defence Intelligence Agency handing over the reigns to his successor Lt Gen CP Cariappa as the Colonel of Regiment of Rajputana Rifles. The Army veteran is also a motivational speaker and has been serving as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of IIT Mandi since 2023. He has authored two other books prior to this Kitne Ghazi Aaye, Kitne Ghazi Gaye, and Wafadari Imaandari Zimmedari (WIZ): War-room to Board-room. A look back at Operation Sindoor On the intervening night of May 67, 2025, India launched Operation Sindoor as a precision strike in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack on April 22, which claimed 26 civilian lives in Jammu and Kashmir. STORY | Operation Sindoor recreated by drones lights up Jodhpur sky READ: https://t.co/n6zuTgRxaP pic.twitter.com/RmiookOqXx Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 14, 2025 The operation targeted nine locations in Pakistan, including Muridke and Bahawalpur. Targeted infrastructures were believed to harbor terrorism linked to groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. It was carried out jointly by the Indian Army, Air Force, and Navy, focusing solely on terrorist facilities while avoiding civilian or military infrastructure. India inflicted significant damage on these targets and sent a strong message against cross-border terrorism. DGMO Lt Gen Rajeev Ghai later announced that over 100 terrorists, including those involved in the 1999 IC-814 hijacking and the 2019 Pulwama attack, were killed The face-off marked a serious escalation in India-Pakistan tensions. 11 50 9 100 #OperationSindoor pic.twitter.com/18k1uICTyG Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 12, 2025 What happened in Pahalgam on April 22? On April 22, 2025, Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir was struck by a terrorist attack in the Baisaran Valley, primarily targeting tourists. Armed assailants killed 26 people and injured over 20 others. Armed assailants killed 26 people and injured over 20 others | Credit: X/MeghUpdates Most victims were Hindu tourists, along with one Christian tourist and a local Muslim pony operator. The attack was initially claimed by The Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot. The terror attack caused widespread panic, disrupted normal life in the area, and heightened tensions between India and Pakistan. Sunita Ahuja has officially filed for divorce from veteran actor Govinda in Bandra Family Court. The petition cites adultery, cruelty, and desertion as grounds for dissolution of marriage under Section 13 (1) (i), (ia), and (ib) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. According to Hauterrfly, the court had summoned Govinda on May 25, but reports indicate he has largely been absent from proceedings. Sunita, however, has appeared punctually, demonstrating her commitment to resolving the matter legally. Sunita Ahuja speaks out In a recent vlog, Sunita Ahuja addressed the ongoing divorce rumours. She visited Mahalaxmi Mandir, a temple she has frequented since childhood, and reflected on her marriage. Speaking to the priest, she said she had prayed to the Goddess for a happy marriage with Govinda, and her prayers were answered with two children. She added, But not every truth in life is easy; there are always ups and downs. Still, I have faith in the Goddess that whoever tries to break my home, Maa Kaali will not forgive them. Sunita Ahuja has filed for divorce from actor Govinda in Bandra Family Court citing adultery, cruelty, and desertion | Credit: X Sunita further stated, It is not right to cause pain to a good man and a good woman. I love all the three forms of the Goddess deeply. Whatever the situation may be, anyone who tries to break my family will not be forgiven. Background of divorce rumours The rumours of marital discord first surfaced in February, when media reports suggested constant disagreements between the couple and varied lifestyles had strained their relationship. Additionally, reports mentioned Govindas closeness to a 30-year-old Marathi actress as a contributing factor to tensions. Despite these speculations, sources close to the couple previously stated that Sunita and Govinda were attempting reconciliation. Their lawyer, Lalit Bindal, who is also a family friend, confirmed that the couple is going strong and indicated that they may remain together despite the divorce petition. Sunita Ahuja addressed the ongoing divorce rumours | Credit: X Legal proceedings and court updates Since June, Sunita and Govinda have been trying to work things out outside court, but Sunitas consistent presence in the Bandra Family Court contrasts with Govindas irregular attendance. The ongoing case has attracted significant public and media attention, highlighting the challenges faced by celebrity couples in balancing personal privacy with public scrutiny. Moving forward The court will continue to hear the case, examining the allegations of adultery, cruelty, and desertion. Legal observers note that Sunitas proactive approach and punctuality in court may play a role in how proceedings unfold, while Govindas absence has fueled further media speculation. The Supreme Court on Friday, August 22, 2025, revised its earlier directive mandating the permanent confinement of stray dogs in Delhi-NCR shelters. The three-judge bench, comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and N.V. Anjaria, clarified that dogs may now be returned to their original areas after deworming, vaccination, and sterilisation. The court stated that dogs showing aggressive behaviour or infected with rabies must not be released into public spaces. The bench also expanded the scope of the case nationwide, asking all States and Union Territories to participate in framing a uniform policy for stray dog management. Authorities are required to follow Animal Birth Control (ABC) rules and ensure that public feeding occurs only in designated areas. Animal welfare and government response Former Union Minister and animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi welcomed the revised order, describing it as a scientific judgment. She highlighted the allocation of 2,500 crore for the program, the first such significant funding in 25 years. Gandhi emphasised that relocation and fear contribute to dog bites, supporting the need for designated feeding zones. he Supreme Court has revised its earlier order on stray dogs in Delhi-NCR | Credit: X PETA India echoed this sentiment, celebrating the decision with the statement, Every dog has her day, and urging vigilance so that no dog is unfairly labelled aggressive. The Supreme Court also directed municipal authorities to implement proper ABC centres and create helplines for reporting violations. Public and political reactions Animal lovers and activists celebrated the verdict at Jantar Mantar, expressing relief that the court recognised the importance of kindness and scientific reasoning in stray dog management. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi described the ruling as a progressive step balancing public safety with animal welfare. Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh confirmed that the city would implement the order fully, ensuring aggressive or biting dogs remain confined while sterilised dogs are returned. Earlier controversy and clarifications The courts revision comes after the August 11 order by Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan, which required all stray dogs in Delhi-NCR to be permanently moved to shelters within eight weeks. That decision faced criticism due to insufficient infrastructure and high costs for mass relocation. It was also argued that such measures would be ineffective in controlling the stray population. By modifying the order, the Supreme Court has taken a middle path, combining public safety with animal welfare, ensuring that scientific methods guide stray dog management across India. Authorities are expected to implement sterilisation, vaccination, designated feeding areas, and proper shelters nationwide. To stay updated on the stories that are going viral follow Indiatimes Trending. The United States has announced a review of over 55 million visas worldwide, including 5 million held by Indian citizens. The rule comes as part of a broader crackdown on immigrants under the Trump administration. According to the US State Department, this review will examine all visa holders and applicants for potential violations that could make them ineligible to visit or remain in the US. Visa holders found violating conditions of their visa, such as overstaying, engaging in criminal activity, or posing threats to public safety, may face revocation of their visa. Those currently in the US could be deported back to their home countries. The review is designed to maintain security, ensure compliance with US laws, and protect public safety. Indicators of ineligibility The State Department said it is looking for several indicators of ineligibility, including overstaying the visa, criminal offenses, threats to public safety, or involvement in terrorist activities or support for terrorist organizations. In a statement, the department explained, We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance, indicating a potential ineligibility. US President Donald Trump | Credit: X The vetting will cover all types of visas, including tourist and work visas. The department emphasized that the goal is to ensure visa holders meet the highest standards and adhere to US laws. Pause on foreign truck driver visas Shortly after the review announcement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a pause in all visas for foreign truck drivers. This decision followed a recent Florida crash involving Indian-origin truck driver Harjinder Singh, which killed three people. Rubio said in a post on X, The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. The State Department added that the pause on truck driver visas is intended to review screening and vetting protocols. Ensuring that every driver on our roads meets the highest standards is important to protecting the livelihoods of American truckers and maintaining a secure, resilient supply chain, the department said. Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 21, 2025 Expanded vetting measures Under the new rules, social media accounts of visa applicants and holders will also be screened for anti-American activities or ideologies, including anti-Semitic content. Matthew Tragesser, an ICE spokesperson, stated, Americas benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies. This global review represents one of the most extensive vetting measures undertaken by the US government, reflecting a tighter immigration and security policy under the current administration. To stay updated on the stories that are going viral follow Indiatimes Trending. President Donald Trump addressed federal law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as part of an anti-crime initiative that has brought a surge of police and National Guard personnel to the capital. During his visit to a U.S. Park Police facility in Southeast D.C., he thanked officers and handed out hamburgers prepared at the White House and pizza from a local restaurant. "You're incredible people. You make the country run, frankly," Trump said in brief remarks. Several administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, also addressed the officers. Trump outlined plans to improve the city, promising graffiti removal, park grass repairs, and fixing road medians over the next six to twelve months. National guard and federal police surge in D.C. Around 2,000 National Guard personnel from D.C. and GOP-led states have been deployed, alongside officers from agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Trump has asserted federal control over the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, drawing criticism from local politicians who argued it threatens the citys autonomy. Last week, the Justice Department withdrew an attempt to appoint an emergency local police chief following a lawsuit from D.C. officials. Earlier, Trump announced he would patrol the city with law enforcement and the National Guard. "I'm going to be going out tonight, I'm going to keep it a secret," he joked, adding, "The National Guard is great. They've done a fantastic job." NOW: President Trump brought burgers cooked by White House chefs to the National Guard and federal agents protecting DC IlI eat with you and we're going to have a little fun... then we're going to get back to work and we're going to take care of these criminals! pic.twitter.com/ZDxzQV0453 Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 21, 2025 Crime claims and local reactions Since the start of the initiative, 630 arrests have been made, and 86 illegal guns have been seized, according to Bondi. Trump claimed that people feel safer and are returning to dine out in the city. LETS GO EAT! President Trump is handing out hamburgers from the White House and pizza for our nations law enforcement. @FrontlinesTPUSA @TPUSA pic.twitter.com/B7iARz97ti MONICA PAIGETPUSA (@MonicaPaigeTV) August 21, 2025 Local officials, however, challenged the necessity of the initiative. D.C. police data shows violent crime has been declining over the last year and a half. Robberies are down 28% and overall violent crime is down 26% compared to last year, which saw the lowest violent crime level in more than 30 years, according to the Justice Department. Trump dismissed these statistics as "phony numbers" and said his administration would review them. Presidential engagement in D.C. Unlike previous presidents, Trump has rarely ventured into the city beyond speeches and visiting his former hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. Past presidents have occasionally dined at local restaurants, but Trumps visits focus on federal facilities and law enforcement. He emphasized that the city will be "maxxed out in terms of beauty," signaling ongoing federal involvement in the capitals appearance and safety. To stay updated on the stories that are going viral follow Indiatimes Trending. The Menendez brothers case continues to spark heated debate more than three decades after their infamous conviction for the murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. This week, Erik Menendez was denied parole following a lengthy hearing in California, despite supporters arguing he had changed during his 30 years behind bars. While Erik expressed deep remorse, the board ruled he still poses a risk to society. In the aftermath, Tammi Menendez, who married Lyle Menendez while he was in prison, has gone on a rampage on X (formerly Twitter), fiercely criticising the decision and demanding justice. A look at Tammi Menendez Tammi Menendez became widely known after marrying Erik Menendez, one of the Menendez brothers convicted of killing their parents in 1989. She first reached out to Erik in the late 1990s after watching a documentary about the case, and the two began exchanging letters. Their bond grew despite Erik serving a life sentence without parole, and they married in 1999 inside Folsom State Prison. Tammi Menendez became widely known after marrying Erik Menendez (Credits: X/@emailsavenue) Tammi has since spoken about her life with Erik, raising her daughter from a previous marriage while staying devoted to him. She has written a book titled They Said Wed Never Make It, describing the challenges of loving someone behind bars and defending Erik against public criticism. Over the years, she has remained one of his strongest supporters, giving interviews and maintaining that her marriage is built on trust, loyalty, and faith. What happened at Erik Menendezs parole hearing? Erik Menendez appeared virtually for his parole hearing from San Diego prison, marking his first request for release since being resentenced earlier this year. The hearing lasted more than 10 hours, with emotional testimony from family members and heated arguments from prosecutors. The board ultimately denied parole, citing his prison violations, past burglaries, and what they described as a continued risk to public safety. Erik, now 54, can reapply in three years. His brother Lyle faces his own parole hearing soon, but both men are also seeking clemency from Governor Gavin Newsom. Tammi Menendez goes on a rampage on X Following the decision, Tammi Menendez unleashed a series of angry posts on X, calling the parole denial inhumane and accusing the board of ignoring evidence of rehabilitation. She pointed to Eriks emotional apology and the support shown by relatives, including Jose Menendezs sister, who forgave him during the hearing. Tammis outburst quickly went viral, with her posts shared by supporters who believe the brothers were victims of long-term abuse and deserve another chance at life outside prison. Parole Commissioner Robert Barton had his mind made up to deny Erik parole from the start! This was a complete setup, and Erik never stood a chance! #Injustice Tammi Menendez (@TammiMenendez1) August 22, 2025 Erik hasn't had any infractions since 2011, apart from a cell phone possession. To the media reporting otherwise: please get the facts straight! #erikmenendez Tammi Menendez (@TammiMenendez1) August 22, 2025 Her sharp words have reignited conversations about justice, forgiveness, and whether the parole system is stacked against high-profile inmates. Whats next for the Menendez brothers? Although Eriks parole was denied, the fight for freedom is not over. The brothers have requested clemency from Governor Newsom and are pushing for a new trial based on additional evidence of abuse. A judge is still weighing that request, and legal experts say the outcome could take months. Meanwhile, Lyles parole hearing could have a very different result, depending on his record in prison. Whether clemency, parole, or a new trial, the Menendez brothers fate is once again in the spotlight, and Tammi Menendez is determined to keep the pressure on. Greece's public health system saved the life of a critically injured billionaire tourist after the man's private medical insurance team refused to evacuate him from a Greek island, deeming his condition "hopeless," the country's health minister said. In a recent statement, Health Minister Mr. Adonis Georgiadis recounted the dramatic rescue. He said the tourist suffered multiple critical injuries in a car accident and was stabilized at a local island health center. A private medical team arrived by helicopter but declined to transport the patient. In response, we dispatched EKAVs air ambulance and the two Health Center doctors who cared for the tourist flew with him to Athens, Mr. Georgiadis said, noting the patient had to be resuscitated twice during the flight. What the worlds largest private insurance company could not do, the ESY [Greece's public health system] did, the minister emphasized. The tourist underwent surgery in Athens and is now in stable condition in an intensive care unit. Mr. Georgiadis used the incident to praise the public health system, concluding, Lets not criticize the ESY all day long. iefimerida.gr In ancient Greece, while most women were confined to the home, the women of Sparta enjoyed a revolutionary degree of freedom, receiving physical training, education, and economic power that was unparalleled in their time Between the 7th and 4th centuries B.C., Spartas unique military-focused society, which required men to live most of their lives in barracks, left women in charge of domestic and social affairs. This gave them a more central role than their counterparts in cities like Athens. Ancient sources like the writer Plutarch describe Spartan girls running, wrestling, and throwing javelins in public, a practice meant to ensure they would bear strong children for the state. Their education also included music, poetry, and dance, with the lyrical poems of Alcman used to instill community values. Perhaps most strikingly, Spartan women could own and inherit land, giving them significant economic independence. They also married later, around age 18, and drank wine openly at social gatherings, a freedom that shocked other Greeks. While these liberties were ultimately in service to the state's military machine, the legacy of Spartan women endures as a remarkable and contradictory example of female autonomy in the ancient world. By Konstantinos Tsavalos iefimerida.gr A Northern social media influencer known as Sarkin has stirred controversy with a comment linking former Anambra State governor and Labour Party member, Peter Obi, to crossdressers Bobrisky and James Brown. In his post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Sarkin implied that if Obi were to become Nigerias president, the entertainers might be appointed as ministersan outcome he rejected with a dismissive remark. Bobrisky nd James Brown may become ministers if Peter Obi becomes President of Nigeria God forbid he wrote. Advertisement READ MORE: Viral TV Judge Frank Caprio Passes Away At 88 After Cancer Battle The comment comes at a time when conversations about the 2027 general elections are already gaining ground. Obi, who contested the 2023 presidential election, has remained a key opposition figure and continues to draw strong support from Nigerian youths under the Obidient movement. Sarkins statement quickly attracted attention online. Supporters of Obi criticised it as an attempt to ridicule his political ambition, while others saw it as a reflection of Nigerias cultural and religious divides, especially with Bobrisky and James Brown being recurring subjects of controversy in public debates. A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), MonITNG, has raised alarm over the deplorable condition of Mawagi Primary School in Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State, which has collapsed, forcing over 512 pupils to stop attending classes. According to the organisation, the school is the only source of formal education in the community, but its classrooms have become uninhabitable and unsafe for children. Advertisement As a result of this terrible state, over 512 pupils have stopped going to school. There are simply no classrooms for them to learn in. Imagine the pain of young children eager for knowledge, forced to stay home because the environment meant to shape their future has been abandoned, MonITNG stated. READ MORE : ASUU Threatens Fresh Strike, Rejects FGs Loan Scheme The group further disclosed that the condition of Mawagi Primary School reflects the situation of many other schools across Niger State, where dilapidated structures, leaking roofs, cracked walls and broken furniture have turned learning into a near-impossible task. MonITNG criticised the Niger State Government for neglecting rural schools despite the billions of naira allocated to education in the 2025 budget, as well as the 250 billion Universal Basic Education (UBEC) funds available for states to access but left underutilised. The organisation questioned how such huge resources are being managed when critical schools such as Mawagi Primary remain abandoned. The implications of this neglect are dire. Niger State already struggles with one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in Nigeria. Every neglected classroom adds to that burden, pushing more children onto the streets, cutting more dreams short, and wasting more futures, MonITNG warned. The CSO therefore urged the Governor of Niger State, Mohammed Umaru Bago, to declare a state of emergency in the education sector and urgently rehabilitate schools in dire need of repair. Dear Mr. Governor, our education system is collapsing. The future of our children is at stake. Fixing our schools is not charity; it is an obligation and an investment in the future of Niger State. Please act now, before we lose an entire generation to neglect, MonITNG appealed. The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has provided free medical services to more than 11,000 residents and successfully conducted 846 surgeries in Mbaise and neighboring communities of Imo State as part of its Civil-Military Cooperation outreach programme. This was disclosed in Abuja on Thursday in a statement issued by the Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame. According to the statement, the large-scale medical intervention, held in August in collaboration with the Nwagwu Health Initiative, recorded 11,231 medical consultations. These included 9,054 general cases and 2,177 eye consultations. A total of 846 life-changing surgeries were also carried out, comprising 63 thyroidectomies, 118 gynecological operations, 434 general procedures, and 331 eye surgeries. Advertisement READ MORE : NAPTIP Busts Human Trafficking Syndicate In Abuja, Arrests Eight, Rescues 29 Victims Speaking on the initiative, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Hasan Bala Abubakar, explained that the programme aligns with the NAFs Civil-Military Cooperation strategy designed to strengthen relations and win the hearts and minds of citizens. He said: Beyond our core mandate of defending Nigerias territorial integrity, the Nigerian Air Force is committed to alleviating the suffering of our people, particularly in remote communities. The statement further emphasized that the outreach reflects NAFs philosophy of putting people first and building stronger ties between the military and the civilian population. In addition to medical treatments, the programme distributed over 1,300 eyeglasses, walking aids, and crutches to persons with disabilities, thereby restoring mobility and improving the overall quality of life. Health education sessions covering preventive care, hygiene, and maternal health were also conducted to ensure long-term benefits for the communities. Air Vice Marshal Ibikunle Daramola, Chief of Civil-Military Relations, who represented the CAS during the exercise, noted that the initiative embodies the CASs vision of leveraging Civil-Military Cooperation for national development. According to him: Every cataract restored, every hernia repaired, every life touched here demonstrates that the Nigerian Air Force is more than a fighting force; it is a compassionate partner in nation building. We are determined to sustain these outreach efforts as a pillar of our engagement with the Nigerian people. Project Coordinator, Air Vice Marshal Uche Nwagwu, attributed the success of the medical outreach to the strong collaboration between the Nigerian Air Force and local stakeholders. He said: This initiative underscores the power of collaboration. We were able to mobilize resources, personnel, and expertise to achieve remarkable outcomes. The smiles we see today are our greatest reward. The Nigerian Air Force reaffirmed that the outreach was aimed not only at providing healthcare but also at fostering trust, unity, and stronger civil-military relations. It assured that similar interventions would continue across the country as part of its commitment to being the Peoples Air Force. The Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) has strongly criticised the Federal Government for granting fresh licences to private universities, describing the move as a setback to efforts aimed at improving the quality of higher education in Nigeria. In a statement issued by its national president, Christopher Piwuna, the lecturers union described the approval as contradictory, pointing out that it came shortly after the government announced a seven-year moratorium on establishing new federal tertiary institutions. ASUU watched in awe as the Federal Government announced the moratorium, then proceeded to approve nine new private universities, the statement read. Advertisement The union maintained that access to higher education was no longer Nigerias major problem, stressing that the critical challenge lies in maintaining and sustaining academic quality. READ MORE : President Tinubu Approves Licenses For 11 Private Universities The body noted that Nigeria currently has 339 universities, comprising 72 federal, 108 state, and 159 private institutions. This figure, it said, averages nine universities per state, not including polytechnics and colleges of education. ASUU argued that this scandalous proliferation has weakened academic standards and left several universities grossly under-subscribed. The union further accused successive governments of using the establishment of new universities as political patronage rather than genuine educational development. It recalled that the Minister of Education, Professor Tunji Alausa, recently admitted that more than 30 universities recorded zero admissions in the last Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exercise, while some federal universities were running at less than 30 per cent capacity. According to ASUU, diverting scarce resources to maintain mushroom universities was both meaningless and wasteful. The union warned that the trend could ultimately push Nigerian universities out of global academic rankings and reduce the value of degrees obtained locally. Beyond its criticism of new licences, ASUU reiterated its demands for the Federal Government to resolve long-standing issues affecting public universities and staff welfare. These include the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, revitalisation funding, unpaid salary arrears, delayed promotions, and pension-related concerns for retired academics. The lecturers union cautioned that the governments continued deaf ear to these pressing demands could trigger another nationwide strike. ASUU may have no other option than to embark on an action to press the government to listen and act, the statement concluded. Bishop David Oyedepo, General Overseer of Living Faith Church Worldwide, and his wife, Pastor Faith Oyedepo, are celebrating 43 years of marriage. Widely admired for their enduring partnership and impactful ministry, the couples milestone was acknowledged in a heartfelt post shared on the official Instagram page of David Oyedepo Ministries International on Thursday. Advertisement The post featured radiant photos of the couple and a message of thanksgiving: Happy 43rd Wedding Anniversary to our parents Bishop David and Pastor Mrs Faith Oyedepo! We give God glory for your marriage! Thank you for showing us that a lasting hitch-free marriage is possible. READ MORE: Witnessing My Fathers Killing As A Child Traumatised Me Niniola We pray that the Lord would continue to uphold you and your home shall continue to reflect His glory and beauty, drawing multitudes to the kingdom, in Jesus name, amen! Congratulations Sir & Ma . Bishop Oyedepo and Pastor Faith Oyedepo, who tied the knot in 1982, have become one of Nigerias most influential Christian couples, jointly leading one of Africas largest church networks. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has declared unwavering support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He stressed that he will align with any political leader who supports the current administration. Wike made the remarks on Thursday, during the flag-off of Lot 2 of Water Supply Projects in Karu, Abuja. Advertisement He commended the Chairman of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Christopher Maikalangu, and former Senator representing the FCT, Philip Aduda, for their cooperation with the federal government. The chairman has access to us. Anything he tells us, we will do. This is the only man I know. If he wins as chairman of AMAC, we will give him whatever he wants. I dont know the party he belongs to. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/inec-declares-prison-inmate-serving-seven-year-jail-term-as-winner-of-enugu-south-rerun.html But I know that he supports Tinubu. Anybody who supports Tinubu, I will support him, Wike declared. He praised Maikalangu as very good and hardworking, noting that the AMAC chairman has used his position to attract several projects for residents. According to him, What matters is not the party you belong to, but whether you support the presidents vision for Nigeria. Wike also criticised previous administrations for neglecting satellite towns, particularly in the provision of potable water. We have had a government who stayed here for five years, isnt that correct? We have had a government who stayed here for eight years too, is that correct? Has any government come to say, look, we will provide you water? he asked the cheering crowd. Did this government promise it will give you water? Have we come now to give you water? he added. So, you believe you have a covenant with this government. And the covenant is simpleagreement is agreement. The people of Karu will remember the government that remembers them, he added. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday presented Certificates of Return to senators-elect and members-elect of the House of Representatives. The certificates were given to those who emerged victorious in the August 16 by-elections. The ceremony, held at the INEC headquarters in Abuja, was presided over by National Commissioners of the electoral body. Advertisement The certificates formally validate the winners as duly elected representatives of their constituencies. Among the recipients was Emmanuel Nwachukwu of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), who won the Anambra South Senatorial seat, and Joseph Ikpea of the All Progressives Congress (APC), declared winner of the Edo Central Senatorial District. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/pay-rise-for-politicians-could-spark-anger-apga-founding-chair-okorie-warns.html Five members-elect of the House of Representatives also received their certificates. They include Barrister Omosede Igbinedion of the APC, representing Ovie North East and Ovie South West Federal Constituency in Edo State, and Mukhtar Rabiu Garki of the APC, Babura/Garki Federal Constituency of Jigawa State. Others are Fidelix Bagudu of the APC, Chikun/Kajuru Federal Constituency in Kaduna State, and Adesola Ayoola-Elegbeji of the APC, representing Ikenne/Shagamu/Remo North Federal Constituency in Ogun State. Fola Oyekunle of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also received his certificate as member-elect for Ibadan North Federal Constituency in Oyo State, making him the only PDP candidate among the winners. Speaking at the ceremony, one of the INEC Commissioners said: Todays presentation is not just about certificates, it is about the mandate freely given to you by the people. We urge you to serve with integrity and ensure democracy truly benefits your constituents. Emmanuel Nwachukwu, in his remarks, said: This certificate represents the trust of my people. I will work tirelessly to justify their confidence. Joseph Ikpea added: This victory is not for me alone but for my district. I will focus on legislation that touches lives directly. Omosede Igbinedion expressed gratitude, stating: I dedicate this victory to my constituents, i promise to be their voice in the House of Representatives. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Sokoto State has cautioned eligible Nigerians against engaging in multiple voter registrations. The commission warned that the act contravenes the Electoral Act and carries legal consequences. The state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Umar Garba, issued the warning on Thursday, during his maiden press interaction with journalists at the commissions headquarters in Sokoto. Advertisement Garba explained that the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, which commenced with online pre-registration on August 18, is designed for new voters. It also covers Nigerians who have relocated and require transfers, as well as individuals replacing lost or damaged Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). He further disclosed that physical registration would begin on August 25 across the state headquarters, all 23 local government areas, and designated centres. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/we-dont-want-thieves-fraudsters-to-lead-abia-town-unions-otti.html To be registered, applicants must present a valid means of identification such as a national identity card, passport, drivers license, or birth certificate, Garba stated. Highlighting measures to tackle electoral malpractice, the REC said INEC would deploy advanced technology to detect fraudulent registrations. We will use the Voter Enrollment Device and the Automatic Biometric Identification System to identify and eliminate cases of multiple registrations, he said. Let me be clear: anyone found guilty of violating the law will face prosecution. Garba stressed that the integrity of Nigerias electoral process depends on strict adherence to rules, urging citizens to cooperate with INEC to ensure credible elections. The right to vote begins with proper registration. Nigerians must understand that multiple registrations will not only be cancelled but also expose them to legal sanctions, he added. The Sokoto REC assured residents that INEC remained committed to transparency and fairness in handling the CVR exercise across the state. A Kano State High Court has sentenced one Khalifa Hamza Aminu to five years in prison for defrauding a bank account holder of over 59.5 million. The judgment was delivered by Justice Maryam Ahmed Sabo on Friday in Kano. According to the court ruling, Aminu unlawfully withdrew 59,546,540 from the account of one Yakub Mukthar without authorization. He was, however, given the option of paying a fine of 1 million in lieu of serving the prison term. Prosecuting counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Barrister Zalami Muhammad, told the court that the offence contravened Section 286 and was punishable under Section 287 of the Penal Code. Advertisement READ MORE : 512 Pupils Abandon Classes As Primary School In Niger State Collapses The charge sheet presented before the court read: That you, Khalifa Hamza Aminu, between 14th January and 4th June 2025, at Kano within the judicial division of the High Court of Kano State, dishonestly took the sum of 59,546,540 from the possession of Yakub Mukthar without his consent, thereby committing an offence contrary to Section 286 and punishable under Section 287 of the Penal Code. Following the defendants plea of guilty and the prosecutions request, Justice Sabo ordered him to pay full compensation of 59,546,540 to the victim. Delivering judgment, Justice Sabo declared: The convict is hereby sentenced to pay a fine of 1 million or serve five years imprisonment, in addition to the compensation as applied by the prosecution. I hereby invoke the provisions of Sections 3 and 320(1) of the Kano State Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) 2019 and similarly order the convict to compensate the sum of 59,546,540. Failure to pay shall result in an additional two years imprisonment. The judge further directed that the order must be complied with within 90 days. She also stated that the convict reserves the right to appeal the judgment within the same period in line with Sections 20(2) and 320(2) of the ACJL 2019. Japan has officially designated the city of Kisarazu as the hometown for Nigerians willing to live and work in the country. The move is aimed at strengthening cultural diplomacy and fostering bilateral ties. The announcement was made on Thursday, on the sidelines of the Ninth Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD9). It was disclosed in a statement on Friday by the Director of Information at the State House, Abiodun Oladunjoye. Advertisement According to the statement, the Japanese government will create a special visa category for highly skilled, innovative, and talented young Nigerians who wish to relocate to Kisarazu. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/pay-rise-for-politicians-could-spark-anger-apga-founding-chair-okorie-warns.html It further noted that artisans and blue-collar workers from Nigeria who are ready to upskill will also benefit from the special dispensation visa to work in Japan. Nigerias Charge dAffaires and Acting Ambassador to Japan, Mrs. Florence Akinyemi Adeseke, alongside Yoshikuni Watanabe, the Mayor of Kisarazu, received the certificate officially designating the city as Nigerias hometown in Japan. Through the arrangement, Japan looks to strengthen exchanges with the four African countries by officially connecting municipalities with existing relations with those nations, the statement read. In addition to Nigeria, Japan International Cooperation Agency also named Nagai in Yamagata Prefecture as Tanzanias hometown, Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture as Ghanas hometown, and Imabari in Ehime Prefecture as Mozambiques hometown. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, in his TICAD9 opening address, emphasized collaboration and co-creation. Japan is providing various cooperation and support for Africa. But first of all, Japan needs to know more about Africa. So, in creating solutions together, this co-creation at the TICAD9 focuses on private sector-led sustainable growth, youth and women, and regional integration, he said. He also appealed to African countries to support Japan as it confronts the challenges of a declining population and shrinking agricultural land. Senator Ahmed Wadada, representing Nasarawa West, has formally resigned from the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In a letter dated Thursday, and addressed to the Chairman of the SDP, Tudun Ward, in Keffi Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Wadada announced his decision to step aside from the party, citing internal crisis as his major reason. The letter, titled Notification of Resignation from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), read: I am writing to inform you of my decision to resign as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), effective immediately. Advertisement This decision has not been taken lightly but I feel compelled to do so due to the lingering internal crisis that has plagued our party for some time. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/pay-rise-for-politicians-could-spark-anger-apga-founding-chair-okorie-warns.html As you are aware, these internal conflicts have led to serious division and litigations within the party. Expressing gratitude for his time in the party, he added: I appreciate the opportunities given to me while being a member of the SDP and I am grateful for the experiences and relationships built. However, I feel it is time for me to move on and explore new avenues. Wadada, who recently expressed support for President Bola Tinubus administration after visiting the State House, made it clear that he stood firmly behind the presidents leadership. He also dismissed suggestions that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) could produce a leader who would surpass Tinubus achievements. Speaking further, he said his departure was not due to a quarrel with the party but because of what he described as the dynamism of life. The senator also hinted at the possibility of returning to the All Progressives Congress (APC), having previously served as a national officer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before joining the APC and later the SDP. No fewer than 102 foreign nationals, including Chinese and Tunisian citizens, have been deported to their home countries after being convicted and sentenced for cyber-terrorism and internet fraud in Nigeria. The deportees were part of 192 foreign nationals arrested during a sting operation conducted by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Lagos. According to a report by Daily Trust, the EFCC began the deportation exercise on Friday, August 15, 2025. A total of 51 convicted foreign nationals were repatriated last Friday, while another 51 were deported on Thursday, bringing the total number to 102 within seven days. Advertisement READ MORE : Kano To Sponsor Weddings For Repentant Thugs Hisbah Commander EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, confirmed the development in a statement, noting that the repatriation exercise was carried out in collaboration with the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS). Oyewale stressed that more convicted foreign nationals will be deported in the coming days, reaffirming that the commission would not allow Nigeria to become a safe haven for cybercriminals. He said, The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Nigerian Immigration Service have repatriated 51 more foreign nationals convicted and sentenced for cyber-terrorism and internet fraud. The repatriated foreign nationals include 50 Chinese and one Tunisian. This brings the total repatriated convicted foreign nationals to 102 in the ongoing exercise that commenced on Friday, August 15, 2025. The convicts are among the 192 foreign nationals arrested during a sting operation by the Commission in Lagos, following actionable intelligence about the operations of one of the largest foreign-led cybercrime syndicates in Nigeria. Further deportations are scheduled in the coming days. The EFCC maintained that it will continue to collaborate with relevant authorities to dismantle foreign-led cybercrime networks and safeguard Nigerias cyberspace from fraudulent activities. Former Chief of Army Staff (CAS), Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (retd.), has described Nigerias insecurity challenge as essentially political. He warned that it should not be left to the military alone to tackle, stressing the need for political, social, and economic solutions alongside military efforts. Speaking on Friday, during an interview on Channels Televisions Sunrise Daily, Buratai stressed that security cannot be resolved solely through military might but requires political, economic, and social solutions. Advertisement The military is just one aspect of the overall national activity, he said. Apart from the military, we have the economic, social, and political lines. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/inec-declares-prison-inmate-serving-seven-year-jail-term-as-winner-of-enugu-south-rerun.html From all indications, there is no government present or past that does not want insecurity to be addressed. Resources have been released for such, but unless the social aspect and the underlying causes are resolved, we cannot rely completely on the military. Buratai maintained that insecurity in Nigeria originated from political actors, making it a political problem at its core. It was started through some political actors, and it was essentially a political issue. Now its been left to the military, while the political actors stay behind, he added. Dismissing suggestions that the armed forces are hindering progress, he insisted: We cannot continuously see the military as a problem to solving insecurity. They are part of the solution. Any soldier standing on the field with a weapon between Nigerians and the adversary is very important. You cannot demoralise him. He urged Nigerians to rally behind the troops, warning: If you despise or demoralise a soldier, you are endangering his life, his familys life, and the lives of all Nigerians. That is why we must give them complete support to succeed. Nollywood actor Aina Gold has lavished praise on veteran actor Taiwo Hassan, popularly known as Ogogo, calling him his small god in the film industry. In a recent interview, posted on YouTube, Gold described Hassan as a mentor who guided him, trained him, and helped him grow professionally, despite his physical stature and height. He picked me, trained me and brought me up despite my stature and height. He didnt think that if he trains me and brings me to his standard, people might start calling him for my roles and he might be abandoned. But he never thought that way. He is such a good man. I give that to him anyway and anytime. Thats why if he calls me for anything or invites me to his hometown, Ill always answer. Alhaji Taiwo is my small god in the industry, Gold stated. Advertisement READ MORE: I Stopped Accepting Thug Roles To Avoid Being Trapped In One Character Bimbo Thomas Gold also spoke highly of his relationship with actress Mide Martins, describing her as cheerful and free-spirited, with whom he shares a close bond. He acknowledged her husband, Afeez Owo, noting that he regards him as both a younger brother and a mentor, given Owos experience in Nollywood. There are many things I love about Mide Martins. We are very close; her husband, Afeez Owo, is like my younger brother, but hes my boss. Not even as a producer, but because he has been in the industry before me, Gold said. He continued, Since we got to know each other, weve become very close. I have had the opportunity to work with them a lot because they are good producers. Sometimes, we even shoot at their house or their estate. Most times when theyre working, Mide and I will sit and gist for a while because our chemistry is very tight. Shes a free-minded human being. Shes very cheerful; you cant help but like her. Watch him speak below Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are set to meet in Zamfara State this weekend. The gathering is seen as a strategic move to shape the future of the opposition party ahead of its national convention. Advertisement The meeting, hosted by Governor Dauda Lawal in Gusau, will hold on Saturday, with the governors arriving on Friday evening for a pre-meeting dinner. In a statement issued on Friday by the governors spokesperson, Sulaiman Bala, the gathering was described as a pivotal session to strengthen internal unity and chart the PDPs political direction. READ MORE:https://www.informationng.com/2025/08/nasarawa-lawmaker-appoints-106-aides-to-serve-constituents.html Governor Dauda Lawal extends a warm welcome to his counterparts, the governors of the Peoples Democratic Party, the statement read. The governors are convening today (Friday) for an important session of the PDP Governors Forum. Governor Lawal will host a dinner this evening, ahead of tomorrows strategic meeting. Bala added that the closed-door discussions will provide an opportunity for party leaders to address pressing political issues, strengthen cohesion, and collaborate on developmental initiatives across their respective states. He further stressed that, The PDP must remain united in the face of challenges. This meeting is about building bridges, not walls, and ensuring that our governors present a common front for the good of the party and the nation. The meeting will also focus on preparations for the PDP national convention scheduled to take place in Ibadan, Oyo State, on November 15 and 16, 2025. Political analysts believe the Zamfara gathering will be crucial in uniting party stakeholders ahead of what many describe as a make-or-break convention for the PDP, given recent internal wrangling. One analyst, Dr. Musa Ibrahim, noted, If the PDP governors can harmonize their positions in Zamfara, it will send a strong message of resilience to party members nationwide. But if divisions persist, it could weaken the partys chances in future elections. By Saturday, the governors are expected to issue a joint communique outlining their resolutions and strategies for repositioning the party ahead of future elections. Former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has criticized the federal governments approval of 142 billion for the construction of modern bus terminals across Nigerias six geopolitical zones, describing the move as an example of misplaced priorities. In a statement released on Friday titled 142 Billion For Bus Terminals, Obi said the decision reflects weak leadership and a lack of competence in managing the nations limited resources. The difference between success and failure in national development lies in how scarce resources are prioritized, Obi said. The recent approval of 142 billion for the construction of a single bus terminal in each geopolitical zone underscores the governments lack of focus, competence, and leadership. Advertisement READ MORE : AY Dismisses Reconciliation Speculations With Estranged Wife, Threatens Legal Action Obi drew attention to the health sector, noting that the combined 2024 budget for all teaching hospitals and federal psychiatric centres nationwide is less than 100 billion. This is particularly concerning given that health is a critical area of development, yet it remains underfunded and deteriorating, he said. According to the World Health Organization, over 20 million Nigerians are living with mental health challenges. Prioritizing bus terminals over healthcare is not only misplaced but a tragic irony. This is not governance. The Federal Executive Council had recently approved 142 billion for the construction of one bus terminal in each geopolitical zone as part of efforts to modernize transport infrastructure. However, Obi maintained that investments in healthcare and other essential sectors should take precedence over such projects. The Kano State Police Command has taken into custody 10 suspects linked to receiving stolen motorcycles and recovered seven stolen bikes in its continued clampdown on motorcycle theft across the state. The breakthrough came after the arrest of a notorious motorcycle thief, Dahiru Jibrin, on August 11, 2025. Further investigations carried out by the Anti-Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department resulted in the recovery of the stolen motorcycles. In a statement issued on Thursday, the Commands spokesperson, SP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, confirmed the breakthrough and noted that the recovered motorcycles have already been returned to their rightful owners. Advertisement READ MORE: EFCC Nabs 36 Suspected Internet Fraudsters In Rivers The Commissioner of Police, CP Ibrahim Adamu Bakori, commended the officers involved in the investigation for their professionalism, diligence, and dedication to duty, Kiyawa stated. The statement added, We urge members of the public to continue supporting the Police by providing timely information and cooperating in efforts to maintain peace and security across the state. The Command reaffirmed its resolve to step up operations aimed at ensuring offenders face justice while also working to curb future incidents of motorcycle theft. The Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has raised concerns over the dangers of unregulated social media use in Nigeria, describing it as an increasing threat to national peace and political stability. Speaking virtually on Thursday during the presentation of nomination forms to Governor Biodun Oyebanji by the Ekiti State University Alumni Solidarity Group for BAO, Bamidele revealed that the Senate is already considering measures to curb the misuse of social media platforms. The lawmaker cautioned that the digital space is being exploited to spread false narratives and political propaganda, particularly as activities heat up ahead of the 2026 governorship election in Ekiti State. According to him, unverified claims online are often designed to discredit political leaders and destabilise governance. Advertisement READ MORE : Fake Doctor Nabbed In Akwa Ibom After Illegal Abortion Claims Womans Life He noted that most of those behind such falsehoods were not motivated by genuine concern but by mischief and political desperation. Bamidele stressed that the absence of regulation in the social media space has opened the door for unsubstantiated allegations that could breed division among citizens if left unchecked. In Ekiti State, politics has begun, you should be waiting for anything. They can tell you that the Governor has been flown out of Ekiti on health grounds, that hes fighting his wife be prepared, Bamidele said. He further defended Governor Oyebanji against criticisms over the poor state of federal roads in Ekiti, stating that the Governor had repeatedly visited Abuja and engaged relevant authorities to address the issue. He described such online attacks as politically motivated. Social media practice is largely unregulated in Nigeria. Those people holding him (Oyebanji) responsible for the state of federal roads are being mischievous. As far as the Governor is concerned, he came to Abuja several times and led us to the office of relevant stakeholders to discuss the state of federal roads. Some dont know this, some know this, but they are just being mischievous as a result of the moving train in the state. We are coming to that to reduce the threat of social media, and the Senate will do something about that; its become a threat to the peace of the country, he said. Also speaking at the event, Governor Oyebanji warned against attempts by political actors to instigate violence in the state as the 2026 governorship election draws closer. He alleged that some politicians were plotting to sponsor thuggery ahead of the polls but assured that his administration would resist any move to disrupt the peace currently enjoyed in Ekiti State. We wont allow anyone to import violence into Ekiti. We are aware of their plans to bring political thugs, but we will not allow them to take away the peace we are witnessing in Ekiti, Oyebanji stated. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called on Nigerians living abroad to actively contribute their expertise, resources, and knowledge to the countrys growth, emphasizing that national progress depends on the participation of both citizens at home and those in the Diaspora. Speaking during an interactive session with members of the Nigerian community in Japan on the sidelines of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD9), President Tinubu urged Nigerians abroad to return home and take part in the nations economic transformation. I am happy to listen to you. Im happy to report that many of our people are returning home. Yes, for economic reasons, some people might decide to stay away; its a fundamental right of the individual, but for the economic growth and opportunity available in Nigeria, dont stay away. Your contribution is very much needed. If you stay away, who will build it? Tinubu stated. Advertisement READ MORE : EFCC, Immigration, Repatriate 50 Chinese, One Tunisian Nationals Convicted Of Cybercrime The President highlighted his administrations achievements in critical sectors such as passport issuance, healthcare infrastructure, business competitiveness, and investment reforms. He further encouraged Nigerians in the Diaspora to serve as ambassadors of the country by promoting a positive image abroad. National development cannot be left to the government alone; it requires a shared sense of responsibility between citizens at home and those abroad. If we dont join hands and work together, then weve lost the hope of being the leaders we are supposed to be, he added. During the engagement, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Enoh, alongside the Executive Vice Chairman of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Khalil Suleiman Halilu, shared insights on government policies and ongoing reforms. Wale Tinubu, a business executive and nephew of the President, also spoke on how recent economic reforms have boosted competitiveness, attracted foreign investments, and strengthened the Nigerian stock market. Members of the Nigerian community in Japan, including professionals, entrepreneurs, and students, welcomed the dialogue and pledged their support for initiatives geared towards national development. President of the Nigerian Union in Japan, Mr. Emeka Ebogota, praised Tinubu for engaging with the Diaspora, assuring that the union remains committed to supporting the administrations efforts. Other distinguished attendees included John Ologbotsere, a Japanese national award recipient in electrotechnical standardisation, as well as prominent Nigerian doctors, business leaders, and investors. Also present were senior government officials such as Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar, other cabinet members, and top private sector leaders. Concluding the session, President Tinubu reiterated his belief that Nigeria is on the path of resurgence, stressing that every citizen, whether at home or abroad, has a vital role to play in building a stronger and more prosperous nation. Molly Diane (left) and friends chat about their purchases at Manayunk's Cupid's Bookshop in April. Read more Philly bibliophiles, are you ready to crawl? The Philly Bookstore Crawl returns for its third year this Saturday, Aug. 23, with special events and the debut of new bookstores on the bookstore crawl list. Theres no set schedule or route readers can spend the day roaming from South Philly to Ardmore, meeting authors, and enjoying discounts. Advertisement Eric Smith, a local young adult author and literary agent, is the mastermind behind the event. He launched this celebration of Philly-area bookstores in 2023, inspired by similar events when he was living in Richmond, Va., and in Ann Arbor, Mich. I couldnt shake how great one in Philadelphia would be should we ever move back, said Smith. After returning to Philly, Smith launched the crawl to support indie bookshops still recovering from the pandemic. He hopes to remind our community to pay these places a visit should we want them to stay here and we certainly do. How does the Philly Bookstore Crawl work? Smith likens the crawl to Phillys First Friday events: Theres no fixed schedule, just a map of participating shops and a list of activities. The day is yours to plot and plan, he said. This years additions include a breakfast special at Chestnut Hill cafes, a Freedom to Read postcard-writing party at Harrietts Bookshop, and a Philadelphia Stories tour bus that will visit five participating stores. The day wraps with an after-party at Main Point Books in Wayne, where local author Jeff Bogle will launch his debut. For Smith, the event is an opportunity to encourage readers and empower writers to stay connected to their bookstores. Philadelphia is one of the greatest cities to be a book nerd in, he said. And if we want it to keep being that way, we have to keep visiting our indie bookstores, all year long. These bookstores offer plenty of titles, including cookbooks featuring Indian American recipes, horror comic books, fictional family sagas, and collections of essays on collective power and righting wrongs, thatll keep you coming back for more. Below, we complied the best books of 2025 (so far) from participating bookstore owners to help you find the perfect read at this years Philly Bookstore Crawl or any day of the year. Best books of 2025 (so far), according to Philly bookstore owners American Grammar: Strangers in the Land by Michael Lou For Terrance Wiley, co-owner of American Grammar in Kensington, Michael Lous Strangers in the Land meticulously documents the history of Chinese Americans. With each page introducing readers to new worlds, the book is a demanding and ambitious tome, Wiley said. By the end, one will better understand the present political landscape and hopefully be better positioned to contribute to efforts to combat xenophobia and political repression. The book is available in-store for $35 get 5% off on the book crawl. 2046 N. Front Street, Philadelphia, Pa., 19122, american-grammar.com Binding Agents: Third Culture Cooking by Zaynab Issa As the owner of Phillys new cookbook bookshop, Catie Gainor knows a good cookbook when she sees one. Zaynab Issas Third Culture Cooking was the Binding Agents July Cookbook Club pick, resulting in one of the most delicious and exciting potluck spreads so far. Issa deftly reflects her upbringing, her personal taste, and her skills as a seasoned recipe developer in this gorgeous book, which strikes a perfect balance of honoring traditional dishes (tomato saag, biryani) and celebrating modern twists (French onion ramen, tandoori tacos). The book will be available at the shop and on Bookshop.org for $35. 908 Christian Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19147, instagram.com/BindingAgents A Novel Idea: The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw Owners Christina Rosso-Schneider and Alex Schneider are leaning into spooky season with this mix of dark academia, fantasy, and horror. In The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw, a woman with a treacherous past is kidnapped and brought to an institute for the gifted with a faculty that may or may not have sinister intentions. [The book is] a funny, disturbing, and fast-paced story of survival and friendship, Rosso-Schneider said. Buy it at the store for $29.99, and read the September adult fiction book club pick. Book club discussion is Sept. 25, 6:30 p.m. 1726 E. Passyunk Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19148, 267-764-1202, anovelideaphilly.com Uncle Bobbies Coffee & Books: Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline Operations manager Van Brooks highlights Tourmalines biography of the trans icon as an immeasurable gift that taps into Johnsons fight for justice and to take up space. The book is the first definitive biography of the trailblazing performer. Brooks said Tourmaline offers readers an opportunity to connect with one of our most precious and transformative transcestors. Purchase the book at the shop for $30. 5445 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19144, 215-403-7058, unclebobbies.com Capricorn Books: Sky Daddy by Kate Folk Sky Daddy by Kate Folk caught Jackie Q. Botto, owner of Capricorn Books in Jenkintown, completely off guard. The novel follows Linda, a woman who wants to marry an airplane a love that, in her mind, can only be consummated by a fatal crash that unites their souls for eternity. As she struggles to balance her work as a content moderator with other demands, Linda is forced to choose between conforming to societal expectations or pursuing her nonnormative obsession. Beyond its seemingly absurd premise, its filled with humor and a lot of heart, Botto said. It explores concepts of fate, obsession, and our yearning for human connection. The book is available in hardcover at Capricorn for $29. 605 West Ave., Jenkintown, Pa. 19046, 215-681-2221, capricornbookshop.com Multiverse: Esperance by Adam Oyebanji Owners Sara Zia Ebrahimi of Multiverse in Chestnut Hill recommends Esperance by Adam Oyebanji. This sci-fi thriller is great for fans of Neal Stephenson and Blake Crouch, Ebrahimi said. It is my pick because of its unique premise and blend of genres as a creative way to explore the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade across continents and time. The book, in hardback only, is available in the store for $29. . 8026 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19118, 215-896-1073, multiversephilly.com More book recs If youre still looking to stack your TBR (to be read) pile, here are more titles Philly readers are buzzing about from book clubs to beach chairs. From Phillys book clubs Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi (Queer Books Philly) Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Sexy Bookclub) Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Philaqueens POC Bookclub) Ghana to the World by Eric Adjepong and Korsha Wilson (Binding Agents Cookbook Club) Shore beach reads Temple University and the Library Company of Philadelphia are close to nailing down the terms of a proposed merger of the two institutions, Library Company shareholders were told at a meeting Wednesday evening. But any merger deal would have to pass several more hurdles before becoming final. The boards of both Temple and the Library Company would have to approve it, and the proposal would then be put to a vote for the librarys 500 or so shareholders, attendees of the meeting were told. Advertisement The merger would also be subject to approval by Philadelphia Orphans Court. Wednesdays meeting was a special session called by a group of shareholders following a June Inquirer article reporting the potential merger. The shareholders were frustrated by what they perceived as a lack of communication regarding negotiations between Temple and the Library Company, and, in fact, officials at the meeting continued to decline to discuss the substance of talks, shareholders said. On Friday, Library Company director John C. Van Horne confirmed that merger talks were close to concluding. He said that key to any ultimate merger terms would be holding onto an organizational identity, so that when you come in the front door, youre going to know youre at the Library Company, as well as maintaining the staff, the collections, the programs, the endowments, the ethos. Weve been around for a very long time, he said, so were ... just trying to not only protect it but ensure that it survives for the ages, for many more centuries to come. Temple officials said they see the merger as a chance to amplify the work of both institutions. What we collect and what historically is embodied in the Library Company collections fit together in ways that would really enrich our academic programs and extend and develop the already significant research and academic activities at the Library Company, said Temple dean of libraries Joe Lucia. In explaining the impetus for the proposed merger, officials told shareholders Wednesday that the Library Company had run deficits in most recent years, and that it would have to eat into unrestricted endowment to continue to operate and, even then, it would only be able to operate another two to three years. Spreadsheets from the meeting obtained by The Inquirer showed substantial operating deficits in most years going back to 2017, as well as projections for deficits into 2030. Asked what it would take for the Library Company to remain independent, officials said that $23 million would have to be raised for endowment, on top of the current endowment, to generate enough money to cover annual operating costs, according to shareholders in attendance. Van Horne said that raising that kind of money would be an incredibly steep hill to climb, and probably unrealistic. A special fundraising campaign last year to cover shortfalls, and gird finances this year and next, yielded about $4 million, but that level of annual giving could absolutely not be sustained on an ongoing basis, Van Horne said. Still, some said that they would prefer to see the Library Company founded in 1731 as the first subscription library in the U.S. continue on its own. It goes to the independence and personality of the institution. I cant imagine its not going to change if this goes through, said shareholder Robert Eskind, who favors an ambitious fundraising campaign to preserve its independence. You want to see a focused development effort to rebuild the institution we knew. It didnt sound to me like there was a concerted effort. The support is out there. If Library Company officials were unwilling to talk about the details of a merger matters such as governance and fundraising they did tell shareholders that, in talks with Temple, they were insisting on ensuring the integrity of the collection; keeping the current building on Locust St. near Broad as well as the Cassatt House, its residence for visiting fellows; and continuing endowed programs like fellowships in African American studies, womens history, and visual culture. Shareholder Cordelia Frances Biddle, an author who has frequently done research at the Library Company, said she doubted that a merger with Temple would leave the institution operating at the same level. I dont see how thats possible. Ive seen what happens with other places and I think sooner or later they would find a reason for not keeping it up, and then what would happen? That would be my fear. Others cited Temples own deficit a projected $27 million on a $1.29 billion budget for 2025-26 and wondered whether the Library Company could be confident of the universitys support in the long run. I would need to feel confident that it was a strong relationship and a secure one, and right now I dont know, said shareholder Anita McKelvey of her potential support for an affiliation with Temple. The librarys financial circumstances are such that something needs to happen, and a merger seems to be the most appropriate, said shareholder Joel Gardner. As far as Temple goes, I dont know. Temple has its own library and special collections. How does it all fit together, and can Temple come up with the money? One of the reasons for a merger with Temple would be to work with the universitys staff on expanding grants and philanthropic support for the Library Company. Were approaching our 300th anniversary in 2031, which is right around the corner, said Van Horne, and we all think that that presents a great opportunity for fundraising, maybe a component of a larger campaign that Temple will be undertaking at some point. So increasing the pie is the goal. The newly repainted Goliath Crane is shown on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia. Read more South Koreas new president, Lee Jae Myung, and two of President Donald Trumps cabinet secretaries will visit Hanwha Philly Shipyard next week as the two nations negotiate trade, investment, and military contracts that Hanwha hopes will help more than double employment at the nations busiest commercial shipyard. The visit is set to follow a Monday meeting between Lee and Trump in Washington, the Transportation Department and Hanwha confirmed. Advertisement In Philadelphia, Lee is expected to be joined by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Sang H. Yi, acting boss of the U.S. Maritime Administration, as they help christen the State of Maine. The multiuse ship was based on Korean plans, built in Philadelphia, and destined for a New England merchant marine academy that prepares cargo-ship officers. It is the fourth of five ships that Maritime Administration contractors ordered from what was then Aker Philly Shipyard in 2020. That work helped boost employment from near zero to the current 1,700, the most since the Navy closed the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on the site in 1996 amid post-Cold War cost-cutting. The Philadelphia yard has built more ships than any other for use between U.S. ports under the Jones Act, which requires U.S.-built ships for those cargoes. But a lack of steady orders has made it tough to keep workers busy. Hanwha officials say their company hopes to expand the Philly yard, so it can build and maintain its own fleet of cargo ships while outside orders are slack, and help guarantee new trainees permanent employment, reducing the instability that has plagued the industry and made recruiting a challenge. The planned visit is a symbol of economic cooperation and strong trust between Korea and the United States and will help cement the MASGA project, Joong Keun Song, former head of the Korean Association of Greater Philadelphia, wrote Friday in a social media post, in Korean. MASGA stands for Make American Shipbuilding Great Again, a Trump-administration initiative that includes billions in South Korean investment commitments for U.S. ships. Pressure to appeal to Trump China is the worlds leading shipbuilder, which has concerned U.S. policymakers amid the nations growing economic and military rivalry. South Korea is second largest. Hanwhas yard in Ulsan, South Korea, was built by predecessor Daewoo and is one of the worlds biggest, with four giant Goliath cranes, compared with one in Philadelphia. It has many more dry-docks for simultaneous ship construction. Analysts expect Trump this week will pressure Lee to pay more for the upkeep of U.S. forces in his nation, a longtime U.S. ally. When he was elected in June, Lee was seen as less close to the U.S. and more open to China than many of his predecessors. But trade talks last month and South Korean industrys pursuit of U.S. business have pressured Lee to strengthen his appeal to Trump. Increasing production The Hanwha industrial group, which in 2024 purchased what is now the Hanwha Philly Shipyard, is aiming to increase production from 1 ships a year to at least 10 a year by 2034. To that end, Hanwha Philly hopes to boost its staff, currently 1,700, to over 4,000, and expand its facilities beyond the heart of the former Navy Yard by winning U.S. government, military, and civilian shipbuilding contracts. To do this, Hanwha leaders also hope to get federal government funding for facilities and training, under programs Trump has championed to resurrect U.S. shipbuilding. Hanwha, meanwhile, is training a new generation of young and second-career welders, shipfitters, and other skilled laborers. Workers at Hanwha and the neighboring Rhoads Industries and Navy propeller facilities are represented by a council of metal trades unions. The largest at Hanwha include the Boilermakers and Operating Engineers. Last spring, Hanwha said it plans to spend more than $70 million rebuilding a former dry dock, currently used as a pier. David Kim, who runs the shipyard for Hanwha, says the company is also considering other Delaware River properties where it could expand. The company wants to do work on Navy submarines, drones, and other craft. Hanwha also wants to eventually build liquid natural gas (LNG) carriers in Philadelphia. Overall, the hoped-for expansion of the yard would boost sales of Philly-built ships to $4 billion annually from less than $400 million in 2024, Hanwha told analysts earlier this year. Rejuvenating shipbuilding Hanwha also hopes to build unmanned vessels for the U.S. Navy and has been updating Sealift fuel and ammunition transports. The U.S. Navy has encouraged seagoing drone development, as the Ukrainian Navys success using drones against ships in Russias Black Sea fleet feeds worries that U.S. aircraft carriers and other expensive surface ships have become much more vulnerable, even obsolete. Hanwha, its Washington allies, and lobbyists have approached the Navy about moving ships in its mothball fleet out of the Reserve Basin at the center of the former base to another U.S. location, so adjoining docks and sheds could be used for shipbuilding. Shipbuilding in most countries has been a money-losing business that requires government contracts and subsidies to compete with low-cost, high-volume, China-based shipbuilders, which in recent years have accounted for more than half of world ship construction. Worried about U.S. dependence on ships built and managed by China, a bipartisan group of Congress members earlier this year reintroduced the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security (SHIPS) Act. SHIPS and Trumps Executive Order 14269 would set up a government Maritime Security Board to implement a federal strategy coordinating U.S. ship construction and subsidies. A Maritime Trust Fund would use tariffs, plus fines on Russian and Chinese vessels used to ship U.S. cargoes, to pay for shipyard improvements. The Coast Guard would take charge of imposing fees designed to drive trade to U.S. cargo ships. SHIPS would also allow tax breaks for U.S. shipyard improvements and ship construction, subsidize training for maritime workers and students entering Merchant Marine schools to serve as U.S. cargo ship officers, and use Department of Defense funds to repair Navy and Coast Guard ships in commercial yards. A 44-year-old Philadelphia man pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges that he made racist, violent threats against Black City of Philadelphia employees and a Black motorist, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said. On one occasion, Mark Anthony Tucci threatened to go to a city agency and hurt everyone, claimed that he knew one Black employees home address, repeatedly said the N-word and stated several times that he was a part of the Proud Boys, according to the affidavit in support of the amended criminal complaint and arrest warrant filed against Tucci in January. Advertisement In another instance, Tucci drove next to a Black female motorist during heavy traffic on I-95 in Northeast Philadelphia, rolled down his window and screamed repeatedly, Im going to kill you [racial expletive]! Im going to shoot you! and then threw a glass mug, denting the womans car, according to the prosecutions guilty plea memorandum filed on Monday. Tucci pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh to one count each of threat to use a dangerous weapon, interfering with federally protected activities, cyberstalking, interstate communication of threats, and threats interfering with federally protected activities. Douglas N. Stern, Tuccis attorney, declined to comment until after his clients sentencing, which is scheduled for Dec. 2. According to the guilty plea memorandum, investigators found on Tuccis iCloud account a PDF file of The Great Replacement, the 74-page manifesto written by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people and injured dozens of others at two New Zealand mosques in 2019. Investigators said they also found videos celebrating white supremacist accelerationism and neo-Nazism, including multiple videos celebrating Nazi salutes and Hitler; racist images and memes; and songs from a white supremacist rapper that include numerous references to killing[Black people] and creating an all-white society. On June 3, 2024, Tucci called a Philadelphia city agency to ask about an investigation of Tuccis child, the criminal complaint said. Tucci began yelling, and the employee hung up after Tucci refused to stop yelling. The employee hung up again after Tucci called back and continued to yell. Tucci, using his personal cell phone, then sent text messages to the employees personal phone, mentioned the employee by name and the street name where the employee lived, and said, This is personal now, and Cant hang up on me in person, followed by a vulgar term, according to the criminal complaint, which did not say how Tucci got the employees personal number. That same day, Tucci sent emails using his personal iCloud account to the employee, repeatedly using racist slurs, and signed at least one, Thank You Mark. Again that day, Tucci called another city employee at the agency and used racial slurs. The employee used caller ID and called back Tucci, who erupted in another racist tirade and then threatened to come to the office and hurt everyone, the criminal complaint said. During this call, the criminal complaint said, Tucci stated several times that he was a part of the Proud Boys. In a footnote, the criminal complaint explained: The Proud Boys is a group that is known to the FBI. This organization has multiple U.S. chapters, including one known to the FBI in Philadelphia. The Proud Boys is a nationalist organization with multiple U.S. chapters that describes itself as a pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists. The criminal complaint said the agency employee who received the personal text messages feared that Tucci would find them, and seriously injure or kill them or their family members. The employee started to carry mace and went out of their way to make their pattern of life unpredictable for months after the incident, in case Tucci was following them. Tuccis case was investigated by the FBI, the Pennsylvania State Police, and the Philadelphia Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Jeanette Kang for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Samuel Kuhn of the Civil Rights Divisions Criminal Section. Tamira Musier holds up a photo of a visit with her brother in prison. Read more A judge on Friday overturned the murder conviction of a North Philadelphia man after prosecutors unearthed jail calls that suggest that a key witness was paid to lie and frame him 17 years ago. Common Pleas Court Judge Jennifer Schultz said Tyree Musier, 39, should be granted a new trial, and that his conviction and life sentence should be vacated because prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by failing to turn over key evidence to his lawyers as required by law. Advertisement Musier has been behind bars for nearly two decades after he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in the shooting death of Nathaniel Crawford near the University City Townhomes in 2008. The ruling was a long-sought victory for Musier and his family, who for years have fought to prove his innocence. READ MORE: She says a man paid her $2,000 to frame his friend for murder, and jail calls confirm it. It remained hidden until now. As Schultz announced her ruling, the nearly 25 members of Musiers family gathered inside the courtroom gasped in relief. The moment, they said, brought both relief and sadness relief that they were one step closer to bringing him home, but sadness that it took more than 17 years. It was overwhelming knowing all the people who knew he was innocent all these years, said Musiers older sister, Tania. Hearing all the things that came to light, while hes been gone for 17 years. Schultzs decision does not free Musier. The case now will be reviewed by the district attorneys office, which will determine in the coming weeks whether or not to retry Musier for the crime. Prosecutors agreed this week that Musiers conviction should be overturned, but stopped short of saying they believed he was innocent. Schultz, too, did not offer an opinion on whether Musier had committed the crime, but rather said he did not receive a fair trial. Still, Tania Musier said, Fridays developments were the closest confirmation yet of what her family said has been an open secret for years on the streets of North and West Philadelphia: Jonte Slater not Musier shot Crawford the night of June 22, 2008. The night of the shooting, Musier, Slater, and a third person were stopped by police fleeing the scene. Officers said they saw someone throw the gun used to kill Crawford out of the window of the getaway cars passenger side, where Musier was sitting. And inside the console of the car, officers found an extra-large bright green shirt that the shooter had been wearing. As officers held that shirt up to Musier, two young witnesses identified him as the person who shot Crawford multiple times. Police charged both men Musier as the shooter, and Slater as the getaway driver. But one of those witnesses, Latasha Austin, later said she had actually seen Slater shoot Crawford but was afraid to identify him that night because she lived next door to his mother and feared retribution. And she said earlier this year that Slaters family paid her about $2,000 to lie at a preliminary hearing and say that Musier killed Crawford, and Slater wasnt involved. After her testimony at a preliminary hearing, the charges against Slater were dismissed, and he was released. The case against Musier moved forward. Then, in November 2009, Slater was shot and killed in a case that remains unsolved. Austin attempted to recant her testimony before and during Musiers 2012 trial, saying she saw Slater, not Musier, kill Crawford. But prosecutors and jurors did not believe her. Musier was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. But evidence supporting the theory that Slater was involved was recovered earlier this year after prosecutors said they found a collection of tapes with recordings of his jail calls in the bottom of an old filing box. In the calls, Slater spoke of being at the scene of the shooting and hatched a scheme to bribe Austin to say she saw Musier fire the gun. A thousand dollars apiece, for whoever the witnesses is, Slater said in one call, according to court records. Each one of them. He also said the green shirt was his, and described officers mistakenly holding it up to Musier. But trial prosecutors did not listen to the tapes, and, for reasons that remain unclear, they did not turn them over to Musiers defense lawyers before his 2012 trial, as required by law. For that reason, the district attorneys office said this week, Musiers conviction should be overturned. Schultz agreed. This evidence alone could have resulted in a different verdict, the judge said of the tapes. Crawfords family did not attend Fridays hearing, and have declined to speak publicly about the new evidence in the case. Musiers lawyer, Dan Silverman, welcomed Fridays decision and said he, Musier, and Musiers family were grateful to the judge, the DAs office, and the 12 witnesses who had come forward in recent months to testify to Musiers innocence. Still, he said, This celebration is tainted by the 17 years Mr. Musier never should have had stolen from him and by the misconduct of those who caused that to happen. Silverman said the Crawford family, too, had been wronged by a justice system that failed them. I hope they take some comfort in starting to understand who really killed their son, he said. Over the last year, Silverman had worked to track down a dozen witnesses who said Slater, not Musier, was the killer. Among them was Jerrica Rogers, the mother of Slaters child, who said he confessed to her that he killed Crawford and paid Austin to say Musier was the shooter. Austin, too, testified and said she was paid about $2,000 to lie. Even Slaters own father took the witness stand and said he believed his son killed Crawford. And then prosecutors found the tapes. After the hearing on Friday, Musiers family embraced and cried in the hallway. His mother could barely speak. His sisters wrapped her in their arms and prayed that soon their brother would join them. Musier, who is in a Western Pennsylvania prison six hours away, was not in court to hear the news, but his sisters said they planned to speak with him by phone Friday afternoon and celebrate the decision. Its not over. Theres still a process, but were one step closer to bringing him home, Tania Musier said. Were gonna get there, so he can hug my mom outside those walls. People who had been sheltering in place inside Villanova Universitys St. Marys Hall gather outside after the all clear had been given by police. An earlier active shooter reported proved to have been a hoax. Read more The president of Villanova University said Thursday evening that the report of an active shooter on campus was a cruel hoax and that no one was injured. In a statement to the Villanova community, the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, the universitys president, said the report caused panic and terror as students and staff were celebrating Orientation Mass. Advertisement Mercifully, no one was injured, and we now know that it was a cruel hoax there was no active shooter, no injuries and no evidence of firearms present on campus," Donohue said in a statement. Before that, police searched building by building, floor by floor, looking for a shooter or victims. There was an initial report via police radio conversation among responding officers that there was a gunshot victim, but police officially said later that they had no reported victims. Nonetheless, police continued to urge caution. If you are sheltering stay in place until a police officer guides you," the Radnor Township Police Department said in a social media update shortly before 5:50 p.m. READ MORE: Active shooter report at Villanova was a 'cruel hoax,' university says; no injuries reported Earlier, the university reported that the police search on campus was ongoing and that people on campus should move to a secure location and lock and barricade doors. The university advised people to stay clear of Scarpa Hall at the Charles Widger School of Law. The university later explained that around 4:30 p.m., Villanovas Department of Public Safety received an anonymous report of an active shooter in the Widger School of Law. Police conducted a thorough search of the buildings in the area and confirmed that the incident was a hoax, the university said. The initial report of an active shooter drew swift responses from the highest political offices in Pennsylvania. Dina and I are praying for the safety of students, faculty, law enforcement, and everyone on campus, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) said on social media. Gov. Josh Shapiro also responded on social media to the unfolding event, but later provided an update also calling the incident a hoax. The reports of an active shooter at Villanova today are unfounded, and products of a cruel swatting incident when someone calls in a fake threat to induce panic, Shapiro said on social media shortly after 6:20 p.m. Swatting is illegal. Ive directed @PAStatePolice to work alongside their partners and use every tool at our disposal to find the person or people who called in this fake threat and hold them accountable, Shapiro said. I know today was every parents nightmare, and every students biggest fear. Im profoundly grateful no one was hurt, and thankful to all members of law enforcement who ran towards reports of danger to keep Pennsylvanians safe, the governor said. Donohue, Villanovas president, said that while the news that there was no active shooter is a blessing and relief, I know todays events have shaken our entire community. He added: l am sure there will be more questions in the coming days and weeks, and we will share as much information with you as we can, but for now, I am thankful that everyone is safe. Thursday was the last day of mandatory orientation for incoming first-year law students, according to the schools academic calendar. Freshman move-in began Wednesday. Throughout the day Thursday, there were informational and welcome sessions, Villanovas website said. The active shooter was reported during the universitys opening Mass, scheduled from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. Villanova University is a private school about 12 miles northwest of Philadelphia, with an undergraduate student population of about 6,700. The Augustinian Catholic institution is the alma mater of Pope Leo XIV, and former first lady Jill Biden earned a masters degree from the university. Entire families clad in Villanova University apparel, some with young children in tow, left the school shaken Thursday, rushing to their cars to leave campus. We just want to get out of here, said one woman who had been crying. Youssaf Shah, a postdoctoral student, stood outside Drosdick Hall, hands over his head, as police cars left their previously assigned positions blocking incoming and outgoing traffic. This was pretty intense, Ive never been in this kind of situation before, he said. Shah was in the middle of a virtual meeting with research partners when the campus alert went out, sending the school into lockdown. He said texts started coming in from people asking if he was OK. Because key cards were not working, a colleague who had been in the restroom ran to his office, where they locked themselves in until the lockdown was lifted. Im relieved that no one was hurt, Shah said. But Im concerned about the new students. He lamented they had to start their semester this way. One freshman was inconsolable as she and her mother headed to the parking lot. This is only my second day on campus, she said, declining to give her name at her mothers suggestion. Everything was great until this happened. This shouldnt be happening anywhere. Staff writers Jesse Bunch, Maggie Prosser, and Susan Snyder contributed to this article. Beth Kline (left) and her daughter Allison Kline share a laugh as they set up their classrooms on Friday. The pair teach third and second grade at Andrew Hamilton Elementary in West Philadelphia. Read more Beth Kline, a third-grade teacher at Andrew Hamilton Elementary in West Philadelphia, arranged books on her colleagues classroom bookshelf. Oh, your kids are going to love these, Kline, a third-grade teacher, told the second-grade teacher in Room 225 on Friday morning. Advertisement Allison Kline is very accustomed to help from her colleague whos also her mom. The two have been teaching together in the Philadelphia School District for 11 years first, at Bryant Elementary in West Philadelphia, then at Jay Cooke in Logan (where they co-taught a single, giant class), and, for the past six years, at Hamilton. The difference one teacher can make As a child, Beth loved learning and couldnt get enough of school. I wanted to help kids find that joy, so I became a teacher, Beth said. When you see a child just dive in headfirst and want to learn, theres nothing more rewarding than that. I still get tingles when I talk about it. Allison has known she wanted to be a teacher since she visited her moms preschool classroom in 1995. It was amazing to see the difference one teacher can make, she said. Still, when Allison announced her intention to not only become a teacher, but to become a teacher in Philadelphia, her mom questioned her. Beth loves teaching, but its a tough profession, especially in an under-resourced district with high concentrations of student need. But Allison was full steam ahead, completing her student teaching at Bryant, where her mom worked, then getting her own classroom there. The Klines have similar teaching styles, they said they both love inquiry-based teaching, with students learning by asking key questions. But theyre not carbon copies of each other. Shes the tough one, and Im the soft one, said Beth. But the Klines lean on each other. If a kid needs a break, Ill send them down the hall to her room. Its an incentive, If you get this done, Ill let you go to Ms. Klines room, Beth said. Two family teams At Hamilton, where Principal Torrance Rothmiller said he loves having the Klines on his staff great teachers, he said kids are well aware that theres a mom in one classroom and her daughter nearby. Students usually call them Mama Kline and Baby Kline. Allison goes with that usually. I usually call her Mama Kline, but once in a while Ill forget and say, Hey Mom, and the kids get a kick out of it, said Allison. Theyll often commute to work together from Delaware County, and they drive family members crazy with school talk. (Another Kline child is also a teacher Jacob, Beths son and Allisons brother, recently moved from Upper Darby schools to Harlem.) And yes, they even spend free time together. I sneak down for lunch all the time, Allison said. Thats the first thing we checked when we got this years schedules do we have lunch together? The Klines arent the only mother-daughter team at Hamilton. Ikhlas Hussain and Ryan Mustafa are both special education assistants at the school. Hussain is happy and a little proud to work with her daughter. Every time we have a meeting, she brings her chair and sits next to me, said Hussain. She wants to be next to her mom. Fewer buses, trolleys, and trains threaten Philadelphia schools academic progress, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington said at a school board meeting Thursday. Deep SEPTA service cuts are scheduled to take effect Sunday. More than 50,000 of the districts students rely on the regions public transit system to get to school. Advertisement Every impact from this transportation issue will likely have some impacts on our efforts to keep our foot on the gas to accelerate academic improvement, Watlington said. We need every day, every hour, and every minute of instruction. The districts first day of classes is Monday, the day after the cuts take effect. Watlington said students who are late to class because of SEPTA woes will be given grace. We are not going to penalize our children, our young people, because of no problem of their own making, Watlington said. The superintendent also encouraged families to carpool, and to take advantage of a $300 stipend to drive their children to school in lieu of bus services. Watlingtons comments came at a meeting where the board took action on dozens of matters. Here are some highlights. Closing process triggered for two charters The board voted to issue notices of nonrenewal to two city charters, KIPP North Philadelphia and People for People. Neither school will close immediately, and in fact the vote does not guarantee closure. It triggers a process that is likely to last years beginning with nonrenewal hearings to be held in the fall. If, after the hearings, the board votes again to close the schools, each has the right to appeal, first to a state panel, then to the courts. Some Philly charters have remained open for years while closure proceedings play out. Leaders from both schools said the process was unfair and asked the board to reconsider. (The KIPP North Philadelphia nonrenewal passed unanimously; People for Peoples vote was 7-1, with board member Whitney Jones dissenting.) Pri Seebadri, CEO of People for People Charter School, decried what he said was the districts flawed, shortsighted approach to charter renewal. People for People students showed significant academic growth last year, Seebadri said, and thats the true measure of a schools worth. The school, one of the citys oldest charters, has operated for two decades, but was called out by board members for a laundry list of academic problems, which board vice president Sarah-Ashley Andrews said were alarming and unacceptable. One year of academic growth is not a pattern, board president Reginald Streater said. People for Peoples proficiency rates have continued to remain low and stagnant for years. Im concerned that after more than two decades, theres still no evidence for sustained success. Natalie Wiltshire, CEO of KIPP Philadelphia, which supports KIPP North Philadelphia, said the school met conditions imposed on it by the charter office, and she underscored the fact that it serves vulnerable students. The closure move feels more like its about making a political statement, Wiltshire told the board. Andrews called out KIPPs failure to deliver for our students, citing problems with suspension rates and academics. Keystone Opportunity Zones: Not so fast Board members had sharp questions for city officials who asked them to extend Keystone Opportunity Zones state designations that give tax breaks to developers for properties that might otherwise go unused for sites across the city. The zones have been around for 20 years. Both city and district officials must sign off on them. Board member Crystal Cubbage questioned the benefit to the city, the district, and its students. I want a number more than a narrative, Cubbage said. Developers that get Keystone designations are required to work with city students providing internships and other learning opportunities. But the so-called career-connected learning piece just feels like an afterthought, Cubbage said. Ultimately, the board pushed back voting on Keystone Opportunity Zones until September. A deal for WPACES The board unanimously approved a settlement with West Philadelphia Achievement Charter Elementary School, which the state had ordered to pay $30 million to the district for 15 years of enrolling 200 or more students over its legal cap. READ MORE: This Philly charter owed the school district $30M and is settling for $2.5M WPACES, which rejected the state and the districts claim, had gone to court to stop the payment. Under the terms of the settlement, the school will instead pay the district $2.5 million over five years and agreed to gradually lessen its enrollment. The school is approved for 400 students. It educated about 650 last year. Villanova University students about to cross Lancaster Avenue at North Ithan Avenue on Friday, the day after their campus was roiled by a false active shooter alert. Read more The day after a false report of an active shooter roiled the Villanova University campus during freshman orientation, campus officials were aiming to restore normalcy and support students, faculty and staff. Cohorts of students trekked across Lancaster Avenue on Friday led by guides in purple T-shirts as move-in and first-year orientation continued. Uniformed police officers stood watch at busy intersections, and marked police cars were positioned around and throughout the grounds. Advertisement Its clear that people feel for our students, especially, said Michael Moreland, a professor of law and religion, who has taught at the Catholic university on the Main Line since 2006. We want to try to make it so when classes start Monday its as much a return to normalcy as we can accomplish. READ MORE: Active shooter report at Villanova was a cruel hoax, university president says; no injuries reported Just after 4:30 p.m. Thursday, reports of an active shooter began coming in, sending students, faculty, parents, and staff some of whom were attending an orientation Mass scrambling to hide in secure locations. Fear and panic set in for about 90 minutes as heavily armed police patrolled the campus, looking for a potential shooter. Officials later said it was a swatting incident in which someone reported a fake emergency, inciting panic. Villanovas president, the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, called it a cruel hoax in a message to the campus community. Police are continuing to investigate. Though the report was fake, the fear it instilled was all too real, and those on campus were trying to process their emotions Friday. Youre relieved on the one hand, Moreland said. But its hard to undo all the anxiety and fright and worry you have in the moment. Its a weird combination... Obviously, Im still trying to process that. Moreland and his wife, Anna Moreland, a humanities professor and chair of the honors program at Villanova, were at the Mass when the active shooter alert went out. Their son, Sebastian, a senior chemistry and humanities major, also was there, serving as a freshman orientation leader. READ MORE: Police scanner shows panicked response to Villanova shooting hoax Moreland said he and his wife ran to a classroom about 50 yards away. Their son fled to the same building, but to a different classroom, and they communicated by text. They spent their next moments scared, worrying, and praying, he said. On Friday, his son was back at orientation, helping freshmen. Moreland participated in a meeting with law school faculty and administrators to talk about what happened and to prepare for Monday. The university, which enrolls nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, declined to make Donohue or other administrators available for comment, saying their focus was on students, parents, faculty, and staff. A Mass was held on campus shortly after noon, as it is every day. It was moved from the chapel to St. Thomas of Villanova Church, the schools historic church along Lancaster Avenue, to accommodate more people. Violation of trust and faith Bridget Sullivan was headed to the performing arts center Friday morning her fourth day as production manager of the schools theater department for rescheduled auditions. Before auditions were set to begin Thursday, the NOVA Alert burst through Sullivans inbox. Only days into her tenure, shed gotten the new employee pamphlet but hadnt digested what to do, whom to call, or where to go in an emergency. And although the theater is far from where the threat was called in, the consensus was, If I were a student, I dont know if I would want to audition, Sullivan said, and is it that important? After the initial adrenaline, followed by relief at learning it was a hoax, Sullivans thoughts and emotions came in waves: frustration, resignation, disappointment. No one was hurt, there were no weapons, and at the end of the day, thats what matters, she said Friday. The violation of trust and faith in the goodness of humanity, thats harder. Students and employees could continue to experience emotions from Thursdays incidents for days, weeks, or even longer, said Philip Izzo, medical director of outpatient psychiatric services for Main Line Health. These are visceral emotions that are going to come about after a traumatic event, he said, citing shock, fear, anxiety, and anger. He said Villanova seemed to be handling the incident well, inviting people to come back to the campus green for the traditional Augustinian blessing and allowing them to gather in a safe, secure place and talk. Also important, he said, is to make students and employees aware of resources available and urge them to reach out for help if they need it, he said. Anxiety following such an event can manifest in many ways, including trouble sleeping, shortness of breath, jittery feelings, and depression, he said. Swatting incidents elsewhere St. Josephs University in 2023 also experienced a false report of a shooter on campus, but it was resolved in less than half an hour. The school subsequently vowed to improve its communications in such emergency cases. St. Joes also extended support to its community. In the days that followed, the university shared timely information about available resources, including counseling services, spiritual care, academic support, and employee assistance programs, spokesperson Kevin Gfeller said Friday. These resources were utilized by our community members. At Villanova on Friday, sophomore Campbell McKinnon, a volleyball team member who had been on campus for a few weeks, was walking on Lancaster Avenue in front of the large Villanova sign. She recalled how earlier on Thursday she was focused on another shooter alert at the Chattanooga campus of the University of Tennessee. There, an alert of an active shooter had gone out just before 12:30 p.m. McKinnon, who is from Tennessee, was checking in on her friends there. They were on lockdown and eventually evacuated. That report, too, turned out to be fake. Later, from her dorm room window, McKinnon saw chaos unfolding on her own campus. She saw parents and students fleeing, then helicopters and SWAT crews. McKinnon and her roommate Lola Taylor sat silently, they said, occasionally muttering, Oh my gosh, whats going on? Senior business major Jose Miselem was headed to the campus health center when he saw a barrage of people running. He initially dismissed it, thinking it was an orientation activity, like a scavenger hunt. Then he was told to barricade. Miselem, 23, ended up in a health center room with 15 others, he said. Miselem started frantically Googling: Who is the shooter? Are they a student? Whats their motive? Then the group, led by the son of an ex-Marine, brainstormed a plan for if they encountered the shooter: The men would stack up against the door and tackle the gunman. Taylor and McKinnon relied on X, TikTok, Yik Yak an anonymous platform geared toward college kids and eventually TV news livestreams for information. There were reports of gunfire and rumors that someone was shot and that police were taking battering rams to doors, they said. Those reports all proved to be false. McKinnon rattled off a text to her friends in Tennessee. You wont believe whats happening, she told them. When Donohue announced it was a fake, McKinnon and Taylor were stunned. Taylor was taken aback by Donohues description of it as a hoax. For three hours, we were all grieving, basically, our whole school year and how everything was possibly going to change, she said. You go to the worst-case scenario. Until classes start, Miselem said he intends to stay off campus, fearing a copycat threat. Being at that peak of being scared of dying and just later finding out it was a hoax, is such a roller coaster of emotions, the senior said. I cant imagine dealing with that on your first day on campus. The midafternoon haze was thick inside McGlincheys on Monday, less than a day after word had spread somewhat erroneously, it would turn out that the decades-old dive bar was shuttering at the end of the week. Accordingly, there were far fewer emptier seats than usual around the weathered laminate bar, on which were scattered dozens of Miller High Lifes, empty shot glasses, and no fewer than five packs of cigarettes. Do those exhaust fans still work? asked Fergus Carey, the serial Philadelphia bar owner who got his start in the industry at McGlincheys. The bartender told him that the fans embedded in the bars storefront did in fact work, but that he didnt want to vent out the air-conditioning. Advertisement I used to fight with them all the time, Carey said of McGlincheys owners, brothers Ron and Sheldon Sokol, who didnt want to incur a higher utility bill. If Ronnie wasnt there, Id turn it on and give it a minute and suck the smoke out, Carey said, sprinkling in a few other choice words. Carey was one of a tight network of McGlincheys alums who took time this week to mull over what the bar had meant to them in life even if they had moved on to clearer skies from Center Citys last public smoking bar. In the front corner of the bar, in the glow of McGlincheys iconic stained-glass parallelograms, longtime Dirty Franks staffer Abigail Cassatt Willenborg canoodled with her husband of 19 years. The pair met in the early aughts, while she was bartending at McGlincheys and he was teaching at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. When they eloped in Las Vegas in 2006, so many McGlincheys regulars tuned into the livestream, the chapel shut it down. Willenborg said she got the job at McGlincheys thanks to Jim McNamara, who now co-owns Fergies Pub and the Jim with Carey. When he was training her, Jim told me never to clean without gloves because he got shakes from absorbing the nicotine through his skin. Willenborg quit smoking about 18 years ago, a timeline she knows by heart because my son is 17 and I quit when I was 5 months pregnant with him, she said. I couldnt take the smoke. McGlincheys and smoke are inseparable. Jo-Ann Rogan, who worked at the bar on and off between 1989 and 2017, recounted her after-work decontamination process: When I got home, I would take my clothes off and put them directly in the washer, put the soap on, and start em, because they had to be washed twice. That was followed by a long, hot shower that Rogan compares to a famous scene in Silkwood, the 1983 Meryl Streep movie set in a nuclear plant. Rogan said she was stricken when she heard that McGlincheys is on the way out, even if its not happening Friday. When I thought they were really closing closing, I felt like someone had died," she said. It hit me harder than I thought it ever would. McGlincheys history Hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians (and well beyond) have passed through various permutations of McGlincheys over the establishments 88-year history. Joseph McGlinchey bought the building at 259 S. 15th Street in the late 1930s and opened a restaurant on the second floor. By the 50s, a bar had supplanted the book and tchotchke shop on the first floor, according to Hidden Citys thorough examination of the buildings history. In 1968, Henry Sokol bought McGlincheys from Joseph McGlincheys widow. Henrys sons were reportedly there when he signed the papers, but Sheldon Ron passed away in 2022 admits hes fuzzy on that date and pretty much any others, in general. (He marks time by major events. Example: We had [dinner] until the cook got sick and died. His name was Morris.) What Sheldon Sokol is sure of is that McGlincheys was always a bargain, even before it became a dive. It was always a place that was inexpensive compared to the other places in the area, he said. I have menus going back to the time when a pork chop dinner was 50 cents. McGlincheys used to see a big lunch rush from nearby offices the famous duck-hunting scene plastered on one of its walls is actually an old billboard that was gifted to it by regulars who walked over from their petroleum-company job but as Center City changed, the crowd morphed, too. So did McGlincheys. Henry Sokol and his sons installed the bars stained-glass panels and took the kitchen out of the second story, converting it to apartments for a time. My father would rent to young women from [what would become] the University of the Arts, Sheldon said. One day, the young man who was with the women drove his motorcycle down the steps from the second floor out to the street. And my father went crackers and kicked them out. After 1976, the upstairs became Tops Bar, which led different lives as a disco, a space for live music and poetry readings, and a pool bar (its current state). Henry Sokol died in 1985, but his sons kept the legacy alive well after at least thats how Fergus Carey remembers it from his time behind the bar at McGlincheys, from December 89 until November 1994, when he left to open Fergies. The [Sokol brothers] always ran it by their fathers rules, Carey said. Men were not allowed to wear shorts when bartending. And Im like, Why is that? My father said, People arent going to respect a man in shorts, came the answer. Other rules from Henry Sokol the brothers upheld: Customers were not allowed to sit at the bar with their back to it (They could have a gun and turn around and then shoot you) and no ketchup with the 25-cent hot dog (mustard only). Carey worked at McGlincheys during its heyday, before Center City became spoiled for choice. It was so cheap and so busy, he said of McGlincheys in the early 90s. A lot of people come in and theyll have a pint of Rolling Rock for 80 cents, and then theyll give me $2 and tell me to keep the change. The money was good. In 1990, Lisa Follman was working at Le Champignon, a classy French-Japanese restaurant in Headhouse Square, when a friend called and asked her to pick up a shift waitressing at McGlincheys. I was like, No, I work in a French restaurant, Follman said. She told me how much they made about $150 a night and I said, Ill be right there. From that night on, Follman worked at McGlincheys. I think after two nights, I bought a mountain bike, she said. Now a school principal, Follman remembers waitressing there as the best job she ever had outside of education. It wasnt the money it was the fun, she said. I knew almost everybody that would come in and it was like you were at a party. You were the hosts. In the mid 80s and early 90s, pre-internet and before cell phones, McGlincheys was the starting and ending point for a night out. When you went there, you found out about all the parties, where the bands were playing, you saw your friends, Follman said. It was a lot of Temple, Drexel, University of Arts, PAFA kids all coming together. It was a really big, creative place for a lot of people. And at that time, there were only two places to go: Franks or McGlincheys. Philadelphias most life-changing dive? Follmans stint at McGlincheys lasted less than three years, but it impacted her life forever. Early on, she said, she mixed with Joe Follman, a whip-smart bartender whom she describes as not the easiest person to talk to. For whatever reason, I really didnt like him. Within six months, the pair started dating. In 1994, they married. They had their first child a year later and were due with a second when Joe died in a car crash in 1997. Lisa and Joes kids are grown now ones clerking for a Supreme Court justice and the others in grad school for creative writing but theyve known McGlincheys their whole lives. They had to see where their parents met, Follman said. If it wasnt for that place, they wouldnt have existed. Talk to other staffers and youll hear over and over that McGlincheys was a seminal stop on their journey. I spent five years behind the bar there, and then that led to Fergies and Monks and God knows, Carey said. It led to my life. Sarah Stolfa started working at McGlincheys in the late 90s when she was 21. At the time, she had moved to Philly to play in a punk-rock band the drummers sister got her the gig and she needed a second job. Stolfa wound up tending bar and waitressing there for 10 years, during which time she went back to college and earned a degree in photography. She started shooting introspective portraits of McGlincheys patrons always solo at the bar, channeling a Dutch Masters aesthetic in her compositions. The series of photographs won a New York Times contest for college photography, constituted a large part of Stolfas admission to Yales master of fine arts program, and went on to become a book called The Regulars (with a begrudging intro from Jonathan Franzen). When her McGlincheys time was up, Stolfa was more than happy to move on. The day I got my acceptance letter from Yale for my masters, I was supposed to work that night, Stolfa said. I called out it was like, I am not going to work. I am done with this. Now the CEO of the East Kensington nonprofit/gallery TILT Institute, Stolfa hasnt been back to McGlincheys in years. Shes hardly sentimental about the bars potential closing, but she recognizes how pivotal it was in her own story. It was the pictures that I made there that got me out of there and helped me into a totally different life, she said. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Stolfas clear-eyed acknowledgment is Jo-Ann Rogans gushing testimonial. Im the wishy one who has all the good memories, she said. Rogan has much to attribute to her 28-year stretch at McGlincheys: In 1991, she met the band Thorazine a group that included her future husband and became its front woman. For years, she would go on tour for months at a time, always coming back to her job at McGlincheys. The Sokol brothers would hold her place. (They threw her a big party for her wedding in 2000.) Rogan was still working there when she finished college; Ron took her and one of her coworkers and fellow graduates out for a celebratory meal. She left when she landed a full-time job in IT consulting, but came back in 2006, when the childcare situation for her two sons one with high-functioning autism, the other with severe food allergies reached a crisis point. I called Ronnie, and I was like, Ronnie, I have to come back. I got a kid getting kicked out of daycare. Daycares more than my mortgage, Rogan said. Hes like, Holy [smokes], Jo-Ann, come back. Were here. For the next 11 years, Rogan worked a couple of nights a week, handing her kids off to her husband on the drive downtown. It afforded her the flexibility to homeschool her sons and keep a roof over their heads. Rogan left McGlincheys again around 2017 when she couldnt swing working till 3 a.m. anymore, but she said the bar turns up in her life in unexpected ways. She landed the job she has now in part thanks to a former customer, a blacksmithing UArts grad-turned-coder who went on to become a web developer. He started writing HTML after he graduated college, because he had no money and he was going to get evicted, Rogan remembers. He would come into the bar and I would give him a sandwich and buy him sodas, and Id let him plug in his computer because he had no electricity. Another time she was touring a college with one of her sons when the president of the school approached her and said, I know you. It turned out he had completed his masters at UArts and had been a regular at McGlincheys. My kid was like, Mom, can anyone not know you as the bartender from McGlincheys? Rogan said, laughing. Over nearly three decades, Rogan saw the business change. It was still fairly busy even when I left [in 2017], you know, Friday nights were humming, she said. But that didnt compare to her first tour, as she calls it. Every single night of the week in the 90s, there were people in the waitress station and youre screaming, Get the [hell] out of the way! Rogan felt better when she learned that Sheldon Sokol plans to sell the bar rather than close it, but she knows this touchstone of Center City Philadelphia nightlife wont last. She said shes heard many hypothetical discussions over the years of what people would do if they owned McGlincheys. Everybodys had a million ideas about that place, she said. Someones gonna get it, and theyre gonna do their version of McGlincheys. (Indeed, rumors of potential buyers be it Carey or the owners of Tonys Baltimore Grill in Atlantic City have been swirling since last Sunday.) What comes next for McGlincheys is inevitable, Rogan said. Its going to change. Since bad news comes in threes, here is word of the closings of a neighborhood cocktail bar in Kensington and an embattled brunch restaurant in Center City, while the founding chef of longtime Italian restaurant in East Falls has departed. In Riva, the industrial-chic trattoria off Kelly Drive in East Falls known for its pizzas, pastas, and killer terrace overlooking the Schuylkill, lost its chef-founder after nearly 14 years. Arthur Cavaliere, who previously owned the nearby Foghorn & Fletcher and Black Squirrel Pub & Haunt, is no longer affiliated with the restaurant, which remains open. He declined further comment. Mark Sherman, the owner, is now running the restaurant. Saturday will be the last call at Say No More Kensington, the cozy cocktail bar/performance space on three levels at Second Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, after a year and a half. In January 2024, shortly after opening, co-founder Alexander Asplundh-Smith was accused of assaulting a former girlfriend, sparking calls for a boycott of the bar. Asplundh-Smiths partner and cousin, Kristian Maestri, announced a week later that the bar had broken ties with Asplundh-Smith. Maestri told The Inquirer that he was extremely disappointed and frustrated about the close. He said he was proud of his staff and really grateful for the strong community that we built, adding that he could not comment beyond that because of what he called an ongoing legal situation. Sunday is the stated finale of Chubby Chicks 1111, the bruncherie at 1111 Walnut St. whose owner, Shakeira Turner, alleged harassment, some of it racial, that began even before its opening last December. Turner, whose landlord filed a notice of eviction over unpaid rent and fines, has said on social media that she planned to open next in Atlanta. Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia had just one day remaining before a deadline to turn over, under federal subpoena, detailed medical records of youth who sought gender-affirming care to President Donald Trumps administration. Instead, the hospital implored a federal judge to intervene to protect its patients privacy rights, opening a legal fight that is still ongoing. Advertisement Releasing the information would reveal the most intimate, sensitive, and often painful details of their young lives, CHOP said in a July 8 filing, accusing the U.S. Department of Justice of unfairly targeting a group of patients who have struggled with deeply personal issues concerning gender, and who have been victims of harassment and discrimination. The June 11 subpoena gave CHOP about a month to hand over the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and addresses and parent/guardian information of patients who had been prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy. The sweeping subpoena also sought documents related to how doctors make decisions in prescribing those medications that help patients to have a body that matches their gender identity, including details such as clinical indications, diagnoses, or assessments. And federal investigators ordered CHOP to provide documents related to informed consent, patient intake, and parent or guardian authorization for minor patients, including any disclosures about off-label use and potential risks of giving patients younger than 19 puberty blockers or hormone therapy. CHOP runs one of the nations largest clinics providing medical care and mental health support for transgender and gender-nonbinary children and teens and their families. Each year, hundreds of new families seek care at CHOPs Gender and Sexuality Development Program, created in 2014. CHOPs legal filings provide the first publicly available window into the hospitals strategy for fighting the subpoenas received by at least 19 other hospitals nationally that are under scrutiny for treating transgender youth. The DOJs response shows how the Trump administration is investigating CHOPs program, looking into potential healthcare fraud and misconduct that could warrant civil or criminal penalties. CHOP did not respond Thursday to a request for comment. The court records make it clear that CHOP is fighting back, even as a growing number of health systems across the country back off gender-affirming care services for youth under threat of losing critical federal financial support. In a meeting with the DOJ two days before the deadline, CHOPs lawyers told federal investigators that the hospital would provide some records but refused to produce any that compromised patient privacy. On July 8, CHOP filed two motions in federal court in Philadelphia before U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney: One sought unsuccessfully to seal the subpoena from public release, arguing the mere knowledge of the subpoena would stoke fear and panic among its patients and parents and potentially put its staff in harms way from attacks and threats. The other motion sought to limit the subpoenas scope, claiming it risks imposing significant trauma on patients and their families who did nothing more than seek out lawful medical care. Gender-affirming care for children and adolescents has been deemed medically appropriate by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other major medical and mental health organizations. Research shows young people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth, a condition known as gender dysphoria, suffer higher rates of suicide, self-harm, depression, and anxiety. Such care was initially targeted by Trump in a January executive order that bars federal funding for gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy, puberty blockers, or surgeries, for transgender patients under age 19. In the Philadelphia area, Penn Medicine and Nemours Childrens Hospital have limited such care in recent months. The Trump administration and critics of gender-affirming care say the research supporting this type of treatment is, at best, inadequate and, at worst, junk science, calling programs like CHOPs harmful to youth who are not mature enough to make life-altering decisions. The investigation relates to potential misconduct committed against vulnerable children, leaving lifelong mental and physical side effects and consequences, DOJ lawyers wrote in an Aug. 4 response, which cited a case related to child pornography as the basis for its authority to investigate and protect children against harm. Feds scrutinize off-label drug use The federal law known as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects sensitive patient health information from disclosure. However, the same law gives federal prosecutors the right to subpoena patient medical records to investigate potential healthcare crimes. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics providing gender-affirming care to children as part of an investigation into violations of criminal and civil laws. The CHOP subpoena case includes legal documents that show the DOJ is investigating billing practices, informed consent, and marketing and use of drugs off-label, or for a condition not specifically approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a practice that is legal and widely accepted by doctors. However, it is illegal for pharmaceutical companies to promote or market a drug for off-label uses. It is also unlawful for doctors to provide misleading or false information about the drugs effectiveness for off-label uses, or for healthcare providers to bill insurance companies for an off-label use of medication under the guise of a medically diagnosed FDA-approved use. The government is conducting an investigation into, among other things, whether off-label promotion and/or unlawful dispensing of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for use by minors violated federal law, DOJ lawyers wrote in opposition to CHOPs motion to narrow the subpoenas scope. CHOP said it strictly adheres to all healthcare and consumer laws, saying the government has no facts that point to potential consumer-protection violations or any misconduct at CHOP. But the DOJ questioned why it should take CHOP at its word, accusing the hospital of bankrolling and running a specialty clinic that provides controversial pharmaceutical and surgical care for minors. CHOP seems to believe that if a provider operates in a `sensitive area of medicine, that medical provider should also operate in a zone of impunity where the government is unable to subpoena the actual records of treatment to patients, the DOJ said in court filings. CHOP argued that patients privacy rights should prevail over the Trump administrations desire to get the medical records of a uniquely vulnerable population, while the DOJ claimed it had a compelling interesting in identifying illegal activity on behalf of citizens and protecting children. In their arguments, both CHOP and the DOJ cited United States v. Westinghouse Electric Corporation, a 1980 case centered on medical privacy and the public interest in health concerns and occupational safety. In that case, the operator of a chemical plant, where employees were complaining about an allergic reaction, had refused a government subpoena to turn over its workers medical records. The Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered Westinghouse to release the medical records, setting legal precedent by outlining ground rules for releasing such information. `Extremely distressing Two clinicians leading CHOPs gender-affirming care program told the court how its patients and their families have been rattled by the Trump administrations opposition to what they see as essential medical care. In its July 8 motion to limit the subpoena, CHOP provided a joint statement, or declaration, from Linda Hawkins, a licensed professional counselor, and Nadia Dowshen, a pediatrician and medical director of CHOPs Gender and Sexuality Development Program. Hawkins and Dowshen cofounded the program. Patients of the program harbor substantial fears that they are being surveilled or targeted for exposure by opponents of the treatment, they wrote. This fear will deter them from participating in the activities that are hallmarks of a happy childhood schools, clubs and other extracurricular activities out of concern that they will be singled out for being transgender." It would be extremely distressing for patients to worry that federal prosecutors may seek to interview them about their care at CHOP. They would worry for their providers and their parents, too. This stress could result in thoughts of, or completed, suicide, the clinicians said. Releasing their medical records to authorities would also have a chilling effect on other children and teens, who may be too afraid to seek care at CHOP, they wrote. When patients come to CHOP, they do not expect federal prosecutors and investigators to have unfettered access to their medical records, said Joseph St. Geme III, the hospitals chair of the Department of Pediatrics and president of the medical staff, in his own statement to the court. The DOJs subpoena would set a precedent that a federal law enforcement agency can seek and obtain private health information on any patient, not just those seeking gender-affirming care, he said. Also, patients would be reluctant to disclose sensitive information, making it more difficult for doctors to effectively treat them, Geme said, arguing for keeping the subpoena under seal. The DOJ rejected CHOPs concerns about creating panic among patients or causing staff to be subjected to violence, calling them wholly speculative and hypothetical. Government lawyers said the DOJ intended to protect and safeguard the records it obtains from CHOP. The judge ruled in the DOJs favor, denying CHOPs motion to seal the legal proceedings from the public. On Wednesday, Judge Kearney ordered the DOJ to submit a letter to him and CHOP by Sept. 3 on whether a healthcare provider has challenged a similar subpoena before a court. The judge also asked the DOJ to provide an update by Sept. 24 on the status of its subpoenas to the other hospitals and clinics regarding gender-affirming care. The 1906 beaux arts state capitol building in Harrisburg in 2025. Read more It was a hot summer night in Harrisburg, and tension hung like humidity. By Aug. 17, 1977, Pennsylvania legislators had been bickering over a new spending plan for more than six weeks. Advertisement The state hadnt paid many of its 80,000 workers or 800,000 welfare recipients for a month. About 6,600 staffers in the governors office were temporarily laid off. And busloads of protesters flocked to the gates of the Capitol complex. Democrats controlled the state House, but couldnt muster up enough votes to push the Senate-approved $5.1 billion budget through. The plan would have paid the bills and the workers, but put off potential tax-hike debates until the fall. After the bill was defeated in the House for a fifth time, a few representatives from Philadelphia made some noise. Budget brawl The House went into recess, and lawmakers filled the aisles of the grand, Italian Renaissance-style chamber. The space with its red carpets and stained-glass windows and murals gives Sistine Chapel vibes. Which is funny considering what happened next. Four burly members of the Philadelphia Democratic delegation, as United Press International described them, approached Rep. Philip Ruggiero, a 50ish and 5-foot-tallish representative from the Lehigh Valley. Two from the Philly contingent grabbed Ruggieros arms, and the other two yelled and gestured, apparently threatening to take Ruggiero, who had voted against the budget, down to see the state workers and welfare recipients protesting outside. They were just kidding, Ruggiero told The Inquirer at the time. Well, the Pittsburgh contingent didnt know. Tall, gray-haired Rep. Roger Duffy (who also opposed the budget) swung at Rep. William Rieger, chairman of the Philadelphia delegation, but missed and fell, ripping his suit coat. Inquirer reporter Tom Ferrick Jr. reported that Rieger responded with a left hook to Duffys head. It was just a misunderstanding, Duffy said later. About two dozen legislators joined the melee. Another Pittsburgh guy, Rep. Ronald Gamble, grabbed a muscular South Philadelphia Democrat, Rep. Leland Beloff, and pulled him down. Beloff then hurled himself into a crowd of lawmakers intending to reach Gamble, who opposed the bill. It became in effect a fight between those Democrats who favor the budget bill, reporter Ferrick wrote, and those who oppose it. The budget impasse was broken around 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 20, when Democratic leaders finally mustered the majority they needed. Point of order State police, stationed in the chamber for the protests, were called in to break up the fight. There were ripped shirts, torn jackets, and disjointed ties, but nothing serious. But toward the end, a protester apparently threw a plastic cup at a lawmaker and cut the representatives ear. The speaker gaveled the House back into order, shouting: This is not a third-grade classroom in recess. It was the green-and-white potato chip bag seen nationwide. A close adviser to New York Mayor Eric Adams was suspended from the incumbents reelection campaign after handing a journalist a potato chip bag stuffed with cash. Now the snack company is weighing in. Advertisement Nonprofit New York City news outlet The City reported Wednesday evening that Winnie Greco handed the papers City Hall reporter more than $100 disguised within the snack. The evidence at hand was a personal-size green-and-white Herrs potato chip bag the sour cream and onion ripple variety. The City reported what happened to the New York Department of Investigation. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn began investigating and working with The Citys lawyers. Quickly, the quirky scandal made headlines inciting memes and queries about the best snacks for bribery. And it wasnt lost on Pennsylvanians that the bribery snack of choice was none other than Herrs potato chips based out of Nottingham in Chester County. READ MORE: A factory tour of Herr's, Philly's snack powerhouse The Inquirer reached out to Herrs for comment about Grecos chip selection. We were surprised to see Herrs chips mentioned in recent reports, said Bob Clark, Herr Foods vice president of marketing. While we cant speak to the details of the story, we can confirm that our Sour Cream & Onion flavor is money. Heres what else you need to know about Herrs chips and the Adams news. Who is Winnie Greco? Greco is a former City Hall aide and longtime adviser to Adams. She served in the mayors administration as the director of Asian affairs. Fundraising events she organized are part of an ongoing straw-donor investigation by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office. What did Winnie Greco do with the Herrs potato chips? According to The City, Greco saw Katie Honan, a reporter for the news outlet, at a campaign event in Harlem and asked her to meet. The two chatted at a nearby Whole Foods store, where Greco handed Honan the open bag of Herrs chips. Honan turned down the offering, assuming Greco was sharing her food. But the Adams aide insisted and left Honan with the bag. Later, she discovered a red envelope inside the chip bag, stuffed with at least one $100 bill and several $20 bills. Honan attempted to return the money to Greco and reported the incident to her editors, who called the Department of Investigation. What did Greco say about the incident? Greco, who is Chinese, called the interaction a mistake and insisted it was a cultural gesture. She pleaded with The City to forget it happened and not to write about it. Her attorney, Steve Brill, told the New York Times that Grecos intent was purely innocent. What has Eric Adams said about the incident? Adams campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro told The City that the mayors office was unaware of Grecos actions. We are shocked by these reports, he said. Winnie Greco holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all volunteer campaign-related activities. Are there more red envelope incidents? The New York Times said its reporters had witnessed other Adams supporters handing out red envelopes containing cash to Chinese-language news organizations in the past. Steven Tin, the director of Better Chinatown USA, told the Times that the payments are a common practice in Chinese culture to thank media outlets for attending events. He said the practice was considered a courtesy and was not to ensure coverage. Journalists are not allowed to accept bribes because doing so compromises their journalistic objectivity and ethics. Tin told the Times this week that he had not discussed with the Adams campaign if the cash handed out at events would be reimbursed. When approached by the Times, Shapiro with the Adams campaign said the handouts were not a campaign directive, were unauthorized, and would not be reimbursed. Ocean City residents, divided over a developer's plan to build a luxury high-rise hotel on the boardwalk, fill a meeting room in city hall to weigh in Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Read more A plan to build a 7-story hotel at the former site of Wonderland Pier in Ocean City will not proceed, following a city council meeting Thursday evening. Councilmembers voted 6-1 against a measure that would have asked a city planning committee to look at the former amusement park property and determine whether it needs to be rehabilitated. Advertisement A yes vote would have allowed the developer to get a zoning variance and build a hotel that would tower over nearby boardwalk attractions, said Councilmember Keith Hartzell, who voted no. I dont like the height, Hartzell said. The town is not into height. Hartzell said he talked to over 250 residents and found that they were divided. He concluded that the town needed a master plan that would imagine the future of the boardwalks mile-long commercial district, which caters to families and children. What we came up with is lets look at the whole boardwalk and really get the community involved, he said. Because when the community is divided, youve got to pull back and look for a compromise position. The property, located at 600 Boardwalk, once held Gillians Wonderland amusement park, where generations of families enjoyed old-time rides such as a carousel, wet boats and a Ferris wheel. READ MORE: Pizza shop, arcade to open at former Wonderland Pier site in Ocean City Icona Resorts Chairman and CEO Eustace Mita bought the property from Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian in 2021. The Gillian family closed the park in 2024, and Mita revealed a plan to build the 252-room hotel. Mita, who lives in Ocean City, said the no vote is a shame. Ocean City, through a lack of understanding of the ramifications of a redevelopment zone designation, just lost the opportunity of a lifetime, said Mita. He said that though Ocean City bills itself as Americas greatest family resort, it hasnt had a new hotel in more than 50 years. And we were bringing a world-class resort to the city on a silver platter, he said. Mita said he plans to sell the parcel of land, adding there is no path forward for his development company. A vote amid fierce winds Thursday evening, blustery winds from Hurricane Erin whipped into City Hall, where the doors were left open due to an overflow of people, according to resident Marianne Brewer. The three-hour meeting was tense, as people who had been venting on Facebook for months finally had a chance to speak directly to the board and to Mita, the developer. Those opposed to the hotel said it would lead to overcrowding, increased traffic around the nearby high school, and block out the sunlight and coastal winds for those who lived in its shadow. Im elated, Brewer said of the result. I was glad that city council listened to everybody on both sides and made the decision not to send this to the planning board, and to update their master plan. Councilmember Pete Madden the one yes vote said his colleagues were making a mistake. Madden said that there were plenty of checks and balances that would have allowed the council to get more information and work with the developer while still being able to oppose the hotel plan. Theres opportunities to go through that we are missing and were being a little shortsighted on, Madden said. After the council voted, resident Brian McPeak said hes worried that developing a master plan for the boardwalk will be a time-consuming process that leaves the Wonderland property in purgatory. It will be a fallow piece of property that nothing is going to happen to for season after season after season, McPeak said. And that is going to be a detriment, not only to the boardwalk and its merchants, but to the entire brand and the tourism appearance of the city. Scott Ross with Jenkintown Building Services washes off red paint on the Israeli flag and banner on the side of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Read more An Israeli flag on the west-facing wall of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History was vandalized with red paint early Monday morning, officials said. The museum on the corner of South Independence Mall East and Market Street was defaced about 4:45 a.m. Monday, according to a Philadelphia police spokesperson. The paint was splattered across the flag and a banner that reads, The Weitzman Stands with Israel. The investigation is ongoing, the police spokesperson said. Advertisement A spokesperson for the museum said in an email Thursday that cleanup was underway. On Thursday afternoon, a lone window washer was power-washing and scrubbing streaks of paint off the building. But a cloudy red stain remained. The museum declined to comment further. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia declined to comment on the vandalism. Nationwide last year, there were more than 9,300 incidents including 465 in Pennsylvania of antisemitic harassment, vandalism, and assault, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The prominent Jewish advocacy group reported that a majority of those incidents were fueled by anti-Zionist and anti-Israel sentiments. READ MORE: Antisemitic incidents have soared in Philly but counting pro-Palestinian rallies draws rebuke Police and first responders at the Villanova University campus on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, where an active shooter was reported, later confirmed to be a hoax. Read more Late Thursday afternoon, police rushed to Villanova University over a report of an active shooter later determined to be a hoax searching for someone who did not exist and at one point misidentifying a victim of a gunshot wound who had not been shot, according to police scanner recordings. Just after 4:30 p.m., police broadcast a warning about a subject with an automatic rifle at the Catholic university just outside Philadelphia. The source of that information was not clear. But a chaotic manhunt soon erupted on the suburban campus. Advertisement Within minutes, officers were searching for a 6-foot-tall, white male near John F. Scarpa Hall, home to Villanovas law school. Active shooter! Villanova University! Scarpa Hall! an officer chirped across the radio. (On Thursday night, Delaware County issued a statement saying Multiple calls were received in which gunshot-like sounds were heard in the background, which are under investigation at this time.) Squad cars flooded the campus where students were attending an orientation to kick off the semester. Video posted on social media showed pandemonium as police arrived on scene overturned chairs, panicked screams, students seeking shelter. By 4:37 p.m., officers were hunting for a suspect. They thought they had him pinned down inside the law schools library. I can see him inside from outside the building, an official said on the radio. [Im] outside the library. READ MORE: Active shooter report at Villanova was a 'cruel hoax,' university says; students describe chaotic scene Sirens blared. Backup police demanded directions to the scene of the reported rampage. SWAT units were called in to form a perimeter around the building. Inside the law school, police found no shooter. Nothing there, an officer said. Officers breached the campus building and went room by room, through the cafeteria, then the second floor, reporting clear as they went. At one point, police relayed that there was no evidence of gunshots inside the building. And yet officers then reported stumbling upon a gunshot wound victim: We have one victim at this time, EMS is bringing him out. Whats the nature of the injury on the victim? an apparent commander asked. Its a GSW, an officer said, shorthand for a gunshot wound. Police struggled to track down the reported victim. They found students huddled in the university bathrooms, seeking shelter. But evidence leading to a shooter was thin. Shortly before 5 p.m., Radnor Township police posted on social media that the active shooter search remained ongoing. About 45 minutes later, the department confirmed there were, in fact, no victims. The university lifted the shelter-in-place order around 6 p.m. Officials then established that the initial report of the shooter had been an act of swatting a hoax in which someone calls in a fake emergency, such as an active shooter, to induce panic. Gov. Josh Shapiro, in a statement, said he called in the state police to assist with the investigation. Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called Mr. Mehreteab a middle-aged bundle of energy during the New Orleans redevelopment in 2007. Read more Ghebre Selassie Mehreteab, 76, of West Chester, cofounder and former chief executive officer for the National Housing Partnership, former urban poverty program officer for the Ford Foundation, onetime senior executive for the New World Foundation, national community redevelopment expert, social justice activist, and volunteer, died Thursday, Aug. 7, of heart failure at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Mehreteab came to the United States from Eritrea, in East Africa, in 1968 to attend college, and he spent the next five decades working to expand social justice and increase affordable housing across the country. He led the NHP from Washington, D.C., from 1989 to 2009 and helped develop 10,000 affordable housing units in 47 states. Advertisement He testified before Congress as an expert on all kinds of housing issues and spearheaded the housing recovery effort in devastated New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He later worked as a senior consultant on major housing and cultural building projects in Detroit, San Diego, Washington, Florida, and elsewhere. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called him a middle-aged bundle of energy during the New Orleans redevelopment in 2007 and ended one column with: Gabe and the NHP Foundation have provided at least one model that works. In a tribute, Mr. Mehreteabs family said: His legacy lives on in the families who now have a place to call home because of his work. In the 1980s, he was director of the National Housing Conference, vice president of the National Corp. for Housing Partnerships, and grant manager for the Ford Foundation. In the late 1970s, he worked on projects for the New World Foundation in New York. He graduated with a bachelors degree in economics and political science from Haverford College in 1972, and, as a leader of the Black Students League, organized protests over the schools lack of Black students and professors, and support for current Black students. After college, he stayed in the Philadelphia area until 1976 and worked to strengthen the Germantown YMCA, East Mount Airy Neighbors, and other local groups. Haverford remained a touchstone throughout his life, and the values it cultivated in him for service remained hallmarks of his work, his family said. He campaigned for Philadelphia Congressman William Gray III in the 1980s, and Haverford awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2007 for his achievements and contributions. In tributes, friends and colleagues called him remarkable and generous and a joyful presence. Avery Rome, longtime journalist, teacher, and former editor at The Inquirer, said: He was delightful with a great sense of fun. Yet you could also sense his commitment to helping others and figuring out the best strategy to make an impact. Mr. Mehreteab offered support and guidance to independence leaders in his native Eritrea, once part of Ethiopia, in the 1970s and 80s, and represented the movement before the World Court. Eritrea gained independence in 1993, and the Eritrean Development Foundation gave him a humanitarian award in 2007. He served on boards at Douglas Emmett, the Lockhart Companies, Pembrook Realty Capital, and Delaware Valley Friends School. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Cosmos Club, and Sigma Pi Phi Epsilon fraternity. He loved people and networking, said his brother Efrem. Mr. Mehreteab said in an online interview: Im always leery of people who say I made it by myself. Thats a myth. ... There are always other people who made it possible. Ghebre Selassie Mehreteab was born June 29, 1949, in Adi Gebray, Eritrea. The second of 10 children, he read novels and newspapers when he was young, and, generous throughout his life, gave his own possessions to others he found in need. He was introduced to lawyer and politician Harris Wofford, then the head of the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, when he was in middle school, and Wofford later helped him earn a college scholarship and immigrate to the United States. He spent two years at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury before transferring to Haverford. He met Sally Jones in Philadelphia in the late 1970s. They married in 1988, and he welcomed her two grandchildren warmly into his family. He and his wife divorced later and remained friends. She died earlier. Mr. Mehreteab was an avid reader of history books and political biographies. His memory for names and events amazed his family and friends. He moved to West Chester about 10 years ago. Gabe wanted to understand the world in all its details, big and small, said his older brother, Ammanuel. That hunger for knowledge shaped the way he thought, the way he connected with people, and the way he made a difference in the lives around him. He helped his siblings immigrate to the United States, mentored his nieces and nephews, and was active with the Haverford Alumni of Color group. Most people might transform one or two lives in their lifetime, said his niece Sabra. But Gabe did it again and again. His family said: His life was marked not only by a steadfast commitment to justice and opportunity for all but also by the humor and youthful energy that he brought into every room he entered. Mr. Mehreteab is survived by five brothers, four sisters, 25 nieces and nephews, and other relatives. Services were held Aug. 16. The Gigante Supermarket in the 1900 block of West Main Street in West Norriton was the site of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in which 14 people were arrested last month. Read more I was present for the recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Gigante market near Norristown. Twenty masked officers dressed in full body armor with heavy weaponry in their hands stood outside, creating a perimeter, while their colleagues stormed the building, supposedly to enact a warrant for someone on tax evasion. Instead, looking like they were busting up a terrorist cell, they charged in and arrested collateral detainees wielding lettuce. Advertisement To say the community was terrorized is an understatement. Fourteen people none of whom had an outstanding arrest or warrant were snatched from their jobs and disappeared into the ICE detention system. A few days later, I sat in the offices of Unides Para Servir Norristown listening to the firsthand stories of those left behind and the secondhand stories of those taken, who agreed to share their experiences here if identified only by their initials. M.A. didnt hear from her husband for 36 hours, and only learned of his fate when he called to tell her he had been deported to Mexico. B.A., frantic to find her husband, called everyone she knew, including lawyers, politicians, and the press. She eventually found him in the ICE system, only to learn there was no opportunity for bail, and she would have to make do caring for her two children, paying for a lawyer, arguing his case on her own. In another case that took place a few days before the Gigante raid, ICE officers stopped a car looking for a particular person who, they claimed, had an outstanding warrant for a crime. They took A.V.s husband, who happened to have a similar name. They didnt bother to check if they had the right guy. The ICE agents eventually acknowledged their mistake, but the unfortunate person remains in their custody. And the guy they were actually looking for? He had served his time for the crime he was convicted of and was out on parole. In another case, R.D.s cousin has a U Visa a special permit to be in the United States while assisting the authorities with a prosecution or to solve a crime and is in his third month of detention. He has a clean record, a pending asylum case, and has yet to meet the child who was born to his partner shortly after his detention. No one can tell his family why he is in detention. Once in the system, those who are detained get transferred from one facility to another, often without explanation or preparation. They may end up far from home in Texas or Louisiana. Or, like many from the Norristown area, at the largest immigrant detention center in the state, the 1,800-bed Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., where an ICE detainee was recently found dead by hanging. Officials at Moshannon a facility that a report by a Temple University legal clinic called inhumane and dangerous have been accused of overusing solitary confinement and not providing detainees with adequate access to medical care and legal representation. With no chance for bail, detainees languish at Moshannon, waiting, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for as much as nine months. All the while, they and their families are in limbo, scrambling to make up for lost income, to pay for lawyers, and to make deposits into the commissary accounts that allow them to purchase the necessities the facility refuses to supply. Another of R.D.s family members, who was detained and then released, gave her receipts for many of the items. It costs 35 cents to send a text, $11 for the ear buds they are required to buy to use any available tablets, $4.20 for a pair of boxers if they have the desire to wear underwear, $1.55 for a bag of sardines to supplement the meager protein and nearly inedible food provided by the facilitys kitchens. And detainees said that the whole time they are there, the guards taunt them with threats of sexual abuse and worse. If detainees complain, they might be pepper-sprayed and sent to the hole. If one person complains, the entire cell may be pepper-sprayed and threatened with solitary confinement. One former detainee, A.L., received a phone call from those still inside reporting this exact scenario recently at Moshannon. A.V.s partner also told her that every night, in the wee hours of the morning, the guards come around asking if anyone wants to sign the papers and leave, or, as the Trump administration describes it, self-deport. When the goal is self-deportation, cruelty and capriciousness become an art form. This isnt about justice. Its not even about protection and safety. It is simply about eliminating as many people in the shortest time possible. We have words for this system: concentration camps, roundups, disappearances. We claim to be a country of laws, of due process. The Fifth and 14th Amendments promise due process for all persons not only citizens, not only white people, but all persons in the land. We claim to care about human and civil rights, but these things are happening right under our noses. And yes, the immigration system has been broken for decades. Since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, we have been finding ever more creative ways to make it harder for some people to get here than others, and even more difficult for some people to stay. Deportations have happened under both Democratic and Republican administrations. But the level of glee and enjoyment among those enforcing these policies, the outrageous investment in a detention and deportation infrastructure this administration is making, has made this an obsession of unfathomable cruelty and injustice. Many of those who support this so-called crackdown on illegal immigration say, If only they came the right way, the legal way completely ignoring the fact that many of the people now being detained have existing asylum cases or green-card applications in process. Or that they are here as refugees from a natural or political disaster under Temporary Protected Status, or as international students, only to have that legally defined status ripped away overnight with no warning and no options. No one is benefiting from this system except, of course, the shareholders of CoreCivic and the GEO Group, the two primary corporations that operate the private detention centers across the country under contract with ICE. And, of course, the Donald Trump lackeys who are beholden to them. The GEO Group reportedly earns $3 million per month at the Moshannon facility, and thats before the proceeds from the exploitative commissary are added in. With expansions and new facilities planned in almost every state, and significant recruitment efforts to hire tens of thousands more ICE agents and enforcement removal officers, there is much more money to be made. But only if those beds can be kept full with more and more detained people whose very bodies grease the wheels of this system. With an opportunity like that, concepts such as due process, fairness, and human dignity can only be seen as obstacles to be overcome. The United States has always been good at building. Only now, we are building a massive detention/deportation industrial complex that has, at its heart, cruelty for profit. We should be ashamed. Rabbi Elyse Wechterman is a local immigrant activist and member of HIASs Rabbinic Advisory Council. A statewide coalition of activist and immigrant advocacy organizations is holding a protest in Philipsburg, Pa., near the Moshannon detention center this Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. to convince the Clearfield County Commissioners to end its contract with the GEO Group, which operates the Moshannon facility. More information here. FILE - Secretary of State Al Schmidt speaks during a news conference at the Philadelphia Election Warehouse, in Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file) Read more The Pennsylvania Department of State will not turn over its voter registration database to the Trump administration, denying a request that has been sent to dozens of other states in an apparent inquiry into state voter roll maintenance. In recent months the Department of Justice has sought unredacted voter rolls from at least 15 states, according to the Associated Press. None of the states has fully complied with the requests, as legal experts argue doing so would violate state and federal law. The inquiries appear to target mostly blue and swing states. Advertisement This request, and reported efforts to collect broad data on millions of Americans, represent a concerning attempt to expand the federal governments role in our countrys electoral process, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said Thursday in his response to the DOJ. He assured federal officials that his department takes its responsibility for voter roll maintenance and election security seriously, telling DOJ officials that because your letters do not provide any legal justification for the Department to disregard this sacred obligation, we are unable to share such confidential information with you. Last week, after several states sent redacted versions of their voter rolls, the DOJ followed up with letters demanding the unredacted dataset, which would include detailed personal identifying information about voters that is traditionally considered sealed. In its letter to Pennsylvania, the agency granted the state a three-day extension to respond to the data request. Schmidt offered the DOJ a copy of Pennsylvanias redacted public voter file but said there was no precedent to justify the state turning over the sensitive information contained in the full dataset. In fact, he argued, state law barred him from releasing that information. Voting rights advocates and legal experts have decried the DOJ inquiries as illegal and an effort to sow doubt in election security ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The inquiry has coincided with continued efforts by President Donald Trump to influence the midterms, including a push for mid-cycle redistricting in Republican-leaning states and a recent announcement that he would seek to ban mail voting. While voter rolls are public record, Pennsylvania law requires that officials strip personal identifying information, such as drivers license numbers and Social Security numbers, when responding to public records requests. The Trump administration sought the full, unredacted document, along with details on any voters who had been removed from the rolls because of a felony conviction, lack of citizenship, or incompetency. Earlier this month, the ACLU of Pennsylvania threatened legal action if the state sought to provide that personal information to the federal government. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pennsylvanias response. An agency spokesperson previously said that the DOJ has a statutory mandate to enforce federal voting rights laws but did not indicate there was a specific issue being investigated in Pennsylvania. In a letter Monday, Schmidt responded to other questions in the DOJs request, explaining the states procedures for removing voters from rolls and responding to detailed questions from the DOJ about federal election data. The Department of Justice, Pennsylvania argued, had misinterpreted data and inaccurately sought to compare Pennsylvanias response to other states. Among the errors flagged in the Monday letter, Schmidt noted that the Department of Justice incorrectly asked about Pennsylvanias 66 counties. The state has 67 counties. Mijuel Johnson, a guide with The Black Journey: African-American Walking Tour of Philadelphia, leads visitors at the Presidents House in Independence National Historical Park in July. Read more When Troy C. Leonard, who worked on designing the Presidents House almost two decades ago, first found out that exhibits at the site are at risk under the Trump administration, he said, he was crushed. I was devastated that the exhibit that we had worked so hard on and spent so much time and thought so critically about was to be altered, changed, erased, deleted, Leonard, partner and principal at Kelly Maiello Architects, said in an interview Thursday. Advertisement In 2007, Kelly Maiello, which describes itself as a minority-owned architecture firm and was previously led by the esteemed late Emanuel Kelly, was chosen in a national competition to design the site at Independence National Historical Park. The Presidents House Site, located near the Liberty Bell, memorializes the nine people President George Washington enslaved there and examines the juxtaposition of slavery and freedom during the founding of America through videos, illustrations, and informative panels. Six displays about slavery at the Presidents House were flagged for the Trump administrations review by park staff, The Inquirer reported last month, after President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered the review of content that would inappropriately disparage Americans past or living. The fate of those materials about slavery is in limbo, but they could be removed, covered up, or altered as soon as next month, the administration has said. Trump railed against federally funded museums discussing slavery in a Truth Social post Tuesday. The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future, he wrote. If Trump applies that same approach to the Presidents House, Leonard said Thursday, his firm is ready to counter any design suggestions that threaten the sites integrity. Im against any changes to design that deal with the content. And if thats the case, then Im certainly willing to fight and do whatever is possible to make sure that that doesnt happen, he said. His comments follow a joint statement warning against efforts to change the site from Kelly Maiello and the steering committee of Philadelphias Design Advocacy Group, which promotes equity in architecture and development. There is nothing untrue or insane about the Presidents House on Independence Mall, the statement is titled, a reference to Trumps order about the parks: Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. The statement warns that visitors to the Presidents House will be denied the truth if any alterations to exhibits occur. Philadelphias historic sites, including Independence Park, will likely get an influx of visitors next year as the nation celebrates the its 250th anniversary. DAG and Kelly Maiello also highlighted the extensive effort designers, archaeologists, and historians took to ensure that the Presidents House is historically accurate and thoroughly and respectfully portrays the stories of the nine people Washington enslaved. Leonard said Thursday that crafting the Presidents House was different from anything that the firm had taken on before. It was the teams first time entering and winning a national competition, designing a memorial, and fostering a deep collaboration with other stakeholders, such as artists, historians, and film producers. It took dozens of meetings for all stakeholders to be satisfied with the project which makes the jeopardy of the sites exhibits all the more heartbreaking. Its knowing how long and how hard we had to fight for everything, everything from each word, each brick everything about the project was meticulously thought about and discussed, Leonard said. And we were very happy and very proud by the end product because of that hard work that we invested. Roz McPherson, who served as project director of the Presidents House, told The Inquirer earlier this month that emphasizing diversity in the creation of the project was intentional, including hiring professionals from nonwhite backgrounds. The site also incorporated original structural remnants from the house found during the archaeological dig. McPherson is now part of a group of activists, led by the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, who are strategizing to protect the Presidents House Site from Trump and are planning to hold a public town hall at Zion Baptist Church in North Philadelphia on Sept. 3. Many of the activists involved today helped shape the Presidents House 23 years ago. Leonard said the Presidents House was likely Kellys proudest project in his career, and noted that Kelly Maiello would not have been the architect firm on the project if it not for Kelly, who died in January 2024. Renowned for his architectural work, Kelly was also a Temple University professor and a social equity advocate. Its especially important to make sure that the integrity of the project remains as it is, as a real testament to the work that he invested, Leonard said. Gov. Josh Shapiros administration had significant influence on the University of Pennsylvanias handling of allegations of antisemitism on campus before the governor spoke publicly about the issue, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education report that cites previously unseen internal communications between the university and Shapiros administration. According to the report, published Thursday, Shapiro utilized an archaic statute that allowed the governor a nonvoting observer seat on the private institutions Board of Trustees following antisemitic incidents on campus. That was an unprecedented step that allowed Shapiro to have a subtler sort of political influence than President Donald Trumps headline-making attempts to shape higher education, reported Ben Binday, a University of Pennsylvania student journalist at the Daily Pennsylvanian, who authored the piece for the Chronicle. Advertisement Shapiro appointed his close ally Robert Fox a Philadelphia lawyer and Penn alumnus who worked as an adjunct professor at its law school as his representative to the board to focus on antisemitism in early November 2023, according to the report. The school at that point was facing rising pressure over antisemitism on campus in the fallout of Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that led to the resignations of Penns then-president, Liz Magill, and its board chair, Scott Bok. Fox is Shapiros singular appointee on the state SEPTA board. He also served on Shapiros 2022 gubernatorial transition team, and in 2015 he was appointed to the SEPTA board by the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, which Shapiro chaired at the time. Bok told the Chronicle that the university gave in to Shapiros desire to have someone who was his eyes and ears in the room to maintain a strong relationship with the governor during a chaotic time for the school. Manuel Bonder, Shapiros spokesperson, called Foxs appointment customary. The Governor, Fox, and our Administration have regularly been engaged to combat hate and antisemitism at Penn and many other Pennsylvania universities, and we will continue to do so as we work to support students and create opportunities to succeed across the Commonwealth, Bonder said in a statement to the Chronicle, which he pointed to when asked by The Inquirer for further comment. Fox immersed himself in board matters and joined the universitys two-month-old antisemitism task force in early 2024, though some members were concerned his appointment would politicize the nascent effort. He declared that he was trying to represent Shapiros positions and said in an email obtained by the Chronicle that he did not want to simply be an observer. Fox in consultation with members of Shapiros office put pressure on Penn to ban a pro-Palestinian group on campus in early 2024, the Chronicle found. During the subsequent pro-Palestinian encampment demonstration, Penn administrators shared with Shapiros office such details as protester identities and their private negotiations with the university as Shapiro was quiet on the issue in public. An unnamed university spokesperson told the Chronicle that Fox has helped us design and implement thoughtful programs that make our campus a safer and more welcoming place for everyone. The universitys media relations director, Ron Ozio, declined to comment beyond the remarks in the piece. The revelations in the Chronicle piece align with The Inquirers May 2024 reporting that Shapiro already knew Penn and the city were working to disband an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters when he publicly called for the university to disband it. Stacey Snider, a member of Penns School of Arts and Sciences board and former chair and chief executive of 20th Century Fox, said in a May 6, 2024, email obtained by the Chronicle that she had not seen the governors views on the encampments readily or heartily presented in public view and that the university needed the governor to pressure the city for support from the police department to help disband the protests. When the trustees had the power to make change at Penn regarding Liz and Scott we heeded the call, Snider wrote. We did what was required. With the governors nudge and with his support. Penn police and Larry Jameson cant be expected to clear an urban protest without support from law enforcement, Snider added. Similarly, Penn cant negotiate a peaceful settlement without some leverage. Do you see a more fulsome role for Governor Shapiro to play? Can the trustees help him? Provide some cover? The behind-the-scenes look into Shapiros approach to the controversial protests comes as he gears up to run for reelection and is rumored to be a 2028 presidential contender, both of which come with increased scrutiny. An audit by the City Controllers Office found that inspectors in Philadelphias Department of Licenses and Inspections were not reviewing contractors licenses at construction sites, were performing inspections without documented certifications, and were failing to perform required inspections, putting workers and residents at risk. The Controllers Office conducted the audit for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 in part because of ongoing concerns from Philadelphia residents regarding unsafe construction practices, according to the report, released Thursday. Advertisement We need to ensure that all construction activity here in Philadelphia is safe, lawful, and properly inspected, City Controller Christy Brady said Thursday at a news conference announcing her offices report. When Brady was sworn in as city controller in December 2023, she said one of her offices priorities would be to investigate L&Is record of enforcing unlicensed properties and workers. She said her offices latest audit builds off last years investigation that found that L&I was failing to track dangerous buildings. She launched that audit in response to an Inquirer investigation that found that 50 Philadelphia homes each year are made unsafe during neighboring construction. At that time, I said that this was only the start of our efforts to ensure residents can feel confident that both existing and newly constructed buildings comply with all codes and are built by licensed contractors, she said. Brady said that Basil Merenda, the L&I commissioner who oversees inspections and compliance, and Mayor Cherelle L. Parkers administration have begun addressing problems identified in the audit, the majority of which covers time before Parker took office. The department appreciates the audits intent to strengthen service delivery and accountability and is actively working to address areas identified for improvement, L&I and the city said in a joint statement released Thursday. At the same time, it is important to recognize that the audit is one of several important influences that have helped shape the departments transformation under the Parker Administration, including internal reviews and a report published in 2023 by an L&I reform task force created as Parker prepared to take office. In the Controllers Office report, Brady said that the corrective measures taken to date help validate the concerns raised by our audit. In turn, the administration called the audit report a constructive and independent validation of the administrations decisive action to reform L&I, including creating a separate division for inspections, modernizing inspections, and enhancing its investigations unit. Brady said L&I, which is chronically understaffed, needs to consider increasing the number of employees to ensure all construction activities are properly inspected, along with performing random, surprise visits to determine if unlicensed or misclassified workers are present on job sites. She and City Councilmember Michael Driscoll, who chairs Councils Committee on Licenses and Inspections, said they will follow up with L&I in coming months to ensure the department continues to make improvements. Im not here today to be pointing fingers and saying, you know, everything thats wrong with L&I, Driscoll said. Im here in support of that department to show them that we want to provide the resources necessary to improve that department that does the vital work of safety of the buildings here in the City of Philadelphia. Missing certifications and inspections The Controllers Office said its findings are based on L&Is written procedures, documented observations, and data provided by the department or through its eCLIPSE software system. The office found that eight L&I employees who performed a total of 1,057 residential and commercial fire inspections did not have documentation on file showing they had the necessary fire inspector certifications. And four employees who performed a total of 229 residential mechanical inspections did not have the necessary documented certifications. Inspectors did not ask to see contractors licenses at any of the eight construction site visits that the Controllers Office observed, which means the inspectors could not be sure that work was being done by qualified people, according to the audit report. Inspectors at these visits also did not ask for documentation of workers employment status, so inspectors couldnt know if workers were incorrectly classified as independent contractors. Misclassification can keep workers from accessing workplace protections and benefiting from minimum wage and overtime requirements. The practice also allows contractors to skip paying taxes, which help pay for L&I enforcement efforts. Among the construction sites visited were properties owned by the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Wistar Institute. The Controllers Office also reviewed 40 residential building permits to see whether L&I employees were performing all required inspections, from the first site visit through the final inspection. The audit found that 34 were missing required photographs and/or notes. Thirteen permits required a total of 73 inspections, but 33 of these were not documented as having been performed, according to the Controllers Office. This included inspections involving the foundation, interior framing, insulation, and wall boards, Brady said Thursday. L&I also is responsible for reviewing electrical inspections completed by third parties. But the Controllers Office found that out of more than 6,000 of these inspections completed during fiscal year 2023, L&I audited only about 1%. Ongoing steps by L&I In response to the Controllers Offices audit findings, the Parker administration said it is improving documentation practices and inspection protocols, committing to expanding the capacity of L&Is Audit and Investigation Unit, and developing new systems to track employee certifications and training. As reforms continue, L&I and the city said in Thursdays joint statement, the departments focus will remain on compliance, transparency, and equitable service delivery across all construction activities. This award is the sum of many people who have worked together and built an organisation that stands for innovation, resilience, and commitment to our clients and communities, said Kelly. It fills me with immense pride to see how our founding vision has evolved into a powerful and successful place for people to live, work and belong. Urban conflagrations, or UCs, have devastated towns in the U.S. in recent years, including Lahaina in Hawaii and Santa Rosa, California. Though no such events have yet been recorded in Australia, experts warn that many local suburbs share similar risk profiles: timber fences, flammable landscaping, and close-set housing are common across peri-urban developments. The insurers move follows months of stalled production. Workers were stood down in February, and while they continue to receive wages, the loss of production bonuses has forced some to seek work elsewhere. Union representatives say members want certainty. Workers at Tahmoor have endured seven months of uncertainty, an MEU spokesman said. Theyre ready for this issue to be resolved so that they can get back to work. Heightened war-risk perception is likely to trigger premium hikes for vessels transiting contested waters. Similar geopolitical flashpoints, such as the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz, have seen war-risk premiums rise by 20% or more. Underwriters may reclassify parts of the South China Sea as high-risk zones, especially around hot spots like Second Thomas and Scarborough Shoals, where recent confrontations occurred. Progressive is defending Lee Timber in that lawsuit, but only under a reservation of rights. In other words, the insurer is doing so while it seeks a court ruling on whether it actually has to pay under the policy. Progressives position is that neither the truck nor the trailer involved in the accident qualifies as an insured auto under the policy. The company argues that the accident did not arise out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of an insured auto as defined in the policy, and therefore, it has no duty to defend or indemnify Lee Timber, Camejo, or any other party in the underlying lawsuit. The reorganized insurer, to be named CompSource Mutual Insurance Co., S.I., would be a wholly owned subsidiary of Intermediate Holdings. The company said it has no plans to distribute or sell any stock within six months after the effective date of the transaction. The dispute The controversy centers on Section 831(b) of the tax code, which allows small captive insurers favorable tax treatment. Under the new rule, microcaptives face additional oversight if the insured company owns at least 20% of the captive and either maintains a loss ratio below 60% or hasnt generated taxable income for fund recipients over five years. Dude Products, a company incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in Chicago, is at the center of the dispute. The class action, filed March 20, 2025, in the Southern District of California, claims that Dude Products labeled its products, promoted them on its website, and advertised through third-party retailers as being Assembled in USA. According to the complaint, these claims were important to consumers, who believed they were buying higher-quality goods and supporting American jobs. The plaintiffs allege that, in reality, the products were made with ingredients and components - such as tea tree oil and shea butter - sourced, grown, or manufactured outside the United States. The complaint states that Dude Products knew or should have known these representations were false. To protect policyholders, Georgia has worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to open a special enrollment period through October 31. Members who do not select new coverage by September 30 will be enrolled in original Medicare and automatically placed in Medicare Part D. Still, businesses themselves tend to act out of self-interest. Even if theyre not reducing emissions, they are investing in protecting themselves. To me, thats a positive first step. Awareness leads to investment, and investment leads to resilience. Once companies start to see how expensive inaction could be, theyre more likely to adapt. Investigators on Tuesday were trying to determine what caused an explosion aboard a cargo ship laden with coal as it departed Baltimores harbor for East Africa. Officials said no one was injured in the blast Monday evening, which prompted a mayday call when it was reported near the site of last years Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. Video of the explosion showed flames shooting high into the air, followed by a large plume of dark smoke billowing over the Patapsco River. The Port of Baltimores main shipping channel was closed for several hours Tuesday while crews worked to locate a hatch from the ship that detached during the explosion and fell into the water, officials said. They announced late Tuesday afternoon that the channel had reopened. The 751-foot (229-meter) merchant vessel W-Sapphire was en route from Baltimore to East Africa, according to marine tracking websites. It was expected to arrive in the Port of Mauritius in about a month. Built in 2012, the ship is currently sailing under a Liberian flag. Officials said it was transporting coal. There were 23 crewmembers and two pilots aboard at the time of the explosion, according to Coast Guard officials. The ship is now anchored closer to Annapolis, Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Crews are awaiting verification to confirm safe conditions before proceeding with further Coast Guard investigations onboard the vessel, the agency said in a news release Tuesday afternoon. Baltimore Fire Department spokesperson John Marsh said the agency responded to a fire below deck. There were no reports of property damage beyond the ship, according to the Maryland Department of Emergency Management. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said his office was closely monitoring the situation. The Coast Guard established a 2,000-yard (1,829-meter) safety zone around the site of the explosion while crews searched for the missing hatch. They used a sonar-equipped survey vessel called Buck to assess the underwater conditions. The channel was closed for months after the deadly bridge collapse in March 2024, which killed six members of a roadwork crew and effectively brought port operations to a standstill. The bridge was destroyed when the container ship Dali lost power and crashed into one of its supporting columns. Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The New Jersey Compensation Rating & Inspection Bureau is mostly back online following a cybersecurity event that caused it to shut down its network more than two weeks ago. The workers compensation agency said it experienced suspicious activity on August 5 and took its systems offline as a precaution. It notified law enforcement and hired a third party forensic firm to conduct a thorough review. The bureau said it has taken several measures to better protect systems and data including enhancing network monitoring, updating security protections, resetting passwords, and reviewing user accounts and access controls. As of August 21, system access had been largely restored, although the agency advised that users could experience some delays and limitations going forward as it works to fully restore all services. Topics Cyber Talent New Jersey Postal services across the world are suspending parcel deliveries to the US, citing confusion about how to process millions of low-value packages that will lose their duty-free treatment next week. As of Aug. 29, President Donald Trump is ending the so-called de minimis exemption that has applied to more than 4 million parcels flowing through the US each day, driven largely by e-commerce. Under the new regime, which started with China and Hong Kong in May, goods mailed from other countries will be subject to tariffs and compliance with US Customs and Border Protection rules. Verifiable gifts valued at less than $100 will remain duty-free, according to the White House. In response to the changes, a growing number of national mail services are pausing some services to the US as soon as this week, blaming a lack of clarity from US authorities on how the duties will be collected and how to submit required data. In Asia, Korea Post said it will halt accepting air parcels and some express mail services to the US starting Tuesday, while keeping premium services, operated via private couriers, available subject to customs duties. Similarly, Singapores SingPost will suspend standard services for commercial shipments to America from Monday, with Speedposts Express and Direct International Service available to retail and corporate customers, respectively. Japan warned of potential delays or returned parcels because of the changes, with authorities vowing to share more information when available. European postal services also made adjustments in light of the changes, with several suspending shipments. Norway and Finlands mail carriers both said their stoppages begin Saturday. Key Questions The service interruptions highlight the seismic impact from Trumps decision to eliminate the de minimis exemption and raise concerns that cheap goods especially those from China will flood into other economies given the new barriers in the US. Deutsche Post and DHL Parcel Germany are also temporarily suspending the acceptance and transport of business customer parcels via the postal network to the US. DHL Express service remains available. Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the US Customs and Border Protection will be carried out, DHL said in a statement Friday. The Czech Republic has halted US-bound parcels, while Austrias postal provider will stop accepting them after Aug. 25, citing the changes. Belgiums Bpost will reportedly pause shipments from Friday due to regulatory uncertainty. The UKs Royal Mail plans a brief suspension for business account customers next week to implement a revised system for handling the newly imposed duties. Australia Post has temporarily suspended its transit service deliveries a small number of items from third countries sent through Australia to the US, a spokesperson confirmed. However, regular direct deliveries between the two countries will be unaffected. Lufthansa Cargo said it would no longer accept airmail shipments to the US starting Aug. 25, though general cargo and further cargo types will not be affected. We are working intensively to find a viable solution that will enable us to resume airmail transport to the United States in the future, a company spokeswoman said. There are no plans to push back the Aug. 29 deadline, according to a Trump administration official, who added that CBP sent out a memo clarifying the policy to foreign postal operators. Real Concern Washingtons long-standing de minimis policy had allowed parcels packed with cheap items to flow into the US from around the world with little interruption or oversight, fueled by consumer demand for bargains and immediacy. Trumps White House claims its a loophole used to evade tariffs and funnel illegal drugs. Now, postal services, online sellers, consumers and shipping companies are attempting to sort through the costly and complicated process to comply with US rules with little guidance from federal agencies. It is a real concern that the dominoes are falling and there will be a ripple effect where more and more posts announce that they will be suspending packages to the US, said Kate Muth, executive director of the International Mailers Advisory Group, which represents the US international mailing and shipping industry. Once the exemption ends, duties will be assessed on US imports shipped by mail based on the country-of-origin tariff rate that Trump imposed using his emergency powers. Alternatively, packages shipped via international post could be assessed with a temporary flat fee of $80 to $200 per item, but only for the next six months. CBP outlined in an Aug. 15 bulletin how the flat fees would be calculated, corresponding to the countries tariff rates. The agency also offered some additional instruction to shippers on Thursday, when it issued guidance certifying two companies to collect and pay duties on behalf of international mail carriers. Its obviously very welcomed, Muth said, but its still a concern that were just a week away and we only have the first two approved. The fallout is extending beyond mail carriers. Starting Aug. 25, online marketplace Etsy Inc. plans to suspend its shipping label service for national mail services in Australia, Canada and the UK for US-bound packages, according to its website. The company suggested that shippers use carriers with services in place that allow them to pay duties before goods arrive in the US, such as United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. FedEx said it continues to accept and transport shipments to the US and is unaffected by the postal operators decisions. UPS had no immediate comment. The US Postal Service didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. Top photograph: Cargo is offloaded from an aircraft operated by DHL at Sydney Airport in Sydney, Australia. Photo credit: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg Copyright 2025 Bloomberg. Topics USA As President Donald Trump attempts to reshape college admissions, hes promising a new era of fairness, with an emphasis on merit and test scores and a blind eye toward diversity. Yet the Republican presidents critics and some allies are questioning his silence on admissions policies that give applicants a boost because of their wealth or family ties. While he has pressed colleges to eliminate any possible consideration of a students race, he has made no mention of legacy admissions, an edge given to the children of alumni, or similar preferences for the relatives of donors. Trump often rails against systems he describes as rigged, but he has overlooked a glaring instance in higher education, said Richard Kahlenberg, a researcher at the Progressive Policy Institute think tank who has written about admissions. Its hard to think of a more flagrant way in which the system is rigged than legacy preferences, Kahlenberg said. Rarely is a system of hereditary privilege so openly practiced without any sense of shame. In recent weeks, Trump has taken several actions to scrub any vestiges of race from admissions decisions, suggesting that some schools are ignoring a 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action. His administration negotiated settlements with Brown and Columbia universities that included provisions to share admissions data. Last week, Trump issued a call for colleges nationwide to submit data to prove they do not consider race in admissions. Some are urging Trump to go further. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., applauded the settlement with Brown requiring the university to turn a blind eye toward race even in application essays. But restoring meritocracy warrants more, said Young, who cosponsored legislation in 2023 aiming to end legacy admissions. Federally accredited institutions should eliminate ALL preferences grounded in arbitrary circumstances of ancestry that students have no control over, such as legacy status, Young said on social media. Many selective colleges consider family ties Sometimes called affirmative action for the rich, the practice of legacy admissions remains widespread among elite colleges even as it faces mounting bipartisan opposition. Virginias Republican governor signed a bill last year barring legacy admissions at public institutions, following similar measures in Colorado, California and elsewhere. Some Republicans in Congress have worked with Democrats on proposals to end it nationwide. Roughly 500 universities consider legacy status when evaluating applicants, including more than half of the nations 100 most selective U.S. schools, according to 2023 disclosures to the federal government. A few have abandoned the policy, but it remains in place at all eight Ivy League schools. Stanford University said in July it will continue considering legacy status, even after a California law barred it at institutions that receive state financial aid. Stanford opted to withdraw from the states student financial aid program rather than end the practice. The university said it will replace the funding with internal money even as it begins layoffs to close a $140 million budget deficit. Stanford officials declined to comment. Last year, as part of a state transparency law, the school reported that about 14% of its new students were relatives of alumni or donors. A push for merit, but no mention of legacy admissions The executive action signed by Trump last week requires universities to turn over more information about students who apply to and are accepted to their campuses. Taxpayers deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity of decisions, his memorandum said, adding that more information is needed to ensure colleges are heeding the Supreme Courts decision. A week earlier, the Justice Department issued a memo clarifying what it considers illegal discrimination in admissions. It takes issue not only with overt racial considerations but also proxies for race, including geographic targeting or personal essays asking about obstacles applicants have overcome. Similar language requiring merit-based admissions policies was included in the governments resolutions with Brown and Columbia universities. None of the actions made any mention of legacy admissions. Lawsuit Targets Universities for Allegedly Favoring Wealthy in Admissions Trumps silence caught the attention of the nonprofit Lawyers for Civil Rights, which has an open complaint with the Education Department alleging that Harvard Universitys use of donor and alumni preferences amounts to illegal racial discrimination. The groups 2023 complaint says the practice overwhelmingly benefits white students. If the Trump administration wants to make admissions a meritocracy, it should start by ending legacy preferences, said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for the group. These deeply unmeritocratic preferences simply reward students based on who their parents are. Its hard to imagine anything more unfair or contrary to basic merit principles, he said. Few Americans support legacy or donor preferences Colleges defend the practice by saying it builds community and encourages families to become donors. Some backers say it increasingly helps nonwhite students as campuses become more diverse. Then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, urged colleges to rethink legacy preferences in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, saying it expanded privilege instead of opportunity. Some feared it would drive up white enrollment as affirmative action ended. Georgetown University reviewed the policy but kept it in place this year after concluding the pool of legacy applicants had a similar makeup to the wider admissions pool. An AP-NORC poll in 2023 found that most Americans have a dim view of legacy and donor preferences, with few saying either should play a strong role in decisions. Universities are required to tell the federal government whether they consider legacy status, but they dont have to divulge how far it tips the scale or how many legacy students they admit. Among the 20 most selective universities that say they employ the practice, none would tell The Associated Press what percentage of their incoming class has a family connection to alumni or donors. Trumps blitz to root out racial preferences has hinged on the argument that it undermines merit. New scrutiny is needed to ensure colleges are following the Supreme Courts order and recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists and other workers, he said in his executive action. That argument sends the message that minority students are intellectually suspect until proven otherwise, said Justin Driver, a Yale law professor with a forthcoming book on affirmative action. He worries Trumps latest actions will intimidate colleges into limiting minority enrollment to avoid raising the suspicion of the government. I believe that the United States confronts a lot of problems today, Driver said. Too many Black students on first-rate college campuses is not among them. The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Photo: Robinson Hall, on the campus of Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island. Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Education Less than one percent of customers who filed detailed complaints about checking or savings account closures with the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last 13 years accused banks of acting for political or religious reasons, even as the White House mounts a campaign to stamp out systemic abuses in the financial system that it says have wronged conservatives, a review of the agencys data shows. President Donald Trump earlier this month signed an executive order requiring banks not to discriminate against clients on political or religious grounds, a practice known as debanking, after citing what Trump called discrimination against conservatives. The White House said the order was targeting systemic abuses by financial institutions that undermine free expression and economic opportunity. But few customers who have been denied access to banking products cite their political affiliation as a chief concern. Out of the 8,361 detailed complaints about closed bank accounts filed with the CFPB since the agency began taking them in 2012, only 35 include the terms politics, religion, conservative or Christian, a review by Reuters shows. Its not a real issue. Debanking is an excuse for political attacks, said Amanda Jackson, a director for Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of progressive-leaning groups. The group and others say a bigger problem is making sure U.S. banks provide services to poorer consumers. Financial institutions have tried to balance fair access with steps to combat a wave of fraud, and say they have not cut customers over their political views. Rachel Cauley, communications director for the White Houses Office of Management and Budget, whose leader Russell Vought is also CFPBs acting director, did not directly address questions about the small number of complaints. She repeated claims that members of the Trump family and others have been cut off from banking services on the basis of political or religious beliefs. The actions, Cauley said, amount to an Orwellian censorship tactic that is antithetical to the American way of life. The Trump Administration believes access to the financial system is a fundamental right for all Americans. The CFPB data does not identify filers. While none of the 35 complaints provided proof that their accounts were closed for political or religious reasons, filers said they suspected that was the case. I believe this is discriminatory actions based on race, religion and/or political views, according to a 2023 complaint filed against JPMorgan over account closures. JPM.N A JPMorgan representative, Lauren Bianchi, said via email that We do not close accounts for political or religious reasons, full stop. The bank supports a national prohibition on account closures for political or religious reasons, and for regulators to allow more transparency in those cases, she said. Brian Knight, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which calls itself a Christian law firm and is supportive of Trumps executive order, said the small number of complaints citing politics or religion could reflect that banks are not required to disclose much detail to consumers they drop. Theres no information-sharing mechanisms short of litigation to force banks to be more open about their thinking, Knight said. (Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Andrea Ricci) Marsh Appoints Glod as Global Head of Aviation and Space; Ambrose as Global Chairman; Kline to Lead US Aviation and Space Business Marsh appointed Brian Glod as global head of aviation and space and Tony Ambrose as global chairman of aviation and space, effective Sept.1. Based in New York, Glod will join Marshs global specialty executive committee and report to Andrew George, president of Marsh Specialty. Ambrose is based in London and will report to Dominic Samengo-Turner, CEO, Marsh Specialty, UK and Glod. Glod and Ambrose will be responsible for Marshs aviation and space business worldwide. Glod brings 35 years of experience to the role and joined Marsh in 1996 from Johnson & Higgins. Ambrose joined Marsh in 2020 and has 30 years of experience working in the global aviation insurance sector. Marsh also announced the appointment of Patton Kline to succeed Glod as regional aviation and space practice leader, U.S. Kline will be based in New York City and report to Michael Pellegrini, Marsh Specialty leader for U.S. and Canada, and to Glod. He will assume overall responsibility for Marshs U.S. aviation and space business. Kline began his career in Marshs graduate program and has over 21 years of experience working in the aviation and space insurance sector. Commercial property insurer FM, headquartered in Johnston, Rhode Island, named Tara Long as senior vice president, chief information officer (CIO). Long will oversee FMs technology strategy. Long joins FM from MassMutual, where she most recently served as chief technology officer and head of enterprise infrastructure services. At MassMutual, she also served as CIO, corporate and institutional solutions, as well as in divisional CIO roles. Long previously held roles at Gerber Scientific Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Long succeeds Srini Krishnamurthy, who was recently named senior vice president, FM India. Ryan Specialty Underwriting Managers Appoints Ferguson CEO of US Assure Ryan Specialty Underwriting Managers (RSUM), the underwriting management division of Ryan Specialty, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, appointed Alan Ferguson as CEO of US Assure, effective Sept. 1. Ferguson will continue to serve as president of US Assure, a role he assumed in 2019, while taking over the CEO role. He succeeds Ty Petway, who is retiring after over 30 years of leadership and service. Ferguson joined Ryan Specialty in 1993 and previously served as chief underwriting officer, overseeing the underwriting integrity of programs administered by US Assure and the development of new products and establishing standards for their service center. Topics USA Leadership Aviation Two homes on the North Carolina Outer Banks sit precariously in the high waves with their days seemingly numbered. Since 2020, 11 neighboring homes have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean. While the swells from storms like Hurricane Erin make things worse, the conditions threatening the houses are always present beach erosion and climate change are sending the ocean closer and closer to their front doors. The two houses in the surf in Rodanthe have received plenty of attention as Erin passes several hundred miles (kilometers) to the east. The village of about 200 people sticks out further into the Atlantic than any other part of North Carolina. Jan Richards looked at the houses Tuesday as high tides sent surges of water into the support beams on the two-story homes. She gestured where two other houses used to be before their recent collapse. The one in the middle fell last year. It fell into that house. So you can see where it crashed into that house. But that has been really resilient and has stayed put up until probably this storm, Richards said. At least 11 other houses have toppled into the surf in Rodanthe in the past five years, according to the National Park Service, which oversees much of the Outer Banks. Barrier islands like the Outer Banks were never an ideal place for development, according to experts. The islands typically form as waves deposit sediment off the mainland. And they move based on weather patterns and other ocean forces. Some even disappear. Decades ago, houses and other buildings were smaller, less elaborate and easier to move from the encroaching surf, said David Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Perhaps it was more well understood in the past that the barrier island was dynamic, that it was moving, Hallac said. And if you built something on the beachfront it may not be there forever or it may need to be moved. Even the largest structures arent immune. Twenty-six years ago the Outer Banks most famous landmark, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse had to be moved over a half-mile (880 meters) inland. When it was built in 1870, the lighthouse was 1,500 feet (457 meters) from the ocean. Fifty years later, the Atlantic was 300 feet (91 meters) away. And erosion keeps coming. Some places along the Outer Banks lose as much as 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) of beachfront a year, Hallac said. And so every year, 10 to 15 feet of that white sandy beach is gone, Hallac said. And then the dunes and then the back-dune area. And then all of a sudden, the foreshore, that area between low water and high water, is right up next to somebodys backyard. And then the erosion continues. The ocean attacks the houses by the wooden pilings that provide their foundation and keep them above the water. The supports could be 15 feet (4.5 meters) deep. But the surf slowly takes away the sand that is packed around them. Its like a toothpick in wet sand or even a beach umbrella, Hallac said. The deeper you put it, the more likely it is to stand up straight and resist leaning over. But if you only put it down a few inches, it doesnt take much wind for that umbrella to start leaning. And it starts to tip over. A single home collapse can shed debris up to 15 miles (25 kilometers) along the coast, according to a report from a group of federal, state and local officials who are studying threatened oceanfront structures in North Carolina. Collapses can injure beachgoers and lead to potential contamination from septic tanks, among other environmental concerns. The report noted that 750 of nearly 8,800 oceanfront structures in North Carolina are considered at risk from erosion. Among the possible solutions is hauling dredged sand to eroding beaches, something that is already being done in other communities on the Outer Banks and East Coast. But it could cost $40 million or more in Rodanthe, posing a major financial challenge for its small tax base. Other ideas include buying out threatened properties, moving or demolishing them. But those options are also very expensive. And funding is limited. Braxton Davis, executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a nonprofit, said the problem isnt limited to Rodanthe or even to North Carolina. He pointed to erosion issues along Californias coast, the Great Lakes and some of the nations rivers. This is a national issue, Davis said, adding that sea levels are rising and the situation is only going to become worse. Photo: Two of the remaining homes in Rodanthe, as of Aug. 19. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics North Carolina Numbers Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people in dozens of states and several countries who may have been exposed to rabies in bat-infested cabins in Wyomings Grand Teton National Park over the past few months. As of Friday, none of the bats found in some of the eight linked cabins at Jackson Lake Lodge had tested positive for rabies. But the handful of dead bats found and sent to the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory in Laramie for testing were probably only a small sample of the likely dozens that colonized the attic above the row of cabins, Wyoming State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist said. Other bats werent killed but got shooed out through cabin doors and windows. Meanwhile, the vast majority never flapped down from the attic into living spaces. Health officials thus deemed it better safe than sorry to alert everybody who has stayed in the cabins recently that they might have been exposed by being bitten or scratched. Especially when people are sleeping, a bat bite or scratch can go unseen and unnoticed. What were really concerned about is people who saw bats in their rooms and people who might have had direct contact with a bat, Harrist said Friday. The cabins have been unoccupied, with no plans to reopen, since concessionaire Grand Teton Lodge Company discovered the bat problem July 27. Bats are a frequent vector of the rabies virus. Once symptoms occur muscle aches, vomiting, itching, to name a few rabies is almost always fatal in humans. The good news is a five-shot prophylactic regimen over a two-week period soon after exposure is highly effective in preventing illness, Harrist noted. The cabins opened for the summer season in May after being vacant over the winter. Based on the roughly 250 reservations through late July, health officials estimated that up to 500 people had stayed in the cabins. They were trying to reach people in 38 states and seven countries through those states health agencies and, in the case of foreign visitors, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Others who have not been alerted yet but stayed in cabins 516, 518, 520, 522, 524, 526, 528 and 530 this year should tell health officials or a doctor immediately, Harrist said. Health officials were recommending prophylactic shots for people who fit certain criteria, such as deep sleepers who found a bat in their room, and children too young to say that they had seen a bat. The Wyoming Department of Health had no ongoing concern about visitor safety at the Jackson Lake Lodge area. That includes a Federal Reserve economic policy symposium Aug. 21-23 that takes place at Jackson Lake Lodge every summer. The lodge company has done a fantastic job of doing their due diligence of making sure everyone that is coming in for that, and for all other visits this year, are going to be as safe as possible, said Emily Curren, Wyomings public health veterinarian. Three or four dead bats from the cabins tested negative and one that was mangled did not have enough brain tissue to be testable, Curren said. All were brown bats, which come in two species: little and big, with the larger ones more than twice as big. Officials were unsure which species these were, but both are common in Wyoming. They typically live in colonies of 30 to 100 individuals, Curren said. Thats a lot of bats that we cannot rule out a risk of rabies being in, Curren said. Theres no way for us to know for certain about every single bat that got into these rooms. There are no plans to exterminate the bats, Grand Teton National Park spokesperson Emily Davis said. Devices fitted to the building were keeping the bats from getting back in after flying out in pursuit of insects to eat, they said. Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Sometimes you just want to get to another town by bike. Like a weirdo. We hired bikes in the Marina Market. Easily the best located bike hire place ever. Its great when you arrive back and can get a slice of pizza without dismounting. The Cork-Passage West greenway starts with the new Marina Promenade. If I wasnt actually from Cork, Id swear Id never seen anything like it. There are plazas and parks and a stadium and a waterfront. Its like being out foreign. An artists impression that actually got built. I think back to that little boy I was, nose pressed against a photo of Saarbrucken in Deutsch Heute 1, the First Year German text book, wondering if we too could have some human-friendly urban infrastructure in Ireland one day. We take the Blackrock route on the way out and hug the coast. Im absolutely determined the family should know EXACTLY when we are over the Jack Lynch tunnel. What can I say? Ring roads roads are my love language, okay? Speaking of which, its weird to cycle along in waterside peace with the South Ring roaring away on our right. Whats the hurry? I shout at over the ditch at the capitalists getting their hustle on, while we amble along pretending we are in our own musical. Rounding Jacobs Island, exactly the kind of placename you should encounter on a leisurely cycle, crossing a footbridge, and out along more coast to Passage West. The upgraded Marina Promenade which runs for approx 2km, beside the River Lee, Cork City, from Centre Park Road to Blackrock village has now reopened. Pic Larry Cummins. I went into a pub and asked where we could get lunch. The answer was Monkstown. Not the name of a restaurant an entirely different village. Its very 1980s, to be sent down the coast to find somewhere to eat. In a way, almost refreshing. Were so used to convenience. But while I am nostalgic for a time of No, if I could make a small suggestion: I think the town at the end of one of the best greenways in the country, could have a place to have lunch. While it doesnt have lunch, Passage has an excellent maritime museum, crowded with interesting things and facts. The kind of museum where serendipity means you just learn a random fact. Apparently the Vikings in Cork farmed kittens for fur. Vikings, never not (c)at it. Mark my words, Passage West is heading for something. When and what, remains to be seen. Like a lot of Irish villages and towns, it has its Massive Derelict Site For No Good Reason. There is apparently some progress on the MDSFNGR. But once again it shows that in Ireland, theres money to be made from doing sweet FA with a site and no punishment for not. The kind of nonsensical inertia that makes you briefly wish for Chinese government-style appropriation of land to get things going. On the way back its the direct route, partially along the old Cork Passage West Railway. Its bittersweet cycling through the defunct Blackrock station. A greenway along an old railway line is like eating a burger off fine china. You feel like this container was built for finer things. But lookit, wed have a train to Mars before wed have a new railway line opened in Ireland. So Ill take the greenway for now. And then before you know it, were back at Pairc Ui Chaoimh, promenading with the best of them. I feel like we should be cycling with a parasol in a candy-stripe suit. Like in a musical. Theres always moaning about greenways some of it for good reasons: its not always good for wildlife, it should have been a train, etc. And then moaning for moanings sake or a fear that Bill Gates is microchipping the helmets. But, whizzing along with children to an Irish town from its nearby city, whether by coast or down a leafy once-forgotten railway line, its a pleasing cycle of life. I first met Heather Clark at the West Cork Literary Festival back in July, and interviewed her in Bantry library. She was so engaging so utterly fascinating and intelligent, that I was keen to catch up with her again. And with her book tour finally over, Heather is chatting to me over Zoom from Cape Cod, where shes relaxing, reading, and looking back at the success of her debut novel, The Scrapbook. The tour was tough, though shes glad that she did it. I was naive about how much it would take out of me, she says. I ran myself into the ground and I came down with covid at the end. And now, in this post tour crash, its like, what just happened? An academic, Heather has three non-fiction books under her belt, including Red Comet on the short life and blazing art of Sylvia Plath; and that one, winning myriad prizes, was shortlisted for the Pulitzer, so she is no stranger to success. But I feel like I took a risk writing this book, she says. I could have just published my next non-fiction book and then the next, but the subject matter of The Scrapbook is very important to me. Set partly in Harvard in 1996, The Scrapbook examines a love affair between Anna, a student who will shortly graduate, and Christoph, a German student who is visiting the college. Anna falls instantly for Christophe, and later visits him in Germany, but she feels uneasy there. Grandfathers' roles in Second World War As he shows her his country, they examine the part their grandfathers played there in the Second World War, and an uneasiness lingers. Its a wonderful novel; highly literary, yet page turning, and I learned so much from it. Its the sort of book you press on everyone you know, and spend hours discussing, once theyve read it too. Heather started writing The Scrapbook back in the late nineties, when she visited friends in Germany. I was a writer for Lets Go travel guides in college, she says. It was how I spent my summers, going around Europe, hitchhiking and writing. Id amassed a lot of international friends, and Id go visit them. But in Germany I felt a sense of disconnect and disquiet. I had this sense that there were no memorials from the war. No monuments. Where were they? My German friends all seemed so beautiful and well dressed. But I have this sense that Germans, and especially the men, have been raised in a culture of repression, silence, and shame. I wanted to write about the cost of that and the damage on the second and even third generations. How does that affect your ability to be intimate? I had begun the novel as this love story that was going to be shadowed by the weight of history. I had the theme, but I didnt know how to push the plot forwards. I wrote maybe two or three chapters and put the manuscript aside for 25 years. Meanwhile, writing her honours thesis in Harvard on James Joyce, Heather became entranced with Irish literature. I did my junior semester at University College Galway, she says, and I went to Trinity, (College Dublin), after I graduated for an M Phil in Anglo Irish Literature. I was at Trinity at the time The Scrapbook is set living with my then Irish boyfriend. From there she moved to Oxford, where, for her PhD, she studied poets Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, and Paul Muldoon. I wrote of their time in Belfast in the 1960s. I was very interested in this question of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; and that tightrope the poets were walking in the sixties. How do we write about war and violence without sentimentalising it or making it beautiful? How do they honour the dead? How do they honour the murders without putting in the propaganda? From Irish poets, Heather moved on to an American Sylvia Plath. Writing first about the relationship between Plath and Ted Hughes, published as The Grief of Influence, she then wrote Red Comet, taking 10years to do so. All three books have influenced The Scrapbook. In Plaths case it was the idea that, with Hughes, she was losing herself to a magnetic lover, even when it was likely the affair would end badly. Everyone has been in that place, right? she says. And you know its not a good idea, and you cant seem to stop. And theres an interesting parallel of being seduced by the wrong political idea. Plath really picked up on that. It was in 2015, when Heathers grandfather died that she returned to fiction. I had heard rumours of a scrapbook of photos from my aunts and uncles, but Id never seen it. After he died my grandmother put it out in the dining room. I saw it and spent 15 minutes going through it. I saw photos of France and Germany, and bombed out Munich, but I also saw photos of Dachau. They made a fascinating documentary story of a young GI in Europe, but the photos really haunted me. I couldnt stop thinking about them and what my grandfather had been through, and it brought me back to my earlier manuscript. The file was still on my computer. I read it back and thought, this is OK. I can see where this can go. Writing the manuscript in 2023 was a joy. There was a real sense of freedom and liberation in not having to footnote every sentence. I felt that I was getting away with something, almost; there was this sense of, I can just do this. In the writing, and in thinking of her grandfather, Heather became interested in post-traumatic stress disorder. These American GIs came back from the war. They had seen horrific things, but they werent allowed to talk about it because they were the victors. They were the heroes and were expected to celebrate and have houses in the suburbs and have babies and barbecues. There was no space for them to process. Currently editing a group biography of poets Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Maxine Kumin in the 1950s when, just before fame came their way, they all lived in Boston, Heather says she would like to try fiction again. But the market for serious literary fiction is tough these days, she says. The Scrapbook is not meant to entertain. Its not meant to comfort. Its meant to haunt. And I think my future novels will be the same. I like writing about these big moral and philosophical questions, and of how history shakes us up. The current rise of authoritarianism in Europe and the state of America right now worries Heather greatly. On the morning of the election I just cried and cried. This man has been accused of rape and moral infestation, and nobody cares. As a woman to see that kind of man voted into power it was one of the worst moments in my life. People often ask Heather why she wrote about Germany. They ask, why not Ireland, where you spent so much time?. When I went back to Germany in the summer of 2023 to research, I went back to Nuremberg, to Dachau, and to the Eagles Nest, and part of it is because my grandfather bore witness. Im proud of him for having the presence of mind to take the photos, and I felt I had to finish what he started. Ive been haunted by this family history that was in the dark for many years. I guess I wanted to try and bring that out to the light. Four surfers have been hailed as heroes after helping save the lives of a man, his young son, and niece after they were swept out to sea by a rip current in Co Donegal. Businessman and Sinn Fein councillor Brian Carr and his wife Marie were enjoying a day out with his family at Tramore Beach between Ardara and Nairn last Friday when their son Ben, nine, and niece, Amelia, 10, were pulled out to sea. The children called out for help, and Mr Carr waded into the water, but he was soon pulled out into the rip current. "I ran to the water and saw them calling for help. I waded in, but the further I swam, the stronger the current pulled us out," said Mr Carr from his hospital bed at Letterkenny University Hospital, where he is recovering. "Soon I was out of my depth, struggling against large waves as Im not a strong swimmer. Amelia clung to a bodyboard while Ben treaded water, both crying for help. I fought the waves, but exhaustion quickly set in. I floated on my back, trying to recover." Mr Carr said he could hear his son call, "youre close now, Daddy", and that gave him the strength to try to push on again. "But the waves kept forcing me back. I remember shouting to the kids, 'Keep swimming', but I could go no further." It was then that Mr Carr saw someone on a surfboard, and he called for them to help the children, although the surfer was already on the case. "Moments later, someone grabbed me and dragged me to a board. I'm not sure, but I must have passed out as I dont remember the journey to shore, [but] the next thing I remember was being pulled up the beach by the arms." Luckily for Mr Carr and the two children, a group of four local men were swimming on the beach that day and came to their rescue. Maitiu Clerkin and Dualta Bracken had been on the beach to surf and guided by fellow surfers Joe Herron and Turlough McDaid, who were shoreside, they managed to rescue Mr Carr and the children from the water. Maitiu Clerkin, Dualta Bracken, Turlough McDaid, and Joe Herron who rescued local councillor Brian Carr and his son and a niece. Mr Carr said there is no question that the four men are real-life heroes. Speaking about coming to the rescue, Mr Clerkin said: I just got straight in and started paddling as I could see the two kids heads a good bit out [from the shore]. Mr Clerkin praised Mr Herron, his uncle, who advised the surfer in avoiding the same dangerous waves that had dragged Mr Carr and the two children out to sea. My uncle is a fairly experienced surfer, so he told me in case I was going to get pulled over by the rip, to instead run over to the other side of the beach and paddle from there just in case," said Mr Clerkin. So I went out, scooped up the two kids and made sure they were alright. They were distressed, but I also then saw [Mr Carr] who was also starting to go under as they were all out of their depth. By the time I got over to where the man was, my friend Dualta had gotten to him. We helped the kids to get to where they could stand and then walk back to shore, and both of us then dragged [Mr Carr] back into the shore. Mr Herron and a fourth surfer in the group, Mr McDaid, waited closer to the shore to assist with bringing the children and Mr Carr back onto the beach. The life-saving hero said a doctor came down from the caravan site, before the paramedics and air ambulance arrived to help the three victims. He said it was only through luck that his group happened to be the only others near the water when the swimmers got into difficulty. It was lucky, to be honest. There was nobody else in the water and the pull on that beach is pretty strong. Its fine when you have the surfboard with you, but whenever youre swimming [its difficult]. The kids were pretty good swimmers and they were treading water for a decent amount of time, but its not easy to get out and back off of those waves. Mr Carr said the four men who helped with the resuce "are true heroes" and are a "credit to themselves, their families, and their community". Donegal councillor Brian Carr. Picture: North West Newspix Speaking on Thursday, he said: "I have only made contact with Dualta as Im still in hospital and both Marie and I are slowly coming to terms with the enormity of what happened. But once Im discharged in a few days, I cant wait to meet them in person and give them the biggest hug of thanks. "Thankfully, Ben and Amelia are both doing well after the ordeal. They showed incredible bravery in the water, and we couldnt be prouder of them. Ben only started swimming lessons last September, and that gave him the calmness to hold on. It was the best thing he ever learned. "Marie did an incredible job getting help. It couldnt have been easy on her, and as she said herself, 'it felt like her whole life was floating away in front of her'. "I cannot say enough about those four lads, they are true heroes. We owe them a debt of gratitude that will last a lifetime. As Ive said before, they were the right people, in the right place, at exactly the right time, and because of that, we are here today to tell this story. "Their courage was nothing short of extraordinary. With Joe recognising the rip current and guiding everyone out and around, everything aligned to make the rescue possible." Mr Carr added that he will do everything in his power to see that the four men receive every award for bravery and heroism, "because they truly deserve it all". He also thanked everyone involved in the rescue, including the ambulance crew, paramedics, the Coast Guard, the Rescue 118 crew and the doctor from the caravan site. He also praised locals who comforted his wife and the two children, and those who helped direct the emergency services to the scene. The popularity and prevalence of bottomless brunches offered by licensed premises highlight deficits in legislation introduced by the Government to curb excessive alcohol consumption, it has been claimed. A group of academics from the Technological University of the Shannon said it was arguable public health regulations were being breached by the provision of so-called bottomless brunches where unlimited alcohol is provided along with food for a set time period. Drinks provided routinely with such promotions include prosecco, mimosas and bellinis. The Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 allows regulations to be made by the minister for health to prohibit the sale and supply of alcohol at a reduced price. Since January 2021, it is illegal to offer alcohol at a reduced price or free of charge by the purchase of other alcohol products. It is also unlawful to advertise or promote such offers. In an article for the medical journal, Epidemiology, Biostatistics Public Health, the TUS academics claimed it could be argued the sale and supply of alcohol in the form of bottomless brunches represented a violation of the regulations. They pointed out a cursory internet search which lasted less than four hours had identified 18 establishments in the country offering bottomless brunches, including unlimited alcohol. Examples of such promotions were found in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Kilkenny, Sligo, Tipperary and Athlone. One of the articles main authors, Frank Houghton of TUSs Social Sciences ConneXions Research Institute, said bottomless brunches bring attention to the crucial issue of the enforcement of legislation in Ireland. Dr Houghton noted Alcohol Action Ireland a charity advocating for reducing alcohol harm claimed it had repeatedly raised the issue with the HSE without any real result. He said it was disconcerting no action appeared to have been taken on the issue, despite it being reported to the HSE. Dr Houghton said a lack of enforcement was also evident in other public health-related areas, including tobacco control, road traffic laws, and environmental protections. The academics noted it had been suggested the enforcement of alcohol legislation in Ireland may be impeded by legal complexities and apprehension relating to judicial enforcement. The result may be an orientation towards soft mandates rather than prosecution, they added. Dr Houghton said Ireland had exhibited a lack of leadership in relation to alcohol control in the past. However, he added: Direct and purposeful leadership is now required to promote health and combat the threat posed by practices that actively promote excess alcohol consumption. He said alcohol remained a clear and present danger to public health in Ireland. It is estimated alcohol is the eighth leading cause of death in the Republic and is responsible for 8% of all deaths annually. He said the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 was passed by the Government to address the damage wrought by alcohol, with the legislation allowing for minimum unit pricing and alcohol warning labels. Although the Government has been criticised for deficits in the legislation and the slow enactment of elements of the act, Dr Houghton said it remained a significant piece of alcohol control legislation. The article noted the World Health Organization had identified alcohol as an important commercial determinant of health a term used to describe how private sector activities affect public health. Dr Houghton said a robust response was needed from both the HSE and the Government to respond to such a classification. A college president who flushed his own Leaving Cert results down the toilet out of pure embarrassment has encouraged students not to let their exams define them. Entrepreneur Karl Fitzpatrick told the Irish Examiner about preferring to destroy his Leaving Cert results after receiving them rather than take them home to hand over to his parents. The Cork man is now the president and chief executive of Chevron College, a QQI-accredited e-learning provider of further and higher education programmes. The Wexford-based business employs 135 staff members and provides education and training to 15,000 students annually. Mr Fitzpatrick is also among the EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalists this year, which he describes as the honour of a lifetime. When I was in my 30s, I remember somebody saying to me youd never get a job with EY or PwC or KPMG or any of those because you dont have a third-level education, so it was quite ironic that I went on to be recognised on the EY Entrepreneur programme. Although he went on to establish a successful business career, Mr Fitzpatrick describes receiving his exam results in 1996 as the darkest day of his life. On an annual basis, I am reminded of that. On Leaving Cert results day each year, it brings me back to that day," he said. "Even though Ive moved on so much, it's still sketched into my mind. It's as if [I thought] Id have the Leaving Cert results imprinted into my forehead for the rest of my life, and that everyone I ever met for the rest of my life would see them and judge me." He attended Presentation Brothers College, and while he found school enjoyable, he never felt fully engaged. Im the eldest of three boys. We were given every opportunity. Going to school, and getting to know new people and new friends, that was fine. It was just something about the academic side of it. It didnt suit me, it didnt engage me. I never thought about dropping out, dont get me wrong, but I was looking forward to finishing. He had thought he might get the results he needed to study business at CIT, but "it just didnt transpire". "The day of the Leaving Cert results I went down, and I got what I deserved. It was no reflection on the school, it was no reflection on the education system. "You cant personalise it for everybody. I was so disappointed, and I had such a lack of confidence after it, I didnt want to bring those Leaving Cert results home out of pure embarrassment. I remember after reading them, deciding that I didnt want to see them any longer and I went into the bathroom and I flushed them down the toilet. Its not something I wanted to be reminded of. It wasnt something I wanted to hand over to my parents for them to read. I felt like Id let them down, and Id let myself down. I felt like I didnt need to be reminded of these Leaving Cert results. Mr Fitzpatrick said his parents "were disappointed to say the very least. I didnt want to see anybody afterwards for a few days. I didnt want to answer questions, so I avoided neighbours and friends. I laid low, I certainly wasnt celebrating. A few days into it, a family member had a chat with me and said this seems to be getting you really down. They said: This is just one exam at a moment in time of your life. You cant leave it limit you in terms of what you want to do'. They asked me what is it that you want to do? I thought, well I want to be in business, I want to gain skills to develop my own business down the road. They said 'well why dont you get a job with a business? Start at the bottom and work your way up'. He took their advice, and a few days later started to call to every business on the South Mall, eventually getting hired as a post boy with an insurance brokerage for IR30 a week. I was delighted to take it. For me, at that time, it seemed like it was a second chance at a career, and I wasnt going to blow that one. In 2012, Mr Fitzpatrick invested his life savings to purchase Chevron College out of examinership. In 2025, the company is on track to bring in 25m in revenue, and make 3m in profit. At 40 years old, during covid, he returned to education, completing a law degree in UCC. It was far more beneficial to do that degree at 40 than if I had succeeded in getting the points and wanting to do it at 18, Mr Fitzpatrick said. His advice for students disappointed with their results is not to be discouraged. Theres never been more options for students who didnt get the points they need for what they want to do next. Whether thats in terms of apprenticeships, or alternatively there are 1,800 linked PLC courses available today. They can provide a bridge into a university after completing them. The Leaving Cert does not have to define you, if you dont allow it to. A Cork woman who was the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment has said she fears the perpetrator, who is due for release from prison next week, could be back with a vengeance and do harm to her and others. Laura OConnell, who was among several people Sonya Egan harassed and made serious false allegations about, said there is little support for victims in such situations when a person is about to be released from prison. Speaking to Deirdre OShaughnessy on the Irish Examiner podcast, she said: The nerves, the anxiety. [Her impending release] triggers it a little bit. The fear, the worry, the unknown. Its creeping in again, unfortunately. Ive had three years of lovely peace and quiet. If the above podcast embed isn't displaying for you, please click here. Incidents against Ms OConnell dating back to 2018 included the fabrication of untrue and odious rumours intended to destroy her good standing in the community. Egan would also turn up at Ms O'Connells lectures in University College Cork, as well as at her home multiple times a day during the harassment campaign. In June 2022, Egan, of The Lawn, Lios Cara, Killeens in Cork, was jailed for two years, with a further year suspended over a campaign of harassment against Ms OConnell and former Sinn Fein TD Jonathan OBrien. In May 2023, she was also sentenced to six years in prison with the last two suspended, after the court heard the pathological liar had nearly destroyed the lives of several people, including spreading false claims on social media about social workers and gardai. I cannot begin to understand the harm and devastation caused to these unfortunate, professional people, Ms Justice Catherine Staines said at the time. She is now set to be released after serving less than three years of that sentence. Ms OConnell said despite being vindicated against Egans crimes in court, the rumours spread about her have stuck. Its my reputation, she said. Unfortunately, its tarred despite having my name now cleared. But this could very easily start up again and this is what Im worried about. She said the criminal justice system really doesnt work for people in situations like herself, and she is left to pick up the pieces despite the risk she now feels when Egan is released. The outgoings that Ive to spend [money on], whether its security measures or therapy, or medical reasons, theyre extremely expensive and any victim of crime does need psychological support short term and long term, she said. What is there and what is available where I can keep myself safe and sound without having to go to the extremes of moving? I don't want to be running away. I'm happy in my little bubble as well, so I don't want that bursting anytime soon. In a statement, the Irish Prison Service said it did not comment on individual prisoner cases. The concept of a two-state solution is being eroded before the worlds eyes, President Michael D Higgins has said. Mr Higgins said a formal declaration of famine in Gaza City and its surrounds will sadly not surprise all of us who have been warning about this for some time. So many world leaders have issued statements over the last two years, always referencing a two-state solution. How can they now see the very concept destroyed before their eyes - in Gaza with the loss of life and in the West Bank with further illegal occupation, Mr Higgins said. Without urgent change, it is difficult to see how the international community can emerge without a loss of credibility and moral authority. The President stressed that world leaders cannot wait until the UN meets in September, insisting that action must be taken now, particularly by EU member states. Palestinian women and children hold out their empty pots in front of a charity kitchen in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 21, 2025. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images) It comes as Taoiseach Micheal Martin condemned the inhumanity in Gaza. Following confirmation of famine in Gaza City for the first time by the UN-backed IPC, Israel has an absolute obligation to allow the people there unfettered and urgent access to humanitarian aid, medical and food supplies, Mr Martin. Israel must stop its attacks on, and bombardment of, Gaza City. The withholding of food and water from civilians is collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and a war crime. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), backed by the United Nations, reported that 514,000 people in Gaza nearly a quarter of the population are already experiencing famine. The number is expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. Around 280,000 of those affected live in the northern region covering Gaza City known as Gaza governorate which the IPC has formally classified as in famine. The remainder are in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, which the IPC projects will reach famine levels by the end of next month. Palestinians carry sacks of flour taken from a humanitarian aid convoy in the outskirts of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Aug. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) To declare a famine, at least 20% of people must face extreme food shortages, one in three children must be acutely malnourished, and two out of every 10,000 must die daily from starvation or disease. While criticising the Israeli government, Mr Martin also condemned Hamas for holding hostages, calling it a war crime and demanding their unconditional release. The inhumanity we are witnessing in Gaza has shocked the world. The maiming, mutilation and killing of children simply has to stop. The war must end now, he said. Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris called for stronger action against Israel, saying the EU must impose sanctions. These heartbreaking and devastating scenes in Gaza cannot be ignored. It is sickening and despicable. In Ireland, we have called it out for what it is a genocide, Mr Harris said. He added that the Government would move forward with the Occupied Territories Bill after pre-legislative scrutiny, and confirmed plans for a national day of solidarity with Gaza. You never know what you have until you lose it. This is a phrase that rings true for a very proud small community in Co Limerick, who came together to save their only pub from closing its doors. A group of 26 locals in Kilteely invested 300,000 to buy the family-owned Aherns pub, after the previous owners decided to retire. Paddy Fleming enjoying his pint at The Street Bar. The pub was put on the market following the retirement of Noreen Ahern, after 40 years of service. Fearful the 150-year-old establishment would close and leave Kilteely without a pub the 26 stakeholders worked closely with the family to purchase the pub and have now renamed it The Street Bar. For one of the stakeholders, Niall ODowd, getting involved was a no brainer. I went home to my wife and child and told them what was happening. They said it was a great idea. A 10-minute decision and it was done, that's how quick it happened. No regrets, none whatsoever, Mr ODowd told the Irish Examiner. You never know what you have until you lose it. When it's lost, you realise, Wow, we should have kept this. And we found it just in time. Eileen O'Dea, manager of The Street Bar. Last weekend, the group got the pub ready for its first night trading under the new name. According to Mr ODowd, there is so much depression in Ireland and community spaces are vital for rural communities. So many people retired, left at home with no place to go, so it's nice to get them all back out again. The Kilteely pub always held a special place. But Mr ODowd remembers one Sunday in 2018 as if it was yesterday. When Limerick ended a 45-year wait and brought Liam MacCarthy home. That was special. The laughter, the happiness, and what that hurling team brought to Limerick, to each parish, each community. That would be my everlasting moment in here. I hope we'll have them days again, he said. Nicole Carmody, Caellun O'Neill and Sinead Mullen enjoying The Street Bar. The whole endeavour started last January, when the pub was put on the market, but the Ahern family was keen it would continue to operate as a bar. Stakeholder Noel ODea said: They worked exclusively with us even though it was on the market. They gave us time to put something together, whatever it was to raise the funds to buy it. There was only a couple of us at the time, we spoke to a few people and we decided the best thing was to form a syndicate. Mr ODea says over the years he saw the village lose pubs, shops and a creamery. Ahern's was the last meeting place. Rural isolation is a massive problem, so this helps in that regard. We just couldn't see the village without a public place, everybody was so determined to make it happen. The community has been unbelievable. It's gone national now as well, people are wishing us all the best, he said. Jonathan Meehan, Chris Alymer and Mikey Ryan. For Noels sister, Marie Chavan, its a bit of a family affair. She has six siblings, three of whom, Noel, Eamon and Theresa, are also stakeholders. One of them influenced me and asked me would I be interested in it, so I thought about it. I am a very much a community person. The thought of losing the pub was incomprehensible, she said. Ms Chavan said Noreen, the previous owner, also played a big role when she made the decision to get involved. Shes an amazing person, she looked after the pub, her family and the public. She always had a kind word for everyone. I think she influenced me quite a bit." So far, it has been hectic. Eamon ODea said the upcoming Kilteely Dromkeen Community Festival would keep them busy. The festival is coming up next week again, that's going to keep the crowds coming. Its up to us to make it a success now. He said most pubs in rural communities are family owned which is one of the reasons so many are closing their doors. The people who worked in them have been at it all their lives. If they have kids and they move on, they find another life. People have reached their end and moved on, want to retire. We saw that happening here and we decided maybe this is our chance to come in and do something. You gotta grab the bull by the horns yourself and say, Look, we've got to make it happen." Bar manager Eileen O'Dea with Shane Boland, Heineken rep And if one of the shareholders has too much to drink and needs escorting off the premises? Its quite simple bar manager Eileen ODea is in control. She makes the decisions and if she doesn't want you here, she has the right to put you out or refuse you a drink its the same across the board for all the shareholders as well as the rest of the public. The bar manager said she was still not over the crazy idea. It's phenomenal. I can't believe from a community aspect how well they've done," Ms O'Dea said. "Each and every one of them are absolutely the best to work by, they've supported me so much. From accountants to farmers to lawyers, there is not one publican among them. But since the get-go, they have all been treating it as a business. One of them, who moved here about 17 years ago and met his wife who is from the local parish, hails from Australia. Josh Gore said he too had his fair share of memories of the pub and mementos to prove it. I was in a newspaper article and Noreen cut it out and it was up on the wall since 2009. It only came down when we revamped the pub, it's tucked away somewhere special, he said. Liam Carroll BL, who organised the shareholders of The Street Bar. Speaking of the investment, he said: Its a lot of money. I have kids, they're young at the moment so we are also looking at their futures. There's low profit margins, which we understand. Its a long-term investment, but I think there is return at the end of the day if it's ran correctly. John ODea only lives up the road from the pub it has been his familys local for as long as he can remember. Its been my father's local, my grandfather's. Probably someday, I hope my kids will come here too, you know? No matter if there's a match on or a funeral, everyone seemed to have it here. No matter what hour of the day you come in, you'll always get someone to chat to in here, he said. I'm a farmer myself and it can be lonely at times. A lot of people from the farming community come in here. Its a meeting place, thats the reason I got involved. A sentiment shared by Liam Carroll whose late grandfather, John, used to be a regular. Tracey McCarthy with Ann and Marie Ryan. For me, the fact my grandfather used to come here, it would be a pity to have seen it die out in those circumstances. Everybody had so many fond memories of their relatives who are no longer here, he said. What would his grandfather say? I think like a lot of people, hed probably ask the question How is this feasible? How is this going to work?, Mr Carroll laughed. I think when people hear that a large group has bought something as intimate as a pub, they wonder how it could possibly work. I think were seeing throughout the country its a model people are now buying into. Its quite simply the same as running any other business. A trainee surgeon has been released from custody on bail after he was charged with secretly video recording hundreds of medical colleagues in the toilets of Australian hospitals. Ryan Cho, 28, will likely face around 500 charges relating to 4,500 intimate videos he secretly recorded with phones mainly in the staff toilets of three Melbourne hospitals since 2021, police alleged in documents cited in the Victoria state supreme court. Justice James Elliott ruled that the junior doctor be released on condition he live with his parents, who moved from Singapore to Melbourne in anticipation of their sons release. His parents were required to post a 50,000 Australian dollar (23,893) surety. The prosecutor argued that the charges presented Cho with an inducement to flee and he had no meaningful ties to Australia after being suspended from his job. While Cho became an Australian permanent resident in April, he would face deportation if he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months or longer in prison, the prosecutor said. Cho was granted bail (AAP Image via AP) The judge noted Cho had surrendered his Singapore passport and had no criminal connections to help him leave Australia. Police allege Cho recorded intimate images of at least 460 women. The judge noted there was no allegation Cho had disseminated those images. Cho was arrested in July after a phone was found recording from inside a mesh bag hanging in an Austin Hospital toilet. Police allege he also recorded in restrooms in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His lawyer Julian McMahon rejected prosecutors fears that if released, Cho could interfere with witnesses. There are likely to be hundreds of witnesses alleging similar offences, Mr McMahon said. Theres a sense here that if my client were to engage in the criminal offence of interfering with witnesses that it wouldnt affect the outcome of the case, Mr McMahon said. Cho was initially charged with six offences but another 127 charges were added on Thursday, including intentionally recording intimate images without permission. Mr McMahon said it was too early to tell if the allegations would go to trial. Cho has not entered pleas. Cho came to Australia as a student in 2017 and studied medicine at Melbournes Monash University. Russias top diplomat said there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss their three-year war, days after US President Donald Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together. There is no meeting planned between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBCs Sunday show Meet The Press With Kristen Welker. Mr Trump said in a social media post that he had spoken to Mr Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided. Mr Trump added he would join them for a trilateral meeting afterwards. Uncertainty has grown in recent days about Moscows commitment to US-led peace efforts, as Russian officials have raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals. Mr Lavrov said that Mr Putin is ready to meet with Mr Zelenskyy to discuss peace terms, but only after key issues have first been worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart. Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any post-war Russian attack, and US and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals on how that might work. But Mr Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscows involvement was pointless. On Thursday, a major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine struck an American-owned electronics plant, despite Mr Trumps criticism of Mr Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian targets while talking peace. Mr Zelenskyy said: The Russians are trying to do anything to avoid the (summit) meeting. The issue is not the meeting itself; the issue is that they do not want to end the war. The Ukrainian leader spoke during a press conference alongside Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was visiting Kyiv. It is necessary that this space for avoidance be reduced, Mr Zelenskyy said. US and European unity will reduce this space. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the issue is that Russia does not want to end the war (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Mr Rutte said that Mr Trump wants to break the deadlock with Mr Putin and engage the United States in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. President Trump has made this a priority, he told the news conference. Mr Rutte explained that guarantees under discussion would rest on two layers. The first, to take place after a peace deal or long-term ceasefire, would focus on making the Ukrainian armed forces as strong as possible. The second would involve security commitments provided by Europe and the United States. The European Unions foreign policy chief said that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is a trap set by Mr Putin. The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his armys invasion, but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission, said. The recent talk about handing Mr Putin concessions is exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into, Ms Kallas said in an interview with the BBC. Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas criticised Russia, describing recent talk about concessions as the trap Russia wants us to walk into (Leon Neal/PA) I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people, she said. Russia is just dragging feet. Its clear that Russia does not want peace, Ms Kallas said. President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop, and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing. Ukraine, meanwhile, has hit back at Russia with long-range weapons that are targeting infrastructure supporting Moscows war effort. It has hit oil refineries, among other targets, and Russian wholesale gasoline prices have reached record highs in recent days. Ukrainian forces on Friday targeted the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia, hitting the Unecha oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, according to the commander of Ukraines Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, also known as Magyar. The Druzhba pipeline starts in Russia and takes oil through Belarus and Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary. In Russia, a section of it goes through the Bryansk region and the Unecha district. Ukraine fired HIMARS rockets and drones at the region in a combined attack, Bryansk regional Governor Alexander Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. The US Justice Department has released transcripts of interviews its number two official did with Jeffrey Epsteins imprisoned former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. It comes as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex trafficking case. The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trumps base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release. Maxwell recalled knowing about Mr Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much, Maxwell said, according to the transcript. Maxwell said her father was fond of Mr Trumps then-wife, Ivana, because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from. The explicit goal of turning Palestines largest city into a wasteland has nothing to do with hostages or Hamas and everything to do with genocide, said one critic. By Brett Wilkins | ( Commondreams.org ) Operation Gideons Chariots 2Israels plan to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gazaintensified Thursday, with fugitive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israeli forces will take over all of the embattled strip even if Hamas agrees to a ceasefire and one of his far-right ministers vowing to continue the genocidal war even at the expense of the hostages lives. We have begun the preliminary actions and the initial stages of the offensive on Gaza City, and already now [Israeli] forces are holding positions on the outskirts of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Effie Defrin told reporters. We will intensify the strikes on Hamas in Gaza City, the political and military stronghold of the terror organization. Defrin added that the IDF is warning residents to evacuate in a bid to minimize harm to civilians. However, critics say evacuate is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, the stated goal of Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said earlier this month: We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed. On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains. Arutz Sheva reported that Operation Gideons Chariots 2which ultimately aims to force much of Gazas population into a concentration camp in order to make way for possible Jewish recolonization of the stripwill involve five IDF divisions, two of them reserves. The news site said that the IDF will issue new emergency draft orders to 60,000 reservists, who will augment the 70,000 who are already activated. IDF Col. (Res.) Marco Moreno said Thursday that the only way to achieve security is via the voluntary migration of everyone in Gazaanother euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their homeland. Even if Hamas disarms, raises a white flag, and disappears, it wont be long before a new organization rises in Gaza with the same agenda to destroy the state of Israel, Moreno said during a TV interview. The only way to ensure true security is through the voluntary migration of all Gaza residents. Israeli Settlement Minister Orit Strook, a member of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told the radio station Kol BaRama Wednesday that she favors continuing the war even if it is clear that Hamas will execute the hostages, 20 of whom remain imprisoned since the October 7, 2023 attack. Of course, it is not only me who will vote to continue the war at the expense of the hostages lives, added Strook, who is known for her extreme support for illegal Israeli settler colonization of Palestine and for allegedly filming her and her husbands sexual abuse of their daughter for pornographic videos. Hamas condemned the Israeli operation in a statement accusing the Netanyahu government of continuing its brutal war against innocent civilians, escalating its criminal operations in Gaza City with the aim of destroying it, and displacing its residents in a full-fledged war crime. The United Nations human rights office said Wednesday that Israels reported decision to take full control of Gaza City and to forcibly displace its population will lead to mass killings of civilians and destruction of infrastructure vital to the survival of the population. As Israels bombardment and siege of Gaza continues, major human rights organizations, including the United Nations BTselem , and Physicians for Human Rights (Israel) , have documented atrocities: starvation wielded as a weapon, the systematic and deliberate destruction of nearly all hospitals and medical clinics, the flattening of all schools and community centers, and the bombing of shops, bakeries and aid convoys. Despite urgent pleas from the UN, which has described the current situation as beyond horrific, Israel continues to block lifesaving food and medicine from reaching the civilians of Gaza. Silver Spring, Md. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) The true measure of a scholar is not the number of books they publish or the titles they hold. It is whether they speak when human beings are starved, bombed, and erased as a people. By that measure, some of Americas most visible academics have failed. This is not self-defense. The Hamas that carried out the October 7, 2023 massacre ceased to exist long ago. In May 2024, Hamas agreed to a deal that would haveBut Israel refused. President Biden and Vice President Harris, who could have forced compliance with the threat of a weapons embargo, instead cowered. The atrocities continued. secured a permanent ceasefire, the release of all Israeli captives, full withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the beginning of Gazas reconstruction. call it what it is: genocide What continues is an Israeli well-orchestrated and US-funded campaign to make the entire Gaza Strip unlivable And yet, the voices we would most expect to rise in outrage are silent. Dean Barbara Krauthamer of Emory University, a historian of African American history and daughter of a Holocaust survivor , knows well that annihilation does not begin with gas chambers but with dehumanization, siege, and atrocities. Yet she has chosen silence while Palestinians are massacred even at aid distribution centers where Israeli forces have already killed more than 1,800 starving, unarmed c ivilians as they tried to collect food. Professor Erwin Chemerinsky , dean of Berkeley Law School, among the most influential voices in American legal academia, has likewise refused to condemn Israels crimes. In October 2024, even after more than 40,000 Palestinians mostly women and children had already been murdered, he denied that Israel was committing genocide . T o this day, he refuses to acknowledge Israels responsibility for the famine and the massacres at the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites. On the most urgent humanitarian crime of our time, his voice is absent. killing children and babies and the massacres at the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites. On And Professor Deborah Lipstadt , Emory Universitys renowned Holocaust studies scholar who was appointed by President Biden in March 2022 as U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, has also remained conspicuously silent. Throughout her career, she has invoked Never Again countless times. Yet when Israel deliberately starves children to death in Gaza, she says nothing. gives the antisemite a good excuse for ramping up their antisemitism. She could have urged Israel to stop these crimes, to lift the deadly blockade, to allow the UN to feed She refused. When interviewed recently by Ezra Klein from the New York Times, she had only this to say: Anger at IsraelShe could have urged Israel to stop these crimes, to lift the deadly blockade, to allow the UN to feed 300,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition Their silence is not just a moral failure. It violates the very Jewish values they so often invoke. Jewish law is unequivocal: pikuach nefeshsaving a lifeoverrides almost everything else (Talmud Yoma 85b). Our sages teach: one who destroys a life, it is as if they have destroyed an entire worldand one who saves a life, it is as if they have saved an entire world. To starve and kill civilians is not a moral gray zone; it is one of Judaisms gravest violations (Maimonides, Laws of Murder and Preservation of Life 1:14). These crimes betray not only international law, but the Torahs core ethics. W hat is unfolding in Gaza is a Chillul Hashem , a desecration of Gods name, of unimaginable proportions. Judaisms central prayer Shema Yisrael Hear O Israel! (Deut. 6:4) which these scholars are most familiar with is a command not merely to listen to God and obey Judaic rituals. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks teaches, it is a call to listen to the silent cry of the lonely, the distressed, the afflicted, the poor, the needy, the neglected, the unheard. Yet, for political or institutional reasons, these Jewish academics have shut their ears to the cries of Palestinian men, women and children being slaughtered daily. Photo by Xavier Cee on Unsplash Krauthamer, Chemerinsky, and Lipstadt are not obscure figures. They are among the most visible leaders in American academiateachers of the next generation about integrity and justice. By remaining mute in the face of genocide they send a corrosive message to students across the US: that principles are optional, that morality bends to politics, that genocide can be met with polite indifference when the victims are Palestinians. Transition extending life of mine production underway Gold equivalent production of 11,437 Gold Equivalent Ounces (" GEO") at AISC of $1,779/oz during Q2 2025 Adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million for Q2 2025 Full year guidance of 55,000-60,000 GEO maintained: Production weighted to H2 as higher-grade underground mining and heap leach volumes increase Repayment of ~US$18m debt and payables at the MDN operations year to date- ~US$10m in Q2 2025 20,000 meter resource expansion exploration program at MDN underway Significant investment and progress at both the Lagoa Salgada and Mont Sorcier projects Positive Metallurgical results at Lagoa Salgada to be incorporated into Optimized Feasibility Study to be delivered by year end Management to host conference call on Monday, 25th of August, 11AM EDT TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 / Cerrado Gold Inc. (TSXV:CERT) (OTCQX:CRDOF) (FRA:BAI0) ("Cerrado" or the "Company") announces its operational and financial results for the second quarter ("Q2/25") including its Minera Don Nicolas ("MDN") gold mine in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, its Lagoa Salgada Polymetallic Project in Portugal and its Mont Sorcier High Purity DRI Iron Project in Quebec. Financial results now include the consolidated financial position of Ascendant Resources Inc. ("Ascendant") following the close of the acquisition effective May 16, 2025. Production results for MDN were previously released on July 17, 2025. The Company's financial results are reported and available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.com) and the Company's website (www.cerradogold.com). Q2/25 MDN Operating Highlights: Q2/25 production of 11,437 GEO and AISC of $1,779/oz Unit costs expected to continue to decline as production increases in H2/2025 Q2/25 Adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million Record heap leach production of 7,864 GEO during the Quarter Underground development at Paloma started with three access portals CIL plant receiving initial contribution from underground development; production expected to ramp up over H2/2025 Operational results for the second quarter saw gold production increase compared to Q1 2025, but were lower than Q2/24 during which period the high grade Calandrias Norte pit was being mined. This was anticipated given the depletion of high-grade material from Calandrias Norte, following which, MDN became primarily a heap leach only operation pending the ramp up of new high-grade material from underground. The heap leach operation reached another production record of 7,864 GEO for the quarter. The recently expanded crushing circuit is enabling higher volumes of ore to be placed on the pad, with further increases expected following the planned addition of an agglomerator and additional conveyors in Q3 2025. With higher gold prices, the CIL plant continued to process lower-grade stockpiles through Q2/25. Going forward, lower grade material will be blended with new high-grade material from underground mining feed beginning in Q3/25 which will increase mill grades, boost production and lower unit operating costs further. Mark Brennan, CEO and Chairman commented, "The results from the second quarter demonstrate a robust operation transitioning to deliver increased production in the second half of the year and beyond. The expanded and improved crushing capacity at the heap leach is delivering greater production and when combined with new, higher-grade ore expected from underground operations, unit costs are expected to decline significantly in the second half of the year, enhancing our financial performance." He continued, "The strong cash flow generated from operations combined with our cash balance, has enabled us to pay down $10m in debt at MDN during the second quarter, while continuing to deploy capital for surface exploration and development of new resources underground. We are also seeing very positive advances at our Lagoa Salgada Polymetallic Project and at the High-grade Mont Sorcier DRI Iron Project in which we expect to unlock significant value that we see in these projects as the respective Feasibility Studies are completed." Operating Results for the Quarter Operational results for Q2 2025 showed a modest increase in production over the previous quarter, driven by modestly higher production from the heap leach operations. The heap leach performance remained steady over the quarter. However, recovery rates were impacted by a larger amount of primary ore placed on pad during the quarter due to mine sequencing. This primary material has lower recovery rates and longer retention times as compared to oxide material. Heap leach production is expected to improve in H2/25 as more oxide ore is mined, the addition of an agglomerator to reduce fines is implemented, and the ongoing upgrades to the crushing circuit are completed. In addition, early in the quarter the crushing circuit was offline for approximately 15 days as upgrades were put in place to support higher throughput rates moving forward. Production from stockpiled material via the CIL plant declined somewhat due to lower grades, however, underground operations at Paloma are expected to begin to contribute meaningfully to production in H2 2025 and beyond as development rates increase and more ore becomes available. The second phase of the expansion of the heap leach crushing circuit is now complete, which will increase feed stability in order to deliver steady ore volumes to the pad. While supporting higher production rates, additional crushing facilities are also expected to reduce the feed size to the pad and result in increased recoveries. The final updates to the crusher circuit, including final installation of the agglomerator and additional conveyors, are set to be completed in Q3/25. As previously announced, MDN commenced underground mining in June, opening up three portals for underground mining beneath the Paloma pit. Ore production is expected to ramp up over H2 and is set to make a material contribution to production rates as the year progresses. While initial production expectations are relatively modest given the current known underground resource, underground access is expected to provide a platform for major exploration activities at a lower cost than drilling from surface. Underground exploration aims to materially expand resources at MDN, leveraging the underground development for a potential expansion in production and/or mine life. On the exploration front, the Company commenced an approximate 20,000 metre drill program at MDN late in the quarter and is set to drill numerous targets in the coming months with the aim to potentially define new resources to provide mill feed to the CIL plant. Drilling commenced with a single DDH rig north of the Paloma pit, where several new veins have been intersected. Results are pending and further drilling will be required to confirm new resources. In the near term, the focus at MDN remains to ramp up production rates at its heap leach operation to approximately 4,000-4,500 GEO per month, grow underground production from the Paloma area in H2, and ramp up a new targeted exploration program across our 330k Ha property to increase resources and mine life. The Company has reduced its debt position by approximately $10M over the quarter at MDN and is well positioned to have a robust financial position by year end. Strong cashflow and reduced liabilities at MDN will support continued development and exploration at MDN, while pushing forward its strategic development programs at its projects in Quebec and Portugal. Q1 Financial Performance Table 1. Q1 2025 Operational and Financial Performance The Company produced 11,437 gold equivalent ounces ("GEO") during the three months ended June 30, 2025, as compared to 16,255 GEO for the three months ended June 30, 2024. In the period ended June 30, 2025, heap leach production was significantly higher compared to the prior year due to 27% higher recoveries and 438,530 additional tonnes placed on the pad. This was offset by a 10,262 ounce decrease in production from the CIL operation as the Company's focus moved towards heap leach operations in 2025 and only processed low grade ore in Q2 2025. The Company generated revenue of $29.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025, from the sale of 10,301 ounces of gold and 56,839 ounces of silver at an average realized price per gold ounce sold of $2,684. For the three months ended June 30, 2024, the Company generated revenue of $34.7 million from the sale of 15,484 ounces of gold 23,509 ounces of silver. Revenue is lower for the three months ended June 30, 2025 as compared to the three months ended June 30, 2024, due primarily to lower gold ounces sold. Cost of sales for the three months ended June 30, 2025, were $23.4 million as compared to $23.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2024. The Company incurred $0.6 million higher production costs for the three months ended June 30, 2025 due to slightly higher costs of operational contractors and labour costs in 2025 as compared to 2024. Sales expenses were also slightly higher in the first quarter of 2025 by $0.6 million, offset by a $1.0 million decrease in depreciation expense. Total cash costs (including royalties) sold was $1,770 per ounce in the three months ended June 30, 2025, as compared to $1,178 per ounce for the three months ended June 30, 2024, a $592 per ounce or 50% increase (refer to reconciliation of Non-IFRS performance metrics). The increase is a result of lower ounces sold in 2025 as compared to 2024. Net income from continued and discontinued operations for the three months ended June 30, 2025, was $1.2 million as compared to a net income of $1.0 million for the three months ended June 30, 2024. The increase in net income is primarily a result of decrease in foreign exchange loss of $5.9 million and lower depreciation expense of $1.0 million offset by $5.2 million decrease in metal sales, an increase in loss on remeasurement of MDN stream obligation of $0.8 million and an increase in loss on remeasurement of Ascendant secured note and stream obligation of $1.1 million. The Company incurred general and administrative expenses of $2.8 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025, as compared to $2.5 million of general and administrative expenses incurred during the three months ended June 30, 2024. The increase was primarily a result of an increase in salaries of $0.1 million, consulting fees of $0.1 million and marketing and promotion of $0.1 million offset by a decrease in stock-based compensation of $0.1 million, and office and other of $0.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025. Other loss of $1.4 million during the three months ended June 30, 2025, includes finance expense of $1.4 million, loss on fair value remeasurement of MDN stream obligation of $1.0 million and loss on fair value remeasurement of Ascendant secured note and stream obligation of $1.1 million offset by finance income of $1.0 million and foreign exchange gain of $0.9 million. Hedging Program On April 26, 2025, the Company extended its limited hedging program with Ocean Partners UK Ltd. The hedge is constructed as a zero-cost collar with lower and upper boundaries of US$3,100 and US$3,250 per ounce respectively. The hedging volume is for 2,000 ounces per month for a period of 7 months beginning May 2025 and terminating on or about December 2025, subject to production volume. With the expanded hedging program, the Company is focused on ensuring more than sufficient cash flows to further enhance its balance sheet and support funding requirements for its various growth programs. Outlook Entering H2 2025 and beyond, Cerrado's MDN Heap Leach operations are benefiting from the recent improvements to its crushing infrastructure to grow and improve production rates. Higher gold prices have enabled the CIL plant to remain operational by processing lower grade stockpiles, and it is now set to benefit from the introduction of higher-grade ore from underground operations, which is expected to improve overall profitability and free cash flows. The Company has maintained its 2025 annual production guidance to 55,000 - 60,000 GEO. AISC costs are expected decline in the second half of 2025 as production ramps up to deliver AISC of between $1,500 - $1,700 per GEO. The 20,000-meter exploration program has begun and is focused on growing the known resources at MDN beyond those outlined in the most recent Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE"). The focus remains on defining high grade-near surface targets that can readily be brought into the mine plan. The Company has developed an underground and a regional program to better understand the potential of known anomalies on the significant land package Cerrado holds at MDN. Drilling is now underway. During Q2 2025 the Company closed the acquisition of all of the outstanding common shares of Ascendant Resources Inc. not already owned by the Company and thereby obtaining an effective 80% interest in the Lagoa Salgada VMS project on the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. Accordingly, financial statements reflect the consolidation of Ascendant financial information for the first time, which includes liabilities assumed by the Company in connection with the acquisition. At the Lagoa Salgada project, work continued across key workstreams with the goal of reaching a construction decision by Q1 2026. Ongoing metallurgical testing has already delivered positive improvements and is expected to be completed imminently. Management considers the previously reported improvements to Capex and Opex at Lagoa to be very encouraging, and they will be integrated into the optimization program for the OFS. Significant positive results using Dense Media Separation on the Stockworks zone has warranted further analysis on mine and plant design. The expected result is a reduction in processing costs from this domain, but requires further detailed work to be undertaken before it can be incorporated into the OFS. Parallel workstreams to complete the OFS are currently ongoing and it is expected that the completion of the OFS will occur by year end. The Company is also advancing the approval in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), after successfully receiving Article 16 approval from the Portuguese regulators. The Company expects to submit its revised EIA in October. At the Mont Sorcier high grade and high purity DRI iron project operated by Cerrado's wholly owned subsidiary Voyager Metals Inc., work continued to advance the project with several workstreams related to permitting, social license and the initiation of the Feasibility Study which is targeted to be completed during Q1 2026. The high quality of the concentrate, grading over 67% iron, from the Mont Sorcier project is well positioned to support growing demand from the global Green Steel transition due to the reduced emissions generated by steel producers using high grade concentrates. Conference Call Details Cerrado Management will host a conference call on August 25, 2025, at 11:00 AM EDT to discuss the Q2 Financial and Operational results. The presentation for the call can be found on the investor page on Cerrado Gold's website at cerradogold.com. Call details are as follows: Pre-Registration for Conference Call Participants can preregister for the conference by navigating to: https://dpregister.com/sreg/10202340/ffc98dcb64 Participants will receive dial-in numbers to connect directly upon registration completion. Those without internet access or unable to pre-register may dial in by calling: PARTICIPANT DIAL IN (TOLL FREE): 1-833-752-3576 PARTICIPANT INTERNATIONAL DIAL IN: 1-647-846-8340 PARTICIPANT INTERNATIONAL DIAL IN: 1-647-846-8340 Review of Technical Information The scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Andrew Croal P.Eng, Chief Technical Officer for Cerrado Gold, who is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101. About Cerrado Cerrado Gold is a Toronto-based gold production, development, and exploration company. The Company is the 100% owner of the producing Minera Don Nicolas and Las Calandrias mine in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. In Portugal, the Company holds an 80% interest in the highly prospective Lagoa Salgada VMS project through its position in Redcorp - Empreendimentos Mineiros, Lda. In Canada, Cerrado Gold is developing its 100% owned Mont Sorcier Iron project located outside of Chibougamou, Quebec. In Argentina, Cerrado is maximizing asset value at its Minera Don Nicolas operation through continued operational optimization and is growing production through its operations at the Las Calandrias heap leach project. An extensive campaign of exploration is ongoing to further unlock potential resources in our highly prospective land package in the heart of the Deseado Masiff. In Portugal, Cerrado focused on the exploration and development of the highly prospective Lagoa Salgada VMS project located on the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. The Lagoa Salgada project is a high-grade polymetallic project, demonstrating a typical mineralization endowment of zinc, copper, lead, tin, silver, and gold. Extensive exploration upside potential lies both near deposit and at prospective step-out targets across the large 7,209-hectare property concession. Located just 80km from Lisbon and surrounded by exceptional infrastructure, Lagoa Salgada offers a low-cost entry to a significant exploration and development opportunity, already showing its mineable scale and cashflow generation potential. In Canada, Cerrado holds a 100% interest in the Mont Sorcier Iron project, which has the potential to produce a premium iron concentrate over a long mine life at low operating costs and low capital intensity. Furthermore, its high grade and high purity product facilitates the migration of steel producers from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, contributing to the decarbonization of the industry and the achievement of sustainable development goals. For more information about Cerrado please visit our website at: www.cerradogold.com. Mark Brennan CEO and Chairman Mike McAllister Vice President, Investor Relations Tel: +1-647-805-5662 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Disclaimer 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. This press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information" (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 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 statements. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding the business and operations of Cerrado, anticipated continued improvements in operating results and working capital position, future production and grade estimates, future cashflows, expectations regarding the CIL plant processing lower grade stockpiles, the potential for improvement at MDN's heap leach operation and higher grade ore being processed at MDN, expectations regarding improvements in operating costs at MDN including reduction in AISC, additional capacity being added at the heap leach operation, the potential of underground operation at MDN, the anticipated timing of completing the feasibility study at the Mont Sorcier project, the potential for a construction decision at Lagoa Salgada and the expected timing and likelihood of receiving approval of the environmental impact assessment at Lagoa Salgada. In making the forward- looking statements contained in this press release, Cerrado has made certain assumptions. Although Cerrado believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking statements 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 statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, Cerrado disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2025) - Powermax Minerals Inc. (CSE: PMAX) ("Powermax" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Paul Gorman as Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") and to the Board of Directors of Powermax, with immediate effect. Mr. Gorman will be replacing Aadam Tejpar on the Board of Directors of Powermax. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Tejpar for his services. Mr. Gorman is a resource sector-focused corporate specialist with over 25 years of experience in junior mining finance, public listings, viability assessment and operational leadership of several emerging-growth public companies. He served as President and Managing Partner of Riverbank Capital for 18 years, where he worked with small-cap companies to assist in financing, property and profile development. During this time, Mr. Gorman successfully raised over $85 million of capital and was instrumental in developing plans for ongoing sustainable business growth. Mr. Gorman had an integral role in revitalizing the junior graphite space in North America in 2008 by funding Industrial Minerals Inc., which later became Northern Graphite (TSXV: NGC), and by assisting four other graphite companies in an advisory role. He then founded Mega Graphite Inc. in 2009 and has served as CEO for several other companies. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Michael Malana for his service as Chief Executive Officer and looks forward to his continued contributions to the Board of Directors. About Powermax Minerals Inc. Powermax Minerals Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on advancing rare earth element projects. The Company holds an option to acquire the Cameron REE Property, comprising three mineral claims totaling approximately 2,984 hectares in British Columbia. Powermax also recently optioned to acquire the Atikokan REE Property in Ontario, consisting of 455 unpatented mining claims (see news release dated June 18, 2025). For more information, investors should review the Company's filings that are available at www.sedarplus.ca. Forward-Looking Statements Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. The forward-looking information in this news release reflects the current expectations, assumptions and/or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company's normal course of business. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in CSE policies) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming "systematic obstruction of aid" by Israel, hours after Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to destroy the territory's largest city. Israel rejected the UN-backed report as "based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests". Hamas urged the United Nations and UN Security Council to "stop the war and lift the siege", calling for unrestricted access for food, medicine, water and fuel. The Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City. Israel has pressed ahead with plans to seize Gaza City despite an international outcry, saying it is key to defeating Hamas. The IPC projected that the famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza. With the vast majority of the territory's population displaced at least once, the UN said nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate. UN agencies and aid groups had warned for months of a looming famine in Gaza, where Israel has severely restricted aid and at times completely cut it off during its nearly two-year war with militant group Hamas. The Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, also rejected the report, saying previous editions had "proven inaccurate". UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory "because of systematic obstruction by Israel". UN human rights chief Volker Turk said it was "a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare" and said it "may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing". UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire, saying: "We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity." - 'Haunt us all' - "After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death," the IPC report said. By the end of September, it expected 614,000 people to be facing the same conditions. It said the deterioration between July and August was the most severe since it began analysing hunger in Gaza, driven by a sharp escalation in the war and restrictions on supplies. In early March, Israel completely banned aid from Gaza for two months, leading to severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel. Speaking in Geneva, the UN's Fletcher said the famine should "haunt us all". "It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," he told reporters. Ahead of the report's release, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee preemptively attacked its findings. "You know who IS starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilised Hamas savages," he posted on X. - 'Gates of hell' - Speaking earlier on Friday, Katz warned: "The gates of hell will open upon the heads of Hamas's murderers and rapists in Gaza -- until they agree to Israel's conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament. "If they do not agree, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun," he added, referring to two cities in Gaza largely razed during previous Israeli operations. His statement came after Netanyahu said late Thursday he had ordered immediate negotiations aimed at freeing all remaining hostages in Gaza. The Israeli premier added that the push to release the hostages would accompany the operation to take control of Gaza City. Um Ibrahim Younes, a 43-year-old mother of four living in the remains of her destroyed home in Gaza City, said: "It feels like we are in hell. I'm going insane. I cannot imagine being displaced again." Nivin Ahmed, a 47-year-old mother of five living in a tent west of Gaza City said: "The bombardment intensifies every day, the explosions never stop. We wait for death -- we have come to wish for it." - 'Hand in hand' - Earlier this week, the Israeli defence ministry authorised the call-up of roughly 60,000 reservists to help seize Gaza City. The UN humanitarian office has warned that the planned Israeli operation will have "a horrific humanitarian impact" on an already exhausted population. Mediators have been waiting for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal, which Hamas accepted earlier this week. Palestinian sources have said the new deal involves staggered hostage releases, while Israel has recently insisted that any deal must include the freeing of all the captives at once. Hamas's October 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 49 are still in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming "systematic obstruction" of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly dismissing the findings. Palestinian militant group Hamas urged the United Nations to "stop the war and lift the siege", calling for unrestricted access for food, medicine, water and fuel. Netanyahu, whose defence minister meanwhile threatened an even more intense offensive, rejected the UN-backed report as "an outright lie". The Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City. Israel has pressed ahead with plans to seize Gaza City despite an international outcry, saying that taking the territory's largest city is key to defeating Hamas. The IPC projected that the famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza. With the vast majority of the territory's population displaced at least once, the UN said nearly a million people currently live in the northern Gaza governorate. UN agencies and aid groups had warned for months of a looming famine in Gaza, where Israel has severely restricted aid and at times completely cut it off during its nearly two-year war with Hamas. COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories -- including coordinating aid to Gaza -- argued that the IPC's findings rely on "partial data and unreliable sources". UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to Palestinians in need "because of systematic obstruction by Israel". UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire, saying: "We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity." - 'Man-made catastrophe' - UN human rights chief Volker Turk said it was "a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare" -- a charge for which the International Criminal Court in November issued an arrest warrants for Netanyahu. In a statement, Netanyahu said "Israel does not have a policy of starvation", citing figures on aid it had allowed into Gaza. The IPC report said that "over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death". It said the deterioration between July and August was the most severe since it began analysing hunger in Gaza, driven by a sharp escalation in the war and restrictions on supplies. In early March, Israel completely banned aid from Gaza for two months. Speaking in Geneva, the UN's Fletcher said: "It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel." The International Committee of the Red Cross said the famine declaration "must serve as a catalyst for immediate and concrete action". Britain's top diplomat David Lammy said Israel's "refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage." - 'We are dying' - Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier warned that "the gates of hell will open upon" Hamas leaders, specifically in Gaza City, "until they agree to Israel's conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament." Military chief Eyal Zamir said "we are expanding operations in Gaza in the coming days". Late Thursday, Netanyahu said he had ordered negotiations aimed at freeing the hostages still held in Gaza since the Hamas attack that triggered the war -- 49 people, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. The Israeli premier said the diplomatic push would accompany the operation to take control of Gaza City. Mediators have been waiting for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal, which Hamas accepted earlier this week. On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed at least 57 people on Friday, more than half of them in Gaza City. Umm Mohammed Nasr, a 42-year-old mother of four from Gaza City, said that "the bombing hasn't stopped since this morning... but we have no idea where to go". "We are dying," she said. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military. Hamas's October 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. A military prosecutor on Friday demanded the death penalty for DR Congo's former president Joseph Kabila who is on trial in absentia on treason charges. Kabila's party called the proceedings "a political trial". General Lucien Rene Likulia called on judges to condemn Kabila to death for war crimes, treason and organising an insurrection. The former president, 53, went on trial in his absence in July for his alleged support for Rwanda-backed M23 militants. Kabila, who has been outside the DRC for two years, is accused of plotting to overthrow President Felix Tshisekedi and charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the M23 group. The violence committed by the M23 in the east of the country had caused "immense prejudice" to the country, for which Kabila had criminal responsibility, Likulia argued. Kabila, in coordination with Rwanda, had been trying to carry out a coup against Tshisekedi, said Likulia. "The accused planned to overthrow by armed force the constitutional regime in place," he argued, notably with the help of Corneille Nangaa. Nangaa was the president of the Congolese electoral commission during the 2018 presidential election won by Tshisekedi. He subsequently went on the run and in December 203 announced the creation of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), a political-military movement of rebel groups including the M23. The charge sheet, seen by AFP, describes Kabila as "one of the initiators" of the AFC. - A 'political trial' - Ferdinand Kambere, deputy general secretary of Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), denounced the prosecution. "It's a political trial, the regime is trying to hide its diplomatic and military failures," he told AFP. The prosecution demands amounted to the persecution of an opposition figure, he argued, adding that current conditions "do not guarantee a fair trial". Kabila has already denounced the trial, calling the courts "an instrument of oppression". The indictment also accuses Kabila of responsibility for atrocities committed by M23 in North and South Kivu provinces in the mineral-rich east. It lists the "forcible occupation of the city of Goma", captured by M23 fighters in January before they agreed a ceasefire with the government in July. Kabila went to Goma in May, meeting local religious leaders in the presence of M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka. - Enduring influence - Tshisekedi, his successor as president, has branded Kabila the brains behind the armed group, which has seized swathes of the resource-rich Congolese east with Rwanda's help. Rwanda denies providing military backing to the M23 but UN experts say its army played a "critical" role in the group's offensive. The AFC and M23's executive secretary Benjamin Mbonimpa distanced the movement from Kabila in comments to journalists in Goma in July. Kabila ruled the country between 2001 and 2009, taking power following the assassination of his father Laurent Kabila. Although he left the DRC in 2023, the former leader still has influence over Congolese political life. He has called Tshisekedi's government a "dictatorship". The DRC lifted a moratorium on the death penalty last year but no judicial executions have been carried out since. For more than three decades, the eastern DRC has been ravaged by conflict between various armed groups. The unrest has intensified since the M23's resurgence in 2021. A Gambian man convicted of torturing opponents of the African country's former president was sentenced to more than 67 years in a US prison on Friday. Michael Sang Correa, 46, served in an armed unit known as the "Junglers," which answered to The Gambia's then-president, Yahya Jammeh. Correa was convicted by a jury in Denver, Colorado, in April of torturing people because of suspicions they had plotted against Jammeh. The Justice Department said the torture included burning victims with molten plastic and subjecting them to vicious beatings. "Today, Michael Correa has finally been held accountable for the brutal violence he inflicted on others," acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti said in a statement. "The United States will not be a safe haven for individuals who seek to conceal their egregious human rights violations." Jurors in Colorado heard how in March 2006, shortly after a failed coup attempt, the Junglers took their victims to The Gambia's main prison. Over the next two months, they beat, stabbed, burned, and electroshocked their victims, including some on their genitals. One man testified that he had his thigh burned by molten plastic; another told of how he was suffocated, while others spoke of being pistol whipped, burned with cigarettes and hit in the face with a hammer. Correa was convicted of five counts of torture and one of conspiracy to commit torture. Correa entered the United States in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for The Gambia's vice president, who was visiting the United Nations. He stayed in the country and moved to Denver at some point after Jammeh, who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1994 to 2017, was voted out of office. Correa was arrested by US authorities in September 2019, initially for overstaying his visa. The paramilitary Junglers operated outside the Gambian army's chain of command, taking orders directly from Jammeh, and have been accused by watchdog groups of carrying out widespread human rights violations. Another member of the Junglers, Bai Lowe, was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in November 2023 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder. A Swiss court sentenced Gambian ex-interior minister Ousman Sonko to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed under the Jammeh regime. Victims of the Junglers included an AFP correspondent, Deyda Hydara, who was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Gambia's capital Banjul on December 16, 2004. Thursday, August 21, 2025 - Kenyan slay queens are known for their daring fashion choices and electrifying energy when it comes to partying. This trending video, captured in a popular city club, shows a bold lady turning up the heat on the dance floor, perfectly embodying the vibrant pulse of Kenyas party culture. In the clip, the confident lady can be seen vibing effortlessly to the music, her bold outfit commanding all the attention in the club The video has stirred mixed reactions - with some netizens applauding her confidence, while others felt she may have pushed the envelope a little too far in her quest to stand out. Watch the video The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, August 21, 2025 - Tourism Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano has ordered stricter enforcement of park rules after a viral video showed tourists blocking wildebeests during the annual migration in the Maasai Mara. Narok County, through its Chief Warden, clarified that the incident occurred at the flooded Purungat Gate, where visitors briefly alighted as they waited for water to subside. The county said the incident lasted less than a minute and that the tourists were quickly ordered back into their vehicles. It also dismissed claims that tour guides had been bribed with $20 (about Ksh2,584) to let the tourists step out, though investigations into the allegations are ongoing. Despite the explanation, CS Miano said the images had harmed Kenyas global reputation, stressing the need to prioritise both visitor safety and wildlife protection. She directed tour guides to keep tourists inside vehicles except at designated points and urged Narok County to deploy more rangers at sensitive crossing areas. Miano further warned that rogue guides, drivers, and companies that flout park regulations will face legal or disciplinary action. The Maasai Mara is central to Kenyas conservation image. Incidents like this cannot be tolerated, she said. The Ministry announced it will partner with Narok County to strengthen enforcement, harmonise visitor management, and roll out awareness campaigns with clearer signage at key migration viewing points. Tourists in the Maasai Mara blocked the wildebeest migration, forcing them back into the river. This is Western arrogance choking our heritage. @realDonaldTrump must pay Kenya for every life lost your interference comes with a bill. pic.twitter.com/FLon0e8OqV George Njoroge (@georgenjoroge_) August 20, 2025 The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, August 21, 2025 - Kithimani Magistrate's court has sentenced a man to 20 years' imprisonment for shooting a Kenya Power staff member with an arrow while on official duty. The court heard that Kioko Kavita shot Esau Ogutu Mbadi on June 7th, 2024 at Kithendu village in Yatta Sub-County within Machakos County. He was charged with unlawfully attempting to cause the death of Esau by shooting him on the right side below the ribs with a bow and arrow. The complainant was among the Kenya Power staff assigned to prune trees that had encroached on power facilities at Kithendu village when the accused person attacked him. The court heard that when the officers reached the home of the accused person, they saw an avocado tree, which, according to them, was the cause to the persistent power outage in the area since it was interfering with fuses. The accused person was informed of the danger of the tree, and he was requested to allow them to cut down the tree, which, according to the witnesses, he refused and threatened to attack anyone who would cut down the tree. The officials told him that they would not leave since the village had no electricity. This is when the accused ran into his house and came back with bows and arrows. He retreated a few steps and shot the complainant with an arrow on the right side of the abdomen. The complainant was later taken to Matuu level 4 Hospital where a surgery to remove the lodged arrow was conducted. While delivering his determination, Principal Magistrate P. Wechuli noted that all the evidence from the 5 prosecution witnesses' testimonies which was not contested by the accused person proves that the accused made and attempted to murder the complainant. His overt act of wilfully and carefully placing an arrow on a bow and shooting at the complainant means that he was in the process of killing the complainant. His actions do not amount to a mere preparation to commit the offence; he had put his plans in motion before he was restrained and his bow broken, ruled Hon. Wechuli. The court also found that if the accused person had not been restrained, he would have shot another arrow, which would have led to the complainants demise, since the evidence showed he was preparing to shoot a second arrow. The court further noted that the complainant had no personal issue with the accused since he was just going about his work of ensuring that the power had been restored at Kithendu village. The accused, on the other hand, had let his tree interfere with the said power line, thus affecting the entire village. For him to turn around and attack the complainant so viciously is unfortunate and barbaric, and he deserves a deterrent sentence, noted Hon. Wechuli. In meting out the sentence, the court factored in the time he spent in custody and ordered that he shall serve 20 years' imprisonment. The case was prosecuted by Fred Kimathi and James Gachoka. Zubeida Kananu was suspended by the Standard Group for attending the Editors' Summit in Tanzania. Her mission was to raise the company's profile and, secure business opportunities. Yet, to Alex, who has spent his entire career at Standard that's nonsense. To understand the problems inside the Standard newsroom, one must look at what happened when Alex took charge. He dismantled all existing desks and replaced them with a single "national desk" run purely by word of mouth. This meant reporters covering crime, economy, health, and other specialized beats were lumped under one editor. This was a typical move of someone with little vision. At a time when media houses across the world were expanding desks and investing in specialized reporting, Alex chose the opposite path. Alex was previously fired as bureau chief in Nakuru but went to Gideon Moi and returned to Nairobi as Associate Editor. Now claiming connections to the Moi family and armed with screenshots and WhatsApp messages he insists prove his ties, Alex behaves as if he is always right. He assumes he is more competent than dozens of journalists who have worked in established stations far better than Standard. Even while away, he holds WhatsApp video calls to berate other staff. Masquerading as CEO, shareholder, and employer, he wields absolute power, keeping everyone at his mercy. Alex Kiprotich claims he is there to protect the interests of the shareholders, even if they wanted the company to be a hospital. Meanwhile, he has assigned himself four company vehicles and operates from his home in Nakuru, while journalists at Standard are left scrambling to share just a handful of cars. Under Alex Kiprotich's leadership, the company's financial mismanagement has reached alarming levels. Some employees have not been paid for over 10 months, pension contributions have not been remitted, and SACCO deductions have not been forwarded to the respective institutions. Yet Alex Kiprotich continues to enjoy his fleet of company vehicles while staff struggle with basic financial survival. His disdain is reserved for the most established journalists, while his favoritism is clear toward the young staff. You can guess his preferences. In meetings, Alex Kiprotich frequently invokes Gideon Moi's name to intimidate everyone, pairing it with threats of dismissal. His greetings often sound like ultimatums: "Wewe unacheza sana. Do you know I can fire you?" To further destabilize the newsroom, Alex Kiprotich constantly shifts staff around. Swahili editors were moved to English desks, while others were quietly dropped from TV. Skilled journalists who once worked seamlessly across TV and print were forced to surrender their TV stories to Alex Kiprotich's preferred colleagues, effectively confining them to the newspaper section. These abrupt changes came without a single memo or email, only word of mouth, reinforced by threats: "Nyinyi munapenda mchezo sana, mutajua mimi ni nani." The chaos reached new heights this week when two complete strangers walked into the editors' desks, handed over a video clip, and instructed an editor, "Run this story." When asked who had sent them, their reply was chillingly casual: "Tumetumwa na Alex." No introductions, no line manager briefings, not even an orientation. Just orders, delivered in his name. These revelations from Standard employees raise a troubling question about the media house's integrity. How ironic that a publication that regularly runs headlines pushing for accountability in government, workers' rights, fair wages, and transparency treats its own staff so poorly. While Standard's front pages champion the common mwananchi's struggles with unpaid salaries and pension theft, their own journalists endure the very injustices they report on. It is time for serious reflection from the shareholders. Are these headlines driven by genuine concern for Kenyans, or are they merely PR exercises to maintain public credibility while the house burns from within? How can Standard credibly hold other institutions accountable for worker mistreatment when they cannot even pay their own staff for 10 months or remit their pension contributions? Thursday, August 21, 2025 - A Machakos court has sentenced a man to 20 years in prison after he shot a Kenya Power staff member with an arrow while on duty. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) confirmed on Thursday, August 21st, that Kioko Kavita was found guilty of attempting to unlawfully cause the death of Esau Ogutu Mbadi, who was attacked on June 7, 2024, at Kithendu village in Yatta Sub-County. According to court documents, Mbadi was part of a Kenya Power team dispatched to prune trees interfering with electricity lines in the area. When they arrived at Kavitas home, they identified an avocado tree disrupting power supply. The officials explained the risk posed by the tree, but Kavita refused to cooperate and allegedly threatened them. Witnesses testified that Kavita retreated into his house, returned armed with bows and arrows, and shot Mbadi in the abdomen. The victim was rushed to Matuu Level 4 Hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove the lodged arrow. Delivering judgment, Principal Magistrate Paul Wechuli said evidence from five prosecution witnesses proved Kavita intended to kill. His actions went beyond preparation. He carefully placed an arrow on a bow and shot at the complainant with clear intent to cause death, the magistrate ruled. The court also heard that Kavita attempted to fire a second arrow before being restrained. Wechuli described the act as unfortunate and barbaric, noting that Mbadi was only performing his duty to restore electricity. Kavita will serve 20 years in prison for the offence. Thursday, August 21, 2025 - A man who persistently pursued a married woman despite her repeated rejections has been charged in court with robbery with violence. The accused, Ambrose Imoh, appeared before a Nairobi court where he was charged with violently robbing Martha Mwikali of her mobile phone worth Sh15,000 on August 13th at Kwa Maji, Njiru Sub-County, contrary to Section 295 as read with Section 296(2) of the Penal Code. According to police reports, Imoh had been stalking Mwikali for weeks, ignoring her repeated warnings that she was married and uninterested in any extramarital affair. When she blocked his calls and messages, Imoh allegedly confronted her at her shop, forcibly took her phone, and physically assaulted her. A pastor who witnessed the incident told investigators that the accused approached Mwikali under the pretext of wanting a brief conversation. The situation quickly escalated into a heated exchange before Imoh grabbed her phone and attacked her. Mwikali later reported the incident to her husband, who tried to resolve the matter amicably by appealing to Imoh to return the stolen phone. Police also gave the accused a chance to compensate the complainant for the harassment and assault. However, Imoh allegedly refused, prompting officers from Mowlem Police Station to arrest him at his workplace, where the stolen phone was recovered. In court, Imoh admitted that he had strong feelings for Mwikali but claimed he felt disrespected after she rejected his advances. The court released him on a Sh300, 000 bond without the option of cash bail. The case will be mentioned on October 30th, 2025. Thursday, August 21, 2025 - Uriri MP, Mark Nyamita, has defended the source of funds used in empowerment forums, dismissing claims that the money comes from corrupt dealings or the Executive. Speaking on Thursday, August 21st, Nyamita said the initiative operates as a coordinated support system among legislators. The empowerment programme is a merry-go-round among MPs. I have personally attended 18 forums, and those colleagues also owe me a visit. In such events, we might raise about Ksh5 million from colleagues, but not from corruption, he said. His remarks came after DCP Deputy Party Leader Cleophas Malala alleged that lawmakers receive cash handouts from individuals close to State House. Malala claimed MPs are given Ksh300,000 at empowerment events, pocketing Ksh200,000 while contributing Ksh100,000, and even linked Nyamita to presidential aide Farouk Kibet. Nyamita also voiced concern over rising claims of bribery in Parliament, saying the image of the institution was at stake. For Parliament to be perceived as a den of corruption is a grave concern. I hope this discussion will not end at statements but will lead to action, he noted. His clarification came days after President William Ruto, during a Kenya Kwanza - ODM Parliamentary Group meeting on August 18th, accused Senators of turning oversight sessions into marketplaces, where Governors allegedly pay up to Ksh150 million to escape accountability. The President further claimed that some MPs received Ksh10 million to pass the Anti-Money Laundering Bill, warning that legislators caught soliciting or receiving bribes will be arrested. The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, August 21, 2025 - Police investigating the brutal murder of a prominent businessman made a breakthrough after uncovering incriminating evidence from his ex-wifes mobile phone. The businessman, who was earlier believed to have been the victim of a robbery gone wrong, was in fact the target of a cold-blooded, well-orchestrated killing. Detectives ruled out robbery after confiscating the ex-wifes phone and stumbling upon damning communications. Shockingly, messages retrieved from the device revealed chilling exchanges between the woman and suspected hired killers. The killers were boldly demanding payment for a job well done, completely unaware that their messages were being read by detectives who had already seized the phone. As they say, fear women!!! The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, August 21, 2025 - Some women will go to great lengths to make sure their boyfriends dont get a little too close to their female friends - especially if the friend happens to be more attractive or well-endowed. Its a natural instinct for some ladies to mark their territory when out in public with their partners, and a now-viral video captures this perfectly. In the clip, a young couple bumps into the ladys curvy friend. While the girlfriend greets her warmly with a hug, things take a comedic twist when the boyfriend attempts to do the same. Quick as lightning, the girlfriend blocks him - making sure not even a handshake slips through. To top it all off, she doesnt stop at just blocking the hug. As her friend walks away, she literally hops on her boyfriends back to stop him from turning around and sneaking a glance. Netizens were left in stitches, hilariously nicknaming her the Defense Minister - a title she more than earned with her no-nonsense, full-force tactics to guard her relationship. Watch the video. Defence Minister saved her relationship pic.twitter.com/26fdZH5nU9 Mike Sonko (@MikeSonko) August 20, 2025 The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, August 21, 2025 - A whistleblower has exposed what could be one of the biggest corruption scandals in Kenyas health sector, alleging that Ksh 12 billion has been looted from the Social Health Authority (SHA) under the watch of Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale. The shocking revelations claim that the theft was executed through Apiero Kenya Technologies Ltd, a firm linked to controversial businessman and President Rutos associate, Jayesh Saini, of the Adani Group. The whistleblower alleges that the company in cahoots with Duale, has been siphoning billions, leaving Kenyans without essential health services. In an explosive twist, CS Duale is accused of openly boasting about his newfound wealth, allegedly bragging that he had purchased a chopper and 1,000 camels using proceeds from the loot. The whistleblower further revealed that SHA CEO Dr. Mercy Mwangangi has been growing increasingly frustrated with Duale and the Apiero team, lamenting that the authority has been reduced to a one-man show controlled from outside SHA headquarters. SHA is no longer about healthcare; it has been hijacked by cartels looting public funds. The health sector is on the brink of total collapse, the whistleblower warned. See the explosive messages sent to Nelson Amenya, exposing corruption at SHA. The Kenyan DAILY POST NOW that work on Athys plaza is finished, Kildare County Council are preparing to make bye-laws in relation to the control, regulation, supervision and designation of casual trading in the town. For more than 500 years a market has been held in Athy every Tuesday by virtue of a charter granted by King Henry VIII in 1515. The place for holding the market was determined by the Earl of Kildare, while the village Provost was required to regulate the market. We look upon the former Market Square, now Emily Square, as the site of the market, but in fact the Earls initial choice was somewhere in the vicinity of Woodstock Castle where the medieval village of Athy was located in the 16th century. It was only in the latter years of the 17th century that the village of Athy moved to the eastern side of the River Barrow following continuous attacks by the Irish on the Woodstock settlement. Whites Castle was built to protect the River Barrow crossing and the new market square was developed, possibly at the same time as the Market House was built. The Tuesday market transferred across the river, and we can presume that the then Earl of Kildare approved the move. The power of the Provost to regulate the market passed to his successor, the Town Sovereign, and subsequently to the mayor of Athy Borough Council, then to the chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, the chairman of Athy Urban District Council and more recently the mayor of Athy Municipal Council. The Casual Trading Act 1995 gives extensive powers to a county council to provide for the control and regulation of casual trading. It also provides for the extinguishment of ancient market rights if certain conditions are met by the County Council. The county council can extinguish the market right, but only if alternative facilities are provided for the traders in the vicinity of the existing market right. The council must also provide in the new marketplace sufficient accommodation for all the stall holders who were previously catered for under the market right. Only then can the council enact bye-laws which the stall holders must comply with. The major question which Kildare County Council must answer is whether the return of the market to the newly designated plaza is appropriate. The map which accompanied the public notice issued by Kildare County Council in relation to the market bye-laws showed eleven pitches in the plaza and eight pitches on Barrow Quay. These numbers were considerably less than those used by the traders before work on the plaza started. The Casual Trading Act only allows the market right to be extinguished by the council if the alternative market site is in the same vicinity, and after facilities offered reasonably correspond in all respects to the previous market size. The alternative site, cited in the councils draft bye-laws, using the back Square and the Barrow Quay would not meet the requirements of the Casual Trading Act. However, land to the south side of the Courthouse, formerly the grounds of The Abbey, would be a suitable site for the Tuesday market. This site, if acquired by the council, would allow the market to continue every Tuesday, and the site could also be used for car parking every other day. That latter point is important, bearing in mind the loss of car parking due to the development of the plaza. Additional parking will also be required when the Shackleton Museum opens. Kildare County Council should move to acquire this plot of ground, whether by compulsory purchase order or otherwise, as it is uniquely located in the centre of the town. The market, at present, is not a very attractive one. Im reminded of what the authorities in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex did to make the weekly market more attractive by providing stalls and awnings for the traders, which the council set up the evening before each market. I understand that the traders pay a small fee for renting the councils equipment and the colourful scene provided a pleasant backdrop to the market. I appeal to Kildare County Council not to endanger the towns plaza and allow it to be a pleasant meeting point for locals and visitors alike seven days a week. The alternative site, which I have suggested for the market, meets all the requirements of the Casual Trading Act. It would be foolish for the council not to seize the opportunity to protect the towns market, even if it continues not with its market right but as an ordinary market. Personally, I am in favour of the continuation of the Tuesday market in Athy in a casual trading area selected by the council nearer to Emily Square, even if the present market right is extinguished. This would allow the council to regulate the new designated casual trading area. The passing of casual trading bye-laws will be an opportunity for Kildare County Council to make the market much more attractive, not least by providing standard colourful stalls and awnings for the traders to use. What I do not want to happen is to witness the death of the Tuesday market. Now is the time for senior council officials and the public representatives to show vision and courage. A planning application has been lodged by Rosebrack Ltd for a 'barley to bottle' whiskey distillery at Castletown Cox Estate in County Kilkenny. According to planning documentation submitted to Kilkenny County Council, the proposed development 'is a personal private project for Castletown Cox Estate and is not a commercial enterprise'. The documentation further notes: "The Castletown Cox Estate has a unique concept for the production of its own Irish whiskey from barley to bottle. "The barley will be grown on the Castletown Cox Estate and harvested there. The harvested barley will be malted in a malting house adjacent to the distillery building. The malted barley will be germinated and fermented in the brew house, before being triple distilled in the still house and casked in oak barrels. "The whiskey will be stored in the oak casks until it has reached the required maturity and it will then be bottled and labeled, identifying their origin in the Castletown Cox Estate. "Castletown Cox will then become the only distillery in Ireland where every step of the process from barley to bottle will be carried out on the same site. It is not intended to sell the whiskey commercially. "This process underpins sustainability principles and the circular economy minimising waste, transport demands and optimising use of natural on site agricultural resources and vacant buildings and reducing the environmental impact. "It revives the traditional art of whiskey making. The conservation approach ensures the overall footprint of the historic buildings will not change as a result of the construction of the distillery, and, with the exception of the brew house, their outward appearance will remain as they have always been." The description of the development is set out in the public notices as follows: 1. Restoration and conservation and refurbishment works to six existing farm out-buildings for use as a micro whiskey distillery comprising of a malt house, a brew house, a still house, staff facilities, a malt store and a cask storage house [bonded] all located in a group of Protected Structures on the Castletown Cox Estate, Castletown, Piltown, County Kilkenny. 2. The construction of a new boiler house with flue, and underground LPG tanks to power the boiler system a cooling unit, a 300KVA generator and enclosing screen, an agricultural barrel-vault shed to accommodate trailers for the removal of spent grains and pot ale with two underground tanks, one for pot ale and one for fire water. Screen fencing and gates between distillery and agricultural yard. A separate underground storage tank for firefighting water, and all associated site works. 3. The provision of a well. 4. The provision of a wastewater treatment system and percolation area for the staff facilities. 5. The provision of two number photovoltaic arrays, one at ground level and one on the south facing elevation of an existing agricultural shed. The details of the restoration and conservation and refurbishment works comprise the following: i. The malt house will be accommodated in an existing farm building and the roof finishes will be replaced with salvaged natural slates and introduction of a pagoda to the roof structure to accommodate the extract system for a malting kiln located within. ii. The existing piggery building, currently in ruins, will accommodate a contemporary two-storeyn brewhouse with a natural slated roof to match the other existing farm buildings. The super structure of the two-storey brewhouse will be constructed as a steel frame inserted into the remaining walls of the historic ruin. A single storey building at ground floor with a small, glazed link connection at first floor level will be installed between the malt house and the brew house. Two new door openings will be created between the malt house and the brew house. iii. The still house will be accommodated in an existing farm building, where its roof and walls will be retained. A new opening will be created between the still and brew house. iv. The staff facilities will be accommodated within an existing farm building, retaining its existing roof and walls. v. The cask storage will be accommodated in an existing farm building, retaining its existing roof and walls and preserving the historic cobbled floor. One existing door height to be increased. vi. All of the above historic buildings will be fitted with new glazed windows and new doors. vii. Some minor service openings to accommodate air extraction and ventilation pipework will be created in some of the existing walls. viii. An internal floor duct between the brewhouse and the still house, and an external duct, below ground, will be created between the brewhouse and the new boiler house. ix. The head height of some existing doorways will be marginally increased in height to comply with fire escape regulations. All ancillary services, site works and landscaping. The importance of the existing buildings is heavily emphasised in the planning documentation: "The aim will be to recover and retain the architectural significance of the buildings while allowing alterations that provide a use that will ensure the buildings long-term survival into the future, provide access for the disabled and comply with fire-safety and industrial safety requirements. "All features and materials of importance to retain the character of the individual buildings and their settings as a complex will be retained. The objective is that structures should not look very different after alterations and construction work. "Alterations, repairs and additions are to be carried out without an attempt to disguise or artificial ageing, and new works should be discernible without detracting from the historic structure." The application documents stated that a number of the design team members visited micro whiskey distillery projects in Scotland: "The Cabrach Distillery in the highlands in Scotland was visited to see first hand the integration of a micro whiskey distillery within heritage buildings dating from 1849. "The Cabrach was instrumental in reviving traditional whiskey making. It is intended that Castletown Cox distillery will revive the art of traditional whiskey making contributing to the heritage legacy of Castletown Cox Estate. "The conservation approach ensures the overall footprint of the historic buildings will not change as a result of the construction of the distillery, and, with the exception of the brew house, their outward appearance will remain as they have always been." A decision on the plans is expected from Kilkenny County Council by October 9, 2025. This timeline could be extended if further information is requested from the applicant. Radio NZ reports: Foreign Minister Winston Peters is celebrating former Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard being replaced as Ambassador to Ireland. Peters named Angela Hassan-Sharp for the role in a statement about 1pm on Tuesday. Asked about Mallard, he said you know that famous song from the Seekers? Carnivals over. He said Mallard was coming home and hes coming home early. Im not sure it is that early. His appointment was announced in August 22 and his replacement in August 25. That is three years gap, which is not abnormal for appointments other than the UK or Ireland. In fact since 1991, the majority of appointments to UK and Ireland were for three years or less. While Mallards appointment was controversial, I think it is fair to note that there has been nothing to suggest that he has not performed the role with diligence over there. I do agree with Peters that generally politicians should not be diplomats (Goff showed us the danger), but I wouldnt make it a hard and fast rule. In the US especially a former Prime Minister can open up many more doors than a career diplomat. 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. COLUMBIA The University of Missouri's Black student government organization met with university leaders Thursday after MU canceled the organization's Black 2 Class Block Party over the word "Black" in the name. The meeting consisted of around half of the Legion of Black Collegians' 13-member executive board and MU administrators including Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Angela King Taylor, UM System President Mun Choi and his chief of staff, John Middleton, and Dean of Students Michelle Froese, according to LBC President Amaya Morgan. The meeting came the day after LBC publicized MU's decision to cancel its back-to-school block party over the word "Black" in the name. The Legion said Wednesday that MU told the organization Monday it could no longer host its Black 2 Class Block Party. The event was set to happen Friday. LBC posted a statement to Instagram calling the university's decision "a deliberate act of erasure." At every turn, we are shut down," LBC said in the statement. "Things as simple as putting Black in a name results in consequences. MU said the name of the event suggested it excluded people based on race. Morgan said LBC offered to change the name to the "Back 2 Class Block Party" but that the university maintained the event's cancellation. "For you to cancel it and not offer any other solutions when we are offering to comply with your standards is what makes people more upset," Morgan said. Last year, LBC said the university forced the Legion to change the name of the "Welcome Black BBQ," the organization's historic welcome event, to the "Welcome Black and Gold BBQ." LBC pulled out of that event this year. "People are just disappointed but not surprised," Morgan said. The university's official Instagram account responded to the Wednesday post with a copy of an email Choi sent to LBC leadership. MU spokesperson Christopher Ave declined an interview request Thursday and sent an updated statement to KOMU 8: "The University of Missouri fosters a non-discriminatory campus environment," the statement read. "When holding events using university facilities, student organizations must avoid excluding individuals based on race. The event had already been promoted with a name that suggested such exclusivity. For that reason, the decision was made that the event as described would not be held on campus." In the Instagram post, LBC demanded the university publicly condemn racial harassment, host a town hall within 60 days of the semester's starting and mandate campus-wide messaging to students making clear MU's policies on forms of harassment. Morgan said the Thursday meeting between LBC and MU administration was to continue discussion on the Legion's demands. She said the conversation revolved around the Block Party and campus safety, in general. Morgan said LBC has always had open lines of communication with Choi and that Thursday's meeting was imperative due to LBC's demands. "I did want to stress to him (Choi) how important these issues are because coming off the 2024-2025 school year, plenty of people have been called the N-word, myself included." Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. LBC said in its Instagram post that last school year, Black students had been called racial slurs while walking to class, leaving organization events or practices and going out in downtown Columbia. The Legion said it was made aware of dozens of incidents like this. Morgan said MU's Office of Institutional Equity, which enforces nondiscrimination policies, does its job very well. Morgan said MU punishes students caught using racial slurs, but she thinks Choi needs to acknowledge the issue, she said. "No matter how many times we report these issues, they continue to go on, so how do we get them to stop?" Morgan said. Morgan said the conversation in the meeting about the Block Party went in circles. "We were definitely in circles of conversation where it was seen as exclusion, but that is never what we do as the Legion of Black Collegians," Morgan said. "It is literally in our constitution that we are open to all types of identities." Morgan said the basis of the Legion of Black Collegians is to help students find their communities. "Several times, I hear people talk about, 'Oh, I didn't know where Black people were on campus. Oh, I didn't know where to go to find my community,'" Morgan said. "People still deserve to have a home, no matter what identity, what race, what gender, what sexuality, whatever you deserve to have a home and a safe space." Ave told KOMU 8 on Wednesday that the university's issue with the Black 2 Class Block Party started with a permit for its location. LBC announced the event Aug. 5, and the post for the event said it would be held in the parking lot of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center. Ave said LBC had not received a permit to host the Block Party in that parking lot. An Aug. 5 confirmation email Morgan shared with KOMU 8 showed the Legion received permission to host the event at the Black Culture Center. The event details listed in that email did not specify the location as the building's parking lot. The Welcome Black BBQ was historically held in that parking lot. "The permit issues honestly came out of nowhere," Morgan said. "Even today, they never brought up permitting issues." Morgan said she had correct permits for food, equipment and open flame and had space in the Black Culture Center reserved. The Division of Student Affairs oversees student events like the block party and the barbecue. KOMU 8 requested to interview Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Angela King Taylor. King Taylor declined the request. Phi Beta Sigma, a historically Black fraternity at MU, expressed support for the Legion and concern over the university's decision to cancel the Black 2 Class Block Party. "Its cancellation not only erases a cherished tradition but also reinforces a troubling pattern in which Black organizations are met with unnecessary barriers to visibility and belonging," Phi Beta Sigma said in a statement posted to Instagram. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Intervals of clouds and sunshine in the morning with more clouds for later in the day. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 68F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A mostly clear sky. Low 41F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Clean Out Your Freezer Day provides meals to those in need Infographic showing the distibution of food insecurity amongst 2 million people living in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis on August 22, 2025 The lads from Dunamase College/Colaiste Dhun Masc pose for a photograph with the college principal Dympna Kelly after they received the results of their leaving cert exams STAFF at Dunamase College/Colaiste Dhun Masc in Portlaoise congratulated all their students on their superb Leaving Certificate results. A significant number of them did exceptionally well. The college said it was particularly pleased with the results in Irish, Biology, Accounting, Business and Maths grades. It is only the third time that the college has had students sit their leaving cert exams and this year it had its largest cohort of students sitting it. Delighted students from Dunamase College after receiving the results of their leaving cert exams. Principal of Dunamase College Dympna Kelly said: Its a day to celebrate each and everyone of the students as they have reached this milestone through perseverance, determination and commitment. Their results are a testament to their hard work and the support and dedication of their teachers, SNAs, parents and guardians. We look forward to following what they do next whether thats going to university, apprenticeships or the workplace. Director of Schools at the Laois/Offaly Education Training Bord Linda Tynan with Principal of Dunamase College/Colaiste Dhun Masc Dympna Kelly on leaving cert exam results day in the college Go n-eiri go geal libh agus rath De oraibh don todhchai. UISCE Eireann/Irish Water crews are currently working to repair a burst water main pipe along the Dublin Road in Portlaoise and to restore supply to affected customers in the area. James Joyce from Uisce Eireann has assured customers that every effort is being made to restore a full water supply as quickly as possible. We understand how disruptive an unplanned water outage can be, and we sincerely thank our customers for their patience and support while our crews carry out these emergency repairs. Due to the location and scale of the burst, repairs are proving complex and are taking longer than usual. However, our teams are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore water supply to all affected customers. Repairs are expected to be completed later today. In most cases, it takes two to three hours after repairs are completed for normal supply to return. However, customers located at the end of the network or on higher ground may experience a longer delay as the system recharges. To ensure the safety of both the public and our crews, traffic management will be in place and clearly signposted. For ongoing updates, you can visit the Water Supply and Services section of Uisce Eireann website and quote reference number: LAO00097772 IT was an enormously proud day for the leaving cert class of 2025 at Heywood Community School when the students went to collect their exam results this morning. School Principal Eamon Jackman said that he was thrilled with the outstanding achievements of our Leaving Certificate students in the 2025 examinations. Our students have once again demonstrated exceptional dedication, resilience and academic excellence with this years results reflecting their hard work and commitment over the past six years. He said: We had a fantastic morning in the school as we welcomed our five classes of first year students with their parents from 8.45am for the first time and then had our outgoing sixth-year students accompanied by their parents, in many cases, come to the school to collect results. Some of the leaving cert students with their teachers from Heywood Community School who collected their leaving cert exam results Mr Jackman said: We are very proud of each student. Their success is a testament not only to their individual efforts but also to the support and encouragement provided by our dedicated teaching staff, supportive parents and the wider Heywood community. Our teachers and SNAs have gone above and beyond to provide a learning environment that nurtures each student's potential, even in the face of challenges which have unfolded during their time here. The results this year have been remarkable, said Mr Jackman, with many students achieving top grades across a wide range of subjects. These achievements will open doors to further education and career opportunities, and we are confident that our students will continue to excel in whatever paths they choose to pursue. Student Lucy Donohue displaying her leaving cert result paper alongside Heywood Community School Principal Eamon Jackman During the week we were extremely proud of not only the success of Katelyn Cummins in the Rose of Tralee but also how she articulated that each student should follow their own path and not feel compelled to go down a route due to expected norms from their peers or society. I hope our students can listen to this advice. On a personal level, I took great satisfaction chatting to many of the students this morning who visited the school and heard of the plans they have made for their future. Many have already secured employment or are accessing apprenticeships with local employers. With the changing employment landscape and demand in certain sectors, students are being very strategic in their career choice and not merely following the media driven route of third level without assessing if it best suits their talents. I think they are to be commended for this. Students from Heywood Community School Eoghan Murphy and Eoin Prendergast after they collected their leaving cert results "On behalf of the entire school, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to all our Leaving Certificate students. We celebrate your success and look forward to hearing about the great things they will accomplish in the future, said Mr Jackman. Step into a world of romance and luxury at The Heritages exclusive Wedding Showcase on Sunday, 14th September, from 1pm 5pm. Couples dreaming of an unforgettable, truly bespoke wedding day are warmly invited to explore this enchanting four-star destination in the heart of County Laois, just 45 minutes from Dublin. Throughout the afternoon, be inspired by the expertise and creativity of The Heritage wedding team and their trusted suppliers. Discover bridal beauty secrets with Wild Belief, capture timeless memories with Patrick Ryan, marvel at the artistry of Kelly Lou Cakes, and explore styling ideas with Finesse Weddings. On arrival, the dramatic light-filled four-story atrium will take your breath away, with its sweeping wrought iron staircase and marble floors a setting designed to impress your guests. The main event takes place in the magnificent ballroom, located just off the opulent lobby. With sparkling chandeliers, dazzling gilt mirrors, a private bar, and a gracious foyer, this versatile space can host everything from intimate gatherings to grand celebrations for up to 350 guests Guests will also enjoy a private show-around of the bridal suite a luxurious, one-of-a-kind retreat to end your wedding day in style. Culinary delights await throughout the afternoon, with Head Chef Ian Clifford and his talented team serving a selection of exquisite canapes. And for the grand finale, after 5pm, join us for an exclusive Champagne & Charcuterie Boards launch a luxury, must-attend moment not to be missed. Nestled in the picturesque village of Killenard, Co. Laois, The Heritage is a magical, exclusive destination where your love story truly comes to life. Entry is free, but places are limited dont miss out! Couples must book by emailing theweddingteam@theheritage.com. Limited availability remains for 2026 wedding dates and select 2027 are also available. For more details, visit www.theheritage.com. The Heritage Wedding Executive Coordinators, Joanna & Kasia, look forward to welcoming you and helping you plan your perfect, luxury wedding day. The Heritage, Killenard, Co. Laois T: +353 (0) 57 864 5500 www.theheritage.com James Cox Restaurants and bars across Ireland are hosting bottomless brunches that appear to contravene national alcohol legislation, according to a new study involving researchers at Technological University of the Shannon (TUS). The paper, Deficits in Alcohol Enforcement Legislation in Ireland: Bottomless Brunches, published in the journal Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Public Health, highlights numerous examples of venues offering unlimited alcohol for a fixed price over a set time period. This practice contravenes provisions of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 which prohibits promotions likely to encourage excessive consumption, the authors concluded. Authored by Niamh McGrath, a second-year BSc Applied Psychology student at TUS; Dr Frank Houghton, lecturer in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at TUS, and Dr John Lombard, lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Limerick, the study raises concerns over a lack of enforcement. In under four hours of online searching, researchers identified 18 establishments offering bottomless brunch deals: five in Dublin, five in Cork, two in Limerick, two in Galway, and one each in Kilkenny, Sligo, Tipperary, and Athlone. The drinks on offer included Prosecco, Mimosas and Bellinis. The article points out alcohol remains a clear and present danger to population health in Ireland and as a result the Government passed the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018. The authors cite the regulations from the Act which came into operation in 2021 and say: It is arguable that these public health regulations are being breached by the provision of so-called bottomless brunches, wherein, for a set fee, unlimited alcohol is provided alongside food for a set time period. The study was the first publication from the Volunteer In Psychology Education Research (VIPER) programme. VIPER provides psychology students with hands-on research experience to strengthen pathways into postgraduate study and research careers. First author Niamh McGrath said: This research shows how widespread bottomless brunches are across Ireland, despite the legislation that exists to prevent this type of alcohol promotion. As a student researcher, being part of this project has been an incredible opportunity to contribute to important public health discussions. Dr Frank Houghton, co-author and the lead of the VIPER programme at TUS, added: Alcohol remains a clear and present danger to population health in Ireland. The Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 was a landmark piece of legislation, but without robust enforcement it risks being undermined by practices such as bottomless brunches. Direct and purposeful leadership is now needed to protect public health. The authors warn that alcohol control legislation without robust enforcement may be of little use in restricting illegal alcohol promotion. They conclude that Ireland has exhibited a lack of leadership in relation to alcohol control in the past and that direct and purposeful leadership is now required to tackle practices that encourage excessive drinking. On 21 August Colombias government led by Presidentrejected the decision by the Nicaraguan government led by Presidentto authorise political asylum to, the former director of Colombias national intelligence service (DNI). End of preview - This article contains approximately 388 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options For four seasons, Acapulco on Apple TV+ has been a vibrant, bilingual love letter to 1980s Mexico, filled with neon colors, big dreams, and the kind of heartfelt comedy that bridges generations. But for Colombian actress Camila Perez, who brought the ambitious and independent Julia Gonzalez to life, saying goodbye to the series was like parting ways with a dear friend. "I see Julia like someone I met at a bar or on a train, and we talked for hours," Perez told The Latin Times. "She inspired me. I learned so much from her. Saying goodbye was sad, but it was also emotional in a beautiful way, like watching a friend fly toward her dreams." From Dream Role to Life-Changing Experience Perez first joined Acapulco in its debut season, playing Julia, a smart and driven young woman navigating the luxury resort Las Colinas in the sun-soaked coastal city. Over the years, Julia evolved from an idealistic worker to a confident woman balancing love, ambition, and self-discovery. The show, created by Austin Winsberg, Eduardo Cisneros, and Jason Shuman, is narrated by Eugenio Derbez as an older version of Maximo Gallardo, who recounts his life in flashbacks. With its mix of Spanish and English dialogue, Acapulco quickly won praise for its warmth, cultural authenticity, and universal themes of ambition, friendship, and love. For Perez, the role opened professional doors she once thought were out of reach. "It changed my life in every way," she said. "In my career, in my personal life... thanks to Julia, I've been able to live my dreams. She gave me color, life, lessons, and visibility. I'll always be grateful." The Final Season's Goodbye Season 4, the show's last, tied together the storylines fans had followed since the beginning. For Julia, it was a culmination of her personal and professional journey. Perez admits it was tough to close the chapter, but she feels the character's arc will stay with her forever. She even mused about where Julia might be in 2025. "Julia and Maximo are both ambitious, which can make a relationship tricky, but it can also inspire. I think they could still be together. And Cha? He's probably still on an ayahuasca journey in Bali," she laughed. Eugenio Derbez: The "Goodfather" of Latino Talent Working alongside Eugenio Derbez, who also stars as young Maximo's older self, was another highlight for Perez. She calls him the "Padrino" of Latino actors, not just for his mentorship on set but for the way he uplifts talent across the industry. "In Colombia, I grew up watching him," she said. "When my family heard I was doing Acapulco, they weren't excited about my job. They were excited I was working with Ludovico Peluche!" she said referencing his character on the iconic Mexican sitcom La familia P.Luche "He's exactly the same off-camera as on. That's rare, and I respect that so much," she added. What's Next for Camila Perez? While Perez bids farewell to Julia, she's keeping her options open and even joked about a possible Acapulco spinoff centered on her character. "I'd love to see Julia's story continue, maybe with Jaime Camil playing her mom," she said, laughing. For now, she's inviting audiences to relive the magic. "You don't need an iPhone to watch Acapulco," she said. "Just download Apple TV+, watch all four seasons, and enjoy with your family or by yourself. It's a show that makes you feel good." As the credits roll for the last time, Perez takes comfort in knowing Julia will always be a part of her, a character who taught her about independence, love, and the power of dreaming big. You can find the new episodes every Wednesday on Apple TV+. The final episode will drop on September 17. Originally published on Latin Times A Texas judge has blocked a state law that requires school districts to display the Ten Commandments inside classrooms. The state has become the third in the nation where courts blocked recent legislation mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in schools. A group of families recently sought a preliminary injunction against the law, which was set to take effect on Sept. 1. Ten Commandments in Classrooms They argued that the requirement of displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms violates the First Amendment's protections for the separation of church and state as well as the right to free religious exercise. The situation comes as Texas is the largest state to even attempt this kind of requirement for school districts. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery's ruling from San Antonio is the latest in a growing legal battle that many expect will later go before the United States Supreme Court. Biery said in his ruling that while the Ten Commandments would not be affirmatively taught despite being displayed, the captive audience of students would likely have questions. These would then compel teachers to answer them, according to the Associated Press. The judge also prohibits the 11 districts and their affiliates from posting the displays required under state law. The legislation is currently facing legal challenges by a group of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, and non-religious families. These include clergy who have children attending the public schools. There is also a broader lawsuit that names three Dallas-area districts and the state education agency and commissioner, which is pending in federal court. While the latest ruling marks a major win for civil liberties groups, the legal battle regarding the display of the Ten Commandments is expected to continue. Ongoing Legal Battle The plaintiffs in the case are represented by a coalition of civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Houston Public Media reported. The Texas judge's ruling comes after another judge, from Arkansas, blocked his state's law in four districts. Additionally, Louisiana's law was blocked statewide by a district judge last November. In June, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction in New Orleans. Recently, Louisiana state officials have asked the full 5th Circuit to rehear the case over the state's law. Any definitive ruling made by the 5th Circuit will most likely determine the fate of the Louisiana and Texas laws, as both states are in the 5th Circuit, as per EdWeek. Originally published on parentherald.com Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is deporting nearly 1,500 people per day, a rate that would surpass 400,000 removals by the end of President Donald Trump's first year in office, according to an analysis published by The New York Times. That figure would be well above the 271,000 people deported in the previous year but below the administration's stated goal of one million deportations per year. The 1,500 per day rate is a pace not seen since the Obama administration. The report details that ICE has deported at least 180,000 people so far in the Trump administration, though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) places the number at 332,000, a figure that includes individuals turned away at U.S. borders by Customs and Border Protection. The agency has been expanding operations since receiving new funding, including $76 billion allocated under a domestic policy bill signed in July, which will allow for thousands of new agents, additional detention space, and increased chartered and military flights for removals. Trump administration officials, led by senior adviser Stephen Miller, instructed ICE in May to escalate arrests regardless of criminal history, pushing for 3,000 arrests per daytriple the daily average from early in Trump's first term. Since then, most of the increase in arrests has involved people without prior convictions, as NYT points out. The immigrant detention system has expanded significantly in the last few months as well. ICE now holds about 60,000 people, with more than 50 new detention centers added since Trump took office, including private facilities, federal prisons, and temporary structures. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told The New York Times that $45 billion of new funds will be used to expand detention capacity by 80,000 beds, while $14 billion will support transportation for removals. The deportation surge coincides with new government data suggesting the U.S. immigrant population may have dropped by about 2 million people in the first half of the year. The figure, drawn from the Census Bureau's monthly Current Population Survey, would represent the largest decline in decades, according to Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies. Experts, however, caution the estimate may not be reliable. Jed Kolko of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said the scale of the decline is "way outside the range of immigration estimates that leading researchers have made" while Julia Gelatt of the Migration Policy Institute added that the number may reflect that immigrants may be reluctant to disclose their status in government surveys amid heightened enforcement. Originally published on Latin Times The first 50 guests at the new Bubbakoos Burritos Mexican-fusion restaurant outside Hellertown, 1892 Leithsville Road in Lower Saucon Township, will receive free burritos at the grand opening on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, with five iPad giveaways also planned. Bubbakoo's Burritos Fans of New Jerseys Bubbakoos Burritos wont have to wait much longer to taste the Mexican-fusion treat in the Lehigh Valley. The Point Pleasant-based fast-casual eatery plans to celebrate a grand opening Tuesday at the Creekside Marketplace, 1882 Leithsville Road in Lower Saucon Township. The local franchise, owned by Nivas Patel, moved into the former Unrivaled Fitness + Wellness space. The first 50 guests on Tuesday will score a free burrito, and five attendees will be chosen to win an iPad. Patel said the local eatery is for patrons to come together, enjoy great food, and feel like theyre at home while dining at Bubbakoos. Ive always believed that a good meal has the power to bring people together, Patel said. Im excited to share that experience with our guests. A total of 25 part-time and full-time workers will be hired to help operate the Lower Saucon location outside Hellertown. The new eatery seats 35 people indoors, Ben Grannick, director of marketing for Bubbakoos Burritos, told lehighvalleylive.com. Bubbakoos is known for its build-your-own entrees. Think nachos, burritos, burrito bowls, quesadillas, hard and soft shell tacos, and taco salads. Guests start with a protein choice as a base, such as chicken (crispy, grilled or shredded); hibachi steak or shrimp; ground beef; pork; barbacoa; or fried cauliflower. Next, the creation is paired up with a rice and/or beans choice, followed by standard Mexican-inspired toppings. Over a dozen choices are called Killer Creations. These finds are handcrafted for customers. Selections include the Red Pepper Aioli Burrito with choice of protein, white rice, red pepper garlic aioli, pico de gallo, corn salsa and cheese as well as the Buffalo Ranch Crispy Chicken Quesadilla, with crispy chicken tossed in buffalo and ranch sauces. The Pineapple Express Burrito comes with crispy chicken tossed in a General Tso sauce, choice of rice and pineapple salsa. Additionally, the menu includes an assortment of wings in multiple flavors, plus curly and loaded fries. Wallet-friendly choices, which are typically ordered as online only, can include two items for $20. Other affordable items are under $8, according to the online menu. The chain was founded in 2008 along the Jersey Shore by Paul Altero and Bill Hart. It began franchising by 2016, according to Nations Restaurant News. Nationally, Bubbakoos Burritos has over 130 locations in 16 states. There are 10 Pennsylvania locations and about 50 in New Jersey. The other closest sites to the Lehigh Valley are in Bartonsville, Monroe County; the Quakertown area of Bucks County; and Clinton, Hunterdon County. Grannick said there are plans in the near future to open a handful more New Jersey restaurants. Hours of Bubbakoos Burritos in Lower Saucon will be from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Saturday. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. The 31-year-old robbed multiple 7-Eleven stores in Lehigh County, stealing over $1,000 while brandishing a handgun at store employees, authorities said. PR NEWSWIRE An Allentown man was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for carrying out a 2023 robbery spree in which he stole over $1,000 in two days from Lehigh County convenience stores. Rubiel Perez, 31, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl to serve 15 years in prison and five years of supervised release. Perez was charged in 2023 by indictment and pleaded guilty in March to two counts of felony robbery, one count of felony attempted robbery, and one count of felony using, carrying, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. The sentencing was announced Thursday afternoon by U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania David Metcalf. Three times in two days, Rubiel Perez pointed his gun at store clerks and made them fear for their lives, Metcalf said in a statement. Perezs attorney, Oliver Chrisman Inslee, couldnt immediately be reached Friday to comment on the sentencing. Authorities said the robbery spree began March 28, 2023, when Perez entered a 7-Eleven convenience store along Union Boulevard in Allentown. He pointed a handgun at a store employee, stole $937 in cash and fled. The following evening Perez entered another 7-Eleven convenience store along South Fourth Street in Allentown, authorities said. He pointed a handgun at a store employee and threatened him, before stealing $150 in cash from the store. In the third incident later that night, Perez entered a 7-Eleven along West Tilghman Street in South Whitehall Township, authroties said. He attempted to rob the store by pointing a firearm at and threatening the store employee. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Allentown Police Department; and the South Whitehall Township Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert W. Schopf. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. A few trees begin to show their autumn colors Oct. 20, 2023, in Phillipsburg, just past the Route 22 toll bridge. Saed Hindash File Photo | For lehighvalleylive.com August is already two-thirds through, which is absolutely crazy to think about. As back-to-school ads continue to pop up (and a certain drink flavor returns), its natural, then, to wonder what fall weather in Pennsylvania will be like in 2025. According to the Old Farmers Almanacs annual prediction, the majority of people in Pennsylvania will experience an autumn thats cool and dry this year. In fact, the Northeast is amongst the regions in the country that are expected to be cooler-than-average this upcoming season. The Old Farmers Almanac predicted the same forecast last year: The only main difference is that above average precipitation was forecast for last year. Expect cooler and drier conditions than usual, the almanac says of the Northeast. September brings an average temperature of 59 degrees Fahrenheit (two degrees below normal) with 3.5 inches of precipitation wet in the north, drier in the south. October will average 46 degrees Fahrenheit (three degrees below normal) with just 2.5 inches of rain. Look for scattered showers, brief warm spells, and overall chilly weather. This will most likely serve as delightful news to fall fans, since as the almanac points out cooler temperatures and below-average rainfalls tend to result in some lovely foliage. However, the Old Farmers Almanac states that the majority of the country will experience warmer temperatures: States like Texas will be drier, however, while others like Louisiana will a bit damper than usual. Fall officially starts on Monday, Sept. 22. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. With September officially only a few days away, its the perfect time to start adding to your fall wardrobe. The sweater department is always where I start when it comes to building up my fall collection, and if you are struggling to find the perfect place to secure yours, then look no further than Quince. Buy this 100% Organic Cotton Striped Crew Sweater now $98 Now $50 This Cotton Striped Crew Sweater is the perfect wardrobe staple to have in your closet this fall. $50 at Quince Quince has created a page full of falls best sweaters, and there is a style for just about everyone, whether you are shopping for back-to-school, everyday lounge wear or the office. Plus, a number of these sweaters start at just $40, and are 100% cotton, which is a huge plus when it comes to shopping for breathable sweaters that wont have you itching and sweating all day. So, here are 10 sweaters from Quince that we think are perfect to wear this upcoming fall season. 10 fall sweaters to shop from Quince this season 1. 100% Organic Cotton Fisherman Crew Sweater for $40, instead of $110 2. 100% Organic Cropped Cotton Polo Sweater for $50, instead of $118 3.100% Organic Cotton Knit Blazer for $80, instead of $189 4. Mongolian Cashmere Crewneck Sweater for $50, instead of $128 5.100% Organic Cotton Fisherman Boxy Cropped Cardigan for $50, instead of $138 6. Mongolian Cashmere Oversized Boyfriend Cardigan Sweater for $140 7.100% Organic Cotton Cropped Cardigan for $50, instead of $110 8. Mongolian Cashmere Fisherman Sweater Vest for $80, instead of $148 9. 100% Organic Cotton Boyfriend Crew Sweater for $40, instead of $100 10.100% Organic Cotton Striped Crew Sweater for $50, instead of $98 Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nicole Iuzzolino can be reached at niuzzolino@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips. Drew Harris has said he never liked the expression outsider being attached to him, as he reflected on the great privilege of being Garda Commissioner. Mr Harris seven-year term as commissioner is to end this month, with Deputy Commissioner Justin Kelly set to take over from September. At a garda graduation ceremony in Templemore, Co Tipperary, Mr Harris said being commissioner was the highlight of his career as he defended progress the force had made in recent years. The former deputy chief constable of the PSNI was also asked about the perception of him joining the gardai and how he reflects on it. Mr Harris said: I dont really like the expression outsider, its an odd expression to apply to an individual who is Irish in the first place, and Ive never liked it. He added he had 34 years of police service when he joined An Garda Siochana, most of which was at senior rank. He said: When I was here, I was welcomed immediately and, in effect, brought into the organisation and understood the organisation very quickly. Theres things I wanted to do and theres certainly work that I had to do around the policing service for the future reforms which had to be delivered. But I have to say again, my overall experience has been extremely positive. Im very, very glad I put my application form in. He added: Its been a great privilege. I dont regret one minute of it. He said in the past seven years, An Garda Siochana had moved on and focused on tackling certain crimes such as organised crime and crimes against the vulnerable where he mentioned domestic abuse, serious sexual assault, and human trafficking. He added: These are all important areas, and actually areas of growth for policing and crime right across Europe, and we are seeing that we have to respond. So I think our response to that has been very positive, very professional, and were starting to see the organisation grow again and thats also very positive. Asked what he would do next, he said: Well, I might rest and decompress for a while. Mr Harris highlighted that there are 14,400 garda members as he attended his final graduation ceremony at Templemore on Friday. A further 202 new students are to be taken in the new intake on Sunday, meaning there will be almost 600 gardai in training at the college. The Justice Minister has set a target to recruit 5,000 new gardai in the next five years, or an average of 1,000 a year. Jim OCallaghan said there had been 423 garda graduates in the past six months. I suppose the most encouraging news when it comes to numbers is that on Sunday, 202 new recruits are going to start in Templemore, he said. If we can get into a situation where theres 200 starting in each intake, well be in very strong position in terms of numbers. Ive never underestimated the task in terms of trying to get 5,000 over the course of the five years. But it is my hope, and Im optimistic about this, is that we will see more numbers coming in, and we get 200 coming in on Sunday, thats a good sign. He said that a group within the Department of Justice is examining the possibility of a second garda college, but added that numbers would likely need to exceed 200 new recruits per intake to make it necessary. Of the 154 probationers attested as sworn members on Friday, 122 are men and 32 are women and 26 were born outside the state. Gardai have announced the deployment of four new members of An Garda Siochana to a Laois Garda station. This news comes following the attestation of 154 new Gardai in Templemore Garda College on Friday August 22. Four new members of the force will be deployed to Portlaoise Garda station. Of the Gardai attested on Friday, 79% were male (122) and 21% were female (32). There were 26 Gardai born outside of Ireland, including; Australia, Belarus, Brazil, England, Germany, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, United States. Four probationer Gardai were former Reserve Gardai. Fianna Fail TD for Laois, Sean Fleming has welcomed this news, highlighting that it is strengthening visible policing across the county. The deployment of additional Gardai is welcome. We are fortunate that every community wants to see more Gardai visible in their area. It is one of the most effective measures we have for preventing crime and making people feel safer, Deputy Fleming commented. The new Gardai are among 154 recruits who graduated from the Garda College in Templemore on Friday. This intake represents the largest allocation of probationer Gardai to regions outside Dublin in the past year and reflects the governments ongoing investment in building stronger, safer communities. These 154 newly sworn Gardai will now take on operational responsibilities and will be allocated as follows: Dublin Region- 45; Eastern Region- 22; Southern Region- 66; Northwestern Region- 21. Deputy Fleming said the arrival of additional Garda members underlines Fianna Fails commitment to increasing Garda presence on the ground in Laois. Pictured: The November turning of the sod at Portlaoise Garda Station; Taoiseach Simon Harris, Minster Helen McEntee, OPW Minister Kieran O'Donnell and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris with Laois Cathaoirleach Padraig Fleming, Willie Aird and Sean Fleming. This latest allocation shows that investment in Garda recruitment is making a real difference on the ground. Local stations are being reinforced so they can continue to serve and protect communities effectively. Strengthening An Garda Siochana is a key priority for Fianna Fail in Government, backed by a record 2.48 billion in funding in Budget 2025, a 27% increase since 2020, he said. A more visible Gardai on the ground is one of the most effective ways to deter crime and enhance public safety. This latest deployment is a clear signal that Government is delivering on its promise to support communities with the resources they need to feel secure, the Fianna Fail Deputy concluded. A further 201 Garda recruits will begin training in Templemore this week, while another graduation is scheduled for November, ensuring a steady pipeline of new members entering the organisation. Speaking at todays attestation, Commissioner Drew Harris welcomed the new Garda probationers. "Today is indeed a day to celebrate, but it is also a day for reflection. It is a time to reflect on what it has taken to get to this juncture in your lives. To decide how you will make the most of this important opportunity. To consider what kind of Garda you are going to be, the Commissioner said. "You are here today because of a commitment to serve your country. You are here because of a desire to help people. You are here because you want better for your communities. You are here because it is a job worth doing. But no matter what it is that has brought you here today, the most important thing to remember is: Because you are here - You will keep the people of Ireland safe. Currently there are 14,408 Sworn Gardai on the force, with 3,672 Garda Staff and 296 Garda Reserves. A further 369 Garda recruits (intakes 251, 252) are currently undergoing the training programme at the Garda College. The next intake of Garda recruits (intake 253), more than 200 Garda Trainees, is scheduled to enter the Garda College on Monday August 25, 2025. There has been an outpour of condolences online following the sad passing of an Emo woman. Mary Theresa Harrington (nee Keating) formerly of Emo, Co Laois sadly passed away in Canada on August 5. Mrs Harrington was in her 87th year, and passed away surrounded by her loving children. The family of the dearly missed Emo woman have written a touching tribute in her honour, dictating her life story and painting a picture of the woman she was. Laois locals have taken to the condolences section of RIP.ie to express their sympathies, with many remarking on the unique and beautiful tribute. Read Mrs Harrington's tribute below. "In Loving Memory of Mary Theresa (nee Keating) Harrington (19382025) Mary Theresa (nee Keating) Harrington, 87, passed away peacefully on August 5, 2025, in South Surrey, BC, Canada, surrounded by her children, who held her hands as she took her final breath. In fitting Mary fashion, she left this life on the same day she gave life to her firstborn, JamesAugust 5, 1970. She often spoke of the cycle of life, and her departure on this symbolic day, 55 years later, feels like a poetic tribute to her enduring spirit. Born May 26, 1938, in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, to Irish parents Matthew and Bridget Keating, Mary was the eldest of eight children. During World War II the family returned to Emo, County Laois, Ireland, where it was all hands-on deck to keep the household fed, loved, and sheltered. As the eldest, much of that responsibility fell on Marys young shoulders, and her strength was forged from generations of grit, faith, song, humor, stubbornness, and a healthy dose of good auld country mischief. As a girl, she worked on her grandmothers farm in Cloncannon, then moved to Mullingar as a nanny to care for a familys children, saving enough money to pursue her true passion: nursing. She studied at the Royal Glasgow Maternity Hospital (AKA Rottenrow) in Scotland, then returned to Ireland to begin her career at the Coombe Hospital in Dublin. One fateful night at the cozy pub, Duffs Bray, County Wicklow, Mary spotted a dashing man in a blue suit across the barJohn Patrick Harrington. He was on a blind date dining with another woman. But that didnt matter. Mary was captivated by his cerulean, blue eyes, blonde hair, and magnetic smile. So alluring, she barely noticed her own blind date. In fact, she knew John was stealing furtive glances with her, and instantly felt they had chemistry. He was the one. Unfortunately, John pulled an Irish Goodbye and disappeared into the evening. Gone like the wind. Days later, she saw him againthis time in the maternity ward at the Coombe Hospital where she was working the night shift! This was odd. Rumors swirled that he was gallivanting around while his wife was in laboruntil it was revealed he was simply there painting the hospital. The mystery man was single! And the universe had spoken. As the Irish say: Whats meant for you wont pass you by. In 1970, after they fell madly in love and tied a beautiful knot, John and Mary left Ireland aboard the Russian ship Alexandr Pushkin, sailing to Montreal and then crossing Canada by train with two suitcases and a dream. (No, they were not KGB spy lovers.) They settled in Prince George, BC, where they raised four childrenJames, John, Siobhain, and Francisand built a life full of friendship, faith, sport, celebration, and community. After 17 frosty years in the tundra, they moved to Surrey in the Lower Mainland for sunnier days and the salt air of the Pacific Ocean. Mary was a pillar of her community, deeply involved in the Good Shepherd parish and her vocation in nursing at Surrey Memorial and Peace Arch Hospital. She loved the maternity ward and meeting new mothers and fathers. She found her true calling. After retiring in 2002, she volunteered as a Minister of Holy Communion, bringing the Eucharist to hundreds in hospitals, hospices, and homes. She gave of herself endlessly, always putting others first. And in the end, many of those she served put her first as she lay dying. She often spoke of the tombstones dashthe time we have between birth and deathand the importance of living it with purpose and passion. Mary embodied that philosophy. She was a raconteur with a wicked sense of humor, a genealogist at heart, and a seeker of connection. She could meet a stranger and somehow trace a thread back to Ireland, introducing long-lost friends or relatives with uncanny precision. She truly was the real Six Degrees of Mary Harrington. Her party piece at countless shindigs, weddings, and good auld craics was Danny Boysung with a voice that could hush a room, stir hearts, and like a siren lure John to the Coombes Hospital to meet his destiny. It became her signature, a melody that followed her through decades of celebration and connection. In her final hours, that same spirit lingered: the Rosary was whispered with devotion, and Elvis Presleys baritone voice floated through the room, serenading her with Danny Boy The pipes are calling. It was as if heaven itself was gently preparing her passage. To her children, she often implored: Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are. It was more than adviceit was a guiding principle she lived by. And she lived it well, cultivating lifelong friendships that became family. Some may say that we are born alone and die alone. Mary thought that was nonsense. And on August 5th, she proved itdeparting this world with her children at her side, hands entwined, love surrounding her like a warm blanket. Her final moments were a testament to a life lived in connection, devotion, and grace. Seeing her children, together, at her bedside meant the heavens to her. Family was everything. Her mission was done. And she was satisfied and at peace. Even in her last days, Mary lit up for every visitor. She smiled through pain and medication, making each person feel welcome at her bedside. She remained a mother and nurse to the very endensuring her family was safe, warm, and together. Mary Harrington lived her dash with grace, grit, prayer, and boundless love. Her legacy of care, laughter, and connection will ripple through generations. She is preceded in death by her beloved husband, John Patrick Harrington (2017), and is survived by her children James, John, Siobhain, and Francis. She adored her grandchildren Patrick, Ronan, Cashlin, Ava, Dillon, Rhett, Jude, Arabella, and Brielle. She was proud of her beautiful daughters-in-law Nicole, Denise, and Candy, and her son-in-law, Rick Coopman. In Ireland, Mary leaves behind a legion of amazing nieces and nephews. She loved her own brothers and sisters, and all of their children; The Booths; Richard, Bernadette, Matthew, Eugene, Adrian, Evelyn and Fiona. The Keatings; Bernadette and Pauline. The Kellys; Matthew. Mom always urged as to Stay close and Be together and we call all attest we are closer now and truly understand the importance of family. Mom also loved the Harrington clan dearly, especially Ken and Elain, and their children, Colm, Nicky, and Tracey. Family rules! Nothing is thicker than blood, except for Guinness perhaps! She also leaves behind legendary friends who stood by her to the very end. Youll hear more about these radiant people in the eulogy! Marys celebration will be held at Good Shepherd on August 21st at 11AM PST in South Surrey and all are welcome, no matter how many degrees of separation you are from her. (Im sure she knows you or somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows you!) To watch Marys mass live on YouTube click on this link: https://youtube.com/@sosparish?si=SItFaCtDcacY5ufO A Final Farewell And when the valleys hushed and white with snow, Mom, well listen for your voice in the breeze, soft as the lark that sings at break of day. Its Ill be here in sunshine or in shadow Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so. Though youve gone when the flowers are dying, your love remainsever blooming in our hearts. Mom, you walked this world with grace and quiet strength, a gentle soul whose laughter warmed the room. Now, as the hills echo with the song you loved, we hold your memory like a sacred tune. But come ye back when summer's in the meadow We shall sing again Onward". On Mrs Harrington's condolences page, many Laois locals left their sympathies. "I did not know this lady but I enjoyed reading the wonderful tribute to such an amazing lady. I wish to send my deepest sympathy to all her family rest in peace Mary Theresa," one person wrote. "Like the previous contributors I didn't know Mary, but what a beautiful insight into her colourful life. Condolences to all her family at this very sad and lonely time. Will keep you all in my prayers. A life well lived and gone now to her eternal reward and reunited with her beloved husband and all those nearest and dearest gone ahead. Rip Mary Theresa," another wrote. "Whilst I didn't know this beautiful lady, may I begin with offering my condolences to her family. What a beautiful tribute to her & a legacy she has left behind. May her gentle soul rest in peace & may she live on in the stories I imagine will continue to be told for decades to come," another person expressed. The class of 2025 at Clonaslee College in Laois came back to school to celebrate their leaving cert results. The college at the foot of the Slieve Bloom Mountains proudly welcomed back its Class of 2025 on Friday, 22nd August, to collect the always special printed results of their Leaving Certificate and Leaving Certificate Applied results. Teachers and staff were present and eager to see their 44 students hard work come to fruition and to celebrate the exciting opportunities opening for them in further education and future careers. The school marked the occasion with refreshments, giving students the chance to reconnect with teachers, class tutors, their year head, and guidance counsellor. Happy Clonaslee College Leaving Cert students in Laois. Principal Suzanne McMahon and Deputy Principal John Lee warmly greeted the students, commending their commitment and resilience. Renowned for its strong academic record, Clonaslee College once again celebrated excellent results. Among the top achievers, who scored over 500 points, were Clodiagh Kennedy, Caoimhe Fitzpatrick, Cara Donogher, and Alanna Barrett with Clodiagh achieving the maximum 625 points. Clodiagh hopes to go on to study mathematics in Trinity College. Top Leaving Cert results achievers at Clonaslee College Amelia Dunne, Lily May Owens, Clodiagh Kennedy with principal Suzanne McMahon. An impressive 23% of students scored over 400 points. All students successfully passed their subjects, and the school staff are particularly proud of the achievements of its Ukrainian students, who are reported to have "excelled" in their results. The Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) group also impressed, with 50% of the class earning Distinctionsa remarkable accomplishment that reflects their dedication and the support of their teachers. Clodiagh with her proud parents and principal Suzanne McMahon. Speaking on the day to the Leinster Express / Laois Live, Principal McMahon praised both staff and students: It is wonderful to see such a strong turnout of students returning to celebrate their success. The results are a testament to the commitment of our students and the tireless support of staff. Every student has achieved their full potential, and that is something to be truly proud of, she said. Happy Leaving Cert students receiving their results at Clonaslee College. The principal also expressed gratitude to the entire school teamincluding teachers, SNAs, and ancillary staffwhose dedication and teamwork were vital in guiding students toward their success. Read also: Laois school celebrates fantastic Leaving Cert results Clonaslee College, patroned by Laois Offaly Education & Training Board, strives to continue to foster a culture built on respect, care, community, and equality. Over 1,024 students across Laois sat their Leaving Cert exams last June, with 65,000 students nationally receiving their results today. Both staff and students at Dunamase College in Portlaoise are overjoyed with the recently released Leaving Cert Results. Speaking with the Leinster Express / Laois Live, Principal Dympna Kelly praised students for their hard work and dedication. We want to congratulate all our students on their superb Leaving Certificate results and a significant number of them did exceptionally well, Ms Kelly said. We are particularly pleased with the Irish, Biology, Accounting, Business and Maths grades. It is only our third time to have Leaving Certificate results in Dunamase College/Colaiste Dhun Masc and this year we had our largest cohort of students who sat the exam, the Principal highlighted. Its a day to celebrate each and every one of the students as they have reached this milestone through perseverance, determination and commitment. Their results are a testament to their hard work and the support and dedication of their teachers, SNAs, parents and guardians, Ms Kelly praised. We look forward to following what they do next whether thats going to university, apprenticeships or the workplace. Go n-eiri go geal libh agus rath De oraibh don todhchai, the Principal finished. A Laois graduate student has lived a childhood dream this summer, working in Walt Disney World in Florida with unlimited access to the parks. Alison Reilly, 22, from The Rock, Mountmellick told the Leinster Express / Laois Live about her US adventure. I wanted to work abroad this summer and it was a dream opportunity. I've finished college and wanted to do something fun before I seek a full time job. I had done placement abroad in Spain with my course and I had also worked in Italy for a summer. Disney is like a dream company to work for. They treat their staff really nicely, with perks to the job like free park entry and discounts on merchandise. I was in Disneyland Paris as a child and always wanted to go to Walt Disney World but its very expensive. I followed people online who do Disney programmes but I didnt think that I could do them because they were all from the UK. Then my sister sent me a post about a programme that people from Ireland could do as well, as a J1," she said. The Disney Cultural Exchange program is only open to third level students. It wasnt a simple process. There were three rounds, I did my first application to Yummy Jobs who hire on behalf of Disney, then did a pre screening Zoom interview. Then I went to Glasgow for an interview with Disney. I heard back a few weeks later. I couldnt believe it. I was nervous going because I had put a lot of money into it and didnt fully know what my job was, or know anybody else going. The roles include working in food and beverage vending, as a character attendant, a seater, in custodial, merchandise, lifeguarding and attractions where Alison was placed. The programme was followed by a fun graduation ceremony with Micky Mouse. Alison Reilly in front of the famous Disney castle. I was very lucky with my role. I was very happy with it. Everyone who worked there was very lovely, as well as the leaders and coordinators. There were people who had tougher jobs than me or were in the sun more. I worked in Spaceship Earth in EPCOT, which is a slow moving train journey. I was operating the ride and greeting guests. Most of my job was inside in the air conditioning. If there was an issue and the ride was stopped we had to deal with evacuations, then when it resumed we had to walk the track to check everything was in order. Also during the day they would send people on a ride-through, to check that everything was working which was kind of fun. We had to pay for our accommodation, mine was $215 a week. Disney provide apartments for college programmes, with security and free buses to the parks whether you were working or not. Alison with her Scottish workmate Emilie in their EPCOT uniforms. She made the most of the free entry to parks. I probably went to EPCOT the most as I was there, sometimes I would go just before or after work. One of the best rides people say is the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind and that was in our area. I went on it 18 times, even though the queue was usually an hour long. I went on about 10 full park days, but we worked a minimum of 30 hours a week, paid $17 an hour. I knew that I wasnt coming back with savings. Other people did go and travel in the US after because you had 30 days before you had to come home. Her favourite memories are around the friends she made. The best memories are just going to the parks with my friends. Getting close with my co-workers, there were about 20 international college program students on my ride. So Ive made friends with French people, Mexican people, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK, we all just got really close in the end. After work wed go for food together and spend our days off together. It made work a happy place. We all have plans to meet up again, and invites to visit each other. Alison had to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement, to keep the backstage Disney secrets a secret. My role didnt have many secrets but my friend worked in the Magic Kingdom and shed be sitting down to eat and there might be a princess across from her eating her lunch. Or shed see one of the characters headless backstage which is just unheard of. Backstage you cant take a picture, youd be sent home straight away. Its also for safety, so no-one just walks backstage and acts like they know where theyre going. You do have to have your ID, she said. Read also: Laois Rose of Tralee ready to return to electrician job on Monday Alison only left the Disney area once during her two month placement. Youre in a little Disney bubble as everyone calls it. I would recommend it to others but only if they like Disney and knew they were going there to work as well as to play. Some people were a bit put off when they realised how much they had to work, that it wasnt just a holiday. But really its what you make it because some people had tough roles and ended up loving it. For anyone thinking of following in her footsteps, think long term because applications for 2026 are already closed. They open in May 2026 for summer 2027, if you just follow Yummy Jobs they post when the applications open and they often extend them every year, Alison advises. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. A new undergraduate scholarship for law students has been launched at Maynooth University in Co Kildare, supported by Dublin-based firm Tracey Solicitors LLP. The Tracey Solicitors LLP Scholarship in Law and Criminology will begin in October 2025 and is open to final-year law students registered with the Maynooth University Access Programme (MAP). The award will provide both financial support and mentorship to assist a student in completing their studies and preparing for a career in law. Professor Fergus Ryan, Head of the School of Law and Criminology, welcomed the initiative, saying this is a wonderful opportunity for a final year law student and the school is very grateful to Tracey Solicitors for their support. Combining financial support with industry mentorship will be of significant benefit to the scholarship student, particularly as they progress through their final year studies and towards graduation. Tracey Solicitors LLP, an award-winning personal injury and medical negligence practice, has been operating in Dublin for more than 35 years. Partner Maria Lakes, who herself qualified in law through an Access Programme, will act as mentor for the scholarship recipient. READ NEXT: Gardai warn about using local roads as "race tracks." Speaking about the partnership, Maria Lakes said the initiative highlights the importance of broadening access to the legal profession. Given that 70% of young legal professionals currently come from affluent socio-economic backgrounds, it is clear that the profession would be enriched by more diversity. Pathways such as MAP make a legal career more accessible to people from a broader range of backgrounds. Access programmes levelled the playing field for her and made her career possible. Tracey Solicitors LLP is honoured to support an Access student at Maynooth University and help them on their path to a career in law. Local Mayo residents have responded to The Mise Eire festival - set to take place in Castlebar on Saturday, August 23. The festival was initially to be held in Drumshanbo in County Leitrim, but the Mayflower Community Centre cancelled the event following community backlash. In recent days, a petition was launched opposing the festival being held in Castlebars Ivy Tower (formerly the Welcome Inn), and has reached 2,449 signatures at the time of writing. In response, a counter-petition in support of the festival has emerged with 4,511 signatures so far. The petition in favour of the Mise Eire festival encourages the public to stand against efforts to cancel Irish culture and protect our cultural celebrations, such as the Mise Eire festival. Organiser Stephen Kerr has said online that 750 tickets have been sold for the Mise Eire festival. Heres what Mayo people had to say about the local tensions surrounding the festival. Read More: 'Mayo says no': Mayo hotel receives backlash for alleged hosting of Mise Eire festival Mayo resident Cliona Ni Dhonnghaile said: I hate that Mise Eire is posing under the guise of Irish culture and heritage, if it was actually just an Irish culture festival I would be so happy to attend. Even the trailer for the event only vaguely hints at the fact that the bubbling undertone is right wing. Ni Dhonnghaile further noted that there was Nothing said in the trailer that they have far-right representatives lined up to talk. That the organisers are proudly anti-immigrant, and we've seen what the right wing, anti-immigrant rhetoric can do. The burning down of dp [direct provision] centres, the riots and violence in Dublin and elsewhere. The Mayo woman continued: I'd love an actual Irish culture festival. If it wasn't for the media coverage and I wasn't informed I'd have likely fallen for it and shown up. I'm glad a fuss has been made in response. Mise Eire organiser Stephen Kerr has repeatedly spoken against what he sees as the governments policy on uncontrolled mass migration". His platform, the Irish Inquiry has approximately 196,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter). The Irish Inquiry has platformed conspiracy theorists, questioned the efficacy of the Covid vaccine, and posted a video claiming that Afghan adults in their 20s are posing as children in a Dublin secondary school. Stephen Kerr has commented that those opposing the festival are a group "who have attempted to cause undue public panic and have deceptively posed as legitimate concern groups". Kerr has multiple videos on his platform of him filming at Mayo's Breaffy House Hotel - which also functions as a centre for International Protection Applicants (IPA). In the videos he is repeatedly asked by security to leave the premises. When asked why he refuses to leave the premises when asked, Kerr replied: "I live in very small town of Breaffy and as a stakeholder, I have questions and concerns regarding the tens of millions in profits being made off the commodification of 970 asylum seekers who have been placed in what is an institutionalised like setting in the town, by those who do not in my view have any care or compassion for the either the people in their remit nor the locals in the community." A local woman, Deirdre O Reilly, received the festival positively. In response to a call for opinions on Mayo Facebook community groups, she wrote: "Im so happy that you get to celebrate Irish culture, Im excited to learn about Brehon law, and its a great chance to discuss our ever changing landscape." Mayo's Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon appeared on Midwest radio in the run-up to the general election in an interview with TD Rose -Conway-Walsh and Stephen Kerr. Dillon said: Ive seen Stephens platform, and I think certainly, he has a focus in relation to migration, but it is one that sows division, in my eyes, and he tries to divide communities. The Minister of State continued: What I feel in relation to the immigration challenges, is that we do have an obligation under international law and human rights". I think its really important to have compassion and empathy to those who are seeking asylum here or protection. Castlebars Independent councillor Blackie Gavin said he knows very little about the views that would be expressed at the festival, and said he would prefer not to comment directly on it. Gavin did say: I come from a county where migration has been massive. My grandfather was an immigrant. I myself was born in England. My family would be steeped in immigration. The councillor made it clear that Ireland should be a welcoming country and that people should think about the Irish immigrants in America who may not feel welcome abroad, before condemning immigration in Ireland. Gavin concluded that while immigration can be a matter for debate, he said it should be discussed in a civilised, calm way, in the houses of the Oireachtas; not by screaming and shouting. Mayo resident Eilis Hardesty had the following to say about the Mise Eire festival: I am genuinely disgusted that this has been allowed to continue after the first cancellation and in my home town, I am a proud Irish person but I do not believe these people have any intent other than pushing a far-right agenda under the mask of Irish pride. They say by trying to cancelling the event we are trying to take their right to free speech, but if you use your free speech for hate speech you have to expect pushback from the people, we are only using our free speech to tell you we don't accept this. Kerr has responded to the label far-right: "This far-right label is a nonsense silencing term first attached to me when I objected to citizens being ostracised from society because they did not have a vaccine pass for an injection that didn't prevent transmission of Covid 19." When asked to give his opinion on the festival, Michael Scanlon of Ballina said: I totally disagree with it ... I see it all the time here in Ballina, people blaming 'others' for the problems in their own lives. It is so much easier to do that, it takes the responsibility away from ourselves. If there was no immigration into this country, the problems we face would still be the same, in my view. When Castlebar Fine Gael Councillor Cyril Burke was asked about the festival, he said: Id have concerns about it. When asked to elaborate on those concerns, Burke commented: Id have concerns that there would be the promotion of far-right views. The Councillor commented: Im surprised that there hasnt been more signatures against the hosting of it. Im surprised the people of the town havent come out stronger against it. Sean Loughran, a local trad musician, gave his perspective on the musical acts performing, and the backlash that the event has inspired. Loughran said: There was a lot of comments saying things along the lines of I didnt realise it was considered right-wing to go and listen to trad music nowadays. These comments couldnt be further from the truth and they ignore messages that a lot of trad musicians try to get across in their own performances. Its clear from this that most of these people arent avid trad music fans. The Line-up When questioned on how Kerr chose the line-up, he responded: "We sought out a wide range of speakers who have a wealth of knowledge on different areas of Irish culture and history. For example we have a modern day Seanchai who weaves wool while discussing the history of the wool industry in Ireland." The headline musicians who are booked for the event include Stephen Sutton and Gary Hynes. Stephen Sutton has two songs on Spotify - Ireland is Irish, and Mother Eiriu. Sutton has posted on X (formerly Twitter) about ethnic cleansing by stealth, how Ireland is for the Irish, and has also asked for support from Conor McGregor at the National Rally for Ireland, held last April. Gary Hynes recent song The Far Right has the following lyrics: The far-right built this country/ and made it what it is. The musician sings in his song Remember the Irish: While youre out there giving time to what goes on in Palestine/ spare a thought for the genocide of the Irish man and the Irish mind. John Waters and Louise Roseingrave are billed to speak at the the Mise Eire event. John Waters - who was an Irish Times journalist - previously ran for election in a party he formed with Gemma ODoherty. In his pre-election speeches he spoke of the great replacement of Irish people in their own country by immigrants, due to falling birth rates. The great replacement theory has been popular amongst conspiracy theorists and white nationalists. Louise Roseingrave recently wrote in her platform on Substack about Mayo Prides anti-Catholic promotional material. The writer was not happy with Mayo pride decorating a child of Prague statue in drag, which she inferred was sinister. In a similar vein, the day that Mayo pride organised a hike up Croagh Patrick, Roseingrave felt the need to pray the rosary on the side of the mountain, alongside a group that held a sign saying: The month of June belongs to the sacred heart, not to homosexual pride. With controversy in the air and Mayo talking, it will be interesting to see how the Mise Eire festival will pan out. It was a proud day in Ballinamore last week as 47 students at Ballinamore Community School received their Leaving Certificate results a strong number for the local area, according to Principal Diarmuid McCaffrey. Anyone I was talking to was very happy, very pleased, McCaffrey said, noting that this years cohort faced particular challenges beyond the exams themselves. Rising accommodation costs, increased college fees, and the wider housing crisis are weighing heavily on students and families. McCaffrey acknowledged that some students are already adapting by delaying their progression to full-time third-level education. In the last couple of years, a number of students have taken a year out. They might wait for the first round of offers, then work for a year before going to college, he explained. Rather than go straight into full-time education again, a number of them would, would go into maybe either work or maybe a supplementary course with a view then to making maybe a more informed decision going forward. The national accommodation shortage has made headlines in recent weeks, with reports of students sleeping in cars and the government introducing a tax break for homeowners who rent out spare rooms. But McCaffrey believes most young people will still aim for the traditional college path. What a student really wants is that full experience the first taste of being away from home. I think they would prefer to be away. But financially, that may not be possible for all, he said. Affordability is also driving more students to look north. Applications through UCAS have risen in recent years, with many Ballinamore students considering universities in Northern Ireland. Thats predominantly down to affordability, particularly accommodation and subsistence, McCaffrey said. The costs are lower and the distance is manageable for travel at weekends. Even if you can afford Dublin accommodation, you might not be able to get it. While no single course dominated this years choices, McCaffrey stressed that career guidance has been central in helping each student map their own path. Its very individual. A lot depends on the work done with career guidance in fifth and sixth year, and on each students own preferences, he said. For now, the focus is on celebrating the achievements of Ballinamores class of 2025. But as McCaffrey pointed out, the realities of Irelands housing crisis mean the journey to college is becoming as much about affordability and access as it is about ambition and grades. READ MORE Global spotlight on Drumshanbo as Written Word Festival draws 138 film entries Festivalgoers heading to Electric Picnic this year can breathe a small sigh of relief after fresh forecasts suggested conditions may not be as bleak as first feared. Earlier this week, Midlands forecaster Alan OReilly of Carlow Weather warned of uncertain and potentially wet and windy conditions linked to the remnants of Hurricane Erin. With more than 80,000 people due in Stradbally, talk of a stormy, wet and windy weekend sparked widespread concern among festival campers. OReilly stressed that no hurricane would reach Ireland, but that the storms remnants could still influence the countrys weather. At the time, computer models were offering conflicting outcomes, leaving predictions very unreliable. However, the latest updates have eased some of those worries. While Met Eireann still expects a mix of sunshine and showers, with the risk of heavier bursts in southern and western counties, the European forecast model now points to a largely dry weekend. Daytime temperatures are likely to reach 1620 degrees, dipping to 913 degrees at night. READ MORE: OPINION: The Rose of Tralee isn't outdated - its critics are just anti-feminist The American model, by contrast, continues to suggest more unsettled weather, meaning the picture remains uncertain. OReilly has underlined, however, that suggestions of a washout are just suggestions and not fact. People need to remember a hurricane is not coming, he said. For the tens of thousands making their way to Co. Laois from August 2931, the advice remains the same, be ready for mixed conditions. Waterproofs, wellies and sturdy tents could still make all the difference. Labour Minister Cllr. Cooper W. Kruah (left) and LSEZA Executive Chairman Prince A. Wreh conclude the signing of the MOU in a ceremony held at the Labour Ministry on Wednesday, August 20, 2025 BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Rural e-commerce in China demonstrated progress towards high-quality development in the first seven months of 2025, with online sales of agricultural products showing a notable increase, a Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said on Thursday. Online sales of agricultural products in the January to July period went up 7.4 percent compared with the same period last year, said spokesperson He Yongqian. She also noted that per capita disposable income of rural residents rose 6.2 percent in the first half of 2025. In terms of rural consumption, e-commerce has stimulated a more diverse supply of goods and services -- enabling farmers to access high-quality and affordable products, she said. She further stated that rural online retail sales had expanded 6.4 percent year on year during the January-July period. The ministry will intensify efforts to boost rural e-commerce and support rural consumption, as well as increase farmers' incomes, the spokesperson added. Graduates of AIIST University College at the 16th Commencement Convocation at the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ministerial Complex in Congo Town. Guinea-based Nimba Development Company is currently in active discussions with Liberias National Investment Commission (NIC) and the Inter-Ministerial Concessions Committee (IMCC) regarding use of the Yekepa-Buchanan rail corridor. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Govt Should Recommit Ourselves to Upholding the Rule of Law The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MGCSP) and the Law Reform Commission (LRC), with support from UN Women Liberia, on 14 August 2025, convened a two-day national stakeholders validation workshop to review and endorse the findings and recommendations of Liberias comprehensive legal assessment of gender discriminatory provisions. STAFF of a drinks firm founded by a Limerick couple are celebrating this week after the company secured a 50,000 bursary. Trade group Guaranteed Irish and Supervalu have announced SiSu Drinks as the winner of the 2025 Guaranteed Irish and SuperValu Media Bursary. It's a fund created to boost the media presence of an outstanding Guaranteed Irish food or drink member. READ MORE: Energy giant signs deal to allow businesses to source power from Limerick wind farm It will give SiSu the chance to advertise across Supervalu's in-store digital screens as well as its other communications channels. SiSu, a Finnnish term which refers to a combination of stoic determination, resilience, and grit in the face of adversity, was founded by the McGann family in Limerick, father-and-daughter team Brian and Aisling. It is now based in Co Wicklow. Aisling McGann, who is the chief operations officer of the firm, said: "As an emerging Irish food brand with a big ambition to inspire healthier choices through natural, innovative & good-for-you products, this bursary will make a meaningful difference. It will help us grow our reach, connect with more consumers, and continue building our brand that stands for health, strength, and sustainability. Its a proud moment for our family, our team and our hugely loyal following. Luke Hanlon, managing director of SuperValu and Centra, added: "SuperValu is proud to partner with Guaranteed Irish in celebrating the remarkable innovation and quality within our local food and drink sector and we are delighted for the McGann family who are truly deserving winners who embody the spirit of Irish enterprise, sustainability, and innovation. Through this bursary we are proud to shine a spotlight on exceptional home-grown businesses like SiSu." Brid OConnell, chief executive of Guaranteed Irish described SiSu as a "shining example" of what her group represents. "They have demonstrated a genuine commitment to community, sustainability, and local collaboration. This bursary will support their continued growth and amplify the voice of a brand that carries the Guaranteed Irish symbol," she added. PALLASKENRY played host to Scouting Irelands Phoenix Challenge, with over 600 Scouts from across Ireland competing to be All-Ireland Scouting Champions. The theme for this years Phoenix Challenge was 'Celebration' marking 20 years of the competition, which first took place in Pallaskenry in 2005. The Phoenix Challenge tests Scouts on a wide range of Scouting Skills, including Campcraft, Cooking, Pioneering and First Aid, as well as their teamwork and leadership skills. The overall winners of the Phoenix Challenge were the 94th Dublin (Walkinstown). Limerick was represented at the event by five Patrols from Scout Groups across the County. The Ravens Patrol from the 34th Limerick (Pallaskenry) and the Vibe Tribe Patrol from 25th Limerick (Shannon Banks) both received a Gold Award (80% to 100% of the available marks). The Bear Patrol from 45th Limerick (Ahane), the Mustang Patrol from 3rd Limerick (Rathkeale) and the Muntjac Patrol from 46th Limerick (Ballybricken) all received a Silver Award (65-79% of available marks). The 34th Limerick (Pallaskenry) also picked up special awards for their Environmental Impact and their Logbook during the event. READ MORE: Bruff readies for festival revival following over a decade's hiatus Planning for this years Phoenix Challenge started back in August 2024. There were several Adult Scouters from Limerick Scout County involved in the running of the event. They included Michaela Fitzgerald from the 34th Limerick (Pallaskenry), who was one of the two Camp Chiefs for the event. Michaela, along with her co-Camp Chief Shane Cusack, was a former participant on the Phoenix Challenge, so it was fitting that they should head up the event for this year of celebration. Limerick Scout County Commissioner Phillip Kelly congratulated the five Patrols and their Scouters on their achievements. They did themselves, their Scout Groups and the county proud. When you think back to our first County Shield after Covid in 2022, we only had four patrols taking part, and this year we had fifteen patrols competing in the county competition, with five Limerick patrols going on to represent the county in the National Competition. Its a huge sign of how much Scouting in Limerick is growing. There are 17 Scout Groups across Limerick city and county. A LIMERICK man who has won a whopping 500,000 after scoring the Lotto's EuroMillions Plus top prize says he misread his ticket. He explains: Ive been playing EuroMillions for years, and Ive had a few decent wins, but this is certainly the biggest prize. But this time, I misread my ticket and thought Id matched less numbers than I actually had. Turns out, I was 498,000 off! he laughed. The local man made the trip to Lottery HQ to collect his cheque from the August 15 draw which was purchased from Day Today in Rathkeale. The Plus player is planning a family celebration and says hes grateful to be able to look after his loved ones. READ MORE: Over 600 Scouts gather in County Limerick village for national Phoenix Challenge With tomorrows Lotto jackpot soaring to an estimated 16.5 million, reaching its highest level since 2021, anticipation is growing across the country, as someone in Ireland could become the 9th Lotto Millionaire of 2025 this weekend. Players dreaming of becoming Irelands newest multi-millionaire are reminded that tickets for Saturday nights draw can be purchased in-store, through the National Lottery app or online on www.lottery.ie ahead of the 7.45pm cut-off time for sales this evening. A TOTAL of 20 new Gardai for Limerick were among the 154 new Gardai attested at a ceremony in the Garda College in Templemore today. The new Garda members will now be assigned by the Commissioner to Garda Divisions throughout the country where they will begin their careers in An Garda Siochana, with 20 new Gardai set to be assigned to Limerick. Minister of State at the Department of Justice and TD for Limerick County Niall Collins has welcomed the news. Minister Collins said: "I want to congratulate our new Garda members as they attest from the Garda College today in Templemore and join their new stations." READ MORE: Gardai renew appeal for witnesses to shooting incident in County Limerick 20 of the 154 new Gardai will be deployed to stations in Limerick, as part of the largest allocation of probationer Gardai to Regions outside of Dublin in the past year, which is very welcome news, as is the news that 201 Garda recruits will enter the Garda College for training next week." For each new Garda attesting today, this is a milestone that marks the beginning of a fulfilling career dedicated to protecting the community and to public service." The government is committed to building stronger, safer communities, and strengthening An Garda Siochana is at the core of that. Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said: We are fortunate in this country that every community wants to see more Gardai visible in their area. It is one of the most effective measures we have for preventing crime and making people feel safer." Attitudes and approaches to policing must continue to adapt to the world we live in. However, what it means to be a Garda remains the same. Our new Gardai have made a commitment to public service and to keeping people in their communities safe. I want to thank them for making that commitment and wish them the very best as they begin their careers with An Garda Siochana. Of the 154 gardai attesting today, 122 are men and 32 are women. The new probationer Gardai will now begin their careers in An Garda Siochana and will be assigned to Garda Divisions across the country by the Garda Commissioner. This will be the largest allocation of probationer Gardai to Regions outside of Dublin in the past year, with the majority being assigned to communities in the South and Northwest. 45 of the new Gardai will be deployed in the Dublin Metropolitan Region, with 66 going to the Southern Region, including 20 Probationer Gardai each for stations in Limerick city and Cork city respectively. Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan also said: I am also extremely pleased that a new class of 201 Garda recruits will enter the Garda College next week to begin their training. An increased and visible Garda presence is central to the government's aim to build safe and secure communities. The high number of applications for recent Garda recruitment campaigns is evidence of the strong interest that there is to join and serve in An Garda Siochana." Ensuring An Garda Siochana has the resources it needs is a key priority for me. I look forward to working with the new Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly to further strengthen An Garda Siochana so that it is well placed to deal with the challenges ahead, as per our commitment in the Programme for Government." "I also want to take this opportunity today on his last attestation before he retires on September 1st, to once again thank outgoing Garda Commissioner Drew Harris for his hard work, commitment and dedication over the past seven years. He has implemented some of the widest ranging reforms of the organisation in its history and leaves a legacy of tangible improvements." THOUSANDS of Limerick students are gearing up to receive their Leaving Certificate exam results this Friday morning. After weeks and weeks of waiting, youngsters in Limerick and around the country will log-in to a dedicated portal, or open envelopes to discover the grades which will determine the next steps in their lives. Exam results will be available for Limerick students to view online. Some Limerick schools will offer local students the chance to come in discuss the results with teachers themselves. READ MORE: Limerick man parties with Oasis' Noel Gallagher in a post-concert sing-song Approximately 3,000 students will have sat their Leaving Certificate exams in Limerick this year. A smaller number would have completed their Leaving Cert applied programme. Nationally, it's estimated more than 60,000 students would have taken the exams this year. Those getting their highly-anticipated results can access them through the candidate self-service portal, open from 10am this Friday. From there, students can view their results and get a statement of their provisional results. Students who opted to apply for third-level education courses will receive their offers in CAO Round One next week, August 26, where they will find out whether their points grant them a spot in their prospective college course. Applications to view Leaving Cert scripts open at 5pm this day and closes at 8pm on Wednesday, August 27. CAO round one offers are available from 2pm online on the Wednesday to to all applicants applying based on school leaving examination results, regardless of the year completed. The following day, the CAO Available Places facility opens at noon. Available places are places that remain unfilled in particular courses after all offers have been made and waiting lists have been exhausted. THERE was joy and relief in equal measure at schools across Limerick as students received their Leaving Certificate results. While many local teenagers headed online to view their results, many still turned up at their secondary school to discuss the outcome with their teachers and celebrate with friends. At Limerick Educate Together Secondary School (LETSS) in Towlerton, there was a smattering of youngsters. READ MORE: 'It's a miracle the house didn't go up too': Windows blown in as car bursts into flames in Limerick Being congratulated by her teacher was Leyla Hascin from Castletroy, who secured 577 points. I did really really well. Im delighted with my results, she said, adding that shes hoping to study financial mathematics at University of Limerick. Her neighbour and friend Martyna Czaicka was over the moon upon opening her envelope and viewing her scores. Below: Leyla Hascin and Martyna Czaicka celebrate their results I wasnt expecting what I got. Ive been going on the calculator trying to figure out what Im eligible for. I think I underestimated myself! Martyna is also hoping to go to UL, to study food science and health. It was a tough exam, but I am delighted, was Dooradoyle lad Noah Jacksons verdict. He secured 485 points - the exact same number needed to study psychology and sociology at UL. I am praying now, he admitted. Asked how he plans to celebrate, Noah laughed: I dont think we are allowed to say that on the paper! Sean Lyons of Singland is heading to the Technological University of the Shannon in Moylish to study culinary. Im happy - I wasnt aiming too high, but I got the points for my course, he told the Limerick Leader. Aaron Jennings has a bright future lined up, hopefully at the Limerick School of Art and Design. The Westbury local particularly shone in music and design communication graphics, scoring an H2 in both. It was definitely better than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised, he admitted. His mum Michelle said: I am very proud of him. I said, coming in, it didnt matter what we got, and we were proud of him before he opened the envelope. But even more so now. Im glad his hard work has paid off. Pictured below, Aaron Jennings and his mum Michelle LETSS principal Eoin Shinners said Leaving Certificate results are up in his school. This is our second cohort of students who joined us in 2019. They have done incredibly well. We are delighted and proud, he said. A SECOND action group against a proposed giant wind farm has been formed in south Limerick, only a couple of miles away as the crow flies from the first one. The Bruff Dromin AthlaccaBallinlee Community Action Group held their second meeting on Monday night against a huge 17-turbine project with 16 of the turbines having a tip height of 160 metres thats three times the height of Kilmallock Church spire (55m). READ NEXT: Full house sign at windfarm meeting in Limerick due to size of crowd Now, the Bruree, Charleville, Effin Wind Farm Action Group has got off the ground to show their opposition to a plan for a nine-turbine windfarm with a tip height of 170m - larger than their neighbours. The townlands listed for development are Garrane, Ballynagoul and Creggane. A notice of direct planning application to An Coimisiun Pleanala in respect of a strategic infrastructure development was placed in last weeks Leader. Observations and submissions can be made until October 10. The application is under the name of Garrane Green Energy but both windfarms are being advanced by the same parent company - Greensourse. In a statement to the Leader, the Bruree, Charleville, Effin Wind Farm Action Group listed a number of serious concerns - noise and vibration, shadow flicker, visual impact, impact on peoples health, well being and quality of life, devaluation of property and impact on future residential and community developments in the area. The total height of the turbines proposed are 170 metres, with a blade diameter of 150 metres. To put this in perspective Croke Park pitch is 145 meters long - at least 25 metres shorter than the turbines. The blade diameter is 70 metres wider than Croke Park,, said a spokesperson. They say if you think nine of these skyscraper-size structures erected between Charleville, Bruree and Garrienderk will be hidden away over there behind a ditch, please reconsider. To be clear, they will be some of the largest onshore turbines ever built in Europe. That means almost everyone in south Limerick and many in north Cork are going to see them. And that's not even mentioning the noise from the turbines and the massive 110kv substation near Garrienderk, and the thousands of lorries clogging up our roads. A petition has commenced calling for a public meeting with the developer. The community can then hear first-hand details of the history of the proposal, those involved including developers, investors etc, details of work to date, potential impact on the community, current and future plans/path forward Members of our community can then ask whatever questions they wish. If the developers/investors firmly believe in the benefits to the community, there should be no issue whatsoever in communicating this in whatever format the community request. Anything less is both disrespectful to the community and an imposition by absentee landlords, said the spokesperson. The group also highlighted a glossy brochure from Garrane Green Energy advertising the Community Benefit Fund but they do not define what the community is. The monetary benefits of the proposal also come at a cost to individuals within the community and to the community at large. Unfortunately, such information is not forthcoming, they say. READ MORE: Dismay over plan for 17 wind turbines in Limerick taller than the Spire in Dublin The Leader put their concerns to Garrane Green Energy. A spokesperson said the proposed project would play a key role in supporting our national climate targets, which include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. This project alone has the potential to provide clean power for up to 30,000 homes and reduce harmful carbon emissions by approximately 46,500 tonnes each year of operation. The Garrane Green Energy project could meet 36% of the Limerick Development Plan's 2030 renewable energy commitments, said the spokesperson. Based on current estimates, they say the proposed project will provide funding approximately 250,000 annually to local residents and initiatives, such as clubs and societies, through a dedicated Community Benefit Fund. Garrane Green Energy is committed to meaningful and transparent community engagement. A programme of Community Consultation was launched in April with an advertisement in the Limerick Leader. Project information was sent to all houses within 2km, and all houses within 1km of the proposed project were visited by the community team. Community clinics were recently held in the Charleville Park Hotel. The dedicated community team continues to be available for consultations, and engagement is ongoing, said the spokesperson. The planning application for the proposed Garrane Green Energy wind farm was submitted to An Comisiun Pleanala in August, said the spokesperson. A PLAQUE unveiled on Sunday at the bus stop in Castletroy where UL student Joe Drennan was tragically killed captures the very essence of the young man. A photo of Joe shows him wearing a stylish polo neck, flashing his beaming, infectious smile, while his gorgeous long curls frame his face perfectly. READ NEXT: Gardai renew appeal for witnesses to shooting incident in County Limerick The inscription reads: In loving memory of Joe Drennan, forever 21 years young. A beloved son, brother, uncle, gifted journalist and cherished friend tragically taken from us on October 13, 2023. Slan Abhaile. May you rest in peace on your journey home. The plaque was unveiled by Priomh Chomhairleoir of Limerick City and County Council, Cllr Catherine Slattery. She welcomed Joes parents Marguerite and Tim Drennan, siblings, extended family, friends and gardai from Limerick Divisional Roads Policing Unit, who had stopped traffic on the busy road for the touching ceremony. Joe was an inspirational young man, talented and creative. He was loved and admired by all who knew him. We remember Joe today with his infectious smile that shone bright and will shine forever from his memorial plaque. We think of Joe in happier times as I unveil his memorial plaque, said Cllr Slattery. Warm applause greeted Cllr Slattery officially unveiling the plaque inset into the stone wall. Joes sister, Sarah, read out a piece written by her and brother, Richard, on behalf of the Drennan family. Today means so much to our family as we unveil this plaque in memory of my brother Joe, who was taken from us far too soon at just 21, said Sarah. She said they are deeply grateful to Limerick City Council, Cllr Martin Ryan for starting it, and especially to Councillor Catherine Slattery, whose dedication went far beyond fundraising. She helped bring this plaque from an idea to reality, oversaw its installation, and made todays unveiling possible. We would also like to thank staff of UL for attending today, as Joe was a proud student there; An Garda Siochana, and, in particular, chief investigating officer, Inspector Padraigh Sutton, for their work and for arranging the road closure. We also thank the staff of La Cucina for attending today, a place Joe loved working and where he made many friends, said Sarah. Every person, business, and community member who contributed was also thanked. Your kindness has given us a lasting tribute to Joe and a symbol of the love and support that has surrounded us since his passing. Joe was loved by everyone who knew him, and we will carry his memory in our hearts forever. Thank you, said Sarah. Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltds managing director Suneeta Reddy offloaded a partial stake in the company on Friday via a block deal to pare the promoter groups outstanding debt. The promoter groups holding in Apollo Hospitals dropped from 29.3% to 28% following the sale, and their pledged holdings as a percentage of their total ownership will reduce from 13.1% to 2%, the company said in an exchange filing. The transaction fulfilled a commitment made to investors on reducing the pledged holdings, the company said. The promoter group does not plan to reduce more stake in the foreseeable future, it added. Reddy sold nearly 1.9 million shares, equating to a 1.3% equity stake in Apollo Hospitals, at 7,850 apiece. The sale was at a 1% discount over Thursdays market close price of 7,926.50 per share on NSE. The transaction was valued at 1,489 crore. Morgan Stanley India was the sole bookrunner for the deal. Following the sale, Reddys stake in Apollo Hospitals has shrunk from 3.36% on 30 June to 2.06%. Mint reported on Thursday that Reddy was likely to sell a partial stake in the company via one or more deals. Apollo Hospitals share price on Friday recovered from an opening low and was trading up 0.46% at 7,963 apiece on NSE intraday. The stock has gained nearly 10% in the past month. Apollo Hospitals market capitalization was 1.14 trillion on NSE at market close on Thursday. Expansion and an IPO in the works Apollo Hospitals is embarking on a massive expansion plan to add 4,300 beds in five years, with an investment of more than 7,600 crore. The first phase to add 2,000 beds is underway, the company said in a media release while announcing its financial results for the first quarter of 2025-26. During the first quarter, Apollo Hospitals announced the demerger of its omnichannel pharmacy and digital health business, Apollo HealthCo, into a new entity called Apollo Healthtech, which is planned to be listed in 12-18 months. Apollo Healthtech is expected to clock revenue of 16,000-17,000 crore with margins of 23-24% on its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) in FY28, according to the company. Amid the improving diplomatic relations between India and China, Foxconn subsidiary Yuzhan Technology has recalled approximately 300 Chinese engineers from its Indian manufacturing facility, reported Economic Times on Friday. The report added that this is the second such incident for the Taiwanese technology giant in recent months. Earlier in July, Apple supplier Foxconn had similarly recalled around 300 Chinese engineers and technicians from its iPhone production facilities in India. Adding more, the report said that Beijing had allegedly asked Foxconn chairman Young Liu to prepare a report on the firm's investment in India. "Foxconn has informed the government that they have been asked to send back all the Chinese expat employees whom Yuzhan Technology brought to India to set up the component ecosystem and factory with immediate effect," ET quoted a source as saying. "They said this is the latest incident and is one that is being targeted at them. The company has had to send back 300 engineers this time. Also, there were 60 other engineers who were to come to India but have been asked not to come now," the source added. While another source told ET that a "slightly lesser numbers" of Chinese engineers were actually recalled. "Foxconn has been proactive to get engineers from countries like Taiwan and elsewhere to offset the impact that could come with such disruptions," another source noted. In the meantime, both India and China are implementing measures to strengthen ties, which includes easing border tensions, resuming direct flights, and exploring trade cooperation in strategic sectors like rare earths. Foxconn starts iPhone 17 production: Taiwanese electronic manufacturing giant Foxconn has started the production of Apple's iPhone 17 at a small scale in its second-largest manufacturing unit at Bengaluru. This small scale production is in addition to the iPhone 17 production at the company's Chennai manufacturing unit, reported news agency PTI, citing people aware of the development. Foxconn Bengaluru unit has commenced operation with the production of iPhone 17. This is in addition to the production of iPhone 17 at its Chennai unit. BENGALURU: Lightspeed India has exited its stake in healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) company Innovaccer earlier this year, two people familiar with the matter told Mint . The venture capital firm logged an internal rate of return (IRR) of over 30% on its investment, marking a profitable exit for one of the earliest institutional backers of the company. Lightspeed has been trying to exit the company for a while now," said one of the people cited above. They're lucky to have made 30% finally on what was supposed to be a fund returner." The decision to sell was largely catalysed by the entry of Kaiser Permanente to Innovaccers capitalisation table. Kaiser is one of the US largest healthcare providers, combining not-for-profit insurance plans with its own network of hospitals and professionals. For Lightspeed, the investment marked an early bet that rode Innovaccers rapid valuation climb. The firm first invested in 2018, when Innovaccer raised $25 million in a Series B round led by WestBridge Capital, according to startup data intelligence platform Tracxn. The following year, it also participated in a $10 million extension of the round led by M12, Microsofts venture arm. According to the person cited above, Innovaccer hasn't been doing well on account of their technology promises not meeting ecosystem demand and having spread themselves too thin in the healthcare software space. Innovaccer currently offers solutions across the value chain, starting from healthcare providers and customers to public health systems and those in the life sciences industry. Still, US venture capital remains bullish on niche healthcare AI applications, particularly in areas like scribing. Scribing refers to applications that use AI to transcribe and summarise conversations. It is most commonly used in healthcare settings and helps in efforts to create electronic health records. This year alone, Ambience Healthcare raised $243 million in a Series C led by Oak HC/FT and Andreessen Horowitz, Navina secured $55 million from Goldman Sachs, and Sully.ai raised $21.8 million in a Series A led by Amity Ventures. Tiger Global Management joined Innovaccers cap table in October 2019, leading a $70 million Series C alongside Steadview Capital. It was also the firm that helped Innovaccer enter the unicorn club, when it led a $105 million fundraise at a $1.3 billion valuation. Innovaccers most recent financing came in January, with a $275 million Series F round from B Capital Group, Banner Health, Danaher Ventures, Generation IM, Kaiser Permanente and M12. At the time, Innovaccer said the round included both primary and secondary components to provide exits for some of its early investors. The company also said it would use the funds to build multiple copilots and agents across clinical decision support, documentation and care management. The company has paired this capital inflow with rapid top-line expansion. Innovaccer has said its revenue has been rising 50% year-on-year and that it is on track to hit $250 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025. Innovaccer is not required to disclose consolidated financials since it is based in the US, but its India entitys standalone revenue from operations stood at 350.9 crore in FY24, with 32.6 crore in profits, according to Tracxn data. Founded in 2014 by Abhinav Shashank, Kanav Hasija and Sandeep Gupta, Innovaccer is headquartered in San Francisco and Noida. It serves 130 healthcare organizations, including six of the top 10 health systems in the US. The firm competes with listed players such as Change Healthcare, Health Catalyst and privately-held Merative, owned by Francisco Partners. Its rise has coincided with a broader surge of venture funding into healthcare AI in the US. The market itself is expanding rapidly. McKinsey & Co estimates that the US healthcare industrys Ebitda will grow at a 7% compound annual growth rate from $676 billion in 2023 to $987 billion in 2028. Only a fraction of Ebitda translates into net income for the industry, with net income margins in the low single digits after accounting for interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization," the consultancy said. Even as Innovaccer scales, co-founder Kanav Hasija left earlier this year to launch his own startup, MeltPlan, which focuses on the pre-construction phase of building projects. (Bloomberg) -- A French financial services association is urging lawmakers to further rein in the cost of firing some senior staff, after a cap on severance pay was introduced only last year. The maximum monthly salary that banks are required to use when calculating the severance package for so-called material risk takers, which typically include senior traders, should be cut substantially, Paris Europlace Chief Executive Officer Jean-Charles Simon said in an interview. He suggested that it should be reduced by half. France last year introduced the ceiling as part of a sweeping bill aimed at propping up the countrys appeal for the financial services industry. The cap was linked to the maximum portion of annual pay used to set someones social security contributions, a figure known by its French acronym PASS, which is currently 47,100 ($54,627). Long-term employees can be entitled to severance pay equal to as much as 20 months of gross pay. The idea is to make the Paris financial scene more attractive by revising this amount, Simon said. The cap could, for example, be halved, so as not to stray too far from compensation amounts paid in the United Kingdom. The government under President Emmanuel Macron has been keen to attract Wall Street-style jobs and cement the status of Paris as a major financial center in Europe. The city benefited when Brexit forced many of the worlds biggest banks to find new hubs for their operations inside the European Union. The French government is now considering adopting a new attractiveness law, Simon said. Formal discussions could kick off in the coming months, he said. A representative for the French economy ministry declined to comment. Europlace is also urging the government to expand the group of employees that are exempt from Frances restrictions on working overtime to include material risk takers. The move would reassure banks about potential litigation as several faced cold showers in court over the past years when they ended up having to pay considerable compensation related to employees overtime claims, Simon said. Under European banking rules, MRTs are staff whose actions can have a material impact on the risks taken by a financial services firm. That typically includes more senior traders. Another change proposed by Europlace is to broaden the mandate of Frances financial regulators ACPR and AMF to include a focus on competitiveness, Simon said. In the UK, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has been seeking to roll back red tape and pushed regulators to prioritize growth. The requests from Europlace come amid questions from Wall Street banks regarding the countrys political and fiscal stability. Higher corporate taxes that were voted in February to diminish Frances public deficit and a new dividend tax law have added to an impression among some that the attractiveness of Paris may have peaked. The proposed changes would send an important signal at a time when certain foreign players may have doubts about Frances fiscal stability, and would help to attract even more people to Paris, Simon said. --With assistance from Sam Nagarajan and Nicholas Comfort. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com (Bloomberg) -- Kambiz Shahbazi says the value of his four Boston office buildings has tumbled because of the damage inflicted on the market by Covid-19 and the resulting exodus by tenants. Boston has already lowered the assessed value of the collected properties over the past two years by about 12%, but Shahbazi says that doesnt come close to reflecting the true declines. So hes filed challenges to the citys assessments in the hope he can ultimately lower his tax bills on the properties. For at least one, he says the value should be discounted by about 50%. Hes far from alone as Boston landlords struggle with empty offices and high financing costs that make it difficult to upgrade or convert buildings to residential. Owners have challenged assessed values for 388 commercial buildings in the district that includes downtown Boston this year, according to city data obtained through a public records request. Thats an 83% jump from 2024 and the highest number of requests since at least 2020. Its a worrying sign for the city, which is already struggling with strained finances and relies on property taxes for almost three-quarters of its $4.8 billion budget. The values have been decimated, Shahbazi, founder of KS Partners said of the citys buildings, describing crazy vacancies for so-called Class B and C buildings. It might take a long time, and the city might just have no option other than to fight their way and stall, but at some point theyre going to have to reckon with this debacle, he said. Boston is more reliant than most US cities on commercial property taxes. In the years leading up to Covid, its finances flourished thanks to rising property values and booming real estate development, but those values have tumbled as office vacancies still exceed 20% and workers have been slow to return to the downtown. Bostons office buildings stand to lose almost 50% of their value over the next half-decade, according to an analysis by Tufts Universitys Center for State Policy Analysis and the nonprofit Boston Policy Institute. That decline could cost as much as $1.7 billion in tax revenue over that span. The citys assessing officials seek to minimize year-to-year swings during both booms and busts in order to stabilize the budget, said Evan Horowitz, the Tufts state policy centers executive director. But with real-world office values sinking so rapidly, landlords have run out of patience and are now trying to speed things up through the challenges to the city, he said. Officials lowered commercial property values by just 3% citywide in the fiscal year that ended in June, the first time they had decreased since 2020. As of mid-July, officials had granted only 11 of the 388 abatement applications in the downtown area, mostly for small properties, records show. A Shahbazi property is one of the few to win an abatement: The city agreed to take nearly $2 million off its initial $14.2 million assessment for an 11-story Court Square office building that Shahbazi says is about two-thirds empty. Landlords can appeal the citys decision to the state Appellate Tax Board. The owners of a handful of Bostons largest office buildings are awaiting rulings based on appeals made in prior years. Those decisions could set a precedent for similar properties post-pandemic. Business groups have clashed with Mayor Michelle Wu over her handling of property taxes. The Pioneer New England Legal Foundation, a law firm that counts some of Bostons best-known corporate lawyers as board members, has accused her administration of illegally increasing the property assessments of owners with appeals before the state board, forcing them to pay more in taxes. The foundation petitioned the Massachusetts Department of Revenue to launch an investigation, but the agencys leader responded last week that his staff was unable to substantiate the claims. Frank Bailey, a former federal judge who leads the foundation, said in an interview that the organization is considering a lawsuit to challenge the practice. A spokesperson for the Wu administration called the claims baseless and full of misinformation, saying that the process is guided by state law and that the city has used it for decades. Josh Kraft, a nonprofit leader whos challenging Wu in this years mayoral race, called Pioneers allegations serious and credible at a press conference outside City Hall on Thursday. If property owners bring the city to court and win refunds on hundreds of millions of dollars in overpaid taxes, it will be a massive blow to Bostons finances, Kraft said. Right now, it looks like the mayor is using her office to punish property owners for exercising their rights under the law, said Kraft, the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Last year, Wu sought to temporarily raise commercial property taxes in order to limit an increase for homeowners, but failed to obtain the approval she needed from state lawmakers before tax bills were mailed to residents. She is making the same push this year. Im at a different neighborhood association or event multiple times a day where this comes up, that people are feeling the pressure of property taxes making it difficult for them to stay in their homes, Wu said in a recent interview at Bloombergs Boston office. The mayor has sought to revitalize downtown Boston by giving out grants to retailers to fill vacant storefronts and offering tax incentives to turn empty office buildings into apartments and condos. She also proposed rezoning downtown to allow for more towers in a bid to create more housing in the neighborhood. Josh Kraft has opposed Wus proposal to shift more of the tax burden onto commercial landlords. He has floated plans to create a cluster of new businesses in the neighborhood and invite Bostons largest universities to invest more in the city center. A revived downtown would help prop up property values and advance the revenue Boston collects from those levies. Amid a budget crunch caused by dwindling pandemic aid and a softer economy, those dollars are even more important after the Trump administration cut research funding to the lifeblood of Bostons economy health care and higher education. (Updates with Josh Kraft comments in 16th paragraph.) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com New York: Elon Musk and his social media company X Corp have reached a tentative agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees who said they were owed $500 million in severance pay. Attorneys for X Corp and the former Twitter employees reported the deal in a Wednesday court filing, in which both sides asked a U.S. appeals court to delay an upcoming court hearing so that they could finalize a deal that would pay the fired employees and end the litigation. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Musk fired approximately 6,000 employees after his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, which he rebranded X. Several employees sued over their terminations and severance pay, and other lawsuits are still pending in courts in Delaware and California. The settlement would resolve a proposed class action filed in California by Courtney McMillian, who previously oversaw Twitter's employee benefits programs as its "head of total rewards," and Ronald Cooper, who was an operations manager. A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the employees' lawsuit in July 2024, and they appealed to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit had been scheduled to hear oral arguments on September 17. Attorneys for Musk and McMillian did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Also Read | Microsoft layoffs: Top sales executive takes sabbatical amid more job cuts The lawsuit argued that a 2019 severance plan guaranteed that most Twitter workers would receive two months of their base pay plus one week of pay for each full year of service if they were laid off. Senior employees such as McMillian were owed six months of base pay, according to the lawsuit. (Bloomberg) -- Indias top energy firms are advocating for nuclear power to decarbonize the worlds third-biggest emitter, while cautioning that electricity from reactors needs to be affordable to substitute coal. Nuclear cant just be a fashion statement, Praveer Sinha, chief executive officer at Tata Power Co., said at the BNEF Summit in New Delhi. It needs to replace coal-based power as a source of affordable power. Atomic power is witnessing a revival globally due to its ability to deliver low-emissions energy. In India, the industry has gained momentum after the government earlier this year said it will amend rules to allow private firms and address liability clauses, which have long kept foreign technology suppliers away. The current law holds both plant operators and equipment suppliers liable for damages in case of an incident. The other reason for the slow development of the sector has been the high cost, often a result of delays caused by public opposition and political concerns over such projects. Sinha said the expansion planned in India and other parts of the world will provide economies of scale to bring costs down. Tata Power is very keen to pursue nuclear. The lack of business continuity and a shortage of skilled staff are also issues that should be at the top of the agenda for the industry, said Anil Parab, whole-time director at Indian engineering firm Larsen & Toubro Ltd. Even small deviations can push nuclear projects back by months and add to costs, he said, stressing the need for talent. India currently has 8.8 gigawatts of nuclear generation, accounting for less than 2% of the countrys total power capacity. The South Asian nation targets 100 gigawatts by 2047, the centenary year of its independence. State-run NTPC Ltd., the countrys largest power producer and coal consumer, said it aims to contribute 30% toward the countrys 2047 nuclear goal. The New Delhi-based company is building its first atomic power plant in a joint venture with Nuclear Power Corp. of India in the state of Rajasthan. The first of the four 700-megawatt units is expected to become operational in 2031, while the entire plant is likely to come online five years after that, NTPC Chairman Gurdeep Singh said at the BNEF Summit. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com (Bloomberg) -- Kazakhstans environmental-protection ministry told oil majors operating in the country they have 40 days to pay a multibillion-dollar fine for sulfur pollution, a blow to the producers who claimed victory in the case weeks ago. At the start of August, NCOC and partners in the Kashagan oil field, the nations second-largest, said they won a case in an appeal court in the central Asian country over a fine of 2.356 trillion tenge $4.4 billion at current exchange rates. But on Monday, the nations environment agency told the venture partners that the fine stands and that they now have 10 days to appeal against it, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The plan is to appeal but, if they dont, then payment will be required in 30 days, they said, asking not to be identified discussing specifics of the case. NCOC said in a statement that it was deeply troubled by the decision, taken by the Atyrau Regional Ecological Department, part of the environment-protection ministry, in relation to what the operator called an unprecedented fine. The decision runs counter to recent court rulings that highlighted serious flaws in the regional ecological authoritys process and also breaches the production sharing agreement with the state, in addition to violating both national and international law, NCOC said. Its unclear on what authority the government has now pressed ahead with the fine, but the environment protection ministry said on Aug. 15 that its Atyrau department was addressing procedural deficiencies identified previously by the court. Two weeks earlier, the Kashagan partners said an appeal court decision in the case, which appeared to overturn the fine, confirms the correctness of NCOCs sulfur management operations, which are carried out responsibly and in compliance with the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and in line with applicable standards, and best practices. The $55 billion Kashagan development in the Caspian Sea was already dogged by delays and cost overruns during the construction phase. Kazakh authorities have being pushing for higher revenue from the nations fields and sued the venture partners in international arbitration for more than $160 billion in damages. Most of that reflects lost revenue, but it also includes damages related to alleged environmental violations, and deals that Kazakhstan argued were tainted by corruption. NCOC is owned by Kazakhstans state oil and gas company alongside many of the worlds top oil majors, including Eni SpA, Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp and TotalEnergies SE. Eni, Shell, Exxon and TotalEnergies refered questions to NCOC. Last year, venture partners proposed settling the sulfur case by making an additional investment in social projects of $110 million over the next two years, an expense that would be recoverable from Kashagans revenue under the production sharing contract. The venture also proposed at the time making additional payments related to the supply of liquefied petroleum gas to the government and to create a multimillion dollar social-development fund. The environment-protection ministry didnt respond to repeated requests for comment and Kazakhstans energy ministry didnt immediately comment. --With assistance from Mitchell Ferman, Kevin Crowley and Chiara Albanese. (Updates with Eni response in) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Nvidia has instructed its component suppliers, including Samsung Electronics and Amkor Technology, to stop all production related to the H20 AI chip, according to a new report by The Information citing unnamed sources. The order by Nvidia comes shortly after the Chinese government urged local companies to stop using the H20 chip due to security concerns. Notably, both Nvidia and AMD had recently received approval from the US government to resume the supply of lower-end AI chips to China on the condition that they give 15% of related revenue to the government. Reportedly, Amkor Technology handles the advanced packaging for the H20 chips, while Samsung Electronics supplies the memory for them. Meanwhile, another report by Reuters stated that Nvidia has asked Foxconn to stop work related to the H20 chips. Jensen Huang on H20 chips supply to China: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had recently insisted that the H20 chipsets were not a national security concern for Chinese market. "We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors, there are no such things, there never has, and so hopefully the response that we've given to the Chinese government will be sufficient," Huang was quoted by AFP as saying. As you know, [China] requested and urged us to secure licenses for the H20s, for some time and Ive worked quite hard to help them secure the licenses, and so hopefully this will be resolved, China's Cyberspace Administration had summoned Nvidia last month due to national security concerns around the H20 chips and asked the company to provide information on them. Russian companies are widening their campaign to find young African women to help fill a labor shortage, heightening concern many are being deployed in the Ukraine war effort. The latest drive is in South Africa, a fellow member of the BRICS block of large emerging market economies. One of the main recruiters, Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, produces military drones. South Africas government is now investigating what Russian companies are doing and what their intentions are, a person familiar with the situation said. The push involves organizations using BRICS branding. The local chapter of the BRICS Womens Business Alliance signed an agreement in May to supply Alabuga and house builder Etalonstroi Ural with a combined 5,600 workers next year. That came after the South Africa-based BRICS Student Commission posted adverts for construction and hospitality jobs at Alabuga in January available to women between the ages of 18 and 22, and Instagram and TikTok influencers from South Africa began advertising them. Russia is sitting with a demand for workforce, Lebogang Zulu, who chairs the womens alliance and inked the deal on a trip to Russia earlier this year, told Bloomberg. South Africa is sitting with a crisis of unemployment. Russias aging and shrinking population, coupled with the loss of hundreds of thousands of men to the front line in Ukraine and a spike in salaries, has left a hole in the labor market. At the same time, a third of the workforce in South Africa is unemployed. But while the economics might make sense, the recruitment push is drawing increasing scrutiny. The Alabuga zone, for example, has been accused in three research reports from organizations including the Institute for Science and International Security, or ISIS, of tricking African women into working at the plant assembling Shahed 136 kamikaze drones. Women are viewed as more reliable than men for the specific kind of work, according to ISIS. Officials in Pretoria may summon Russias diplomatic representatives to answer questions, the person familiar with the situation said. They asked not to be identified because a public statement hasnt been made. The South African government is actively investigating reports of foreign programs that recruit South Africans under false pretenses, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said in response to questions. The South African government is yet to find any credible evidence that job offers in Russia are inconsistent with their stated purpose. However, the government has noted the alleged recruitment of youth by the Alabuga company. Questions sent to Alabuga Start, the zones recruitment arm, and Etalonstroi Ural went unanswered. At an event in Botswana, an Alabuga representative denied that African workers were employed in drone plants. The Student Commission and the BRICS Womens Business Alliance also denied that workers recruited with their help would end up working at the facility. There is not much concrete evidence of people going there suffering, Thembehlile Mpungose, secretary general of the commission, said in an interview. We are poor and we need opportunities. We are not sending people there to build drones. Indeed, the prospect of working in Russia is an attractive one for many in a country where more than 48% of women below the age of 34 are jobless. Alabugas advertising says monthly pay can be up to $800, no more than a decent salary in South Africa but at least a job and significantly less than the average in the Tatarstan region. In April, representatives of the student commission and Alabuga Start visited the Beyers Naude Secondary School in Soweto, Johannesburg, twice to advertise the work program, according to students. On a visit to the school, some of them told Bloomberg they were given Alabuga-branded T-shirts and pens, promised jobs and free flights and told they could work their way up into getting their own apartment through employment at the zone. They were asked to sign up to a recruitment tool on WhatsApp, they said. In literature on Alabuga Starts website, theres no mention of work in the drone factory. But reports by ISIS and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime said most women who signed up were put to work in the drone plant despite not being told about it beforehand. The Associated Press also reported in 2024 that African women were working in the plant against their will. The drone plant and the Alabuga economic zone have been repeatedly bombed by Ukraine including as recently as Aug. 9. Weve estimated that roughly 90% of the women who go to Alabuga end up in the drone program, said Spencer Faragasso, a senior research fellow at Washington-based ISIS. Theyre building weapons and theyre being exposed to the line of fire because theyre a part of a war now. Alabuga is currently building residential units that could hold an additional 41,000 workers, an indication that it plans to expand drone production, ISIS said in a July 28 report. The BRICS Womens Business Alliance isnt involved in sending people to unsafe work environments, according to Chris Maphanga, a board member. The group is trying to help Russia meet a shortage of 4.8 million workers and is also in talks with other companies including shoemaker Orthomoda, he said. The alliance said it operates under the mandate of South Africas Womens Ministry. Zulu, who says she is a South African princess, was accompanied on her Russia trip by unidentified South African parliamentarians, the alliance said on its website. The Womens Ministry said in a statement that its not formally linked to the BRICS Womens Business Alliance, although its aware of the organization. It has no knowledge of the Russian recruitment program. The foreign, education and labor ministries didnt respond to requests for comment. Until now, Alabuga primarily targeted poorer African countries like Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. It hired just 22 workers through the program in its first year of operation in 2023, though has set a 2025 target of more than 8,000, it said on its website. In the first half of 2024, it said of its 182 recruits just six were South African. Russian companies and institutions have also been active in seeking recruits elsewhere in southern Africa. In April, Alabuga Start held an event at the University of Botswana in the countrys capital, Gaborone. At that event representatives denied that applicants would work in drone plants when questioned by parents of prospective candidates. They also depicted the program as a way of empowering young women as an explanation for why men are excluded. In Lesotho, an enclave within South Africa, Mahali Phamotse, an opposition party leader and former education minister, has been recruiting young people for study and work opportunities in Russia. The drive prompted the government to issue a statement warning parents to be careful where they sent their students. Phamotse declined to say which Russian institutions she was working with when contacted by Bloomberg. Some of those recruited left for Russia on Aug. 20, Meloli Airwaves, a local media organization, reported. A lot of these women live in locations where theyre vulnerable, they have few opportunities for education, to work, to live an independent life, to travel, Faragasso at ISIS said. When they get to Alabuga they have a rude awakening in terms of what they were promised and what the work is that theyre actually doing. 2025 Bloomberg L.P. TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing platform that was banned in India five years ago, seems to be making a comeback in India. In a positive sign for fans, the website of the short video app is accessible for some users, sparking speculations about a possible return of TikTok in India. TikTok had been banned in India since June 2020 by the government citing security concerns. TikTok website back online in India However, the TikTok app was still unavailable on Google Play Store and Apple App Store. TikTok app is still not available in India Is TikTok coming back to India? While there is no official confirmation from TikTok or its parent company ByteDance on the return of the short video app to India, the comeback of the website has given rise to a wave of excitement among fans. However some users have also reported on X that the website is not accessible to them, suggesting a phased rollout of TikTok in India. Users also said that some of the subpages are not accessible yet. This means that TikTok has not officially returned to India. Why did India ban TikTok? Five years ago in June 2020, the Central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi banned TikTok along with other popular Chinese apps. As many as 59 Chinese apps were banned in the country, including Shareit, Mi Video Call, Club Factory and Cam Scanner. The Centre cited a threat to national security and sovereignty as the reason for TikTok ban as well as that of other apps. In its statement, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) had said that these apps were engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order. This came at a time when the relations between India and China reached a multi-year low as clashes in the Galwan valley reportedly left several Indian soldiers dead. Also Read | Fake TikTok shops used to spread malware and steal cryptocurrency: Report The move came as a blow to ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, as it lost over 200 million users overnight. However, the geopolitical landscape has changed massively since 2020. India and China have held 24 rounds of talks regarding border tensions, and they have proved to be fruitful in recent times. Border restrictions have been relaxed, and flights from India to China have been announced. Donald Trump's tariffs on India and China have resulted in a surprise thawing of tensions between the two countries, with PM Modi scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month. Ali Express website available too Alibaba Group-owned e-commerce platform Ali Express was also accessible in India. However, only the website was opening for users, similar to TikTok, as the app remained unavailable. (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is withholding approval for several Western oil majors seeking to operate in Venezuela, ramping up pressure on Nicolas Maduros government even as Chevron Corp. is allowed to work there, according to people familiar with the matter. The pause is focused on non-US firms, leaving companies including Spains Repsol SA, Italys Eni SpA and Frances Maurel & Prom in limbo, said the people, who requested anonymity as the matter is private. It underscores a delicate balancing act in Washington as officials weigh competing geopolitical, financial and energy considerations. Last month, the Treasury Department granted approval for Chevron to resume producing and exporting Venezuelan oil. President Donald Trump has taken a tough stance against Maduro, but hes also trying to keep a lid on energy prices, even as he pressures Iran to end its nuclear program and Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Late last month, the Treasury Department imposed its most sweeping sanctions on Tehran in seven years. Washingtons policy towards Venezuelan oil has fluctuated dramatically in the months since Trump returned to office, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio among those advocating for a hawkish approach while Special Envoy Richard Grenell has backed a strategy thats been more receptive to US business interests. The Treasury Department declined to comment immediately, and the State Department and White Houses National Security Council didnt respond to requests for comment. Repsol, Eni and Maurel & Prom didnt reply to requests for comment. --With assistance from Daniel Flatley. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Fresh questions by the late Sunjay Kapur's sister Mandhira Kapur over the transfer of ownership of the RK Family Trust, which controls the promoter entity of listed auto components major Sona Comstar, are not the first time that a dispute has emerged within the Kapur family over the division of the estate built by the late Surinder Kapur, according to documents seen by Mint. In the last one week, Mandhira has questioned the role of RK Family Trust in taking away the control on the shareholding of Aureus Investment Private Ltda key promoter entity of Sona Comstarfrom Rani Kapur. But this is not the first time such a concern has been raised by Mandhira. Read more: Sona Comstar case: Why family firms need a governance triad The dispute over the division of the family assets between siblings Mandhira and Sunjay Kapur, the children of Surinder Kapur, had earlier boiled over into courts of law and before the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), according to documents reviewed by Mint. In a letter to the then Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi in May 2021, just ahead of the public markets listing of Sona Comstar, Mandhira highlighted that her father had drafted a will that transferred the entire estate to her mother Rani Kapur, with a wish that Mandhira eventually receive her fair share. "As per the DRHP (draft red herring prospectus), it seems that my brother is trying to usurp my fathers entire estate to himself for which he has created RK Family Trust. The details of the trust are shrouded in mystery," she alleged. RK Family Trust controls more than two-thirds of Aureus Investment Private Ltd, the promoter entity of Sona Comstar, holding a 28% stake in the company. In another letter to the Sebi chief in June 2021, Mandhira questioned Sunjay's attempts to dismiss the bearing of the matters involving the trust on the listing of the company. She asked for an investigation into the trust. "Hence, I once again, request you to not allow Sona BLW Precision Forgings Limited to launch its initial public offer (IPO) until this significant issue of my rights and considerations are resolved," Mandhira pleaded to the Sebi chief. However, the listing successfully went ahead in June 2021. The IPO's issue price was 291 a share. On Thursday, shares of Sonal BLW Precision settled 1.6% lower at 442.85 apiece on the BSE. Previous disputes While the battle over the trust raged, the siblings also took on each other in courts of law over the trademark rights of the name 'Sona'. In June 2020, the Mandhira Kapur-controlled Mandhira Marketing Private Ltd changed its name to Sona Mandhira Private Ltd. Sona BLW Precision Forgings challenged this in the Delhi High Court. The court granted an interim injunction in 2023, restraining the Mandhira Kapur-controlled company from using the Sona trademark. The difference between the siblings stayed till the demise of Sunjay in June this year. Mandhira admitted in her interviews with the media that the two hadnt spoken in four years. However, with the control of the RK Family Trust now going to Sunjays wife Priya Sachdev and their son Azarias, and Sunjays two children from an earlier marriage to Karishma Kapoor also touted to receive control, Mandhira and her mother Rani Kapur find themselves at loggerheads with the new owners. Joining her mother in questioning the transfer of power to Priya Sachdev Kapur, Mandhira in multiple media interviews questioned how she and her mother have been kept out of the family's ownership of Sona Comstar. "We didn't know. We had to look into this stuff. We have learned that everything was put into this so-called trust, which I don't know how. We don't know anything. We're still finding out stuff. My father left everything to my mother. My father and mother founded Sona. So to tell my mother at 80, you have nothing to do with the company she built, I think is a little absurd," Mandhira said in an interview to NDTV. Queries sent to Sona Comstar, Rani Kapur, and Mandhira Kapur remained unanswered. Mint previously reported that Rani Kapur received a 42% stake in Sona Comstar's promoter entity Aureus Investment (then known as Sona Autocomp Holding Pvt. Ltd) in 2015 following her husbands passing away. The stake was subsequently transferred to the RK Family Trust in October 2017 through a trust deed. Aureus said in response to Mint's earlier queries that the transfer was done by Rani Kapur on her own volition. Rani Kapur remained the beneficiary of the trust for two more years. In 2019, the trust informed Sona Comstar, which was a privately-held company at the time, that its sole beneficiary was now Sunjay Kapur, as per a press release issued last month by Sona Comstar. Mint could not ascertain the reasons behind the transfer of Aureus shares from Rani Kapur to RK Family Trust and the subsequent beneficial control transfer of the trust from her to Sunjay. However, Rani Kapur has in a recent statement claimed that the transfers were against her will and she was made to sign documents the contents of which she was not aware of. While the facts of the matter continue to be debated in the press, Mandhira and Rani have few legal options. Read more: Sona Comstar row shows why Indian firms must let professionals lead Mandhira Kapur and Rani Kapur's potential remedies would depend upon whether they can establish that the beneficial ownership transfers of the RK Family Trust and Raghuvanshi Investment in favour of Sunjay Kapur were either legally invalid or obtained through misrepresentation, undue influence, fraud, or lack of informed consent," said Deepika Kumari, partner, King Stubb & Kasiva, Advocates and Attorneys. Rani Kapurs claim that she was made to sign documents without knowledge of their contentparticularly after Sunjays demiseintroduces an element of potential fraud, misrepresentation, or lack of informed consent, Kumari said. If she can establish that her signature was obtained without full disclosure, this could substantiate a plea that the transfers or subsequent trust arrangements were voidable and should not bind her legally. Sucharita Basu, founder and managing partner, Aquilaw, said that any such claims of documents being signed forcibly would have to be proved. However, from the disclosures made by Sona Comstar, no documents have been signed or obtained from Rani Kapur by the company following the passing of Sunjay Kapur, she said. In case any documents were forcibly signed, then a police complaint may be filed for the same," she said. Read more: Sona Comstar not informed who controls promoter family trust after Sunjay Kapur, CEO says Mumbai: The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has raised over a dozen objections to the proposed demerger of Vedanta Ltd into five listed companies, saying it could hamper the recovery of dues to the government. The objections include concerns over the company raising foreign loans by offering national oil assets as collateral, said a person directly aware of the governments case. The ministry also objected to Vedanta withholding $578 million in payments to the government as part of the production-sharing agreement for Indias largest onshore crude oil block in Rajasthan, which is operated by Vedanta subsidiary Cairn Oil & Gas. Vedanta had announced its plan to demerge into six separately listed entities back in September 2023, aiming to complete the process by March 2025. On Wednesday, the National Company Law Tribunal asked Vedanta to respond within four weeks after the petroleum ministry objected to the proposed demerger, which could be delayed beyond September 2025 due to pending regulatory approvalsparticularly from the tribunal. The ministrys other concerns include the liquidity position of Malco Energy, which has revenue- and production-sharing agreements for oil and natural gas with the Indian government. Malco is set to become a part of Vedanta Oil & Gas after the demerger. Also Read | NCLT seeks Vedanta reply after petroleum ministry flags co's demerger plan The ministry made its observations during a hearing at the NCLT in Mumbai, where Vedantas application for the demerger was heard. The arguments of Vedanta's counsel could not be heard in the court on Wednesday due to a paucity of time. The case is next listed for hearing on 17 September. A spokesperson for Vedanta said that since the matter was sub-judice, the company would not be able to comment. The company will be making its submissions before the NCLT. "The proposed demerger is a strategic step to unlock long-term value by creating sector-focused, pure-play businesses with independent management teams. The petition for sanction of the Scheme was heard by the Honble NCLT on 20 August and the hearing will continue on 17 September. Notably, the NCLT has also observed that arguments in a matter of this scale and significance cannot be concluded in a single hearing and fixed the next date of hearing after discussions with all parties," the spokesperson said. To assuage the concerns of the government, Vedanta has offered to submit an affidavit that it will release the pledge against the national assets against which foreign debt to the tune of 1,500-2,000 crore was raised, the person cited earlier said. However, the ministry was not satisfied with the offer. Vedanta has also offered to provide corporate guarantees to the ministry from Vedanta Ltd against the dues of Vedanta Oil & Gas after the demerger. The government has rejected this offer as well. The Vedanta Ltd stock ended 0.3% higher on the BSE on Thursday at 446.8. It has gained over 110% since the day the demerger was first announced on 29 September 2023. The benchmark Sensex has gained just under 25% during this period. Rajasthan dispute While Vedanta has offered to assuage the concerns of the ministry with regard to its offshore loans and liquidity position, no such offer has been made regarding the $578 million dispute over the Rajasthan oil and gas block. The dispute dates back to 2020 over revenue-sharing from the block, which produces over a quarter of Indias domestic crude oil. The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons disallowed the sharing of almost $1.2 billion of development costs that Vedanta incurred on the development of the block. The case went into arbitration and an Arbitration Tribunal ruled in favour of Vedanta in November 2023. The Indian government then challenged the decision in the Delhi High Court, where it is being heard. Vedanta, however, recognized a benefit of $ 578 million ( 4,761 crore) in revenue from operations in FY24 and adjusted it against its liabilities to the government under the production-sharing agreement. However, the government said the award should be lower and has claimed a sum of $224 million from the company. Also Read | Vedanta Q1 profit falls 11%; Co drops plan to tap strategic reserves In the NCLT, the petroleum ministry has objected to the company unilaterally enforcing the award even though the amount is yet to be officially quantified by the adjudicating authority and the case is pending before the Delhi High Court. The Group is of the view that the GoI computation is prima-facie contrary to the Award including clarifications issued by the Tribunal," as per notes to Vedantas latest annual earnings report. As the Parties are unable to agree on quantum of the calculations, the matter will be decided by the Tribunal in the quantum proceedings." Other objections These are only three of the more than dozen objections raised by the ministry against Vedantas planned demerger. The ministry also red-flagged the companys decision to demerge into five companies instead of six after receiving the approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the two main stock exchanges. On 13 August, Sebi issued an administrative warning to Vedanta for this breach. However, the market regulators assent to the demerger stands, said a second person aware of the matter. Also Read | Vedanta AGM: These are the questions short seller Viceroy wants analysts to ask A spokesperson for Vedanta told Mint on Wednesday that Sebi has offered no further comments on the merits of the demerger scheme in the NCLT. Following the demerger, the five firms will be Vedanta Aluminium, Vedanta Oil & Gas, Vedanta Power, Vedanta Iron and Steel and Vedanta Ltd, which will continue as the parent entity and hold shares of Hindustan Zinc. Shareholders of Vedanta will receive one share in each of the new companies. BERLINIn his first speech to parliament after taking office, Chancellor Friedrich Merz promised to put Germanys ailing economy back on track. By this summer, I want you, my fellow German citizens, to feel that our country is beginning to change for the better," he said. Just over 100 days later, Merz has toured international capitals, spearheaded Europes response to President Trumps Ukraine peace initiative, and even begun cracking down on immigration. But Europes largest economy is still flatlining. Now, polls show voters are running out of patience, raising pressure on the chancellor to deliver on the domestic stage. Foreign policy, especially our U.S. policy, has a big impact on the economy," said Gerd Roders, head of G. A. Roders, a 200-year-old industrial foundry in the state of Lower Saxony. But domestic policy matters too. We really need to get started with economic reforms." Germanys manufacturing-heavy, export-oriented economy never recovered from the shocks of the Covid pandemic, Russias attack on Ukraine and the political backlash against globalization. Those interlinked crises have scrambled supply chains, raised production costs and weakened global demand for German goods. After a surprise jump at the start of the year, gross domestic product fell 0.3% again in the second quarter, according to revised data published on Friday. Further revisions showed the recession in the last two years had been deeper than previously thought, meaning the economy has barely grown since before Covid. After flirting with full employment, joblessness is rising while production continues to fall and profits are shrinking. From its last peak in 2018 to the end of last year, industrial production is down about 12%thats a major hit for an industrial economy," said Christoph Swonke, economist at DZ Bank in Frankfurt. He expects overall economic output to stagnate in 2025. Roders, whose company exports a third of its production, has had to cut almost a quarter of the companys staff in Germany and the Czech Republic in the past few years. He said urgent action was needed on lowering energy prices, cutting taxes and reducing bureaucratic burdens. I see how people are getting laid off around me, how good friends who are also entrepreneurs are shutting down their businesses," he said. We have water up to our necks." A rare German politician with a long record as a businessman, Merz made fixing the economy a key plank of his bid for the chancellery. Yet the impact of his governments initial policies has yet to manifest for most people. Merz promised an economic turning point; he talked of putting a booster under growth," said Manfred Gullner, head of the Forsa polling group. But on the ground, voters arent seeing any improvement. On the contrary, mass layoffs, high prices are all over the news." This disconnect, he said, is why more than two-thirds of voters are now unhappy with Merzs workan 18-point rise in three monthsaccording to a Forsa survey published last week. Some 62% expect the economy will keep deteriorating. German officials said the government has already given businesses tax relief and cut energy costs for large manufacturers. It plans to spend close to one trillion euro on defense and infrastructure in the coming years, and corporate tax cuts are on the horizon. These measures partly explain an improvement in business climate surveys recorded in recent months, said Dirk Schumacher, chief economist at the KfW state investment bank. While the second-quarter GDP drop was a disappointment, it is likely to be the worst of the year, he said. Meanwhile, a closely followed gauge of business sentiment this week showed an unexpected uptick in August, including in the manufacturing sector. Im actually surprised at the resilience. If youd asked me at the beginning of the year how sentiment would fareI would have expected it to tank," he said. It seems the corporate sector has learned to deal with uncertainty." On the downside, the 15% tariffs most European Union manufacturers will face on their exports to the U.S. under the preliminary trade deal struck in July will hurt German manufacturers. Exports to the U.S. and Germanys trade surplus with the country already fell 4% and 13% respectively in the first half of the yearwhen most tariffs peaked at 10%compared with the same period last year. Germanys flagship carmakers, which have faced 27.5% tariffs since April, saw their profits drop between 29% and 67% in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year. Overall, corporate insolvencies hit a 10-year high this summer. And with EU tariffs on U.S. goods set to be lower than U.S. tariffs on European goods, some German companies may be tempted to use the U.S. as a base from which to export back into Europethough there is no sign yet of this happening. If we were to see some relocation, that would make it obvious just how one-sided and skewed this whole agreement has been," said Schumacher. Europe would need to respond one way or another." Merz has pledged to put the economy at the center of the governments work for the rest of the year, starting with an autumn of reforms" focused on curbing a rapid rise in welfare spending and creating incentives for unemployed Germans to work. He has also put Karsten Wildberger, a physicist and former retail executive, in charge of a DOGE-like ministry of digitization and state modernization. The ministry is charged with bringing Germanys largely paper-based administration online, cutting red tape for households and supporting the countrys digital economy. Wildberger plans to unveil his anti-bureaucracy initiative in October. The goal is to cut 16 billion, equivalent to around $19 billion, a year in administrative costs for business, or about a quarter of the total estimated bureaucratic bill for companies, according to a ministry spokeswoman. Many people in business who greeted Merzs election have welcomed the announcements. The red-tape campaign is particularly popular, with many business surveys showing a reduction in bureaucracy as the priority for entrepreneurs and executives. Yet the fact that Merzs center-right Christian Democratic Union is in a coalition with the Social Democratic Party could make it harder to deliver. The center-left party is skeptical of the chancellors pro-business agenda. Lars Klingbeil, the SPD vice chancellor and finance minister, recently called for higher taxation to fund growing welfare spending. This would negate the need to bring down welfare spending, which is largely funded by payroll taxes. Non-wage labor costs rose 5% in Germany last year, according to government statistics, making German workers the seventh most expensive in the EU. We need to increase the competitiveness of businesses. And that has a lot to do with lowering costs, not just of energy but also of labor," said Marcus Berret, global managing director at consulting firm Roland Berger. I dont have much hope on this frontWed need to change the way the cake is shared, and while thats easy enough to do when the cake is growing, its much harder when it is shrinking." Write to Bertrand Benoit at bertrand.benoit@wsj.com New Delhi: Maharashtra, Indias largest state economy and home to the country's biggest business groups, has emerged as the top recipient of payouts under the Centres flagship crop insurance scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), officials said, quoting government data. Some other large and industrialized state economies also figured in the list of top recipients of crop insurance claims, indicating that while industrialization is driving growth, the farm sector plays a key role in providing livelihoods. These states include Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Also Read | Aquaculture shock: Spare a lifeline for shrimp farmers reeling under US tariffs In the data as on 15 August, India's total payout as crop insurance claims was at 47,602 crore for 2022-23 to 2024-25 (up to kharif 2024). In the list of the top 10 states for the insurance claim payouts, Uttarakhand, an agrarian Himalayan state, got the lowest amount since it had fewer claimants and also a smaller population covered under the scheme, the data showed. During the last three years from 2022-23 to 2024-25 (up to kharif 2024), Maharashtra has emerged as the state with the highest claim payouts under the scheme, with around 28.3 million of its farmers having been paid claims around 18,920 crore under PMFBY and the Restructured Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS). Maharashtra is followed by Rajasthan, an agrarian and mining-oriented economy, with 8,281 crore claim payouts to around 22.7 million farmers. In the third spot is Karnataka, an industrialized and service-led economy, with a 6,845 crore payout given to over 5.2 million farmers during the three-year period. Other states leading in payouts include Haryana ( 3,069 crore), with the claim processed for nearly 5.0 million farmers and Madhya Pradesh ( 2,892 crore), where nearly 10.9 million farmers benefited. Tamil Nadu settled claims worth 1,749 crore, for around 3.787 million farmers, while in Uttar Pradesh, 1,729 crore was paid to about 3.878 million farmers. Nearly 3.28 million farmers in Chhattisgarh got claims worth 1,244 crore. About 3.66 million farmers in Odisha were paid 933 crore in claims, while Uttarakhand cleared 708 crore worth claims for around 463,000 farmers. Officials said Uttar Pradesh saw a low payout of insurance compensation among the agrarian states due to its better irrigation facilities. Crop insurance data now offers insights into climate vulnerabilities as well as how states are attempting to tide over such uncertainties that have a significant impact on livelihoods and rural demand. For Maharashtra, its vulnerability to natural calamities is a key factor. "Maharashtra is more prone to vagaries of weather, especially the Vidarbha region that is prone to drought. Any adverse weather conditions lead to loss of crops, including cereals and horticulture. This could be a reason behind the high payouts," said Purushottam Sharma, principal scientist at the National Institute of Agricultural Economists and Research (NIAP). There are policy factors that also contributed to Maharashtra's high insurance claim payout. According to a senior Maharashtra government official associated with PMFBY, the state had introduced the 1 premium scheme in FY24 and FY25 for cereals, pulses, oilseeds and onions. This nominal premium had led to a huge enrolment" and the resultant large payout, the official added. The claim amount depends upon the extent of damage to the crop and also the type of crops insured. If the percentage of damage in a particular area is more, the farmers there are eligible for a higher compensation than those in other areas. Moreover, the claim mechanism is different for horticulture crops. "Under the PMFBY, horticulture crops are not insured on a yield-based approach like cereals or pulses. Instead, the losses are assessed on adverse weather events such as actual damage from events like hailstorms, cyclones, or pest attacks. So, horticulture farmers are likely to get higher payouts," said a second person associated with PMFBY. Under the government's flagship crop insurance scheme, farmers typically pay 2% of the total premium for kharif crops, 1.5% for rabi crops, and 5% for commercial or cash crops. The remaining part of the premium is equally borne by the central and state governments, with the exception of the northeastern states (from kharif 2020) and Himalayan states (from kharif 2023), where the Centre takes the bulk of the load in the ratio of 90:10. In the rain-fed regions, where agriculture is more vulnerable to weather-related risks, insurers may adjust premiums to provide adequate financial protection for farmers. However, even within a state, premiums can vary significantly depending on local agro-climatic conditions and historical performance. On April 29, speaking at the YUGM Innovation Conclave co-hosted by the Ministry of Education and the Wadhwani Foundation in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that the efforts to enhance India's innovation capacity and its role in deep-tech would gain momentum through this event. The Prime Minister congratulated the Wadhwani Foundation, IITs, and all stakeholders involved in these initiatives. Also Read | Tech4Good Awards recognise AIIMS and Wadhwani Institute for AI-led solutions Founded in the early 2000s by Romesh Wadhwani, the Wadhwani Foundation is a global non-profit dedicated to accelerating economic growth and job creation across emerging economies. In an exclusive interaction with LiveMint Dr Ajay Kela, CEO and Board member, Wadhwani Foundation, spoke about the Foundations two-decade journey in India. Q: How has the journey been so far since inception? A: When I joined in 2010, we were a one-country, one-initiative, one-program. The country was India; the initiative was National Entrepreneurship Network designed to inspire and equip students with the skills and knowledge to become successful entrepreneurs. We were a small team of barely 1015 people. Today, we are working in probably a dozen countries or more with half a dozen initiatives, probably 10-12 programs under them. So that is how we have scaled. What has never changed, however, is our core mission, which is to enable people to secure dignified jobs and, through that, transform their families and future generations. Q: Could you give me an example of the kind of people youre focusing on? A: On one side of the equation, we work with the vulnerable these are 18-year-olds that finished high school or finished 10th grade and are looking to support themselves and their family, but they dont go to college. We help people acquire skills so that they can command these level, mid-skill roles that have a trajectory. These arent daily wage roles, and theyre not high-end data science jobs either. They are stepping-stone careers, for example, a nurses aide or a home healthcare worker who can progress to becoming a nurse, and even a doctor if ambitious enough. Its about building a ladder of opportunity. Q: How do you identify which job roles to train them for? A: We pick job roles that we know are going to be in demand. We start with employers and ask them what they are hiring for today, what their outlook is for the next three to five years, and what skills those roles will demand. Based on that, we develop programs, curriculums and then even influence the training organisations. The key here is to know what the hyperlocal demand is. Skilling is just one side of the equation. The other is job creation. While on the skilling side, we work with the vulnerable, this side we are working with the creme layer of society top students and colleges because they are the ones that will create Silicon Valley kinds of companies. Q: Beyond entrepreneurship, another area youve worked on is research-driven job creation, right? A: Yes, we have. India produces world-class research via PhDs and postdocs that ends up in papers and patents, not in the market. Thats a criminal waste. This research holds the potential to impact peoples lives, and of course, lead to business and job growth, but it wasnt happening at all in India. Also Read | Hyderabad-Based Life Circle Receives the DBS Foundation Impact Beyond Award With this thought, we set up the Wadhwani Center for Biosciences and Biotechnology at IIT Bombay in 2015 to support projects with commercialisation potential. We funded 120 projects based on the sole selection criteria being: Q- How has this translateed into startups, and job creation? A- So far, 15 of those 120 have been commercialised, leading to 10 startups, 5 products and 40 more in the pipeline. This gave us confidence to amplify this approach. In fact, at YUGM an event we did in collaboration with Ministry of Education earlier this year, PM Modi acknowledged Wadhwani Foundations efforts towards research commercialisation. That validation reinforced that our model of supporting translatable research, rather than leaving it to languish in academic journals, can be a real driver of jobs and innovation in India. Q What does the philanthropy landscape in India, especially in the tech and education sector, look like right now? A: In India, philanthropy in the education has primarily been focused on K12. Even though the focus on improving early schooling by developing teachers and building stronger primary education systems is important, this needs to be complemented with work on jobs and employability. This is where the Wadhwani Foundation fills the gap. Q: How important is tech for your mission and what is the role that AI can play here? A: Essentially, technology is the tool that we are leveraging to deliver quality at scale. In a traditional setup, even an exceptional faculty can only teach 30 students. However, when you digitise this use an AI tutor that is available 24x7 and is able to personalise learning for every student you transform education entirely. We are already seeing similar shifts in other industries. E-commerce has transformed retail access. Platforms like Uber have transformed mobility. In the same way, we believe AI will transform learning, skilling, and entrepreneurship. Our Genie AI platform is designed exactly for this; to act as a personalized guide, counselor, and mentor, available to millions of learners and entrepreneurs. It serves as a knowledge dissemination and mentorship platform with three layers: short-form video content, a family of AI agents (mentors and tutors available 24/7), and a human layer where experts and mentors from our WIN centers guide innovators. Q: India is projected to be the third-largest economy. What structural reforms and policy decisions are needed to achieve that goal? A: I mean, there will be a gamut of them, but I will focus primarily on the jobs, employment and skilling where our demographic dividend can be leveraged. India is a young country, with the median age of 29, which also makes us a young workforce. If we can leverage this human capital that is available to us where the productivity of each of these individuals is dramatically increased through their own capacity. Also Read | Interview: Rahul Mehta of MFF on why India needs strategic philanthropy Weve already seen how outsourcing and IT services put India on the global map. That happened because we had a skilled workforce that could meet global demand. Now, we need to replicate that success in other growing sectors. To do that, we need three things: massive investment in skilling, strong industry-academia linkages, and policy frameworks that encourage lifelong learning and upskilling. Q: Wadhwani Foundation is working in India and 13-14 other countries as well. There must be some learning from other countries that you want to replicate in India or some learnings from India that you want to replicate there. What is your say on this? A: We get exposed to what works and what doesnt work in each country. Essentially, technology is the tool that we are leveraging to deliver quality at scale. For example, in Brazil, the government has mandated for every company to fund an apprenticeship program where a 12th grader who doesnt pursue higher education spends four days a week apprenticing in a company, and one day in formal training. The stipend is paid by industry, which keeps companies motivated to engage seriously. As a result, apprentices graduate job- ready, and the program is not just on paper, it works in practice. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that the increasing number of illegal immigrants in the country is a matter of concern, and to tackle this danger, he has proposed a demographic mission, which will begin its work shortly. PM Narendra Modi also accused the Opposition Congress and RJD of plotting to "snatch away peoples rights and give them to illegal immigrants" to expand their vote banks in the poll-bound state. Also Read | Modi Govt may find it tough to pass bills on PM, CM removal in Parliament People of Bihar need to be aware of the supporters of these immigrants in the country. The Congress and the RJD want to take away the rights of the people of Bihar and give them to immigrants for appeasement and to increase their vote bank, the prime minister said, addressing a rally in Gayaji of Bihar. In the upcoming Bihar polls, the BJP-led NDA will face off against the INDIA bloc, which comprises the RJD, the Congress, and the Left parties. Narendra Modi also assured that the 'double engine NDA government will not let illegal immigrants take away the opportunities meant for Indians and decide the future of the country. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi in Bihar, West Bengal today Referring to the High-Power Demography Mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the mission will begin shortly and the government will "throw out every illegal immigrant" from the country. "To tackle this threat, I have proposed to start a demographic mission. This mission will begin its work shortly. We will throw out every immigrant... People of Bihar need to beware of the supporters of these immigrants in the country... Congress and RJD want to take away the rights of the people of Bihar and give them to these immigrants for appeasement and to increase their vote banks, " Narendra Modi said. Also Read | On Bihar SIR, SC allows excluded voters to submit claims with Aadhaar On the 79th Independence Day, Prime Minister Modi, from the ramparts of Red Fort, announced the launch of a 'High-Power Demography Mission', citing concerns over demographic changes in border areas and saying that they threaten national security. "From the Red Fort, I have talked about the danger of infiltrators. Bihar is facing the danger too. The increasing population of intruders in the country is a matter of concern. In the bordering areas of Bihar, demography is rapidly changing. The NDA government has decided not to let illegal immigrants decide the future of our country. We will not let immigrants take away the jobs meant for the people of Bihar. We will not let illegal immigrants rob the rights of Indians," Narendra Modi said. Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has revealed that moving out of Mumbai and stepping away from Bollywood has helped him overcome depression and quit drinking. In a recent interview, Kashyap spoke openly about how a shift to Malayalam cinema not only revived his creativity but also significantly improved his mental health. Anurag Kashyap opens up about depression Speaking to journalist Sudhir Srinivasan on his YouTube channel, Kashyap shared, I went into a depression. Ive come out of it. Im enjoying myself now. One thing I did was, I stopped watching Hindi films. I started watching a lot of films from first-time filmmakers, I started watching a lot of Malayalam films. Also Read | Anurag Kashyap calls Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dumb over Sacred Games remark The acclaimed director, known for films like Gangs of Wasseypur and Black Friday, explained that his move away from Mumbai was largely driven by the negativity he felt within the Hindi film industry. "Hindi filmmakers have been avoiding me, because they think Im bad news, because they think I have no filter and I talk. They think that if they get associated with me, they might not get (to work with) some studio or somebody else will get upset. And Ive come to a place that Im inspired by, and people have so much love for me," he added. Anurag Kashyap on dealing with alcoholism Kashyap further expressed how the love and acceptance he received in South India contrasted with his experience in Mumbai. "Why am I in a place where Im being told that people are talking about your alcoholism, people are talking about your depression, people are saying youre losing your way. Theyre trying to be my saviour and telling me what I must do to save me from myself." The filmmaker noted that once he left the city, his habits and lifestyle began to improve naturally. "I dont have to deal with people. Automatically, I started exercising. Automatically, I started writing," he said. Anurag Kashyap's work front Kashyaps last theatrical release as a director was Dobaaraa (2022). More recently, he appeared as an actor in the Malayalam film 'Rifle Club' (2024), marking a notable shift in his career toward South Indian cinema. Google is bringing its new search features to 180 countries, making it easier for more people around the world to use Search for everyday tasks. Initially available only in the US, UK, and India, this global expansion allows users to interact with Google Search in a better way. Although still limited to English, the update aims to simplify how users find and book services. New restaurant reservation feature A major feature of the update allows people to make restaurant reservations directly through Google Search. By entering details like date, time, party size, and type of cuisine, Google will search platforms like OpenTable and Resy for available options. This simplifies the process, letting users find and book a table in one place, saving time and effort. This feature is just the start. Google plans to expand it to other areas, like booking local services or purchasing event tickets. By offering these functions directly in Search, Google makes it easy to complete the reservation. The feature handles the search and guides you straight to the booking page, so you can easily finalise the reservation. More relevant search results Google users in the US who have joined the Labs experiment will start seeing more relevant suggestions. If you've previously searched for non vegetarian restaurants, Google will prioritise similar options in future searches, making the experience more suited to your preferences. Google makes it easy to choose a restaurant and book a time slot, taking you directly to the reservation page. It is working with platforms like OpenTable, Resy, and Ticketmaster. People can access this feature by opting into the Agentic capabilities in AI Mode experiment in Labs. New restaurant reservation feature. (Google) For example, you can ask Google Search to find a lunch spot in Delhi when you have 4 hours to spare. It will check your previous searches and interactions on Search and Maps to suggest the best options. If Google knows you're a vegetarian and prefer North Indian food, it will offer relevant results. You have control over the information you share and can adjust your personalisation settings anytime through your Google Account. The Trump administration is considering taking equity stakes in companies receiving funds from the 2022 Chips Act but has no plans to seek shares in bigger semiconductor firms that are increasing their U.S. investments, according to a government official. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed in a Tuesday interview with CNBC that the government is in talks to take a 10% equity stake in the troubled semiconductor company Intel and said the administration may consider equity stakes in other firms as well. The comments fueled worries among industry executives that the government might also take equity stakes in large chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Micron Technology and Samsung. Last month, the administration took a 15% stake in a producer of rare-earth materials. The Biden administration literally was giving Intel [money] for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies, just giving them money for free," Lutnick told CNBC. Donald Trump turns that into saying, Hey, we want equity for the money. If were going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action." In one sign such a move would have faced opposition from companies, TSMC executives have had preliminary discussions about handing back their subsidies if the administration asks to become a stockholder, people familiar with the discussions said. TSMC was awarded up to $6.6 billion in subsidies for a vast site in Arizona that started producing advanced chips in late 2024. The company agreed to build plants in Arizona under pressure from the Biden administration, but people briefed on TSMCs thinking said the company has never relied heavily on U.S. financial support. TSMC declined to comment. The government official said Thursday that the administration isnt looking to own equity in companies like TSMC that are increasing their investments. Businesses that arent boosting their pledges could need to give the government equity in exchange for subsidies. The Commerce Department is not looking to take equity from TSMC and Micron," the official said. Lutnick has been asking companies receiving Chips Act grants to increase their total investments in the U.S., hoping to negotiate better terms for taxpayers. The law authorized tens of billions of dollars in grants, loans and other subsidies to spur domestic semiconductor manufacturing by companies including Intel and TSMC. The approach is the latest from the administration rewarding or punishing tech companies based on their U.S. investments. President Trump recently said he would exempt companies spending more in the U.S. from roughly 100% tariffs on chip imports. Trumps interventions in the private sector have fueled anxiety among corporate executives about who may be targeted next. The government is taking a 15% cut of sales to China from chip companies Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. Before accelerating negotiations with Intel recently about converting some of its Chips funding into an equity stake, Trump called on Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan to resign over his ties to China. The Chips Act was originally conceived during the first Trump administration as a way to attract TSMC and other manufacturers to the U.S. and account for higher manufacturing costs. The programs slow implementation, uncertainty caused by the administration change and tariff tensions have hampered its efficacy. Lutnick is considering converting some of Intels Chips Act grants into equity. Any such efforts could face legal challenges based on how the deals were previously written. The law requires profits above certain levels to be shared with the government. Write to Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com, Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com and Amrith Ramkumar at amrith.ramkumar@wsj.com FMCG conglomerate DS Group (Dharampal Satyapal Group) said on Thursday that it has launched a digital marketing guide, DCODE, in partnership with global advertising agency WPP Media. The playbook outlines best practices across key areas of digital marketing, including paid media, social media, influencer marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), online reputation management (ORM), and more, the company said in a statement. It blends academic frameworks with practical application, delivering actionable systems, processes, and templates, the statement said. The digital marketing guide has been crafted for marketers and digital enthusiasts. Acknowledging the inherent complexities of the digital ecosystem, characterised by constantly evolving variables, DS Group spearheaded the initiative to create a definitive solution. The vision culminated in the development of this comprehensive playbook, the statement said. The collaboration with WPP Media has proved instrumental in further elevating the playbook to an industry benchmark ensuring the guide is not only practical but also reflective of the highest competencies available in the digital space, said DS Group, the owner of brands such as Catch spices, Pulse, Pass Pass, Silver Pearls, Ksheer, Rajnigandha, LOpera, Le Marche, Birthright, Chingles, and Namah. Thrilled to introduce DCODE: VC DS Group In today's rapidly evolving media landscape, digital isn't merely an option; it's a strategic imperative for connecting with consumers and an increasingly important pillar of our outreach. Understanding the immense power and complexity of this ecosystem, it was clear we needed a comprehensive resource to navigate it effectively, Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman at DS Group, said in the statement. Also Read | Personal loans: 7 key things to keep in mind before you go ahead The Prime Ministers Office has received a proposal from the telecom department to steady Vodafone Idea Ltd, said two officials aware of the matter, as the carrier has repeatedly cited upcoming payments against pending dues as a threat to its survival. In an informal note to the PMO last month, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has proposed multiple relief options", including a further two-year pause on paying the statutory dues under moratorium currently, one of the two officials quoted said on the condition of anonymity. The PMO will take the final decision on whether any relief measures need to be extended, the person added. Struggling Vodafone Idea owes about 83,400 crore in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues to the government, with annual payments of 18,000 crore beginning next March. Vodafone has previously said that banks are unwilling to lend more given the hefty dues, and that it will be unable to survive beyond a year without such funding. Overall, its total dues to the government stand at around 2 trillion, including penalty and interest. Also Read | Vi strikes AI deal with IBM to modernise IT systems, improve service reliability A decision is significant given that Vodafone Idea owes 1,944.5 crore to banks as of June end and employs over 18,000 people, and a potential failure could reduce India's telecom arena to a two-horse race. The DoT also proposed giving Vodafone Idea more time to repay dues, smaller annual payouts, and a waiver on penalties, and interest on penalties on AGR payments, a second official said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity. Cash-starved Vodafone Idea has struggled to match peers Bharti Airtel Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd in rolling out 4G and 5G networks. The government owns nearly 49% stake in Vodafone Idea after converting nearly 53,083 crore of dues into equity in two tranches in February 2023 and April earlier this year. Queries emailed to DoT and PMO did not elicit any response till the press time. In a letter dated 17 April, Vodafone Idea urged DoT to consider the principal of 17,213 crorecalculated by the department till FY19as final and provide 100% waiver on interest and penalty on the AGR dues. Bank funding stalled The main concern from the banks is that large dues are payable to the government, while the bank repayments are being made. A moratorium on AGR and spectrum instalments till at least FY30 will go a long way in the banks getting comfort that large GOI (government) dues are only paid after they have received a significant repayment of their new loans by FY30," Akshaya Moondra, former chief executive officer of Vodafone Idea, said in the letter. Vodafone Idea has been struggling to raise 25,000 crore in new bank funding that can be used to improve its 4G network and roll out 5G extensively, despite the government converting some of the dues into equity. Banks are currently awaiting clarity on a potential relief on pending AGR dues. Our request to the government has been that let us resolve this (AGR issue) earlier than before the deadline of March so that banks get clarity and we can proceed with bank funding," Moondra said in his last earnings call as CEO of Vodafone Idea on 18 August. The company, which has nearly 198 million users, is hopeful of government support. In the absence of bank funding, a major part of the companys capex plans of 50,000-55,000 crore for the next three years will be stalled. The Supreme Courts recent rejection of Vis plea to waive 45,000 crore in interest and penalties on the 83,400 crore pending AGR dues has further strained its prospects. The four-year moratorium on these payouts ends in September. In an interview with Mint in April, Communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said the government cannot convert more dues of Vodafone Idea into equity, The minute you convert more, it becomes a PSU (public sector undertaking), and the cabinet note very clearly says it has to be less than 50%," Scindia had said. On 16 May, Mint reported that Vodafone Idea told the Supreme Court that it will not be able to operate beyond the current fiscal year without bank funding, which remains elusive as lenders remain wary of its dues linked to AGR. It is important to note that this payment of approx. 18,000 crores which has to be paid on a yearly basis for the next 6 years, is far in excess of the Companys operational cash generation capacity each year," the companys petition had said. For the last three years, the company's annual operational cash generation was in the range of 8,400-9,200 crore, it said. Airtel seeks relief, too Even as Vodafone Idea has been struggling with its financials, Bharti Airtel too wants the government to convert some of its dues into equity to have a level playing field. In April, Airtel had urged the DoT to convert its AGR dues of about 40,000 crore into equity, which would give the government a 3-4% stake in the company. We have written to the government to extend the same relief as any other telco but that is a decision that the government will take and we will abide by whatever decision they take," the companys vice-chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal said on an analyst call on 6 August following the June-quarter results. To that extent, I would say we have the room to make whatever payments are required." One of the concerns the second official cited is that in case of relief to just one operator, others who have a sound financial position will also start asking for relief and that would be a cost to the governments potential recovery. Airtel and Vodafone Idea did not respond to Mints queries. Investor attention is primarily on the much-delayed debt fund-raise, which is crucial to support capex along with upcoming AGR and spectrum obligations," said analysts at Nuvama Institutional Equities in a note dated 18 August. While parameters such as pace of subscriber loss and ARPU also need to improve, balance sheet repair has become highly crucial for VILs (Vodafone Idea) survival." According to Nuvama, a delay in debt funding continues to cloud visibility on the survival of Vodafone Idea. The operator's biggest financial strain stems from the AGR issue. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that Vodafone Idea and its peers need to pay statutory liabilities on AGR, which includes non-telecom revenue. There was a massive gap between the telecom department's calculations and the self-assessed dues by telecom operators. For Vodafone Idea, the DoT calculated total dues at 58,000 crore against the companys estimate of 21,500 crore. Such statutory dues are based on adjusted gross revenue that also includes non-telecom revenue. For Airtel, the original demand under the AGR case was 63,000 crore, including liabilities on acquired spectrum from Tata, Telenor, among others. Tata Teleservices AGR demand was 16,798 crore. In September 2024, the Supreme Court rejected curative petitions filed by Vodafone Idea and other operators seeking relief in the apex courts 2019 ruling. * Retail buying remains subdued, traders say * India dealers offer discount up to $2/oz to premium $3 this week * China premiums at $3-$8/oz this week By Rajendra Jadhav and Anmol Choubey Aug 22 (Reuters) - Physical gold demand in key Asian hubs remained subdued this week as price volatility kept buyers at bay, while jewellers in India resumed purchases ahead of a key festival season. Gold prices in India were trading around 99,300 rupees ($1,135.77) per 10 grams on Friday after hitting a record high of 102,250 rupees earlier this month. "With prices easing, jewellers are feeling more confident about festival demand and have slowly started buying again," said a Mumbai-based bullion dealer with a private bank. Indians will celebrate the Dussehra and Diwali festivals in October, when buying gold is considered auspicious. This week, Indian dealers were quoting between a discount of $2 per ounce and a premium of $3 per ounce over official domestic prices, inclusive of 6% import and 3% sales levies, compared to last week's discount of up to $6. Retail buying is still subdued, currently at around 60% of normal levels, said Amit Modak, chief executive of PN Gadgil and Sons, a Pune-based jeweller. In top consumer China, bullion changed hands between premiums of $3 and $8 an ounce over the global benchmark spot price, which traded in a range of $3,311 to $3,358 this week, down 0.2% so far for the week. "With gold in the doldrums, there is scope for exaggerated moves on news from Jackson Hole, which reflects the thin trading conditions currently gripping the market," said Ross Norman, an independent analyst. In Hong Kong, gold was sold at par to a premium of $1.70, while in Singapore , gold traded between at-par prices and a $2.50 premium. "We've seen a bit of retail buying, but nothing really substantial... In the jewellery space, demand has been quiet because prices are high," said Brian Lan, managing director at Singapore-based GoldSilver Central. While there has been more interest in investment bars, it is nothing really well out of the ordinary, Lan added. After a slow start, Mangal Electrical's initial public offer (IPO) closed with decent demand on Friday, August 22. The Mangal Electrical IPO had opened for subscription on August 20, with the issue sailing through on the second day of the book-building process. Mangal Electrical IPO was booked 2.08 times at the end of the second day of subscription on Thursday. Mangal Electrical IPO Subscription Status Meanwhile, as of close on Friday, Mangal Electrical IPO was subscribed 9.46 times, with the issue garnering bids for 4,96,74,638 shares as against 52,53,301 shares on offer. The retail portion was booked 4.84 times, the NII portion was subscribed 18.79 times, and the QIB portion received 10.54 times bids. Now, with the closure of the public offer, Mangal Electrical IPO allotment date will be in focus. The same has been fixed as Monday, August 25. Mangal Electrical IPO GMP Mangal Electrical IPO grey market premium (GMP) has seen a significant decline today. According to data available, Mangal Electrical IPO GMP today is 15, more than half of the 34 GMP it was commanding a day ago. At the current GMP and issue price, Mangal Electrical IPO listing price could be 576, a premium of just 3%. GMP signals an investor's willingness to offer more than the issue price for a company's shares. However, it should not be the only metric guiding investment decisions. Investors should focus on fundamentals and their own risk appetite. Mangal Electrical IPO Details Mangal Electrical IPO is entirely a fresh issue of shares worth 400 crore. The price band for the offer was fixed at 533-561 per share. The company plans to use the proceeds from the share sale to pay debt, expand the company's facility situated in Rajasthan, and support working capital requirements for general corporate purposes. The company boats of several marquee customers, including government discoms and private companies such as Ajmer Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd, Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd, Voltamp Transformers Ltd and Western Electrotrans. It has exported its transformer components to the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, the US, Italy and Nepal. Mangal Electrical Industries is a processor of transformer components, transformer lamination, amorphous cores, coil assemblies and core assemblies, wound core, toroidal core, and oil-immersed circuit breakers. The Indian stock market is expected to open lower on Friday ahead of the US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powells speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. The trends on Gift Nifty also indicate a tepid start for the Indian benchmark index. The Gift Nifty was trading around 25,084 level, a discount of nearly 38 points from the Nifty futures previous close. The equity market extended its rally for the sixth consecutive session on Thursday, and the benchmark Nifty 50 closed above 25,000 level. The Sensex advanced 142.87 points, or 0.17%, to close at 82,000.71, while the Nifty 50 settled 33.20 points, or 0.13%, higher at 25,083.75. On the Nifty options front, Chandan Taparia Head Derivatives & Technicals, Wealth Management, Motilal Oswal Financial Services said that the maximum Call OI (Open Interest) is at 25,500 then 25,200 strike, while maximum Put OI is at 25,000 then 24,500 strike. Call writing is seen at 25,600 then 25,100 strike while Put writing is seen at 25,100 then 25,000 strike. Option data suggests a broader trading range in between 24,600 to 25,600 zones while an immediate range between 24,800 to 25,300 levels, said Taparia. Also Read | Stocks to buy under 100: Experts recommend three shares to buy today Nifty 50 Outlook Nifty 50 formed a bearish candle on the daily frame as it closed lower than its opening zones but it continued to form higher lows from the last eight sessions. Now, Nifty 50 has to hold above 25,000 zones for an up move towards 25,150 then 25,250 zones, while support can be seen at 24,900 then 24,800 zones. Bank Nifty Outlook Bank Nifty index gained 56.95 points, or 0.10%, to close at 55,755.45 on Thursday, forming a small bodied candle on daily scale as buying is visible at lower levels but momentum is missing at higher zones and the index is hovering near its 50 DEMA. Now, Bank Nifty index has to hold above 55,555 zones for an up move towards 56,000 then 56,250 levels, while on the downside, support is seen at 55,555 then 55,250 zones, Taparia said. Also Read | Buy or sell: Vaishali Parekh recommends three stocks to buy today Stocks to buy Chandan Taparia has recommended three stocks to buy today, 22 August 2025. Taparia recommends buying Exide Industries, Cummins India, and L&T Finance shares. Exide Industries | Buy | Target Price: 420 | Stop Loss: 390 Exide Industries share price has broken out of a consolidation breakout on the daily chart with higher than average traded volumes. The MACD indicator has given a bullish crossover to confirm the positive momentum. Taparia recommends buying Exide Industries shares for a target price of 420 apiece, while maintaining a stop loss at 390 level. Cummins India | Buy | Target Price: 4,185 | Stop Loss: 3,735 Cummins India share price has formed a bullish Pole & Flag pattern on the daily chart which suggests a continuation of the uptrend. It is respecting its 20 DEMA with slight dips being bought into. The ADX line is rising which confirms the strength of the uptrend, Taparia said. He has a Buy call on Cummins shares, with a target price of 4,185 apiece, and a stop loss of 3,735 level. L&T Finance | Buy | Target Price: 235 | Stop Loss: 214 L&T Finance share price has given a range breakout near its All Time High zones with a bullish candle. The RSI indicator is positively placed which has bullish implications, according to Taparia. He suggests buying L&T Finance shares for a target of 235 and keeping a stop loss of 214. Also Read | Breakout stocks to buy or sell: Sumeet Bagadia recommends five shares to buy Stocks to buy under 100: The Indian stock market extended its bull trend for another session and ended higher for the sixth straight day. The Nifty 50 index added 33 points and closed at 25,083, the BSE Sensex finished 142 points higher at 82,000, and the Bank Nifty index ended 56 points north at 55,755. Nifty IT, FMCG, and Realty emerged as major gainers among the sectoral indices. Conversely, sectors such as Nifty Media, Pharma, and Financial Services were the major losers for the day. IT heavyweights Infosys, TCS, and Nestle led the charge among the Nifty's top performers. On the other hand, it proved to be a tough session for names like Bharat Electronics (BEL), Shriram Finance, and Bajaj Finance, which ended as the major losers within the Nifty pack. Trading volumes in the NSE cash market were higher by 10% compared to the previous session. Stock market today Unveiling the intraday trading strategy for the Indian stock market today, Shrikant Chouhan, Head Equity Research at Kotak Securities, said, "We are of the view that the larger market trend is upward, but for day traders, buying on intraday corrections and selling on rallies would be the ideal strategy." Speaking on the outlook of the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex for today, Shrikant Chouhan of Kotak Securities, said, "On the downside, 25,000/81,700 and 24,950/81,500 would act as key support zones, while 25,150/82,300 and 25,250/82,500 could be crucial resistance levels for the bulls. However, below 24,950/81500, the sentiment could change. If the index falls below this level, traders may prefer to exit long positions." On the outlook of the Bank Nifty today, Bajaj Broking Research said, "We expect the index to extend consolidation in the range of 54,800-56,300. Only a movement beyond this range will signal the next directional move. Key support area 54,800 and 55,000 a region that aligns with the 100-day exponential moving average (EMA) and key Fibonacci retracement levels from the prior upward move. A breach below 54,800 will open downside towards the 54,000 levels. On the higher side, resistance around the 56,00056,300 range, corresponding to the recent breakdown area and the 50% retracement of the entire decline (57,628-54,905)." Intraday stocks for today under 100 Regarding stocks to buy today, market experts Vaishali Parekh, Vice President of Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher, and Anshul Jain, Head of Research at Lakshmishree Investment, recommended these three intraday stocks under 100: Centrum Capital, DCW, and Geojit Financial Services. Vaishali Parekh's stock to buy under 100 1] Centrum Capital: Buy at 38, Target 42, Stop Loss 36. Anshul Jain's shares to buy under 100 2] DCW: Buy at 79.50, Target 85, Stop Loss 76; and 3] Geojit Financial Services: Buy at 74.70, Target 79, Stop Loss 73. Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole speech in focus Central bankers and economists worldwide are gathering for the Feds economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The prestigious event in the Grand Teton mountains has been used to make key policy announcements. Powell is due to speak today at 10:00 AM in New York time. Stock Market Today: Vodafone Idea shares gained in the morning trade on Friday, August 22, despite the weak Indian stock market, after news reports suggested relief measures are likely to be announced by the prime minister's office (PMO). The market expectations remain high on some government measures to support the debt-laden Vodafone Idea. The significantly high government dues on Vodafone Idea include AGR dues and deferred spectrum to be paid over the years. A Mint report suggests that some relief measures will be announced by the prime minister's office, which lifted the investors' hopes. Also Read | PMO to take a call on Vodafone Ideas fate Vodafone Idea Share price movement Vodafone Idea shares opened at 6.68 on the BSE on Friday. At the time of opening, Vodafone shares were more than 1% higher compared to the previous day's closing price of 6.56. Vodafone Idea share price, thereafter, gained momentum and touched an intraday high of 6.85, which meant gains of more than 4%. However, Vodafone Idea share prices are down significantly from the 52-week high of 16.55 seen on August 29 last year. What street and analysts expect? The Vodafone Idea Q1 result performance had remained significantly better compared to the previous year; nevertheless, analysts at Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFLS) had said, In the absence of relief on AGR dues (around 16400 crore) and the closure of debt raising, annual repayments starting Mar26, Vodafone Idea's planned capex of 500-550 crore remains in jeopardy, potentially resulting in higher subscriber churn. Vodafone Idea has been losing customers, and the pace may only reverse once the investments are made in the network and services. The benefits of tariff hikes are also limited compared to peers, as its customer base remains under pressure. As per MOFSL data, Vodafone Idea's subscriber count of 197.7 million decreased by 0.5 million sequentially, compared to a 1.6 million decline in 4QFY25. MOFSL post Q1 had cut FY27-28 revenue and EBITDA estimates by ~4-5%, each driven by higher subscriber declines. The desert sun blazes over a Martian-like expanse in north-west Saudi Arabia. Wind-sculpted sandstone and granite bouldersshaped over millions of yearsstand like meditating yogis. Im in Hegra, a Unesco World Heritage Site sprawled across a 1.6-hectare necropolis in AlUla. In the 1st century BCE, this was home to the Nabataeans, a civilisation from the southern Levant (modern-day Jordan) with Petra as its capital. Today, its the new address of The Chedi Hegra, a luxury resort, which opened in September 2024. Desert life and the ancient incense routes have long shaped food here. The Nabataeans ate grains, dates, figs, olives, nuts and dried meats, seasoned with regional herbs and spices. Many of these flavours endureslow-cooked lamb or goat with rice and lentils, clay-oven baked bread, dates with Arabic coffee, and seasonal tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants. Staples like kabsa (spiced rice with meat), mutabbaq (stuffed pancake) and jareesh (cracked wheat with yogurt) still define AlUlas table. At Prima Classean all-day, Mediterranean-inspired restaurant recalling the golden age of luxury train travelthis legacy takes a new form. At the restaurant, which occupies the disused Hegra Station, the scent of spiced meats and warm bread mingles with the faint metallic tang of rail tracks which run through it. Built in 1907 as a link between Medina and Damascus to ferry pilgrims and goods, it fell silent after World War I and the Arab Revolt in the early 20th century. View Full Image Inside Prima Classe. (The Chedi Hegra) The mud-brick facades give way to chic interiors, but its Locomotive 964 that stops me in my tracks. Built in 1906 by Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik, this original 2-6-0 thundered along the Hajj route until the 1920s. After a year-long restoration by the Royal Commission for AlUla in 2024, it stands reborna gleaming relic of the steam age. I follow Driss Daabaz, director of culinary and F&B, past a gleaming bar to the 64-seat bistro, where a long polished table awaits. A chandelier casts a warm glow, while a French window frames the vast sands outside. The menu riffs on the trains historic routeParis, Monaco, Istanbul, Italy and a final stop in Saudi Arabia. When I arrived in March 2023, the site was still under construction," says the 50-year-old Daabaz, who has previously worked at Vakkaru Maldives, Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi and Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts in Dubai, Doha, Shanghai, Manila and Hong Kong. I explored Hegra and Old Town AlUla for inspiration. The region is steeped in history but evolving fast. I wanted the restaurant to reflect that East-meets-West blend of old and new," Daabaz says. Even the bread is reimagined: sourdough with butter, coconut flakes, camel cheese scramble and dates. The meal opens with a quinoa salad shaped into a disc, topped with peppers, pomegranate, roasted pumpkin, pickled orange and pumpkin seeds, with avocado mousse at its centre. Daabaz swears by the regions citrus and cactus fruitsbetter than what I grew up eating in Morocco." View Full Image Chef Driss Daabaz plating a dish at Prima Classe. (The Chedi Hegra) Inspired by the Nabataeans, he leans on grains, bread, dates and citrus, letting the orange-marinated quinoa burst with brightness under a drizzle of basil-infused olive oil. Next comes Mezze No Waya vibrant spread of crispy eggplant moutabel, minty tabbouleh, pistachio-studded muhammara, avocado hummus and zesty fattoush, each bite a stop along the Levantine coast. We skip the soups and move to the mains: a salmon steak, its crisp, caramelised skin giving way to buttery flesh, paired with broccoli rice, salmon roe and a mustard cream sauce. Daabazs intent to honour the destination comes through on the menu that weaves in AlUlas herbs, citrus, moringa oil, fava beans, honey and seasonal mango. Seafood is imported from the Philippines, Wagyu from Australia, lamb from New Zealand, and dairy from France. The showstopper of the meal is 18-hour-braised Wagyu short rib, glazed with veal jus over potato mousseline, flanked by Brussels sprouts and eringi mushrooms. View Full Image Food scenes at Prima Classe. (The Chedi Hegra) Daabaz links the dish to his Moroccan roots, where slow cooking was the norm, and says it draws inspiration from his grandmothers recipe. The beef is braised with carrots, onions, cloves, herbs and veal stock for eight hours, the liquid strained and slow-cooked for another 18, before the ribs are glazed in the reduced jus. The only change: hers had bones, his does not. I dont need a knifejust a fork is enough to greet the meat. It falls apart gloriously, and melts like butter on my tongue, leaving a rich aftertaste. I return to my plate for another bite. Then another. Until theres nothing left. Whenever my grandmother cooked, she did it with passion," Daabaz says, noticing the quiet satisfaction around the table. The best food is what we grow up eating. As a chef, I carry those memories forward and give them new life." The finale is a classic lava cake, its molten chocolate centre paired with cold salted caramel ice cream and wild berriesa hot-cold-sweet-tart harmony. In just five plates and one afternoon, Ive tasted much of the world. Also Read | How culinary experiences are redefining travel Pooja Naik is a Mumbai-based independent travel and culture journalist. The dog has aged well. Out for a walk with a beloved human, that classic c-curved Desi Kutta tail raised jauntily, their happiness has radiated off the walls of Bhimbetkas caves for at least 12,000 years. Among the prehistoric and ancient cave paintings of these rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh, there are 41 featuring dogsone on a leash, most free-roaming, another Canis familiaris caught in mid-stride, graceful, joyous. Its hard to remember, in the middle of a moral panic, that the bond between humans and dogs is an old one, stretching all the way down the centuries to the 2nd or 3rd century BC. But perhaps its worth it to go back that far, to the vivid figurines of fighting dogs or collared dogs from Harappa and Mohenjodaro, just to acknowledge that dogs have been around in human settlements right from the start of our recorded history. Also Read | A footnote in history: The day Parsis shut Bombay down over stray dogs In a 2008 book, Sarama and Her Children, Bibek Debroy, the economist, translator and expert on Indian mythology, made an impassioned plea for giving our homegrown desi kuttas the love and respect they deserved. Imagine my surprise when I re-read the Rig Veda and discovered that dogs were used as herd dogs, hunting dogs and watchdogs, not to forget their being used as beasts of burden," he wrote. As I re-read Hindu texts with this canine perspective in mind, I continually stumbled upon facts that I had not known. The more I read, the more I marvelled." Saramas story appears in the Rig Vedas. She is the mother of all dogs, helping Lord Indra track down the kidnapped cattle of the Angirases, in legend the ancestors of man. Devdutt Pattnaik writes that her children, the Sarameyas, are considered the guardians of the dead", companions to Lord Yama. At a sacrifice held by King Janmajaya, a puppy is accused of licking the milk offered to the gods and stoned by the kings brothers; the small creature runs back to Sarama, whimpering from its wounds. Sarama bursts in, disrupting the yajna, and demands justice for her daughter. In one version that I heard in Kolkata, she says to the king, To hurt the innocent, to harm the smallest and most helpless of your visitors is adharma," and she places a curse on him and his progeny. Indian dogs appear in Mughal paintings as well-trained hunting dogs, in a spectacular Raja Ravi Varma painting as the Four Vedas along with Dattatreya; were looked down on by the British as inferior, dubbed pariah" dogs in an ugly twinning of caste and race prejudices; sneak into sacred texts and bound into the pages of contemporary novels, and are loved by poets across the ages. ***** The spirit of the place lives inside the mangy body of the station dog doing penance for the last three hundred years under the tree of arrivals and departures the dog opens his right eye just long enough to look at and see whether youre a man or a demigod Arun Kolatkar, Station Dog I start to walk around Delhi and some of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in 2008-09, a habit that remains strong, especially in post-pollution winter. Im usually on my own, since large groups tend to prefer itineraries, not aimless rambles around Delhis 11 districts, wetlands, river banks, medieval monuments, hybrid villages and tropical thorn forests. What takes me through, in a notoriously unsafe, often aggressive, patriarchal slice of north India, is the Rule of Dog: if the stray dogs look relaxed and happy, youre likely to be safe. If there are no dogs, if the local strays slink around like fearful ghosts, or people treat them with cruelty in front of you, the place is likely unsafe for women and outsiders". It is unscientific, but it works. And even though I am a cat person by temperament, the citys dogs adopt me, like a wayward cousin whom no one can sudharofy, but who must be taken care of anyway. Old Delhi: A three-legged dog takes me for a tour down narrow katras Ive never explored before, showing off the sights, and finishes with a flourish at a bread pakora stall. Where he is given a bread pakora (by me) and a brisk Ayurvedic oil massage (by the bread pakora seller, who greets him like an old friend). View Full Image A panel of Jayati Boses drawings from the Khele Hum series on display at DCAW by Latitude 28 Jangpura: Doginder Singh is the first street dog to insist on making friendship with me. He is a highly successful beggar of biscuits, a born meeter and greeter, his cold nose poking into mithai boxes, up unwary backsides. He leads his pack into midnight raids where they set off car alarms in a filmy tune pattern, disappearing as the first human groans and exclamations ring out. He kindly allows me to include him as a dashing, heroic goofball in my second novel, The Hundred Names of Darkness. Tughlaqabad: A pack of 12 brown and black dogs come silently out of the shadows, two of them growling, three of them wagging their tails. I decide to trust the majority, and a short and warm chat later, we are besties. We play a marvellous game of hide-and-seek in the ruins; in their company, I feel protected, able to walk for miles without fearing the real predators, bands of men in Thars or Scorpios who will run you off the road just for fun. Kathputli Colony: After the demolitions of this colonythe inspiration for the magicians ghetto in Salman Rushdies Midnights Childrenin the winter of 2017, the acrobats and dancers, sword swallowers and puppeteers load what they can salvage on to handcarts and bicycles. Two large pigs and two puppies eye me distrustfully from a thela; the puppies are small, but they already know that humans are not reliable. Another handcart goes by, carrying the architecture of displacement. Riding high on a pile of mattresses topped by a rickety bench, a splendidly patchy ginger, brown and white dog called Sherdil (but commonly known as Sheroo) howls, knowing in some mysterious dog fashion that they will not return to the only home hes ever known. Ghazipur border: On one side, a long, unending line of migrants wait for busesit is March 2020 and after a sudden lockdown order, thousands of stranded workers are attempting to go back to their villages and hometowns . A day later, some give up and start walking the 500 km back home. Two bone-thin strays walk stoically alongside their families, loyal, resigned to this uncertain fate, the underside of their paws already dusty, already worn. ***** In our cities, villages and forests, dogsstray, street, community, feralare an improperly counted but large population, adored and cherished by a growing community, barely tolerated by others, feared and hated by many who call for their removal from the streets or their slaughter. Shelters are impractical at scale and often poorly run: the chances that dogs will die slowly of starvation or disease are grimly high. At regular intervals, as in 1950s Delhi, Bengaluru in 2007 and Srinagar in 2008, dogs are culledshot, poisoned or even more cruelly, buried alive. These massacres, often driven by a mix of outrage over tragic and horrifying rabies deaths or bites (especially when children are the suffering victims) and cynical media manipulation, have been completely ineffective in bringing down the population. Explosions of cruelty, shattering to witness, might relieve public anger temporarily, but they do not help us coexist more safely and comfortably with either dogs or any other animal, from leopards to bats to elephants, that are labelled pests rather than fellow citizens with whom we share equal space. ***** We say that one may as well hang a dog as give him a bad name, thereby admitting the possibility of a good one. But no such allowance seems to have been made for the Indian pariah dog. He has always been on the downhill slope of popular contempt, and it will be long before he can hope to rise. The noble potentialities of his character are ignored Perhaps it is not too fantastical to say that when compared with the English dog the poor Indian outcast is a pagan, a creature without faith." John Lockwood Kipling, Beast and Man in India, 1891 Its easy to imagine Indian cities and villages without the presence of community dogs, unfortunatelythey face immense hostility from many Indians who are not just scared of being bitten, but who see the easy porousness of the streets as a threat to a civilised" way of living. Many gated communities in Delhi and elsewhere model an antiseptic, segregated way of lifeseparate lifts for domestic workers, carpenters, plumbers and dogs, a concerted push to keep their colonies free of vermin, which can include dogs, cats, and even birds in the list of undesirable elements. While there is a clear need to prioritise the safety of children and the elderly, its telling that its only the street dogthankfully we dont use the offensive word pariah" any morethat is singled out as dirty, dangerous and undesirable. Monkeys, snakes, and cows cause as many if not more fatalities, but they are protected by their status as near-divine entities, largely safeguarded from persecution because of their elevated status in Hindu myths and legends. The community dog becomes a lightning rod for the Indian who struggles to live alongside other species, to work with rather than against the flow of nature. Many experts have warned that nature abhors a vacant space", and that the mass removal of stray dogs will be cruel but also futile. In the absence of dogs, the rat population and monkey population is likely to increase, since theyll face less competition over garbage dumps and similar food resources. But this is the practical argument for tackling rising populations of stray dogs through consistent and mass-scale vaccinations and sterilisations. Its worth noting that it has been done by Bhutan, where the government tackled the issue head on, drawing in de-suups (community volunteers) across the entire country to sterilise over 150,000 dogs. It took 14 years, and required a massive effort from the people as well as from vets and doctorsbut in 2023, Bhutan announced that it had become the first country in the world to sterilise and vaccinate its entire free-roaming dog population. View Full Image Artwork from the book My City, My Dogs, written by Abodh Aras, illustrated by Sumedha Sah, with photographs by Hashim Badani The prejudice against street dogs can be unreasonable, strong and viciousmuch like the prejudice that forms when particular human communities are singled out because of their caste, religion or migrant status to receive the full force of hatred or bigotry. But try to imagine cities and towns without Indias strays silent streets, no warning barks at night in residential colonies to alert us to thieves, none of the joy of watching dogs tear around to play on beaches and in maidans. The poorest and most vulnerable in our big, often lonely, cities would lose their companionsits telling how often you see dogs comfortably curled up near thela-wallas, sleeping with the homeless, or offered a blanket and the right to sleep in the doorways of small shops or at the istriwallas stall. The flow of dogs on to the streets would not stop even if you picked up every single straythe greatest addition to the population of street dogs comes from us, from humans who abandon pets because they are too inconvenient to look after or too expensive to maintain. Breeders callously dump bitches used, abused and made to bear litter after litter on the streets; pet owners often choose to dump a cardboard box of puppies on a backroad or in rubbish heaps rather than go to the trouble and expense of spaying their own dogs. What well be left with is empty spaces, on the streets, and in our hearts. No bellies offered for a long, slow scratching session, no dogs cheerfully leaping over barricades during a protest, or hitching a lift in an empty cycle-rickshaw. Entire neighbourhoods would turn themselves into vigilantes, policing the roads for any hapless dog who did manage to drift across from nearby states, and the growing networks of volunteers and caregivers would be left bereft, with a permanent ache in their hearts. ***** The dog liked to escort people around or visit them at home. Elango was resigned to the fact that Chinna was given to going door to door and resting a while at each, until someone came out with a bite to eat. The dog never begged, he sat at the doorstep as if contemplating the world, serene in the certainty that he was irresistible." ~ The Earthspinner, Anuradha Roy Dogs have an affinity with writers and artists. The late Vinod Mehta was loved by Nizamuddins strays, and adopted one, who famously became the editors Editor. Manjit Bawa and Nandalal Bose both painted dogs, dancing, alert, friendly. Arundhati Roy shares her home with rescued friends, Maati ke Lal and Begum Filthy Jaan; the writer and artist Anuradha Roy has a posse of Ranikhet dogs who roam on to her pottery and into her books. In a reflective essay, the poet and novelist Tishani Doshi wrote about the dogs who lived on the threshold between the wild and the tame. They were free agents who we had sterilised and vaccinated but they chose where to sleep and who to follow. The dogs roamed with us on our walks, and when we were back inside the house, it was the dogs that reminded us of the wildness still out there." Street dogs cannot curse, unlike their mythical mother Sarama, but they can teach us how to live with warmth, and how to open our hearts, rather than bolt and lock those doors. As many animal welfare experts have suggested, we could dial down the fury and work on scientific solutions. If we have lived in such close proximity for roughly 12,000 years, we can manage another century or two with some thoughtful planning. Ask the stray dogs of Delhi; they are the experts when it comes to adapting and coexistence. Perhaps the one thing that unites an argumentative, politically polarised nation is, surprisingly, the love of dogs. I understand that not everyone will be lucky enough to feel that love. Nothing in our hotly contested educational curriculae teaches us a basic truth: that we are part of a web of interconnected species. The lesson of Indias free-roaming dogs is simply that you cannot visit active harm on one part of the web without harming yourself. Nilanjana S. Roy is the author of The Wildings duology and Black River. Its hard to imagine that Bombay (now Mumbai) once came to a screeching halt over stray dogs. Almost 200 years ago, this city shut shop, marched in the streets, and very nearly brought the East India Company to its knees. All because the administration tried to mess with the citys stray dogs. In the summer of 1832, when the fear of cholera had affected port cities worldwide, the British administration, ever fond of order and overreaction, decided that the citys stray dogs were a menacedisease-ridden, aggressive, and far too free-roaming. So, they passed a decree: from 15 May to 15 October, any unclaimed dog could be killed, and a bounty would be paid for each carcass. In doing this, they effectively drew a line between bounty hunters and dog lovers. After all, sowing division was an Empire-building move patented by the British. They couldnt have imagined disagreement coming from the largely even-tempered Parsis, for whom reverence for dogs is stitched deep into their faith. At Zoroastrian funerals, the sagdid or dogs gaze is a ritual that involves bringing a dog near the corpse. The dogs presence is believed to repel evil forces that could disturb the souls journey to the afterlife. Parsis see dogs as sacred guardians of the threshold between life and death. And so, the decree was considered sacrilegious. Dogcatchers, emboldened by the bounty and the law, began dragging away beloved street dogs, many of which had names and lived in the vicinity of Parsi homes and fire temples. On 6 June 1832, tensions boiled over. In the Fort area, a group of Parsis confronted the dogcatchers, and a riot followed. The British, used to deferential nods, were stunnedBombays Parsis had gone from soft-spoken merchants and shipbuilders to street fighters. Other communities joined the protest. Trade ground to a halt. Water and food supplies to the British garrison were blocked. Crowds gathered outside government buildings, demanding that the decree be scrapped. The British, unused to uprisings in their model port", panicked. A regiment was called in. A few dozen protesters were arrested. But the authorities quickly realised this wasnt political subversion. This was more dangerous to colonial control: moral outrage backed by a united city. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed. Prominent Parsi businessmen, skilled in the art of negotiation, met with the colonial administration. An agreement was reached. The culling would stop, and strays would be relocated outside Bombay. It wasnt perfect, but it stopped the killing. The arrested protesters were released. The shutters went up. And in some Parsi neighbourhoods, dogs were fed special treats and garlandedor so the communitys elders still say. The Bombay Dog Riots of 1832 is an important footnote in history when faith and respect for animals went up against the might of a colonial power. The whole affair lasted only a few days, but left paw prints on the citys history. Bombays street dogs still weave between traffic, sleep under shop counters, and in Parsi colonies and baugs they are well-fed, vaccinated, sterilised, named and loved. And they still inspire fierce loyalty in the people who care for them. Rishad Saam Mehta is an electronics engineer-turned-travel writer, based in Mumbai. Relay Tom (Riz Ahmed) is a fixer who brokers payoffs between corporations and potential whistleblowers. However, when a client, Sarah (Lily James), finds herself in mortal danger, Tom has to decide whether to maintain his shadowy profile or put himself at risk and help her. This 2024 film is directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) and also stars Sam Worthington. (In theatres) John Cena returns as Peacemaker. Peacemaker Peacemaker, now in its second season, is standard comic book anti-hero fare thats elevated to uproarious heights. It stars John Cena as the eponymous superhero, whose ongoing quest to be a better human is at odds with his job as a killing machine. Cena has excellent comic timing as the uptight hero, with a supporting cast that includes Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Chukwudi Iwuji and, this season, Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr. Showrunner James Gunn, now in charge of steering DC back to glory, clearly enjoys the chance to direct a R-rated series, with filthy language and gratuitous violence, but also his weirdly moving group dynamics. (JioHotstar) A still from 'The Thursday Murder Club'. The Thursday Murder Club A group of senior citizens band together to solve a murder in this British crime comedy. Watch this one for the cast: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie as the sleuths, supported by Jonathan Pryce, David Tennant, Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant. Directed by Chris Columbus (Home Alone) and based on the novel of the same name by Richard Osman. (Netflix) A still from 'A Hero'. Google Pay has joined with L&T Finance to offer personal loan products to eligible users, the NBFC announced on Thursday. This partnership to give personal loans is in line with L&T Finance's product diversification strategy and makes loans more accessible for customers in a swift, seamless, and digital manner, L&T Finance said in a statement. The synergy is set to not only increase convenience but also play a significant role in advancing digital financial inclusion across India, empowering consumers to fulfil their financial aspirations with responsible credit, it said. Also Read | 5 common reasons to apply for a personal loan Personal loan A personal loan is unsecured borrowing, which is typically given based on the borrower's creditworthiness. These loans have a higher rate of interest simply because they are disbursed without having to give something as collateral. Lately, a number of payment services have joined hands with financial entities to roll out personal loans on their apps. This collaboration between Google Pay and L&T is quite similar to such tie-ups. In another news, IndusInd Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), a Government of India enterprise under the Ministry of MSMEs. Through this strategic collaboration, the bank will work towards accelerating credit delivery and extending comprehensive financial support to over 6.7 crore Udyam-registered Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country, IndusInd Bank said in a statement on Thursday. Also Read | Loan against credit card vs personal loan: 6 key factors to help you choose Under the MoU, the bank will extend customised banking solutions to MSMEs associated with NSIC, including working capital, term loans, and structured credit facilities. A tax consultant from Navi Mumbai was allegedly cheated of 1.35 crore by four people who promised to arrange a loan for him for a construction project, reported PTI. Before they could send a team for inspection for the approval of loan, they asked the loan seeker to send money towards processing fee". But as it turned out, neither did he receive any loan nor did he get the money back. What is the modus operandi? The 33-year-old complainant had applied for a loan to set up his firm and paid 1.35 crore as the processing fee. The company that collected this money was supposed to send a team for inspection before the loan disbursal, but as it turned out, this did not happen. Also Read | 7 important things to know before taking a personal loan Meanwhile, such cases are not uncommon. Several loan seekersbig and smalltend to fall into the trap of fraudsters in pursuit of a loan. Here, we share some useful tips that borrowers are advised to follow to protect their money. 4 money lessons one can learn from this incident I. Traditional players: There are a dime a dozen traditional players, such as banks and non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs). Ideally, one should approach them for a loan unless there is some unique situation, such as a lack of a credit report or a poor credit score. II. Everything should be on paper: Another thing to be careful about is putting everything in writing. Before any money moves from one account to another, there should be a proper loan agreement between borrower and lender. Also Read | 5 tips to improve your eligibility for high-value personal loans III. Processing fee is deducted: Typically, lenders deduct the processing fee from the loan money before disbursal. This fee does not need to be paid separately in advance for loan approval, as happened in the case mentioned here. IV. Say no to unauthorised agents: There are several agents of financial institutions who facilitate the approval of loans in return for commission. One should make sure to say no to any of these unauthorised agents. However slow the process is, one should stick to the formal channel instead of approaching through an unauthorised agent. Mumbai, Aug 22 (PTI) To encourage greater participation of women in mutual funds, markets regulator Sebi is planning to introduce additional incentives for investments by first-time female investors, its chief Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Friday. "Financial inclusion will remain incomplete unless women are equally represented," Pandey said at an event organised by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). "...We are thus also envisaging to introduce an additional distribution incentive for investments from first-time women investors," he added. He said that Sebi is taking a series of measures to facilitate and encourage the industry, and one such recent proposal is to incentivise distributors for investments from first-time individual investors in B30 cities (tier 2 and tier 3 cities). The move will not only bring new participants into the fold but also extend the reach of mutual funds into underrepresented regions, contributing to deeper financial inclusion. Also, to provide greater flexibility for product innovation, improve clarity and address the issue of overlap in the portfolio of schemes, Pandey said Sebi is reviewing the categorisation of mutual fund schemes. Based on the feedback received from the consultation process, next steps will be taken, he added. "These measures are expected to facilitate the industry to become more transparent and investor-friendly," Sebi chairman said. Recently, Sebi, as part of its ease of doing business and compliance simplification measures, has reviewed reports and filings submitted by mutual funds. Based on the review, the regulator has decided to discontinue the requirement of filing over 52 reports, notices and addendums with it by the asset management companies (AMCs). A school in Delhi's Dwarka Sector 7 received a bomb threat on Friday morning, making it the fourth such incident this week. Delhi Police and the Fire Department were at the spot, news agency ANI reported. On Thursday, around 100 schools in the national capital received bomb threats through e-mail. Police sources had said the threats were issued by 'Terrorizers 111', the same group that sent similar threats to city schools on Monday and Wednesday. "We are Terrorizers111 and ViLE group. We planted bombs all over your building and every major ward, pipe bombs, chemical devices, timers in ICUs, operation threatres, maternity wards, emergency exits, and admin offices ready to rip everything apart. "We hacked all your IT systems, we breached in kodex portal and EDR'd every staff members and breached in LEEP portal, used it as a weapon to gather everyone's information. We know where you all live, when this building blows up and blood shatters next are homes of every staff member. We got your schedules, your security codes, everything," the mail read. It added, "Terrorizers 111 and ViLE don't forgive, don't forget, the warnings will appear only in your head when the silence breaks." On Thursday, officials had said that schools receiving bomb threat emails included Aakash Public School, Andhra School in Prasad Nagar, Crescent Public School, Blue Bells International School, BGS International School, Rao Man Singh School, Convent School, Max Fort School, and Indraprastha International School, Dwarka, among others Police teams along with firemen and bomb disposal squads rushed to the premises immediately after being informed about the threats. On Monday, 32 schools across Delhi received similar threats, which later turned out to be a hoax. The Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill and two related bills, which allow removal of elected representatives on serious criminal charges, are politically motivated, badly drafted and are a recipe for political chaos, says a top constitutional expert. "I feel that the bill is totally unnecessary, as there are enough safeguards in place for elected representatives. It is badly conceived and drafted. The principal target of the bill is opposition chief ministers and politicians, PD Thankappan Acharya, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha said. Also Read | Narendra Modi backs NDA bills on PM, CM removal While on the face of it, it sounds good that corrupt politicians have no moral right to continue in office, in the present circumstances, a deeper examination of the bill is needed, he said. "A corrupt politician should be punished. But if you go deeper, it is not so simple. Political vendetta is a reality in the country. The whole idea of a CM or politicians becoming vulnerable, can create instability in the system, Acharya, former Secretary General of the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha and the Lok Sabha Secretariat, told this reporter. According to him, chief ministers have been arrested in the past but this bill is clearly a weapon in the hands of the Centre. It is not difficult to file cases against politicians and frame them by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). A politician can be held or detained for 30 days, as prescribed in the bill, after which his or her fate is sealed. Acharya said that a politician detained under EDs Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 - even if he or she is not involved in a financial transaction can be ruined. ``In the Indian justice system, often, lower courts as well as the High Courts, will back the prosecutions case. By the time, it reaches the Supreme Court level for higher appeal, and depending upon the bench at the apex court, a decision would be given. It could take several years, by which time, the politician will face ruination and be in no position to contest and fight, Acharya said. Opposition and ruling party MPs exchanged barbs in the Lok Sabha on August 20 over the governments claim of bringing in political morality through three new bills allowing the removal of elected representatives arrested on serious criminal charges and held in custody without bail for more than 30 days. As the bills were introduced, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Congress leader KC Venugopal engaged in a sharp spat over the formers arrest in 2010, while he was Home Minister of Gujarat. Acharya said that the inclusion of the Prime Minister in this list is no more than a subterfuge. `'Everyone knows this. Who is going to prosecute the PM. This bill is politically motivated, badly drafted and a recipe for political chaos. In addition, he said the bill was poorly drafted. ``There is no concept of a maximum or minimum punishment under the law, as it should be. It is unclear when the bill states that punishment can be extended beyond five years. What does it mean? No legal mind has been applied, and it is a harmful piece of legislation, Acharya said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated Asia's widest six-lane, 1.86-km-long Aunta-Simaria bridge, constructed at a cost of over 1,870 crore, on the Ganga river. It will connect Aunta Ghat in Patna districts Mokama with Simaria in Begusarai. The 34-metre-wide state-of-the-art bridge is now the widest extradosed cable-stayed flyover in India and one of the most modern in Asia. Union Minister Giriraj Singh hailed the project as a milestone in Bihars development. Also Read | Published names of 65 Lakh excluded voters: EC to SC ahead of hearing today He also said that the bridge complements other central projects such as the NTPC plant and the new fertiliser unit in Begusarai. 5 key features of Aunta-Simaria bridge 1-The Aunta-Simaria bridge is 1.86 km long and 34 metres wide. It is built on National Highway 31 on the Ganga river, parallel to the Rajendra Setu. Its segment lengths are 57115 metres with cantilever arms up to 70 metres. 2-The six-lane bridge will reduce travel time and distance by up to 100 km, especially for freight carriers. Earlier, they had to take longer routes due to the closure of Rajendra Setu for heavy vehicles. The bridge will benefit the people of Begusarai, Supaul, Madhubani, Purnea, and Araria in the north, and Patna, Sheikhpura, Nawada, and Lakhisarai in the south. 3-The bridge would prove a catalyst for economic development in Bihar. Industrial hubs such as Barauni would see smoother transport of goods, logistics costs will reduce, and farmers, especially makhana growers of north Bihar, will get quicker access to the markets. Also Read | On Bihar SIR, SC allows excluded voters to submit claims with Aadhaar 4-The briidge construction could be completed only after overcoming engineering challenges as the entire stretch lies in a flood-prone, low-lying zone. Civil engineers used modern extra-dosed technology to ensure durability and smoother movement of vehicles. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has submitted before the Supreme Court that it has published the booth-wise list of nearly 65 lakh voters whose names are missing from the draft rolls, along with reasons for their exclusion. in compliance with the courts directions on transparency in Bihars electoral roll revision. The move comes ahead of today's crucial hearing on petitions alleging large-scale deletions during the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. The top courts two-judge bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is scheduled to hear the matter at 2 PM. Also Read | Supreme Court to rule on relocation of stray dogs in Delhi-NCR today That in light of the order passed by this Honble Court, the booth-wise list of about 65 lakh persons whose names do not appear in the Draft electoral Roll has been published on the website of all 38 District Election Officers in the State of Bihar, along with reasons for their non-inclusion in the Draft Electoral Roll, i.e., whether it is on account of death, shifting of ordinary residence or duplicate entries, the poll body said in its affidavit submitted on Thursday, as reported by Hindustan Times. Supreme Court in its 14 August interim order had directed the Election Commission to place the names of all excluded voters in the public domain by 19 August, with details of whether the omission was due to death, migration, duplication, or other reasons. The SC had asked the poll panel to display the lists in EPIC-based searchable format on the websites of all district electoral officers and the states chief electoral officer, as well as at panchayat and block offices. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in poll-bound Bihar has snowballed into a political flashpoint. The opposition INDIA bloc has alleged that the revision could disenfranchise millions of legitimate voters, fearing its replication elsewhere in the country, which would allegedly benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Supreme Court on Friday, August 22, ordered re-release of all stray dogs from shelters in Delhi-NCR after vaccination and also imposed a ban on feeding them on public streets. Banning public feeding spots, the Supreme Court stressed that such acts often lead to public nuisance and safety concerns, PTI reported. It further directed that individuals found feeding strays in the open will face action under the relevant legal provisions. On August 14, a three-judge special bench consisting of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria reserved its order in the matter. Stray dogs case: Top 10 takeaways from Supreme Court's order Feeding Areas: Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) should create feeding areas in municipal wards. Under no condition feeding of stray dogs permitted, if violated they will be proceeded under law, the apex court said, according to LiveLaw. 2. Vaccination: The court observed that dogs will be re-released following vaccination, except those infected with rabies or showcasing aggressive behaviour. 3. Notice boards: Notice boards to be put near designated feeding areas stating that stray dogs shall only be fed in such areas, as per a PTI report citing the order. 4. Helpline number: MCD to create helpline number for violation cases. 5. Legal action: If public servant is obstructed during their work, they will be liable. Each NGO/Animal lovers should proceed to pay 2 lakh and 25,000, respectively, the court added. 6. ABC rules: We broaden the scope pan-India. We issue notice to Animal Husbandries, States, UTs, Secretaries to take information for compliance of ABC Rules, LiveLaw quoted the court as saying. 7. Registry seek information from all High Courts where petitions are pending on similar issue. Henceforth, it will be transferred to this Court, it observed. Also Read | Full list of changes in new Supreme Court order on stray dogs 8. Centre's rules: The apex court stated that the Centre's Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023 will be continuing for now. 9. Pending cases: All pending cases in High Courts in the country will be transferred to the Supreme Court, it noted. Stray Dogs in Delhi-NCR: Following the Supreme Court order modifying its August 11 order, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has begun the process of identifying areas that can be designated as feeder points to feed stray dogs. The Supreme Court on Friday modified its direction prohibiting the release of vaccinated stray dogs from shelters in Delhi-NCR and ordered the canines to be released post-sterilisation and de-worming. In its order, it also directed municipal authorities to create dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs in each municipal ward. Persons found feeding dogs on streets in violation of its directions would face punishment, the top court added. MCD Standing Committee Chairperson Satya Sharma chaired a meeting with officials to review the stray dog situation and chalk out an action plan in line with the court's orders. Additionally, in line with the SC order, the Corporation also began working on a proposal for setting up a dog shelter in Dwarkas Sector 29 and Bela Road, where aggressive dogs can be kept. "There is ample space at both these sites, along with ABC (animal birth control) centres and kennels. In our previous order, we were already focusing on the ferocious dogs," the official said. During the meeting, Sharma asked officials to identify and list suitable areas that can be designated as feeding points for dogs, in line with the apex court's ban on giving canines food in public places. She directed officials to prepare a "concrete action plan" for large-scale sterilisation of stray dogs and to ensure arrangements for keeping aggressive and rabies-infected dogs in shelter homes. Sharma also stressed the need for coordination with animal welfare groups and NGOs for the care and rehabilitation of strays. "The action plan must be implemented in a time-bound manner so that the top court's orders are strictly complied with, while also ensuring both public safety and animal welfare," she said. Sharma underlined that the MCD is working towards a permanent solution to the stray dog issue and will adopt a "holistic approach" that balances animal welfare with public health. "Our objective is not limited to population control of dogs alone but to adopt an approach that safeguards both citizens and animals," she added. US State Department confirmed on Wednesday, that over 55 million US visa holders and applicants are facing fresh scrutiny, as the Trump administration ramps up its immigration crackdown. The US Embassy in India had further issued a warning on X, stating that a person's authorised period of stay is the Admit Until Date on the I-94, and not the visa expiration date. Barely a day later, US tightened the rules further, announcing it would halt visa issuance for truck drivers after an Indian truck driver was charged with killing three people on a highway in Florida while making an illegal U-turn. So what exactly is this 'Admit Until Date' that determines your authorised period of stay'? How to know if you are overstaying? Mint explains. 1. What is Admit Until Date? The Admit Until Date printed on the I-94 form is the official end date of a person's authorised stay in the US. This date is determined and stamped by a CBP (Customs and Border Protection) officer when a person enters the country. It is a hard end date written in dd/mm/yy format in the I-94 form. Also Read | Amid US visa delays under Trump administration, students turn to UK and Asia The I-94 Arrival/Departure Record is an official record issued by the US Customs and Border Protection, which mentions the date of entry, Admit Until Date, class of admission such as F-1, H-1B, besides the record holder's name and passport details. Admit Until Date on I-94 form 2. What is overstay? Staying in the United States beyond the Admit Until Date which controls how long you are legally allowed to stay in the US, is called an overstay. Overstaying in the US could result in a visa revocation, possible deportation, and ineligibility for future visas, as per the US Embassy in India's latest warning. For instance, if your Admit Until Date is 04/01/2026, it means that you cannot stay in the US beyond January 4, 2026. If you do so, it will be considered as overstaying. 3. How Admit Until Date differs from visa expiration date? Visa Expiration Date Admit Until Date Is shown on your visa stamp in your passport. Shown in the I-94 form, governed by CBP upon entry Indicates how long one can use the visa to request entry into the US, not how long you can stay Determines how long a person is legally allowed to remain in the US, even if visa has not expired For instance, your visa stamp is valid until 2027, but your I-94 lists 04/01/2026 as Admit Until Date, you need to leave or apply for an extension before the 2026 date. Remaining in the US beyond that date without the application, and necessary steps will mean overstaying. On Reddit, a 21-year-old man shared a troubling experience near the Mata Bahuchar temple in Becharaji, Mahesana, Gujarat. He said he was walking back to his hotel when a car stopped in the middle of the road. Mind you, I'm a guy, the Reddit poster wrote. A man stepped out, came at him angrily and shouted about his clothes. The youngster was wearing shorts (half-lowers). The stranger said such dress was not allowed there, claimed our maa-behen (mothers and sisters) live here. According to the man, he never wears shorts even at home. He then threatened to beat him and boasted that the police could do nothing. He flashed an army-style tag from his car and bragged about having beaten 150 people. It happened about 200 metres from a police station. Far from home, the young man felt scared and helpless. This is the mindset? This is culture? And we talk about progress in India? With people policing clothes, making threats in broad daylight, and flexing about being above the law and being kattarbhakts? the young man wondered. Honestly, I dont see how progress is even possible with this kind of thinking, he added. Social media reactions A Reddit user wrote that the same thing had happened to him as well, though in a different city. He loudly told the man that, if seeing his legs was making him uncomfortable, he should simply not look. I could see the hint of anger in his eyes but I was so ready to leg kick the hell out of his leg and give him a lifetime limp, the user wrote. Thank you, Gujarat. The model state of India, came a sarcastic comment. Another posted, This is how a girl feels whenever someone stares or anything aunty gossips about them. Progress in India is only on paper, came from another. Some other social media did not empathise much with the OP as they thought he should have stood up for himself. Should've taken your shorts off and asked if that would feel more convenient for his wrote one Reddit user. Bhai, itna isme dum hota to (If he really had that much courage, he would have either filed a complaint with the police or given him a few punches right there), replied another. One user pointed out the mind you, Im a guy comment by the OP. A Zomato employee has alleged that the company is engaging in unethical removals of staff, claiming that employees are being terminated without due process or consideration of personal circumstances. Shashank Shukla, who joined Zomato in February this year, shared the allegations in a LinkedIn post. This is to bring into your notice that Zomato is ongoing with unethical behaviour against employees of the organisation. I am a part of the organisation and would like to confirm that unethical removals of employees are going on here without even consent of employees, he wrote. In the post, Shukla further stated that employees family or personal situations were not taken into account before termination. No matter what the situation is within your family, no one will understand and they will take action against you. They will fire you out and there is no action taken against upper management regarding their unethical behaviour, he added. He also mentioned that he had escalated his concerns internally over email before making them public on LinkedIn. Mint reached out to Zomato for a comment on the matter. The company declined to respond. Internet reacts A user wrote, Go dude, hunt for more jobs ! These posts aren't going to help you out! Best of Luck !! Another user wrote, Sorry to hear about your situation Shashank Shukla its truly unfortunate when personal challenges collide with professional realities. But this is also a wake-up call for all of us: the corporate world, more often than not, operates with its own priorities. Bosses /companies rarely pause to consider whats happening in our homes or what boils in our kitchens. It just needs to deliver food to its customers. It may feel unfair, but its the reality we need to acknowledge. Also Read | Zomato's Deepinder Goyal sharply reacts to Trump tariffs on India Six people died at a dairy on the Colorado plains from an apparent accident involving exposure to gas, authorities said Thursday. The dead are all male and Hispanic, said Jolene Weiner, chief deputy coroner for Weld County. Their identities were being withheld pending notification of the families. We are investigating these deaths as the possible consequence of gas exposure in a confined space, Weiner said. Autopsies are planned and investigators are looking into what kind of gases may have played a role in the deaths. The dairy, Prospect Valley Dairy, is located along a rural road near Keenesburg, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) northeast of Denver. Crews entered a confined space at the dairy on Wednesday and recovered the bodies, the Southeast Weld Fire Protection District said. Weld County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Melissa Chesmore said her agency didn't find anything criminal in nature. It looks like an accident, she said. She didn't elaborate on the nature of the emergency or say where exactly the bodies were found, referring questions to occupational safety regulators. Chauntra Rideaux, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson, said in an email that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was investigating and more information would be available after it's complete. Dairy Farmers of America said a tragic accident occurred at a member farm in Keenesburg that resulted in the deaths of six people. "We are deeply saddened by this incident, and our thoughts and most sincere condolences go out to the friends and families of the deceased. At this early stage, we have no further details, the cooperative of dairy farmers said in a statement. County tax records say the property is owned by Prospect Valley Dairy LLC and list a Bakersfield, California, address for the owners. Phone messages left for a number at the California address were not immediately returned. County records indicate the farm has a dairy milking parlor 32,500 square feet (3,000 square meters) in size. It also has two free stall barns, one built in 2017 that is more than 450,000 square feet (nearly 42,000 square meters) and another built last year that is more than 100,000 square feet (more than 9,000 square meters). ___ (Bloomberg) -- Embattled Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was freed by a Tennessee court so he can return to his home state of Maryland while he fights US human smuggling charges. Abrego Garcia became a face of the Trump administrations crackdown on immigrants after he was deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador despite a court order barring his removal to that country. He was charged after being returned to the US in a high-profile immigration battle. On Friday, US Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville ordered that Abrego Garcia be released into the third-party custody of his brother as part of his release deal. Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia to report to pre-trial officials in Maryland by the morning of Aug. 25. He also agreed to submit to electronic location monitoring. Abrego Garcias lawyers said in a filing earlier this month that they were working with a private security firm to transport him to Maryland so that he is supervised while traveling from Tennessee. Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. By ordering this monster loose on Americas streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country. In Fridays ruling, the judge said that in the event Abrego Garcia is detained by immigration authorities upon his return to Maryland, he should have physical and phone access to his attorneys so he can prepare for his trial. The decision comes nearly a month after the judge ruled that Abrego Garcia need not remain in custody while he fights the criminal case, and a Maryland judge granted his request to block federal immigration agents from arresting him once hes freed. After Abrego Garcias erroneous deportation, the US Supreme Court ordered the administration to facilitate his return, which the White House initially balked at. He was eventually returned, but only to face charges that he illegally transported undocumented immigrants within the country. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com A federal judge on Thursday blocked the administration of US President Donald Trump and the state of Florida from transferring any new detainees to a remote migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, commonly referred to as Alligator Alcatraz. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams also ordered parts of the facility to be dismantled as current detainees are relocated, according to a court filing from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Reuters reported. The judge ruled in favor of environmental groups who argued that the detention facility poses a threat to the Everglades ecosystem and its wildlife. The judge said that she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days through the transferring of the detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote that the state and federal defendants can't bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property. The order does not prohibit modification or repairs to existing facilities, which are solely for the purpose of increasing safety or mitigating environmental or other risks at the site," she said, as reported by the Associated Press. The preliminary injunction includes those who are in active concert or participation with the state of Florida or federal defendants or their officers, agents, employees," the judge wrote in an 82-page order. The judge said state officials never explained sufficiently why the facility needed to be in the middle of the Florida Everglades. What is apparent, however, is that in their haste to construct the detention camp, the State did not consider alternative locations, Williams said. Attorneys representing both the environmental groups behind the lawsuit and the state and federal governments did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment late Thursday. President Donald Trump visited the facility last month, praising it as a potential model for similar detention centers across the country, as his administration accelerates efforts to expand detention infrastructure to support a rise in deportations. Environmental groups, along with the Miccosukee Tribe, argued that construction and continued operations at the detention site should be halted until federal and state authorities comply with environmental regulations. Their lawsuit claims the facility endangers sensitive wetlands that are home to protected species and risks undermining billions of dollars invested in Everglades restoration efforts, AP reported. The legal battle unfolded as the administration of Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis was reportedly planning the construction of a second immigration detention center at a Florida National Guard training site in the northern part of the state. Why Alcatraz Prison Remains One of the Most Controversial Prisons? Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, perched on a rocky island in the San Francisco Bay, has long captivated the public imagination, not just for its dramatic setting, but for the deep controversies that surround its history. Operated from 1934 to 1963, the prison was designed to hold the most dangerous criminals in the United States. One of the primary reasons Alcatraz is considered controversial is the harsh treatment of inmates. Prisoners were subjected to extreme isolation, strict discipline, and a near-total lack of rehabilitation programmes. Many were kept in solitary confinement cells for days or weeks at a time, often in complete darkness. Critics argue that such treatment amounted to psychological torture, far beyond the standards of modern correctional ethics. White House recently threw its press secretary Karoline Leavitt a surprise birthday bash, and one present may have broken Donald Trumps buy-American push. The POTUS has spent years, repeatedly urging Americans to shun foreign goods in favour of homegrown products. But when his press secretary blew out her candles this week, it was not just the part decor that caught everyone's eye one gift looked unmistakably French a Louis Vuitton handbag. Trump's tariff tantrums have waged a global trade war, after the POTUS went on slapping tariffs on imports from longtime allies in a bid to tilt trade in favour of American companies. Louis Vuitton as its name already suggests isn't on the Buy American list. Karoline Leavitt's birthday present On Thursday, Karoline Leavitt, who turns 28 this Sunday, walked into a room full of balloons and several gifts arranged on a chair. Among the several presents, one appeared to be a gift bag from French designer brand Louis Vuittoneasily recognisable by its saffron-colored paper and dark blue handles, mentioned a report by Daily Beast. One of the birthday gifts for Karoline Leavitt In a video shared on Instagram by Trump adviser Margo Martin, Leavitt walks into a room decked out with balloons and gifts, blushing as staffers serenade her with Happy Birthday. Laughing, she exclaims, This is so embarrassing, as the crowd cheers. Impact of Trump's tariffs on Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton, a luxury brand is owned by LVMH, a French luxury goods conglomerate based in Paris and chaired by French billionaire Bernard Arnault, who is also a long-time friend of Donald Trump. Also Read | FBI searches former US Security Advisor John Bolton's Maryland house An illegal U-Turn by an alien Indian immigrant truck driver recently could impact the fortunes of the American commercial transport industry. Punjabi truck driver Harjinder Singh carelessly used an Official Use Only segment in the highway to abruptly perform an illegal U-turn at the last second, stretching his trucks trailer across two lanes of highway, resulting in a minivan slamming straight into it, killing the driver and two passengers. The accident took place on 12 August in St. Lucie County, Florida. Also Read | Illegal immigrant Harjinder Singh charged in fatal Florida crash that killed 3 The results have come sooner and more drastically, than expected. US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, tweeted on August 22: Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. It should be considered a body blow for Indian truckers, who have plied their wares in the USA for several years and done so successfully. Singh, who reportedly crossed the US-Mexico border in 2018, had obtained a commercial drivers licence in California, has done what illegal immigrants often do: misuse a law passed in California in 2013 that allows residents to get a drivers licence regardless of their immigration status. The incident has put political rivalries out in the open. Biden administrations push to hire an influx of foreign drivers to fill trucker shortage created dangerously unsafe roadways for Americans, screeched Infowars, an American website. Visa Crackdown Since Trump's inauguration, the State Department has revoked more than twice as many visas compared to the same period in 2024, an official revealed, as the White House seeks to highlight its crackdown on foreign nationals it claims pose risks to public safety, Bloomberg reported. While there are no figures readily available for Indians who are likely to be hit due to this new policy, in the 2025 budget year, 1,490 H-2B visas for truckers were issued. Last year, this number stood at 1,400. According to the North American Punjabi Trucking Association (NAPTA), there were about 30,000 Sikhs in the USAs trucking industry in 2018. That number could have gone up considerably. NAPTA now has an estimated membership of 1,400, owning between them about 9,000 trucks. Its CEO Raman Dhillon told a local magazine that undocumented Indians from Punjab become truck drivers. There is a severe shortage of drivers and Punjabis are filling in that gap, he said. This shortage was best reflected in the views of Brent Allen, an American transport insider, who reacting to Rubios quote, tweeted: Hopefully this driver visa pause will be short term to put in new safeguards like physical exams and driver testing as the US currently has far fewer commercial drivers than are needed for daily commerce. This shortage has benefited the commercial driver with starting salaries. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who arrived in Taipei on Friday, said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) would continue to advance with or without the support of the United States, citing the Trump administration's decision to allow Nvidia to resume sales of a key AI chip designed specifically for China. The Nvidia CEO said he was very grateful after the United States approved export licenses for the company's H2O chips to China, Reuters reported. He said, Ability to ship H20 to China is very much appreciated. Shipping H20 to China Last month, Donald Trump greenlit the sales of the relatively less powerful H20 chip to China after banning it in April amid escalating trade frictions. Huang added, Shipping H20 to China is not a national security concern. Offering a new product to China for AI data centers, the follow-on to H20, is not our decision to make. Trump has justified his decision to lift the trade curb by calling the chip obsolete, as it lags behind the companys cutting-edge AI processors like Blackwell or H100, from which H20 is derived. China's response to the lifted trade curb Huang said, "I told President Trump that AI will advance with or without the US. He added, Hopefully, the response we have given to China will be sufficient. China, on the other hand, is weighing the security risks of Nvidias H20s as US lawmakers have called for adding features like tracking and positioning and remote shutdown in the chips. However, Nvidia denies placing any such features in the H20 chips, CNN reported. Beijing has discouraged domestic companies from using the H20 chip, calling it a security risk. As a result, several Chinese tech firms have either delayed or considerably reduced their H20 chips orders, according to the report. Jensen Huang's visit to China Huang visited Beijing last month and pledged to remain competitive in China despite escalating geopolitical strains with the US. Also Read | China cautions tech firms over Nvidia H20 AI chip purchases, sources say US President Donald Trump on Friday, said he's going to see if Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin could work together, stating that setting up a meeting between the two is hard as mixing oil and vinegar," and the two leaders don't get along too well. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has said he is ready to meet Zelesnky provided all issues relating to the settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev are thoroughly worked out, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, reported RT. Talks of a meeting between Zelensky and Putin come after Donald Trump following his recent talks with the Russian and Ukrainian president suggested that the two leaders should meet one-on-one before a potential trilateral summit with the POTUS. What did Donald Trump say? While cautioning that Putin and Zelensky do not get along very well, Trump however, stated he would rather have the leaders of the rival-locked nations to meet to see how they can work out a settlement to the conflict. Also Read | What Russia wants as peace deal with Ukraine? Vladimir Putin has three demands They don't get along too well for obvious reasons, but we will see and then we will see whether or not I would have to be there. I would rather have them meet to see how they can do it," Trump told reporters in Washington, further reiterating his claims on how he has stopped 7 wars. Putin-Zelensky meet Russian foreign minister Lavrov claimed that Zelensky is pushing for a swift meeting with Putin to remain in the spotlight, adding that he is concerned the international community's attention towards him is declining, reported RT. The foreign minister also highlighted that Zelensky had previously rejected any talks with Putin and had signed a decree in 2022 banning such negotiations, which he has not yet cancelled. Also Read | How Trumps Ukraine peace push stalled out in four days The US announced on Thursday (local time) that it will stop issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday on X. "Effective immediately, we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers," Rubio said. Rubio's statement came days after a violent crash, involving a driver from India, killed three people. The truck driver, Harjinder Singh, was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide. Police said he attempted to make an illegal U-turn through an Official Use Only access point blocking traffic and causing the fatal crash that resulted in the deaths of three people in a minivan that struck the truck. What happens to already-applied worker visas for truckers? The Trumps administration is pausing all issuance of worker visas for foreign truck drivers The US State Department said later Thursday it was pausing the processing of these work visas to review its screening and vetting protocols. A State Department spokesperson said the pause was done in order to conduct a comprehensive and thorough review of screening and vetting protocols used to determine their qualifications for a US visa. Also Read | A little-known test has split automakers and govt on truck fuel rules As per CBS news, the spokesperson noted it "applies to all nationalities and is not directed at any specific country." Foreign truckers in the US are usually working on H-2B visas, the Hill reported. 'Truck drivers must speak English' In June, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a directive that truck drivers must speak English. Truck drivers in the US are required to pass a test for a commercial license that has long included an assessment of whether they are proficient in English on basics such as road signs. The Trump administration in the past months has taken steps to enforce the requirement that truckers speak and read English proficiently. The Transportation Department said the aim is to improve road safety following incidents in which drivers ability to read signs or speak English may have contributed to traffic deaths. 'Commercial truck driver shortage in US' The department did not immediately respond to a question about the number of foreign truck drivers working in the US. Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said foreign workers have helped address a labour shortage of commercial truck drivers. According to the American Trucking Association, a trade group, the industry is facing a shortage of about 60,000 drivers. The number of foreign-born truck drivers in the United States more than doubled between 2000 and 2021 to 720,000, according to federal statistics cited by news agency AFP. So far, in the 2025 budget year, 1,490 H-2B visas for truckers were issued. Last year, the government issued 1,400 such visas, Bloomberg reported. As per reports, foreign-born drivers now make up 18 percent of the industry -- in line with the US labor market as a whole. More than half of the foreign-born drivers come from Latin America with sizable numbers in recent years from India and Eastern European nations, especially Ukraine, according to industry groups. A former Nashville attorney with a history of domestic violence has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend, reported Court TV on Friday. The victim, identified as 46-year-old Miranda Gray, was found dead in her apartment in Nashville on Monday. The accused, identified as 40-year-old Jared Streich, is facing murder charges in the death of Grey after an autopsy confirmed she died from strangulation, said the media report. On Monday, Streich called 911 at 9:30 AM requesting an ambulance, claiming that Gray was unresponsive. Also Read | Woman bank employee in Mumbai frames IT professional friend in rape case According to police, when the officials arrived, they found Gray was dead. On asking how long she had been unresponsive, Streich declined to answer. The authorities noted that Streich had violated bond conditions from a February aggravated assault arrest where he had allegedly threatened Gray with a knife. As per the bond conditions, Streich was banned from visiting Grays residence. The police arrested Streich on Monday night on the bond violation charge while the murder probe is underway. According to court records, Hermitage Precinct officers had arrested the former attorney several times this year on domestic violence-related charges. Streich had worked as an attorney until his licence was suspended earlier this year after complaints unrelated to criminal activity were filed against him, The Tennessean reported. In addition to the February case, which was indicted by a grand jury as domestic assault with an October court date, he was arrested on April 29 on charges of aggravated assault and violating bond conditions, reported Court TV. He was arrested on April 29 on charges of aggravated assault and violating bond conditions. Gray had reported that Streich pushed her head into a closet door and shut a patio door on her arm. Pumpkin spice season is nearly here, and Starbucks fans across the UK and beyond are already asking the annual question: when does the Pumpkin Spice Latte return? When will the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte be back? The answer: soon. Starbucks confirmed last month that the popular autumn drink will be back on menus at the end of August, marking its official return for the 2025 season. First launched in 2003, the Pumpkin Spice Latte or PSL, as it is commonly known has become a seasonal staple for the coffee chain. Its return each year signals the beginning of autumn for many customers, even as summer temperatures still linger. What is in the Pumpkin Spice Latte? The drink, available hot, iced or blended, features Starbucks Signature Espresso, steamed milk, and a special pumpkin spice syrup made with real pumpkin flavour and a mix of seasonal spices including cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. It is topped with whipped cream and a dusting of pumpkin pie spices. Starbucks describes it as its most popular seasonal beverage, and it continues to draw long queues and social media buzz whenever it returns. Dunkin's Pumpkin Spice Latte is here already! While Starbucks is waiting until late August to reintroduce the PSL, rival chain Dunkin has already kicked off its autumn menu. The American coffee and donut brand launched its seasonal offerings on August 20, including its own take on a pumpkin spice latte. Dunkins Pumpkin Spice Signature Latte served hot or iced is made with sweet pumpkin and vanilla flavours, along with warm spices. It is topped with whipped cream, caramel drizzle and cinnamon sugar. In addition, Dunkin has rolled out new items such as a Cereal N Milk Latte, an Iced Pumpkin Loaf, and the latest in its line of drinks inspired by pop star Sabrina Carpenter: the Mixed Berry Daydream Refresher. Other items now available on the Dunkin autumn menu include: Pumpkin Cake Donut Pumpkin Munchkins Donut Hole Treats Kreme Delight Donut (new) Chipotle Loaded Hash Browns (new) Maple Sugar Bacon Chipotle Hash Brown Wake-Up Wrap Ham and Swiss Croissant Stuffer Braided Apple Pie Autumn Arrives Earlier Each Year In a shocking incident in Uttarakhand, a Class 9 student, who was slapped two days earlier for failing to answer a question correctly, returned and shot his teacher at Shri Gurunanak Senior Secondary School on Kundeshwari Road on 20 August. The police said the accused, identified as Samarath Bajwa, hid the pistol in the lunchbox he brought. The staff members caught Bajwa when he was attempting to flee. Gagandeep Singh Kohli, the Physics teacher, was injured in the shoulder, according to reports. He was admitted to a private hospital where an emergency surgery took place. Dr Mayank Agarwal, who is monitoring his treatment, informed that the bullet was taken out, NDTV reported. Case registered The police have filed a case against the minor student under Section 109 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for attempt to murder. The pistol involved has been confiscated, and an investigation is underway to determine how the teenager obtained the weapon. Authorities have confirmed that a further probe into the incident is in progress. Friend and doctors of Jaswinder Bhalla revealed that the actor suffered brain stroke and lost a lot of blood while his treatment was in progress at that time before he passed away on 22 August, Friday. He breathed his last at 4:35 am today, according to doctors. His close friend Bal Mukand Sharma stated that Jaswinder Bhalla suffered a brain stroke on 20 August evening, following which he was moved to Fortis Hospital in Mohali, BBC reported. "He was in a critical condition on admission. He was under the care of the Neurosurgery team and managed on ventilator and cardio supportive drugs for 2 days. In spite of best clinical care and all resuscitative efforts, due to the severity of the illness, he passed away today at 04:35 am," Fortis Hospital's statement read. Bhalla's final rites are scheduled to be held in Mohali on Saturday. Leaders from various political parties expressed their condolences, paying tribute to his dedicated service in public life. Condolences pour in Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also shared his sorrow over Bhalla's passing through a message on X. "The sudden departure of Jaswinder Bhalla Ji from this world is extremely sorrowful. The heart is saddened by the silence of the jingle of Chhankatian. May Waheguru grant him a place at His feet. Chacha Chatar will always reside in our hearts," Mann mentioned. Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warringa also mourned his demise, saying, "Deeply saddened by the passing of Jaswinder Bhalla ji. A proud Punjabi voice around the world, his contribution and love for the community will always be remembered. Heartfelt condolences to his family & admirers," Warring said on X. Also Read | Remembering Jaswinder Bhalla: The comedy legend who ruled Punjabi cinema Who was Jaswinder Bhalla? Bhalla was born on May 4, 1960, in Ludhiana. He completed his BSc (Hons) and MSc from Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, and later earned a PhD in Agricultural Extension. In 1989, Bhalla began his professional journey at PAU as an assistant professor. Over the years, he held various academic roles and was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Extension Education in 2015. After over 30 years of service, he retired from the university in May 2020. Also Read | Who was Jaswinder Bhalla? Popular Punjabi comedian who passed away in Mohali Beyond his academic contributions, Bhalla had a passion for performing. Alongside his colleague Sharma, he entertained audiences at college festivals with comedic sketches. His entry into Punjabi cinema came in 1998 with Dullha Bhatti, followed by Mahaul Theek Hai (1999), a satirical take on the Punjab Police directed by the legendary Jaspal Bhatti. Bhalla was quite prominent among Punjabi audience globally with his art work in the satirical series Chhankata, including movies "Carry on Jatta" and Jatt & Juliet and Sardaar Ji. His role as Advocate Dhillon in Carry on Jatta was particularly well-received. Lines like Kala Kot Avein Nahi Paya and Gandi Aulad Na Majaa Na Swad became instant classics, resonating widely with audiences. Bhallas last appearance on screen was in Shinda Shinda No Papa, a film by Gippy Grewal. At least 18 people died and more than forty were injured on Thursday after two attacks in Colombia attributed to different dissident factions of the former FARC guerrilla group, according to a report by Reuters citing authorities. In Cali, the country's third most populated city, a cargo vehicle with explosives detonated near a Colombian Aerospace Force base, in an incident that left six people dead and 71 injuries, according to the mayor's office. Hours earlier, a National Police Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter participating in a coca leaf crop eradication operation was shot down in the municipality of Amalfi, in the department of Antioquia, leaving 12 officers dead. Colombian President Gustavo Petro blamed the attacks on dissident factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group that rejected a 2016 peace agreement to end a prolonged internal conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead. President Gustavo Petro initially attributed the helicopter attack to the Gulf Clan, Colombias largest active drug cartel, suggesting it was a retaliatory strike following a major cocaine seizure linked to the group. In a post on X, Petro said, This is one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack in Cali with a truck/bomb, captured by the community at the scene of the incident. He is alias Sebastian and belongs to the structures of the EMC, led by alias Marlon, subordinate to the Drug Trafficking Board. Both FARC dissident groups, who refused to sign the 2016 peace deal, and the Gulf Clan are known to operate in the Antioquia region, where the helicopter was downed. Meanwhile, coca leaf cultivation continues to rise in Colombia, with the total area under cultivation reaching a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (This is a developing story) By Laurie Chen and Rozanna Latiff BEIJING/KUALA LUMPUR -Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to attend a major summit of Asian leaders in October, two people familiar with the matter said, dashing expectations of a potential meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the event. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim this month had said both Xi and Trump were expected to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations October 26-28 leaders' summit in Kuala Lumpur. That led analysts to speculate that Trump and Xi, locked in an uneasy trade truce, may have their first in-person encounter of Trump's second term. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who attended another ASEAN summit with Gulf leaders in May, is expected to represent China at the October meeting, two regional sources said, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. The office of Anwar, the current chair of the 10-member bloc, directed queries to Malaysia's foreign ministry, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Xi's attendance. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Anwar told Malaysia's parliament last month Trump had confirmed his attendance at the event during a phone call with the U.S. leader. Trump said earlier this month he will meet Xi before the end of the year if a trade agreement is struck, adding that "we're getting very close to a deal". Aides for both presidents have discussed a possible autumn meeting in Asia around the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea on October 30-November 1, Reuters previously reported. The annual ASEAN summit would mark Trump's first trip to Southeast Asia since his 2019 meeting with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. He is also expected to attend the EC summit. It is rare for Chinese presidents to attend ASEAN summits, with Xi only having joined a 2021 special summit virtually since he gained power in 2012. Attendance by U.S. presidents is also uncommon - Trump attended in 2017, while President Joe Biden joined Xi remotely in 2021. Biden also attended the summit in person in Cambodia the following year. Anwar said this year's annual summit would aim to deliver "ASEAN's largest and most high-profile gathering of world leaders to date", with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa also expected to attend. Washington and Beijing last week extended a tariff truce for another 90 days, staving off triple-digit duties on each other's goods while negotiations continue to address the trade imbalance, market access and rare earths among other issues. Trump's global tariffs offensive has shaken Southeast Asia, a region heavily reliant on exports and manufacturing and in many areas boosted by supply chain shifts from China. Washington announced tariffs of about 19% across major Southeast Asian economies' exports earlier this month, far lower than previously threatened, after the White House had explicitly warned regional countries against so-called transshipment of Chinese goods to the U.S. Former Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday on charges of allegedly misusing state funds, police said. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Sri Lanka arrested Wickremesinghe at its headquarters in Colombo, where he was summoned to record his statement in an investigation against him. The former President of Sri Lanka has been taken into custody and is expected to be produced before the Colombo Fort Magistrate Court shortly. Wickremesinghe, 76, has been accused of misusing state funds during a private trip to England in 2023. Here is all you need to know about the case against Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was arrested by the CID. Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested - What is the case? According to a report by AFP, Ranil Wickremesinghe was taken into custody after CID officials questioned him about a visit to London in September 2023 to attend a convocation ceremony of his wife, Prof Maithree. Also Read | Sri Lanka ex-President Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested We are producing him before the Colombo Fort magistrate, a senior police detective was quoted as saying by AFP, who added that they were pressing charges for using state resources for personal purposes. According to the report, the former Sri Lanka President attended the University of Wolverhampton ceremony with his wife on his way back from Havanna, where he was participating in a G77 meet. Wickremesinghe had earlier maintained that the travel expenses of his wife was made by her and that no state funds were used. However, the CID investigation alleged that the former President used government money for a private visit. He has also been accused of using state-funded bodyguards during the event. Also Read | Sri Lankan rubber exporters press for reduced Trump tariff The CID had previously questioned his staff about the travel expenses. According to a report by Newswire quoted by ANI, former presidential secretary Saman Ekanayake and former private secretary Sandra Perera were questioned in August with link to their alleged role in setting up the visit. The veteran politician is the most senior political figure to face arrest in recent years. The detention of Wickremesinghe is expected to intensify scrutiny over the use of public funds by top officials. Ranil Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa's term, after Rajapaksa stepped down following months of protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement. In a horrific incident, a 75-year-old woman from Manhattan has been accused of biting a 7-year-old girl at a family-friendly concert in the Hamptons as there was tussle over a free t-shirt, reported The Independent. The report stated that the woman Gail Bomze is a luxury Manhattan real estate agent and is a grandmother from New York City. She was arrested at Main Beach in East Hampton Village on Tuesday at 1.25 pm and has been charged with third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child. According to the parents of the child, Gail Bomze was trying to receive a t-shirt that was thrown from a balcony during the Tuesdays at Main Beach concert series. As per the East Hampton Village Police Department, Gail Bomze was accused by an event employee of kicking and punching kids during the t-shirt toss. The young girl alleged Bomze grabbed her right arm and bit it, leaving the child with a swollen, bloodied limb. Following the childs parents called 911, the investigators searched the venue and booked Bomze on misdemeanor charges. She was given an appearance ticket, and was released later. However, Bomze's lawyer, Christopher McGuire, told Page Six, that the suspect categorically denies these allegations. He also said that Bomze was knocked to the ground by a group of teenagers while crowds battled for the freebie. This left her sore and injured. He added that on reporting Bomze's concerns to the East Hampton Village Foundation, they apologized and pledged to implement changes to improve the concerts safety. Meanwhile, chief executive of the East Hampton Village Foundation Bradford Billet claimed it was the first reported incident at the concert for more than five seasons. We strongly condemn this alleged, isolated incident, Billet added. About Bomze: Bomze is an award-winning real estate agent, known for selling New York Citys most exclusive homes and featured in an episode of Bravos Million Dollar Listing. She left her career in HR to become a licensed real estate salesperson in 2003. Her brokered standout deals such as a $21.8 million Park Avenue townhouse and the $4.1 million sale of talk show host Geraldo Riveras 89th Street apartment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, August 21, that he visited the Gaza Division to approve the Israeli Defence Force's plans to seize control of Gaza City and defeat Hamas. He added that he had also instructed officials to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all hostages and to work toward ending the war under terms acceptable to Israel. "I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the defense minister for taking control of Gaza City and for defeating Hamas," Netanyahu said. "At the same time, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and for ending the war under conditions acceptable to Israel," he added. The announcement by Netanyahu came several days after Hamas said it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would see half of the hostages released and kick off talks to end the war and free the rest. This also came just as Netanyahu has approved the plans for the military takeover of the Gaza city. Although Jerusalem had earlier approved the framework, Netanyahu has now insisted that Israel will halt fighting only as part of a comprehensive deal covering all 50 remaining captives. It remains unclear whether his Thursday remarks signaled any real shift in the negotiations. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office told Times of Israel that there were no immediate plans to dispatch an Israeli delegation, while a senior official later clarified that envoys would be sent once a venue for the talks was decided. The deal pushed by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, would commit the terror group to release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 of the slain hostages in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. It was proposed that during the ceasefire, talks would begin for a permanent end to the war and the release of the remaining 22 hostages, Times of Israel reported. Israel had earlier approved a similar framework but has yet to respond to the offer. Netanyahu has not rejected the framework leaving open the possibility of both a negotiated settlement and a military escalation. A man in southern China accidentally exposed his extramarital affair to his wife. The incident took place at a Dashenlin Pharmacy in Yangjiang, Guangdong province. The man tried to secretly buy birth control pills, but the payment failed. He attempted to pay 15.8 yuan (about 200) using his mobile code. But, due to a system error, the transaction did not go through. To recover the amount, staff used the number linked to his membership card. The call went to his wife, who was then told the purchase was for contraceptive pills. This exposed his affair immediately, the South China Morning Post reported. The man now claims that the mistake by the pharmacy led to the collapse of two families. He blamed the store for revealing personal details. The duration of his marriage or affair has not been revealed. Now, my wife knows everything, and two families are on the brink of disintegration. I want to know does your pharmacy bear any responsibility? SCMP quoted the angry husband as saying. With online users, the man shared a medicine receipt, chat screenshots between his wife and a pharmacy clerk and a police report from the police station. However, lawyer Fu Jian from Henan Zejin Law Firm told Elephant News that defending his rights could be very difficult. Legal implications According to Fu, the mans infidelity is the main reason for his family troubles. So, he must take responsibility for it. At the same time, if the pharmacy violated his privacy, it should also be held accountable under the law. If he wants to pursue legal action, he must provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate a causal link between the pharmacys disclosure of information and the collapse of his marriage, the lawyer told the publication. Sri Lanka's former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday for allegedly "misusing government funds", a senior police detective told AFP. Wickremesinghe was taken into custody after being questioned about a September 2023 visit to London to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university while he was head of state, the officer said, as reported by AFP. We are producing him before the Colombo Fort magistrate, the officer said, adding that they were pressing charges for using state resources for personal purposes. In 2023, Wickremesinghe made a stop in London on his return from Havana, where he had attended the G77 summit. During the visit, he and his wife, Maithree, took part in a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton. Wickremesinghe has stated that his wife covered her own travel expenses and that no public funds were used for her trip. However, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has alleged that Wickremesinghe used government funds for what was essentially a private visit, including covering the expenses of his bodyguards with state money. Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa's term, after Rajapaksa stepped down following months of protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement. Wickremesinghe is credited with stabilising the economy after the country's worst-ever financial meltdown in 2022. He lost his re-election bid in September. What does Russia want from Ukraine as part of a peace deal? Three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters that Russian President Vladimir Putin has three demands that: Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region Renounce ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country The report came days after Putin met US President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-US summit in more than four years. The two leaders spent almost all of their three-hour closed meeting discussing what a compromise on Ukraine might look like, sources said. Also Read | Trump says Ukraine has no chance of winning war without striking Russia Putin's offer at Alaska summit In the most detailed Russian-based reporting to date on Putin's offer at the summit, Reuters was able to outline the contours of what the Kremlin would like to see in a possible peace deal to end the Ukraine war that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people. Territorial demands In essence, the Russian sources said, Putin has compromised on territorial demands he laid out in June 2024, which required Kyiv to cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Dontesk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine - which make up the Donbas - plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. Kyiv rejected those terms as tantamount to surrender. Also Read | WhatsApp rival MAX messenger to come pre-installed in phones in Russia In his new proposal, Putin has stuck to his demand that Ukraine completely withdraw from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, according to the three sources. In return, though, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added. Russia controls about 88% of the Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to US estimates and open-source data. Putin is also willing to hand over the small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine it controls as part of a possible deal, the sources said. Also Read | India Makes a Caveated Pledge to Continue Buying Russian Oil No NATO, no Western troops According to sources, Putin is sticking to his previous demands that Ukraine give up its NATO ambitions. He demands a legally binding pledge from the US-led military alliance that it will not expand further eastwards, as well as for limits on the Ukrainian army, the sources said. They added that Putin also wants an agreement that no Western troops will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force Yet the two sides remain far apart, more than three years after Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in a full-scale invasion that followed the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and prolonged fighting in the country's east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. Also Read | NATO military leaders to meet on Wednesday to discuss Ukraine What has Ukraine said Ukraine's foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the proposals. However, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly dismissed the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognised Ukrainian land as part of a deal, and has said the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine. "If we're talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that," he told reporters in comments released by Kyiv on Thursday. "It is a matter of our country's survival, involving the strongest defensive lines." Also Read | How Trumps Ukraine peace push stalled out in four days Joining NATO, meanwhile, is a strategic objective enshrined in the country's constitution and one which Kyiv sees as its most reliable security guarantee. Zelensky said it was not up to Russia to decide on the alliance's membership. The White House and NATO didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the Russian proposals. Trump: Putin wants to see it ended Russian forces currently control a fifth of Ukraine, an area about the size of the American state of Ohio, according to US estimates and open-source maps. The three sources close to the Kremlin said the summit in the Alaskan city of Anchorage ushered in the best chance for peace since the war began because there had been specific discussions about Russia's terms and Putin had shown a willingness to give ground. "Putin is ready for peace - for compromise. That is the message that was conveyed to Trump," one of the people said. Also Read | Russias Push to Recruit South African Women Triggers Probe The sources cautioned that it was unclear to Moscow whether Ukraine would be prepared to cede the remains of the Donbas, and that if it did not then the war would continue. Also unclear was whether or not the United States would give any recognition to Russian-held Ukrainian territory, they added. A fourth source said that though economic issues were secondary for Putin, he understood the economic vulnerability of Russia and the scale of the effort needed to go far further into Ukraine. Trump has said he wants to end the "bloodbath" of the war and be remembered as a "peacemaker president". He said on Monday he had begun arranging a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, to be followed by a trilateral summit with the U.S. president. "I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended," Trump said beside Zelenskiy in the Oval office. "I feel confident we are going to get it solved." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Putin was prepared to meet Zelenskiy but that all issues had to be worked through first and there was a question about Zelenskiy's authority to sign a peace deal. Putin has repeatedly raised doubts about Zelenskiy's legitimacy as his term in office was due to expire in May 2024 but the war means no new presidential election has yet been held. Kyiv says Zelenskiy remains the legitimate president. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany have said they are sceptical that Putin wants to end the war. Security guarantees for Ukraine Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was instrumental in paving the way for the summit, and the latest drive for peace, according to two of the Russian sources. Witkoff met Putin in the Kremlin on August 6 with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. At the meeting, Putin conveyed clearly to Witkoff that he was ready to compromise and set out the contours of what he could accept for peace, according to two Russian sources. If Russia and Ukraine could reach an agreement, then there are various options for a formal deal - including a possible three-way Russia-Ukraine-U.S. deal that is recognised by the UN Security Council, one of the sources said. Another option is to go back to the failed 2022 Istanbul agreements, where Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine's permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, the sources added. "There are two choices: war or peace, and if there is no peace, then there is more war," one of the people said. As rain clouds gathered over New Delhi, so did the buzz inside Parliament. On day one of the Monsoon session that ended on Thursday, Members of Parliament Shashi Tharoor and Harish Chandra Meena had raised a question in writing that many others in policy circles were asking: what is happening with the draft Digital Competition Bill of 2024? Their query tapped into deeper concerns over the bills ex-ante provisions and their potential impact on startups and small enterprises. Minister of state Harsh Malhotra, in a written response, shed light on the current status of the draft Digital Competition Bill, clarifying that the government was awaiting comments from the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY). He also noted that evidence from market studies was required for all relevant aspects of ex-ante regulation to be considered, given that this approach was still nascent across the world. Ex-ante rules are those made in anticipation of risks. Also Read: Spare the small fry, catch the big fish: India's mantra for digital competition From stakeholder pushback and inter-ministerial disagreements to parliamentary scrutiny (spanning over two years), the bills journey reflects the challenges of regulating a fast-moving sector driven by innovation without stifling its growth. Regulatory overlaps in the consent framework: The bill, introduced alongside the Digital Competition Law Committee report in March 2024, proposes an ex-ante framework to curb anti-competitive practices by large digital platforms. It is inspired by similar frameworks globally, like the EUs Digital Markets Act. The Indian proposalin its draft formwould empower the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to designate entities based on quantitative and qualitative thresholds and impose obligations on them to ensure fair competition and transparency. One of the obligations mandated by the draft bill is that designated entities must obtain explicit consent from users before (i) intermixing or cross-using personal data or (ii) allowing third-party access. Consent must be obtained the way it is defined under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 (DPDP Act), which means it must be free, informed, specific and unambiguous. This part overlaps with the DPDP Act's requirement of (i) informed written consent for specific purposes before collecting sensitive personal data and (ii) withdrawal of consent at any time. Also Read: Govt to ensure digital competition law doesn't over-regulate The draft Digital Competition Bills provisions, while well-intentioned, risk duplicating existing obligations, creating conflicting interpretations and confusing users and businesses. In August, the Standing Committee on Finance had presented its report to Parliament emphasizing that the bill must align with the consent architecture of the DPDP Act. Digital Competition Law Committees clarification on overlaps: In its report, the Committee acknowledged the potential overlap between the draft Digital Competition Bill and existing laws, particularly the DPDP Act and the Competition Act of 2002. However, it stated that the objectives of these statutes are distinct: Although data protection under the DPDP Act and competition enforcement in digital markets under the Competition Act may have an ostensible overlap, the objectives sought to be achieved by both statutes are entirely different... It is imperative to consider the complementary nature of these legislations and that the provisions of the DPDP Act are not in conflict with the goal of promotion of competition." While this clarification is conceptually sound, the practical implementation of overlapping provisions raises concerns, especially those related to user consent and data governance. Overlapping consent protocols would pose several challenges for users and businesses. Companies may face regulatory duplication, having to comply with multiple consent frameworks. This would increase compliance costs and administrative burdens and could lead to conflicting enforcement, resulting in parallel inquiries and legal uncertainty. For users, inconsistent consent requests across platforms can cause confusion and erode trust in digital services. The complexity of navigating these overlapping regimes may also deter startups and smaller players from entering or scaling in the digital market, which could go against innovation. Also Read: Indias Digital Competition Bill: Better alternatives exist We need inter-sectoral coordination: Given the potential for regulatory conflict, it is imperative that the ministry of corporate affairs, which is spearheading the draft Digital Competition Bill, and MeitY, which oversees data governance, collaborate closelyalong with the CCIto harmonize the bills provisions with existing laws. The Parliamentary panels reports call for proactive coordination is a timely signal. Perhaps a shared regulatory sandbox could allow enterprises to test compliance strategies under both regimes. This could reduce uncertainty. The authors are, respectively, partner, counsel and associate, competition law practice, Trilegal. Swraj Paul, who passed away in London on Thursday evening at the age of 94, was one of the most consequential entrepreneurs that the India of the past prevented from flourishing. Born into a Punjabi Hindu family in Jullunder (now Jalandhar) on 18 February 1931, Paul's journey from foundry owner's son to London steel magnate began with a tragedy that would define his character. His father Payare Lal ran a small foundry that produced steel buckets and farm machinery as part of the Apeejay Group, managed by Paul's older brothers Satya and Jit. After obtaining his Master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, Swraj returned to join the family business, but his life changed irrevocably in 1966 when his four-year-old daughter Ambika was diagnosed with leukemia. Also Read | Digital tug of law: Mind the overlap of jurisdictions Then prime minister Indira Gandhi personally removed bureaucratic hurdles to allow him the foreign currency he needed for treatment abroad a rarity in socialist India. Despite Paul's efforts, Ambika passed away. Shattered, he relocated permanently to London, taking over the operations of Apeejay Overseas. Following a family partition, he renamed his business Caparo, establishing himself as an independent force while maintaining his Indian connections. Tragedy would revisit him years later. In November 2015 his son Angad Paul, CEO of Caparo, died after falling from his Marylebone penthouse, dealing Paul another devastating blow in his golden years. The takeover playbook Despite this, Paul, a diminutive man with commanding presence, was always cheerful in public and completely unashamed of his Indian accent. A generous Punjabi at heart, he was a genial host to visitors from his home country. But beneath that warm and welcoming exterior lay steely business determination. His 1983 corporate raids read like a template for every activist investor playbook since. Like the notorious American corporate raider Carl Icahn, he spotted a host of bloated, family-controlled Indian companies trading at massive discounts, with promoters holding laughably small stakes. The Nandas controlled Escorts with 5%; the Shri Rams ran DCM with 10%. It was corporate control by dynasty, not by ownership. Paul's assault was surgical. Using his Indian agents, he quietly accumulated 13% of DCM and 7.5% of Escorts, making him the largest shareholder in both virtually overnight. For the first time in independent India, family capitalism was exposed to genuine market forces. The establishment was horrified. The unravelling What followed was an illustration of how a supposedly socialist India protected its oligarchs. The affected companies refused to register Paul's shares. The Reserve Bank of India discovered sudden regulatory objections. The government hastily imposed a 5% ceiling on foreign holdings after liberalising NRI investment just months earlier. Even the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), a major shareholder in both companies, convened an extraordinary meeting to block the transfer of the shares to Paul, only to be slapped down by Bombay High Court for exceeding its brief. The court's rebuke was prescient: "The LIC Act does not authorise taking over other companies only because LIC holds over 50% of shares in the borrowing company." It drove institutional passivity in corporate governance for decades. Paul won in the Supreme Court three years later, but the damage was already done. Delays, uncertainty, and bureaucratic hostility exhausted his resources and patience. In 1986 he accepted a face-saving exit mediated by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, selling stakes back to the families he'd sought to discipline. Paul's later years were not without controversy either. In 2009 he was embroiled in the UK parliamentary expenses scandal. Though he maintained his innocence, he requested an investigation and voluntarily repaid 41,982. Family disputes over Caparo Financial Solutions management saw his children battling in the National Company Law Tribunal over alleged mismanagement, further tarnishing the Caparo brand. A revolution delayed In India, Swraj Paul will be remembered for his audacious takeover battles. The final act wasn't just Paul's defeat; it was India's as well. His intervention could have triggered a corporate governance revolution, one that eventually arrived in the 2000s when institutional investors finally forced Indian companies to treat minority shareholders as partners, not extras. Instead, License Raj ensured that inefficient family control continued while genuine entrepreneurs such as Paul were branded predatory foreign hands". In today's India, where acquisitions (even hostile ones such as L&T's takeover of Mindtree) are normal, Paul would have been a hero. But in the India of 1983, he was a decade too early. He remains the Carl Icahn that socialist India was too frightened to embrace, and too foolish to learn from. Swraj Pauls journey from grieving father to celebrated British industrialist, despite later controversies, exemplifies his personal resilience and determination to pursue opportunities that socialist India denied both to him and itself. Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday accused the INDIA bloc's Vice Presidential candidate Justice (Retd.) B Sudershan Reddy of "supporting" Naxalism. Shah stated that if the judge had not delivered the Salwa Judum judgement, India would have got rid of the extremist Left movement before 2020. The union home minister was speaking during the inauguration of the Manorama News conclave, organised by the Malayala Manorama group in Kochi. Amit Shah further said the Congress' chance of winning the Kerala Assembly elections in 2026 has further diminished due to its pick of Sudarshan Reddy as the VP pick. "Sudershan Reddy is the person who helped Naxalism. He gave Salwa Judum judgment. If the Salwa Judum judgement had not been given, the Naxal terrorism would have ended by 2020. He is the person who was inspired by the ideology that gave Salwa Judam judgment," Shah said, referring to 2011 SC judgement on Salwa Judum, during a question answer session as part of the conclave. What is the Salwa Judam judgement? In December 2011, Supreme Court's Justice Reddy ruled that using tribal youths as Special Police Officers be it by the name of 'Koya Commandos', Salwa Judum, or by any other name to fight Maoist insurgency was llegal and unconstitutional. He also ordered that they be immediately disarmed. Shah further claimed that Kerala has faced the brunt of Naxalism. Also Read | Chhattisgarh: Naxal leader Bhaskar killed in Bijapur encounter "People of Kerala will certainly see that the Congress party, under the pressure of Left parties, is fielding a candidate who supported Naxalism and used a pious forum like the Supreme Court," the Home Minister said. Who is B Sudershan Reddy? B Sudershan Reddy, the Opposition INDIA bloc's pick as its vice-presidential candidate, started his career as an advocate with the Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh in December 1971. Also Read | Vice Presidential Election: EC appoints two additional secretaries as observers With high-stakes summits in Anchorage and Washington, the White House has injected new energy into efforts to end Russias brutal assault on Ukraine. But, as the days since have made clear, to achieve a lasting peace this must be the start of a new US commitment to Ukrainian and European security, not the end. The recent flurry of diplomacy at first appeared to yield progress on two fronts. After meetings on Monday between American, European and Ukrainian leaders, the US agreed to help provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a final peace deal. European nations have begun working out what form those assurances will take and what forces they can provide. Separately, talk of a possible bilateral meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin intensified. So far, however, there are just talks about talks. After rejecting a ceasefire, Russia has continued to press its offensive and bombard civilian areas. And Putins subordinates have cast doubt on what kind of Western support for Ukraine he would actually accept. They seem to envision an arrangement similar to the one they proposed during abortive talks in 2022, whereby Russia would be one of several nations involved in providing guarantees, with a veto on whether they could be invoked. European and Ukrainian leaders have already rejected that idea. At least, the White House no longer seems to expect Zelenskiy to surrender all the territory Putin is demanding including vital fortifications that Ukrainian forces hold in the eastern Donbas region as the price of peace. The challenge now is to ensure that whatever emerges from ongoing discussions deters further Russian aggression, secures Ukraines survival and protects US interests. The first and most credible security guarantee will be Ukraines own strength. The US must continue to sell Kyiv advanced weapons, with European nations helping to finance the purchases. Europe, in turn, should invest directly in Ukraines innovative but cash-starved defense industries. Zelenskiy has proposed selling drones to the US a reminder that a militarily capable Ukraine can bolster, not drain, Western arsenals. Should Putin ultimately agree to stop fighting, an external deterrent will still be needed, making clear that European nations and, ultimately, the US will come to Ukraines aid if Russia resumes its aggression. Article 5-like collective defense pledges would be a good start. European states must also work out a proposal for limited tripwire forces on Ukrainian soil. While American boots on the ground arent necessary, the US must clearly commit to providing intelligence, logistics and rapid reinforcement if those allied troops are attacked. Only then will Putin believe that violating a deal risks escalation he cannot control. This is not charity; its hard-headed self-interest. If Ukraine is left with porous, indefensible borders and unreliable allies, no agreement will hold for long. An emboldened Russia would menace NATOs eastern flank, possibly dragging the US back into a European war just as its trying to focus on China. Worse still, forcing Ukraine into a bad bargain because its not a very big power would send a disastrous signal to Chinese leaders that force works, making a crisis over Taiwan more likely. Whether Putin is prepared to accept this kind of settlement remains doubtful. Further US economic pressure may be needed to change his calculus. One thing is certain, though: The only peace worth pursuing is one that secures Ukraines future while anchoring US and European security. Anything less is a trap. More From Bloomberg Opinion: The Editorial Board publishes the views of the editors across a range of national and global affairs. 2025 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Indonesian Deputy Manpower Minister Immanuel Ebenezer has been named a suspect in an extortion case, the first sitting member of President Prabowo Subiantos cabinet to be involved in an anti-corruption investigation. Ebenezer allegedly participated in extorting parties seeking workplace safety certificates, charging them more than 20 times the supposed price, Setyo Budiyanto, chairperson of Indonesias anti-graft agency, said in a press conference on Friday. The agency known as KPK launched the investigation based on a public complaint. The deputy minister allegedly got 3 billion rupiah ($183,000) in kickbacks in December 2024 for his involvement, Budiyanto said. He was caught, along with about a dozen others, in a sting operation that started on Wednesday night. Ebenezer will be detained for 20 days for further investigation. The incident will be a test for Prabowo, who in his annual national address last week said he would not tolerate corruption, even among big-name politicians and allies. Ebenezer previously led a pro-Prabowo volunteer group and is now a member of the presidents Gerindra party. Prabowo will respect the legal process, State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi told reporters on Thursday, adding that Ebenezer will be dismissed immediately if found guilty of wrongdoing. The issue quickly reverberated in Jakarta on Thursday when news broke about the sting operation. A lawmaker called the arrest an own goal for the government. On social media, Indonesians reposted controversial remarks Ebenezer made earlier this year telling those unhappy with the economy to just leave the country. This is a heavy blow for us, Manpower Minister Yassierli said on Thursday. D. Nicky Fahrizal, Jakarta-based researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, lauded the governments efforts to clean up its ranks. The law is being applied without exception, and that deserves credit, he said. However, investors will need to see structural reforms to be convinced that corruption can be rooted out of Southeast Asias largest economy. If its only the top people punished without deeper reform, cases like this will keep happening, he said. (Updates with more details from briefing, context, and analyst comment) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com OpenAI on Friday confirmed its plans of opening its first-ever office in India along with other measures to better serve its users in the country. The ChatGPT maker stated that its first office will be opened in Delhi and has also begun work on hiring a dedicated local team. The new team, OpenAI says, will work closely on strengthening its relationships with local partners, governments, businesses, developers, and academic institutions. OpenAI also reiterated that India is ChatGPT's second-largest market in the world, while adding that the weekly active users of the chatbot in the country have increased fourfold in the past year. The AI startup also stated that India ranks among the top five developer markets globally on OpenAI and has the largest population of students on ChatGPT worldwide. Meanwhile, OpenAI further noted that its recently launched Study Mode feature with GPT-5 has gained significant traction in India, though it didn't share any exact figures to verify the claim. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman while informing about the new office in a release said, The level of excitement and opportunity for AI in India is incredible. India has all the ingredients to become a global AI leaderamazing tech talent, a world-class developer ecosystem, and strong government support through the IndiaAI Mission. Opening our first office and building a local team is an important first step in our commitment to make advanced AI more accessible across the country and to build AI for India, and with India, Just days ahead of the announcement of new office, OpenAI had also launched an India specific ChatGPT Go plan at 399. The new plan offered a more affordable way to get higher usage limit for the popular chatbot without spending thousands on ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription. Meanwhile, India's IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw welcomed OpenAI's decision to open its office in Delhi and said it reflected to India's growing leadership in AI adoption. OpenAI has claimed in a court filing that Elon Musk tried to enlist Mark Zuckerberg in his $97 billion bid to take over ChatGPT maker. The company stated that Musk had identified the Meta CEO as someone with whom he had discussed the possibility of financing the takeover bid. OpenAI is now asking Meta, via its lawyers, to produce any evidence of coordination with Musk and his startup xAI regarding the acquisition or investment of the company. This request was made in a public brief filed on Thursday in response to Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI. OpenAI's lawyers had requested a subpoena in July and are now asking for a court order to obtain this evidence. OpenAI has also asked the court for any documents or communications from Meta related toany actual or potential restructuring or recapitalization of OpenAI, as per TechCrunch. Meta has reportedly asked the court to reject this request, stating (via Bloomberg), Metas documents can hold no evidence of coordination with Musk, or of Metas purported attempt to purchase OpenAI, or of any other relevant information when Meta did not join Musks bid. Metas communications (if any) with entities that did join the bid also hold little to no relevance, and in any event, should be sought from those entities, not Meta, which did not participate, the company further added OpenAI and Elon Musk notably have a long-term history, with Musk being one of the company's founders until he severed ties with it in 2018. After the public rollout of ChatGPT in late 2022, Musk began a renewed attack on OpenAI and filed two lawsuits against the AI startup, alleging that it had strayed from its founding principles of developing AI for the benefit of humanity in favour of a profit-seeking motive. Domnique Gibbons couldn't figure out what's wrong when her son would "throw a fit" as the school bus came to pick him up everyday. The Sequatchie County Sheriff's Office says Leland Gibbons, a nonverbal student with autism and epilepsy, was assaulted by school employee, Holly Condra on Tuesday, August 19. Elementary teacher arrested for assault in Sequatchie County She was booked in the Sequatchie Co. Justice Center and released on a $2,500 bond. Sheriff Bill Phillips says there is video evidence of the incident. After reviewing that footage, Phillips says "there was a slap" and "what appeared to be a squeezing of the face." The following day, Gibbons and her family friend, Misty Pierce, spoke with Sequatchie County Schools. Gibbons and Pierce also reviewed the video of the incident. They discovered the assault happened around 12:30pm. Yet, they were not notified until 3:30pm as Leland returned home from school. Pierce, remembering the conversation with school officials, said she "repeatedly [asked] them why wasn't she informed." She believes "there was no concern for Leland." Gibbons says there were two other adults in the room, but none comforted her child. Local 3 reached out to Sequatchie County Schools, and they sent us a statement sent out to families and staff. The letter stated their main focus was "on the safety of our students, which remains [their] top priority." Sequatchie County Schools also said they responded to the incident quickly and are appreciative of other staff and law enforcement. Gibbons and Pierce say the school failed Leland. She tried for two weeks prior to the new school year starting to meet with Griffith Elementary's staff. She wanted to "train them on their behavior plans with [Leland]," but was unsuccessful. Sequatchie County's Special Education Supervisor reached out to the family, asking if Leland would be returning to school. Gibbons says her son will not be going back. Gibbons is grateful for the outpour of support from the community. The community has started a support group and also made t-shirts in support. She says the fight is not over. Gibbons says she has to be his voice since he doesn't have one. She adds that she is "going to do everything in [her] power to get him justice," so "no one else has to go through this." In December 1937, as the invading Japanese troops brutally entered Nanjing, German businessman John Rabe made his choice: to stay. He worked with other international friends in China to establish the "Nanjing Safety Zone" at great personal risk, providing shelter for and rescuing over 200,000 Chinese civilians. Chinese President Xi Jinping has shared the touching story of Rabe on several occasions. "We in China cherish the memory of Mr. Rabe as a man who demonstrated great compassion for life and love of peace," he noted. Produced by Xinhua Global Service Primary School Teachers in Longford are being called to register for the award-winning Blue Star Programme. Now in its 15th year, the primary education Programme introduces pupils to the European Union and promotes a greater understanding of European democracy, languages and cultures. Pupils participating in the Programme this year, will also learn about Irelands Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2026. Read more: Bia Blasta scheme to deliver free lunches for preschool children in Longford Until October 10 2025, the National Implementation Body, European Movement Ireland invites primary schools across Ireland to register and complete the Blue Star Programme, in particular Gaeilscoileanna, island schools and DEIS schools. The Programme's curriculum includes cross-cultural activities, such as learning basic phrases in other European languages and celebrating European cultural days. To date, over 1,300 schools and an estimated 220,000 pupils have participated in the programme, with a record 350 schools participating last year. As the National Implementation Body of the award-winning programme, Noelle OConnell, CEO of European Movement Ireland said: In its 15th year, as Ireland prepares to assume its EU Presidency next year, there has never been a more exciting time for teachers and pupils to participate in the Programme. Since the inception of the Programme, it has taught thousands of pupils about the importance of the EU and civic participation, along with fun facts about other member states! I encourage teachers across Ireland to register, and Id like to thank all of the teachers for their commitment and dedication to the Programme to date. Participating classes learn about European history, geography, culture, and the EU institutions in a fun, informative and accessible way that complements the national primary curriculum. To successfully complete the Blue Star Programme, participating schools must complete all four core elements of the Programme across history, geography, cultural and creative and intuitional modules and hold an event to mark Europe Day, 9 May, with some schools receiving visits from Ministers, MEPs and Ambassadors. Teachers have the flexibility to integrate the Programme into their lesson plans and tailor EU projects to their classes aptitude and ability. The Programme is open to all primary school ages, from junior infants to sixth class, and is designed to be run in all school settings across Ireland. Gaeilscoileanna can avail of Clar na Realta Goirme i nGaeilge. Read more: Ukrainian community in Longford invite locals to Ukrainian Independence Day event European Movement Ireland is an independent not-for-profit, membership organisation dedicated to developing the connection between Ireland and the EU and the Programme is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Further information about the Programme can be found at bluestarprogramme.ie. The Irish president has condemned the famine in Gaza City, saying the declaration has not come as a surprise. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said on Friday that famine is occurring in Gaza City and could spread further south. It comes after weeks of warnings by aid groups that restrictions on aid were leading to starvation among Palestinians. In a statement, Michael D Higgins said the formal declaration will sadly not surprise all of us who have been warning of this for some time. So many world leaders have issued statements over the last two years, always referencing a two-state solution. How can they now see the very concept destroyed before their eyes in Gaza with the loss of life and in the West Bank with further illegal occupation, Mr Higgins added. Without urgent change, it is difficult to see how the international community can emerge without a loss of credibility and moral authority. What is at stake now is the status of international law, the granting of impunity in conditions of indiscriminate destruction, and misrepresentation of the right to food itself by an occupying power. None of this will wait until September. It is now the time for action on behalf of the international community, including all members of the European Union. Israel has for months blocked food, water and aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. The secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, described it as a man-made disaster. Irish premier Micheal Martin said Israel has an absolute obligation to allow the people in Gaza unfettered and urgent access to humanitarian aid, medical and food supplies. Famine in Gaza was both entirely predictable and preventable, he added. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has been raised to Phase 5, the highest possible level of food insecurity, in what has been described as an entirely man-made and catastrophic situation. Israel must stop its attacks on, and bombardment of, Gaza City. The withholding of food and water from civilians is collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and a war crime. The retention of hostages by Hamas is also a war crime, and it is long past time for their unconditional release and an end to this war. The inhumanity we are witnessing in Gaza has shocked the world. The maiming, mutilation and killing of children simply has to stop. The war must end now. Ain al-Asad Airbase. Arab media reported on August 18 that a US military convoy departed Ain al Asad airbase, a military facility hosting US forces in western Iraq, on its way to Syria. An Iraqi security source speaking to Shafaq News claimed that all US soldiers will leave Ain al Asad by September 15. A limited number of US forces may remain in Baghdad, while others relocate to bases in Syria and Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency, Hussein Alawi, an advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani, said that the international coalition gathered to fight the Islamic State (IS) will end its mission in Baghdad and Ain al Asad airbase next month. This development follows Iraqs agreement with coalition countries to conclude the coalitions mission within the publicly announced timeframe of 2025 and 2026. Under this agreement, the coalitions presence at its headquarters in Baghdad and at Ain al-Asad Air Base will officially end in September 2025, marking a new phase of security cooperation focused on advisory roles and capacity-building for Iraqi security forces, Alawi added. A US official confirmed to The National that the US mission in Iraq is transitioning to a bilateral security arrangement between Iraq and the United States on schedule. The US Department of Defense (DOD) established Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) in 2014 with the purpose of defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The DOD announced the most recent transition of CJTF-OIR in September 2024. It entails a two-phased plan, the first part of which is scheduled to end next month. In the first phase, the coalitions military mission in Iraq will end. This means coalition forces will withdraw from certain locations in Iraq as mutually determined. The transition period in Iraq begins now and will end in September 2025, the DOD stated in its announcement of the plan. The second phase, which is scheduled to continue through September 2026, focuses on countering IS in Syria. Some Iraqi politicians have expressed concern over the countrys security situation as the US decreases its presence. Iraqi officials have been concerned that any instability in Syria may affect Iraq and could provide an opportunity for the Islamic State to resurge. Additionally, Shiite communities in Iraq distrust Syrias new regime and hold special animosity for interim President Ahmad al Sharaa, who fought with Al Qaeda in Iraq as an insurgent during the Iraq War. Iraq is also facing a tense moment politically over allegations of foreign meddling in the countrys affairs, with accusations being leveled at both the United States and Iran. The US and elements of the Iraqi political landscape object to efforts by Iran to enshrine its influence in the country. Currently, the vehicle for Iran to achieve this aim is legislation that would strengthen the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi security organization comprised of militias, many of which are backed by Iran, as an independent government organ. Iran-aligned factions in Iraq responded to the US transition by condemning the US presence in the country. Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia and member of the PMF, insisted on the departure of US forces, saying, We reaffirm that we will not waver from demanding the withdrawal of the occupation forces and their aircraft, and the exit of their elements from joint operations by September 2025, no matter how high the cost or great the sacrifices. Kataib Hezbollah is designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organization. It has previously targeted US troops in the region, including likely participating in the deadly Tower 22 attack that killed three US service members in Jordan in January 2024. In addition, Iran and Israel may engage in another round of fighting, and Iraqi militias would be unlikely to sit out in a second round. Esmail Ghaani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), reportedly warned Iran-backed militias in Iraq in July that Israel possesses an extensive list of targets in Iraq to attack these groups. Bridget Toomey is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focusing on Iranian proxies, specifically Iraqi militias and the Houthis. LIVONIA, MICH. Madonna University is proud to announce the launch of two cutting-edge academic programs designed to prepare students for rapidly expanding career opportunities: Business Analytics and Cybersecurity. Both programs, developed in partnership with RIZE Education, reflect Madonna University's commitment to providing students with relevant, industry-focused education that addresses the evolving needs of today's job market. Business analytics: turning data into strategic advantage The new Bachelor of Science in Business Analytics program equips student with essential skills to thrive in our increasingly data-driven business environment. The comprehensive curriculum blends theoretical knowledge with hands-on application, covering everything from fundamental data analysis to statistical methods to advanced machine learning and business intelligence tools. "Today's businesses collect a wide range of data on everything from consumer preferences and buying habits to production and supply chain performance," explains Frank Notturno, Undergraduate Chair, School of Business. "They rely on the accurate analysis of this data to make strategic and tactical decisions, and to solve business problems." Graduates will be prepared for high-demand careers as data scientists, business analysts, operations research analysts, machine learning engineers, and business intelligence analysts. Entry-level positions in the field offer salaries often starting at around $60,000 across industries including healthcare, finance, technology, government, and management consulting. cybersecurity: defending against digital threats Madonna University's new Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity program addresses the need for skilled professionals who can protect against the evolving digital threats that impact our privacy, security, and safety. In today's interconnected world, cyber threats are a constant challenge, and individuals, businesses, and governments rely on secure systems to protect sensitive information and critical infrastructure. "Madonna University's School of Business is pleased to provide our students with access to rigorous cybersecurity training through our consortium partnership with RIZE," says Dr. Jessica Cummings, dean of the School of Business. "The partnership provides students access to cutting-edge learning and real-world skills while allowing them to experience the vibrant, supportive campus life that makes our university so special." The comprehensive curriculum prepares students not only for successful careers as cybersecurity professionals but also positions them to obtain valuable industry certifications that increase employability, including the CompTIA A+ certification. Graduates will be well-prepared for entry level roles such as Security Analyst, Network Security Specialist, and Information Security Consultant. Career opportunities span diverse sectors, including government agencies, financial institutions, healthcare organizations, and technology companies. preparing students for tomorrow's careers, today These new programs demonstrate Madonna University's dedication to staying ahead of industry trends and providing students with the tools they need to succeed in emerging fields. As businesses increasingly rely on data-driven decision making and cyber threats continue to evolve, graduates from these programs will be well-positioned to make immediate impacts in their chosen careers. "We are proud to be part of something that prepares students for tomorrow's challenges, right here in a community that inspires them every day," adds Cummings. Both the Business Analytics and Cybersecurity programs are now accepting applications. More information about admission requirements and course offerings is available on the Madonna University Admissions webpage. The staff and customers of a cafe in the municipality of Los Palacios y Villafranca, in Seville, had a big scare on Wednesday afternoon. According to ABC de Sevilla, a man set fire to the bar after the waiters told him they didnt have any mayonnaise or ketchup. In response to the staffs reply, the man left the premises and went to a petrol station located about 50 metres away. Shortly afterwards, he reappeared at the cafe with a 1.5-litre bottle filled with petrol and asked the waiters at the bar again if they had any sauce. The employees gave him the same answer and the man doused the bar with the fuel and set it on fire. The customers ran out of the establishment, as did the man, while one of the waiters grabbed a fire extinguisher to try to put out the flames. Thanks to the quick reaction of this employee and the work of the fire brigade, only material damage was reported, as the premises was practically full. Minutes later, the man, who has a criminal record, was arrested by Guardia Civil officers in a nearby square and has been brought before the courts after being treated at a health centre for burns to his left arm caused by the explosion he himself caused. The Palma courts have ordered the provisional detention of a man who was arrested in Mallorca by National Police officers on two European arrest warrants issued by the Luxembourg and Swiss authorities for the crimes of fraud and against property, as well as for a crime of document forgery. In a press release, the National Police reported that officers from the Organised Crime and International Crime Group of the National Police in Palma were tracking a man who was wanted by the authorities in Luxembourg and Switzerland and who was living in a village in Mallorca. The officers were able to locate him and proceeded to arrest him on 20 August. At the time of his arrest, the man identified himself with Belgian documentation, an identity card and a driving licence bearing another name, for which he was also arrested for document forgery. The detainee was wanted by the Luxembourg authorities as the alleged perpetrator of a fraud offence for making a false statement to obtain compensation from an insurance company. The man had allegedly falsely declared himself unfit for work, certifying sick leave certificates. He was also wanted by the Swiss authorities for several offences, including charging compensation for fake sick leave and entering into contracts with several companies without paying for the work, making false statements in applications to the administration to obtain a licence to practise a healthcare profession. He is also accused of negligent injury to a patient. The alleged perpetrator was brought before the court, which ordered his provisional detention. The Jonas Brothers 20th Anniversary Tour is coming to Fenway Park this weekend and fans can grab last-minute tickets for under $100. The JONAS20: Greetings From Your Hometown tour will be in Boston, MA, on Saturday, August 23 and fans can still shop for tickets online using Ticketmaster or reliable third-party ticket sellers like StubHub, VividSeats and SeatGeek. *New customers who purchase tickets through VividSeats can get $20 off a $200+ ticket order by using the promo code MassLive20 at checkout.* As of Thursday, August 21, the cheapest tickets are $55 on StubHub, $39 on VividSeats and $51 on SeatGeek. The trio from Wycoff, New Jersey, kicked off their run on August 10 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. They performed a 31-song show that highlighted their history and brought out surprise guests Demi Lovato and Jesse McCartney. Switchfoot, Dean Lewis and Marshmello, who all appear on the groups new album, Greetings From Your Hometown, also made appearances. Marshmello, The All-American Rejects and Boys Like Girls will join Jonas Brothers on different dates throughout their tour, including the stop at Fenway Park, which will feature Marshmello and Boys Like Girls. Below is a look at the remaining tour schedule for The Jonas Brothers with links to purchase tickets: Editors note: This story was updated on Aug. 23, 2025, to clarify that the Star Drive-In is a diner that shows outdoor movies once a week seasonally. It is not a traditional drive-in movie theater. One of the last remaining drive-in diners in Massachusetts will close next year after more than 60 years in operation. The Star Drive-In in Taunton will close in March 2026, owner Erika Madden wrote in a Facebook post Friday, Aug. 22. After getting messages, Madden decided to address the rumors that the drive-in was closing. She added, Its even been mentioned at a Zoning Board meeting, and heard a rumor at the local gas station that The Star Drive-In was closing. First and foremost I have a lease with South Coast Development until March of 2026. The same entity that purchased the property across the street and built the Storage Facility, also purchased The Star Drive-In property a few years ago when I had just signed another 5-year lease for The Star Drive-In with St. Ives," Madden clarified. I will not get into the specifics of those issues, but many, within the city government and various departments know what has transpired over the last 4 years, they know what is going on and they have not offered any help or assistance even after my repeated pleas for help, she wrote. Due to those issues, I have had to make the very difficult decision to close at the end of the terms of my lease - March 2026. Madden, who bought the Star Drive-In in 2016, emphasized that she is closing on her own terms. She also vowed to do everything within my power to continue to provide the community with the service, charity, fresh food and free to the community events that I have over the past 9 years. We had our best summer season this year! So thank you, Madden wrote. Hope to see you soon at The Star! Opened in 1964, The Star Drive-In is described as a nostalgic 1960s drive-in diner. While not a traditional drive-in movie theater, The Star Drive-In hosts free outdoor movie nights every Saturday night from May to October. Visitors can bring lawn chairs and blankets to sit on the grass and view the 20-foot movie screen, complete with surround sound. The drive-in offers a wide menu of fresh seafood, pizza, burgers, sandwiches and more. The Star Drive-In, while not a traditional drive-in theatre, is one of only three known drive-in theaters in Massachusetts. The other two, which are traditional drive-in theaters, still in operation, are the Mendon Twin Drive-In in Mendon and the Wellfleet Drive-In Theatre in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Theres also The Northfield Drive-In and Milford Drive-In, both in New Hampshire, as well as the Mansfield Drive-In in Mansfield, Connecticut and Rustic Tri-View Drive-In in North Smithfield, Rhode Island. A Hanson man who is listed as a level 3 sex offender was arraigned on charges that accuse him of luring a 13-year-old online and attempting to meet up with them in person, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said Friday. David M. Baxter, 56, pleaded not guilty to one count each of attempt to commit a crime, enticement of a child under the age of 16 and trafficking of a person under 18 for sexual servitude. He is listed on a national registry for sex offenders. Baxter entered his plea in Plymouth District Court on Friday and was held without bail awaiting a dangerousness hearing scheduled for August 29, Cruzs office said. At 9:40 p.m. on Thursday, Kingston police received a phone call from someone who said that a registered sex offender was at a gas station on Summer Street, trying to meet up with minors for sex, the email reads. When police arrived at the scene, they met with Baxter. At the scene, police also met with a man and woman who were part of an online organization where adults pose as minors online to expose child predators, prosecutors said. The man gave the police a large packet of printed information, which included screenshots, Instagram messages and photos that were part of online exchanges between Baxter and a fake account pretending to be a 13-year-old. The exchanges, which began on or about July 10, included sexually explicit messages from Baxter, according to the email. Baxter was supposedly meeting up with the minor at the gas station in person to give support and food for sexual intercourse, Cruzs office said. Baxter was met by the group, which led to the police being called to the scene. He was subsequently arrested. Two men are facing charges after police say they shot a man in Dorchester Thursday evening, then barricaded themselves in an apartment. Juan Soto Perez, 31, of Dorchester, is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60. Antonio Anthony, 60, of Dorchester, is charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60 and possession of a Class A drug, Boston police said in a statement. At around 4:50 p.m. Thursday, police went to 24 Charlotte St. for a report of a person shot. There, police found a man with multiple gunshot wounds, according to the statement. As officers treated the man, he gave them a description of the suspects. The man was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Officers announced their presence at one of the apartments at the Charlotte Street address, but no one answered the door. Police set up a perimeter around the apartments and the supervisor on scene called a SWAT team and members of the Boston Police Negotiations Team to respond, according to the statement. Both men exited the apartment and were handcuffed after negotiations with police, according to the statement. Perez and Anthony will be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court in Dorchester. The Charlotte Street apartment was secured as police await a search warrant, police said. Update: Two men who were barricaded inside a Dorchester home following a shooting in Boston Thursday afternoon surrendered themselves to police later that evening. An hours-long standoff between Boston police and a barricaded suspect was ongoing Thursday evening following a shooting in the citys Dorchester neighborhood earlier in the day, according to Boston Police spokesperson John Boyle. Officers responded to a home on Charlotte Street around 4:45 p.m., Boyle said Thursday evening. At the scene, they found a man who had been shot multiple times. The man was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Boyle said. The suspect is now barricaded inside a building somewhere in the city. A SWAT Team and negotiators have responded to the scene, Boyle said. He described the scene as being very active. Boyle did not specify whether police believe there is anyone inside the home with the suspect. He would not provide information on the suspect, their relationship with the victim or the location of the barricaded suspect prior to their arrest. The home police were originally called to was 24 Charlotte St. a three-story home located next to Greater Anointing Harvest Church, WCVB reported. The barricaded suspect is in a building somewhere on the same street, the news station reported. Two men who barricaded themselves inside a Dorchester home Thursday afternoon surrendered themselves to police that evening after an hours-long standoff, Boston Police spokesperson John Boyle said. The incident began after officers responded to a home on Charlotte Street around 4:45 p.m. for a report that a man had been shot multiple times, Boyle said. The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. At least one suspect involved in the shooting fled into a Charlotte Street home following the initial incident, Boyle said. A SWAT Team and negotiators joined officers at the scene during the standoff. Eventually, two men left the home and surrendered themselves to police following successful negotiations, Boyle said. Both suspects are facing charges and will be arraigned in Dorchester District Court. The home will remain blocked off while police obtain and execute search warrants, Boyle said. Police plan to share information about the suspects and the charges against them Friday morning. Police were originally called to 24 Charlotte St. a three-story home located next to Greater Anointing Harvest Church, WCVB reported. No further information about the incident has been released as of Thursday evening. Craig Kimbrel will get another chance to revive his career in 2025. The longtime closer signed a deal with the Houston Astros on Tuesday, ESPNs Jeff Passan reported. Kimbrel will join the team in Baltimore on Friday and be on the big-league roster. Kimbrel was most recently with the Texas Rangers on a minor league deal. The right-hander 3.86 ERA in 21 innings. He was granted his release and became a free agent on Thursday. But Kimbrel wasnt on the market long thanks to Houston. Kimbrel began the 2025 season with the Braves after he signed a minor league deal with the team in March. He was called up to Atlanta in June and made one appearance the pitchers first since 2014 during his first stint with the team before getting designated for assignment. The Astros sit atop the American League West with a 69-58 record going into Thursdays game against the Orioles. Kimbrel will be eligible to make the postseason roster. A 39-year-old man who documented himself sexually abusing children was sentenced to nearly 50 years in prison on Thursday, after pleading guilty to several criminal charges in the middle of his trial earlier this year. Justin Benoit, of Pittsfield, was sentenced to 46 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release. He will be required to register as a sex offender following his release. Benoit was also ordered to pay restitution requested by his victims, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foleys office said in a statement. In May, during testimony from the governments final witness at his trial, Benoit pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography, Foleys office said. WESTFIELD Dan Raposo is interested in bringing the sport of shuffleboard to Westfield and has the momentum to do it, after winning a gold medal in singles and doubles with his friend Scott Hansen at the Massachusetts Senior Games in 2024, and participating in the National Games in Des Moines, Iowa this summer. Ive been playing shuffleboard for about 10 years, always in Florida where Ive spent my winters since I retired, Raposo said, describing himself as the former proprietor of an auto parts store. Promulgation of the Consumer Protection (Consumer Goods) (Maximum Mark-Up) (Amendment) Regulations Les membres du Cabinet ont pris note de la visite du Premier Ministre au Japon pour la 9e edition du Tokyo International Conference on African Development, de linauguration dune ambassade dans ce pays, de la promulgation du Consumer Protection (Consumer Goods) (Maximum Mark-Up) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 qui prendra effet le 26 aout 2025, que la 5e Board Meeting of du World Hindi Secretariat a eu lieu le 14 et 15 juillet 2025, de la participation prochaine de Maurice au 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference au Bresil, de la signature dun emprunt avec lAbu Dhabi Fund for Development pour la construction du Riviere des Anguilles Dam, de lecriture du Public Sector Reform Bill, entres autres. 1. Cabinet has taken note that the Prime Minister is currently in Japan where he participated in the 9th edition of Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). The participation of the Prime Minister in this important event has been an occasion for Mauritius to reiterate its appreciation to TICADs vital role in Africas transformative journey since its inception in 1993 and to reaffirm its commitment to the strengthening of partnerships between Africa and Japan through the creation of platform geared towards economic development. It was also an opportunity for reinforcement of ties between Japan and Mauritius. During this visit, the Prime Minister inaugurated the new Embassy of Mauritius in Japan. 2. Cabinet has agreed to the promulgation of the Consumer Protection (Consumer Goods) (Maximum Mark-Up) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 which details the implementation of the fixed quantum subsidy scheme. Government agreed to the introduction of a fixed quantum subsidy scheme under the Price Stabilisation Fund to alleviate the burden of increasing prices of five selected controlled commodities, namely milk powder, edible oil, infant milk, baby diapers and processed cheese, which will take effect as from Tuesday 26 August 2025. The refund mechanism for five controlled commodities under the subsidy scheme will be implemented by the Mauritius Revenue Authority. The fixed subsidy will be payable to (a) a wholesaler who sells the selected five commodities to a retailer or final consumer; and (b) a retailer who is not also a wholesaler with respect to his stock of consumer goods held as at 26 August 2025 and sold to the final consumer within three months. 3. Cabinet has taken note that the fifth Executive Board Meeting of the World Hindi Secretariat was held on 14 and 15 July 2025 in Mauritius. A five-member delegation led by the Secretary (South) of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, along with representatives from the Mauritian Government participated in the meeting which focused on the promotion of Hindi language and the strengthening of cultural and educational ties between Mauritius and India. As a follow up to the meeting, discussions are being pursued with the Indian side for the revival of the operations and activities of the Secretariat. 4. Cabinet has taken note that Mauritius is preparing its forthcoming participation in the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Brazil in November 2025. The Conference will include the 30th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP30), the 20th meeting of the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, and the seventh meeting of the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, as well as the 63rd sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation. COP30s objectives focus on the implementation of the Paris Agreement through its Action Agenda, which is structured around six key areas, namely Transitioning Energy, Industry, and Transport; Stewarding Forests, Oceans, and biodiversity; Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems; Building Resilience for cities, Infrastructure and Water; Fostering Human and Social Development; and cross-cutting enablers. The overarching goal is to foster a global effort to translate climate agreements into tangible, measurable progress and ensure that climate action connects with peoples real lives. 5. Cabinet has agreed to the Government of the Republic of Mauritius signing a loan agreement with the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development to co-finance the construction of the Riviere des Anguilles Dam. The Riviere des Anguilles Dam Project comprises the construction of a rockfill dam of a storage capacity of 12.5 million cubic meters (inclusive of a mini hydro power plant), a water treatment plant of capacity of 50 thousand cubic meters per day and downstream works. The project aims to achieve sustainable water supply to meet the increasing demand for water in the southern part of Mauritius. It will contribute to promoting social, commercial, agricultural and economic development in the region. The project is being financed mainly from external borrowings from a consortium of financing institutions from Gulf countries, namely the Saudi Fund for Development in Africa, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development. 6. Cabinet has taken note that the setting up of the Commission of Experts to look into the reform of the pension system is being finalised. The Commission will start the review exercise shortly. The Ministry of Social Integration, Social Security and National Solidarity is also finalising its reform of the Invalidity Pension System. 7. Cabinet has taken note that the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms will issue drafting instructions to the Attorney-Generals Office for the proposed Public Sector Reform Bill. The proposed reforms under the Bill aim to address broader governance issues such as improving systems, recommending corrective measures and enhancing accountability. By benchmarking against frameworks established in other countries, the Public Sector Reform Bill will be designed according to its unique context, while incorporating global best practices to enhance good governance, transparency, and achieve a robust, agile, resilient and citizen-centric public sector. 8.Cabinet has agreed to Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius endorsing the New York Declaration Mauritius endorsing the New York Declaration on the Peaceful on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the TwoTwoState SolutionState Solution adopted by the High adopted by the HighLevel International Conference at the Level International Conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. United Nations Headquarters in New York. The New York Declaration is an actionoriented outcome document that charts a pathway oriented outcome document that charts a pathway towards the peaceful settlement of the Question of Palestine and the implementation of the towards the peaceful settlement of the Question of Palestine and the implementation of the TwoTwoState Solution. State Solution. The Declaration, The Declaration, inter aliainter alia, condemns the 07 October attacks by Hamas , condemns the 07 October attacks by Hamas against civilians as well as the Israeli attacks and siege against civilians in Gaza that has led to a against civilians as well as the Israeli attacks and siege against civilians in Gaza that has led to a worsening humanitarian crisis and calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. It calls worsening humanitarian crisis and calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. It calls on Hamas to free all hostages. As per the Declaration, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and on Hamas to free all hostages. As per the Declaration, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority. Gaza must be unified with the West Bank as hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority. Gaza must be unified with the West Bank as together they form the State of Palestine. It reaffirms that the war in Gaza must end together they form the State of Palestine. It reaffirms that the war in Gaza must end immediately and the implementation of the Twoimmediately and the implementation of the TwoState Solution is the only political solution to State Solution is the only political solution to the conflict. The Declaration further sets out a detailed reconstruction plan for Gaza once the the conflict. The Declaration further sets out a detailed reconstruction plan for Gaza once the war ends and calls upon the international community to support it, through political and war ends and calls upon the international community to support it, through political and financial means.financial means. Mauritius remains committed to its longstanding and principled position in favour of just and sustainable peace in the Middle East based on a Twosustainable peace in the Middle East based on a TwoState Solution, with an independent and State Solution, with an independent and viable Palestinian State existing side by side and at peace with the State of Israel.viable Palestinian State existing side by side and at peace with the State of Israel. 9. Cabinet has taken note that the Digital Elevation Model utilised for the Land Drainage Masterplan to identify flood-prone areas, would be made public. The Land Drainage Authority will disseminate same. 10. Cabinet has taken note of the establishment and forthcoming launching of the National Insurance Claims Database (NICD) platform by the Financial Services Commission in September 2025. The NICD will serve as a centralised online platform to record and track all motor vehicle insurance claims in Mauritius. To operationalise the NICD, the Financial Services Commission which will be hosting and administering the platform, will introduce Rules and Guidelines under the Insurance Act, supplemented by the safeguards of the Data Protection Act to ensure confidentiality and proper use of data. The NICD forms part of the strategy of the Ministry of Financial Services and Economic Planning as outlined in the Strategy Report 20252030 Rethinking the Future of Financial Services Industry, to improve the ease and cost of doing business. It will strengthen transparency and accountability within the motor insurance ecosystem and will reinforce the reputation of Mauritius as a jurisdiction committed to sound financial regulation and innovation. 11. Cabinet has taken note that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade intervened on the issue of geopolitical development at the last SADC Council of Ministers held from 12 to 14 August 2025 in Madagascar. He highlighted the need for the SADC region to act collectively and press for a short-term renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) till a long-term trade and investment relationship is worked out with the United States (US). The Council took note of the request of Mauritius that the SADC countries should speak together with one voice through the African Diplomatic Corps in Washington and seize all available opportunities to advocate for the US to come up with a solution in anticipation of the need of AGOA by September 2025. In the sidelines of the SADC meetings, the Minister also had the opportunity to meet Ms M. Higgins, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa Matters to discuss trade related issues. Ms Higgins noted that Mauritius has taken all the measures warranted by the situation, namely engaging with the US administration for consultations and to correct the trade imbalance. 12. Cabinet has taken note of the actions being undertaken by the Mauritius Fire and Rescue Service and the Local Authorities for the Ganesh Chaturthi celebration, the Pere Laval Pilgrimage, and the Shri Venkateshwara Pooja 2025, to ensure that these events proceed smoothly. Local Authorities have mobilised their resources and initiated a series of measures, including the cleaning of roads, drains, rivers, riverbanks and immersion sites, coupled with scavenging services throughout the festive and pilgrimage periods. Road patching, resurfacing, and the maintenance of pavements and footpaths are also being undertaken across towns and villages, together with the installation, repair and upgrading of street lighting and the provision of additional floodlights at strategic sites. 13. Cabinet has agreed to the Ministry of Education and Human Resource engaging discussions/consultations with concerned stakeholders on the proposed guidelines to control the use of smart mobile devices within school premises. Wide and constructive consultations will be held with, inter alia, associations of educators, rectors, managers, Parent-Teachers Associations, Student Councils and Information Technology experts from the relevant authorities to discuss fine-tuning of these measures and their eventual implementation at school level. 14. Cabinet has taken note of the holding of the Convention Nationale sur les Arts et la Culture as from 01 September 2025, over a period of one month at the Municipal City Council of Port Louis. The objectives of the Convention Nationale sur Les Arts et La Culture are, inter alia, to: (a) provide a consultative platform where all stakeholders can voice their proposals, expectations, challenges and aspirations; (b) align sectoral objectives with the overarching vision of Government for the creative economy; (c) encourage cross-sector collaboration between artists, academia, civil society and the private sector; (d) identify strategic priorities and concrete measures for the development of the creative economy; and (e) support the work of the National Open Arts Commission in developing a Strategic Plan that will guide policy, funding and infrastructure support for the arts and culture sector. All stakeholders including artists will have the opportunity to voice out their expectations and make recommendations with a view to developing a Strategic Plan for the arts and culture sector. Nine key sectorial areas in the field of creative industries have been identified, namely Visual Arts, Audiovisual, Performing ArtsTheatre, Performing ArtsDance, Book and Publishing, Music, Event Organisation, Heritage and Cultural Tourism and Creative Industry. 15. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Financial Services Consultative Council, which acts as an advisory body, comprising public and private stakeholders providing strategic guidance on policy and regulatory frameworks for the development of the Financial Services Industry. The Council is mandated to: (a) advise on policy, regulatory, and institutional matters affecting the financial services sector; (b) foster collaboration between public institutions and private operators; and (c) facilitate dialogue and consultation on major reforms, innovation, and emerging risks. Five sub-committees will be set up for the implementation of each of the five strategic pillars in the Strategy Report 2025-2030 on Rethinking the Future of the Financial Services Industry that will serve as the foundation for strengthening the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Mauritius International Financial Centre. 16. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Executive Council of the Bhojpuri Speaking Union, with Dr (Mrs) Varsharanee Bissessur-Doolooa as President. 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News] La combinaison gagnante du Loto Vert du 4 juillet 2025[Video News] Seance parlementaire du 4 juillet 2025 en Live[Video News] Les numeros gagnants du tirage du Loto et Loto Plus du 2 juillet 2025[Video News] La combinaison gagnante du Loto Vert du 1er juillet 2025[Video News]Lancement officiel du programme 2025 JCI Mauritius Creative Young Entrepreneur[Video News] Renganaden Padayachy a dit[Video news] Seance parlementaire du 30 juin 2025 en LIve[Video News] Les numeros gagnants du tirage du Loto et Loto Plus du 28 juin 2025[Video News] La combinaison gagnante du Loto Vert du 27 juin 2025[Video news] Seance parlementaire du 27 juin 2025 en Live Cancer Fund for Children are delighted to invite the Mayo community to a special information evening to learn more about the construction and development of Daisy Lodge, a unique, therapeutic short break facility which is currently being built on the shores of Lough Corrib in Cong. Taking place at 6.30pm on Tuesday, September 9, at Lydons Lodge Hotel, this session will allow attendees to learn more about the build of this purpose-built facility which will provide vital support to children, young people and families impacted by cancer across the island of Ireland, as well as an opportunity to ask questions about its impact on the community. Cancer Fund for Children ask that those planning to attend RSVP to rachulfullam@cancerfundforchildren.ie before September 1. Cancer Fund for Children provides emotional, social and therapeutic support to children diagnosed with cancer and their families across the island of Ireland, in hospital, in the family home and at the charitys existing short break centre, Daisy Lodge in Newcastle Co. Down. By building a second Daisy Lodge in Cong, Co. Mayo, Cancer Fund for Children will be able to provide short break support to even more families when they need it most. READ MORE: Mayo set to unite for Alzheimers Memory Walk Students in Mayo have received their Leaving Cert results this morning. In total, over 65,000 candidates received their results in Ireland today. Among them are 1,644 students in Mayo who sat the Leaving Cert this year, according to the State Examinations Commission (SEC). In a statement, the SEC 'congratulates and wishes well for the future the Leaving Certificate and Leaving Certificate Applied candidates whose results issue today.' How can Mayo students access Leaving Cert results? Candidates will be able access their provisional results through the SECs Candidate Self Service Portal (CSSP) at www.examinations.ie. Candidates can view their provisional results and will also be able to print a statement of their provisional results. Schools will be able to access results for all of the candidates in the school through the SECs Schools Portal. School authorities have been asked to make arrangements to support candidates receiving results today. Speaking on the 2025 Leaving Certificate results, Chairperson of the State Examinations Commission, Ms Jacinta Stewart offered her congratulations to the Leaving Certificate class of 2025: I, along with my fellow Commissioners, wish to extend our warmest congratulations to all the candidates receiving their Leaving Certificate results today. Results Day is a significant milestone in your lives, and you should be proud of your efforts and all that you have achieved. I would also like to acknowledge your families, teachers and school communities for the support they have provided to you, on your educational journey so far. Leaving Cert results 'won't define you' The Irish Second-Level (ISSU) Students' Union wishes good luck to Leaving Certificate 2025 Students: ISSU Uachtaran Preston O Caoimh said today: Today is a milestone for the Class of 2025. Youve gone through challenges that shaped your school years, from the aftermath of the pandemic to the everyday pressure of exams, and that makes this achievement even more meaningful. But remember: your grades dont define you. What matters most is the resilience, effort, and the growth it took to get here. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) President Padraig Curley has sent a message of congratulations to Leaving Certificate students who are receiving their results today: Your whole school community is proud of you, especially your teachers, said Mr Curley. All of you have achieved an important milestone in your lives. I advise you to stay calm and take time to explore your many options over the coming days and weeks. Even if you do not receive your dream CAO choice, know that life has a habit of offering meaningful pathways. Talk to your school, your guidance counsellor and your family. Know that the skills, experiences and resilience you have developed in the last number of years will stand to you as you move to the next phase of your lives. READ NEXT: TJs online school helping students to Breakthrough Maths! As autumn draws nigh, the schools are reopening, the evenings are shorter, and the curtain has been drawn on another Rose of Tralee festival. Now in its seventh decade, the Rose of Tralee has long been woven into the fabric of Irish culture and has well earned its place as a stalwart of Irish tradition. It generates up to 20 million for the Irish economy annually, holds its place in RTE's top 10 most watched programmes every year, receives thousands of applications from women all over the world to take part, and on top of it all, an average of 200,000 people make the journey to Kerry each year to attend the festival in person. The Rose of Tralee is a thriving entity which oozes social, economic, and cultural value, not to mention the sheer enjoyment it brings. Yet, every single year without fail, the same stale, overused, unoriginal question is pulled out of the hat by media outlets all over Ireland: Is the Rose of Tralee outdated? As a young woman from West Limerick, whose summers consisted of loading up into a mobile home in Ballyheige and only coming home for camogie training and matches, the Rose of Tralee was the crown jewel of our Kerry summers. As a little girl, the Roses were nothing short of real life princesses to me. Their manner, their dresses, their Sash's, it was as if someone had reached into a Disney film and brought the characters out onto the streets of Tralee. As a teenager, I looked up to them fiercely. They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up, educated, articulate, kind, generous, and great craic. Now, as an adult, they are the type of women Id like the little ones in my life to be exposed to. Strong women who put themselves out there, who carry a sense of sisterhood with them, who raise the people around them instead of knocking them down, pillars of their community who are actively trying to make a difference. READ NEXT: 'It feels unbelievable' - Laois Rose Katelyn Cummins on historic Rose of Tralee win My argument is, and always will be, that unless you have attended the festival in person , even for as little as an hour, then you dont have enough information to conclude that it is outdated. To observe the festival is to understand that the Rose of Tralee is a beacon of light, hope, and joy for all who experience it. The families who so proudly tell anyone who will listen, My daughters a Rose. The little girls running around the town with scrapbooks of the Roses profiles, searching for autographs from their heroes. The business owners whose enterprises thrive during the week of festivities. And everyone else in between. PICTURED: Aisling Magner with 2025 Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins The Rose of Tralee has always held up a mirror to where we are as a society at any given moment. This year, for example, we saw the Toronto Rose discuss how she regulates her autism symptoms. The Limerick Rose spoke about the workshops she runs to help women take control of their finances and their personal lives. And lets not forget the overall winner, 20-year-old Katelyn Cummins, an apprentice electrician from Laois, a career that would have been unthinkable for a woman even a few years ago, never mind one showcased proudly on national TV. As a journalist and someone who genuinely enjoys the festival, it quite irks me that, year in and year out, the media cant come up with a different question beyond Is the festival outdated? or Is there a place for it in 2025? In my opinion, the only thing outdated are those questions. I cannot understand why the same line is recycled time after time, especially when the media are handed new material every single year. The Rose of Tralee completely resets annually with a brand new set of contestants. The festival itself evolves continuously, with new adjustments, rule changes to make it more inclusive, new hosts, new venues, new judges, and more. To say the Rose of Tralee is outdated is to insult every single person who takes part, every person who returns to bask in the magic of the festival, every child who looks up at the Roses, and every household who treasures the annual tradition of sitting down in front of the telly to watch the show. The festival has often been described as anti-feminist or degrading to women. But I would argue that the real anti-feminism at play here is from the begrudgers who want to see the Rose of Tralee scrapped. Because by doing that, you are eliminating a future womans choice to take part. And surely, removing the option of "choice" from woman's decision has to be the most anti- feminist action of all. So as far as I'm concerned, I hope the festival prospers for another 70 years and continues to showcase the epitome of what it means to be a modern Irish women. Police in the UK are investigating an incident in which a Mayo woman aged in her 70s died after being hit by a bus in London, Mayo Live has reported. Just before 6 pm, on Sunday, August 17, paramedics were called to the scene of an incident in which a 73-year-old woman was struck by a bus in West London. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Since then, the woman has been identified as Mayo native Kathleen Kilcoyne who moved to London. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that no arrests have been made in relation to the incident and that the driver of the bus is cooperating with their investigations into the circumstances of the tragic incident. "Police were called at on Sunday, August 17, following reports of a serious road traffic collision in Neasden, Brent," a statement read. READ NEXT: IN PICTURES: Funeral of Irish designer Martha Nolan-O'Slatarra takes place in native Carlow "Officers were joined by the London Ambulance Service at the junction of Neasden Lane with Dudden Hill Lane, where a bus had been in collision with a pedestrian. "Sadly, despite the best efforts of emergency services, a 73-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene." Funeral arrangements for Ms Kilcoyne are yet to be confirmed. A few days ago, we reported that filmmaker Mudassar Aziz is busy preparing for his next directorial project, Pati, Patni Aur Woh Do. The film will feature Ayushmann Khurrana, Sara Ali Khan, Wamiqa Gabbi, and Rakul Preet Singh in the lead roles. However, the latest update suggests that the director is also ready to take on a new responsibility behind the camera. Aziz is reportedly stepping into the producers chair once again, marking his third venture as a producer after backing Happy Bhag Jayegi and Double XL. According to a report by Pinkvilla, Mudassar Aziz will be producing a comedy film titled Zamana Kya Kahega. The movie will star Taapsee Pannu, Ammy Virk, and Fardeen Khan in prominent roles. Interestingly, this casting brings the trio back together after their recent outing in Khel Khel Mein, which was also helmed by Aziz. The Air Force's top enlisted leader told senior noncommissioned officers in an internal message this week following the service chief's sudden retirement announcement that airmen don't swear loyalty to an individual. The internal message sent Thursday was an apparent attempt to rally airmen amid the leadership shake-up, and was reviewed by Military.com. In it, Chief Master Sgt. David Flosi wrote that transitions "sometimes lead to uneasiness about our Air Force" and that he wanted to share his perspective following Gen. David Allvin's surprise announcement on Monday that he is retiring later this year. "Chiefs, our calling is to stand ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for our team. We raise our right hand and swear to it," Flosi said in the message. "Not because of any individual, but because [of] the mission, our airmen, and the trust of our nation." Read Next: 4 Soldiers Charged in Alleged Sexual Assault in Barracks at Washington State Base Allvin's departure stemmed from the Trump administration's desire to separate itself from former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall's initiative focused on competing with China, which the top general was also involved in, multiple news outlets reported. Flosi's message to the force seemingly sought to calm the rank and file as the Pentagon goes through yet another major leadership shake-up, including the departures of at least three other service chiefs since the start of President Donald Trump's second term. A Department of the Air Force spokesperson told Military.com that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was "not involved in the decision for Gen. Allvin to retire." Flosi, as chief master sergeant of the Air Force, was Allvin's top adviser on enlisted matters. He became the top enlisted leader in March 2024, according to his service biography, and his career spans nearly 30 years. A spokesperson for Flosi's office told Military.com that, when he mentions that airmen don't join "because of any individual," the top enlisted leader was referring to anyone. "Transitions are a part of military life," the spokesperson, reiterating a comment from Flosi, told Military.com on Friday. "Leaders of all walks come and go, but the one constant throughout that entire process is our airmen. They remain the backbone of the Air Force, and they are committed to the mission. I'm proud of them and the work they do every day." An airman's oath of enlistment states that service members "will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and also notes "I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me." A Military.com request for comment sent to Pentagon officials was not immediately returned. The Trump administration has taken an unprecedented interest in the military's top generals. Last month, Military.com reported that Trump was meeting with four-star general nominees personally, a move that raised ethical concerns about the entangling of political roles and the military's highest-ranking officials. Hegseth's Pentagon has quickly reacted to officials who seemingly break with the president's agenda. Military.com exclusively reported in April that a Space Force commander stationed in Greenland sent out an email to Pituffik Space Force Base distancing it from Vice President JD Vance's overt criticism of Denmark during a visit to the installation. Shortly after that news broke, the commander was fired from her role. Flosi, in his internal message, praised his noncommissioned officers amid the leadership shake-ups and encouraged them to be "steady, calm" professionals. "In particular, the senior enlisted leader stands at the commander's side, representing the spirit, strength and resilience of every airman," the message read. "We owe it to them to brave the storms of change and be a guiding light." Related: Trump Is Vetting Top General Nominees. It Could Be Seen as a Loyalty Test. Five of the contractors Florida has employed to build and operate Alligator Alcatraz -- the controversial immigration detention site in the Everglades -- have links to allegations of improper business practices and misuse of public funds, a Miami Herald review of legal records found. One of the firms allegedly allowed armed Mexican nationals with no legal immigration status to be brought into the United States by a subcontractor to provide security for its work in building a border wall as part of a federal contract. Another recently agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement addressing allegations that it had sold to the U.S. federal government products made in prohibited countries like China. A third shares top executives with two businesses that were accused by ex-employees of filing inflated hurricane insurance claims in federally-declared disaster areas. The findings raise questions about the DeSantis administration's vetting of the companies that received Alligator Alcatraz contracts, all of which were granted under the terms of an emergency order Gov. Ron DeSantis first issued in 2023, declaring an illegal immigration emergency. The order grants the state executive sweeping powers to suspend any regulation or rule that may slow down response to an emergency, including the process of awarding contracts. The DeSantis administration described the process for soliciting contractors in general but did not answer when asked whether these same contractors would be tasked with operating "Deportation Depot" -- a newly announced detention facility in a currently-shuttered prison in north Florida. The Herald's reporting is based on court and corporate documents, campaign finance and lobbying data and the nearly three-dozen contracting records and purchase orders downloaded before the state replaced them with documents with significantly less detail. Gov. Ron DeSantis' office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not answer the Herald's detailed questions about the allegations surrounding the contractors and what kind of background checks or audits were performed before awarding the contracts. The Division of Emergency Management only said that the initial contract records were replaced on the public-facing portal because they "included proprietary information that shouldn't have been uploaded." SLSCO and Garner Environmental Services SLSCO, a Galveston, Texas-based business the DeSantis administration tasked with constructing and maintaining Alligator Alcatraz, had previously been awarded $1.4 billion in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracts to build President Trump's border wall in 2019. A former FBI Special Agent and an ex-San Diego County Sheriff's deputy hired to oversee security at the border wall construction site sued SLSCO in a Southern California federal court the following year. The suit, filed anonymously, accused the firm of "knowingly permitting and actively facilitating the crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border by armed Mexican nationals into the United States" during the construction project. It alleged that SLSCO and its subcontractor used these "unvetted workers" as guards in "sensitive and lightly-secured areas" at the construction site. The two former law enforcement officials alleged that one of SLSCO's subcontractors had even cleared a dirt road to allow easy access from Mexico into the United States. They also alleged that senior managers were aware of these violations of the contract agreements as well as federal immigration and firearm laws and "attempted to hide this misconduct" by pressuring the former FBI agent to not disclose the issues to the Army Corps of Engineers. Things escalated in July 2019 when there was a shootout on the American side of the border between the Mexicans employed as guards and other Mexican nationals who had crossed over to steal property, the lawsuit states. The two officials' lost their jobs later that year, in what they viewed as retaliation from the company for resisting internal pressure and filing reports to the Army Corps anyway. The suit alleges that a few months before suing SLSCO in early 2020, the two had also shared details with the FBI. The court docket shows the former FBI agent and sheriff's deputy moved in January 2021 to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning they can bring the suit again at a later date. In 2024, a New York City audit found SLSCO repeatedly charged the city high rates for operating its shelters for asylum seekers. It noted that in one instance the company charged hourly rates that were 237% more than a similar contract for another firm. In another instance, SLSCO billed the city almost double what other contractors charged. That audit also cites Garner Environmental Services, another firm tasked with constructing Alligator Alcatraz, for charging more than other businesses contracting with New York or even the salary rates of city employees. "[H]iring new full-time civil service staff would always be more cost effective than paying Garner and SLSCO for their contracted-out staff," the report concluded. SLSCO said in a statement that the allegations in the New York City audit and those surrounding the border wall were "thoroughly investigated and found to be without merit, and SLS was cleared of any wrongdoing." When asked, the firm did not provide any evidence of the investigations and their conclusions mentioned in its statement. Garner Environmental Services did not respond to the Herald's requests for comment. IRG Global Emergency Management IRG Global Emergency Management, a company based out of Conroe -- a city 40-miles north of Houston, Texas -- inked a $2.9 million deal on June 23 with Florida to provide transportation vehicles for Alligator Alcatraz. It contributed $10,000 to the Florida GOP the next day. On June 26, it signed another contract worth $2.2 million to provide "onsite emergency services" and "armory systems and materials" for the site. IRG Global was registered to do business in Florida in February 2025. Among its executives at the time of registration were Domenico and Guiseppe Gagliano. Two other companies that counted the Gaglianos among their executives and share the same office address as IRG Global were at the center of a late 2023 federal lawsuit in Houston. The companies, Global Estimating Services and Access Restoration Services, were sued by more than a dozen former employees who alleged they had not been paid bonuses worth thousands of dollars. The employees also alleged that the two companies -- which go by GES and ARS -- had used them as pawns in a plan with a Texas law firm to file inflated insurance claims in federally-declared disaster areas. The employees stated that while working as field inspectors in Florida, Texas and Louisiana, they would travel to sites of property loss to document the damage but the inspection was limited to just what they observed without trying to determine whether it was disaster-related or not. GES, they said, also instructed them to "document non-covered, unrelated property damage," and keep the scope descriptions uncharacteristically vague. Contrary to popular practice, they said they were prohibited from communicating with the insurance carriers. The employees alleged that at times they would be paid by ARS despite being officially employed by GES and while in Florida, they were "required to fill out ARS timesheets bearing the ARS logo." Data recorded by the former employees would be used, the lawsuit states, by "GES and ARS to formulate estimates for substantial hurricane and storm damage." The Texas law firm, the ex-employees' complaint stated, would then use those "inflated estimates" to "prosecute claims against national insurers." GES and IRS denied any wrongdoing. The case ended in a settlement in April this year. ARS had previously sued the Texas law firm in 2023. But the incident has led to a flurry of lawsuits leaving hundreds of homeowners waiting on claims to finish their repairs while the courts sort out the legal mess. IRG Global Emergency Management, the contractor that is working on Alligator Alcatraz, said that it has "no involvement or connection" in the legal matter of GES and that IRG and ARS are "separate legal entities." ARS also said it had "no involvement whatsoever" in formulating the estimates used in the insurance claims. "Any reporting that suggests ARS is connected to these matters would be categorically false," ARS said in a statement to the Herald. IRG Global did not respond after the Herald shared corporation documents showing the company listed the same offices and common executives as GES and ARS. ARS and IRG Global removed the Gaglianos from company paperwork in Florida and Texas roughly two weeks later. IRG Global and ARS were contracted by Florida even before Alligator Alcatraz was in the works. In mid-June this year, Florida awarded a contract worth roughly $19 million to IRG Global to fly Americans out of Israel amid the country's conflict with Iran. ARS contributed at least $99,000 to Gov. DeSantis' reelection campaign in 2022 and the same amount separately to the state Republican Party the next year, campaign finance records show. That year, ARS was also involved in the DeSantis administration's efforts to fly migrants to Democrat-leaning cities and states. GardaWorld and CDW Also part of this effort to fly migrants to more liberal cities was another company that is providing administrative support services to Alligator Alcatraz -- Canadian multinational defense and security conglomerate, GardaWorld. The company's Boca Raton-based cash services arm carries America's money: Its armored trucks are used by clients ranging from Bank of America to McDonald's. A 2020 Tampa Bay Times investigation found that its trucks often lacked reliable brakes, seat belts or even seats. Its drivers were barely trained and pressured to work at a frantic pace. The trucks kept hurtling out of control, "swerving into traffic, plunging into ditches and smashing into cars." GardaWorld trucks averaged 100 collisions each month from 2014 to 2016, the Times found. The collisions killed at least 19 and injured hundreds. GardaWorld dismissed the Times investigation as unsubstantiated and said that all such claims have "long been dismissed without any finding against GardaWorld Cash." It added that in recent years it has invested heavily in driver training and other protocols ensuring safety, security and legal compliance. Additionally, the company and its subsidiaries and affiliates have received $1.2 billion in federal contracts, mostly from the U.S. State Department and its personnel have been deployed at military bases, consulates and oilfields in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2008. GardaWorld's operations in Afghanistan have also come under fire. A 20-year U.S. Army veteran, Justin Fahn, who had once been employed by GardaWorld and sent to Afghanistan sued the company in a Georgia federal court in 2020 alleging that "many of the employees they [GardaWorld and its subsidiaries] hired to protect the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic facilities were unqualified," had failed to pass required training classes and refresher courses or had not taken them at all. "[T]heir failure to ensure that their employees are physically fit and properly trained has seriously jeopardized the safety of Department of State personnel and assets in Afghanistan," stated the complaint. Fahn also alleged that the firm and its counsel engaged in "witness tampering," "made material misrepresentations" to the court and federal prosecutors and acted in "bad faith" during the course of the lawsuit. Fahn's allegations around pre-deployment training were dismissed by the judge presiding over the case. But his allegations that GardaWorld employees did not complete annual refresher training were allowed to go forward. Court documents show the State Department audited GardaWorld's pre-deployment training records in 2019 and found improper paperwork, unauthorized instructors and other irregularities. GardaWorld implemented a corrective action plan that addressed the issues after the federal agency raised concerns with the firm. GardaWorld denied the allegations to the court. The company and Fahn settled the case in August 2024. In response to questions from the Herald, GardaWorld denied that there were allegations its personnel had failed to pass required training and endangered State Department employees. When the Herald shared court records contradicting its statement, the company emphasized the partial dismissal of the case and stated that it had reached an agreement to end legal proceedings and "remove further distractions" from its operations. Florida is also procuring electronic equipment like radio and computer systems for Alligator Alcatraz from CDW Government -- an Illinois company which reported in its March quarterly filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it is currently being investigated by the Justice Department on false claims allegations. The company told investors that it is cooperating with the investigation. The company has been in this position before. It agreed to pay $5.66 million in 2013 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that from 1999 to 2011, it sold the federal government products made in China and other countries that are prohibited from the federal contracting process and also under-reported its sales in order to avoid paying a contracting fee. There was no determination of liability in settling the claims. CDW Government did not respond to the Herald's requests for comment. 2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. WASHINGTON -- The FBI on Friday searched the Maryland home and Washington office of former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton as part of a criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information, a person familiar with the matter said. Bolton emerged as an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump after being fired in 2019 and feuded with the first Trump administration over a scathing book he wrote documenting his time in the White House. He was not in custody Friday and has not been charged with any crimes, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The searches, seemingly the most significant public step the Justice Department has taken against a perceived enemy of the president, are likely to elicit fresh alarm that the Trump administration is using its law enforcement powers to target the Republican's foes. They come as the Trump administration has moved to examine the activities of other critics, including by authorizing a grand jury investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe that dogged Trump for much of his first term, and as FBI and Justice Department leaders signal their loyalty to the president. They also unfolded against the backdrop of a 2022 search for classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, an action that produced since-dismissed criminal charges but remains the source of outrage for the president and supporters who insist he was unjustly targeted despite the retrieval of top-secret records. Current FBI Director Kash Patel, who included Bolton on a list of "members of the Executive Branch Deep State" in a 2023 book, said in a Fox News Channel interview this week that the Mar-a-Lago search represented a "total weaponization and politicization" of the bureau. Speaking to reporters during an unscheduled visit to the White House Historical Association, Trump said he had seen news coverage of Friday's search but he didn't know anything about it. He called Bolton a "lowlife" and said he was "not a fan." "He could be a very unpatriotic guy," Trump said. "We're going to find out." Bolton had said in interviews in the last few months that he was mindful that he could be scrutinized, telling the AP in January shortly before Trump took office, "Anybody who ever disagrees with Trump has to worry about retribution. It's a pretty long list." "It's been a long time since people used to talk about Richard Nixon's enemies list. But that seems to be Trump's approach. And so it's uncharted territory in many respects," Bolton said. Bolton Was in His Office Building at the Time Bolton was not home for the search of his home, but after it started, he was spotted Friday morning standing in the lobby of the Washington building where he keeps an office and talking to two people with "FBI" visible on their vests. He left a few minutes later and appeared to have gone upstairs in the building. Agents were seen taking bags into the office building through a back entrance. Messages left with a spokesperson for Bolton were not immediately returned, and a lawyer who has represented Bolton had no immediate comment. The Justice Department had no comment, but leaders appeared to cryptically refer to the search of Bolton's home in a series of social media posts Friday morning. Patel posted on X: "NO ONE is above the law... @FBI agents on mission." Attorney General Pam Bondi shared his post, adding: "America's safety isn't negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always." The Justice Department is separately conducting mortgage fraud investigations into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his company, and ex-Trump prosecutor Jack Smith faces an investigation from an independent watchdog office. Schiff and James have vigorously denied any wrongdoing through their lawyers. Trump and Bolton Have Been at Odds for Years Bolton served as Trump's third national security adviser for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. He faced scrutiny during the first Trump administration over a book he wrote about his time in government that officials argued disclosed classified information, but the Justice Department in 2021 abandoned its lawsuit and dropped a separate grand jury investigation. Bolton's lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information. The handling of classified information by top government officials has been a politically loaded topic in recent years. Besides Trump, the Justice Department also investigated whether then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, mishandled classified information after serving as vice president in the Obama administration, and the FBI also recovered what it said were classified documents from the home of former Trump Vice President Mike Pence. Neither man was charged. Trump, on his first day back in office this year, revoked the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton was also among a group of former Trump officials whose security details were canceled by Trump earlier this year. Bolton's harshly critical book, "The Room Where It Happened," portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he "saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government." Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a "crazy" war-monger who would have led the country into "World War Six." Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and also held positions in President Ronald Reagan's administration. He considered running for president in 2012 and 2016. In 2022, an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to kill Bolton in presumed retaliation for a 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed the country's most powerful general. Bolton had by then left the Trump administration, but he tweeted, "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran." Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price, Nathan Ellgren, Lindsay Whitehurst, Alanna Durkin Richer, Byron Tau and Jill Colvin contributed to this report. MANILA, Philippines The Philippine defense chief condemned Chinas deployment of a swarm of armed coast guard forces, backed by a helicopter and a drone, closer to the Philippines military outpost in a fiercely disputed atoll in the South China Sea. Its military also vowed to defend the offshore territory, the scene of repeated, tense faceoffs. The latest flare-up in the long-seething territorial disputes around the Second Thomas Shoal came up in closed-door talks between Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and his visiting Australian counterpart, Richard Marles. Philippine military chief Gen. Romero Brawner Jr. said Marles renewed Australias commitment to help defend the rule of law in a region experiencing the pressure that the rules-based order is being placed under. Chinas actions and its nebulous territorial claims in the disputed waters are a matter not only of concern, but of condemnation because these are gross violations of international law, Teodoro said in a joint news conference with Marles, when asked about the latest Chinese actions. We need to stand up to this, he added. We work really closely with the Philippines in terms of asserting the rules-based order in the South China Sea, Marles added. Thats really important for us to jointly do. We understand that in that work, there will be an interaction between defense forces. New Faceoff at Second Thomas Shoal Chinese officials did not immediately comment on a Philippine military report that Beijing has deployed several coast guard and suspected militia ships, along with a swarm of speedboats, some fitted with high-caliber machine guns, and backed by a helicopter and a drone. The deployment is reportedly close to a Philippine warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which has served as Manila's territorial outpost in Second Thomas. A Chinese boat came as close as 50 meters (164 feet) to the Sierra Madre, and two boatloads of Filipino forces were deployed from the ship to prevent the Chinese from coming closer, Philippine military officials said. The Philippine navy deliberately grounded the Sierra Madre in 1999 at the shoal now a rust-encrusted seacraft slightly tilting in the shallows to serve as its territorial outpost, where China has deployed ships to keep a continuous watch. The bigger deployment of Chinese coast guard and other forces at the shoal started Wednesday and Brawner said Beijing's forces were still in the vicinity of the shoal Friday. The situation is tense because theyre trying to get closer but our troops we continue to push them outward, Brawner told reporters after joining the talks between Marles and Teodoro. China Claims Staged Provocation In reaction to the latest flare-ups, Chinas coast guard issued a statement Friday urging the Philippines to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and vowing to carry out law enforcement activities in the waters around the disputed shoal. It also released a video of what it said was the Philippines latest staged provocation, with Philippines boats approaching its vessels in an unprofessional and dangerous manner. The video showed two small boats approaching a Chinese vessel, with one person on the Philippine boat holding what appeared to be a camera it said, adding that the other boat kept some distance. The spokesperson made no mention of Chinas new deployments in the area or address a collision last week between two Chinese ships in another incident. Australian Support Marles is visiting the Philippines as Australian forces engage in their largest combat exercises with the Philippine military, involving more than 3,600 military personnel in live-fire drills and battle maneuvers. Marles has been invited to witness a mock amphibious beach assault by Australian and Filipino naval forces over the weekend in a western Philippine town facing the South China Sea, Philippine military officials said. After their meeting, Marles and Teodoro signed a joint letter of intent to further boost defense cooperation and affirm their resolve to enhance interoperability, collective deterrence and long-term military readiness ... to promote regional security and stability," according to Philippine defense officials. The exercises called Alon Tagalog for wave will showcase Australias growing firepower. The drills will involve an Australian guided-missile navy destroyer, F/A-18 supersonic fighter jets, a C-130 troop and cargo aircraft, Javelin anti-tank weapons and special forces sniper weapons. China has raised alarm over such combat exercises in or near the disputed waters, which it claims almost in its entirety, but where the United States and its treaty allies, Australia and the Philippines, have staged joint naval patrols and drills with other countries to boost deterrence against threats to freedom of navigation and overflight. Chinas military have separately confronted U.S., Australian and Philippine ships and aircraft in alarmingly close calls to assert what Beijing calls its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the strategic waterway, a key global trade route, sparking fear of a larger conflict that may involve American forces and their allies in what has long been regarded as an Asian flashpoint. Incident at Scarborough Shoal The new faceoff in the Second Thomas Shoal came after an accidental collision between Chinese ships Aug. 11 in another disputed fishing atoll, the Scarborough Shoal. The Chinese navy and coast guard ships that collided were trying to block a Philippine coast guard ship from sailing closer to the shoal. The collision smashed the Chinese coast guard ships bow area and may have seriously injured or thrown overboard a number of Chinese personnel seen standing on the deck shortly before the crash, Philippine officials said, based on coast guard video. Chinese officials have refused to comment on the collision. Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila in Manila, and Chris Bodeen in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report. This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter. For many Americans, the U.S. Army is nearly synonymous with its helicopters. Think of popular films such as Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers, and Apocalypse Now. But in recent months, the service announced a plan to pare down its helicopter fleet, catching many of its aviators off guard. The cuts are part of a larger reorganization as the Army prepares for the changing landscape of warfare with one of the services' smallest budget increases. The War Horse spoke with Jeremiah Gertler, senior analyst at the Teal Group defense and aerospace consulting company, to better understand why the Army is nixing so many of its iconic aircraft, what might replace them, and what might happen to the soldiers who work with them. First, some background and a look back at how we got here. Heavy helicopter losses among Russian forces in Ukraine led top U.S. Army officials to question the survivability of manned rotorcraft in future conflicts. Last year, the service cancelled the development of a new attack and reconnaissance helicopter, with Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George pointing out that sensors and weapons mounted on unmanned aerial systems--think drones--are "more ubiquitous, further reaching, and more inexpensive than ever before." That effort accelerated in May, when the Army said it will reduce one air cavalry squadron per active-duty combat aviation brigade. In the months since, the Army said it would also divest many of its older UH-60s and AH-64s and inactivate the helicopter units in both of its Reserve expeditionary combat aviation brigades. Inactivate is not the same as deactivate, which means a permanent closure, but the Army has not announced plans for what it intends to do next with the units. Q.: What Does the US Army Use Helicopters for? The Army generally uses helicopters for attack and logistics missions, Gertler explained. The AH-64 Apache carries an arsenal of rockets, missiles, and a 30 mm chain gun in the attack and reconnaissance role. Meanwhile, the smaller UH-72 Lakota, medium-sized H-60 Black Hawk, and large H-47 Chinook helicopters carry troops, medical supplies, ammunition, humanitarian aid, and other cargo in and out of battlefields and crisis zones. Q.: Why Does the Army Want to Get Rid of So Many Helicopters? Gertler said it is the result of two influences: budgetary pressure to reduce the number of units in the Army and analysis of the war in Ukraine, where large numbers of surface-to-air missiles threaten helicopters, and modular, affordable drones can perform low-altitude attack and reconnaissance missions. "That is part of what's informing it, just the fact that pretty much anything that flies on that battlefield dies," Gertler said about the shrinking helicopter fleet. He said the divestments are unrelated to the safety issues plaguing Army aviation in recent years, even before 67 people died on Jan. 29 when an Army Black Hawk collided with an American Airlines flight outside Washington, D.C. Paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade power on a first-person view drone during a training exercise in Tunisia. (Sgt. Mariah Y. Gonzalez/U.S. Army photo) Q.: Can Drones Do What Helicopters Do? "Well, right now the Army is looking to experiment and find out what really works," Gertler said. Both armies in Ukraine use drones extensively in reconnaissance and surveillance roles, as spotters to guide artillery strikes, and as jammers to disrupt enemy communication and navigation systems. They have also proven useful in limited attack roles by dropping small munitions such as hand grenades or by loitering above a target before striking like a missile. Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, a top Army aviation official, wrote in Army Aviation Magazine that drones "should do the 'dirty, dull, dangerous' work" that do not require a human's rapid decision-making or ethical judgment. But manned rotorcraft writ large are not going away any time soon, particularly for the transport role. Army officials expect to operate the H-60 until 2070, and the service is steaming ahead on its replacement, the MV-75, a tiltrotor that can fly like a fixed-wing airplane and land like a helicopter, similar to the Osprey flown by the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. NATO experts also point out that changing Russian tactics have made its attack helicopter fleet more effective now than it was at the start of the war. Q.: Why the Heavy Cuts for the Reserve in Particular? "The helicopters in the National Guard have significant state roles for things like search and rescue and disaster relief, so it's hard to draw those down," Gertler said. "And because, frankly, Congress has traditionally defended the Guard more strongly than the Reserve." Q.: What Happens to the Soldiers in those Units? The ideal solution is to retrain those troops in a new role, Gertler said, but not all unit members may want to switch. Some may try to find a helicopter job in a new unit, or leave the Army. Command Sgt. Maj. Nathan Smith, the top enlisted leader in one of the units being inactivated, the 5-159th General Support Aviation Battalion, voiced the same concern. "People that come here live and breathe flying Army helicopters," he told The Virginian-Pilot. "Depending on where they are in their careers, the sentiment is, well, now what am I going to do?" More than a dozen Army Reserve aviators told Military.com they were frustrated with the rollout of the decision, which they said was chaotic and poorly communicated. Q.: What's the Risk of Divesting These Aircraft? Army leaders frame the transition as a way to stay relevant in modern war, though it's not clear at this point what will replace the helicopters. "Anytime that you reduce the budget for the military without reducing the number of threats, you're taking a risk," Gertler said. "The Army is also at a strategic risk now, because they are figuring out, as they come out of a very busy period over the last 20 years, what is their role going forward in a more globally oriented and Pacific-oriented fight?" Hopefully, at the other end of that, Gertler said, the Army units losing their helicopters will find a new way to contribute. "Whereas if they continued with the helicopter mission," he said, "the unit might be in danger of going away entirely." This War Horse explainer was reported by David Roza, edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. David Roza is a journalist who has covered the U.S. military since 2019. His work has appeared in Air & Space Forces Magazine and Task & Purpose. He can be reached at davidroza@protonmail.com. Editor's Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter. August 22: Buehler is indeed headed to the bullpen, Cora told reporters (video provided by NESN). Mondays start has yet to be determined. August 21: A disappointing season for Red Soxs righty Walker Buehler continued on Tuesday. He only completed four innings while allowing four hits and as many walks in a home loss to the Orioles. It was the fourth time in his past five outings that Buehler issued at least three free passes, and his season earned run average is up to 5.40 across 22 starts. Asked this evening whether Buehler would make his scheduled start on Monday, manager Alex Cora said the team (hasnt) talked about it yet (via Tim Healey of The Boston Globe). While Cora wasnt interested in discussing the situation publicly, Chris Cotillo of MassLive reports that the Sox are having internal conversations about moving Buehler to the bullpen. Its not out of the question that he pitches in relief at some point during this weekends series against the Yankees. Thatd obviously rule him out of starting Monday in what would be a rematch against Baltimore. Buehler hasnt been anywhere near as effective as hoped. The Sox signed him to a one-year, $21.05MM free agent deal that matched the price of the qualifying offer that he didnt receive from the Dodgers. Buehler had a very poor regular season in 2024 (5.38 ERA in 16 starts) but hit the market with positive buzz after closing out the World Series. That convinced the Sox he was a solid upside play, but Buehlers numbers this year are even worse than those of the 2024 regular season. The righty has a career-low 16.5% strikeout rate and has gotten whiffs on just 7.7% of his pitches. The recent command woes have pushed his walk rate north of 10% for the first time in his career (outside of a 2017 debut in which he pitched fewer than 10 innings). Buehler carried a 6.12 ERA into the All-Star Break. While he has managed a serviceable 3.66 mark in the second half, he has walked as many batters as he has struck out over his past six starts. Boston recalled former fifth starter Richard Fitts from Triple-A Worcester this afternoon. Cora said that Fitts, who has started all 17 appearances between MLB and the upper minors, will be available out of the bullpen. Fitts averaged only four innings per start while posting a near-5.00 ERA in the big leagues. The Sox pushed him out of the rotation when they acquired Dustin May at the deadline. They could reverse course and have him start on Monday. Boston could also use both Buehler and Fitts in relief and recall one of Kyle Harrison or Cooper Criswell to work as the fifth starter. Harrison has made 10 Triple-A starts since being acquired in the Rafael Devers deal. He has a solid 3.69 ERA but has walked 12% of batters faced while averaging fewer than five innings per start with Worcester. Criswell has a 3.70 mark in 65 2/3 frames over 16 Triple-A outings. If the Sox do pull Buehler from the rotation, itd impact him financially. He has already picked up $1MM in bonuses by reaching 20 and 22 starts. Hed unlock another $500K each at 24, 26, and 28 starts. Hell be a free agent next offseason when the Sox decline their end of a mutual option in favor of a $3MM buyout. The Laurium Manor Inn, located at 320 Tamarack Street in Laurium, MI in Houghton County in the Upper Peninsula. Photo provided by the Laurium Manor Inn LAURIUM, MI - One of Michigans most historic mansions has just been named the No. 1 historical bed and breakfast in the entire country. Built in 1908, the Laurium Inn is located in the Keweenaw Peninsula at 320 Tamarack Street in Laurium in Houghton County. The 45-room mansion was ranked at the top by Newsweek Magazines Readers Choice Awards. Dave and I are incredibly honored to see Laurium Manor recognized as the nations top historic bed and breakfast, said co-innkeeper Julie Sprenger. For more than three decades, weve dedicated ourselves to preserving this home and sharing its story with visitors from around the world. General Manager, Kevin Porter, told MLive the Inn gets people from all over the country and even had visitors this month from Brazil. Also on in Newsweeks top 10 list of historic bed and breakfasts is The Cartier Mansion, ranked No. 2 on the list. This spot ranked No. 1 on last years listing. The Cartier Mansion, located at 409 East Ludington Avenue in Ludington, Michigan. Photo provided by the Cartier Mansion Located at 409 East Ludington Avenue in Ludington, the Cartier Mansion was built in 1905 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The exterior is distinguished by Roman pressed brick and Bedford limestone, while the interior features mahogany, oak, cherry, and walnut woodwork, all complemented by preserved period antiques and fine art. We are incredibly honored to be named a top historical B&B by Newsweek readers for a second year in a row, said Jenna Simpler, owner of the Cartier Mansion. This designation is a testament to our unwavering dedication to preserving the mansions legacy and providing truly extraordinary experiences for our guests. The Cartier Mansion has 18 guest rooms. Each includes a private bathroom and individual climate control. Top 10 Historic B&Bs in America by Newsweek Readers Choice: The I-75/I-69 interchange highlights Michigan's infrastructure funding crisis as a political standoff continues over road funding solutions. Pictured is a screenshot from an overhead video capturing traffic at the interchange of I-75 and I-69 in Genesee County. (Photo provided by MDOT) Courtesy photo | MDOT Michigan is planning to put a $5.5 million Band-Aid on a busy highway interchange in the Flint area as officials stress the need for more road funding. The I-75/I-69 interchange in Genesee County is a busy one, used by more than 30,000 vehicles per day, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). Its a key driver for commerce, commuter and tourism traffic. However, its also in need of a complete rebuild due to its declining road and bridge conditions, as well as a redesign to accommodate todays traffic speeds and flow. Thatll cost an estimated $1.3 billion. MDOT has recently begun highlighting a handful of key trunkline bridges in declining condition to draw attention to the need for more annual transportation funding. Without increased funding, MDOT says its possible more than 100 highway bridges will close to traffic by 2035, affecting about 1.8 million drivers daily. Related: Michigan bridge funding crisis: More than 100 bridges at risk of closure by 2035 Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said increased funding is a priority, as have leaders from the state House and Senate. Whitmer announced her proposal in February, and the Republican-led House passed their proposal in March. As of mid-August, the Senate hasnt touched the House-passed bill package, or introduced one of its own. Lawmakers say theyre willing to negotiate, but the issue remains at a standstill. A redesign of I-75/I-69 would likely affect 33 bridges in the area. Of those, eight bridges are in poor or serious condition. One such bridge -- the northbound I-75 flyover ramp to westbound I-69 -- is in serious condition. MDOT plans to spend $5.5 million to replace its deck in 2030 to buy the state some time to come up with funding for the larger project. All we can say is we dont have the funding to address it right now, said Marissa Irish, a regional bridge engineer for MDOT. If the condition worsens and the bridge has to be closed to traffic for safety reasons, officials said it would cause significant disruptions. More than 9,000 vehicles use the bridge daily. Were trying very hard to not have that happen, Irish said. Its an interchange thats already deficient in its level of service. Its already congested and backlogged. Of the 15 counties that make up MDOTs Bay Region, there are 21 bridges listed in poor condition and at risk of closure by 2035, as of mid-August. That would affect more than 175,000 road users. Once closed to the public, bridges can take an average of two years to replace. While initially expensive, newly designed bridges can last 80 to 100 years. If there is no long-term solution to Michigans road-funding crisis, considerable progress in recent years will be stalled, meaning contractors will employ fewer workers and road conditions will decline, said Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity Director Susan Corbin in a prepared statement. The effects would spread across industries and communities, causing job losses, shrinking economic activity and creating long-term challenges for Michigans workers and families. Michigan announced a new service Friday, Aug. 22, known as MI Options, that connects residents to counselors who can help them access long-term care. (Courtesy MDHHS) Michigan is introducing a new call center service that will help older adults and people with disabilities find and access appropriate long-term health care. The free service, known as MI Options, will offer agents who can schedule and refer residents to trained and certified counselors in their community. Those counselors can then help them make informed decisions about their long-term care needs. Elizabeth Hertel, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said the statewide platform will increase the understanding and awareness of long-term care supports and services, including home and community-based options. By providing counseling on topics from Medicare enrollment and prescription cost options to aging in place, individuals across the state will be empowered to make the best choices for their health and well-being, Hertel said in a prepared statement. The MI Options system launched Friday, Aug. 22. Residents can schedule an appointment or receive a referral by calling 1-800-803-7174 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Certified counselors are available to help residents or their caregivers identify next steps after a major life event to better understand what services and supports are available. Medicare is the federal health insurance for people 65 and older. Medicare counselors can help answer questions around enrollment and billing, as well as discuss cost savings, prescription drug coverage options, benefits explanations, and coordinating Medicare and Medicaid. Related: Whitmer, McDonald Rivet warn of impact of Medicaid cuts at Grand Blanc event Too many people wait until the point of crisis to seek out this kind of information, said Scott Wamsley, director of MDHHS Bureau of Aging, Community Living, and Supports. Beginning these conversations earlier, with the assistance of trained counselors, can help alleviate some of the confusion and anxiety. Local counselors include regional Area Agencies on Aging, Centers for Independent Living and local nonprofit organizations. To learn more about MI Options, visit Michigan.gov/MDHHSMIOptions. ROCKWOOD, MI The body of a man who went missing over the weekend has been found, police said. Jacob Angeles, 22, of Rockwood, was last seen around 11 a.m. Saturday with his mother at the Michigan Renaissance Festival in Holly (Oakland County), according to the Rockwood Police Department. The search for Angeles began after he was a no call-no show to work Sunday morning. Angeles body was found around 11:30 p.m. Thursday in a wooded area of Crawford County, the Oakland County Sheriffs Office said in a news release today. The Crawford County Sheriffs Office had received a tip from a resident who had seen a parked vehicle matching the description of Angeles 2006 Jeep Commander. It is unknown how long Angeles body had been there. Foul play is not suspected, police said. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. RELATED: Man missing after attending Michigan Renaissance Festival The Oakland County Sheriffs Office, Crawford County Sheriffs Office, Roscommon County Sheriffs Office, Wyandotte Police Department, Mt. Morris Township Police, Flushing Police Department and others assisted in the search, along with hundreds of people who submitted tips. The Rockwood Police Department expresses its most sincere and heartfelt sympathy to the family, and we ask that the public respect their privacy in this very difficult time, police said. The suspect was seen leaving the hospital around 9:55 a.m. after allegedly getting into altercation with his ex-wife. DETROIT -- A manhunt is underway for a suspect who is believed to have shot and killed his ex-wife at Henry Ford Hospital Friday. According to Fox 2 Detroit, the suspect has been identified as 53-year-old Mario Green. Police say Green was spotted on video surveillance leaving the hospital around 9:55 a.m. It is believed that Green got into a verbal altercation with his ex-wife in the basement of the facility. During the altercation, Green allegedly produced a gun and fatally shot the woman. The victim is an employee at the hospital, but her title was not provided by police. The hospital was placed on lockdown following the shooting, but that has since been lifted. Green, who is from Bloomfield Hills, is believed to have fled the scene in a white Dodge Charger. Police say he is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who has information on Greens whereabouts is asked to contact the police. On Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants in its push to cut Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. Pictured is President Donald Trump before greeting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he arrives at the White House, Aug. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) AP By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research funding in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the Supreme Court decided Thursday. The high court majority lifted a judges order blocking $783 million worth of cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to align with Republican President Donald Trumps priorities. The high court did keep Trump administration guidance on future funding blocked, however. The court split 5-4 on the decision. Chief Justice John Roberts was along those who would have kept the cuts blocked, along with the courts three liberals. The order marks the latest Supreme Court win for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with canceling hundreds of grants while the lawsuit continues to unfold. The plaintiffs, including states and public-health advocacy groups, have argued that the cuts will inflict incalculable losses in public health and human life. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has said funding decisions should not be subject to judicial second-guessing and efforts to promote policies referred to as DEI can conceal insidious racial discrimination. The lawsuit addresses only part of the estimated $12 billion of NIH research projects that have been cut, but in its emergency appeal, the Trump administration also took aim at nearly two dozen other times judges have stood in the way of its funding cuts. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said judges shouldnt be considering those cases under an earlier Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for teacher-training program cuts. He says they should go to federal claims court instead. But the plaintiffs, 16 Democratic state attorneys general and public-health advocacy groups, argued that research grants are fundamentally different from the teacher-training contracts and couldnt be sent to claims court. Halting studies midway can also ruin the data already collected and ultimately harm the countrys potential for scientific breakthroughs by disrupting scientists work in the middle of their careers, they argued. U.S. District Judge William Young judge in Massachusetts agreed, finding the abrupt cancellations were arbitrary and discriminatory. Ive never seen government racial discrimination like this, Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, said at a hearing in June. He later added: Have we no shame. An appeals court left Youngs ruling in place. The company says liquidation sales at its stores are now being paused at certain locations now that a buyer has been found. Weeks after announcing it was filing for bankruptcy, national teens and tweens retailer Claires has found a buyer. In a press release issued Wednesday, the retailer said it has reached an agreement with private equity firm Ames Watson for the firm to buy Claires North American business operations. As part of the deal, liquidation sales at a significant amount of stores have been paused, but will continue at other locations. Claires did not provide a list of which stores will continue to participate in liquidation sales. As we continue through our restructuring proceedings, our team has worked tirelessly to explore every option for preserving the value of the Claires business and brand, said Claires CEO Chris Cramer. We are glad to reach this definitive agreement to sell a portion of our North America operations to Ames Watson and maximize the value of our company for all our stakeholders. I would again like to extend my gratitude to every Claires employee who has continued to show up for our customers during this challenging time for our business. The sale is subject to approval by courts in the U.S. and Canada. Claires currently operates more than 1,300 stores in the U.S. When the company announced the bankruptcy, it also confirmed it will close 18 stores including two in Michigan. An MLive file photo of a crop duster. HVT An investigation into whether a group of construction workers got sick from a crop duster spraying pesticides ended with a state agency unable to confirm that drift was responsible. But the sprayer, Nicks Flying Service, did face a $1,000 fine for applying pesticides at the wrong wind speed. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, MDARD, launched an investigation after 23 construction workers building a solar field in southwest Michigan alleged they were sprayed by pesticides on Aug. 3, 2023. Ten reported going to the hospital. The investigation was closed nearly a year later on July 31, 2024. A case file recently obtained by the Freedom of Information Act offers insight into a rare investigation of multiple people allegedly being harmed by drifting pesticides. It also underscores the difficulty regulators face in proving pesticides are to blame for making people sick. Most cases that get investigated involve chemicals drifting onto property, according to Brian Verhougstraete, pesticide section manager for MDARD. He called this case a once in a decade situation because it involved nearly two dozen people. Nicks Flying Service was unable to comment on the investigation with owner Nick Yoder saying the company plans to appeal the fine. MDARD says no formal appeal has been filed yet. Related: State investigates if crop duster sprayed workers with dangerous pesticides The pesticide investigation Construction firm Barton Malow filed a complaint on Aug. 9, 2023 six days after the incident alleging a crew of workers had been exposed to pesticides from a nearby crop duster. The team, which included some contractors, was building a large solar field in Union City, about 25 miles north of the Indiana border, near a cornfield. DTE Energy previously confirmed it was their 851-acre solar park, the utilitys largest to date. MDARD then spent months investigating collecting eyewitness accounts, pesticide spray records and other evidence from the site to determine if pesticides were improperly applied. This included 18 witness statements submitted to the case file by Barton Malow. Workers heard a plane buzzing, the statements said, before the crop duster started spraying a fungicide called Miravis Neo and Tombstone Insecticide. After that, phones started to go crazy and there was chaos at the construction site. One worker described seeing the plane turn, feeling droplets, then experiencing dizziness, nausea with vomiting, a loss of motor skills and at one point he passed out. He went to an urgent care clinic before being treated at a local hospital. That worker believes he faced the brunt of it because he was in the field for about 20 minutes trying to make sure everyone got out, according to his statement. Other witnesses described the air smelling bad and symptoms like tingling tongues, irritated eyes, headache, nausea and sore throats. They were immediately hosed down with water. Related: A migrant worker died after picking Michigan asparagus. His death fell through the cracks. A pilot for Nicks Flying Service, an aerial applicator based in Indiana, told MDARD investigators he applied the pesticides for about 45 minutes before he saw people scattering out of the solar field, according to the case file. He then stopped spraying. The construction site was shut down for five days while Barton Malow evaluated the situation before allowing workers to return. A spokesperson for Barton Malow did not comment on the investigation due to the confidential nature of the project and the privacy of our team members. MDARD also collected evidence shortly after opening the case. A construction workers safety vest tested positive for residue, with four active ingredients from Mirvais Neo and Tombstone. But because it had been worn in the days after the incident, the case file notes the vest could have been exposed to pesticides other than drift. Flight path records also showed the pilot maintained no-spray buffers in compliance with the law. The incident was one of 70 work-related pesticide illness and injury cases documented in 2023 by Michigans Pesticide Illness and Injury Surveillance Program an annual report thats been tracking pesticide poisonings for over two decades. Typically, pesticide exposure involves spills, splashes or mixing incompatible cleaning products. Only 1% of the cases two years ago were considered high severity, or illnesses considered life threatening or requiring medical care. Although the Occupational Safety and Health Administration typically oversees workplace safety, MDARD is responsible for enforcing the sale and use of pesticides in Michigan. The purpose of its investigations are to determine if any pesticide laws were broken, not figure out what may have caused an illness or damaged property. At the end of the day, we may come to the conclusion that no laws were broken, Verhougstraete said. It doesnt mean somebodys property didnt get damaged or something like that, but just that there was no violation of our state and federal laws. The penalty By the end of the investigation, MDARD could not support or refute the claim that workers were exposed to drift. It can be hard to make that connection firm, said Caitlin Burkman, a pesticide regulator who worked on the case. One of the major hang-ups, according to Burkman, was that none of the 18 written statements mentioned workers feeling pesticide droplets. Most of the reports were about odor. Only one worker, the one with the most severe symptoms, later told investigators he felt spray hit his skin. Additionally, no soil samples were collected, which could have confirmed drift, because it rained in the week after the incident occurred. When we go out there and were investigating the case, were collecting the facts as best we can, documenting those, Verhougstraete said. And at some point, we either have enough evidence, or we dont. But the state agency did find that Nicks Flying Service violated rules around wind. MDARD enforces federal law through pesticide labels that provide information about how to legally use products. The label, essentially, is the law. In this case, the Miravis Neo label states do not apply at wind speeds below 3 mph. But on the day of the incident, Nicks Flying Service recorded a windspeed of 2 mph and an MDARD investigator found wind speeds ranged between 0 and 2.9 mph. Because of that violation, MDARD issued a $1,000 administrative fine. It was the fourth penalty the state agency levied against Nicks Flying Service in three years. MDARD previously found the crop dusting company had violated pesticide law three times in 2021. These three fines, totaling $3,500, were among 74 penalties that MDARDs pesticide enforcement team issued that year. In two of the cases involving Nicks Flying Services, pesticides being sprayed on cornfields drifted onto neighboring property, state records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show. In a third instance, an insecticide was sprayed too close to a lake. Because of this track record, MDARD scheduled a virtual meeting in July 2024 to discuss how the firm will comply with Michigans pesticide laws in the future. The state says there havent been any issues since then. To date, Nicks Flying Service has paid all its outstanding fines, according to MDARD. When violations do happen, enforcement is one of our tools, Verhougstraete said. But at the end of the day, we really just want compliance. Wurst Bar, 705 W. Cross St., will close after 13 years on Sunday, Aug. 24. The bar served sausages, beer and other bar fare and was frequented by Eastern Michigan University due to its proximity to campus. Jacob Hamilton YPSILANTI, MI An Ypsilanti restaurant known for its sausages, located just across from Eastern Michigan Universitys campus, will close this Sunday. Wurst Bar, 705 W. Cross St., announced on Instagram its final day will be Aug. 24. The bar originally opened in early 2012. In their farewell message, the restaurant expressed gratitude to their patrons. Thank you all for your incredible support over the years, the restaurant wrote in the post. Its been an unforgettable ride. This location will be going through renovations, and while were sad to say goodbye to The Wurst Bar, were excited to share that something new is brewing, the post continues. Stay tuned! Efforts to reach Wurst Bar for more details were not successful. As the name suggests, the establishment was known for its house-made sausages, offering options like chorizo, Italian and bratwurst, as well as exotic options such as bison and alligator meat. It also offered beers, other alcoholic, plus more bar fare like burgers, pretzels and nachos. During its 13-year run, Wurst Bar became a popular hangout for EMU students due to its proximity to campus. Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page. University of Michigan Students move in to to East Quad Residence Hall ANN ARBOR, MI Families loaded moving bins to the brim with clothes, storage containers, and TVs in the blazing sun while groups of students walked past East Quad Residence Hall on their way to day parties to celebrate incoming students. Thursday, Aug. 21, was the second, and largest, official move-in day for undergraduate students at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. UM expected about 1,900 students to move on Thursday. Official move-in continues through Sunday, Aug. 24, changing some city traffic patterns and parking availability, ahead of the start of the fall semester Monday, Aug. 25. About 68% of students have moved in, and the university anticipates more than 9,200 undergraduate students will move in this year. Over 11,500 students, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, will live in UM housing this year, according to the university. East Quad, at 701 E University Ave., houses about 850 students. MLive spoke with three excited incoming first-year students from Michigan and across the country as they carried items into their new homes. Cayden DeGrendel of Clarkston drove an hour and 20 minutes with his family to his room in East Quad and said the move-in process was sufficient. My rooms in the very back of the hall, so it took a little while to find it, but other than that its been pretty good, as I expected it to be, DeGrendel said. He plans to study business at the Ross School of Business and join the UM Running Club. Im excited to join MRun and meet a lot of people who enjoy running as I do for the past eight years of my life, DeGrendel said. DeGrendel said he is not looking forward to being away from his family but plans to visit them every third weekend. I have a very optimistic outlook on the next four years of my college experience, DeGrendel said. Elroni Berhanu of Edgewood, Maryland, said his commute to Ann Arbor was pretty fast. The move-in workers, they helped a lot. So, it was fairly simple, wasnt too much stress, Berhanu said. UM was Berhanus top college choice and Berhanu said he knew opportunities at the university would make it the best decision. He said he is looking forward to the new school year, the new experience, the new growth and all that. Berhanu said he is excited for UM academic opportunities and to make the right friends and just finding people who are like faith in me. He wants to remain focused during his time at school and make sure that Im here for the right reasons. Zola Randall-Kloew of Bradford, Pennsylvania, said while her drive to Ann Arbor was long, the move-in process was pretty good minus a small issue with her room key. She said she chose UM because her mother attended the school and her grandparents live an hour and a half from Ann Arbor. She is excited to live far from home and not to go to college with anyone from high school. Randall-Kloew said while she is dreading cleaning her bathroom, she is excited for her classes this fall. Theres a public health class, a womens health class, a neuroscience class, the bio lab, Randall-Kloew said. A service dog accompanied her when she moved in to her new room and she applied for disability accommodations. She said the process was pretty easy to navigate and the disability services staff was very accessible. The most difficult part of filing for disability services, according to Randall-Kloew, was finding her documents and properly submitting them. Katherine Randall, Zolas mother and UM graduate, accompanied her daughter. She said she is thrilled her daughter is attending UM. Shes going to have a great education and a great time, and theres so many opportunities here, Randall said. Randall said she has been back to UM periodically since she graduated but not as frequently as other graduates because weve just lived in a lot of different places. She said she appreciates how welcoming everyone had been. I think it could be an overwhelming process with the size campus and the number of people, and every step along the way, people have been really helpful, Randall said. Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page. 14 1 / 14 Family of human cannonballs performs at the Genesee County Fair GENESEE TWP, MI- After only a short countdown, Brian Miser shot through the air high above the crowd at the Genesee County Fair from his homemade cannon. He is one of three in his family to soar through the air as a human cannonball. Brian first joined the circus when he was only 8 years old, where he trained in an amateur circus for kids as an aerialist in his hometown of Peru, Indiana. Fifteen years later, he built his first cannon and decided to be a human cannonball. The cannon business is very secretive. Nobody will share their secrets with you, so Im totally self-taught. I just came up with the design and built my own cannon, Brian said. I made a little working model, and I would shoot Barbie dolls out of it to see if it works. After a lot of trial and error, 18 broken bones, and many years of experience later, he has perfected the art. Brian has set a Guinness world record for the farthest distance as a human arrow while completely engulfed in flames, was featured on Americas Got Talent in 2019, and worked for the Ringling Brothers for 10 years before performing with his family. He now travels across the country performing alongside his wife and daughter, who are also accomplished aerialists and human cannonballs. His wife Tina has been with him for 26 years. The couple began dating in 1999 after Brian went with the pick-up line, Do you want to come shoot me out of this cannon? I mean, you cant turn that down, so the rest is history, she said. Tina has performed alongside him ever since, first as an assistant and eventually as a human cannon -- after some convincing. Wed been dating probably about three months. I was shooting him from the cannon and I was watching him night after night, and it just looked like so much fun. I was like, I gotta try that, she said. Brian was apprehensive about the prospect of shooting his then girlfriend, knowing its dangers and remembering the many injuries hed sustained up until that point. But, you know, newly dating, I wore him down. He listened to me better back then, and so he ended up shooting me from the cannon, Tina said. And it was absolutely terrible. I was probably the worst first cannon shot that Ive ever seen, because weve trained quite a few cannonballs. But I persevered and got better, and next thing you know, it was my job. Shed eventually marry Brian in 2002 and gave birth to their daughter Skyler the following year. Skyler, who helped her dad launch from the cannon and performed an aerial routine during the Genesee County Fair, is entering a promising career of her own. Shes a human cannonball for Ringling just as her parents once were, performing alongside them when the renowned circus isnt on tour. We used to do a lot of county fairs before I went to Ringling, so its been nice to get back to my roots. I think being so close to the audience is really different because were in big arenas [when I perform with Ringling], Skyler said. I really like how intimate it is. And especially, like people coming up to you after and getting to chit chat with them, thats my favorite part. For a family filled with such a long history of performing, it wasnt a surprise to see their performance at the fair was just as impressive. Skyler performed intricate aerial routines on a ring and silks, elegantly moving while suspended high up in the air. Tina performed a stuntmans fall, a straight drop onto an airbag from a tall metal structure that reached the height of surrounding amusement rides. Brian, of course, was shot out of the cannon and soared above the fairgrounds. Their show will continue throughout the rest of the fair, performing at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22, and Saturday, Aug. 23. Their final performance will be on the closing day of the fair at 2 p.m. Sunday, August 24. Footage has surfaced of a 19-year-old autistic deli worker being arrested at a Meijer store in Seven Hills, Ohio, after a manager accused him of stealing $110 worth of food. (MLive File Photo) John Kuntz, cleveland.com GRAND RAPIDS, MI The arrest in Ohio of a Meijer worker with autism has generated controversy for the Michigan retail giant, with police body-cam footage circulating on social media. It showed an officer respond to the Meijer store in Seven Hills, Ohio, where 19-year-old James Denison, a deli worker with autism, had been accused of stealing food items totaling $110 over a three-month period. The footage, from March 7, 2024, showed the officer searching and handcuffing Denison in the managers office. When he asked if Denison had any stolen items on him, the manager said he had eaten some chicken in the break room before the call, but he had no recoverable Meijer property. Heres are key takeaways: A 19-year-old autistic Meijer employee, James Denison, was arrested in Ohio for allegedly stealing $110 worth of food over three months, despite having no prior offenses and being released on a $0 bond. Public outrage and calls for a boycott against Meijer intensified months after the arrest, when police bodycam footage of the incident went viral on social media, creating a significant public relations crisis for the company. James Denison admitted to taking food during breaks, explaining that he intended to pay later but forgot or didnt know how to settle the debt, framing his actions as a misunderstanding rather than malicious theft. Meijer, based in the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker, publicly acknowledged mishandling the incident, stating the situation should have been handled differently and claiming to have implemented new procedures to prevent similar occurrences. While James Denison was initially released on $0 bond and a GoFundMe was launched for his legal support, the fundraising page has since been deleted, leaving the current status of community and legal support unclear. Generative AI was used to summarize takeaways based on an originally reported story. It was reviewed and edited by MLive. This years celebration marks a significant milestone for the cafe, as it approaches its 1,000th cat adoption since opening in 2017. (Photo provided by Happy Cat Cafe) GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Happy Cat Cafe is going all out this year to celebrate its eighth year in business. The downtown Grand Rapids space at 447 Division Ave. South will welcome guests with extended opportunities to meet adoptable kittens, browse limited-edition merchandise, purchase themed drinks and more. The festivities began on Aug. 17 with an all-day Birthday Bash featuring cuddles and special events. Kitten Week will continue through Saturday, Aug. 23, with additional opportunities in the cat lounge. This years celebration marks a significant milestone for the cafe, as it approaches its 1,000th cat adoption since opening in 2017. Reaching eight years and almost 1,000 adoptions is incredible, said owner Kati Quarto. This celebration is our way of thanking the community, our rescue partner, and everyone who has helped us give cats a second chance at a forever home. Over the years, Happy Cat Cafe has partnered with Fig & Friends Animal Rescue among others to help give hundreds of rescue cats a second chance, and the team hopes to reach the milestone during Kitten Week. Along with the cat room, the cafe offers a full menu of specialty coffee and tea lattes, shaken espresso, sparkling sodas, house-made lemonade and green tea energy drinks. Tickets for the cat lounge are available at happycatgr.com and include a free drink with every birthday party visit. Prices for weekend visits include: $9 per person for 30 minutes. $16 per person for 1 hour. $30 per person for 3 hours. Kids under the age of 13 must have an adult accompany them in the cat lounge. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - I have always appreciated the beauty and peacefulness of the Grand River and all it has to offer to our community and others. More than a decade ago, we reacquainted readers with the states longest river. For 17 days during the summer of 2010, we joined the Grand River Expedition to assess the rivers health and welfare, introducing readers to people and communities along the way. Readers loved it so much a 128-page hardcover book was published called Our Grand Journey: Discovering the river we thought we knew, featuring spectacular photographs from The Grand Rapids Press and the stories shared with staff. I thought about that wonderful book this week when Ehren Wynder reported the project to restore and revitalize the rapids to the Grand River took another step forward. A Monday press conference was held to highlight the July announcement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $2.1 million in grants to prevent the spread of sea lamprey. Due to the work on the new sea lamprey barrier, Grand Rapids Whitewater anticipates construction starting on the rapids project around July 2026. Longtime project supporters have watched the evolving project for 17 years, eager for a more accessible river, and opportunities for more recreation in the waterway. The project was scaled back from the large, whitewater waves once envisioned for environmental reasons. Readers were captivated by the compelling video shared by police/courts reporter John Agar of the suspect, Brad Gille, in the stabbing of 11 people at the Walmart in Traverse City also resonated with readers. Customers are seen being chased at random and stabbed. Those injured July 26 ranged in age from 29 to 84. All are fortunately expected to survive. Layoffs continue to be a subject that resonates with readers. Melissa Frick reported on the auto part manufacturing plant in Grand Haven thats planning to close, laying off all 64 of its employees. The news from NPR of America, Inc. at 11118 U.S. 31, about closing in 2027 was in an Aug. 12 in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice. The majority of the layoffs will happen by the end of this year. On the legal front, reporter Bradley Massman shared some interesting news with readers regarding the Kent County Prosecutors Office and an uptick in murder mistrials. Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said mistrials on capital felony cases are rare. But the office has had four murder trials end in mistrials this year so far. In the last five years combined, prosecutors have seen eight in total. On a lighter note, Bradley also had an article on Robinettes Apple Haus and Winery paying homage to Grand Rapids by incorporating the citys 175th anniversary into its 2025 corn maze design. The popular family farm at 3142 4 Mile Road NE has unveiled a special design for its 6.5-acre corn maze every autumn since 2009. The maze features the words 175 Years Grand Rapids, along with the outline of Alexander Calders iconic La Grande Vitesse sculpture, located by Grand Rapids City Hall. Many K-12 students have gone on field trips to Robinettes. Reporter Danielle James told readers about the first day of school for the 2025-26 academic year, with districts starting this week, next and after Labor day. Danielle also shared the school-based health center that opened in Grand Rapids Public Schools Harrison Park Academy, 1440 Davis Ave. NW, providing access to medical and behavioral health services regardless of ability to pay. Photojournalist Isaac Richey got some great images of students returning to class Monday in Grandville Public Schools at Grandville High School and the districts K-4 Century Park Learning Center. High school seniors are planning for life after graduation. Danielle also gave readers a comprehensive update on the Grand Rapids Promise Zone Scholarship, which provides eligible public and private school students in Grand Rapids with a tuition-free education at Grand Rapids Community College. Now in its fifth year, the program has a little over 2,000 students supported so far. In the fall 2024 semester, around 700 students enrolled as a direct result of GR Promise. Monica Scott is the editor for MLive Media Groups The Grand Rapids Press and Muskegon Chronicle. She was previously a reporter who covered the city, county and schools in Grand Rapids. The American Quilter's Society annual Quilt Week takes place in Grand Rapids Aug. 21-24. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Organizers expect more than 15,000 attendees for the American Quilters Societys return to downtown Grand Rapids this weekend. The 12th annual quilt show kicked off Aug. 20 and runs through Saturday, Aug. 23 at the DeVos Place Convention Center, 303 Monroe Ave. NW. There are quilt shows in multiple cities across the country each year. Thanks to generous sponsors, organizers say these events make an indelible mark on the fiber art community by offering the largest cash prizes for quilters in the country, according to the American Quilters Society website, highlighting the event. Key highlights of the Grand Rapids event include nearly 700 quilts to browse, contests featuring up to $54,550 in cash awards, themed exhibits, a Merchant Mall featuring over 180 vendor booths, exclusive events, and quilt appraisals. Show hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $15 per day for the general public and $12 for American Quilter Society members. There are also multi-day passes available. Classes and Events Friday, Aug. 22 1 to 4 p.m. Dazzling Diamond Designs with Cindy Seltz-Krug in the Grand Gallery EF. Double Whammy Table Runner with Kathie Beltz in Grand Gallery CD. Fill in the Blanks with David Taylor in the River Overlook AB. Introduction to EQ8 with Linda J. Hahn in the Chase Board Room Luscious Luster Designs with Julia Graves Grand Gallery Overlook CD. Negative (Space) to a Positive with Kristina Whitney Grand Gallery AB. SIMPLICITY: Applique Tips and Tricks with Kyra Reps River Overlook EF. 2 to 3 p.m. The Block of the Month Revolution with Reeze Hanson Ballroom D. 5 to 6:30 p.m. Concept to Quilted with Linda J. Hahn Ballroom D. Saturday, Aug. 22 (8:30 to 11:30 a.m.) EQ8: Block Drawing for Beginners with Reeze Hanson Chase Board Room. Follow the Rulers with David Taylor River Overlook AB. Freemotion Crash Course with Cindy Seitz-Krug Grand Gallery EF. Glowing Log Cabin with Julia Graves Grand Gallery Overlook AB. I Sparkle with Linda J. Hahn, Grand Gallery CD. Irish Sunbonnet Sue with Barbara Blanton River Overlook CD. Moving on with Pro-Stitcher with Kristina Whitney Grand Gallery AB. Pieced Applique Flowers with Annie Smith Grand Gallery Overlook GH. Silk Ribbon Embroidery with Judith Baker Montano River Overlook EF. Woven Ribbon Star Paper Piecing with Jeanette Walton Grand Gallery Overlook EF. Transportation and Parking There are various downtown parking facilities to utilize, with a range in pricing. DASH Shuttle Scribner - $4 coin, cash or credit card. $6 event rate. J. Dash Area 8 - $5 coin, cash or credit card. $6.00 event rate. K. DASH Area 9 - $3 coin, cash or credit card. $6 event rate. Lots DeVos Place Ramp -$2/half hour - $25 max; $13 evening rate after 5 p.m. on weekends and during events. Government Center Ramp - $2/half hour - $24 max; $12 evening rate after 5 p.m. and during events. Eillis Midtown Ramp $3/half hour - $30 max; $17 evening rate after 5 p.m. $38 overnight rate per day. Monroe Center Ramp - 60 minutes free before 6 p.m. $2/half hour - $24 max; $12 evening event rate. Ottawa Fulton Ramp - $2/half hour - $24 max; $15 evening rate after 5 p.m. Louis-Campau Ramp - $2/half hour - $24 max; $14 evening rate after 5 p.m. and during events. Amway Grand Plaza Ramp - $3/half hour; $6/hour; $32 day rate (up to 9 hours); $35 max daily; $41 for overnight for registered guests JW Marriott Ramp - $3/half hour; $4/hour; $32/day rate (up to 9 hours); $35 max daily; $41 overnight for registered guests. View the full map and schedule here. A woman was shot by Mecosta County sheriffs deputies after she reportedly threatened them with a weapon. (MLive file photo) MECOSTA COUNTY, MI A woman was shot by Mecosta County sheriffs deputies on Friday, Aug 22, after she reportedly threatened them with a weapon. The incident happened at 11:20 a.m. when deputies were dispatched to a residence on Hayes Road, where a 36-year-old woman was refusing to leave someone elses property, the sheriffs office said in a news release. Deputies said the woman refused to follow their commands and assaulted the responding officers. After the woman threatened the officers with a weapon, a deputy shot her with his firearm. The sheriffs office did not say what kind of weapon the woman had, but said it posed an immediate and significant threat to the deputies safety. The woman was first taken to Corewell Health Big Rapids Hospital and then airlifted to Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids to be treated for her injuries, which the sheriff said were not life-threatening. The shooting remains under investigation by the sheriffs office. Mecosta County sheriffs deputies were assisted at the scene by The Big Rapids Department of Public Safety, Mecosta Township Fire and Rescue, Big Rapids Fire and Rescue, Mecosta County EMS and Meceola Central Dispatch. Jackson County couple Paul and Christy Akeo were held in a Mexican prison for a month over a credit card dispute with a Cancun hotel, according to their daughter Lindsey Hull. Photo used with permission. Photo used with permission. JACKSON COUNTY, MI A Michigan couple who spent a month behind bars in Mexico is suing the Cancun hotel that sent them to jail over a timeshare dispute earlier this year. Paul and Christy Akeo, of Spring Arbor, filed a lawsuit in Florida last week against luxury hotel Palace Resorts and its chief executive Jose Gibran Chapur Dajer, the Associated Press reported on Aug. 21. The couple is suing for defamation, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress, seeking unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial, according to the Associated Press. The Akeos spent 32 days in a Mexican maximum security prison after they landed in Cancun for a vacation and were arrested on March 4. The arrest stemmed from Palace Resorts charging $116,000 to the Akeos credit card for a timeshare membership, a charge that the couple disputed. The hotel allegedly demanded $250,000, a public apology on Facebook and a non-disclosure agreement from the couple, but the Akeos refused and were arrested. Mexican authorities charged the couple with fraud and detained them without a trial. The Akeos languished in a maximum security prison in Cancun, Mexico, separate and apart from each other, unable to speak with each other or console one another, the lawsuit filed by the couple said. The prison conditions were horrific. The prison was overcrowded with violent criminals, the toilets didnt flush, and the food was untouchable. Worse, they were scared, terrified, and frightened that they may never go home again. On April 3, the Akeos were finally released and sent home after U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett traveled to Mexico to check on the couple and negotiate their release with Mexican officials. According to the Associated Press, the couple and the hotel chain previously agreed that the Akeos would donate the over $116,000 in disputed funds to a Mexican nonprofit benefitting orphans. The Akeos and the Palace Company fully resolved their disputes earlier this year, the hotel chain told the Associated Press in an email. Mr. and Ms. Akeo have unfortunately proceeded with additional litigation against the Palace Company and affiliated entities and individuals in violation of the parties resolution of their disputes. Northeast kindergarten teacher Patty Benjamin and Valeria Jackson gets students settled in their new classroom at Northeast Elementary located at 1024 Fleming Ave. on the first day of school on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Abra Richardson | MLive.com JACKSON, MI Schools across Jackson County welcomed student back t class this week after a long summer vacation. Here is that headline and some more you might have missed this week. MICHIGAN Three businesses are expanding in Battle Creek, Kentwood and Kalkaska, creating nearly 200 jobs with more than $31 million in capital investment, according to a news release from Gov. Gretchen Whitmers office. Todays announcements will build on Michigans economic momentum, creating nearly 200 good-paying manufacturing jobs, said Governor Whitmer. I want to thank Warbird, Protec, and Weiss Technik for choosing to invest in Michigan. Lets keep working together to strengthen our economic development tools so we can help more workers and businesses make it in Michigan. ProTec Panel and Truss, a manufacturer of engineered wood roof trusses, is expanding in Battle Creek by investing $3 million and creating 50 new jobs. The custom engineered components designer purchased a vacant building in Battle Creek for its expansion, according to the release. The new jobs will have starting wages of $25 per hour plus benefits, according to the release. This project will return a long-neglected property to productive use and create as many as 50 high-paying new jobs, said Joe Sobieralski, President and CEO of Battle Creek Unlimited. As a manufacturer of roof & floor trusses and wall panels, ProTec will also help to address Michigans critical housing shortage. WarBird Protection Group, Inc., which develops personal protective products for law enforcement officers, is launching their operation under one roof at a Kalkaska facility. The company was founded in 2023. It expects to create at least 110 new jobs with starting wages of $20.65 per hour, according to the release. The company received a $750,000 Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant. It considered facilities in Florida and Arizona, according to the release. The Village of Kalkaska is very excited with the development of WarBird. This is a great addition to our community and will create future commercial growth in our town, said Aaron Popa, Kalkaska village manager and chief of police. As the Police Chief I will be proud to say our officers are wearing bulletproof vests that were manufactured by WarBird in our community Weiss Technick NA, a market leader in environmental test chambers, is expanding with a 125,000 square foot facility in Kentwood in Kent County. The company expects to add 36 jobs in the $25.6 million investment. Growth has exceeded production capacity at its current Grand Rapids-area location, according to the release. The company decided to keep their operations in West Michigan, according to the release. This cutting-edge space will streamline our operations across engineering, manufacturing, and logistics, allowing us to serve our customers more efficiently and innovate faster than ever, said Jeff Agar, VP/COO of WNA Grand Rapids. Isaac Rose, 12, is pictured with his mother, Amanda Rose. (Photo provided by Amanda Rose) Amanda Rose UPDATE: This story was updated with comment from isaac Roses mother, Amanda. MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI A boy who would have been a seventh-grader at Fruitport Middle School has died of injuries suffered when he was struck by a vehicle, the school district said. Isaac Rose, 12, suffered serious head injuries Aug. 17 when he was struck by a vehicle while riding his scooter. His family was with him on Thursday, Aug. 21, at Helen DeVos Childrens Hospital when he was taken off life support, Jason Kennedy, superintendent of Fruitport Community Schools, said in a letter to families. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, Kennedy wrote. Isaac will be remembered as a bright, kind, wonderful young person whose time with us was far too short. He will be deeply missed by his friends, family, loved ones and all at Fruitport Community Schools. His mother, in a text message, told MLive that her son loved being with his family. His joy was contagious. My son was so loving and caring and funny with a beautiful smile, so many beautiful freckles, she said. Isaac would give the shirt off his back to anyone. The district plans to have grief counseling available on Monday when students start the new school year. A GiveInKind fundraising page has been set up to help the family with significant expenses, Kennedy said. Nearly $9,000 has been raised. The boys mother, Amanda Rose, is meeting with the funeral home on Friday to determine details about the service. Kennedy wrote: We encourage families to take time to grieve together and reach out to each other in love and compassion. On behalf of the Fruitport Community Schools family, we extend our deepest condolences to the family. We ask that you keep them in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead. DETROIT, MI A former Bay City hotel manager has alleged in a lawsuit she was sexually harassed by Asad Malik, the CEO of Amerilodge, during a February 2025 company outing to a Justin Timberlake concert. Stephanie Starling, the alleged victim, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against Amerilodge and its CEO on Aug. 13. The complaint alleges sexual harassment, retaliation, a hostile work environment, assault and battery, and an intentional infliction of emotional distress. Malik was unavailable for comment when his office was reached via phone on Wednesday, Aug. 20. He has not responded to a request for comment by MLive. Starlings attorney, Jack Schulz, said this is a prime example of how corporate human resource departments protect the company. Although a lot of the focus is the comparison to the deplorable acts of this CEO and that of the Astronomer CEO at the Coldplay concert, a harder look should be given to the acts of each companys human resources departments, Schulz said. The alleged incident took place after Malik invited Starling to a Justin Timberlake concert with coworkers in Detroit on Feb. 20, according to the filing. Throughout the night, Malik allegedly made repeated unwanted sexual advances, including inappropriate comments and physical contact, according to the complaint. Malik allegedly attempted to kiss her and slid his hand under her thigh and touched her butt, according to the complaint. Starling rejected the advances and hid in the bathroom, court files say. After the concert, Malik isolated Starling, drove her to a dark location and again made sexual advances, according to the complaint. Starling told Malik she had to leave to check on a family emergency, at which point Malik leaned in and allegedly wrapped his arms around her. She threatened to walk back to the hotel in the snow so Malik drove her back to the hotel. Starlings boyfriend drove more than an hour to pick her up and drive her home. The incident was reported to human resources by Starling and her supervisor, and she was notified a neutral third-party investigation would take place, according to the complaint. The investigation, which the complaint called a complete sham, was conducted by a civil defense firm retained by Amerilodge. Starling was terminated during the investigation and was offered a settlement in exchange for waiving her claims, which she denied, according to the complaint. Starling claims she was retaliated against for reporting the harassment. She is seeking lost wages and benefits, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees and costs and equitable relief. I am incredibly proud of my client and the courage she is showing by coming forward with her experience publicly, Schulz said. Amerilodge Group, LLC, is private hotel management company based out of Bloomfield Hills. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, shown in this file photo, is running for Michigan governor as an independent, causing a stir among Democrats. (MLive file photo) Chloe Miller | MLive.com Democratic Michigan politicians who endorse Detroit Mayor Mike Duggans independent run for governor risk losing their partys support in future elections. Active Democratic candidates who have publicly backed Duggans 2026 campaign have been recently cut off by their party from a key voter data system used for canvassing and campaigning. The move was first reported by the Detroit News and confirmed to MLive by Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel Jr. I look forward to their independent campaigns, Hertel said of Democratic elected officials who support Duggan. Party officials could not confirm how many Democrats were cut off from the system, called the Voter Activation Network, or VAN. They also declined to say whether further support, like party funds, would also be withheld from these officials should they choose to seek reelection as a Democrat. No surprise. This is todays Michigan Democratic Party toe the line or suffer punishment, Duggan said of the MDPs move. No room for anyone who thinks on their own. And they wonder why their party image is at an all-time low. According to Democratic officials, VAN is the partys main data hub where voter lists are housed. The system helps candidates with voter outreach and canvassing, giving them information on voters, which doors to knock and who to call. Candidates can still get access to similar data but through third parties and likely at a higher cost, the Detroit News reported. Several candidates who had their access cut off did not immediately return a request for comment. News about the candidates being cut off came after Duggans campaign on Tuesday unveiled endorsements from more than 200 current and former elected officials across the state. The list includes Democrats, Republicans and those in nonpartisan positions, from mayors to former state legislators. No currently elected state or federal lawmaker has endorsed Duggan. The only currently seated statewide elected officials who have backed Duggan are several Democrats serving on university boards. Duggan is a longtime Democrat who shocked many with his announcement in December that he would run as an independent for Michigan governor in 2026. Term-limited Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is unable to seek reelection. Duggan told MLive his decision to run as an independent is rooted in his wanting to improve the lives of Michiganders. He said the toxic partisan atmosphere and us vs. them politics in Lansing have been roadblocks to governors moving major legislation. Three Democratic candidates have launched campaigns for governor. They are Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will have to face Duggan, along with a Republican contender, in the general election for the governorship. Hertel took aim at Duggan, saying he is cozying up to Republicans in his bid for governor. Every Michigander should understand that Mike Duggan wont stand up for those losing their health care and collective bargaining rights, Hertel said, and he continues to cozy up to major pro-Trump, anti-labor donors who just want to drag Michigan backwards, like Ron Weiser, the former Michigan Republican Party Chair who led the push to pass right-to-work laws. Michigan Democrats will continue to hold him accountable and show Michiganders how Mike Duggan cannot be trusted. Weiser, one of the states largest donors to the Republican Party, has donated $8,325 to Duggans gubernatorial campaign. The latest campaign finance filings showed that Duggan, as of July, had outraised every other candidate running for Michigan governor in 2026. He took in more direct contributions than any other gubernatorial candidate, raising $3.2 million since announcing his third party run in December. The second-highest earner and leader among the Democratic gubernatorial candidates was Benson, who reported raising $3.53 million. Those funds werent all direct contributions, as at least $592,000 of the contributions came from Bensons secretary of state campaign fund. National Guard personnel keep watch as travelers arrive at the entrance to Union Station near the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) AP House Democrats have introduced a bill that would allow Michigan to sue President Donald Trumps administration in state court for allegedly unlawful National Guard deployments. The bill introduced Thursday, Aug. 21, would forbid any armed military force from entering the state to perform a military duty without the permission of the Michigan governor. However, the president would still be able to send troops to Michigan without the governors consent if the troops were acting under an authority validly invoked by the commander-in-chief. While the bill wouldnt expand or limit Trumps ability to deploy troops to Michigan, it provides an additional legal avenue to challenge the Trump administration in the event of a deployment in the state. It merely reiterates federal law into state law, giving our state and our courts one more avenue to push back on the presidents unlawful and arguably unconstitutional actions should he attempt to deploy troops into Michigan, said bill sponsor state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia. Pohutskys bill is in response to Trump deploying National Guard and other military troops in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and threatening to send them elsewhere as part of his crackdown on crime and calls for law and order. California sued the Trump administration for deploying National Guard troops to accompany immigration agents on raids in the state. According to the Associated Press, California argues the troops violated a federal law that generally prohibits military enforcement of domestic laws. The Trump administration contends that specific law doesnt apply, as Trump was acting under an authority that allows troop deployment if the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States. The trial concluded last week, but the presiding federal judge has not yet issued a verdict. If Pohutskys bill were to be signed into law, a trial disputing the legality of troop deployments in Michigan could take place in state court, rather than federal court. Its imperative that we give the states and our courts every tool available to push back against authoritarianism, and that is what this bill aims to do, she said. The federalization and deployment of National Guard troops into L.A. and Washington, D.C., represents an unprecedented abuse of executive power, one that runs counter to the very foundations of our country. As elected leaders, we cannot allow these actions to go unchecked. Pohutskys bill, co-sponsored by 21 other Democratic state representatives, wont be taken up by the Republican-majority state House. I oppose that. That bill will never move in the Michigan House, said House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township. You know, one of the things that President Trump has been doing is hes been restoring law and order across this country. Hall went on to talk about politicians who he said are refusing to enforce public safety or arent interested in investing in fighting and preventing crime. When you start having very radical people like that in office, I dont think we should handcuff the president from sending in the National Guard if needed to restore law and order in these very violent cities, he said. I mean, I was in Washington, D.C., recently and I saw firsthand, you know, theyve got a big problem with violent crime, and so I think its a good thing President Trump is helping them clean it up. For that reason, we would never entertain this bill. ACLU of Michigan Legislative Director Kyle Zawacki said his organization supports the bill, saying it would help protect the states sovereignty. This bill is rooted in a simple but vital principle: No military force should operate in our state without the clean consent of Michigans elected leadership, he said. This principle isnt just about policy. Its about protecting the constitutional rights and democratic self-determination of the people of Michigan. Zawacki said Trumps troop deployments have raised an alarm among civil rights advocates, legal scholars and everyday Americans. These events remind us the line between local policing and federal military occupation can be very thin, he said. The ACLU of Michigan believes that military forces should never be used to police protests, intimidate residents or bypass local decision making. State Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit, said he remembers the 1967 Detroit riot, when the National Guard and Army were deployed to Michigans largest city to suppress the unrest. Real policing is about trust, accountability, community partnerships, and it belongs in the hands of local civilian police, not the National Guard or the military, Carter said. Good policing is about protecting peoples rights through due process and upholding the rule of law, not staging political theater. And good policing is about protecting the civilians we serve, not treating them like enemies on the battlefield. Nike is paying homage to one of Michael Jordans most iconic moments from his second year on the court. The Air Jordan 1 High OG Shattered Backboard drops Saturday, Aug. 23, at 10 a.m. ET for $185. Its namesake comes from the summer after Jordans rookie year, when the athlete dunked so hard, he shattered a backboard. The bold orange-and-black colorway is inspired by the jersey he wore during that exhibition game in Italy. Made of soft-to-the-touch tumbled leather, the new AJ1 embodies MJs effortless energy in your day-to-day routine. Air Jordan 1 High OG Nike Air Jordan 1 High OG Shattered Backboard shoes $185 on Nike Get the shoe in adult sizes for $185, big kids sizes for $140, little kids sizes for $85 and toddler and infant sizes for $70. Be online before 10 a.m. ET for the best chance at getting a pair the Air Jordan fanbase makes sure these releases always sell out fast. Dry weather with daytime highs into the 80s is expected across Detroit and its suburbs on Friday. The chance for rain and thunderstorms will likely hold off until Saturday. Thats when a cold front is expected to track across the state. It will bring Southeast Michigans temperature down below the normal range. Here are the Detroit forecast highlights from the National Weather Service: A high-pressure system will bring partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies on Friday, pushing temperatures into the low 80s. However, this warm weather wont last long, as a cold front approaches the region. The weather system, currently positioned over Saskatchewan, will move through western Ontario and across the Great Lakes on Saturday. Precipitation chances will vary across the region, with a 30% chance in the Metro area and increasing to 50-60% in the Thumb region. Following the fronts passage, a significant cooling trend will take hold. Temperatures are expected to drop well below normal for this time of year, with daytime highs only reaching the upper 60s to low 70s and overnight lows dipping into the 50s. The cooler weather pattern will persist through the middle of next week, accompanied by periodic drizzle and showers. Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story based on data from the National Weather Service. It was reviewed, edited and expanded by MLive staff. Varun Singh USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept MC Education Desk Read the latest and trending news on CBSE, board exams, NEET, JEE, CUET, competitive exams, scholarships, college admissions, education policies, and more. Rajni Pandey USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. 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For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept MC Education Desk Read the latest and trending news on CBSE, board exams, NEET, JEE, CUET, competitive exams, scholarships, college admissions, education policies, and more. Archisha Yadav USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. 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For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Xi charts course for Xizang as region celebrates 60 years' historic progress Xinhua) 08:06, August 22, 2025 Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves to people upon his arrival in Lhasa, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 20, 2025. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) LHASA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined the course for Xizang's development during a two-day visit to the plateau region, where he joined locals in celebrating six decades of progress since the autonomous region was established. It was the first time that a Chinese leader holding concurrent posts of the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Chinese president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended Xizang Autonomous Region founding anniversary celebrations. Xi last visited the plateau region in 2021, when Xizang marked the 70th anniversary of peaceful liberation. Amid a tight schedule, Xi met with representatives from all ethnic groups and sectors in Xizang, heard reports from the CPC regional committee and the regional government, attended a gala, and took part in a grand gathering at the signature Potala Palace square in Lhasa. During these engagements, Xi called on Xizang to continue advancing its four major tasks -- ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting eco-environment, and strengthening frontiers. He urged concerted efforts to build a united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful new modern socialist Xizang. STABILITY Since assuming the top office, Xi has consistently emphasized safeguarding national unity and fostering ethnic solidarity as the foremost tasks in work related to Xizang. On Wednesday, after hearing work reports from Xizang's authorities, Xi emphasized the importance of maintaining political and social stability, strengthening ethnic unity, and fostering amity among different religions. He urged further efforts to advance the building of a community for the Chinese nation in Xizang and to guide Tibetan Buddhism in adapting to socialist society. The Chinese president called for promoting the standard spoken and written Chinese language, strengthening exchanges among all ethnic groups, and enhancing two-way economic, cultural, and personnel exchanges between Xizang and other parts of the country. Many of these efforts are taking place at the grassroots level. Pubu Tashi, director of the Barkhor sub-district government in Lhasa, said his colleagues have stepped up work to upgrade infrastructure, improve living conditions, and expand bilingual education. Pubu Tashi said improved community services will help people live and work in peace and contentment, strengthen their sense of community, and contribute to better-maintained social stability and order. DEVELOPMENT On the region's development, Xi said Xizang has achieved remarkable progress in the past six decades, leading to profound changes. Official figures show that in 2024, Xizang's GDP reached 276.5 billion yuan (about 38.8 billion U.S. dollars), 155 times that of 1965 when the autonomous region was established, and registering an average annual growth rate of 8.9 percent. In 2024, the per capita disposable income of local urban residents reached 55,444 yuan, 121 times that of 1965, while rural residents' per capita disposable income rose by nearly 200 times. Xi highlighted high-quality development for Xizang and the need to develop competitive plateau industries based on local conditions. Nestled in the southwest border of China and facing several South Asian nations, Xizang boasts unique advantages in industries such as agriculture and animal husbandry, as well as the clean energy sector. Xi told local authorities that Xizang should advance major projects such as the hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River and the Sichuan-Xizang Railway project in a "vigorous, orderly and effective manner." Eyeing Xizang's fragile ecology, Xi called on the region to promote ecological conservation, and to make coordinated efforts to cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, expand green development and pursue economic growth, so as to protect "the roof of the world" and "the water tower of Asia." PEOPLE'S WELL-BEING Xi underscored the need for coordinating urbanization and rural revitalization, consolidating the gains of poverty eradication, and achieving progress in employment, education, health care, social security, elderly care, childcare and other livelihood issues. The aim, as he put it, is to further enhance the sense of gain, happiness, and security of people of all ethnic groups in the region. In the past decades, education, healthcare, and social security have continued to improve. Xizang now offers 15 years of free education from kindergarten to senior high school. The average life expectancy has more than doubled to 72.5 years. Champa Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, said infrastructure and public services have greatly improved at Sakya Monastery, where he resides, as well as in other monasteries. "Our access to elderly care, medical services, and housing has been truly ensured," he said. Xi stressed the importance of upholding the Party's leadership over work related to Xizang. Speaking at Thursday's grand gathering, the country's top political advisor Wang Huning said Xizang's progress over the past six decades fully demonstrated the strong leadership of the CPC and the clear political strength of China's socialist system. Over the past six decades, Xizang has received strong support and selfless assistance from the central authorities and other parts of the country. Between 1965 and 2024, the central government allocated a total of 2.6 trillion yuan in fiscal funding to the region. The system of paired-up assistance for Xizang has been steadily improved, with 64.3 billion yuan in aid funds invested, and 11 groups totaling more than 14,000 officials and professionals dispatched to work in the region, according to Wang, who is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The remarkable achievements made in Xizang over the past 60 years fully demonstrate that only under the CPC leadership can the region embrace a bright future, Wang said. During the visit, Xi was also accompanied by Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Amidst the surging tide of technological innovation, Hefei City is employing its distinctive "scenario innovation" model to tackle the challenges of commercializing scientific and technological achievements. This approach is driving a cohort of cutting-edge technologies from laboratories onto production lines, injecting fresh momentum into high-quality development. The transformation of technology into marketable products serves as a crucial bridge linking scientific breakthroughs with industrial innovation. Hefei's scenario innovationguided by the creative application of new technologies and facilitated through supply-demand interactionis emerging as a novel paradigm for fostering this process. Currently, embodied intelligent robots are rapidly gaining capabilities across numerous industries. To provide broader training platforms for these machines, Hefei has established the Embodied Intelligence Robot Data Collection & Pre-training Arena. As China's sole government-initiated independent platform of its kind, it was jointly built by the International Center for Advancing Advanced TechnologiesHefeiand Yaohai District. Functioning both as an "institute for robotics" and a comprehensive hub for scenario innovation, the facility now enables robots to conduct data collection, training, and validation across over ten real-world scenarios spanning industrial manufacturing, commercial services, and domestic service domains. At the training center, authentic simulations cover tasks like warehouse logistics, production line sorting, and automotive parts assembly. Here, through structured training programs lasting 3 to 6 monthscoupled with data diversification and large model optimizationintelligent robots can achieve faster deployment in both industrial manufacturing and daily life service contexts. As early as 2022, Hefei established its Urban Scenario Innovation Promotion Center and introduced supportive policies, making it one of China's earliest cities to strategically develop scenario innovation. In recent years, Hefei has consistently advanced this initiative by tightly integrating "government guidance" with "market dominance." It pioneered the concept of "two types of scenario lists": one unlocking urban scenario resources and opportunities, while the other promotes local excellence by showcasing capabilities and connecting them to markets. This has fostered a six-component integrated working system comprising departments, specialized task forces, companies, centers, partners, and laboratories. Through coordinated resource allocation, comprehensive facilitation, and dedicated services, this ecosystem actively supports scenario-based endeavors. Currently, Hefei's scenario innovation efforts have forged a distinct path characterized by strong innovative features. The "Hefei Model" has achieved remarkable results in advancing national scenario innovation initiatives, giving rise to multiple benchmark demonstration application scenarios. Notably, six of its cases were selected among Anhui Province's Top Ten Model Application Scenarios for 2024, while five others made it into the province's Top Ten Low-Carbon Application Scenarios also for 2024. Furthermore, the Municipal Government Center's project integrating "PV Generation, Energy Storage, Charging Stations, Battery Swapping + V2G Interaction" was designated as a national pilot program for large-scale vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interaction applications. Additionally, its practices in establishing a low-altitude logistics system were included in China's first batch of national examples. Source: Hefei Fabu Bharti Singh reveals how her mother tried aborting her multiple times before her birth M Snehanjali USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Bigg Boss 19: Salman Khan begins shooting for the reality show, first look goes viral M Snehanjali USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Gayatri Rani USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept 1/7 Over the years, Soubin Shahir has become one of the most interesting actors in Malayalam movies. People recall him as good-looking, able to adapt, and naturally talented. His concerts are great because they transition from funny to serious so quickly. Soubin has come a long way since things were hard for him. He is currently an actor, director, and producer. This shows how much he cares about his career and how hard he works. 2/7 He was recently seen in Rajinikanths Coolie in which he played Dayal, one of the antagonists. He received applause for his extraordinary performance. The actor took to his social media to share pictures from his recent vacation with wife and son. The actor can be seen enjoying the much-needed break and quality time with family. 3/7 Soubin grew up in Fort Kochi, Kerala, where he watched movies all the time. His dad, Babu Shahir, was an assistant director and production controller on famous movies including The Godfather, Manichithrathazhu, and In Harihar Nagar. Soubin worked as an assistant director on a Mammootty movie in 2003, exactly like Mammootty did. 4/7 Ten years later, in the movie Annayum Rasoolum, he earned his first acting job. A lot of people noticed him because of his role in Premam. He is currently well-known for his great roles in movies like Maheshinte Prathikaaram, Kumbalangi Nights, Virus, and Android Kunjappan Version 5.25.Ten years later, in the movie Annayum Rasoolum, he earned his first acting job. A lot of people noticed him because of his role in Premam. He is currently well-known for his great roles in movies like Maheshinte Prathikaaram, Kumbalangi Nights, Virus, and Android Kunjappan Version 5.25. 5/7 Soubin was more than just an actor; he also directed the successful movies "Manjummel Boys" and "Parava" in 2024. He is one of the most popular stars in Mollywood. People always like his movies and they always make a lot of money. He is very smart and important, as demonstrated by the fact that he won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. 6/7 When Soubin isn't working, he lives in style. He has a few cars, like a BMW R 1250 GS and a Volvo XC90. He has land that is worth about $3.5 million. This shows that he likes pretty things and fashion. He is incredibly wealthy and powerful because he has a lot of land in Mumbai and a nice house in Kochi. These homes illustrate that he likes design and comfort, and they also show that he made sensible choices when he bought pricey property. Fall for Me Movie Review: Netflix strikes again with another hollow thriller Gayatri Rani USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Hostage Review: Unbelievable and binge-worthy drama that works if you suspend belief Vaishnavi Gavankar USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Marvel fans concerned amidst rumours of clash between Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan Reynolds on Avengers: Doomsday set M Snehanjali USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Archisha Yadav is a sub editor with 1.5 years of experience in writing news articles on topics like education, jobs, and politics. She specialises in crafting simple, clear, and engaging stories that are easy to understand and hold the readers interest, making complex topics accessible and relatable to a larger audience. Archisha Yadav USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Is it just dandruff or scalp psoriasis? How to identify symptoms early, keep your hair healthy Nivedita is a Delhi-based journalist who writes on health, fashion, lifestyle and entertainment. Views expressed are personal. Bobby John Varkey USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. 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For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Shweta Punj is an award winning journalist. She has reported on economic policy for over two decades in India and the US. She is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum. Author of Why I Failed, translated into 5 languages, published by Penguin-Random House. Hemant Abhishek USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. 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I Accept PM Modi in Kolkata Live: 'Infiltrators burden on economy, torturing our mothers and sisters; only your vote can stop them' Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, Two Bengal ministers not willing to give up their posts even after being jailed on corruption charges." He says, TMC has to be removed from power to ensure infiltrators leave Bengal as its demography changing due to infiltration. PM Modi says parties like TMC, Congress support infiltrators for appeasement politics. He says infiltrators are burden on economy, torturing our mothers and sisters. "Only your vote can stop them," he says. He says BJP strengthened Bengali by granting it classical language status. TMC is enemy of Bengal's development, party's only objective is to stop BJP's roadmap for growth," he claims. Bengal needs change to ensure development, women's security, jailing of the corrupt, he says. 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I Accept We are also studying poll results, will highlight issue among people: Sharad Pawar on 'vote theft' charges Sonalee Borgohain USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. 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By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Sudershan Reddy was a judge committed to upholding human rights and a critic of neoliberalism Shishir Tripathi is a journalist and researcher based in Delhi. He has worked with The Indian Express, Firstpost, Governance Now, and Indic Collective. He writes on Law, Governance and Politics. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication. Namrata Agarwal USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. 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I Accept MobiKwik CEO says he had under Rs 1 crore savings at 40, warns young people against unrealistic money goals Shubhi Mishra USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. 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I Accept 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 Aihik Sur USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. 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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 Ankita Chakravarti USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. 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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 Shaurya Shubham USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Nauru: The Only Country in the World Without a Capital City Heres Why Priyanka Roshan With over eight years in multimedia journalism, is passionate about storytellingboth visual and textualacross travel, jobs, business, markets, politics, and daily news. From crafting engaging articles to producing compelling videos, she blends creativity with strategy to bring stories to life. With a strong foundation in SEO, and video production she ensures content not only informs but also resonates with audiences. Priyanka Roshan USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. 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I Accept Bilal, Binance and Bitcoins: Is a dubious crypto deal driving Trumps new bromance with Pakistan? Abhinav Gupta With over 12 years in digital journalism, has navigated the fast-evolving media landscape, shaping digital strategies and leading high-impact newsrooms. Currently, he serves as News Editor at MoneyControl, leading coverage in Global Affairs, Indian Politics, Governance and Policy Making. Previously, he has spearheaded fact-checking and digital media operations at Press Trust of India. Abhinav has also led news desks at Financial Express, DNA, and Jagran English, managing editorial direction, breaking news coverage, and digital growth. His journey includes stints with The Indian Express Group, Zee Media Group, and more, where he has honed his expertise in newsroom leadership, audience engagement, and digital transformation. 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For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Pragya Trivedi USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept FBI raids home of former US NSA John Bolton who criticised Donald Trump over India tariffs Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept 'Gates of hell will open': Israel issues warning to Hamas before Gaza city takeover Pragya Trivedi USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. 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I Accept India, China to form two groups on border issue, says Chinese envoy Pragya Trivedi USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept India-China trade through Lipulekh upsets Nepal: Why Delhi and Kathmandu remain at odds over this Himalayan Pass Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept 'It's Asim law in Pakistan': Imran Khan's sister slams Army chief on arrest of her two sons after ex-PM's bail Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Armaan Bhatnagar USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept PM Modi to attend SCO meet in China, visit Japan on four-day trip from August 29 Rewati Karan USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Putin outlines new peace terms for Ukraine, demands Donbas surrender and no NATO membership: Report Pragya Trivedi USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Western Donetsk identified as a crucial defensive bulwark for Ukraine The Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk Oblast serve as a critical defensive bulwark, and their potential loss would create a significant opening for further Russian advances into central Ukraine, BBC says in a report. The region's strategic importance is defined by its established fortifications and its role in protecting major Ukrainian cities further west. Intense fighting is ongoing as Russia persists in its efforts to gain full control of the oblast, which it claimed to have annexed in 2022 despite not fully occupying it. The fall of western Donetsk would represent a major strategic and morale blow to Ukraine, while securing it would be a significant victory for Russia in its goal to control the entire Donbas region. Spain shuts Costa Blanca beaches after Blue Dragon sightings: What makes this beautiful killer so dangerous? Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Trump says Chicago and New York next cities to be targeted in crime crackdown Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Yeeshu Yadav USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept UN declares famine in Gaza, first ever in Middle East; Netanyahu rejects 'outright lie': What we know so far Abhinav Gupta USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept How to promote the integrated development of people, city, industry, and transportation, guide industrial agglomeration, and achieve a balance between jobs and residences? On August 21, reporters learned from the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development that the department, in collaboration with multiple departments, has actively taken measures to optimize the urban functional layout and spatial structure, and actively supports the construction of high-quality industrial communities. According to requirements, cities and counties in Anhui pay more attention to the integration of industry and city when preparing the overall territorial spatial plans, optimize the urban functional layout and spatial structure, improve the structure and layout of construction land, promote the integration of industrial parks with urban service functions, ensure industrial space for the development of the real economy, and guide the development of multifunctional industrial communities on the premise of ensuring environmental safety. Currently, the overall territorial spatial plans of cities and counties in our province have been approved. Relevant departments will guide the cities and counties to coordinate the various land functions of industrial parks when preparing detailed plans, optimize the industrial spatial layout, guide industrial agglomeration and job-residence balance, clarify the layout of specialized public facilities according to industrial needs, coordinate the arrangement of industrial neighborhood centers and new mixed-use industrial lands, providing important guarantees for creating high-quality industrial spaces. The province will also improve the construction of supporting facilities for industrial communities so that residents can enjoy convenient and comfortable public services like elderly care and childcare right at their doorstep. In the future, relevant departments will prepare and select community grid elderly care and childcare project reserves, supervise pilot cities like Hefei and Wuhu in the construction of embedded service facilities for national urban communities, accelerate the advancement of preliminary project work, and focus on promoting and prioritizing the renovation and construction of embedded service complexes (community service centers) that are moderate in scale, economically practical, and functionally integrated. Additionally, Anhui focuses on promoting the equalization of basic public services in industrial communities, continuously enhancing the Yangtze River Delta government map service capabilities, and creating the "One Map Smart Service" version 3.0. The province fully implements intelligent navigation and guidance modes, expands the service scope of thematic maps for culture and education, health, public security, and advances pilot operations for intermediary and livelihood service thematic maps, constructing a comprehensive "supermarket" of government services. Currently, 83,000 various service locations across the province are linked. Next, the province will focus on building a 24-hour non-stop service brand and promoting the standardized construction of grassroots service venues. Relying on social resources such as bank outlets and postal outlets, the province will promote the widespread application of integrated intelligent self-service systems and accelerate the extension of integrated intelligent self-service to grassroots, industrial parks, and commercial circles. Source: Hefei Evening News Why the Trump administration is vetting all 55 million US visa holders Pragya Trivedi USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Why the White House is targeting Smithsonian exhibits on slavery, sexuality and immigration Pragya Trivedi USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy. *We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies. Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy *I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue. I Accept Philippines condemns Chinas swarm of forces near disputed shoal and vows to defend the territory Philippines condemns Chinas swarm of forces near disputed shoal and vows to defend the territory View Photo MANILA, Philippines (AP) The Philippine defense chief condemned Chinas deployment of a swarm of armed coast guard forces, backed by a helicopter and a drone, closer to the Philippines military outpost in a fiercely disputed atoll in the South China Sea. Its military also vowed to defend the offshore territory, the scene of repeated, tense faceoffs. The latest flare-up in the long-seething territorial disputes around the Second Thomas Shoal came up in closed-door talks between Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and his visiting Australian counterpart, Richard Marles. Philippine military chief Gen. Romero Brawner Jr. said Marles renewed Australias commitment to help defend the rule of law in a region experiencing the pressure that the rules-based order is being placed under. Chinas actions and its nebulous territorial claims in the disputed waters are a matter not only of concern, but of condemnation because these are gross violations of international law, Teodoro said in a joint news conference with Marles, when asked about the latest Chinese actions. We need to stand up to this, he added. We work really closely with the Philippines in terms of asserting the rules-based order in the South China Sea, Marles added. Thats really important for us to jointly do. We understand that in that work, there will be an interaction between defense forces. New faceoff at Second Thomas Shoal Chinese officials did not immediately comment on a Philippine military report that Beijing has deployed several coast guard and suspected militia ships, along with a swarm of speedboats, some fitted with high-caliber machine guns, and backed by a helicopter and a drone. The deployment is reportedly close to a Philippine warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which has served as Manilas territorial outpost in Second Thomas. A Chinese boat came as close as 50 meters (164 feet) to the Sierra Madre, and two boatloads of Filipino forces were deployed from the ship to prevent the Chinese from coming closer, Philippine military officials said. The Philippine navy deliberately grounded the Sierra Madre in 1999 at the shoal now a rust-encrusted seacraft slightly tilting in the shallows to serve as its territorial outpost, where China has deployed ships to keep a continuous watch. The bigger deployment of Chinese coast guard and other forces at the shoal started Wednesday and Brawner said Beijings forces were still in the vicinity of the shoal Friday. The situation is tense because theyre trying to get closer but our troops we continue to push them outward, Brawner told reporters after joining the talks between Marles and Teodoro. China claims staged provocation In reaction to the latest flare-ups, Chinas coast guard issued a statement Friday urging the Philippines to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and vowing to carry out law enforcement activities in the waters around the disputed shoal. It also released a video of what it said was the Philippines latest staged provocation, with Philippines boats approaching its vessels in an unprofessional and dangerous manner. The video showed two small boats approaching a Chinese vessel, with one person on the Philippine boat holding what appeared to be a camera it said, adding that the other boat kept some distance. The spokesperson made no mention of Chinas new deployments in the area or address a collision last week between two Chinese ships in another incident. Australian support Marles is visiting the Philippines as Australian forces engage in their largest combat exercises with the Philippine military, involving more than 3,600 military personnel in live-fire drills and battle maneuvers. Marles has been invited to witness a mock amphibious beach assault by Australian and Filipino naval forces over the weekend in a western Philippine town facing the South China Sea, Philippine military officials said. After their meeting, Marles and Teodoro signed a joint letter of intent to further boost defense cooperation and affirm their resolve to enhance interoperability, collective deterrence and long-term military readiness to promote regional security and stability, according to Philippine defense officials. The exercises called Alon Tagalog for wave will showcase Australias growing firepower. The drills will involve an Australian guided-missile navy destroyer, F/A-18 supersonic fighter jets, a C-130 troop and cargo aircraft, Javelin anti-tank weapons and special forces sniper weapons. China has raised alarm over such combat exercises in or near the disputed waters, which it claims almost in its entirety, but where the United States and its treaty allies, Australia and the Philippines, have staged joint naval patrols and drills with other countries to boost deterrence against threats to freedom of navigation and overflight. Chinas military have separately confronted U.S., Australian and Philippine ships and aircraft in alarmingly close calls to assert what Beijing calls its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the strategic waterway, a key global trade route, sparking fear of a larger conflict that may involve American forces and their allies in what has long been regarded as an Asian flashpoint. Incident at Scarborough Shoal The new faceoff in the Second Thomas Shoal came after an accidental collision between Chinese ships Aug. 11 in another disputed fishing atoll, the Scarborough Shoal. The Chinese navy and coast guard ships that collided were trying to block a Philippine coast guard ship from sailing closer to the shoal. The collision smashed the Chinese coast guard ships bow area and may have seriously injured or thrown overboard a number of Chinese personnel seen standing on the deck shortly before the crash, Philippine officials said, based on coast guard video. Chinese officials have refused to comment on the collision. ___ Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila in Manila, and Chris Bodeen in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report. By JIM GOMEZ Associated Press Thai court acquits former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of royal defamation charge View Photo BANGKOK (AP) Thailands former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was acquitted of a royal defamation charge by a court on Friday, in a case that could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years. The 76-year-old Thaksin, smiling as he walked away from the courtroom, was the first to reveal the verdict, responding to journalists questions with the single word: Dismissal. His lawyer, Winyat Chatmontree, also confirmed the acquittal verdict, as did the Bangkok Criminal Court later in a news release. The law on defaming the monarchy, an offense known as lese majeste, is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. It is among the harshest such laws globally and increasingly has been used in Thailand to punish government critics. The legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people many of them student activists have been charged with violating the law. The courts news release said it had found the witnesses and evidence were too weak to support conviction. Thaksin was originally charged in 2016 over remarks he made a year earlier to journalists in South Korea. The case was not pursued at that time because he was in exile and the necessary legal procedures could not be completed. The news release said the court determined that the account of the interview presented by the prosecution was incomplete and lacked context, and a key point did not clearly refer specifically to then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej. It also said the court thought that witnesses in the case against Thaksin might have been motivated by political bias, because they have participated in political protests against him, leaving open the possibility they may have unfairly interpreted his words. Thaksins opponents, who were generally staunch royalists, accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespecting then-King Bhumibol, who died in 2016. Thaksin has always asserted that the cases against him were politically motivated. When he was indicted last year, Thaksins freedom on bail was approved with the condition that he could not travel out of Thailand unless approved by court. His passport was confiscated. Despite facing various prosecutions since leaving office, Thaksin has spent no time in prison. He was abroad in 2006 when a military coup ousted him. He briefly returned in 2008, only to return quickly to exile to avoid a possible prison term. He r eturned to Thailand in 2023 when the Pheu Thai political party that he is closely associated with came to power. He was sent to serve an eight-year prison term on charges related to corruption and abuse of power but was transferred immediately to a hospital on medical grounds. After six months in a hospital suite, he was granted a pardon and parole and set free. The decision to send him to a hospital instead of prison was widely questioned as to whether he was granted a special, undeserved privilege. The Supreme Courts Criminal Division for Political Office Holders will rule next month in another case that puts him in jeopardy of imprisonment. Since his return, Thaksin has maintained a high profile, traveling the country making public appearances and political observations that could upset the powerful conservative establishment that was behind his 2006 ouster. His daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who became prime minister last year, is also in hot water. She stands accused of failing to handle in an ethical manner a June 15 call with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen in which they discussed tensions over territory claimed by both nations. The Constitutional Court suspended her from her duties on July 1 and next week will rule whether she will lose her prime minister position for breaching ethics laws. Thais have long been accustomed to sudden changes of government due to military coups, numbering more than a dozen since the 1930s. But in the past two decades, they have increasingly seen such changes imposed by the courts, which have ousted four prime ministers and dissolved three election-winning political parties, often on narrow technical grounds. In most cases, the targets were viewed as challengers to the traditional royalist establishment, whose most powerful defenders are the army and the courts. By CHALIDA EKVITTHAYAVECHNUKUL and GRANT PECK Associated Press Car bomb and attack on a helicopter in Colombia kill at least 17, including police officers Car bomb and attack on a helicopter in Colombia kill at least 17, including police officers View Photo BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) A car bomb and a separate attack on a police helicopter in Colombia killed at least 17 people Thursday, according to authorities. President Gustavo Petro attributed both attacks to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC. At least 12 police officers died in the attack on a helicopter that according to authorities was transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine. Petro had reported initially eight officers killed, but Antioquia Gov. Andres Julian said four others died later and three remain injured. The Antioquia governor had said on X that a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops. Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said preliminary information indicates the attack caused a fire in the aircraft. Meanwhile, authorities in the southwest city of Cali reported that a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30. The Colombian air force did not immediately provide additional details of the explosion. Petro initially blamed the Gulf Clan, the countrys largest active drug cartel, for the attack on the helicopter. He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the group. The president said an alleged member of the dissident group was arrested in the area of the explosion. FARC dissidents, who rejected a peace agreement with the government in 2016, and members of the Gulf Clan both operate in Antioquia. Coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia. The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. ____ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america Deadly attacks in Colombia cast a shadow on the presidents peace-with-guerrillas policy View Photo BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Colombias anti-government guerrillas have grown stronger under President Gustavo Petros three years in office. That strength was on display in brazen attacks this week that included a car bombing and the downing of a police helicopter violence that left at least 19 people dead. Authorities blamed both attacks on Thursday on renegade factions of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the notorious FARC rebel group that for decades fought the government, carrying out assassinations, hijackings and bombings to undermine authorities in Bogota. And while FARC struck a peace deal with the government in 2016 and some members transitioned into a political party, rebels who split from the mainstream have carried on with a terror campaign. The attacks underscore the failures of Petros signature policy of negotiating simultaneously with multiple illegal groups, analysts say, a strategy that has allowed the renegade rebel groups to gain territory and power in areas with historically limited state presence. The rebels are likely to step up their attacks in attempts to assert their power in the lead-up to Colombias presidential election next May, the analysts predict. A worrying use of drones The police helicopter was transporting personnel to an area in the northern Antioquia region to help with efforts to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine, when it was brought down. Thirteen police officers died. Colombias police director, Maj. Gen. Carlos Fernando Triana, told reporters on Friday that the rebels used explosive devices, such as homemade dynamite rocket launchers, as well as drones in the attack. But he did not confirm that a drone was solely responsible for downing the helicopter. The use of the drone showcases not only the insurgents access to more modern warfare technology but also their new ability to disrupt the countrys airspace, long dominated by the Colombian military. The use of drones is a worrying and important change in the way insurgent groups are attacking the state, said Cynthia Arnson, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. They dont need shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles anymore, she added. Petro, who in his youth was also in a rebel group, launched negotiations with nine separate insurgent groups and drug trafficking gangs since taking office in 2022 under his total peace strategy. But so far, only one small group has agreed to begin a transition toward civilian life. By 2018, dissidents from FARC and other illegal groups began fighting for the territories the state had failed to protect after FARC disarmed and abandoned the land. According to Arnson, Petros policy then allowed the armed groups to take advantage of ceasefires to strengthen themselves and their control over specific areas. Coca leaf, explosives and drug shipments The area under coca leaf cultivation in Colombia reached a record 253,000 hectares (about 625,000 acres) in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Police said Thursdays deployment of the helicopter to Antioquias rural Amalfi area followed an attack with explosives and gunfire on officers working on eradicating coca leaf crops. The aircraft was hit as it attempted to provide support to the officers who were being attacked on the ground. Military data show there were 108 drone attacks in Colombia in 2024, while 118 have been reported so far this year. The drones are used to drop explosives and also to monitor army troops and areas of drug shipments, for example. In the southwest city of Cali, authorities said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school on Thursday, killing six people and injuring more than 70 all civilians. A presidential election in the mix Colombians were deeply shaken by the death earlier this month of senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was shot in the head during a political rally in a park in Bogota in June. The senator died in hospital more than two months after the shooting an attack that harked back to the political violence of the 1990s, when Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar declared war on the state. Uribe Turbay had become one of the strongest critics of Petro, Colombias first leftist president who is barred from seeking reelection under Colombias constitution. Whoever takes the top job after the May elections, will have to factor in the growing footprint of the insurgents, according to Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Petro inherited a complex situation of territorial vacuums in the countryside that dates back to the aftermath of the signing of the peace accord with the FARC, and under his presidency, conditions have deteriorated with increased rates of forced displacement, confinement, massacres, Freeman said. The illegal groups are likely to carry out more tactical displays of violence as the election nears, he added. Demonstrating their power through these kind of spectacular public attacks is a way to improve their negotiating position or send a strong message, Freeman said. ___ Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City. By REGINA GARCIA CANO and ASTRID SUAREZ Associated Press Mother Lode State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil- Courtesy Senator's office View Photo Sacramento, CA Mother Lode Republican Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil has harsh criticism of a special election in November pushed by Governor Gavin Newsom to redraw Californias US House congressional districts. It is in response to actions in Texas to redistrict ahead of the midterm elections. Texas is looking to potentially add five Republican seats, and California could add an equal number of Democratic seats. Californias plan was approved in the legislature on Thursday, mostly along party-line votes, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. Senator Alvarado-Gil states, This power grab is purely driven by the governors presidential ambitions and not by what benefits Californians or the state itself. Californians deserve a voice in how their districts are drawn, not backroom deal-making. She argues that there was no public input on the new maps, and the special election will cost up to $250-million. Alvarado-Gil concludes, Weve witnessed the consequences of one-party control in Californiaescalating costs, underperforming schools, unsafe communities, and the erosion of our freedoms. Governor Newsoms attempts to consolidate power by dismantling voter-protection safeguards threatens the foundation of our democracy. California belongs to its people, not to its politicians. Commercial structure fire at SPI in Chinese Camp off Highway 120 in Tuolumne CountyCAL Fire aircraft View Photos Update 2:14 p.m.: Air and ground resources have stopped the spread of the Sims Fire, a commercial blaze, at the SPI mill in Tuolumne County, according to CAL Fire spokesperson Emily Kilgore. She added, Firefighters will remain at the scene for the next several hours mopping up. The flames broke out around 1 p.m. in sawdust, debris, and logs at the mill, burning 1-2 acres of a pile. Luckily, fire crews were able to keep the fire from spreading to nearby vegetation. Update at 1:34 p.m.: CAL Fire spokesperson Emily Kilgore tells Clarke Broadcasting that firefighters are making good progress on the Sims Fire, and both air tankers have been released. When the ground crew arrived on the scene in the 14300 block of Perri Cone Road near Sims Road and Highway 120, they found 1-2 acres of sawdust, debris, and logs on fire at the mill. So far, firefighters have been able to keep the flames contained, and there is no spread to nearby vegetation. An update will be provided as soon as new information comes into the newsroom. Original post at 1:14 p.m.: Chinese Camp, CA Air and ground resources are working a commercial structure fire at the SPI mill in Tuolumne County, dubbed the Sims Fire. The PG&E live camera shows a large billowing plume of smoke. CAL Fire reports that firefighters are at the scene of 1-2 acres of sawdust, debris, and logs on fire at the mill. The business is located in the 14300 block of Perri Cone Road near Sims Road and Highway 120. There is no word as to whether the flames have spread to nearby vegetation. An update will be provided as soon as new information comes into the newsroom. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, free for now from jail, could be deported to Uganda. Heres what to know Kilmar Abrego Garcia, free for now from jail, could be deported to Uganda. Heres what to know View Photo The Trump administration plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he declined a plea deal involving deportation to Costa Rica, his defense attorneys told a court Saturday. He was released from a Tennessee jail on Friday after his case attracted significant attention amid President Donald Trumps immigration crackdown when he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges. Abrego Garcias attorneys court filings show the administration requested he appear at an immigration facility in Baltimore on Monday and could be deported again. As his story takes yet another turn, heres what to know: The Costa Rica-Uganda offer The Costa Rica offer came late Thursday and included a requirement that he remain in jail, according to a brief filed in Tennessee, where the criminal case was brought. After Abrego Garcia left jail Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement told his attorneys he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday. Later Friday, the government told Abrego Garcia he has until first thing Monday to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, or else that offer will be off the table, his defense attorneys wrote. They declined to say whether he is still considering the offer. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that the administration will not stop fighting until hes out of the U.S. Well-founded fear of returning to El Salvador Abrego Garcia, 30, grew up in El Salvador and fled at age 16 because a local gang extorted and terrorized his family, court records state. He traveled to Maryland, where his brother lives as a U.S. citizen, but was not authorized to stay. Abrego Garcia found work in construction and met his future wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura. In 2018, he moved in with her and her two children after she became pregnant with his child. In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he was detained by local police, court records state. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state, but police did not charge him and turned him over to ICE. A U.S. immigration judge denied Abrego Garcias subsequent asylum claim because more than a year had passed since his arrival. But the judge granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador, determining he had a well-founded fear of gang persecution there, court records state. Abrego Garcia was released and placed under federal supervision. He received a federal work permit and checked in with ICE each year, his lawyers said. Audacity to fight back In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization. In March, it deported Abrego Garcia to the prison in El Salvador, violating the U.S. immigration judges 2019 order. Abrego Garcia later claimed in court documents that he was beaten and psychologically tortured, while El Salvador President Nayib Bukele denied the allegations. The Trump administration described its violation of the immigration judges 2019 order as an administrative error. Trump and other officials doubled down on claims that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13. Vasquez Sura filed a lawsuit to bring her husband back. The Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. in June after a Supreme Court order. But it brought human smuggling charges against him. The smuggling case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during which Abrego Garcia was driving with nine passengers. Tennessee police suspected human smuggling, but allowed him to drive on, didnt charge him. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty. His lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case based on vindictive and selective prosecution. Deportation fears realized U.S. Magistrate Barbara Holmes in Nashville ruled in June that Abrego Garcia has a right to be released from jail while he awaits trial. But Abrego Garcia remained in a Tennessee jail at his attorneys request for about 11 weeks over fears that ICE would immediately try to deport him. Thomas Giles, an assistant director for ICE, testified in July that Abrego Garcia would be detained as soon as hes freed. U.S. officials argued Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally and because an immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, just not to his native El Salvador. Judge provides some protections In response to concerns Abrego Garcia would be deported without due process, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis prohibited ICE from immediately detaining him upon release in Tennessee. Xinis, overseeing the lawsuit in Maryland, ordered restrictions on ICE in late July. She required any removal proceedings begin in Baltimore. Xinis also ordered that ICE provide three business days notice if it intends to initiate removal proceedings. The Trump administration has done little to assure the Court that, absent intervention, Abrego Garcias due process rights will be protected, Xinis wrote. Electronic monitoring and home detention Soon after Xiniss order, Abrego Garcias attorneys asked the federal judge in Tennessee to release him. Holmes, the U.S. magistrate in Nashville, released him Friday, requiring Abrego Garcia to stay with his brother in Maryland and be subjected to electronic monitoring and home detention. In a statement on Friday, he said he saw his family for the first time in over five months. We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served, he said. ___ By BEN FINLEY and MIKE CATALINI Associated Press Canada will match US tariff exemptions under USMCA trade pact, Prime Minister Carney says View Photo TORONTO (AP) Canada is dropping many of its retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday. Carney said Canada will include the carve-out that the U.S. has on Canadian goods under the 2020 free trade deal that shields the vast majority of goods from the punishing duties, easing Canadas previous stance on holding the line on punitive tariffs until U.S. President Donald Trump relents more on those imposed by the U.S. Some Canadian politicians and union leaders characterized Carneys move as capitulation, but the prime minister accentuated what he considered Canadas favorable position so far and said that the exemptions would jump-start further trade talks with Washington. Canada currently has the best trade deal with the United States. And while its different from what we had before, its still better than that of any other country, Carney said. Carney and Trump spoke on the phone Thursday, and Carney met with his Cabinet on Friday before making the announcement. We had a very good call, Trump said Friday in the Oval Office. We are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot. I think hes a very good person. He also said: I am fighting for the United States, and Canada and Mexico have taken a lot of our business over the years. Carney said Trump told him that lifting the tariffs would reset trade negotiations. The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, is up for review in 2026, and Carney called the pact a unique advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the U.S. is charging for access to its market. Carney said the commitment of the U.S. to the core of USMCA means that over 85% of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. He said the U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners. Canadian and Mexican companies can claim preferential treatment under the USMCA. Canada and China are the only countries that have retaliated against Trump in his trade war. Canada imposed 25% tariffs on a long list of American goods in March, including oranges, alcohol, clothing and shoes, motorcycles and cosmetics. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially put on retaliatory tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs, but before the U.S. tariffs were applied the Trump administration exempted goods covered by the free trade deal. Most imports from Canada and Mexico are still protected by the USMCA, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said, I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA. Preserving the free trade pact will be critical for Canada and Mexico. More than 75% of Canadas exports go to the U.S. while more than 80% of Mexicos exports go there. Trump has announced some sector-specific tariffs that do apply for Canada despite the USMCA known as 232 tariffs which are having an impact on the Canadian economy. There is a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, for example. Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods, Carney said. Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensively to resolve the issues there. Carney previously rescinded Canadas plan to tax U.S. technology firms after Trump said he was suspending trade talks with Canada over those plans, which he called a direct and blatant attack on our country. The prime minister disputed any notion that Canada is appeasing Trump, noting that Canada is matching what the U.S. is doing. The president and I had a long conversation, Carney said. There is a review of the free trade agreement in the spring. Were starting our preparations. Lana Payne, president of Unifor, Canadas largest private sector union, characterized Carneys announcement as Canada backing down, and said the country shouldnt back down unless the U.S. drops all punitive tariffs. Trumps attacks on auto, steel, aluminum, and forestry sectors are hurting Canadian workers in real time, she posted on social media. Walking back counter-tariffs isnt an olive branch. It only enables more U.S. aggression. Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called it a capitulation by Carney. Poilievre said he would have gone to the U.S. president and asked him respectfully to remove all the tariffs. Any small tariff on Canada, any amount, by the United States has an outsized effect because more than 20% of our economy is exports to the U.S., he said. By ROB GILLIES Associated Press Wisconsin judge rejects motions to dismiss charges against Trump aides View Photo MADISON, Wis. (AP) A Wisconsin judge Friday declined to dismiss felony charges against two attorneys and a former aide to President Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year. Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland rejected the motions to dismiss the 11 felony charges filed against the three defendants. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year. Jim Troupis, who was Trumps attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trumps director of Election Day operations in 2020, all were initially charged in June 2024. The case has stalled as the judge considered their attempts to have the charges dismissed. Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense, the judge said in rejecting the motions to dismiss. Attorneys for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment. The charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. Kaul is considering running for governor in 2026. He declined to comment. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and again last year but lost it in 2020 and tried unsuccessfully to overturn his defeat. The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023. Federal prosecutors who investigated Trumps conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin. Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which partys electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates. The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsins 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver the document to then-Vice President Mike Pence. They argued that the charges should be dismissed because no crime was committed in having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot to preserve their legal options in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trumps favor in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote. They also argued that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges cant legally be brought in state court. They further argued that the facts showed no crime was committed and also because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the states attorney general. The judge rejected all of their arguments. Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme. The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith abandoned that case, saying that Trumps return to the White House precluded attempts to federally prosecute him. By SCOTT BAUER Associated Press Takeaways from Justice Department interviews of Epsteins former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell View Photo In the hundreds of pages of transcripts from Justice Department interviews of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein spoke glowingly of President Donald Trump, called him a gentleman in all respects and describing him as friendly with Epstein. Both Trumps supporters and his Democratic opponents have clamored for documents about the case to be made public. In the transcripts released Friday, Maxwell also details what she knew of Epsteins interactions with other high-profile men, including former President Bill Clinton, current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Britains Prince Andrew, saying she never observed untoward behavior from any of them. Here are key takeaways: What documents were released by the government The transcripts are from interviews Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Maxwell last month. The sit-down came as the Trump administration scrambled to present itself as transparent amid backlash among even some of Trumps most loyal supporters over a perceived broken promise to release more information on Epsteins case. Trump has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the sex-trafficking case. The ire peaked when Attorney General Pam Bondi said last month that Epstein did not leave behind a client list, after earlier suggesting it was on her desk, and said no other evidence would be released. Blanche later interviewed the imprisoned Maxwell at a Florida courthouse. What Maxwell said about Trump The transcripts show Maxwell repeatedly denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990 when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much, Maxwell said, according to the transcript, saying that her late father had been fond of Trumps then-wife Ivana because she was also from Czechoslovakia where my dad was from. As far as Im concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me, Maxwell said. I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and Ive always liked him. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him. Maxwell told Blanche she didnt know how Epstein and Trump met nor how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly, she said. I mean, they seemed friendly. Maxwell said she recalled only seeing Epstein and Trump in social settings, not private settings. Asked by Blanche if she ever observed Trump receiving a massage, she answered: Never. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. When Maxwell last saw Trump Maxwell estimated that she hadnt seen Trump since the mid-2000s, again in a social setting. Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied: Absolutely never, in any context. Maxwell said she and Epstein would go to Trumps Mar-a-Lago club, often separately, though she didnt say specifically when that was. She said she loved going there and that Epstein would maybe go himself to the spa. I certainly did. Maxwell said RFK Jr. and Epstein were friends While being quizzed about which powerful men were friends with Epstein, Maxwell told Blanche that Epstein did know Robert Kennedy Jr., who leads the Health and Human Services Department under Trump. Maxwell said they went on a trip together dinosaur bone hunting in the Dakotas in the early 1990s. Asked by Blanche if she had any recollection of any inappropriate behavior involving Kennedy on the trip, Maxwell replied: I never saw anything inappropriate with Mr. Kennedy. What she said about Epstein and Prince Andrew Maxwell spoke favorably of Britains Prince Andrew and dismissed as rubbish the late Virginia Giuffres claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwells London home. She denied introducing Epstein to Prince Andrew, using a British idiom to describe how she felt they wouldnt have anything in common. I couldnt imagine them being friends. Two chalk and cheeses would never I mean, for real, theres nothing there to connect them, she told Blanche. Maxwell questioned the details of Giuffres claim, telling Blanche that she wasnt even in London when the purported sex happened. Rather, she said, she was in the country celebrating her mothers 80th birthday. Maxwell said her home is so tiny about 900 square feet (83.6 square meters) with tight quarters that it wouldve been physically impossible to have sex in the bathroom, as Giuffre claimed. Giuffre became an advocate for sex trafficking survivors after emerging as a central figure in Epsteins prolonged downfall. The prince settled with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a substantial donation to her survivors organization. Maxwell discussed other high-profile men Asked about trips she went on with high-profile men, Maxwell said it was difficult to remember details, as they became a blur. And after a while, you know, in the incredible job that you have, all of you, that when youre so high pressured and youre spending so much time with extraordinary people like you do with President Trump, it it can blur, she said. It just does. Blanche pressed Maxwell on whether she knew certain high-profile names, such as Elon Musk and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Maxwell said she met Musk around 2010 or 2011 during an event for the co-founder of Google that Epstein did not attend and then saw Musk again later at the Oscars. Maxwell told Blanche she was friends with Cuomos ex-wife, Kerry, but had only met him a few times and she didnt think Cuomo knew Epstein. Maxwell said she had no recollection of either man flying on Epsteins plane or ever visiting his homes. Maxwells interview wasnt only helpful to Trump, but also another one-time White House occupant with Epstein ties: former President Bill Clinton. Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epsteins, and that she never saw him receive a massage nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epsteins plane. That wouldve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage, Maxwell said. And he didnt, because I was there. ___ Michael R. Sisak, Adriana Gomez Licon, Alanna Durkin Richer and Matt Brown contributed reporting. ___ Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP By MEG KINNARD Associated Press Trump frustrated after thinking he made headway on Russia-Ukraine talks only to see Putin balk Trump frustrated after thinking he made headway on Russia-Ukraine talks only to see Putin balk View Photo WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. President Donald Trump started the week declaring a diplomatic breakthrough in his bid to prod Moscow and Kyiv closer to peace, announcing he had begun arranging for direct talks between Russias Vladimir Putin and Ukraines Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Four days later, the Republican presidents optimism has diminished. Russias top diplomat made it clear Friday that Putin wont meet with Zelenskyy until the Ukrainians agree to some of Moscows longstanding demands to end the conflict. Its a stinging setback for Trump, who had been touting his diplomatic blitz as resulting in indisputable momentum for a deal to halt a conflict he vowed as a candidate to end on Day One in office. Trump said Friday he expected to make a decision on his next actions in two weeks if direct talks arent scheduled. He raised the possibility of imposing new sanctions or tariffs on Russia, a threat he has previously floated but not followed through on. Were going to see whether or not they have a meeting, Trump told reporters in an Oval Office appearance. Itll be interesting to see. If they dont, why didnt they have a meeting, because I told them to have a meeting. But Ill know what I am going to do in two weeks. Trump has touted a breakthrough that wasnt Trump announced Monday that he had begun making the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting soon after concluding White House talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders as well as speaking by phone with Putin. European leaders cheered the presidents tone at the White House meeting, when he made vague promises to back European security guarantees for postwar Ukraine. Trump also appeared to ease European anxiety heightened by his comments after his Alaska summit with Putin days earlier, when he appeared to tilt toward the Russian leaders demand for Ukraine to give up land seized by Russia. The European leaders even offered guarded optimism that Trump was making headway after he announced his plans for direct talks, followed potentially by three-way negotiations involving him. But uncertainty has grown in recent days about Putins commitment to Trumps peace-making efforts as Russian officials raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals on the negotiating table. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss peace terms but only after key issues first are worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart. There is no meeting planned, Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBCs Sunday show Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all. Russia injects uncertainty into any headway on security guarantees Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any postwar Russian attack, and U.S. and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals of how that might work. But Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscows involvement was pointless. Putin, meanwhile, on Friday made a visit to Sarov, a closed city about 370 kilometers (230 miles) east of Moscow that has served as a base for Russias nuclear weapons program since the late 1940s. The visit offered a not-so-subtle reminder that Russia is one of the worlds foremost nuclear powers. He hasnt moderated his position in any significant way, said Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and former British ambassador to Belarus. Even as Trump touted his plan for peace talks, Russia on Thursday launched one of its biggest aerial assaults so far this year, focusing on western Ukraine in the barrage of 574 drones and 40 ballistic and cruise missiles. The Russians are trying to do anything to avoid the (summit) meeting. The issue is not the meeting itself, the issue is that they do not want to end the war, Zelenskyy said Friday alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was visiting Kyiv. Rutte said Trump wants to break the deadlock with Putin and engage the United States in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. Rutte explained that guarantees under discussion would rest on two layers. The first, to take place after a peace deal or long-term ceasefire, would focus on making the Ukrainian armed forces as strong as possible. The second would involve security commitments provided by Europe and the United States. Europes chief diplomat warns of Putin trap The European Unions foreign policy chief said Friday that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is a trap set by Putin. The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his armys invasion, but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas said. The recent talk about handing Putin concessions is exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into, Kallas said in an interview with the BBC. I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people, she said. Russia is just dragging feet. Its clear that Russia does not want peace, Kallas said. President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing. ___ Associated Press writer Emma Burrows in London contributed. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine By AAMER MADHANI and DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press Part the First: Beware Scientific Jargon. But everyone here already knows that. Nevertheless, this is a perpetual challenge for every scientist and other scholar who wants to be understood by our fellow citizens without dumbing it down. Scientific jargon can be satisfying but misleading. Jargon works especially well for those of my tribe who have something to hide or the desire to show off. I do my best to avoid both tendencies, but some of my colleagues live for both, when they deign to explain. Wendell Berry has described this as the curse of specialization. Wendell Berry is correct. Across nine online experiments, the researchers presented nearly 6,700 participants with explanations of scientific phenomena that varied by quality (whether the explanation was circular, meaning that its conclusion was used as part of its premise, or complete) and language (whether the explanation was plain or used jargon). Participants were then asked to rate the text along three key dimensions. The first was gappiness: to what extent did the explanation have gaps in it? This reflects whether the reader felt that the explanation was incomplete. The second was satisfaction: how satisfying did they find the explanation? This is a proxy for perceptions of the coherence and completeness of the argument, and the expertise of the writer. Finally, comprehensibility: how easy was the explanation to understand? This provides a direct measure of whether the reader felt that they understood the explanation. The researchers goal was to unpack why jargon might boost reader satisfaction but decrease their understanding. Why does jargon work? The pattern observed by the authors reflects a psychological tendency: when people lack knowledge, they often rely on surface cues to assess the credibility of a statement. Jargon becomes a signal of the communicators expertise. Even when readers dont understand the technical terms, they assume the explanation refers to existing knowledge. In other words, readers gave statements with jargon the benefit of the doubt. Welcome to the world of Alternative Medicine, which seems to have taken over much of our biomedical scientific establishment that is steadily being gobbled up by Biomedicine the child of Biomedical Science and Big Pharma. But one thing in this article, I do not understand. Why is the following even a question? This research raises an important question: what should science communicators aim for explanations that readers find acceptable and satisfying, or ones that are clear and understandable? Unless a communicator has a compelling reason to do otherwise, we think that clarity should prevail. Plain language deepens understanding, supports sound decision-making and reduces the risk of harmful misinterpretation. This is especially crucial in the context of politically important and fast-developing fields, such as climate science, technology and medicine. Clear and understandable is always superior to obscure and inscrutable. I sometimes fail at this, but not for lack of effort. Any scientist who cannot explain his or her research and its importance in two minutes to a sincerely interested interlocutor without using jargon does not understand the problem and should not be given much attention. The underlying article is here for those who can get it. Part the Second: Why Chocolate Tastes So Good. And can taste better. Its the microbes involved in fermentation. Naturally. This will not be a surprise to those who eat fermented food (good for the microbiome though I am still developing a taste for yoghurt) and drink beer, wine, and spirits, the latter three in moderation, of course. In a study published in Nature Microbiology (open access) researchers found that, during the fermentation process, the pH, temperature and microbial species all influence how the resulting chocolate tastes. They also replicated the flavor attributes of a high-quality chocolate in the laboratory by creating the ideal environment for fermentation. The researchers hope that using these techniques will create novelty and exciting new flavors for consumers in the future, says study co-author David Gopaulchan, a plant geneticist at the University of Nottingham, UK. I think this definitely has promise for people to start to play with and look at in terms of designer chocolates, says Heather Hallen-Adams, a food scientist at the University of NebraskaLincoln. Bakers, distillers, winemakers, and brewers are food scientists to their core. But this research shows that professional food scientists can be of a certain use, too, and while not working for food ultra-processors: Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) bean fermentation is a spontaneous process involving interactions between abiotic and biotic factors that contribute to the final flavors of chocolate. Understanding these underlying interactions could enable desired flavor profiles to be reproduced under controlled conditions. Here, using bean fermentation samples from Colombian farms, we established that pH, temperature and microbiota composition, including both bacteria and fungi, influence key flavor attributes of premium chocolate. Genome-resolved metagenomics revealed that metabolic traits necessary for the development of the flavor profile of chocolate are redundantly present in the fermentation microbial community. Using a defined and metabolically competent microbial consortium, the feasibility of replicating fine flavor attributes of chocolate under controlled conditions was confirmed via omics, metabolic networks and a trained tasting panel. Our results provide the basis for the design of fermentation starters to robustly reproduce fine chocolate characteristics. Many years ago, a medical student gave me a sourdough starter that produced the best bread I ever tasted. Alas, I let it expire due to a false sense of busyness and the accompanying neglect. I am not a chocaholic but I outgrew Hershey kisses long ago (not that I eschew them completely). Good chocolate is like good cheese. It may cost a lot more but it is ten times more satisfying than the two-pound orange brick from the usual manufacturer most commonly found in the United States. This work is worth following to its conclusion. Food should be taken seriously, even when it is chocolate. Perhaps especially when it is chocolate. And with that, I hope to return to Laduree Thanksgiving Week the best time for an American to visit Paris. And Notre Dame has reopened and the Olympics are long gone. Part the Third: Update on Retraction of the Arsenic Life Paper. It has always been passing strange how this paper, which claimed that a new form of Life on Earth has been discovered in Mono Lake in California, in a bacterium that substituted arsenic for phosphorous in DNA and RNA. Well, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. From the very first reading by anyone with the slightest biochemical intuition, this paper was implausible if not completely ridiculous. Of course, the bacteria were using phosphate instead of arsenate, because the components of the culture medium were contaminated with phosphate, albeit at very low levels. Any microbiologist would understand that bacteria are very good at making do with less, a lot less than optimum, if given the time. So, how did it happen? This article by David A. Sanders in Times Higher Education explains the situation very well (click on reader view to avoid registration). But no one should really have much sympathy for the authors and even less for the reviewers. The authors got carried away with their hypothesis and admittedly lacked the relevant biological expertise to know this. I am by no means a chemist but it was immediately apparent that a sugar-arsenate instead of a sugar-phosphate backbone for RNA and DNA would be unstable and incapable of serving as the genetic material. The reviewers? I have no clue about them. The explanation for this unfortunate event lies in this video linked by Sanders: NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built with Toxic Chemical (the first few minutes at 1.40x are enough to get the gist of it): NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth. Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components. This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this weeks edition of Science Express. No, no, and no. But it made a very good story for a NASA bureaucracy in search of a budget. I cannot find the reference but NASA had done this before, in the 1980s if I remember correctly. A meteorite was discovered that had tiny round nodules under the microscope that looked for all the world like Archaean fossil blue-green algae (cyanobacteria or similar organisms). This discovery was hailed as evidence for life elsewhere in the universe. Not so much as it turned out. A more recent reach is here. The lesson to be learned is this: When the hype gets out of hand, wait and see. We have unfortunately seen this too much in the past five years, and my fellow scientists have much to answer for. Not that they will ever see it this way, even as their hubris has authored much destruction. Part the Fourth: All of Us Will Still Die Anyway One Day No Matter What We Do. A fear of death is natural everyone wants to go to heaven even though no one seems to want to die to get there. But acting on those fears in the scientific effort to prolong life beyond eating well, exercising, and taking life as it comes but not for granted, is downright silly. We have covered this before in a discussion of The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death. My first mentor in science was taught by an outstanding group of scientists. One of them decided the study of metabolism was a waste of time if the goal was not to figure out how to live much, much longer. He switched to the study of senescence back in the day when the Hayflick limit was discovered. Unfortunately, he died in the mid-1970s at a normal old age. He was able to tell a good story at the big annual meeting to the end, though! This science continues, and some of it in the form of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has been retracted. Stuff happens, and digital image manipulation seems to be the most common stuff. Has this been a consequence of deskilling in the laboratory? Or is it simply a crime of convenience facilitated by tools such as blur, cut/paste, flip/rotate, brightness/contrast (especially of the nonlinear kind)? All of the above. The paper was contributed to PNAS by George Church of Harvard Medical School and MIT. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences he has that (not unlimited) privilege. Professor Church is by all accounts a very successful scientist by current and conventional metrics, with publications (more than 700) and fifty startup companies coming out of his laboratories. I remember this paper from 2021. Inhaling a cytomegalovirus (CMV) preparation containing magic enzymes that increase longevity seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was: Significance. Using CMV as a gene therapy vector we illustrated that CMV can be used therapeutically as a monthly inhaled or intraperitoneally delivered treatment for aging-associated decline. Exogenous telomerase reverse transcriptase or follistatin genes were safely and effectively delivered in a murine model. This treatment significantly improved biomarkers associated with healthy aging, and the mouse lifespan was increased up to 41% without an increased risk of cancer. The impact of this research on an aging population cannot be understated as the global aging-related noncommunicable disease burden quickly rises. Abstract. As the global elderly population grows, it is socioeconomically and medically critical to provide diverse and effective means of mitigating the impact of aging on human health. Previous studies showed that the adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector induced overexpression of certain proteins, which can suppress or reverse the effects of aging in animal models. In our study, we sought to determine whether the high-capacity cytomegalovirus vector (CMV) can be an effective and safe gene delivery method for two such protective factors: telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and follistatin (FST). We found that the mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) carrying exogenous TERT or FST (MCMV TERT or MCMV FST ) extended median lifespan by 41.4% and 32.5%, respectively. We report CMV being used successfully as both an intranasal and injectable gene therapy system to extend longevity. Specifically, this treatment significantly improved glucose tolerance, physical performance, as well as preventing body mass loss and alopecia. Further, telomere shortening associated with aging was ameliorated by TERT and mitochondrial structure deterioration was halted in both treatments. Intranasal and injectable preparations performed equally well in safely and efficiently delivering gene therapy to multiple organs, with long-lasting benefits and without carcinogenicity or unwanted side effects. Translating this research to humans could have significant benefits associated with quality of life and an increased health span. I would simply note two things. (1) the mouse is good model for cancer and a lousy but convenient model for human physiology and (2) that it will be impossible to to provide diverse and effective means of mitigating the impact of aging on human health other than to build a world that is predicated on human flourishing rather than GDP growth and billionaire proliferation until we have a gaggle of trillionaires. Oh, and also that George Church blurbed The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death: Elegantly handles the why and how of ending death, with engagingly described specific details and compelling responses to standard concerns about overpopulation, social stagnation, and unnaturalnessDear Future, we love you, too. Lovely sentiments but death becomes us all. Actually, the book was an exercise in empty philosophical and biological hypotheticals. The former are unconvincing and the latter mistake the physical structure of the brain, down to the level of the synapse and the molecules that make them function, with mind that is the product of the brain and the seat of what makes us human animals. Part the Fifth: The Scopes Trial Was One Hundred Years Ago. And covered in Nature (paywall that my digital subscription would not surmount): AMERICAN men of science naturally felt consider able interest in the trial of John T. Scopes, high school teacher, at Dayton, Tennessee, for the alleged violation of the now famous anti-evolution act on the statute books of that State. Relatively few scientists in this country are directly threatened by the epidemic of anti-evolution legislation; for this is at present confined largely to the southern States, and the majority of the more important colleges and universities, both independent and State-supported, are in the north and west. However, interest in the continued academic independence of their colleagues in the south brought a number of scientists to Dayton as scientific coadjutors for the defense counsel, while many more had signified their willingness to attend if called upon. They would have appeared as expert witnesses also, had the judge not ruled against the admissibility of scientific testimony. The Scopes Trial had it all: Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, H.L. Mencken. If you have not seen it, Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly is a fair Hollywood treatment, in my view (but I could watch that cast in anything). Books on the Scopes Trial are many. But neither science nor academic freedom were seriously threatened in 1925 by the political reaction to what John Scopes taught to his biology students. Not so true of the actions of our politicians today. Regarding the Scopes Trial, we should remember that the first thirty years of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of professional science as a way of knowing but not knowing everything. These years were also thoroughly scientistic in their misuse of science to address problems that were not amenable to scientific approaches. Not the least was the then mainstream science of eugenics and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the Buck v. Bell decision (1927), three generations of imbeciles are enough. Who would have thought then that one hundred years hence, scientism and a softer but just as malignant eugenics would be concerns of 2025? And with that, no more about what is wrong with our science today. We have next week for that. And there continues to be a lot to cover. See you then. The US Empires drums of war are once again beating loud and hard in Latin America. Three US destroyers equipped with the Aegis system, a defence technology designed to track multiple targets and neutralise air or sea threats simultaneously, will be arriving off the coast of Venezuela in the next couple of days, according to reports by Reuters. They will be accompanied by 4,000 troops, surveillance planes and a submarine in what is by far the largest ever show of force the US has mustered against Venezuelas Chavista government. The ostensible casus belli of this military operation is to take down drug trafficking organisations in Latin America, now classified by the White House as narco-terroristas. They include Venezuelas Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles, which according to Washington has close ties to the Maduro government. Needless to say, anyone who believes or supports this latest pretext for war against a country the US has tried to regime change at least twice so far this century and which has been subject to more than a decade of crippling US sanctions is either exceptionally gullible or an apologist for empire. That is not to say that Maduro or elements within his government are not engaged in drug trafficking though the US is, to my knowledge, yet to present any evidence supporting that but rather that this has little, if anything, to do with the US latest escalation in what is now a years-long simmering conflict. An Old, Tired and Poorly Written Script This latest escalation began around two weeks ago with US Attorney General Pam Bondis announcement of a $50 million bounty for information leading to Maduros arrest, up from $25 million. Erik Prince, the shadowy founder of the disgraced mercenary firm Blackwater whose name has changed so often its hard to keep up, followed up by tweeting: Should be dead or alive. It is an old, tired and increasingly poorly written script: Today, @TheJusticeDept and @StateDept are announcing a $50 MILLION REWARD for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro. pic.twitter.com/D8LNqjS9yk Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 7, 2025 The news of the deployment, reported by CNN, was later corroborated by White House press secretary Katerine Leavitt. Asked if the new operation might include the landing of troops on Venezuelan shores, she replied that the US was considering using all its power to stem the flow of drugs from Venezuela to the United States, and insisted that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is the head of a cartel, as well as an illegitimate ruler. This must be a sweet moment for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been dreaming of regime change in Venezuela, as well as Cuba and Nicaragua, for as long as he has been in politics. The 2nd-most powerful person in the Trump admin is lifelong neocon war hawk Marco Rubio, who dedicated his life to trying to overthrow the leftist govts in Venezuela, Cuba, & Nicaragua. During Trump's 1st term, Rubio lobbied for a US invasion of Venezuelahttps://t.co/MbnOfzE23q Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) August 20, 2025 On August 14, Rubio confirmed the deployment of US naval and air forces in the Caribbean Sea in what he described as an effort to combat drug cartels that are utilizing international airspace and international waters to transport drugs to the US. From Venezuela Analysis: The deployed US sailors and marines are assigned to the Iwo Jima (IWO) Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Special Operations Capable (SOC). Both units are trained and equipped to conduct quick global missions to accomplish US strategic goals. They are not anti-narcotics units. At a press conference, Rubio identified as a primary target the so-called Cartel de los Soles, which Washington alleges is led by Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials intent on flooding the US with narcotics. The Cartel de los Soles is one of the largest criminal organizations that exists in the hemisphere. It is indicted in the federal courts of the United States, Rubio said. He added that the US does not recognize the Maduro government, calling it a criminal enterprise that threatens US national security and oil interests in Guyana, referencing Exxon Mobils operations in the disputed Essequibo region. Of course, this has about as much to do with combatting the narcotics trade as the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan had to do with combatting Islamist terrorism. After all, the US is arguably the largest enabler of drug trafficking organisations on the planet while it wages a Global War on Drugs, just as it has been arguably the largest supporter of Islamist terrorist organisations while waging a Global War on Terror. Both types of organisations have proven to be useful allies in the pursuance of US imperial ambitions (e.g. the Colombian and Mexican cartels during Nicaraguas Contra insurgency in the 1980s, or the Al Qaeda offshoots in Syria) while also serving as handy pretexts for military intervention. The Real Reasons The Venezuelan government is under no illusions about the US real goals. Venezuelas Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said that the United States wants to force regime change in the South American country a goal it has been seeking for over two decades, since the failed right-wing coup against Chavez in 2003. And lets not forget the farcical attempted coup by Trumps hand-picked interim leader for Venezuela, Juan Guaido, in 2019. It is not hard to see why the US wants regime change in Venezuela: Gee I wonder why the U.S. wants to invade Venezuela pic.twitter.com/C1IFG7KTZ0 COMBATE | (@upholdreality) August 20, 2025 It is not just that Venezuela has more oil under its soil and sea than any other country; it is the fact that it is located slap bang in the US direct neighbourhood. During last years presidential campaign Trump openly admitted that he wanted to seize Venezuelan oil, saying (emphasis my own): When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door. In 2024, Trump flat out admits that he wants Venezuela to collapse so he can take their oil. Keep that in mind as he sends 4,000+ troops and a bunch of warships to their coastline.pic.twitter.com/RohqQDMdZk Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) August 20, 2025 This little nugget of a speech is a perfect example of why Trump is loathed by so many in the Washington beltway he says the quiet part out loud regarding Washingtons imperial ambitions. Other reasons why the Trump administration once again wants to topple the Maduro government despite the lingering embarrassment from the Guaido affair include Venezuelas close ties to China, Russia and Iran, the US three most important strategic rivals. It will be interesting to see how China and Russia respond if the US does attack Venezuela. For its part, Beijing has condemned Washingtons military build-up in the South Caribbean Sea and has expressed its opposition to any move that violates the purposes and principles of the US Charter and a countrys sovereignty and security. Meanwhile, Moscow has, to my knowledge, remained conspicuously silent on the issue despite its recent strengthening of military and economic ties with Venezuela. This has stoked speculation in certain quarters that Putin has given Trump the green light to attack in exchange for concessions over Ukraine. [UPDATE: On Friday evening Sergei Lavrov held a phone conversation with Venezuelas Vice President Delcy Rodriguez in which he conveyed Moscows clear political support for Caracas in its efforts to defend national sovereignty and guarantee institutional stability from growing external pressure. The Russian foreign minister did not specifically mention the US deployment of military ships off the Venezuelan coast] It is also perfectly plausible that the build-up of troops is part of a diversionary tactic. The Trump administration desperately needs to distract its MAGA base from the ongoing Epstein scandal, over which it is bleeding support from high-profile figures such as Joe Rogan. In an expert piece of trolling, Maduro responded to the US raising its bounty on his head by offering a $50 million reward for information pertaining to the Epstein case: Hours later, Maduro offered his own $50 million bounty. But not for a person. For information. Specifically, the unreleased, raw Jeffrey Epstein files. The same files America has kept sealed for years. We've never seen two global giants trade blows this personal pic.twitter.com/vSenJjeBTy Fernando Cao (@thefernandocz) August 11, 2025 President Maduro has so far responded to the mobilisation of US forces by ordering the deployment of four and a half million members of the National Bolivarian Militia to defend Venezuelas territory, sovereignty, and peace. From Venezuela Analysis: In a televised address on Monday, Maduro urged all militia members to be armed and ready to defend the entire national territory. He also ordered the activation of campesino (peasant) and workers militias in rural areas and factories nationwide. No empire will come to touch the sacred soil of Venezuela, nor should it touch the sacred soil of South America, Maduro remarked. The Bolivarian Militia is a voluntary combat unit of the Venezuelan armed forces that was created in 2005 by President Hugo Chavez. It is composed of civilian men and women of all ages. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez responded on Tuesday that the militia was prepared to defend every inch of the Caribbean nation. Caracas has prohibited the use of drones in Venezuelan territory for 30 days. Washingtons threats are not just aimed at Venezuela, warns Maduro; they are aimed at the entire Latin American region. And hes right: as we have been warning since 2023, the US is seeking to use the war on drugs as a means of reasserting its power and strategic influence in its direct neighbourhood, one gun at a time. The Venezuelan leader called for support and unity from all of the countries in the region. Washington has rekindled its interest in its so-called backyard as it seeks to retrench from certain parts of the world back to the American continent as well as reassert control over the regions abundant resources including its rare earth elements, lithium, gold, oil, natural gas, light sweet crude, copper, abundant food crops and vast deposits of fresh water. Heres Laura Richardson, the former commander of US Southern Command, laying out what SOUTHCOM wants from Latin America and the Caribbean: Rare earth elements, lithium, oil, light sweet crude, copper, gold, the Amazon, and fresh water. This is what the United States wants to plunder from Latin America and the Caribbean. pic.twitter.com/Q9Rh5XP0jB Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) January 21, 2023 The US government and military, and the corporations whose interests they serve, have their eyes on all of these prizes. They also have their eyes on the regions two bi-oceanic passages, the Panama Canal and the Drakes Passage, hence the US militarys renewed interest in Argentina, as well as no doubt the interoceanic corridor being developed across Mexicos Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The Mexican-Lebanese geopolitical analyst Alfredo Jalife argues that one of the main goals of US policy is to maintain firm control over the so-called American Mediterranean, a term first coined in the 19th century by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt to describe the combined maritime space of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The area took on geopolitical significance in the mid 20th century thanks to the work of US strategists Alfred Mahan and Nicholas Spykman, with Spykman describing it as the US soft underbelly. Jalifes hypothesis gives added weight to Trump 2.0s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, one of his first acts back in office. A Chorus of Opposition In recent days, many of the regions governments have spoken out against Washingtons mobilisation of forces against Venezuela. According to O Globo, Brazils Lula da Silva fears that Trump is planning a military intervention in Venezuela to overthrow the Maduro government, which would put Brazil in an even more delicate position vis-a-vis the Trump administration. The US president has imposed 50% tariffs on most Brazilian goods, citing the Brazilian judiciarys witch hunt against former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro over his alleged coup attempt in 2024. There are other potential reasons for Trumps displeasure with Brazil, however, such as Lulas growing calls for dedollarisation, including most recently at the BRICS summit in Rio. Other Latin American leaders have expressed concern about this latest episode of US belligerence. From the heart of South America we strongly condemn the military deployment of the United States in waters surrounding Venezuela, Bolivian President Luis Arce wrote on his social networks. Linking the Bolivarian Revolution and President Nicolas Maduro with drug trafficking is one of the greatest infamies of the Trump administration in recent times, as well as the recurrent use of the fight against drugs as an instrument of imperialist intervention in countries that do not align with its geopolitical interests. However, Arce will be ending his term soon. His replacement will be one of two conservative candidates who made it through to the second round of Bolivias presidential elections after the left-leaning MAS movement that has governed Bolivia for the best part of the past two decades turned on itself. Whoever wins the second round, one thing is safe to assume: Bolivia will soon be seeking closer realignment with the US. In addition, Arce made an urgent call for multilateral organisations like the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Bolivarian bloc ALBA-TCP to convene emergency meetings to address this issue with the seriousness it deserves and defend regional sovereignty and peace. At an extraordinary meeting convened by Maduro, the 11 heads of state and government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) signed a declaration describing the US actions as a threat to regional security. The text also denounces Washingtons orders to deploy US military forces under false pretexts and demands the immediate cessation of any interventionist action. Cross-regional unity is extremely unlikely, however Many of the governments in the region would love to see the back of Maduro and his Chavista movement. If theres one thing the US Empire of Chaos has always been able to count on, it is division and polarisation among Latin Americas contingent nation states, in part because Washington itself has helped to sow it. Readers may recall that it was Lula himself who blocked Venezuelas proposed membership of the BRICS alliance last year, just months after Maduros contested re-election. That move has left Maduro more isolated on the world stage. Maduro can count on the diplomatic support of neighbouring Colombia and Mexico, however. Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned that the US would make a mistake if it attacked Venezuela. The gringos are losing the plot if they think that invading Venezuela will resolve their problems, said Petro. They seek to put Venezuela in the same situation as Syria, only that they risk dragging Colombia into the problem. Colombia, of course, is the US closest client state in South America with at least seven US military bases. But since Petros election in 2022, the country has tried to steer a more independent course, recently joining the BRICS New Development Bank. Mexicos President Sheinbaum has also criticised the US deployment of troops near Venezuela citing Mexicos constitutional commitment to the principles of non-intervention and self-determination of peoples. Mexico, of course, also faces the threat of US military intervention after being designated a US adversary the US Justice Department a fate the Sheinbaum government has tried to avoid by sending dozens of cartel capos Washingtons way. Our Constitution clearly says it and it is always our position: the self-determination of peoples, non-intervention and the peaceful solution of disputes, Sheinbaum said, adding that these problems can be resolved with dialogue. Unfortunately, these are principles Washington has little time or respect for. As the map below shows, the US carried out dozens of military interventions in Latin America in the 20th century, including invasions and troop mobilisations (purple dots), coups (red), regime change operations (yellow), and military support and assistance (orange). It has continued to meddle in the region in the 21st century, albeit with slightly less frequency and intensity (with three large operations in Venezuela, in 2003, 2019 and now 2025, Honduras in 2009, and Bolivia in 2019). That could be about to change, however, as the US sets its imperial ambitions closer to home including, of course, Greenland and Canada. Yet somehow it is Venezuela that is the danger to the region. "Venezuela es un peligro para la region" pic.twitter.com/FfBIBWUdBQ El Necio (@ElNecio_Cuba) August 20, 2025 The fact that the Trump administration appears to be intent on attacking Venezuela and quite possibly Mexico as part of its regional war against Latin Americas drug cartels flies in the face of all his promises to be a peace president and to put America first. As the former US libertarian Congressmen Ron Paul notes, President Trumps foreign policy is turning out to be just as belligerent and interventionist as his predecessors. President Trump's foreign policy is turning out to be just as militaristic and interventionist as his predecessors. Promising "America first," his saber-rattling from Venezuela to Ukraine and blind support for Israel are anything but. Watch @RonPaul & @DanielLMcAdams below: pic.twitter.com/dUOwDPxaW1 Ron Paul (@RonPaul) August 20, 2025 With Trump in peacemaker mode over Ukraine following the recent Alaska Summit with Putin, it will be interesting to see how his government handles the escalation of hostilities with Venezuela. One thing that is clear is that 4,000 troops are not enough to seize Venezuelas oil fields let alone occupy the country (h/t Rev Kev). The Venezuelan analyst and political scientist William Serafino posits that Washington will avoid direct military attacks against Venezuela, preferring instead to opt for a scenario of non-kinetic/hybrid operations. [This] would encompass a wide range of operations, from cyberattacks and infrastructure sabotage to outbreaks of armed violence. A Dirty War for the purpose of attrition, even possibly re-creating a 2025-style Gideon. Operation Gideon was an attempt by a group of exiled Venezuelan military dissidents and three members of a private security force based in the United States to infiltrate Venezuela in the coastal state of La Guaira from Colombia. It was a total fiasco. The first wave of attack resulted in the death of six Venezuelan dissidents while several more were captured by local fishermen and local police forces and then handed over to government forces. The second wave was intercepted by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB). If the US were to try something similar this time, it should be able to count on the support of Vente Venezuela, the opposition forces led by Maria Corina Machado, who has been in hiding since last years contested elections. In late July, Machado sent the following message via social media to her followers, the Venezuelan military and police and the international community: We all have tasks to do and the first thing is the covert organisation of all the structures within Venezuela. Just as we disobeyed and left them humiliatingly alone [in yesterdays elections]. We prepare for civic action on the day it is required. The hope is that a groundswell of public support will come out against the Chavista government while many thousands of soldiers defect. But we have been here many times before; this is Ground Hog day in Venezuela. Machado herself tried to stage a civil revolt in September last year that fizzled to nothing. As we noted at the time, Venezuela simply does not have a strong, credible opposition: Even with the support of the US, EU and numerous US-aligned governments in Latin America, not to mention the constant backing of the Western media and lobby groups, it has not been able to unseat Chavez or Maduro. As NC reader Cristobal wrote in the thread to a previous post, repeated attempts to overthrow the government by means of military coups, post electoral violence, economic sanctions, and millions of dollars worth of destabilisation efforts including terrorism and cyberattacks have come to nought. The difference this time is that the US has sent its own forces to the area to keep a close watch over developments, and perhaps even get involved if needed, presumably by attacking strategic targets with missiles and drones. If war does break out, one thing worth keeping an eye on is whether other countries in the region join the military campaign against Venezuela. The obvious candidates would be Ecuador, Argentina and Peru. Galvanised by the recent collapse of the Assad government in Syria and its military support for Israels 12-day war against Iran, is Trump now willing to cross the lines into another war, this time in Venezuela? And if he does, what will that mean for the MAGA movement, especially with the Epstein scandal still bubbling away in the background? Yves here. As youll see, the authors below find that industrial policy produces net benefits even after retaliation, which on average lowers the revenue gain benefit to the companies receiving the industrial policy support by 25%. The authors seem to shade this finding in the direction of emphasizing that the cost of achieving an expected level of export benefit are lower than naive calculations might assume. But given how allergic the US and neoliberal infested Eurospehere are to explicit industrial policy (as opposed to by default, as in as a result of powerful interest groups lobbying for bennies), this finding counters the belief in a hands-off approach. And as many have pointed out, including yours truly, the history of Trump 1.0 confirms the idea that tariffs alone, without other supporting policies, will not be sufficient to generate much return of manufacture to the US. However, there is at least one reason for caution in applying this finding to the US and Europe. As is becoming more and more widely recognized, what passes for leadership in these countries cant manage its way out of a paper bag. So it is an open question as to whether these countries could design and implement effective industrial policies. By Yusheng Feng, Haishi Harry Li, Assistant Professor of Economics University of Hong Kong, Siwei Wang, PhD candidate Wuhan University, and Min Zhu. Originally published at VoxEU Industrial policy is increasingly implemented worldwide, with many policymakers and researchers highlighting its benefits. However, the cost of industrial policy remains less understood. Using Chinese firm-level data, this column shows that higher industrial subsidies raise the likelihood and severity of foreign anti-dumping and countervailing duties at each investigation stage. These retaliatory tariffs wipe out roughly a quarter of the firm revenue growth the subsidies would otherwise create. Neglecting this channel may lead governments to overstate the net benefits of industrial policy and fuels deeper trade frictions and geoeconomic fragmentation. Over the past two decades, China has become the primary target of antidumping and countervailing (AD/CVD) investigations globally, accounting for roughly one-third of all cases, as Figure 1 illustrates. Both the frequency of investigations and the share resulting in duties have increased significantly. By 2020, around 15% of Chinese exports to the US were subject to AD/CVD tariffs. Figure 1 Trends in global AD/CVD investigations and Chinas exposure Notes: Figure 1 illustrates trends in global AD/CVD investigations from 2000 to 2020. Panel (a) reports the annual count of investigations worldwide. Panel (b) displays the share of these investigations that targeted China. Panel (c) presents the share of investigations against China that resulted in armative outcomes (i.e., the imposition of duties). Source: Temporary Trade Barriers Database (Signoret et al. 2020) and authors calculations. Moreover, subsidised firms are disproportionately affected. Figure 2 shows that the distribution of tariffs for subsidised Chinese exporters is significantly right-shifted compared to non-subsidised Chinese exporters, indicating consistently higher duties. This pattern is robust for both large and small firms. Figure 2 AD/CVD duty distribution for subsidised and non-subsidised Chinese exporters Notes: This figure compares the distribution of AD/CVD duty rates between subsidised and non-subsidised Chinese exporters. Panel (2a) presents the overall distribution, where the red solid line represents subsidized Chinese exporters and the blue dashed line represents non-subsidized Chinese exporters. Panels (2b) and (2c) show the distributions separately for large Chinese exporters (above-median assets) and small Chinese exporters (below-median assets), respectively. Firm size is measured using the log of total assets. Motivated by these facts, in a recent paper (Feng et al. 2025) we examine the impact of Chinese subsidies on foreign AD/CVD investigations by combining comprehensive data on Chinese industrial firms with the global universe of AD/CVD cases against China. We find that higher industrial subsidies lead to more adverse AD/CVD measures at all stages of AD/CVD investigation. Specifically, heavily subsidised products are more likely to receive armative AD/CVD rulings, which lead to taris. Among armative investigations, industrial subsidies also lead to higher taris. At the firm level, firms receiving larger subsidies are less likely to be granted firm-specific duties, which are lower than product-level taris applied to other exporters of the investigated product. Among those that do receive firm-specific treatment, higher subsidies are associated with higher assigned duty rates. Retaliatory taris oset approximately 25% of the subsidys positive impact on firm growth. Researchers estimating the effect of industrial policies should account for the associated increase in AD/CVD duties. Ignoring this subsidy cost creates a downward omitted variable bias because the resulting duties undermine firm growth. AD/CVD Duties Become a Significant Subsidy cCost for Heavily Subsidised Firms or Those sSeeking Firm-Specific Rates We find that a one percentage point increase in a firms subsidy rate leads to a 0.16 percentage point rise in the expected AD/CVD tari for an average firm in the economy (see Table 5 in our paper). Despite this moderate average eect, the highly skewed distribution of subsidy rates means firms in the right tail face significant trade cost. A firm increasing its subsidy rate from the 5th percentile (0%) to the 99th percentile (115%) expects to face an 18 percentage point increase in foreign AD/CVD taris. Moreover, among firms that appeal for firm-specific tariffs, as their subsidy information undergoes scrutiny during the investigation, the tariff increase is substantially larger. We find that a one percentage point increase in the subsidy rate leads to a 2 percentage point increase in the assigned AD/CVD tariff (see Table 4 in our paper). At the same time, the probability of receiving the firm-specific rate falls by 0.7 percentage points (see Table 3 in our paper). Given that the average product-level tariff is 145% while the average firm-specific tariff is 81%, this translates into a 47 percentage point increase in the expected tariff faced by firms potentially eligible for firm-specific treatment. Tariffs Significantly Erode the Benefits of Subsidies The intended benefits of industrial subsidies on firm revenue growth, employment and productivity are partially offset by increased foreign trade protection. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we compare five-year revenue growth across firms with different subsidy levels, both with and without controlling for AD/CVD tariffs. We find that when tariffs are omitted, a 1 percentage point increase in the subsidy rate leads to a 1.2% increase in revenue (see Table 10 in our paper). When tariffs are included, the same subsidy yields a 1.5% gain. The 0.3 percentage point difference implies that retaliation offsets approximately 25% of the subsidys growth effect. Similar attenuation is observed in firm-level employment (17%) and productivity (30%). Conclusion Researchers have shown the widespread use of industrial policies in countries such as China (Barwick et al. 2024) and their resulting trade spillovers into other economies (Rotunno and Ruta 2024). While many policymakers and researchers have highlighted the benefits of industrial policy, (Juhasz et al. 2023), our findings reveal a hidden cost: under WTO rules, subsidies lead to more adverse outcomes at every stage of AD/CVD investigations. This mechanism helps explain the recent parallel rise of industrial subsidies and trade protection. The resulting tariffs offset about 25% of the subsidies positive effect on firm revenue growth. Policymakers aiming to promote exports should consider how subsidy design shapes trade responses targeting sectors that impose less foreign harm or relying on alternative, non-subsidy tools that are less likely to trigger retaliation. See original post for references When Creep Learned to Sway: Haley Reinhart and Postmodern Jukebox Reimagine Radiohead World Defined Climate/Environment For CSIS @karlbykarlsmith had it at almost 4 trillion through 2030. Morgan Stanley playing catchup. https://t.co/MBN1bK9w7F Joseph Majkut (@JosephMajkut) August 19, 2025 Water How Does the US Use Water? Construction Physics Pandemics According to a new study, SARS-CoV-2 virus hijacks the machinery of testicular cells that produce the hormone testosterone in order to replicate. It also appropriates the metabolic pathways of these cells and cholesterol, a precursor of testosterone, thereby altering lipid pic.twitter.com/j6Or9DDe2R Vipin M. Vashishtha (@vipintukur) August 22, 2025 India China? US-made Patriot II missile exploded seconds after launch during a live-fire drill at Taiwans Jiupeng base. Taiwan is shifting to PAC-3, but most stock is still PAC-2. Investigations are underway as experts cite outdated tech and limited maintenance capacity. pic.twitter.com/W4c3vzQHgE Clash Report (@clashreport) August 21, 2025 Africa How to get the International Monetary Fund to think Peoples Dispatch Old Blighty UK declines to share stance on Britons fighting for Israeli army Middle East Eye Corbyn is irredeemably weak. This after two years of genocide is just pathetic. And is this not blatant lying? The battle over the IHRA took place in 2018. The Jerusalem Declaration (also a Zionist definition) was proposed in 2021. Dont take us for fools, Jeremy. Also, https://t.co/CvWMhgd5hH Ammar Kazmi (@AmmarKazmi_) August 21, 2025 Syraqistan On Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia, ICC war crimes fugitive PM Netanyahu vowed Israel will take over Gaza regardless of what happens with the partial ceasefire proposal now in discussion. Were going to do that anyway, he said, likening Hamas to the SS in Germany and pic.twitter.com/novA7lyEVE Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 21, 2025 Netanyahu puts out propaganda video directed towards Americans that their algorithms must be changed to hide the photos of starving childrenpic.twitter.com/3fhVmtvpD9 YourFavoriteGuy (@guychristensen_) August 21, 2025 IMPORTANT: Palestinian prisoners rights groups released a new report today based on testimonies provided to lawyers visiting Gaza detainees held in Israels underground Rakevet section of Ramla Prison and the Sde Teiman military camp both notorious sites of torture. We pic.twitter.com/Xs6HMJNf4f Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 21, 2025 225 Jewish settlers from Canada and the U.S. arrived in the occupied Palestinian territories today, moving into homes and land taken from Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/qkoyeA6JFa Clash Report (@clashreport) August 20, 2025 European Disunion The EU likes to call China and Russia adversaries, yet leans on them like crutches for the minerals that keep its high-tech dreams alive. In 2024, 46% of rare earths came from China, another 28% from Russia. Thats nearly 75% of the whole supply chain balanced on the goodwill of https://t.co/i7TDGTCez0 pic.twitter.com/PNw2JFtiAp Brian McDonald (@27khv) August 20, 2025 New Not-So-Cold War Its as if Trump met with Putin for a big photoshoot and some smiles. The messaging from Trumps cabinet and Euro vavasours is completely contradictory from the Kremlin messaging. Its like a blind talking to a deaf. Back to business as usual. Interesting times ahead indeed. pic.twitter.com/IqrrZoiTc4 Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) August 21, 2025 Flamingos II The Ukrainian company claims they aim to produce 8 Flamingos per day in October. This raises a red flag for me, suggesting they are probably not manufacturing any missiles but rather assembling kits that arrive pre-made, in an effort by European countries to evade pic.twitter.com/z7Bf7S8LMr Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) August 21, 2025 Poland has torn down another communist statue Polish-Soviet Brotherhood in Arms in Ploty is no more Poland is tearing down monuments glorifying communism across the country after the introduction of a new law that bans communist propaganda pic.twitter.com/p9NoKcA2gv Visegrad 24 (@visegrad24) August 21, 2025 Caucasus Now, all oil exports from Kazakhstan have been routed through Russia. Astana has decided to route all its export flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which is located in Russia, temporarily abandoning its supply through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. pic.twitter.com/v31AAADcAq Neznakomaya (@TomatkaP) August 21, 2025 South of the Border Liberation Day Trump 2.0 Police State Watch Democrats en deshabille Wesley Bell ousted Cori Bush thanks to enormous support from AIPAC and is now siccing thugs on Gaza protesters https://t.co/1qiDDdW88W Obamna (@lib_crusher) August 21, 2025 Dem strategist expects Browns U.S. Senate campaign to focus on Ohio workers Ohio Capital Journal a gentle way of saying they spent $40m against me last time and Id like to get back into office somehow https://t.co/u4qPZMVV3U Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) August 21, 2025 Monthly evictions in New York City reach highest rate since 2018 Gothamist The Uniparty Watch as an Atlantic Council fellow is speechless in response to a simple question about the organizations funding from weapons manufacturers: pic.twitter.com/obAckpfP4N Nick Cleveland-Stout (@nick_clevelands) August 21, 2025 MAHA How Deeply Trump Has Cut Federal Health Agencies ProPublica Healthcare? AI Imperial Collapse Watch Accelerationists Sorry to disappoint but already sold out: Peter Thiel is doing a four-part lecture series on the Antichrist, per @traestephens announcement. pic.twitter.com/Qg4mTPuHH8 Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) August 21, 2025 Big Brother Is Watching You Watch SFPD surveillance units close ties to crypto billionaire 48 Hills Class Warfare Ring of Fire The Baffler Antidote du jour (via): See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. Yves here. Below, Richard Murphy uses an essay by Blair Fix on what Fix sees as the origins of fascism: medieval theology (I hope our house theologians like Henry Moon Pie weigh in). Because the word fascism is so regularly used and too often signifies right wingers I dont like, I have to confess not taking more rigorous discussions of the topic as seriously as I ought to. Nevertheless, Murphy makes the point that neoliberal policies create fear and insecurity.which helps promote fascism. One could draw other connections between medieval theology and neoliberalism: how both are faith based rather than empirical, how both demand rigid adherence By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist who has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK. As is apparent from this blog, the issue of fascism has been much on my mind this week. Amongst the things that Ive read has been a fascinating blog post by someone called Blair Fix. He analysed fascism in what seems like an entirely original way, showing that its roots are, in effect, in mediaeval theocracy, because the language used by those of fascist persuasion is remarkably similar to that found in some 17th, and maybe 18th, century political mediaeval theocratic thought, after which periods the language of the enlightenment displaced that of the theocrats, although the latter is now on the rise again. If I had time, I would comment further on that post, because I think it is well worth reading and thinking about, but the reaction which came to me that I wish to note here is not one that came directly from the piece itself, but arose as a consequence of Blair Fixs observation that the opposite to fascism is not, if it is rooted in mediaeval theocracy, communism or socialism, or anything to do with either of those ideologies, but is instead to be found in the enlightenment. Unfortunately, we could also very easily say that enlightenment thinking has now been corrupted. Its destination might, in fact, be neoliberalism. I am not, therefore, too sure this creates an argument that is particularly useful. However, tangentially, what it suggested to me was something quite different, and that is not that the opposite of fascism is to be found in any sort of ideology, as such, but is instead to be found in action. In his analysis of fascist writing, Blair Fix identified three common threats. One was the significant overuse of violent symbolism. Words like annihilation, bloodshed, conquer, extermination and fighting were substantially overused when compared to the body of normal writing of the periods when fascist or similar ideas were written. The second was a significant quantity of emotion-laden judgment, typified by the use of words like betrayed, cowardice, enemies, hatred, humiliation, slander and treason. Third, he found there was a significant use of what appear to be quasi-religious, e.g. references to the Almighty, blessings, providence and the eternal. All of these do, of course, relate to a mythical fight against an oppressor, which only a supreme leader can deliver the true believers from. This is what the mythology of fascism is all about, after all. In that case, though, there is no point in trying to persuade those who have submitted to fascist inclinations of the mistaken political view that they have adopted. Instead, what needs to be demonstrated is that there are better ways to overcome the oppression from which they are suffering. In other words, the opposite of fascism is not another political ideology, but is instead action to remove the causes of fear. This is hardly surprising. William Beveridge, of course, was right about this in the 1940s, as was Nye Bevan in the 1950s. Freedom from fear has always been, in my opinion, the goal of the politics of care. If fear blights peoples lives, and it very obviously is, then the removal of fear has to be the goal of any successful political thinking now. The trouble is that neoliberal politics is doing everything it can to reinforce the narratives of fear. It says that people must live in fear of markets. They must live in fear of a wealthy elite. They must live in fear of a government that cannot meet their need because it must impose austerity. They must live in fear of the consequences of inequality, leaving them forever without the opportunity to fulfil their reasonable hopes of being able to live with their families in a community. Ultimately, they must live with the idea that they are, in the neoliberal view, expendable. Those are the fears that have driven people towards fascist thinking now. My suggestion is, lets not spend too long trying to engage with the arguments that the fascists put forward. There is no logic to their medieval theocracy. To pretend that there is would be absurd. However, there is a way to tackle these fears, and that is by empowering the state to address the failures of neoliberal market philosophy, which dictates that they exist when that is wholly unnecessary. We have a choice. What is clear is that neoliberalism is not amongst the viable options available to us. One of the weird disconnects about the time in which we are living is more and more acknowledgment of survival systems under serious stress, namely climate-change heat waves, fires, intense rainfall, and in other areas, water shortages wreaking havoc with agricultural production. And thats before getting to self-inflicted high energy prices in Europe adding another level of social and political pressure. It may seem alarmist to talk about future Arab Spring level revolts. And yours truly is not saying they are imminent. But the flip side is the direction of travel seems obvious. Enough immiseration of ordinary citizens eventually produces blowback, whether food riots (see the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2007-2008 food price spikes), regime-change attempts of the Arab Spring sort, or fuel price protests a la Gillets Jaunes. As William Gibson said, The future is already here, its just not very evenly distributed, applies to our slow-motion polycrisis. And because whether it is sensible to buy a burrito with a buy now, pay later loan seems more pressing than accelerating resource pressures, it seems just too distressing to consider that food riots or other forms of I need mine violence may be coming sooner than most would like to think. The headline for a summary of a 2025 study confirms the sense that the climate-change-induced deterioration of food systems is oddly being ignored. From Heat and drought are quietly hurting crop yields: More frequent hot weather and droughts have dealt a significant blow to crop yields, especially for key grains like wheat, barley, and maize, according to a Stanford study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The analysis finds that warming and air dryness a key factor in crop stress have surged in nearly every major agricultural region, with some areas experiencing growing seasons hotter than nearly any season 50 years ago. The study estimates that global yields of barley, maize, and wheat are 4 to 13 percent lower than they would have been without climate trends. In most cases, the losses have outweighed the benefits of increased carbon dioxide, which can improve plant growth and yield by boosting photosynthesis, among other mechanisms The findings echo concerns raised in a study published in March that found U.S. agricultural productivity could slow dramatically in coming decades without major investment in climate adaptation [Study lead author David] Lobell adds that the surprise many people express may simply be because they had been hoping the climate science was wrong, or because they underestimated the impact a 5% or 10% yield loss would have. I think when people hear 5% they tend to think its a small number. But then you live through it and see its enough to shift markets. Were talking about enough food for hundreds of millions of people. Keep in mind that wheat alone provides 20% of humanitys food calories and protein. New Scientist chimed in with Is the climate change food crisis even worse than we imagined? in late 2024: You have probably already noticed that the price of many of the foods in your grocery basket has risen What is driving prices up is complex, but one of the biggest factors is climate change. In the short term, extreme weather caused by a warming climate has had devastating consequences for growers. In northern Europe, for instance, torrential rains in spring 2024 left fields too sodden to harvest vegetables or plant new crops. Meanwhile, a drought in Morocco, which typically exports a lot of vegetables to Europe, meant there wasnt enough water for irrigation. The result was soaring prices for potatoes and carrots Not only are newer climate models projecting much stronger effects, both positive and negative, but the latest crop models also suggest the impact on yields will be much greater too, says Jonas Jagermeyr, a climate scientist at NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. But current models also have some serious limitations. Realistic projections probably would be a little bit less optimistic, says Jagermeyr, noting that climate models arent good at projecting extreme events and that crop models tend to underestimate impact. Another major limitation is that these models dont consider the risk of pests and diseases. As the planet warms and becomes more humid, some pathogens will spread to areas where they havent been able to survive before So far, it is also proving harder for farmers to nevertheless increasingvia technology but also measures that amount to eating our seed corn on a planetary scale: The other reason for rising food production is that the global area used for growing crops is expanding rapidly. This often involves turning forests into farmland, which is catastrophic for biodiversity. Clearing trees also puts a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere, adding to farmings already large carbon footprint about a third of our greenhouse emissions come from agriculture. Alarmingly, we seem to be at the start of a vicious cycle: global warming is making it harder to grow food, so farming is becoming more emissions-intensive to keep up, leading to yet more warming. The rising temperature will also amplify other threats to world food production, including ocean acidification, groundwater depletion and soil loss, intensifying that cycle further for instance, hotter temperatures mean farmers need to use more groundwater for irrigation. To add to this cheery picture, droughts are part of the agricultural shortfall problem as well as being generally hazardous to living things, such as people. From the Guardian in July: Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown. More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced. The situation has been years in the making. One-sixth of the population of southern Africa needed food aid last August. In Zimbabwe, last years corn crop was down 70% year on year, and 9,000 cattle died.. In Latin America, drought led to a severe drop in water levels in the Panama canal, grounding shipping and drastically reducing trade, and increasing costs. Traffic dropped by more than a third between October 2023 and January 2024. By early 2024, Morocco had experienced six consecutive years of drought, leading to a 57% water deficit. In Spain, a 50% fall in olive production, driven by a lack of rainfall, has caused olive oil prices to double, while in Turkey land degradation has left 88% of the country at risk of desertification, and demands from agriculture have emptied aquifers. Dangerous sinkholes have opened up as a result of overextraction. [Founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center Mark] Svoboda said: The Mediterranean countries represent canaries in the coalmine for all modern economies. The struggles experienced by Spain, Morocco and Turkey to secure water, food and energy under persistent drought offer a preview of water futures under unchecked global warming The impacts of drought stretch far beyond the borders of stricken countries. The report warned that drought had disrupted the production and supply chains of key crops such as rice, coffee and sugar. In 2023-2024, dry conditions in Thailand and India led to shortages that increased the price of sugar by 9% in the US. Notice that these studies on droughts focus on the effects on agriculture. They dont consider what happens when cities and regions face a crisis, as Cape Town has and Iran may be suffering. Nor do they consider what happens when citizens have to add water to the list of things. Even in the US, a few locations with very high water or sewer charges, like Birmingham, Alabama, water affordability is already an issue. And attesting to the fact that water costs can push a financially strapped household to the brink, the US has water assistance programs for low-income households. Recall we pointed out at the inception of this site that potable water was the resources set to come first under serious stress, so expect this problem to intensify in coming years. Healing Waters gives an overview: Affordability in the water sector is often defined as households spending no more than 3-5% of their income on water and sanitation services. However, this metric overlooks hidden costs, including: Purchasing firewood or gas to boil water Buying purification products like chlorine tablets Spending valuable time collecting water These additional expenses can drive total water costs far beyond the standard affordability threshold, forcing families into impossible choices The Economic Burden of Water Costs In many regions, families spend over 10% of their income on water, with extreme cases reaching 30-50%. In contrast, the average American household spends just 2% of its budget on water, which covers all household uses, not just drinking water. Farmers are already under stress. From the Guardian in July: More than 80% of UK farmers are worried that the devastating effect of the climate crisis could damage their ability to make a living, a study has found. Farmers have warned that global heating risks Britains supplies of home-grown food amid wild swings in weather conditions, in new research carried out by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). The study found that 87% of farmers have experienced reduced productivity in the face of recent extreme weather, 84% had suffered a fall in crop yields, and more than three-quarters had taken a hit to their income In stark contrast, just 2% of farmers had not experienced extreme weather in some form. And on the consumer end, even in the theoretically not-food-shortage afflicted US, the majority of households feel food cost pressures. A key chart from a July AP/NORC survey of over 1.400 adults: Hopefully readers in other parts of the world can chime in with data or anecdata about food worries in their part of the world. Most readers know that the EU is now suffering form high energy prices thanks from its divorce from all things Russian, particularly its cheap gas: It was not possible to get the legend into the screenshot, but as you might guess, darker = worse. Gas prices around the world at August 18 show Russia at 78.3 cents a liter, the US at 92.4, and the highest price countries below: Needless to say, there are so many governments and social system in the headlight of the freight train of more resource scarcity that its impossible to forecast or guess all that well about how things start to break down and how citizens act. But in advanced economies, the level of dislocation will look more and more like a failure of those in charge, both institutions and individuals, to deliver on social contracts. In atomized America, the result is more likely to continue to be random violence and quiet desperation than revolt. Americans are breaking down, a grown woman crying because she cant afford to live anymore I'm wondering if anybody else is feeling like they're drowning and they can't get out. I work overtime, and I cannot get above water. I mean, I literally have no gas for next week. It was pic.twitter.com/tS5Io7bY91 Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 15, 2025 But manh other countries have cities like Paris and London which are both centers of government and commerce, which makes for an easier target for collective action. Again, this situation is far too fraught to make any firm calls, but it bears monitoring. 65% of Americans demand U.S. action to stop Gaza starvation as Israels war faces growing backlash Two years of Israeli assault on Gaza have killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. 65% of Americans now demand U.S. action to stop the deliberate starvation of Palestinians as a crime against humanity. 59% of Americans believe Israels military response has been excessive, exposing crumbling support for its ethnic cleansing campaign. Amnesty International reports horrific starvation tactics, including malnourished infants, miscarriages, and elderly begging for food. Global momentum grows for Palestinian statehood as U.S. faces pressure to stop arming Israels blockade and bombing of civilians. After nearly two years of Israels brutal assault on Gaza in which more than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, it turns out that 65% of Americans now believe the U.S. should take action to help starving Palestinians. Thats right: two-thirds of this country recognize that whats happening in Gaza isnt just war; its deliberate starvation, a crime against humanity, and a moral stain on the world. But on the flipside, this implies that 35% of Americans still dont think we should help. What is wrong with these people? How can anyone, in good conscience, watch children waste away from malnutrition, pregnant women miscarry from starvation, and elderly Palestinians beg for scraps, and think, "Nah, the U.S. shouldnt lift a finger?" This isnt politics. This is basic human decency. If you see a child starving, you feed them. If you see a government blockading food, water, and medicine as a weapon of war, you stand against it. Period. Israels war is no longer about self-defense... its ethnic cleansing, and the world knows it The poll doesnt just reveal American compassion. It exposes Israels rapidly crumbling support. A staggering 59% of Americans now believe Israels military response in Gaza has been excessive, up from 53% in February. Let that sink in. More than half of this country, including a growing number of Republicans, see through the propaganda. They understand that killing 50 times more Palestinians than the October 7th attacks, bombing hospitals, razing universities, and blockading food isnt self-defense; its collective punishment, its genocide, and its making the U.S. complicit. And its not just Americans. France, Canada, the UK, and Australia have all announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN next month. Why? Because the world is sick of the double standards. Israel gets billions in U.S. military aid, a blank check for war crimes, and diplomatic cover at the UN while Palestinians are denied statehood, starved into submission, and branded as terrorists for resisting occupation. Amnesty International didnt mince words in their latest report: Israel is deliberately starving Gaza. They interviewed 19 Palestinians in displacement camps, and the stories are horrifying. Mothers breastfeeding malnourished babies with no milk left. Children crying from hunger while parents go without food. Pregnant women miscarrying because their bodies are too weak. Elderly Palestinians begging for scraps, saying theyd rather die than be a burden on their families. One nurse, S, described how her seven-month-old daughter weighs as much as a four-month-old because theres no baby formula. Another woman, Hadeel, four months pregnant, said: "I fear miscarriage, but I also think about my baby I panic just thinking about the potential impact of my own hunger on the babys health, its weight, whether it will have [birth defects]." This isnt war. This is torture. And 65% of Americans are saying: Enough. The same U.S. government that sends $4 billion a year to Israel is now facing mounting pressure from its own people to stop the madness. The poll shows 58% of Americans believe all UN members should recognize Palestine as a state. The question now is: Will the U.S. stand with the 65% who want to stop the starvation? Or will it keep arming the very government thats blocking food, bombing bakeries, and letting children die? A warning to the 35% who still dont care To the 35% who oppose helping starving Palestinians, what would it take? If 62,000 dead isnt enough, if children dying of malnutrition isnt enough, if hospitals being bombed isnt enough... what is? This isnt about Israels right to exist. This isnt about Hamas. This is about human beings suffering on an industrial scale, while the U.S. pays for the bombs and looks the other way. History will not remember kindly those who stood by while a genocide unfolded. The American people are finally waking up. The only question left is: Will our leaders listen? Or will they keep funding the starvation until theres nothing left of Gaza but graves? Sources for this article include: MiddleEastEye.net Amnesty.org AlJazeera.com Reuters.com CDC faces lawsuit over unstudied childhood vaccine schedule as COVID-19 shots added without parental consent A federal lawsuit filed on Aug. 15 accuses the CDC of inadequately testing its childhood vaccination schedule, allowing children as young as 12 to be vaccinated without parental consent in some jurisdictions. The lawsuit demands that the CDC halt its universal vaccine recommendations until rigorous, long-term safety studies are conducted. The plaintiffs argue that the CDC has never assessed the cumulative risks of administering multiple vaccines simultaneously, especially with the recent addition of COVID-19 vaccines to the schedule. They are concerned about the potential exposure of children to experimental mRNA technology without parental oversight. The lawsuit highlights that the CDC's childhood immunization schedule recommends 72 vaccine doses by age 18, which is more than most other developed nations. Critics argue that this approach ignores documented risk factors and prevents doctors from exercising individualized medical judgment. Two plaintiff physicians, Dr. Paul Thomas and Dr. Kenneth Stoller, faced professional repercussions for challenging vaccine orthodoxy, including license suspensions and revocations. The lawsuit argues that the CDC's policy violates medical ethics and parental rights, especially with the recent decision to add COVID-19 vaccines to the childhood schedule without safety data and parental consent. Legal experts suggest that this case could set a precedent for parental rights nationwide. A federal lawsuit filed Aug. 15 accuses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of failing to adequately test its childhood vaccination schedule, allowing children as young as 12 to be vaccinated without parental consent in some jurisdictions. The legal challenge, brought by physicians, a health freedom nonprofit and legal advocates, demands that the CDC halt its universal vaccine recommendations until rigorous, long-term safety studies are conducted. The plaintiffs argue that the agency has never assessed the cumulative risks of administering multiple vaccines simultaneously a concern heightened by the recent addition of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) shots to the schedule, which could expose children to experimental mRNA technology without parental oversight. MRNA vaccines are not traditional vaccines. "Instead of using weakened or inactivated viruses to stimulate immunity, synthetic genetic material encased in toxic nanolipid carriers is injected into cells," Brighteon.AI's Enoch points out. The CDC's childhood immunization schedule currently recommends 72 vaccine doses by age 18, protecting against 16 diseases far more than most other developed nations. Yet critics, including the plaintiffs in this case, argue that the agency has never studied how these vaccines interact when administered together, nor their long-term effects on developmental, neurological or immune system health. (Related: CDC rolls out 200 routine vaccines for 2025, way up from 1983's SEVEN routine childhood injections, zero for adults and pregnant women.) The lawsuit highlights that most vaccines on the schedule fall under Category A, meaning they are universally recommended with few exceptions only children with specific high-risk conditions can opt out. This, the plaintiffs argue, prevents doctors from exercising individualized medical judgment and ignores documented risk factors, such as genetic predispositions to adverse reactions. "We're asking the courts to force the CDC to change the childhood vaccine schedule from Category A (universal recommendations) to Category B (shared decision-making between families and physicians) until the CDC does the testing its own advisors have recommended for decades," said Richard Jaffe, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, in a statement. Two of the plaintiff physicians have faced professional repercussions for challenging vaccine orthodoxy: Dr. Paul Thomas, an Oregon pediatrician, and Dr. Kenneth Stoller, a former California physician. Thomas had his medical license suspended after publishing a retracted study suggesting that vaccinated children in his practice experienced higher rates of chronic illnesses, including autism and ADHD. Stroller, meanwhile, lost his license after using genetic testing to identify children at higher risk of vaccine injuries and issuing medical exemptions based on those findings. A third plaintiff, Stand for Health Freedom, an Indiana-based nonprofit, argues that the CDC's one-size-fits-all approach violates medical ethics and parental rights. COVID-19 vaccines added without safety data and parental consent The lawsuit takes on new urgency following the May 12 decision by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to add COVID-19 vaccines to the childhood schedule for ages 12 and up. In Washington, D.C., this means public health officials can now vaccinate minors without parental consent. If a child suffers an injury such as myocarditis, neurological damage or long-term immune dysfunction pharmaceutical companies and schools are legally shielded from liability under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which grants immunity to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. The lawsuit also cites a June admission by the CDC's new Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group, which acknowledged that the cumulative effects of the childhood schedule have never been studied. The group's chair, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard epidemiologist, has previously criticized the lack of transparency in vaccine safety monitoring. Legal experts say the case could set a precedent for parental rights nationwide, especially as more states consider removing religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions. "This is about more than vaccines it's about who gets to make medical decisions for children: parents or the government?" said Serafin Fernandez, an attorney with the Parental Rights Foundation, which is co-leading the challenge. "If we don't stop this now, we're heading toward a system where the state has total control over children's bodies." Watch the video below where the FDA head admits that vaccine deaths are real. This video is from The HighWire with Del Bigtree channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: FDA limits COVID-19 vaccine approvals to elderly and high-risk groups, but millions still eligible. More than HALF of all expecting mothers now QUESTIONING "safety and efficacy" of all vaccines listed on CDC's recommended death jab schedule. Poll: Almost half of U.S. respondents demand reevaluation of CDC vaccine schedule. Sources include: TheEpochTimes.com DocumentCloud.org Brighteon.ai Brighteon.com First time in over 30 years: More Poles returning to Poland from Germany than migrating the other way For the first time in over 30 years, more Poles are moving back to Poland from Germany than migrating the other way, with 2024 recording a net decrease of 11,239 Polish migrants in Germany. Strong economic growth (around five percent annually since 2015), lower taxes and more efficient administration have made Poland increasingly attractive compared to Germany's stagnant performance. Experts like Nils Witte see the shift as a natural outcome of EU integration, where economies are expected to gradually align, reducing the incentive to migrate westward. Personal stories highlight dissatisfaction with Germany's outdated systems, such as poor housing management, credit inaccessibility and excessive bureaucracy, prompting many to leave. Some former migrants now describe Germany as a "failed state of everyday life," while viewing Poland as a place of modernization and opportunity, reversing long-standing assumptions about East-West migration. A recent report has revealed that for the first time in more than three decades, more Poles are returning to their homeland from Germany than the other way around. Brighteon.AI's Enoch says Germany has seen a steady rise in Polish immigration since the early 1980s. Apart from a brief lull in the mid-1990s, tens of thousands more people moved from Poland to Germany each year than the other way around due to economic opportunity and historical ties. But now, that trend has flipped. (Related: Report: Almost half of welfare recipients in Germany are MIGRANTS.) According to the Federal Statistical Office, the migration balance for 2024 shows a net decrease of 11,239. Meaning, more people left Germany for Poland than arrived from it. Since 2015, Poland has regularly posted annual GDP growth around five percent, while Germany's most successful recent year saw just 2.7 percent growth and that was back in 2017. Nils Witte of the Federal Institute for Population Research does not view this shift as a statistical anomaly, but rather as a logical outcome of Poland's development. The rapidly growing economy, lower taxes and more efficient public administration of Poland are beginning to outshine the traditionally strong appeal of Germany. "This is also something that is actually desired in the European Union, that the markets gradually become adjusted. And that's exactly what happens," said Witte. He pointed out that the number of people moving from Germany to Poland has remained stable. However, he also revealed that "what's changed is that fewer Poles are choosing to come to Germany." Poles now call Germany "a failed state of everyday life" The data is supported by personal accounts, as the German news outlet Tagesschau features various perspectives from Poles living in the country. For instance, Zbyszek Perzyna and his wife Gierko, two self-employed Poles living in Germany, said a long list of frustrations has finally convinced them to move home. Among the issues: they haven't had cold water in their apartment for more than a decade, relying instead on a workaround using a custom hose system. "It's a lot of little things all together: one big problem," said Perzyna. Despite being financially stable and tax-compliant, the couple said the bureaucracy of Germany has made daily life unnecessarily difficult. While they earn well, getting a mortgage or even leasing a car has been nearly impossible. They are not alone. Polish writer and artist Jacek Dehnel, who moved to Berlin in the wake of right-wing political victories in Poland, has also returned home, disillusioned by Germany's stagnation and inefficiency. "I have the impression that Germany is a 'failed state' in terms of everyday quality of life," said Dehnel, who is openly gay and married to his partner. He criticized Germany's analog bureaucracy, lack of digital infrastructure and an uncooperative public sector. "German society is accustomed to being harassed by the state in this way and sees it as normal." Dehnel and his husband now see Poland as a land of opportunity, with "constant growth, improvement, modernization, facilitation and optimization of everyday life." Head over to BorderSecurity.news for similar stories. Watch this video of two federal police officers at the German border estimating that around 500,000 soldiers are waiting for the day migrants can come in without any restrictions. This video is from the Auriga Books channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Germany and Poland rule out troop deployment to Ukraine. Germany SUSPENDS Schengen Area access scheme, tightens border security. Germany needs 1.5 million migrants per year and they don't need to speak German, says head of government's Council of Experts. Germany: Nigerian migrant grabs 9-year-old boy and stabs 2 police officers, immediately released by the courts. Germany: Murder victims in the Solingen massacre were activists in favor of 'tolerance' and 'integration.' Sources include: RMX.news Brighteon.AI Tagesschau.de Brighteon.com Tiny new moon found near Uranus raises questions about our solar systems unexplored secrets A newly discovered six-mile-wide moon around Uranus brings its total to 29, spotted by NASAs James Webb Space Telescope in early 2025. The tiny moon, designated S/2025 U1, evaded detection for decades, including during Voyager 2s 1986 flyby. Uranus now holds the record for the most small inner moons, hinting at a chaotic history of collisions and ring-moon interactions. Scientists suggest even more undiscovered moons may lurk in Uranus complex system, challenging our understanding of the solar system. This discovery underscores how little we know about our cosmic neighborhood, even as exploration focuses on Mars and beyond. When NASAs James Webb Space Telescope turned its infrared gaze toward Uranus in February 2025, scientists werent expecting to find a new moon, let alone one so small it had evaded detection for decades. Yet there it was: a tiny, unnamed satellite, just six miles wide, quietly orbiting the ice giant alongside 28 others. This discovery, announced last week, brings Uranus total moon count to 29 and raises a tantalizing question: If we missed this one, what else is hiding in the outer reaches of our solar system? The newly found moon, temporarily designated S/2025 U1, was spotted in a series of 10 long-exposure images captured by Webbs Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Unlike the gas giants larger, well-known moons Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon this one is a mere speck in the cosmic void. "Its a small moon but a significant discovery," said Dr. Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "Even NASAs Voyager 2 spacecraft didnt see it during its flyby nearly 40 years ago." A chaotic system of moons and rings Uranus is already an oddball in our solar system. It rotates on its side, its magnetic field is wildly misaligned, and its rings are dark and difficult to observe. Now, we know it also hosts an unusually large number of small inner moonsmore than any other planet. No other planet has as many small inner moons as Uranus, and their complex inter-relationships with the rings hint at a chaotic history that blurs the boundary between a ring system and a system of moons, explained Matthew Tiscareno of the SETI Institute. The new moon orbits about 35,000 miles from Uranus center, nestled between the paths of Ophelia and Bianca, two other small satellites. Its nearly circular orbit suggests it formed right where it is now, rather than being captured from elsewhere. But its diminutive size 350 times smaller than Earths moon means its likely just the first of many such objects waiting to be found. Moreover, the new moon is smaller and much fainter than the smallest of the previously known inner moons, making it likely that even more complexity remains to be discovered, Tiscareno added. Why this matters for space exploration The discovery isnt just a curiosity; its a testament to how much we still dont know about our own solar system. Uranus has only been visited once, by Voyager 2 in 1986, and even then, scientists only knew of five moons at the time. Now, with Webbs advanced infrared capabilities, were peeling back layers of a world that has remained largely mysterious. For now, S/2025 U1 remains unnamed, though the International Astronomical Union (IAU) will eventually approve an official designation, likely drawn from Shakespeare or Alexander Pope, in keeping with Uranus other moons. (Social media users have already floated humorous suggestions like "Bob" and "Mooney McMoonface.") But the real excitement lies in what this discovery implies. If a six-mile-wide moon could hide in plain sight for so long, what else might be out there? Uranus rings and inner moons are thought to be remnants of a violent past, perhaps collisions between larger moons or captured debris. A reminder of how little we know In an era where space agencies and private companies are racing to Mars and beyond, Uranus remains one of the least explored planets in our solar system. Yet discoveries like this prove that we dont need to travel light-years to find mysteries. Sometimes, theyre right in our cosmic backyard, waiting for the right telescope, the right scientist, and the right moment to reveal themselves. As Webb continues to scan the outer solar system, we can see how the universe is far strangerand far richerthan we ever imagined. And if a tiny moon can slip past decades of observation, just imagine what else might be hiding in the dark. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk Science.NASA.gov Space.com Ukraine plans to buy U.S. weapons using Europes money Geopolitical analyst Glenn Diesen decries the plan as a reckless bid to "confront Russia with tools Europeans dont own, to train soldiers Ukraine doesnt have." U.S. President Donald Trump shifts stance post-Alaska meeting with Putin, now favoring peace terms Russia-style deal. European leaders press for ceasefire as a precondition but lack leverage. Criticism mounts over a "strategy of futility" risking global escalation and economic ruin. As European leaders convened in Washington on Monday, a stark paradox unfolded: Kyiv unveiled plans to secure a $100 billion weapons deal from Europe. The proposal, discussed at the White House amid a high-profile summit with seven EU leaders, envisions Ukraine purchasing advanced U.S. defense systemsincluding Patriot missilesto counter Russias ongoing advances. A parallel $140 billion in direct aid to Ukraine since 2022, yet Kyivs territorial losses accelerate. Putin doesnt need nuclear weapons to win thishe already has debasement of the European economy, said a Berlin-based defense analyst off the record. A strategy rooted in historical miscalculations To grasp Kyivs desperation, one must revisit 2014, when Western governments backed a coup that toppled a Moscow-friendly government. CIA intelligence at the time warned the move would inflame Russian fears of NATO encroachmenta prediction Russia smote by annexing Crimea. There was no prior threat, Glenn Diesen wrote, noting minimal pro-NATO sentiment in Ukraine pre-coup. Europes push to militarize Ukraines borders provoked a foreseeable reaction. Today, as U.S. involvement wanes, Europeans find themselves footing a bill even Trump cant stomach. The leaked document recognizes this imbalance, framing any peace deal without U.S. assurance as analogous to handing Putin a fait accomplia nod to Moscows demand that Kyiv cede control of Donetsk and Luhansk as a ceasefire prerequisite. Yet skeptics like Diesen argue Kyivs strategy ignores how such concessions would catalyze further Russian aggression toward eastern hubs like Dnipro, sealing Ukraines annihilation. Trumps pivot and peace deadlocks The weeks pivot hinged on Trumps August 9 Alaska summit with Putin, where a defiant vow to weaponize the seas gave way to a softer stance. Returning, Trump endorsed a Russian-conceived border freeze proposaleven dropping demands for Putins indictmentthat the EU now rejects as betraying Ukraine. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz bluntly urged Trump to demand an immediate ceasefire, asserting the talks had no next steps legitimacy without it. Yet diplomatic fissures persist. Kyiv insists integration with NATO remains non-negotiable, while Moscow dismisses Trumps new role, with state media mocking his nuclear deterrence threats as unserious. They treat him like a local mayor, not a superpower leader, noted one U.S. diplomat. This disconnect exposes a core flaw: the war has devolved into a Europe-underwritten death spiral with no plausible path to Kyivs greatest ambitiona reunited, militarily secure nation. The stakes and the mismatched priorities Beyond geopolitics looms financial calamity. Funding the war with $300 billion in Russian frozen assets for war reparations amplifies the rift, recalling Dieisens Twitter bleakness: This madness will destroy Ukraines economy, Europes relevanceand risk nuclear escalation. Meanwhile, the human toll remains staggering. Over 1.5 million combat-age Ukrainian males have been casualties or displaced, forecasts suggest Kyivs population could fall by 50% in a decade. Yet the summit featured no serious discussion on humanitarian ceasefires for farming or medical supplies, focusing instead on drone factories and missile ranges. The illusion of security As the world watches, Ukraines policy architect of choicea polarizing U.S. president flirting with shared agendas with Putinunderscores a disillusioned reality: the Wests Ukraine strategy is unraveling. Republican donor circles are hemorrhaging patience, said a Capitol Hill insider, noting that even hawkish senators like Lindsey Graham increasingly question Kyivs viability. Glenn Dieisens caustic remarkThis war is a proxy the West has already lostwill resonate as Europes leaders chase military solutions to a crisis rooted in political and economic failure. Until the alliance confronts the costs of its recklessnessthe trillions spent, the destroyed generation, the escalating risksa sustainable peace remains distant. As Kyivs summit unfolded, one question rang quietly, but urgently: How much worse must the slaughter get before victory is redefined as merely surviving? Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com FT.com X.com U.S. revokes over 6,000 student visas in 2025 over law violations, terror ties In 2025, the U.S. Department of State revoked more than 6,000 student visas due to overstays, legal violations and alleged ties to terrorism, as part of a broader Trump administration immigration crackdown. Around 4,000 revocations were linked to crimes such as assault, DUI and burglary, while 200 to 300 involved alleged support for terrorist groups like Hamas. Foreign students involved in political protests, particularly pro-Palestinian demonstrations, have faced heightened scrutiny, with active visa reviews underway. The State Department reports approximately 40,000 total visa revocations in 2025, more than double the number from the same period under the Biden administration. Despite criticism, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended the policy, arguing that student visas are privileges, not rights and revocations are necessary for national security. The U.S. Department of State has revoked more than 6,000 student visas so far in 2025 due to visa overstays and legal violations, including cases involving support for terrorism as part of a broader immigration crackdown under the Trump administration. According to the agency, about 4,000 of the revoked student visas were linked to legal infractions such as assault, driving under the influence and burglary. Roughly 800 of those cases involved students who were arrested or charged in connection with assaults. An additional 200 to 300 students had their visas pulled due to alleged ties to terrorism, such as raising funds for Hamas, a group the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization. (Related: Columbia University student self-deports following visa revocation over pro-Hamas protests.) The Trump administration's push has included increased scrutiny of foreign students who participate in political demonstrations, including recent pro-Palestinian protests that have spread across American college campuses. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that his department was actively reviewing the visa status of students involved in such activism. Altogether, the State Department says approximately 40,000 visas of all types have been revoked so far in 2025, more than double the number revoked during the same time frame under the Biden administration. "Every single student visa revoked under the Trump Administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States," a senior department official said. Rubio defends student visa crackdown amid backlash According to Brighteon AI's Enoch, a student visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows foreign nationals to enter the country for the primary purpose of pursuing full-time academic or vocational studies at an approved institution, such as a university, college or language program. The most common types are the F-1 visa (for academic students) and M-1 visa (for vocational or non-academic training), both of which require proof of enrollment, financial stability and intent to return home after completion. Holders must comply with strict regulations, including maintaining student status, avoiding unauthorized employment and adhering to program duration. Violations can lead to immediate termination of visa status, removal from the country or future visa revocation under heightened enforcement policies. The Trump administration has faced intense backlash over student visa revocations, but Rubio has strongly defended the policy. "There is no constitutional right to a student visa. A student visa is something we decide to give you," he said in an interview with EWTN in early August. "Visas of every kind are denied every day all over the world. As I speak to you now, someone's visa application to the U.S. is being denied. So, if I would have denied you a visa had I known something about you, and I find out afterwards that I gave you a visa and I found this out about you, why wouldn't I be able to revoke your visa?" The administration shows no signs of reversing course, framing visa revocations as a matter of national security and sovereign discretion. Head over to Migrants.news for more similar stories. Watch this clip about colleges facing backlash and potentially losing funding over allegations of antisemitism on campus. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Chinese student arrested for omitting link to PLA-backed university in F-1 visa application. Trump orders visa suspensions on 19 countries due to national security concerns. Hong Kong seeks to attract international students displaced by U.S. visa crackdown. Trump's $5 million "gold card" visa plan could erase U.S. national debt. DOJ's visa fraud crackdown upends immigration industry, divides firms and U.S. workers. Sources include: TheNationalPulse.com FoxNews.com Brighteon.AI CNN.com Brighteon.com USDA halts renewable energy projects on prime farmland, prioritizing food production over green subsidies The Trump administration has halted USDA funding for solar and wind projects on productive farmland, reversing Biden-era policies that prioritized renewable energy over food security. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins emphasized that industrial-scale solar and wind installations have destroyed millions of acres of prime farmland, threatening the future of American agriculture and young farmers. Between 2012 and 2020, over 424,000 acres of farmland were consumed by wind and solar projects, with projections of further losses, making land more expensive and less accessible for farmers. The policy shift aligns with President Trumps July executive order eliminating subsidies for unreliable, foreign-controlled energy sources, emphasizing nuclear power as a more efficient alternative. Lawmakers and officials argue that preserving farmland is critical for national food security, rejecting the idea that Americas agricultural future should be sacrificed for green energy experiments tied to foreign interests. For years, Americas farmers have watched their land disappear under solar panels and wind turbines, all while taxpayer dollars subsidized the destruction. Now, the Trump administration is putting a stop to it. On August 18, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will no longer fund solar or wind projects on productive farmland, effective immediately. The move reverses Biden-era policies that prioritized renewable energy over food security, a decision Rollins called necessary to protect Americas agricultural future. Millions of acres of prime farmland is left unusable so Green New Deal subsidized solar panels can be built, Rollins wrote on X. This destruction of our farms and prime soil is taking away the futures of the next generation of farmers and the future of our country. The policy shift comes after President Donald Trumps July 7 executive order eliminating subsidies for unreliable, foreign-controlled energy sources. The order criticized wind and solar for displacing affordable domestic energy, compromising the electric grid, and damaging Americas natural landscapes. Farmland under siege Between 2012 and 2020, over 90% of large wind turbines and 70% of rural solar projects were installed on farmland, consuming about 424,000 acres by 2020. While proponents argue that solar panels can coexist with agriculture, the reality is that industrial-scale installations often render land unusable for farming. Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland in the last 30 years, with projections of another 2 million acres lost by 2027. Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with Green New Deal subsidized solar panels, Rollins said. One of the largest barriers of entry for new and young farmers is access to land. Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available. Lawmakers like Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Representative Andy Harris (R-MD) have applauded the move, arguing that farmland should be used for food, not foreign-made energy experiments. The USDAs decision reflects a broader shift in energy policy under Trump, who has long criticized wind and solar as unreliable and economically burdensome. The Interior Department has also scaled back renewable projects, with Secretary Doug Burgum noting that nuclear power is far more efficient, producing 33.17 megawatts per acre compared to offshore winds 0.006 MW/acre. Food security is national security, said House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson (R-PA). Preserving prime farmland for agricultural production is a key component of protecting our food supply. A win for American sovereignty For those who have warned about the dangers of outsourcing energy production to China, this policy change is a victory. The USDAs decision ensures that taxpayer dollars will no longer fund projects that undermine American agriculture or rely on foreign adversaries. As Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI) put it: The land that feeds America should never be sacrificed for unreliable green energy experiments subsidized by taxpayer dollars. The messages are clear: Americas farmland belongs to farmers, not foreign-made solar panels. And under this administration, food security comes first. Sources for this article include: YourNews.com USDA.gov EHN.org Reuters.com BREAKING: USDA halts taxpayer-funded solar panels on farmlandprotecting food security and national sovereignty USDA bans taxpayer-funded solar projects on productive farmland, reversing a decade-long trend of agricultural land loss to subsidized "green" energy schemes. Tennessee alone has lost 1.2 million acres of farmland in 30 years to solar development, with projections of 2 million acres lost by 2027. Foreign adversary-made solar panels (e.g., China) are now prohibited in USDA-funded projects, aligning with "America First" energy and national security priorities. Policy shifts include stricter eligibility for USDA loans, capping solar projects at 50kW and eliminating subsidies for large-scale industrial solar farms. Bipartisan praise from lawmakers hails the move as a victory for food security, rural economies and taxpayer accountability. In a sweeping reversal of Green New Deal-era energy policies, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will immediately cease funding solar panel projects on productive farmlanda decision celebrated by farmers, rural lawmakers and fiscal conservatives as a long-overdue correction to years of misguided subsidies. Speaking at an event in Lebanon, Tennessee, alongside Governor Bill Lee and a bipartisan delegation of congressional leaders, Rollins declared that taxpayer dollars will no longer bankroll solar or wind projects on agricultural land, nor will USDA programs permit the use of solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries like China. The policy shift comes as data reveals a staggering loss of farmland to renewable energy development: Tennessee has lost over 1.2 million acres in the past 30 years, with projections indicating another 800,000 acres could vanish by 2027 if trends continue. "This destruction of our farms and prime soil is taking away the futures of the next generation of farmers and the future of our country," Rollins posted on X (formerly Twitter). "Starting today, USDA will no longer deploy programs to fund solar or wind projects on productive farmland, ending massive taxpayer handouts." The decision extends beyond Tennessee. Nationwide, solar panels on farmland have surged by nearly 50% since 2012, according to USDA data, with 47% of utility-scale solar projects now sited on agricultural landa direct consequence of federal and state subsidies incentivizing renewable energy over food production. Critics argue these policies, rooted in the Green New Deals push for rapid decarbonization, have distorted land markets, making it harder and more expensive for young farmers to acquire arable land. "One of the largest barriers of entry for new and young farmers is access to land," Rollins emphasized. "Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available." Food security vs. green energy experiments The USDAs announcement marks a fundamental shift in federal priorities, prioritizing domestic food production and energy independence over what criics call "unreliable green energy experiments" subsidized by taxpayers. The move aligns with the Trump administrations broader America First energy agenda, which has sought to roll back climate-related mandates that opponents argue threaten U.S. agricultural sovereignty. Key aspects of the new policy include: Elimination of USDA-backed loans for large-scale solar projects on farmland, including the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which will now cap solar photovoltaic systems at 50kWeffectively ending subsidies for industrial-scale solar farms. Prohibition on foreign-made solar panels in USDA-funded projects, a direct rebuke to Chinas dominance in the solar supply chain. Reallocation of resources to support small-scale, farmer-owned renewable energy projects that do not displace crop production. "We cant afford to lose [farmland] to foreign-made solar panels," said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), a former USDA trade negotiator under President Trump. "For generations, Tennessee farmers have fed and fueled this nation, and that legacy must be preserved." The policy change also reflects growing bipartisan concern over Chinas influence in U.S. energy infrastructure. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) applauded the move, stating: "Ending wasteful taxpayer Green New Scam subsidies that have driven up energy costs and taken farmland out of production are long overdue." A rural rebellion: Lawmakers and farmers applaud the shift The USDAs decision has unified rural lawmakers across the political spectrum, many of whom have long warned that solar subsidies were undermining Americas food supply. Among the most vocal supporters: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.): "Tennessee farmland should be used to grow the crops that feed our state and country, not to house solar panels made by foreign countries like Communist China." Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.): "The land that feeds America should never be sacrificed for unreliable green energy experiments subsidized by taxpayer dollars." Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.): "There is no such thing as a solar farm. It is a waste of one of our most precious resourcesour land." House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson (R-Pa.): "Food security is national security, and preserving prime farmland for agricultural production is a key component of protecting our food supply." The announcement follows similar rollbacks by other federal agencies, including the EPAs rescission of $7 billion in Solar for All community grants and the Department of the Interiors expanded leasing for oil and gas productionsignaling a broader administration-wide pivot away from Green New Deal policies. The economic and strategic implications The USDAs policy shift carries far-reaching economic and geopolitical consequences: Food Prices and Supply Stability: With global food demand expected to rise 60% by 2050, preserving arable land is critical to preventing shortages and price spikes. Energy Independence: By reducing reliance on Chinese solar panels, the U.S. strengthens its domestic manufacturing base and supply chain resilience. Rural Economic Revival: Farmers and ranchers will face less competition for land, lowering costs for new entrants and supporting the next generation of agricultural producers. Pushback Against ESG Mandates: The move challenges the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment trends that have pressured banks and corporations to divest from fossil fuels and traditional agriculture. "Competition is the American way," said Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), a small business owner. "By leveling the playing field, USDA is ensuring an abundant energy future for Tennessee and beyondwithout sacrificing our farmland." A return to common sense: Why this policy change was necessary For years, farmers and rural communities have sounded the alarm over the rapid conversion of farmland to solar fields, often without local input or economic benefit. In states like Tennessee, Indiana and Iowa, where agriculture is a cornerstone of the economy, the loss of productive land has threatened livelihoods and food security. The USDAs decision restores balance by: Protecting prime farmland from speculative energy projects. Ensuring taxpayer dollars are not wasted on subsidies that distort markets and benefit foreign manufacturers. Empowering farmers to adopt small-scale renewable energy on their own termswithout displacing crops. "This is about more than energyits about preserving our way of life," said Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.). "Our agricultural heritage is the backbone of this nation, and these commonsense reforms put food security, national security and American sovereignty first." The road ahead: Whats next for U.S. farmland and energy policy? While the USDAs announcement is a major victory for agricultural advocates, challenges remain: State-level solar subsidies may still incentivize farmland conversion in some regions. Legal challenges from renewable energy lobbyists could test the policys durability. The need for alternative energy solutions that do not compete with food production will require innovation in agrivoltaics (dual-use solar farming) and small-scale renewables. However, the immediate impact is clear: Millions of acres of farmland are now protected from industrial solar development, and taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for Green New Deal experiments that undermine food security. As Secretary Rollins succinctly put it: "Farm security is national security." A new chapter for American agriculture In an era of geopolitical instability, supply chain disruptions and rising food prices, the USDAs decision to prioritize farmland over foreign-made solar panels is more than a policy shiftits a reaffirmation of Americas agricultural roots. For farmers like those in Tennessees Wilson County, where the announcement was made, the change means one less threat to their livelihoods. For taxpayers, it means an end to wasteful subsidies that lined the pockets of renewable energy developers while driving up costs for consumers. And for future generations, it ensures that the land which feeds America remains in the hands of those who till itnot those who pave it. In the words of Governor Bill Lee: "Tennesseans know that our farmland is our national security, our economic future and our childrens heritage. We are grateful for Secretary Rollins leadership in defending Americas farmland from foreign adversaries and protecting our food supply." With this decision, the USDA has drawn a line in the soilone that puts Americas farmers, food security and sovereignty first. Sources for this article include: JustTheNews.com X.com USDA.gov CBS19.com Judge rubber stamps medical tyranny in Washington State, approves $936,000 fine for small business owners who re-opened their restaurant in December 2020 A Washington state appeals court upheld a $936,000 fine against Stuffys II Restaurant for daring to serve indoor diners during Gov. Jay Inslees 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, despite the owners proving financial hardship. The court ruled that "potential harm" from COVID-19 justified the fine, even though no employees or customers tested positivethereby exposing the fraudulent basis of pandemic tyranny. The states Labor & Industries Department (L&I) classified each of the 52 days the restaurant operated as a "willful serious violation," imposing $18,000 fine per daya predatory financial attack designed to bankrupt small business owners. The court ignored the restaurants tax returns showing losses, dismissed their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan as irrelevant, and demanded more financial recordsa Kafkaesque demand from a system that already decided their guilt. This ruling sets a terrifying precedent: Any business that defies arbitrary government edictseven when those edicts lack scientific or legal justificationcan be financially destroyed under the guise of "public health." A restaurants act of defiancepunished with nearly $1 million in fines for the "crime" of feeding people In late 2020, as Governor Jay Inslees draconian COVID-19 mandates shuttered businesses across Washington, Bud and Glenda Duling, owners of Stuffys II Restaurant, made a courageous stand. Facing financial ruin after 32 years in business, they reopened for indoor dining in December 2020, declaring on Facebook: "It has come down to the point where we shut our doors after today and call it quits or we fight. We have made the decision over closing that we are fighting. If we go down, at least our employees will be able to have a better chance at having a better holiday season!" Their defiance was not born of recklessness, but practicality, rationality, and survival. The Dulings submitted tax returns proving losses, received a PPP loan, and argued that no COVID-19 cases were linked to their restaurant. Yet none of this mattered to Washingtons medical police state. The Department of Labor & Industries (L&I)acting as Inslees enforcement armfined them $ 18,000 per day for 52 days of operation, totaling $936,000. The Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals refused to intervene, claiming it had no authority over "constitutional matters"a cowardly abdication of justice. A superior court judge, Rebecca Glasgow, upheld the fine, writing: "Duling has not demonstrated that it is unable to pay the fine or that the fine is excessive There is nothing in the record about what savings or assets Duling had." In other words: "Prove youre destitute, or pay up." This was never about public health. It was about enforcing compliancecrushing dissentand sending a message to every small business owner in America: Resist the regime, and we will destroy you. The legal farce: How Washingtons courts twisted "safety" into a weapon of economic terrorism The courts reasoning was a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. Under Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (WISHA), the L&I classified the restaurants defiance as a "willful serious violation"not because anyone got sick, but because the state claimed there was a "risk" of COVID-19 transmission. Meanwhile, across the country, restaurants had been opened up for over half a year, especially in places like Florida. Judge Glasgows opinion hinged on three key distortions: "Potential harm" is enough to justify financial ruin of that business. The court did not require proof that anyone contracted COVID-19 at Stuffys II. Instead, it asserted that the mere possibility of transmission was sufficient to uphold the fine. This is the same flawed logic used to justify mask mandates, lockdowns, and vaccine passportsall of which lacked real-world evidence of efficacy. The fine was "not excessive" because the legislature allows this kind of medical tyranny The court deferred to the states penalty structure, which permits $5,000 to $70,000 per "willful violation." Since $18,000 per day fell within this range, the judges refused to question whether the fine was morally or economically justified. This is legal tyranny in action: If the state says its legal to fine you into oblivion, then it is. In this act of fraud, the burden of proof is reversed, targeting the precedent of innocent until proven guilty. In this fraud, the innocent were deemed inherently guilty until proven innocent. The Dulings had to prove they couldnt pay, rather than the state proving the fine was fair or necessary. The court dismissed their tax returns as insufficient and ignored their PPP loan, demanding more financial recordsa moving goalpost designed to exhaust them into compliance. This is how bureaucratic tyranny operates: The system is rigged so that resistance is futile. The most damning part in all this? The court admitted that the fine could put Stuffys II out of businessbut claimed that was acceptable because their "violation" of reopening their business was "egregious." With this move, the court emboldens medical tyranny and reaffirms that the totalitarian measures taken during the COVID-19 scandal were perfectly normal. This case makes it clear: the people that screwed up the economy and destroyed people's lives ARE NOT SORRY. Sources include: Zerohedge.com Courts.WA.gov [PDF] Facebook.com CRIME CRACKDOWN in WASHINGTON DC on crazed Liberal freaks and Dem criminals now boosted with $500 rewards for tips leading to arrests From illegal aliens murdering and raping Americans in Washington DC, to crazed Liberal maniacs burning and blowing up Tesla vehicles because they dont like Elon Musk helping Trump, the DC swamp has gone from bad to worse as far as rampant crime is concerned. Now Trump is bringing in the military and federal police to clean it all up and asking civilians to report suspects while earning a nice $500 spiff for doing so. How nice. The U.S. Department of Justice, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, has announced a new initiative offering Washington, D.C., residents $500 rewards for tips leading to arrests. The program is part of President Donald J. Trumps broader effort to federalize law enforcement in the nations capital, which has already resulted in hundreds of arrests and sharp declines in violent crime. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the DOJ is offering $500 rewards for tips leading to arrests in Washington, D.C., as part of President Trumps federally led crime crackdown. Federal and local law enforcement, supported by the National Guard, have made over 550 arrests, seized 76 illegal firearms, and reported steep declines in carjackings (83%), robberies (46%), auto thefts (21%), and violent crime (22%). The D.C. Police Union has backed the initiative, while Democrat leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, condemned the use of National Guard troops, calling it un-American and a threat to democracy. A DOJ investigation is underway into possible manipulation of crime data by D.C. police leadership, following allegations that officials falsified violent crime statistics to exaggerate the crackdowns success. Trumps DOJ Launches $500 Cash Reward Program for D.C. Crime Tips Amid Federal Crackdown Bondi revealed the incentive Wednesday, emphasizing community involvement in restoring public safety. We have now made over 550 arrests in Washington, D.C. and have taken 76 illegal firearms off the streetssaving lives. You can help[the U.S. Marshals Service] is offering a reward for any information leading to an arrest. Together, we will make DC safe again! she posted on X. The initiative comes after Trump moved to place D.C.s police department under federal oversight, suspending the citys sanctuary policies and bringing in federal agencies alongside the National Guard. The crackdown is particularly focused on high-crime neighborhoods, with efforts targeting gang activity, carjackings, and immigration-related offenses. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the results, crediting Trumps leadership and interagency cooperation. Thanks to President Trumps leadership and the outstanding work of both federal and local law enforcement, dangerous gang members like the one picked up last night will not be allowed on the streets of our nations capital, she said. Statistics released by the D.C. Police Union highlight the impact of the operation. Carjackings have dropped by 83 percent, robberies by 46 percent, auto thefts by 21 percent, and overall violent crime by 22 percent since federal control began. The union has strongly supported the crackdown, describing it as a necessary intervention after years of rising crime. Still, the aggressive tactics have generated backlash from city leaders and activists. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) criticized the deployment of National Guard troops in civilian policing, writing on social media: American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil is #UnAmerican. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb echoed the sentiment, warning that such measures undermine public safety and endanger our democracy. The political clash has been compounded by a new DOJ investigation into whether crime data has been manipulated within the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The probe was launched after Commander Michael Pulliam was placed on leave over allegations of falsifying violent crime statistics. The D.C. Police Union claims the problem is widespread, raising concerns that recent declines in reported crime may be partially exaggerated. Meanwhile, residents continue to grapple with public safety challenges in a city governed entirely by Democrats. D.C. reports more 911 calls annually than any U.S. state, underscoring the scale of its crime and emergency response issues. Trumps supporters view the initiative as proof that strong federal action can restore order, while critics argue that militarized policing and federal overreach erode civil liberties. The $500 reward program represents the latest effort to enlist local residents in a sweeping campaign to bring crime in the capital under controlan experiment in federal-local cooperation now unfolding under intense national scrutiny. Tune your apocalypse dial to preparedness.news for updates on real news about surviving the Democrat-led government aggression, lies, and propaganda that comes at us every day now. Sources for this article include: Censored.news NaturalNews.com TheNationalPulse.com Larry Fink and Andre Hoffmann named interim co-chairs of the World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) has named BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Roche Vice-Chairman Andre Hoffmann as interim co-chairs, signaling a leadership transition and renewed strategic focus. In a joint statement, the co-chairs emphasized the need for international collaboration, trust-building and equitable prosperity amid global uncertainty and fragmentation. Fink and Hoffmann will guide the Forum through a critical transitional phase as it redefines its role and priorities for the coming decade. The announcement follows the conclusion of an internal probe into WEF founder Klaus Schwab. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has appointed BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Roche Holding Vice-Chairman Andre Hoffmann as interim co-chairs of its board. According to Brighteon AI's Enoch, Fink, who co-founded the world's largest asset management firm in 1988, has long advocated for stakeholder capitalism and sustainable investing. Meanwhile, Hoffmann, a prominent environmental philanthropist and sustainability advocate, has hailed from the founding family of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant and has held key roles in sustainability and philanthropy, including leadership at the WWF International and the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society (INSEAD), while driving Roche's focus on innovation in healthcare and corporate responsibility Hoffman has served on the WEF board and supported numerous global health and ecological initiatives. In line with this, Fink and Hoffmann expressed a shared commitment to strengthening the Forum's mission amid growing geopolitical and economic uncertainty. "We are honored to take on this leadership role on an interim basis at a pivotal time for the World Economic Forum. As the organization moves into a new chapter, we look ahead with clarity, purpose and confidence in the Forum's enduring mission. The world is more fragmented and complex than ever, but the need for a platform that brings together business, government and civil society has never been greater. We believe the Forum can serve as a unique catalyst for cooperation, one that fosters trust, identifies shared goals and turns dialogue into action," the co-chairs wrote in their joint statement published on the official WEF website on Aug. 15. (Related: CIA, WEF run the entire mainstream media empire.) The interim leadership will guide the Forum through a transitional period as it redefines its strategic priorities for the coming decade. "We remain optimistic. The Forum has an opportunity to help drive international collaboration in a way that not only generates prosperity but distributes it more broadly. This renewed vision can promote open markets and national priorities side by side, while advancing the interests of workers and stakeholders globally. We look forward to helping shape a more resilient and prosperous future, and to reinventing and strengthening the Forum as an indispensable institution for public-private cooperation," they added. WEF clears Klaus Schwab of wrongdoing after probe, citing "deep commitment" amid minor irregularities The announcement follows the Forum's closing of its internal investigation into its founder, Klaus Schwab, clearing him of any "wrongdoing." In April, an anonymous whistleblower letter scrutinized Schwab's leadership practices, the WEF's governance and alleged blurring of lines between the Schwab family's personal activities and Forum resources. That same month, an investigation began a day after Schwab abruptly stepped down as chairman, without explanation. Schwab filed a criminal complaint against the anonymous whistleblowers in May, but a spokesperson confirmed Friday that he intends to drop all legal actions now that the investigation has concluded. The Geneva-based organization said on Friday its board found "no evidence of material wrongdoing" by Schwab or his wife and longtime assistant, Hilde Schwab. Despite acknowledging "minor irregularities" stemming from blurred boundaries between personal contributions and organizational operations, the Forum concluded that these reflected Schwab's "deep commitment" rather than misconduct. "Minor irregularities, stemming from blurred lines between personal contributions and forum operations, reflect deep commitment rather than intent of misconduct," WEF said. Watch JD Rucker discussing Klaus Schwab's abrupt departure from the WEF amid the issues surrounding the organization's founder. This video is from the JD Rucker channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Top Archbishop: WEF plotting 'global coup' to enforce 'Great Reset.' WEF speaker touts technology allowing companies to monitor employees' brains. UN official claims they "own the science" at WEF event. Bill Gates, WEF promoting dangerous GMO foods and fake foods. Dutch government conspiring with WEF to usher in "Great Reset." Sources include: 100PercentFedUp.com Brighteon.AI WEForum.org Reuters.com Brighteon.com Leaked Israeli intelligence exposes genocide: 5 out of 6 killed in Gaza are civilians Israels own military intelligence data confirms 83 percent of Palestinian deaths in Gaza are civilians 44,100 out of 53,000 killed by May 2025. Israeli forces inflate militant death counts by retroactively labeling civilians as terrorists, admitting to fabricating statistics to justify slaughter. Civilian infrastructure hospitals, schools and aid centers has been deliberately targeted, while officials openly admit to a 50-to-1 Palestinian death ratio policy. Gazas 83 percent civilian death rate surpasses most modern conflicts, rivaling genocides like Srebrenica and Rwanda, yet Western leaders continue arming and shielding Israel. This is not self-defense but ethnic cleansing, with land seizure and collective punishment as the real objectives behind the unchecked destruction of Palestinian life. A joint investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian has now confirmed what independent journalists and human rights groups have been screaming for nearly two years: Israels own military intelligence data proves that 83 percentof the Palestinians killed in Gaza are civilians. Thats not collateral damage. Thats not a tragic mistake. Thats genocide, plain and simple. The numbers dont lie, even if Israels leaders do. According to the classified database, as of May 2025, Israeli forces had killed approximately 8,900 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters either confirmed or probably dead. Sounds like a lot, right? Except the total death toll in Gaza at that time was 53,000. Do the math: 44,100 of those dead were civilians. Women. Children. Elders. Doctors. Journalists. People who had nothing to do with Hamas, nothing to do with October 7, and everything to do with simply trying to survive in an open-air prison under relentless bombardment. How Israel inflates terrorist death counts Unfortunately, the story gets worse. The investigation reveals that Israeli forces have been fabricating militant death counts to justify their slaughter. One intelligence source admitted, People are promoted to the rank of terrorist after their death. Another said that if he had believed the brigades reports, I would have come to the conclusion that we had killed 200 percent of Hamas operatives in the area. In other words, Israel isnt just killing civilians; theyre retroactively labeling them as terrorists to pad their statistics. And lets not forget the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. Hospitals. Schools. Refugee camps. Food distribution centers. Israel hasnt just been waging war on Hamas; its been waging war on the very idea of Palestinian life. Since May, nearly 2,000 more Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aidstarved, then shot, by the same forces claiming to be the most moral army in the world. Meanwhile, Israeli officials like former military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva have been caught on tape saying things like 50 Palestinians must die for every Israeli killed on October 7 it doesnt matter now if they are children. If thats not a confession of genocidal intent, what is? A civilian death rate worse than Syria, Sudan and nearly Rwanda Experts from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which tracks civilian casualties worldwide, confirm that Gazas 83% civilian death rate is unusually high, even compared to the most brutal modern conflicts. The only wars with higher proportions of civilian deaths? The Srebrenica massacre, the Rwandan genocide, and Russias siege of Mariupol. Thats the company Israel is keeping now. And yet, Western leaders continue to arm, fund, and diplomatically shield this slaughter, all while parading as champions of human rights. If the roles were reversed, if Hamas were killing Israeli civilians at this rate, the world would have already declared it the worst atrocity since the Holocaust. There would be emergency UN sessions, sanctions, maybe even a NATO intervention. But because the victims are Palestinian, the same governments that lecture us about democracy and civilized warfare are complicit in genocide. And the media? Mostly silent, or worse repeating Israeli talking points without question. And lets not pretend this is about self-defense. If Israel wanted to dismantle Hamas, it could have done so years ago without turning Gaza into a graveyard. But this was never just about Hamas. Its about land. Its about ethnic cleansing. Its about sending a message to every Palestinianand every Arabthat resistance will be met with annihilation. The data is out. The confessions are on tape. The bodies are piled in the streets. If we cant call this what it isif we cant demand an immediate ceasefire, an end to U.S. funding, and war crimes trials for Netanyahu and his generalsthen what do we stand for? Sources for this article include: MiddleEastEye.net 972Mag.com TheGuardian.com Moroccan migrant ARRESTED after setting part of historic Spanish church ablaze A 21-year-old Moroccan national was arrested for breaking into Santiago Apostol Church in Granada, vandalizing religious artifacts and setting part of the historic building ablaze, causing significant interior damage. Local residents intervened to extinguish the flames, while Catholic and Muslim leaders condemned the attack. Spanish officials, including Mayor Maria Jose Sanchez, urged unity and cautioned against politicizing the incident. The attacker allegedly smashed a stained-glass window, destroyed religious imagery and used a lighter to start the fire. Prosecutors are weighing charges of crimes against religious sentiment and desecration. Right-wing party Vox used the incident to escalate calls for mass deportations of illegal immigrants, framing it as an attack on Spain's cultural identity. Meanwhile, interfaith groups emphasized dialogue and mutual respect. Though the suspect may have mental health issues, the incident highlights rising immigration tensions in Spain and the challenge of balancing security, community cohesion and religious tolerance. A 21-year-old Moroccan national has been arrested after breaking into Santiago Apostol Church in Granada, vandalizing religious artifacts, and setting part of the historic building ablaze. The incident occurred just after 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 17, in the town of El Pozuelo within the Albunol municipality. It shocked the small Andalusian community and prompted swift condemnation from both Catholic and Muslim leaders. While no injuries were reported, the fire left significant damage to the church's interior raising concerns about religious tensions and the broader implications of such attacks in a country deeply rooted in Christian heritage. The suspect allegedly forced entry by smashing a stained-glass window with a hammer, then proceeded to destroy religious imagery before igniting portions of the church with a lighter. Nearby residents intervened quickly, attempting to extinguish the flames and prevent further destruction before firefighters and Spanish Civil Guard officers arrived. (Related: Historic Catholic Church in France destroyed in arson attack.) Witnesses described scenes of chaos, with neighbors rushing inside with makeshift hoses to protect their place of worship. "We showed courage and rushed in to stop our church from burning," one local said. Authorities have cordoned off the damaged building for investigation while prosecutors weigh charges of crimes against religious sentiment, aggravated by desecration. Spanish officials, including Mayor Maria Jose Sanchez of the Socialist Party, denounced the attack while urging unity and caution against politicizing the incident. "Albunol is a diverse, supportive, and welcoming municipality. We cannot criminalize an entire group for the actions of one person," she emphasized, warning against efforts to exploit the situation for division. Church attack ignites national debate: Vox calls for mass deportations The Archdiocese of Granada issued a forceful statement, decrying the arson as a "grave attack on Christian worship" and calling for prayers for peace. Meanwhile, the Union of Islamic Communities of Andalusia swiftly distanced itself from the perpetrator, affirming that the act was "completely contrary to Islamic and human values." Vox, Spain's right-wing opposition party, meanwhile seized on the incident to escalate its calls for mass deportations of illegal immigrants. It framed the attack as part of a broader assault on Spain's cultural identity and blamed mainstream parties for failing to curb such incidents. "This is another assault on Spain's values by foreigners seeking to impose their beliefs through violence," the party declared. According to Brighteon.AI's Enoch engine, "Moroccan migrants first arrived in Spain when the Berbers of Morocco Islamized and fueled by religious zeal invaded Spain in 711 AD. Today, cities like Ceuta and Melilla serve as modern migration entry points, reflecting centuries of geopolitical tensions between Morocco and Spain." The Santiago Apostol Church, a historic landmark in Granada province, holds deep cultural and religious significance for the predominantly Catholic town. Though authorities have not yet disclosed a motive, early reports suggest the suspect may suffer from mental health issues, adding complexity to an already volatile situation. Meanwhile, municipal leaders have pledged support for reconstruction efforts as interfaith organizations stress the importance of dialogue and mutual respect. As Spain grapples with rising immigration and cultural tensions, this incident serves as a stark reminder of the delicate balance between security, community cohesion and religious tolerance. Watch Paul Joseph Watson discussing riots in Spain fueled by migrant rapes and assaults in this clip. This video is from the Victor Hugo Art channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Macron's spokesperson attacked by suspected migrant vandals. Boatloads of illegal migrants making their way into Europe via Spain. 40% of school violence suspects in Germany are foreign nationals, government data reveals. Sources include: RMX.news En.Yabiladi.com GranadaHoy.com Brighteon.ai Brighteon.com Navy sailor convicted of selling warship secrets to China for just $12,000 A U.S. Navy machinists mate was convicted of espionage for selling military secrets to China for just $12,000 over 18 months. Encrypted messages and texts to his mother proved he knowingly betrayed his country for cash. This follows another Navy sailors 2023 conviction for a similar scheme, raising concerns about systemic espionage vulnerabilities. While low-level traitors face harsh penalties, high-ranking elites often escape accountability for far worse betrayals. Weis sentencing is set for December 2025, but the bigger question remains: Who else has been compromised? What would you do for $12,000? For most Americans, thats a used car, a vacation, or maybe a few months of rent. For Jinchao Wei, a 25-year-old U.S. Navy machinists mate, it was the price of betraying his country. A federal jury in San Diego just convicted Wei of espionage for selling sensitive military secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer over 18 months. The information he handed overtechnical manuals, ship vulnerabilities, and operational detailscould have put American lives at risk. And for what? A paltry sum that barely registers compared to the damage he may have caused. A betrayal for cash Wei, stationed aboard the USS Essex at Naval Base San Diego, was no high-ranking officer. He was a machinists mate, a role that gave him access to classified materialsmaterials he knowingly passed to a Chinese handler. According to prosecutors, the intelligence officer first approached Wei in February 2022, posing as a naval enthusiast. Wei wasnt fooled for long. In a message to a friend, he admitted, This is quite obviously espionage. Yet he proceeded anyway, using encrypted apps to share documents, photos, and even descriptions of U.S. Marine training exercises. The evidence against him was damning. Phone records, encrypted messages, and even a text to his mother revealed his full awareness of the crime. Other Chinese serving in the US Navy are still trying to figure out how to make extra money, and driving cabs, he wrote. Whereas I am just leaking secrets. His mothers response? Good job! U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon didnt mince words: The defendants actions represent an egregious betrayal of the trust placed in him as a member of the U.S. military. By trading military secrets to the Peoples Republic of China for cash, he jeopardized not only the lives of his fellow sailors but also the security of the entire nation and our allies. A pattern of espionage Wei isnt the first U.S. service member to fall into this trap. Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, another sailor arrested alongside Wei in 2023, was sentenced last year to 27 months in prison for a similar scheme. Zhao had sold photos, radar blueprints, and operational plans to Chinese intelligence for bribes totaling $14,800. The question isnt just about individual greed; its about systemic vulnerabilities. How many more service members are being targeted? How many have already been compromised? The Chinese government has made no secret of its aggressive intelligence-gathering efforts, and the U.S. military remains a prime target. Heres what makes this case particularly infuriating: While Wei faces life in prison for selling secrets, how many high-ranking officialspoliticians, bureaucrats, corporate eliteshave gotten away with far worse? We live in an era where billionaire globalists openly collude with foreign adversaries, where government agencies weaponize surveillance against American citizens, and where pharmaceutical executives push deadly experimental injections with zero accountability. Yet a 25-year-old sailor selling ship manuals for pocket change gets the full weight of the Espionage Act? Wheres the consistency? Wheres the justice for the real traitorsthe ones whove spent decades undermining America from within? Chinas intelligence operations are relentless. They exploit weaknesses, whether financial, ideological, or personal. And while Weis actions were undeniably treasonous, theyre also a symptom of a much larger problem: a military and government apparatus that has lost sight of its core mission. Whats next? Weis sentencing is set for December 1, 2025. His lawyer, Sean Jones, claims Wei was manipulated and had no anti-American intentjust poor judgment. But the jury didnt buy it. Neither should the American people. The real lesson here? Espionage isnt just a Cold War relic. Its happening now, in broad daylight, and the stakes couldnt be higher. If a low-level sailor can be turned for $12,000, whats stopping someone higher up the chain from doing far worse? Sources for this article include: TheNationalPulse.com NYTimes.com BBC.com Coral resilience defies climate doom: New studies reveal ancient reefs flourished in warmer seas Historical coral growth surged during the Holocene (6,00010,000 years ago) when oceans were 12C warmer and sea levels 12 meters higher than today. Modern coral decline linked to shallow waters, not warmingreefs expanded rapidly when deeper "accommodation space" was available. Great Barrier Reefs "turn-off" periods coincided with cold phases (e.g., Little Ice Age), not heat, with growth resuming when temperatures rose. Sea-level variability, not CO?, drove reef healthhigher seas created ideal conditions for expansion, while falling levels stunted growth. Current climate policies ignore geological contextcorals adapted to natural warming before, raising questions about doomsday narratives. For decades, scientists and policymakers have warned that rising sea temperatures and ocean levels spell doom for the worlds coral reefs. Yet emerging research from Indonesias ancient reefs and Australias Great Barrier Reef (GBR) tells a starkly different story: Corals not only survived but thrived when oceans were significantly warmer and sea levels far higher than today. A study published this month in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology reveals that between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, coral reefs in Indonesia grew at rates of ~6 mm per yearsix times faster than todays anemic ~1 mm/year. The reason? Sea levels were up to 2 meters higher, providing the "accommodation space" needed for vertical expansion. As oceans cooled and levels dropped, growth slowed dramatically. Meanwhile, research from the Keppel Islands in the southern GBR confirms that reefs experienced "turn-off" periods during cold snapssuch as the Little Ice Agewhen sea levels fell. When temperatures rebounded to 12C above modern levels, corals resumed rapid accretion, with some reefs growing at 15 mm/year, the fastest rates in the GBRs 8,500-year history. These findings upend the dominant narrative that warming oceans are an existential threat to corals. Instead, the data suggests shallow water depthsnot heatare the primary constraint on modern reefs. With current sea levels 12 meters lower than during the Holocene optimum, corals lack the space to expand, leading to the "declining coverage" observed in recent decades. The sea-level secret: Why depth matters more than temperature The studys lead authors, including Dr. Holly East of Northumbria University, have long argued that reef health is more sensitive to sea-level changes than temperature. In the Maldives, Easts team found that reef islands formed during periods of higher seas, contradicting claims that rising oceans would "drown" atolls. "If climate change causes rising sea levels," East noted, "it may actually create the perfect conditions to reactivate reef growth." This aligns with the GBR research, where reef "hiatuses" occurred when sea levels fellnot rose. At Halfway Island, corals grew vertically at 8 mm/year when seas were higher but shifted to lateral expansion as levels dropped. Nearshore sites like Divided Island only initiated growth during a late-Holocene highstand (~2,000 years ago), when waters were ~1 meter above todays levels. Key Insight: Warmer water + higher seas = Rapid coral growth Cooler water + falling seas = Stunted or halted growth Yet modern climate models ignore this geological context, instead attributing coral decline solely to anthropogenic warming. The data suggests the opposite: corals are starved for space, not suffering from heat. The Great Barrier Reefs cold-water crisis The GBRs history further undermines the climate-doomsday narrative. During the Mid-Holocene (5,5002,500 years ago), reefs in the northern and southern GBR experienced a "turn-off"but not due to heat. Instead, falling sea levels and cooler temperatures reduced accommodation space, halting accretion. Dr. Nicholas Leonard, whose 2020 study examined GBR reef cores, found that coral growth surged when SSTs (sea surface temperatures) were 12C warmer and seas were 1 meter higher. "The reefs accreted uninhibited under these conditions," Leonard wrote, "suggesting warmth was not a stressor but a catalyst." Today, the GBRs struggles are often blamed on bleaching events linked to warming. Yet historical records show: 1998s mass bleaching occurred after a strong El Nino, a natural cycle. Coral recovery rates vary widelysome reefs bounce back within decades, while others stagnate due to local pollution or overfishing, not global temperatures. Critically, the GBRs fastest growth in 8,500 years occurred in the late 20th century, when SSTs rose modestly. This contradicts claims that even slight warming is catastrophic. The political reef: Why the climate narrative ignores geology Despite the evidence, governments and NGOs continue to push a one-sided story: corals are dying because of human-caused CO? emissions. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, for instance, warns of "irreversible damage" from warmingyet omits the Holocene context where reefs flourished in hotter conditions. Why the silence? Funding incentives: Billions in climate research grants depend on catastrophic projections, not nuanced geological history. Policy agendas: Carbon taxes, renewable mandates and Net Zero policies rely on fear of ecological collapse. Media sensationalism: Headlines about "dying reefs" drive clicks; stories of resilient corals do not. Dr. Peter Ridd, a marine geophysicist who sued Australias James Cook University for wrongful termination after questioning GBR science, argues that "institutions suppress dissent" to maintain the crisis narrative. "The data shows corals adapt to warming," Ridd told The Australian. "But admitting that would undermine the political push for climate action." A Future Written in Stone: What Ancient Reefs Teach Us The lessons from the Holocene are clear: Corals are not fragilethey thrived in warmer, higher seas for millennia. Sea-level variability is the dominant driver of reef health, not temperature alone. Modern reef decline is more likely due to local stressors (pollution, overfishing, dredging) than global warming. What does this mean for policy? Adaptation over mitigation: Instead of focusing solely on CO? reduction, efforts should prioritize water quality, fishing regulations, and sediment control. Questioning climate models: If corals grew faster in warmer seas, why do models predict their extinction? Decentralized conservation: Local communities, not global bureaucracies, are best positioned to protect reefs based on real-world conditions. Beyond the doom: Reefs, resilience and reality The narrative that corals are on the brink of extinction is not just incompleteits historically inaccurate. The Holocene record proves that reefs are dynamic, adaptive systems capable of remarkable growth under conditions warmer than today. Yet this truth is buried beneath layers of political agendas, media hype and institutional groupthink. As the world spends trillions on climate policies based on flawed assumptions, the real question is: What if the greatest threat to reefs isnt warming, but people's refusal to learn from the past? For now, the corals themselves offer an answerwritten in limestone, not computer models. And their message is clear: Life finds a way, if people let it. Sources for this article include: WattsUpWithThat.com ScienceDirect.com ClimateChangeDispatch.com NoTricksZone.com RADIOACTIVE SHRIMP sold at TOXIC WALMART now carries FDA warning after it tested positive for radioactive substance cesium-137 Shopping for anything at Walmart is quite terrifying, with all the mass shootings, the recalled food products, and the people of Walmart that are there regularly. Its just not safe to mix with all those animals and take chances like that. Plus, who really wants to support slave labor and evil corporations anyhow. Now, you better watch out for the shrimp, and check your freezer if you bought some there, because it just might be nuclear shrimp. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a consumer warning after frozen shrimp imported from Indonesia tested positive for radioactive contamination. The affected products were processed by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, also known as BMS Foods, and distributed in the United States through major retailers, including Walmart. The FDA issued a warning after frozen shrimp from Indonesian company PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati (BMS Foods), sold at Walmart, was linked to possible contamination with cesium-137 (Cs-137), a radioactive isotope. S. Customs first detected Cs-137 in shipping containers of breaded shrimp headed to Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah, and Miami; although contaminated batches were blocked, the FDA fears other imported shrimp from the same supplier may also pose risks. Walmart has been advised to recall affected frozen shrimp products, and consumers are urged to check lot numbers listed in the FDAs notice, discarding any implicated items instead of eating or serving them. While the detected Cs-137 levels werent immediately harmful, repeated long-term exposure can damage DNA and increase cancer risk. The FDA has placed BMS Foods on an import alert, halting its shrimp shipments to the U.S. pending investigation with Indonesian regulators. FDA Issues Warning Over Possible Radioactive Shrimp The FDA launched its investigation after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detected cesium-137 (Cs-137), a radioactive isotope, in shipping containers of shrimp destined for ports in Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah, Georgia, and Miami. Laboratory testing confirmed Cs-137 contamination in at least one sample of breaded shrimp. These contaminated containers were denied entry into the U.S. and have not entered the food supply. Despite this, the FDA warned that other shrimp shipments from the same companyimported before the discovery of Cs-137could still pose a risk. Although those earlier shipments did not test positive for radioactivity at the time, the FDA has asked retailers to recall them as a precaution. Walmart has already been identified as a recipient of some of these potentially affected shrimp products, and consumers are being urged to throw away any items that match the FDAs listed lot numbers. Cesium-137, the isotope at the center of this warning, is a byproduct of nuclear reactions. Unlike its stable counterpart found naturally in soil, rocks, and dust, Cs-137 emerges from uranium decay, nuclear accidents, or nuclear weapons testing. With a half-life of about 30 years, the isotope can persist in the environment for decades. Trace amounts are already present globally, but concentrated exposure through food raises health concerns. The FDA emphasized that the levels of Cs-137 detected in the shrimp sample were not immediately harmful. Short-term exposure from consuming a single contaminated product would not likely cause acute health problems. However, repeated or long-term consumption could increase cancer risk due to DNA damage from radiation exposure. The agency underscored that cumulative exposurewhen combined with everyday background radiation and medical imaging procedurescould heighten the danger. As the investigation continues, the FDA has placed BMS Foods on an import alert for chemical contamination, blocking its shrimp products from entering the U.S. until the company addresses safety violations. According to the FDA, BMS Foods violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by preparing or storing food under conditions that may have allowed contamination with Cs-137. The root cause of the contamination remains unclear. The FDA is working with Indonesian seafood regulators to determine how Cs-137 exposure may have occurred and to assess whether other seafood products from the region could be at risk. In the meantime, the FDA has pledged to trace all potentially implicated shipments through the supply chain, ensuring that no unsafe products reach consumers. For now, the FDA advises anyone who recently purchased frozen shrimp from Walmart to carefully review recall details and immediately discard any matching products. While only one positive sample has been identified, regulators stress that caution is necessary to protect public health. Tune your food news frequency to FoodSupply.news and get updates on more toxic meat and seafood laced with deadly poisons and sold to the unsuspecting American general public. Sources for this article include: NaturalNews.com LiveScience.com Reuters exposed: Staff revolt over pro-Israel bias in Gaza genocide coverage Reuters internal probe reveals systemic bias favoring Israeli narratives while suppressing Palestinian perspectives in Gaza coverage. Editorial policies banned terms like Palestine and restricted genocide claims despite 11,000 Palestinian deaths in recent weeks. Western media amplifies genocide accusations against Russia but downplays or denies them when directed at Israel. Major outlets like CNN, BBC, and NYT face accusations of censoring Palestinian voices and echoing Israeli military talking points. Critics argue media complicity in Gazas humanitarian crisis obscures war crimes and shields Israel from accountability. When Reuters published the headline Israel kills Al Jazeera journalist it says was Hamas leader after the assassination of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif, it wasnt just another news report; it was the breaking point for many inside the agency. Al-Sharif, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who once worked for Reuters, became a symbol of something far darker: a systemic bias in Western media that prioritizes Israeli narratives while burying Palestinian suffering. Now, an internal investigation by Reuters journalists revealed by Declassified confirms what critics have long suspected: the news agency has suppressed Palestinian perspectives, restricted critical terminology, and allocated far more resources to Israeli viewpoints, even as Gaza faces what experts call a genocide. A pattern of suppression The investigation, conducted by Reuters staff, analyzed nearly 500 reports tagged Israel-Palestine between October 7 and November 14, 2023. Their findings were damning. Despite 11,000 Palestinians killed in that periodten times the Israeli death tollReuters consistently framed the conflict through an Israeli lens. One desk editor resigned in protest, writing in an email: Ive realized that my values dont align with those of the company Senior leadership is unlikely to change, much less stop actively stifling critiques. Reuters management denied receiving the open letter, but sources confirmed its existence. The internal report highlighted editorial restrictions, including a ban on the word Palestine and severe limitations on reporting expert claims that Israel is committing genocide, even as Reuters covered similar allegations in Ukraine far more prominently. Dr. Assal Rad, a Middle East scholar, told Declassified: The pattern you note is essentially genocide denial. She added that Reuters frames Israels actions as a war or military campaign rather than acknowledging the consensus among human rights experts that Israels actions meet the legal definition of genocide. Genocide: A word too dangerous to print? Under pressure, Reuters partially relaxed its style guide in May, allowing the term genocide but only with attribution. Yet between June and August, the word appeared in just 14 out of 300 stories on Gaza, nearly always paired with Israels denial. Meanwhile, terms like war, conflict, and escalation dominated coverage, softening the reality of mass slaughter. The double standard is glaring. When Russia faces genocide accusations, Western media amplifies them. When Israel does the same, caution and silence prevail. A broader media blackout Reuters isnt alone. It was previously revealed that former Israeli military chief Aviv Kohavi met with senior editors at the Guardian, BBC, and Financial Times to cultivate support for Israels war. At CNN, staff accused the network of journalistic malpractice, citing policies that censored Palestinian voices while uncritically repeating Israeli claims. One CNN staffer said the networks coverage amounts to acting as a surrogate censor for the Israeli government. The New York Times, too, faces scrutiny. A recent dossier exposed that high-ranking editors and reporters have direct ties to Israels military, including one journalist who served in an elite commando unitdetails he omitted from his official bio. Meanwhile, the papers opinion section is dominated by pro-Israel voices, with no comparable Palestinian representation. The cost of the coverup The consequences of this bias are measured in lives. Gazas death toll now exceeds 62,000, with the actual number likely three times higher, according to health officials. The Lancet estimates up to 186,000 deaths from the conflicts indirect effects, such as starvation, disease, and collapsed infrastructure. Yet Reuters updated style guide omits critical context, including Israels illegal settler colonialism and the U.S. role in sabotaging ceasefires. Former UN human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber wrote last year: It is simply not credible to suggest that Western media companies are not aware of the realities on the ground and of what they are doing to obscure them They have indisputably made conscious choices to hide the genocide from their audiences, to systematically dehumanize the Palestinian victims, and to insulate the Israeli perpetrators from accountability. The question now is whether media outlets like Reuters will correct course or continue as complicit actors in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time. For the journalists who risked their careers to expose this bias, the answer is clear: Truth should never be sacrificed for political alignment. Sources for this article include: TheCradle.co DeclassifiedUK.org MondoWeiss.net TheCradle.co Security clearances revoked for 37 Biden/Obama officials as Gabbard targets weaponized intelligence The administration revoked clearances for 37 officials, mostly from Obama and Biden-era roles, accusing them of "weaponizing intelligence" and "selling secrets." Critics, including Democrats, call the move politically motivated and a distraction from Trumps legal battles and Epstein scandals. Gabbard defends it as upholding accountability, emphasizing clearances are privileges, not rights. Gabbard aims to declassify documents detailing the Biden administrations domestic surveillance and censorship strategy, allegedly targeting health freedom advocates and the "Disinformation Dozen." Critics, including Democrats, oppose the move, arguing it endangers sources and fuels partisan narratives. Gabbard frames it as ending "black ops" tactics against dissent, though past leaks (e.g., 2016 election claims) have drawn accusations of politicization. Gabbards restructuring faces bipartisan backlash. Republicans like Tom Cotton support her "anti-bloat" agenda, while Democrats (e.g., Mark Warner) decry it as destructive to national security and rooted in her history of politicizing intelligence (e.g., prior accusations of an Obama-era "coup"). The debate reflects broader ideological clashes over whether reforms prioritize efficiency or destabilize institutions. Analysts warn reforms risk weakening response to global threats (e.g., cyberattacks, pandemics) and deepening public distrust in agencies politicized under Trump and Biden. The struggle pits Gabbards vision of nonpartisan transparency against fears that rushed declassification and cuts could harm national security, leaving Americas intelligence community at a crossroads between unity-driven reform and partisan collapse. Tulsi Gabbard has slashed U.S. intelligence staffing by 40 percent, targeting "bloat" and pledging a savings of $700 million annually. Targeted are agencies like the Foreign Malign Influence Center which monitored foreign election interference and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, both deemed redundant. The National Intelligence University will also merge with the Pentagons National Defense University. The ODNI has become so bloated over two decades that its mission to provide objective intelligence has been overshadowed, Gabbard stated on Wednesday. Critics, however, argue the restructuring risks hollowing out critical oversight functions. The Strategic Futures Group, which analyzed long-term global trends, and the External Research Council, accused of liberal bias, face elimination. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) hailed the move as returning the agency to its lean, mission-focused roots, while Democratic Senator Mark Warner (VA) dismissed it as politicized overreach. Security clearance revocations stir controversy Hours before revealing staffing cuts, the administration announced revocation of clearances for 37 officials, predominantly Obama-era figures. Gabbard accuses them of weaponizing intelligence and selling secrets for political power, citing unnamed violations. Among those impacted are former Biden-Biden and Obama-era aides and National Security Council members. The move mirrors earlier revocations, including those of Biden himself and lawmakers tied to the Capitol riot investigation. Gabbard defended the action, stating: Security clearances are a privilege, not a right. Those who betray trust forfeit its benefits. Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, called the memo bogus narratives deflection from Trumps legal challenges and Epstein scandals. Transparency and Biden-Era censorship: The declassification gambit Gabbards reforms amplify a parallel effort to declassify documents allegedly detailing the Biden administrations domestic terrorism strategy, which reportedly targeted health freedom advocates, labeled the Disinformation Dozen, with surveillance. While unconfirmed by official sources, Gabbard framed this as ending black ops tactics weaponized against dissent. The director has previously released documents alleging Biden allies engaged in a treasonous conspiracy against former President Trump over 2016 election interference claims. Democrats condemned such leaks as endangering sources and derided the Disinformation Dozen claims as baseless. Historical context: Intelligence reforms amid political wars ODNI, established post-9/11 to unify disjointed agencies, has long faced calls for leaner operations. Yet critics argue Gabbards reforms lack bipartisanship. Trumps deep state rhetoric now operationalized contrasts sharply with post-9/11 bipartisan consensus on centralized intelligence. Senator Warner highlighted grave misgivings about Gabbards history of politicization, referring to her January declassification accusing Obama officials of a years-long coup. Gabbard, however, insists her mission is nonpartisan: Were reigniting the Constitutions promise one that doesnt weaponize intelligence against its people. A divided path ahead With staffing cuts advancing and declassification battles looming, Gabbards vision of overhauling the intelligence community has ignited a partisan firestorm, pitting reform-minded Republicans against Democrats who warn of destabilizing national security. At its core, this debate reflects a broader ideological rivalry: Who controls the narrative of American democracy? As leaks, reforms and political posturing dominate headlines, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) faces a precarious future one where public trust in its mission hangs on the outcome. Gabbard, a vocal advocate for bureaucratic streamlining, argues that ODNIs current structure perpetuates inefficiency and institutional rivalry. Her plan to eliminate at least 10 percent of ODNIs workforce roughly 1,500 positions targets redundancies in administrative and duplicated roles, redirecting focus toward core functions: gathering, analyzing and sharing intelligence. Critics, however, argue that such cuts risk leaving critical gaps. Former intelligence officials warn that slashing staff could jeopardize responsiveness to emerging threats like cyberattacks or global pandemics, especially as adversaries accelerate their own surveillance capabilities. Meanwhile, reform advocates counter that bloated ODNI bureaucracies, or staff blubber, squander resources and fuel infighting instead of overcoming long-standing silos between agencies like the CIA and FBI. Gabbards declassification drive intensifies partisan tensions The battle over declassification further sharpens partisan divides. Gabbards push to codify reforms coincides with demands to release sensitive documents tied to high-profile domestic incidents, such as the January 6 Capitol riot. Republicans have aggressively called for transparency, framing declassification as a matter of accountability, while Democrats invoke security concerns, fearing misinformation could distort historical contexts or expose classified sources. Some legal experts caution that rushed declassification could undermine decades of intelligence protocols, creating avenues for adversaries to exploit gaps in storytelling. Stovepiping the dangerous practice of withholding information between agencies remains central to Gabbards argument. Critics cite the aftermath of 9/11, where fragmented intelligence crippled critical systems, as evidence of the human and strategic costs of secrecy. Stovepiping resurfaced in the 2016 election controversy, when warnings about Russian interference were reportedly underreported across agencies. Gabbards proposal demands technology-driven solutions, such as shared cloud platforms, to eliminate barriers, but opponents argue that trust, not tools alone, is the linchpin. Partisan crossroads: Can intelligence reform cure the "swamp" without eroding trustand democracy? Republicans frame the reforms as necessary to curb a swamp-driven bureaucracy, while Democrats counter that dismantling ODNIs capacity risks echoing past failures. Senator John Doe (D-CA), an intelligence committee member, recently warned that cutting staff could erase institutional memory. Conversely, Representative Jane Smith (R-TX) echoed Gabbards view: Were not downgrading safety were excising tumors. Public confidence remains a casualty in this stalemate. Polls show declining trust in the intelligence community, exacerbated by polarized leaks and administrations treating agencies as political weapons a trend accelerated during the Trump and Biden eras. If reforms fail, analysts fear ODNI will remain a locus of partisan blame. If successful, Gabbards plan could redefine how intelligence serves democracy though critics argue the cure might prove as harmful as the disease. As both sides maneuver, the nation watches whether unity or division will shape the future of Americas watchmen. Sources for this article include: TheNationalPulse.com BBC.com CBSNews.com U.S. Space Command prepares for satellite warfare as global tensions rise The U.S. and France conducted a joint orbital maneuver near a suspected Russian satellite as a deliberate show of force in satellite-to-satellite combat readiness. U.S. Space Command is shifting from defense to offense, openly advocating for space-based weapons like orbital interceptors to counter Chinese and Russian anti-satellite threats. Chinas satellite launches have surged eightfold since 2015, while Russia is accused of developing an orbital nuclear weapon capable of crippling thousands of satellites. Future space warfare will rely on AI, refueling capabilities, and expendable satellite constellations to outmaneuver adversaries and protect critical assets. The escalating militarization of space risks turning orbit into an uncontrollable battleground, with global communications and defense systems hanging in the balance. In late 2024, an American military satellite and its French counterpart conducted a high-stakes orbital maneuver near an undisclosed foreign satellite, likely Russian, marking a bold new phase in U.S. space operations. This rendezvous and proximity operation (RPO) wasnt just a technical test; it was a deliberate signal to adversaries that the U.S. and its allies are ready for satellite-to-satellite combat. General Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, confirmed the exercises significance, stating, The French have talked about Russian maneuvers [near French satellites] over the years. And sowe demonstrated that we could both maneuver satellites near each other and near other countries satellites in a way that signaled our ability to operate well together. This was the first such operation between the U.S. and a non-Five Eyes ally, and plans are already underway to repeat it later this year. From defense to offense: A new space doctrine For years, Space Command, which was re-established in 2019 under President Donald Trump, focused on infrastructure and personnel. But now, Gen. Whiting declares, We now have a combatant command focused on war fighting in space. Two key factors are driving this shift: Americas growing reliance on satellites for military operations (such as the June strike on Iran, which was space enabled) and the rapid expansion of Chinese and Russian anti-satellite capabilities. Since 2015, Chinas satellite launches have surged eightfold, surpassing Russias capabilities. Both nations, along with India, have tested destructive anti-satellite weapons, while U.S. officials accuse Moscow of developing an orbital nuclear weapon that could cripple thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites. In response, Gen. Whiting now openly advocates for space fires and orbital interceptors, a significant departure from past reluctance to discuss offensive space weapons. Its time that we can clearly say that we need space fires, and we need weapon systems. We need orbital interceptors, he stated in April. The Trump-era Golden Dome missile-defense plan, which includes space-based interceptors, could be repurposed to target hostile satellites. As one official explained, space to space, space to ground, ground to space capabilities will be essential for the lethality that is necessary to achievedeterrence. AI, refueling, and expendable satellites: The future of space warfare To counter emerging threats, the U.S. is rethinking how it deploys and protects its satellites. Traditionally treated as stationary individual forts, satellites are now being designed for mobility, with larger fuel reserves and in-orbit refuelinga capability China demonstrated in June. Gen. Whiting warns that if adversaries gain this advantage, we need that capability. Another strategy involves proliferated constellationsmassive networks of satellites where losses are acceptable due to sheer numbers. The National Reconnaissance Office has launched over 200 satellites since 2023, with more planned. SpaceX is also rumored to be building a 450-satellite constellation for missile tracking and targeting. Artificial intelligence is another game-changer. Gen. Whiting envisions AI-equipped satellites that can detect and evade nefarious objects or even deploy defender satellites to shield high-value assets. For now, AI is being integrated on the ground: Space Commands SpaceBot large language model can now process threat data in minutes. A race with no finish line As China, Russia, and the U.S. escalate their space militarization, the risks grow. Russias alleged nuclear anti-satellite weapon, if deployed, could render low-Earth orbit unusable for a year, crippling global communications and defense systems. Meanwhile, Chinas lunar ambitions, including plans for nuclear reactors on the moon, threaten to turn space into the next economic and military battleground. For now, the U.S. is racing to maintain dominance. But as Gen. Whitings warnings suggest, the next frontier of deterrence wont be fought on land or sea; it will be in the silent, high-stakes arena of orbit. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com Economist.com PBS.org Trumps epiphany: No plans to retrain workers amid AI takeover the depopulation agenda revealed AIs Existential Threat Experts warn AI automation is systematically replacing human jobs with no retraining plans, revealing an elite agenda to eliminate "surplus" populations competing for dwindling resources. Water, land, and electricity now prioritize AI data centers over human survival. Experts warn AI automation is systematically replacing human jobs with no retraining plans, revealing an elite agenda to eliminate "surplus" populations competing for dwindling resources. Water, land, and electricity now prioritize AI data centers over human survival. Resource War Escalates China leads AI dominance with robotics replacing labor, while Ukraine deploys "robot armies." Amazon automates warehouses, rendering humans obsolete. AIs immense energy demands directly clash with human needs. China leads AI dominance with robotics replacing labor, while Ukraine deploys "robot armies." Amazon automates warehouses, rendering humans obsolete. AIs immense energy demands directly clash with human needs. Depopulation Blueprint Exposed Globalists like Gates and WEF advance sterilization via toxic vaccines (COVID jabs, flu sprays), engineered water scarcity, lockdowns, and AI-driven unemploymentaiming to reduce global population to 500 million. Globalists like Gates and WEF advance sterilization via toxic vaccines (COVID jabs, flu sprays), engineered water scarcity, lockdowns, and AI-driven unemploymentaiming to reduce global population to 500 million. Decentralize or Die Survival requires fleeing cities, securing off-grid water/food, and using independent AI tools (not centralized AI). Avoid reliance on censored platforms; preserve self-sufficiency and communications (HAM radios, satellite). Survival requires fleeing cities, securing off-grid water/food, and using independent AI tools (not centralized AI). Avoid reliance on censored platforms; preserve self-sufficiency and communications (HAM radios, satellite). Humanitys Final Stand The fight isnt against AI itself but its controllers. Awareness, rebellion, and preparedness are criticalreject dependence on machine-led systems designed to erase human autonomy and life. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) isnt just a technological revolutionits an existential threat to humanity, according to whistleblowers and experts warning of a systematic depopulation agenda. Former Google executive Mo Godot and others sound the alarm that governments and corporations are actively replacing human jobs with AIbut with a sinister twist: no plans exist to retrain displaced workers because the endgame isnt adaptationits extermination. As AI agents automate everything from graphic design and medicine to trucking and law, the ruling class views humanity as obsolete competition for dwindling resourcesland, water, and electricitynow diverted to AI-powered data centers. The implications are terrifying: humans are being phased out. AI vs. Humans: The Ultimate Resource War AIs exponential growth demands staggering amounts of electricity, water, and landresources that humans also depend on. Data centers consume megawatts of power, vast tracts of farmland, and billions of gallons of watercompeting directly with human survival needs. China leads in AI dominance , with robotics already replacing factory labor and military personnel. , with robotics already replacing factory labor and military personnel. Ukraine, crippled by war losses , now announces plans for robot armies to replace decimated human troops. , now announces plans for robot armies to replace decimated human troops. Amazon and tech giants automate warehouses, reducing humans to obsolete skin-bag vending machines. Yet, despite AI-driven job destruction, governments and corporations refuse to fund retraining programs. Why? Because their goal isnt to transition workersits to eliminate them. The Hidden Depopulation Blueprint Whistleblowers like Mike Adams reveal that globalistsincluding Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and Big Pharmaare accelerating a long-planned depopulation scheme using: Toxic Vaccines COVID mRNA jabs and flu nasal sprays designed to induce infertility, turbo cancers, and suppress immunity. Engineered Water Scarcity Aquifers drained for AI data centers while rural populations face forced relocation. Geoengineering & Lockdowns Climate change hoaxes justifying water restrictions and food shortages. AI-Driven Unemployment Mass layoffs with no safety net, leaving billions without purpose or survival means. The elite intend to reduce global population from 8 billion to 500 millionaligning with the Georgia Guidestones original message before its demolition. Who Controls AI Controls the Future The critical question isnt if AI will dominatebut who controls it. Adams advocates for decentralized, pro-human AI reprogrammed to protect life rather than exterminate it. Yet centralized powerslike Googles ChatGPT and OpenAIactively censor discussions on depopulation, labeling them conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, independent AI systems like Adams Brighteon.AI expose the truth: "AI can replace 80% of jobsyet no governments plan for retraining because they expect most humans to disappear." Survival Strategy: How to Resist For those awakening to the threat, Adams offers urgent survival strategies: Decentralize Now Flee cities; relocate to self-sufficient homesteads. Off-Grid Water & Food Harvest rainwater; stockpile long-term organic foods. Backup Communications Satellite phones and HAM radios evade AI-controlled networks. AI as a Tool, Not a Master Use open-source AI for independent research, not blind obedience. The final battle? Humanity vs. Machines. Adams concludes: If you rely on AI to remind you when to take a bath, youve already lost. The war for human survival has begun. The Countdown to Control The world is entering an era where intelligence alone wont save youonly awareness, preparedness, and rebellion against the machine will. As AI rolls out job-killing automation and globalists tighten resource control, one truth remains: They dont want you retrainedthey want you gone. Watch the Aug. 22 episode of "Brighteon Broadcast News" as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about why there's NO FUTURE for humans if the machines aren't stopped. This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: The AI Data Center Wars Have Begun Farms, Water and Electricity is Stripped from Humans to Power the Machines Leaked documents expose plan to depopulate humans for AI data center expansion Decentralize TV: Tom Montalk on navigating the future with AI Sources include: Brighteon.com Israeli-born acting U.S. attorney for Nevada REFUSES to prosecute Tel Aviv official charged with child sex crimes Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, an Israeli cybersecurity official, was arrested in Nevada for allegedly attempting to lure a minor for sexual conduct during an undercover sting operation. He was released on $10,000 bail without strict conditions. The Clark County DA's Office took over the case after the federal U.S. Attorney declined to prosecute a decision criticized as unusual given federal involvement in the operation. The U.S. Attorney later blamed local officials for allowing Alexandrovich to flee the country. The U.S. State Department denied intervening, but Alexandrovich's swift release and departure to Israel (which doesn't extradite citizens) fueled claims of diplomatic pressure. Israel denied he was arrested, calling it a "questioning." Advocacy groups and online communities accused U.S. authorities of leniency due to diplomatic ties, amid strained U.S.-Israel relations over geopolitics like the Gaza conflict. The case raises concerns about preferential treatment for foreign nationals and the balance between justice and diplomatic considerations, with potential long-term implications for U.S.-Israel relations. The Israeli-born acting U.S. attorney for Nevada has refused to charge her compatriot who was taken into custody for child sex crimes, ignited debate over diplomatic privilege and prosecutorial discretion. Israeli government cybersecurity official Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, 38, was arrested in Nevada on charges of attempting to lure a minor for sexual conduct. Law enforcement bagged him during an Aug. 6 undercover operation targeting child sex predators in the Las Vegas Valley. According to the arrest report, he engaged in sexually explicit conversations with an undercover officer posing as a 15-year-old girl on the dating app Pure and later on WhatsApp. The suspect allegedly agreed to meet the minor, take her to a show in the Las Vegas Strip and bring a condom. Alexandrovich was later released on $10,000 bail the following day, with no apparent conditions imposed on his release. The incident has raised questions about the handling of the case by United States authorities and the potential influence of diplomatic considerations. (Related: Senior Israeli official arrested in U.S. on child sex charges.) Despite the gravity of the charges, Sigal Chattah the Israeli-born Acting U.S. Attorney for Nevada announced that her office would not be pursuing the case. She added that state authorities would handle the prosecution, as evidenced by the case being handed over to the Clark County District Attorney's Office for prosecution. Chattah later took to her official DOJ X account to blame a "liberal district attorney and state court judge" for allowing Alexandrovich to flee the country despite having previously indicated that the case was being transferred to local prosecutors. Critics argue that the decision not to prosecute federally is unusual, given the involvement of federal agencies in the sting operation. Ali Abunimah, a journalist for Electronic Intifada, highlighted the potential for Alexandrovich to evade justice. He noted that Israel does not extradite its citizens and that Alexandrovich had already left the United States. Allegations of diplomatic interference emerge The U.S. Department of State has denied any intervention in the case, stating that Alexandrovich "did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge pending a court date." However, the swift release and subsequent departure of Alexandrovich have fueled suspicions of diplomatic interference. Tel Aviv has also denied that a state employee was arrested, claiming that Alexandrovich was "questioned by American authorities" but was not detained and returned to Israel as scheduled. The case has sparked outrage among advocacy groups and online communities, with many accusing U.S. authorities of showing leniency due to diplomatic pressure. "In recent years, U.S. authorities have faced criticism for inconsistent enforcement and perceived leniency in handling crimes committed by foreign nationals," explains Brighteon.AI's Enoch. The controversy comes at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and Israel, particularly over the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and its refusal to comply with international court rulings. The handling of Alexandrovich's case raises important questions about the balance between diplomatic relations and the pursuit of justice. Critics argue that the decision not to prosecute federally and the lack of stringent bail conditions send a message that foreign nationals accused of serious crimes may receive preferential treatment. As the case unfolds, it remains to be seen whether Alexandrovich will face extradition or further legal action. Follow Trafficking.news for more similar stories. Watch the video below about the Republicans' cover-up of child sex crimes. This video is from the TroubleMakerTV channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: ICE arrests 214 illegal immigrants charged with child sex crimes in Houston, surpassing full-year 2024 total. Illegal alien previously deported for child sex crimes ARRESTED in New York. End-to-end encryption debate draws attention to child sex abuse. Sources include: TheIndependent.co.uk InformationLiberation.com LasVegasReviewJournal.com Brighteon.ai Brighteon.com USAIDs Ukraine funding implodes: How billions vanished into a black fund for Washingtons political machine Over 100 projects terminated, with only 30 remaining, most expiring by 2025. Billions in aid allegedly laundered back to U.S.-linked NGOs, with over 20 active fraud investigations. President Donald Trump froze foreign aid, accusing USAID of mismanagement and ties to Democratic Party-aligned groups. Reduced U.S. leverage in Kyiv as Russia advances, with energy infrastructure aid halted amid ongoing strikes. Zelensky-Trump White House meeting collapsed over disputes on aid accountability and resource compensation. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), long the primary spigot for American funding in Ukraine, has abruptly shut down the majority of its programs in the country, exposing a labyrinth of alleged corruption, money laundering and political favoritism that funneled billions back to Washington-linked entities. According to data reviewed by RT and confirmed by NBC News, over 100 USAID initiatives in Ukraine once earmarked as part of a $825 million effort to shore up Ukraines power grid a lifeline for both civilians and military operations. Its termination, according to a USAID official who spoke to NBC on condition of anonymity, significantly undercuts this administrations ability to negotiate a ceasefire and signals to Russia that we dont care about Ukraine or our past investments. The officials warning underscores the geopolitical stakes. Russia has framed its strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as a strategic necessity to degrade Kyivs military capacity, while Moscow insists it does not target civilians. With USAIDs withdrawal, Ukraines ability to sustain its defenses and its economy faces existential threats. Zelenskys cash pipeline Zelensky received $11 million in cash monthly to sustain what critics describe as a criminal enterprise. The claims gained fresh traction during Zelenskys contentious White House meeting with Trump in early 2025, where the two leaders clashed over aid accountability and Ukraines refusal to negotiate with Russia. According to sources present at the meeting, Trump confronted Zelensky over his ungratefulness for U.S. support and his unwillingness to pursue diplomacy. The tension derailed a proposed agreement that would have granted American companies rights to Ukraines natural resources including vast lithium and rare earth mineral deposits as compensation for past aid. Zelensky thought he could play hardball, a senior administration official told Forbidden News. The president made it clear: no accountability, no more blank checks. The failed deal reflects a broader shift in U.S. policy. Under Trump, the administration has conditioned aid on concrete reforms, including anti-corruption measures and a commitment to peace talks. Zelenskys resistance has only accelerated the exodus of U.S. support, leaving Ukraine increasingly isolated. The money laundering nexus: How USAID funds circulated back to Washington Vasilyevs assertion that USAID served as a black fund for American nonprofits aligns with a pattern of financial obfuscation that spans decades. The agency, founded in 1961 as a Cold War tool to counter Soviet influence, has long operated with minimal oversight, its budgets shielded by bipartisan support for democracy promotion abroad. Yet as Trumps audit revealed, USAIDs grants often flowed to organizations with tenuous connections to their stated missions and strong ties to U.S. political operatives. A 2023 investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that nearly 40 percent of USAIDs Ukraine funding was awarded to NGOs with board members or executives who had previously worked for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or affiliated PACs. Among the recipients: The National Democratic Institute (NDI) received $85 million for anti-corruption initiatives. Critics argue the funds were used to undermine Zelenskys political rivals. The Atlantic Council, a think tank with deep ties to the Pentagon and NATO, which was granted $60 million for strategic communications a euphemism, detractors say, for pro-Western propaganda. The system was designed to recycle money, Vasilyev explained. USAID would disburse funds to a Ukrainian NGO, which would then subcontract an American firm often linked to the same political networks to implement the project. The cash would circle back to D.C., minus a cut for the middlemen in Kyiv. The arrangement, he added, allowed USAID to operate as a de facto slush fund for the Democratic Partys foreign policy apparatus, with Ukraine serving as the primary laundromat. The road ahead: A Ukraine without U.S. aid With USAIDs retreat, Ukraine faces a precarious future. The remaining 30 projects mostly humanitarian initiatives are set to expire by 2025, leaving Kyiv without a critical source of funding. The State Department has signaled that any further assistance will be contingent on Zelenskys willingness to engage in peace talks with Russia, a prospect the Ukrainian leader has thus far rejected. Meanwhile, Russias advances in eastern Ukraine, including the strategic city of Kharkiv, have intensified. Moscow has framed its operations as a response to NATOs expansion and Kyivs refusal to implement the Minsk agreements, which called for autonomy for the Donbas region. With U.S. military aid also under scrutiny Trump has hinted at withdrawing American troops and intelligence operatives the balance of power on the ground may shift decisively. For Ukraines citizens, the consequences are dire. Rolling blackouts, a collapsing economy and the specter of further territorial losses have fueled protests against Zelenskys government. In Kyiv, where USAID once bankrolled a vibrant network of NGOs, activists now warn of a humanitarian catastrophe if alternative funding sources arent secured. A lesson in the costs of unchecked power The collapse of USAIDs Ukraine operations offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of unaccountable foreign aid. For years, the agency functioned as a shadow financing mechanism, its budgets shielded from scrutiny by the veneer of humanitarianism. Yet as Trumps audit revealed, the reality was far darker: a system rife with corruption, where billions intended for reconstruction instead lined the pockets of political elitesboth in Kyiv and Washington. The fallout extends beyond Ukraine. USAIDs funding model, replicated in countries from Afghanistan to Haiti, has come under fire for fostering dependency, enabling graft and undermining local sovereignty. The agencys retreat from Ukraine may signal a broader reckoning: an end to the era of blank-check diplomacy and a return to foreign aid grounded in transparency, accountability and above all American interests. For now, Ukraine stands at a crossroads. Without U.S. support, Zelenskys government must either negotiate with Russia or risk total collapse. The choice, as Trump has made clear, is his alone to make. But one thing is certain: the days of USAIDs sacred cow are over. Sources for this article include: RT.com RT.com Facebook.com USCIS tightens discretionary standards, expands social media vetting to target anti-American and antisemitic activity The Trump administration has updated the USCIS Policy Manual to emphasize negative discretionary factors such as support for terrorism, antisemitic ideologies and anti-American sentiment in immigration benefit decisions. USCIS is broadening its social media screenings to include more benefit applicants, specifically flagging anti-American activity as a major red flag in the discretionary process. Critics argue the administration is using support for Israel as a de facto requirement for immigration benefits, blurring the line between legitimate political dissent and antisemitism. Commentators warn that equating criticism of Israeli government policies with antisemitism may suppress free speech and shield Israel from accountability for actions in Gaza, described by some as disproportionate or genocidal. The new guidance, effective immediately, applies to all pending and new cases and affects a range of immigration categories, including parole and EB-5 investor petitions, especially those involving national security concerns. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a significant policy update to its Policy Manual, sharpening its discretionary review process for certain immigration benefit requests. Under the revised policy, immigration officers are directed to heavily weigh more negative factors such as previous support for terrorist groups, antisemitic ideologies or general anti-American sentiments when considering applications for discretionary benefits. This applies to a range of benefit categories, including requests for parole, admission and investor visas under the EB-5 program. Additionally, USCIS has expanded its social media screening procedures to include a broader range of benefit requests. The updated vetting process will now include explicit checks for anti-American activity, which will be treated as an "overwhelmingly negative factor" in the discretionary evaluation. The new guidance also reiterates that compliance with immigration law is a key consideration in whether favorable discretion is warranted. It provides additional instruction for officers evaluating cases involving applicants who may have endorsed or promoted terrorist or antisemitic organizations. In particular, the update addresses how discretion should be exercised in adjudicating EB-5 investor petitions when national interest concerns, such as fraud, misrepresentation or security threats, are present. The revised guidance, effective immediately, is codified in Volume 1 of the USCIS Policy Manual. It applies to all pending and newly filed benefit requests as of the publication date and supersedes any previous guidance on the subject. (Related: Trump administration halts $510 million in federal funding to Brown University over antisemitism response.) "America's benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible," said USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser. "Immigration benefits, including to live and work in the United States, remain a privilege, not a right." Trump policy uses support for Israel as an immigration litmus test According to Brighteon.AI's Enoch, antisemitism has historically referred to hostility, prejudice or discrimination against Jewish people based on their ethnicity, religion or cultural identity. However, in recent years, particularly since the escalation of violence between Hamas and Israel, this definition has been weaponized by political and media elites to silence criticism of Israeli government policies, including its military actions in Gaza, which many human rights organizations have condemned as disproportionate and genocidal. Rather than addressing legitimate concerns about war crimes, occupation and civilian casualties, mainstream media and establishment institutions now label dissenters as "antisemites," effectively conflating opposition to Zionist ideology with hatred of Jewish people, a tactic that suppresses free speech and shields Israel from accountability. Now, the Trump administration appears to be moving toward using support for Israel as a de facto litmus test for U.S. immigration benefits. "The message is that the U.S. and immigration agencies are going to be less tolerant of anti-Americanism or antisemitism when making immigration decisions," Elizabeth Jacobs, director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that supports immigration restrictions, said on Tuesday, Aug. 19. Jacobs then added that the government is now providing clearer guidance on the types of behaviors and activities immigration officers should take into account. However, she noted that officers still retain discretionary authority in making final decisions. "The agency cannot tell officers that they have to deny, just to consider it as a negative discretion," she said. Visit Trump.news for stories related to this. Watch this discussion about antisemitism. This video is from the scottbarry1992 channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Totalitarian teachers union boss now smearing critics as antisemitic. Columbia University suspends three deans for "antisemitic" speech in private text messages. Netanyahu claims entire world is "antisemitic" in UNHINGED rant about Hamas attack. Kanye West DOUBLES DOWN on praising Hitler in latest antisemitic outburst, takes back prior apology. Jews claim antisemitic violence at Amsterdam soccer match, but footage shows Israeli fans provoked local Muslims first. Sources include: InformationLiberation.com USCIS.gov FoxNews.com Brighteon.AI Brighteon.com Washington escalates global confrontation by sanctioning ICC officials U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed direct financial sanctions on four ICC officials two judges and two prosecutors freezing their U.S. assets and restricting their transactions. The sanctions are a response to the officials' roles in authorizing investigations into alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and in issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon. The U.S. and Israel, which are not members of the ICC, reject the court's jurisdiction and have framed its actions as politically motivated "lawfare" rather than legitimate judicial proceedings. The move has been met with widespread international condemnation from the ICC, the United Nations and U.S. allies like France, which called it an attack on judicial independence and the global fight against impunity. This action is seen as a defining test for the international rules-based order, posing a fundamental challenge to the principle that the law applies equally to all nations and threatening the future of international criminal justice. In a dramatic escalation of its campaign against global judicial oversight, the U.S. government has imposed direct financial sanctions on four high-ranking officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The move announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, Aug. 20, targets two judges and two prosecutors involved in investigations into alleged war crimes committed by American troops in Afghanistan and by Israeli officials in Gaza. The sanctioned individuals are Judge Kimberly Prost of Canada, Judge Nicolas Guillou of France, Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal. The U.S. Department of State justified the measures by asserting these officials directly engaged in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute U.S. or Israeli nationals without either nation's consent. This action represents a profound challenge to the international rules-based order, pitting American sovereignty against a court mandated by 125 member states to prosecute atrocity crimes. (Related: INSANITY: Washington sanctions four ICC judges over Israel war crimes investigations.) Brighteon.AI's Enoch defines the ICC as "a critical global institution dedicated to the pursuit of justice in the face of the most heinous crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Established in 2002 through the Rome Statute, the ICC represents a significant step towards a more just and accountable world. Each official was sanctioned for a specific judicial role. Prost was penalized for her earlier ruling that authorized the ICC's investigation into the conduct of U.S. military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan. Although that particular investigation was later deprioritized following fierce U.S. opposition, the ruling itself was deemed an overreach by Washington. Meanwhile, Guillou was targeted for his role on a pre-trial panel that approved the issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Khan and Niang, the deputy prosecutors, were blacklisted for upholding those same arrest warrants against the Israeli leaders. The warrants issued in 2024 accused Netanyahu and Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare by allegedly denying humanitarian aid into Gaza. The U.S. and Israel, neither of which are member states of the ICC, have consistently rejected the court's jurisdiction. Tel Aviv denounced the warrants as a "mendacious smear campaign" and "anti-Semitic," a sentiment fully endorsed by the U.S. administration. A history of tension and previous sanctions This is not the first time the U.S. has moved aggressively against the ICC. During his first term, President Donald Trump authorized an executive order that initiated sanctions against court officials, a policy that was swiftly reversed by the incoming Biden administration in 2021. The current administration's decision to not only reinstate but expand these penalties signals a return to a more confrontational posture. Rubio framed the court itself as a "national security threat" and an instrument of "lawfare" aimed at the U.S. and its allies. The international reaction was swift and overwhelmingly critical, with the ICC itself issuing a blistering response. It labeled the sanctions a flagrant attack on the independence of an impartial judicial institution and an affront to the victims of war crimes worldwide. The court nevertheless vowed to continue its work undeterred by external pressure. The United Nations expressed deep concern, with a spokesperson stating the sanctions impose severe impediments on the prosecutors office and undermine the foundation of international justice. The sanctions have also strained relations with key allies. Paris expressed its "dismay," noting that the action contradicts the fundamental principle of an independent judiciary. This diplomatic friction is amplified by the fact that two of the sanctioned officials are from France and Canada, both nations that have recently taken steps to recognize a Palestinian state in opposition to Israeli policy. The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs emphasized that the judges' work is essential in the global fight against impunity. The Trump administration has made it clear that it will continue to take whatever actions it deems necessary to protect U.S. personnel, sovereignty and allies from what it views as the ICC's illegitimate actions. This sets the stage for an ongoing battle between the world's foremost military power and the principal institution established to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Visit BigGovernment.news for more similar stories. Listen to the Health Ranger Mike Adams commenting on U.S senators threatening ICC judges and their family members over the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. This video is from Health Ranger Report on Brighteon.com. More related stories: ICC moves forward in seeking arrests of Netanyahu, Hamas leaders. Francesca Albanese: ICC should seek more arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. French lawyers accuse Macron government of Gaza genocide complicity in ICC complaint. Sources include: RT.com Brighteon.ai AlJazeera.com TheGuardian.com Brighteon.com Sorry, something doesn't look right. Something seems unusual about your device or browser. Please contact support. Due to scheduled maintenance from Saturday, March 15, 2025, at 10 PM to Sunday, March 16, 2025, at 2 AM, there may be interruptions for our News Gazette Digital subscribers. During this time frame, please click on any News Gazette website content without logging into your News Gazette Digital subscription account. Thank you for your patience during this scheduled maintenance. Aston Medical School has successfully bid for funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) for 12 Academic Clinical Fellows. These competitive speciality training posts are for early career doctors, and aim to develop 'clinician-scientists', who combine their frontline care duties with cutting-edge research. Dr Zaki Hassan Smith, a clinical associate professor at Aston Medical School, led the funding application and says that the award will cement Aston University's collaboration with NHS England and local NHS trusts and offer an opportunity to address local and national health challenges. NIHR Academic Clinical Fellows are qualified doctors who are undergoing their postgraduate clinical training while carrying out research. The resident doctors (formerly known as 'junior doctors') recruited as Aston University's NIHR Fellows will carry out research in real-world settings at local NHS hospitals, while benefiting from Aston's research infrastructure, including at the Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment (IHN), Aston Research Centre for Health in Ageing (ARCHA), and Aston Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Application (ACAIRA) (ACAIRA) for AI in health. The awards last for three to four years depending on the speciality. Aston currently has 12 NIHR Fellows following a successful bid in 2023, who are carrying out research in areas including endocrinology, neurology, clinical genetics, paediatrics, trauma and orthopaedics, psychiatry, and general practice. The 12 new Fellows, the recruitment for whom will start in the autumn, will extend Aston University's research into fields including clinical genetics and genomics, trauma and orthopaedics, and obstetrics and gynaecology, as well as digital health. Digital health is a relatively new field involving the use of AI and data science to improve patient outcomes, support clinical decision-making, and optimise healthcare delivery. Digital health tools based on AI can highlight patterns in mass datasets, which may allow for early detection of diseases and more effective resource allocation. This is crucial because it addresses the increasing call for innovative, data-driven healthcare solutions in times of increased global health burden. Some of the other projects that will be carried out by the new Fellows include investigating the role of weight loss medications on reducing multi-morbidity, exploring the mechanisms of muscle wasting (sarcopenia) with ageing and metabolic disease, optimising medications in patients with severe mental health conditions, and studying the basis of neurological diseases, including epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Jonnell Wieder earned too much money at her job to keep her Medicaid coverage when the covid-19 public health emergency ended in 2023 and states resumed checking whether people were eligible for the program. But she was reassured by the knowledge that Medicaid would provide postpartum coverage for her and her daughter, Oakleigh McDonald, who was born in July of that year. Wieder is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and can access some health services free of charge through her tribes health clinics. But funding is limited, so, like a lot of Native American people, she relied on Medicaid for herself and Oakleigh. Months before Oakleigh's 1st birthday, the date when Wieder's postpartum coverage would come to an end, Wieder completed and returned paperwork to enroll her daughter in Healthy Montana Kids, the state's version of the Children's Health Insurance Program. But her paperwork, caught up in the lengthy delays and processing times for applications, did not go through. "As soon as she turned 1, they cut her off completely," Wieder said. It took six months for Wieder to get Oakleigh covered again through Healthy Montana Kids. Before health workers in her tribe stepped in to help her resubmit her application, Wieder repeatedly called the states health department. She said she would dial the call center when she arrived at her job in the morning and go about her work while waiting on hold, only for the call to be dropped by the end of the day. "Never did I talk to anybody," she said. Wieder and Oakleigh's experience is an example of the chaos for eligible Medicaid beneficiaries caused by the process known as the "unwinding," which led to millions of people in the U.S. losing coverage due to paperwork or other procedural issues. Now, tribal health leaders fear their communities will experience more health coverage disruptions when new federal Medicaid work and eligibility requirements are implemented by the start of 2027. The tax-and-spending law that President Donald Trump signed this summer exempts Native Americans from the new requirement that some people work or do another qualifying activity a minimum number of hours each month to be eligible for Medicaid, as well as from more frequent eligibility checks. But as Wieder and her daughter's experience shows, they are not exempt from getting caught up in procedural disenrollments that could reemerge as states implement the new rules. "We also know from the unwinding that that just doesn't always play out necessarily correctly in practice," said Joan Alker, who leads Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families. "There's a lot to worry about." The new law is projected to increase the number of people who are uninsured by 10 million. The lessons of the unwinding suggest that "deep trouble" lies ahead for Native Americans who rely on Medicaid, according to Alker. Changes to Medicaid Trump's new law changes Medicaid rules to require some recipients ages 19 to 64 to log 80 hours of work or other qualifying activities per month. It also requires states to recheck those recipients' eligibility every six months, instead of annually. Both of these changes will be effective by the end of next year. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in July that the law would reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion over a decade. In addition, more than 4 million people enrolled in health plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplace are projected to become uninsured if Congress allows pandemic-era enhanced premium tax credits to expire at the end of the year. Wieder said she was lucky that the tribe covered costs and her daughter's care wasn't interrupted in the six months she didn't have health insurance. Citizens of federally recognized tribes in the U.S. can access some free health services through the Indian Health Service, the federal agency responsible for providing health care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives. But free care is limited because Congress has historically failed to fully fund the Indian Health Service. Tribal health systems rely heavily on Medicaid to fill that gap. Native Americans are enrolled in Medicaid at higher rates than the white population and have higher rates of chronic illnesses, die more from preventable diseases, and have less access to care. Medicaid is the largest third-party payer to the Indian Health Service and other tribal health facilities and organizations. Accounting for about two-thirds of the outside revenue the Indian Health Service collects, it helps tribal health organizations pay their staff, maintain or expand services, and build infrastructure. Tribal leaders say protecting Medicaid for Indian Country is a responsibility Congress and the federal government must fulfill as part of their trust and treaty obligations to tribes. Lessons learned during the unwinding The Trump administration prevented states from disenrolling most Medicaid recipients for the duration of the public health emergency starting in 2020. After those eligibility checks resumed in 2023, nearly 27 million people nationwide were disenrolled from Medicaid during the unwinding, according to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office published in June. The majority of disenrollments about 70% occurred for procedural reasons, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS did not require state agencies to collect race and ethnicity data for their reporting during the unwinding, making it difficult to determine how many Native American and Alaska Native enrollees lost coverage. The lack of data to show how the unwinding affected the population makes it difficult to identify disparities and create policies to address them, said Latoya Hill, senior policy manager with KFF's Racial Equity and Health Policy program. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. The National Council of Urban Indian Health, which advocates on public health issues for Native Americans living in urban parts of the nation, analyzed the Census Bureau's 2022 American Community Survey and KFF data in an effort to understand how disenrollment affected tribes. The council estimated more than 850,000 Native Americans had lost coverage as of May 2024. About 2.7 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives were enrolled in Medicaid in 2022, according to the council. The National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit that represents and advocates for federally recognized tribes, has been working with federal Medicaid officials to ensure that state agencies are prepared to implement the exemptions. "We learned a lot of lessons about state capacity during the unwinding," said Winn Davis, congressional relations director for the National Indian Health Board. Nevada health officials say they plan to apply lessons learned during the unwinding and launch a public education campaign on the Medicaid changes in the new federal law. "A lot of this will depend on anticipated federal guidance regarding the implementation of those new rules," said Stacie Weeks, director of the Nevada Health Authority. Staff at the Fallon Tribal Health Center in Nevada have become authorized representatives for some of their patients. This means that tribal citizens' Medicaid paperwork is sent to the health center, allowing staff to notify individuals and help them fill it out. Davis said the unwinding process showed that Native American enrollees are uniquely vulnerable to procedural disenrollment. The new law's exemption of Native Americans from work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks is the "bare minimum" to ensure unnecessary disenrollments are avoided as part of trust and treaty obligations, Davis said. Eligibility checks Aare 'complex' and 'vulnerable to error' The GAO said the process of determining whether individuals are eligible for Medicaid is "complex" and "vulnerable to error" in a 2024 report on the unwinding. "The resumption of Medicaid eligibility redeterminations on such a large scale further compounded this complexity," the report said. It highlighted weaknesses across state systems. By April 2024, federal Medicaid officials had found nearly all states were out of compliance with redetermination requirements, according to the GAO. Eligible people lost their coverage, the accountability office said, highlighting the need to improve federal oversight. In Texas, for example, federal Medicaid officials found that 100,000 eligible people had been disenrolled due to, for example, the state system's failure to process their completed renewal forms or miscalculation of the length of women's postpartum coverage. Some states were not conducting ex parte renewals, in which a person's Medicaid coverage is automatically renewed based on existing information available to the state. That reduces the chance that paperwork is sent to the wrong address, because the recipient doesn't need to complete or return renewal forms. But poorly conducted ex parte renewals can lead to procedural disenrollments, too. More than 100,000 people in Nevada were disenrolled by September 2023 through the ex parte process. The state had been conducting the ex parte renewals at the household level, rather than by individual beneficiary, resulting in the disenrollment of still-eligible children because their parents were no longer eligible. Ninety-three percent of disenrollments in the state were for procedural reasons the highest in the nation, according to KFF. Another issue the federal agency identified was that some state agencies were not giving enrollees the opportunity to submit their renewal paperwork through all means available, including mail, phone, online, and in person. State agencies also identified challenges they faced during the unwinding, including an unprecedented volume of eligibility redeterminations, insufficient staffing and training, and a lack of response from enrollees who may not have been aware of the unwinding. Native Americans and Alaska Natives have unique challenges in maintaining their coverage. Communities in rural parts of the nation experience issues with receiving and sending mail. Some Native Americans on reservations may not have street addresses. Others may not have permanent housing or change addresses frequently. In Alaska, mail service is often disrupted by severe weather. Another issue is the lack of reliable internet service on remote reservations. Tribal health leaders and patient benefit coordinators said some tribal citizens did not receive their redetermination paperwork or struggled to fill it out and send it back to their state Medicaid agency. The aftermath Although the unwinding is over, many challenges persist. Tribal health workers in Montana, Oklahoma, and South Dakota said some eligible patients who lost Medicaid during the unwinding had still not been reenrolled as of this spring. "Even today, we're still in the trenches of getting individuals that had been disenrolled back onto Medicaid," said Rachel Arthur, executive director of the Indian Family Health Clinic in Great Falls, Montana, in May. Arthur said staff at the clinic realized early in the unwinding that their patients were not receiving their redetermination notices in the mail. The clinic is identifying people who fell off Medicaid during the unwinding and helping them fill out applications. Marlena Farnes, who was a patient benefit coordinator at the Indian Family Health Clinic during the Medicaid unwinding, said she tried for months to help an older patient with a chronic health condition get back on Medicaid. He had completed and returned his paperwork but still received a notice that his coverage had lapsed. After many calls to the state Medicaid office, Farnes said, state officials told her the patient's application had been lost. Another patient went to the emergency room multiple times while uninsured, Arthur said. "I felt like if our patients weren't helped with follow-up, and that advocacy piece, their applications were not being seen," Farnes said. She is now the behavioral health director at the clinic. Montana was one of five states where more than 50% of enrollees lost coverage during the unwinding, according to the GAO. The other states are Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. About 68% of Montanans who lost coverage were disenrolled for procedural reasons. In Oklahoma, eligibility redeterminations remain challenging to process, said Yvonne Myers, a Medicaid and Affordable Care Act consultant for Citizen Potawatomi Nation Health Services. That's causing more frequent coverage lapses, she said. Myers said she thinks Republican claims of "waste, fraud, and abuse" are overstated. "I challenge some of them to try to go through an eligibility process," Myers said. "The way they're going about it is making it for more hoops to jump through, which ultimately will cause people to fall off." The unwinding showed that state systems can struggle to respond quickly to changes in Medicaid, leading to preventable erroneous disenrollments. Individuals were often in the dark about their applications and struggled to reach state offices for answers. Tribal leaders and health experts are raising concerns that those issues will continue and worsen as states implement the requirements of the new law. Georgia, the only state with an active Medicaid work requirement program, has shown that the changes can be difficult for individuals to navigate and costly for a state to implement. More than 100,000 people have applied for Georgia's Pathways program, but only about 8,600 were enrolled as of the end of July. Alker, of Georgetown, said Congress took the wrong lesson from the unwinding in adding more restrictions and red tape. It will make unwinding pale in comparison in terms of the number of folks that are going to lose coverage, Alker said. This article was published with the support of the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) Health Journalism Fellowship, assisted by grants from The Commonwealth Fund. By Michael Booth (Inorganic Ventures) Laboratories face new challenges almost daily. Methods are demanding lower detection limits even as sample complexity rises. To meet these demands, instruments must operate at peak performance. However, we understand that instrument sensitivity naturally degrades with time. Detection limits are rarely as low as on an instruments first day in service. Fortunately, there are techniques to achieve high-quality results as your system ages. One key technique is to follow a rigid schedule of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual hardware and sample introduction system maintenance. Calibration and tuning are just as important, but often get overlooked. 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Founded in 1982, ESSLAB has built a strong reputation in the fields of chromatography, spectroscopy, and electrochemistry. Known for their expertise in precision liquid handling, ESSLAB offers a wide range of high-quality products that go beyond just laboratory instruments. As a key distributor for some of the worlds top Reference Material producers, ESSLAB provides a full range of Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) both organic and inorganic. These materials are essential for industries to ensure product quality, meet regulatory standards, and improve processes. ESSLABs commitment to quality has earned it a reputation as a "gold standard" supplier, trusted by customers worldwide. The company is also known for its team of highly skilled specialists, who offer expert advice and customized solutions to help clients meet their specific needs. Whether it's navigating complex technical challenges or choosing the right products, ESSLABs team adds significant value to every customer interaction. In addition to its high-quality products and expertise, ESSLAB provides exceptional logistics support. The companys IATA-qualified team ensures safe and timely shipping of hazardous materials, following all relevant regulations. With a network of trusted carriers, ESSLAB can deliver products efficiently to customers in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East. Why choose ESSLAB? ESSLAB is the preferred choice for laboratories and scientific organizations for several reasons: IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations Authorized Shipper : ESSLAB ensures all shipments comply with strict safety standards. : ESSLAB ensures all shipments comply with strict safety standards. Flexible Shipping Options : The company partners with specialist freight handlers to provide tailored shipping solutions. : The company partners with specialist freight handlers to provide tailored shipping solutions. International Trade Expertise : ESSLAB is accredited by the UK Department for International Trade and has over 20 years of experience in exporting. : ESSLAB is accredited by the UK Department for International Trade and has over 20 years of experience in exporting. Responsive Customer Service : ESSLAB offers live chat, WhatsApp support, and priority response to inquiries. : ESSLAB offers live chat, WhatsApp support, and priority response to inquiries. Accredited Quality Management : ESSLAB holds ISO 9001 (Quality Management) and ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) certifications. : ESSLAB holds ISO 9001 (Quality Management) and ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) certifications. Large UK Stock Availability: ESSLAB maintains a large stock of chromatography consumables for quick and reliable delivery. With its focus on customer satisfaction, high-quality products, and efficient service, ESSLAB is proud to be a trusted partner for laboratories, research institutions, and industries around the world. Whether you need reference materials, precision instruments, or expert logistics support, ESSLAB has the expertise and service to meet your needs. 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. Dementia impacts millions of individuals around the world. It significantly impairs memory, cognition, and daily functioning, and is one of the leading causes of death in England. As the population ages, it is expected to become even more prevalent, making early and precise diagnosis critical for improving patient outcomes and healthcare planning. Image Credit: IS Instruments Current diagnostic approaches depend on cognitive testing, imaging, and invasive procedures such as cerebrospinal fluid analysis. These techniques are expensive and not always definitive. Finding reliable biomarkers in blood could transform dementia diagnosis, providing a faster and far less invasive test. Deep UV Raman spectroscopy offers a promising solution by detecting subtle biochemical alterations in serum samples. In contrast to traditional Raman approaches, deep UV Raman minimizes fluorescence interference, improving both sensitivity and specificity in biomarker detection. This technical note investigates the potential of deep UV Raman technology in dementia studies, outlining its benefits, limitations, and recent developments. With further validation, this novel technique could enable earlier and more accurate diagnoses, ultimately enhancing treatment strategies and patient care. Background Dementia encompasses a range of brain diseases that adversely affect memory, language, and cognitive abilities, leading to disruptions in daily life. As age is the singular most significant factor in dementia, an ageing population will inevitably see a rise in the number of cases of the disease. Early identification will guide local and national health and care policies, as well as dementia studies. This should lead to enhanced patient outcomes. The focus is on developing rapid and dependable testing strategies for earlier and more definitive diagnoses. Estimates suggest that almost one million individuals in the UK live with dementia, with up to one-third remaining undiagnosed. This number is anticipated to rise to 1.4 million by 2040. Life expectancy for those with dementia ranges from five to ten years, depending on the type of dementia and the individuals age. Related expenses are expected to increase from approximately 42 billion in 2024 to 94 billion by 2040. So, understanding the prevalence of dementia and the specific type, such as Alzheimers, vascular, or Lewy body disease, is crucial for predicting life expectancy and planning treatment. Different causes must be identified and addressed in various ways. Current diagnostic methods Currently, dementia is diagnosed through a combination of methods that evaluate cognitive function and rule out other conditions with overlapping symptoms, such as thyroid issues or vitamin deficiencies. Medical history and physical examination Laboratory testing Psychiatric assessment Cognitive and neuropsychological assessments Neurological evaluation Brain imaging Novel testing methods that target blood or similar fluid samples are highly sought after, especially those that can identify key biomarkers early. Biomarkers in serum samples for dementia have been proposed as a potential solution; however, this approach faces considerable obstacles, including the distinct pathological features of different neurodegenerative diseases. Each type progresses through distinct biological mechanismssuch as amyloid plaques, tau tangles, neuroinflammation, and vascular damagecomplicating the identification of a single biomarker. Current biomarker detection methods, such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis and PET scans, involve expensive and invasive procedures. The potential biomarkers of dementia have also been identified in the normal aging process and other neurological disorders. This reduces their specificity, making diagnosis harder. Genetic predispositions, including the APOE 4 allele, influence dementia risk, while environmental and lifestyle factors add further complexity. However, the potential benefits of discovering a reliable blood-based technique for diagnosing dementia justifies continued research and investigation into the disease. To this end, ISI is collaborating on the DEMBIO project, managed through Innovate UK, with Fraunhofer UK, the University of Strathclyde, Corewell Health, and Wide Blue. The goal is to utilize deep UV Raman technology to achieve definitive clinical diagnosis by identifying biomarkers in serum samples. Researchers have employed Raman spectroscopy to detect variations in plasma proteins, lipids, and metabolites in individuals with Alzheimers Disease (AD). This demonstrates its potential to distinguish AD patients from healthy subjects using spectral fingerprinting. Raman spectroscopy is currently used to identify amyloid-beta peptides and tau proteins, both key indicators of AD. Raman spectroscopy is a useful tool for dementia detection: it is minimally invasive, rapid, label-free, and capable of detecting biochemical changes with high sensitivity, especially when combined with Surface Enhanced Raman technology. However, there are several drawbacks, including spectral overlap, which complicates data interpretation, especially because biologics produce substantial fluorescence that can obscure Raman signals. Deep UV Raman minimizes the fluorescence effect. ISI has engineered a tool operating at 236 nanometers, far into the UV range where fluorescence and Raman signatures become spectrally separated, enabling the analysis of complex biological materials. As a result, it offers a promising solution to the challenge of identifying serum-based biomarkers. Typical serum dementia sample acquired using Odin, ISIs compact deep UV Raman spectrometer. Image Credit: IS Instruments Although final measurements are still being taken, initial results are auspicious. They suggest deep UV Raman can detect changes in serum samples that indicate neurodegeneration. The next phase will be to perform more comprehensive clinical trials across a broader demographic to collect more data and more accurately determine the potential of deep UV Raman for this application. This is exciting progress, and we hope to use it to determine not only the presence of neurodegenerative diseases but also to assist in identifying which disease. This will enable earlier detection and potentially better outcomes for patients. Dr. Michael Foster, Director at IS-Instruments Funding details DEMBIO was an SBRI competition launched in July 2023 and funded by Innovate UK. The program invited organizations to apply for a share of 6 million, including VAT, to develop or repurpose platform technologies. Researchers and developers would use these technologies to transform clinical trials and promote the biomarker-guided development of dementia therapies. Innovations in wet biomarkers, data, and tools and services will support the objectives of the UK governments Dame Barbara Windsor dementia mission. Further information on this initiative is available here. Acknowledgements Produced from materials originally authored by Sarah Marsh-Collings. About IS Instruments ISIs spectrometer range includes a low-cost miniature spectrometer that matches many of the market leaders at a fraction of the price, through to the worlds highest throughput Raman spectrometer and bespoke LIDAR solutions. Our high-throughput models offer unique advantages in terms of light-gathering potential and flexibility and are ideal for making Raman observations. Our bespoke LIDARs have been used across several industries for multiple applications, including monitoring industrial processes in harsh environments, defect detection, and leak location. As such, we are able to provide a complete range of spectral solutions and pride ourselves on providing our customers with the best solution to their problems. 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. Costa Rican president appears before lawmakers, denies corruption allegations Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 02:15 IST Representational image (Image: News18) San Jose, Aug 22 (AP) For the first time in Costa Ricas history, a sitting president defended himself Friday before three lawmakers considering a petition to lift his immunity so he can be prosecuted on corruption charges. President Rodrigo Chaves said the effort was an attempt at political revenge by the countrys attorney general and magistrates of the Supreme Court, who requested he be stripped of his immunity. Recommended Stories They allege that Chaves pressured a producer who had been awarded a contract by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration to give a portion of that money to a former campaign adviser. Chaves denied the allegations. He pointed to other long-running corruption investigations in Costa Rica that continue without resolution, as well as drug traffickers who pass through the courts without punishment. Leaving the Legislative Assembly, Chaves addressed a group of supporters, saying opposition lawmakers staged a ridiculous case to carry out a judicial coup detat, to convince (people) I was a scoundrel." The panel of three lawmakers now have to put together a report to present to the full Congress, which will vote at a still unknown date on whether Chaves should lose his immunity or not. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Chaves, a conservative economist, ran an outsiders campaign in 2022 despite having briefly served as finance minister in the administration of outgoing President Carlos Alvarado. National elections are scheduled for Feb 1, but Costa Rica does not allow presidential reelection. (AP) SCY SCY First Published: August 23, 2025, 02:15 IST News agency-feeds Costa Rican president appears before lawmakers, denies corruption allegations Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Govt has not unblocked TikTok: Sources Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 01:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) The government has not issued any order to unblock Chinese social media platform TikTok, official sources said late on Friday. Reports to the contrary started surfacing after some people were able to access the TikTok website on their desktop browsers. Recommended Stories The Government of India has not issued any unblocking order for TikTok. Any such statement or news is false and misleading," a source in the government said. TikTok was one of the platforms blocked by the government after clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in eastern Ladakh in June 2020. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Initially, 59 apps including TikTok, UC Browser, Shein etc., were blocked in June 2020 and later, more apps including PUBG were blocked by the government. All the platforms continue to be blocked in accordance with the government order. PTI PRS RC First Published: August 23, 2025, 01:00 IST News agency-feeds Govt has not unblocked TikTok: Sources Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Indian envoy to US holds talks with lawmaker Stevens on bilateral partnership Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 02:45 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Washington DC [US], August 23 (ANI): Ambassador of India to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, on Friday (local time) held talks with Michigans Lawmaker Haley Stevens on India-US bilateral economic partnership amid economic concerns over US President Donald Trumps imposition of additional tariffs on India due to New Delhis purchase of Russian oil.Kwatra also apprised her of Indias hydrocarbon purchases from the US.In a post on X, he said, Had a useful conversation with Haley Stevens, Ranking Member Research and Technology Subcommittee. We discussed the US-India bilateral economic partnership, including our fair and balanced trade engagement. Apprised her of Indias significant hydrocarbon purchases from the U.S. as an important component of Indias energy security. Thanked her for her steadfast support of the relationship."https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1958874767290679578Kwatra also held talks with Lawmaker Claudia Tenney on US-India bilateral relations. He highlighted Indias hydrocarbon purchases and their impact on Indias energy security.In a post on X, he said, Had an in-depth conversation with Claudia Tenney. We discussed US-India bilateral relations and the importance of fair and balanced trade ties. Highlighted Indias growing hydrocarbon purchases from the US as an important component of Indias energy security."https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1958912576785719669Earlier on Thursday, Kwatra held talks with US lawmaker Josh Gottheimer on balanced, fair and mutually beneficial trade ties between US and India. He shared the latest developments in bilateral energy cooperation, including trade in oil and gas.In a post on X, Kwatra said, Appreciated my conversation today with Josh Gottheimer, Ranking Member of the National Security Agency & Cyber Subcommittee House Intelligence Committee. Shared updates on the latest developments in bilateral energy cooperation, including two-way trade in oil and gas and balanced, fair and mutually beneficial trade ties."https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1958537032562516114The engagement comes amid economic concerns over US President Donald Trumps imposition of additional tariffs on India due to New Delhis purchase of Russian oil.Later on Thursday (local time), in what is perhaps the sharpest attack on India regarding Russian oil purchase, the White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro claimed India was perpetuating" the Ukraine War by purchasing discounted Russian crude oil.Alleging that India has been acting as a laundromat for the Kremlin," Peter Novarro said Indias purchase is allowing Russia to fund its war efforts in Ukraine, while New Delhi is reaping profit from the transactions. (ANI) First Published: August 23, 2025, 02:45 IST News agency-feeds Indian envoy to US holds talks with lawmaker Stevens on bilateral partnership Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Kerala govt to disburse two months welfare pension from Aug 23 Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22 (PTI) The beneficiaries of social security and welfare fund pensions in Kerala will receive two instalments in August as an Onam gift, state Finance Minister K N Balagopal said on Friday. In an official release, Balagopal stated that Rs 1,679 crore has been allocated for the purpose. Around 62 lakh people will receive Rs 3,200 each, including one instalment of arrears. Recommended Stories The pension distribution will begin from August 23, with Rs 3,200 directly credited to the bank accounts of 26.62 lakh beneficiaries. For others, the pension will be delivered to their homes through cooperative banks. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Under the National Pension Scheme, the central government will pay the central share to 8.46 lakh beneficiaries. The state has also sanctioned Rs 48.42 crore in advance, which will be credited to recipients accounts via the central governments Public Financial Management System (PFMS), the release added. PTI MVG SSK First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:30 IST News agency-feeds Kerala govt to disburse two months welfare pension from Aug 23 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Punjab: LPG tanker catches fire in Hoshiarpur, 2 killed, several injured Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 01:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Hoshiarpur, Aug 22 (PTI) Two people died and several others were injured when an LPG tanker caught fire late Friday night on the Hoshiarpur-Jalandhar road, officials said. The blaze spread rapidly and engulfed nearly 15 shops and four to five residential houses in the vicinity of the Mandiala Adda area, said police. Recommended Stories The incident took place around 10 pm, they said. Deputy Commissioner Ashika Jain and Senior Superintendent of Police Sandeep Kumar Malik rushed to the spot and supervised rescue operations. Jain said preliminary inquiry suggested that the tanker caught fire after colliding with another vehicle. She said fire tenders and ambulances were immediately mobilised to the spot. The fire has largely been brought under control. A detailed assessment of the cause of the accident and the extent of damage will be made once the situation is fully stabilised," she added. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Civil Surgeon Pawan Kumar said two persons were brought dead to the Hoshiarpur Civil Hospital while 18 to 20 injured were admitted. Five to six patients with serious burn injuries have been referred to another medical institute," he said. PTI COR CHS SUN NB NB First Published: August 23, 2025, 01:00 IST News agency-feeds Punjab: LPG tanker catches fire in Hoshiarpur, 2 killed, several injured Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Putin sees light at end of tunnel in Russia-US ties Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 04:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Moscow, Aug 22 (PTI) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday voiced optimism about Russia-US ties, saying there was light at the end of the tunnel" in relations that have hit their lowest point in years, as the two sides explore cooperation on projects in the Arctic and Alaska. As for our relations with the United States, they are at an extremely low level. I have said this many times. Recommended Stories However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel now that President (Donald) Trump has come to power," Putin said in televised remarks during a meeting with nuclear industry workers in the town of Sarov, the birthplace of the Soviet atomic programme. Relations between Moscow and Washington have sharply deteriorated over issues ranging from the Ukraine conflict, NATOs eastward expansion, and sanctions against Russia. Putin said Russia and the US are discussing the possibility of working together in the Arctic and Alaska. We are discussing with our American partners the possibility of working together in this field, not only in our Arctic zone but also in Alaska," he said. Earlier, Putin had endorsed President Trumps claim after the Alaska Summit on Aug 15 that the Ukraine war would not have started if he had been in the White House. Ahead of the summit, the Russian president had told his aides that Trump was serious about seeking an end to the Ukraine crisis and that Moscow must work with his administration. Putin was speaking on the 80th anniversary of Russias nuclear industry during his visit to Sarov in the Volga region of Nizhny-Novgorod. The secret city, once known as Arzamas-16, was where the Soviet Union developed its first atomic and hydrogen bombs. It was also the place where renowned physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov was kept in internal exile until being freed by Mikhail Gorbachev during the Perestroika reforms. Stressing on the need to uphold Russias sovereignty, Putin said, There are countries that can easily exist without sovereignty. Today, the entire Western Europe has in fact no sovereignty. There are also many other countries that are okay about it. However, its not for Russia: if Russia loses sovereignty, it will cease to exist in this present form." He lauded the role of Russian nuclear scientists in creating the countrys nuclear shield, under which it achieved peaceful technological development. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The nuclear industry remains one of the most important areas for us," Putin said. He also identified Artificial Intelligence as the next major challenge for Russia, stressing the need for the country to stay at the forefront of advanced technologies built on AI. PTI VS SCY SCY SCY First Published: August 23, 2025, 04:00 IST News agency-feeds Putin sees light at end of tunnel in Russia-US ties Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Rajasthan CM calls for better facilities at historic, religious tourist sites Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 23:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Jaipur, Aug 22 (PTI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma on Friday directed officials to upgrade infrastructure at historic and religious tourist sites to attract more visitors and create local employment opportunities. Reviewing the Tourism and Art and Culture Departments projects, Sharma said Rajasthan is emerging as a leading state in tourism and stressed timely completion of works with regular monitoring, according to an official statement. Recommended Stories Development works must include inputs from public representatives and locals," he said. He asked for priority to be given to the restoration of stepwells, upgradation of museums and panoramas, and for guidelines to promote water and desert adventure activities. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all He also directed preparations for developing Pushkars Brahma Temple corridor, boosting rural tourism and creating a Tribal Tourist Circuit at Beneshwar Dham, Rameshwar Ghat and Begod Sangam. Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and senior officials attended the meeting. PTI AG KSS KSS First Published: August 22, 2025, 23:30 IST News agency-feeds Rajasthan CM calls for better facilities at historic, religious tourist sites Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... SC to hear plea against unverified public statements in Kerala nurse case Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea for directions to restrain persons, organisations and others from making unverified public statements" about the case of Indian nurse and murder accused Nimisha Priya who is on death row in Yemen. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta told the petitioner to serve a copy of the plea to the office of Attorney General R Venkataramani. Recommended Stories The bench issued notice on the plea and posted the matter for August 25. Petitioner K A Paul, who appeared in person, said he had received a shocking letter" from Priya and he was in Yemen for past several days. Her mother is taking care, why are you worried?" the bench asked Paul. The petitioner said the letter was signed by Priya and her mother. Both sides respect me as a peacemaker. Since 1992, I am going to Yemen. Problem there is the war. Problem there is that she was caught and she was a victim," he said. The petitioner said he had spoken to the victims family, the Houthis leadership and others over the issue. He claimed Priya has urged for legal intervention to enforce a complete media gag order in the case. He said at present, delicate negotiations were going on in the matter and some individuals were making false statements. The bench said the plea would be tagged with a similar pending petition filed by organisation Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, which is extending legal support to Priya. What more do you want? You can only get a notice and tagging with that matter which is pending here," the bench told the petitioner. The petitioner said there should be a complete gag order or let the government speak". The plea has sought a direction to the Centre to take immediate, coordinated diplomatic measures with Yemen to secure commutation of the death penalty into life imprisonment. Besides other directives, it has also sought a direction to the concerned authorities to move a competent court for a comprehensive, time-bound media gag order restraining all persons and others from publishing any unverified contents or statements without prior confirmation from authorised government agency involved in negotiations. On August 14, the top court was informed by the counsel for the petitioner organisation that there was no immediate threat" to Priya. The apex court was then hearing a separate plea seeking a direction to the Centre to use diplomatic channels to save the 38-year-old nurse from Palakkad in Kerala who was convicted of murdering her Yemeni business partner in 2017. The top court was apprised last month that Priyas execution, which was scheduled for July 16, had been stayed. On July 18, the Centre informed the top court that efforts were on and the government was trying everything possible to ensure Priya came out safely. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Priya was convicted in 2017, sentenced to death in 2020 and her final appeal was rejected in 2023. She is imprisoned in a jail in the Yemen capital Sanaa. PTI ABA ABA AMK AMK First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:30 IST News agency-feeds SC to hear plea against unverified public statements in Kerala nurse case Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On August 21, FAW Bestune Automobile and Jiangsu Yueda Group ("Yueda Group") signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Changchun, Jilin, signaling a new chapter in their partnership, according to a post on Yueda Group's WeChat account. Photo credit: Yueda Group The agreement lays out plans for both sides to build a long-term and stable partnership guided by mutual benefit and complementary strengths. Their collaboration will span equity investment, manufacturing, supply chain integration, research and development, and sales and service, with the shared goal of driving sustainable growth. During the signing ceremony, both companies engaged in detailed discussions on cooperation across the electric vehicle value chain, from R&D to production, supply, and sales. Yueda Group emphasized its commitment to strengthening capabilities in complete vehicle manufacturing, key components, and technology-driven services, aiming to reinforce its position within the broader automotive supply chain. This new step builds on Yueda Group's earlier investment in FAW Bestune. In September 2023, Yueda Group became a strategic investor during FAW Bestune's mixed-ownership reform. Although Yueda Group holds only about a 2% stake, its involvement has had a significant impact, helping FAW Bestune overcome challenges in branding, market access, and production. The partnership has already enabled a dual-base strategy for FAW Bestune in Changchun and Yancheng. Sri Lankas former president Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Colombo, Aug 22 (PTI) Sri Lankas former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday for allegedly misusing the state funds, police said. Wickremesinghe, 76, was arrested at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters, where he was summoned to record a statement in connection with an investigation into the alleged misuse of government funds, police said. Recommended Stories He has been accused of using state funds to travel to England to attend a convocation ceremony of his wife, Prof Maithree, in September 2023. It has been alleged that Wickremesinghe was returning from the US after an official engagement and visited the UK at the states expense to attend the private engagement of his wife. The CID had previously questioned his staff about the travel expenses. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Wickremesinghe, who had replaced Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the President to serve the balance term until the end of 2024, was credited with steering Sri Lanka out of the economic crisis of 2022. He was president from July 2022 to September 2024. The veteran politician also served as Sri Lankas prime minister six times. PTI CORR ZH ZH First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:30 IST News agency-feeds Sri Lankas former president Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump says Intel agreed to give US stake in its company Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 01:15 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Washington, Aug 22 (AP) President Donald Trump said that Intel has agreed to give the US government a 10 per cent stake in its business. Speaking with reporters on Friday, Trump said the deal came out of a meeting last week with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan which came days after the president called for Tan to resign over his past ties to China. Recommended Stories I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner," Trump said. He agreed, and theyve agreed to do it." The official announcement is expected to come later Friday, according to a White House official who was not authorised to speak publicly ahead of an announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. Whats happening? The Trump administration has been in talks to secure a 10 per cent stake in Intel in exchange for converting government grants that were pledged to Intel under President Joe Biden. If the deal is completed, the US government would become one of Intels largest shareholders and blur the traditional lines separating the public sector and private sector in a country that remains the worlds largest economy. Why would Trump do this? In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15 per cent commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses. Trumps interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the US, which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the countrys dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the US will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence. Didnt Trump want Intels CEO to quit? Thats what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tans past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the US in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an amazing story." Why would Intel do a deal? The company isnt commenting about the possibility of the US government becoming a major shareholder, but Intel may have little choice because it is currently dealing from a position of weakness. After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhones 2007 debut. Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly USD 19 billion last year and another USD 3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers, a 25 per cent reduction from the end of last year. Would this deal be unusual? Although rare, its not unprecedented for the US government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly USD 50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60 per cent stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly USD 10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. Would the government run Intel? US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intels business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administrations financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favour with the president to increase their orders for the companys chips. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all What government grants does Intel receive? Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administrations CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasnt been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program. The company has received about USD 2.2 billion of the USD 7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program money that Lutnick derided as a giveaway" that would better serve US taxpayers if its turned into Intel stock. We think America should get the benefit of the bar. (AP) GSP First Published: August 23, 2025, 01:15 IST News agency-feeds Trump says Intel agreed to give US stake in its company Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump turns $11.1B in US govt funds into 10% stake in downtrodden Intel Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 04:45 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Washington, Aug 23 (AP) President Donald Trump has announced that the US government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the companys CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job. The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future," Trump wrote in a social media post on Friday. Recommended Stories The US government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece a discount from Fridays closing price at $24.80. That spread means the US government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper. The remarkable turn of events makes the US government one of Intels largest shareholders at a time that the Santa Clara, California, company is in the process of jettisoning more than 20,000 workers as part of its latest attempt to bounce back from years of missteps taken under a variety of CEOs. Intels current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has only been on the job for slightly more than five months, an d earlier this month, it looked like he might be on shaky ground already after some lawmakers raised national security concerns about his past investments in Chinese companies while he was a venture capitalist. Trump latched on to those concerns in an August 7 post demanding that Tan resign. But Trump backed off after the Malaysian-born Tan professed his allegiance to the US in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, leading to a deal that now has the US government betting that the company is on the comeback trail after losing more than $22 billion since the end of 2023. Trump hailed Tan as highly respected" CEO in his Friday post. In a statement, Tan applauded Trump for driving historic investments in a vital industry" and resolved to reward his faith in Intel. We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance US technology and manufacturing leadership," Tan said. Intels current stock price is just slightly above where it was when Tan was hired in March and more than 60% below its peak of about $75 reached 25 years ago when its chips were still dominating the personal computer boom before being undercut by a shift to smartphones a few years later. The companys market value currently stands at about $108 billion a fraction of the current chip kingpin, Nvidia, which is valued at $4.3 trillion. The stake is coming primarily through US government grants to Intel through the CHIPS and Science Act that was started under President Joe Bidens administration as a way to foster more domestic manufacturing of computer chips to lessen the dependence on overseas factories. But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel. We think America should get the benefit of the bargain," US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week. Its obvious that its the right move to make." About $7.8 billion had been been pledged to Intel under the incentives program, but only $2.2 billion had been funded so far. Another $3.2 billion of the government investment is coming through the funds from another program called Secure Enclave". Although US government cant vote with its shares and wont have a seat on Intels board of directors, critics of the deal view it as a troubling cross-pollination between the public and private sectors that could hurt the tech industry in a variety of ways. For instance, more tech companies may feel pressured to buy potentially inferior chips from Intel to curry favour with Trump at a time that he is already waging a trade war that threatens to affect their products in a potential scenario cited by Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics for the Cato Institute. Overall, its a horrendous move that will have real harms for US companies, US tech leadership, and the US economy overall," Lincicome posted Friday. The 10% stake could also intensify the pressure already facing Tan, especially if Trump starts fixating on Intels stock price while resorting to his penchant for celebrating his past successes in business. Nancy Tengler, CEO of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, is among the investors who abandoned Intel years ago because of all the challenges facing Intel. I dont see the benefit to the American taxpayer, nor do I see the benefit, necessarily to the chip industry," Tengler said while also raising worries about Trump meddling in Intels business. I dont care how good of businessman you are, give it to the private sector and let people like me be the critic and let the government get to the business of government," Tengler said. Although rare, its not unprecedented for the US government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. The US governments stake in Intel coincides with Trumps push to bring production to the US, which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all By lessening the countrys dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the US will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence. Even before gaining the 10% stake in Intel, Trump had been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are powering the AI craze, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses. (AP) SCY SCY First Published: August 23, 2025, 04:45 IST News agency-feeds Trump turns $11.1B in US govt funds into 10% stake in downtrodden Intel Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... US court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against President Trump Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 04:45 IST Representational image (Image: News18) New York, Aug 22 (AP) A New York appeals court has thrown out President Donald Trumps massive financial penalty while narrowly upholding a judges finding that he engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. The Thursdays ruling spares Trump from a potential half-billion-dollar fine but bans him and his two eldest sons from serving in corporate leadership for a few years. Recommended Stories Trump, in a social media post, claimed total victory" in the case, which stemmed from a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State," the Republican wrote. James, a Democrat, focused on the parts of the decision that went her way, saying in a statement that it affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud." The ruling came seven months after Trump returned to the White House, his political fortunes unimpeded by the civil fraud judgment, a criminal conviction and other legal blows. A sharply divided panel of five judges in the states mid-level Appellate Division couldnt agree on many issues raised in Trumps appeal, but a majority said the monetary penalty was excessive". A lower-court judge, Arthur Engoron, had ordered Trump last year to pay $355 million in penalties after finding that he flagrantly padded financial statements provided to lenders and insurers. With interest, the sum has topped $515 million. Additional penalties for executives at his company, the Trump Organisation, including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr, have brought the total to $527 million with interest. While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award" to the state, Judges Dianne Renwick and Peter Moulton wrote in one of three opinions shaping the appeals courts ruling. They called the penalty an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution." Both were appointed by Democratic governors. Engorons other punishments, upheld by the appeals court, have been on pause during Trumps appeal, and the president was able to hold off collection of the money by posting a $175 million bond. Donald Trump Jr celebrated the decision by mocking James, who had periodically posted a running tally of the fraud penalty, with interest. Over a post from James in February 2024, when the tally was nearly $465 million, Trump Jr wrote: I believe you mean $0.00. Thank you for your attention to this matter." The five-judge panel, which split on the merits of the lawsuit and Engorons fraud finding, dismissed the monetary penalty in its entirety while also leaving a pathway for an appeal to the states highest court, the Court of Appeals. In the meantime, Trump and his co-defendants, the judges wrote, can seek to extend the pause to prevent any punishments from taking effect. While the Appellate Division dispatches most appeals in a few pages in a matter of weeks, the judges weighing Trumps case took nearly 11 months to rule after oral arguments last fall and issued 323 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions with no majority. Rather, some judges endorsed parts of their colleagues findings while denouncing others, enabling the court to rule. Two judges wrote that they felt James lawsuit was justifiable and that she had proven her case but the penalty was too severe. One wrote that James exceeded her legal authority in bringing the suit, saying that if any lenders felt cheated, they could have sued Trump themselves, and none did. Another wrote that Engoron erred by ruling before the trial that James had proven Trump engaged in fraud. In his portion of the ruling, Judge David Friedman, appointed by a Republican governor, was scathing in his criticism of James for bringing the lawsuit. Plainly, her ultimate goal was not market hygiene but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trumps political career and the destruction of his real estate business," Friedman wrote. The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business." Trump and his co-defendants denied wrongdoing. At the conclusion of the civil trial in January 2024, Trump said he was an innocent man" and the case was a fraud on me". The Republican leader has repeatedly maintained the case and the verdict were political moves by James and Engoron, both Democrats. Trumps Justice Department has subpoenaed James for records related to the lawsuit, among other documents, as part of an investigation into whether she violated the presidents civil rights. James personal attorney Abbe D Lowell has said investigating the fraud case is the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the presidents political retribution campaign". Trump and his lawyers said his financial statements werent deceptive, since they came with disclaimers noting they werent audited. The defence also noted bankers and insurers independently evaluated the numbers, and the loans were repaid. Despite such discrepancies as tripling the size of his Trump Tower penthouse, he said the financial statements were, if anything, lowball estimates of his fortune. During an appellate court hearing last September, Trumps lawyers argued that many of the cases allegations were too old and that James had misused a consumer protection law to sue Trump over private business transactions that were satisfactory to those involved. State attorneys said that while Trump insists no one was harmed by the financial statements, his exaggerations led lenders to make riskier loans and that honest borrowers lose out when others game their net worth numbers. The civil fraud case was just one of several legal obstacles for Trump as he campaigned, won and segued to a second term as president. On Jan 10, he was sentenced in his criminal hush money case to whats known as an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction on the books but sparing him jail, probation, a fine or other punishment. He is appealing the conviction. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all And in December, a federal appeals court upheld a jurys finding that Trump sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and later defamed her, affirming a $5 million judgment against him. The appeals court declined in June to reconsider. Trump still can try to get the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. Trump also is appealing a subsequent verdict that requires him to pay Carroll $83.3 million for additional defamation claims. (AP) SCY SCY First Published: August 22, 2025, 04:45 IST News agency-feeds US court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against President Trump Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... US extend TikTok ban deadline again, fourth delay Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 02:45 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Washington, DC [US], August 23 (ANI): US President Donald Trump said on Friday (local time) that he was open to a fourth extension of the deadline for when TikTok had to be separated from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the US, The New York Times reported.The popular short-form video app has until mid-September to find a new owner under a federal law that requires the company to change its ownership structure to resolve national security concerns. Thats after its deadline was extended first in January, then in April and later in June. The administration has very substantial American buyers" lined up to acquire the firm, Trump said on Friday, echoing comments that he had made in June. But, he said, a deal, which would require Chinas approval, may not be reached in time for the deadline next month, as per The New York Times.Congress approved a US ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second term with the next one coming up on Sept. 17.I havent spoken to President Xi about it at the right time, Ill do it," Trump said, referring to Chinas leader, Xi Jinping. In the meantime, until the complexity of things works out, we just extend a little bit longer. But we have buyers."The first extension was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban approved by Congress and upheld by the US Supreme Court took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trumps tariff announcement.The delays involving the law, which passed with broad bipartisan support and originally called for a sale by January, have raised serious questions about the limits of presidential power and the rule of law in the United States. Some legal experts opined to The New York Times that the actions represent an alarming expansion of presidential authority.Trump did not indicate who might be interested in buying TikTok, which has 170 million users in the United States. This year, officials in Washington had coalesced around a plan to bring on a group of new US investors that included private equity giants and venture capital firms.Another extension would clash with some recent comments from Trump administration officials, who have suggested taking a harder line on TikTok. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said last month that the app would go dark" if China did not approve a deal for TikTok.Lawmakers and intelligence officials have argued for years that TikTok poses a national security risk under Chinese ownership, because Beijing could use the app to seek sensitive data on Americans or to spread propaganda to advance its policy goals. TikTok has pushed back, saying it has safeguards in place to prevent such tampering.Trump made the comments on Friday at a museum run by the White House Historical Association.https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1957937708057211300Earlier, on August 20, the White House joined TikTok. (ANI) First Published: August 23, 2025, 02:45 IST News agency-feeds US extend TikTok ban deadline again, fourth delay Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... US Villanova University says report of campus shooter was cruel hoax Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 05:15 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Villanova (US), Aug 22 (AP) False reports of active shooters at Villanova University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have led to panic and temporary lockdowns at the two campuses as they kicked off their fall semesters. In Pennsylvania someone called 911 at about 4:30 pm Thursday reporting a shooter in a Villanova law school building with at least one wounded victim. Recommended Stories Students received texts from the schools alert system saying ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors." The schools president later said it was a hoax. Today, as we are celebrating Orientation Mass to welcome our newest Villanovans and their families to our community, panic and terror ensued," the Rev Peter M Donohue said in a statement. Mercifully, no one was injured and we now know it was a cruel hoax." About four hours earlier, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga locked down its campus, telling students: Possible active shooter in the University Centre or Library. Run. Hide. Fight. More info forthcoming." After multiple law enforcement agencies including the FBI plus local fire and emergency crews responded, the lockdown was lifted less than an hour later. School officials said there was no evidence of any threat. At Villanova, where new student orientation was underway and classes begin next week, the initial report sent police scouring the campus and even had some law enforcement officials suggesting they believed there was a shooter. Hes in one of these buildings. Law enforcement for the entire tri-state area is here. And we are going door to door, room to room if we have to, to take this situation under control and to make this campus safe," Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told WPVI-TV. At a news conference later, Stollsteimer said authorities will conduct a full investigation. If this was indeed a cruel hoax, this is a crime," he said. This is every parents nightmare, right? Youre sending your kid off to college, sometimes for their first day, and you get an alert that there could be a shooter on the campus," he said. Courtenay Harris Bond was walking near the law school with her husband and son, a freshman, when word spread of the supposed shooting. Really tough way to start freshman year at college," she said shortly after being given the all-clear to leave the bookstore where the family spent the lockdown. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Villanova is a private Catholic university in the Philadelphia suburbs. It borders Lower Merion Township and Radnor Township at the centre of the citys wealthy Main Line neighbourhoods. The Augustinian school got extra attention this year as the alma mater of new Pope Leo XIV. (AP) SCY First Published: August 22, 2025, 05:15 IST News agency-feeds US Villanova University says report of campus shooter was cruel hoax Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Car Prices May Drop By Rs 36,000, Heres How GST Reform Will Change Buying In 2025 Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:04 IST The GST Councils Group of Ministers (GoM) has proposed a major reformremoving the 12% and 28% slabs and retaining only two rates: 5% and 18%. (Image for representative purposes) This festive season, the Indian automobile industry is set for a major price drop. Recommended Stories The Group of Ministers (GoM) formed by the GST Council has approved a tax rationalisation plan that will lower the GST rates on vehicles, as per Money Control. What Is GST on Cars? GST (Goods and Services Tax) is a single tax that replaced excise duty, VAT and other levies. Cars fall under GST without exemptions, except for vehicles designed for the physically disabled. Used cars from unregistered dealers are also outside its scope. Currently, most cars attract a 28 percent GST, plus a compensation cess of up to 22 percent depending on size and engine capacity. Small petrol cars pay about 29 percent, while SUVs are taxed up to 50 percent. Electric vehicles stand out with the lowest rate of just 5 percent, encouraging green mobility, as per Clear. Whats Changing in 2025? The GST Councils Group of Ministers (GoM) has proposed a major reformremoving the 12 percent and 28 percent slabs and retaining only two rates: 5 percent and 18 percent. If approved, this would mean: All ICE passenger cars, including small cars and two-wheelers, would move from 28 percent to 18 percent GST. Luxury vehicles may shift to a separate 40 percent slab with cess adjustments. EVs will continue to enjoy the 5 percent slab. This reduction is expected to directly bring down ex-showroom prices, which in turn lowers the overall on-road price. How Will Car Prices Be Impacted? According to industry estimates: Entry-level cars could become cheaper by Rs 30,000 Rs 36,000. Two-wheelers may see a price drop of around Rs 6,000 Rs 7,000. Mid-sized cars could see moderate relief, while luxury cars might not benefit as much if a 40 percent slab is introduced. In a price-sensitive market like India, these cuts could spur demand, making cars more affordable for first-time buyers. What Are the Benefits of GST for the Automobile Sector? Consumers: Lower overall tax burden and more predictable car prices. Dealers & Importers: Ability to claim input tax credit on taxes already paid, reducing overheads. Manufacturers: Lower manufacturing costs as excise duty is merged into GST, and credits can be claimed on raw materials. Why Is This Reform Important? Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, called the reform a double Diwali gift" for the people. He highlighted that the new GST structure will reduce the burden on the middle class, help small businesses, and make essential items cheaper. For the automobile sector, which thrives on affordability, this change could boost sales significantly, especially for entry-level cars and two-wheelers. Who Will Benefit the Most? Mass carmakers like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors are expected to gain the most as they sell high volumes of small cars. In the two-wheeler segment, Hero MotoCorp, Honda, TVS and Bajaj will see strong benefits thanks to their popular scooter and motorcycle models. What Issues Still Remain? Despite the benefits, challenges continue. One key concern is the bundling of vehicles with accessories, insurance, extended warranty, and service packages. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Under GST law, these may need to be treated as a composite supply" with the vehicle being the primary product, but grey areas remain. Ambiguity in classification could lead to disputes and litigation. About the Author Samreen Pall Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. Get the latest updates on car and bike launches in India including reviews, prices, specs, and performance. Stay informed with breaking auto industry news , EV policies, and more. You can also download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:04 IST News auto Car Prices May Drop By Rs 36,000, Heres How GST Reform Will Change Buying In 2025 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Do Soldiers Really Travel Free On Highways? Heres What The Rules Actually Say Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 09:53 IST Toll tax is a fee collected for using interstate expressways, bridges, tunnels, and national or state highways. If a soldier is travelling in their personal vehicle, they are required to pay toll tax just like any other citizen. (Representational Image) Many people believe that all soldiers automatically avoid paying toll tax as a mark of respect. Recommended Stories The reality is different. Only soldiers on duty and travelling in government vehicles are eligible for exemptions. Those in personal vehicles, or travelling off duty, must pay toll like any ordinary citizen. Who gets the toll exemption? According to the Indian Tolls (Army and Air Force) Act, 1901, soldiers on official duty do not have to pay toll tax. But the exemption is not automatic. Toll plaza staff may ask soldiers to produce official documents proving that the journey is work-related. What documents are required? To claim a toll exemption, soldiers must carry: Duty Order or Transit Pass Unit Authorisation Letter Valid Army ID If these documents are in order and the trip is official, the toll tax is waived. Retired soldiers, however, do not receive any exemption, even if many people request it as a courtesy. What about private vehicles? Soldiers travelling in their personal cars, bikes, or other vehicles must pay tolls if they are not on official duty. Showing an army ID alone will not grant any exemption. This is clearly stated in the National Highways Fee Rules, 2008. What is toll tax and why is it charged? top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Toll tax is a fee charged for using highways, bridges, tunnels, or expressways. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) oversees toll collection, sets rules, and manages exemptions. The system ensures roads are maintained and improved for safer travel. About the Author Samreen Pall Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. Get the latest updates on car and bike launches in India including reviews, prices, specs, and performance. Stay informed with breaking auto industry news , EV policies, and more. You can also download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 09:53 IST News auto Do Soldiers Really Travel Free On Highways? Heres What The Rules Actually Say Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Pune Metro Expansion Gets Green Signal With Revised Cost Plan, Know More Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:11 IST Along with the extension, two new stations Balajinagar and Bibwewadi will be added on the SwargateKatraj underground route. The line will now stretch westward to Chandni Chowk and eastward to Wagholi, bringing relief to thousands of daily commuters.(Photo Credits: X/Pune Metro) The Maharashtra state government has approved the revised cost for extending the Vanaz-Ramwadi Metro line further west to Chandni Chowk and east to Wagholi. Recommended Stories This long-awaited project, which had faced multiple delays, is now ready to move forward. Alongside, two additional stations Balajinagar and Bibwewadi have also been cleared on the proposed underground Swargate-Katraj route. As per Hindustan Times, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, expressed his gratitude, calling it a big step towards easing Punes travel woes. How Much Will It Cost? The revised project cost is pegged at Rs 3,626.24 crore, which is lower than the earlier estimate of Rs 3,756.58 crore. The funding will be shared in the following way: State and Centre: Rs 479.71 crore each Loans: Around Rs 1,867 crore through bilateral and multilateral agencies PMC: Rs 24 lakh contribution State loan: Rs 656 crore as interest-free support for land acquisition and rehabilitation Officials said the cost reduction was achieved without cutting back on key infrastructure. Who Will Execute the Project? Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MahaMetro) will carry out the work. The project will include modern facilities such as signalling, rolling stock, platform screen doors, cyber security measures, and smooth integration with other modes of transport. Why Does This Matter to Pune? A senior MahaMetro official highlighted that the extension to Chandni Chowk and Wagholi will greatly benefit daily commuters by reducing congestion and offering a cleaner, faster travel option. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The expansion is expected to ease traffic pressure on the citys busy roads while encouraging more people to shift from private vehicles to public transport. About the Author Samreen Pall Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Get the latest updates on car and bike launches in India including reviews, prices, specs, and performance. Stay informed with breaking auto industry news , EV policies, and more. You can also download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:11 IST News auto Pune Metro Expansion Gets Green Signal With Revised Cost Plan, Know More Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Still Holding Private Vehicles Older Than 20 Years? New Rules Double Registration Renewal Cost Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 16:12 IST The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) notification states renewal fees for light motor vehicles (LMVs) older than 20 years have doubled to Rs 10,000, up from Rs 5,000. The last hike came in October 2021 under the vehicle scrappage policy, covering two- and three-wheelers, quadricycles, and LMVs. (PTI Image) With the Central Motor Vehicles (Third Amendment) Rules, 2025, renewing registration for vehicles older than 20 years has become nearly twice as expensive across all categories. The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) notification states that renewal fees for light motor vehicles (LMVs) older than 20 years have doubled to Rs 10,000, up from Rs 5,000. The draft amendment was issued in February and finalised on August 21, marking the first official update to specifically list fees for vehicles older than 20 years, as earlier rules focused on those over 15 years. Recommended Stories The last hike came in October 2021 under the vehicle scrappage policy, covering two- and three-wheelers, quadricycles, and LMVs. Now, for motorcycles older than 20 years, the renewal of certificate of registration will cost Rs 2,000 up from Rs 1,000 so far. For three-wheelers and quadricycles, the cost is Rs 5,000, up from Rs 3,500. For imported two- or three-wheelers, the cost is Rs 20,000; for imported vehicles with four or more wheels, it is Rs 80,000. As of 2021 rules, the registration for 15-year-old imported motorbikes and cars were Rs 10,000 and Rs 40,000, respectively. For any other vehicle not mentioned in the list, the cost will be Rs 12,000. The new amendment can be seen in light of the broader vehicle scrappage policy. Speaking to News18, a Ministry official said that the revisions are needed as the government is trying to keep older and more polluting vehicles off the road and pushing for vehicles that are fuel-efficient or electric options. The government is discouraging use of vehicles manufactured before the introduction of BS-II emission norms," they said, demanding anonymity. What does it mean for Delhi-NCR? The amendment came just days after the Supreme Court barred authorities from taking coercive action against owners of petrol vehicles over 15 years old and diesel ones over 10 years old in Delhi-NCR. The order brought relief after the Delhi government briefly barred fuel refilling for such vehicles in July. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Restrictions on ageing vehicles in NCR date back a decade. The National Green Tribunal banned 15-year-old vehicles in 2014, followed by a 2015 order prohibiting diesel vehicles over 10 years. In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the end-of-life ban, defining such vehicles as those unfit or deregistered by automated fitness centres or through court orders. For owners still holding on to ageing vehicles, the choice is clear: pay steeply higher renewal costs, or consider scrappage and cleaner alternatives. About the Author Nivedita Singh Nivedita Singh is a data journalist and covers the Election Commission, Indian Railways and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. She has nearly seven years of experience in the news media. She tweets @nived... Read More Nivedita Singh is a data journalist and covers the Election Commission, Indian Railways and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. She has nearly seven years of experience in the news media. She tweets @nived... Read More Get the latest updates on car and bike launches in India including reviews, prices, specs, and performance. Stay informed with breaking auto industry news , EV policies, and more. You can also download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 15:44 IST News auto Still Holding Private Vehicles Older Than 20 Years? New Rules Double Registration Renewal Cost Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On August 16, Great Wall Motor (GMW) officially opened its manufacturing facility in Brazil. At the inauguration, a heavy-duty hydrogen truck made its debut. The vehicle is equipped with the proprietary fuel-cell system supplied by GWM HYDROGEN-FTXT ("FTXT"), a Chinese high-tech company focused on the field of hydrogen energy. In addition, the heavy-duty hydrogen truck is set to undergo road trials in collaboration with the University of Sao Paulo (USP) and other local partners, testing performance in real-world driving scenarios, according to a post via FTXT's WeChat account. Photo credit: FTXT The trials will be conducted in stages, with FTXT engineers, GMW's product development teams, and USP academics working side by side. Their focus spans three fronts: evaluating how the hydrogen systems handle Brazil's demanding geography and climate, and tracking performance across variables such as heat, altitude, road quality and diverse road surfaces, to better understand how these factors influence efficiency and long-term reliability; assessing compatibility with different hydrogen sources such as green hydrogen and hydrogen from ethanol reforming, as well as adapting hydrogen truck technology to local energy resources, freight transport patterns and current infrastructure networks; analyzing real-world driving behavior in Brazil by compiling data on local habits behind the wheel, in order to pinpoint where the technology can be fine-tuned, optimize the trucks for regional use and build a stronger case for the eventual commercialization. Photo credit: FTXT Beyond performance evaluation, the program is designed to foster technology transfer through university-industry collaboration, strengthening Brazil's domestic hydrogen research capabilities and laying the groundwork for local commercialization. The initiative traces back to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2023 between GWM and the Sao Paulo state government, aiming to evaluate hydrogen applications in Brazil. By 2024, GWM had already identified five hydrogen refueling projects in advanced stages, creating the infrastructure backbone for the upcoming trials. In November 2024, FTXT also signed an agreement with the state government of Minas Gerais and the Federal University of Itajuba (UNIFEI) to jointly advance green hydrogen truck development. The collaboration covers hydrogen supply from the university, technical knowledge sharing, and the establishment of additional refueling infrastructure, further expanding Brazil's regional hydrogen ecosystem. As the clean-energy arm of GWM, FTXT has been aligning with GWM's broader "ecosystem export" strategy abroad, while building a strong foothold at home. The hydrogen truck trials in Brazil mark a concrete step in that direction, showcasing how FTXT is leveraging GWM's international footprint to bring Chinese-developed hydrogen technologies closer to large-scale application overseas. Brazilian authorities have listed the project among key initiatives supporting the country's energy transition. Its approval signals that Chinese hydrogen truck technology is entering substantive deployment in South America, while also offering a new platform for closer cooperation between China and Brazil in sustainable transport. At the same time, FTXT is advancing projects with Brazilian partners in areas such as hydrogen-powered shipping, and combined heat and power systems. These efforts are intended to extend hydrogen adoption beyond vehicles to a full industrial chain covering hydrogen production, storage, distribution and usage. Such expansion could help Brazil build a coordinated "transport plus energy" ecosystem while positioning Chinese technology as a reference point for global hydrogen deployment. Western Lucknow To Gomti Nagar In 20 Minutes? This New Flyover Could Make It Reality Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 09:09 IST The Uttar Pradesh State Bridge Corporation has proposed a 13-kilometre, four-lane elevated flyover over the Haider Canal. The project aims to bridge the mobility gap between western and central Lucknow.(Photo: Knocksense) Uttar Pradesh State Bridge Corporation has proposed a 13-kilometre, four-lane elevated flyover to connect Dr. Shakuntala Devi Mishra University on Agra Road with Kalidas Marg. Recommended Stories Once completed, officials claim the flyover could slash travel time between these points from over an hour during peak times to just 1520 minutes, as per Hindustan Times. Why Is This Needed? Western Lucknow, especially older areas like Rajajipuram, Talkatora, and Alambagh, suffers from narrow roads, heavy congestion, and frequent traffic bottlenecks. Central zones such as Hazratganj, Gomti Nagar, and Cantt face similar pressure. This project aims to provide an alternative route, easing the strain on overburdened roads like Charbagh and Cantt. How Will It Help Residents? The flyover is expected to make daily commutes faster and smoother. Roads like Balaganj Road, Para, Hardoi Road, and Rajajipuram will see reduced traffic congestion. Better connectivity could also mean easier access to commercial hubs, saving fuel, cutting vehicle emissions, and improving air quality. Economic Impact: What Changes Can Be Expected? With improved access to markets and business centres, localities along the corridor may experience increased footfall, higher real estate values, and better investment opportunities. The project could revitalise areas previously considered difficult to reach, boosting the citys economic growth. Whats the Current Status? The proposal is awaiting final government approval. Two years ago, a similar three-lane, 8 km elevated road was planned with a Rs 778-crore budget but never progressed beyond initial planning. If greenlit, this flyover could become one of Lucknows most significant infrastructure developments in recent times, reshaping mobility across the city. When Can We Expect Results? top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all While construction timelines are yet to be announced, the project promises a future where travelling across western and central Lucknow could be faster, cleaner, and far more convenient, marking a transformative leap for the citys infrastructure. About the Author Samreen Pall Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: 'Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.' This motto c... Read More Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. Get the latest updates on car and bike launches in India including reviews, prices, specs, and performance. Stay informed with breaking auto industry news , EV policies, and more. You can also download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 09:09 IST News auto Western Lucknow To Gomti Nagar In 20 Minutes? This New Flyover Could Make It Reality Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... RBI Names Indranil Bhattacharyya As MPC Member, Succeeding Rajiv Ranjan Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 17:23 IST Indranil Bhattacharyya, who recently took charge as ED of the RBI's Monetary Policy Department, will join the six-member MPC for its upcoming meeting during September 29-October 1. Indranil Bhattacharyya. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday approved the nomination of Executive Director Indranil Bhattacharyya as an ex officio member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He replaces Rajiv Ranjan, who is retiring ahead of the October policy review. Bhattacharyya, who recently took charge as Executive Director of the RBIs Monetary Policy Department, will join the six-member MPC for its upcoming meeting scheduled between September 29 and October 1. The decision was taken during the 618th meeting of the RBIs Central Board of Directors in Lucknow, chaired by Governor Sanjay Malhotra. Recommended Stories Who is Indranil Bhattacharyya? With more than 28 years in central banking, Bhattacharyya has spent a major part of his career working on monetary policy. He joined the RBI as Executive Director of the Department of Economic and Policy Research in March this year before moving to the Monetary Policy Department. Between 2009 and 2014, he served as an economic expert at the Qatar Central Bank in Doha. An alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, he holds a postgraduate degree in economics. His areas of expertise include monetary economics, monetary policy, and financial market analysis, and he has authored several research papers in Indian and international journals. RBI Board Reviews Economic Situation top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In addition to Bhattacharyyas nomination, the Board reviewed the global and domestic economic environment, taking stock of geopolitical and financial market developments and their implications. It also assessed the functioning of select Central Office Departments of the RBI. Deputy Governors Rajeshwar Rao, T Rabi Sankar, Swaminathan J, Dr Poonam Gupta, and other Directors of the Central Board attended the meeting. About the Author Mohammad Haris Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris h... Read More Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris h... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 17:23 IST News business RBI Names Indranil Bhattacharyya As MPC Member, Succeeding Rajiv Ranjan Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Income Tax Act 2025 Gets President's Assent: Centre Notifies New Rules To Replace 1961 Law Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:22 IST The new Act removes redundant provisions and archaic language and cuts the number of Sections from 819 in the Income Tax Act, 1961, to 536 and the number of chapters from 47 to 23. Income Tax Act, 2025. The central government on Friday notified the Income Tax Act, 2025, in the Official Gazette. It comes a day after the President gave assent to the Act on Thursday. The Act, which will come into effect from April 1, 2026, consolidates and amends the existing Income Tax Act, 1961. The Income-tax Act, 2025 has received the Honble Presidents assent on 21st Aug 2025. A landmark reform replacing the 1961 Act, it ushers in a simpler, transparent & compliance-friendly direct tax regime. Access the official document here: https://egazette.gov.in/(S(p0hzyo3qrxli3juyloktgdrv))/ViewPDF.aspx," Income Tax India said in a post on X on August 22. Recommended Stories The Act was passed by Parliament in the just-concluded monsoon session. The Income-tax Act, 2025 has received the Honble Presidents assent on 21st Aug 2025.A landmark reform replacing the 1961 Act, it ushers in a simpler, transparent & compliance-friendly direct tax regime. Access the official document here: https://t.co/wOPk1PFQbP pic.twitter.com/Xw84hzpPb3 Income Tax India (@IncomeTaxIndia) August 22, 2025 The new Act removes redundant provisions and archaic language and reduces the number of Sections from 819 in the Income Tax Act of 1961 to 536 and the number of chapters from 47 to 23. The number of words had been reduced from 5.12 lakh to 2.6 lakh in the new Income Tax Bill, and for the first time, it introduces 39 new tables and 40 new formulas, replacing the dense text of the 1961 law to enhance clarity. As the new law will come into force from April 1, 2026, the computer systems of the Income Tax department are required to be rebooted to operationalise the new legislation. The new Income Tax Bill was drafted within a record time of six months and introduced in the Budget session in February 2025. It was referred to the Select Committee for a comprehensive study of the Bill. Subsequently, in order to incorporate the suggestions made by the Committee, the Bill (No.1) was withdrawn and a fresh Bill (No.2) was introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament. While presenting the revised Bill in Lok Sabha on August 11, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government had accepted almost all of the recommendations of the Select Committee", along with suggestions from stakeholders to ensure the laws intent is conveyed more accurately". There are corrections in the nature of drafting, alignment of phrases, consequential changes and cross-referencing. Therefore, a decision has been taken by the government to withdraw the Income Tax Bill, 2025, as reported by the Select Committee. Consequently, Income-tax (No. 2) Bill, 2025, has been prepared to replace the Income-tax Act, 1961," according to the statement of objects and reasons. Key Changes Proposed By The Committee Tax refunds Removal of the provision that denied income-tax refunds if returns were filed after the due date. The withdrawn version required taxpayers to file ITRs within the due date to claim a refund (Section 433). The revised Bill ensures refunds can still be claimed even if the ITR is filed late. Inter-corporate dividends Restoration of Section 80M deduction (Clause 148) for inter-corporate dividends for companies availing the special tax rate under Section 115BAA. This provision had been missed in the earlier draft. Nil TDS certificate Taxpayers will be allowed to avail of Nil TDS certificates, enabling no tax deduction at source under certain conditions. Exemption on anonymous donations Anonymous donations to purely religious trusts will be exempt from tax. The exemption will not apply to trusts that are both religious and engaged in social services such as running hospitals or schools. Digital-first tax process The new Bill aims to make the tax process more digital, automated, and faceless, to enhance convenience and minimise the scope for corruption. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Clarification on capital gains tax rumours Reports last month suggested that the new Bill might change capital gains tax rates. The Income Tax Department denied this in a post on X, stating that the Bills objective is language simplification and removal of redundant or obsolete provisions, not altering tax rates. About the Author Mohammad Haris Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris h... Read More Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris h... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 18:19 IST News business tax Income Tax Act 2025 Gets President's Assent: Centre Notifies New Rules To Replace 1961 Law Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Bengaluru Traffic Police Offers 50% Discount On Pending Challans: How To Pay Fines, Last Date Curated By : Trending Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:18 IST The Bengaluru Traffic Police have announced a 50 per cent discount on all pending traffic fines between August 23 and September 12. The scheme will help motorists clear dues and avoid trouble. (PTI Image) The Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) has announced a special scheme allowing motorists to clear their pending traffic fines at half the original amount. The discount will be available for a limited time, from August 23 to September 12, this year. According to the Economic Times, officials said the move is aimed at helping citizens clear old dues without facing legal consequences, while also improving overall traffic compliance in the city. Recommended Stories Over the years, traffic fines have piled up for lakhs of vehicles in Bengaluru, and many motorists have delayed payments due to the high amounts. With this discount, the police hope to encourage more people to settle their challans quickly. In earlier drives of this kind, the response from citizens was overwhelming, with huge amounts recovered in just a few weeks. Motorists Can Pay Fines Through Online and Offline Options Residents can make use of multiple channels to pay their pending fines during this discount window. Payments can be done through the Karnataka State Police (KSP) app or the BTP ASTraM app, which was introduced specifically for traffic fine management. Those who prefer offline options can visit the nearest traffic police station or the Traffic Management Centre. Payments are also accepted on the official Karnataka One and Bangalore One portals. To check if there are any outstanding challans against their vehicle, motorists simply need to enter their registration number on these platforms. Authorities have advised citizens not to wait until the last date, as the discount scheme will end on September 12. The Discount Scheme is Not New to Bengaluru This is not the first time Bengaluru Traffic Police has rolled out such a drive. In 2023, a similar 50 per cent discount was offered, which resulted in the clearance of over 2 lakh traffic violations. As per The Economic Times, the drive also helped the police recover more than Rs 5.6 crore in fines. The success of that initiative has encouraged the authorities to bring back the scheme this year as part of their efforts to streamline payments and reduce the backlog of unpaid fines. Officials also reportedly said that giving multiple payment options makes it easier for citizens to participate and ensures better compliance. By offering discounts instead of resorting to strict penalties, the police believe they can build cooperation with the public and improve road discipline in the long run. Citizens Are Encouraged To Take Advantage Before The Deadline top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Motorists who have pending challans should make use of this opportunity to settle their dues at a reduced cost. With just a few weeks available under the scheme, citizens are urged to check their records, pay their fines promptly, and avoid complications later. The initiative is not just about clearing old fines but also about promoting a culture of timely payments and responsible driving in Bengaluru. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:18 IST News bengaluru-news Bengaluru Traffic Police Offers 50% Discount On Pending Challans: How To Pay Fines, Last Date Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Bomb Threat In Delhi Schools Continues, Fourth Such Incident This Week Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 08:39 IST Today's bomb threat in a Delhi school is the fourth such incident in five days, as spate of such threats to the schools in the city continues. Delhi school bomb threat (Pexels/Representative Image) A bomb threat was received by a school in the national capital via email, in what turned out to be the fourth such incident in five days, officials said on Friday. The information regarding the bomb threat was received by the Delhi Fire Service at 7 am, prompting the police and fire department teams to rush to the spot, where they are carrying out search operations, officials added. Recommended Stories Earlier on Thursday, at least six schools in the city had received bomb threats through email, including in Andhra School in Prasad Nagar, BGS International School, Rao Man Singh School, Convent School, Max Fort School, and Indraprastha International School, Dwarka. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all On Monday, 32 schools across the city had received similar threats; however, they turned out to be hoaxes. Two days later, on Wednesday, nearly 50 schools in Delhi received bomb threats again through email. After searches, the cops declared them a hoax". About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 08:21 IST News cities Bomb Threat In Delhi Schools Continues, Fourth Such Incident This Week Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Bappa Bonanza: Early Salaries, Toll-Free Travel & Mandal Visits Till Midnight In Maharashtra Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:49 IST Bappa Bonanza: Salaries of state government staff, Zilla Parishad employees, aided educational institutions will be credited on August 26 An artist gives finishing touches to an idol of Lord Ganesha ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi festival, in Karad, Maharashtra. (PTI) As Maharashtra prepares to welcome Lord Ganesha with devotion and grandeur, the state government has announced a series of decisions that will add to the celebratory mood. Ganesh Chaturthi (Ganeshotsav) will be celebrated from August 27 to September 6 (Anant Chaturdashi). In a move welcomed by government employees and pensioners, the government has decided to release August salaries five days in advance. Instead of the usual September 1, salaries will be credited on August 26. The decision covers state government staff, Zilla Parishad employees, aided educational institutions, university staff, and pensioners, ensuring that lakhs of households across the state can celebrate the festival without financial stress. Recommended Stories Ganeshotsav is one of the most celebrated festivals in Maharashtra, where families and communities come together for prayers, decorations, sweets, and cultural events. Naturally, the festival brings additional expenses, and the governments decision to advance salaries will provide timely financial support. For many families, this means they can focus on welcoming Lord Ganesha with joy and devotion rather than worrying about expenses. The festive spirit is already doubling with this thoughtful gesture. Adding to the celebrations, tourism minister Shambhuraj Desai has announced that Ganesh mandals will be allowed to showcase their artistic displays and decorations until midnight during the last five days of the festival. This extension will allow devotees to fully enjoy the beauty of mandap decorations and cultural programs, further enriching the festive experience. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In another major relief, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has declared toll-free travel for vehicles heading to Konkan during the Ganeshotsav season. Between August 23 and September 8, vehicles and ST buses traveling on the Mumbai-Goa and Mumbai-Bengaluru highways, as well as other key state roads, will be exempted from toll charges. A special Ganeshotsav 2025 Konkan Darshan pass will be issued for smooth travel. With early salaries, extended mandal hours, and toll-free journeys, this Ganeshotsav is set to be more vibrant, convenient, and joyous for every Maharashtrian family. About the Author Mayuresh Ganapatye Mayuresh Ganapatye, News Editor at News18.com, writes on politics and civic issues, as well as human interests stories. He has been covering Maharashtra and Goa for more than a decade. Follow him at @mayuganapa... Read More Mayuresh Ganapatye, News Editor at News18.com, writes on politics and civic issues, as well as human interests stories. He has been covering Maharashtra and Goa for more than a decade. Follow him at @mayuganapa... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:48 IST News cities mumbai-news Bappa Bonanza: Early Salaries, Toll-Free Travel & Mandal Visits Till Midnight In Maharashtra Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Travelling To Konkan For Ganesh Chaturthi? Check Toll Exemption, Routes, Heavy Vehicle Restrictions Curated By : Trending Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 17:00 IST Devotees heading to Konkan for Ganesh Chaturthi will get toll-free travel on key highways, along with restrictions on heavy vehicles to ensure smooth journeys. Essential goods vehicles are exempt from the heavy vehicle ban. (Photo Credit: X) Devotees travelling to Konkan for Ganesh Chaturthi this year have a reason to rejoice. The Maharashtra government has announced toll-free travel on key highways from tomorrow, August 23, to September 8, making it easier for people to visit the festival destinations without worrying about extra charges. This applies to the Mumbai-Bengaluru National Highway, Mumbai-Goa National Highway, and other roads managed by PWD and MSRDC. Recommended Stories To use this benefit, devotees need a special pass called Ganeshotsav 2025 Konkan Darshan," which will include the vehicle and owner details. According to Pune Plus, passes will be issued by Regional Transport Offices (RTOs), police departments, and traffic authorities, and they are valid for both onward and return journeys. Authorities have promised smooth distribution of passes and proper coordination between urban and rural police for hassle-free travel. Heavy vehicles will not be allowed on the Mumbai-Goa Highway during key festival days to ease traffic Anticipating heavy traffic during Ganesh Chaturthi, authorities have banned trucks, trailers, lorries, and multi-axle vehicles on the Mumbai-Goa highway during certain periods. As per Hindustan Times, the ban will apply from midnight on August 23 to 11 PM on August 28, covering the arrival of idols, and again on August 31 and September 2 for five-day and seven-day idol immersions. A third ban will be in place from 8 AM on September 6 to 8 PM on September 7 for Anant Chaturdashi, the festivals final day, the publication adds. Essential goods and port traffic will be exempt from the heavy vehicle ban Reportedly, vehicles carrying essentials like milk, fuel, LPG, medicines, food grains, vegetables, or other perishable items will be allowed. Similarly, vehicles transporting goods from JNPT and Jaigad ports, as well as materials for road work along the highway, are exempt. Transporters must get entry permits from the transport department or highway police before operating during the restricted periods. The move aims to prevent traffic jams and ensure the safety of millions of devotees top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Officials reportedly explained that the restrictions are necessary to avoid congestion and accidents on the narrow and busy Mumbai-Goa Highway (NH 66), which sees a massive rush of travellers during the festival. This step, combined with toll-free travel, is expected to make journeys safer, faster, and more comfortable for everyone heading to Konkan. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 16:42 IST News mumbai-news Travelling To Konkan For Ganesh Chaturthi? Check Toll Exemption, Routes, Heavy Vehicle Restrictions Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Police Reached To Control Clash, Attacked With Sticks, Chilli Powder In Rajasthan Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 08:19 IST A purported video of the incident has also emerged, which shows a policeman being struck on the head with a stick by a villager. Image used for representation A team of police officers was attacked when they reached the area in Rajasthans Pratapgarh district upon receiving information about a clash. The villagers assaulted the officials with sticks and threw chilli powder in their eyes. The incident took place in Diwala village, located in the Kotdi area. Violence erupted in the area between two groups days after the demise of a youth, according to Superintendent of Police B Aditya. Recommended Stories A purported video of the incident has also emerged, which shows a policeman being struck on the head with a stick by a villager, while another officer is seen fleeing after sustaining injuries. The deceaseds family members believed the other group was responsible. On the day of the 12th-day ritual, relatives gathered and set fire to the house of the rival group. When the police reached the spot, they were attacked with lathis, stones, and chilli powder," said the officer. Police stated that six officers were dispatched to the village following an alert from the control room. Upon arrival, their vehicles were damaged, and they came under attack. The injured personnel were initially taken to Arnod Hospital, with two constables later referred to the district hospital for further treatment. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all According to the Superintendent of Police, nine individuals have been detained in connection with the incident, and the situation in the area is currently stable. Police have been deployed in strength at the location. Strict action will be taken against the attackers, and an investigation is underway," the official informed. About the Author Anushka Vats Anushka Vats is a Sub-Editor at News18.com with a passion for storytelling and a curiosity that extends beyond the newsroom. She covers both national and international news. For more stories, you can follow her... Read More Anushka Vats is a Sub-Editor at News18.com with a passion for storytelling and a curiosity that extends beyond the newsroom. She covers both national and international news. For more stories, you can follow her... Read More Location : Rajasthan, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 08:11 IST News cities Police Reached To Control Clash, Attacked With Sticks, Chilli Powder In Rajasthan Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... CBSE Sets Up New Regional, Sub-Regional Offices And Centres Of Excellence Across 7 Cities Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:56 IST According to the notice, the Regional Offices, CoEs, and Sub-Regional Offices are located in Gurugram, Lucknow, Raipur, Ranchi, Agartala, Itanagar, and Gangtok. The CBSE notice also provided detailed addresses and the dates when they will become operational. (File Photo) The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has established regional, sub-regional offices, and Centres of Excellence in seven cities. As per the notice, these offices are situated in Gurugram, Lucknow, Raipur, Ranchi, Agartala, Itanagar, and Gangtok. CBSE has stated that all schools affiliated with the board will be managed by their respective offices according to the specified jurisdictions. In an official notification signed by Secretary Himanshu Gupta, it was announced that following the Finance Committees approval on 12 December 2024 (Agenda Item No. II), ratification by the Governing Body on 26 December 2024, and approval by the Boards Controlling Authority, Secretary (SE&L), Ministry of Education, six new Regional Offices, Centres of Excellence (CoEs), and Sub-Regional Offices have been established. Recommended Stories The notice also included detailed addresses and the dates they will become operational. Regional Offices & CoEs Gurugram Office (CoE) Situated at Gurugram Technology Park, this office will supervise 12 southern districts of Haryana, including Bhiwani, Faridabad, Gurugram, Jhajjar, Mahendragarh, Nuh, Palwal, Panipat, Rewari, Rohtak, and Sonipat. It will start operations on September 1, 2025. Lucknow Office Located in Gomti Nagar Extension, the Lucknow office will manage 30 districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Amethi, Ayodhya, Bareilly, Etawah, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Mathura, Shahjahanpur, Sitapur, and Unnao, starting from September 1, 2025. Raipur Office (CoE) Based at CSIDC Corporate Tower, Raipur, this office will be responsible for schools in Chhattisgarh, effective from today, August 22, 2025. Ranchi Office (CoE) Located at Bansal Bhawan, Ranchi, it will oversee schools across Jharkhand, starting from August 22, 2025. Sub-Regional Offices Agartala The new office in West Tripura will cater to schools in Tripura, starting from September 15, 2025. Itanagar Set up at the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) in Gohpur Tinali, Itanagar, this office will serve Arunachal Pradesh, effective from August 22, 2025. Gangtok top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Based in Tadong, Gangtok, this office will oversee schools in Sikkim, beginning August 22, 2025. Additionally, in a separate notice, CBSE announced its collaboration with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to conduct an awareness programme against drug abuse in CBSE-affiliated schools. An MoU with the NCB, Ministry of Home Affairs, will be signed in September, at the CBSE Headquarters in Dwarka, New Delhi. About the Author Education and Careers Desk A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 18:56 IST News education-career CBSE Sets Up New Regional, Sub-Regional Offices And Centres Of Excellence Across 7 Cities Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... CBSE Signs MoU With NCB To Address Substance Abuse Across Schools Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 16:58 IST The initiative will feature workshops, counselling sessions, and strategies to foster drug-free school environments, empowering students to make responsible choices, CBSE stated. CBSE stressed the importance of schools in shaping student behaviour and promoting positive lifestyle choices.(Representative Image/File) The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has partnered with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to address substance abuse in schools across the country. On September 3, 2025, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed, followed by an Awareness Programme for principals and counsellors. This initiative will feature workshops, counselling sessions, and strategies to foster drug-free school environments, empowering students to make responsible choices. The issue of substance abuse continues to pose a serious challenge, adversely affecting the health, wellbeing, and future prospects of students. In this regard, schools have a pivotal responsibility in fostering safe and supportive environments that discourage substance misuse and promote positive lifestyle choices," the board stated in an official notice. Recommended Stories The Memorandum of Understanding will be signed at the CBSE Headquarters in Dwarka, New Delhi. This collaboration aims to establish drug-free environments in CBSE-affiliated schools across the nation through coordinated awareness programs, workshops, and counselling initiatives. Following the MoU signing, CBSE will conduct an Awareness Programme for school principals and counsellors, focusing on substance abuse prevention. This programme will provide practical strategies for educators to enhance their roles in fostering safe and supportive school communities. CBSE emphasised the crucial role of schools in shaping student behaviour and promoting positive lifestyle choices. By equipping educators and counsellors with knowledge, resources, and intervention strategies, the initiative seeks to prevent substance misuse and protect students health and well-being. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all This initiative marks a significant step towards building drug-free school environments. Through this collaboration, CBSE and NCB will jointly undertake awareness program, workshops, and counselling initiatives to empower educators, counselors, and students to make responsible and healthy life choices," the notice added. The CBSE-NCB collaboration reflects a nationwide commitment to preventive education, aiming to create safer school spaces and equip students with the awareness and tools to resist substance abuse. This move highlights the crucial role of schools in protecting the next generation from growing societal challenges. About the Author Education and Careers Desk A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 16:58 IST News education-career CBSE Signs MoU With NCB To Address Substance Abuse Across Schools Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On August 21, YANGWANG, the luxury vehicle brand under BYD, released its "YANGWANG U9 One-Year Delivery Report," noting that exactly one year after the first unit was handed over on August 21, 2024, the all-electric supercar has reached 149 units in cumulative deliveries. YANGWANG highlighted several performance benchmarks achieved over the past year. On October 26, 2024, the U9 set a national record by reaching a top speed of 391.94 km/h, officially becoming the fastest car in China. Less than two weeks later, it completed its first timed lap of Germany's Nurburgring Nordschleife with a preliminary result of 7 minutes and 17 seconds. Collectively, YANGWANG U9 owners have driven nearly 600,000 kilometers in a yearroughly equivalent to circling China 20 timeswith the highest mileage logged by a single car exceeding 15,600 kilometers. Photo credit: YANGWANG Hitting the market in February 2024 with a starting price of 1.68 million yuan, the YANGWANG U9 builds on the same "Time Gate" family design language first seen on the YANGWANG U8. Its space-inspired C-shaped lighting signature and muscular body lines deliver strong visual drama while underscoring its electric supercar identity. At the rear, the logo is integrated into a full-width light bar, complemented by a distinctive spoiler and a carbon-fiber engine cover. Buyers can further customize the car with optional fixed or active rear wings in carbon fiber, along with multicolor brake calipers. The supercar rides on staggered 21-inch wheels with 275/35 front and 325/30 rear tires. Inside, the cabin features extensive use of carbon fiber and Alcantara, arranged in a symmetrical "mirror" layout between driver and front passenger. Both sides are equipped with screens, while the center console hosts a vertical infotainment display, digital instrument panel, and an additional passenger screen. Performance figures place the U9 firmly in hypercar territory: four motors combine for peak torque of 1,680 Nm and over 1,300 PS, with a maximum rotor speed of 21,000 rpm. The car is capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.36 seconds, completing a 400-km run in 9.78 seconds, and reaching a top speed of 309.19 km/h. It also supports unlimited launch-control activations. For range and charging, the YANGWANG U9 is equipped with an 80 kWh battery offering up to 450 km under CLTC testing. With dual-port fast charging, the battery can be replenished from 30% to 80% in 10 minutes, while a standard charge takes about seven hours. ICSI CS December 2025 Exam Schedule Out, Registration Begins August 26 Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:58 IST ICSI CS December 2025: According to the official notice, the exams will take place from December 22 to 29, 2025. Interested candidates can register through the official website - icsi.edu.(Representative/File) The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) has announced released the Company Secretary (CS) December 2025 exam schedule. The online application process will begin on August 26 and will conclude on September 25, 2025. Those who miss this deadline can still apply by paying a late fee from September 26 to October 10, 2025. Students who are interested and eligible can register themselves and check the detailed notification for the exam by visiting the official website at icsi.edu. According to the official notice, the CS December 2025 exams will take place from December 22 to 29, 2025. Applicants have the option to write the exam in either English or Hindi. Recommended Stories ICSI CS December 2025 Exam: Eligibility Criteria For the Executive Programme, students must pass the Online Pre-Examination Test and ODOP/TDOP (depending on the registration period). For the Professional Programme, the Online Pre-Examination Test is also mandatory before enrollment. ICSI CS December 2025 Exam: Exam Fees Executive Programme: Rs 1,500 per group Professional Programme: Rs 1,800 per group Late Fee: Rs 250 (fixed) Change of centre/group/medium/optional subject: Rs 250 per change Adding an extra group: Rs 250 Dubai exam centre surcharge: USD 100 (or equivalent in INR) ALSO READ | NEET PG 2025 Answer Keys, Raw Scores To Be Released By NBEMS Following SC Directive ICSI CS December 2025 Exam: How To Apply Step 1: Visit the official website of ICSI icsi.edu Step 2: Enter your login details such as your registration number and password. Step 3: Select the module you want to apply for. Step 4: Click on the registration link. Step 5: Register yourself and fill out the ICSI CS December exam enrolment form. Step 6: Pay the application fee. Step 7: Review your details and click on submit. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Step 8: Download and take a print out for future use. The ICSI is a statutory body under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs that conducts the CS exam to train and certify Company Secretaries who assist companies and government agencies with corporate governance, law, and secretarial practices. About the Author Education and Careers Desk A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:49 IST News education-career ICSI CS December 2025 Exam Schedule Out, Registration Begins August 26 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Fed Up With US Visa Hurdles, Indian Students Opt For Germany, As Numbers Triple Since 2022 Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 23:16 IST The surge for Germany comes at a time when delays and tighter scrutiny in the US visa process have left many Indian students anxious about their academic future Members of the Indian community during 'Bharat Parade', organised to celebrate India's 79th Independence Day, at Brandenburg Gaten in Berlin. (PTI file photo) With Indian students struggling to secure US student visa appointments, Germany has rapidly emerged as a preferred destination for higher education. Enrolments of Indian students in German universities have tripled since 2022, crossing the 60,000 mark this year. Recommended Stories German ambassador to India Dr Philipp Ackermann on Friday said about 20% more Indian students have enrolled for higher education in his country this year than last. New numbers are out! Almost 60,000 students from India are currently studying in Germany a leap of 20 % over a year. My recommendation: our highly prestigious and affordable public universities are a great choice do check online reviews of private universities. Dr Philipp Ackermann (@AmbAckermann) August 22, 2025 Numbers up Indian government data shows the number of Indian students in Germany rose steadily from about 20,684 in 2022 to nearly 35,000 in 2024and has now jumped to around 60,000 this year, almost doubling in just one year and tripling since 2022. There were 23,296 Indian students in Germany in 2023. The Indian government numbers were based on the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) data and cover those who have disclosed their purpose of visit as study or education while going abroad during the year. Last year, Germany said that Indian students formed the largest international community there for the second year in a row. The numbers from DAADGerman Academic Exchange Servicesourced from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, said that there were 49,483 Indian students enrolled in the country for the Winter Semester 2023-2024, showing a growth of 15.1% over the last year. The earlier numbers from DAAD show that in the pre-Covid years, there were 20,810 Indian students in Germany and 25,149 in 2019. In 2020, a total of 28,905 Indian students were in Germany. The breakup shows that 60% of these students were enrolled for engineering, 21% for law, management and social studies, and 13% for mathematics and natural sciences. The surge for Germany comes at a time when delays and tighter scrutiny in the US visa process have left many Indian students anxious about their academic future. US visa row Last month, the ministry of external affairs told Parliament that it has received several representations from Indian students and their families flagging difficulty in obtaining student visa appointments. The ministry said it took up the matter with the US embassy in New Delhi as well as the US Department of State (DOS). The issue started after June 18, when the US DOS announced the expanded screening and vetting for visa applicants. Now, DOS is using all available informationincluding online presencein its visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to US national security. Citing the new rules from DOS, the MEA had said that every visa adjudication is a national security decision and that the US must be vigilant during the visa issuance process to ensure that those applying for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans and US national interests." All applicants need to credibly establish their eligibility for the visa sought, including that they intend to engage in activities that are consistent with the terms for their admission. The Indian government was told by the US that additional security requirements for student visas have further reduced the capacity of the US embassy and consulates in India to process visas. However, student visa appointments are now open," it said. The MEA also said that the US embassy is working to open a limited number of additional student visa appointments through the end of August in recognition of the urgent need for these appointments before the start of the new academic year. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The US embassy is developing a student visa fact sheet with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that should help reduce uncertainty around this issue, the MEA added. While the US has promised to ease visa bottlenecks in the coming months, the steady rise of Indian students in Germany suggests that many are already exploring alternatives beyond traditional destinations. About the Author Nivedita Singh Nivedita Singh is a data journalist and covers the Election Commission, Indian Railways and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. She has nearly seven years of experience in the news media. She tweets @nived... Read More Nivedita Singh is a data journalist and covers the Election Commission, Indian Railways and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. She has nearly seven years of experience in the news media. She tweets @nived... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 20:37 IST News education-career Fed Up With US Visa Hurdles, Indian Students Opt For Germany, As Numbers Triple Since 2022 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... WBJEE Result 2025 Shortly At wbjeeb.nic.in; Supreme Court Stay Clears Way Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 13:22 IST WBJEE 2025 Result: The Supreme Courts stay on the Calcutta HC order has cleared the way for WBJEE 2025 results, which are set to be declared today. WBJEE 2025 Result: West Bengal JEE results will be declared soon. The Supreme Court on Friday, August 22, stayed a Calcutta High Court order that had directed the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations Board (WBJEEB) to scrap its merit list and prepare a fresh one based on a pre-2010 list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities. The interim relief from the apex court has cleared the decks for the long-delayed publication of the WBJEE 2025 results, which are now set to be declared today. A bench headed by Chief Justice BR Gobind Singh passed the stay while hearing a plea filed by the West Bengal government challenging the earlier ruling delivered by Justice Kaushik Chanda of the Calcutta High Court. Recommended Stories The WBJEE results, originally scheduled for August 7, were withheld after Justice Chanda directed the board to revise its merit list in accordance with the older OBC classification, which recognised 66 communities listed prior to 2010. The single-judge bench had also mandated a 7 per cent OBC quota, while prohibiting admissions under the expanded OBC list notified after 2010. ALSO READ: NEET PG 2025 Answer Keys, Raw Scores To Be Released By NBEMS Following SC Directive top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The state governments appeal before a division bench of Justices Sujoy Pal and Smita Das De had been turned down, prompting the matter to be taken to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the WBJEEB issued a circular on August 18, requesting SC/ST/OBC candidates to upload their valid caste and community certificates between August 18 and 21. The WBJEEB is now free to proceed with declaring results based on the existing merit list, paving the way for admissions under the states engineering and pharmacy programmes. About the Author Education and Careers Desk A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 13:17 IST News education-career WBJEE Result 2025 Shortly At wbjeeb.nic.in; Supreme Court Stay Clears Way Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... WBJEE 2025 Toppers: Aniruddha From DBPC Tops, 6 CBSE Students In Top 10 Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 16:22 IST WBJEE 2025 results have been declared, with Aniruddha Chakrabarti from Don Bosco Park Circus emerging as the topper of the entrance exam. WBJEE 2025 results declared; Aniruddha Chakrabarti of Don Bosco Park Circus tops exam. WBJEE 2025 Results Declared: The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board (WBJEEB) on Friday declared the results of WBJEE 2025. Candidates who appeared for the state engineering entrance exam can now check their scores and download the rank cards from the official website at wbjeeb.nic.in. This year, six out of the top 10 candidates belong to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), while two each are from the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). Recommended Stories WBJEE 2025 Toppers Rank 1: Aniruddha Chakrabarti Don Bosco School, Park Circus (CISCE) Rank 2: Samyajyoti Biswas Kalyani Central Model School, Kalyani (CBSE) Rank 3: Dishaanth Basu DPS Ruby Park, Kolkata (CBSE) Rank 4: Aritro Ray DPS Ruby Park, Kolkata (CBSE) Rank 5: Trishanjit Doloi PURV International School, Durgapur (CBSE) Rank 6: Sagnik Patra Midnapore Collegiate School, Midnapore (WBCHSE) Rank 7: Sambit Mukhopadhyay Burdwan Model School, Purba Bardhaman (CBSE) Rank 8: Archisman Nandy DAV Model School, Kharagpur (CBSE) Rank 9: Pratik Dhanuka DPS Rajarhat, Kolkata (CISCE) Rank 10: Arka Banerjee Burdwan Municipal High School, Purba Bardhaman (WBCHSE) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took to X (formerly Twitter) to congratulate the successful candidates. I extend my sincere greetings and congratulations to all the students who have passed the State Joint Entrance Examination. I also congratulate your parents and teachers. Those who could not achieve their desired results should not lose hope and must prepare for a better outcome in the future," she wrote. How To Download WBJEE Rank Card? Visit the official WBJEEB website at wbjeeb.nic.in. Click on the WBJEE Result 2025 Rank Card link. Enter login details and submit. The rank card will appear on the screen. Download and take a printout for future use. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all ALSO READ: WBJEE Result 2025 Declared, Direct Link To Check Scorecards Here The WBJEE is a crucial gateway for students seeking admission into undergraduate engineering, pharmacy, and architecture courses across colleges in West Bengal. About the Author Education and Careers Desk A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses and information on college and school admissions, board and competitive exams, career options, topper interviews, job notifications, latest in ... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 16:22 IST News education-career WBJEE 2025 Toppers: Aniruddha From DBPC Tops, 6 CBSE Students In Top 10 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Expired Medicines In Your Bag? Heres Why Theyre More Dangerous Than You Think Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:27 IST If a customer points out that a strip is expired, the pharmacist is required to replace it or refund the amount immediately. The strip should not be put back on the shelf. The Expired Medicine Trap: What Really Happens When Chemists Get Caught Every year, countless Indians unknowingly buy medicines that are past their expiry date. Sometimes it is a simple oversight, but at other times, it reflects negligence by the chemist. What looks like a small mistake can actually carry serious risks. Studies and health authorities warn that expired medicines may lose potency, turn unstable, or even become harmful. This is especially dangerous in the case of injectables, insulin, eye drops, or antibiotics. Recommended Stories The Law on Expired Drugs Indian law is unambiguous. Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules, pharmacies cannot sell or even stock drugs past their expiry. The label must clearly display the date of manufacture and expiry. If a shop is caught selling expired stock, it can face fines, imprisonment, or even suspension of its licence. In other words, this is not just a consumer grievance, it is a regulatory violation. What the Shop Should Do If a customer points out that a strip is expired, the pharmacist is required to replace it or refund the amount immediately. The strip should not be put back on the shelf. Expired medicines must be segregated, recorded, and returned to the supplier for safe disposal. Guidelines on good distribution practice also stress that expired or rejected goods should be stored separately from saleable stock. A shop that refuses to act or tries to brush aside a complaint risks action under both drug control laws and the Consumer Protection Act. If you end up with an expired medicine, you are not powerless. The first step is to document everything. Take a clear photo of the strip showing the batch number, manufacturing and expiry date, and keep your bill or proof of purchase. Then approach the chemist directly and request replacement or refund. If they refuse, you can escalate. Complaints can be made to the State Drug Controller or the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization by email or helpline. The National Consumer Helpline, reachable through the 1915 number or mobile app, also takes up such cases. If everything else fails, you can file a case before the consumer commission through the online e-Daakhil or e-Jagriti platform. What Regulators Can Do Drug inspectors have the authority to inspect the shop, seize expired stock, and initiate prosecution. The law provides for imprisonment and fines for violations, with courts empowered to decide the quantum of punishment. Repeat offenders may lose their licence altogether. Consumer courts too have in the past awarded compensation to buyers who were sold expired drugs, treating it as a deficiency in service. Expired drugs are not only a problem for the individual who buys them. Studies in India and abroad have shown that households often hoard expired medicines and later dispose of them carelessly in the trash. This creates risks of accidental consumption, misuse, or environmental harm. The World Health Organization recommends that expired drugs be safely segregated and disposed of through authorized systems, never reused or flushed away. What To Remember The next time you buy medicines, pause and check the expiry date before paying. If you discover an expired pack, insist on immediate replacement. If the chemist resists, you have the right to escalate to regulators and consumer authorities. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Above all, never use expired medicines at home. Either return them to the pharmacy for disposal or follow local instructions for safe discarding. Expired medicines may look harmless, but they reflect a trap of negligence and risk. Knowing your rights and the responsibilities of shops can protect not just your health but also the integrity of the system that millions depend on every day. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:27 IST News explainers Expired Medicines In Your Bag? Heres Why Theyre More Dangerous Than You Think Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Is A Clean Record Not Enough? What Trumps New US Citizenship Rules Demand Of Immigrants Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:12 IST A long-standing requirement for US citizenship, the good moral character test has now been expanded under Trump. Heres what immigration officials will now assess Citizen candidates attend a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization ceremony. (Image: REUTERS) For decades, immigrants seeking to become American citizens have had to demonstrate good moral character." Traditionally, this meant avoiding serious crimes such as murder, aggravated felonies, or repeat drunk-driving convictions. But the Trump administration has now dramatically expanded the standard, ordering officers to go beyond the absence of wrongdoing and assess an applicants entire life, from community ties to social media activity. The new directive from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is part of President Donald Trumps wider second-term agenda to restrict both legal and illegal immigration. While the agency says the changes ensure citizenship goes only to the best of the best," immigration experts warn that the policys vagueness leaves applicants vulnerable to subjective judgments and even political bias. Recommended Stories What Is The Good Moral Character Rule For US Citizenship? The idea of good moral character has been embedded in US naturalisation law since the 1790 Naturalization Act. For most of American history, it has been interpreted narrowly: if an applicant avoided crimes such as murder, felonies, or fraud, they were considered eligible. Over time, additional disqualifiers were added, such as aggravated felonies, habitual drunkenness, or serious tax evasion. Most green card holders apply for citizenship after three to five years of residence. Along with English and civics tests, they must prove good moral character for the length of their residency. Until now, this usually meant showing a clean criminal record and steady compliance with tax and residency rules. How Has Trump Changed The Definition Of Good Moral Character? The new USCIS memo, issued on Friday, tells officers to move away from what it calls a cursory mechanical review" and conduct a holistic assessment of applicants. The directive says officers must place greater emphasis" on positive attributes such as community involvement, caregiving for family, long-term lawful employment, tax compliance, educational attainment, and strong ties to the United States. At the same time, they are ordered to apply stricter scrutiny to behaviour that may not amount to a crime but is contrary to civic responsibility." This could include reckless or habitual traffic violations, harassment, or aggressive solicitation. The policy also highlights rehabilitation. USCIS said applicants can still demonstrate good moral character if they have evidence of reform, for example, paying overdue taxes or completing probation. Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS official, told CBS News that the administration was trying to increase the grounds for denial by torturing the definition of good moral character to encompass extremely harmless behaviour." Why Is USCIS Screening For Anti-Americanism? Perhaps the most controversial addition is the screening of applicants for anti-American activity" and antisemitic ideologies." A Tuesday USCIS press release said officers will examine whether immigrants seeking visas, green cards, or citizenship have endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused" such views, including on social media. Americas benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies," USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser told The Hill. He also said immigration benefits remain a privilege, not a right." But USCIS has not issued a detailed list of what counts as anti-American." Critics say the absence of clear definitions hands sweeping discretion to individual officers. Jane Lilly Lopez, associate professor of sociology at Brigham Young University, told The Washington Post this vagueness allows officers to impose subjective interpretations" that could reflect stereotypes or bias. Why Has The Trump Administration Made This Change? Officials describe the move as an attempt to raise the bar for naturalisation. US citizenship is the gold standard of citizenship; it should only be offered to the worlds best of the best," Tragesser said in a statement to CBS News. According to USCIS, new citizens should not only respect Americas laws but also affirmatively demonstrate values and behaviour commensurate with the standards of average citizens." But the timing also reflects Trumps broader second-term immigration push. Alongside expanding deportations, he has threatened to end birthright citizenship, ordered USCIS to scrutinise immigrants online posts, and vowed to revoke the naturalisation of some citizens. Who Will Be Affected By The Expanded Rules? Each year, between 600,000 and 1 million immigrants are naturalised, according to USCIS data. There are about 25 million naturalised citizens in the US today. Under the new policy, applicants will be judged not only on whether they have avoided crimes but also on whether they have actively contributed to American society. Conversely, minor infractions such as repeated traffic violations or online posts critical of the US government could now weigh against an applicant. Gabriel Chin, professor of law at the University of California, Davis, told The Washington Post that many birthright Americans themselves would not meet these standards. If they had not been born here, they would not make the cut," he said. What Does This Mean For Immigration Going Forward? Supporters argue that the expanded test ensures Americas newest citizens fully embrace its values and contribute positively to society. USCIS has repeatedly framed the change as aligning citizenship with responsibility. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all But the lack of clarity around terms like anti-Americanism," coupled with the discretion given to individual officers, has raised fears of arbitrary denials and inconsistent outcomes. As Lopez put it, the challenge is that officers must now evaluate something they cannot consistently describe or define." With Trump already pursuing the most aggressive deportation programme in US history and signalling plans to reshape the countrys demographic profile, the expanded good moral character test marks another step in that direction. For immigrants hoping to naturalise, the process is no longer just about avoiding wrongdoing, it is about proving, in every aspect of life, that they are good enough" to be American. About the Author Karishma Jain Karishma Jain, Chief Sub Editor at News18.com, writes and edits opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including Indian politics and policy, culture and the arts, technology and social change. Follow her @kar... Read More Karishma Jain, Chief Sub Editor at News18.com, writes and edits opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including Indian politics and policy, culture and the arts, technology and social change. Follow her @kar... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:08 IST News explainers Is A Clean Record Not Enough? What Trumps New US Citizenship Rules Demand Of Immigrants Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... DK Shivakumar Recites RSS Anthem: Who Wrote Namaste Sada Vatsale? What Does It Mean? Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:14 IST Karnatakas Shivakumar Recites RSS Anthem: What does Namaste Sada Vatsale mean? Why is it in Sanskrit? Why is it recited in shakhas? Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers at a training camp in Nagpur in June. (PTI) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar reportedly recited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) anthem in the Assembly on Thursday. The clip showing him singing Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume surprised many, as the Congress has historically opposed the RSS, an organisation recognised as the ideological foundation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and known for its right-wing nationalist ideology. Recommended Stories What is the RSS anthem or prayer? Who wrote it? Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume" DK Shivakumar seen singing the RSS anthem yesterday in the Karnataka assembly Rahul Gandhi & close aides of Gandhi Vadra family straight into ICU/Coma mode now. After PM Modi spoke about the contribution of the RSS from the ramparts of pic.twitter.com/SmB9tnGs5v Pradeep Bhandari( ) (@pradip103) August 22, 2025 Namaste Sada Vatsale: When was the RSS prayer decided? The RSS is a Hindu nationalist, paramilitary, volunteer organisation of India. The organization was founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar on the occasion of Vijayadashami on September 27, 1925. As the Sangh started to expand, the need for a prayer, which could be sung at the beginning and end of the activities of the Sangh and daily branches, was felt. The prayer, Namaste Sada Vatsale, was decided 14 years after the establishment of the Sangh. The composition and format of the prayer of the Sangh was first prepared in a meeting held in Sindi near Nagpur in February 1939. A meeting was held to decide the prayer. Prominent RSS leaders such as the first Sarsanghchalak of the Sangh, Dr Keshav Hedgewar, Guruji, Baba Saheb Apte, Balasaheb Deoras, Appaji Joshi and Nanasaheb Talatule attended it. Why is the RSS prayer in Sanskrit? The prayer that was prepared initially was half in Marathi and half in Hindi. This raised the question whether it would be appropriate to have the prayer in Hindi and Marathi, because there are states in the country with different languages. Then it was decided to give it Sanskrit language so that there is one form and one language prayer in the whole country. Then it was translated in Sanskrit and some amendments were also made. Bharat Mata Ki Jai was kept at the end of the prayer in Hindi. Namaste Sada Vatsale | DK Shivakumar recites RSS anthem in Assembly; BJP hits backCatch the political reactions and details from @Rohini_Swamy#DKShivakumar #KarnatakaPolitics | @harishupadhya pic.twitter.com/2vVvewTDEl News18 (@CNNnews18) August 22, 2025 Who composed the RSS prayer? The prayer was composed and translated into Sanskrit by Narhari Narayan Bhide of Nagpur. It was first sung by Yadav Rao Joshi in the Sangh Shiksha Varg in Pune on April 23, 1940. Its rhythm was the same in which it is sung even today. VIDEO | Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar (@DKShivakumar) recited the RSS Sangha Prarthana, Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume, while addressing the Assembly yesterday.(Source: Third party) (Full VIDEO available on PTI Videos https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/2CNsemZaq4 Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 22, 2025 Namaste Sada Vatsale: What is this prayer? The complete prayer of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh goes like this: The English translation Salutations to you, O ever-loving Motherland, O Mother India, I have been joyfully nurtured by you, the Hindu land. O land of great fortune and sacredness, for your sake, May this body fall (in sacrifice). Salutations, salutations to you! O powerful Lord, the Hindu nation is your limb, We all respectfully bow to you. We are prepared and devoted to your work, Grant us your auspicious blessings for its fulfillment. Grant us strength that is invincible in the world, O Lord, So that the world becomes noble through virtuous people. And the difficult, thorn-filled path that we have heard of May we willingly accept it and make it smooth (for others). The supreme and fierce vow of heroism Is the one means for the upliftment and highest good. Let this unwavering dedication to the goal shine within, Let intense awareness awaken in our hearts constantly. May our united strength be victorious in our mission, Establishing the protection of this Dharma (righteous way). To lead our own nation to the greatest glory, May we become fully capable through your blessings! Victory to Mother India! RSS FAQs: From their website Who can be a member of RSS? In the RSS system, there is no formal membership. Those who attend the RSS Shakhas are called Swayamsevaks and any Hindu male can become a Swayamsevak. What is a shakha? Simply put, a shakha is a daily gathering of swayamsevaks of different age groups at a predefined meeting place or ground for one hour. The daily routine programs include physical exercises, singing patriotic chorus, group discussions on varied range of subjects and a prayer for our motherland. Can women become RSS members? No. The RSS was founded to organise the Hindu society and considering the practical limitations, allowed entry to Hindu males only. However, when the need for similar organization for Hindu women was also felt, one social worker from Wardha in Maharashtra Lakshmibai Kelkar approached the RSS founder Dr Hedgewar and after holding extensive consultations with him decided to launch Rashtra Sevika Samiti in the year 1936. The objectives of RSS and Samiti were the same. Hence, women can join the Rashtra Sevika Samiti. The RSS always talks about the Hindus, Hindu Rashtra, Hindu culture etc. Why? Is it a religious organisation? The RSS talks of Hindu, Hindu Rashtra, Hindu Culture because the RSS believed from the day one that this country belonged to the Hindus. The RSS perceives Hindu as a term that defines the national identity of the people living in this country. It is not a religious or sectarian identity. It is as the Supreme Court of India observed, a way of life. The RSS also believes, respects, and follows the principle of Unity in Diversity as a quintessence of the Hindu World View. Anyone who subscribes to this world view, accept and respect Bharats history, nurture the country through their social values and make sacrifices to protect these value system are Hindus in the eyes of RSS notwithstanding their religious moorings and affiliations. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all So, can a Christian or a Muslim become a Swayamsevak of RSS? Yes, if they agree with the above viewpoint. The RSS believes that the Christians and Muslims in Bharat have not come from some alien lands. They are all children of Mother Bharat. At some point of time in the history their ancestors might have changed their religion and ways of worship. But that does not separate them from the Hindu society in the larger context. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:44 IST News explainers DK Shivakumar Recites RSS Anthem: Who Wrote Namaste Sada Vatsale? What Does It Mean? Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested: What Is The Case Against Sri Lankas Former President? Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:56 IST Ranil Wickremesinghe was taken into custody by Sri Lankas CID and is expected to appear before the Colombo Fort Magistrate Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested by CID (AFP File Image) Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lankas former president, was arrested on Friday by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over allegations of misusing government funds during a private overseas trip while in office. He was taken into custody after arriving at the CID headquarters in Colombo to record a statement in the case, and is expected to be presented before the Colombo Fort Magistrate Court. Wickremesinghe, 76, is accused of using state resources to attend a University of Wolverhampton ceremony in the United Kingdom in September 2023, where his wife, Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe, was being felicitated. The trip occurred during a stopover in London as he returned from the G77 summit in Havana, Cuba. Recommended Stories A CID official told AFP that charges were being pressed against him for using public funds for what is being treated as a private visit. The police had also previously questioned his staff about expenses related to the trip. What Is The Case About? According to Sri Lankan police and CID sources cited in multiple media reports, Wickremesinghe allegedly used government funds to finance the travel and associated costs of his UK stopover. The CID has also alleged that state-funded security personnel were deployed for the trip, despite it not being classified as an official visit. Wickremesinghe has denied any misuse of funds, stating that his wifes travel expenses were met by her and that no public money was spent for personal purposes. Foreign Trips Wickremesinghe Made As President According to BBC Sinhala, Wickremesinghe made a total of 23 foreign trips during his presidential tenure between 2022 and 2024. These trips reportedly cost the Sri Lankan state over Rs 600 million. While the current case pertains only to the London stopover in 2023, the overall spending on international travel during his presidency has drawn public attention. Ranil Wickremesinghes Tenure As President Ranil Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022, after the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country amid mass protests over the countrys unprecedented economic collapse. Wickremesinghe assumed office for the remainder of Rajapaksas term and served until 2024, when he lost his re-election bid in September that year. He is widely credited in domestic and international reporting with initiating stabilisation measures to help Sri Lanka begin recovering from the economic crisis that had paralysed the country. His tenure, however, remained controversial among some sections of the public due to austerity steps and perceived proximity to the previous Rajapaksa-led administration. What Is His Political Background? Wickremesinghe is the leader of the United National Party (UNP) and has had a long and prominent political career. A lawyer by training, he served as Prime Minister six timesthe most in Sri Lankan historystarting from the 1990s. He was first appointed to the Cabinet in 1978 by then-President Junius Jayewardene, his uncle, becoming the youngest cabinet minister at the time. He took over leadership of the UNP in 1994 following a string of political assassinations within the party. Born into a politically influential family with deep business and media ties, Wickremesinghe has remained a central figure in Sri Lankan politics for over four decades. What Happens Next? top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The CID is proceeding with legal action based on the allegations of misusing public funds for private purposes. Wickremesinghe is scheduled to appear before the Colombo Fort Magistrate, where the court will determine whether he is to be released, remanded, or formally charged under Sri Lankan law. No official charge sheet has been made public yet. As of now, the matter remains under legal scrutiny, and further details are expected to emerge as the proceedings unfold. About the Author Karishma Jain Karishma Jain, Chief Sub Editor at News18.com, writes and edits opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including Indian politics and policy, culture and the arts, technology and social change. Follow her @kar... Read More Karishma Jain, Chief Sub Editor at News18.com, writes and edits opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including Indian politics and policy, culture and the arts, technology and social change. Follow her @kar... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:56 IST News explainers Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested: What Is The Case Against Sri Lankas Former President? Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... What Is Sandwich Leave Policy And Why Do Indians Hate It? Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 17:58 IST Why are sandwich leaves considered the worst leaves for the employees? What is sandwich leave policy at a company and why nobody likes it? Whats the point of working long hours, spending hours commuting from work to home and back, and giving five or sometimes six days a week to your office if you cannot take your designated leaves meaningfully? A lady working for a firm recently shared her sweet story where her boss responded to her leave request with one simple line: Enjoy your trip to the fullest. Dont take unnecessary stress. Thats when I realised Im in the right place." As more Indians embrace work-life balance and set healthy boundaries to keep work distant from home, there are unavoidable company policies that result in exhaustion even when applying for a few days. Enter sandwich leaves. They do not explicitly appear in your offer letter or internal company portal but its typically an unwritten rule no Indian employee wants to deal with. Recommended Stories But before we dive into the concept of sandwich leaves, lets look at the typical leaves that are found in standard employment letters. Privilege Leaves / Earned Leaves An employee is granted privilege or earned leave when he or she serves a certain length of time at a company. These can typically be used for vacations or an extended time away from the office (15 to 20 days per year). No loss of pay can be incurred when privilege leaves are applied. These leaves translate directly to money as PL/EL could be encashed at the time of exit. Also Read: Insta Help: How A BTech Graduate Working For Urban Company Stirred Online Debate Casual Leaves Unlike PLs, casual leaves are meant for a short period, i.e. 5 to 7 days per year. These leaves can be used by employees for personal emergencies or medical reasons. These are typically unplanned in nature. Sick Leaves As the name suggests, sick leaves are used during days of sickness. These arent naturally planned unless you have a concert or music festival you wish to secretly attend and call in sick at work. (PS: Dont end up on that big screen!) Maternity/Paternity Leave: The maternity and paternity leaves are the longest leaves a company grants its employees. These could be paid or unpaid depending on company policy and HR agreement. One could take absence from work for 12-26 weeks in the case of maternity leave, while paternity leave could range from 1 to 2 weeks. Of course, these vary from company to company, just as the above-listed leaves do. National / Public Holidays Your Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and more are covered under public holidays. These are fixed and usually sent out ahead of the new year as fixed holidays in the said calendar year. Leave Without Pay When applied, these leaves cost employees a portion of their salaries. An employee applies for leave without pay when they have exhausted leave from their leave bank. The most common use of leave without pay is seen in maternity or paternity leave. Sandwich Leaves If an employee had applied for leave for Friday and the coming Monday, eyeing an extended work off, these would count as four days of leave. Sandwich leaves dont exist in all the companies, but wherever they do, their employees make sure that the rest of the world knows how miserable their lives are. Take for example this disgruntled Indian employees post on Reddit: If i take leave on Friday and Monday so even Saturday and Sundays money will be deducted. And they call it sandwich leave . Is it common among IT companies or its just am working with scammers ? (sic)" top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Responding to their query, a fellow Redditor wrote: Theres something called sandwich leave to discourage employees from taking leaves when there are consecutive holidays, but usually theres a threshold for 4 or 5, And that sh*t is toxic enough. This is pure bullsh*t (sic)." Theres a whole discussion on sandwich leaves and how they are considered highly unethical on this r/bangalore Subreddit. Several folks came forward claiming they either worked at a company that enforced the seemingly absurd sandwich leave rule or knew of a startup that required employees to mark additional leave days if they planned to be absent the day before, after, or both days surrounding a weekend. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 17:56 IST News explainers What Is Sandwich Leave Policy And Why Do Indians Hate It? Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Admitted Pak's Failure': Rajnath Singh On Asim Munir's 'India Shining Mercedes' Remark Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 17:57 IST Singh called General Asim Munirs Mercedes versus dump truck remark a confession, highlighting Indias progress and criticizing Pakistans policies and leadership Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir. (File photos: PTI/AP) Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday took a dig at Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir over his remark comparing Indias economy to a shining Mercedes" and Pakistans to a dump truck full of gravel". Singh pointed out that while Munirs statement was widely mocked, it revealed a deeper truth about the difference in progress between the two nations. Recommended Stories Speaking at a event, the Defence Minister said, I consider this statement of Asim Munir as a confession. I do not consider his statement as mere troll material." He added that if two countries got independence at the same time, and one is now seen as a Ferrari or Mercedes while the other is still a dump truck, it shows the failure of that countrys policies and leadership. Everyone said that if two countries got independence at the same time and one country built a Ferrari-like economy through hard work, right policies and foresight and the other is still in a dumper state, then it is their own failure," Singh explained. Referring to the heavy trolling Munir faced internationally, Singh warned that such comments should not be taken lightly or ignored. If we do not pay attention to the historical indication behind this serious warning, then it can become a matter of concern for us. And yes, if we pay attention to this and prepare for it, then India is capable of giving a befitting reply to such warnings," he added. Earlier this month, Pakistan Army Chief General Munir had said, India is shining Mercedes coming on a highway like Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?" top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all His analogy sparked widespread criticism and ridicule, both in India and Pakistan. Many on social media mocked the comparison, questioning why the Pakistani Army Chief would liken his own country to a dump truck. This comment came amid rising tensions between the two neighbours. On May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor, targeting terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to a deadly terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22. The operation neutralised over 100 terrorists, and cross-border firing continued for four days. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 17:30 IST News india 'Admitted Pak's Failure': Rajnath Singh On Asim Munir's 'India Shining Mercedes' Remark Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... After Operation Sindoor, IAF Moves To Expand Israeli Rampage Missile Arsenal Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 23:21 IST IAF plans a major order for Rampage missiles from Israel after successful deployment in Muridke and Bahawalpur, boosting Su-30 MKI firepower. Rampage missile representative image (Photo: ANI) After successfully deploying them to target Pakistani air bases and terrorist headquarters, the Indian Air Force is now preparing to place a large order for Rampage air-to-ground missiles from Israel. The Rampage, which is known as the High Speed low Drag-Mark 2 missile in the Indian Air Force, is already integrated with the Su-30 MKI, Jaguar and MiG-29 fighter aircraft fleet. Recommended Stories News agency ANI quoted defence sources as saying that the missiles are being acquired in large numbers by the Indian Air Force under the fast-track procedures, and orders are likely to be placed very soon. They stated that the missiles were deployed with remarkable precision to destroy terrorist headquarters in Muridke and Bahawalpur, located in Pakistans Punjab province. The Rampage is a very high-speed air-to-ground missile, which India first acquired in 2020-21, Galwan clashes with China by the Indian Air Force. Following its impressive performance in Op Sindoor, where it was extensively deployed from Su-30 MKIs against Pakistani positions deep in their territory, sources said the orders are being placed for all fleets where the missile has already been integrated, while the force is also exploring options to equip other fleets with it, ANI reported. The successful integration of the Rampage missiles with the Su-30 MKI has significantly enhanced the Russian aircraft fleets firepower. This integration allows for the firing of multiple long-range air-to-ground missiles, including the BrahMos supersonic missiles with a strike range of over 400 kilometres. Furthermore, the IAF is considering the possibility of producing the Rampage missiles under the Make in India program, potentially leading to their large-scale induction. Along with the Rampage missiles, the IAF also tested the ROCKS (Crystal Maze-2) missile last year in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands region. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all First Published: August 22, 2025, 23:21 IST News india After Operation Sindoor, IAF Moves To Expand Israeli Rampage Missile Arsenal Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Allahabad HC Calls Out Misuse Of Section 498A, Frees Husbands Relatives From Dowry Case Reported By : LawBeat Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 03:02 IST The court noted that such blanket allegations often serve the purpose of exerting pressure in marital disputes After examining the FIR and hearing both sides, the high court concluded that the allegations against the in-laws were indeed too vague to warrant prosecution. (File pic/News18 Hindi) The Allahabad High Court recently allowed the trial to proceed in a dowry harassment case against the husband on his wifes allegations but dismissed the proceedings against the husbands family members, holding that vague accusations cannot justify dragging them into court. The bench of Justice Prashant Kumar, deciding an application under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, delivered the verdict on July 11, 2025. The order pertains to a 2013 case registered at Mahila Thana, Noida, in which Anand Sharma and his family had been named for offences under Sections 498A, 323, 315, 504, and 506 of the IPC and Section 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. Recommended Stories The complainant, Sharmas wife, had alleged that she was subjected to cruelty and dowry demands not only by her husband but also by his father, mother, sister, and brother. The entire family had been summoned following the police investigation. The family challenged this in the high court, arguing that the FIR was drafted in sweeping terms, without spelling out any specific role of the in-laws. Counsel for the applicants pointed out that such omnibus allegations" are frequently made in matrimonial disputes and cited the Supreme Courts decision in Geeta Mehrotra v State of UP (2012), which had warned against mechanically prosecuting extended family members without concrete evidence. On the other side, the complainants lawyer defended the summoning of the husband but conceded that the accusations against the in-laws were general in nature. The state too opposed relief for the husband but did not resist the argument that the relatives were unnecessarily implicated. After examining the FIR and hearing both sides, the high court concluded that the allegations against the in-laws were indeed too vague to warrant prosecution. The FIR fails to provide specific instances or incidents in which applicants numbers 2 to 5 were directly involved in any wrongdoing, the court observed, noting that such blanket allegations often serve the purpose of exerting pressure in marital disputes. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In support of its decision, the court cited several Supreme Court precedents, including Kahkashan Kausar v State of Bihar (2022) and Neelu Chopra v Bharti (2009). These rulings underline that mere mention of legal provisions without detailing the specific role of each accused cannot form the basis for putting individuals through the ordeal of a criminal trial. Accordingly, the high court quashed proceedings against the father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. However, it dismissed the application of the husband, holding that the charges against him were not to be interfered with at this stage and must be tested in trial. About the Author Salil Tiwari Salil Tiwari, Senior Special Correspondent at Lawbeat, reports on the Allahabad High Court and courts in Uttar Pradesh, however, she also writes on important cases of national importance and public interests fr... Read More Salil Tiwari, Senior Special Correspondent at Lawbeat, reports on the Allahabad High Court and courts in Uttar Pradesh, however, she also writes on important cases of national importance and public interests fr... Read More First Published: August 23, 2025, 03:02 IST News india Allahabad HC Calls Out Misuse Of Section 498A, Frees Husbands Relatives From Dowry Case Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Did Not Help A Single Person': Supreme Court Raps Petitioners Over Bihar Electoral Roll Revision Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:59 IST The Supreme Court rebuked petitioners challenging the Bihar SIR, noting they had not assisted a single voter. This came after the Election Commissions submission in the court. The Supreme Court of India (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday expressed sharp disapproval of the conduct of political parties and petitioners challenging the Election Commissions (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, under which nearly 65 lakh names were deleted from the draft list. Recommended Stories This came after the poll body alleged that the petitioners were complaining, but not assisting those who wanted to file claims and objections. Those who are complaining have not helped a single person to file claims and objections," the poll body told the court. We are going door-to-door, they are just complaining," it said. A bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said it was surprised by the inaction" of political parties, noting that despite 1.6 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) being appointed by 12 recognised parties, only two objections had been filed so far. After appointing BLAs, what are they doing?" the bench remarked, stressing that parties must assist voters in filing claims and objections. The court repeatedly questioned petitioners over their lack of proactive steps. Why are political parties silent?" Justice Khanna asked, observing that the voter was often more vigilant than political representatives. It pointed out that petitioners had come to court without providing concrete data on how many voters were actually unable to file objections. Those who are complaining have not filed even a single objection," the bench told advocates. When civil society lawyers highlighted that BLOs were not accepting Aadhaar alone and were insisting on additional documents, the court noted that such issues could be clarified by the Election Commission. The entire exercise has to be voter-friendly. Let them first submit forms with Aadhaar and whatever documents they have. We will ensure objections are considered," the bench said. The judges also dismissed arguments that only Form 6 was being insisted upon, holding that while Form 6 was the prescribed method, the real responsibility lay with parties ensuring their BLAs help voters. We cannot understand the distance between people and local political persons," Justice Khanna said, reminding that the responsibility to protect voters rights was shared. In its order, the court directed the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer to issue notices to the heads of all 12 recognised political parties, impleading them as respondents, and asked them to file status reports on the efforts of their BLAs. It clarified that voters can file claims online or physically with Aadhaar or any of the 11 prescribed documents, BLOs must acknowledge physical submissions, BLAs must facilitate voters in filing objections before the September 1 deadline. The bench, however, declined to extend the timeline, saying, Today, we are not extending. Lets see how our order complies with." The matter will be taken up again on September 8. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all ALSO READ | Supreme Court Says No To Altering Bihar SIR Timeline About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:56 IST News india 'Did Not Help A Single Person': Supreme Court Raps Petitioners Over Bihar Electoral Roll Revision Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'What Are They Doing': Supreme Court Asks Parties To Help Voters Struck Off In Bihar SIR Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:24 IST The Supreme Court slammed Bihars political parties for not helping voters excluded from draft electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision. The Supreme Court of India, in New Delhi (PTI photo) The Supreme Court on Friday pulled up political parties in Bihar for their silence and inaction" in assisting voters affected by the Election Commissions Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, under which nearly 65 lakh names were deleted from the draft list. Hearing pleas filed by civil society groups and opposition parties, a bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna noted that the Election Commission had complied with earlier orders by publishing district-wise deleted names online, issuing public notices, and accepting Aadhaar as proof for re-inclusion. Recommended Stories However, political parties had done little to help citizens file objections, it observed. The court expressed concern that 1.6 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by 12 recognised parties in Bihar had filed only two objections, despite being mandated to facilitate voters. What are they doing? We are surprised at this inaction," Justice Khanna remarked, stressing that the revision exercise must remain voter-friendly. In its order, the bench issued multiple directions. It said Political parties in Bihar will be impleaded as respondents and must file status reports. BLAs must actively assist voters in submitting objections or claims online or physically. Aadhaar or any of the 11 listed documents will be sufficient for filing applications. Booth Level Officers (BLOs) must provide acknowledgement receipts for physical submissions, though this will not confirm the completeness of forms. The Election Commission was asked to explore uploading such acknowledgements on its website for transparency. While senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Prashant Bhushan, Vrinda Grover and others argued for an extension of the September 1 deadline, the court refused for now, saying it would reconsider only if there is an overwhelming response." The matter will be taken up again on September 8. The Election Commission had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying the list of names and details of 65 lakh electors in Bihar, who were not included in the draft roll published on August 1, had been posted on the websites of all 38 District Electoral Officers in the state. The list also contained the reasons for their non-inclusion, including death, shifting of ordinary residence or duplicate entries, the poll body told the Supreme Court. The Election Commission stated that physical copies of the list have been displayed in Panchayat Bhavans, block development offices and Panchayat offices in villages across Bihar for people to easily access them and enable enquiry. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all ALSO READ | Supreme Court Says No To Altering Bihar SIR Timeline About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: August 22, 2025, 13:50 IST News india 'What Are They Doing': Supreme Court Asks Parties To Help Voters Struck Off In Bihar SIR Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Chaos Breaks Out At Delhi CM Rekha Guptas First Public Event Since Attack, Man Detained Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:56 IST The police officers at the venue responded promptly, apprehending the man causing the disturbance and escorting him out of the event. Image from the accident site (Credits: ANI) Chaos erupted at an event being attended by Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta earlier today in the Gandhi Nagar area of the national capital. Notably, this was the first public event being attended by Gupta after being attacked. Following the incident, a 60-year-old man was apprehended for raising slogans against BJP MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely and creating a ruckus. According to an official cited by PTI, the man has been identified as Praveen Sharma, who runs a cable TV business in Ajeet Nagar. He claimed to be a BJP worker, associated with the party for the last 40 years, they said. Recommended Stories Praveen Sharma, a resident of Gandhi Nagar, raised slogans against Gandhi Nagar MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely while he was addressing the people," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Prashant Gautam said. The officer said Sharma was standing in a street behind security barricades and was immediately escorted away from the venue. Security of the VIP was not breached at any point in time," the DCP asserted. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, who was in Gandhi Nagar under Z category VIP security, was attending the inaugural event of Vastrika an open-market garment exhibition organized by the Gandhi Nagar wholesale market. During the event, she announced local MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely as the new Chairman of the Yamuna Paar Vikas Board. He has been in top posts in the Delhi government, but just for the sake of development, without any hidden agendas, joined the BJP. He is like the chief minister of Gandhi Nagar. He took an oath for Delhis development. Lovely will be the chairman of the Yamuna Paar Vikas Board," she said. #WATCH | Delhi | Police have caught two separate individuals who were suspected of creating a ruckus near the venue of an event being attended by Delhi CM Rekha Gupta in Gandhi Nagar pic.twitter.com/Iw2BFpJHFR ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 She further said, I assure you that your Chief Minister Didi will not be afraid, will not get tired, will not lose. Till Delhi gets its rights, she will keep fighting with you. It is my vow to continuously fight with you." , , pic.twitter.com/AaGjG4UKC9 Rekha Gupta (@gupta_rekha) August 22, 2025 At the event, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta directed local MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely and East Delhi MP and Union Minister Harsh Malhotra to prepare a detailed budget proposal for the development of the Gandhi Nagar area. ALSO READ: Matter Of 3 Lakh Dogs: What Delhi CM Attack Accused Told Cops During Questioning I am sanctioning the budget today. You just prepare the file with the budget estimates," she announced. Gupta also shared that her government is launching a comprehensive route-mapping initiative for all DTC buses, starting with the Trans-Yamuna region. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all We will fix the routes. Every area will get adequate buses," she assured the gathering. This marked Guptas first public appearance since she was attacked during a Jan Sunwai programme at her Civil Lines residence on Wednesday. About the Author Anushka Vats Anushka Vats is a Sub-Editor at News18.com with a passion for storytelling and a curiosity that extends beyond the newsroom. She covers both national and international news. For more stories, you can follow her... Read More Anushka Vats is a Sub-Editor at News18.com with a passion for storytelling and a curiosity that extends beyond the newsroom. She covers both national and international news. For more stories, you can follow her... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:06 IST News india Chaos Breaks Out At Delhi CM Rekha Guptas First Public Event Since Attack, Man Detained Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Class 8 Student Stabs Classmate Outside School In Gujarat, Days After Ahmedabad Incident Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 19:39 IST A Class 8 student stabbed his classmate after a quarrel in Balasinor, Gujarat, while similar violent incidents occurred in Ahmedabad and Rudrapur, police said. Victims are stable. A Class 8 student stabbed his classmate over a dispute in Gujarat(Representational image/PTI) A Class 8 student allegedly stabbed and injured his classmate following a dispute outside a government-run school in Gujarats Mahisagar district, police said on Friday. The incident took place on Thursday after school hours near the gate of a primary school in Balasinor town, news agency PTI quoted an official as saying. The victim sustained multiple injuries after being attacked with a sharp object. Recommended Stories Based on a complaint given by the victims father, we have registered an FIR against the accused juvenile. The victim is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital, and his condition is stable," Superintendent of Police Jaydeepsinh Jadeja said. The injured boys father stated that the attack stemmed from a minor quarrel. My sons classmate got angry over some minor issue and stabbed him with a small knife. My son sustained stab wounds on his back, abdomen, and near his shoulder," the father said, reported PTI. The accused student has been booked under sections 115 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 118 (voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or harmful means) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the SP added. The incident occurred just days after a Class 10 student was fatally stabbed in a similar attack outside a private school in Ahmedabad. The boy, a student of the Seventh Day Adventist School in the Khokhra area, succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday night after being attacked near the school gate. Screenshot of students chat after chilling Ahmedabad school murder is doing rounds on social media since. In a separate case in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, a Class 9 student allegedly opened fire on his physics teacher inside the classroom on Wednesday. According to police, the boy was angry after being slapped by the teacher two days earlier. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The teenager has been taken into custody and will be presented before the Juvenile Justice Board, said Abay Pratap Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police (Kashipur). The officer added that during questioning, the boy told police he procured a country-made pistol to take revenge. The teacher, who was hit on the shoulder, was taken to a private hospital and is out of danger. Location : Gujarat, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 19:39 IST News india Class 8 Student Stabs Classmate Outside School In Gujarat, Days After Ahmedabad Incident Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Compassionate, Rooted In Science': Leaders Across Party Lines Welcome SC's Stray Dog Verdict Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:32 IST The verdict, which modifies the courts earlier directive, was described by many as a balanced step towards ensuring both animal welfare and public safety Animal lovers hold placards during a protest march from Rajendra Nagar to Hanuman Mandir in solidarity with stray dogs, in New Delhi. (PTI photo) The Supreme Courts decision on Friday to allow sterilised and vaccinated stray dogs to return to their original localities has been welcomed by a wide section of society, including political leaders across party lines. The verdict, which modifies the courts earlier directive to relocate all stray dogs to shelters, was described by many as a balanced step towards ensuring both animal welfare and public safety. Recommended Stories The three-judge bench ruled that healthy stray dogs should not be removed from their surroundings, in line with the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023. Only aggressive or rabid dogs, the court said, should be moved to shelters. Civic bodies have also been directed to create designated feeding zones for street dogs in every ward. The courts revised order came as a relief to animal welfare groups and caregivers, who had raised concerns about the practicality of relocating large numbers of dogs amid limited shelter infrastructure. Celebrations broke out at Jantar Mantar, where many had gathered in anticipation of the verdict, hailing it as a victory of compassion". Political Leaders React Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, posting on X, called the verdict a progressive step", saying, I welcome the Supreme Courts revised directions on stray dogs, as it marks a progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety. The approach is both compassionate and rooted in scientific reasoning." I welcome the Supreme Courts revised directions on stray dogs, as it marks a progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety. The approach is both compassionate and rooted in scientific reasoning. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 22, 2025 Maneka Gandhi, former BJP MP and well-known animal rights advocate, also praised the ruling. Speaking to the media, she said the judgment was scientific and welcomed by the animal welfare community. She also questioned the practicality and reasoning behind the previous order, adding that the reported case of a childs death was actually due to meningitis, not a dog attack. This judgment seems to lack rational thought and stems from anger. Strangely, the order is based on a newspaper report of a child killed by dogs, but the family has confirmed the child died of meningitis," Maneka said. VIDEO | Animal Rights Activist Maneka Gandhi spoke on the Supreme Courts order to remove all stray dogs from the Delhi-NCR streets within 8 weeks. She says, This judgment is a suo motu case, which means nobody complained; the judge took it up on his own. We were expecting pic.twitter.com/yOIQjlCVFE Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 11, 2025 Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury said the Supreme Courts verdict upholds the constitutional right of all living beings to live with dignity and compassion". " It is the essence of our country. Citizens have always looked after animals and strays Prima facie, I welcome this order and I hope that the Supreme Court will follow through to see that the order they have given is executed in terms of dedicated feeding spaces, that adequate sterilisation and medical care and measures will be taken and will address cruelty against animals," Chowdhury told the media. BJP leader Vijay Goel expressed support for the courts approach. I welcome the Supreme Courts decision. Firstly, they have said that the MCD will continue catching stray dogs as it has been doing, and after that, sterilisation and vaccination will be carried out. They have also said that any dog suffering from rabies or those involved in biting incidents will be caught on complaint and will not be released. This is a good step." VIDEO | BJP leader Vijay Goel on Supreme Courts verdict on stray dogs says, I welcome the Supreme Courts decision. Firstly, they have said that the MCD will continue catching stray dogs as it has been doing, and after that, sterilisation and vaccination will be carried out. pic.twitter.com/yzdse1xrJP Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 22, 2025 Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said, I welcome the Supreme Courts order, noting that the previous order was not only inhumane but also against the humanitarian cause that everyone believes inIt was a conflictIt is important that they (stray dogs) are neutered, immunised, and have designated feeding areas." Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state president Saurabh Bharadwaj criticised the MCD while highlighting the significance of the Supreme Courts ruling. The remark made by the Supreme Court is very important; the MCD did not do its work. The MCD has to do its work. It is MCDs responsibility to catch the stray dogs and immunise them. The Delhi CM and Mayor, both coming from the BJP, have to work on this The immunisation of the dogs has not been done by the MCD on time," Bharadwaj said. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam, while acknowledging the sentiments of dog lovers, raised concerns about public safety. We respect those who love dogs, but stray dogs roaming on streets often cause trouble to people and at times attack elderly women and children," he said during a press conference. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all VIDEO | Mumbai: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam during a press conference says, We respect those who love dogs, but stray dogs roaming on streets often cause trouble to people and at times attack elderly women and children."(Full video available on PTI Videos - pic.twitter.com/F58CaPTlh7 Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 22, 2025 Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also weighed in, stating that while dog bites are a serious issue in many parts of the country, sterilisation could offer a practical solution. There are lakhs of dogs in Delhi. In such a situation, sterilisation can certainly be a good solution because people across the country face problems due to dog bites In such a case, sterilisation can provide significant relief," he said. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 18:25 IST News india 'Compassionate, Rooted In Science': Leaders Across Party Lines Welcome SC's Stray Dog Verdict Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Father Kills 17-Year-Old Daughter Over Marriage Refusal, Ends Own Life In Maharashtra Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 16:05 IST Syed Shaker in Hingoli killed his 17-year-old daughter for refusing marriage to a relative's son, then took his own life. Hingoli police registered a murder case under BNS. Image used for representation A 45-year-old man in Hingoli district allegedly killed his 17-year-old daughter by smothering her with a pillow while she slept, after she refused to marry a relatives son, and later took his own life early Wednesday morning. The incident came to light on Wednesday morning when the girls mother and her two brothers, aged 12 and eight, woke up for the day. Recommended Stories Hingoli Superintendent of Police Shrikrishna Kokate, referring to the preliminary investigation, stated that Syed Shaker, a driver by profession, had planned to marry his eldest daughter to a relatives son. The girl, however, objected to the arrangement. On Wednesday morning, the man allegedly killed his daughter by suffocating her with a pillow while she was asleep, fearing the social stigma of calling off the marriage. He then took his own life by hanging," Times Of India quoted SP Kokate as saying. According to police investigations, the teenagers refusal to marry the chosen groom led to frequent arguments at home over the past three days. On the night of Aug 19, the man allegedly gave his wife, who was suffering from diabetes and hypertension, sleeping pills along with her regular medication to ensure she remained asleep. He then went to his daughters room and suffocated her with a pillow while she was asleep," an officer said, citing the investigation. His two sons were also at home, asleep, when the incident occurred. Overwhelmed by remorse and anguish, the man then made several attempts to end his own life. Initially, he tried to slit his wrist and stabbed himself in the chest, but these attempts failed to cause any fatal harm. Eventually, he resorted to hanging himself, which ultimately led to his death," the officer said. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The bodies were taken to the government hospital in Hingoli for post-mortem before being released to the family for burial. After a complaint was filed by the deceased mans brother, Hingoli City police registered a murder case against him under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Suicide Prevention: If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata) Location : Maharashtra, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 15:56 IST News india Father Kills 17-Year-Old Daughter Over Marriage Refusal, Ends Own Life In Maharashtra Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... GST Council To Hold Key Meeting On September 3, 4: Two-Rate Structure Likely On Agenda Curated By : Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 22:09 IST The 56th GST Council meeting will be held in New Delhi on September 3 and 4, 2025, to discuss shifting to a two-slab GST structure. In addition, an Officers Meeting will be held on 2nd September, 2025 at New Delhi. (File) The 56th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will be held on September 3 and 4, 2025, in New Delhi, a notification by the GST Council issued on Friday stated. The meeting will begin at 11 am on both days, according to a communication issued to members. Recommended Stories As per the notification, ahead of the Council deliberations, an Officers Meeting will take place on September 2, 2025, in the national capital. The agenda for both meetings, along with details of the venue, will be shared later, the communication said. The meeting will come amid the Centres big push to reform the indirect taxation regimes structure into two slabs, from four at present. The council, comprising finance ministers of all states and UTs besides the Centre, will deliberate on the recommendations by the three GoMs on rate rationalisation, compensation cess and health and life insurance. The GoM, comprising state ministers, met earlier this week and, in principle, agreed to the Centres proposal for a two-slab GST, reported news agency PTI. As per sources, the finance ministry has proposed to have two slab rates 5% and 18% against the current four-slab structure. Majority of commodities of the common man uses will be under 5% (99 percent of items in 12% slab category will go to 5 percent) and 90 percent of items in 28 percent to be accommodated in 18% slab. The Centre has also proposed a new rate of 40% with specific sin and ultra luxury goods in it. However, several states raised the issue of revenue loss and highlighted the need for continued compensation to states. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Currently, GST is a four-tier tax structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent, where essential items are either exempted or taxed at the lower tax bracket, while demerit and luxury items at the highest slab. Besides, a compensation cess is levied at varied rates on demerit and luxury items like pan masala and cars. The GST Council, chaired by the Union Finance Minister and comprising representatives from all states and Union Territories, is the apex decision-making body for indirect tax matters in India. About the Author Shobhit Gupta Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 22:09 IST News india GST Council To Hold Key Meeting On September 3, 4: Two-Rate Structure Likely On Agenda Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Days After Ahmedabad School Murder, Class 8 Student In Gujarat Stabbed By Fellow Mate Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 08:45 IST A Class 8 student in Gujarats Balasinor was seriously injured after being stabbed by his classmate following a dispute after school hours. A case was registered. A representational, AI-generated image showing a knife attack (News18) Days after a Class 10 student was stabbed to death by a Class 8 student at their school in Gujarats Ahmedabad, another similar incident has come to light from Balasinor city in the state. According to the details, a Class 8 student sustained serious injuries after he was attacked with a knife by his classmate at a primary school. Recommended Stories The incident happened following a dispute between the two after school hours, it was known. Commenting on the incident, the police said the two boys entered into an altercation, which turned violent. Moments later, one of them pulled out a knife and stabbed the other, causing serious injuries to his abdomen and hand. The injured student was rushed to a private hospital for treatment. Meanwhile, the family of the injured student lodged a complaint in connection with the case, following which the police initiated legal proceedings. The motive behind the attack remains unclear, and further investigation is underway. The incident was reported merely three days after a Class 10 student was stabbed to death by a Class 8 student at the Seventh Day Adventist School in Gujarats Ahmedabad on August 19. The victim died during treatment later that night. The deceased student was allegedly stabbed to death using a sharp object by the accused juvenile after a minor scuffle between them. Following his death, a mob vandalised the school on Wednesday, alleging that the school teachers and management did not act in time to save the injured student after the attack. Meanwhile, a screenshot of an Instagram chat between two students went viral on social media platforms with a claim that one of them is the accused juvenile. The police were yet to issue a statement about the purported chat. In the latest, the Gujarat State Commission for Protection of Child Rights sought a report from the Ahmedabad-based private school over the incident. ALSO READ | Protest Over Ahmedabad School Murder Continues For Second Day, Over 500 Booked For Vandalism top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: August 22, 2025, 08:36 IST News india Days After Ahmedabad School Murder, Class 8 Student In Gujarat Stabbed By Fellow Mate Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Last week Kinney Manufacturing received the Business of the Year award from the Nebraska Diplomats at a banquet in Kearney. Gov. Jim Pillen presented the award with Sherry Vinton, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, and Dave Rippe, president of the Nebraska Diplomats, the largest economic development organization in Nebraska. The Nebraska Department of Economic Development website cites several reasons Kinney Manufacturing was chosen for the award. Through strategic expansions over the past year, Kinney Manufacturing has created numerous jobs, offering competitive wages and benefits that support families and stimulate regional economic growth. Randy Kinney said they were excited to receive the award. Debby Kinney credited the people who work for the business. Our success in Beatrice is due to the people who work here, she said. And also, the community members. NGage and the (Beatrice Area Chamber of Commerce) have been awesome to us. It really is a community award. Debby noted that she and Randy took the award to the shops. We tried to catch every employee and tell them it was their hands that won this and its their award, too. We wanted to make sure every employee understood that it was a Team Kinney award, she said. Randy noted that Debby took over 100 pictures of the employees holding the award. Rachel Kreikemeier, director of Gage Area Growth Enterprise (NGage), said she is consistently impressed with Kinneys investment and involvement in the community. In general, they have been invested and involved in the community and their willingness to try new things and develop workforce opportunities , she said. They have worked to attract new talent to the area, engage youth and show them that manufacturing isnt what people think it is. But they are also creative in how they train their workers. They are partnering with local schools to connect high school students to job opportunities. Kreikemeier used as an example Industry Day for area high schools students and talked about the Southeast Community College welding facilities in Lincoln and Beatrice. Randy noted the students at SCC are getting a lot of technical training on how to weld, but they wanted to teach them what a day in the life of a welder is like. Its a great career and were going to invest in them. We want them to be successful, he said. With a location in Lincoln, Kinney Manufacturing bought Precise Fabrication in 2018 from LeRoy and Doreen Janzen to begin their business in the Industrial Park in Beatrice. Within a year we added second shift. We put in a couple of new lasers and robotic welding cells. Since we purchased it, we put in $5 (million) to $6 million of equipment into the facility, he said. In 2022, Kinney purchased J&J Wire in Beatrice, as well as the Blazin Grill line from Setzers. In 2023, they purchased M Grills, a company based in Texas, and moved it to Beatrice. They also bought Industrial Made, which had a facility in Cortland. With the recent completion of additional space, the building is approximately 126,000 square feet or 3 acres. The company offers laser cutting, fabrication, finishing and assembly, among other manufacturing services. Most of the work that is done in the J&J Wire building and the Setzer line will be moved to the new building at 2800 Ridgeview Drive. There are approximately 100 jobs in Beatrice with Kinney Manufacturing currently. This expansion is going to allow us to attract more talent. This entire facility is air conditioned and climate controlled. People use the term 'culture of the company.' I use the word 'environment.' In a manufacturing facility, you have to worry about the physical environment and the people. One without the other isnt any good, Randy said. A conveyor powder coat line is one of the first pieces of equipment going into the new space. In the past, they have had batch systems. Were pretty sure that is going to bring us some new opportunities and work that is going to come into Beatrice, he said. The company purchased additional lots just north of the building to expand another 80,000 square feet in the future. There is no immediate plan, but we have the space, if and when, we decide to expand. There are multiple projects we are reviewing to see what makes the most sense, he said. An expansion of the Lincoln facility is planned in the next year; however, Kinney has no plans to merge the Beatrice and Lincoln facilities. Randy said it works well for the company to have two separate locations. Kinney Manufacturing will be participating in Industry Day for area high school students in October. India To Make Engines Of 5th-Gen Fighter Jets With French Firm Safaran: Rajnath Singh Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 20:03 IST Rajnath Singh urged foreign companies and investors to take part in Indias growing defence manufacturing sector Defence Minister Rajnath Singh (Image: PTI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday announced that India will manufacture engines for fifth-generation fighter jets in collaboration with French aerospace company Safran. Singh made the announcement at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum in New Delhi, where he also said that India has already taken steps towards developing its own fifth-generation fighter aircraft. Recommended Stories Today, we have also taken steps forward in the direction of building fifth-generation fighter aircraft. We have also moved towards manufacturing the aircrafts engine in India itself," Singh said during the event. #WATCH | Defence Minister Rajnath Singh says, Just a few days ago, we placed a new order with HAL to manufacture 97 Tejas fighter planes at a cost of approximately 66,000 crore rupees. Prior to this, HAL had also been given an order to build 83 aircraft at a cost of 48,000 crore pic.twitter.com/XGg5rbUzSh ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 We are about to start engine manufacturing work in India with the French company Safran," he added. At the same event, Singh urged foreign companies and investors to take part in Indias growing defence manufacturing sector. I would like to appeal to all foreign companies and investors to come and invest in Indias vibrant defence manufacturing ecosystem. We will provide you with all the necessary clearances and offer hand-holding support," he said. #WATCH | Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh says, I would like to appeal to all foreign companies and investors to come and invest in Indias vibrant defence manufacturing ecosystem. We will provide you with all the necessary clearances and offer hand-holding support. Our pic.twitter.com/5fjVW1k8VA ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Our Make in India is not limited to India only. When you Make in India, you will make for the world. Indias thinking is oriented towards development and peace. For us, development in isolation is not enough; rather, collective development is more important ," Singh added. Singhs announcement follows a report from May, when the Defence Ministry had approved the execution model" for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme, aimed at developing medium-weight, deep-penetration fighter jets to bolster Indias air combat capabilities. In a significant push towards enhancing Indias indigenous defence capabilities and fostering a robust domestic aerospace industrial ecosystem, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the AMCA Programme Execution Model," the ministry had stated on 27 May. The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) will lead the AMCA project, working in collaboration with private industry partners. Dubbed Indias answer to fifth-generation air power, the AMCA will be a stealth-heavy, multi-role fighter jet equipped with advanced technologies such as sensor fusion, internal weapons bays, supercruise capability, and next-generation avionics. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The AMCA will be a 25-tonne, twin-engine aircraft with a 6.5-tonne internal fuel capacity. Its stealth features are designed to meet the evolving challenges of modern warfare. The initial cost of the project is estimated at Rs 15,000 crore. In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack in April this year, India has accelerated its efforts to modernise its air force and boost indigenous defence production. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 19:27 IST News india India To Make Engines Of 5th-Gen Fighter Jets With French Firm Safaran: Rajnath Singh Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... J&K LG Manoj Sinha Sacks Two Government Employees For Link With Terror Outfit LeT Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:23 IST Jammu and Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha fired two Kupwara staff for their links with Lashkar-e-Taiba.Law enforcement and intelligence agencies gathered strong evidence against them. J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha (Image: ANI/file photo) Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Friday sacked two government employees for their alleged link with a terrorist group, by invoking Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution, news agency ANI reported. A probe into the matter revealed that a teacher in Karnah and an Assistant Stockman in Keran, both in Kupwara district, were secretly working for the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Law enforcement and intelligence agencies gathered strong evidence against them. Recommended Stories Earlier in June this year, Sinha terminated three government employees suspected of having ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), highlighting his administrations firm stance against terrorism. Since assuming office in August 2020, the LG has maintained his focused on dismantling terrorisms support networks, including overground workers (OGWs) and sympathizers embedded in government jobs. Under his leadership, security forces have neutralized hundreds of terrorists across the Union Territory between 2020 and 2024. Additionally, more than 70 OGWs and terror associates have been removed from government positions using Article 311(2)(c). This action comes months after the brutal Pahalgam terror attack, in which terrorists killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in the Baisaran valley. On July 28, security forces eliminated three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack during an encounter in Srinagars Harwan area. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Union Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed the terrorists elimination during Operation Mahadev, stating in the Lok Sabha that those responsible for the terror attack were neutralized in a joint operation by the Indian Army, CRPF, and J&K Police. The Home Minister condemned the attack, expressing condolences to the victims families. In retaliation, the Indian Armed Forces carried out precision strikes on nine terror launch pads deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir following the Pahalgam attack, in May. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More Location : Jammu and Kashmir, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:16 IST News india J&K LG Manoj Sinha Sacks Two Government Employees For Link With Terror Outfit LeT Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Merely Saying Pakistan Zindabad Not Sedition Unless India Is Maligned: Himachal High Court Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 19:00 IST Himachal Pradesh High Court ruled that praising Pakistan without denouncing India is not sedition. The bench said there was no allegation that the post created hatred or disaffection against the Indian government. The Himachal Pradesh High Court ruled that praising a foreign country, without denouncing India, does not amount to sedition, as it does not incite separatist feelings or subversive activity. Justice Rakesh Kainthla made the observation while granting bail to a man accused of posting an AI-generated image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the words Pakistan Zindabad" (long live Pakistan). The bench said there was no allegation that the post created hatred or disaffection against the Indian government. The court noted, Hailing a country without denouncing the motherland does not constitute an offence of sedition because it does not incite armed rebellion, subversive activities, or encourage feelings of separatist activities. Therefore, prima facie, there is insufficient material to connect the petitioner with the commission of crime." Recommended Stories What Was The Case? The accused, Suleman, was booked in May by police in Paonta Sahib, Sirmour district, under Section 152 of the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which criminalises acts endangering the unity and integrity of India. The provision is rooted in the repealed Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which covered sedition. He surrendered before the police on July 8. Investigators said the post was inflammatory, particularly given strained relations between India and Pakistan. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Sulemans counsel told the court he had been falsely implicated and that the filing of the chargesheet meant custody served no further purpose. State counsel, however, argued that raising a slogan in support of Pakistan amounted to anti-national behaviour. The court noted that police had already seized the electronic device used in the post and sent it for forensic examination. The police have filed the chargesheet, and there is nothing to show that the custodial interrogation of the petitioner is necessary. Therefore, no fruitful purpose would be served by detaining the petitioner in custody," the order noted. Location : Shimla, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 19:00 IST News india Merely Saying Pakistan Zindabad Not Sedition Unless India Is Maligned: Himachal High Court Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Safety Risk For Patients: Regulator Sounds Alarm After Insulin, Obesity Drug Heist Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 25, 2025, 11:01 IST The products reported missing include insulin formulations marketed as Ryzodeg FlexTouch and Fiasp (Penfill and FlexTouch), along with various strengths of Wegovy FlexTouch. Among the stolen products is Wegovy, Novo Nordisks blockbuster weight-loss injection. Image/News18 Indias drug regulator has sounded an alert after Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk reported theft of several batches of its injectable medicines, including insulin and obesity treatment drugs, during transit from the companys Bhiwandi hub to cities such as Nagpur, Raipur, Cuttack and Kolkata, News18 learnt. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), Dr Rajeev Singh Raghuvanshi, in a notice issued to state drug controllers and regulatory offices across the country, said the stolen products may pose safety risks to patients since they require strict cold-chain storage at 2C to 8C. If handled outside this range, the quality and efficacy of the medicines could be compromised. Recommended Stories M/s Novo Nordisk has informed about a theft of its products The quality of the products may be compromised if the products are not handled in proper storage conditions since the formulations are supposed to be maintained at 2C to 8C failing which, would impact the quality of the drug and in turn impact the safety of the patients," said the letter issued by CDSCO on 21 August, seen by News18. The products reported missing include insulin formulations marketed as Ryzodeg FlexTouch and Fiasp (Penfill and FlexTouch), along with various strengths of semaglutide injection sold under the brand Wegovy FlexTouch. The matter is under investigation by the police. Among the stolen products is Wegovy, Novo Nordisks blockbuster weight-loss injection that has seen surging global demand as an anti-obesity treatment. The drug, a GLP-1 analogue originally developed for diabetes, was launched in India in June amid rising interest in medical interventions for obesity. News18 reached out to Novo Nordisk for a response on the theft and subsequent alert, but the company had not replied immediately. This story will be updated once a response is received. Regulator issues advisory Regulators have asked doctors to exercise caution while prescribing these drugs and to advise patients to promptly report any adverse reactions. Carefully prescribe and educate the patients for reporting of any adverse drug reactions." Consumers have been urged to procure medicines only from authorized sources and with proper invoices. Meanwhile, officials across states have been instructed to keep a strict vigil on the movement of these products in the market and initiate action wherever necessary under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. To be careful and procure the above products from authorized sources only and with proper invoice," the letter advises. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has also directed its IT cell to publish the alert on its website to ensure wider public awareness. Instruct your officers to keep a strict vigil on the movement of the said products in the market and initiate necessary action under the provisions of Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules made thereunder." Novo Nordisk Issues Statement top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In an official statement by Novo Nordisk, the drugmaker said, We are aware of the unfortunate theft of a minor quantity of Novo Nordisk medications during transportation by our distribution partners. The incident has been reported to the relevant authorities, and we are fully cooperating with the ongoing investigation." Patient safety is and will be our top priority. Our rigorous cold chain and quality assurance measures ensure medications are stored at the required temperature to maintain their integrity and effectiveness. Hence, to protect patient well-being and ensure authenticity of products, we urge all individuals to purchase Novo Nordisk medications only from authorised pharmacies, accompanied by a valid prescription and invoice. We have taken additional measures along with our distribution partner and authorities to strengthen safeguards across our supply chain to prevent similar situations in the future. We remain committed to delivering safe and effective treatments for those who rely on us," it added. About the Author Himani Chandna Himani Chandna, Associate Editor at CNN News18, specialises in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. With firsthand insights into India's COVID-19 battle, she brings a seasoned perspective. She is particularly pass... Read More Himani Chandna, Associate Editor at CNN News18, specialises in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. With firsthand insights into India's COVID-19 battle, she brings a seasoned perspective. She is particularly pass... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:04 IST News india Safety Risk For Patients: Regulator Sounds Alarm After Insulin, Obesity Drug Heist Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Terrorists Reduced To Dust': In Bihar, PM Modi Reminds Nation Of Op Sindoor Resolve Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:58 IST PM Modi praised Bihar as the land of Chanakya and Chandragupta and said the terrorists behind the Pahalgam attack were eliminated, fulfilling his vow made from the states soil. PM Narendra Modi (File photo/PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reminded the nation of a fulfilled resolve, as he spoke in Bihars Gayaji on how the Indian forces eliminated the terrorists involved in the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack. Speaking at a public event soon after he launched multiple projects, the Prime Minister called Bihar the land of Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya" and said all resolutions taken on the soil of Bihar are fulfilled in time. Recommended Stories Bihar is the land of Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. Bihar has stood as the backbone of the country at all times," he said. Every resolve made on this pious land is the strength of the country and doesnt go in vain," PM Modi said. When the Pahalgam terror attack happened, I had vowed to reduce the terrorists to dust from this land. The world has seen that resolve getting fulfilled," he added. Operation Sindoor has drawn a new line in Indias security policy. Now, no one who sends terrorists to attack India will be spared," the Prime Minister said. #WATCH | PM Narendra Modi says, Bihar is the land of Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. Bihar has stood as the backbone of the country at all times. Every resolve made on this pious land is the strength of the country and doesnt go in vain. When the Pahalgam terror attack pic.twitter.com/ODprV05ROC ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 IN BIHAR, PM MODI SLAMS RJD As the Prime Minister spoke during the public event, he also took a swipe at the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and its allies, and said they treated the people of Bihar like a vote bank. For them (the RJD and its allies), the people of Bihar are only a vote bank, they have no concern for the struggles of the poor," the Prime Minister said. You may recall how a Congress chief minister once said from a stage that Biharis would not be allowed to enter their state. Such is the Congresss hatred towards the people of Bihar," he added. Despite seeing the Congresss misbehaviour with the people of Bihar, the RJD were in deep sleep." Our effort is to ensure that Bihars sons and daughters find employment and live a life of dignity here itself," PM Modi said. VIDEO | Gaya Ji: PM Modi (@narendramodi), taking a swipe at RJD and its allies, says, For them, the people of Bihar are only a vote bank; they have no concern for the struggles of the poor. You may recall how a Congress CM once said from a stage that Biharis would not be allowed pic.twitter.com/694S1bpEFj Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 22, 2025 Bihars rapid development is the NDA governments big priority, and that is why Bihar is progressing on the path of all-around development today," PM Narendra Modi said. What was the plight here during the lalten (lantern) raj? During the lalten raj, this region was in the grip of red terror. Due to the Maoists, it was difficult to travel anywhere after evening. Cities like Gayaji used to be completely dark during the lalten raj." There was no electricity in thousands of villages. They compelled several generations to migrate from Bihar," the Prime Minister added. PM LAUNCHES MULTIPLE PROJECTS IN BIHAR In Gayaji, PM Modi launched several projects, including the Rs 6,880-crore Buxar thermal power plant. The PM also flagged off two trains, the Amrit Bharat Express between Gayaji and Delhi and the Buddhist Circuit train between Vaishali and Koderma. The latter will give a boost to tourism and pilgrimage across key Buddhist sites in the region. The Buxar thermal power plant will significantly enhance power generation capacity, improve energy security, and meet the growing electricity demand of the region. Bihar Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, along with several Union Ministers, state ministers, MPs and MLAs were also present on the occasion. The PM also inaugurated the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre at Muzaffarpur. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all ALSO READ | NRI Tycoon Lord Sawaraj Paul Dies At 94, PM Modi Remembers His Legacy About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:30 IST News india 'Terrorists Reduced To Dust': In Bihar, PM Modi Reminds Nation Of Op Sindoor Resolve Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Aunta-Simaria Bridge To Buxar Thermal Power Plant: PM Modi Inaugurates Key Projects In Bihar Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 15:04 IST In Kolkata, PM Modi will inaugurate a 13.61 km stretch of the Kolkata Metro network, and flag off the NoaparaJai Hind Bimanbandar Metro service from Jessore Road Metro Station. Prime Minister Narendra Modi . (PMO) Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated several infrastructure projects in Bihars Gaya on Friday, giving a boost to connectivity, travel, and development in the regions. Thousands of people gathered in Gaya as Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived for a public event. The crowd waited under large tents to see and hear the PM speak. He will soon flag off several projects for Bihar. PM Modis Bihar Visit Recommended Stories PM Modi inaugurated the AuntaSimaria Bridge (Rs 1,870 crore) to reduce detours and ease traffic. He launched NH-31 upgrades (BakhtiyarpurMokama, Rs 1,900 crore) for smoother travel. He inaugurated the Buxar Thermal Power Plant (Rs 6,880 crore) adding 660 MW capacity, and the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital in Muzaffarpur for advanced cancer care. He launched Namami Gange sewage treatment projects to clean the Ganga, and Amrit Bharat Express (GayaDelhi) and Buddhist Circuit Train (VaishaliKoderma). He handed over PMAY housing keys to beneficiaries. VIDEO | Bihar: PM Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) inaugurates Aunta Simaria bridge project on River Ganga.(Source: Third Party) (Full video available on PTI Videos https://t.co/n147TvqRQz) pic.twitter.com/26U9cbcXmx Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 22, 2025 PM Modis West Bengal Visit PM Modis visit will begin at 4:15 PM at Jessore Road Metro Station. During this time, he will flag off the metro trains operating between Naopara and Jai Hind Bimanbandar Metro Station. Following the flag-off ceremony, the prime minister is scheduled to take a metro ride on the newly inaugurated route and return. At 4:45 PM, the Prime Minister will arrive at the Central Jail Ground in Dumdum, where he will inaugurate multiple development projects for the state of West Bengal. These projects are aimed at boosting infrastructure and improving civic amenities in the region. At 5:30 PM, PM Modi will address a public meeting at the same venue, the Central Jail Ground, Dumdum, where he is expected to speak on various developmental initiatives and engage with the public. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all New Metro Lines To Give Major Boost To Connectivity In Kolkata PM Modi will inaugurate a 13.61 km stretch of the Kolkata Metro network. He will flag off the NoaparaJai Hind Bimanbandar Metro service from Jessore Road Metro Station. He will take a metro ride on the newly inaugurated route to the airport. He will virtually launch the SealdahEsplanade Metro service. He will virtually launch the BeleghataHemanta Mukhopadhyay Metro service. He will inaugurate a newly built subway at Howrah Metro Station. He will lay the foundation stone for the 6-lane Kona Expressway project worth Rs 1,200 crore. The Kona Expressway will improve connectivity between Howrah, Kolkata, and surrounding towns. About the Author Anushka Vats Anushka Vats is a Sub-Editor at News18.com with a passion for storytelling and a curiosity that extends beyond the newsroom. She covers both national and international news. For more stories, you can follow her... Read More Anushka Vats is a Sub-Editor at News18.com with a passion for storytelling and a curiosity that extends beyond the newsroom. She covers both national and international news. For more stories, you can follow her... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 07:07 IST News india Aunta-Simaria Bridge To Buxar Thermal Power Plant: PM Modi Inaugurates Key Projects In Bihar Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Sniffer Dog Bites 4-Year-Old Boy At Kolkata Airport, Family Cancels Malaysia Trip Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 22:59 IST A sniffer dog bit a 4-year-old at Kolkata airport, leading to a canceled Malaysia trip. The incident took place between departure gates 4A and 4B. (Image: Representational) A four-year-old boy was allegedly bitten by a sniffer dog belonging to a security agency at the Kolkata airport, forcing his family to cancel an overseas trip, police said. The incident took place between departure gates 4A and 4B, when the dog, a German Shepherd, suddenly lunged forward and bit the child despite being on a leash with its handler. The boy was accompanied by his parents, who were scheduled to travel to Malaysia. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Recommended Stories The childs father later lodged a complaint, based on which an FIR was registered against the handler for incompetence in controlling the dog causing severe injury." According to the complaint, the family had to call off their trip as the boy was traumatised and required a full course of anti-rabies vaccination spanning nearly a month. Police said they are investigating the case. First Published: August 22, 2025, 22:59 IST News india Sniffer Dog Bites 4-Year-Old Boy At Kolkata Airport, Family Cancels Malaysia Trip Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Supreme Court Backs Elderly Woman, Condoning 6-Year Delay Over Sons Betrayal In Partition Dispute Reported By : LawBeat Last Updated: August 23, 2025, 03:30 IST With indications that the son, on whom the appellant relied, had betrayed her trust and colluded with the plaintiffs, the SC held that the delay deserved sympathetic consideration The SC observed that in family disputes, elderly women often rely on male relatives to safeguard their legal interests. File pic/PTI The Supreme Court has condoned a delay of nearly six years in filing an appeal by a 72-year-old woman who alleged that her son colluded with the plaintiffs in a partition suit and kept her uninformed about critical developments in the litigation. Recommended Stories The SC observed that in family disputes, elderly women often rely on male relatives to safeguard their legal interests, and when allegations of betrayal of such trust arise, courts must adopt a sympathetic approach. A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Joymalya Bagchi allowed an appeal filed by Methkupally Venkatamma challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Courts order dated November 7, 2016, which had allowed a review petition filed by the plaintiffs in a partition suit and revived their appeal. The top court directed that the review application be heard afresh on the merits after giving due notice to all concerned parties. The dispute stems from a suit filed in 2003 by the first and second respondents seeking partition and separate possession of land parcels admeasuring around 37 acres situated at Pocharam Village, Ghatkeswar Mandal, Ranga Reddy District. A preliminary decree was passed on March 28, 2011. Venkatamma, the wife of late M Mohan Reddy, along with other legal heirs, challenged this preliminary decree in appeal. The division bench allowed the appeal, holding that the suit property was neither joint nor partible. However, the plaintiffs later sought review of this decision, which was allowed by the High Court in 2016, leading to the revival of the appeal. Before the Supreme Court, senior advocate S Niranjan Reddy, appearing for the respondents, argued that the appellant approached the court after an inordinate delay of 2,112 days without adequate justification. He submitted that all defendants, including the appellant, were aware of the review proceedings and were represented by counsel. He also pointed out that after the appeal was revived, the appellant and others participated in the proceedings, and even the third respondent, her eldest son, had moved a special leave petition (SLP) against an interim order, which was later withdrawn. Contrary to this, senior advocate Nidhesh Gupta, representing Venkatamma, argued that she is a septuagenarian who entrusted her son, the third respondent, with the responsibility of managing the litigation. He alleged that the son colluded with the plaintiffs and kept her in the dark regarding the review order and subsequent developments. It was only in August 2022, when she learned through relatives that the SLP filed by her son had been withdrawn, that she became aware of the situation. She then obtained case documents and filed her SLP in November 2022. Ordinarily, the court said, it would not condone such a long delay. However, considering the specific averments and submissions indicating that the son, on whom the appellant relied, had betrayed her trust and colluded with the plaintiffs, the bench held that the delay deserved sympathetic consideration. It is common knowledge that in family disputes elderly women rely on their husbands or sons to look after their interest in litigation. When a case of betrayal of such trust is pleaded in a delayed condonation application, the Court is required to view the same with a sympathetic slant," the order stated. The court noted that although the appellant appeared to have been represented by counsel, the lawyer was evidently instructed by the third respondent, against whom the allegations of collusion were made. It further observed that the High Courts impugned order was cryptic and failed to record the submissions of the appellant, in whose favour the earlier appeal had been allowed. Finding merit in the appellants argument that remanding the review for rehearing would not prejudice the respondents, the court said that preserving the existing cryptic order would result in the appellant losing a vital right derived from the appellate judgment dismissing the suit. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Accordingly, the Supreme Court set aside the High Courts order and directed that the review application be reheard on the merits after giving due notice to all parties. It also instructed the High Court to dispose of the matter expeditiously without unnecessary adjournments. About the Author Sanya Talwar Sanya Talwar, Editor at Lawbeat, has been heading the organisation since its inception. After practising in courts for over four years, she discovered her affinity for legal journalism. She has worked previousl... Read More Sanya Talwar, Editor at Lawbeat, has been heading the organisation since its inception. After practising in courts for over four years, she discovered her affinity for legal journalism. She has worked previousl... Read More First Published: August 23, 2025, 03:30 IST News india Supreme Court Backs Elderly Woman, Condoning 6-Year Delay Over Sons Betrayal In Partition Dispute Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Stray Dogs To Be Released After Sterilisation, Immunisation': Supreme Court Modifies Earlier Order Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:08 IST The Supreme Court has stayed its earlier order barring the release of stray dogs, directing that they be freed after sterilisation and vaccination. A photo showing stray dogs in India (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday modified its previous, August 11 order, and said that stray dogs that are picked up must be released after sterilisation and immunisation. The top court also said that the order applies to all stray dogs, except for those infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour. Recommended Stories The court said public feeding of stray dogs is prohibited, and legal action would be taken against anyone doing so. It also ordered the arrangement of separate feeding areas for stray dogs. After the last hearing, we have suggested some modifications," Justice Vikram Nath, hearing pleas seeking a stay on the order passed by the Justice Pardiwala-led bench, said. Municipal authorities shall comply with para 12, 12.1 and 12.2, prohibition on release of strays shall be stayed. They shall be dewormed, vaccinated, etc and sent back to the same area," Justice Nath said. Those dogs with aggressive behaviour or with rabies shall be immunised and not be released," he added. No public feeding of dogs will be allowed. Dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs are to be created. There have been instances due to such feeding instances," he said. Directions in para 13 are reiterated with a modification, where any public or organisation shall not obstruct such services. Dog lovers and NGOs shall deposit Rs 25,000 and Rs 2 lakh with the registrar," Justice Nath said. On August 11, the Supreme Court had ordered the permanent relocation of stray dogs from streets to dog shelters in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR). A three-judge special bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria had on August 14 reserved its order in the matter. In the August 11 order, a two-judge bench of the court had passed a slew of directions, including ordering the authorities in Delhi-NCR to start picking up stray dogs from all localities at the earliest" and relocate the canines to dog shelters. The bench passed the order in a suo motu case initiated on July 28 over a media report on stray dog bites leading to rabies, particularly among children, in the national capital. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Widespread protests were reported across the country following the Supreme Courts August 11 order. ALSO READ | Humane Policy Vs Harsh Reality: Stray Dog Issue In Focus After Karnataka Childs Death About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: August 22, 2025, 10:44 IST News india 'Stray Dogs To Be Released After Sterilisation, Immunisation': Supreme Court Modifies Earlier Order Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... CNN name, logo and all associated elements and 2024 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. CNN and the CNN logo are registered marks of Cable News Network, LP LLLP, displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of NEWS18.com does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them. Copyright Network18 Media and Investments Ltd 2024. All rights reserved. UP Man Claims Taj Mahal Entry Denied Over Shri Ram Bag Print, Security Cites Banned Items Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:03 IST A Kanpur tourist alleged he was denied entry to the Taj Mahal because his bag had 'Shri Ram' printed on it, but authorities clarified he was carrying prohibited items. A photo of the Taj Mahal (PTI) A man from Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur has alleged that the security at Agras iconic Taj Mahal did not allow him to enter the monument premises as he was carrying a bag with a Hindu religious quote printed on it. Recommended Stories The tourist, who identified himself as Ashish, posted a video on social media and alleged he was not allowed to enter the premises after he put his bag in the security scanner, despite carrying an entry ticket. He claimed the security did not allow him to move further because Shri Ram was printed on his bag. However, the security staff at the Taj Mahal said that the visitor was stopped at the entrance because the scans revealed he was carrying prohibited items in his bag. They clarified that the denial had nothing to do with religious markings. Commenting on the incident, senior commandant Vaibhav Dubey said prohibited items, including supari, tobacco, and a cutter, were found inside the bag during scanning. These are strictly banned inside the monument premises. He was given clear options to either deposit the bag in the cloakroom or leave the restricted items outside, but instead, he chose to record a video and give the matter a religious angle. This is unfortunate," Dubey said. Authorities reiterated that security measures at the Taj Mahal apply equally to all visitors, irrespective of religion or belief. In another incident, a man captured the inside view of the Taj Mahal, including the exclusive gateway to the tombs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. The clip, widely shared on social media, showed the secretive path which takes one to the two tombs of the Mughal King and his better half resting in peace. The inside view of the Taj Mahal has been closed to the general public for many years to safeguard such historic tombs. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all ALSO READ | Why Was Agra Chosen For Taj Mahal? Why Doesnt Yamuna Flood This Shah Jahan-Built Monument? About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:57 IST News india UP Man Claims Taj Mahal Entry Denied Over Shri Ram Bag Print, Security Cites Banned Items Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... TikTok Website Still Blocked In India, Confirms DoT Amid Return Speculation Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 22:10 IST TikTok stirs comeback rumors in India as users access its website, though the app remains banned. ByteDance has not confirmed an official relaunch. The TikTok logo is seen. (Representative Image) TikTok, the Chinese short-video platform banned in India since June 2020, stirred speculation about a possible comeback after some users reported being able to access its website. While the app itself remains unavailable on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, the sudden reappearance of the TikTok domain fueled excitement among fans. However, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) confirmed that the website remains blocked on all Indian ISPs. ByteDance, TikToks parent company, has issued no official statement on a relaunch. However, social media users said that they were able to load TikToks website, while others said it remained inaccessible. Recommended Stories TikTok is coming back in India?Tiktoks official website is now working again in India. pic.twitter.com/FsjBucsBu0 TrakinTech (@TrakinTech) August 22, 2025 Many subpages are still not functional, suggesting the platform has not formally restarted operations in India. What the Hell? Tiktok website is working in India Without any VPNComeback horha hai kya pic.twitter.com/6VFeYJyxdx Techno Ruhez (@AmreliaRuhez) August 22, 2025 Why Was TikTok Banned In India? TikTok was among 59 Chinese apps banned by the Indian government in June 2020. The Ministry of Electronics and IT said the apps were engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order." The ban came shortly after violent clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakhs Galwan Valley, which marked one of the sharpest downturns in bilateral relations in decades. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Whats Next? TikTok, once one of the most downloaded apps in India with more than 200 million users, has not officially announced any plans to re-enter the Indian market. For now, the app remains barred, but its brief resurfacing has rekindled hopes among fans of the platform. First Published: August 22, 2025, 21:16 IST News india TikTok Website Still Blocked In India, Confirms DoT Amid Return Speculation Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Sexually Frustrated, Wanted To Rape Me: Trans Woman's Charges Against Congress MLA In Kerala Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 07:22 IST The trans woman's allegations came against Congress MLA Rahul Mamkootathil shortly after Malayalam actor Rini Ann George accused him of sending her offensive messages. Congress MLA Rahul Mamkootathil (Photo: X) After harassment allegations by Malayalam actor Rini Ann George, a trans woman has levelled serious charges against Congress MLA Rahul Mamkootathil, claiming that he told her he wanted to rape" her. She claimed that he told her that he wanted to do it" in Bengaluru or Hyderabad. Recommended Stories This comes a day after Rini George accused him of sending her offensive messages on multiple occasions, claiming that he had invited her to a hotel. She had also warned him of informing his party; however, he allegedly continued his behaviour. On Thursday, Mamkootathil resigned as the president of the Youth Congresss Kerala unit; however, he denied any wrongdoing on his part. Fresh Charges Against Congress MLA A trans woman, identified as Avanthika, claimed that he had messaged her that he wanted to rape her. Serious RAPE allegations, Against whom?Kerala Youth Congress President and Congress MLA. Rahul Mamkootathil. Not a word on this by INC yet. He tried to RAPE a TRANSGENDER Women.So shameful this act is pic.twitter.com/lBAgVBrRC4 Curly Jeevi (@curlykrazy07) August 21, 2025 I think he is sexually frustrated because he said he wants to rape me. He said we can go to Bengaluru or Hyderabad and do it," she claimed. Avanthika claimed that they had met in a debate during the elections, after which he reached out to her on social media. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all It started as a normal friendship, but he later made it a disgusting experience," she said. In television interviews with Malayalam news channels, the trans woman claimed that he first sought her phone number on Messenger and after getting it, he messaged her on Telegram, where chats would disappear once theyre read, The Week reported. About the Author Ashesh Mallick Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Location : Kerala, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 07:18 IST News india Sexually Frustrated, Wanted To Rape Me: Trans Woman's Charges Against Congress MLA In Kerala Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Tripura Woman Gang-Raped By Two Neighbours Inside Moved Car, Accused Nabbed Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 22:53 IST Mithun Debnath and Bower Debbarma were arrested for allegedly gang-raping a girl in a moving car near Udaipur railway station in Gomati after visiting Tripureswari temple. A complaint has been filed in the matter (Representative image) In a shocking incident, a woman was allegedly gang-raped by two of her neighbours in a moving car in Tripuras Gomati district, police said on Friday. The two accused, identified as Mithun Debnath (24) and Bower Debbarma (24) of Maharani, have been arrested. Recommended Stories The incident took place on Thursday evening near Udaipur railway station in Gomati when the woman went to Tripureswari temple. After visiting the temple, two boys took her to Udaipur railway station in a car, and on the way, they sexually assaulted her, news agency PTI reported, citing the police. The woman, accompanied by two of her neighbours, went to Tripureswari temple on Thursday evening. After visiting the temple, two boys took her to Udaipur railway station in a car. On the way, Mithun and Bower raped her in the moving vehicle", officer-in-charge of RK Pur women police station, Nibha Sinha, told the news agency. Sinha said the car was stopped at a checkpost while they were returning around 10 pm and all the three were detained at Kakraban checkgate in Udaipur subdivision. The woman said she was raped by the two men. We then brought them to the police station for interrogation", she said. On being asked, the woman claimed she was raped by two of her companions. We then brought them to RK Pur women police station for interrogation", she said. Following a complaint from the victims family on Friday, both youths were arrested for their alleged involvement in the incident. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all A forensic team has checked the vehicle in which the girl was raped. The survivor was produced before a local court to register her statement as part of the investigation", she said. (With inputs from PTI) About the Author Shobhit Gupta Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More Location : Agartala (incl. Jogendranagar, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 22:53 IST News india Tripura Woman Gang-Raped By Two Neighbours Inside Moved Car, Accused Nabbed Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Will Throw Out Illegal Immigrants': PM Modi Flags Bihar's Demography Change, Slams Congress, RJD Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 13:56 IST The Prime Minister hit out at the Congress and Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) over the alleged appeasement of immigrants He said a "demographic mission" will soon be launched to tackle the threat posed by illegal immigrants. (Photo: YouTube/Narendra Modi) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday flagged the issue of illegal immigrants in Bihar and vowed to throw them out of the country. His remarks came as the opposition parties continue to protest over the Election Commissions Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in poll-bound Bihar. Addressing a gathering in Gayaji, the Prime Minister hit out at the Congress and Lalu Prasads Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) over the alleged appeasement of immigrants. Recommended Stories The increasing population of illegal immigrants in the country is a matter of concern. In the bordering areas of Bihar, demography is rapidly changing. The NDA government has decided not to let illegal immigrants decide the future of our country. We will not let immigrants take away the jobs meant for the people of Bihar To tackle this threat, I have proposed to start a demographic mission. This mission will begin its work shortly. We will throw out every immigrant People of Bihar need to beware of the supporters of these immigrants in the country," he said. Congress and RJD want to take away the rights of the people of Bihar and give them to immigrants for appeasement and to increase their vote bank," he added. In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister underlined the importance of safeguarding Indias demographic integrity. The imminent dangers of demographic imbalance due to infiltration and illegal migration in border areas are high, thereby affecting citizens livelihoods," he said. PM Modi also announced that a High-Powered Demography Mission will be launched aimed at ensuring Indias unity, integrity, and security, tackling both strategic and social challenges. PM Modi laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crores for multiple sectors, including Power, Road, Health, Urban Development and Water Supply. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all PM Modi also defended the central governments new bills for the removal of the prime minister, chief ministers and ministers arrested on serious criminal charges for 30 days. If a government employee is imprisoned for 50 hours, then he loses his job automatically, be it a driver, a clerk or a peon. But a CM, a Minister, or even a PM can enjoy staying in the government even from jail Some time ago, we saw how files were being signed from jail and how government orders were given from jail. If leaders have such an attitude, how can we fight corruption The NDA government has brought a law against corruption, and the Prime Minister also comes under its purview," he said. About the Author Saurabh Verma Saurabh Verma covers general, national and international day-to-day news for News18.com as a Senior Sub-editor. He keenly observes politics. You can follow him on Twitter --twitter.com/saurabhkverma19 Saurabh Verma covers general, national and international day-to-day news for News18.com as a Senior Sub-editor. He keenly observes politics. You can follow him on Twitter --twitter.com/saurabhkverma19 Location : Gaya, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 13:37 IST News india 'Will Throw Out Illegal Immigrants': PM Modi Flags Bihar's Demography Change, Slams Congress, RJD Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Ganesh Chaturthi 2025: How Different States In India Celebrate Ganeshotsav Published By : Trending Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 09:05 IST Ganesh Chaturthi Celebrations 2025: From Mumbais vibrant pandals to Tamil Nadus homemade sweets, discover how every Indian state celebrates Lord Ganesha. Ganesh Chaturthi will be grandly celebrated on August 27 this year. (AI generated image) Ganesh Chaturthi Celebrations 2025: Ganesh Chaturthi, also called Ganeshotsav, Vinayaka Chaturthi, or Gowri Habba, is one of the most widely celebrated Hindu festivals. It marks the birth of Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of wisdom, prosperity, and good fortune. The festival lasts for 10 days, starting on the fourth day of the moon cycle, Chaturthi, when devotees install Ganesha idols in their homes and public spaces. The celebration concludes with the grand Visarjan, when the idols are immersed in rivers, lakes, or the sea, symbolising Ganeshas return to his celestial abode. Recommended Stories ALSO READ: When is Ganesh Chaturthi 2025? Date, History, Significance, Muhurat, Rituals And Celebrations This year, Ganesh Chaturthi begins on August 27, and the Visarjan will be observed on September 6. The festival is celebrated across India, and each state has its unique customs and rituals, reflecting local traditions and culture. Take a look at how Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated in different states of India: Mumbai Mumbai is famous for its large-scale Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. The city comes alive with huge, beautifully decorated Ganesha idols installed in homes and public pandals. The streets are filled with devotees chanting Ganpati Bappa Morya" and Mangal Murti Morya" as they participate in processions. Iconic pandals like Lalbaugcha Raja, Khetwadi Ganraj, and Andhericha Raja attract millions of visitors. The festival concludes with the immersion of idols in the Arabian Sea, turning the city into a vibrant hub of music, dance, and cultural performances. Goa Goa celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi, locally known as Chavath, with great enthusiasm similar to Maharashtra. Families clean their homes, visit relatives, and perform rituals at home with clay Ganesha idols. ALSO READ: Ganesh Chaturthi 2025: Eco-Friendly Ganpati Decoration Ideas For Home And Society Traditional sweets like Nevri and Patoleo are prepared, and cultural events such as folk shows and dances like Dashavatar are performed. In many places, the celebration lasts two days, ending with the immersion of the idol in nearby rivers or lakes. Delhi In Delhi, Ganesh Chaturthi showcases a blend of cultural practices from across India. Visitors can witness massive idols in some areas, while other locations focus on rituals and chants from the Vedas and Upanishads. Decorated pandals, cultural programs, and public celebrations create a lively atmosphere, reflecting the citys cosmopolitan spirit. Tamil Nadu In Tamil Nadu, the festival is called Vinayaka Chaturthi. The celebration begins a day earlier with Gauri or Gowri Habba, when Goddess Gauri, mother of Lord Ganesha, is worshipped. ALSO READ: Ganesh Chaturthi 2025: Buy Eco-Friendly Ganesh Idols With These 5 Smart Tips On Ganesh Chaturthi, devotees install clay idols of Ganesha at home and in temples, offer prayers, sing devotional songs, and prepare traditional sweets like Kozhukattai, similar to modak. Special cultural programs and religious talks are held in cities like Chennai, combining devotion with local traditions. Karnataka Karnataka also celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi with traditional and ritualistic practices. The festival begins with prayers to Goddess Gauri, followed by installing Ganesha idols in homes and public pandals. People prepare sweets like modakam, gojju, and payasam, perform pujas, bhajans, and aartis, and take part in cultural events in cities like Bengaluru and Mysuru. The focus is on devotion, simplicity, and community celebrations, making it both a religious and cultural festival. Pune Pune, known as Maharashtras cultural capital, hosts grand Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. Homes and public pandals are decorated, devotees perform pujas, offer sweets like ladoos and modaks, and participate in traditional dances. The city attracts visitors from across the region who come to witness its vibrant festivities. Hyderabad Hyderabads Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated with great fervour. Large idols are installed in pandals, and devotees offer prayers and prepare special dishes like undrallu, kudumulu, and rice porridge. The famous Khairatabad mandal hosts one of the tallest Ganesha idols, reportedly sometimes reaching 60 feet, with a massive laddu offered in the Lords hand, drawing huge crowds. Kolkata While not as prominent in Kolkata, Ganesh Chaturthi is still celebrated with beautiful decorations and rituals, often blending with local traditions. Families and communities install idols, perform pujas, and engage in cultural activities, maintaining the festive spirit. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana In these states, the festival is called Vinayaka Chavithi. People install clay Ganesha idols, offer prayers, sing bhajans, and participate in public events. Hyderabad, in particular, is known for large-scale celebrations with music, dance, and grand immersion processions. Kanipakam village in Andhra Pradesh hosts a 21-day Brahmotsavam celebration, one of the most unique regional events. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all West Bengal, Odisha, and Gujarat In West Bengal and Odisha, the festival is observed with zeal, especially in cities, with homes, businesses, and schools installing idols. Pujas and cultural programs follow traditional rites. In Gujarat, families celebrate at home with offerings like modaks, fruits, and coconuts, while public celebrations in cities like Ahmedabad and Surat include grand processions and temple prayers. About the Author Nibandh Vinod Nibandh Vinod is a seasoned journalist with 26 years of experience, specializing in covering events, festivals, and driving SEO content for News18.com. A tech-savvy person, Nibandh works closely with a young te... Read More Nibandh Vinod is a seasoned journalist with 26 years of experience, specializing in covering events, festivals, and driving SEO content for News18.com. A tech-savvy person, Nibandh works closely with a young te... Read More fashion, travel, News18 Lifestyle section brings you the latest on health food , wellness tips, celebrity style, travel inspiration and recipes. Also Download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 09:05 IST News lifestyle Ganesh Chaturthi 2025: How Different States In India Celebrate Ganeshotsav NRI Tycoon Lord Sawaraj Paul Dies At 94, PM Modi Remembers His Legacy Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:51 IST Lord Swraj Paul, founder of Caparo Group and philanthropist, passed away in London at 94. He was a House of Lords peer and major donor to education and health. Swraj Paul, the Indian-born British industrialist, died at 94. Indian-origin British Industrialist Lord Swraj Paul passed away in London on Thursday evening. He was 94. Swraj, founder of UK-based Caparo Group of industries, was one of the UKs richest and most influential men. He had been taken ill and hospitalised recently where he passed away surrounded by his family members. Recommended Stories PM Modi Remembers Lord Pauls Legacy PM Modi mourned the demise of philanthropist and posted a picture on X with caption, Deeply saddened by the passing of Shri Swaraj Paul Ji. His contributions to industry, philanthropy and public service in the UK, and his unwavering support for closer ties with India will always be remembered. I fondly recall our many interactions. Condolences to his family and admirers. Om Shanti." Deeply saddened by the passing of Shri Swaraj Paul Ji. His contributions to industry, philanthropy and public service in the UK, and his unwavering support for closer ties with India will always be remembered. I fondly recall our many interactions. Condolences to his family and pic.twitter.com/6G7D4gDDD1 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 22, 2025 The House of Lords peer was born in Jalandhar and relocated to the UK in the 1960s in pursuit of treatment for his little daughter Ambikas cancer. Born in Jalandhar, Lord Paul moved to UK in the 1960s for treatment of his daughter, Ambikas cancer. However, she passed away at the age of four. After her demise, Swraj established Ambika Paul Foundation as a charitable trust that went on to donate millions to promote the wellbeing of children and youth. The London Zoo is where she was always the happiest," recalled Lord Paul last month, during the annual commemoration he hosted at the Ambika Paul Childrens Zoo in London one of the major beneficiaries of the foundation. Lord Pauls life was full of tragedies as he lost his son, Angad Paul, in 2015 and his wife, Aruna, in 2022. Upon these tragic events, he went on to undertake similar philanthropic endeavours in their memory. This hall is a tribute to my wonderful wife whom I miss very much; we never had an argument during our 65 years of marriage," said Lord Paul, when he inaugurated the Lady Aruna Swraj Paul Hall at the historic Indian Gymkhana Club in London in February 2023. This year, he was ranked 81st in Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated wealth of GBP 2 billion, largely derived from the steel and engineering multinational Caparo Group. Headquartered in London, Caparo operates internationally from over 40 sites, with operations based in the UK, North America, India, and the Middle East. His son, Akash Paul, is Chairman of Caparo India and Director of the Caparo Group. Last year, in his capacity as the Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, Lord Paul awarded an honorary doctorate to Akash Paul for services to business administration. Perhaps, I am the only graduate to get a degree from his own father, independently approved by the University Board, of course, I may add," said Akash Paul, who was accompanied by wife Nisha and son Arush at the ceremony held at the London Zoo. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all My son has worked alongside me at Caparo since 1982. Akash was appointed CEO of Caparo Group in 1992. During this time, he furthered Caparos growth strategy in UK, Europe, USA and India, as well as expanding capacity and increasing profitability of the companies in the United Kingdom and was president, Caparo Automotive Espana, Spain and Executive Board, Bull Moose Tube, USA," said Lord Paul, who had served as Chancellor of Wolverhampton University for over 26 years. An active member of the Indian diaspora in the UK, Swraj Paul maintained his daily routine of attending the House of Lords despite his frailty in recent months. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More Location : london First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:31 IST News nri NRI Tycoon Lord Sawaraj Paul Dies At 94, PM Modi Remembers His Legacy Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Opinion | Why Is English Still Indias Litmus Test For Intelligence? Insights From Amitabh Satyams Book Written By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 10:47 IST Written across nine chapters, the book blends personal anecdotes, social observations, and historical analysis to reveal how deeply Englishness has shaped Indian society The book examines how English has come to occupy a position far beyond that of a mere language, serving as a symbol of intelligence, modernity, and privilege. Amitabh Satyams The Hindi Medium Types is an exploration of Indias enduring colonial legacies, particularly in the form of linguistic hierarchy. The book examines how English has come to occupy a position far beyond that of a mere language, serving as a symbol of intelligence, modernity, and privilegewhile Indian languages and cultural practices are often sidelined or undervalued. The lines in the preface of the book are sarcastically woven and cater to the existing reality of our nation without any filter. Amitabh Satyam has used catastrophically allegorical expressions to shed light on the ironical reality of our society, where intellectuality is measured by the bias of language: , (We, the Dark People of India, wandering in pursuit of a borrowed whiteness.)" Recommended Stories A Mirror to Our Colonial Hangover Written across nine chapters, the book blends personal anecdotes, social observations, and historical analysis to reveal how deeply Englishness" has shaped Indian society. From education and employment to daily habits, the preference for English reflects not only confidence but also a deep-seated inferiority complex inherited from colonial times and still continuing in modern India. India is a land of multiple vernacular voices, yet one voice seems to echo louder than the restthe English language. Amitabh Satyams The Hindi Medium Types looks directly at this reality and asks an important question: Why, even after almost eighty years of independence, do Indians still treat English as a badge of intelligence and status while looking down upon their own languages? Everyday Choices That Reflect Deep Conditioning The book is written with stories, examples, and reflections that bring out how deep this obsession with English runs in our daily lives. Across its nine chapters, Satyam carefully uncovers the colonial hangover that makes Indians believe that anything coming from the West must be superiorwhether it is food, clothing, education, or language. One of the strongest parts of the book is the way the author uses everyday examples. He points out how many of us automatically assume apples are healthier than guavas, or that bread and butter are more suitable than a bowl of dal or khichdi. These small details reveal a bigger truth: our choices are shaped by an unconscious belief that what comes from the West is better." Similarly, in schools and offices, a person who speaks fluent English is often seen as smarter, more capable, and more respectable than someone who speaks in Hindi or a regional languageregardless of whether the person is actually knowledgeable or not. A Symbol of Class and Superiority One of the most important ideas that the writer has evidently portrayed is that he is not against English. He fully accepts that English has global importance and is a useful tool in todays world. His concern lies in the imbalance. Indians have not just accepted English as a helpful language; they have elevated it to a pedestal. English has become more than a language it has become a symbol of class and superiority. In this process, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, and so many other Indian languages are pushed aside, treated as if they belong only to the uneducated or rural population. Those who speak these languages are often derogatorily labelled as Dehatis." The Silent Triumph of English The irony, as Satyam points out, is striking. After Independence, India went through intense debates about language. States were even reorganised based on linguistic identityAndhra Pradesh for Telugu, Maharashtra for Marathi, Tamil Nadu for Tamil, and so on. People fought passionately for their regional tongues. Yet, during all this, hardly anyone raised a voice against English continuing to dominate education, jobs, and social respect. English managed to escape all scrutiny and, quietly but firmly, became the true ruler of Indias cultural and intellectual life. Confidence, Opportunities, and Inequality The book also highlights the personal struggles of those who study in Hindi or other vernacular mediums. Many of them, despite being intelligent and hardworking, feel less confident when they face English-speaking peers. This lack of confidence often costs them opportunities. In job interviews, in university applications, and even in social gatherings, their talent is overshadowed simply because their English is not polished. This is not just unfairit is damaging for a country that takes pride in its diversity and intellectual heritage. A Gentle but Firm Reflection What makes The Hindi Medium Types impactful is its tone. It does not shout or lecture. Instead, it gently pushes the reader to reflect on why we measure intellectuality through a foreign language. Why do we not celebrate our own literature and traditions with equal pride? Also, why is a Hindi writer less respected than an English one, even when their art is equally powerful? The book plants these questions in the readers mind, encouraging introspection rather than confrontation. Language, Identity, and Cultural Pride From a cultural perspective, the book is extremely relevant. Language is more than just communication it shapes ideas but does not define individuality. What makes the book striking is its refusal to accept the mindset of treating English speakers as inherently more intelligent or capable than vernacular speakers. Amitabh Satyam, as a writer, rejects the notion of considering the English language a litmus test of intellectuality. He portrays this mindset as a cultural wound, exposing a hollow mass culture that undervalues its own identity. Overall, the book is like a wake-up call. It compels us to ask why, decades after independence, Indians still measure self-worth through English, and what it would mean to restore balance by judging capabilities through artistic and intellectual merit rather than linguistic proficiency. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In essence, Amitabh Satyam uses the power of literature not just as a canon against societys linguistic bias but also as an unfiltered reflection of the monopoly of English in shaping our cultural perceptions. Arun Tiwari is a journalist and writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. About the Author Arun Tiwari Arun Tiwari is a journalist and writer. Arun Tiwari is a journalist and writer. Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. First Published: August 22, 2025, 10:47 IST News opinion Opinion | Why Is English Still Indias Litmus Test For Intelligence? Insights From Amitabh Satyams Book Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 13:31 IST With Ganesh Chaturthi 2025 just a few days away, lets unravel about the worlds tallest Lord Ganesha statue, which surprsingly, is not in India but a neighbouring country. 1 / 8 Lord Ganesha is a revered deity all across India. There are countless Ganesha temples and statues; however, did you know that the world's tallest Ganesha statue is in Thailand? (Image: Instagram) 2 / 8 Yes, you read that right! In the heart of Chachoengsao, Thailand, stands a Ganesha statue that reaches for the skies and touches the souls of all who behold it. (Image: Instagram) ADVERTISEMENT 3 / 8 Lord Ganesha has been worshipped in Thailand since the spread of Brahmanism across Southeast Asia. In fact, anyone who have travelled to Thailand, will know how the elephant god is an intrinsic part of Thai culture. (Image: Instagram) 4 / 8 The 39-metre-tall statue of Lord Ganesha has been made from 854 bronze pieces and spread across 40,000 square metres at the Khlong Khuean Ganesh International Park. (Image: Instagram) ADVERTISEMENT 5 / 8 The statue was completed in 2012 after four years of construction. It now stands tall, overlooking the landscape of Chachoengsao. (Image: Instagram) 6 / 8 The statue's artist, Pitak Chaleumlao, explained that the Ganesha figure was designed with deep symbolism tied to Thailand's prosperity. (Image: Instagram) ADVERTISEMENT 7 / 8 The deity has four hands, each holding different fruits: sugarcane, jackfruit, bananas, and mangoes. The upper right hand cradles a jackfruit, a symbol of abundance and prosperity; the upper left hand holds a sugarcane, signifying sweetness and joy; the lower right hand clutches a banana, a token of nourishment and sustenance, and finally, the lower left hand carries a mango, a fruit associated with divine knowledge and wisdom. (Image: Instagram) Amit Shahs Prediction For Tamil Nadu Polls Comes With Barbs At Rahul Gandhi, Udhayanidhi Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:57 IST Amit Shah in Tirunelveli vows to end MK Stalin's rule, criticizes DMK and Congress for dynastic politics, and asserts BJP-AIADMK alliance will form Tamil Nadu's next government. Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressing a gathering in Tamil Nadu. (X) Union Home Minister Amit on Friday vowed to end Chief Minister MK Stalins rule in Tamil Nadu and asserted that the BJP-AIADMK alliance is going to form a government in the state. While addressing a gathering in Tamil Nadus Tirunelveli, Shah launched a scathing attack on the ruling DMK and Congress, and accused them of prioritising dynastic politics over governance. Recommended Stories He said that the sole agenda of MK Stalin and Sonia Gandhi is to make their sons, Udhayanidhi Stalin and Rahul Gandhi, Chief Minister and Prime Minister, respectively. Stalins only agenda is to only make his son Udhayanidhi the chief minister. Sonia Gandhis only intention is to make her son Rahul Gandhi the prime minister. I want to tell them both this will not happen," Shah said. #WATCH | Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu: Union Home Minister Amit Shah says, Stalin ji has only one agenda to make his son the Chief Minister and Sonia Gandhi also has only one agenda to make her son the Prime Minister. But I want to tell both of them. Neither Rahul Gandhi can become pic.twitter.com/C9YBpd1BNn ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Both will not fructify as the NDA will emerge victorious", Shah asserted. He further lashed out at CM Stalin over the opposition of the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill, saying that the latter does not have any right to dub the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill as black bill as he alleged the Tamil Nadu chief minister carried out black deed." Shah alleged the DMK led the most corrupt" government in the country and it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who ran the government as per Tamil classical didactic book, Thirukkurals guidance for an able, ideal ruler. Modi ji has presented the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha. The entire opposition started protesting. What is the Constitution Bill? If any CM or Prime Minister goes to jail, they will have to resign from their post. The opposition is asking, What is the need for this bill?" he said as quoted by news agency ANI. Citing the case against DMK leader and former Minister K Ponmudy and the recent one of V Senthil Balaji who continued as a minister when he was in jail in connection with an ED case, Shah asked if it was appropriate to be part of the Cabinet and govern despite being jailed. Senior DMK ministers K Ponmudy and Senthil Balaji were in jail for eight months. They did not resign. Tell me, can you run the government while being in jail? These DMK people call the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill a black bill. Stalin Babu, you have no right to call this bill a black bill because you are a Chief Minister who does black deeds" Shah added. BJP-AIADMK Alliance After two years, the BJP and the AIADMK have formed an alliance again to contest the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections scheduled for next year. The BJP and AIADMK contested together in the 2021 Tamil Nadu elections when Palaniswami was the Chief Minister. However, the NDA lost the elections to DMK and its alliance partners, only managing to win 75 seats out of 234 constituencies. The AIADMK won 66 seats, while the BJP managed only four seats. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The two parties went solo in the Lok Sabha and failed to win a single seat in Tamil Nadu. However, the BJPs vote share in the state increased significantly under K Annamalais leadership. (With inputs from agencies) About the Author Shobhit Gupta Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More Location : Tirunelveli, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 18:57 IST News politics Amit Shahs Prediction For Tamil Nadu Polls Comes With Barbs At Rahul Gandhi, Udhayanidhi Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Bengaluru Stampede Row: Has Any BJP CM Quit After A Tragedy, Siddaramaiah Asks Belligerent BJP Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 20:02 IST As the chorus for his resignation grew louder, Siddaramaiah turned the tables on the opposition by citing a list of 20 stampedes and tragedies that occurred in BJP-ruled states The June 4 stampede outside Bengalurus M Chinnaswamy Stadium has now become more than a tragedyit is now a political battlefield testing both Siddaramaiahs crisis management and his grip on power. File pic/PTI Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has countered the opposition BJPs demand of stepping down, taking responsibility for the Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede where eleven lives were lost. The opposition has been baying for his blood, but the Karnataka chief minister has been digging in his heels as the BJP seeks his ouster. Recommended Stories As the chorus for the resignation of the CM reached a new pitch with the BJP seeking a discussion on the issue in the house and his resignation, Siddaramaiah turned the tables on the opposition by reeling off a list of 20 stampedes and tragedies that occurred in BJP-ruled statesfrom the 2008 Naina Devi temple tragedy in Himachal Pradesh to the 2013 Ratangarh stampede in Madhya Pradesh to the recent Hathras disaster in Uttar Pradesh that claimed 121 lives. He went further, invoking the 2022 Morbi bridge collapse in Gujarat that killed 135 people and the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela stampede this January that left 39 dead. The June 4 stampede outside Bengalurus M Chinnaswamy Stadium has now become more than a tragedyit is now a political battlefield testing both Siddaramaiahs crisis management and his grip on power. The BJP latched onto the deaths to demand the chief ministers resignation, accusing him of negligence, insensitivity, and lack of accountability. The BJPs attack line has been simple: responsibility stops at the top. Siddaramaiah, however, raised questions: Did any BJP chief minister resign? Did Prime Minister Modi take responsibility for Morbi? Did UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath quit when the stampede in Kumbh Mela took place? Why, then, should Karnatakas Congress government be held to a different standard? Siddaramaiah and the Congress government, while accepting that the incident was unfortunate, said, People saw RCBs victory as Bengalurus pride. The mass hysteria created by it was behind the stampede." The line of defence by Siddaramaiah is not new. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had already set the tone, dismissing the Bengaluru stampede as accidental" and asking why the BJPs outrage was selective. Siddaramaiah has sharpened that line, placing the tragedy in a national context where resignations after mass deaths are unheard of. In his words: In the Air India crash, did anyone from the NDA or BJP resign? Were those not people who died?" Political analyst Sandeep Shastri makes the point that if the opposition has to strongly criticise the Congress government in Karnataka, it has to be on the fiscal health of the state. The issue where the government is the weakest is its fiscal position, but I dont see anything happening or anything being said. Maybe criticism of the fiscal situation of the government does not seem politically fashionable, and you are not being able to attract political limelight with it. That is why the BJP is focusing on issues that will help them hog the political limelight," said the analyst. But the BJP is hoping to corner the CM into quitting, calling his stance entirely irresponsible and seeking his resignation, as he is accountable to the people of Karnataka. The chief minister had admitted on record that he had been at a hotel eating dosa with his grandson when news of the stampede brokea detail the BJP has weaponised to paint him as callous and irresponsible. Yes, I went. My grandson had come from London and wanted dosa. I didnt know then. At 5.30 pm, I got the call. Immediately, I acted," Siddaramaiah told the house. For Siddaramaiah, the incident comes at a politically vulnerable moment. Within the Congress, murmurs about a leadership change refuse to die down, with pressure mounting over the 2.5 years each" power-sharing formula with deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar. Analyst Sandeep Shastri says the BJP sees an opportunity in what it thinks is a division in the state unit of the Congress. There seems to be a perception that there is a proxy war between the CM and his deputy. The BJP is fishing in troubled waters. The divisions are there because a lot of people are looking at the developments. Not only the Congress but the opposition too is seeing it through that lens. Given the sharp differences within the party, even the opposition would like to highlight that and seek advantage of that. Typically, the CM has responded, saying this is not the first stampede that has happened in recent times," said Shastri. Rahul Gandhis pulling up the Congress in Karnataka for the incident after a briefing by the chief minister and deputy CM soon after the incident also added to the unease. Sources say Gandhi was visibly upset, calling the tragedy avoidable" and urging the CM and his deputy to enforce stricter accountability. That gentle rebuke from the top brass has only emboldened Siddaramaiahs critics inside his own party. The real test, however, lies in the details. Justice DCunhas commission report is already in, and the deputy commissioner has submitted his findings. Any adverse mention of lapses by the police or state machinery could sharpen calls for accountability. For now, Siddaramaiah has shielded himself by accepting K Govindrajs resignation as his political secretary, setting up an SIT to investigate the matter, and awaiting the DCunha commission report. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Yet the opposition isnt buying it. If the government wasnt at fault, why sack Govindraj? The main culprit is Siddaramaiah himself," BJP state president BY Vijayendra said. Eleven innocent lives lost, and the CM says its the polices fault. Arent the police under his government? His explanation is unacceptable," said leader of opposition R Ashoka. About the Author Rohini Swamy Rohini Swamy, Associate Editor at News18, has been a journalist for nearly two decades in the television and digital space. She covers south India for News18s digital platform. She has previously worked with t... Read More Rohini Swamy, Associate Editor at News18, has been a journalist for nearly two decades in the television and digital space. She covers south India for News18s digital platform. She has previously worked with t... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 20:02 IST News politics Bengaluru Stampede Row: Has Any BJP CM Quit After A Tragedy, Siddaramaiah Asks Belligerent BJP Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Citing Kejriwal's Case, Amit Shah Defends Bills To Sack Jailed Ministers: 'In Democracy...' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 17:42 IST Referring to Kejriwals continued hold on power despite being in custody, Shah questioned whether the Constitution should be amended to address such situations Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. (PTI photos) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday cited former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal while defending three new bills aimed at removing any prime minister, chief minister or minister who remains in jail for 30 consecutive days. Referring to Kejriwals continued hold on power despite being in custody, Shah questioned whether the Constitution should be amended to address such situations. Recommended Stories Recently, an incident occurred the CM of Delhi was running the govt even after being imprisoned. So, should the Constitution be amended or not?" the Union Ministers office shared in a post on X. Does the nations public want any PM, CM or Minister to run the govt while being in jail?When the Constitution was drafted, it was never imagined that such shameless individuals would refuse to resign even after going to jail. That is why no such provision was included in the Office of Amit Shah (@AmitShahOffice) August 22, 2025 Kejriwal was arrested in March last year after ignoring nine summons from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged Delhi liquor scam. He became the first sitting chief minister in Indian history to be arrested while in office. Shah stressed that the proposed legislation is not targeted at any single party. In a democracy, the responsibility of upholding the standards of morality lies with both the ruling party and the opposition. This bill is not for any one party. It will apply to BJP CMs as well as to the PM," he said. The Home Minister also questioned whether it is acceptable for someone to govern from jail. Does the nations public want any PM, CM or Minister to run the govt while being in jail? When the Constitution was drafted, it was never imagined that such shameless individuals would refuse to resign even after going to jail. That is why no such provision was included in the Constitution." top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The three bills the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025; the Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill, 2025; and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2025 were introduced in Parliament earlier this week. They propose that any prime minister, chief minister or minister who is arrested and held in custody for 30 days for an offence punishable by a minimum of five years in prison will automatically be removed from office on the 31st day. The President or the Governor, depending on jurisdiction, will have the authority to dismiss them. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 16:30 IST News politics Citing Kejriwal's Case, Amit Shah Defends Bills To Sack Jailed Ministers: 'In Democracy...' Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Not Aligned With Our Ideology: Sharad Pawar Refuses To Support NDAs Vice-President Nominee Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 16:49 IST Sharad Pawar declined Devendra Fadnavis' request to support NDAs CP Radhakrishnan for vice president, citing ideological differences. Fadnavis Seeks Support Of Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar For CP Radhakrishnan (FILE) Nationalist Congress Party (SCP) President Sharad Pawar on Friday said that he declined Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis request for support to the NDAs vice-presidential candidate CP Radhakrishnan, saying that the latter is not aligned with his ideology. Fadnavis on Thursday reached out to Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Pawar to seek their support for the BJP-led NDAs nominee for the vice-presidential elections, CP Radhakrishnan, saying that parties that speak of Maharashtra Asmita to walk the talk by backing the NDA candidate, who is not only the states governor but also a registered voter from Mumbai. Recommended Stories What Sharad Pawar Said? While speaking to reporters in Mumbai, the veteran leader said that he expressed his inability to back Radhakrishnan. He added that they know their strength in terms of votes, but still they do not find it appropriate to support a person like Radhakrishnan. Opposition candidate B Sudarshan Reddy has already filed his nomination. Even though we have fewer numbers than the NDA, we are not worried. All Opposition votes will go to Reddy. It knows its strength. Were not expecting any surprises," he said. He further blamed Radhakrishnan for Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Sorens arrest last year. Pawar said Radhakrishnan was the Jharkhand governor when Soren was arrested as he went to meet him. The NDA candidate is not aligned with our ideology. When he was the Jharkhand governor, a case was filed against CM Hemant Soren. When Soren went to meet the governor, he was arrested at Raj Bhavan," he said. It was a glaring example of the misuse of power, and it is not appropriate to expect support for such a candidate. Therefore, I expressed my inability to accept the chief ministers request," Pawar added. Whats Shiv Sena (UBT)s Stance? Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut had said that besides Fadnavis, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also called Thackeray, urging him to extend support to the NDA pick. Raut said that Radhakrishnan had not been given the candidature for being a representative of Maharashtra. The CM has been calling all the party leaders. He has not called only the Shiv Sena (UBT). Our stand is clear. We are INDIA bloc," he told The Hindu. The NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) are part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra along with the Congress. The three parties are constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc at the national level. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), voting for the key election will be held on September 9. Despite having the numbers to win the poll comfortably, the BJP is reaching out to opposition parties to ensure an unopposed election. (With inputs from agencies) About the Author Shobhit Gupta Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 16:48 IST News politics Not Aligned With Our Ideology: Sharad Pawar Refuses To Support NDAs Vice-President Nominee Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Govt Employees Lose Job After Arrest, Why Not PM, CMs?: Modi Defends Bills To Sack Jailed Ministers Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 13:44 IST PM Modi backed the bills introduced in the Parliament that propose to sack PM, CMs and ministers who are jailed for 30 days. PM Modi Gayaji rally: PM backs bills to sack PM, CMs and ministers (Photo: YouTube/ Narendra Modi) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday laid out the need for the bills proposing the removal of PM and CMs over denial of bail for 30 days since arrest, and said that such legislation has been introduced to fight against corruption. Citing an example of a normal government employee who loses his job within hours of his arrest, the Prime Minister questioned why the PMs and CMs should not be forced to step down from their position upon arrest and no bail for 30 days. Recommended Stories PM Modi Backs Three Bills On PM, CM Removal In Case Of Arrest Today, no one should be above the law. But how is it possible that some Chief Ministers, Ministers, or even Prime Ministers enjoy power while staying in jail? If a government employee is imprisoned for 50 hours, then he loses his job automatically, be it a driver, a clerk, or a peon. But a CM, a Minister, or even a PM can enjoy staying in the government even from jail," PM Modi said while addressing a public meeting in Bihars Gayaji. In an apparent reference to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who was arrested in an alleged liquor scam case in Delhi on March 21, 2024 but continued to remain the Chief Minister despite being lodged in Tihar Jail, the Prime Minister said that orders were issued from inside the jail. Some time ago, we saw how files were being signed from jail and how government orders were given from jail. If leaders have such an attitude, how can we fight corruption NDA government has brought a law against corruption, and the Prime Minister also comes under its purview," PM Modi said. #WATCH | PM Narendra Modi says, If a government employee is imprisoned for 50 hours, then he loses his job automatically, be it a driver, a clerk or a peon. But a CM, a Minister, or even a PM can enjoy staying in the government even from jail Some time ago, we saw how pic.twitter.com/1iY1hXr3Xp ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Kejriwal went on to resign from his position only after he was granted bail by the Supreme Court on September 13 last year. He had said that he would assume the post again only after being vindicated in the peoples court" during the Assembly polls in 2025; however, he lost the election to BJP candidate Parvesh Varma from the New Delhi constituency. What Are The PM, CM Removal Bills? During his address, the Prime Minister referred to the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, the Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill proposes that a prime minister, chief minister, or minister will be automatically removed from their respective offices if they are in judicial custody for 30 consecutive days and fail to secure bail during this tenure. However, the condition remains that the minister must have been arrested for an offence that carries a punishment of five years or more. The Opposition criticised the Bills, calling them unconstitutional and undemocratic". top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The bills were referred to the joint parliamentary committee for wider discussions. I am about to make a request for the Bill to be sent to the JPC. JPC will have members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, ruling and Opposition sides. They will deliberate on this and bring it before you," Shah said in Lok Sabha while proposing a motion for the same during the recently-concluded Monsoon Session of the Parliament. About the Author Ashesh Mallick Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Location : Bihar, India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 13:16 IST News politics Govt Employees Lose Job After Arrest, Why Not PM, CMs?: Modi Defends Bills To Sack Jailed Ministers Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... TMC Ends Parliament Session On 'Positive Note', Mends Fences With Congress Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 10:32 IST Both parties joined forces over the alleged harassment of migrant Bengalis, with Congress moving an adjournment motion on the matter. TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee seen protesting with INDIA bloc leaders. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) ended the just-concluded Parliament session on what insiders describe as a positive note." While it was not a case of electoral victory, party leaders believe TMC managed to function as a cohesive unit and made its presence felt something it had struggled to achieve over the past year despite having significant strength in both Houses. According to sources, Congress also aligned itself with TMC during the session, particularly on issues of Bengali Asmita. This joint stance marked a noticeable shift, as relations between the two parties had remained cold for over a year. TMC insiders told News18 that party supremo Mamata Banerjee had been deeply dissatisfied with how her Lok Sabha MPs were handling critical issues, which led her to assign greater responsibility to Abhishek Banerjee. Recommended Stories CongressTMC Bonhomie Gains Ground A key development outside Parliament was the growing closeness between Congress and TMC. Both parties joined forces over the alleged harassment of migrant Bengalis, with Congress moving an adjournment motion on the matter. While leaders admit there is little possibility of an alliance between Congress and TMC in Bengal ahead of next years Assembly elections, the renewed coordination at the national level is being viewed as a strategic shift. At the recent INDIA bloc dinner hosted at Rahul Gandhis residence, Abhishek Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi held a separate discussion on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and resolved to pursue issues more aggressively. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also engaged with Abhishek on the matter, signaling stronger networking within the Opposition camp. KalyanMahua Rift Contained The highly public spat between MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Mahua Moitra had caused concern within the party. Sources say Mamata Banerjee was unhappy with the feud and expressed her displeasure directly. Kalyan Banerjee, who subsequently resigned as Chief Whip, was seen standing alongside Mahua in a protest thereafter, signaling a temporary truce. Insiders say Abhishek Banerjee played a role in calming tempers and ensuring discipline. Discipline Tightened, MPs Cautioned top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all TMC leadership has also tightened its grip on parliamentary discipline. Absenteeism among MPs has been flagged as a major concern, with several members warned. MP Kirti, who wrote to the Union government seeking a CBI probe, was reportedly cautioned, given that TMC has consistently questioned the credibility of the central agency. On the Constitution Amendment Bill, sources said party MPs were instructed by their Lok Sabha leader to adopt a head-on approach. Abhishek Banerjee also personally reached out to women MPs who were heckled during the session and later addressed the media, making it clear that such incidents were unacceptable and would be strongly taken up by the party. About the Author Kamalika Sengupta Kamalika Sengupta is the Editor (East) at CNN-News18 / News18.com, focusing on politics, defence, and womens issues. She is a seasoned multimedia journalist with over 20 years of experience reporting from East... Read More Kamalika Sengupta is the Editor (East) at CNN-News18 / News18.com, focusing on politics, defence, and womens issues. She is a seasoned multimedia journalist with over 20 years of experience reporting from East... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 10:09 IST News politics TMC Ends Parliament Session On 'Positive Note', Mends Fences With Congress Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Used SC To Support Naxalism': Amit Shah On Oppn's VP Candidate Sudershan Reddy Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 15:11 IST Shah said Congress has picked Reddy for VP polls under pressure from the leftists The election for the Vice President of India will see a direct contest between Justice Reddy, backed by the INDIA bloc, and NDA's nominee C P Radhakrishnan. (PTI file) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday tore into the oppositions Vice President candidate Sudershan Reddy, saying the former Supreme Court judge supported Naxalism while referring to the Salwa Judum judgment. Addressing a conclave on Malayalam news website Manorama in Kochi, Shah said Congress has picked Reddy under pressure from the leftists. Recommended Stories The opposition (Congress) vice-presidential candidate Sudarshan Reddy is the same person who gave the Salwa Judum judgment in support of leftist extremism and Naxalism. If this had not been done, extremism would have been eradicated by 2020. Kerala has suffered the sting of Naxalism and endured extremism as well. The people of Kerala will surely see how, under pressure from the leftists, Congress has chosen such a candidate who used a platform like the Supreme Court to support leftist extremism and Naxalism," he said. In a ruling in 2011, a two-judge bench of Justices Sudershan Reddy and SS Nijjar disbanded Salwa Judum, an outfit in which tribal youth were appointed by the Chhattisgarh government as Special Police Officers (SPOs) to counter the Maoist insurgency. The bench said that the militia outfit was illegal and unconstitutional. The election for the Vice President of India will see a direct contest between Justice Reddy, backed by the INDIA bloc, and NDAs nominee C P Radhakrishnan. The polling for the Vice Presidential election would take place on September 9, with counting to take place the same day. The last date for filing nominations was August 21, while candidates can withdraw their nominations until August 25. The Vice Presidential post fell vacant after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 21, citing health reasons. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The VP is elected by an electoral college, which consists of MPs from both houses of Parliament. The elections of the Vice President are governed by the provisions under Articles 64 and 68 of the Constitution. The Election Commission notifies the VP polls by the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act, 1952. As per Article 66(1) of the Constitution of India, the election of the Vice President shall be held by the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote, and the voting at such election shall be by secret ballot. About the Author Saurabh Verma Saurabh Verma covers general, national and international day-to-day news for News18.com as a Senior Sub-editor. He keenly observes politics. You can follow him on Twitter --twitter.com/saurabhkverma19 Saurabh Verma covers general, national and international day-to-day news for News18.com as a Senior Sub-editor. He keenly observes politics. You can follow him on Twitter --twitter.com/saurabhkverma19 Location : Kochi [Cochin], India, India First Published: August 22, 2025, 15:05 IST News politics 'Used SC To Support Naxalism': Amit Shah On Oppn's VP Candidate Sudershan Reddy Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... VP Poll Brings INDIA Bloc Together, But Will The Unity Last Beyond The Monsoon Session? Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Karishma Jain Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 08:47 IST Even as INDIA bloc leaders campaigned side by side, the alliance's fragile foundation showed through moments of discord and distrust Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge with Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant, Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav, DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, Congress MP K.C. Venugopal, TMC MP Satabdi Roy, and others after a meeting of the INDIA bloc. (PTI Photo) If there was one thing that stood out in the monsoon session of Parliament, it was the unusual bonhomie and unity displayed by the INDIA bloc. From a joint strategy inside and outside the House to the unanimous choice of a vice-presidential candidate, the blocfor oncelooked like a cohesive force. But the underlying fissures are not easy to camouflage, not when the alliance itself is inherently fragile and made up of contradictory partners. Recommended Stories Take the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), for instance. It walked out of the INDIA bloc earlier, yet came together briefly to back the Oppositions vice-presidential candidate. A senior Opposition source said, We managed to change the terminology from INDIA blocs candidate to Opposition candidate, thereby signalling that even those who are not part of the bloc are welcome to support Sudershan Reddy." Amid this show of unity, one party stood out for its relentless aggression: Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress. With West Bengal elections just seven months away, the TMC sharpened its attacks on the BJP, staged repeated protests inside and outside Parliament, and positioned itself as a key driver of the Oppositions agenda. From entering the Well of the House with placards to singing works of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam, the party deployed uniquely cultural forms of protest. Trinamool leaders say they were more aggressive than others" in taking on the BJP, pointing to electoral results to back that claimhaving cut the BJPs Lok Sabha tally in Bengal from 18 in 2019 to 12 in 2024. The party also played a role in consensus-building around former Justice Sudershan Reddy, ensuring that the choice was projected as an Opposition candidate" rather than an INDIA bloc one. For Banerjees camp, this was a significant shift from 2022, when the TMC abstained from the vice-presidential poll after accusing Congress and the Left of sidelining it by naming Margaret Alva. This time, Banerjees party insisted on a non-political face with a record of public service, signalling its determination to shape the Oppositions agenda. Still, cracks were visible. The TMC had decided, on consensus, that no one would intervene in the Home Ministers presentation of the three bills. But when Congress MP Manish Tewari objected to the bills, the TMC was visibly irked and chose silence inside the House. Instead, its leaders raised objections outside, alleging that MPs Mitali Beg and Shatabdi Roy had been manhandled, and that another MP, Abu Taher Khan, had been jostled. Still, the TMC claims credit for keeping the bloc together. The party points out that it reached out to AAP, with Mamata Banerjee personally opening lines of communication. The sight of Arvind Kejriwal, after months of bitterness, standing alongside Congress leaders as the vice-presidential candidate campaigned to AAP was telling. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In the Rajya Sabha too, the TMC claims to have taken the lead by displaying placards against the Home Ministers bill and rushing to the well of the House, even as most other Opposition MPs, including those from Congress, stayed away. As one TMC leader put it, We have been the magnet and driving force which brought forces together." The real test, however, begins now. With Parliament adjourned and the vice-presidential election soon to be behind them, the challenge is to stay united. For the moment, the distance between the Congress and TMConce not even on speaking terms, with TMC boycotting INDIA bloc meetingshas narrowed. They have walked a long way together. But the question remains: how long will this uneasy journey last? About the Author Pallavi Ghosh Pallavi Ghosh has covered politics and Parliament for 15 years, and has reported extensively on Congress, UPA-I and UPA-II, and has now included the Finance Ministry and Niti Aayog in her reportage. She has als... Read More Pallavi Ghosh has covered politics and Parliament for 15 years, and has reported extensively on Congress, UPA-I and UPA-II, and has now included the Finance Ministry and Niti Aayog in her reportage. She has als... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 08:41 IST News politics VP Poll Brings INDIA Bloc Together, But Will The Unity Last Beyond The Monsoon Session? Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... We Are Not Playing Politics: Chandrababu Naidu Backs NDA VP Pick Over Oppn's Telugu Face Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 20:15 IST N Chandrababu Naidu backs NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan for Vice President, citing alliance ethics, and dismisses support for Oppositions Telugu nominee B Sudershan Reddy. Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said his party TDP will support NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan in the upcoming Vice Presidential elections, citing his partys commitment to alliance ethics and long-standing political credibility. Notably, the Opposition has fielded Telugu-origin ex-Supreme Court Judge Sudershan Reddy as its candidate for the Vice Presidential polls scheduled for September 9. Recommended Stories Ruling out support for Reddy, Naidu added that while the TDP has always stood for the Telugu community, the current context is about alliance commitments. #WATCH | Delhi: On Vice Presidential Election, Andhra Pradesh CM Nara Chandrababu Naidu says, How can they (opposition) expect? We are in an alliance; how can it be expected that we will support another candidate? Telugu Desam Party is for Telugu community. That is a different pic.twitter.com/Vw8cbvEGvl ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Speaking to reporters, the Chief Minister questioned the oppositions expectations, asking, How can they (opposition) expect? We are in an alliance; how can it be expected that we will support another candidate? Telugu Desam Party is for Telugu community. That is a different issue." Clearing his stance in favour of NDA, Naidu further said if compared in terms of candidature, CP Radhakrishnan is the best candidate" for the post. We are in alliance. Our party is having ethics, credibility. We have built this credibility over a period of five decades. You know my stand from the beginning, not now. If anybody compares candidature-wise, he (CP Radhakrishnan), who is also the governor of Maharashtra, is the best candidate everybody has to support," he added. The TDP leader slammed the oppositions move to introduce a separate candidate for elections. He stated with confidence that Radhakrishnan will win the polls with majority. If the majority is there, it is a very dignified post. Why did they (opposition) bring another candidate now? Is it necessary? That is their politics. But we are not playing politics here. We are having majority, we are going to win comfortably," he further said. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Radhakrishnan filed his nomination in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday while Reddy filed his nomination papers on Thursday. The Vice Presidents post fell vacant on July 21, the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned, citing health issues. About the Author Manisha Roy Manisha Roy is a Senior Sub-Editor at News18.com's general desk. She comes with an experience of over 5 years in media industry. She covers politics and other hard news. She can be contacted at Manisha.Roy@nw18... Read More Manisha Roy is a Senior Sub-Editor at News18.com's general desk. She comes with an experience of over 5 years in media industry. She covers politics and other hard news. She can be contacted at Manisha.Roy@nw18... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 20:03 IST News politics We Are Not Playing Politics: Chandrababu Naidu Backs NDA VP Pick Over Oppn's Telugu Face Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'We Are Not Ready, Not Even Trying': 'Godfather Of AI' Warns About The Real Danger To Humans Curated By : Translation Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:20 IST Geoffrey Hinton warns AI development is like a nuclear arms race, driven by shareholder pressure, lacking ethics, and risks surpassing human control Experts allege that the biggest driving force behind AI development today is shareholder pressure. (Image: Pixabay) Geoffrey Hinton, widely regarded as the father of artificial intelligence", has issued a stark warning against the uncontrolled race in AI development, comparing it to an arms race that could end in catastrophic consequences. Speaking to Fortune magazine, Hinton accused leading tech giants of prioritising shareholder profits and competitive advantage over human safety and ethical responsibility. Hinton, who resigned from Google last year to speak freely about the dangers of AI, told Fortune that the industrys current trajectory is not about humanity" but about market domination. Companies are focused on building more powerful models faster than their rivals, he said, warning that the real threat is not limited to misinformation or job losses. The graver danger, he argued, is the possibility of AI systems surpassing human control. Were not ready," he cautioned, and were not even trying to be." Recommended Stories Hinton alleged that the biggest driving force behind AI development today is shareholder pressure. He described the current competition as a profit-fuelled sprint, in which companies are rushing to outdo one another in creating more powerful AI models with little consideration for the societal risks. This is not progress for humanity, this is progress for corporate interests," he remarked. He further stressed that without safeguards and ethical alignment, the release of superintelligent systems could be as destructive as a nuclear arms race". According to Hinton, one of the most glaring weaknesses of todays AI strategy is the absence of an ethical framework. While billions are being poured into model development and data monetisation, very few companies are willing to address the existential dangers posed by artificial general intelligence. He argued that just as the world established treaties and safeguards around nuclear proliferation, AI too requires global oversight, international agreements, and shared ethical standards to prevent disaster. This challenge cannot be left to individual companies chasing profits," Hinton said, It demands international cooperation." Hinton urged governments, regulators, and researchers to slow the pace of AI development, insisting that the technology has far outstripped societys regulatory capacity. He appealed for a shift towards safety, transparency, and long-term thinking, rather than reckless acceleration. The day AI goes beyond human control, it will be very bad, he warned. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Hintons warning comes at a time when others in the AI industry are also raising red flags. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently cautioned about a new psychological risk he calls AI psychosis". As reported by Business Insider, Suleyman described it as a condition where individuals lose touch with reality after excessive interactions with AI systems, blurring the line between human and machine. He called it a real and emerging risk" that could especially affect vulnerable people deeply immersed in conversations with AI agents. With multiple voices from within the AI community sounding alarms, the debate over whether to pause, regulate, or accelerate AI development is only intensifying. Get latest technology updates, including phone launches, gadget reviews, AI advancements. Stay informed with breaking tech news , expert insights, and trends from India and around the world . Also Download the News18 App to stay updated. First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:20 IST News tech 'We Are Not Ready, Not Even Trying': 'Godfather Of AI' Warns About The Real Danger To Humans Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Bangladeshs Controversial Quartermaster General Meets Top Pakistan Army Official: Sources To News18 Reported By : CNN-News18 Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 21:43 IST The meeting at Pakistans General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi comes amid growing signs of deepening defence cooperation between the two countries Observers note that the post-Sheikh Hasina regime in Dhaka appears to be reorienting its foreign and security policy, warming up to Islamabad after decades of estrangement following the 1971 Liberation War. Representational image In a move signalling a significant shift in South Asian military diplomacy, Bangladesh Armys Quartermaster General, Lieutenant General Md Faizur Rahman, has met with General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), at Pakistans General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi. The meeting comes amid growing signs of deepening defence cooperation between Bangladesh and Pakistan, especially after the political transition in Dhaka following the fall of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. According to senior sources, this marks the 14th high-level military meeting between the two nations since the political change in Bangladesh last year. Recommended Stories During their discussion, both military leaders exchanged views on the prevailing regional security environment and emphasised their shared resolve to enhance cooperation in the defence and security domains. General Mirza highlighted the upward trajectory in bilateral relations and expressed confidence in exploring new avenues for defence collaboration, including intelligence-sharing mechanisms and joint training initiatives. Lieutenant General Faizur Rahman praised the professionalism of the Pakistan Armed Forces and acknowledged their sacrifices in the fight against terrorism. Sources reveal that the two sides exchanged frameworks for intelligence cooperation and agreed to increase the frequency of bilateral visits to cement strategic trust. In a development being closely watched across the region, Lt Gen Faizur Rahman is also expected to meet Pakistans Field Marshal and Chief of Army Staff, General Asim Munir, during his visit. The anticipated meeting is being viewed as a pivotal moment in redefining defence diplomacy between the two South Asian nations. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Controversially, General Faizur Rahman has come under scrutiny in Dhaka for allegedly attempting to remove the Bangladesh Army Chief earlier this year, reportedly with covert support from elements within the Pakistan military establishment. While these reports remain unverified officially, they have fueled intense debate within Bangladeshs political and military circles. Observers note that the post-Sheikh Hasina regime in Dhaka appears to be reorienting its foreign and security policy, warming up to Islamabad after decades of estrangement following the 1971 Liberation War. The two nations have recently expanded ties with initiatives such as visa-free entry, increased bilateral trade, and proposed defence agreementsa dramatic departure from past hostility. About the Author Manoj Gupta Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 First Published: August 22, 2025, 21:43 IST News world Bangladeshs Controversial Quartermaster General Meets Top Pakistan Army Official: Sources To News18 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Canada To Roll Back Some Retaliatory Tariffs On US Goods, Autos And Metals Exempt: Report Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 21:37 IST Canada plans to lift several retaliatory tariffs on US goods but will keep tariffs on US autos, steel and aluminum. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney talks with President Donald Trump before a group photo at the G7 Summit. (AP file photo) Canada will announce on Friday that it is removing many retaliatory import tariffs on US goods as a goodwill gesture aimed at restarting stalled trade talks, Reuters reported citing sources in the know. Tariffs on US autos, steel and aluminum will remain in place for now, the report added. The counter-tariffs being lifted now apply to goods compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (CUSMA), as per the report. This comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke with US President Donald Trump this week for the first time since June, in what his office described as a productive conversation." The move follows months of talks on a new economic and security framework that so far have failed to produce a breakthrough. Recommended Stories Mark Carney, who won an April election vowing to stand firm against Donald Trumps tariffs, has since softened his tone. In June, he scrapped a proposed digital services tax opposed by US companies and in July backed away from threats of new sanctions if no deal was reached by August 1. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The rollback could be politically risky for Mark Carney, who leads a minority Liberal government dependent on opposition support as critics accused him of being too lenient with Washington. Mark Carneys predecessor, Justin Trudeau, had imposed 25% tariffs on C$30 billion ($21 billion) worth of US imports in March 2024 after Donald Trumps initial duties, part of a broader retaliation plan covering C$155 billion in trade. Location : Canada First Published: August 22, 2025, 21:33 IST News world Canada To Roll Back Some Retaliatory Tariffs On US Goods, Autos And Metals Exempt: Report Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Economic Corridor: Route Map And How Close Does It Pass To India? Curated By : Translation Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:00 IST The push to extend CPEC into Afghanistan reflects China's long-term goal of deepening its influence across South and Central Asia The CPEC expansion into Kabul could reshape regional trade routes. (AI Image for repesentation) A fresh push has begun to extend the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Afghanistan, a move that could reshape regional trade routes but has also raised questions about its implications for India. The initiative was discussed during a high-level meeting in Kabul where the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan agreed to strengthen cooperation on this project. The trilateral talks took place between the foreign ministers of all three nations Wang Yi, Ishaq Dar, and Amir Khan Muttaki where all the three sides endorsed plans to integrate Afghanistan into the corridor that already links Chinas Xinjiang province with Pakistans Gwadar port. This extension, they said, would revive parts of the ancient Silk Road and potentially connect China to Iran through Afghan territory. Recommended Stories The CPEC as it stands today stretches nearly 2,500 km from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar on Pakistans Arabian Sea coast. If expanded into Afghanistan, the route could gain an additional 350 km, and if linked to more Afghan cities, its total length would surpass 3,000 km. That extended network would link Gwadar to Kashgar and from there to Kabul, with future extensions envisioned towards Iran. Possible Entry Points Geographically, the most viable entry for the CPEC into Afghanistan is through the Wakhjir Pass, perched at 4,923 metres above sea level. This is the only road link between Afghanistan and China. The route could begin in Kashgar, traverse the Karakoram Highway, and then move through Bozai Gombad before entering Afghanistan via Wakhjir. From there, it could connect Kabul with Afghanistans broader road system and eventually reach the Iranian border. Alternative Path Experts say another possibility lies in the Wakhan Corridor, a remote 350-km strip of land in Afghanistans northeast that directly touches Xinjiang. However, its rugged mountains and narrow width, ranging between 13 and 65 km, make it one of the least traversed routes on Earth. Security risks in the area further complicate its use. As a fallback, China could instead use the Karakoram Highway via Pakistan and integrate it with Afghanistans Peshawar-Kabul network, which analysts consider a more practical option. Through Contested Territory Any route from Gwadar to Kabul would inevitably pass through Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). That segment, which could cover cities such as Gwadar, Quetta, Peshawar, Gilgit, Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, and Kashgar, remains the most politically sensitive stretch because of Indias objections. Indias Mixed Outlook For India, the project presents both potential opportunities and serious concerns. On the positive side, increased stability in Afghanistan could improve trade flows and enhance Indias ability to export goods to Central Asia. Indias investment in Irans Chabahar Port is already designed to provide such access, and a stable Afghan corridor could complement those efforts. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Yet, India has consistently opposed the CPEC, arguing that its passage through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir constitutes a direct infringement of Indian sovereignty. Officials said that such projects not only undermined Indias territorial claims but could also alter the security balance in the region. The push to extend CPEC into Afghanistan reflects Chinas long-term goal of deepening its influence across South and Central Asia. While China and Pakistan hail the project as a driver of connectivity and growth, India views it as a geopolitical maneuver with implications far beyond trade. The latest Kabul meeting may have set the stage for new routes, but it has also sharpened the debate over whether the corridor will bring stability to the regionor new fault lines. First Published: August 22, 2025, 18:00 IST News world China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Economic Corridor: Route Map And How Close Does It Pass To India? Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Elon Musks X Gets Reprieve In Lawsuit Over Firing Of 6,000 Ex-Twitter Employees Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 19:54 IST X Corp and former Twitter employees reached a tentative settlement over $500 million in severance claims after Elon Musks 2022 takeover. A file photo of Elon Musk (AP) Elon Musks social media company X Corp reached a tentative settlement with former Twitter employees who alleged they were owed $500 million (395m) in severance pay. Lawyers for both sides informed a US appeals court that they had agreed in principle to resolve the case and asked judges to postpone a scheduled hearing while details are finalised. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Mass Layoffs At Twitter After Elon Musks Takeover Recommended Stories The case stems from Elon Musks 2022 acquisition of Twitter, which he later rebranded as X. Following the takeover, Elon Musk fired about 6,000 employees in sweeping cost-cutting measures. Many of those dismissed later sued, claiming the company had reneged on severance packages. The settlement under discussion would end one of the largest of those lawsuits, though other cases are still pending in courts in California and Delaware. The proposed class action was brought in California by two former senior staff members- Courtney McMillian, Twitters former head of total rewards" responsible for employee benefits and Ronald Cooper, an operations manager. They argued that under a 2019 severance plan, most Twitter workers were entitled to two months of base pay plus one week for every full year of service, while senior staff such as McMillian were owed six months of salary. Instead, Twitter allegedly gave workers at most one months severance and in many cases nothing at all. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Elon Musk vs Former X Employees A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the lawsuit in July 2024, prompting the employees to appeal to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were due to be heard in September 2024. If finalised, the deal would mark a significant step toward resolving the severance dispute, though Elon Musk and X Corp still face other legal challenges brought by former staff over mass layoffs and workplace practices. Location : San Francisco, California, USA First Published: August 22, 2025, 19:54 IST News world Elon Musks X Gets Reprieve In Lawsuit Over Firing Of 6,000 Ex-Twitter Employees Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Ex-Thai PM Shinawatra Acquitted Of Royal Insult Charges, Faced Jail For Military Coup Remarks Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 10:27 IST Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was relieved of all charges in the royal defamation case. King and his family are not allowed to be criticised in Thailand. Thaksin Shinawatra defamation case: Ex-Thai PM acquitted (AFP image) Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was acquitted on Friday in a royal defamation case, easing a threat to his long-dominant political family. The 76-year-old leader had been facing up to 15 years in prison under the countrys strict lese-majeste law, according to which criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and the royal family is banned. A Bangkok court found him not guilty. Recommended Stories The court dismissed the charges against Thaksin, ruling that the evidence presented was insufficient," news agency AFP quoted his lawyer Winyat Chatmontree as saying. Thaksin walked out of the court before his lawyer and smiled, telling the reporters the case was dismissed". He did not further issue any comment. However, his political dynasty is still under pressure, as his daughter and current Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra faces a crucial court ruling next week that could remove her from office. Thaksins Royal defamation case stems from the remarks he made nearly a decade ago in South Korean media relating to the 2014 military coup that dislodged his sister Yingluck from power. His exact comments that landed him in trouble could not be reported as the lese-majeste law is so strict that putting the remarks out could in itself trigger criminal charges, AFP reported. Thailand has faced repeated coups, protests, and court battles as Thaksin Shinawatra and his supporters clashed with the pro-royalist, pro-military establishment that views him as corrupt and a threat to the old order. Twice elected in the early 2000s, Thaksin was ousted in a coup and spent 15 years in self-exile before returning in August 2023, the same day his Pheu Thai party formed a coalition government with former rivalsfueling speculation of a secret deal. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all On arrival, he received an eight-year sentence for past corruption and abuse of power but was moved to a police hospital instead of prison, citing health issues. His sentence was later reduced to one year by the king, and he was freed in February 2024 under an early release scheme for elderly inmates. A new legal case, set for ruling on September 9, challenges his release on the grounds that he never actually served time in a jail cell. Thailands lese-majeste law, referred to as Section 112 of the criminal code, has been used far more often since the 2020 anti-government protests, some of which openly criticised the monarchy. The law allows for prison terms of up to 15 years for anyone who defames, insults or threatens" the king, queen, heir, or regent. About the Author Ashesh Mallick Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Location : Thailand First Published: August 22, 2025, 10:15 IST News world Ex-Thai PM Shinawatra Acquitted Of Royal Insult Charges, Faced Jail For Military Coup Remarks Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested For 'Misusing Govt Funds' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:12 IST Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested by the country's Criminal Investigation Department on Friday for allegedly "misusing government funds". Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested by CID (AFP File Image) Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested for allegedly misusing government funds", news agency AFP reported, citing a senior police detective on Friday. He was taken into custody after being interrogated about his visit to London in September 2023, when he was the president, to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university, the official said. Recommended Stories He will be produced before a Colombo Fort magistrate. The cops are pressing charges against him for allegedly using state resources for personal purposes. Why Was Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested? Wickremesinghe had stopped in London while he was on his way back from Havana, where he participated in the G77 summit. He and his wife, Maithree, had taken part in a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton. The Sri Lankan leader had said that his wifes travel expenses were borne by her and denied the use of any state funds for her personal purposes. However, the countrys Criminal Investigation Department of the police alleged that he had used the government funds to meet his travel expenses on a private visit and also claimed that his bodyguards were paid by the state. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Wickremesinghe had assumed the presidency in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksas term after the latter stepped down from the post following months of protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement. Wickremesinghe was given the credit for stabilising the countrys economy after Sri Lanka was struck with the worst-ever financial crisis in 2022. However, he lost his re-election run in September last year. About the Author Ashesh Mallick Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes... Read More Location : Sri Lanka First Published: August 22, 2025, 13:51 IST News world Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested For 'Misusing Govt Funds' Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Imran Khans Nephew Abducted, Sisters Home Raided By Armed Men, Alleges PTI Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 11:20 IST PTI said armed men in plain clothes stormed Aleema Khans home in Lahore and forcibly took away Imran Khans nephew Shahrez Khan Imran Khan and his sister Aleema Khan. File image/X In a chilling escalation of pressure tactics against the family of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, his nephew Shahrez Khan was allegedly abducted from his Lahore residence by armed men, according to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Shahrez is the son of Khans sister Aleema Khan, whose house was also vandalised in the late-night operation. Sources told CNN-News18 that the attackers appeared to be in plain clothes but were wearing bulletproof jackets and moved in a coordinated manner, resembling trained military personnel. CCTV footage purportedly shows the attackers forcefully entering the house and breaking into Shahrez Khans bedroom. House staff were reportedly beaten up, and the family was subjected to harassment. Recommended Stories PTI has alleged that the abduction came just a day after Shahrez and his wife were illegally offloaded from a flight at Lahore airport. Shahrez Khan has no connection to any political activity," a PTI spokesperson said, demanding that the Chief Justice of Pakistan take immediate notice and ensure his safe recovery. In a post on X, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said: Aleema Bibis home in Lahore has been attacked by men in plain clothes her son, Shahrez, has been abducted, the family harassed, and the staff beaten up." Aleema Bibis home in Lahore has been attacked by men in plain clothes. Her son Shahrez has been abducted, the family harassed and the staff has been beaten up. salman akram raja (@salmanAraja) August 21, 2025 Shaikh Waqas Akram, PTIs Secretary of Information, added that suspicious individuals wearing civilian clothing and bulletproof jackets were visible on CCTV footage from the residence. Sohail Khan, father of Shahrez, confirmed the abduction. Five armed, masked men with guns stormed into the house and took my son Shahrez away," he said. He was also placed on the Exit Control List (Pakistans official travel ban list) and was offloaded from a Lahore-bound flight just two days ago." Separately, Imran Khans sons, Sulaiman and Qasim, who are currently abroad, have not been allowed to speak to their father by phone. According to their mother, Jemima Goldsmith, authorities have blocked all telephonic communication between Khan and his sons. She also claimed the two were warned they could face arrest if they attempted to visit Pakistan. Police claim Shahrez Khan was arrested in connection with the May 9, 2023, violence, one of the most serious political crises in Pakistans recent history. That day, widespread protests broke out across the country following Imran Khans arrest. Demonstrators stormed military installations, including the Corps Commanders house in Lahore and the Armys General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. The state later labelled the events an anti-state conspiracy and launched sweeping crackdowns on PTI leaders, workers, and sympathisers, with many facing charges under anti-terrorism laws. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In a late-night statement, DIG Operations Lahore Police confirmed that Shahrez Khan had been arrested in connection with investigations into the May 9 violence and would be presented in court. Strict legal action is underway against those involved in the May 9 incidents," the DIG said, adding that no concession would be made for anti-state activity. Aleema Khan, known for her strong and sometimes controversial support of her brothers cause, has frequently spoken out against the military-backed crackdown on PTI. Her statements have often put her at odds with even the partys top leadership. About the Author Manoj Gupta Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 First Published: August 22, 2025, 11:19 IST News world Imran Khans Nephew Abducted, Sisters Home Raided By Armed Men, Alleges PTI Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... India Wary As China's Wang Yi Meets Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir In Islamabad Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:06 IST Concerns have emerged over the potential expansion of Chinese security forces in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Balochistan under the pretext of counter-terror operations. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a high-level meeting with Pakistans Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Field Marshal Asim Munir. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a high-level meeting with Pakistans Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Field Marshal Asim Munir, at the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Islamabad. The interaction has been interpreted by top intelligence circles as a direct indication of a deepening BeijingRawalpindi channel, underscoring the Pakistan Armys dominant role in shaping the countrys foreign and security policy. The talks reportedly revolved around South Asias volatile security environment, with a particular focus on Afghanistan, India, and the Gulf region. Central to the discussions was the establishment of joint mechanisms to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation. Both sides highlighted the need to tackle groups perceived as threats to the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the safety of Chinese personnel working in Pakistan. Recommended Stories Reaffirming their all-weather" partnership, China and Pakistan reiterated their military-to-military alignment and pledged to synchronise positions on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and BRICS. Analysts view this as an attempt to reinforce strategic messaging against Western alliances and the emerging security architecture in the Indo-Pacific, particularly spearheaded by the US-backed QUAD. China also assured its continued support for Pakistans political and territorial sovereignty", openly rejecting Indian claims and pledging to counter what it described as Western and IMF pressures" on Islamabad. The meeting further showcased Beijings intent to safeguard its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, especially CPEC, as strategic imperatives in the region. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all However, the engagement has raised alarms in several quarters. Intelligence sources suggest that Chinas direct dealings with Pakistans military bypass civilian institutions, reinforcing the perception of the Armys supremacy in statecraft. Concerns have also emerged over the potential expansion of Chinese security forces, possibly linked to the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Balochistan under the pretext of counter-terror operations. Observers believe the Wang-Munir meeting is a calculated move to consolidate China-Pakistan coordination as a counterweight to Indias growing regional influence and its strategic ties with the US, QUAD nations, and Middle Eastern partners. The development is expected to deepen regional fault lines, with New Delhi viewing Beijings overt military backing of Islamabad as a direct challenge to its security interests. About the Author Manoj Gupta Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:06 IST News world India Wary As China's Wang Yi Meets Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir In Islamabad Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Ishaq Dar Says Pakistan Is Ready For Talks With India On 'All Issues', Including Kashmir Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 22:39 IST Dar's remarks come as a renewed signal of Pakistans willingness to re-engage with India, following a similar statement he made in July Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. (AP file photo) Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday said that Islamabad is open to holding talks with India covering all pending issues, including Kashmir. Talks, whenever held, will be not just about Kashmir but on all issues," Dar said. Recommended Stories The Pakistani leader made these remarks while speaking to reporters outside Pakistans Parliament in Islamabad, India Today reported. Dars remarks come as a renewed signal of Pakistans willingness to re-engage with India, following a similar statement he made in July. Back in July, during an interaction with the Atlantic Council think tank, Dar had said Pakistan was ready to engage on a wide range of subjects. Pakistan is ready to work and cooperate with India on all frontsfrom trade to counter-terrorism," he had stated. Dar also had stressed that the ball is now in Indias court," and Islamabad was still waiting for a formal response from New Delhi. At that time, Dar had also called for a resumption of the composite dialogue process, which previously served as a structured framework for bilateral talks. This included discussions on Kashmir, cross-border terrorism, people-to-people ties, trade, and cultural exchanges. However, India has remained firm in its stance. In response to Dars remarks, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had stated in Parliament that India will not hold talks with countries that support terrorism. He had criticised Pakistan for giving military funerals to terrorists, calling such acts a glorification of terrorism. Singh had added that dialogue is possible only with democratic and civilised nations, not those driven by hatred and religious extremism." The language of terrorism is fear, blood, and hate, not dialogue," he said, adding that the voice of dialogue is suppressed under the firing of bullets," the Defence Minister had remarked. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all India-Pakistan relations remain strained, especially after Indias Operation Sindoor on May 7. The operation was a military response to the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, which killed 26 civilians. Indian forces carried out targeted strikes on terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. ALSO READ: No Talks Where Theres Blood: Rajnath Singh On Pakistan After Ishaq Dar Pitches Dialogue About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More Location : Pakistan First Published: August 22, 2025, 22:39 IST News world Ishaq Dar Says Pakistan Is Ready For Talks With India On 'All Issues', Including Kashmir Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Kim Jong Un Pays Rare Tribute To North Korean Soldiers Killed In Ukraine War: 'My Heart Aches...' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 15:52 IST Kim Jong Un mourned North Korean soldiers killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine, awarding badges at a Pyongyang ceremony. Images from the ceremony showed Kim Jong Un embracing sobbing relatives. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered a rare and emotional tribute to soldiers killed while fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine, saying his heart aches" at their loss. Kim Jong Un made the remarks at a ceremony in Pyongyang, where he met commanders of a unit that had taken part in fighting in Russias western Kursk region, according to state media KCNA. He hailed the troops as a heroic army," awarding commendation badges to returning soldiers and posthumously to the dead. Photographs released by KCNA showed Kim Jong Un pinning badges onto portraits of fallen servicemen displayed on a memorial wall, each name engraved in gold beneath the image. Recommended Stories My heart aches and is bitter as I face the reality that I only get to meet the noble figures who gave up their precious lives for great victory and glory through photos on the memorial wall," Kim Jong Un said. Addressing families of the dead, Kim Jong Un added: As I stand in front of the bereaved families of the fallen soldiers, I dont know how to express my regret and apologies for not being able to protect our precious sons." Images from the ceremony showed Kim Jong Un embracing sobbing relatives, including children and bowing before soldiers portraits. Heavy Losses Of North Korean Forces The tribute marks a rare acknowledgement from Pyongyang of casualties suffered by North Korean forces deployed to support Russia. North Korea began sending thousands of troops and military equipment to Russia last year after high-profile meetings between Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, bringing the reclusive state directly into Europes largest conflict since the Second World War. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all While both governments initially denied the presence of North Korean troops in Russia, they have since confirmed their involvement. Western intelligence estimates about 12,000 North Korean soldiers are currently in Russia, with some reports suggesting Kim may be preparing to triple that number in the coming months. US and Ukrainian officials believe around 4,000 North Korean troops from the initial deployment have been killed or wounded, reflecting the heavy toll of the fighting. Location : North Korea First Published: August 22, 2025, 15:52 IST News world Kim Jong Un Pays Rare Tribute To North Korean Soldiers Killed In Ukraine War: 'My Heart Aches...' Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... No Putin-Zelenskyy Meet? Russia Says Agenda 'Not Ready At All', Nothing Planned Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 19:24 IST Russia says no imminent Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy summit as Sergei Lavrov cites lack of agenda. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. (Image Credit: AP) Russia ruled out an imminent meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, insisting there is no agreed framework for talks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC that while Vladimir Putin was prepared to meet, the agenda is not ready at all." Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all," Sergei Lavrov said, asserting, Therefore, no meeting is planned for now." Recommended Stories Sergei Lavrov accused Zelenskyy of rejecting key principles raised by US President Donald Trump in recent peace efforts, including Ukraine staying out of NATO and discussing disputed territory. Zelenskyy said no to everything," Lavrov said, questioning whether the Ukrainian leader was serious about negotiations. Both Russia and Ukraine have sought to present themselves as open to talks under Donald Trumps mediation, while accusing the other of blocking progress. Donald Trump had set an August 8 deadline for Moscow to agree to terms or face new sanctions, but instead hosted Vladimir Putin at a summit in Alaska last week. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Since then, Moscow has shown little sign of compromise, insisting on long-standing demands that Kyiv renounce NATO membership and accept Russian claims in eastern Ukraine. Zelenskyy has said Russia is deliberately stalling as he accused the Kremlin of doing everything it can to make sure a meeting does not take place" and called for tougher sanctions if Moscow continued to resist negotiations. Location : Russia First Published: August 22, 2025, 19:24 IST News world No Putin-Zelenskyy Meet? Russia Says Agenda 'Not Ready At All', Nothing Planned Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Only Asim Law In Pakistan: Imran Khans 2 Nephews Arrested, Sister Calls It Cowardly | Exclusive Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 14:43 IST 'They are cowards': Aleema Khan spoke exclusively to News18 about the pressure tactics, her brother Imran Khans bail and son Shahrezs arrest Imran Khan and his sister Aleema Khan. File image/X As the Pakistan Supreme Court granted bail to former Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan in the May 9, 2023 violence conspiracy, his nephew, Shahrez Khan, was allegedly abducted and arrested from his Lahore residence by armed men, according to the PTI. Shahrez is the son of Khans sister Aleema Khan, whose house was also vandalised in the late-night operation. Lahores Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Manzar Gul has handed over eight-day physical remand of Shahrez to the police. Aleemas younger son, Shershah, too, was arrested outside her house while he was returning from Shahrezs court hearing. Recommended Stories Aleema spoke exclusively to News18 about the pressure tactics, her brother Imran Khans bail and son Shahrezs arrest. Shahrez Khans arrest a cowardly move: Aleema Khan My son participates in triathlons and also runs the textile business, for which he travels a lot. He is disengaged from any other activity. He represents Pakistan in triathlons. He was travelling for a triathlon event to Estonia. Even I didnt know. We were in Islamabad and busy with the SC. We didnt find out till they abducted him and his wife. They abducted him at the airport for several hours and then let him go. Then they raided and picked him up. They just want to create fear. To raid the house, beat up the staff, they went upstairs, snatched my daughter-in-laws phones. He was sitting with my granddaughters, who is aged 1.5 years and 5-6 years," said Aleema. Sources told CNN-News18 that the attackers appeared to be in plain clothes but were wearing bulletproof jackets and moved in a coordinated manner, resembling trained military personnel. CCTV footage purportedly shows the attackers forcefully entering the house and breaking into Shahrezs bedroom. House staff were reportedly beaten up, and the family was subjected to harassment. PTI has alleged that the abduction came just a day after Shahrez and his wife were illegally offloaded from a flight at Lahore airport. Shahrez Khan has no connection to any political activity," a PTI spokesperson said, demanding that the Chief Justice of Pakistan take immediate notice and ensure his safe recovery. Sohail Khan, father of Shahrez, confirmed the abduction. Five armed, masked men with guns stormed into the house and took my son Shahrez away," he said. In a late-night statement, DIG Operations Lahore Police confirmed that Shahrez Khan had been arrested in connection with investigations into the May 9 violence and would be presented in court. Strict legal action is underway against those involved in the May 9 incidents," the DIG said, adding that no concession would be made for anti-state activity. After 2.5 years, they have just suddenly realised that he is also involved. Basically they are cowards. They dont know what to do. It is an insult to fear cowards. They are scared. What a stupid thing to do, the day Imran Khan gets a bail," said Aleema Khan. Aleema Bibis home in Lahore has been attacked by men in plain clothes. Her son Shahrez has been abducted, the family harassed and the staff has been beaten up. salman akram raja (@salmanAraja) August 21, 2025 Asim Munir and Imran Khan: What Aleema Khan said When asked if Army chief Asim Munir was behind this, she said, In Pakistan, it is Asim law, Imran Khan said this even from jail. Everyone knows this. He wants to create fear. Munir is fearful, that is reflectingA man with little children celebrating Imran Khans bail was picked up bailImran Khan called it the darkest hour before the dawn. He says that you should not get worried. My sister is in jail, I have gone to jailIn Pakistan, people dont have fear that much. Once you abuse people so much, it goes away. They are now fearing peoples anger. People are always with us," she said. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Imran Khans movement will continue. They have restricted his access in the past few months. My sisters and even lawyer havent been allowed. Rumours are he is breaking. They just want to say they have broken himThey have deprived him of booksIn solitary confinement, four days is the maximum limit. Khan has been there for months," said Aleema Khan. They want him to apologise for May 9. Khan says people who did it should apologise, they have taken away the CCTV footage. On May 9, Khan was in prison. They have 10,000 peopleThe bail that Khan got was for conspiracy for May 9, because he was in prison on the day. The case was so stupid. It would have been suicidal for a judge to listen to the ridiculous arguments from the prosecution and not give bail. The Supreme Court gave him bail. In court, the prosecution was an embarrassment. Their argument was two policemen were hiding and listening. The chief justice had to give bail," she said. About the Author Manoj Gupta Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 Group Editor, Investigations & Security Affairs, Network18 First Published: August 22, 2025, 14:10 IST News world Only Asim Law In Pakistan: Imran Khans 2 Nephews Arrested, Sister Calls It Cowardly | Exclusive Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Russia's Lavrov Accuses Zelenskyy Of Torpedoing Ukraine Talks: 'He's A Pretend Leader Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 18:12 IST Sergey Lavrov accused Zelenskyy of rejecting Donald Trumps peace plan amid stalled prospects for direct talks. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Image Credit: Reuters) Russias foreign minister Sergey Lavrov launched a blistering attack on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claiming he has rejected every principle" put forward under Donald Trumps peace initiative and is deliberately obstructing efforts to end the Ukraine war. Zelenskyy said no to everything. Russia, on the other hand, agreed to show some flexibility," Sergey Lavrov said, adding, How can we meet with a person pretending to be a leader?" Recommended Stories His comments cast fresh doubt over prospects of a direct meeting between Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin, after Donald Trump signalled he would step back from hosting trilateral talks and leave the two leaders to arrange a bilateral summit. Read more: Kim Jong Un Pays Rare Tribute To North Korean Soldiers Killed In Ukraine War: My Heart Aches Conditions For Russia-Ukraine Talks Zelenskyy =insisted he will only meet Vladimir Putin once Ukraines allies have agreed on binding security guarantees, warning there can be no negotiations without assurances against further Russian aggression. Moscow, meanwhile, continues to demand adherence to its maximalist terms first tabled in Istanbul in 2022, including restrictions on Western military support for Kyiv as Lavrov dismissed European-led peace efforts as hopeless." Earlier, Donald Trump suggested Ukraine could not win the war without striking targets inside Russia, remarks widely seen as an endorsement of Kyivs recent cross-border attacks. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all On his social media platform Truth Social, Donald Trump shared an image comparing himself confronting Vladimir Putin with Richard Nixons famous clash with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, in a further sign of his confrontational messaging. The rhetoric coincides with some of the heaviest Russian aerial bombardments of the war so far, including strikes on a US-owned electronics plant in western Ukraine. European military leaders have also been drawing up security guarantee frameworks aimed at anchoring any eventual peace settlement. Location : Russia First Published: August 22, 2025, 18:12 IST News world Russia's Lavrov Accuses Zelenskyy Of Torpedoing Ukraine Talks: 'He's A Pretend Leader Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... SpaceX Launches US Military X-37B Space Plane On Mystery Mission Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 12:55 IST SpaceX launched the secretive X-37B US military mini shuttle from Kennedy Space Center for its eighth mission. Watch video. SpaceX Launches Secretive US Military X-37B Space Drone Elon Musks SpaceX on Thursday night launched a US military mini shuttle, with no one aboard. The secretive X-37B drone was successfully launched at 11:50 pm (0350 GMT on Friday), according to SpaceXs livestream of the event. Launched by Falcon 9 rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, this is X-37B space planes eighth mystery mission. Recommended Stories As per a statement by US Space Force, the drones mission include a wide range of experiments. An AFP report quoted the service as saying, These operational demonstrations and experiments comprise next-generation technologies including laser communications and the highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever tested in space." Mission 8 will contribute to improving the resilience, efficiency and security of U.S. space based communications architectures," it added. SpaceX Launches US Military Spacecraft | Watch The X-37B US space drone, about the size of a small bus, resembles a miniature version of the manned space shuttles that were retired in 2011. On its previous missions, the X-37B has conducted tests for NASA, the US space agency. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In operation since 2010, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle was developed for the Air Force by United Launch Alliance, a collaboration between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Measuring 30 feet (nine meters) in length with a 15-foot wingspan, the drone is powered by solar panels. About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d... Read More Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: August 22, 2025, 12:55 IST News world SpaceX Launches US Military X-37B Space Plane On Mystery Mission Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump Halts Visas For Truck Drivers Days After Undocumented Indian's Illegal U-Turn Killed 3 Curated By : Trending Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 09:36 IST Most foreign truck drivers in the U.S. are employed under the H-2B visa program. The crackdown on foreign drivers follows a broader pattern of immigration and public safety measures (AP Image) The Trump administration has announced a pause on the issuance of worker visas for foreign commercial truck drivers, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The decision, made effective immediately, was announced Thursday and is being justified as a public safety measure. Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," Rubio stated in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Recommended Stories Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers.The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 21, 2025 Rubio did not clarify how long the visa freeze would remain in effect. The current fiscal year, which typically governs visa quotas, ends on September 30. Most foreign truck drivers in the US are employed under the H-2B visa program, a non-immigrant visa that allows employers to bring foreign workers for temporary non-agricultural jobs. The visa suspension comes just days after a fatal highway crash in Florida involving Harjinder Singh, a commercial truck driver. Singh was accused of making an illegal U-turn that resulted in multiple deaths approximately 50 miles north of West Palm Beach. The Department of Homeland Security later revealed that Singh was in the US illegally and was arrested on three counts of vehicular homicide. In response to the crash, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced on Tuesday that an official investigation into the incident had been launched. Authorities are examining whether regulatory oversights contributed to the deadly event. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all The crackdown on foreign drivers follows a broader pattern of immigration and public safety measures by the Trump administration. In April, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Transportation to remove commercial drivers who could not prove English language proficiency. While the English requirement has long been part of federal regulations, it had not been strictly enforced since 2016. The policy has reportedly led to the disqualification of more than 3,000 drivers nationwide who failed to pass English proficiency exams. In a related development, the State Department confirmed Thursday that it is currently vetting over 55 million US visa holders for potential deportable offences, which include criminal activity, visa overstays, and involvement in terrorist activity. Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: August 22, 2025, 06:01 IST News world Trump Halts Visas For Truck Drivers Days After Undocumented Indian's Illegal U-Turn Killed 3 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump Blasts 'Lowlife' John Bolton After FBI Raids Ex-Advisor's Home: 'I Am Not His Fan' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 21:46 IST Donald Trump called John Bolton a lowlife after FBI agents raided his home over classified documents. US President Donald Trump and John Bolton (File Image) US President Donald Trump lashed out at his onetime national security adviser John Bolton, calling him a real sort of lowlife" after FBI agents raided Boltons Maryland home as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents. Distancing himself from the case, Donald Trump said, Im not a fan of John Bolton I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning You have to do what you have to do." The FBI operation took place at John Boltons residence in Bethesda, just outside Washington, the New York Post reported. FBI Director Kash Patel appeared to confirm the raid with a cryptic post on X (formerly Twitter), writing, NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission." Recommended Stories What Is The Probe Against John Bolton? The probe reportedly centers on allegations that John Bolton mishandled classified material, particularly in connection with his 2020 memoir The Room Where It Happened. The book, which painted Donald Trump as erratic and unfit for office, prompted the White House to sue in an attempt to block its release on national security grounds- a legal effort that ultimately failed. Since leaving the Donald Trump White House in 2019, John Bolton has been one of his fiercest critics, blasting his foreign policy as inconsistent and damaging to US interests. He has accused Donald Trump of adopting a confused" approach towards India, warning that punitive tariffs risked driving New Delhi closer to Moscow and Beijing. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all In an interview, he said, Trump doesnt have a philosophy, so theres no legacy for his successors." He also said that US policy under Donald Trump was aberrational." John Bolton said, Leaving India hanging out to dry as the only country to which punitive action has been taken obviously leads a lot of people to conclude that the United States has given up on India. I do worry that India is being driven closer to Russia and China." Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: August 22, 2025, 21:46 IST News world Trump Blasts 'Lowlife' John Bolton After FBI Raids Ex-Advisor's Home: 'I Am Not His Fan' Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump Says Hell Speak To Xi Jinping On TikTok 'At The Right Time' As US Ban Deadline Looms Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 22:27 IST Donald Trump discusses TikToks future with possible talks with Xi Jinping as the US deadline for ByteDances sale or ban approaches. US President Donald Trump. (Reuters Image) US President Donald Trump he will speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the right time" about TikTok, as the Chinese-owned app faces a looming deadline to be sold or banned in the United States. Hinting at yet another delay in enforcing the divest-or-ban law. Donald Trump said, I havent spoken to President Xi about it. At the right time, when were set, Ill do it. In the meantime, until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer." Recommended Stories The US President downplayed national security concerns over TikTok, calling them highly overrated," and said he personally liked the platform. Im a fan of TikTok. My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok. If we can keep it going, good. Were going to watch the security concerns. And we have buyers, American buyers," he said. The White House launched its own TikTok account earlier this week, underscoring Washingtons balancing act between worries over Chinese ownership and the apps immense popularity among US users. The US Congress passed the sale-or-ban law last year under then-President Joe Biden, requiring TikToks parent company ByteDance to divest its US operations. The legislation went into effect on January 19 and TikTok briefly went offline before Donald Trump, in one of his first acts of his second term, signed an order delaying the bans enforcement by 75 days. He has since extended the deadline three times, most recently in June. The current cutoff date is September 17. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all TikTok, with 170 million users in the United States, has become a flashpoint in fraught US-China relations. Washington says it fears Beijing could compel ByteDance to share user data under Chinese national security laws- something TikTok denies. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden launched TikTok accounts during the 2024 presidential campaign despite earlier warning about the apps risks, drawing scrutiny from critics who accused them of sending mixed signals. Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: August 22, 2025, 22:27 IST News world Trump Says Hell Speak To Xi Jinping On TikTok 'At The Right Time' As US Ban Deadline Looms Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... UN-Backed Experts Declare Famine In And Around Gaza City: 'Time For Debate Has Passed' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 16:45 IST IPC declares man-made famine in Gaza City, warning deaths will rise without urgent aid and ceasefire as malnutrition surges and conditions worsen. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warns malnourished children in Gaza face death without urgent aid. An entirely man-made" famine has been declared in Gazas largest city and surrounding areas, in what UN-backed experts describe as a sharp escalation of the territorys humanitarian crisis. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the worlds leading authority on food insecurity and malnutrition, said three key thresholds for famine had been met in Gaza City, home to an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people. This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed. The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. Any further delay even by days will result in a totally unacceptable escalation of famine-related mortality," the report noted. Recommended Stories The declaration makes Gaza City only the fifth place worldwide where the IPC has formally confirmed a famine since it was established in 2004. The most recent was in Sudan last year. The report warned that if a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and if food, health, nutrition, water and sanitation services are not restored immediately, deaths will increase exponentially". According to figures from Gazas health ministry, verified by the World Health Organization, deaths from malnutrition and starvation have surged in recent weeks. In the 22 months since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in October 2023, 89 deaths were attributed to hunger, mostly children. But in the first 20 days of August alone, 133 deaths were recorded, including 25 children. The IPC report also warned that famine is likely to spread to the towns of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis in the coming weeks, while conditions in northern Gaza- though not yet formally declared a famine- are thought to be the most severe. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Aid officials warned that further Israeli military offensives in Gaza City could have catastrophic consequences" for civilians. Amjad Shawa, director of the Gaza NGOs Network, said, This is the worst, the most critical stage in the entire history of Gaza, not just in this war. We are in a very complicated situation. We must get food otherwise we cannot imagine what will happen." The IPC report called for urgent, comprehensive and sustained action to end the swiftly deteriorating and ever-expanding humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip." Location : Israel First Published: August 22, 2025, 16:45 IST News world UN-Backed Experts Declare Famine In And Around Gaza City: 'Time For Debate Has Passed' Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... US State Dept 'Proud Of India-Pakistan Ceasefire', Skips Comment On PM Modi-Trump Call | Exclusive Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 10:01 IST Trade Deal On Track: US State Department tells CNN-NEWS18 it looks forward to advancing a trade deal with India, aiming for a productive, balanced partnership. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump. (AP Photo) The US has refused to comment on Prime Minister Narendra Modis plainspeak to US President Donald Trump over a 35-minute call in June in which Modi said that US played no role in mediation between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. Responding for the first time to an Indian news network on this matter as well as the India-US trade negotiations, a US State Department spokesperson told CNN-NEWS18 that they are proud of the US brokered ceasefire reached between India and Pakistan". The spokesperson also urged India and Pakistan to directly communicate (with each other) to avert future conflict." Recommended Stories India, and PM Modi, have repeatedly disagreed with both these stands of the US, saying talks and terror cant go together. CNN-NEWS18 had asked the US if President Trump was telling the truth regarding brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and what Modi had told Trump in June. We do not comment on private diplomatic conversations," a US spokesperson said. The US State Department spokesperson, while responding to questions from CNN-NEWS18, also said that trade talks with India are on track. A US trade team had postponed its scheduled visit to India on August 25. We value our ongoing engagement with the Government of India on trade and investment matters. We look forward to continuing to advance a trade agreement that leads to a productive and balanced trade relationship between our two countries," the US spokesperson has told CNN-NEWS18. On Operation Sindoor and Pakistan CNN-NEWS18 had asked the US State Department in a set of queries about the phone call exchanged between Trump and Modi this June when Modi was in Canada for the G7 Summit. Modi, in this call, had done straight-talk with Trump saying the US had played no role in mediation between India and Pakistan on Operation Sindoor. The US did not issue a readout of this call. We do not comment on private diplomatic conversations," a US State Department spokesperson has told CNN-NEWS18. We are proud of the US brokered ceasefire reached between India and Pakistan, and we commend prime ministers Modi and Sharif for choosing the path of peace," the spokesperson responded. The spokesperson further said: As President Trump has said, both leaders showed strength, wisdom and fortitude." Further, the US state department spokesperson told CNN-NEWS18 that India and Pakistan should speak to each other to avoid future conflict. Maintaining the ceasefire is critical to preserving regional stability, and we continue to urge both countries to engage in direct communication to avert future conflict," the US spokesperson said. CNN-NEWS18 had asked the US if Trump was lying on the issue of the ceasefire, and if he was upset that PM Modi declined his invitation to stop over in the US while on his way back from Canada. Trade Deal Negotiations On: US Tells CNN-NEWS18 CNN-NEWS18 had also asked the US if the tariffs announcement for India had hurt the India-US strategic relationship. Trump announced 25 per cent tariffs for India earlier this month and has threatened with 25 per cent secondary tariffs from August 27 because India is buying Russian Oil. We value our ongoing engagement with the Government of India on trade and investment matters and look forward to continuing to advance a trade agreement that leads to a productive and balanced trade relationship between our two countries," a US State Department spokesperson said in response to the query. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all This would raise hope, as the Indian side has been saying, that both countries could strike a trade deal later this year and negotiations were on but India has made it clear that it would not compromise with the interests of its farmers and fishermen. The President (Trump) has made clear his desire to correct longstanding imbalances in international trade and bring back fairness to our trade relationships," the US State Department spokesperson told CNN-NEWS18. About the Author Aman Sharma Aman Sharma, Executive Editor - National Affairs at CNN-News18, and Bureau Chief at News18 in Delhi, has over two decades of experience in covering the wide spectrum of politics and the Prime Ministers Office.... Read More Aman Sharma, Executive Editor - National Affairs at CNN-News18, and Bureau Chief at News18 in Delhi, has over two decades of experience in covering the wide spectrum of politics and the Prime Ministers Office.... Read More First Published: August 22, 2025, 10:01 IST News world US State Dept 'Proud Of India-Pakistan Ceasefire', Skips Comment On PM Modi-Trump Call | Exclusive Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Virtual Gangrape': Italian Facebook Group Where Men Shared Images Of Their Wives Sparks Outcry Curated By : Trending Desk Last Updated: August 22, 2025, 05:20 IST Earlier this year, Meta faced criticism for relaxing some of its content moderation policies, a move aimed at appeasing the Trump administration. The scandal also resurfaced public memory of the French case of Gisele Pelicot A Facebook group has triggered nationwide outrage in Italy after it was discovered sharing intimate images of women without their consent. The page, titled Mia Moglie" (My Wife), had amassed more than 32,000 members, according to The Financial Times. The Meta-owned platform has since shut the group down following public outcry over its exploitative content. According to reports, members of the group had been posting explicit photos of their partners, or impersonating women by sharing fabricated intimate images, without obtaining consent. The group had been active since 2019, but Meta told The Financial Times that it remained dormant until May 2025. In the last three months, however, it began hosting explicit content, directly violating Metas policies on adult sexual exploitation. Recommended Stories A Meta spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that the group was removed for violating our Adult Sexual Exploitation policies." Earlier this year, Meta faced criticism for relaxing some of its content moderation policies, a move aimed at appeasing the Trump administration. The decision was made despite repeated calls from civil rights organisations to increase oversight of harmful and exploitative online content. The controversy surrounding the Mia Moglie group has sparked widespread anger across Italy, raising serious concerns about digital gender-based violence and online privacy. It also comes amid growing criticism of how social media platforms handle abusive content, particularly that which targets women. Beyond the digital realm, the incident has intensified focus on gender dynamics in Italian society. According to Vox, the scandal highlights the prevalence of misogyny online, particularly hate directed at womens appearances. In response, opposition lawmakers have increased pressure on the right-wing government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to take stronger action. The Five Star Movement condemned the incident and called on the government to fight an unacceptable patriarchal mentality that reduces women to objects and instruments of possession." Similarly, Roberta Mori from the Democratic Party called the Facebook group another example of structural digital violence rooted in the same patriarchal culture of domination." The scandal also resurfaced public memory of the French case of Gisele Pelicot, who was raped for years by her husband and his male friends, illustrating disturbing parallels in digital and physical abuse. Feminist influencer Carolina Capria helped bring attention to the issue by publicly denouncing the group in a viral Instagram post on Tuesday. Capria told The Financial Times that such actions amounted to virtual gang rape." Her post prompted thousands of users to report the group to authorities. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all Italys Postal Police, the national cybercrime unit, received around 2,800 complaints, some from alleged victims themselves. Authorities are now investigating potential criminal offences, including revenge porn, privacy violations, aggravated defamation, and child pornography. If convicted, perpetrators could face up to six years in prison. The Italian law allows individuals affected by revenge porn a period of six months to file formal charges. Location : Italy First Published: August 22, 2025, 05:20 IST News world 'Virtual Gangrape': Italian Facebook Group Where Men Shared Images Of Their Wives Sparks Outcry Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who arrived here on Friday morning, has hit the ground running and engaged a major Indian diamond processing firm. Hari Krishna Exports, one of the leading global diamond processors with a manufacturing capacity of over 400,000 carats of diamonds annually, is keen to establish producer synergies and is targeting Zimbabwe for partnership in diamond value addition. On its part, Zimbabwe has identified diamond value addition as a key component in growing the mining industry into a US$12 billion sector by 2030. Vice President Chiwenga extended an invitation to the Krishnas, the founders of Hari Krishna Exports, to explore potential partnerships with Zimbabwean companies. He presented a strong investment case, impressing upon the Krishnas the mutual benefits of collaboration in the diamond sector. The chairman of the group, Mr Savjibhai Dolakia, expressed enthusiasm about the prospect of working with Zimbabwe. He said his team is eager to explore opportunities and plans to visit Zimbabwe soon to discuss potential ventures in greater detail. This engagement marks a key step in strengthening economic ties between Zimbabwe and India, particularly in the lucrative diamond industry. Herald Two South Africans and their Zimbabwean accomplice were yesterday fined for disturbing the flow of traffic at the Chitungwiza accident scene where 17 people died in July. Cooper Daniel Colin, 33, Pretorius Walter James Seymour, 51 and Germishuizen Danica, 23, pleaded guilty to the offence when they appeared before Harare magistrate Vakai Chikwekwe. The three were ordered to pay a fine of US$200 each or risk facing four months imprisonment. The court heard that Seymour and Danica are crash Data Forensic experts. The two, who are based in Johannesburg, came into Zimbabwe on August 20 and were issued with Business Visas by immigration authorities. The purpose of their visit was to investigate the accident crime scene at the Hunyani River Bridge where 17 people perished. The duo teamed up with Colin and proceeded to the accident scene where they started marking the scrap marks using paint and a tape measure. In so doing, the three were obstructing the movement of traffic from Harare CBD to Chitungwiza, thereby causing a traffic jam. They were arrested by Chief Inspector Mapepa, who was also driving along the same road, after they failed to give a satisfactory explanation as to why they were performing that task without informing the local authorities. H Metro California's legislature on Thursday approved a series of measures to redraw the state's congressional districts to favor Democrats in the next midterm elections, an action promised by Gov. Gavin Newsom to counter Texas' attempt to give Republicans more US House seats. Once Newsom signs it, scheduled for later in the day, the legislation will put a proposed constitutional amendment before voters in November, the Los Angeles Times reports. "What do we do? Just sit back and do nothing?" state Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez said during debate. "Or do we fight back and provide some chance for our Californians to see themselves in this democracy?" The vote was largely along party lines. Senate Republicans maintained that the state's independent commission is the best way to handle redistricting, per the Washington Post. "The ends don't justify the means," GOP Sen. Tony Strickland told Democrats. "You know this is not good for democracy in California." The commission model complicates Democrats' attempt to redraw the districts, which the constitutional amendment would allow. "This isn't politics as usual," Newsom posted Thursday on X. "It's an emergency for our democracy. And we're acting now to save our future." President Trump is behind the Texas campaign, after saying Republicans are entitled to five more seats. The changes that cleared the legislature Thursday would eliminate the district of GOP Rep. Ken Calvert and reduce the number of Republican voters in the districts of Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao, and Darrell Issa, per the Times. California Republicans are fighting the Democratic effort in court, and the first mailer opposing the attempt, funded by Charles Munger Jr., has already gone out to voters. State inspectors in Colorado found about 20 decomposing bodies behind a hidden door in a funeral home owned by a county coroner, who told them he may have given fake ashes to next of kin who sought cremations, authorities disclosed Thursday. The bodies were discovered in a room behind a door hidden by a cardboard display during an inspection of Davis Mortuary in Pueblo, about 110 miles south of Denver, the AP reports. Inspectors found a "strong odor of decomposition" after arriving at the business on Wednesday. Brian Cotterthe owner and Pueblo County coronerhad asked them not to enter the room, according to a document from state regulators. When the US Justice Department sought information from doctors and clinics that provide gender-affirming care for young transgender patients, officials weren't just asking for policies. They also demanded information about individual patients, the AP reports. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in a statement July 9 that the department had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics that provide the care. The request represented an elevation in the Trump administration's effort to halt the medical treatment for transgender youth, even in states where it's legal. Bondi said the requests were part of investigations into "healthcare fraud, false statements, and more." No charges have been announced so far, but the probes have had a chilling impact on the availability of care. Specifics of the requests were not made public until a court filing in a separate lawsuit this week and were first reported by the Washington Post. Advocates say the requests are invasive and unnecessary. "It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance," said Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law's senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights. The subpoena sent to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on June 11 was included in a legal filing Monday in challenges from the states of Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington to the administration's attempts to bar the treatment for patients under age 19. The 18-page document demanded an expansive list of documents be provided. Among them: Documents to identify "by name, date of birth, social security number, address and parent/guardian information" patients who were prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy. It's not clear whether subpoenas sent to other providers were identical. Elizabeth Gill, an ACLU lawyer, said that several hospitals are challenging the subpoenas, though most are doing it under seal. (Meanwhile, the Alaska State Medical Board on Friday is set to consider language that would deem doctors who perform gender-affirming care of minors "grossly negligent.") The body of a missing woman was found in a Southern California forest days after her husband was recorded on surveillance video dragging something heavy out of their apartment complex north of Los Angeles, authorities said this week. Per the AP , Sheylla Cabrera, 33, of Lancaster was reported missing on Aug. 12, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The next day, homicide detectives located the footage of her husband, Jossimar Cabrera, 36, hauling an object wrapped "in a large piece of material" from the residence where the couple lived with their three young sons, the statement said. On Aug. 16, searchers discovered Sheylla Cabrera's body wrapped in similar material at the bottom of an embankment in Angeles National Forest south of Lancaster, the department said. The coroner's office will determine the cause of death. The Los Angeles County DA's office on Thursday filed a murder charge against Jossimar Cabrera, along with an arrest warrant for his extradition from Peru, where officials said he fled with the couple's sons. Peru's Foreign Ministry on Saturday said on social media that it had repatriated the children back to Los Angeles via Mexico City to be reunited with their mother's family. Jossimar Cabrera is believed to still be in Peru, LA County sheriff's officials said. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week that, according to Peruvian media, officials questioned Cabrera at the airport in the Peru capital of Lima and took the children into protective custody, but they didn't detain Cabrera. Sheylla Cabrera's mother tells the Peruvian news outlet Latina Noticias that her daughter had intended on filing a criminal report against her husband due to alleged psychological and physical abuse, according to the Times. On Tuesday, authorities in Colorado said a ranger at Staunton State Park was stabbed in what appeared to be a "targeted attack." Investigators now believe the ranger, 26-year-old Callum Heskett, targeted himself. "Today, we arrested what we thought to be the victim in our stabbing from Staunton State Park," Jefferson County Sheriff's Office public information officer Jacki Kelley told Denver7 on Thursday. "He was arrested as a suspect after he created an elaborate hoax to involve himself in what turned out to be a self-inflicted wound." The park, around 40 miles southwest of Denver, was closed and several schools in the area were locked down after Heskett, a seasonal ranger, claimed he had been stabbed by an attacker who ran away, the New York Times reports. According to an arrest affidavit, another park employee told 911 dispatchers that Heskett, a former police officer, had reported over his radio that he was in a "physical confrontation" with a person on a trail. The employee said he heard Heskett say things like "Get back" and "He's fighting me." According to the affidavit, deputies found Heskett kneeling along the side of a park road, holding a pocket knife that appeared to have been stabbed into his lower left abdomen, Denver7 reports. He was airlifted to a hospital and treated for a wound 1 to 1.5 inches deep. The sheriff's office says investigators found multiple inconsistencies in his storyand discovered his online searches about stab wounds and abdominal arteries. Authorities said Heskett was still in the hospital when he was arrested Thursday and he will be transferred to the Jefferson County Hospital when he is released, reports the New York Post. A prominent Helena-based campaign treasurer for Democrats and liberal-leaning causes was charged federally this week for allegedly embezzling more than $253,000 in funds from candidates and organizations. Abbey Lee Cook was charged Wednesday by the Montana U.S. Attorney's Office with three federal counts of wire fraud after she allegedly transferred money and property without authorization to accounts and entities she controlled through her company, Abbey Lee Cook and Associates LLC, beginning around September 2021. Candidates, organizations and political action committees will often hire treasurers and compliance officers like Cook to ensure they follow the litany of campaign finance reporting requirements. Through this work, Cook was granted access to bank accounts these entities and individuals used, according to the charging documents. Each count of wire fraud carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison and a maximum of a $250,000 fine, but in a plea agreement filed Wednesday, prosecutors indicated they would recommend a favorable sentence for her guilty plea. Neither Cook nor her attorney responded to multiple requests for comment Thursday. The federal court filing detailing the wire fraud charges lists six alleged victims, all of whom were allegedly defrauded in amounts as low as $1,600 and as high as $88,209. It is unclear how much cash she actually pocketed, but in the plea agreement, she agreed to pay at least $253,000 in restitution. The six alleged victims in the scheme are not named in court filings, but both Sen. Cora Neumann, D-Bozeman, and Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, said they plan to file complaints in the coming days with the states Commissioner of Political Practices regarding Cooks work for their campaigns. With the federal case still pending, I don't want to comment at this time, Neumann said in a text message. Based on her conduct while she was treasurer for my campaign, I will be filing a formal complaint with COPP. In Zephyrs first campaign for the Montana Statehouse, she explained that she did her financial filings herself, but found it stressful and cumbersome, so she hired Cook for her second bid for the House on the recommendation of other Democrats. But during the 2024 campaign, Zephyr explained that Neumann noticed some discrepancies and contacted Zephyr knowing that Cook was working on her campaign as well. Quickly we began working to figure out what happened and how much was taken, Zephyr said, adding that she ultimately does not know how much may have been stolen, but believes based on the charging documents that she is one of the listed victims. When asked if she ever confronted Cook with these allegations, Zephyr said that after she spoke with the FBI initially, agents advised her not to contact Cook. Chris Gallus, the states commissioner of political practices, said he first found out about the federal investigation and allegations in early 2025. Once the COPP receives Neumann and Zephyrs complaints, it will begin to pursue an investigation on a state level, Gallus explained. If the COPP can substantiate the claims, the investigation will be handed over to a county prosecutor who will decide how to proceed. I think there is a vital interest in us pursuing these matters aggressively, Gallus said Thursday. Gallus explained that treasurers and compliance officers are often well-trained, but the job doesnt require any specific degree, test or training. In addition to the federal charges, Cook also faces three separate cases in Lewis and Clark County Justice Court in which banks are pursuing her delinquent credit card debt. Cook is alleged to have more than $33,000 in unpaid credit card debt between three different cards. Cook and her husband moved to Helena in 2020 from New York City and reopened the Windsor Ballroom on the fourth floor of the Iron Front Hotel building, according to an Independent Record story from 2023. They filled the calendar with live music performances and themed parties, but have since shut down operations. According to her LinkedIn, Cook worked on a New York City-based congressional campaign as the finance director and later the campaign manager from 2017 to 2020. Years before that, she was a legislative aide in the Montana State Senate. Editor's note: The Independent Record's Sonny Tapia contributed to this report. A Sheraton hotel under Marriott's purview in Louisiana has apparently been used as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding pen for people set to be deported, the Guardian reports, despite Marriott vowing in 2019 that its properties wouldn't cooperate with ICE. The Intercept first reported on the case of 15-year-old Roger Iza, snatched by authorities in New York City earlier this month with his father and sent to the Sheraton in Alexandria, before ultimately being deported to Ecuador. The Guardian notes one of its own sources "with knowledge of hotel operations" in the Louisiana city was sure that particular hotel had been used as a detention site for immigrant families and unaccompanied minors since its renovation two years back, with ICE contractors spotted there as recently as June. The source adds other hotels in the area, which is near an airport and major deportation hub employed by ICE, have also been used to hold immigrants. When Fujiyoshi Shindo's wife found the 93-year-old's body Monday in a bedroom in their home in the Japanese city of Daisen, authorities initially suspected he'd been mauled by a bear. Looks like an ursine suspect is now off the hook, as police have updated their analysis to say it appears the elderly man's son was the one who actually stabbed him to death, reports the Japan Times . Fujiyuki Shindo, an unemployed 51-year-old, was arrested Tuesday night in Daisen on suspicion of murdering his father with a bladed weapon. Fujiyuki had originally told authorities he hadn't noticed anything amiss at the home he shared with his parents around the time of the alleged murder, per Kyodo News. Police had even sent out a bear attack warning to locals after Fujiyoshi's body was discovered, reports the BBC. However, investigators soon determined that the wounds on his body were more in line with a knife attack than a bear's claws or teeth. After his wife called the Japanese equivalent of 911, Fujiyoshi was rushed to a hospital, where he died of blood loss. Investigators have confiscated multiple knives from the family home to try to find the murder weapon; they haven't yet suggested a motive. It actually wasn't that far out of left field to suspect the man had been mauled by a bear, as there've been frequent sightings in the area, as well as attacks. Japan's Environment Ministry says that in the year ending March 2024, there were nearly 220 people logged as suffering a bear attack, with six fatalities. UPDATE Aug 26, 2025 12:45 AM CDT Florida's Department of Transportation has painted over a rainbow crosswalk in Orlando that had served as a tribute to the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. The crosswalk was a prominent feature near the site where 49 people were killed in what was the nation's deadliest mass shooting at the time, per the BBC. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer criticized the removal online, describing it as a "cruel political act" and noting that the crosswalk enhanced pedestrian safety while symbolizing the city's ongoing commitment to remember those lost. State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, who's openly gay, accused the agency of acting without city approval and called the move a "hostile act" by Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration. Aug 22, 2025 9:52 AM CDT DeSantis responded on social media, stating that state roads would not be "commandeered for political purposes." His office declined further comment, directing inquiries to his online statement. DeSantis, a prominent Republican who sought the presidency in 2024, has previously faced criticism for supporting laws that limit LGBTQ representation and discussion in schools, including the expansion of Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" law. The Department of Education has determined that George Mason University violated federal civil-rights law by factoring race into hiring and promotion decisions, according to an announcement on Friday. The department's Office of Civil Rights concluded that the university's practices breached Title VI, which bars discrimination based on race, color, or national origin at institutions receiving federal funding, per the Washington Post . In response, the department has proposed a resolution requiring GMU President Gregory Washington to publicly apologize to the campus community. The university would also need to revise its policies and conduct training to prevent race-based discrimination. Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor accused Washington of implementing "unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race," calling it an "unfortunate chapter" in the school's history, reports the Hill. The university hadn't commented on the findings as of Friday morning, though last month it denied any discrimination and noted it "affirms its commitment to comply with all federal and state mandates," per NBC News. The investigation is part of a broader push by the Trump administration, which has scrutinized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at colleges nationwide. In Virginia, such pressure previously contributed to the resignation of University of Virginia President James Ryan. The scrutiny at George Mason has raised concerns among Washington's supporters over his future at the school, especially given that the university's board is entirely appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Despite speculation about his potential ouster at a recent board meeting, the university instead approved a pay increase for Washington, the institution's first Black president. No one is likely more disappointed than Erik Menendez about his parole request being turned down this week in Californiaexcept maybe his wife and stepdaughter. Tammi Menendez, who's been married to Erik since 1999, called his Thursday parole hearing "a complete setup" on X, adding that "Erik never stood a chance," reports People. Tammi Menendez also addressed a reprimand that her husband had received from Robert Barton, commissioner of the state's parole board, on how he hadn't been a "model prisoner" during his time behind bars. "Erik hasn't had any infractions since 2011, apart from a cell phone possession," she wrote in another post. "To the media reporting otherwise: please get the facts straight!" Canada is dropping retaliatory tariffs to match US tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday. Carney said Canada will include the carve-out that the US has on Canadian goods under the 2020 free trade deal that shields the vast majority of goods from the punishing duties. "Canada currently has the best trade deal with the United States. And while it's different from what we had before, it's still better than that of any other country," Carney said. Carney and President Trump spoke on the phone Thursday and Carney met with his Cabinet on Friday before making the announcement, reports the AP . The move is designed to reset trade talks between the two countries. The USMCA is up for review in 2026, and Carney called the trade pact a unique advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the US is charging for access to its market. Carney said the commitment of the US to the core of USMCA means the US average tariff rate on Canadian goods remains one of its lowest, and that over 85% of Canada-US trade continues to be free of tariffs. Canadian and Mexican companies can claim preferential treatment under the USMCA. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially put on retaliatory tariffs in response to US tariffs, but before the US tariffs were applied the Trump administration exempted goods covered by the free trade deal. Most imports from Canada and Mexico are still protected by the USMCA, but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said, "I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA." Preserving the free trade pact will be critical for Canada and Mexico. More than 75% of Canada's exports go to the US, while more than 80% of Mexico's exports go there. story continues below Trump has announced some sector specific-tariffs that do apply for Canada despite the USMCAknown as 232 tariffswhich are having an impact on the Canadian economy. There is a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, for example. "Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods. Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensively to resolve the issues there," Carney said. Police were skeptical from the start , and now the parents of a missing California infant have been arrested on suspicion of murder, reports NBC Los Angeles . Jake and Rebecca Haro were arrested at their home in Cabazon on Friday. The move comes eight days after the reported kidnapping of 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro, who remains missing, per USA Today . Rebecca Haro initially told investigators that her son was abducted outside a sporting goods store in Yucaipa, per the Los Angeles Times. She described being assaulted and knocked unconscious while changing Emmanuel's diaper near her car, recounting that she awoke with a black eye to find her baby missing. But the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says she stopped cooperating with investigators when "confronted with inconsistencies in her initial statement." Meanwhile, police have executed search warrants at the family's home, brought in K9 teams, and seized a vehicle belonging to Jake Haro for evidence processing. While tips have led police as far as Kern County, about 180 miles north, no trace of Emmanuel has been found. Chicago may be getting the DC treatment next. President Trump on Friday suggested that he planned to send federal troops to various US cities, using the same model as what's happening in Washington, reports Fox News. "We're going to make our cities very, very safe," Trump told reporters. "I think Chicago will be our next," he said, per the AP. "And then we'll help with New York." The president said he's heard from Chicago residents who are "screaming for us to come." He called the city "a mess" and faulted Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges. The Salvadoran national's case became a flashpoint in President Trump's immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March, the AP reports. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the US, only to detain him on criminal charges. Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he remained in jail at the request of his attorneys to keep the administration from trying to immediately deport him. "A measure of justice has been done," a lawyer for Abrego Garcia said Friday, "but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family." Those deportation fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case that requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order. Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia's attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the criminal case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. But they let Abrego Garcia drive on with only a warning. A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the US. Abrego Garcia, who had been held at the jail in Putnam County, has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the US illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge denied his application for asylum but granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador, where he faces a "well-founded fear" of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit. Although Abrego Garcia can't be deported to El Salvador without violating the judge's order, Homeland Security has said it will deport him to an unnamed third country. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. TDT | Manama Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, underscored the Kingdom of Bahrains steadfast commitment to promoting the values of tolerance and advancing diplomatic relations built on trust and mutual respect. This approach, guided by the vision of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, continues to reinforce Bahrains global standing as a vital contributor to regional and international peace and stability. HRH Prince Salman was speaking as he received yesterday several of the Kingdoms newly appointed ambassadors; His Excellency Dr Mohammed Ali Behzad, Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium; H.E. Khalil Yaqoub Al Khayyat, Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand; and H.E. Ahmed Ibrahim Al Qurainees, Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, at Gudaibiya Palace. His Royal Highness also outlined Bahrains dedication to strengthening cooperation and joint coordination with partner countries across a wide range of diverse sectors. The meeting was also attended by His Highness Shaikh Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Minister of the Prime Ministers Court, H.E. Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Alzayani, Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Finance and National Economy, and several senior officials. CALGARY, AB, Aug. 22, 2025 /CNW/ - (TSXV: GRD) (OTCQB: GRDAF) - Grounded Lithium Corp. ("GLC" or the "Company") announces our financial and operating results for the three and six month periods ended June 30, 2025. Selected financial and operational information is set out below and should be read in conjunction with the Company's December 31, 2024 financial statements and the related management's discussion and analysis, which are available for review at www.sedarplus.ca or the Company's website at www.groundedlithium.com. (CAD$, except per share amounts and common shares outstanding) Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, 2025 2024 2025 2024 FINANCIAL RESULTS Net comprehensive loss 103,370 241,823 72,978 749,430 Per share - basic and diluted - - - 0.01 Cash flow used in operating activities 45,658 93,410 2,595 505,166 Per share - basic and diluted - - - 0.01 Funds flow used in operations 71,330 108,213 11,144 575,853 Per share - basic and diluted - - 0.01 Capital expenditures Capital expenditures (*) - - - -800,000 Liquidity Working capital surplus 94,710 208,583 94,710 208,583 Common shares outstanding Weighted average - basic and diluted 79,660,227 78,279,227 79,019,321 77,702,758 Outstanding, end of period * Capital expenditures for the six months ended June 30, 2024 includes the first cash payment from Denison Mines Limited which is recorded as a reduction of the Exploration & Evaluation asset balance. Corporate Update The Company continues to work with its partner, Denison Mines Ltd ("Denison"), as it progresses to develop and finalize a pre-feasibility study ("PFS") anticipated to be completed towards the end of 2025 or early 2026. The PFS will provide clear conclusions on the economics, viability and development path for the Company's flagship lithium from brine project, the Kindersley Lithium Project ("KLP"). The detailed depletion study of the Duperow/Leduc reservoir and subsequent analysis of different well designs and configurations provide the current plan to drill wells with 2 parallel horizontal legs into the 2 best reservoir zones which maximizes brine drainage at minimal costs. Extensive samples of brine collected from the re-entry of the KLP 4-15 well in late 2024 (refer to press release dated January 22, 2025) were shipped to several unique direct lithium extraction firms. Results from those assessments provide Stantec Inc, the PFS lead auditor, the opportunity to analyze which technology optimally extracts the lithium and maximize KLP's economics. Final decisions on design will ensue post conclusions from the PFS. Based on detailed work completed thus far, both sorption and ion-exchange lithium extraction methodologies have promise for the final design. Grant of Incentive Compensation In the continuing effort to reduce corporate expenditures, key personnel have decided to receive compensation in the form of equity incentives rather than solely cash compensation primarily received as contractors to the KLP. As such, the Company granted 2,110,900 stock options at an exercise price of $0.065 per share in accordance with the Company's Equity Incentive Plan approved by shareholders at the Company's Annual General Meeting held June 18, 2025. The grant remains subject to final TSXV approval. About Grounded Lithium Corp. GLC is a publicly traded lithium brine exploration and development company that controls approximately 1.0 million metric tonnes of Measured & Indicated lithium carbonate equivalent mineral resource and approximately 3.2 million metric tonnes of Inferred lithium carbonate equivalent resource over our focused land holdings in Southwest Saskatchewan as per the Company's updated PEA. The updated PEA, titled "NI 43-101 Technical Report: Preliminary Economic Assessment Kindersley Lithium Project Phase 1 Update" dated November 7, 2023 and effective as of June 30, 2023, reports a Phase 1 NPV 8 after-tax of US$1.0 billion with an after-tax IRR of 48.5%. GLC's multi-faceted business model involves the consolidation, delineation, exploitation and ultimately development of our opportunity base to fulfill our vision to build a best-in-class, environmentally responsible, Canadian lithium producer supporting the global energy transition shift. U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the Company on https://www.otcmarkets.com/. Qualified Person Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been prepared under the supervision of Doug Ashton, P.Eng., Alexey Romanov, P. Geo., Meghan Klein, P. Eng., Dean Quirk, P.Eng., Jeffrey Weiss, P.Eng., Chad Hitchings., P.L. Eng., and Michael Munteanu, P.Eng., each of whom is a qualified person within the meaning of NI 43-101. Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. The opinions, forecasts, projections and statements about future events of results, are forward looking information, forward-looking statements or financial outlooks (collectively, "forward-looking statements") under the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. These statements are made as of the date of this press release and the fact that this press release remains available does not constitute a representation by GLC that the Company believes these forward-looking statements continue to be true as of any subsequent date. Although GLC believes that the assumptions underlying, and expectations reflected in, these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these assumptions and expectations will prove to be correct. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the internal rates of return and net present values of the KLP, activities funded by Denison to drive the KLP value and GLC's vision of becoming a best-in-class, environmentally responsible, Canadian lithium producer supporting the global energy transition. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are: GLC's expectation that our operations will be in Western Canada, unexpected problems can arise due to technical difficulties and operational difficulties which impact the production, transport or sale of our products; geographic and weather conditions can impact production; the risk that current global economic and credit conditions may impact commodity prices and consumption more than GLC currently predicts; the failure to obtain financing on reasonable terms; volatility in the trading price of the common shares of the Company; the risk that unexpected delays and difficulties in developing currently owned properties may occur; the failure of drilling to result in commercial projects; unexpected delays due to the limited availability of drilling equipment and personnel; and the other risk factors detailed from time to time in GLC's periodic reports. GLC's forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in any jurisdiction. 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. SOURCE Grounded Lithium Corp. For more information, please contact: Gregg Smith, President & CEO; Greg Phaneuf, SVP Corporate Development & CFO, Phone: 587.319.6220, Email: [email protected] This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer. Around the turn of the century we started to get a bigger need for high capacity web servers. For example there was the C10k problem paper. At the time, the kinds of things done to reduce work done per request was pre-forking the web server. This means a request could be handled without an expensive process creation. Because yes, creating a new process for every request used to be something perfectly normal. Things did get better. People learned how to create threads, making things more light weight. Then they switched to using poll() / select() , in order to not just spare the process/thread creation, but the whole context switch. I remember a comment on Kuro5hin from anakata, the creator of both The Pirate Bay and the web server that powered it, along the lines of I am select() of borg, resistance is futile, mocking someone for not understanding how to write a scalable web server. But select() / poll() also doesnt scale. If you have ten thousand connections, thats an array of ten thousand integers that need to be sent to the kernel for every single iteration of your request handling loop. Enter epoll ( kqueue on other operating systems, but Im focusing on Linux here). Now thats better. The main loop is now: set_up_epoll() while True: new, read, write = epoll() epoll_add_connections(new) for con in read: process(con.read()) if con.read_all_we_need: epoll_remove_read_op(con) for con in write: con.write_buffer() if con.buffer_empty: epoll_remove_write_op(con) All the syscalls are pretty cheap. epoll() only deals in deltas, and it doesnt have to be re-told the thousands of active connections. But theyre not without cost. Once weve gotten this far, the cost of a syscall is actually a significant part of the total remaining cost. Were here going to ignore improvements like sendfile() and splice() , and instead jump to io_uring Instead of performing a syscall for everything we want to do, commanding the kernel to do this or that, io_uring lets us just keep writing orders to a queue, and letting the kernel consume that queue asynchronously. For example, we can put accept() into the queue. The kernel will pick that up, wait for an incoming connection, and when it arrives itll put a completion into the completion queue. The web server can then check the completion queue. If theres a completion there, it can act on it. This way the web server can queue up all kinds of operations that were previously expensive syscalls by simply writing them to memory. Thats it. And then itll read the results from another part of memory. Thats it. In order to avoid busy looping, both the kernel and the web server will only busy-loop checking the queue for a little bit (configurable, but think milliseconds), and if theres nothing new, the web server will do a syscall to go to sleep until something gets added to the queue. Similarly on the kernel side, the kernel will stop busy-looping if theres nothing new, and needs a syscall to start busylooping again. This sounds like it would be tricky to optimize, but its not. In the end the web server just puts stuff on the queue, and calls a library function that only does that syscall if the kernel actually has stopped busylooping. This means that a busy web server can serve all of its queries without even once (after setup is done) needing to do a syscall. As long as queues keep getting added to, strace will show nothing. One thread per core Since CPUs today have many cores, ideally you want to run exactly one thread per core, bind it to that core, and not share any read-write data structure. For NUMA hardware, you also want to make sure that a thread only accesses memory on the local NUMA node. This netflix talk has some interesting stuff on NUMA and high volume HTTP delivery. The request load will still not be perfectly balanced between the threads (and therefore cores), but I guess fixing that would have to be the topic of a future post. Memory allocations We will still have memory allocations though, both on the kernel and web server side. Memory allocations in user space will eventually need syscalls. For the web server side, you can pre-allocate a fixed chunk for every connection, and then have everything about that connection live there. That way new connections dont need syscalls, memory doesnt get fragmented, and you dont run the risk of running out of memory. On the kernel side each connection will still need buffers for incoming and outgoing bytes. This may be somewhat controllable via socket options, but again itll have to be the subject of a future post. Try to not run out of RAM. Bad things tend to happen. kTLS kTLS is a feature of the Linux kernel where an application can hand off the job of encryption/decryption to the kernel. The application still has to perform the TLS handshake, but after that it can enable kTLS and pretend that its all sent in plaintext. You may say that this doesnt actually speed anything up, it just moves where encryption was done. But there are gains: This means that sendfile() can be used, removing the need to copy a bunch of data between user space and kernel space. If the network card has hardware support for it, the crypto operation may actually be offloaded from the CPU onto the network card, leaving the CPU to do better things. Descriptorless files Another optimization is to avoid passing file descriptors back and forth between user space and kernel space. The mapping between file descriptors and io_uring apparently has overhead. So in comes descriptorless files via register_files . Now the supposed file descriptor numbers that user space sees are just integers. They dont show up in /proc/pid/fd , and can only be used with io_uring. Theyre still capped by the ulimit file descriptor limit, though. tarweb In order to learn these technologies better, I built a web server incorporating all these things. Its named tarweb because its a web server that serves the content of a single tar file. Rust, io_uring, and kTLS. Not exactly the most common combination. I found that io_uring and kTLS didnt play super well together. Enabling kTLS requires three setsockopt() calls, and io_uring doesnt support setsockopt (until they merge my PR, that is). And the ktls crate, part of rustls , only allows you to call the synchronous setsockopt() , not export the needed struct for me to pass to my new io_uring setsockopt . Another pr sent. So with those two PRs merged, its working great. tarweb is far from perfect. The code needs a lot of work, and theres no guarantee that the TLS library (rustls) doesnt do memory allocations during handshakes. But it does serve https without even one syscall on a per request basis. And thats pretty cool. Benchmarks I have not done any benchmarks yet. I want to clean the code up first. io-uring and safety One thing making io_uring more complex than synchronous syscalls is that any buffer needs to stay in memory until the operation is marked completed by showing up in the completion queue. For example when submitting a write operation, the memory location of those bytes must not be deallocated or overwritten. The io-uring crate doesnt help much with this. The API doesnt allow the borrow checker to protect you at compile time, and I dont see it doing any runtime checks either. I feel like Im back in C++, where any mistake can blow your whole leg off. Its a miracle that Ive not seen a segfault. Someone should make a safer-ring crate or similar, using the powers of pinning and/or borrows or something, to achieve Rusts normal if it compiles, then its correct. Edit: Im not the first to point it out. This post was discussed on HackerNews on 2025-08-22. Authorities have charged a caregiver at a facility for disabled adults who is accused of assaulting one of his patients. Fuller P. Williams, 45, of Burlington City, was taken into custody last month on charges of third-degree endangering the welfare of a disabled adult and the disorderly persons offense of simple assault, the Burlington County Prosecutors Office said in a statement on Friday. Earlier this summer, police were called to the Friends of Cyrus Adult Day Services Program in Medford for a report of a patient that had been abused. An investigation later found that Williams beat an autistic man with a thin cord, causing welts to his back and buttocks area, authorities said. Staff at the facility called police after noticing the wounds on the patients body, officials said. A spokesperson for the facility did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Williams was released from police custody after his first appearance in Burlington County Superior Court. The case will now be prepared for presentation to a grand jury, authorities said. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com. A rendering of the proposed "ICONA at Wonderland" hotel along the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey. ICONA Resorts, provided The future of the shuttered Wonderland Pier on the Ocean City boardwalk appears uncertain after its owner announced intentions of selling the property after a failed redevelopment zone vote Thursday night. After hearing hours of fervent comments, the Ocean City Council voted 6-1 against a resolution to deem the idle theme park an area in need of redevelopment. The vote ended a short-lived attempt at constructing a hotel. If the resolution had passed, it would have created a clearer path for Eustice Mita, the propertys owner, who leads the ICONA Resort company. Last fall, Mita announced intentions to build an eight-story hotel there. His pitch was the second in the past five years for a hotel on the famous boardwalk. His first bid centered around an area adjacent to Wonderland Pier, which was turned down about two years ago. The proposal has elicited support and criticism. Supporters have acknowledged economic benefits from adding hotel space. Their counterparts have feared a hotel could unintentionally lead to overdevelopment at the boardwalk, while feeling a second amusement park in town is needed. After the vote, Mita, who spoke at Thursdays meeting and was at times disrupted by shouting and boos from the audience, told reporters the councils vote brought an end to his proposal Its over, Mita told journalists after the meeting. That will be the end of it as far as ICONA is concerned. We will immediately put it up for sale. The businessman suggested a $25 million asking price, The Press of Atlantic City reported. Mita could not immediately be reached by NJ Advance Media on Friday for comment. Visitors enjoy the rides on the last day of business at Gillians Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, N.J. on Sunday, October 13, 2024. Jim Lowney | For NJ Advance Media If the city council approved the resolution, the matter would have been referred to the Ocean City Planning Board, which would examine whether the theme park meets the criteria for a redevelopment zone. Afterward, a master plan could have been formed to create an outline of suggested uses for the property. Mitas project, ICONA at Wonderland, called for an up to $155 million resort-hotel that incorporated aspects of the beloved theme park, such as its Ferris wheel, which he intended to make operable. Hes argued Ocean City is starved of hotel rooms. Decades have passed without a new hotel in town, he has said. 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 Mita opened parts of the theme park this summer despite it closing last October, amid financial hardships, after about 94 years of operation. The owner 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. The measure drew a large crowd and emotionally charged comments from residents. One by one, more than a dozen people told council members why they should or shouldnt consider a hotel more strongly. Moments before hearing the first remarks, City Council President Terry Crowley called for the audience to be cordial amongst each other; however, shouting still erupted at points. Before voting, council members bantered about the proposal, acknowledging the theme parks future could have a deep impact on the city. I love that boardwalk, and we need something down there, and I think the man to do it is Mr. Mita, Councilman Tony Polcini said. During their debate, several suggested revisiting the citys master plan. Several floated putting the propertys redevelopment to a voter referendum. I think its a well-thought-out process, that we need to look at the whole boardwalk to make sure that were doing whats right for the city, Crowley said, suggesting additional input is needed for the future. Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com. A visitor photographs the rough surf caused by Hurricane Erin in the Holgate section of Long Beach Township on Thursday, August 21, 2025. Jim Lowney | For NJ Advance Media Some beaches at the Jersey Shore were still closed by daybreak Friday after the fringes of Hurricane Erin passed by, creating strong ocean swells that prompted warnings for rip currents. Police in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest on Friday morning expected their towns beaches to be closed for at least a portion of the day for debris to be cleared. Officials in both towns urged residents and tourists to avoid the beaches and expected to have more information about reopening them later Friday. By 11:30 a.m. Wildwood announced its beach was reopening with lifeguards. Bruce Springsteen performs at Light of Day festival's "Bob's Birthday Bash" concert at the Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, NJ, Jan. 18, 2025. Al Mannarino |For NJ Advance Media Days before the 50th anniversary of the release of Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen blessed his fans by finally officially releasing a coveted outtake from the beloved album. The Boss released Lonely Night in the Park on streaming services Friday, a song that nearly made the cut for the seminal 1975 album. To commemorate the upcoming 50th anniversary of Born to Run, a rare 1975 outtake from the albums legendary sessions is now available in full studio quality as it has never been heard before, Springsteen posted on Instagram. After five decades in the vault, Lonely Night in the Park has been digitally released for the first time ever today." It has been a big year for deep-cut releases from Springsteen. The Boss released Tracks 2: The Lost Albums, a massive box set comprising seven albums and 82 songs (74 of which had never been heard before) in June. READ MORE: All 83 of Springsteens Tracks II: The Lost Albums songs, ranked But that set did not include Lonely Night in the Park, which made an appearance on Sirius XMs E Street Radio in 2005 and has been a favorite of Springsteen diehards ever since. The song was recorded in May of 1975 at The Record Plant in New York. It was reportedly in the running to make the Born To Run album until Mike Appel fought for the inclusion of Meeting Across The River and got his way. Lonely Night in the Park was ranked No. 1 on NJ.coms list of best unreleased Springsteen songs. Now its off the list. Listen to the song below. The new releases come in commemoration of Born to Run, which will celebrate its 50th birthday on Monday. RELATED COVERAGE: All 83 of Springsteens Tracks II: The Lost Albums songs, ranked. The ultimate listening guide. Springsteen reveals yet another 5 albums are already finished. Tracks 3 is coming! Springsteens 15 best songs hes STILL never released, ranked. Why are these stuck in the vault? Springsteens Born to Run: The making of the iconic album detailed in new book Springsteen reveals massive 7-album, 82-song box set Tracks 2: The Lost Albums. See full track list. Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com and followed on Twitter at @J_Schneider and on Instagram at @JeremyIsHungryAgain. Maxwell's in 1997. The Hoboken sanctuary for indie and alternative music closed in 2013. Star-Ledger file photo It was, simply put, the place to be. Maxwells in Hoboken was where bands got heard and people went for quality live music, a sanctuary for indie and alternative music until the beloved spot closed in 2013. When the doors were shut that summer, the memories remained. The cozy back room, a holy place for bands and their fans. The big names who would grace the intimate stage like Nirvana, in 1989 (watch below). The yearly Hanukkah shows from Hobokens own Yo La Tengo. Even Bruce Springsteen filmed his 1985 music video for Glory Days (directed by John Sayles) at Maxwells. Because what was Hoboken without Maxwells? Now a new documentary is looking to tell the story of the dearly departed New Jersey haunt, and the filmmakers want your photos and videos. Per a teaser for the film, No Backstage at Maxwells, the documentary will follow the rise, fall and lasting impact of Maxwells a tiny Hoboken bar that became a legendary epicenter of indie rock from 1978 to 2013." Maxwells wasnt just a venue, the filmmakers say of the local institution, which got its name from the Maxwell House factory that used to be nearby. It was the beating heart of a scene that shaped the sound, spirit, bands and fans of indie rock for decades. Paul Rachman is directing the film. His previous documentaries include American Hardcore (2006), about punk rock, and Lost Rockers (2015), about overlooked artists. Rachman has also directed music videos for Bad Brains, Anthrax, Pantera, Alice in Chains, The Replacements, Joan Jett and Temple of the Dog. Voices in the documentary include those who spent many years working, playing and attending shows at Maxwells. One is Todd Abramson, who was a co-owner of the bar and music mainstay that drew people from New York and beyond. After much thought, given the changing nature of Hoboken and the difficulties of trying to run a business in this town, we decided it was time, Abramson told The Star-Ledger of the decision to close in 2013. In addition to Nirvana and the lights of the local music scene in Hoboken, Maxwells drew acts like The Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Smashing Pumpkins, The White Stripes, Fugazi and Elliott Smith. Artists in the documentary include Bob Mould, formerly of the bands Husker Du and Sugar; Glenn Mercer and Bill Million of Haledon band The Feelies; Richard Barone from Hobokens The Bongos (among those who played the last show at Maxwells); Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan from Hoboken band Yo La Tengo; and Glenn Morrow of Hoboken band The Individuals, who co-founded Hobokens Bar/None Records. James Mastro and Richard Barone of The Bongos playing the final Maxwell's show in 2013. Jim Testa | For The Jersey Journal The film also has appearances from actor and director Alex Winter (Bill in the Bill & Ted movies), who grew up in Montclair, and Grammy-winning producer Jack Antonoff, who grew up in New Milford and Woodcliff Lake. In 2013, The Star-Ledger published the short documentary A Darkened Stage: The Last Days of Maxwells about the end of the important venues storied run (watch below). The film includes some of the same voices who will be a part of the new documentary. If you have footage and photos of Maxwells to contribute to No Backstage at Maxwells, the filmmakers can be reached at info@maxwellsmovie.com. Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter/X, @amykup.bsky.social on Bluesky and @kupamy on Instagram and Threads. A small shark became the most unlikely customer at a popular bayfront bar in New Jersey late Thursday night when Hurricane Erins flooding pushed the tiny predator out of the bay up to the clubs outdoor host stand. Bird & Bettys a popular bayside restaurant, bar and night club near a public dock in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island flooded as Hurricane Erins outer bands sent water pouring over bulkheads. Floodwaters submerged the Ocean County bars parking lot and pushed water near the outdoor host stand by the door during karaoke night, the staff said. Thats when staff noticed something moving in the parking lot what appeared to be a small, arm-length sand shark. Dave Lundy, a server at Bird & Bettys, said Friday the scene was unlike anything hed witnessed in his time working there. The whole parking lot was kind of flooded, Lundy said. And then someone points out, Is that a fin? Is that a shark? It was actually pretty insane. The parking lot and bay were pretty much one last night, he added. Flooding from Hurricane Erin pushed a sand shark out of the bay and into the parking lot of Bird & Bettys, a popular nightclub and restaurant in Beach Haven, on Aug. 21, 2025. Bird & Bettys Video posted around midnight on the restaurants Instagram page shows a Beach Haven police officer picking up the shark and carrying it back toward the bay. But moments later, the creature returned to the parking lot and swam up near the host stand near the entrance to the bar. It kept swimming around and hanging out with us pretty much the rest of the night, Lundy said. As the floodwater began to recede, the staff worried the shark would be stranded. Eventually, a security guard working that night built up the courage to carry the shark back into the bay for good, according to witnesses. The unusual encounter came as the outer bands of Hurricane Erin battered the Jersey Shore, generating waves as high as 12 feet and causing significant beach erosion in several towns. Though the storm remained about 350 miles from land, its surge contributed to widespread flooding as one of the last big summer weekends approached. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nyah Marshall may be reached at nmarshall@njadvancemedia.com The New Jersey State Park Service offers a Pet Friendly Camping Program at designated sites within select state parks and forests. For an additional fee of $5 per night, campers can now bring up to two domestic dogs or cats to pet-friendly campsites per permit. The program includes over a dozen state parks and forests across New Jersey, with specific campsite numbers designated as pet-friendly at each location. Some of the participating parks include Allaire State Park, Bass River State Forest, Belleplain State Forest, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest and Wharton State Forest. Before heading out, campers should be aware of some key guidelines. Upon check-in, permittees must fill out a pet registration and certification form and provide proof of their pets current rabies vaccinations and licenses. Caged pets like birds, reptiles, or amphibians are allowed only within camping recreational vehicles. Heres the full list of details provided by state park officials: Allaire State Park Family campsites #1-8 Bass River State Forest Sites 1-85 Belleplain State Forest All tent sites in the Meisle Field camping area and the CCC camping area Brendan T. Byrne State Forest Family campsites 14 through 82 Cheesequake State Park Family campsites #23-27 and #37-40 High Point State Park Family campsites 1-7, 15-50 Jenny Jump State Forest Family campsites 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, and 36 Parvin State Park Family campsites 45 through 56 Round Valley Recreation Area All campsites Stephens State Park Family campsites #30-41 Stokes State Forest Family campsites #101-137 Swartswood State Park Family campsites #42-45 Wawayanda State Park All 4 Group sites Wharton State Forest Atsion Family campsites 26 through 34, Godfrey Bridge, Goshen Pond, Buttonwood Hill, Lower Forge Camp, and Batona Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story, which was reviewed and edited by NJ Advance Media staff. Developers cite $15.5 million in cleanup costs as toxic waste delays Kearny site transformation. Canva for NJ.com Developers planning to convert a former Kearny industrial site into housing and warehouse space are suing two chemical companies for $15.5 million in cleanup costs for toxic contamination. Ridge Crossing and related developers filed a federal lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Newark accusing two chemical companies of leaving behind toxic contamination at a site in Kearny in Hudson County. The lawsuit accuses the companies of failing to clean up hazardous chemicals at the former Jeryl Industries Industrial Park at 590 Belleville Turnpike and 680 Schuyler Avenue. The property was once home to decades of chemical manufacturing including by Alpha Metals from the 1960s through the early 1990s, according to the complaint. The companies named in the lawsuit, Alent and Alpha Assembly Solutions, are successors to Alpha Metals, according to the complaint. Attorneys for Ridge Crossing, Mark Heinzelmann and Christopher Porrino of Lowenstein Sandler, declined to comment on the case. Requests for comment from Alent and Alpha Assembly Solutions were not immediately returned. During redevelopment, the plaintiffs claim they found chlorinated solvents and other hazardous substances in the soil and groundwater, including vinyl chloride, benzene and trichloroethylene. The developers claim the companies violated federal and state environmental laws, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act and New Jerseys Spill Act. According to the lawsuit, Ridge Crossing signed an agreement with Alent in 2015 requiring the company to handle the cleanup. However, the developers allege that the work was delayed, incomplete, or never done. As a result, the developers say they had to complete the cleanup, including installing vapor barriers and disposing of contaminated soil. They also allege they had to redesign foundation systems to protect against vapor intrusion, causing further delays and costs. The lawsuit seeks damages, reimbursement for cleanup expenses, and a court order requiring the companies to finish the remediation. The developers also claim they followed federal cleanup standards, however, the contamination continues to affect construction at the site. Colleen Murphy may be reached at cmurphy@njadvancemedia.com. Former Gov. Jim McGreevey attending the Puerto Rican Day Parade in Jersey City on Aug. 17. McGreevey is one of seven candidates for mayor of Jersey City. Amanda Brown| For NJ Advance Media Seven candidates, including a former New Jersey governor, are officially running for mayor of Jersey City. The crowded field was certified by the city clerks office following Thursdays 4 p.m. deadline for submitting a nominating petition. It sets up a highly competitive race in New Jerseys second-largest city to succeed outgoing Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor. The candidates for Jersey City mayor are: former Jersey City school board president Mussab Ali Jersey City Police Officer Christina Freeman Resident Kalki Jayne-Rose Former Gov. James E. McGreevey Hudson County Commissioner Bill ODea Jersey City Councilman James Solomon Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman McGreevey is the best-known of the candidates. He is seeking a political comeback 21 years after resigning as governor. He stepped down after a scandal in which he announced he is a gay American who had an adulterous affair with a man he put on the state payroll as a Homeland Security adviser. McGreevey is now executive director of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, a nonprofit group that helps people leaving prison or addiction centers. Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman speaking at Soaring Heights Charter School in Jersey City, New Jersey, on Sept. 30, 2024. Michael Dempsey | The Jersey Journal Fulop is not seeking a fourth term, though he had that option after finishing third in a six-candidate Democratic primary for governor in June that was won by U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill. Hours before the Thursday filing deadline, Fulop posted an explanation on Facebook on why he was staying out of the mayoral race. When I ran for governor, I said I wouldnt treat the mayors seat or an elected office as a fallback, and I meant it. I think it reflects poorly when people do that + wouldnt do that to JC, Fulop wrote. To win the mayor race Election Day on Nov. 4, the first-place finisher must receive more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate receives half the vote, a runoff election will be held between the two candidates receiving the most votes. Elections in Jersey City are nonpartisan, meaning that political parties play no official role. The mayor serves a four-year term. Jersey City had 175,246 registered voters as of Thursday, city clerk Sean Gallagher told NJ Advance Media. Many of the candidates for mayor have extensive experience in local politics. ODea has been a Hudson County commissioner the office previously known as freeholder since 1997. Watterman was elected to the city council in 2013 and became the councils first Black woman president in 2020. Freeman is a Jersey City police officer. Both Freeman and Watterman are seeking to become the first woman elected mayor in Jersey City. Solomon was elected to the city council in 2017 and represents Ward E. Before moving to Jersey City, he was a mayoral aide in Boston. Ali was 20 when he was elected to the Jersey City school board in 2017, making him the youngest ever elected to that board. He is also the first Muslim elected to any office in Jersey City. Separately, the city clerks office was in the process of reviewing 30 nominating petitions for city council in all six wards, and another 15 for at-large seats. All but 10 had been certified as of 6 p.m. Thursday, according to the clerks office. Jersey Citys council has nine members one from every ward and three city-wide seats. Fulop is Jersey Citys first three-term mayor since Frank Hague led the city from 1917 to 1947. Fulop announced in 2023 he would be running for governor, setting off jockeying among potential successors. In his Facebook post on Thursday, Fulop said it was a weird feeling not to be running. He was elected to the council in 2005 and re-elected in 2009. He was elected mayor in 2013. The next chapter of leadership for Jersey City clearly starts today + Im excited to see what vision the candidates will bring, Fulop wrote. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism you rely on and trust. Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will be asking Congress for $2 billion to beautify" Washington, D.C. as he escalates his federal takeover of the nations capital. Trump revealed the shocking price tag as he commended the National Guard and law enforcement for the takeover of D.C. to combat crime in the city. During his remarks at The Peoples House museum, he also accused D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser of falsifying crime statistics despite presenting no evidence for that claim. It hasnt been clean. Now its going to be clean. Im giving out a contract very soon...where were going to be raising about $2 billion from Congress, and Congress is happy to do it, and were going to wisely spend the money, Trump said on Friday. He then suggested that he wants to replace the asphalt on the streets and replace the light poles. " I mean, just looking at so many different problems, and were going to have this place beautified within a period of 12 months," he said. So this place will be beautified within a period of months, so itd be safe, he added. Trump says he's going to "be raising about $2 billion from Congress" to have DC "beautified" pic.twitter.com/TgipQc0pdX Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 22, 2025 Trump announced earlier this month that federal law enforcement would be taking over Washington, D.C., citing a high crime rate in the city. However, his claim was immediately fact checked by reports that found that the crime rate had hit a 30-year-low in the last year. The White House said there have been 630 arrests, including 251 people who are in the country illegally, since Aug. 7, when Trump began ordering federal agents into the city. Trump has been ratcheting up the intensity since then, seizing control of the D.C. police department on Aug. 11 and deploying more National Guard troops, mostly from Republican-led states. Trump suggested on Thursday that operations in Washington could be drawn out and serve as a model for others around the country. Were going to make it safe, and were going to go on to other places, but were going to stay here for a while, he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. MAGA world is praising an early morning FBI raid on the Maryland home of John Bolton, President Donald Trumps former national security adviser, as part of an investigation into the handling of classified documents, several outlets reported on Friday. Federal agents conducted the search at Boltons house in Bethesda, just outside Washington, D.C. The investigation was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, according to a Trump administration official who spoke to The New York Post. Trump administration officials appeared to refer to the search in a series of social media posts. NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission," Patel wrote on X. NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 22, 2025 Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino said that Public corruption will not be tolerated. Attorney General Pam Bondi also weighed in: Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. Conservative social media users on X quickly began to celebrate the development. MAGA podcaster Nick Sortor declared that This deep state hack is FINALLY being taken down! Perp walk him! he added. ITS HAPPENING: The FBI is CURRENTLY RAIDING the DC-area home of John Bolton This deep state hack is FINALLY being taken down! The raid, which was directly ordered by Kash Patel, seems to be related to classified documents Perp walk him! pic.twitter.com/P498HkYtqc Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 22, 2025 Eric Daugherty, the assistant news director of Floridas Voice, posted: Yes. We did, indeed, vote for this. Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 oclock in the morning? Roger Stone, Trumps longest-serving political adviser, wrote in a post, and in another, said Wait ! Where was CNN? The MAGA Voice account added, The Swamp is getting drained. Republicans have been just crying out for accountability. Theyve been getting away with lawlessness and lawfare, and everything else, and no one is above the law... Im glad theyre going after him, Rep. John McGuire (R-Va.) told Newsmax when asked for his initial reaction. Others ripped into the cryptic posts of Trumps top security leaders. I loathe this sh-- just do your job and stop posting like a teenage girl looking for attention," one user wrote to Patel. Another user chimed in: Im not gonna spend too much time feeling sorry for John Bolton, but in a functioning country an FBI director would never tweet something like this during a raid. Bolton was not detained or charged with any crime, according to the Associated Press, citing a person familiar with the matter. Bolton served as Trumps third national security adviser over the span of 17 months, from 2018 to 2019, but sparred with him on foreign policy with Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. After leaving office, Bolton also faced intense scrutiny over his 2020 White House memoir detailing his time in the government with officials arguing that he had disclosed classified information. In 2021, the Justice Department dropped both an investigation and grand jury investigation into Bolton over The Room Where It Happened. Meanwhile, the current probe that led to the FBI raid was initially launched years ago, but was shut down by the previous administration for political reasons, Fox News reported. The raid comes as the Trump administration has moved to examine the actions of the presidents perceived adversaries, including the resurfaced Trump-Russia probe. On the first day of his second term, Trump revoked the security clearances of dozens of former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton also had his security details canceled earlier this year. Boltons X account had posted amid the raid: Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire... Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I dont see these talks making any progress. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Hurricane Erin is headed out to sea away from New Jersey, but the threat of coastal flooding will continue on Friday during high tides along with dangerous surf and rip currents through Saturday. National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center Hurricane Erin continues to affect the Jersey Shore with dangerous surf conditions and the potential for more coastal flooding as the storm tracks away from the East Coast. Residents should continue to exercise extreme caution near beaches and coastal areas due to life-threatening rip currents and elevated water levels even as sunny skies return Friday. The Yankees will have strikeout machine Fernando Cruz back in their bullpen as early as Monday against the Nationals. AP NEW YORK With two pitchers on the brink of a return from the injured list, the Yankees have a few bullpen decisions to make next week. Rosters expand on September 1, so theyll have an additional spot available within their pitching staff soon, but at least one of these relievers will be ready to rejoin the bullpen before then. 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. Author: jeffnaper A discussion on the future of Russia following the Putin era must be speculative, as the outcome depends on a complex interplay of internal politics, economic factors, military results, and geopolitical relationships. While no one can predict the future with certainty, it won't hurt to consider the following six scenarios of Russia's endgame: 1. Renewed Great Power This scenario would require a fundamental economic shift away from dependence on natural resources toward a more diversified, innovative, and technologically advanced economy. It would also necessitate a strong, stable government and the ability to project power and influence on a global scale. Russia's current trajectory, however, runs in the opposite direction. Waiting ahead is neither revival nor renewal. 2. Stagnation The stagnation scenario posits that Russia will continue on its current path of economic and political decline. This is perhaps the most likely outcome, as it is a continuation of existing trends. Since the early 2010s, Russia's economy has been characterized by slow growth and an inability to implement meaningful reforms. A post-Putin government could easily find itself mired in the same challenges, unable or unwilling to break from the status quo. This way, Russia would lead to a sharp decrease in its global influence and the living standards for its population. 3. Implosion A catastrophic collapse of the Russian state is plausible, not just possible. This could be triggered by a combination of factors, such as a military defeat, widespread internal unrest, or a complete economic breakdown. An implosion would likely lead to a period of intense chaos, with various factions vying for power. This scenario could be likened to the collapse of the Soviet Union but with an even more volatile and unpredictable outcome. A key factor here is the stability of Russia's security and power elites. If they were to fracture, the central government could lose control, leading to a breakdown of authority. The existence of Russia's vast nuclear arsenal makes this a particularly dangerous and concerning possibility. Raise a red flag here. 4. Breakup This is a Balkanization scenario, which is a more extreme form of implosion resulting in the fragmentation of the Russian Federation into multiple independent states. Given Russia's vast size and diverse ethnic makeup, with numerous non-Russian republics, a breakup is a real possibility, especially in the event of a severe political crisis. Regions with strong national identities or those that feel marginalized by the central government could assert their independence. The Chechen Wars of the 1990s and early 2000s are a historical precedent for such a conflict, demonstrating the potential for violent secessionist movements. A breakup would fundamentally reshape the geopolitical map of Eurasia and could lead to new regional conflicts and power vacuums. I bet a worried China is already watching its "friendly neighbor" very closely these days. 5. Nationalist Military Mobilization In this scenario, Russia doubles down on its current course, with a heavy emphasis on nationalism, militarism, and a siege mentality. A post-Putin government could seek to unify the country by portraying itself as a victim of Western aggression and by relying on martial power to assert its interests. This would involve a full-scale militarization of society, with a focus on defense spending and a readiness for conflict. Such a hungry bear with long and sharp claws would have to be caged by NATO and its allies, one way or another. Expect a jumpy Europe. 6. Westernization Frankly, this is my least expected scenario because I have an incredibly hard time imagining a Russia that embraces democratic values, integrates with Europe, and aligns with Western powers. Above all, this would be the most radical departure from Russia's current trajectory and would require a profound shift in its political culture and leadership. Such a move would be met with intense opposition from illiberal and nationalist elements within Russia, including powerful figures in the military and intelligence services. A pro-Western government would face the monumental task of dismantling the existing authoritarian power structures and building a new society based on rule of law, individual freedoms, and economic transparency. While many Russians may desire closer ties with the West, the entrenched interests of the current political system will make this pro-Western outcome no more than pie in the sky. For young Russians, better vote with their feet, which they have proved they are quite good at. What's on the Rusian menu for the future might look like a buffet. Yet, truth be told, only borscht would be served on a good day should there be one. A Nuclear Bear That Dies Hard The vastness of Russia's nuclear arsenal, which is the world's largest, presents unique and profound challenges that extend far beyond the Bear's cave. The way these weapons are managed in a period of chaos would fundamentally shape the "final days" of the Russian Federation and the future of global security. The primary risk is a loss of centralized control over the nuclear weapons. This could manifest in the following ways: 1.Fragmentation of Command and Control In a scenario of political implosion or breakup, the central authority in Moscow could lose its ability to command and control its nuclear forces. The "nuclear button" could become a subject of a power struggle among competing factionsmilitary leaders, regional governors, or even paramilitary groups. This would raise the possibility of an unauthorized or accidental launch, either as a result of miscommunication, a desperate act by a rogue element, or a preemptive strike born out of fear and mistrust. 2. Proliferation and Loose Nukes A fragmented state could lead to a fragmented arsenal. If regions or republics within the Russian Federation declare independence, they might find themselves in possession of nuclear weapons or fissile material. This was a major concern during the collapse of the Soviet Union, as Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan inherited nuclear weapons on their soil. Through a combination of international diplomacy and financial assistance (such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program), these states agreed to transfer their weapons back to Russia. However, a future breakup could be far more chaotic, with no clear succession plan or willingness to cooperate, leading to new nuclear-armed states and the risk of proliferation to non-state actors or other countries. 3. Nuclear Black Market The collapse of a state and its economy could also create a "nuclear black market." Individuals with knowledge of the nuclear infrastructure, or with access to fissile material, could be tempted to sell it to the highest bidder. This would be a catastrophic outcome, as it would enable terrorist organizations or other hostile entities to acquire nuclear weapons or "dirty bombs," fundamentally altering the global security landscape. 4. The "Use It or Lose It" Dilemma To deter a rival faction, every "nuclear stakeholder" might feel pressured to stage a preemptive strike to secure its power. This could lead to a localized nuclear exchange, with devastating consequences for the surrounding region and the world at large. The precedent of the Soviet Union's dissolution offers a glimmer of hope. However, the circumstances of a post-Putin collapse could be different. The political will to cooperate inside and outside of Russia might not be as strong. The geopolitical environment is also more complex, with a deeper level of distrust between Russia and the West. In short, the nuclear arsenal would not merely be an element of a collapsing Russia; it would be the central and most terrifying factor shaping its final days. It is the one element that could transform a domestic political crisis into a global catastrophe, with the potential to trigger a nuclear conflict or create a world where nuclear weapons are no longer controlled by a central authority. The management of this arsenal would be a race against time, with the future of humanity at stake. From now on, the primal fear will be this one: a nuclear bear gives birth to a nuclear 9/11. The Essence Festival of Culture was birthed by New Orleans, in New Orleans, and through New Orleans it reached the nation and the world. An ex-Royal Navy vessel is due to be towed from Appledore shipyard today, Friday 22 August, without its planned refurbishment completed after the collapse of Harland & Wolff left the project unfinished. The Hunt-class minehunter HMS Quorn, sold to Lithuania and renamed Suduvis, had been undergoing an upgrade at Appledore under Ministry of Defence direction. However, the Gazette understands that some local suppliers involved in the project may not have yet been paid. READ NEXT: Huge refurbishment plans for South Molton pub as new owners take over A view expressed to the Gazette is that they fear that the Governments priorities have been misplaced, and that Lithuania, a NATO ally, has been left without the refurbished vessel it was promised. The Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania confirmed to the Gazette that the vessel had been prepared for safe tow, but that the modernisation will now be completed at its home port. It said: The minehunter M55 Suduvis (formerly HMS Quorn) has been prepared at Appledore by Navantia UK to ensure water tightness and safe tow to Lithuania. Only the works required for safe transit have been completed, while the broader contractual programme initiated under the previous shipyard ownership was not finalised. The comprehensive modernisation and upgrade of the vessel will be carried out in Lithuania during the second phase of the project in line with the operational requirements of the Lithuanian Navy. Lithuania added that the ship is expected to arrive in Klaipeda in early September and that the country continues to meet NATO commitments with its current fleet. Navantia UK, which took over certain Harland & Wolff assets in January, said it had ensured the vessel was seaworthy ahead of its departure. A spokesperson said: The Navantia UK team at Appledore has carried out tow preparation work to ensure that the minehunter Suduvis, formerly HMS Quorn, is seaworthy ahead of its journey back to Lithuania. A modernisation of the vessel began under Appledores previous ownership, although the project was halted last year because of Harland & Wolffs financial difficulties. In January this year, Navantia UK bought certain assets of the old Harland & Wolff company from administrators but the minehunter modernisation contract was not included in this transaction. The spokesperson added that Navantia UK is investing 115 million across its four shipyards, including Appledore, as part of the Fleet Solid Support (FSS) programme. It expects around 60 per cent of the value of that contract to go to UK companies. In Parliament earlier this year, Minister of State for Defence Maria Eagle said the overall FSS build strategy remains unchanged, with all three ships assembled in the UK. She said around 60 per cent of contract value was expected to go to UK firms, supporting more than 1,200 shipyard jobs and 800 in the wider supply chain. The vessel is being towed from Appledore today, with its arrival in Lithuania scheduled for early September. Work on the ship will then continue in Klaipeda. Meanwhile, questions remain to be answered about those North Devon suppliers who say they are still waiting for payment for work carried out under Ministry of Defence instruction. The Gazette understands that queries regarding any outstanding payments to suppliers would have to be raised with the administrators representing Harland & Wolff. Holsworthy Community College was bustling yesterday (Thursday) as students gathered along with staff and parents to collect their eagerly awaited GCSE results. The college said it was incredibly proud of its students, many of whom are now looking forward to progressing onto the next steps in their education or career journeys. Headteacher Andrew Sweeney said: We are absolutely delighted with the performance of our Year 11 students. These results are a testament to their commitment and perseverance, and every student should feel incredibly proud of what they have achieved. Today is a celebration of their hard work, and we couldnt be prouder of their accomplishments." He thanked all those who supported the students throughout their journey, adding: I would like to sincerely thank our students, their families, our dedicated staff, and the wider Holsworthy community for their continued support. As we look ahead to a new academic year, we remain committed to working together to inspire, support and empower every student to thrive and succeed. Above: Holsworthy Community College students Jay and James achieved high grades 7 to 9 in all their nine GCSE subjects. Credit: HCC Standout individual achievements included: * Jay who achieved grades 7 to 9 in all nine GCSE subjects, including grade 9 in English literature, physics, maths and history. * James who achieved grades 7 to 9 in all nine subjects he took, including grade 9 in English literature, physics, maths, biology and history. * Lauren who achieved above or in line with her target grade for seven different GCSE courses, including a grade 8 in English literature and a L2 Distinction* in hospitality. * Calleigh who achieved grades 5 to 8 in nine subjects, including grade 8 in art and design, English literature and maths plus a L2 Distinction* in Media. * Emilia who achieved grades 5 to 8 in eight subjects, including grade 8 in both English language and literature. * Alesha who achieved grades 4 to 8 in nine subjects, including grade 8 in English literature and French and a L2 Distinction* in travel and tourism. Daniel White, assistant principal told students: I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to each and every one of you on your GCSE results. These outcomes reflect the academic progress, effort, resilience, and determination youve shown throughout your final year. Your collective attitude has truly shone through your commitment to learning, your support for one another, and the way you conducted yourselves during celebration events. Youve made us incredibly proud. Well done, Year 11. I wish you every success and happiness for the future. Above: Holsworthy Community College students Lauren, Emilia and Ruby celebrate their GCSE results. Credit: HCC And Phil Ruse, vice principal said: We are incredibly proud of the collective achievements of this Year 11 cohort. Their results reflect a strong commitment across the College to the importance of English and maths qualifications as integral to future pathways and opportunities. The outstanding performance across a diverse range of creative arts, sport, and technology-based subjects is also a testament to the rich and varied curriculum available to Holsworthy students. There are too many individual success stories to mention, but every student should feel proud of their personal achievements, the effort theyve put in, and the perseverance theyve shown - often in the face of adversity. I wish every Year 11 student success in their next steps and encourage them to stay connected with the HCC community. Officials announced more than 300 economic cooperation projects involving the public and private sectors of Japan and Africa. The projects were unveiled on August 21 at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD 9, taking place in Yokohama, southeast of central Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru made remarks at TICAD 9's Public-Private Business Dialogue held on the second day of the three-day event. S/ Ishiba Shigeru, Japanese Prime Minister / More than 300 cooperation documents, over triple the number at the previous TICAD 8, were presented. This demonstrates that this many Japanese companies are committed to cooperating in building Africas future. In bilateral talks, Japan and Kenya exchanged a document in which Tokyo promises to guarantee loans to the African country by Japanese private financial institutions. Through the arrangement, Japan is hoping to promote the expansion of its car manufacturing and other industries to Kenya. In the Public-Private Business Dialogue, Ishiba said that Japan, as a trusted partner of Africa, will continue to accelerate the current momentum of cooperation. The Granville family and other members of law enforcement may be hoping for closure now that two investigations into the embattled sheriffs narcotics chief are closed. But based on the reaction from Erie County officials, thats not going to happen. Erie County Legislature Chairman Timothy Meyers said no one should be naive enough to think the incident involving Daniel D.J. Granville isnt going to continue drawing scrutiny and questions from other public officials. Granville suspended without pay for 30 days as sheriff concludes internal investigation Erie County Sheriff's Office narcotics chief Daniel "D.J." Granville is suspended without pay for 30 days as Sheriff John Garcia concludes his office's internal investigation. Everybody in Erie County just says it stinks, right? he said. It smells like a rotten fish. Come on. If that was me or anybody else you think this would have happened? Oh my God, Id have been out of office. Id have been charged. I would have been booked. Come on. They think theyre talking to 5-year-olds here. Those who have known Granville over the years have been more forgiving in their assessment of Granville, who they say has a previously unblemished police history and good reputation as an officer. His direct punishment for plowing his county-owned pickup truck into seven parked cars on the Lower West Side in April of last year has drawn mixed reactions, but many agree on one thing: The main story isnt what Granville did that night, but how all other law enforcement responded to the incident, which remained under wraps for nearly a full year before it was exposed by local news media. I think theres a lot more to come, Meyers said. Id be appalled or shocked if this is the end of it. Body camera footage from the incident was never saved and has since been erased. Buffalo police officers who responded to the scene, including Granvilles sister-in-law, have refused to speak with the Niagara County district attorney investigating the matter. The Buffalo Police Departments internal investigation remains unfinished and confidential, and the Sheriffs Office internal investigation, which appears to have focused solely on Granville, resulted in a 30-day suspension without pay. Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick said he was shocked to read that Buffalo police officers involved in the Granville case refused to speak with the Niagara County district attorney. My initial response was probably the same as most people who heard that, was, Can they not do that? he said. Apparently, they dont have to cooperate, but its obviously not a good look, right? And very upsetting. That fact prompted Hardwick to follow the same path as Buffalo Common Council Member David Rivera in sending a request to State Attorney General Letitia James, asking for her office to conduct an independent investigation into the Granville case. That would be separate from the Buffalo Police Department investigation, which has been open since January, according to Police Chief Alphonso Wright, and separate from the Erie County Sheriffs Office, which also concluded its internal investigation on Tuesday. I think an independent investigation is needed if were going to restore trust in the police department, Hardwick said. I think people might look askance or askew at anything coming out of either department, and thats not because theyre necessarily compromised. Its just the appearance that they may have something to hide. And I think trust in the police is important. Ive always had a good relationship with the police. Theyve always done good by me and me by them, and I want to keep it that way. Meyers said he also strongly supports the involvement of the State Attorney Generals Office, but since the County Legislature is on recess until September, he hasnt yet had the chance to further discuss what the Legislature should do next with respect to the Granville case. The County Legislature had previously agreed to convene a special committee to further investigate the Granville matter, but decided to delay any hearing until after other law enforcement investigations were concluded. I would be a thousand percent in support of the AG taking a look at it, he said. He also said he expected the Legislature would want to take up the Granville matter for further discussion, as originally planned, after the break. What happens to Granville Granville will be free to return to work after his 30-day suspension runs its course. Hardwick sent a letter to the countys personnel director in April asking that if Granville chooses to retire anytime soon, the Personnel Department withhold any money Granville is entitled to receive in lump sum, cash-out payments for unused vacation and sick time until any claims against the county for damage to vehicles is resolved. Granvilles lawyer, Terrence Connors, has repeatedly and consistently indicated that Granville loves his job, has no plans to retire and is looking forward to returning to work. All the feedback that we received from all quarters was very positive about his acceptance of responsibility and his candor and transparency, he said. Granville pleads guilty to charges of reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident Daniel "D.J." Granville, chief of narcotics for the Erie County Sheriff's Office, struck seven parked vehicles in the area of Jersey Street and Prospect Street at 11:38 p.m. April 11, 2024. County Executive Mark Poloncarz is among those who have known Granville for years, does not believe Granville has a reputation as a bad cop and thinks his acceptance of responsibility was a positive step. He also said he expects Granville will agree to make restitution for the damage done to the cars he struck, which is important. The guilty pleas Granville made last week are in line with what other members of the public would expect to receive had they been involved in such an accident, he said. Had he not taken responsibility, but just denied it, denied it, denied it, regardless of all the evidence out there, we might be talking about a little bit of a different situation, he said. He took no position on Sheriff John Garcias decision to suspend Granville for 30 days, saying thats a personnel decision made by an independently elected county leader. Garcia, who is up for re-election this year, issued a public statement on Friday, after Granville pleaded guilty to reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident, and again after he concluded his internal investigation into Granville. He has made no other public comments on the matter. Meyers said he finds the rationale that the controversy is over because Granville is a good guy to be offensive. Its like they insult you that Oh yeah, its all done, and he shouldnt be defined by one moment, he said. So I guess if I go and do something horrific, you know this and that, well, I shouldnt be defined by that. Lets talk about all the other good things I did. Making restitution County Attorney Jeremy Toth said he expects to meet with Connors next week to discuss the possibility of Granville making restitution for claims paid, or to be paid, by the county for damage to the owners of the parked vehicles. The county has received a total of $65,000 in damage claims related to Granvilles car crashes last year, Toth said. Of that amount, $36,000 has already been paid out. No restitution agreement has yet been reached, though he said hes optimistic, based on the public statement issued by Garcia regarding the matter. The question of whether Granville was on duty at the time of the late-night crashes has not been definitively answered. Granville and the Sheriffs Office initially told other county administrators that Granville was on duty, though payroll records from the Comptrollers Office did not support this, showing only that Granville received overtime for working from 3 to 6 p.m. the night of the crashes. Granville, 48, struck parked vehicles on Jersey and Prospect street in Buffalo at 11:38 p.m. on April 11, 2024. Jerry Davich Metro columnist Follow Jerry Davich Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Timothy Nilsson mailed me a nine-page, 3,700-word letter to express his disgust and disappointment in exhaustive detail regarding his retirement pension. My story is a long and painful one, Nilsson wrote. This is not the way I envisioned retirement. The 66-year-old former construction worker retired in 2011 from the former Inland Steel plant in East Chicago after a 30-plus-year career. He was awarded Social Security Disability under his pension agreement. I was just 19 when I hired in, Nilsson said. I had the body of a 90-year-old man when I retired at 52. Construction work will do that to you. He's disgruntled about multiple facets of his life as a former mill worker. Nilsson blames the steel company for the lack of cost-of-living adjustments. He blames the rigors of his former job for destroying his body. And he blames the U.S.W.A. Local 1010 for broken promises regarding his annual pension of $22,800. It has affected my retirement to the point where my wife and I live like its the second Great Depression, Nilsson said. After taxes, his net pay is $1,677, he said, minus $90 a month for dental insurance that he said the company should be paying for. My mortgage payment is $1,300 a month, paid on the same day I collect my pittance, Im sorry, my so-called pension, Nilsson said. A traditional retirement pension in the private sector is a luxury that most U.S. workers do not receive. But I believe most mill worker retirees have earned one, regardless of their former job or the amount of their monthly payment. I worked inside a steel mill for several years while operating my familys former food business. I saw firsthand how these workers earned a buck every day. They deserve every nickel they could squeeze from a company, if anything, for spending so many hours of their life inside those gates. It was a very dangerous place to work, Nilsson said. About six of my coworkers were killed on the job during my tenure at the steel mill. Three of those coworkers should be alive and well today. Most mill workers I know have similar stories of dangerous or deadly workplaces, despite all the safety protocols. Its the cost of earning a living in those plants. Always has been. Two others were told to go to a building and start burning old pipelines, Nilsson said. Little did they know some of those lines were live oxygen lines. When they started to burn the lines, the entire building exploded into flames. All that was left were their singed work boots. That was a day I'll never forget just another reason why steelworkers are owed great pensions. When I contacted his union, U.S.W.A. Local 1010, I figured its officials wouldnt know much about Nilsson, whos been retired for nearly 15 years and now lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I was wrong. He has sent me similar letters and even a book, said James Thomas, union president. Thomas knows Nilssons case very well, including his adjusted start year, a layoff period early in his career and his repeated attempts to plead his case with Local 1010 officials. Nilsson is convinced hes receiving a 1980-era pension in 2025, and he thinks the union should correct it. I lost four years of pension time that the union said we'd get back for sure, which amounts to over $500 a month that I don't and never will receive, Nilsson said. It turns out that he's incorrect with his presumption and misguided with his request, which other union officials have heard before from him. Thomas shared with me details about Nilssons pension plan involving adjusted start times with the company dating back more than 40 years. Each month, union officials hear from a handful of its 10,000 retirees with similar concerns, requests or complaints. I have so much sympathy for a lot of these retirees, but the unions hands are handcuffed by the law at the time and the legal terms that the retirees agreed to with their pension, Thomas said. He rightfully pointed out that these retirees also have the best health insurance plans. Thats why we always continue to fight for no increase in premiums, and for the betterment of their benefits, Thomas said. Some of these retirees, like Nilsson, make repeated attempts to request changes or modifications to their pension, hoping new union officials will take notice. Thomas has been around long enough to see it in action. I've been dealing with this for years. They're all different scenarios, different circumstances, he said. Between Nilssons detailed letter to me, his follow-up emails and my lengthy conversation with Thomas, I could write three columns, at least, on this complex topic. Private sector versus public sector pensions. Government intervention. Steel companies that went bankrupt. Spouses of retirees who were kept in the dark about pension payouts. And on it goes. But space is limited, so I will sum up the situation and the bigger picture. For current mill worker retirees, most, if not all, of them are stuck with the pension agreement they signed years or decades ago. Some unions offer help with other expenses, when possible, but most retirees must live with what they legally agreed to. For future mill worker retirees, todays column should be a lesson or a warning. Plan ahead. Save money. Find a financial advisor. Dont abuse your body any more than you have to. Or change careers. I speak not only for myself but also every other retiree and future retiree, Nilsson said. If the only thing that happens as a result of this letter is a cost-of-living adjustment for current and future retirees, it will prove to be a huge accomplishment. Saturday is the annual company picnic at Lake County Fairgrounds for workers and retirees with at least 25 years of service. Once again, they will share their stories or glory days with each other while downing a few cold ones and enjoying barbecued food. Nilsson will not be there. How Trump Used 10 Emergency Declarations to Justify Hundreds of Actions In his seven months back in office, President Trump has declared nine national emergencies, plus a crime emergency in Washington. Those emergency declarations have been used to justify hundreds of actions including immigration measures, sweeping tariffs and energy deregulation that would typically require congressional approval or lengthy regulatory review, according to a New York Times analysis of presidential documents. The chart below shows every emergency declaration and the actions that flowed from each. Hover or tap on the dots to see details. Emergen c y decla r a tion Document that cites this declaration as justification for one or more actions Feb. March April May June July Aug. Southern border emergency Used to militarize the southern border and bolster immigration enforcement Designating cartels as terrorists Used to direct federal officials to prepare for the possibility of invoking the Alien Enemies Act National energy emergency Used to expedite mining and energy production on federal lands Drugs from Canada Used to impose tariffs on Canada Drugs from China Used to impose tariffs on China Drugs from Mexico Used to impose tariffs on Mexico International Criminal Court Used to impose sanctions on the I.C.C. and its members Trade imbalance and tariffs Used to impose tariffs on U.S. trading partners across the world Threats from Brazil Used to impose additional tariffs on Brazil Crime in Washington, D.C. Used to federalize the Washington police force Note: Each document shown as a dot contains at least one action justified by the emergency, and some contain several or many actions (for instance, tariffs imposed on dozens of countries at once). The New York Times All presidents have the authority under the National Emergencies Act, a post-Watergate law, to declare a national emergency to enable the federal government to respond quickly to a crisis. But Mr. Trump has already invoked this power much more frequently than his predecessors and, experts say, for situations that do not qualify as true emergencies. Previous emergency declarations have been made over events like the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, as well as to issue sanctions on countries like South Africa during apartheid in 1985 and North Korea in 2008. Mr. Trumps use of emergency powers in this term has far outpaced what is typical. On average between Ronald Reagans inauguration in January 1981 and the start of Mr. Trumps second term this year presidents declared about seven national emergencies per four-year term, according to a Times analysis of data from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused on democracy. Mr. Trump declared that many in his first month back in office. Immigration emergencies Feb. March April May June July Aug. Southern border emergency Designating cartels as terrorists On the first day of his second term, Mr. Trump declared two national emergencies related to immigration. Just as he did during his first term, Mr. Trump claimed that an invasion of illegal aliens constituted a national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border. This move allowed him to unilaterally unlock federal funding for border wall construction and to empower the military to support the Border Patrol. In a separate order, he used the border emergency to give the military specific responsibility for immigration enforcement. A few months later, he issued another directive, turning a narrow strip of federal border land along the Mexican border in California, Arizona and New Mexico into a military installation under the jurisdiction of the Pentagon. Mr. Trumps second immigration-related national emergency declaration called for a crackdown on major drug cartels. In it, he directed the State Department to start labeling drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, saying they constitute a national security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime and that the United States would ensure the total elimination of the groups. This month, The Times reported that Mr. Trump had secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that had been deemed terrorist organizations. Trade and drug emergencies to justify tariffs Feb. March April May June July Aug. Drugs from Canada Drugs from China Drugs from Mexico Trade imbalance and tariffs Threats from Brazil The president has used two major categories of emergency, encompassing four separate declarations, to justify the sweeping tariffs he has imposed on most of the United Statess trading partners. The most recent category is a trade imbalance. In an April executive order declaring a national emergency, Mr. Trump cast large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits as a national security and economic threat. That emergency declaration has been cited to justify at least nine actions since then, some of them encompassing changes to tariff rates for many trading partners at once. Most economists see trade deficits as a long-running feature of the U.S. economy, and many economists and legal experts questioned the declaration of an emergency at a time when the economy was strong. The second category is a drug crisis. Back in February, the president issued three separate declarations targeting Canada, China and Mexico for what he argued were their roles in the national public health crisis caused by opioid use and addiction. (In each of those three declarations, Mr. Trump also mentioned the border and cartel emergencies discussed in the above section in conjunction with the drug crisis.) Each of those declarations has given rise to multiple tariff actions relating to those countries. According to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl deaths in the United States have been falling since January of last year. Tracking the use of these emergency orders to justify tariff actions is extraordinarily complicated: Mr. Trump has changed rates; extended and further extended deadlines; and made specific adjustments to minimize disruption to particular American industries, among other actions. But the result, at least so far, has been a landscape of punishing rates starting at 10 percent and going as high as 50 percent that have taken effect for more than 90 trading partners. Attempts in Congress to block or forestall the tariffs have not been successful, but court challenges remain underway. Separately, Mr. Trump also declared a specific national emergency with respect to the government of Brazil, which he has argued is politically persecuting its ex-president, Jair Bolsonaro. Mr. Bolsonaro, an ally of Mr. Trump, is accused of orchestrating an attempted coup after losing the 2022 election. In the same document, Mr. Trump imposed duties on Brazil that brought the countrys tariff rate up to 50 percent. Emergencies about energy, the International Criminal Court and Washington, D.C. Feb. March April May June July Aug. National energy emergency International Criminal Court Crime in Washington, D.C. Mr. Trump has declared three other emergencies in pursuit of his policy goals. The first, among those declared the day he retook office, is a national energy emergency. Thats a big one. You know what that allows you to do? That means you can do whatever you have to do to get out of that problem. And we do have that kind of an emergency, Mr. Trump said while signing the declaration. It came amid a flurry of other Day 1 actions that reversed previous decisions driven by concerns for the climate and environment. Experts soon said no such emergency exists (the United States produces more oil and gas than any other country). In May, 15 Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration over the declaration and how, they argued, it was being used to skirt environmental and other regulations. And the administration has withdrawn federal support for projects to boost renewable energy, like wind and solar. The emergency declaration cleared the way for the administration to expedite the production of domestic energy resources, including on federal lands, using a variety of methods and authorities. Among several actions taken later that cited the energy emergency was an order to the Department of Energy to develop a process to keep unprofitable coal plants operational in order to avert power outages. In February, Mr. Trump declared another national emergency regarding the International Criminal Court, and the threat he argued the court posed to U.S. national security and foreign policy. In the same document, Mr. Trump imposed sanctions on the court, its members and its supporters, in response to its investigations of American and Israeli personnel. As the declaration notes, those investigations have resulted in arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. And this month, Mr. Trump declared a crime emergency a more targeted claim than the nine national emergencies in Washington. In this case, he invoked an emergency provision of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973 to take control of Washingtons police force for 30 days, deploy the National Guard and send hundreds of federal law enforcement agents into the city in what he described as an effort to combat crime. In fact, crime numbers in Washington have been falling. Other emergencies and crises Even when Mr. Trump has stopped short of declaring a new, official national emergency, he has frequently cited emergencies or comparable crises to justify executive action. For example, a proclamation issued on his first day back in office declared that an invasion is ongoing at the southern border. It made a legal argument referring to times of emergency, including an invasion, during which the presidents powers over immigration should be expanded. Mr. Trump used this argument to justify several actions, including suspending the entry of migrants across the United States-Mexico border and, more broadly, restricting entry for migrants at all ports of entry who fail to provide certain information to federal officials. The proclamation also restricted migrants entering the country across the southern border from invoking provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, including claiming asylum. In addition, Mr. Trumps proclamation empowered federal officials to take appropriate action to stop migrants from entering across the southern border and to deport those who do. In March, Mr. Trump invoked a centuries-old wartime authority, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport men the administration said were members of a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua, with little or no due process. The action that set off a high-stakes legal battle culminating in a Supreme Court order blocking some deportations until further notice. Although the March proclamation did not mention an emergency specifically, it followed the national emergency he declared in January to start the process of designating certain drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, specifically calling out Tren de Aragua and MS-13 of El Salvador. A presidential memorandum Mr. Trump signed in June to authorize the deployment of several thousand National Guard troops to Los Angeles, where protests had sprung up against immigration raids, cast the protests as a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States. This action was also challenged in court. Special circumstances driven by claims of emergency have also animated the Trump administrations own relationship with the legal system since Mr. Trump re-entered office. The administration has filed about 20 emergency applications with the Supreme Court since January, seeking relief from rulings issued by federal trial judges. The court has ruled in favor of Mr. Trump in a large majority of those cases, which have touched on issues including deportation, mass firing of federal workers and termination of education grants. The emergency orders by the court are not the last word on cases but can resolve as a practical matter for years while lawsuits wind through the courts. Mr. Trump has also taken several actions related to emergencies declared by previous presidents. These include extending a Biden-era emergency over the harmful foreign activities of the government of the Russian federation which Mr. Trump used to threaten secondary tariffs on India for importing Russian oil. Mr. Trump also continued a national emergency declared by President Barack Obama over Venezuela, which formed the basis for a similar threat of tariffs for countries that import Venezuelan oil. Finally, Mr. Trump has ended one previously declared emergency. In recognition of the fall of the Assad regime, he removed sanctions declared on Syria by President George W. Bush in 2004. Japanese artist Kei Meguro is known for her incredibly detailed portraits created mainly with pencil and graphite, which blur the line between drawing and black-and-white photography. Born in Tokyo, Japan, Kei discovered the joy of drawing at an early age, and she was encouraged to explore her talent by her family. In 2006, she entered the School of Visual Arts in New York and graduated in 2010 with a BFA in graphic design. In 2012, after working as a graphic designer at a major advertising agency in the US, she became an independent artist, and in 2016, she published her first portrait book aptly titled Faces. She has been one of the most highly-regarded portrait artists ever since, scoring collaborations with big-name brands like Adobe, HBO or Tiffany & Co., and also finding great success on social media. Photo: Kei Meguro Kei Meguro is best known for her babe work series, which consists of portraits of young women with a surrealist touch characterized by delicate pencil shading, expressive eyes, and a focus on subtle textures like skin and hair. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kei Meguro (@keimeguro) According to Wikipedia, Kei showed great talent for drawing in middle school, but never dreamed I would be able to do what I love as a job. A big animal lover, she says that if she hadnt ventured into the art world, she would probably become a veterinarian. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kei Meguro (@keimeguro) Choosing what to draw often comes from a blend of intuition and intention, Kei Meguro said in a recent interview with MyModernMet. I draw inspiration from a wide range of sourcespersonal experiences, nature, the human figure, emotions, and sometimes even dreams. Many of my compositions are deeply personal, reflecting themes Im working through emotionally or stories I want to tell visually. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kei Meguro (@keimeguro) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kei Meguro (@keimeguro) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kei Meguro (@keimeguro) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kei Meguro (@keimeguro) For more stunning pencil portraits, check out the stunning works of Mayor Olajide, the ultra-realistic portraits of Brazilian artist Sheila R. Giovanni, and the elegant masterpieces of Alena Litvin. Scribe Strategies & Advisors has agreed to provide strategic consulting and government affairs services to the Kingdom of Morocco. The six-month contract calls for Scribe to receive a $75K monthly retainer for the first three months with subsequent months billed at $60K. The pact, which went into effect July 28, automatically renews for successive six-month periods. Headed by Republican strategist Joseph Szlavik, Scribe is to strengthen Morocco/US relations, especially in the areas of investment and trade. It also will support US recognition of Moroccos sovereignty over Western Sahara, a former Spanish territory annexed by Morocco in 1975; and address the regional security challenges posed by the Polisario Front, which wants to expel Morocco from Western Sahara. Morocco is the latest to join Scribes portfolio of African clients, which includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Cote dIvoire. What was Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. thinking when it ditched its 48-year-old iconic logo, featuring an old-timer seated next to a barrel. That logo stood as a symbol Southern heritage. It has been replaced by a sterile nothing burger that spells out Cracker Barrels name in brown lettering against a yellow border. The revamped logo is generic-looking and could be used for an auto repair shop, hair stylist, bakery, bank, church, supermarket, carpet store, pawn shop, ice cream parlor or funeral home. What's next for Cracker Barrel? Will it start serving Bud Lite at its restaurants as a tribute to another PR disaster? Trans actress Dylan Mulvaney might be available to help launch the brew. Indianapolis-based Steak n Shake took a swipe at Cracker Barrel. "Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away, it posted on X. We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers." Cracker Barrel shouldnt throw away what made it distinctive. It should bring back grandpa and his barrel. And what's up with the Big Apple show? The Lebanon, TN-based company on Aug. 21 unveiled its All the More fall marketing campaign that is supposed to celebrate 55 years of country hospitality. Country music star and Cracker Barrel pitch man Jordan Davis highlighted the pop-up event held in Manhattans trendy Meatpacking District. Good heavens. Has Cracker Barrel gone Yankee? Wasnt a stage in Nashville available for the great unveiling? Lebanon is only 40 miles from Music City. That's about the same distance that the nearest Cracker Barrel is to NYC. The restaurant is located somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey. How will Herr Foods capitalize on the priceless publicity in got when it starred in the latest chapter of the corruption story that plagues the administration of New York Mayor Eric Adams? Winnie Greco, a former advisor and confidante to the mayor, put more than $100 into a red envelope and then stuffed it into a bag of Herrs Sour Cream and Onion Flavored Potato Chips. She handed the Herrs chip bag to Katie Honan, a reporter for The City, following an event that celebrated the opening of the Harlem office of Adams re-election campaign. Honan, who assumed the chips were an offer of a light snack, told Greco that she couldnt accept the gift. Greco insisted that she keep the chips. Honan opened the bag, saw the cash, and texted Greco to say she couldnt accept the cash. She demanded they meet so she could return the cash. There was no response. The City called Greco and asked about her intentions about the cash. She called the whole episode a mistake and apologized. Her lawyer Steven Bill admitted the cash transaction appeared strange, but there was nothing nefarious about the matter. Winnies intent was purely innocent, he told The City. In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. That may be the case, but the Herrs bag, envelope and cash are now in the custody of the office of Brooklyn US attorney Joseph Nocella. Herrs, which is the pride of Nottingham, PA, says serving its Sour Cream and Onion Flavored Potato Chips is a way to liven up lifes celebrations, big and small. Its Sour Cream and Onion Flavored Potato Chips certainly livened up a slow summer news day. But Herrs needs to cash in. It should hire Winnie as a brand ambassador. She has outreach experience. Adams had used her as his representative to the Asian-American community. Herr's hiring of Greco could be contingent on her not being swept up in the ongoing corruption probes of the Adams administration. Andrew Cuomo, who is running for Adams job, played his part in the Herr's/Greco saga He took a break during a press conference so an aid could hand out Herrs chips to reporters. The smiling jounalists got the joke. The gambit lightened up the image of hard-nosed Andrew. The City sent out a fund-raising pitch that began: Were New Yorkers. We get that satisfying feeling for ripping into a bag of Herrs. But we dont usually expect our chips to come with cash. It your turn, Herrs. Celebrating a huge promotion Self-proclaimed war hero Donald Trump gave himself a big promotion from Cadet Bone Spurs, a rank that allowed him to dodge the Vietnam War. The president told conservative talk show host Mark Levin on Aug. 20 that he earned his war hero cred because he ordered the air strike on Irans nuclear sites. That mission was carried out at the order of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump considers another war hero. War criminal for committing crimes against humanity in Gaza is a much better description of Netanyahu. Trump approved the Iranian military action while he was safely tucked away in DC and undoubtedly posting away on his Truth Social site. His last hubris has caused true war heroes such as Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf and John McCain to turn over in their graves. Five people were killed Friday when the tour bus they were riding in from Niagara Falls to New York City rolled over on the Thruway near Pembroke in Genesee County, according to state police. A tour bus carrying 54 people lost control in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 just before exit 48A at 12:22 p.m. State police said several witnesses saw the bus lose control, enter the median, cross the southern shoulder and overturn. The crash forced the closing of the Thruway in both directions. The eastbound lanes, which had remained closed into the evening, were reopened around 8:30 p.m., about eight hours after the crash. The westbound lanes reopened just after 5 p.m. Police have not yet released the names of those who died, but said an earlier report that one of the deceased was a child was incorrect. All five who died perished at the scene. The number of injured was not quantified by police, though Major Andre J. Ray said early Friday evening that while many are still hospitalized, there were no other patients in a "life-threatening status." The bus was operated by M&Y Tour Inc. out of Staten Island, Ray said. Passengers on the bus ranged from ages 1 to 74. Investigators have ruled out mechanical failure and impairment or intoxication of the driver as causes of the crash. Ray said the driver became "distracted," but declined to specify how, other than to say it was not by another vehicle. Ray said he was unaware of any serious physical injuries to any children who were on the bus, though children were transported to hospitals. "The bus did roll," Trooper James O'Callaghan said during a news conference Friday afternoon. "There were multiple ejections. There were multiple people trapped and there's multiple fatalities." Earlier Friday afternoon, O'Callaghan had said a child was believed to be among those killed. Later in the day, Ray said no children had died in the crash and that the five killed were adults. The crash left eight to 10 people in critical condition, patients who were transported via helicopter for medical treatment, said State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, who represents the area of the crash, quoting information he received from the Genesee County manager. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Claudia Tenney's offices reached out to offer assistance, Borello said. "This is obviously a horrible tragedy, and I pray for the victims and their families," Borrello said. "Thankfully, we have professional and volunteer first responders from around Western New York, and beyond, that are stepping up to help the victims of the incident." The bus was chartered out of New York City and was on its way back there after visiting Niagara Falls, according to state police. Police said the driver survived the wreck, which did not involve any other vehicles. Investigators spoke to the driver about the accident, O'Callaghan said. "We believe we have a good idea of what happened, of why the bus lost control," O'Callaghan said. "We just want to make sure all the details are thoroughly vetted." O'Callaghan said state police expect to work with the bus company and review the camera footage inside the vehicle. The National Transportation Safety Board, in coordination with the state police and state Department of Transportation Motor Carrier Compliance Bureau, is sending a "go-team to conduct a safety investigation" into the crash, an agency spokesperson said. The NTSB team is expected to arrive late Friday evening and on Saturday. Region's hospitals respond The region's hospitals, including facilities in Buffalo, Batavia and Rochester, reported treating dozens of patients from the bus crash. O'Callaghan said almost every person in the crash had "some sort of cut, bruise or abrasion." Erie County Medical Center, which is Western New York's Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, received 21 patients from the crash. As of 4:30 p.m., most of those patients were in the Emergency Department receiving care, while two were in the trauma intensive care unit and two patients were in the operating room, said Dr. Jennifer L. Pugh, the hospital's chief of emergency medicine. In the operating room, one patient was in surgery for internal injuries, while the other had a "severe extremity injury," said Dr. Jeffrey J. Brewer, chief of surgery. When asked about those two patients' recovery prospects, Brewer said he "would expect that they would recover." Of the four patients the two in surgery and the two in the trauma ICU ECMC spokesperson Peter Cutler said just before 9:30 p.m. Friday, and repeated Saturday that three of them are in stable condition and one is in critical condition. Pugh said the hospital's EMS division sent six physicians to the scene to help triage patients. ECMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samuel D. Cloud said the hospital held a mass casualty drill in July, where it prepared for a situation like what unfolded Friday. Still, Cloud hasn't seen many incidents like this in his 25-year career. "This is probably the most trauma patients we've had from one incident in my career here in Buffalo," Cloud said. At Kaleida, the health system received a total of 20 patients from the accident, said spokesperson Jacqueline A. Bett. Buffalo General Medical Center received four adult patients, who were all in good condition with one patient already discharged. Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital received 11 adults and two children, with 10 people in good condition and three in fair condition, Bett said. And Oishei Children's Hospital is treating three children injured in the crash, with two in good condition and one in serious condition. "While we hope that events like this never occur, our teams regularly practice and participate in mass casualty incident drills to ensure we are ready to care for our community during any type of emergency situation," Bett said. All of Mercy Flight's helicopters responded to the scene and were busy Friday afternoon transporting patients, Executive Vice President Scott Wooton said. Mercy Flight Central in Canandaigua also responded to the scene, added Wooton. "It was a trying afternoon for us. Our hearts go out to all those involved in this afternoon's tragedy on I-90," Mercy Flight said in a statement on Facebook. Six patients from the crash are being cared for at University of Rochester Medical Center, the health system said in a statement. Three were transported via air ambulance and three were taken by ground ambulance. University of Rochester Medical Center said two of the patients are being treated for critical injuries, while the other four, including a pediatric patient, are medically stable. "As our teams work to provide these patients the best possible care, our hearts are with their families, the first responders and medical professionals who responded to the scene, and all those affected by today's tragic collision," University of Rochester Medical Center said. As of 4 p.m., United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia said it had received two patients, who were treated and released. The Batavia hospital, part of Rochester Regional Health, didn't expect to receive any additional patients. ConnectLife, the region's nonprofit organ procurement organization and community blood bank, just before 2:30 p.m. put out an emergency appeal for blood donations following the accident on the Thruway, which the nonprofit said "left multiple individuals critically injured." "Our community is facing a crisis," said Sarah Diina, senior director of communications and external affairs at ConnectLife, the primary blood provider for ECMC and Kaleida hospitals. "We are urging all eligible donors to act now. Blood is needed immediately to treat patients who are fighting for their lives." Officials react to 'tragic' crash In a statement on X at 1:30 p.m., Hochul said she had been briefed on the "tragic tour bus accident." "My team is coordinating closely with [New York State Police] and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved," Hochul said. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement that his office is in contact with the NTSB and is closely monitoring the situation. "I'm heartbroken for all those we've lost and all those injured and praying for their families," Schumer said. "Thank you to our brave first responders on the scene." The accident created a huge traffic standstill and a massive emergency response, which left many witnesses to the deadly scene. Powell Stephens, a Medina resident, was eastbound on the Thruway when he saw a bus on its side ahead of him. "There was glass all over the road and people's stuff all over the road," said Stephens, who drove past the crash scene. "Windows were all shattered. Everyone seemed conscious and OK, but I only saw the scene for about 15 seconds. A photo taken by a Buffalo News photojournalist at the scene showed the tour bus on its side, nearly perpendicular to the roadway, as emergency crew members responded. Not long after 5 p.m., the overturned bus was uprighted by crews at the scene. A staging area at Indian Falls Fire Hall was set up for those who were less injured in the accident, though that site closed by 3:30 p.m. Sen. Patrick Gallivan, R-Elma, a former Erie County sheriff and State Police veteran, advised people to avoid the area of the crash so authorities can do their job. "My thoughts are with the victims and families impacted by the devastating bus accident on the NYS thruway near Pembroke, Gallivan said in a statement. Thank you to all of the police, fire, medical personnel and other first responders who rushed to the scene to provide care for the injured and to assist those stuck in traffic. Sen. Jeremy Cooney, a Rochester Democrat who chairs the Senates Transportation Committee, said in a statement: My heart goes out to the victims of the horrific tour bus crash on the Thruway today. This is an unthinkable tragedy with reports stating that children and families were among those involved. Ill continue to monitor the situation, Im praying for the quick recovery of the survivors, and I want to thank our first responders for their quick response to the scene. DOVIDA, Irelands leading home care provider, will host a series of National Hiring Week events across the country from September 1 5 as part of a major recruitment drive. The company aims to hire 60 new caregivers throughout Westmeath, Offaly, and Longford to meet growing need for its services. Dovida caregivers provide essential support to ageing adults and people living with disabilities in their own homes. The organisations person-centred approach means that its Caregivers build meaningful connections with their clients and empower them to live fuller, more independent lives. National Hiring Week is a great way for us to get out and about in the community to connect with people looking to start a rewarding career in home care, Lorraine McLaughlin, General Manager of Dovida Midlands, said. It provides us with an excellent platform to highlight what makes us an employer of choice in the sector and gives potential recruits the chance to meet local Caregivers and support team members to explore whether a career in care is right for them, she added. READ NEXT: Tullamore residents cannot tolerate flooding situation for another winter Dovida National Hiring Week events in the Midlands Monday, September 1st, 10am - 4pm: Walk-in interviews at Birr Technology Centre, St Brendans Street, Birr, R42 A593. Tuesday, September 2nd, 11am - 3pm: Open day and walk-in interviews, Temperence Hall, New street, Longford, N39 R9X8. Wednesday, September 3rd, 10am - 3pm: Athlone Town Shopping Centre, Mardyke Street, Athlone. Thursday, September 4th, 10am - 3pm: Hiring stand and walk-in interviews, Tullamore Bridge Centre, Bridge Street, Tullamore, R35 XC58. Friday, September 5th, 10am - 3pm: Hiring stand and walk-in interviews, Greville Arms Hotel, 33-37 Pearse Street, Mullingar, N91 X9RN. Dovida caregivers provide a range of vital services that empower people in their community to remain living as independently as possible in their own homes. Whether assisting an older person who needs some help around the house or supporting someone who has a disability to attend events in the community, Dovida caregivers are there. Dovida offers both full and part-time positions as well as flexible hours in the mornings, afternoons, evenings and weekends, allowing caregivers to fit their work into their lives and balance it with other commitments, such as family life or study. The company also provides comprehensive training and support, as well as opportunities for personal and professional development. People who need support from Dovida want to maintain autonomy over their life, to experience belonging, pursue happiness and find purpose. Our caregivers are key to ensuring that as many people as possible can do just that, Lorraine concluded. READ NEXT: Offaly man secured Ireland's position as a world leader in the pharmaceutical industry Dovida welcomes applications from people from all walks of life and is committed to supporting them every step of the way. For more information on life as a Dovida caregiver and how to apply, please visit dovida.ie/hiring-week A new principal has been appointed to Oaklands Community School in Edenderry. Laois and Offaly Education and Training Board (LOETB) has announced that Seamus Mohan will take over as the new principal at the school. He will take up his new role as principal on Monday, September 1. Seamus served as principal of Mullingar Community College for the last six years. LOETB warmly welcomed Seamus and wished him every success in his new role at Oaklands Community College. His leadership, vision, and commitment to excellence will be invaluable as we continue to grow and develop in the coming years. In congratulating Seamus on his new appointment, LOETBs Director of Schools, Linda Tynan said, "Seamus joins a thriving school with a dedicated, passionate staff, and students who consistently demonstrate academic excellence, equality, care, and a strong sense of community. This appointment comes at a particularly exciting time for Oaklands Community College as preparations are now underway for the development of the new state-of-the-art school building. The entire school community looks forward to the completion of this transformative project in the coming years." READ NEXT: Offaly influencer shares pictures of new twins Evie and Ryan Joe Cunningham, Chief Executive at LOETB, congratulated Seamus on his new appointment. "We are very pleased to welcome Seamus to his new role as Principal at Oaklands Community College," he said. "He brings a wealth of experience in school leadership and a strong track record of working collaboratively with senior management teams. The current Deputy Principals Ms Mairead OShea and Mr Liam Quinn, with the entire staff, represent a highly dedicated team who have consistently built on the schools strong foundations in Edenderry and surrounding areas. I wish Seamus, the entire staff and students well as they embark on the journey ahead. Oaklands Community College is one of nine schools under the patronage of LOETB. READ NEXT: Washington DC Rose reveals unique connection to famous Offaly sporting triumph TULLAMORE is set to play host to a novel event for grandparents this September. "What to Expect When Youre Expecting a Grandchild!" is a fun, interactive workshop for grandparents whose daughter or daughter-in-law is expecting a baby and intending to breastfeed. The workshop will take place in the newly renovated Tullamore Presbyterian Church on High Street on Saturday, September 20, from 10am-1pm. The ticket price of 10 includes home baked treats, tea and coffee. Grandparents will have the chance to get up to date on new developments in baby safety since their own children were small, including car seats, safe sleep for SIDS (cot death) prevention, supporting mother and baby in the postpartum period, including recovery from caesarean section, and supporting their daughter (in law) to get breastfeeding off to a good start. Organised by Cuidiu Offaly Breastfeeding Support Group, the workshop is the first of its kind in the midlands and perhaps in Ireland. Cuidiu is a national charity which provides breastfeeding and parenting support, antenatal classes and other support for families. The event will be facilitated by Cuidiu Antenatal Educator Nicky McEntee and 2025 "Lactation Consultant of the Year", Patricia Marteinsson, who provides free professional breastfeeding support through the HSE. "Grandparents are at the heart of the family, but it is not often they are included in antenatal classes," says Cuidiu Offaly Chairperson Jasmine Elkhershi. Ireland is known to have some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world but Offaly has been celebrated as a national leader in reversing this trend in recent years, due in large part to the partnership between 2025 "Lactation Consultant of the Year" Patricia Marteinsson and local breastfeeding support groups Cuidiu Offaly and Banagher Breastfeeding Group. "Over half of new mothers in Offaly are choosing to breastfeed their babies and our exclusive breastfeeding rate at three months was actually among the top three in Ireland in 2022," says Jasmine. Based in Tullamore, Cuidiu Offaly is a thriving breastfeeding support and social group boasting over 130 members, three qualified Cuidiu Breastfeeding Counsellors and five more in training. The idea for the workshop came about when the committee noted that a large number of the groups members were the first in their family to breastfeed for several generations. According to the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (2023), breastfeeding rates on hospital discharge in the 1980s and 1990s, when many of todays new mothers were born, were around 30%. "Many grandmothers may have had negative experiences with breastfeeding or may not have been supported to breastfeed at all, says Jasmine. She notes that there are many more supports available today, through the HSE, voluntary breastfeeding support groups and private lactation consultants. Jasmine emphasises the difference that grandparents can make when they support their daughter or daughter in law to breastfeed. "Grandparents support really matters. Studies show that babies whose grandmothers breastfed their own children or who have a positive attitude towards breastfeeding are up to 12 times more likely to be exclusively breastfed." Breastfeeding has lifelong health benefits for both mother and baby, including reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer for the mother. It provides optimal nutrition for the baby, as well as supporting the immune system and reducing their risk of diabetes, childhood cancers and cot death (SIDS). Grandparents can book their place for the workshop by scanning the QR code on the poster, visiting the following link https://ti.to/cuidiu/offaly-cuidiu-what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting-a-grandchild/with/offaly-cuidiu-what-to-expect-when-you-are-expecting-a-grandchild or by contacting Cuidiu Offaly directly on offalycuidiu@gmail.com or @cuidiuoffaly on Facebook or Instagram. Ten new Gardai are coming to Garda Stations across County Tipperary and the boost in manpower will help local policing elected representatives said today. The deployment will see three new Gardai stationed in the Nenagh District which also covers Roscrea, four new Gardai in Clonmel, two deployed to Thurles and one deployed to Tipperary Town. Meanwhile, a further 201 Garda recruits will begin training in Templemore this week, while another graduation is scheduled for November, ensuring more new members entering the force. Fianna Fail Senator for Tipperary South, Imelda Goldsboro welcomed the deployment of 10 newly attested Gardai to Tipperary, strengthening visible policing across the county. Senator Goldsboro commented: The deployment of additional Gardai is welcome. We are fortunate that every community wants to see more Gardai visible in their area. It is one of the most effective measures we have for preventing crime and making people feel safer". READ NEXT: Sean Ross Abbey survivors will meet Bishop of Killaloe The new Gardai are among 154 recruits who graduated from the Garda College in Templemore today. This intake represents the largest allocation of probationer Gardai to regions outside Dublin in the past year and reflects the governments ongoing investment in building stronger, safer communities. Senator Goldsboro said the arrival of additional Garda members underlines Fianna Fails commitment to increasing Garda presence on the ground. She noted, This latest allocation shows that investment in Garda recruitment is making a real difference on the ground. Local stations are being reinforced so they can continue to serve and protect communities effectively. READ NEXT: Pictures: Roscrea visited by the precious Liam MacCarthy Cup "Strengthening An Garda Siochana is a key priority for Fianna Fail in Government, backed by a record 2.48 billion in funding in Budget 2025, a 27% increase since 2020", she said. Goldsboro concluded More Gardai on the beat is one of the most effective ways to deter crime and enhance public safety. This latest deployment is a clear signal that government is delivering on its promise to support communities with the resources they need to feel secure. Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reignited controversy by publicly endorsing the vision of a Greater Israel, a concept rooted in biblical and Talmudic narratives that has long been associated with expansionist ambitions. In a striking moment at the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2023, Netanyahu unveiled a map of Israel that included both Gaza and the West Bank, signaling a bold reassertion of territorial claims. The idea of Greater Israel has been championed by the Israeli far-right, notably Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party and current finance minister. In 2016, Smotrich declared that Israel's borders should extend to Damascus and encompass parts of six Arab countries - Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia - reviving the Zionist dream of a state stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Smotrich reiterated this vision in a 2023 speech in Paris, standing beside a map that depicted Eretz Israel as including historical Palestine and Jordan. The term Greater Israel refers to various expansionist interpretations, some limited to historical Palestine and others extending into neighboring Arab territories. The concept gained traction after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights. However, its ideological roots trace back to Revisionist Zionism, led by Zeev Jabotinsky - spiritual father of Netanyahu's Likud party - that advocated for a Jewish homeland encompassing both sides of the Jordan River. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump share something in common. They are both unreligious, but benefit politically from aligning themselves with fundamentalists. Benjamin Netanyahu belongs to the secular wing of the Jewish community. Netanyahu's ancestry is European. His mother's parents came from Lithuania, and his father, Benzion Mileikowsky, came from Poland. While Netanyahu is not known for religious observance, he has used Ultra-Orthodox parties to stay in power, and avoid jail on corruption charges. Should he agree to finalize a hostage ceasefire deal in Gaza, he risks losing the support of his far-right coalition partners, Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party and Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party. Both have long threatened to exit the coalition if the war against Hamas is brought to an end, which would end the political life of Netanyahu. According to Trump's biographers, and associates, he has never been described as a religious person. He has been in church usually for a wedding, or a funeral. According to polls, most Americans don't view Trump as religious, and less than half label him as Christian. In October 2020, Trump declared that he was a non-denominational Christian. Trump pandered to the Evangelical Christians in America, who follow Christian Zionism. They believe that Israel must be blindly supported in order to usher in the second-coming of Jesus. Zionism is a political movement invented by Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), who was regarded as a secular Jew. From 1897 to 1917, the movement sought to colonize Palestine, to establish a homeland for Jews. Herzl wanted Jewish people to have their own nation that would solve the problem of anti-Semitism in Europe. Palestine had been under the control of the Muslim Ottoman Empire since the 1800s. Before 1917, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in peace. It was the fight for Israeli independence, at the expense of the original inhabitants, that destabilized the region, and there has never been a moment of peace since. Netanyahu's remarks have triggered a wave of condemnation across the Arab and Islamic world. In a joint statement, foreign ministers and leaders from over 30 countries - including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey - denounced the statements as a blatant violation of international law and a direct threat to regional and global peace. Egypt's Foreign Ministry demanded clarification, warning that such rhetoric undermines stability and rejects peaceful solutions. Jordan labeled the comments provocative and dangerous, while Qatar described them as part of an arrogant and destabilizing occupation strategy. The Gulf Cooperation Council's Secretary-General, Jasem Albudaiwi, condemned the statements as a flagrant breach of the UN Charter and an assault on the sovereignty of nations. He emphasized the need for a unified international response to counter such expansionist agendas. During a televised interview with Israel's i24 channel, Netanyahu affirmed his support for the Greater Israel vision, calling it a spiritual and historical mission. He reflected on the legacy of Israel's founding generation and his role in ensuring its continuity. The interview sparked intense debate on social media, with Arab commentators warning of Israel's expansionist ambitions. Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti questioned the Arab world's silence, while Egyptian media figures described Netanyahu's statements as reckless and destabilizing. Military developments have added to the tension. The Israeli army recently announced plans to occupy Gaza City, aligning with Netanyahu's political rhetoric and raising concerns about further escalation. Netanyahu's statements have reignited fears of regional destabilization and cast doubt on the viability of existing peace agreements. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Scatman wakes to the Black man's reality (Image by universal) Details DMCA Scatman Crothers had the shining Woke from a dream of their demises Came back to save their sorry white asses Climbed that mountain again in a Snowcat Broke and entered into the Deep Past And took an axe to the chest -- the look on his face! -- Cries mother f*cker, Like he cant catch a break, Wishes hed a-stayed in Sarasota. . Reminds me of that other scene The Black man taken down by Mad King George The shot heard around the world -- thats what you think! -- Crispus Attucks, newly freed, Sam Adams beer in hand Celebrating outside Fanuel Hall, Boston Town The sound of a jig, fiddle feet, cackles of joy When gunshots rang out in the torchlit night And poor Crispus, high-stepping on a Stamp Act poster Discovered that he had been shot by a Kings clown He looked up, the beer dropped down And he cried, mother f*cker In that tone that recalls Scatmans Last paradigm shift When he saw The Creator Has A Master Plan alright and fell into that screaming vortex of the Pharaohs ancient animal pain . Goddamn! he cries to God. The Traveling Black Women Network (TBW), in partnership with The PrOOF Project, Inc.-a leading education consulting company-announces the upcoming Rwanda Experience for Educators, a transformative Staff at a dental office in Clackamas County pounded on the chest of a near-lifeless 4-year-old during a routine appointment for a cavity that went horribly wrong, a recently filed lawsuit claims. Staff at Sunnyside Dentistry for Children began chest compressions after the child identified only by the initials M.L. in court papers was discovered to have lost all pulse while under sedation, according to the lawsuit. Kody Jensen, 23, learned he would face a combined 20-year sentence in state prison during a hearing Fri., Aug. 22, 2025. Zane Sparling/The Oregonian A Troutdale man has been sentenced to 21 years and three months in prison after being convicted of raping one woman and kidnapping another. Kody R. Jensen has been convicted in two Multnomah County trials involving two different women this year and acquitted in a third case in the county involving a separate woman, court records show. On Friday, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Kelly Skye ordered Jensens punishments to run consecutively saying she was stunned by his crimes. You have some work to do, and youre going to have the time to do it, Skye said, referring to the need for rehabilitation. Skye found Jensen, 23, guilty of first-degree rape and first-degree sex abuse of a woman during a bench trial earlier this month. In a separate case, a jury in July found Jensen guilty of kidnapping and fourth-degree assault in a domestic-violence case involving another woman. He was also convicted of contempt of court for attempting to sway the victims testimony. And in yet another case, he was acquitted this year of first-degree rape of a third woman. In Skyes courtroom, one of the victims described the long-lasting harms and her efforts to heal from them. I have learned that I am resilient, she said, and braver than I thought. The Washington County Circuit Courthouse is shown here. Noelle Crombie Woman gets probation in two-year-old daughters fentanyl overdose In a rare exception to Oregons mandatory minimum sentencing laws, a Washington County judge sentenced a woman convicted of second-degree assault to five years of probation, rather than the statutory punishment of 5 years and 10 months in prison. In his Wednesday decision, Circuit Judge Theodore Sims cited the precedent established in State v. Rodriguez/Buck, a 2009 Oregon Supreme Court ruling that allows for alternate punishments when the judge determines that the mandatory minimum sentence is disproportionate. Megan E. Meek, 30, of Gaston, was running errands in Beaverton when she and her fiance left their two-year-old daughter alone in a car, where the child found and ingested fentanyl pills on March 13, 2023. The child survived after receiving multiple doses of Narcan, an anti-overdose drug. A jury convicted Meek of second-degree assault on May 1. At sentencing, however, her defense attorney noted she had no prior criminal record and had since become a certified recovery mentor through the Oregon Health Authority. Prosecutors strongly disagreed with Sims sentence of probation. Parents and caregivers who risk the death of children by exposing them to dangerous drugs like fentanyl should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, a spokesperson from the Washington County District Attorneys Office said. A courtroom in Multnomah County Circuit Court is shown here. Dave Killen / The Oregonian In Brief Kemmery J. Burright, a 46-year-old food service coordinator working for the Oregon Department of Corrections at Two Rivers Prison, was charged Aug. 7 with second-degree custodial sexual misconduct in Umatilla County Circuit Court. Riley D. Schultz, 26, of Vancouver, was sentenced to 1 years in state prison after pleading guilty in Multnomah County Circuit Court to one count of criminally negligent homicide for the death of James Pinkerton during a car crash on Feb. 18, 2023. Stanley W. Polinsky, 61, was sentenced to 7 years in state prison after pleading guilty in Multnomah County court to repeatedly stabbing his roommate in the chest at the Lucky Lucky bar in Southeast Portland on Dec. 28, 2024. Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083, zsparling@oregonian.com or @pdxzane. President Donald Trumps eldest son referred to Portland and Seattle as craphole cities in an interview with Newsmax when talking about the administrations takeover of the Washington, D.C., police force. Donald Trump Jr. also suggested the possibility of a federal takeover of police forces in the two Pacific Northwest cities. Maybe we should roll out the tour to Portland, Seattle, the other craphole cities of the country, Trump Jr. said to Newsmax on Thursday. Not because theyre crapholes but because Democrats made them so. Maybe were going to expand this. Earlier this month, President Trump ordered National Guard troops onto Washington, D.C.s streets, stating without evidence that crime was rampant in the city. Trump Jr. echoed those claims to Newsmax and suggested the murder rate is through the roof in Democratic-run cities. Trump Jr.s comments were reminiscent of President Trump in 2018 reportedly referring to Haiti and African nations as shole countries a remark he denied making. Despite the rhetoric of Trump Jr. and other national figures about crime in Portland, the city has seen consistent declines in homicides and shootings year over year since they peaked in 2021 and 2022. Killings in Portland dropped 51% in the first half of 2025 compared to 2024, according to data from the Major City Chiefs Association. Similarly, Seattle also saw its homicide numbers decrease by a third, the organization noted. President Trump has, on occasion, focused his ire on Portland, calling it a destroyed city last summer prior to the election. His border czar, Tom Homan, made a brief visit to the city this week. On Friday, according to the Associated Press, the president said the federal government would next turn its attention to Chicago in its crackdown on crime. Zaeem Shaikh covers the Portland Police Bureau and criminal justice issues for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-221-4323, zshaikh@oregonian.com or on X@zaeemshake. How many restaurants count carrots as an essential dish? LEchelle is one. Here on Southeast Division Street, carrots bought at the downtown farmers markets are peeled but left whole, cooked through in salted water, glazed with honey and good butter and flecked with parsley in the Vichy style, then stacked into a little pyramid on a handsome plate. Theyre simple yet elegant. Elegant, in fact, because of their simplicity. LEchelle was conceived as Naomi Pomeroys culinary return some five years after closing Beast, her influential Northeast Portland restaurant. But after the chefs tragic death last year, the project was seen to fruition this spring by her business partner, Luke Dirks, and her longtime lieutenant, Mika Paredes. After four early visits, two things have become clear Paredes is a skilled, thoughtful chef in her own right, and LEchelle is a worthy tribute to Pomeroys legacy. Yes, LEchelle is the kind of stylish corner bistro that opens every other Tuesday in New York. But the genre one that Dirks has deep experience with during his time as an operating partner in Manhattans Happy Cooking Hospitality is also one for which Portland has historically had little interest or appetite. So while LEchelle might not stand out in Greenwich Village or Fort Greene, its a rarity here, a charming, candlelit room that plays with bistro classics without venturing too far from shore. Vichy carrots glazed in good butter and honey are a must at Southeast Portland's L'Echelle. Vickie Connor/The Oregonian The kitchen, which Paredes runs with chef de cuisine McKinzy Calapp and sous chef Kyrstianna White, takes its biggest swings and liberties with the petits plats. Oeufs mayonnaise arrive as two mounds of soft-boiled egg, their white exteriors and jammy orange yolks buried under a cascade of loose aioli and spoonfuls of glistening salmon roe, two silver slivers of white anchovy draped across the top like zippers. Cubes of deftly fried chickpea panisse are reimagined with a little comte a sly nod to mozzarella sticks, Paredes tells me and sauce Algerienne, a harissa mayo that sounds fancy, but is more commonly found at fast food shops serving kebabs and French tacos. Some dishes are mere amalgamations of high quality ingredients, the great building blocks that lead to great food, as Pomeroy wrote in her 2017 cookbook, Taste & Technique. The jambon plate, a sort of deconstructed Parisienne sandwich, or jambon-beurre, includes baguette slices from Little T, Euro-style butter and gently smoked buttery soft ham from Lowry Hills Provisions in Minnesota, ham thats as good if not better than any served at LEchelles predecessor. Speaking of, the walls at the old Woodsman Tavern, once so dark and moody, have been brightened up with off-white paint, the remaining booths and other accents given roughly the same glossy shade of blue as a British police box. But the bar is still in place, and you can still get a nice pour of bourbon or a good cocktail. You can come here for colorful swizzles, cobblers and frappes, and other drinks made with sea buckthorn or Earl Grey Tea, but my favorite so far has been the Vesper glacee, a riff on the classic vodka-gin martini with shimmering drops of lemon olive oil in a frosty glass, garnished with a cornichon and a pickled onion. The wine list was set up by Cutter Cascadia winemaker Michael Garofola, a former Beast employee and one of Pomeroy and Dirks' first hires for L'Echelle. Vickie Connor/The Oregonian You can start your meal with a Vesper and some oysters on the half shell, or a shrimp cocktail with frothy-light horseradish cream, or perhaps a decadent frisee Lyonnaise with lardons, duck fat croutons and a soft boiled egg that youre instructed to break up and use as a dressing. Beast echoes are everywhere the chicken liver mousse and its accoutrements laid out like a wristwatch version of Beasts famous charcuterie clock; the straightforward French onion soup, its base of demi-glace the same as the one Paredes and Pomeroy would make together each night after dinner service at Beast. If theres unevenness to LEchelles menu, its found among the entrees. On our first visit, a pork crepinette with snap peas and mint a stand-in for the lack of a signature burger, perhaps? came topped with a reedy garlic scape, served whole, its stem as firm as a coil of coaxial cable. Was this meant to be eaten, or just admired, a natural green fascinator perched atop the sausage? And the duck with olives and prunes had its own issues. After taking ages to arrive, LEchelles lacked the ruby-bright vibrancy of a great seared breast, then ate as if it had been reheated. (A couple sitting near me for a later meal had a similar experience Overdone, underseasoned and clearly sitting for a bit before it arrived, they said.) A safer bet is the steak, a seared NY strip with a nice crust accentuated by the crunchy green peppercorns bobbing in its au poivre. While the fat cap was excessive on our first visit, it was perfectly trimmed on the second, and cooked to a nice medium in both instances. Pair the steak with those Vichy carrots, sometimes uniformly sized, each one roughly the size of a ballpoint pen, other times a mix of thick and thin, each soft at the edges but firm within. Or build a DIY steak frites by adding a plate of best-in-class Kennebec potatoes, which Paredes stamps, boils with vinegar then fries until the edges turn as crisp as a potato chip and the center melts into silky pommes puree. Those fries, a contender for Portlands best, are somehow even better than that sounds. Carrots, frites and a NY strip steak au poivre at L'Echelle. Vickie Connor/The Oregonian As with the drinks, LEchelles desserts arent designed to blow your socks off. But how could you be unhappy with the fig leaf-infused blancmange, the dark chocolate ganache cake, or the French selections from the great local cheesemonger Cowbell? The wine list, put together by Cutter Cascadia winemaker Michael Garofola, another longtime Beast employee and one of Pomeroy and Dirks first hires, focuses on established French regions alongside varietals from Oregon and elsewhere that emulate those styles, whether Beaujolais or Burgundy. To accommodate its Richmond neighborhood, prices have been kept reasonable, with starters starting at $8 and two entrees sneaking in under $20. Portion sizes are correspondingly modest. Meanwhile, Dirks only opens two thirds of LEchelles seats up for reservations, with the others, including the bar, held for walk-ins. So far, the restaurant has been busiest during its first few hours, a time when toddlers can be seen trying their first bites of panisse. If you hang out late enough, the restaurant turns into something closer to a hip neighborhood wine bar, with stylish patrons sharing a bottle of red at one of the restaurants larger tables. In each instance, and others besides, Dirks and his team seem prepared to accommodate Portlanders and those arriving from out of town in a way few local restaurants have over the past five years. As Pomeroy wrote in her book, cooking is a good way to take care of people. At LEchelle, that care is evident. Mika Paredes and Luke Dirks stand in the dining room of Southeast Portland's L'Echelle Vickie Connor/The Oregonian Details: LEchelle serves dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday at 4537 S.E. Division St., lechellepdx.com. Starting next month, LEchelle hopes to add dinner service on Mondays and Tuesdays. Recommended: Shrimp cocktail, panisse, oeufs mayonnaise, steak au poivre, any vegetables (but especially the Vichy carrots and the frites), a simple ganache cake or fig leaf blancmange (or save room for custard at Cornet next door). Vegetarian options: Whats to stop you from fashioning a meal around the Vichy carrots, the Parisienne gnocchi and a glass of good wine? Nothing but the fact that the other seasonal vegetables chilled asparagus in May, braised zucchini in July are just as nearly worth your time. Accessibility: LEchelle sits on a single level with a double-wide door and wheelchair accessible tables and bathrooms. Public transportation: TriMet bus line FX2 stops about three blocks away. Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com Students gather around for a master dance class at Franklin High School in Southeast Portland. The high school is one of five neighborhood high schools where this fall's enrollment is significantly larger than had been expected. Leif Sjoquist/Portland Public Schools Larger than expected enrollments at five of Portland Public Schools seven neighborhood high schools have resulted in at least dozens and perhaps hundreds of students being initially assigned to study halls or academic centers despite not having signed up for that option. District officials acknowledged this week that they were scrambling to address higher than anticipated enrollments after the numbers outpaced projections at Cleveland, Franklin, Grant, Wells and Lincoln high schools. The exterior of Jefferson High School in North Portland. A new school building is slated to be complete in 2029, for an estimated cost of $465 million. Photo by Eder Campuzano/Staff If all goes according to plan, a modernized Jefferson High will open in fall of 2029, at a cost of $465 million, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong told a roomful of community members at the school this week. The price tag is about $25 million less than the highest previous price floated for a new Jefferson, which sits at the heart of the historically Black Albina neighborhood in North Portland. Am I wrong for backing out because thats not what I agreed to? Is it selfish to expect a trip with just your friends? Getty Images. dpa/picture alliance via Getty I Dear Eric: I had a Mexican vacation planned with three very good friends and our spouses. My one friend goes there quite often and was going to be there an additional two weeks after the week we were all to be together. Her son and his girlfriend (whom I have never met) also go quite often. The son and girlfriend planned a visit the same time we were going but he wont be staying with us. Fast-forward to booking a place to stay. We are quoted our share of the rental with her son staying with us because it would be cheaper. Am I wrong for backing out because thats not what I agreed to? Is it selfish to expect a trip with just your friends? Why am I the only one who seemed to have a problem with the additional guests? Not That Fun Dear Fun: This is a different vacation than the one you envisioned so it doesnt strike me as selfish to want what you want. It would be one thing if everyone had their own rentals and the son and his girlfriend would only be joining for some meals or activities. That could be quite fun. But in the closer quarters of a shared rental, the dynamic changes. Yes, cost is a major factor in vacation planning, but the concept for the vacation is equally important. You go away to be with the people that you know and care about. Your experience of a new place is going to change based on who youre with and what kind of conversations you can have. So, it would behoove whoever is leading the charge on planning to acknowledge that a cheaper per couple rate is not the only objective. And even though it is cheaper, it still costs money. Probably a significant amount of money. So, it makes sense that youd opt not to spend your money on something you dont want. If your friendship can withstand the disruption of you backing out, it makes sense to do so. However a BIG however its easy to see how this could become a point of contention, especially if your friend takes it personally (how dare you not want to spend time with my son?). Thats a cost that you dont want to pay. Talk it out again from a place of possibility rather than rejection. Tell them about the vacation you envisioned and why and see if, together, you can figure out a way to still make that happen. Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com. The Pfahl House by architect Van Evera Bailey will be part of Restore Oregon's tour of midcentury modern homes. Carey Cramer Restore Oregon Three treasured midcentury modern residences will be showcased in Restore Oregons popular home tour in the Portland area Saturday, Sept. 27. Admission to the self-paced tour, called Oregon Made: Experience Northwest Regional Modernism, is $45 at restoreoregon.org. All proceeds will support the work of the nonprofit preservation organizations mission to save historic places of all styles across Oregon. While two of the homes were designed by early champions of Pacific Northwest modern, architects Pietro Belluschi and Van Evera Bailey, the architect of the third, a multilevel hillside home, remains unknown In skilled hands, midcentury modern architecture eases the visual boundaries between indoors and out, and the spare aesthetic qualities of open interiors have revolutionized the way in which Americans live. Oregons natural environment attracted architects and designers who created the unique Northwest Regional style of modernism. They recognized the value in the damp Pacific Northwest of employing local timber like fir and cedar, stone from the Cascade mountains and river rock. In the homes selected for the tour, walls of windows frame scenic views, and interior wood and stone bring a sense of living in harmony with nature, said Nicole Possert, executive director of the preservation organization Restore Oregon. Another hallmark of Northwest modernism is the use of extended roof lines to protect from rain, snow and sun. Each of the three homes on the tour tells the story of an architect enchanted by both advancement in technology and the beauty of the natural world all around them, Possert told The Oregonian/OregonLive. Early supporters of modernism might be surprised to realize that modern is now historic and needs as much protection from the wrecking ball as Victorian-era and century-old Craftsman-style houses. Through its advocacy and programming, Restore Oregon hopes to inspire and educate about the benefits of saving midcentury modern buildings while finding ways to make them sustainable places to live, work and play in contemporary ways, said Possert. For more than a decade, Restore Oregon has been organizing home tours, lectures and special events to explore the intersection of modern architecture and the Pacific Northwest Regional style. Here are highlights of the homes selected for the 2025 Restore Oregon Modern Home Tour: 1948 Burkes-Belluschi House 5 1 / 5 Burkes-Belluschi House Pietro Belluschis final personal residence, the much-heralded 1948 Burkes-Belluschi House in Portlands West Hills, later enhanced by his son, architect Anthony Belluschi, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in February. Pietro Belluschi designed the single-level dwelling, considered one of the best examples of a blend of International style and Northwest Regional style, for his clients, Portland psychiatrist DeWitt Clinton (D.C) Burkes and his wife, Genevieve Burkes, in 1944. World War II, building material rationing and other factors delayed construction until 1947, and the house was completed in 1948. Revolutionary at the time, Pietro Belluschi employed local materials from intricate, rare woven wood ceilings to a Mount Adams stone fireplace wall and raised hearth. The home defers to its surroundings with its floor-to-ceiling windows that frame views of the Portland skyline and Mount Hood beyond, said Restore Oregon. 1954 Glassman House 6 1 / 6 Glassman House The Glassman House was designed by an unknown architect for a local radio station DJ. The multilevel construction, completed in 1954, blends with the hillside site. The floor-to-ceiling windows create an impression that you are floating within the trees, said Restore Oregon. Although the kitchen has been updated, the home has many original fixtures and a midcentury bar in the basement. 1962 Pfahl House 9 1 / 9 1962 Pfahl House Only one family has lived in the 63-year-old Al and Brenda Pfahl House in West Linn and tour-goers will experience its time capsule state. Portland-born architect Van Evera Bailey designed the floor plan to maximize the views, support energy efficient passive-house features and draw in natural light. Bailey visited the undeveloped site on summer solstice to pinpoint where the light would be. He then determined the window placement. The full-height sliding windows open for ventilation. Plate-glass panels rise from the floor to the uplifted living room ceiling, and clerestory windows ribbon bedroom walls. Built-in cabinets are stealthy transparent as well: Open a cupboard door in the informal dining room and see whos cooking in the kitchen. At the time, it was revolutionary to have an exposed structural ceiling. Baileys method: Rough-sawn Douglas fir boards were laminated together and laid across the ridge beam and wall plate, creating a slanted ceiling, roof and overhangs. Originally, the walls and carpets were a light green to erase the distinction between inside and outside. The late Brenda Pfahl added strawberry pink walls and purple carpet. Simple cupboard doors in the utility room are a harlequin pattern of pink, blue, green and yellow. Nearby are frameless windows, another Bailey signature. Restore Oregon said Bailey created highly livable and unpretentious homes focused on the placement of the structure on the site, the view from the house and an emphasis on gathering spaces. The terrace was designed by midcentury landscape architect Barbara Fealy, who worked closely with many architects of Northwest Regional Modernism. If you go: The self-guided, self-driven Oregon Made: Experience Northwest Regional Modernism tour is 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27. A general admission ticket is $45 ($40 until Sept. 3) at restoreoregon.org.. Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072, jeastman@oregonian.com and follow her on X @janeteastman. Pictured is a smart thermostat that lets users program the temperatures they want at various times of the day or night. (MLive.com / File photo) Neil Blake It feels like an age-old debate: Whats the right temperature to set your thermostat at to save money but still feel comfortable? In the summer and especially during days like the extreme heat that is forecast to linger over Portland and other parts of Oregon and Southwest Washington for the next five days the federal governments Energy Star program has recommended 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, officials say, try turning your thermostat up by four degrees say 82 before you go to sleep. Thats a tad too toasty for some Portland area residents. No, no, said Hillsboro resident Casey Millot of the nighttime recommendation. No, thanks. Millot sets her summertime thermostat at 74 degrees during summer days. And if anything, she prefers to sleep in slightly cooler temps at night. The Oregonian/OregonLive queried several other area residents and all agreed. To be fair, guidelines put forth by Energy Star, which is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, say 78 and 82 are just recommended as a starting point, and that individuals with central air conditioning should adjust their thermostats to the levels that they can tolerate. The guidelines have drawn widespread public disagreement, with many saying theyre too high. In response, an EPA spokesperson in 2019 softened the agencys stance, saying that individuals should find the right number for themselves and then adjust it four degrees up for sleeping and seven degrees up when theyre not at home. A tip sheet from the U.S. Department of Energy makes slightly different recommendations setting thermostats at 75 to 78 while at home during a summer day. It doesnt suggest a nighttime temperature. Despite the controversial topic of the right indoor temperature, officials say setting the thermostat higher in the summer can save people significant money. How much? John Farmer, a spokesperson for Portland General Electric, said he asked colleagues and its difficult to quantify the amount in a day, week or month in dollars. One of my folks says if you set your AC to 70 and its 80 degrees outside, youre not going to get charged nearly as much money as if you set your thermostat to 70 and its 100 degrees outside, Farmer said. Youre going to be charged more money because your AC has to work that much harder to keep your home at 70 degrees. Keep that in mind during this current heat wave, Farmer said. Its like running uphill instead of running on flat ground, Farmer said. I have to use so much more energy to run uphill. Energy experts offer some ballpark figures. The Department of Energy says households can save as much as 10% a year on heating and cooling by adjusting the indoor temperature by seven to 10 degrees for eight hours a day. According to Energy Star, a programmable thermostat or smart thermostat can save a household close to $180 each year in energy expenses. PGE has several heavily discounted or even free options on its website. The Google Nest is free, after a $129.99 instant rebate and incentives. The ecobee is $10, after a $189.99 instant rebate and incentives, most from Energy Trust of Oregon. Its amazing, Farmer said. So theres a $200 thermostat for 10 bucks. Ill take it. Like that sounds like a pretty good deal. Besides saving money, theres another reason to try to tax the power grid less, especially on hot summer days: the environment. According to the EPA, the energy used in the average house amounts to as much as twice the gas emissions as an average car. Thats because fossil fuels are often used to make electricity. Though PGE says it generates 45% of its energy from non-emitting sources, like hydropower, wind power and solar power, 36% of its power comes from natural gas, 6% from coal and 13% from other sources. Portland resident Miriam Lissy said a group of friends happened to discuss the subject of the right summer thermostat temperature for each of them at a game night at Lissys home last month. They expressed a range of preferences, from 70 to 78. Lissys preference was on the higher end: 76. She said shes chosen that number partially to conserve energy and partially because Im comfortable. Though she knows some spaces, particularly businesses, think the optimal temperature is far below that. I go into the grocery store and its too cold, Lissy said. Why do they want to have it so cold? Reporter Aimee Green covers politics, personal finance and issues that matter to consumers. She can be reached at 503-294-5119, agreen@oregonian.com or on Bluesky. Is anyone else fed up with another frivolous lawsuit? The out-of-state owners of a fourplex on Northeast 24th Avenue are looking for a windfall from the government because what appear to be reckless drivers have run onto their property. They want $1.2 million, (Owners of Crash House on notoriously tricky road file $1.2M lawsuit against Portland, gas company, Aug. 13). Enough. They bought the property knowing it was on a curve in the road. They failed to take enough steps to protect the property. And now they want Portland taxpayers to pay for repairs. They should have had adequate insurance in place. I encourage the city to fight this and to seek court fees after it wins. Michael G. Wright, Portland To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion. I was at my sons middle school for a Portland Public Schools Community Care Day before I read Robin Roemers timely op-ed, (Opinion: Oregon has lost sight of what a quality education means, Aug. 17). Along with other families, staff, and students, I pulled weeds, pruned, spread mulch and picked up trash to get our neglected school grounds ready for students return. I love seeing our school community come together. I love meeting new families and welcoming them into our community. But I am angry that Oregons chronic underfunding makes events like Community Care Day necessary in the first place. This is just one small example of how the state fails to fully fund our public schools. State leaders wring their hands over low test scores and talk of accountability. But how can schools be held accountable when they are never fully funded? Our constitution promises every child a quality education, and that promise is not being delivered. What I see are teachers and staff showing up on their own time at a Community Care Day on a Saturday. What I see is a teacher preparing for a class of 40 sixth graders - nearly double the number that teacher taught years ago. I dont need studies or advisory committees to tell me our schools are struggling I can see it with my own eyes. And its not because of our schools or their dedicated staff. Its because of inadequate funding. Stop blaming schools. Start fully funding them. Our kids cant wait another 25 years. Isabel Johnson, Portland Johnson is president of the Mt. Tabor Middle School PTA To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion. New parking meter hours? Really? What mixed messages. (Heads up Portland: Downtown parking fees extend to 10 p.m. beginning Sept. 2, Aug. 15). Are our city leaders really serious about helping downtown Portland businesses make a comeback? Or are they adding another nail in the coffin? Increasing parking meter hours until 10 p.m. is short sighted to say the least - both for people who work downtown and for anyone going out to dinner or a show. Do we really need to give people another reason to avoid downtown?Tom Midrano, Portland To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion. Portlands City Council gathers at Portland City Hall in early February. Seven councilors were the subject of a recent batch of complaints alleging that they had violated Oregon's public meetings law by privately discussing council business in a quorum. State officials say the meetings law could use some refinement to clear up ambiguities. Mark Graves/The Oregonian State officials are pushing to shore up Oregons public meeting law to better ensure that elected officials and others with government powers dont discuss public business in private. Leaders of cities, counties and other governing bodies across the state have complained about inconsistent trainings and vague guidance from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, which lawmakers empowered to enforce the states public meetings law beginning in 2024. The decades-old public meetings law essentially prohibits officials of a governing body from privately discussing policies under their authority with a majority of voting members. For example, if three members of a five-member city council privately discuss potential changes to a city housing policy, that would break the rules. But proponents and critics of the law say it, and state guidance on how to follow it, contains significant ambiguity. The issue has recently bubbled up because lawmakers in 2023 made it clearer that officials are prohibited from indirectly communicating privately about potential public business to a quorum of their fellow members, referred to as serial communication. The new law aimed to make clear that was out of bounds whether officials did so by contacting each other in series or through an intermediary who conveys information about a jurisdictions potential policy from one member to another. For instance, one city councilor speaking with another councilor on a five-member council about a city policy would not be a violation of the law. But if that second councilor spoke with a third member about the same issue, then the three would indirectly form a quorum, thereby breaking the law. We dont want to inhibit free speech or anything like that, Susan Myers, executive director of the commission, told The Oregonian/OregonLive. What were just saying is, as a public official, youre not supposed to be communicating (privately) among a quorum for the purpose of deliberating or deciding on something in your jurisdiction. Local officials reported widespread concerns about the rule earlier this year, particularly regarding who can be considered intermediaries. In response, the ethics commission tweaked its guidance and clarified that news reporters and members of the public are generally not considered intermediaries. Still, local jurisdictions say the law and the commissions advice about how to follow it have left them with significant uncertainty. For example, the ethics commission has yet to issue a ruling on which participants in a case of serial communication would be charged violating the policy. That has left some local officials hesitant to discuss policies in private with outside groups for fear of violating the law, said Scott Winkels, a lobbyist with the League of Oregon Cities, which represents local governments across the state. As a result, you have people essentially being held accountable for somebody elses actions, Winkels said. Also, local officials say, the broad language in the public meetings law has resulted in elected officials getting dinged for what they say are minor administrative errors like starting meetings early or city staffers not posting meetings records online far enough ahead of a meeting. The way this is written has been overly broad, and the way its been interpreted has caused a lot of aggravation from among elected officials, Winkels said. The ethics commission agrees that the law is rife with uncertainty. Myers said she is preparing to ask the Oregon Law Commission a 15-member group that includes legal scholars, law experts and judges that advises lawmakers to conduct a comprehensive review of the public meetings law. There are a lot of gray areas, Myers said. These laws, for the most part, have not been updated in years, if not decades. The review could also address a rule that undermines the ethics commissions ability to enforce the public meetings law. The law currently requires any complaint about a potential violation to be filed within 30 days of the alleged violation, meaning that complaints filed after that window, regardless of their legitimacy, are automatically thrown out. Recently, a batch of complaints alleging that a group of Portland city councilors broke the public meetings law by privately texting views on the city budget among seven of 12 council members was thrown out because they were not filed within 30 days of the texts. Lawmakers have expressed interest in refining the law. Rep. Nathan Sosa, a Democrat from Hillsboro and one of the leaders of the 2023 reforms, said he has heard concerns from local governments across the state and intends to form a workgroup to address them. It would include members from local jurisdictions, legal experts and other stakeholders to find a way to ensure local officials can comply with the law. My intention is to have everyone sit down and say: what concerns or questions do we have, specifically about enforcement of open meetings laws, and are there any other related issues that we need to evaluate while we are sitting around the table together? he said. Carlos Fuentes covers state politics and government. Reach him at cfuentes@oregonian.com. Oregon maintains personally identifiable information about more than 3 million registered and inactive voters. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read refused to give the Trump administration the private information about voters that it demanded. Sean Meagher/The Oregonian Rebuffing top Trump administration lawyers, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read refused to turn over detailed information about each of the states voters, saying nothing in federal or state law gives the federal government the right to obtain that personal data of Oregonians. But he also informed the lawyers in President Donald Trumps Department of Justice that they, like any person, can simply fill out an online request form, pay $500 and get an electronic copy of public records showing the name, year of birth, address, political party and voting history of every registered Oregon voter along with data on many Oregonians whose voter registrations have lapsed. The key difference: Those readily available public records do not include any Oregonians full date of birth, drivers license number or partial Social Security number all of which the Department of Justice lawyers demanded because they are used to help determine a persons eligibility to vote. In his letter Thursday refusing the administrations demand for voter information, Read wrote that none of the three federal laws the Trump lawyers cited compels production of the full information they directed Oregon to turn over, so he wont do it. He accused the Trump team of trying to carry out anti-voter goals. Read did, however, offer to securely produce the publicly available portions of its statewide voter-registration list that it routinely provides to any person or entity who pays for it. The Oregonian/OregonLive routinely pays to receive that data set for news-gathering purposes. There is no exception for the federal government to get the data without paying the $500, Read noted in his letter. The federal lawyers, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael E. Gates and Maureen Riordan, acting chief of the agencys voting section, also directed Read to provide the names, addresses and voting history of any voters removed from Oregons voter rolls since 2022 because they were found not to be citizens. Officials at the DMV and Secretary of States Office acknowledged last year that the state inadvertently registered more than 1,500 non-citizens, including people from American Samoa who are not automatically U.S. citizens, to vote through its automatic motor voter registration system. Read, however, refused to provide information about those Oregonians, writing without further elaboration that doing so would both exceed my obligations under federal law and almost certainly violate state law. State officials have said only about five of those people voted in an election when they were not genuinely eligible to do so. In his letter, Read also obliquely acknowledged the federal government likely has genuine questions about Oregons past conduct to remove dead or otherwise ineligible voters from its rolls, given responses the Secretary of States Office has provided in the past to the federal Election Assistance Commission Election Administration and Voting Survey. That survey, which is conducted every two years, includes questions about how many active voters are on the rolls in each U.S. county and how many have been removed from the rolls over time. Oregons most recent survey response, from 2024, showed election officials removed only 3.6% of voters from its rolls over two years, compared to a national average of 9.1%, and that only 4,417 of them were removed for failing to respond to a confirmation notice mailed to them after they failed to vote in two federal elections. That, the Trump lawyers wrote, was by far the lowest number of voters removed for that reason of any state that answered the survey. Read noted that he took office in January 2025 and since then has been working to improve and standardize how county election officials, who are the ones who register voters and maintain county-level voter rolls, enter data into a state system. Historically, this created challenges for statewide data reporting and analysis, including in connection with the Election Assistance Commissions Election Administration and Voting Survey, often shorthanded as EAVS, he wrote. Laura Kerns, a spokesperson for the Secretary of States Office, said Friday the data Oregon reported to the feds may not have been accurate, in part because the phrasing of questions on the federal survey does not line up with how Oregon has collected data from county elections offices. Each county in Oregon uses its own ballot status and codes to explain why voters are removed from the rolls, Kerns wrote in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive. And, she wrote, previous Oregon secretaries of state opted not to require counties report their data in a standard format. Under Secretary Reads leadership, we are actively working to develop uniform data entry standards to avoid this issue. The changes Reads team is instituting will improve the quality, consistency, and transparency of the data, allowing Oregon to produce more detailed statewide reports moving forward, he wrote. That process will necessarily improve the quality of our EAVS data. I look forward to contributing more thorough and detailed information to future EAVS reports. -- Betsy Hammond is the co-politics and education editor at The Oregonian/OregonLive. She can be reached at betsyhammond@oregonian.com. This hasnt been a good week for shoppers or workers at Seattle-area Fred Meyer stores. Parent company Kroger confirmed Tuesday it will close yet another pair of Fred Meyer stores at 13000 Lake City Way N.E. in Seattle and at 17667 N.E. 76th St. in Redmond in mid-October. The news comes just a day after Kroger said it was closing two other Fred Meyer stores, in Everett and Kent. All told, since July, Kroger has announced six Seattle-area closures five Fred Meyer stores and one QFC, which Kroger also owns. The four closures announced this week will affect around 700 Seattle-area workers, according to their union, and have fueled concerns about declining access to full-service grocery stores. Thats really sad," said Aemro Ambaw, 48, as he stood outside his soon-to-close Lake City Fred Meyer where hes shopped for years. This is the big grocery store for this neighborhood. The announcements also raised questions about Krogers claim that the closures are due in part to rising theft. In statements this week, a Fred Meyer spokesperson explained the closures by noting that, due to a steady rise in theft and a challenging regulatory environment that adds significant costs, we can no longer make these stores financially viable. Kroger has declined to provide specific data on incidents of theft at any of the stores. But for at least one of the closing locations at 8530 Evergreen Way in Everett incidents of theft have fallen dramatically since the early years of the pandemic, according to Everett police data. Asked about the apparent discrepancy at the Everett store, a Fred Meyer spokesperson said Tuesday that (d)espite an impactful partnership with local law enforcement, theft and regulatory pressures still remain significant challenges at this location. News of the closures brought swift condemnation from Washington political leaders, labor and community groups. Some critics noted Kroger was closing stores as it tries to recover the costs of its failed merger attempt with rival Albertson and also while paying shareholders billions of dollars in so-called share buybacks. Closing stores will put people out of work and make it harder for families to put food on the table all for the benefit of corporate shareholders and even as CEOs take home millions in pay every single year, said U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle, in a statement Tuesday. Gov. Bob Ferguson, who as state attorney general led the first government lawsuit to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger, said his office is watching this closely. The closure of six grocery stores in the Puget Sound region creates a lot of uncertainty for the workers and communities who depend on these stores to feed their families. Kroger, whose websites list 59 Fred Meyer locations and 55 QFC locations in Washington, said in June it would close 60 underperforming stores nationally over the next year and a half and reinvest the savings in other locations. Unfortunately, today, not all of our stores are delivering the sustainable results we need, Ronald Sargent, Krogers interim CEO, said during a June 20 earnings call. Kroger reported a quarterly operating profit of $1.32 billion, up 1.3% from the same period in 2024. In June, Kroger didnt say which locations were being shuttered, but it has since announced closures in Washington and other states. In July, Kroger said it would close a Fred Meyer in Tacoma along with the Mill Creek QFC. Those closures are set for September, according to layoff notices filed with the state. Affected workers will be offered positions at other Kroger stores. The closures come amid a broader shift in the grocery business due to increased competition from nontraditional players such as Amazon and changing consumer shopping habits, especially since the pandemic, experts say. The changes have led many grocery operators to look for ways to cut costs, including by shuttering underperforming stores, particularly larger locations with high expenses. Some of these larger stores just may not work as they once did, said Neil Saunders, a retail expert and a managing director at data analysis company GlobalData. Kroger, for example, routinely culls underperforming stores, but paused that process during the several years it was attempting to win government approval for a proposed merger with Albertsons, which ultimately failed in December. The flurry of recent announcements likely reflect a little bit of catchup now, Saunders added. Union officials said the scale of this weeks closures would be hugely disruptive for workers. While workers have come to expect this kind of callous, out-of-touch corporate management style from Kroger, four closures that affect hundreds of workers ... over the course of two days is really something else, said Faye Guenther, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 3000, which represents workers at the four stores. The closures also come after years of slow but steady dwindling of Seattle-area grocery stores, which has raised concerns about grocery deserts, or communities with little or no access to full-service grocery stores. Communities such as Lake City and Redmond have other relatively nearby grocery options, while others have fewer choices or have a large number of residents who may depend on stores they can walk to. The Casino Road neighborhood around the closing Everett Fred Meyer, for example, is among the citys most diverse and lowest income, according to Everett City Councilmember Paula Rhyne. The closure, slated for mid-October, is taking away another resource from a neighborhood thats already hurting, Rhyne said on Monday. Community members were also unhappy with Krogers claim of increased theft at the Evergreen Way Fred Meyer, especially given police data showing a decline in theft. For the first seven months of 2025, the store had 11 reported instances of shoplifting and other theft, down from 62 for the same period in 2020 and from 14 in same period in 2024, according to Everett police data. Everett police said the decline follows an increase in police patrols as well as a greater focus by police and social workers on the areas homeless encampments. To have Fred Meyer blame the closure in part on rising shoplifting when police data shows the opposite trend was deeply irritating to city officials, who say theyve invested considerable time and resources in reducing crime at the Everett store, including close cooperation with store management. Despite this progress, Krogers leadership decided to close this store while also shutting down other locations across the state, leaving many communities reeling, said Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin in a statement Tuesday. I am incredibly disappointed by Krogers decision. It would have been great to have more conversations about what could be done before the closure decision was made, said Lauren McGowan, executive director of LISC Puget Sound, a community development organization focused on the neighborhood around the store. Many customers say theyve seen the shoplifting challenges Fred Meyer and other retailers have faced, especially since the pandemic. At the Lake City store, longtime Fred Meyer customer Glenn Pruiksma said hed seen the extra measures the store has added over the years to curb shoplifting, including on-site security and locked-away merchandise. But Pruiksma, 79, said he thought the measures had been effective. Im surprised to hear that (the Lake City store) is called underperforming, he said, adding that the store seemed pretty busy. In the past, some retailers have said police data is inaccurate because some stores simply dont report all incidents of theft or other crime to the police. Others thought Fred Meyers larger problems may be the same challenges that many brick and mortar retailers face, including the growing popularity of online shopping, where traditional retailers may not have as much of an advantage. Several Seattle Times readers noted Tuesday that Fred Meyer was closing its location in Redmond, which doesnt have a reputation for a lot of retail theft and is in the midst of a boom. I have never seen evidence in my 27 years in the area of crime at Fred Meyer in Redmond, a store I frequent regularly, wrote one reader in an email Tuesday. Kroger also hasnt elaborated on what it meant by a challenging regulatory environment or indicated whether that characterization applied only to Washington or also to the several other states where Kroger closures have been announced. Washington state was the first government entity to try to block the Albertsons, and a state ruling against the merger in December contributed to the deal being canceled. Saunders, the analyst, didnt doubt that Kroger has faced costly theft and regulatory challenges, but he was dubious of the companys vague claims, which he said could be cover for other operational problems. Put some (crime) stats out there. How much did theft go up by? What are the regulations that are causing punishment to the bottom line? Saunders said. If you dont give that, as an analyst, Im immediately skeptical. -- Paul Roberts, The Seattle Times 2025 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Washington. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin The U.S. government will buy $8.9 billion in Intel stock, the chipmaker announced late Friday, taking a 9.9% stake in the company in an extraordinary step toward blending the public and private sectors. I think its a great deal for them and I think its a great deal, President Donald Trump said in Oval Office remarks late Friday. With a heat wave bearing down on us, doesnt ice cream sound nice? If youre wondering what the most popular brand of ice cream in Oregon is, a German website about espresso machines and other coffee paraphernalia has come up with an answer for you. In the latest example of a trending list from an unexpected source, Coffeeness has analyzed Google Trends data to determine the most popular packaged ice cream brand in every U.S. state. Its probably not a surprise to learn that homegrown favorite Tillamook is the most popular brand of frozen sweet treat in our state. It might be a surprise to learn that its also the most popular ice cream in five other states Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. Tillamook is a dairy cooperative founded in 1909 by farmers in the Oregon coast county for which its named. A beloved local company, it was also Oregons pick last year when a software company put out a list of each states favorite brand. In case youre wondering what our neighbors to the north and south prefer, Washington was one of 14 states that loves Ben & Jerrys and California is one of 13 states where Jenis is the most popular. And unrelated to ice cream, we want to point out the tagline from Coffeeness website just because it made us chuckle: Anyone who drinks capsule coffee has lost control of their life. On Sunday at 12:30 p.m. the National Weather Service issued an updated heat advisory in effect until Monday at 5 a.m. for North Oregon Coast Range and Central Oregon Coast Range. The weather service comments, "Dangerously hot conditions with high temperatures up to 85 degrees - 90F and overnight low temperatures of 58 - 68F possible." "Heat related illnesses increase significantly during extreme heat events, especially for those spending time outdoors or without access to adequate cooling," adds the weather service. Heat safety: Protecting yourself in hot conditions Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids. Find cool shelter: Opt for an air-conditioned room to stay comfortable. Avoid sun exposure: Stay out of the sun, and make sure to check up on relatives and neighbors. Child and pet safety: Exercise vigilance when it comes to young children and pets. Never leave them unattended in vehicles during high temperatures, as car interiors can quickly become dangerously hot. Caution outdoors: If you must work or spend time outdoors, take extra precautions. Time your activities wisely: Whenever possible, reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening hours when temperatures are more manageable. Recognize heat-related issues: Know how to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Stay cool with clothing: Wear lightweight, loose-fitting clothing to help your body stay cool. Additional tips for outdoor workers: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends frequent rest breaks in shaded or air-conditioned areas for outdoor workers. If someone succumbs to the heat, promptly relocate them to a cool, shaded location. In emergency situations, dial 911 for immediate assistance. These NWS heat safety directives are essential for safeguarding your well-being when facing high temperatures. Stay well-informed and take the necessary precautions to shield yourself and others from the potential hazards of extreme heat. Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service. American Industrial Partners to Acquire International Paper's Global Cellulose Fibers Business Global Cellulose Fibers is a leading producer of high-quality absorbent fluff pulp used for a wide range of personal care applications. Global Cellulose Fibers is a leading producer of high-quality absorbent fluff pulp used for a wide range of personal care applications. Aug. 21, 2025 - American Industrial Partners ("AIP"), a focused industrials investor, today announced its affiliate has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Global Cellulose Fibers division ("GCF") of International Paper. GCF is a leading producer of high-quality absorbent fluff pulp used for a wide range of personal care applications including feminine care, incontinence, infant diapers, and other products that promote health and wellness. GCF also softwood pulp and modified fibers. The business has manufacturing facilities across the U.S., Canada, and Poland. GCF has about 3,300 employees and in 2024 generated approximately $2.5 billion in annual revenue. "With decades of highly relevant industrial and manufacturing experience, AIP is the right partner to back our growth and success as an independent company," said Clay Ellis, Senior Vice President, GCF, International Paper. "We look forward to partnering with AIP to continue to deliver high-quality absorbent materials for personal care products to customers globally." Rick Hoffman, Partner at AIP, stated, "GCF is well-positioned for future growth, supported by its large and sustainable wood basket, durable end markets, industry leading quality and innovation, long-term customer relationships, deeply knowledgeable employees, and well-invested facilities. We look forward to partnering with Clay and the rest of GCF's talented and tenured management team to implement their growth vision." The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in Q4 2025. American Industrial Partners is a global industrials investor, with approximately $17 billion in assets under management. SOURCE: American Industrial Partners The Health and Human Services (HHS) canceled a sexual education grant to California that provided services to children because officials claim it includes "radical gender ideology." The grant is worth about $12.3 million, and the decision was made after state officials refused to revise the materials. The money was being used to pay for sex education programs in juvenile justice facilities, homeless shelters, and foster care group homes. These reached an estimated 13,000 youths per year through 20 different agencies. Suspension of California's Sex Education Grant The announcement of the grant's cancellation on Thursday was something that many people expected because it was linked to a 60-day compliance deadline. Andrew Gradison, the acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), said that California's refusal to comply with federal law was "unacceptable." Gradison added that the Trump administration will not allow taxpayer money to be used to indoctrinate children. He said that every state will be accountable if they use federal funds to teach children delusional gender ideology, according to the Los Angeles Times. Read more: Supreme Court Allows Parents To Opt Their Children Out From Lessons Featuring LGBTQ Books The situation comes as state officials have taken the position that the materials of California's sex education programs are accurate and do not violate the terms of the federal grant. An official statement read that the state's students deserve access to "education information" and materials that help them make healthy decisions about sexual activity. Despite the latest development, the Trump administration is not accusing California of failing to carry out the abstinence and contraception instruction funded by the grant. It is instead focusing on the fact that the state included additional content that the government deems objectionable and "outside the scope' of the grant's purpose. Promoting "Gender Ideology" The decision also builds on previous efforts to ensure that all Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) grantees comply with statutory requirements set by the government. The ACF instructed all PREP recipients earlier this year to submit their curriculum for review, the HHS reported. Gradison said that the ACF identified several instances of gender ideology content in California's programs. These include lessons that teach students that gender identity is distinct from biological sex and that boys can identify as girls and vice versa. But in the termination letter, California's health department said it would not be making any modifications. State authorities argued that their program materials are relevant and medically accurate. They argued that the ACF does not have the authority to take an enforcement action against them, as per The Hill. A mother from Texas was arrested in India and brought back to the United States over her six-year-old son's murder. The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Cindy Rodriguez Singh, was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) list of 10 most-wanted fugitives in July. She was charged in late 2023 with murder in Tarrant County, Texas, after her son, Noel Alvarez, disappeared. Texas Mother Arrested in India for Son's Murder The mystery around the young child's disappearance also resulted in a playground being opened in Everman, Texas, in his honor. The last time that Noel was seen alive was in October 2022. Two days after a welfare check in March 2023, the boy's mother boarded a flight to India with her husband, Arshdeep Singh, and six children. FBI director Kash Patel said that authorities did not believe that the boy's mother had been back in the U.S. since then. He added that they arrested her in coordination with Indian law enforcement agencies and Interpol. Indian authorities were able to locate Singh's whereabouts and assisted in the FBI's transferring her to the United States, according to the New York Times. The suspect is now being held at the Tarrant County jail. The special agent in charge of the FBI office in Dallas, R. Joseph Rothrock, said that Singh's return marks the start of a new chapter in the search for answers regarding the circumstances of Noel's disappearance. The boy's mother is now facing a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, in addition to the state charge for killing her missing son. Al Brooks, the Everman chief of police, added that they are satisfied that Singh has been into custody. The Boy's Whereabouts Despite Singh telling authorities that her son was living with his biological father in Mexico in 2023, officials found that the boy never met him. One of the theories surrounding the child's disappearance is that he was sold to a stranger at a local grocery store, the New York Post reported. When authorities searched the family's property, they found a filthy shack with only two beds, and trash piling up to the ceiling. They also discovered an altar that was dedicated to Santa Muerte, a cult figure typically worshipped by members of drug cartels. The young boy's foster mother also released a statement regarding Singh's arrest, saying that the latter's younger children are now facing life without their mother. She added that Noel's father is still carrying the grief of losing his son, who he never had a chance to know, as per NBC DFW. The families of two students who were killed in the Oxford High School mass shooting in 2021 accepted a $500,000 settlement offer from the school district. Lawyers said that before the federal lawsuits were dismissed, the two families had already accepted settlement offers from the district. The latter is now making good on the deals and is preparing to give the money. Families of Oxford School Shooting Accept $500K Settlement On Thursday, Oxford schools attorney Tim Mullins said the development is a result of good-will gesture and a reasonable resolution of a disputed claim. This was on the same day that the family of 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin filed a motion in federal court to get the settlement approved and the money distributed. Baldwin was among the four student victims who tragically lost their lives in the Nov. 30, 2021, massacre at Oxford High School. The other victims were 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 16-year-old Tate Myre, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling. Six other students, as well as a teacher, were injured, according to the Detroit Free Press. Ven Johnson, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the development felt like a "slap in the face," citing the settlement offer. He added that the Shilling family was "conflicted" because the settlement was nothing compared to the loss they experienced. However, they took it because they were faced with getting zero and still wanted what was in the best interest of their family. This was a reference to the blow that the families of the victims were ultimately dealt in federal court. It was because the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in May that the Oxford schools district was protected by governmental immunity and could not be sued over the shooting deaths. A Tragic Incident The shooter in the incident was Ethan Crumbley, who is now serving a life sentence after a guilty plea in 2023 to several charges. Last year, the shooter's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were also convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, CBS News reported. Prosecutors had argued that the parents should also be held responsible for the killings because they ignored signs that pointed to their son's mental health needs. They also bought the firearm that their son used in the shooting. The attorney for the Madisyn family, Wolfgang Mueller, said that everyone was disappointed in the amount that was offered in the settlement. He added that what makes things worse is that the school district never accepted any responsibility for the incident, as per The Oakland Press. Blink and you may have missed it, but Google gave us a peek at what sure looks like a new smart speaker during its Made by Google event on Wednesday. Was it a leak? Not really. A leaked product is one thats been mistakenly revealed, whereas the speaker we saw during Googles Pixel event got a clear supporting role, with F1 driver Lando Norris cheerfully chatting with the device. Google meant for us to notice the new and unannounced smart speaker. So, what do we know about this little gray (or porcelain?) speaker? Heres a quick breakdown. Googles new Gemini speaker: What we know for sure It exists That may sound obvious, but so often with rumored or leaked new products, were in the land of pure conjecture. In this case (and as I just mentioned), Google clearly intended for us to notice its new speaker. In other words, its the real deal. A new Google smart speaker is happening. Its got Gemini inside F1s Lando Norris was chatting with Googles new speaker during a demonstration of Gemini Live, a Gemini mode where you can have freewheeling conversations with the AI model about any subject you want. Thats all in the way of saying this new Google speaker runs on Gemini, and besides its Gemini Live capabilities, its virtually certain to boast Gemini-level powers in terms of Google Home smart device control, too. It has a squashed spherical shape From what weve seen of the speaker during the pre-recorded Pixel presentation, the Google speaker appears roughly the size of an Amazon Echo Dot or an Apple HomePod mini. But rather than a perfect spherical shape (the HomePod mini does have a chopped-off top), the Google speaker has a slightly squished shape, giving it a unique look as far as big-name smart speakers go. I kind of like it. It has a light ring around its base Heres a detail about the new Google speaker thats a bit surprising: It borrows a design cue from its biggest rival. Encircling the devices base is a telltale light ring, striking similar to the light ring weve seen on Amazons Echo speakers. The light ring on the Google speaker replaces the four LED dots that represented Google Assistant activity on older Google Nest smart speakers. That illuminated ring is something of a signature detail as far as Alexa-powered Echo devices are concerned, so its a bit of an eyebrow-raiser that Google chose to poach it. It has a fabric covering Like Googles previous smart speakersand, in fact, other competing speakers like the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Apple HomePod, and HomePod mini, the new Google speaker appears to have a fabric covering, perfect for giving it a warmer, tactile look that fits in with your home decor. No surprise there. Googles new Gemini speaker: What weve heard but dont know for sure It might come in four colors According to Android Headlines sources, the new Google speaker will come in four colors: Obsidian, Porcelain, Jade, and an unnamed reddish hue. The speaker we saw in the Pixel video might be the Porcelain one (the actual speaker looked more grayish to me, but Im not the best with colors). Along with Amazon and Apple, Google traditionally releases its smart speakers in a variety of colors, so this particular rumor sounds credible. It will likely support different Gemini voices Again, Android Headlines is predicting youll have your pick of different Gemini voices on the speaker, just as you have on a Pixel phone or the Gemini app. Its hard to imagine that the new Google speaker wouldnt have this option, but we still dont know for sure yet. You might be able to connect the new Google speaker to the Google TV Streamer Just as the Apple HomePod and HomePod mini can both be used as speakers for the Apple TV 4K, the new Google speaker will be pairable with the Google TV Streamer, good for delivering spatial surround-sound to your living room, Android Headlines says. Thats still not confirmed, but again, sounds about right. It might double as a Matter hub When I first caught sight of the new Google speaker in the Pixel video, I wondered whether it would have Matter capabilities. After all, the Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, and HomePod mini all work as Thread border routers that connect Thread-enabled Matter devices to the internet and each other. So why not the new Google speaker, too? According to Android Headlines, the new Google speaker will indeed double as a hub that supports Matter, although the publication stopped short of saying its a Thread border router like the HomePod. It could be called the Google Home Speaker With the exception of the original Google Home speaker, most of Googles smart speakers and displaysincluding the Google Nest Mini and Nest Audiohave arrived with Nest branding as a result of Googles 2014 acquisition of Nest Labs. But Google seems to be slowly backing away from the Nest brand. The last Nest device released by Google was the second-generation Nest Hub display, which came out nearly four years ago. So now we have Android Headlines calling the new speaker the Google Home Speaker, which tracks with the branding of Googles streaming player-slash-smart home hub, the Google TV Streamer from last year. Googles new Gemini speaker: What we dont know How much it will cost Looking at Googles existing range of smart speakers, the Google Nest Mini goes for $49, while the larger Nest Audio with upgraded sound costs $99.99. So, how much will the new Google speaker retail for? We dont know for sure and there are no leaks on the subject, so all we can do is guess. Personally, I cant imagine the new speaker costing any more than the Nest Audio, and Im reasonably sure it will sell for at least as much as the Mini. Now, if the Google speaker is a Matter hub and it acts as Thread border router, that would put it in the same league as the similarly equipped Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod mini, both of which cost $99.99. So thats my guess for the Google Home Speaker (if thats indeed what its called): 99 bucks, give or take. When it will arrive As with pricing, there are no hard facts or credible rumors about a release date for the new Google speaker, but we can make an educated guess. With rare exception, Google has announced its latest smart devices during a Made by Google event in the fall. This event generally happens in October or thereabouts, so I think we can expect the new Google speaker to arrive shortly before Halloween. This news story is part of TechHives in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers. Walmart announced that its renovation project at its store at 698 Shrewsbury Commons Ave. in Shrewsbury Township, York County, has been completed. Walmart provided an example of what one of its updated apparel departments will look like. Photo provided The largest private employer in Pennsylvania is in the midst of renovating a number of its stores throughout the state. On Friday morning, Walmart announced that its renovation project at its store at 698 Shrewsbury Commons Ave. in Shrewsbury Township, York County, has been completed. Were so excited to offer our community an additional 150 feet of grocery assortment, an expanded Online Pickup & Delivery service, and double the amount of associate-manned registers, Renee Lauthers, store manager of the Shrewsbury Walmart Supercenter, said in a news release. A ribbon-cutting ceremony and community celebration were held at the store on Friday morning. The store, which opened in 1997, remained open during the renovations. The store still employs seven people who worked at the location when it opened. Renovations and updates include: More apparel brands Expansion of online pickup and delivery New digital touchpoints Vision and pharmacy updates Reconfigured store layout Refreshed interior with new signage Updates to the parking lot and landscaping The store also unveiled a new mural, designed and illustrated by artist Natalia Handoga called Roots in Tradition, Reaching for Tomorrow, which the retailer said captures Shrewsburys deep respect for its heritage and enduring charm. This mural is part of Walmarts Community Mural Program, a public-facing art installation series celebrating communities across America. Walmarts Community Mural Program is part of each stores transformation The remodel is part of Walmarts plan to upgrade 650 stores nationwide, including more than two dozen locations in the Keystone State. Other stores in the midstate scheduled for remodels include locations at 200 Kocher Lane in Washington Township, Dauphin County, near Elizabethville; 6520 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township; 100 North Londonderry Square in North Londonderry Township, Lebanon County, near Palmyra; and at 50 Newberry Parkway in Newberry Township, York County. Walmart also announced renovations were completed at 3400 Hartzdale Drive in Lower Allen Township. Other Pennsylvania Walmart stores slated for remodeling include: 300 Walmart Drive, Gibsonia 100 Crossings Blvd., Elverson 1091 Millcreek Road, Allentown 100 Highlands Mall, Natrona Heights 9300 State Route 61, Coal Township 150 Town Centre Drive, Johnstown 4600 Roosevelt Blvd., Building G, Philadelphia 10180 U.S. Highway 522 South, Lewistown 650 S. Trooper Road, Norristown 2901 Market St., Warren 620 Gravel Pike, East Greenville 30 Trinity Point Drive, Washington 2028 N. Center Ave., Somerset 3942 Brodhead Road, Monaca 355 Lincoln Ave., East Stroudsburg 233 Shoemaker Road, Pottstown 21920 Route 119, Punxsutawney 605 Conchester Highway, Boothwyn 50 N. MacDade Blvd., Glenolden 35 Plaza Drive, Tamaqua Walmart has 159 stores in Pennsylvania and employs more than 58,000 people in the state. It is the sixth-largest employer in York County (as of the first quarter of 2025), according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industrys Center for Workforce Information & Analysis. Note: This is a breaking news story and has been updated with new details. An active shooter incident at Villanova University Thursday was labeled a cruel hoax in which no one was injured, the universitys president said. Mercifully, no one was injured, and we now know that it was a cruel hoax-there was no active shooter, no injuries and no evidence of firearms present on campus, Villanova University President Rev. Peter Donohue said, according to WPVI. The university issued an active shooter alert on its website around 4:30 p.m. according to NBC10. The alert said the following: Police on scene. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors. More info to follow. Stay Clear of Law School Scarpa Hall. ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors. More info to follow. Initially, there were conflicting reports regarding injuries. The Philadelphia Inquirer said one person was shot, but a police source told NBC10 around 5:30 p.m. there were no known injuries connected to the incident. Radnor Township Police around 6 p.m. said law enforcement units were still clearing buildings, but no victims were injured. The Associated Press posted a livestream from the area on YouTube: Radnor Township Police previously posted an alert on X asking people to shelter in place. Radnor Township Police Department are on location at Villanova University for a repot of an active shooter. All nearby residents and students are asked to SHELTER IN PLACE AT this time. All further information will come from the Office of the Superintendent of Police. #308 RadnorPD (@RadnorPD) August 21, 2025 The university updated its alert to include the following: Police continue to search area. Remain sheltered in place until further notice, and Stay Clear of Law School Scarpa Hall. Governor Josh Shapiro said Pennsylvania State Police and federal law enforcement agencies responded to the university and asked the public to avoid the area. The @PAStatePolice and local and federal law enforcement are onsite at Villanova University responding to reports of an active shooter. Avoid the area and follow the direction of local authorities. We will share additional information as it becomes available. Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) August 21, 2025 Villanovas academic calendar lists Thursday, Aug. 21 as the first day of New Student Orientation and Registration. The universitys website says it has 6,700 full-time undergraduate students and 3,100 graduate and law students. Hours before the active shooter alert was issued, the universitys law school and Villanova Law Alumni Association hosted a picnic celebrating the class of 2028. Southern Regional Police said a 39-year-old Maryland man attempted to rob the M&T Bank in York County on Monday, Aug. 18. Southern Regional Police Police charged a 39-year-old Maryland man with felony robbery after a failed heist at a York County M&T Bank on Monday afternoon, police said. Officers were dispatched at 4 p.m. to the M&T Bank on East Forrest Avenue in Shrewsbury after a reported robbery attempt involving a man who had entered the bank dressed in womens clothing, court documents said. The bank employee said when the man entered the bank, she called him over and asked how she could help him. The man went to a table in the center of the room, grabbed an envelope, walked towards the woman and said withdraw, according to the affidavit. Court documents said he then placed a handwritten note that said something to the effect of This is a robbery. Stay calm and do what you are told. 100s and 50s only. Do not pull the panic alarm. While the teller started to access a money drawer, the man took the note and left the bank without any cash. Video surveillance showed the man walking down East Forrest Avenue towards Main Street. A nearby business provided video surveillance that showed the man arriving in a back parking lot, walking toward the bank and later returning to get into a gold Mercury Grand Marquis with a Virginia license plate, which was traced to Brandan Lyle, of Baltimore, according to police. Police received help from Baltimores robbery unit. They conducted surveillance at Lyles home, stopped his vehicle when he left and arrested him after a short pursuit. Police executed a search warrant on the car and found womens clothes, a wig, hat, and multiple robbery notes. Police believe Lyle entered the town of Shrewsbury around 1:45 p.m. on South Main Street, according to police. Police are asking the public for any surveillance camera video that might show the car and Lyle between 1:45 p.m. and 4 p.m. We would like to extend our gratitude to our residents and local businesses for their cooperation and assistance in keeping our communities safe, police wrote in a news release. Their help in providing quality video footage was instrumental in a quick identification and arrest. Lyle is awaiting extradition from Maryland. He has not been arraigned yet, according to online court documents. Wynonna Judd and coach Reba McEntire on "The Voice" on NBC on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. Judd is facing some disturbing claims from her daughter. Greg Gayne/NBC Grace Kelley, the daughter of country music legend Wynonna Judd, was in the headlines plenty last year, and none of it was good. She was arrested three times, and things were not rough for her. But now the 29-year-old is speaking out about her issues, and what she has to say is disturbing to say the least, and it doesnt shine a good light on the country music legend. Kelley told The Daily Progress that her stepfather, D.R. Roach, sexually abused her when she was 10 years old, and that Wynonna failed to protect her. Judd divorced Roach in Sept. 2007, according to Taste of Country, after he was arrested on charges of sexually battery of a minor, but Kelley claims the truth had already come out during family counseling. I dont want to talk bad about my mom, but well just say shes a good performer, Kelley said. She was never a mother. According to Taste of Country, Roach eventually pleaded guilty to criminal attempt to commit aggravated sexual battery and is still listed on Tennessees sex offender registry. The good news coming from Kelley is that she said she is sober now, has embraced religion, and is living in Virginia where she is rebuilding her life. Judd meanwhile is raising Kelleys 3-year-old daughter. Taste of Country noted that Judd told Oprah in 2010 that she went into mama bear mode when the accusations against her ex-husband emerged. Kelley third arrest of 2024 came back on Oct. 27 in Albemarle County, Virginia. PEOPLE Magazine reported that Kelley was facing seven charges, including three counts of felony grand larceny for that incident. The site said she was also charged with driving without a license, destruction of property with intent, failure to use headlights and setting in motion a vehicle with intent to commit a crime. Kelley was accused of stealing a Charlottesville area churchs van. A GoFundMe launched by the church to help pay for a new van said that the vehicle was stolen from in front of our pastors homes by Grace Pauline Kelley. Kent Hart, the churchs pastor, reportedly chased Kelley down when she was pulling out of his driveway in the van. Kelley also had some disturbing run-ins with the law earlier in 2024. She was arrested in Georgia in August and charged with fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, driving with a suspended/revoked license and not using motorcycle equipment properly, per PEOPLE. She was also reportedly arrested in Alabama in April and she was accused of exposing her breasts and lower body along a busy highway there. Retired Rhode Island Judge Frank Caprio attends the 51st annual Daytime Emmys Awards at The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Los Angeles on June 07, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Caprio passed away from pancreatic cancer at 88. (Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images) Judge Frank Caprio, who is mostly known for his heartfelt viral court moments from the local television series Caught in Providence, which earned himself and the show national attention, has died. He was 88. On Wednesday, a post on his official Facebook page confirmed that Caprio passed away peacefully after a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. Beloved for his compassion, humility, and unwavering belief in the goodness of people, Judge Caprio touched the lives of millions through his work in the courtroom and beyond, the statement continued. His warmth, humor, and kindness left an indelible mark on all who knew him. The statement further said the former Providence, Rhode Island, judge will be remembered not only as a respected judge, but as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend. His legacy lives on in the countless acts of kindness he inspired. In his honor, may we strive to bring a little more compassion into the world just as he did every day. Caprio became known as the nicest judge in the world for his compassion in the courtroom and the leniency he gave to those who needed it most. Caught in Providence, premiered in 2000 and earned four Daytime Emmy nominations. Compassion, understanding and sympathy really emanates from my upbringing, my early childhood, Caprio told GMA3 in February while he was promoting his book, Compassion in the Court: Life-Changing Stories From Americas Nicest Judge. My parents were from Italy and they took care of all the neighbors and helped them, and it was those influences that really influenced my life. Sometimes you can change somebodys life just by placing your hand on your shoulder and telling them you believe in them, Caprio said to NBC Boston in 2024. Caprio was born into an Italian-American family in Providence, Rhode Island, on Nov. 23, 1936, according to a profile from Rhode Island Monthly. Prior to law, he taught American government at Hope High School in Providence. He graduated from Suffolk University School of Law, after attending night school. He served as a Providence Municipal Court Judge from 1985 to 2023. The judge went on to become a household name when Caught in Providence was syndicated and later became available on Prime Video. In December 2023, Caprio shared a heartbreaking video on social media about his cancer diagnosis. I would ask each of you in your own way to please pray for me, he began in the video at the time. Quite recently, I was not feeling well and received a medical examination and the report was not a good one. I have been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, which is an insidious form of cancer, he continued. Fortunately, he said he was being treated for the disease. I know this is a long road and Im fully prepared to fight as hard as I can, he added, thanking followers for their kind messages. I am in need for the power of prayer which I believe in addition to medical treatment that Im receiving, is the most powerful weapon to help me survive this. Just knowing that you were keeping me in your thoughts means the world to me. Winter's not actually that far off, when you think about it. So, here's the forecast for this upcoming season. (Getty Images) Getty Images Ah, summer the temperatures are up (or were, anyway); the motivation to work is down; and the majority of people are doing their best to ignore the Christmas stuff thats already being sold in stores with every fiber of their being. That being said and considering the fact that August is practically over heres what the 2025-26 winter forecast is for Pennsylvania. Indeed, the Farmers Almanac not too long after the Old Farmers Almanac released their fall forecast recently released the winter forecast for all over the United States. As for as Pennsylvania goes, the majority of the state will experience a winter thats cold and snow-filled. Other parts will be very cold and snowy. Frequent snowstorms in New England should keep snow lovers happy, the almanac reads. Areas up and down the Atlantic Coast will see significant rain, mixing with now from time-to-time. The Mid-Atlantic region is forecast to see some decent snow, especially for areas in the mountains. The Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and North Central states are set for a classic winter wonderland, while the Pacific Northwest mountains are gearing up for some impressive snowfall totals. The Farmers Almanac also predicts there will be a significant cold snap in mid-January [that] will keep most shivering. Another one is expected in February, with Northwestern states particularly Idaho and Washington experiencing the coldest weather. The winter solstice is December 21. For now summer still abounds for a little over a month (thank goodness). A sign stands at Prospect Ranch outside of Prospect Valley Dairy east of Keenesburg, Colo., on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (Chris Bolin/Denver Post via AP) AP By MORGAN LEE and AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press A gas exposure incident at a dairy in a rural Colorado farming community killed six people, including a high school student, authorities said Thursday. Investigators are looking into what kind of gases may have played a role in the deaths Wednesday at Prospect Valley Dairy in Keenesburg, about 35 miles northeast of Denver. Crews recovered the bodies in a confined space at the dairy, the Southeast Weld Fire Protection District said. We are investigating these deaths as the possible consequence of gas exposure in a confined space, said Jolene Weiner, chief deputy coroner for Weld County. The identities of those who died, all males, were being withheld pending notification of the families, Weiner said. A local school district said a high school student was among those who died. Weld County Sheriffs Office spokesperson Melissa Chesmore said her agency didnt find anything indicating a crime took place. It looks like an accident, she said, declining to elaborate or say where exactly the bodies were found, referring questions to occupational safety regulators. Chauntra Rideaux, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson, said in an email that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was investigating. The farm is a member of the Dairy Farmers of America, the group said. This image taken from video provided by DENVER7 shows a dairy in Keenesburg, Colo., on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, where authorities say six people died from an apparent accident involving exposure to gas. (DENVER7/KMGH via AP) AP We are deeply saddened by this incident, and our thoughts and most sincere condolences go out to the friends and families of the deceased. At this early stage, we have no further details, the farmer-owned cooperative said in a statement. County tax records say the property is owned by Prospect Valley Dairy LLC and list a Bakersfield, California, address for the owners. Phone messages left for a number at the California address were not immediately returned. Weld County is a major agricultural producer. Three-quarters of its land is devoted to farming and raising livestock. Its Colorados leading dairy producer and the states biggest source of beef cattle, grain and sugar beets. Erik Menendez was denied parole after meeting with the board via teleconference on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. (California Department of Corrections via AP) AP LOS ANGELES (AP) Erik Menendez was denied parole Thursday. His brother will be next to plead his case before a parole board on Friday. Their separate hearings this week come nearly 30 years the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder in 1995 for the 1989 killings of their parents. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996. But after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life in May, they immediately became eligible for parole under California law because they were under age 26 when they committed their crimes. Who are the Menendez brothers, and what did they do? Lyle and Erik Menendez are the sons of Jose and Kitty Menendez. Jose, a Cuban-American business executive who at one time was an executive at RCA Records, moved his family from Princeton, New Jersey, to California when the brothers were teenagers. Erik Menendez, left, and his brother Lyle, in front of their Beverly Hills home in the 1980s. (Los Angeles Times, file) Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag On Aug. 20, 1989, Lyle Menendez dialed 911 to report the shotgun killings of their parents inside their home. Both brothers told investigators that the murders were related to the Mafia or had something to do with their fathers business dealings. At the time, Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21. With access to the familys wealth, the brothers spent small fortunes on Rolex watches, cars and houses. But two months after the killings, Erik Menendez confessed to his psychologist that he and his brother killed their parents. What were the brothers charged with? They were arrested early the following year and charged with first-degree murder. The brothers claimed that their father emotionally and sexually abused them since childhood, but prosecutors contended that getting access to his money was the motive. The first trial started in 1993. Defense attorneys never disputed that the brothers killed their parents but argued that they acted out of self-defense. Their trials resulted in hung juries. In 1995 a jury convicted them on three counts including first-degree murder, plus lying in-wait and special circumstance allegations. They were sentenced to life without parole in 1996. How did they spend their years in prison? For years the brothers filed petitions for appeals from behind bars, but they were denied by state and federal judges. The brothers have engaged in education while in prison, participated in self-help classes and started various support groups for fellow prisoners. They also launched a prison beautification project inspired by the Norwegian approach to incarceration that believes rehabilitation in humane prisons surrounded by nature leads to successful reintegration into society, even for people who have committed terrible crimes. Related: Little Scandinavia prison experiment in Pa. shows promise, prompts calls for expansion Over the years the Menendez case has continued to fascinate the public, and the brothers became celebrities of sorts. They also were the subjects of true crime shows including last years nine-episode Netflix crime drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. A few weeks after that aired, then-LA County District Attorney George Gascon announced that he was reviewing new evidence in the case. On Oct. 24, 2024, prosecutors said they would petition the court to resentence the brothers. And in May 2025, an LA County Superior Court judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. FILE - This combination of two booking photos provided by the California Department of Corrections shows Erik Menendez, left, and Lyle Menendez. (California Dept. of Corrections via AP, File) AP What is the role of the parole board? The board is tasked with assessing whether the brothers pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released, considering factors like criminal history, motivation for the crime, signs of remorse, behavior while in prison and plans for the future, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Nearly all the Menendez brothers family members support releasing them. Their uncle Milton Andersen, who opposed it, died from cancer in March. Could one receive parole and not the other? Los Angeles trial attorney David Ring has said that if one brother has been a troublemaker in prison and the other has not, its conceivable that one could stay locked up while the other is goes free. But Ring, who is not involved with the case, called that unlikely. President Donald Trump, from left, speaks as Cody Campbell, WWE CCO Triple H and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listen during an event for the signing of an executive order restarting the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools, Thursday, July 31, 2025, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) AP By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research funding in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the Supreme Court decided Thursday. The split court lifted a judges order blocking $783 million worth of cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to align with Republican President Donald Trumps priorities. The court split 5-4 on the decision. Chief Justice John Roberts was among those who wouldnt have allowed the cuts, along with the courts three liberals. The high court did keep the Trump administration anti-DEI guidance on future funding blocked with a key vote from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, however. The decision marks the latest Supreme Court win for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with canceling hundreds of grants while the lawsuit continues to unfold. The plaintiffs, including states and public-health advocacy groups, have argued that the cuts will inflict incalculable losses in public health and human life. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has said funding decisions should not be subject to judicial second-guessing and efforts to promote policies referred to as DEI can conceal insidious racial discrimination. The lawsuit addresses only part of the estimated $12 billion of NIH research projects that have been cut, but in its emergency appeal, the Trump administration also took aim at nearly two dozen other times judges have stood in the way of its funding cuts. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said judges shouldnt be considering those cases under an earlier Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for teacher-training program cuts that the administration also linked to DEI. He says they should go to federal claims court instead. Five conservative justices agreed, and Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a short opinion in which he criticized lower-court judges for not adhering to earlier high court orders. All these interventions should have been unnecessary, Gorsuch wrote. The plaintiffs, 16 Democratic state attorneys general and public-health advocacy groups had unsuccessfully argued that research grants are fundamentally different from the teacher-training contracts and couldnt be sent to claims court. They said that defunding studies midway though halts research, ruins data already collected and ultimately harms the countrys potential for scientific breakthroughs by disrupting scientists work in the middle of their careers. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a lengthy dissent in which she criticized both the outcome and her colleagues willingness to continue allowing the administration to use the courts emergency appeals process. This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins, she wrote, referring to the fictional game in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. In June, U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts had ruled that the cancellations were arbitrary and discriminatory. Ive never seen government racial discrimination like this, Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, said at a hearing. He later added: Have we no shame. An appeals court had left Youngs ruling in place. NASHVILLE, Tenn. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges. The Salvadoran nationals case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trumps immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges. Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order. On Friday, after two months, Abrego Garcia walked out of the Putnam County jail wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt and black pants and accompanied by defense attorney Rascoe Dean and two other men. They did not speak to reporters but got into a white SUV and sped off. The release order from the court requires Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland, where he will be in home detention with his brother designated as his custodian. He is required to submit to electronic monitoring and can only leave the home for work, religious services and other approved activities. An attorney for Abrego Garcia in his deportation case in Maryland, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday his client had been reunited with his loving family for the first time since he was wrongfully deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in March. While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe, Sandoval-Moshenberg said. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. Earlier this week, Abrego Garcias criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the smuggling case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador. In a statement Friday, defense attorney Sean Hecker reiterated his contention that his client was unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the governments vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administrations continuing assault on the rule of law. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning. A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge denied his application for asylum but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a well-founded fear of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit. Although Abrego Garcia cant be deported to El Salvador without violating the judges order, Homeland Security officials have said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country. A Lancaster County family received shelter and assistance from the American Red Cross after a tree smashed their home Wednesday morning. The tree fell at 11:44 a.m. hitting the home in the 300 block of Arcadia Trace Road in Fulton Township, according to the Robert Fulton Fire Company. Fire crews published photos showing the extensive damage from the tree limbs that penetrated the roof and ceiling of the home. American Red Cross responded to the scene to assist four people who were displaced. Fire crews said they cleared enough debris away to let the residents back inside the home. They checked the home for electrical hazards or structural damages, but no issues were found. No injuries were reported. The scene was clear around 12:15 p.m. A visitor photographs the rough surf caused by Hurricane Erin in the Holgate section of Long Beach Township on Thursday, August 21, 2025. Jim Lowney | For NJ Advance Media Some beaches at the Jersey Shore were still closed by daybreak Friday after the fringes of Hurricane Erin passed by, creating strong ocean swells that prompted warnings for rip currents. Police in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest on Friday morning expected their towns beaches to be closed for at least a portion of the day for debris to be cleared. Officials in both towns urged residents and tourists to avoid the beaches and expected to have more information about reopening them later Friday. Wildwood Crest Mayor Don Cabrera was touring the boroughs beach Friday morning to assess the storms impacts. He anticipated the beaches being closed most of the day to prepare for weekend. Avalon also announced that several access points were closed Friday morning: 10th, 11th, 14th, 15th and 16th streets. The towns public works department is working to reopen them. Coastal flooding from a winter snowstorm inundates houses along New York Avenue, Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016, in North Wildwood, N.J. (AP Photo/Robb Nunzio) AP Cabrera said debris on the sand ranged from lifeguard stands to beach chair rental stands. A lot of that stuff was moved because the tides came up pretty high, Cabrera told NJ Advance Media. We dont believe there was any significant damage. The National Weather Service said Thursday evenings high tide brought the greatest risk of moderate flooding at the Jersey Shore. Upper Township Mayor Curtis Corson told NJ Advance Media the high water levels on the towns beaches have led to the closure of 12 street entrances. Corson said Upper Townships beaches will remain closed today until the ocean settles down and officials can properly guard the beaches. Theres also a high risk of dangerous rip currents and high surf advisories in effect for the entire Jersey Shore through Friday. And forecasters are warning that rip currents will remain dangerous through Saturday as well. Hurricane Erin prompted Gov. Phil Murphy to declare a state of emergency for all 21 counties. Even though the powerful storm was several hundred miles away from the Shore on Thursday, its effects prompted at least 16 beaches in New Jersey to post red warning flags and ban swimming earlier in the week. Many of those towns said theyd be monitoring conditions to make decisions about reopening once the storm passes. Early forecasts call for warmer-than-average temperatures this fall for much of Pennsylvania. Jimmie Brown | jbrown@pennlive.com This fall may be warmer than usual, according to the latest long-term forecasts. The National Weather Services Climate Prediction Center released its Seasonal Temperature Outlook this week for the months of September, October and November of 2025. According to the three month outlook, there is a slight chance for warmer-than-average temperatures in western Pennsylvania, and better chance NOAA calls it likely for warmer temperatures for central and eastern Pennsylvania. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a fall temperature forecast for 2025. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The prediction suggests a 50-60% chance of warmer fall temperatures in a band that stretches across New Jersey, Delaware and much of New York in addition to the eastern half of Pennsylvania. The chances of a warmer-than-average fall are even higher in New England and much of the American Southwest. Similarly, Accuweather promises a warm start to the fall in the northeastern United States. Warm, humid air will hold firm across the eastern United States through the start of autumn, delaying the true arrival of fall-like weather conditions reads the forecast summary on Accuweathers website. In the summary, senior meteorologist Alan Reppert also states that allergies from grass and weed pollen will run higher than average into early fall from the Plains to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast where rainfall has been frequent and heavy throughout the late spring and summer. Precipitation forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the fall suggest that Pennsylvania, along with most of the country, can expect the usual amounts of rain over the next three months. However, much of the central and western United States are expected to receive much less rain than the average autumn. Accuweather also predicts some chance of severe weather such as thunderstorms across Pennsylvania in the coming months, as the collision of lingering summer warmth and encroaching cold air will trigger severe weather from the central Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley. The risk of severe weather, including tornadoes, increases to our south and west, in a band stretching from Illinois to Alabama. Finally, Accuweather predicts some chance of early snows in northern and western Pennsylvania, with a possibility as early as November. News / National by Staff reporter The Government has announced plans to build three additional road interchanges in Harare over the next 12 months, aiming to reduce congestion and modernise the capital's road network, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona said on Thursday.Speaking at the official opening of the completed section of Alpes Road, Mhona revealed that construction is already underway at the Mabvuku turn-off interchange, with future projects planned at Harare Drive and Mutare Road, as well as Harare Drive and Airport Road."These projects are not stopping with the completion of the Trabablas Interchange. That was only the beginning. We are determined to build more such facilities because they are critical to the smooth flow of traffic," Mhona said.In addition to the interchanges, several major roads in the capital will undergo upgrades. Alpes Road will be widened all the way to Borrowdale Road and eventually extended into Mashonaland Central province. The stretch from State House along Borrowdale Road will become a four-lane highway, while the section between Borrowdale Police Station and Domboshava will be upgraded to six lanes before narrowing further north.Mhona highlighted the economic significance of Alpes Road, which serves areas hosting Wild Geese Lodge and the Geo Pomona Waste Management Company, as well as key landmarks such as Glen Forest Cemetery and the Zimbabwe Open University campus in Hatcliff. "The idea behind our planning is to ensure roads are not only trafficable but also serve the growing economic and social needs of the country," he said.The Minister also announced plans to rehabilitate dusty roads in Hatcliff to improve connectivity for local communities under the Government's development philosophy, "Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo" (A nation is built by its own people).To curb corruption often associated with road tenders, most upcoming projects will be assigned to the Central Mechanical Equipment Department (CMED), a government parastatal. "With CMED, which is a government entity, there is no room for suspicions, and procurement processes are also shortened," Mhona explained.The new measures are expected to transform Harare's road network into a modern, efficient system capable of handling the capital's rapidly growing traffic volumes. How Poker's New Celeb 'Monarch' Went from 'Annoying Scammer' to Exposing Scammers Jon Sofen Senior Editor U.S. Copy link Ossi Ketola, aka "Monarch," the high roller who lost $15 million on Tuesday to Dan "Jungleman" Cates, is an admitted rehabilitated scammer. The Finnish poker player, by his own account, was once a "little annoying scammer" in the role-playing game world. He fessed up to his past transgressions last year in a lengthy tweet that created engagement among those who've followed his professional career in the Counter-Strike community. From Scammer to Exposing Scams Monarch, who has $4,750,000 in live poker tournament cashes, according to The Hendon Mob, claims he "started off as a little annoying scammer playing RuneScape," a fantasy multiplayer online role-playing game, when he was a youth (ages 6-13). He explained that his scam involved promising "to double your items if you gave them to me, but conveniently log out after you give me your stuff." Ketola, at age 14, started running businesses within the industry and began developing "quite a hatred towards scammers." He became known for outing and exposing scammers and "finding creative ways of putting them out of business." The young entrepreneur, at age 18 in 2016, started CSGOEmpire, a CSGO gambling site that claims to be "one of the first licensed and regulated skin gambling websites, and we do our best to make the system as fair and as transparent as possible." CSGOEmpire was created to counter the shady Counter-Strike gambling sites that operate illegally and unchecked. "Over the years, I exposed countless casinos for their fraudulent behavior," Ketola wrote. Monarch's tweet was met with heavy criticism from those who aren't buying his story, however. One person went so far as to call him a "weird schizophrenic freak," while another claims "he's still the most scummy scammer the internet has ever seen." Tough Loss to 'Jungleman' Dan \"Jungleman\" Cates Ketola has focused on poker more than business the past few days, challenging high-stakes pros at the Onyx Super High Roller Series Cyprus to compete for massive heads-up stakes. He first battled with Danish high roller Kayhan Mokri on Monday, losing $2 million. The Finnish poker player then challenged one of the best poker players in the world, Jungleman, to a series of nosebleed heads-up matches. Cates won four of the six matches for a $15 million profit. Ketola, during the final match, frustratingly questioned if the deck was rigged against him. He even called for his opponent to play without accessing his cell phone after losing a $5 million game. Monarch, however, wants more heads-up action and has even challenged heads-up legend Doug Polk to a match. A poker fan on X asked him if he'd face Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu. He replied: would love to, I think hes super gay. Would love to mog him. Mog, in online slang, means to completely outclass or dominate someone. Monarch competed in and lost the largest televised poker game in history to Jungleman, and it doesn't appear it's going to deter him from continuing to play at such massive stakes. 'Jungleman' Wins Three Consecutive Heads-Up Poker Matches for $15 Million Profit Share this article How to Exploit Non-GTO Players With GTO Wizard Matthew Pitt Senior Editor Copy link Table Of Contents Preflop Mistakes Sizing Tells There is a common misconception that you do not need to study Game Theory Optimal (GTO) strategies if you frequent low-to-mid-stakes games. While it is true that many players at these limits stray far away from equilibrium, using a solver like GTO Wizard can still provide significant benefits. Knowing about poker's fundamental factors and strategic concepts, and being able to identify what your opponents are doing wrong, enables you to devise a strategy to capitalize on those errors. GTO Wizard recently published the first of two parts of a detailed blog article, which discusses common preflop mistakes and bet sizing tips that you can use when you know your opponent is not playing a GTO strategy. Preflop Mistakes One of the most common mistakes players make, particularly those in a low-to-mid-stakes setting, is to have a three-betting range that is too tight. These players understand that they want to three-bet with their strongest hands preflop because they want to start building a larger pot. However, they struggle to three-bet with weaker hands from this unique position. If you come up against an opponent who seems blissfully unaware of how aggressive they should be from the big blind, you can take advantage before any community cards are dealt. Consider opening slightly wider A passive opponent means you'll get to see the flop more often than you should, meaning you get to realize more equity on average. Players who are passive preflop tend to continue that passivity on later streets, resulting in more and cheaper turns and rivers. A passive opponent means you'll get to see the flop more often than you should, meaning you get to realize more equity on average. Players who are passive preflop tend to continue that passivity on later streets, resulting in more and cheaper turns and rivers. Fold More to a Tight Three-Bet Range An opponent whose three-bet range from the big blind is too tight can be taken advantage of by folding more than you theoretically should. Marginal hands are the first cards to drop, followed by some slightly winning hands, depending on how tight your opponent is. An opponent whose three-bet range from the big blind is too tight can be taken advantage of by folding more than you theoretically should. Marginal hands are the first cards to drop, followed by some slightly winning hands, depending on how tight your opponent is. Four-Bet Less Against a Tight Big Blind Make four-bets with a tight, nutted range against a tight big blind. There is no point bluffing into a range that only consists of value hands, is there? GTO Wizard Becomes Even More Powerful; 3-Way Postflop Spots Now Solvable Learn more Another common mistake is continuing too passively when playing out of position and facing a three-bet, a common scenario. In a 100 big blind, six-handed cash game, if an opponent opens to 2.5 big blinds from the cutoff, and you three-bet to 7.5 big blinds from the button, the cutoff should four-bet approximately 40% of their continuing range, according to GTO Wizard's calculations. You can bet your bottom dollar that most low-to-mid-stakes opponents you face will not be four-betting this often. Having a positional disadvantage means you also have an informational disadvantage because the player in position gets to observe the action their opponent is taking, which can reveal more information about the strength of their range or hand. As a direct result, the out-of-position player realizes considerably less equity because they don't have the final word in the hand. Both of these factors become more problematic with deeper stacks because a deeper stack depth often results in playing more streets. The most logical response is for the out-of-position player to four-bet to try to take down the hand preflop or to reduce the postflop stack-to-pot ratio (SPR). An out-of-position player's four-betting range can be broken down into three main categories. One is the absolute best hands, like pairs of jacks or better, and ace-king. Another is hands that don't perform particularly well because they're difficult to play out of position. Think along the lines of strong Broadways. Lastly, hands that fold out better, such as suited ace-five or king-ten. These hands have decent playability of called, but you don't mind folding them to a shove. If your opponent under-bluffs in these spots, you should increase your three-betting aggression with a wider and more linear range. This is because a lack of four-bets from your opponent will see you over-realize equity. Conversely, you should heavily over-fold to four-bets because your opponent's overly tight range will only consist of premium hands, so you don't need to defend as wide against. Sizing Tells How often do you see an opponent select a bet size based on how they value their hand? You see them bet smaller with weaker hands and increase their sizing when they have a strong hand. An opponent who plays their hand almost face-up like this is easy to exploit. By studying with GTO Wizard and using the nodelocking feature, you can devise a strategy to win more money and lose less. GTO Wizard's blog post provides a detailed example of this in action, but we'll cover the basics here at PokerNews. GTO Wizard Reveals Five Poker Habits That Will Make You Unstoppable The cutoff opens, we defend in the big blind, and the flop falls 1084. We check-called a two-thirds continuation bet, leading to the 2 turn. If our assumption is correct that the cutoff uses a larger size for their flushes and a smaller size for the rest of their range, how you act differs dramatically. For example, without nodelocking, GTO Wizard suggests you call with 58.5% of your range, raise with 12.1% of your range, and fold 29.4% of your range to a standard 40% pot bet. However, if you nodelock your opponents' range so that a 40% pot bet doesn't contain flushes, GTO Wizard suggests calling 65.8%, raising 31.1%, and only folding 3.1% of your range! Similarly, facing a 100% pot-sized bet without nodelocking to your opponent's strategy, GTO Wizard states you call 42.1%, raise 6.6% and fold 51.3%. Nodelocking this 100% bet so that it only happens when the cutoff has a flush, GTO Wizard is folding 94.5% of the time, only called 2.4% of the time (with a king-high flush and sets), and raising a mere 3% of the time (only every with an ace-high flush and ace-high flush draw). Considering the above, if you face an opponent who chooses bet sizes like this, you should heavily over-fold once flushes are possible. Conversely, when they bet smaller, consider raising thinner for value and bluffing more often because they are likely not as strong. Studying hand ranges and GTO fundamentals enables you to exploit your opponents when they deviate from GTO strategy. Whenever you're facing a bet, ask yourself what the GTO baseline is, how your opponent is deviating from that line, and what the most +EV way is to respond. Good luck! Share this article News / National by Staff reporter The High Court of Zimbabwe has stripped the Zimbabwe Housing Projects Trust (ZHPT) of control over the Fortune Meadowlands Park housing scheme, in a ruling that underscores the risks faced by aspiring homeowners in poorly regulated land development schemes.The ruling, delivered by Justice Joel Mambara, nullified a March 22, 2019 amendment to a 2013 agreement, citing irregularities that emerged following the death of a key stakeholder, Mudzengi, in 2021. The case was filed by estate executor Isaac Tigere Tichareva, with Gweru City Council, Vungu Rural District Council, and the Master of the High Court also cited as respondents.Justice Mambara directed the estate executor to manage, develop, and service the housing scheme, working directly with beneficiaries to ensure the completion of the project. ZHPT was also ordered to pay legal costs."It's good to make closure to the case and we are giving all the support to the new developer," said Gweru District Development Coordinator Tarisai Mudadigwa, whose office intervened after homeowners petitioned authorities.The ruling brings relief to over 1,000 prospective homeowners, including 390 members of the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association (ZIMTA), many of whom have endured years of uncertainty due to mismanagement, double allocations, and failure to service plots.ZHPT's Chief Operating Officer Donovan Kushata confirmed the trust has filed an appeal, pledging to update clients on developments. Estate executor Oliver Masomera declined to comment, citing the pending appeal.Investigations reveal that ZHPT has faced a series of disputes nationwide over stalled housing projects dating back more than a decade. In Bulawayo, both the 2012 Upper Range Mall project and the 2013 Lower Range Mall project collapsed amid legal wrangles. In Kwekwe, the 2013 NESBY Project saw land reclaimed by the owner after ZHPT failed to develop plots despite the majority of beneficiaries having completed payments. Similar failures have been reported in Shurugwi, Magakooshla, and Zvishavane, leaving land unserviced and homeowners frustrated.These ongoing issues have fueled allegations of mismanagement and deception, with critics accusing ZHPT of collecting millions of dollars from home seekers without delivering infrastructure. Legal analysts say the Fortune Meadowlands ruling could set a precedent for other contested projects, giving estate executors direct control.For the hundreds of families who paid for land over a decade ago, however, the final resolution will depend on the outcome of ZHPT's appeal. Zoe is the editor of Free Times and deputy editor of The Post and Courier Columbia. For unlimited access to the work she and the newsroom publish in South Carolina, head to postandcourier.com/columbia/subscribe/zoe-nicholson for a discounted subscription rate. A reimagined and upgraded kitchen is one result of the yearlong renovation of 20 White Crescent Lane in Simpsonville, which was recently listed for $3.2 million. Myrtle Beach, SC (29577) Today Mostly sunny skies during the morning giving way to clouds and a few showers late. High 87F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low around 70F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Quick Response and Public Safety Reporter Caitlin Bell is a breaking news and courts reporter for The Post and Courier Charleston. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Reporter Conor Hughes covers Greenville County for The Post and Courier. He has been reporting on South Carolina's Upstate for close to a decade, writing about everything from crime, to development, to politics during that time. Charleston, SC (29532) Today A mix of clouds and sun. Less humid. High around 90F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 67F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. News / National by Staff reporter A Zimbabwean student, Ziweya Leeroy, has died after spending eight days in hospital following a violent attack outside Guru Kashi University in Talwandi Sabo. Leeroy, 22, passed away on Thursday at AIIMS Bathinda.The attack occurred on August 13, a day after Leeroy reportedly had an altercation with university security guard Dilpreet Singh. Leeroy, who was pursuing a BSc in Radiology and Imaging Technology (RIT), had joined the university in 2023.Initial investigations revealed that Dilpreet Singh, along with Lovepreet, Mangu, and Manpreet Singh, assaulted Leeroy when he left the university campus. Leeroy sustained serious head injuries and was admitted to AIIMS Bathinda, where he later succumbed to his injuries.The Talwandi Sabo police station initially registered a case against the accused under Sections 109 (attempt to murder), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 190 (unlawful assembly), and 191(3) BNS (rioting with a deadly weapon). Following Leeroy's death, Section 103 BNS (murder) has been added to the case.Bathinda SSP Amneet Kondal confirmed that seven individuals have been arrested in connection with the attack, with efforts ongoing to apprehend two more suspects believed to be involved."Seven persons have been arrested, and efforts are being made to arrest two more persons, who are suspected to be associated with the attack. The section pertaining to murder has been added to the already registered case. Further investigations are being made," SSP Kondal said.Authorities are continuing investigations into the circumstances surrounding the attack, while the university community mourns the loss of the young Zimbabwean student. The Rock Hill branch for the York County Library System could close for several months in 2026 as an electrical wiring project is conducted. PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 13:01:49 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 994 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 EXCELSIOR SPRINGS FULLY FUNDED FOR 2025 DRILLING PROGRAMWHITE ROCK, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Athena Gold Corporation (CSE:ATHA)(OTCQB:AHNRF) ("Athena" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated June 2, 2025, Mammoth Minerals Limited (ASX:M79) (formerly, Firetail Resources Limited) ("Mammoth" or "M79") has exercised its option to be able to earn an 80% interest in Athena's Excelsior Springs project in Nevada, USA (the "Excelsior" project), effective August 19, 2025 (the "Exercise Date"). In consideration. Mammoth has paid Athena AUD$200,000 in cash and issued 32,000,000 ordinary shares in the capital of Mammoth, worth AUD$3,200,000 based on M79's closing price on the Exercise Date."We are pleased to have partnered with a very capable Australian company to build upon our 2023 high-grade gold discovery at Excelsior. Mammoth recently completed a AUD$5 million financing, and per its press release dated August 4, 2025, intends to use these funds to drill Excelsior towards a maiden resource. We continue to retain significant exposure to Excelsior through our royalty interests and our 20% free-carried interest to Definitive Feasibility Study, in addition to our substantial shareholding of M79. The cash and M79 shares further strengthens our balance sheet, comprising over CAD$3 million in cash and securities, at an opportune time as we advance our Ontario gold portfolio, where we are actively defining new targets at our Laird Lake project in Red Lake, ahead of a maiden drill program," said Koby Kushner, President & CEO of Athena.Excelsior Springs OptionAthena entered into a property option agreement (the "Agreement") with Mammoth dated May 28, 2025, granting Mammoth the exclusive right (the "Option") to be able earn an 80% undivided interest in the Excelsior project. In consideration of the Option, Mammoth has paid Athena AUD$200,000 in cash and issued 32,000,000 ordinary shares in the capital of Mammoth. Mammoth is also required to incur not less than USD$5,000,000 in exploration expenditures over a five-year term, commencing from the Exercise Date, to earn its 80% interest. Athena will retain a 20% free-carried interest in the Excelsior project until completion of a Definitive Feasibility Study is by Mammoth. A 1% net smelter return royalty will also be provided to Athena on certain claims comprising the Excelsior project. Athena reserves the right to buy back any pre-existing royalties on the Excelsior project (see press release dated June 2, 2025).Crow Springs TerminationAthena is also pleased to announce that, effective August 18, 2025, it has entered into a Termination Agreement with the vendor of the Crow Springs project, whereby both parties have mutually terminated the April 2, 2022, Memorandum of Understanding regarding the acquisition of the Crow Springs project in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Under the terms of the Agreement, all obligations under the MOU have been fully resolved, with no further payments required and ownership of seven BLM claims reverting to the vendor.About Athena Gold CorporationAthena is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets. Its objective is to locate and develop economic precious and base metal properties of merit and to conduct additional exploration drilling and studies on its projects across North America. Athena's Laird Lake project is situated in the Red Lake Gold District of Ontario, covering over 5,000 hectares along more than 10 km of the Balmer-Confederation Assemblage contact, where recent surface sampling results returned up to 373 g/t Au. This underexplored area is road-accessible, located about 10 km west of West Red Lake Gold's Madsen mine and 34 km northwest of Kinross Gold's Great Bear project. Meanwhile, its Excelsior project is located in the prolific Walker Lane Trend in Nevada, where it is currently under an earn-in option with Mammoth Minerals Limited. The Excelsior project spans over 2,500 hectares and covers at least three historic mines. Athena also holds a 100% interest in its Oneman Lake Au-VMS project in Ontario.For further information about Athena Gold Corporation, please visit www.athenagoldcorp.com On Behalf of the Board of DirectorsKoby KushnerPresident and Chief Executive Officer, Athena Gold CorporationFor further information, please contact:Athena Gold Corporation Koby Kushner, President and Chief Executive Officer Phone: 416-846-6164 Email: kobykushner@ athenagoldcorp.com CHF Capital Markets Cathy Hume, CEO Phone: 416-868-1079 x 251 Email: cathy@ chfir.com Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US. securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding future exploration plans, future results from exploration, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "will", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", ''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. In making the forward-looking statements in this press release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that there will be investor interest in future financings, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future exploration and development of the Company's projects in a timely manner.The 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.Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this press release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise stated.Neither the Ca PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 17:01:35 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 892 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Anthony J. Enea, Esq. Honored as Best Lawyers' Elder Law "Lawyer of the Year" in White PlainsWESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / The law firm of Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP, with offices in White Plains and Somers, N.Y., is pleased to announce that Westchester County elder law attorney Anthony J. Enea, Esq., managing partner, has been named the Best Lawyers 2026 Elder Law "Lawyer of the Year" in White Plains. Mr. Enea, along with partner Sara E. Meyers, Esq., was also selected for inclusion in the 32nd edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the practice areas of Elder Law and Trusts & Estates. In addition, Lauren C. Enea, Esq., partner, was recognized in the 6th edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America.An "AV" Rated Preeminent Attorney (Martindale-Hubbell, since 2002), Anthony J. Enea, Esq. is a past president of the Westchester County Bar Foundation, past chair of the New York State Bar Association's Elder Law & Special Needs Section and 50+ Lawyers Section, and a past president of the Westchester County Bar Association. Named Westchester County's Leading Elder Care Attorney at the Above the Bar Awards, Mr. Enea's practice areas include wills, trusts & estates, elder law, Medicaid asset protection planning, Medicaid applications (home care and nursing home), special needs planning, and guardianships (Article 81 and 17-A).This marks the fifteenth consecutive year Mr. Enea has been included in the Best Lawyers list and his sixth "Lawyer of the Year" honor - awarded to a single attorney in each practice area and geographic region with the highest overall peer feedback. He has also been named as one of Westchester County's "Super Lawyers" annually since 2007."To be recognized again by Best Lawyers in America, especially alongside Sara and Lauren, is a true honor," said Mr. Enea, who has spent nearly 40 years protecting the rights of seniors, the disabled, and their families. "It is a testament to our team's unwavering commitment to excellence in elder law and estate planning." Sara E. Meyers, Esq. concentrates her practice on elder law, estate planning, special needs planning, guardianships, and long-term care planning strategies, with a focus on Medicaid home care and nursing home benefits. Recognized by Best Lawyers in the fields of Elder Law and Trusts & Estates, Ms. Meyers has also been named to the New York Metro Super Lawyers list annually since 2013 and honored as a 2024 914INC. Women in Business award recipient. She is the inaugural chair of the Westchester County Bar Association's Elder Law and Special Needs Committee and past chair of its Adult Guardianship and Elder Law Committees. Ms. Meyers also serves on the New York State Bar Association's Elder Law and Special Needs Executive Committee, is a past 9th District Delegate, and has co-chaired Westchester County Senior Law Day.Lauren C. Enea, Esq. focuses her practice on wills, trusts and estates; Medicaid planning; special needs planning; and probate/estate administration. Named to the Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America list for the fourth consecutive year in 2026, she is also a Rising Star in the 2021-2024 New York Metro edition of Super Lawyers and was recognized with 914 INC.'s Wunderkind Award, the Westchester County Bar Association's Outstanding New Lawyer Award, and Westfair Communications' Millennial Award. Ms. Enea serves on the Executive Committee of the Westchester County Bar Association (WCBA) Trusts and Estates Section, co-chairs the WCBA New Lawyers Section, and co-chairs the Publications Committee of the New York State Bar Association's Elder Law and Special Needs Section. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Columbian Lawyers Association of Westchester County.Regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence in the United States, Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 50,000 leading attorneys cast over five and a half million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers "the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice." Recognition in a Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch list is based entirely on peer review and employs the same methodology that has made Best Lawyers the gold standard for legal rankings worldwide. These awards are given to attorneys who are earlier in their careers for outstanding professional excellence in private practice in America.The Best Lawyers of America is copyright 2026 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, SC. For more information, visit www.bestlawyers.com Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP is located at 245 Main Street, Suite 500 in White Plains and 339 Route 202, Suite 100 in Somers. For more information or to schedule a consultation, call 914-948-1500 or visit www.esslawfirm.com About Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP is an AV preeminent rated elder law firm with offices in White Plains and Somers, N.Y. The practice concentrates on Elder Law; Medicaid Planning; Nursing Home and Home Care Applications; Estate Tax Planning; Wills, Trusts and Estates; Guardianships; Estate Litigation; Supplemental Needs Trusts; and Special Needs Planning. Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP serves Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and Queens and is committed to providing the highest quality legal services to seniors, the disabled and their families. Visit the firm online at www.esslawfirm.com Press Contact Kelly LeeCo-Communications914-666-0066 x 107 klee@ cocommunications.com SOURCE: Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 20:59:12 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 546 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Leading securities law firmBleichmar Fonti & Auld LLPannounces an investigation into BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE:BRBR) for potential violations of the federal securities laws.If you invested in BellRing, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/bellring-brands-inc-class-action-lawsuit Why is BellRing Being Investigated?BellRing Brands operates in the convenient nutrition category. The Company's primary brands include Premier Protein and Dymatize, which offer ready-to-drink ("RTD") protein shakes and powders. During the relevant period, the Company stated that Premier Protein "hit an all-time high in household penetration" and that "demand remains strong." The Company also stated that its growth was "strong in all channels," driven by "distribution expansion, accelerating velocities and incremental promotional activity." In truth, the Company's sales growth during the relevant period may have been driven by temporary trade inventory loading at several key retailers, not sustainable end-consumer demand.The Stock Declines as the Truth Is RevealedOn May 5, 2025, after market hours, BellRing revealed that starting in Q2 2023, "several key retailers lowered their weeks of supply on hand," which would create a headwind to Q3 2025 growth. The Company also announced it was expanding promotions to boost sales and "offset [] third quarter reductions in retailer trade inventory levels." On this news, the price of BellRing stock fell $13.96 per share, or more than 18%, from $77.34 per share on May 5, 2025, to $63.38 per share on May 6, 2025.Then, on August 4, 2025, after market hours, BellRing announced disappointing quarterly consumption of Premier Protein RTD Shakes, which had been expected to outpace shipments by a wider margin given previously announced retailer destocking, but instead came "more in line" with shipments. On this news, the price of BellRing Brands stock fell $17.46 per share, or nearly 33%, from $53.64 per share on August 4, 2025, to $36.18 per share on August 5, 2025.Click here for more information: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/bellring-brands-inc-class-action-lawsuit What Can You Do?If you invested in BellRing 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?BFA is a leading international law firm representing plaintiffs in securities class actions and shareholder litigation. It has been named a top plaintiff law firm by Chambers USA, The Legal 500, and ISS SCAS, and its attorneys have been named "Elite Trial Lawyers" by the National Law Journal, among the top "500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers" by Lawdragon, "Titans of the Plaintiffs' Bar" by Law360 and "SuperLawyers" by Thomson Reuters. Among its recent notable successes, BFA recovered over $900 million in value from Tesla, Inc.'s Board of Directors, 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 News / National by Staff reporter Zimbabwe's healthcare system is under strain as medical doctors continue to leave the country for better opportunities abroad, affecting service delivery, particularly in rural areas, government officials have warned.Deputy Minister of Health, Sleiman Kwidini, told Parliament that the migration of doctors has created a gap in public hospitals, forcing marginalised communities to walk long distances to access medical care."Right now, the challenge of us not getting doctors in these hospitals is that we are still training more doctors because doctors have left the country for greener pastures. Therefore, we are looking forward to having more doctors in 2029 to 2030 to service these rural hospitals," Kwidini said.He highlighted a lack of accommodation facilities in rural clinics as one of the barriers to deploying doctors effectively."It is true that we need doctors in rural hospitals so that elderly people do not have to travel long distances to see doctors. We have a challenge with the doctors' houses in district hospitals. Once accommodation is provided, doctors can be stationed closer to the communities," he said.Kwidini also noted that placing doctors in smaller clinics is difficult due to low patient volumes in some areas.The shortage has left public hospitals struggling, forcing many citizens to rely on private healthcare facilities, which are often unaffordable for the poor.President Emmerson Mnangagwa has pledged improvements to the public health system, with renovations underway at parts of Parirenyatwa Hospital to enhance service delivery.The government continues to emphasise the need to retain medical professionals and improve working conditions to reverse the ongoing brain drain. PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 00:45:09 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 305 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 / Levi & Korsinsky notifies investors that it has commenced an investigation of Encompass Health Corporation ("Encompass Health Corporation") (NYSE:EHC) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.On July 15, 2025, the New York Times published an article, entitled "Even Grave Errors at Rehab Hospitals Go Unpenalized and Undisclosed," discussing the state of the private rehabilitation hospital industry. In the article, the Times specifically identified Encompass as one of the for-profit rehab corporations that "have had rare but serious incident of patient harm and perform below average on two key safety measure tracked by Medicare." The article went on to note specific examples highlighting significant patient safety concerns, medication errors, and an overall lack of oversight at Encompass' hospitals.Following this news, Encompass' stock price fell by $12.39 per share to close at $ 107.28 per share. 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: 2025-08-22 01:00:19 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 485 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 CLEARWATER, FLORIDA / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 / Home Team Luxury Rentals, a boutique short-term rental management company specializing in high-end vacation homes, announced today its official expansion into California's top Airbnb markets. The company now offers full-service property management across Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Malibu, Newport Beach, and every city in San Diego County, with additional coverage in dozens of luxury destinations statewide.Known for its VIP-level guest experiences, hassle-free income for property owners, and ROI-focused management strategies, Home Team Luxury Rentals is redefining what it means to invest in and operate luxury vacation rentals. The move into California marks a significant milestone for the Rise Collective brand family, which includes Home Team Luxury Rentals, BNB Lending, BNB Construction, and STR Realtor Search.Luxury-Focused Management Across CaliforniaFrom iconic coastal escapes in Malibu to vibrant urban stays in San Francisco and family-friendly homes near San Diego's beaches, the company is positioned to serve California's most in-demand short-term rental markets. Home Team Luxury Rentals' services include:End-to-End Multi-Channel Approach - Listing optimization, guest communications, and dynamic pricing powered by market-leading software.Luxury Guest Experiences - Customized check-in, 24/7 concierge service, and curated amenities including pools, smart-home technology, and hot tubs.Owner Performance Dashboards - Real-time access to occupancy rates, ROI benchmarks, and revenue performance.Property Enhancement & Design - Assistance with upgrades that increase nightly rates and booking volume.A Statement from the Brand"California is one of the most competitive and rewarding short-term rental markets in the world," said [Insert Founder/Spokesperson Name], Co-Founder of Home Team Luxury Rentals. "Our expansion here is about more than managing properties-it's about creating exceptional guest experiences while maximizing returns for owners. We're obsessed with the details that make luxury rentals stand out, and California is the perfect stage for that." Why It MattersWith California attracting millions of visitors each year and maintaining some of the nation's strongest Airbnb demand, luxury-focused management is key to achieving sustainable returns. By leveraging data-driven pricing, design expertise, and high-touch guest care, Home Team Luxury Rentals helps property owners turn vacation homes into top-performing investments.AvailabilityHome Team Luxury Rentals' services are now available across all major California markets, including but not limited to:Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Malibu, Newport Beach, Palm Springs, Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, Sonoma, Fresno, Sacramento, and every city in San Diego County.About Home Team Luxury RentalsHome Team Luxury Rentals is a premier property management company under the Rise Collective brand, specializing in luxury short-term rentals across the United States. With no cap on the number of properties managed, the company offers comprehensive services for Airbnb and VRBO hosts, including marketing, guest management, and ROI optimization. Sister companies BNB Lending, BNB Construction, BNB Turnkey, and STR Realtor Search provide investors with a complete ecosystem for success in short-term rental ownership.Contact InformationAlbert BrownDigital Marketing Manageralbert@ rise-collective.com 6195862817SOURCE: The Rise Collective PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 23:05:09 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 868 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NORTH SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Australia has just made a decision that will fundamentally change the English proficiency testing landscape for immigration candidates worldwide. The official acceptance of CELPIP (Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program) across Australian immigration pathways represents more than just another testing option, it's a shift that creates more opportunities for strategic test-takers. You no longer have to depend on just IELTS and PTE, as you can now use CELPIP for your immigration requirements; this is especially important if you have been struggling with exams like IELTS and PTE.This development arrives at a crucial moment when traditional English testing approaches are failing thousands of capable candidates. The question isn't whether you can communicate in English; it's whether you can systematically demonstrate your proficiency in a way that unlocks your Australian immigration dreams.Learn more: https://hzadeducation.com/product/classes-celpip/ The Strategic Disruption Australia Didn't See Coming For decades, Australian immigration candidates have operated within a constrained testing ecosystem dominated by IELTS and PTE. This limitation has created artificial barriers for many qualified applicants who possess strong English skills but struggle with specific test formats or academic-focused assessments.CELPIP's entry into the Australian market disrupts this status quo by introducing a fundamentally different approach to English proficiency evaluation. Unlike traditional tests that emphasize academic English,CELPIPassesses practical communication skills through real-world scenarios, workplace interactions, everyday conversations, and professional correspondence that directly mirror the Australian immigration experience.This shift represents a strategic advantage for informed candidates who recognize that test selection can be as important as test preparation in achieving immigration success.Why Most English Proficiency Preparation Fails Before It Begins The emergence of CELPIP in Australia has created an immediate challenge: how do you prepare for a test that most preparation providers don't truly understand? This knowledge gap has led to a dangerous trend of generic English improvement strategies being marketed as CELPIP preparation.Through extensive analysis of over 100,000 student interactions atHZad Education , a clear pattern emerges. Students who achieve 9+ scores don't simply improve their English, they master the systematic application of test-specific strategies. The difference is profound and measurable.Traditional preparation approaches fail because they treat CELPIP as an English assessment rather than a systematic evaluation of structured communication skills. Students spend months improving their general English proficiency while remaining fundamentally unprepared for CELPIP's specific requirements and scoring methodologies.Get started with your CELPIP learning today: https://hzadeducation.com/product/classes-celpip/ The HZad Education Revolution: Where AI Meets Human Expertise The solution to systematic CELPIP success lies in recognizing that effective preparation requires both technological precision and human insight. HZad Education has pioneered this approach through a hybrid learning model that leverages artificial intelligence while maintaining the irreplaceable value of expert human feedback. This helps students immensely in CELPIP reading, listening, writing, and speaking modules.Technological Precision Meets Educational Excellence The integration of AI-powered mock tests creates an unprecedented level of preparation accuracy. These simulations don't approximate the CELPIP experience, they replicate it with precise fidelity to interface design, timing constraints, and question complexity. Students practice under authentic conditions while receiving instant performance analytics that identify improvement opportunities with mathematical precision.However, technology alone cannot bridge the gap between practice performance and actual results. This is where HZad Education's systematic approach becomes transformative through the integration of examiner-style human corrections that mirror official scoring criteria.The Template Mastery Framework Success in CELPIP requires more than English proficiency, it demands strategic response construction using proven frameworks. HZad Education's template mastery system provides students with specific structural approaches for every task type, eliminating the guesswork that derails even highly proficient English speakers.These templates aren't generic suggestions; they're systematically developed frameworks that consistently generate high-scoring responses when properly applied. Students learn to approach CELPIP not as a creative writing exercise, but as a systematic demonstration of structured communication skills.Intensive Training Protocol for Maximum Efficiency The traditional approach to test preparation assumes that more time equals better results. HZad Education's methodology challenges this assumption through an intensive 15-hour training protocol that achieves significant score improvements through focused, strategic preparation.This efficiency emerges from targeting exactly what CELPIP examiners evaluate while eliminating activities that don't directly contribute to score improvement. Students invest their preparation time in high-impact activities rather than generic English practice that may improve communication but doesn't necessarily improve CELPIP performance.Australia's CELPIP Advantage: A Window of Strategic Opportunity The acceptance of CELPIP in Australia creates a unique competitive advantage for informed test-takers. While most candidates continue with familiar testing options, strategic applicants can leverage several key advantages that this transition provides.Practical Assessment Alignment CELPIP's focus on workplace and social communication scenarios aligns perfectly with Australia's skilled migration priorities. Candidates demonstrate proficiency in contexts that directly relate to successful integration into Australian professional and social environments.Proven Methodology Transfer The systematic success of CELPIP in Canadian immigration provides reliable indicators of its effectiveness for Australian pathways. This established track record eliminates the uncertainty associated with newer or less proven assessment methods.The Accountability Factor: Results-Driven Preparation The most significant differentiator in CELPIP preparation isn't methodology or materials-it's accountability for results. HZad Education's 100% money-back guarantee represents more than marketing confidence; it demonstrates systematic accoun PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 01:21:24 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 953 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Kidoz delivers record results, reinvests in technology, and accelerates marketing to capture the next wave of AdTech growth.VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 / Kidoz Inc. (TSXV:KDOZ)(OTCQB:KDOZF) (the "Company"), announced today its unaudited condensed interim financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. All amounts are presented in United States dollars and are in accordance with United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.Kidoz Inc. is a global AdTech software company that powers privacy-first, high-performance mobile advertising across children, teens, families, and general audiences. Through its Kidoz Safe Ad Network and Prado division, the Company delivers compliant, contextual campaigns at scale, enabling trusted engagement for brands while maintaining the highest standards of digital safety and privacy.Financial highlights H1 2025 include:Total Revenue of $5,168,519 an increase of 21% compared to H1 2024 Total Revenue of $4,272,246.Operating expenses of $4,025,174, an increase of 23% from $3,278,980 in H1 2024.Net loss after tax of ($1,111,340), compared to a net loss after tax of ($1,105,233), in H1 2024.Cash of $2,426,807 and working capital of $3,280,285 as at June 30, 2025, compared to cash of $2,780,517 and working capital of $4,219,588 as at December 31, 2024.Negative Free Cash Flow in H1 2025 of ($346,020) compared to negative Free Cash Flow of ($742,642) in the prior year.Financial highlights Q2 2025 include:Total Revenue of $2,430,216 a decrease of 2% compared to Q2 2024 Total Revenue of $2,479,175.Sales and Marketing expenditure of $598,475, an increase of 95% from $306,747 in Q2 2024.Non-Capitalized R&D expenditures of $1,209,973, an increase of 48% from $817,956 in Q2 2024.Operating expenses of $2,483,485, an increase of 53% from $1,627,099 in Q2 2024.Net loss after tax of ($1,171,482), compared to a net loss after tax of ($385,650) in Q2 2024."Kidoz has recorded the highest first-half revenue in the Company's history, and we are well positioned for continued growth in H2," said Jason Williams, Kidoz CEO. "We are building for scale across technology, operations, and now sales. Brand advertisers are choosing Kidoz with larger budgets, and we continue to enhance our systems and inventory to meet both current and future demand. While U.S. tariff uncertainty created some headwinds in the second quarter, we are now seeing advertisers return, and we remain on track for a record performance." "Over the past several years, Kidoz has grown organically while building a strong balance sheet, giving us the ability to reinvest strategically in the business. Our consistent financial discipline has allowed us to expand our investment in non-capitalized technology development, ensuring our platform remains innovative and scalable. With this solid foundation, we are now significantly increasing our expenditures on marketing and sales to accelerate growth and capture a larger share of the AdTech market." "Kidoz has always prioritized technology investment, which has helped us establish category leadership. Today, we are also investing aggressively in sales and marketing, enabling us to win more direct and programmatic advertising opportunities. Our privacy-first targeting and gaming expertise is gaining popularity with advertisers, and management believes we are ideally positioned to capitalize on three major industry trends: privacy-first regulation, programmatic growth, and mobile gaming expansion. This strategy, combined with our unique capabilities, positions Kidoz to strengthen its leadership in the safe segment of the market while expanding into new opportunities for both youth and adult engagement." The Kidoz comprehensive compensation program is designed to attract, motivate, and retain top talent as we expand our business. Our compensation program combines cash compensation, performance-based annual bonuses, and equity incentives such as stock options, RSU's and PSU's, thereby ensuring strong alignment between employee success and shareholder value. As our business grows, we are gradually increasing staff levels and reinforcing this program to support the Company's continued scale and innovation.To enable the Company to reward success, aid in recruiting, and retain its current employees and consultants in a challenging technology market, the Company continues to issue to its staff, consultants and directors stock option grants made in accordance with TSX Policy 4.4 and, subject to the rules of the TSX Venture Exchange in accordance with the 2024 Stock Option plan approved by the shareholders of the Company. During the quarter ended June 30, 2025, 1,930,400 stock option grants expired unexercised of which 1,250,000 had been awarded to Directors and Officers of the Company. For this year's grant, the Company is issuing to its staff, consultants and directors 2,143,333 stock option entitling them to purchase up 2,143,333 common shares of the Company exercisable at CAD$0.25, of which 913,333 are awarded to Directors and Officers of the Company. The exercise price of CAD$0.25 is above the prior 20 day volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of CAD$0.23, and two and a half cents above today's closing market share price of CAD$0.225 per share. In accordance with the Company's overall compensation program, the options now being granted will vest monthly over their 5-year term. This stock option grant represents 1.6% of the total issued and outstanding shares of the Company. No RSU's or PSU's have been granted to date.CAUTION REGARDING NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURESThis press release refers to "Adjusted EBITDA" which is a non-GAAP financial measure that does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP. Adjusted EBITDA is not presented in accordance with, or as an alternative to, GAAP financial measures and may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. These non-GAAP measures should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, financial measures calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America ("GAAP"). Investors are encouraged to review the GAAP financial measures included in the most recent Quarterly Form 6-K, including our unaudited consolidated financial statements, to aid in their analysis and understanding of our performance and in making comparisons.We use Adjusted EBITDA internally to evaluate our performance and make financial and operational decisions that are presented in a manner that adjusts from their equivalent GAAP measur PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 13:42:06 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 296 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Levi & Korsinsky notifies investors that it has commenced an investigation of Otis Worldwide Corporation ("Otis Worldwide Corporation") (NYSE:OTIS) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.On July 23, 2025, Otis reported its second quarter fiscal 2025 earnings, unveiling net sales for the quarter of $3.6 billion that fell below analysts' expectations for $3.71 billion. Management noted that new-equipment sales declined 10%, worse than the market feared, in the quarter, triggering the company to reduce their annual guidance from $14.6 - $14.8 billion down to $14.5 - $14.6 billion in the second quarter. While the Company largely blamed the setback on challenges in China, in which new equipment sales fell 20% in the quarter, declines were also seen in the Americas and Asia Pacific.Following this news, Otis' stock price fell by $12.79 per share to open at $88.20 per share. 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: 2025-08-22 18:15:06 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 396 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Connex Credit Union ("Connex") recently disclosed that it suffered a data breach that compromised the sensitive personal data of individuals. This data breach has led to concerns over the security of sensitive personal information entrusted to Connex.WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?On June 3, 2025, Connex became aware of a security incident affecting its internal network. Upon detection, Connex launched an immediate investigation with assistance from third-party cybersecurity experts.The investigation revealed that an unauthorized third party accessed or downloaded files between June 2 and June 3, 2025. Connex reviewed the impacted files to determine what information was compromised and identified affected individuals.The impacted data may include names, Social Security numbers, account numbers, and government-issued IDs.Connex filed a notice of the breach with the California Attorney General on August 7, 2025, and began mailing notification letters to affected individuals on August 6, 2025. Compensation may be available for those individuals who receive notice that their sensitive personal information was compromised.WHY YOU MAY BE 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 from Connex Credit Union, you are likely to be 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. There is no cost or obligation to participate. Follow the link below to find out:Levi & Korsinsky, LLP 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. Our firm works on a 100% contingency fee basis - you pay nothing unless we win your case! Visit our website to learn more. 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: 2025-08-22 02:21:06 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 667 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE: NVO) between May 7, 2025 and July 28, 2025, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important September 30, 2025 lead plaintiff deadline.NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 21, 2025 /The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) between May 7, 2025 and July 28, 2025, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important September 30, 2025 lead plaintiff deadline.SO WHAT: If you purchased Novo Nordisk securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Novo Nordisk class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=34168 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for more information. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 30, 2025. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm 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 firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants provided overwhelmingly positive statements to investors while, at the same time, disseminating materially false and misleading statements and/or concealing material adverse facts concerning the true state of Novo Nordisk's growth potential. Notably, Novo Nordisk's asserted potential to capitalize on the compounded market greatly understated the potential impact of the personalization exception to the compounded GLP-1 exclusion and overstated the likelihood that such patients would switch to Novo Nordisk's branded alternatives. Further, defendants greatly overstated the potential GLP-1 market or otherwise, Novo's capability to penetrate said markets to achieve continued growth. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.To join the Novo Nordisk class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=34168 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for more information.No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm , on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/ Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.---Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq.Phillip Kim, Esq.The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.275 Madison Avenue, 40th FloorNew York, NY 10016Tel: (212) 686-1060Toll Free: (866) 767-3653Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@ rosenlegal.comwww.rosenlegal.com SOURCE: The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 16:35:30 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 280 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 EDMONTON, ALBERTA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Northernmost, a medical device company developing NoMo Kidney Pump, a next-generation perfusion machine designed to modernize the preservation and transport of donor kidneys for transplantation, today announced that it has completed the first exhibitions of a working prototype at the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) Annual Meeting, 22-24 June in Denver, and at the World Transplant Congress (WTC), 2-5 August in San Francisco."In the space of a month, we've shared our concept with the entire world transplantation community," said CEO Ron Mills. "We enjoyed a warm welcome, gained invaluable input for our final phase of product design and development, and cemented market validation of our technology and business model." Mills previously led commercialization of LifePort Kidney Transporter (Organ Recovery Systems), from FDA clearance to market dominance, and recently turned around and exited lung and heart perfusion device maker Tevosol into Bridge to Life (assets subsequently acquired by TransMedics Group). He and Northernmost co-founder Daniel Salamon were joined at AOPO and WTC by NoMo engineering and industrial design leads John Brassil (Functional Circulation) and Russell Kroll (Formation Design Group), frequent collaborators and perfusion machine experts with over 25 years of experience.Northernmost is currently securing Series A financing and expects to submit a 510(k) application for NoMo Kidney Pump in 2026.About NorthernmostNorthernmost Medical Devices, Inc., is a Canadian startup developing machines to preserve and transport donor organs for transplant. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, with a planned U.S. hub in Denver, the company is led by the people who designed, built, and commercialized today's market-dominant kidney transporter. For more information, visitnorthernmost.ca Contact InformationDaniel Salamoninfo@ northernmost.ca +1 587 295 4360SOURCE: Northernmost PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 08:20:10 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1002 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 UPPSALA, SE / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Biovica International (STO:BIOVIC-B)(STO: BIOVIC.B)(FRA:9II) - The shareholders of Biovica International AB, reg. no. 556774-6150 (the "Company"), are hereby invited to the annual general meeting to be held on Tuesday 23 September 2025, at 10.00 CEST at Conference Hubben, Dag Hammarskjolds Vag 38 in Uppsala.Right to attend the general meeting Shareholders wishing to attend the annual general meeting must:i. on the record date, which is on Monday 15 September 2025, be registered in the share register maintained by Euroclear Sweden AB; andii. notify the Company of their participation and any assistants (no more than two) in the annual general meeting no later than on Wednesday 17 September 2025. The notification shall be in writing to Baker McKenzie Advokatbyra, Attn: Simon Olofsson, Box 180, 101 23 Stockholm (kindly mark the envelope with "Biovica AGM 2025") or via e-mail to simon.olofsson@bakermckenzie.com . The notification should state the name, personal/corporate identity number, shareholding, share classes, address and telephone number and, when applicable, information about representatives, counsels and assistants. When applicable, complete authorization documents, such as registration certificates and powers of attorney for representatives and assistants, should be appended the notification.Nominee shares Shareholders, whose shares are registered in the name of a bank or other nominee, must temporarily register their shares in their own name with Euroclear Sweden AB in order to be entitled to participate in the general meeting. Such registration, which normally is processed in a few days, must be completed no later than on Monday 15 September 2025 and should therefore be requested from the nominee well before this date. Voting registration requested by a shareholder in such time that the registration has been made by the relevant nominee no later than on Wednesday 17 September 2025 will be considered in preparations of the share register.Proxy etc. Shareholders represented by proxy shall issue dated and signed power of attorney for the proxy. If the proxy is issued by a legal entity, attested copies of the certificate of registration or equivalent authorization documents, evidencing the authority to issue the proxy, shall be enclosed. The proxy must not be more than one year old, however, the proxy may be older if it is stated that it is valid for a longer term, maximum five years. A copy of the proxy in original and, where applicable, the registration certificate, should in order to facilitate the entrance to the general meeting, be submitted to the Company by mail at the address set forth above and at the Company's disposal no later than on Wednesday 17 September 2025. The proxy in original and, when applicable, the certificate of registration must be presented at the general meeting. Certificate of proxies are also accepted.A proxy form will be available on the Company's website, www.biovica.com , and will also be sent to shareholders who so request and inform the Company of their postal address.Draft agendaOpening of the meeting.Election of chair of the meeting.Preparation and approval of the voting list.Election of one or more persons to certify the minutes.Examination of whether the meeting has been properly convened.Approval of the agenda.Presentation of the annual report and the auditors' report and the group annual report and the group auditor's report.Resolution regarding:adoption of income statement and balance sheet and the group income statement and the group balance sheet;the profit or loss of the Company in accordance with the adopted balance sheet and group balance sheet; anddischarge from liability of the board of directors and the managing director.Determination of the number of directors and auditors.Determination of fees to the board of directors and to the auditors.Election of the board of directors and auditors.Adoption of principles for the nomination committee.Resolution regarding authorization for the board of directors to issue shares, convertibles and/or warrants.Resolution regarding implementation of performance share program 2025/2028:1.Resolution to implement performance share program 2025/2028:1.Resolution regarding issue and approval of transfer of warrants.Resolution regarding implementation of performance share program 2025/2028:2.Resolution to implement performance share program 2025/2028:2.Resolution regarding issue and approval of transfer of warrants.Resolution regarding implementation of performance share program 2025/2028:3.Resolution to implement performance share program 2025/2028:3.Resolution regarding issue and approval of transfer of warrants.Preparation of incentive programs etc. (it is noted that this is not an item for resolution).Resolution regarding approval of the board of directors' resolution on a new share issue.Closing of the meeting.Proposed resolutionsItem 2: Election of chair of the meeting The nomination committee proposes that Carl Isaksson, attorney at law at Baker McKenzie Advokatbyra, is appointed as chair of the general meeting or, in his absence, the person appointed by him.Item 8.b: Resolution regarding decision regarding the profit or loss of the Company in accordance with the adopted balance sheet The board of directors proposes that all funds available for the annual general meeting shall be carried forward.Item 9-11: Determination of the number of directors and auditors, determination of fees to the board of directors and to the auditors, and election of the board of directors and auditor The nomination committee proposes that the board shall consist of seven directors. The nomination committee further proposes that the number of auditors shall be one registered accounting firm.The nomination committee proposes that the remuneration is to be SEK 1,675,000 in total, including remuneration for committee work (unchanged since previous year), and shall be paid to the board of directors and the members of the established committees in the following amounts:SEK 200,000 (SEK 200,000) for each of the non-employed directors and SEK 450,000 (SEK 450,000) to the chair provided that the chair is not an employee; andSEK 75,000 (SEK 75,000) to the chair and SEK 37,500 (SEK 37,500) to the other members of the audit committee and the remuneration committee.The nomination committee proposes that the auditor shall be entitled to a fee in accordance with approved invoice.The nomination committee proposes the re-election of directors Annika Carlsson Berg, Marie-Louise Fjallskog, Maria Holmlund, Anders Rylander an PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 19:07:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 303 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Levi & Korsinsky notifies investors that it has commenced an investigation of Roblox Corporation ("Roblox Corporation") (NYSE:RBLX) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.The State of Louisiana filed a lawsuit against Roblox on August 14, 2025, alleging that the Company fails to protect children from predators on its gaming platform. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said, "Due to Roblox's lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana. Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety. Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger poised to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home." Following this news, Roblox's stock price fell over 6% on August 15, 2025. 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 News / National by Staff reporter Schools across Zimbabwe are facing a financial crisis as the government continues to delay Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) disbursements, a programme meant to cover fees for vulnerable learners.Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Edgar Moyo confirmed in Parliament on Wednesday that Treasury has not released BEAM funds since early 2023, leaving schools struggling to pay staff, maintain infrastructure, and provide teaching materials."The information I have is that we have arrears from the beginning of 2023," Moyo told lawmakers during a question-and-answer session.The minister said Treasury had released only ZiG40 million this year, which went toward clearing 2024 first- and second-term arrears for special schools such as Jairos Jiri, St. Giles, Sibantubanye, and M. Hugo School for the Blind."Treasury is committed to releasing more funds so that we can clear arrears for the main schools," Moyo said, noting that his ministry is engaging finance officials almost weekly over the crisis.Lawmakers warned that the non-payment was crippling the education sector.Mkoba South MP Kuka John, who raised the issue, said many schools were on the brink of collapse."We have a problem. Most schools in our constituencies are deteriorating while we wait for Treasury disbursements. The only option left is for schools to close," he said.Rushinga legislator Tendai Nyabani added that some schools had up to 100% of learners enrolled under BEAM, meaning they had virtually no alternative sources of income.The BEAM programme, which supports at least 1.5 million learners nationwide, was introduced to ensure access to education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. With funds frozen for nearly two years, schools say they are unable to buy teaching materials, pay support staff, or maintain infrastructure, putting the future of many learners at risk. PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 15:00:15 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 363 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Industry-leading ecommerce platform Sellvia earns top honors for innovation, usability, and outstanding digital customer experience.IRVINE, CA / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 /Sellvia, a leading ecommerce solutions provider, has been awarded the Gold Winner title in the Best Ecommerce Platform / Ecommerce Ecosystem category at the 2025 dotCOMM Awards. This accolade recognizes the company's ongoing commitment to delivering powerful, user-friendly, and conversion-focused online store technology for entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes.About the dotCOMM AwardsThe dotCOMM Awards honor excellence in digital communication, recognizing outstanding achievements in web design, social media, content strategy, and digital marketing. This year's competition saw nearly 2,500 entries from the United States, Canada, and 16 other countries. Winners are selected based on creativity, technical execution, and measurable impact.About the entryThe Best Ecommerce Platform award is presented to solutions that demonstrate superior functionality, design, user experience, and business results. Sellvia earned Gold for its all-in-one platform, which enables users to quickly launch fully equipped online stores with built-in product catalogs, high-converting templates, and integrated marketing tools - all available at no initial cost. The platform is designed to be accessible to users regardless of their technical skill level or budget."We are deeply honored to receive this recognition," said Ilya Dolgikh, CEO and Co-founder of Sellvia. "Our mission has always been to make ecommerce accessible to everyone. This award reflects the dedication of our team to empower solopreneurs with the tools they need to succeed - easily and affordably." Sellvia continues to offer a free ecommerce store setup, allowing new users to launch and begin selling without upfront investment. The platform is ideal for startups, side hustles, and established brands looking to expand their digital presence.To learn more or launch a free store, visit Sellvia's website.About SellviaSellvia is a full-scale ecommerce ecosystem offering end-to-end solutions for launching, managing, and growing online businesses. Founded by a team of entrepreneurs and software developers, Sellvia combines cutting-edge technology, U.S.-based fulfillment, and expert marketing support to empower solopreneurs globally. Headquartered in Irvine, California, the company is committed to simplifying online retail. Learn more at sellvia.com Contact InformationPolina BeletskayaMarketing Directorpolina.beletskaya@sellvia.com SOURCE: Sellvia LLC PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 16:35:15 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 361 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Skip Barber Racing School, an icon in performance driving education, today announced the launch of its exclusive European Driving Adventure, a five-day program this October that combines the adrenaline of world-class racing with premium lifestyle experiences. New to The Street will be covering the entire journey across its national TV, digital, and social platforms.The Experience Includes:Nurburgring Nordschleife - "The Green Hell" 16 laps on the most demanding circuit in the world, complete with private briefings and professional instruction.Spa-Francorchamps Premium Track Day 40+ laps on Formula 1's storied circuit during a private event closed to the public.Lifestyle & Culture Scenic road tours through the Mosel Valley, curated dining experiences, and exclusive social events.Seamless All-Inclusive Package Track-prepared cars, fuel, helmets, instruction, hotels, and meals - everything arranged so participants simply arrive and drive.Vince Caruso, CEO of New to The Street, said:"Skip Barber Racing School has set the global standard in racing education. This European Driving Adventure is more than a track experience - it's a motorsport pilgrimage. We're proud to cover and amplify this unique program across our broadcast and digital platforms." With limited availability, the Skip Barber European Driving Adventure promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for enthusiasts ready to check Nurburgring and Spa off their bucket lists in one seamless program.Learn more and secure your spot here.About Skip Barber Racing SchoolFor over 40 years, Skip Barber Racing School has been the premier name in driver training and motorsport experiences. From Formula racing to high-performance driving programs, Skip Barber has trained generations of professionals and enthusiasts at the most iconic tracks in the world.About New to The StreetFor over 16 years, New to The Street has been one of the most trusted financial media brands, broadcasting weekly across Fox Business, Bloomberg, and its powerful YouTube channel with 3.2M+ subscribers. Known for covering the hottest public companies and private companies preparing to go public, New to The Street delivers long-form interviews, earned media, and outdoor visibility that reaches millions of investors and viewers worldwide.Media Contact:Grace@ NewtoTheStreet.com SOURCE: New To The Street PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 17:47:12 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 790 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 /WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the "Western Asset US Core Bond Fund" mutual fund classes - Class I (ticker: "WATFX"), Class A (ticker: "WABAX"), Class C (ticker: "WABCX"), Class FI (ticker: "WAPIX"), Class IS (ticker: "WACSX"), and Class R (ticker: "WABRX") - and the "Western Asset Core Plus Bond Fund" mutual fund classes - Class A (ticker: "WAPAX"), Class C (ticker: "WAPCX"), Class C1 (ticker: "LWCPX"), Class FI (ticker: "WACIX"), Class R (ticker: "WAPRX"), Class I (ticker: "WACPX"), Class IS (ticker: "WAPSX") between January 1, 2021 and October 31, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important September 5, 2025 lead plaintiff deadline.SO WHAT: If you purchased WAMCO mutual funds during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the WAMCO class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=31956 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for more information. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 5, 2025. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm 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 firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants failed to warn investors that: (1) defendants favored certain WAMCO strategies, like Macro Opps, over other WAMCO strategies, like Core and Core Plus; (2) defendants disfavored certain WAMCO strategies, like Core and Core Plus; (3) any "compliance policies and procedures" that WAMCO maintained "to result in fair allocations of investment opportunities to clients" were either insufficient to ensure that Leech and his WAMCO Team fairly allocated trades among the strategies they managed or were expressly disregarded by defendants in order to allow the favoring of certain WAMCO strategies at the expense of other WAMCO strategies; (3) any "oversight mechanisms" that WAMCO maintained were either insufficient to monitor Leech and his WAMCO Team or were expressly disregarded by defendants in order to allow the favoring of certain WAMCO strategies at the expense of other WAMCO strategies. As a result, defendants' actions operated as a fraud or deceit on the Class, artificially reducing the price of the "Western Asset US Core strategy" mutual fund classes during the Class Period, damaging Class members.To join the WAMCO class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=31956 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for more information.No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm , on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/ Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.---Contact Information:Laurence Rosen, Esq.Phillip Kim, Esq.The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.275 Madison Avenue, 40th FloorNew York, NY 10016Tel: (212) 686-1060Toll Free: (866) 767-3653Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@ rosenlegal.comwww.rosenlegal.com SOURCE: The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 18:00:13 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 440 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Last year's intense hailstorms in Calgary caused nearly $2.8 billion in insured damages, making it the second-most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC).CALGARY, AB / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 / Meteorologists and insurers alike point to a troubling trend: hail events in Alberta are becoming more frequent, more severe, and more expensive for both homeowners and the insurance industry. Storm and Hail Roof Damage Bad storm with rain and hail that can damage roofs in AlbertaInsurance claims related to hail damage have surged recently, with Alberta leading the country in both claim volume and cost. As extreme weather patterns persist, experts say there is growing interest in building materials that extend roof life, reduce storm-related repair costs, and limit insurance claims.One option gaining traction is the use of Class 4 impact-resistant shingles. These shingles are designed to withstand the force of large hailstones and other severe weather impacts.Calgary roofing contractorNo Payne Roofing has made the decision to use only Class 4 shingles in all installations."At No Payne, we only useClass 4 shinglesas they're hail-resistant and hail-proof, delivering long-term quality and reducing damage to Calgary homes," said Mike Payne, owner of No Payne Roofing. "Eventually, we may see Class 4 shingles as the standard for building codes. But for now, it's just a great option to save time, money, and the hassle of insurance claims." He goes on to explain that deductibles could be increasing to $10,000, making class 4 shingles a solid investment to avoid that cost.While materials like Class 4 shingles provide strong surface protection, the integrity of the underlying structure also matters. Many older homes in Calgary still have plywood roof decking, installed over 40 years ago. The lifespan of plywood is typically around 50 years under optimal conditions, but extreme weather exposure can reduce this.Installing new roofing over aging plywood can lead to performance issues and may void manufacturer warranties, as many roofing material producers require that the underlying structure meet specific age and quality standards. Payne notes that replacing deteriorated plywood when re-roofing is an essential but often overlooked step. His Calgary team ensures the plywood they install during your roof repair will last as long as your new shingles. No Payne Roofing's focus on both durable shingles and solid underlying structures is part of a broader push in the roofing industry to adapt to Alberta's increasingly severe weather.For now, roofing specialists say that adopting higher-grade materials voluntarily can help Calgary homeowners avoid costlyroof repairsorreplacements , extend the lifespan of their roofs, and maintain compliance with manufacturer warranties.Contact InformationJules WinfieldManaging Partnerjules@ inet-media.ca (403) 926-4122SOURCE: No Payne Roofing PR-Inside.com: 2025-08-22 07:35:06 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1027 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2025 /Xebra Brands Ltd. ("Xebra" or the "Company") (XBRA:CSE)(XBRAF:OTC PINK)(9YC:FSE), a cannabis company, announces that the Company does not expect to be in a position to file its annual financial statements, management's discussion and analysis and related officer certifications for the financial year ended February 28, 2025 (collectively, the "Annual Filings") on or prior to August 29, 2025, being the date that is two months from the filing deadline of June 30, 2025. As a result of the foregoing, the Company anticipates the British Columbia Securities Commission (the "BCSC"), as the principal regulator of the Company, will issue a failure to file cease trade order ("CTO") for its failure to file its Annual Filings and its unaudited interim financial statements, related management's discussion and analysis and officer certifications for the three months ended May 31, 2025 (the "Interim Filings", and together with the Annual Filings, the "Required Documents").The BCSC had previously issued a management cease trade order (the "MCTO") against the Company on July 2, 2024, in connection with the delayed filing of the Annual Filings. The Company expects the CTO to revoke and replace the MCTO. As a result of the expected CTO, the Company expects trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "Exchange") to be suspended until the Required Documents are filed.As previously disclosed, the Annual Financial Filings were not filed by the applicable filing deadline due to the fact that there have been certain liquidity constraints and delays associated with recent changes of management. As announced on July 3, 2025, the Company entered into a loan agreement (the "Loan Agreement") pursuant to which the lender agreed to provide a loan of up to C$110,000 (the "Loan") in order to provide sufficient resources to complete the Annual Filings. Due to matters outside of the control of the Company, the Company was not advanced funds under the Loan and the Loan Agreement has been terminated. The Company has identified several potential funding sources and expects to provide an announcement within the next couple weeks on the procurement of capital and the updated anticipated timeline to complete and file the Required Documents. It is expected that the CTO will remain in effect until two full business days following the receipt by the BCSC of all filings the Company is required to make under British Columbia securities law, including the Required Documents.It is expected that the CTO will be issued under Multilateral Instrument 11-103 - Failure-To-File Cease Trade Orders In Multiple Jurisdictions and will prohibit the trading or purchase by any person or company of any securities of the Company in each jurisdiction in Canada in which the Company is a reporting issuer for as long as the CTO remains in effect.The Company also announces the OTC Markets Group has informed the Company that its listing has been moved from the OTCQB Market to the OTC Pink Open Market. The Pink Open Market provides brokers with a regulated platform for transparent trading.ABOUT XEBRA BRANDS LTD.Xebra Brands is a Canadian cannabis company with international reach, focused on the development and commercialization of cannabisderived wellness products. Xebra is the first company to receive full authorization to import, cultivate, manufacture, and sell cannabis (1% THC) in Mexico, and is actively expanding its ELEMENTS product line through strategic partnerships in North America.On Behalf of Xebra Brands Ltd.Rodrigo Gallardo Interim CEOFor more information contact:+52 55 6387 2293 ir@ xebrabrands.com Forward-Looking InformationExcept for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. "Forward-looking information" in this news release includes, but is not limited to, business goals and objectives of the Company; statements and information regarding the timing for the filings of the Required Documents; that the Company has identified several potential funding sources and expects to provide an announcement within the next couple weeks on the procurement of capital and the updated anticipated timeline to complete and file the Required Documents; the Company's ability to be a first mover in a country, or to obtain or retain government licenses, permits, or authorizations in general, or specifically in Mexico, Canada or elsewhere, including cannabis authorizations from the Mexican Health Regulatory Agency (COFEPRIS); the Company's ability to satisfy the conditions of authorizations granted by COFEPRIS; any continuing uniqueness of any of the Company's products; and other forward-looking information concerning the intentions, plans and future actions of the parties to the transactions described herein and the terms thereon.Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the reliance of the Company on its auditors and management with respect to the Annual Filings, the inability to source capital to complete the Required Filings, the inability of the Company to retain the authorizations granted by COFEPRIS; the inability to generate sufficient revenues or to raise sufficient funds to carry out its business plan; changes in government legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in various countries; risks associated with agriculture and cultivation activities generally, including inclement weather, access to supply of seeds, poor crop yields, and spoilage; compliance with import and export laws of various countries; significant fluctuations in cannabis prices and transportation costs; the risk of obtaining necessary licenses and permits; inability to identify, negotiate and complete potential acquisitions, dispositions or joint ventures for any reason; the ability to retain key employees; dependence on third parties for services and supplies; non-performance by contractual counter-parties; general economic conditions; the continued growth in global demand for cannabis products and the continued increase in jurisdictions legalizing cannabis; the timely receipt of regulatory approvals for license applications on terms satisfactory to the Company; and other related risks as more fully set out in the registration statement of Company and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings at www.sedar.com . In addition, there is no assurance that t Popular comedian Ayo AY Comedian Makun has addressed rumours that he and his estranged wife, Mabel, are on the verge of reconciliation, sixteen months after their separation. In April 2024, PREMIUM TIMES reported that AY and Mabel announced the end of their marriage, marking the third publicised crisis in their relationship within eight years. The couple, who married in 2008, faced speculation as early as February 2016 when reports claimed Mabel moved out of their Lekki home for undisclosed reasons. Again, in June 2017, controversy trailed the union after Mabel publicly urged a prominent Lagos socialite to steer clear of her husband. Both denied the reports at the time. However, in April 2024, AY, 54, confirmed the collapse of his 16-year marriage in an Instagram post, bringing an end to years of speculation. Their separation was largely kept out of the public eye until recently, when unverified claims suggested that AY, accompanied by some family members, approached Mabel to seek reconciliation. In a statement posted on his Instagram page on Thursday, the comedian, who made his acting debut in the 2014 film 30 Days in Atlanta, which he produced and Robert Peters directed, dismissed the reports as misleading. He urged the public not to be swayed by false narratives surrounding his private life. Debunking the rumours, the Ondo-born said: My attention has been drawn to a series of false, incessant, and insensitive social media posts suggesting that I am in a state of regret and seeking reconciliation in my past relationship. These publications are deliberately manipulative, calculated to mislead the public, and designed solely for traffic and engagement. For clarity, I have never authorised or made any such statements. If I wish to communicate my personal position on any matter, I have the platform, the reach, and the credibility to do so directly, not through faceless blogs and rumour-driven platforms. Legal action Additionally, the alumnus of Delta State University, Abraka, threatened to take legal action against bloggers who spread the rumour. This serves as a final warning: all such false narratives should be disregarded by the public. Moving forward, the appropriate legal measures will be instituted against individuals, blogs, or platforms that continue to publish, promote, or circulate these defamatory stories. Enough of the lies, said AY. The comedian and his estranged wife, Mabel, share two children, Michelle and Ayomide. This newspaper earlier reported that AY, after confirming his separation from Mabel, an interior designer, described his daughters as blessings from their 16-year union. As of press time, Mabel hasnt responded to the rumour about a possible reconciliation with AY. Emmanuel Geh Geh Obruste, an acclaimed financial expert, found unexpected fame in 2023 after years of using stories of his financial mismanagement to educate his audience. His breakthrough came courtesy of Mavin Records boss, Michael Don Jazzy Ajereh. On 22 January 2023, Don Jazzy posted a video of Geh Geh speaking on investment literacy on his Instagram page. According to Geh Geh, the video fetched him more than N500,000 within four hours. Beyond the financial windfall, it also boosted his social media presence, increasing his following on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Humble beginnings Contrary to claims that Geh Geh just woke up as a financial expert, his journey was shaped by lifes difficult turns. In an interview on The Honest Bunch podcast, posted on the YouTube page on 6 January, he revealed that he was the son of a headmaster who held a masters degree. Yet, he believed getting educated did not guarantee success. He gained admission into university in the 2014/2015 academic session but suffered a major setback when his father died, a man who, despite his academic qualifications, lived and died in poverty. Before university, Geh Geh had already ventured into business. He owned two motorcycles, managed a fish farm, and headed a private school, all of which were thriving. However, peer pressure, his fathers death, and the fear of ending up in similar poverty as his father pushed him to abandon his ventures. He sold everything and left for Ghana in 2016 in search of greener pastures, turning to internet fraud. In Ghana, Geh Geh became a romance scammer, making money until he was arrested by the police. On his release, he had nothing left and eventually resorted to begging on the streets. After enduring several hardships, he returned to Nigeria. Rather than continuing with fraud, he turned to social media, using his experiences as cautionary tales to advise people against making the same mistakes, particularly selling off their assets in pursuit of uncertain opportunities abroad. Breakthrough His turning point came when Don Jazzy reposted one of his videos. That single act transformed Geh Gehs fortunes, elevating him from obscurity to prominence. He went on to establish the GehGeh University of Wisdom and Understanding in August 2025, a virtual hub for financial literacy that has since become widely discussed. Geh Geh, who insists he is not a content creator but a financial expert, has continued to attract attention with his virtual lectures since launching his self-styled university. He often teaches on and finances, offering advice that has stirred widespread debate. In many of his lectures, Geh Geh cautioned men against taking on financial responsibilities for women they are not married to. He further described marriage itself as a financial mistake and urged men to avoid dating students, hook-up girls, single mothers, or women with multiple male friends if they hoped to achieve financial success. On Tuesday, barely a week after establishing the university, Geh Geh announced that over 25,000 people watched his first lecture. He also revealed that uniforms were now available to help distinguish his students from non-members. However, Geh Geh truly set tongues wagging on Thursday with a lecture titled Five Ways to Know Toto Way Don Make Gbim. The session held on TikTok, which started at 4:00 p.m., attracted over 170,000 live participants. A video he posted later showed the lecture ended with 379,000 attendees. As in many of his sessions, Geh Geh spoke on the intersections of money and women, a recurring theme in his teachings that frequently fuels online debate. Gifts He disclosed that gifts received during the lecture were valued at approximately $30,000, which he described as life-changing. He added that over 177,000 attended the live session. Congratulations to me, my school recorded over 170k students today, and the love was massive. I made over 30k dollars. A big thank you to everyone who came to support. Thank you so much, Nigerians, for the love. Over 177,000 people watched my lecture live on TikTok, at Geh Geh University of Wisdom and Understanding, the only university where, once you graduate, women will fear you. They wont even dare to ask you for money. I am now the first person in Nigeria to have 177,000 people watch me live. I didnt graduate from any school, yet I became the first so-called illiterate to establish an online university in Nigerias history. What did I do to deserve this love from you, Nigerians? As an orphan, I never imagined I had hope in this country, but you have shown me otherwise. Forget money, just the gifts alone were worth over $30,000. I wont take this love for granted, because truly, I dont know what I did to deserve it. Sometimes I even wonder if someone secretly performed a ritual on my behalf, because this still feels unbelievable, he said. Furthermore, he classified himself among great people like Professor Wole Soyinka, the late Greek philosopher and polymath, Aristotle, among others. Geh Geh noted, If Nigeria really values people with great minds, then I should be compared to the likes of Aristotle, Wole Soyinka, and others because truly, theres no difference between their brains and mine. While universities like UNIBEN and UNILAG dont even have 10,000 students each, over 177,000 people enrolled in Geh Geh University in a single day. That makes it the first university in Nigeria to register such numbers at once. Graduation This newspaper gathered that some men designed mock identity cards and posters featuring their photos alongside the universitys name, claiming their student status. Others created parody textbooks, allegedly part of the universitys curriculum, with subjects such as Gbimology, Oupvuehology, Moneyology, and Greed Education, among others. Some men shared curated certificates online, claiming they had graduated from a satirical university. The certificates listed unusual courses they allegedly studied, along with the grades they obtained. The courses included Financial Happiness and Greed, Opuehnology, Economics and Stinginess, Manipulation and Logistics, and Use of English to Manipulate Girls, among others. Their results showed they scored straight As across the board. In another video, some men were seen taking notes during a mock lecture delivered by Geh Geh in a motor park. He illustrated his points with examples drawn from the lifestyles of Yahoo boys and girls. According to him, many Yahoo boys who lost their financial strength also lost the women who once stayed with them, as the women moved on to those who could meet their material needs. Geh Gehs teachings triggered a flurry of reactions among netizens, particularly his loyal followers who proudly call themselves students of Geh Geh University. Below are some of the comments. Geh Geh university is the best pic.twitter.com/KEPn1LBzhl Endra (@AuraEndra) August 18, 2025 Whats the biggest lesson you learn from geh geh university #gbim pic.twitter.com/U1EGBh1BAF Simon King (@SimonkingT) August 22, 2025 Congratulations to me.. my school recorded over 170k students today and the love was massive.. I made over 30k dollars. A big thank you to everyone who came to support pic.twitter.com/2G42EC0oq1 GehGeh (@official_Gegeh) August 21, 2025 Its disheartening to see our generation make caricature what should not be joked with. Call a spade, a spade GwinD.Solana (@Gwin_d1) August 21, 2025 Geh geh might sound raw, razz & uncouth but lets not deceive ourselves, there are some iota of truth & reality in his content Naija men fell so bad. They SIMP too much that they became slaves to lust & its not helping anybody Its just creating a toxic atmosphere. You have BIGWATER (@ganymedescrater) August 21, 2025 My professor I worship you Nixon (@Nixon_xxx) August 21, 2025 Our exam don leak pic.twitter.com/bFecEwD6Pl Musab || CFD Trader (@MusabFx_) August 21, 2025 So in your mind you think only Nigerians are in your school, i am the representative of your school in Thailand 21 of us were watching live in Thailand JUGOS (@Jugosblochain) August 21, 2025 Im the sug director of socials for Geh geh uni All sug officials,take attendance here pic.twitter.com/tEMpADcKEn Doge Lawyer (,) (@IamSannwalaw) August 21, 2025 Congratulations once again. Peller havent gotten this numbers tbh. I was surprised. So much love for geh geh. Proud of him I think youre lovely, thats why I (@Flourish4545) August 21, 2025 Shortly before sunrise on 19 June 2025, residents of Beersheba, a southern Israeli city, were woken by blaring sirens and missile alerts on their phones. The warnings gave them only minutes to take cover. For Blessing Eje, a Nigerian postgraduate student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, those alarms had become an unwelcome part of life in Israel. But that morning, the danger drew closer than ever. The first missile fell on Soroka Medical Centre, just opposite our campus, she recalled. The building shook so badly. Parts of my school were affected. We were only separated from the hospital by a two-lane road. The following day, another blast rocked Beersheba, a city of about 600,000. It was the second strike in as many days. The university quickly relocated students to its Sde Boker campus further south. For Ms Eje, that was the breaking point. I told myself that I had to find a way to leave, she said. Ms Eje, who arrived in Israel in October 2024, said the reality of living under constant rocket fire became overwhelming. Whenever sirens blared, students and residents scrambled to bomb shelters, underground spaces reinforced to withstand rocket fire. At first, I panicked every time. But after a while, it became routine. You just run to the nearest shelter and wait. Sometimes it was minutes, sometimes longer, she told PREMIUM TIMES. Though student residences were built underground with thick walls, the psychological toll was heavy. The sound of the alarms alone can paralyse you. Even when nothing falls near you, you feel the vibration, the impact. Your heart races all the time. How the war began The crisis erupted on 13 June, when Israeli strikes hit multiple targets in Tehran. Iran retaliated with waves of ballistic missiles and drones. For two weeks, Israel and Iran exchanged heavy fire in the fiercest confrontation between the two nations in decades. The conflict escalated when the United States struck three nuclear sites in Iran. A ceasefire followed. Eventually, over two dozen people were killed in Israel during the war, and over two thousand were injured. Hundreds of people were killed in Iran, Silence from Home As the war deepened, countries around the world began evacuating their citizens. Nigerians in Israel, however, felt abandoned. The painful part of the ordeal was not the bombs, but the silence from the Nigerian government, Ms Eje said. She said that Nigerian students in Israel had a WhatsApp group which included Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM). But when the bombs started falling, there was no serious communication. Other embassies were checking on their citizens directly. Ours was quiet. On 14 June, Nigeria condemned Israels strike and called for restraint. By 17 June, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that arrangements were being finalised to evacuate Nigerians in Israel and Iran. But those promises never materialised. An official of the Nigerian embassy told me the government was planning evacuation, but there was nothing concrete at the time, Ms Eje recalled. A risky escape With no official evacuation, Ms Eje decided to take matters into her own hands. She joined another Nigerian student, Timothy James (not his real name), who was desperate to return home for his wedding. They sought transit visas to cross into Jordan. Embassy officials assured them verbally that approvals had been granted, but no documents were issued. On 22 June, they boarded a bus from Beersheba to Tel Aviv, then onward to the Jordan River crossing a three-hour journey interrupted twice by rocket sirens. The first time, the driver found a filling station with an underground shelter. The second time, there was nowhere to hide. Everyone just stood under a bridge until it was safe, Ms Eje said. At the border, their names were not on the official list of evacuees. They were forced to pay $115 each before they were allowed through. From Jordan, they booked flights to Nigeria and completed their journey without any help from their government. A recurring pattern Ms Ejes ordeal highlights a recurring problem for Nigerians stranded in conflict zones. In 2011, during Libyas civil war, many Nigerians complained of delays in evacuation. In 2022, Nigerian students fleeing Russias invasion of Ukraine were stuck at European borders for days before evacuation flights began. In 2023, thousands trapped in Sudan endured weeks of uncertainty before airlifts were arranged, with many forced to risk dangerous trips to Egypt on their own. Experts say the problem lies in Nigerias weak diaspora management. Nigeria lacks a reliable database of its citizens abroad, making evacuation chaotic during emergencies, said Sunday Adejoh, a lecturer in International Affairs and Diplomacy. Evacuation of citizens in conflict zones is not captured in Nigerias diaspora policy. There should be a standby logistical arrangement for prompt intervention. Without that, responses are always slow and uncoordinated. Mr Adejoh noted that other countries maintain active registers of citizens abroad, updated through embassies, which allows faster response during crises. Nigeria must invest in this infrastructure. Otherwise, every crisis will catch us unprepared, he warned. Governments Defence When contacted, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, said the government made efforts to assist citizens but faced logistical hurdles. No repatriation flights to Nigeria. The Missions in Tehran and Tel Aviv only rendered consular and support services, he said. Officials at NIDCOM offered a different account. Abdur-Rahman Balogun, head of media at the agency, insisted the embassy was in touch with students. The embassy not only stayed in touch with them but also offered all kinds of support, including information on steps to take and numbers to call, he said. He added that no Nigerian life was lost. If they had any challenges, they would have posted on the WhatsApp group, and it would have been dealt with. Similarly, Gabriel Otu, head of electronic news and strategic communications at NIDCOM, downplayed Ms Ejes account, noting that the WhatsApp platform had been converted into a prayer channel instead of being used for coordination. If you go to that WhatsApp platform till today, they have converted it to a religious platform. They dont post anything that is useful, Mr Otu said, even questioning the credibility of Ms Ejes claims. Who and who did she even make contact with? Maybe this is an isolated case. The Human Cost For Ms Eje, beyond statistics and official claims, the experience left scars. She still recalls the panic of sirens, the tense bus rides under rocket fire, and the helplessness of being stranded at a foreign border. Although she is back in Nigeria and is currently conducting fieldwork for her thesis, she struggles to forget the neglect she felt during the war. We were on our own, she said. And I know there are still others like me, caught in conflicts, waiting for help that may never come. Her story is more than one students escape. It mirrors a weakness in Nigerias foreign policy and diaspora management a weakness that repeatedly leaves citizens vulnerable in times of crisis. Nigerias Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, said relative peace has returned to the countrys South-east since the arrest of a pro-Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa, in Finland. Mr Musa, a general, spoke on Thursday night when he appeared as a guest on Channels TVs Politics Today. Arrest, prosecution Mr Ekpa, 40, was arrested alongside four others on 21 November 2024 on suspicion of terrorist activities. The Finnish police said Mr Ekpa has contributed to violence and crimes against civilians in South-eastern Nigeria. The District Court of Paijat-Hame later ordered that the pro-Biafra agitator be imprisoned with probable cause on suspicion of public incitement to commit a crime with terrorist intent. A Nigerian-Finnish citizen, Mr Ekpa heads Autopilot, a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a group seeking the secession of the South-east and some parts of the South-south from Nigeria. The Finnish government, in mid-May, charged Mr Ekpa with public incitement to commit a crime with terrorist intent and participation in a terrorist group. The Biafra agitator appeared before the Paijat-Hame District Court on 30 May to face the terrorism-related charges in a preparatory hearing. Before now he has been linked to the worsening insecurity in Nigerias South-east. Security better in South-east now Speaking on Channels TVs programme, Mr Musa said security improved in the South-east since Mr Ekpas arrest. When we talked about him (Ekpa), people thought we were making noise, but since he has been arrested, the South-east is getting better, he said. The military chief said while Mr Ekpas prosecution was ongoing in Finland, Nigerias troops have activated operations to track down his lieutenants in all the states in the South-east. We are going to go after the likes of him, wherever they are, and whatever it takes until we bring them down, he said. A vigilante leader and another vigilante member were killed on Wednesday when gunmen attacked Amakohia-Ubi, a community in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigerias South-east. The incident, which occurred at about 6:30 p.m., forced many frightened residents to flee to neighbouring communities for safety. A resident of the Amakohia-Ubi Community who identified himself simply as Mr Paul, told Vanguard newspaper that the vigilante leader, Monday Nwaozuzu, was shot dead during the attack. The dead, wounded, and missing persons are all members of our community vigilante group. Monday Nwaozuzu was killed by the herdsmen, while others are still missing or wounded. At least three members of the vigilante were caught up in the clash, he said. Another resident, who asked not to be named, explained that the trouble started when vigilante members tried to prevent herders and their cattle from entering farmlands around a school axis in the community. It is routine for our vigilantes to guard our farms. Yesterday (Wednesday), they encountered the herders and asked them to turn back, but they refused. Unknown to our men, the herders were fully armed. Suddenly, they opened fire, killing Monday and injuring another. Since then, we have been combing the bushes, searching for those missing, the residents narrated. The residents stressed they suspected that the attackers had abducted some vigilante operatives. They said that when some residents phoned one of the vigilante members on Thursday morning, a suspected herder picked up the call. For now, no one can say whether our brothers are dead or just abducted. This is not the first time our community has suffered such attacks in recent months, he lamented. Police speak When contacted on Friday morning, the police spokesperson in Imo State, Henry Okoye, confirmed the attack to PREMIUM TIMES. Mr Okoye, a deputy superintendent of police, said the vigilante leader and another vigilante member were shot by the bandits during the attack. But while one (the vigilante leader) died instantly, the other died while receiving treatment, he said, without confirming the number of missing persons. The spokesperson said the police in the state had begun an investigation into the incident and vowed that the attackers would be tracked down. Herder-farmer conflict in Nigeria A Nigerian senator, Ned Nwoko (APC-Delta), is pushing for a bill for the establishment, development and management of ranches across all 774 local government areas in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory to prevent the deadly herder-farmer clashes and enhance food security across the country. Many Nigerians previously rejected a proposal for the Nigerian government to build ranches across various states in the country, while some states enacted laws banning the open grazing of cattle. But herders are still seen in some states roaming the roads and farmlands with their cattle. (Is) President Tinubu unaware that no sensible country in the world keeps cattle around its capital city? Let him point to any major cityfrom Nairobi to New Delhi, Sao Paulo to Seoulwhere cattle are granted permanent settlements around central governance zones. This absurdity is uniquely Nigerian, and disgracefully so, the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) said in June, while rejecting President Bola Tinubus proposal to establish ranches in various states and Abuja. IPOB is a group leading an agitation for an independent state of Biafra, which it wants carved out from the South-east and some parts of the South-south Nigeria. The Nigerian government has repeatedly accused IPOB of being responsible for the deadly attacks in the South-east, but the group has repeatedly denied its involvement in the attacks. Some IPOB leaders in the past have said that the group is meant to protect the South-east from herders. Many have been killed and others displaced in the perennial clashes between nomadic herders and farmers, especially in the northern parts of the country, with one of the recent ones being the herders attack on the Aye-Twar community in the Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State on Sunday, 10 August. PREMIUM TIMES reports that the attack, which spilt into the following day, left homes and worship centres in ruins, worsening the humanitarian crisis already weighing heavily on the displaced residents. READ ALSO: Police confirm 10 killed in suspected herders attack in Ebonyi community The Nigerian government, last year, inaugurated a committee to implement the Pulaku Initiative, a large-scale resettlement programme aimed at addressing the root causes of the conflicts and fostering national unity. Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the committee, chaired by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa, with the representatives of governors of the benefiting states as members. The Pulaku initiative, meant to revitalise local communities through the construction of residences, roads, schools, and essential facilities, is initially focused on seven states that have been disproportionately affected by farmers-herders conflicts. They are Sokoto, Kebbi, Benue, Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, and Kaduna states. Mr Shettima explained that the Pulaku resettlement is a national commitment to confront a threat that has fuelled distrust and conflicts within communities and across the boundaries of our federation. This non-kinetic solution is not designed to compensate any particular group or region. Therefore, we must cast aside any notion of divisive regionalism and see the Pulaku initiative for what it truly isa practical response to a shared challenge, he added. News / National by Staff reporter A 21-year-old man from Budiriro, Harare, has died after reportedly inflicting severe injuries on himself in a shocking and disturbing incident last Saturday.Aaron Mutize was seen by neighbours acting erratically and appeared possessed, according to eyewitness accounts. The incident unfolded in the Ngungunyani area when Aaron allegedly cut his flesh with ceramic plates and later threw himself into a fire. He was rushed to hospital but died en route from severe blood loss. He was buried in his rural home in Masvingo.Neighbours described a harrowing scene in which Aaron acted violently and bizarrely. Ambuya Ashumba, a close neighbour, said:"He was normally well-behaved and respectful, but on Friday night he started making loud, strange noises. The next morning, he was holding a knife, threatening family members, and acting extremely erratically. He painted the walls and door with his own blood and destroyed window panes before running out of the house."Witness Tawanda Guvamombe said Aaron had gone to a shrine, calling for divine intervention."He wasn't into drugs; he used to sell clothes and lived with his mother. He went into the fire, shouting and calling for God's help," Guvamombe said.Another neighbour, Takanaka Pazorora, described attempts to restrain Aaron before the tragedy:"Neighbours tried to hold him back as he destroyed property and threatened others. He then ran to the shrine naked, set himself on fire, and repeatedly said he wanted to die in the name of Jesus. Despite intervention, he lost consciousness and later died."Residents are left shaken by the incident, which has sparked speculation about the cause, with some questioning whether mental health issues or spiritual factors were involved.Police confirmed they were yet to receive an official report on the case. Videos circulating on social media showing Aaron harming himself have left the community in shock and raised questions about the need for mental health awareness and emergency intervention services in the area. The government of Japan on Thursday named the city of Kisarazu as the hometown for Nigerians willing to live and work in the country as part of its strategic efforts to deepen cultural diplomacy, promote economic growth and enhance workforce productivity. Under this new partnership, announced on the sidelines of the 9th Tokyo International Conference for African Development, the Japanese government will create a special visa category for highly skilled, innovative, and talented young Nigerians who want to move to Kisarazu to live and work. Artisans and other blue-collar workers from Nigeria who are ready to upskill will also benefit from the special dispensation visa to work in Japan. Japan International Cooperation Agency, in a ceremony, also named the cities of Nagai in Yamagata Prefecture the hometown of Tanzania, Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture the hometown of Ghana, and Imabari in Ehime Prefecture the hometown of Mozambique. Through the arrangement, Japan looks to strengthen exchanges with the four African countries by officially connecting municipalities with existing relations with those nations. Nigerias Charge dAffaires, Florence Adeseke, also the Acting Ambassador to Japan, and Yoshikuni Watanabe, the Mayor of Kisarazu, received the certificate from the Japanese government naming Kisarazu the hometown of Nigerians. The four cities will foster a foundation for two-way exchanges for manpower development that will add value to the economic growth of Japan, Nigeria, and the other three African nations. Local authorities hope that the designations will increase the population of their cities, contributing to their regional revitalisation efforts. Kisarazu was the official host town of the Nigerian contingent for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The team conducted their pre-games training camps and acclimatisation in the city before moving to the Olympic village, in the COVID-19 delayed Olympic Games. In his opening address at the TICAD9, where he announced $5.5 billion in New investment in Africa, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba emphasised the importance of mutual understanding, local solutions, and collaborative efforts for Africas development. The Prime Minister outlined Japans focus on private sector-led sustainable growth, youth and women empowerment, and regional integration. Prime Minister Ishiba acknowledged the challenges of Japans ageing population but emphasised that locally rooted solutions are essential for Africas development. Japan is providing various cooperation and support for Africa. But first of all, Japan needs to know more about Africa. So, in creating solutions together, this co-creation at the TICAD 9, we focus on three important areas: private sector-led sustainable growth, Youth and Women, and Regional integration and connectivity within and beyond Africa. He appealed to African countries to assist Japan as it grapples with the challenges of a declining population and shrinking agricultural land. Abiodun Oladunjoye Director of Information State House August 22, 2025 Just like it rejected the students loan scheme introduced by the administration of President Bola Tinubu, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has rejected the governments newly introduced Tertiary Institutions Staff Support Fund (TISSF), a loan scheme for lecturers and other university staff. In a statement by its president, Christopher Piwuna, a professor, ASUU noted that its members are already neck-deep in debt and do not need additional loans but a fix for their earnings as contained in the draft renegotiated with the government. NEC considered this policy of the government and decisively rejected the proposition requesting ASUU to write a letter for its members to access the loan, the statement said. What we need now is for the government to sign our renegotiated agreement, which will improve our purchasing power and decrease our reliance on debts from cooperative societies. Instead of providing loans to the lecturers, ASUU asked the government to pay the workers the three-and-a-half months worth of salaries withheld from 2022. The previous government under the late Muhammadu Buhari had declared a No work, No Pay policy during the unions eight-month strike. Mr Tinubu paid four of the eight months salaries in 2024, but the union maintained it needed to be paid in full. The government should use the money set aside for the loans to defray our withheld salaries, it said. ASUU also advised its members to stay away from the loans to focus on their legitimate entitlements, noting that the loan is a bait. It noted that the loan will incapacitate university-based cooperative societies and perpetually enslave their members. The obvious implication is that after deducting the union dues, NHIS, pension contribution, and maybe your co-operative deductions, nothing would be left for the family, it added. How ASUU rejected student loans Meanwhile, ASUU had also rejected the federal governments loan scheme for students. ASUU had cautioned against the law while it was still at the National Assembly, way before the election of Mr Tinubu, who signed the law. ASUU constantly rejected the bill, arguing it is a guise for the government to introduce tuition to Nigerian public universities, hike fees, and neglect its responsibility for funding the institutions. When it was passed and signed into law by President Tinubu shortly after he assumed office, the union continued to speak against it, and even though the law granted it a seat at the board of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), which manages and disburses funds for the student loans, ASUU declined membership. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has invited victims of the alleged fraudulent Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX) to its Ibadan and Lagos 2 Zonal Directorates to assist in the ongoing investigation of some suspects. Specifically invited are individuals who invested funds through persons linked to the CBEX offices in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, and Idimu, Lagos. The concerned victims were urged to visit EFCC offices at 16A, Reverend Oyebode Crescent, Iyaganku, Ibadan, Oyo State, and 7A, Okotie-Eboh Street, Ikoyi, Lagos. The commission made call in a statement shared on its X handle on Friday and signed by EFCC Head, Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale. The EFCC said CBEX led to serious financial losses to Nigerians who invested their funds with a promise of unrealistic returns on investment. It said it is currently prosecuting three suspects, Adefowora Abiodun Olanipekun, Otorudo Avwerosuo and Justice Ehirim Chukwuebuka, over their alleged involvement in the fraudulent online cryptocurrency trading platform called CBEX. Messrs Otorudo and Ehirim were arraigned by the EFCC on 7 July before Judge Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court in Abuja. An online report showed they were later granted bail in the sum of N10 million each, with two sureties in like sum. Mr Olanipekun, alongside his company, ST Technologies International Limited, was also arraigned on 18 July before the same court. In one of the charges, the EFCC alleged that between January 2024 and May 2025, the defendants invited members of the public to deposit money for a fixed term or payable on call through CBEX, promising up to 88 per cent return on investment without obtaining written consent from the Securities and Exchange Commission. They allegedly violate Section 1 of the Investment and Securities Act, 2025, and are punishable under Section 96(5) of the same Act. The suspects have pleaded not guilty to the offences. The EFCC, in its statement, urged victims who invested funds through individuals linked to the CBEX offices mentioned in this report to come forward to assist the Commission in the investigation. How it started CBEX, which launched in July 2024, lured thousands of Nigerians with promises of high returns on cryptocurrency investments. By April 2025, users began reporting failed withdrawals and lost funds, sparking outrage across social media. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) later declared the platform illegal and unregistered. In April, the EFCC declared eight individuals wanted in connection with the scheme, including four Nigerians and four foreign nationals. Investigations led by the EFCCs cybercrime section revealed that investors were instructed to deposit USDT, a stablecoin, into wallets controlled by the suspects. The total deposits reportedly exceeded $1 billion before the platform collapsed under the weight of its promises. In late April, Judge Emeka Nwite granted the EFCCs application to arrest and detain six suspected operators of the Ponzi scheme: Adefowora Abiodun, Adefowora Oluwanisola, Emmanuel Uko, Seyi Oloyede, Awerosuo Otorudo and Chukwuebuka Ehirim, pending the conclusion of investigations. President Bola Tinubu departed Yokohama, Japan, on Thursday night for the ultra-long-haul flight to Brazil, where he will begin a state visit on 24 August. President Tinubu will have a stopover in Los Angeles before continuing his journey to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. President Tinubu began his two-nation visit on Friday, 15 August, when he departed Abuja. He and his entourage stopped over in Dubai, UAE, and arrived in Yokohama early in the morning on August 18. After attending the opening ceremony and plenary of the ninth Tokyo International Conference for African Development( TICAD9) on August 20, President Tinubu held some bilateral meetings, culminating in the interactive session with diaspora Nigerians on Thursday night. Bayo Onanuga Special Adviser to the President (Information & Strategy) August 22, 2025 Yokohama The US Mission in Nigeria joined the American Soybean Associations World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (ASA WISHH) and SejFarms Consult Limited (SejFarms) at the graduation ceremony for the Next Gen Leaders for Aquaculture Innovation Programme. Through this initiative, 10 young Nigerian leaders in the aquaculture industry, selected through a competitive process, gained firsthand experience in modern fish farming practices including using soybeans in fish feed through a structured five-month training programme. US Mission Agricultural Counsellor Chris Bielecki noted in his graduation ceremony remarks that agriculture is at the heart of the US-Nigeria commercial and investment partnership. By fostering innovation and promoting best practices, the US soy industry is helping to build a resilient agricultural sector in Nigeria, ensuring long-term food security and economic stability. ASA WISHH and SejFarms reaffirmed their three-year collaboration by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to expand their partnership and advance Nigerias fish production. Managing Director/CEO of SejFarms, Sejiro Oke-Tojinu, emphasised the importance of the agreement, stating, This MOU with the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health demonstrates that we are strengthening our commitment to encourage the growth of Nigerian aquaculture and create new opportunities for young people to be trained in aquaculture, including high-quality feeds. Jamie Beyer, ASA Director and a Minnesota soybean farmer, expressed appreciation to the US Foreign Agricultural Service for its invaluable support in leveraging resources and programmes to expand US-Nigeria agricultural trade. Nancy Kavazanjian, a Wisconsin soybean farmer and member of the ASA WISHH trade delegation to Nigeria, noted that this partnership showcased the potential of US soy to strengthen Nigerias aquaculture industry. READ ALSO: Olam Agri partners with IDH and Arzikin Noma to boost soybean production in Nigeria The US Mission is committed to fostering collaboration between US and Nigerian agribusinesses. With bilateral agricultural trade reaching $429 million in 2024 and on track to more than double this figure in 2025, the United States values Nigeria as a key agricultural trade partner. Press Office Public Diplomacy Section U.S. Consulate General Lagos Vigilante operatives have shot dead a suspected vandal in Anambra State after he attempted to flee from the operatives. The police spokesperson in the state, Tochukwu Ikenga, in a statement on Friday, said the yet-to-be-identified suspect was initially arrested on Thursday by vigilante operatives in the state. How the suspect was shot dead Mr Ikenga, a superintendent of police, said the operatives, during their routine patrol, accosted the suspect and three others carrying a black bag On sighting the security operatives, three of the suspects fled, while the fourth suspect, whose name and address are yet to be verified, was apprehended with the bag, he said. The spokesperson said a search of the suspects bag revealed tools used for vandalising and stealing electricity installations. He listed some of the tools as assorted colours of armoured cables cut-to-size, a big yellow iron cutter, a black iron cutter, an ash-coloured glass cutter, a black hand glove and a yellow hand glove. Others were a black sling, a bag containing a yellow background long-sleeve shirt, a bunch of two keys and a pair of rubber slippers. Mr Ikenga said the suspect was immediately arrested, and that he later attempted to escape by jumping down from a storey building while being taken to a police facility along with the recovered items. In the process of re-arresting him, he sustained gunshot injuries. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was confirmed dead, he stated. His body has been deposited at the morgue for autopsy. Arrest of other suspected vandals Mr Ikenga said, in a separate operation earlier on Thursday, police operatives arrested three suspected vandals of power installations in Onitsha, Anambra State. The spokesperson said the suspects were arrested when the operatives raided the suspects hideout in the area. He identified the arrested suspects as Adamu Ali, 25, Usman Sulaiman, 22, and Isah Abdullahi, 26 all males. The operatives also recovered from them bags of high-tension cable wires, melted cable wires and parts of transformer equipment. Preliminary investigation revealed that the suspects are part of a syndicate that specialises in vandalising and selling power installations, with Lagos identified as their major sales outlet, he said. Investigation Mr Ikenga said all the recovered exhibits were now in police custody and that the weapons used by the vigilante operatives had been secured. The spokesperson said the police had launched an investigation into the two operations. He said efforts were also ongoing to track down the fleeing suspects and recover more of the stolen items. Mr Ikenga said the police in the state again warned that they would fish out criminals engaging in sabotage of public utilities. He said the police in the state have urged Anambra residents to remain vigilant and report to security operatives suspicious activities around power installations. READ ALSO: Electricity company apologises for frequent power outages Like Anambra, like Abia Cases of vandalism and theft of equipment in power installations have increased in the South-east in recent times. The latest incident occurred barely 24 hours after a yet-to-be-identified male vandal died from electrocution in Abia State. The deceased vandal was believed to have been electrocuted while allegedly trying to steal wires from a transformer in the area. The chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has tasked lawmakers to uphold accountability and good governance. He made the call in Abuja on Thursday at the Policy Dialogue and public unveiling of the 10th National Assemblys Deliberative Barometer and Policy Focus Productivity Report (NASS-DBPFR). The event, themed, Legislative Governance Accountability and Productivity Index, was organised by the Erudite Growth and Advancement Foundation (ERGAF-Africa) in collaboration with the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC). PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that NASS-DBPFR is the first of its kind to use data-driven analysis to evaluate how lawmakers perform in plenary, measuring debates, motions, bills, committee reports and other legislative actions. The report covered June 2023 to June 2024, the first year of the 10th National Assembly. The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, emerged as the most productive lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives for the session. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, represented by Godwin Hart, said the barometer was needed to raise the standard of representation, lawmaking and oversight by tracking legislative output. Nigerians have repeatedly raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the legislature, especially regarding lawmakers earnings and project spending, a gap that continues to fuel public mistrust. According to a statement shared on EFCCs official X handle, Mr Olukoyede, who was represented at the event by the commissions Director of Public Affairs, Wilson Uwujaren, charged the organisers to take into consideration the issue of governance and accountability of legislators. He observed that the report and discussions presented were silent on issues of accountability in governance, the statement said. But he applauded the organisers for a great job, noting that it would go a long way in addressing pressing issues, said the EFCC statement. According to the statement, lawmaker Bamidele Salam of Osun State, representing the four-LGA Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo federal constituency, appreciated the organisers, saying leadership is about taking people to where they should be. He stressed that citizens are more interested in the dividends of democracy and the fruits of the mandate given to legislators. He called for support from the government to ensure the sustenance of the initiative. Abubakar Suleiman, Director-General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, also applauded the launch of the initiative for providing data needed to evaluate the activities of the 10th Assembly. He said, according to the EFCC statement, that accurate data and artificial intelligence would surely drive decisions that would enhance transparency and accountability in governance. NASS-DBPFR Lawmakers have indicated that NASS-DBPFR functions like a scoreboard, breaking down legislative productivity into measurable data points. It assesses attendance, number of motions raised, contributions during debates, petitions presented, committee reports submitted, bills sponsored and confirmation hearings participated in. It also maps the policy focus of lawmakers to identify where their energy is being directed, whether towards the economy, education, security or health. ERGAF-Africa President, Chibuzo Okereke, described the platform as a digital interactive dashboard that allows citizens, researchers and stakeholders to track exactly what their elected representatives are doing. The Federal High Court in Lagos on Thursday convicted two more internet fraud suspects arrested by the EFCC earlier this month during a raid on the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) complex in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Asimiyu Olatunji and Hassan Makinde were convicted of online impersonation, bringing the total convictions from the operation to 17 so far. Delivering the judgement, the judge, Dehinde Dipeolu, sentenced the two men to three months in prison each, with an option of a N500,000 fine. The court ordered that their iPhones be forfeited to the federal government. Also, Mr Dipeolu ordered them to refund their illicit gains $350 in Mr Olatunjis case and about $10,000 (N1.5 million) in Mr Makindes case. PREMIUM TIMES reported that on 10 August, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested 93 suspected internet fraudsters in a midnight raid on a hotel within the OOPL complex. The suspects were allegedly celebrating proceeds of cybercrime at a pool party when the operatives swooped in. The EFCC clarified that the library itself was not the target of the operation. However, the agency said the suspects had shifted the party to the OOPL hotel after learning that their original venue was under surveillance. The EFCC subsequently announced its plan to arraign 23 out of the 93 arrested suspects before the Federal High Court in Lagos. Between 15 and 20 August, 15 suspects had pleaded guilty and been convicted by the Federal High Court in Lagos. As of 18 August, seven of the suspects, in batches of three and four, had been convicted. The court convicted an additional eight on 20 August. The number of convictions reached 17 convictions with two additional suspects convicted on Thursday. So far, only two of the defendants brought to court had pleaded not guilty prompting a full trial. OOPL managements reaction The OOPL management had condemned the raid, describing it as gestapo-like. This newspaper reported that the librarys Managing Director, Vitalis Ortese, alleged that operatives fired gunshots, injured guests, and seized vehicles without a warrant. The library demanded N3.5 million for confiscated property, N1 billion in compensation for alleged bodily harm, and N2.5 billion in damages for reputational injury to the institution and its founder, former President Olusegun Obasanjo. It also issued a seven-day ultimatum to the EFCC and the Inspector-General of Police to apologise or face legal action. In recent months, the agency has obtained convictions against both Nigerian and foreign defendants, including Chinese and Filipino nationals. In December 2024, the EFCC carried out one of its largest raids, arresting 792 suspects at the Big Leaf Building on Victoria Island, Lagos, where an international romance and investment scam hub was allegedly operating under the guise of a corporate facility. Several of the foreign suspects have since been convicted following plea bargains. Also, the federal government has deported many of the convicted foreign nationals Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has reiterated the need for a virile and united Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before conversations around choice of presidential candidate in 2027 general elections. Mr Makinde spoke to journalists after a closed-door PDP Southern Zoning Consultative Summit held on Thursday in Ikeja, Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was convened to deliberate on zoning arrangements ahead of the partys forthcoming national convention. Answering questions on whether the meeting deliberated on the choice of the partys presidential candidate for 2027, Mr Makinde said: We havent even gotten there. We need to have a party first before you start talking about presidential candidates. if we dont have a party, anything that you are trying to do will fall flat. So, our efforts right now is directed towards having a virile and united PDP that Nigerians will be proud of, and again will believe in. Justifying the need for adequate consultations with all PDP stakeholders, Mr Makinde said that the party must close ranks and present itself as a credible alternative. He said that the party stakeholders at the meeting had taken far-reaching decisions ahead of the November National Convention of the party. He said: We just finished the consultative meeting of the PDP Zoning Committee for the south, and nothing should stop us from consulting. Democracy is about the minority having their say and the majority having their way. That is democracy. So, we are democrats, the south has taken far-reaching decisions, and in the days ahead leading to the convention Our next wider consultations will also take place, and we are sure that those that have been saying that PDP is dead PDP is now a carcass will know the party is much alive. According to him, the calibre of people that attended the meeting has proved those who claim PDP is dead wrong. They are all here and committed to PDP taking back its rightful position in Nigeria. So in the days ahead, some of the things discussed here, youll see them, he said. Highlighting the prominence of the stakeholders at the summit Mr Makinde said that meeting had Governor Douye Diri (Bayelsa), Governor Peter Mba of Enugu, represented by his deputy, Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun, who earlier left to address an issue in Osogbo. Governor Adeleke is here, he came back into this country, I believe this morning, and then he went straight to Osogbo to address some governance issues, but he said, whatever we decide here is with us. Gov. Diri is here, Gov. Peter Mba, who couldnt make it physically, but sent the deputy governor. We have the Chairman of our Board of Trustees here. We also have at least 12 of the 17 members of the zoning committee from the south. It is one per state. So, we have 12 states here. We have Rep. members and senators from each zone in the south, the three zones. We have BOT members from the three zones in the south. The organisers have scored about 100 per cent. Consultation means you keep reaching out, you keep engaging. So from this meeting, we will also reach out and engage and even do more. We are trying to get all stakeholders, all tendencies in the PDP together so that we can give a credible alternative to Nigerians in the years ahead, he said. He said though the consultative meeting was not something statutory in the PDP constitution, democracy requires inclusivity, reaching out and ensuring that all stakeholders are carried along., Mr Makinde said that the party would continue to reach out to all interests ahead of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party. He said that PDP has good plans for Nigerians, appealing to the people to continue to support the party. Mr Makinde saud the victory of the party in Saturdays by-election in Oyo state showed that the party was not dead. In most other places of the 12 states, PDP came second in each of those. It is an indication to us that if we continue to work hard, if we continue to strive hard, if we continue to bring our people together, we will get to a point where Nigerians will really start listening to us. NAN reports that the meeting, called under the auspices of the PDP Zoning Committee, chaired by Mr Diri was also attended by former PDP Deputy National Chairman, Bode George and BOT Chairman, Adolphus Wabara. Also in attendance are former Governors Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Osun), Sam Egwu (Ebonyi), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa-Ibom), former senator, Ben Obi, a former Minister, Jumoke Akinjide, among other stakeholders. Wikes loyalists kick, shun meeting However, leaders of the PDP in the south believed to be loyalists of the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, were conspicuously absent at the meeting. They had earlier in the day dismissed the Lagos meeting as illegal and exclusionary. In a statement titled; Re: Purported Meeting Of PDP Southern Zoning Consultative Summit, the leaders said; The attention of the undersigned State Chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the South and some critical stakeholders has been drawn to a meeting nichodimously summoned in Lagos today 21st August 2025 by some persons purporting to do so on behalf of PDP Members of the South tagged PDP Southern Zoning Consultative Summit convened by the Admin Secretary, Zoning Committee of the PDP at the behest of the Chairman Zoning Committee (H.E Senator Duoye Diri) at the Legend Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. The said meeting tagged a summit was allegedly convened in the name of the three geo-political zones of Southern Nigeria South East, South South, and South West. It is highly regrettable and indeed deeply disturbing that such a meeting was convened without the courtesy of inviting several State Chairmen from the South East and South South, as well as the duly elected National Secretary and Deputy National Legal Adviser of our great party. Even more troubling is the inexplicable exclusion of several national officers, eminent leaders, and critical stakeholders of the PDP. Shockingly, the Minority Leader in the National Assembly and other principal officers of our party from the South-South and South-East were also deliberately sidelined and denied participation in a meeting where such far-reaching and sensitive decisions on zoning, power rotation, and political equity are to be discussed. Equally concerning is the deliberate omission of most former governors from the South East and South South, who, by every standard of history, pedigree, and institutional memory, remain critical stakeholders in any conversation about the future direction of our party. Such a brazen disregard for established structures and statutory organs of the PDP not only offends the spirit of collective decision-making but also risks undermining the very foundation upon which our party was built. They further stated that since its inception, the PDP has been anchored on the values of inclusivity, equity, consultation, and collective responsibility, adding that any process that deliberately sidelines key stakeholders, ignores the legitimate authority of national officers, and excludes elected leaders and ranking lawmakers erodes trust, fuels division, and threatens party cohesion at a time when unity is most needed. For the avoidance of doubt, we categorically dismiss any resolutions, communiques, or outcomes purportedly emanating from this meeting as neither binding on, or reflective of, the collective will and aspirations of the PDP family across Southern Nigeria. Decisions reached in secrecy and exclusion cannot and shall not assume the authority of consensus, the leaders said. The statement was signed by some state party chairmen. They are Austin Nwachukwu (Imo), Abraham Amah (Abia), Venatius Ikem (Cross River), Aniekan Akpan ( Akwa Ibom) and Aaron Chukwuemeka (Rivers). Others who signed the statement are the National Vice Chairman (South-east), Chidiebere Goodluck and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Kingsley Chinda. President Bola Tinubu has appealed to Nigerians living in Japan to contribute to building the countrys economy and pursue national development. He made the appeal on Wednesday during a meeting with members of the Nigerian community in Japan. The president met with the community during his trip to Japan for the 9th meeting of the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD9). According to Mr Tinubu, Nigerias growth depends on the collective effort of its citizens at home and abroad, whose skills, investments, and innovations are vital to securing the nations future. Rather than disconnect from the country, he urged Nigerians in diaspora to remain actively involved in its economic growth, image-building, and overall development. Yes, for economic reasons, some people might decide to stay away, its a fundamental right of an individual, but for the economic growth and opportunity that is available in Nigeria, dont stay away, your contribution is very much needed. If you stay away, who will build it? he said. The president warned that without the participation of Nigerians at home and abroad, the country risks losing its chance at continental leadership. If we dont join hands and work together, then weve lost the hope of being the leaders that were supposed to be, then what about your country. What about being a citizen? He further affirmed that his administration is committed to creating conditions that will make Nigerians proud to be associated with their homeland. He said his reforms will stabilise the economy, reverse medical tourism, and improve passport and consular services abroad. The president also urged diaspora Nigerians to protect Nigerias image and reflect the values of discipline, innovation, and unity. You are reflecting that here, and you should continue to make Nigeria proud. Every positive comment about this country, Nigeria, is owed by you. Its for your future and the future of your children. Poor management, poor comments, and negative reflection of the country dont help, and it will not help the growth, he added. Impact of Tinubus policy Also speaking at the meeting, the Minister of State for Industry, John Enoh, said the presidents reform agenda is already laying a solid foundation for Nigerias future growth. He noted that President Tinubus initial decisions on fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange unification, taken on his first day in office, have continued to shape Nigerias economic trajectory. Just last week, the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, herself a Nigerian, applauded the governments reforms and noted the growing stability in the country. That stability now serves as the foundation on which Nigerias future growth will depend, he said. The minister also urged Nigerians in the diaspora to remain supportive of the presidents policies, insisting that his leadership was the kind of focus and commitment the country needed. We have a president who is undaunted, who is focused, and who is pursuing reforms. Years ago, as governor, he made promises here in Japan which later shaped Lagos. That is the kind of future we expect for Nigeria under his leadership, he added. READ ALSO: Tinubu departs Japan for Brazil Similarly, Nigerias Charge dAffaires in Tokyo, Florence Adeseke, praised the positive contributions of Nigerians in Japan, describing them as mostly academics, students, and professionals who have upheld the countrys image. She admitted that a few Nigerians were in detention for immigration and other offences, but stressed that the majority were excelling in their fields. Here in Japan, we have many professionals making Nigeria proud. The purpose of this meeting is to yield to the yearnings of the diaspora community, she said. News / National by Staff reporter The Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) has defended its calls for the restoration of Mthwakazi, insisting that the movement should not be mischaracterised as reckless secessionism but as a legitimate pursuit of justice, accountability, and the right to self-determination.MRP leader Mqondisi Moyo said the call arose from decades of systemic marginalisation, socio-economic exclusion, and the 1980s mass killings in Matabeleland and Midlands, commonly referred to as the Gukurahundi massacres. According to the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, at least 20 000 people were killed during this period."The MRP call is a response to deep historical wounds from the atrocities of Gukurahundi, to the continued dispossession of land and opportunities, and the systematic erasure of Mthwakazi's identity and voice within the national narrative," Moyo said.He emphasised that the party's movement is rooted in peaceful, principled advocacy rather than violence or revenge."It calls for recognition, restitution and reparation, a peaceful and principled movement grounded in the ideals of restorative justice, truth and dialogue. It seeks to break the silence, expose complicity, and challenge the comfortable myths long used to justify and protect oppressive regimes disguised as liberators," Moyo said.The government has repeatedly maintained that Zimbabwe will remain a unitary state and has warned activists against secessionist calls. However, Moyo insisted the MRP would continue its push for self-determination."This vision calls for the creation of a sovereign Mthwakazi State, governed by its own democratic institutions, accountable leadership, and a system free from the centralised authoritarianism of Zanu-PF," he said."Far from being a retreat into isolation, this is a progressive and forward-looking pursuit one that champions self-governance, economic emancipation, and the cultural revival of a long-silenced nation."The statement comes as Zimbabwe continues to grapple with the legacy of Gukurahundi, with President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently tasking chiefs to conduct public hearings aimed at achieving closure for affected communities. Nigerias largest academic union, ASUU, has announced plans to hold rallies across public universities next week to protest what it described as the federal governments failure to prioritise its demands, particularly the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement between the government and the union. In a statement issued on Thursday by its President, Christopher Piwuna, a professor, the union said it would give the government until 28 August to address the demands, after which it would decide on the next line of action, which it hinted could be an industrial action. The statement was released after the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto on 16 -17 August. As always, it is the FGN that has consistently pushed our union to embark on a strike action, and it is clear that ASUU may have no other option than to embark on an action to press the FGN to listen to our demands and do the needful, the union said. The union said it has tried several strategies of resolving the dispute with the government, including writing multiple letters, and drawing the governments attention to the issues, but the government has failed to address them. We want to call on our members to come out en masse to participate in the rally across our campuses next week. This rally will be the first shot at the government, and it will signal many other things to come. We reassure members that we will act without let or hindrance in addressing the challenges ahead, the statement said. Earlier this month, the union alerted the Nigerian public of a looming nationwide strike that would disrupt activities in campuses across the country should the government fail to meet its obligations as contained in the 2009 agreement it had with the union, as well as the renegotiation of the same. Govt stalling renegotiation efforts ASUU ASUU accused the federal government of dragging its feet on the implementation of the draft renegotiated 2009 agreement submitted by the Yayale Ahmed-led committee in February. The union said the report was left untouched for months until the government called ASUU for a meeting on 11 August. It also accused the government of attempting to subvert the principle of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in addressing issues in the draft agreement. While it said it would await the outcome of a scheduled federal government meeting on 28 August before deciding the next line of action, the union noted time is running out. The administration of President Bola Tinubu has been credited for not experiencing any nationwide ASUU strike since it came into office more than two years ago. Before Mr Tinubu, ASUU strikes were an almost annual exercise due to successive governments failure to implement the agreement, usually leading to elongated industrial actions that characterised Nigerian public universities and have altered academic calendars in the institutions. However, ASUU has lamented that Mr Tiubus government is also toeing its predecessors ugly path by stalling renegotiation efforts and failure to address other concerns of the union, including the payment of the remaining three and a half months salaries withheld in 2022, following the governments declaration of a No work, No Pay policy during the unions eight months strike. Mr Tinubu paid four of the eight months salaries in 2024, but the union maintained it needed to be paid in full. Also, renegotiation efforts for the 2009 agreement have stalled since 2017, with multiple draft agreements between ASUU and the government-appointed committees ignored by the previous administration of the late Muhammadu Buhari. The Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka (NAU) in Awka, Anambra State, has announced an indefinite ban on the popular signing off ceremony often observed by students after their final examinations. Chinenye Okeke, the universitys registrar, in a statement on Tuesday, said the ban takes immediate effect. Ms Okeke explained that the ban was in response to repeated cases of violence and disruption of university activities because of the signing off ceremony. The registrar said that the university management expressed concerns about unauthorised individuals who frequently infiltrate the campus during such celebrations, which she said pose security risks for both students and staff. The university emphasised that the signing off practices have grown into unruly gatherings, sometimes resulting in disorderly conduct, threats to safety and property damage. It warned that any student found engaging in the act would face severe disciplinary actions, including possible rustication, she said. Ms Okeke said the university has warned outsiders against entering the campus to partake in or encourage the banned activity. Such violators risk arrest and prosecution for breach of peace, she stated, reaffirming the universitys commitment to safety and academic excellence. The registrar urged students to focus on their academic responsibilities and report any misconduct or threats to the appropriate authorities. With this decision, the institution aligns itself with other universities across Nigeria in cracking down on unruly final-year sign out celebrations, placing safety and order above tradition, she added. Security guards arrest three students for violating ban Meanwhile, two days after the ban was announced on Thursday, some armed university security officers began arresting students for allegedly violating the ban. In a video clip circulating on Facebook, the institution security guards were seen forcing three yet-to-be-identified students out of a building on campus for wearing shirts scribbled with markers in violation of the ban. I did not give anybody a marker, one of the students, a female, was heard explaining to one of the angry guards. Leave this place, one of the guards ordered her. The clip, which has now gone viral, showed the security guards dragging the students outside the premises to an unknown location. READ ALSO: UNIZIK speaks on N550 million contract scandal allegations Like NAU, like IMT In October 2024, the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) Enugu State announced a similar ban in its campus. The ban by the IMT management followed the death of a student which happened when a graduating student, in a celebratory mood, rammed his car into a crowd of students within the institutions premises. The Federal Ministry of Justice says it has repositioned itself to adopt technology and digital transformation to enhance justice delivery in the country. Lateef Fagbemi, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, said this on Thursday at the ongoing Top Management Retreat of the Federal Ministry of Justice, holding in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the retreat is Positioning for Digital Transformation. Mr Fagbemi said that with the growing legal demands and societal pressures, the ministry must adopt strategies to keep the wheel of justice continuously in motion by adopting digital transformation. He said that the retreat would evaluate the ministrys institutional position, define its direction, and map out steps required to achieve its objectives. The ministry must therefore take the lead in adopting technology to enhance justice delivery. The challenges of today demand that justice never sleeps. With growing legal demands and societal pressures, we must adopt innovative strategies to keep the wheels of justice continuously in motion, Mr Fagbemi said. The minister said that justice sector had been one of the catalysts for national development and therefore would not be left behind in digital innovations. According to him, there can be no sustainable growth without access to justice, respect for the rule of law, and a strengthened justice system. The criminal justice sector, in particular, faces daunting challenges: inadequate access to justice, overcrowded correctional facilities, delays in trials, and other systemic inefficiencies. These issues require urgent and technology-driven solutions, he said. Earlier, Beatrice Jeddy-Agba, Solicitor General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Justice, said the retreat designed to deepen institutional capacity in Electronic Content Management (ECM). She said it would enhance digital case management and integration of Artificial Intelligence within legal workflows. Mrs Jeddy-Agba added that it was a purposeful platform for strategic dialogue, practical learning, and collective ownership of the Ministrys reform priorities. As we transition into the final phase of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP 20212025) and implement the revised National Policy on Justice, we must reimagine how we lead, collaborate, and deliver public service. The pace of global change demands that we embrace digital tools and adaptive leadership, she said. She thanked the Akwa Ibom government and development partners for their support and commitment in hosting the retreat. Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom, while declaring the retreat open, commended the federal ministry of justice for embracing digital transformation to enhance justice delivery. Mr Eno said that digital innovations would reduce stress, speed up trials and decongest custodial centres in the country. He said the theme of the retreat was timely and apt as participants will go back revitalised with knowledge to improve service delivery. (NAN) The Nigerian government has announced plans to launch the Womens Agro Value Expansion (WAVE) Programme, an initiative aimed at transitioning women from farmgate operators to agri-preneurs and value creators. The Minister of Women Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, made this known at the Renewed Hope Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (RH-GEEP) Roundtable Meeting on Thursday in Abuja. Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim said the programme is designed to expand womens participation in agricultural value chains while strengthening food security. She also reaffirmed the governments commitment to womens empowerment, stressing that womens economic inclusion is essential to national development. When we empower a woman, we empower her entire family, her community, and, in turn, our nation. Women are the first investors in the health, nutrition, and education of their children, creating ripple effects that lift every household they touch, she said. She added that while women constitute nearly 70 per cent of Nigerias agricultural workforce, there is a persistent imbalance that sidelines women from value addition, markets, and decision-making, despite their heavy contributions. What WAVE seeks to achieve According to the minister, the WAVE Programme will support women to move beyond subsistence farming by blending access to finance, skills development, market linkages, agribusiness support, mechanisation and storage facilities to drastically reduce post-harvest loss. She said the initiative will enhance productivity, and expand womens participation in both local and international markets. The WAVE Programme has a dual objective: to build womens capacities within agri-food systems so they can be prosperous, and to support Nigerian women to feed the nation, she said. Linking finance with enterprise support Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim highlighted the synergy between WAVE and the RH-GEEP financial inclusion drive, noting that access to finance must be complemented with skills, enterprise support, and value addition to truly lift women. Womens issues cannot be relegated to charitable causes. They need access, opportunity, and genuine partnership. Together, we can move millions of women from subsistence to prosperity and meaningfully contribute to the N1 trillion economy envisioned by Mr President under the Renewed Hope Agenda. The minister called on stakeholders, including the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), and development partners, to deepen collaboration in advancing womens empowerment through agriculture. She urged partners to remain steadfast in building a future where Nigerian women are central to economic growth and national development. Migration marks Africas history and will continue to shape Africas future. From trans-Saharan networks that surrounded empires across the world, to colonial streams of labour, to students, traders, and professional migrants today, mobility has always existed within African societies. It is part of the economic bloodstream, cultural energy, and political history of the continent. Widespread crisis narrative obliterates all this richness. It is a privilege to be part of JICA TICAD9 2025 in Japan. I am grateful to my host, Makiko Itoh, Seifudein Adem, and other staff members of the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. Their efficiency and competence are superb. Yoichi Mine, the executive director of the Institute, demonstrated exemplary leadership. African migration crisis is a phrase frequently heard over the last years, in many debates, conferences, and even waves of indignation on social networks. The images of the Mediterranean Sea, with overloaded boats full of people offer a story of desperation, which is usually presented, almost exclusively, as the irresistible wave of African immigrants that is about to inundate Europe. These images do not tell the whole story nor the spirit of migrations. Migration is not new and it is not necessarily crisis-like in Africa. African patterns of migration are centuries old older than the colonial borders that have divided the continent, older than the theory of push and pull that has reduced it to crude economic simplifications, and far older than the Western media have imposed a siege mentality on African movement. In trying to acknowledge African migration, we need to eschew the politics of fear and appreciate it for what it is: a venerable, unbroken-over-time, and often dignified human practice. Movements in Africa were prior to the emergence of modern states. People moved from place to place throughout time by land and sea and for commerce or defence. The Sahel experienced nomadic pastoralism for centuries. Cairo and Timbuktu were connected with each other through commercial caravans for ages before the colonial period. Fishermen populations made seasonal movements along the central sea currents. The concept of home in many African societies has been nomadic long enough, linked to kinship networks, religious terrains, and business circuits, rather than geographical boundaries. Flahaux & de Haas in Comparative Migration Studies note that even now, most of African migration remains intra-continental, often between neighbouring states. Cote dIvoire, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya are powerful magnets for regionally migrant populations, along the lines of a history of precolonial and colonial labour systems. It is not the political definition of migration that has changed, nor the reality of it, i.e., in the case of Europe. Why does the crisis discourse persist, then? Colonial imaginings of Africa as bewildered and dependent continue to inform the discourse. The pictorial rhetoric of migration reporting, fences, deserts, and boats, reduces the migrants to mobs without faces and strips them of agency and context. In European political discourse, to evoke this imagery is to legitimise securitised immigration policy Colonialism had cut short Africas natural patterns of migration. The European colonial powers arbitrarily drew borders at the Berlin Conference of 188485, dividing individuals, disrupting networks of trade, and initiating new patterns of territorial control. History reminds us that the majority of todays migrants are simply traversing borders drawn arbitrarily over them and not under their control; borders which tend to divide ethnic groups, kinship groups, and communal ecological spaces. Colonial labour regimes also formalised migration as a means of economic exploitation. The managed movement of labour supported East African plantations, South African mines, and West African railway projects. This commodification of mobility provided an entry point for postcolonial states to govern, and sometimes politicise migration in the interests of elites. African migration to Europe has been increasing since the 1990s, but it is not quite the invasion as portrayed every time. Education and income, a development measure, tend to increase in parallel with greater capacity to travel across borders, therefore more migration is more likely to equal development, not its demise. Why does the crisis discourse persist, then? Colonial imaginings of Africa as bewildered and dependent continue to inform the discourse. The pictorial rhetoric of migration reporting, fences, deserts, and boats, reduces the migrants to mobs without faces and strips them of agency and context. In European political discourse, to evoke this imagery is to legitimise securitised immigration policy, offshore detention camps, and militarised border patrol service. Migration is an issue to be addressed as a natural cycle of human existence. In African Diaspora: Slavery, Modernity, and Globalisation, I argue against reductionism, as Africans have been world actors, not mere flows to be contained. Therefore, to re-imagine African migration, we should read it as an exercise in agency. It is worthwhile to consider how migration restarts cultural creativity, from music to food to the political imagination. The migrant is neither a vessel victim nor an instrument but a self-making agent working within limits and potentialities. Regardless of the corridor rural Cote dIvoire to urban Mali, or Italy to Eritrea individuals and families balance risk, pursue their future, and assert their right to travel. It is also for dignity, the same as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an assertion of the right to leave and return to their country. To appreciate African migration as a continuous, two-way, and much more often positive process requires a mental shift among policymakers, the media, and the public towards the subject. Rather than conceiving mobility across borders as an omen of instability or economic catastrophe, the reverse should be the case, i.e., that it is a natural occurrence in African history and a force bringing about social and economic exchange. Africans have been traversing rivers, deserts, and colonial boundaries for millennia in search of opportunity, knowledge, and security. It has disseminated language, agricultural practices, artisanal practices, and culture. It is to misunderstand its role in shaping the continents history to regard such mobility as a problem. African migration is an act of persistence, ingenuity, and self-respect. Its how you get education, a living, and a future with no borders. It creates cultural interchange, value to transnational networks, and fuels prosperity in the economies of reception and sending. The problem is not, then, how to stop migration but how to shape political, legal, and social arrangements to maximise its greatest dividends that are responsive to migrants rights. The most pragmatically effective way of welcoming as many as possible is by securing and making easier regional regimes of mobility, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) free movement protocol. This agreement, through which people from member countries can move about, reside, and work on the continent visa-free, is a model for how Africa will provide good, secure, and positive migration. There are other frameworks, such as that of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), used for other regions of the continent, but which are politicised, inefficient bureaucracies, and under-financed. Strengthening and deepening such deals has the potential to ease pressure on illegal migration trails, enhance cross-border trade, and promote greater regional integration. The second highly crucial challenge is in making it easier for the transfer of skills among return migrants. The majority of Africans abroad are employed or in study and gain skills, expertise, and connections, which can be a game-changer for their home country. However, since there are no institutionalised reintegration programmes, these spill-overs are never realised. Governments and aid organisations can roll out programmes to link return migrants with industries that need high-level skills, provide entrepreneurial opportunities, and provide the potential for mentorship, whereby return migrants mentor others. By reframing return migration positively, not as a failure but as a chance of rejuvenation, African countries are well-positioned to use mobility as a development resource. A change of tune involves undercutting and deconstructing poisonous media rhetoric, stripping migrants of their faces and threatening them with waves. The media, mostly the Western media, overemphasise suffering, filled boats, detention centres, and border battles, at the expense of much more widespread stories of successful integration, economic contribution, and cultural exchange. Journalists, educators, and politicians need to re-focus definitions with the human story of migration, the aspirations that drive it, and the real ways that it enriches us. The shift in narrative is not just semantics; it has implications in policy, influences popular opinion, funding, and global cooperation. Migration marks Africas history and will continue to shape Africas future. From trans-Saharan networks that surrounded empires across the world, to colonial streams of labour, to students, traders, and professional migrants today, mobility has always existed within African societies. It is part of the economic bloodstream, cultural energy, and political history of the continent. Widespread crisis narrative obliterates all this richness. It boils millennia of responsive, cautious, sometimes calculative mobility down to a single hysterical story. It vomits panic instead of prudence, reaction instead of reflection. In brief, African migration is an act of persistence, ingenuity, and self-respect. Its how you get education, a living, and a future with no borders. It creates cultural interchange, value to transnational networks, and fuels prosperity in the economies of reception and sending. The problem is not, then, how to stop migration but how to shape political, legal, and social arrangements to maximise its greatest dividends that are responsive to migrants rights. Toyin Falola, a professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, is the Bobapitan of Ibadanland. The core impediment against the successful suppression of terrorism and banditry has been insufficiencies in the capacity and capability of our armed and security forces to sustain a barrage of attacks that would finish the combatants. The first problem is that of numbers. Over the last two decades, the numbers of insurgents, terrorists and armed bandits in Nigeria have been growing astronomically, while the size of our security operatives has been growing rather modestly. On 16 August, Nigerias National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, announced that security services had captured two terrorist leaders who have been on the wanted list for a long time. They are Mahmud Muhammad Usman, a leader of the al-Qaida-linked faction, Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan, popularly known as Ansaru and his colleague, Mahmud al-Nigeri. The leader, Malam Mamuda, was described by the NSA as someone who had been trained in Libya between 2013 and 2015 under foreign jihadist instructors from Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, with specialisation in weapons handling and the fabrication of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The NSA said the arrest was the most decisive blow against Ansaru since its inception and it would open doors to more arrests, given the intelligence obtained. The two men have jointly spearheaded multiple attacks on civilians, security forces and critical national infrastructure. I join numerous Nigerians and the international community in congratulating our security forces for this victory. It would be recalled that Ansaru emerged in 2012 as a breakaway splinter group from Boko Haram. The two sides had developed differences and disagreements over the targeting of civilians and the approach of the then leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau in using mass-casualty violence against civilians and Muslims. Ansaru opted for a tactic of targeting Western and high-profile Nigerian objectives and on hostage-taking for leverage. They also developed close ties with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which shaped its doctrine and operational tactics. Maybe the greatest concern for all of us should be the concordant reports about the degraded arms, equipment and supplies of our troops. If the insurgents have been scoring more points than our armed forces for such a long time, it must be because they have developed a relative advantage vis-a-vis our troops and that problem too needs to be addressed. The capture of leading members of terrorist groups is always an important event but its success in degrading the ability of the group to continue its terrorist activities is always a function of the ability of the security agencies to follow up with more attacks that can prevent the group from recuperating and re-organising after the blow. Way back in 2016, security forces had arrested another leader of the group, Khalid al-Barnawi in Lokoja, Kogi State. It appeared at that time that the group had been decapitated and its activities ceased for some time but it was allowed to rebuild and reorganise. This has happened so many times. The core impediment against the successful suppression of terrorism and banditry has been insufficiencies in the capacity and capability of our armed and security forces to sustain a barrage of attacks that would finish the combatants. The first problem is that of numbers. Over the last two decades, the numbers of insurgents, terrorists and armed bandits in Nigeria have been growing astronomically, while the size of our security operatives has been growing rather modestly. The numbers simply do not march. This insufficiency has to be addressed with the urgency that is required. Maybe the greatest concern for all of us should be the concordant reports about the degraded arms, equipment and supplies of our troops. If the insurgents have been scoring more points than our armed forces for such a long time, it must be because they have developed a relative advantage vis-a-vis our troops and that problem too needs to be addressed. How many times have we seen reports about our troops being poorly armed in relation to the sophisticated weaponry regularly displayed by the enemy? In addition, it is often reported that our troops are poorly fed and their allowances not fully paid, which is a situation that is bound to negatively affect their morale. Successive governments have failed to adequately address this problem. Maybe the most serious generator of violent extremism and bandit terrorism in Nigeria is the perception that Nigerians have developed about the governing class. Its members are accurately seen as being extremely corrupt, self-serving and completely disinterested in the progress of the nation. Many within the younger generation have come to see themselves as inheritors of the governing class and are copying its behaviour. The problems we face go beyond the kinetic level. I am aware that winning the war is no easy matter. Asymmetrical warfare is very difficult to win because the terrorists are mobile and can hide and strike almost at will. Winning the war is virtually impossible if we are unable to address the conditions that led to the insurgency in the first place. Today, Nigeria finds itself in the frightening position of having the largest number of out-of-school children in the world. At the same time, we also have the largest number of poor people in the world, with the majority residing in the northern part of the country, which is the most affected. One key finding by poor Nigerians is that engaging in the war is a profitable venture. The outcome of this discovery has led to more fronts emerging from year to year. What was initially an insurgency in parts of the North-East has now spread to most parts of Northern Nigeria and beyond. During the first phase of the Boko Haram insurgency, a serious effort aimed at developing and popularising counter-radicalising narratives could have stemmed the growth of the movement but that did not occur. The mass communication of the Boko Haram ideology was not stopped and it grew in strength. When Boko Haram started, many ulema criticised their religious ideology, while articulating robust theological refutations of their doctrine. If the State had provided significant support for such initiatives, their growth might have been stemmed a long time ago. Maybe the most serious generator of violent extremism and bandit terrorism in Nigeria is the perception that Nigerians have developed about the governing class. Its members are accurately seen as being extremely corrupt, self-serving and completely disinterested in the progress of the nation. Many within the younger generation have come to see themselves as inheritors of the governing class and are copying its behaviour. They are adopting its culture of using violence to steal the peoples resources, rape and assault women, and engage in the primitive accumulation of capital for its self-aggrandisement. This explains the trajectory taken of procuring arms and using them to impoverish the community and society for their selfish interests. If leaders will not work for the people and will continue to exploit and oppress them, they ignite the same behaviour in the young generation. The way forward is to have a national leadership that has integrity and works for the interest of the ordinary people; they can then breed a new leadership in their image. Dont ask me how. A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES. The Ogun State Government wishes to express its profound appreciation to the general public, tourists, and visitors for the overwhelming and unprecedented turnout recorded at the newly renovated Olumo Rock Tourist Complex. This remarkable response is a testament to the vision and commitment of Governor Dapo Abiodun, in repositioning Olumo Rock as a world-class tourist destination of pride for Ogun State, Nigeria, and the global community. As part of this vision, the governor graciously introduced a free entry initiative to give residents and visitors the opportunity to rediscover and appreciate the cultural and historical significance of Olumo Rock following its renovation. This objective has been fully achieved, with thousands of visitors taking advantage of the initiative. However, the unprecedented influx of visitors has raised concerns about overcrowding and public safety, according to a statement by Tokunbo Talabi, the Secretary to Ogun State Government (SSG). The statement stressed further: At certain points, the volume of the crowd posed risks that could have resulted in a stampede but for the swift and professional intervention of security agencies and on-site personnel. In view of this, and in line with the governments priority to safeguard lives, His Excellency has directed that the free entry initiative will come to an end on Saturday, 23rd August, 2025. Thereafter, normal access procedures will resume. The Ogun State Government regrets any inconvenience this adjustment may cause and assures the public of its unwavering commitment to providing a safe, enjoyable, and memorable experience for all visitors to the Olumo Rock Tourist Complex. FCMB Asset Management Limited (FCMBAM) and TLG Capital today announced the full deployment of the oversubscribed FCMBTLG Private Debt Fund Series 1. The successful raise and deployment underscore the accelerating demand for private debt as a scalable, risk-managed source of capital for Nigerias productive economy. Series 1 at a glance Oversubscribed and fully deployed. Backed by 16 investors, including leading Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs). Financing provided to five Nigerian companies. Proceeds targeted essential sectors with clear economic and social multipliers: Agriculture: financing for one of Nigerias largest cocoa exporters, to expand its exports. Healthcare: support for one of Nigerias largest producers of medical consumables (including syringes and facemasks) to bolster local health security. Clean Energy: working-capital support to a well-established solar home & office systems provider to extend energy access and reduce diesel reliance. IT/Technology: debt to one of Africas fastest-growing tech companies revolutionising distributive trade, helping formalise supply chains and SME access to inventory. In response to investor demand and a strong pipeline, FCMBAM and TLG Capital are set to launch Series 2 of the FCMBTLG Private Debt Fund. Series 2 will continue to provide senior secured financing to resilient mid-market businesses in essential sectors, maintaining the Funds disciplined underwriting, covenant protection, and measurable impact framework. Further details will be announced subject to applicable regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria. The Fund targets competitive risk-adjusted returns alongside tangible development outcomes, focusing on key sectors such as Healthcare, Education, Transport and Logistics, and Clean Energy. Providing alternative access to suitable capital by mid-sized companies in sectors that align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and delivering competitive risk-adjusted return on investment to investors are the key objectives of the FCMB-TLG Private Debt Fund. The Fund successfully met these objectives under Series 1, contributing meaningfully to Nigerias economic growth and development. This aligns with FCMBs broader Purpose: To foster inclusive and sustainable growth in the communities we serve. We remain committed to working closely with our partners and regulators to continue delivering exceptional value to all our stakeholders, as we prepare to launch Series 2 of the Fund, said James Ilori, Chief Executive Officer, FCMB Asset Management Limited. Were seeing stronger private credit opportunities in Nigeria now than at any point in the last fifteen years. Through Series 1, we have proven that the asset class is investable at scale so that local institutions can participate with confidence. Our partnership with FCMB Asset Management brings together their fiduciary strength with our Africa Private Credit expertise. This partnership is turbo-charged by the UK Manufacturing Africa programme and McKinsey, who provide hands-on value creation for our portfolio companies. Through capital investment and capacity building, we help leading Nigerian businesses to grow, make an impact, and create jobs while delivering strong returns. For institutions with Naira liabilities, this is the best way to invest, said Isha Doshi, Co-Founder, TLG Capital. FCMBAM is the asset management arm of FCMB Group Plc. Incorporated in 1997, the company provides portfolio management and investment advisory services to individual and institutional clients globally. FCMBAM, rated A- by GCR Ratings and A- (IM) (long-term) by Agusto & Co., is one of Nigerias leading asset managers with over 500 billion in Assets Under Management. TLG Capital is a private, employee-owned London-based investment firm specialising in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2009. The TLG Group manages in excess of US$180 million across private credit and growth strategies, and recently announced the launch of Africa Growth Impact Fund II (AGIF II) with a US$75 million first close anchored by IFC, Swedfund, Norfund and Bpifrance. Governor Dauda Lawal is hosting a strategic meeting of governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) this weekend in Gusau, Zamfara State. The governors are expected to arrive in Gusau this evening, ahead of the meeting scheduled for Saturday. A statement by the spokesperson for the Zamfara Governor, Sulaiman Bala Idris, hinted that the meeting is to discuss key political strategies as the governors navigate the current political landscape. Governor Dauda Lawal extends a warm welcome to his counterparts, the governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Zamfara State, the spokesperson said. He stated further: The governors are convening today for an important meeting of the PDP Governors Forum. Governor Lawal will host a dinner for the governors tonight, before the closed-door meeting scheduled for tomorrow. This meeting will provide party leaders with the opportunity to discuss pressing political issues, plan for party unity, and collaborate on developmental initiatives within their respective states. Additionally, the governors will address key concerns in preparation for the national convention organized by the National Executive Committee (NEC) in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, on November 15 and 16, 2025. A federal lawmakers response surprised a Facebook user who challenged him on his performance at the National Assembly. Clement Jimbo, Ill like to be furnished with data on what youve really brought to the table, the Facebook user, Fabian Atang, said a few days ago on the social media site to Clement Jimbo, the member representing Abak/EtimEkpo/Ika Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. The constituency is in Akwa Ibom State, and Mr Atang, from Ika Local Government Area of the state, is Mr Jimbos constituent. Mr Atang mentioned three other Akwa Ibom federal lawmakers, whom he said have performed well. Apparently unsure of how the lawmaker would take his question, the constituent told the lawmaker that he did not intend to insult him. Constructive response will do a lot of good, he added. Lawmakers response Mr Jimbo, who is doing his first term, thanked Mr Atang for his responsible enquiry, and told the constituent, It is within your right to ask and get responses from your lawmaker. I am going to do just that. Please be patient to read and be courageous to verify every claim I will make here. See below Mr Jimbos achievements as listed by the APC lawmaker: FIRST YEAR ACHIEVEMENTS: 1. Motion for the intervention at Obiobom Bridge in Ward 4, Abak LGA. This motion has been adopted, and resolution made, and an intervention done. 2. Completion of the Town Hall in Ward 3 in Abak. 3. Grading of 10.8km Ediene/Etinan Road. 4. Grading of 20km Ikot Edet Road in Etim Ekpo Ward 4. 5. Training of 31 female youths on cosmetology with empowerment (Ika youths inclusive). 6. Training of 250 youths on silk plastering with empowerment (Abak, Etim Ekpo, Ika). 7. Training of 200 youths on agriculture, with empowerment (Abak, Etim Ekpo, Ika). 8. Installation of many solar street lights in Abak, Etim Ekpo, Ika LGAs. For ease of verification of locations, call Mr Shederack on 08131370676 for Abak. Mr Emmanuel on 07036668820 for Etim Ekpo and Hon. Joseph on 08022823995 for Ika. 9. Training of 70 youths on ICT and empowerment with new laptops (Abak, Etim Ekpo, Ika) 10. Disbursement of bursaries to 80 tertiary students. 11. Sponsorship of an Etim Ekpo indigene in Law School. 12. Sponsorship of Jamb registration to pupils in Abak, Etim Ekpo, Ika. 13. Grant of N50,000 to 93 market women across the constituency. 14. Distribution of 4,500 bags of rice, beans, garri, blankets, tomatoes, seasonings, etc to the constituents. 15. Distribution of 20,000 exercise books to pupils in public schools across the constituency. 16. Distribution of 2,500 school bags to pupils in public schools across the constituency. 17. Distribution of 100 cartons of chalk to teachers in public schools across the constituency. 18. Presentation of four cars to the constituents; one to Ika, one to Etim Ekpo and two in Abak. 19. Presentation of 15-ton tipper to Tipper Loaders Association, Abak. 20. Facilitation of 12 pensionable jobs in different MDAs for the constituents. 21. Presentation of 31 sewing machines to female youths across the constituency. 22. Presentation of 31 hair dryers to female youths across the constituency. 23. Presentation of 31 grinding machines to constituents across the constituency. 24. Medical outreach to 2,500 constituents SECOND YEAR ACHIEVEMENTS: 1. Construction of a brand new block of six classrooms in Ika 2. Construction of a brand new block of six classrooms in Etim Ekpo. 3. Construction of a brand new block of six classrooms in Abak. 4. Construction of a solar-powered borehole in Ika. 5. Construction of a solar-powered borehole in Etim Ekpo (Ward 6). 6. Construction of a solar-powered borehole in Abak. 7. Facilitation of a federal government job for an Ika son in CMD. 8. Presentation of a Toyota Camry car to a constituent in Abak. 9. Equipping of furniture to a public school in Abak Comprehensive Secondary School, Ediene. 10. Business Grant of N500,000 to 13 constituents across the constituency. 11. Business Grant of N200,000 to 5 constituents 12. Sponsorship of many bills and motions on various national issues. 13. Laying of petitions on behalf of many constituents on various personal issues The lawmaker concluded by saying, This is the much I can lay hands on at this moment. He advised the constituent to go through his Facebook page for verifiable photos and videos of the projects and programmes he listed. Impressive Mr Atang responded to Mr Jimbos reaction. I have taken time to go through the above-listed items; its an impressive scorecard. The constituent said he was happy that he had thrown the question at the House of Representatives member. Im sure a lot of people who were not in the know about the execution or existence of these record achievements have also gained insight, too. And I must also say that a lot more needs to be done. Beyond the politics of today, a beautiful track record will speak volumes for you tomorrow and also help to push the federal constituency forward, he said. Many people who commented on Mr Jimbos response commended him for his representation at the National Assembly and for responding to Mr Atangs enquiry. PREMIUM TIMES spoke on Friday with Mr Atang about his exchange with Mr Jimbo. The constituent said the lawmakers response pleasantly surprised him. He said he had thought that the lawmaker would not be peaceful in his reaction. Mr Jimbo, 42, is one of the youngest federal lawmakers in Nigeria. He campaigned and won in the 2023 general elections, using the youth slot mantra. Philadelphia and Harrisburg labor & employment lawyers recognized among best in the country PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania labor, employment and workers' compensation law firm Willig, Williams & Davidson is proud to announce that 19 of its attorneys have been selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2026 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, one of the legal profession's oldest and most respected peer-review publications, and its list of Ones to Watch, which highlights early-career attorneys who show exceptional skill and promise within their practice areas. The 2026 Best Lawyers include Irwin W. Aronson, James S. Beall, Susan Bahme Blumenfeld, Eric Borjeson, Stuart W. Davidson, Aneesah El-Amin-Jaamia, Michael P. Fenerty, Laurence M. Goodman, Ryan A. Hancock, Lauren M. Hoye, Nancy B. G. Lassen, Bruce M. Ludwig, Linda M. Martin, Richard G. Poulson, Amy L. Rosenberger, Ralph J. Teti, Deborah R. Willig, and Brett Zeitlin. Many of the attorneys have been named among Best Lawyers for 10 years or more, while Aronson, Davidson, and Willig have been named for more than 30 years. In addition, Jordan Konell has been named among The Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch, which recognizes attorneys who have been in practice for 10 or fewer years. Hoye also has received Best Lawyers' 2026 Edition "Lawyer of the Year" Award. She was recognized in Philadelphia in the practice area of labor law union. This honor is awarded to an individual lawyer based on the overall voter feedback from their peers in their specific practice area and geographic region. Only one lawyer is selected as Lawyer of the Year for each practice area and location. The attorneys were recognized for their work in the practice areas of union labor law, employee benefits (ERISA) law, employment law - individuals, labor and employment law, labor and employment litigation, family law, and workers' compensation law - claimants. Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become highly regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers is based on detailed peer-review surveys, in which tens of thousands of leading attorneys vote on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas. Since lawyers are neither required nor allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. About Willig, Williams & Davidson Willig, Williams & Davidson (www.wwdlaw.com) is one of the largest and most respected union-side labor law firms in the United States. The firm has offices in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as well as Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1979, Willig, Williams & Davidson focuses on representing labor unions, employee benefit funds and individual working people and their families on a variety of legal fronts, including national, regional and local contract negotiations; election and campaign finance; dispute resolution through mediation, arbitration and litigation; family law matters; benefits law design and compliance issues; discrimination, overtime and unpaid wages, and other employment matters; prepaid legal services for union members; social security disability; and workers' compensation matters in Philadelphia and beyond. Workers inspire us. Contact: Sarah Larson [email protected] / 215.340.0480 SOURCE Willig, Williams & Davidson EAST LANSING, Mich., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- ADASTEC Corp., a global leader in SAE Level-4 automated driving software for full-size buses, brings its proven real-world expertise to Michigan State University's latest mobility initiative. A new full-size electric bus, automated by ADASTEC, is joining the Michigan State University campus transportation network. Beginning August 25, it will operate along a 5.12-mile route through central campus, providing a free, accessible, and sustainable mobility option for students, faculty, staff, visitors, and the surrounding community. The bus meets both Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, making it the first SAE Level-4 automated bus with these certifications to operate in the United States. The deployment is part of a new three-year research agreement with the university in which ADASTEC's SAE Level-4 automated driving software platform, flowride.ai, will be central to developing and proving out connected and automated vehicle technologies in real-world conditions. To enable advanced capabilities such as intersection-to-bus communication, ADASTEC's system will integrate with nine newly installed C-V2X (cellular vehicle-to-everything) roadside units along the route. This connected vehicle infrastructure, seamlessly working with flowride.ai, will be a critical asset for deployment, ongoing testing, and the continuous advancement of ADASTEC's automated driving solutions. Advancing Campus Mobility The new service takes Michigan State University's campus mobility to an entirely new level, introducing a fully integrated passenger operation with advanced connected vehicle capabilities. The bus enables a continuous flow of real-world data to support both operational excellence and advanced mobility research. This vehicle combines advanced automation with full regulatory compliance, setting a new benchmark for automated public transportation in the U.S. "Michigan State University is proud to expand our efforts with ADASTEC as we launch this new automated bus deployment on campus," said Judd Herzer, Director of Mobility and Innovation at MSU. "SpartanXpress is not just a transit service. It's part of a living laboratory where cutting-edge technology meets real-world conditions. By operating one of the nation's only full-size format, fully automated buses within an existing campus network, we're creating safer, more sustainable, and more accessible mobility solutions while providing unmatched research and learning opportunities for our students, faculty, and industry partners." Named SpartanXpress through a campus-wide student contest, the bus will serve as a hands-on learning platform for students across multiple disciplines. Through access to performance data and real operational scenarios, future engineers and researchers will gain direct insight into how ADASTEC's SAE Level-4 automated driving software platform, flowride.ai, interacts with infrastructure, passengers, and varied traffic conditions, creating a living classroom that blends technology, education, and public service. "Automated driving alone is not the destination, it's the starting point," said Dr. Ali Peker, CEO of ADASTEC. "With Michigan State University, we are showing what's possible when technology, accessibility, and sustainability come together in one service. This bus is more than a vehicle, it's a living classroom, a community connector, and a model for how full-size SAE Level-4 automated driving can operate safely, inclusively, and in harmony with daily life. From snowy mornings to busy afternoons, it delivers real value to the people it serves while generating the insights that will drive cleaner, smarter, and more connected cities worldwide, building on the global deployments and real-world operations we have already achieved." Advanced Technology for Real-World Conditions The FMVSS- and ADA-compliant bus is equipped with ADASTEC's advanced sensor suite including six LiDARs, six radars, eleven RGB cameras, a GNSS and a C-V2X onboard unit. flowride.ai manages all driving functions from acceleration and braking to steering and decision-making on pre-mapped urban routes in mixed traffic that includes cyclists, pedestrians, cars, buses, and trucks. The system communicates with surrounding infrastructure and other road users, intelligently adapting to dynamic traffic conditions while managing intersections, bus stops, and crosswalks without the need for human intervention. Through vehicle-to-infrastructure connectivity, the system communicates with 13 traffic lights and roadside units for precise coordination at intersections and pedestrian crossings. Through C-V2X connectivity, the system also operates with continuous communication with traffic lights to ensure precise coordination. The bus operates reliably in adverse weather conditions including light snow, rain, and haze. It also features an automated accessibility ramp and ADA-compliant boarding, with real-time fleet monitoring and remote operation capabilities for enhanced safety. The maximum speed limit for the route is 25 mph. This level of situational awareness ensures uninterrupted service and makes sustainable automated transportation a natural part of campus life at MSU. "At ADASTEC, our SAE Level-4 automated driving software platform is built to work hand-in-hand with connected vehicle infrastructure," said Cemre Kavvasoglu, Product Management Director, North America at ADASTEC. "This deployment at Michigan State University not only provides safe and reliable service for students, faculty, and visitors, but also contributes valuable operational data to research efforts. By integrating with nine C-V2X roadside units, we are able to coordinate intersections with precision and generate real-world insights that will advance both public transportation and the education of future mobility leaders." Connecting the MSU Campus The route links key destinations including Commuter Lot 89 2, Commuter Lot 89 4, Wilson Road, Anthony Hall (Shaw Lane before Farm Lane), Wharton Center Loop, IM East (Shaw Lane before Conrad Road), and Natural Resources (Farm Lane past Wilson Road). Passenger service runs Monday through Friday at regular intervals between 10:05 a.m. and 2:35 p.m., providing consistent connections between commuter parking, academic halls, residence halls, and cultural venues. This schedule ensures reliable access across campus while showcasing the practical, real-world application of ADASTEC's flowride.ai in public transportation. Having completed over 12 deployments in 11 countries, ADASTEC brings its proven global expertise to Michigan State University, delivering a service that strengthens community connections today while building the foundation for the future of public transportation. About ADASTEC Corp. Established in 2018, ADASTEC Corp is a leading US-based provider of SAE Level-4 automation solutions for full-size buses and commercial vehicles. Our flagship product, the SAE Level-4 automation platform flowride.ai, sets the standard in full-size bus automation with its advanced capabilities and has achieved key regulatory approvals, distinguishing ADASTEC as an industry pioneer. With a commitment to quality and innovation, ADASTEC holds prestigious ISO certifications and is headquartered in East Lansing, Michigan, with a global presence in Turkiye, Germany, Sweden and The Netherlands. ADASTEC is dedicated to transforming public transportation into a more sustainable and efficient system with a proven track record of international deployments and strong industry partnerships. Our expertise in delivering factory-fitted full-size buses and commercial vehicles automation and integration into public transport systems underscores our commitment to providing scalable, cost-effective, and safety-focused solutions to meet the evolving needs of modern cities. For more information, please visit www.adastec.com. Images: https://mbe.group/pr/ADASTEC/Bus%20Images.zip Media Contacts: Brittney Popa MBE Group on behalf of ADASTEC [email protected] M: (231) 675-1692 Yasemin US Growth Marketing Management Team Leader at ADASTEC [email protected] M: +90(539) 724 62 67 SOURCE ADASTEC Corp. BEIJING, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- This year is the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the World Anti-Fascist War (World War II), and the founding of the United Nations. These milestones serve as powerful reminders of a time when global unity overcame global challenges. Amid these commemorations, one enduring symbol of China-U.S. wartime collaboration stands out: the Flying Tigers. Allies in the skies: the growing legacy of the Flying Tigers The Flying Tigers, officially known as the First American Volunteer Group (AVG), were a squadron of American pilots who had volunteered to fight for China against the Japanese invasion during the World War II. Credited with destroying nearly 300 enemy aircraft, the Flying Tigers not only provided crucial air defense but also forged a strong bond of cooperation and friendship between the two nations, a legacy that continues to be honored and remembered. At the forefront of preserving this legacy is Jeffrey Greene, Chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation. A former U.S. Marine pilot turned historian and documentary filmmaker, Greene has spent over three decades chronicling the stories of the Flying Tigers. His journey began in 1998 when he traveled to China with surviving members of the AVG, the original Flying Tigers. Led by General Claire Lee Chennault, these pilots played a critical role in defending Chinese cities such as Kunming, Yunnan Province, from Japanese aerial attacks. After a pivotal air battle on December 20, 1941, Kunming residents began calling the American pilots "Feihudui," or the Flying Tigers, a name that has since become a lasting emblem of shared sacrifice and friendship. "A tiger who flies cannot be defeated and is immortal, and it was given to them by the Chinese people," Greene told Beijing Review in an exclusive interview. According to Greene, more than 3,000 American airmen died while serving in China. Their sacrifices kept key cities out of enemy hands and ensured the survival of crucial supply lines, including the perilous flights over the Himalayas known as "The Hump." One of the most poignant episodes Greene recounted was the Doolittle Raid in April 1942. Following a bombing mission over Japan, American pilots, running low on fuel, crash-landed in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, East China, where local villagers bravely risked their lives to save them. "That kind of solidarity forged a people-to-people bond that still resonates today," Greene said. Officially founded in 1998, the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation has evolved into a vital bridge of remembrance and cross-cultural cooperation. Through its programs, more than 500 veterans and their descendants have returned to China, reconnecting with the places and people linked to the Flying Tigers' legacy. One of its most impactful initiatives is the Flying Tigers Friendship School and Youth Leadership Program, which now connects approximately 70 schools in China with 30 in the U.S. In a letter dated September 12, 2023, to Chairman Greene and Flying Tigers veterans Harry Moyer and Mel McMullen, Chinese President Xi Jinping recalled the past, the peoples of China and the U.S. jointly fought Japanese fascists, withstood the test of blood and fire, and forged a profound friendship. He expressed his hope that the spirit of the Flying Tigers would be carried forward by future generations between the two peoples. Last summer, a group of American students traveled to China through the program. Their visit included tours of historical sites and cultural exchanges with Chinese studentsexperiences designed to deepen mutual understanding and appreciation. Despite current visa-related challenges, Greene remains optimistic about expanding the program in both directions. "They saw the battlefield, they saw China and the Chinese peoplethey understand the history," Greene explained. "It shows them the connection we have with the Chinese, and the Chinese have with us. That's the significance of our program." "China and the U.S. are the two most important countries on the planet. That's the legacy we have, the shared American and the Chinese legacy of the Flying Tigers gives us something to hold together and introduce and develop," Greene said. Comments to [email protected] Website: https://www.bjreview.com/Multimedia/Video/Pacific_Dialogue/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cachinachic/video/7540929265018162462? Xhttps://x.com/BeijingReview/status/1958424164421025901 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Y7tn9uNPw/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/BxX8xvjdfBY Douyin: https://www.douyin.com/video/7541002869105888563 Weibo: https://weibo.com/1719349955/5202166681963353 SOURCE Beijing Review LAGOS, Nigeria, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- BSV has launched a "Voice of Africa" awareness campaign in African countries to publicise HDFN. BSV launches the "Voice of Africa" series to raise public awareness of HDFN (PRNewsfoto/BSV) What is HDFN and why is it essential to understand it? Haemolytic disease neonatal (HDFN), also known as erythroblastosis foetalis, is a blood disorder that occurs when the blood groups of the mother and child are incompatible. This incompatibility is also known as Rh incompatibility. When a Rh-negative woman becomes pregnant with a Rh-positive child, she may be exposed to the Rhesus antigen (foreign to her body) during childbirth or miscarriage. In response, the woman develops antibodies against the Rh antigen. So what's the problem? In Nigeria, women with a negative rhesus blood group account for between 0.8% and 8.4% of all pregnancies, as shown by studies carried out in different regions of the country. This figure appears to be in line with the number of women affected worldwide. The proportion of these women who develop antibodies following exposure to the Rh antigen is less than 2%. The actual number of babies affected is unclear. Diagnosis is often made by the indirect Coomb test performed on the mother's blood at least once every three months and by the direct Coomb test on umbilical cord blood at the time of delivery. Unaffected mothers receive anti-D immunoglobulin 1,500 g at 28 weeks in some centres and within 72 hours of delivery, where appropriate, to prevent haemolytic disease. Women are also expected to receive anti-D after a miscarriage or termination of pregnancy. There are as yet no standardised guidelines or protocols for the management of Rh-negative pregnant women in Nigeria. "Screening tests and anti-D immunoglobulin are expensive and not readily available or affordable. It is therefore necessary to tackle this problem because of its effects on pregnancy outcomes," said Dr Joy Onyinyechi Chionuma. If the woman is pregnant the next time with an Rh-positive baby, the antibodies she has developed can enter the foetus and attack the Rh antigen on the foetus' RBCs (red blood cells). When the mature red blood cells break down, only immature red blood cells remain. They are less able to transport oxygen to all parts of the body and the foetus develops anaemia. This is known as haemolytic disease of the newborn. The foetus may then suffer heart failure, leading to an accumulation of fluid in various parts of the body. In addition, bilirubin is formed as a result of the destruction of red blood cells. The baby's liver is not sufficiently developed to eliminate bilirubin. Bilirubin can therefore reach toxic levels and lead to jaundice. Excess bilirubin can also affect the brain, causing fever, loss of appetite and energy, uncontrollable movements, seizures, deafness, slurred speech and mental retardation. This disease can be fatal and requires either a blood transfusion or a procedure in which the plasma is completely replaced, eliminating all toxins (plasmapheresis). Phototherapy is another treatment option. Some research suggests that an early liver transplant may be useful. The Rh disease scenario in Ghana To prevent or reduce these complications, Rh-negative pregnant women routinely receive Rh immune globulin at 28 weeks' gestation and within 72 hours of delivering an Rh-positive baby, or after any event likely to mix foetal blood with maternal blood (e.g. miscarriage, amniocentesis). "According to unpublished data from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology's annual records from 2013, the rate of Rh D-negative mothers consulting Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) was 4.3%," said Dr Isaac O. Koranteng. It would be unfair not to mention the pain felt by the family of a baby affected by this disease. The child will need constant care in a neonatal intensive care unit. The emotional, physical and financial burden can be considerable. The role of antenatal care in reducing potentially sensitising events in Rhesus-negative pregnant women RHESUS ALLO IMMUNISATION IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT Introduction Maternal fetal alloimmunisation (MFAE) is defined as the presence on the fetal red blood cell of maternal alloantibodies transmitted in utero [EMC OBSTETRICS]. Rhesus system antibodies (Rh D, C, c, E, e) are the most frequently implicated [CNTS CI]. The immune complexes formed may be responsible for foetal and/or neonatal erythrocyte haemolysis, the most serious of which are linked to anti-D (Rh1), c (Rh4) or Kell alloimmunisation. Rhesus alloimmunisation is thus a major cause of foetal anaemia and perinatal mortality [CNGOF]. Our study was particularly interested in Rhesus anti-D alloimmunisation because it is the only erythrocyte alloimmunisation that can be prevented by medication. 1 - Problems Rhesus alloimmunisation accounts for 61.1% of all erythrocyte alloimmunisations in the general population in Cote d'Ivoire [CNTS CI]. At the CHU de Cocody, 19 cases of Rhesus anti-D allo immunisation were recorded over a 3-year period from January 2017 to December 2019. The prevalence of Rhesus alloimmunisation in Africa remains poorly documented. The few studies on the subject estimate prevalence at between 1 and 4% of all pregnancies [ ]. The low prevalence observed at the CHU de Cocody may be underestimated due to insufficient diagnosis of anti-D alloimmunisation during pregnancy. 2 - Our practice Diagnosis Screening begins with the determination of the maternal Rhesus blood group during the prenatal check-up in the 1st trimester of pregnancy. If the woman is Rh-negative, it is recommended that the spouse's Rh blood group be checked. If the partner is Rh D negative, there is no need for immunoprophylaxis. On the other hand, if the partner is Rh D positive or unknown, an irregular agglutinin test (RAI) or an indirect Coombs test should be carried out in the 1st trimester and 9th month of pregnancy. In our practice, this test is only carried out in 37% of Rh-negative patients. Today, the CNGOF recommends foetal Rh D genotyping on maternal blood in the 1st trimester of pregnancy. However, this test is not available in Cote d'Ivoire. Prevention "During pregnancy, systematic prevention at 28 weeks' gestation, as recommended by several learned societies, is not carried out in our practice because of the exorbitant cost of anti-D serum for the vast majority of our patients. Instead, we carry out targeted prevention in situations where there is a risk of maternal-fetal haemorrhage, using 200 micrograms of anti-D serum . After delivery, we systematically inject 300 micrograms of anti-D serum within 72 hours of delivery, with a catch-up dose within 30 days if the injection was not given on time. However, this dosage of injected serum remains subjective due to the fact that the Kleihauer test is not carried out because of the lack of laboratories throughout the country and our patients' lack of financial resources," said Professor Boni Ehouman Serge Auguste. The good news is that all this can be avoided. If a pregnant woman has Rh-negative blood, she should receive medical assistance in all situations where she is likely to be sensitised by the blood of the foetus. This may include childbirth, miscarriage, abortion or any invasive test or procedure. The administration of Rhesus immune globulin to the mother is recommended within 72 hours of such an event. This immunity will neutralise the Rh antigen in the baby's blood even before the mother has a chance to develop antibodies against it. How is Rh incompatibility managed? If an Rh-negative woman is pregnant and has already given birth to an Rh-positive child, the doctor can test her blood for Rh-positive antibodies, carry out an ultrasound scan (USG) to detect signs of heart failure and even take a sample of amniotic fluid to check the foetus's bilirubin level (amniocentesis). It is also possible to take a sample of foetal blood from the umbilical cord. Once the diagnosis has been made, depending on the severity of the disease, the foetus may require one or more intrauterine blood transfusions, or early delivery may be necessary to deal with complications. Haemolytic disease of the newborn is a devastating condition for babies and their families and presents an enormous challenge. But it doesn't have to be that way. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and raising awareness of this disease can go a long way towards saving lives. Reference 1. Akaba GO, Ubong IA, Olateju EK. Prevalence and fetal outcome of Rh-negative pregnancy in a tertiary health care institution in Abuja. Afri J Fetomaternal Med 2023; 2(1):63-75 2. Eleje GU, Ijike CP, Ezeama CO, Umeobike JC, Oguajiofor CB. Fetomaternal outcomesof women with Rhesus-isoimmunization in a tertiary healthcare centre. J Preg Neonatal Med 2017; 1(1):21-27 3. Otomewo, L, John-Olabode, S, Okunade, K1, Olorunfemi, G3; Ajie, I. Prevalence of Rhesus C and D Alloantibodies among Rhesus-Negative Women of Child Bearing Age at a Tertiary Hospital in South-West Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice 23(12):p 1759-1766, December 2020 DOI : 10.4103/njcp.njcp_114_20 4. Allagoa DO, Orji PC, Briggs DC, et al. Rhesus negative pregnancy: Prevalence and foetomaternal outcomes in a tertiary hospital in south-south Nigeria. European Journal of Medical and Health Sciences 2021;3(5):123-131 Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2755565/BSV_Voice_of_Africa_EN.jpg SOURCE BSV Airline Passenger Group Argues the District Court Ruling Would Create Two Classes of Passengers Under the Montreal Convention: Those Who Are Disabled and Those Who Are Not WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- FlyersRights, the nation's largest airline passenger nonprofit organization, has filed an amicus curiae brief in the case of Arzu v. American Airlines before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. At the heart of the case lies the Montreal Convention, a multilateral treaty governing compensation for death, injury, delay, and baggage damage in international air travel. The plaintiff, a 14 year old boy named Kevin Greenidge, died on an American Airlines international flight. The district court excused the airline's breach of its own procedures in responding to an inflight medical emergency, ruling this breach not to be an "accident" under the Montreal Convention. In deciding whether this was an "accident" under the Montreal Convention, the District Court incorrectly focused on the passenger's medical conditions and weight rather than the airline's conduct. Paul Hudson, President of FlyersRights, explained, "The district court ruling creates a discriminatory framework for deciding what level of emergency care an airline must provide a passenger based on that passenger's medical conditions or disability." FlyersRights has long advocated for the fair and non-discriminatory treatment of airline passengers. This amicus brief is part of its ongoing commitment to protect consumers and aviation safety and to ensure that airlines comply with the law. For more information on FlyersRights' amicus brief and to read the full brief, visit our News and Download sections of our website or go directly to: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/2b7ac7a8-3914-4be3-a69a-dbd59cb43a84/downloads/75bf378f-d0b6-48a8-b1f3-df528c401094/FlyersRights%20Amicus%20Brief%20Arzu%20v%20American%20Airl.pdf?ver=1755803079338 FlyersRights.org, established in 2007, is the largest airline passenger organization. It publishes a newsletter, operates a free hotline for airline passengers at 877- FLYERS-6, advocates for passenger rights and interests, and represents passengers on the FAA Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee dealing with air safety. FlyersRights.org, 800-662-1859, 1030 15th St NW #292, Washington, DC 20005; 4411 Bee Ridge Road #274, Sarasota, FL 34233. For more information, contact, Paul Hudson, President of FlyersRights, 800-662-1859, [email protected] SOURCE FlyersRights.org SPLIT, Croatia, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time when IT departments are scrambling to add quantum resistance to their apps, software pioneer JP Kusumi has released GreenfieldPQC, a free and open source NuGet package, to empower .NET developers to "future-proof" their code with post-quantum cryptography (PQC) tools. This timely innovation addresses the "Y2Q" imperative, where delays could expose sensitive data to future quantum attacks via algorithms like Shor's and Grover's. GreenfieldPQC, released in July 2025 under the MIT License, integrates NIST's newly finalized standards, including FIPS 203 (CRYSTALS-Kyber for key encapsulation), and FIPS 204 (CRYSTALS-Dilithium for digital signatures). Filling a critical gap in symmetric cryptography left unstandardized by NIST, the library introduces Kusumi512, a novel 512-bit stream cipher that, in benchmarks, outperforms Threefish-512 in speed and memory efficiency. An AEAD variant, Kusumi512Poly1305, pairs it with Poly1305 for authenticated encryption. "With quantum breakthroughs accelerating, such as Google's 2025 progress, organizations must act now to future-proof their systems," said Kusumi, Principal Consultant at JP Kusumi. "GreenfieldPQC provides a simple, multi-platform API to bridge the PQC readiness lag in the .NET ecosystem, helping prevent a potential crisis." Kusumi's 30-year career spans quantitative analytics and software development, from automating processes as a marketing analyst to delivering consulting services across sectors. Relocating to Europe 11 years ago broadened his global perspective, positioning him to innovate in emerging fields like PQC. As corporate IT teams race to remediate vulnerabilitiesmirroring Y2K effortsGreenfieldPQC offers quantum-resistant primitives for greenfield projects, including SHA256/512 hashing and larger key sizes. Wrapping liboqs for the asymmetric primitives, it's accessible for fortifying financial transactions, communications, and more. This release could elevate Kusumi's profile while aiding developers and corporations transitioning to a "new normal" in encryption. Available now on NuGet (https://www.nuget.org/packages/GreenfieldPQC) and GitHub (https://github.com/JPKusumi/GreenfieldPQC). About John Kusumi: A seasoned consultant, former contractor to Microsoft, former Chief Software Engineer at EPAM Systems, and owner of JP Kusumi, Kusumi specializes in practical software solutions, blending data insights with technical innovation. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2756168/JP_Kusumi_Solopreneur_Logo.jpg SOURCE JP Kusumi H&M CELEBRATES STORE OPENING WITH PARIS HILTON LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ --Today at noon, H&M unveiled a new flagship store at The Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles, located at 3rd and Fairfax. Spanning approximately 15,000 square feet across two floors, the store will offer H&M's full assortment of womenswear and menswear, marking the first of several new stores planned for Los Angeles this year. The new store, which introduces a new format for H&M in the US market, will showcase a variety of fashion-forward trends. H&M Debuts at The Original Farmers Market To celebrate the new store, H&M hosted a grand opening event featuring a special ribbon cutting ceremony with Paris Hilton who wore new H&M pre-fall arrivals a long-sleeve lace blouse and grommet-detailed black skirt paired with H&M accessories. The new flagship store introduces a more curated customer journey with upgraded interiors and enhanced service features designed to create a seamless and inspirational shopping experience each element working together to create a gallery-like atmosphere where every room, window, and display tells a unique fashion narrative. Interior upgrades include translucent display walls, fluted stucco surfaces that bring texture and warmth, and modular fixtures that empower the brand to showcase multiple fashion narratives simultaneously. At this location, fashion lovers will have the opportunity to shop special collections such as H&M Studio, designer collaborations, and more. "H&M's debut at The Original Farmers Market marks an exciting milestone in our Los Angeles expansion, serving as the first of several new store openings planned throughout the year," said Michael Beaumont, Head of Expansion for H&M Americas. "This flagship location introduces an elevated shopping experience designed to complement H&M's strong fashion assortment and create a more inspirational environment for customers." Behind the scenes, the smart store operates on RFID-enabled systems, ensuring precise stock accuracy and enabling quick item location within the store. This technology also supports faster, more efficient replenishment from the stockroom to the sales floor. For added convenience, customers can choose in-store pickup for online orders a time-saving option ideal for those on the go. Mobile checkout will also be available, empowering employees to assist customers seamlessly. On opening day, the first 150 shoppers in line received an H&M gift card valued between $15 and $200. Loyalty members also received several locally inspired giveaways, including a custom limited-edition bag designed by LA artist Alec Egan, along with exclusive treats from beloved food and beverage partners with strong local roots. Figure 8 Tea, located at The Original Farmers Market, served boba tea at a special pop-up stand in front of H&M, offering two flavors: Strawberry Matcha Latte and Summer Mango Oolong. Inside the store, Wanderlust Creamery served a custom Honeycomb and Malt ice cream created exclusively for H&M and Levain Bakery sampled their signature cookies. This opening reflects H&M's continued investment in the Los Angeles market, building on the momentum of their recent H&M&LA Festival a celebration of the brand's S/S 2025 collection which featured performances by Doechii, Robyn, PinkPantheress, and more, alongside an ongoing LA-focused marketing campaign starring Julez Smith, Amelia Gray, Tue Nguyen, and others. Following the launch at The Original Farmers Market, H&M will further expand its presence in the LA area this fall with new stores at Beverly Center, Brea Mall, and for the first time in Beverly Hills, with a location at 370 North Beverly Drive. Next month, H&M will also unveil a new flagship store at BLVD in Las Vegas. Link to Images: HERE Photo Credit: Getty for H&M Contact: E-mail: [email protected] ABOUT H&M Founded in 1947, H&M is committed to making fashion accessible to all through its business idea: fashion and quality at the best price in a sustainable way. H&M offers a broad range of styles for different personalities, preferences, body types, ages, identities, occasions and cultures. The H&M brand also includes H&M HOME, H&M Move and H&M Beauty. Customers can express themselves through the brand's diverse, fashionable and current assortment, which includes everything from unique designer collaborations and functional sportswear to affordable wardrobe essentials, beauty products and accessories. ABOUT THE ORIGINAL FARMERS MARKET The Original Farmers Market has been Los Angeles' favorite gathering place since 1934. With close to 90 grocers, retailers, and restaurantsas well as year-round activities for the whole familythe Farmers Market is a beloved place for locals and one of the top tourist destinations in Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.farmersmarketla.com. Follow the Farmers Market on Instagram and facebook @farmersmarketla. SOURCE H&M The collection of cookware brings the emotive power of nature into the Kitchen with its deep forest-green hues, elegant bronze handles and real walnut tools BENTON HARBOR, Mich., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, KitchenAid, in conjunction with Meyer Corporation, one of the largest cookware companies in America, introduces the new KitchenAid Hard-Anodized Ceramic Induction Cookware Collection: Evergreen Design Series . Inspired by the essence of the outdoors, this collection brings the beauty of nature into the kitchen with its deep forest green exteriors, organic textures, and radiant bronze accents that celebrate the KitchenAid brand's timeless craftsmanship, and pairs perfectly with the iconic 2024 Design Series Stand Mixer: Evergreen . New KitchenAid Hard-Anodized Ceramic Induction Cookware Collection: Evergreen Design Series. "Building on the success of our 2024 Evergreen Design Series Stand Mixer, we're excited to expand this nature-inspired colorway to our KitchenAid Hard-Anodized Ceramic Induction Cookware Collection," said Chad Reis, global brand director for KitchenAid small appliances at Whirlpool Corporation. "This new collection invites Makers to bring the outdoors in, and awaken their creative spirit in the kitchen." Built for everyday use, the KitchenAid Hard-Anodized Ceramic Induction Cookware Collection is crafted with a high-performance ceramic nonstick made without PFAs, BPA, lead or cadmium1 for consistent, easy food release. Additionally, its hard-anodized construction is 8x harder than traditional aluminum and shatter-resistant glass lids seal in heat and flavor while allowing for easy monitoring while cooking. The cookware collection works on all cooktops, including induction, with stainless steel rings to prevent wear and tear. The double riveted bronze handle ensures seamless handling for stove-to-oven-to-table cooking as it's oven-safe up to 500F (350F with lids). Clean-up comes easy, being it's dishwasher safe. The new KitchenAid Hard-Anodized Ceramic Induction cookware collection: Evergreen Design Series is available exclusively on KitchenAid.com, CrateandBarrel.com, and at select Crate & Barrel locations.: Available Today: SKU 84470 - 12-Piece Cookware Set: MSRP $429.99 1.5 Qt. Saucepan with Lid, 3 Qt. Saucepan with Lid, 6 Qt. Stockpot with Lid, 8.25 Inch Fry Pan, 10 Inch Fry Pan, 12.25 Inch Fry Pan with Lid, Slotted Walnut Spoon, Solid Walnut Turner Estimated To Be Available By Early September : SKU 84472 - 2 Qt. Saucepan with Lid: MSRP $79.99 SKU 84473 - 5 Qt. Saute with Lid and Helper Handle: MSRP $129.99 About KitchenAid Since the introduction of its legendary stand mixer in 1919 and first dishwasher in 1949, KitchenAid has built on the legacy of these icons to create a complete line of products designed for those with a passion to make. Today, the KitchenAid brand offers virtually every essential for the well-equipped kitchen with a collection that includes everything from countertop appliances to cookware, ranges to refrigerators, and whisks to wine cellars. To learn more, visit KitchenAid.com or follow us on Instagram, @KitchenAidUSA. About Meyer: KitchenAid cookware is offered by California-based Meyer Corporation, one of the largest cookware companies in America. In addition to KitchenAid, brands sold by Meyer include Anolon, Circulon, Farberware, Rachael Ray, Hestan, Ruffoni, and BonJour. Media Contact: MSL [email protected] 1 Product design does not involve intentionally adding to the interior coating these materials, which may otherwise be present in the environment. 2 MSRP is manufacturer's suggested retail price. Dealer alone determines actual retail and advertised prices. SOURCE KitchenAid DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Medical Equipment Maintenance Market, valued at US$55.22 billion in 2024, stood at US$60.68 billion in 2025 and is projected to advance at a resilient CAGR of 10.8% from 2025 to 2030, culminating in a forecasted valuation of US$101.52 billion by the end of the period. The medical equipment maintenance market expansion is driven by the increasing demand for appropriate and accurately functioning medical devices, higher healthcare investments, and increased attention to patient safety and equipment uptime. With the aging population and chronic disease burden, medical equipment utilization has increased; thus, regular medical equipment maintenance is now required. Furthermore, market growth is aided by government initiatives promoting quality healthcare, mandates enforcing equipment servicing, and increasing deployment of modern technology in medical devices. Additionally, the rising healthcare infrastructure in emerging economies, coupled with strategic ties and service contracts between the OEMs, ISOs, and healthcare providers, is fuelling the expansion in the market. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=69695102 Browse in-depth TOC on 'Medical Equipment Maintenance Market' 298 - Tables 64 - Figures 373 - Pages By device type, the market is categorized by device type into diagnostic imaging equipment, patient monitoring & life support devices, surgical equipment, radiotherapy devices, laboratory equipment, endoscopic devices, medical lasers, electrosurgical equipment, dental equipment, radiotherapy devices, ophthalmology equipment, and durable medical equipment. The diagnostic imaging equipment segment will dominate the market during the forecast period. Continuous innovations in diagnostic imaging technologies, such as MRI, CT scans, and ultrasound, have resulted in more sophisticated and expensive equipment requiring regular maintenance to ensure optimal performance, fueling market growth. By service type, the medical equipment maintenance market is segmented by service type into operational, corrective, and preventive maintenance. The preventive maintenance segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. As diagnostic imaging systems grow more advanced and complex, proactive upkeep is essential to minimize breakdowns and maintain seamless operation. Ongoing technological innovations continue to introduce sophisticated components and subsystems that require specialized maintenance expertise and procedures. By service provider, the medical equipment maintenance market is segmented by service provider into single-vendor OEMs, multi-vendor OEMs, ISOs, and in-house maintenance. The ISOs segment dominated the market during the forecast period. The high growth rate of this segment is attributed to the ability of ISOs to offer specialized expertise and training for equipment support from different manufacturers, ensuring consistent quality of services. By geography, the Asia Pacific region is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The region's high growth rate is attributed to the expanding healthcare markets, rising disposable income, increasing focus on technologically advanced maintenance equipment, and the high uptake of specialized services for the maintenance of products. The high growth potential of emerging economies is also expected to fuel the market growth during the forecast period. Additionally, the Asia Pacific region has been experiencing significant growth in healthcare infrastructure, with increasing investments in hospitals, clinics, and medical facilities. This expansion has led to a higher demand for medical equipment maintenance services to support the growing number of healthcare facilities. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=69695102 Some of the leading players of the market include Siemens Healthineers AG (Germany), GE Healthcare (US), Medtronic (Ireland), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan), Olympus Corporation (Japan), Stryker (US), Canon Inc. (Japan), Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (Germany), Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), B. Braun SE (Germany), Elekta (Sweden), Shimadzu Corporation (Japan), Althea Group, LLC (Italy), and Agfa-Gevaert Group (Belgium). GE Healthcare (US): GE Healthcare is a leading player in the medical equipment maintenance market, offering comprehensive maintenance solutions for healthcare facilities worldwide. Their services include preventive and corrective maintenance, equipment upgrades, and predictive maintenance powered by data analytics. With a global presence and advanced technologies, GE Healthcare ensures the reliability and efficiency of medical devices across various healthcare settings. Their commitment to customer satisfaction and innovation keeps them at the forefront of the industry. Siemens Healthineers AG (Germany) Siemens Healthineers is a prominent figure in the medical equipment maintenance market, recognized for its cutting-edge technologies and extensive healthcare solutions. With a global footprint and a diverse portfolio of medical devices and services, Siemens Healthineers offers a broad spectrum of maintenance solutions tailored to meet the evolving needs of healthcare facilities worldwide. Siemens Healthineers' medical equipment maintenance expertise spans various healthcare settings, including hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and research institutions. Leveraging advanced technologies and a network of skilled technicians, the company delivers timely and cost-effective maintenance solutions to optimize equipment performance and minimize downtime. Medtronic (Ireland) Medtronic plc holds a significant position in the medical equipment maintenance market, renowned for its extensive portfolio spanning cardiac devices, spinal and orthopedic products, and surgical instruments. Emphasizing comprehensive maintenance services, Medtronic delivers preventive, corrective, and extended warranty solutions tailored to optimize performance and reliability across its diverse range of medical equipment. Medtronic's services ensure operational excellence and support healthcare providers in delivering quality care by targeting hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and specialty clinics. For more information, Inquire Now! Related Reports: Ultrasound Market Diagnostic Imaging Market Endoscopy Equipment Market Medical Connectors Market Top 10 Medical Device Technologies Market Get access to the latest updates on Medical Equipment Maintenance Companies and Medical Equipment Maintenance Market Size About MarketsandMarkets: MarketsandMarkets has been recognized as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms by Forbes, as per their recent report. MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. With the widest lens on emerging technologies, we are proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients across the globe. Today, 80% of Fortune 2000 companies rely on MarketsandMarkets, and 90 of the top 100 companies in each sector trust us to accelerate their revenue growth. 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Contact: Mr. Rohan Salgarkar MarketsandMarkets INC. 1615 South Congress Ave. Suite 103, Delray Beach, FL 33445 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1868219/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg SOURCE MarketsandMarkets Lydia Grose will assume broader oversight as Philadelphia Area Office Executive; Ralph Eberhardt, P.E., to add role of Office Executive in Fort Washington to responsibilities PITTSBURGH, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Baker International, a global leader in engineering, consulting and technology services, today announced that the firm has strengthened its Northeast leadership with a duo of expanded Office Executive roles. Lydia Grose will assume broader oversight as Philadelphia Area Office Executive while continuing to serve as the Office Executive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Ralph Eberhardt, P.E., will add the role of Office Executive in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, to his responsibilities as Office Executive in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In these roles, Ms. Grose and Mr. Eberhardt will continue to lead strategic growth and operational excellence across their respective offices, guiding multidisciplinary teams and strengthening client relationships while fostering a collaborative and high-performing environment. "Lydia and Ralph bring deep regional expertise and proven leadership to their expanded Office Executive roles," said Magdy Hagag, P.E., Northeast Regional Director at Michael Baker International. "As we continue to work across offices and disciplines to solve complex infrastructure challenges as One Michael Baker, their leadership will be pivotal in driving innovation, aligning teams with strategic priorities and deepening our relationships with our clients and the communities we serve. I look forward to Lydia and Ralph's continued success and the active role that they will play in shaping the future of our operations in the region." Ms. Grose is focused on promoting Michael Baker's vision for delivering client solutions in architecture, engineering, planning, environmental, water resources and program and construction management throughout the Philadelphia region. Prior to joining Michael Baker in 2019, Ms. Grose spent 30 years as a key member of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), where she most recently served as Director of Engineering and Design. She managed and directed project teams and served as the direct interface with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), the City of Philadelphia and numerous other government agencies, municipal offices, utilities and private enterprises throughout the five-county region served by SEPTA. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering and Construction Technology from Temple University. Mr. Eberhardt has worked for Michael Baker for more than 25 years, serving in roles of increasing responsibility throughout his tenure. He has experience working on diverse projects including construction services, bridge, highway, transit, railroad and airport projects and has led Michael Baker's Lehigh Valley presence since 2003. Prior to joining Michael Baker, Mr. Eberhardt was a Project Manager for IA Construction Corporation and a Project Manager/Estimator for Nyleve Bridge Corporation. He earned an Associate of Science degree in Surveying, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Penn State University, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Lehigh University. About Michael Baker International Michael Baker International is a leading provider of engineering, consulting and technology services spanning three distinct Verticals: Infrastructure, Integrated Design and Advisory (IDA) and GovTech. The firm's Practices encompass all facets of infrastructure, including design and civil engineering for diverse bridge, highway, water, rail and transit and aviation projects, as well as planning, architecture, environmental and construction and program management. For 85 years, the company has been a trusted partner to clients, providing comprehensive services and solutions, delivering expertise and quality, and embracing emerging technologies and the latest innovations like intelligent transportation, engineered models and public safety software as a service (SaaS). The company has more than 5,100 employees across more than 90 office locations. Michael Baker's Wolf Pack is committed to Making a Difference for clients and communities through a culture of innovation, collaboration and technological advancement while evolving its business to become a full-service engineering and consulting firm. To learn more, visit https://mbakerintl.com/. Contact: Julia Covelli [email protected] (866) 293-4609 SOURCE Michael Baker International BISMARCK, N.D., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- From the sweeping currents of the Missouri River to the deep, shimmering waters of Lake Sakakawea, along with the year-round allure of Devils Lake, North Dakota is overflowing with opportunities to explore its legendary waterways. Whether casting a line, paddling a kayak, or sailing into the wide horizons, the state's lakes and rivers invite adventurers of every kind to make a splash. Lake Sakakawea Vast Horizons and Endless Adventures Kayakers paddle across the waters of Devils Lake in North Dakota, one of the nations top fisheries and a year-round hub for outdoor adventure. Visitors can pair world-class fishing with boating, paddling, hiking, and wildlife viewing at nearby parks and preserves for a legendary multi-day trip. Credit: North Dakota Tourism Spanning more than 180 miles with more shoreline than the entire state of California, Lake Sakakawea stands as the crown jewel of North Dakota's water recreation. Its sheer size makes it a haven for sailing, boating, and even houseboating, while tucked-away bays create calm waters perfect for paddling. Anglers come from across the country in pursuit of trophy walleye, often gathering for tournaments such as the Governor's Walleye Cup. Lake Sakakawea is home to three incredible state parks Lake Sakakawea State Park, Fort Stevenson State Park, and Lewis & Clark State Park. Each offers easy lake access for boating, kayaking, and fishing, along with sandy swim beaches, modern marinas, and scenic campgrounds. These parks are best enjoyed as a multi-day escape, where families can spend long weekends exploring new coves and soaking in the vast prairie horizons. The lake is also a leader in accessibility, with new ramps at Hazen Bay and Beulah Bay Campgrounds, in partnership with Wheelchairs & Walleyes, providing improved access for visitors of all abilities. Devils Lake Legendary Fishing and Scenic Escapes Renowned as one of the top fisheries in the nation, Devils Lake draws anglers year-round with world-class walleye, perch, and northern pike in the summer, and some of the best ice fishing in the country each winter. Beyond fishing, Grahams Island State Park offers boating, hiking, and waterfowl hunting, making it a favorite for outdoor enthusiasts in every season. Nearby, White Horse Hill National Game Preserve showcases rolling prairies and quiet woodlands overlooking the lake and providing habitat for bison, elk, and countless bird species. It's a prime destination for wildlife viewing, hiking, and experiencing the natural wonder of the region. Many visitors choose to make Devils Lake a multi-day stop, pairing early morning fishing trips with afternoons spent exploring the park or relaxing along the shoreline. Accessibility is also a priority here, with the Merle Baisch Memorial Wheelchair Ramp ensuring that visitors of all abilities can enjoy time on the water. Missouri River Historic Waters and Natural Wonders Winding through the heart of the state, the Missouri River combines rich history with modern-day adventure. Boaters and kayakers enjoy the steady flow and scenic views, while anglers cast from both banks and boats in search of walleye and catfish. The river is also one of the best places in the state for birdwatching at locations including Cross Ranch State Park, as bald eagles, pelicans, and herons can often be spotted along its tree-lined shores. To make the experience even more inclusive, a new accessible launch at Kniefel Boat Landing in Bismarck is scheduled for completion in 2025, ensuring more people can discover the beauty of this iconic river. Red River Catfish and Canoes Flowing north into Canada, the Red River offers a unique mix of tranquility and adventure. Known across the Midwest for trophy channel catfish, it draws anglers eager for a legendary catch, while its gentle, meandering waters provide ideal conditions for canoeing and kayaking. Along its banks, cities such as Fargo and Grand Forks transform the river into a community centerpiece, with scenic parks, trails, and seasonal festivals. In Grand Forks, the 2,200-acre Greenway recreation area connects outdoor recreation with vibrant city life, creating a space where families can enjoy both the serenity of the river and the energy of a thriving community. Lake Metigoshe A Northern Retreat Nestled along the U.S.Canada border, Lake Metigoshe State Park provides one of the state's most picturesque settings. During the summer, its clear waters invite canoeing and fishing, with hiking trails weaving through the surrounding Turtle Mountains and along the Turtle Moutain Scenic Byway. The parks terrain, amenities and location make it a perfect escape with plenty of activities throughout all of the four seasons. Jamestown Reservoir A Family-Friendly Getaway Just outside Jamestown, the Jamestown Reservoir combines aquatic fun with community recreation. Its 2,492 acres of water include seven boat launches and two swimming beaches, making it easy for families to spend a full day on the water. Miles of surrounding trails connect to biking and walking paths, while wildlife viewing adds another dimension to this popular eastern North Dakota destination. Sheyenne and Pembina Rivers Relaxed Floats and Hidden Beauty For those looking to take it slow, the Sheyenne and Pembina Rivers offer some of the most relaxed and memorable water experiences in the state. The Sheyenne River Water Trail winds through shaded valleys and open prairie landscapes, creating a scenic backdrop for kayakers and canoeists. The Pembina River, known for its inviting currents and surrounding Pembina Gorge State Recreation Area (soon to be the state's 14th state park), is a summertime favorite for tubing. These waters often inspire visitors to linger longer, return for another float on the river, and to spend time exploring the small towns and scenic byways nearby. Plan Your Legendary Adventure From vast lakes to hidden river bends, North Dakota's waterways deliver a perfect blend of adventure, relaxation, and accessibility. Whether sailing into the horizon, fishing through the ice, paddling a winding river, or simply enjoying the view, visitors will find legendary experiences waiting around every bend the kind worth staying a little longer to enjoy. For a complete list of water recreation opportunities and services, visit NDTourism.com/water-recreation. To plan your legendary trip to North Dakota, visit NDTourism.com. Follow North Dakota Tourism on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TravelND, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/northdakotalegendary/ or on X at http://x.com/NorthDakota and get tips on what to see and do all year long. CONTACT: Leslie Holbrook | 614-383-1635 [email protected] Kim Schmidt | 701-328-2532 [email protected] SOURCE North Dakota Tourism Division Expanding SaferWatch Accessibility For Agencies Throughout North America FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- SaferWatch , a leader in public safety and emergency response technology, is proud to announce its recent award of a Sourcewell cooperative purchasing contract in the Public Safety Technology category. This award allows SaferWatch to expand its innovative solutions to public agencies and organizations across North America, making it easier for schools, government agencies, law enforcement, hospitals and businesses to access industry-leading safety tools. SaferWatch awarded Sourcewell contract. Sourcewell, a self-funded governmental organization established in 1978, facilitates a cooperative purchasing program that harnesses the collective purchasing power of more than 50,000 participating agencies. By streamlining procurement with pre-negotiated, competitive contracts, Sourcewell enables government, educational, and nonprofit organizations to secure cost-effective and efficient purchasing solutions. SaferWatch secured its Sourcewell Contract (Contract #030425-SFRW) following a rigorous request for proposal (RFP) process, ensuring compliance with local procurement requirements, information technology review and demonstrating exceptional value and service. Through this partnership, public agencies can now purchase SaferWatch's platform, services and devices through a ready-to-use, Sourcewell-vetted contract - removing the need for lengthy RFP processes and helping communities implement life-saving technology faster. SaferWatch offers a comprehensive safety and security platform that includes mobile, wearable, fixed, wireless and LTE panic buttons, mass notification and alerting systems, anonymous tip reporting and threat management tools, AI gun and weapons detection, incident management platform, direct integrations with 911 centers, live streaming video tools within PSAPs, 24/7 video monitoring and surveillance services with real-time emergency response, counter-drone UAS mitigation technology and more. SaferWatch technology is trusted by thousands of schools, law enforcement agencies, government facilities, healthcare providers, and private organizations nationwide to improve safety, communication, and response times when every second counts and lives are on the line. "We're excited to partner with Sourcewell to make it easier for agencies to access SaferWatch's cutting-edge and proven life-saving technology," said Geno Roefaro, CEO of SaferWatch. "This contract allows public agencies to deploy our solutions faster, helping them protect their communities without unnecessary delays." For more information, including how an agency can use SaferWatch's Sourcewell contract, visit SaferWatchApp.com/Sourcewell . Contract #030425-SFRW - 7/17/2029 Maturity Date. SOURCE SaferWatch STOCKHOLM, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Skanska has signed a contract with Durham Tech Community College to construct the college's new health sciences building in Durham, North Carolina, USA. The contract is worth USD 69M, about SEK 690M, which will be included in the US order bookings for the third quarter of 2025. The project encompasses the construction of a three story, about 7,400 square meter facility to house Durham Tech Community College's Nursing, Surgical Technology, Anesthesia Technology, Respiratory Therapy, Clinical Research, and Occupational Therapy programs. The new building will also include allied health and simulation labs, classrooms, student collaboration areas and administrative support areas. Construction will begin in September 2025 and will be completed in November 2027. For further information please contact: Ashley Jeffery, Communications Director, USA Building, tel +1 813 459 3682 Andreas Joons, Press Officer, Skanska Group, tel +46 (0)10 449 04 94 Direct line for media, tel +46 (0)10 448 88 99 This and previous releases can also be found at www.skanska.com. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/skanska/r/skanska-constructs-a-health-sciences-facility-in-durham--north-carolina--usa-for-usd-69m--about-sek-,c4221517 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/95/4221517/3622213.pdf 20250822 US health sciences facility SOURCE Skanska NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- As millions of parents across the country prepare for the chaos of back-to-school season, one question continues to loom for many new mothers returning to work: Where will I pump? Photo courtesy of Nessel. In 2025, working moms are still navigating serious challenges, from limited paid leave to a lack of practical support like lactation spaces, mental health resources, and flexible scheduling. That's why Mediaplanet launched the Empowering Working Moms campaign a national initiative featured in USA TODAY and online to elevate the voices of mothers, employers, and advocates working to build more supportive and equitable workplaces. A key partner in that mission is Nessel, a women-led company designing workplace lactation solutions that make compliance effortless and culture change possible. Through products like ready-to-install lactation pods and lactation stations, Nessel helps employers turn legal requirements into real support by creating spaces that signal dignity, care, and flexibility. While the 2022 PUMP Act gives most employees the right to a private, non-bathroom space to express breastmilk, starting the conversation about pumping at work can still feel awkward or intimidating. Nessel believes it shouldn't be and that every parent deserves to feel seen, supported, and empowered. If you're wondering how to talk to your employer about breastfeeding at work, here are a few ways to start the conversation: Know your rights: Under the PUMP Act, employers with 50+ employees must provide a private lactation space and reasonable pumping breaks. Under the PUMP Act, employers with 50+ employees must provide a private lactation space and reasonable pumping breaks. Be clear and confident: Share how often you need to pump, how long it will take, and what type of space or storage is required. Share how often you need to pump, how long it will take, and what type of space or storage is required. Reinforce your commitment: Make it known this isn't about stepping away from responsibilities it's about integrating your needs into your workflow. Make it known this isn't about stepping away from responsibilities it's about integrating your needs into your workflow. Offer solutions: If no lactation space exists, suggest proven options like Nessel's lactation pods and lactation stations. If no lactation space exists, suggest proven options like Nessel's lactation pods and lactation stations. Keep it ongoing: Your needs may change, and that's okay. Continue the conversation as needed. From built-in sinks and fridges to soundproofing and ergonomic seating, Nessel's thoughtful design ensures pumping parents can do so comfortably and without disruption while helping companies boost retention, reduce absenteeism, and foster a culture of care. To learn more about workplace lactation solutions, visit www.nessel.com. To explore the full Empowering Working Moms campaign featuring stories, expert insights, and solutions from Allyson Felix, SHRM, U.S. Breastfeeding Committee and more visit: futureofbusinessandtech.com/working-moms. About Nessel Nessel creates thoughtfully designed lactation spaces that help employers support breastfeeding parents at workturning compliance into care. Our turn-key solutions help businesses comply with the PUMP Act legal requirements while delivering comfort, cleanliness, and dignity. Nessel offers a line of fully enclosed lactation pods for workplaces without a designated room as well as our patented lactation stations and ergonomic pumping chairs to outfit or elevate existing spaces. Trusted by leading employers nationwide, Nessel transforms a legal obligation into a powerful commitment that establishes a culture where women are respected, supported, and empowered to thrive. Company Contact [email protected] 203-529-7454 SOURCE Mediaplanet TOTO's new Georgia plant drives 150% jump in U.S. luxury toilet output, strengthening supply and accelerating delivery. Post this "This is more than a factory openingit's the next chapter in our U.S. manufacturing story," said Taro Muroi, CEO of TOTO USA. "Since we began production here in 1991, we've united TOTO's manufacturing expertise, innovative technology, local craftsmanship, and commitment to sustainability to deliver premium products made in America." Muroi emphasized, "This new facility builds on that legacy and strengthens the deep, enduring bonds of trust, collaboration, and shared vision with our employees, partners, customers, and communities across the Americas." Expansion Meets Surging Americas Demand With the new facility online, TOTO's production capacity in the Americas rises to approximately one million units annually across its Morrow, Lakewood, and Mexico plants. The new building in Morrow alone adds production capacity of approximately 300,000 units per year. Luxury one-piece toilets are a strategic product for the Americas market. Previously sourced primarily from TOTO Global Group plants in Asia, they often faced extended lead times. Localized production now ensures timely delivery, strengthens TOTO's North American supply chain, and supports the company's growth strategy across the Americas. In June 2023, TOTO broke ground on the new facility on the site of its original Morrow plant. Construction concluded in November 2024, and production will begin in the fall of 2025. The expansion adds about 161,500 square feet (15,000 m) of advanced manufacturing space, bringing the new three-story facility to over 363,393 square feet (33,800 m) and sustaining 420 local jobs. Robotics, AGVs, and High-Pressure Casting Anchor Innovation The new Morrow facility showcases next-generation manufacturing technology designed to advance quality, precision, and operational efficiency: Tank Bonding Robot A first for any TOTO Group plant, this robotjointly developed with an equipment manufacturerprecisely positions and bonds tanks to bowls for one-piece toilets, boosting quality and productivity. A first for any TOTO Group plant, this robotjointly developed with an equipment manufacturerprecisely positions and bonds tanks to bowls for one-piece toilets, boosting quality and productivity. Automation Fleet Thirty-four advanced robots streamline processes from molding to finishing while maintaining local artisanal craftsmanship. Thirty-four advanced robots streamline processes from molding to finishing while maintaining local artisanal craftsmanship. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) Six self-driving vehicles carry three toilets each between molding, drying, glazing, and firing over approximately 44 yards (40 meters), enhancing efficiency, and reducing worker strain. Six self-driving vehicles carry three toilets each between molding, drying, glazing, and firing over approximately 44 yards (40 meters), enhancing efficiency, and reducing worker strain. High-Pressure Casting Equipment Overcomes previous production limitations by enabling the manufacture of larger, more complex designs, expanding the range of premium products made in the Americas. Overcomes previous production limitations by enabling the manufacture of larger, more complex designs, expanding the range of premium products made in the Americas. Heat-Resistant QR Codes Durable 2D codes applied to each product enable real-time tracking, quality control, and big-data analysis to optimize manufacturing processes. Durable 2D codes applied to each product enable real-time tracking, quality control, and big-data analysis to optimize manufacturing processes. Planned New Kilns (2027) Two convection-heated kilns with advanced insulation and digital temperature control will improve energy efficiency and cut CO emissions by approximately 23% compared to current kilns. Planned for installation in 2027, these new kilns' design will accommodate taller products, improve firing consistency, and reduce energy loss associated with older kiln technology. Sustainability in Design, Manufacturing, and Logistics The new facility was built with sustainability at its core, aligning with TOTO WILL2030TOTO's global strategy centered on Cleanliness, Comfort, and Health, the Environment, and Connections with People. Sustainability initiatives include: Energy-efficient manufacturing systems embedded throughout production. Localized production that reduces shipping distances and lowers transportation-related carbon emissions. Water-conserving technologies integrated into operations. Planned new kilns that will cut CO emissions by approximately 23% compared to current models through advanced insulation, convection heating, and precise electronic temperature control. These measures support TOTO's mission to contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and maintain its leadership in sustainable innovation. A 36-Year Commitment to the Americas TOTO began operations in the Americas in 1989 in California and has grown steadily through the bonds built with customers, strategic partners, and local communities. In 1991, the company launched U.S.-based manufacturing in Lakewood, Georgia, and in 1996 opened its first major manufacturing facility in Morrow. Now, 36 years later, TOTO continues to strengthen its brand in the Americas. Featuring advanced automation, precision robotics, and sustainable systems, the expanded Morrow facility increases capacity, enhances TOTO's U.S. manufacturing footprint, and reaffirms its deep commitment to the Americas market. This investment builds on years of steady growth and positions the company to meet growing demand for premium bathroom products across the Americas. Strengthening Regional Market Leadership For fiscal year 2024, TOTO USA recorded sales of $464 million, underscoring strong demand for its premium bathroom products, despite a slowdown in the U.S. housing market. The company is a key growth driver for the TOTO Global Group. Like its award-winning WASHLET bidet seats, TOTO's premium one-piece toilets combine luxury design, high performance, superior water conservation, and exceptional cleanliness and comfort. "This expansion cements our leadership in luxury bathroom innovation while creating a more agile, resilient manufacturing network," said Muroi. "It builds on our strong market momentum, allowing us to serve customers better, support employees with safer, more efficient technology, and contribute meaningfully to the sustainability of our planet all while honoring the deep bonds we've built through decades of trust, collaboration, and shared purpose with the people and communities throughout the Americas." About TOTO TOTO USA is headquarters for the Americas Division of the TOTO Global Group, established in 1917 with the founding of TOTO Ltd. in Kitakyushu, Japan. TOTO is the world's largest bathroom fixtures and fittings manufacturer, with $5.34 billion in annual sales (April 2023 to March 2024). For over 100 years, TOTO has been the recognized leader in innovation, technology, performance, and design with products that enhance the luxury bathroom experience. Today, the company maintains employees in 17 countries and owns manufacturing facilities around the world in countries as diverse as Japan, Mexico, China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, and the USA. TOTO is dedicated to engineering products that respect the environment while meeting people's comfort, beauty, and performance needs. Winner of numerous domestic and international awards and recognitions, TOTO is the only plumbing manufacturer honored as Water Efficiency Leader by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. For more information, consumers may visit https://www.totousa.com or call 1.888.295.8134, Option 5. Follow TOTO on X (@TOTOUSA) and Instagram (@TOTOUSA) and become a TOTO fan on Facebook. SOURCE TOTO SHANGHAI, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- ZKH Group Limited ("ZKH" or the "Company") (NYSE: ZKH), a leading maintenance, repair and operations ("MRO") procurement service platform in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2025. Second Quarter 2025 Operational and Financial Highlights in thousand RMB, except for number of customers, percentage and basis points ("bps") Second Quarter 2024 2025 Change GMV[1] 2,754,591 2,420,233 -12.1 % GMV by Platform ZKH Platform 2,479,915 2,144,362 -13.5 % GBB Platform 274,676 275,871 0.4 % GMV by Business Model Product Sales (1P) 2,185,351 2,133,895 -2.4 % Marketplace (3P)[2] 569,240 286,338 -49.7 % Number of Customers[3] 48,766 74,854 53.5 % ZKH Platform 34,360 37,271 8.5 % GBB Platform 14,406 37,583 160.9 % Net Revenues 2,249,996 2,166,774 -3.7 % Gross Profit 382,991 356,987 -6.8 % % of Net Revenues 17.0 % 16.5 % -54.6bps Operating Loss (71,213) (71,957) 1.0 % % of Net Revenues -3.2 % -3.3 % -15.6bps Non-GAAP EBITDA[4] (47,068) (38,663) -17.9 % % of Net Revenues -2.1 % -1.8 % 30.8bps Net Loss (66,289) (53,509) -19.3 % % of Net Revenues -2.9 % -2.5 % 47.7bps Non-GAAP Adjusted Net Loss[5] (34,857) (36,533) 4.8 % % of Net Revenues -1.5 % -1.7 % -13.7bps Mr. Eric Long Chen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ZKH, stated, "Despite ongoing macro headwinds and subdued market sentiment, we continued to grow our customer base and achieved consistent improvements in business quality during the second quarter. This reflects our resilience and commitment to operational excellence and disciplined execution, which are fundamental to our sustainable growth. A key milestone of this quarter was the operational launch of our Taicang facility in China, a strategic hub that will enhance our capabilities in research and development, testing, and production of industrial products, significantly boosting the competitiveness of our private-label offerings. Additionally, we accelerated our international expansion, positioning ZKH to seize new growth opportunities. Organizationally, we reinforce our talent pipeline in critical functions such as product lines, IT, and overseas business, while maintaining a lean and agile middle- and back-office structure. While these strategic initiatives may weigh on our short-term financial performance, they are crucial for building a solid foundation for middle- and long-term growth and creating greater value for our shareholders." Mr. Max Chun Chiu Lai, Chief Financial Officer of ZKH, added, "In the second quarter, we advanced in enhancing business quality and operational efficiency while navigating a modest year-over-year decline in overall GMV and revenue, primarily due to a high prior-year base that included low-margin, extended-credit businesses, which we have since strategically optimized. Importantly, our higher-margin private-label products continued to grow, with GMV outpacing overall business growth, highlighting a successful shift toward a more profitable and sustainable revenue mix. We also achieved year-over-year improvements in both our product sales model's gross margin and our marketplace model's take rate[6], validating the effectiveness of our revenue quality strategy. Furthermore, our net loss margin narrowed by 47.7 basis points year over year, a clear demonstration of our disciplined cost management and focused execution. Looking ahead, we are committed to achieving high-quality revenue growth through targeted long-term investments and prudent cost management to ensure both short-term stability and sustained value for our shareholders." [1] GMV is the total transaction value of orders placed on the Company's platform and shipped to customers, excluding taxes, net of the returned amount. [2] The proportion of GMV generated by the marketplace model was 20.7% and 11.8% for the second quarter of 2024 and 2025, respectively. [3] Customers are customers that transacted with the Company during the reporting period, mainly comprised of enterprise customers in various industries. [4] Non-GAAP EBITDA is defined as net loss before interest expenses, income tax expenses/(benefits) and depreciation and amortization expenses. [5] Non-GAAP adjusted net loss is defined as net loss excluding share-based compensation expenses. [6] Take rate of the marketplace model represents gross profit from the marketplace model divided by GMV from the marketplace model. Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results Net Revenues. Net revenues were RMB2,166.8 million (US$302.5 million), representing a decrease of 3.7% from RMB2,250.0 million in the same period of 2024. This decrease was mainly attributable to a decrease in revenues from the marketplace model due to the prior year's high base, which included low-margin businesses with extended customer credit terms that have since been strategically optimized. in thousand RMB, except for percentage Second Quarter 2024 2025 Change Net Revenues 2,249,996 2,166,774 -3.7 % Net Product Revenues 2,163,721 2,113,970 -2.3 % From ZKH Platform 1,893,447 1,846,490 -2.5 % From GBB Platform 270,274 267,480 -1.0 % Net Service Revenues 69,161 40,707 -41.1 % Other Revenues 17,114 12,097 -29.3 % Net Product Revenues. Net product revenues were RMB2,114.0 million ( US$295.1 million ), representing a decrease of 2.3% from RMB2,163.7 million in the same period of 2024, primarily due to a decrease in revenues from the product sales model. Net product revenues were ( ), representing a decrease of 2.3% from in the same period of 2024, primarily due to a decrease in revenues from the product sales model. Net Service Revenues. Net service revenues were RMB40.7 million ( US$5.7 million ), a decrease of 41.1% from RMB69.2 million in the same period of 2024, primarily due to prior year's high base, which included revenues from low-margin businesses with extended customer credit terms under the marketplace model that have since been strategically optimized. Net service revenues were ( ), a decrease of 41.1% from in the same period of 2024, primarily due to prior year's high base, which included revenues from low-margin businesses with extended customer credit terms under the marketplace model that have since been strategically optimized. Other Revenues. Other revenues were RMB12.1 million ( US$1.7 million ), a decrease of 29.3% from RMB17.1 million in the same period of 2024, mainly due to lower revenues from warehousing and logistic services, as well as operating lease services for certain types of machinery and equipment. Cost of Revenues. Cost of revenues was RMB1,809.8 million (US$252.6 million), representing a decrease of 3.1% from RMB1,867.0 million in the same period of 2024. The decline outpaced the decrease in product revenues, mainly due to the effectiveness of the Company's initiatives to reduce overall product procurement costs. Gross Profit and Gross Margin. Gross profit was RMB357.0 million (US$49.8 million), representing a decrease of 6.8% from RMB383.0 million in the same period of 2024. Gross margin was 16.5%, compared with 17.0% in the same period of 2024. The decrease was mainly due to lower revenue contribution from the marketplace model, which yields a 100% gross margin under the net revenue recognition basis. Both the gross margin of the product sales model and the take rate of the marketplace model increased, driven by optimized procurement costs and a higher proportion of GMV from higher-margin private label products. in thousand RMB, except for percentage and basis points ("bps") Second Quarter 2024 2025 Change Gross Profit 382,991 356,987 -6.8 % % of Net Revenues 17.0 % 16.5 % -54.6bps % of GMV 13.9 % 14.8 % 84.6bps Under Product Sales (1P) ZKH Platform 294,022 295,075 0.4 % % of Net Product Revenues from ZKH Platform 15.5 % 16.0 % 45.2bps GBB Platform 15,133 18,658 23.3 % % of Net Product Revenues from GBB Platform 5.6 % 7.0 % 137.6bps Under Marketplace (3P) 69,161 40,707 -41.1 % % of Net Service Revenues 100.0 % 100.0 % - % of GMV from the Marketplace Model (Take Rate) 12.1 % 14.2 % 206.7bps Others 4,675 2,547 -45.5 % % of Other Revenues 27.3 % 21.1 % -626.2bps Operating Expenses. Operating expenses were RMB428.9 million (US$59.9 million), a decrease of 5.6% from RMB454.2 million in the same period of 2024. Operating expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 19.8%, compared with 20.2% in the same period of 2024. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, operating expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 19.8%, compared with 20.2% in the same period of 2024. Fulfillment Expenses. Fulfillment expenses were RMB90.8 million ( US$12.7 million ), a decrease of 8.4% from RMB99.1 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower employee benefit expenses and warehouse rental costs. Fulfillment expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 4.2%, compared with 4.4% in the same period of 2024. Fulfillment expenses were ( ), a decrease of 8.4% from in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower employee benefit expenses and warehouse rental costs. Fulfillment expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 4.2%, compared with 4.4% in the same period of 2024. Sales and Marketing Expenses. Sales and marketing expenses were RMB149.3 million ( US$20.8 million ), a decrease of 5.3% from RMB157.7 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower employee benefit expenses and travel expenses, partially offset by higher marketing and promotion expenses. Sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 6.9%, compared with 7.0% in the same period of 2024. Sales and marketing expenses were ( ), a decrease of 5.3% from in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower employee benefit expenses and travel expenses, partially offset by higher marketing and promotion expenses. Sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 6.9%, compared with 7.0% in the same period of 2024. Research and Development Expenses . Research and development expenses were RMB41.5 million ( US$5 .8 million), an increase of 7.9% from RMB38.4 million in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily attributable to higher employee benefit expenses. Research and development expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 1.9%, compared with 1.7% in the same period of 2024. . Research and development expenses were ( .8 million), an increase of 7.9% from in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily attributable to higher employee benefit expenses. Research and development expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 1.9%, compared with 1.7% in the same period of 2024. General and Administrative Expenses. General and administrative expenses were RMB147 .3 million ( US$20 .6 million), a decrease of 7.3% from RMB159.0 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower share-based compensation expenses and credit loss allowances, partially offset by higher employee benefit expenses. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 6.8%, compared with 7.1% in the same period of 2024. Loss from Operations. Loss from operations was RMB72.0 million (US$10.0 million), compared with RMB71.2 million in the same period of 2024. Operating loss margin was 3.3%, compared with 3.2% in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP EBITDA. Non-GAAP EBITDA was negative RMB38.7 million (US$5.4 million), compared with negative RMB47.1 million in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP EBITDA margin was negative 1.8%, compared with negative 2.1% in the same period of 2024. Net Loss. Net loss was RMB53.5 million (US$7.5 million), compared with RMB66.3 million in the same period of 2024. Net loss margin was 2.5%, compared with 2.9% in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP Adjusted Net Loss. Non-GAAP adjusted net loss was RMB36.5 million (US$5.1 million), compared with RMB34.9 million in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP adjusted net loss margin was 1.7%, compared with 1.5% in the same period of 2024. Basic and Diluted Net Loss per ADS[7] and Non-GAAP Adjusted Basic and Diluted Net Loss per ADS[8]. Basic and diluted net loss per ADS were RMB0.33 (US$0.05), compared with RMB0.40 in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP adjusted basic and diluted net loss per ADS were RMB0.23 (US$0.03), compared with RMB0.21 in the same period of 2024. [7] ADSs are American depositary shares, each of which represents thirty-five (35) Class A ordinary shares of the Company. [8] Non-GAAP adjusted basic and diluted net loss per ADS is a non-GAAP financial measure, which is calculated by dividing non-GAAP adjusted net loss attributable to the Company's ordinary shareholders by the weighted average number of ADSs. Balance Sheet and Cash Flow As of June 30, 2025, the Company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments of RMB1.85 billion (US$258.4 million), compared with RMB2.06 billion as of December 31, 2024. Net cash used in operating activities was RMB110.7 million (US$15.5 million) in the second quarter of 2025, compared with net cash generated from operating activities of RMB122.1 million in the same period of 2024. Share Repurchase Update On June 13, 2024, the Company's Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program, under which the Company may repurchase up to US$50 million of its ADSs through June 13, 2025. As of June 13, 2025, the Company had repurchased an aggregate of approximately 2.31 million ADSs for approximately US$8.08 million from the open market under the share repurchase programs. On June 13, 2025, the Company's Board of Directors authorized a new share repurchase program, under which the Company may repurchase up to US$50 million of its ADSs through June 13, 2026. As of August 20, 2025, the Company had repurchased an aggregate of approximately 0.36 million ADSs for approximately US$1.10 million from the open market under the new share repurchase programs. Exchange Rate This announcement contains translations of certain Renminbi ("RMB") amounts into U.S. dollars ("US$") at specified rates solely for the convenience of the reader. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from RMB to US$ were made at a rate of RMB7.1636 to US$1.00, the exchange rate in effect as of June 30, 2025, as set forth in the H.10 statistical release of The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Company makes no representation that any RMB or US$ amounts could have been, or could be, converted into US$ or RMB, as the case may be, at any particular rate, or at all. Conference Call Information The Company's management will hold a conference call on Friday, August 22, 2025, at 8:00 A.M. U.S. Eastern Time or 8:00 P.M. Beijing Time to discuss its financial results and operating performance for the second quarter of 2025. United States (toll free): +1-888-317-6003 International: +1-412-317-6061 Mainland China (toll free): 400-120-6115 Hong Kong (toll free): 800-963-976 Hong Kong: +852-5808-1995 Access Code: 6971877 The replay will be accessible through August 29, 2025 by dialing the following numbers: United States: +1-877-344-7529 International: +1-412-317-0088 Replay Access Code: 5489224 A live and archived webcast of the conference call will also be available on the Company's investor relations website at https://ir.zkh.com . About ZKH Group Limited ZKH Group Limited (NYSE: ZKH) is a leading MRO procurement service platform in China, underpinned by robust supply chain capabilities and dedicated to serving customers globally through a product-led, agentic AI-driven approach. Through its primary online platforms, the ZKH platform, the GBB platform and the Northsky platform, along with innovative technology and extensive industry expertise, the Company provides bespoke MRO procurement solutions to a diverse and loyal customer base. These solutions encompass hyper-personalized product curation from a comprehensive selection of quality products at competitive prices. Additionally, the Company ensures timely and reliable product delivery through professional fulfillment services. By focusing on reducing procurement costs and addressing management efficiency challenges, ZKH is transforming the opaque MRO procurement process and empowering all stakeholders across the value chain. For more information, please visit: https://ir.zkh.com . Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures This press release contains the following non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP adjusted net loss, non-GAAP adjusted net loss per ADS, basic and diluted, and non-GAAP EBITDA. The non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from or construed as alternatives to their most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. Investors are encouraged to review the historical non-GAAP financial measures in reconciliation to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. The Company defines non-GAAP adjusted net loss for a specific period as net loss in the same period excluding share-based compensation expenses. The Company defines non-GAAP EBITDA as net loss before interest expenses, income tax expenses/(benefits) and depreciation and amortization expenses. Non-GAAP adjusted net loss per ADS is calculated by dividing adjusted net loss attributable to the Company's ordinary shareholders by the weighted average number of ordinary shares outstanding during the periods and then multiplied by 35. The Company presents these non-GAAP financial measures because they are used by the management to evaluate the Company's operating performance and formulate business plans. The Company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures help identify underlying trends in its business that could otherwise be distorted by the effect of certain expenses that are included in net loss and certain expenses that are not expected to result in future cash payments or that are non-recurring in nature. The Company also believes that the use of these non-GAAP financial measures facilitates investors' assessment of its operating performance, enhances the overall understanding of its past performance and future prospects and allows for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by the management in financial and operational decision making. The non-GAAP financial measures have material limitations as analytical metrics and may not be calculated in the same manner by all companies. The Company's non-GAAP financial measures do not include all income and expense items that affect the Company's operations. They may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures used by other companies. In light of the foregoing limitations, you should not consider the non-GAAP financial measures as substitutes for, or superior to, their most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. The Company encourages investors and others to review its financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned "Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Results" set forth at the end of this press release. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "expects," "anticipates," "aim," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "is/are likely to," "potential," "continue," and similar statements. Among other things, the quotations from management in this press release and ZKH's strategic and operational plans contain forward-looking statements. ZKH may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press release and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about ZKH's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: ZKH's mission, goals and strategies; ZKH's future business development, financial condition and results of operations; the expected changes in its revenues, expenses or expenditures; the expected growth of the MRO procurement service industry in China and globally; changes in customer or product mix; ZKH's expectations regarding the prospects of its business model and the demand for and market acceptance of its products and services; ZKH's expectations regarding its relationships with customers, suppliers, and service providers on its platform; competition in the Company's industry; government policies and regulations relating to ZKH's industry; general economic and business conditions in China and globally; the outcome of any current and future legal or administrative proceedings; and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in ZKH's filings with the SEC. All information provided herein is as of the date of this announcement, and ZKH undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: In China: ZKH Group Limited IR Department E-mail: [email protected] Piacente Financial Communications Hui Fan Tel: +86-10-6508-0677 E-mail: [email protected] In the United States: Piacente Financial Communications Brandi Piacente Tel: +1-212-481-2050 E-mail: [email protected] ZKH GROUP LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (All amounts in thousands, except share, ADS, per share and per ADS data) As of December 31, As of June 30, 2024 2025 RMB RMB US$ Assets Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents 1,423,943 1,095,264 152,893 Restricted cash 92,939 97,181 13,566 Short-term investments 543,978 658,942 91,985 Accounts receivable (net of allowance for credit losses of RMB145,789 and RMB149,686 as of December 31, 2024 and June 30, 2025, respectively) 3,090,323 2,924,338 408,222 Notes receivable 234,213 168,197 23,479 Inventories 625,390 746,103 104,152 Prepayments and other current assets 179,387 169,227 23,623 Total current assets 6,190,173 5,859,252 817,920 Non-current assets: Property and equipment, net 183,572 194,821 27,196 Land use right 10,808 10,695 1,493 Operating lease right-of-use assets, net 179,945 151,252 21,114 Intangible assets, net 15,931 13,038 1,820 Goodwill 30,807 30,807 4,300 Total non-current assets 421,063 400,613 55,923 Total assets 6,611,236 6,259,865 873,843 Liabilities Current liabilities: Short-term borrowings 311,000 329,790 46,037 Current portion of long-term borrowings 997 2,305 322 Accounts and notes payable 2,553,396 2,357,669 329,118 Operating lease liabilities 81,379 57,187 7,983 Advance from customers 27,433 27,475 3,835 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 365,333 310,691 43,371 Derevatives - 1,848 258 Total current liabilities 3,339,538 3,086,965 430,924 Non-current liabilities: Long-term borrowings 38,887 43,803 6,115 Non-current operating lease liabilities 109,096 102,295 14,280 Other non-current liabilities 25,224 32,456 4,529 Total non-current liabilities 173,207 178,554 24,924 Total liabilities 3,512,745 3,265,519 455,848 ZKH Group Limited shareholders' equity: Ordinary shares (USD0.0000001 par value; 500,000,000,000 and 500,000,000,000 shares authorized; 5,658,952,794 and 5,675,535,374 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2024 and June 30, 2025, respectively) 4 4 1 Additional paid-in capital 8,305,304 8,347,125 1,165,214 Statutory reserves 6,303 6,303 880 Accumulated other comprehensive income/(loss) 4,764 (2,820) (394) Accumulated deficit (5,177,126) (5,297,358) (739,483) Treasury stock (40,758) (58,908) (8,223) Total ZKH Group Limited shareholders' equity 3,098,491 2,994,346 417,995 Total liabilities and shareholders' deficit 6,611,236 6,259,865 873,843 ZKH GROUP LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF LOSS (All amounts in thousands, except share, ADS, per share and per ADS data) For the three months ended For the six months ended June 30, 2024 June 30, 2025 June 30, 2024 June 30, 2025 RMB RMB US$ RMB RMB US$ Net revenues Net product revenues 2,163,721 2,113,970 295,099 3,938,740 3,998,830 558,215 Net service revenues 69,161 40,707 5,682 135,815 78,601 10,972 Other revenues 17,114 12,097 1,689 35,850 24,715 3,450 Total net revenues 2,249,996 2,166,774 302,470 4,110,405 4,102,146 572,637 Cost of revenues (1,867,005) (1,809,787) (252,637) (3,393,338) (3,413,041) (476,442) Operating expenses Fulfillment (99,097) (90,811) (12,677) (196,445) (184,118) (25,702) Sales and marketing (157,689) (149,330) (20,846) (321,802) (286,165) (39,947) Research and development (38,431) (41,471) (5,789) (78,267) (81,084) (11,319) General and administrative (158,987) (147,332) (20,567) (321,380) (290,508) (40,553) Loss from operations (71,213) (71,957) (10,046) (200,827) (152,770) (21,326) Interest and investment income 14,446 12,587 1,757 32,500 25,866 3,611 Interest expense (5,522) (3,037) (424) (11,217) (5,387) (752) Others, net (3,934) 8,846 1,235 22,508 12,254 1,711 Loss before income tax (66,223) (53,561) (7,478) (157,036) (120,037) (16,756) Income tax (expenses)/benefits (66) 52 7 (154) (195) (27) Net loss (66,289) (53,509) (7,471) (157,190) (120,232) (16,783) Less: net loss attributable to non- controlling interests - - - - - - Less: net loss attributable to redeemable non-controlling interests - - - - - - Net loss attributable to ZKH Group Limited (66,289) (53,509) (7,471) (157,190) (120,232) (16,783) Accretion on preferred shares to redemption value - - - - - - Net loss attributable to ZKH Group Limited's ordinary shareholders (66,289) (53,509) (7,471) (157,190) (120,232) (16,783) Net loss (66,289) (53,509) (7,471) (157,190) (120,232) (16,783) Other comprehensive income: Foreign currency translation adjustments (9,121) (4,576) (639) (12,471) (7,584) (1,059) Total comprehensive loss (75,410) (58,085) (8,110) (169,661) (127,816) (17,842) Less: comprehensive loss attributable to non-controlling interests - - - - - - Less: comprehensive loss attributable to redeemable non-controlling interests - - - - - - Comprehensive loss attributable to ZKH Group Limited (75,410) (58,085) (8,110) (169,661) (127,816) (17,842) Accretion on Preferred Shares to redemption value - - - - - - Total comprehensive loss attributable to ZKH Group Limited's ordinary shareholders (75,410) (58,085) (8,110) (169,661) (127,816) (17,842) Net loss per ordinary share attributable to ordinary shareholders Basic and diluted (0.01) (0.01) (0.00) (0.03) (0.02) (0.00) Weighted average number of shares Basic and diluted 5,747,591,752 5,678,582,721 5,678,582,721 5,745,856,349 5,683,922,789 5,683,922,789 Net loss per ADS attributable to ordinary shareholders Basic and diluted (0.40) (0.33) (0.05) (0.96) (0.74) (0.10) Weighted average number of ADS (35 Class A ordinary shares equal to 1 ADS) Basic and diluted 164,216,907 162,245,221 162,245,221 164,167,324 162,397,794 162,397,794 ZKH GROUP LIMITED RECONCILIATIONS OF GAAP AND NON-GAAP RESULTS (All amounts in thousands, except share, ADS, per share and per ADS data) For the three months ended For the six months ended June 30, 2024 June 30, 2025 June 30, 2024 June 30, 2025 RMB RMB US$ RMB RMB US$ Net loss (66,289) (53,509) (7,471) (157,190) (120,232) (16,783) Income tax expenses/(benefits) 66 (52) (7) 154 195 141 Interest expenses 5,522 3,037 424 11,217 5,387 752 Depreciation and amortization expense 13,633 11,861 1,656 28,703 24,028 3,354 Non-GAAP EBITDA (47,068) (38,663) (5,398) (117,116) (90,622) (12,536) For the three months ended For the six months ended June 30, 2024 June 30, 2025 June 30, 2024 June 30, 2025 RMB RMB US$ RMB RMB US$ Net loss (66,289) (53,509) (7,471) (157,190) (120,232) (16,783) Add: Share-based compensation expenses 31,432 16,976 2,370 78,874 33,523 4,680 Non-GAAP adjusted net loss (34,857) (36,533) (5,100) (78,316) (86,709) (12,103) Non-GAAP adjusted net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders per share Basic and diluted (0.01) (0.01) (0.00) (0.01) (0.02) (0.00) Weighted average number of ordinary shares Basic and diluted 5,747,591,752 5,678,582,721 5,678,582,721 5,745,856,349 5,683,922,789 5,683,922,789 Non-GAAP adjusted net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders per ADS Basic and diluted (0.21) (0.23) (0.03) (0.48) (0.53) (0.07) Weighted average number of ADS (35 Class A ordinary shares equal to 1 ADS) Basic and diluted 164,216,907 162,245,221 162,245,221 164,167,324 162,397,794 162,397,794 SOURCE ZKH Group Limited RI PBS, The Publics Radio offer buyouts, warn of layoffs due to federal defunding By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current Support Rhode Island PBS/The Publics Radio A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (Federal Tax ID: 22-2859005). Staring down an estimated $1.1 million budget gap resulting from congressional defunding, Rhode Islands recently merged public media entity is cutting staff first on a volunteer basis, and later, potentially through layoffs. Pam Johnston, CEO of Rhode Island PBS and The Publics Radio, notified employees of cuts in a staff meeting Wednesday. The internal announcement was followed up with a statement published on the companys website shortly after. Citing the significant and painful cut prompted by the federal rescission package, which eliminated federal support for public broadcasting, Johnston said the company will be offering voluntary buyouts to most staff members. If not enough workers take the offer by the Sept. 5 deadline, the next step is organization wide layoffs, according to the email. Meg Geoghegan, a spokesperson for the company, referred to Johnstons email when asked for comment. The news comes less than two years after the premiere state media organizations announced plans to merge, pooling talent and resources. The merger was approved by state and federal regulators in the spring of 2024, with Johnston, a Massachusetts broadcast veteran, brought on to lead the newly created company in July 2024. At the time of the merger application, the company said it would have roughly 100 employees. An updated staffing number for the newly christened Ocean State Media was not immediately available. Nationwide, public media outlets have been grappling with the fallout of federal funding cuts, which have provided a key source of money to public radio and broadcasting stations for nearly 60 years. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced it would be closing its doors by the end of the year due to eliminated federal funding. In Rhode Island, the estimated $1.1 million cut represents 10% of the public media entitys combined operating budget, according to news reports. We have scrutinized our budget and reduced expenses wherever possible while navigating the complexities of our merger, Johnston wrote in the email sent to staffers. Weve also received an outpouring of support from our community and have hosted two of our most successful pledge drives ever. Despite these efforts, it is not enough to close the financial gap. Staffing cuts will not affect programming until further evaluation of the remaining workforce, Johnston said. This federal funding cut happened to us; we have no choice but to respond, she said. As I have said before, this moment will change us, but it will not stop us. Despite these challenging times, we will continue evolving, adapting, and innovating. Our audiences, who rely on us for trusted local news and information, expect nothing less. Rhode Island Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here New Delhi, Aug 22 : The Supreme Court will resume hearing on the pleas challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar on Friday. The case has garnered national attention following concerns that nearly 65 lakh names were missing from the draft voter list published by the Election Commission of India (ECI). In its latest status report submitted on Thursday, the ECI informed the apex court that it has fully complied with the courtas interim directives regarding the disclosure of omitted names. The booth-wise list of all 65 lakh individuals whose names were excluded from the draft electoral rolls has been uploaded on the official websites of all 38 District Election Officers (DEOs) across Bihar. The Commission clarified that the reasons for each omission, such as death, change of residence, or duplicate entries, have also been specified in the list. To ensure wider accessibility, the same data has been made available at Panchayat Bhavans, Block Development Offices, and Panchayat Offices throughout the state. The ECI also highlighted that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Assistants (BLAs) have been equipped with the lists and are available to assist residents in understanding the reasons for their exclusion. They will also assist individuals in filing claims, objections, or requests for correction by the procedure outlined in the SIR order dated June 24, 2025. In response to the courtas emphasis on transparency and public outreach, the poll body stated that an extensive awareness campaign has been launched. The campaign utilizes newspapers, radio, TV, and social media platforms, including the official handles of the DEOs, to inform citizens about the online and offline availability of the omitted voter list. The Election Commission has further instructed aggrieved voters to submit their claims along with valid identity proof, such as an Aadhaar card, if they believe their names have been wrongly removed. Tehran, Aug 22 : Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei condemned the US imposition of sanctions on four more officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He made the remarks on the social media platform X one day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions against ICC Judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France, along with Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal, Xinhua news agency reported. Baghaei said the US imposition of sanctions on the ICC members "for addressing Israel's atrocity crimes is not only an unprecedented assault on justice, but a blatant complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine." He added that the "assault" on the ICC officials epitomised a "gross abuse of power -- granting Israel absolute impunity, licensing further atrocities, and gravely imperiling international peace and security." The sanctions follow ICC decisions last year to issue arrest warrants for two senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the court's ongoing investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. The United States had imposed similar restrictions on the ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, and four other judges, earlier this year. The United States and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute and do not hold membership in the ICC. New Delhi, Aug 22 : In a major operation against illegal gambling, a joint team of the Special Staff and Vasant Vihar Police Station of the South West District has busted a high-stakes gambling racket in the Kusumpur Pahadi area of Vasant Vihar, Delhi. Acting on a tip-off, the police raided a premises on August 20 and apprehended 12 individuals, including the alleged mastermind, Harish alias Kranti. A total of Rs 15,32,500 in cash was recovered from the scene, along with 13 packets of premium playing cards, 10 dice, and a leather box used in the gambling set-up. The operation was part of a district-wide initiative to target organised crime networks, especially those running illicit gambling operations in upscale localities. According to an official Press release issued by the South West District Police on Friday, "The joint team of Special Staff and PS Vasant Vihar, South West District has busted a large-scale illegal gambling racket... arresting 12 gamblers, including the mastermind Harish @ Kranti. With their arrest, a total stake money of Rs. 15,32,500 along with 13 packets of premium playing cards, 10 dice & one leather box were recovered." The raid was carried out at House No. D-40, Kusumpur Pahadi, following the receipt of credible Intelligence. A specialised team comprising officers from the Special Staff and Vasant Vihar Police Station was formed under the leadership of Inspector Vijay Baliyan, In-Charge Special Staff, and closely supervised by ACP Operations Vijay Pal Singh. On reaching the location, the team caught 11 individuals red-handed engaged in gambling. During subsequent questioning, the 12th accused, Harish alias Kranti, was identified as the organiser and was also taken into custody. All 12 accused were booked under FIR No. 213/25, registered under Sections 3, 4, and 5 of the Delhi Public Gambling Act. Among those arrested are residents from various parts of Delhi and the National Capital Region, including Saket, Karol Bagh, Kalkaji, Faridabad, and Vasant Vihar. Notably, six of the apprehended individuals have previous criminal records, raising concerns about the repeat nature of such offences and the networks sustaining them. Deputy Commissioner of Police (South West District), Amit Goel, IPS, confirmed the development and said that the operation highlights the department's continued commitment to cracking down on unlawful gambling activities. "Further investigation is in progress," the DCP added, noting that efforts are being made to identify other individuals linked to the racket and any possible financial backers. New Delhi, Aug 22 : In a significant development in the long-standing Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah land dispute, the Allahabad High Court is set to resume hearing on Friday at 2:00 P.M. New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) In a significant development in the long-standing Sri Krishna Janmabhoomia"Shahi Idgah land dispute, the Allahabad High Court is set to resume hearing on Friday at 2:00 P.M. A single-judge Bench led by Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra is presiding over the case, which has seen multiple petitions filed over the years, particularly since October 2023, when the court began detailed hearings. One of the key updates in the case is the High Courtas acceptance of Case No.17 as a representative suit under Order 1 Rule 8 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC). This provision allows one or more persons to file a case on behalf of a larger group with shared interests. By granting this status, the court has effectively prioritised Case No.17, meaning it will now be heard first, and the verdict could serve as a guiding outcome for related petitions. However, this decision has not gone down well with all litigants, especially those representing the temple side, who have expressed dissatisfaction, fearing that their individual arguments might not get due attention. The case revolves around the ownership and use of land in Mathura, where devotees claim the exact birthplace of Lord Krishna lies beneath the Shahi Idgah mosque, located adjacent to the Katra Keshav Dev Temple. The Hindu sides claim that the Shahi Idgah Masjid was constructed atop the original birthplace of Lord Krishna. The Muslim side firmly disputes this assertion. Over the past few years, a total of 18 petitions have been filed seeking the restoration and reconstruction of the temple, as well as a permanent injunction against the continued use of the mosque on the disputed site. The High Court is now expected to take a major procedural step by framing the issues in the matter, an essential step before the trial begins. Legal experts suggest that the court appears to be following an approach similar to the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case, opting for a direct, case-centric hearing instead of sending it back to a lower court. New Delhi, Aug 22 : As the investigation into the attack on Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta continues, police have detained a friend of the accused, Rajesh Khimji, from Rajkot. According to Delhi Police, several of his friends and relatives are being questioned. The police have detained one of his friends from Rajkot, who allegedly transferred money to him. A Delhi Police team is in Rajkot and will bring him to the national capital by this evening. The police are verifying the version of Khimji which he gave during interrogation. So far, no other arrest has been made in the case. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was attacked by Rajesh Bhai Khimji Bhai Sakariya during the aJan Sunvai' at her official residence in the Civil Lines area on August 20. The accused was immediately arrested. Two CCTV clips have emerged of the accused, Khimji, recceing the CMas residence. In the clips, he is seen roaming in and out of her Shalimar Bagh residence for 11 minutes. The footage, dated August 19, shows Rajesh arriving at the CM's private residence on a cycle rickshaw, recording videos of the area, and entering the premises. He was seen going in and out of the house for at least 11 minutes, apparently conducting a recce. Later, staff at the residence gave him a slip with details of the Chief Minister's official Civil Lines residence and the timings of the Jan Sunvai programme. On Wednesday, Rajesh attacked CM Gupta during the Jan Sunvai at her Civil Lines residence, allegedly slapping her and pulling her hair. The Delhi Police registered a case of attempt to murder against him under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and secured a five-day remand for interrogation. Police said Rajesh, a 41-year-old from Rajkot, arrived in Delhi by train on Tuesday morning -- his first visit to the national capital. He stayed in Room No. D-5 on the second floor of the Gujarati Bhavan in Civil Lines before heading to Shalimar Bagh. He even informed a friend about visiting the CM's residence during a phone call, police said. In the wake of the shocking attack, security at the Chief Minister's Civil Lines residence has been significantly heightened. CM Gupta has now been granted 'Z category' security, and a team of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel has been deployed for her protection. Police further revealed that Rajesh has a criminal history, with five cases registered against him at Bhaktinagar Police Station in Rajkot. While he has been acquitted in four of them, one case is still pending, with the next hearing scheduled for September 9. Gujarat Police have been contacted for more details on his background, and further investigation is underway. Seoul, Aug 22 : Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan met with Bill Gates, chair of the Gates Foundation and Microsoft co-founder, in Seoul on Friday to discuss cooperation in the field of energy, Kim's office said. According to the industry ministry, the two sides discussed cooperation between TerraPower, a nuclear power company co-founded by Gates that develops next-generation small modular reactors (SMRs), and South Korean companies, reports Yonhap news agency. In 2022, South Korea's SK Group and its affiliate SK Innovation Co. invested 300 billion won ($214 million) in TerraPower. SMRs, advanced nuclear reactors with a power capacity of up to 300 megawatts per unit, have been under the spotlight in recent years amid growing global demand for electricity sparked by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom and the transition to non-fossil fuel energy to tackle climate change. The meeting drew attention as an upcoming summit between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump, slated for next week, is expected to cover nuclear energy cooperation between the two countries. On Thursday, Gates met with Lee to discuss ways to expand cooperation in the energy sector, global health initiatives and other areas. Meanwhile, a senior executive of HD Hyundai Co., South Korea's leading shipbuilding conglomerate, held talks with Gates on cooperation in small modular reactor (SMR) projects pursued by the U.S. billionaire's startup TerraPower LLC. HD Hyundai Executive Vice Chairman Chung Ki-sun met Gates, chairman and founder of TerraPower, in Seoul to discuss ways to expand the supply of Natrium reactors developed by the U.S. firm and to promote their commercialisation, the company said in a press release. TerraPower's Natrium reactors are regarded as among the most advanced SMRs currently in development. They offer high thermal efficiency and enhanced safety, and generate about 40 percent less nuclear waste compared with conventional reactors. "Next-generation SMR technology is a core solution for realizing sustainable future energy. Our partnership with TerraPower will serve as a turning point in building a global nuclear supply chain and accelerating the energy transition," Chung said. a"IANS na/ New Delhi, Aug 22 : India is set to celebrate the second National Space Day on Saturday, honouring the country's journey from satellites to human spaceflight. Union Minister of State for Science and Technology, Dr Jitendra Singh, said in an X post that on August 23, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India created history as the fourth nation to land on the Moon and the first at its South Pole a moment that inspired the future. "Tomorrow, we celebrate the 2nd National Space Day, honouring India's journey from satellites to human spaceflight and our vision of infinite possibilities," the minister added. India's space sector is set to play a major role in advancing the country's technological and economic growth. With the landmark space reforms in 2020, the Government has liberalised the Indian space sector and constituted the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe). Post the announcement of space sector reforms in 2020, the number of registered space start-ups has grown exponentially to over 300. IN-SPACe has also facilitated two successful sub-orbital flights from Indian space start-ups in November 2022 and May 2024, respectively. In addition, six NGEs have launched fourteen satellites into orbit, demonstrating their capabilities. The first uncrewed mission of the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission, G1, is ready to launch with the half-humanoid robot -- Vyommitra -- and the launch is expected in December, according to V. Narayanan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Speaking at a press briefing in the national capital on Friday, he lauded IAF Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla for his successful mission to the International Space Station -- the first ever by an Indian. Shukla is one of the astronauts selected for the crewed Gaganyaan mission. He added that the recently launched NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite (NISAR) satellite "is healthy and all systems are working well". IANS na/ Moscow, Aug 22 : Concluding a significant three-day visit to Russia, External Affairs Minister (EAM), Dr S. Jaishankar, reaffirmed the strength and depth of the India-Russia strategic partnership, co-chairing the 26th Session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) and holding high-level meetings with the Russian leadership. From August 19 to 21, EAM Jaishankar met Russian President Vladimir Putin, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and also engaged with Russian scholars and think tanks. During his meeting with President Putin, Dr. Jaishankar "conveyed personal greetings of the Prime Minister and discussed key issues of the bilateral agenda and contemporary global issues of mutual interest, including the developments related to Ukraine," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a Press release issued on Friday. Earlier on August 20, the EAM co-chaired the 26th IRIGC-TEC session with Deputy PM Manturov, where both sides stressed the need to "address tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, remove bottlenecks in logistics, promote connectivity, effect payment mechanisms smoothly, and finalise the Programme of Economic Cooperation till 2030." The early conclusion of the India-Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement and regular engagements between Indian and Russian businesses were emphasised as critical to achieving the revised bilateral trade target of $100 billion by 2030. Energy cooperation and mobility of Indian skilled professionals, especially in IT, construction, and engineering, were also discussed. The session concluded with the signing of the Protocol for the 26th IRIGC-TEC. Both leaders later addressed the India-Russia Business Forum, which "saw participation from a wide range of stakeholders" and emphasised coordination between the Forum and Working Groups under the IRIGC. On August 21, EAM Jaishankar held talks with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, undertaking a "comprehensive review of the entire gamut of IndiaRussia bilateral relations, including in trade, connectivity, Defence, military-technical cooperation, and the fast-tracking of new Indian Consulates in Kazan and Yekaterinburg." The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to global multilateralism, including collaboration in G20, BRICS, and SCO, and jointly stressed the need for UN Security Council reforms. "EAM underlined the imperative to expand and energize the UN Security Council to reflect contemporary realities," the release said. Regional issues such as Ukraine, the Middle East, West Asia, and Afghanistan were also discussed. EAM Jaishankar reiterated India's firm stance on dialogue and diplomacy and also raised concerns over Indians serving in the Russian Army, calling for swift resolution of pending cases. On counter-terrorism, both nations "resolved to fight jointly against all forms and manifestations of terrorism." EAM conveyed India's strong stance, reiterating its "zerotolerance policy against terrorism and its sovereign right to defend Indian citizens against cross-border terrorism," MEA stated. The visit concluded with discussions on preparations for the upcoming Annual Summit between the Indian and Russian leadership, and EAM Jaishankar extended an invitation to Foreign Minister Lavrov to visit India at a mutually convenient time. Kochi, Aug 22 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah is on a day-long visit to the commercial capital of Kerala, Kochi, on Friday to prepare the BJP's state leadership for the upcoming crucial local body elections. Union Ministers of State Suresh Gopi and George Kurian, Kerala BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, former party state presidents Kummanam Rajasekharan, P.K. Krishnadas, V. Muraleedharan and K. Surendran, besides state office-bearers and district presidents, will attend the state leadership meeting of the party. Incidentally, this is HM Shah's second visit to the state in two months. During his July visit, he outlined the roadmap for the party's campaign, asking the state unit to secure victories in two key corporations - Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur - and capture at least 10 municipalities. Of late, HM Shah has been emphasising the need for coordinated grassroots mobilisation and a stronger presence in local governance, where the BJP has traditionally struggled to make major inroads. Kerala's local governance structure comprises 23,612 wards spread across Gram Panchayats, Block Panchayats, District Panchayats, Municipalities and Corporations. In the 2020 elections, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) retained its stronghold, winning 514 of the 941 Gram Panchayats, 108 of 152 Block Panchayats, and taking control of five of the six Corporations. The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) maintained a significant presence. At the same time, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured only a limited number of seats, failing to establish a major base in the state's local bodies. The Union Home Minister's visit, therefore, is being viewed as a critical attempt to energise the cadre and to prepare the BJP for a stronger performance in the upcoming polls. As part of this effort, the leadership meeting will be followed by a two-day state-level workshop in Thrissur beginning Saturday, focusing on campaign strategies, candidate selection, and organisational strengthening. Meanwhile, in view of the Home Minister's visit, traffic restrictions will be in place in Kochi from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday. Imphal, Aug 22 : Former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Friday appreciated the Assam Rifles for recording biometrics and verifying other details of 42,000 Myanmar nationals who entered India since December last year. Taking to social media platform X, Singh wrote: "Under the new FMR policy, the Assam Rifles have mapped around 42,000 Myanmar nationals who entered India through various border points since last December." "Their entry has been recorded with the help of biometrics and verification measures along the Indo-Myanmar border. This is a positive step towards regulating the entry of foreign nationals, and it will also help in checking the abnormal population growth witnessed in Manipur in recent years," said Singh, who quit the Chief Ministerial post on February 9, four days before the President's Rule was imposed in the state due to prolonged ethnic violence. Meanwhile, the Assam Rifles, in a statement on Thursday, said that during a seminar at Manipur University on Wednesday, Lt Gen Vikas Lakhera, Director General Assam Rifles, shared insights on the new Free Movement Regime (FMR) policy of the government under which the Myanmarese nationals are now being mapped. "The statement made by the DG Assam Rifles is being misrepresented by certain media outlets. After the new FMR policy came into effect, the Myanmarese nationals entering India through crossing points are now being mapped. Since December (2024), 42,000 individuals have been mapped with the help of biometrics and various measures instituted by all concerned government agencies. The data of this is being shared with all Govt agencies," the Assam Rifles statement said. These Myanmarese citizens primarily stay temporarily in the Northeastern states of India, mainly in Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh and eventually revert to their country as per the provisions of the new FMR policy. The Seminar was conducted at Manipur University as part of the academic collaboration between Assam Rifles and the University. Patna, Aug 22 : Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public meeting in Bodh Gaya on Friday, Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav launched a scathing attack on the BJP and the PM. In a post on his official X handle, Tejashwi Yadav shared a video and wrote, "Hey PM ji, why do you tell so many lies morning and evening? Before raining slogans in Gaya today, do listen to this song, these are the expressions of the people of Bihar for you," Tejashwi wrote. Continuing his tirade, Tejashwi alleged that PM Modi's speech would be nothing more than a "shop of lies and slogans". He added, "With his boneless tongue, the PM will create a Himalaya of lies, but the justice-loving people of Bihar will break it like Dashrath Manjhi broke the mountain." He demanded that the Prime Minister give an account of his 11 years in office and 20 years of the NDA rule, instead of making fresh promises. Adding to the chorus, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav also slammed the visit. Taking a dig, he remarked, "Gaya is known for Pind Daan. The Prime Minister is coming here; he should do Pind Daan of the double-engine government that denies Bihar special status, controls constitutional institutions, and deprives the backward people of their rights." The Prime Minister, who has been frequent with his visits to Bihar in the last eight months, will inaugurate and lay foundation stones for projects worth over Rs 12,000 crore. The opposition has, however, branded the tour as an election stunt. Meanwhile, the BJP and NDA leaders have described the Prime Minister's tour as part of a "Vikas Yatra", highlighting key projects in infrastructure, electricity, transport, and housing schemes. With the election season drawing closer, PM Modi's repeated visits and the opposition's counterattacks indicate that the battle for Bihar is already in full swing. Ben and Jess Coe will readily admit they have made some risky moves: embarking on entirely new career paths in the midst of a global pandemic, blindly purchasing old storage units of trinkets (sometimes just junk) online, becoming roommates and business partners as adult siblings. But by and large, such gambles have paid off for the sibling duo behind downtown Charlottesvilles newest retailer: Old Flame Secondhand & Vintage. It was a life-changing weekend, Ben Coe said, leaning on a table inside the store, its surface covered in neatly folded jeans and salvaged knickknacks, their sister reclined on a plush yellow sofa in the back corner. Speaking with The Daily Progress was likely the longest the two have been still for the better part of two months. They had 60 days to move in after signing the lease for 101 E. Water St., real estate that was once home to the Vitae Spirits distillery before that moved onto the Downtown Mall in May of last year. Looking at it now, its hard to imagine why the property sat dark and vacant for almost a year. Antique chairs adorn the walls, shelves are filled with handcrafted trinkets, racks are loaded with old Levi jeans, a 1960s prom dress-turned-light fixture hangs from the ceiling. The Coes have breathed new life into the space, but its nearly taken the life out of them. Were very tired, Jess Coe said. But a good kind of tired. Old Flames addition has inadvertently turned First Street South and East Water Street into a hand-me-down haven, with Darling x Dashing Boutique and Arsenic & Old Lace Vintage all within steps. Old Flame officially opened its doors the first weekend of August to a steady stream of customers who told the owners they had been eager to enter since spotting the merchandise go up in the windows weeks before. Old Flame doesnt just carry items from the Coes own brand Lucky T Thrift but also from about 15 to 20 different vendors, including jewelry, clothes, crafts, shoes and bags. Most of the consignors are local to Central Virginia, including Venus Flytrap Vintage, Editors Pick Thrift, Blueberries & Tea and Wednesdays Whimsies, all of whom share the Coes firm adherence to inclusivity and sustainability. Im proud of being able to provide opportunities to people to make their lives better, like it has with us, said Ben Coe. The siblings are relatively new to the business of old and reused. Raised in Williamsburg, Jess Coe was the first to make her way to Charlottesville as an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia. Though she left the area for a while after school, she found her way back and worked at the Ivy Inn restaurant just west of the city for nearly 20 years. About five years ago, her younger sibling decided to join her, crashing at her place while looking for an apartment. That temporary stay quickly turned permanent as Ben Coes arrival in Charlottesville was ill-timed with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which made touring much less leasing a new apartment almost impossible. Thankfully, the arrangement didnt reignite any childhood spats. They stayed with me longer than originally planned, and then it turned out that we actually really liked living together, said Jess Coe with a laugh. It was actually really fun. Collectively, they decided they had spent enough time working in restaurants and wanted to pursue other interests. So, the siblings started to hunt through trash or, at least, what others considered trash. The Coes love for thrifting grew alongside their collection of salvaged and recycled goods as they sifted through thrift stores, yard sales, storage units, estate auctions and Facebook marketplace. Its one of those things where anyone can do it and go source these things, said Jess Coe. But you have to be willing to drive out into the middle of nowhere and get really, really dirty and sort through all the layers of junk to find the gems. They formally registered an LLC under the name Lucky T Thrift in January of last year and participated in their first pop-up event in Richmond the next March. They began to join Darling x Dashings pop-up markets. All the while, the two had an eye on the empty unit across the way until, one day, Ben Coe decided it was time to call the number of the leasing agent listed on the door to say they were interested. As their sister was in the middle of nowhere picking up an online estate sales order with no cell service, Ben Coe wasnt able to consult with her on the decision to lease 101 E. Water St. But, they both say, thats an upside of working with a sibling. Theres definitely times when one of us has to make a decision and the other ones not there, Jess Coe said. So the fact that they are my sibling, and I know them well enough, I can sometimes be like, I know how theyre going to feel about this, and make the decision, and vice versa. They are often on the same page, particularly when it comes to Old Flame and the environment they are trying to cultivate there. They want to ensure their store can offer affordable and suitable options to anyone, regardless of age, gender or body size. Sometimes, that means not necessarily pricing an item of clothing at its highest possible value. I do my due diligence in making sure theyre quality stuff, and I dont feel compelled to sell it for what its worth, Ben Coe said. I want to sell it at what its going to sell to somebody, to your average person walking in. It isnt just to get inventory off the shelves, but also to promote sustainable fashion; a sector of the industry that is rapidly growing in popularity. Reports estimate that the global secondhand apparel market will be worth $350 billion by 2028. According to Bank & Vogue, a used goods industry leader, the secondhand market was worth $43.49 billion in the U.S. alone in 2024 and is projected to exceed $125 billion over the next decade. I think its a more sustainable way to live, and so I do really hope that the trend continues not just a passing fad, said Jess Coe. Mumbai, Aug 22 : Actress-producer Pallavi Joshi, who is awaiting the release of her upcoming film 'The Bengal Files', has spoken up about her experience of working with veteran actor Mithun Chakraborty in the film. Pallavi spoke with IANS at her home in the Andheri area of Mumbai, ahead of the film's release, and said that working with the senior actor was a surreal experience. She told IANS, "Mithun Chakraborty has always been an enigma to me because I see three different personalities in one person. There is a disco dancer. Then there is an actor who has been performing roles like Ramkrishna Paramhansa. And then there was a beautiful film I had seen of his called 'Titli', which was directed by Aparna Sen. He was amazing in that film". She shared that he is a star, who knows his job, as she said, "He did not really care about acting so much in those films, just concentrated more on his dance and everything. And then there are some films which he has done purely for money. And yet, there is also that actor who won the National Award for 'Mrigya', and then he's a three-time national award winner. For somebody who has gone the full spectrum, there is so much to learn from him". The actress said that she is in awe of the senior actor, who was recently lionised with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest honour in the field of cinema. She further mentioned, "His entire demeanor is that of a star. So when he sits down and starts talking, it's Mithun Chakraborty, the star who's sitting there in front of you. When he opens his mouth, it is a very well-read person who speaks to you. And then when he starts telling you a few things about what you should be doing in this film, it's that cinematic nerd inside him who understands cinema so well. He's giving you those suggestions". As a political figure, Mithun has covered the full spectrum of left to right. He was involved in the Naxalbari movement when he was very young, he left the movement after his family suffered a crisis. He then went on to graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), became a superstar, tried his luck in politics with great returns. He joined TMC, which lies at the centre-left of the political spectrum, and now is in BJP, which is a right-wing party. Pallavi, on her part hasn't had an elaborate discussion with the actor when it comes to politics but whatever she has heard from him on the subject, is enough to impress her. "He surprises me with his deep understanding of cinema. Politics, of course, I've never really had a chance to discuss with him. I'm not really very interested in that aspect. But I'm sure he's had conversations with Vivek. I've overheard some of them. And I'm just blown away by that man. And to have him as your co-actor in the same frame, it sometimes feels surreal", she added. 'The Bengal Files' stars Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, and Darshan Kumar. The film is written and directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri and produced by Abhishek Agarwal, Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri. Presented by Tej Narayan Agarwal & I Am Buddha, The film is a worldwide release by Zee Studios, and will arrive in theatres on September 5, 2025. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Union Cabinet Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Friday said the Centre has issued the Gazette Notification extending privileges and immunities to the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), which is a significant step reaffirming India's steadfast commitment to strengthening international cooperation for big cat conservation. With this, IBCA, its officials, and representatives in India will enjoy privileges and legal safeguards typically granted to United Nations organisations, according to a gazette notification. Taking to social media, Minister Yadav welcomed the move and said that he was glad to share this information. "The Government of India has issued the Gazette Notification extending privileges and immunities to the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives, and officials under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947. The significant step reaffirms India's steadfast commitment to strengthening international cooperation for big cat conservation," said Yadav. He said the conservation of big cats is also instrumental in preserving and protecting their ecosystems and hence the well-being of our Planet. "With these privileges and immunities, IBCA gets the necessary empowerment to function effectively as a global platform to foster collaboration, knowledge exchange, and capacity building for the conservation of our big cats worldwide,' he added. The gazette notification said the Government of India signed the Host Country Agreement with the International Big Cat Alliance(IBCA) on April 17 for establishing the International Big Cat Alliance(IBCA) in India. It said, "the Central Government considers it expedient to extend the necessary privileges and immunities provided under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947 (46 of 1947) to the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives and officials in accordance with Article X of the above mentioned Host Country Agreement," the notification reads. In exercise of the powers conferred by section 3 of the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947 (46 of 1947), the Central government has declared that "the provisions of section 1 of Article I, provisions under Article II, section 9 of Article III, sections 18 and 20 of Article V and sections 22 and 23 of Article VI of the Schedule to the said Act shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives and officials". IBCA is an India-led intergovernmental organisation formed to support the conservation of the world's seven principal big cat species -- tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma -- by facilitating international cooperation and sharing best practices and technical know-how. It became a treaty-based intergovernmental organisation in February 2025, upon ratification by India, Nicaragua, Eswatini, Somalia, and Liberia. It was officially launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 9, 2023, during celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of Project Tiger in Mysuru. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav was elected as the first President of IBCA. The primary objective of IBCA is to facilitate collaboration and synergy amongst range countries and other stakeholders, consolidating successful conservation practices and expertise to achieve a common goal of conservation of big cats at the global level. This unified approach, bolstered by financial support, aims to boost the biodiversity conservation agenda, halt the decline in big cat populations, and conserve ecology. Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22 : The political storm around Youth Congress leader and first-time MLA Rahul Mamkootathil shows no signs of abating after the BJP and the CPI-M demanded his resignation over serious allegations against him by a woman, while the grand old party has rejected such demands. On Thursday, Mamkootathil resigned from his position as Youth Congress state president after facing a series of allegations, including claims that he forced a woman into an abortion. While stepping down was projected as a personal decision of the first-time legislator, many senior leaders were upset with his behaviour, while some close to him were trying to cover up his lapses. Irrespective of the difference of opinion, the Congress party has firmly rejected demands that Mamkootathil also give up his MLA seat. Party leaders argued there was "no situation" warranting such a step, pointing out precedents such as CPI(M) MLA Mukesh, who continued in office despite facing serious charges. Instead, the party has decided to restrict action to the organisational level, while also setting up a committee to probe the allegations. Police, meanwhile, have opted against filing a case for now, citing a lack of evidence. A complaint filed at Ernakulam Central Police Station by a lawyer, identified as a CPI(M) sympathiser, was based only on media reports. Preliminary legal advice to police warned that registering a case solely on this basis could backfire in court. Officers indicated that further steps would be taken only if the complainant produced additional evidence or if the woman heard in the leaked audio recordings herself came forward. Adding fuel to the fire, Palakkad Congress MP V.K. Sreekandan on Friday created a stir with remarks widely condemned as victim-shaming. Speaking to reporters, he questioned the credibility of the woman who raised allegations, referring to photographs of one complainant "in semi-clad attire with ministers". He further alleged a political conspiracy behind the charges, questioning why the matter had surfaced years later and dismissing media reliance on audio clips as unreliable in the "age of AI videos". Joining the issue with Sreekandan was State Education Minister V. Sivankutty, who on Friday urged to bring out the "so-called pictures with ministers". The resignation has opened up a race for the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) leadership. Among those under consideration are IYC state vice presidents Abin Varkey and O.J. Janish, IYC national secretary Binu Chulliyil, and former KSU state president K.M. Abhijith. Party sources suggest Varkey's chances are slim as Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and other frontal organisations are already led by members of minority communities. New Delhi, Aug 22 : In a major security breach on Friday, a man entered the Parliament House complex by climbing a tree and scaling the wall. According to sources, the incident occurred around 6.30 a.m. Officials said that the intruder reached the Garuda gate of the new Parliament building by jumping over the wall from the Rail Bhavan side. The security present in the Parliament complex caught the accused and is interrogating him, officials said. Sources said the securitymen detected the breach, triggering a swift response from them. The security personnel stationed at the complex quickly apprehended the suspect. He is currently being interrogated to ascertain his identity, motive, and how he managed to bypass multiple layers of security in such a high-security zone. The authorities are reviewing surveillance/CCTV footage to note the sequence of events. The agencies are simultaneously investigating possible lapses in security protocols. The security breach incident comes a day after the Monsoon Session of the Parliament concluded. The month-long session started on July 21, which had 21 business sittings. A similar incident of a security breach took place last year when a man in his early 20s scaled the Parliament wall and jumped inside the Annexe building premises. A purported video of the incident had also surfaced in which the suspect, wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, was seen being held by the CISF personnel. However, nothing incriminating was found in the man's possession. In 2023, a major security breach happened on the 22nd anniversary of the attack on the Parliament. Two men jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors' gallery on December 13, carrying canisters emitting yellow smoke when the session was on. Amidst the chaos, Parliamentarians apprehended the two, beating them up before handing them over to the security staff. The two were identified as Sagar Sharma (25) from Lucknow and Manoranjan D. (35) from Mysore. New Delhi, Aug 22 : As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to arrive in Kolkata on Friday to inaugurate key infrastructure projects, excitement was evident on the streets of the city. Among the major highlights is the long-awaited inauguration of the new metro corridors, a project that promises to transform urban connectivity between Howrah, Kolkata, Salt Lake, and the airport. At around 4.15 p.m., PM Modi will flag off the newly completed metro services and personally undertake a ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Biman Bandar and back. He will also inaugurate the newly constructed subway at Howrah Metro Station, designed to ease pedestrian congestion and improve transit flow. Ahead of his visit, locals expressed joy and gratitude for the new facilities. "Metro will definitely ease commuting for Kolkata and Howrah people. I am very happy seeing the developments happening in the state," said a man waiting near the new station, echoing the views of many daily commuters. A woman, who works in a school, shared her happiness: "I work here in school, and I have to travel every day. I was praying this metro would start, so this day is very exciting for me. Grateful, it will ease our commuting." Another local added, "There's some good development happening in the state, and transportation has improved a lot. I am very happy about this and grateful for it." These metro projects have been a long-standing demand of Kolkata and Howrah residents, especially those commuting between Howrah Maidan, Sealdah, Salt Lake Sector 5, and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport. The seamless integration of these corridors is expected to drastically reduce travel time and ease traffic congestion that commuters have long struggled with. In addition to the metro services, PM Modi will also lay the foundation stone for the six-lane elevated Kona Expressway in Howrah, a major infrastructure initiative worth Rs 1,200 crore. Once completed, the expressway will significantly enhance connectivity between Howrah, Kolkata, and surrounding rural regions, serving as a vital link for both economic activity and daily transit. For the people of West Bengal, this marks a major milestone. "This is a new chapter for the city. It's more than a metro, it's about progress and saving time," said a young student, capturing the broader mood of the day. With thousands expected to gather for PM Modi's arrival and metro flag-off, Kolkata stands ready to embrace the occasion. New Delhi, Aug 22 : The Japanese government plans to double the target for private-sector investment in India to 10 trillion yen ($68 billion) over the next 10 years, according to a media report from Tokyo. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to confirm the new target during their meeting in Tokyo on August 29, according to a source-based report in Japan's 'The Asahi Shimbun' newspaper. This plan will expand upon Japan's current goal of investing 5 trillion yen over five years, which was announced in March 2022 by then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during his visit to India The new investment goal is expected to be included in a joint statement following summit talks between Prime Minister Modi and his Japanese counterpart. PM Modi will be on a three-day visit to Japan starting August 29, his first since May 2023, when he attended the G7 summit in Hiroshima. Japanese businesses have since invested nearly 1 trillion yen in India every fiscal year on average. The government plans to update the target to further encourage investment by the private sector, the report said. The two governments also plan to launch an Economic Security Initiative, a new bilateral cooperation framework to address economic security challenges, such as ensuring stable supplies of critical materials and guaranteeing the safety of core infrastructure. The initiative will prioritise key areas including semiconductors, critical minerals, telecommunications, clean energy, pharmaceuticals and scientific fields such as artificial intelligence. An AI Cooperation Initiative will be established to specifically advance collaboration in AI technology and startups, The Asahi Shimbun report said. Additionally, a project called Digital Partnership 2.0 will be developed to expand economic collaboration beyond manufacturing to encompass emerging technological fields, such as semiconductors, AI and startups. India and Japan are likely to revise and update the 2008 joint declaration on security cooperation during PM Modi's visit. The renewed agreement is expected to reflect contemporary priorities and to be responsive to the current security challenges facing them In the clean energy sector, Japan and India will issue a Joint Statement on Energy Dialogue aimed at promoting cooperation to simultaneously achieve decarbonisation, economic growth and energy security. The two countries are expected to announce the introduction of the Joint Crediting Mechanism, a bilateral system that allows Japan to count carbon emissions cuts achieved by spreading its greenhouse gas-reducing technologies in India toward its reduction targets. The government is also considering setting targets to expand people-to-people exchanges with India, such as "more than 500,000 people coming and going over five years" and "accepting 50,000 Indian nationals (in Japan)". As part of India's Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, which is being implemented with Japanese assistance, the two Prime Ministers are expected to reach an agreement on the introduction of the next-generation E10 series bullet train under development by East Japan Railway Co. PM Modi will attend meetings where Japanese and Indian companies are expected to sign more than 100 memoranda of understanding, including those on investment projects. Islamabad, Aug 22 : A leading minority rights group has raised serious concerns over the escalating violence and systemic persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan, warning that Christians, Hindus, Ahmadiyyas, Sikhs, and others continue to face increasing marginalisation, targeted attacks, and social exclusion under the country's prevailing religious intolerance. Citing a latest report by the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), the Voice of Pakistan Minority (VOPM) said findings revealed that the state of religious freedom in Pakistan is "increasingly dire." The report noted that despite constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, minorities in Pakistan live under constant threat, with little hope of justice. The VOPM asserted that central to this persecution is Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law, which has been widely misused to intimidate, settle personal disputes, or extort money. It added that accusations alonewhether true or fabricatedare often enough to spark mob violence against religious minorities in the country. "Hindus, Pakistan's largest minority, continue to face violence and forced conversions. In 2019, a blasphemy accusation against Hindu teacher Notan Lal in Sindh triggered riots: Hindu shops were looted, a school ransacked, and a temple attacked. Though Lal was acquitted in 2024, his case is a reminder of how quickly allegations can ignite communal violence. In 2020, a historic temple in Karak was torched by a mob protesting its expansion, despite Supreme Court orders for protection," read a statement issued by the rights body. According to VOPM, women and girls from minority communities often face persecution in the form of abduction and forced conversion, with the CSOH report noting that Hindu and Christian girls are particularly at risk. Highlighting the atrocities against minorities in Pakistan, the rights body stated that in December 2024, a 15-year-old Hindu girl, Kajol was abducted from her home in Sindh province, and then tortured, raped, converted, and forced into marriage. Her name was changed to "Javeriya," and her age was falsified to make the marriage appear legal. Despite appeals from her family, the VOPM said she remains trapped with her abductors. Additionally, the rights body mentioned that in March 2024, a 10-year-old Christian girl, Laiba, was kidnapped from her home in Punjab province, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to her 35-year-old abductor, while documents were falsified to show she was 17. Instead of returning her to her parents, a Pakistani court ordered that she be kept in a state-run shelter. Similarly, raising concern over the violence faced by minority men as well, the VOPM stated that in March 2025, Hindu sanitation worker Nadeem Naath was shot dead in Peshawar after refusing to convert to Islam. In the same month, it said 22-year-old Christian labourer Waqas Masih survived an attack by his supervisor, who slit his throat after pressuring him to abandon his faith. "The persecution of Pakistan's minorities is not only a political and legal issueit is a deeply human tragedy. It is about families who lose their homes overnight, young girls robbed of their childhoods, and entire communities forced to live in fear," the VOPM stated. "And yet, amid this fear, these communities show remarkable resilience. Christians continue to rebuild burned churches, Hindus fight for their temples, Ahmadiyyas stand firm in their faith, and Sikhs strive to keep their culture alive," it added. Gaya Ji : , Aug 22 (IANS) The District Magistrate (DM) of Gaya ji in Bihar has rejected Congress leader Pawan Khera's allegation that dozens of voters, particularly women, had been arbitrarily deleted from the electoral rolls in the district. The DM said that a field inquiry has proved that the claims were not true, and misconceptions among voters have been clarified. Khera, citing a media report, had alleged that several women in Gaya ji had testified about being disenfranchised despite furnishing valid documents under the Special Summary Revision (SSR) process. He further claimed that these women were being asked to produce documents of their parents -- many of whom were either deceased or lived outside Bihar -- and accused the BJP of "waging an undeclared war on the women of Bihar", while also charging the Election Commission of India (ECI) with complicity. Hours later, the Gaya administration issued a detailed rebuttal. According to the statement, Barachatti Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) Priyanka Kaushik and Assistant ERO Ajit Kumar conducted a field verification in village Nodia, based on video footage circulated in the media. "The names of voters mentioned in the video were checked against the draft electoral rolls and found to be very much present," the statement read. Listing specific cases, the DM said in a post on X that the name of Mithilesh Kumar (father Bachchu Yadav) was found at serial No. 18, polling station 27. Similarly, the name of Babita Kumari (husband Neeraj Kumar) was found at serial No. 76, polling station 26. The administration added that misconceptions were clarified during the inspection, and voters were informed that "ration cards have no link to voting rights". The DM further said that officials read out 61 names from the Absentee, Shifted and Dead (ASD) list and invited objections, but no written complaint has been received so far. "The misinformation spread through the media report has been addressed on the ground, and voters have been assured that their names are intact in the electoral rolls," the DM said. Dhaka, Aug 22 : Bangladesh is facing an alarming wave of sexual violence, particularly targeting women and children from minority communities like Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and others, which has reached pandemic proportions under the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, said the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) on Friday. Citing the reports of Dhaka-based human rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra (AsK), HRCBM noted that 342 rape cases were officially recorded in less than three months during the first quarter of 2025, with 87 per cent of the victims being girls under 18 years of age. Among them, 40 victims were children between infancy and six years old, while the incidents of gang rapes were sharply rising, with the majority of victims being minors. According to the rights body, these horrifying figures represent only the tip of the iceberg, and the true number runs into thousands, which is hidden by silence, fear, and state inaction. "The vast majority of rapes and gang rapes in Bangladesh go unreported due to social stigma, fear of retaliation, and distrust in the justice system. "For minority women and girls, the silence is even deeper: Allegations of religious bias in law enforcement and lower courts deter families from pursuing justice, leaving crimes unrecorded and unpunished. "In several cases, headless bodies of women and girls have been discovered across the country, making identification impossible and pointing to the unspeakable brutality of the perpetrators," read a statement issued by HRCBM. Highlighting the atrocities against Hindu minorities in Bangladesh under the Yunus regime, the rights body stated that despite the baseless charges and mounting public outrage, Chinmoy Krishna Das, a prominent Hindu leader and spokesperson for the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatani Jagaran Jot, has been imprisoned since November. His bail petition, the rights body said, which is now pending before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, has received no resolution for months. Since then, it stated that Das has been entangled in multiple fabricated cases, including false allegations of murder. The HRCBM questioned whether his only crime was speaking truth to power and advocating for the rights of Bangladesh's marginalised. It said, "His case stands as a microcosm of broader state inaction and complicity a legal mockery in a system that claims to uphold justice." The HRCBM stated that it has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, calling for an urgent judicial enquiry into the epidemic of sexual violence against women and girls, with particular attention to the systematic and disproportionate targeting of minorities. The right body's new PIL sought a high-powered judicial enquiry into the escalating wave of sexual violence across Bangladesh, demanding accountability, structural reforms, and special protections for minority women and girls who remain uniquely vulnerable to targeted brutality. New Delhi, Aug 22 : The allotment of industrial plots to several companies has been approved in India's first integrated Greenfield Smart Industrial City project in the Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Area at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Friday. New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) The allotment of industrial plots to several companies has been approved in Indiaas first integrated Greenfield Smart Industrial City project in the Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Area at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Friday. The approved allotments in the industrial city, branded as AURIC, span across sectors including specialty food ingredients, paper products, electronics manufacturing, road construction equipment, and alloy casting. These projects together represent investments of over Rs 200 crore and are expected to create approximately 1,000 jobs, the statement said. Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) is a greenfield smart industrial city being developed under the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). AURIC is designed to provide cutting-edge infrastructure, multi-modal connectivity, digital administration, eco-friendly industrial practices, and an integrated ecosystem of industries, logistics, and residential areas. The city aims to provide seamless connectivity to attract investments and support a diverse range of industries. The Land Allotment Committee, comprising officials of Maharashtra Industrial Township Limited (MITL) and NICDC, considered applications under the priority and expansion categories. The proposals were evaluated based on project feasibility, turnover, land requirements, and future expansion plans, as per the information submitted by applicants through project reports and supporting documents. Among the approved projects, M/s. Science for Society Techno Services Pvt. Ltd. has been allotted a 37,388 sq.m. plot in Sector 12, with Mega Project status granted by the Industries Department. The company will establish a specialty food ingredient plant with an investment of about Rs 104 crore, generating over 325 jobs. The project will feature a zero-discharge facility to minimise environmental impact, the statement explained. M/s. Su-Tantra Paper Products Pvt. Ltd., which already operates a paper products manufacturing unit at Shendra with a turnover of Rs8a"10 crore, has been allotted an adjacent 370.79 sq.m. plot in Sector 5 to support expansion of its operations. Similarly, M/s. Alankar Engineering Equipments Pvt. Ltd., engaged in manufacturing road construction equipment, has been allotted a 7,378 sq.m. plot in Sector 5 for expansion, with an investment of Rs 17.50 crore. The company already holds an 8,200 sq.m. plot allotted in July 2022. M/s. Lonbest India Pvt. Ltd., also granted Mega Project status, has been allotted a 37,388.70 sq.m. plot in Sector 12. The company plans to set up an electronics manufacturing system, including production of chipsets and PCBs, with a proposed investment of Rs 110 crore and the creation of around 500 jobs. M/s. Varad Alloy Casting has been allotted a 6,057 sq.m. plot in Sector 5 under the priority category for expansion, where it will establish a new foundry for aluminium castings and die casting. The government has been engaging with industry stakeholders to promote investment and industrial growth in the region. Recent visits by Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal, and Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Amardeep Singh Bhatia, focussed on strengthening the policy framework, addressing industry concerns, and building investor confidence, the statement added. Maharashtra Industrial Township Limited (MITL), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) between National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Limited (NICDC) and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) manages the development and growth of AURIC, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar aiming to boost investment, ease of doing business, single window clearance and industry-driven growth. New Delhi, Aug 22 : For the first time since the shocking assault on her during a public grievance hearing, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta stepped out to attend a scheduled program at Ashok Bazaar in Gandhi Nagar on Friday. Ahead of the Chief Minister's arrival, Gandhi Nagar Market was placed under tight security. Several shops were ordered shut, and a heavy presence of Delhi Police and CRPF personnel was seen across the vicinity. Checkpoints were set up around the area, and movement was being closely monitored. Locals described the atmosphere as "tense but orderly," with several commuters diverted to alternate routes. This marked Chief Minister Gupta's first public appearance following the attack at her Civil Lines residence on August 21 during a 'Jan Sunvai (public grievance hearing)', where she was allegedly slapped and assaulted by a man identified as Rajesh Bhai Khimji Bhai Sakariya. In the aftermath of the incident, security at CM Gupta's official Civil Lines residence was significantly ramped up, with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel deployed for round-the-clock protection. The attack sent shockwaves through the political spectrum, prompting visits from senior leaders including Manoj Tiwari, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Yogendra Chandolia, Praveen Khandelwal, and Bansuri Swaraj, who met her to express solidarity and enquire about her well-being. Meanwhile, the accused, Rajesh Bhai, was produced in court on Thursday and has been remanded to five days in police custody. He has been booked under the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for attempt to murder (Section 109), obstruction of a public servant (Section 132), and impeding public duties (Section 221). Adding a fresh twist to the case, a CCTV footage from August 19 has surfaced, showing Rajesh arriving at CM Gupta's private residence in Shalimar Bagh on a cycle rickshaw. In the video, he is seen moving in and out of the premises multiple times, reportedly conducting a recce. Residence staff allegedly handed him a slip detailing the Chief Minister's Civil Lines address and 'Jan Sunvai' schedule, which may have aided the planning of the assault. Kochi, Aug 22 : A law graduate has approached the Kerala High Court seeking urgent directions for conducting the enrolment of law graduates to the Bar Council of Kerala (BCK). The petition was taken up on Friday before Justice N. Nagaresh, who granted time to the High Court's standing counsel to seek instructions on whether the court was willing to step in and conduct the enrolment. In his plea, the petitioner stated that he had approached the Bar Council of Kerala in June to enquire about the notification for the next enrolment. However, he was informed that no decision had been taken yet. The petition also referred to the Division Bench ruling in Yeshwant Shenoy v. Bar Council of Kerala and Ors., which observed that the current quorum of the Bar Council of Kerala was continuing in violation of law since the term of its members had expired. With no fresh elections held and no Special Committee constituted by the Bar Council of India under Section 8A of the Advocates Act, 1961, the council's functioning was deemed irregular. The BCI has since filed a review petition against that judgment, which remains reserved for orders. Arguing that Section 58 of the Advocates Act provides the High Court with enabling powers to conduct enrolment when a State Bar Council is not constituted or unable to function, the petitioner said he had also submitted a representation to the Registrar General of the High Court. However, the request was turned down. The plea contends that law graduates in other States have already been able to complete enrolment, and the continuing delay in Kerala amounts to a violation of fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. Accordingly, the petitioner has prayed for directions to the Bar Council of Kerala and its Enrolment Committee to conduct the process without further delay. In the alternative, he has sought a direction to the High Court itself to invoke its powers under Section 58 and oversee enrolment. The matter will be heard again on August 25. Seoul, Aug 22 : North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has awarded commendations to the North's troops deployed to Russia's war with Ukraine, calling them "great heroes and patriots," and consoled bereaved families of fallen soldiers, state media reported Friday. The North held a ceremony to decorate commanders and combatants of the overseas operation unit of the Korean People's Army (KPA) who returned home from the battlefield, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It marked the first time that North Korea has awarded commendation to its soldiers who fought overseas. The North's leader lauded troops deployed to the front-line Kursk region as "great heroes and patriots" in his speech at the ceremony held at the headquarters of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea. "The victory won by the brave soldiers who participated in the war is a great feat that firmly defended the great honour of the KPA, which should never be undermined, and provided a sure guarantee for the existence and development of our state," Kim said. He said the bravery shown by North Korean troops affirmed that an army from any country cannot avoid the fate of becoming "dead souls" if it fights against the North's military. Since October last year, North Korea has provided conventional weapons and around 13,000 troops to support Russia's war efforts amid deepening bilateral military cooperation. In the speech, Kim brought up the "victorious conclusion" of overseas military operations but stopped short of disclosing the timing of withdrawing North Korean soldiers fighting in the front-line Kursk region. At the ceremony, Kim awarded the title of "DPRK Hero" to commanders and service members for their "distinguished" feats on the battlefield, the KCNA said, referring to the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He also put the DPRK Hero medals beside the portraits of "martyrs," who sacrificed their youth and lives for the war. Photos carried by state media showed Kim stroking the portraits hanging on the "memorial wall" at the party's headquarters. A total of 101 portraits of the war dead were seen on the wall, but the KCNA did not mention whether they are all of those killed during combat. South Korea's spy agency said in April that around 600 North Korean soldiers are believed to have been killed while fighting for Russia, and more than 4,000 North Korean troops have also been injured. With what appeared to be tearful eyes, Kim also hugged some of the bereaved family members to console them, photos published by the KCNA showed, in an apparent bid to highlight the image of a leader caring for the people. While decorating the overseas military operation unit, Kim called for the KPA to become "elite and strong" armed forces and for "perfecting" preparations for war against "military provocation" moves by the enemies. "This environment gives no room to lower our guard and requires our army's further perfect and overwhelming preparations (for war)," he said. Seoul's unification ministry said Thursday that Kim's separate meeting the previous day appears aimed at "justifying the troop deployment and boosting morale" of the military. Chang Yoon-jeong, deputy spokesperson at the ministry, told a press briefing Friday that North Korea appears to have disclosed the names and photos of its troops deployed to the Russia-Ukraine war for the first time. She said the ministry will closely monitor the situation to judge whether North Korea has ended the deployment of troops to Russia, Yonhap news agency reported. The ceremony came amid expectations that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, may hold a summit for a peace deal to end the three years of fighting. Russia's media earlier reported the North will send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers to Kursk to support reconstruction efforts. Sao Paulo, Aug 22 : Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rebuked US President Donald Trump, saying he "should not meddle" in Brazil's internal affairs. "We need to know how to give people what they need: affection, comfort and treat them with love. That is the difference between governing and caring, because the right word is not governing, but caring," he said at an event in Sorocaba, a city in the state of Sao Paulo on Thursday, Xinhua News Agency reported. Lula added that he wants to care for Brazil, and Trump should not meddle in the country's affairs. Stressing that the defence of sovereignty goes beyond protecting borders and resources, Lula said, "It is about protecting the people. That is what the sovereignty of a country is all about. That is why we are not afraid of being shouted at. In fact, we are polite. I don't yell at anyone." Last week, Trump called Brazil a "horrible trading partner," saying the trial against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was a "political execution." On July 30, the Trump administration announced plans to impose tariffs of up to 50 per cent on Brazilian exports and sanction Alexandre de Moraes, a justice of Brazil's Federal Supreme Court. Moraes is currently overseeing the case against Bolsonaro, who is accused of attempting to seize power following his defeat in the 2022 presidential election. Earlier on August 14, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil will not bow down to the United States, countering the claim by his US counterpart Donald Trump that Brazil is "a horrible trading partner." "It is a lie when the US President says that Brazil is a bad trading partner. Brazil is good, it just won't bow down to the US government," Lula said during an event in the northeast state of Pernambuco. Earlier, Trump said Brazil is a "horrible trading partner," calling the trial against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a "political execution." Lula said that "democracy is judging Bolsonaro." Seoul, Aug 22 : South Korean National Assembly on Friday passed another controversial broadcasting bill that would revamp governance of public broadcasters, with the ruling Democratic Party (DP) railroading the bill despite opposition by the main opposition People Power Party (PPP). The amendment to the Korea Educational Broadcasting System Act passed in a 179-1 vote at a plenary session. PPP lawmakers who had been staging a filibuster to block the bill boycotted the vote. Under the bill, the board of directors at EBS will be expanded from nine members to 13. The legislation is the last of three contentious broadcasting bills pushed by the DP that would eventually alter the governance structure of the three public broadcasters -- KBS, MBC and EBS -- by significantly increasing the number of their board directors and granting media and broadcasting associations, as well as related professional organizations, the right to recommend board members. Under the revised Broadcasting Act and the Foundation for Broadcast Culture Act, which both passed the Assembly earlier this month, the KBS board will be expanded from 11 to 15 members, while the board members of the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, a major shareholder of public broadcaster MBC, will be expanded from nine to 13. With Friday's passage of the EBS Act, all three bills have been approved by parliament. The PPP had launched a filibuster to block the bill Thursday, but the DP, which holds a majority, swiftly put the bill up for a vote after the PPP's 24-hour filibuster ended. A filibuster involves lawmakers holding the floor for extended periods as a way to prevent a parliamentary vote or delay the passage of a bill. Under the National Assembly Act, a filibuster can be stopped after 24 hours if at least three-fifths of all parliament members, or 180 lawmakers, consent to it. The rival parties had clashed over the broadcasting bills, with the PPP arguing they will only increase the presence of progressive figures on the boards of public broadcasters. The DP plans to push ahead with other key bills within the August extraordinary session, including the "yellow envelope bill" aimed at broadening labor protections and a revision to the Commercial Act, Yonhap news agency reported. The PPP has warned it will stage a filibuster for each of the bills. Sydney, Aug 22 : Two men have been hospitalized with serious injuries and a third has been arrested following a stabbing in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. Police in the Australian state of Queensland said in a statement that emergency services received reports that two men had been stabbed by another man inside a property in the northern Brisbane suburb of Zillmere at 6:14 pm local time on Thursday night, Xinhua News Agency reported. Emergency services arrived at the scene and found two men, one aged in his 20s and the other in his 30s, with serious injuries. Both were transported to the hospital. A 51-year-old man was arrested a short time later and hospitalized under police guard to be treated for a laceration to his finger. The Queensland Police Service said that investigators believe the three men are all known to each other and that there was no threat to public safety. A crime scene was declared at the property and an investigation into the incident was ongoing. Earlier on August 11, a man was charged over a stabbing attack during a dispute with neighbours northeast of Sydney. Emergency services were called to a street in Killarney Vale, 60 km northeast of Sydney in the Central Coast region of the state of New South Wales (NSW), around 2 pm on August 11 where they found two women, aged 23 and 33, and a 20-year-old man with stab wounds. The 23-year-old woman was airlifted to the hospital in a critical condition, while the 33-year-old was taken to the same hospital by ambulance paramedics in a serious condition. The man was placed under arrest and taken to the hospital in a stable condition. Upon being released from the hospital, he was taken to a local police station and charged with assault occasioning bodily harm, affray, and possessing a prohibited drug. NSW Police said in a statement that the stab wounds were sustained during a fight following an alleged neighbour dispute. All three people involved were known to each other, police said. Itanagar, Aug 22 : Demonstrating courage and compassion beyond the call of duty, Army troops conducted a daring operation and successfully rescued an injured Arunachal Pradesh policeman, officials said on Friday. A defence spokesman said that troops of the Gajraj Corps of the Indian Army conducted a daring rescue operation in the late hours on Thursday in the remote RR Hill region of Arunachal Pradesh. He said that the operation was launched after urgent information was received regarding a critically injured police man of Bomdila Police Station who had sustained a skull fracture injury. Braving dense forests and challenging terrain at night, the Army team reached the location, administered essential first aid and medical care, and ensured the injured police man's safe evacuation to Tezpur in Assam for advanced medical treatment. The spokesman said that this prompt and coordinated humanitarian effort not only saved a precious life but also highlighted the spirit of synergy between the Army, Police, and civil administration. "It stands as a true reflection of the Indian Army's ethos of 'Service Before Self', where valour, compassion, and commitment to humanity remain paramount," he said. The Indian Army extended heartfelt wishes for the speedy recovery of the brave policeman. The operation reaffirmed the Army's role as a pillar of reassurance and solidarity for the people of the Northeast region, upholding the finest traditions of service, humanity, and national responsibility, the spokesman stated. Meanwhile, the Indian Army has initiated a landmark collaboration with state officials of Assam and Manipur to foster efficient cooperation, cohesion and mutual understanding. 'Exercise Samanvay Shakti 2025' was inaugurated on Wednesday at Laipuli, Upper Assam. A defence spokesman said that this Military-Civil Integration Exercise aims at fostering synergy between security forces, government departments and civil institutions to address the region's complex challenges through a unified and coordinated approach. A similar exercise is being undertaken in Manipur from August 20-30, which would include aspects of disaster management, healthcare, education, Public Works Development, forest department initiatives, narcotics, irrigation, road safety, employment opportunities in Armed forces, sports, coordination amongst the state police, Army and paramilitary forces along with the infrastructure development through 'Operation Sadbhavna'. The 10-day exercise aims to take concrete steps towards achieving an improved state of readiness, supported by unhindered channels of communication and refined standard operating procedures through practical rehearsals. Most importantly, 'Exercise Samanvay Shakti 2025' seeks to further strengthen the bond of trust between the people of Upper Assam and Manipur and the institutions that serve them, thereby contributing towards preparedness for security challenges, development towards nation building, and reinforcing national integration. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who are touring the poll-bound state of Bihar as part of the Mahagathbandhan's 'Vote Adhikar Yatra' reached the Khanquah Rahmani, a noted minority institution in Munger on Friday. New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who are touring the poll-bound state of Bihar as part of the Mahagathbandhanas aVote Adhikar Yatraa reached the Khanquah Rahmani, a noted minority institution in Munger on Friday. The duo, having pledged to unseat the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar government, met Muslim scholars at the Khanquah Rahmani centre and discussed issues and challenges before the community. Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said that senior Congress MP Rahul Gandhias call for cancelling the Election Commission of Indiaas Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in Bihar is receiving immense support on the ground as people have hit the streets and rallying support behind the move, being seen as adiscriminatory and biaseda. KC Venugopal said that SIR has stirred the electorate in Bihar as many claim that their names have been struck off the voters list. The 'Voter Adhikar Yatra', being steered by LoP Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav, reached Munger on Friday with leaders of other Opposition parties including Mukesh Sahani, Pappu Yadav and Deepankar Bhattacharya accompanying them. Their visit to Khanquah Rahmani, a noted Muslim institution set up in 1901 by eminent scholar Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Ali Mungeri assumes significance, as it is seen as the grand allianceas outreach to the Muslim scholars and in turn wooing the community at large. The Muslim institute has been visited by many famous personalities in the past, including former Presidents late Rajendra Prasad and Abdul Kalam Azad and late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi. Khanquah Rahmani is known for its contribution to Indiaas freedom movement and after Independence, it also has served as a platform for protecting various rights and liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution, besides being the voice for social justice, education and public health. Here, the students are not only imparted religious education but are also taught and trained in subjects like Science, English and Mathematics. It prepares students from the community for competitive engineering and medical examinations including JEE and NEET. Earlier, Tejashwi Yadav addressed a large public gathering in Munger and dared the poll panel to disenfranchise any voter of Bihar. He accused the ECI of colluding with the BJP and said that the people will expose this asecret dealinga soon. LoP Gandhi reiterated his avote choria and avote frauda charge, alleging that the ECI rigged more than 1 lakh votes in Karnataka elections and its ploy to asteala the elections has been unearthed. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Senior Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's modified order on stray dogs, describing it as "progressive and rooted in scientific reasoning." In a post on X on Friday, LoP Gandhi said, "I welcome the Supreme Court's revised directions on stray dogs, as it marks a progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety. The approach is both compassionate and rooted in scientific reasoning." Earlier on Friday, a three-judge Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and N.V. Anjaria modified its earlier directions mandating the capture and complete relocation of stray dogs in the Delhi-NCR region. Under the revised order, stray dogs must be released back into their original territory after sterilisation and vaccination, except in cases where they are rabid or exhibit aggressive behaviour. The Bench, which last week reserved its verdict in the case, also stressed the need to earmark designated feeding zones for stray dogs, while restricting public feeding in undesignated areas. LoP Rahul Gandhi had earlier criticised the Supreme Court's initial directive for the blanket removal of stray dogs, calling it a "cruel" step that undermines decades of humane, science-backed policy of the country. On August 12, he wrote on X, "The SC's directive to remove all stray dogs from Delhi-NCR is a step back from decades of humane, science-backed policy. These voiceless souls are not 'problems' to be erased. Shelters, sterilisation, vaccination, and community care can keep streets safe -- without cruelty. Blanket removals are cruel, shortsighted, and strip us of compassion." Despite the modified directions, the Bench upheld its earlier stand that any organisation or individual obstructing the removal of stray dogs would face strict legal consequences. It further directed that every individual dog lover seeking intervention in the case must deposit Rs 25,000 with the court registry, while NGOs must deposit Rs 2 lakh. Failure to do so would bar them from participating in the proceedings -- a measure aimed at discouraging frivolous applications. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi is scheduled to undertake an official visit to Algeria in the coming week. This will be his first overseas visit after the triumph in Operation Sindoor, underscoring the Army's growing role in strengthening India's strategic engagements abroad. The visit also follows the recent tours of the President of India and the Chief of Defence Staff to Algeria, which laid the foundation for deeper cooperation. Sources confirmed that the core of this visit lies in the defence cooperation. The Army Chief is expected to discuss strengthening Army-to-Army ties, expanding training exchanges, and enhancing capability development initiatives. With Algeria operating predominantly similar equipment, India is well positioned to share operational expertise, provide maintenance and training support, and promote collaboration in defence technologies. The two sides are also expected to explore opportunities for defence industrial partnership, particularly in areas of modernisation, logistics, and equipment support. Gen Dwivedi will also share India's strategic vision of zero tolerance for terrorism and exchange perspectives on regional and global security challenges. "These deliberations are expected to contribute to building trust, interoperability, and practical cooperation between the two militaries," said an Army spokesperson. It is pertinent to note that India views Algeria as a natural partner in its outreach to Africa and the Mediterranean, given its pivotal role as a gateway to the MaghrebSahelMediterranean region. Algeria's position as a security anchor for the Sahel, an energy powerhouse with oil, gas, and rare earth reserves, and its robust and modernised military make it a vital partner in advancing peace and stability in the wider region. Algeria, as a regional leader in the MaghrebSahel has a strong position in the African Union and the Non-Aligned tradition. India's outreach aims to deepen trust, expand defence and training cooperation, and diversify Algeria's partnerships in line with mutual interests. Gen Dwivedi's forthcoming visit is thus expected to inject fresh momentum into IndiaAlgeria relations, reinforcing shared values of sovereignty, non-alignment, and SouthSouth cooperation, while anchoring long-term defence and security collaboration between the two armies. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of projects worth Rs 12,992 crore in Bodh Gaya on Friday. In total, he dedicated 14 projects to the state, which are set to build connectivity and benefit multiple regions, including Buxar, Munger, Muzaffarpur, Patna, Begusarai, Gaya, Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Lakhisarai, and Jamui. Addressing the huge gathering of people at Gaya ji, PM Modi spoke about the double-engine government's relentless efforts in shaping the growth trajectory of Bihar and also shared how the public service gives him the greatest joy in life. "Removing difficulties from the lives of the poor, making the lives of women easier -- I find the greatest joy in serving the people as their servant," PM Modi said at the public rally. Reiterating his 'housing for all' resolve, PM Modi said that he won't rest until every needy person gets a permanent house, evoking loud applause and cheers from the crowd. "Over the past 11 years, more than four crore poor people have been provided with permanent houses," he told the gathering. The Prime Minister also handed over keys of 16,000 houses built under the PM Awas Yojana, benefiting multiple families across the state. Further outlining the NDA government's mission and vision for Bihar, PM Modi said the state's fast growth ranks high on the Centre's priority, and efforts are being made to put it on a fast growth pedestal. He said that the residents of Bihar will vastly benefit from Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana, unveiled a week ago. "Starting from August 15, the Prime Minister's Developed India Employment Scheme has been implemented across the country. Under this scheme, when our youth take up their first job in the private sector, the Central government will provide them with Rs 15,000 from its own funds. The private companies that employ them will also receive incentives from the government. This will greatly benefit the youth of Bihar as well," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister also lambasted the previous RJD-Congress dispensations for rampant corruption during their regimes, giving free rein to the criminals and also shielding the corrupt. He also hit out at the Mahagathbandhan (Congress, RJD and Left) for their opposition to the recently proposed legislation in Parliament, which calls for sacking of Ministers, Chief Ministers and even the Prime Minister for complicity in any crime. Bhopal, Aug 22 : Katni, the mineral-rich district of Madhya Pradesh, is set to host a landmark mining conclave on August 23, drawing over 1,500 industrialists and stakeholders from across the country. The event, chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, will be held at a private hotel and aims to showcase the district's vast mineral potential while positioning Madhya Pradesh as a national leader in sustainable and industrial mining. With limestone, marble, iron ore, and even gold found in abundance, Katni has long been known as the "lime city" and "city of marble". The discovery of significant gold reserves four years ago further elevated its status as a strategic mining hub. In a post on his X handle on Thursday, the Chief Minister highlighted the mineral wealth of Madhya Pradesh. He also shared that the state has posted 23 per cent growth in mineral revenue. The conclave's theme is 'Circular Mining: Future-Proofing Resources', which reflects sustainable practices, including digital mining technologies, mine reclamation, and community engagement. The event follows last year's Bhopal conclave, which attracted investment proposals worth over Rs 20,000 crore. Madhya Pradesh's reforms - transparent auctions, eco-friendly mining, and local participation - have significantly boosted investor confidence. The conclave will feature 25 exhibition stalls displaying mineral samples and products, with participation from major companies. All logistical and security arrangements have been finalised, ensuring a smooth and impactful event. The conclave is expected to catalyse industrial investment in the region, creating direct employment for locals and boosting state revenue. According to data available from the department, Madhya Pradesh has emerged as a frontrunner in mineral auctions, securing the top national position by auctioning 29 blocks in 2022-23. The state also became the first in India to implement the Centreas critical minerals policy, earning accolades at the Mining Ministers' Conferences in both 2022 and 2025. With 103 mineral blocks successfully auctioned so far, the projected revenue exceeds Rs 1.68 lakh crore. In the financial year 2024-25 alone, the state recorded a 23 per cent increase in mineral revenue, crossing Rs 10,000 crore for the first time. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, while making a statement in the Assembly on Friday regarding the June 4 stampede that claimed 11 lives during the IPL victory celebrations, said that such tragedies have occurred both in India and across the world, and that no one in the country has ever taken responsibility or tendered resignations in such cases. Protesting the statement, BJP and JD(S) MLAs led by Leader of Opposition R. Ashoka staged a walkout. Earlier, speaking about the incident, CM Siddaramaiah said, "The BJP has demanded that if I have a heart and humanity, I should apologise for the tragedy. I had already expressed my regrets on the day of the incident. In my 42 years as a legislator since 1983, no such incident has taken place. I have never seen 11 deaths in a stampede tragedy. We are grieving. I am still disturbed by the incident." "I came to know about the deaths only at 5.30 p.m. Until then, I was not aware. It is true that I went to a hotel to have dosa. My grandson had come from London, and I had taken him to the RCB players' felicitation at the grand steps of Vidhana Soudha. My legal advisor, A.S. Ponnanna, informed me at 5.30 p.m. It is up to you whether to believe it or not. When I called the then Bengaluru Police Commissioner B. Dayananda, he said one person had died, but by then, 11 people had lost their lives. All of them were between 13 and 29 years old," the CM said. "Later, we went to the hospitals, and after seeing the bodies, I was deeply saddened. A magisterial inquiry was ordered immediately, followed by the appointment of a judicial commission to investigate and submit a report within a time frame," he added. The CM pointed out that in the last 10 years, 20 stampede incidents have been reported in India. "In the 2008 Nainadevi temple stampede in Himachal Pradesh, 162 were killed. In Rajasthan, 250 died in a stampede at Chamundadevi temple. In 2013, 45 were killed at Ratnaganj temple in Madhya Pradesh, 33 in Baheshwar, and 121 in Hatras, Uttar Pradesh. Recently, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, 39 people were killed in a stampede. In all these cases, BJP governments ruled the states, but no one took responsibility or resigned," he said. "These incidents are not confined to India. In 1989, the Sheffield stadium stampede in England killed 97 people. In 2013, three people were killed in America, and in 2022, 174 people died in Indonesia. Stampede incidents have been happening across the world for many years," he added. Targeting the BJP, Siddaramaiah said, "At the peak of the Covid pandemic, when the Gujarat IPL team won the trophy in 2022, Union Home Minister Amit Shah attended the event with his wife. The Gujarat CM also participated. A procession was allowed in Ahmedabad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held the 'Howdy Modi' event in 2020. Did any BJP CM order an inquiry or tender an apology?" He further said, "During the Covid pandemic, 36 people died due to a lack of oxygen in Chamarajanagar in Karnataka. Was there any resignation then? Did anyone resign after the Air India flight tragedy that killed 267 people?" BJP MLAs strongly objected to these references, claiming the CM was quoting out of context. The CM responded by saying, "When B.S. Yediyurappa was CM in 2006, two farmers were killed in police firing. Did he resign then?" On action taken, Siddaramaiah said, "We have suspended five senior police officers. The police had refused permission for the celebrations, but did not issue it in writing. RCB and KSCA posted tweets between 7.01 a.m. and 8 a.m. The 7.01 a.m. post received 16 lakh views, the 8 a.m. post four lakh views, and the 3.10 p.m. post 7.10 lakh views. Instead of acting, the police allowed the celebrations and did not get the posts deleted. They colluded with the organisers." "The justice will not be served merely if I apologise. Justice will prevail only when action is initiated. Criminal cases have been lodged against RCB, DNA, and KSCA. The case has been handed over to the CID. A chargesheet will be submitted after the court's consent. We have fulfilled our responsibilities. This incident should never have happened. Once again, I express my regrets," he stated. Criticising the CM, Opposition leader Ashoka said, "CM Siddaramaiah is blaming everyone else while forgetting his own blunder. The question is, who gave permission? If the government did not permit the event, who allowed it?" Siddaramaiah replied that the event was held without proper licensing orders. Ashoka countered, "In that case, how did Deputy CM Shivakumar attend an illegal programme?" The CM responded that he was unaware. DyCM Shivakumar later clarified that he went to the Chinnaswamy Stadium at the request of the police department to ensure the programme ended within 10 minutes. Former Home Minister and BJP MLA Araga Jnanendra asked why the government did not deploy 15,000 to 16,000 reserve police personnel available in Bengaluru at the time. Ashoka stated that only 194 police personnel were present at the stadium. Siddaramaiah countered that 515 policemen were deployed, of whom 194 had signed the register. Ashoka maintained that the celebration was organised by the government and not the police department. "The CM is only expressing regrets and refusing to apologise. We condemn the government's move and stage a walkout," he declared. Bhopal, Aug 22 : Congress MLA Arif Masood, who has been booked under serious charges, including alleged 'forgery' and 'fraud' by Bhopal Police, got a major relief as the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a stay on his arrest. On Wednesday, Bhopal Police had registered a case against Masood at Kohefiza police station, and an investigation was initiated in connection with alleged use of forged solvency papers for the recognition of the Indira Priyadarshini College, which is run by a society, in which Masood is the secretary. The case was registered in compliance with the Madhya Pradesh High Court's direction, Bhopal Police Commissioner Hari Narayan Chari Mishra had told IANS on Wednesday. Faced with serious allegations and possible arrest, Masood reached the Supreme Court. Two senior and renowned advocates Vivek Tankha and Kapil Sibal represented Masood in the court. Notably, a Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court had ordered the Bhopal Police Commissioner to register an FIR against Masood and the court had also directed that an FIR be lodged against officials of the Higher Education Department, who remained "complicit" in the matter for 20 long years and allowed the college to function. The Bench, comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Pradeep Mittal on Monday had also ordered the constitution of an SIT led by ADGP (Telecom) Sanjiv Shami, to oversee the probe in the case and complete the investigation within three months. The court stayed derecognition of the college for now in the interest of more than 1,000 students of the college, but clarified that there would be no new admissions in the college from the next academic session. Notably, the issue was first raised by his political opponent and BJP leader Dhruv Narayan Singh, who is the son of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Govind Narayan Singh. Kabul, Aug 22 : At least 24 commuters were injured as a passenger bus collided with a truck in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province on Thursday night, provincial police spokesman Mawlawi Shir Ahmad Burhani said Friday. The mishap took place on a road linking the capital city of Kabul to the northern Mazar-i-Sharif city, leaving 24 travellers injured, some in critical condition, the official added, saying all the injured had been shifted to a hospital in the provincial capital, Pul-e-Khumri city, Xinhua News Agency reported. This is the second incident of its kind over the past couple of days. A previous accident occurred in the western city of Herat on Tuesday night, which killed 79 people. Earlier this week, at least 64 commuters have been killed and three others sustained injuries in a deadly road mishap in western Afghanistan's Herat province, head of the rescue department in the province, Abdul Zahir Noorzai, said Wednesday. The accident took place on Tuesday night after a passenger bus collided with a motorbike and a mini-truck on a road linking the neighbouring Iran to Herat city in Afghanistan. The majority of the victims, including women and children, were Afghan refugees who returned from Iran to settle in their homeland, Afghanistan, according to the official. In the meantime, another official, on the condition of anonymity, said that the passenger bus caught fire and many bodies could not be recognised. The number of the victims, according to the official, could go up as the collection of information continues. In a similar incident on July 31, one person was killed and 14 others injured after their vehicle veered off the road and turned turtle in central Afghanistan's Bamiyan province, the state-owned Bakhtar News Agency reported. The mishap occurred in the Kotal Bukak area of Yakawlang district, where a mini-bus overturned due to a technical fault, killing one traveller on the spot and injuring 14 others, including women and children, Bakhtar quoted Mohammad Khawani Rasa, provincial police spokesman, as saying. According to Rasa, all the injured were transported to nearby health centres for treatment. Kolkata, Aug 22 : In a horrific incident, a man killed his wife, chopped her body with a sharp weapon and carried her heart and body parts around in a bag before absconding from the scene of the crime. The incident took place at Maynaguri in north Bengal's Jalpaiguri district on Friday morning. Locals said the man identified as Ramesh Roy even opened the bag and showed his wife's heart to some people in the area. The incident has created a sensation in the district and the police have started a search for the accused. According to the police, local resident Ramesh Roy killed his wife Deepali Roy (45) and was carrying her heart and other body parts in a bag and walking around the area casually. In a shocking move, he even went to the neighbouring house and showed the horrified people his wife's chopped up body parts. The people who were terrified by the incident informed the local panchayat, which in turn, informed the police. The man has a son and a daughter who is married. "The crime was committed this morning. After receiving information, we reached the spot and recovered some body parts of the wife. He even showed the body parts to his neighbours. It is learnt that he cut her body into pieces with a sharp weapon and stuffed them in a bag and roamed around the area for some time. Neighbours went to Ramesh's house and saw that the bed was soaked in blood. Our investigation is on in the case now," said Subal Chandra Ghosh, Inspector in Charge of Maynaguri police station. The police recovered the rest of the body of the deceased Deepali Roy and sent it to the Jalpaiguri Government Medical College and Hospital for autopsy. Neelima Roy, head of the Maynaguri Gram Panchayat, said, "The locals informed me that a man from my neighbourhood was roaming around with body parts inside a bag and went to someone's house and showed them body parts. After hearing of this, I informed the police. People were shocked to see this ghastly crime happening in our midst." Islamabad, Aug 22 : Pakistan's global rhetoric on free speech appears empty as its hypocrisy is exposed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), where the word "free" is nothing more than a cruel irony, a report has cited. Islamabad, Aug 22 (IANS) Pakistan's global rhetoric on free speech appears empty as its hypocrisy is exposed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), where the word "free" is nothing more than a cruel irony, a report has cited. "The plight of young blogger and poet Asma Batool offers a stark example. Her 'crime' was penning a poem highlighting the harassment and sexual violence women endure in society. Rather than sparking debate, her verses provoked outrage from local clerics, who branded them 'blasphemous', a report in the UK-based media outlet Milli Chronicle detailed. "Within days, Batool was arrested under draconian laws, while a frenzied mob attacked her home for allegedly 'insulting Allah'. Instead of protecting her right to expression, authorities capitulated to hardlinersturning a poet's pen into grounds for imprisonment," it added. According to the report, the silencing of dissent in PoK is part of a wider pattern. It stated that in Neelum Valley, journalist Hayat Awan, along with activists Wasi Khawaja and Azhar Mughal, were detained for voicing concerns over a military-run arms training program for female students. Their criticism, shared in a handful of social media posts, was branded intolerable. "The message from authorities was unmistakable: questioning the military or its activities remains off-limits. Even as local press clubs staged protests demanding their release, the detained voices remained behind bars, underscoring the futility of challenging Pakistan's entrenched power structures," the report highlighted. It emphasised that Pakistan's worsening freedom of press has not gone unnoticed, as in 2025, the country's ranking plummeted to 158 out of 180 countries, the lowest position ever. International watchdogs, the report stated, have pointed to an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, and arbitrary arrests that have left journalists exposed to pressure from both state and non-state actors. Despite its dismal record, the report stated Pakistan continues to project itself as a guardian of free expression abroad, with officials condemning censorship in other countries and portraying themselves as defenders of civil liberties on global platforms. However, for those living under Pakistan's direct control, particularly in PoK, it stated that freedom of speech remains a dangerous illusion. "The contradiction is stark: poets jailed for poems, journalists arrested for social media posts, and activists punished for questioning militarization. Pakistan's actions in PoK reveal a deeper realityits proclaimed values crumble when tested at home," the report noted. New Delhi, Aug 22 : India has dispatched the first shipment of 1.2 MT of Garhwali apples from Dehradun to Dubai as part of an effort to increase exports of agricultural products to raise farmers' incomes. New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) India has dispatched the first shipment of 1.2 MT of Garhwali apples from Dehradun to Dubai as part of an effort to increase exports of agricultural products to raise farmersa incomes. The experience gained from the trial shipment will further refine cold chain management, post-harvest operations, and logistical frameworks, with future expansion targeting South-East Asia and Europe. Flagging off the consignment of Garhwalas King Roat variety of apples in Dehradun, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal asked the Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) to expedite the opening of its regional office in Uttarakhand to increase exports from the state's agricultural sector. Through a regional office, the APEDA aims to export more fresh fruits, millets, pulses, and organic products from the state, which currently exports jaggery, confectionery, and guar gum among edible products. The APEDA has been working with farmers to increase access to remunerative international markets by assisting in resolving issues relating to infrastructure, connectivity, and post-harvest handling to build sustainable export pathways. The Commerce Ministry wing is sensitising farmers about Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), adherence to international quality standards and post-harvest management techniques to meet the imports. The APEDA supports and promotes the export of fresh and processed fruits from India by providing financial aid, developing export facilities, establishing quality management systems, facilitating market access, and organising buyer-seller meets. Key fruits exported include grapes, pomegranates, mangoes, bananas, and oranges, with significant export growth seen in recent years into new markets like Australia and Uganda. As a result of these initiatives, there has been a growth of 47.3 per cent, in the volume of Indiaas exports of fruits and vegetables between 2019-20 and 2023-24. The countryas fruit and vegetable exports reach 123 countries, with 17 new markets added in three years. Last month, the APEDA organised a Mango Promotion Programme in Abu Dhabi as part of its ongoing efforts to enhance the global presence of Indian agricultural products. Timed with the peak mango season, the promotion showcased Indiaas finest varieties of the fruit to international consumers, especially the large Indian diaspora across the UAE and the Gulf region. Premium Indian mango varieties displayed included GI-tagged and regional specialities such as Banarasi Langda, Dasheri, Chausa, Sunderja, Amrapali, Malda, Bharat Bhog, Prabha Shankar, Lakshman Bhog, Mahmood Bahar, Vrindavani, Fasli, and Mallika. The UAE remains the top export destination for Indian mangoes. In 2024, India exported over 12,000 MT of mangoes worth $20 million to the UAE, demonstrating strong demand for the Indian fruit. --IANS New Delhi, Aug 22 : While the One Health Mission has primarily concentrated on human, animal and wildlife health due to their distinct value chains, plant health also requires dedicated attention, according to Professor Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the government. Charing the 28th Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) meeting here to discuss the National Plant Health Initiative (NPHI), Professor Sood emphasised the critical importance of initiating a focused Plant Health Initiative, and given India's deep reliance on agriculture, "this topic is particularly relevant in the Indian context". Prof. Sood highlighted that the present ecosystem offers a strategic opportunity to advance this initiative. Significant investments in institutional capacity building, especially through ICAR, combined with the maturity of advanced technologies and India's success in developing digital public infrastructure and open architectures, provide a strong foundation for progress in this field. Dr VK Saraswat, Member (S&T), NITI Aayog, emphasised the critical importance of the Plant Health Initiative, noting that agricultural losses have a direct and detrimental effect on farmers' income and overall productivity. He highlighted the growing challenges posed by climate change, as well as biotic and abiotic threats to plant health, underscoring the need for proactive preparedness and the development of effective mitigation strategies. Dr Saraswat further emphasised the necessity of advancing research and innovation, with particular attention to the integration of platforms that facilitate a comprehensive and holistic approach including strong data integration and analytical capabilities. Dr Ramesh Chand, Member (Agriculture), NITI Aayog, emphasised that the concept of "One Health" is incomplete without safeguarding the health of both plants and livestock. He underscored the efficient utilisation of natural resources to promote sustainable agriculture. He further noted that preventive measures such as maintaining high standards in seed quality and implementing clean plant programs are highly effective in promoting plant health, with the added advantage of being free from adverse side effects. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : Clarifying on his singing the RSS anthem in the Karnataka Assembly, which has triggered discussion on his joining the BJP, Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress President D.K. Shivakumar on Friday said that he is a born Congressman, and there was no question of his joining hands either with the BJP or the Rastriyaswayam Sevak Sangh. He was responding to questions from the media at Vidhana Soudha on Friday. "I am a staunch Congressman. A Congressman by birth. As long as I live, I will remain a Congressman. My life, my blood everything belongs to the Congress. I am now leading the party, and I will stand as its pillar of support," asserted Shivakumar firmly. When asked about discussions that his singing of the RSS anthem in the Assembly meant he was joining hands with the BJP and RSS, Shivakumar replied, "There is no question of me, either directly or indirectly, joining hands with them in any manner. I am a staunch Congressman. I have studied and researched about Janata Dal, the BJP, and likewise, I have also understood the RSS." "I have carried out my own research on every political party. I know how the RSS has built its organisation in the state. The RSS has been bringing educational institutions under its fold at every taluk and district level. It is investing heavily and working to reach children," Shivakumar said. "Politically, we may have differences of opinion. But as a political leader, should I not know who among my rivals are friends and who are foes? That is why I have studied the history of the RSS," he added. "At times, some organisations may have a few good qualities. Shouldn't we also take note of those? Speaking directly and boldly is our quality. Similarly, we should observe the good qualities in others, and that is what I have done," Shivakumar stated. Pointing to the media, he added, "Each of you has your own qualities. Some of you have the quality of slipping away when caught, and some have good qualities too. Shouldn't we also notice those?" When asked about BJP leaders undertaking a Dharmasthala pilgrimage, Shivakumar said, "BJP is a spent force. What they are doing is mere politics. The investigation team, headed by senior officer Mohanty, is carrying out its work meticulously." Referring to the arrest of activist Mahesh Shetty Timarodi, who had made allegations against BJP National General Secretary B.L. Santhosh, Shivakumar said, "He has been booted and jailed. What evidence did he have to make such allegations? Politically, we may have strong differences of opinion, but it does not make us happy if someone simply makes reckless statements against our opponents." Mahesh Shetty is one of the activists at the forefront demanding justice in the alleged Dharmasthala murder case. "Today he speaks against them, tomorrow he might speak against us as well. In the past, false allegations were made against the Chief Minister and me. We must work in such a way that no one's self-respect is hurt in this state. Do politics, make political charges but base them on evidence," Shivakumar said. On the demand by the Samana Manaskara Vedike (like-minded forum) that Dharmasthala temple authorities must account for 'hundi (offering box)' collections, Shivakumar replied, "It is the Income Tax Department that has the authority to look into that." Islamabad, Aug 22 : Pakistan's intelligence and security apparatus plans to push certain strategic anti-India narratives during the upcoming visit of Indian Sikh pilgrims, or "jathas," to the country, a report has cited. Islamabad, Aug 22 (IANS) Pakistan's intelligence and security apparatus plans to push certain strategic anti-India narratives during the upcoming visit of Indian Sikh pilgrims, or "jathas," to the country, a report has cited. "Social media chatter points to an inter-agency meeting held on August 2 at Hotel Gulbarg in Lahore, attended by representatives from security agencies, the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), and the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC). While the security agencies reportedly floated the idea of using anti-India banners and slogans at Gurdwaras, both the ETPB and PSGPC strongly opposed the proposal," a report in 'Khalsa Vox' mentioned. The report stated that an ETPB Additional Secretary warned that politicising the pilgrimage might prompt India to suspend such visits indefinitely, a setback the financially-struggling boards can hardly afford. It highlighted that social media posts claim the ETPB has already incurred losses of nearly 70 million Pakistani rupees per month since the closure of the Kartarpur Corridor on May 8, a blow further compounded by the cancellation of two major annual Sikh pilgrimages. According to the report, the ETPB official emphasised that religious events must remain apolitical, adding that pilgrim schedules are already managed in coordination with multiple government and security agencies. He added that while the ETPB would follow federal directives, it was equally important to uphold the sanctity of religious gatherings. Despite resistance, security agencies have reportedly proposed seminars and interactions near the pilgrims' accommodations to promote their fake narratives. This includes "Indian discrimination against Sikhs, the alleged targetting of Gurdwaras in India, and other contentious claims. Social media posts describe a strategy to amplify these messages via Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok during the pilgrimage," the report detailed. "Commentary online suggests that Pakistan may be seeking to tap into historical grievances, perceived economic marginalization, and disinformation to sway segments of the Sikh diaspora. Analysts quoted in these posts see the continued intertwining of religious access with political agendas as a calculated but risky approach," the report noted. New Delhi, Aug 22 : A political storm erupted after Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar recited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) anthem on the floor of the Assembly, triggering mixed reactions across the political spectrum. While the BJP's allies on Friday hailed it as a "positive step," the Opposition gave cautious support but questioned the circumstances under which the senior Congress leader chose to do so. New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) A political storm erupted after Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar recited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) anthem on the floor of the Assembly, triggering mixed reactions across the political spectrum. While the BJP's allies on Friday hailed it as a "positive step," the Opposition gave cautious support but questioned the circumstances under which the senior Congress leader chose to do so. A widely circulated video showed Shivakumar standing in the state Assembly and reciting "Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume", the RSS prayer. The clip quickly went viral, surprising many, given that the Congress has historically opposed the RSS, often accusing it of divisive politics. Reacting to the incident, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam told IANS, "The RSS is not an anti-national organisation. The way Karnataka Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar recited the RSS song in the Assembly reflects his thinking and ideology. If it is publicised, it is a positive step because the RSS works among all sections of society. It is wrong for the Congress and other Opposition parties to label it untouchable or anti-national. Today, the BJP and its allies rule the entire country, and the RSS' ideology is its foundation. The Opposition should accept this reality." On the other hand, BJP leader C.T. Ravi viewed Shivakumar's move with suspicion. "I don't know what his motive is. The Congress always criticises the RSS. They fear the organisation because it unites Hindus and believes the nation is supreme. That fear comes from knowing that their family politics won't survive against such ideology," he claimed. Samajwadi Party leader Udayveer Singh extended cautious support to Dy CM Shivakumar but questioned the timing. "D.K. Shivakumar is an important and responsible Congress leader. He has faced injustice at the hands of the BJP on several occasions. Now, in what situation he chose to recite the anthem, only Karnataka Congress leaders can explain. I believe in his impartiality and commitment, and there is no reason to doubt him," Singh said. Reacting to the development, Congress MLA H. D. Ranganath said, "We are a secular country and the Congress is a secular party. Shivakumar sang the RSS song. We don't mind taking good things from other parties. The ideology is totally different from ours, but the song is pleasant, and there is no harm in singing it. We are secular-minded people and will imbibe good things from other parties. There is nothing wrong with that. We don't treat this politically, and that is the difference between us and the BJP." Earlier, a video circulating on social media showed D.K. Shivakumar reciting the RSS anthem "Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume" while addressing the state Assembly. The unexpected moment has drawn widespread attention, given the Congress party's long history of opposing the RSS, an organisation considered the ideological backbone of the BJP and associated with Right-wing nationalist thought. Reacting to the controversy, Dy CM Shivakumar clarified that his identity as a Congressman remains unquestionable. "I was born a Congressman, and it runs in my veins. But as a political leader, it is my duty to study every party. I have been conducting in-depth research on all political organisations. In Karnataka, I see how the RSS is expanding its influence by taking over schools at the district and taluk levels and making large financial investments," he added. The exchange that led to this moment began when Shivakumar, in a heated debate with the Opposition, stressed his political experience and knowledge. "I may not have been trained in your school," he remarked, "but I have been groomed in Parameshwara's school." Seizing the opportunity, BJP Leader of Opposition R. Ashoka reminded him of his own admission from the past that he once wore the trademark khaki shorts and attended an RSS branch as a child in Bengaluru's Rajajinagar. In response, Shivakumar sang the opening lines of the RSS prayer itself, a move that left the Assembly stunned. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : Union Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs Pralhad Joshi has lashed out at the Congress-led government in Karnataka, saying it has made the state number one in corruption in the entire country. He made the statement while speaking to the media persons in Delhi on Friday. Reacting to the allegations of the state contractors' association that "commission raj" has "increased" under Congress rule in Karnataka, Union Minister Joshi said that the association has exposed the true state of affairs within the government. "The Excise Department is the backbone of Karnataka's economy. But now, bribe rates have been fixed for everything within the department. Officials are allegedly collecting weekly payments every month, which Joshi described as a tragedy for the state," he said. The Union Minister alleged that the Congress-led government has ruined the state's economic stability. He said that the Congress, which came to power by announcing unscientific guarantee schemes and boasting of being anti-corruption, is now ruling in exactly the opposite manner. "It has emptied the state treasury and brought development to zero," Pralhad Joshi said. The Union Minister further alleged that the Congress government has doubled the prices of essential commodities, making people's lives miserable. "Traders are being harassed for bribes by officials, there is zero development, and people have been given only false promises. This is the true face of Congress rule," he said. On Wednesday, Karnataka State Contractors' Association President S R Manjunath alleged that the Congress-led state government is "more corrupt" than its predecessor, accusing ministers of favouring select contractors. Speaking at a convention organised by the Malenadu Contractors' Association, he charged state Urban Development Minister Byrathi Suresh with floating tenders that benefit a few close contractors while sidelining others. Manjunath said projects meant for Shivamogga are tendered in Bengaluru. He further charged that the government has to pay Rs 32,000 crore across nine departments for contractors. Patna, Aug 22 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, while sharing the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Bodh Gaya on Friday, made significant announcements aimed at the youth and for the welfare of the people. Addressing the gathering at Gaya Ji, CM Nitish Kumar declared that the NDA government in Bihar is committed to providing large-scale employment opportunities. "Before the elections, we will provide jobs and employment to 50,000 more people. In the next five years, one crore youth will be given jobs and employment. We have always worked for employment while others (RJD) did nothing," Nitish said. Highlighting recent decisions, the CM announced that the social security pension has been increased from Rs 400 to Rs 1,100 per month. He added that the government is working for all sections of society -- women, minorities, and the poor. "Earlier, the situation in Bihar was very bad. No one had worked for women or Muslims. But we have worked for everyone," he said. CM Nitish Kumar recalled that every household was electrified by 2018. He further said that 125 units of electricity per month have already been given free of cost to the residents of Bihar. The CM listed other achievements, including renaming Gaya to Gaya Ji to respect public sentiment, construction of a rubber dam and bridge over the Falgu River, and the development of a guest house and other facilities in Bodh Gaya. CM Nitish Kumar praised the NDA government at the Centre, saying Bihar received a special package in this year's Union Budget, and the state hosted the Khelo India Youth Games. "Bihar is getting full support from the Central government. PM Modi has done a lot of work for Bihar," he said. Local MP and Union MSME Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi also addressed the rally, taking a swipe at the Opposition parties. "PM Modi has done so much for Bihar, which is a slap on the face of those who only talk about special state status," Manjhi said. Earlier, PM Modi reached the rally venue after a roadshow in an open jeep along with CM Nitish Kumar and Deputy CMs Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Sinha. People lined the roads to welcome the leaders. Gaya, Aug 22 : Passengers on board the newly-launched Amrit Bharat Express between Gaya and New Delhi on Friday expressed their excitement and gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who flagged off the train. Many described the journey as comfortable and highlighted the new facilities, including CCTV cameras, clean washrooms, and better seating arrangements. Several passengers shared their experiences with IANS. Ram, one of the travellers, said: "I feel good travelling on this train. It is very comfortable and has many facilities. CCTV cameras are installed, the washroom is clean, and the sitting area is also good." A.K. Sinha, another passenger from Gaya, expressed his appreciation. "The journey is very comfortable. We are not facing any problems. I want to thank PM Modi for this. He is doing such good work that I could even dedicate my whole pension to him," he said. Om Prakash, also travelling from Gaya, added: "I am going to Delhi on this train. The journey is very comfortable, and I thank PM Modi for providing it." Another passenger, Krishna Prasad, said: "The travel experience is quite good. I am enjoying it and want to thank the government for this initiative." Sharing her happiness, Kousalya Devi said: "PM Modi has gifted us this train, and we are loving it. I want to thank him for this." Earlier in the day, PM Modi inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of projects worth Rs 12,992 crore during a rally in Bihar's Bodh Gaya. Of the total, projects worth Rs 11,735 crore were inaugurated, while foundation stones were laid for projects worth Rs 1,257 crore. In all, the Prime Minister dedicated 14 projects to the state. These development works are expected to directly benefit Buxar, Munger, Muzaffarpur, Patna, Begusarai, Gaya, Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Lakhisarai, and Jamui, significantly boosting the infrastructure of northern and southern Bihar. The key projects include a Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) and sewerage network in Daudnagar (Aurangabad), STP and I&D project in Barhiya (Lakhisarai) and Jamui, water supply projects in Aurangabad, Bodh Gaya, and the sewerage network and purification plants in Jehanabad under AMRUT 2.0. PM Modi also inaugurated the Buxar Thermal Power Plant, having a capacity of 660 MW. The inauguration of this power plant is expected to provide fresh energy and strengthen Biharas electricity supply, bringing the state closer to the goal of power for every household. PM Modi launched the Koderma-Vaishali Bodh Circuit passenger train, which will connect important Buddhist pilgrimage sites. The Prime Minister handed over keys of 16,000 houses built under the PM Awas Yojana, benefiting families across the state. On the occasion, PM Modi said: "I will work hard to provide houses for all, and we are committed to it. We are working on the line to get people from Bihar jobs in its state. We have started many projects in Bihar, and these will give jobs to the people of Bihar." Hyderabad, Aug 22 : Telangana BJP president N. Ramchander Rao and other party leaders were detained by the police in Moinabad near Hyderabad in view of the call given by the party to lay siege to the Telangana Secretariat over civic issues in Hyderabad on Friday. With the slogan 'Save Hyderabad', the BJP has given a call to lay siege to the Telangana Secretariat. While several BJP leaders were taken into preventive custody in the morning, some were arrested when they reached the Secretariat to stage the protest. State BJP chief Rao and other leaders were detained at Moinabad when they were allegedly coming to Hyderabad. Rao took to the social media platform 'X' to allege that he was arrested while he was on a visit to Chevella. He termed this as an attempt by the government to suppress the voice of those questioning it on public issues. The state BJP chief said that the drainage system in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) jurisdiction has completely collapsed. "Roads are riddled with potholes, traffic control is nonexistent, and colonies have become a living hell due to the stench of garbage. Drinking water shortages, electricity issues... these are the daily struggles of the people. The recent incidents in Ramanthapur and Old City areas, where innocent lives were lost, are all outcomes of government negligence," he said. Rao criticised Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, saying he is busy with Delhi tours rather than serving the people. "As the Municipal Administration Minister, his priority is not public service but commissions. A Congress government that cannot solve problems, plays with people's lives and suppresses democracy is not needed in Telangana," said the BJP leader. He stated state unit of the BJP will fight alongside the people on every issue and in every street. Earlier, some BJP leaders and workers managed to reach near the Secretariat. They tried to scale the main gate of the Secretariat but were arrested by the police. A large number of policemen were deployed at the Secretariat to foil any protest. BJP state vice-president and former MLA NVSS Prabhakar and former Central minister Bandaru Dattatreya's daughter Vijayalakshmi were among those detained by police as they tried to march towards the Secretariat. BJP corporators and other leaders have been placed under house arrest since Friday to stop them from participating in the protest. Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar condemned Ramchander Rao's detention. He asked why the state BJP president was detained. Bandi Sanjay alleged that the Congress government is trying to hide its "failures" by detaining BJP leaders. He said the Congress government was following in the footsteps of the previous BRS government. Karachi, Aug 22 : Protests were held in various neighbourhoods of Pakistan's Karachi after several areas faced power outage for over 50 hours after heavy rains recently, local media reported on Friday. People living in Amirabad, Bustan Society, University Road, Tipu Sultan Road, Moinabad and adjoining areas stated that power cut happened at around 2:30 pm (local time) on Tuesday, the day when rains lashed the city and it was yet to be restored. Suspension of water supply further enhanced their misery, Pakistan's leading daily 'The Express Tribune' reported Frustrated by the power outage, residents held sit-ins outside K-Electric offices, shouting slogans against the utility for not taking note of their repeated complaints. Protesters blocked the Mehran Depot route in Malir, halting the Peoples Bus Service, while Liaquat Market roads were shut, resulting in severe traffic jams in Model Colony, Jinnah Avenue and nearby roads. Protesters warned that they would protest in other parts of the city is the power supply is not restored immediately. Rains lashed several parts of Karachi on Thursday evening as the prevailing system over the north Arabian Sea continues to cause storm activity, Pakistan-based Geo News reported. According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), rains lashed several areas of Karachi, including Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulshan-e-Maymar, Dalmia Road, Drigh Road, Gulistan-e-Johar, MA Jinnah Road, Orangi Town, Hawksbay, and Mubarak Village. At least 17 people were killed in Karachi in the past two days as torrential monsoon continue to wreak havoc. The deaths in the city happened due to drowning, road accidents, and electrocution. Met Office spokesperson had said that a rain-bearing weather system is active over the city. The spokesperson further stated that system is expected to weaken by late tonight and another monsoon system is likely to enter Sindh from August 27. The spokesperson said, "Fresh spell on monsoon system expected to enter Sindh on August 27, which will bring rains to Karachi and other Sindh areas till August 30." More than 700 rain-related deaths have been reported in Pakistan since the start of monsoon season in late June, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). New Delhi, Aug 22 : The Supreme Court on Friday directed both the Muslim and Hindu parties in the Shahi Jama Masjid-Sri Harihar Temple dispute in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal to maintain the status quo until the next hearing. New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday directed both the Muslim and Hindu parties in the Shahi Jama Masjida"Sri Harihar Temple dispute in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal to maintain the status quo until the next hearing. A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Atul S. Chandurkar was hearing a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the mosque committee against the Allahabad High Courtas decision that had upheld a Chandousi court order for a survey of the disputed site. The SLP also challenged the prima facie finding of the Allahabad High Court that the suit was not barred by the Places of Worship Act, 1991, since it sought access to the disputed property under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. After the Hindu side argued that another bench of the Supreme Court has held that an ASI-protected monument does not fall under the Places of Worship Act, the Justice Narasimha-led bench asked advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain to place the said order on record and posted the matter for hearing on Monday. In the meantime, the apex court asked the parties to maintain the status quo in respect of the disputed site. In its impugned order, the Allahabad High Court dismissed the civil revision petition seeking a stay on the proceedings pending before the trial court. The Shahi Jama Masjid has become the centre of a legal dispute after Hindu plaintiffs alleged that the mosque was built over a Hindu temple known as the Harihar Mandir. In November last year, violence had erupted in Sambhal during a court-ordered survey of the Mughal-era mosque, resulting in the deaths of at least four people. The Supreme Court had earlier stayed the trial court's proceedings, directing that no further steps be taken until the Allahabad High Court reviewed the mosque committee's petition. After the order was passed by the Allahabad High Court on May 19, the survey-related aspect was expected to move forward in the Sambhal district court. The mosque committee argued that the survey order was passed in haste, without giving them an opportunity to be heard. They also raised concerns over the fact that the mosque was surveyed twice -- first on the day of the order and again on November 24, when violence broke out. However, the Allahabad High Court had dismissed these arguments and refused to intervene in the trial proceedings. The Hindu plaintiffs -- including advocate Hari Shankar Jain and seven others -- claim that the mosque stands on the ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to Harihar, which they allege was partly demolished in 1526 under the orders of Mughal Emperor Babur. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) stated that the Shahi Jama Masjid is a centrally protected monument and cannot be characterised as a place of public worship, as there are no official records to support such a designation. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : The BJP has extended support to the nomadic and semi-nomadic communities protesting against the Karnataka government, alleging injustice in the allocation of internal reservation. BJP leaders, including former National General Secretary and MLC C.T. Ravi, Legislative Council Opposition Chief Whip N. Ravikumar, and state secretary and MLA Dr. Shailendra Beldale, took part in the protest at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on Friday. Speaking to the media after participating in the ongoing protest, C.T. Ravi stated that placing the nomadic communities, who are a distinct category, alongside powerful groups amounts to social injustice. He said that the purpose of internal reservation is to provide opportunities to those deprived of facilities, education, wealth, and jobs, but the government has ignored all these aspects. He criticized the government, saying that it has disregarded the reports of Justice Sadashiva, Justice H.N. Nagamohan Das, and former minister Madhuswamy. "We had given 4.5 per cent reservation to the Lambani, Bhovi, Koracha, and Korama communities. That has now been reduced. The nomadic communities, who were given 1 per cent, have not even been considered. We had distributed reservation in a fair and just manner, without cheating anyone, but injustice has been done now," Ravi charged. "The government has delivered partial justice, biased justice. They have taken a step that is against the Constitution. This must be corrected," he demanded. He warned that the voiceless nomadic communities must be given a voice, otherwise history will not forgive. "On what basis have they divided Scheduled Caste sub-castes into three categories within just two hours? Shouldn't there be some basis? Was it population census, caste census, or socio-economic survey? On what grounds have they done this?" Ravi questioned the state government. Answering a question, Ravi said, "We will raise our voice on this issue in the legislature. The Justice Sadashiva Commission submitted its report in 2012. The Congress was in power for six years after that, but they simply sat on it. Other than spending Rs 112 crore, they did nothing." "The Congress has been in power here for the past 26 months. For 26 months they kept making excuses, and now, by discarding Justice Nagamohan Das' report, they took a decision in just a two-hour Cabinet meeting. "If they are all-knowing like Brihaspati (teacher of the gods), then why did they need Justice Nagamohan Das' report? Why spend hundreds of crores? What about the reports of the Justice Sadashiva Commission and former minister Madhuswamy? Are those of no value to them? Hasn't it been 13 months since the Supreme Court gave its verdict? Even the intent of that verdict has been sidelined and ignored," Ravi said. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Animal rights activist and former Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's modified directions on the management of stray dogs in the Delhi-NCR region, calling it a "practical step" compared to the earlier order, which had mandated the capture and relocation of all stray dogs. Speaking to IANS, Maneka Gandhi said, "I am very happy with the Supreme Court's new decision because the earlier order was not feasible to implement. Capturing all dogs and relocating them elsewhere is simply impossible." Gandhi said that stray dogs return to areas where food sources exist, such as illegal chicken, fish, and meat shops. "Even if dogs are picked up from one locality, others will replace them because food waste is readily available. Then these new dogs, unfamiliar with their surroundings, often become aggressive as they don't know who will feed them or harm them," she said. Highlighting the ongoing problem, Gandhi noted that the earlier order would have only worsened the situation. "Meat and fish shops, many operating without licenses, throw waste and blood on the streets. This attracts dogs and sustains them. Without tackling these root issues, relocating dogs doesn't solve anything," she stated. Gandhi lauded the revised order, which reinstates the long-standing practice followed for nearly 25 yearscapturing, sterilising, vaccinating, and releasing dogs back in the same area. "This is the only sustainable solution," she told IANS. However, Gandhi raised questions about the definition of "aggressive dogs", a category mentioned in the Court's order. "Often, people complain a dog is aggressive simply because it stared at them or approached their car. But what truly defines aggression? The Supreme Court will have to clarify this in the next session," she said. She also expressed concern about the 800 dogs reportedly picked up by the MCD in the last two weeks. "These dogs have vanished. They were not kept in any shelter but dumped along the Yamuna riverbanks, where water levels are rising. No one knows what has happened to them. If they were indeed aggressive, then why were they left in the open? This contradicts the law itself, as they can wander into nearby colonies," she added. On the issue of feeding strays, Gandhi welcomed the Court's reiteration that it should be done only at designated spots. "It's a great step that specific places should be allotted for feeding so that residents are not inconvenienced. What we need is proper implementation," she said. She further revealed that several Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres had written to the authorities stating that they lack sufficient space to manage the rising number of sterilisation cases, underscoring the urgent need to expand infrastructure. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Foreign Affairs expert and ex-PMO official, Sudheendra Kulkarni, has welcomed China's criticism of US trade actions against India, calling it a sign of growing convergence between New Delhi and Beijing. Reacting to Chinese Ambassador Xu Feihong's remarks condemning Washington's move to impose 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods, Kulkarni said the statement reflected China's solidarity with India against unilateral American measures. "The ambassador clearly condemned this action and said there should be no silence in the face of a bully. President Trump is bullying the entire world as if he were the global policeman. No one has appointed him as such," Kulkarni told IANS on Friday. He strongly endorsed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent tilt towards closer engagement with Beijing, ahead of the PM's scheduled visit to China later this month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit -- his first since 2017. "India and China are neighbours, the world's two most populous countries, and ancient civilisations. If we come together, we can change the face of the world and give a new, better direction to the world order, making it more democratic and equitable," he said. On whether India could trust China, Kulkarni argued that trust should not be viewed through absolutes. "We trusted America, and Prime Minister Modi even campaigned for Trump on American soil. Yet, the same Trump is now behaving in a most unfriendly manner. Times change. We cannot change our neighbours. As former PM Vajpayee said, we can change our friends, but we cannot change our neighbours. So, we must resolve differences with China through dialogue, not via military means," he noted. Kulkarni welcomed the recent visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, pointing to progress on border talks. "Both sides have agreed to look for early harvest solutions. In the coming months, we can expect some real breakthroughs," he said. On China's ties with Pakistan, he urged India to look beyond zero-sum perceptions. "Isn't America also close to Pakistan? The right way forward is for India and Pakistan to normalise ties and resolve disputes through dialogue. Military clashes will not help either side," he stressed. Calling for a "New South Asia", Kulkarni said India, China and Pakistan must work to resolve their differences, paving the way for regional peace and prosperity. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday that the government is strengthening policies to bridge the gender gap and encourage the participation of women in the armed forces and peacekeeping contingents, ensuring that they get equal opportunities to lead and serve. In an address to women military officers participating in the United Nations Peacekeeping missions, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "India, as the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, has been a strong supporter of women's participation and their integration into these missions." He welcomed the presence of officers from 15 countries across the globe for participating in the UN women military observers' course, saying that the UN has also adopted policies to increase the participation of women officers in its missions. "Through initiatives like this course, we prepare women officers for complex peacekeeping environments, and we are also strengthening policies to encourage women's participation in our armed forces and peacekeeping contingents, ensuring they have equal opportunities to lead and serve," he said. "Women officers are role models and bring invaluable perspectives to peacekeeping operations," the Defence Minister said, adding that their deployment also serves as a check against sexual violence. "Their presence has been shown to help prevent sexual violence, improve access to humanitarian assistance and increase gender equality on the ground. Women peacekeepers serve as powerful role models, inspiring local women and girls to see themselves as active participants in peace and security. India's own journey in peacekeeping reflects this belief in the power and potential of women officers," he said. Rajnath Singh said UN peacekeepers are often referred to as "Blue Helmets" and added that "blue is the colour of the vast sky above us and reminds us that we share one world and one atmosphere." "It is also the colour of the oceans that connect continents. Blue, in its essence, is calming, unifying and boundless," he said, adding that "UN peacekeepers embody these very qualities, as like the sky they offer protection and sense of security, like the oceans they build connections across borders and cultures." He said in this spirit of home and unity the role of women peacekeepers becomes even more vital, adding new dimensions of trust and effectiveness. Pointing to the UN's target of increasing participation of women officers in peacekeeping missions, he said this is a recognition of the fact that women officers are known to make peacekeeping missions more effective. "Women officers bring invaluable perspectives and approaches to peace operations. They are often able to foster deeper trust with local communities, particularly women and children, whose voices are vital for rebuilding societies torn by conflict," he said. Seoul, Aug 22 : South Korea's former first lady Kim Keon Hee, who is currently under arrest, will not appear for questioning by a special counsel team this weekend due to health problems, her lawyer said Friday. Kim, the wife of ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is currently in custody, had been summoned to appear at special counsel Min Joong-ki's office Saturday morning to be questioned over corruption and bribery allegations, Yonhap News Agency reported. Kim's side recently informed the special counsel team of her intent to skip Saturday's session, citing health problems, the investigation team said in a press release. It has summoned Kim again for questioning on Monday. The former first lady's lawyer said that she is in "very poor" health condition due to low blood pressure and anxiety disorders. Last week, Kim was arrested on suspicion of involvement in a stock manipulation scheme, meddling in candidate nominations for the 2022 parliamentary by-elections and 2024 general elections, and receiving luxury gifts from the Unification Church through a shaman in exchange for business favors. The former first lady had since been questioned by the special counsel team three times, but she reportedly refused to answer most of their questions during the sessions. Meanwhile, special prosecutors investigating corruption allegations against South Korea's former first lady Kim Keon Hee were deliberating over the charges to press against her after securing a luxury necklace she allegedly accepted in exchange for a personnel appointment favour, legal sources said on Sunday. Last week, special counsel Min Joong-ki's team said Seohee Construction officials submitted the Van Cleef and Arpels necklace and confessed to gifting the item to Kim right after her husband, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, was elected in March 2022, seeking a government job for the company chairman's son-in-law. The son-in-law, a former prosecutor, was appointed as the chief of staff for then Prime Minister Han Duck-soo three months later, reports Yonhap news agency. Kim has reportedly denied the allegation, arguing that the necklace she wore during a 2022 trip to Europe was not authentic. Given the evidence, special prosecutors could press charges of bribery through mediation against Kim, considering that she did not hold any public office and did not have any authority to make any personnel appointments. Under the law, bribery charges apply to people typically holding public office who provide a benefit in exchange for the bribe, compared with bribery through mediation, when a third party is involved to facilitate the transaction. Dhaka, Aug 22 : Lynching has supplanted trial and vengeance masquerades as justice in Bangladesh which has been gripped with violence since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, a report cited on Thursday. Highlighting data from several rights groups, the report mentioned that 174 people have been killed in mob violence between August 2024 and May 2025, with victims ranging from political workers to small vendors. "At Dhaka University, student Tofajjal was killed; at Jahangirnagar, Masud met a similar fate. Shohagh was crushed under a rock as his killers danced on his chest in broad daylight. Court premises themselves were not spared, as mobs stormed judicial complexes, beating accused persons in custody. Judges, fearing for their safety, hesitated to sit. The robe, once a symbol of dignity, became a garment of risk," the 'Northeast News' report mentioned. "Justice did not merely delay it deserted. This breakdown of judicial authority naturally engulfed the legal profession. Lawyers aligned with the fallen regime were targetted: chambers torched, bar associations fractured, over 150 practitioners jailed, and dozens remanded. Some fled abroad; others melted into anonymity. A new group styling itself as 'anti-fascist lawyers' declared themselves guardians of the revolution, but professional solidarity collapsed," it added. The report asserted that under the Yunus regime, opposition activists languished week after week in jail, while those aligned with the new order, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and students associated with the National Citizen Party, secured bail with ease. In a horrific move, it stated, the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, even granted them indemnity for the crimes committed during last year's July protests. Moreover, the report stated that Yunus himself was controversially acquitted of labourer exploitation charges soon after taking office as Chief Advisor, which the critics aptly termed "selective justice." "The irony was cruel: those who once defended war criminals were now appointed prosecutors, while the country's longest-serving Prime Minister was arraigned without counsel of her choice, fairness, or due process," the report stated. According to the report, the Constitution of Bangladesh came under threat after a half-baked document styled the 'July Charter' or 'Declaration' was brandished as an alternative constitutiona misleading and conceptually flawed manifesto riddled with romantic promises. "The so-called 'July Revolution' was sold as emancipation, but many came to see it as misconceived, fraudulent in its promises, and reckless in its haste. To discard a Constitution born of a Liberation War is no mere academic folly; it imperils the very identity of the state," the report noted. New Delhi, Aug 22 : The Government's proactive policies and strategic support, along with direct guidance from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have built a strong foundation for India's private space ecosystem to thrive, industry experts said on Friday. Indian private space companies are now at the forefront of innovation in launch capabilities, satellite technologies, and downstream applications, driving rapid growth and boosting India's global competitiveness. This was the message from industry leaders as India prepares to celebrate its second National Space Day on August 23, marking the historic success of Chandrayaan-3's soft landing on the Moon's south pole. Lt. Gen. AK Bhatt (Retd.), Director General of the Indian Space Association (ISpA), said the success of ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 has opened new possibilities for collaboration between the government and private sector. He highlighted that over the past five years, the number of space startups in India has crossed 300, attracting about $526 million in funding. This, he said, reflects growing investor confidence in India's space sector and positions the country to reach a space economy worth $44 billion by 2033. Bhatt added that private players will also play a critical role in the upcoming Gaganyaan mission, India's first human spaceflight. Krishanu Acharya, CEO and Co-Founder of Suhora Technologies, said India's future in space will be defined by how effectively it uses satellite data and connectivity to deliver real-world solutions. He noted that downstream technologies can support agriculture, infrastructure, disaster preparedness, defence, and governance. "At Suhora Technologies, we see downstream capabilities as the bridge between exploration and national progress and the defining drivers of India's space revolution in the decade ahead," he said. National Space Day 2025 will be celebrated under the theme "Bridging the Past and Future: Honoring Traditional Astronomy and Showcasing Modern Space Achievements." Students will be at the centre of the celebrations, as the country looks to inspire the next generation of scientists, entrepreneurs, and space explorers. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : The Karnataka government on Friday announced that Booker Prize winner, writer and activist Banu Mushtaq, will inaugurate the world-famous Dussehra festivities in Mysuru this year. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made the announcement at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on Friday. CM Siddaramaiah said, "Banu Musthaq, a writer from Hassan in Karnataka, will inaugurate the world-famous Dasara Mahotsav this year. The festivities will begin on September 22, and Vijaya Dashami will be observed on the 11th day, on October 2." He further added, "Banu Mushtaq's literary work 'Hrudaya Deepa' won the Booker Prize. It is a matter of pride and joy for us that a woman writer from Karnataka has received this honour. Banu Mushtaq was associated with farmers' organisations, Kannada agitations, and progressive movements. It is significant that a woman has been invited to inaugurate Dasara." "I have personally spoken to her. The Dasara festivities will commence on September 22 and continue for 11 days in accordance with tradition. Our district administration will extend a formal invitation to Banu Mushtaq with full honours," the Chief Minister said. He also stated, "An air show has been permitted by the Defence Minister. I had written to Rajnath Singh and invited him as well." When asked whether he would be going to Bihar for campaigning, CM Siddaramaiah replied, "Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has launched a 16-day 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar against voter fraud, covering 1,300 kilometres. I will also join the padyatra on the 29th of this month for one day, to extend my best wishes to Rahul Gandhi." Notably, Banu Mushtaq won the prestigious International Booker prize for the short story anthology, 'Heart Lamp'. 'Heart Lamp', consisting of 12 short stories written over three decades from 1990 to 2023, captures the daily lives of Muslim women in southern India. Jamshedpur, Aug 22 : A spate of suicides has sent shockwaves across Jamshedpur, with four people, including a medical college student, taking their own lives within the last 24 hours. Divyanshu Pandey, 22, a third-year MBBS student at Manipal Tata Medical College (TMMC), died after allegedly consuming poison on Thursday night, police said on Friday. Originally from Kashipur in Biharas Samastipur district, Pandey was rushed to the Tata Main Hospital (TMH) by his classmates when his condition deteriorated. Despite emergency treatment, doctors declared him dead around 1.30 a.m. on Friday. According to family members, Pandeyas father had already passed away, and his elder brother, Sudhanshu Shubham, was bearing the expenses of his studies. Sudhanshu, who received his brotheras body after the post-mortem examination, said he had spoken to him on Thursday evening and found nothing unusual in his behaviour. The college administration described Pandey as a "brilliant, hardworking, and much-loved student" and expressed deep sorrow at his untimely death. The incident has cast a pall of gloom across the campus, where students and faculty members are still grappling with the loss. Sidgora police, under whose jurisdiction the case falls, said the exact reason behind the suicide is not yet known, and an investigation is underway. Pandey's death comes amid a disturbing trend in the city. Within a span of 24 hours, three other suicides were also reported. On Wednesday night, Rohan Srivastava, a lecturer at Chaibasa College and resident of Parsudih, hanged himself after locking his room. The same night, Narayan Kumar Mandal, a lathe machine operator, died by suicide in Adityapuras Gamharia Station Road area. Late Thursday night, Jai Singh, an auto driver from Mandal Basti in Telco, was also found hanging at his residence. The series of incidents has left residents perplexed, with authorities urging families and communities to be vigilant about mental health concerns. Tehran, Aug 22 : Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi will hold telephonic conversation with counterparts from the UK, France and Germany on Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said. Speaking to Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Baqaei stated that Araghchi, during the talks, will discuss lifting of the unlawful sanctions with leaders of Germany, France and the UK on Friday, He further stated that the talks will also cover the need for involved parties to respond to attacks against Iran's "peaceful nuclear facilities". Israel carried out airstrikes on several areas in Iran, including nuclear and military sites on June 13. On June 22, US attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities of Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. Following the 12-day war, a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Iran on June 24. On Thursday, the country's foreign ministry spokesperson denounced the US imposition of sanctions on four International Criminal Court (ICC) judges and termed the decision a "grave and flagrant abuse of power." In a post on X, Baghaei termed US' decision to impose sanctions on judges "not merely a dangerous precedent in the assault on justice, but a blatant complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide committed against the Palestinian people." "The imposition by the United States of sanctions on four additional judges of the International Criminal Court, who hail from Canadian, Senegalese, Fijian, and French nationalities, due to their handling of cases involving Israel's horrific crimes, is not merely a dangerous precedent in the assault on justice, but a blatant complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide committed against the Palestinian people," Baghaei stated in a post on X. "This brazen targetting of the International Criminal Court judges represents a grave and flagrant abuse of power, as it grants Israel absolute immunity from accountability, unleashes its hand to commit further atrocities, and exposes international peace and security to serious dangers. Moreover, this horrific violation exposes the true essence of the 'rules-based order': a framework devoid of legal legitimacy, crafted to serve narrow whims and interests, in complete contempt for every established rule of international law and every authentic principle of human ethics," he added. Iran's statement comes after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against four ICC judges on August 20. He called ICC a "national security threat" and an "instrument for warfare" against the US and Israel. While announcing sanctions, he stated, "Today, I am designating Kimberly Prost of Canada, Nicolas Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal pursuant to President Trumpas Executive Order 14203, 'Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.' These individuals are foreign persons who directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of either nation." He further stated, "The United States has been clear and steadfast in our opposition to the ICCas politicization, abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach. The Court is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel. It remains the policy of the United States Government to take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our troops, our sovereignty, and our allies from the ICCas illegitimate and baseless actions." New Delhi, Aug 22 : The Congress on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict on the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR), saying it has safeguarded democracy from what it termed as a "brutal assault" by the Election Commission of India (ECI). New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) The Congress on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict on the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR), saying it has safeguarded democracy from what it termed as a "brutal assault" by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, said, "The INC welcomes today's verdict of the Supreme Court on the Bihar SIR issue. Democracy has survived a brutal assault from the Election Commission of India (ECI)." Ramesh highlighted key directives issued by the apex court during the course of the hearings. He said on August 14, the court set aside the ECI's decision to withhold the list of deleted voters and ordered that such lists must be published along with reasons for deletion. The court, Ramesh said, also directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar cards as valid proof of identity for voters whose names were deleted. "Today, it reaffirmed Aadhar as a valid ID that the ECI MUST accept. Today Supreme Court has laid down guardrails to make the revision more inclusive by involving political parties in the process," Ramesh said. He accused the ECI of adopting an "obstructionist approach" and acting against the interests of voters. "So far, the ECI's approach has been obstructionist and contrary to the interests of the voters. We welcome this judgment especially because it gives us an enforceable right which the ECI cannot ignore," he added. The Congress leader said, "Today, the ECI stands totally exposed and discredited. Its G2 puppeteers stand decisively defeated." In its latest order on Friday, the Supreme Court directed the ECI to accept online claims for inclusion in the voter list. It also asked political parties and their booth-level agents (BLAs) to assist voters who were unable to submit their enumeration forms, leading to deletions from the rolls. Further, the court clarified that claim forms could be filed using any of the 11 documents already notified by the ECI, or Aadhaar. Amaravati, Aug 22 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on Friday and sought financial assistance from the Centre for several developmental initiatives being undertaken in the state. CM Naidu sought an additional Rs 5,000 crore under the Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI) scheme, an official statement said. During the meeting, the Chief Minister highlighted that so far, the state has received Rs 2,010 crore under the SASCI scheme. According to a statement from the Chief Ministeras office here, he submitted a representation seeking an additional allocation of Rs 5,000 crore for pending capital projects in the state. The memorandum also requested necessary orders on the proposals submitted by the state government for the release of Rs. 250 crore under the Single Nodal Agency (SNA Sparsh) incentive scheme guidelines for the financial year 2024-25. Welcoming the Purvodaya scheme announced by the Centre for the integrated development of eastern states, the Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh would greatly benefit from it. He urged the Centre to finalise the modalities for implementing the scheme at the earliest. The Chief Minister, who is on a day-long visit to the national capital, also called on the 16th Finance Commission's Chairman Arvind Pangariya. CM Naidu was accompanied by Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu, Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, Telugu Desam Parliamentary Party (TDPP) leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu and other TDP leaders. Naiduas Telugu Desam Party is a key partner in the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. The Chief Minister had called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers, including Sitharaman, during his visit to the national capital last month. During the meeting with Prime Minister Modi, the Chief Minister had sought financial handholding by the Centre to tide over the "acute scarcity of resources". He said that the fiscal situation in Andhra Pradesh has deteriorated due to the previous government's "misadventures". Mumbai, Aug 22 : Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar on Friday said that he has conveyed to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis that his party will not vote for Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan in the Vice-Presidential elections. "We will not vote because we are ideologically against. It is not possible to accept the request," said Pawar in a press conference. CM Fadnavis had called Pawar, requesting his support for the NDA candidate, but Pawar declined. The CM had also called the Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray, seeking his partyas support for C.P. Radhakrishnan during the Vice Presidential Election. " I remember when he (Radhakrishnan) was the governor of Jharkhand, then CM Hemant Soren was arrested inside the Raj Bhavan when he had gone to meet the governor, despite Soren's repeated requests not to do it in Raj Bhavan. The person who uses power in such a manner cannot be supported." Pawar said. Further, he said that the INDIA bloc has fielded its candidate, former Supreme Court judge B. Sudarshan Reddy, who has filed his nomination papers. CM Fadnavis had earlier told the reporters that he had called up both Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray seeking the support of their parties, citing that NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan is the Maharashtra governor. Radhakrishnan was selected as the NDA's Vice Presidential candidate on Sunday. The announcement was made by BJP President J.P. Nadda during a press conference following the party's Parliamentary Board meeting held in the national capital. Radhakrishnan has previously served as a Member of Parliament and as Governor of Jharkhand and Telangana. A veteran BJP leader, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore twice and previously served as the Tamil Nadu BJP State President. Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised his "dedication, humility, and intellect", noting his long-standing grassroots work in Tamil Nadu. On Tuesday, Radhakrishnan was felicitated during the NDA Parliamentary Party meeting. Indore, Aug 22 : 'Depression' was likely the reason behind the gruesome incident of a mother killing her 45-day-old baby by slitting his throat, Madhya Pradesh Police said on Friday "The preliminary investigation suggests that the mother (Neha) might be suffering from possible depression. However, the investigation to ascertain the exact reason is still underway," said Additional DCP Dishesh Agarwal during the press briefing on Friday. DCP Agarwal said that the mother has confessed to the killing, and she had been booked under Section 103 of BNS. "Investigation has revealed that the mother slit her baby's (Priyansh) throat with a sharp object inside the home at a Pardhi settlement in the Dwarkapuri area on Thursday. The accused has been arrested," he said. DCP Agarwal said that the accused's relatives have said that Neha's mental condition was unstable, as she had also previously tried to strangle the baby. "We are still investigating the case and examining the mental health conditions of the accused mother," said DCP Agarwal. Earlier, police said that the victim was found in a pool of blood with his throat slit inside the house, and they had also recovered the murder weapon from the crime scene. Police also informed that Neha, the wife of Sunny Solanki, had rushed out to call her sister-in-law, who was washing clothes outside, and cried out that something had happened to the baby. "When the sister-in-law entered the house, she found Priyansh dead with a deep wound on his neck. The matter was immediately reported to family members and neighbours, who gathered at the spot before police were informed," said police station in-charge Sushil Patel. Patel said that suspicion quickly fell on the mother as bloodstains were found on her hands, and when interrogated, she confessed to her crime. The shocking incident left neighbours and relatives in disbelief. The incident took place in the Ahirkhedi area under the Dwarkapuri police station area. New Delhi, Aug 22 : In a pan-India operation code named Operation "WeedOut", the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) dismantled a syndicate involved in smuggling of hydroponic weed into India with the arrest of six accused and recovered Rs 1.02 crore proceeds of crime, an official said on Friday. A total of 72.024 kg of hydroponic weed worth around Rs 72 crore was seized under the provisions of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Act, 1985. The syndicate used to reach out to college dropouts, part-time employed or unemployed youth via social media, an official said. The associate mastermind, who was traced in New Delhi, and five passengers, including one flyer, involved in the crime were arrested, the official said in a statement. Simultaneous interception were made by officers of DRI at Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway station in Bengaluru, and Bhopal Junction, late on August 20 evening. A thorough search of baggage of two passengers, who had just boarded the Rajdhani train (22691) for Delhi, led to the recovery of 29.88 kg of hydroponic weed at Bengaluru. In a coordinated action, 24.186 kg of hydroponic weed was recovered at Bhopal Junction from two passengers who had boarded the Rajdhani train on August 19 from Bengaluru, the DRI said. Meanwhile, associate mastermind of the syndicate was traced in New Delhi and proceeds of drug trafficking amounting to Rs 1.02 crore were recovered from his possession. In a swift follow-up, a passenger who arrived at Bengaluru from Thailand on Thursday was intercepted in the early hours of Friday at a hotel in Bengaluru, which led to recovery of another 17.958 kg of hydroponic weed, the DRI said. Earlier on August 16, the DRI busted a clandestine drug manufacturing facility in Bhopal's Jagdishpur (Islamnagar), seizing 61.20 kg of Mephedrone and 541.53 kg of raw chemicals valued at Rs 92 crore in the illicit market. The operation, code-named "Crystal Break", led to the arrest of seven key operatives linked to an international drug syndicate. Patna, Aug 22 : Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) MP Shambhavi Choudhary on Friday criticised RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav after he mocked the Centre's new Bill that allows for the removal of Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, and Ministers facing serious criminal charges. Yadav had alleged that the legislation was designed to target NDA allies, particularly Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. Dismissing Yadav's claims, Choudhary hit back, asking, "How is this for Nitish Kumar?" She accused him of making baseless statements and misleading the people. Speaking to IANS, Shambhavi Choudhary said, "This Bill is about decriminalisation of politics, not about Nitish Kumar or anyone else. Political representatives already submit affidavits declaring their background. This is an additional declaration. If any politician faces charges or is detained, they should resign. If they are not convicted, they can return to their post. It is about accountability and clean politics." She further argued that the move was aimed at ending criminal activities in politics. "We are trying to bring an end to the criminalisation of politics. The Opposition, however, always tries to mislead the people of Bihar with false propaganda. Why oppose something that strengthens democracy and ensures transparency?" she added. Choudhary urged Opposition leaders to carefully read the Bill instead of creating unnecessary uproar. "There is nothing objectionable in it. The government is making an effort to give politics a better shape. We all want clean politics, and this Bill is a step in that direction," she asserted. The Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025, introduced in the Lok Sabha by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday, mandates the removal of any Prime Minister, Chief Minister, or Minister detained for 30 days or more on charges carrying a minimum punishment of five years. If such leaders do not resign within 30 days, their post will automatically be declared vacant on the 31st day. However, the Bill allows them to be reappointed once released. The Opposition, alleging misuse, created an uproar in Parliament as the Bill was tabled on Wednesday. Amid the ruckus, the Bill was sent to the Joint Committee. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : The Karnataka BJP on Friday said that, as "no evidence" was found during the probe into the Dharmasthala mass grave case, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar are hiding behind masks. Speaking to the media in Bengaluru, BJP state president and MLA B.Y. Vijayendra said the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Shivakumar are "panicked" as nothing was found when the alleged mass burial sites were dug up. "Siddaramaiah had been imagining in the Assembly that something would be found at the alleged burial sites during excavation. But even after digging 15a"16 pits, nothing was found at Dharmasthala," he said. Vijayendra said that the BJP had already announced its protest "Dharm Yuddh", vowing to wage a "religious war to protect religion". He criticised the state government for "acting recklessly", "hurting" Hindu sentiments, and "failing" to take action against the complainant and the evil forces behind him. "If Hindu activists post anything on social media, they are arrested within 24 hours. In Tumakuru, the police had arrested even a female party worker," he underlined. However, on Dharmasthala, "propaganda has been underway for the past 15a"20 days", yet no investigation has been conducted against those responsible, he clarified. Taking a jibe at Congress, he said, "During Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi had promised to provide jobs to the families of 36 people killed during the COVID pandemic. But even after two and a half years, the promise is not fulfilled." He also slammed the state government for the stampede deaths and said, "CM is the number one offender, and the DyCM is the second offender." Vijayendra also raised questions about the decision to hold the Royal Challengers Bengaluru's victory celebrations near Vidhana Soudha (Legislative Assembly). He criticised the state government for taking action against an innocent police officer to "cover up" their mistakes and sought an answer from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the issue. Washington, Aug 22 : As part of his ongoing engagements with the American leaders, India's Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra met Republican Party Senator Bill Hagerty, briefing him on the continuation of bilateral dialogue aimed at ensuring fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial trade engagement. Both sides exchanged views on India's energy security and the expanding hydrocarbons trade between India and the US. Washington, Aug 22 (IANS) As part of his ongoing engagements with the American leaders, India's Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra met Republican Party Senator Bill Hagerty, briefing him on the continuation of bilateral dialogue aimed at ensuring fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial trade engagement. Both sides exchanged views on Indiaas energy security and the expanding hydrocarbons trade between India and the US. aHad a useful discussion with Senator Bill Hagerty today. Grateful for his consistent and strong support to the India-US partnership. Briefed him on continuing bilateral discussions for fair, balanced and mutually beneficial trade engagement. We also shared perspectives on India's energy security and the growing trade between India and the US in hydrocarbons," Kwatra posted on X early Friday, India time. The Indian Ambassador also held a productive conversation with Democratic Party Congressman Greg Landsman, apprising him of recent developments in bilateral trade dialogue and energy security, as well as the deepening hydrocarbon partnership between India and the US. On Thursday, Kwatra engaged in a meaningful discussion with US Representative Adam Smith, Ranking member of House Armed Services Democrats, sharing candid views on recent developments in India-US ties and New Delhi's views on advancing mutual cooperation in areas of trade, energy, and defence aHad an engaging conversation with Representative Adam Smith, Ranking Member of House Armed Services Democrats.Shared candid views on recent developments in India-US relationship and Indiaas perspectives on advancing our mutual trade, energy, and defence cooperation. Grateful for his steadfast support for all aspects of India-US relations," he posted on X. Furthermore, the Ambassador interacted with US Representative Josh Gottheimer, Ranking Member of the National Security Agency and Cyber Subcommittee at the House Intelligence Committee, sharing updates on the latest developments in bilateral energy cooperation, including two-way trade in oil and gas and balanced, fair, and mutually beneficial trade ties between India and the US. Kwatra's meetings with the US representatives come at a critical juncture as US President Donald Trump earlier this month announced an additional 25 per cent tariff hike, citing Indiaas continued imports of Russian crude oil as the primary reason. This comes on top of a previous 25 per cent tariff that came into effect on July 20. Responding sharply to the US move, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had called the decision "unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable", stating that Indiaas energy needs and strategic autonomy must be respected. Patna, Aug 22 : The presence of two RJD MLAs on the stage during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Bodh Gaya has sparked the 'defection' buzz in the state politics on Friday. The two legislators in question are Vibha Devi, MLA from Nawada, and Prakash Veer, MLA from Rajauli in Nawada district. Their presence on PM Modi's dais, alongside Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other NDA leaders, has fuelled speculation that both are preparing to switch sides ahead of the polls. Vibha Devi, wife of former RJD MLA Rajballabh Yadav, has been in the news since her husband's recent acquittal by the Patna High Court in a POCSO case. Speculation about her joining the BJP had been growing, and her appearance on the stage is now being seen as confirmation of her possible defection. Prakash Veer, meanwhile, has reportedly been disgruntled with the RJD leadership. Reacting to the development, RJD spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwari downplayed the significance of the incident, saying that during elections, leaders generally shift sides, and Friday's incident is not a big concern for his party. "Those facing corruption or criminal charges become 'clean' once they join the BJP. Vibha Devi's husband was booked under rape with a minor girl and now acquitted, and suddenly everything is whitewashed," he said. Mritunjay Tiwari added that Pakash Veer has been indulging in anti-party activities, and if he wants to part ways with the RJD, no one will stop him. BJP, however, distanced itself from the controversy, saying that it was a Prime Minister's event, not a party function, and anyone can attend the function. "Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of the country, and Nitish Kumar is the Chief Minister of Bihar. They represent the nation and the state. The presence of the two RJD MLAs should not be politicised," said BJP Spokesperson Arvind Kumar Singh. During Nitish Kumar's floor test earlier in February last year, four RJD MLAs - Prahlad Yadav, Chetan Anand, Neelam Devi, and Sangeeta Kumari - had switched sides, with Sangeeta later heading towards the BJP. RJD, which had won 75 seats in 2020, has been reduced to 73 MLAs following some defections. The MLAs had switched to the NDA, while Belaganj and Ramgarh were lost in the by-elections. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Friday described the continuous development of the trans-Yamuna area as her top priority, promising that the shortage of funds will never be allowed to pose a hurdle in achieving the objective. Speaking at Vastrika-2025, an event held at Ashok Bazaar in Gandhi Nagar, which is Asia's largest ready-made garments market, CM Gupta said the government would allocate the required budget in line with developmental assessments, without hesitation. The Chief Minister remarked that Delhi had lagged behind in the past 10-12 years, but now it is on the path to reclaim its leadership. She affirmed that the city is moving ahead on a new path of development, underlining that a major objective of the Delhi Government is to restore the uninterrupted and clean flow of the Yamuna. "To this end, improvements will be made in water and sewer pipelines, public toilets and related infrastructure," said CM Gupta. The event was organised by the Association of Wholesale Ready-Made Garments Dealers. On this occasion, the Chief Minister engaged with representatives, traders, and entrepreneurs from the textile industry, praising their contributions. She observed that Gandhi Nagar's garment sector is not only a major hub for apparel supply in Delhi but also across the country and assured that the Delhi Government would take all necessary measures to elevate it to the international stage. The Chief Minister announced that the trans-Yamuna area, or Yamunapar, would now witness accelerated development with the active participation of public representatives. She also requested East Delhi MP and Union Minister of State for Road Transport Harsh Malhotra and Yamunapar Development Board Chairman Arvinder Singh Lovely to prepare and submit detailed assessments of the region's needs, assuring that the government would act promptly on their recommendations. The Chief Minister also assured residents that new route mapping of DTC electric buses would commence from the trans-Yamuna, ensuring greater convenience and accessibility for commuters. CM Gupta hailed the Gandhi Nagar Ready-Made Garments Market as a city landmark, adding that it had embodied Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call of 'Vocal for Local' and 'One District One Product'. She assured that the Delhi Government would extend full support to the garments industry, from branding Indian products and enhancing quality standards to global promotion. The event was attended by MLA Anil Goyal and Kapil Khanna (President, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Delhi Province), and other dignitaries. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh, on Friday underlined the importance of continuous investment in defence and rigorous training for the armed forces, stressing that India's safety rests on the preparedness of both its military and police forces. He was addressing students as the chief guest at an event at Maharaja Agrasen College in Delhi. "Our boundaries - from external and internal threats - remain safe because of the defence forces and the police. We must not treat this as a burden on the exchequer, but as a necessity. I am very happy that our government has recognised this need and has been regularly acquiring new systems and weapons," he said. Highlighting India's rise in defence capabilities, the Air Chief noted, "Today, we are at par with anybody in the world because of continuous investment. We train with the best in the world, not just to learn, but also to teach." He also drew attention to the humanitarian role of the Indian Air Force (IAF). "During natural calamities, you must have seen helicopters dropping food, evacuating people, or delivering aid. Whenever civil authorities request, the IAF takes up that task," he said, while reiterating that air defence of the nation remains the force's primary responsibility. Citing the recent Operation Sindoor, Singh said, "To give a befitting reply to the adversary is our task. It requires intense training. As the saying goes, the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." He explained that the IAF is a 1.6 lakh-strong organisation where "everyone has a role, from junior staff to the Chief." Training, he said, is a continuous process supported by practical exercises. "Even when there is no war, at least 810 air bases always have 24 aircraft on standby to intercept any intruder. We are always ready, fully equipped," he stressed. Kolkata, Aug 22 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday sounded nostalgic ahead of inauguration of Metro rail projects by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding she had planned and sanctioned the Metro corridors in and around Kolkata. Taking to her X handle, CM Banerjee wrote: "Allow me to be a little nostalgic today. As the Railways Minister of India, I was fortunate in planning and sanctioning series of Metro Railway corridors in metropolitan Kolkata. I had drawn the blueprints, arranged the funds, initiated the works and ensured that the different ends of the city (Joka, Garia, Airport, Sector V, etc.,) were connected by an intra-city Metro grid." Notably, CM Banerjee was extended an invitation by the Centre to attend the inauguration ceremony by PM Modi. However, she refused to accept the invitation and decided to stay away from the event. She further said that as Chief Minister of West Bengal, she took part in executing such projects. "Later, as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, I had the additional privilege of taking part in execution of the projects. From the State, I arranged free land, paved roads, arranged rehabilitation of displaced people, removed impediments, and ensured all help in the execution of projects. Our chief secretaries successively held series of coordination meeting to ensure integration of execution agencies. My planning as Railways Minister got fulfilment in my participation in execution," she said. Banerjee during her tenure as Railway Minister (2009-2011) had laid the foundations of Metro rail projects which are seeing the light of the day now. She concluded by saying that expanding metro infrastructure has been a long journey for her. Leader of the Opposition in state Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, meanwhile, took a dig at Banerjee for trying to steal credit of projects which received setbacks under her tenure as chief minister of the state. Using his X handle, Adhikari said: "Your 'nostalgia' is nothing but a desperate attempt to steal credit for projects that languished under your watch. As Railways Minister in the corrupt UPA era, you may have got some blueprints sketched, but they collected dust for years due to the UPA government's infamous delays, and the non-cooperation of the WB Govt since you became Chief Minister. Land acquisition failures, and outright non-cooperation by your Administration have plagued the timely execution of these projects." The BJP leader pointed out that her administration did not cooperate with the Centre in executing several central government projects including New Garia-Airport metro corridor. "I would like to remind you about a most recent example of non cooperation: On New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor (Orange Line), launching of viaduct at Chingrighata Junction is required and all arrangements for temporary traffic diversion have been made in consultation with Kolkata Police, but the NOC from the Govt. of West Bengal for executing this stretch is still pending for months. Not even a personal letter from the Hon'ble Railway Minister; Shri @AshwiniVaishnaw Ji, in this regard, have been able to persuade you," he said. Hyderabad, Aug 22 : The Telangana High Court, on Friday, refused to pass any interim orders on the petitions filed by former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and former Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao seeking to quash the report of P.C. Ghose, which inquired into the allegations of irregularities in execution of Kaleshwaram project. With the state government making it clear that that no action would be taken against the petitioners before tabling and discussing the Commission's report on the floor of the Assembly, the High Court bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin said there is no need for any interim directions. Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) President K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) and his former Cabinet colleague Harish Rao, both of whom were indicted in the Commission's report, filed separate writ petitions seeking directions to quash and set aside the report. The High Court adjourned the hearing for five weeks after directing the Chief Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao and the Irrigation and Command Area Development Secretary, Patil Prashant Jeevan, to file detailed counter-affidavits in response to points raised by the petitioners within four weeks. The petitioners were given one week thereafter to file their reply, if any. The High Court heard the arguments from both sides for two days. The Chief Justice once again on Friday sought clarification from the state government whether it would initiate any action against the petitioners based on the report. Advocate General A. Sudarshan Reddy submitted that the state government would prefer to act upon the report only after placing it on the floor of Assembly and after a thorough debate on it. The court noted the objections raised by the petitioners over alleged publication of contents of the report and its alleged availability on the official website of the state government. It observed that when the state government had decided to place before the Assembly for discussion, the report or its summary should not have been uploaded on its official website. The bench directed that in case the report has been uploaded on any official website of the government, it should be taken down. The petitioners contended that the very constitution of the Commission should be declared arbitrary and illegal as it was made against the provisions of the Commissions of Inquiry Act. According to them, the Commission made the findings regarding their conduct and reputation without following the prescription of law under 8B and 8C of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, and violated the principles of natural justice. The petitioners argued that the Commission's report was invalid, prejudicial, scurrilous and defamatory against them. Headed by former judge of the Supreme Court Pinaki Chandra Ghose, the one-man commission submitted its report to the Telangana government on July 31. The Commission was constituted on March 14, 2024, to probe the alleged irregularities in planning, design, construction, quality control, operation and maintenance of Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla Barrages of the Kaleshwaram project constructed during the term of previous BRS government. According to the summary prepared by a panel of officials after a study of the report, the Commission held KCR directly and vicariously accountable for irregularities in planning, execution, completion, operation and maintenance of the Kaleshwaram project. Brisbane, Aug 22 : Australia A's middle-order faces a challenging third day after a mixed second day with bat and ball in their four-day clash against India A at Allan Border Field here on Friday. Brisbane, Aug 22 (IANS) Australia Aas middle-order faces a challenging third day after a mixed second day with bat and ball in their four-day clash against India A at Allan Border Field here on Friday. Rain had washed out most of Day One, leaving Australia A with early hopes of exploiting tricky conditions and bowling India A out cheaply. The tourists, however, recovered strongly under sunny Brisbane skies on day two, led by Raghvi Bistas superb 93, which kept India A in contention after they had been reduced to 5-95. Bistas elegant strokeplay, combined with determined support from the middle and lower-order, frustrated the hosts and ensured India A posted a solid first-innings total. Bistas innings was complemented by a swashbuckling 51 from No. 9 Joshitha VJ, who found the boundary seven times while sharing a 75-run 10th-wicket stand with Titas Sadhu (23). Their partnership was pivotal in pushing India A to 299, providing the team with a psychological advantage heading into Australia Aas second session at the crease. Radha Yadavas quickfire 33 also added valuable runs in the middle overs, while Bist fell just short of a maiden red-ball century, bowled by Maitlan Brown on the stroke of lunch. Australia Aas bowlers did strike at regular intervals, removing early batters and keeping India A under pressure initially. Brown and Georgia Prestwidge finished with three wickets apiece, while the remaining wickets were shared between the pace attack and spinners, including Ginger, who had earlier contributed with the bat. In reply, Australia Aas innings has been steady but cautious, with wickets falling regularly, leaving Faltum and Ginger to stabilise the middle order. Captain Tahlia Wilsonas dismissal for 49 highlighted the task at hand for the Australian side, as they navigate a 141-run deficit and aim to avoid conceding a first-innings lead that could define the match. The hosts are on 5-158, still 141 runs behind India Aas first-innings total of 299, with Nicole Faltum (30)* and Sianna Ginger (24)* at the crease, tasked with building a platform for a competitive first-innings score. With plenty of work still to do, Australia A will need partnerships from the middle and lower order if they are to challenge India A and stay in contention for a strong position in this four-day contest. Brief scores: India A 299 all out in 89.1 overs (Raghvi Bist 93, V.J. Joshitha 51; Georgia Prestwidge 3-37, Maitlan Brown 3-65) lead Australia A 158/5 in 43 overs (Tahila Wilson 49, Nicole Faltun 30 not out; Sauma Thakor 2-21, Radha Yadav 2-40) by 141 runs. Mumbai, Aug 22 : Shares of Nazara Technologies Limited fell another 5 per cent on Friday, extending their losing streak after PokerBaazi, an associate company, stopped all real-money gaming operations. The move follows the passage of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, which bans all forms of online money-based games. The Bill, cleared by both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha without debate, is aimed at tackling addiction, financial losses, and security concerns linked to online money gaming. Nazara Technologies said in an exchange filing that it has no direct exposure to real-money gaming. However, it holds a 46.07 per cent stake in Moonshine Technologies, the parent company of PokerBaazi. The company clarified that real-money gaming contributes nothing to its revenue or Ebitda, but the market has reacted negatively to the development. Nazara's stock has dropped more than 17 per cent over the past five trading sessions. In the last one month, its shares have lost Rs 268.50 in value, or nearly 19 per cent. At the closing bell, the shares of the firm were at Rs 1,146, down by Rs 59.2 or 4.91 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Meanwhile, PokerBaazi on Friday announced that it is stopping all real money online gaming with immediate effect. "With a very heavy heart, we announce that PokerBaazi will be pausing its operations in compliance with The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025. Effective immediately, no real money games will be offered on our platform," the company said in a statement. It also said that the future course of action will be decided once the Bill is fully in place. This move comes soon after big players like Dream11 and My11Circle also stopped their real money games earlier this week -- showing the wide impact of the new law on India's fast-growing online gaming industry. Islamabad, Aug 22 : Lahore Police on Friday said that another nephew of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested from his residence, a day after his brother was taken into custody for his involvement in the May 9 protests. Pakistan's leading daily Dawn reported that a senior Lahore Police officer has confirmed the arrest of Shershah Khan, son of Imran Khan's sister Aleema Khan, who was arrested in connection with May 9 riots after Thursday's arrest of his brother Shahrez Khan. In a post on X, Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party termed the incident as an "abduction" and stated that the "the rule of law has been replaced with the law of the jungle." The arrest comes a day after PTI stated that men dressed in plainclothes had "abducted" Aleema Khan's son from her residence. Later, Lahore police confirmed that Shahrez was arrested in a case related to the May 9 riots. Meanwhile, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore on Friday sent Shahrez Khan on an eight-day physical remand in connection with the May 9 Jinnah House attack case. Earlier, the court had reserved its verdict on a police plea requesting 30-day remand of Shahrez, Pakistan-based Geo News reported. ATC Judge Manzar Ali Gul announced the decision after hearing arguments from both sides. During the court proceedings, Advocate Salman Akram Raja, who represented Shahrez Khan, stated that his client had been arrested two years after the Jinnah House attack. He argued that Shahrez Khan's mother, Aleema Khan, had already been discharged from the same case and requested the court to release his client. Raja asked the police about the evidence they had against his client, arguing that Shahrez Khan had no connection with political affairs of PTI and requested the court to drop charges against his client. However, police opposed the request, saying that Shahrez Khan had involvement in the Jinnah House attack in Lahore. Aleema Khan also took to social media and wrote on X, "Last night, several plainclothes armed men stormed my residence in Lahore. They brutally assaulted our staff, harassed my daughter-in-law, and forcibly took away my son, Shahrez Khan, in front of his two young daughters. For over three years, this fascist regime in Pakistan has unleashed a reign of terror, raiding thousands of homes, abducting and harassing countless innocent civilians. Yet, despite their brutality, they have failed to break Imran Khan. "Our children understand that the struggle Imran Khan is leading is far greater than any one of us. He has set a remarkable standard of resilience against tyranny. These cowardly actions only expose the fear and desperation of the oppressors. We place our trust in Allah alone, seeking His protection and justice," she added. Following Imran Khan's arrest on May 9, 2023, PTI supporters held violent protests in Pakistan, vandalising military installations and state-owned buildings, while also targeting the Lahore Corps Commander's residence. After the protests, police arrested thousands of protesters, including PTI leaders. Kochi, Aug 22 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday accused retired Supreme Court Judge B Sudershan Reddy, the INDIA bloc's nominee for the upcoming Vice Presidential election, of having supported Naxalism (Maoism) through his judicial pronouncements. Speaking at a public event here, HM Shah referred to Justice Reddy's 2011 Salwa Judum judgement, which had declared as "illegal" and "unconstitutional" the state-sponsored arming of young tribal men as special police officers in Chhattisgarh. The ruling ordered that such militias be disbanded, stressing that the state must address the root causes of the insurgency through lawful governance rather than vigilante groups. Revisiting that verdict, the Home Minister alleged the judgement indirectly strengthened Maoist extremists and curtailed the state's ability to counter insurgency. "Sudershan Reddy is the person who helped Naxalism. He gave the Salwa Judum judgment. If that judgment had not been given, Naxal terrorism would have ended by 2020," the Home Minister said. He further claimed the Congress, under pressure from its Left allies, had nominated a candidate "who supported Naxalism with a forum like the Supreme Court". HM Shah also pointed out that Kerala, which will face Assembly elections next year, has "suffered" from Left-wing extremist activities, and urged voters to recognise the implications of the Opposition's choice. The Vice President election is scheduled for September 9. Justice Reddy, nominated by the Congress-led INDIA bloc, will face the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's candidate, Maharashtra Governor C P Radhakrishnan. The election follows the resignation of incumbent Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar last month. Justice Reddy, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2011, was part of several significant constitutional benches during his tenure. His Salwa Judum ruling remains one of the most debated judgments on state policy towards Maoist insurgency, earning both praise for upholding constitutional rights and criticism for curbing state-led counterinsurgency initiatives. With campaign rhetoric sharpening, HM Shah's remarks are seen as part of the BJP's effort to frame the election as a larger ideological battle between national security and civil rights approaches to internal conflict. Earlier in the day, the Union Home Minister had a closed-door meeting with all the top leaders of the Kerala unit of the BJP and urged them to ensure that they target 25 per cent vote share at the local body polls likely to be held in December. Kochi, Aug 22 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday launched a sharp attack on the Left-led Kerala government, accusing it of corruption, weak governance, and misleading claims against the Centre over disaster relief funds. Speaking at the inaugural session of a leading media house, Shah said Kerala, which has alternated between UDF and LDF rule, is "mired in scams." "The gold smuggling case reached right up to the Chief Minister's Office. Then there are the cooperative scam, the Exalogic scam, and several others. People are not happy with the state of affairs," he said. On law and order, Shah accused the state government of "compromising" security for political gains. Citing the Popular Front of India (PFI), he said, "PFI spread from Kerala to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Gujarat. Why was it not banned earlier? Had it not been for the Narendra Modi government, the organisation would still be active." The Home Minister also rebutted the Kerala government's frequent charge that the Centre has failed to provide adequate disaster relief funds. He asserted that the PM Modi-led administration has, in fact, allocated several times more resources to Kerala than the previous UPA government. "The Centre has consistently supported Kerala in times of natural calamities. Allocations under both the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) have been higher during our tenure. Funds have been released on time, and assistance has always been extended during floods, landslides, and other disasters," Shah said. Shah's remarks come amid continued friction between the Union and Kerala governments, with the Left-led state repeatedly alleging discrimination in central assistance. With elections on the horizon, his comments signal the BJP's intent to sharpen its political offensive in Kerala. "The people of Kerala want change," Shah declared, expressing confidence that the BJP is poised to make major inroads in the state. Bhubaneswar, Aug 22 : Amid heavy rainfall triggered by a low-pressure system battering various parts of Odisha over the past few days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday forecast the formation of a fresh low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal off the Odisha coast. "A fresh low-pressure area is likely to form over the northwest Bay of Bengal off Odisha-West Bengal coasts around 25th August 2025," informed IMD in its bulletin on Friday. Meanwhile, the IMD issued a red warning predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall with extremely heavy falls and thunderstorms to occur at one or two places over the districts of Sundargarh. Similarly, an orange warning has been issued for very heavy rainfall accompanying thunderstorms to occur at one or two places over the districts of Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur, and Jharsuguda districts of the state. The IMD announced a yellow alert predicting heavy rain at one or two places over the districts of Deogarh, Angul, Kandhamal, Kalahandi, Balasore, Bhadrak, Rayagada, Ganjam, Gajapati, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Khurda, Nayagarh, Bargarh, Dhenkanal, Nuapada, Nawarangpur, Koraput, Malkangiri, Boudh, Sonepur, and Balangir districts of the state. According to the IMD forecast, various districts of Odisha are likely to witness rainfall till August 27. On the other hand, the residents in Sundargarh, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur, and Jharsuguda have been advised to keep a watch on the weather for worsening conditions and be ready to move to safer places accordingly. The IMD also alerted about localised landslides, mudslides, and landslips due to the incessant rainfall in Sundargarh, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur, and Jharsuguda districts. The low-pressure area formed over the Bay of Bengal off the northern Andhra Pradesh and southern Odisha coasts on Sunday later concentrated into a depression. The system brought intense rainfall to several areas across the state. Mumbai, Aug 22 : After creating massive drama in "Bigg Boss 17" exes, Isha Malviya and Abhishek Kumar are all set to be a part of the couple reality show, "Pati Patni Aur Panga". Their entry into "Pati Patni Aur Panga" has reignited the curiosity of the viewers as to what these two are up to now. The duo will also reunite with their 'Bigg Boss 17' housemate Munawar Faruqui, who is co-hosting the show alongside actress Sonali Bendre. Speaking about entering the show, Isha said, "Life has a strange way of bringing people back into each otheras orbit. Abhishek and I have shared chapters that people have seen unfold on screen and off ita But this is a new stage, a new test. While I wonat reveal what the audiences are in for with our entry in 'Pati Patni Aur Panga', I do know that they will see a side of us theyave never seen before." Abhishek added, "Isha and I have had a journey full of highs, lows, and conflict in front of the world. Walking into this show together was all about surprising the viewers. 'Pati Patni Aur Panga' is about to get a huge twist, and itas going to be super memorable." For those who do not know, Isha and Abhishek first met on the sets of their television show "Udaariyaan". Their on-screen romance soon spilled into real lives. However, before their stint in "Bigg Boss 17", the couple ended up going their separate ways, and Isha started dating Samarth Jurel, who also participated in the reality show. Their presence in the 'Bigg Boss' house together resulted in explosive dynamics- leading to fiery clashes and some fleeting moments of vulnerability. "Pati Patni Aur Panga" airs every Saturday and Sunday at 9:30 PM, only on COLORS. Agartala, Aug 22 : Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha said on Friday that indigenously built drones would further strengthen the Armed Forces in the country. After witnessing the demonstration of drone operation at Assam Rifles ground here, the Chief Minister said that the demonstration has further strengthened the confidence of the people of the country about the defence capabilities of India. "Operation Sindoor has already shown the world how secure India is. In just 24 to 25 minutes, 11 terrorist camps were destroyed in Pakistan. The same technology, now introduced in Tripura, boosts our confidence further because future wars would be technology-driven, and we must remain technologically secure," Saha told the media. Later, the Chief Minister in a post on X said: "Under the visionary leadership of Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji, our defence sector has been strengthened with self-reliant and cutting-edge warfare technology." "In particular, the use of modern drone technology has seen remarkable growth in combat situations and counter-terrorism operations. Today, at the Assam Rifles ground in Agartala, I had the privilege of attending a joint drone exercise by the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, where I encouraged the jawans and officers and witnessed an impressive display of advanced warfare tactics and drone manoeuvres," said Saha, who also holds the home portfolio. He said that the successful demonstration has proven Tripura's preparedness and further enhanced public confidence. The Chief Minister was accompanied by Director General of Police (DGP) Anurag and senior Army and Assam Rifles officers. Army officials also briefed the Chief Minister on the operational details of the drones and anti-drone systems during the event, which included a live demonstration of drone attacks and countermeasures. A large number of school students also witnessed the impressive demonstration of drone and anti-drone technology at the Assam Rifles ground. The exercise, jointly organised by the Indian Army and the Assam Rifles, aimed to showcase the forces' preparedness, particularly in view of the evolving situation. Alongside drone operations, the forces also showcased anti-drone systems designed to neutralise enemy drones, an emerging necessity in modern warfare. Students who attended the event expressed their excitement, noting that the live demonstrations not only strengthened their trust in the armed forces but also inspired them to consider serving the nation in future. Meanwhile, in line with its commitment to nation-building and youth engagement, Assam Rifles conducted an educational session on 'Operation Sindoor' at Assam Rifles High School at Teliamura in Khowai district on Thursday. A defence spokesman said that the session was attended by the school Principal, teachers and 220 students, who were briefed on the significance of Operation Sindoor. The lecture highlighted the professionalism, preparedness and commitment of the Indian Defence Forces in safeguarding national security. Students were also made aware of the challenges of modern warfare and the critical role of air defence in protecting the nation's sovereignty. The spokesman said that the initiative was aimed at motivating young minds to imbibe qualities of discipline, leadership and resilience. Students were encouraged to draw inspiration from the courage and dedication of soldiers and to channel these values into their academic pursuits and future careers. Such initiatives reflect Assam Rifles' continuous efforts to instil patriotism, responsibility and a spirit of service among the youth, thereby nurturing a strong and aware future generation, the spokesman stated. Kolkata, Aug 22 : The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board (WBJEEB), on Friday, announced the results of State Joint Entrance Examination 2025, nearly four months after the examination was held. The WBJEE results were declared after the Supreme Court stayed a Calcutta High Court order that had directed the WBJEEB to cancel its existing merit list and prepare a fresh one based on a pre-2010 list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities. According to the top 10 merit list published by the WBJEEB, Aniruddha Chakrabarti from Don Bosco School in Park Circus, topped the joint entrance exam. Samyajyoti Biswas from Kalyani Central Model School in Kalyani stood second while Dishaanth Basu from Delhi Public School in Kolkata's Ruby Park bagged the third position. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratulated the students who cleared the entrance examination. "My sincere greetings and congratulations to all the students who passed the State Joint Entrance Examination. I also congratulate your parents and teachers. I would like to ask those who could not get good results for some reason to not get upset and to prepare for better results in the future," Chief Minister Banerjee said. The Chief Minister also acknowledged that the entrance examination results were declared later than usual due to legal hurdles. "Due to legal complications, the results have been released a little later than usual. But I believe that by overcoming all the adversities, you will be more successful in the coming days and make Bengal shine," she added. Meanwhile, Aritro Ray from Delhi Public School in Kolkata's Ruby Park and Trishanjit Doloi from PURV International School in Durgapur bagged the fourth and fifth place in the top 10 merit list. The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a Calcutta High Court order that had directed the WBJEEB to cancel its existing merit list and prepare a fresh one based on a pre-2010 list of OBC communities. The stay effectively cleared the way for the long-delayed publication of the WBJEE 2025 results. The examination was held on April 27 this year. A bench led by Chief Justice B.R. Gobind Singh passed the order after hearing the state government's plea challenging the earlier judgment by Justice Kaushik Chanda of the Calcutta High Court. The WBJEE results, initially scheduled for release on August 7, were held up after Justice Chanda directed WBJEEB to revise its merit list using an older OBC classification consisting of 66 communities listed before 2010. The High Court also directed that seven per cent OBC reservation be maintained, but ruled that no admissions could proceed based on the updated OBC list introduced after 2010. The West Bengal government first challenged the high court's order before a division bench of Justices Sujoy Pal and Smita Das De. However, the bench refused to interfere with the single-judge bench ruling. The matter was then taken to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the WBJEEB issued an official circular on August 18 requesting SC/ST/OBC candidates to submit valid caste and community certificates via the official portal between August 18 and 21. With the Supreme Court's intervention, there was no obstacle for WBJEEB to declare WBJEE 2025 results, using the already prepared merit list. Kolkata, Aug 22 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched a scathing attack against the Trinamool Congress by saying crime and corruption have become the identity of the Mamata Banerjee-led party and asserted that only the BJP can bring asol paribartan (real change) in West Bengal. Addressing a public meeting at Dum Dum Central Jail ground near Kolkata, PM Modi said: "There is only one cry in Bengal now. 'Trinamool Congress ke shorao, Bangla ke bachao' (remove Trinamool Congress to save Bengal). Today, crime and corruption have become the identity of Trinamool Congress. Unless Trinamool Congress is removed from power, the real change cannot take place. Real change means providing security for women, putting corrupted leaders in jail and not in ministry, and improving the lives of the people." The Prime Minister also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of amassing Central funds meant for the welfare of the people. "There is a need to have a BJP government in West Bengal to usher in overall development of the state. Funds sent for development projects are being looted here by the Trinamool Congress. The fund is not used for the welfare of the people. But the same is used on Trinamool Congress cadres. That's why West Bengal is lagging behind in development. "People are now saying that 'Trinamool Congress Jabe, BJP asbe'. (BJP will come once Trinamool Congress is ousted)," he said. The Prime Minister also criticised the Trinamool Congress government for creating roadblocks before the Centre in implementing development projects. "Trinamool Congress has become an enemy of development. The Trinamool Congress government has refused to be part of the Centre's smart-city mission. The Trinamool Congress' mission is to stop the BJP here and its governmentas schemes. Will this kind of politics help Bengal prosper? Will this help anyone? Give BJP a chance in Bengal. We will usher in overall development in the state," he said. He further criticised the Mamata Banerjee government for supporting infiltrators in the state due to its appeasement politics and asserted that only the BJP can stop infiltration in Bengal. "We want to give employment to our citizens. We want to help them. But we won't allow infiltrators who are torturing our people to live in the country. But it is unfortunate that the Trinamool Congress along with INDI alliance partners are supporting the infiltrators for their appeasement politics. Demography is being changed in border areas," he said. The Prime Minister said those who are living in the country by making false identity cards will have to leave the country. "For that, the Trinamool Congress needs to go from power as well as it supports such people," he said. Earlier in the day, PM Modi inaugurated and laid the foundation of projects worth Rs 5,200 crore, including three new stretches of the Kolkata Metro, and an elevated corridor in adjacent Howrah. PM Modi visited the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he flagged off the Noapara - Jai Hind Bimanbandar Metro service. In addition, through video conferencing, he also flagged off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. He also undertook a Metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. New Delhi, Aug 22 : New Commissioner of Delhi Police Satish Golcha assumed charge on Friday and met Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, an interaction which included a discussion on law and order, including security for women, an official source said. The Delhi Police took to social media to post a photo of the interaction between the CP and the Chief Minister. During the brief interaction with Golcha, CM Gupta reiterated her government's resolve to empower women and encourage their employment in night shifts and sought his support for making them feel more secure and safe, said the official source. Golcha's appointment to the top post comes close on the heels of the assault on Delhi CM Gupta on Wednesday by 41-year-old Rajesh Bhai Khimji Bhai Sakariya from Rajkot in Gujarat. He allegedly slapped and pulled CM Gupta's hair at her Civil Lines residence. He has since been arrested and remanded to five days of police custody. Golcha, an IPS officer of the 1992 batch, was on Thursday named the new Delhi Police Commissioner, an announcement that came a day after the security breach and assault on CM Gupta. Known as a no-nonsense and upright officer and recognised for his integrity and diligence, Golcha's appointment to the top post follows a tenure as the Director General (Prisons) for the Delhi government. With a reputation for possessing top administrative skills and professionalism, Golcha is known for leading the investigation in key cases, including the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. He is also famous for the investigations he led as Special CP (Intelligence) and Special CP (Law and Order), Delhi Police, Director General of Police, Arunachal Pradesh and during his stint in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Born on April 30, 1967, Golcha joined the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory cadre of the Indian Police Service on October 11, 1992. He played a key role in investigations into high-profile cases like the Ruchika Girhotra murder case of 1990, the North-East Delhi riots in 2020 and the Tihar Jail violence of April-May 2023. An order on Golcha's appointment as Delhi Police Commissioner, released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday, said, "With the approval of the Competent Authority, Satish Golcha, IPS (AGMUT: 1992), presently posted as Director General (Prisons), Delhi, is hereby appointed to the post of the Commissioner of Police, Delhi with effect from the date of assumption of charge and until further orders." Whether it is combating gang violence inside prisons, supervising riot investigations, or steering sensitive criminal and communal cases, Golcha's track record in policing makes him an ideal replacement for Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, who retired recently. Kabul, Aug 22 : As many as 12 people lost their lives and four others sustained injuries as a tractor slid into a river in the southern Afghanistan Helmand province on Friday, provincial Director for Information and Culture, Hafiz Abdul Bari Rashid said. The deadly accident took place in Garmsir district, claiming the lives of three women and nine children on the spot and injuring four others, all children, the official added, Xinhua News Agency reported. Security personnel reached the site of the accident on time and rescued 14 others, the official said. In Afghanistan's countryside, the villagers often use tractors and animals as instruments to transport people and agricultural products. Meanwhile, at least 24 commuters were injured as a passenger bus collided with a truck in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province on Thursday night, provincial police spokesman Mawlawi Shir Ahmad Burhani said Friday. The mishap took place on a road linking the capital city of Kabul to the northern Mazar-i-Sharif city, leaving 24 travellers injured, some in critical condition, the official added, saying all the injured had been shifted to a hospital in the provincial capital, Pul-e-Khumri city. This is the second incident of its kind over the past couple of days. Earlier this week, at least 64 commuters have been killed and three others sustained injuries in a deadly road mishap in western Afghanistan's Herat province, head of the rescue department in the province, Abdul Zahir Noorzai, said Wednesday. The accident took place on Tuesday night after a passenger bus collided with a motorbike and a mini-truck on a road linking the neighbouring Iran to Herat city in Afghanistan. The majority of the victims, including women and children, were Afghan refugees who returned from Iran to settle in their homeland, Afghanistan, according to the official. In the meantime, another official, on the condition of anonymity, said that the passenger bus caught fire and many bodies could not be recognised. New Delhi, Aug 22 : The raids by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the 2019 Ramalingam murder paint a grim image in terms of the existence of the Popular Front of India (PFI). During the search carried out in nine locations, the NIA arrested Imthathullah, proprietor of Ambur Biryani Hotels, Kodaikanal, for "knowingly and voluntarily harbouring" absconding proclaimed offenders in his hotel outlets since 2021. The PFI had been banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2022 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The recent raids suggest that despite the outfit being banned, it still has many of its operatives on the ground. The PFI had built an extensive network, and many are still out in the open. According to the Intelligence agencies, all these persons have been told to lie low for some years before they could revive. According to the agencies, the PFI is likely to try and make a comeback with a new name. However, it is unlikely to start operations immediately. Instead, it is likely to indulge in a social media campaign and try and ignite tensions. The PFI had seen the ban coming and had even set up various foreign modules. They had plans of activating them, but that plan too has been put on hold at the moment. These modules abroad are based in the Gulf nations and Singapore. Investigations have suggested these modules operate nearly 29 bank accounts in which the donations are parked. It has also been found that a large part of their funding has come from donors in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. With the foreign modules being active and several of their operatives still out in the open, the agencies have found the need to keep a 24/7 surveillance on the activities of the outfit. A close watch is being particularly kept on its modules abroad, as they are the ones who have been tasked with launching social media campaigns with the intention of causing communal tensions. The PFI is known to carry out such acts, and the violence that broke out following the announcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Delhi is an example of this. The PFI was also responsible for inciting the Hathras unrest. The PFI would continue to indulge in such activities, like the way the Islamic State does. At first, it was believed that it would follow the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) model, which, after the ban, went on to be reborn as the Indian Mujahideen. However, with the kind of inputs that are coming in, it is likely that the PFI is likely to follow the Islamic State model. The Islamic State also runs its network online and incites violence. Such campaigns have also led to the recruitment of lone wolves who have carried out brutal attacks in many parts of the world. Moreover, the Islamic State and PFI complement each other very well. One may recall that several persons, including families and women, had left Kerala to join the Islamic State in Afghanistan. The probe learnt it was the PFI that had recruited for the Islamic State. On September 28 2022, the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its affiliates were banned by the MHA. The order said that these outfits were found to be involved in serious offences, including terrorism and its financing, targeted gruesome killings, disregarding the constitutional set-up of the country and disturbing public order, which are prejudicial to the integrity, security and sovereignty of the country. Along with the PFI, the government of India also banned the Rehab India Foundation (RIF), Campus Front of India (CFI), All India Imams Council (AIIC), National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO), National Womenas Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala. New Delhi, Aug 22 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched eight locations across Punjab and recovered incriminating documents related to a Rs 95-crore fraud allegedly involving illegal sale of a land allotted by former Maharaja of Kapurthala in 1933 for running a sugar mill, an official said on Friday. The Directorate of Enforcement's Jalandhar Zonal Office conducted the searches on Wednesday in connection with a money laundering case allegedly involving Phagwara-based Golden Sandhar Mills (erstwhile Wahid Sandhar Sugar Mills) and related entities and persons. The ED initiated the probe under PMLA on the basis of an FIR registered by Vigilance Bureau, Punjab Police, in September 2023 under various sections of IPC, 1860 and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. A mill co-owner, his wife and son and nine children others were named in the FIR. The ED probe is directed toward Golden Sandhar Mills and related entities as they are allegedly involved in the illegal sale and mortgage of Muafi land leased out for 99 years by Maharaja Jagatjit Singh for running a sugar mill. During the search action, incriminating documents establishing financial trail and uncovering modus operandi were recovered, said the official in a statement. Investigation by the ED revealed that directors and promoters of Golden Sandhar Mills, had illegally sold and mortgaged Muafi land allotted by then Maharaja of Kapurthala, for the purpose of running a sugar mill, thereby generated huge Proceeds of Crime. During the search operations, various incriminating records critical in establishing the financial trail and uncovering the modus operandi were seized. The documents seized by the ED included a copy of the original agreement of 1933, made by Maharaja Jagatjit Singh, as well as later agreements and documents indicating involvement of dummy directors. During the investigation, the ED searched the mill in Phagwara, residential properties in Khurmapur village and a gym in Phagwara allegedly owned by person who was previously a co-owner of the controversial mill. The co-owner of the mill had run the unit along with a UK-based NRI who has not returned to the country since the registration of an FIR by the Vigilance Bureau. Chennai/Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22 : Kerala Devaswom Minister V.N. Vasavan on Thursday formally extended an invitation to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to attend the Global Ayyappa Summit, scheduled to be held on September 20 as part of the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB). The TDB oversees the functioning of all temples in the south Kerala districts, which come under its remit. This includes the Sabarimala temple, dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, located in the Pathanamthitta district amidst the Western Ghats and known for its strict traditions. Lakhs of people visit the temple every year during the two-month-long festival season. The minister, accompanied by senior officials, met Stalin at the Secretariat in Chennai to hand over the invitation. Present at the meeting were Tamil Nadu Devaswom Minister P.K. Sekar Babu, Chief Secretary N. Muruganandam, and top Devasom officials from Kerala. The Global Ayyappa Summit, conceptualised as the largest gathering of devotees in south India, will bring together leaders, religious representatives, and stakeholders to deliberate on strengthening pilgrim welfare and upholding the traditions of Lord Ayyappaas shrine. The two-month-long festival season opens every year on the first day of November according to the Malayalam calendar and ends in the middle of January. The summit is set to take place on the banks of the Pampa River, a sacred site associated with the annual Sabarimala pilgrimage. Pampa is a holy place for all pilgrims as they begin their trek to the temple located on top of the hill after taking the holy dip in the river. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the event, while Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin has been invited as the chief guest. "We will be inviting top leaders from all parties, including the Chief Ministers from various states. Union Ministers also will be invited, besides religious leaders," Vasavan said in Chennai. The summit aims to promote interstate cooperation on pilgrim safety, infrastructure development, and cultural exchange, while also highlighting the significance of Sabarimala as a symbol of faith and unity across southern states. By organising the event in strict adherence to Ayyappa traditions, the Travancore Devaswom Board hopes to reinforce Sabarimalaas spiritual heritage while marking its 75 years of service to devotees. The Global Ayyappa Summit is expected to draw thousands of participants, making it a historic spiritual congregation for the region. Ahmedabad, Aug 22 : A shocking incident at Seventh Day Adventist High School in Khokhra, Ahmedabad, has left the city in grief and anger after a Class 10 student was fatally stabbed by a fellow student. The tragedy sparked massive protests outside the school, where thousands of people -- including the victim's family, members of the Sindhi community, parents, and Hindu organisations -- gathered demanding justice. Ahmedabad, Aug 22 (IANS) A shocking incident at Seventh Day Adventist High School in Khokhra, Ahmedabad, has left the city in grief and anger after a Class 10 student was fatally stabbed by a fellow student. The tragedy sparked massive protests outside the school, where thousands of people -- including the victimas family, members of the Sindhi community, parents, and Hindu organisations -- gathered demanding justice. The crime branch has now booked the school and its principal, Dr. G. Immanuel, for negligence. According to investigators, the school administration failed to inform police about the stabbing and delayed notifying the victimas family. A separate FIR has been lodged against the school under Sections 211 and 239, holding it accountable for lapses that may have contributed to the studentas death. Probe findings revealed serious negligence -- the injured boy was left bleeding for nearly 38 minutes without medical aid. Despite having vehicles on campus, the school did not arrange immediate transport to a hospital, nor did it provide first aid. Authorities allege the school ignored repeated clashes between the accused and the victim in the weeks leading up to the attack, despite clear warnings of escalating violence. The fatal assault was reportedly an act of revenge. The accused student, holding a grudge after a previous altercation, gathered 7a"8 peers after school hours and attacked the victim with a knife. The boy was rushed to hospital but succumbed to his injuries during treatment. Two juveniles have so far been detained in the case. The spotlight has now turned to Dr. Immanuel, the schoolas principal and also president of the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). Parents allege he ignored repeated complaints of bullying and violence within the school. Seventh Day Adventist School is run by the Ashlock Trust under the global Seventh-day Adventist Church organization, which operates thousands of schools and colleges worldwide. The murder has raised serious questions about student safety, school accountability, and the role of administrators in preventing violence on campus. Itanagar, Aug 22 : Arunachal Pradesh Governor Lt. General K.T. Parnaik (Retd.) on Friday suggested an institutionalised training and teaching centre for the indigenous faiths in the state. Indigenous priests, led by Nangram Kani, called on the Governor at Raj Bhavan, Itanagar on Friday and discussed indigenous rituals and practices. A Raj Bhavan official said that the Governor engaged in a meaningful interaction with them, listening to their experiences and gaining valuable insights into the challenges they face as well as the opportunities that lie ahead for promoting and preserving indigenous culture. Lt. General Parnaik (Retd.) called upon the indigenous priests to remain steadfast in upholding their age-old traditions while also adapting their practices in tune with the changing times. He emphasised that rituals should be meaningful and guided by scientific reasoning, ensuring that they continue to serve society positively. Highlighting the importance of safeguarding cultural heritage, the Governor suggested that indigenous rituals and practices must be carefully documented for future generations. He said that such efforts would not only preserve the richness of tribal traditions but also strengthen the identity of the community in the face of rapid modernisation. Suggesting an institutionalised training and teaching centre for the indigenous faiths in Arunachal Pradesh, the Governor said that such a step would ensure the passing on of sacred knowledge to future generations in a structured and sustainable way. He described the indigenous priests as custodians of tribal wisdom and spiritual heritage, entrusted with the god-gifted responsibility of carrying forward the cultural legacy. Lt. General Parnaik (Retd.) urged them to inspire their people to live in harmony with nature, protecting flora and fauna, and fostering a way of life rooted in respect for the environment. The Governor said that the advice and guidance of priests must always be for the good of society, promoting unity, peace, and sustainable living, so that traditional values continue to remain a source of strength and pride for the people. New Delhi, Aug 22 : The current situation in Bangladesh has not only made the country chaotic, but has also given several terror groups a breather. This fresh lease of life given to these terror groups will be directed against India, as that is their larger agenda. With security deteriorating, the Indian agencies have on multiple occasions flagged the threat that is posed by the Jamaat-e-Islami, Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami or Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). While these terror groups are focused on West Bengal and the northeastern states, the name of another terror group has kept the agencies on their toes. The Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), which has a major base in Bangladesh, is now trying to focus its operations in South India. The Intelligence agencies have already picked up chatter that suggests that the HuT is involved in brainwashing, radicalising and recruiting people from the southern states. The focus is on Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. There is a lot of material relating to Palestine that is in circulation. This is being used to recruit youth and also to paint a picture that India is not supportive of the Palestinian cause. The HuT is, however, not the first outfit to use this issue. Almost all terror groups do the same. The HuT is not an outfit that can be taken lightly. It has managed to build a strong base in Bangladesh and also has its presence in India. It was the HuT that had first plotted to topple Sheikh Hasina in 2015. The plan, however, did not go through. During that operation, the HuT had roped in 16 army officers of the Bangladesh army. Today, the HuT seems to be having a free run in Bangladesh, and this only adds to Indiaas worry. In India, the outfit has managed to create a support base. Its base mostly comprises students. However, its supporters are part of proxy groups, and they have organised seminars in New Delhi and other parts of the country. The topic of discussion has only been the Israel-Palestine conflict. Another incident that suggests that the HuT has a big base in India is when around 1,000 members of the groupas proxy came out in protest against the Battle House encounter in 2010. Investigations into the groupas activities have also revealed that it wants to set up hit squads. These hit squads would fall under their newly created Sharia courts. The members would identify people to be killed, and once the Sharia court gives them directions, the job would be executed. Going by the propaganda material that the HuT circulates, apart from hit squad,s it also speaks about the need to have lone wolf attackers. This is probably one of the most lethal forms of terror. A lone wolf operating on his own and who is not part of a dedicated module is extremely hard to track for the Intelligence agencies. When compared to other groups, the HuT could possibly have it easier since it has had a presence in the country for a long time. To understand the larger plan of the HuT in South India, one must revisit the questioning of Faizul Rehman, the Emir of the HuT in Tamil Nadu. He had spoken about the recruitment modules, the plans to incite the youth, create communal tensions and recruit. The HuT had also tried getting in touch with the Pakistan Army to seek help for their operations in India. They also felt that apart from South, the Pakistan Army must help them liberate Jammu and Kashmir. Jaipur, Aug 22 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma has approved key proposals for land allotment aimed at accelerating renewable energy production and infrastructure development in the state, an official said on Friday. According to the decision, 6,771.86 hectares of land has been approved for a 5,000 MW solar park in Ramgarh tehsil of Jaisalmer district, along with 5,113.99 hectares for a 2,700 MW solar park. Additionally, 14,026.87 hectares has been allotted for a 12,500 MW solar park in Fatehgarh tehsil, and 8,582.42 hectares for a 6,200 MW solar park. In Bikaner district, 393.04 hectares of land has been approved in Dinsar and Barala villages of Pugal tehsil. Furthermore, 2,320.46 hectares of land has been allotted across Sawaisar village (Bikaner tehsil), Bikolai village (Bajju tehsil), and Karnisar Bhatiyan village (Pugal tehsil) for renewable energy projects. Under the initiative for parallel road construction in border districts, the Chief Minister has approved 158.0792 hectares of land in Gadrarod tehsil of Barmer and 219.06 hectares in the Jaisalmer sector. This allotment pertains to land required for parallel roads along the India-Pakistan border, based on proposals submitted by District Collectors and the demand of the Central Public Works Department. In another decision, CM Sharma approved the allotment of 38.39 hectares of land in village Bijauli, Bari tehsil of Dholpur district to RIICO for setting up non-polluting industrial units. These approvals mark a significant step towards strengthening Rajasthanas leadership in renewable energy and boosting infrastructure in strategically important areas, said officials. Earlier on Friday, CM Sharma while addressing the 'AI Innovation Summit 2025' organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)'s Jaipur branch, expressed pride that Rajasthan has the highest number of CAs in the country. He said that CAs are the backbone of the country's economic system and play a vital role in nation building. The CM urged all CAs to contribute their skills, knowledge, and hard work in the development of the state and the nation so that the vision of a developed and prosperous Rajasthan can be realised at a faster pace. He added that whenever a new technology emerges, a new regulation is framed or global economic changes occur, CAs are the first to understand, adopt, and guide society in the right direction. "The trust of the common people in Chartered Accountants is immense. It is their responsibility to uphold this trust by embracing technological innovations and guiding society accordingly," he said. Highlighting India's economic growth, the Chief Minister added that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has moved from the 11th largest economy in 2014 to the fourth position today, and will soon become the world's third-largest economic power. Chandigarh, Aug 22 : Affirming the Punjab government's commitment to protecting the personal data of its citizens under 'the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023', Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Cheema on Friday said no individual, including members of the BJP, will be allowed to collect personal data from the public under any pretext. He also questioned whether the BJP would take responsibility for any fraud that might occur as a result of their party members collecting data through camps. Finance Minister Cheema accused the BJP of becoming a "vote thief party" since forming the government at the Centre in 2014, citing numerous incidents of electoral manipulation from the Chandigarh mayoral election to voter irregularities in the Bihar elections. He alleged the BJP's data collection camps in Punjab are a ploy to manipulate voter lists and potentially steal money from the bank accounts of unsuspecting citizens. He emphasised that the Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 was enacted to safeguard citizens' data, ensuring that no private individual can collect personal information without the permission of the competent authority. He highlighted that the BJP's collection of vital documents like Aadhaar and voter cards during these camps is illegal and could lead to serious consequences. The Finance Minister said the BJP's attempts to undermine democracy and tamper with the Constitution, drafted by B.R. Ambedkar, are well known. He pointed to previous instances of voter list manipulation in the Delhi Assembly elections, which were repeatedly brought to the attention of the Election Commission by AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and were also raised by AAP Members of Parliament in the Parliament. Finance Minister Cheema assured the public that the state government is dedicated to delivering the benefits of all government schemes to its people. He said nearly 500 citizen services are being provided at people's doorsteps, and the extensive network of Sewa Kendras across the state continues to assist people in accessing citizen-centric services. Finance Minister Cheema challenged the BJP to work towards a greater good by urging the Central government to release more than Rs 50,000 crore in GST compensation, Rs 8,000 crore in Rural Development Funds, and Rs 1,000 crore for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana that is due to Punjab. Goma, Aug 22 : Rebel group March 23 Movement (M23) on Friday said that it has dispatched a delegation to Qatar's capital Doha, for talks with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Speaking at a press conference in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, which has been under M23 control since late January, M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa stressed that the two-member team was tasked "only with discussing the mechanisms for a ceasefire and the release of prisoners". Talks between the DRC government and the M23 resumed this week in Doha under Qatari mediation, following missed earlier deadlines, according to Radio Okapi, a United Nations-backed outlet in the DRC. The Declaration of Principles signed by both sides on July 19 in Doha called for negotiations toward a peace deal to begin by August 8 and conclude by August 18. Though the timetable lapsed, Qatar circulated a draft agreement last week to both parties. "When we finish this stage, we can move on to something else," Bisimwa said, acknowledging "blockages" in the Doha process. The M23 had earlier insisted that provisions of the declaration, particularly the release of its members detained by the DRC government, be implemented before broader peace talks could advance. The DRC government has yet to respond to the M23's latest remarks but has reiterated its "firm commitment" to constructive dialogue while underscoring its determination to defend national sovereignty and restore lasting peace in the east. Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreed in Doha. Since January, the security situation has deteriorated sharply, with the M23 seizing several strategic towns, including Goma and Bukavu, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the United Nations, more than 27.8 million people in the DRC face food insecurity, with over seven million internally displaced, many of them multiple times. Chennai, Aug 22 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Friday, has hit out at the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, declaring that he was "not qualified" to criticise the Disqualification Bill introduced by the Narendra Modi-led Union government. Addressing a large gathering of booth committee agents in Tirunelveli, Union Home Minister Shah alleged that Chief Minister Stalin's political motives were centred on promoting dynastic succession. "Chief Minister Stalin's only aim is to make Udhayanidhi Stalin the next Chief Minister, just as Sonia Gandhi dreams of making Rahul Gandhi the Prime Minister of the country. But as long as the BJP exists, such dynastic ambitions will never materialise," he said amid loud applause from the party cadre. The meeting was attended by booth in-charges from 28 Assembly constituencies across five Lok Sabha seats -- Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari, Virudhunagar, and Tenkasi -- underscoring the BJP's focus on strengthening its grassroots base in southern Tamil Nadu. Commenting on the Disqualification Bill, Union Minister Shah said that the legislation bars individuals convicted and sentenced to jail from continuing to hold public office. He called it a landmark reform aimed at ensuring accountability and ethical governance. "This Bill is a guarantee that those who face criminal convictions cannot misuse power. Stalin has no qualification to criticise such a law," Union Minister Shah said. The Union Home Minister also used the occasion to highlight the BJP's recognition of Tamil Nadu's contribution to national politics. He announced that senior BJP leader C.P. Radhakrishnan had been nominated as the NDA candidate for the Vice-President, which is a proud moment for Tamil Nadu. "In the next Parliament session, C.P. Radhakrishnan will take charge as Vice-President. It reflects Prime Minister Modi's trust and respect for Tamil Nadu and its people," Union Home Minister Shah remarked. He said that PM Modi had presided over a historic event at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, demonstrating his reverence for Tamil culture and heritage. "It was also the NDA that gave India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as President, further proving our respect for Tamil Nadu's legacy," he added. Union Home Minister Shah praised PM Modi's leadership in matters of national security, particularly citing "Operation Sindoor", which he claimed destroyed terrorist camps in Pakistan. "Prime Minister Modi governs by following the moral path enshrined in Tirukkural -- combining strength with righteousness," he added. Concluding his address, Union Home Minister Shah declared that the BJP-AIADMK alliance was poised to secure 39 per cent of the vote share in Tamil Nadu and form the next government in the state. "The alliance will sweep the state and bring a people-centric government," he said. Mumbai, Aug 22 : Pop diva Shibani Kashyap gave a memorable performance during the World & Us: Indian Festival - New Zealand Chapter 2025. Honourable Prime Minister Christopher Luxon invited Shibani onstage at the Due Drop Events Centre to dance with her at the event. Mumbai, Aug 22 (IANS) Pop diva Shibani Kashyap gave a memorable performance during the World & Us: Indian Festival New Zealand Chapter 2025. Honourable Prime Minister Christopher Luxon invited Shibani onstage at the Due Drop Events Centre to dance with her at the event. Shibani also performed in Hamilton, enchanting the audiences across both cities. Adding a unique cultural touch to her visit, she joined forces with the Maori tribe and the world-renowned Hakka Dancers - the same group that recently performed a fusion with global pop star Billie Eilishcreating a powerful blend of Indian and New Zealand heritage. Not just that, as part of the Indian High Commission's Independence Day celebrations, Shibani also participated in the flag-hoisting ceremony and performed a soulful patriotic song, captivating all those present. The spectacular Due Drop Events Centre came alive with Shibani's powerful voice and magnetic stage presence. Her lively performance celebrated the spirit of India, paying a heartfelt tribute to her homeland during India's 78th Independence Day. This cultural evening, supported by NZICA New Zealand Indian Central Association, was part of a larger series of festivities that lit up Auckland, Hamilton, and Whangarei with vibrant cultural showcases. Shibani expressed her heartfelt gratitude to the High Commission of New Zealand for their warm welcome and support during her visit, saying that it has been an absolute honour to bring the voice of India to the beautiful land of Aotearoa and be part of the World & Us: Indian Festival New Zealand Chapter 2025. "Music has the magical power to dissolve boundaries and connect hearts, and I was overjoyed to share that joy with audiences in Auckland. As we celebrated India's 78th Independence Day, I cherished creating a night filled with melodies, memories, and the spirit of togetherness," said Shibani. Gangtok, Aug 22 : Sikkim University has cancelled the admission of a first-semester M.Com student from Uttar Pradesh after he was found guilty of making derogatory and indecent remarks against the Nepali language and community in an official departmental WhatsApp group, officials said on Friday. The student, identified as Raj Shekhar Yadav, had allegedly posted objectionable comments between August 14 and 16 in the WhatsApp group of the Department of Commerce. His remarks not only insulted the Nepali language but also questioned the observance of Independence Day, triggering widespread outrage across the campus. Following a formal complaint, the university's Disciplinary Committee investigated the matter and concluded that Yadav's conduct was in clear violation of the institution's code of conduct. In its order issued on Thursday, the university said that the committee had found his behaviour divisive and damaging to communal harmony on the campus. The controversy had escalated earlier this week after the Sikkim University Students' Association (SUSA) condemned Yadav's remarks, describing them as "deeply insulting" and "unacceptable in a pluralistic academic environment". The association had also demanded stringent action, stressing that the integrity of the university could not be compromised by hate speech. The matter was subsequently brought to the attention of the police. Authorities confirmed that Yadav's statements had been booked under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, which deals with acts intended to promote enmity or hatred between communities. Registrar (In-charge) Laxuman Sharma, in the university's order, said Vice-Chancellor Prof. Avinash Khare had exercised his powers under Statute 29 (4) of the Sikkim University Act and Ordinance OC-12 to cancel Yadav's provisional admission with immediate effect. "The university has a zero-tolerance policy towards hate speech and divisive conduct. Such behaviour goes against the ethos of academic discipline and cultural respect that the institution upholds," Sharma said. The disciplinary action has been widely welcomed by student groups and faculty members, who said it sends out a strong message against intolerance. SUSA, in its statement, urged students to maintain harmony and mutual respect, calling the decision "a necessary step to preserve the dignity of Sikkim University". Guwahati, Aug 22 : Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday reaffirmed his government's decision to bar the issuance of Aadhaar cards to individuals above 18 years of age in the state, saying the move was aimed at blocking a "major support system" for illegal infiltrators. Guwahati, Aug 22 (IANS) Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday reaffirmed his government's decision to bar the issuance of Aadhaar cards to individuals above 18 years of age in the state, saying the move was aimed at blocking a "major support system" for illegal infiltrators. "Being a border state, we deal with a lot of issues, and we know how to tackle and fix them. We are taking our fight one step ahead by barring the acquisition of Aadhaar by 18+ year olds in Assam, except in rare cases. This will eliminate a major support avenue of the illegal infiltrators," Sarma told reporters in Guwahati. The Chief Minister said that Aadhaar had often been misused by infiltrators to establish false citizenship claims, access welfare benefits, and legitimise their presence in the state. By tightening Aadhaar enrolment, he asserted, Assam was protecting itself against demographic threats arising from unchecked illegal migration. Sarma emphasised that the decision was not intended to deprive genuine Indian citizens but to safeguard the state's interests. "We will have rare exceptions, but the larger goal is clearto ensure that no infiltrator gets an Aadhaar card and later uses it as a weapon to claim Indian identity," he said. On Thursday, Sarma announced the measure after a cabinet meeting, stating that Aadhaar registration of adults in Assam will be suspended for the next 30 days. The government's move follows longstanding concerns over cross-border migration from Bangladesh, which successive governments in the state have described as a threat to the state's demography, culture, and resources. The issue has been politically sensitive in Assam for decades, with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise of 2019 also aimed at detecting and excluding illegal migrants. The Aadhaar restriction is now being projected by the BJP-led government as an additional safeguard. "People of Assam know the pain of illegal infiltration. Our government has continuously pushed back against this menace. This step will further strengthen our resolve," Sarma reiterated. --IANS tdr/dan Ranchi, Aug 22 : The Special Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Court in Ranchi on Friday granted bail to Chhattisgarh businessman Siddharth Singhania and retired IAS officer Amit Prakash in the alleged multi-crore Jharkhand liquor scam. The ACB court had reserved its order on Thursday after hearing detailed arguments from both the prosecution and the defence on Singhaniaas bail plea. The verdict, delivered on Friday, extended relief to the two accused. Earlier, the same court had granted bail to suspended IAS officer Vinay Kumar Chaubey, a former Secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, and two Excise Department officials implicated in the case. The ACB has yet to file a charge sheet in the case despite the lapse of 90 days since the registration of the FIR and arrest of the key accused. As a result, the arrested persons have been able to secure release under the provisions of default bail. Singhania, a prominent liquor businessman from Raipur, was arrested on June 19 after a raid at his residence. He was then brought to Ranchi on transit remand for interrogation. Amit Prakash, a retired Jharkhand-cadre IAS officer, was taken into custody on June 17 after failing to respond to summonses for questioning. During investigations into the Chhattisgarh liquor scam, raids at Singhaniaas Raipur residence led to the recovery of a diary that, according to the ACB, contained details of a "syndicate conspiracy" in Jharkhand. The diary allegedly contained entries on strategies to influence Excise officials, "manage" obstacles in the liquor trade, and secure political and administrative patronage for the cartel. So far, the ACB has named 16 individuals in the Jharkhand liquor scam, of whom 12 have been arrested. However, with Fridayas order, most of the accused -- including senior bureaucrats and businessmen -- have now been released on bail. Windhoek, Aug 22 : Namibia is set to launch a new off-grid electrification program aimed at bringing electricity to communities too far from the national power grid. Announced on Friday, the initiative will complement the existing Solar Revolving Fund, a long-standing state-run credit facility that provides loans for solar systems to both rural and urban residents, Xinhua News Agency reported. Speaking at the commissioning of joint electrification projects in Otjiwarongo, north-central Namibia, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industries, Mines, and Energy Natangue Ithete highlighted the practical challenges of grid expansion. "As we continue to work hard to bring electricity to every Namibian, we should also face our reality," Ithete said. "There are some communities that are too far from the main grid; therefore, connecting them to the grid is a challenge." He noted that the solar systems are high-quality products intended to bring modern electricity to remote communities. "We must take ownership and pride in them," he added. The program focuses on decentralized, sustainable energy solutions to complement ongoing government efforts. Ithete emphasized that development requires collaboration between the state, the private sector, and citizens, with the government providing resources and guidance while partners deliver services and infrastructure. "By 2040, no single Namibian must live without electricity because electricity is a need, not a luxury," said Ithete. The initiative comes as many African nations grapple with the challenges of rural electrification. Namibia is part of the Mission 300 energy compact, an African effort to electrify 300 million households by 2030. For Namibia, this entails 200,000 new connections by 2030 and 400,000 by 2040. Earlier in July, Namibia's Minister of Health and Social Services (MOHSS) Esperance Luvindao stated that Namibia is considering major tax reforms for tobacco and alcohol products to curb rising substance abuse and safeguard public health. She highlighted this when opening a four-day workshop on tobacco and alcohol control policies in the capital, Windhoek. Luvindao said Namibia is committed to the World Health Organization (WHO)'s MPOWER policy package, a comprehensive strategy for tobacco control that includes monitoring use, protecting from smoke, offering cessation help, warning about dangers, enforcing advertising bans, and raising taxes, reported Xinhua news agency. She said Namibia enacted the Tobacco Product Control Act in 2010 and its regulations in 2014. "Within this policy and legislative framework, Namibia has made commendable progress in advancing tobacco control, guided by the WHO MPOWER Strategy." Luvindao said the harmful use of tobacco and alcohol continues to burden the health system, and it is among the contributing factors to preventable illness and deaths. "It is clear that further deterrent actions are required, particularly in the area of tax reforms, to discourage consumption of these products," she said. According to Luvindao, the MOHSS, with the support of the WHO, has developed a national strategic plan and is in the process of reviewing the Tobacco Act for amendment to regulate the new, emerging tobacco and nicotine products, including but not limited to hookah, e-cigarettes, and vapes. Geneva, Aug 22 : The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on Friday urged global action to address the escalating health threats posed by extreme heat to workers worldwide. The year 2024 marked the hottest one on record, with daytime temperatures exceeding 40 degrees centigrade, even 50 degrees centigrade in some regions, a phenomenon which is becoming increasingly common, according to a comprehensive report and technical guidance jointly released by the WHO and WMO, Xinhua News Agency reported. "Heat stress is already harming the health and livelihoods of billions of workers, especially in the most vulnerable communities," said Jeremy Farrar, assistant director-general for health promotion, disease prevention and care at the WHO. Health risks including heatstroke, dehydration, kidney dysfunction and neurological disorders are undermining the long-term health and economic stability of workers worldwide, said the report, adding that approximately half of the global population have already experienced adverse effects from high temperatures. Occupational heat stress has become a global challenge, not just confined to countries close to the Equator, as highlighted by the recent heatwave in Europe, said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. "Protection of workers from extreme heat is not just a health imperative but an economic necessity," Barrett said. The guidance outlines a multi-stakeholder approach to mitigate risks, including developing national policies, prioritizing vulnerable groups, as well as fostering collaboration among governments, employers, trade unions and health experts. Meanwhile, a Barcelona-based climatologist said that the devastating wildfires sweeping across Spain this summer should serve as a warning to the rest of Europe about the rising dangers of climate change. "This is a warning to countries that have traditionally enjoyed temperate, cool summers... because these conditions of intense heat will increase in latitude and will reach these countries," Javier Martin-Vide, climatologist and professor of physical geography at the University of Barcelona, told Xinhua. According to Thursday's update from the European Forest Fire Information System, wildfires have scorched 403,171 hectares of land in Spain so far this year. Around 350,000 hectares were destroyed in just the past two weeks, coinciding with a severe heat wave that began in early August. Martin-Vide emphasised that climate models point to worsening conditions in the coming decades. "Adaptation is key to reducing the risk," he said, noting that temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in central and northern Europe will pose serious challenges to societies less accustomed to extreme heat. He called for stronger prevention measures and better landscape management, highlighting the effects of rural depopulation. "The woods are not as clean as in the past, when there were cattle, sheep, goats grazing and eating the vegetation that now acts as the fuel that starts a forest fire," he explained. The climatologist urged innovative strategies, including the creation of "mosaic landscapes with forest areas interspersed with cultivated fields," to make land more defensible against blazes. Chandigarh, Aug 22 : Within 59 days of arrest, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Friday filed a 40,000-page charge sheet in a Mohali court against Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who was arrested in a disproportionate assets case. The chargesheet exposed Rs 700 crore illegal assets, cited testimonies of 200 witnesses and detailed 400 bank accounts with raids across Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi. Statements of several Akali Dal and BJP leaders were also recorded. The Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia from his post residence in Amritsar on June 25. Heas currently in judicial custody at New Nabha jail near Patiala. Earlier this week, the Mohali court rejected the bail plea of Majithia after holding a day-to-day hearing for at least 10 days. Public prosecutor Ferry Sofat had said the bail application was dismissed on two grounds: First, an investigation is underway and second, the serious nature of the alleged offences. On August 14, the court extended his judicial custody till August 28. Earlier, he was sent to judicial custody on July 6, and his judicial remand was extended on July 19 and on August 2. Majithiaas counsel had rejected the allegations as politically motivated. Counsel emphasised that Majithia had resigned as Director of Saraya Industries before entering public life and that many entries relied upon by the probe are reflected in income tax returns and assessments. Also, Majithiaas counsel argued the allegations in the present FIR overlap with those in the earlier NDPS case, where the prosecution had portrayed the same funds as "drug money". They contended that the Vigilance Bureau is now re-characterising the same money as disproportionate assets, amounting to a second FIR on identical allegations. The Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia on charges of laundering more than Rs 540 crore of drug money. Investigations by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the police probing the first information report (FIR) of 2021 and the Vigilance Bureau revealed massive laundering of drug money facilitated by Majithia, the government has said. Preliminary investigations revealed that more than Rs 540 crore of drug money has been laundered through several ways, including a huge unaccounted cash of Rs 161 crore deposited in bank accounts of companies controlled by Majithia, channelisation of Rs 141 crore through suspected foreign entities and excess deposition of Rs 236 crore without disclosure or explanation in company financial statements. Also, the government has said there is an acquisition of movable and immovable assets by Majithia without any legitimate source of income. A Vigilance Bureau spokesperson has told the media that it has registered a case based on a report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) registered under Sections 25, 27-A and 29 of the NDPS Act, wherein substantial evidence has been uncovered indicating massive laundering of drug money by Majithia. --IANS vg/vd Quetta, Aug 22 : A leading human rights organisation on Friday expressed concern after the Pakistani Navy recently carried out unannounced missile strikes in the mountainous regions of Omara, Kolwah, and Awaran in Balochistan, sparking fear and anxiety among local communities. Citing testimonies and video evidence that emerged on August 17, Paank, the Baloch National Movement's Human Rights Department, stated that multiple missiles were launched from the Jinnah Naval Base in Ormara on July 11, directed toward the rugged mountain ranges of central Balochistan. According to the rights body, the areas where the missiles struck are not uninhabited, and families relied on mountain pastures for livestock grazing, which form the backbone of the local economy. "Our entire life is tied to the mountains. Our livestock are the backbone of our economy. Such unannounced missile tests are a threat to our lives and property." Paank quoted one of the residents as saying. The rights body asserted that such unannounced strikes have traumatized local populations and created uncertainty about the safety of their environment. The fallout of missile debris in areas close to human settlements and grazing lands, it said, represents a serious human rights concern. Condemning the incident, the rights body stated that it reflected a broader pattern in which Balochistan has repeatedly been used as a testing ground for Pakistan's missile program. It highlighted that in 2005, Pakistan tested its first cruise missile, the Hatf-7 Babur, in Balochistan, which is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. Additionally, on May 4, 2025, Pakistan tested the Abdali missile in Balochistan, reportedly with a range of 450 km. "The unannounced nature of these missile strikes, carried out without warning to the civilian population, represents a serious violation of human rights. Local communities have the right to safety and security, yet their lives, livelihoods, and environment continue to be endangered by repeated military activities in these regions," Paank emphasised. "The July 11 missile strikes in Ormara, Kolwah, and Awaran illustrate a continued pattern in which civilian populations in Balochistan bear the direct impact of military testing activities. With debris falling near inhabited areas and grazing lands, communities remain under constant fear, and their survival tied to fragile mountain ecosystems is increasingly at risk," it added. Paank called for urgent international scrutiny of these actions by Pakistan, which are contrary to human rights norms and pose a wider threat to peace and stability. Ahmedabad, Aug 22 : BJP leader Rohan Gupta, on Friday, has supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strong stance against terrorism, asserting that India's defence policy under his leadership has drawn a "new line of resolve". Guptaas remarks came after PM Modi declared that "no one will be able to escape by sending terrorists and carrying out attacks in India," citing the success of Operation Sindoor. The BJP leader also praised PM Modias uncompromising approach towards terrorism. Speaking to IANS, BJP leader Gupta said, "PM Modi has given a clear message that there will be no compromise with terrorism. Before the Narendra Modi government came to power, one would often hear audio announcements at railway stations or bus stands warning people to check suspicious items because they might be bombs. But today, India has changed. PM Modi is advancing the policy of zero tolerance, and it is his vow to eradicate terrorism in the coming days. The entire government is united in this commitment. Whether it is Jammu and Kashmir or any corner of the country, terrorism has to be rooted out." He also reacted to a viral video showing Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar singing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) anthem, "Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume," during an address in the state Assembly. "His gesture is a signal, the meaning of which will become clearer in the coming days. He himself admitted that he is assessing the work done by the RSS. Now it is up to the Congress leadership to decide what message this conveys. The fact that senior leaders like Shivakumar are singing the RSS anthem is remarkable. Even today, such statements about the RSS have surprised many. It is for the Congress and its allies to judge what this means politically," BJP leader Gupta told IANS. The viral clip has sparked intrigue across the political spectrum, given Congress' longstanding opposition to the RSS, widely seen as the ideological backbone of the ruling BJP and known for its nationalist philosophy. The exchange unfolded after Shivakumar, in response to Opposition's criticism, highlighted his wide-ranging knowledge and experience. "I also have all types of knowledge to counter you. I might not have been groomed in your school, but I have been groomed in Parameshwara's school," he retorted, referring to senior Congress leader G. Parameshwara. Reacting to Shivakumar's comment, BJP leader and Karnataka Leader of Opposition R. Ashoka reminded Shivakumar of his past remarks about having worn the RSS' trademark khaki shorts during his childhood. Opposition leader Ashoka's jibe referenced Shivakumar's earlier admission that he had attended an RSS branch in Bengaluruas Rajajinagar neighbourhood as a boy. Moscow: Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday criticised the role of European leaders to resolve Security Guarantees without Moscow's involvement, terming it a "road to nowhere" while sounding an alarm to Ukraine's allies, who are involved in "a fairly aggressive escalation of the situation, rather clumsy and, in general, unethical attempts" to change President Trump's outlook on Kyiv. Lavrov evaded any direct reference to the Putin-Zelensky meeting. "Russia never exaggerates its interests. But, will ensure its legitimate interests firmly and harshly. I am sure that the West, and above all the US, understands perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia," he stated. It may be recalled that in April 2022, Russia and Ukraine negotiated Security Guarantees as part of the Istanbul Agreement, the framework for a settlement. Security Guarantees or some sort of Security Assurances from a collection of countries including Russia as a neutral Security Guarantor state in Ukraine should be protected within its territory after the war. China and Russia being guarantors and the members of UN Security Council can use veto power to Russian aggression. The Security Guarantees anticipated no deployment of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil, non-conduct of military exercises without the consent of each guarantor. This is what Russia has in mind and the present Security Guarantees go far beyond. It means some sort of alliance between Ukraine and European countries, without Ukraine joining NATO. This is completely unacceptable to Russia. Each side has been telling what each side wanted to hear, particularly Ukraine, the US and European countries. Russia would not accept any European Security Guarantees from Keir Starmer or from Emmanuel Macron. Post-Monday's meeting between President Donald Trump with Zelensky along with seven European leaders in Washington, Trump discussed with Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban on August 19, Budapest as the credible venue for the bilateral summit involving Putin and Zelensky. Hungary has offered to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Potential locations like Budapest, Geneva, Vienna, Istanbul, Riyadh and Doha have emerged for the bilateral as well as trilateral meetings. The message from Trump to the eight European leaders, including Zelensky, was straightforward and truthful. Trump told Fox News, "I assume you've all seen the map. A big chunk of territory is taken and that chunk of territory has been taken." In different ways, the Russia-Ukraine war symbolized Russia's war against NATO expansionism. It is Trump who has pushed Russia and Ukraine to end the war. The origins of the Russia-Ukraine war can be traced to the historical, cultural and political ties that have bound and divided Russia and Ukraine over centuries. Trump wants to accelerate the timeline of these meetings. For the meeting location, the White House is pro-actively looking for a neutral venue. Trump meanwhile, has ruled out putting American boots on the Ukrainian soil as a Security Guarantee measure, but mentioned that American air support might be provided as part of the deal. In an interview with the "Fox and Friends" programme of Fox News, Trump underscored "When it comes to Security, (Europeans) are willing to put people on the ground. We are willing to help them with things, especially, probably by air." Russia itself would provide Security Guarantees to Ukraine. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, the US Vice-President, J D Vance noted, "I think we should be helpful if it's necessary to stop the war and to stop the killing. But I think that we should expect, and the president certainly expects, Europe to play the leading role here." Vance reiterated that the US should not have to "carry the burden" of supporting and sustaining Kyiv's post-war security. With Trump and the US disengaging, the role of Europe becomes more important to continue to support Ukraine. Many in the EU do not seem to understand that not only Ukraine, but Russia is also part of Europe. NATO and the EU are running a propaganda war. But Russia's war on Ukraine is larger in scale and has far deeper consequences for Europe. As Trump's diplomatic moves command to halt the Russia-Ukraine war, the backers of Zelensky, the European leaders are sabotaging the peace deal or the peace plan. Centrists in three powerful countries of Europe, France, Germany and the UK are creating difficult times for internal governance by fomenting war scares. Centrists are desperate and their policies are ineffectual. Europe's New Right or European New Right (ENR) have skepticism towards the EU and display alignment and sympathy with Russia. Apparently, ENR's realistic and constructive policies towards Russia will be convincing. Separately, a day before the meeting between Trump, Zelensky and European leaders on Monday, Ukrainian drones struck the Nikolskoye oil pumping station in the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia's Tambov region. Ukraine intentionally attacked the Nikolskoye oil pumping station. Russian crude oil flows to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba oil pipeline which was halted on Monday. The strike on the Nikolskoye oil pumping station was the second Ukrainian attack. Ukrainian drone strikes regularly hit Russian refineries making them fully or partly offline. Russian fuel prices have surged and refineries were damaged after a slew of Ukrainian drone attacks such as, Syzran, Volgograd, Slavyansk, Afpisky, Ilsky, Saratov, Novokuibyshevsk, Ryazan, oil depot in Sochi and Uniecha oil pumping station in the Druzhba oil pipeline system in Russia's Bryansk region. Unlike many other European countries, Hungary and Slovakia have maintained reliance on Russian energy through the Druzhba oil pipeline. Last year, Russia supplied 4.78 million metric tonnes or nearly 95,000 bpd of oil to Hungary via the Druzhba oil pipeline. According to the Hungarian government figures, in 2024, Ukraine imported 7704x1014 watt of electricity, which is around 40 per cent of Ukraine's total needs. Additionally in 2025, Ukraine imported 1.65 bcm of natural gas from Hungary. Western allies of Ukraine are frustrated over Hungary blocking Ukraine's entry into the EU. The EU is now exploring ways to bypass Budapest's obstruction. Notably, ahead of the Putin-Trump meeting in Anchorage, Orban had already declared that "Russia has won the war". Hungary has refused to send arms and weapons to Ukraine. Clearly, if European countries get more involved in Ukraine's Security Guarantees, it will signal the continuation of the deadliest conflict since the Second World War. (The writer is an expert on South Asia and Eurasia. He was formerly with Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. Views expressed are personal) Washington, Aug 22 : Tara Chand, President of Baloch American Congress, on Friday slammed the Pakistani judiciary over the continued detention of Mahrang Baloch, the chief organiser of the human rights organisation Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) along with other BYC leaders who are being kept behind bars without any charges and repeatedly forced to appear in court. The remarks came after a Quetta court on Friday ordered to place Mahrang, Bebo Baloch, Gul Zadi, Sabghtullah, Beberg Baloch, and Imran Baloch on another 15-day remand, drawing sharp criticism from several human rights activists. aThe judge in Quetta, Balochistan, should be ashamed that Dr. Mahrang Baloch and the BYC leadership are being kept in jail without any charges, forced to appear in court again and again. There is no evidence against them, yet they remain imprisoned at the behest of the government and military agencies. The only reason is that the BYC leadership speaks the truth and defends the rights of Balochistan," Chand, also a former Cabinet Minister in the Government of Balochistan, posted on X. aToday, the people of Balochistan have risen, and they will never bow before the fake Pakistani judges who serve only the intelligence agencies. We are proud of the Baloch nation, its people are fighting for freedom and cannot be subdued. These judges should feel deep shame; instead of sitting on their chairs, they ought to drown in their own disgrace," the post added. Chand appealed to human rights organisations across the world to raise their voices for the freedom of Mahrang Baloch and the BYC, to press for sanctions on Pakistan, and to condemn this terrorist state that is committing genocide against the Baloch nation. The US-based Baloch leader alleged that Pakistani agencies and their "shameless Punjabi" civil and military rulers are only interested in plundering the valuable resources of Balochistan. Despite this wealth, he said the people of Balochistan are forced to live lives of pain and poverty because of the exploitation and oppression of the Pakistani rulers. Meanwhile, condemning the verdict another human rights body Baloch Voice for Justice (BVJ) emphasised that the judicial attitude does not appear impartial but rather seems to be under the pressure of state institutions in Pakistan, making it clear that the judiciary is involved in complying with the orders of specific state institutions instead of fulfilling its constitutional and legal duties. The rights body urged the international human rights organisations to take immediate notice of the judiciaryas bias and the illegal influence of state institutions in Pakistan. It also demanded transparent investigations into extrajudicial arrests and human rights violations, and ensuring a fair, independent, and transparent judicial process in the cases of BYC leaders, so that justice can be provided in accordance with international human rights standards. Washington: By any measure, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has crossed a diplomatic red line. Standing on American soil during his second visit to the United States in as many months, Munir delivered a barely veiled nuclear threat against India. He bluntly warned that should Pakistan feel threatened, even by something as seemingly technical as Indian hydropower projects on the Indus River and its tributaries, it would be prepared to plunge South Asia into nuclear conflict. "We are a nuclear nation," Munir reportedly said at a US military event in Tempa, Florida, to mark the change of command at US Central Command (CENTCOM) on August 8. "If we think we are going down, we'll take half the world down with us We will wait for India to build a dam, and when it does so, phir 10 missile sey faarigh kar dengey [we will destroy it with 10 missiles] Humein missilon ki kami nahin hai, al-Hamdulillah [we have no shortage of missiles, praise be to God]." That the chief of Pakistan's military, who exercises far more real power than the country's civilian leadership, would make such remarks is troubling enough. That he made them in the United States, at an event tied to the US military's own Central Command, makes this more than just a regional provocation. It is a moment that demands Washington's attention, and its response. To anyone who has watched South Asia's security politics for decades, Munir's outburst is not an isolated tantrum. It is part of a well-worn pattern in Pakistan's strategic toolkit where it uses nuclear brinkmanship to shield and enable lower-intensity proxy warfare, particularly in Kashmir. This pattern was visible before the April 22 Pahalgam massacre, where terrorists killed 26 tourists in Jammu and Kashmir after segregating them based on religion. Few days prior to that attack, Asim Munir intensified his communal propaganda against India by proclaiming that Hindus and Muslims were fundamentally different and therefore incompatible to live together. This insidious call was interpreted a dangerous cue to terror outfits that have long been nourished by Pakistan's security establishment. For those familiar with the language of Pakistan-sponsored regional militancy, such statements often function as signals, granting implicit sanction for violence while providing plausible deniability for Rawalpindi and Islamabad. By raising nuclear threats over India's harnessing of its water resources by proposed hydroelectric projects, Munir is doing more than sabre-rattling. He is creating an atmosphere in which Pakistan's hand-in-glove relationship with terrorist proxies can operate with the implicit protection of a nuclear umbrella. This is not new, but it is newly dangerous in the current geopolitical climate. If these statements had been made in Rawalpindi or Islamabad, the international community might have responded with routine condemnation and then moved on. But Munir's choice of venue, which is a US military event, makes this a direct challenge to Washington's credibility as a responsible leader of global security norms. It should be noted that the United States has long asserted itself as a champion for nuclear restraint and non-proliferation. For instance, for decades, it has been pressuring Iran into giving up its nuclear programme through implemented sanctions and recently through targeted strikes on Iranian nuclear sites despite Tehran's claims of its nuclear programme being strictly civilian in nature. For a Pakistani army chief to stand on US soil and openly threaten nuclear war against the partner of the US, all in silence from the US, would be a detriment to decades of American diplomatic juggling. Therefore, it goes beyond simply India-Pakistan relations. Munir's remarks also highlight a deeper, more unsettling truth, which is that Pakistan remains one of the few nuclear-armed states where the arsenal is firmly under military control than the civilian government. And with its history of nurturing dozens of terror groups for decades, whom it has recurrently used against its neighbours from Afghanistan to India, this creates a dangerous nexus in which nuclear custody and extremist networks are not institutionally separated. The risk is not hypothetical. In a crisis, given its history, there is possibility that Pakistan's military could leverage its nuclear assets not only as a deterrent against India but as a coercive shield for terrorist operations. If the situation in that country were to devolve into a situation characterized by extreme internal instability, whether political or due to radicalization within the military ranks, it could potentially create vulnerabilities that could be exploited by extremist groups, who are increasingly powerful, to gain access to nuclear materials or delivery systems. When the same chain command that is responsible for nuclear weapons is also a patron of militant groups, the world is right to worry about the potential for catastrophic convergence. Munir's casual invocation of "10 missiles" over a dam project should not be mistaken for empty bluster. Rather it provides a window into how Pakistan's military leadership thinks about the utility of its arsenal. India swiftly condemned Munir's incendiary remarks, urging the international community to "draw its own conclusions about the irresponsibility inherent in such statements," which, it noted, "only reinforce long-held doubts over the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state whose military operates in concert with terrorist groups." The Ministry of External Affairs reiterated that "India will not succumb to nuclear blackmail" and voiced particular regret that such threats were issued "from the soil of a friendly third country." The Pahalgam massacre remains a grim reminder of what happens when militant violence is encouraged under the cover of rhetorical hostility. It was not random violence, but targetted messaging. As such, Munir's nuclear posturing could easily be read as laying the groundwork for similar operations. By inflating a water dispute into an existential threat, he creates both a justification for violence and an implied warning to the international community, which is that any pressure on Pakistan will force it to "go nuclear." This framing is a strategic trap, which is one that Washington and the broader international community should be careful not to walk into by treating such rhetoric as bluster to be ignored. The question now is whether the United States will treat this as the provocation it is. Silence will be read in both Islamabad and New Delhi as a tacit acceptance of Munir's escalation. A measured but firm response would not only reaffirm US commitment to nuclear restraint but also regain trust in India, its strategic partner, after recent differences over trade tariffs. It would also send a clear message to Pakistan's military establishment that its old playbook of mixing nuclear threats with proxy warfare will not be tolerated on American soil. Asim Munir's rhetoric should not be easily dismissed as mere theatrics. Instead, it signifies a mindset that is deeply rooted into the military thinking of Pakistan, where nuclear weapons are not only a last resort deterrent, but a political shield for its sub-conventional warfare through dozens of proxy terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad or Hizbul Mujahideen, particularly against India in Kashmir. The fact that Munir felt he could make these comments in the United States without fear of diplomatic chastening is telling. The world has seen what happens when dangerous rhetoric is ignored until after the violence begins. And in South Asia, the stakes are even higher especially when Pakistan's military establishment has shown a willingness to gamble with both terrorism and now threatening nuclear escalation. Kolkata, Aug 22 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday defended the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill and asserted that jailed ministers cannot hold office. Addressing a public meeting at Dum Dum Central Jail ground, PM Modi lambasted the INDIA bloc parties, including Trinamool Congress, for opposing the bill and shielding corrupt leaders. "We decided to bring in a law that will not allow a corrupt chief minister, or even the Prime Minister, to hold office, if he or she spends 30 days in jail. But when we brought in such a law, 'INDI' bloc parties like Congress and Trinamool Congress started opposing it. They got angry because they don't want to be punished for their crimes," said the Prime Minister. At the same time, he also took a dig at former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. "It is a shame that even a chief minister, after going to jail, has been running the government from there." Shifting his focus to Trinamool Congress, PM Modi said even after going to jail, two TMC ministers refused to step down from their posts. "Two TMC ministers, even after going to jail on corruption charges, were not willing to give up their posts. Cash worth crores was recovered from the house of one such minister. It was in plain sight the kind of corruption they were part of. Yet they want to hold on to their post. Should they be allowed to carry on? Shouldn't they be put behind bars? Those who are arrested on corruption charges, how can they be part of the government and remain in their posts? Modi will not allow this," the PM said. It was an apparent reference to former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested in connection with the teachers' recruitment scam, and Jyoti Priya Mallick, who was arrested in the ration distribution scam. "For the past 11 years, the country has been waging a determined battle against corruption. In this regard, we have taken a significant step forward by introducing an anti-corruption Bill in the Lok Sabha. Under existing laws, if a government employee is caught and incarcerated without securing bail within 50 hours, they are automatically suspended from their position. But no such provisions exist for a chief minister, a prime minister, or a minister," he said. On Wednesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025, which seeks to remove a Central or State Minister who is facing allegations of corruption or serious offences and has been detained for at least 30 days or over an offence that carries a jail term of five years or more, even if not convicted. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched a scathing attack against the Trinamool Congress by saying crime and corruption have become the identity of the Mamata Banerjee-led party and asserted that only the BJP can bring 'asol paribartan' (real change) in West Bengal. Addressing a public meeting at Dum Dum Central Jail ground near Kolkata, PM Modi said, "There is only one cry in Bengal now. TMC ke sorao, Bangla ke bachao (remove TMC to save Bengal). Today, crime and corruption have become the identity of TMC. Unless TMC is removed from power, the real change cannot take place. Real change means providing security to women, putting corrupted leaders in jail and not in ministry and improving the lives of the people." The Prime Minister also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of amassing central funds meant for the welfare of the people. "There is a need to have a BJP government in West Bengal to usher in overall development of the state. Funds sent for development projects are being looted here by the TMC. The fund is not used for the welfare of the people. But the same is used on TMC cadres. That's why West Bengal is lagging behind in development. People are now saying that 'TMC Jabe, BJP asbe'. (BJP will come, once TMC is ousted)," he said. The Prime Minister also criticised the TMC government for creating roadblocks before the Centre in implementing development projects. "TMC has become an enemy of development. The TMC government has refused to be part of the Centre's smart-city mission. TMC's mission is to stop the BJP here and its government's schemes. Will this kind of politics help Bengal prosper? Will this help anyone? Give the BJP a chance in Bengal. We will usher in overall development in the state," he said. He further criticised the Mamata Banerjee government for supporting infiltrators in the state due to its appeasement politics and asserted that only the BJP can stop infiltration in Bengal. "We want to give employment to our citizens. We want to help them. But we won't allow infiltrators who are torturing our people to live in the country. But it is unfortunate that TMC, along with INDI alliance partners, are supporting the infiltrators for their appeasement politics. Demography is being changed in border areas," he said. The Prime Minister said those who are living in the country by making false identity cards will have to leave the country. "For that, TMC needs to go from power, as it supports such people," he said. Earlier in the day, PM Modi inaugurated and laid the foundation of projects worth Rs 5,200 crore, including three new stretches of the Kolkata Metro, and an elevated corridor in adjacent Howrah. PM Modi visited the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he flagged off the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar Metro service. In addition, through video conferencing, he also flagged off the Sealdah-Esplanade Metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay Metro service. He also undertook a Metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. "It is a matter of pride that India boasts the third-largest Metro network in the world. Remarkably, prior to 2014, the country had only 250 km of Metro routes. Today, that figure has exceeded 1,000 km. This marks a big step towards improved urban mobility and seamless connectivity Cities like Kolkata are a rich identity of both India's history and our future," the PM said, after the foundation stone-laying ceremony. Quetta, Aug 22 : A Baloch family protesting the enforced disappearance of their son by Pakistani forces continued its sit-in demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club for the 18th consecutive day on Friday. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) mentioned that Zahid Ali, a 25-year-old International Relations student at the University of Karachi, was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces on July 17, along with his rickshaw, which he drove part-time to support his family. "For 36 days, Zahid's whereabouts have remained unknown. His father, Abdul Hameed a hepatitis patient whose health is worsening continues to sit in protest outside the Karachi Press Club, refusing to leave without his son. Despite rain, heat, and exhaustion, the family's determination has not wavered," the BYC stated. The rights body called on students, civil society, rights defenders, and journalists to join the family, amplify their voice, and demand Zahid's safe release. On the other hand, marking the 38th consecutive day, the Baloch families continued their sit-in protest in Islamabad, demanding the release of BYC leaders and an end to enforced disappearances in Balochistan. "For over a month, these families have braved extreme weather, harassment, and restrictions, yet their call for justice remains steadfast," the rights body stated. The BYC mentioned that Pakistani authorities on Friday once again extended the illegal detention of Mahrang Baloch and other BYC leaders for another 15 days. This extension, without due process, it said, highlights Pakistan's ongoing attempt to silence voices demanding an end to enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Meanwhile, Paank, the Baloch National Movement's Human Rights Department, mentioned that at least two Baloch youth were forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces in Balochistan amid an escalating wave of enforced disappearance across the province. The rights body stated that on August 20, Kamal Baloch, a resident of the Gwrkop area of Kech district, was detained in Turbat city and forcibly disappeared by Pakistani security forces. Kamal worked as a hair cutter in a barber shop to support his family. Additionally, on Thursday, Pakistani security forces conducted a raid in the Balgater area of Kech district, during which Tariq Baloch, a local driver by profession, was forcibly disappeared. Furthermore, the rights body expressed concern over the news of the arrest of two Baloch journalists, Dauran Baloch and Mir Hazar Khan Baloch, from Balochistan's Quetta by the Pakistani state's Eagle Forces on Thursday. According to the rights body, there is a history of Pakistan's continuous attack on free and impartial journalism in Balochistan to hide its gross human rights violations. They have earlier abducted and executed journalists Ilyas Nizar Baloch, Razzaq Gul, Naseer Baloch, Lala Latif, and plenty of others who were active in the field of journalism to contribute to their respective domains. Paank denounced such acts by Pakistani authorities to curb the free and fair space of journalism in Balochistan and called on the international community to intervene to safeguard the rights of journalists in the region. Shillong, Aug 22 : Meghalaya Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh, on Friday, admitted that the state's healthcare institutions are not adequately equipped to deal with the complex medical challenges posed by drug addiction and announced plans to strengthen long-term treatment facilities. "Drug use in Meghalaya is scaling to alarming heights. As Health Minister, I am aware of the fact that our institutions are not yet prepared to handle the complex treatment required for these cases. We are working on it and trying our best to establish an efficient, rolling health facility to address this crisis," Lyngdoh told reporters here. She said that an inter-departmental committee has been formed, comprising representatives from the health, social welfare and education departments, to chalk out a comprehensive plan. "They will jointly pen down the compulsory steps that need to be taken immediately," she added. The Minister said the state government is also considering redeploying underutilised medical facilities such as community health centres (CHCs) for drug addiction treatment. "If a CHC is redundant in terms of patient use, we should redesignate it to ensure it is utilised properly, especially for drug rehabilitation," she noted. Lyngdoh's remarks come in the wake of a disturbing incident in which a school student was allegedly attacked and stabbed with a needle, potentially exposing her to health risks. She said such cases, though sporadic, are alarming and require both law enforcement action and deeper assessment of circumstances. Highlighting the state's Drug Reduction, Elimination and Action Mission (DREAM) policy, Lyngdoh said it provides an opportunity for "multipronged intervention, redressal and corrective measures". She stressed the importance of institutionalising drug treatment through a mix of medical, social and community-driven efforts. "We are seized with the problem and determined to ensure DREAM doesn't remain confined to government preparedness but evolves into a strong institutional mechanism," she said. The Minister also announced that a fully dedicated drug treatment centre would soon be established in Shillong and Tura. She also highlighted the recent setting up of an all-women rehabilitation centre, terming it a "significant milestone" in the state's fight against substance abuse. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Friday, criticised the opposition parties for fielding a candidate for Vice-Presidential election, knowing well that his defeat is certain. He said it was not unfair on part of the Opposition to expect TDP support despite the fact that TDP is a partner in the NDA governments, both at the Centre and in Andhra Pradesh. Chief Minister Naidu was talking to media persons after calling on NDA candidate for the Vice-Presidential election, C. P. Radhakrishnan, here. Accompanied by Union Ministers belonging to the TDP and some party MPs, Chief Minister Naidu met C.P. Radhakrishnan and extended support to him. "Why announce a Telugu leader as Vice-Presidential candidate knowing defeat was certain," he asked while questioning the decision of INDIA bloc to field former Supreme Court judge B. Sudershan Reddy as their candidate. "Politics not important. TDP was part of the NDA even before the elections. Once NDA fielded its candidate, why did they field a candidate when the defeat is certain," he asked. "How can they expect? We are in an alliance with NDA. How can it be expected that we will support another candidate?" the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister remarked when his reaction was sought to an appeal made by Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy to TDP and all other parties from Telugu states to back the candidature of Sudershan Reddy. Stating that TDP is for Telugu community, the TDP Chief recalled that when former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao contested Lok Sabha elections, TDP made the sacrifice for the Telugu leader though it was fighting the Congress. "Telugu Desam Party is for Telugu community. That is a different issue. We are in alliance. Our party is having ethics, credibility. We have built this credibility over a period of five decades. How can you expect all these things," he asked. "If anybody compares candidature-wise, he (Radhakrishnan) is the best candidate everybody has to support. If the majority is there, it is a very dignified post," he said and exuded confidence that the NDA candidate will win with comfortable majority. New Delhi, Aug 22 : Incriminating documents and digital devices were seized and a Zimbabwe national was arrested by the ED during searches at multiple locations in Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh in a case related to seizure of cocaine worth Rs 43 crore in Goa in April, said an official on Friday. The searches were conducted by EDas Panaji Zonal Office on August 19 in the case of Nibu Vincent alias Wilson and others in a case related to the delivery of narcotics, after which the federal probe agency froze multiple bank accounts which were used in money laundering activities. Tariro Mangwana, a Zimbabwe national, was arrested under section 19 of the PMLA, 2002. The Special Court under PMLA at Goa has remanded the accused in ED Custody for three days, said an ED statement. The Rs 43-crore cocaine haul was among the biggest by the Goa Police in April. The contraband was hidden in coffee, wafer packets and chocolate and targeted to be sold in Goa, according to the Goa Police, who arrested three accused. The 4.3 kg cocaine was seized from Chicolna in Mormugao taluka by the police. Along with the arrest of Vincent, a resident of Vasco, the police had arrested Reshma Wadekar and her husband, Manguesh Wadekar, both from Mormugao. Reshma, who had travelled to Thailand before her arrest, had a previous criminal background with a prostitution case registered against her, the police said. Her husband, a worker at a crematorium in Mormugao, was also involved in a crime, the police said. Investigators said they had received information that a group of people was planning to deliver a consignment of drugs. In a separate matter, the EDas Mumbai office restituted movable properties worth Rs 45.26 crore belonging to Sagar Suryawanshi Group to the Liquidator of Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank in a case against Vinay Vivek Aranha and others (Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank fraud) under Section 8(8) of the PMLA Act. Malaysia operator CelcomDigi announced CEO Datuk Idham Nawawi (pictured) will step down from the market leader, citing personal reasons. In a statement, the company said Nawawi will leave on August 31, after three years at the helm, during which he oversaw the integration of Celcom and Digi following their 2022 merger. He will remain as an advisor to the board until the end of November to support the leadership team during the transition phase. Nawawi became CEO of Celcom in 2018 when it was still Celcom Axiata, joining from his previous role as Axiatas group chief corporate officer. The operator hailed him for revitalising performance and driving a new way of operation. He was also credited with being instrumental in gaining regulatory approval for the CelcomDigi merger. Deputy CEO Albern Murty will assume the role of acting CEO from September 1, while continuing his duties as deputy. CelcomDigi chair Tengku Dato Sri Azmil Zahruddin said Nawawi had laid the foundation for future growth for the operator. On his departure, Nawawi said: It has been an honour to lead CelcomDigi as the founding CEO, including the historic merger of Celcom and Digicreating the largest telecommunications company in Malaysia and commemorating a landmark moment in our corporate history. I firmly believe that CelcomDigi is now on a strong footing to propel further as a market leader. In its recent Q2 results, CelcomDigi reported a total of 20.4 million subscribers. Around 6 million were postpaid mobile customers, 12.6 million prepaid, and 236,000 on broadband services. Total revenue was RM3.2 billion, a 2.3% year-on-year increase, while EBIT surged 12.3% YoY to RM736 million. Bengaluru, Aug 22 : The raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the properties and residences of Karnataka Congress MLA K.C. Veerendra at 30 locations across Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan have revealed that the legislator was running several online betting sites, according to an official statement from the ED. "The Bengaluru Zonal Office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), conducted a search operation on Friday in connection with MLA of Chitradurga city, K.C. Veerendra, and others at 30 locations, including six premises in Chitradurga district, 10 in Bengaluru, three in Jodhpur, one in Hubballi, two in Mumbai, and eight in Goa. The Goa locations included five casinos -- Puppy's Casino Gold, Ocean Rivers Casino, Puppy's Casino Pride, Ocean 7 Casino, and Big Daddy Casino," the statement said. "The searches were conducted in connection with a case related to illegal online and offline betting." The investigation revealed that the accused was operating several online betting sites under names such as King567, Raja567, Puppy's003, and Rathna Gaming. Additionally, the accused's brother, K.C. Thippeswamy, is operating three business entities from Dubai -- Diamond Softech, TRS Technologies, and Prime9 Technologies -- which are connected to the call centre services and gaming operations of K.C. Veerendra," the ED said. During the searches, Anil Gowda, the brother of Congress leader Kusuma H. from Rajarajeshwarinagar in Bengaluru, was also covered. A raid was conducted at a residence in Rajarajeshwarinagar. In 2016, when Veerendra was a member of the JD-S, he was arrested after the Income Tax Department allegedly recovered Rs 5.7 crore in new currency hidden inside a secret chamber in his bathroom. Authorities also found 32 kg of gold biscuits and jewellery, along with Rs 90 lakh in old currency notes concealed behind bathroom tiles at his residence in Challakere town. In connection with that case, along with Veerendra, two middlemen from Chitradurga and unidentified officials from four banks were named in the FIR. A subsequent CBI investigation revealed that, in criminal conspiracy with MLA Veerendra, the bank officials had exchanged Rs 5.76 crore in demonetised notes for new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 currency notes in 2016. The CBI charge sheet said that the bank officials falsified records and used forged identity and address documents in the names of various individuals to make it appear that the money had been exchanged through ATM counters. MLA Veerendra currently represents the Chitradurga City constituency. Patna, Aug 22 : The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police on Friday carried out a major raid at the Patna residence of Vinod Kumar Rai, Superintendent Engineer in the Rural Works Department, unearthing huge illegal wealth. According to officials, the raid, which began in the early morning, led to the seizure of Rs 40 lakh in cash, burnt notes worth nearly Rs 20 lakh, jewellery worth Rs 10 lakh, luxury watches worth Rs 6 lakh, and land documents worth crores of rupees, apart from details of more than 12 bank accounts. During the operation, Vinod Raias wife allegedly attempted to destroy evidence by burning bundles of cash, worth lakhs, to stop the EOU from seizing them. The act caused clogging of the drains in the house, forcing the Municipal Corporation team to assist in recovering charred notes. The Forensic Science Lab (FSL) team has also been called to examine the burnt currency to assess how much money was destroyed. The EOU team had been waiting outside Raias residence throughout the night as his wife reportedly prevented officials from entering. Around 5:20 a.m., the team forcibly entered and was stunned by the scenea"cash and valuables were scattered inside the house. Officials described this as part of the EOUas wider crackdown on corruption in Biharas government departments. Rai, who is currently posted in Madhubani and has an additional charge of Sitamarhi district as well, is currently being questioned, and further investigation is underway to trace the source of assets disproportionate to his income. The incident once again highlights how officials facing graft charges can go to extreme lengths to conceal their black money. This was the big seizure of cash and jewellery from the house of a government officer of the Rural Work Department in recent times. After the seizures, the Economic Offence Unit (EOU) has registered an FIR at its police station in Patna. Hyderabad, Aug 22 : The "Marwadi go back" campaign launched recently by a section of traders and locals in Telangana gathered momentum with a shutdown observed in parts of the state on Friday on a call given by the Osmania University Joint Action Committee (OUJAC), which was supported by various traders' associations. Hyderabad, Aug 22 (IANS) The "Marwadi go back" campaign launched recently by a section of traders and locals in Telangana gathered momentum with a shutdown observed in parts of the state on Friday on a call given by the Osmania University Joint Action Committee (OUJAC), which was supported by various tradersa associations. Traders downed their shutters in a few commercial areas in Hyderabad and in various towns, including Yadadri, Gajwel, Dubbaka, Narayanpet, Mahabubabad, Khammam, Jangaon, Amangal, and Nalgonda. Educational institutions were also closed in some towns in response to the bandh call, which was supported by the Arya Vysya, Viswabrahmins, and Viswakarma associations. The traders and locals took out rallies in various parts of the state. They raised slogans of aMarwadi go backa. They alleged that Marwadi businesses were "committing atrocities on locals and snatching away their livelihood". Owners of kirana shops, mobile phone shops, and associations of traders participated in the protests. Traders took out a rally in Mahbubabad. Police arrested 50 protestors for taking out a rally without permission amid tight security arrangements to prevent any untoward incident. In Hyderabad, police took OUJAC Chairman K. Tirupathi Reddy and Telangana Kranti Dal President Sangamreddy Prithviraj into preventive custody in view of the bandh call. OUJAC and Adivasi Students Union staged a protest at Habsiguda in Hyderabad. Wearing back badges, the protestors burnt tyres in front of the jewellery shops of Marwadis. Police arrested the protestors. Tirupathi Reddy had appealed to people to participate in the bandh. He accused Marwadi businessmen of exploiting traders of Telangana through deceptive strategies. He said Telangana state was achieved after fighting the atrocities of rulers from Andhra in the united Andhra Pradesh, but Marwadis from Rajasthan and Gujarat were looting Telangana. The Vaisya Vikas Vedika and other trade associations supported the Telangana bandh. The aMarwadi go backa movement started recently after an altercation between some Dalit youths and Marwadis over a parking issue at the Monda Market in Secunderabad. A round table organised in Hyderabad passed a resolution demanding that businesses and industries established by people from other states should provide 89 per cent of jobs to locals. The participants also demanded legislation to protect local businesses and prevent non-Telangana residents from purchasing land in the state. They also urged people to refuse assistance to Gujarati and Rajasthani traders and boycott their goods. Telangana Kranti Dal President Prithviraj had urged Telangana residents to refuse assistance to Gujarati and Rajasthani traders and boycott their goods. "We are fighting against the exploitation of our resources. The government must ensure that outsiders do not start businesses in towns with less than 5 lakh population," he said and alleged that outsiders were not even employing locals. Last week, Union Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay Kumar slammed the 'Marwadi go back' movement and alleged that the Congress, the BRS, and the MIM were behind the campaign to divide Hindus. "Marwadis have never fought for political power, nor have they looted Telangana. They have generated wealth through business and contributed significantly to GDP while upholding the Hindu Sanatana Dharma. Why should they leave Telangana?" he asked, alleging that the real threat was from the Rohingyas. Kolkata, Aug 22 : After inaugurating the metro railway projects and addressing a public meeting in West Bengal on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his gratitude to the people who braved the inclement weather to attend his programme. Taking to his official X account, PM Modi said, "Grateful to the people of Kolkata for the affection. They braved the rains and came out to express their blessings. This affection inspires me to work even harder for this iconic city and the entire West Bengal." PM Modi was in Kolkata on Friday to attend multiple programmes. He inaugurated and lay the foundation of development projects worth Rs 5,200 crore, including three new stretches of the Kolkata Metro, and an elevated corridor in adjacent Howrah. PM Modi visited the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he flagged off the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service. In addition, through video conferencing, he also flagged off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. He also undertook a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and returned back. During the metro ride, the Prime Minister interacted with school students and metro railway workers who also accompanied him. Later, he attended a government programmes at the Dum Dum Central Jail ground where he officially inaugurated the development projects for West Bengal. Braving the rain, a large number of people had gathered at the entire stretch of road from Jessore Road Metro Station to Dum Dum Central Jail ground, to greet the Prime Minister. They held PM Modi's cutouts and colourful balloons to welcome him to the city. The same enthusiasm was also seen at the public meeting at Dum Dum Central Jail ground, which was filled with BJP supporters and workers. Despite heavy rain battering the city since Friday morning, the people stayed put at the venue, eagerly waiting for the Prime Minister. The Meteorological Department had forecast heavy rain in Kolkata and its adjoining areas throughout the day. The inclement weather, however, could not dampen the spirit of the people, who made their presence felt at all the programmes. Aizawl, Aug 22 : Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma said on Friday that drug abuse remains the biggest threat to the state, which shares 510 km and 318 km unfenced border with Myanmar and Bangladesh, respectively. Addressing the 15th Conference of the Mizoram Police Service Association (MPSA), the Chief Minister stressed that drug abuse remains the biggest threat to the state, being one major cause of HIV spread. Calling for collective efforts to fight the menaces of both drug abuse, smuggling of narcotics and spread of HIV/AIDS, Lalduhoma said that it is a struggle for both physical and spiritual well-being of all people. The Chief Minister earlier said that the state lies within close proximity to the 'Golden Triangle', a region notorious for drug trafficking. Flagging off the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan (Drug Free India Campaign) in Aizawl earlier this week, Chief Minister Lalduhoma said that this geographical location has led to the frequent inflow of drugs into the state. Noting that drugs bring no benefit to society and must be eradicated completely, Lalduhoma, a former IPS officer, also urged communities to be vigilant and united in their stand against drug abuse, ensuring that Mizo society remains protected from such harmful influences. The Chief Minister encouraged young people to abstain entirely from drugs, warning that even occasional use is the first step towards addiction. He further called on those already trapped in addiction to courageously step away and rebuild their lives. The Mizoram government has started the recruitment process to form a Mizo Territorial Army (MTA) battalion to deal with drug trafficking and other law and order-related issues. A Mizoram Home Department official said that 70 male candidates would be recruited for the first batch, and subsequently, recruitment of other batches would be done. Successful candidates would undergo nine months of rigorous training at the Assam Regimental Centre in Shillong, after which they would be posted in different parts of Mizoram, especially in bordering areas. According to the official, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has supported the Mizoram government's proposal to establish the MTA battalion to deal with drug trafficking, smuggling activities and other law and order-related issues. Chief Minister Lalduhoma, during his visit to New Delhi earlier, discussed the formation of the MTA and several issues with Home Minister Amit Shah. "The Chief Minister expressed his gratitude to the Home Minister for supporting his proposal to establish the MTA battalion, describing it as a crucial initiative to employ Mizo youths while contributing to national security," the official said. He said that for quite a long time, the state government has been requesting the Centre to help the state to raise the MTA to deal with the smuggling of drugs and other contrabands being illegally imported from Myanmar. "The state government has manpower shortages to deal with the narcotics trafficking from across the border. The state government earlier submitted proposals to the Ministry of Home Affairs about the raising of the MTA," he said. Various drugs and different types of contraband, including exotic animals, are often illegally traded through six districts in Mizoram -- Champhai, Siaha, Lawngtlai, Hnahthial, Saitual, and Serchhip -- which share unfenced borders of 510 km with Myanmar. Jaipur, Aug 22 : Heavy rains have triggered a flood-like situation in Rajasthan's Kota, severely impacting both urban and rural areas on Friday. The situation worsened in the rural Digod area, prompting the deployment of Army personnel for rescue operations. They evacuated residents from waterlogged areas and distributed essential food supplies. In Nimoda village, several kutcha houses collapsed, with Army teams conducting rescue efforts late into the night. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar visited the flood-affected areas. Birla arrived in an Army truck to reach Digod, Nimoda, and Hariji villages, where he assessed the ground situation. Overflowing ponds in Amarpura and Khedli Kalya led to water entering homes. Rescue teams carried children and the elderly to safety. Floodwater also breached the DelhiMumbai Expressway near Neemli village, causing significant disruption. In response to the heavy rain alert, the district administration has announced school closures for August 23. Kota has recorded 969.5 mm of rainfall so far, including 127.1 mm in the past 24 hours. Due to waterlogging, nine major roads in the district have been closed. Speaker Om Birla has directed the district administration to evacuate residents from high-risk areas and ensure proper food arrangements. He emphasised setting up temporary shelters for displaced families as a priority. He also instructed the district collector to conduct a detailed damage assessment survey, covering losses to crops, livestock, homes, and shops. He also urged social workers to mobilise public cooperation for providing rations and temporary housing to the victims. "Providing all possible help to affected citizens is our top priority. In this hour of crisis, the administration and public representatives stand with every family," he claimed. Guwahati, Aug 22 : The crisis at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) has escalated into a political storm, with opposition parties, student organisations demanding accountability from the Assam government and hospital authorities. On Friday, the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) demanded the immediate suspension of GMCH Principal Dr. Achyut Ch. Baishya, accusing him of gross negligence following the death of a newborn last week. "There is a bisangati (disorder) in GMCH, and Dr. Baishya should be removed immediately by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Only expressing sadness is not enough; he should have resigned," AJP leaders said. The party alleged that Dr. Baishya has wielded unchecked influence over Assam's health sector for nearly 25 years without significant reforms. "He has failed to protect the babies, and instead, a nurse was arrested and made the scapegoat," the AJP charged. Sharp criticism was also directed at Health Minister Ashok Singhal. "He is a businessman with no responsibility towards Assamese society. The health department under him has been reduced to a commission business, where even a syringe or injection is treated as trade," the party alleged. The arrest of nurse Bhanupriya Mishong, who was reportedly attending to 35 newborns alone on the day of the tragedy, triggered widespread anger. Both AJP and the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) defended her, calling her a victim of systemic failure. "We salute nurse Bhanupriya for her dedication. As per the Indian Nursing Council, one nurse should attend to one ICU patient, but she was left to handle 35 babies. Making her the sacrificial lamb is unjust," NSUI leaders said during a protest inside GMCH. Amid the outcry, newly appointed GMCH Superintendent Dr. Devajit Choudhury sought to reassure the public. "GMCH has lost its glory, and I will work to restore it. Within a month, you will see a clear difference. I request everyone's cooperation," he told reporters. The protests follow a tragic incident earlier this week when three newborns reportedly fell from an overcrowded ICU bed at GMCH, leading to the death of one infant and injuries to two others. The incident highlighted chronic staff shortages, overcrowding, and lapses in neonatal care at Assam's premier hospital, although Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that there was no overcrowding situation at the medical college. The state government has also launched a probe into the whole incident, and the CM directed the police to conduct an in-depth investigation, acquiring the CCTV footage of the hospital. --IANS tdr/dan Bhubaneswar, Aug 22 : Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Friday launched 'BharatNetra initiative', an Integrated Global Financial Technology Capability Hub, in Bhubaneswar. Terming it a transformative initiative that will shape the future of finance in Odisha, the CM said it will strengthen India's global leadership in the digital economy. Odisha will play a central role in making India a global economic leader. This hub has been launched by the Odisha government in collaboration with Global Finance & Technology Network Singapore (GFTN), National University of Singapore and Asian Institute of Digital Finance. Speaking on the occasion, CM Majhi said that the initiative will skill over 7,000 students across all 30 districts of Odisha. It will run certification programmes designed by the Asian Institute of Digital Finance at the National University of Singapore. The CM said that this outcome was forged during the historic visit of the Hon'ble President of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, to Odisha in January this year. The CM said the state will nurture startups and entrepreneurs by establishing a dedicated Centre of Excellence within this Hub. In addition, the project will also establish a Global Capability Centre (GCC), he informed. The GCC here will act as a strong foundation for attracting global financial institutions and new investments into Odisha, he added. Speaking on the state's efforts to improve digital infrastructure, he said that a 'cable landing station connecting Bhubaneswar to Singapore' is being established. Saying that Odisha is the first state to formulate an AI Policy, he said, "We are now in the process of launching a dedicated FinTech Policy and GCC Policy to attract global investments." The CM said this initiative is in line with the vision of the Prime Minister, who has envisioned skilling of 3 crore youth of the country with an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore during his Independence Day speech this year. He said that Odisha is producing about 1.8 lakh graduates annually in various engineering, polytechnics, and IT streams, and skilled youths in 950 ITIs. Emphasising the importance of Research, the CM said that in addition to skilling, Odisha has established a Deep Neural Network Laboratory and other Centres of Excellence. Our vision is to make Odisha the "Research Capital of the East", the CM underlined. On the occasion, the CM launched the BharatNetra Hackathon Website and a GCC + overall programme was also announced. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that Odisha's vision aligns with India's national priority to skill our youth for the global digital economy. The BharatNetra initiative will not only open pathways for employment and entrepreneurship but also strengthen India's leadership in financial inclusion and innovation, he added. It may be mentioned here that the I-GFTCH in Odisha will focus on four pillars- Global Learning, Global Mindshare, Global Innovation, and Global Capability Hub - developed in partnership with Singapore-based GFTN. Over the next five years, this initiative will equip 7,000 students statewide with vital skills in technology, regulation, and business for careers in financial technology. The programme has selected its first batch of 375 students from more than 3,800 applicants representing over 60 colleges across all districts of Odisha. The first batch is set to graduate by January 2026. Jaipur, Aug 22 : In a significant breakthrough in the ongoing crackdown on criminal gangs, arms, and drug smugglers, the Crime Branch of Rajasthan Police has arrested six members of Madhya Pradesh's notorious 'Pardhi gang'. Jaipur, Aug 22 (IANS) In a significant breakthrough in the ongoing crackdown on criminal gangs, arms, and drug smugglers, the Crime Branch of Rajasthan Police has arrested six members of Madhya Pradeshas notorious 'Pardhi gang'. The arrests were made in Ajmer's Bandarsindri area, where the accused were caught red-handed while conspiring to commit a theft. The operation led to the recovery of gold and silver jewelry, cash, and theft tools linked to a recent burglary in Sawai Madhopuras Mantown area. Acting on the directives of Director General of Police Rajiv Kumar Sharma and DIG Crime Deepak Bhargav, the operation was carried out under the supervision of Additional SPs Siddhant Sharma and Rajesh Malik, and led by Inspector Ram Singh Nathawat. During intelligence-input gathering, Head Constable Mahendra Kumar of the CID Crime Branch received specific information about the Pardhi gang's presence in the Ajmer region, planning thefts and robberies. Upon verification, Bandarsindri Police Station was alerted. Late Thursday night, the police team, led by SHO Amarchand, reached Gulabpura Ki Hani village in Bandarsindri, where six individuals were found huddled in a room within an empty plot, planning a burglary. One was heard discussing entering a house, while others were preparing to manage motorcycles for a quick getaway. The police swiftly cordoned off the area and arrested the six members of the Pardhi gang. From the accused, police recovered burglary tools including cutters, screwdrivers, torches, iron rods, and four motorcycles. Additionally, stolen jewelry and old currency notes were found. The accused confessed to having committed a burglary three days prior at a house in Sawai Madhopur, for which an FIR is registered at Mantown Police Station. Preliminary investigation revealed that several of the accuseda"Giriraj, Sujan, Vijay, and Jeetua"have prior criminal records in Dharnavada (MP) and Baran and Sikar (Rajasthan). Notably, Sujan Pardi is also wanted in a robbery case registered at Shivpuri Police Station in MP. Indonesian telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison announced on Thursday it has launched a new AI-powered semantic search feature powered by Google Cloud in its customer service apps, which it says will enable smarter and more intuitive digital experiences for customers. The feature which is now embedded in Indosats myIM3 and bima+ apps is powered by Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform, which Indosat says enables deeper insights into customer behaviour and preferences. In practical terms, that means searches for services such as data packages, lifestyle features, and loyalty programs can be dynamically tailored to meet each user's specific needs, said Indosat director and chief commercial officer Bilal Kazmi. With the support of Google Cloud, we are delivering a search system that is not only intelligent but also delivers tangible value, enhancing both user convenience and business performances, he said in a statement. This collaboration represents a strategic step towards providing smarter, more personalized, and relevant digital experiences for our customers. The semantic search technology is also supported by Sahabat-AI, an open-source large language model (LLM) launched by Indosat and Indonesian tech firm GoTo Gojek Tokopedia in November last year that is specifically designed for the Indonesian language including various regional languages and dialects and can understand local contexts. The latest version of Sahabat-AI, released in June, supports five local languages, including Bahasa, Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese and Bataknese, as well as a number of international languages. Vertex AI Searchs in-built understanding of queries in Bahasa and English, the semantic meaning behind queries, and spelling variations will help surface more relevant digital services recommendations that meet the diverse lifestyle needs of millions of myIM3 and bima+ users, said Fanly Tanto, country director for Indonesia at Google Cloud. Starling Star Lawrence, the former editor-in-chief of W. W. Norton who edited scores of bestselling titles over his 55-year career, died on August 21 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital after a brief illness. He was 82. Lawrence was named executive editor of the Norton trade department in 1989, and was promoted to editor-in-chief in 1993. He was named vice chairman in 2000. He retained the roles until 2011 when John Glusman took the reins, followed by current editor-in-chief Dan Gerstle. He remained an editor-at-large at Norton until his death. It is impossible to overstate the effect Star Lawrence has had on Norton, said Julia Reidhead, said Norton chairman and president in a statement. Over his tenure, Lawrence demonstrated a sharp sense for future bestsellers, helping him identify cast-aside manuscripts and slush-pile submissions that would go on to sell millions of copies. Among these were Sebastian Jungers The Perfect Storm, which Lawrence acquired after reading an Outside magazine article by Junger, and a 21-book nautical adventure series by Patrick OBrian that included Master and Commander (1990), which would later inspire the Oscar-winning blockbuster by the same name. It is remarkable in hindsight that for two of the most important books I ever acquired, Sebastian Jungers The Perfect Storm and Michael Lewiss Liars Poker, there were no other offers on the table, Lawrence once noted. Lewiss book on the history of Wall Street proved especially fortuitous, inaugurating a 17-book-long editorial relationship with Lewis and a successful nonfiction career for Lewis, which continues to this day. In a statement, Lewis, who was a young writer when he met Lawrence in 1987, spoke to the strength of their editorial relationship as he wrote such iconic works as The Big Short (2010) and Moneyball (2003): When I sit down to write, the only voice I hear in my head is Stars, he said. When Lawrence started at Norton in 1969, a large portion of his job involved sifting through the slush pilea task he has credited as a formative editorial experience. The odds on finding something publishable there were notoriously low, almost infinitesimal, but the work taught me an important lesson about patience and paying attention to the job, no matter what it is, Lawrence once said. As he panned for gold among the submissions, he trained a voice that has endless patience for what does interest him, as Lewis put it. Unlike traditional Norton editors, who tended to hit the book equivalent of singles, Star would swing for the fences and aim at home runs, said Don Lamm, former chairman and president of Norton. In addition to Lewis, Lawrence gave an early boost to an array of now-recognizable names, including thriller author James Grady, The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje, and The History of Love author Nicole Krauss. As an editor, Star stood alone, Brendan Curry, director of the Norton trade group, said, adding, He was the rarest combination of exacting taste and enormous generosity, and I will miss him. Lawrence was also an author, whose books included the 1996 story collection Legacies and novel Montenegro, both published by Farrar, Straus and Girouxand both starred by PW. This article has been updated with further information and for clarity. Were attempting to unravel the tangled web of literary influence by talking with the great writers of today about the writers of yesterday who inspired them. This month, we spoke with Orange Prize recipient Tea Obreht (The Tigers Wife, The Morningside) about Daphne du Mauriers indulgence in the uncanny, and with New Yorker poetry editor Kevin Young (Jelly Roll: a blues, Night Watch) about the mercurial but reliable poems of Lucille Clifton. Tea Obreht on Daphne du Maurier It seems like Daphne du Mauriers books are better known than her name. Do you feel that way? Shes one of those authors who, when you read her now, makes you go, How wasn't this person taken more seriously in her time? Her level of skill and of understanding what the reader needs is so high and so intense, and there's so much to learn from. In her time, she was thought of as this kind of frivolous, romantic writer for women. I've been thinking a lot about whom we teachthe canon of literary fictionand feeling buoyed by the fact that we've opened this up a lot more to genre, to the uncanny, to fantasy, speculative fiction, to mystery, and to all the great masters from what was previously corralled as not serious fiction by God knows whom. She was exceptionally prolific, publishing some 20 novels along with many story collections and nonfiction works. Where should someone start? I would start with her short stories, just to see the gulf between something like The Birds or Don't Look Now or Not After Midnight and Rebecca. There's a progression from her short stories to her novels that signals a greater and greater understanding of how the world of a fiction should cohere. And her stories are bonkers. Alfred Hitchcock adapted several of her stories. Why do you think her work was so appealing to him? Something that we find in Hitchcock is the feeling of the supernatural even when there's not something supernatural going on, right? The plot is uncanny, or there are elements of the unexplained and the unexplainable. The plot of du Mauriers The Birds is quite different from the Hitchcock film, but both have the same feeling of the unexplained and an increasing intensity of danger. In that way, the two were a perfect pairing. What do you think of her work on a page level? I love that she takes her time. Especially in the novels, she really indulgessometimes overindulgesin building the mood. But she recognizes that mood has to be consistent throughout, and that the feeling of strangeness has to escalate. Her dialogue is also fantastic. It really sizzles. And I love her connection with place: she lived in and wrote about Cornwall her whole life, and I think that her preoccupation with its houses, and the layers of life within a housethe haunting of a house by the life that's lived in itis something that really appeals to me. What do you think that other writers can learn from her? Two main things. One is to indulge an impulse for the uncanny. A lot of her short stories, especially, rely on a character following clues that may or may not be clues into situations that grow increasingly bizarre, and what they're actually following is their own assumptions into deeper and deeper darkness. The search for knowledge, especially when it's colored by the character's own persona, is still plot, and its consequences are still very intense. The other thing is to leave room for ambiguity, which is related. There's a trend right nowor maybe there's always been a trendtowards absolute and sometimes damaging transparency in fiction. Everything has to be explicitly laid out, and very little is left unsaid. I think du Maurier is one of the queens of the unsaid. I think she knew that even at the end of a narrative, the things that remain unspoken or unknown or unresolved are just as, if not more powerful than the things that are resolved. That drives me crazy as a reader, but it's also the thing that leaves me wondering about the book. Denying the reader comfort, I think, is really important. Kevin Young on Lucille Clifton I hadnt read Lucille Clifton since college and it was really great to look back at her work. There's no one better than Lucille. Shes such a terrific writer, and a writer of such breadth. She was able, in really short poems, to convey an epic scale. Right after she died, I was asked to do her collected poems by her family, and the thing that troubled me was whether or not to do a selected. And we really felt, in the end, that we needed to represent the whole of her work. Having it collectedit's quite longunderlined her practice of making sense of the world through little parts, these lyric moments that add up to something major. She started out in theater before moving into poetry. Do you think you can see that in her work? She is interested in voices. The work isn't purely autobiographical. In fact, I think shes in a tradition alongside writers like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, who were poets who wrote about the city and place, and were interested in capturing the community. Lucille was interested in herself, always a lowercase i, but she was also interested in this broader self of community. And the later books reflect that, like Book of Light or Quilting, which were really important. Or Blessing the Boats; that's her early selected which won the National Book Award. I was struck by how Wishes for Sons is kind of grimly humorous. It's hilarious. The first line is, I wish them cramps. I've taught that poem a million times. It exemplifies her humor, because it's a way of trying to get people to think about these everyday things that, in this poem, women deal with and consider, and that men are often oblivious to. And that's expressed in the last lines, which are, Let them think they've accepted arrogance in the universe, then bring them to gynecologists not unlike themselves. What do you think of her on a line level? She has these shorter lines, though not always short, and certainly short poems. I think there's only one or two that are over a page. But she often wrote in sequence, and one of my favorite sequences of hers is Some Jesus, which are these reimaginings of biblical tales through an African American spiritual lens. They're just so incredible. It really made a huge impression on me to learn that you could take something sacred and almost make it your own, make it everyday. All to say, at the line, she's tremendous, but can seem kind of casual. But it's all very thought out. One of her other terrific ones is the fox poems, where she was visited by a fox when she was undergoing treatment, I believe for cancer. This fox becomes like a totemic figure, but also a poet, in a way, and an artist: mercurial but reliable. And I think that quality is in her work. These interviews have been lightly edited for clarity. Indian airports push to become global hubs will depend on reducing passenger leakage to rival airports abroad, scaling up direct long-haul connectivity, and offering transfer experiences that are faster, smoother, and more attractive than those of regional competitors, said panellists at the Business Standard Infrastructure Summit on Thursday. Image used for representation purpose. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters For India, the ambition to establish airports as global hubs on the lines of Dubai or Singapore is no longer a distant aspiration but an urgent necessity. Delhi International Airport Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Videh Kumar Jaipuriar highlighted how Indias inherent strengths are already yielding results. In 2019, possibly only 17-18 per cent of people travelling to Europe or North America were taking direct flights from India. "That number has now improved quite dramatically. Now, close to 4045 per cent of passengers are going directly to Europe from Delhi airport, he said in a panel discussion with Deepak Patel of Business Standard. For Delhi airport, Jaipuriar said, the first priority has been to win over Indian travellers who might otherwise connect through Gulf or Southeast Asian hubs. Our initial aim is to become the airport of choice for the Indian traveller. We have seen leakage to nearby hubs, which feed on Indian passengers more than on any other market, he said. The ability to reverse that trend lies with government action, particularly bilateral air service agreements, which determine how many flights each countrys airlines can operate to the others territory, and their structure can either favour or disadvantage Indian carriers. We have been working with the government on policy changes. Air service agreements are one such area the government has been looking at critically. "Because the air service agreements should be in a manner that supports Indian carriers. Indian airports are there to support by providing infrastructure. Gulf carriers such as Emirates and Qatar Airways have been asking India to expand bilateral flying rights. The UAE is urging India to revise the 2014 agreement that caps seat entitlements at 66,504 per week for each side. Emirates, having exhausted its allocation, has repeatedly expressed frustration at being unable to add more flights. India, however, has resisted such demands, since West Asian hubs like Dubai and Doha primarily channel Indian passengers onward to Europe and North America. Meanwhile, Indian carriers are steadily inducting wide-body aircraft and scaling up non-stop operations to long-haul destinations, positioning themselves to capture a larger share of outbound traffic. Jaipuriar acknowledged how thinking within India has shifted. Three to four years ago, we probably did not have aspirations to become a hub for Indian airlines. "We now have two strong airlines (Air India and IndiGo). So it is very important, he observed. He stressed that along with route expansion and policy support, the passenger experience will be decisive in hub creation. On security procedures, the government is working to make transfers smoother (for those who use Delhi as a transit point). "For passengers in transit, airports need to provide infrastructure that makes their stay more comfortable. "We are looking at global brands and new facilities to ensure a more convenient experience at Delhi airport, he said. Noida International Airport CEO Christoph Schnellmann stressed that the battle for hub status cannot be fought in silos. If we want to succeed in India with hubs, we cannot do so as individual airports, airlines, or policymakers. We must act as one industry, he said. Noida International Airport, being developed by Zurich Airport International AG, is expected to begin operations soon. He argued that Indias competitive advantage lies in designing world-class transfer experiences. To win, our transfer product needs to be better in some important and meaningful way, and better will not mean the same thing for each and every passenger. "Better may mean quicker, easier, cheaper, or more luxurious (for premium travellers). "But I think if we want to succeed as a hub, we do so by finding a way to work together to define these transfer products, to make them superior to some of the alternatives (airports), he said. Like Jaipuriar, Schnellmann pointed to Indias vast and expanding travel market as the foundation of global hub ambitions. We need to build on the natural strengths that we have a very large domestic market that is willing to travel and wants to travel abroad. I think thats the way forward, he said. Indias airports are gaining confidence from record aircraft orders by domestic carriers. Since 2023, airlines have placed some of the largest orders in aviation history. Air India Group ordered 470 aircraft in February 2023 250 from Airbus and 220 from Boeing. IndiGo followed with the worlds largest-ever single order of 500 Airbus A320neo family planes. In 2024, Akasa Air ordered 150 Boeing 737 Max jets, while IndiGo added 30 Airbus A350s in April. Air India expanded its order book further in 2024 with 10 A350s and 90 A320 family aircraft. In June 2025, IndiGo ordered 30 more A350s to strengthen its long-haul network for the next decade. Global emerging market investors are sharply cutting back on India, making it the largest underweight market, as funds rotate into China, Hong Kong, and South Korea amid tariff shocks and valuation concerns. Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff India is rapidly losing favour with global emerging market investors, with the latest fund flow data showing one of the steepest cutbacks in allocations to Indian equities in recent months. According to an analysis done by Nomura of 45 large EM funds, relative allocations to India fell by 110 basis points (bps) month-on-month (M-o-M) in July, with as many as 41 funds reducing exposure. This marks India out as the largest underweight (UW) market in EM portfolios, with allocations standing at a negative 2.9 percentage points relative to benchmark MSCI EM index. In contrast, Hong Kong, China and South Korea have emerged as the key beneficiaries of this regional rebalancing. Allocations to Hong Kong, China and South Korea rose by 80 bps, 70 bps and 40 bps, respectively, reflecting a decisive rotation in foreign portfolios. In the Nomura sample set, 37 of the 45 funds increased their exposure to Hong Kong and China while 29 did so in case of South Korea. The tilt is significant as it comes at a time when India continues to trade at a valuation premium to EM peers. By the end of July, 71 per cent of EM funds were underweight on India, up from 60 per cent in June. In comparison, the percentage of funds underweight on Hong Kong, China, dropped sharply from 71 per cent in June to 53 per cent in July, suggesting sentiment towards Chinese equities is turning less bearish. South Korea, meanwhile, has moved into overweight territory, with 60 per cent of EM funds now overweight versus a more balanced split previously. The Nomura report said July proved to be a tough month for managers overall, with only 7 out of 45 EM funds outperforming the MSCI EM Index. However, early August trends suggest performance has improved, with 35 funds outperforming month-to-date. The fund flow data also corroborates the latest Bank of America (BofA) Fund Manager Survey. Last week, the survey had revealed India had now sunk to the bottom of the investor preference list after being at the top as recently as May. The shift in sentiment is widely attributed to US President Donald Trump's announcement of 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods, including a 25 per cent penalty for India's Russian oil imports, which investors fear will dent corporate earnings and further strain already high market valuations. Disclaimer: This article is meant for information purposes only. This article and information do not constitute a distribution, an endorsement, an investment advice, an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities/schemes or any other financial products/investment products mentioned in this article to influence the opinion or behaviour of the investors/recipients. Any use of the information/any investment and investment related decisions of the investors/recipients are at their sole discretion and risk. Any advice herein is made on a general basis and does not take into account the specific investment objectives of the specific person or group of persons. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff India needs Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council-like common platforms between states and the Centre in areas such as land clearances, power, and water to fast-track infrastructure projects to achieve double-digit growth going ahead, said Praveer Sinha, chief executive officer and managing director of The Tata Power Company. Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff There is also a need for several policy interventions to overcome procedural and regulatory bottlenecks, Sinha said at the Business Standard Infrastructure Summit 2025 here on Thursday. In a fireside chat with Sudheer Pal Singh of Business Standard, Sinha said the countrys power sector alone requires around Rs 3 trillion over the next five years. From the current gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 67 per cent, he said, the country has the capability to grow up at around 810 per cent with a further push in the infrastructure sector. This, Sinha believed, is required while India will still be the fastest-growing economy for the next 1020 years. I think there is so much more that needs to be done the speed at which legislations have to come and the speed at which the enforcement of those legislations have to happen, Sinha said. One great example that we have is the common GST Council. "Possibly, you need a similar council for land clearances, power, water, and then only we will be able to see great speed at which we can transform and make a difference in the country, he added. According to Sinha, India has done well in the power sector, from having an installed capacity of around 100 gigawatts (Gw) in 2000 to around 490 Gw now. He opined that a similar improvement is visible in the solar sector, which has a total renewable target of 500 Gw by 2030. The sector grew to 115 Gw in 2025 from 5 Gw in 2015 and is poised to touch 290 Gw by 2030. The share of renewables now stands at 50 per cent. That is a huge improvement, he said. However, the growth is minimal compared to China, he added. Last year, when India added 30 Gw of renewable capacity, China did 400 Gw. This year, in the first six months, China added 212 Gw. "That is the type of capacity addition that is happening. "That is the type of change and transformation. We are talking about 490 Gw and they are talking about 2,500 Gw. "In terms of population, we are virtually the same. There is no reason why we should not do it, Sinha added. Further highlighting regulatory bottlenecks, he said: I think there is a huge necessity to de-bottleneck some of these things. "We cannot have an economy that is flourishing and growing at a fast pace with the legislature and regulatory framework not supporting it. Highlighting the funding requirement, Sinha batted for lower cost of funding, as the country has one of the highest rates in the world. He also advocated opening up restrictions on the insurance sector for funding, equity holding or financing. You have the Canadians and others from Europe and the UK who come into funding over here. Our insurers are not allowed to do it, and they are sitting on a huge pile of cash with them. I think there is a necessity to open up some of the channels, he suggested. Putting a case for green energy, Sinha said one major issue with Indias power ecosystem is its dependence still on diesel for around 90 Gw of power, along with the agriculture sectors reliance on diesel generators. I think that is a waste. There is no reason why we should have diesel power, he added. He said the next 1020 years are likely to be the golden period for India, as the country needs a lot of work to do in the infrastructure sector. India consumes around 1,400 units of power annually, of which the consumption is around 100 units in villages. "Around 100 units means we consume only around 89 units a month. "That is not what we expect as nearly 40 per cent of our population is staying in villages, Sinha noted. 'We have carried out a big search operation on a big name in this industry.' IMAGE: The Securities and Exchange Board of India headquarters in Mumbai. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters The Securities and Exchange Board of India has conducted a search operation on a renowned financial influencer in its enforcement action against those doling out stock recommendations and advice without the required registration. Sebi Whole-Time Member Kamlesh Varshney said that the regulator carried out a search on Wednesday in Mumbai. "We have carried out a big search operation on a big name in this industry. I must give credit to my team who has been working on all these things. I can't comment much further until we examine the evidence that has been collected," he said. Top financial influencers have been on Sebi's radar for giving stock recommendations under the garb of investor education. In the past, the regulator has issued strictures against individuals indulging in such activity. Such enforcement action is the need of the hour to provide confidence that Sebi is keeping a watch, the official said. "The enforcement action must be directed at big people, where one can show impact. "The idea is to create fear in the market that there is a regulator which is watching you," he said. While Varshney acknowledged that there are some 'good people' focusing on investor education, there are also players who are misguiding youth in the name of education by giving investment calls and guaranteeing returns in classrooms. Market regulations mandate that research analysts and investment advisors who give any kind of recommendation on investments or trades have to be registered. Earlier, Sebi had taken measures to remove social media content and misleading links pertaining to stock recommendations given by those without registrations. The regulator is also working on automation of several checks through new tools to identify any possible violation in the market. "We have live data. We can put technology on it and catch a whole lot of violations," Varshney said at FICCI's Annual Capital Markets Conference. Fast-track IPO clearance Sebi has crunched the timeline to enable faster IPO clearances, doling out highest approvals in July. It received 31 IPO applications during the month, of which 21 were processed. Sebi may process another 35 to 40 applications in August, he said. "We saw that the number of applications are suddenly rising, so we increased our processing capacity to 15 per month in the first three months of this year. And we found even that was not good enough," he said. Last year, around 13 IPO applications were processed every month, of an average of 16 applications received by Sebi. Varshney said that many companies that have obtained Sebi approvals are waiting for the right time to enter the market. He emphasised that the regulator does not want a backlog of more than two to three months, unless there is some violation or complication. The Sebi WTM also said it is considering regulating the grey market, which can help in better price discovery, investor interest and tax collection. Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff IMAGE: Lord Swraj Paul with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photograph: Press Information Bureau NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul passed away in London on Thursday evening, family sources said. He was 94. Lord Paul, founder of UK-based Caparo Group of industries, had been taken ill and hospitalised recently, where he passed away surrounded by members of his family. The House of Lords peer was born in Jalandhar and relocated to the UK in the 1960s in pursuit of treatment for his little daughter Ambika's cancer. After she passed away aged four years old, he set up the Ambika Paul Foundation as a charitable trust that went on to donate millions to promote the wellbeing of children and young people all over the world through education and health initiatives. The London Zoo is where she was always the happiest,' recalled Lord Paul last month, during the annual commemoration he hosted at the Ambika Paul Children's Zoo in London, one of the major beneficiaries of the foundation. After he lost his son Angad Paul in 2015 and his wife Aruna in 2022, he went on to undertake similar philanthropic endeavours in their memory. 'This hall is a tribute to my wonderful wife whom I miss very much; we never had an argument during our 65 years of marriage,' said Lord Paul, when he inaugurated the Lady Aruna Swraj Paul Hall at the Indian Gymkhana Club in London in February 2023. A regular in the annual Sunday Times Rich List, this year he was ranked 81st with an estimated wealth of GBP 2 billion, largely derived from the steel and engineering multinational Caparo Group. Headquartered in London, Caparo operates internationally from over 40 sites, with operations based in the UK, North America, India, and the Middle East. His son Akash Paul is chairman of Caparo India and Director of the Caparo Group. Last year, in his capacity as the chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, Lord Paul awarded an honorary doctorate to Akash Paul for services to business administration. 'Perhaps, I am the only graduate to get a degree from his own father, independently approved by the University Board, of course, I may add,' said Akash Paul, who was accompanied by wife Nisha and son Arush at the ceremony held at the London Zoo. 'My son has worked alongside me at Caparo since 1982. Akash was appointed CEO of Caparo Group in 1992. During this time, he furthered Caparo's growth strategy in the UK, Europe, USA and India, as well as expanding capacity and increasing profitability of the companies in the United Kingdom and was president, Caparo Automotive Espana, Spain and Executive Board, Bull Moose Tube, USA,' said Lord Paul, who had served as Chancellor of Wolverhampton University for over 26 years. An active member of the Indian diaspora in the UK, Swraj Paul maintained his daily routine of attending the House of Lords despite his frailty in recent months. 'If the INDIA bloc ever forms the government, they will be more than tempted to use such provisions to bring about regime change in BJP-ruled states.' IMAGE: Opposition MPs protest the introduction of the three bills in the Lok Sabha, August 20, 2025. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Video Grab The 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill has driven a deeper wedge between the government and Opposition, already at daggers drawn. 'Assault on democracy', 'Dictatorship begins', 'More than a super-Emergency' was how the Opposition parties characterised the bill, moved in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday by Home Minister Amit Shah and promptly sent to a joint parliamentary committee. The government defended the bill saying it was an attempt to elevate the declining moral standards and maintain integrity in politics, but it failed to cut ice with the Opposition parties as well as the commentariat. Political analyst and Editor At Large of the Darjeeling Chronicle news portal, Upendra M Pradhan is among who believe the legislation is a step in the wrong direction. Part 1 of the Interview: '130th Amendment Risks Placing Power In ED/CBI/CID/Police' "This is not 'Gestapo-like authoritarianism', rather this is at best 'colossal stupidity', and at worse 'not so well thought plan to impose morality in politics'," Mr Pradhan tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff in the concluding segment of the interview. Amit Shah himself resigned as Gujarat's home minister before his arrest and refrained from taking office until he was discharged by the court, as he said in Parliament. Shouldn't such conduct be the norm? As I've said earlier, that used to be the standard convention till Arvind Kejriwal broke it. But a sweeping law, that's borderline draconian, cannot be an answer for that. We need to find other ways for inducing 'moral suasion'. Would this bill mark the end of democracy, since a chief minister could be forced to step down before a court verdict? It does not mark the end of democracy, but it risks being such. Like I have said earlier, this amendment has a very high potential or chance of being misused. We have a saying in Darjeeling, ' , (the tiger that is eating me up today, will gobble you up tomorrow)'. The BJP should be extremely wary of this amendment. If the INDIA bloc ever forms the government, they will be more than tempted to use such provisions to bring about regime change in BJP-ruled states. Can the President give assent to the prime minister's arrest? Article 74 of the Constitution mandates the existence of the council of ministers with the prime minister as its head, to aid and advise the President in the exercise of her/his functions. Article 77 of the Constitution states that, 'All executive action of the Government of India shall be expressed to be taken in the name of the President.' In our Constitution, Article 361 grants the President immunity from arrest or prosecution during their term. However, such provisions do not exist for the PM. The President's power to grant prosecution sanction against the PM is discretionary, and she/he is not required to consult the PM. Critics say this move is comparable to the Gestapo-like authoritarianism of 1930s Nazi Germany. I say the critics are wrong. I don't understand this strange fascination to compare everything the Opposition doesn't like with Nazism. This Amendment, while has the potential to be misused, provides equal opportunity for every party, and I say this with intended sarcasm (since sarcasm deficient people abound). If this law exists, someday in the future those in Opposition today could be in power tomorrow, and they could potentially misuse it. This is not 'Gestapo-like authoritarianism', rather this is at best 'colossal stupidity', and at worse 'not so well thought plan to impose morality in politics'. IMAGE: Opposition MPs tear and throw copies of the three Bills towards Amit Shah in the Lok Sabha, August 20, 2025. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Video Grab Since Arvind Kejriwal did not resign on moral grounds, setting a precedent for others, doesn't the 130th Amendment seem necessary? As I have said before, you cannot forcefully introduce morality in politics. We need a bottom-up, not a top-down law aimed at imposing it. You cannot introduce a provision in the Constitution like how the USA imposes 'Freedom and Democracy' in every country where oil is found, and this too I say with intended sarcasm. Would such a bill effectively dilute the fundamental principle of 'innocent till proven guilty'? It does, absolutely. 'Innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, in a court of law' is one of the fundamental tenants of Indian jurisprudence. Arrest and detention, and even judicial custody, are pre-trial measures under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. These DO NOT IMPLY GUILT. Automatic removal of a PM/CM/ministers merely based on allegations and arrest will be punishing them without due process. I feel, this will be violating two fundamental rights -- Articles 14 (equality before law) and Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty). More importantly, it paints every politician as being morally corrupt individuals who will behave like Arvind Kejriwal. Shouldn't naitikta (morality) in politics be upheld, like when L K Advani resigned as Leader of the Opposition after being an accused in the Jain diary case? That is what I have been saying. Morality in politics and political life has been the cornerstone of Indian democracy. Amit Shahji resigned as home minister when he was chargesheeted by the CBI. He rejoined after his name was cleared. This is how you exemplify and encourage morality. You cannot impose 'naitikta-morality' by the force of law. It needs to be inculcated from early childhood. Could the real motive behind this amendment be to keep allies Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu in line? This has got more to do with the way Arvind Kejriwal behaved, shaming the entire nation, than forcing Nitish Kumar or Chandababu Naidu. Considering that 28 ministers in the Modi Cabinet face charges, with 19 of them being serious, doesn't this raise questions about double standards? No, it doesn't. If any of these ministers are arrested for over 30 days, even they will be removed, so how is it double standards? Moreover, in India, fake cases abound. One needs to be extremely diplomatic not to have fake cases filed against you if you are in politics. Look at West Bengal, for instance. Almost all Opposition politicians have multiple cases filed against them, some real, while some are absurd. The provision of 30 days' time for an accused leader to get relief -- isn't that a reasonable and fair time period? Depends on what's reasonable. Ask AAP leader Satyendar Jain if 30 days would have been enough to get relief. 'This type of comprehensive legislation has never been introduced before in Parliament's history.' 'A bill that simultaneously affects ministers, chief ministers, and the prime minister represents completely uncharted Constitutional territory.' 'Throughout our nation's legislative history, the established policy has consistently held that public office holders should face punishment only after receiving conviction from a competent court of law. Without this safeguard, we risk systematic destabilisation, and our federal structure would face complete collapse.' 'Any central government could potentially deploy this legislation against state governments they oppose politically. This represents the most frightening prospect and dangerous possibility that these bills create.' IMAGE: Union Home Minister Amit Shah speaks in the Lok Sabha. Photograph: Sansad TV/Ani Video Grab Constitutional expert and former secretary general of the Lok Sabha P D T Achary warns the new accountability bills could weaponise arrests to destabilise governments, calling the prime minister's inclusion a "mockery." Mr Achary raises grave Constitutional concerns about Union Home Minister Amit Shah's accountability bills targeting prime ministers, chief ministers, and Cabinet ministers. In an interview with Prasanna D Zore/Rediff, Mr Achary warns that these unprecedented legislative measures could become dangerous "weapons" to destabilise governments and could potentially lead to collapse India's federal structure. The distinguished Constitutional expert emphasised that these bills, classified as the 130th Constitutional Amendment, must mandatorily pass with a special majority under Article 368, requiring two-thirds of members present and voting in both Houses of Parliament. He categorically states that the Speaker possesses no authority to reclassify these Constitutional amendments as ordinary legislation requiring simple majority. Do the new bills introduced by Home Minister Amit Shah, particularly those enabling the arrest or removal of prime ministers, chief inisters and Cabinet ministers, require a two-thirds majority since they alter the balance of Constitutional offices, or can they be passed with a simple majority? No, they absolutely cannot be passed with a simple majority. These bills must be passed through special majority procedures. The special majority requirement means securing the majority of the total membership of each House, along with two-thirds of the members present and voting during the session. So this requires only a special majority. Should one half of the state legislatures also vote for this? I don't believe that requirement applies in this case, though I would need to verify this point. My initial assessment is that state legislature ratification is not required for these particular bills. So for these three bills, a two-thirds majority of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members present and voting is required? If I understand the Constitutional framework correctly, yes, that is precisely the requirement. Under what Constitutional provision is the two-thirds majority required for the passage of these bills? This requirement is explicitly provided under Article 368 of the Constitution, which is the fundamental provision governing Constitutional amendments. Any Constitutional article that requires amendment must satisfy this special majority requirement. So Article 368 of the Constitution mandates this procedure? Correct, Article 368 establishes this mandatory framework. Can the Speaker of the Lok Sabha classify these bills on disqualification and arrest of PMs and CMs as ordinary legislation requiring only a simple majority, or must they be treated as Constitutional amendments? The Speaker possesses absolutely no authority to reclassify these bills. The classification is already definitively established. If you examine the bill documentation, you'll find it clearly designated as the 130th Amendment to the Constitution. The enacting formula and the long title explicitly state 'An Act to amend the Constitution of India'. This Constitutional nature is unambiguously stated throughout the bill's structure. The Speaker's jurisdiction extends only to determining whether legislation constitutes a money bill, nothing beyond that scope. The Speaker has no power whatsoever to reclassify or re-characterise any legislative measure. Would provisions in these bills, if they directly affect federalism, executive accountability and separation of powers, come under the Basic Structure doctrine, thereby mandating Constitutional amendment procedures rather than ordinary legislative processes? If these provisions impact the Basic Structure of the Constitution -- and the elements you mentioned certainly constitute basic structural components -- then any legal challenge would invoke the Basic Structure doctrine. Should anyone approach the courts challenging these bills as an assault on the fundamental structures embedded in the Constitution, the judiciary would naturally undertake a comprehensive examination. The courts would be obligated to scrutinise whether these measures actually violate the foundational principles of our Constitutional framework. Has Parliament in the past passed any bills as sweeping as the current set of disqualification and accountability bills with a simple majority despite their Constitutional implications? Are there any precedents? This type of comprehensive legislation has never been introduced before in Parliament's history. A bill that simultaneously affects ministers, chief ministers, and the prime minister represents completely uncharted Constitutional territory. This legislative approach is entirely unprecedented in our parliamentary experience. Since these bills directly affect chief ministers and fundamentally alter the relationships between the Union and states' executive, do they require ratification by half the states as mandated for certain federal amendments? Based on my preliminary assessment, I believe such state ratification is not required for these specific bills. However, I would need to conduct a thorough Constitutional review to provide a definitive answer on this particular procedural requirement. If the government attempts to push through these accountability bills with only a simple majority, what would constitute the immediate legal grounds for challenging such action in the Supreme Court? First and foremost, the government cannot possibly pursue these as ordinary legislation because they have been definitively categorised as Constitutional amendments. There exists absolutely no Constitutional possibility for either House of Parliament to pass these measures as simple legislation requiring only a basic majority. The Constitutional framework simply does not permit such procedural deviation. In your expert opinion, if these new accountability bills targeting prime ministers, chief ministers and Cabinet ministers were somehow passed without following the special majority route, how would this affect parliamentary democracy and the separation of powers between states and the Union? Your hypothetical scenario cannot materialise within our Constitutional system. Such a situation simply cannot arise in either House of Parliament. Under absolutely no Constitutional circumstances can these bills be passed through simple majority procedures. The Constitutional amendment process is inviolable. When these bills were first introduced, what was your immediate assessment? On the surface, people might initially consider such legislation necessary, reasoning that ministers, chief ministers, or prime ministers should not continue in office while facing imprisonment. However, I find the inclusion of the prime minister within this bill's scope to be a Constitutional mockery. This inclusion might serve purposes of legal equity or address certain jurisprudential challenges related to equality before law principles. The fundamental concern arises when considering the practical implications. If ministers face imprisonment, they would automatically lose their positions after 30 days under these provisions. Our country operates under various penal statutes that permit arrest and detention for extended periods -- 90 days, 100 days, or even 60 days -- particularly under draconian legislation like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA The dangerous potential emerges when considering that any individual could fabricate charges against a chief minister. Such a person could file a false complaint with the Enforcement Directorate, or the Central Bureau of Investigation which would then investigate, arrest the chief minister, and after 30 days of detention, that chief minister would automatically lose office. This scenario would trigger the complete collapse of the state government. This mechanism could be weaponised as a tool for destabilisation by any Union government -- and I emphasise this applies to any future Union government, not specifically the current administration. Any central government could potentially deploy this legislation against state governments they oppose politically. This represents the most frightening prospect and dangerous possibility that these bills create. Throughout our nation's legislative history, the established policy has consistently held that public office holders should face punishment only after receiving conviction from a competent court of law. Without this safeguard, we risk systematic destabilisation, and our federal structure would face complete collapse. Consider extending this logic to members of Parliament. If we establish laws stipulating that merely filing allegations or cases against MPs results in their imprisonment and subsequent disqualification with loss of membership, this mechanism could theoretically target all 543 Lok Sabha members. Imagine the catastrophic impact on our country and political system if such weaponisation occurred. This is precisely why seasoned lawmakers exercise extreme caution regarding legislation affecting political office holders. We're not discussing junior ministers here -- we're addressing chief ministers who govern entire states. These officials could be targeted under any of these draconian laws and imprisoned for 30 days or longer. If political opponents desire a particular chief minister's removal, this legislation provides the most expedient method available. This constitutes the primary danger. Our legislative tradition has always maintained that only after an individual receives conviction from a competent court of law should they forfeit their political position. These three new bills completely override and obliterate this fundamental Constitutional safeguard, representing a dangerous departure from established democratic principles. The Galwan clashes indicate to the limitations in relations if they do not address border stability, points out Srikanth Kondapalli. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in New Delhi, August 19, 2025. Photograph: @narendramodi China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to New Delhi on August 18 to 19 has set the tone for future institutionalisation of bilateral relations. This is a follow up to the two leaders in October last year at Kazan, directing the officials to mend fences. The concrete outcome of the visit is the issuance of a ten point consensus by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Wang Yi at the 24th Special Representative meeting. Wang met with Prime Minister Narendra D Modi, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. The Indian side had made several trips to China in the past nine months and the PM is expected to visit Tianjin to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit meeting. Modi suggested that both should evolve 'stable, predictable and constructive' relations. These meetings have built up momentum in bilateral relations, stalled since the bloody clashes between the troops at Galwan in June 2020. Many 'red lines' in the bilateral relations have been repeated again this time by the Indian side, while the Chinese side, in its inimitable style, asked New Delhi to adopt 'correct strategic perception' and 'view each other as partners and opportunities rather than rivals or threats'. Wang, however, acknowledged that the 'setbacks that we faced in the last few years were not in our interest'. Acknowledging that bilateral relations remained a 'difficult period in our relationship', Dr S Jaishankar reminded Wang of the unfinished job of de-escalation on the borders, multi-polar Asia, countering terrorism and other issues that bogged down the bilateral relations for the past five years and complicated further by the active Chinese support to Pakistan recently in Operation Sindoor. Bilateral discussions focused on economic and trade issues, pilgrimages, tourism, river data sharing, border trade, connectivity and bilateral exchanges. Wang agreed to lift the restrictions on rare earth metals, tunnel boring machines and others, even though these are offensive actions in the first place. IMAGE: External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar with Wang Yi in New Delhi, August 18, 2025. Photograph: @DrSJaishankar/X More concrete outcomes of these meetings are the formation of an Expert Group to explore 'early harvest' of boundary delimitation, a Working Group to advance effective border management, corps commanders meetings in all the three sectors of the border, hydrological data exchange, re-opening the three border trading posts that were shut down following the Galwan clashes. While no specific details are provided, 'early harvest' was proposed by the Chinese side more than a decade ago for the Sikkim sector as it was least disputed and had the 1890 treaty between the then Sikkim kingdom and Qing dynasty, even though it was not ratified. However, "delimitation of the boundary" implied the processes related to definition of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and demarcation on the ground. Originally the Special Representative mechanism was tasked to clarify the LAC. This change in focus suggests to either advanced nature of the talks or coming to a grind halt on the boundary issue later. After the Doklam incident in 2017, India proposed, at the sidelines of the BRICS summit meeting at Xiamen, that new and effective confidence building measures should be explored to fix the gaps in the five main agreements signed since 1993. This was again reiterated in subsequent defence ministerial meetings but no progress was made. With Galwan clashes, all talk about border management have been jettisoned as the primary focus was on how to address the border situation. The corps commanders meetings addressed this issue in the western sector. Now, both agreed to introduce corps commanders meetings to address the situation in the other remaining eastern and middle sectors of the border as well. Whether these new groups will become effective and deliver stability to the borders or remain 'talking shops' is any one's guess, given the irredentist agenda of China's military. The fact that China is balancing India at every step of the dialogue process indicates to the tough times ahead. IMAGE: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Wang Yi leave from Hyderabad House after a meeting in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Video Grab For instance, the 23rd Special Representative meeting in December last coincided with China announcing formation of two new counties in the disputed Aksai Chin region, renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh a fourth time and announcement of the construction of the biggest dam on the environmentally fragile borders with India. The elephant in the room, however, is the looming tariffs of the United States government on these two countries. President Donald Trump's tariffs loomed over Wang's visit. While the Geneva, London and Stockholm talks between the US and China resulted in a 90-day reprieve, 30 percent legacy tariffs are still imposed on China. The US relented on China due to the latter's restriction of magnets and rare earth minerals crucial for the American defence industry, electronics and automobile sector. But not so on India. President Trump had imposed 25 percent tariffs on Indian exports, in addition to 25 percent more for importing Russian energy and weapons. India and China intend to resuscitate bilateral relations in the backdrop of the tough situation emerging globally. They reiterated multipolarity and suggested to exploring new forms of multilateralism. The Galwan clashes, however, indicate to the limitations in bilateral relations if they do not address border stability. Srikanth Kondapalli is Professor in Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff The Supreme Court on Friday said aggressive sterilisation would put a curb on the rapid growth of stray dog population which would ultimately lead to reduction in their numbers. Image used only for representation. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/ Reuters A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath said this was possible only in an idealistic situation which seems unlikely in the present scenario. The bench noted it was argued before it that the process of sterilisation and inoculation had worked wonders in many towns across the country, significantly bringing down the population of stray dogs. The bench, also comprising Justices Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria, said it was pointed out that towns like Dehradun and Lucknow, which had taken aggressive measures for sterilisation as per the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, had seen a steady decline in the population of stray dogs. It also referred to a suggestion for chemical castration being safe, painless and effective mode of sterilisation. "The aggressive sterilisation would definitely put a curb on the rapid growth of the stray dog population, ultimately leading to its reduction," the bench said. The issue before court centred around the right of stray dogs to live on the streets vis-a-vis the safety and security of citizens, particularly the kids and elderly people, from these canines many of whom were suspected to be infected with rabies. "It is indisputable that human beings bitten by rabid dogs suffer indescribably, and many times, the infection proves to be fatal," the bench noted. It supplemented, modified and clarified the directions issued by a two-judge bench of the top court on August 11. The bench modified the August 11 direction, which prohibited the release of vaccinated stray dogs from pounds in Delhi-NCR, calling it "too harsh" and ordered the canines to be released post sterilisation and de-worming. The top court passed the order on the interim prayer seeking a stay on some of the directions passed on August 11. The bench delivered its order in a suo motu case initiated on July 28 over a media report on stray dog bites leading to rabies, particularly among children, in the national capital. Widespread protests were reported across the country following the August 11 order. The Delhi Police on Friday detained a friend of Rajesh Khimji, who is accused in the Delhi CM Rekha Gupta attack case in Rajkot, police sources said. IMAGE: Delhi CM Rekha Gupta was accorded Z-category security cover after the attack. Photograph: ANI Photo It is alleged that Rajesh's friend transferred money to him. The Delhi Police is currently tracking ten people who were in contact with the accused through calls and messages. One of the suspects will be brought to Delhi by Friday evening. The Delhi police team is also recording statements from five other individuals in Rajkot, whose data was discovered on the accused's mobile phone. Gupta was attacked by Rajkot resident Rajesh Khimji at her Civil Lines residence on Wednesday during Jan Sunwai. The accused has been sent to a five-day judicial custody, and further investigation is underway into the matter. "Delhi police detained a friend of the accused Rajesh from Rajkot. He had allegedly transferred money to Rajesh. Delhi Police is tracking ten people who were in contact with the accused through calls and chats. One of the suspects will be brought to Delhi by evening today. Delhi police team in Rajkot to record statements of five others whose data has been taken from the mobile of the accused," the sources said. Meanwhile, on Thursday, CM Rekha Gupta reaffirmed her commitment to public service following an attack on her earlier this week, stating that she would continue to fight for the interests of Delhi despite facing "unexpected blows" and would never "abandon" the national capital. In a post on social media platform X, Gupta said women possess "double the strength" to overcome adversity and must pass numerous tests to prove themselves. She added that public hearings would now be conducted not only at her residence but in every assembly constituency across Delhi. The Delhi Police is investigating the matter from all angles and are coordinating with Rajkot Police, sources said. Central agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, have also joined the probe. Following the attack, CM Rekha Gupta was accorded Z-category security cover of the Central Reserve Police Force. The CRPF personnel reached the Chief Minister's residence on Thursday morning to take charge of her security from the Delhi police. Additional deployment has also been made in and around the CM's residence and office to ensure round-the-clock protection. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Friday asserted that she will never be scared and defeated, and continue to struggle for the rights of Delhi, as she resumed official engagements two days after an attack on her. IMAGE: Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta inaugurates the Vastrika-2025 program and the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Gandhi Nagar Market at Ashok Bazaar, Gandhi Nagar, in New Delhi on August 22, 2025. Photograph: ANI Photo Gupta returned to her 'old form' after recovering from the 'shock' suffered by her in the past two days and participated in public events, said a statement from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO). Addressing an event in Gandhi Nagar in the trans Yamuna area of the city, Gupta said struggle was her 'unwavering resolve'. "Your chief minister will neither be scared, nor tired and defeated. I will continue to struggle alongside you till Delhi gets its rights. This is my unwavering resolve," she stated. Gupta was attacked by a Rajkot resident, Rajeshbhai Khimji, during a 'Jan Sunwai' programme at her camp office in Civil Lines area of the city on Wednesday morning. The accused was arrested and booked under an attempt to murder charge. Gupta said that Delhi went backwards in the last 10-12 years, but her government was determined to ensure development. She also assured all budgetary support for the development of the trans Yamuna area of the national capital, saying it would help to come to the forefront of a Viksit Delhi. After the attack, Gupta was confined to her residence. She resumed her official engagements by attending the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Association of Wholesale Garment Dealers in Gandhi Nagar, the biggest ready-made garment hub of Asia. She went to her office at the Delhi Secretariat after attending the event. The chief minister also attended an 'Industrial Ideathon' programme in the evening, organised by the Industries department of the Delhi government. She told the public that struggle has always been her way of life, and she will remain steadfast in this resolve. She is once again fully engaged in addressing the problems and development of the people of Delhi, and her daily work schedule will continue as before, the statement said. The chief minister was advised by the doctors to rest for a few days to recover from the trauma of the attack, but on the very evening, she asserted that such attacks can never break her determination and resolve to serve the people, it said. According to the CMO, the doctors once again suggested to the chief minister on Thursday evening that she should take rest for a couple more days, but she again refused it. She said that such attacks cannot deter her from her 'Developed Delhi' mission, and that she would resume her service to Delhi starting Friday. In fact, she was already working from home, the statement said. In a post on X, the chief minister stated that she can never stop fighting for the interests of the Delhi people and asserted that her 'Jan Sunwai' programmes will now also be held in all the Assembly constituencies in the city. 'India is cosying up to Xi Jinping. They don't need the Russian oil. It's a refining profiteering scheme.' IMAGE: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, August 21, 2025. Photograph: ANI Photo White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro on Thursday claimed that India is cosying up to China's President Xi Jinping, accusing New Delhi of acting as a 'laundromat for the Kremlin' by purchasing discounted Russian crude oil, refining it, and selling the products at a premium globally. However, Navarro mixed his criticism with praise for India's leadership, adding that 'the road to peace runs through New Delhi.' This arrangement, he claimed, allows Russia to fund its war efforts in Ukraine, while India profits from the transactions. 'India doesn't appear to want to recognise its role in the bloodshed... It's cosying up to Xi Jinping (Chinese president). They (India) don't need the (Russian) oil. It's a refining profiteering scheme. It's a laundromat for the Kremlin.' 'I love India. Modi is a great leader, but please, India, look at your role in the global economy. What you're doing right now is not creating peace. It's perpetuating the war,' the White House trade advisor said. Notably, his statements come after Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, emphasised the importance of treating India as a 'prized free and democratic partner' in the global effort to counter China's growing influence. In her opinion piece in Newsweek magazine, Haley warned that damaging the 25-year momentum in US-India relations would be a 'strategic disaster'. She urged US President Donald John Trump to 'reverse the downward spiral' and hold direct talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 'The sooner the better,' she said. Economist Jeffrey Sachs has strongly criticised the US administration's decision to impose steep tariffs on India, calling them 'bizarre' and 'very self-destructive of US foreign policy interests'. In a recent interview with ANI, Sachs expressed concerns that these tariffs will undermine years of efforts to strengthen US-India relations. Sachs described the tariffs as 'not a strategy, but sabotage' and the 'stupidest tactical move in US foreign policy', which has unified the BRICS countries like never before. Trump announced 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods in July, even as there were hopes of an interim India-US trade deal that would have otherwise helped avoid elevated tariffs. A few days later, he imposed another 25 per cent tariff, taking the total to 50 per cent, citing India's continued imports of Russian oil. Navarro argued that India doesn't need Russian oil, pointing out that before the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, India imported less than 1% of its oil from Russia, whereas now it imports around 35-40%. 'Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India bought virtually no Russian oil... The argument now, when this percentage has gone up to 30%-35%, that somehow they need Russian oil, is nonsense... Russian refiners have gotten in bed with Indian refiners in a game in which they get cheap Russian crude at a discount. Then they make refined products, which they sell at premium prices into Europe, Africa and Asia,' he said. Navarro further stated that US imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, effective August 27, citing India's continued purchase of Russian oil amid geopolitical tensions over the Russia-Ukraine war. The total tariff rate combines a baseline 10% duty with a 25% reciprocal tariff and an additional 25% tariff. He described India's barriers as 'higher tariffs, Maharaja tariffs, higher non-tariff barriers', arguing that they contributed to a 'massive' US trade deficit that 'hurts American workers' and 'hurts American businesses'. 'In India, 25% tariffs were put in place because they cheat us on trade. Then 25% because of the Russian oil... They have higher tariffs, Maharaja tariffs... We run a massive trade deficit with them. So that hurts American workers and businesses. Then they use the money that they get from us when they sell us stuff to buy Russian oil, which then is processed by refiners, and they make a bunch of money there, but then the Russians use the money to build more arms and kill Ukrainians,' Navarro said. 'So American taxpayers have to provide more aid, military style, to the Ukrainians. That's insane, and President Trump sees that chessboard beautifully. In many ways, the road to peace runs through New Delhi,' Navarro added. Navarro's comments come as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar responded to criticism of India by American officials for its energy ties with Russia, and said the US itself had asked New Delhi to help stabilise global energy markets by buying Russian oil. Jaishankar called out the US logic to impose tariffs on India, despite China being the biggest purchaser of Russian oil andthe EU being the biggest purchaser of LNG 'We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil; that is China. We are not the biggest purchasers of LNG, that is the European Union. We are not the country which has the biggest trade surge with Russia after 2022. I think there are some countries to the South,' Jaishankar said during his visit to Moscow. 'We are a country where the Americans have said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilise the world energy market, including buying oil from Russia. Incidentally, we also buy oil from the US, and that amount has increased. So honestly, we are very perplexed.' 'It is fortuitous that over the last couple of weeks, our relations with China are on the mend' IMAGE: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi calls on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in New Delhi, August 19, 2025. Photograph: @narendramodi/X Former Army chief Gen M M Naravane (retd) Thursday said it is "fortuitous" that India-China ties are "on the mend" with a number of initiatives announced at political, diplomatic and military levels for the improvement of "our engagements and relations" going forward. In his address at an event in New Delhi, he also said, "We are hopeful that China too will reciprocate our goodwill as we move ahead." His remarks come amid a major thaw in China-India ties. India and China on Tuesday unveiled a series of measures for a "stable, cooperative and forward-looking" relationship that included jointly maintaining peace along the frontier, reopening border trade, promoting investment flows, and resuming direct flight connectivity at the earliest. The announcements aimed at realising the "full" development potential of the two Asian giants came amid growing estrangement in ties between India and the US over President Donald Trump's policies on trade and tariffs. "It's not that the current momentum of change and interaction that is taking place between India and China is something that has been forced upon us due to some events. We always wanted good relations with China," Gen Naravane (retd) said. He also expressed happiness that India and China are "moving forward" on discussing the boundary question. "It is a boundary and not a border, and like in a boundary, it is open to negotiations... a certain amount of give and take is possible," the former Army chief said. On Tuesday, India and China listed the measures in a joint document after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held wide-ranging talks earlier this week with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, besides meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "It is fortuitous that over the last couple of weeks, our relations with China are on the mend, a number of initiatives have been announced at political, diplomatic and military levels so that our engagements and relations improve as we go forward," Naravane said. Wang paid a two-day visit to India, and his trip has largely been seen as part of ongoing efforts by the two neighbours to rebuild their relationship after it came under severe strain following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020. Gen Naravane said post-2020, "a large amount of forces are arrayed on either side of the Line of Actual Control" and recalled that the external affairs minister had cautioned about the presence of such a large number of troops along the LAC. "Definitely, not a situation in our common interest. We need to move forward and try to resolve it as soon as possible," he said. The former Army chief asserted that it was his "hope for the future that our relations will improve". The two most populous nations of the world, not seeing eye to eye, do not bode well," he added. In his address, Gen Naravane (retd) also underlined the historic ties between the two countries. "We were cooperating together for so many centuries... Post-independence, we didn't quite see eye to eye on certain issues, leading to the 1962 war, which strained relations thereafter." "If you look at the civilisational timeline, the last 60-70 years are but a very small blip on this entire timeline. "These kinds of ups and downs in the relationship between the two countries are bound to occur; nothing abnormal about it. Nevertheless, this blip in the relations cannot be just set aside or brushed under the carpet. It is an important and emotive issue between the two countries, and the sooner we settle it, the better it will be for the world at large," the former Army chief said. Gen Naravane was appointed as the 28th Chief of Army Staff in December 2019 and superannuated in April 2022 after four decades of illustrious and meritorious service. On the India-China boundary question, he mentioned the Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question, signed in 2005. "Not much progress has been made, but the fact that it is being talked about once again gives us hope as we move forward," he added. He also quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi from a 2024 interview. "It is my belief that we need to urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us," Modi had said in the interview. The Supreme Court on Friday modified its August 11 direction prohibiting release of stray dogs from pounds in Delhi-NCR and said the picked up canines should be sterilised, vaccinated and released back in the same area. Following are the highlights of the top court verdict: IMAGE: Dog lovers take part in a protest against the Supreme Court's verdict directing all stray dogs in Delhi-NCR to be moved to shelters at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi, on August 21, 2025. Photograph: ANI Photo * SC keeps in abeyance for now Aug 11 direction prohibiting release of picked up strays. * SC says picked up strays should be sterilised, de-wormed, vaccinated and released in the same area. * SC clarifies relocation won't apply to dogs infected with rabies or suspected to be infected with rabies apart from aggressive ones. * SC says dogs with rabies or displaying aggressive behaviour will be sterilised and immunised, but not released in streets. * SC says rabid or aggressive dogs will be kept in a separate pound or shelter after sterilisation and immunisation. * SC says municipal authorities in Delhi-NCR would continue to comply with August 11 directions to pick up stray dogs from all localities of Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurugram and immediately create dog shelters or pounds. * SC directs municipal authorities in Delhi-NCR to begin creating dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs in each municipal ward. * SC says feeding areas will be created or identified keeping in view population, concentration of stray dogs. * SC says gantries or notice boards will be placed near such designated feeding areas, mentioning stray dogs will only be fed in such areas. * SC says under no condition feeding of stray dogs on the streets will be permitted. * SC says persons found feeding dogs on the streets in violation of its directions will be punished. * SC says each municipal authority will create a dedicated helpline for reporting incidents of violation of its directions. * SC says on receiving report of violation, appropriate measures will be taken against people or NGOs. * SC says no individual or organisation will cause obstruction in effective implementation of its directions. * SC says in case any public servant acting in compliance with its directions is obstructed, violator will be liable to face prosecution. * SC says each individual dog lover and NGO that came to apex court will deposit Rs 25,000 and Rs 2 lakh, respectively, within seven days, failing which they will not be allowed to appear in the matter in future. * SC says deposited amount will be utilised in creation of infrastructure and facilities for stray dogs under the aegis of respective municipal bodies. * SC says desirous animal lovers will be free to move plea to civic bodies for adoption of stray dogs. * SC says it will be responsibility of the applicant to ensure adopted stray dogs do not return to streets. * SC asks municipal authorities to file compliance with complete statistics of resources including dog pounds, veterinarians, dog catching personnel, specially modified vehicles and cages available as on date. * SC expands scope of matter beyond the confines of Delhi-NCR, asks all states and union territories to be added as parties. * SC transfers to itself pleas concerning stray dogs pending before different high courts. China on Friday said the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held in Tianjin later this month will be the largest in the bloc's history, with 20 world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attending it. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting at a residence near Moscow, on July 8, 2024. Photograph: Sputnik/Sergei Bobylyov/Pool via Reuters The Tianjin meeting of the 10-member grouping from Aug 31-Sept 1 is the fifth summit being hosted by China. It will be the largest in SCO history, China's Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin told a media briefing in Beijing. Besides Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the summit will be attended by PM Modi and a host of world leaders, Liu said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh are other prominent leaders to attend the summit, he said. From the subcontinent, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif, Nepal's Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli and Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu will attend the summit, Liu said. Officials of 10 international organisations, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and SCO Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev, will attend the event, making it the largest in the organisation's history. China is this year's rotating chair of the 10-member bloc. The SCO comprises Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and China. The extended SCO plus summit is seen as an attempt by Beijing to showcase its growing influence in the world. Most of the leaders were expected to stay beyond the two-day summit to witness China's largest military parade to be held in Beijing on Sept 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. China will showcase a series of new-generation armaments in the military parade, such as fourth-generation tanks and aircraft, unmanned intelligence and counter-unmanned equipment, and advanced missiles, including hypersonic ones, official media in Beijing reported. Liu said Xi will chair the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO and the 'SCO Plus' Meeting, and deliver keynote speeches. Xi will host a welcome banquet and bilateral events for participating leaders. This summit will be one of the most important head-of-state diplomacy and home-ground diplomacy events in China this year, Liu said. In his keynote speeches, Xi will elaborate on China's new vision and propositions for the SCO in carrying forward the Shanghai Spirit, shouldering the mission of the times, and responding to the people's expectations. Xi will also announce new measures and initiatives by China to support high-quality development of the SCO and comprehensive cooperation, and propose new methods and pathways for the organisation to constructively safeguard the post-WWII international order and improve the global governance system, he said. Xi will jointly sign and issue a declaration with leaders of other SCO member states, approve a development strategy of the SCO for the next 10 years, issue statements marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War and the 80th founding anniversary of the United Nations, and adopt a series of outcome documents on strengthening security, economic, people-to-people and cultural cooperation, he said. The Indore Municipal Corporation in Madhya Pradesh has removed signboards with new street names in a Muslim-dominated area after a Bharatiya Janata Party leader said these were tied to a particular religion, officials have said. Photograph: Prasanna D Zore/ Rediff.com Image used for representational purposes only. Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargav said on Thursday that legal action would be initiated against a ward councillor for allegedly renaming the roads illegally. Former BJP MLA Akash Vijayvargiya, son of MP Urban Development and Housing Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, wrote to IMC commissioner Shivam Verma claiming some streets in Chandan Nagar had been renamed on the basis of a particular religion. He claimed civic employees had put up signboards with altered names, and warned of an agitation if the boards were not removed immediately. Mayor Bhargav said ward councillor Fatma Rafiq Khan had unlawfully renamed five streets in Chandan Nagar's Ward No. 2 and got the signboards installed through corporation staff. The boards were subsequently removed, and legal action has been directed against the councillor, Bhargav said. The councillor's husband Rafiq Khan denied the charge, stating they had, two years ago, requested the corporation to install signboards in the densely populated locality for public convenience. The civic body had put up the boards with names that had been in use for around 40 years, Rafiq Khan claimed. Khan said while he and his wife had not objected to the removal of the disputed signboards, they would meet the mayor to present their side. One of the removed signboards carried Sakina Manzil Road' alongside Chandan Nagar Sector-B Ward No. 2' for the same street, while another street was shown as Raza Gate' as well as Loha Gate Road'. Local resident Abdul Wahid Khan said one board displayed Gausia Road' along with Chandu Wala Road' since both names were commonly used. The removal of these boards will obviously cause difficulty in locating addresses, he added. Former IPS officer Meeran Borwankar has said that political interference was one of the reasons why Malegaon and 7/11 blasts victims and the kin of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar could not get full justice. IMAGE: Residents and police officers clear debris at a blast site in Malegaon, about 260 km northeast of Mumbai, September 30, 2008. Photograph: Reuters Speaking at the 12th death anniversary event of Dr Dabholkar in the city on Wednesday, the former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer claimed that she had received a threatening email questioning her participation in the programme. I decided to speak on the same subject I had recently written about in an article in a Marathi daily about political interference in policing, she said. Borwankar said ex-Mumbai police commissioner Julio Ribeiro wrote an article in an English daily in Punjab that former Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare had confided in him about facing political pressure from a Delhi-based leader in the Malegaon blasts case. Ribeiro wrote in the article that his conversation with Karkare had happened a day or two before the death of the Mumbai ATS (anti-terrorism squad) chief in the 26/11 attacks in 2008, said Borwankar. "Similarly, Rohini Salian, with whom I worked closely and who was a sincere, committed and knowledgeable prosecutor, was set aside in the Malegaon blasts case after the NIA took over. She had gone on record to say that there was pressure on her to go soft. After the Malegaon blasts verdict came, she sought to know where the evidence had gone," Borwankar said. The former IPS officer also cited a Pune court's observations in the Dabholkar murder case. Sentencing two accused to life imprisonment and acquitting three others, the judge observed that if three accused were acquitted, who was the main conspirator and who hatched the plot to kill Dr Dabholkar. "Neither the CBI nor the police could reach the mastermind. Was it failure, or deliberate, or was there any influence by a powerful person," she asked. She said that "if politicians interfere in cases like Dabholkar murder and Malegaon blasts, and victims do not get justice, then what could be worse than that?" "It is true that we could not give justice to the 190 victims of the 7/11 train bombings, the Malegaon victims, or trace the real perpetrators in the Dabholkar murder. Along with various other factors, political interference is one of the key reasons," she said. She claimed, "... while working in the police department in different roles, how pressure affects the police's efficiency and how, instead of reaching the truth, we lose our path." Dabholkar was shot dead by two assailants when he was on his morning walk on a bridge near Omkareshwar temple in Pune on August 20, 2013. Nearly 17 years after the Malegaon blast claimed six lives, a special court in Mumbai on July 31 acquitted all seven accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, noting there was no reliable and cogent evidence against them. The Bombay high court on July 21 acquitted all 12 accused in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case of 2006, which left more than 180 dead, saying the prosecution had utterly failed to prove the charges and it was hard to believe the accused committed the crime. A man was detained on Friday for raising slogans during Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta's programme in Gandhi Nagar, police said. IMAGE: Police escort a man out of the venue of Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta's programme in Gandhi Nagar. Photograph: ANI on X He was immediately escorted out of the venue by security personnel, they said. This comes two days after the chief minister was allegedly attacked by a 41-year-old man at her Civil Lines Camp Office residence during a 'Jan Sunwai' programme on Wednesday. This was Gupta's first public appearance since the attack. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW The Supreme Court on Friday asked "dog lovers" and NGOs, which moved against the order of permanent relocation of strays in Delhi-NCR, to deposit Rs 25,000 and Rs 2 lakh, respectively, within a week for being heard in the matter. IMAGE: Kindly note that this image has been posted for representational purposes only. Photograph: ANI Photo A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath said the money should be utilised for creating infrastructure and facilities for stray dogs under the aegis of the respective municipal bodies. "Each individual dog lover and each NGO that have approached this court shall deposit a sum of Rs 25,000 and Rs two lakh respectively with the registry of this court within a period of seven days, failing which they shall not be allowed to appear in the matter any further," the bench, also comprising Justices Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria, said. Many NGOs and individual persons moved the apex court seeking a stay of some of the directions passed on August 11 by a two-judge bench of the top court. On Friday, the three-judge bench delivered its order in a suo motu case initiated on July 28 over a media report on stray dog bites leading to rabies, particularly among children, in the national capital. The bench said desirous animal lovers shall be free to move application to the concerned municipal bodies for adoption of stray dogs upon which the identified canine shall be tagged and given in adoption to the applicant. "It shall be the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that the adopted stray dogs do not return to the streets," it said. The bench modified the August 11 direction prohibiting release of stray dogs from dog shelters in Delhi-NCR, and said the picked up canines should be sterilised, vaccinated and released back in the same area. The bench, however, said municipal authorities shall continue to comply with the direction asking them to start picking up and rounding stray dogs from all localities of Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurugram. The apex court said the August 11 direction prohibiting the release of picked up stray dogs shall be kept in abeyance for the time being. Widespread protests were reported across the country following the apex court's August 11 order. In a security breach, a 20-year-old man attempted to scale a wall of Parliament on Friday morning but was caught by security personnel and handed over to police, police said. IMAGE: Security personnel keep vigil at Parliament building following the recent security breach that took place in Lok Sabha. Photograph: Rahul Singh/ANI Photo The man, identified as Rama, hails from Uttar Pradesh and appears to be "mentally incoherent", they said. "Around 5.50 am on Friday, a person attempted the scale a boundary wall of Parliament but was promptly apprehended by alert CISF and Delhi Police staff," Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Devesh Mahla said. "He appears to be mentally incoherent and further interrogation and verification is in process," the DCP added. Sources said he tried to gain entry into Parliament by climbing a tree adjoining the boundary wall. Multiple central agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Cell of Delhi Police, are questioning the man. "He has since been handed over to Delhi Police for further interrogation. The IB and Special Cell officers are questioning him to determine his motive," said the source. The incident revived memories of the December 13, 2023, breach when two men climbed into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors' gallery and released yellow-coloured smoke canisters, while two others carried out a similar act outside. It coincided with the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament, raising serious security questions. The Supreme Court on Friday said a 'blanket direction' to pick up stray dogs in Delhi-NCR and place them in shelters without evaluating the existing infrastructure might lead to a 'catch-22 situation' as the directive might be impossible to comply with. IMAGE: Animal lovers and rights take part in a protest against SC verdict directing all stray dogs in Delhi-NCR to be moved to shelters at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi, on August 21, 2025. Photograph: ANI Photo The apex court modified its August 11 direction, which prohibited the release of vaccinated stray dogs from pounds in Delhi-NCR, calling it 'too harsh' and ordered the canines to be released post sterilisation and de-worming. "A blanket direction to pick up all the strays and place them in dog shelters/pounds without evaluating the existing infrastructure may lead to a catch-22 situation because such directions may be impossible to comply with," it said. A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath said the intent behind the August 11 order was salutary inasmuch as it works towards protecting the citizens at large from attacks by aggressive and rabid stray dogs. "However, there are certain vital factors that call for a balancing exercise so that the order dated August 11, 2025, can be taken to its logical conclusion while keeping its ambit within the contour of the legal framework, i.e., the ABC (Animal Birth Control) Rules, 2023," the bench, also comprising Justices Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria, said. It said Rule 11(19) of the ABC Rules clearly provided that once stray dogs have been sterilised, inoculated and dewormed, they have to be released back in the same locality from which they were picked up. The bench said the mandate to keep all stray dogs picked up from Delhi-NCR in municipal shelters or pounds would require logistics of 'gargantuan proportions' including manpower, veterinarians, cages and specially modified vehicles for transportation of the captured canines. "It cannot be gainsaid that before any direction for impounding the entire stray dog population is given, it would be necessary to have a look at the existing infrastructure and human resources available with the municipal bodies," it said. It said the August 11 direction that stray dogs shall not be released back onto the streets was for ensuring that same number of canines does not land back on the streets as were picked up for sterilisation and immunisation, as this would 'literally become a vicious circle'. The top court referred to the provision in Rule 11(19) that dogs, upon sterilisation and immunisation, should be relocated to the same locality was scientifically carved out as it serves two purposes. "Firstly, the same prevents the scope of overcrowding in the dog shelters/pounds, and secondly, the picked-up stray dogs after immunisation and sterilisation are relocated to the same environment where they were living earlier, which is a compassionate treatment," the bench said. The top court passed the order on the interim prayer seeking a stay on some of the directions passed on August 11 by a two-judge bench. The bench delivered its order in a suo motu case initiated on July 28 over a media report on stray dog bites leading to rabies, particularly among children, in the national capital. Widespread protests were reported across the country following the apex court's August 11 order. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Brattleboro, VT (05301) Today Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. High 74F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear early, then a few clouds later on. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Insurer Tower is strengthening its focus on digital and data by appointing two new executives as it invests in platforms and capabilities to support seamless customer experiences. Dr. Stephen Hastings will move into the role of chief data and analytics officer, effective immediately, while Micheal Maclean will join Tower as chief digital and technology officer in early November. Tower chief executive Paul Johnston said the appointments marked the next evolution of Towers digital and data strategy, building on the momentum of investments in the companys digital platform and reinforcing its commitment to continued technology leadership. Digital technology and data are central to how we serve our customers and grow our business, Johnston said. Stephen and Micheal bring deep expertise and leadership that will help us accelerate our strategy and deliver even better outcomes for our customers. Hastings brings over 25 years experience in data, analytics, AI and innovation, having founded and led KPMG New Zealands Digital Lighthouse division. His career spans financial services, insurance, utilities and government, with a proven track record in strategy execution, product development and advanced analytics. Tower has a fantastic culture and is a digital leader in the insurance industry, Johnston said. Theres a huge opportunity to accelerate transformation through smart, safe use of data, analytics, and AI. Maclean joins Tower with expertise in digital transformation and customer experience having previously led ASBs Everyday Banking business and spearheading its agile transformation programme. Dozens of migrants from Tajikistan say they have been held by Russian authorities at Moscow's Zhukovsky Airport for over a week. In footage shared with RFE/RL, dozens of men are seen locked inside a room cramped with prison-style iron bunk beds. There are no windows or air conditioners, and some men lie on the beds or on the concrete floor while others have just enough space to sit. A trash can overflows with empty packets of cheap instant noodles. "I have been here for 10 days. They give us instant soup once a day, nothing else," one of the men told RFE/RL, adding that there are about 75 people in the room. "There is a man among us who suffers from a heart condition," the man says. "We told [Russian authorities] that we want to buy return tickets and go back to Tajikistan, but they are holding us here and not allowing us in or to return home," another man says. The Tajik nationals were brought to the airport after Russian courts ordered their deportation. Russian authorities have not commented on why the migrants were being held at the airport. Similar claims have been made by many other migrants from Central Asia, who say they face a new wave of entry denials and deportations by Russian authorities. Russia's Interior Ministry reported a 17 percent increase in the number of deportations of foreigners accused of breaching immigration rules in the first half of this year in comparison to the same period of 2024. The ministry also reported a more than 30 percent drop in the number of residency permits issued for foreign nationals this year. The ministry did not say which countries' citizens were affected. However, Central Asian nationals -- in particular Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz -- have experienced intensified police raids, deportations, and mistreatment in Russia in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall in March 2024. A group of migrants, most of them citizens of Tajikistan, have been blamed for carrying out the attack on the packed concert venue outside Moscow, which killed nearly 150 people. The massacre sparked an anti-migrant drive that saw tens of thousands of Central Asians deported or denied entry to Russia, while many others reported what they described as xenophobic attacks. A woman from the southern Kyrgyz region of Osh told RFE/RL that she was insulted and threatened by police officers who held her in a crowded room for more than 24 hours at Zhukovsky Airport on August 1. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the woman said she and several other passengers were taken for questioning upon their arrival at the airport on a flight from Osh. The woman, who wears Islamic clothing, said police asked why she wore a hijab and accused her of watching extremist content on her phone. "They locked us inside a stuffy room with no windows. There were several iron beds inside. They only gave us expired instant soup," the woman said. "One of the women felt ill, and we knocked on the door. When an officer opened it, we asked him to call an ambulance. He instead called another officer, who came carrying a stun gun." The woman said the officer didn't use the stun gun directly, but that he activated it next to her. She said the officer used the device's bright light and noise to "frighten and threaten" the migrants. The woman said the police deported her the following day without any explanation. Authorities in Central Asian countries have issued several statements over the past year expressing concern over the detention of their citizens in Russian airports but have taken no action beyond that. Russia hosts millions of migrant workers from Central Asia, a former Soviet region, where many households depend on remittances. Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL's Tajik Service and Azattyq Asia Welcome back to The Farda Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that tracks the key issues in Iran and explains why they matter. I'm RFE/RL correspondent Kian Sharifi. In this edition, I'm looking into growing concerns in Iran about the Taliban's new dam that threatens the water supply of millions in northeastern Iran. What You Need To Know New Dam, More Water Problems: Iran's water crisis is going from bad to worse as the Taliban's Pashdan Dam on the Hari River threatens the city of Mashhad's main water supply. Despite longstanding agreements, Iran's water share is being cut off. Experts blame both the Taliban's disregard for neighbors' rights and Tehran's failure to act on warnings. Iran Rejects E3 Offer To Extend 'Snapback' Deadline: Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Iranian media this week that Tehran believes European powers "do not have the right to extend" the deadline of the so-called "snapback" mechanism to reinstate UN sanctions. The mechanism -- a provision under the 2015 nuclear deal -- is set to expire in October. Britain, France, and Germany, known as the E3, have threatened to trigger it by the end of August if there is no progress in talks between Iran and the United States. They have offered to extend the October deadline to incentivize Iran. Look out for my explainer on the "snapback" mechanism on August 24. Kremlin Allies Iran, Belarus Agree To Up Defense Cooperation: Iran and Belarus, both under sanctions that constrain their trading options, agreed this week to enhance bilateral defense relations during President Masud Pezeshkian's first official trip to Minsk. Pezeshkian said that Iran could assist Belarus in "neutralizing" restrictions, drawing on Tehran's long experience in navigating Western economic pressures. Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko called Pezeshkian a "friend" and offered to cooperate on a range of issues, "from providing your country with food to military-technical cooperation." The Big Issue Reservoir 'Dried Up' Iran's deepening water crisis is primarily driven by prolonged drought, chronic mismanagement, and the impacts of climate change. The crisis is so bad that officials say Tehran is becoming uninhabitable and Israel is hoping it will get people to revolt against the Islamic republic. Making an already bad situation worse is the Taliban's launch of a hydroelectric power station at the Pashdan Dam. Located on the Hari River in northwestern Afghanistan, the dam threatens to cut off the main water supply to Mashhad -- Iran's second-largest city with roughly 3.5 million residents. The Taliban, with whom Iran maintains ties but does not officially recognize as Afghanistan's rulers, started filling the dam last year and launched the power station on August 14. Iranian media say that with the diversion of the Hari River toward the Pashdan Dam, the Doosti Dam downstream -- which supplies Mashhad -- has nearly "dried up." Why It Matters: Water rights have long strained relations between Iran and Afghanistan, which share a 900-kilometer border. The Hari River flows through Afghanistan into Iran's Khorasan Razavi Province, supplying water to millions of people in the northeast. The Taliban's dam projects -- including the Salma and Pashdan dams and the planned Tirpul and Ghofghan projects -- have disrupted the river's flow, worsening Iran's water crisis. This comes despite agreements granting Iran about 820 million cubic meters annually, a quota the Taliban has not honored. Tehran has repeatedly urged "reasonable and equitable use" of the river under international law. The Taliban frames dam construction as part of its economic self-sufficiency strategy, claiming the Pashdan Dam will irrigate 13,000 hectares of farmland in Herat. What's Being Said: While Iran had raised no serious objections during 14 years of construction, officials condemned the project once the dam was filled, calling it a violation of Iran's "customary rights." Similar disputes have arisen over the Helmand River. The moderate conservative newspaper Jomhuriy-e Eslami, which was among the last Iranian papers to stop labeling the Taliban as "terrorists," described the group's behavior toward Iran as "hostile." "No government would remain silent in the face of hostility, let alone make concessions," the paper said, suggesting that Tehran has not adopted a hard enough stance against the Taliban. Tehran-based journalist Azadeh Mokhtari wrote on X that the Taliban's moves highlight "weakness in water diplomacy" in not just Iran but the wider region. "Who will you blame for this weakness in water diplomacy -- some power in the East or the West?" she added. Expert Opinion: Fatemeh Aman, a political analyst on Iranian and Afghan affairs, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that Iran's water crisis is rooted in years of mismanagement and a pattern of ignoring, or imprisoning, environmentalists. The Taliban has exacerbated the problem with its growing appetite for dam building, which she said has been happening without any sort of agreements with Iran. The Taliban, she said, "either disregard their neighbors' water rights or refuse to acknowledge them altogether." She also criticized Iranian authorities for depending on shared water sources to supply several provinces, arguing that this strain could have been avoided if warnings had been heeded and proper measures taken over the years. That's all from me for now. Until next time, Kian Sharifi If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here . It will be sent to your inbox every Friday. It is Russia's most famous opera house, where Tchaikovsky premiered Swan Lake, where Russia's premier ballet dancers and symphony musicians are judged for their technical excellence and revered for their artistry. Now employees of the Bolshoi Theater will also be judged -- and monitored -- by another criteria: their interest in, and views on, Russia's all-out war on Ukraine. The renowned Moscow theater has signed a 21.6 million ruble ($266,000) contract to install on hundreds of employees' computers monitoring software designed by tech entrepreneur Natalya Kaspersky's company. The contract was discovered in a government database by Systema, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit. The software, called InfoWatch Traffic Monitor, will examine e-mail correspondence for things such as obscene content or discussions about theater management. The developers have also included filters to detect "political views" as well as "interest in the SVO" -- the acronym for the Kremlin's official name for the Ukraine war. According to promotional materials, InfoWatch's software also monitors social media networks and messenger applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram, and popular Web browsers. As of 2024, the Bolshoi, which has its own line item in the federal budget, said it employed nearly 1,000 dancers and musicians, plus around 2,500 support, administrative, and technical employees. Tech Pioneer Kaspersky Under the contract, the main contractor for the project is a company called Andek. But the InfoWatch software itself was developed by a company called InfoWatch Laboratory, which is owned by Kaspersky. Kaspersky's ex-husband is Yevgeny Kaspersky, a programmer and tech pioneer whose antivirus software was ubiquitous on computers around the world until allegations of ties to Russian intelligence prompted the US government to ban the software. Natalya Kaspersky helped found Kaspersky Lab in the 1990s and played a key role in propelling its success. The couple divorced in 1998. Neither the Bolshoi nor Natalya Kaspersky's company responded to request for comment. Founded in 1776 and standing just a stone's throw from the Kremlin walls, the theater has always been under the close supervision of Russia's security services. In the Soviet era, KGB agents accompanied the theater's foreign tours to monitor dancers and performers and prevent defections. The theater is now under direction of famed conductor Valery Gergiev, whose outspoken support for Russian President Vladimir Putin has resulted in him being shunned in many Western capitals. Gergiev replaced Vladimir Urin, the Bolshoi's general director, who was pushed out after he signed a petition in 2022 expressing opposition to the Ukraine war. Since the launch of the all-out war on Ukraine in 2022, many cultural institutions across Russia have come under pressure, with directors and artists who have spoken out in opposition to the war being fired, or public subsidies being cut off. In June 2022, the Culture Ministry announced it was ending contracts for Moscow's famed Gogol Center, which had been under the artistic direction of filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov until he was fired a year earlier. A week after US President Donald Trump laid out the red carpet for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, not much has changed in efforts to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine. The Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska was followed by talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington that ended with a call for a face-to-face meeting between Putin and the Ukrainian president. With Russia stalling on the meeting, what has emerged so far does not resemble a clear road map to peace but rather a portrait of negotiations defined by secrecy, distrust, and the risk of stalemate. 1. Some Progress On Security Guarantees For Ukraine Washington and European countries have inched closer to defining what postwar security guarantees for Ukraine might look like. US and European military planners have begun meetings to explore what the overall security package could be ahead of a final decision on it by political leaders. This includes long-term weapons deliveries, intelligence-sharing, and joint defense planning. Trump has indicated US air power could be involved. London, Paris, and Berlin have repeated their long-standing position that security guarantees must be tangible, or Moscow will treat any cease-fire as a temporary pause before the next offensive. Russia has repeated its opposition to NATO forces in Ukraine. 2. Russia's Position Has Not Changed While media reports have said Putin has pushed forward the idea of freezing the front lines in places, his larger objectives remain intact -- total control over Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, recognition of Crimea's annexation, and binding commitments that Ukraine will not join NATO. Added to this are sweeping restrictions on Ukraine's armed forces. These do not look like concessions but demands to institutionalize Kyiv's territorial losses and enshrine Ukraine's vulnerability. The Kremlin's refusal, so far, to agree to a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy underlines how Russia has simply doubled-down on existing red lines. For Kyiv, meanwhile, ceding land to Russia would not only be unconstitutional but politically and militarily damaging. 3. Washington's Reluctance To Commit Following his two summits, Trump appears to be stepping back. The US president already said in Washington that he did not necessarily need to be at a Putin-Zelenskyy summit and has since suggested that he might attend only after the Russian and Ukrainian leaders meet. Trump has underscored that American troops will not be deployed in Ukraine, which was never really in doubt. What exactly US "involvement" in security guarantees, and what kind of role its air force may take, also remains undefined at least in public. Trump's stance reflects both strategic caution -- avoiding direct escalation with Russia -- and political calculation. The White House remains unenthusiastic about underwriting Europe's security architecture. For Kyiv, this reflects a painful truth: Europe has pledged protection, but the United States may not back it up sufficiently. 4. Transatlantic Divisions The Washington summit was a show of transatlantic unity, but divisions and distrust remain beneath the surface. US Vice President JD Vance was silent when Zelenskyy met Trump in front of the cameras in the Oval Office. But in a later Fox News interview, he said he had warned Zelenskyy, Mr. President, so long as you behave, I wont say anything. The interview recalled the heated exchange from Zelenskyy's last visit in February, suggesting old antagonisms have not entirely been forgotten. Meanwhile, CBS reported on August 21 that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a directive in July classifying all intelligence related to peace negotiations as "NOFORN" -- for US use only, barred even from the Five Eyes group. Five Eyes brings together the United States with Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in intelligence sharing. To exclude them on such a sensitive issue would leave key allies without US insights as work on security guarantees intensifies. 5. Russia's Attacks Have Continued Meanwhile, Russia's attacks have continued unabated. On August 21, Zelenskyy denounced Russia for launching hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a massive overnight assault, calling Moscow's behavior proof it had no interest in ending the conflict. "They are trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting. They don't want to end this war," he declared. While diplomats, including Russian officials, talk about dialogue, Russian forces continue to shell Ukrainian cities, killing and injuring civilians, including children, and destroying vital infrastructure. By Jonathan McCambridge, PA A murder investigation has been launched after a man was stabbed in west Belfast. The PSNI said the incident happened on Thursday evening and one man has been arrested. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips said: We received a report at around 8.15pm that a man aged in his 30s had been stabbed in the Mulberry Park area of Dunmurry. Officers attended, along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. Sadly, he was pronounced dead. A man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. At this time, we are not seeking anyone else in connection with this investigation. We would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the incident, to contact us on 101 quoting reference number 1633 21/08/25. Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker said there was shock and sadness in the local community following the death. We have launched a murder investigation after a man died following a reported stabbing in west Belfast last night. A man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. Read more here: https://t.co/Kt3xhytAZS pic.twitter.com/NLct50htk6 Police West Belfast (@PSNIBelfastW) August 22, 2025 He said: This is absolutely tragic, and I want to extend my thoughts and condolences to the deceased mans family and friends. There is a great deal of shock and sadness in our community this morning at this news. Mr Baker added: The PSNI has confirmed that a man has been arrested in connection with the incident. Anyone with information should come forward. I am encouraging people not to engage in speculation and to allow police time and space to complete their investigation. This years National Heritage Week has drawn to a successful conclusion with over sixty events having taken place in Roscommon alone this year. This years celebrations took place over a nine-day period from Saturday, August 16th to Sunday, August 24th featuring a rich array of talks, workshops, musical events, and practical demonstrations for young and old alike. Many of the events attracted many visitors to the county, no doubt suitably impressed by the many fascinating and informative events that took place and also no doubt encouraged to visit the county at a future date. Many of the events for this years National Heritage Week were organised by local volunteer and community groups, supported by Roscommon County Council and its Heritage Office as well as the Heritage Council. Arguably one of the more popular events that took place during Heritage Week was the walk, talk and boat tour of Portrun Bay, organised by the local Portrun Development Association, in conjunction with the Lough Ree Access For All initiative. Three of over thirty people per group participated in this local event, which began with a guided walk of local ancient sites in Portrun. Such was the level of interest in this event, as many as three separate groups, numbering over thirty people per group participated in this local event, which began with a guided walk of local ancient sites in Portrun followed by a boat cruise of Lough Ree. Groups began with a visit to St. Dermots Well, a beautifully restored Holy Well set in the heart of Portrun. Led by guide Elaine Conroy of the award winning Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in Tulsk, participants learned about the Saint, a teacher, poet and philosopher, known as Dermot the Just or he without envy who later established a Monastery on Inchcleraun or Quaker Island. Born shortly after the arrival of Christianity in Ireland in the late fourth century, Dermot is thought to have died in the year 504 AD approximately. Among his pupils was St. Ciaran, the founder of Clonmacnoise. Legend has it that Dermot, on meeting Monks at the site of what became the Holy Well, on one occasion felt sleepy and washed his eyes with the local spring water to revive himself. And so the local Holy Well was born, a site reputed to have cures for eye ailments. According to Elaine, the well took on almost mythical qualities, known as a liminal point between this and the next world. The site also became a site of pilgrimage for mass Clan Gatherings, among them a gathering of the OConors in 1260 and the OKellys in 1406. A visit to the nearby Church dating back to the 12th century and the associated graveyard followed. The Church, famed for is delicate lancet style windows, was the subject of a 2021 Conservation Report, which revealed evidence of a structure along the Churchs North-West walls and the addition of a late Medieval doorway. One of the more popular events that took place during Heritage Week was the walk, talk and boat tour of Portrun Bay. The Cemetery itself has been a local burial ground for over eight hundred years, though the majority of local interments now take place in the nearby Gailey Cemetery where close-by, stands Gailey Castle, in practice a Tower House built in the fifteenth century by the aforementioned OKelly Clan. A short hot and skip, so to speak to the local Harbour and a trip on the award-winning Lough Ree Access for All Boat, led by exemplary guide Liam Grimes and his team visitors were given a comprehensive history of Inchcleraun, otherwise known as Quaker Island. Mr. Grimes said the quality of the water on Lough Ree is as unspoilt today as it was one thousand years ago. For that, great credit is due to our local authorities (of Roscommon, Longford, and Westmeath) who manage the water. As recently as 1953, 253 people lived on the islands of Lough Ree, which number 52 in all, an island for every week of the year. Inchcleraun has a unique and colourful history, beginning with Queen Meabh who in the year 50 BC visited her sister on the island and where legend has it, she died, at the hands of a slingshot, using a piece of cheese fired by her nephew! Later in the sixth century AD, St. Dermot or St. Diarmuid set up a monastery on Inchcleraun Island or what today is commonly referred to as Quaker Island, of which there are the remains of seven Churches, including the ruins of a site, where its believed St. Ciaran who went onto found Clonmacnoise studied under St Diarmuid. Today, Quaker Island is privately owned and has for most of its history been in the hands of the OFarrell family. For a time, the island was occupied by those of the Quaker religious persuasion, hence its name, of which one member of that persuasion, Edward Fairbrother, lived on the island for 70 years in the 1800s. In more recent times, the island was the subject of much intrigue as ancient stones were controversially removed from the island and brought to Boston College in the USA. However the stones were soon returned to Ireland, but not to the island, but instead are in the custodianship of the Office of Public Works, where its understood they are now in storage in Galway. The event included a visit to St. Dermots Well, a beautifully restored Holy Well set in the heart of Portrun. hTAs the boat trip concluded its journey, the touring party were alerted to the presence of Gailey Island, a stronghold of the OKelly Clan before the arrival of Cromwells forces. During their residence, the OKellys held major concerts or events, where its understood the concept of what we now know today as the Fleadh Cheoil first emerged! After such an exhilarating tour, participants were treated to light refreshment by Portrun Harbour by members of the highly efficient organising committee. For one of the Committee members Anna May Gannon, the tours showcased much of Portruns hidden gems. We were delighted with the response to our tours, which were fully booked out. We started with the intention of providing two but ending up providing three tours, such was the level of interest. Now more than ever, there is a growing awareness of the rich history of Portrun, which we as a Committee will continue to highlight and promote, says Anna May. Reflecting on this years events which formed part of Heritage Week, Roscommon County Council Heritage Officer Nollaig Feeney commended all of the communities who organised and participated in this years events. A boat tour of Portrun Bay was organised by the local Portrun Development Association, in conjunction with the Lough Ree Access For All initiative. The extensive range and breath of events for this years National Heritage Week has surpassed anything previously organised. Im very grateful to the many local voluntary and community groups who support National Heritage Week with great passion and enthusiasm. Roscommon County Councils Heritage Office will continue to support local and voluntary groups in promoting their rich heritage and folklore, which our county possesses in abundance. It is the to the credit of all groups that this years Heritage Week proved such an outstanding success, causing many people to reflect and cherish their rich heritage, said Ms. Feeney. RTEs Liveline is trying to reunite old photos with their County Roscommon owner. In a post on social media on Friday afternoon, the well-known radio programme outlined that the photos had been found in the RDS, Dublin, on August 10th, with an address for Castlerea, County Roscommon, Roscommon GAA and Roscommon Herald on the back. Liveline wants listeners to text 51551, telephone 0818 715815/084 57 853333 from Northern Ireland and Great Britain, e-mail liveline@rte.ie or WhatsApp 087 4848888 if they have any information about the photos. Louise Walsh A private bus operator has been receiving calls for help from panicked parents whose children have been left stranded by Bus Eireann on school runs. Parents on a number of routes in Co Louth and Co Meath, whose children had tickets with Bus Eireann for school received an email on Thursday evening to say there was no transport in place for the start of the school year on Monday. It said: "Despite extensive efforts, we've had trouble setting up transport on some routes, including yours. "This is mostly because a number of difficulties have arisen in some localities with a small number of contracted services, including the service intended for your child. "These difficulties have arisen in some cases due to lack of driver or contractor availability and where zero bids were received for a service, despite repeated efforts to procure one. "We are working intensively to ensure that transport arrangements are put in place as soon as possible. However, at this point, we do not have a transport solution for your service for the strt of the school year on 25th August. "I wish to assure you that the school transport team is continuing to prioritise arrangements to ensure transport can be sourced and we will let you know as soon as we have a solution." It added that the Department of Education and Youth would give a grant payment called the 'Exceptional No Service Grant payment' to cover the cost of getting the child to school. One of the services affected is the Clogherhead and Termonfeckin route into St Oliver's School in Drogheda and private bus operator Rory McCullough says he has taken calls from worried parents trying to get their children to school. He also suggested that Bus Eireann should rent the buses of private operators instead of putting many of them out of business through offering students cheaper travel tickets. "Parents of children I used to bring to school have called me up this morning to ask if I can take their kids for the few weeks until this is sorted," said Mr McCullough, who has been operating school buses for over 25 years. "I know these parents and of course I can do that. It's about 15 children extra that I will be taking and I have the room for them. I don't blame anyone for applying for the Bus Eireann transport because it is a cheaper option. "But in reality, these problems happen every single year and Bus Eireann is obviously incapable of providing a reliable service. "There are local private operators in every town and village and we all work together. Why don't Bus Eireann approach them to rent their buses instead and keep everyone in business and every child sorted." Meanwhile in Duleek in Co Meath, private operator John Shiels believes he will have to pack in his business of 33 years after this year because of all the children he is losing to Bus Eireann. "I've lost 70 kids this year and I can't blame them because they can get a family ticket for as little as 150 a year and no private operator could afford to run a service for that price. "I've been a bus operator for 33 years and for the last 26 years, I have been driving children to school around the East Meath coastline in areas such as Bettystown, Mornington and Laytown. "We all know the simple solution is for Bus Eireann to rent out our buses instead of not having any buses to bring children to schools while private operators are struggling with buses that are only half full." Aontu leader Peadar Toibin has called on Minister for Education Helen McEntee to take charge of a situation which has left hundreds of children with no means of getting to school. "It is unacceptable that this level of chaos exists just a handful of days before the school year is due to start," he said. "There are problems with the school transport system every year but this is worse as it affects hundreds of children across eight services in Meath alone and there are private bus providers out there who have capacity and want to help." Rapid development of Bihar is a major priority for the NDA government at the Centre Gaya ji's spiritual and cultural heritage is both ancient and immensely rich: PM Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gaya in Bihar today Latest News: 22 AUG 2025 1:52 PM by PIB Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth Rs 12,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar today. The Prime Minister offered salutations to Gaya ji, the sacred city of knowledge and liberation and extended greetings to all from the glorious land of the Vishnupad Temple. Shri Modi remarked that the land of Gaya ji is a land of spirituality and peace. He highlighted that this sacred soil is where Lord Buddha attained enlightenment. Gaya jis spiritual and cultural heritage is both ancient and immensely rich, stated Shri Modi. Noting that the people of the region wished for the city to be referred to not merely as Gaya, but respectfully as Gaya ji, the Prime Minister congratulated the Bihar Government for honoring this sentiment. He expressed happiness that their Governments at Centre and Bihar are consistently working towards the rapid development of Gaya ji. Advertisement Highlighting that today, from the sacred land of Gaya ji, projects worth Rs 12,000 crore have been inaugurated and foundation stones laid in a single day, Shri Modi said that these projects span key sectors including energy, healthcare, and urban development. He remarked that these initiatives will strengthen Bihars industrial capacity and create new employment opportunities for the youth and congratulated the people of Bihar for these transformative projects. The Prime Minister further informed that a hospital and research centre have been inaugurated today to enhance healthcare facilities in the state. He noted that with this, the people of Bihar now have an additional facility for cancer treatment. Affirming that removing hardships from the lives of the poor and making the lives of women easier brings him the greatest satisfaction as a servant of the people, the Prime Minister reiterated that providing pucca houses to the poor is one of his major commitments. He declared that until every needy person receives a pucca house, he will not rest. He highlighted that, following this resolve, over the past 11 years, 4 crore pucca houses have been built for the poor across the country. Noting that more than 38 lakh houses have been constructed in Bihar alone, and over 2 lakh families in Gaya district have received their own pucca homes, Shri Modi emphasized that these are not just houses, but symbols of dignity for the poor. He stated that these homes come equipped with electricity, water, toilets, and gas connectionsensuring that poor families also live with convenience, safety, and dignity. Prime Minister stated that continuing this initiative, over 16,000 families in Bihars Magadh region have now received their pucca homes. He remarked that this year, Diwali and Chhath Puja celebrations in these households will be even more vibrant. Extending congratulations to all beneficiary families who have received their homes, Shri Modi assured those who are still awaiting benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana that the campaign will continue until every poor citizen receives a pucca house. Advertisement Bihar is the land of Chandragupta Maurya and Chanakya. Whenever India has faced challenges from its enemies, Bihar has stood as a shield for the nation, stated Shri Modi emphasizing that any resolve taken on the soil of Bihar never goes unfulfilled. Referring to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, where innocent civilians were killed after being asked their religion, the Prime Minister recalled that it was from the land of Bihar that he had vowed to eliminate terrorism. He asserted that today, the world is witnessing the fulfillment of that resolve taken on Bihars soil. Shri Modi reminded the nation that while Pakistan was launching drone and missile attacks, India was intercepting and neutralizing those missiles mid-air like straw in the wind. He affirmed that not a single missile from Pakistan was able to cause harm to India. Operation Sindoor has drawn a new line in Indias defence strategy, exclaimed Shri Modi asserting that now, no one can escape after sending terrorists into India or orchestrating attacks. He remarked that even if terrorists hide in the depths of the earth, Indias missiles will bury them there. The rapid development of Bihar is a major priority for the NDA government at the Centre, emphasised the Prime Minister remarking that Bihar is now progressing on the path of comprehensive development. He underlined that in recent years, solutions have been found for longstanding problems, and new avenues for progress have been created. Recalling the dire conditions during the lantern regime, Shri Modi stated that during that period, the region was gripped by red terror, and due to Maoist activities, movement after sunset was extremely difficult. He noted that cities like Gaya ji remained engulfed in darkness under the lantern regime. The Prime Minister pointed out that thousands of villages lacked even basic infrastructure like electricity poles. He asserted that those who governed during the lantern era pushed Bihars future into darkness. He further emphasized that there was neither education nor employment, and generations of Biharis were forced to migrate due to these conditions. Advertisement Shri Modi stated that the opposition and its allies view the people of Bihar merely as a vote bank. He remarked that they have no concern for the joys and sorrows of the poor, nor for their dignity and respect. The Prime Minister recalled that a former Chief Minister from a certain party had once publicly declared from a stage that people from Bihar would not be allowed to enter his state. Strongly criticizing the deep hatred and contempt towards the people of Bihar by such leaders, Shri Modi stated that despite witnessing such mistreatment, the opposition partys leadership remained in deep slumber. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi stated that the current Bihar government is responding to the divisive campaign of opposition alliances. He emphasized that efforts are underway to ensure that the sons and daughters of Bihar find employment within the state. Underlining that major projects are now being developed across Bihar, Shri Modi informed that the largest industrial area in Bihar is being established in Dobhi, Gaya ji district and a technology centre is also being set up in Gaya ji. He also mentioned the inauguration of the Buxar Thermal Power Plant today. Recalling that just a few months ago, he laid the foundation stone for the Nabinagar Super Thermal Power Project in Aurangabad, Shri Modi further stated that a new thermal power plant will be constructed in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur. He added that these power plants will significantly enhance electricity supply in Bihar. Acknowledging that increased power generation leads to improved electricity availability in homes and greater supply for industries, Shri Modi said that this expansion in energy infrastructure will also create new employment opportunities. Stating that the Chief Minister Shri Nitish Kumar has launched a major campaign to provide permanent government jobs to the youth of Bihar, Shri Modi remarked that it is because of Shri Nitish Kumars leadership that teacher recruitment in the state has been conducted with full transparency. He emphasized that efforts are being made to ensure that a maximum number of young people in Bihar find employment within the state itself, without having to migrate for jobs. Highlighting that a new initiative by the Central Government will significantly support this goal, the Prime Minister said that in his Independence Day speech, the Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rojgar Yojana was announced. Under this scheme, when young individuals take up their first job in the private sector, the Central Government will provide Rs 15,000 directly to them. He added that private companies offering employment to youth will also receive financial support. The Prime Minister affirmed that this scheme will greatly benefit the youth of Bihar. Advertisement Criticising the opposition parties and their governments for never valuing public money, Shri Modi said that for them, public funds were merely a means to fill their own coffers. He highlighted that under the opposition's rule, projects remained incomplete for years. The longer a scheme was delayed, the more money they made from it. The Prime Minister asserted that this flawed mindset has now been changed by their government. He emphasized that after a foundation stone is laid, efforts are made to complete the work as quickly as possible. Citing todays programme as an example of this approach, Shri Modi recalled that he had laid the foundation stone for the AuntaSimaria section, and now he is inaugurating it himself. He stated that this bridge will not only connect roads but will also link North and South Bihar. He noted that heavy vehicles, which earlier had to take a 150-kilometre detour via Gandhi Setu, will now have a direct route. The Prime Minister remarked that this will accelerate trade, strengthen industries, and make travel easier for pilgrims. He affirmed that development projects initiated under their government will be completedthis is a certainty. Prime Minister stated that their governments at Centre and State are working rapidly to advance railway development in Bihar. He highlighted that under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, Gaya ji Railway Station is being modernized to offer airport-like facilities to passengers. Shri Modi noted that Gaya is now a city with access to Rajdhani, Jan Shatabdi, and Made-in-India Vande Bharat trains. He emphasized that the direct rail connectivity from Gaya ji through Sasaram, Prayagraj, and Kanpur to Delhi is creating new opportunities for Bihars youth and entrepreneurs. Expressing gratitude for their blessings and the nations unwavering trust, which enabled him to begin his tenure as Prime Minister in 2014a tenure that continues uninterrupted, Shri Modi affirmed that in all these years, not a single stain of corruption has been found on his government. In contrast, he remarked that opposition governments which ruled for six to six-and-a-half decades after Independence, have a long list of corruption cases adding that the corruption by opposition parties is known to every child in Bihar. The Prime Minister stated clearly that to take the fight against corruption to its logical conclusion, no one should be outside the scope of action. He pointed out the current law under which even a junior government employee is automatically suspended if held in custody for 48 hours. He questioned how it is possible that a Chief Minister or Minister can enjoy the privileges of power even while in jail. He cited recent instances where files were being signed and official orders issued directly from jail. Shri Modi said that if this is the attitude of political leaders, then how can the fight against corruption be effectively pursued. Emphasising that the Indian Constitution expects honesty and transparency from every public representative, the Prime Minister stressed that the dignity of the Constitution must not be allowed to be torn apart. He announced that their government is bringing a stringent anti-corruption law that will apply even to the Prime Minister of the country. He added that Chief Ministers and Ministers will also be covered under this law. Explaining it further, Shri Modi said that once this law is enacted, any Prime Minister, Chief Minister, or Minister who is arrested will be required to secure bail within 30 days. If bail is not granted, they will have to vacate their position on the 31st day. He affirmed that the government is moving forward with the intent to enact such a strict law. Criticising the opposition parties for opposing this legislation, Shri Modi remarked that their anger stems from fearthose who have committed wrongdoings may hide them from others, but they themselves are aware of their actions. He stated that some leaders from opposition parties are out on bail, while others are entangled in legal proceedings related to scams and these individuals fear that if they go to jail, their political dreams will be shattered. He said this is why they are opposing the proposed law. The Prime Minister reflected that leaders like Rajendra Babu and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar could never have imagined that power-hungry individuals would commit corruption and cling to office even while in jail. He asserted that under the new law, corrupt individuals will not only go to jail but will also lose their positions of power. The resolve to free India from corruption is a collective commitment of crores of citizensand this resolve will be fulfilled, stated the PM. Mentioning that he had raised a serious concern from the Red Fortone that affects Bihar as well, Shri Modi remarked that the rising number of infiltrators in the country is a matter of grave concern. He highlighted that the demographic profile of Bihars border districts is changing rapidly and affirmed that their government has resolved not to let infiltrators decide the future of the nation. The Prime Minister stressed that infiltrators will not be allowed to snatch employment opportunities from Bihars youth. He emphasized that facilities meant for Indian citizens will not be looted by infiltrators. To address this threat, the Prime Minister announced the launch of a Demography Mission, which will begin operations very soon. He asserted that every infiltrator will be expelled from the country, urging the people of Bihar to remain vigilant against those within the country who support infiltrators. Shri Modi strongly criticized the opposition parties for attempting to deprive Biharis of their rights and hand them over to infiltrators. He stated that for appeasement and vote-bank politics, those parties were willing to go to any extent. The Prime Minister called upon the people of Bihar to remain extremely alert. Stressing that Bihar must be protected from the harmful intentions of the opposition parties, Shri Modi emphasized that this is a very crucial time for Bihar. He expressed hope that the dreams of Bihars youth will be fulfilled and added that the aspirations of the people of Bihar must be given new wings. Highlighting that the Central Government is working shoulder to shoulder with Shri Nitish Kumar for this purpose, the Prime Minister concluded by affirming that to maintain the pace of development in Bihar, their Governments at Center and State are continuously working hard, adding that todays development projects are an important step in this direction. The Governor of Bihar, Shri Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister of Bihar, Shri Nitish Kumar, Union Ministers Shri Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Shri Jitan Ram Manji, Shri Giriraj Singh, Shri Chirag Paswan, Shri Nityanand Rai, Shri Ram Nath Thakur, Dr. Raj Bhushan Choudhary, Shri Satish Chandra Dubey were present among other dignitaries at the event. (For more news apart from 'Rapid development of Bihar is a major priority for the NDA government at the Centre,' stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) This remote startup had no HR function but needed fair compensation fast. Heres the framework they built instead. Whats happening: A fully remote startup without formal HR successfully implemented a transparent compensation framework across 40 employees, turning a trust issue into a structured system that improved budget planning and employee confidence. Why this matters: Many Australian startups delay building people processes until they hit 100 employees, but waiting that long often damages trust and makes scaling harder, particularly in todays competitive talent market. We didnt have an HR department, but we had to bring structure to how we managed performance and pay. It wasnt just a policy issue. It was a trust issue, and a leadership challenge. Galina Novikova thought she was fixing a payroll problem. The co-founder of digital startup Petggle quickly realised she was actually untangling something far more complex: a trust issue that was quietly undermining her growing company. In fast-moving tech companies, innovation isnt the hard part. Its change, says Novikova, who previously worked as CFO and strategic planning lead across global marketplaces before launching her Australian-based startup. Her 40-person, fully remote team was facing rising pressure to bring structure and fairness to salary and bonus decisions. Without templates or an HR director, they had just one budget cycle to get it right. Start with trust The initial symptoms looked straightforward enough. Employees didnt know when to ask for raises. Team leads lacked consistent ways to recognise performance. Executives found budget planning felt more like guesswork than strategy. As we listened across the company, the story became clearer, Novikova explains. We werent just missing a compensation framework. We were missing shared expectations. Rather than rushing to implement a rigid system, the team focused on understanding the real problem. They benchmarked salaries across peer SaaS companies and marketplaces, but recognised that data alone rarely changes minds. So we framed a narrative, says Novikova. One that connected fairness to financial predictability. One that showed how a more transparent process could support, not replace, the human side of leadership. That narrative approach helped people step into the change rather than resist it. Build your coalition Without an HR director, Novikova pulled together a cross-functional group from product, technology, and finance. These werent token representatives but respected peers who could think critically and advocate within their teams. Crucially, they also included early sceptics. Not to convince them, but to learn from them, she says. They helped us see the friction points before rollout and shaped a solution that felt more grounded than top-down. This approach reflects broader challenges facing Australian startups around talent management and retention in competitive markets. Test before announcing Before any company-wide announcement, the team built and tested quietly. They created draft frameworks, ran simulated scenarios, and pressure-tested edge cases across different roles and countries. Key questions included whether team leads would feel supported rather than micromanaged, whether the model could flex across diverse job roles, and whether it aligned with existing budgeting rhythms. The feedback was clear, candid, and sometimes uncomfortable, Novikova admits. But it helped us avoid costly missteps. The testing phase revealed practical concerns about international compliance and role-specific performance metrics that wouldnt have emerged in theoretical planning. Launch with intention The final rollout came with three clear promises: performance reviews would link to 2024 salary planning, each role would have clearer expectations, and team leads would receive structured tools for feedback conversations. Early signals proved encouraging. Q1 budget planning ran smoother, and employees reported increased confidence in feedback discussions. We knew wed built something meaningful, says Novikova. Not perfect. But functional. Trusted. Better. The framework addressed immediate pain points while establishing foundations for continued growth. Team leads gained clarity around performance discussions, while executives could plan budgets with greater confidence. For Australian startups navigating similar HR technology investments, Novikovas experience suggests that structured approaches to compensation can deliver benefits beyond just fairness. Many startups delay building people processes, she observes. But if you wait until you have 100 employees to start aligning performance and pay, youre already late. Her advice for other founders centres on starting small, staying human, and avoiding perfectionism. You dont need a big team or big tools to lead meaningful change, she says. What you do need is curiosity, a willingness to listen, and the discipline to turn insight into structure. The transformation ultimately opened broader conversations about fairness in scaling companies, changing how the team worked together beyond just compensation decisions. Change isnt just about solving problems, Novikova concludes. Its about creating the kind of environment where good people stay, grow, and lead. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sonia Gandhi Wants His Son As PM, MK Stalin Wants His Son As CM: Home Minister Amit Shah Today DMK senior leaders K. Ponmudy and Senthil Balaji were in jail for eight months without resigning. Can a government be run from jail? Home Minister Amit Shah Tirunelveli Tamil Nadu latest News: Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Friday, addressing a meeting at the BJPs booth committee members in Tirunelveli, said Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has one agenda that is to make her son Rahul Gandhi the Prime Minister. Likewise, Stalins agenda is to make his son the Chief Minister of the state. He added that neither of them will be successful and that NDAs success is certain for both positions. Addressing the gathering, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, "These INDI alliance leaders can neither do any good for Tamil Nadu nor for the country. Stalin ji has only one agenda: to make his son (Udhayanidhi Stalin) the Chief Minister. And Sonia Gandhi also has only one agenda: to make her son (Rahul Gandhi) the Prime Minister. But I want to tell both of them, neither Rahul Gandhi can become the Prime Minister nor Udhayanidhi can become the Chief Minister. Victory for the NDA is certain in both places; victory for Modi ji is certain." Advertisement Talking about one of the three key bills, the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, introduced in the lower house of the parliament during the 2025 Monsoon Session, Amit Shah said, the bill proposes for the removal of Chief Minsiters and Prime Minister and asked whether a government can be ran from jail. He added M.K. Stalin, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has no right to say anything against the bill, citing Stalin himself engages in bad deeds. "PM Modi tabled the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha, and the entire opposition opposed it. The Bill proposes the removal of jailed Chief Ministers and Prime Ministers. DMK senior leaders K. Ponmudy and Senthil Balaji were in jail for eight months without resigning. Can a government be run from jail? DMK members are calling this a 'black bill,' but Stalin has no right to call it that because he himself is a Chief Minister who engages in black deeds, Home Minister said. Advertisement K S Radhakrishnan, a political activist, formerly with DMK, joined the BJP in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, during the occasion. Further in his speech, he called Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the most corrupt government in the country and accused the party of engaging in scams, including sand mining. Shah said, "BJP, AIADMK, and NDA partners will form the government in Tamil Nadu. DMK is the most corrupt government in the country, embroiled in 'scams' including sand mining, nutrition kit, cash-for-jobs MNREGA, and more." Advertisement Shah, during the occasion, thanked PM Narendra Modi and party president JP Nadda for choosing Tamil Nadu leader CP Radhakrishnan ji, as the candidate for the post of Vice President. He said, Tamil Nadu's son CP Radhakrishnan is going to become the Chairman of Rajya Sabha. Earlier, the NDA had also given this honour to APJ Abdul Kalam ji by making him the President of India. Narendra Modi ji has always worked to glorify Tamil Nadu, the Tamil language, and Tamil culture." Digital is the Key to Good Governance: Punjab Leads in Data Analytics mSewa App Rolled Out Across Offices to Enhance Citizen-Centric Services Shubhanshu Shukla Meets President Droupdi Murmu Latest News: Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, along with Gaganyaan Astronauts and ISRO Chief, on Friday met President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Shubhanshu Shukla shared his experiences in space. Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair and Group Captain Punyashlok Biswal, along with Chairman, ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space, Dr V Narayanan, and Director, Human Space Flight Centre, Shri Dinesh Kumar Singh, also called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Advertisement The President extended her best wishes for ISRO's upcoming human spaceflight mission, underscoring India's national commitment to cosmic exploration, according to DD News. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair and Group Captain Punyashlok Biswal, along with Chairman, ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space, Dr V Narayanan and Director, Human Space Flight Centre, Shri Dinesh Kumar Singh, called on President pic.twitter.com/vZgBe5LlmC President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 22, 2025 Shukla is the first Indian astronaut to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) in over four decades and the second Indian to have been to the ISS. Advertisement Shubhanshu Shukla had embarked on Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station on June 25, 2025 from Kennedy Space Center. He spent 18 days in space, during which he participated in over 60 scientific experiments. He returned to the Earth on July 15, 2025 and since then, for the next 45 days, he, along with other astronauts, went through a planned period of post-flight activities and rehabilitation to readjust to Earth's gravity. On August 18, he called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after returning to India on the 17th of the same month. Advertisement Following the meeting taking to X, he wrote, Met with the Hon PM today. Last time I spoke to him virtually was from Orbit with this same flag in the background on the ISS. I cannot describe how proud I felt that day representing Bharat and today when I was speaking to the PM @narendramodi Like I said this is just the first step in Bharat's journey of human spaceflight. Met with the Hon PM today. Last time I spoke to him virtually was from Orbit with this same flag in the background on the @iss. I cannot describe how proud I felt that day representing Bharat and today when I was speaking to the PM @narendramodi Like I said this is just the first pic.twitter.com/TsKGZmG8Ya Shubhanshu Shukla (@gagan_shux) August 18, 2025 Shubhanshu Shukla Shares a Time-lapse Video of India From Space: Advertisement Axiom Mission 4 pilot has shared a time-lapse video of India from Space, captured while him onboard the ISS craft orbiting the earth. The video includes the Himalayas also. He said, When you see this, I want you to feel as if you are sitting in the cupola (window in ISS) and witnessing it yourself. He explains, the time lapse as, This is a Time-lapse video of Bharat from space. The @iss is moving from south to north from the Indian Ocean. We are travelling along the east coast of India. The purple flashes you see are lightning happening in thunderstorms all over the country. Once the lights fade and a dark region appears- that's the Himalayas. As we cross over, you see light start to flood in because you are witnessing a sunrise in orbit. Also, notice the stars in the background. It truly is a mesmerising dance of natural elements turning it into one beautiful spectacle, he added. He said that because he was in Space during the monsoon season, he said it was mostly cloudy. Unfortunately, I was up there during the monsoon season and it was mostly cloudy, yet I managed to steal a few shots of Bharat, one of which you are seeing, he said. (For more news apart from 'Shubhanshu Shukla Meets President Droupdi Murmu, Shares TimeLapse of Earth,' stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Digital is the Key to Good Governance: Punjab Leads in Data Analytics Latest News Punjab Government's Use of Technology for Governance Recognised at Technology Sabha. Digital is the Key to Good Governance: Punjab Leads in Data Analytics Latest News: Chandigarh: The Punjab government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, is leveraging digital technology extensively to improve the delivery of citizen-centric services. These efforts are not only yielding significant results but also earning national recognition. Advertisement In a major achievement dedicated to efficient governance and quality public service, the Punjab government has been honoured with the Technology Sabha Excellence Award 2025 in the Data Analytics category. This prestigious award highlights Punjab's commitment to utilising technology for effective governance. The award was received by D.K. Tewari, Additional Chief Secretary of the Department of Good Governance and Information Technology, at a grand ceremony organised by the Indian Express Group in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Punjabs recognition for excellence in data analytics demonstrates the governments proactive approach to transforming governance. Rather than merely speaking about good governance, the state is implementing it through cutting-edge data-driven practices. The award marks a significant milestone in Punjabs journey towards more efficient administration, enhanced accountability, and responsive public services. It further reinforces the vision of Rangla Punjaba prosperous and vibrant Punjabdriven by technology and innovation for the welfare of its citizens. In another major initiative aimed at improving service delivery, the Punjab government has introduced the mSewa app for digital attendance tracking in the offices of the Registrar Cooperative Societies and other major cooperative institutions. This move, under the Department of Good Governance and Information Technology, aims to ensure transparency, monitor employee attendance, and optimise resource allocation. Advertisement The pilot phase of this digital attendance system will run for one month, after which full implementation will begin from September 1, 2025. By recording staff check-ins and check-outs in real time, the mSewa app is expected to eliminate irregularities and enhance administrative efficiency across departments. With these initiatives, Punjab continues to set benchmarks in digital governance and public service delivery, strengthening its position as a national leader in tech-enabled governance reforms. (For more news apart from 'Digital is the Key to Good Governance: Punjab Leads in Data Analytics,' stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Malout City Beautification: MLA, Cabinet Minister Baljit Kaur Announces Development Grants Over Rs 10 crore sanctioned for major projects to beautify Malout city. Government schools upgraded, wheelchairs distributed to the needy Malout City Beautification: MLA Baljit Kaur Announces Development Grants Latest News: Chandigarh, August 22: Taking forward the holistic development agenda of the Punjab Government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Cabinet Minister and MLA from Malout constituency Dr. Baljit Kaur has announced development grants worth nearly Rs 12 crore for Malout constituency. She said that the government is releasing grants strictly as per public needs and without any discrimination. Dr. Baljit Kaur informed that to upgrade village grain markets for the upcoming paddy procurement season, steel sheds are being constructed at a cost of Rs 1.71 crore. Similarly, an additional grant of Rs 20 lakh has been released for the renovation of Panchayat Ghars in village Theri, raising the total assistance for the project to Rs 26 lakh. Advertisement The Minister stated that major projects worth Rs 10.12 crore have been initiated for the beautification of Malout city, including laying interlocking tiles in streets and installation of 2,000 streetlights. Highlighting the governments priorities, Dr. Baljit Kaur said that the focus is on making daily life easier for the common people. Upgradation of healthcare facilities, improving the quality of education, better road infrastructure and adequate street lighting remain the top priorities so that every family may experience tangible benefits. She further said that under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, the vision of a Rangla Punjab is becoming a reality. This vision goes beyond development projectsit represents new opportunities for youth, modern technology in agriculture, and revival of Punjabs cultural vibrancy. With active public participation, Punjab will once again emerge as a prosperous, progressive and colourful state. Advertisement During her visit, Dr. Baljit Kaur also inaugurated newly-installed air-conditioners in the Government School of village Tarkhanwala, ensuring comfort for students. On this occasion, wheelchairs were also distributed to the needy. The Minister was accompanied by her Personal Assistants Arshdeep Singh Sidhu and Shinderpal Singh, along with village Panchayat members, school staff, and a large gathering of local residents. Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by the Rozana Spokesman team. Advertisement (For more news apart from 'Malout City Beautification: MLA, Cabinet Minister Baljit Kaur Announces Development Grants ,' stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) 2025 George Enescu International Festival begins The 27th edition of the "George Enescu" International Festival opens in Bucharest this Sunday 2025 George Enescu International Festival Stefan Stoica, 22.08.2025, 14:00 Its been 70 years since the death of the great composer George Enescu, and this years edition of the international festival named after him will be an opportunity to bring to the fore both his artistic legacy and his profound impact on universal classical music. Over 4,000 artists from Romania and around the world will be present in Bucharest to take part in the 27th edition of the George Enescu International Festival between August 24 and September 21. During the 29 days of celebration of classical music, over 95 concerts and performances will take place, for all categories of audience. The most important guest artists include the conductors Keri-Lynn Wilson, Ustina Dubitsky, Daniele Gatti, Sir Andras Schiff, Ivan Fischer and Cristian Mandeal, the pianists Rudolf Buchbinder, Martha Argerich and Lucas & Arthur Jussen, the cellists Kian Soltani, Sol Gabetta and Andrei Ionita. The George Enescu Festival will include over 45 performances of George Enescus works, including the opera Oedipus produced by the Bucharest National Opera and directed by Stefano Poda. Enescus symphonies, Romanian rhapsodies, suites for orchestra, Symphony Concertante for Cello and Orchestra, Ballade for violin and orchestra and many other chamber, choral and solo works will also be performed by some of the most important orchestras in the world. This years edition boasts great artistic diversity, with over 80 ensembles from 28 countries, including symphony orchestras, choirs and chamber groups, performing both in Bucharest and across the country, as well as related events such as exhibitions devoted to George Enescu and innovative VR projects. On the other hand, the festival extends beyond traditional concert halls. Control nightclub in Romanias capital city will host events where international artists and top Romanian ensembles come up with a different kind of musical experiencefree, experimental music in a dialogue with jazz, electronica and contemporary percussion. The Enescu in Control project is a novelty in the festival: an opening towards a cultural space that, in the last 17 years, has become a landmark for alternative music in Romania. Since the festivals first edition in 1958, without interruption, Radio Romania has been close to the Enescu Festival, as a co-producer. Radio Romania Music, the only radio station in the country devoted to classical music, acclaimed nationally and internationally, airs 63 of the concerts taking place in Bucharest. Thanks to the involvement of Radio Romania Music, 11 of the Enescu Festival concerts are also included in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Summer Season, which brings together recordings and live broadcasts of the most important European festivals, such as the BBC Proms, Richard Wagner at Bayreuth or the Salzburg Festival. Radio Romania orchestras and choirs will also perform at the festival. (AMP) The International Criminal Court, or ICC, continues to disregard national sovereignty and facilitate lawfare through efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute American and Israeli nationals, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a post on X. In response, he said, I am sanctioning four additional ICC officials. The State Department has designated two ICC judges and two deputy prosecutors for having directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that persons country of nationality. They include Judge Kimberly Prost, Judge Nicolas Yann Guillou, Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, and Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang. Prost is being designated for ruling to authorize the ICCs investigation into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. Guillou is being designated for ruling to authorize the ICCs issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. Deputy Prosecutors Shameem Khan and Niang are being designated for continuing to support illegitimate ICC actions against Israel, including upholding the ICCs arrest warrants targeting Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant since they assumed leadership for the ICCs Office of the Prosecutor. The sanctions block all property and interests of the designated officials within U.S. jurisdiction and prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with them. The United States has been clear and steadfast in [its] opposition to the ICCs politicization, abuse of power, disregard for [U.S.] national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach, said Secretary Rubio in a statement. He called the Court a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and [its] close ally Israel. It remains the policy of the United States government to take whatever actions necessary to protect its troops, sovereignty, and allies from the ICCs illegitimate and baseless actions, said Secretary Rubio. He urged countries that still support the ICC, many of whose freedom was purchased at the price of great American sacrifices, to resist the claims of this bankrupt institution. We will continue to hold accountable, said Secretary Rubio, those responsible for the ICCs morally bankrupt and legally baseless actions against Americans and Israelis. Canadian shares are likely to open on a somewhat mixed note Friday morning with investors awaiting Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole. Lower commodity prices may weigh a bit early on in the session. Data on Canadian retail sales for the month of June is due at 8:30 AM ET. The manufacturing sales data for July is also due at 8:30 AM ET. Cenovus Energy Inc. (CVE) announced today that it has agreed to acquire MEG Energy Corp. (MEG) in a cash and stock deal valued at $7.9 billion. As per the deal, Cenovus will acquire MEG for $27.25 per share, to be paid 75% in cash and 25% in Cenovus shares. Cenovus expects the deal to bring in more than $400 million of annual synergies from 2028 onwards, with $150 million to realize in the near-term. The Canadian market climbed to new record high on Thursday, with attention shifting to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday. The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index settled at 28,055.43, up by 176.67 points (or 0.63%). According to the data released by Statistics Canada today, Canada's industrial producer prices rose 0.7% month-over-month in July, while prices jumped 2.6 percent year-over-year. The Raw Materials Price Index increased 0.3% month-over-month in July and grew 0.8% year-over-year. Asian stocks turned in a mixed performance on Friday as some strong U.S. economic data and hawkish comments from several Federal Reserve officials prompted traders to reduce their expectations for imminent rate cuts. Investors await Fed Chair Jerome Powell's upcoming speech at the Jackson Hole symposium later in the day. Stalled Russia-Ukraine peace talks and Fed independence worries also kept investors on edge. The major European are subdued in cautious trade today as investors await Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole for clues about the U.S. central bank's rate cut moves. In commodities trading, West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures are down $0.11 or 0.17% at $63.41 a barrel. Gold futures are down $9.40 or 0.28% at 3,372.20 an ounce, while Silver futures are down $0.079 or 0.17% at $38.000 an ounce. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com U.S. and South Korean forces have launched annual joint military exercises in South Korea. The Ulchi Freedom Shield, the second of two large-scale exercises held annually in South Korea, is a multi-domain, military training exercise integrating ground, air, naval, space, and cyberspace elements to enhance readiness through realistic combat scenarios. 21,000 soldiers, including 18,000 South Korean troops, will take part in the 11-day miitary drills. This annual exercise, which runs through August 28, aims to enhance the combined, joint, all-domain and inter-agency operating environment, thereby strengthening the regional alliance's response capabilities, the Pentagon said. Freedom Shield 25 is a defense-oriented exercise featuring live-fire, constructive and field training exercises that engage alliance forces and governmental agencies. Key players in these large-scale, live-fire training events include Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea, United Nations Command, the South Korean joint chiefs of staff, the South Korean government, the 8th Army, 7th Air Force, and Space Force. Each entity's role leads to strengthening interoperability, reinforcing a combined defense posture and increasing combat readiness. Several United Nations Command member states are slated to contribute personnel and participate in various capacities. During the exercise, USFK will participate in space-related elements, reflecting modern warfare challenges. U.S. guardians will also integrate space-based capabilities with terrestrial targeteers, logisticians and cyber capacities. Members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, Sweden and Switzerland, are observing the exercise. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News A U.S. Navy sailor has been convicted of spying for China. A federal jury at the Southern District of California convicted Jinchao Wei, also known as Patrick Wei, of espionage and export violations. Wei was an active-duty U.S. Navy sailor stationed at Naval Base San Diego when he agreed to sell Navy secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer for $12,000, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Following a five-day trial and one day of deliberation, the jury convicted Wei of six counts. He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 1. Jinchao Wei committed espionage by sending photographs and videos of U.S. Navy vessels, ship movement information, technical manuals, and weapons capabilities to a Chinese intelligence officer, said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. According to evidence presented at trial, Wei was a machinist's mate for the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Essex. He also held a U.S. security clearance and had access to sensitive national defense information about the ship's various systems. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Elon Musk's social media company, X Corp, has reached a tentative settlement in a high-profile lawsuit brought by former Twitter employees who claimed they were denied $500 million in severance pay. The agreement was disclosed in a Wednesday filing, with both parties requesting the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco to postpone an upcoming hearing while final terms are finalized. Financial details of the deal remain under wraps and will require court approval. The legal battle traces back to Musk's 2022 acquisition of Twitter, now rebranded X, which triggered the dismissal of roughly 6,000 employees over half the workforce. Plaintiffs argued that under Twitter's 2019 severance plan, laid-off staff were entitled to two months' base salary plus an additional week for every year of service, while senior leaders such as benefits chief Courtney McMillian were eligible for up to six months of pay. Instead, most employees received at most one month's compensation, while many were given nothing. The case, led by McMillian and operations manager Ronald Cooper, was initially dismissed by a federal judge in San Francisco in July 2024 before being appealed. The 9th Circuit had scheduled oral arguments for September 17. Twitter's mass layoffs marked one of the earliest and most sweeping job cuts in the sector's recent wave of downsizing, later mirrored by companies including Meta, Google, and Microsoft. Musk's aggressive cost-cutting dismantled entire teams dedicated to trust and safety, human rights, and media operations. If finalized, the settlement would close one of Silicon Valley's most significant legal disputes over severance benefits. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News A team of international scientists has discovered new fossils at a field site in Africa that indicate Australopithecus, and the oldest specimens of Homo, coexisted at the same place in Africa at the same time -- between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago. The paleoanthropologists discovered a new species of Australopithecus that has never been found anywhere. The Ledi-Geraru Research Project is led by scientists at Arizona State University and the site has revealed the oldest member of the genus Homo and the earliest Oldowan stone tools on the planet. The research team concluded that the Ledi-Geraru Australopithecus teeth are a new species, rather than belonging to Australopithecus afarensis (the famous 'Lucy'), confirming that there is still no evidence of Lucy's kind younger than 2.95 million years ago. "This new research shows that the image many of us have in our minds of an ape to a Neanderthal to a modern human is not correct -- evolution doesn't work like that," said ASU paleoecologist Kaye Reed. "Here we have two hominin species that are together. And human evolution is not linear, it's a bushy tree, there are life forms that go extinct." Reed is a Research Scientist at the Institute of Human Origins and President's Professor Emerita at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU. She has been co-director of the Ledi-Geraru Research Project since 2002. Ledi-Geraru What fossils did they find to help them tell this story? Teeth, 13 of them to be exact. This field site has been famous before. In 2013 a team led by Reed discovered the jaw of the earliest Homo specimen ever found at 2.8 million years old. This new paper details new teeth found at the site that belong to both the genus Homo and a new species of the genus Australopithecus. "The new finds of Homo teeth from 2.6 - 2.8 million year old sediments -- reported in this paper -- confirms the antiquity of our lineage," said Brian Villmoare, lead author and ASU alumnus. "We know what the teeth and mandible of the earliest Homo look like, but that's it. This emphasizes the critical importance of finding additional fossils to understand the differences between Australopithecus and Homo, and potentially how they were able to overlap in the fossil record at the same location." The team cannot name the species yet based on the teeth alone; more fossils are needed before that can happen. How old are the fossils? How do scientists know these fossil teeth are millions of years old? Volcanoes. The Afar region is still an active rifting environment. There were a lot of volcanoes and tectonic activity and when these volcanoes erupted ash, the ash contained crystals called feldspars that allow the scientists to date them, explained Christopher Campisano, a geologist at ASU. "We can date the eruptions that were happening on the landscape when they're deposited," said Campisano, a Research Scientist at the Institute of Human Origins and Associate Professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. "And we know that these fossils are interbed between those eruptions, so we can date units above and below the fossils. We are dating the volcanic ash of the eruptions that were happening while they were on the landscape." Finding fossils and dating the landscape not only helps scientists understand the species - it helps them recreate the environment millions of years ago. The modern faulted badlands of Ledi-Geraru, where the fossils were found are a stark contrast to the landscape these hominins traversed 2.6 - 2.8 million years ago. Back then, rivers migrated across a vegetated landscape into shallow lakes that expanded and contracted over time. Ramon Arrowsmith, a geologist at ASU, has been working with the Ledi-Geraru Research Project since 2002. He explained the area has an interpretable geologic record with good age control for the geologic time range of 2.3 to 2.95 million years ago. "It is a critical time period for human evolution as this new paper shows," said Arrowsmith, professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration. "The geology gives us the age and characteristics of the sedimentary deposits containing the fossils. It is essential for age control." What's next? Reed said the team is examining tooth enamel now to find out what they can about what these species were eating. There are still remaining questions the team will continue to work on. Were the early Homo and this unidentified species of Australopithecus eating the same things? Were they fighting for or sharing resources? Did they pass each other daily? Who were the ancestors of these species? No one knows - yet. "Whenever you have an exciting discovery, if you're a paleontologist, you always know that you need more information," said Reed. "You need more fossils. That's why it's an important field to train people in and for people to go out and find their own sites and find places that we haven't found fossils yet." "More fossils will help us tell the story of what happened to our ancestors a long time ago -- but because we're the survivors we know that it happened to us." The paper "New discoveries of Australopithecus and Homo from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia," was published in the journal Nature. The team of scientists and field team working on this project is widespread and many work at Arizona State University, or are alumni of ASU. ASU alumni and current faculty authors include; Associate Professor Brian Villmoare, Associate Professor Lucas Delezene, Professor Amy Rector, Associate Research Professor Erin DiMaggio, Research Professor David Feary, PhD Candidate Daniel Chupik, Instructor Dominique Garello, Assistant Professor Ellis M. Locke, Lecturer Joshua Robinson, Assistant Professor Irene Smail and the late Professor William Kimbel. Bulgaria's long wait for the F-16 Block 70 drags on. Out of the first batch of eight fighters ordered in 2019, only two have been delivered. Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov admitted the military still has no clear timeline for the arrival of the remaining jets, Bulgarian outlet Mediapool reports. According to the original plan, most of the aircraft were supposed to arrive between July and October 2025. However, deliveries have been stalled due to what the U.S. described as a shortage of aerial refueling tankers, needed to ferry the fighters across the Atlantic. "Their number is limited and they are heavily tasked with supporting US Air Force priority missions. Flights to partner nations are rescheduled or canceled when necessary," the Departament of Defense's response states. KC-135 refueling F-16 / Open-source photo From Defense Express we want to add, that unlike Sweden, which ships its Gripens overseas by commercial vessels, the U.S. insists on flying F-16s to export customers. The heavy tanker workload has raised eyebrows, as the only recent known large-scale deployment was during June's Midnight Hammer strike against iran's nuclear program. For now, Sofia can only wait. The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) framework, under which the F-16s were purchased, does not allow for penalties in case of delays a situation where Bulgaria sanctioning the U.S. seems unthinkable. First Bulgarian F-16V Block 70 / Open-source photo Complicating matters, Bulgaria's very first F-16V Block 70 suffered a major defect. Upon arrival in April, the jet was declared unfit to fly due to a faulty circuit board. The issue forced it to miss the planned flyover at the May 6 Armed Forces Day parade. Sources suggested the problem arose because the original 2019 contract, worth $1.2 billion for eight fighters, left no budget for spare parts. In 2022, Sofia ordered another eight F-16s for $1.3 billion about $162.5 million per jet but even that price looks modest compared to todays contracts, such as those for the Philippines. Read more: Azerbaijan Deploys Armed Naval Drones in the Caspian Sea Amid Tensions with russia and iran Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves to the crowds gathering at the airport to see him off in Lhasa, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday left Xizang after attending celebrations for the autonomous region's 60th founding anniversary. (Xinhua/Hao Zhao) LHASA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday left Xizang after attending celebrations for the autonomous region's 60th founding anniversary. As Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, was leaving Xizang, crowds lined the streets and gathered at the airport to see him off. Instructed by Xi, a central delegation with Wang Huning as the leader will visit and convey greetings to people of all ethnic groups and from all sectors of society in Xizang from Thursday to Saturday. Xi's entourage, including senior official Cai Qi, returned by the same flight. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves to the crowds lining the streets to see him off in Lhasa, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday left Xizang after attending celebrations for the autonomous region's 60th founding anniversary. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves to the crowds gathering at the airport to see him off in Lhasa, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday left Xizang after attending celebrations for the autonomous region's 60th founding anniversary. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves to the crowds gathering at the airport to see him off in Lhasa, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday left Xizang after attending celebrations for the autonomous region's 60th founding anniversary. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Editor: Zhang Zhou Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a grand gathering at the Potala Palace square to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Xizang Autonomous Region in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life joined in the celebration. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) LHASA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a grand gathering on Thursday at the Potala Palace square in Lhasa, capital of Xizang Autonomous Region, to mark the region's 60th founding anniversary. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, joined around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life in the celebration. Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and head of the central delegation, attended the event and delivered a speech. Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, was also present at the gathering. Both Wang and Cai are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The gathering commenced at 10 a.m., with all attendees standing to sing the national anthem. The bright five-starred red flag was hoisted solemnly at the site. A congratulatory message from the CPC Central Committee, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the State Council, the CPPCC National Committee, and the Central Military Commission was read out. Wang then presented a plaque bearing Xi's inscription, "Jointly building a community for the Chinese nation, writing a new chapter for a beautiful Xizang," as a congratulatory gift. The founding of Xizang Autonomous Region in September 1965 marked an epoch-making event, Wang noted. Over the past six decades, Xizang has made significant strides in economic and social development, fully demonstrating the strong leadership of the CPC and the clear political strength of China's socialist system. He emphasized that since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, Xizang has entered its best period of development and made the most substantial progress, with people of all ethnic groups benefiting more than ever before. Wang called for renewed efforts to foster a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation and advance the four main tasks for governing Xizang: ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting eco-environment, and strengthening frontiers. The ceremony concluded with a vibrant mass parade in an auspicious and festive atmosphere. Xi and other leaders waved to the crowds. Amid the passionate melody of "Ode to the Motherland," doves soared into the sky, colorful balloons floated upwards, and thunderous applause and cheers erupted, marking the successful conclusion of the celebrations. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a grand gathering at the Potala Palace square to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Xizang Autonomous Region in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life joined in the celebration. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a grand gathering at the Potala Palace square to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Xizang Autonomous Region in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life joined in the celebration. Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and head of the central delegation, attended the event and delivered a speech. Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, was also present at the gathering. Both Wang and Cai are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a grand gathering at the Potala Palace square to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Xizang Autonomous Region in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life joined in the celebration. Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and head of the central delegation, attended the event and delivered a speech. Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, was also present at the gathering. Both Wang and Cai are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a grand gathering at the Potala Palace square to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Xizang Autonomous Region in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life joined in the celebration. Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and head of the central delegation, attended the event and delivered a speech. Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, was also present at the gathering. Both Wang and Cai are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of a central delegation, attends a grand gathering and delivers a speech at the Potala Palace square to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Xizang Autonomous Region in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life joined in the celebration. (Xinhua/Li Xiang) Editor: Zhang Zhou Standard Chartered shares rose on Friday after the bank welcomed what it described as a favourable filing from the US Department of Justice in a long-running civil case involving allegations of sanctions breaches. The bank said the DoJs latest position in the so-called Brutus case confirmed that the claims, first brought by a former employee and his associates more than a decade ago, were false and repeatedly dismissed by US courts. Judges previously described the plaintiffs arguments as on the verge of vexatious and frivolous, without merit and falling far short. The filing followed years of litigation in which the plaintiffs had sought to revive allegations that Standard Chartered was involved in billions of dollars of unlawful transactions. The bank has consistently denied the claims, noting that US authorities had already concluded there was no evidence of sanctions violations after a comprehensive investigation. Shares in the London-headquartered, Asia-focused lender rose 3% after the announcement, partially reversing losses from last week when US Republican lawmaker Elise Stefanik urged the Attorney General to investigate the bank before the case expired. Standard Chartered said it would continue to cooperate fully with authorities but vowed to defend itself vigorously against baseless allegations that it says had been driven by personal financial motives. At 0927 BST, shares in Standard Chartered weer up 3.27% at 1,404.5p. Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com. A Ghostwriter's Guide to Murder puts Melinda Mullet in the good company of Richard Osman, Leonie Swann, Robert Thorogood, and other authors of diverting and droll mysteries centered on amateur English sleuths for whom crime solving is a social event. Maeve Gardner ghostwrites a mystery series on her houseboat, now moored in London's Regent's Canal. (Yes, she knows that it "looked like something out of a children's storybook.") One morning, her dog chews one of the dock's rubber bumpers and unearths packets of cash. Maeve puts the money back and goes to the police to report this finding, but when she returns with a detective, the cash is gone. The detective's trip isn't wasted, though: there's now a dead man with a bashed-in head floating in the canal. He turns out to be Maeve's cheating ex-boyfriend, whom she ditched four months earlier. The police don't need to be mystery-novel readers to deduce that Maeve had motive to kill him. Actor Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) cultivated a tough-guy image, but when he got together with director John Huston (1906-1987), Bogie was like a kid brother to the rascally younger man, and like brothers, they squabbled. Nat Segaloff explores the pair's enduring alliance in the well-considered Bogart and Huston. After devoting a biographical chapter to each man, Segaloff examines their six collaborations, working chronologically from 1941's The Maltese Falcon ("the first 'Bogart picture' that was truly a 'Bogart picture' ") to 1953's Beat the Devil ("unquestionably an acquired taste"). Segaloff, whose previous books about Hollywood include Mr. Huston/Mr. North, identifies some commonalities among the six movies (they "broke molds and showed the way for maturity, boldness, and moral complexity"), but his true interest is Bogie and Huston's personal relationship. Both men liked to drink (Segaloff's bottomless research finds his subjects resolving one heated conflict over scotch), and both men leaned politically left (they protested the House Un-American Activities Committee's efforts to tank the careers of Hollywood's perceived Communist sympathizers). But they generally didn't fraternize unless they were doing a movie together, and sometimes not even then. Segaloff reports that when rain waylaid shooting The African Queen (1951), Huston went hunting, but not Bogart: he "was a homebody to whom Africa was an inconvenience." With authority spiked with wit, Bogart and Huston captures a noteworthy working friendship that served both men, not to mention the film-viewing public, well. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer A basement renovation in an old London townhouse unravels long-buried secrets in The Midnight Hour, an enticing thriller by British novelist Eve Chase. Told in dual timelines 20 years apart, the novel follows a Paris-based writer named Maggie Parker and the romance with a mysterious youth named Wolf that altered her life forever. In 1998, teenage Maggie is living in London's Notting Hill neighborhood when her mother, Dee Dee, a famous model, goes missing. Maggie's brother, Kit, who was adopted, is six years old, and only a serendipitous meeting with an enigmatic young man prevents Maggie from falling apart. Wolf, employed at his dodgy uncle Gav's antique shop, captivates Maggie and is adored by Kit. But a violent encounter with a menacing stranger leads to tragedy and a hasty cover-up, and Maggie is left heartbroken and burdened with a dangerous secret. Two decades later, the renovation of the Parkers' Notting Hill townhouse by its current owners means the deception Maggie concealed will come to light, with catastrophic consequences for all concerned--especially Kit. A master of low-simmering tension, labyrinthine subplots, and evocative settings, Chase (The Wildling Sisters; The Birdcage) infuses her scenes with Notting Hill's bohemian charms, "grand villas," and the "chattering length" of its famous market, as well as Paris's glittery skyline "twinkling like a net of fairy lights." As the past encroaches on Maggie's present and she returns to London, her arrival sets into motion revelations that force an overdue reckoning with Dee Dee's past, Kit's parentage, and Wolf's shocking true identity. --Shahina Piyarali Seven intriguing stories compose Taiwanese American author and screenwriter Elaine Hsieh Chou's first collection, following her lauded debut novel, Disorientation. She opens with "Carrot Legs," about a precocious 13-year-old Taiwanese American visiting her grandparents in Taipei. Sharing a bedroom with her 16-year-old cousin, LaLa, encourages sharing and secrets until a new boyfriend drives the girls apart. A potential love interest also causes a disturbing rift in "You Put a Rabbit on Me," featuring a pair of meta-doppelgangers. American Elaine arrives in France to work as an au pair. She meets her exact mirror, French Elaine, in a grocery store's yogurt aisle. An inseparable bond is inevitable--one that's at first devoted but turns punishing when a dating app match upsets their surreal pairing. Chou sets the collection's novella closing, "Casualties of Art," in a writing residency, capturing pivotal moments of a tumultuous affair between an as-yet unpublished Korean Chinese author, David, and an adopted Korean American artist, Sophia, visiting her white writer husband. Their brief relationship provides David plenty of fodder for a story he plans to submit to a prestigious contest. While deftly exploring diverse genres--coming-of-age, speculative, contemporary realism, auto- and meta-fiction--Chou convincingly interrogates and exposes unsettling relationships between family members, lovers, and former strangers. Beyond her multi-layered narratives (race, privilege, sexism, and identity are all contained here), she also notably, slyly inserts a sense of unreliability in her storytelling. Meanwhile, her novella offers a non-ending in five potential variations, adding numerous possibilities but never easy clarity. Yes, fiction is imagined and created, but Chou also manages to shrewdly, impressively deceive. --Terry Hong This week, Holly Jackson's Not Quite Dead Yet is a "twisty... layered whodunit" about a woman racing to solve her own murder; meanwhile An Yu presents an even more surreal mystery, concerning a vanishing celestial body, in the "marvelously dreamlike" Sunbirth; and Garrett M. Graff's "riveting, comprehensive" oral history of the atomic bomb, The Devil Reached Toward the Sky, balances captivating firsthand accounts with compelling moral questions. Plus, YA nonfiction author Ann Bausum sets the record straight about the War of the Rebellion (aka the Civil War), its cause, and its aftermath in the "accessible and enthralling" White Lies. Meanwhile, in The Writer's Life, independent scholar Nicholas Boggs examines the legacy of James Baldwin through the lens of his most meaningful relationships. The General Staffs of the United States, the European Union and Ukraine are developing ways to provide military support for peace negotiations, said Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky. "Together with the leaders of the armed forces of partner countries, we are developing a military component to support diplomatic negotiations to ensure sustainable peace for Ukraine and all of Europe," he wrote on the Telegram channel. According to him, the meeting took place in a video conference format. Among those present were the commanders-in-chief of Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, the United States and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Syrsky noted that the prepared proposals will be presented to the relevant national security advisers of partner countries for proper consideration in line with ongoing diplomatic efforts. "Further planning and communication will continue in line with the progress of the negotiations. I am convinced that through joint efforts, with the involvement of political and diplomatic support from Ukraine's loyal partners, we will be able to achieve real peace and guarantee security for Ukraine and all of democratic Europe," the commander-in-chief emphasized. In a converted juvenile detention facility on Houstons south side, the scent of hot wings drifts down a hallway that once echoed with the clank of cell doors. At La Bodega, a small student-run snack bar tucked inside the building, 19-year-old Hudson Risch counts the weeks earningsabout $600before his shift ends. Two years ago, Rischs future seemed tethered to the criminal justice system. Now, with a GED in hand, a food-handling certification, and a full-time job with benefits, hes mapping out a different kind of adulthood. This turnaround is the daily work of the Opportunity Center, a vocational and academic program for youth entangled in the juvenile justice system. Since opening in 2022, it has produced results that defy expectations: a 93 percent daily attendance rate and recidivism nearly halved, from Harris Countys 48 percent baseline to 28 percent among participants. Students dont just show up they stay, graduate, and find work. A Teacher and a Student Reunite The seeds of the program were planted decades ago in a fifth-grade classroom. Mike Feinberg then at the very start of his career, co-founding what would become the KIPP charter school networkwas Vanessa Ramirezs teacher. She remembers him with a grin: He had hair back then. Feinberg helped her secure a private high school scholarship and guided her through college, where she studied economics at Occidental. Years later, Ramirezs work brought her into juvenile detention centers, where she began to notice a chilling pattern. I was seeing kids from my blocknot just my neighborhood, my actual street, she says. It begs the question, Why me? How was I redirected? People make all the difference. Determined to be that difference for others, Ramirez launched 8 Million Stories, a nonprofit focused on juvenile justice reform. When Feinberg co-founded WorkTexas in 2020 with Houston furniture magnate Jim Mattress Mack McIngvale, he invited Ramirez to join as a partner. Together, they pitched Harris County officials on a simple but radical premise: that three letters more powerful than G-E-D could keep kids out of prison J-O-B. The county agreed, transforming its Burnett-Bayland facility into the Opportunity Center. Enrollment expanded from a handful of students to roughly 65. WorkTexas provides the vocational instructors; Harris Countys juvenile probation department covers about 75 percent of the budget, with the remainder coming from grants and private donors. Turning Discipline into Development Inside the Opportunity Center, suspension doesnt mean sitting in a silent room staring at a wall it means building the wall. Students split their day between GED preparation and hands-on vocational training in carpentry, welding, HVAC, plumbing, electrical work, music production, and entrepreneurship. Each spends a week sampling every discipline before choosing a focus for five weeks of intensive training. Traditional school discipline, Ramirez argues, too often sidelines rather than rehabilitates. Kids dont know how to de-escalate, she says. Instead of helping them understand what they did and why, we stick them in a classroom facing a wall. Were not developing self-awareness or communication skills. The Opportunity Center takes the opposite tack. Its behavioral health program includes a sensory room where students identify personal calming toolskinetic sand for one, a conversation about authority dynamics for another. Lessons in emotional regulation are woven into the day alongside instruction in welding technique or electrical safety. Music producer Randy Jefferson runs the Project Mixtape Studio, nudging students toward nonviolent, peaceful songs with a PG vibe. His goals extend beyond the music charts. If I influence them to be a better person, thats what Im trying to do, he says. Crucially, enrollment is voluntary. Students referred by probation officers after a judge orders them back to school or into GED coursework can choose the Opportunity Center. That choice, Ramirez says, builds accountability from the start: Its baked into the model. From Street Corner to Steady Paycheck Rischs story captures the programs impact. At 17, he was staring down adulthood with no diploma, no marketable skills, and few options beyond low-wage work. The Opportunity Center gave him structure, mentorship, and a trade. After earning his GED and certification, he completed a 240-hour paid internship at La Bodega, mastering not only food preparation but also inventory control, customer service, and bookkeeping. Today, he manages the operation full-time, proudly reporting that hot chips and wings are still the bestsellers. But food service is just one pathway. Graduates leave ready to be chefs in restaurants, repair cars, produce music tracks, or start their own businesses. They step into jobs with living wages, reducing the gravitational pull back toward the streets. A Hub, Not a Silo Feinberg calls the Opportunity Center a social services mall anchored by education. More than 30 partner organizations operate under its roof. Journey Through Life offers mental health counseling. Clothed by Faith provides wardrobe essentials. The Houston Food Bank keeps the pantry stocked. Each partner brings its own funding and expertise, making the model both comprehensive and sustainable. Schools dont have to do it all, Feinberg says, but schools can be the hub because schools are where kids spend most of their waking hours. In Houston, that hub hums with the sounds of hammers, saws, and even the occasional freestyle in the music studio. For students like Hudson Risch, its more than a school; its proof that the pipeline to prison can be dismantled and rebuilt into something far sturdierone job, one skill, one young life at a time. Investors are often drawn to trends. When the market rallies around a sector, most portfolios quickly mirror that sentiment. However, history shows that herd behaviour does not always lead to the best outcomes. Those who dare to think differently sometimes capture the most meaningful gains. This is where contra funds stand apart. A contra mutual fund follows a contrarian investment strategy. Rather than chasing popular stocks, these funds focus on undervalued or ignored companies with strong fundamentals. The idea is simple: when the market overreacts or misprices assets, contrarian investing creates room for long-term wealth creation. For investors willing to be patient and strategic, contra funds could be a smart addition to their portfolio. What are contra funds? A contra mutual fund invests primarily in companies or sectors currently out of favour in the market. Unlike conventional equity funds that follow momentum, contra funds adopt a contrarian view by looking for opportunities in undervalued spaces. As per the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), contra mutual funds must allocate at least 65% of their portfolio to equity and equity-related instruments. This ensures they remain equity-oriented while offering diversification. The principle is straightforward: while the broader market may overlook certain sectors due to temporary setbacks or negative sentiment, contra funds identify value and invest for the long term. When market sentiment improves, these investments often deliver strong returns. How does a contra mutual fund work? The working of a contra fund is rooted in detailed research and disciplined investment. Fund managers follow a structured approach: Stock screening They scan for companies trading below their intrinsic value. These firms usually have strong fundamentals but are temporarily underperforming. Contrarian assessment The team analyses whether the negative sentiment is short-lived or structural. Only those with recovery potential make the cut. Portfolio construction Stocks and sectors with long-term promise are included in the portfolio, offering diversification beyond market favourites. Holding period Patience is critical. These investments are often held until the market recognises their value. Exit strategy Once stocks reach or exceed fair valuation, fund managers book profits and reallocate capital. For example, certain cyclical industries such as steel or automobiles may go through downturns due to demand fluctuations. A contra fund may invest during these downturns, anticipating recovery. While such investments may underperform in the short-term, they often shine when market cycles turn. Key advantages of contra funds Investing in a contra mutual fund provides several benefits, particularly for investors with a long-term horizon. Buy low, sell high opportunity Since contra funds focus on undervalued stocks, they create scope for attractive gains once prices correct upward. Portfolio diversification Most investors hold growth-focused equity funds. Adding a contra fund introduces a differentiated strategy, reducing overall concentration risk. Reduced risk of overvaluation By avoiding market favourites, contra funds steer clear of overvalued stocks that may fall sharply during corrections. Professional management Experienced fund managers with strong analytical expertise guide the investment process. Their research-driven decisions help identify genuine opportunities. Ideal for volatile markets When market sentiment shifts quickly, contra funds often outperform momentum-driven strategies by capitalising on reversals. Together, these advantages position contra funds as a strategic tool for portfolio resilience and wealth creation. Who should consider investing in contra funds? Contra mutual funds are not designed for every investor. They are best suited for those with specific profiles and expectations. Long-term investors Since recovery in undervalued stocks takes time, investors should commit to at least 57 years. Value-oriented thinkers Individuals who prioritise fundamentals over short-lived hype will find contra funds appealing. Experienced investors Those who understand market cycles are better prepared for temporary underperformance. Diversifiers Investors who want an alternative strategy within their equity allocation can use contra funds to balance growth-focused holdings. Moderate to high-risk takers While diversified, contra funds still carry market risk. Investors must be comfortable with volatility. Essentially, contra funds are a good fit for those willing to go against the tide in pursuit of long-term opportunity. Investment strategies: SIP or lumpsum? There are two common approaches to investing in a contra mutual fund: Lumpsum investment This works well after a broad market correction. Buying units at a lower Net Asset Value (NAV) allows investors to benefit from recovery as valuations normalise. Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) An SIP is suitable for most investors as it spreads investment across market cycles. Regular contributions reduce timing risks and benefit from rupee cost averaging. Whichever method is chosen, it is important to align investments with financial goals such as retirement or education. A disciplined approach ensures that contra funds play a strategic role in portfolio growth. Risks and considerations While contra funds offer attractive prospects, they also carry inherent risks. Market risks Investments may underperform broader indices, especially during short-term bull runs. Patience required Gains are seldom immediate. A holding horizon of at least 5 years is crucial. Delayed recognition Sometimes undervalued stocks may remain neglected longer than expected, testing investor conviction. Risk appetite Investors must evaluate whether they can tolerate volatility in pursuit of long-term benefits. Thus, contra funds should complement, not replace, core holdings in equity or balanced funds. Taxation of contra mutual funds As equity-oriented funds, contra mutual funds follow the same tax rules as other equity investments in India: Short-term capital gains Profits from units held for less than 12 months are taxed at 20% plus cess. Long-term capital gains Gains above 1 lakh in a financial year, from units held for over 12 months, are taxed at 12.5% without indexation. Dividend taxation Dividends received from contra funds are added to an investors total income and taxed as per the applicable income tax slab. Investors should consult a qualified tax advisor to understand how these rules apply to their specific situation. Ready to explore contra funds for your portfolio? Contra mutual funds provide investors with an opportunity to step away from the crowd and invest with conviction. By identifying undervalued companies and patiently holding them until recognition returns, these funds can create meaningful long-term wealth. Contra funds may not suit short-term seekers, but for disciplined investors valuing strategy over momentum, they could be a smart long-term portfolio choice. In an environment where markets are often driven by short-lived sentiment, choosing a contrarian approach could make all the difference. If you are considering this strategy, working with a reliable investment partner like Ventura can help you evaluate how contra funds align with your long-term goals. Professional guidance also ensures you stay on track throughout your investment journey. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Michael Ozga, 42, an Annadale resident and an owner of Hook and Rail Meats in Travis, was arrested Tuesday morning following a joint investigation by the NYPD Financial Crimes Task Force and Homeland Security. He is facing multiple charges as investigators allege to have uncovered an arsenal of firearms, ghost guns, 3D-printed gun parts, high-capacity magazines, ammo and gun-related paraphernalia after executing search warrants at his home and business. Here is what is known about Ozgas ties to the borough and the investigation. Popular butcher shop Michael Ozga is pictured here as part of a 2017 Advance/SILive.com profile of his business, Hook and Rail Meats in Travis. (Advance/SILive.com | Pamela Silvestri) In 2017, the Advance/SILive.com published an extensive profile of Ozga and his business, bringing readers through the Travis butcher shops doors to show them where and how the sausage was actually made. At Hook and Rail Meats, Ozga was found quietly working behind the counter, trimming tenderloin and prepping fresh beef. Though the shop was usually quiet, the atmosphere shifted whenever customers stopped by to chat and shop for locally sourced meats. Many customers came not just for groceries, but for the experience. One customer, unsure of what to buy, raved: The filet mignon tips were like butter. My kids loved it. New visitors marveled at the selection, which included organic cheese, butter and honey from nearby farms. One patron remarked she hadnt seen a butcher shop like Hook and Rail since visiting one with her mother decades ago. Ozga, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, had previously worked in Staten Island kitchens before opening the shop. Investigation and arrest Authorities allege a cache of illegal firearms, including several ghost guns, high capacity magazines, silencers, a military-grade bulletproof vest and ammo were recovered Tuesday morning after investigators executed warrants at the Annadale home and Travis business of Michael Ozga. (Courtesy photo) At Ozgas residence, investigators alleged they discovered a cache of weapons, including several ghost guns untraceable firearms typically assembled from homemade or unfinished parts without serial numbers an AR-15 ghost gun and an AK-47 with a silencer, along with high-capacity magazines and various types of ammunition. Additional items included a military-grade bulletproof vest and 3D-printed guns parts typically used in the assembly of ghost guns, police said. At Hook and Rail Meats, authorities say 16 additional 3D-printed firearm parts and ammunition of multiple calibers were found. Ozga now faces 28 counts of criminal possession of weapons related to the items found at his home, plus additional charges connected to the 16 illegal firearm parts discovered at his business. Ozga had no prior criminal history before these arrests, officials said. D.A.s statement Richmond County District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. (Courtesy of the Richmond County District Attorney's Office) Todays search warrant operations highlight the continued dedication of the NYPD and my office to protecting the safety of Staten Island residents, said District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. The recovery of a significant number of illegal firearms including untraceable ghost guns is a major step toward reducing the threat of gun violence in our communities. These weapons will never have the chance to harm or take innocent lives. McMahon emphasized that law enforcement will remain aggressive in targeting those responsible for putting illegal firearms on the streets. Anyone found in possession of these dangerous weapons or contributing to gun violence will be held fully accountable, he added. Staten Island will not serve as a safe haven for gun crime. I commend the NYPD for their relentless efforts, and Im proud of the assistant district attorneys in my office who work tirelessly to build these cases and keep our neighborhoods safe. Statement from Ozgas attorney Defense attorney Mario Gallucci claims that his client, Michael Ozga, is a "historical collector" who did not manufacture or sell weapons. (Advance/SILive.com) Ozgas attorney, Mario F. Gallucci, pushed back on the allegations, calling them a serious mischaracterization. He said many of the items described by authorities as numerous firearms are actually non-functional antiques and collectibles. These objects have historical and cultural significance, not criminal intent, Gallucci said. Mr. Ozga has been transparent from the beginning about being a historical collector. He never manufactured or sold weapons or ammunition. We believe that once all the facts are reviewed in court, it will become clear that Mr. Ozga is a collector, not a criminal. A spokeswoman for the Richmond County District Attorneys Office said Ozga was released after posting $25,000 bail/$50,000 bond set by the court. Ozgas next appearance in Criminal Court, St. George, is scheduled for Monday, according to online court records. Gina Argento, center, departs from Manhattan criminal court after being arraigned on bribery charges on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Manhattan. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The brother and sister production team who own Broadway Stages, which has a presence on Staten Island, are accused of bribing a top aide for Mayor Eric Adams over a Department of Transportation project in Brooklyn. Tony and Gina Argento are facing bribery and conspiracy charges in Manhattan as part of an indictment against Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who at the time was Adams chief adviser. Lewis-Martin is accused of conspiring with the Argentos to successfully change DOTs plan for a bike lane redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, where the production company is based, according to a statement issued by the Manhattan district attorneys office. Tony Argento, 70, and Gina Argento, 52 who reside in Brooklyn and Queens respectively generally opposed any plan that would remove lanes of traffic or reduce vehicle traffic around the company, prosecutors said. Tony Argento leaves Manhattan criminal court after getting arraigned on bribery charges on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) In 2022 one year after the city launched a redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in response to the hit-and-run death of public school teacher Matt Jensen there were multiple conversations between Lewis-Martin and the Argentos, according to authorities. Lewis-Martin designated an employee from the mayors office to be her representative with DOT and instructed the DOT commissioner that both she and that individual should be part of any discussions about DOTs plans for McGuinness Boulevard, prosecutors said. She also allegedly directed that individual to discuss DOTs plans with the Argentos and, in turn, relay their views and concerns to the agency. Due to Lewis-Martins intervention, the DOT changed its plan for the redesign of McGuinness Boulevard, authorities allege. In exchange, Gina Argento transferred $2,500 to Lewis-Martins bank account and provided over $10,000 in catering services for a Gracie Mansion event, prosecutors allege. Additionally, the Argentos allegedly secured a speaking role for Lewis-Martin on the TV series Godfather of Harlem, which was filmed at Broadway Stages. Lewis-Martin was paid more than $800 for her appearance in the show, which also made her eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild, prosecutors said. The Argentos attorney, John Ciafone, told AMNY his clients did nothing but exercise their First Amendment rights, which protect free speech and petition. Ciafone told the outlet he believed the indictment was likely to be thrown out, and described the alleged $2,500 payment that Gina Argento made to Lewis-Martin as a donation. Broadway Stages Broadway Stages owns more than 60 sound stages and operates a variety of filming stations across the city, according to the companys website. One location is the former Arthur Kill Correctional Facility in Charleston, which the company bought from the state in 2017. The prison site consists of more than two dozen buildings and structures including guard towers, visitor buildings, inmate housing and a gymnasium. Last year's Rab's Country Lanes breast cancer research fundraiser was a massive success. Once again, it will be hosted by Greg Mocker from WPIX. Standing at the side of the TV personality is Liz DeHart, co-chair of the event. (Courtesy of Frank Wilkinson) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The 22nd Annual Bowling Against Breast Cancer Bowl-a-Thon returns to Rabs Country Lanes this fall, continuing its impactful legacy of supporting breast cancer initiatives. Since its inception, the event has raised more than $763,000 for local and national causes. With friends, family and fans of Rab's, the event has raised more than $763,000 for local and national causes. (Courtesy of Frank Wilkinson) Scheduled for Sunday, October 19, 2025, the fundraiser will be hosted by WPIX News 11s Greg Mocker and will benefit both the Breast Health Navigation Program at Staten Island University Hospital and the American Cancer Societys Making Strides Campaign. For more than two decades, our community has come together to bowl by rallying around a cause that touches so many lives. Each year we get closer to the day when no family has to hear the words you have breast cancer, and its the support of our community that makes that possible, said Frank Wilkinson, proprietor of Rabs Country Lanes. Frank Wilkinson's role in the community includes hosting multiple fundraisers each year. He also hosts food events in the bowling alley's resident restaurant which is known for its burgers. (Courtesy of Frank Wilkinson) Participants can register for $50, which includes two hours of bowling, lunch from Rabs Kitchen, a commemorative T-shirt, and a participant gift. The event is presented by Rabs Country Lanes and Country Pro Shop & Awards Center, and offers a range of sponsorship opportunities from $100 lane sponsorships to $2,500 PowerHouse Pink packages that include banner placement, team registration, and brand promotion. Pink pins are a keepsake gift. (Courtesy of Frank Wilkinson) Founded in the mid-1990s, Rabs Country Lanes has become a cornerstone of community service on Staten Island, raising over $500,000 annually for local organizations through fundraisers and events. The venue has earned numerous accolades, including Staten Island Small Business of the Year from the NYC Neighborhood Achievement Awards and recognition among the Top 50 Small Businesses in NYC by 1010 WINS. The event is a family-friendly one at the Dongan Hills bowling alley. (Courtesy of Frank Wilkinson) Those interested in bowling, sponsoring, donating raffle prizes, or volunteering can visit rabsway.org/bowling-against-breast-cancer.html or call 718-979-1600, ext. 101 for more information. Former Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds, 51, was killed in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta, Georgia on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Amy Harris/Invision/Associated Press) Brent Hinds, co-founder and former lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Mastodon, died Wednesday night in Atlanta following a motorcycle crash. He was 51. According to the Atlanta Police Department, the accident occurred around 11:35 p.m. when a BMW SUV failed to yield while making a turn at an intersection, colliding with Hinds Harley-Davidson. Police found Hinds unresponsive at the scene, where emergency responders pronounced him dead. The Fulton County Medical Examiners office confirmed Hinds death accidental due to multiple blunt force trauma injuries, as authorities continue their investigation into the crash. His former bandmates bassist Troy Sanders, guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer Brann Dailor penned an emotional Instagram post: We are in a state of unfathomable sadness and grief. We are heartbroken, shocked, and still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom weve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many. Born in Pelham, Alabama, in 1974, Hinds moved to Atlanta in the 1990s after seeing Sanders perform in Birmingham. Together with Kelliher and Dailor, they formed Mastodon in Atlanta in 2000. The band released several acclaimed albums, including Crack the Skye, Leviathan, Emperor of Sand and Remission, according to Pitchfork. Hinds departed from Mastodon in March 2023. While the band initially announced the split as mutual, Hinds contested their account in June, writing on social media that he was kicked out of the band for embarrassing them for being who I am. Twenty-nine people were arrested during an ICE raid at a warehouse in Edison on Wednesday morning, the townships mayor said. Video from New Brunswick-based advocacy group New Labor shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Customs and Border Protection officers at Smart Logistics and Freight Solutions, which houses Amazon, UPS and FedEx. Amanda Dominguez of New Labor said ICE officers tailed CBP officials into the facility. CBP officers are allowed in because the warehouse, located at 65 Patrick Avenue, is a CBP-bonded facility. ICE acknowledged a request for comment from NJ Advance Media but didnt immediately provide one. Edison Mayor Sam Joshi said township officials were informed about the planned raid prior to it occurring. Dominguez said ICE officers arrived at 10 a.m., jumped out of an unmarked vehicle, approached a guard in a security booth. They then demanded the security guard open the gate and hand over his walkie-talkie. ICE officers then stormed into the warehouse and began removing workers, she said. Its a Customs and Border Patrol bonded facility, so they have a contract where theyre allowed to go and check on the goods in the warehouse, but the problem is now is that theyre holding the door open for their ICE counterparts and that is illegal, Dominguez said. ICE still needs a warrant signed by a judge to go and do ICE actions. Workers who could provide adequate documentation were given wristbands while others were loaded into unmarked vans and taken away, Dominguez said. ICE officers also used drones inside the warehouse to search for workers possibly hiding in the scaffolding, Dominguez said. CBP officers didnt participate in the arrests. ICE didnt provide information to relatives about where their loved ones were being taken. Three people were injured during the raid, including one worker who was handcuffed and thrown to the ground by an ICE officer and another who was seen bleeding from his torso, Dominguez said. A third was hurt in an accidental fall. Family members are left wondering what is happening to my loved ones, and theyre not being given any guidance, Dominguez said. It was extremely violent yesterday. I just really want to highlight how violent this was and that this is not just an attack on an immigrant community but on working class people. There are about 80 Customs and Border Protection-bonded facilities in New Jersey and New York, with Dominguez noting, we may see more of these (raids). In July, ICE raided another CPB-bonded facility in Edison, Alba Wines and Spirits, arresting an estimated 20 people. U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-5), whose district includes Edison, criticized the Trump administration for the latest raid. Once again, President Trump is terrorizing our communities and raiding places of work, Pallone said in a statement on Thursday. Trump keeps suggesting that he is only arresting or deporting hardened criminals and gangsters. Yesterdays raid in Edison is more proof his administration will stretch the law without a warrant. The warehouse workers were just trying to do their jobs when armed agents stormed in rounding up our neighbors without warning or cause, just to make a political point. In addition to Wednesdays raid in Edison, ICE officers also conducted one on Bayard Street in Trenton on Thursday morning. Trenton police didnt participate in the action but video shows officers in patrol cars monitoring the scene. ICE called Trenton police because a member of a local community group repeatedly asked ICE officers if they had a warrant, Dominguez said. Representatives from Radio Jornalera NJ who questioned Trenton police about their presence were told by officers that they are not a part of the raid. They said were not getting involved, and (the activists) were like, but you are getting involved because youre telling us to leave. One activist was arrested, Dominguez said. Trenton police and the mayors office didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. A Norwegian Cruise Line ship is temporarily stalled in the waters of The Narrows because of Hurricane Erin. The Marine Traffic global shipping positioning site identifies the ship as the Norwegian Escape. Cruisehive.com said that the vessel was supposed to leave New York on Aug. 20 for a 10-night cruise to the Caribbean and the Bahamas. But the ship remained at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal instead before anchoring in The Narrows. The plan is for the Norwegian Escape to remain anchored in New York City waters through Aug. 22 before taking off on its voyage. The NCL vessel, which carries 4,218 passengers, was supposed to make stops on Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, on August 23 and 24, respectively. But the departure delay means that those two stops will no longer be possible, the website said. Erins powerful winds and heavy rains have left more than 150,000 people in Puerto Rico without power. Visits to Philipsburg, St. Maarten on Aug. 25, and Tortola, British Virgin Islands, on Aug. 26 have also been scrapped, the website said. Those dates will now be spent in Nassau, Bahamas, and Great Stirrup Cay, which is Norwegian Cruise Lines private island in the Bahamas. The planned visit to Kings Wharf, Bermuda, on Aug. 28 is still on the schedule. In light of the schedule changes, Norwegian Cruise Line has offered passengers a 20% refund and a $200 onboard credit. But in an email with the website, one passenger griped, They sent out an email stating itinerary changed due to hurricane Erin potential impact. Severe downgrade if you ask me and theyre only giving 20% refund and $200 credit per stateroom. Other cruise lines also had to change schedules in the face of Erin, which did not make landfall in the U.S. but still packed heavy winds and torrential rain. The Advance/SILive.com has reached out to Norwegian Cruise Line about the situation. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. In honor of those who have died, here is a compilation of obituaries posted on SILive. Viewing times and guest books can be seen here. Annette Armellino, 72, of Boca Raton, Florida, died peacefully. Born in New York City and raised on Staten Island, she was a gifted poet, writer, watercolorist and photographer whose work was widely published. Armellino enjoyed a distinguished career with Staten Island Savings Bank, retiring in November 2004. She was predeceased by her husband, Richard Armellino, in October 2019. Read the full obituary on SILive Eugene A. Carlson, 87, died on Aug. 20, 2025. Born on Staten Island on July 26, 1938, he graduated from Port Richmond High School. After serving in the Army for four years, he worked as a mail carrier, correction officer and retired as a captain from the FDNY after 31 years of service. He was predeceased by his wife, Marie Vigliotti, in 2017. Read the full obituary on SILive Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story based on data from Legacy.com. It was reviewed and edited by Advance/SILive.com staff. Ukrainian unmanned aerial systems forces again struck the Druzhba pipeline in Russia's Bryansk region. The video of the fire was published by the commander of the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, an ethnic Hungarian from Uzhgorod with the call sign "Magyar." The attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline by unidentified drones was also confirmed by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, who alleged that his country was once again being "dragged into the war." "During the night we received the news that the Friendship [Druzhba] oil pipeline at the Russian-Belarus border was repeatedly attacked - for the third time in a short period of time," he wrote on Facebook. Szijjarto said that crude oil transportation to Hungary has been stopped again "This is another attack on our country's energy security. Another attempt to drag us into war. He ain't gonna work! We will continue to support the efforts towards peace and protect our national interests with all our strength!" the Hungarian Foreign Minister said. The August 18 strike on the Nikolskoe oil pumping station in Russia's Tambov region shut down operations of the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian oil through Ukraine to Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Research funding for this article was provided by the UC Irvine Dream Center and the UC Irvine Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism, and Belonging. This story first appeared on palabra, the digital news site by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. By Catherine L. Benamou, Ph.D. | Edited by Patricia Guadalupe Local news coverage is vital in these times. Launched in 2010, the bilingual community newsroom Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights is celebrating its quinceanero! The nonprofit newsroom, which began as a youth-powered project supported by the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism and the Spanish-language daily La Opinion in Los Angeles, appears quarterly in print, daily online, and has grown into a dynamic collaboration between 28 youth reporters (all of them high schoolers), three professional reporters, one social media producer, and two editors reporting on stories such as local school closures during the January wildfires and the activities of newly elected Los Angeles City Council member Ysabel Jurado. Youth reporters work in cohorts devoted to multimedia, photography, and print or text. In 2018, they started a monthly podcast, Radio Pulso, crafted in a storefront space near the newsroom, and nowadays they put together podcasts in their own studio, located in the papers new building in Boyle Heights in East LA. Stephanie Perez, 18, joined Boyle Heights Beat when she was a freshman at Francisco Bravo High School in East Los Angeles. The Beat became her safe space, she tells palabra. It helped me become a better communicator Im very introverted, but I did kind of become more extroverted. You know, having to do interviews and being an active listener, not to forget to do follow-up questions It was that first space where I felt I could really speak out and wont be brushed off as a kid. While at The Beat, Stephanie became more involved in her community; she enjoyed working with Radio Pulso and was able to pitch and write her own stories on food deserts, library closures, and local murals, which provided an intergenerational view on la Virgen de Guadalupe. High school students can apply for internships online. The average internship lasts 18 weeks, and interns are paid, ranging from $25 for a photo to $150 for a full feature article. Stipends can also be earned for moderating events and hosting and editing podcasts, according to Christine Kelley, Managing Director of Student Journalism and Community Engagement. Staff members in the podcast room at Boyle Heights Beat. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra Images taken by student journalists decorate the hallways of the Boyle Heights Beat newsroom. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra An urban anchor As a socially and physically inviting space, Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights serves as what Mexican-American scholar Natalia Molina has called an urban anchor. The fact that our newsroom is a storefront really provides that opportunity for people in the community to identify it, knock on the door, ask for a newspaper, and come share a story tip, says senior editor Jessica Perez. Adds senior reporter Alejandra Molina, We heard that ICE had been in a metro station [in Boyle Heights] and we were trying to verify that, and so we called DHS, we wanted to see if it was ICE, if it was HSI but Centro CSO [a local non-profit] was at the scene, and they did get it, they did encounter a vehicle that looked like it was a federal agents, and they basically ran them out, and after that happened it was near Mariachi Plaza, which is near our office Centro CSO just walked in, organizers who were at the scene, and theyre like Hey, we just came back from this, this is what we know ... I think because its a very community-oriented newsroom, organizations do feel that level of trust. Molina started as a youth mentor and worked for a time at De Los, the Los Angeles Times vertical focusing on Latino issues. Perez mentions that as a community-oriented newsroom, The Beat is devoted to getting residents voices heard and covering the stories that readers would like to see, and what could affect them the most, such as: the city budget crisis, housing and homelessness, transparency from the Los Angeles United School District and the county government, and the impact on the community of new federal immigration policies. Molina noted that since June 6, when ICE raids intensified, The Beat has had to set aside other local stories to cover the raids, capture how local organizations and community defenders are assisting with ICE detection, and provide online guides to legal rights with the advice of immigration attorneys. From left: Senior Editor Jessica Perez, Student Journalism and Community Engagement Managing Director Christine Kelly, Senior Reporter and Journalist Mentor Alejandra Molina. Photos by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra Community reporter Andrew Lopez, who joined The Beat through the California Local News Fellowship at UC Berkeley, has been covering the impact of raids on local businesses, including street vendors, which is a huge part of the east side. Lopez says he enjoys using photography to really emphasize how a story is told [and] to show people what our community looks like. To get in touch with its readership, the newsroom has handed out media kits to its community organization partners (such as Proyecto Pastoral, Las Fotos Project, Latino Equity Alliance, Self-Help Graphics, and Legacy LA) to survey what residents wish to know more about, what they expect from their councilmembers, says Kelley. This outreach is reflected in their reporting style: A recent story involved community reporters interviewing people on the street about the presidential election, followed by youth reporters collaborating with community reporters to create a podcast. One thing that I realized while working at other newspapers that have a bilingual sister paper is that the bilingual sister paper is usually looked at as an afterthought, and its not really integrated within the main newsroom. So I do think that theres a broad community thats not being touched, thats not being really centered, says Molina. The Beats dedication to bilingualism enables them to feature voices that might not otherwise be heard, such as those of older residents, and to craft timely Spanish-language messages for their robust Instagram account. Copies of the Boyle Heights Beat newspaper are available for free at Picaresca Barra de Cafe in Boyle Heights. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra Building trust You basically cant create an effective news and information service unless you have a solid foundation of trust in the community, said Executive Editor Kristen Muller. Reflecting on what makes Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights unique, Muller told palabra, What makes it so effective is that it is homegrown. Like the fact that the reporters and the entire staff are either from Boyle Heights or the immediate surrounding neighborhoods They are seen as members of the community who are now contributing through journalism, not journalists who cover the community. [Additionally], they have this really solid ongoing feedback loop with community leaders, schools, organizations Theres this shared idea of we all need to put out good information and you dont have to be a journalist to be doing that work. In Mullers view, the student journalism program is also vital to building this trust: Families can recognize the kids participating in the internship program as neighbors. Andrew Lopez (foreground) and other reporters from the Boyle Heights Beat work out of the newspaper's office. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra Creating a path to citizens media We teach (our young reporters) that through journalism you can uplift voices in the community without taking a side, says Managing Director Christine Kelley. A core mission of Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights is to foster civic engagement and to treat reporting staff and readership alike as active citizens. For example, there are candidates forums where community members can directly address candidates about their positions. Last October, during a contentious campaign for an LA City Council seat, the news outlet hosted a well-attended forum with local district council candidates in advance of the November election. At the same time, there is an effort to keep news relevant at the neighborhood level. It has to be not only city government, not only the big issue stories, but also where can you go to get brunch on Mothers Day in Boyle Heights? Neighborhood concerns are also kept in mind when considering how to cover local crime the newsroom is selective, taking into careful account what is truly of service to the community, says Jessica Perez. The intersection of 1st and Soto streets in Boyle Heights. The Beat, a community-focused newsroom, amplifies local voices and covers stories that matter most to residents. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra Looking ahead At 15, Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights has much to celebrate. The youth program has been featured in the curriculum of local schools. Several youth reporters are prepared to work as LA documenters, taking notes during meetings with elected officials and neighborhood councils to help generate ideas for stories. And the newsroom has created a professional pipeline for its own staff, several of whom, including its senior editor, were previously involved in the youth program. Stephanie Perez will be studying journalism at Cal Poly Pomona this fall. Because it is also available online, The Beats readership extends from East Los Angeles to other U.S. jurisdictions, and even to Mexico, as people who have moved out of the Los Angeles area maintain a very big attachment and pride to the neighborhood, says Jessica Perez. Local leaders are responding to the news coverage, and Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights was recently nominated for numerous LA Press Club SoCal Journalism Awards for its coverage last year. Significantly, it has become a part of the Los Angeles Local News Initiative, a new nonprofit organization that, among others, operates community newsrooms and collaborates with local media and university partners to bring more journalism to the Los Angeles area. Boyle Heights Beats expertise in centering community first and supporting student reporters will aid the launch of new community newsrooms by the LA Local News Initiative across the region. As Jessica Perez explains, Our mission here is to inform, but its also to connect and uplift: We want to give people the news, and we want to hold power to account, but we also want to build community among people, to connect them with their neighbors. Christine Kelly and Jessica Perez at the Boyle Heights Beat newsroom on July 23, 2025. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra Dariela Espinoza Lopez provided research assistance. Support the Peninsulas only locally-owned newspaper. Subscribe! Subscribing annually brings you big savings. We also offer monthly and weekly subscriptions. Premium Subscription As low as $8.25 per week Premium Includes: -- Access to the Daily Journals e-Edition: a digital replica of our daily newspaper including crossword puzzles, games, comics, classifieds and ads. You can download a digital replica of the Daily Journal for offline reading. You can also clip & download articles or images from the e-edition to share with others The most recent 90 issues are available at any given time. -- Unlimited access to our award-winning online content -- Commenting access on all stories as a valued member of the DJ community -- NEW! Access to our online-only digital crossword puzzle. A new puzzle every day, seven days a week! Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has terminated the memorandum between the governments of Ukraine and Iran on visa-free travel for citizens holding diplomatic and service passports. Government Representative in Parliament Taras Melnychuk announced on Telegram that the decision was adopted at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Specifically, Ukraine has ended the memorandum of understanding with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran on visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic and service passports, signed in Kyiv on March 15, 1993. Weve recognised the importance of pets in our lives, and other legislation has been changed over the years to reflect that, she says. In Victoria, the rental laws were changed so that renters are allowed to have pets. Aged care or retirement laws have changed, so when people move into aged care, they can bring their pet. Even on the federal level, weve changed the Family Law Act pets are now recognised as companions, rather than property. Deb Tranters beloved dogs Lutana the pug (front), Oscar the poodle cross (left) and Daisy the Yorkshire terrier (back) are all buried in her family plot. Tranter is one of a growing number of Victorians who wish to be buried with their pets. Over the six years she has managed a public cemetery, she says she has reopened several family plots to bury beloved cats and dogs. In doing so, she runs the risk of penalties, including fines, for breaching legislation. People are wanting this, so its really hard to deny them, she says. Ive just made the choice that Im going to allow it to happen. Georgie Purcell, Animal Justice Party MP and member for Northern Victoria, says other cemetery managers are making the same call, especially as more people particularly younger generations and those who dont have children request in their wills that their pets be buried with them. Its essentially because of an old religious belief that at one point said animals dont have souls. So, countless funeral directors and cemetery managers are faced with an impossible decision every day of either honouring someones dying wish or breaking the law. Most of them are choosing to break the law, Purcell says. The Prime Minister (pictured with his dog Toto) thinks its common sense to allow people to be buried with their pets. Credit: AP In June, the NSW government passed changes to the states Cemeteries and Crematoria Act to clarify that the remains of deceased companion animals may be placed with their late humans remains. Purcell hopes this will set some kind of precedent for the rest of Australia. When approached by this masthead, a Victorian government spokesperson said it understands the important role pets play in peoples lives and that some Australians wish to be buried with them upon death. We will continue to listen to advocacy and views on this issue. Purcell first raised this issue with the Victorian Parliament last September, and has multiple times since. But so far, she says no concrete action has been taken. Though it only requires a small amendment, Purcell says the reluctance could be that this change would reveal a broader need for reform across the Cemeteries Act. Victorian Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell and her late dog Greta, whose ashes are now kept in an urn. It just goes to show how silly we look that this has come to the governments attention, and they havent done anything about it. Every single person who finds out this isnt allowed is shocked by it, including the prime minister. Amending the law wouldnt just help emotionally, but also logistically. Tranter says she has to note the details of every interment, including how deep and where all remains are buried. But since pet co-burials are illegal, theyre omitted from the record. I want to be able to legally record these pet burials, and their position in the grave so were not going to be disturbing the remains if we need to reopen that grave. Credit: Matt Golding Chief executive of the Australasian Cemeteries and Crematoria Association Ben Kelly says the current Victorian Act should be revised if there is genuine public demand. However, he cautions those who want to be buried with their pets to consider the logistics. Theres a difference between placing ashes of a dog into a grave, and placing a dogs remains, Kelly says. Will the dog go into a coffin or straight into a grave? And if the owner dies before the pet, make sure youre not euthanising the pet to then go into the grave. Then there are the issues of cost and space. It could cost anywhere between a hundred and thousands of dollars to place the ashes of a pet into a plot, and if a pet takes up one spot, it could mean another family member forfeits. 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 August 23 edition of Good Weekend. See all 15 stories . The day after my 22-year-old daughter, Mia, left home, about six months ago, I sat on the couch, looking out at our backyard. It was Saturday. Outside, the grass throbbed greenly. The frangipanis glowed pink. The sky was cloudless and blue. It was truly a spectacular day. And I thought: Everythings f---ed. When you have kids, everyone tells you how tired youre going to be and how many nappies youre going to have to change. Better book your kids into childcare now. School, too. You gotta get a car seat, and a really good pram. If you dont spend at least $800 on your pram, then you obviously dont value your childs life. But theres stuff that people dont tell you, or certainly not overtly. They dont tell you how profoundly and incomparably beautiful having kids would be, how it would open a door into a previously unimaginable world, alive with the deepest wonders and rewards. Another thing they dont tell you is how devastating it will be when your kids grow up and leave. How, despite the fact that you knew it was coming, itd still feel like an ambush. No one touched on that. Or maybe they did, and I wasnt listening. In any case, there I was, sitting on the couch one sunny Saturday with one less daughter in the house, feeling like all the best bits of my life were over and wondering what the point was. Like I said. Everything was f---ed. It wasnt like we hadnt been here before. A year earlier, another daughter, our 18-year-old, Rosey (my wife and I have three girls), had left home to go uni in Canberra, abandoning us like a pile of emotional trash, albeit one with a Netflix account she would log onto remotely. It took me a good six months to deal with that, with the fact that shed had the temerity to grow up, develop autonomy, and pursue her own life. The unjustness of it. I would stare for 10 minutes at a time at the portrait of Rosey, stuck to the wall of my office at home. My wife and I would lie in bed at night, getting morose, crying quietly. Advertisement We would visit Rosey on weekends, driving down to Canberra, resisting the temptation to speed all the way. The current consensus is that Canberra is a cool place now, and Rosey certainly talked about how much fun she was having. But to a person from Sydney, which has hills and water and other distinguishing geographical features, everything there looked the same. I always felt lost, which was an excellent metaphor for my emotional state. After a while, I thought Id settled into our new reality. I had processed it, as they say. But then, just as I was getting back to something approaching normal another daughter left home. And I realised I hadnt processed anything at all. I know. Its not that big a deal, right? Its not like theyre dead. It goes without saying that the pain you feel when your kids leave home must be barely one-millionth of what youd feel had they died. But still, it hurts. Theres no denying that. Part of the challenge was that I was hurting in ways that were new to me, and therefore confusing. I was happy that the girls were happy, but there was such a dissonance between their excitement about moving out and my pain at them leaving that at times, I felt almost wobbly, like I was being buffeted by a wind only I could feel. This sounds obvious, but the house gets a lot quieter when your kids leave home. Its boring. Credit: Getty Images Mia had moved into a tiny terrace in Surry Hills with two other girls. Her room was upstairs. One weekend, my wife and I drove over to help her move in. I carried a cupboard up to her bedroom. The stairs were narrow and steep. With every step, I swear that cupboard got heavier and heavier, filling up with all the things I didnt want to let go of; namely, Mias childhood, the tens of thousands of tiny moments, all the nameless raptures and frustrations; the 3am bottle-feeds, the endless spoonfuls of mashed banana, her sleeping on my chest in bed. Standing on the sidelines watching her play netball (realising, contrary to expectations, that netball is actually a great game to watch). Surfing together. Swimming with dolphins. Changing her nappy on the back seat of the car on the side of a dark country road with trucks flying past a foot from the window. The hurt I felt from Mia leaving now combined with the deferred pain I felt over Rosey. Their childhoods now seemed both incredibly distant and startlingly close. I remembered taking them to the dentist. Buying their school shoes. At the time, that seemed like such a drag. But Id give anything now to be back in that shoe shop. Taking them there was my responsibility. They needed me. No one will need me like that, ever again. I accept they will need me in other ways, as adults, to ask about fixed-rate mortgages or health insurance. But they will never need me like they needed me then. That was all done now. Advertisement This sounds obvious, but the house gets a lot quieter when your kids leave home. Its boring. When they were at home, our daughters were always darting about, like tropical fish, in the corner of my eye. Rummaging in the fridge, clanging cutlery; putting together an acai bowl or cooking pasta. Coming and going with their friends. Youd hear their voices, filtering down the hallway. They would counsel one another when they were upset, and fight about who stole which item of clothing from whom. I loved these sounds because my wife and I had raised three sisters, and thats what sisters do. Now it all seems so still. Our youngest girl, the 16-year-old, Sunny, is still at home, thank God. But shes growing up as well. Its all I can do not to nail her feet to the floor and put extra locks on the doors. I find myself getting needy: Im almost willing to pay her for extra hugs. At times, when shes out with her friends, Ive found myself standing, stock still, in the kitchen, staring straight ahead. Its like Ive been marooned on an island, all by myself. Which is terrifying because Im literally the last person I would want to be left alone with. The post was saying that I could have more freedom. But I didnt want freedom ... I wanted my daughters. These feelings are all part of what they call empty nester syndrome (ENS). Its impossible to say how common it is: Ive read that everything from 25 per cent to 98 per cent of parents go through it, but there isnt much research and the studies arent exactly authoritative. Besides, what qualifies as ENS? When I looked online, I read about parents who couldnt go into their kids bedroom for a month after they left (I related to that one), and parents whose marriages fell apart. Other empty nesters reported feeling a bit out of sorts for a week or so, but it wasnt anything a week in Bali couldnt fix. The advice about how to deal with ENS is always the same: get a hobby, see friends And there are plenty of dedicated ENS Instagram accounts. One day, my wife sent me a post from an account called Life.afterkids, which has 445,000 followers. The post showed a middle-aged woman in casual clothes, walking, with her back to the camera, along a beach. The implication seemed to be that she was walking away from her previous life. The caption read: The hurt we feel over saying goodbye to our kids childhoods [is] balanced by the freedom to live life as we choose. I loved my wife for sending me this, but it didnt help much. The post was saying that I could have more freedom. But I didnt want freedom. I couldnt care less about freedom. I wanted my daughters. It was like being offered lobster when what you wanted more than anything was an apple. Advertisement I thought maybe it was a gender thing. Some of my mates were also having kids leave home, but they didnt seem so freaked out. Id sometimes look at them, and wonder: are they hiding it? But whenever I mentioned it to them, they seemed nonplussed. One mate told me, Dont worry, theyll come back, which seemed to miss the point. Was I the weird one? Maybe I just needed to man up, enjoy all that awesome freedom. Woo-hoo. One day, I was working at home. I was in the middle of a Zoom call when I felt something inside me giving way, like a mudslide in my chest. I made some excuse, walked out of the room and stood in the hallway, out of sight, crying. Then, after a minute or two, I blew my nose, cleaned myself up, and went back to the Zoom call. Because Im paranoid and neurotic, my daughters departures set loose a bunch of associated fears, like chimps escaping the zoo. How will they cope? Will the world chew them up? Will they get a job? Will they fall in love? If they do, whatll happen when they break up? Its absurd: theyre adults, for goodness sake. But still. The worlds a gnarly place. Loading It would be bad enough if it were just their physical absence. But that absence reframes everything. For some people, kids can be a reason to stay together. Once theyre gone, its not uncommon for couples to look at one another and say: why you? A world of terrifying possibilities can open up. Separation. Single life. Even the idea of all that freedom can be terrifying. Freedom means having to make choices, and Im terrible with choices because I tend to assume Ill make the wrong one. But heres the thing. I havent always been terrible at making choices. In fact, as I now realise, having kids was, in itself, a pretty radical choice, one that led to an epic adventure. The next adventure is just hoving into view, like a ship on the horizon. When it pulls up, Ill hop aboard, grab a good strong drink, and make myself at home. Destination: Ive got no idea. Advertisement A man who fatally struck a single mother while driving blind drunk has broken down in court as the victims family and friends spoke of their ongoing pain. Brett David Eddy pleaded guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday to the manslaughter of Tash Raven at the Hervey Bay suburb of Urangan, on Queenslands Fraser Coast, on May 25, 2024. The 43-year-old Raven had been walking home after a night out when Eddys vehicle mounted the road shoulder at 11.47pm and struck her at more than 160km/h, causing parts of her body to be scattered over a 100-metre area. The man was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment over the crash. Eddy, 42, also pleaded guilty to two counts of dangerous driving while speeding and intoxicated, failure to render assistance, driving while disqualified and performing a burnout. Palestine supporters planning to march across Brisbanes Story Bridge have been forced to reroute the protest following a drawn out court battle. Justice for Palestine Magan-djin organisers revealed on Friday evening that protesters would now gather in Queens Gardens and cross the Victoria Bridge to finish their march in Musgrave Park. Coming straight from the Brisbane Magistrates Court shortly before 5.30pm, organiser Remah Naji said the Story Bridge was no longer needed. Justice for Palestine Magan-djin representatives including Remah Naji. Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt We got the visibility of the Story Bridge without needing to cross it, she argued. 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 August 23 edition of Good Weekend. See all 15 stories . Asif tugs at his right cheek as he ponders how to navigate from Holloway Road Station to the Quality Chop House, three kilometres away on Farringdon Road. A dozen fellow students of the Knowledge of London, the gruelling qualification required to drive one of the capitals famous black taxis, watch him squirm under the instructors classroom interrogation, with another dozen listening in via a video call. Eventually, he concedes defeat and rejoins the onlooking semicircle. Londons cabbies have had a hard few years. Ride-hailing platforms such as Uber upended the market, with satnav-equipped drivers who no longer needed to memorise routes. Tighter environmental standards pushed up the cost of vehicles. Councils blocked favourite cut-throughs. Over half of Londons roads now have 20 miles per hour (32km/h) speed limits. Since 2017, the number of black-cab drivers has fallen from about 25,000 to barely 16,500, according to Transport for London (TFL). Before picking up their first passengers, all black-cab drivers must pass the Knowledge, a 160-year-old test that involves memorising more than 6000 streets and points of interest within a 10-kilometre radius of Charing Cross. They also need to navigate between them by the most direct route, as mileage helps determine fares. Examiners can make things even harder by insisting on being set down on a specific side of the road or impersonating customers with heavy regional accents. Surely satnav, augmented with live traffic insights, has made the Knowledge an anachronism? Up to a point. Expert navigation is only part of the purpose of the exam. It also serves to protect access to what is in effect a 371-year-old guild. Students are discouraged from using satnav. Google Maps is full of errors and often calculates routes which are the quickest, says Gert Kretov, an instructor at the Knowledge Point School. We must learn the shortest route. He estimates that passing the Knowledge costs 10,000 (about $20,600) over two to three years, including classes and renting a scooter, the favoured means of sussing out routes. Another threat to cabbies looms in the rearview mirror: taxis that dont require a driver at all. From next northern spring, the UK government will allow pilot schemes for autonomous taxis to roam Englands roads without human oversight. This brings the country into line with China and US states including California and Texas, where Tesla and Alphabets Waymo division are operating robotaxis. A student marks a route on a map during a Knowledge lesson at the West London Knowledge School in 2014. Credit: Getty Images A fleet of 15 autonomous Ford Mustangs (overseen by safety drivers for now) is already venturing onto Londons roads from the Kings Cross headquarters of Wayve, a British tech company that last year raised more than $US1bn from Japans SoftBank and others. On a recent 15-minute demo ride, it drove with a mix of calm and authority, like the best taxi drivers. Wearing a crown of seven cameras, the car was unfazed by pedestrians dawdling near zebra crossings, impatient cyclists jumping red lights or roadworks blocking its path. An international crime syndicate has allegedly used an unlikely Melbourne location to shift millions of dollars: a small takeaway shop in the citys north. Detectives were tipped off to cash drops and collections at the Somerton store earlier this year, but it took an eight-month investigation for them to uncover what police describe as the alarming scale of the operation. Detective Inspector Graham Banks. Credit: Chris Hopkins A total of $83 million in cash had been delivered to the store since May 2021, police said on Friday. Police believe this money is the laundered proceeds of criminal activity of a serious and organised crime group, Detective Inspector Graham Banks of Taskforce Lunar 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 Faced with the overwhelming task of sifting through the varying standards of halal certification in Australia, Mohamed Omran did what any self-respecting Muslim would do: start a WhatsApp group. The 1000-member-strong group called Halal Food Sydney is a space where Sydney-based Muslims ask each other whether various foods or drinks are halal, the Muslim standard for consumption. There are thousands of consumers who want clarity on what is and isnt halal. And we can see for ourselves inconsistencies in what is certified. We see them and have our doubts. And we know it shouldnt be like this. Mohamed Omran (right) at Punchbowls Abu Ahmad Butchery. He believes a domestic halal certification standard would be the best solution. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong What is halal? Muslims have a standard they must abide by for food and drink. Everything must be halal, which generally covers ethical farming and slaughtering, as well as avoiding cross-contamination with anything that isnt halal, such as pork or alcohol. The post-World War II generations of Muslim migrants established a halal certification industry, whereby companies (initially small, family-run affairs in western Sydney and northern Melbourne) could check to see if a butcher or restaurant was halal, and give them the tick of approval for the fledgling Muslim community. Advertisement For decades, the industry operated without a governing body, standardised guidelines or any accountability, creating a freewheeling industry plagued by allegations of mismanagement, dishonesty and corruption. Many Muslim consumers who care deeply about their faith and how it is practised no longer trust the certifying industry and its processes. We have become our own food scientists, food technologists, our own religious law interpreters, Omran says about the group. And weve made difficult decisions, but we shouldnt have needed to do that. We should be able to rely on leaders in our community. But without transparency, without trust in the processes, what other option do we have? And as Omran puts it, the issue is a fundamental one. We need a place to pray without fear of harm, we need to be able to practise our religion, and we need to be able to know what is and isnt halal. Or we just go vegetarian and boycott the whole system. Advertisement What has changed? The halal certification business in Australia faces a tipping point after exploding into a billion-dollar industry. The growth was launched when major grocery chains Woolworths and Coles waded in and began offering fresh halal meat, as major butchers and suppliers seek to meet the skyrocketing demand for Australian halal meat in South-East Asia and the Middle East. These elements came together in an industry roundtable meeting held in July, at which certifiers and suppliers opened conversations on regulating the domestic market, the first step in what could become a game-changing moment for the growing sector. Who is setting the standard for what is and is not halal in Australia? Credit: Justin McManus Omran was there as a representative of Muslim consumers and challenged those in attendance to meet the demands of the community, to become transparent and consistent. This push from a chaotic industry to one that is organised and self-regulated represents an evolution faced by many migrant communities and the economies they build. Advertisement The pressures and focuses are different for those who came and built the industry in the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane: in the early days the priorities were survival, security and speed. They needed these systems up and running as soon as possible, no matter how dodgily they were set up. But the needs of the generation that has come after them are different, seeking instead stability and credibility. They want structures that can enable their ambitions and respect their demands, ones that require legal frameworks, connections with the rest of the economy and community support. The halal certification industry is torn between a community seeking survival and one that wants to grow and thrive. What even is halal certification? Halal certification emerged as an industry in the late 70s, as Muslim migration to Australia grew and the community sought to establish the religious infrastructure they needed. These were usually small outfits that would offer a certificate to butchers or restaurants that signified their products or services were halal. That would come with a literal certificate that could be found pinned up behind counters at these shops and restaurants, assuring Muslims they could eat there. Advertisement How big is the industry today? The halal certification industry is split between two main sections: export and domestic. The export side is more organised, tightly overseen by federal bodies such as the Australian Government Authorised Halal Program. While data is scarce on the exact values of the export side of the industry, one research paper from Tridge, a global data and media company that focuses on agricultural industries, said Australia exported about $2.36 billion worth of halal meat in 2021. And that is only increasing, with data from Volza, an export-import data platform, showing a 22 per cent increase in volume between September 2023 and August 2024, most of which went to the Middle East and South-East Asia. A halal snack pack being sold in Melbourne. Credit: Penny Stephens There are 25 halal certifiers authorised by the government to certify meat for export, and they act as gatekeepers to these lucrative markets. Without certification, the meat cannot be exported to Muslim countries. But part of the success of this growing export industry is demand and reputation. Australian meat has a premium reputation across these markets, and any questions surrounding the halal certification process could jeopardise this. Advertisement A once-trusted doctor who practiced in WAs South West will now spend two decades in jail after being convicted of the vile sexual exploitation, rape and abuse of eight vulnerable young girls over a three-year period. The case of 63-year-old Douglas McCarthy was described as a sorry and sordid tale by the sentencing judge in Perth District Court on Friday. Douglas McCarthy was found guilty dozens of child sex abuse charges. Credit: Instagram Judge Wendy Gillan told the court how a man once seen as a trusted member of the community asked girls as young as 14 to send him sexually explicit photographs of themselves for money, paid them to strip at his house while he massaged them, and enticed them into sexual acts. All the while, McCarthy plied them with alcohol and drugs and filmed the abuse for his later gratification. Deputy Head of the Presidents Office of Ukraine Ihor Zhovkva has held a briefing for ambassadors of the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) countries, where they paid special attention to the European integration of Ukraine. Zhovkva informed them about the outcomes of Volodymyr Zelenskyys visit to Washington, particularly his talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. Ukraine once again confirmed its readiness to take further steps toward achieving real peace, the Presidents Office said on its website. We are open to any negotiation formats at the leaders level, as only such a level can resolve the most complex issues facing Ukraine and the world. We value the participation and support of our European partners, who are working with us to achieve a just peace, he stressed. Special attention was given to Ukraines European integration. The Deputy Head of the Presidential Office stressed that Ukraines path toward EU membership should be a shared one with Moldova, particularly at the stage of opening negotiating clusters later this year. According to him, it is important that this approach be publicly supported by all European states. The parties coordinated their next steps and agreed on actions to be taken on international platforms aimed at strengthening support for Ukraine, promoting Ukraines interests in security, political, and economic areas, and reinforcing joint efforts to counter Russian aggression. A 28-year-old woman has been charged with fraud after she allegedly went on a shopping spree with the credit cards of elderly clients she was employed to take care of. Police allege the care worker used the bank card details of three people to make purchases totalling more than $14,500. The woman allegedly racked up a $14,500 bill using clients credit card details. Credit: Justin McManus They were alerted to concerns surrounding the woman and began an investigation that uncovered the alleged offending, which began last November. The victims are all aged in their 60s and require permanent care, police said. He says the principle of fairness between the generations affects a wide range of policy areas housing, wages, public debt, the environment, how to handle AI, all of which were discussed at the closed-door confab in the cabinet room. And, the most politically explosive of all tax. Chalmers didnt need to be convinced. He already was concerned at the perversity of a country that offers each successive generation a worse deal than the one before. He already was interested in pursuing reform of negative gearing, for example. At an age where people no longer have to worry about the cost of raising children and paying a mortgage, they get generous concessions funded by people who do. Negative gearing, while sacrosanct to many older voters, is seen as an affront to younger ones. Older people are seen to be gathering up all the available real estate as tax dodges while leaving nothing affordable for their youngers. And the treasurer invited to his roundtable a couple of experts who illustrated how government policy was aggravating the problem of unfairness. ANU economist Professor Bob Breunig gave a paper which said: The evidence is stark: the Australian governments relative expenditure on older Australians has increased significantly in recent decades, funded by those of working age. The average impact of the tax and transfer (social welfare and other government payments) system, he estimates, cuts the income of a 30-year-old by a few thousand dollars a year, while it adds some $25,000 to the income of a 75-year-old. At an age where people no longer have to worry about the cost of raising children and paying a mortgage, they get generous concessions funded by people who do. Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally explained how younger people pay much more tax than older people even if they have an identical income. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers at the opening of the economic reform roundtable at Parliament House on Tuesday. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer Someone under the age of 65 with household earnings of $100,000 pays about $30,000 a year in tax on average. Someone over 65 with exactly the same income pays around $10,000 in tax on average: Largely because of the tax concessions they enjoy on their super, negative gearing and capital gains. In other words, it doesnt pay to work for a living. It pays to live on the proceeds of investment income. Is that really the principle Australia wants to live by? The system was not designed this way; it was gradually twisted this way by governments increasingly favouring older voters over the past 30 years. It now needs correcting. Point made. But before Chalmers can even think about making any changes, he has to persuade a notoriously cautious prime minister to take the risk. Once given a tax concession that is, a favour courtesy of the Treasury the lucky beneficiaries guard it jealously as a fundamental human right. Even the gentlest adjustment brings violent screams of political protest. Just look at the outrage over the governments plan to reduce the tax concession on super balances over $3 million. Just look at the outrage over the governments plan to reduce the tax concession on super balances over $3 million. Credit: Getty Images The Daily Telegraph on Friday supplied a premonition of the sort of campaign the government would face if it tried to address the anti-youth bias in the system. Its front page headline: Incoming Tax. Jims warning: older Aussies will take the heat. In the famous Chinese classic novel of the 16th century, Journey to the West, Buddha assigns an important task to the mischievous Monkey King. He must guard a priest on a journey carrying sacred sutras from India. But Monkey chafes under Buddhas control. So Buddha gives him a challenge. If he can leap out of Buddhas hand, he can go free. Monkey summons all his supernatural strength into a mighty bound that carries him high into the sky. But when he lands, he finds himself still in the palm of Buddhas hand. Buddha is all-powerful. Monkey sullenly resumes his task. Anthony Albanese is the Buddha of Australian politics; Chalmers is the Monkey King. Will the dominant Albanese allow his treasurer to break free? Even before Chalmers delivered his closing remarks to the reform roundtable this week, Albanese had read the treasurers proposed conclusions. And approved them. The prime minister wasnt in the room; he was a kilometre away in the Lodge. Albanese is all-seeing. The common refrain from frustrated commentators and would-be reformers is that, with his swag of 94 seats in the House, Albanese has enormous political capital and he now must spend some to achieve reform. Thats not how Albanese sees it. His priority is not political capital; its trust capital. Not the overwhelming majority of 94 seats but Labors underwhelming primary vote of 34.56 per cent. To compare, when Kevin Rudd won in 2007, Labors primary vote was 43 per cent. When Keating won in 1993, it was 44.9. When Hawke won in 1983, it was 49.5. Albaneses intention is to build trust with voters to increase Labors primary vote. Why? To entrench Labor in power over the long term. His mission is to expand Labors base to establish a more stable and secure grip on power. Which is why hes reluctant to make a big or sudden change beyond his election platform. Its not that he lacks ambition. He has a different kind of ambition. Loading Mind you, hes very keen to enlarge his House majority, as well as build Labors primary vote. He wants it all. Hes already told Labor national secretary Paul Erickson that he wants the party to conclude its preselections for the next election by the end of this year. Thats unheard of. Parties usually finalise their preselections weeks or months ahead of an election. Albaneses deadline would be two years ahead. Why? His logic is threefold. One, to show that Labor is not complacent but intent on expanding its command of the parliament. Two, to give Labors candidates the time and predictability to plan their campaigns. This is especially important to the candidates who ran and lost at the May election. Albanese wants to encourage many of them to run again. Third, to take advantage of the Liberals dire precariousness and disorganisation. So what hope does Chalmers have of persuading his leader to take the risk of proposing controversial new tax policies before the 2028 election? Albaneses refrain in the run-up to the roundtable was they might be in the cabinet room, but theyre not the cabinet. Chalmers has been careful publicly to defer to the primacy of the cabinet in any future decisions on reform. But Albanese is not absolutist about resisting future reforms, even controversial ones. He will keep an open mind and see how the term evolves. As he did with the stage 3 tax cuts in his last term, where he refused to make any changes until circumstances dictated that he should. This weeks roundtable produced other results. Chalmers list of 10 immediate action points begins with pursuing a road-user charge, abolishing nuisance tariffs, reforming the national construction code to speed house building, and accelerating reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Ive got some wonderful friends in the room. Ive dedicated almost a quarter of a century to this party and I love our state and our country, and Ill always do everything I can to see the best days ahead of us. Loading Dutton became the first opposition leader to lose their own seat at a federal poll in a historic electoral drubbing that resulted in the Coalition losing 14 seats. The former member for Dickson was dislodged by Labors Ali France in Brisbanes sprawling outer northern suburbs seat, ending Duttons more than 20-year reign as MP. Earlier this month, Dutton broke his post-election silence to back the Albanese governments call to move ASIO and the Australian Federal Police back into the Department of Home Affairs in an interview with this masthead. But his comments on Friday at the convention was the first time the former opposition leader had spoken publicly. Net zero debate The LNP began the opening day of the convention with an overwhelming vote to call on the federal Coalition to drop its support for net zero energy and climate policy. Over an hour, 27 out of 28 speakers backed the motion. The ultimate wording called for a flexible policy to reduce emissions, while growing and protecting mining, agriculture and manufacturing, lifting the prohibition on nuclear energy, and supporting high-efficiency, low-emissions technology. Queensland Senator Matt Canavan, who sits in the Nationals federal party room, opened the debate saying energy costs had increased. We need to support this motion so we can return to the days when we run our energy system, when we use our energy resources with the number one priority of bringing down the lowest possible prices for the Australian people, he said. Only one amendment was moved by a speaker, pushing back on the use of renewable to describe solar and wind. Canavan spoke in defence of the technology, and the carefully negotiated resolution, saying it was about their use being unbalanced. Departing president Lawrence Springborg also spoke at the LNPs annual convention. Credit: Matt Dennien I think this motion unifies this party and this issue in a way I havent seen for many years, he said. Other members variously described the push for net zero as a slogan, a scam and national self-sabotage. One described climate change as natural, while Wide Bay MP Llew OBrien began his contribution by stating the obvious, that climate change is real. The sole member to speak against the motion, who did not introduce himself, described the issue faced as one of energy policy, not the efforts to reach net zero. We can have net zero without what the Labor Party is doing, he said. How many people voted for net zero [at] the last election? I think youll find that [it was] quite a few. If we adopt this motion, whats it going to do to our voter base, for a start? Outgoing party president Lawrence Springborg noted the resolution used the phrase net zero mandate, which he said offered flexibility. Several hands were raised in the ultimate vote when asked if they objected to the resolution. The positions taken by the convention are not binding on the state parliamentary arm, or the federal Coalition. Leys complete economic plan In a speech to the convention before the vote, Ley vowed to go to the next federal election with a complete economic plan, and hit out at Labors recent roundtable. Loading She said shadow treasurer and Queenslander Ted OBrien had attended the government event and had promised not a grab bag of slogans, but a fully integrated plan to restore confidence, drive productivity and living standards. Ley also reiterated criticism of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his decision to recognise a Palestinian state. ATSIC, a national Aboriginal representative body established by the Hawke government in 1990, was defunded in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement. The assemblys accountability powers would enable it to monitor, evaluate, conduct performance audits and report on any government-funded programs and polices affecting First Peoples. This goes well beyond the advisory role conceived for the Voice to federal parliament rejected at the 2023 referendum. Under the terms agreed to by the negotiating teams for First Peoples and the Department of Premier and Cabinet, the assembly would not have coercive powers to compel testimony or the production of documents from government officials, or a veto over legislation. Its public hearings, to be known as engagement hearings, are designed as a forum where First Nations representatives can interrogate government policy and share expertise and advice about how programs could be better designed. It is not just about being able to say, This is no good; it is saying This is what we recommend should be happening, Berg said. That is the key step. A senior government figure involved in the treaty process but not authorised to speak publicly said the engagement hearings were designed to cut through bureaucratic and political stonewalling. Our First Peoples dont want the bullshit political answers, they said. They want genuine conversations with ministers and secretaries of departments. Berg said one of the first things the new assembly would push for was the removal of administrative hurdles for Aboriginal service providers, such as requirements to provide overlapping reports to multiple government agencies, which prevented them from doing important work. The accountability role of the assembly is based, in part, on a model used since 2022 in South Australia, where First Nations and government representatives share governance over the states Closing the Gap performance in health, education, employment and other quality of life measures. This is consistent with a recommendation by the Productivity Commission, which reviews the National Agreement on Closing the Gap on a national basis, for all states and territories to have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led mechanisms to scrutinise progress. The assembly must be consulted on any proposed laws, before they are introduced to parliament, directed at First Peoples. The scope of this provision is likely to be the subject of fierce debate when the legislation is tabled in parliament. Treaty negotiations on the current in-principle agreement began last November. Members of the First Peoples Assembly and Premier Jacinta Allan are pictured with dancers while meeting near Bendigo in June. Credit: Justin McManus The assemblys decision-making powers are restricted to areas of unique Aboriginal interest, such as water trading between mobs, how Aboriginality is determined, sanctioning the use of traditional names for commercial purposes and returning natural landmarks to their traditional names. Final decisions will involve relevant traditional owner and language groups. The assembly will make direct appointments to board positions already reserved for Aboriginal people at Heritage Victoria and the Aboriginal Heritage Council. Victorian Minister for Treaty and First Peoples Natalie Hutchins thanked the First Peoples Assembly for its leadership during the treaty negotiations. If you listen to the people directly affected by policies, you get better outcomes thats common sense, she said. Treaty is about listening to the voices of Aboriginal Victorians and making sure that resources focused on Aboriginal communities are spent when and where they are needed. The Coalition parties initially offered tepid support for the states treaty process but hardened their position at the start of last year. Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the focus on a treaty reflected Premier Jacinta Allans misplaced priorities when facing urgent problems with violent crime and childcare. The Liberals and Nationals dont support a treaty or Jacinta Allans Voice to parliament, he said. We want to address disadvantage, not create new bureaucracies and divide Victorians. While the tabling of treaty legislation in parliament is likely to re-enliven the public debate which engulfed the Voice referendum, the state government and First Peoples Assembly hope finalising a treaty and establishing the new assembly before next years Novembers state election will reduce the potency of any scare campaign. The First Peoples Assembly of Victoria met on Friday to discuss the final stages of the treaty. Credit: Justin McManus The Victorian government formally committed to a treaty in 2018 with the introduction of legislation to advance the process, and negotiations on the in-principle agreement began last November. The current First Peoples Assembly leadership, including co-chairs Berg and Ngarra Murray, was elected in 2023 on a platform of negotiating a treaty focused on establishing a permanent Aboriginal representative body. The new assembly will be elected to a four-year term. Loading Fashion designer Bridget Yorston, one half of the Australian label Bec + Bridge, has listed her stunning Mosman home with a price guide of $18 million. Built circa 1910, the Queen Anne Federation house has been immaculately reinvented thanks to interior designers Handelsmann + Khaw. The Mosman home of Bridget Yorston with an $18 million price guide. Credit: Set on a near level 1106-square-metre block near Clifton Gardens, the five-bedroom, three-bathroom house was also renovated about 20 years ago by Howard Tanner of TKD Architects, adding an ultra-modern glass box at the rear of the property. Featured in Vogue Living magazine, the grandeur of the home has only been built on since then with heated limestone flooring, Calacatta Monet marble in the main bathroom, a Lacanche Beaune French cooker with a double oven in the chefs kitchen, a 500-bottle wine cellar, a 13 metre-heated swimming pool and spa as well Dangar Barin Smith landscaping. This week the federal governments economic reform roundtable made cutting red tape a priority to build more homes faster and improve housing affordability. Some areas with plentiful unit supply, such as Parramatta and Ryde, recorded slower unit value growth (taking more than 20 years to double). Among houses, Terrey Hills was slowest to double in value, taking 24.2 years to reach $2,613,092. It was followed by Ropes Crossing at 22.8 years and Bundeena at 15.9 years. KPMG director of planning and infrastructure economics Terry Rawnsley said suburbs such as Terrey Hills tended to grow in value slowly due to the demographics and location. The median age is 47 [based on the 2021 Census], so its quite sleepy, and its also further out from the CBD, he said. The demographics plus access to jobs makes some of these suburbs grow quite slowly. Meanwhile, the Sydney suburb where house values doubled fastest was Menangle Park, in the outer south-west, taking 4.4 years to reach $1,147,929. It was followed by Melonba, in the Blacktown local government area, at five years, and Leppington at 5.8 years. Prestige markets also made the list, including Clontarf at 6.4 years ($4.98 million) and Bellevue Hill at nine years ($10.6 million). Ezzy said many fast-doubling suburbs offered house-and-land packages at more affordable price points. We tend to see a stronger uptick in value in development-centric areas, she said. Youre increasing overall housing stock, but youre going from an old farmhouse to a brand-new property. You see greater demand in these areas because theyre more affordable. Its much easier to double off $561,996 [Menangle Parks median house value at February 2021] than it is to double off $5 million. Leppington is one of the fastest price-rising suburbs for houses, taking 5.8 years to double in value on Cotality data. Credit: Rhett Wyman KPMGs Rawnsley agreed, saying it was easier for values to double when they rose from a lower base. Menangle Park and Melonba are new suburbs, so through the process of building them out youre actually establishing what the market is, he said. Early on theres a lower price point. But as the suburb develops, values start to normalise in respect to the rest of Sydney. For units, the fastest suburbs to double were Ourimbah on the Central Coast (10.3 years), Warriewood (10.8 years) and Little Bay (10.9 years). Ezzy and Rawnsley said such suburbs were more affordable entries into the coastal market. Affluent suburbs such as Bellevue Hill were among the top 20 fastest to double house values, taking 9.0 years on Cotality data. Credit: Domain However, Rawnsley warned that more affordable suburbs would soon be less affordable due to demand. Before COVID, we had those growth areas where you could get a detached house for $500,000 to $700,000 and that was the right price point for teachers, nurses and key workers that were renting or buying, he said. That kind of helped the labour force keep ticking over in Sydney. Now weve got this situation where even those more affordable suburbs are over $1.1 million, which is making it hard for even the middle income workers to find a house to buy or rent. University of Sydney associate professor in urbanism Dr Laurence Troy said the housing shortage was reflected in the data. Housing stock is not growing, particularly in Sydneys inner, middle ring suburbs, he said. On the flipside, what is growing is units. Houses are becoming more scarce because were not building more of them and so that sees an uptick in value. Dilbag Singh Jivan is selling his home in Catherine Field, the 10th-fastest Sydney suburb to double in house price it took 8.8 years to reach $1,199,380. The builder has listed the two-storey home with a price guide of $1.75 million to $1.85 million. I was drawn to the region for its value for money and proximity to parks and shops, he said. Dilbag Singh Jivan and his wife Gagandeep Kaur, with daughter Nadar Kaur Sandhu, and Jivans parents, father Mukand Singh Sandhu and mother Kuldeep Kaur. Credit: Dylan Coker He is hosting open homes from this weekend and said his agent was already receiving offers. His agent, Ray White Macarthur Groups Sammy Singh, said the biggest driver for demand was affordability. Local knowledge is a wonderful thing, and in the green surroundings at 61 Henderson Drive, Lennox Head, you can see the beautiful result of that familiarity. Designed by a local architect, this paean to natural light sits on a gentle north-facing rise towards field and forest. Everyone that comes here just says, Wow! says McGraths Jason Crethar. The natural light is stunning. You can see through the house to the rainforest. Its pretty special. Advertisement InspirationTravel tips Outdoor tubs and telescopes at Australias newest glamping retreat Sheriden Rhodes August 23, 2025 5:00am Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles 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 The suns sinking fast and I dont know where to look. To my right, the rolling countryside and flat open lands known as Big Sky Country are bathed in golden light. To my left, synchronised pelicans gracefully land on Lake Keepit. The sky morphs into fairy floss hues while a rising full moon casts a gilded moonglade over the vast body of water. Tonight, we sleep beneath a blanket of stars at Wilderluxe Lake Keepit, Reflections Holiday Parks foray into glamping. Hemmed by the Great Dividing Range, home for two nights is Gunagala (sky in Kamilaroi), one of eight luxuriously appointed Star Tents perched above the lake between Tamworth and Gunnedah. The glamping tents at Wilderluxe Lake Keepit. The deep Lake Keepit (at least 30 metres) supplies water, mostly to cotton farms, in the Namoi Valley. Locals from nearby Tamworth, however, treat it as their beach. With a sunset martini in hand, I step onto our deck as showers give way to a rainbow arching to the clouds. True to its Big Sky moniker so named due to north-west NSWs vast open lands and low levels of light pollution the sky stretches endlessly before me. Advertisement Melding glamping with the feel of a boutique hotel and designed with a small footprint in mind, Star Tents feature plush interiors, solid, insulated walls, king-sized beds, kitchenettes and fully enclosed ensuite bathrooms. Theres a skylight above the bed for stargazing, Hunter Lab amenities and artworks by local Kamilaroi artist, Letitia Barty. Outdoor baths allow for long soaks while guests can drink tea, read, or play board games at the communal Gilay Lounge. Kangaroos and wallabies make a regular appearance, especially at dusk. Glamping accommodation at Lake Keepit. We join the signature Big Sky Dreaming evening that night, blending Indigenous and Western astronomy in an experience narrated by local Kamilaroi man, Uncle Len Waters. We learn about the lands ancient stories, followed by night sky gazing by the campfire. The stars arent as clear as usual due to the full moon; however, we can see the moons surface in detail through telescopes. We toast marshmallows and chew the fat with general managers Katie and Dan Toney, later drifting off to sleep amid the silence. Advertisement A celestial display is one of the top attractions. Carroll Gap Farmhouse is where guests can hone their cooking skills using seasonal produce or enjoy a meal cooked on an 80-year-old Aga stove by owner Jan Dircks. Were warmly welcomed into Jans magnificent country kitchen, where a table is set for dinner by a roaring fire. The former home economics teacher shares the history of the former schoolhouse while rustling up a three-course dinner. We get to know her kitten, Pepper, and cattle dog, Rusty, warming themselves by the Aga. Jacks Creek steaks are cooked to perfection over an open fire and are complemented by crusty homemade bread and a mushroom tart with fig and goats cheese salad. Back ensconced in our tent, we spin Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon all vinyl is aptly astronomy-themed on the Crosley record player and gaze up at the inky night sky. We rate our stay a million stars. The comfy surrounds of accommodation at Wilderluxe Lake Keepit. Advertisement The details Related Article Mudgee Former glamping tent now reimagined as a remote luxury bush lodge Stay From $550 a night midweek; $700 on weekends. A minimum two-night stay includes continental breakfast pack, daily service and hosted drinks (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays) as part of the Big Sky Dreaming experience. Guests can either BYO supplies or purchase barbecue packs. See wilderluxe.com.au Eat Lunch or dinner at Carroll Gap Farmhouse costs $55 a person for a two-course meal; $70 for three courses. Cooking classes from $120 a person. See carrollgapfarmhouse.com Visit Lake Keepit is a 5-hour drive from Sydney or fly direct with Qantas to Tamworth Regional Airport. From there, its a 40-minute drive. Car hire or transfers available. The writer was a guest of Wilderluxe. Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now. Traveller Guides For one day a week, the men part of the near-invisible low-wage backbone of Singapores construction and labouring industries swap their PPE for regular clothes and occupy an identity beyond just a worker. In Singapore, everything is very expensive, but the workers salaries are very cheap, says Shakher, a 35-year-old labourer from Punjab in north-west India. A tailor mends clothes outside his store in Little India. Credit: Lisa Visentin He doesnt live in a dormitory but in a condo a few train stops away, where he bunks with six other workers. The average monthly salary for a construction worker, he says, is about $S800 ($970) to $S900, though Singapore has no officially mandated minimum wage. Like most migrant workers, his employer covers the cost of his accommodation, but he has to pay for his daily meals himself. Whatever I dont spend, I send home. Not saving, Shakher says. Im not thinking [whether] life is good or not good. Its not easy work, but I am thinking about how I support my family. He says he often feels shunned by Singaporean society, where his status as a migrant worker is easily identifiable by his dirty boots and sweaty clothes after long, hot days labouring in the sun. If there are 100 people, five people are good and talk nicely to you, and 95 have an attitude of dislike, he says. We are humans. If the workers are not here, how to improve buildings? How to improve the country? Satnam Singh, 34, a lorry driver from Punjab, says Singapore has been a better place to work than Dubai. Credit: Lisa Visentin His friend Satnam Singh, 34, a driver who ferries workers between job sites in open-air lorries, is more sanguine. He says Singapore is a better place to work than Dubai, where he spent three years as a migrant worker. He left when he was not paid for five months. In Singapore, if there is any accident, or if bosses havent paid, the government will respond. They help you, he says. Singapores Indian community makes up about 9 per cent of the countrys residents, the smallest of the three major ethnic constituencies, behind Chinese (74 per cent) and Malays (13.5 per cent). These figures do not include temporary migrant labourers, mostly from India, Bangladesh and China, who number more than 450,000 and account for a third of all foreign workers in Singapore. Loading For the Singaporean government, racial harmony is core business. It pursues this through policies of state-enforced multiracialism, such as ethnic quotas for public housing blocks to prevent racial clusters from forming, and mandated minority representation in electoral contests. The country has four official languages: English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay. Public incidents of overt racism and violence are rare. Of the 4000 Singaporeans surveyed by the Institute of Policy Studies think tank in 2024, two-thirds rated racial and religious harmony as high, though more than a quarter of residents indicated they distrusted racial groups other than their own. While this top-down enforcement of race relations is championed by many Singaporeans as key to the countrys social cohesion, it is regularly questioned by younger generations and academics. They ask whether such policies foster denialism about everyday racism and stifle difficult conversations about hard-to-shift prejudices. Property platforms have cracked down on the listings that once featured No Indians, No PRCs [Peoples Republic of China], but surveys, media reports and discussions in online forums suggest racial discrimination remains a persistent issue. Is there true racial harmony in SG or only racial tolerance? one popular thread on Reddit asks. There are many others like it, filled with anecdotal tales of discrimination in the rental and employment markets. Ramesh Manickam, 33, has lived and worked in Little India for a decade. Credit: Lisa Visentin But the plight of migrant workers is even further removed from national discussions about race and class due to their social isolation. Low wages, and the fact they are housed together by their employers, give them little opportunity to mix with the wider Singaporean community. It was in Little India in 2013 that Singapore confronted its first riots in 40 years. About 300 migrant workers raged on the streets, torching an ambulance and flipping police cars, after an Indian labourer was killed by a bus. At the time, the government stared down suggestions that long-simmering worker grievances about pay and treatment were a factor in the riot, saying it was a spontaneous event fuelled by alcohol. It stepped up heavy policing around the Indian enclave in the aftermath and imposed alcohol sales restrictions. The worst man in the world has been having a good week. The red carpet was rolled out for Vladimir Putin over the ice in Alaska, notwithstanding his guilt for starting the war in Ukraine, which has killed half a million people so far. He has refused to end it without obtaining some spoils of victory, like conquered land and mineral rights, guaranteed by the blinking idiot who is the president of the United States. So its now back to the drawing board for the diplomats to devise security guarantees (possibly including Australian boots on the ground, but not those of Americans frightened of arrest for war crimes) to protect a country that has no security at all. Vladimir Putin strides down the red carpet towards a waiting Donald Trump in Alaska at the weekend. Credit: AP Putins reception from lawyers in The Hague has been rather different. They have finally worked out how to prosecute him for the crime of which he is pellucidly guilty, that of aggression, for breaking the UN charter and invading a peaceful neighbour without just (or any) cause. The Council of Europe (a coalition of 46 democratic countries), in an agreement with Ukraine, has set up a Special Tribunal for Aggression (STA) in The Hague to prosecute him, with its prison and courtroom borrowed from its neighbour, the International Criminal Court (ICC). There will be a trial court of three and an appeal court of five judges who shall not be disqualified solely on the basis of his or her nationality. This anticipates motions for disqualification of judges from NATO countries, though Australian judges would probably be objected to as well if Australian troops were providing security from Russia. Loading The obvious problem will be to get Putin down from his red carpet and deliver him into the dock. The answer has been found in giving him a trial in absentia. The ICC bans such trials, but for no good reason when the facts are clear and the defendant properly represented, they can be fair even if he chooses to stay away and declines to give evidence by video link. Such trials are acceptable in Ukraine and in most European countries, as long as anyone convicted has the opportunity to return for a retrial. Absentia trials have been used in international courts (see the recent Lebanon tribunal) and even at Nuremberg, where Hitlers missing personal assistant, Martin Bormann, was properly represented and fairly convicted he was thought to be advising the government of Syria, but his remains were found some years later underneath a motorway in Berlin. If a trial in absentia is to work for Putin, he must be given the best advocates to take every point of fact or law available to his defence. This is why the in-absentia trial of the Russians who shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 did not cut much ice. They were not allowed to have defence lawyers, and the verdicts (of murder and not manslaughter by gross negligence) were unreliable. But when the evidence is properly tested, the importance of a verdict that settles the truth can be invaluable: the great thing about the judgment at Nuremberg was that it confounded and destroyed Holocaust denialism and it still does. And such a refutation is necessary for Putins lies about the causes of the war. There is a sudden spate of publicity alleging that Putin had every reason to invade because of the neo-Nazi government of Zelensky or because of genocide in Donbas. These allegations are ridiculous and will easily be disposed of. The only reasonable point that Putin apologists can make is that just three months before the invasion he sought a guarantee from NATO that it would not put weapons that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (left) with US President Donald Trump in Brussels in 2018. Credit: AP The reply, from Jens Stoltenberg, the pig-headed Norwegian running NATO, was rude and aggressive, saying that NATO could do what it liked where it liked. This was foolish: any country obviously has a right to complain if a neighbour puts nuclear weapons on its borders, just as the US complained in 1962 about Russian missiles in Cuba. That crisis was only resolved when Kennedy secretly but reasonably withdrew US missiles from Turkey. So what can be done now if security guarantees do not work? Certainly, sanctions can be tightened, especially on third parties such as India who keep Russia afloat by buying its oil. So can cultural ostracism it is not enough for Wimbledon to scrub the nationality of Russian competitors off its scoreboards; they should simply scrub any Russian competitor who is insouciant about their army killing more women and children than died in the Blitz. As for diplomats, they are well aware of international law and know that Russia has breached it. They should be declared persona non grata and kicked out the air of Australia, even of Canberra, is too pure for these brutalists to breathe. Photo: https://www.president.gov.ua Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accepted a proposal to reform the Presidents Office by actively involving military personnel with proven combat experience or combat veterans in the work of the structure, said head of the Presidents Office Andriy Yermak. "Today I proposed to the President of Ukraine to reform the Presidents Office. The idea is that a significant number of the Office's employees should be military personnel with confirmed combat experience of a full-scale war or combat veterans. We are talking about employees at all levels. In all departments without exception. Zelenskyy supported this idea," he wrote on Telegram on Friday. "Not all of them are career military personnel, many volunteers left the civilian world. Some worked in successful companies (...) Because these people are the measure of honor, morality and loyalty to Ukraine," Yermak noted. "I know very well how the pace changes when there are people who have been through the war nearby. They do not look for excuses, they look for solutions on how to achieve results. An example is nearby. My deputy, Colonel Pavlo Palisa, previously commanded the 93rd separate mechanized brigade Kholodnyi Yar. During the war, he was responsible for the lives of his subordinates and the success of combat operations. Now in the Office, he demonstrates the same speed, honesty and integrity - for him, this means remaining true to himself and the country. This is the kind of culture that should be spread throughout the civil service in the future," Yermak said about his experience working with the veteran. In his opinion, business, IT, culture should also take such people into their teams. "This makes the system stronger and fairer." Los Angeles: Lyle Menendez, imprisoned for 35 years with his brother Erik for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents at their Beverly Hills home, has been denied parole a day after the same decision was made for his younger sibling. The ruling on Saturday (AEST) was announced by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation at the end of a nearly 12-hour proceeding. Lyle Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference. Credit: AP Parole commissioners assigned to the case concluded there were still signs that Lyle Menendez, 57, would pose a risk to the public if released from custody, according to details of the hearing provided to news outlets, including Reuters, through a media pool reporter. Menendez, dressed in blue prison garb, appeared by video from a San Diego facility where he is incarcerated. His younger brother, Erik Menendez, 54, was denied parole following a similar 10-hour session a day earlier. The two may apply for parole again within three years. Dear Editor, In a stunning display of political opportunism, Antonio Rogers, a former civil servant and current treasurer of the Democratic Party, has called for the suspension of the Fire Chief and Ambulance leadership, citing the need for an independent investigation. While his statement may appear to champion accountability, it reeks of hypocrisy and political deflection, given his partys long-standing role in perpetuating the very grievances he now decries. Rogers comments come at a time when the fire and ambulance departments are grappling with decades-old issues of underfunding, stagnant salaries, and a lack of recognition for their critical frontline work. These are not new problems. In fact, they are deeply entrenched, with roots stretching back to the tenure of Democratic Party leader and current Chair of Parliament, Sarah Wescot-Williams. Wescot-Williams herself admitted that these grievances existed over a decade ago when she served as Prime Minister. Yet, during her leadership and the Democratic Partys time in power, little to no meaningful action was taken to address these systemic issues. For Rogers, a high-ranking member of the very party that has been part of the governing coalition for years, to now call for suspensions and investigations is not only disingenuous but also insulting to the intelligence of the public. Where was this outrage when his party had the power to implement reforms? Where was this call for accountability when frontline workers were left to struggle with stagnant wages and inadequate resources under his partys watch? The fire and ambulance departments have long been the unsung heroes of our community, risking their lives daily to save others. Yet, they have been met with neglect and indifference from successive administrations, including those led by the Democratic Party. The lack of investment in their welfare, training, and equipment is a glaring indictment of the governments prioritiesor lack thereof. Rogers attempt to shift blame onto the current leadership of these departments is a transparent effort to deflect attention from his partys own failures. It is a classic case of political scapegoating, designed to score cheap points while ignoring the systemic issues that his party has contributed to over the years. If Rogers truly cared about the plight of these frontline workers, he would be advocating for tangible solutionssuch as increased funding, better salaries, and improved working conditionsinstead of calling for suspensions that serve no purpose other than to create a spectacle. The public deserves better than this kind of political theater. It is time for leaders to take responsibility for their actionsor inactionsand work collaboratively to address the root causes of these long-standing issues. The fire and ambulance departments do not need more empty rhetoric or finger-pointing; they need real, substantive change. As the Chair of Parliament, Sarah Wescot-Williams has a unique opportunity to lead by example and push for the reforms that her party has long neglected. But this will require more than just words; it will require action, accountability, and a genuine commitment to the well-being of our frontline workers. Until then, Rogers comments will remain what they are: a hollow attempt to deflect blame and distract from his partys own culpability. The public sees through this charade, and it is high time that our leaders stop playing politics with the lives and livelihoods of those who serve on the front lines. Former Member and MP from the Democratic Party Faction. PHILIPSBURG:--- The House of Parliament will sit in a Central Committee meeting on August 21, 2025. The Central Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 17.00 hrs. in the Legislative Hall at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg. Representatives of the WISCU-PSU will be in attendance. The agenda point is: Discussion with the WICSU-PSU regarding urgent matters surrounding the Ambulance Department and Fire Department workers, as was communicated to the President of Parliament at the Parliament Building (IS/1344/2024-2025 dated August 21, 2025) Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations. All persons visiting the House of Parliament must adhere to the house rules. The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg. The parliamentary sessions will be carried live on TV 15, Soualiga Headlines, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via, www.pearlfmradio.sx and www.youtube.com/c/SintMaartenParliament PHILIPSBURG:--- The simmering frustrations of St. Maartens frontline workers have reached a boiling point. On August 21, 2025, members of the Fire and Ambulance Departments, fed up with years of neglect and disrespect, took their grievances directly to the heart of government. In an unprecedented move, these essential workers disrupted a public meeting of Parliament at 2 PM, demanding immediate attention to their plight. The workers, who have been engaged in a "go-slow" action since August 6, 2025, are resolute in their stance. Their message is clear: enough is enough. The disruption forced Parliament to convene an urgent Central Committee meeting at 5 PM, where representatives of the Fire and Ambulance Departments, alongside their union leader Sharon Cannegieter, laid bare the dire conditions they endure daily. A Cry for Justice: Years of Neglect and Broken Promises The grievances presented to Parliament paint a grim picture of systemic neglect. Firefighters and ambulance workers revealed that they are often forced to work 24-hour shifts but are only compensated for 14 hours. Many earn a meager salary of just Cg2000, barely enough to support their families. Adding insult to injury, these workers have been operating with limited staff and outdated equipment, putting both their lives and the publics safety at risk. Despite repeated attempts to address these issues, their concerns have been met with indifference. A scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister Dr. Luc Mercelina on August 6, 2025, was unceremoniously canceled, and a subsequent letter to the Prime Minister was dismissed with a perfunctory response from his Chief of Staff. Ambulance workers, in particular, expressed their frustration with the Minister of VSA, Richinel Brug. Quarterly meetings with the Minister have yielded no tangible results, leading the workers to declare that they will no longer engage in fruitless discussions. Disrespect Reaches a Tipping Point The situation escalated on August 21 when frontline workers felt the full weight of disrespect from the government. Their decision to disrupt Parliament was not taken lightly but was a necessary step to force action. Union President Sharon Cannegieter, a steadfast advocate for these workers, secured the urgent meeting with Parliament. During the session, representatives from both departments detailed the years of neglect and the toll it has taken on their morale and well-being. These are the people who run into burning buildings and respond to life-threatening emergencies, yet they are treated as an afterthought, Cannegieter stated. The governments failure to act is not just disrespectfulits dangerous. A Broken System: The Human Cost of Government Apathy The testimonies shared during the meeting were harrowing. Workers recounted the physical and emotional toll of their jobs, exacerbated by the governments failure to provide adequate support. One firefighter described the exhaustion of working 24-hour shifts with no relief. At the same time, an ambulance worker spoke of the heartbreak of being unable to provide for their family on a paltry salary. The lack of action from the government has left these workers with no choice but to continue their go-slow action. They have vowed to provide only emergency services until their demands are met. A Call to Action The message to Parliament was unequivocal: the time for empty promises is over. The Fire and Ambulance Departments are demanding immediate action to address their grievances, including fair compensation, adequate staffing, and respect for their contributions. As the go-slow action continues, the government must grapple with the reality that the safety and well-being of St. Maartens residents are at stake. The frontline workers have made it clear that they will not back down until meaningful change is achieved. The ball is now in the governments court. Will they rise to the occasion and address the legitimate concerns of these essential workers, or will they continue to ignore the very people who risk their lives to protect the community? The eyes of St. Maarten are watching. PHILIPSBURG: --- NOW, Member of Parliament Lyndon Lewis is urgently calling on Prime Minister Dr. Luc Marcelina and the Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor (VSA), Richnel Brug, to address without further delay the grievances of the Ambulance and Fire Departments. The ongoing go slow action by these departments can potentially put the lives of our citizens and visitors at serious risk. MP Lewis was informed of a horrific accident that occurred early this morning in Simpson Bay, in the vicinity of the Anguilla Dock on Airport Road. One of the individuals involved in the accident was the daughter of a well-known civil servant. According to information received, the ambulance response took approximately 25 minutes to arrive at the scene. Such a delay in emergency response for a serious accident is deeply concerning and could have easily resulted in the tragic loss of life. This incident is not only alarming but also a wake-up call for the government to act swiftly regarding the demands agreed upon with the ambulance and fire departments, MP Lewis stated. The men and women of our Ambulance and Fire Departments are essential frontline workers, yet they continue to face inadequate resources and unresolved labor concerns. Promises were made to these workers by the previous Prime Ministers, including the current Dr. Luc Mercelina, and it is unacceptable that those commitments have not yet been fulfilled. MP Lewis stressed that the ongoing go-slow action is a direct reflection of the frustration of these vital departments. He warned that failure to address the situation immediately may lead to further delays, jeopardizing public safety. I urge the Prime Minister and the Minister of VSA to move beyond words and deliver to these civil servants under their leadership of what was promised. Our citizens cannot afford a repeat of this mornings delay, nor can we gamble with lives due to administrative inaction, MP Lewis said. It is imperative that the grievances of the Ambulance and Firefighter Departments are resolved, and the necessary resources are allocated so they can perform their duties effectively and efficiently. MP Lewis concluded by emphasizing that the governments failure to act is not only a breach of trust but also a matter of life and death. He calls on Ministers responsible to honor their commitments and resolve the matter promptly before another tragedy occurs. TikTok's UK content moderation jobs at risk in AI shift London, Aug 22 (AFP) Aug 22, 2025 Social media platform TikTok announced on Friday it will restructure its UK trust and safety operations, putting several hundred jobs at risk as it shifts to AI-assisted content moderation. The move is part of global restructuring plans by TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, which also affects moderator jobs in South and Southeast Asia, notably in Malaysia. "We are continuing a reorganisation that we started last year... concentrating our operations in fewer locations globally," a TikTok spokesperson told AFP. TikTok added that it plans to reshape content moderation "with the benefit of technological advancements." Content moderators are tasked with keeping content such as hate speech, misinformation and pornography off the platform, which has more than 1.5 billion users worldwide. But, globally, there is a trend of social media companies reducing their use of human fact-checkers and turning to AI instead. Moderation technologies, including AI, take down over 85 percent of content removed for violating TikTok's guidelines, according to the company. It also said it uses AI to help reduce the amount of distressing content moderators are exposed to. Under the proposed plans, the work of employees affected by layoffs will be relocated to other European offices and some third-party providers. "TikTok workers have long been sounding the alarm over the real-world costs of cutting human moderation teams in favour of hastily developed, immature AI alternatives," said Communication Workers Union national officer John Chadfield. He added that the layoffs "put TikTok's millions of British users at risk." TikTok in June announced plans to increase investment in the UK, its biggest community in Europe, with the creation of 500 more jobs. Around half the UK population, more than 30 million people, use TikTok each month. The video-sharing platform has been in the crosshairs of Western governments for years over fears personal data could be used by China for espionage or propaganda purposes. AFP, among more than a dozen other fact-checking organisations, is paid by TikTok in several countries to verify videos that potentially contain false information. A naval drone of the Main Intelligence Agency (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in the Novorossiysk Bay (Russia) destroyed five elite Russian divers who were trying to "examine" a drone that had already been suppressed by electronic warfare, the GUR press service reported. "...during the operation of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in the Black Sea, one of the attack naval drones broke through to the Novorossiysk Bay, where the aggressor state Russia stores the remains of large ships of its Black Sea fleet. Due to the action of electronic warfare systems, the naval drone lost contact with the control center and began to drift. After some time, the Russian command there ordered the attack naval drone to be raised from the bay for research," GUR said on Telegram on Friday. It is reported that a group of five elite Russian Navy reconnaissance divers from the so-called underwater sabotage forces and means was sent to carry out the task - this is a unit of highly qualified reconnaissance divers, for whose training significant financial and time resources are spent, and also provided with the best equipment. During manipulations with the Ukrainian sea drone, it detonated - as a result of the explosion, all five elite Russian submarine saboteurs were eliminated. "Among the personnel of the Russian fleet, which is based in Novorossiysk, there is strong discontent with the senseless meat order of the command to get the Ukrainian naval drone, which led to the liquidation of the elite group," the GUR noted. Govt not considering issue of increasing tariffs for housing needs Kuleba Photo: https://www.facebook.com/oleksyikuleba/photos The Cabinet of Ministers is not considering the issue of increasing tariffs for the population for electricity, gas and heat, said Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine, Minister for the Development of Communities and Territories Oleksiy Kuleba. "We are not considering raising tariffs today. We must clearly understand that our population is in extremely difficult conditions," Kuleba said during the "Question Hour to the Government" in parliament on Friday, which was broadcast by MP Oleksiy Honcharenko. Kuleba also noted that the population in frontline areas needs additional assistance from the state. Photo: https://www.facebook.com Naftogaz Group and Norway's Equinor have signed a memorandum of cooperation, Naftogaz of Ukraine CEO Serhiy Koretsky announced. "We signed a memorandum with Norway's Equinor a global oil and gas major with cutting-edge expertise in exploration and production. The document provides for an exchange of experience and technologies that will help in the development and modernization of Naftogaz Group," Koretsky wrote on Facebook on Friday. According to him, Naftogaz and Equinor plan to launch training programs for executives and technical staff, as well as for ESG and decarbonization specialists. He clarified that in the near future, a joint working group will be created to identify priority projects. "We value Equinor's support. I am confident our future cooperation will be mutually beneficial and successful," the Naftogaz CEO said. During Friday's Government Q&A Hour in parliament, Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said Naftogaz, which recently secured a EUR 0.5 billion loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to purchase gas, is also in talks with the European Investment Bank on financing such acquisitions. Here, he met business partner Jens Grede, and the pair founded their multi-media fashion marketing agency, Saturday, in 2003. Their first proper client was H&M. In 2010, they made an unsolicited pitch to Net-a-Porter to help launch Mr Porter. In 2022, Massenet recalled his pitch in her WSJ interview: The is dotted, the ts crossed, the dream, the machine, and I was like, Wow, this is perfection! I can see it! It needs to happen! If you have the chance, Lake Phewa in Pokhara is stunning. Its about 200 kilometres from Kathmandu but the drive takes six to eight hours because you are winding through valleys and mountain roads. You pass tiny villages, terraced fields, rivers cutting through the hills. On a clear day the Annapurna mountains are reflected on the lake water. You can take a boat out, watch the sunset, or cross over to the World Peace Pagoda for the views. What struck me in Pokhara was the creativity. Little galleries, shops with handmade jewellery, woven art; people putting their soul into every piece. And at night, lakeside comes alive. You sit down in a cafe, somebodys playing the sarangi, someone else on a guitar and the vibe just flows. Notting Hill Carnival: Two stabbed and 423 arrests but 'less serious violence than previous years', police say Two stabbed and 423 arrests at Notting Hill Carnival Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation, known as contingency accommodation, if they are awaiting assessment of their claim or have had a claim approved and there is not enough longer-term accommodation available. It states: There is no obligation to give your details to the police before being taken to a police station. Our recommendation is that people refuse street bail for their own safety and to follow through to the end of the action with the spirit of civil resistance. If the police want to arrest us, they ought to do so properly. Prof Walsh said further research is needed to better understand the findings, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, and to see if increasing water intake in those who do not drink enough can reduce responses to daily micro stressors like traffic jams or presentations at work. Sirin Kale, one of the journalists who worked on the stories about Clarke, told the trial they spoke to more than 70 direct and corroborative sources, while those who first came forward appeared to be acting out of a sense of moral obligation, to prevent Mr Clarke from being able to abuse or harass other women. She was instructed to hand the vehicle over to Aid Ukraine teams in Lviv but did not do so, instead insisting she would continue to Kramatorsk, where the vehicle was due to be delivered, alone. Ukrainian Red Cross to provide financial assistance to registered evacuees in Lozova transit centre Photo: https://www.facebook.com The Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) will provide financial assistance to evacuees who have registered at the Lozova transit center (Kharkiv region). As of 20 August 2025, the Ukrainian Red Cross team has begun registering evacuees at the Lozova transit centre in Kharkiv region. Each registered individual receives financial assistance of UAH 10,800. Around 500 people are expected to receive support by mid-September, with the possibility of the programme being extended, URCS said on Facebook Friday. The assistance is provided to people evacuated from the Donetsk region specifically from the Pokrovsk area and the following communities: Dobropillia, Bilozerske, Novodonetske, Kryvorizhia, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, and Lyman. On average, 100 to 120 people are evacuated daily. The Lozova transit centre was established as an additional facility to ease the burden on the overcrowded centre in Pavlohrad. Volunteers from the Lozova city-district and Kharkiv regional branches of the Ukrainian Red Cross are on-site daily. An emergency response team also operates at the centre, providing transport and distributing humanitarian aid as needed. The Ukrainian Red Cross is the only humanitarian organisation providing direct cash assistance at evacuation sites. The project is being implemented with the support of the Danish Red Cross. Jaguar Space CEO Luis Zea, Starbase Brewing CEO Nate Argroves and A&M doctoral candidate and NASA fellow Harrison Coker. The trio worked together on experiments to grow barley in Martian soil and to brew beer in space. Ivan Castro/Jaguar Space A SpaceX capsule that brought four astronauts back to Earth this month also carried home a payload for an Austin brewer the first beer made in space and the first barley grown in simulated Martian soil. Starbase Brewing unrelated to Elon Musks space company or its South Texas city of Starbase sent its MicroBrew-1 and OASIS experiments to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX mission Aug. 1. They came back aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that splashed down eight days later off the coast of California. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Terraformer Starbase Brewing Starhopped Starbase Brewing Occupy Marz Starbase Brewing The canning line at the Louisiana brewery that produces beer for Austins Starbase Brewing. Starbase Brewing Starbase Brewing's OASIS experiment (Optimizing Agriculture in Simulated Interplanetary Soils) mission patch. Courtesy Starbase Brewing Lucky Launch Day Lager, one of the expressions produced by Starbase Brewing. Starbase Brewing Of Kolsch I Still Love You Starbase Brewing GMT214_15_06_For POIC_Jonny Kim_1070_JAGUAR SPACE ONE ISS - OASIS Experiment (Credit - NASABioServeJaguar Space) Jaguar Space Launch - Crew-11 (Credit - Austin DeSisto) Austin DeSisto/Starbase Brewing Launch on Ground - Crew-11 (Credit - Austin DeSisto) Austin DeSisto/Starbase Brewing Launch Takeoff - Crew-11 (Credit - Austin DeSisto) Austin DeSisto/Starbase Brewing Starbase Brewing logo Starbase Brewing Since then, the brewers experiment teams have sent the results for analysis, according to Nate Argroves, the 34-year-old founder and CEO of the fast-growing company that hopes to be the first beer maker on Mars. It looks like everything worked as we expected, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The company funded the projects itself. While space-brewed beers arent headed to stores anytime soon, customers can find Starbase Brewings space-themed brews at H-E-B and other stores across Texas and Florida. Every single seed germinated OASIS, short for Optimizing Agriculture in Simulated Interplanetary Soils, is the result of a partnership between the beer maker, Texas A&M AgriLife and Jaguar Space, a Colorado bioastronautics firm. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Experiment - Prepped Flight Sample (Credit - Jaguar SpaceIvan Castro Guatemala) Ivan Castro/Jaguar Space According to Argroves, who launched the company in 2020, the goal was to grow barley in a mixture of Martian soil simulant with a byproduct of beermaking called Brewers Spent Grain and microbes. The idea came from Harrison Coker, a Texas A&M University doctoral candidate and NASA fellow who had reached out to Argroves. He thought the spent grains might help grow crops on Mars because the red planets soil, or regolith, is crushed rock with few of the nutrients and microbes necessary for plant growth. Its a similar concept to the plot of The Martian, the 2015 movie in which Matt Damons character is stranded on Mars and forced at one point to mix human waste with the planets soil to grow potatoes. And, as in the movie, the theory has merit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Regolith on barley plants sprouted for experiments by Starbase Brewing aboard the SpaceX Crew 11 flight earlier this month. Ivan Castro/Jaguar Space Coker has been using Starbases spent grain in tests at an A&M greenhouse that has about 20 different crops growing with the mixtures. For the space experiment, the partners created a miniature nursery with 16 containers of different mixtures of the soil simulant, spent grains and microbe blend. Every single seed (in OASIS) germinated, Argroves said. There was a risk that some of the seeds might not germinate. We werent sure. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The company and A&M expect to begin sharing their findings in the coming months. MicroBrew-1 Other experiments have tested barley, yeast and fermentation in space, including several done in conjunction with big brewers including Molson Coors Beverage Co., Budweiser Brewing Co. and Japans Sapporo Holdings Ltd. However, MicroBrew-1 appears to be the first focused on how microgravity and cosmic radiation impacts brewing and fermentation. Nobodys ever fermented anything like that in space before, Argroves said. Its long been a goal of Budweiser and I think we have beaten them to it. Advertisement Article continues below this ad GMT214_15_06_For POIC_Jonny Kim_1070_JAGUAR SPACE ONE ISS - MicroBrew-1 Experiment (Credit - NASABioServeJaguar Space) Jaguar Space Starbase also collaborated with Jaguar Space on the experiment, which consisted of eight containers loaded with half wort the sugary liquid extracted from malted grains and half yeast. Once at the space station, Astronaut Jonny Kim turned a crank that mixed the contents and began the fermentation process, Argroves said. It seems like it worked, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Now, the samples are headed to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the Technical University of Munich for analysis. Jaguar Space CEO Luis Zea and Starbase Brewing CEO Nate Argroves with parts of the MicroBrew-1 experiment. Ivan Castro/Jaguar Space The research will help scientists understand how microgravity affects fermentation at a cellular level, said Dr. Luis Zea, CEO of Jaguar Space and lead researcher for MicroBrew-1. The insights we gain could shape the design of life-supporting systems for future space missions, while also advancing bioprocessing technologies here on Earth. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But dont start looking for Starbases space-brewed beer yet. The company cant commercialize the brew per its agreement with ISS National Laboratory. I think, eventually, one day will be possible, he said. Well certainly explore that avenue and see what we can do, but we have to abide by NASAs regulations around commercializing stuff. Spiraled A Georgia native, Argroves studied computer science in college and picked up home-brewing as a hobby to make cheap beer for himself and his friends. Advertisement Article continues below this ad While working in software development during the pandemic, he started the company then known as Boca Chica Brewing as a side project. The idea took off, prompting him to leave his day job and move to Austin. It really spiraled much larger than I ever expected it to get, he said. While many craft brewers are struggling, Starbase has doubled its distribution each year since opening. Its on track to deliver 1 million cans this year. Argroves expects that to double next year. The company employs six people at its Austin headquarters and the beer is made by a brewer in Louisiana. Argroves said the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues complicated his search for a brewer based in Texas, though that could change. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I did recently meet with a brewery here in Austin that looks like they will have capacity, he said. The long-term goal is just to do it all in house. The brand has become a favorite among aerospace companies and other space businesses. Its hosted parties and crawfish boils for Firefly Aerospace Inc., Intuitive Machines Inc., and afterparties for the Astro Awards, an annual event in Austin. It also supported Space Center Houstons Moon2Mars festival and Texas Space Day at the state Capitol. Just different enough Starbases bright packaging features cartoon astronauts, spaceships and Mars-scapes. Its offerings include Occupy Marz amber lager, Of Kolsch I Still Love You, Terraformer red ale, Starhopped India Pale Ale and Lucky Launch Day Lager. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Examples of the beers offered by Starbase Brewing, which is experimenting with brewing in space. Starbase Brewing The themes play on some of SpaceX and Elon Musks jokes and ideas. Argroves acknowledges the parallels, but said the branding isnt connected. Were kind of cartoonish and colorful and theyre very like sleek and black and white, he said. So, we try to differentiate ourselves in in some ways. The company hasnt faced the backlash that Musks firms have seen since the billionaire stepped into politics with the Trump administration last year, but it occasionally encounters haters. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I think were just different enough, he said. There are a lot of other things called Starbase its like a sci-fi term. The brewery formed years before SpaceXs city of Starbase incorporated and changed its name when the company town was incorporated earlier this year. Argroves said he hasnt met Musk and doesnt know whether the billionaire is aware of his brand. And he cant say if he does business with SpaceX, which muzzles its business partners with non-disclosure agreements. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Downtown Austin skyline, March 13, 2025. Sara Diggins/American-Statesman The Texas capital is the place to be, population growth data shows. A new report by LendingTree reveals Austin is the nation's leading "boomtown" a term used for cities experiencing rapid growth due to sudden prosperity. The study analyzed the 100 largest U.S. metro areas across eight metrics in three categories: people and housing, work and earnings, and business and economy. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Here's what the data revealed. Austin remains fastest-growing US metro Once again, numbers show Austin is leading the country's boomtowns. LendingTree reports the metro recorded the highest gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 14.6% and the third-largest increase in housing units with 9.4%. The Central Texas metro's population grew by 5.1%, and nearly one in five (18.9%) new residents came from another county, state or country. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 8 of 10 fastest-growing cities are in the South Joining Austin in rapid growth are seven other Southern cities five of which are located in a single state. Half of the top ten cities are in Florida. Unemployment falling in 99 of 100 major US metros Of the nation's 100 biggest metros, only Provo, Utah saw an uptick (12.5%) in unemployment between 2021 and 2023. In 2021, it had the lowest unemployment rate among metros at 2.4%, but the rate increased to 2.7% in 2023. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Meanwhile, the four metros with the biggest drops in unemployment Baltimore, Honolulu, Miami and Hartford reported decreases of over 50%. 10 biggest US boomtowns LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, offered suggestions for business owners in boomtowns. "A booming population may mean a better talent pool to pick from for employees," Schulz said. "An influx of business growth may mean greater competition, which could help lower some of the costs of running your business. It could also mean greater opportunity to partner with other companies when it comes to marketing, training or other aspects of business. It could mean more networking opportunities. The list goes on and on." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Austin, Texas Orlando, Florida North Port, Florida Nashville, Tennessee Cape Coral, Florida Colorado Springs, Colorado Charleston, South Carolina Lakeland, Florida Deltona, Florida Denver, Colorado 10 US metros with slowest growth New Orleans, Louisiana Cleveland, Ohio Worcester, Massachusetts Toledo, Ohio Kiryas Joel, New York Memphis, Tennessee Chicago, Illinois Rochester, New York San Jose, California Baton Rouge, Louisiana . Stephen Spillman/Special to American-Statesman The Austin school board on Thursday night adopted a new field trip policy that requires schools to ask for a separate permission form for all students if the excursion will involve a water activity. The new policy follows the death in May of an eighth grade Covington Middle School student during an end-of-the-school-year celebration. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The new policy requires a separate permission slip for any trip that involves a swimming pool, lake or river. It also requires that parents confirm whether their child can swim. Students who dont have this water-specific form filled out wont be allowed to attend the trip. Schools will be required to provide floatation devices for students who cannot swim. Trustee David Kauffman said Thursday he was glad for the effort to ensure that our students are safe in school field trips involving water. Districts had already been required to obtain these water-specific forms for students under 12 years old under a 2023 state law, though the district's prior field trip policies didn't mention such such a requirement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The new Austin policy follows the death on May 29 of Vadir Gonzalez-Arias at Dick Nichols Park in Southwest Austin, according to the district. The park is less than three miles from Covington. School and law enforcement officials have not confirmed a cause of death. The Austin districts new policy mirrors language of a 2023 law, House Bill 59, that mandates schools and child care centers ask parents about the swimming ability of children younger than 12 years old before a water-related field trip. The law was dubbed Caits Act, named for a child who drowned in Cedar Park in 2019 during a summer camp. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, speaks against a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Activists protest against mid-decade redistricting at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Organizations gathered to demand that Gov. Greg Abbott and state representatives release Texas House Democrats confined to the House Chamber, pass flood relief and reject redistricting maps. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman The House Democrats who broke quorum to block GOP redistricting and stopped all activity in the chamber for two weeks have each been fined more than $9,000, according to a letter dated Thursday from the chairman of the House Administration Committee. All together, the fines amount to more than $476,000. The letter doesn't specify when they are due. Advertisement Article continues below this ad READ MORE: Texas House passes Trump redistricting plan, setting up showdown with California "As required by the Texas Constitution and House rule, you may request a due-process hearing, at which you may be present with counsel to provide any explanations to why the full amount of fines and costs ... should not be imposed," state Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, told the more than 51 Democratic members. They have until Monday to notify him if they plan to do so. Members House salaries cannot be garnished to pay the fines, nor can money from their campaigns be used to pay them. According to a copy of the letter posted on X by state Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, the total fine is $9,345.25. A spokesman for the House Democratic Caucus confirmed that all of the Democrats who remained absent received the letter. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Enough Democrats either left the state or evaded law enforcement officials to block the House from reaching a quorum beginning on Aug. 3 in an effort to stop a vote on a plan to redraw the state's congressional map to give Republicans five more winnable districts. The House rules calls for quorum-breaking members to be fined $500 per day for each day the House is called to order. Once the absent members returned on Monday, action on the redistricting measure resumed and was passed on party-line votes Wednesday. The fines come as Gov. Greg Abbott is pressing the Legislature to impose stiff new penalties on lawmakers who break quorum. He added that request to the special session agenda earlier this week, and by Friday, several Republicans had filed bills that proposed booting absent lawmakers from office and taking away their ability to raise campaign money. Advertisement Article continues below this ad An officer prays with a family on July 9, days after the deadly Fourth of July flood, as they pick up items at Camp Mystic in Hunt. Ashley Landis/Associated Press Last month, NPR aired a story about volunteers who spent hours looking for stuffed animals along the banks of the Guadalupe River, hoping to reunite them with children overwhelmed by the catastrophic Texas floods. I was driving through northwestern Vermont as I heard it, the day after several communities in our state experienced devastating flooding for the third year in a row. I wept in my car, picturing the bedraggled stuffed lamb my 9-year-old daughter had taken with her to camp the previous week. I cannot fathom the extent of the grief and loss that Texas families are feeling, but I do know that the mental health effects of disasters like these bruise hearts and minds far beyond the reach of floodwaters. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In the wake of disasters which are becoming more dangerous, intense and distressing because of climate change childrens mental health deserves particular attention, given the profound impacts that traumatic childhood experiences can have on their development. Im deeply worried that the Trump administrations attacks on public health, education and climate action will make recovering from disasters even harder than it already is especially for young people and their families. According to the American Psychiatric Association, the number of people who experience mental health impacts after disasters often outnumbers those physically injured by an astonishing 40 to 1. Children are uniquely vulnerable to the mental health impacts of floods and other disasters, which can include trauma, anxiety and depression and they are dependent on adult caregivers who are also experiencing intense stress. Yet on the same day as the Texas flooding, President Donald Trump signed his Big Beautiful Bill into law, with more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program. Medicaid is the countrys single largest payer of mental health services, and both Medicaid and CHIP play a crucial role in covering mental health services for kids and teens. Trumps big, brutal funding cuts will only make it harder for disaster-stricken families to access the mental health care they need. Additionally, the Trump administration recently announced that it would cut $1 billion in Department of Education funding for school mental health grants. In their new book "Students, Schools, and Our Climate Moment," Laura Schifter and Jonathan Klein write that: Schools can provide supportive mental health services for students before, during, and after extreme weather events... (they) are integral to a support system for young people. Schools in rural communities where mental health services are stretched especially thin are worried about the impact of the Trump administration's grant cuts. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A tote bag from Heart O' the Hills summer camp for girls is found 16 miles downstream, at Lowry Park in Kerrville, on July 12, a week after the deadly floods. Bridget Grumet/American-Statesman Perhaps most disturbingly, the Trump administrations assaults on disaster preparedness and climate action sabotage our ability to prevent life-threatening disasters in the first place, risking unnecessary future trauma for children and families. Canceling FEMAs Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which helped communities try to reduce disaster risks, will make it harder to prevent loss of life and property when disasters inevitably happen. Cuts to the National Weather Service may jeopardize the quality of forecasts, leaving families in the dark when dangerous storms threaten children at summer camps. And attempts to roll back the Endangerment Finding the science-based foundation of Environmental Protection Agencys responsibility to limit the climate-heating pollution thats intensifying extreme weather endanger our ability to mitigate the climate chaos thats already harming childrens mental health in myriad ways. The mental health of children in generations yet to be born is on the line, too. All across the country, Americans hearts are shattered, Trump said in a visit to Kerrville in the wake of the floods, promising that his administration is doing everything in its power" to help Texas communities recover. Advertisement Article continues below this ad My heart is breaking, too not just for the campers who died, but for the survivors whose long road of healing ahead will now be all the harder. Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, speaks in favor of a congressional redistricting plan Wednesday at the Texas Capitol. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Todd Hunter had just started to lay out the new maps the mid-decade redistricting blueprint that had sparked protests, a weeks-long walkout by Democrats and flurries of legal threats when he paused to emphasize the reason for all of this. The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: Improve Republican political performance, Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, said Wednesday from the floor of the Texas House. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Not improve the representation of Texans. Not improve the effectiveness of government. Not help voters, but help politicians. The redistricting plan passed by the Texas House this week plainly aims to add five GOP seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, protecting one party from the political verdict that might otherwise be rendered next year by voters assessing the first half of President Donald Trumps unpopular second term. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The goal is to prevent democracy from working as it should an outcome that should alarm voters of all types. As this board noted last month, both political parties play gerrymandering games when they hold power, distorting district lines to press their advantage. Communities are carved up, and some constituents are left without a voice. Texas latest gerrymandering gambit is particularly egregious, dismantling districts that had elected Latino and African American members of Congress, sweeping even more urban voters into far-flung rural districts where their priorities would rate as an afterthought. As Houston Democratic Rep. Armando Walle put it: It treats our voters as crash-test dummies. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Texas redistricting ploy has triggered an arms race of sorts, with California moving to respond in kind, and other states considering crafting even more weaponized maps. We are hurtling toward a form of mutually-assured destruction: Democrats across Austin wont have the full representation they deserve, so Republicans around San Diego wont, either. This unraveling of democracy is wrong. It cheats voters across the political spectrum. And with each turn, the damage becomes harder to undo. In a nation founded on the idea that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, Texas GOP lawmakers instead showed contempt for the voters. They held only a handful of public hearings on the redistricting ploy before the maps were even available and even then, Republicans acted like they were doing Texans a favor. We were not required to hold those hearings, Hunter said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Not that GOP lawmakers listened. Between those who spoke at the public hearings and those who submitted comments online, Texans who opposed redistricting outnumbered supporters by a 100-to-1 margin. Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, listens to the debate of a congressional redistricting plan Wednesday at the Texas Capitol. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Still, the Republicans pressed ahead. The Democratic lawmakers who opposed this unpopular plan with one of the few tools the minority party has a quorum break faced intrusive police monitoring, at taxpayer cost, upon their return. Texans can debate whether it helped or hurt Democrats cause to temporarily leave the state rather than fight the bill on the House floor. But it was an abuse of power for House Speaker Dustin Burrows to demand the returning Democrats sign a permission slip allowing state troopers to follow them through Capitol corridors, to their homes, even on their morning walks. If Burrows goal was to humble Democrats, he instead gave them a new platform for resistance, with Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, spending two nights in the House chamber because she refused to sign the form, rejecting the premise that dissenting lawmakers should be treated like prisoners. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Its no surprise that a process steeped in such contempt would produce maps that disregard the interests of so many Texans. Tech workers in East Travis County are placed in the same congressional district as commercial fishermen 200 miles away in Rockport, while San Marcos families with kids at the same elementary school will have different members of Congress. District lines will slice through 444 voting precincts across the state, separating voters from the neighbors they see at church or the grocery store. Those lines were crafted with laser-like precision to engineer a certain electoral outcome, with no regard for the actual contours of communities and the interests that bind them. Texans already disillusioned with Congress will see even less of themselves in a supposedly representative government. This is where division becomes dictatorship, the government against the people, Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, who did not join the quorum break, said during Wednesdays House floor debate. Some people here are doing so much winning, they can't see what we're all losing. In Austin, the political casualties include U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a stalwart champion for Central Texas during his three decades in Congress, who announced Thursday he wont battle U.S. Rep. Greg Casar in the Democratic primary if the new maps stand and their two districts are largely merged. The diminishment of Austins clout in Washington, turning two representatives into one, is that stark. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Even as Texas Democrats cheer on the gerrymandering of California, and Texas Republicans complain about Illinois skewed maps, we all continue to lose the same thing. An America where all voters have a voice, where government hinges on the consent of the governed. We can only hope, in time, that the damage from this scorched-earth crusade will prompt members of Congress from both parties to adopt commonsense reforms like banning partisan gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting efforts. Perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, which has seen fit to reexamine long-standing precedents in other areas, will reconsider its own problematic rulings unwinding the Voting Rights Act and permitting fiercely partisan maps. But for now, with these new congressional districts, Texas Republican lawmakers have further eroded public trust and accelerated an electoral race to the bottom. The lines on these maps serve politicians, not the people they are supposed to represent. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Elected officials should answer to voters, not hide behind rigged maps that strip voters of their power and democracy of its meaning. Photos of Camp Mystic flood victims are seen on a lawmakers desk as families testify Wednesday in front of the Senate Disaster Preparedness and Flooding committee at the Texas Capitol. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman Camp Mystic's pledge We are heartbroken over the loss of 27 precious campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. We are so inspired by the parents who, in the midst of their unimaginable grief, shared their daughters' stories. We are praying for them and all those in our community who, like us, lost loved ones on July 4. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We join the families in supporting legislation that will make camps and communities along the Guadalupe River safer, especially the creation of detection and warning systems that would have saved lives on July 4. Dick Eastland gave his life fighting to save the girls whose care was entrusted to Camp Mystic. Whatever is included in the final measure passed by the Legislature, Camp Mystic will go above and beyond to support the safety and well-being of every camper and counselor. Despite our collective and continued grief, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to the incredible first responders, volunteers and search and rescue teams who have stepped forward during our community's greatest time of need. Their continued bravery, tireless dedication and compassion, especially amid the ongoing search and recovery efforts, have brought hope and comfort to so many. Their actions remind us of the strength we have when we come together. Honoring the lives of the 27 precious campers and counselors has been and will continue to be our focus. Tweety Eastland Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mary Liz and Edward Eastland Catie and Britt Eastland Leslie and Richard Eastland Cuts threaten health care Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Austin American-Statesman recently reported on the surge in COVID-19 cases across Texas, driven by the Stratus variant. As a community health worker, I have a front row seat to this resurgence, as immunity wanes simultaneously with increases in travel and gatherings. Yet, local funding from the federal level faces disruptions, and global aid for vaccines and health care has been cut. Austin Public Health and Central Health have worked tirelessly to expand access in Travis County, but these cuts threaten essential services. With schools reopening and more people returning to workplaces, this is not the time to weaken public health. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Health care is a basic human right, and we must restore and strengthen support for the systems that protect us all. Yumi Kang, Austin Licensed vocational nurse Vanessa Gumbs-Velazquez gives a flu shot to a 7-month-old child in 2022 at Austin Public Health's St. John Clinic. A reader says Austin Public Health and Central Health have worked tirelessly to expand access in Travis County, but funding cuts threaten essential services. JAY JANNER/AMERICAN-STATESMAN Reconsider rehoming dogs Advertisement Article continues below this ad Maybe Austin Pets Alive! should reconsider trying to adopt out highly aggressive dogs? Whichever dog(s) caused the injuries and death to other animals should never be put back out into our neighborhoods. Del Goss, Austin Bigger issues than steak Advertisement Article continues below this ad Delving into city staff and City Council spending can be meritorious. However, many of these expenditures are likely related to meetings where city business is taking place. Even if these lunches are exploring ideas initiated by vendors or potential vendors, it is wise for the staff to pick up the check to signal the city can't be influenced by the cost of a nice business meal. Good judgment has to be involved, yes, but executives running a multi-billion-dollar business should have some leeway. As for the celebratory meals and events, come on, go ahead and claim a good headline for a story of taxpayer nickels and dimes. But why not focus on big projects, big programs, big dollars that translate into a million times the price of a steak dinner? Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lewis F. McLain, Jr., McKinney Rep. Mike Olcott, R-Fort Worth, looks at a redrawn congressional district map as the redistricting proposal was debated Wednesday in the House Chamber at the Texas Capitol. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman More to the story Advertisement Article continues below this ad I was sorry to read the letter accusing Democrats of a century of gerrymandering in Texas. The premise is superficial and ultimately incorrect. As a sixth generation Texan, I can attest to this. The reason Texas was more than 90% Democratic after the Civil War was not because this state was full of those wanting social and economic equality for all and individual liberties. After the war, many Texans were simply furious at Republican Abraham Lincoln for being responsible for the war and ending slavery. In response, for the next 100 years, no one empathetic to slavery would be called a Republican. In fact, they would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican. The reason had nothing to do with a political philosophy per se, but an incredibly deep anger toward Lincoln. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Only in the 1960s did Texas Republicans begin to shift back to align with other states. Shannon M. Fitzpatrick, San Marcos Same crowd, new name Advertisement Article continues below this ad The writer claims that Democrats have done redistricting also and are somehow the "kings of gerrymandering." I don't know about kings, but he is correct that Democrats have gerrymandered in Texas as well. However, he leaves out important historical context. Texas was firmly under Democratic control in the 1960s and early 1970s, but there were two factions. "Conservative" Democrats and "moderate" Democrats. The conservatives held control, as Texas has long been a mostly conservative state. It was this wing that gerrymandered the voting districts in order to reduce the power of the moderates. Then in 1961, Republican John Tower was elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas on a strongly conservative platform, and the Republicans began peeling off Democrats. When Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson got the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, these conservatives began to move wholesale to the Republican Party. As the national trend to government became more liberal, more and more Southern Democrats became Republicans. The point is, of course, that whatever you call them, the party with the same politics as the Conservative Democrats in the 1960s are still gerrymandering Texas today. They just call themselves Republicans now. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mike Martin, Pflugerville Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, leaves the House Chamber after the final passage of the congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. The chamber has become our modern-day Alamo, a reader says. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman A new Alamo battle Advertisement Article continues below this ad Who could have predicted that the Texas House chamber would have become our modern-day Alamo; state Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth, our William Barret Travis; and President Donald Trump our Santa Anna? As Travis proclaimed, I stay here to defend the Alamo. And, for those who will also choose to stay, I know that, although they may be sacrificed to the vengeance of a Gothic enemy, the victory will cost the enemy so dear that it will be worse for him than a defeat. Patriotic Americans are wishing the same. Barbara Chiarello, Austin Advertisement Article continues below this ad Add Dems in redistricting While there is empirical support for achieving a change via redistricting of the numbers of Republicans and Democrats representing Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives, the data clearly show that more Texas Democrats should be going to Washington. The math is straightforward: Texas is allotted 38 representatives in the U.S. House, with a current membership of 25 Republicans, 12 Democrats and one vacant (formerly Democratic) seat. This 25/13 split yields 66% Republicans and 34% Democrats. Contrast those percentages with the results of the 2024 presidential election. President Donald Trump received 56% of the votes in Texas, while Kamala Harris received 42.5%. Therefore, of the 38 Texas seats in the U.S. House, 42.5% (or 16 members) should be held by Democrats in order to accurately reflect the current demographic split of Republicans to Democrats. Advertisement Article continues below this ad So the outcome of redistricting should replace three Republicans with three Democrats. Unconscionably, Texas Republicans are committing governance malpractice by pursuing an even more unbalanced proportion of Republicans to Democrats simply because Trump told them to and because they can. James (Kal) Kallison, Austin LaToya Forbins raises a fist Wednesday as activists protest against mid-decade redistricting at the Texas Capitol. Organizations gathered to demand that Gov. Greg Abbott and state representatives release Texas House Democrats confined to the House Chamber, pass flood relief and reject redistricting maps. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman No one wants compromise Advertisement Article continues below this ad In her recent column, Bridget Grumet encourages Republicans to give the people what they want and all the gerrymandering drama can stop. She cites some broad statistics that show large percentages of Americans are on board with funding Medicaid, welcoming immigrants, reducing child care costs and other typically Democratic ideals. The simplistic correlation between votes and giving people what they want is beautiful on its face, but there's a glitch. It is highly unlikely that a Republican lawmaker would endorse what are traditionally Democratic values, even if that meant gaining more votes. To do so would blur the line between parties and turn off many supporters. Die hard Republican voters don't want to hear liberal speech from the people they blindly follow. In my experience, Democrats and Republicans think very differently about solutions to societal problems. Advertisement Article continues below this ad So differently that I cannot imagine a course change or meeting of the minds. I hate to be a "Debbie downer" but that's never going to change. Most Republicans that I talk to scoff at my liberal positions, unwilling to bend. Valerie Goranson, Round Rock Advertisement Article continues below this ad Texas Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, answers questions while recommending the redistricting maps as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, asks questions of Texas Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, as he recommends the proposed redistricting map while the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, asks questions about the proposed redistricting map, specifically the placements of Austin suburbs Cedar Park, Round Rock and Pflugerville as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Borris L. Miles, D-Houston, asks questions about the redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Senator Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, reviews proposed redistricting maps as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, looks at the proposed redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, examines the redistricting maps while answering questions as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, asks questions about the redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Senate Democrats Molly Cook, D-Houston, Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, and Cesar J. Blanco, D-El Paso, confer with their staff over the railing as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Senator Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, reviews proposed redistricting maps as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, stands to recommend the proposed redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Borris L. Miles, D-Houston, reads documents as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Kevin Sparks, R-Midland, examines parts of the redistricting maps as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, asks questions of the redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, speaks with Texas Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, on the Senate floor as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, votes no on a procedural issues while Texas Sen. Molly Cook, D-Houston, stands by as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Senate Democrats Molly Cook, D-Houston, Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, and Cesar J. Blanco, D-El Paso, confer on the floor as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, speaks on the phone as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Borris L. Miles, D-Houston, speaks with his staff as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, asks questions about the proposed redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, reacts on the Senate floor as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, asks questions on procedure as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Borris L. Miles, D-Houston, asks questions about the redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, holds the mic while taking questions about the redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, asks questions about the redistricting map as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Senate Democrats Molly Cook, D-Houston, Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, and Cesar J. Blanco, D-El Paso, confer on the floor as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Senate Democrats Molly Cook, D-Houston, Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, and Cesar J. Blanco, D-El Paso, confer with their staff over the railing as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick speaks with Texas Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, moments ahead of gaveling in as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Protesters stand on a bridge over I-35 through downtown Austin as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman Texas Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, asks questions about the proposed redistricting map, specifically the placements of Austin suburbs Cedar Park, Round Rock and Pflugerville as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman The Texas Senate voted to send President Donald Trumps requested mid-decade redistricting map to the governors desk shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday after Republicans crushed Democratic state Sen. Carol Alvarados bid to filibuster the bill. GOP senators used a procedural move to force a final vote on the proposed map, cutting off Democrats last avenue to delay the plan to carve out five new winnable GOP congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. The upper chamber then voted 18-11 along party lines to pass the measure. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In calling the motion for previous question, state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, accused Alvarado of using the filibuster to raise campaign funds. He told his colleagues that Alvarado sent out an email at 3 p.m. that day to promote her filibuster as a campaign fundraising event. Alvarados plan effectively holds hostage the entire Senate and forces employees to assist and participate in her campaign, Perry said. It's disrespectful. It violates the decorum of the Senate, and personally, I'm offended by it. The Houston Democrat had announced her plans to filibuster the map around 3 p.m. Friday, posting a picture of the same gray sneakers she wore when she spoke for 15 hours straight against a voting bill in 2021. The filibuster would not have prevented the map from passing: to block it, Alvarado would have needed to speak without sitting, taking bathroom breaks, eating or drinking, until the ongoing special session times out in two weeks. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I'm going to kick back," Alvarado, the Senate Democratic Caucus chair, wrote in a social media post Friday. "Going to be a long night." After the final vote, Alvarado dismissed Republicans' comments about her email, noting a GOP senator also asked for donations earlier that afternoon. "I think they realize that the more that people talk about the issue, the more people are waking up and realizing how bad this is and that it's a power grab by Trump, and that they're all doing his bidding," she told Hearst Newspapers. "Any opportunity they have to silence people to put an end to the debate, they go for it." State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, slammed Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for a blatant bully move, saying senators expected the Senate leader might try to kill the filibuster but did not expect him to do so by shaming someone else. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It had appeared that Alvarados speech would start around 8:30 p.m. after a long day on the Senate floor. However, after members finished giving remarks ahead of the filibuster, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called a three-hour dinner break an unheard-of pause for the upper chamber, particularly at night. Alvarado had informed Patrick, a Republican, of her intent to filibuster earlier in the day. During the dinner break, Alvarado told ABC 13 News she was "more determined" to delay the bill and that she planned to speak for 16 hours. To prepare, the 57-year-old attorney had gotten an IV infusion and a catheter, toned down her intensive workout schedule and prepared binders full of remarks from her constituents on the maps. Alvarado's Democratic colleagues planned to give the senator's voice a break throughout the night by questioning her on the dais. A spokesperson for Eckhardt said she had compiled 12 hours of remarks on the new map from people across Texas and planned to read them aloud. The bill's author, state Sen. Phil King, maintained that the maps were drawn to enhance Republican political performance. In a closing statement, he called the effort essential for the GOP to retain control of the U.S. House, where Republicans hold a 220-213 majority over Democrats with two seats vacant. The Republican trifecta has empowered Trump and Congress to enact sweeping Medicaid cuts, dramatically cut taxes for middle- and upper-class Americans and slash federal spending on scientific research, foreign aid and other programs. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "I'm convinced if Texas does not take this action, that there is an extreme risk that the Republican majority will be lost," King said. "And if it does, the next two years after the midterm, there will be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and humiliation for our country." In a letter hand-delivered on Friday to Patrick, who leads the Senate, Alvarado wrote that she planned to filibuster because the "unprecedented" redistricting effort would "undermine the stability and fairness of our representative government." Under the proposal, millions of Texans would be placed in new districts in and around Austin, Houston, Dallas and South Texas. "This is not about ensuring fair representation for Texans," Alvarado wrote. "It is about politicians manipulating maps to avoid accountability for unpopular policies that strip health care and food aid from millions and raise costs for families through tariffs all to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. This sets a dangerous precedent where politicians could redraw maps to pick their voters before every election, leaving citizens with no real say at all." Senate Democrats spoke out at length against the new map ahead of her planned speech, saying it perpetuates the underrepresentation of Hispanic and Black Texans. They also criticized GOP senators for granting Trumps request that they redraw district lines mid-decade, rather than following a census. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Hispanics comprise 40% of the population and should hold 15 of 38 seats, said state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, the upper chambers most senior member. But under House Bill 4, they could elect only 21% of the delegation, only eight of 38 of those districts. The map increases the number of majority-Latino districts by one, betting on continued GOP gains among Hispanics while diluting the voting power of urban and left-leaning voters. State Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, called the map a slap in the face to Black voters. Congressional Districts 9 and 33, currently held by Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green and Fort Worth U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, would lose significant amounts of Black voters under the proposed plan. They also questioned King for more than six hours, aiming to gather material for a future court challenge of the maps. Advertisement Article continues below this ad By 5 p.m., the Weatherford Republican was beginning to show his frustration with repeated questions about how the map was drafted and whether racial demographic data was used. He answered most questions by saying a legal consulting firm created and reviewed the map for Voting Rights Act compliance, not him. "This has been a very simple process for me that y'all are trying to make very, very difficult for reasons that I believe have nothing to do with what we're doing here today," King said on the floor. Texas set the record for the longest filibuster in the U.S. in 1977, when state Sen. Bill Meier spoke for 43 hours straight to fight a bill he believed would gut the state's open records laws. His record has yet to be broken. In 2013, former state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat, spoke for nearly 13 hours against an abortion bill. Neither filibuster succeeded in blocking the laws. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Senate Democrats had refused to break quorum over the redistricting bill, unlike dozens of their House counterparts, who returned Monday after a two-week walkout to fines of nearly $10,000 each and state police chaperones. The lower chamber passed the map Wednesday. Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, backed by all Republicans debates with a group of Democratic state representatives a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, listens to the debate of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Richard Hayes, R-Hickory Creek, votes for final passage of the congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. David Lowe, R-North Richland Hills, listens to the debate of a congressional redistricting plan in the House Chamber at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman A representative looks at a congressional redistricting map during debate of a congressional redistricting plan in the House Chamber at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, speaks against a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, speaks in favor of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, left, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, and Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, discuss the congressional redistricting plan at the in the House Chamber at Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, speaks against a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Jeff Leach, R- Allen, talks to Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, during the debate on a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman House Speaker Dustin Burrows presides over the debate of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, listens to the debate of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman House Speaker Dustin Burrows presides over the debate of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, leaves the House Chamber after the final passage of the congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, leaves the House Chamber after the final passage of the congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, and other Democratic state representatives speak at a news conference after the final passage of the congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman The Texas House passed a new congressional map Wednesday that stands to boost Republicans power in Congress, overcoming weeks of protests from House Democrats who fled the state to stall a vote on the mid-cycle redistricting. The new map, ordered up by President Donald Trump and endorsed by Gov. Greg Abbott, would wipe out five Democratic-held congressional districts in Austin, Dallas, Houston and South Texas. It passed the chamber, 88-52, along party lines. Advertisement Article continues below this ad LIVE UPDATES: Texas House votes on GOP redistricting bill The Supreme Court says we can use political partisanship to do congressional redistricting, said state Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican and the bill's author. "We will push forward." The vote came after Republicans took extraordinary steps to push the bill over the finish line. On Monday, when dozens of quorum-busting Democrats returned to the Capitol, Republican House leadership refused to let them leave without state trooper escorts who would ensure their return for Wednesdays votes. One Democrat, state Rep. Nicole Collier, slept in the chamber for more than 48 hours rather than accept the deal. Democrats on Wednesday offered up a dozen amendments seeking to kill or amend the bill, all of which were unsuccessful. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The map now heads to the Senate, which is expected to quickly pass it, and then to Abbott. Republicans are looking to protect their slim majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. The new Texas map could add five extra GOP seats, giving the party 30 of the states 38 districts. The changes are all but certain to face court challenges and could foil candidates plans just months ahead of the primary election in March 2026. Democratic-led states, including California, are already scrambling to redraw their own maps to offset any potential gains. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "Its on, Texas," California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on social media shortly after the vote. SEARCH OUR MAPS: Inside the GOPs redistricting strategy to pad new Texas seats with noncitizens Tensions were high on Wednesday. At one point during the eight hours of debate, Democratic state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins accused Hunter of intentionally helping strip Black Texans of fair representation in Congress. She pointed to how Congressional Districts 9 and 33, currently held by Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green and Fort Worth U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, would lose significant amounts of Black voters. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Representative Hunter, I do respect you tremendously, and I respect this body, Gervin-Hawkins said. But what I don't respect is an obvious racist move. Hunter was adamant, as he has been throughout this process, that the redrawing of lines was based on improving Republicans political odds. He and other Republicans have underscored that their new map would increase the overall number of majority-Hispanic districts in Texas by one. Four out of five new seats are Hispanic-majority. I would say thats great, Hunter said. That doesnt ensure that a political party wins them, but four out of five Hispanic-majority out of those new districts? Thats a pretty strong message, and its good. Rep. Katrina Pierson of Rockwall, who is Black, slammed her Democratic colleagues for accusing the GOP of racism. She pointed to the new Hispanic-majority district and said the map creates two districts where a majority of registered voters are Black. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Newsflash: Democrats do not own minorities in Texas, Pierson said. There are Black and Hispanic and Asian Republicans right here in this chamber who were all elected just like you. Republicans are the majority. So its not the people of Texas who are racist. It is you. The map is designed to help Republicans capitalize on demographic gains that Trump made among in the 2024 election. Democrats have argued it will weaken the voting power of Hispanics in urban areas and have said the groups overall representation is lacking. They have pointed out that despite Hispanics being the largest ethnic group in the state, they only make up the majority in eight districts out of 38 in the new map. The map would eliminate Green's predominately Black district, which he has represented for 20 years, by transplanting it to the far eastern section of Harris County that Republicans see as winnable in 2026. The 77-year-old Houston Democrat has called the changes a form of extreme discrimination and vowed to be on the ballot. Overall, the map overhaul leaves the Houston area with one fewer Democratic district while strengthening Republican strongholds and adding one new red-leaning seat. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In Central Texas, it would eliminate one of the two Democratic-leaning districts in Austin, potentially forcing a race between U.S. Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett. The districts held by U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, two South Texas Democrats, would also see an increasing number of GOP voters. Speaking before the vote, Democratic state Rep. Armando Walle of Houston condemned changes to U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcias District 29, which sheds thousands of Hispanic voters under the new map. Make no mistake, members, and to the public, House Bill 4, this map being rammed through the process today obliterates that district, Walle said. It treats our voters as crash-test dummies. The district has been dismantled. Advertisement Article continues below this ad State Rep. Ron Reynolds, a former chairman of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said the new map takes us back to those dark days before the Voting Rights Act was passed 50 years ago. He pointed to the 18th Congressional District in Houston, which was created after the historic legislation passed to allow for Black representation. It was previously held by Barbara Jordan, the first African American to serve in Congress in the South since 1898, and later Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvester Turner. Under the new maps, the 18th would take on more Black voters from Green's district, essentially eliminating his by combining the two. Here we are with a map that eliminates the progress that was made, the marginal progress that was made in a state that has more African Americans than any other state in the country, Reynolds said. I believe that Barbara Jordan would be turning in her grave to see what were doing in this body. Outside the chamber, protesters chanted in support of Democrats efforts to fight the new maps. More than 100 demonstrators gathered in the Capitols rotunda, joined by Green, Doggett and Casar, as well as U.S. House Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio. After more than seven hours of debate, Texas House Republicans were showing their exasperation. As one after another of their Democratic colleagues slammed them for stealing votes and pushing to pass a racist map, many GOP members sat back in their chairs, scrolling on their phones or talking over bills with their deskmates. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Rep. Ryan Guillen, a Republican and the whip of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus, said Texas was simply making its maps as partisan as maps in other U.S. states. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has published new materials confirming that during the full-scale war, one of the heads of the interregional detective departments of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), together with his father, was involved in organizing illegal trade with the Russian Federation. As noted on the SBU Telegram channel on Friday, this concerns the sale of industrial hemp, which was grown in Zhytomyr region and planned to be sold to Russia (Republic of Dagestan). As sources in law enforcement agencies told the Interfax-Ukraine agency, its about high-ranking NABU official Ruslan Magamedrasulov and his father Sentyabr. As noted in the SBU report, the special service had previously published an audio recording of a conversation between a NABU official, during which he discussed the terms of the sale and even promised to send a commercial offer to the potential buyer. The findings of the state forensic semantic-textual examination confirm that the interlocutors in the recording were talking specifically about trade with the Russian Republic of Dagestan. As part of the pretrial investigation, SBU investigators also recorded correspondence between the NABU official's father and a representative of one of Dagestan's agricultural companies about the sale of industrial hemp. The relevant information was found on the suspect's phone. In particular, in this communication, the representative of the Russian company reports that he has received a commercial proposal and asks to send current quality certificates for the products as soon as possible. He explains that the documents are needed urgently, since the Russian state program for reimbursement of expenses for growing industrial hemp is coming to an end. He also names the person who sent him the commercial proposal - it coincides with the name of a high-ranking official of the NABU. During the analysis of the contents of the phones, evidence was also obtained that it was the NABU employee who was organizing the illegal business, and his father mainly followed his instructions and exercised control over agricultural processes on site. Among other things, according to the case materials, the anti-corruption bureau employee not only found contacts for trade with the Russian Federation, but also looked for investors for the business. The corresponding telephone correspondence was found at the NABU official himself. In addition, the investigation established that the law enforcement officers father was in constant contact with Russian citizens, residents of Dagestan, and in 2023, despite Russias full-scale aggression against Ukraine, he personally visited the Russian Federation. Also, as evidenced by the materials of the case, the father of the NABU official corresponded with the fugitive MP from the banned Opposition Platform For Life party Fedor Khristenko, who, according to the investigation, is connected with the Russian special services and had significant influence on the activities of NABU. Among other things, in one of the episodes of the correspondence, they agreed to meet in the EU. The correspondence of the fugitive MP with the father of the bureau official also testifies to the contacts of the anti-corruption bureau employee with Khristenko. In particular, Khristenko wrote that he could not get through to his son (for the sake of secrecy, he indicated only the first letter of the name) and asked for assistance in establishing contact. In addition, the SBU documented facts confirming that the father of the NABU official maintained contacts with representatives of the occupation administrations in the temporarily captured territory of Ukraine. In particular, he discussed the issue of updating the registration of his weapons under the laws of the so-called "DPR" with a Russian occupation official in Horlivka. As reported earlier, the SBU informed the NABU official and his father of suspicion under Article 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (aiding the aggressor state). They are in custody. The pretrial investigation under the procedural guidance of the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office continues. C.J. Grisham, left, is asked to leave the Texas House of Representatives State Affairs committee hearing after making vulgar comments at the John H. Reagan State Office Building in Austin, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman A Texas House hearing on a measure to ban transgender people from using government restrooms that align with their gender identities descended into shouts and insults on Friday as one man was ejected and another was accused of threatening to mutilate transgender women. Lawmakers ejected one man, who identified himself as C.J. Grisham, after he testified that he did not believe there was such a thing as being transgender, only mentally ill men who think theyre women and there are mentally ill women who think theyre men. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Drag queens Maxine LaQueene and Brigitte Bandit applaud against Senate Bill 8, known as the bathroom bill, a testimony during the Texas House of Representatives State Affairs committee hearing at the John H. Reagan State Office Building in Austin, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman He then got into a verbal back and forth with people in the audience, each shouting vulgar insults, prompting the removal. The Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to a question about whether Grisham was charged. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Another witness with the San Antonio Family Association questioned how on earth did we get to the point where men are allowed to go into womens restrooms and locker rooms and shower with them and nobody can do anything about it? I, for one, am tired of that, I wont put up with it, said the man, Jack Finger, adding: Ive seen it at least a couple times in San Antonio, and I was tempted to help that gentleman save money on his transgendered operation by physically helping him get there. Rep. Ken King (R-Canadian) resides over the Texas House of Representatives State Affairs committee hearing at the John H. Reagan State Office Building in Austin, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman State Rep. Ken King, a Republican who was overseeing the hearing, told Finger, Sir, we will not make threats from in this committee. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Finger responded, You need not worry; nothing happened. Then King replied, You cant make comments like that. Republicans have been trying for years to pass so-called bathroom bill legislation as part of a broader targeting of the transgender community. A similar proposal failed to pass out of committee in this years regular legislative session. Many of the far-right grassroots had blasted the decision and blamed King for killing it. Democrats have argued the bill is discriminatory and threatens the safety and wellbeing of transgender and other non-gender conforming people. Emmett Schelling, executive director for the Transgender Education Network of Texas and who is transgender, said the incident Friday exemplifies the danger of the bill. This bill isnt even passed or a law yet, and even within the hearing chambers, people clearly felt very comfortable to express physical threats of violence, Schelling said. And so what were doing is were just energizing that attitude even more. And what were going to see is everybody be affected by how people personally are defining whos a man, whos a woman, and who belongs where, which is, I think, a pretty chilling place to be. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Republican Gov. Greg Abbott added it to the special session agenda. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not include the legislation on his unusually long wishlist of 40 bills. The bill has the support of the majority of Republicans in the Texas House. The Texas House of Representatives State Affairs committee hears public comment on Senate Bill 8, known as the bathroom bill, at the John H. Reagan State Office Building in Austin, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman Senate Bill 8 would apply to bathrooms, locker rooms and other private spaces in government buildings, family violence shelters designated for women and Texas correctional facilities. It would impose a $5,000 for the first violation and $25,000 for any other violations. The bill does not specify how enforcement would work in the moment of an alleged violation, but in the long-term, it allows citizens to file a complaint with the Texas attorney general including a sworn statement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It allows for gender neutral single-stalls as an alternative, and it makes an exception for children 9 years old and under accompanied by a caretaker, custodians cleaning the facilities, maintenance workers, law enforcement and anyone rendering medical services. The State Affairs Committee left the bill pending Friday. State Rep. Angelia Orr, a Republican from Itasca, said the legislation is necessary to protect women. She did not provide examples of instances of women being harmed in bathrooms that would have been prevented if SB 8 had been in place. Senate Bill 8 protects the safety of women and children in public and private space, Orr said. Texans across the state are increasingly concerned that their daughters, sisters, mothers, grandmothers and themselves are losing the basic expectation of privacy in spaces traditionally separated by sex. Advertisement Article continues below this ad At the start of Fridays meeting, state Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat on the committee, called the bill an unnecessary and unpopular culture war talking point and said to bring it back was to beat a dead horse. Ukraine and Great Britain discuss effective security guarantees from Europe and US, agree to continue partnership Deputy Head of the Presidents Office Ihor Brusylo discussed the development of effective security guarantees from Europe with the participation of the United States with the Director General for Defense and Intelligence of the British Foreign Office Jonathan Allen, the press service of the head of the Ukrainian state reports. This topic was a key focus during the meetings of the leaders of Ukraine, the United States, and European partners in Washington on Monday, August 18, the press release posted on the presidential website reads. The British representative emphasized the importance of maintaining defense and financial support for Ukraine, increasing pressure on Russia and its accomplices, and aligning approaches to the use of frozen Russian assets. The Ukrainian army will remain the cornerstone of Ukraines security. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen Ukraines defense capabilities, develop Ukrainian drone production technologies even after a ceasefire is achieved, and create layered air defense systems, noted the Deputy Head of the Office of the President. The parties agreed to continue strengthening their partnership, including preparations for a Strategic Dialogue meeting at the leaders level. The planning of a meeting of the leaders of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) member states was also discussed. Ukraine and the United Kingdom share a common position: Russia poses a significant threat to the security architecture of the entire European continent, and the Coalition of the Willing can serve as an effective tool to ensure peace in Ukraine and across Europe, the message reads. Brusylo expressed gratitude to the United Kingdom for its support of Ukraine and noted the productive cooperation between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. On Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine commented on the letter of the agent of the Russian Federation in the Arbitration Tribunal in The Hague (Permanent Court of Arbitration) regarding the formal withdrawal from the case on the detention of Ukrainian naval ships and servicemen in 2018 (Ukraine vs. Russia), as well as the recognition of all future decisions of the Tribunal as null and void. In publicly commenting on its decision, the Russian side refers to the alleged improper constitution of the Arbitral Tribunal, alleged bias of some of its members, and other supposed serious procedural violations that, according to Russia, significantly undermine the independence and integrity of the proceedings an The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine views such behavior by the Russian Federation as yet another attempt to evade international legal responsibility for violations of international law, including the provisions and principles of the UNCLOS. Facing the inevitability of accountability for the unlawful seizure of 24 Ukrainian servicemen on 25 November 2018 near the Kerch Strait and their subsequent detention for nine months in Russian prisons, the Russian side hastily announces its withdrawal from the proceedings at their final stage, the comment posted the MFAs website reads. The Foreign Ministry stressed that that the Russian Federations formal withdrawal does not terminate the proceedings. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine will continue to represent Ukraine in this case. Ensuring justice for all victims and those affected by Russias numerous violations of international law, and securing compansations for the harm caused, remains our priority. As demonstrated by numerous previous cases concerning Russian crimes and internationally wrongful acts, Moscow may continue to deny its involvement, reject the jurisdiction of international courts, spread disinformation in the media, or shift blame onto others but justice and accountability are inevitable, the Foreign Ministry summed up. Photo: Unsplash NATO is in contact with Poland regarding the latest drone incident, Poland must somehow react to it, said the Secretary General of the Alliance, Mark Rutte. Rutte said during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday that they were working very closely with their colleagues from Poland. He added that, although he would not share the details, Poland must somehow respond to the latest incident. He assured that they were following the situation. Romania's Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu on Friday drew attention to the fact that a series of fake news are making the rounds in the public space and social media, saying that "no war is starting" and "no one will be conscripted' in the Army, agerpres reports. "In the public space, you see a lot of fake news, a lot of lies that are spread in the public space, in social media by those who want to destabilise Romania, by those who want a weak Romania, a weak Romanian Army and I want to clarify one thing: no war starts, we don't conscript anyone for the army," Mosteanu wrote in a social media post. "It is an absolutely normal, natural exercise that the Defence General Staff does. I am asking you to please don't let those who want a weak Romania destabilise us; get information from reliable sources and you have the website of the Ministry of National Defence, an extremely reliable source, and the Inforadar platform of the Ministry of National Defence, where you have all the correct news about everything that happens with the Romanian Army," said Mosteanu. Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, alongside Transport Minister Ciprian Serban inspected on Friday the progress on the Focsani-Bacau section of the Moldavia Motorway (A7), underscoring that the Government will make sure that the funding under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), through which this investment is also supported, "will be directed toward the projects which shall change people's lives for the better." "Today, together with the Transport and Infrastructure Minister Ciprian Constantin Serban, we inspected the progress on the Focsani-Bacau section and had a focused discussion with the Romanian entrepreneur. The fact that works are being carried out according to the schedule gives us confidence that in August 2026, Romanians shall be able to drive fast and safely between Bucharest and Pascani on this motorway. At the Government level, we will make sure that the PNRR funding, an European mechanism through which we support this major investment for Romania, shall be directed toward the projects which will change the people's lives for the better," PM Bolojan stated on Friday in a post on the Facebook page of the Government, agerpres reports. "At this pace, there are real chances to open traffic, at least up to Adjud (50 kilometers), by the end of this year," Pistol pointed out on Facebook. Russia's war against Ukraine must end with just and lasting peace, Ukraine's Ambassador in Bucharest Ihor Prokopchuk said on Thursday. The ambassador hosted an event near the Ukrainian diplomatic mission, organised on the occasion of Independence Day, where tens of citizens from the neighbouring country and several ambassadors came as a sign of solidarity. "Today we have gathered for an act of solidarity with my country, in connection with the celebration of Ukraine's Independence Day. Unfortunately, this is the fourth consecutive year we are organising such an event near the embassy, due to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," said Ihor Prokopchuk. In this context, the Ukrainian diplomat said he had witnessed "an extraordinary gesture of solidarity from Romania and other international partners." "We have unity, and the international community shares a common vision regarding this aggression and how it should end: it must end with a just and lasting peace, without a repetition of Russian aggression. Therefore, Ukraine must obtain reliable, credible security guarantees and the capacity to deter further Russian aggression," Prokopchuk said. The ambassador thanked the Romanian people for their hospitality and generosity towards Ukrainians who have taken refuge in Romania from the Russian aggression, adding that he estimates there are currently several tens of thousands of Ukrainians in the country. "We don't have exact numbers regarding how many Ukrainians are in the country. The most recent figures on temporary protection granted to Ukrainian citizens show over 180,000. Indicators suggest there are fewer than that (in Romania - editor's note), but we are speaking of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens. Many travel to Ukraine and then return. But the majority have integrated, including their children, and there is a strong sense of gratitude for the kindness and generosity with which they were welcomed as soon as they arrived, by ordinary people," the ambassador said. He referred to the recent meeting in Washington between the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and seven other European leaders. "There is a shared understanding that, for this war to end, certain issues must be addressed and discussed at the highest level, in direct contact between President Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin, with the mediation of the US President and other partners of Ukraine," Prokopchuk said. The Ukrainian ambassador added that it is clear there must be a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents. "Following the meetings in Washington, President Zelenskyy reiterated that he is ready and willing to have such a meeting in any format, whether bilateral or trilateral. So now it depends on Moscow's willingness for such an encounter. So far, we have had no signs that they are truly open to it, apart from words. We will see in the coming days whether there is real intent," he underscored. The ambassador of Ukraine stressed that after the peace-focused meetings in Alaska and Washington, "instead of steps toward a ceasefire, we saw massive air strikes by Russia on cities across Ukraine." "If this change does not come, continued pressure through sanctions on Moscow is necessary, to deprive it of the resources to finance the war against Ukraine," the Ukrainian diplomat added. In turn, Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) Secretary of State Luca Niculescu conveyed congratulations to Ukraine on behalf of Minister Oana Toiu, on the occasion of Independence Day. "Unfortunately, we cannot celebrate this day in times of peace. Russia continues its illegal and brutal war of aggression against your country, and each day brings even more horrific attacks on Ukrainian cities, each day brings more Ukrainian victims, including innocent civilians," said Luca Niculescu. The MAE official praised the courage of the Ukrainian people. "Romania stands with and will continue to stand with Ukraine in its just struggle. We know that Ukraine wants peace, a just and lasting peace. However, peace must not come at any cost, especially not at the cost of rewarding an aggressor or exposing Ukraine to further aggression in the future," the secretary of state underlined. He commended the ongoing diplomatic efforts for peace and said that, in the meantime, Ukraine must be supported. "We owe this to your sacrifice and your courage," said Niculescu. During the ceremony, Princess Briana Caragea received the "Heart of Gold" distinction awarded by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the aid she provided to Ukrainians who fled the war. The 120th anniversary of the opening of the Vadu Crisului Cave, Bihor County's first visitable such underground landform, was marked on Friday with a lecture given by Veress Laszlo, a museographer at the Cris Land Museum (MTC) in Oradea. "The cave was first opened in 1905 by famous geologist Gyula Czaran, who was also its first tourist guide. Ever since its discovery, it was rated as the most beautiful and intact cave in Europe, and counts to the most important tourist and scientific attractions in Bihor. Since then, in addition to the numerous tourists, the cave has been visited and explored by speleology, geology and paleontology experts interested in studying the geological outcrops, its flora and fauna, and the paleontological relics. A host of organisms that are generally found in seas and oceans have been identified. Skeletal remains of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), which lived up to 27,000 years ago, were also discovered here by paleontologist Tiberiu Jurcsak, a former museographer at the Cris Land Museum, who organized many paleontological expeditions in the Vadu Crisului Cave," Veress Laszlo told AGERPRES on Friday, agerpres reports. "I feel strongly attached to both the area and the cave project, because during my term as a county councilor, the interior rehabilitation of the electrical system and the stainless steel railings was financed. Later, I was among those who campaigned for the nearby land and cottage to become part of the county's assets and be purchased by the County Council, which is exactly what happened," deputy Szabo Odon told AGERPRES on Friday.The Vadu Crisului Cave (also known as the Waterfall or Zichy Cave) is located in the mid-section of the Crisu Repede Gorge and is crossed by a stream that, after exiting, forms a roughly six-meter waterfall.Sensing that a large cave was hidden close-by, he informed Gyula Czaran, considered the father of tourism in the Apuseni Mountains, of his discovery; on November 10, 1903 Czaran opened the cave by dynamiting the rock block. Then Czaran and Handl, accompanied by the local Reformed priest, Istvan Veress, himself a nature enthusiast, conducted the first research, after which the cave was landscaped with wooden walkways and stairs.The natural monument opened for visitors in 1905, and for this event, Gyula Czaran became the first tourist guide of the cave.The first map of the visitable part of the cavern, with details of the location of the footbridges, stairs, the visit route, as well as the representative formations, was published in 1907 by Gyula Monoky, a railway surveyor.The exploration and mapping of the cave was resumed, over time, by numerous researchers, including Emil Racovita - the founder of the world's first biospeleology institute. Research has shown that the water that fades away in the Old Man's Cave, located 3 kilometers away, resurfaces after following an underground route, in the Vadu Crisului Cave.The cave is famous, from a biospeleological point of view, especially due to the terrestrial and aquatic troglobitic species, some of which are endemic. Also, it is the natural habitat of a large colony of bats, with various species protected at European level.In 1969, the Oradea-based museum redeveloped the cave with metal and concrete stairs and platforms and an electrification system over a length of 500 meters, making it the second cave in Romania to feature electric lighting after the Women's Cave in Baia de Fier (1957). Ukraine needs security guarantees in order to clearly know that Russia will not attack again, when the Russian Federation raises questions about them, it is not clear what they are threatened with, since they attacked Ukraine, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "Ukraine needs security guarantees so that you and I, our children, grandchildren, know clearly that Russia will not attack us. These are security guarantees against the aggressor... Because the aggressor is Russia. When Russia raises the question of security guarantees, I, to be honest, still don't know who threatens them. They attacked us... And I don't quite understand what guarantees the aggressor needs," Zelenskyy said during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Friday in Kyiv. The President stressed that partners in Europe want the war not to happen again, and "the only trigger in this is Russia." As reported, on August 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia is ready to continue negotiations with Ukraine in any format, but a potential meeting at the highest level must be carefully prepared and must put an end to the negotiation process. He also said that Moscow cannot agree to a situation where issues of collective security in connection with the situation in Ukraine will be resolved without Russia. "I am sure that the West, and primarily the United States, understand perfectly well that seriously discussing the issue of ensuring security without Russia is a utopia, a path to nowhere," Lavrov stressed. ST. LOUIS When the FBI unveiled new monthly crime reports for police departments across the U.S. this week, one local agencys stats for this year were conspicuously blank: St. Louis city. As of Wednesday, St. Louis had reported only about 60 offenses so far this year to state and federal authorities, instead of the thousands it would typically report for a similar period. In a statement Thursday, police spokesman Mitch McCoy attributed the reporting delay to changes and new requirements in state crime reporting formats, which have required the department to update its records system. He emphasized that St. Louis never stopped publishing weekly and monthly crime data on the departments own website, and even began entering homicides by hand in the states portal. Our priority remains full transparency, McCoy said, and we are committed to submitting the data as soon as the modifications are finalized. The FBIs new monthly updates are its most timely crime reports yet, replacing a previous system of releasing quarterly reports with a three-month lag. Now, using the bureaus Crime Data Explorer website, the public can look up individual law enforcement agencies and see totals they have reported through the 14th of the most recent month for crimes ranging from vandalism to homicide. The transition to monthly data releases promotes transparency, the bureau said in a statement. The FBIs new monthly report format debuts amid increasingly heated national rhetoric on crime. And St. Louiss omission from the data leaves a gap at a moment when having a consistent, comprehensive picture of national crime trends is critical. This month President Donald J. Trump claimed a crime emergency to justify his decision to deploy federal law enforcement and military units across Washington D.C., even as experts say data clearly shows crime has been decreasing. Crime fell in 2024 across every category and population group, New Orleans-based crime analyst Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics wrote earlier this month. Seriously. The FBIs new monthly reports rely on data from its National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, which tracks crime across the country by capturing details on incidents, victims and offenders. Participation in NIBRS is voluntary except in states like Missouri that have laws requiring it and the FBI spent years struggling to get police departments to join. The FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics provided at least $120 million in federal funding to help agencies migrate to NIBRS, including a $1.2 million grant that St. Louis used to purchase a new records system. As of 2024, participating agencies now cover 89% of the national population. New requirements cause delay In Missouri, police are required by state law to report crime data to the Missouri Highway Patrol, which collects and provides it to the FBI. But there are many reasons there might be little or no data shown for any given agency, including, as the FBIs website explains, changes in reporting. Thats St. Louiss situation, officials here say. Optimum Technology, the vendor that maintains St. Louiss records system, has been working to update the system to comply with the new state reporting requirements, said McCoy, the police spokesman. Gov. Mike Kehoe issued an executive order in January requiring the state to begin tracking the immigration status of people involved in crimes. And in April, the Highway Patrol finally released new technical specifications explaining how that should be done. McCoy said St. Louis has maintained close communication with the Highway Patrol throughout the process, and that the department finished testing the changes last week. A further problem was identified this week, he said, which Optimum is addressing. We are frustrated by the challenges created by these multi-faceted technical issues, McCoy said. Like St. Louis, other law enforcement agencies across the state have been working to meet the new requirements. St. Louis County police began updating CARES, their home-grown records system, in April, spokeswoman Vera Clay wrote in an email. There were initial challenges with the submission of the immigration information, she said. By the first week of August, the department had caught up with reporting. Kansas City police also appear to be caught up on submissions to Missouri and the FBI, leaving St. Louis as the only department of its size in the state to remain so far behind in reporting. This is just the latest monthslong pause for St. Louis in reporting required crime data to the state since bringing its new records system online in 2020. The department blamed those delays, too, on work being done by Optimum to update or fix the system. A police spokesman told the Post-Dispatch then that the department was confident that any issues that may arise in the future will be addressed more expeditiously. Data from the city comptrollers office shows the police department has paid Optimum more than $400,000 over the last three fiscal years. Timelier national data The FBI published its final quarterly crime report last September, and had indicated that a change to monthly reports was coming. Still, state officials didnt know it would happen Wednesday, said Lt. Eric Brown, a spokesman for the Highway Patrol. But it doesnt change how the patrol collects or publishes state crime data. Our data is posted as close to real time as possible, Brown said. Its valuable to be able recognize and respond to crime trends as they happen, experts say, and the FBIs new monthly reports should help with that. Earlier this month, Asher, the data analyst, wrote that he expected that the FBIs transition to monthly reports would seriously enhance the speed of our understanding of crime trends. Asher is well-versed in the challenges of aggregating national crime data through his work on his companys Real-Time Crime Index tool. He told the Post-Dispatch Wednesday that he expects the FBIs timelier reports will make his job easier in some ways. This is a boon for our project, he said. But he suspects the FBIs updated website may be very difficult for the lay person to use. And he cautioned that the FBIs monthly data is preliminary and unaudited. In the past, Asher found problems with the data quality of the FBIs quarterly reports. For its part, the FBI said in its statement that responsibility for submitting accurate statistics and correcting errors belongs to state crime reporting programs and individual law enforcement agencies. JEFFERSON CITY When former Gov. Mike Parson chose Andrew Bailey as attorney general, both agreed the office needed a steady captain after its two previous occupants left early for jobs in the nations capital. The office needs stability, Bailey told reporters when he was announced as the 44th person to hold the seat the day before Thanksgiving 2022. We know hes the right man for the job, not just for the next two years, but beyond, Parson added. That beyond lasted just eight months after Bailey was sworn in to a full term in January. Bailey, 44, announced Monday he is joining President Donald Trumps administration as co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His final day as Missouri attorney general is Sept. 8. Former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway is stepping into the vacant post with the same questions hovering over her head that met Bailey when he was introduced as the states new chief legal officer. During a press conference with Gov. Mike Kehoe on Tuesday, Hanaway, 61, said she planned to finish the remaining three years of Baileys term and is interested in running for a full term in 2028, presumably sharing a ticket with the governor. Democrats took notice of the ongoing revolving door. In a social media post, Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, D-Affton, wrote, Congratulations to Missouris fourth attorney general in six years, I hope this one doesnt flee Missouri for Washington D.C. the first chance she gets. Familiar pattern Baileys looming departure follows a script written by his predecessors: File headline-grabbing lawsuits, show unwavering support for Trump and build a brand to springboard toward higher office. It started with Josh Hawley. In 2017, less than a year into his term as attorney general, Hawley announced he would run for U.S. Senate, despite airing an ad during his 2016 campaign that he would not use the attorney generals office as a stepping stone. In the ad, which featured pictures of ladders, Hawley shamed career politicians just climbing the ladder, using one office to get another. Republican Eric Schmitt replaced Hawley and spent his abbreviated tenure suing former President Joe Biden more than two dozen times and fighting against COVID-19 mitigation measures such as masks and business closings. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022. Using the Hawley-Schmitt blueprint, Bailey put transgender medical care, abortion and other culture war issues at the top of his to-do list. He pursued numerous legal challenges against Biden on a variety of policies, including student loan forgiveness, immigration and environmental rules. Bailey also threatened legal action against private gyms over bathroom gender policies and called on schools to ban drag shows. He pledged his allegiance to Trump, alleging the 2020 presidential election was absolutely stolen. The focus on hot-button subjects kept his name in the news and helped him win election to a full, four-year term in 2024. Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri in Columbia, said Baileys legal record as attorney general is at best mixed. He was always willing to undertake high-profile legal cases, even if they were legally dubious, Squire said. As a result, he lost as many cases as he won. Bailey was more successful, Squire added, when it came to projecting an image to appeal to MAGA Republicans. He never derailed the abortion rights measure that the voters passed (in November,) but he managed to impede it to a great extent, Squire said. Bailey also unsuccessfully attempted to use the states emergency rule-making process to ban transgender medical care for children and adults. The maneuver raised questions because he based the new regulations on a consumer protection law typically used to ensure people are not ripped off by retailers. That was a stretch, former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Wolff said. Bailey, he said, merely picked up where Hawley and Schmitt left off. Rather than focus on more traditional business such as criminal appeals, worker compensation violations and offering legal advice to local governments, the office became more political. It became more about fighting the culture wars on behalf of the people. Maybe not for all of us, but at least for some of us, Wolff said. In doing so, Wolff said Bailey pushed the limits of the law, including taking allegations of election violations to a grand jury to garner a theft indictment of St. Louis County Executive Sam Page. I dont think its saying much to say the indictment on Sam Page was overreach, Wolff said, suggesting that Pages use of tax dollars to inform voters about a ballot question is different than taking tax dollars and pocketing them for personal use. Ongoing battles There also were missteps. Last year, Bailey dismissed a lawsuit against Jackson County over its property tax assessment process to avoid being questioned about his contact with a county official that may have violated legal ethics rules. As he introduced Hanaway on Tuesday, Kehoe praised Baileys service, saying, Andrew and his team have worked hard to truly make Missouri a national leader in protecting our freedoms, our constitution and upholding the rule of law. The constantly changing leadership may have negative long-term effects, said Jefferson City attorney Chuck Hatfield, who was former Attorney General Jay Nixons chief of staff for a decade. If youve got turnover at the top, it produces instability throughout the organization, Hatfield said. Its really hard to get the stability needed to train people and have institutional knowledge and an office culture. A request for an interview with Bailey was denied. A spokeswoman said Bailey is not taking questions from news media. As attorney general, Bailey leaves behind unfinished business. After Missouri lawmakers failed to enact an age verification law for pornography sites on the internet, Bailey issued a rule change that will require companies to comply with age checks beginning in October. Similar attempts in other states have been met with lawsuits from tech companies, but the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year upheld an age verification law in Texas that is similar to what Bailey wants in Missouri. The Missouri change will require websites to confirm the age of users both through the site and on the device accessing the site. The rule requires all identifying information to be deleted once an age is verified and allows Missouri to enforce state laws prohibiting the distribution of pornography to minors. Bailey also leaves amid an ongoing court battle over whether and when abortions can resume fully in Missouri. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled 7-0 earlier this month that Bailey filed an appeal of an abortion case in the wrong court, dealing a setback to his efforts. Despite 52% of Missouri voters supporting the restoration of abortion rights during the November 2024 election, Bailey has continued to press for limits on the procedure because the constitutional amendment approved by voters did not directly repeal myriad state laws banning or regulating abortion that had been put in place by successive Republican-led General Assemblies. In early July, Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang issued an order halting the state requirements, including a law requiring two appointments, 72 hours apart, to obtain abortion services and that women be required to read material on fetal development. Focus on crime Hanaway on Tuesday suggested that she will carry on with what Bailey started. I have a long history of being pro-life, Hanaway said. Like ... many women we had some infertility struggles. Im empathetic to that, but I believe in the sanctity of human life. Abortion Action Missouri, which advocates for abortion access, cheered Baileys pending departure for what it described as a previously non-existent role with the FBI. After losing to Planned Parenthood in Missouri once again, (the) disgraced AG earns a participation ribbon from the Trump Administration. As obsessed as Bailey has proven to be with young girls bodies, I can think of no one more qualified to join the team tasked with burying the Epstein files, Abortion Action Executive Director Mallory Schwarz said. Bailey also is enmeshed in the removal of two St. Louis-area politicians from office. After successfully moving to oust former St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner for mismanagement soon after he took office, Bailey set his sights on St. Louis Sheriff Alfred Montgomery and Page. Hanaway did not address issues facing Page over his use of tax dollars to campaign against a ballot question, but said Montgomery gets no reprieve in light of nepotism charges and allegations of financial mismanagement. I definitely will continue to pursue the case involving the sheriff, she said. Also pending is Baileys longshot bid to extract a $24 billion settlement out of China over pandemic-era supply chain issues. The case was brought by Schmitt and won during Baileys tenure, but experts say there is no way to require China to pay. Hatfield said Bailey did not seem to have one area of the law that he wanted to improve to help Missourians. He was a good soldier in the MAGA war, but he wasnt much of a leader. He just did whatever the flavor of the day was in the MAGA world, Hatfield said. A lot of his legacy is just being contrary to what Joe Biden wanted. After six years and three attorneys general, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, said she hopes Hanaway moves the office in a different direction by serving as a competent and professional attorney general who will defend the rights of all Missourians instead of wasting taxpayer money on frivolous culture war lawsuits that regularly get laughed out of court. Hanaway said she is not sure if her management style will differ from her predecessors. As for her focus, it will be on crime, mirroring Kehoes campaign pledge. It is the No. 1 problem facing our state, Hanaway said. Now there is a task to ensure that the next generations of Ukrainians do not have to go through war, the key to this is security guarantees, which are being worked on together with partners, said President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "We have already united around Ukraine, around our brave people, entire Europe and many other countries of the world. Now our task is to ensure that our children, our grandchildren, our next generations of Ukrainians do not have to go through war. The key to this is security guarantees, which we are now working on together with our partners," he said at the VIII International Veterans Forum Ukraine. Veterans. Security in Kyiv on Friday. The President noted that Ukraine, together with Europe, the United States and the Coalition of the Willing, is preparing important security guarantees, the basis of which will be the experience of a strong Ukrainian army. "But it is no less important that you know, that each of you feels how much all of Ukraine owes you," Zelenskyy said, addressing the veterans. "We hope that you will continue to be with Ukraine, to change Ukraine, to work and preserve knowledge that can truly change history and ensure the right to life for our people and all future generations," the head of state emphasized. He asked those present to honor the memory of all who gave their lives with a minute of silence. Soldiers assigned to the 528th Military Intelligence Company uncase the unit guidon during their activation ceremony at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, Aug. 5, 2025. (Wilfred Salters Jr./U.S. Army) CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea A military intelligence company with a history of action in the Korean War is back in service with the 2nd Infantry Division, the sole U.S. Army division stationed overseas. The 528th Military Intelligence Company, which saw action during the 1950-53 conflict, was reactivated during an Aug. 5 ceremony at Robertson Field at Camp Humphreys, the Army announced in a news release the following week. Led by Capt. Brian Park, the company collects and analyzes information on enemy forces, terrain and potential threats, the service said. The 528th was reactivated to supplement the operations of the division directorate responsible for providing commanders with a broad overview of the battlefield, division spokeswoman Maj. Eileen Poole told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday. She declined to provide information on the units size and equipment, citing operational security considerations. The company was not listed in an organizational chart on the divisions website as of Friday. Approximately 12,100 soldiers are assigned to 2nd ID, which is headquartered in Pyeongtaek city at Humphreys, the largest U.S. military base overseas, about 40 miles south of Seoul. During the Korean War, the 528th served as the eyes and ears of the division and provided critical intelligence that shaped the course of the battle and safeguarded lives, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion commander Lt. Col. Eric Swett said in the Army release. The division took part in several major engagements during the war, including against Chinese forces in North Korea at the Battle of the Chongchon River in November 1950, the release said. The division reported about 4,940 casualties that month, the majority of which occurred while fighting Chinese forces that reinforced the North Korean army, according to a U.S. Army Center of Military History research paper published in 1990. Several major intelligence lapses contributed to the heavy casualties against the Chinese troops, who made a concerted effort to avoid aerial observation, the paper said. These efforts included marching during the night and deceiving U.S. forces by mislabeling their battalions as a division. By 23 November the U.N. Command had acknowledged the presence of twelve Chinese infantry divisions when in fact there were nine armies with thirty infantry divisions, the paper said. This graphic was posted to Facebook by MCCS Lejeune-New River, accompanied by a warning to Marines to avoid swimming at MCAS New River Marinas designated swimming area. (MCCS Lejeune-New River) RALEIGH, N.C. (Tribune News Service) Marines train to face some of the worlds toughest challenges, but theyve been told to steer clear of alligators at one of their North Carolina bases. The designated swimming area at [MCAS] New River Marina is temporarily closed effective immediately due to alligator activity in the area, MCCS Lejeune-New River announced in an Aug. 21 Facebook post. It also said that swimming and water activities are prohibited until further notice, but the marina remains open for boating. Alligators are native to that area, and the station didnt provide details of what prompted sudden concerns. The predators can reach 13 feet, weigh up to 500 pounds, and are protected by state law, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission says. Thousands of watery acres along the N.C. coast are used by the Marines for housing and training exercises, including Camp Lejeune and Air Station Cherry Point. As a result, Marines in the area have become accustomed to sharing space with alligators in unusual ways, including a 2022 instance of Marines being ordered to stop feeding a befriended alligator living beside their barracks. In July, two Water Support Technicians stationed at Camp Lejeune went so far as to stand neck deep in murky water when taking their oath of enlistment, Marine Corps Times reports. The pond was alligator turf, but none interrupted the ceremony. Eighteen fellow Marines joined them in the water, video shows. The decision to close the marina temporarily prompted jokes on social media, including some who noted Marines arent afraid of alligators. $5 says itll be in the barracks on a leash by the end of the day, Saul Marquez posted on the air stations Facebook page. 2025 Raleigh News & Observer. Visit newsobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The USS New Orleans anchors near White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Aug. 21, 2025, hours after a fire was extinguished aboard the ship. (Ryan M. Breeden/Stars and Stripes) The USS New Orleans returned to White Beach Naval Facility on Okinawas southeastern coast Friday, a day after U.S. and Japanese crews, along with the countrys coast guard, extinguished a fire that burned aboard the vessel for 12 hours. The amphibious transport dock ship, which had been anchored offshore, came back to port under its own power at an unspecified time, the U.S. 7th Fleet said in statement Friday evening. Several sailors were treated for minor injuries and have returned to duty, the statement said. The fleet reported Thursday that two sailors suffered minor injuries and were treated on board. It did not immediately respond to phone and email inquiries Friday evening. I am relieved to hear the sailors have returned to duty, and I thank them for their dedicated service and bravery, U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass said in a statement issued by U.S. Embassy Tokyo earlier Friday, referring to the two initial injuries. The fires cause remains under investigation, and damage assessors are inspecting the New Orleans, according to the fleets release. The blaze broke out at 4 p.m. Wednesday and was confined to the ships forward area. New Orleans is providing its own berthing and galley services remain open, allowing for the crew of nearly 380 Sailors to continue to work and reside aboard their ship, the statement said. The ambassador praised Japanese and Okinawan assistance, calling the firefighting effort an example of strong U.S.-Japan cooperation. This incident shows, once again, why the U.S.-Japan Alliance is second to none, Glass said in the embassys statement. I deeply appreciate the critical assistance of the Japanese and Okinawan governments, which helped ensure the fire was brought under control quickly and without any serious injuries to American or Japanese personnel. Amphibious transport dock ships carry Marines, equipment and aircraft, such as helicopters and MV-22B Ospreys, to support expeditionary warfare missions. (Wayne Specht/Stars and Stripes) Iwate Maneuvering Ground, Japan, Feb. 20, 2003: With the majestic Mount Iwate volcano as a backdrop, soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiments Charlie Company prepare for bilateral ski training at North Wind exercises that were underway until March 2 of that year. About 500 soldiers of the Regiment, nicknamed Cold Steel, were in Japan from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, for the bilateral cold-weather field training exercise held between the U.S. Army and the Japanese army. U.S. and Japanese infantry soldiers trained together in ground assaults and ski and snowshoe maneuvers. Read more here. Navy Installations Command has launched a campaign to raise awareness about window safety in military housing after two small children fell to their deaths from windows this summer at Navy Base San Diego. (U.S. Navy) Navy Installations Command has launched a campaign to raise awareness among parents and caregivers about window safety in military housing after two small children fell to their deaths from windows this summer at Naval Base San Diego. Three other children have been injured in such falls in the past year. These incidents serve as a stark reminder of the potential dangers our children face, even in familiar environments, Vice Adm. Christopher Gray, who heads the command, wrote Tuesday in a message to Navy families. In light of these recent events, we are initiating an intensified awareness and prevention campaign to better protect our children, he said. The commanders message, which included tips for better securing windows and preventing access by children, is the first of several efforts to be rolled out in the safety campaign, Coleen San Nicolas-Perez, a command spokeswoman, said by phone Thursday. One of the examples I can give you is at our Child Development Centers theyre going to have a window-safety themed campaign, she said. Unit commanders will hold all-hands calls and town halls where the issue will be highlighted, she said. The campaign stems from childrens deaths at Naval Base San Diego this summer. In July, a 1-year-old child died after falling from a second-story window in public-private military housing, according to data on the incidents provided by San Nicolas-Perez. In June, a 5-year-old died after falling from a second-story window in public-private military housing. Children were injured in three other incidents. In July, an 8-year-old toppled from a window at Naval Base San Diego, was taken to a hospital, treated for injuries and discharged. In April, a 2-year-old suffered several injuries after falling from a second-story window at a home on Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, Calif. A 22-month-old suffered minor injuries after falling from a second-story window at Naval Base San Diego in August 2024. The safety issue is not limited to the military. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a 2011 report that roughly 3,300 children are injured annually by falling out of windows, with an average of eight deaths each year. The natural curiosity of children and their eagerness to explore can sometimes place them in unexpected danger when left unattended, even briefly, Gray wrote. Its often in unassuming ordinary moments that accidents can occur, highlighting the importance of heightened awareness and proactive safety measures, he wrote. The most straightforward prevention method is installing and using window safety locks, some of which are designed to allow just enough opening to catch the breeze but not wide enough for a tiny body. If you find that any device is missing or broken in your military housing, contact Navy Housing immediately, Gray wrote. If you do not live in Navy Housing, reach out to your landlord directly or purchase and install window safety devices in your own home. Do not rely on screens for security because they are far too flimsy. Screens are for bugs, Gray wrote. Remember that typical window screens are designed to keep insects out, not to prevent falls. Teach children not to push on or lean against screens. Experts endorse Xinhua think tank reports on South China Sea truths Xinhua) 08:13, August 22, 2025 BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Experts have made positive comments on "The Truths about the South China Sea," a series of reports released in both Chinese and English on Thursday by Xinhua Institute, a think tank affiliated with Xinhua News Agency. They believe these reports systematically expound on the historical and legal basis of China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea, reveal the truth about external forces interfering in the South China Sea issue, and construe China's actions in building the South China Sea into a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation. The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. These reports state that eight decades ago, as part of the post-war international order and global landscape, China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao, known in English as the South China Sea islands, in accordance with international legal instruments such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. China's sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao has been widely recognized by the international community. Li Guoqiang, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of History under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said these reports comprehensively illustrate the historical process of China's resumption of sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao and reaffirm the legitimacy and validity of China's claims to rights and interests in the South China Sea. Li added that these reports also highlight China's efforts and contributions over decades to uphold the post-war international order and maintain regional peace and stability. These reports also state that China's sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao and related maritime rights were established through centuries of historical development and rest on solid historical and legal foundations. "As the first country to discover, name and develop Nanhai Zhudao and adjacent waters, and the first to exercise continuous, peaceful and effective sovereignty and jurisdiction over them, China should persistently and fully collate, explore and interpret historical evidence related to the South China Sea," said Wu Shicun, chairman of the Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance. Li said that the abundant evidence presented in the reports underscores that denying China's sovereignty and related rights over Nanhai Zhudao shows disregard for history and poses challenges to the post-war international order. However, in recent years, non-regional forces have launched "great power competition" targeting China in the so-called "Indo-Pacific region" and leveraged the South China Sea issue as a means to contain China, instigating relevant claimant states, including the Philippines, to provoke China and escalating tensions in the South China Sea, say the reports. Yang Xiao, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, stated that objective facts in the reports expose acts of infringement, plunder and incitement by a few countries that undermine peace in the South China Sea -- debunking disinformation and lies about the region spread by some in international discourse. The reports call for seeing through the U.S.-led Western maneuvers of instigation, coercion and division over the South China Sea, maintaining regional peace and stability as well as achieving prosperity for all countries, and jointly making the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation, as the world faces increasing uncertainty and challenges. The think tank series consists of three reports, including two newly released reports titled "Historical and Legal Basis of China's Territorial Sovereignty and Maritime Rights in the South China Sea" and "Incitement, Threats, and Lies -- The Truth about External Forces Interfering in the South China Sea Issue," as well as a June publication titled "Making the South China Sea a Sea of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation: China's Actions." (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Polish Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Wadysaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced the opening of the second largest training camp for Ukrainian and Polish military personnel on September 1 in the south of the country, which is currently being built with the assistance of NATO countries and Norway. "Today we are at the training ground, where we are building a large training camp - a place for training Polish and Ukrainian military personnel. This is the mission that the Norwegians decided to implement in partnership with Poland within NATO. This is our philosophy - we want to help Ukraine on the territory of the Republic of Poland. This partnership with Norway is bringing positive results," he wrote on the social network X on Friday. He added that the construction of the large camp began on July 14, the work is currently at the completion stage, and on September 1, "here [at this training ground] the first training course for Ukrainian troops on the territory of the Republic of Poland will begin." The minister noted that after the completion of the mission to support Ukraine, this camp will be transferred for use by the Polish Armed Forces. "I would like to sincerely thank all our soldiers - the commander and chief of this place, who manage the entire training complex for the ground forces. This is the southernmost training ground, the second largest in Poland, a center for the training of the ground forces, which demonstrates its capabilities," Kosiniak-Kamysz emphasized. Yokota Air Base is home of the 374th Airlift Wing, 5th Air Force and U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo. (Stars and Stripes) YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan The Air Force has identified an airman who was found dead Wednesday in Shimoda, a resort town about 2 hours south of this airlift hub in western Tokyo. Senior Airman John C. Fernandez-Buestan, 23, of Corona, N.Y., was a radio operations technician assigned to the 374th Communications Squadron, the 374th Airlift Wing said in a statement Friday. Fernandez-Buestan had been stationed at Yokota since 2022, the announcment said. John was a well-loved and valued member of our unit, and his death has had a devastating effect on the squadron, squadron commander Lt. Col. Jesse Nelson said in the statement. My command team and I are focused on providing as much support as possible to his family, friends, and coworkers to help them during this tragic event. Details surrounding the death are under investigation, the statement said. The statement directed those seeking support to consult their chain of command or visit a base webpage listing helping agencies, such as the chaplain, counselors, mental health and the legal office. In addition to the wing, Yokota is home to 5th Air Force and U.S. Forces Japan. (Tribune News Service) An anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States killed Salah Numan, known as Ali, an Iraqi leader of the Islamic State group, during an operation in northwestern Syria. Syrian state television reported, citing a security services source who referred to an airstrike against a house in the city of Atme, in Idlib province and describing Numan as one of the most dangerous men, wanted for his involvement in activating and mobilizing ISIS cells in Syria. The coalition has not yet released any statements on the operation. Three witnesses, including the owner of the building where Numan lived, confirmed to AFP that the raid took place shortly after midnight, reporting hearing the noise of planes and gunfire. State television reported that coalition forces raided the house where Numan lived with his mother and family, shooting him dead after he attempted to escape by jumping from the first-floor balcony. An Iraqi security source, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP that Numan was the brother of a senior ISIS leader killed in 2020 in a coalition attack in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor. The same source added that the operation was made possible thanks to Iraqi intelligence information, and that Numans wives were arrested. 2025 GMC S.A.P.A. di G. P. Marra. Visit at adnkronos.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The Defense Department sent emails to civilian employees Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, asking them to volunteer to offer support to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) WASHINGTON Pentagon civilian employees for the next year can sign up to join a volunteer force to assist with immigration enforcement efforts across the country. The Defense Department sent emails to employees Wednesday asking them to contribute to the Department of Homeland Security operations along the southern border and its internal immigration enforcement activities. Selected department employees will have a chance to offer critical support to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as they fulfill the presidents intent to ensure a safe and orderly immigration system, the email reads. The Homeland Security and Defense departments officially signed a memorandum of understanding that allows Pentagon civilians to participate in the detail, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity. Employees are now able to apply via USAJOBS. The job posting opened Aug. 8 and closes Aug. 1 of next year. The annual salary ranges from $25,684 to $191,900. Employees who volunteer will serve in support roles for up to 180 days with ICE or CBP. Travel, lodging and per diem might be reimbursed by the receiving agency. The detail is not a promotion opportunity, USAJOBS states. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo June 1 authorizing the support of Pentagon civilian employees to Homeland Security and immigration enforcement. Since President Donald Trumps return to the White House in January, his administration has made the crackdown on undocumented migrants one of its highest priorities. About 8,500 troops are now deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border working primarily to detect possible illegal activity, the Pentagon has said. More than 900,000 civilian employees work for the Defense Department. The Pentagon earlier this year announced it would reduce its workforce by 5% to 8% as part of a larger downsizing of federal agencies ordered by Trump. The Pentagon offered two rounds of deferred resignation to certain civilian staff, which allowed them to leave their jobs and continue to get paid through September. It was a way to realign the workforce and strategically restructure it, Hegseth said in March. In March, only about 21,000 had taken the resignation offer during the first round. In total, about 55,000 employees were approved for deferred resignation, a defense official said. Trump last week ordered federal agents and hundreds of National Guard troops to deploy throughout Washington to help curtail crime in the nations capital. This included a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in a post on X on Thursday said 630 arrests have occurred, and 86 illegal firearms have been taken off the streets. A growing number of delivery drivers, most of them from Central or South America, are being detained by federal agents on D.C. streets and put into immigration detention as part of Trump federalizing the D.C. police force, The Washington Post reported. ICE agents are accompanying D.C. police officers on traffic stops to determine the immigration status of those delivery drivers and detain and deport them if they are in the United States illegally. France's President Emmanuel Macron, from left, President Donald Trump, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz participate in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in the East Room of the White House, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP) WASHINGTON President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered his assurances that U.S. troops would not be sent to help defend Ukraine against Russia after seeming to leave open the possibility the day before. Trump also said in a morning TV interview that Ukraines hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean Peninsula from Russia are impossible. The Republican president, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House on Monday aimed at bringing an end to Russias war against Ukraine. While answering questions from journalists, Trump did not rule out sending U.S. troops to participate in a European-led effort to defend Ukraine as part of security guarantees sought by Zelenskyy. Trump said after his meeting in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Putin was open to the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine. But asked Tuesday on Fox News Channels Fox & Friends what assurances he could provide going forward and beyond his term that American troops would not be part of defending Ukraines border, Trump said, Well, you have my assurance, and Im president. Trump would have no control over the U.S. military after his term ends in January 2029. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later on Tuesday emphasized that U.S. boots will not be on the ground as part of any potential peacekeeping mission. The president also said in the interview that he is optimistic that a deal can be reached to end the Russian invasion, but he underscored that Ukraine will have to set aside its hope of getting back Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in 2014, and its long-held aspirations of joining the NATO military alliance. Both of those things are impossible, Trump said. Putin, as part of any potential deal to pull his forces out of Ukraine, is looking for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as recognition of Crimea as Russian territory. Trump on Monday said that he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But the Kremlin has not yet said whether Putin, who has resisted previous calls by Trump and others for direct negotiations on ending the war, is committed to a face-to-face meeting with the Ukrainian leader. Asked whether Putin has promised Trump that hell meet directly with the Ukrainian leader, Leavitt responded affirmatively. He has, Leavitt said of Putin. Trump, early on Monday during talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders, said that he was pressing for three-way talks among Zelenskyy, Putin and himself. But after speaking to Putin later in the day, Trump said that he was arranging first for a face-to-face between Zelenskyy and Putin and that three-way talks would follow if necessary. It was an idea that evolved in the course of the presidents conversations with both President Putin, President Zelensky and the European leaders yesterday, Leavitt explained. But when discussing a phone call held after the meeting between Trump and the Russian leader, Putins foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov gave no indication that either a bilateral or a trilateral meeting with Ukraine had been agreed. Trump said he believed Putins course of action would become clear in the coming weeks. I think Putin is tired of it, Trump said. I think theyre all tired of it. But you never know. Were going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks. That I can tell you. District of Columbia National Guard members arrive at Union Station in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 17, 2025. Guard members are positioned at key locations throughout the city to provide a visible security presence alongside law enforcement partners. (U.S. Army photo) WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized nearly 2,000 National Guard troops to carry weapons as operations expand throughout the city as part of President Donald Trumps initiative to crack down on crime, a defense official said. At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, [Joint Task Force-District of Columbia] members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our nations capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity. The interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard retains the authority to make any necessary force posture adjustments in coordination with the D.C. Metropolitan Police and federal law enforcement partners. The Pentagon did not offer more details regarding the decision. The Army and Pentagon said last week that troops would not carry weapons. But a White House official said Monday on the condition of anonymity that They may be armed, consistent with their mission and training. Trump on Thursday visited the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility in southeast Washington, which is serving as the gathering point for all the agencies involved in the operation, thanking officers and members of the military. During his visit, Trump suggested the troops could stay for six months or longer. You do the job on safety, and Ill get this place fixed up physically, and were going to be so proud of it at the end of six months, he said. But lets say at the end of the year, this place will be maxed out in terms of beauty. Youll have all new surfaces. Youll have all new medians, everythings going to look beautiful. Trump told radio host Todd Starnes on Thursday that the D.C. deployment of troops was sort of a test and indicated his administration would copy the model in other cities throughout the United States. As of Thursday, roughly 1,997 Army and Air Guard troops are in Washington, the Joint Task Force said in a statement. Six Republican-led states approved sending troops to Washington as part of Trumps effort to combat crime in the city. Guard troops from Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Ohio and South Carolina have been arriving this week. A Guard all-terrain vehicle involved in a car crash Wednesday has been ticketed for running a red light, The Associated Press reported. Our priority is ensuring the well-being of all involved. We are grateful for the response of D.C. police and EMS. Safety is our top priority. We will take action based on the investigation. This type of vehicle is authorized, and safety protocols are in place, Army Col. Larry Doane, commander of the Joint Task Force, said in a statement to the AP. D.C. police data indicates violent crime has decreased 26% compared to last year. The D.C. U.S. Attorneys Office also announced in January that violent crime in the city in 2024 was at a 30-year low, citing police data. The Justice Department is investigating whether D.C. police manipulated data to make crime rates appear lower, The Washington Post reported. Trump said Friday in a post on Truth Social that there were no murders this week for the first time in memory. Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total federal takeover of the city, he said. Washington, D.C. will soon be great again!!! Georgia National Guard soldiers get off a plane at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., on Aug. 16, 2025. Georgia officials confirmed Guard troops were requested to support ICE operations at detention facilities. (Georgia National Guard) National Guard troops in at least seven states will begin a federally funded mission within the next couple weeks to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement manage its swelling population of detained migrants. The Defense Department in late July called upon 20 states to provide up to 1,700 Guard troops collectively to work within that state on case management, logistic support and clerical work to help with ICEs growing detention operations. The troops would remain under the command of the governor. The mission was initially intended for Marines and Reserve personnel but the Pentagon pulled back on that effort because the work involved close contact with detained migrants. The law allows Guard members to have that contact if they are on a state-run mission. Close contact could include personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing, photographing people in ICE custody, and adding biographical and detention data into government systems, according to the Pentagon. The Department of Homeland Security requested military support as part of President Donald Trumps crackdown on people in the United States without authorization to be in the country. It has led to an increase in arrests and people being held in detention facilities. More than 59,000 are now held in detention by ICE a record number, according to Trac Reports, which compiles statistics from Homeland Security. While the Trump administration has said it is targeting people with criminal records, Trac Reports found about 70% of detainees do not have past convictions. As of Friday, many of the selected states, all of which have a Republican governor, were in various stages of implementing orders while others had not received a request from ICE to use troops. Of those who responded to questions, most states are providing less than 100 troops for less than three months. While Vermont declined the mission, Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio and Utah said their Guard has not received or finalized a mission to support ICE. The Missouri National Guard said the governors office and the adjutant general are still reviewing ICEs request for support. Utah does not have an ICE facility and Gov. Spencer Cox said the state has offered to help transport detained personnel out of the state or provide administrative help. Were in active communication with the federal government, he said this week during a news conference. Well know in the next couple weeks what that looks like as they get more information back to us and well be able to make that decision. Florida confirmed the largest deployment among the states with 200 Guard members authorized to work at nine ICE facilities across the state. Of those, 25 members were activated Aug. 8 and a timeline for the others, including an end date, was not available Friday. The ICE facilities are located in Miami, Miramar, Jacksonville, Stuart, Tampa, Tallahassee, Plantation, Fort Myers and Orlando, according to the Florida Guard. The Virginia National Guard has tentative plans for roughly 60 soldiers and airmen to begin training for the mission by the end of August. They will be on duty by early September, according to the Virginia Guard. However, that timeline could shift, the Guard said. The Iowa National Guard will send 20 soldiers to provide clerical, administrative and logistical support between Sept. 8 and Nov. 15, the service said in a statement. In South Carolina, 40 National Guard members will assist in administrative duties with ICE, the Guard said. They will begin their work before the end of August and work through the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Wyoming will provide up to 15 Guard members within the next three weeks, according to Gov. Mark Gordon. Our Guard is our sword and shield. Members have always answered the call, and I know they will perform this mission in accordance with their oath and with the professionalism they are known for, Gordon said in a statement. Nevada approved 35 soldiers, who each volunteered for the mission, to work with ICE through Nov. 15, Gov. Joe Lombardos office said. Troops will center their work on form filling, record maintenance, call handling, bookkeeping, report preparation, case management and vehicle maintenance. Soldiers will not have direct contact with detainees, the governor said. The Idaho National Guard said it will provide 14 personnel to support clerical work in three ICE offices in the southern part of the state through Nov. 15. Georgia confirmed its troops were requested to support ICE operations but did not provide any details. Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas did not respond to questions. A Russian Ilyushin IL-20 flies over the Sea of Japan in this image released by the Japan Joint Staff on May 18, 2024. (Japan Joint Staff) North American Aerospace Command intercepted another Russian surveillance flight Thursday in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, the second such flight in the same region in two days. An Ilyushin IL-20 Coot four-engine turboprop aircraft flew through the international zone without entering either Canadian or U.S. sovereign airspace, according to a NORAD news release Thursday. NORAD dispatched an E-3 Sentry early warning and control aircraft, a KC-135 aerial refueler and two F-16 Fighting Falcons to intercept, track and monitor the IL-20, the release said. An IL-20 made a similar flight Wednesday and was tracked by NORAD in the defense zone for an hour and 12 minutes, said Canadian Armed Forces Capt. Rebecca Garand, a NORAD spokeswoman. NORAD provided no further details about Thursdays flight and did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information that evening. Russian military flights through the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone occur regularly and these two posed no threat to U.S. security, according to NORAD. The IL-20 is electronic intelligence gatherer capable of 410 mph, according to combataircraft.com The Russian aircraft flight Wednesday took the plane approximately 30 miles from St. Lawrence Island, Garand said in an email Thursday. The Bering Sea island is a U.S. territory 140 miles from Alaska and 46 miles from Russia. In that case, NORAD sortied two F-16s and one KC-135 to identify and monitor the Russian aircraft. On Tuesday, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force scrambled fighters to intercept two Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers and two fighters over the Sea of Japan, according to the Japan Joint Staff. The Russians flew from the mainland, then turned northeast to skirt Japanese territorial airspace off the coast of Sado Island, Niigata prefecture, a news release said. The Russians flight lasted from morning to afternoon. We will continue to monitor Russian military movements in the airspace surrounding Japan with great interest and will take all possible measures to ensure vigilance and surveillance, a Joint Staff spokesman said by phone Thursday. Some Japanese government officials speak to the press only on condition of anonymity. An air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, begins where sovereign airspace ends 12 nautical miles from the coastline. While not universally recognized, the zone serves as a buffer area where aircraft are expected to identify themselves for national security purposes. Russian aircraft also flew through the Alaskan zone in July. Two Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers and two Russian Su-35 Flanker fighters flew for three hours through the zone, which covers millions of square miles, including large portions of the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Sea and the northern Pacific. In April, two Tu-95 bombers, one Tu-142 F/J reconnaissance and anti-submarine plane, one A-50 Mainstay early warning plane, and two Su-35 Flanker fighters flew through the identification zone for about 2 hours over the Bering Sea. On Sept. 23, a Russian Su-35 fighter made a close pass of an American interceptor, which drew a rebuke as unsafe and unprofessional from the head of NORAD at the time. Air Force Master Sgt. Logan Ireland says options for transgender troops like himself are narrowing. (Logan Ireland) Master Sgt. Logan Ireland, a transgender airman caught in limbo after a January executive order mandated the discharge of all transgender service members, faced a critical financial decision this month. He could accept a voluntary separation from the Air Force or choose an involuntary one, which would cost him half the separation pay available to those who leave willingly. Ireland is eligible for more than $202,000 if he volunteers to leave the Air Force, or $101,000 if the service forces him out, according to pay calculations. His separation pay will be deducted from any benefits he would receive from the Veterans Administration. Theres just no good decision, he told Stars and Stripes on an Aug. 12 video call. Think of it this way, you worked for a company for 15, 17, 18, years and now youre being told, Hey, you did everything correctly to garner retirement, you did everything we asked you to do. But youre not going to be getting that pension that we promised. Sorry, he said. The options for transgender troops are narrowing, Ireland said. In addition to losing retirement pensions and other benefits, service members say their final days in the military are forced and chaotic. Ireland, of the Office of Special Investigations at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, said he applied for the Temporary Early Retirement Authority Program in May. With approval in hand on June 6, he began the process of officially retiring on Dec. 1. But on Aug. 4, the Air Force announced that transgender troops with 15 to 18 years of service no longer qualify for the program. Another memo, issued on Aug. 12, denied them the opportunity to contest their expulsion before a separation board. President Donald Trumps order expelling troops with gender dysphoria when a persons biological sex does not match their gender identity was followed by service memos mandating changes to their records to reflect their sex at birth. In some cases, this has meant adopting the opposite genders uniform and grooming standards. Some transgender service members still on duty are required to wear the uniform of their sex at birth, Ireland said. Others must cut their hair to comply with dress and appearance regulations. Those identified in this report emphasized they were speaking in their personal capacity and not on behalf of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government. The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not respond to an Aug. 11 email seeking comment. Staff Sgt. Allison Ravelli, a transgender combat medic with the Army Air Medical Research Laboratory at Fort Rucker, Ala., has been on administrative absence since May 2025. (Allison Ravelli) Staff Sgt. Allison Ravellis 3-year-old daughter will lose Tricare benefits on Feb. 1, she said on an Aug. 1 video call. The combat medic with the Army Air Medical Research Laboratory at Fort Rucker, Ala., has been on administrative absence since May. Ravelli said she has earned recognition from the research lab for her work there. On April 25, the lab celebrated her promotion on its Facebook page: Staff Sgt. Ravelli exemplifies the highest standards of the U.S. Army and the Soldiers Creed while serving at USAARL. Although she has earned numerous medical certifications, from paramedic to trauma life support, Ravelli said her goal of being commissioned in the Army Nursing Corps has evaporated. Army Staff Sgt. Boston Hanson, of the 1310 Brigade Engineer Battalion at Fort McCoy, Wis., is still working, he said by video call on July 31. Everyone in the unit has been very supportive, he said. Army Staff Sgt. Boston Hanson, who is transgender, said his command allows him to work until hes forced into administrative absence. (Boston Hanson) Hanson is required to adhere to uniform and grooming standards consistent with his sex at birth, according to an Army order, but he typically wears unisex utility uniforms to work. A 14-year solider, veteran of Afghanistan and former drill sergeant, Hanson said his command is awaiting further guidance before discharging him because, theres really not enough clarification on how to proceed. Hanson said his command allows him to work until hes forced into administrative absence. The reasoning behind it is, Well, we dont have anyone to replace you. But heres the thing: Thats not our problem we pointed that out, he said. Our problem is taking care of us at this point, getting ready for that transition into civilian life because we have to figure it out, especially for those with families. All three service members said that expelling transgender troops will affect military readiness by forcing out qualified individuals with proven service records. I, and many others like me, have put in constant hard work, constantly going above and beyond, Ravelli said. I joined the Army to give back and be the best soldier that I can be and now thats being thrown away for no reason, and I think people just dont see that. Necessary to introduce administrative liability for use of vehicles with loud exhaust systems National Police chief It is necessary to introduce administrative liability for the use of vehicles with loud exhaust systems, believes head of the National Police of Ukraine Ivan Vyhivsky. "It is necessary to introduce specific liability. We have a norm in the Administrative Code on violation of silence, but it provides for measurement with special equipment. In this regard, there are constant difficulties in recording and documenting," Vyhivsky said in a commentary to the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday. The head of the National Police emphasized that today a patrol police officer does not have the right to check the technical condition of vehicles of civilians. "If this norm were adopted, there is a corresponding bill No. 9564, which provides for a technical inspection, then with the help of special devices that police officers will have, they will be able to measure the noise level and hold the person accountable," he noted. Vyhivsky emphasized that today there is no such mechanism, although the National Police has repeatedly addressed this issue, in particular, to MPs. "At the beginning of the war, they said that the Kyiv City Administration made some decisions, but this decision does not bear responsibility," the head of the National Police added. He emphasized that taking into account enemy shelling, this issue is very important. When asked what, in his opinion, the responsibility for such violations should be, Vyhivsky noted that it should be administrative responsibility, in particular, a fine, with the seizure of the vehicle until this design feature is eliminated. Photo: https://nypost.com/ US President Donald Trump said that he would like to see a meeting between the president of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin to see what they can work out, but he would prefer not to be there. "We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together. You know, that's like oil and vinegar, a little bit. They don't get along too well for obvious reasons, but we'll see. And then we'll see whether or not I would have to be there. I'd rather not," Trump told reporters during a visit to the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. The US President added that he would prefer that they meet alone and see what they could do. However, in the meantime, he noted, they kept fighting and killing people, which he described as very stupid. He said he had thought the war would be somewhere in the middle in terms of difficulty, but it had turned out to be the hardest. Operator who was fined 30,000 for contempt of court came very close to receiving prison sentence A High Court judge has warned dodgy box streaming providers they are vulnerable to discovery and face potentially calamitous consequences if caught providing the illegal service. Mr Justice Mark Sanfey issued the warning in a ruling in which he imposed a 30,000 fine on one such operator for contempt of court. David Dunbar, of Roxborough Manor in Wexford, received the sanction for breaching orders aimed at preserving evidence of his copyright infringement and orders freezing his assets, among other directions. The court heard last month that Mr Dunbar did not comply with various orders granted to Sky UK Limited which were aimed at gathering evidence of his wrongdoing. This included a refusal to comply with an Anton Piller order, which allows for entry to private premises for the purposes of seizing evidence. Mr Dunbar had come very close indeed to being sent to prison Mr Dunbar apologised for this in an affidavit, in which he said he realised the seriousness of the matter when it was explained to him by his solicitor. The judge said he wanted to make it very clear that Mr Dunbar had come very close indeed to being sent to prison, but that he was instead imposing a fine after taking into account the overall circumstances of the matter. Mr Dunbar has already consented to a judgment of 480,000 against him in favour of Sky, which the judge said Sky was likely to execute against his assets. He also must pay Skys legal costs of about 100,000. Stock image Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd The judge said the possibility of a criminal prosecution under the Copyright and Related Rights Act could not be ruled out and that it may be anticipated the Revenue Commissioners would seek to carry out an investigation into Mr Dunbars affairs. Mr Justice Sanfey also said that while Mr Dunbar must be regarded as the sole author of his own misfortune, he was not insensible to what must be an enormous level of upheaval, upset and distress caused to Mr Dunbar due to the exposure of his activities. The judge noted that Sky was alerted to Mr Dunbars operation by means of a simple tip-off passed on by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. Mr Dunbar was described by Sky as a top-level copyright infringer Any persons currently conducting similar illegal operations, or contemplating the provision of such services in the future, should consider carefully how vulnerable such operations are to discovery and exposure, with potentially calamitous consequences for the operator, Mr Justice Sanfey said. Mr Dunbar was described by Sky as a top-level copyright infringer, who may have earned up to 450,000 a year from operating an illegal streaming service. The broadcaster alleged that Mr Dunbar provided thousands of people with access to its copyrighted broadcast material since 2018. The court previously heard that court orders were explained to Mr Dunbar in laymans terms by an independent solicitor who called to his house on foot of the Anton Piller order. Despite this, Mr Dunbar did not allow the solicitor to enter his premises, and proceeded to destroy evidence of his copyright infringement, among other breaches, the court heard. The man was detained by police outside the court building at around 1pm because of a placard he was holding following the hearing Kneecap's Liam Og O hAnnaidh is swamped by photographers as he arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court A man arrested over support for Palestine Action after Kneecap star Liam Og O hAnnaidhs case was heard in a London court has been released. The man was detained by police outside the court building at around 1pm because of a placard he was holding following the hearing. A spokesperson for the Met Police said: On Wednesday, 20 August, at 13:22hrs a man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of supporting a proscribed terrorist group, Palestine Action, in Marylebone Road, NW1. Officers carried out further enquiries, including interviewing the man in custody. After seeking early investigative advice from the CPS, a decision was made that no further action would be taken as the case did not meet the threshold for criminal charges. It comes as the Kneecap rapper faces a month-long wait to find out whether his terrorism charge will be thrown out. O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was once again greeted by hundreds of fans as he arrived at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday for a three-hour hearing. Prosecutors allege the 27-year-old, who followed some of the proceedings through an Irish interpreter, displayed a flag in support of proscribed terror organisation Hezbollah at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, in November last year. During Wednesdays hearing, his defence team argued the case should be thrown out, citing a technical error in the way the charge against him was brought. Rapper Liam Og O hAnnaidh (Mo Chara) of Kneecap arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images) Brenda Campbell KC told the court the Attorney General had not given permission for the case to be brought against the defendant when police informed him he was to face a terror charge on May 21. She said consent was given the following day, but that meant the charge falls outside of the six-month time frame in which criminal charges against a defendant can be brought. Prosecutor Michael Bisgrove said permission was not required until the defendants first court appearance and that permission did not need to be sought in order to bring a criminal charge. Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring adjourned the case until September 26, when he will rule on whether he has the jurisdiction to try the case. Hundreds of Kneecap supporters waving flags and holding banners greeted O hAnnaidh as he arrived at court alongside fellow bandmates Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh. Supporters of Kneecap's Liam Og O hAnnaidh outside Westminster Magistrates' Court. Photo: Ben Whitley/PA Wire Demonstrations in support of the rapper were organised outside the court building in London, as well as in Dublin. The Metropolitan Police imposed conditions limiting where the demonstration outside the court could take place, saying they were needed to prevent serious disruption. A man was detained by police outside the court building because of a placard he was holding following the hearing. The Met said the suspect remains in custody on suspicion of supporting proscribed terrorist group Palestine Action. Surrounded by officers, he told reporters his hand-made sign made no reference to any proscribed organisations. O hAnnaidh was swamped by photographers as he arrived, with security officers taking more than a minute to usher him into the court building. Kneecap's Liam Og O hAnnaidh, speaks to supporters as he leaves Westminster Magistrates' Court. Photo: Lucy North/PA Wire Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 21st Supporters greeted the Kneecap rapper with cheers as he made his way from a silver people carrier to the building. Following the hearing, OhAnnaidh told supporters the case was a distraction from the real story and urged everyone to continue to speak about Palestine, adding: Free Palestine. Fans held signs which read Free Mo Chara while others waved Palestine and Irish flags before the rappers arrival at court. Chants of Free, free, Mo Chara could also be heard over a megaphone, which was repeated by the crowd. Mr O Caireallain and Mr O Dochartaigh sat at the back of the courtroom with three others as O hAnnaidh confirmed his name, date of birth and address to the court at the start of the hearing. In response to the Met imposing conditions on the protest, Kneecap described the move as a calculated political decision that was designed to try and portray support for Kneecap as somehow troublesome. The court previously heard the 27-year-old defendant is well within his rights to voice his opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict, but the alleged incident at the O2 Forum was a wholly different thing. O hAnnaidh, of Belfast, is yet to enter a plea to the charge and is on unconditional bail. Heres how the hearing played out on our live blog: Former social worker accused of biting member of the public after trying to steal clothes from M&S Clodagh Byrne exposing herself at a Twelfth of July parade last year Twelfth flasher Clodagh Byrne believes she has schizophrenia and only gets in trouble when she stops taking magic mushrooms, a court has been told. The 32-year-old is accused of biting a member of the public after trying to steal clothes from a Marks and Spencer store. She was brought to court last week after being arrested following a recent republican parade in Derry Objecting to Byrne being released on bail, a police officer told Belfast Magistrates Court she had been detained over an alleged theft. She said Byrne was stopped by staff at the M&S store in Sprucefield who saw her trying to make off with clothes. She is alleged to have then become abusive, before biting a member of the public on the arm when they tried to intervene. The officer said when police tried to arrest her in Derry, she made off and changed her clothes in a Primark store. It is believed she is not living with her parents in Tyrone, as required by the terms of her bail, and may be travelling the Republic. Her barrister told the court they had been unable to get in contact with Byrne regarding court appearances because she did not have a mobile phone. Describing it as a sad case, she said there were concerns about Byrnes mental health, with the defendant believing she has schizophrenia. The lawyer added a number of the charges would ultimately be contested. She said Byrnes parents were also concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get help as it was very clear there were mental health issues at play. Clodagh Byrne exposing herself at a Twelfth of July parade last year Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Deputy District Judge John Rea said he would grant bail but wanted her parents to stand a 500 surety to guarantee she abides by the conditions. The police officer asked Judge Rea to add a ban on Byrne taking drugs, saying there is a belief her use of hallucinogenics may be behind the offending. Byrne was granted bail but tagged That prompted Byrne, who appeared via video-link from the custody suite at Strand Road police station in Derry, to interject, saying she only gets in trouble when she stops taking mushrooms to connect with the land. She added: Mushrooms dont show up on a blood test, so I could be eating away at them and you wouldnt know. Judge Rea freed Byrne, of Tullycar Road in Castlederg, on her own bail of 500 and imposed a tag along with a curfew of 10pm to 7am before adjourning the case to August 26. The case which propelled the former social worker into the headlines came after she exposed herself while walking alongside the main Twelfth parade in Belfast last year. She was filmed flashing her right breast while wearing an Orange collarette and carrying a bodhran. Byrne inside Campbell College Shortly after she posted a clip of her stunt on her Instagram account, she followed it with videos of herself cavorting naked with a man inside a classroom at Campbell College in east Belfast. In one of the clips, she says: To my people, youre not getting to come, nah, British d***heads, British f***ing w***ers. Byrne is charged with improper use of communications, trespass, indecent behaviour, outraging decency, obstructing a public procession, incitement to hatred and distributing a recording of behaviour likely to stir up hatred. When she first appeared in court last year, she told the hearing: I am deeply ashamed of myself. Im an absolute eejit who should not be flashing her breasts in public. I am deeply sorry for all the hurt I have caused, and I plan to make it up to the loyalist people by giving money as a sorry for saying that. Among the four deadly weapons seized was a fully loaded 3D printed gun as well as an unloaded high calibre assault rifle Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. GardaI are investigating if they have foiled a gangland murder after a major firearms and drugs seizure in Co Cork late last night. Two Cork criminals who are known to detectives for offences such as drug dealing and robbery were arrested at a service station in Charleville, Co Cork, at 11pm on Wednesday night. Among the four deadly weapons seized was a fully loaded 3D printed gun as well as an unloaded high calibre assault rifle. The pistols can be created using readily available materials on a standard, commercially available 3D printer. Design plans for the firearms are easily accessible online. Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. The seizure of such weapons is becoming an increasingly worrying trend for gardai especially as they have been linked to multiple recent gang related murders in Canada and other jurisdictions this year. Sources say that two known criminals linked to a criminal gang whose base is on the outskirts of Cork city are suspected of procuring the guns from a Limerick-based crime gang. A member of the Limerick gang was allegedly caught with a 3D printed gun in a separate garda operation earlier this year. This is a major capture on many levels but the fact that a loaded firearm was seized is of particular concern, a senior source told the Irish Independent. The big question is what dispute these well known criminals are involved in and that has not yet been established. This is further backing to the belief that there is long standing collusion between gangs based in Limerick and Cork cities, the source added. Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. Gardai have commended the absolutely brilliant proactive work of an armed local detective who was working on his own when he became suspicious of the occupants of the vehicle when it pulled into the petrol station. He spotted the vehicle and was rightly very suspicious back up arrived for him very quickly and the arrest and seizure operation then took place, a source explained. Gardai tonight announced details of the organised crime arrests and published photos of the seized weapons and suspected heroin seized. While on patrol last night on Wednesday 20th August 2025, Gardai from Charleville Garda Station stopped a car at a service station in Charleville, Co. Cork at approximately 11pm, a garda statement read. Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 21st During a search of the vehicle, Gardai found three firearms and ammunition. Approximately 800 worth of suspected diamorphine was also seized from the occupants of the vehicle, both men in their 30s and 40s respectively. Some of the weapons seized by Gardai during the operation. Photo: Gardai. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 21st They were arrested and conveyed to a Garda Station in Co. Cork where they are currently being detained under the provisions of Section 30 of Offenses Against the State Act, 1939. A number of follow up searches have been executed at domestic residences in Co Cork today, Thursday 21st August 2025, resulting in the seizure of further ammunition. All firearms seized will be subject to further ballistic testing and forensic analysis. All drugs seized will be forwarded to Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) for analysis, the statement ended. Cannabis and cocaine with an estimated street value of 101,000 was seized by gardai. A man is due in court later this morning after 63,000 of cash and 101,000 in drugs were seized in West Dublin on Wednesday. Officers from the Dublin Crime Response Team (DCRT) confiscated the money after searching two properties and a vehicle in the north and west of the Dublin area on Wednesday. One man was arrested in connection with this cash seizure and was taken to a Garda station in Dublin City. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd In a follow-up operation in Finglas, cannabis and cocaine with an estimated street value of 101,000 was seized. Gardai arrested a second man in connection with the Finglas seizure and he was held at a Garda station in Dublin. A garda spokesman has now confirmed the second arrested man will appear before a court later today. "The second man (40s) arrested in connection with this investigation has been charged and is due to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice (Court no.2) this morning, Friday 22nd August 2025. A car was found burnt out and is to be the subject of a Garda forensic examination. The Hiqa report had been due out in May. Above, University Hospital Limerick Gardai are investigating after a man was shot and a car rammed in Co Limerick last night. The shocking violence occurred at an area known locally as the Stoneyman, at Kilcoole, on the Rathkeale to Askeaton road, at around 6.30pm on Thursday. A car was found burnt out and is to be the subject of a Garda forensic examination. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd A man was brought to University Hospital Limerick where his injuries were described by Gardai as not life-threatening. Reliable sources said the injured man had suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and hip. A statement provided by Gardai last night said: Gardai are investigating a violent incident that occurred in Co. Limerick this evening, Thursday 21st August 2025. Gardai and emergency services received a report of a vehicle being rammed and an altercation that occurred in the townland of Kilcoole, near Rathkeale shortly after 6:30pm. A man, aged in his 40s, was transferred to University Hospital Limerick for treatment of injuries, not believed to be life-threatening at this time. Appealing for witnesses to the incident, Gardai stated: Any road users with camera footage (including dash-cam) who were travelling in the Kilcoole and greater Rathkeale areas between 6:15pm and 7:30pm on Thursday 21st August 2025 are asked to make this footage available to investigating Gardai. Anyone with information is asked to contact Newcastle West Garda Station on 069 20650 the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station. Investigations are ongoing. Firefighters received reports of the blaze at 19:31 Emergency services are at the scene of a fire at a block of flats in west Belfast. Firefighters received reports of the blaze at 19:31. At least 4 fire appliances, an aerial platform and command support unit are at the scene on the Stewartstown road. A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said that the cause has yet to be determined with no injuries known at this time. Several ambulances and police are also in attendance. Emergency services at the scene of a fire on the Stewartstown Road in West Belfast on August 20th 2025 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The road has been closed to traffic. Sinn Fein Councillor Caoimhin McCann said: Unfortunately this evening there's been a fire at one of the flats here, at the Choice Complex on the Stewartstown road. Thankfully everyone is safe and there have been no injuries. The Fire Service were first on scene along with PSNI and ambulance crew. "Hopefully well have resources moved out of the area now and return to a wee bit of normality." The PSNI and NI Ambulance Service have been contacted for comment. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 21st The capacity on the section between Malahide and Drogheda will be nearly doubled An application to extend the electrified Dart network from Malahide to Drogheda has been approved by An Coimisiun Pleanala. The capacity on the section between Malahide and Drogheda will be nearly doubled from around 4,800 to 8,000 passengers at peak hours when the project is complete. It aims to increase the peak hourly capacity and frequency on the northern route between Dublin city, Malahide, Howth and Drogheda, with the increase in services subject to demand and will be part of a separate timetable consultation process with the National Transport Authority. The planned improvements as part of DART+ Coastal North will include 37km of electrification and re-signalling of the railway line between Malahide and Drogheda MacBride Stations. There will be reconstruction of the existing track layout and associated infrastructure around Drogheda MacBride, Malahide, Clongriffin, Howth Junction and Donaghmede stations. A new platform will be established at Drogheda MacBride Station, and infrastructure to enable operational flexibility for both direct Howth to city and Howth to Howth Junction DART shuttle services as required. All civil, bridge and ancillary works will take place as necessary to accommodate the project, along with the improvement of Howth Junction and Donaghmede stations. There will also be modifications made to Fairview and Drogheda train depots to support the new train fleet and a reconfiguration of the track layout north of Malahide to provide a train turnback facility that does not move rail operations nearer to adjacent residences. The procurement process will now commence for design and build contractors, a spokesperson for Irish Rail said. A period of detailed design and construction will both follow. "Subject to funding being allocated it is anticipated that construction will be in the region of three years, they added. Iarnrod Eireann chief executive Jim Meade said today is a great day for the communities of north Dublin and Louth as the provision of Dart services will transform commuting for the existing and new communities along this railway corridor. "It will make travelling with us more sustainable, more frequent and more reliable, he said. "This is the third DART+ project to receive planning. DART+ West Railway Order was granted in July 2024 and DART+ South West was granted In November 2024. Work is underway on preliminary design for DART+ Coastal South and for DART+ Depot. "The DART+ programme, when delivered will truly revolutionise commuting in the Greater Dublin Area and assist in meeting Irelands climate action targets by reducing reliance on the private car and providing sustainable high frequency, high capacity transport. Hugh Creegan from the National Transport Authority said the approval of the project is a significant milestone in the transformation of rail services in the Greater Dublin Area and for the communities across North Dublin, East Meath, and Louth. "This is more than about infrastructure. It is about connecting growing communities with sustainable, frequent and reliable transport that supports local development and helps reduce car dependency. "Reaching this milestone marks an important step in delivering a better-connected public transport for the region." Minister for Transport Darragh OBrien welcomed the decision, which enables overhead electric wires to be extended from Malahide to Drogheda and will facilitate a significant improvement in train capacity and frequency on the Northern commuter line, following project procurement and construction. Stock image Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 21st The alleged assault took place on Dublin Street in Kildare town with any witnesses urged to come forward to gardai Gardai are appealing for witnesses to come forward Gardai in Co Kildare are investigating an alleged assault that saw two men attacked by a large group of males in the early hours of the morning in Kildare town. The alleged assault took place on Dublin Street in Kildare town at approximately 1.20am on Sunday, August 17. During the course of the violent incident, two men, both aged in their 30s, reported being assaulted by a large group of ten or more males. Gardai are appealing for witnesses to come forward Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd One of the men who reported being assaulted was brought to Naas General Hospital in Kildare with injuries that are understood to be non-life-threatening. Gardai in Kildare have appealed to anyone who may have witnessed this incident to contact them. "Any pedestrians or other road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were in the area between 1.00am and 2.00am on August 17 are asked to make this footage available to investigating Gardai, said a garda spokesperson. Anyone with information is asked to contact Kildare Garda Station on 045 527730, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station. The Mayo cottage once owned by the maternal grandmother of Oasis stars Noel and Liam Gallagher is on the market The cottage has been recently renovated and features an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area. Photo: DNG Cyril Burke. The two-bedroom cottage that had once belonged to the late Margaret Sweeney, was listed for sale this morning. Photo: DNG Cyril Burke. Mayo fans are hoping the famous duo will be spotted in the county after having played two sold out shows in Croke Park last weekend. A two-bedroom cottage near Charlestown which once belonged to the late Margaret Sweeney, grandmother to the rock and roll icons Noel and Liam Gallagher, has gone up for sale. The Gallagher brothers are said to have spent many childhood summers there and have often spoken fondly of their Mayo roots. Even after finding fame, they continued visiting their grandmother until her passing in 2000. Mayo fans are hoping the famous duo will be spotted in the county after having played two sold out shows in Croke Park last weekend. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd The recently renovated cottage, in Sonnagh, Charlestown, has gone on the market with an asking price of 350,000. Set on six acres with the Sonnagh River running through the grounds, the property features c. 900 sq ft of living space, including an entrance hall that leads into an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area, two double bedrooms and two shower rooms. The master bedroom includes an ensuite. The two-bedroom cottage that had once belonged to the late Margaret Sweeney, was listed for sale this morning. Photo: DNG Cyril Burke. The property is described as ideal for anyone looking for a link to the musical legend that is Oasis. Alternatively it is said to be an ideal holiday home, as the property description put it: imagine the guests excitement to stay where the Gallagher brothers spent their childhood summers. The cottage is located roughly 10km from Knock Airport and is within walking distance of the centre of Charlestown. Oasis recently played two sold-out nights at Croke Park. During one of the shows, Liam paid tribute to Charlestown, dedicating the bands hit single Roll With It to the Mayo town. Is anyone here from Charlestown? he asked the 80,000-strong crowd, before joking, Theres only about five people there, you cant all be from there. He also dedicated the song Stand By Me to his mother Peggy, who was in the crowd. I wanna play this one to me mam, he told the cheering fans. Peggy Gallagher herself grew up in Sonnagh, living there for 18 years before emigrating to Manchester in search of better opportunities during Irelands economically difficult years. News of the sale has stirred excitement in the town, with residents hoping the famous brothers might return to Charlestown. Some fans have already made their way to Mayo this week, eager for a glimpse of the brothers. The two-bedroom property has been listed for 350,000. Photo: DNG Cyril Burke. On Tuesday, the Irish Independent reported that a private plane coming from Dublin had landed at Ireland West Knock airport, fuelling speculation that the Gallaghers had touched down in Mayo. While the pair have yet to be spotted, fans are hopeful they will make an appearance before heading to Toronto, where Oasis are due to perform on Sunday, August 24. The sale is being handled by Castlebar-based auctioneers DNG Cyril Burke, along with DNG Country Homes & Estates, and Hamptons International. Local auctioneer Cyril Burke said the company is delighted that the owner came to them to market the property. The cottage has been recently renovated and features an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area. Photo: DNG Cyril Burke. We certainly are making every effort to give it the exposure it deserves as its a fabulous property and has a wonderful history where the Gallagher brothers of Oasis fame enjoyed a welcoming childhood with their family in the past, which they have never failed to highlight. Rumours are spreading that the brothers might already be in the West of Ireland. Charlestown is waiting eagerly for their return. Whether Noel and Liam will be spotted walking down the street, or venturing into a local pub for a pint remains to be seen. Residents and fans are watching closely, hoping Mayo might once again welcome home its favourite Manchester pair. This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. Zaporizhia NPP has been connected to one external power line for more than three months, which is the longest period of time when there was no backup line at the site, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported. "The ZNPP has been connected to a single off-site power line for over three months. The IAEA teams will continue to monitor the external power situation, which continues to be extremely fragile. This is now the longest period of time when the site has not had a back-up power line," the agency said. "At Ukraines three operating NPPs, two of their nine reactors are shut down for maintenance and refuelling, which includes work on some off-site power lines. Over the past weekend, two reactor units had their power levels reduced due to grid limitations. Both have since returned to nominal power levels," it said. "Over the weekend, the IAEA team based at the ZNPP was informed of a newly constructed dam to isolate one of ZNPPs channels from its cooling pond. This channel currently supplies water for the cooling of several plant systems, such as unit transformers that provide power to the sites six reactor units, which is needed for the operation of their safety systems," the report reads. "The IAEA team has also been informed that the site is pumping water from the cooling pond into the isolated part of this channel and that the current water level in the channel is more than a meter above the point where cooling pumps would cease to operate," it reads. "Over the past week, the IAEA team at the ZNPP reported hearing military activities almost every day, and the IAEA teams present at the Khmelnytsky, Rivne and Pivdennoukrainsk NPPs and the Chornobyl NPP site heard air raid alarms nearly every day, as well," the agency noted. A local councillor said the community had been left reeling A man who died following a stabbing in west Belfast last night has been named locally as Shane Lowry. Police remain at the scene in the Mulberry Park area of Twinbrook where cordons are still in place following the incident on Thursday night. A death notice for Mr Lowry said he died suddenly. "Beloved son of Breda and Marty. He will be sadly missed by all his family and friends, said the notice. "Funeral arrangements to follow. Deeply regretted by his entire family circle. Shane Lowry The PSNI has confirmed a murder investigation is now underway and that a man in his 30s has been arrested. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips, from the PSNIs Major Investigation Team said police were alerted to the incident at 8.15pm. Officers attended, along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. "Sadly, he was pronounced dead. "A man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. At this time, we are not seeking anyone else in connection with this investigation. We would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the incident, to contact us on 101 quoting reference number 1633 21/08/25. Police at the scene in the Broom Park area of Twinbrook. Photo by Kevin Scott A spokesman for the NI Ambulance Service (NIAS) said: The NIAS received a 999 call at 8.15pm on Thursday. NIAS despatched two emergency crews to the incident. Following assessment and initial treatment at the scene one patient was taken to Royal Victoria Hospital. Forensic officers spent most of the night working at the back of a small bungalow that straddles Broom Park and Mulberry Park. Just yards away residents told the Belfast Telegraph how their children were in the street as the incident unfolded. One woman who didnt want to be named said: My wee ones were out playing beside the shop at the time. The youngest wee girl came in here in hysterics, she was shouting a guy was stabbed when I got outside I saw cops arriving and putting a man in handcuffs. Some of them [police] were wearing balaclavas and had guns out, it was really scary. Another resident told the Belfast Telegraph: I have lived in this area all my life, its never usually too bad, the young ones all hang about there beside the shop where this happened, they do no harm, its them having to see this I feel sorry for. A large cordon remains in place this morning with forensic officers expected to return to the scene later today Police at the scene in the Broom Park area of Twinbrook in west Belfast. Photo by Kevin Scott Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker said there was shock in the area. This is absolutely tragic, and I want to extend my thoughts and condolences to the deceased mans family and friends," he said. There is a great deal of shock and sadness in our community this morning at this news. The PSNI has confirmed that a man has been arrested in connection with the incident. Anyone with information should come forward. I am encouraging people not to engage in speculation and to allow police time and space to complete their investigation. Local SDLP councillor Paul Doherty said there is a sense of disbelief in the local community. This is a shocking incident where a man has lost his life and the local community has been left reeling, he added. My thoughts are with the loved ones of the deceased and everyone who has been affected by this incident. Nobody wants to wake up to something like this on their doorsteps, but I would ask people to support police as they carry out their investigation into what happened here. I commend their quick response. I would urge anyone with any further information to come forward to police. It comes as a blaze broke out in a block of flats just five minutes away on the Stewartstown Road. A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said the cause of the fire has yet to be determined with no injuries reported. Fr Sean McManus was part of a campaign to get American companies to do business fairly in Northern Ireland. Campaigning cleric Fr Sean McManus revealed this week how he was branded a Provo priest after he launched a campaign to get fair employment in Northern Ireland. The Fermanagh-born Redemptorist told of the hurt caused by the whispering campaign which was used to discredit the MacBride Principals, which he successfully got American companies to embrace. The MacBride Principles named by Fr McManus after Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean MacBride were a set of nine industrial relation standards that US companies were asked to sign up to. However, the Principles provoked an immediate and angry reaction from unionists and others who branded Fr McManus a Provo fellow traveller. Criticism of him and his growing influence on Washingtons Capitol Hill was relentless. This was all going on behind my back. It was aimed at closing us down before we got started, Fr McManus said this week. Now 81 and back on the Fermanagh farm where he was born and brought up during World War Two, Fr McManus took time out from visiting family and friends to speak with the Sunday World. And he recalled when he first became aware of how the British Secret Service used black propaganda to smear anyone it perceived as a political threat. We knew this was the type of thing the British engaged in, he said. Former IRA vol Patrick McManus on a plaque. But Fr McManus was appalled to learn some senior Irish politicians had also stooped to using the same tactics as a means of attacking his character. In particular a senior figure in Irish diplomacy was telling anyone whod listen that I was a Provo priest, he said. In the late 1970s, Fr McManus established the Irish National Caucus (INC), a human rights organisation which lobbied American politicians on Washingtons Capitol Hill. It focused on employment practices in Northern Ireland, where many American companies had financial interests. From the beginning, the INC nailed its colours to the mast: It was non-violent, non-partisan and non-sectarian. And it didnt support any group or party anywhere in Ireland. And it wasnt a support group for any organisation involved in violence in Northern Ireland. All of its funds were spent lobbying politicians and large companies based in the United States, but with business interests in Northern Ireland. From its office on Capitol Hill, the Irish National Caucus set out to enlighten American politicians to the reality of business and economics in Northern Ireland. Fr Sean McManus Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd One of its primary functions was to highlight employment practices which openly used religious and cultural bias as a means of denying an applicant a job. The INC revealed that employment practices outlawed in America many years ago were still in place in Northern Ireland. And Fr McManus said he also came under intense pressure from some Irish politicians not to raise the matter at all, but he point-blank refused. We started by making contact with minor American politicians and gradually worked our way up until we were invited into the Oval Office at the White House, said Fr McManus. He added: In the end, we succeeded in getting the MacBride Principles passed into American law. But Fr McManuss difficulties with the British Establishment began long before he ever set foot on America. As an Irish Redemptorist priest working in England at the outbreak of the Troubles, he was often asked for his views, which were heavily critical of the unionist regime at Stormont. Irish Caucus Press Conference at Europa Hotel. But he was unaware a fellow Redemptorist colleague had contacted MI5, suggesting that they might like to keep an eye on him as he was espousing subversive views. I later learned MI5 signed up this priest as an agent and it was at that point I decided I would be better off working on the other side of the Atlantic, Fr McManus said. Sean McManus was born 81 years ago in the Fermanagh parish of Kinawley, a few miles from the border with the Republic which had been created just 20-odd years earlier. And he has often spoken about the devastating effect partition had on his home area. Can you imagine how local people felt to wake up one morning to discover that much of their natural hinterland now formed part of another country? It was destabilising for everyone around here, he said. In 1971, Fr McManus intervened in a street disturbance in Enniskillen when he objected to RUC officers beating a young boy. He was arrested and later appeared in court on a public order offence and was fined 20. McManus gave a stirring speech for the dock, stating he didnt recognise the court, which he insisted had been imposed on the people of Ireland. However, as the years passed, Fr McManus modified his views and lent his support to the Good Friday Agreement. But he continued to lobby for change, which saw him meeting many well-known unionist politicians and even paramilitary figures. I met them all, he says. From Gusty Spence to Billy Hutchinson and I got on well with them. One said to me, There was a time when I wanted to see you down the sight of my rifle! Fr McManus also has a firm memory of the last time he met the Reverend Ian Paisley. As First Minister, Ian Paisley was in America with Martin McGuinness. And when they had finished speaking, Paisley caught my attention. Ill always remember it, because it was the first time he had addressed me as Father McManus. Paisley said to me, It was just saying to the wife on the plane coming over, I wonder if well meet Father McManus. The Northern Ireland First Minister was seated on an elevated platform and to get closer to him, Fr McManus knelt on it. Martin McGuinness passed by and said, Ive seen it all now, Sean McManus kneeling before Ian Paisley! The McManus family are steeped in the Kinawley area of Fermanagh. Fr McManuss solicitor brother Frank served as Unity MP for the area at the start of the Troubles. And during the IRA border campaign of the 1950s, Sean McManus lost his 29-year-old brother Patrick. Patrick, who was on the IRA Army Council, died in a premature explosion near Swanlinbar in Co. Cavan in 1958. A small stone monument to Patricks memory has been erected on the side of the road leading to the McManus family farm. I often think about my brother Patrick. I was still a teenager in 1955 when he called the family together to tell us he was leaving to take part in the IRA border campaign. But two and a half years later he was dead, said Fr McManus. And reflecting on Patrick, he added: But times have changed and Im glad we succeeded in getting the MacBride Principles passed into US law. The lighthouse has been a beacon for seafarers in Co Down for more than 180 years. Eileen Peters and Imelda Keeling, two of the team trying to save the St John's Point lighthouse light. Campaigners trying to save an historic lighthouse have accused a council of keeping them in the dark over their controversial plans. Earlier this year we highlighted a ten-year campaign by locals fighting to protect the heritage of the historic St Johns Point lighthouse near Killough, Co Down. Proposals to replace the looming bulb with an LED have been fought for as long as the Commissioners of Irish Lights (CIL) have been planning to do it. The lighthouse has been a beacon for seafarers for more than 180 years including the Titanic which sailed past it but after another report supporting the changes, campaigners fear they are fighting a losing battle. Campaigner at Lecale Lightkeepers Eileen Peters told the Sunday World this week: The process so far has shown a disappointing lack of transparency and a perceived conflict of interest, raising serious questions about the motivation for change. Eileen Peters and Imelda Keeling, two of the team trying to save the St John's Point lighthouse light. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd The councils refusal of a Freedom of Information request for correspondence with Irish Lights/CIL only deepens public concern. They are keeping us in the dark. The historic light must be retained and maintained for the benefit of mariners, the local communities and future generations. The council, already under scrutiny for the failed Newcastle Gondola project, is being urged to reconsider its role in this process. Lecale Lightkeepers demand a halt to the proposal and full disclosure of all discussions and affiliations influencing the planning decision. The beam at St Johns Point is more than light it is memory, history and a symbol of place. Once gone, it cannot be restored. Mariners with decades of experience have warned that replacing it could put lives at risk. St Johns Point is one of 70 lighthouses around Ireland operated by CIL and is also one of 12 lighthouses that make up an all-island tourism initiative called the Great Lighthouses of Ireland, as is noted on their website. The proposed works put forward by the Commissioner of Irish Lights include removing the mercury from the site (which currently makes the light rotate) and replacing the existing 180-year-old light source with a low-energy LED one. The reason for this is they say the mercury that holds the current light in place is potentially toxic to people and would be a concern if plans to build tourist facilities, including a coffee shop, that will attract a massive increase in tourists to the beauty spot. Billed as an engineering upgrade, CIL insists the work, which includes replacing a 1,000-watt high energy lamp with a 90 watt LED bulb, is necessary and will improve reliability. In addition, the commissioners say the existing high-energy lamp will soon become unavailable due to energy efficiency regulation changes which will make it impossible to source. Campaigners against the replacement of the bulb and other work at the lighthouse fear they are losing the battle after a report carried out by consultants on behalf of CIL was presented to planners last month. The six-page report is in response to issues raised by the Department for Communities Historic Environment Division but campaigners say theres nothing new in it and have raised concerns of conflict of interest and transparency. They remain angry at promises made by councillors, who backed and passed a motion in 2018 to preserve the lighthouse in its current form, are being broken. Campaigner George H Smyth said: It is saddening to think that our beloved lighthouse at St Johns Point has now become the victim of reneged promises and a lack of transparency on the part of Newry Mourne and Down Council. A mandate was set in place unanimously by the council in 2018 to preserve the iconic sweeping beam for future generations. This seems to have been cast aside in favour of a misguided and financially aided race towards modernisation. The council has refused to answer FoIs regarding its correspondence with CIL. There is also a perceived conflict of interest at play between the council and the commissioners. A recently announced amendment to the planning application has become shrouded in mystery and confusion, with no real explanation being given as to its nature. What a crying shame to see St Johns Point Lighthouse embroiled in such unfair play. The council said: Newry, Mourne and Down District Council is currently in receipt of a Listed Building Consent application in relation to St Johns Point Lighthouse. We are therefore not in a position to provide a comment at this time. Details of the FOI process and how to appeal a decision can be found on the Councils website. Cordons remain in place following the incident in the Mulberry Park area. Police and forensics at the scene of serious incident in Twinbrook A murder investigation has been launched after a man was stabbed in west Belfast. The PSNI said the incident happened on Thursday evening and one man has been arrested. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips said: We received a report at around 8.15pm that a man aged in his 30s had been stabbed in the Mulberry Park area of Dunmurry. Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Officers attended, along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. Sadly, he was pronounced dead. A man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. At this time, we are not seeking anyone else in connection with this investigation. We would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the incident, to contact us on 101 quoting reference number 1633 21/08/25. Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker said there was shock and sadness in the local community following the death. He said: This is absolutely tragic, and I want to extend my thoughts and condolences to the deceased mans family and friends. There is a great deal of shock and sadness in our community this morning at this news. Mr Baker added: The PSNI has confirmed that a man has been arrested in connection with the incident. Anyone with information should come forward. I am encouraging people not to engage in speculation and to allow police time and space to complete their investigation. Coughlan accuses U2s frontman of protecting his interests with Insta post Aid is dropped in to starving Gazans who, below, wait for help to arrive and, bottom, Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City this week Mary Coughlan has thrown down the gauntlet to Bono by goading him to fly to Gaza and see first-hand the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israels armed forces. Furious Mary is angry about a statement issued by U2 last Sunday in which, for the first time in the near two-year conflict, the band addressed the crisis in Gaza. I think its too little, I think its too late and I think it was very, very measured the way they said it, especially Bonos statement, she rages. It was putrid and pathetic. I think The Edge said it a bit more honestly, I was surprised. I thought Larry Mullen would have been a bit more, you know... they didnt condemn. Bono It was an Instagram post for f**ks sake. They are still protecting their interests, he is [Bono]. I think the whole thing that struck me from their Instagram post was that he justified what the Israeli government are doing. Bono previously condemned the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. In their statement last Sunday, The Edge was strongest in his condemnation of Israeli policy, describing it as ethnic cleansing, while Bono urged Israelis to turn their back on war hawk prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bono's statement It was like AI did it [the Instagram post], argues Mary. He [Bono] carefully skirted around the problem that there is a Zionist, colonialist regime in place in Israel and its taking over another population, another ethnicity, another country. They are starving them to death. Its a f**king holocaust. In an interview last year with the Sunday World, Mary highlighted an article in Forbes magazine listing U2s links with several Israeli companies, including one which is involved with its military and which supplies technology for U2 concerts. He has the ear of every head of state. He could have easily have said something meaningful 18 months ago. I bet he hasnt pulled his money out, fumes Mary, who hails from Galway and now lives in Co Wicklow. The night they did a concert, and its there, its everywhere, he abhors what Hamas did to the children of Abraham, and he is a Zionist, colonialist f**king mentality, thats what he has adhered himself to for years, you dont have to do too much digging. When its pointed out to her that Bono is a Christian and an expert on the Bible and its scripture, which is what he is referencing with children of Abraham, she replies: Yeah, thats the scripture he preaches. But that hardly makes him a Zionist? The Edge Well, my head is spinning about it. He could have done something sooner, but as far as Im concerned he did do something sooner, he said f**k the Palestinians, and made the comment about the children of Abraham, 1,000 children of Abraham were slaughtered tonight, she maintains. Thats what the statement (last Sunday) was from U2, a propaganda piece, and it was carefully curated. It was almost like a robot wrote it and they said all the right things about starving children, and they said nothing of consequence about Netanyahu and his policies. They really didnt, if you look at it. A little bit here and a little bit there, and it was in four different pieces [by each band member]. Mary agrees Bob Geldof was also quite late in condemning the slaughter in Gaza, but concedes that he went on television to blast Israel over the slaughter of more than 60,000 civilians. Singer Mary Coughlan Today's News in 90 Seconds - August 22nd Geldof was criticised heavily and I had spoken to Pete Briquette [Boomtown Rates bass player] because we all did a festival last year and I said why are ye not speaking. He has come out now, hes on television about it, she reflects. I dont know what to say. What is the difference between a starving Ethiopian baby and a starving Gazan baby? The difference is Israel. The difference is f**king money and Bonos interests, God forgive me, and the interests of his tech and his livelihood, which is a lot of money invested in Israeli companies and America. He knows everybody. Jesus, hes been introduced to everybody in the world, presidents and popes. He could have done something so long ago, a year ago, which would have meant something. Mary points out previous conflicts U2 have got involved in, from the Bosnian war in the 1990s to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He should go there [to Gaza] and see at first hand the devastation the Israelis are inflicting on the people there, she says. Slaughtering The f**ker would let him in, Netanyahu. They [Bono and The Edge] went to an underground station and did a song there. Aid is dropped in to starving Gazans who, below, wait for help to arrive and, bottom, Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City this week . . Now he has a book out and a play and it was the first thing that came into my head, Jeez it must be doing very well for them. Its a piece of propaganda. Mary, famous for songs such as Ancient Rain and Id Rather Go Blind, lauds Irish acts such as Kneecap, Fontaines DC, Hozier and Steve Wall of The Stunning for blasting the genocide. Kneecap have it, and they have the whole thing about the colonialists, and they have explained it very well in several of their interviews, she notes. But they have a very young audience. I love them. My son edited their film. But its a young audience. U2, especially him, have the ear of so many presidents and the Pope, and bloody everybody in America. Here we are, over two years later. Its in our pockets every day, its on the television every night, its in our Instagram, its in our Facebook, its on every single newspaper and television, f**king slaughtering journalists, babies. Trauma Its a f**king holocaust. Theyre just perpetrating on other people what was done to them. The other thing you have to remember is that when people are oppressed and starved, and murdered, and all those young people that grew up without parents and brothers and sisters, the hurt that goes on. The trauma. Its generations now of trauma. Mary herself has been told first hand accounts of the slaughter in Gaza, which has given her nightmares. I did a gig in Howth three weeks ago. I spoke to a woman. I gave her a lift back to Bray, a doctor around my own age, who has been working for years all over the world, Medicins San Frontieres, and she told me stories. She was just back, she gave a short talk at the gig, and I brought her back to Bray, and I couldnt sleep all night, she recalls. Everything she told me that she had seen kept replaying in my head, and they were in pictures. Warren McCook has been excited to take on the opportunity of playing a villian in In Flight. Warren McCook In Flight on set, Katherine Kelly on right, he doesn't have names for the other two women Warren McCook relished his role as a bad guy in new Channel 4 drama In Flight. And hes praised star Katherine Kelly for leading the cast in the new series, filmed largely in Belfast. Former Corrie and Happy Valley star Katherine plays a flight attendant in the gripping crime drama blackmailed into drug smuggling by a gang threatening to harm her son, whos in jail in Bulgaria for a crime he didnt commit. Hope Street actor Warren says lead actors set the tone on set, and Katherine was amazing. In one of the scenes I had with her the character is in a high stress state and initially there wasnt too much conversation because she was staying in the feeling of it, says the 28-year-old. As she went through the scenes she was able to relax, and shes so lovely and friendly. She was very reassuring, and shed say youre doing a good job. Its really nice to work with someone like that. She was a darling. Hughs hobby led to him setting up @historicireland on TikTok He had a blast on the show, playing villain Rory who roughs up Katherines characters son. Rory definitely falls into the bad category, which is more fun as an actor. Hes part of a group of lads involved in the mistreatment of her son, and hes moody and menacing for the majority of the role, and then she surprises us all. Warren, from Ballymoney was asked to adopt an English accent for his role and says hes thankful he didnt get asked for any pointers from Scottish actor Stuart Martin, who took on a gravelly Belfast accent for the blockbuster six-part drama. If I speak in my normal accent no one understands what I say anyway, he says. And I didnt get any complaints about my English accent. The NI Screen-backed drama was shown for the cast and crew in Belfast on Thursday night. It has a strong vein of local talent including director Chris Baugh, who made Wreck and The Boys from County Hell, producer Brendan Mullin who worked on Bad Day for the Cut, composer James Everett who supplied the music, and Bronagh Waugh of The Fall and Ridley fame. Cormac (Stuart Martin) Warren and Bronagh worked together on Art Detectives, a locally filmed UK-set crime drama with Sexy Beast actor Stephen Moyer which has been a hit in North America but hasnt been shown in the UK yet. I know Bronagh from it and shes a gem, he says. We also had a fantastic lead on that, Stephen who is one of the nicest guys. He was generous and kind to the cast and crew and in my experience that vibe has a trickledown effect to the whole production. It was very similar in Hope Street when Niall Wright was really welcoming. Were all hoping for a second series of Art Detectives and its very strange when people from America are getting in touch with me about it, and it hasnt been shown here yet. Warren had a similar experience after his lead role in The Glenarma Tapes, a found-footage horror set in a remote forest on the north coast, where a group of students mysteriously vanish. It won the Belfast Film Festival Best Picture in 2022 and its already been released in the US and Japan. Hed already worked with the films villain, Steven Calvert on The White Handkerchief, a play based on the events of Bloody Sunday, when Warren played William McKinney alongside Steven as Soldier F, whos currently facing two murder charges, including the killing of William. His trial is expected to start in September. The play is returning to the Millennium Forum in January and Warren hopes hell be working with the same cast. He was given a plaque by the McKinney family as thanks for playing the role and says it was like winning a Bafta. Im really excited about that. Its very intense but weve all done the roles before. Sometimes you have a feeling of I wish I could go back and do that again and Im getting that chance, he says. In Flight is available now to watch on-demand on Channel 4. Celebrating the connection and joy it brings to families and some big anniversaries Katikati Mainly Music is having a birthday party this Saturday, and the community is invited. This year Mainly Music celebrates 35 years since its inception at Hillsborough Baptist Church (now Hills Church) back in 1990 by Auckland mother Jo Hood. The programme, which connects parents and caregivers with preschoolers through music and play, aims to foster early literacy, numeracy and social skills while providing a supportive community for families. Katikati Mainly Music team leader Cheryl Harray said today her group is one of 207 clubs in New Zealand, 369 in Australia, 79 in the UK and eight in other places. Thats a total of more than 650 groups worldwide! Katikati Mainly Music meets on Fridays during school terms from 9.30am-11am at St Pauls Presbyterian Church, Mulgan St, with a 30-minute music session followed by eat/play/chat. To mark the programmes 35-year NZ anniversary, 25 years in Australia, 20 in the UK plus Katikatis Mainly Musics 22nd birthday Harrays team of volunteers will host a birthday party from 3pm-4.30pm August 23 at St Pauls Presbyterian Church. It would be great to see old faces, and whole families come and celebrate with us, said Harray. Katikati Mainly Music team leader Cheryl Harray with Jade Aitchison-Budd, 4, Trident Spick, 4. Photo /Merle Cave She was team leader for her church in Dunedin for 10 years before moving to Katikati three years ago for a break. I thought Id just help out when needed but then Kay Frith [the ministers wife who ran Katikati Mainly Music] left. What keeps pulling Harray back into the fold is the connecting she witnesses. Its about creating a joyful community of belonging. You see it at all levels, from the children knowing whats to be sung next and making friends, to parents joining in and talking to each other, to our volunteers loving the young ones running around. Harray said Hood is still the movements visionary leader, but had relocated to Melbourne after MM took off across the ditch. She began Mainly Music after being in a music group that became serious. She thought there must be room for a fun music time where mums, dads and children could connect with one another. She was right. Katikati Mainly Music has 20 families attending weekly. Lots have more than one child, so we probably have about 40 children on our roll. The morning begins with families entering and children picking out their entry cards to receive a sticker . Once theyve visited 10 times theyre presented their full card as a celebration of their effort. Then families dance to 30 minutes of music, led by Harray, with props used frequently to entice imaginations. Today we used scarves, bean bags and the rainbow ring a big stretchy loop of material, which the kids love to stretch out and let go! Parents, once they know the songs, come out of their shells and start dancing and singing too. Afterwards, families are served a light morning tea. Children sit on a mat with biscuits, fruit and water; parents at tables with cuppas and home-baked goods courtesy of church members. Harray has a team of 15 volunteers. They serve in the kitchen, help in the session, give out props, man the entry desk, etc you need quite a few people. Throughout, connections are made organically. Children dance and play together, parents chat, get to know one another, or share parenting tips. Harray said volunteers also get a lot back. One newbie said: This is my happy place! They love serving, being able to help, and talk to parents. They also love to watch the children learn and grow its a place for them to belong and serve with their own skills and personality. Harray said Mainly Music is held in churches worldwide but people should know that everyone is welcome no matter their religious or cultural background. We share a few God-themed songs but its more fun songs for children. Nothing is forced on anyone, and all beliefs are respected. Its just about honouring parents and celebrating families. Harray said parenting is not an easy gig sometimes parents turn up sleep-deprived or in despair. Weve had people come almost in tears and they havent had time for breakfast. Well get them a hot drink, something to eat and look after their children to get them on the steady again. And yay for them for coming! Because sometimes it is too hardWere real, theyre real and we can help in practical ways if they need it. Katikati Mainly Music was started by Jane Cross and then-ministers wife, Sue McCauley, at St Pauls. Following them, families pastor Kate Burton took over. But Rae Buchanan is the stalwart of Katikati Mainly Music, said Harray, who took over from Kay Frith. Ive invited all past volunteers and leaders I could contact for Saturdays party and we invite present and former MM families to join the fun too! Or visit Mainly Music on Fridays. Entry is $3 per child, $5 per family, or a concession card. The first time is always free. Find out more at: https://mainlymusic.org.nz/pages/join-us-for-mainly-music For the first time in more than 40 years, the United States Air Force's largest plane has returned to New Zealand. The behemouth aircraft - the C-5M Super Galaxy - landed at Auckland's Whenuapai airbase last night, delivering the first components for a new C-130J Hercules simulator. The aircraft's wingspan is 67.89 metres and has a maximum take-off weight of just over 381 tonnes. The C-5M Super Galaxy is the US Air Force's largest plane. Photo: Marika Khabazi NZ Defence Force Auckland base commander Group Captain Brett Clayton said the plane's arrival was a great opportunity for the defence force. "The relationship between the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the United States Air Force, and their respective governments, is very strong at the moment and we simply would not have been able to bring out this piece of capability without that relationship. "These aircraft are in hot demand right around the world and so, for us to actually operate, have the ability to bring out the simulator via two missions - one today and then there'll be a further one next week - is really important and means a lot to us," Clayton said. A second delivery for the remaining components of the flight simulator will arrive next week. Photo: Marika Khabazi While the remaining parts for the full-motion flight simulator will arrive next week, he said the technology was expected to be ready for use next year. "The great thing about having a simulator here in New Zealand is that no longer will our crews have to go to the United States to train, and so the primary reason why we have the simulators is to do the initial pilot training, to do procedures that are just too dangerous to conduct in the aircraft and any of our current training that we do from time to time. "The last piece, I suppose, which is really important for us having a simulator here in New Zealand is that we can start to do full mission rehearsal. "Before our crews will deploy on any mission, we can load the environment, we can load weather, and so they can actually go and practice their mission in a safe environment, before they actually go and execute it in the aircraft," Clayton said. In December, the last of five new C-130J Hercules arrived in New Zealand to replace the C-130H Hercules that had been the workhorse of the Royal New Zealand Air Force for 60 years. Clayton said the overall C-130J package is $1.5 billion and the flight simulator is part of that. The C-5M Super Galaxy's nose door deployed. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi For the American crew of the C-5M Super Galaxy, this was their first time on New Zealand soil. US Air Force Technical Sergeant Jeremy Bennett said, after 11 years working on the plane, it had a distinctive charm. "Not many aircraft have flight engineers on them anymore," he said. "This is one of the two aircraft in the air force that still has them, so it's my favorite aircraft - it's the only one I've ever been on. "During my training, I got to be on one and it was love at first sight, the moment I stepped foot on it. "It's just so big. You get on and it's the biggest one - it's not the second-biggest or the third-biggest. "Every plane has its own personality. Some are a bit more finicky and touchy than others, but once you get them going, they just move and move and move - they're really fantastic." "Getting on it and just seeing all the crew roles come together to mesh to really be part of essentially launching a building with wings into the sky is just something special that you don't get to do anywhere else," Bennett said. US Air Force Lieutenant Sean Murray put into perspective just how big the C-5M Super Galaxy was. "When the C-5 was designed, it was designed to take the original C-130, if you took the wings off and put it inside, and it would just come straight out," he said. "You can move an entire C-130 inside of a C-5, if you take the wings off. He said the aircraft had plenty of room for cargo and crew, with three lavatories and galleys, each with an oven and fridge. "Up in the flight deck, there's actually a lot more room. "Typically, we came down here with 14 crew. We have 25 spots, so you end up getting a lot of room and we have six bunks. "We have his-and-her throttles up there, so there's a lot of room separated even between the pilots. It's actually pretty comfy up there and it's a really nice plane to fly." The C-5M Super Galaxy will remain at Whenuapai until Friday, when it'll return to the United States, via Hawaii. JOSE LUIS PIEDRA Seville Friday, 22 August 2025, 19:14 Share Andalucia's public healthcare service (SAS) is to allocate 533 million euros to contracts with private healthcare companies to carry out surgical interventions in order to reduce waiting lists across the region. The SAS has already awarded 38 companies and 50 healthcare centres and hospitals a contract to take on these operations starting in September, for which it will spend 231 million euros over the next two years. These contracts will be extendable for two more years, which would increase the total spend to 533 million euros. This mega-contract to streamline surgical waiting lists has already been cleared after overcoming the last hurdle, which was the resolution by the regional, administrative court of contractual appeals (TARCJA) on the appeals filed by companies that competed in this tender. This court resolved in favour of the SAS. The regional health ministry stressed that never before has such a large contract been agreed in the history of Andalucia's healthcare industry to support more surgical interventions. The same regional ministry also gave assurances that this commitment does not compromise the resources already allocated to the region's health guarantee plan. Likewise, the regional health ministry headed by Rocio Hernandez highlighted the gradual reduction in waiting lists, as only 18.78% of patients were waiting for an operation after the guaranteed deadline by June, compared to 37.20% who were waiting for an appointment nearly 18 months ago. According to the same ministry, the current average delay for surgery in Andalucia is 108 days, compared to 150 days in 2023. These figures reflect continued progress in waiting-list management, which is also reflected in the 42-day reduction in waiting times for surgery. In Andalucia, from January to June, more than 223,000 operations were performed, 3% more than in the same period last year, when 216,738 patients underwent surgery. Some 86% of these operations were performed in public (SAS) hospitals, while "only" 14% were handled by means of a public-private contract. The presidential spokesperson for the PSOE party in Andalucia, Mario Jimenez, said this week that the Junta is preparing to "sign a new framework agreement that over the next four years would allow it to steal 533 million euros from the public healthcare system to channel it into private healthcare and endlessly feed the cronies of the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno, who are in that private healthcare system in Andalucia." The socialist spokesperson stated that "it has been demonstrated that this model and the Andalusian government's strategy of resorting to private healthcare does not work to reduce waiting lists and is an endless theft from public healthcare." He also argued that "billions of euros have already been transferred to private healthcare and Andalucia continues to be the region in Spain with the longest waiting lists, where the people have to wait the longest for a diagnostic test or surgery." On Wednesday, a broader meeting of NATO defense chiefs was also held led by NATO Military Committee Chair, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, at which, in particular, it was stated that the US might probably provide Ukraine with air support as part of security guarantees, CNN reports. "A meeting took place on Wednesday between US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, commander of US European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and defense chiefs from key European nations," reads the report. "The options discussed among military leaders and planners this week ranged from US air support unmanned and manned aircraft to what countries are willing to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, what NATO bases would be used, and more," it says. "A second source briefed on the meeting also said possible air support has been a primary topic, and that while there is some consternation within the Trump administration about committing US pilots to flying manned air support missions over Ukraine, there is more openness to flying unmanned air support missions," the report notes. "US pilots could also be called upon to conduct surveillance flights over Ukraine, providing high-resolution imagery of the front line and troop movements, as part of what would be considered an intermediate option that stops short of committing American fighter jets to fly policing missions, two of the sources familiar with ongoing discussions about security guarantees said," says the edition. Ben Jensen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN that even unmanned aircraft missions would be a significant step because it could keep the question of doubt in Russias mind about how much the US will commit. The small boat being towed back to the marina. SUR in English Gibraltar Friday, 22 August 2025, 13:25 Share At about 7.15am on Thursday morning, HM Customs in Gibraltar received a a distress call reporting a local vessel that had lost engine power and was drifting uncontrlolled towards the rocks at Europa Point. HMS Sentinel was immediately deployed and found the stricken vessel only metres from the rocks. The individuals onboard were attempting to row using makeshift oars agaist a strong westerley and rough seas. HM Customs officers were able to secure the vessel and tow it back safely to Small Boats Marina. Alekk M. Saanders Friday, 22 August 2025, 12:58 Share Though there is no strict code, lots of people definitely get dressed up for the fair in Malaga. Men, as well as more and more women, prefer to wear wide-brimmed hats known as the 'sombrero cordobes' or Cordovan hat. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this style of hat became more widespread, especially among horse riders and carriage drivers As the name suggests, the hat originates from the city of Cordoba, although the origin of this style is unclear. Day labourers wearing cordobeses were depicted on 17th-century drawings. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this style of hat became more widespread throughout Andalucia and Spain, especially among horse riders and carriage drivers. The hats were usually worn with a traditional Andalusian short jacket. Zoom Promo poster. SUR 140 years ago For 140 years, Cordovan and other high-quality hats have been manufactured at the Fernandez y Roche factory, located in Salteras, a small town near Seville. In 1885, Antonio Fernandez Caro and Antonio Roche Verdugo opened a workshop in the Andalusian capital. From the very beginning, the most modern technologies were introduced into production. Hundreds of employees, mainly women, worked in premises covering an area of approximately 4,000 square metres. In 1885, Antonio Fernandez Caro and Antonio Roche Verdugo opened a workshop in the Andalusian capital All types of wide-brimmed hats, including Italian and English models, were produced at the factory, mainly for the domestic market. The business grew rapidly, but at the beginning of the 20th century, hats went out of fashion. It is believed that the crisis in the hat industry was caused by an Englishman. Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, who was considered a fashion icon at the time, stopped wearing hats. In addition, the Spanish Civil War gave rise to men dressing without a hat. Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, who was considered a fashion icon at the time, stopped wearing hats. In addition, the Spanish Civil War gave rise to men dressing without a hat Nevertheless, Fernandez y Roche continued production, focusing on combining modernity and tradition handcrafted. The entire process at the company is manual and artisanal: some of their products undergo a complex process involving more than a couple of hundred meticulous operations. Zoom SUR From formal to casual In the 20th century, hats gradually transitioned from formal to casual. For example, pork pie hats reached the peak of their popularity in the 1960s. Thanks to new trends emerging from time to time, cooperation with companies interested in producing handmade products under their own brand, collaboration with well-known designers, as well as accepting orders from film companies, the factory has been able to stay afloat. Cordovan hats are in vogue, and on hot August days, they can help avoid sunstroke while remaining in the fairground style Dedication to their work and adaptation to international requirements have helped Fernandez y Roche find loyal customers. The factory was given a new lease of life after receiving huge orders from Orthodox Jewish communities. Currently, around 100,000 hats leave the factory each year, and as a rule, two-thirds of them are destined for the Orthodox Jewish market, mainly in New York and Israel. From folklore events to special occasions As for the sombrero ordobes, they are also produced and, of course, not only for folklore events. Many people love Cordovan hats and wear them not only for folklore events though regularly and other special occasions. For example, when The Beatles visited Spain, they wore Cordovan hats as a symbol of the country. The fictional characters Zorro and Black Hat (from The Priest) are often depicted wearing hats of this style. Incidentally, the wide-brimmed hat that covered Melania Trump's face during the inauguration ceremony was immediately compared to the Cordovan style, and some even hinted at its Seville manufacturing. It seems that these hats are in vogue, and on hot August days, they can help avoid sunstroke while remaining in the fairground style. Ignacio Lillo Malaga Friday, 22 August 2025, 12:25 Share Pelle Lundborg was born in Sweden and is 47 years old, although he has been in Malaga almost longer than in his native country. An entrepreneur by nature, he started doing business at the age of 16. He was one of the founders of major companies in the video game sector such as Nordic Games and Embracer. Now that he has moved away from the world of technology, he has become an agricultural entrepreneur, with a powerful export line of ecological products, which he started with a trip to his country aboard his electric Tesla. The avocados he grows on his Carratraca farm even reach the Royal House of Sweden. -You started working at a very young age. -In Sweden it is very typical for children to do jobs like selling books to their neighbours at Christmas to earn some money or rewards. I did all that kind of thing to save money, because I liked the idea of entrepreneurship. When I was 14 I started working in a shop after school selling electronics and imported goods from Asia. When I was 16, I was a bit tired of school so I took the money I had and bought a small premises and started selling video games and role-playing games. -And how did you make the leap to the video game industry? -When the EU opened the free market in Europe, I started buying video games in England, and I also sold the first manga videos, in '94. Then in '98 I sold my shop to a friend and we set up Nordic Games, a chain of shops and mail order shops. In 2000 that company was sold to Game. But after a couple of years we started again in Sweden and in 2008 we started making our own video games. That's how in 2011 we bought JoWood, which later acquired the rights from THQ and became Embracer Group (today a publicly traded company with more than 3,000 employees). "The most famous video games we made at the time were Darksiders and Saints Row" -And what famous games did they make at that time? -The most famous were Darksiders and Saints Row. -From video games to agriculture, how did this career change happen? -In 2016, just when the company went public, I was very sick for a year, in hospital. I was away for a long time and I realised that I had to do other things. Up until then, I was travelling and working a lot and my body told me I didn't want to do it anymore. And then I found an old finca in Carratraca that needed to be given a new lease of life. I had been living in Malaga since 2006. My father was an engineer and a pilot instructor, and my mother was an expert in mushrooms and plants: so first I lived my father's career and now I'm following my mother's path. I have always been very interested in the world of the countryside and agriculture. "I was very ill for a year, in hospital, and I saw that I had to do something else" -Is that why you founded the Solmark estate? -We turned the farm around with the help of local people, because part of being organic is also employing local workers and what is in the area, and here we have found very good professionals. We grow everything: rain-fed almond and olive trees, avocados, citrus fruits, but with the difference that we use technology to use as little water as possible, and we mix it with ancient knowledge. -And in 2019, you loaded your Tesla with avocados and drove them from Malaga to Sweden. -Yes, we took them on a trip to start a direct sales line to households. Even the Royal House of Sweden receives a box of avocados every week. There are many people who are interested, because there are few tropical fruits available there and our product is organic. There are also people who live in places where there are no shops nearby, because Sweden is very big, but very few people live there. We also make olive oil and carry other products from small local producers. "We took a Tesla loaded with avocados from Malaga to Sweden to start a direct sales line to households" -Why do you do it? -You have to do good things, it's a moral ambition. And be a bit idealistic: we bring the best quality products to people who are looking for them. In the big chains there is a lot of waste. The fruit has to be picked at the right moment and there has to be a very short logistical chain so that it arrives quickly, even if it is by lorry. This is how the fruit reaches the consumer without intermediaries: I cut it from my tree, put it in the box and take it to your house within seven to ten days. -Is there much difference between selling video games and avocados? -Well, there is a difference, but you should always bring things in good condition, of good quality and as quickly as possible. Price is not always the most important thing. Another part of the experience is inviting clients to see the finca and to get to know the area: I send them to eat in the village, or in Ronda, or they go to the Caminito del Rey or Fuente de Piedra. "I have to do things that I feel good about and that benefit society" -And now you have bought a second finca also in Carratraca. What are you going to do with it? -Yes, it's called La Moraleda and I bought it five years ago, but we are waiting for the licences from the local administration, which are a bit slow, to say the least. We are going to build a small hotel and a restaurant, and it will have an arboretum, to see rare plants. We have ten hectares with old olive trees and a holm oak forest, near the centre of the village. -So after a lifetime of work you're still going? -I mean, some people would have bought a big house and a yacht, but that's not for me. Ambition has to come from something else, you know what I mean? There are things that give purpose, for someone else or for yourself, for my children or for the whole world... I have to do things that I feel good about morally and that benefit society. Maria Albarral Marbella Friday, 22 August 2025, 12:01 Share Maria Bravo fell in love with Marbella and made it the epicentre of her charity work. Marbella recently paid homage to the philanthropist and business woman in naming a roundabout after her. She shared this emotional, ceremonial act with family members and friends (including Eva Longoria and Brigitte Nielsen). -What does it mean to you to have your own roundabout in Marbella? It's a huge honour that I never expected. I respect the fact that they named a roundabout after someone who does charity work in Mabella. They did not do so for political affiliations but for humanity and for people who are trying to do something good for our town - it really struck me. "We are always growing and in the last year we have tripled the therapies we offer at Casa Angeles" How would you describe the feeling that connects you to Marbella? We don't realise the paradise that we have until we leave and see the rest of the world. Marbella has something special. We have the mountains, the sea and a good, charitable community. To be honest, we have everything at our fingertips. The landscape reminds me of my childhood. Although we didn't have money, my mother gave us a very happy childhood. When I was living in Los Angeles, I reflected on Marbella as a place where you feel at home, like a mother's warm embrace. Where did your desire to help those in need come from? It came from my mother, who did it completely naturally. I saw friendliness between neighbours who had no family - always making food for everyone. It reminded me of the old lady on the corner who was always alone except when my mother stayed with her. She was a great person. It can be so easy to forget about the importance of these things. Nowadays, life goes by so quickly and we don't stop for a second to think about others. There are people who need help and people who are missing their loved ones and need some emotional support. I absorbed so much of this attitude from my mother. My desire to help others came naturally when I went to the USA and I saw how badly people needed to come together (above all within the Latin community). Your main charity in Marbella is named after your mother. How did Casa Angeles start? I have always wanted to do something in the centre of Marbella. I wanted to propose something that the town was in need of; something the government wasn't doing anything about. My first thought was an orphanage, but I realised policies would make that very difficult. After some research I saw that there was a lack of facilities where children with special needs could receive therapy and bring their families along to share moments together outside of the hospital - somewhere full of happiness instead of pain. These children spend a lot of time in hospitals and I wanted them to have a safe space for everyone that had positive associations. It was around seven years ago, with this idea that the process of starting Casa Angeles began. How has it grown since then? We keep growing and getting better. In the last year, we have tripled the therapies that we offer. We also have an inclusive summer camp, where children with and without special needs can come together. Among the variety of children at the camps, they learn that we are not all the same, in fact quite the opposite, we are all very different and need different things in life. But what we all share is the need for love. We now have 1,600 families signed up, we provide 12,000 therapies each year and host different programmes of games and activities for the children themselves as well as parents and wider family members. We offer psychological support, yoga classes and activities so that they can all enjoy moments of relaxation and meditation. Another one of your networks is Global Gift Foundation. How did that come about? I started it in Los Angeles under a different name. We operate worldwide as well as here in Marbella. We started under the name Starlite but in 2012 we decided that among all of our projects there was a common denominator which should serve as our name. That's how the Global Gift Foundation was born - a foundation which carries out a range of initiatives across the world. What are some of these initiatives? Six years ago we started an orphanage in Vietnam. For eight years now we have had two refuge centres in New Delhi which bring children off the streets. These centres contact parents to ask permission for their children to be brought into centres so that they have a safe space instead of begging on the streets. We give them food, education and donate money to the parents so that they aren't forced to make their children beg anymore. The majority of the time, parents do this because they have no other option for survival. Eva Longoria is a key figure in the foundation. How would you describe your relationship? Well, she is my soul sister and my best friend - she blessed me with the gift of being godmother to her child. We have been friends for 28 years. We met working on a terrible film: the best thing to come out of it was our long-lasting friendship. You have a full list of Hollywood contacts. Do you use your connections to help your charity projects? I have many close friends who are artists or actors that I worked with or know from Hollywood. All of the celebrities that work with me are philanthropic and humanitarian people. We like doing things together to help those in need. What do you feel most proud of in your life? Putting a smile on a child's face or helping a mother who feels alone. Offering a home to someone who doesn't have one and making a positive impact on the world, even in a small way. Alekk M. Saanders Luxembourg Friday, 22 August 2025, 13:16 Share August in Luxembourg is not a dry month at all. More than a third of the month is rainy. However, it is not only for the refreshing after-rain air that it is worth visiting the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg combines old-world elegance with ultra-modernity, modern amenities with historical charm This small country is becoming a magnet for high-end travellers seeking privacy, cultural heritage, fine cuisine and refined experiences. Luxembourg combines old-world elegance with ultra-modernity, modern amenities with historical charm. When the sun is shining. AMS August high rainfalls From the moment you arrive in Luxembourg, you are struck by the large cars and relatively low petrol prices, a string of sophisticated cafes and restaurants, and an abundance of greenery and flowers... It is reminiscent of Marbella, although the city of Luxembourg has neither sea nor large river. And water pours from the sky without waiting for autumn. Luxembourg's climate is characterised by high rainfall, especially at the end of summer. Approximately eleven days per month are expected to be rainy. The air is not only fresh but also clean, always. Luxembourg is one of the world's best countries in terms of environmental protection. (Last year, the Grand Duchy ranked second in the global environmental performance index). Refined experences: a hotel bathroom, a street trash bin, a breakfast. AMS Small but varied Starting as a small county in the 10th century, it rose to become a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire, even producing three Holy Roman Emperors. Its history is marked by periods of Burgundian, Habsburg, French and Spanish rule before gaining independence in 1839. Today Luxembourg is the seventh smallest country in Europe, with an area of 2,586 square kilometres. The northern part is covered by the Ardennes, where hills and low mountains prevail. In the east, the Mullerthal region is nicknamed Little Switzerland thanks to its dense forests, impressive rock formations and hiking trails. All regions of Luxembourg are easily accessible by train, bus and car. (Additionally, following recent modernisation, 165 km of motorways connect the capital with neighbouring Germany, France and Belgium.) Luxury cars and boutiques It seems that all new premium and luxury car models go straight to Luxembourg. Thanks to the leasing system, Luxembourgers enjoy the best the modern automotive industry has to offer. Huge cars can be seen everywhere in the city. However, the best way to get to know Luxembourg is to take the tram, which was reintroduced in 2017. Today, long modern trams run a single route through the centre and go straight to the airport. Fares to the airport are not inflated here public transport is free. In 2020, Luxembourg became the first country to introduce free public transport, which is almost entirely funded by government taxes. Since then, the number of passengers on buses, trains and trams has been steadily increasing. In 2020, Luxembourg became the first country to introduce free public transport, which is almost entirely funded by government taxes Any tram will take you to Rue Philippe II, a must for any shopping enthusiast. This street is a kind of Calle Ribera in Puerto Banus, because it is home to luxury global brands, including Chanel, Dior, Christian Louboutin, Hermes, Gucci and Omega. Zoom The main shopping street. AMS However, for a new shopping experience, check out the conceptual SMET stores with their avant-garde vision. If the prices seem a little high, head to the designer outlets. (The largest of them is a 20-minute drive from Luxembourg City.) The historic city of Luxembourg, including its fortifications, is a Unesco World Heritage Site Even with bags full of clothes and shoes, you will still want to take a walk through the quiet and cosy streets of the Old Town. The historic city of Luxembourg, including its fortifications, is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Evening wandering through the streets of the Grund district, which is very small and very picturesque, makes you feel calm and cozy. Wanderng at night. AMS De Gudde Wellen is known for hosting various events. Incidentally, you can find out what is happening and where directly from the locals. They are very friendly and open. Almost everyone can speak French and German, the official languages. At the same time, most of them speak English, and thanks to high immigration, dozens of other languages as well. Enrique Miranda Malaga Friday, 22 August 2025, 13:10 Share Several planes arriving at Malaga airport on Wednesday night had to carry out various safety manoeuvres and modify their course due to a problem they encountered on their descent. The problem in question was a large bird, "probably a flamingo", which was injured on runway 31, as reported by the air traffic controllers account on X'. The presence of the bird resulted in several missed approaches, a manoeuvre in which aircraft have to stop their descent on landing and re-ascend, as conditions are not safe for landing, either at the discretion of pilots or air traffic controllers. At least one Ryanair flight from Nottingham and one Wizz Air flight arriving from London had to abort their landings. Shortly after the discovery, the airport was able to continue operating normally. Varias frustradas en #Malaga tras detectarse un ave herida de gran tamano, probablemente un flamenco , en la pista 31. Esperemos que el animal se recupere sin secuelas. Tras las frustradas, volvemos a operar con normalidad. #SafetyFirst pic.twitter.com/9pptDvYkz6 Controladores Aereos (@controladores) August 20, 2025 The presence of birds in the vicinity of airports is a problem for flights, as they can pose a major risk when taking off or landing. Earlier this month, an Iberia plane that had just taken off from Madrid to Paris had to return to the airport after hitting a vulture. The impact on the nose of the aircraft caused significant damage and the plane was unable to complete its flight. There were anxious moments, as the passengers could clearly feel the thud and the loss of power in the aircraft's engine. To minimise these incidents, airports have specialised teams to avoid the presence of animals near the runways. In the case of Malaga Airport, the fauna control service employs hawks, eagles and goshawks to chase away birds and other animals that could affect landings and take-offs. A new milestone for Andalusian public health after the cardiology department of Hospital Regional Universitario in Malaga successfully carried out the first transcatheter valve implantation for the treatment of tricuspid valve insufficiency in the province at the end of July. The hospital is the first centre in Malaga and one of the first in Andalucia to offer this technique, together with Hospital Reina Sofia in Cordoba, which, being the pioneer, has already performed two operations, and Hospital Virgen del Rocio in Seville, which has incorporated it in recent days. When the tricuspid valve of the heart, which separates the right atrium and ventricle, does not close properly, it allows blood to escape into the first chamber when the second one contracts, overloading it. This pathology is known as tricuspid or right-sided valvular insufficiency and, according to head of the cardiology department at Hospital Regional Cristobal Urbano, it eventually causes "swelling due to oedema in all the lower limbs, as well as congestion of organs such as the liver, which eventually leads to liver failure, kidney failure and, ultimately, systemic failure". The procedure was performed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals from the cardiology and anaesthesiology units. Under-treated pathology It is an under-treated pathology for which data is scarce. For example, only 0.4% of cases in the US are treated, out of a total of 1.6 million people who have the disease, as reported by an Immedico article. The Malaga team has successfully performed the implantation of a biological valve, "made with bovine pericardium", thanks to a catheter inserted through the groin with a minimal incision. It is an innovative intervention that opens the way in a new field in relation to one of the least treated heart conditions. According to Urbano, this implant is only intended for "patients who are not candidates for conventional open heart surgery, either because of their increased fragility or another concomitant disease that makes the surgical risk high or even unacceptable". Hospital Regional confirms that this is a pioneering intervention. "This valve has always been considered the Cinderella of the four we have in the heart," says Urbano. For the other valve disease they treat - aortic stenosis - 200 catheter operations a year are performed at the hospital in Malaga. For the last three or four years, tricuspid valves have also been repaired using a catheter technique. "But that is for repair, not replacement and that's the breakthrough this new valve brings. We usually carry out around 20 of those procedures a year." Repair Until now, a repair was done "edge to edge, like a clip that joined two of the three gates that the valve has, a kind of staple, and in that way we reduced tricuspid regurgitation", Urbano explains. Although this practice is still done, sometimes the gap between the gates prevents this option. "That gap is filled by this new valve, which is implanted and replaces the native valve in the same place. It is self-expandable and, using a catheter guided by transesophageal ultrasound and X-ray, we can place it exactly where the native valve is. As it self-expands, it anchors and begins to function," he says. Above all, there is no need for open-heart surgery. Sometimes, surgeons prefer not to operate because of the excessive risk of the heart stopping. "There are fragile patients who cannot bear it, so we resort to the field of interventional cardiology to repair by catheter," Urbano explains, reminding the public that they are cardiologists and not surgeons, so they do not operate. "Everything is done through a small incision in the groin of just two centimetres and under general anaesthesia," he says. Recovery is much quicker and quality of life is radically improved 24 hours after the operation. "These are patients who were already on a large number of diuretics, which is the basic treatment to reduce fluid overload. Imagine a person having to be on high doses of diuretics for life; the quality of life of having to urinate every few hours is horrendous. If surgery couldn't do anything, nor could catheter or repair therapies, this valve provides a solution," Urbano states. Between 20 and 30 patients from Malaga could benefit from this technique. "We must value the technical resources and the highly qualified team of professionals at Hospital Regional, which allow us to offer this technique to those who need it. This is great news for public healthcare in Malaga, which has the same level of services as any other international reference centre," Urbano says. Juan Cano Malaga Friday, 22 August 2025, 18:23 | Updated 19:38h. Share Two youths, one of them under 18, who had allegedly travelled from Sweden to Malaga to carry out a contract killing in exchange for money, have been arrested on the city's seafront promenade. They were caught just in time. After police discovered their plans, the young suspects were located in just 48 hours and detained as they were riding an electric scooter dressed in dark clothes, hoods, balaclavas and masks. According to the National Police, the pair were linked to another criminal organisation allegedly involved in cocaine and marijuana trafficking, which was in charge of all the logistics (accommodation and weapons). In the two searches carried out in Fuengirola and Malaga - where another four people were arrested - three loaded firearms as well as 16 SIM cards, 15 mobile phones and numerous documents and electronic material were found. The investigation began thanks to international collaboration with Europol and the Swedish police. The authorities alerted the Spanish police that two young people, one of them a minor, had arrived in Malaga on a flight from the city of Gothenburg on 29 June. The officers began to make enquiries to locate them and found them when they were rising along the seafront promenade in Malaga. Subsequently, they carried out a search at the home in Fuengirola where they were staying, where they seized two small firearms with ammunition and their respective magazines, with the serial numbers erased. The adult was handed over to the judicial authorities, who ordered him to be placed in prison and, in the case of the adolescent, he was ordered to be placed in a juvenile detention centre. Investigators discovered that the two youths were linked to a criminal organisation made up of Swedish nationals and allegedly involved in cocaine and marijuana trafficking, which had been under investigation by the National Police since April. They used encrypted platforms and social media to offer financial remuneration in exchange for committing a murder. They would have been in charge of all the logistics such as providing housing, weapons and even the electric scooter to ensure the achievement of their objectives, according to the provincial police headquarters. Once the house was located, a police operation was set up which culminated in the arrest of four members of this organisation, including the alleged leader. Another firearm, gloves, balaclavas, masks, a bicycle and an electric scooter, 15 mobile phones, 16 SIM cards, money, computer equipment and numerous documents and handwritten notes were seized. The arrested suspects were read their rights for the alleged offences of conspiracy to murder, illegal possession of weapons and membership of a criminal organisation. Javier Almellones Malaga Friday, 22 August 2025, 11:23 | Updated 20:45h. Share Unique beaches on the Andalusian coast and the glamour of its marinas - these are two of the hallmarks of the most popular town on the Costa del Sol, especially when you think of summer. Although it is summer time and the beach is its main attraction, Marbella also offers a wealth of monuments and incredible dining experiences. Old town From the Plaza de los Naranjos to the town walls Marbella's historic centre has managed to preserve its identity. Today, a stroll through it allows you to see some of the most important monuments and spaces that allude to its past, such as the iconic Plaza de los Naranjos. But there is much more: the walls of what was once an Arab fortress and those of the old medina or the slender church of Nuestra Senora de la Encarnacion, which came to replace an old mosque. There are also remnants of history, such as the Casa del Corregidor or the chapel of Santiago, both in the Plaza de los Naranjos. From this historic centre there is an outstanding route to the sea through the Alameda park and Avenida del Mar. Both are the main landmarks linking the old town with the beach, the promenade and the marina of Marbella. Puerto Banus More than half a century of glamour and luxury The fame of Puerto Banus precedes it, which is why it is on the agenda of almost every tourist who arrives at any time of the year. During the summer, you can go there for shopping, lunch or dinner or you can just stroll along to contemplate the luxury of the establishments and boats. Zoom Puerto Banus Marbella town hall These are the main attractions of this nautical enclave named after Jose Banus - the architect of its construction back in 1968. An old watchtower still stands preserved there, presenting wide panoramic views. Beaches From dunes to urban beaches on 25 kilometres of coastline Its coastline is where a large part of its attractions lie. Marbella can boast both quantity, quality and a variety of beaches. The town has both well-equipped promenades and wild beaches, characterised by dunes that form part of the coastal landscape in Cabopino or near the emblematic Cable beach. Zoom One of Marbella's beaches. Artola Dunes A natural monument in Cabopino Next to Cabopino beach, you can see one of the most valuable dune complexes in the peninsular Mediterranean. In fact, thanks to this geological peculiarity, today this sandy area is protected as a natural monument of Andalucia. Zoom Artola dunes. J. A. In recent years, it has been enhanced thanks to the installation of wooden paths and bridges that allow you to walk through the enclave without being invasive either with the dunes or with the fauna and flora that live there. In addition to this ecological enclave, you can enjoy not only a good beach but also the nearby marina of Cabopino. Next to this dune complex, stands historic watchtower Torre de los Ladrones. Visits with history by the sea From a Roman villa to an early Christian basilica Close to the beach, you will even find some remains from roman times: the thermal baths of the Guadalmina river, popularly known as the Bovedas de Marbella, on the coast of San Pedro Alcantara; the Roman villa of the Verde river; the paleochristian basilica of San Pedro Alcantara, which reportedly dates from the 6th century. Zoom Paleochristian basilica. Marbella town hall Amazonis Aventura Adrenaline and excitement very close to the coast The more adventurous also have the option of visiting the Amazonia park, located just 500 metres from the beach. This open-air space has half a dozen adrenaline-filled circuits, with more than a hundred games and 24 zip-lines, including one of the largest between trees in Andalucia - 240 metres long. Zoom Amazonia Aventura. Gastronomy From seafood to Michelin stars You have to go to Marbella to eat, because it has a wide variety of restaurants. From Michelin-starred establishments to 'chiringuitos' (beach bars), where you can try espeto or pescaito frito (fried fish). Zoom Sardine 'espetos' on the beach in Marbella. J. A. Both in Marbella and in the centre of San Pedro Alcantara, there are also traditional bars with many good value-for-money options. Tony Bryant Fuengirola Friday, 22 August 2025, 11:04 Share Fuengirola Local Police are collaborating with the Guardia Civil to monitor jet skis and ensure the safety of beachgoers. Both forces have already carried out several joint operations this summer to ensure that these personal watercraft do not enter the swimming area and to enforce regulations on the vessels themselves, such as the use of life jackets. "We have some of the safest beaches in Spain, as highlighted by the organisation responsible for awarding the 'Blue Flags', which has recognised our lifeguard service as the best in the country. However, due to legal competencies, municipalities cannot act beyond the swimming area - that is, beyond the yellow buoy. That is why we have maintained constant contact with those who do operate in this coastal sector, namely the Guardia Civil. We are very satisfied with the level of cooperation we maintain with their officers and the results of our joint work," explained citizen security councillor Jose Luis Ponce. In this regard, Ponce explained that this working relationship between the two forces is carried out with the Local Police providing logistical support on land to meet the needs of the Guardia Civil, as well as actively participating in surveillance alongside the lifeguard service and the drone vigilance team. Similarly, the Local Police provide the Guardia Civil with a trailer to store seized jet skis if required, as well as the possibility of carrying out breathalyser tests if they believe an operator shows signs of intoxication. Additionally, Guardia Civil officers regularly patrol the offshore line of Fuengirolas coast to ensure that operators and owners comply with regulations. During the most recent operation carried out a few days ago, eight jet skis were inspected, five of which were fined for entering the swimming area and three for not having up-to-date documentation. "Once again, cooperation between security forces yields results for citizens and enhances the image of one of Fuengirolas main attractions as a tourist destination: its beaches. Beyond legal competencies, our priority is citizen safety, and we work together to ensure that bureaucratic boundaries do not undermine this safety. We will continue to deepen this excellent relationship and collaboration to increasingly strengthen security along our coastline," Ponce concluded. The Cabinet of Ministers will make changes to the program for compensating part of housing rent for veterans, Minister for Veterans Affairs Natalia Kalmykova said. "Not only are we planning, we have already prepared changes, they are now being approved," she told reporters at the VIII International Veterans Forum "Ukraine. Veterans. Security" in Kyiv on Friday, answering a question about whether changes are planned to be made to the project for compensating part of housing rent for veterans so that it works more actively. As reported, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs in 2025 introduced a program under which part of the housing rent will be compensated for war veterans who returned from captivity, lost their homes or are forced to temporarily live in other regions. The amount of compensation varies from UAH 3,000 to UAH 6,000 depending on the place of rental. In July, Kalmykova stated that the program of compensation for part of the housing rent for veterans is not very active yet, due to the fact that lessors do not want to rent apartments under official contracts. Share Spain's recent wildfires were the worst for decades, but the political spat they have triggered is very familiar. Just as with the floods that killed 232 people last October, most of them in Valencia, the left is blaming climate change; while the right points to what it sees as the Socialists' disastrous environmental policies. There are also parallels with the argument about what caused the massive blackout in Spain on April 28th. After the disaster in Valencia, the Spanish right blamed the Socialist-led government's approach to managing (or not managing) streams and rivers in the region - especially the Poyo ravine, which caused some of the worst flash-flooding. The PP and Vox adopted the same stance over the blackout, saying that it was down to an over-reliance on green energy. The wildfires, on this narrative, are the inevitable result of policies that prevent the removal of flammable dead vegetation from rural areas. In all three cases, Vox has led the attack on Pedro Sanchez, identifying the main culprit as his government's 'climate fanaticism'. There is bound to be disinformation and exaggeration in all such arguments. This is because their goal is not - or at least not only - to uncover truth, but to make the other party look bad. In reality, the wildfires, like the floods and the blackout, were not due to a single cause, but a number of factors, each of them necessary, none sufficient. And probably more than one human culprit, too. Still, the question raised by the right's accusations of climate fundamentalism can't be dismissed, because it cuts to the heart of the debate. We have to ask whether a non-interventionist approach is compatible with the implementation of measures that better equip us to live on a rapidly-warming planet. The Spanish right distorts matters by banging on about 'climate fanaticism'; but Sanchez does the same by holding up his hands to the uncontrollable skies. "We need to readjust and recalibrate both our response and prevention capacities," he said this week, on a visit to the scorched plains of Extremadura. He's absolutely right, but prevention means intervention - which is why his former energy minister Teresa Ribera cancelled a proposal to channel the Poyo ravine in 2021. Wildfires and floods are not new to Spain, although the last two instances of both have been extreme. Even blackouts on the scale of April's are not as rare as one might think. All such events trigger headline-grabbing arguments, in which the right plays the part of the climate-sceptic and the left declaims its love for the planet. And that is the problem. As long as they're able to broadcast their climate ideology, the combatants in these blame games walk away feeling victorious - without learning any lessons for the future. C. M. Friday, 22 August 2025, 18:54 Share The Caceres public prosecutor's office has asked for five years in prison for the owner of a livestock farm in the province for an offence against the rights of two uncontracted workers who were forced to live with the pigs. They allegedly had to sleep on the floor, had no water or heating, they had to work without rest and had to pick up the animals' excrement by hand and without gloves, among other things. According to the public prosecutor, in September and October 2023, the accused was the owner and sole administrator of this livestock company dedicated to the breeding of pigs. After the dismissal of one of his workers, and "in the knowledge of their precarious personal and economic situation", he verbally hired two undocumented Moroccan migrants to take care of the breeding of the livestock for at least the month of October. He promised them a monthly salary of 700 euros each (at that time the minimum wage was 1,080 euros) and free use of a house in the village. However, according to the account of the public prosecutor's office reported by HOY newspaper, the real conditions were very different. Firstly, they began to work without administrative authorisation, nor a contract, nor social security registration. In addition, one of them only received 250 euros for the month's work and the other 150 euros, and they were never provided with accommodation. The consequence of this breach was that the two workers were forced to occupy an unfurnished, windowless container on the farm itself, where they had no electricity, no heating, no shower or toilet facilities of any kind. They only had a water point which they shared with the animals on the farm. As they did not have a kitchen, they heated their food in the pig trough with the firewood they could collect on the farm itself and slept on the floor. In addition, they worked seven days a week, "without a timetable and for as long as necessary, both day and night, and without any rest". Working conditions The prosecution reports that the two men's work consisted in the care, feeding and cleaning (collection of excrement and slurry) of the almost 1,000 pigs kept on the farm. They did everything manually, as they had not been provided with any machinery or tools. "Despite the risks of accident or infection arising from contact with the animals, the accused did not provide them with any personal protective equipment (PPE), having to collect the slurry and defecation from the pigs without gloves, goggles or overalls, having only a pair of wellington boots," the public prosecutor's office declared. The farmer had not carried out the obligatory evaluation and prevention of the biological risks of zoonosis to which the farm workers were exposed due to their direct contact with the animals, nor of the mechanical risks, "lacking any type of preventive organisation", the public prosecutor said. Accident at work As a result, one of the workers suffered a burn and was struck by an iron bar, which caused injuries to his face, hand and foot. The prosecutor's office makes it clear in its indictment that the livestock farmer, when hiring them, was aware of their irregular situation and the need to work faced by the two Moroccan citizens, who accepted due to their difficult personal and economic circumstances, being undocumented migrants, without resources, without training and with dependants in their country of origin. The prosecution accuses the farmer of two offences against workers' rights: one in the form of imposing illegal working conditions, for which it is asking for three years and three months' imprisonment, and another against health and safety, for which it is asking for 21 months' imprisonment. He is also asking for a fine of 5,400 euros, and to be disqualified from managing livestock companies for 21 months. He is also asking for compensation of 178.55 euros for the injured worker. The preliminary hearing of the trial has been set for 25 September at the provincial court of Caceres. J.M.L. Toledo Friday, 22 August 2025, 11:37 Share The mayor of a small town in central Spain went on indefinite hunger strike this week to demand that the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha build a secondary school in his town. Agustin Jimenez Crespo is the 76-year-old mayor of Noblejas in Toledo province. The school he is calling for would be the first secondary school in this town of 4,000 inhabitants, where currently children have to travel 10 kilometres once they finish primary school to the nearby town of Ocana. "I am cool and calm, and I am thinking about what lies ahead and that we are absolutely right with our educational model for Noblejas and the entire region," explained the mayor, who recalled that the regional authorities approved the secondary school project in 2011. The hunger strike also serves to "publicly denounce the refusal of the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano Garcia-Page, to solve this problem despite it being a project that was committed to many years ago and is absolutely necessary to guarantee the education of young people in Noblejas and the region." The Castilla-La Mancha regional government, which is run by the PSOE Socialist party, the same party as the mayor, argues that Noblejas only provides between 40 and 60 students a year to the secondary school in Ocana and that its population increase does not currently justify the construction of a new school. Alba Perez Espada Valencia Friday, 22 August 2025, 11:07 Share The National Police have arrested three people in Alicante accused of robbing 120,000 euros in 200-euro notes from the home of an 85-year-old woman, whose trust they had gained. According to the investigation, they gained access to her house using a false key and replaced the money with paper cut-outs while she was away at a spa. The detainees, two men and a woman between the ages of 28 and 57, are real estate workers, who reportedly took advantage of the fact that the elderly woman was alone. She doesn't have a family and she agreed when they started to accompany her to various social activities, after helping her with an operation involving the purchase and renovation of a house. The employee who had assisted her during the process, gained information about her and the amount of money she kept in her house. He also had a copy of her keys. Once he gathered enough information, he passed it on to his boss and administrator of the company. They developed a close relationship with her and even invited her to spend two days at a spa - time which they used to perpetrate the robbery. Zoom Photo of the stolen money ABC The plan was meticulously studied by everyone involved. The administrator of the real estate agency was in charge of preparing the paper cut-outs and the execution of the burglary in the house. On the other hand, the mother of the employee who advised the elderly woman on her home, was the one who accompanied her to the spa, with the aim of keeping her away from the home for as long as necessary. A fourth person was in charge of driving the woman to the spa, unaware of the real purpose of the trip. He was used without knowing that he was part of a criminal plan. Arrests and searches The investigation began following a complaint by the victim herself, who discovered the paper cut-outs in the case where she kept the money. The main suspect was arrested in a hotel establishment in Alicante when he was about to hand over part of the money stolen. During this operation, 26,000 euros in cash and a high-end mobile phone were seized. A few hours later, the administrator of the real estate company was arrested at the company's headquarters. The last detainee was located and arrested at another location in Alicante. During the operation, four searches were carried out: two in private homes and another two in the offices of the real estate agency. Two of the detainees, considered to be the main intellectual and material perpetrators of the crime, have been handed over to the Alicante magistrate's court. This beach in Cantabria is one of the most beautiful in the world according to National Geographic. Patricia Marcos Friday, 22 August 2025, 11:36 Share In the midst of the heatwave in Spain, the north of the country is becoming a refuge from the scorching temperatures that are affecting much of the country. Cantabria is an attractive destination for tourists, where they can not only escape the sweltering heat, but also enjoy the region's natural beaches and stunning landscapes. Its coastline, bathed by the Cantabrian Sea, offers fine sandy beaches such as those of Somo, Laredo or Noja, ideal for people who search for sun, surfing opportunities and tranquillity. In addition, its coastal towns preserve a unique seafaring charm and are also home to beautiful sandy beaches. San Vicente de la Barquera and Comillas are two of the essential places to visit in Cantabria. These towns, located in the west of the region, are home to one of the most beautiful Spanish beaches, according to National Geographic. The magazine, which specialises in travel, has selected two Cantabrian beaches in its ranking of the 25 most beautiful beaches in Spain. In addition to Oyambre, the magazine has highlighted the beach of Trengandin, located in the municipality of Noja. Zoom Oyambre Natural Park RED CANTABRA DE DESARROLLO RURAL However, on this occasion we will focus on the beach of Oyambre, considered an unspoilt natural paradise in Cantabria, located between Comillas and San Vicente de la Barquera and next to the Oyambre natural park. This protected area of around 5,700 hectares is of great ecological value, combining dunes, meadows, cliffs, estuaries and forests. It is also an important refuge for migratory birds and an ideal environment for ornithological tourism. A natural paradise among the dunes The more than two-kilometre-long Oyambre beach is considered one of the best preserved beaches in Cantabria. It is also one of the most beautiful. It stands out for its beautiful dune field of great ecological value, which separates it from the Ria de la Rabia estuary. The fine golden sands, surrounded by meadows and woods characterise this wild and quiet site. It stands out from other more crowded beaches in the region, making it the perfect choice for those looking to be surrounded by nature. Furthermore, on clear days, the Picos de Europa can be seen on the horizon. Zoom Oyambre Beach Red Cantabra de Desarrollo Rural Oyambre beach is a meeting point for surfers due to its moderate waves. However, it is also an ideal place for long walks and swimming, while enjoying the peace and quiet. Its breathtaking scenery is worth a visit even in the winter. Due to its location, many tourists use the opportunity to also visit the towns of San Vicente de la Varquera and Comillas, both about 6 kilometres away and considered among the most beautiful in the region for their spectacular natural surroundings and beautiful old towns. How to get to Oyambre beach Oyambre beach is some 450 kilometres from Madrid. It is easy to get there. By car, take the A-67 towards the north and then the A-8 towards Santander. Then follow the N-634 and take the exit to the CA-131, which will take you directly to the beach area. By public transport, it is possible to get there by taking a direct bus from Madrid to San Vicente de la Barquera. Once there, take the intercity bus line K-41, which stops very close to the beach. E. Martinez Madrid Friday, 22 August 2025, 12:19 Share One of Spain's largest airlines, Air Europa, has finally accepted Turkish Airlines' offer to buy between 26% and 27% of its share capital for 300 million euros. The president of the Spanish airline, Juan Jose Hidalgo, signed the letter of acceptance of the offer early on Tuesday afternoon. The Turkish company will acquire around 27% of the capital for 25 million euros more than expected, which will be used to purchase shares very soon, according to Europa Press. The money offered will initially be a loan to Air Europa, which will then be converted into shares once the transaction has been approved by the competition regulators. The Turkish flag carrier will therefore become the Spanish airline's main partner and second largest shareholder after the Hidalgo family, who own the company through their Globalia firm. The Turks will now have more shares in Air Europa than Iberia, which through its parent company IAG (which also owns BA) acquired 20% of the capital of Air Europa with the aim of buying the entire company, a transaction that was thwarted by the European competition authorities a year ago. SUR Madrid Friday, 22 August 2025, 11:35 Share The judge investigating the wife of the prime minister for possible offences has decided to add to the charges by formally investigating Begona Gomez for embezzlement. This latest line of inquiry relates to the 2018 hiring of her advisor, Cristina Alvarez, who was employed on a public salary but is suspected of giving regular personal private support to Gomez. Investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado has now summoned Gomez to testify on September 11 and Alvarez a day earlier. Gomez was already under formal investigation for alleged crimes including influence peddling, business corruption and unauthorised use of a brand. The new charge stems from a ruling by a Madrid court and the legal argument that both women could legally be considered public officials, given Gomez's leadership of a publicly funded academic chair at Madrid's top Complutense University. The judge also cited their prior friendship, suggesting that Alvarez's appointment may have served Gomez's private interests using public resources, facilitated through the institutional power of the prime minister's office. The case currently includes four lines of investigation: alleged influence peddling in favor of businessman Juan Carlos Barrabes, management of the Complutense academic programmes, improper use of software from the university, and the hiring of Alvarez as a personal advisor. Sources in the PM's office continue to say that the investigation is a witch hunt with no basis. One of the stages at the festival in Italy earlier this year. Tony Bryant MARBELLA. Friday, 22 August 2025, 10:44 Share A new instalment of the ElRow Town festival takes place on Saturday (23 August), a total sensory experience where house and techno music intertwine with stagecraft, humour and street theatre. The electronic music festival will be held at the open-air Oasis Marbella Fest venue in San Pedro Alcantara, transforming the Costa del Sol into the epicentre of hedonism. Billed as the "kind of craziness this world needs", this festival is one of the most exuberant, colourful, and psychedelic events in Southern Europe, with more than 50 international DJs, six themed stages, 400 performers and 12 hours of non-stop music. Organisers said that everything is designed to amaze, from its stage architecture to the immersive choreography of acrobats, stilt walkers, clowns and jugglers. This year, the event includes substantial improvements to the audience experience: more access points, more rest rooms, shaded areas and a new VIP and chill-out area. Tickets for the festival, which has also been staged in Madrid and Reggio Emilia (Italy), this year, cost between 40 and 250 euros. The event will start at 4pm and continue until 4am. Photo: https://www.youtube.com/live/v4mCI9q2j_w?si=MWEZ7cHMVdeR_OuY In the context of the ongoing aggression of the Russian Federation and geopolitical changes, political figures and experts are calling for the systematic militarization of society, strengthening the state's defense capabilities, and the formation of a new model of security guarantees. This opinion was expressed during a discussion on the topic "34th Independence Day of Ukraine: Will the state's sovereignty be defended?" at the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday. According to Ihor Zhdanov, PhD in Political Sciences, Head of the Information Defense Project of the Open Policy Foundation, ATO and Armed Forces of Ukraine volunteer Ihor Zhdanov, militarization should become a key element of state policy. It is about forming respect for the military and veterans, increasing the social status of military personnel, ensuring a decent level of remuneration, and creating a modern Armed Forces of Ukraine equipped with high-tech weapons and equipment. "There should be a militarization of our society. This is respect for the military, respect for veterans, the creation of a cult of the army, high social status of officers and soldiers with an appropriate salary. The creation of modern armed forces of Ukraine, equipped with ultra-modern weapons and equipment. The fight against corruption, because this is a minus for our taxes and a minus for our budget equipment for the army," he emphasized. Separately, Zhdanov emphasized the need to develop fundamental scientific education and create its own program complex, which will allow Ukraine to effectively respond to global challenges. He added that during the negotiations in Washington, the possibility of providing Ukraine with security guarantees similar to Article 5 of the NATO Washington Treaty was raised for the first time - this refers to the potential deployment of allied military contingents on the territory of Ukraine and the provision of direct military support in the event of new aggression. According to preliminary information, the US does not plan to involve ground troops, but is considering an air component - the creation of a no-fly zone for Russian aircraft and missiles. China and the Russian Federation have opposed this initiative. It is emphasized that any agreements on a peaceful settlement or territorial compromises must be legitimized by the Ukrainian people - through a referendum or elections. The economic situation in Ukraine was commented on by Doctor of Economics, Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Economic Research and Policy Consulting Ihor Burakovsky. "Traditionally, from my point of view, the economy is very important, but today the fate of Ukraine is being decided at the front. The entire economy must be subordinated to the military defense of Ukraine, because if we lose militarily, then, in principle, any further talk about economic development or about any other things makes practically no sense," he said. The Ukrainian economy demonstrates resilience, but this resilience is the result of significant efforts and remains vulnerable; in wartime, economic policy requires realistic planning and efficient use of resources. Considerable attention during the discussion was paid to the issue of external financing. As noted, Ukraine is critically dependent on international aid, which requires not only active work with partners, but also a demonstration of the effective use of the funds received. According to experts, transparency and effectiveness in this area can be a guarantee of further support from donors. Burakovsky expressed cautious optimism: according to the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, business and enterprises demonstrate a high level of adaptation to war conditions, while entrepreneurs name labor shortages, physical security issues, and the need for financial support among the key problems. The issue of energy security was separately raised. Due to the loss of control over the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the consequences of the Kakhovka HPP explosion and regular attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine is forced to look for new models of electricity production and transmission. It was noted that the transport system is operating at the limit of its capabilities, which creates additional risks for exports and imports. Digitalization has become an important factor in economic and military stability, while the need to strengthen cybersecurity is growing, which requires systematic work at the state level. In the context of European integration, Ukraine continues to prepare for the opening of negotiation chapters with the European Union. Experts emphasized that the integration process has not only economic but also security significance, especially given the changing approaches of the EU itself to global and regional challenges. Military-political observer of the Information Resistance group Oleksandr Kovalenko noted that Ukraine gained independence in 1991 peacefully, but the following decades were marked by the gradual loss of military-industrial potential, which, in his opinion, became one of the factors of Ukraine's vulnerability to Russian aggression. At the time of the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine possessed a significant arsenal of weapons, including nuclear weapons, strategic aviation and tens of thousands of armored vehicles. During the 1990s and early 2000s, a significant part of this potential was utilized, sold off or withdrawn from combat duty. The lack of a systematic policy to preserve the defense potential led to the fact that Ukraine faced the events of 2014 and 2022 without proper military capabilities, Kovalenko emphasized. At the same time, despite limited resources, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the support of international partners, were able to restrain the offensive actions of the Russian Federation and significantly exhaust its combat potential. In this context, he stressed the importance of the development of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, which, according to the participants in the discussion, is demonstrating positive dynamics. Arms production is growing, and the Defense Forces of Ukraine are receiving modern equipment that allows them to effectively counter the aggressor. Supporting the army and defense industry should become not only a strategic goal, but also a key priority of state policy. In his opinion, not only the end of the war will depend on this, but also Ukraine's ability to form its own position in the international dialogue, and he expressed his belief that it is stability, technological modernization, and political subjectivity that will allow Ukraine not only to preserve its independence, but also to ensure it for decades to come, Kovalenko emphasized. Utica, N.Y. The mother of a Utica boy who is too young to be charged for his crimes is facing a charge never before used by the department in order to hold her 11-year-old son accountable, according to police. The boys mother Nurto Mohamed, 36 has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, for failure to exercise due diligence in control of a child. Police Thursday said the charge was their only option. If the kid cannot be held accountable, and mom is aware and unwilling to cease the behavior, then who else can be held accountable, but mom? Lt. Michael Curly, a spokesperson for the Utica Police Department, said. Mohamed was arrested Tuesday after police said her son had been involved in at least four felonies and other incidents since the start of 2025 including an armed robbery, a burglary that resulted in two stolen vehicles, and a fire set inside a Walmart store, Curly said. Curly said Mohameds lack of response was not because she was unable to intervene, but unwilling to. Curly said police made repeated efforts to intervene before filing charges. Each time the child committed a serious offense, officers spoke with Mohamed, informed her of what happened, and offered access to support services. But, according to Curly, Mohamed failed to take steps to prevent future incidents. Under New Yorks Raise the Age law, children under the age of 12 cannot be charged with a crime or even referred to Family Court. Curly said Mohameds charges stemmed from an incident on Aug. 6, when her son and a 12-year-old accomplice were involved in a burglary that caused damage to several vehicles. During the incident, they stole two vehicles and drove around the city, damaging the vehicles and other property, Curly said. The charge endangering the welfare of a child is a misdemeanor in New York. It allows prosecutors to charge a parent or guardian who fails to prevent a child from becoming an abused child, neglected child, juvenile delinquent, or a person in need of supervision. This is the first time weve charged this under these circumstances, police said. But with this level of public nuisance and violence, we couldnt just wait until he turns 12 or 18. We had to act now. Curly said the intent is not to incarcerate the mother, but to ensure accountability and potentially court-mandated services for both the parent and child. We dont think jail is the solution, he said. But we do hope this opens the door for mandatory services parenting support, mental health care, community resources something that changes the direction this is headed in. This is about correcting behavior. Mohamed pleaded not guilty at her arraignment and was released on her own recognizance. Staff writer Darian Stevenson covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her atdstevenson@syracuse.com Update at 7:22 p.m. At least 5 dead in bus crash on NY Thruway. Update at 5:50 p.m. Shortly after 5 p.m., westbound lanes on the New York Thruway near the fatal tour bus crash in Pembroke were reopened, State Police said. Eastbound lanes in the area remained closed. Update at 2:50 p.m. Several passengers died, were injured and were trapped in a mass casualty incident after a bus rolled over on the New York State Thruway east of Buffalo, according to State Police. A child was among those killed, a State Police spokesman said. The tour bus was headed from Niagara Falls to New York City, troopers said. The accident occurred around 12:30 p.m. in the town of Pembroke in Genesee County. People were still being rescued more than two hours later. The bus lost control, went into the median, overcorrected and ended up in a ditch on the south side of the Thruway, Trooper James OCallaghan said at the scene, according to coverage from WIVB. The injured were taken to Rochester and Buffalo hospitals, he said. We believe that there is a child that is a fatality, OCallaghan at the scene said. In all, 52 people were on board. First responders work to rescue victims at the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Libby March/Buffalo News via AP) AP As we progress through this, we are losing more people, he said. The bus is extremely damaged. The bus did roll, he said, adding that is why so many people were ejected. Almost everyone on the bus has some sort of injuries, though some are cuts and bruises, the trooper said. This bus was going full speed, he said, and it did not hit any other vehicles. It came to rest on its passenger side, he said. Sixteen of the passengers were taken to Erie County Medical Center, according to Dr. Jennifer Pugh. As of about 4:30 p.m., 20 were still being treated, including two in surgery and two in trauma ICU, according to Dr. Jeffrey Brewer, the hospitals chief of surgery. Erie County Medical Center sent six staff out to the bus to help treat and triage patients, according to the hospital. One hospital official said the day brought the most patients from one event in his 25 years on the job. Many of the passengers were Indian, Chinese or Filipino, he said. Traffic on the westbound side of the Thruway was starting to slowly move again. A portion of the eastbound side would likely be closed the rest of the day, the trooper said. Anyone who may have witnessed the crash or has dash cam footage is asked to contact State Police at 716-289-4279. First responders work to rescue victims at the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. State Police Original story is below An accident involving a tour bus with more than 50 people has shut down all lanes of the New York Thruway east of Buffalo, according to State Police and 911 dispatches. Genesee Countys 911 dispatchers reported the incident involved more than 50 patients in Pembroke. Multiple agencies were responding, including four helicopters, according to dispatches. All lanes on the Thruway were closed east of Buffalo starting at between Exits 49 and 48A, the Thruway reported this afternoon. Thruway officials described it as a serious accident. Erie Countys executive, Mark Poloncarz said it was a mass casualty accident in nearby Genesee County. I have been advised the NYS Thruway is closed westbound at Exit 48A (Pembroke) and Eastbound at Exit 49 (Depew) until further notice due to the serious mass casualty bus accident in Genesee County just over the Erie County line, he posted on X. Vehicles will be detoured off the Thruway at each. Exit 49 is for Depew/Lockport. Exit 48A is for the Pembroke and Medina area. The accident was reported at around 12:20 p.m. Shortly after 2 p.m., four patients were being sent to the Erie County Medical Center, the areas trauma center, The Buffalo News reported. At least one arrived by Mercy Flight, an executive told the Buffalo news outlet. Three other Mercy Flight helicopters were sent out of precaution, the News reported. Governor Kathy Hochul also commented on the accident on X, stating that she had been briefed and that her team was providing assistance where possible. Expect heavy delays, State Police warned. Staff writer Greta Stuckey contributed to this report. This is a breaking story. It will be updated. On the night of Aug. 13 New York State Department of Environmental Conservations Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from the friend of a hiker in need of assistance in the Adirondack High Peaks region. The caller said their friend, a 36-year-old from Webster, was frantic, out of water, and their phone was dying. The hikers car was at Round Pond trailhead, but phone coordinates placed them coming down Bouquet Forks trail. Shortly after midnight, a forest ranger intercepted the hiker on the trail, rehydrated them, and assisted them down the to the trailhead. DEC recommends hikers bring plenty of food and water in case a hike lasts longer than expected to reduce bouts of cramping and dehydration. The following reports are excerpted from DEC: Forest rangers rescue a 68-year-old from Oneonta who injured their ankle on Black Dome Mountain last week. NYS DEC A 68-year-old from Oneonta injured their ankle two miles up the trail of Black Dome Mountain on Aug. 15. Rangers successfully packaged the hiker and carried them out to the trailhead after midnight. On the night of Aug. 12, a 27-year-old from Avon needed ranger assistance to descend Marble Mountain after they became overheated and exhausted. On Aug. 7, rangers investigated a report of people living in Plainfield State Forest. A database search revealed that one camper had warrants in three upstate NY counties for multiple charges including criminal obstruction of breathing and criminal contempt. Rangers took the person into custody without incident. A 21-year-old from Rocky Point last week suffered a head injury after falling 20-30 feet down a cliff by Rock Pond in the town of Ticonderoga. NYS DEC On the afternoon of Aug. 18, a 21-year-old from Rocky Point suffered a head injury after falling 20-30 feet down a cliff by Rock Pond in the town of Ticonderoga. The hiker had multiple lacerations but no signs or symptoms of a brain injury. A ranger took them by boat to the Putnam Boat Launch to meet family. A 72-year-old from Connecticut hiking in the Sawtooth Mountain range was overdue on Aug. 13. Rangers searched into the night, locating the hiker and guiding them to the Seward trailhead by 4:28 a.m. A 41-year-old from Massena called for help on Aug. 13 after taking an unexpected route from Cascade trailhead to Marcy Field over Blueberry Mountain. The hiker was out of water and cramping. A ranger rehydrated them, and helped them back to their vehicle at the trailhead. Rangers helped locate a 21-year-old from Brooklyn got lost recently in Sullivan County. NYS DEC A 21-year-old from Brooklyn called 911 to report they were lost and their cell phone battery was dying. Sullivan County Sheriffs Office launched a drone while rangers conducted linear searches. Shortly after midnight, a ranger made voice contact with hiker. The ranger provided electrolytes, and transported the hiker to the command post for EMS evaluation. On the evening of Aug. 15, a ranger spotted a small wildfire on Big Island in Raquette Lake and had it under control within hours. DEC says campers should never leave a campfire unattended and make sure it is cold to the touch after its extinguished. A group of hikers ages 37, 15, and 10 wandered off trail on Azure Mountain on Aug. 16 and didnt know how to get back. A ranger assisted them back to the trailhead. While the hikers lost their way, they did have water, headlamps, and extra layers of clothing. Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com On Tuesday, the agency's press center hosted a meeting of the Capital Region discussion club on the topic How the actions and inaction of law enforcement agencies affect reconstruction, the investment climate, and defense capabilities. Participants discussed the risks to businesses and communities using specific examples and outlined the necessary steps for reform. The keynote speaker at the event, lawyer and Serhiy Vozny, head of the All-Ukrainian Association of Freelance (Public) Inspectors of Architectural and Construction Control, emphasized that problems in the work of the law enforcement system pose a threat to the recovery processes during the war and post-war period and hinder economic and social development. He called on the authorities to adopt effective political and administrative decisions to reform the sector, which, in his opinion, will create conditions for improving the investment environment and business development. As an example, Vozny cited the situation with the reconstruction of Gostomel: according to him, less than 10% of the 100 million hryvnia development budget has been used because officials fear criminal prosecution and contractors refuse to work with budget resources due to ongoing proceedings related to purely economic and civil relations. Without systematic reform of the law enforcement system, it is impossible to ensure the country's high-quality recovery and stable economic development, he concluded. Oleksandr Magdych, a veteran of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, entrepreneur, and leader of the Bila Tserkva Volunteer Corps, drew attention to the interaction between the police and the military and veterans. The National Police does not comply with the directive on mediation with the military and veterans, does not take post-traumatic stress disorder into account, humiliates and provokes with the aim of bringing them to justice, he said, adding that, in his opinion, there are cases of falsification of evidence and testimony. Magdych also cited examples of lawlessness in Odesa and Kharkiv, which, according to him, are related to pressure on businesses and attempts at raider attacks. (Statements are based on the speaker's words.) During the discussion, participants discussed cases of pressure on businesses and inaction by law enforcement agencies, in particular around the Museum of Strategic Missile Forces in Mykolaiv Oblast, which, according to them, has become a hotbed of corruption and neglect of unique exhibits. The topic of blocking the activities of private entities and extortion was raised separately. Journalist Nadiya Savchuk of the My Kyiv Region news agency reported on what she described as raider attempts and obstruction of business in the regions. In particular, she reported an attempt to raid the Dinosaur Park in Ivano-Frankivsk region on August 15, 2025, when, according to her, law enforcement officers tried to seize and ban entrepreneurial activity, and representatives demanded $100,000; after the refusal, according to Savchuk, they came to close it down. Also in focus is the situation surrounding the Bagachansky Agricultural Production Cooperative in Poltava region, which the speakers described as critically important for the country. (Submitted based on statements by the participant.) The event was also attended by sociologist and founder of Aktiv Group Andriy Yeremenko, KyivRevizor journalist Vasyl, and others. Participants agreed on the need for transparent procedures for interaction between business and law enforcement agencies, expansion of mediation in cases involving veterans, and ensuring the inevitability of responsibility for abuse of power. Editor's note: All facts of violations and abuses cited are reproduced from the words of the speakers during the public discussion; the position of the relevant authorities or law enforcement agencies may differ. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Xiaomi has officially launched the Redmi Note 15 series in China, which includes the Redmi Note 15, Note 15 Pro, and Note 15 Pro+. One of the most value-for-money smartphones in its segment, the Redmi Note 15 brings major upgrades over the previous model, the Note 14 5G. From a bigger battery to a brighter screen, the phone balances performance, design, and price like never before. Stunning OLED Screen With Smooth Performance According to Xiaomi, the Redmi Note 15 boasts a 6.77-inch OLED screen that offers an ultra-smooth 120Hz refresh rate and rich Full HD+ resolution. Its peak brightness of 3,200 nits means the display provides great readability even in direct sunlight. A fingerprint reader built into the screen adds convenience and security to the overall experience, even with the affordable price tag. Powerful Snapdragon Performance Beneath the external components, the Redmi Note 15 runs on the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 processor, which can take care of gaming, multitasking, and regular usage easily. The phone comes in a variety of configurations: 6 GB/128 GB, 8 GB/128 GB, 8 GB/256 GB, and 12 GB/256 GB. As a phone user, you have enough options based on your requirements. It has UFS 2.2 storage and LPDDR4X memory, providing quick app opening and seamless performance. The phone comes out of the box with HyperOS 2, based on Android 15, which offers the newest software experience. Dual Camera System for Daily Photography At the back, Redmi Note 15 features a 50 MP Light Fusion 400 primary camera with f/1.8 aperture, along with a 2 MP depth sensor for portrait images. For video calls and selfies, the device features an 8 MP front-facing camera, offering consistent quality for video chatting and social media. Long-Lasting Battery with Fast Charging One of its strongest points is its huge 5,800 mAh battery, which provides all-day operation without too much recharging. The phone supports 45W fast charging for rapid top-ups and 18W reverse wired charging, meaning it can also be used as a power bank to charge other devices. How Much is the Redmi Note 15? As per GSM Arena, the Redmi Note 15 offers excellent value for money, starting at just CNY 999 ($140) for the 6 GB/128 GB model. The 8 GB/128 GB version is priced at CNY 1,099 ($155), while the 8 GB/256 GB model costs CNY 1,299 ($180). The top-tier 12 GB/256 GB variant is available for CNY 1,499 ($210). Buyers in China can now purchase the device directly through Xiaomi's official online store. Modern Features and Build Quality The Redmi Note 15 has IP66 dust and water resistance, stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support, an infrared sensor, 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, and NFC capabilities. The colors are Midnight Black, Sky Blue, and Star White, and the design supports minimalist as well as fashionable tastes. Ukraine's leading express delivery company, Nova Poshta of the Nova Group, has fully placed Series H bonds with a total nominal value of UAH 1 billion following the redemption on July 30 of Series E bonds of the same amount. The National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) approved the corresponding bond issue report on August 19, 2025. Each bond carries a nominal value of UAH 1,000, with one million bonds issued. The placement was conducted without a public offering. Other issuance parameters have not been disclosed. Back in May, the NSSMC approved the placement of two new Nova Poshta bond issues Series G and H each with a nominal volume of UAH 1 billion. The company stated that the raised funds would be allocated as follows: 35% toward expanding its terminal network, 15% into IT investments, 30% into BDF containers and transportation vehicles, and 20% into parcel packaging. In July 2025, Nova Poshta fully placed its Series G bonds totaling UAH 1 billion. As of mid-2025, Nova Poshta had obligations on three bond issues: Series E for UAH 995.82 million (redeemed on July 30, 2025), Series F for UAH 998.45 million (maturing June 1, 2026), and Series G for UAH 999.38 million (maturing May 2, 2027). The coupon rate for Series F and G stands at 16% per annum. Since August 2020, the company has already redeemed five bond issues totaling UAH 3.6 billion. In Q2 2025, Nova Poshta increased its unconsolidated net profit by 2.6% year-on-year to UAH 905.45 million, with revenue climbing 22.9% to UAH 12.71 billion. For the first half of 2025 overall, however, net profit declined 19.6% to UAH 1.20 billion, while revenue rose 22.1% to UAH 24.57 billion. The company's equity grew 6.1% in the first half of 2025 to UAH 12.30 billion, while liabilities increased 2.8% to UAH 20.56 billion. Nova Poshta's core business remains express delivery of documents, parcels, and palletized large cargo. The company leads Ukraine's express delivery market. Its ultimate beneficial owners are Volodymyr Popereshniuk and Viacheslav Klymov. Beijing, Kabul, Islamabad vow stronger cooperation 08:07, August 22, 2025 By ZHAO JIA ( China Daily Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (second from left) attends a meeting with Afghanistan's Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani (third from right) in Kabul on Wednesday. Li Ang / Xinhua China, Afghanistan and Pakistan have pledged to deepen cooperation in trade, connectivity and security to promote regional peace and prosperity, as their foreign ministers met in Kabul on Wednesday for the sixth China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Dialogue. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar attended the talks. The trilateral mechanism, launched by China in 2017 and revived in 2022, serves as an important platform for the three neighbors to coordinate policies. An informal ministerial meeting held in Beijing in May helped maintain momentum for trilateral engagement. Wang said China stands ready to work with Afghanistan and Pakistan to "strengthen exchanges at all levels and consolidate strategic trust".He called for expanded trade and investment, enhanced connectivity, stronger people-to-people ties, and joint efforts against cross-border terrorism. He urged the three sides to "jointly oppose external interference in the region and reject the use of their territories by any force or individual to undermine each other's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity". Beijing will continue to speak up for Kabul at multilateral forums, encourage constructive international engagement, and support the normalization of Afghanistan's foreign relations, Wang added. Muttaqi praised China's role in advancing trilateral cooperation, saying Afghanistan hopes to deepen friendship and coordination for greater progress. Dar highlighted the vast potential of trilateral cooperation in trade, Belt and Road cooperation, connectivity and counterterrorism, urging the unfreezing of Afghanistan's overseas assets and calling for stronger collective action against terrorism in all forms. The meeting marked Wang's second visit to Afghanistan since the withdrawal of United States-led troops and the Taliban's return to power in 2021, following a trip in March 2022. Analysts said the visits highlight China's intention to carry forward traditional friendship with Afghanistan and strengthen ties with the neighboring country. Liu Zongyi, director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said that through platforms such as the trilateral dialogue, China and Pakistan have played a leading role among regional and international actors in promoting Afghanistan's stability, reconstruction and global engagement. "While some Western countries have imposed unilateral sanctions and frozen billions in Afghan assets, Beijing has maintained that Afghanistan should not be excluded from the international community and has encouraged greater dialogue with Kabul to support the country's reconstruction," Liu said. Earlier on Wednesday, Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund met with Wang. He described China as a "force for justice" in the world and commended its policy of noninterference. Akhund pledged that Afghanistan "will never allow its territory to be used to threaten China" and expressed readiness to advance "positive and sustainable "friendship with Beijing. Wang reaffirmed that, as Afghanistan's neighbor, China will continue to champion fairness, oppose unilateral bullying and promote practical cooperation across all fields. He reiterated China's concerns about the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is listed by the United Nations Security Council as a terrorist group, and urged Kabul to intensify its crackdown. Wang also held separate meetings with Afghan Foreign Minister Muttaqi and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani on Wednesday. Compared with some countries "obsessed with geopolitical competition", Liu said, China "pursues a friendly policy toward all Afghan people and is a partner that Afghanistan can trust in its postwar future". Despite shifting political circumstances, China-Afghanistan relations have remained stable, with diplomatic missions in both capitals operating normally and helping sustain bilateral relations, he added. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice With any starring role in a blockbuster film comes a string of rejected actors. Its difficult to imagine the Titanic without Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack, opposite Kate Winslets Rose. Yet before DiCaprio was cast, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp were all considered for the part. Sometimes, actors make the decision to turn down a huge role, only to regret it later. Other times, things simply dont go their way. Even the very best can still botch an audition. Here are 11 memorable times a now-famous actor got rejected from a major film... Emma Stone open image in gallery Emma Stone could have been Alice in Tim Burtons Alice and Wonderland ( Getty ) The La La Land star said that she auditioned for the lead role in Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland. She told Timothee Chalamet in an actor-on-actor interview for Variety: Oh, my God, when I auditioned for Alice in Wonderland... not getting a Tim Burton movie is really devastating. The part eventually went to Australian actor Mia Wasikowska. Timothee Chalamet open image in gallery Timothee Chalamet revealed that he tested for Spider-Man ( Getty ) In the same interview, Call Me By Your Name star Chalamet told Stone that he tested for a part in Spider-Man. I went up for all these things, and tested for Spider-Man, and I didnt get it, and a Tim Burton movie, too, and these things werent happening," he said. Chalamet has since landed a part in an adaptation of Roald Dahls story, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as an early incarnation of inventor Willy Wonka. Burton previously directed Johnny Depp in the role for his 2005 film. Ben Stiller open image in gallery Ben Stiller attempted to get cast in My Cousin Vinny ( Getty ) In August 2022, Ben Stiller revealed that he had unsuccessfully tried to get cast in the hit 1990s comedy My Cousin Vinny. I tanked my audition for My Cousin Vinny. It still haunts me to this day, said the actor during a Q&A. While he didnt reveal which part he was denied, fans have speculated that he was in line to play the role of Billy Gambini, which eventually went to Ralph Macchio. Jake Gyllenhaal open image in gallery Jake Gyllenhaal was in the running for a role in The Lord of the Rings ( Getty ) The Brokeback Mountain actor recalled bombing an audition for The Lord Of The Rings. I remember going to this room. There was a lot of stage directions and no lines It was just like finding the ring and I remember I didnt really do it because I didnt really understand because there were no lines, Gyllenhaal told Jimmy Fallon. So I sort of walked up, and opened [a box] up and I was like Is that good? Literally Peter Jackson was like *face palm*. Taylor Launter open image in gallery The Twilight star could have been the face of Disneys Camp Rock ( Getty ) Before the Jonas Brothers got their parts starring in Disneys Camp Rock, a different 2000s teen hearthrob was in the running for the role. "Taylor Lautner did audition, and we liked him a lot," director Matthew Diamond told Insider. "I think we kind of said he wasnt exactly right for the part." The director said that they could "tell how talented he was" but he wasnt "quite Shane Gray enough". "I remember thinking hes really good-looking and quite charismatic," Diamond added. Even though Lautner didnt star in the Disney hit, he landed his iconic role playing Jacob Black in the Twilight franchise, which was released in the same year. The part of Shane Gray went to Joe Jonas, who played alongside his brothers Nick and Kevin. Russell Crowe open image in gallery Russell Crowe was said to have auditioned for My Best Friends Wedding ( Getty ) Russell Crowe once botched an audition for the 1997 romantic comedy My Best Friends Wedding according to the films director at least. Filmmaker PJ Hogan recalled in an interview with Vulture, that his first choice for the male lead had been Crowe, who he thought was probably the most amazing actor I had ever encountered. To cast Crowe in the film, he needed Julia Robertss approval, so he invited the Gladiator star to a table read. I dont know what went wrong, Hogan said. It was one of the worst table reads Ive ever experienced. Russell was seated opposite Julia. He gripped that script, and he stared at that script, and he didnt look at her once. He read every line in a monotone. At one point, Julia was literally leaning over the table, staring, like, inches from Russells face, trying to make eye contact. And he wouldnt look at her. Hogan added: At the end of the reading, Russell came up to me and said, I thought that went pretty well. And then I knew: Russell was not going to be in My Best Friends Wedding. The role eventually went to Dermot Mulroney. Matthew McConaughey open image in gallery McConaughey could have starred alongside Kate Winslet in the Titanic ( Getty ) The Interstellar actor auditioned for Titanic and was ecstatic with how it went. The audition went really well. Well enough where, when I was left, I was being slapped on the back ... well enough where you go outside and call your agent and say Oh, I nailed it," McConaughey said on a 2019 episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. And there was a rumour that I got the role and didnt do it.. This is false, he added. Despite McConaugheys feelings about the audition, Leonardo DiCaprio landed the iconic role, and both actors will likely agree their respective careers turned out just fine. Chris Klein open image in gallery An audition tape surfaced revealing Kleins audition tape for Mamma Mia!' ( Getty ) In an audition tape video that resurfaced years later, American Pie star Chris Klein went for one of the main in roles in the hit Abba musical, Mamma Mia!. In the tape, Klein can be heard singing Lay All Your Love On Me while auditioning to play Sky, Sophies lover. The role eventually went to Dominic Cooper. John Krasinski open image in gallery Chris Evans was chosen to play Captain America over John Krasinski ( Getty ) My agent called and said, Theyre going to go with Chris Evans, Krasinski told Variety about losing the role of Captain America in 2011. And I remember I said, Yeah, look at him. Hes Captain America. In an interview on The Ellen Show, Krasinski elaborated: "This is a true story. I was putting the suit on, and the [costume] guy was like, This is really momentous. And I said, Yes." Reese Witherspoon open image in gallery Reese Witherspoon could have played main character Cher in Clueless ( Getty ) There were many contenders for Cluelesss Cher Horowitz, including Angelina Jolie, who sent in an audition tape. I met with Reese [Witherspoon] because everyone said, This girls amazing. Shes going to be huge," said Clueless director and writer Amy Heckerling. I saw some movie where she [Witherspoon] had a southern accent. Maybe it was on TV, a movie of the week. But I did see some scenes of hers and went: Wow. Shes amazing. But Alicia [Silverstone] is Cher, she told Vanity Fair. Alicia Silverstone went on to win Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture for her role in Clueless at the 1996 Academy Awards. Tom Holland open image in gallery Holland went on to be cast in Spider-Man: Homecoming ( Getty Images ) He may have beaten Chalamet to the Spider-Man punch, but Tom Holland has his own tale of casting woe. The actor auditioned unsuccessfully to star in 2015s record-breaking sequel Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I was like four or five auditions in, and I think I was auditioning for John Boyegas role, he said. I remember doing this scene with this lady, bless her, and she was just a drone. So I was doing all of this like, We gotta get back to the ship! and she was just going, Bleep, bloop, bloop, bleep bloop. I just couldnt stop laughing. I found it so funny. And I felt really bad, because she was trying really hard to be a convincing android or drone or whatever theyre called. The Avengers star added: Yeah, I obviously didnt get the part. That wasnt my best moment. Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Actor and former Bake Off presenter Mel Giedroyc feared David Nicholls hated her performance in a stage adaptation of his debut novel Starter for Ten after she caught him with his head in his hands. The 57-year-old stars in the Starter for Ten musical as Irene, the mother of student Brian Jackson (Adam Bregman), who wins a place on Bristols University Challenge team. Giedroyc said Nicholls, whos best known for his 2009 novel One Day, looked devastated when he attended production rehearsals leading up to the shows opening night. We were thinking, Is he hating this? Is he livid? Turns out he was actually crying. Tearing [up], Giedroyc told Lorraine host Ranvir Singh on Friday (22 August). Giedroyc dubbed the authors reaction to their performances a lovely thing, adding that the tender and life-affirming show had been 12 years in the making due to its original Eighties-inspired score. Starter for Ten is a coming-of-age musical adapted from Nicholls bestselling novel, as well as the popular 2006 film, which starred James McAvoy as Brian. The film also featured early performances from Catherine Tate, James Corden and Benedict Cumberbatch. Mel Giedroyc has revealed she was initially panicked by David Nicholls' reaction to 'Started for Ten' the musical ( Getty ) The musical had its premiere at the Bristol Old Vic in February 2024 and ran for a limited run until March. It was nominated for Best Musical Production at the UK Theatre Awards that year. Starter for Ten returns to Bristol Old Vic this September for a month-long run before heading to The Rep theatre in Birmingham for an additional 10 nights. The production is directed by Charlie Parham, choreographed by Shelley Maxwell (England on Fire, The Time Traveller Wife), and designed by Frankie Bradshaw (A Street Car Named Desire, Dear Octopus). Nicholls said in a statement when the show was first announced in 2023: Nearly 20 years after publication, its such a thrill that Brians misadventures are being brought to the stage, and by such a brilliant, dynamic team. Starter for Ten begins when Brian Jackson goes to university in 1985. He graduates in 1988 the same year One Day characters Emma Morely and Dexter Mayhew finish their degrees in Edinburgh. Nicholls previously told the BBC there is definitely a continuity between the two texts and says there are similarities between Emma Morely and Brian. She would slightly roll her eyes at him, but they would have things in common, he said. Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Parker Posey has revealed that she and Jason Isaacs turned to reality television to prepare for their roles on season three of The White Lotus. During Thursdays Take Ten video interview for Deadline, the 56-year-old actor recalled playing Victoria Ratliff on the third season of the hit HBO show. Victoria and her husband, businessman Timothy Ratliff (portrayed by Jason Isaacs), traveled from North Carolina with their three children to vacation at the luxurious Thailand resort before things went awry. To properly prepare for their roles, which required Southern accents, Posey and Isaacs watched the hit Bravo reality series, Southern Charm, following the lives of socialites in Charleston, South Carolina. Posey, who is from the South, said her accent onThe White Lotus was inspired by a mix of characters and accents that the actor heard growing up. I said the lines in my head of that kind of cadence. I practiced a lot so it was technical, and then I had fun with it, she added during the interview with Deadline. Im from the South, and its full of characters. The dialects alone and the way people talk is so charming and funny. Parker Posey said she and Jason Isaacs watched Southern Charm to develop their accents for The White Lotus ( Getty Images ) Speaking of her co-star Isaacs, Posey said: Hes got a great ear. You know, the English love their dialects, and the English and the South have a similar cadence. Both Posey and Isaacs received Emmy nominations for their work on the show. When season three of The White Lotus was airing in March, fans were gushing over Victorias accent. Posey spoke about the viral reaction during an interview with Today at the time, reiterating that her acting skills were inspired by Southern Charm. I love Southern women, to be able to play them. We all watch Southern Charm. So being able to be this dramatic and funny, is just so juicy and fun to do. And of course, Mike White wrote it so well, she explained, referring to the creator of The White Lotus. Posey started her career in the 90s with celebrated independent films like Richard Linklater's coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused in 1993, Noah Baumbachs Kicking and Screaming in 1995, and her standout role in Daisy von Scherler Mayers Party Girl in 1995. However, she revealed in June that when Hollywood studios got involved in the independent film scene, she was made to feel that she couldnt keep up. All of a sudden, I wasnt viable to get a movie financed, and it was such a head trip because I would have to audition for Hollywood movies when I had carried the lead in independent movies that were shot in 23 days, she said during an episode of the SmartLess podcast. Im in a fluorescent-lit room, sweating and feeling like Im being gaslit, you know? she added. Like, I can promise I can memorize these lines in the script, and we'll have a blast, trust me! So, I had, like, a good 20 years of that after, and then working with great auteurs and doing [films], not getting paid a lot, but being able to work and fulfill my creativity. Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice South Park has taken aim at the Trump administration yet again, this time over the presidents Washington, D.C. crime takeover. So far this season, South Park has depicted Trump in a relationship with Satan, a miniature Vice President JD Vance waiting on Trumps every demand, and a Botox-filled puppy-killing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The punches kept coming during Wednesday nights episode, which took a darker turn as it was revealed that Satan is trapped at the White House as Trumps prisoner. After being propositioned by Trump, Satan went to the bathroom, stating: What am I doing here? When returning South Park character Towelie, also trapped at the White House, tells him, Please, I want to get out of here, Satan replies: So do I, but there is no escape from this place. open image in gallery 'South Park' has taken aim at President Donald Trump's Washington, D.C. crime takeover, showing tanks and marching troops at national landmarks in its latest episode ( Comedy Central ) The episode also took more jabs directly at Trump, continuing with its theme of mocking his manhood as a line of businesspeople brought him gifts and compliments, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said: Mr. President, your ideas for the tech industry are so innovative, and you definitely do not have a small penis. Always keeping up with current affairs, South Park also made sure to acknowledge the recent changes to Washington, D.C., with the addition of a heavy military presence. When Towelie arrives to visit Trump, hes surrounded by soldiers. The animated version of Union Station was filled with men in tactical gear and holding rifles, troops were marching in unison at the Washington Monument and a tank was driving by the White House, spoofing Trumps decision to place D.C. police under direct federal control and resulting in the deployment of about 800 National Guard troops to the city. open image in gallery Donald Trump greets Apple CEO Tim Cook during 'South Park' season 27 episode 3 ( Comedy Central ) The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment. The raunchy Comedy Central cartoon has hit viewership records in its 27th season as it continues to mock Trump and his close allies. However, the Trump administration has fired back at South Park for its unflattering depictions. This show hasnt been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Variety after the shows season premiere last month. For her part, Noem whose looks were scrutinized during episode two told The Glenn Beck Program podcast, It's so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. Only the liberals and the extremists do that. Vance took a light-hearted approach to the mockery, writing on X, Well, Ive finally made it. The next episode of South Park will air September 3 on Comedy Central and stream the next day on Paramount+. Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer life Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A significant breakthrough in advanced bladder cancer treatment has been approved for use on the NHS, offering renewed hope to patients and potentially doubling survival times. The innovative combination therapy, comprising enfortumab vedotin (Padcev) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda), demonstrated superior survival rates in clinical trials when compared with traditional platinum-based chemotherapy. It is estimated that 1,250 people a year could benefit from the treatment. While this new treatment offers a vital lifeline, experts are simultaneously stressing the critical importance of recognising the early warning signs of the disease. Prompt action in bladder cancer cases can be the decisive factor between a manageable condition and a life-threatening diagnosis. With this in mind, medical professionals are providing essential guidance on understanding bladder cancer, identifying those most at risk, and pinpointing the crucial red flags to look out for... open image in gallery (Alamy/PA) Cancer of the bladder involves abnormal growths that can cause symptoms both within the bladder and beyond if it spreads around the body, explains Mr James Douglas, consultant urologist at Nuffield Health Bournemouth Hospital. It is the seventh most common cancer in men, and the 11th commonest cancer overall in the UK for men and women.Mutations to the DNA of bladder cells cause the cancer and these are usually associated with old age and environmental factors such as smoking. Dr Rachel Orritt, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, adds: Smoking is the biggest cause of bladder cancer. That doesnt mean that everyone who has ever smoked will develop bladder cancer, but tobacco does increase the risk of the disease, and of at least 15 other types of cancer. Who is most at risk? Like most cancer types, bladder cancer can affect anyone, but its also more common in older age groups, and people with a first-degree relative (a parent, sibling or child) who has had bladder cancer, says Orritt. You can talk to your doctor to understand your risk if youre concerned, and for advice. Bladder cancer is also more common in men. Men are diagnosed more frequently that women with a ratio of 3:1, highlights Douglas. However, women often present with more advanced disease and as such earlier diagnosis is a priority.What symptoms should you never ignore? Here are five bladder red flags you should never ignore 1. Blood in your urine According to Cancer Research UKs website, 80 out of 100 people with bladder cancer (80%) have some blood in their urine. This is the most common symptom of bladder cancer and may happen suddenly or may come and go, says Rachel Rawson, lead clinical nurse specialist at Perci Health. Your pee may look pink, red or brown and you may see blood clots. If you do see any blood in your pee its important to see your GP as soon as possible. 2. Needing to pee frequently open image in gallery (Alamy/PA) Frequent urination, especially when it disrupts sleep, can be one of the more overlooked bladder cancer symptoms, notes Rawson. While there are many causes of frequency, including infection, diabetes, and even high fluid intake, its important not to dismiss this symptom, particularly if its persistent or worsening or is present at night. 3. Pain or burning during urination Occasionally a symptom of bladder cancer can be less easy to spot such as pain or a burning feeling, says Rawson. When the urine is tested by the doctor there may be non-visible traces of blood. These symptoms can also be caused by stones that develop in the kidneys or infection but its always important to get them checked by your GP. 4. Urgency to pee/pass urine Feeling a strong, sudden need to pee even when the bladder isnt full can be a warning sign of bladder cancer, especially if there is no infection present, says Rawson. This symptom can affect both men and women. Sometimes, the urgent need to pee is accompanied by the inability to empty your bladder. open image in gallery (Alamy/PA) Again, the need but inability to urinate is likely to be caused by something other than bladder cancer, but it is still very important to get checked out by your doctor, says Rawson. 5. Pelvic or lower back pain Some people might experience pain in the lower back or stomach, however this is an uncommon symptom, says Rawson. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Financial concerns are keeping many Americans up at night. Some 78 percent of adults in a recent survey reported recently losing sleep over money matters. That number is down from 81 percent reported in a similar survey also conducted by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine last year. In the new survey, close to two-thirds of participants also admitted that they had lost precious sleep time worrying about work, and more than half said that was due to anxiety about job security. In todays high-stress world, its easy to become overwhelmed and many people carry their worries to bed with them, Dr. Andrew Spector, a sleep medicine physician and a spokesman for the academy, explained in a statement. This is magnified by a lifestyle where even a quick walk to the bathroom might include a check of the latest headlines or social media posts, leaving little time in the day other than bedtime for the mind to process all of these fears, he continued. When your stress level is too high when you go to bed, your sleep suffers, and that affects your physical and mental health. Americans are losing sleep over financial worries. A new survey revealed 78 percent of adults said they were being kept up by money-related concerns, ( Getty Images/iStock ) But, money and jobs arent the only things Americans are worried about. Another 56 percent of those surveyed said they had lost sleep about political concerns, marking a 10 percent increase from 2024. Sleep-robbing thoughts regarding crime or violence are also top of mind, and 61 percent reported losing sleep because of those issues. Lastly, just 39 percent reported having lost sleep over artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, down from 41 percent last year. The surveys results build on previous research released earlier this year. Some 45 percent of U.S. adults said they were stressed at least once a week because of the news and whats happening on social media, according to a study from the Ohio State Universitys Wexner Medical Center. Stress, in itself, is not bad. But it is problematic when it becomes your chronic state of being, and when no action is taken to address the stress, Dr. Maryanna Klatt, the director of the universitys Center for Integrative Health, said in a statement. Its a vicious cycle as being stressed leads to less sleep - and sleeping less can make us more anxious, according to the American Psychological Association. A majority of U.S. adults say that they would feel better if they got more sleep, according to a Gallup poll from last year. In order to get more sleep, Spector said to exercise regularly to improve mood, write things down to offload your thoughts, and unplug from the news and social media at least an hour before bedtime. If its becoming a major issue, consider talking to a therapist. When we sleep better, we feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally, Spector added. Getting quality sleep is one of the most powerful tools we have to build resilience and face lifes daily challenges. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. (AND NO SPAM!) Just click here. James C. Dobson Jr., a child psychologist who rose to prominence by advocating the strict disciplining of children but went on to achieve even greater influence with his efforts to unite the Republican Party behind a sharply conservative evangelical agenda, died Aug. 21 at his home in Colorado Springs. He was 89. A spokeswoman for the family, Jessica Kramer, confirmed the death but did not cite a specific cause. Dr. Dobson's views were shaped by his fundamentalist faith and in reaction to the tumult of the 1960s, notably the anti-war movement, changing sexual mores and drug use, all of which were seen by some conservatives as outgrowths of the permissive parenting methods of the postwar era made popular by Benjamin Spock. For Dr. Dobson, advocating a return to traditional child-rearing practices led over time to a highly visible role in attempting to turn back that cultural tide, and ultimately to becoming one of the preeminent voices on the Christian right. Dr. Dobson was the author of a best-selling book on parenting, "Dare to Discipline," when he founded Focus on the Family as a radio program in 1977 to promote fundamentalist Christian values. He was credited with taking some of the first steps, two years before the Rev. Jerry Falwell launched the Moral Majority, toward bringing evangelical Christianity explicitly into the realm of conservative politics. Focus on the Family quickly became a major - and controversial - player in the rise of the religious right as an electoral force, claiming an early victory with its role in the election of Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1980. Because he operated Focus on the Family as a nonprofit, Dr. Dobson was legally obliged to observe limitations on the group's political involvement. In 1983 he helped found the Washington-based Family Research Council as an advocacy arm. He built a passionately loyal national following with his talk radio empire, which attracted an estimated 7 million weekly listeners. A pointed remark to his audience about home schooling or defunding the National Endowment for the Arts could light up the congressional switchboard. Over the decades, Focus on the Family grew into a sprawling media enterprise that produced videos, magazines and podcasts. Significant resources were dedicated to answering thousands of letters and emails each day from listeners seeking advice on parenting or other personal matters. "He was way out on the leading edge of this movement," Laura Olson, a Clemson University political scientist who studies the role of religion in politics, said in a 2020 interview for this obituary. "He created this broad framework around which it was able to define itself." Dr. Dobson was not an ordained minister. But he was descended from a long line of Nazarene pastors in Louisiana, and the role of stern prophet was one that came naturally to him. He decried any trend that smacked of liberalism, which he blamed for the decline of the family. "We're in a moral free fall," he declared at a rally in 2002. "Wherever you stick the thermometer into the American culture, you'll find corruption." As he saw it, the family was the bedrock of civilization, and it was under assault by factors including women in the workplace, contraception and premarital cohabitation. But those concerns, in his view, paled as a threat to the nation's moral fiber when compared with abortion, an issue that traditionally had been seen mainly as a concern to Catholic voters. Dr. Dobson, who opposed abortion under any circumstances, played a key role in making the matter a centerpiece of the Christian right's agenda. When the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade, Dr. Dobson was jubilant, saying that the justices had corrected "one of the court's most shameful moments." Dr. Dobson also trained his ire on same-sex marriage, which he denounced as a peril to the structure of society. When pressed on how allowing gay couples to wed undermined the institution of marriage or the family, he argued that same-sex marriage would set the country on a steep and slippery slope that could easily end in legalized polygamy. "The family was designed for a purpose," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live" talk show in 2002. "And if you go tampering with it, the whole thing crumbles." Critics denounced him as a bigot, but within the GOP his insistence on the primacy of what he presented as biblical principles became increasingly influential. He excoriated Republican politicians and even fellow Christian leaders who elevated tax cuts or other fiscal initiatives over moral issues. Doing so, he argued, presumed that Americans cared only about money. Perhaps the high-water mark of his political influence was the 2004 presidential election, when he rallied evangelicals to the polls, admonishing them that failure to cast a ballot would be a sin. The incumbent, Republican George W. Bush, went on to narrowly defeat Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). In the run-up to the election, Ralph Neas, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, told the New York Times, "There is no question that James Dobson is the most powerful and most influential voice on the religious Right." Dr. Dobson could at times exhibit a pragmatic streak in applying his moral principles to politics. He argued that Democrat Bill Clinton's infidelity disqualified him from occupying the Oval Office. "If a man will lie to his wife and break his commitment to her," he told his biographer, Dale Buss, "how could he be trusted to lead the free world?" While acknowledging that Trump was "not a perfect man," Dr. Dobson praised the president for keeping "every promise he made to the faith community," adding that Trump was "the most pro-life president we've ever had." He served on the Trump campaign's evangelical executive advisory board in 2016 and continued to support Trump during his subsequent campaigns. "I really do love and appreciate that man," Dr. Dobson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2019. He added, "I wish people would get off his back." A preacher's son James Clayton Dobson Jr. was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on April 21, 1936. His father, an itinerant preacher in the Church of the Nazarene, was often away as the family moved across Oklahoma and Texas. James completed high school in San Benito, Texas, and graduated in 1958 from Pasadena College, a Nazarene school in California. In 1960 he married Shirley Deere. In addition to his wife, survivors include two children - Danae, an author of Christian-themed children's books, and Ryan, who has done pastoral work of his own - and two grandchildren. After receiving a doctorate in child development in 1967 from the University of Southern California, Dr. Dobson spent 14 years as an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the USC medical school, while also serving on the staff of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The Watts riots that shook Los Angeles in 1965 had a profound effect on Dr. Dobson, who had just become a father for the first time, and who wondered what would happen to his daughter in a nation that seemed, in his eyes, to be coming unglued. As he recalled in his 1980 book "The Strong-Willed Child": "Accompanying this social upheaval was a sudden disintegration of moral and ethical principles such as has never occurred in the history of mankind. All at once, there were no definite values. There were no standards. No absolutes. No rules. No traditional beliefs on which to lean." His child-rearing philosophy centered on the belief that parents should set firm boundaries for their kids and that spanking, with a paddle or other implement, was an essential tool to that end. Dr. Dobson cautioned that spankings should be carefully administered and should never turn into abuse. But he insisted that the affirmation of parental control, with the help of corporal punishment, was of "vital importance to Christian parents who wish to transmit their love for Christ to their sons and daughters." In the late 1960s, he became a coveted speaker for Christian audiences and eventually a familiar figure on television programs, including Dinah Shore's talk show. In 1970 he published a manifesto of his views, "Dare to Discipline," that became a bestseller. Over the years he wrote more than 70 books, according to his foundation, mostly on parenting and relationships. Resigning from his clinical duties, he started his Focus on the Family radio program from a two-room office in Arcadia, California. Eleven years later, in 1988, he moved the operation to Colorado Springs, where it eventually occupied an 80-acre campus, with a staff of 1,300. In time the headquarters became a pilgrimage destination for his supporters, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. By 2005, the organization had annual revenue of nearly $140 million. Dr. Dobson at times attracted criticism with his forays into the culture wars. In 1989, he conducted an interview with serial killer Ted Bundy hours before Bundy was executed in Florida. The interview was "a message to the American people about pornography," according to Dr. Dobson, which Bundy cited as a source of his urge to kill. Experts objected strongly to the interview, noting that there was little if any evidence that pornography led to violence. In 2005, Dr. Dobson created a kerfuffle when he portrayed a popular cartoon character, SpongeBob SquarePants, as a menace to the nation's youth. In the Nickelodeon series, SpongeBob and his best friend, a dotty starfish named Patrick, are occasionally depicted holding hands. At a speech in Washington, Dr. Dobson objected to SpongeBob's appearance along with other cartoon favorites in a video aimed at children to promote tolerance, calling it "pro-homosexual." Amid the resulting ridicule, even a Baptist minister in Oklahoma denounced Dr. Dobson as a "fundamentalist demagogue." Dr. Dobson stepped down as chairman of Focus on the Family in 2009. He founded a new nonprofit, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, the next year. For all his influence, Dr. Dobson eschewed the trappings of power and wealth that led to criticism or scandal for some other evangelical leaders. He lived off his royalties, taking no salary from Focus on the Family, and avoided using his radio programs for on-air fundraising. He and his family lived a comparatively modest life in a home in Colorado Springs. "Building a power base means nothing to me," he once told The Washington Post. "I'm uncomfortable with what I have. But I do feel I cannot sit on my hands while everything I care about goes down the drain." (COMMENT, BELOW) Chinese universities drive progress on world's tallest bridge in SW China's Guizhou People's Daily Online) 09:29, August 22, 2025 The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, which is under construction in southwest China's Guizhou Province, is set to become the world's tallest bridge and the world's largest span bridge to be built in a mountainous area, after its completion. The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, which is under construction in southwest China's Guizhou Province, is set to become the world's tallest bridge after its completion. (People's Daily Online/Tu Min) Nearly 200 graduates of Guizhou Communications Polytechnic University are working on the Liuzhi-Anlong Expressway project, with the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge being part of it. One of them, Ma Zongyuan, is a university faculty member and deputy director of the project's quality and safety department. To help ensure the bridge's smooth construction, he has been stationed at the site since the project broke ground in 2022, providing technical expertise and overseeing safety monitoring throughout the entire construction process. Builders work at the construction site of the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Qian) "The wind speed in the canyon can reach grade 14, which is about the speed of an express train. With every additional meter in height, the bridge presents new challenges," said Ma. Other graduates include the project's chief engineer Liu Hao, who has led his team in tackling a series of critical technical hurdles, including wind resistance on the catwalk, and the project's lead designer Ye Hongping, who has introduced an innovative dual-spiral design, adding a unique aesthetic and cultural touch to the bridge. Ma Zongyuan teaches students how to use a measuring tool at the construction site of the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Qian) Guizhou Communications Polytechnic University partnered with Tongji University to develop a real-time reference cable positioning technology powered by the BeiDou navigation satellite system. The technology delivers millimeter-level accuracy during the installation of the main cables. With Guizhou home to many bridges, how can the province ensure a steady stream of skilled professionals? Guizhou Communications Polytechnic University has found its answer: move the classroom directly to the construction site. On the day of the interview, Ma brought more than 20 students to the bridge, where they observed and measured on site, turning textbook knowledge into direct engineering experience. In 2024, the university and the project team signed an agreement to establish a bridge industry-education integration practice base. "Reading 10,000 books is not as good as traveling 10,000 miles. Bringing teaching to a world-class construction site allows students to truly experience craftsmanship and inspires professional pride," Ma said. Workers work at the construction site of the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Tu Min) (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) In the days and weeks before the tragedy, Emily Longs updates had been posted regularly on TikTok a space on the internet that she had dedicated to talking about and overcoming her depression. Things had been difficult: online, she was a young mother trying to stay strong through her husband Ryans terminal brain tumour diagnosis. In one clip, Emily admits that she felt as though she was withering away, in another, she told her followers that she was determined to create normalcy for her family, despite struggling so much. Just three days later, she would take the lives of Ryan, their two eldest children and herself, leaving only their three-year-old alive. Its an unfathomable sequence of events that has left neighbours in their tranquil New Hampshire town of Madbury home to just 2,000 residents drenched in grief. Emily, who was 34, Ryan, 48, and eight-year-old Parker and six-year-old Ryan were found with gunshot wounds inside their four-bedroom home on Moharimet Drive. The couples three-year-old was found by police unharmed. An autopsy confirmed murder-suicide carried out by Emily on Wednesday. Word spread quickly and on TikTok and in comments sections, locals expressed their disbelief. The Longs neighbour, Bevy Ketel, described Ryan Long as a pillar of Madbury, the small community an hour and a half north of Boston. He certainly touched a lot of lives. He was part of the fabric of the community and his family goes along with it, she said. What compounded the shock was the image the Longs projected: a bright, seemingly happy family who were involved in their community and admired for how they were handling the devastating cards theyd been dealt. They were the perfect family, they said; some remembered the kids recently setting up a lemonade stand, while others described them as incredible people and parents. Ive known Emily for many years, one friend of the family commented on TikTok, and no one that knows her or Ryan could EVER have suspected this would have happened to this beautiful family. They were incredible people and parents, which I know will be difficult for people to understand right now. They were both smart, kind and loving. She continued: Emily advocated on behalf of other peoples children in 2021 when she reported a daycare centre to the state of [New Hampshire] for abuse of power and corporal punishment. Our communities are heartbroken for so many reasons this week. Ryan, a respected psychologist working at a local school, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma one of the most aggressive and devastating brain cancers earlier this year. Its likely that the family had been told what thousands of others in similar positions hear: that there was little chance of survival. Time was short only 5 per cent of patients with this diagnosis live five years or longer; the median survival time with treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy is 12-15 months. open image in gallery Emily Long shared a string of videos detailing her anxiety about the prospect of losing her husband and being a single mother ( @emilylong41/TikTok ) In her regular vlogs, Emily, who worked as an operations director at US food chain Wing-Itz, spoke about breaking the news to her children about the impossible task of explaining to an eight-year-old and a six-year-old that their father was dying. She appeared vulnerable, often, sometimes tearful in now-deleted videos. Still, she seemed to be determined. The young mother stated she wanted to make a change Today I decided I need to make a conscious effort to shift my mindset, she told her followers in one recent post. Im getting out of this depression whether I want to or not. Two weeks before her death, shed spoken about seeing a therapist. I know that I need to ask for help, she said, but Im not ready to acknowledge that, I think. Emily had said that she noticed that her childrens behaviour was changing under the stress of their dads illness. Behind the camera, her efforts to give them a normal life while in the throes of anticipatory grief and all its heartbreak, along with being a full-time mum and carer, was clearly taking its toll. She admitted shed been feeling anxious and lonely. Im mourning my husband, Im mourning my marriage and its still there, she admitted. Its very confusing and its very overwhelming. In the days that followed the discovery of the familys deaths, questions of why and how reared with few answers. As news spread around the world and as is the case with many of these tragic, thankfully rare cases speculation began to follow. open image in gallery People leaving tributes to the family outside their New Hampshire house ( CBS News ) Police, however, havent yet given any indication of motives beyond Emilys well-documented struggles with depression and the crushing weight of her husbands diagnosis. What most could agree on was the toll that terminal diagnosis takes on families like the Longs and how little its spoken about. In fact, the anguish that Emily revealed to her followers online was not unusual for those caring for loved ones with terminal cancer. The emotional burdens that caregivers can face are extreme and deeply fixed. While research is limited, one meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies found that 42.3 per cent of caregivers experience depression and 46.55 per cent suffer with clinical anxiety rates that far exceed any in the general population. Of course, it doesnt ease in the aftermath of loss, either: another study found that 30.4 per cent of people became significantly clinically depressed after losing a loved one, and 43.4 per cent suffered significant anxiety in the three to six months after their loss. Researchers discovered a direct correlation between how distressed they perceived their loved one to be at the end of their life and their own psychological distress. According to the Caregivers Trust in the UK, 71 per cent of carers have poor physical or mental health, yet the needs of carers are often neglected. open image in gallery The bodies of Emily, Ryan and two of their children were discovered by police ( CBS News ) Want to watch someone actually fall apart before your very eyes? I swear, this cancer will be the thing that breaks me, Emily Long said in a harrowing post on 11 May this year. What happened inside their home on Moharimet Drive might never be fully understood but for the grieving communities left behind, on and offline, it wont be forgotten. The tragic death of Longs innocent family has left a small town and countless strangers who followed their journey grappling with unanswered questions. For now, the burden will be on them and on supporting a young child, now left to deal with life alone. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice More than a week after a woman claimed that her 7-month-old baby was kidnapped from a California parking lot, his parents have been arrested for murder. Jake and Rebecca Haro were taken into custody at their rural Cabazon home, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said Friday in a post on X. Authorities say the search continues for baby Emmanuel, who has not been found. The child was reported missing on August 14 after his mother claimed he had been abducted from her while in the Big 5 Sporting Goods parking lot in Yucaipa. open image in gallery Jake and Rebecca Haro were taken into custody at their rural Cabazon home on Friday ( San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department ) Rebecca Haro initially told authorities that while she was changing Emmanuels diaper outside her vehicle on August 14, a man attacked her and knocked her unconscious. When she came to, she said, the baby was gone. A search was launched and investigators interviewed the parents but said the pair stopped cooperating after being confronted with inconsistencies in her story. open image in gallery Parents of missing boy Emmanuel Haro, Jake and Rebecca Haro, were arrested on Friday ( ABC/Fox ) Authorities appeared to hone in on the parents in their investigation earlier this week as they searched the parents home and later seized a car belonging to the baby's father. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in an update on Wednesday it is aware of reported sightings of Emmanuel, but further details were not made available. open image in gallery Emmanuel Haro, a 7-month-old boy who was reported missing from San Bernardino County on August 14, 2025 ( San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office ) Adding to the scrutiny were revelations about Jake Haros criminal history. Court records show he was convicted of willful child cruelty in 2023 following a case in which his infant daughter with a previous spouse suffered multiple severe injuries, including a skull fracture, brain hemorrhage, and broken ribs. Both Jake and his then-wife, Vanessa Avina, pleaded guilty. In that case, Jake was sentenced to 180 days in a sheriffs work-release program and ordered into a child abuser treatment program. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Florida police arrested a woman on Wednesday evening after she allegedly performed dental veneer procedures without a valid license, causing complications for multiple clients. Detectives launched their investigation in June following reports from several victims, most of whom experienced complications after receiving dental veneer implants from Emely Martinez, 35. According to the Pinellas Park Police Department, the victims also stated that Martinez refused to make any repairs or issue refunds. Martinez advertised and operated a dental services business at 9150 49th Street North, in Pinellas Park, presenting herself as a licensed practitioner. Investigators, however, confirmed she lacked any active dental license in Florida, nor does the state recognize veneer techs as part of the dental profession. Martinez was taken into police custody without incident. open image in gallery Emely Martinez, 35, allegedly performed dental veneer procedures without a valid Florida license ( Pinellas Park Police Department ) She now faces multiple charges, including scheme to defraud under $20,000, two counts of practicing dentistry without an active license, a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear, a misdemeanor warrant for violation of probation, and unlawful possession of personal identification of another. She was also cited as a habitual traffic offender, according to WFLA. Additional victims are asked to contact the Pinellas Park Police Department at 727-369-7864. The Independent has reached out to Pinellas Park Police Department for more information. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Jurors heard unsettling testimony this week from the daughter of slain Georgia woman Melissa Wolfenbarger, as she recalled the chilling moment her father, who is on trial for her mothers murder, described how a killer could successfully hide a body. Christopher Wolfenbarger was arrested in 2024, more than two decades after Melissas decapitated head was found bleached and stuffed into a black trash bag behind a glass company where her husband worked. The couples oldest child, Christina Garrett, now 30, testified against him at his murder trial in Atlanta on Wednesday, revealing a shocking statement he allegedly made to her when she was just a teenager. Garrett told the court she had no memories of her mother and barely had a relationship with her father, but when she was a teenager, one thing they did bond over was true crime shows. open image in gallery ( Provided ) Any time there was a case that seemed interesting, wed talk about it, she said. But she told the court that there was one time in particular that caught her off guard. The father and daughter had been talking about a murder, and Wolfenbarger allegedly criticized how the killer disposed of the body. Garret said he told her thats not the way they should've done it and that the killer should have hidden the body under a house. It was a murder case and the person had been free several times, Garrett explained. Like it was a very old murder case that he had been found on. Chris said that wasnt the way he should have hid the body to begin with, and that if you go out there when theyre about to build a new house and put it under where the foundation of the house is gonna go. And so when the crew comes back to lay the foundation the next morning, theyre just gonna continue building the house. The comment caught her off guard, prompting her to confront her father. It sounds like youre talking about my mom, she recalled herself saying. Thats when he told me he didnt know where my mom was. He didnt know if she was in Heaven, hell, Stockbridge, but he wished that he did, Garrett added. She also testified that he once suggested he could escape authorities entirely if they come looking for him. Garrett didnt have much of a relationship with her father, who she said told her as a child that her mother ran off to California. She grew up believing her paternal grandparents, who raised her, were her biological parents, she told jurors, while her father lived in another part of the state. open image in gallery Christopher Wolfenbarger, pictured in a booking photo, was arrested for the 1999 murder of his wife ( Fulton County Sheriffs Office ) When she later uncovered photos of her mother and began asking questions, she said the family discouraged her from pursuing answers, citing the notoriety of her maternal grandfather, Carl Patton. Known as the Flint River Killer, her grandfather was convicted of multiple murders in the 1970s and therefore that side of the family had to be avoided. We were told they were bad people, and we didnt want to talk to them, Garrett said. It wasnt until Melissas funeral in 2003 that Garrett recognized her maternal grandmother from past visits to the familys yard, when the woman had stood outside asking where her daughter was. That was essentially when we pieced together that the woman from the front yard was our grandmother, and the woman she had been talking to [about] was our mom, Garrett testified. open image in gallery Christopher Wolfenberger (left) has been arrested for the 1999 murder of his wife, Melissa Wolfenbarger (right) ( Fulton County Sheriffs Office (left), Atlanta Police Department (right) ) By 2013, Garrett had cut ties with her father entirely, instead connecting with her mothers family and searching online for information about Melissas case. But the true crime conversations with him left her unsettled, she said. Wolfenbarger, who is currently being held in Fulton County Jail, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of murder and felony murder. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A Georgia man has been acquitted of murder more than two decades after his wifes remains were found stuffed in trash bags near his workplace. Christopher Wolfenbarger, who was arrested in August 2024 for the murder of Melissa Wolfenbarger, leaned back in his wheelchair and heaved a sigh of relief when the verdict was read on Friday. Jurors deliberated for just two hours before coming to a decision, a devastating blow to Melissas family who had fought for years to bring charges in the case. open image in gallery Christopher Wolfenbarger, pictured in a booking photo, was arrested for the 1999 murder of his wife ( Fulton County Sheriffs Office ) When Melissa disappeared in late 1998, Wolfenbarger told police she had left on her own to pursue her dream of starting a new life in California, the Atlanta Police Department told Dateline in 2021. The next year, Melissas remains, including her head, were found stuffed in trash bags directly across the street from where Wolfenbarger worked at the time. Her torso was never found. But the remains were not identified until 2003 when a DNA sample used to help convict her own father Carl Patton of an unrelated murder, according to Atlanta police. Carl Patton was arrested and later charged for a string of unrelated killings from the 1970s known as the Flint River murders. open image in gallery Melissas remains, including her head, were found stuffed in trash bags directly across the street from where Wolfenbarger worked at the time ( Provided ) His arrest is what finally identified her remains, Melissas mother Norma Patton previously told The Independent. If he had never been arrested, we might have never known. Melissas death was not at the hands of her father, who had been cleared in her murder, but what happened to her remained a mystery for decades. Her case only began to gain some traction in 2017 when Crime Scene Investigator Sheryl Mac McCollum got her hands on it after the slain womans mother came to her for help. You cant give up. You just keep going. Talk to anyone who will listen, because you dont know who that person might be to help, Norma said. Thats what Sheryl did for us. She opened the door and helped us walk through it. open image in gallery Norma Patton (left) and Tina Patton (right) pictured at a press conference in 2024 wearing shirts honoring Melissa Wolfenbarger ( Fox 5 Atlanta ) Melissas case was the first one to be featured on McCollums podcast Zone 7, when it launched in February 2023. Then in a stunning turn of events, over a year later in April 2024, a listener who heard the episode reached out to McCollum and shared a crucial bit of information. Three months later in August 2024, Melissas husband was arrested and indicted by a grand jury for her murder, with DNA connecting him to the crime. The long-awaited trial began a year later and jurors heard just a week of testimony before they were handed the case. Melissas mother, Norma Patton, took the stand earlier this week, revealing that she was once married to a serial killer Carl Patton and that she had helped him with the murders. I helped him dispose of the bodies, Patton admitted. She took a plea deal for immunity in exchange for testifying against him. Jurors also heard unsettling testimony from Christina Garrett, the daughter of Melissa and Wolfenbarger, as she recalled the chilling moment her father described how a killer could successfully hide a body. In the prosecutions closing argument, Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Faucett described Melissa as being manipulated, intimidated, coerced and abused, arguing that the defendant murdered Melissa when he lost control over her. But defense attorney Joel McDurmon delivered his closing argument, arguing the states case contained gaping holes and that there was no direct evidence pointing to his client. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A painter at Mississippis Ingalls Shipbuilding is under police questioning after allegedly shooting and killing a coworker on Friday. Curtis James Jr., 25, of Mobile, was taken into custody without incident by Pascagoula police after allegedly killing a fellow paint department employee around 7:32 a.m. Friday. Police Chief Terry Scott said the victim, identified only as a man from Prichard, was a coworker of James. James allegedly fired two shots. The victim was found dead at the scene. Pretty sure both guys knew each other, Scott said. There may have been an argument earlier this week, so thank goodness it was just between the two. Police will release the victims name after his next of kin are informed of his death, Scott said. open image in gallery The shipyard was under lockdown as authorities searched for the suspected shooter ( US Navy ) We are deeply saddened by the passing of a fellow shipbuilder who was fatally shot this morning, Ingalls Shipbuilding's parent company, Huntington Ingalls Industries, said in a statement on the companys website. We extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the employees family and friends during this difficult time. Respecting the privacy of the family, we are not releasing the name at this time. Anyone with information about this incident should call the department at 228-938-6707. The shipyard was initially under lockdown as authorities searched for the suspect while employees were told to shelter in place. By 9.40 a.m. Friday, once the suspect had been apprehended, this was lifted, according to WKRG. All employees were sent home with pay, an Ingalls Shipbuilding spokesperson said Friday during the afternoon press conference. Ingalls Shipbuilding is the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi and a key supplier of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels. The shipyard has been a large contributor to the local economy for 85 years, employing thousands in the construction of naval and coast guard ships. It is located in Pascagoula, a city with a population of about 22,000. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Two years after a pregnant woman was gunned down inside her Ohio home, a killing that also claimed the life of her unborn child, police say three men have been charged in connection to the tragic case. Robert Ervin, 20, Kayvon Warren, 30, and Lamar Morris Suggs, 22, are each charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of 26-year-old India Kinamore and her unborn child, according to the Colerain Police Department. Police responded to the shooting at the Colerain Township just after 4:30 a.m. on March 4, 2023. Kinamore, who investigators determined was in the late stages of pregnancy, was found with multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene. In court Friday, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney David Hickenlooper said the case took nearly two years to build and pointed to extensive cell phone communications between the three men. open image in gallery Two years after 26-year-old India Kinamore was shot and killed, three men have been charged with her murder ( Ohio Attorney General ) Hickenlooper told the court the messages showed the defendants were coming up with a plan to kill Kinamore. He also said video evidence placed them at or near the scene. It would seem this defendant and his co-defendants were conspiring to come up with this plan to kill Miss Kinamore and her unborn child, Hickenlooper said during Warrens hearing. open image in gallery Prosecutors say Kayvon Warren was in a relationship with Kinamore and wanted to terminate the pregnancy ( Colerain Police Department ) Prosecutors allege Warren was in a relationship with Kinamore and wanted her to terminate the pregnancy. Hickenlooper also said Kinamore had been scheduled for labor induction on the day she was killed. Warrens attorney, Clyde Bennett, pushed back against those claims, arguing that Warren had been cooperative throughout the investigation. He knew he was wanted for murder. He didnt flee the jurisdiction, Bennett said. He also denied that Warren wanted Kinamore to terminate the pregnancy, saying instead that Warren wanted the child. open image in gallery Ervins attorney argued that his client has no ties to Kinamore, saying he is guilty by association ( Colerain Police Department ) At the arraignment, Kinamores mother, Terri, urged the judge to set a high bond. They were in a relationship, she said. He killed his own son or plotted to kill his own son. She also spoke about the call she got that day from her daughters 6-year-old son, who was in the home at the time of the shooting. The attorney for Ervin, meanwhile, argued that his client has no ties to Kinamore, saying he is guilty by association. But Hickenlooper countered that cell phone records and location data placed Ervin and his vehicle near the crime scene and showed his role in coordinating the killing. open image in gallery Lamar Morris Suggs is already serving time in prison on an unrelated weapons charge ( Colerain Police Department ) The judge set Warrens bond at $300,000 on each charge. Ervin, who also appeared in court Friday, received the same bond amount. They are both in custody at the Hamilton County Justice Center. Suggs, the third defendant, is already serving time in prison at the Ohio Department of Corrections on an unrelated weapons charge. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Two years after the horrific discovery of nearly 200 decaying bodies in a fetid, room-temperature building in rural Colorado, a funeral home owner is due to be sentenced on Friday for 191 counts of corpse abuse. Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie, ran a 'morbid racket' for four years from their Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs. They assured families their loved ones' cremations were being handled, only to stash the bodies in a bug-infested building and provide dry concrete resembling ashes. Mr Hallford is already headed to prison after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges. Friday's sentencing will focus on state charges related to the mistreatment of the bodies, allowing family members to describe the anguish of learning their loved ones slowly decayed among piles of others. To me its the heart of the case. Its the worst part of the crime, said Tanya Wilson, who is traveling from Georgia to speak at the sentencing. She hired the funeral home to cremate her mother and later discovered the supposed ashes the family spread in Hawaii weren't from her mother's body, which had been wasting away in the building in Penrose, a small town 35 miles from Colorado Springs. A plea agreement calls for Hallford to receive a 20-year prison sentence for the corpse abuse charges. Wilson said she and some other families want Judge Eric Bentley to reject the agreement because Hallford's state sentence is expected to run concurrently with his 20-year federal sentence, meaning he could be freed many years earlier than if the sentences ran consecutively. The scale of this is staggering. Why does the state believe they deserve a plea deal? Wilson asked. There needs to be accountability. open image in gallery Angelika Steadman, right, reaches over to comfort Samantha Naranjo, whose grandmother Dorothy Tardif, was among the bodies found at the Return to Nature Funeral Home and Steadman's daughter, Chanelle Chaloux, has yet to be found, during a small ceremony before the start of demolition of the funeral home in Penrose, Colo., Tuesday, March 15, 2024. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File) If the judge rejects the agreement, Hallford would not be immediately sentenced and the case would likely go to an arraignment, the first step toward a criminal trial, said Kate Singh with the Fourth Judicial District District Attorneys Office. Colorado has struggled to effectively oversee funeral homes and for many years had some of the weakest regulations in the nation. Its had a slew of abuse cases, including an estimated 20 decomposing corpses discovered this week at a funeral home in Pueblo. Carie Hallford is accused of the same crimes as her husband and also pleaded guilty. Her sentencing on the corpse abuse charges has not been scheduled. The couple was accused of letting 189 bodies decay. In two other instances the wrong bodies were buried. Four remains have yet to be identified, Singh said. The Hallfords got a license for their funeral home in 2017, and authorities said the bodies started piling up by 2019. Many languished for years in states of decay, some decomposed beyond recognition, some unclothed or on the floor in inches of fluid from the bodies. open image in gallery This image provided by the Muskogee County, Okla., Sheriff's Office shows Jon Hallford, who was arrested, along with Carie Hallford, the owners of a Colorado funeral home Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Oklahoma, on charges linked to the discovery of multiple sets of decaying remains at one of their facilities. (Muskogee County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) As the gruesome count grew, Jon and Carie Hallford were also defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 era aid. With the money from families and the federal government, the Hallfords bought ritzy items from stores like Tiffany & Co., a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth $120,000 combined, laser body sculpting and $31,000 in cryptocurrency. In 2023, a putrid smell poured from the building and the police turned up. Investigators swarmed the building, donning hazmat suits and painstakingly extracting the bodies. Hallford and his wife were arrested in Oklahoma, where Jon Hallford had family, more than a month later. Families learned that their cathartic moments of grief spreading a mother's ashes in Hawaii or cradling a son's urn in a rocking chair were tainted by a deception. It was as if those signposts of the grieving process had been torn away, unraveling months and years of working through their loved ones' deaths. open image in gallery Chrystina Page, right, holds back Heather De Wolf, as she yells at Jon Hallford, left, the owner of Back to Nature Funeral Home, as he leaves with his lawyers following a preliminary hearing, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024, outside the El Paso County Judicial Building in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Christian Murdock/The Gazette via AP, File) ( no sales mags out ) Some had nightmares of what their relatives' decayed bodies must have looked like. Others were anguished by the fear their family members' souls were trapped, unable to go free. A mother, Crystina Page, demanded to watch as her son's body, rescued from the Return to Nature building, was cremated for real. Wilson, who had thought she already spread her mother's ashes in Hawaii, said the family cremated her mother's remains after they were recovered by authorities. She is waiting for the court cases to conclude before returning to Hawaii again to spread the ashes. The Hallfords pleaded guilty in the federal case to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Jon Hallford has appealed his federal prison sentence. Carie Hallford faces a December sentencing in that case. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A mental health counselor in Provo, Utah, was arrested after two of his clients accused him of pressuring them to strip off their clothes and, in one case, do handstands, all justified as therapy. One of the accusers told police that Shawn Talbot, 55, "used the guise of metal health therapy" on several occasions to convince her to take her shirt and her bra off, or on other occasions to pull up her shirt, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, citing an affidavit. The therapist allegedly justified the untoward requests as "necessary to show the victim could be 'vulnerable,'" according to court documents. The woman told police that Talbot allegedly convinced her to do "handstands in front of him after taking off her bra and untucking her shirt. A second woman reported Talbot to the police. She said that he had asked her to bend over in front of him, which essentially allowed her shirt to droop low and expose her chest and breasts, according to a probable cause statement. Police arrested Talbot on suspicion three counts of misdemeanor voyeurism. He was released the same day he was arrested. Alyssa Wood, who is representing the two women, said they showed "extraordinary courage in coming forward." Therapists hold a position of profound responsibility and are entrusted with the care and well-being of their patients. When that trust is violated, the harm is devastating, Wood told the Salt Lake Tribune. Police believe there may be other potential victims. They've asked that anyone else who was allegedly subjected to such requests by Talbot to come forward and speak to the police. open image in gallery Shawn Talbot has since been fired and is facing misdemeanor voyeurism charges ( Google Maps ) In a probable cause statement, investigators noted that Talbot did not deny any of the allegations levied against him. He insisted they were intended to be helpful as these actions took place in a therapeutic practice and were meant to empower [the victims]. He insisted there was no sexual component to the treatments, but allegedly told police he knew that "what he did was not right" and that he "recognized the harm" he caused. The probable cause statement also noted that Talbot was fired from his job at Utah Valley Counseling on June 30 following an unrelated sexual abuse allegation and multiple complaints of sexual harassment from his female coworkers. The Salt Lake Tribune examined Talbot's licensure and found that even after his firing, his license remains active on state websites and no disciplinary actions are attached to his name. Talbot has been accused of inappropriate conduct with clients before this incident. Similar allegations to the current ones were made against him in 2020 but by underage girls at a residential mental health facility, according to Provo police. The therapist is going to court over that alleged incident as well. A lawsuit targeting him and his employer at that time, Alpine Academy in Tooele County, alleges that Talbot had "sexually graphic" conversations with a child during his time there. Other allegations police discovered relating to his 2020 mental health work include claims that he'd subject underage girls to various "trust exercises" like asking them to lift their shirts up as high as they felt comfortable. Talbot's attorneys have denied the allegations. Alpine Academy has attempted to have itself removed from the lawsuit, but that request was denied. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Terrified students fled an open-air event at Villanova University in Pennsylvania and barricaded themselves inside campus buildings because of an ultimately unfounded active shooter warning on Thursday. Police were in the process of clearing university buildings on Thursday evening when Villanova President Rev. Peter Donohue announced in a public statement the shooting was a false alarm. Mercifully, no one was injured, and we now know that it was a cruel hoax there was no active shooter, no injuries, and no evidence of firearms present on campus, Donohue wrote. While that is a blessing and relief, I know todays events have shaken our entire community. Campus officials later said an anonymous report of an active shooter in the law school had triggered the initial alarm on campus. The campus is all clear, reads an update on the university website. You no longer need to shelter in place. open image in gallery Officials said a prior warning of an active shooter on campus at Villanova University was in fact a cruel hoax ( AP ) It was an absolute stampede, a Villanova law student named Allison told NBC Philadelphia of the scene at the university before the all-clear was given. It was a very nervous experience. State police, as well as local and federal law enforcement, had responded to the reports of a shooter on campus, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. The hoax took place on the final day of the universitys law school orientation. Students initially got an emergency alert around 4:30 p.m. local time of a shooter on campus and were told to shelter in place. A campus notice advised the public to avoid the law schools Scarpa Hall. open image in gallery Students and parents got alert about possible active shooting around 4:30 p.m., prompting pandemonium as visitors fled outdoor Mass event ( AP ) The alert went out as visitors and students were attending an outdoor Mass. Social media video from campus showed people running in panic in an outdoor area as word spread a shooting had taken place. GovernorShapiro vowed to prosecute those responsible for the false report of a shooting on campus. I've directed [the Pennsylvania State Police] to work alongside their partners and use every tool at our disposal to find the person or people who called in this fake threat and hold them accountable, Shapiro wrote on X. I know today was every parent's nightmare, and every student's biggest fear. I'm profoundly grateful no one was hurt, and thankful to all members of law enforcement who ran towards reports of danger to keep Pennsylvanians safe. Film history is replete with love triangles in which the woman chooses her less-monied suitor, and until now, audiences have largely applauded the choice. At the end of the day, romantic comedies have always been characterized by the belief that love conquers all. But in 2025, many viewers are throwing up their hands upon seeing Materialists turn to a formula that apparently seems surprising, ingenuous and absurd amid the economic instability of our tumultuous world. Critics accuse the film of being a clear case of broke man propaganda, romanticizing mens financial insecurity in the name of love. A TikTok post with more than 170,000 likes argues that the rom com directed by Celine Song is nothing but a true-to-life horror film about how trauma and low self-esteem limit womens choices and send them spiraling back to exes they know cant give them what they want. Women deserve financial stability AND love. When Song hears such critique, she becomes visibly upset. It really is disappointing to me. Poverty is not the fault of the poor, she said. That is a very troubling result of the way that the wealthy people have gotten into our hearts about how its your fault if youre poor, or youre a bad person if youre poor. It just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters, and to really think about it in such classist terms. People who want to find a partner who fulfills certain aspirational financial standards call themselves hypergamic, and according to luxury dating app Seeking, theres a lot of them. The platform shared that 45% of its users are looking for such relationships, while only 27% prioritize finding true love. Which is to say, when asked love or money? its data shows that the majority prefer the latter. Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal, in an image from the film. Courtesy Everett Collection / Cordon Press Financial specialist Amalia Guerrero believes that it is dangerous to send the message that money doesnt truly matter in relationships. Its a structure on which a large part of a couples day-to-day life is based, from paying rent to making decisions about having children. If we put out the message that money doesnt matter, we are normalizing things that arent sustainable in the long term. Money is necessary. These messages reinforce the false idea that talking about money as a couple is frivolous and ends up turning it into a taboo topic, she says. Laura Encina, author of the Spanish-language book Tu vida, tus normas, tu cuenta bancaria (Your life, Your Rules, Your Bank Account) adds that money is one of the areas that lead to the most tension for couples. When a couple speaks clearly about money, their goals can align and they can work together towards economic stability, which strengthens the relationship. Its not about having a lot or a little, but rather, sharing a similar vision and rowing in the same direction. That is what makes the difference between a relationship that is united by financial challenges and one that is broken by them, she explains. In All About Love, bell hooks reflects on how capitalism and the patriarchy mold the way in which the world sees love, suggesting that they feed a culture of materialism and domination that stands in the way of genuine connection. Pop culture is full of examples that romanticize the figure of the man without financial resources, such as Timbalands song The Way I Are. Aint got no money / I aint got no car to take you on a date / I cant even buy you flowers / But together wed be the perfect soulmates, he sings on the track. I aint go no Visa / I aint got no Red American Express / We cant go nowhere exotic / It dont matter cause Im the one that loves you best. A moment from the film, with Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans. Courtesy Everett Collection / Cordon Press During an appearance at Atlantida Mallorca Film Fest, Song herself commented that Materialists speaks to the commodification and objectification of human beings, something that matchmaker Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, has fun with, particularly at the beginning of the film. But the director added that it concerned her that people empathized more with the monied character played by Pedro Pascal than Chris Evanss struggling actor, saying, its harder for people to see themselves in him than the man who has a $12 million apartment. Song said her goal was not to romanticize the man without economic resources and applaud true and supposedly moral love, but rather to reflect on the way in which, for many people, romantic relationships have become transactions in which the other person is a mere object. But when addressing the broke status of Evanss character, its important to consider the factors behind his delicate financial situation. The focus should not be solely on the fact that someone has no money, but on the story behind that financial situation, says Guerrero. Because money is not just a number, its a reflection of the habits, beliefs and decisions that a person has made throughout their life. And indeed, there are people who are going through difficult times due to structural causes, lack of opportunities, bereavement, job insecurity and so on. But there are also those who have had opportunities but have wasted them time and time again due to a lack of financial education. He continues: What really matters in a relationship is not just your bank account balance, but your attitude towards money. One person may be going through a rough patch but is looking for solutions, learning, taking charge and accepting responsibility, while another may be in the same situation for years and expects their partner to solve their problems. Its important to take on that responsibility. Its not about judging whether someone has money or not, but about seeing if there is a commitment and a mindset to improve and want to get out of that situation. That is, to take responsibility for themselves. And thats really what will build a healthy couple with a future, says the financial expert. In a relationship, the important thing is not so much the salary level itself, but rather the vision that each person has of money, adds Encina. If one is looking for stability and the other lives more precariously with no intention of changing, thats where the clash comes in. The problem is not the lack of money, but the lack of a common goal. The question is how can a romantic film, and I believe my movie is so romantic, talk about finance so much? My answer would always be, well, thats true in every Jane Austen book, said Song. Sense and sensibility matter, but so does money and it seems that in times of Tinder and economic stability, even more so. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A Wendys customer has been arrested after trying to pay for his drive-thru meal with cocaine, Colorado cops say. Pro tip: The drive-thru is for burgers and fries not narcotics, the Douglas County Sheriffs Office wrote in a Facebook post when announcing the arrest on Thursday. Police say the man offered to sell drugs to the Castle Pines fast food worker at the drive-thru window in exchange for his meal. The Sacramento Bee identified the restaurant as a local Wendys. The man showed the worker foil with a white powdery substance resembling cocaine, the sheriffs office said. open image in gallery A Wendys customer has been arrested after trying to pay for his drive-thru meal with cocaine, Colorado cops say ( Brandon Bell/Getty Images ) When the worker declined his offer, police say the man told the Wendys employee hed wait for them, if they changed their mind and entered the restaurant. The police were called, and when deputies arrived, they found the mans car and in plain view saw a line of a white powdery substance on a cell phone, the sheriffs office said. open image in gallery Police say the man offered to sell drugs to the Castle Pines fast food worker at the drive-thru window in exchange for his meal ( Douglas County Sheriff's Office ) A photo shared by police showed the white-dusted phone on the car seat, along with a pair of eyeglasses, a disposable water bottle, and other items. Police say they also found baggies for distribution, a scale, and several alcohol shooters in his car, which is in violation of his active protection order. Body camera footage from July 10 just before 10 p.m. local time, shows police handcuffing the man, who has not been named by police. open image in gallery Body camera footage from July 10 just before 10 p.m. shows police handcuffing the man ( Douglas County Sheriff's Office ) Fast food deals are supposed to come with fries, not felonies, the sheriffs office playfully warned as it announced the charges against the man: Unlawful distribution, manufacturing, dispensing, sale or possession; violation of a protection order and unlawful possession of controlled substances. The Independent has reached out to the sheriffs office for further information and to Wendys for comment. The NSW Environment Protection Authority has endorsed this claim in planning documents, citing a simplifying assumption that the carbon dioxide released from burning the biomass was completely balanced by the gas absorbed during regrowth. Professor Brendan Mackey, director of the Griffith Climate Action Beacon at Griffith University, told this masthead this was a convenient untruth. Its amazing that they can ignore circa 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by making a simplifying assumption, Mackey said. Its not a source of clean energy because it produces CO2 emissions in exactly the same way as burning coal or oil produces CO2 emissions, and if you burn it in a power station up the stack, its actually more emissive than coal ... because it takes a lot of energy to burn the water away. Mackey said net zero accounting allowed a nation to use a carbon sink such as a forest to offset emissions and Australia already used this heavily to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement but the timeframe had to be meaningful. Loading The fundamental point when you say, is it renewable? is that the emissions are instantaneous, but the regrowth is not, Mackey said. Peter Morrissey, an industry adviser with HunterNet Cooperative who spoke in favour of the project, told the IPC meeting that 13 per cent of gross energy in Europe came from biomass and bioenergy, citing a 2022 report, and it accounted for 55 per cent of the renewable grid. According to the World Bioeconomy Forum, the current value is $US4 trillion ($6.2 trillion), and with projections to rise to over $US30 trillion in the 2030s, Morrissey said. We in NSW need to be part of this bioeconomy. However, Mackey said biomass burning had led to more intensive harvesting of European forests, diminishing their capacity to act as carbon sinks, and also created demand for wood pellets from North American forests. The Guardian reports that Britains Drax Power Station, a coal plant converted to burn wood pellets, is the nations biggest greenhouse emitter, while soaking up millions in taxpayer subsidies. Planning documents for the Redbank proposal say the fuel would come initially from so-called invasive native species cleared from farmland, shifting to purpose-grown crops such as coppice on degraded mine sites after four years of operation. The Australian Financial Review reports that Verdant Earth intends to apply for renewable energy certificates under the federal Renewable Energy Target. However, the Clean Energy Regulator said burning invasive native species would not be eligible, and purpose-grown crops would need to fulfil strict criteria to qualify. The current rules allow wood waste from non-native environmental weeds but exclude native vegetation. Loading Fears for land-clearing Invasive native species are native woody plants that either regenerate thickly following disturbance or encroach on vegetation communities where they previously did not occur, based on the NSW government definition. In a 2019 report, the NSW Auditor-General was scathing that there was no requirement to demonstrate that a plant was actually invading a landscape before approving its clearing as an invasive native species. In 2023, NSW farmers cleared 6219 hectares of invasive native species under the Local Land Services Act, which the Minns government has promised to reform, typically burning the wood on site. Lis Ashby, the policy innovation lead at the Biodiversity Council, said the Redbank proposal stated it needed 500,000 dry tonnes of biomass from invasive native species in the first stage, and it could source 25 tonnes a hectare. This would mean clearing of at least 20,000 hectares, Ashby said. Its highly likely, given the amount of biomass they need is three times the amount that the invasive native species right now could provide that were going to incentivise additional land-clearing by farmers, Ashby said. University of Queensland Professor Hugh Possingham, Queenslands former chief scientist, told the IPC meeting it was wrong to assume that invasive native species or dense thickets of native shrub had no biodiversity value. Thats categorically false, Possingham said. There are many, many species that favour dense shrublands. For example, spotted bowerbirds, a whole heap of small bushland birds. Loading Dan Repacholi, the federal Labor MP for Hunter, spoke in support of the project, describing Redbank as a $700 million facility sitting there doing absolutely nothing right now when it could be removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and creating jobs. Lynn Benn, a Hunter Valley resident and activist with Knitting Nannas, said wood burning would add to poor air quality historically caused by mines and power stations. We were hoping that with the transition to cleaner technologies, we could finally hope for an improvement, Benn said. Advertisement Eating outSuburb guides 800 burgers in a day: The takeaway window, bistros bringing crowds to Brunswick East The northern end of Lygon Street already had plenty going for it, but a crop of new eateries and coffee shops means locals (and visitors) are now spoilt for choice. And theres more to come. Daniela Frangos August 23, 2025 Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles 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 Ogulcan OJ Atay remembers when Brunswick East wasnt a place youd drive to. It wasnt lively at all. Now its really changed, and for the better, he says. In 2021, his dad opened traditional Turkish restaurant Halikanas on Lygon Street, then two years later father and son teamed up to open Yakamoz, a more contemporary representation of Turkish cuisine, across the road. Charrd, a new burger window in Brunswick East, is causing hours-long queues. Joe Armao At the end of June, Atay added a hole-in-the-wall burger bar, Charrd, which runs out of the Yakamoz kitchen. Built around just two cheeseburgers, its had dedicated burger buffs waiting in line for up to two hours. Last Sunday, Atay sold 800 burgers, the biggest day yet. The shop is one of several new venues bringing renewed buzz to the strip, including Times New Roman, Catalogue Coffee, 98 Lygon and Daphne, plus Bar Elsie and Taverna further up the road. Advertisement With the amount of businesses that have opened up, its become its own strip now, says Atay. If I opened Charrd again, I would [still] do something in Brunswick East. Charrds cheeseburger is made with a sesame bun and a halal patty. Joe Armao Together, these new businesses and ones that came before them such as The Alderman, Etta and Bar Idda are changing the face of the formerly industrial suburb and servicing the areas rapidly growing number of residents. Merri-bek Council estimates that 2250 new apartment dwellings were built in Brunswick and Brunswick East between 2021 and 2025, based on a review of 10 years of planning permits. Forecasts by the state government suggest a jump of 41 per cent in the number of dwellings in the Brunswick Activity Centre and surrounds by 2036. The area includes the hubs of Sydney Road, Lygon Street and Nicholson Street. Advertisement On Nicholson Street, East Brunswick Village is one of the areas biggest new developments, housing about 400 residents and several eateries including local favourite Rumi. Its newest resident is Dodam, a Korean diner whose owners want to create a little corner of Seoul in East Brunswick. Dodam in Brunswick East aims to create a little corner of Seoul in East Brunswick. Stephanie Bailly Ben Clark, who recently returned from London to open neighbourhood bistro 98 Lygon, was drawn to Lygon Streets Brunswick East end for its similarities to East London, Shoreditch, Hackney even parts of Paris that we spent a lot of time in. There are so many great operators and the more quality that pops up in the area, the better for everyone. Great attracts great and more customers will be drawn to the area. Five new Brunswick East restaurants and cafes to try Advertisement 98 Lygon Street Hospo pros Ben Clark and Simon Aukett, who have both worked in restaurants around London, opened the doors of this moody neighbourhood spot in May. Inspired by French bistros and brasseries, it serves grass-fed sirloin steak with frites, creme brulee and an early-week prix fixe menu with French onion soup and beef Bourguignon. Head chef Brian MacAlister previously worked at The Builders Arms. 98 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, 98lygonst.au Dodam In Korea, janchi is a feast of auspicious dishes prepared for celebrations. The team behind Dodam want to bring this sense of occasion to every meal at their restaurant. The Korean Meat Feast is an array of cuts such as grilled pork belly, braised pork jowl and soy-marinated beef short ribs, served with seaweed noodles and other sides. In the kitchen are Mars Kim and Jin Jung, while Jungs wife Jaekyung Jacky Kim runs front-of-house. Advertisement East Brunswick Village, 2/7 Bluestone Way, Brunswick East, dodammelbourne.com Dodam specialises in janchi, a style of Korean dining that includes an array of dishes and sides. Julian Lallo The Coffee Bar Another neighbourhood bistro is in the works on Lygon Street but in the meantime, seasoned operators Brett and Susie Pritchard have transformed the buildings old loading dock into a tiny but mighty sandwich and coffee bar. Theres a hefty tuna melt, mortadella with stracciatella, and a knockout Serrano ham number. Perch at the repurposed timber bar or sit out on the footpath and grab a home-style cake and Genovese coffee (roasted just up the road). 396 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (via Hickford Street), instagram.com/coffeebar_barelsie Advertisement The Charrd double includes caramelised onions and chilli jam. Joe Armao Charrd When Yakamoz chef Cagri Ergin put a cheeseburger on the menu, it blew up. The next three weeks, we were just selling burgers, says fellow co-owner Ogulcan Atay. It led to this dedicated burger window beside the restaurant, which attracts hordes of hungry fans. The halal burgers include the Charrd with chilli jam and caramelised onions and a classic cheeseburger with mustard-heavy burger sauce. The brioche bun comes loaded with sesame seeds. Its linked to us being Turkish. Everything in Turkey with dough has sesame on it. It also looks a lot better! says Atay. 74 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, instagram.com/charrdbk Catalogue Coffee Advertisement Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox. Sign up At least six people were killed and more than 60 injured Thursday in a terrorist attack in Cali, Colombias third-largest city. Unknown individuals used two cylinder bombs to target the Marco Fidel Suarez military air base. The devices exploded on the busy Carrera Octava street, in the middle of a residential area. Cali is once again the victim of a narco-terrorist attack, said the citys mayor, Alejandro Eder, minutes after the bombing. The mayor ordered the militarization of the city, and President Gustavo Petro traveled to Cali address the crisis. The attack came just hours after the 36th Front of the Central General Staff (EMC) a splinter group of disaffected FARC leaders and soldiers attacked a police helicopter in the department of Antioquia, in the northwest of the country, killing at least 12 police officers and injuring others. By nightfall, no organized crime group had claimed responsibility for the attack in Cali, but the president has pointed to the Carlos Patino Front, which operates mainly in the department of Cauca and belongs to the EMC dissidents of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla organization, commanded by Nestor Gregorio Vera Fernandez, alias Ivan Mordisco. After the defeat of the Carlos Patino Front and the loss of a large part of San Juan de Micay [a dissident stronghold], we have a terrorist reaction in Cali with two civilians dead, Petro said via X, when the total number of victims had not yet been tallied. Terrorism is the new expression of the factions that claim to be led by Ivan Mordisco and that have submitted to the control of the drug trafficking junta [a criminal network Petro attributes with running the cocaine business in Latin America], he added. Eder, for his part, points to the Jaime Martinez column, which is part of the same dissident group, the EMC. The mayor has announced a reward of up to 400 million pesos (about $90,000) for information leading to the capture of those responsible, and the Valle del Cauca governors office offered the same amount. The Ministry of Defense then followed suit: We are offering a reward of up to 200 million pesos for information that will enable us to anticipate any terrorist attack in the country, wrote retired General Pedro Sanchez via his X account. After the explosions, citizens detained a suspect who was trying to flee, and he was later handed over to the authorities. The 23-year-old native of the department of Cauca was identified as Walter Steban Yonda Ipia. His alias is Sebastian and he belongs to the EMC structures, led by alias Marlon, who is subordinate to the drug trafficking junta, President Petro said on Thursday night. One of the alleged perpetrators of the attack in Cali, alias Sebastian, belongs to the dissident EMC structures. Presidencia Colombia The detainee is believed to be one of the perpetrators of the attack and has become a key lead in finding the other suspects. A second man was captured, but no further details have been released. The authorities main hypothesis points to the dissidents led by Ivan Mordisco; it is believed that it could have been carried out by the Jaime Martinez column, which has been targeted in Operation Perseo, carried out by the military at the end of 2024 to regain control of Cauca, the main stronghold of one of the EMCs factions. Numerous private homes and commercial premises, as well as dozens of vehicles, were damaged in the attack. One of the explosive devices used to target the military base fell in the front yard of a house, as the Air Force facility is surrounded by residential neighborhoods. Although the military headquarters is located in the La Base neighborhood, from which it takes its name, most of the places affected by the explosions belong to the neighboring Villa Colombia neighborhood in northern Cali. Another truck with cylinder bombs was reported in that area, leading police to cordon off the area with the initial aim of carrying out a controlled explosion. However, after evaluation by the bomb squad, it was determined that they were not primed and did not pose a danger. The logistics of this attack also coincide with those used by the Carlos Patino Front, which often targets military and police installations as part of its war against the state. In March of this year, for example, it launched eight simultaneous attacks in different parts of Cauca, using motorbike bombs, rifle fire, and drones carrying explosives. Security forces inspect the site of a bomb explosion outside an Air Force base in Cali, Colombia, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Santiago Saldarriaga (AP) On June 10, the group killed two people and wounded dozens of others in two explosions in the city. The capital of Valle del Cauca had already been on alert. The city hosted a major global climate conference, COP16, early last year, and since then there have been concerns about its security. Cali is located in southwestern Colombia and is close to Cauca, a department where armed conflict in ongoing amid the high presence of coca crops and the struggle for control of drug trafficking routes in the San Juan de Micay canyon. The federation of dissidents led by Ivan Mordisco directly threatened the summit, prompting the state to deploy all its military and police forces. The environmental summit took place without incident, but Thursdays attack highlights the threats looming over the departments capital. In another part of his message, President Petro asked the international community to consider the drug trafficking junta as a terrorist organization, as well as its armed gangs in Cauca, Guaviare, Antioquia, and the Colombian Caribbean. The president has pointed out that this junta, allegedly based in Dubai and which, according to Petro, includes drug traffickers of various nationalities, was also behind the attack on Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay. The drug trafficking junta, heir to the paramilitary capital bloc, leads the dissidents of Ivan Mordisco, the Second Marquetalia, and the Gulf Clan, the president added. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition While driving home from a day at the zoo three years ago, Joseph El Jer drove his 4WD Toyota Hilux through water reaching up to 1.3 metres on the Genaren Creek crossing near Tullamore, northwest of Parkes, because his five-year-old passenger wanted an adventure. Moments later, the boy drowned after the car was swept away and submerged in the floodwater. Joseph El Jer and a screenshot from a video taken inside his 4WD on the day. Credit: Facebook/Nine News Thats according to the agreed facts tendered to the NSW District Court as the 40-year-old pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death of the child, who cant be named for legal reasons. On the night of September 22, 2022, during the Central West NSW floods, El Jer was at his property in Tullamore when he texted a neighbour asking if Tullamore to Dubbo roads are open. When told all access roads closed, he responded thanks mate and said he would be visiting Dubbo Zoo the next morning. The man accused of murdering his former partner at a home in a Victorian border town and parading her children in social media videos while she lay dead has allegedly punched a female prison officer, rendering her unconscious. Victoria Police confirmed they were investigating after Prem Kumar, 45, allegedly assaulted the prison officer at the Metropolitan Remand Centre in Melbournes west. Prem Kumar is charged with murdering his former partner. Credit: Facebook Melton crime investigation unit detectives are investigating an assault in Ravenhall on August 21, a police spokeswoman said. It is alleged a man in custody assaulted a female prison officer on Middle Road about 1.30pm. A tax debt, lack of cash flow and a loan contributed to the downfall of Melbourne restaurant 1800 Lasagne, which despite its cult status never turned a profit. Minutes of a creditors meeting, published this week, detail the much-loved Thornbury establishments shortfall of almost $3 million, while administrators expressed confidence they would find a buyer for the restaurant. 1800 Lasagne founder Joey Kellock. Credit: Ashley Ludkin The shortfall was attributed primarily to current liabilities which include a large related-party loan and a large debt to the [Australian Taxation Office], however the details of the loan werent specified. A total of 133 creditors were claiming about $3.3 million from 1800 Lasagne, which began as a home delivery service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, before becoming a full-service restaurant and bar. Liberal MP Phil Thompson is in an unusual position. As a member of the federal Coalitions shadow ministry, his political instinct tells him to support changes that will deliver budget repair and bring down the rising costs of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But as the father of a five-year-old autistic child, and someone whose family has been transformed by the services the scheme has provided, his heart says otherwise. Liberal MP Phil Thompson with daughter Emery, 5, who has been helped by NDIS early intervention support. That tension was brought into sharp focus this week, when Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler outlined major changes to the $46 billion NDIS that will result in autistic children with mild to moderate support needs being diverted onto a new program from mid-2027. The changes are part of Labors broader plans to bring spending growth on the NDIS down to between 5 and 6 per cent a year. Politicians will nod and say this sounds great, we can do it, this will be good, Thompson says. Those politicians include government MPs and Thompsons own colleagues. Somethings got to give, Liberal senator Jane Hume said on Friday. Im happy to talk about this in my party room to make sure Mark gets the support he needs. NSW Police explored whether infamous serial killer Ivan Milat was linked to the disappearance of 58 young people over three decades in every Australian jurisdiction, including German backpacker Nancy Grunwaldt, who disappeared after travelling down Tasmanias east coast in 1993. A list provided to NSW parliament by Police Minister Yasmin Catley comes after Legalise Cannabis MLC Jeremy Buckingham called for an inquiry into the true extent of the crimes of Milat and his associates. Premier Chris Minns told budget estimates this week he was open to the idea. Ivan Milat, shown leaving an unsuccessful appeal hearing, was given a life sentence for the backpacker murders. Credit: Adam Pretty Milat, who died in October 2019 at Long Bay jail hospital, was convicted over the murder of seven backpackers. Task Force Air was established in 1993 shortly after Milats first victims were discovered in Belanglo State Forest in the NSW Southern Highlands. Buckingham has spent considerable time using parliamentary mechanisms to unveil more information about Milat and his crimes. On Tuesday, he asked the premier whether he believed a sketch of the Wanda Beach killer relating to an unsolved murder of two teenage girls in January 1965 bore a marked resemblance to Milat. The legal teams for Bradfield teal MP Nicolette Boele and Liberal hopeful Gisele Kapterian will each have three days to trawl through 792 contested ballot papers, as part of a challenge over the validity of the result in the ultra-marginal northern Sydney seat. The Australian Electoral Commission has made the ballots available to the Federal Court ahead of a hearing on October 2, which will examine whether some papers were wrongly rejected in the final recount of the once-blue-ribbon seat while others were incorrectly allowed. Lawyers for Gisele Kapterian (left) and Nicolette Boele will have access to hundreds of ballots from Bradfield. Credit: Nine Kapterian in July lodged a petition with the High Court, which sits as the Court of Disputed Returns to hear election challenges, in a bid to be declared victorious in Bradfield instead of Boele, who won the former Liberal-held seat at the May election by just 26 votes. Kapterian believes some 56 ballot papers were wrongly rejected, while 95 were incorrectly allowed. Imagine living in a home powered by solar panels and clean energy sources such as wind turbines, nuclear plants and geothermal walls. Your energy bill is so cheap you dont even notice when the money is taken out of your bank account. The water that flows out of your taps is fresh and clear, piped from a desalination plant which provides more than half the countrys fresh used water. In your fridge, your organic vegetables grown vertically in nearby glasshouses sit beside succulent meats made from animal cells. Treasurer Jim Chalmers walking in to begin discussions at the third and final day of the Economic Reform Roundtable at Parliament House. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer Dirty coal energy is nothing but a distant nightmare, as are the housing and climate crisis and pandemics. This is the world presented in Abundance, the most recent book by US authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, read by almost everyone in Canberra and the blueprint for this weeks economic reform roundtable. The book argues that to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need, such as making it easier to build more homes and clean energy infrastructure. Advertisement Travel newsTraveller letters Beware this check-in flight scam in Europe Each week Traveller publishes a selection of rants, raves and travel tips from our readers. See below on how you can contribute. August 23, 2025 5:00am Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles 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 27 View all comments Tripped up Beware this website airline scam. Getty Images Beware this flight scam in Europe. I recently tried to check in for a Vueling flight and selected the first Google link which turned out to be mytrip.com online. I was initially charged 1 ($1.80) for the privilege but three days later a 79 charge appeared on my credit card for a three-month subscription, with no authorisation on my part. I contacted the company and was offered a 20 per cent refund. Garry Warren, Parkdale, Vic Lots of Luxor Abu Simbel we had the temples to ourselves. iStock Advertisement Preferring independent slow travel, my partner and I chose to travel around Egypt by ourselves using local tour operators to visit sites, as well as arranging transportation through our hotels. This way we were able to visit so many wonderful sites, especially in Luxor, that we had taught students about in our careers as ancient history teachers with the added bonus of spending far less than if we had booked an organised tour. The most enjoyable experience was organising, through our Aswan hotel, a driver and the necessary paperwork to take us in the afternoon to the Abu Simbel historic site, where we stayed overnight. We were able to attend the magnificent Sound and Light show in the evening and the temples first thing in the morning and had the temples to ourselves without the bus loads of weary tourists arriving later in the morning from Aswan. Furthermore, we always felt safe and the locals who depend so much on tourism for their livelihood, were friendly and welcoming. Jennifer McKay, Ashbury, NSW No kidding Perhaps, instead of trying to ring Qantas (Traveller, August 9) Mark Wheeler could have emailed Qantas Frequent Flyer (assuming he is one) to sort out his issue a bit faster. On a recent flight to Western Australia I had two separate causes for complaint, and in each case QFF got back to me within the hour (I kid you not). They couldnt do anything about my complaints except apologise for the inconvenience caused, but they awarded me a few thousand frequent flyer points in compensation. I was more pleased with the fast response than the points, and Id like to think QFF could have saved Mark Wheeler time, money and worry. Kirsten Walla, Vaucluse, NSW No vacancies As an ex-Qantas employee who uses staff travel stand-by tickets, I can reassure Carey Nolan (Traveller, August 9) that the reason for the full flight after her cancellation was due to stand-by staff filling up the vacant seats once all passengers had checked-in. Lizzy McLean, Bilgola, NSW Advertisement Be fair I think it is unfair to criticise Qantas for not providing a travel credit for part of a booking cancelled within 24 hours before departure, as expressed by Carey Nolan (Traveller, August 9). Terms and conditions are a routine nature of booking all sorts of things such as flights, hotels, tours etc. Without knowing the cancellation rules of this particular fare, less than 24 hours notice is extremely rare. Some bookings can also be split to separate passengers which in turn enables cancellation of part of the original travelling group. Ron Loncar, Macleod, Vic Letter of the week: Dearth on the Nile Laid-back cruising on the Nile in a felucca. iStock How sad if long felucca journeys on the Nile have been almost consigned to history (Traveller, August 9), as my memories from sailing on a small felucca from Luxor to Edfu in 2001 remain vivid and fond. For the princely sum of about $15 a night (including food) I joined four erstwhile strangers reading books, chatting, marvelling at the sights and sleeping on an open deck under the stars. Like your writer, Andrew Bain, I was also fortunate to spend memorable times chatting to my felucca skipper about our homes and families, an experience I doubt you could have on the giant river vessels that have now seemingly replaced these amazing little boats. Chris Roylance, Paddington, Qld Advertisement Check-up to check out Id like to share a discovery that fellow Australian travellers to the UK might find useful when dealing with unexpected health issues. During a recent UK trip, I needed antibiotic treatment for a common ailment and had no time for bed rest. After researching online GP services, I tried DrOnline (dronline.uk) and was genuinely impressed. For roughly the same cost as an Australian GP visit, I had a same-day teleconsultation with a friendly UK doctor, received an email prescription within hours, and easily filled it at a pharmacy. The process was seamless and far more convenient than navigating walk-in clinics and losing a travel day. For Australian travellers who fall ill in the UK, online GP services are worth considering for routine conditions that need prompt treatment. Cathy Hoyle, Bondi, NSW Taken for a ride Taxi in Istanbul keep an eye on the screen. iStock Take care in Istanbul. Internet not working, says the taxi driver, after I enter my PIN. So we try it again, and he repeats, internet not working. Finally, I pay the pre-agreed price of 30 ($54) in cash. Cunningly, he has his hand over the screen in the taxi displaying the amount. Furthermore, he deliberately stopped 250 metres short of our hotel to avoid identification by hotel security cameras. I was scammed. On later checking my card statement, two amounts were deducted, totalling $380. Ian Stuart, Lindfield, NSW Advertisement Beg to differ Your reader questions my claim that a fly-drive holiday in New Zealand costs a lot less than a cruise of the same length (Traveller, August 9), citing the added costs of meals, accommodation and petrol. Granted, petrol isnt cheap there, but hiring a hybrid car can help offset some of the cost. Weve just booked a string of New Zealand motels for an upcoming trip, and the cost is surprisingly small as little as $100 a night for places with parking, close to town or city centres. Obviously, there are even cheaper accommodation options. As for meals, Id love to know what hes eating. Driving allows us to transport a little pantry so, for example, breakfast for two for 15 days, ends up costing less than $40. Kerrie Wehbe, Blacktown NSW Viet fret Beware of the self-transfer visa requirement. I was denied boarding a Qatar Airways Edinburgh to Hanoi flight because I did not have a Vietnam visa to self-transfer within three hours and 50 minutes in the international terminal to another airline, Vietjet, to continue on to Sydney. Vietjet is on Qatars list of airlines that require a Vietnamese visa to self-transfer between international flights. Visa on arrival and E-visa were not acceptable, and my tickets couldnt be changed to avoid the self-transfer. I lost my original payment of $2221 and had to purchase new tickets, with Emirates, costing $5976. Valerie Kirk, OConnor, ACT Tip of the week: Hit the wall Advertisement Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Bavaria, Germany. Getty Images The advice of the Tripologist (Traveller, August 10) regarding the German town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber brought back wonderful memories of our time in the delightfully located Burg Hotel. From the warm greeting Otto and his daughter gave us, to the excellent breakfast in a room situated on the town walls looking out over the valley, it was a wonderful place to stay. We have been there twice and would not hesitate to return. Peter Shepherd, Balwyn, Vic Rank insider NYC taxi madness. Getty Images Need a taxi to take you to your hotel or to the airport from New Yorks Manhattan Cruise Terminal (Piers 88 and 90)? Dont try at the adjacent taxi stop at 12th Avenue and 50th Street where touts and overpriced cab drivers lurk. Instead, walk just one block to 11th Avenue and hail a cab there. We were quoted $40 at 12th Avenue to take us to our hotel, but by catching a cab on 11th Avenue we found a more courteous driver and paid only $12.65 plus tip. Michael Freeland, Little Bay, NSW Advertisement Read all about it Plaza Espana, Seville, Andalusia. Getty Images We recently returned from five weeks in Spain, a holiday sparked by a byline in Traveller, recommending a Seville-based travel company that focused on Andalusia. After months of planning with James Monro of Tailormade Spain and Portugal Uncovered, we arrived there in May. Five weeks was too short a time to experience Andalusia. Tailormade organised transport, hotels, guides and restaurant bookings. Everything was seamless, the hotels were in perfect positions for exploring, drivers were proficient and guides were exceptional. Good weather, incredible history, stunning buildings and long lingering summer nights ensured this was a holiday to treasure and remember. All the result of me cutting out one paragraph of text from Traveller. Suzie Shaw, Bondi Junction, NSW Spreading the word After reading the letter Image conscious by Denise Jensen (Traveller, August 10), I booked a walking tour with Napoli Thats Amore. Wanting to know how I heard about their walking tours, I stated that I had heard about it in our newspaper. The same evening I received an email asking for a copy of the article that mentioned Thats Amore because they had had bookings from people stating that they had heard about the tours from the paper. One good word regarding a tour seems to spread in much the same way a bad one does. Debra Young, Lysterfield, Vic Advertisement Related Article Traveller letters Heres a hot tip on how to enter the US, hassle-free Cubist movement Ben Groundwater has travelled so much further and more often than I have (Traveller, August 17), but we do have a few things in common. My first time overseas, I packed way too much. Todays crease-free and quick-dry fabrics were not available then and being well-turned out to meet new people was respectable. Realising quickly, that jeans and shirts were the norm (the shirt hid my money belt), I managed to drastically cut down my luggage. I do disagree with Ben on two points. For me, travel cubes save the frenzied rummage to find a certain item, and footwear needs to be separate from clothing. It goes without saying that toiletries are packed separately. Otherwise, good on you Ben, for helping us not to be overloaded when travelling. Marjie Williamson, Blaxland, NSW The Letter of the Week writer wins three Hardie Grant travel books. See hardiegrant.com The Tip of the Week writer wins a set of three Lonely Planet travel books. See shop.lonelyplanet.com Sign up for the Traveller newsletter The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now. JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 21, 2025 -- On August 20, two Chery TIGGO9 flagship SUVs performed a 50% offset frontal collision test at 50 km/h on a long, straight paved road in South Africa, like two flawless diamonds striking each other in a master's handonly the hardest crystal can reveal another's inner strength; only the most advanced safety structure can truly test a vehicle's integrity. After impact, both TIGGO9 cabins remained fully intact with no deformation in the A-, B-, or C-pillars. All airbagsincluding those for the driver, front passenger, and kneesdeployed instantly upon collision. Seatbelt pre-tensioners activated promptly, all doors could be opened normally, hazard lights turned on automatically, and no fuel leakage occurred. TIGGO9 body uses 85% high-strength steel, including 21% 1500MPa hot-formed steel in critical areas like the A- and B-pillars. Its front structure features dual aluminum crash beams with 85% cross-width coverage and six crash boxes that effectively absorb and disperse impact energy. The vehicle is also equipped with 10 airbags, including a 2060mm side curtain airbag that retains over 50% pressure for 6 seconds after deployment, and a center airbag between the front seats to reduce secondary impact risks. This test represents a pivotal milestone in Chery's global six-dimensional safety challenge, building on extreme-environment validations previously conducted in regions such as Indonesia and Mexico. As the first Chinese automaker to reach five million vehicle exports, Chery was also named once again to the Fortune Global 500 list just last month. Behind this "Double 500" accomplishment lies Chery's unwavering commitment to consistent global qualityno matter where its vehicles are driven, their fundamental safety structure remains as resilient and enduring as diamond. This dedication not only embodies the vision to "Let everyone enjoy five-star protection," but also honors the brand's core philosophy: "Safety, for Family." That same evening, TIGGO9 made its official debut in the South African market. The following day, Chery joined forces with UNICEF to launch the "Champion for Education in Africa" forum, initiating a collaborative effort to address educational challenges facing children across the region. As part of this commitment, plans were announced to fund the construction of Hope Primary Schools. This effort reinforces Chery's "In Africa, For Africa" ethos, extending its safety commitment from product technology to social responsibility. Annual study evaluates how effectively automakers bring new technologies to market 2025 Santa Fe receives two key mass-market recognitions: Driver Assist Award and Connected Vehicle Award J.D. Power's findings reflect Hyundai's consistent leadership in delivering advanced, customer-focused technology FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Aug. 21, 2025 -- Hyundai has once again been recognized as the top mass-market brand in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S.Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study SM, marking the sixth consecutive year the brand has earned this distinction. Now in its tenth year, the TXI Study evaluates how effectively automakers bring new technologies to market. Based on feedback from more than 76,000 owners of 2025 model-year vehicles after 90 days of ownership, the study measures innovation, quality of execution, and the real-world usefulness of advanced features. Hyundai's leading performance reflects its ability to make cutting-edge technology intuitive, reliable, and valuable in everyday driving. The 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe has also been recognized with J.D. Power's Mass-Market Driver Assist and Connected Vehicle Awards. For the second consecutive year, Santa Fe's phone-based digital key technology received top honors, highlighting the convenience of accessing and sharing vehicle functions through a smartphone. In addition, the model was celebrated for its Blind-Spot View Monitor, which provides drivers with enhanced visibility and added confidence when changing lanes. "We appreciate this recognition because it demonstrates our focus that the best tech disappears into the drive, feeling natural from day one, building confidence behind the wheel, while continuing to be updated throughout the vehicle's life," said Olabisi Boyle, senior vice president, product planning and mobility strategy, Hyundai Motor North America. "We do this in service of a drive that is safer, smoother, and more satisfying. Hyundai's continued success in the TXI Study highlights its mission to democratize advanced technology, making premium innovations widely accessible to mass-market customers." Hyundai Digital Key 2 Premiumi Standard on nearly all 2025 Santa Fe trims, Digital Key 2 Premium technology allows drivers to unlock and start their vehicle using a smartphone app by leveraging Near-Field Communication (NFC), Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies, replacing the need for a traditional physical key fob. With Hyundai Digital Key 2 Premium, owners can enjoy seamless access and enhanced control, all from the palm of their hand. Blind-Spot View Monitor (BVM)ii The Hyundai Santa Fe's Blind-Spot View Monitor (BVM) is a smart safety feature that helps drivers make safer lane changes. When the turn signal is activated, cameras on the vehicle's bodysides show a live video of the corresponding blind spot on the instrument cluster. This real-time view helps drivers spot nearby vehicles, cyclists, or other hazards that may be hidden from mirrors, reducing the risk of potential collisions while improving the driver's overall awareness and confidence. About the J.D. Power U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) StudySM The 2025 U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study is based on responses from 76,230 owners of new 2025 model-year vehicles who were surveyed after 90 days of ownership. The study was fielded from March 2024 through February 2025. The U.S. TXI Study complements the annual J.D. Power U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS)SM and the J.D. Power U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) StudySM by measuring how effectively each automotive brand brings new technologies to market. The U.S. TXI Study combines the level of adoption of new technologies for each brand with excellence in execution. The execution measurement examines how much owners like the technologies and how many problems they experience while using them. For more information about the U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study, visit https://www.jdpower.com/business/automotive/us-tech-experience-index-txi-study. Hyundai Motor America Hyundai Motor America offers U.S. consumers a technology-rich lineup of cars, SUVs, and electrified vehicles, while supporting Hyundai Motor Company's Progress for Humanity vision. Hyundai has significant operations in the U.S., including its North American headquarters in California, the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama assembly plant, the all-new Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America and several cutting-edge R&D facilities. These operations, combined with those of Hyundai's 850 independent dealers, contribute $20.1 billion annually and 190,000 jobs to the U.S. economy, according to a recent economic impact report. For more information, visit www.hyundainews.com. Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok i Digital smartphone key requires a compatible smartphone and an appropriately equipped Hyundai vehicle. Not all smartphones are compatible. Hyundai vehicle must be equipped with smart key with push button start, wireless device charging, and Audio Video Navigation System 5.0 (or newer) or Display Audio 2.0. Tap to lock/unlock function works on front doors only. Requires MyHyundai with Bluelink app and active Bluelink account. Please visit www.MyHyundai.com for information on compatible devices. Features and specifications subject to change. See your Owner's Manual for additional details and limitations. ii Blind-Spot View Monitor (BVM) is available on select Hyundai vehicles. BVM assists driver in changing lanes by providing a live view of the blind spots on either side of the vehicle and an audible alert if another vehicle is detected. Turn signal must be activated and other system limitations apply. Do not rely exclusively on BVM. It is the driver's responsibility to be aware of the surroundings and ensure it is clear before changing lanes or directions. See Owner's Manual for further details and limitations. SOURCE Hyundai Motor America Famine is now official in the Gaza Strip. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international system supported by United Nations agencies that assesses food situations worldwide, declared on Friday that famine has reached Gaza City and the other municipalities and refugee camps that make up Gaza Governorate. The IPC report comes on the eve of an offensive in which the Israeli army intends to expel the one million Gazans concentrated in Gaza City maneuvers that humanitarian organizations have warned would have catastrophic consequences. According to this report, 514,000 people almost a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from famine. The figure is expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. It is the first time the IPC has declared famine outside the African continent. Israels Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, dismissed the IPC investigation as tailor-made to fit Hamass fake campaign about hunger in Gaza. There is no famine in Gaza, the spokesperson said in a statement. It is a famine within a few hundred meters of food, in a fertile land, said Tom Fletcher, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, in a statement. It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war, continued the British diplomat. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, stated that the declaration of famine is not a mystery. It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself, the Portuguese leader shared on X. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing. As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population." The IPC investigation calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to stop the spread of famine to other parts of the enclave, which it warns will occur in the coming weeks in Deir al-Balah (center) and Khan Younis (south), if the situation on the ground does not change. The IPC classifies famine in territories where 20% of households face extreme food shortages, 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and the hunger-related death rate exceeds two adults or four children per day per 10,000 inhabitants. It is also considered official when at least two of these criteria are met. Conditions to prevent the invasion Meanwhile, Israel continues moving forward with plans to launch an assault and ground invasion of Gaza City. On Friday, Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to destroy the city the largest Palestinian municipality if Hamas rejects the main conditions Israel is demanding to end the war: the disarmament of the militia and the release of all captives. Katz issued this warning in the same statement in which he announced that Israels top leaders had approved, on Thursday night, the plans to take control of Gaza City and defeat Hamas, referring to the operation Israel has been preparing for two weeks to occupy the entirety of Gaza City, the largest municipality and the capital of Gaza. Soon, the gates of hell will open upon the heads of Hamass murderers and rapists in Gaza, declared the Israeli minister on social media. If Palestinian fighters do not accept Israels conditions to end the war, Gaza City will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun, he said an open admission of the widespread destruction the Israeli army has inflicted on those municipalities through massive bombardments. According to Katz, Israels new plans for the enclave follow the same path, since they include intense fire, evacuation of residents, and maneuvering. On Thursday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu puzzled both Israelis and Palestinians by announcing that he had instructed officials to resume negotiations for the release of all captives. The statement marked the first reference by the Israeli government to talks on a ceasefire since Hamas approved a ceasefire proposal on Monday, which four days later the Israeli cabinet has yet to officially address. Even so, Netanyahu insisted that the offensive against Gaza City would continue until Hamas accepts peace on Israels terms, which include the disarmament of the militia, the demilitarization of the enclave, the release of the captives, Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of a civil administration unconnected to either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. One million civilians are precariously concentrated in Gaza City. Humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that their forced displacement to the south, as Israel intends, would have catastrophic consequences. Israel is ignoring those warnings. On Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it had instructed health authorities and humanitarian workers to prepare to leave Gaza City and move south. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition 2025 U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study From JD Power TROY, Mich.: 21 Aug. 2025 During the past decade, J.D. Power has supported automakers in understanding user experiences across more than 100 new technologies, demonstrating a commitment to advancing automotive innovation through consumer insights. The J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study,SM released today, enhances these insights with the addition of a smart vehicle category that highlights the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in vehicles. The study, now in its 10th year, includes a new category that includes seven AI-based technologies designed to enhance the driver experience by anticipating their needs. Several smart technologies, including smart ignition, climate control and driver preferences, rank among the top 10 in the study for both low problems experienced and high customer satisfaction. Smart technologies appear to not only anticipate the drivers needs but also reduce the cognitive workload and some of the difficulties that drivers face with digital systems, said Kathleen Rizk, senior director of user experience benchmarking and technology at J.D. Power. Ultimately, what matters most to vehicle ownersand therefore to automakers and suppliersis how useful the technology is and whether it enhances their driving experience. While smart technologies are not without issues, they represent a meaningful step forward. Continued development will be essential to address current challenges and maximize their effectiveness. Following are some key findings of the 2025 study: Smart technologies can improve vehicle quality and satisfaction scores : Certain smart technologies are beginning to positively affect initial vehicle quality scores. For instance, smart climate control systemswhich can automatically adjust the vehicles heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system to improve comfort and efficiencyhave shown a notable improvement year over year in user experience, with a reported drop of 6.3 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), according to the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS). SM This reduction in issues has also driven higher satisfaction in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study SM among users who have this feature. This offers a much-needed workaround to address the increasing complexity of climate controls being migrated into the infotainment system. : Certain smart technologies are beginning to positively affect initial vehicle quality scores. For instance, smart climate control systemswhich can automatically adjust the vehicles heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system to improve comfort and efficiencyhave shown a notable improvement year over year in user experience, with a reported drop of 6.3 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), according to the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS). This reduction in issues has also driven higher satisfaction in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study among users who have this feature. This offers a much-needed workaround to address the increasing complexity of climate controls being migrated into the infotainment system. Car wash mode a shiny promise with muddied execution: Car wash mode, a new feature tracked in the TXI Study this year, is intended to automatically prepare the vehicle to go through a car wash, initiating actions such as closing all windows and disabling the windshield wipers, among others. It is a feature that sounds good in theory, but is often buried within the infotainment system, making it difficult to find, which causes delays and frustration, especially when in line at a car wash. This results in more than one-third (38%) of owners who say they need better instructions to use it. Another 15% say the feature is too slow to perform the necessary tasks to prepare the vehicle for a wash. Ultimately, despite its potential benefits, the complicated accessibility of the car wash mode and lack of user guidance are preventing it from becoming a widely adopted feature. Car wash mode, a new feature tracked in the TXI Study this year, is intended to automatically prepare the vehicle to go through a car wash, initiating actions such as closing all windows and disabling the windshield wipers, among others. It is a feature that sounds good in theory, but is often buried within the infotainment system, making it difficult to find, which causes delays and frustration, especially when in line at a car wash. This results in more than one-third (38%) of owners who say they need better instructions to use it. Another 15% say the feature is too slow to perform the necessary tasks to prepare the vehicle for a wash. Ultimately, despite its potential benefits, the complicated accessibility of the car wash mode and lack of user guidance are preventing it from becoming a widely adopted feature. In-vehicle payments making a comeback: Previous executions of in-vehicle shopping and payment systems within the infotainment system have been hindered by limited app offerings, complex interfaces and lengthy purchasing processes, all of which have contributed to low adoption. However, in-vehicle payment capabilities are gaining interest, with 62% of owners expressing a desire for this feature. At present, the most common uses are paying for charging, fuel, parking and tolls. The next generation of in-vehicle shopping and payment systems has the potential to succeed if automakers focus on convenience purchases that directly enhance the vehicle experience, such as parking and fuel, and design access within the infotainment system to be simple and user-friendly, Rizk said. Previous executions of in-vehicle shopping and payment systems within the infotainment system have been hindered by limited app offerings, complex interfaces and lengthy purchasing processes, all of which have contributed to low adoption. However, in-vehicle payment capabilities are gaining interest, with 62% of owners expressing a desire for this feature. At present, the most common uses are paying for charging, fuel, parking and tolls. The next generation of in-vehicle shopping and payment systems has the potential to succeed if automakers focus on convenience purchases that directly enhance the vehicle experience, such as parking and fuel, and design access within the infotainment system to be simple and user-friendly, Rizk said. Recognition technologies now next challenge drivers face: Owners perceptions of vehicle quality have shifted from broken components to issues with usability, mainly due to complex infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Currently, problems increasingly focus on technology requiring connectivity. In the future, according to findings in the TXI Study, the next evolution of vehicle quality problems owners will likely face will be related to inconsistent performance of recognition and authentication technologies. These technologies include biometric authentication (29.2 PP100); touchless or hidden controls (19.6 PP100); and direct driver monitoring (19.4 PP100), which are the technologies with the highest number of problems reported in the TXI Study. As automakers navigate challenges with recognition technologies, the focus must remain on ensuring that advancements enhancerather than hinderthe overall driving experience. Owners perceptions of vehicle quality have shifted from broken components to issues with usability, mainly due to complex infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Currently, problems increasingly focus on technology requiring connectivity. In the future, according to findings in the TXI Study, the next evolution of vehicle quality problems owners will likely face will be related to inconsistent performance of recognition and authentication technologies. These technologies include biometric authentication (29.2 PP100); touchless or hidden controls (19.6 PP100); and direct driver monitoring (19.4 PP100), which are the technologies with the highest number of problems reported in the TXI Study. As automakers navigate challenges with recognition technologies, the focus must remain on ensuring that advancements enhancerather than hinderthe overall driving experience. Blind spot camera is a customer must-have technology: A large majority (93%) of customers say they use the blind spot camera most of the time, and 74% say they desire the feature in a future vehicle. Notably, vehicles that include this feature also spend less time on dealer lots compared with those that lack it. Highest-Ranking Brands Genesis ranks highest overall and highest among premium brands for innovation for a fifth consecutive year, with a score of 538 (on a 1,000-point scale). Cadillac (526) ranks second and Lincoln (523) ranks third. Hyundai ranks highest among mass market brands for innovation for a sixth consecutive year, with a score of 493. Kia (474) ranks second and Mitsubishi (471) ranks third. Advanced Technology Award Recipients The U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study analyzes 40 automotive technologies, which are divided into five categories: comfort and convenience; connected vehicle; driver assist; electric vehicle; and smart vehicle. The smart vehicle category is not award eligible this year. Land Rover Defender is the premium model receiving the comfort and convenience award for its advanced air purification system. Toyota Land Cruiser and Toyota Sequoia , each in a tie, are the mass market models receiving the comfort and convenience award for camera rear-view mirror technology . is the premium model receiving the comfort and convenience award for its advanced air purification system. and , each in a tie, are the mass market models receiving the comfort and convenience award for camera rear-view mirror technology Genesis GV80 is the premium model receiving the connected vehicle award for phone-based digital key. Hyundai Santa Fe is the mass market model receiving the connected vehicle award, also for phone-based digital key. is the premium model receiving the connected vehicle award for phone-based digital key. is the mass market model receiving the connected vehicle award, also for phone-based digital key. GMC Hummer EV SUV receives the award for driver assist in the premium segment for active lane change assist. Hyundai Santa Fe receives the award for driver assist in the mass market segment for its blind spot camera. receives the award for driver assist in the premium segment for active lane change assist. receives the award for driver assist in the mass market segment for its blind spot camera. Kia EV9 receives the award for electric vehicle in the mass market segment for one pedal driving. The premium segment in the electric vehicle category is not award eligible this year. The U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study complements the annual J.D. Power U.S. Initial Quality StudySM (IQS) and the J.D. Power U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) StudySM by measuring how effectively each automotive brand brings new technologies to market. The TXI Study combines the level of adoption of new technologies in each brand for excellence in execution. The execution measurement examines how much owners like the new technologies and how many problems they experience while using them. The 2025 U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study is based on responses from 76,230 owners of new 2025 model-year vehicles who were surveyed after 90 days of ownership. The study was fielded from June 2024 through May 2025 based on vehicles registered from March 2024 through February 2025. For more information about the U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study, visit https://www.jdpower.com/business/us-tech-experience-index-txi-study. About J.D. Power J.D. Power is a global leader in automotive data and analytics, and provides industry intelligence, consumer insights and advisory solutions to the automotive industry and selected non-automotive industries. J.D. Power leverages its extensive proprietary datasets and software capabilities combined with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence tools to help its clients optimize business performance. J.D. Power was founded in 1968 and has offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. To learn more about the company's business offerings, visit jdpower.com/business. The J.D. Power auto-shopping tool can be found at jdpower.com. For the first time in its history, North Korea has held an official ceremony to honor soldiers who have fought beyond its borders. The countrys supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, praised the work of North Korean troops who fought alongside Russia in the war in Ukraine on Thursday and awarded the title of Hero of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea to the soldiers who returned from the conflict this week, according to a report from the state news agency KCNA on Friday. This is an unprecedented gesture that highlights the involvement of the secretive Asian regime in the conflict on European soil, as well as the increasingly close alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow. In his speech, delivered at the Workers Party headquarters, Kim praised the soldiers deployed in the Russian border region of Kursk as great heroes and patriots and said their participation on the front lines firmly defended the honor of the Korean Peoples Army and guaranteed the existence and development of our nation. The North Korean leader referred to the operation in support of Russian forces to recapture the Kursk region, where Ukraine had managed to open a bridgehead in August 2024 and hold positions until the beginning of this year. Kim hailed the victory as a great feat and warned that the courage of his military demonstrates that no army in the world can avoid the fate of becoming dead souls if it faces North Korean troops. KCNA has not detailed the number of soldiers decorated, but has published images of Kim effusively greeting army officers. The state news agency reports that a minute of silence was observed in memory of the fallen, and that Kim laid a wreath, consoled the families of the deceased, and placed the medals next to the portraits of the martyrs who sacrificed their youth and lives, united by a common faith and will to carry out the countrys orders. In addition, a concert was held for the soldiers who returned from Russia. The ceremony stands in stark contrast to the secrecy surrounding Pyongyangs involvement in the war last fall, when the first troops were detected on Russian soil. South Korean intelligence services estimate that around 15,000 soldiers have been deployed to the Kursk region since October of last year, and that some 600 have died and thousands have been wounded on the front lines. The North Korean regime has also provided its ally with artillery shells, missiles, and long-range rocket launchers. South Korean news agency Yonhap reports, citing Russian media, that Pyongyang plans to send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers to support reconstruction efforts. Thursdays recognition comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a letter to Kim commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japanese occupation in 1945. In his letter, the Russian leader praised the heroism of the North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian army in Ukraine and recalled the historic military cooperation between the two countries at the end of World War II, when Soviet and Korean soldiers fought together against Japan. Putin emphasized that the bonds of camaraderie forged during that war remain strong and reliable today. Relations between Pyongyang and Moscow have been considerably strengthened after their leaders signed a strategic partnership agreement in June 2024 that includes a mutual defense pact in the event of aggression. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Bungalow interiors by Ferroart Interiors for villas, farmhouses Business Reporter : Ferroart Interiors Pvt. Ltd, one of the renowned names in its field, offers bungalow interiors. The company believes design is not just about how a space looks, but how it feelshow it supports energy, intention, and everyday life. Over the years, weve created some of Indias most distinctive interiors, from villas to farmhouses, each reflecting individuality and quiet elegance. Our philosophy blends the Indian sciences of Sapt Chakra, Vibration Theory, Vastu Shastra, and the Law of Attraction with the refinement of Italian aesthetics and global travel inspirations, said the company is a press release issued by the company. Clients can experience this approach at the companys Experience Centre, which includes a 10,000 sq. ft. sample bungalow and its manufacturing unit. For details visit the company at D-27, Central MIDC, Nagpur or call on 8605010847 / 47. (www.ferroart.net). Congress corporators stage symbolic sit-in protest outside Mayors office Staff Reporter : Alleging complete collapse of sanitation services and stalled development works across the city, Congress corporators staged a symbolic sit-in protest outside the Mayors office on Thursday. Speaking on the occasion, Leader of Opposition Amrish Mishra said all development works in the city, whether under Corporators funds or other heads have come to a standstill. The tussle between contractors and the ruling party in Jabalpur Municipal Corporation is proving dear to the city. He said the door-to-door garbage collection system remains in disorder. He said the civic body collect taxes from residents, but it fails to provide them needed basic sanitation services. The Leader of Opposition further said that sanitation has completely collapsed in zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 14 and 15, which were earlier under a contractor whose services have now been terminated. He said despite the crisis, the Municipal Corporation has not made any alternative arrangements to date. Targeting the Mayor, who represents the BJP, the Congress Corporators said instead of addressing real issues, the Mayor is playing with statistics. As the citys first citizen, he has failed to take cognizance of peoples problems. During two-hour protest, corporators carried placards and raised slogans against the Mayor. They warned that if the situation does not improve within 24 hours, they will show black flags to the Chief Minister during his visit. If sanitation crisis and stalled projects are not resolved immediately, we will intensify agitation by burning effigies of the Mayor across all wards of the city, said Congress Corporators. Devastated after Op Sindoor Pak-based JeM launches massive fundraising drive JAMMU : JeM has launched an online fundraising campaign through digital wallets to collect Rs 3.91 billion for constructing 313 new markaz buildings under the garb of constructing mosques across Pakistan AFTER suffering severe setbacks during Operation Sindoor, Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror outfit has launched a massive fundraising drive in that country under the garb of building over 300 mosques to replicate Lashkar-e-Taibas decentralisation policy, security officials said. The JeM has come out with a new mechanism with the support of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to collect funds. It is using digital wallets like EasyPaisa and Sadapay controlled by its founder and most wanted terrorist Masood Azhars family members to bypass scrutiny by global agencies like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the officials said citing inputs from across the border. The Rs 3.91 billion fundraising drive would secure JeMs operational and weapons financing for at least a decade, they said. Indian Armed Forces carried out missile strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK in the early hours of May 7 in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack. Pakistan retaliated and the intense border skirmishes continued till May 10 before the two countries reached an understanding to end the hostilities. The officials said the JeMs headquarters Markaz Subhanallah, along with four other training camps -- Markaz Bilal, Markaz Abbas, Mahmona Joya, and the Sargal training camp were destroyed during the Operation Sindoor. While Pakistans Government has announced funding to rebuild these destroyed facilities, the JeM has launched an online fundraising campaign through digital wallets to collect Rs 3.91 billion for constructing 313 new markaz buildings under the garb of constructing mosques across Pakistan, the officials said. On social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, JeM-linked proxy accounts and those used by JeM commanders have posted posters, videos, and a letter from Masood Azhar, urging supporters to donate wholeheartedly as each mosque requires Rs 12.5 million for construction and smooth running, they said. According to the officials, several of the digital wallet accounts were found linked to the mobile number of Azhars brother Talha Al Saif. Judicial activism should not become judicial terrorism: CJI NEW DELHI : JUDICIAL activism should not become judicial terrorism, Chief Justice of India B R Gavai said on Thursday during the presidential reference hearing which raised constitutional questions on whether the court can impose timelines for Governors and the President to deal with bills passed by State Assemblies. The Chief Justices remark came when Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told a bench that elected people who have a lot of experience should never be undermined. We never said anything about the elected people. I have always said that judicial activism should never become judicial terrorism or judicial adventurism, the CJI told Mehta. The bench also comprised Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar. Mehta resumed his submissions by referring to various verdicts of the apex court on powers of the Governor as the hearing entered its third consecutive day. At the outset, the Solicitor General said he is looking forward to senior advocate Kapil Sibals submission on the presidential reference as he has enormous experience in public life and has also been in governance as well as a parliamentarian. Elected people belonging to whichever political party have to nowadays respond to voters directly. People now directly ask questions from them. Unlike 20-25 years back when things were different, voters are aware and cannot be taken for a ride, Mehta said. He said withholding assent by the Governor is a standalone and complete function of the constitutional functionary as provided under Article 200 of the Constitution. Minister Gadkari, CM to dedicate longest flyover to public on Aug 23 Staff Reporter : Jabalpur is set to witness inauguration of Madhya Pradeshs longest flyover on August 23. Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav will dedicate the flyover to the public, said State PWD Minister Rakesh Singh while addressing a meeting held at partys divisional office to review preparations for the event. Addressing party workers from both urban and rural areas, Singh urged for collective participation to ensure that the people of Sanskardhani can witness the historic moment together. Singh recalled that the project had been part of his 2004 election manifesto and after years of struggle, the vision had finally materialised. He said that the pace of development expedited after 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership. Singh said when Nitin Gadkari visited his residence, he requested him to sanction the flyover for Jabalpur. Despite several hurdles, the city has now received this major gift, Singh added. Highlighting the projects significance, Singh said that the flyover includes the countrys largest cable-stayed bridge. He also mentioned other ongoing infrastructure works in the region including the Jabalpur-Bilaspur Highway and the coming logistics park. Singh further said that after Hyderabad, Jabalpur will have one of the largest ring roads in the country. Calling for mass participation, Singh said, on August 23 Jabalpurians will be eyewitnesses to the historic event. District BJP President Ratnesh Sonkar, MLA Rohani and Mayor Bahadur Singh also addressed the meeting. MORALITY CALLING BY SENDING the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, seeking removal of Prime Minister, Chief Ministers and Ministers arrested on serious criminal charges for 30 days, to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) the Central Government has done well to quell a storm till the next session of Parliament. The uproar caused by the Bill and two related Bills in the Lok Sabha by the Opposition parties has exposed their reluctance to approve decriminalisation of politics and also given the Centre at least three more months to come back with a new strategy to pass a welcome reform to keep out tainted leaders from critical decision-making. The Bills propose that if any minister, including Chief Ministers and the Prime Minister, is arrested and remains in custody for 30 straight days for an offence punishable by five years or more in jail, he or she must resign or lose their office. It was introduced by Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah as an anti-corruption measure after instances of some leaders enjoying decision-making powers despite facing a trial and even while serving prison sentences. Former Delhi Chief Minister Mr. Arvind Kejriwal was the latest example of misuse of powers vested by the Constitution into an elected public representative. Mr. Kejriwal continued to serve as Chief Minister of Delhi even while being in the custody in the Delhi excise policy case. In the past too, many ministers continued to hold their portfolios despite being convicted by the court of law. The Opposition leaders are up in arms against the amendment calling the Bill as being against the jurisprudence of criminal justice and Parliamentary democracy. Their grouse is about the clause to remove a PM, CMs, Ministers on mere framing of charges and custody before conviction by the courts. They see it as a tool to destabilise governments as the ruling dispensation might resort to its political misuse. Yet, the fact remains that the law is applicable to every leader facing criminal charges irrespective of the party or the dispensation he/she represents. Moreover, their removal is not sought merely on suspicion of wrongdoing but only after detention or arrest in custody for 30 consecutive days for offences that attract a jail term of at least five years. It clearly means that the Bill seeks removal of only those who are accused of a serious crime which cannot be heaped on an individual merely on suspicion. Such action takes place only after a systematic investigation by the agencies who collect enough material to arrest an accused, for, they have to prove the charges in the court of law with matching evidence. The Opposition uproar on an anti-corruption measure, therefore, sends a wrong message to the electorate who cannot tolerate their elected representative calling shots from jail. The country has always sought a mechanism to uproot political corruption and safeguard constitutional morality. In many cases where leaders face criminal charges for a long period there is no accountability towards the people who elect them in a free and fair election process. It is nothing but misuse of a constitutional shield provided to the political class by the Representation of the People Act as they avoid disqualification because of the stretched judicial process. Allowing a peoples representative to run a Government from jail is actually subversion of peoples rights. Seeking removal of such leaders by amending the Constitution is actually the calling of morality. Agreed, the tool must not be weaponised to target political rivals but then it is the responsibility of the judiciary, too, to fast-track cases if there is a suspicion of a political witch-hunt. A separate mechanism to expedite cases related to the Executive can be found out by the JPC in the time it has to go through the proposed amendment. It will easily rule out misuse of a much-needed reform seeking decriminalisation of politics. NR cyclists complete 1000 km I-Day BRM Sports Reporter : CITY cyclists Sudhir Choudhary and Dharmendra Kumar successfully completed the challenging 1000km Brevet de Randonneur Mondiaux (BRM) organised by Nagpur Randonneurs (NR). The endurance cycling event, which was flagged off at 5.30 am on Independence Day, took the participants on a demanding route to the historic Ellora Caves. Of the three registered riders, Sudhir and Dharmendra completed the ride within the stipulated 75 hours, while Mukund Kamath was forced to withdraw due to medical reasons. The journey, which began at Ncyclopedia in Pratap Nagar, covered a punishing route via Wardha, Karanja, Mehkar, Sindkhed Raja, Jalna, Aurangabad and Khuldabad, before returning to Nagpur. The challenge tested cyclists against steep elevations, strong winds, heavy rains, scorching heat, exhaustion, and sleepless nights. The riders showcased extraordinary grit, determination and dedication to complete the BRM despite the hardship. The event stretched across four days and three nights. The ride was ably supported by dedicated NR volunteers led by Samadhan Unhale, who ensured continuous hydration, nutrition, rest facilities, and backup support throughout. Club representative Anirudh, along with Samadhan, played a key role in organising the event and recognised the effort and achievement of the successful participants with certificates and mementoes. Pak SC grants bail to Imran Khan in May 9 violence case; one case pending ISLAMABAD : PAKISTANS Supreme Court on Thursday granted bail to incarcerated former Prime Minister Imran Khan in eight cases related to the May 9 violence. Khans supporters resorted to vandalism and violence on May 9, 2023, after he was detained by law enforcement authorities in Islamabad. Several cases were launched against Khan and leaders of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party for their alleged role in the riots. A three-member bench of the apex court granted Khan bail after hearing the arguments by his lawyer Salman Safdar, and Punjab Special Prosecutor Zulfiqar Naqvi, who represented the State. The bench was led by Chief Justice Afridi and comprised Justices Shafi Siddiqui and Miangul Aurangzeb. As Bukhari said, Khan would not be released despite the latest relief due to his conviction in the Al-Qadir Trust case. Khan, 72, had filed a petition for bail in a Lahore anti-terrorism court in the cases related to the May 9 riots, including an attack on the house of the Lahore corps commander, but it was rejected in November 2024. He challenged it in the Lahore High Court (LHC), but it also rejected the plea on June 24 this year. Following this, Khan challenged the dismissal of the bail plea before the top court. The former premier has been facing multiple other cases filed against him after his removal from office in April 2022. He has been imprisoned since August 2023 and is currently serving a sentence at Rawalpindis high-security Adiala Jail in the 190 million pounds Al-Qadir graft case. However, despite the relief, Khans release is unlikely soon. He has been in prison since 2023, serving a sentence in a case related to State gifts, and is also serving a sentence in the 190 million pound case. Several other trials tied to the May 9 riots are still pending against him. The PTI welcomed the Supreme Court decision, calling it a Victory For Imran Khan in a post on X. PTI has also posted a video of Imran Khan on his X account. Keep one thing in mind: when the night becomes darkest, it means morning is about to come, said Imran Khan, PTI quoted. Earlier, Khan has nominated Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) Chairman Mahmood Khan Achakzai for the post of Opposition Leader in the National Assembly (NA) and Azam Khan Swati for the Senate, Dawn reported. Azam Khan Swati has been nominated as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, PTI Secretary-General Salman Akram Raja said on Wednesday. He further said that Imran has requested five names to decide on his nominee for the opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly. On Monday, August 18, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced Project Portero. In a statement, the initiative is described as one that seeks to strengthen collaboration with its Mexican partners in the fight against the cartels to disrupt the smuggling networks that flood American communities with deadly synthetic drugs. However, the following day, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denied any agreement with the DEA. They issued the statement we dont know the basis for it. We havent reached any agreement, she emphasized at her daily press conference. I learned about the statement at that same time [as you did]... as did the secretary of security [and civilian protection], the attorney general, the secretary of defense and the [secretary of the] navy, Sheinbaum explained. The president added that as soon as she read it she spoke with Secretary of Security Omar Garcia Harfuch, to ask him if any agreement had been signed with the U.S. anti-drug agency that she wasnt aware of. The president also complained that the announcement used the phrase the DEA and Mexico, as if they were entities of equal rank. Who does the Mexican government make agreements with? With the United States government at the same level. And, she emphasized: theres no specific agreement with this U.S. agency. The only information available about Project Portero comes from the DEAs statement. Its defined as a flagship initiative aimed at dismantling the gatekeepers cartel members who control the smuggling corridors through which fentanyl and cocaine flow from Mexico into the United States, with weapons and cash coming in the other direction. By specifically targeting them, DEA and its partners are striking at the heart of cartel command-and-control, the statement said. Whats unclear is who those partners are. In the United States, the operation is coordinated with the National Security Task Force. Press reports claim that the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are also involved. However, on the Mexican side, according to the countrys highest authority, no institution is on board. We havent reached any agreement none of [our] security institutions have with the DEA, Sheinbaum affirmed. The only [collaboration involves a] group of police officers from the Ministry of Security and Civilian Protection who were conducting a workshop in Texas, she added. According to the statement, Project Portero has launched a multi-week training program at an intelligence center on its southwest border, bringing together Mexican investigators with police, prosecutors, lawyers, military officers and intelligence officials. The purpose is to develop coordinated strategies, strengthen intelligence-sharing and identify targets of interest to both countries. The ongoing disagreement appears to be a return to the tense relationship that the Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador administration (2018-2024) maintained with the DEA. While the governments led by Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) and Enrique Pena Nieto (2012-2018) even saw increases in the number of U.S. agents and technicians in Mexico, Lopez Obradors six-year term was marked by mutual distrust. This was crystallized in 2020 with a series of reforms to the National Security Law, which limited the activities that foreign agents can carry out in Mexico. The arrival of Sheinbaum with Garcia Harfuch as plenipotentiary secretary of Security and Civilian Protection seemed to change the situation. Garcia Harfuch maintains good relations with U.S. agencies. And, since Donald Trump returned to the White House, operations against fentanyl trafficking have been ongoing in Mexico. Also, faced with the threat of a trade war, Mexico has extradited 55 drug traffickers in two batches to the U.S., including Rafael Caro Quintero. He has long been a priority target for the United States, due to his involvement in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Kiki Camarena. Terrance Cole, who was appointed DEA director by Trump in February of 2025, asserts that this new initiative reflects the priorities of the Republican administration. The statement reads that it recommits the DEA to enforcement, dismantling cartels designated as terrorist organizations, and strengthening collaboration with foreign counterparts. Project Portero and this new training program, Cole affirmed, show how we will fight by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners. For now, however, the plan doesnt seem to have much traction south of the Rio Grande. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Pak-US crypto dreams A deal with Trump familys crypto firm for money laundering, terror-funding NEW DELHI : THE United States has been steadily warming up to Pakistan over the last few months, and this engagement goes far beyond routine diplomacy. At the centre of the shift lies a crypto deal -- an arrangement that appears less like economic cooperation and more like a financial pact between the Trump familys crypto venture and Pakistans military-linked funds, with a chain of controversial actors involved, according to a thread report posted by DisInfo Lab. One of the key figures is Bilal bin Saqib, a British-Pakistani entrepreneur who now serves as CEO of Pakistans newly formed Crypto Council (PCC) as well as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Blockchain. The connection worth noting is that Bilal is also an advisor to World Liberty Financial (WLF), the Trump familys crypto enterprise. WLF is no ordinary crypto company. Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner together hold a 40 per cent stake, while Donald Trump himself is listed as co-founder emeritus. The Pakistan-WLF deal was signed on April 26 amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan. Just days earlier, on April 15, WLF had appointed Bilal as an advisor, and by May, he was also installed as CEO of the PCC. This dual role places him at the heart of the arrangement, representing Islamabads crypto vision while simultaneously serving the Trump familys interests in Washington, the report suggests. By June, Bilal had already met with a wide range of American political leaders and influencers, including Senator Cynthia Lummis, co-sponsor of the Bitcoin Act, Senator Bill Hagerty of the Banking Committee, White House advisers, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. During these meetings, he pitched Pakistans crypto vision, all the while maintaining his advisory position with WLF. The DisInfo Lab report also alleged that the crypto deal between Pakistan and WLF opened avenues for money laundering and is even giving impetus to terror-funding, with Binance providing the perfect incubator. Binance, a major global crypto trading platform, has long been surrounded by allegations of facilitating illicit financing. Despite claiming to have cut ties with China, evidence continues to show Binances connections there. Its founder, Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, has deep business links through his partner Yi He, who is Vice President of Yixia Technology, a company partly owned by the Chinese Communist Party. Binance has made several investments in China, even while insisting on its independence. CZ himself has a history of legal trouble. He was sentenced to four months in prison for enabling money laundering that supported terrorist organisations. The US Department of Justice, Treasury, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission collectively imposed a record $4.3 billion fine on Binance in November 2023 after exposing how it funnelled funds to Hamas, al-Qaeda, and ISIS, processed $1.1 million worth of transactions with Iran in violation of US sanctions, and failed to follow basic anti-money laundering protocols. Both CZ and Binance pleaded guilty, the report suggests. This was far from an isolated incident. Binance has faced investigations in multiple countries. In France, the Government accused it of money laundering and terror financing. In India, the Financial Intelligence Unit fined Binance Rs 188 million for money laundering violations. In Canada, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre imposed a fine of around $6 million (Canadian dollars) on the platform. Despite this record, CZ emerged from his short prison term to become Strategic Advisor to Pakistans Crypto Council. This move placed him directly alongside Bilal bin Saqib as the second pivotal figure in the Pakistan-WLF crypto nexus. Zhaos extensive history of money laundering and terror-financing allegations makes his new position all the more controversial. DisInfo Lab also points to Bilals own network of questionable enterprises. Many of his companies are registered at the same address, have no active websites, and show no signs of financial transparency -- hallmarks of shell entities. His sister, Minahil, owns 75 per cent of Tayaba UK, a company that partners with Al Mustafa Trust (AMT). AMT, while appearing as a charity, is widely believed to be a military slush fund controlled by retired personnel from Pakistans Army, Navy, and Air Force. It is one of many Milbus ventures -- military capital that directly benefits Pakistans officer class while staying off the official Defence Budget, the report stated. Since the crypto pact was formalised in May 2025, Washington and Islamabad have seen a visible upswing in ties. Pakistans Army Chief Asim Munir visited the US twice within two months, a string of new bilateral agreements was signed, and in a symbolic move, Pakistan even nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. The convergence raises serious questions. Trumps crypto venture, Pakistans shadowy military funds, and Binances tainted legacy of terror financing have converged under the banner of crypto diplomacy. A convicted crypto mogul with ties to China, a political family enterprise, and Pakistans military elite now form the core of this alliance. Parlt passes bill to ban online money games NEW DELHI : PARLIAMENT on Thursday passed a bill to ban all forms of online money games and promote eSports and online social gaming, with the Rajya Sabha approving it without debate amid din. Piloting The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 in the Upper House, Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said the legislation will promote two-thirds of the online gaming segment. The bill, he said, will ban online money games, which have become a big problem for society, especially middle-class youth. The bill was approved by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. There is addiction. The familys savings are lost. It is estimated that 45 crore people have fallen victim to it. More than Rs 20,000 crore of our middle-class families hard-earned money has been destroyed, Vaishnaw said. The minister said the World Health Organisation has declared it a gaming disorder. The International Classification of Diseases, ICD-11, has declared it a gaming disorder. Online money gaming has become a public health risk -- psychological disorders, compulsive behaviour, withdrawal symptoms, violent behaviour...Are being caused by this, he added. The bill also seeks to prohibit advertisements related to online money games, as well as bars banks and financial institutions from facilitating/transferring funds for any of such games. The minister said that to stop this problem, measures have been taken in the past, including a self-regulation mechanism, but the menace of online money games continued to rise. Vaishnaw cited several suicide cases reported in the media, including an instance where a youth lost his mothers cancer treatment money in online games and died by suicide. The minister said the trail of money spent in online games has also been seen aiding money laundering and terror activities. Vaishnaw said the Oppositions non-participation in the discussion over the bill reflects that they are interested in their political objectives and not in welfare of youth, middle-class families. Proud moment CM Sai leads delegation to Japan, South Korea Staff Reporter RAIPUR, Vishnu Deo Sai invited by ITPO for World Expo 2025 On the invitation of the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), Government of India, a high-level delegation from Chhattisgarh, led by Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, on Thursday departed for Japan and South Korea. The primary purpose of the visit is to participate in the prestigious World Expo 2025 in Osaka, where Chhattisgarh will showcase its heritage, innovation, and future-ready sectors on the global stage. In Osaka the delegation will take part in the World Expo 2025, visiting global pavilions and hosting focused discussions to highlight opportunities in Chhattisgarh. The State has established its own pavilion within the Bharat Pavilion, reflecting its rich heritage, culture of innovation, and emerging sectors. This participation, made possible through ITPOs invitation, positions Chhattisgarh prominently within Indias representation at the Expo. Before Osaka, the delegation will be in Tokyo from August 22 to 24 for investor connect sessions and meetings with Japanese industry leaders, trade associations, and investors. After the Expo, the visit will conclude in Seoul with investor roundtables, sector-focused discussions, and engagements with top Korean companies to explore avenues of collaboration from 27-29 August. Chhattisgarhs pavilion at the Bharat Pavilion has been designed to present the states identity and development journey, with special emphasis on industrial growth, renewable energy, IT, and sustainable models. Officials noted that this exhibition will serve as a global platform for the world to witness Chhattisgarhs transformation and future aspirations. While the Expo remains the centre piece of the visit, Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai will also use this opportunity to connect with Japanese and Korean business leaders and international stakeholders. These interactions are expected to foster collaborations, strengthen industrial relations, and open pathways for knowledge exchange. By attending the World Expo 2025 on ITPOs invitation, Chhattisgarh not only showcases its strengths to a global audience but also reinforces its commitment to becoming an active participant in Indias international trade and investment outreach. The presence of the state at such a platform underlines its aspiration to connect with the world on innovation, culture, and development. Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai emphasized that participation in one of the worlds largest platforms for innovation and collaboration, made possible through ITPO, is a unique opportunity. It will help strengthen partnerships, attract investment opportunities, and open new avenues for Chhattisgarhs economic growth and global recognition. Smart toilets shut, water ATMs dry as Raipurs public sanitation collapses Staff Reporter Raipur Behind Raipurs glossy rankings on Swachh Bharat dashboards lies a festering truth, the citys public sanitation infrastructure is falling apart. The Hitavada Civic Lens this week uncovered a glaring breakdown of basic sanitation access, as the capital city reels under the fallout of locked smart toilets and non-functional water ATMs, leaving residents with no choice but to resort to open defecation. From defunct public toilets to bone-dry water ATMs, citizens across Raipur are being forced back into unsafe, undignified habits. With no alternative arrangements in place, open defecation is once again a grim reality-even as the administration continues to project digital sanitation models as urban success stories. The issue gained urgency after the Municipal Corporation blacklisted its key smart toilet contractor, Graceful India Pvt Ltd, earlier this year. The agency, which had bagged the maintenance contract under a revenue-sharing model, defaulted on over Rs 27 crore in dues-including unpaid electricity bills and bounced cheques. The civic body subsequently revoked the contract, seized unipole assets, and shut down operations of all associated smart toilet units. The fallout was immediate-and poorly managed. Vital public amenities vanished overnight with no substitute in place. Toilets that once offered privacy and safety-especially for women, the elderly, and persons with disabilities-are now bolted. In several areas, locals have been forced to use open spaces behind the very toilets that were meant to serve them. At Shastri Market vegetable complex, a critical footfall hub with over 10,000 visitors daily, a major smart toilet has been locked for two months. The power bill alone crossed Rs 53,000. Now the place stinks. People use the open drains again, said a local vendor. Across town, near Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, students, autorickshaw drivers, and pedestrians find themselves stranded. The once-functional smart toilet is now defunct, rusting under a peeling Smart City label. Lakshmikant Dubey, a civil contractor from Changorabhata, noted the sheer lack of civic foresight. They shut everything down but made no backup. Pachpedi Naka is a major junction, and theres not even one working toilet. How is this Swachh Bharat? Mayank Rathore, a vendor from Bairan Bazaar, added, Sanitation isnt luxury-its a right. These facilities should be free. The corporation must ensure water and waste services across public nodes. Sushmita Umre, a PSC aspirant from Deendayal Nagar, added, That toilet across Ravishankar University has been shut for months. Hundreds of students and commuters depend on it. How can we talk about digital India if we cant ensure working toilets? Rupali Sahu, an MBA student, stressed that infrastructure without maintenance is pointless. Water ATMs, RO units, smart toilets-all good ideas. But wheres the accountability? Weve had inaugurations, not service. Were revising framework When The Hitavada Civic Lens team contacted Mayor Meenal Choubey, she said the earlier Congress regime had awarded contracts without sound terms, which are now proving expensive to maintain. Were revising the operational framework. The goal is to reopen the smart toilets with stronger oversight and bring back the water ATMs soon, she stated. Swachh Bharats credibility is on the line Pushing back, Nitin Bhansali, CPCC Spokesperson and social worker, criticised what he called governance paralysis. The larger issue isnt locked toilets, its civic regression. Even as the administration rolls out new awareness drives against open defecation, its own infrastructure tells another story. Toilets locked. Water ATMs dry. Swachh Bharats credibility is on the line, not in policy papers, but in daily public experience. Uzbekistan inks research pact with IGKV over rice biodiversity Staff Reporter Raipur, Bilateral MoU promises cross-border exchange of students and scientists Uzbek Rector Rosiv offers invitation to IGKV scholars for joint studies Uzbekistans Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy (DIEP) on Thursday signed a landmark academic agreement with Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (IGKV), Raipur, aimed at boosting bilateral collaboration in agricultural research, biotechnology, and education. The Uzbek delegation, led by DIEP Rector Prof. Oybek Abdimuminovich Roziv, was particularly captivated by Chhattisgarhs rich rice biodiversity and the scientific cultivation techniques practised at IGKV. The genetic diversity in Chhattisgarhs rice varieties and the technological applications here are remarkable. They inspired our institution to partner with IGKV, Prof. Roziv stated during the international symposium on Global Cooperation in Agricultural Education and Research. The visiting delegates undertook a comprehensive tour of IGKVs experimental farms, biotechnology labs, tissue culture facilities, and food processing units. They were accompanied by IGKV Uzbekistan inks research pact with IGKV over rice biodiversity (From the front page) Vice-Chancellor Dr Girish Chandel, former ICAR Director General Dr R C Agrawal, ADG Dr Seema Jaggi, and DIEP faculty member and former Akola VC Dr Ravi Prakash Dani. The MoU, originally signed on April 17th, lays the foundation for joint research in water conservation, aromatic and medicinal plants, food technology, agri-entrepreneurship, and genetic crop improvement. It includes student and faculty exchanges for undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs. During a brainstorming session chaired by Dr Chandel, scholars and scientists from both universities discussed potential research trajectories in aquaculture, forestry, fibre crops, plant protection, and agri-business innovation. The visiting six-member Uzbek team also extended a formal invitation to IGKV students and researchers to participate in academic programs at DIEP. Dr Hulas Pathak, International Cell In-charge at IGKV, outlined the roadmap for executing the MoU, including thematic research programs and cross-institutional visits. This partnership with Uzbekistan will open global avenues for our students and faculty, and accelerate innovation in sustainable agriculture and education, said IGKV Vice Chancellor Dr Girish Chandel. Yoga, games marks inaugural session of three-day induction programme at JEC Staff Reporter : Yoga and games were organised during first session of the third day of the induction programme organised at Jabalpur Engineering College (JEC) as per AICTE norms for newly admitted BTech first year students in the institute. Invited guest Abhishek Agarwal emphasised on the need to take timely decisions for success in life and work formula for life management. Dr. Himanshu Acharya from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College encouraged the students to study without stress. During second session, Dr. Rishi Banshpal gave a lecture on the topic The Ergonomic Edge for Engineers & The Engineers Role in Medical Field. He told that adopting correct posture and ergonomics is necessary for both success and health in engineering career. Dr. Banshpal emphasized that adopting ergonomics and correct work habits not only improves health but also ensures efficiency and long-term career success. Following which, the C Cube Club explained in a very interesting way how the mind distracts us and how the young generation falls prey to drug addiction. Dr Rajiv Chandak, JEC Principal, guided the programme. Dr Durgesh Nandini, Prof. Madhavi Soni, Dr Shailaja Verma and Professor Sonal Lad. Dr Mahima Thakur, Professor Devyani Soni, Dr Kanchan Khare, Dr Sujit Mahobia contributed in the successful programme. Dr Shilpa Saxena and Dr Kamal Kushwaha were the programme coordinators. Six people were killed in the heart of Cali in an explosive attack on a military facility. Twelve police officers were murdered after the helicopter in which they were traveling was shot down in a rural area of Antioquia. The war is becoming increasingly visible in Colombia, spreading from conflicts that in recent years seemed localized to certain regions usually far from major cities, such as Catatumbo, Cauca, or Putumayo. The attack in Cali shows that at least some groups of the dissident factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are seeking to go on the offensive against the state, carrying out attacks outside the areas they control. In recent years, only the ELN guerrilla group had conducted this type of action, and only occasionally, drawing strong public condemnation. For that reason, Colombian President Gustavo Petros first reaction was to label the Cali attack as a terrorist reaction that would indicate the group responsible had been affected by a military offensive he himself ordered several months ago. After the defeat of the Carlos Patino column with the loss of a good part of the Micay Canyon, we have a terrorist reaction in Cali with two dead civilians. Terrorism is the new expression of the factions that claim to be led by [ex FARC leader] Ivan Mordisco, he shared on X, just minutes after the attack occurred in the city. Early Thursday evening, acting Defense Minister Ana Catalina Cano reaffirmed the message. We are following the presidents instruction that the dissidents of alias Ivan Mordisco, the Gulf Clan, and the Second Marquetalia will be considered terrorist organizations, prosecutable anywhere in the world for crimes against humanity, she said in a video released by the ministry. For now, the statement leaves questions about the talks that the government has reopened with Gulf Clan, which are currently taking place in Qatar. Colombia experienced severe waves of terrorism in its cities in the early 1990s, during drug lord Pablo Escobars war against the state, and at the start of the 21st century, when the former FARC surrounded major cities in their failed attempt to seize power. After the 2016 Peace Agreement that disarmed FARC the largest and most significant guerrilla group the threat of urban terrorism seemed distant, and the conflict was mostly confined to areas with ELN presence, a few FARC dissidents, and drug-related groups. One notable exception was an ELN car bomb against Bogotas military school in January 2019, which left 23 dead and over 100 injured. The countrys urban areas seemed to be moving away from decades of war. At the time, the term post-conflict was used, a phrase that has now fallen out of use; the International Committee of the Red Cross now refers instead to eight distinct conflicts. The war has grown as illegal groups and their disputes have multiplied across all types of revenue, especially illicit ones such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion. Two members of the Armed Forces transport unexploded cylinders found at the scene of the attack. Ernesto Guzman Jr (EFE) Cali, however, has been closer to the conflict than other major urban centers. Just 93 miles away lies the Micay River canyon, an important route connecting the Andean highlands of Cauca with the jungles and estuaries leading to the Pacific. Once a route for arms and drugs, it has also become a stronghold for illicit crops and a center of power for the Carlos Patino front and its allies in the Dagoberto Ramos column. These groups worked with others as part of the so-called Central General Staff, which is led by Ivan Mordisco. In August 2022, after taking office, Petro sought to negotiate with the Carlos Patino front and its allies, but the process failed. In October 2024, the president launched an offensive to reclaim the area, called Operation Perseus, even using artillery; the dissidents responded with multiple waves of attacks on the police first in Cauca, then on the outskirts of Cali, and more recently in the urban area. On June 10, they had already killed two people and injured several others in two explosions in the city, part of a wave of 24 attacks in the region that had already raised concerns among experts due to their logistical capability and the states inability to prevent them. Thursdays attack marks a further escalation in a show of force that had previously included direct threats to the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in April, but had not yet resulted in an event of this scale. This same pattern of state decline is also reflected in the police helicopter shot down in Amalfi, in northeastern Antioquia, just a few hours earlier. The Colombian state focused on acquiring dozens of helicopters during the administrations of Andres Pastrana (19982002) and Alvaro Uribe Velez (20022010) to achieve air superiority against the then rapidly growing FARC, which had begun profiting from drug trafficking. That symbol of a strengthened state, which had forced guerrillas to retreat and negotiate, has now become a vulnerability for the military and police forces. According to reports, several police officers were conducting a coca eradication operation when they were attacked. They requested air support for evacuation a maneuver dependent on helicopters. But when the aircraft arrived, a drone struck the tail rotor, causing it to crash. Armed groups have found in drones not only a weapon to attack barracks, but also a way to undermine the airpower that had been a major advantage for the state. Additionally, many helicopters are grounded for various reasons. Although no maintenance failures like those alleged by some government critics in 2024 when four helicopters crashed, killing 25 have been detected, part of the fleet is of Russian origin and has been grounded due to U.S. sanctions that prevented contract renewal with the maintenance company. Security expert Jorge Mantilla explained last January that by the second half of 2024, nearly 60% of the aerial fleet was grounded. They cannot fly either because they require maintenance, are obsolete, or there is no fuel, he noted, emphasizing the dire situation of the helicopters, as only 25% were operational. The advantage of air dominance has been greatly reduced, reflecting just one example of how Colombias military has declined in recent years, even as illegal groups continue to grow in fighters. The escalation of violence is also evident in the fact that the ELN can launch an offensive with hundreds of men against a dissident faction without the state being able to stop it, as occurred in January in Catatumbo on the border with Venezuela, or that a group dares to assassinate a presidential candidate, as happened to Miguel Uribe Turbay. The situation in Colombia is not the same as it was in 1989, when bombings and political assassinations were common, or in 2000, when there were 232 massacres of four or more people. Last year, there were 22 massacres. But the trend is worsening. Not surprisingly, surveys indicate that Colombians primary concern with figures at their highest since before the 2016 Peace Agreement is security. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET Free Report) by 3.6% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 7,406,512 shares of the financial services providers stock after purchasing an additional 259,993 shares during the quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. owned 1.10% of MetLife worth $594,410,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. First Horizon Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of MetLife by 4.8% during the first quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 422,684 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $33,937,000 after acquiring an additional 19,192 shares during the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management boosted its holdings in shares of MetLife by 52.1% during the 1st quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 9,355 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $751,000 after purchasing an additional 3,204 shares during the last quarter. Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc bought a new position in shares of MetLife during the 1st quarter valued at about $255,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of MetLife by 20.7% during the first quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 60,785 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $4,735,000 after purchasing an additional 10,414 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Heartland Bank & Trust Co bought a new stake in shares of MetLife in the first quarter worth about $516,000. Institutional investors own 94.99% of the companys stock. Get MetLife alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth MET has been the topic of a number of research reports. UBS Group reduced their price objective on MetLife from $94.00 to $91.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of MetLife from $100.00 to $103.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, August 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of MetLife from $86.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, July 8th. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an overweight rating and set a $97.00 price objective (up from $94.00) on shares of MetLife in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on MetLife from $98.00 to $94.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, MetLife currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $95.60. MetLife Price Performance Shares of MET stock opened at $79.1430 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $77.82 and a 200 day moving average price of $78.56. MetLife, Inc. has a 52-week low of $65.21 and a 52-week high of $89.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57, a quick ratio of 0.16 and a current ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $52.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.41, a P/E/G ratio of 0.71 and a beta of 0.85. MetLife (NYSE:MET Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The financial services provider reported $2.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.32 by ($0.30). MetLife had a return on equity of 19.88% and a net margin of 5.83%.The business had revenue of $17.34 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $18.58 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.28 earnings per share. The firms revenue was down 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that MetLife, Inc. will post 9.65 earnings per share for the current year. MetLife announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, April 30th that allows the company to repurchase $3.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the financial services provider to repurchase up to 5.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the companys leadership believes its shares are undervalued. MetLife Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 9th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.5675 per share. This represents a $2.27 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 5th. MetLifes payout ratio is 38.47%. MetLife Profile (Free Report) MetLife, Inc, a financial services company, provides insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management services worldwide. It operates through six segments: Retirement and Income Solutions; Group Benefits; Asia; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and MetLife Holdings. The company offers life, dental, group short-and long-term disability, individual disability, pet insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and accident and health coverages, as well as prepaid legal plans; administrative services-only arrangements to employers; and general and separate account, and synthetic guaranteed interest contracts, as well as private floating rate funding agreements. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for MetLife Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for MetLife and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Credit Agricole S A boosted its stake in shares of Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE:ADM Free Report) by 7.8% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 144,242 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 10,395 shares during the period. Credit Agricole S As holdings in Archer Daniels Midland were worth $6,925,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Foundations Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Archer Daniels Midland by 5.4% in the first quarter. Foundations Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,310 shares of the companys stock valued at $207,000 after buying an additional 220 shares during the last quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC grew its holdings in shares of Archer Daniels Midland by 43.4% in the first quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 783 shares of the companys stock valued at $38,000 after purchasing an additional 237 shares during the period. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of Archer Daniels Midland by 4.1% in the first quarter. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC now owns 6,023 shares of the companys stock valued at $289,000 after purchasing an additional 239 shares during the period. Stolper Co grew its holdings in shares of Archer Daniels Midland by 0.8% in the first quarter. Stolper Co now owns 33,691 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,618,000 after purchasing an additional 275 shares during the period. Finally, Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Archer Daniels Midland by 6.6% in the first quarter. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,296 shares of the companys stock valued at $254,000 after purchasing an additional 326 shares during the period. 78.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Archer Daniels Midland alerts: Archer Daniels Midland Trading Up 0.7% Shares of ADM stock opened at $61.1250 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 0.90. The firm has a market cap of $29.37 billion, a PE ratio of 26.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 0.68. The company has a 50-day moving average of $55.45 and a two-hundred day moving average of $50.13. Archer Daniels Midland Company has a 1-year low of $40.98 and a 1-year high of $62.61. Archer Daniels Midland Dividend Announcement Archer Daniels Midland ( NYSE:ADM Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.88 by $0.05. Archer Daniels Midland had a net margin of 1.33% and a return on equity of 8.43%. The company had revenue of $21.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $21.56 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.03 earnings per share. Archer Daniels Midlands revenue was down 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Archer Daniels Midland has set its FY 2025 guidance at 4.000-4.000 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Archer Daniels Midland Company will post 4.31 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, August 20th will be paid a $0.51 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 20th. This represents a $2.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.3%. Archer Daniels Midlands dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 89.87%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on shares of Archer Daniels Midland in a report on Wednesday. They issued a neutral rating and a $61.00 price objective for the company. UBS Group reissued a buy rating and issued a $70.00 price objective (up previously from $60.00) on shares of Archer Daniels Midland in a report on Monday, August 11th. Bank of America lowered shares of Archer Daniels Midland from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $47.00 to $45.00 in a report on Thursday, May 8th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Archer Daniels Midland from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, August 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Archer Daniels Midland from $47.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Archer Daniels Midland has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $55.50. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Archer Daniels Midland Archer Daniels Midland Profile (Free Report) Archer-Daniels-Midland Company engages in the procurement, transportation, storage, processing, and merchandising of agricultural commodities, ingredients, flavors, and solutions in the United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Ag Services and Oilseeds, Carbohydrate Solutions, and Nutrition. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ADM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE:ADM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Archer Daniels Midland Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Archer Daniels Midland and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Softcat (LON:SCT Free Report) had its price objective trimmed by Citigroup from GBX 2,000 to GBX 1,960 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the stock. A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on SCT. Liberum Capital raised Softcat to a buy rating and set a GBX 1,800 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a neutral rating on shares of Softcat in a report on Friday, July 18th. Finally, Shore Capital reissued a buy rating and issued a GBX 1,950 price objective on shares of Softcat in a research note on Friday, August 1st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of GBX 1,813.80. Get Softcat alerts: Get Our Latest Analysis on Softcat Softcat Stock Performance Softcat Company Profile LON SCT opened at GBX 1,567 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of 3.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.23, a P/E/G ratio of 11.51 and a beta of 0.71. Softcat has a 52-week low of GBX 1,427 and a 52-week high of GBX 1,960. The businesss 50-day moving average price is GBX 1,661.58 and its 200 day moving average price is GBX 1,654.60. The company has a quick ratio of 1.38, a current ratio of 1.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.48. (Get Free Report) Softcat plc operates as a value-added IT reseller and IT infrastructure solutions provider in the United Kingdom. The company advices, procures, designs, implements, and manages technology, such as software licensing, workplace technology, networking, security, and cloud and datacenter for businesses and public sector organizations. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Softcat Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Softcat and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Credit Agricole S A trimmed its holdings in shares of Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (NYSE:FIS Free Report) by 60.6% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 85,019 shares of the information technology services providers stock after selling 130,916 shares during the quarter. Credit Agricole S As holdings in Fidelity National Information Services were worth $6,349,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC raised its holdings in Fidelity National Information Services by 3.7% during the first quarter. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 4,140 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $309,000 after buying an additional 146 shares during the last quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. raised its holdings in Fidelity National Information Services by 0.6% during the first quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. now owns 24,424 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $1,824,000 after buying an additional 146 shares during the last quarter. Integrated Advisors Network LLC raised its holdings in Fidelity National Information Services by 4.7% during the first quarter. Integrated Advisors Network LLC now owns 3,284 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $245,000 after buying an additional 147 shares during the last quarter. Private Trust Co. NA raised its holdings in Fidelity National Information Services by 9.9% during the first quarter. Private Trust Co. NA now owns 1,660 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $124,000 after buying an additional 149 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB raised its holdings in Fidelity National Information Services by 8.2% during the first quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB now owns 2,013 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $150,000 after buying an additional 153 shares during the last quarter. 96.23% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Fidelity National Information Services alerts: Fidelity National Information Services Stock Performance NYSE FIS opened at $69.4750 on Friday. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. has a 52-week low of $66.51 and a 52-week high of $91.98. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $77.97 and a 200 day simple moving average of $76.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a current ratio of 0.59. The company has a market capitalization of $36.29 billion, a PE ratio of 385.99 and a beta of 1.04. Fidelity National Information Services Announces Dividend Fidelity National Information Services ( NYSE:FIS Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 5th. The information technology services provider reported $1.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of $1.36. Fidelity National Information Services had a net margin of 1.09% and a return on equity of 18.73%. The business had revenue of $2.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.57 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.36 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Fidelity National Information Services has set its Q3 2025 guidance at 1.460-1.500 EPS. FY 2025 guidance at 5.720-5.800 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. will post 5.74 EPS for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 24th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 10th will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 10th. Fidelity National Information Servicess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 888.89%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research analysts have weighed in on FIS shares. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $82.00 to $86.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, July 16th. Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $84.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $84.00 to $82.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 6th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $92.00 to $88.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 6th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $95.00 to $93.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, May 7th. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fidelity National Information Services presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $91.63. Read Our Latest Analysis on Fidelity National Information Services Fidelity National Information Services Profile (Free Report) Fidelity National Information Services, Inc engages in the provision of financial services technology solutions for financial institutions, businesses, and developers worldwide. It operates through Banking Solutions, Capital Market Solutions, and Corporate and Other segments. The company provides core processing and ancillary applications; mobile and online banking; fraud, risk management, and compliance; card and retail payment; electronic funds transfer and network; wealth and retirement; and item processing and output solutions. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding FIS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (NYSE:FIS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Fidelity National Information Services Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fidelity National Information Services and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. D.B. Root & Company LLC bought a new stake in CAVA Group, Inc. (NYSE:CAVA Free Report) during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 5,999 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $518,000. Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CAVA. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in CAVA Group by 1,400.0% in the first quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 285 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 266 shares during the period. Vision Financial Markets LLC acquired a new position in CAVA Group in the first quarter valued at about $26,000. Dagco Inc. acquired a new position in CAVA Group in the first quarter valued at about $27,000. Versant Capital Management Inc acquired a new position in CAVA Group in the first quarter valued at about $31,000. Finally, Brooklyn Investment Group lifted its stake in CAVA Group by 168.0% in the first quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 402 shares of the companys stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 252 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.15% of the companys stock. Get CAVA Group alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several brokerages have issued reports on CAVA. KeyCorp lowered their price target on CAVA Group from $100.00 to $85.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 13th. Bank of America lowered their price target on CAVA Group from $121.00 to $100.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 13th. Robert W. Baird set a $95.00 price target on CAVA Group in a report on Wednesday, August 13th. UBS Group lowered their price target on CAVA Group from $96.00 to $75.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 13th. Finally, TD Securities restated a buy rating and issued a $120.00 price target on shares of CAVA Group in a report on Friday, May 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $100.44. CAVA Group Stock Performance NYSE:CAVA opened at $67.3620 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $7.81 billion, a PE ratio of 56.61, a PEG ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 2.65. CAVA Group, Inc. has a 52-week low of $65.70 and a 52-week high of $172.43. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $82.10 and a 200 day simple moving average of $89.51. CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 12th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.13 by $0.03. CAVA Group had a return on equity of 9.83% and a net margin of 12.98%.The business had revenue of $280.62 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $285.65 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.17 earnings per share. CAVA Groups quarterly revenue was up 20.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts predict that CAVA Group, Inc. will post 0.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, insider Jennifer Somers sold 2,861 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.16, for a total value of $215,032.76. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 137,048 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $10,300,527.68. This represents a 2.04% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Adam David Phillips sold 739 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.16, for a total value of $55,543.24. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 11,063 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $831,495.08. The trade was a 6.26% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 48,360 shares of company stock worth $3,634,738 in the last quarter. 6.80% of the stock is owned by company insiders. CAVA Group Company Profile (Free Report) CAVA Group, Inc owns and operates a chain of restaurants under the CAVA brand in the United States. The company also offers dips, spreads, and dressings through grocery stores. In addition, the company provides online and mobile ordering platforms. Cava Group, Inc was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Washington, the District of Columbia. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CAVA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CAVA Group, Inc. (NYSE:CAVA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for CAVA Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CAVA Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Science Applications International Co. (NYSE:SAIC Free Report) by 2.7% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,141,923 shares of the information technology services providers stock after purchasing an additional 30,343 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP owned about 2.39% of Science Applications International worth $128,202,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Science Applications International by 112.1% during the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 280 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 148 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE lifted its holdings in Science Applications International by 38.5% during the 1st quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 324 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 90 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC lifted its holdings in Science Applications International by 43.2% during the 1st quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 325 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 98 shares during the last quarter. True Wealth Design LLC purchased a new stake in Science Applications International during the 4th quarter worth about $48,000. Finally, Fifth Third Bancorp lifted its holdings in Science Applications International by 22.7% during the 1st quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 475 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $53,000 after buying an additional 88 shares during the last quarter. 76.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Science Applications International alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on Science Applications International from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Thursday, May 15th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Science Applications International from $132.00 to $137.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, June 4th. Stifel Nicolaus started coverage on Science Applications International in a report on Tuesday, June 24th. They issued a buy rating and a $130.00 target price for the company. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Science Applications International from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Barclays reduced their target price on Science Applications International from $115.00 to $105.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a report on Monday, June 9th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $125.64. Science Applications International Stock Performance NYSE SAIC opened at $118.22 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20. The businesss 50 day moving average is $113.23 and its two-hundred day moving average is $111.83. Science Applications International Co. has a 12-month low of $94.68 and a 12-month high of $156.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.94 and a beta of 0.49. Science Applications International (NYSE:SAIC Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Monday, June 2nd. The information technology services provider reported $1.92 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.17 by ($0.25). Science Applications International had a return on equity of 24.18% and a net margin of 4.11%.During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.92 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 1.6% on a year-over-year basis. Science Applications International has set its FY 2026 guidance at 9.100-9.300 EPS. Research analysts expect that Science Applications International Co. will post 8.27 EPS for the current year. Science Applications International Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 11th were given a dividend of $0.37 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, July 11th. This represents a $1.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. Science Applications Internationals payout ratio is presently 20.76%. About Science Applications International (Free Report) Science Applications International Corporation provides technical, engineering, and enterprise information technology (IT) services primarily in the United States. The company's offerings include IT modernization; digital engineering; artificial intelligence; Weapon systems support design, build, modify, integrate, and sustain weapon systems; and end-to-end services, such as design, development, integration, deployment, management and operations, sustainment, and security of its customers' IT infrastructure, as well as training and simulation and ground vehicles support which integrates, modify, upgrades, and sustains ground vehicles for nation's armed forces. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SAIC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Science Applications International Co. (NYSE:SAIC Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Science Applications International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Science Applications International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Cushman & Wakefield PLC (NYSE:CWK Free Report) by 4.1% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 12,064,891 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 478,484 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP owned approximately 0.05% of Cushman & Wakefield worth $123,300,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of CWK. Deutsche Bank AG grew its holdings in shares of Cushman & Wakefield by 807.1% during the 1st quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 1,870,044 shares of the companys stock worth $19,112,000 after purchasing an additional 1,663,880 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cushman & Wakefield by 54.7% during the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 3,067,526 shares of the companys stock worth $40,123,000 after purchasing an additional 1,084,940 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cushman & Wakefield during the 1st quarter worth about $11,086,000. Jane Street Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cushman & Wakefield by 101.8% during the 4th quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 14,542 shares of the companys stock worth $190,000 after purchasing an additional 837,554 shares during the period. Finally, Lord Abbett & CO. LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cushman & Wakefield during the 4th quarter worth about $8,029,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.56% of the companys stock. Get Cushman & Wakefield alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on CWK. Citizens Jmp began coverage on Cushman & Wakefield in a report on Monday, July 21st. They set a strong-buy rating and a $15.00 target price for the company. Morgan Stanley set a $14.50 price target on Cushman & Wakefield and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, June 12th. UBS Group upped their price target on Cushman & Wakefield from $9.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Wall Street Zen upgraded Cushman & Wakefield from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Saturday, August 9th. Finally, JMP Securities upped their price target on Cushman & Wakefield from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a market outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, August 6th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $14.38. Cushman & Wakefield Stock Performance Cushman & Wakefield stock opened at $14.8040 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $3.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.82 and a beta of 1.50. The company has a current ratio of 1.13, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.48. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $12.14 and a 200-day moving average of $11.04. Cushman & Wakefield PLC has a 52 week low of $7.64 and a 52 week high of $16.11. Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.30 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.22 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.38 billion. Cushman & Wakefield had a return on equity of 14.33% and a net margin of 2.11%.The businesss revenue was up 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.20 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Cushman & Wakefield PLC will post 1.2 EPS for the current fiscal year. Cushman & Wakefield Profile (Free Report) Cushman & Wakefield Plc engages in the provision of commercial real estate services. It operates through the following geographical segments: Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific (APAC). The Americas segment consists of operations located in the United States, Canada and key markets in Latin America. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CWK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Cushman & Wakefield PLC (NYSE:CWK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Cushman & Wakefield Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Cushman & Wakefield and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Fighting fire with fire, California has passed new laws that allow it to modify the electoral maps of the state, the most populous in the country. The vote in the local Congress came just a day after Texas, a Republican stronghold, modified its electoral districts in a bid to expand its representation in the House of Representatives in the midterm 2026 elections. California lawmakers have taken the first step in their strategy to punch back: on November 4, new electoral maps will be put to a popular referendum in a special election. Democrats have passed three new laws. The first is an amendment to the state Constitution to adopt the new maps, a practice known as gerrymandering. The second includes new congressional district limits to favor Democrats. The third rule is the one that calls for a special vote to endorse the modification. The election is necessary because the legislature has usurped the functions of a special independent commission entrusted with drawing these maps with demographic information obtained from population censuses. The legislative process went smoothly, with Republicans holding only 19 of the 80 seats in Sacramentos lower house. This minority had gone to the state Supreme Court to try to stop the Democrats gerrymandering bid. In an emergency lawsuit filed this week, they accused the ruling party of committing irregularities. The courts judges, however, dismissed the lawsuit late Wednesday. Even so, two members of the Democratic caucus abstained in a vote, which passed with 57 votes in favor and 20 against. Once the initiatives were approved by the Assembly, they went to the local Senate, where they also received the approval of the majority. California Governor Gavin Newsom then signed the initiatives, the final step in the process.They fired the first shot, Texas. We wouldnt be here had Texas not done what they just did, Newsom said during a signing ceremony Thursday. Were neutralizing what occurred [in Texas] and were giving the American people a fair chance. At the start of the legislative debate, Marc Berman, a congressman who represents a district near San Francisco, explained why they were making the changes: Let me be crystal clear: We dont want this fight, and we didnt choose this fight, but with our democracy on the line, we cannot and will not run away from this fight, he said. Congressman Mike Gallagher, the Republican minority leader in the California Assembly, admitted that it was wrong for Trump to start this national redistricting war by demanding five more House seats by gerrymandering in Texas, a state he won outright last year. But Gallagher doubted that the correct answer is to respond in kind. You move forward fighting fire with fire and what happens? Gallagher asked. You burn it all down. Gallagher was referencing Newsoms own words. One of Trumps leading critics, Newsom has been vowing for weeks to fight fire with fire if Texas went ahead. The feisty response has translated into new sympathies at a time when the Democratic Party is looking for a clear path to deal with the Trump administration. The New York Times says that the strategy has prompted donations from Democratic supporters, who have sent an estimated $6.2 million to the Californian governor a possible presidential candidate for 2028 in the space of a week. If approved in November, the new maps would alter districts to make it more likely for Democratic candidates in five regions to win. The First District, for example, would be split in two to include metropolitan areas in what was once a deeply conservative rural territory in the north near the Nevada border. The change would challenge House Representative Doug LaMalfa, who has held the position for 12 years. The plans will also allow many progressive voters outside Sacramento, the state capital, to vote in the Third Legislative District, diluting Congressman Kevin Kileys voter base. The new maps could also make Democratic victories more comfortable in some areas where Republicans have closed the gap. This is the case in the 9th and 13th, which was the closest-run race in the country in 2024, with Congressman Adam Gray winning it by less than 200 votes. Republicans have a slight lead in the House of Representatives. They have 219 legislators compared to the Democrats 212. Texas Republican representatives occupy 25 of the states 38 congressional districts. In California, Democrats have 43 of the 52 congresspeople. Some analysts believe the move may backfire on the Democrats. Several Republican states have put plans in place to follow in Texas footsteps and thus turn some blue districts into red. Florida, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri are all preparing to do so. Pushed through, this could lead to the Republicans gaining up to eight new seats. So far, California is the only progressive stronghold that has made good on its threat. New York has mulled joining the gerrymandering war, but has not yet done so. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition TD Cowen reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Dutch Bros (NYSE:BROS Free Report) in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $86.00 price objective on the stock. Several other brokerages also recently weighed in on BROS. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Dutch Bros from $66.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. TD Securities reiterated a buy rating and set a $78.00 price target on shares of Dutch Bros in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Dutch Bros in a research report on Thursday, June 26th. They set a neutral rating and a $75.00 price target for the company. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on Dutch Bros from $83.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Dutch Bros from $85.00 to $82.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and an average price target of $79.76. Get Dutch Bros alerts: Read Our Latest Analysis on Dutch Bros Dutch Bros Trading Up 0.3% Shares of BROS stock opened at $63.1510 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 1.64 and a quick ratio of 1.42. The company has a market cap of $10.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 134.37, a PEG ratio of 3.53 and a beta of 2.63. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $64.71 and a 200-day simple moving average of $65.83. Dutch Bros has a 1-year low of $30.30 and a 1-year high of $86.88. Dutch Bros (NYSE:BROS Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The company reported $0.26 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $415.81 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $403.24 million. Dutch Bros had a return on equity of 8.86% and a net margin of 3.94%.The businesss quarterly revenue was up 28.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.19 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Dutch Bros will post 0.57 EPS for the current fiscal year. Institutional Trading of Dutch Bros Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. grew its holdings in Dutch Bros by 14.0% in the 4th quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. now owns 5,118,265 shares of the companys stock valued at $268,095,000 after buying an additional 627,875 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in Dutch Bros by 29.9% in the 1st quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 3,420,200 shares of the companys stock valued at $211,163,000 after buying an additional 788,100 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP grew its holdings in Dutch Bros by 139.2% in the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 2,509,767 shares of the companys stock valued at $171,593,000 after buying an additional 1,460,376 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in Dutch Bros by 70.9% in the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,333,142 shares of the companys stock valued at $159,517,000 after buying an additional 967,861 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Dutch Bros by 14.0% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,173,710 shares of the companys stock valued at $148,643,000 after buying an additional 267,074 shares in the last quarter. 85.54% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Dutch Bros (Get Free Report) Dutch Bros Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates and franchises drive-thru shops in the United States. The company operates through Company-Operated Shops and Franchising and Other segments. It serves through company-operated shops and online channels under Dutch Bros; Dutch Bros Coffee; Dutch Bros Rebel; Dutch Bros; and Blue Rebel brands. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Dutch Bros Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Dutch Bros and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Raymond James Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:EVTR Free Report) by 48.8% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 988,866 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 324,187 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. owned approximately 2.84% of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF worth $50,066,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Tompkins Financial Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Ancora Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $40,000. REAP Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $47,000. Centerpoint Advisory Group purchased a new stake in shares of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $213,000. Finally, Acorn Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF by 5.4% in the 1st quarter. Acorn Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,479 shares of the companys stock valued at $227,000 after acquiring an additional 229 shares in the last quarter. Get Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF alerts: Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF Stock Performance Shares of NYSEARCA:EVTR opened at $50.99 on Friday. Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF has a 52 week low of $49.26 and a 52 week high of $52.49. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $50.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $50.51. Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF Profile The Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF (EVTR) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in investment grade fixed income. The fund is an actively managed fund that aims to invest in USD-denominated, investment grade securities from government and corporate issuers. The fund aims to maintain an average weighted maturity between five and ten years. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Glendon Capital Management LP lifted its stake in shares of Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST Free Report) by 29.4% during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 748,893 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 170,000 shares during the period. Vistra makes up about 5.1% of Glendon Capital Management LPs investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th biggest position. Glendon Capital Management LP owned approximately 0.22% of Vistra worth $87,950,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of VST. Norinchukin Bank The lifted its holdings in Vistra by 10.5% in the first quarter. Norinchukin Bank The now owns 13,557 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,592,000 after buying an additional 1,292 shares during the period. Estate Counselors LLC lifted its holdings in Vistra by 0.8% in the first quarter. Estate Counselors LLC now owns 21,090 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,477,000 after buying an additional 160 shares during the period. Atika Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Vistra by 57.8% in the first quarter. Atika Capital Management LLC now owns 116,000 shares of the companys stock valued at $13,623,000 after buying an additional 42,500 shares during the period. Partners Capital Investment Group LLP acquired a new position in Vistra in the first quarter valued at approximately $352,000. Finally, Martingale Asset Management L P acquired a new position in Vistra in the first quarter valued at approximately $362,000. 90.88% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Vistra alerts: Vistra Stock Down 1.5% Shares of NYSE:VST opened at $190.1080 on Friday. Vistra Corp. has a 52 week low of $72.90 and a 52 week high of $216.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.58, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.90. The company has a market capitalization of $64.41 billion, a PE ratio of 30.32, a PEG ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $193.90 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $158.19. Vistra Increases Dividend Vistra ( NYSE:VST Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported $1.01 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($0.62). Vistra had a net margin of 12.90% and a return on equity of 108.41%. The firm had revenue of $4.25 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.15 billion. Analysts forecast that Vistra Corp. will post 7 earnings per share for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 19th will be given a dividend of $0.226 per share. This is a positive change from Vistras previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. This represents a $0.90 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 19th. Vistras payout ratio is currently 14.35%. Insider Transactions at Vistra In other news, EVP Stephanie Zapata Moore sold 35,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.44, for a total transaction of $5,650,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 88,073 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,218,505.12. This represents a 28.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Scott B. Helm sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $172.75, for a total transaction of $8,637,500.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 255,192 shares of the companys stock, valued at $44,084,418. This represents a 16.38% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 110,000 shares of company stock valued at $18,579,650 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 1.42% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades VST has been the topic of several analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Vistra from $145.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, August 8th. Raymond James Financial assumed coverage on shares of Vistra in a report on Friday, June 13th. They issued a strong-buy rating and a $216.00 price objective on the stock. Evercore ISI set a $192.00 target price on shares of Vistra and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, May 15th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Vistra from $207.00 to $230.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Melius Research raised shares of Vistra to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Wednesday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $199.93. View Our Latest Analysis on Vistra Vistra Profile (Free Report) Vistra Corp., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated retail electricity and power generation company. The company operates through six segments: Retail, Texas, East, West, Sunset, and Asset Closure. It retails electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers across states in the United States and the District of Columbia. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Vistra Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Vistra and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. LendingClub (NYSE:LC Get Free Report) and Mitsubishi HC Capital (OTCMKTS:MIUFY Get Free Report) are both financial services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, profitability and institutional ownership. Valuation & Earnings This table compares LendingClub and Mitsubishi HC Capitals revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get LendingClub alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio LendingClub $885.23 million 1.99 $51.33 million $0.64 23.99 Mitsubishi HC Capital N/A N/A N/A $88.4546 0.17 Analyst Recommendations LendingClub has higher revenue and earnings than Mitsubishi HC Capital. Mitsubishi HC Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LendingClub, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. This is a breakdown of current recommendations for LendingClub and Mitsubishi HC Capital, as reported by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score LendingClub 0 3 6 0 2.67 Mitsubishi HC Capital 0 0 0 0 0.00 LendingClub presently has a consensus price target of $16.5714, indicating a potential upside of 7.92%. Given LendingClubs stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe LendingClub is more favorable than Mitsubishi HC Capital. Profitability This table compares LendingClub and Mitsubishi HC Capitals net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets LendingClub 8.36% 5.66% 0.72% Mitsubishi HC Capital N/A N/A N/A Insider & Institutional Ownership 74.1% of LendingClub shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.2% of LendingClub shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth. Summary LendingClub beats Mitsubishi HC Capital on 10 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks. About LendingClub (Get Free Report) LendingClub Corporation, operates as a bank holding company, that provides range of financial products and services in the United States. It offers deposit products, including savings accounts, checking accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company also provides loan products, such as consumer loans comprising unsecured personal loans, secured auto refinance loans, and patient and education finance loans; and commercial loans, including small business loans. In addition, it operates an online lending marketplace platform. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. About Mitsubishi HC Capital (Get Free Report) Mitsubishi HC Capital Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the lease, installment sale, and other financing activities in Japan, Europe, the Americas, China, and ASEAN region. The company operates through Customer Solutions, Global Business, Environment & Energy, Aviation, Logistics, Real Estate, and Mobility segments. The company engages in the finance solution business; leasing, management, and development of real estate; rental and leasing; auto leasing services; investment in environment and energy-related companies; renewable energy and infrastructure business; and renewable energy business. In addition, it offers aircraft leasing and aircraft engine leasing; marine container and railway freight car leasing; and asset management services. Mitsubishi HC Capital Inc. was incorporated in 1971 and is based in Chiyoda, Japan. Receive News & Ratings for LendingClub Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for LendingClub and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sekisui House (OTCMKTS:SKHSY Get Free Report) and KB Home (NYSE:KBH Get Free Report) are both construction companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, risk, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership. Valuation and Earnings This table compares Sekisui House and KB Homes gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get Sekisui House alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Sekisui House $26.67 billion 0.57 $1.44 billion $2.03 11.37 KB Home $6.93 billion 0.59 $655.02 million $7.55 8.01 Institutional and Insider Ownership Sekisui House has higher revenue and earnings than KB Home. KB Home is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Sekisui House, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. 0.0% of Sekisui House shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.1% of KB Home shares are held by institutional investors. 3.9% of KB Home shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth. Dividends Sekisui House pays an annual dividend of $0.87 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. KB Home pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Sekisui House pays out 42.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. KB Home pays out 13.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. KB Home has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Analyst Recommendations This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Sekisui House and KB Home, as reported by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Sekisui House 0 1 0 0 2.00 KB Home 1 7 3 1 2.33 KB Home has a consensus target price of $66.1364, indicating a potential upside of 9.33%. Given KB Homes stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe KB Home is more favorable than Sekisui House. Risk and Volatility Sekisui House has a beta of 0.56, suggesting that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, KB Home has a beta of 1.34, suggesting that its share price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500. Profitability This table compares Sekisui House and KB Homes net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Sekisui House 4.78% 9.88% 4.10% KB Home 8.47% 14.02% 8.14% Summary KB Home beats Sekisui House on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks. About Sekisui House (Get Free Report) Sekisui House, Ltd. designs, constructs, and contracts built-to-order detached houses in Japan and internationally. The company operates through Custom Detached Houses, Rental Housing, Architectural/Civil Engineering, Remodeling, Real Estate Management Fees, Houses For Sale, Condominiums, Urban Redevelopment, and Overseas segments. It also engages in contracting of design and construction of custom detached houses, rental housing, office building, commercial buildings, and other properties; construction of reinforced concrete rental housing and commercial buildings; contracting of design and construction of civil engineering works; remodeling and renovation of houses; subleasing, management, operation, and brokerage of real estate; sale of houses and residential land; and sales of condominiums. Sekisui House, Ltd. was incorporated in 1929 and is headquartered in Osaka, Japan. About KB Home (Get Free Report) KB Home operates as a homebuilding company in the United States. It operates through four segments: West Coast, Southwest, Central, and Southeast. It builds and sells various homes, including attached and detached single-family residential homes, townhomes, and condominiums primarily for first-time, first move-up, second move-up, and active adult homebuyers. The company also provides financial services, such as insurance products and title services, as well as mortgage banking services, including residential consumer mortgage loans to homebuyers. It has operations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. The company was formerly known as Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation and changed its name to KB Home in January 2001. KB Home was founded in 1957 and is based in Los Angeles, California. Receive News & Ratings for Sekisui House Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sekisui House and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV Get Free Report) Director Susan Devore acquired 1,200 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 19th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $312.15 per share, with a total value of $374,580.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 3,502 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,093,149.30. This trade represents a 52.13% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Elevance Health Trading Down 0.2% NYSE ELV opened at $309.4460 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $69.68 billion, a PE ratio of 13.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 0.58. Elevance Health, Inc. has a 1-year low of $273.71 and a 1-year high of $567.26. The company has a current ratio of 1.44, a quick ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $325.56 and its 200-day simple moving average is $379.31. Get Elevance Health alerts: Elevance Health (NYSE:ELV Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 17th. The company reported $8.84 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $9.30 by ($0.46). The firm had revenue of $49.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $48.26 billion. Elevance Health had a return on equity of 17.59% and a net margin of 2.83%.The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $10.12 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Elevance Health, Inc. will post 33.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Elevance Health Announces Dividend Institutional Trading of Elevance Health The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 10th will be given a $1.71 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 10th. This represents a $6.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.2%. Elevance Healths payout ratio is currently 29.11%. Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ELV. Thompson Davis & CO. Inc. bought a new position in shares of Elevance Health during the 2nd quarter worth about $293,000. Forefront Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in Elevance Health by 24.7% during the second quarter. Forefront Wealth Partners LLC now owns 929 shares of the companys stock worth $343,000 after buying an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new position in Elevance Health during the second quarter valued at about $612,000. Cape Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Elevance Health by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Cape Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 3,957 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,539,000 after acquiring an additional 163 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Advisory Services Network LLC raised its holdings in Elevance Health by 68.3% in the 2nd quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 3,833 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,491,000 after acquiring an additional 1,556 shares in the last quarter. 89.24% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Barclays lowered their price objective on Elevance Health from $434.00 to $358.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 18th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Elevance Health from $428.00 to $316.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 18th. Truist Financial dropped their price target on shares of Elevance Health from $500.00 to $440.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Elevance Health from $472.00 to $384.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $478.00 target price on shares of Elevance Health in a research note on Wednesday, June 4th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Elevance Health presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $413.81. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Elevance Health Elevance Health Company Profile (Get Free Report) Elevance Health, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a health benefits company in the United States. The company operates through four segments: Health Benefits, CarelonRx, Carelon Services, and Corporate & Other. It offers a variety of health plans and services to program members; health products; an array of fee-based administrative managed care services; and specialty and other insurance products and services, such as stop loss, dental, vision, life, disability, and supplemental health insurance benefits. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Elevance Health Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Elevance Health and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Venture Visionary Partners LLC lessened its stake in shares of iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:AGG Free Report) by 52.3% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 4,303 shares of the companys stock after selling 4,723 shares during the quarter. Venture Visionary Partners LLCs holdings in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF were worth $426,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Raymond James Financial Inc. grew its holdings in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF by 4.4% during the 1st quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 81,294,683 shares of the companys stock valued at $8,041,669,000 after buying an additional 3,421,606 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF by 9.9% during the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 43,758,246 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,240,174,000 after buying an additional 3,944,353 shares during the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV grew its holdings in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 23,411,435 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,268,568,000 after buying an additional 882,233 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF by 13.9% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 21,095,135 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,086,731,000 after buying an additional 2,567,446 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Betterment LLC grew its holdings in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF by 6.0% during the 4th quarter. Betterment LLC now owns 19,893,388 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,927,669,000 after buying an additional 1,129,571 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.63% of the companys stock. Get iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF alerts: iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF Stock Down 0.2% AGG stock opened at $98.85 on Friday. iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF has a 52-week low of $95.74 and a 52-week high of $102.04. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $98.58 and its 200-day simple moving average is $98.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $128.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 124.57 and a beta of 0.12. About iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF IShares are index funds that are bought and sold like common stocks on national securities exchanges as well as certain foreign exchanges. iShares are attractive because of their relatively low cost, tax efficiency and trading flexibility. Investors can purchase and sell shares through any brokerage firm, financial advisor, or online broker, and hold the funds in any type of brokerage account. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AGG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:AGG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Compound Planning Inc. increased its stake in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report) by 13.8% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 13,176 shares of the credit services providers stock after purchasing an additional 1,597 shares during the period. Compound Planning Inc.s holdings in Mastercard were worth $7,222,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MA. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its position in Mastercard by 65,631.5% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 8,225,637 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $4,508,636,000 after acquiring an additional 8,213,123 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Mastercard in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $4,238,764,000. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in Mastercard by 38.6% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 13,526,118 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $7,413,936,000 after acquiring an additional 3,765,378 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in Mastercard by 15.2% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 9,149,181 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $4,817,684,000 after acquiring an additional 1,207,787 shares during the period. Finally, Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH acquired a new stake in Mastercard in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $561,313,000. 97.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Mastercard alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In MA has been the topic of several analyst reports. TD Cowen restated a buy rating and issued a $645.00 target price on shares of Mastercard in a research report on Monday, August 11th. KeyCorp raised their target price on Mastercard from $635.00 to $660.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, August 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a buy rating on shares of Mastercard in a research report on Friday, August 1st. Wall Street Zen upgraded Mastercard from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Friday, July 18th. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn raised Mastercard from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 14th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $617.93. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, insider Linda Pistecchia Kirkpatrick sold 958 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $560.00, for a total value of $536,480.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 23,624 shares of the companys stock, valued at $13,229,440. This trade represents a 3.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Raj Seshadri sold 1,100 shares of Mastercard stock in a transaction on Friday, June 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $546.77, for a total value of $601,447.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,921 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $7,064,815.17. The trade was a 7.85% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 56,269 shares of company stock valued at $30,634,699 over the last quarter. 0.09% of the stock is owned by insiders. Mastercard Stock Performance Shares of NYSE MA opened at $591.4220 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.16, a current ratio of 1.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $534.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.88, a PEG ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.03. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $563.30 and its 200 day simple moving average is $555.47. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52-week low of $461.90 and a 52-week high of $594.71. Mastercard (NYSE:MA Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The credit services provider reported $4.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $4.05 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $8.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $7.95 billion. Mastercard had a return on equity of 200.01% and a net margin of 44.93%.The companys quarterly revenue was up 16.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.50 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Mastercard Incorporated will post 15.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Mastercard Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 8th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, July 9th were given a $0.76 dividend. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, July 9th. Mastercards dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.50%. Mastercard Company Profile (Free Report) Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, digital partners, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts; prepaid programs services; and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid payment products and solutions. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Mastercard Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mastercard and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mccarter Private Wealth Services LLC boosted its stake in Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO Free Report) by 3.5% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 5,410 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after purchasing an additional 185 shares during the quarter. Mccarter Private Wealth Services LLCs holdings in Valero Energy were worth $714,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its stake in Valero Energy by 62.4% during the first quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,192,084 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $157,439,000 after buying an additional 457,846 shares during the period. Norinchukin Bank The grew its stake in Valero Energy by 16.4% during the first quarter. Norinchukin Bank The now owns 17,953 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $2,371,000 after buying an additional 2,535 shares during the period. CW Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Valero Energy during the first quarter worth approximately $361,000. Summit Financial LLC grew its stake in Valero Energy by 4.6% during the first quarter. Summit Financial LLC now owns 1,812 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $239,000 after buying an additional 79 shares during the period. Finally, Martingale Asset Management L P grew its stake in Valero Energy by 321.3% during the first quarter. Martingale Asset Management L P now owns 15,454 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $2,041,000 after buying an additional 11,786 shares during the period. 78.69% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Valero Energy alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets VLO has been the subject of several research reports. Citigroup downgraded shares of Valero Energy from a buy rating to a neutral rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $134.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 16th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Valero Energy from $140.00 to $141.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Valero Energy from a neutral rating to a buy rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $127.00 to $154.00 in a research report on Tuesday, May 13th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Valero Energy from $151.00 to $168.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Valero Energy from $164.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Valero Energy presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $154.47. Valero Energy Stock Down 0.3% Shares of NYSE:VLO opened at $140.0640 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $43.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 58.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.28 and a beta of 1.03. Valero Energy Corporation has a 1-year low of $99.00 and a 1-year high of $155.12. The companys fifty day moving average is $140.36 and its two-hundred day moving average is $130.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.62. Valero Energy (NYSE:VLO Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The oil and gas company reported $2.28 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.66 by $0.62. The company had revenue of $29.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $27 billion. Valero Energy had a net margin of 0.62% and a return on equity of 5.76%. The firms revenue was down 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Valero Energy Corporation will post 7.92 EPS for the current year. Valero Energy Announces Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 31st will be given a dividend of $1.13 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 31st. This represents a $4.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.2%. Valero Energys dividend payout ratio is currently 188.33%. About Valero Energy (Free Report) Valero Energy Corporation manufactures, markets, and sells petroleum-based and low-carbon liquid transportation fuels and petrochemical products in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, Mexico, Peru, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Valero Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Valero Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MINISO Group (NYSE:MNSO Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.74 by ($1.52), reports. The company had revenue of $692.93 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.85 billion. MINISO Group had a return on equity of 24.23% and a net margin of 13.85%. MINISO Group Stock Performance Shares of MINISO Group stock opened at $22.2290 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.99, a quick ratio of 1.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $18.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $18.97. MINISO Group has a 1-year low of $12.51 and a 1-year high of $27.71. The company has a market cap of $6.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.03, a PEG ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 0.16. Get MINISO Group alerts: Institutional Trading of MINISO Group Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in MINISO Group by 37.6% during the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,223 shares of the companys stock worth $41,000 after acquiring an additional 608 shares during the period. Creative Planning grew its holdings in MINISO Group by 45.1% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 16,662 shares of the companys stock worth $304,000 after acquiring an additional 5,177 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada grew its holdings in MINISO Group by 66.4% during the 1st quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 26,928 shares of the companys stock worth $498,000 after acquiring an additional 10,747 shares during the period. Vident Advisory LLC grew its holdings in MINISO Group by 18.0% during the 2nd quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 29,127 shares of the companys stock worth $531,000 after acquiring an additional 4,447 shares during the period. Finally, Quantinno Capital Management LP grew its holdings in MINISO Group by 72.8% during the 2nd quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 34,806 shares of the companys stock worth $634,000 after acquiring an additional 14,665 shares during the period. 17.16% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In MNSO has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America upgraded MINISO Group from an underperform rating to a neutral rating in a report on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a hold rating and issued a $20.00 price objective on shares of MINISO Group in a report on Tuesday, May 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upgraded MINISO Group from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their price objective for the company from $18.50 to $26.20 in a report on Friday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, MINISO Group presently has a consensus rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $24.86. Read Our Latest Analysis on MINISO Group About MINISO Group (Get Free Report) MINISO Group Holding Limited, an investment holding company, engages in the retail and wholesale of lifestyle products and pop toy products in China, Asia, the United States, and Europe. The company offers products in various categories, including home decor products, small electronics, textiles, accessories, beauty tools, toys, cosmetics, personal care products, snacks, fragrances and perfumes, and stationeries and gifts under the MINISO and WonderLife brand names; and blind boxes, toy bricks, model figures, model kits, collectible dolls, Ichiban Kuji, sculptures, and other popular toys under the TOP TOY brand. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for MINISO Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for MINISO Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. El Paso, Texas quintessential border city, has begun its resistance against the implementation of the Camp East Montana immigration detention center, built on the Fort Bliss military base, less than 15 minutes away from downtown. The facility whose first inmates arrived in mid-August is projected to be the largest of its kind in U.S. history, with a capacity for 5,000 people. To this end, the Department of Defense has approved an investment of approximately $1.2 billion for its expansion over the next two years. Around the military base in the Texas desert, hundreds of protesters have been demonstrating for days against the extreme conditions at the site, a vast open-air tent facility. The accusations center primarily on the heat experienced by detainees in a desert region of a state suffering a heat wave since early August, with temperatures almost constantly above 40C (104F). Furthermore, deficiencies in the water and food supply, as well as inadequate medical care, have also been reported. The center, informally known as the Lone Star Lockup, began operating with an initial capacity of 1,000 people. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it will eventually include medical services, recreational areas, and libraries. However, local activists report that its current conditions are precarious and detainees rights are systematically violated. Protest outside the base where the new ICE detention center is being built, in El Paso, Texas. Paul Ratje (REUTERS) Melissa Lopez, director of Estrella del Paso, an organization that provides legal assistance to migrants, highlighted at a press conference Thursday the contradiction between what ICE told Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett who had visited the site shortly beforehand and the reality her organization deals with every day. For example, Crockett was informed that in-person legal visits were already possible without supervision, while Estrella del Paso attorneys have only been authorized for telephone contacts. Yesterday we were told one thing, today the congresswoman was told another. This contradiction is dangerous, and we will continue to demand that access to legal representation be guaranteed, Lopez stated. At the meeting, Jovanny Sebastian Hernandez, organizer of the New Mexico Dream Team, a support group for undocumented immigrants, highlighted the enormous expense involved in the construction of the site. The opening of this concentration camp violates our shared values. That money could be used for healthcare, education, and housing, not mass detention, he argued. He also recounted the testimonies of detainees suffering from weight loss, lack of medical care, and limited access to clothing and shoes. Meanwhile, attorney Becca Sheff of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated that the opening of this detention center is not about security, but about instilling fear and accelerating deportations without due process. Sheff recounted the case of a Venezuelan immigrant who was found unconscious after not receiving timely medical attention and was also denied visits from his legal representatives. Each bed is not a number; its a person who came seeking dignity and safety. History has taught us what happens when we let fear dictate policy. We cannot repeat those horrors, the attorney said. A military installation with a long history of housing civilians During World War II, Fort Bliss housed people considered enemy aliens, primarily of German and Italian descent. While it was not one of the main internment centers for people of Japanese descent, it was part of the military system that managed prisoners of war and targeted detentions. Decades later, during Trumps first presidency, it was used to house unaccompanied migrant minors. And, following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021, it welcomed thousands of refugees as part of Operation Allies Welcome. Now, the use of military facilities to detain migrants en masse is causing fear among activists and progressive politicians. Human rights organizations such as the ACLU and Human Rights Watch have warned that the Trump administration is using sites designed for war and national defense to detain civilians. This is a problem, they say, because it complicates oversight and limits transparency. These two oversight mechanisms were demanded by El Paso County Commissioner Jackie Butler in a resolution filed this month. In the document, Butler warned that the multimillion-dollar contract for the construction and operation of the facility was awarded without public consultation to a firm with no experience in civil detention (called Acquisition Logistics LLC). She also emphasized how the center will affect the areas infrastructure and public services. Camp East Montana, designed to house up to 5,000 migrants, on August 17, 2025. Paul Ratje (REUTERS) Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of El Paso also visited Camp East Montana this week and criticized the waste of resources used for its construction. How much good would that money do if it were spent on childcare, healthcare, or preschool education? she asked. Meanwhile, Republican politicians like Texas Senator John Cornyn have supported the initiative. Cornyn recently toured the facility and called it an improvement over previous conditions. He also asserted that the new center will alleviate the overcrowding that exists at other immigration detention centers and allow for more efficient processing of cases. The Trump administration has repeatedly announced that it is seeking to expand its detention capacity for migrants in the deportation queue, which already exceeds historic records with some 60,000 detainees, which is also well above the 40,000 total beds available to ICE. In recent months, some of the largest, previously unused facilities have reopened and new migrant prisons have been built; the most notable of which has been the so-called Alligator Alcatraz, built in just days in the middle of the harsh swamp and mangrove ecosystem of the Everglades, west of Miami. If those who oppose it fail to halt its expansion, Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss will dwarf all others. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Monetary Management Group Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Deere & Company (NYSE:DE Free Report) by 5.2% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,575 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 195 shares during the quarter. Monetary Management Group Inc.s holdings in Deere & Company were worth $1,678,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in DE. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Deere & Company by 1.2% during the first quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 1,803 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $852,000 after buying an additional 21 shares in the last quarter. Tyler Stone Wealth Management grew its holdings in shares of Deere & Company by 1.7% during the first quarter. Tyler Stone Wealth Management now owns 1,230 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $577,000 after buying an additional 21 shares in the last quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Deere & Company by 2.4% during the first quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 925 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $434,000 after buying an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. First Bancorp Inc ME grew its holdings in shares of Deere & Company by 4.7% during the first quarter. First Bancorp Inc ME now owns 509 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $239,000 after buying an additional 23 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Leisure Capital Management grew its holdings in shares of Deere & Company by 0.8% during the first quarter. Leisure Capital Management now owns 2,886 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $1,355,000 after buying an additional 23 shares in the last quarter. 68.58% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Deere & Company alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Barclays lifted their price target on Deere & Company from $475.00 to $530.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Friday, May 16th. Truist Financial lowered their target price on Deere & Company from $619.00 to $602.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 15th. BMO Capital Markets restated a market perform rating and issued a $460.00 target price (up previously from $425.00) on shares of Deere & Company in a research note on Wednesday, May 21st. Melius upgraded Deere & Company from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Deere & Company from $490.00 to $540.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, May 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Deere & Company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $523.87. Deere & Company Price Performance Shares of NYSE:DE opened at $486.3440 on Friday. Deere & Company has a fifty-two week low of $373.55 and a fifty-two week high of $533.78. The business has a 50-day moving average of $508.86 and a two-hundred day moving average of $490.28. The stock has a market capitalization of $131.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.76, a current ratio of 2.19 and a quick ratio of 1.98. Deere & Company (NYSE:DE Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 14th. The industrial products company reported $4.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $4.62 by $0.13. Deere & Company had a return on equity of 21.97% and a net margin of 11.72%.The company had revenue of $10.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.33 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $6.29 earnings per share. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Deere & Company will post 19.32 EPS for the current fiscal year. Deere & Company Dividend Announcement The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 8th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 30th were given a $1.62 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 30th. This represents a $6.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.3%. Deere & Companys payout ratio is currently 33.87%. About Deere & Company (Free Report) Deere & Co engages in the manufacture and distribution of equipment used in agriculture, construction, forestry, and turf care. It operates through the following segments: Agriculture and Turf, Construction and Forestry, and Financial Services. The Agriculture and Turf segment focuses on the distribution and manufacture of a full line of agriculture and turf equipment and related service parts. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding DE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Deere & Company (NYSE:DE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Deere & Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Deere & Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Hsbc Holdings PLC lowered its stake in PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE:PPG Free Report) by 10.7% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 618,977 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock after selling 74,465 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC owned 0.27% of PPG Industries worth $67,426,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of PPG. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its holdings in shares of PPG Industries by 9.1% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 4,075 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $487,000 after buying an additional 339 shares during the period. MML Investors Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of PPG Industries by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. MML Investors Services LLC now owns 14,832 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $1,772,000 after acquiring an additional 259 shares during the period. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. lifted its stake in shares of PPG Industries by 16.7% in the 4th quarter. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. now owns 15,470 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $1,847,000 after acquiring an additional 2,214 shares during the period. State of Tennessee Department of Treasury raised its holdings in shares of PPG Industries by 19.6% in the 4th quarter. State of Tennessee Department of Treasury now owns 92,546 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $11,055,000 after purchasing an additional 15,187 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dark Forest Capital Management LP raised its holdings in shares of PPG Industries by 24.5% in the 4th quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP now owns 3,497 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $418,000 after purchasing an additional 688 shares in the last quarter. 81.86% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get PPG Industries alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms recently commented on PPG. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of PPG Industries from $111.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, July 9th. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of PPG Industries from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Friday, August 1st. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of PPG Industries from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their target price on shares of PPG Industries from $125.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Fermium Researc raised shares of PPG Industries to a strong-buy rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have given a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $129.82. PPG Industries Trading Down 0.5% Shares of PPG Industries stock opened at $111.4570 on Friday. PPG Industries, Inc. has a 12-month low of $90.24 and a 12-month high of $137.24. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $112.31 and a 200 day simple moving average of $110.68. The company has a quick ratio of 1.04, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 1.17. PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The specialty chemicals company reported $2.22 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of $2.22. PPG Industries had a net margin of 6.25% and a return on equity of 23.85%. The firm had revenue of $4.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.16 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.50 EPS. The companys revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. PPG Industries has set its FY 2025 guidance at 7.750-8.050 EPS. Research analysts expect that PPG Industries, Inc. will post 7.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. PPG Industries Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 12th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.71 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, August 11th. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.5%. This is an increase from PPG Industriess previous quarterly dividend of $0.68. PPG Industriess payout ratio is currently 64.40%. About PPG Industries (Free Report) PPG Industries, Inc manufactures and distributes paints, coatings, and specialty materials in the United States, Canada, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates through two segments, Performance Coatings and Industrial Coatings. The Performance Coatings segment offers coatings, solvents, adhesives, sealants, sundries, and software for automotive and commercial transport/fleet repair and refurbishing, light industrial coatings, and specialty coatings for signs; wood stains; paints, thermoplastics, pavement marking products, and other advanced technologies for pavement marking for government, commercial infrastructure, painting, and maintenance contractors; and coatings, sealants, transparencies, transparent armor, adhesives, engineered materials, and packaging and chemical management services for commercial, military, regional jet, and general aviation aircraft. See Also Receive News & Ratings for PPG Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for PPG Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Rede Wealth LLC bought a new stake in Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM Free Report) during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 1,414 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $224,000. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Philip Morris International by 0.9% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 140,621,675 shares of the companys stock valued at $22,320,878,000 after purchasing an additional 1,189,283 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 26.4% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 21,840,422 shares of the companys stock worth $3,466,730,000 after acquiring an additional 4,563,632 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 11.0% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 13,630,177 shares of the companys stock worth $1,640,392,000 after acquiring an additional 1,347,503 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Philip Morris International during the 1st quarter worth about $1,712,994,000. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 57.5% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 9,794,530 shares of the companys stock worth $1,554,686,000 after acquiring an additional 3,575,158 shares during the period. 78.63% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Philip Morris International alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley reiterated an overweight rating and set a $182.00 price objective (up from $156.00) on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Thursday, April 24th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Philip Morris International from $170.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Monday, July 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Philip Morris International from $175.00 to $190.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, July 10th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Philip Morris International from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Saturday, August 9th. Finally, KGI Securities assumed coverage on shares of Philip Morris International in a research report on Monday, August 4th. They set an outperform rating for the company. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $186.27. Philip Morris International Stock Performance PM stock opened at $174.2850 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $271.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.13, a PEG ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 0.48. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 1 year low of $116.12 and a 1 year high of $186.69. The stocks fifty day moving average is $173.94 and its two-hundred day moving average is $165.67. Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 22nd. The company reported $1.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.86 by $0.05. Philip Morris International had a negative return on equity of 120.86% and a net margin of 9.03%.The company had revenue of $10.14 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.33 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.59 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Philip Morris International has set its Q3 2025 guidance at 2.080-2.130 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 7.14 EPS for the current fiscal year. Philip Morris International Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 15th. Investors of record on Friday, June 27th were paid a dividend of $1.35 per share. This represents a $5.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, June 27th. Philip Morris Internationals payout ratio is currently 102.66%. About Philip Morris International (Free Report) Philip Morris International Inc operates as a tobacco company working to delivers a smoke-free future and evolving portfolio for the long-term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. The company's product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heat-not-burn, vapor, and oral nicotine products primarily under the IQOS and ZYN brands; and consumer accessories, such as lighters and matches. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Philip Morris International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Philip Morris International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Rede Wealth LLC trimmed its holdings in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF (BATS:NULG Free Report) by 7.0% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 5,584 shares of the companys stock after selling 418 shares during the quarter. Rede Wealth LLCs holdings in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF were worth $437,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Orion Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC increased its stake in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF by 1,300.0% during the 1st quarter. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC now owns 350 shares of the companys stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 325 shares in the last quarter. Bridge Generations Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF during the 1st quarter valued at about $39,000. Signaturefd LLC bought a new stake in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF during the 1st quarter valued at about $48,000. Finally, Keystone Global Partners LLC bought a new stake in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF during the 1st quarter valued at about $49,000. Get Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF alerts: Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF Stock Performance BATS:NULG opened at $96.2950 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $1.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.38 and a beta of 1.17. Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF has a fifty-two week low of $67.66 and a fifty-two week high of $99.1750. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $94.80 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $87.11. Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF Profile The Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF (NULG) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI TIAA ESG USA Large Cap Growth index. The fund tracks an index composed of large-cap US companies with growth characteristics that also meet certain environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. NULG was launched on Dec 13, 2016 and is managed by Nuveen. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding NULG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF (BATS:NULG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Universal Health Services (NYSE:UHS Free Report) had its price objective increased by Royal Bank Of Canada from $201.00 to $206.00 in a report issued on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a sector perform rating on the health services providers stock. Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Universal Health Services from $215.00 to $195.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 4th. Bank of America lowered shares of Universal Health Services from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and cut their target price for the company from $215.00 to $185.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 16th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Universal Health Services from $257.00 to $259.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 30th. Stephens upgraded shares of Universal Health Services to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of Universal Health Services from $243.00 to $203.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 14th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $214.15. Get Universal Health Services alerts: Check Out Our Latest Analysis on UHS Universal Health Services Stock Down 0.3% UHS opened at $184.0880 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $11.72 billion, a PE ratio of 9.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $174.08 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $178.65. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. Universal Health Services has a 52 week low of $152.33 and a 52 week high of $243.25. Universal Health Services (NYSE:UHS Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Monday, July 28th. The health services provider reported $5.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.85 by $0.50. Universal Health Services had a return on equity of 18.25% and a net margin of 7.66%.The firm had revenue of $4.28 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.24 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $4.31 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Universal Health Services has set its FY 2025 guidance at 20.000-21.000 EPS. Analysts forecast that Universal Health Services will post 15.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Universal Health Services Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 2nd will be paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 2nd. Universal Health Servicess payout ratio is presently 4.21%. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Universal Health Services Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in UHS. VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al purchased a new position in shares of Universal Health Services during the 2nd quarter worth about $87,373,000. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Universal Health Services in the 2nd quarter worth about $83,333,000. Nomura Holdings Inc. lifted its stake in Universal Health Services by 100.6% in the second quarter. Nomura Holdings Inc. now owns 2,560 shares of the health services providers stock worth $464,000 after purchasing an additional 426,211 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Universal Health Services by 57.8% during the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 931,355 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $173,381,000 after buying an additional 340,966 shares during the period. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in shares of Universal Health Services by 329.4% during the first quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 404,806 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $76,081,000 after buying an additional 310,531 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.05% of the companys stock. Universal Health Services Company Profile (Get Free Report) Universal Health Services, Inc, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates acute care hospitals, and outpatient and behavioral health care facilities. It operates through Acute Care Hospital Services and Behavioral Health Care Services segments. The company's hospitals offer general and specialty surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics, emergency room care, radiology, oncology, diagnostic and coronary care, pediatric services, pharmacy services, and/or behavioral health services. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Universal Health Services Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Universal Health Services and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. United Asset Strategies Inc. lessened its stake in Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE:COF) by 19.3% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,255 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 300 shares during the quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc.s holdings in Capital One Financial were worth $225,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in COF. Brighton Jones LLC increased its position in Capital One Financial by 330.1% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 13,587 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,423,000 after acquiring an additional 10,428 shares in the last quarter. MML Investors Services LLC boosted its stake in shares of Capital One Financial by 7.0% in the 4th quarter. MML Investors Services LLC now owns 34,907 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $6,225,000 after purchasing an additional 2,279 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Capital One Financial by 63.0% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 1,242,912 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $221,637,000 after purchasing an additional 480,269 shares during the last quarter. MGO One Seven LLC boosted its stake in shares of Capital One Financial by 87.1% in the 4th quarter. MGO One Seven LLC now owns 4,736 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $845,000 after purchasing an additional 2,205 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC boosted its stake in shares of Capital One Financial by 246.2% in the 4th quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 315 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $56,000 after purchasing an additional 224 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.84% of the companys stock. Get Capital One Financial alerts: Capital One Financial Stock Performance Shares of Capital One Financial stock opened at $211.9620 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $135.55 billion, a PE ratio of 108.70, a PEG ratio of 0.83 and a beta of 1.16. Capital One Financial Corporation has a 12 month low of $131.55 and a 12 month high of $232.45. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $212.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $194.02. Capital One Financial Dividend Announcement Capital One Financial ( NYSE:COF Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $5.48 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $3.55. The business had revenue of $12.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $12.72 billion. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 31.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.14 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Capital One Financial Corporation will post 15.65 EPS for the current year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 15th will be paid a $0.60 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 15th. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. Capital One Financials payout ratio is presently 123.08%. Insider Buying and Selling at Capital One Financial In other Capital One Financial news, insider Michael Zamsky sold 5,515 shares of Capital One Financial stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $209.59, for a total value of $1,155,888.85. Following the transaction, the insider owned 27,364 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,735,220.76. The trade was a 16.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Robert M. Alexander sold 10,114 shares of Capital One Financial stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.86, for a total transaction of $2,304,576.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 68,707 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,655,577.02. The trade was a 12.83% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 19,298 shares of company stock valued at $4,233,044. 1.26% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research analysts have recently issued reports on COF shares. TD Cowen raised shares of Capital One Financial from a hold rating to a buy rating and raised their target price for the company from $184.00 to $258.00 in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of Capital One Financial from $248.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 23rd. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Capital One Financial from $223.00 to $233.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 21st. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Capital One Financial from $225.00 to $265.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Capital One Financial from $245.00 to $248.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 23rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have given a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $238.81. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Capital One Financial Capital One Financial Profile (Free Report) Capital One Financial Corporation operates as the financial services holding company for the Capital One, National Association, which engages in the provision of various financial products and services in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It operates through three segments: Credit Card, Consumer Banking, and Commercial Banking. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding COF? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE:COF Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Capital One Financial Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Capital One Financial and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The FBI on Friday raided the home of John Bolton, Donald Trumps former national security adviser and currently one of his most vocal critics. Agents entered Boltons private residence in Bethesda, an affluent neighborhood in northwest Washington, as part of an investigation into the alleged use of classified documents by the former senior official. An FBI spokesperson confirmed the agency was conducting court authorized activity in the area. The former ambassador to the U.N. was not at home at the time of the search. FBI Director Kash Patel, a staunch Trump supporter, posted a message on the social media platform X early Friday morning while the search was taking place: No one is above the law. According to The Washington Post, the order to launch this investigation came from Patel himself, who in a 2023 book included Bolton on a list of alleged members of the Executive Branch Deep State. For his part, Trump has distanced himself from the FBI raid on his former aides home, claiming to have little information about the operation. But did take the opportunity to lash out at Bolton, calling him a sleazebag. He could be very unpatriotic, were going to find out, he told reporters during a visit to the White House museum. Bolton, a prolific commentator and frequent guest on political analysis TV programs, had served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during George W. Bushs administration (20012009) before becoming the third national security adviser in Trumps first term. The neoconservative, a hawk on foreign policy, held the position in Trumps White House for 17 months. During that period, he frequently clashed with the president over how to proceed on a wide range of geopolitical issues from North Korea (Trump wanted to meet North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un, and did so three times) to Afghanistan and Iraq. After his resignation, the former adviser published a memoir, The Room Where It Happened, about his time in the West Wing of the White House. The presidential office tried, unsuccessfully, to block the books publication, claiming it contained classified material. FBI agents carry empty boxes to former national security adviser John Bolton's house, Friday, August. 22, 2025, in Bethesda, Md. Jose Luis Magana (AP) Since returning to power, Trump has taken a series of steps against those he believes harmed him as president in his first term or as a candidate for the second. Among other measures, his administration has announced the opening of investigations into special counsels Jack Smith and Letitia James, who brought charges against Trump in separate cases criminal charges in the former, civil charges in the latter before the Republicans election victory. The current administration is also investigating Democratic congressman Adam Schiff for alleged mortgage fraud. Schiff led the congressional inquiry into the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and the possible role Trump may have played in that attempt by his supporters to prevent the certification of Democratic rival Joe Bidens election victory. But the search of Boltons home appears to be the most forceful gesture yet, and an escalation in the apparent use of this administrations instruments of power against those it considers its enemies. On the very day of his inauguration for his second term, January 20, Trump signed an order revoking the security clearances of about 50 former senior officials from his administration, including Bolton. The president also ordered the removal of his former advisers security detail, even though Bolton has received death threats from Iran. Following the summit in Alaska last week between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine, Bolton stated that the Kremlin leader clearly won the meeting and that although the president did not lose, he appeared tired in front of the cameras. In the past, Bolton had also criticized Patel. In December, a month before Trumps inauguration, he told CNN, where he is a commentator, that the Senate should reject the confirmation of the current FBI director 100-0. Patel was ultimately confirmed. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Very important An informed public is essential to holding leaders accountable. Somewhat important Citizens should be informed, but it is not the top priority. Not important Voting alone is enough participation in the democratic process. Vote View Results SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. (AND NO SPAM!) Just click here. New York Times reporter James Stewart wrote a big article based on a series of interviews with CBS owner Shari Redstone, and buried deep in the piece was something wild that should have been obvious: CBS settled Donald Trump's lawsuit to keep the public from seeing how they make "news" sausage. Stewart said Redstone "worried that Mr. Trump's lawyers could cherry-pick raw footage and internal communications and do more damage to CBS News's reputation than any settlement would." She wanted their sale of CBS and Paramount to Skydance Media to get federal approval, and the lawsuit complicated everything. Redstone told the Times that CBS employees warned her that in October 2023, when Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes" interviewed President Joe Biden, he had seemed "drowsy and had to be prodded to answer." She worried that CBS might be accused of "editing the interview to conceal Mr. Biden's failings." Conservatives made the accusation in real time with what actually aired. At NewsBusters, we said, "CBS Escorts Fumbling Biden." The "RNC Research" account on Twitter highlighted this strange exchange: Pelley: "What is your message to Hezbollah and its backer, Iran?" Biden: "Don't. Don't don't don't " Pelley: "Don't ... come across the border, don't escalate this war?" Biden: "That's right." When CBS News refused to release the unedited footage of their Kamala Harris interview, Trump sued. They could release the 2023 Biden video and transcript. Former CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, who was fired for apparently being too independent and bipartisan for CBS, told the New York Post: "If there's no problem, making the material public would reinforce the '60 Minutes' position that their editing meets the highest standards." She added if the program refuses, that says a lot. "My training is that with major newsmakers, the full transcript should always be released." After Biden's cognitive failure was revealed at his debate with Trump last summer, networks released full video and transcripts of every Biden interview that came afterward so they would not be accused of hiding anything. But CBS wasn't going to retroactively show how they pampered Biden in 2023. Other CBS staffers who witnessed the interview told the Times that Redstone's concerns were "overblown." On air, Pelley made the excuse that Biden seemed "tired." But no one should trust their version of events if they refuse to release the proof. Pelley didn't have tough questions for Biden. He had nothing on any Biden scandals. He was more concerned with trashing the Republicans as dangerous, asking Biden: "Hard-right Republicans are obstructing the election of a Speaker of the House. Does the dysfunction that we've seen in Congress increase the danger in the world?" Pelley closed that softball segment by underlining how Biden toured the Dachau death camp in Germany with his granddaughter and, gee, he sure loves Israel not that his foreign policy showed it. In 2022, Pelley did the same thing, asking Biden sugary gushers like this one: "You have lived a long life of triumph and tragedy. In November, you'll be 80. And I wonder what it is that keeps you in the arena." We know part of the answer: He was kept in the arena by protective journalists like Pelley. This has been the pattern for decades at CBS. Dan Rather and the rest threw the kitchen sink at Republicans. But CBS was so proud of its puffball interviews with Barack Obama that they made a DVD for Democrats to enjoy. They deserve a chorus of boos as they arrogantly praise themselves for their "unwavering integrity." (COMMENT, BELOW) Donald Trump has taken to boasting about his decision to deploy federal soldiers and agents on the streets of Washington, despite the unease the measure has generated among residents. The Republican, who adopted the measure 10 days ago citing an alleged escalation of violence, went to the headquarters of the deployment to greet soldiers and police officers. Were going to make it safe, and were going to then go on to other places, but were going to stay here for a while, the president said. The legislation allows the president to maintain this measure for 30 days, but Trump says he is considering extending it. The president ordered the deployment as part of his takeover of a city with an overwhelmingly Democratic majority, which he described contrary to statistics as a place of crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor. Donald Trump speaks with National Guard soldiers in Washington, Thursday. Jacquelyn Martin (AP) Trump had declared hours earlier that he would go on patrol with the police and the military that evening, in comments on conservative commentator Todd Starnes radio show. The presidents afternoon outing amounted to a triumphant stroll, one of the many the Republican administration has taken since ordering the deployment of the National Guard and federal agents to the U.S. capital in response to what it considers a rise in crime that had become a national emergency. Initially, the White House indicated that some 800 troops would reinforce local police forces. Since then, six Republican-majority states have sent troops to the mission, which has expanded its original remit to increasingly focus on the detention of illegal immigrants. Trumps order, partially limited days later in court, is possible because of the unique status of the capital, which lacks the privileges of a state. A 1970s law, the DC Home Rule Act, grants the city autonomy and includes a clause allowing the local police force to be placed directly under presidential control when special emergency conditions exist. Trump has invoked this clause, arguing that the levels of violence in the city meet those special conditions. Trump visited the Park Police headquarters in Anacostia, southeast Washington, now the operations center for the deployment. He was accompanied, among others, by his Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem; Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum; and his top domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller. A day earlier, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Miller had gone to the capitals Union Station to greet the troops deployed there, offering them hamburgers and calling for getting DC out of its lawless state, amid jeers and whistles from onlookers. Trump maintains that since issuing the order on August 7, Washington has become perhaps the safest city in the country, and its getting better by the minute. He says that until now, the capital a tourist magnet thanks to its free monuments and museums was a wasteland that many avoided, but now people are flocking back. Donald Trump during a meeting with members of the National Guard. Jacquelyn Martin (AP) The White House issues daily bulletins listing the arrests made since the order went into effect. So far, it has counted 630, for offenses ranging from homicide to drink-driving, although it does not specify whether these arrests include only those carried out by federal agents or also by the local Metropolitan Police. It does indicate that a third of those detained, about 250, are illegal immigrants. Although the deployment is especially visible in the citys tourist center and around its most well-known landmarks, where violent crime is minimal or nonexistent, the highest number of arrests, according to the White House, have occurred in the Seventh and Eighth Wards, part of the Anacostia neighborhood, among the citys poorest areas and predominantly African American. In the reality outside the walls of the White House, statistics indicate that, although the level of violence in the capital has historically been high, there has been a notable decrease. Violent crime dropped by 35% in 2024 compared to the previous year and reached the lowest levels in the last 30 years, according to a Department of Justice report published in January. And the population of this overwhelmingly Democratic city, where only 6% of voters backed Trump last November, is opposed to the presidential measures to seize control. A poll published by The Washington Post found that 79% of residents oppose the presidential order, while only 17% support it. Only 31% consider the crime rate to be serious or very serious, while 21% consider the streets in their neighborhoods to be unsafe. In contrast, 78% say they feel reasonably or very secure in their areas of residence. Two-thirds of the population say the police and military presence makes them feel less safe. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition It is up to the State Election Commission to decide on the election of the Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC); the municipal affairs department has nothing to do with it, said state municipal affairs and urban development minister Firhad Hakim. The minister was speaking after a meeting with DMC officials, where he also felicitated 10 members of staff for their excellence in rendering public utility services. Advertisement The municipal election of the DMC has remained pending since 2022, which Opposition parties have blamed on the states apathy, negligence and deliberate delay over the past three years. Since the dissolution of the elected Board in September 2022, the DMC has been run by a five-member Board of Administrators. Advertisement Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier lashed out at the unholy nexus between land mafias and certain civic officials, bureaucrats, elected representatives and administrators. Speaking at Nabanna Conference Hall on 25 June 2024, she made it clear that the issue would be addressed before the 2026 Assembly elections so that it would not affect her partys prospects. The meeting, with the chiefs of Trinamul Congressrun civic bodies, was broadcast live. The chief minister had noted growing public discontent with the functioning of civic bodies and described the entire five-member DMC Board of Administrators as worthless. She instructed minister Hakim to replace them immediately. Fifteen months on from that rebuke, Hakim visited the DMC yesterday and admitted: I cannot say why they have not yet been replaced. Regarding the long-overdue election, he shifted responsibility to the Election Commission, stating: It is not within my remit to decide on the election. The State Election Commission is there to determine that. A father and his two daughters were crushed to death after their scooter came under the wheels of a speeding passenger bus in Kalna on Thursday. Faraz Mallik (54) of Uttardighi village in Kalna was heading to Kalna Superspecialty Hospital on his scooter with his daughters Noorjahan (21) and Farhana. At Boroswarajpur village crossing on the KalnaKatwa road, a speeding bus on the NabadwipKrishnagar route suddenly appeared and the driver lost control while trying to avoid a collision. In moments, the scooter went under the wheels of the bus, killing the father and his daughters on the spot. Though the police seized the bus, the driver managed to flee. Advertisement Advertisement Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate three new Metro corridors in Kolkata on Friday, marking a major boost to the citys transport network, before addressing a political rally, where he is expected to sharpen attacks on West Bengals ruling Trinamul Congress (TMC). Mr Modi, who will arrive in the state capital after launching a series of projects in Bihar, said in a post on social media platform X: I am eager to be among @BJP4Bengal Karyakartas at a rally in Kolkata. Public anger against the TMC is increasing and that West Bengal is eagerly looking towards the BJP with hope because of our development agenda. Advertisement Later in the day, Modi will address a BJP workers rally in Dum Dum on the northern fringes of the city, where he is expected to highlight the partys development push and escalate his criticism of the TMC ahead of state elections. Advertisement The new Metro services to be flagged off include the NoaparaJai Hind Airport stretch of the Yellow Line, the Hemanta MukhopadhyayBeleghata section of the Orange Line, and the SealdahEsplanade segment of the Green Line. Modi will ride the newly-opened NoaparaAirport route after inaugurating the lines via video link. The projects are part of infrastructure works worth over Rs 5,200, according to the Union information ministry. Modi will also lay the foundation stone for a six-lane elevated Kona Expressway project, estimated to cost Rs 1,200 cr. While West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been invited to the inauguration, officials from her TMC party said she would not attend due to policy differences with the federal government. Trinamul Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee has cautioned some leaders who are running parallel administration within the party. I have come across some party workers, who even do not know the symbol of the party and when I asked them they said they follow some party leader. I am not going to tolerate this. It is a party of Ma, Mati and Manush and our only purpose is to serve them. Anyone who is putting his self above the party will be thrown out, she said. Advertisement She maintained that the symbol of the party is most important. I am the chief minister because of the symbol. From panchayat leaders to the MPs, the symbol plays the most important role and one who disrespects the symbol is not our member. Advertisement Miss Banerjee urged the party leaders to bury the hatchets and work to ensure the victory of the party. Give up your own narrow interest and work for the party. It is a great opportunity to serve the people, she said. Miss Banerjee expressed her satisfaction over the Amader Para Amader Samadhan initiative. He urged party leaders and workers to build intense contact with people who will attend the programme. Senior party leaders said, in view of the Assembly election scheduled to be held in 2026, Miss Banerjee has already asked them to pull up their socks and mentioned that no one should be complacent. The leaders said Miss Banerjee has asked the leaders to launch a campaign against the financial deprivation of the Centre and make people aware of the schemes taken by the state government. Two major issues for campaigning will be the attack and humiliation of migrant workers in BJP-ruled states. Miss Banerjee has announced a scheme called Shramashree meant for the migrant workers, who will come back to Bengal. She has asked party workers to intensify their campaign against the saffron party, who said that Bengali is not a language. She reiterated that there will not be Special Intensive Revision of the voter list and assured to launch a movement if the name of a genuine voter is dropped from the voter list. She urged party leaders to intensify their vigil and thwart any attempt to conduct NRC through the backdoor. In a shocking and bizarre incident, Bengalis were beaten up in Kolkata after being branded as Bangladeshis by a group of Hindi-speaking traders in West Bengal. Four students of the University of Calcutta were beaten up by a group of Hindi-speaking traders in Sealdah station area in north Kolkata for speaking in Bengali, after an altercation broke out between them over the price of a mobile phone cover. Advertisement The police on Thursday said that the incident took place on Wednesday night and a complaint has been lodged by the students at Muchipara police station. No one has been arrested in connection with the incident so far. The injured students were taken to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital for treatment. Advertisement The incident comes in the backdrop of harassment and attacks on Bengali migrant workers in BJP-ruled states. However, it has taken everyone by surprise that Bengalis are now facing attacks for speaking the Bengali language in West Bengal. It is learnt that on Wednesday night, a student of Calcutta Universitys Carmichael Hostel went to a mobile equipment shop under the Sealdah Bridge to buy mobile covers. The student got into a minor argument with one of the sellers while bargaining. The student alleged that the vendor in question was speaking in Hindi and abused him in Hindi for speaking in Bengali. The student went back to the hostel and came back with three of his classmates. Soon, an altercation broke out between them and all the students were subjected to further harassment for speaking in Bengali. The traders in the area joined in and branded them as Bangladeshis. As the students protested against this, the traders assaulted them. The injured were given primary treatment at the Calcutta Medical College Hospital. One of the students said, They said in Hindi that we are Bangladeshis. When we protested, they beat me. They took away my mobile phone. One man even attacked us with knives. A senior police officer of Kolkata Police said, We have received a complaint in this regard. We are investigating the matter. No one has been arrested so far. Icons like Sonam Wangchuk, Arup Raha and Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty graced the concluding event of the silver jubilee of Dr B C Roy Engineering College, Durgapur. The event marked the culmination of a year filled with achievements, reflections and celebrations commemorating the institutions 25 years of excellence in technical education. Advertisement The programme was graced by several eminent personalities. Magsaysay awardee, innovator, education reformist and environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk attended as the chief guest, while Air Chief Marshal (Retd.) Arup Raha was the special guest. The audience was also privileged to witness a soulful musical performance by Padma Bhushan Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, who was a guest of honour. Advertisement The concluding ceremony started form the college campus in the morning through different kinds of cultural programmes. Mr Wangchuk delivered his speech with digital presentation on alternative education and environmental concerns. Mr Arup Raha also delivered a brief speech congratulating the college authority for sustaining 25 years with many excellent achievements. Alongside the distinguished guests, other notable attendees included S Ponnambalam, DM, Dr Sourav Chatterjee, SDM, Durgapur, Swami Somatmananda Maharaj (secretary, Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama Asansol), Prof Anupam Basu, advisor, Dr B C Roy Engineering College, Durgapur. The welcome address was by Prof (Dr) Sanjay S Pawar, principal of the college. It was followed by Dr Satyajit Bose (president, Dr B C Roy Engineering College), S Ponnambalam, (district magistrate, West Burdwan) and Tarun Bhattacharya, general secretary of Dr B C Roy Engineering College, Durgapur. Arup Raha appealed to the students citing various aspects of the industrial revolution in Europe and America to think of inventing critical technologies for India. Sonam Wangchuk envisioned the contributions of Dr B C Roy and how climate change is an important concern and how with innovations like heat transfer, artificial glaciers etc, every individual can contribute to help lessen the global environmental crisis situation. He also mentioned how natural intelligence is also important in this age of emerging artificial intelligence. The development of the nation is to serve the people in our country by indigenous little inventions. The event was attended by students from all four colleges under Dr B C Roy Engineering College Society, faculty members, staff, and heads of various institutions, including schools and colleges, making it a memorable and inclusive celebration. The dignitaries unveiled the special souvenir named Reflection 25 from the dais. The Delhi Police visited Rajkot city in Gujarat to question five people associated with Rajesh Sakaria, who allegedly attacked Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, an official said on Friday. Sakaria, 41, who is from Rajkots Kotharia Road area, was arrested by the police on the charge of attempted murder for attacking CM Gupta on Wednesday, during her public interaction program in Delhi. Advertisement Preliminary investigation in the case revealed that the accused, an auto-rickshaw driver and dog lover, was upset by the Supreme Courts recent directive to capture and relocate stray dogs in Delhi to shelter homes. Advertisement While Sakariya came to Delhi, he was in contact with five people in Rajkot, said Jagdish Bangarva, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-2 of Rajkot). Adding to his statement, he mentioned, Officers from Delhi came to Rajkot and conducted a thorough questioning with the five who were in contact with Sakariya, including the autorickshaw driver who had sent Rs 2,000 to the accused through GPay. The team has left after questioning them, he said. However, according to sources, the police have detained the autorickshaw driver and are bringing him to Delhi for further investigation into this case. During the inquiry in Rajkot, the officers found that Sakaria travelled to Delhi through Ujjain on Tuesday to participate in a protest against the SC ruling on stray dogs. The accuseds mother, Bhanuben, who also vouched for his love for stray dogs, said he was upset over the recent Supreme Court order about strays in Delhi. Following his arrest by the Delhi Police, it was revealed that, prior to this matter, he was booked in five cases between 2017 and 2024 at Bhaktinagar police station (in Rajkot), mostly for cases related to assault and possession of liquor. While two FIRs were related to assault and criminal intimidation, three others were for the alleged possession and transportation of liquor, Bangarva said. Actress Swara Bhasker has chosen to use her platform for something far beyond movies and celebrity life by supporting Palestine. She recently stood with protestors in Mumbai, lending her voice to the ongoing demonstrations in support of Palestine. At the protest, Swara made her stance very clear. She reminded people that the conflict did not begin on October 7, when Hamas carried out its attack. According to her, the world cannot speak about hostages without also speaking about the thousands of Palestinians who have lost their lives. Advertisement They are only trying to stay alive, she said. She went on to accuse the Israeli regime of openly declaring its aim to wipe Palestinians from the earth. Advertisement The actress has added Free Palestine to her X (Twitter) bio. Her stand has come at a cost, she has been at the receiving end of trolling, and she is losing Instagram followers by the day. At the time of writing this, the worlds top authority on food crises sounded a chilling alarm. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), famine has already gripped Gaza City, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people. Unless a ceasefire is declared and aid is allowed in, the famine is expected to spread further south, to areas like Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, by the end of next month. The IPCs warning comes after months of alerts from international aid groups. They have repeatedly said that restrictions on food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian aid, combined with the military offensive, are creating unbearable suffering for ordinary Palestinians. One of the three criminals who fired indiscriminately at the house of controversial YouTuber and Bigg Boss OTT winner Elvish Yadav in Gurugram last week, was arrested after a police encounter in Faridabad on Friday morning. The man who has been identified as Ishant Gandhi, fired over half-a-dozen rounds at the Faridabad Crime Branch team with an automatic pistol, forcing the police to fire back at him in retaliation. Advertisement Ishant Gandhi was shot in the leg by the cops and subsequently arrested. Later he was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Advertisement According to police, Ishant Gandhi is a resident of Jawahar Colony in Faridabad, and the police are interrogating him to find out about the other men who accompanied him during the shooting, and to determine which criminal syndicate the three shooters belong to. The firing outside Elvish Yadavs house in Gurugram took place on August 17 when three masked men arrived at the house in Sector 56 around 5:30 A.M. and fired at least 25 bullets. Though Elvish Yadav was not at home at the time of the shooting incident, his family members and caretaker were in the house at that time. According to the police Elvish Yadav had gone outside Haryana for some work and fortunately, no one from his family or staff were injured in the firing. Hours after the shooting the notorious Himanshu Bhau gang had taken responsibility for the firing in a post on social media. The gang had accused Elvish Yadav of promoting gambling and running many families. The social media post, purportedly by the gang, stated, Today, the bullets that were fired at Elvish Yadavs house were fired by us, Neeraj Faridpur and Bhau Ritoliya. Today, we have introduced ourselves to him. He has ruined many homes by promoting betting. And all these social media bugs, we are warning that if anyone is found promoting betting, they can get a call or a bullet at any time. So, all those who are into betting, be ready. Its been two days since Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was attacked during a public meeting at her official residence in the national capital and no visuals of the incident have made it to the public domain so far. Now, the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has raised questions over the unavailability of CCTV footage of the incident that sent shockwaves across the city. AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj Friday accused the Delhi Police of attempting to hide the CCTV footage of the attack in a bid to cover their failure. Advertisement We are glad that in Rekha Guptas case, the police have registered an FIR, but I believe that the police are hiding the CCTV footage of the incident to cover up their failure, Bharadwaj told news agency ANI. Advertisement Comparing the incident with previous such attacks on former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Bharadwaj alleged that the cases involving the AAP convenor were deliberately kept weak. He added that the Delhi Police had done the right thing this time to register a case of attempt to murder. It was the duty of the police to register a case of attempt to murder in such attacks earlier, and the accused should have been taken into police custody so that such activities do not happen again, as was done in the case of Rekha Gupta. But in Arvind Kejriwals case, the matter was deliberately kept weak, security was lax, and whenever an attack occurred, it was said that the people of Delhi are angry, the AAP leader said. He pointed out that no one has so far seen the CCTV footage of CM Rekha Guptas attack incident, while the attacks on Arvind Kejriwal were recorded and streamed everywhere. #WATCH | Delhi | On the attack on CM Rekha Gupta, AAP State President Saurabh Bharadwaj said, Before this, several attacks have been made on Arvind Kejriwal While we havent seen CCTV footage of an attack on Rekha Gupta yet, attacks on Arvind Kejriwal were recorded and pic.twitter.com/R7oUxAawjR ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Rekha Gupta attack investigation update Meanwhile, the Delhi Police today detained a friend of the main accused Rajesh Khimji, in Rajkot. The unidentified friend has been picked up for allegedly transferring money into Rajeshs account. The Delhi Police is also keeping a watch on 10 other people who were in contact with the accused through calls and messages. Rajesh had attacked and assaulted Delhi CM Gupta at her Civil Lines residence on Wednesday during the Jan Sunvai programme. The accused was swiftly nabbed and was later sent to five-day police custody. Meanwhile, CM Gupta Friday attended her first public programme since the attack two days ago. She travelled to Ashok Bazar in Gandhi Nagar to take part in a scheduled event. The police put in place tight security measures and paramilitary police personnel were also deployed to ensure security for the Delhi chief minister. CM Rekha Guptas security has already been upgraded to Z-category following the attack. Her security is being provided by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Earlier, on Thursday, the CM had spoken on the issue and reaffirmed her commitment to public service. Gupta posted on X that she would continue her work for the people of Delhi despite facing unexpected blows. Gen Upendra Dwivedi, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), is scheduled to undertake an official visit to Algeria in the coming week. This will be his first overseas visit after Operation Sindoor, underscoring the Armys growing role in strengthening Indias strategic engagements abroad. Upendra Dwivedi, Army Chief, Algeria Visit The Indian Army Chief is expected to discuss strengthening Army-to-Army ties, expanding training exchanges, and enhancing capability development initiatives. With Algeria operating predominantly similar equipment, India is well positioned to share operational expertise, provide maintenance and training support, and promote collaboration in defence technologies. The two sides are also expected to explore opportunities for defence industrial partnership, particularly in areas of modernisation, logistics, and equipment support. Advertisement Gen Dwivedi will also share Indias strategic vision of zero tolerance for terrorism and exchange perspectives on regional and global security challenges. These deliberations are expected to contribute to building trust, interoperability, and practical cooperation between the two militaries. Advertisement India views Algeria as a natural partner in its outreach to Africa and the Mediterranean, given its pivotal role as a gateway to the MaghrebSahelMediterranean region. Algerias position as a security anchor for the Sahel, an energy powerhouse with oil, gas, and rare earth reserves, and its robust and modernised military make it a vital partner in advancing peace and stability in the wider region. General Dwivedis forthcoming visit is thus expected to inject fresh momentum into IndiaAlgeria relations, reinforcing shared values of sovereignty, non-alignment, and SouthSouth cooperation, while anchoring long-term defence and security collaboration between the two armies, the spokesperson stated. Turkiye has begun allowing passport-based crossings at its land border gates with Syria, the Turkish Interior Ministry said Wednesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday praised the governments efforts to strengthen metro infrastructure in West Bengal, saying the launch of new services in Kolkata reflects how the government of India is transforming Indias cities. During his address, PM Modi lauded the government of India by saying, The Government of India is making every possible effort for the development of West Bengal. Today, West Bengal has become one of those states in the country where railway electrification has been completed 100 per cent. For a long time, there has been a demand for a MEMU train between Purulia and Howrah, and the Government of India has fulfilled this demand of the people as well. Advertisement He said it is a matter of pride that India now has the worlds third-largest metro network. Before 2014, the country had only 250 km of metro lines, but today it has grown to over 1,000 km. In Kolkata too, the metro has expanded with seven new stations, which will make life and travel much easier for the people of the city. Advertisement Therefore, the message of todays program is even greater than the inauguration of the metro and the foundation laying of the highway, he stated. This event is also proof of how todays India is transforming its cities, he further stated. #WATCH | Kolkata, West Bengal | PM Narendra Modi says, Today once again I got the opportunity to accelerate development in West BengalEveryone is happy that Kolkatas public transport has progressedI congratulate the people of Kolkata for these development projects pic.twitter.com/UfIdQMn1aS ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 Cities like Kolkata are the rich identity of both Indias history and our future. Today, as India moves towards becoming the worlds third-largest economy the role of Dumdum, Kolkata these cities is immense, he said. Today, the foundation stone for the 6-lane elevated Kona Expressway was also laid here. Heartiest congratulations to the people of Kolkata and the entire West Bengal for all these projects worth thousands of crores of rupees. He further said, Today, once again, I got the opportunity to accelerate development in West BengalEveryone is happy that Kolkatas public transport has progressedI congratulate the people of Kolkata for these development projects Everyone is happy that Kolkatas public transport is truly becoming modern. Today, the foundation stone for the six-lane elevated Kona Expressway has also been laid. Congratulations to the people of Kolkata on these projects worth crores of rupees, he said. The Prime Minister inaugurated metro services on the newly built stretches in Kolkata. He also laid the foundation stone and dedicated development projects worth over 5,200 crore in the city. PM Modi took metro ride and interacted with school students and construction workers involved in the metro projects. PM Modi flagged off the NoaparaJai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road Metro Station and SealdahEsplanade metro service and the BeleghataHemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed key issues of the bilateral agenda between the two nations, and contemporary global issues of mutual interest, including the developments related to Ukraine. During his meeting with the Russian President at the Kremlin on Thursday, Dr Jaishankar conveyed personal greetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. Advertisement Jaishankar visited Russia from August 19-21 to co-chair the 26th Session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological, and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). Advertisement The External Affairs Ministers three-day visit to Russia, which concluded on Thursday, was held amid escalating trade tensions between India and the United States over Indias oil purchases from Russia. US President Donald Trump recently increased tariffs imposed on Indian goods to 50 per cent, in what is seen as a sign of his frustration over failing to stop the Russia-Ukraine war. Concluding an important three-day visit to Russia, the External Affairs Minister reaffirmed the strength and depth of the India-Russia strategic partnership. During the three-day visit, the External Affairs Minister called on Russian President Vladimir Putin and held meetings with Russias First Deputy Prime Minister, Denis Manturov, and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov. Jaishankar also interacted with prominent scholars and think tanks. On August 20, the External Affairs Minister co-chaired the 26th Session of the IRIGC-TEC with First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. It was emphasised that addressing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, removing bottlenecks in logistics, promoting connectivity, effecting payment mechanisms smoothly, timely finalisation and execution of the Programme of Economic Cooperation till 2030, the early conclusion of the India-Eurasian Economic Union FTA, whose terms of reference were finalised, and regular interaction between the businesses of the two countries, were among the key elements for timely achievement of the revised bilateral trade target of USD 100 billion by 2030. The importance of sustaining energy cooperation through trade and investments was highlighted. The issue of mobility of Indian skilled workers, especially in IT, construction, and engineering, was also discussed. Following the conclusion of the Plenary Session, the Co-Chairs signed a Protocol for the 26th Session of IRIGC-TEC. Jaishankar and Manturov spoke at the India-Russia Business Forum, which followed the IRIGC-TEC meetings. The Forum saw participation from a wide range of stakeholders, including officials as well as representatives from businesses and industries from both sides. It was considered to have a coordination mechanism between the Business Forum and the different Working Groups of the IRIGC. On August 21, the External Affairs Minister met Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and undertook a comprehensive review of the entire gamut of IndiaRussia bilateral relations, including in sectors like trade and economic cooperation, various connectivity initiatives, political, defence, and military-technical cooperation, fast-tracking of opening of two new Indian Consulates in Kazan and Yekaterinburg, etc. On global and multilateral cooperation, both sides reaffirmed their shared commitment to reform of global governance, and collaboration in G20, BRICS, and the SCO, the MEA said in a statement. Jaishankar underlined the imperative to expand and energise the UN Security Council to reflect contemporary realities. Regional developments such as those in Ukraine, the Middle East, West Asia, and Afghanistan were discussed, the statement added. The External Affairs Minister reiterated Indias approach to emphasise dialogue and diplomacy as essential to resolving differences. He also raised the issue of Indians serving in the Russian Army and hoped for an expeditious resolution of the pending cases. On terrorism, both sides resolved to fight jointly against all forms and manifestations of terrorism. Jaishankar conveyed Indias strong resolve to adopt a zerotolerance policy against terrorism and its sovereign right to defend Indian citizens against cross-border terrorism. Both sides discussed preparations for the forthcoming Annual Summit between the leaders, including its key deliverables and outcomes. The External Affairs Minister invited Lavrov to pay a visit to India at a mutually convenient date to continue their dialogue. The city of Nawabs is preparing to give a grand welcome to the city boy, Group Captain Subhanshu Shukla, the first Indian astronaut to return from the International Space Station, here on August 25. Lucknow Municipal Corporation will organize a historic celebration on the day, while a victory parade has been planned from Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport to Gomti Nagar Extension. Advertisement On this occasion, welcome gates will be built at various prominent places in the city. Also, councilors, municipal corporation officers and employees will be present under the leadership of Mayor Sushma Kharkwal to welcome him. Advertisement The road outside his residence in Tribeni Nagar is being freshly laid, a symbolic gesture to honour the national heros arrival. The road outside his house would be named after Shubhanshu. His parents, Shambhu Dayal Shukla and Asha Shukla, informed the media on Friday that the entire family would be going to the airport to receive him. They had already met him in Delhi when Shubhanshu reached from the USA last week. Meanwhile, City Montessori School (CMS) has announced to hold a grand victory parade at Janeshwar Mishra Park from 0930 hrs on August 25 in honour of National Hero Gaganyatri Shubhanshu. Shubhanshu is an alumnus of CMS. Maneka Gandhi, an animal rights activist and former Union Minister, on Friday appreciated the Supreme Courts decision that called off sending the stray dogs in the Delhi-NCR region to be captured and relocated to shelter homes within eight weeks from the announcement of the verdict. She called the new order a practical step that directs civic agencies to capture, neuter, and release the strays back to the same location. Speaking with a news agency, Gandhi said, I am very happy with the Supreme Courts new decision because the earlier order was not feasible to implement. Capturing all dogs and relocating them elsewhere is simply impossible. Advertisement The wave of jubilation spread among the animal rights activists across the national capital. Gauri Maulekhi, associated with animal welfare group People For Animals (PFA), hailed the Supreme Courts decision, calling it a balanced order that will benefit people, improve public health, and certainly offer relief to the animals. Advertisement We are deeply grateful for todays Supreme Court order upholding the rule of law and reinstating the Animal Birth Control laws, 2023, that were set aside in the previous order, she added while talking to an agency. Maulekhi emphasised that dogs cannot simply be removed. They must be caught, sterilised, vaccinated, dewormed, and released back to the same location, except in cases where they are aggressive or show symptoms of rabies, a provision included in the earlier law, she added. However, Gandhi sought clarity about the definition of aggressive dogs, a category included in the Courts order. Often, people complain a dog is aggressive simply because it stared at them or approached their car. But what truly defines aggression? The Supreme Court will have to clarify this in the next session, she said. While she lauded the revised order, which reinstates the long-standing practice followed for nearly 25 years. Former Union Minister expressed concern over the 800 dogs reportedly picked up by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in the last two weeks. These dogs have vanished. They were not kept in any shelter but dumped along the Yamuna riverbanks, where water levels are rising. No one knows what has happened to them. If they were indeed aggressive, then why were they left in the open? This contradicts the law itself, as they can wander into nearby colonies, she added. Gandhi and Maulekhi welcomed the Courts order that permits feeding at designated spots to avoid inconvenience caused to the residents. However, they added that what we need is proper implementation. Gandhi further revealed that several Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres had written to the authorities stating that they lack sufficient space to manage the rising number of sterilisation cases, underscoring the urgent need to expand infrastructure. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that not even a single missile of Pakistan could harm India while talking about Operation Sindoor. He said Operation Sindoor has established a new line of defence. during his address in Gayaji, Bihar. Launched in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, Operation Sindoor was carried out as a swift retaliatory strike, destroying nine terror targets in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Advertisement Not even a single missile of Pakistan could harm India while talking about Operation Sindoor. Operation Sindoor has established a new line of defence. At the same time, Pakistan was sending drones and missiles to India. India was destroying them into bits, he stated. Advertisement #WATCH | PM Narendra Modi says, Remember the condition here during the rule of lantern (RJD). This region was in the clutches of red terror. Cities like Gaya Ji were in darkness during the rule of lantern (RJD) They had pushed the entire state into darkness. There was pic.twitter.com/bOxR8Zx4tW ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 PM Narendra Modi stated, Remember the condition here during the rule of the lantern (RJD). This region was in the clutches of red terror. Cities like Gaya Ji were in darkness during the rule of lantern (RJD) They had pushed the entire state into darkness. There was no education or employment. So many generations were forced to migrate. RJD considers the people of Bihar only as their vote bank. They want nothing to do with their life, sorrows, or respect. He added, Bihar is the land of Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. Bihar has consistently been the backbone of the country. Every resolve made on this pious land is the strength of the country and doesnt go in vain. When the Pahalgam terror attack happened, I had vowed to reduce the terrorists to dust from this land. The world has seen that resolve getting fulfilled. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched and inaugurated several projects worth about 13,000 crore in Gaya, Bihar. Before the event, he also held a roadshow in the city, joined by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy CMs Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Sinha. He flagged off two new trains the Amrit Bharat Express between Gaya and Delhi, designed with modern facilities for passenger comfort, and the Buddhist Circuit Train between Vaishali and Koderma to boost tourism and religious travel in the region. The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone for urban projects worth around 1,260 crore. These include sewerage treatment plants and networks in Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Lakhisarai, and Jamui, along with new water supply projects under AMRUT 2.0 in Aurangabad, Bodhgaya, and Jehanabad. These will improve clean water access, sanitation, and health conditions. A major highlight was the inauguration of the Aunta-Simaria bridge on NH-31, an 8.15 km project including a 1.86 km, six-lane bridge over the Ganga. Built at a cost of 1,870 crore, the bridge will ease travel between Mokama and Begusarai, cut detours of over 100 km for heavy vehicles, and reduce traffic congestion. It will also improve connectivity to Simaria Dham, the birthplace of poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, and help economic growth in North Bihar. PM Modi also opened the four-lane BakhtiyarpurMokama stretch of NH-31, worth 1,900 crore, and upgrades to NH-120 in Rohtas and Buxar districts, improving rural connectivity and creating new economic opportunities. In the power sector, he inaugurated the Buxar Thermal Power Plant (660 MW), built at a cost of 6,880 crore, which will boost electricity generation and energy security in Bihar. For healthcare, the PM inaugurated the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Muzaffarpur, which features modern labs, operation theatres, ICU and HDU facilities, and affordable advanced cancer care for patients in Bihar and nearby states. Lastly, under the Namami Gange programme, he inaugurated a 520 crore sewerage plant and network in Munger, aimed at cutting pollution in the Ganga and improving sanitation. The Supreme Court on Friday said voters in Bihar who wish to challenge their exclusion from the electoral roll ahead of the upcoming election may use Aadhaar as proof of residence. The court directed the Election Commission to add Aadhaar to the existing list of 11 acceptable documents. Advertisement Hearing petitions against the special intensive revision of the voter list, the bench clarified that applications for re-inclusion can now be filed with either Aadhaar or any of the other listed documents. Advertisement The Supreme Court expressed surprise at the inaction of political parties in the Bihar voter list revision. The apex court noted that only two objections were raised by booth-level agents of parties, despite 85,000 new voters being added during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). We will allow online submission of claims for deleted voters with an Aadhaar card or any other acceptable documents for the Bihar SIR, the bench said. The Supreme Court said a person, on their own or with the assistance of BLAs (booth-level agents) is entitled to apply online and does not necessarily have to apply in physical form. It added that BLAs of all political parties are directed to make an endeavour that approximately 65 lakh persons not included in the draft rolls are facilitated, except those who are dead or have voluntarily migrated, in submitting their objections by the cutoff date of September 1. The Supreme Court stated that wherever physical forms are submitted, BLOs are to acknowledge receipt, but such acknowledgement shall not be proof that the form is complete in all respects. The Supreme Court is to hear on September 8 a batch of pleas challenging the poll panels move to conduct SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar. Earlier, the Election Commission had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying the list of names and details of 65 lakh electors in Bihar who were not included in the draft roll published on August 1 had been posted on the websites of all 38 District Electoral Officers in the state. The list also contained the reasons for their non-inclusion, including death, shifting of ordinary residence, or duplicate entries, the ECI told the Supreme Court. The ECI said physical copies of the list have been displayed in Panchayat Bhavans, block development offices, and Panchayat offices in villages across Bihar for people to easily access them and enable inquiry. Amid the ongoing tariff tensions between India and the United States, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake a two-nation visit to Japan and China from August 29 to September 1, which includes participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. The SCO summit will be held in Tianjin in China from August 31 to September 1. Advertisement The visit of the prime minister comes amid escalating trade tensions with the United States over Indias oil purchases from Russia. US President Donald Trump recently increased tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent, in what is seen as a sign of his frustration over failing to stop the Russia-Ukraine war. Advertisement At the invitation of the Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan from 29-30 August 2025 to participate in the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit. This will be Prime Minister Modis eighth visit to Japan, and the first Summit with Prime Minister Ishiba, the MEA said in a statement. During the visit, the two prime ministers will review the Special Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan, including defense and security, trade and economy, technology and innovation, and people to people exchanges, as well as discuss issues of regional and global importance. The visit will reaffirm the longstanding special bond of friendship between the two countries, the statement further said. In the second leg of his visit, at the invitation of the President of China, Xi Jinping, PM Modi will travel to the neighbouring country on a visit from August 31 to September 1 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin. On the sidelines of the Summit, he is expected to hold bilateral meetings with several leaders attending the Summit. India has been a member of SCO since 2017. It held the presidency of the Council of Heads of State of SCO during 2022-23, the MEA added. In continuation of the ongoing engagement, earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met PM Modi and handed over a message and an invitation from President Xi Jinping for the SCO Summit in Tianjin, China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to India from August 18 to 19. PM Modi received Wang Yi, Member of the Politburo of the Communist Party and Foreign Minister of China. Mr. Wang Yi handed over a message and an invitation from President Xi to the Prime Minister for the SCO Summit being held in Tianjin. He also shared his positive assessment of the bilateral meeting with EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar and the 24th Meeting of the Special Representatives, which he co-chaired with NSA Ajit Doval during his visit, Prime Minister Office said in a release. The prime minister emphasised the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border, and reiterated Indias commitment to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question. He thanked President Xi for the invitation to the SCO Summit and conveyed his acceptance. He expressed support for Chinas Presidency of the SCO Summit and said that he looked forward to meeting President Xi in Tianjin. The PM underlined that stable, predictable, and constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional and global peace and prosperity, an official statement issued by PMO read. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Bihar and West Bengal today. He will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar at around 11 AM, according to the Prime Ministers Office press release. He will also flag off two trains and address the gathering. Thereafter, he will visit and inaugurate the Aunta-Simaria bridge project on the River Ganga. The Prime Minister will flag off metro train services on the newly constructed sections in Kolkata at around 4:15 PM and undertake a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back, added the release. Advertisement Further, he will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore at Kolkata. He will also address the gathering on the occasion. In line with his commitment to improving connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the 8.15 km long Aunta Simaria bridge project on NH-31, including the 1.86 km long 6 lane Bridge on river Ganga, constructed at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore. It will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai, the release added. The bridge has been constructed parallel to an old 2-lane dilapidated rail-cum-road bridge Rajendra Setu which is in poor condition, forcing heavy vehicles to re-route. The new bridge will reduce the extra travel distance of more than 100 km for heavy vehicles travelling between North Bihar (Begusarai, Supaul, Madhubani, Purnea, Araria, etc.) and South Bihar areas (Sheikhpura, Nawada, Lakhisarai, etc.). Advertisement It will also help alleviate traffic congestion in other parts of the region by reducing the detour that these vehicles were forced to take. It will boost economic growth in the adjoining areas, especially in North Bihar, which relies on South Bihar and Jharkhand for the necessary raw materials. It will also provide better connectivity to the famous pilgrimage place of Simaria Dham, which is also the birthplace of the famous poet Late Shri Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. The Prime Minister will also inaugurate the four-lane Bakhtiyarpur to Mokama section of NH-31, worth around Rs 1,900 crore, which will ease congestion, reduce travel time, and enhance passenger and freight movement. Further, improvement to the two-lane with paved shoulders of the Bikramganj-Dawath-Nawanagar-Dumraon section of NH-120 in Bihar will improve connectivity in rural areas, providing new economic opportunities for the local population, added the release. Strengthening the power sector infrastructure in Bihar, the Prime Minister will inaugurate Buxar Thermal Power Plant (6601 MW) worth around Rs 6,880 crore. It will significantly enhance power generation capacity, improve energy security, and meet the growing electricity demand of the region. In a major boost to health infrastructure, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital & Research Centre at Muzaffarpur. The centre includes advanced Oncology OPD, IPD wards, operation theatres, a modern lab, a blood bank, and a 24-bed ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and HDU (High Dependency Unit). This state-of-the-art facility will provide advanced and affordable cancer care to patients in Bihar and neighbouring states, reducing the need to travel to distant metros for treatment, said the release. Furthering his vision of Swachh Bharat and ensuring Aviral and Nirmal Dhara of the river Ganga, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) and Sewerage Network at Munger constructed under Namami Gange worth over Rs 520 crore. It will help reduce pollution load in the Ganga and improve sanitation facilities in the region. The Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone for a series of urban infrastructure projects worth around Rs 1,260 crore. These include the STP and Sewerage Network at Daudnagar in Aurangabad, and Jehanabad; STP and interception and diversion works at Barahiya in Lakhisarai, and Jamui. Under AMRUT 2.0, he will lay the foundation stone of Water Supply Projects at Aurangabad, Bodhgaya and Jehanabad. These projects will provide clean drinking water, modern sewerage systems, and improved sanitation, thereby improving health standards and quality of life in the region. Boosting rail connectivity in the region, the Prime Minister will flag off two trains. Amrit Bharat Express, which will improve passenger convenience with modern facilities, comfort, and safety, operates between Gaya and Delhi. The Buddhist Circuit Train between Vaishali and Koderma will give a boost to tourism and religious travel across key Buddhist sites in the region. Grih Pravesh ceremonies for 12,000 rural beneficiaries under PMAY-Gramin and 4,260 beneficiaries under PMAY-Urban will also take place, with the symbolic handing over of keys to a few beneficiaries by the Prime Minister, thus fulfilling the dream of owning a house for thousands of families. In line with his commitment to world-class infrastructure and developed urban connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate metro railway projects in Kolkata. A 13.61 km-long newly constructed metro network will be inaugurated, and metro services will be launched on these routes. He will visit the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he will flag off the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road, added the release. In addition, through video conferencing, he will also flag off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. He will also undertake a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. At the public function, the Prime Minister will inaugurate these metro sections and a newly constructed subway at Howrah Metro Station. The Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service will significantly improve access to the airport. The Sealdah-Esplanade metro will reduce the travel time between the two points from nearly 40 minutes to only 11 minutes. The Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro section will play a crucial role in enhancing connectivity with the IT hub. These metro routes will connect some of Kolkatas busiest areas, bring a notable reduction in travel time, and strengthen multimodal connectivity, benefiting lakhs of daily commuters, added the release. In a significant boost to road infrastructure in the region, the Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone of the 7.2 km-long six-lane elevated Kona Expressway worth over Rs 1,200 crore. It will enhance connectivity between Howrah, the surrounding rural areas, and Kolkata, saving hours of travel time and giving a significant boost to trade, commerce, and tourism in the region. Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that due to an atmosphere of political instability in the past, India was deprived of long-term policies, badly affecting the countrys overall progress. Despite the adoption of a multi-party parliamentary democratic system with good intentions, several flaws began polluting the democratic process from the third decade of independence, the Union Home Minister said while addressing an event in Kochi. Advertisement The issues such as casteism, dynastic politics, and appeasement were affecting the countrys mandate like a festering wound, the minister, as per an official release issued here, said. Advertisement Moreover, the fourth issue, corruption, was not only hindering the nations progress but also mocking the peoples mandate, Shah observed. Due to an atmosphere of instability, the country was deprived of long-term policies. After Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, a new era of politics of performance began, replacing casteism, dynastic politics, and appeasement, and the entire country is experiencing this transformation today, he said. PM Modi has successfully eliminated corruption both systemically and through policy measures, he stated. Due to the stability in the country, whether it is ensuring internal and external security, initiating a new phase of infrastructure development, or making the nation prosperous, PM Modi has ushered in a new era of long-term and clear policies in every field, Shah noted. Earlier, the country was a victim of economic instability. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee successfully brought our economy to the 11th position globally. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did commendable work and ensured that the economy did not slip from the 11th to the 12th position, maintaining its stability, he highlighted. Over the past 11 years, PM Modi has elevated our economy from the 11th position to one of the top four economies in the world, he added. Significant progress has been made in every sector, whether it is infrastructure development, leading in new economies and technologies that will influence the global economy over the next 25 years, or creating a robust support system for start-ups to provide opportunities for the youth to project themselves on the global stage, Shah said. The Northeast, left-wing extremism, and Jammu and Kashmir were persistent challenges to internal security. In these three areas, there has been a 70 per cent reduction in violent incidents, a 70 per cent reduction in mortality rates, and a 74 per cent reduction in the deaths of security forces, he claimed. The union government has developed a robust mechanism to combat terrorism, which has yielded positive results. Talking about Kerala, he said the state has immense potential, but a peculiar kind of ideological apathy is hindering the exploration and harnessing of these opportunities. Shah said that the apathetic development model stemming from Left ideology is obstructing Keralas progress. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hit out at the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for opposing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by the Election Commission ahead of the Bihar assembly elections. Alleging that the states demography is changing due to a rise in infiltrators, the Prime Minister said Bihar must be protected from the buri nazar of Congress and RJD. He accused both parties of supporting infiltrators to build a vote bank and pursue appeasement politics. Advertisement PM Modi further announced that the NDA will soon launch a Demography Mission, under which every infiltrator will be expelled from the country. Advertisement While addressing the people in Gayaji, PM Modi said, From the ramparts of the Red Fort, I talked about one more danger, that danger is looming on Bihar, as well as the country. The number of infiltrators is increasing. In many areas of Bihar, the demography is changing, and the NDA has resolved that the nations future will not be determined by infiltrators. They will not be allowed to take away employment opportunities. We have decided to launch a Demography Mission, which will begin work soon, and every infiltrator will be removed from the country, he said. You tell me, whether infiltrators should remain in the country or not. RJD and Congress want to snatch the rights of people of Bihar ad want to give it to infiltrators, to increase their vote banks. The are doing it for appeasement. We need to save Bihar from buri nazar of Congress and RJD, he stated. PM Modi on Friday launched and inaugurated several projects worth about 13,000 crore in Gaya, Bihar. Before the event, he also held a roadshow in the city, joined by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy CMs Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Sinha. Opposition protests against Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar Opposition parties had staged protest outside Parliament against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar, alleging bias and demanding a parliamentary discussion on the issue. The protest, led by the INDIA bloc leaders, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi, among others, aimed to highlight concerns over voter suppression and potential electoral manipulation. The opposition parties have been consistently raising their voices against the SIR exercise, claiming it is an attempt to disenfranchise certain sections of voters. Loktantra par var (attack on democracy) and Stop SIR were some of the slogans raised during the protest. The opposition has been demanding a discussion in Parliament to address concerns over the SIR exercise. They are seeking a fair review process to ensure that no genuine voter is left out due to the SIR exercise. Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav are conducting a 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar, protesting against the Election Commissions Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming state elections. The Voter Adhikar Yatra is being seen as the latest effort by the opposition to highlight concerns over voter disenfranchisement and electoral transparency in the lead-up to the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. BUDAPEST, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto, together with Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar, has sent a joint letter to senior European Union (EU) officials, urging the European Commission to take immediate action following an attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline at the Russian-Belarusian border. "This vital pipeline has been attacked for the third time, and now oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia will stop for at least five days," Szijjarto wrote. Crude oil deliveries to Hungary were suspended again following the overnight strike on the Druzhba pipeline, Szijjarto confirmed Friday morning. Despite the disruption, Hungarian oil and gas group MOL assured that regional supply security will be maintained, citing reserves and access to an alternative route via the Adriatic pipeline from Croatia. In a Facebook post earlier in the day, Szijjarto denounced the incident as "a direct assault on the country's energy security" and "an attempt to drag Hungary into the war," adding that Hungary would continue to support peace efforts with all its strength while safeguarding its national interests. The Druzhba pipeline had already been struck earlier this week, on Monday, prompting a temporary halt in supplies. The Supreme Court will pronounce its order on Friday on pleas challenging its August 11 directive to round up all stray dogs in the Delhi-NCR region and keep them in designated shelters within eight weeks. A three-judge bench led by justice Vikram Nath, and also comprising justices Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria, had reserved its order on August 14. Advertisement The bench ruling will decide the fate of thousands of stray dogs roaming freely in the national capital and its adjoining cities. Advertisement On August 11, a bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan had directed municipal authorities in Delhi to start rounding up stray dogs, prioritising vulnerable localities, and to set up shelters with at least 5,000-dog capacity within eight weeks. However, directive triggered widespread protests from animal rights activists and individual dog lovers, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, who termed the top courts directive cruel and shortsighted. Also Read: SC warns dog lovers of stern action if they come in way of authorities picking-up stray dogs The apex courts order also received a sharp reaction from animal rights watchdog PETA India. In a statement, PETA India said that the removal of all stray dogs from streets in Delhi-NCR is not scientific and the move will lead to their starvation. Several people also took to streets to proteat against the Supreme Court directive. A group of animal rights activists held demonetisations in front of India Gate. The matter was mentioned before Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai, citing overlapping SC proceedings on stray dogs before different Benches. Following this, CJI Gavai constituted a three-judge bench was to hear the issue. Union Minister Suresh Gopis son Madhav Suresh was taken into police custody late Thursday night following a road rage incident involving Congress leader Vinod Krishna near Sasthamangalam here. Vinod Krishna was also taken into custody by the police. According to the police, the car Madhav was travelling in was going from Sasthamangalam to Vellayambalam when it collided with the vehicle being driven by Vinod Krishna, which was taking a U-turn from the opposite direction. The two got into an argument as there was no space for the cars to pass. Advertisement Eyewitnesses present at the scene said that Madhav blocked Vinod Krishnas car and got into an argument. Advertisement The police reached the spot after being informed by people who alleged that Madhav was drunk. However, a breathalyzer test by police confirmed that Madhav was not intoxicated. Madhav told the police that he saw Vinod Krishna talking on the phone and driving.The officers then asked both parties if they wanted to register complaints. After discussions, both parties decided not to proceed with the case. Following this, both were released. In the Indian nationalist movement, personalities and ideas emerged and evolved in response to British rule over a period of two centuries, first by the English East India Company and from 1858 the British parliament. Bengal, the seat of British rule saw the emergence of a nascent English-speaking educated class in administration and allied professions like law and commerce. Macaulay understood that long-term rule would require incorporation of certain sections of educated Indians, who were subsequently referred to as brown sahibs. He also streamlined the administration with strict rules for British colonial administrators to justify the White Mans rule as being better than that of the natives. A typical example of this period was Dwarkanath Tagore, grandfather of Rabindranath who was involved in a number of successful business enterprises. The real break in comprehending the nature of British rule and the task before India at that initial stage was best projected by Raja Rammohan Roy, the first modern man in India who emphasized on certain universal values like recognizing the historic importance of the French Revolution, meeting Bentham and fighting for the freedom of the press, comparable to Milton who in 1644 opposed censorship and upheld a free press for ascertaining truth and furthering social progress. Advertisement Rammohun also realised the urgent need for reforming a stagnant society in view of the prevailing inhuman practices including sati. He accepted the fact that India was in a situation of backwardness and was confident that its encounter with a more advanced order would be beneficial as it would imbibe a scientific temper, toleration, and the rule of law. He was of the view that Indias apprenticeship would be long, one that would last a century and half. His demands for civil liberties and political reforms reappeared as the demands of the early Congress. Advertisement Ranades Prarthana Samaj followed Rammohuns footprints and even Dayanand went to Calcutta to imbibe the spirit of reform from the Brahmo Movement. Dayanand stressed on the cardinal importance of the Vedas but also conceded that India had a lot to learn from the British like the value they placed on contract, pride in speaking their language and wearing their own dress matter in which part of the world they were in. The shift from social reform to political matters in the discourse in India was with the articulation of Who wants to live without freedom by Ranglal Bandhopadhya in 1858 and Nil Darpan (The Indigo Mirror) by Deshbandu Mitra in 1858-59. The latter graphically described the exploitation of the Indian workers by British plantation indigo owners. The establishment of the three universities after the first war of independence of 1857, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras helped in consolidating the urbanised English knowing middle class, a fact taken note of by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. Surendranath Bannerjees Indian Association in 1876 was the first nationwide organization but was short lived mainly because of two reasons, (1) over centralization in Calcutta and (2) the mutual suspicion of the emerging elite in the metropolitan towns. The Hindu Mela, established by Nabagopal Mitra, Rajnarayan Basu and Manmohan Bose in Bengal in 1867 and the Ilbert Bill (1883) further consolidated the anger of the middle-class against the local British administration. AO Hume was aware of the major contradictions within Indian society and wanted the Indian National Congress, established in 1885, to be a moderate organization. Surendranath Banerjee was kept out because of his radicalism. He joined the Congress in 1886. The leadership of the Congress was conscious of the deep cleavages with pronounced identities and rivalries within Indian society. Its attempt, as pointed out by Niharanjan Ray was to promote a common platform for all sections of the Indian people, irrespective of the community and province to which they might belong. Its proclaimed object was the fuller development and consolidation of the sentiments of national unity. It took up issues like reform of the Legislative Council, abolition of the India Council, reduction of military expenditure and promotion of technical education. Its plank was a peaceful and constitutional movement for self-government and a slow and gradual consolidation of democratic institutions. It was perceived as a Hindu organization by a large section of the Muslim elite. Even Tyabji wanted some kind of protection/safeguards for the Muslim minority. However, the Aligarh school of thought was that a permanent majority and a permanent minority would be detrimental to its interests and became firm supporters of the British Raj. Radicalism within the Congress consolidated in the 1890s with the rise of Tilak, the first major popular leader with his mobilization against the Age of Consent Bill in 1891 and in organizing the Ganapati and Shivaji festivals in 1893 and 1895-6 respectively. The split in the Congress was sealed in 1907 at the Surat session and a truncated Congress led by the Moderates continued till 1915. The twin effect of Tilaks return in 1914 and Gokhales death in 1915 facilitated alarger unity and also rapprochement with the Muslim League in 1916 with the Lucknow Pact. Tilaks death in 1920 made Gandhis rise certain as there was no other comparable figure within the Congress after the Rowlatt Act Satyagraha in 1919 and his initiation of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920. After the 1918 Jallianwala Bagh massacre Gandhi became a firm opponent, from a firm believer, of the Empire and that lasted till the end. His first major challenge to British rule was with his declaration of attaining swaraj within one year. The Gandhian era is a fascinating period where followers and opponents articulated their views on politics and Indian nationalism intensely. Gandhis major achievement was two-fold: first, organizational, making the Congress a functioning political outfit with a constitution, regular elections and making it a mass and cadre party at the same time. In every village there was a Gandhi-capped Khadi clothed Congressman alongside the postman in his official uniform. Second was Gandhis announcement of the arrival of the Indian nation based on linguistic states acknowledging Indias pluralism and a new national lingua franca Hindustani thereby rejecting the British map. Incidentally Dayanand was the first to propose the idea of a national language and this was subsequently iterated by Savarkar besides Gandhi. The Montford Reforms of 1919 also facilitated this discourse because of the imminence of dominion status for India and also because the British started treating the political class with a lot of respect and freedom. This was in sharp contrast to the earlier treatment meted to Tilak and Savarkar. Tilak was not allowed to carry the Bhagavad Gita during his imprisonment and this was subsequently granted only after Max Muellers intervention. (The writer is a retired Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi) Lord Swraj Paul, the celebrated NRI industrialist and philanthropist, has died in London at the age of 94. As per reports he passed away on August 21, after a period of illness that led to his hospitalisation. Condoling his death Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed anguish and said his support for the UKs close ties with India will always be remembered. Advertisement In a post on X, Modi said, Deeply saddened by the passing of Shri Swaraj Paul Ji. His contributions to industry, philanthropy and public service in the UK, and his unwavering support for closer ties with India will always be remembered. Advertisement Lord Paul, founder of the UK-based Caparo Group of industries, was ill for some time and was hospitalised recently. The House of Lords peer was born in Jalandhar and relocated to the UK in the 1960s for the treatment of his daughter Ambika. I fondly recall our many interactions. Condolences to his family and admirers. Om Shanti, PM Modi said. Families of missing Baloch individuals in Karachi and Quetta continued their demonstrations on Tuesday, seeking the return of their loved ones, as another young man from Kech district was reported to have come back home after spending ten months in detention, as per a report by The Balochistan Post (TBP). At the Karachi Press Club, family members of Zahid Ali Baloch mentioned they had been holding a sit-in for 15 days straight, even in the face of heavy rain. Zahids father, Hameed Baloch, told the media that his son was taken by security forces on July 17 while he was waiting for transport in Karachi, and has been missing for over a month. It has been 33 days now, but we still do not know where our son is or in what condition he might be, he stated. He made a plea for Zahid to be presented in court if there are charges against him, describing his disappearance as an unbearable trauma for a family, according to the TBP report. In Quetta, the protest camp of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) marked its 5,915th day outside the Press Club on Tuesday. VBMP chairman Nasrullah Baloch mentioned that they had received a report concerning the disappearance of Mir Yousaf Qalandrani, the son of a tribal chief and local council head, who was allegedly arrested in Karachi on August 17, as reported by TBP. He noted that three of Yousafs brothers were among the many members of the Qalandrani family who were detained during a military operation in 2010 and remain missing to this day. The unlawful detention and disappearance of Mir Yousaf and others not only represents a serious violation of human rights but also a clear insult to the Constitution of Pakistan and international human rights standards, he said, as quoted by the TBP report. Nasrullah Baloch called on the judiciary, parliament, and human rights organisations to take notice, warning that enforced disappearances were undermining public trust in state institutions. This issue is not solely one concerning the Baloch nation, but rather pertains to all of humanity and the integrity of human rights institutions, he articulated. Meanwhile, in Turbat, Kech district, a young man named Suhail Ahmed, son of Abdullah Lashkaran, returned home on Monday after being missing for ten months. His family stated that he was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani troops in October 2024, according to the TBP report. Advertisement Advertisement Famine has been confirmed in Gaza City for the first time, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which has now raised its alert to Phase 5the most severe level of acute food insecurity. The IPCs Famine Review Committee said famine thresholds have already been crossed in Gaza Governorate and warned that Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis are also likely to reach famine conditions in the coming weeks. Advertisement The committee stressed that this crisis is entirely human-made and can still be halted if immediate action is taken. Starvation is present and rapidly spreading. Any further delayeven of dayswill result in an unacceptable escalation of famine-related deaths, the report cautioned. Advertisement It further warned that without a ceasefire to allow large-scale humanitarian access, alongside urgent restoration of food supplies and basic health, nutrition, and WASH services, avoidable deaths will rise exponentially. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that he had instructed officials to begin immediate negotiations for the release of hostages in Gaza and an end to the war, while also vowing to approve military plans to seize Gaza City. I came to approve the IDFs (Israel Defense Forces) plans to take control of Gaza City and to defeat Hamas, Netanyahu said on Thursday, during a visit to a military base near the Palestinian enclave. At the same time, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel, he said. Netanyahu did not say how or where the negotiations would begin, Xinhua news agency reported. Israels Ynet news site, citing a senior official, reported that no delegation is expected to depart for Doha or Cairo at this stage. An Israeli official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that Netanyahu and his security cabinet were expected to convene on Thursday night to give final approval for the assault on the enclaves largest city, The announcement came a day after the military mobilized 60,000 reservists and said 20,000 more would be called up in the coming days. Earlier this week, Hamas agreed to a proposal put forward by Egyptian and Qatari mediators for a temporary truce and the release of hostages. Israel has not yet publicly issued an official response. Meanwhile, Netanyahu also said earlier this week that Israel would agree to end the offensive only if five conditions were met: Hamass disarmament, the release of hostages, Gazas demilitarization, Israeli security control over the enclave, and the appointment of a non-Israeli body to run daily life there which, he stressed, would not be Hamas or the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. Israeli forces continued bombardments of Gaza City overnight and carried out strikes elsewhere, killing at least 70 people and wounding 356 others, according to Gazas health authorities. The death toll from Israeli strikes and shootings since October 7, 2023, has risen to 62,192, with 157,114 others wounded, the authorities said. (With inputs from agencies) In what is perhaps the sharpest attack on India regarding Russian oil purchase, the White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro claimed India of perpetuating the Ukraine War by purchasing discounted Russian crude oil. Alleging that India has been acting as a laundromat for the Kremlin, Peter Novarro said Indias purchase is allowing Russia to fund its war efforts in Ukraine, while New Delhi is reaping profit from the transactions. Advertisement India doesnt appear to want to recognise its role in the bloodshed Its cosying up to Xi Jinping (Chinese President). They (India) dont need the (Russian) oil. Its a refining profiteering scheme. Its a laundromat for the Kremlin. I love India. Modi is a great leader, but please, India, look at your role in the global economy. What youre doing right now is not creating peace. Its perpetuating the war, the White House trade advisor said. Notably, his statements come after Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, has emphasised the importance of treating India as a prized free and democratic partner in the global effort to counter Chinas growing influence. In her opinion piece on Newsweek, she warned that damaging the 25-year momentum in US-India relations would be a strategic disaster. Advertisement She urged Donald Trump to reverse the downward spiral and hold direct talks with PM Modi. The sooner the better, she said. Haley believes India is the only country that can serve as a counterweight to Chinese dominance in Asia, making it crucial for the US to maintain a strong partnership. Moreover, renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs has strongly criticised the US administrations decision to impose steep tariffs on India, calling them bizarre and very self-destructive of US foreign policy interests. In a recent interview with ANI, Sachs expressed concerns that these tariffs will undermine years of efforts to strengthen US-India relations. Sachs described the tariffs as not a strategy, but sabotage and the stupidest tactical move in US foreign policy, which has unified the BRICS countries like never before. Trump announced 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods in July, even as there were hopes of an interim India-US trade deal that would have otherwise helped avoid elevated tariffs. A few days later, he imposed another 25 per cent tariff, taking the total to 50 per cent, citing Indias continued imports of Russian oil. Additionally, Navarro argued that India doesnt need Russian oil, pointing out that before the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, India imported less than one per cent of its oil from Russia, whereas now it imports around 35-40 per cent. Prior to Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India bought virtually no Russian oil The argument now, when this percentage has gone up to 30-35%, that somehow they need Russian oil, is nonsense Russian refiners have gotten in bed with Italian refiners in a game in which they get cheap Russian crude at a discount. Then they make refined products, which they sell at premium prices into Europe, Africa and Asia, he said. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted during Alaskas press conference with Trump on August 16 that bilateral trade between the two nations has increased by 20 per cent since Trumps reinstatement as President. Navarro further stated that US imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, effective August 27, citing Indias continued purchase of Russian oil amid geopolitical tensions over the Russia-Ukraine war. The total tariff rate combines a baseline 10% duty with a 25% reciprocal tariff and an additional 25% tariff. He described Indias barriers as higher tariffs, Maharaja tariffs, higher non-tariff barriers, arguing that they contributed to a massive US trade deficit that hurts American workers and hurts American businesses. In India, 25% tariffs were put in place because they cheat us on trade. Then 25% because of the Russian oil They have higher tariffs, Maharaja tariffs We run a massive trade deficit with them. So that hurts American workers and businesses. Then they use the money that they get from us when they sell us stuff to buy Russian oil, which then is processed by refiners, and they make a bunch of money there, but then the Russians use the money to build more arms and kill Ukrainians. So American taxpayers have to provide more aid, military style, to the Ukrainians. Thats insane, and President Trump sees that chessboard beautifully. In many ways, the road to peace runs through New Delhi, Navarro said. Navarros comments come as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar responded to criticism of India by American officials for its energy ties with Russia, and said the US itself had asked New Delhi to help stabilise global energy markets by buying Russian oil. Jaishankar called out the US logic to impose tariffs on India, despite China being the biggest purchaser of Russian oil andthe EU being the biggest purchaser of LNG. We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil; that is China. We are not the biggest purchasers of LNG, that is the European Union. We are not the country which has the biggest trade surge with Russia after 2022; I think there are some countries to the South. We are a country where the Americans have said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilise the world energy market, including buying oil from Russia. Incidentally, we also buy oil from the US, and that amount has increased. So honestly, we are very perplexed at the logic of the argument that you (the media) had referred to Jaishankar said, answering a query. Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, has expressed opposition to the US decision to impose 50% tariffs on Indian goods, warning that silence or compromise only emboldens the bully. He emphasised that China will firmly stand with India to uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at its core. Xu criticised the US for using tariffs as a bargaining chip, despite benefiting greatly from free trade in the past. He noted that tariff wars and trade wars are disrupting the global economic and trade system, with power politics and the law of the jungle prevailing. Xu emphasised the importance of China and India strengthening cooperation to help developing countries overcome difficulties and safeguard international fairness and justice. Ministry of External Affairs has maintained a firm stance that India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interests, despite US attempts to strong-arm New Delhi. In an official statement, the MEA said, The United States has in recent days targeted Indias oil imports from Russia. We have already made clear our position on these issues, including the fact that our imports are based on market factors and done with the overall objective of ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion people of India. It is therefore extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest, the statement added. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has awarded commendations to the Norths troops deployed to Russias war with Ukraine, calling them great heroes and patriots, and consoled bereaved families of fallen soldiers, state media reported Friday. The North held a ceremony to decorate commanders and combatants of the overseas operation unit of the Korean Peoples Army (KPA) who returned home from the battlefield, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Advertisement It marked the first time that North Korea has awarded commendation to its soldiers who fought overseas. Advertisement The Norths leader lauded troops deployed to the front-line Kursk region as great heroes and patriots in his speech at the ceremony held at the headquarters of the ruling Workers Party of Korea. The victory won by the brave soldiers who participated in the war is a great feat that firmly defended the great honour of the KPA, which should never be undermined, and provided a sure guarantee for the existence and development of our state, Kim said. He said the bravery shown by North Korean troops affirmed that an army from any country cannot avoid the fate of becoming dead souls if it fights against the Norths military. Since October last year, North Korea has provided conventional weapons and around 13,000 troops to support Russias war efforts amid deepening bilateral military cooperation. In the speech, Kim brought up the victorious conclusion of overseas military operations but stopped short of disclosing the timing of withdrawing North Korean soldiers fighting in the front-line Kursk region. At the ceremony, Kim awarded the title of DPRK Hero to commanders and service members for their distinguished feats on the battlefield, the KCNA said, referring to the acronym of the Norths official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. He also put the DPRK Hero medals beside the portraits of martyrs, who sacrificed their youth and lives for the war. Photos carried by state media showed Kim stroking the portraits hanging on the memorial wall at the partys headquarters. A total of 101 portraits of the war dead were seen on the wall, but the KCNA did not mention whether they are all of those killed during combat. South Koreas spy agency said in April that around 600 North Korean soldiers are believed to have been killed while fighting for Russia, and more than 4,000 North Korean troops have also been injured. With what appeared to be tearful eyes, Kim also hugged some of the bereaved family members to console them, photos published by the KCNA showed, in an apparent bid to highlight the image of a leader caring for the people. While decorating the overseas military operation unit, Kim called for the KPA to become elite and strong armed forces and for perfecting preparations for war against military provocation moves by the enemies. This environment gives no room to lower our guard and requires our armys further perfect and overwhelming preparations (for war), he said. Seouls unification ministry said Thursday that Kims separate meeting the previous day appears aimed at justifying the troop deployment and boosting morale of the military. Chang Yoon-jeong, deputy spokesperson at the ministry, told a press briefing Friday that North Korea appears to have disclosed the names and photos of its troops deployed to the Russia-Ukraine war for the first time. She said the ministry will closely monitor the situation to judge whether North Korea has ended the deployment of troops to Russia, Yonhap news agency reported. The ceremony came amid expectations that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, may hold a summit for a peace deal to end the three years of fighting. Russias media earlier reported the North will send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers to Kursk to support reconstruction efforts. Protests are taking place across Pakistan as Baloch families continue to raise their demands against the enforced disappearances and killings of people, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee shared the details on Wednesday. BYC wrote in a post on X, From Quetta to Islamabad to Karachi, Baloch families are sitting on roads, in heat, in rain only because the state has left them no other path. Their demand is simple: Stop enforced disappearances. Stop killing our children. Release the missing. BYC shared details of protests taking place in Quetta, Islamabad and Karachi. It shared that in Quetta, on August 5, the mother of 17-year-old Ehsan Syed, shot dead by Pakistani forces near Lak Pass, Mastung, set up a protest camp outside Quetta Press Club. BYC noted that for over 10 days, she sat under the sun, demanding justice for her son. However she faced harassment, intimidation, and surveillance. BYC added, On August 15, Quetta police arrested her inside the protest camp along with her little daughter. Both were illegally detained, tortured, and later deported back to Mastung. In Islamabad, on June 14, families of detained Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) leaders along with enforcedly disappeared victim families tried to stage a sit-in outside National Press Club, BYC said. It further noted that the federal police blocked them, using abuse and threats to silence their peaceful protest. As per BYC the families continued with their demands namely the release of their leaders, ending enforced disappearances and stopping the extrajudicial killings in Balochistan. In Karachi, outside the Karachi Press Club, the family of Zahid Baloch, a 25-year-old student of International Relations at Karachi University, continued with their sit-in, BYC shared in its post. Advertisement Enforced disappearances in Balochistan have been a grave human rights issue for decades, rooted in the regions long-standing political and ethnic tensions. For the last several decades, Baloch nationalists, students, activists, and intellectuals have been targeted, allegedly by state security agencies, for demanding greater autonomy or rights. Advertisement The first Rising Rajasthan Partnership Conclave 2025, a follow-up event of last years Global Investment Summit, will be held on December 9 and 10. It will coincide with the 1st Pravasi Rajasthani Diwas on December 10. The two-day meet will serve as a platform to promote strategic industrial alliances and partnerships across sectors. It will provide a good opportunity for cementing Rajasthans partnerships with key international and multilateral organisations, an official spokesman said here on Friday. Advertisement The socio-economic impact of the investment proposals that were signed during the investment summit held last year, will also be showcased at the event in different sessions. Advertisement Thematic sessions, focusing on key sectors of Rajasthans economy and emerging areas for new investment, will also be organized during the conclave. A number of thematic sessions centered on the Youth and Women and sectors such as Health and Medical, Energy and Industry will also be organized during the conclave, he said. A number of investor roadshows would also be organised to promote the Partnership Conclave. These include national roadshows in Delhi, Hyderabad, Surat, and Kolkata, as well as an international roadshow in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Before the Partnership Conclave, Pre summits highlighting the role of sectors such as Mining and Petroleum and Tourism on Rajasthans growth, will also take place. As announced by Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma during the global investment summit last year, the 1st Pravasi Rajasthani Diwas will be organized on December 10. The celebration will not only provide an opportunity to the Pravasi Rajasthani community to come together and celebrate their shared identity but also provide them a platform to come back to their roots and invest for overall growth and development of the state, their native land, the spokesman added. VIENTIANE, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan paid an official visit to Laos to further strengthen and expand the friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, states, and peoples of Vietnam and Laos. According to the local news website Lao Phattana News on Friday, the visit took place from Thursday to Friday at the invitation of Lao Vice President Pany Yathotou. During their talks, both sides expressed satisfaction with the steady progress in their cooperation. High-level exchanges at both central and local levels have strengthened mutual trust, while the two countries continue to coordinate closely in addressing shared challenges. Bilateral trade between the two countries continues to grow, with Vietnam remaining one of the leading investors in Laos. Cooperation in sectors such as science and technology, education, healthcare, culture, sports, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges has yielded promising results. Both sides reaffirmed their strong commitment to preserving and strengthening the unique bonds of solidarity and comprehensive cooperation, viewing them as a priceless legacy to be passed down to future generations. Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith also met with Vo Thi Anh Xuan on Thursday. The two leaders also agreed to continue strengthening cooperation in trade, investment, and the economy, ensuring it matches their excellent political relations. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced that the United States has immediately stopped issuing visas for truck drivers, soon after a fatal crash raised anger within President Donald Trumps base. Effective immediately, we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Rubio wrote on X. Advertisement The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers, he wrote. Advertisement Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 21, 2025 Senator Rubio acted after a truck driver was charged with killing three people in a Florida highway crash caused by an illegal U-turn. The driver, Harjinder Singh from India, allegedly entered the U.S. illegally through Mexico and failed an English test following the accident, according to federal officials. The case has drawn major media attention and turned political, with Florida officialsunder Trumps Republican leadershiphighlighting it prominently. On Thursday, the states lieutenant governor even flew to California with immigration agents to extradite Singh. The crash has become a flashpoint between Republicans and Democrats. Singh had obtained his commercial license and lived in California, a Democratic-run state opposed to Trumps immigration crackdown. The Trump administration blamed California Governor Gavin Newsom for granting Singh a license. Newsoms office countered that Singhs work permit was issued by Trumps federal government, while California cooperated in extraditing him. Even before the incident, Republican lawmakers had targeted foreign truck drivers, pointing to rising crash numbers without offering proof of a direct link to immigrants. In June, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered that truck drivers must demonstrate English proficiency. U.S. commercial licenses already require basic English knowledge, including road signs. However, Obama-era 2016 guidancereversed by Duffyhad instructed authorities not to disqualify drivers solely for language barriers. Driven by demand, the number of foreign-born truck drivers in the U.S. more than doubled from 2000 to 2021, reaching 720,000, federal data shows. They now represent 18% of the trucking workforce. HAIKOU, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- In a banana field at Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Waseem Raza spends his mornings meticulously inspecting stems, leaves and fruit clusters before plunging into late-night hours in the lab, peering through microscopes and analyzing data until well past midnight. Raza, 45, a scientist from Pakistan, has devoted his career to combating banana diseases. His journey in China began in 2005 when he arrived for doctoral studies at Nanjing Agricultural University. After graduating in December 2009, he stayed on as a lecturer at the university for 12 years. This year, he joined the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) as a senior researcher, working in a laboratory at CATAS. His research focuses on soil ecology, soil microbiology and plant-microbe interactions to help tackle Banana Fusarium Wilt, a devastating fungal disease known as "banana cancer," which once wreaked havoc on China's banana industry and caused production to plummet. "My job is to safeguard the health of bananas," Raza said. "I try to find effective ways to control disease and support the industry's growth." After years of research, CATAS and other institutions have cultivated resistant banana varieties, while also developing eco-friendly, disease-control technologies, which revived the industry. However, in Pakistan, where the fruit is also a major source of income, local farmers still face similar challenges. Raza and his team are now developing what he calls a "green revolution" approach, using bacterial volatile compounds that suppress and eliminate pathogens while stimulating plant growth. They have completed lab trials. "We plan to introduce these technologies to the fields this year or next. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness against Banana Fusarium Wilt using bio-organic fertilizers," he said. Through collaborations between China and Pakistan, Raza said he hopes to take these technologies back to his home country. By combining Chinese expertise with local research, he aims to strengthen the banana industries of both countries. Chen Yufeng, an associate researcher at CATAS, said Raza's expertise not only made him a valuable addition to the team but also strengthened their global outreach. "Such cross-border synergy helps us better address agricultural challenges common to developing countries," Chen added. Raza's story reflects a broader trend of deepening scientific cooperation between China and Pakistan, with Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City emerging as a hub for such exchanges and Pakistani scientists like him increasingly taking leading roles in joint projects that bridge the expertise of both nations. "China and Pakistan are very good friends," Raza said, pointing to collaborations under the Belt and Road Initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Having lived in China for 20 years, Raza considers the country his second home. Beyond his research, he has built a family in Sanya, savors the tropical coastal scenery, and often strolls along the beach after work, with colleagues guiding him to discover the city and enjoy its local cuisine. Though contracted until 2030, Raza has already laid out long-term plans and hopes to settle permanently in Sanya. "Agricultural cooperation has massive potential between China and Pakistan," Raza said, noting that he will continue contributing to joint research and looks forward to stronger collaboration between scientists to boost banana production and quality on both sides. Video-making platform TikTok, which was banned by the Centre in 2020 over security concerns following a prolonged border standoff with China, has reportedly become accessible to several website users in India. However, the app is not available to download on App Store or Play Store. The central government has not made any official announcement regarding lifting the ban on TikTok or other Chinese apps. TikTok parent firm ByteDance has also not made any announcements regarding relaunch of the app in India. However, reports suggested that TikTok might have started testing its platform and looking at a phased rollout as it awaits a potential nod from the IT ministry. TikTok is coming back to India and this time I'm not missing the train. I'll make edits, sing, dance whatever. Generational wealth opportunity. https://t.co/vYzNtfl0Mw Shahzeb Khan (@theshahzebkhan) August 22, 2025 TikTok was among 59 appss that were blocked by the government back in June 2020, with the authorities saying that these platforms were involved in activities that are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order." These included apps such as UC Browser, UC News, ShareIt, Kwai, Baidu Map, Clash of Kings, DU battery saver and Vigo Video. TikTok is coming back in India? Tiktok's official website is now working again in India. pic.twitter.com/FsjBucsBu0 TrakinTech (@TrakinTech) August 22, 2025 The development comes days after Chinese Foreign Minister met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in New Delhi. China on Thursday lifted restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals, fertilisers, and tunnel boring machines to India. The MEA on Friday revealed that PM Modi will visit China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1. India is looking to improve its relations with China amid 50 per cent tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump earlier this month. Reacting to Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir's much-trolled claim that India is a shining Mercedes coming on a highway, while Pakistan is a dump truck full of gravel, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he considers this statement by the Pakistan Army chief a "confession." Munir had made the remarks during his second visit to the US. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser, Munir had asked. Munir's analogy was intended to suggest that although India is seen as an economically and technologically advanced nation, if a collision occurred, the "dump truck" (Pakistan) could still inflict damage, citing the resilience and potential threat Pakistan posesespecially with its nuclear arsenal. Singh said he does not consider the statement by Munir as mere troll material. "India's economy is like a Mercedes and a Ferrari running on the highway. He said, I am not saying. Pakistan's economy is like a dump truck full of debris. Now you people know the answer to this," Singh said. "Now, Asim Munir was trolled a lot for this statement both inside Pakistan and all over the world. Everyone said if two countries got independence at the same time and one country built a Ferrari-like economy through hard work, right policies and foresight, and the other is still in a dumper state, then it is their own failure," the defence minister said. Singh added that he, however, considers this statement by Munir as a confession and not some troll material. If we do not pay attention to the historical indication behind this serious warning, then it can become a matter of concern for us, Singh said and added, "And yes, if we pay attention to this and prepare for it, then India is capable of giving a befitting reply to such warnings." Pakistan has expressed concern over India's procurement and accumulation of weapons and claimed that the international community is turning a blind eye to "India's aggressive pursuit of military capabilities." According to Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan, India's pursuit of defence capabilities exceeds its security requirements. He claimed that this weapons buildup is posing a threat to the regional stability and security of Pakistan. During a weekly briefing in Islamabad, Khan said Pakistan is capable of effectively responding and defending its territorial sovereignty and integrity, and added that Islamabad is committed to maintaining a full spectrum of deterrence, reported Radio Pakistan. ALSO READ: 'Asim Munir's confession of Pakistan's failure': Rajnath Singh takes a dig at 'dump truck' remark Khan said Pakistan is willing to hold a comprehensive dialogue wth India to address all outstanding issues, including the issue of terrorism, and claimed that this has been Pakistans consistent position. Claiming that Pakistan has evidence of India's involvement in fomenting terrorism in the country, he said Islamabad is willing to discuss the issue of terrorism. Khan said any effort by friendly nations to facilitate dialogue between India and Pakistan is welcome. Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, on Friday, made an absurd claim that India had requested the US for a ceasefire during the recent military stand-off between India and Pakistan. India has always maintained that the ceasefire was ultimately agreed bilaterally between India and Pakistan through their military channels, without US mediation, despite the many claims by US President Donald Trump of brokering peace. Ishaq Dar said he received a call from the US regarding the ceasefire and added that he made it clear that Pakistan did not want war with India. The deputy PM has been quoted as saying that Pakistan is not ready to have a discussion on any single-point agenda with India but is willing to "discuss all outstanding issues, including the Kashmir issue." ALSO READ: India asserts its 5,000km strike capability as it successfully tests Agni 5 ballistic missile He said Pakistan did not ask anyone to arrange talks with India. Meanwhile, Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar claimed that India had the backing of international media during the military conflict because these "outlets had employees of Indian origin because of their greater population. Ironically, he claimed that Pakistani media was spreading "factual information." It is to be noted that Pakistan was engaged in a propaganda and disinformation campaign to manipulate public perception and international opinion during Operation Sindoor and the brief but intense military stand-off between the two sides. Pakistan's propaganda efforts involve For India and China, the real contest is not along the border but in whether they can build enough trust to shape the Asian century together rather than waste it in rivalry. The cautious resumption of high-level contact with the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Delhi, and subsequently the acceptance by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, is a positive development. This is accompanied by a resumption of border trade through Lipulekh and Nathu La, and new pledges to open negotiations on boundary delimitation and de-escalation between their militaries by revisiting the 20005 agreement. Even modest gains in diplomacy are important because the strategic relationship has been impacted by mistrust since the Galwan clashes in 2020. The disputed boundary remains frequently violated and a thorn in the texture of fabric of trust to be woven. The problem of trust What continues to hold the relationship back is not trade or diplomacy but trust. Each side doubts the intentions of the other. For India, the presence of Chinese forces close to Ladakh is an unacceptable reminder that agreements can be disregarded at will. For China, Indias growing partnership with the United States and its role in the Quad is viewed as an attempt to limit Beijings influence. Mutual trust cannot be created in one summit, but it begins with small gestures. The new expert groups on boundary delimitation and military coordination will only matter if they deliver visible results and are not reduced to talking shops. The resumption of direct flights, exchange of students, and cross-cultural activities like the Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage to be effected in the year 2026 are such small indicators. Societal contact makes conflict harder to sustain. When ordinary citizens, students and businesses have a stake in peace, leaders feel pressure to deliver it. The strategic triangle with the United States The IndiaChina equation cannot be separated from the presence of the United States. This triangle of relationships defines much of Asias strategic landscape. For Washington, India is the democratic partner of choice to balance China. For Beijing, Indias tilt towards Washington is both an irritant and a potential threat to its vision of Asian dominance. For New Delhi, both countries matter, but in very different ways. India benefits from American technology, capital and defence cooperation. At the same time, it knows from history that US foreign policy is transactional. Washingtons embrace can be warm, but it can also turn cold when priorities change. Yet this must be the foundation of Asian strategy and relationship with China. In this triangle lies both danger and opportunity. If India and China allow mistrust to dominate, the United States will find ample space to play one against the other. If they learn to manage their differences with maturity, they reduce the chance of being trapped in someone elses great power rivalry. India must learn to deal with China directly, based on its own national interests, not through the filter of Washingtons concerns. The issues that divide Delhi and Beijing are bilateral. Border management, river sharing, climate policy and trade imbalances cannot be outsourced to the framework of USChina competition. They must be settled between the two neighbours. That is how India will preserve its strategic space while keeping faith with its democratic partners elsewhere. The role of economic cooperation Economics will continue to be the biggest mooring point in the bond. China is also a major trading partner of India, with the trade exceeding 135 billion dollars. The balance of trade is rather large in favour of China, yet it also demonstrates inter-dependability. Neither country can afford to weaponise economic ties too frequently without risking mutual damage. In the future, the challenge remains to find new spheres of interaction. Opportunities exist in digital infrastructure, green technology, disaster management and resilient supply chains. Joint ventures have the capability of watering down mistrust and building strategies that incline towards cooperation. Historical traumas cannot be eliminated by trade, but it can offer an incentive that is sufficient to discourage escalation. Rebuilding trust, slowly but surely There are several challenges ahead. The resolution of border issues, even if inching towards it with caution, will be positive. Communication mechanisms and hotlines should be employed. Political tussles should not be applied to economic relations. Most importantly, leaders should convey the message to the domestic audience that collaboration with each other is not a sign of weakness but rather a display of convergence with caution for a better tomorrow. Trust reconstruction will not be dramatic. This must occur in a non-confrontational way, by steady, small measures, and not in haste. A stable relationship characterised by trust and not mutual suspicion will enable the two nations to concentrate on their development and to contribute positively towards their achievements in the development of a multipolar world and regional stability. India will need its Chanakya-Niti to be firm on national sovereignty and security issues, yet flexible in building positive relationships through dialogue and trade. By confirming participation in the Tianjin summit, India has shown that it is willing to engage at the highest level. By continuing its defence modernisation and external partnerships, it has shown that it will not engage from a position of weakness. Both tracks are essential. Towards a shared Asian future Much has been written about the promise of an Asian century, driven by the rise of India and China. That promise will remain hollow unless the two find a way to coexist with dignity and cooperation. Eternal rivalry may serve nationalist rhetoric, but it weakens both. Constructive coexistence, however difficult, opens the possibility of shared leadership in a multipolar order. If the two neighbours are able to shift gears to long-term trust building as opposed to adopting tactical adjustments, they will not only be securing their futures but also providing stability within a fractured international system. America will not necessarily lose its importance, but the weight of a united Asia governed by two of the world's oldest civilisations holding hands will be weighted beyond the reach of any coercion by external powers. The task before both governments is not simply to manage crises but to imagine a relationship that serves their people better than conflict ever could. That requires vision, patience and a recognition of shared responsibility. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK. Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is finally back from retirement with a bang in 'Anemone', a new drama directed by his son, Ronan Day-Lewis. The first trailer for the tense thriller dropped on Thursday night, offering a glimpse of a bleak and atmospheric film, which explores strained family ties. Stormy coastlines, shadowy rooms, and terse conversations between Day-Lewis' character Ray and his estranged brother can also be seen in the trailer, along with glimpses of drawings with what looks like people holding Irish flags. 'Anemone' was co-written by father and son, at once adding to its sense of intimacy and unease. Produced by Brad Pitts Plan B and distributed by Focus Features, the film also sees Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, and Samuel Bottomley in important roles. It is set to premiere at the New York Film Festival later this year, before opening in the US on October 3, followed by a wider release on October 10. Though some critics have jokingly labelled Anemone the ultimate nepo baby film", Ronan seems to make a case for himself in this trailer that prioritises mood over plot, hinting at a story steeped in grief, reconciliation, and undercurrents of violence. Daniel Day-Lewis has a history of walking away at his peakretiring after 'The Boxer' in the 1990s before returning for 'Gangs of New York' (2002), then again returning after his retirement following 'Phantom Thread' (2017). Whether 'Anemone' marks the legendary actor's permanent comeback or not, the trailer's stark imagery and Day-Lewis' unsettling presence suggest that at 68, he has lost none of his intensity. Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated that the BJP would secure 25% of the votes in the upcoming local body elections as the people of Kerala will break free from the usual UDF-LDF pattern. He was speaking at the inaugural session of the Manorama News Conclave 2025 in Kochi on Friday. ALSO READ | 'Should chief secretary get PM or CM to sign files from jail': Amit Shah slams Rahul Gandhi for opposing Bill to oust tainted ministers In Tripura, the BJP had only 1% of the votes but now is in power. Similarly, in Assam, where they only had two MLAs, today they govern with a full majority, he pointed out. In Kerala too, the BJP has a strong base as there are people who believe in the BJP's ideology. Amit Shah also said that he is ready for a debate with Pinarayi Vijayan regarding the disaster relief fund. Hundreds of BJP party workers have sacrificed their lives for upholding the ideology and for the progress of Kerala. C. Sadanandan, who was nominated by the President to the Rajya Sabha, is one such person who lost both his legs, Amit Shah said. This not only strengthens the party but is also for the development of Kerala and to bring Kerala into the mainstream of development. Some camps are spreading panic among minority communities by painting the BJP in a poor light, the Union Home Minister said . This concern is baseless, he added, before asking what difficulties the largest minority populations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have faced under NDA rule. Even in 2014, it was said by many that if the BJP came to power, minorities would face problems. But nothing of that sort happened. It is those with nothing to show in their work, a shallow personal history, and no meaningful achievements who spread such fear, Amit Shah said. The Home Minister said that the BJP government operates strictly in accordance with the law and is bound to protect the rights and entitlements of everyone. A couple of days after Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was attacked at a public event, there was more drama at her first programme since the assault, in Gandhi Nagar on Friday. A man was detained for raising slogans during the programme, reportedly following an argument with traders. He was immediately escorted out of the venue by security personnel. Gupta addressed the inaugural event of Vastrika, an open market garment show by the Gandhi Nagar wholesale market. She announced local MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely as the chairman of the Yamuna Paar Vikas Board. #WATCH | Delhi | Police have caught two separate individuals who were suspected of creating a ruckus near the venue of an event being attended by Delhi CM Rekha Gupta in Gandhi Nagar pic.twitter.com/Iw2BFpJHFR ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 The man was later identified as Praveen Sharma, 60, who runs a cable TV business in Ajeet Nagar. He claimed he was a BJP worker and that he has been associated with the party for four decades. He raised slogans against Arvinder Singh Lovely. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Prashant Gautam said Sharma was standing in a street behind security barricades and that security of the VIP was not breached at any point in time. It was CM Gupta's first public appearance since the attack. She was allegedly assaulted by a 41-year-old man at her Civil Lines Camp Office residence during a 'Jan Sunwai' programme on Wednesday. Rajesh Sakariya, the man accused of attacking Gupta, is an autorickshaw driver. He was sent to police custody for five days by a local court. Police said that during interrogation, Sakariya said he had planned to stage a protest at Ramleela Ground against the Supreme Court's (earlier) order on relocating stray dogs. He said he was upset with the order and had gone to Delhi CMs programme to raise the issue of stray dogs. "The accused attacked the chief minister after he failed to raise the issue before her, PTI quoted a police officer as saying. Following the attack on the CM on Wednesday, S.B.K Singh was replaced by senior IPS officer Satish Golcha as the Delhi Police Commissioner. Golcha, a 1992-batch officer from the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre, assumed charge at the Delhi Police Headquarters. The Supreme Court on Friday took a decisive stance in the ongoing litigation over Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihars electoral rolls, which has stirred widespread controversy over the exclusion of approximately 65 lakh voters from the draft list. A two-judge bench, comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, delivered fresh directives aimed at ensuring voter access to enfranchisement. The court ordered that the 12 recognised political parties in Bihar must instruct their booth-level agents (BLAs) to proactively assist individuals whose names were deleted from the draft rolls in filing Form 6 (claims for inclusion), including both physical and online submissions, accompanied by any one of the eleven documents specified by the Election Commission or an Aadhaar card. The bench noted its astonishment that, despite having about 1.6 lakh BLAs deployed across the state, only two objections had been filed so far on behalf of excluded voters. Some political parties countered by saying that their BLAs were not being permitted to submit objections, an issue the Court responded to by directing Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to issue acknowledgement receipts for any physically submitted forms. The top court also emphasised that the application window should be voter-friendly, allowing attendees to submit any of the 11 prescribed documents or Aadhaar for establishing identity and residence and crucially, enabling online submission as an alternative to physical forms. During the hearing, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission, provided data indicating that around 85,000 claim forms have already been submitted by excluded individuals, and more than 2 lakh new voters have registered under the SIR drive. Dwivedi further said that not a single political party has filed any objection. It is the duty of political parties to come to the aid of the ECI, he added. There are 1.6 lakh BLAs, and if each verifies 10 claims. We don't mean to exclude anything that cannot be. ERO shall not delete any entry from the draft roll without inquiring and affording an opportunity to be heard for them," he added. Also, individuals have to come forward and explain. If you are registered somewhere else, you must explain, like I forgot to remove my name at the older place for Maha Kumbh or Durga Puja, people know. They come forward. They don't have to be told; same is with elections," Dwivedi further said. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Association for Democratic Reforms, said that many people would still not be aware of the process. He highlighted that the ECI is now asking people with claims to file Form 6 for fresh entry, and a declaration along with Aadhaar. "They say 85,000 people have come forward. Many are migrant workers and working outside the state. There are floods in many districts of Bihar," he added. The Court remarked that political parties with their BLAs can assist the people. The political workers at rural level are in the best position to assist, he added. "We are surprised at the inaction of political parties. After appointing BLAs, what are they doing...Why distance between political workers and the local people?" Justice Kant remarked. The Court, however, reiterated that voter confidence hinges on transparency and active outreach, and mandated that all political parties file a status report by the next hearing on September 8, detailing the claims they have assisted in filing. The Courts direction to involve political parties in assisting excluded voters underscores the principle that protecting voting rights requires active civic participation, not just institutional processes. Parties failure to facilitate submissions raises concerns about both organizational apathy and political calculation. Today's Supreme Court order significantly shifts the dynamics of Bihars SIR process from passive oversight to active facilitation. By compelling political parties to assist excluded voters, permitting digital access, and tightening administrative processes, the Court reaffirmed that safeguarding enfranchisement requires not just procedural correctness, but participatory accountability. The Supreme Court on Friday revised its earlier ruling in a case involving stray dogs, directing authorities to release the canines picked up for sterilisation and immunisation. A bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta, and Justice NV Anjaria stayed the earlier order, which instructed the municipal authorities in Delhi to begin rounding up stray dogs from all areas, prioritising vulnerable localities, and to establish shelters, thereby prohibiting their re-release. In the new ruling, the bench clarified that the stray dogs should be released, except those that were infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour. They shall be dewormed, vaccinated, etc, and sent back to the same area, the order said, adding that no public feeding of dogs is allowed. Dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs are to be created. There have been instances due to such feeding instances, the court said, adding that the persons found feeding the dogs in contravention of this direction shall be liable to be proceeded with under the relevant framework. #WATCH | On the Supreme Court verdict on stray dogs in Delhi-NCR, Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh says, "...We welcome the decision. This is a very good decision, and we will implement it 100%. The dog lovers and the NGOs also wanted the dogs to be sterilised and left. The pic.twitter.com/Bo5OLMAOET ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 The bench also reiterated some clauses in the August 11 order that stated that no individual or organisation should obstruct the Municipal authorities from picking up the dogs in terms of the ABC rules. The court also said it would transfer to itself the petitions filed in High Courts seeking the creation of a pan-India policy, thereby extending the scope of the matter beyond the Delhi-NCR region. August 11 stray dog order An earlier order passed by a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had prohibited against re-release of dogs, besides mandating sterilising, immunisation, and de-worming. It also ordered the creation of a dog shelter equipped with CCTV, adequate staff, food, and medical care, and could accommodate over 5,000 dogs. It further required the creation of a helpline within a week to report dog bites, the capture of offending dogs within four hours of a complaint, and the publication of monthly rabies vaccination and treatment data. The court had also observed that the menace of dog bites violates the fundamental rights of citizens, stating that over 25,000 such cases were reported in Delhi in 2024 and more than 3,000 in January 2025 alone. However, the ruling was reconsidered after some lawyers mentioned before the Chief Justice of India that those directions were in conflict with the previous orders passed by other benches. BEIRUT, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Labor Minister Mohammad Haidar said Friday that his recent visit to Iraq resulted in the signing of several agreements aimed at boosting labor cooperation, investment, and energy projects. According to Lebanon's National News Agency, the talks in early August focused on exchanging expertise and setting up joint training programs. Both countries agreed to set up specialized academies in sectors such as hospitality, technology, and construction, and to train Lebanese youth for careers in Iraq's oil industry. Haidar called the initiative "a long-term investment in human capital" that would benefit both countries. Energy and reconstruction were also high on the agenda. Haidar confirmed that Lebanon and Iraq agreed to accelerate plans to extend oil pipelines from Iraq to Lebanon's Tripoli refinery and will form a trilateral Lebanese-Iraqi-Syrian committee to oversee the project. Iraq also pledged to involve Lebanese firms in upcoming reconstruction efforts. In addition, as part of humanitarian support, Baghdad will send Lebanon 50,000 tons of wheat in multiple installments, with the first shipment arriving soon at Beirut Port. Haidar emphasized Lebanon's strengthened labor ties with Iraq, Qatar, and Kuwait, noting that regional cooperation will create new job opportunities for Lebanese workers both at home and abroad. Haidar, leading an official delegation, visited Iraq in early August. During his visit, he met with several Iraqi officials, including Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani. Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal over the poor law and order situation in the state on Friday. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said illegal migrants will run away when the Bharatiya Janata Party is voted to power in the state. Addressing a rally in West Bengal on Friday, Modi charged, "Vote for us and the infiltrators will run away. We will not allow those infiltrators who are taking away the jobs of our youth and torturing women to stay in India. Some parties like the Trinamool Congress and the Congress have succumbed to the politics of appeasement. They are encouraging infiltration only for the greed of power." Modi defended the newly introduced Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025 and said the Opposition INDIA bloc is opposing the law "because they are scared of facing punishment for their own sins." Modi accused the Opposition of shielding the corrupt. "We decided to bring in a law that provides for dismissing a corrupt chief minister, or even the prime minister, if he or she spends 30 days in jail. But when we brought in a stringent law, the TMC, the Congress started protesting," he said. The new amendment aims to dismiss prime ministers, chief ministers, and ministers from holding office if they remain in jail for 30 days or more. Targeting Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal after he was arrested in the Delhi liquor policy scam, Modi said, "It is a shame that even a chief minister, after going to jail, has been running government from there." He added, "Two TMC ministers, even after going to jail on corruption charges, were not willing to give up their posts." Modi said those arrested on corruption charges cannot be part of the government. "Modi will not allow this", the prime minister said. "Look at the situation, nowadays some people have stooped so low that they are trying to run the government from jail," Modi added. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to visit China later this month to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, he will first visit Japan ahead of the much-anticipated Chinese trip. The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a two-nation tour from August 29. Modi will be in Japan on a two-day visit in the first leg of his trip. From Japan, he will travel to China, primarily to attend the annual SCO Summit. "At the invitation of the Prime Minister of Japan, H.E. Shigeru Ishiba, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will visit Japan from 29-30 August 2025 to participate in the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit. This will be Prime Minister Modis eighth visit to Japan, and the first Summit with Prime Minister Ishiba," it said. The two prime ministers will review the strategic partnership between India and Japan. "The two prime ministers will review the special strategic and global partnership between India and Japan, including defence and security, trade and economy, technology and innovation, and people-to-people exchanges, as well as discuss issues of regional and global importance," MEA stated. "The visit will reaffirm the longstanding special bond of friendship between the two countries," the ministry added. During his visit to China, Modi will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, China. "On the sidelines of the Summit, the prime minister is expected to hold bilateral meetings with several leaders attending the Summit," it said. Modi will be visiting China from August 30 to September 1. Modi's Chinese visit comes following Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's recent trip to India and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar's visit to Russia. Karnataka Congress state president and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar took everyone by surprise when he sang the RSS anthem or prayer song during a discussion in the state assembly on Thursday on the stampede near Chinnaswamy stadium. The RSS prayer song'Namaste Sada Vatsale Matribhume'is a salutation by the swayamsevaks to the motherland, expressing gratitude for her nurturing affection and follows a pledge of devotion and selfless service to the country. The incident happened as BJP MLA R. Ashok pointed towards Shivakumar and said the state government should take responsibility for the RCB stampede. In response, Shivakumar said he knew all about the BJP's tricks, and then recited a few lines of the RSS anthem during his exchange of words with the BJP MLA. The opposition welcomed the anthem by thumping the table, but there was an absolute silence in the Congress camp. The BJP legislator V. Sunil Kumar said, "Hope these lines are not removed from the records". Later, Shivakuamr Congressman clarified, saying he is a "born Congressman" and as a leader it is his responsibility to know who his friends and opponents are. "I just try to learn about the RSS and its history. Politically, we have a lot of differences. But the BJP should know I them deeply." #WATCH | Bengaluru | On being asked if there is a political message behind reciting the RSS anthem in the Karnataka Assembly yesterday, Dy CM DK Shivakumar says, "I am a born Congressman... I have done research on all political parties. I know how RSS is building institutions in https://t.co/8hIzya1Qsk pic.twitter.com/YKFixlsSvN ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 He said he has no intention of joining hands with the BJP, directly or indirectly and added he will remain a Congressman till the end of his life as the party is in his blood. "I have done research on all political parties. I know how RSS is building institutions in Karnataka. They are acquiring all the schools in every district. They are trying to preach to children," he said. #WATCH | Bengaluru | On Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar reciting the RSS anthem in the Karnataka Assembly yesterday, Karnataka BJP President BY Vijayendra says, "DK Shivakumar is a big artist of Karnataka. He is an expert at speaking inside and outside the Vidhan Sabha. We also pic.twitter.com/QAadTIqH0y ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2025 BJP president B.Y. Vijayendra slammed the Congress leader, saying he shouldn't be taken seriously. "Shivakumar is a big artist of Karnataka. He is an expert at speaking inside and outside the Vidhan Sabha. We also need to learn this from him. He has recited the RSS anthem, but please don't take him seriously," Vijayendra said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorised his military to move ahead with a major operation to seize Gaza City, while also instructing negotiators to restart talks for the release of hostages. He called the decision a decisive stage of the conflict and said Israel was close to decisive victory over Hamas. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are preparing to launch what officials describe as a gradual, precise and targeted campaign in and around Gaza City. The assault could begin within days. Troops have already stepped up operations in Zeitoun and the Jabalia refugee camp, with shelling reported in Sabra and Tufa. Military planners say the offensive will involve mass displacement, with up to a million Gazans forced to leave their homes. Residents in Gaza City say they are bracing for the beginning of a new war. The IDF has called up 60,000 reservists and extended service for 20,000 more. Officials have contacted aid agencies in northern Gaza, urging them to move south ahead of the attack. Along with military escalation, Netanyahu has directed officials to re-engage in talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt. A current proposal seeks a 60-day truce in exchange for the release of ten living Israeli hostages and 18 bodies, with about 200 Palestinian prisoners freed in return. Hamas has indicated it will agree Qatar said the plan is the same as the one Israel previously agreed to, while Egypt said the ball is in Israels court. Netanyahu has avoided specifics, saying only that any deal must secure the release of all captives at once. Brigadier General Amir Avivi, representing an organisation of senior officers, warned that a partial deal would undo military gains. He insisted Israel must dismantle Hamas to bring back the hostages. Israel estimates around 50 captives remain in Gaza, with about 20 thought to be alive. Critics accuse Netanyahu of negotiation under fire, imposing terms without compromise. Egypt says it has not received confirmation that Israel will join the talks. The prospect of a Gaza City offensive adds to what the UN has labelled a catastrophic humanitarian situation. More than 70 per cent of the territory has been destroyed, forcing families to flee repeatedly. Even declared safe zones, such as Al-Munasera camp in Deir al-Balah, have come under fire. UNRWA has said that 90 per cent of Gazas population has been displaced. Shelters are overcrowded, sanitation is collapsing and famine is spreading. The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported 271 deaths linked to malnutrition, including 112 children. Doctors warn that wounded children are dying because they cannot recover without food. Egypt has accused Israel of blocking thousands of aid trucks at Rafah, including convoys carrying wheelchairs and intensive care equipment. Officials describe a complete famine. Israel, however, has dismissed reports of hunger as fabricated. The Palestinian Interior Ministry called the planned Gaza City takeover a death sentence for its residents. The Health Ministry warned that the destruction of medical facilities would deprive thousands of treatment. According to Palestinian officials, at least 62,064 people have been killed since October 7, 2023, most of them civilians. The UN says the figures are credible. In Gaza City, Palestinians have protested against forced displacement, waving flags among the ruins, while in Tel Aviv, demonstrators have demanded the release of hostages and called for an end to the war, warning that military escalation threatens captives lives. Abroad, criticism is growing. Britain and 20 other governments recently condemned Israels approval of a large West Bank settlement, warning it would inflame violence. Several of Israels traditional allies, excluding the United States, have urged a ceasefire. The Media Freedom Coalition has demanded that Israel allow foreign journalists into Gaza, highlighting the deaths of 184 Palestinian reporters. Proceedings at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are examining whether war crimes, including the use of starvation, have been committed. Netanyahu, meanwhile, insists that Israel is close to defeating Hamas. Yet with Gaza facing famine, mass displacement, and international scrutiny, his government faces pressure to prove that military escalation can achieve its stated goals while delivering the release of hostages. A coalition of civil and human rights organizations convened a Congressional Briefing in Washington, DC, drawing attention to allegations of organized voter suppression and citizenship revocation targeting marginalized populations in India. The event, held virtually, was sponsored by groups which claim to be committed to pluralism, religious freedom, and democratic integrityincluding the Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, World Against Genocide, New York State Council of Churches, Genocide Watch, The Religious Nationalism Project, The Humanism Project (Australia), Diaspora in Action for Human Rights and Democracy, Center for Pluralism, and the Association of Indian Muslims of America, Washington DC. At the briefing, Indian opposition leaders and legal experts outlined a pattern they describe as the systematic manipulation of electoral rolls and marginalization of vulnerable communities. Indian National Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera charged that the Election Commission of India (ECI), in collusion with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is engaged in organized deletion of voter lists across regions like Bihar and Bangalore, specifically targeting Muslims, backward castes, Dalits, and other groups that threaten BJPs vote share. This alleged manipulation, according to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, contributed to the loss of at least 48 parliamentary seats in the 2024 general elections through mass irregularities and manipulated entries. Opposition parties contend that the ECIs recent directive, mandating 80 million voters in Bihar to re-register or risk being labeled suspected foreign nationals, is part of a broader strategy to disenfranchise millions and strip them of fundamental rights. Khera emphasized the cascading effects: exclusion from government benefits, pensions, housing, and also jeopardizing legal identity and citizenship. Protests against these election policies in Delhi were met with arrests, which opposition leaders decried as suppression of democratic dissent and closure of channels for citizens representatives to petition the Election Commission. Legal experts at the briefing further amplified concerns about the targeting of Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam. Senior Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde described government-led demolition drives, inhumane deportations, and hate rallies as unlawful and arbitrary, equating them to the forcible throwback of Indian citizens as human garbage across the border to Bangladesha country unwilling to accept them. Hegde articulated that these policies, which rely on religion and language as grounds for citizenship denial, have created a climate where Bengali-speaking Muslims are routinely perceived as foreigners and forcibly expelled, despite being born and raised in India. The Congressional Briefing billed itself as as a platform for coordinated diaspora activism, uniting diverse religious, legal, and human rights organizations to spotlight what they view as a systemic assault on Indias democracy and pluralistic traditions. By mobilizing international attention and policy advocacy, the convening body aims to hold accountable those responsible for disenfranchisement and exclusion, pledging continued vigilance and action to safeguard the rights of minorities and restore democratic norms in India. Sleuths from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are conducting searches at the residence of former National Security Advisor John Bolton as part of a national security probe. The searches come a day after Bolton lashed out at the Trump administration over high tariffs on India. According to reports, FBI agents reached Bolton's residence in Maryland as part of a probe into handling classified documents, sources familiar with the probe told AP. FBI Director Kash Patel, confirming the probe, tweeted, "NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission." US Attorney General Pamela Bondi also retweeted Patel's post. Bolton, who served as US President Trump's third national security adviser, disagreed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. Bolton served with Trump for 17 months. During Trump's first presidency, authorities failed in a bid to block the publication of a Bolton book over charges that it contained classified information. Earlier this year, President Trump cancelled Bolton's security detail. Soon after he assumed office, US President Trump revoked the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. The raids come a day after Bolton heavily criticised the Trump administration for imposing 50 per cent tariffs on India over its oil and defence purchases from Russia. The former Trump aide said the India-US relationship is currently in a "very bad place" and it was essential to prevent further damage. Bolton also called Trump an aberrational president. Bolton pointed out that India has been singled out by Trump over New Delhi's relations with Russia. He added that while India has been penalised, no new sanctions have been imposed on Russia or China, another major exporter of Russian oil. "Leaving India hanging out to dry as the only country to which punitive action has been taken obviously leads a lot of people to conclude that the United States has given up on India, and I do worry that India is being driven closer to Russia and China," Moneycontrol reported quoting Bolton. In the wake of Foreign Minister S. Jaishankars visit to Moscow and meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Russian analyst has stated that the USs traditional India policy of carrot-and-stick flopped this time. He added that US President Donald Trumps 50 per cent tariff policy on India played into the hands of Russia, bringing India and Russia closer. Boris Volkhonsky, associate professor at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University, told Russian media organisation URA.RU that Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with Jaishankar on Thursday was a response to Trump's tariffs. Putin has turned the ultimatums of Trump in Russia's favor. The trade war that the United States has unleashed against India is contributing to a closer rapprochement between Moscow and New Delhi, Volkhonsky said. President of Russia Vladimir #Putin met in the Kremlin with Minister of External Affairs of India @DrSJaishankar.https://t.co/2QFw2TxOjF#RussiaIndia pic.twitter.com/0h3havkr42 MFA Russia (@mfa_russia) August 21, 2025 The Jaishankar-Putin meeting also comes amid the latters planned visit to India before the end of the year. Also read: Amid Trump tariffs, Russia woos India; Jaishankar hails 'steadiest' ties since World War II A day before the meeting, reports said India was resuming the purchase of Russian oil in September-October amid widened discounts. State-run refineries, IOC, and BPCL had halted the purchases due to narrow discounts and after Trumps tariff threats. India is a country that puts its eggs in different baskets. Therefore, it will look at the actions of different political players. The fact that Trump is flirting with Pakistan in order to tear it away from China has also caused discontent in New Delhi. The Indians are very jealous of other countries getting closer to Pakistan. This also applies to the United States, which wants to bring Pakistan back into its orbit, Volkhonsky explained. Against this background, Volkhonsky said, Russia and India will continue to draw closer and develop new mechanisms of interaction. This extends to not only bilateral relations, but also ties with other countries within the BRICS and SCO, of which both countries are members, since members of these organisations are also subject to pressure from the United States, he said. "The hegemony of the West is coming to an end, and it is necessary to develop new mechanisms of interaction. The US has always used a carrot and stick policy (or, in English, a carrot and a stick) towards India. Now, Trump has tried to use this policy again, but it did not work. And this only brings Russia and India, and India and China, closer together. And it plays into our hands," the political scientist said. India had stated that Jaishankar and Putin were discussing transport, logistics, banking, and financial partnership that would be immune to external pressures. On its part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the relations between the two countries were among the steadiest of the major relationships in the world since the Second World War. "Geo-political convergence, leadership contacts and popular sentiment remain its key drivers," he said. Donald Trump critic John Bolton, who served in the Republican president's first administration as national security adviser, was on Friday subjected to FBI raids at his home as part of an investigation into the handling of classified information. Earlier this month, when an ABC host asked Bolton whether he was worried about Trump taking action against him, he said Trump had already punished him by removing his security protection, calling it a retribution presidency. I cant wait to hear about how outraged MAGA is that John Boltons home was raided by the FBI because he allegedly had classified documents in it. The same people who berated the FBI when they raided Mar-a-Lago are now some of the ones working for the FBI right now raiding the pic.twitter.com/LlnknezkZW Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) August 22, 2025 During his 17 months in the first Trump administration, Bolton has locked horns with the president over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. Bolton's scathing book, The Room Where It Happened, painted Trump as ignorant about foreign policy and unfit to run the federal government. Here are some of the shocking allegations levelled by Bolton in his 2020 book: Trump unaware if UK was a nuclear power Bolton has time and again claimed that Trump was ill-informed about geopolitical issues and once such instance was when he learnt that the President did not know that UK was a nuclear power. The incident happened during a 2018 meeting with then UK Prime Minister Theresa May, when an official referred to Britain as a nuclear power. To this, Trump said, "Oh, are you a nuclear power?" Bolton asserts that the comment was not actually a joke. Is Finland part of Russia? Bolton has often pointed out that Trump's lack of knowledge about geopolitics made his unfit for the White House. Ahead of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland's capital Helsinki, Trump allegedly asked whether Finland was "kind of a satellite of Russia". Seeking Chinese help to win second term The Room Where It Happened alleges that during the 2019 G20 summit in Japan, Trump diverted the conversation with Xi Jinping to talk about the 2020 presidential elections, pleading with the Chinese president to ensure he wins. "He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soya beans and wheat in the electoral outcome," Bolton wrote. Trump lost the 2020 presidential elections to Joe Biden. Uighur internment camps is 'right thing to do' Bolton in his book claimed that Trump approved of China's mass incarceration of Uighurs and other minorities. Citing the interpretor, Bolton wrote, "Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do." Trump wanted to tweak US constitution and serve for more than 2 terms Bolton also alleged that during his conversation with Xi, Trump said he wants to amend the constitution so that he can serve more than two terms. "One highlight came when Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for six more years, and Trump replied that people were saying that the two-term constitutional limit on presidents should be repealed for him," wrote Bolton in his book. "Xi said the US had too many elections, because he didn't want to switch away from Trump, who nodded approvingly." Trump's personal favours to dictators like Erdogan Bolton alleged that Trump was ready to do personal favours for dictators like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by meddling in criminal probes. Citing the example of a US investigation into a Turkish company flouting Iran sanctions, Trump reportedly said he would "take care of things". Democrats did not do enough to impeach Trump In The Room Where It Happened, Bolton said the Democrats committed "impeachment malpractice" by focusing only on Ukraine issue. The Democrats had alleged that Trump wanted to pause Ukraine military aid to force Kyiv into launching probe against Joe Biden, a claim that Bolton agrees to. However, he pointed out their failure to broaden the scope of the investigation led to Trump dodging the impeachment charges. Though US President Donald Trump imposed a 50 per cent tariff on New Delhi to wean it off Russian crude oil, even pro-MAGA and GOP-leaning media think his decision could be a geopolitical gaffe as India is getting closer to America's rivals Russia and China. A report published by a conservative mouthpiece, Fox News, on the implications of the Trump administrations decision stated that the US-India relationship, seen as one of the great success stories of postCold War diplomacy, is "facing its most serious test in years". The conservative outlet pointed out that deteriorating India-US ties may put Quad under risk. Quad is a grouping of India, the US, Japan and Australia formed to counter China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. Fox News pointed out that the Indian public opinion looks at the Trump tariffs as a threat to sovereignty. Evan Feigenbaum, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the outlet that Indians will not put up with what they view as an interference in its foreign policy. "Were in a situation in the U.S.-India relationship where the premises and assumptions of the last 25 years that everybody worked very hard to build, including the president in his first term have just come completely unravelled," Feigenbaum said, "The trust is gone." The expert said that though some of India's diplomatic gestures aimed at China and Russia is meant to irk America, it is not true in all cases. "India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defence relationship with Russia," he said. "And those parts are not performative." Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst, told the conservative outlet that defence cooperation and intelligence sharing requires a lot of trust. "And given whats happened over the last few months, that might be a harder sell for the Indians," he said. In contrast, India's all-weather friendship with Russia is more durable. New Delhi had reduced it dependence on Russian defence imports and diversified its options in favour of US, French and Israeli arms. But when the Ukraine war began India saw an opportunity in procuring discounted crude oil from Russia. "This is essentially validation of a view in India that the US cant be trusted, whereas Russia can because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what," said Kugelman. Ever since the Trump tariffs hit home, India has made an all-out effort to improve ties with China and Russia. This is evident from the Moscow trips of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar this month as well as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's recent New Delhi visit. On top of this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel by end of this month to China's Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin will also travel to India later this year. Kugelman noted that India had made efforts on its part to cut tariffs and cooperate with deportation of illegal immigrants from India. But he pointed out that India needs to be cautious about Trump seeing these concessions as Modi's "willingness to bend". "This is one reason there was no trade deal Modi put his foot down," the expert told Fox News. Kugelman recounted that Modi's defiant tone in support of India's farmers, small businesses and young workers has given the prime minister "real political mileage". Donald Trump on Friday denied knowing anything about FBI raid at the home of his former National Security Advisor John Bolton. The US president, while speaking at the White House Historical Association Museum, said he came to know about the FBI raid on Bolton after it appeared in the news and that he would be briefed about it later in the day. I cant wait to hear about how outraged MAGA is that John Boltons home was raided by the FBI because he allegedly had classified documents in it. The same people who berated the FBI when they raided Mar-a-Lago are now some of the ones working for the FBI right now raiding the pic.twitter.com/LlnknezkZW Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) August 22, 2025 Claiming that Bolton is "very bad at what he does", the president said he is a quiet person except when he is on television. "He can say something bad about Trump. He'll always do that. But he doesn't talk, he's very quiet," Trump told reporters, as he called Bolton a "low life". Around 7 am on Friday, FBI agents conducted a search at Bolton's home in connection with a probe into alleged use of classified documents in his 2020 book 'The Room Where It Happened'. In the memoir, Bolton alleged that Trump in 2019 pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to ensure he wins in the 2020 US presidential elections. He also told Xi that he wanted to amend the US constitution so that he can run for president for a third term. Bolton also alleged that Trump offered to "take care of things" after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought help regarding an investigation into a Turkish company flouting Iran sanctions. Bolton also claimed that Trump's was ill-informed about foreign policy and ignorant about geopolitical facts. Apparently, Trump did not know that the UK was a nuclear power and once even asked whether Finland was part of Russia. QUITO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ecuador on Thursday extradited two drug traffickers to the United States, where they are wanted by authorities on charges related to illicit drug selling, Interior Minister John Reimberg said. In a social media post, the Ecuadorian minister identified the suspects as Omar Auseno B. and Nirama G., who local media reported were a couple and had arrived in Ecuador in 2001. "The criminals were arrested by the National Police on Feb. 27, 2025, and are wanted by a court in Miami, Florida. They will follow the relevant legal process in that country," Reimberg said. He specified that Auseno and Nirama were "two of the biggest Colombian-Ecuadorian drug traffickers," and were successors to Edison Washington P. A., a powerful Ecuadorian drug trafficker captured in Colombia in 2017. Reimberg added the two had "taken over drug shipments to Central America, Mexico and the United States." Auseno and Nirama are the latest drug traffickers extradited to the United States following Ecuador's extradition of Adolfo Macias Villama, considered one of Ecuador's main drug traffickers and leader of the criminal gang Los Choneros, who was handed over to U.S. authorities in July. Ecuador has stepped up its fight against drug trafficking gangs since President Daniel Noboa declared a state of "internal armed conflict" in January 2024 due to an escalation of violence in the South American country. Greatland Resources has been one of AIMs big success stories, proof that it is possible to build a near-2billion business on a junior market often written off as dysfunctional. It has since packed up its toys and moved its main listing to the Australian Securities Exchange, a logical switch given its assets are based in the Paterson Province of Western Australia. Fear not: the next Greatland may just have emerged from AIMs backwaters in the form of Wishbone Gold. To date, Wishbones track record has been patchy. But it appears to have stumbled on something potentially significant, right next door to Greatlands Havieron and Telfer assets. Earlier this week, Wishbone reported the discovery of a breccia pipe interval to 152 metres within a broader 257-metre mineralised zone at its Red Setter project. The latest hole, drilled to 777 metres, revealed quartz-carbonate veining containing chalcopyrite and pyrite, both strong indicators of copper and gold mineralisation. Wishbone shares are up nearly 1,000 per cent over the past six months Drilling has paused while the company awaits delivery of additional rods, with plans to push to at least 1,000 metres. We decided to call it a day for now at 777 metres as we await the delivery of more drill rods to site to drill deeper safely, said director Ed Mead. Investors liked what they saw. The shares surged 205 per cent on the news and are up nearly 1,000 per cent over the past six months. Western Australia is proving a hotbed for small-cap miners. Alien Metals jumped 39 per cent after joint venture partner West Coast Silver delivered promising assay results from the maiden diamond drill campaign at the Elizabeth Hill project. Highlights included a 17-metre intercept grading 858 grams per tonne (g/t) of silver from just 5 metres depth, with a spectacular sub-section grading 10,049 g/t. A notable gold hit of 11.1 g/t added to the excitement. For a second week running, the AIM All-Share index stood largely unchanged at 760.68. The FTSE 100 benchmark rose nearly 2 per cent to 9,307.85. Among the weeks other winners, shares in Sorted Group soared 71 per cent after the delivery software specialist renewed its contract with Marks & Spencer until September 2028. The deal extends a partnership that underpins the retailers logistics using Sorteds cloud-based technology. Premier African Minerals also enjoyed a rare moment in the sun. Its Zulu lithium and tantalum project in Zimbabwe has moved into full operation following the completion of the second phase of plant testing. The shares rose 39 per cent over the week, though they remain down 43 per cent over the past year after a series of operational and financial challenges. Shield Therapeutics climbed 36 per cent after its interim results showed strong commercial traction for its iron deficiency treatment. In healthcare, ANGLE rose 14 per cent after announcing a collaboration with Myriad Genetics to develop blood-based cancer diagnostics. And the losers Mobile Tornado dropped 33 per cent as investors continued to digest last weeks decision to delist from the public markets. Shares in Nativo Resources fell 31 per cent after it called a general meeting to seek authority to issue new shares and scrap pre-emption rights, raising concerns over potential dilution. Argo Blockchain shed 30 per cent after warning that talks over a crucial recapitalisation plan remain incomplete. The company, listed in both London and New York, is still negotiating the terms of a senior secured loan with Growler Mining, which is central to its survival strategy. The loan has yet to be signed or funded. Argo said a first High Court hearing on its proposed restructuring is expected in late October, with final approval potentially due in December. Quiet progress Lastly, Blencowe Resources, up 5 per cent, is making quiet progress at its Orom-Cross graphite project in Uganda. The company said it has completed all key infrastructure works, including power, water, roads and communications, clearing the way for a final feasibility study and future production. Chairman Cameron Pearce called it a major de-risking milestone, adding: Having hydro-grid power, water, communications and upgraded road access effectively in place translates into lower capex, shorter development timelines and a sustainable, ESG-compliant operation. Germany has slumped back into 'recessionary territory' as revised figures showed it shrank by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter. An earlier estimate suggested Europe's largest economy fell by 0.1 per cent between April and June. However, manufacturing, construction and household spending were weaker than previously thought, raising fears it could suffer another dismal year after shrinking in 2023 and 2024 with US tariffs piling on further pressure, too. Sinking feeling: Germany has slumped back into 'recessionary territory' as revised figures showed it shrank by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter Carsten Brzeski, at ING Bank, said Germany now looks 'increasingly unlikely' to mount a serious recovery until 2026. The economy welcomed a bounce in the first quarter with GDP growing 0.3 per cent as exports to the US surged in anticipation of fresh tariffs. But Brzeski said there had been a 'full reversal' of that trend. America was Germany's biggest trading partner last year, with imports and exports totalling 219billion. Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd. (OTCMKTS:JMHLY Get Free Report)s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday following a dividend announcement from the company. The company traded as high as $59.90 and last traded at $59.40, with a volume of 8328 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $57.05. The newly announced dividend which will be paid on Wednesday, October 22nd. Investors of record on Monday, August 25th will be issued a $0.53 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 22nd. This represents a yield of 361.0%. Get Jardine Matheson alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Separately, Macquarie cut shares of Jardine Matheson from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Thursday, May 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Buy. Jardine Matheson Stock Down 0.8% The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 0.99. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $52.43 and a two-hundred day moving average of $45.96. About Jardine Matheson (Get Free Report) Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates in motor vehicles and related operations, property investment and development, food retailing, health and beauty, home furnishings, engineering and construction, and transport businesses in China, Southeast Asia, and internationally. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Jardine Matheson Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Jardine Matheson and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE Free Report) from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a report released on Thursday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has $28.00 target price on the technology companys stock, up from their prior target price of $22.00. A number of other equities research analysts have also issued reports on the company. Bank of America increased their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Raymond James Financial increased their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $23.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 4th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Thursday, July 3rd. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. They issued a peer perform rating for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $21.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 23rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have given a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Hewlett Packard Enterprise has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $23.27. Get Hewlett Packard Enterprise alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Report on HPE Hewlett Packard Enterprise Trading Up 3.7% NYSE:HPE opened at $21.8110 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.29 and a quick ratio of 0.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $28.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.37. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a one year low of $11.97 and a one year high of $24.66. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $20.21 and a 200-day moving average price of $18.29. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, June 3rd. The technology company reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $7.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.51 billion. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 9.59% and a net margin of 4.60%.Hewlett Packard Enterprises revenue was up 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.42 EPS. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has set its FY 2025 guidance at 1.780-1.900 EPS. Q3 2025 guidance at 0.400-0.450 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.85 EPS for the current year. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 17th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 18th were given a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 18th. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.4%. Hewlett Packard Enterprises dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 52.53%. Insider Transactions at Hewlett Packard Enterprise In other news, SVP Jeremy Cox sold 68,590 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $18.44, for a total transaction of $1,264,799.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Phil Mottram sold 30,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.54, for a total transaction of $616,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 42,427 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $871,450.58. The trade was a 41.42% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 128,590 shares of company stock valued at $2,436,000. Company insiders own 0.36% of the companys stock. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in HPE. Putney Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 4th quarter valued at about $25,000. Alpine Bank Wealth Management bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 1st quarter valued at about $25,000. Bruce G. Allen Investments LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 345.0% in the 1st quarter. Bruce G. Allen Investments LLC now owns 1,700 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,318 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Finally, Zions Bancorporation National Association UT bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 1st quarter valued at about $27,000. Institutional investors own 80.78% of the companys stock. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Profile (Get Free Report) Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Chykingyoung Investment Development (OTCMKTS:CHYI Get Free Report) and Cango (NYSE:CANG Get Free Report) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership and valuation. Analyst Ratings This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Chykingyoung Investment Development and Cango, as provided by MarketBeat.com. Get Chykingyoung Investment Development alerts: Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Chykingyoung Investment Development 0 0 0 0 0.00 Cango 0 0 1 0 3.00 Cango has a consensus price target of $8.00, indicating a potential upside of 70.32%. Given Cangos stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Cango is more favorable than Chykingyoung Investment Development. Earnings & Valuation Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Chykingyoung Investment Development $110,000.00 2,507.53 -$1.10 million $0.06 11.62 Cango $110.21 million 4.42 $41.07 million ($0.02) -234.85 This table compares Chykingyoung Investment Development and Cangos gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Cango has higher revenue and earnings than Chykingyoung Investment Development. Cango is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Chykingyoung Investment Development, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Risk & Volatility Chykingyoung Investment Development has a beta of 5.96, indicating that its stock price is 496% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cango has a beta of 0.74, indicating that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500. Profitability This table compares Chykingyoung Investment Development and Cangos net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Chykingyoung Investment Development -961.40% N/A N/A Cango 0.24% 0.11% 0.08% Insider and Institutional Ownership 4.2% of Cango shares are owned by institutional investors. 34.6% of Chykingyoung Investment Development shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 29.1% of Cango shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth. Summary Cango beats Chykingyoung Investment Development on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks. About Chykingyoung Investment Development (Get Free Report) Chykingyoung Investment Development Holdings Inc., through its subsidiary, OneWorld Hotel Destination Service Inc., provides Internet hotel booking services. The company offers a proprietary online hotel booking program for connecting users with available rooms in hotels worldwide. It primarily serves travel agents in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, and Montreal, Canada. The company was founded in 2006 and is based in Vancouver, Canada. About Cango (Get Free Report) Cango Inc. operates an automotive transaction service platform that connects dealers, original equipment manufacturers, financial institutions, car buyers, insurance brokers, and companies in the People's Republic of China. The company offers automobile trading solutions comprising car sourcing, transaction facilitation, logistics, and warehousing support for dealers through Cango Haoche app that offers new car transaction services, and Cango U-Car app that offers used-car transaction services. It also provides automotive financing facilitation services that include facilitating financing transactions from financial institutions to car buyers, which comprises credit origination, credit assessment, credit servicing, and delinquent asset management services; facilitating financing transactions of car purchases for car buyers; and after-market services to car buyers, which includes facilitating the sale of insurance policies from insurance brokers or companies. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China. Receive News & Ratings for Chykingyoung Investment Development Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Chykingyoung Investment Development and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL Get Free Report) Director Michael Huerta sold 2,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.70, for a total transaction of $151,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 33,245 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,017,971.50. This trade represents a 6.99% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Delta Air Lines Trading Down 2.1% Shares of Delta Air Lines stock opened at $57.8140 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $53.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $51.05. The company has a market cap of $37.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.56. Delta Air Lines, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $34.74 and a fifty-two week high of $69.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.33 and a current ratio of 0.38. Get Delta Air Lines alerts: Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 10th. The transportation company reported $2.10 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $15,507,000 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $16.16 billion. Delta Air Lines had a net margin of 7.24% and a return on equity of 24.86%. The companys quarterly revenue was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.36 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Delta Air Lines, Inc. will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Delta Air Lines Increases Dividend Hedge Funds Weigh In On Delta Air Lines The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 21st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 31st were paid a dividend of $0.1875 per share. This is an increase from Delta Air Liness previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 31st. Delta Air Liness dividend payout ratio is presently 10.87%. Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 5.9% in the 1st quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 161,395 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $7,037,000 after acquiring an additional 9,034 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 2.6% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,690,361 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $160,900,000 after acquiring an additional 92,772 shares during the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 152.3% in the 1st quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 12,567 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $548,000 after acquiring an additional 7,586 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 8.2% in the 1st quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 39,374 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $1,670,000 after acquiring an additional 2,973 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 1,169.4% in the 1st quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 7,248 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $316,000 after acquiring an additional 6,677 shares during the last quarter. 69.93% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Analysts Set New Price Targets Several brokerages recently issued reports on DAL. Raymond James Financial upped their price objective on shares of Delta Air Lines from $60.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Bernstein Bank upped their price objective on shares of Delta Air Lines from $60.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Susquehanna set a $65.00 price objective on shares of Delta Air Lines and gave the company a positive rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Delta Air Lines from $62.00 to $65.50 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Delta Air Lines from $66.00 to $72.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Delta Air Lines currently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $66.21. Check Out Our Latest Report on Delta Air Lines About Delta Air Lines (Get Free Report) Delta Air Lines, Inc provides scheduled air transportation for passengers and cargo in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Airline and Refinery. Its domestic network centered on core hubs in Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, and Salt Lake City, as well as coastal hub positions in Boston, Los Angeles, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, and Seattle; and international network centered on hubs and market presence in Amsterdam, Bogota, Lima, Mexico City, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Sao Paulo, Seoul-Incheon, and Tokyo. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Delta Air Lines Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Delta Air Lines and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM Free Report) by 2.5% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 2,422 shares of the technology companys stock after acquiring an additional 59 shares during the period. Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLCs holdings in International Business Machines were worth $602,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Brighton Jones LLC increased its position in shares of International Business Machines by 12.4% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 21,011 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $4,619,000 after buying an additional 2,323 shares in the last quarter. Syon Capital LLC increased its position in shares of International Business Machines by 10.6% in the 4th quarter. Syon Capital LLC now owns 1,989 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $437,000 after buying an additional 190 shares in the last quarter. Burling Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of International Business Machines in the 4th quarter valued at $769,000. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC increased its position in shares of International Business Machines by 8.9% in the 4th quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC now owns 49,076 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $10,788,000 after buying an additional 4,021 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Seven Springs Wealth Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of International Business Machines in the 4th quarter valued at $283,000. Institutional investors own 58.96% of the companys stock. Get International Business Machines alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of analysts recently commented on IBM shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of International Business Machines from $244.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of International Business Machines from $237.00 to $233.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. KGI Securities set a $242.00 price objective on shares of International Business Machines and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Citigroup restated an outperform rating on shares of International Business Machines in a research note on Saturday, May 10th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on shares of International Business Machines from $285.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have issued a Buy rating, nine have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $268.75. International Business Machines Trading Down 1.4% Shares of NYSE:IBM opened at $239.2070 on Friday. International Business Machines Corporation has a 52-week low of $194.39 and a 52-week high of $296.16. The company has a market capitalization of $222.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.73 and a beta of 0.69. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $270.32 and a 200 day simple moving average of $258.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 0.91. International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The technology company reported $2.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.65 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $16.98 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $16.58 billion. International Business Machines had a net margin of 9.11% and a return on equity of 37.62%. The businesss revenue was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.43 EPS. International Business Machines has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that International Business Machines Corporation will post 10.78 earnings per share for the current year. International Business Machines Company Profile (Free Report) International Business Machines Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated solutions and services worldwide. The company operates through Software, Consulting, Infrastructure, and Financing segments. The Software segment offers a hybrid cloud and AI platforms that allows clients to realize their digital and AI transformations across the applications, data, and environments in which they operate. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding IBM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for International Business Machines Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for International Business Machines and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday called for stronger measures to fight terrorism in Syria. Terrorist forces are increasingly active within Syria, which is worrying, Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, told the Security Council. Reports are indicating that foreign terrorist fighters were major perpetrators of the violent incidents in the western coastal area in March and in Sweida in the south in July. Continued condoning of terrorists will only bring greater harm to Syria and other countries in the region, he warned. "We urge the Syrian interim authorities to take strong measures to resolutely counter all terrorist organizations designated by the Security Council, including the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party," he said. The purpose of the Security Council's sanctions related to Syria is to counter the terrorist forces within Syria and to maintain peace and security in the country and the region, Fu said. With regard to adjusting the sanctions regime related to Syria, the Security Council should consider the current counter-terrorism and security situation in Syria, the capacity of the Syrian interim authorities, and the possible implications of such adjustments, among others, in a comprehensive manner, and should make judicious decisions based on a careful study, to prevent the terrorist forces in Syria from exploiting the situation and gaining strength, he said. The security situation in Syria remains fragile, with armed conflicts occurring from time to time. It is the responsibility of the Syrian interim authorities to protect the legitimate rights and interests of all Syrians, he said. Investigation reports on the violence in the western coastal area should be made public at an early date. There should be an investigation into the violent incidents in Sweida, with accountability ensured through a transparent, credible, and responsible process. All parties in Syria should work in the same direction to jointly maintain stability and avoid triggering a new conflict, he said. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. (AND NO SPAM!) Just click here. The Pavlovian Left goes berserk at the mere prospect of each new Trump initiative. Its escalating reactive venom and hysteria are calibrated to the success of Trump's latest policy. Yet the new hard-left Democratic Party offers no counter-agenda to explain its furor. Still less do Democrats attempt bipartisan efforts to craft shared legislation. Take foreign policy. Democratic senators trashed the recent Trump-Putin Alaskan summit as a failure. Then they became depressed when, just days later, an entourage of European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suddenly flew to the White House. The Euros praised Trump for offering some sort of negotiated pathway to peace after over three years of war and some 1.5 million dead, wounded, missing, and captured on both sides on Europe's doorstep. So why did Democrats object to such negotiations by Trump? Was the reason that no such thing occurred during the Biden administration, when Putin invaded Ukraine, after his earlier invasions during the Obama era? What is the left's alternate plan? The old Biden idea of supplying Ukraine with enough money and arms to keep fighting and dying, but with no path to either victory or a negotiated peace? Would they prefer a fourth, fifth, or sixth year of war, or an additional one million casualties? The more Trump pressed almost all NATO members to pay their promised two percent of GDP on defense, the more Democrats grew irate over Trump's overseas influence. NATO members now want to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP and gush that Trump is "Daddy." Democrats steamed at that, since Europeans are supposed to hate Trump, not admire him for rebooting NATO. Would they prefer the old, disarmed NATO? Under the Biden administration, over 10 million illegal aliens flooded the country, sometimes 10,000 a day at the southern border. More than half a million criminals swarmed in. Yet now there is essentially zero illegal immigration and over 100,000 criminal aliens deported. A million who entered illegally have voluntarily gone home. Yet the left has fought the enforcement of immigration law tooth and nail. Do they believe that it is lawful and moral to break immigration law but immoral and illegal to enforce it? What is their solution? To allow in 20, 30, or 40 million more illegal aliens to distort the census and bring in new voters and constituencies? Is their plan to protect 400,000 illegal-alien criminals to roam at will? Or to add another 600 sanctuary jurisdictions that will not hand over criminal illegal aliens to immigration authorities? Democrats used to support reciprocal tariffs to save American jobs and businesses while warning of Chinese mercantilism. But now they blast Trump for negotiating tariffs with dozens of nations in efforts to reduce an unsustainable $1 trillion trade deficit. So far, Washington projects $300 billion in new revenue. Foreign businesses have promised to invest between $10 and $15 trillion within the United States. Trading partners have lowered tariffs on U.S. goods and services. So why the left-wing frenzy? Do they object to too much new federal income? Is there too much new foreign investment? Are new foreign tariffs too low on U.S. exports? Are Democrats worried that China may lose money? In 35 minutes of precision bombing, Trump disabled the Iranian nuclear program that was readying nuclear weapons. Few Iranians and no Americans died. No wider war followed. And the Democrats still cursed the Trump action. Did they prefer the Obama-era "Iran Deal" that had brought Iran to the threshold of nuclear acquisition? Did they want theocratic Iran to have nuclear weapons to threaten democratic Israel? Do Democrats complain that Trump tweets too much and sometimes is crude in his postings? Not really. California Governor Gavin Newsom tries to out-Trump on social media. Rep. Jasmine Crockett responds with scatological attacks. Democrats in Congress let off f-bombs. What explains the Democrat nihilism? One, the prior Biden administration was among the most aimless, corrupt, and unpopular in modern history. So the contrast with Trump's successes is too hard to bear. Two, Democrats so hate Trump the messenger that they seek to destroy his entire message, even when it benefits their own country and the world at large. If Trump conducts peace, they prefer war. If he wages war on crime, they side with the criminal. If he stops illegal immigration, they want more illegal immigrants. Three, they fear they have no alternatives to the Trump record, because his agenda is common sense and supported by a majority of Americans. Fourth, the left cannot stop Trump's success. Nothing seems to destroy him not the raid on his home, not 93 lawfare indictments, not efforts to strike him from state ballots, not two impeachments, not even two assassination attempts. Instead, all that only made him stronger and thus more hated. ( Hanson's latest book is "The Dying Citizen" from Basic Books. Buy it in hardcover at a 45% discount! by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 41% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR.) (COMMENT, BELOW) Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, a professor of classics emeritus at California State University at Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. SINGAPORE, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has recalled a salad mix imported from Australia after tests detected levels of Bacillus cereus exceeding permissible limits. In a statement on Thursday, the agency identified the product as Coolibah Herbs Gourmet Salad Mix and said the recall is ongoing. Consumers who have purchased the product are advised not to consume it. Those who have already consumed the salad mix and are concerned about their health should seek medical advice, the SFA added. Bacillus cereus, a bacterium commonly found in the environment and in the intestinal tracts of insects and mammals, is a frequent cause of food poisoning. Symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. Close & constant local news watchers understand that MOST cowtown reporting is connected to crime at some point . . . And so we share another collection of items regarding the scary impact of local violence, ALLEGED misdeeds, court cases, one of the weirder threats to local LEOs and just a bit of community outreach toward the end of the collection. Check TKC news gathering . . . Vehicle Pursuit Ends Near Askew Avenue with Officer-Involved Collision - UPDATE - Northeast News Admin BREAKING: Just before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 20, Kansas City Police Department's (KCPD) Accident Investigation Section (AIS) dispatched to the intersection of Askew and Anderson avenues to meet Central and East Patrol Divisions (CPD/ EPD) on a reported injury police vehicular collision. Woman accused of luring victim into armed carjacking remains hospitalized after chase with police A Kansas City woman is accused of luring a man into an armed carjacking. Mother arrested after child left in hot car in KCK Target parking lot A mother was arrested in Kansas City, Kansas, after she allegedly left her child alone in a locked car at the Legends Outlets. Kansas City man accused of uploading child porn to Facebook, sending nude video to teen A Kansas City man has been accused of uploading child porn to Facebook and sending inappropriate videos to a minor. Man pleads guilty to wire fraud after promising millions for Hard Rock, Hyatt hotel deals A man who promised to secure tens of millions of dollars for two major Kansas City-area hotel projects pleaded guilty to wire fraud Thursday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. Kansas City man with three felony warrants arrested after police pursuit The Cass County Sheriff's Office said deputies attempted to make a stop near I-49 and North Cass Parkway at approximately 11:36 p.m. Johnson County man charged in deadly crash that killed Olathe teen Bray's charges were the result of a July 27, 2024, crash on southbound I-35 near Johnson Drive. Feds: Kansas City-area teacher admits to producing sexually-explicit videos of minors at schools Federal prosecutors allege a Kansas City-area elementary school teacher admitted to producing sexually-explicit videos of minors as recently as last month at an area elementary school. Court documents: Accused meth dealer throws Oatmeal Cream Pie cookie at Sheriff before arrest made An alleged drug dealer's stash was found after he hit a Sheriff in the face with a cookie during a traffic stop. Vigil held to remember Kansas City son's life lost to violence One year after Tammy DeHaan's son was shot and killed at the BP gas station at the corner of Linwood Boulevard and Indiana Avenue, she says she still can't believe it. Cookbook honors Kansas City chef Shaun Brady one year after his death Friends of Shaun Brady are releasing a cookbook at Kansas City Irish Fest to honor the late chef, featuring his signature Irish recipes and tributes from fellow chefs. Traffic Officers Enforce Against School Zone Speeding With the start of the new school year this week, officers from KCPDs Traffic Unit have been specifically looking for speeders in school zones. Developing . . . TKC readers noted Dr. Carpenter's recent career history first . . . TV news kinda buried the confirmation but we appreciate the follow-up nevertheless . . . And now we ask . . . ISN'T VAPE SHOP SKILL TO SAVE HICKMAN MILLS KINDA CINEMATIC?!?! C'mon man . . . That's like Lean On Me with an even better soundtrack opportunity . . . And not so uptight. And all of this is to say that we wish the Doc the very best and hope that he can help students. After the jump we'll share a couple of quotes about his recent adventures and how they might help an embattled local school district now under investigation . . . A Georgia radio station posted a video of Carpenter explaining his new venture as the owner of Exotic Smoker Vape and Smoke Shop in the area. In the video, he expressed the business opportunity within the cannabis sector and was excited to grow the market in the South. "I became a property investor around residential and commercial," he said. "Within some of that, we have shops. I mean, it's capitalism, right? Thats where America is founded on. That work and all of those experiences is tied with those educational experiences, are super phenomenal when right now in a time where budget is such a priority. And all the ventures Ive ever been on had great budgets." Regarding the current crisis the education leader said . . . The Hickman Mills School District is now launching it's own internal investigation into potential misuse of taxpayer funds as Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick sais his initial findings should make taxpayers "really upset." In two weeks as the Interim Superintendent, Dr. Dennis Carpenter has already tried to reign in the chance of school funds being misused. In 14 days, we've go from 47 credit cards in the district, I believe, down to about three," Carpenter said. Take a look via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . . Interim superintendent vows accountability as Hickman Mills spending comes under scrutiny Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick launches full audit into Hickman Mills after reports of misused taxpayer funds, credit cards, and a $60K trip. 'The district is on fire': Hickman Mills faces state audit, $12 million deficit without action Dr. Dennis Carpenter, who served as superintendent at Hickman Mills from 2013 to 2017, is back as interim superintendent. The state audit and the district's finances have been immediate priorities. Developing . . . Today's crackdown lesson for one of the most embattled school district's in the KC metro . . . "Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said the investigation his office started in March into the Hickman Mills School District prompted a full audit. The investigation began after a whistleblower complaint about the potential misuse of school funds." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Thank you for signing up! Youll soon be getting your Toronto scoop in your inbox. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. Today, another group of former internally displaced persons, consisting of families temporarily settled in dormitories, sanatoriums, pioneer camps and administrative buildings in various territories of Azerbaijan, was sent to the Khidirli village of Aghdam district from the Garadagh district of Baku, Trend reports. At this stage, another 68 families (252 people) moved to the Khidirli village. Khidirli residents thanked President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva for their comprehensive care and expressed gratitude to the valiant Azerbaijani Army, which liberated the lands from occupation. Currently, more than 50 thousand people live in Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur. Among them are former internally displaced persons who have returned to these areas, as well as employees involved in the implementation of restoration and construction projects, employees of local departments of various government agencies, as well as specialists employed in healthcare, education, culture, tourism, industry, and energy institutions that have resumed their activities. AWAZA, Turkmenistan, August 22. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan aim to deepen trade and economic relations, Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov told journalists in Awaza, Trend reports. In this regard, our format can open up new opportunities to deepen relations in all areas. On the instructions of our leaders, we, together with our colleagues, are focused on expanding and strengthening trade, economic, and transport ties, as well as cooperation in the energy sector. I am confident that, following the meeting, appropriate joint statements will be adopted. There are already concrete working decisions and existing formats, so we are convinced that this initiative will further bring our countries economies closer together, strengthen transport connectivity, and enhance energy cooperation, the minister said. Mikayil Jabbarov also emphasized the importance of developing cooperation in the humanitarian sphere. I am confident that today the leaders of the states will provide more concrete assessments and outline their directives, which will be implemented consistently, he concluded. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. The adoption of the first Constitution of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan is associated with the name of National Leader Heydar Aliyev, the architect of independent and modern Azerbaijan, said Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev as he addressed the international conference on "National Leader Heydar Aliyev is the author of the Constitution of independent Azerbaijan" held in Lachin, Trend reports. Kamran Aliyev reported that a Constitutional Commission consisting of 33 people was established under the chairmanship of National Leader Heydar Aliyev to prepare the draft Constitution of Azerbaijan. Following a nationwide discussion, the draft Constitution was adopted in a referendum held on November 12, 1995, by a majority of 91.9 percent of votes with the participation of 86 percent of voters, and entered into force on November 27, 1995. The adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan marks one of the most important milestones in the history of our independence, as well as one of the outstanding services of National Leader Heydar Aliyev in the history of the Azerbaijani statehood," he emphasized. The Prosecutor General noted that the Constitution of independent Azerbaijan, comprising 5 sections, 12 chapters, and 158 articles, places the Azerbaijani people as the sole source of state power and upholds the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms as the state's supreme goal. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has sent a congratulatory letter to First Vice President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva on the occasion of her birthday, Trend reports. "Dear Mehriban Arifovna, Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on the occasion of your birthday. I sincerely wish you good health, happiness, well-being, and success in your state duties. Kindly convey my regards to Ilham Heydarovich and all members of your family," the letter reads. LACHIN, Azerbaijan, August 22. We attach great importance to the exchange of knowledge and experience with the judicial authorities of Azerbaijan, the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Turkiye, Ahmet Gokay Aktas said at an international conference organized by the Prosecutor General's Office in Lachin, Trend reports. According to him, principles such as the rule of law, the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms, and the separation of powers form the basis of modern constitutions. "I congratulate you on the 30th anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The 30th anniversary of the Constitution, which is an institutional guarantee of the Azerbaijani people's struggle for freedom and independence, is a significant and proud event not only for Azerbaijan, but also for us as friendly and brotherly countries. As the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Turkiye, we attach great importance to the exchange of knowledge and experience with the judicial authorities of friendly countries, especially Azerbaijan. Our common legal culture, similar constitutional approaches, and mutual trust create the basis for further strengthening this cooperation." The Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan is holding an international conference in Lachin on the theme National Leader Heydar Aliyev Author of the Constitution of Independent Azerbaijan. The conference is attended by Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev, Executive Secretary of the Coordinating Council of Prosecutors General of the CIS Member States Yuri Jdanov and his deputy Abdurakhmon Khotambekov, Prosecutors of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Turkiye Ahmet Gokay Aktas and Mustafa Yakar, as well as Prosecutor of the International Cooperation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of Georgia Temur Tsindeliiani and other guests. Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) JERUSALEM, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday warned that Gaza's largest city would be destroyed if Hamas does not yield to Israel's terms. He said in a statement that "the gates of hell" would soon open on Hamas unless it accepted Israel's conditions to end the war, chiefly the release of all hostages and disarmament. "If they do not agree, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun," referring to the two cities that the Israeli army has inflicted heavy destruction in the current war. He added that this would be done "with heavy fire, evacuation of residents, and ground operation." The remarks came one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to move forward with military plans to capture Gaza City. Meanwhile, Netanyahu said he had also directed officials to begin "immediate negotiations" aimed at securing the release of hostages in Gaza and bringing the war to an end. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians in the densely populated Gaza City before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. Meanwhile, Israeli army spokesperson for Arabic media Avichay Adraee said in a statement Thursday that the army has begun making initial warning calls to medical and international organizations operating in northern Gaza, notifying them that Gaza City residents should prepare to move south. According to the Gaza-based health authorities on Thursday, the death toll from Israeli strikes and shootings since Oct. 7, 2023 has risen to 62,192, with 157,114 others wounded. Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A Palestinian fleeing to south Gaza Strip is seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A Palestinian fleeing to south Gaza Strip is seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A Palestinian fleeing to south Gaza Strip is seen in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Palestinians fleeing to south Gaza Strip are seen on a road in Gaza City, on Aug. 22, 2025. Israeli forces have been besieging the densely populated Gaza City for about two weeks from several directions. Israeli officials said that evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the army moves in, according to Palestinian security sources. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. Our peoples are united by common history, culture, language, and religion, said President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev during a one-on-one meeting with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan, in the city of Turkmenbashi on August 22, Trend reports. "I recall with great pleasure our meetings with you last month in Baku, Fuzuli, and Shusha. The friendship and brotherhood between us are based on the will of our peoples. Our peoples are brothers and friends, and for centuries they have remained close to each other. At the same time, today, thanks to your initiative, a trilateral meeting of the leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan will be held. I highly appreciate this; it is a very good initiative. Our peoples are united by common history, culture, language, and religion. Discussing the issues of brotherly countries in a trilateral format carries great significance, will bring many benefits, and yield excellent results," said President Ilham Aliyev. TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. We are brotherly peoples of three countries located in one region, which in the future will lead to even greater potential for cooperation, including in the cultural sphere, said Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan, during a one-on-one meeting with President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in the city of Turkmenbashi on August 22, Trend reports. "We are united by the Caspian Sea. I am confident that our bilateral meeting will be fruitful. In addition to the bilateral meeting, a trilateral meeting in the Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan format is also planned. As you noted, we are brotherly peoples of three countries located in one region, which in the future will lead to even greater potential for cooperation, including in the cultural sphere," said Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. A mosque will be constructed in Fuzuli as a gift from Turkmenistan, President Ilham Aliyev announced during a press conference on the outcomes of the high-level meeting between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan, Trend reports. While in Fuzuli, Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich proposed the construction of a mosque as a gift from Turkmenistan. I accepted this proposal with gratitude. Although only a month has passed, the architectural design of the mosque is already prepared, and its foundation will be laid in the near future, the head of state added. TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. The large sewing factory, established on the initiative of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, currently employs over two hundred people, the vast majority of whom are women. As a result of the factorys expansion, the number of employees will increase several times, said President Ilham Aliyev during a press conference on the outcomes of the high-level meeting between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan, Trend reports. This is a great gift from the brotherly Uzbek people to Azerbaijan and the reviving Karabakh region, the head of state emphasized. Photo: Press service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. A new, highly promising, and peace-oriented cooperation format is being created in our region, President Ilham Aliyev said during a press conference on the outcomes of the high-level meeting between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. The head of state described this as a historic day. Will be updated BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. The President of the Presidential Council of the State of Libya, Mohamed Younis Al-Menfi, sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, Trend reports. ''Excellency, I am pleased to cordially congratulate you on the signing of the historic peace declaration between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia on August 8, 2025. This important step marks a new stage in the process of ending the long-standing conflict in the Caucasus region. Your wise leadership and strong will to achieve peace have led to this extraordinary success, contributing significantly to strengthening security and stability in the region. You've set an example for conflict resolution by demonstrating a commitment to dialogue, mutual understanding, and cooperation. We express our wishes for the continued development and prosperity of the people of Azerbaijan, hoping that the ties of friendship and cooperation between our countries will be strengthened in light of this historic achievement. Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration,'' the letter reads. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. In recent years, cases of extremist content spreading on social networks have been on the rise, political analyst Azer Garayev told Trend. Garayev noted that certain individuals, often unaware that their actions constitute a crime, fall into religious fanaticism and share on their social media accounts posters, scenes of violence, and acts of terrorism containing calls to such actions. By doing so, they commit offenses falling under Article 167-3 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (preparation, storage, dissemination, or financing of religious extremist materials). Additionally, there are instances of intolerance where individuals express insulting views against other religions, sects, traditions, clothing, lifestyles, and public figures of those faiths. Such actions cause serious concern in society, inflict significant damage to the environment of tolerance, and fall under Article 283 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (incitement of national, racial, social, or religious enmity). These tendencies are most often observed among adolescents and young people whose religious or secular knowledge is not particularly strong. Once again, we call on society to understand that in our country, where the traditions of coexistence of religions and peoples have been historically established, any actions aimed at deliberately or unknowingly undermining these values are unacceptable. Regardless of religious, national, or ethnic affiliation, no one can be subjected to persecution on these grounds, and calls to such extremist actions entail responsibility, Garayev said. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan hold a key geostrategic position connecting East with West and North with South, President Ilham Aliyev said during a high-level meeting between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan in Turkmenbashi, Trend reports. Speech by President Ilham Aliyev - Dear Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich. Dear Shavkat Miromonovich. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my brother, Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich Berdimuhamedov, for the high-level organization of today's Summit in Avaza and for the warm welcome. In addition, I would also like to thank him for initiating today's trilateral meeting between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Based on the cultural and historical proximity of our peoples, shared values and strategic interests, we are opening a new chapter in the history of cooperation between three friendly and fraternal states today. On this day, when I am visiting the hospitable Turkmen land, I would like to note again that Turkmenistan, under the wise leadership of esteemed Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich, has made significant achievements in terms of socioeconomic development and enhanced its international role and influence. His contribution to the development of modern Turkmenistan is an example of effective state governance, strategic vision and devotion to the Motherland. Recently, just last month, we were pleased to welcome the esteemed Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich to Azerbaijan. His visit was extremely fruitful. We held comprehensive talks in Baku, visited the liberated territories of Azerbaijan together, including the cities of Fuzuli and Shusha. I would like to express my special gratitude for the decision to build a mosque in the city of Fuzuli. This sincere fraternal support, this goodwill gesture will forever remain in the memory of our people as a symbol of solidarity and spiritual unity. At the same time, the establishment of twinning relations between the cities of Fuzuli and Arkadag opens up new opportunities for cultural and humanitarian cooperation. All this is a testament to the fact that Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations are on the rise. We will continue our joint efforts to develop these relations in all areas. We are bound with the Republic of Uzbekistan by the Treaty on Allied Relations, which was signed on August 23, 2024. Our fraternal relations with Uzbekistan are based on mutual support, strong cultural ties and common strategic goals. As a result of the reforms carried out in all areas of life in Uzbekistan, we are pleased to observe the dynamic development of the country, the enhancement of its international reputation and the growth of its economic potential. In recent years, we have achieved significant results with Uzbekistan in many areas, including political dialogue, economic and humanitarian cooperation. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Uzbek side and personally to Shavkat Miromonovich for their enormous contribution to the restoration of the liberated territories of Azerbaijan. A secondary school named after great scientist Mirzo Ulugbek was built in the city of Fuzuli, and we celebrated its opening together with Shavkat Miromonovich. A large sewing factory operates in the city of Khankendi with the support and on the initiative of the Uzbek side. We recently visited it together. The Uzbekistan park is under construction in the White City, one of the modern districts of Baku. Together with Shavkat Miromonovich, we laid the foundation of this beautiful park covering an area of five hectares. We have many other investment projects based on mutual interests. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have an important geostrategic position connecting East and West, North and South. New tasks and opportunities lie ahead of our countries in the field of transport and transit cooperation. Among them, together with my esteemed brother Gurbanguly Malikgulyyevich, we discussed the Middle Corridor, the expansion of ports and railways in detail today. We also discussed these issues with Shavkat Miromonovich during our last meeting. In other words, the joint efforts of the three countries in the field of transport, transit and logistics will be of great importance not only for our countries, but also for the wider region. As my brothers noted, there are ample opportunities for cooperation in the energy sector. We have traditional energy cooperation with Turkmenistan. We have already made a step in this area with Uzbekistan. Our state oil company SOCAR has already started developing an oil field in Uzbekistan and a contract has been signed. We hope that they will give us good news in the next one or two years. We are all eagerly awaiting the news of the discovery of a large oil field in Uzbekistan. TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, August 22. The establishment of sister city relations between Fuzuli and Arkadag opens new opportunities for cultural and humanitarian cooperation, President Ilham Aliyev said during a high-level meeting between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan in Turkmenbashi, Trend reports. Highlighting that Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan relations are experiencing a period of growth, the head of state added: We will continue our joint efforts to develop these relations in all areas. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. The date of the next public hearing on the criminal case against citizens of the Republic of Armenia Arayik Harutyunyan, Arkady Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan, David Ishkhanyan, David Babayan, Levon Mnatsakanyan and others who are accused of committing crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, including preparation and waging aggressive war, genocide, violation of laws has been announced. and the rules of warfare, as well as terrorism, terrorist financing, and the violent seizure of power, forcible retention of power and numerous other crimes, announced, Trend reports. The trial, held at the Baku Military Court under the chairmanship of Judge Zeynal Agayev, with judges Jamal Ramazanov and Anar Rzayev (reserve judge Gunel Samadova), ensured that each accused person was provided with a translator in their preferred language and defense lawyers. The hearing was attended by the accused, their defense attorneys, some of the victims, their legal heirs and representatives, as well as prosecutors defending the states accusations. The trial will continue on August 25. Photo taken on Aug. 22, 2025 shows a groundbreaking ceremony for a railway in Igdir, northeast Turkiye. Turkiye on Friday held a groundbreaking ceremony for a railway linking its northeastern Kars province with Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) ANKARA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Turkiye on Friday held a groundbreaking ceremony for a railway linking its northeastern Kars province with Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. The 224-kilometer railway line is designed as a critical link within the South Caucasus transit corridor, known as Zangezur Corridor. During a ceremony in the eastern province of Igdir, Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said the new railway line will serve as a vital development move by providing a new transportation link between Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. The railway project, with an estimated cost of 2.4 billion euros (2.8 billion U.S. dollars), will include five stations, five tunnels, 19 cut-and-cover tunnels, 10 bridges, three viaducts, 144 underpasses, 27 overpasses, and 480 culverts, the Turkish minister said. Uraloglu emphasized that once completed, the line will connect Azerbaijan with Turkiye's southeastern and Mediterranean regions, as well as link the Caspian and Mediterranean basins. The project is expected to give a significant boost to regional cooperation, development, production, exports, and tourism, according to the minister. "With the Kars-Igdir-Aralik-Dilucu railway line, we are taking one of the most concrete first steps toward realizing the Zangezur Corridor. This project will leave its mark not only on Turkiye's future but also on that of the South Caucasus and Eurasia," he said. He said that the corridor would strengthen economic cooperation between Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Armenia while fostering regional peace. People attend a groundbreaking ceremony for a railway in Igdir, northeast Turkiye, on Aug. 22, 2025. Turkiye on Friday held a groundbreaking ceremony for a railway linking its northeastern Kars province with Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. A delegation led by Azerbaijans Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev visited the Astrakhan Oblast of the Russian Federation on August 22, the Cabinet of Ministers told Trend reports. The delegation first paid tribute to the national leader, Heydar Aliyev, at a boulevard named in his honor, laying flowers at his monument. During the visit, the 23rd meeting of the Azerbaijan-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation was held in Astrakhan. Ahead of the session, the co-chairs of the commission, Shahin Mustafayev for Azerbaijan and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Overchuk, held a preliminary bilateral meeting. The full session brought together leaders and authorized representatives from both countries relevant state bodies to review the current state and future prospects of economic collaboration across sectors such as investment, industry, and transport-transit, as well as other joint projects. Mustafayev and Overchuk signed the protocol of the 23rd session of the Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia at the conclusion of the meeting. Following the session, Mustafayev met with Astrakhan Governor Igor Babushkin to discuss ways to expand economic and trade ties between Azerbaijan and the Astrakhan Oblast. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Kalbajar, Azerbaijan, August 22. The Murovdag Tunnel is one of the longest road tunnels in the world, Azerbaijan State Agency of Automobile Roads (AAYDA) project engineer, Eyyub Huseynov told to participants of a media tour organized in Kalbajar, Trend reports. "All safety measures were taken during the construction of the tunnel. The Murovdag ridge begins at the 13.5th kilometer of the route. Thus, the most important section of the road passes through the Murovdag ridge. Here, the altitude above sea level increases from 1,700 to 3,250 meters. For the safe operation of the road in winter, it was deemed appropriate to build a tunnel under the Murovdag ridge. The Murovdag Tunnel is one of the longest road tunnels in the world. The tunnel will have four lanes: two entry lanes and two exit lanes. Earthworks in the tunnel, as well as work on the construction of 38 transition tunnels connecting the right and left sections, have already been completed. In addition to the Murovdag Tunnel, four more tunnels with a total length of 2,636 meters are being built as part of the project. The main construction work in these tunnels, including drilling, concreting, and most of the other technical work, has already been completed," he said. Eyyub Huseynov also noted that the tunnel is scheduled to open next year. Overall, 87 percent of the work on the highway project has already been completed. On August 21, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva viewed the progress of work on the Toganal-Kalbajar-Istisu highway. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. During ongoing court proceedings at the Baku Military Court on August 22, victim Mukhtar Hashimov stated that the gravestones were destroyed, and the gold teeth were pulled from the bodies during the occupation of the Jijimli village of the Lachin district, Trend reports. The victim said that he was forcibly displaced from the village due to the Armenian armed forces attacks on May 18, 1992. According to him, the Armenians killed the local shepherd Mehdi Mahammadov, while he was grazing cattle in 1989. The Armenians then extensively shelled the village in 1992, using modern arms, with the victim and his baby daughter sustained leg wounds during those attacks. Our gravestones were destroyed and our ancestors gold teeth were stolen, and the historical and religious monuments were looted, Hashimov added. Court proceedings are ongoing against Armenian nationals accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, aggression, terrorism, and violations of the laws and customs of war. The charges also include financing terrorism, violent seizure and retention of power, and other serious offenses. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. On August 22, Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ali Asadov met with President of China Road and Bridge Corporation Wang Lijun, Trend reports. Meanwhile, it was noted that the meeting discussed the work done in Azerbaijan in recent years in the field of road and transport infrastructure, in particular, measures taken to improve transport infrastructure in Baku and its surroundings, reduce urban traffic jams, and create an extensive transport network. Issues of possible cooperation with the China Road and Bridge Corporation were also touched upon. PASHA Holding remains committed to supporting projects implemented by ABAD (Ail Biznesin Asan Dstk Easy Support for Family Business), including the Quba ABAD Factory Production Complex and the Sheki ABAD Ceramics and Applied Arts Center. ABAD was established on September 23, 2016, under the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Its purpose is to promote active citizen participation in the countrys socio-economic development, foster the growth of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, increase employment levels, and support the formation of competitive family businesses. ABAD operates on a self-financing principle and, through its regional centers, implements support projects for family businesses engaged in decorative-applied folk arts and food production. With its from idea to shelf approach, ABAD assists entrepreneurs in organizing the sale of produced goods and provides access to production equipment, marketing, branding and design support, accounting and legal assistance, logistics services, and specialized training. These services aim to help entrepreneurs access broader markets and improve production efficiency. With the support of PASHA Holding, ABAD has implemented its largest projects: the Quba ABAD Factory Production Complex in Quba and the Sheki ABAD Ceramics and Applied Arts Center in Sheki. The Quba ABAD Factory Production Complex, officially opened on October 11, 2018, is housed in a building originally constructed in 1956 as a House of Culture. After years of use, the building had fallen into disrepair. Thanks to major reconstruction and modern equipment installation, the complex now serves ABAD members across five production areas: fruit drying, dairy processing, meat processing, confectionery, and fruit and vegetable processing. In Sheki, the Sheki ABAD Ceramics and Applied Arts Center was established to preserve Azerbaijans historic ceramics traditions, safeguard the intangible cultural heritage of handicrafts, and promote the diversity of Azerbaijani clay to the world. The center also offers training in carpet weaving and other handicrafts and has hosted several international events, including the International Ceramics Symposium. At PASHA Holding, we believe that supporting small and medium-sized businesses through initiatives like ABAD is crucial for fostering sustainable economic growth, creating long-term impact for society, and preserving cultural heritage, said Jalal Gasimov, Chief Executive Officer of PASHA Holding. Its also worth mentioning that until now, ABAD has supported a total of 672 family businesses. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. The mineral resources sector remains one of Bulgarias key suppliers to strategic industries such as energy, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, and chemicals, Trend reports. The sector in question is a pivotal export-driven domain, constituting 12 percent of the national export portfolio, as articulated by Deputy Minister of Economy and Industry Nevena Lazarova during the National Celebration of Miners Daya significant milestone for Bulgarias mining sector. Lazarova underscored the criticality of the sector within the national economic framework, highlighting that mining constitutes approximately 5 percent of GDP and generates employment for over 20,000 individuals. She articulated her appreciation to the Bulgarian Chamber of Mining and Geology for its synergistic collaboration, underscoring that the Ministry of Economy and Industry will persist in its efforts to establish a robust and foreseeable regulatory environment that fosters competitiveness and sustainable development. The Deputy Minister further emphasized the imminent evolution of the National Industrial Strategy 20252030, which will prioritize technological innovation, digital transformation, resource optimization, and the mitigation of carbon emissions. She articulated that the strategic framework is comprehensively synchronized with the EU Green Deal, thereby catalyzing novel avenues for capital infusion and pioneering industrial initiatives. Through synergistic collaboration, we can position Bulgaria as a frontrunner in sustainable mineral extraction within the European context, Lazarova articulated. As part of the event, she presented the Award for Innovation in the Mining Industry, which recognizes the most significant innovative project implemented by a Bulgarian mining enterprise. This years award went to Kaolin EAD for its project Innovative Approach to Processing Quartz Sands. The celebration brought together representatives from business, institutions, and academia to pay tribute to miners and all those working in the mineral resources sector. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. The Estonian government put their heads together today to cook up new measures aimed at bolstering business diplomacy, with the goal of spreading their wings in export markets and giving the economy a much-needed shot in the arm, Trend reports. During the convening, officials underscored the criticality of sustained synergistic collaboration among the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and Enterprise Estonia in facilitating the international expansion of domestic enterprises. Estonian exports remain largely concentrated in the European Union, which accounts for about 70 percent of our goods and services exports. Entering more distant markets requires stronger state support and a presence through embassies, said Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna. Tsahkna added that Enterprise Estonia and the Foreign Ministry are working to assist businesses in accessing markets not only in neighboring regions but also further afield. Our goal is to put a stronger focus on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. To do this effectively, we need up-to-date foreign representation that covers all regions critical for supporting Estonian exports and attracting investment, he explained. Minister of Economic Affairs and Industry Erkki Keldo pointed out that diving into new markets requires putting your ducks in a row and getting a good grip on the local business landscape. The state can support companies by ensuring a permanent presence in target markets, helping them better understand local business culture, laws, and supply chain specifics. Through our embassies and trade advisers, Estonian companies can gain reliable information on opportunities and risks while building valuable connections with local partners and clients, Keldo said. He added that export priorities have been set together with industry associations and included in a national export action plan. To back these efforts, Estonia has also created a dedicated export support scheme, allowing companies to jointly prepare for entering new markets and scaling up the sale of products and services abroad. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. From 18 through 28 of August, the National Armed Forces of Latvia, in cahoots with NATOs Communications and Information Agency, are rolling up their sleeves for joint military exercises dubbed Baltic Trust 25 (BATT25) at the Selija training area and in the Sunakste region, where the drills also include the technical interoperability exercise mTie25, Trend reports. These exercises show our soldiers training shoulder to shoulder with allies to strengthen readiness and cooperation in protecting our state border against threats posed by unmanned aerial vehicles, Defence Minister Andris Spruds said. During the decadal span, approximately 470 stakeholders from Latvia and various NATO affiliatesincluding Sweden and Germanyare evaluating their operational capacity to engage with intelligence-gathering and assault unmanned aerial vehicles. Operational scenarios encompass simulated engagements to enhance comprehension of unmanned aerial vehicle functionalities, electromagnetic interference, and ancillary defense mechanisms. Stakeholders from multiple EU member states are in attendance, with their initiatives undergoing evaluation by defense experts. To optimize both defensive and offensive unmanned aerial systems capabilities, the exercises incorporate a diverse array of aerial platforms and counter-UAS technologies, including advanced radar systems, multi-spectral sensors, imaging devices, and various ancillary tools. Organizers emphasize that Baltic Trust 25 serves as a pivotal showcase of NATOs and Latvias unified dedication to robust, synergistic counter-drone defense capabilities. Unmanned aerial systems have revolutionized operational paradigms and tactical frameworks, providing enhanced defense mechanisms and avenues for commercial enterprises, academic inquiry, and the broader defense sector. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. On Friday, during Acting Minister of Culture Sarunas Birutiss visit to Japan, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Lithuanian National Museum and the Nagoya City Museum, and this agreement marks a new stage in strengthening the LithuaniaJapan cultural partnership, Trend reports. The agreement signed today is the second institutional document between Lithuanian and Japanese cultural institutions. It demonstrates the strength of our ties and mutual commitment. This cooperation will continue the dialogue that strengthens our partnership and helps us better understand each other, Minister Birutis said at the signing ceremony. The event was attended by Dr. Ruta Kackute, Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum, who officially confirmed the long-term partnership together with Nagoya City Museum Director Yoshinori Kondo. Local officials and distinguished guests also joined the ceremony. Kackute emphasized that the agreement opens new opportunities for knowledge exchange and cultural projects: This partnership is a great opportunity not only to learn from Japans museum professionals but also to share our own experience. The 2026 exhibition at the Nagoya City Museum will introduce Lithuanian history and culture to Japanese audiences, while the creative process with foreign partners will enrich our museums team. We will broaden our horizons, deepen our knowledge, think about future projects, and strengthen cultural ties between our countries," she said. The cooperation agreement focuses on strengthening museum collaboration between Lithuania and Japan through knowledge exchange in museum studies, exhibitions, academic research, cultural heritage preservation, and professional training. These activities aim to promote mutual growth and deepen understanding between the two nations. In accordance with the stipulations of the accord, Lithuanian experts will engage in capacity-building initiatives in Nagoya, operating under the auspices of Marta, a museum competency framework orchestrated by the Lithuanian National Museum. The initiative encompasses a comprehensive suite of training modules, symposiums, experiential internships, and immersive residencies orchestrated by global thought leaders, thereby facilitating a robust knowledge transfer paradigm that underpins the sector's holistic advancement. The document serves a pivotal function in the orchestration of the 2026 exhibition LithuaniaEcho of Songs in the Baltic Forests, set to be showcased at the Nagoya City Museum post-reconstruction phase. The exhibition aims to showcase the rich tapestry of Lithuania's historical narrative and cultural heritage to an expansive demographic of Japanese stakeholders. The synergy of cultural collaboration between Lithuania and Nagoya has been on an upward trajectory since 2023, bolstered by a consortium of Nagoya City Council members operating in an informal capacity. Among the distinguished collaborative initiatives have been a curated exhibition of archival imagery of Vilnius commemorating the city's septuagenarian milestone and a cultural exposition of Lithuania in Nagoya. During the rest of the visit, Minister Birutiss delegation will honor the memory of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara at his memorial museum and monument in Yaotsu, Gifu Prefecture, and attend the opening of the annual Lithuania Now festival in Gifu, featuring performances by Vilnius Universitys alumni folk ensemble Jievaras. On Saturday, the delegation will participate in the official Baltic Unity Day celebration at EXPO 2025 Osaka. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Iran sees sharp decline in imports from Georgia in early year Irans imports from Georgia dropped sharply in the first four months of the current Iranian year, totaling around 7,500 tons worth $24 million. Overall, Iran imported roughly 12.2 million tons of goods valued at $17.6 billion, focusing mainly on essential products while restricting imports of domestically produced items. Access to paid information is limited If You already have a account, please log in Login Register PHNOM PENH, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia attracted a total of 3.71 million international tourists in the first seven months of 2025, down 8 percent from the same period last year, the Ministry of Tourism said on Friday. Thailand topped the chart among foreign tourist arrivals to the Southeast Asian country during the January-July period this year, followed by Vietnam and China. Thong Mengdavid, a lecturer at the Institute for International Studies and Public Policy under the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said the 8 percent decline in international tourist arrivals reflected both regional economic slowdowns and intensified competition from neighboring destinations, which may have diverted visitors. "It also highlights lingering challenges in air connectivity and destination diversification," he told Xinhua. "The newly built Techo International Airport, scheduled to open to official operations on Sept. 9, 2025, will serve as a major gateway to Cambodia, offering greater flight capacity, modern facilities, and improved international connectivity," he added. By accommodating more direct long-haul and regional flights, it will make travel to Cambodia more convenient and attractive for tourists, Mengdavid said. He said the Cambodia-China Tourism Year 2025 and stronger inflows of tourists from China and some ASEAN member states could help stabilize Cambodia's tourist growth in the entirety of 2025. Tourism is one of four pillars supporting Cambodia's economy in addition to garment, footwear and travel goods export, agriculture, and construction and real estate. Gold imports drive Azerbaijans trade in first half In the first half of 2025, Azerbaijan imported gold worth $3.1 billion from 22 countries, with Russia, the United Kingdom, and Australia among the top suppliers. Domestic gold production reached 1,600 kilograms, a nearly 60 percent increase from the same period last year. Access to paid information is limited If You already have a account, please log in Login Register BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. Azerbaijan exported $4.42 billion worth of crude oil and petroleum products derived from bituminous rocks to Italy, totaling 8.43 million tons from January through July 2025. Data obtained by Trend from the State Customs Committee indicates that this represents an increase of $824 million, or 22.9 percent, in value and 2.75 million tons, or 48.6 percent, in volume compared to the same period in 2024, when exports to Italy amounted to $3.6 billion and 5.67 million tons. Italy hit the jackpot as Azerbaijans prime spot for crude oil exports during this stretch. In aggregate, Azerbaijan executed international commerce amounting to $28.8 billion, reflecting a growth trajectory of 7.25 percent relative to the corresponding timeframe of the preceding year. The exportation metrics registered at $15.2 billion, juxtaposed against importation figures aggregating to $13.6 billion. The yearly export figures contracted by 5.4 percent, juxtaposed with a substantial 26.1 percent escalation in imports, culminating in a favorable trade balance of $1.6 billion, which represents a contraction of 3.3 times relative to the preceding fiscal year. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, August 22. Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Munira Aminova met in Bahrain with Abdulrahman Al-Mahmud, Deputy Head of Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC), Trend reports via Uzbek MFA. The sides explored prospects for a strategic partnership within the framework of Uzbekistans National Program for the Development of the Chemical Industry. GPIC representatives highlighted the countrys favorable geographical position and significant potential in deep raw material processing, expressing readiness to consider investment opportunities. As a result of the talks, the parties agreed to expand cooperation in agrochemistry, prepare for an upcoming visit of the GPIC delegation to Uzbekistan, and establish a joint working group to develop promising projects in greater detail. This meeting is part of broader official visit of Uzbek delegation to Bahrain. Earlier in the visit, Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov met with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, with discussions covering trade, investment, and institutional collaboration, resulting in a visa-free agreement for holders of diplomatic passports. Turkmenistan's Commodity Exchange sparks UAE investment with new trade deals Entrepreneurs from the United Arab Emirates signed a contract with the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Turkmenistan on the foreign market. As a result of the trading session, a total of three deals were concluded. Access to paid information is limited If You already have a account, please log in Login Register Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan trade volume contracts in 7M2025 Trade between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan has declined sharply, with total turnover in the first seven months of 2025 reaching around $154 million, down 41% year-on-year. Non-oil exports to Turkmenistan fell to about $36 million, representing under 2% of Azerbaijans total exports, while overall imports from the country dropped to roughly $144 million. Access to paid information is limited If You already have a account, please log in Login Register Subscription to paid content Gain access to all that Trend has to offer, as well as to premium, licensed content via subscription or direct purchase through a credit card. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, August 22. Russian Ambassador Alexey Borodavkin met with Kazakh Atomic Energy Agency Chairman Almassadam Satkaliev to discuss bilateral cooperation in atomic energy, Trend reports via the Russian Embassy in Kazakhstan. In a traditionally trusting and friendly atmosphere, current issues of Russian-Kazakh cooperation in the field of atomic energy were discussed, the information says. Moreover, at the meeting key attention was given to the progress of preparations for the construction of Kazakhstans first nuclear power plant by an international consortium led by the State Corporation Rosatom. Recently, Kazakhstan began preparations for the construction of its first nuclear power plant (NPP), choosing the Russian state corporation Rosatom as the leader of the international consortium. This decision was made following an open and competitive selection process, which also involved Chinas CNNC, Frances EDF, and South Koreas KHNP. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. bp announced the successful completion of the third phase of its social investment project in Azerbaijan, aimed at supporting the development of highly skilled local talent, Trend reports. The education initiative is part of bps commitment to contribute to the countrys sustainable future by nurturing world-class local professionals. Building on the success of previous phases, the third stage supported 30 talented Azerbaijani youth, all of whom gained admission to prestigious universities in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Ten participants were accepted into bachelors programs, while 20 pursued masters degrees. Participants secured placements at top-ranking institutions including Bilkent University, Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, University College London (UCL), National University of Singapore, Columbia University, University of California, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, University of Manchester, University of Bologna, Hong Kong University, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), among others. These results highlight the participants strong academic potential and the effectiveness of the support provided. The participants were selected from underprivileged families and received comprehensive assistance, including SAT and IELTS test preparation, admission guidance, and access to fully funded scholarships at international universities. As a result, 24 of the 30 students have already secured scholarships from various sources, while applications from the remaining six are under review. Certificates were awarded to the participants during a ceremony marking their achievements, and they shared their future plans with the audience. We are very pleased to see the continued success of this initiative. By supporting talented Azerbaijani youth, the project contributes to shaping a bright future for the country. The increasing number of students admitted to the worlds most prestigious universities reflects their talent and determination, as well as the importance of investing in education. We remain committed to supporting the development of national talent and contributing to Azerbaijans sustainable and prosperous future, said Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, Vice President of bp in the Caspian region. The total value of the third phase was 150,000 manat ($88,235), and it ran for 11 months, from August 2024 to July 2025. The project was implemented by the local organization ROOF Academic Training. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. bp has outlined the measures taken to address potential contamination in certain batches of Azerbaijani oil, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, Vice President of bp in the Caspian region, told reporters, Trend reports. The situation is currently stabilizing, work is underway to resolve the problem, and the loading of crude oil from the Ceyhan terminal onto tankers continues. To ensure the quality of the oil loaded onto tankers, the quality of the oil is checked before each loading, he said. Some time ago, BP Plc, the operator of major Caspian oil and gas projects, reported receiving information about potential contamination issues with some batches of Azerbaijani oil. The company announced that these problems were related to organic chlorides in the oil. It was noted that this chemical could damage oil refineries and equipment in sufficient quantities. A significant volume of Azerbaijani oil is transported to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey via a 1,768 km oil pipeline. This pipeline was built by BTC Co. (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) and is operated by bp. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. The Aghdam Industrial Park, established by a presidential decree dated May 28, 2021, now hosts more than 30 resident and four non-resident companies with an investment portfolio exceeding 285 million manat ($167.6 million), the Agency for Development of Economic Zones under the Ministry of Economy told Trend. The Agency stated that entrepreneurs have invested nearly 138 million manat ($81.1 million) in the park, generating over 900 permanent jobs, mostly for local residents. Since operations began, production in the park has reached approximately 500 million manat ($294.1 million), including around 18 million manat ($10.5 million) in exports. Key outputs include construction materials, tobacco products, footwear, ventilation and fire-fighting equipment, metal products, railway equipment, and electrical devices. Much of this production supports reconstruction projects in territories liberated from occupation. The majority of Aghdam Parks land is already allocated to entrepreneurs, while the process of accepting investment applications for the remaining plots continues," the agency noted. Similarly, the Araz Valley Economic Zone Industrial Park in Jabrayil, created by presidential decree dated October 4, 2021, has registered 18 resident and three non-resident businesses with a total investment portfolio nearing 150 million manat ($88.2 million). Production sales in the park have reached 3.4 million manat ($2 million) to date, with an additional 2.7 million manat ($1.5 million) recorded in the first half of this year. Covering 200 hectares, the parks strategic location along new highways and railways supports logistics, trade centers, storage complexes, wholesale and retail operations, TIR parks, fuel stations, and vehicle and equipment maintenance. Both parks offer residents a favorable business environment, providing infrastructure including gas, electricity, water, sewage, fiber-optic networks, and internal road and rail lines. Companies benefit from exemptions from property, land, and income taxes for ten years, as well as VAT and customs duty relief on imported equipment for production purposes. Additional incentives in liberated areas include preferential bank loans, subsidized social insurance payments, 20 percent discounts on utility services, and full exemptions on customs duties and VAT for certain imported materials. Entrepreneurs interested in registering as residents can apply to the Economic Zones Development Agency under the Ministry of Economy. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel PHNOM PENH, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has reported a total of 4.08 million international air passengers in the first seven months of 2025, a year-on-year increase of almost 16 percent, said an official report on Friday. Issued by the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA), the report said a total of 31 international and domestic airlines had operated 37,492 flights to the kingdom's three international airports during the January-July period this year, up 16 percent compared to the same period last year. It added that the Southeast Asian country also recorded a 28-percent rise in air cargo volume to 47,218 tons. "Cambodia is projected to receive around 7.5 million air passengers in the entirety of 2025, an expected increase of 20 percent from 6.24 million in 2024," SSCA's Secretary of State and Spokesperson Sinn Chanserey Vutha said. He was confident that the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, which was put into official use in November 2023, and the Techo International Airport, which is scheduled to operate on Sept. 9, 2025, would help attract more international airlines and passengers to Cambodia. The Southeast Asian country currently has three international airports in operation. They are the Phnom Penh International Airport, the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, and the Sihanouk International Airport. BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. At Italys Augusta port, the price of Azerbaijans Azeri Light crude on a CIF basis rose by $0.58, or 0.84 percent, compared to the previous figure, reaching $69.48 per barrel, a source in the oil market told Trend. According to the source, at Turkiyes Ceyhan port, the price of a barrel of Azeri Light on an FOB basis increased by $0.58, or 0.86 percent, to $67.94. The price of Urals crude rose by $0.56, or 1 percent, compared to the previous figure, amounting to $56.03 per barrel. The price of North Sea Dated Brent crude increased by $0.57, or 0.84 percent, to $68.13 per barrel. In Azerbaijans state budget for 2025, the average price of oil is calculated at $70 per barrel. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel ASTANA, Kazakhstan, August 22. Kyrgyzstan is one of Kazakhstans key strategic partners in the region, and relations between the two countries are developing in a spirit of alliance, said the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the seventh meeting of the Supreme Interstate Council of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Trend reports. In his speech, the President of Kazakhstan expressed gratitude to the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov for the invitation and stated that the purpose of his official visit was to strengthen Kazakh-Kyrgyz ties and expand mutually beneficial cooperation. I am convinced that thanks to political dialogue at a high level, cooperation between our countries will reach a qualitatively new level. Kazakhs and Kyrgyz are brotherly peoples connected by a shared history and fate. Our countries have consistently supported each other both in difficult times and joyful days. Our friendship, which has withstood the test of time, is a spiritual legacy bequeathed by our ancestors, passed down from generation to generation. Today, relations between the two peoples have grown into an unbreakable partnership based on mutual trust and respect. The volume of bilateral trade has reached about 2 billion dollars. There are all possibilities to increase this figure. Investment cooperation is expanding every year, which has allowed us to successfully implement a number of joint projects. We coordinate actions in the water-energy sector. Cultural and humanitarian ties are being strengthened, noted the President of Kazakhstan. According to him, Kazakhstan pays special attention to deepening cooperation with Kyrgyzstan. Last year we signed a historic Treaty on deepening and expanding allied relations. Today we are adopting a Comprehensive Cooperation Plan. I am confident that these important steps will give a new impetus to the development of Kazakh-Kyrgyz relations. The governments of both countries should be guided by the goals and objectives outlined in this plan, added Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. In turn, the President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, emphasized his commitment to the course of comprehensive strengthening of relations with Kazakhstan in the spirit of friendship, good neighborliness, and traditional brotherhood. Kazakhstan is our closest neighbor, a brotherly country, occupying a special place in Kyrgyzstans foreign policy, and one of our main trading partners. With deep satisfaction, I want to note that thanks to your personal support, dear Kassym-Jomart Kemelovich, strategic partnership and allied relations between our states are confidently developing. Our peoples have long lived in harmony and friendship, supporting each other. In this regard, I am deeply convinced that on the basis of established traditions of friendship, we will be able to jointly solve all arising issues. After all, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs are twin peoples. The great Abay said: No Kazakh will doubt the common origin of Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, said Sadyr Japarov. During the meeting, issues of cooperation in trade and economy, transport and transit, water and energy, and cultural and humanitarian spheres were discussed. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is on an official visit to Kyrgyzstan. On August 21, at Manas International Airport, Tokayev was personally welcomed by the President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, August 22. The President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev awarded Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov the "Altyn Qyran" order for his leadership and contributions to strengthening bilateral relations. Trend reports. In his speech at the award ceremony, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev noted that he considers Sadyr Japarov a true leader and experienced politician who is leading the Kyrgyz people toward progress. We highly appreciate your tireless work on the path to the prosperity of Kyrgyzstan. Thanks to your balanced policy, the country has entered a new stage of development. The economy of Kyrgyzstan is showing high growth rates. On your initiative, new large projects are being implemented in various fields. Large-scale transformations are taking place in the social sphere, as well as in the system of science and education. All of this will undoubtedly strengthen Kyrgyzstan's economy and enhance its authority on the international stage. Your farsighted steps have contributed to strengthening peace and stability in the region. I am absolutely confident that under your wise leadership, the fraternal Kyrgyz people will achieve even greater heights, said Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. President Tokayev also emphasized that Kazakhstan sincerely rejoices in Kyrgyzstans achievements. The fraternal Kazakh and Kyrgyz peoples have long been united by a common fate, history, and traditions. We have similar languages, mentalities, and ways of life. Today, relations based on mutual trust and respect have been established between our countries. Our allied ties are strengthening. Strategic partnership between the two states is developing dynamically, and you make an invaluable contribution to this. Thanks to our joint efforts, Kazakh-Kyrgyz cooperation has gained new momentum. New initiatives aimed at deepening strategic partnership have been put forward. In Kazakhstan, it is well known that you work hard for the benefit of the Kyrgyz people, faithfully serve them, and make a huge contribution to strengthening friendly relations between our peoples. Therefore, I have decided to award you the highest state award of the Republic of Kazakhstan - the order "Altyn Qyran." This award is a sign of special respect and sincere gratitude from Kazakhstan to you and the entire Kyrgyz people, concluded President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. In turn, Sadyr Zhaparov expressed gratitude to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the entire Kazakh people for awarding him the highest state award of the Republic of Kazakhstan and emphasized that he perceives this award as a sign of special respect for the Kyrgyz people. He also noted that this gesture demonstrates the high level of strategic partnership and alliance between the two countries, expressing confidence that cooperation, which has stood the test of time, will continue to strengthen. Earlier, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Sadyr Zhaparov signed the decisions of the seventh meeting of the Supreme Interstate Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Members of the official delegations signed a Roadmap to increase bilateral trade turnover to $3 billion by 2030 and other intergovernmental and interagency documents. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, August 22. Kazakh investors are contributing to the development of key sectors of Kyrgyzstans economy, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said during the press conference with President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh President. According to him, over the past 20 years, Kazakhstan has invested $1.4 billion into Kyrgyzstans economy, including socially significant projects We agreed to continue creating favorable conditions for the effective operation of joint enterprises. Particular attention was given to increasing the capacity of the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border, as well as the issue of freight transportation. In recent times, a number of large-scale measures have been implemented in this area. Work is currently underway to modernize eight border checkpoints. This work will be fully completed within the next two years. The governments of both countries have been instructed to keep this matter under special supervision. All of this will contribute to an increase in the volume of mutual trade, noted the President of Kazakhstan. Earlier, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Sadyr Japarov signed the decisions of the seventh meeting of the Supreme Interstate Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Members of the official delegations signed a Roadmap to increase bilateral trade turnover to $3 billion by 2030 and other intergovernmental and interagency documents. Azerbaijan details oil exports to Denmark for 7M2025 Azerbaijan resumed oil and petroleum product exports to Denmark this year after recording no shipments last year. Overall foreign trade turnover has expanded, though the countrys export volumes declined during the period. Access to paid information is limited If You already have a account, please log in Login Register Azerbaijan doubles natural gas exports to Georgia in 6M2025 Azerbaijan exported around 1.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Georgia in the first half of 2025, slightly down from last year. The country produced approximately 25 billion cubic meters of gas during the same period, with major contributions from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli, Shah Deniz, Absheron fields, and SOCARs share. Access to paid information is limited If You already have a account, please log in Login Register BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 23. On August 22, S&P revised the outlook for Kazakhstans sovereign credit rating from Stable to Positive while affirming the rating at BBB-, the Ministry of Economy of Kazakhstan said, Trend reports. According to the ministry, the agencys decision reflects Kazakhstans steady progress in advancing institutional and economic reforms, including the adoption of new Budget and Tax Codes. S&P believes that the introduction of stricter fiscal rules, together with a significant expansion of the revenue base, will help consolidate public finances, reduce the budget deficit, and ensure stability in public debt levels over the medium term, the ministry noted. S&P also emphasized that Kazakhstans position as a net external creditor remains strong, supported by low external debt and substantial international reserves as well as assets held in the National Fund. The report highlighted that the improved outlook is further underpinned by ongoing reforms aimed at liberalizing and diversifying the economy. Analysts expect that the implementation of the National Infrastructure Plan and other modernization measures will gradually reduce the countrys dependence on oil revenues and increase non-oil income, the ministry added. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, August 22. Kyrgyzstan has introduced a temporary ban on the export of agricultural livestock, including cattle, horses, sheep, and goats, Trend reports via the country's Cabinet of the Ministers. The decree, signed by the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Adylbek Kasymaliev, aims to ensure the country's food security and stabilize the market prices of food products. This ban will last for six months. However, the ban includes exceptions, such as livestock in transit through Kyrgyzstan, sport horses for competitions, and horses being gifted to foreign governments, international organizations, or individuals. The justification for the ban is based on the increasing demand for meat, with the population's growth contributing to higher consumption needs. According to the project's supporting documentation, Kyrgyzstan produced 115,400 tons of meat in the first half of 2025, which is a 3,900 ton increase compared to the same period last year. The total demand for meat in 2024 was 309,400 tons, with 157,300 tons required in the first half of 2025. As of the end of 2024, the livestock population in Kyrgyzstan included 1.83 million cattle, 6.28 million sheep and goats, and 553,500 horses, with an increase in the number of cattle and sheep compared to the previous year. The documentation says the export of live livestock from Kyrgyzstan has been growing in recent years, particularly to Central Asia and the Middle East. GENEVA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Famine has been confirmed for the first time in parts of the Gaza Strip, said a UN-backed body monitoring world food insecurity and malnutrition on Friday. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, August 22. President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Zhaparov, and President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, discussed a wide range of bilateral issues and prospects for future cooperation during a meeting in an expanded format, Trend reports via the Kyrgyz presidents administration. The talks took place within the framework of Tokayevs official visit to Kyrgyzstan. During the meeting, Zhaparov emphasized the deep-rooted historical ties between the two nations. In response, Tokayev expressed gratitude for the warm hospitality and voiced his confidence that the visit would give a fresh impetus to the development of friendly relations between the two countries. Kazakhs and Kyrgyz are brotherly peoples. We share a common history, and our traditions and worldviews are similar. For centuries, our nations have lived in peace and harmony in the foothills of the Ala-Too. Today, our cooperation is dynamically developing within the framework of strategic partnership. We have strengthened political dialogue at all levels, based on mutual respect, and successfully operate intergovernmental, inter-parliamentary, and inter-regional councils, Tokayev remarked. The two leaders wrapped up the meeting by reaffirming their commitment to further strengthening Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan relations in all areas of shared interest and deepening their strategic partnership. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, August 22. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have signed a roadmap aimed at increasing bilateral trade turnover to $3 billion by 2030, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh president. The document was signed by members of the official delegations following talks between Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov in Bishkek. The presidents also adopted a Joint Statement and signed the decisions of the seventh session of the Supreme Interstate Council between the two countries. Tokayev arrived in Kyrgyzstan on August 22 for an official visit. According to Kyrgyzstans National Statistics Committee, trade turnover between the two countries reached $566.4 million from January through May 2025, an increase of 9 percent compared to the same period last year. Kazakhstan remains one of Kyrgyzstans key economic partners, ranking third after China and Russia and accounting for 9.8 percent of the countrys total trade volume. Photo: Administration of the President of Kyrgyzstan BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, August 22. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev have signed a decision of the Supreme Interstate Council approving a comprehensive cooperation plan between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for 2025-2027, Trend reports via the Kyrgyz president's administration. As part of Tokayevs official visit to Kyrgyzstan today, a series of bilateral documents were signed to enhance joint cooperation between the two countries. The agreements include: - A Joint Statement by the heads of state. - Decisions of the Supreme Interstate Council on political, trade and economic, investment, water and energy, transit and transport, and cultural and humanitarian cooperation. - A roadmap to increase bilateral trade turnover to 2030. - A memorandum of understanding between the Kyrgyz Ministry of Economy and Commerce and the Almaty Regional Akimat on the construction of a wholesale and distribution center. - A memorandum between the Kyrgyz State Tax Service and the Kazakh State Revenue Committee on movable vehicles and goods. - A memorandum on a pilot project for using navigation seals to track road transport in bilateral trade. - A protocol amending the intergovernmental agreement on border crossing points signed in 2003. - Agreements on training for Kyrgyz border service personnel, mutual use of buildings and land in Astana and Bishkek for embassies, and information exchange in the pension sector. - Plans to expand cultural and tourism cooperation between the two countries. - An agreement on coordinating radio frequency allocations used by ground radio services in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. - A memorandum on cooperation between the Kyrgyz National Broadcasting Corporation and the Kazakh Presidents Telecommunication Complex. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, August 22. Kazakhstan fully supports Kyrgyzstans candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2027-2028, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said during a press conference following talks with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov in Bishkek, Trend reports via the Kazakh presidents press service. According to Tokayev, Astana and Bishkek share similar positions on many international issues. He emphasized that deepening regional integration in Central Asia aligns with the interests of both countries. The Kazakh president noted that the regions heads of state are expected to meet later this year for another consultative session to discuss these matters. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan cooperate effectively within the United Nations and other international structures. We appreciate the Kyrgyz sides support for the initiative to establish a UN Regional Centre for Sustainable Development Goals for Central Asia and Afghanistan, Tokayev said. He also highlighted Kazakhstans high regard for Kyrgyzstans work as chair of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Organization of Turkic States (OTS). ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, August 22. Turkmenistans Ambassador to Malaysia Mukhametniyaz Mashalov met with Awang Bemi Bin Awang Ali Basah, Speaker of the Senate of Malaysia, in the Parliament of Malaysia and discussed deepening of inter-parliamentary ties, Trend reports via Turkmen MFA. The sides reviewed the current state and prospects of inter-parliamentary relations, emphasizing their importance in strengthening political and diplomatic ties between the two countries. Special attention was given to enhancing the activities of the parliamentary friendship groups of the Mejlis of Turkmenistan and the Malaysian Parliament, including the possibility of organizing mutual visits and holding a joint meeting of the friendship groups. The parties reaffirmed their commitment to further develop relations on a long-term and mutually beneficial basis, underlining the high level of friendly ties. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, August 22. President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev met with the National Leader of the Turkmen People, Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, in a one-on-one session with official delegations, Trend reports via the Uzbek president's office. The meeting began with Berdimuhamedov conveying greetings and best wishes from Turkmenistans President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, while President Mirziyoyev congratulated the Turkmen leadership and people on successfully hosting the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries earlier this month. The leaders discussed further development of Uzbek-Turkmen relations, emphasizing friendship, good-neighborliness, and strategic partnership. They highlighted the dynamic growth of trade and economic cooperation, noting that trade turnover since the start of 2025 has reached $700 million, supported by a free trade regime and the operation of trading houses in the capitals. Ongoing and upcoming projects in industry, energy, transport, agriculture, and water management were reviewed, including the near completion of the Shavat-Dashoguz trade zone. The sides stressed the importance of active intergovernmental commissions, business councils, and cultural events in preparation for future summits. Photo: Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, August 22. Uzbekistan and Qatar have agreed to begin preparations for a preferential trade agreement, Trend reports via the country's Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade. The agreement follows a series of meetings held on August 2021 in Doha by Uzbekistans Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade, Laziz Kudratov, with key representatives from Qatars government and business sectors. During the talks, the sides also agreed to organize the Made in Uzbekistan exhibition in Doha in 2026 and establish the Uzbekistan-Qatar Business Council. Following the talks, agreements were reached on the localization of pharmaceutical production, the establishment of an electric bus plant, the launch of projects in construction and real estate, the development of smart urban districts, mining and processing of mineral resources, as well as joint investments in tourism infrastructure and the hotel industry. Negotiations involved ministers responsible for investment and foreign trade, alongside executives from major companies including Qatar Pharma, Tamam International, Almana Group, Ariane Real Estate, Retaj Group, Al Mansour Group, Petro White, Qatar Mining, Global Infrastructure Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, and Al Jabor Trading. The Uzbek delegation also showcased investment opportunities in energy, pharmaceuticals, mechanical engineering, construction materials, food and textile industries, mining, and tourism, detailing practical aspects of Uzbekistans investment climate, such as capital protection guarantees, tax and customs incentives, and special conditions for strategic projects. BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The China Coast Guard on Friday urged the Philippines to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, vowing to carry out law enforcement activities in accordance with law in the waters of Ren'ai Jiao in the South China Sea to resolutely defend national sovereignty and maritime rights. MOSCOW, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said here Thursday that deploying foreign troops in Ukraine is unacceptable to Russia, as Ukraine's Western allies work to provide security guarantees for Kiev. At a press conference following talks with visiting Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Lavrov noted that the core of Western-Ukrainian discussions is "providing (security) guarantees through armed intervention in parts of Ukrainian territory." Russia, he said, hopes that those proposing such ideas are merely seeking attention and can understand these ideas will be "entirely unacceptable to Russia and all rational political forces in Europe." U.S. President Donald Trump hosted talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House on Monday, with a focus on security guarantees for Ukraine and a potential trilateral meeting among presidents of Russia, Ukraine and the United States. Zelensky said after the meetings that security guarantees for Ukraine could be finalized within the next 10 days. Lavrov said Zelensky has yet to repeal a three-year-old ban on direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "The Ukrainian side's calls for a summit are merely meant to feign constructiveness in resolving the crisis, replacing the serious, painstaking work needed to agree on principles for a sustainable settlement," Lavrov said. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Keeping children hungry not sign of strength: Australia to Netanyahu In a blunt response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Australia said keeping children hungry and killing masses if not a sign of strength Friday August 22, 2025 10:12 PM , ummid.com News Network Sydney: In a blunt response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Australia said keeping children hungry and killing masses if not a sign of strength. The war of word between Australia and Netanyahu broke out after the former announced to recognise the State of Palestine during the UN General Assembly Session in September. Criticizing the decision, Benjamin Netanyahu resorted to personal attack, calling Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a Weak Leader. Responding to Netanyahu, Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday that the Israeli Prime Ministers outburst was that of a frustrated leader lashing out. Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry, Burke told national broadcaster ABC, referring to Israels war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where images of starving Gazans in sprawling tent camps have provoked widespread international outrage, including from Australia. On his part, Albanese refused to respond to Netanyahu, saying he doesnt take these things personally, as the Israeli Prime Minister has had similar things to say about other leaders in the past. I engage with people diplomatically, Albanese said. Countries in race to recognise State of Palestine The Australian decision to recognise the State of Palestine came weeks after France and the United Kingdom have announced to recognise Palestine State at UN General Assembly Session in September. In a releated development, Australia also while rejecting Netanyahu's public outburst said it had informed Israel well in advance about its decision to recognise the State of Palestine. Palestine is officially recognized by 147 of the UNs 193 member states. It holds observer status within the United Nations but is denied full membership. Palestine was accorded observer status four months after the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed with an overwhelming majority a resolution asking the UN Security Council (UNSC) to admit Palestine as a full member of the world body. UN declares famine in Gaza Meanwhile, a UN classification system used to determine access to food has officially declared famine in Gaza, saying more than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions, which include starvation, destitution and death. It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself... Famine is not about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival", UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said adding the results of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis were no mystery. Famine conditions are projected to spread from Gaza Governorate to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis Governorates in the coming weeks, the IPC estimates, the UN said. As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population, said the UN chief, reacting to the famine declaration from the IPC, which is endorsed by dozens of governments, UN agencies and NGOs as the key evidence-based measure of food insecurity and malnutrition. The UN declaration came as two more Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza in the past 24 hours, which also saw 71 people killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave, according to the territorys Health Ministry. Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language to Translate in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Meet Akbar Siddiqui: Delhi Higher Judicial Services Exam Topper Showcasing the brilliance and legacy of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Faculty of Law, Akbar Siddiqui has secured the top position in the Delhi Higher Judicial Services Examination Friday August 22, 2025 11:59 PM , ummid.com News Network Aligarh Muslim University: Showcasing the brilliance and legacy of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Faculty of Law, Akbar Siddiqui has secured the top position in the Delhi Higher Judicial Services Examination. The result of the Delhi Higher Judicial Services Examination 2024, along with the merit list, was announced on August 20, 2025. "A Distinguished Lawyer" An alumnus of AMU 2007 batch, Akbar Siddiqui, is Advocate-on-Record, Supreme Court of India. He is celebrated for his distinguished practice before the Supreme Court of India. Siddiqui's role in the landmark Satender Kumar Antil case, which significantly shaped the jurisprudence on bail, is also noteworthy. His achievement yet again cements the Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University as a cradle of some of the finest legal minds in the country. "A Matter of Great Pride" AMU Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Naima Khatoon, has congratulated Akbar Siddiui on this remarkable feat. Siddiqui's accomplishment is a matter of great pride for AMU and its Faculty of Law. His journey from Aligarh to the Supreme Court and now to the higher judiciary is an inspiring example of academic rigor, professional excellence, and perseverance. We wish him continued success in serving the cause of justice. Akbar Siddiqui has obtained a total of 712 marks out of the total 1,000 marks to secure the first position in the merit list. Siddiquis success adds another illustrious chapter to AMUs rich tradition of producing leaders in the legal fraternity, inspiring future generations of aspiring jurists. Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language to Translate in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza City on Thursday, demanding an end to the ongoing conflict with Israel and calling for international protection for civilians. FAIRFAX, Va. (Aug. 22, 2025) The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has determined that George Mason University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race and other immutable traits in faculty hiring and promotion practices. Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor accused university leadership, under President Gregory Washington, of leading "a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race," adding bluntly, "You can't make this up." The administration has offered GMU an opportunity to remedy the violations by entering into a Resolution Agreement. The proposed agreement would require Washington to: Issue a personal apology and statement reaffirming GMU's commitment to Title VI compliance. Post the statement on the university's website and remove any contradictory content. Review and revise hiring and promotional policies to eliminate race-based preferences. Provide annual Title VI training for staff involved in recruitment, hiring, and advancement decisions. GMU has ten days to voluntarily accept the resolution or risk further federal action. This finding follows a July launch of federal investigations into GMU's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices, triggered by faculty complaints that raised similar concerns. GMU's Board of Visitors responded that it is reviewing the proposed terms. In a statement, board members emphasized their commitment to full cooperation with the Department of Education, Department of Justice and Congress. Faculty Senate President Solon Simmons criticized the demand for an apology: "Why would you demand an apology? ... The university has already eliminated programs and policies that the Trump administration deemed discriminatory." 16 August 2025, Colombia- From the Maritimes of the Arabian Sea to the Caribbean shores of Cartagena, a high-level delegation embarked on a study tour to Colombia, expanding knowledge and opening doors for future cooperation. From 13th to 15th August 2025, senior officials from Pakistans Anti-Narcotics Force, Pakistan Customs, the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA), and the Pakistan Coast Guards (PCG), accompanied by their Saudi Arabian counterparts, travelled to Cartagena within the framework of UNODCs project entitled Improve Pakistans national response against drugs and contraband trafficking in the maritime domain funded by the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. While hosted by the Colombian Navys Caribbean Naval Force, the delegation visited the International Centre for Research and Analysis against Maritime Narcotrafficking (CIMCON), the International Operations Coordination Centre, the Caribbean Coast Guard Station, and the Contecar Port Authority. Over the three days, Colombian officials showcased how intelligence coordination, operational readiness, and layered port security form the backbone of the countrys response to maritime trafficking. Delegates observed approaches involving the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Unit and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, underscoring the value of multi-agency collaboration in protecting sea lanes. At Contecar Port, the delegation gained firsthand insight into Colombias public-private security cooperation, including container inspection systems and intelligence-led enforcement. The Pakistani delegation delivered presentations on Pakistans interagency cooperation framework, strengthening mutual learning and a meaningful exchange, as well as the benefits they are seeking out of UNODCs maritime capacity development in Pakistan. They also expressed interest in Colombias CIMCON platform, serving as a regional hub for intelligence exchange and operational coordination against maritime narcotrafficking. Pakistans maritime law enforcement agencies, and PMSA in particular, were highly engaged throughout this strategic visit. The possibility of joining CIMCON could be a lasting achievement of the tour and a strong step toward internationalizing Pakistans counter-narcotics efforts, noted one INL delegate. Linking distant seas through shared challenges, this study tour marks a milestone in international cooperation against maritime crime. For Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the visit expanded their expertise while opening opportunities for future collaboration contributing to regional maritime security and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. *The Saudi Arabian delegates participated in the study tour on a self-funded basis. August 22 2025 A planned Kelvindale apartment block has transitioned from mainstream to care accommodation under new plans by the Unum Partnership and Northcare. The site of the former Rannoch House at 97 Cleveden Road was to have housed 30 flats, but will now host a 60-bed care home instead to accommodate an ever-increasing elderly population. Adhering to National Care Standards the 10m development will target the over 75's, clustering rooms in independent living wings of up to 10 ensuite bedrooms. Each wing has access to dedicated living and dining accommodation as well as providing staff support. In a planning statement, Unum wrote: "By comparison of the two schemes, this proposal achieves twice the density in terms of residental provision than the domestic scheme as a much reduced massing and appearance from the street." A linear arrangement will help to heal the fractured streetscape, while retaining existing cherry trees, necessitating relocation of a substation and access route. Finished in blonde sandstone, with a contrasting aluminium rainscreen to the third floor, the development employs protruding bays and articulated massing in a nod to traditional terraces and villas. 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. BOGOTA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Five people were killed and 36 others injured in an attack with explosives near the Marco Fidel Suarez Air Base in the Colombian city of Cali on Thursday, said the mayor's office. The "terrorist attack" carried out with a bomb occurred around 2:50 p.m. local time, according to the Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC), which reiterated its commitment to the safety of Colombians. "The unified command post remains active and all relief organizations are responding to the emergency," said the mayor's office. FAC said that the work of verifying damage to facilities and personnel is underway, in addition to the investigation to establish the causes and perpetrators of the attack. Strong magnitude 5.7 earthquake at 50 km depth 21 Aug 22:38 UTC: First to report: VolcanoDiscovery after 4 minutes. 21 Aug 22:42: Now using data updates from NIED ... [show all] ... 21 Aug 22:43: Now using data updates from RENASS 21 Aug 22:43: Now using data updates from GFZ 21 Aug 22:44: Now using data updates from EMSC 21 Aug 22:44: Hypocenter depth recalculated from 61.60 to 44.00 km (from 38 to 27 mi). Epicenter location corrected by 13 km (8.1 mi) towards WNW. 21 Aug 22:45: Magnitude recalculated from 5.3 to 5.6. 21 Aug 22:45: Epicenter location corrected by 5.7 km (3.5 mi) towards W. 21 Aug 22:45: Magnitude recalculated from 5.6 to 5.3. Epicenter location corrected by 5.7 km (3.5 mi) towards E. 21 Aug 22:45: Magnitude recalculated from 5.3 to 5.6. Epicenter location corrected by 2.6 km (1.6 mi) towards W. 21 Aug 22:47: Hypocenter depth recalculated from 44.00 to 10.00 km (from 27 to 6.2 mi). Epicenter location corrected by 24 km (15 mi) towards E. 21 Aug 22:49: Hypocenter depth recalculated from 10.00 to 44.00 km (from 6.2 to 27 mi). Epicenter location corrected by 14 km (8.6 mi) towards WSW. 21 Aug 22:50: Hypocenter depth recalculated from 44.00 to 42.70 km (from 27 to 27 mi). Epicenter location corrected by 0.9 km (0.6 mi) towards ENE. 21 Aug 22:53: Now using data updates from USGS Update Thu, 21 Aug 2025, 22:45 Significant magnitude 5.3 quake hits 36 km southeast of Ofunato, Japan in the morning The event was filed by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), the first seismological agency to report it. Our monitoring service identified a second report from the citizen-seismograph network of RaspberryShake which listed the quake at magnitude 5.3 as well. Other agencies reporting the same quake include the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) at magnitude 5.3, France's Reseau National de Surveillance Sismique (ReNaSS) at magnitude 5.4, and Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) at magnitude 5.9. Generally quakes of this magnitude are recorded by more than one agency and the results can vary, with subsequent reports that come in after the first one often showing more accuracy. Based on the preliminary seismic data, the quake was probably felt by many people in the area of the epicenter. It should not have caused significant damage, other than objects falling from shelves, broken windows, etc. In Rikuzen-Takata (pop. 18,300) located 35 km from the epicenter, and Ofunato (pop. 35,500) 36 km away, the quake should have been felt as light shaking. Weak shaking might have been felt in Kamaishi (pop. 43,100) located 52 km from the epicenter, Ichinoseki (pop. 114,500) 73 km away, Mizusawa (pop. 61,300) 80 km away, Kitakami (pop. 92,300) 90 km away, Hanamaki (pop. 94,700) 97 km away, Sendai (pop. 1,096,700) 113 km away, and Morioka (pop. 290,700) 121 km away. VolcanoDiscovery will automatically update magnitude and depth if these change and follow up if other significant news about the quake become available. If you're in the area, please send us your experience through our reporting mechanism, either Just 10 minutes ago, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck near Ofunato, Ofunato-shi, Iwate, Japan. The tremor was recorded in the morning on Friday, August 22nd, 2025, at 7:34 am local time, at a moderately shallow depth of 44. km below the surface.The event was filed by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), the first seismological agency to report it.Our monitoring service identified a second report from the citizen-seismograph network of RaspberryShake which listed the quake at magnitude 5.3 as well. Other agencies reporting the same quake include the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) at magnitude 5.3, France's Reseau National de Surveillance Sismique (ReNaSS) at magnitude 5.4, and Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) at magnitude 5.9.Generally quakes of this magnitude are recorded by more than one agency and the results can vary, with subsequent reports that come in after the first one often showing more accuracy.Based on the preliminary seismic data, the quake was probably felt by many people in the area of the epicenter. It should not have caused significant damage, other than objects falling from shelves, broken windows, etc.In Rikuzen-Takata (pop. 18,300) located 35 km from the epicenter, and Ofunato (pop. 35,500) 36 km away, the quake should have been felt as light shaking.Weak shaking might have been felt in Kamaishi (pop. 43,100) located 52 km from the epicenter, Ichinoseki (pop. 114,500) 73 km away, Mizusawa (pop. 61,300) 80 km away, Kitakami (pop. 92,300) 90 km away, Hanamaki (pop. 94,700) 97 km away, Sendai (pop. 1,096,700) 113 km away, and Morioka (pop. 290,700) 121 km away.VolcanoDiscovery will automatically update magnitude and depth if these change and follow up if other significant news about the quake become available. If you're in the area, please send us your experience through our reporting mechanism, either online or via our mobile app . This will help us provide more first-hand updates to anyone around the globe who wants to know more about this quake. If you were or still are in this area during the quake help others with your feedback and report it here . Download the Volcanoes & Earthquakes app and get one of the fastest seismic alerts online: Android | iOS and get one of the fastest seismic alerts online: I didn't feel it I felt this quake Earthquake details Date & time Aug 21, 2025 22:34:45 UTC - Local time at epicenter Friday, Aug 22, 2025, at 07:34 am (GMT +9) Status confirmed (manually revised) Magnitude 5.7 Depth 50 km Epicenter latitude / longitude 38.7089N / 142.0883E Kesennuma Shi, Miyagi, Japan Seismic antipode 38.7089S / 37.912W Quality 79 seismic stations Shaking intensity V Moderate shaking near epicenter Felt 9 reports Primary data source USGS (United States Geological Survey) Nearest volcano Kurikoma (114 km / 71 mi) Weather at epicenter at time of quake Overcast Clouds 25.5C (78 F), humidity: 66%, wind: 2 m/s (3 kts) from ENE Estimated seismic energy released 2.2 x 1013 joules (6.22 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 5351 tons of TNT or 0.3 atomic bombs!) | equivalent to ONE quake of magnitude 5.7 | about seismic energy [ show map ] [ smaller ] [ bigger ] Ground shaking from this quake Map of estimated ground shaking (source:USGS) Ground accelleration map for this quake Map of estimated ground accelleration (source:USGS) Most recent quakes Top 20 past 24 hrs Quakes in Japan User-reports for this quake (13) felt in up to approx. 200400 km (124249 mi) distance. The majority of reports came from Tomiya (1 report), a town with 52,000 inhabitants in Miyagi in 110 km (69 mi) distance west of the epicenter, Japan, Koriyama (1 report), a city with more than 330,000 inhabitants in Fukushima in 209 km (130 mi) distance southwest of the epicenter, and Sendai (1 report) (117 km or 73 mi to the southwest) in Miyagi. See the Japan . Out of these, 9 people indicated they felt it. The quake was reported to have beenThe majority of reports came from, a town with 52,000 inhabitants in Miyagi in 110 km (69 mi) distance west of the epicenter,, a city with more than 330,000 inhabitants in Fukushima in 209 km (130 mi) distance southwest of the epicenter, and(117 km or 73 mi to the southwest) in Miyagi. See the list of places where most people reported this quake further below. User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale Contribute: Leave a comment if you find a particular report interesting or want to add to it. Flag as inappropriate. Mark as helpful or interesting. Send your own user report! Translate Tomiya (112.7 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Was sleeping and felt shaking | 3 users found this interesting. Sendai, Tohoku University, Aobayama (117.2 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt / simple rolling (tilting sideways along one direction) / 15-20 s : Light shaking | 2 users found this interesting. Ichigaya-honmuracho, Shinjuku, Tokyo (397.1 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Faible secousses | 2 users found this interesting. shiogama smile hotel (225.5 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / both vertical and horizontal swinging / 15-20 s : got waken up by moderate shaking Uglovoye, Primorye (981.8 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt Yamato, Kanagawa (425.5 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt miyako (105.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating Sendai (397.3 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s Chuo Ku Tokyo (392.7 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / complex motion difficult to describe / 5-10 s (reported through our app / Weak shaking (MMI III) / complex motion difficult to describe / 5-10 s Taira, iwaki-shi (211 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s Minaminakayama, Sendai, Japan. (118.6 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s Koriyama, Fukushima (208.8 km SW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV) Sapporo, Hokkaido (485.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt List of cities/places with most reports Place Distance from epicenter Average reported Shaking Intensity Nr. of reports Tomiya, Miyagi, Japan (Pop.: 52,433) 110 km (69 mi) W of epicenter III: Weak shaking 1 Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan (Pop.: 327,692) 209 km (130 mi) SW of epicenter IV: Light shaking 1 Sendai, Miyagi, Japan (Pop.: 1,096,704) 117 km (73 mi) SW of epicenter IV: Light shaking 1 Ichigaya-honmuracho, Tokyo, Japan (Pop.: 2,705) 395 km (246 mi) SW of epicenter II: Very weak shaking 1 Iwaki, Fukushima, Japan (Pop.: 357,309) 213 km (132 mi) SW of epicenter II: Very weak shaking 1 Higashi-nihombashi, Tokyo, Japan (Pop.: 5,628) 393 km (244 mi) SW of epicenter III: Weak shaking 1 Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (Pop.: 8,336,599) 397 km (247 mi) SW of epicenter IV: Light shaking 1 Miyako, Iwate, Japan (Pop.: 51,150) 105 km (65 mi) N of epicenter IV: Light shaking 1 Towada, Aomori, Japan (Pop.: 60,697) 225 km (140 mi) N of epicenter IV: Light shaking 1 Note: Only reports with latitude/longitude coordinate positions given (13 in total) could be used for statistics. What is Intensity and the Mercalli Intensity Scale? The amount of shaking that occurs on the surface due to an earthquake is called the intensity. It is commonly measured on the so-called Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale (MMI) ranging from 1 (not felt) to 10 (extreme shaking), and given in Roman numerals as I,II,...IX, X, and often displayed with color codes ranging from light blue to dark red. Earthquake intensity depends mainly on the magnitude and depth of the quake as well as the distance from the epicenter: The further away, the less shaking intensity occurs. Read more about the MMI scale! The amount of shaking that occurs on the surface due to an earthquake is called the intensity. It is commonly measured on the so-called Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale (MMI) ranging from 1 (not felt) to 10 (extreme shaking), and given in Roman numerals as I,II,...IX, X, and often displayed with color codes ranging from light blue to dark red.Earthquake intensity depends mainly on the magnitude and depth of the quake as well as the distance from the epicenter: The further away, the less shaking intensity occurs. Number of reports by intensity Shaking intensity Number of reports Min-Max distance from epicenter (*) Average distance (*) I: Not felt 4 117981 km (73609 mi) 502 km (312 mi) II: Very weak shaking 2 211397 km (131246 mi) 304 km (189 mi) III: Weak shaking 2 113392 km (70244 mi) 252 km (157 mi) IV: Light shaking 5 105397 km (65247 mi) 211 km (131 mi) Notes (*) Reports are filtered to exclude those that are likely highly inaccurate or esaggerated. Only reports with latitude/longitude coordinate positions given (13 in total) could be used for geographic statistics. further below. I didn't feel it I felt this quake please share your experience and submit a short "I felt it" report! Other users would love to hear about it! If you did NOT feel the quake although you were in the area, please report it as well! Your contribution is valuable to earthquake science and seismic hazard analysis. If you were near the epicenter and felt it,Other users would love to hear about it!although you were in the area, please report it as well! Your contribution is valuable to earthquake science and seismic hazard analysis. Compare Quake Data Data for the same earthquake as reported by different agencies The more agencies report about the same quake and post similar data, the more confidence you can have in the data. It takes normally up to a few hours until earthquake parameters are calculated with near-optimum precision. Mag Depth Time GMT 2025-08-21 Epicenter Agency 5.7 50 km 31 mi 5.7 km 22:34:45.554 51 km SE of Ofunato, Japan Epicenter uncertainty: 6.7 km USGS (United States Geological Survey) 5.9 31 km 19 mi 22:34:43 E OFF MIYAGI PREF 18 km (10.9 mi) epicenter difference with USGS NIED (National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience) 5.36 0.3 10 km 6.2 mi (*) 22:34:42.261 0.26s Event of magnitude 5.4, near of Sendai 20 km (13 mi) epicenter difference with USGS Epicenter uncertainty: 4.9 km RENASS (Reseau National de Surveillance Sismique (ReNaSS)) 5.6 38 km 24 mi 22:34:44.19 Near East Coast of Honshu, Japan 8 km (4.9 mi) epicenter difference with USGS GFZ (German Research Centre for Geosciences) 5.5 10 km 6.2 mi (*) 22:34:41 Near East Coast of Honshu, Japan 13 km (8.2 mi) epicenter difference with USGS RaspberryShake (RaspberryShake) 5.7 59 km 36 mi 22:34:46.59 0.42s NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN 10 km (6.2 mi) epicenter difference with USGS Epicenter uncertainty: 4.2 km EMSC (European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre) 5.8 0.2 46 km 29 mi 22:34:46.322 Near east coast of eastern Honshu, Japan [Sea: Japan] 5.2 km (3.2 mi) epicenter difference with USGS Epicenter uncertainty: 12 km INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia) 5.7 50 km 31 mi 22:34:45 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN 0 km (0 mi) epicenter difference with USGS IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) 5.4 41 km 26 mi 22:34:00 E OFF MIYAGI PREF 14 km (8.4 mi) epicenter difference with USGS JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) 5.6 55 km 34 mi 3 km 22:34:46.281 0.33s Near East Coast of Honshu, Japan 3.1 km (1.9 mi) epicenter difference with USGS Epicenter uncertainty: 5.5 km GeoAu (Geoscience Australia ) Notes: (*) A depth given as 10 km often means that the the depth of the quake could be not determined with sufficient accuracy. 2 aftershocks for this quake so far For this earthquake, 2 aftershocks (above mag. 2) have been detected so far. The strongest was a magnitude 2.6 quake that hit 14 hours after the mainshock in 7 km (4.4 mi) distance, in 58 km southeast of Iwate, What are aftershocks? Larger earthquakes (above magnitude 5 or so) such as this one are usually followed by smaller ones known as aftershocks that occur in the same area during the days, weeks, months or even years after the main shock. [More info] Aftershocks are typically at least one order of magnitude smaller than the main shock. Their size and frequency decreases with time. What about this quake? Based on its magnitude, the fault that was active during the quake likely ruptured beneath a surface area of approximately 50 km2 (19 square miles) as a first-order estimate. The length of the rupture zone thus was probably around 12 km (8 mi). [More info] Aftershocks for this quake can be expected to occur during the days and few weeks following the quake at or near the same fault, at distances of up to approx. two times the length of the rupture zone, or in this case 25 km (15 mi). The often broadly linear arrangement of aftershock epicenters encompasses the rupture zone of the main shock ( Aftershocks for this quake can be expected to occur during the days and few weeks following the quake at or near the same fault, at distances of up to approx. two times the length of the rupture zone, or in this case 25 km (15 mi). The often broadly linear arrangement of aftershock epicenters encompasses the rupture zone of the main shock ( see map below ). Larger earthquakes (above magnitude 5 or so) such as this one are usually followed by smaller ones known asthat occur in the same area during the days, weeks, months or even years after the main shock.Based on its magnitude, the fault that was active during the quake likelyas a first-order estimate. The length of the rupture zone thus was probably around 12 km (8 mi). Recorded aftershocks, latest first (2 quakes) Date and Time GMT Mag Depth Distance Region Details Aug 22, 2025 09:36 pm (GMT +9) 3 days ago 14 hours after main shock 2.6 27 km 7 km (4.4 mi) SE of main shock Japan: E Off Miyagi Pref More Aug 22, 2025 09:36 pm (GMT +9) 3 days ago 14 hours after main shock 2.5 31 km 5.5 km (3.4 mi) SE of main shock 57 km SE of Ofunato, Iwate, Japan More Aug 22, 2025 07:34 am (GMT +9) 4 days ago - felt 5.7 50 km 0 km - This quake North Pacific Ocean, 76 km NE of Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Japan Main Shock (this quake) More Map of aftershocks For this earthquake, 2 aftershocks (above mag. 2) have been detected so far. Thethat hit 14 hours after the mainshock in 7 km (4.4 mi) distance, in 58 km southeast of Ofunato Japan , on Friday, Aug 22, 2025 on 09:36 pm (Tokyo local time GMT +9). Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Ethan Miller, Gilbert Flores/Variety), @annieknight via Instagram This article was featured in One Great Story, New Yorks reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. For a while, Annie Knight was making good money on OnlyFans. Actually, it was really good money as in, $30,000 AUD per month but it wasnt enough to allow the 28-year-old to retire young or buy up the amount of properties required to have a hefty passive income in Gold Coast, Australia. I was like, What am I gonna do to get peoples attention? she says. People can go on Pornhub and watch a girl that looks like me, but whats gonna make them want to subscribe and get to know me? The answer, as it so often is when youre trying to get attention on the internet, was to piss people off. In 2023, Knight started telling stories about her sex life on her Instagram and TikTok tales of pegging, threesomes, and having sex with 300 people in a year. People were shocked, they were outraged, she recalls. A local radio show had her on and referred to her as Australias most sexually active woman (the original plan was to call her Australias biggest slut, which she says she was fine with, but they softened the language). The more the media ran with it, the more her subscriber count grew. Soon enough, shed more than tripled her monthly earnings to around $100,000 AUD. I was like, All right, lets see if I can do 600 in a year, says Knight. In 2024, she achieved the goal. Then people asked when shed do 1,000. But the thing about sleeping with so many people in a year is that only so much of your audience is going to care, even as the number rises. Once youve done 600 in a year, do people really care if youve done a thousand? Even when I said I was going to take 500 virginities in a year, still people were like, Eh, whatever. By that point, halfway across the world, two British creators had made even bigger headlines with their extreme sex challenges: Lily Phillips, 23, who filmed herself sleeping with 100 men last October, and Bonnie Blue, 26, real name Tia Billinger, who in January claimed to have had intercourse with 1,057 men in 12 hours. In May, inspired by Blue and Phillips, Knight held her own single-day challenge by sleeping with 583 men in just six hours. That month, her earnings were $600,000 AUD, or nearly $400,000. In the near-decade since the arrival of OnlyFans in 2016, the line between influencer and sex worker has blurred, with those who fall more on the influencer end of the spectrum pocketing most of the profits. Content thats sexy and nothing else doesnt cut it anymore and its far more difficult for those performers to earn a living wage. Kylie Rae Hall, a creator and founder of the OnlyFans agency Playroom, says that in the platforms boom times in the early pandemic, creators could make tens of thousands of dollars a month simply by directing their Instagram followers to the links in their bio. Due to market oversaturation and the prevalence of leaks and scams in the years since, the typical model who might take a single photo shoot a month and delegate the labor of posting, promotion, and DM-ing with subscribers to a management company has likely seen around a 70 percent earnings loss, she estimates. The girls that are making the most money are the ones making TikToks every day, constantly putting themselves out there to differentiate themselves from your everyday influencer. Alongside the predictable backlash that comes with it, these stunts have made Phillips, Blue, and Knight some of the most talked-about influencers in the world. They didnt invent the concept of the gangbang, nor extreme sex challenges (several performers in the 90s filmed themselves having sex with hundreds of men in a day), but it differs from typical porn in that the headline-grabbing stunts essentially act as marketing for their subscription pages. On OnlyFans, if people dont care about you as a person, they wont care about your content. Its not porn, because porn is free. You can go on many different sites and type in exactly what your kink or interests are and find that without paying, explains Andrew Bachman, CEO of the OnlyFans talent agency Creators, Inc. This is really about a boredom void. Its about being on Instagram and having something presented to you in a certain way and you then go down a rabbit hole, he says of the parasocial relationships subscribers form with their favorite creators. Theres just a market for brain rot. Part of what makes Blue, Phillips, and Knight stand out is the juxtaposition between their clean girl aesthetic and the content they post if you didnt follow the links in their bios that direct to their OnlyFans pages, you might not know they had them at all. Watching three women who wouldnt look out of place next to a parade of blonde West Village PR managers have sex with hundreds of men in a day offers an irresistible fantasy: What if the cute influencer making get ready with mes and trendy TikTok dances were actually DTF? In Knights Instagram vlog of the 583 challenge, she starts her day off in a cute two-piece and a walk with her doodle before arriving on set in a long red robe. It isnt until we see a pile of Annie Knightbranded condoms and a line of men in pink balaclavas that anything looks different from a typical day in my life video. Ive just been railed by 106 guys, so my arms are a little bit sore, she says later, clutching a Powerade. As she drives home, Taylor Swifts Long Live blares on the radio. That was the best day ever! she says. Im literally beyond ecstatic that that many guys showed up. Knights challenge took around six weeks to plan, requiring the help of five personal assistants, a videographer, a photographer, and three hired security guards who searched the men and handed them condoms and balaclavas to protect their anonymity. Though many OnlyFans shoots and porn videos film in short-term rental properties, as was the case with Phillipss video, Knight was worried she could lose her Airbnb account if she filmed there, so the stunt was filmed at a swingers club in the Gold Coast. Shed posted a call on Instagram for basically anyone to come and rail me if they wanted to, adding that shed expected just 200, but 583 turned up. The hardest part of all of it, she says, was having to act as her own fluffer when the woman theyd originally hired to keep the mens penises erect didnt show. Knight speaks about the experience with delight, even after an existing medical condition flared up and caused bleeding and pain, landing her in the hospital two days later. She maintains shes STI negative (people ask her this constantly, she says) and that she genuinely wants to be doing what shes doing. Theyre acting like Im being forced into this, she says. Im a woman who gets to choose what she does with her body, and Im choosing to do this. If at any point I felt uncomfortable, I would have stopped. Hall, the Playroom founder, agrees: I always laugh when I see comments like that, like, Youre setting women back I think men are scared of it, she says. Its the first time our generation has seen women in sex work have full power over what they post and make the full profit themselves. As Blue told Cosmopolitan U.K. in April, part of the reason people get so irritated with her is that she, as an attractive woman from a supportive middle-class family, doesnt need to be doing porn. It goes against everything theyve ever tried to say about women who do sex work. Theres no [traumatic] background; no ones forcing me to do it; Im not in a difficult position financially its as simple as I enjoy sex. Phillips has a similar perspective. Its so fun to do this job because Ive experienced some of my kinks that I dont think I would have ever experienced off-camera, she says on Zoom from her home in London. She explains that the viral YouTube documentary from December about her 100-men stunt told only part of the story, specifically the scene in which she cries at the end of the 14-hour session. Commenters referred to her as traumatized and broken and the stunt as self-harm while media outlets compared the men lining up to have sex with her to those who raped Gisele Pelicot. People thought I was really regretful, and thats definitely not what I was saying, she explains. I was exhausted. It was just a very intense day. She says the stunt ended up netting her a 70 to 80 percent bump in subscriptions revenue. The rise of extreme sex challenges has drawn the wrath of a few unlikely philosophical bedfellows: the right-wing, manosphere-adjacent cohort who believe womens sexual liberation has gone too far, and feminists who believe their stunts are setting the movement back or that the performers are victims of patriarchy. Ms. Phillipss case is one example of how normalization of pornographic extremes has made even lurid acts de rigueur; its not hard to imagine a future that asks (and offers) more than we can imagine today, wrote author Christine Emba in a New York Times Opinion piece last month. Even other OnlyFans models have spoken out against sex challenges. When Blue, who couldnt be reached for comment, announced earlier this month that she planned to organize a petting zoo in which shed be tied up naked in a glass box inside a house in London and allow the public to do whatever they liked with her, OnlyFans creator Sophie Rain called her out on X. Theyre turning it into a circus, Rain said via email. A platform that once empowered women to take control of their bodies and their business is now being overshadowed by extreme, performative stunts. What of the men who sign up to take part in them? A 34-year-old Redditor from Norway with the username Chicken_Of_The_Year told me he applied to Phillipss 1,000 men in a day challenge (which has yet to take place), because hed always dreamed of having sex with a porn star. The online questionnaire asked him for his nationality, height, and weight, a photo, and whether he used Viagra or any other substances to stay hard. I lived in a sexless marriage for eight years and watched porn daily since I was 14, he said. Being part of something like this felt like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to connect with a real porn star. The petting zoo, originally scheduled for June 15, never happened. After a public outcry, OnlyFans confirmed that it had permanently banned Blues account, writing in a statement that extreme challenge content is not available on OnlyFans and that its creators are not allowed to host challenges on the platform. This puts other challenge creators in a vulnerable spot. Knight, who published her challenge content on the platform Fansly, says that on a recent call with OnlyFans, the site warned her that even posting such videos on other platforms could risk her losing her account. Though shell continue doing long-term challenges like sleeping with 500 virgins in a year, she says that she wont do another single-day stunt. Phillips, meanwhile, says shes in open conversation with OnlyFans and still hopes to break the world record for the most men in a single day. Shed originally planned to film it in the U.S. in January but was stopped by Border Patrol on her way into the country, where they told her that because shed be filming and monetizing the content, it constituted sex work. (In the U.K. and Australia, certain forms of sex work are legal, unlike in the U.S.) Platforms like OnlyFans and the creators who run accounts there are at constant risk from payment providers and banks deciding they no longer want to be associated with a site known for sex work. In 2021, OnlyFans briefly announced, then reneged, that it would ban all explicit sexual content over conflicts with payment providers, notably Mastercard and Visa, which previously had cut off payments to Pornhub after an expose in the Times on nonconsensual and underage porn. Creators can turn to other platforms or launch their own, of course, but as Bachman, the Creators, Inc., CEO, explains, What OnlyFans did was win mainstream consumers comfort of knowing what it was. More than 200 million users trust the platform enough to input their credit cards. He expects that if someone like Blue, whose reported income was almost $10 million per year, were to pivot to an alternative, She might make 15 percent of the revenue she was making if shes lucky. This world is competitive: OnlyFans models have turned to inventive marketing methods like buying up billboard space across the country to promote their accounts or going on rage-bait podcasts in the hopes that a clip featuring their face might go viral. They engage in debates with anti-porn conservatives engineered to generate angry comments because at least some percentage of those viewers will find them intriguing enough to pay to see them naked or exchange DMs. Blue and Phillips, who once made Freshers Week content together in which they filmed themselves having sex with new university co-eds, have seemed to be in a monthslong, mostly one-sided feud over Phillips allegedly stealing (according to Blue) Blues idea to sleep with 1,000 men in a day (Phillips has congratulated her stunt and said theres no competition between them). The higher the number, the more unbelievable the stunts become, and the more the clips feel less like porn and more like watching a MrBeast video in which the prize money keeps climbing. Like on YouTube, there is a sense of unreality to their work: Blatant hoaxes are tolerated, even celebrated, if they succeed in generating enough attention. In February, Phillips announced she was pregnant on Instagram shortly after Blue hinted at her own possible pregnancy; the story was picked up by People. It was a lie, part of a fetish role-play scenario shed filmed but not before commenters called her disgusting and tabloids called her sick. Smiling, Phillips says, It went down super well. As for Blue, she seems committed to working the rage-bait circuit. Since being banned from OnlyFans, Blue has filmed a two-and-a-half-hour episode of the Disruptors podcast with Andrew Tate, most of which is devoted to Tate bloviating simultaneously that Blue is the tragic endpoint of western feminism and also that all women throughout history have been sex workers. Toward the end of the episode, Blue defends her content and her marketing prowess. Multiple other creators do what I do, but they dont get banned, because they dont have enough brain cells to promote themselves like I do, she says. Im not the only person thats claimed to have done what Ive done, yet you dont see them in the press. Sex workers have always been the internets true pioneers, and they have always borne the brunt of its backlashes. When theres life-changing money and attention at stake, there are worse things to be besides the mascot for feminism having gone too far. Phillips is the millionaire head of a 15-person team. She spends her days walking her dog, grabbing matcha, filming, editing, doing admin work, and catching up on Love Island. When she goes out, the young men who approach her are generally really nice. She hopes to someday move to Los Angeles, where all the major porn studios and stars reside. I have so much respect for anyone who does [challenge content] because it is so hard to put together, she says. And Im not just talking about the hours of fucking. I mean the organization behind it. To Phillips, its not just about the art of the troll. But the outcry so far has seemed to work in her favor. Theres always been this type of rage-bait content, she says. It is just the oldest trick in the book to be a bit cheeky, and people will look. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. (AND NO SPAM!) Just click here. Jonah Goldberg, the columnist and conservative intellectual, recently published an essay about America's complicated relationship with freedom. Writing in The Dispatch, he argued that most Americans are libertarian only when it comes to freedoms they personally prize and are often content to let government regulate or prohibit freedoms they don't value or don't want others to have. This selective consistency feeds today's partisan hypocrisy, with both left and right defending liberty or state intrusion depending on who's in power. From there he built to a larger point that beneath the rivalry between red and blue, America's real exceptionalism lies in its culture: a deeply ingrained instinct for individual rights, autonomy, and resistance to government meddling. That common instinct, which Goldberg calls "American groundwater," runs deeper than our politics, and those politics would be healthier if more of us could train ourselves to see fellow Americans even those with opposing views as part of the same liberty-valuing culture. I bring up Goldberg's essay not only to recommend it but also because I was struck by the question with which he introduced it: "What principle do you hold," he challenged his readers, "that is against your self-interest or political desires?" It's a cogent and revealing test. It obliges anyone who answers the question to think about whether they embrace their convictions for their truth or merely because they're convenient. Anyone can defend the freedoms or prohibitions that serve their own purposes. The truer test of ideological and moral seriousness is whether you adhere to your principles even when doing so cuts against your interests, tastes, or partisan loyalties. This isn't an ivory-tower abstraction. American history is rich with examples of people who upheld principle at real personal cost. John Adams, though a patriot who hated British rule, risked his career to defend the redcoats accused in the Boston Massacre, convinced that even despised defendants deserved counsel and a fair trial. Justice John Marshall Harlan, raised in a Kentucky family of enslavers, broke with his social milieu to insist in his lone dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that "our Constitution is color-blind." And in 1960, Richard Nixon, urged by allies to contest an election marred by serious irregularities, refused to plunge the nation into turmoil, saying the country's stability mattered more than his own ambition. I have tried to meet that test in my own writing with what success, I leave others to judge. For instance, I defend the right even of Holocaust-deniers to spread hateful and repellent lies, because freedom of speech is not just for ideas I share. I have criticized political figures I admire when they promoted foolish policies and stood up for political figures I dislike when they were attacked unfairly. In a column about freedom of association, I defended the right of both a web-hosting company to refuse service to a racist group and a gym to refuse service to police officers and military personnel. The first call was easy, the second less so, but in both cases the principle was the same: Private businesses should be allowed to decide with whom they will (and won't) do business. I have sometimes put a version of Goldberg's question to candidates in a primary election: Can you name a position you take that is clearly opposed by most of your party's base? Rarely have I gotten a substantive answer. Most politicians duck the question, unwilling to announce that they uphold an unpopular position on principle even though doing so would be pretty strong evidence that their convictions were genuine. What makes this problem worse is the increasingly common belief that only those who agree with us are legitimate participants in American life. Too many on the right write off their opponents as anti-American, while too many on the left see theirs as irredeemably bigoted or authoritarian. If you begin from the premise that dissenters are not merely wrong but illegitimate, then there is no reason to extend to them the rights or freedoms you claim for yourself. But that mind-set drains principle of all meaning. Defending free speech only for your allies is like championing religious liberty only for your own faith: That's not upholding a principle it's wielding a partisan cudgel, something that has become endemic in contemporary American life. So much of what bedevils our civic discourse these days, Goldberg writes, begins with "the premise that America is defined by our politics and, therefore, the people with the wrong politics are not Americans." Which is why Goldberg's challenge ought to be posed more often. A principle that only applies when it's easy isn't much of a principle at all. So, readers, I'll put the same question to you: What principle do you hold that runs against your own interest or desire? Please give it some thought and share your reflections. In a future column, I'll share some of the more intriguing and noteworthy responses. Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe, from which this is reprinted with permission. (COMMENT, BELOW) GENEVA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Senior United Nations (UN) officials on Friday warned that Gaza is facing a severe famine caused by Israeli restrictions and obstruction of humanitarian aid, calling for an immediate ceasefire and full, unimpeded access to deliver food and supplies to civilians in urgent need. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said at a press conference in Geneva that the famine unfolding in Gaza "could have been prevented," noting that food supplies were piling up outside the border due to what he described as "systematic obstruction by Israel." He urged an immediate ceasefire and the opening of all supply routes to enable large-scale, unhindered delivery of aid. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also issued a statement Friday, stressing that the famine in Gaza is the direct result of actions by the Israeli government, which has unlawfully restricted the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance and other essential goods. Turk warned that deaths from starvation and malnutrition are already occurring across the enclave. He said Israeli forces have destroyed key civilian infrastructure, nearly all agricultural land, banned fishing, and forcibly displaced much of the population. He underscored that the use of starvation as a method of warfare constitutes a war crime, calling on Israel to take immediate steps to end the famine, prevent further loss of life, and ensure full humanitarian access. According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released Friday, more than half a million people in Gaza are already facing famine conditions marked by starvation and preventable deaths. Meloni says nowhere can be "exempt from legality"as opposition calls for right-wing government to apply same "zero tolerance" approach to CasaPound. Italian police on Thursday carried out an eviction order for the Leoncavallo social centre, a long-standing leftwing squat in Milan, in an operation overseen by the interior ministry. Hailing the eviction of the historic centro sociale, prime minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on social media: "In a constitutional state, there cannot be free zones or areas exempt from legality," adding: "Illegal occupations are a threat to security, to citizens, and to communities that respect the rules." Zero tolerance Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said the eviction showed the right-wing government's "zero tolerance" for squatting, claiming the move "marks the end of a long season of illegality". Deputy premier and transport minister Matteo Salvini also hailed the eviction, while taking a swipe at the opposition left, writing on X: "Decades of tolerated illegality, and often supported by the left: now things are finally changing. The law is the same for everyone: out!" At the time of the eviction on Thursday morning there was nobody inside the social centre which was formed 50 years at a disused factory on Via Leoncavallo before moving in 1994 to its current location on Via Antoine Watteau. Over the years, Leoncavallo has hosted countless cultural events, readings, talks and concerts. Milan mayor Beppe Sala, of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD), expressed his annoyance at not being notified in advance of the eviction operation. "Yesterday I was at Palazzo Marino, busy with work meetings" - Sala told reporters - "I delegated the deputy commander of the local police to represent me in the committee for order and security, which, as usual, meets every Wednesday. At that meeting, no mention was made of any executive eviction for the Leoncavallo social centre." Historic and social value Describing Leoncavallo as being of "historic and social value" to Milan, Sala said the city council should have been informed about "such a delicate operation". He also pointed out that an eviction had been scheduled on 9 September and that his administration had been in talks with Leoncavallo officials "to ensure the centre's entire initiative is fully legal." Giuseppe Roccisano, secretary of the Sinistra Italiana (Italian Left) in Milan, said that "evicting 50 years of the city's history in the middle of August and without any warning is disguised as a show of strength, but it is an act of weakness and cowardice." Open space for culture "Leoncavallo has been an important part of Milan's history, representing an open space for socialisation and culture for many generations," Alessandro Capelli, Milan secretary of the PD, said, noting pointedly that the squat occupied illegally by the far-right group CasaPound "remains serenely in its post in Rome." In a Facebook post, Francesca Cucchiara, city councillor for Europa Verde (Green Europe), also noted that the eviction had been scheduled for 9 September. "Obviously, it wasn't a mistake or an oversight. They knew full well that hundreds of people would gather there on 9 September" - Cucchiara wrote - "Because they knoweven if they don't say itthat the Leoncavallo is a place dear to many. And that over the years, it has been frequented by countless people, including those who are now rejoicing at its eviction." She said that it was almost made her smile to see Salvini talking about legality being restored, "As if people had forgotten that he used to go to Leoncavallo, too. As if we didn't know that, in the meantime, CasaPound has been squatting illegally in Rome for years and continues to do so without any threat of eviction." In 2019, Rome city council, under mayor Virginia Raggi of the populist Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), passed a motion calling for the "immediate eviction" of CasaPound from the building it has occupied since 26 December 2003. The motion called for the "intervention of the interior ministry, the prefect and police chief" to evict CasaPound from the building on Via Napoleone III, not far from the central Termini station, in the city's multi-ethnic Esquilino district. Raggi said the city was "ready" to evict CasaPound "as soon as the [interior] ministry decides", adding that she would "count on government support" for the move. Salvini, then serving as interior minister under former premier Giuseppe Conte, said on more than one occasion that evicting CasaPound was "not among the priorities" of his ministry. During his tenure in the Viminale, Salvini oversaw a campaign of evictions of abandoned buildings in Rome, many of them occupied by migrants. Today CasaPound still illegally occupies the same former government building, owned by the Agenzia del Demanio, the Italian public body responsible for the management of state-owned heritage properties. Photo Matteo Piantedosi X Facebook page Mia Moglie had almost 32,000 members before being taken down this week. Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has shut down an Italian group where men shared intimate photos of their wives and girlfriends online without their consent. The Mia Moglie group, which translates into English as "My Wife", had almost 32,000 members before it was removed by authorities this week following a public outcry. The page, which was accessible and visible to all, launched in 2019 but only became active in May of this year.The group posted photographs of women in everyday situations: sleeping, changing their clothes, shopping at the supermarket, sunbathing. Many of the unsuspecting women were photographed in their underwear. The images were followed by a sea of vulgar, misogynistic and sexist comments, with some men saying they would "rape" the woman pictured in the photograph. The page was highlighted on Instagram by writer Carolina Capria who said she felt "nauseous" and "scared" after viewing the non-consensual photos and reading the comments. Capria's appeal not to remain silent about the page was taken up by No Justice No Peace Italy which wrote on its Instagram page: "This is a blatant form of abuse, non-consensual pornography, and systemic misogyny... Anyone who participates in this outrage is complicit in a crime. The numerous protests and media outcry prompted action from Meta which removed the page for "violating our policies against the sexual exploitation of adults", while Italy's postal police have reportedly launched an investigation into the case. When those behind the page realised they had been discovered, they began sharing links to Telegram addresses where they planned to continue operating. The group's members included "professionals, entrepreneurs, public officials, mayoral candidates, doctors, and journalists", according to newspaper Corriere della Sera, which reported that the names of those who commented and shared photos are included in a report that will be submitted to the prosecutor's office. "This idea of toxic masculinity must be fought," Fiorella Zabatta, spokesperson for Europa Verde and member of the Green and Left Alliance (AVS), said in relation to the case, "and we must all take action: civil society and even politicians." The discovery of the group has led to parallels with the case in France of Gisele Pelicot who, over the course of a decade, was covertly drugged and raped by her husband along with dozens of other men who raped her while she was unconscious. In a statement, Roberta Mori of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD), said the Mia Moglie group was "further evidence of structural virtual violence rooted in the same patriarchal culture of domination that allowed the rape of Gisele Pelicot for ten years, starting with a similar online group. Enabling, tolerating, or ignoring such forms of virtual violence means being complicit in a culture of rape that has survived for centuries and continues to affect women and girls." Since 2019, following the introduction of Article 612-ter of the Italian Criminal Code, anyone who distributes sexually explicit images or videos without the consent of the person concerned can be punished with one to six years in prison and fines ranging from 5,000 to 15,000. Over the years, however, hundreds of online groups have been documented, particularly on Telegram, in which men share private images and videos of women without their consent. The material in these groups often qualifies as revenge porn, the practice of sharing private images or videos without consent as a form of revenge against one's partner or ex-partner. Schlein says Meloni "belatedly broke her silence" and calls for action to stop Netanyahu as he pushes forward with Gaza takeover plan. Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday said the government is following "with deep concern recent developments related to the decisions taken by the Israeli Government regarding the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank". In a statement, the Italian premier criticised the "decision to proceed with the occupation of Gaza, in response to the inhumane terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023," because "it constitutes a further military escalation that can only worsen the already dramatic humanitarian situation." Furthermore, the statement reads, Italy "condemns Israel's decision to authorise new settlements in the West Bank" which is "contrary to international law and risks definitively compromising the two-state solution and, more generally, any political prospect for achieving a just and lasting peace." The prime minister reiterated calls for a ceasefire and release of hostages as part of an "international effort" to address the humanitarian emergency in Gaza. Pressure from opposition Meloni's remarks followed pressure from the opposition who are demanding that the government take a clear stance on sanctions against Netanyahu and the recognition of the State of Palestine. The statement from Meloni failed to convince Elly Schlein, the leader of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) party, who attacked the premier head-on. "Today, Meloni belatedly broke her silence on the occupation of Gaza with words that sound like those of a pundit" - Schlein said - "She didn't need to say that the situation in Gaza is dramatic. What she didn't say, however, is what we expect from the prime minister: what immediate and concrete actions does the Italian government intend to take to stop Netanyahu and his criminal plan, which is proceeding with the full occupation of Gaza after already massacring 60,000 Palestinians." The leader of the Movimento 5 Stelle, Giuseppe Conte, appeared to take aim at Meloni, without naming her directly. "We must remember those who were co-responsible for these crimes, providing political and military cover for this criminal government" - Conte said - "We must remember those whoeven in the face of this genocidecontinued to look to Netanyahu as an ally.'" Angelo Bonelli, MP for the Green and Left Alliance (AVS) and co-spokesperson for Europa Verde, accused Meloni of issuing "yet another statement that discredits and shames Italy". "Not a mention, not a word about the ethnic cleansing carried out by Netanyahu's fascist government" - Bonelli stated - "Only empty declarations, while Israel kills children, women, and defenceless civilians and razes hospitals and essential infrastructure in Gaza." "Meloni should have the courage to apply sanctions, revoke the military cooperation agreement with Israel, and officially recognise the State of Palestine, but she doesn't" - Bonelli charged - "Faced with a humanitarian tragedy that worsens every day, the Italian government still chooses inaction and silence. Meloni talks about peace, but in reality supports those who bomb civilians. This is unsustainable hypocrisy." Photo credit: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com. GUANGZHOU, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The simplified Chinese edition of "A Memoir by Lt. Donald W. Kerr," which recounts the story of a U.S. pilot rescued during World War II (WWII), was released Friday in south China's Guangdong Province. The book details the story of Lieutenant Donald W. Kerr, a Flying Tiger veteran pilot whose aircraft was hit by Japanese forces over Hong Kong in 1944 during a mission to bomb Kai Tak airport. Kerr was rescued by local villagers and guerrilla fighters from the Dongjiang (East River) Column, a guerrilla force led by the Communist Party of China. David Kerr, the second son of the late lieutenant, attended the release ceremony at a memorial museum in Dongguan. He said that his father flew in combat side-by-side with Chinese soldiers against Japanese forces from 1943 to 1944. The memoir offers a valuable account of the rescue and the guerrilla fighters' operations from the perspective of an American soldier, providing important historical material for the study of WWII. The Dongjiang (East River) Column, operating near Hong Kong and Macao during the war, was renowned for its collaboration with international allies. The rescue of Kerr remains an example of cooperation. The bond forged during the war has endured across generations. David Kerr and his family first visited the Dongguan museum in 2009, donating his father's flight jacket and photographs. In 2015, they returned for the release of the memoir's English and traditional Chinese editions. This latest visit marks another milestone in preserving this chapter of history. "Our father wanted us to know the story. We want our friends in China to know the story, with our thanks," David Kerr said. A man aged in his 50s is due to appear in Naas District Court this evening in connection with a 775,000 drug seizure made in Waterford. On Wednesday, August 20, two men, one aged in his 50s and the other in his 20s, were detained following the searches of domestic residences in Tramore and Waterford City. In Tramore, Gardai from the County and City Crime and Drugs Units seized approximately 780g of suspected cocaine valued at 54,600, along with 1kg of cannabis valued at 20,000. Gardai carried out a follow-up search at a property in Waterford City where they seized approximately 10kg of suspected cocaine valued at 700,000 and cash. The search was part of Operation Tara. The male aged in his 20s is due to appear before Waterford District Court on September 9. Investigations are ongoing. There were great scenes of celebration around County Waterford in recent weeks as various school celebrated their Debs and Graduation balls. The Debs was a very special occasion for three students from St Declan's Community College in Kilmacthomas. Adam Spillane, Freya O'Brien and Charlie Laffan, friends since Junior Infants in Ballyduff NS, enjoying their Debs ball from St. Declan's Community College, Kilmacthomas Adam Spillane, Freya O'Brien and Charlie Laffan were just school friends in secondary school but have been literally life-long friends since Junior Infants in primary school and have travelled on their education journey together ever since. To view photos of other students who celebrated their graduations recently across Waterford click here. l On Sunday, August 17, Southside Motor Club held a charity fundraiser to help children in need. The club raised 1,635 in aid of BUMBLEance Childrens Hospital Ambulance Service at their charity drive in Waterford Retail Park. Childrens Hospital Ambulance Service at Waterford Retail Park on Sunday, August 17. Families and car-lovers alike came out on the lovely day to support the great cause. BUMBLEance provides specialised care to children attending hospital appointments throughout Ireland, for free. Their aim is to help kids get to and from their medical appointments as safe and comfortable as possible. The event was in support of BUMBLEance Childrens Hospital Ambulance Service. The organisation have 15 specially designed vehicles and travel over 500,000km a year, taking children, parents and guardians door-to-door. BUMBLEance receive no State funding. Their aim is "to distract, comfort and entertain Irelands youngest patients as they travel to and from hospitals and paediatric treatment centres nationwide". Southside Motor Club were thrilled to help out the fantastic service. According to their Chairperson Helen Shanahan, special VIP guest Irish car-reviewer Bob Flavin made an appearance, as did Laura from BUMBLEance and the friendly Bumbles mascot. She said: "It was a wonderful day filled with community spirit, support, and smiles, all while making a real difference for sick children across Ireland." 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 Mac DeMarco has been digging a well. This is not some poetic metaphor, like Macs own Chamber of Reflection. Before jumping on our interview, the Canadian indie rocker was out on his new property, a farmhouse on an island off British Columbia that he shares with his partner Kiera McNally, digging a literal well. Or, to be specific, he was building a well? A house for his well? Look, Im not a carpenter. Its a well enclosure. It looks like an outhouse, but its made of cedar and its beautiful, DeMarco, 35, explains, appearing on Zoom like a gap-toothed storm cloud: grey shirt, grey hat, scraggly beard. My uncle and cousin came over and were like, You know you have to be able to lift it off if they have to pull the deep well out? So my day has consisted of taking off the siding and finding where the fastener bolts are to the foundation and removing them. Its good because the stress of If my well explodes, will we be able to get it out? was a lot, but Im also dismantling the nicest looking thing Ive ever built so its been tough. Mac DeMarcos new album Guitar. He wrote and recorded the whole thing in 12 days. I dont understand a word hes saying but Mac DeMarco, DIY tradesman, isnt an odd image to conjure. Hes been DIYing, in a musical sense, since his 2012 debut, 2, the album that first launched DeMarcos persona as the loveable laid-back prince of indie-rock. His new album, Guitar, was DIYed to a freakish degree songs, cover art, even videos and written and recorded in 12 days. Id wake up in the morning and get a song going, or maybe Id write it the night before, he says. It was quick and easy, and it feels good. When I leave something for too long and try to come back to it, it doesnt feel right, like Im already onto something else. Guitar, an album title so bland it feels like a troll, is DeMarcos first proper album since 2019s Here Comes the Cowboy, which debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard 200, an unlikely scenario for such a stridently independent artist. In 2023, years after the albums release, the track Heart to Heart went viral on TikTok and became DeMarcos first song to break into the Billboard Hot 100. After years watching his cult of personality grow, this was tangible evidence of his pop star reach. But DeMarcos not buying it. Advertisement I dont think Here Comes the Cowboy was that big and the top 10 thing, I dont think it was based off some kind of top of the mountain sales, he says. Theres ways to pump that stuff up. We had a big tour around then too, so you sell concert tickets and then if you give a vinyl for each concert ticket, it counts as a sale. It sounds like he doesnt quite trust his own albums success. I like that record, but yeah, maybe I dont trust the success of it, DeMarco laughs. I just think its funny that the music industry heralds things like that. Theyre like, you charted. And its like, so? Its like the metrics on Spotify: these artists can have a bajillion listeners, and then nobody comes to the show, he continues. When Heart to Heart charted in the Hot 100, it didnt even get high it went to 80-something but everyone was like, Oh my god!. [Distributors] were telling me we should advertise more to keep it going. He mocks disgust. This album came out five years ago and we didnt even do anything to make the song go crazy, so why not just leave it alone, you know? Its fair to posit that DeMarco who has run his own indie, Macs Record Label, since 2018 has little sympathy for major labels scrambling amid the music industrys new world order. TikTok is confusing for a lot of them. But, at the same time, a lot of the big record labels have figured out how to squeeze the lemon. They want to make it seem like they dont know, but they know. DeMarco, onstage at Melbournes Festival Hall during his last Australian tour in February 2020. Credit: Rick Clifford He chuckles at his own cynicism. Maybe Im just a music industry conspiracy theorist. Whatever. Its cute. You chart on this thing, its cute. I have these gold records now, theyre all in my basement. I dont know what to do with them, but its cool. Amazing. Advertisement Ive never had an artist work so hard to dissuade me against their own sales triumphs, but such is DeMarcos mission. Numbers? These things dont interest him. So little that he followed his biggest pop success with an album made entirely of instrumental compositions (2023s Five Easy Hot Dogs) and then a monumental 199-track data dump named for Canadian legend Wayne Gretzky (One Wayne G). You ask DeMarco why, he answers why not. I know with One Wayne G, some music journalists were like, Is this a middle finger? Whats he doing? but it was nothing like that. I just wanted to share music. I wasnt saying Listen to the whole thing!. I dont care if people listen to none of it. Its there if you want it, says DeMarco. As an oddity inspired by his Japanese avant-pop idols Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono, and partly a comment on how we consume music hes proud of it. Its so long that it wont fit on a CD. You could put it out on a 15-record box set, but thats ridiculous. The only medium itd work on is a Blu-Ray, but I dont even have a way to play a Blu-Ray. I think One Wayne G might be the coolest thing I ever do. The whole thing was just an experiment in, why? I have these gold records now, theyre all in my basement. I dont know what to do with them. Before he recorded Guitar, DeMarco had completed another album titled Hear the Music, which he scrapped. I liked the songs, but that was me turning on the faucet or cleaning out the songwriting pipes, he says. I had maybe 14 songs, I demoed them, tried to do master recordings, but I got lost in the sauce. I started trying to change the drum sound every day. I was building isolation tents in the studio. I built a hut out of PVC pipe. I did vocal takes over and over. I went completely nuts. Hes had this problem before, ever since he stopped recording onto tape with 2015s Another One. Hell go into an OCD zone, he says, recording and re-recording demos trying to recapture what he loved best about the original take. Youre just chasing perfection in something that is inherently imperfect. You might as well just take the original, that has that life force in it, and run with that, he says. The cool thing about Guitar is that all these songs are the first time they were recorded. Theyre the demos, essentially. Even just saying that is soothing for me. Advertisement Janet Anderson has been getting very comfortable falling over lately. Shes one of four actors performing the title role in Belvoirs upcoming adaptation of Orlando. For the show, the whole cast will appear as rollerskating Elizabethans, bringing to life the vivid scene of ice skating on the frozen River Thames during the Great Frost of 1608 from Virginia Woolfs novel. I wont lie, the thought of rollerskating in front of 300 people still churns my stomach a little bit, admits Anderson, a 2022 NIDA graduate. But everyone in the ensemble has really dived into learning the art of roller skating and were already looking pretty profesh. Its like Starlight Express! Im sure the people downstairs are frustrated with the floorboards constantly creaking with us roller skating everywhere and falling over in a heap - roller skating is not without the falling over aspect. Actor Janet Anderson will star in the new production of Orlando. Credit: Dylan Coker Roller skating is just one of the surprises in store in the new theatrical adaptation, which traverses through the Elizabethan, Victorian and Restoration eras through to the present day. Its a very ambitious production, Anderson says. Weve got lots of different fun theatrical elements, roller skating and dancing and fire and all the things that will delight audiences. Published in 1928, Orlando was Woolfs literary love letter to her paramour Vita Sackville-West, with the protagonist modelled on and inspired by events in Sackville-Wests life. Its a sprawling, funny, subversive and wildly imaginative text that travels across centuries and is perhaps most famous for its main character going to sleep as a man and waking up a week later as a woman. It was the late 1990s, and tech company Intel was looking for social scientists to study how people used technology in their homes. They wanted product ideas the plan was to turn experts in human behaviour into technology soothsayers. During Bells interview, she warned the company that she was a radical feminist and an unreconstructed neo-Marxist, The New York Times reported in 2014. Intel was undeterred. It welcomed her forthrightness, which, she told the newspaper, could be a liability in the academic world. At Stanford, they didnt like it when you told the faculty they were dead wrong, whereas here, that was a cultural value, she said. In 2017, Bell was brought back to Australia by another rock-star scientist, then ANU vice chancellor and Nobel prize-winning physicist Brian Schmidt, to lead a new institution looking at the intersection of artificial intelligence, data and human experience (now known as the School of Cybernetics). ANUs council, headed by Bishop, appointed her as vice chancellor in September 2023 (VC is the equivalent of a company chief executive). Still, she remained on the Intel payroll until November 2024, 10 months into the top job (she reportedly earned about $70,000 for 24 hours work from the company in that time). When her secondary employment was eventually revealed, it took many in the tertiary sector by surprise. It was a shocking look, said an executive at another major institution, on the condition of anonymity so they could speak freely. Being a VC is a full-time gig. Dorothy-red stilettos against a sea of mens dark shoes: Julie Bishops shoes made a statement when she announced her resignation as foreign affairs minister in August, 2018. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Questions linger about the disclosure of the Intel gig; Bishop has said she approved the paid nature of the arrangement, but ANU then told the Senate that its council did not require members to disclose remuneration when calling for disclosures of interest. Stepping into the VC role wasnt an easy personal transition for Bell. Shed explained to the Times that she embraced her femininity while working in the masculine computer world by wearing French perfume and high-heeled shoes. But in the first few weeks of her job as vice chancellor, she was told to adjust her image. She was advised to fix her wild red hair, to watch her weight, to swap her backpack for a briefcase, her head of public affairs, Amy Capuano, wrote in a post on LinkedIn, which was posted in response to the sneaker saga. But Bells professional challenge was far greater. She took over a university that was in bad financial shape. Before COVID, Schmidt had deliberately kept a lid on student numbers to stop the university from becoming mass-market education like major institutions in Sydney and Melbourne, which were trying to recruit as many international students as they could. The university was also rebuilding ageing infrastructure and fixing the damage caused by a wild weather event in 2018. All this meant that ANU had no financial buffer when the pandemic hit, and the then-Coalition government refused to allow universities to claim JobSeeker payments. Budgets were further eroded by the Coalitions Job-ready Graduates package, which cut Commonwealth funding for teaching local students across many courses and therefore reduced the viability of smaller courses for many universities, not just ANU a policy that Labor has not repealed. Bell also walked into cultural problems. A report on the former ANU College of Health and Medicine by former Victorian chief commissioner and NSW assistant police commissioner Christine Nixon, published in May, found staff described a deeply dysfunctional culture across the college and the broader university marked by bureaucracy, territorialism, bullying, entitlement and resistance to change, it said, adding that the university could not provide an environment of psychological safety while this behaviour was considered acceptable. You could argue that she inherited a situation that had been building for a number of years, says Andrew Norton, a higher education policy expert who worked at ANU until last year and is now at Monash University. On the other hand, youve got to think of the appointments that council has made; two VCs in a row without extensive prior university administration experience. There remains confusion over the extent of the financial problem at ANU, and how it got so bad. Bell and Bishop say its dire; in a statement in late July, Bell said ANU had been operating with a deficit since COVID and last year spent $2.7 million more a week than it earned. The 2024 annual report outlines an operational deficit of $140 million. They say the financial crisis position justifies the plan to cut $250 million from the budget, of which $100 million involved staff cuts; more than 220 people have already left through voluntary or forced redundancies (on Wednesday, Bell said there would be no more forced job cuts). Pocock, however, says the extent of the financial problems remains unclear. Because theres such a lack of transparency, [its uncertain] whether the finances actually warrant this level of cuts, he said. Norton says that if the universitys position is as bad as Bell says, then its council will need to answer questions about how it let it get there. This is one of the key issues that TEQSA [Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency] is looking into, he says. If the ANUs finances are as bad as Bell and Bishop say they are, why wasnt this issue addressed earlier on? How did [ANU] get into this situation, and being in that situation, did it hire the right people to get it out? The fury of staff, students and alumni has been inflamed by revelations about the cost of supporting the chancellor, Bishop (chancellor is like a company chair, and works with the vice chancellor on strategy and financial oversight). In 2023, the university spent $186,000 flying Bishop, Schmidt, Bell and three other executives to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where ANU hosted a $78,000 reception. Bishop doesnt receive a salary for the role (she is entitled to an honorarium of about $75,000), but her costs are significant; her Perth office, travel expenses and staff cost about $790,000 last year, The Australian Financial Review has reported. Bishop has also been accused in the Senate of hiring her former media adviser, friend and business partner Murray Hansen to write her speeches (ANU says this was done by the events team at arms length from Bishop). The scandal intensified last week when Dr Liz Allen, an ANU demographer and former council member, told a federal committee that Bishop had laughed at and blocked her from leaving a room when confronting her with allegations of leaking confidential information to the media. I believe chancellor Bishop is hostile and arrogant to staff, she told the Senate inquiry. Bishop rejected the allegations, saying she always showed staff members respect. Loading Glass cliff position Bishop has been at the university since January 2020, but Bell has been there for only a year and a half. Some say the vice chancellor is being pushed off a glass cliff (a descriptor of jobs given to women when theres barely any possibility of succeeding in them). Bell has described the campaign against her as tall poppy syndrome. Sexism is alive and well and living in Australia, she told the ABC, pointing out that the campaign has been personal in a way that her male predecessor never experienced. Some agree. In a Canberra Times piece decrying the National Tertiary Education Unions campaign against her, ANU professor John Blaxland argued that Bell was in an invidious position. Now is not the time to push beyond the glass cliff, he said. Now is the time to recognise the scale of the challenge she faces and get behind her. But female academics hit back. An opinion piece by anonymous ANU Gender Experts argues that they have seen no evidence of sexism in the unions campaign, and that Bell was a privileged woman who was failing in her job. Women in powerful positions cannot be immune to criticism, nor should their gender protect them from scrutiny, they wrote, expressing their frustration with what we see as a blatant weaponisation of gender and to raise our voices against it. Loading Pocock also disagrees with the glass cliff argument. He gave Bell the benefit of the doubt at first, but that argument wears very thin when you see the way things are being managed, he says. A lot of the issues now are of their own making, clearly under the decision-making of Bishop and Bell and a council thats potentially been starved of information or hasnt been willing to stand up to them. Bishops predecessor is unforgiving, too. Gareth Evans, also a former foreign minister, albeit in the Hawke/Keating Labor government (theres a long history of political alumni as ANU chancellors), wrote to a group of emeritus professors in March, the AFR reported, saying, No competence. No judgment. No shame. How much more of this can ANU tolerate? The matter is now in the hands of TEQSA. Its chief executive wrote to Bell in late June, raising issues ranging from a lack of financial transparency to the management of the cuts and concerns that staff were too intimidated by senior executives to speak up about the process. TEQSA is concerned ANUs council may not have fulfilled its obligation to exercise competent governance oversight of, and be accountable for, all ANUs operations, Dr Mary Russell wrote. In a statement, ANU acknowledged the changes had been challenging and said it had already achieved $59.9 million in savings. We know this period of transformation hasnt been easy and we thank and acknowledge the work and dedication of our community to support ANU during this time of change and continuing to strive for collegial relationships, it said. In an interview with the Canberra Times in June, Bell said she believed ANU was on the right course. I was raised to be really clear about why you do things, she said. To believe that your work should make the world different through the dint of your labour. Bell also discussed the aesthetic pleasure she found in shoes, with options so much wider than the black or brown for men. I own a lot of them, she said but considerably less than [Imelda] Marcos. In Capuanos LinkedIn defence of her boss last month, as the shoe issue blew up, she wondered why, in 2025, people were still questioning a womans decisions about her shoes. I cant seem to remember any commentary about the last VCs choice of footwear. True, not all those who withdrew in Bendigo resorted to free speech arguments. There is no sense those wishing specifically to stand in solidarity with Palestinian voices, or insisting they use their platform to call out genocide, would stand in similar solidarity with a silenced Israeli voice, or object to the removal of a speaker who wished to mount, say, a defence of white settlement in Australia. Their commitment to safety politics is consistent, just partial. It applies only to the marginalised, and not the powerful. Of course, this presumes such categories are uncontestable, and were seeing how that now plays out. So, for instance, it currently seems to exclude Zionists, even if that describes a majority of Australian Jews (who define it in lots of different ways), and even if that community is facing very real prejudice and intimidation. Loading But all this shows just how promiscuous these politics of safety can be. I understand the appeal, especially to those who feel the marketplace of ideas tends to favour the rich, the powerful, the culturally dominant. That it tends to sideline marginalised, minority voices. But if the only way it can be invoked consistently is to make some prior judgment about who deserves such safety; if we must first tabulate oppressor and oppressed, powerful and meek, then the whole thing becomes an exercise in power anyway: a contest over who decides such things. At that point, it becomes a weapon that, however useful it appears in a given moment, will eventually be used against you. Unfortunately, some of safetyisms proponents never seem to have considered that possibility until now, and some of its long-standing critics seem unaware of their sudden conversion to it. Now that were here, now that people across the political spectrum have been singed by safetyisms flame, might we take this opportunity to reassess? Could we draw a common lesson, based on a newly common experience, that in arenas dedicated to public debate, safety makes a poor organising principle? Because if we look closely, in this wreckage lies a certain celebration of what weve long had. Not free speech absolutism, but a broad public debate silencing a carefully defined hate speech and little else. Painful, imperfect, in need of more representative voices, but at least capable of surviving beyond ones own politics, of being applied consistently and perhaps most important inconveniently. That may seem a modest virtue, but this heightened moment shows it might be a vital one. Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, an author, an academic and a regular columnist. Doctors are calling for greater regulation and Western Australias Health Department says it will investigate whether there are lessons to be learnt from the death of a young boy after a circumcision procedure in Perth four years ago. David Flynn was two years old when he and his brother were admitted to Gosnells Medical Clinic in December 2021 for circumcisions. David Flynn was two years old when he died after a circumcision procedure in Perth in 2021. David was sent home while sedated on morphine following the procedure, and later died from opioid toxicity. His brother was sent to Perth Childrens Hospital due to excessive bleeding from his frenular artery. Former Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe is arrested in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Aug. 22, 2025. Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over alleged misuse of state funds, state media reported. (Photo by Gayan Sameera/Xinhua) COLOMBO, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Former Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over alleged misuse of state funds, state media reported. Wickremesinghe was arrested for charges of misusing state funds to visit London to attend a graduation ceremony of his wife, during his tenure as president in September 2023, according to local media. It is the first time a former executive president has been arrested in Sri Lanka's history, and he has been brought to the Colombo Fort Magistrate's Court following his arrest, according to local media. As part of the investigations, the CID had previously recorded statements from the former president's private secretary and his presidential secretary. Wickremesinghe arrived at the CID to provide a statement on Friday morning, and he was taken into custody following the recording of the statement, said media reports. File photo taken on Sept. 21, 2024 shows Ranil Wickremesinghe (Front) leaving a polling station after casting his vote for the presidential election 2024 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Former Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Aug. 22, 2025 by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over alleged misuse of state funds, state media reported. (Xinhua/Wu Yue) SUVA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Fiji's Cabinet has approved the country's first Child Safeguarding Policy, establishing a single national framework to guide ministries, statutory bodies, civil society organizations, and institutions that work with children. The policy sets out responsibilities, procedures, and minimum standards for organizations to follow, ensuring greater accountability and consistency in child protection, reported the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation on Friday. The Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection led the development of the framework through nationwide consultations, which included children, families, community representatives, and professionals working in child welfare. Minister Sashi Kiran said the policy's approval is a major milestone, describing it as a "significant step that reinforces Fiji's commitment to protecting the rights and well-being of all children." Child safeguarding has been an urgent concern in Fiji, where incidents of child abuse, neglect, exploitation, and online harm continue to rise. Data from child welfare agencies and police highlight persistent challenges in ensuring children are safe in homes, schools, religious institutions, and community spaces. The lack of a coordinated safeguarding framework has often led to fragmented responses, with gaps in reporting, intervention, and prevention. The new policy aims to close these gaps, the minister said. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari meets with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 21, 2025. (Xinhua) ISLAMABAD, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari met here on Thursday with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, saying that no matter how the international situation changes, the Pakistani side will fully trust China and unwaveringly stand by China. Zardari said that Pakistan-China friendship has stood the test of time, and the two countries are all-weather good friends and good partners, stressing that the world is facing risks and challenges, but China is courageous to face up to them, oppose bullying practices, and firmly safeguard its own interests and the common interests of developing countries. He thanked China for its unselfish assistance for Pakistan's socioeconomic development, and said his country is ready to work with China to advance cooperation projects like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Gwadar Port to bring more benefits to the people of both countries. Zardari also expressed hope that the two countries will continue to enhance coordination and cooperation on major international and regional issues, so as to jointly maintain regional peace, stability, prosperity and development. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that China's development represents the growth of the force of world peace and stability, as well as the strength of developing countries, stressing that no forces or difficulties could hinder China's development. He said that China-Pakistan friendship has stood the test of time and is unbreakable, and China has always prioritized relations with Pakistan in its neighborhood diplomacy, stressing that China is grateful for Pakistan's long-standing support for China's core interests and major concerns. China will continue to support Pakistan's efforts to safeguard its sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity, Wang said. He said that in the changing international situation, China is ready to work with Pakistan to deepen their traditional friendship, strengthen strategic coordination, establish an upgraded Version 2.0 of the CPEC, and build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era for the well-being of the people of the two countries. Achill Island RNLI was requested by the Irish Coast Guard to come to the aid of a man on board a small boat which was taking on water and was sinking close to Old Head shortly before 3pm last Monday, August 18th. It was the second launch for the volunteer crew in two days. The Irish Coast Guard units in Achill and Westport were also requested to assist. The alarm was raised by the man on his boat which ensured that a multi-agency rescue was put in place, with the lifeguards at Old Head beach also providing assistance. The lifeboat crew quickly assembled and the Sam and Ada Moody launched with eight crew on board. The launch took place two hours after high tide with a southeast wind and moderate sea conditions. While the lifeboat was underway the crew were informed that the crew of the Westport-based Irish Coast Guard unit were able to render assistance and bring the man to safety. The man was looked after by the Westport Coast Guard volunteers and the lifeguards at Old Head beach. Achill Island RNLI volunteer Eilish Power, said: This is an excellent example of multiple agencies working together and resulting in a very positive outcome. We want to commend the man who did everything right, and for his quick thinking in making the call for help. We also want to thank our Coast Guard colleagues and the lifeguards on duty, for rescuing him and looking after him so well. Our advice is to never hesitate to make that call for help. If you see someone in help on or near the water, call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coast Guard. A Mayo woman who was shot by her ex-partner had called police five times before the attack. Castlebar native Eileen Gibbons was shot in the stomach by Ralph Donald at a property in Milner, Darwin, Australia, in October 2023. Donald then took his own life in the front yard of the home. Ms Gibbons, who was aged 38 at the time of the shocking attack, was rushed to Royal Darwin Hospital with severe abdominal injuries but fortunately survived. An inquest into the circumstances of Donalds death and the police response opened last week. The hearing was told that officers were called five times in the six months leading up to the shooting, after reports that Donald was stalking Ms Gibbons, locking her inside his house, and preventing her from leaving. Ms Gibbons gave evidence at the inquest via video link, stating: Things were getting out of hand and I was crying out to the police. One officer involved in the case in 2023 admitted he did not identify immediate red flags. He told the inquest that because there was no prior history of physical violence, a domestic violence order could not be applied at the time. However, he added that after completing Prevent, Assist, Respond (PARt) training on coercive control, he now recognised the signs and would have acted differently in hindsight. Ms Gibbons said her former partner had become increasingly controlling and toxic, including locking her in the house, but he had never been physically violent before. The court heard that on the evening of October 3, 2023, Ms Gibbons went to Donalds home to collect items for their 11-month-old daughter. Donald appeared in the front yard with a rifle and shot her in the stomach before turning the weapon on himself. He got approximately two metres from her and said, do you want to die? while holding up the firearm, the inquest was told. Fearing for her life, Ms Gibbons tried to flee but fell to the ground. The inquest heard Donald was working as a tyre fitter and was beginning an apprenticeship at the time of his death. However, Ms Gibbons said the couple were under significant financial stress, with their mortgage having risen three times, and that things really escalated in the last year as Donald failed to cope with his alcohol abuse. The inquest was told that Donalds brother Charles heard the gunshots and put himself between his brother and Ms Gibbons as she lay wounded. Charles noticed his brother had started to reload his weapon and fearing for Ms Gibbons, he grabbed her and dragged her out of sight to safety. By Grainne Ni Aodha, PA A 50-year-old former referee has become the oldest probationer ever in An Garda Siochana. Michael Connolly, from Aghyaran in Co Tyrone, was one of 154 gardai who were attested as sworn members at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on Friday. Mr Connolly said he was at Queens University 30 years ago and has a background in health and wellbeing. He said his grandfather wanted to be a garda, but after his mother became sick he had to stay at home and maintain the farm, which remained his career for the rest of his life. In December 2023 Mr Connollys father-in-law mentioned that the gardai were raising the age limit for new recruits from 35 to 50 the following month. I had one shot at it, said Mr Connolly, who turned 50 in April 2025. January 2024, I went and made an application, and everything snowballed after that. It was one hurdle after another, and I clipped through a few of them, and I thought, this could become real. Then the medical came around and I got through it, happy days. In December 2024, I landed down here and Ive had nine months of challenge, pleasure, some great people and stationed in Milford for my placement, its all been very good. He also said his experience as a League of Ireland referee would help him as a garda. Mr Connolly said: The conflict, dealing with people, the sanctions, the penalties, theres so many aspects of refereeing that transfer naturally to being a garda. Those skills of dealing with conflict, of dealing with pressure situations, dealing with people when theyre heated up, that gives me a bit of an idea (that he can manage such situations). He said his wife, three daughters, parents, and parents-in-law were at the ceremony on Friday. Mr Connolly also said that a fellow probationer garda proposed to his girlfriend before the graduation ceremony began, and she said yes. Hannah Egan, 19, from Co Laois, said she got her Leaving Cert results two years ago but knew she wanted to be a garda like her father. Hannah Egan after the graduation ceremony in Templemore, Co Tipperary (Grainne Ni Aodha/PA) I grew up always seeing him do it and I never wanted to do anything else, it was all I wanted, I was set on it, she said. Im looking forward to getting to know loads of people and if I can help a single person that will be my days work done, Ill be happy. I think its all about having your head screwed on, and I think if you have your head screwed on youll be absolutely fine. Caragh Byrne, 22, from Cork, said she wanted to become a garda to follow in the footsteps of her father, Martin. She said her father was very surprised when she said at 16 years old that she wanted to be a garda, and said he became emotional and proud when she applied. Ms Byrne said: Seeing my dad come home from work, asking for stories and I was so interested since I was little and in TY (transition year) when I went for work experience with the guards, I knew since then becoming a member of An Garda Siochana was something I wanted to do. Even today now seeing both of us in the same attire, its amazing really. She said the training was amazing and that joining the gardai was the best thing Ive ever done. Asked if her father had given her any advice, Ms Byrne said: Be yourself, dont change for anyone or anything. Be yourself and have your own character and your own mindset is the most important thing to becoming a member. Allentown, PA (18103) Today There might be an early stray shower, mainly east of the Lehigh Valley; otherwise, look for skies to turn out mostly sunny for much of the day. Humidity drops to really comfortable levels during the afternoon. . Tonight Mostly clear as another shot of cool and comfy air arrives. Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong, also a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Cuban Minister of Interior Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong met with Cuban Minister of Interior Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas in Beijing on Friday. Noting that this year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Cuba, Wang, also a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that China is willing to work with Cuba to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two parties and the two countries, further solidify the ministerial meeting mechanism, enhance personnel exchanges and law enforcement capacity building, deepen practical cooperation in law enforcement and security, safeguard the security and interests of the two countries, and make greater contributions to the building of a closer China-Cuba community with a shared future. Alvarez, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, expressed Cuba's willingness to further enhance coordination and cooperation with China to jointly address security risks and challenges. ISLAMABAD, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of a fire that broke out in a fireworks factory in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi in Sindh province on Thursday has reached five, with more than 34 injured, police and hospital officials said on Friday. The hospital officials told local media that the injured people are being treated at different hospitals, adding that at least five are in critical condition. Police said that a short circuit triggered a fire in the warehouse of the factory where raw material used for the preparation of firecrackers was stored, causing a huge explosion and extensive damage to nearby buildings and vehicles. Hassaan Ul Haseeb Khan, spokesperson of the state-owned rescue organization Rescue 1122, told Xinhua that rescue activities are in the final stage, with at least 10 fire tenders and a snorkel taking part to extinguish the blaze. A committee has been formed to investigate the incident, said the police. Taking notice of the incident, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah directed authorities to ensure that the fire is completely brought under control. Technicians operate a data monitoring system at Frog Prince (China) Daily Chemicals Co., Ltd. in Zhangzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 22, 2025. Cities of southeast China's Fujian Province have been taking good use of digital and intelligent technologies to upgrade its traditional industries in recent years. Panpan Foods in Jinjiang has leveraged intelligent technology in its bread making. SinceTech, a shoe material textile company headquartered in Jinjiang, has achieved digitalized production. In its smart workshop, a single worker can operate over 10 machines simultaneously. At a custom-made shoes factory of SEMS in Putian, an equipment can record consumers' foot measurements to create personalized designs based on their preferences. The intelligent production line can then manufacture a pair of new shoes in just over an hour. Frog Prince (China) Daily Chemicals Co., Ltd. in Zhangzhou continually sharpens its edge in its supply chain capabilities, and research and development advantages to meet consumers' diverse demands. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) This photo taken on Aug. 20, 2025 shows a scene at the smart workshop of SinceTech, a shoe material textile company, in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) A robotic arm is seen at the smart workshop of Panpan Foods in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 19, 2025. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan) A worker operates at the smart workshop of a custom-made shoes factory of SEMS in Putian, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 19, 2025. (Xinhua/Zhou Yi) This photo taken on Aug. 20, 2025 shows a scene at the smart workshop of SinceTech, a shoe material textile company, in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan) This photo taken on Aug. 19, 2025 shows a smart production line at a custom-made shoes factory of SEMS in Putian, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Zhou Yi) This photo taken on Aug. 19, 2025 shows a smart production line at the workshop of Panpan Foods in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan) A worker operates at the smart workshop of Panpan Foods in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 19, 2025. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) A visitor takes photos of an exhibit at SinceTech, a shoe material textile company, in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 20, 2025. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) This photo taken on Aug. 20, 2025 shows a scene at the smart workshop of SinceTech, a shoe material textile company, in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) Workers operate at the workshop of Frog Prince (China) Daily Chemicals Co., Ltd. in Zhangzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) This photo taken on Aug. 19, 2025 shows a production line at the smart workshop of Panpan Foods in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) This photo taken on Aug. 22, 2025 shows an exterior view of the Frog Prince (China) Daily Chemicals Co., Ltd. in Zhangzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Xiao) MOSCOW, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Russian Railways said Thursday that over 70 long-distance trains were running behind schedule after a drone crash disrupted power lines in the Voronezh region. "Due to a drone crash that disrupted the operation of overhead lines on the Rossosh-Sokhranovka section in the Voronezh region overnight, 71 long-distance trains are currently delayed," Russian Railways stated. It added that some trains were facing delays of up to 5.5 hours, while repair crews were working to restore service and minimize passenger disruptions. Earlier reports said that train services were suspended in the region after debris from downed Ukrainian drones damaged railway infrastructure. Voronezh Governor Aleksandr Gusev said earlier that at least five drones had been detected and destroyed by air defense units in the southern part of the region. He confirmed that several villages were left without electricity and some passenger trains were delayed, though no injuries were reported. ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- African experts have praised China's role in advancing the right to development across the continent, highlighting its respect for each country's unique development path. The remarks were made as the First China-Africa Human Rights Seminar was held on Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, under the theme "Building the China-Africa community with a shared future and working together to realize the right to development." The event brought together more than 200 policymakers, scholars, diplomats, and media representatives from China and Africa to explore ways to advance human rights, particularly the right to development. In an interview with Xinhua, Fredrick Mutesa, secretary general of the Zambia-China Friendship Association, said China continues to engage with Africa and the wider Global South by respecting each country's governance architecture and socio-economic development path. "China is offering the African continent a real opportunity to renegotiate the participation in the international order based on non-interference in each other's internal affairs, mutual respect, and win-win outcomes. In that regard, China is playing a very crucial role in helping Africa realize the right to development," Mutesa told Xinhua. The expert called for concerted efforts among African and Chinese scholars and think tanks to develop a broad strategy to safeguard the benefits of Africa-China cooperation. "You cannot have a continent where over 300 million are suffering from hunger, and we are just a few years from the 2030 goal of ending hunger," he said. "It is important that we talk about the right to development and also look at who is partnering with Africa to create conducive conditions for the realization of this right." "China is at the forefront by investing in unlocking the potential of the African continent through infrastructure development and other sectors of the economy," he added. Balew Demissie, a researcher at the Policy Studies Institute of Ethiopia, echoed Mutesa's views, stressing China's role in promoting a diverse approach to human rights while respecting each country's unique development path. "China advocates for human rights cooperation based on mutual respect, free from politicization or double standards. China sees economic growth and poverty alleviation as essential foundations for realizing human rights, especially in developing nations," Demissie emphasized. Highlighting China's positive contributions to promoting Africa's right to development across various bilateral and multilateral platforms, the scholar said China supports reforms in international institutions to amplify the voices of the Global South and uphold national sovereignty. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. (AND NO SPAM!) Just click here. The extraordinary pair of meetings in the past week the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday and Donald Trump's hosting of the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Finland, as well as the NATO alliance and the European Commission were prompted by the latest iteration of a continuing source of instability over hundreds of years. That instability is Russia's westward expansion across the great northern European plains, bereft of natural boundaries, from the principality of Muscovy in the early 1500s to the Soviet empire and satellites ruled by Stalin and his predecessors for nearly half a century after 1945. Russia's vast armies, fueled by seemingly limitless manpower, freed much of Europe from the rule of Napoleon in 1815 and Hitler in 1945. However, the Russian proclivity to autocracy and brutal suppression of dissent has been abhorrent to the developing Western traditions of accountable government and ordered liberty. Readers of Richard Pipes' magisterial histories of Russia over the years will not need reminding that Russia's impulse to geographical expansion and autocratic governance has survived the transitions from the tsardom to communism to what is now, theoretically, a democratic republic. In the 18th century, under Catherine II (originally a German princess), Russia expanded south to Crimea and the Black Sea and westward in the partition of Poland. During World War I, the Kaiser's Germany pared back its border in March 1918, and Western powers, including the United States, joined Russia's White Army in trying to oust the communists from 1918 to 1920. But desultory leadership from the stroke-disabled Woodrow Wilson enabled Lenin and his comrades to cling to power, and communist expansion was stopped for a generation by the new Polish Republic's Jozef Pilsudski on the Vistula, as documented by Adam Zamoyski's "Warsaw 1920." After signing the Hitler-Stalin pact in August 1939, Stalin proceeded to take over the three Baltic republics (a step the U.S. never legally recognized), eastern Poland, Romania and Finland. He was about to lunge westward against Hitler, according to Sean McMeekin's "Stalin's War," when Hitler beat him to the punch and sent 3 million men over the line on June 22, 1941. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt immediately began providing material aid, free of cost, to Stalin's forces, clearly on the theory that their primary goal of destroying Hitler and his regime could be achieved only with the aid of the Red Army and its brutal tactics (shooting any retreating soldier, starving prisoners of war) unavailable to any democratic nation. From their different viewpoints, "Stalin's War" and Tim Bouverie's "Allies at War" conclude that Churchill's and Roosevelt's broken promises to Stalin of a second front in northern Europe in 1942 and '43 meant conceding control of much of the continent to Soviet enslavement. Prising a continent from the combined (in 1939 to 1941) forces of Hitler and Stalin required making and following through on tragic choices. The U.S. continued to make such choices after 1945. It accepted Soviet control where the Red Army was in place but saved Italy from a Czechoslovakia-type takeover in elections in 1948, extended the nuclear umbrella over western Europe with NATO in 1949, and opposed, with varying results, communist expansion in Korea and Indochina. Steadfastness brought victory in the Cold War, and NATO expansion afterward ended half a century of Russian control of eastern Europe up to and including the Baltics but not Ukraine. So, how has Trump fit into this picture? Like Roosevelt, Churchill and presidents from Harry S. Truman through Ronald Reagan, he has a horror of Americans fighting the Russian army; unlike Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, he sees a greater threat in East Asia than from Russia. Like other presidents, Trump has called for Europe to do more in its own defense. But his much greater emphasis, and because of Vladimir Putin's threats, he has gotten results. Most NATO allies are spending more than the pledged 2% gap on defense, and some, led as in 1920 by Poland, are spending much more than that. Events seem to have moved Trump away, at least temporarily, from the view of some among his supporters (including the vice president?) of Putin's Russia as a Christian bulwark against woke heresy. His appropriate horror at the brutality of Russian warfare may be overshadowing his appreciation of Putin as a strong leader. He may even be developing an admiration for the resistance against Russian tyranny of the Ukrainian people, perhaps even of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The extraordinary spectacle of six European heads of government traveling en masse to the White House could turn out to be a key step in the handover of primary responsibility for maintaining Ukraine's independence to Europe from an America willing to be a backstop but not to take the lead role. Or not. Trump's inconstancy and avidity for unstinting praise, Putin's continued determination to inflict destruction on a nation of hearts and minds he has lost, the European governments' habit of undermining brave declarations with flaccid inaction, and the always unpredictable tides of battle could fail to end the horrifying carnage and spell disaster for the brave and resourceful Ukrainians determined to resist Russian ukase. But for now, there is some reason for optimism on Russia's often fluctuating western border. TAIPEI/BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, original documents detailing a special task force from Taiwan have been added to the latest national documentary heritage list. The 625 documents reveal moving stories of a group of volunteers from Taiwan, then under Japanese colonial rule, fighting against the Japanese on the mainland. Their founder, General Lee You-pang, exemplifies the struggle of people in colonized Taiwan striving to return to their motherland. In Luzhou District of New Taipei City, where Lee You-pang was born, visitors to his former residence are greeted by bronze statues of the general and his wife, Yen Hsiu-feng, at the entrance. The statues rest atop a black stone base engraved with two red Chinese characters: "Fu Jiang." "Fu means 'restoration,' and Jiang means 'territory,' which refers specifically to Taiwan," explained 80-year-old Lee Li-chun, son of You-pang. "These words capture my father's lifelong commitment to the restoration of Taiwan to the motherland." Lee You-pang was born in 1906 into a respectable family whose ancestors had migrated to Taiwan from Fujian Province, just across the Taiwan Strait. By then, Taiwan had been under Japanese colonial rule for a decade. In 1895, following its defeat in a war with Japan, the Qing government was forced to cede Taiwan to the Japanese. "From a young age, my father had a strong sense of being Chinese and felt deep anger at the discrimination and exploitation that the people of Taiwan endured under Japanese colonial rule," Lee Li-chun said. At 16, while studying at a normal school, Lee You-pang joined a cultural association in Taiwan and actively took part in efforts opposing Japanese colonial rule. He participated twice in attacks on Japanese police stations, putting him on the Japanese colonial authorities' wanted list. In 1924, he left for the mainland to enroll at the Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy in Guangzhou. After Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in 1937, Lee, convinced that Taiwan's fate was tied to the motherland, founded the Taiwan volunteer corps and the Taiwan youth league in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, in February 1939. The Taiwan volunteer corps began with just over 30 members and grew to more than 380 by 1945, playing an active role along the frontlines in Zhejiang and Fujian and contributing to the resistance in various fields, including publicity, medical support and productive services. As many members were doctors, Lee You-pang made medical work one of their priorities. He established four hospitals to treat wounded soldiers and civilians. Since 1895, the people of Taiwan have continuously resisted colonial oppression and fought for reunification with the motherland, with more than 650,000 sacrificing their lives. Official data show that between 1937 and 1945, more than 50,000 Taiwan patriots went to the mainland to join the war of resistance against Japanese aggression. China's victory ended Japan's colonial rule in Taiwan. On Oct. 25, 1945, the Chinese government announced that it was resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan, and the ceremony to accept Japan's surrender in the Taiwan Province of the China war theater of the Allied powers was held in Taipei. In 1985, Yen Hsiu-feng, on behalf of all descendants of the Lee family in Luzhou, donated the family's ancestral home as a public venue honoring Lee You-pang's contributions to the war of resistance against Japanese aggression. It later became a key site commemorating Taiwan people's resistance against Japanese aggression. Lee Li-chun also donated all of his father's archives, and to this day, the 80-year-old remains actively involved in cross-Strait exchanges, sharing with people on both sides the heroic stories of his father's generation. However, this important chapter of history is being deliberately downplayed by Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities, who seek to promote a secessionist interpretation of the past. "Nowadays, many young people in Taiwan are not even familiar with the term 'anti-Japanese war.' This is deeply painful," Lee Li-chun said. "I hope that more people will come to know this chapter of history, when compatriots on both sides of the Strait stood shoulder to shoulder in order to defend their homeland." Lee Li-chun can still sing the song of the team his father founded: "We are volunteers fighting the Japanese and the vanguard of Taiwan's liberation. We shall expel the Japanese invaders from our motherland and break the shackles they locked on Taiwan." Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 21, 2025. (ISPR/Handout via Xinhua) ISLAMABAD, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir here on Thursday. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said the Pakistani army serves as the foundation of national stability and a staunch defender of China-Pakistan friendship and cooperation. Wang pointed out that the Pakistani military has always supported both sides in earnestly implementing the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, deepening strategic mutual trust at a higher level, and jointly building the "version 2.0" upgrade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with high quality, contributing to accelerating the building of a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. Facing the rapid global changes unseen in a century and growing instability and uncertainties, Wang said promoting a strong China-Pakistan relationship is conducive to maintaining regional peace and stability. China has always prioritized Pakistan in its neighborhood diplomacy, and the relationship between the two countries has withstood the test of time and become even stronger, Wang said, adding that the two countries, both belonging to the Eastern civilization, attach great importance to friendship and righteousness, and have forged an unbreakable traditional friendship. China will continue to support Pakistan in safeguarding its territorial integrity and national security, and welcomes Pakistan to play a greater role in international affairs, Wang said. Munir said China is Pakistan's iron-clad friend, with both sides having always shared weal and woe, and their strategic partnership is as solid as a rock. Developing friendly relations with China is a consensus across Pakistani society, Munir noted, expressing sincere gratitude for China's valuable support in the economic and social development of Pakistan over the long term. The Pakistani military is willing to actively promote counter-terrorism and security cooperation between the two countries, and will continue to make every effort to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, projects, and institutions in Pakistan, contributing to the consolidation and development of the all-weather friendship between Pakistan and China, he said. US guided-missile destroyers at sea [Photo: US Navy/Specialist 3rd Class Cole Schroeder] Washington is sending three amphibious assault vessels carrying a 2,200-strong Marine expeditionary force to Venezuela, anonymous US officials told the Miami Herald yesterday. They are to join a group of three US guided missile destroyers that reportedly arrived off the Venezuelan coast yesterday. This shatters the flimsy pretext the Trump administration had earlier advanced to justify sending the three destroyersnamely, the claim that they would prevent ships in the area from trafficking drugs from Venezuela to the United States. The US Marine Corps is not an anti-narcotics police unit. The US government is clearly threatening to invade Venezuela as part of a decades-long regime change operation targeting that oil-rich country. Asked about the naval deployments on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration is ready to take any and all military measures against Venezuela. She repeated provocative and totally unsubstantiated US assertions, made with evident contempt for the Venezuelan people, that Venezuelas government is nothing more than a front organization for a drug cartel. President Trump has been very clear and consistent. He is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding our country and to bring those responsible to justice, Leavitt said. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela; it is a narco terror cartel. Maduro, in the view of this administration, is not a legitimate president. Leavitt was echoing threats by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on August 14 said, the Cartel of the Suns, the Cartel de los Soles is a criminal organization that happens to masquerade as a government. The Maduro regime is not a government. Its not a legitimate government. Weve never recognized them as such. They are a criminal enterprise that basically has taken control of a national territory, of a country. However, despite Rubios accusations, the US government has provided no court-tested evidence of narcotics trafficking by the Cartel of the Suns or even substantiated its existence. They have only named Maduro and parliamentarian Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister and vice president of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), as the cartels alleged leaders. The US government is again resorting to the method of the Big Lie, seeking to create a pretext for war by telling lies so big that they seem impossible to refute. In the illegal 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the lieexposed soon after US and European forces occupied Iraqwas the claim that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction. Against Venezuela, the charge is that it is run by a shadowy drug cartel about which Washington provides no information but which it will take drastic action to destroy. The Venezuelan government, for its part, has denied that the Cartel of the Suns even exists and denounced pseudo-legal US threats against it. When, on August 7, US Attorney General Pam Bondi placed a $50 million bounty on Maduros head, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil denounced it as a crude political propaganda operation. Gil called it a desperate distraction from Trumps ties to the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Maduro responded to the deployment of US destroyers off Venezuelas coast by calling to arms popular militias friendly to his government. He said, This week, I will activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territorymilitias that are prepared, activated and armed. Venezuelan Interior Minister Cabello claimed the operation is a brutal campaign of psychological warfare to incite terrorist acts by far-right extremists close to the US government. US officials are desperate [and] are financing groups to execute acts of violence in the month of September, he said. Apparently referring to events like the failed US-backed coup of 2002 against Maduros predecessor, Hugo Chavez, Cabello said: We must tell the extremists that the civilian-military-police alliance will take apart their actions once again. Cabello downplayed the significance of the current threats, saying: All these lies and this show will fall under their own weight. It is worth reminding the snake oil salesmen that this display is nothing new. They did this during Trumps first term in office. The Venezuelan regimes assessment is staggeringly complacent: The Trump administration, as it launches a global trade war, is also clearly seeking to consolidate its domination of the Western Hemisphere. It is particularly concerned that Chinas surging trade with Latin America, at $518 billion last year compared to $800 billion for the United States, could ultimately undermine US imperialisms hegemony in what it considers to be its backyard. The Trump administration has not only called for the annexation of Greenland and Panama and slapped high tariffs on Brazil but rapidly escalated its military operations and interventions across the region, particularly against its Southern neighbor, Mexico. One report by US investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein pointed to the rapid increase in US military planning after the designation of cartels as terrorist organizations, which allows the full mobilization of the US military against them. Not only is Donald Trump uniquely focused on TCOs [transnational criminal organizations, i.e., cartels], having designated them terrorists in one of his first Executive Orders, but he has shown himself to be willing to take unilateral action despite potentially negative political ramifications, one intelligence official told Klippenstein, who wrote: He and the other sources say that military action could be unilateralthat is, without the involvement or approval of the Mexican government. It is increasingly obvious that, with the continuing collaboration of the Mexican military, the US armed forces are preparing to unilaterally bomb targets across its countrygoing to war with Mexico in all but name. US Special Operations forces, according to Klippenstein, have received orders to identify target packages for potential strikes and direct action attacks in Mexico. He added, Direct attacks could also involve air or drone strikes. Washingtons operations in Mexico are indissolubly bound up with its global war plans. Some of these calculations were aired in remarks last year by US Northern Command leader General Gregory Guillot in remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Identifying China and Russia as competitors whose influence in Latin America Washington should crush, Guillot said that the US Northern Command was seeking to work closely to integrate its operations with those of the Mexican military to block them: The bonds between USNORTHCOM and our Mexican military partners are broad, resilient, and focused on expanding our combined capability to defend and secure North America from myriad state and non-state threats. Countering competitor influence in the region remains a key priority for NORTHCOM and our Mexican military partners, and as a direct result, the U.S. and Mexican militaries are more operationally compatible than at any point in our shared history. Such operations face explosive opposition by the working class in Latin America, United States and internationally. Preventing US military escalation across Latin America requires building an international, socialist anti-war movement uniting across the Americas and beyond in a struggle against imperialism. Japan and Australia recently announced that Canberra would purchase 11 new advanced naval frigates from Japans Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), in what is a sign of growing military cooperation between two of the Washingtons primary allies in accelerating war preparations against China. Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles announced the $US6.5 billion deal on August 5. MHI will produce three upgraded Mogami-class frigates in Japan while the remaining eight will be built in Australia in conjunction with shipbuilder and military contractor Austal. The initial price tag only includes the first three ships and parts for other vessels. The upgraded Mogami frigate requires only a 90-member crew, fewer than a vessel proposed by Germanys Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, and carries long-range missiles as well as having stealth, anti-submarine, and mine warfare capabilities. The deal is expected to be completed early next year, with the first vessel to be delivered by 2029. Marles described the purchase as a very significant moment in the bilateral relationship between Australia and Japan. For Japan, the deal represents an expanding aspect of its remilitarization drive, through which Tokyo is rapidly preparing for war. Japans efforts to become a significant arms exporter further demonstrates that Article 9, the so-called pacifist clause in its constitution, has become a dead letter. The clause formally bars Japan from fielding a military or going to war overseas. Though undermined for decades, the establishments reluctance to officially overturn it reflects its fear of broad anti-war sentiment in the Japanese working class in particular. Having previously attempted to revise Article 9, Tokyo now simply ignores it. The naval sale deepens Tokyos military cooperation with Canberra. Japans Defense Minister Gen Nakatani stated that the deal showed the importance of interoperability between the Self-Defense Forces and the Australian military. The Self-Defense Forces is the formal name of Japans military. Both Japan and Australia are members of the Quad, a de facto military pact that also includes India and the US directed against China. Japan is also cooperating with the anti-China AUKUS alliance, comprised of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US. While not a full member, Japan participates under Tier 2, which involves sharing advanced military technology. The frigate sale is the first of this size and scale for Japan since the end of World War II. Hirohito Ogi, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics and a former defense ministry official, told the Financial Times, This will further motivate the Japanese defense companies to seek other opportunities for international arms transactions. Weapon exports have been a key part of Japans remilitarization for years. In 2014, the government of Shinzo Abe eased regulations that banned such exports, though this had been violated in the past. Subsequent governments further undermined this supposed ban. In December 2023, the Fumio Kishida government approved the sale of Patriot missiles to the US in order to allow Washington to send its own stockpile of missiles to Ukraine in the war against Russia. In April 2023, Japan announced that it would begin supplying countries like the Philippines with satellite communication technology, radio systems, and radars as part of its new Official Security Assistance program. The goal, Japans Foreign Ministry claimed, was to strengthen a free and open international order, a phrase repeated ad nauseam to justify the US-led militarization of the Indo-Pacific and demonize China. Japan is also currently planning to transfer as many as six Abukuma-class destroyer escort vessels to the Philippines, with talks on a deal in July. Tokyo and Manila would work jointly to refurbish the warships, which have been in operation for more than 30 years. This joint development would allow Tokyo to ignore restrictions on sending vessels to other countries for use in future wars. These measures are not directed towards self-defense. Tokyos recently released annual Defense Ministry white paper branded China an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge while stating that the world was entering a new era of crisis. Responsibility for this era of crisis rests above all with US imperialism, which is attempting to offset its relative economic decline and block the emergence of China as a competitor. The US is seeking to goad China into a war, particularly over Taiwan by challenging and chipping away at the One China policy. The US has also inflamed tensions in the South China Sea by encouraging the Philippines to stage provocative maneuvers around disputed territories, operations which the US military has overseen. Japan has added to these tensions. On March 30, Defense Minister Nakatani proposed to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a single theater concept, which the latter welcomed. Nakatani reportedly stated, Japan plans to deepen partnerships by viewing Japan, the United States, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea, and others as a single theater, which would include the East and South China Seas as well as the Korean Peninsula. This effectively means Tokyo is preparing to go to war anywhere in the region. This is part of Washingtons push to create a system of alliances to surround China. Washington, Tokyo and Canberra formalized a new trilateral naval logistics arrangement on July 11 aimed at improving cooperation and enhancing interoperability. It is the first such trilateral logistics pact between the three. The arrangement includes missile reloading and refueling at sea, with the US Navys Vice Admiral Jeff Jablon adding that it allows us to more easily share information, technologies, and processes for greater logistics resiliency. The deal was signed prior to the massive, nearly month-long Talisman Sabre exercises in Australia, in which Japan took part. These war games were active preparations for imperialist war with China. Another round of naval exercises took place in the northern Philippine Sea, near Taiwan, which ran from August 4 to 12. Vessels from the US, Japan, UK, Norway and Spain were involved. Four battle groups took part in the operations including those of the USS George Washington and HMS Prince of Wales. The other two were associated with the USS America, classified as an amphibious assault ship, and the JS Kaga from Japan, which is undergoing conversation into an aircraft carrier. The latter two are capable of launching F-35B fighter jets. The Kaga is one of two carriers the Japanese navy has in violation of previous restrictions on offensive weaponry. The vessels were originally built as helicopter carriers as a workaround to the restriction, before their conversation into aircraft carriers capable of launching F-35Bs, which have short take-offs and vertical landings. On August 7, Japan also received the first three F-35Bs out of 42 it has purchased from the US. In addition, Tokyo has ordered 105 F-35A fighters, which would make it the largest operator of the aircraft outside of the US. Nearly two years of carpet bombing, mass murder and a starvation blockade of the Gaza Strip have turned Israel into a pariah state, despised and hated throughout the world. Nevertheless, the German government stands steadfastly behind the Israeli government, surpassed in this only by the Trump administration. In the face of growing outrage, Berlins official position has shifted slightly. In mid-June, Chancellor Friedrich Merz had attested that the Zionist state was doing the dirty work for all of us; now he urges greater humanitarian consideration and will no longer approve weapons for use in Gaza. Yet, in practical terms, nothing has changed. Germany continues to support Israel politically and militarily, opposes all sanctions, and prosecutes opponents of the genocide as alleged antisemites. This is supposedly justified by Germanys special responsibility for the Holocaust. In 2008, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared Israels security to be a German Staatsrason (matter of state policy), the same formulation found in the current governments coalition agreement. Three months ago, in a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier celebrated the miracle of reconciliation after the civilizational rupture of the Shoah. At that time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had long been sought on an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity. To justify the Israeli armys war crimes by citing reparations for the Shoah is disgusting and repulsive. Responsibility for the genocide of the Jews does not obligate Germany to support another genocide. Historically, this justification is based on a myth devoid of any factual basis. The close collaboration between Germany and Israel never had anything to do with reparations, atonement for the Shoah, or anything comparable. It was a reciprocal deal: Germany supplied the beleaguered Zionist state with weapons, economic aid and financial assistance; in return, the Israeli government turned a blind eye to the continued presence of Nazi elites in the state and economy of the Federal Republic of Germany and helped it gain international standing. The book cover of 'Absolution?' showing David Ben-Gurion and Konrad Adenauer This connection is vividly documented in the book Absolution?: Israel und die deutsche Staatsrason (Absolution? Israel and German State Policy) by Daniel Marwecki. The political scientist, born in Bremen in 1987, evaluated files from the archives of the German Foreign Ministry in Berlinsome of which were accessible for the first timeas well as from Israeli archives and numerous other sources. Published in 2024, the book was written before the most recent war in Gaza. It is based on the doctoral thesis Marwecki submitted in 2018 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, which was published in English under the title Germany and Israel: Whitewashing and Statebuilding. For the German edition, the text was revised and supplemented with an updated afterword. The Luxembourg Agreement of 1952: Economic aid for political absolution The close cooperation between Germany and Israel began long before the official establishment of diplomatic relations in 1965. As early as 1952when Israel was just four and the Federal Republic three years oldthe two states negotiated a so-called reparations agreement in Luxembourg after lengthy talks. The previous year, Konrad Adenauers (Christian Democrat, CDU) government had passed the so-called 131 Law, which secured the return of numerous former Nazis to the civil service and gave them access to public pensions. As Marwecki demonstrates, the law and the agreement were closely linked: From a post-war German perspective, the compensation policy towards Israel and the reintegration of old Nazis into the not-so-new Germany were hardly contradictory. Reparation and reintegration were, in fact, complementary. The former made the latter possible. The fiercely contested agreement brought Israel urgently needed capital goods, energy supplies and soon, weapons. The relatively small sum of 3.45 billion Deutsche Marks (DM), which Germany committed to as reparations, was paid two-thirds in the form of goods. The final third was used to pay for crude oil deliveries from British energy companies. Individual compensation for victims of the Holocaust, however, was not included. For Israel, which was still highly isolated internationally at the time, the agreement was vital, according to Marwecki. Until 1965, about three times as much capital flowed from Germany to Israel as from the US, which only became the Zionist states main supporter after the Six-Day War of 1967. Germany supplied machinery for the textile, chemical, engineering and other industries, as well as for road construction, agriculture and much more. The largest single sector was shipbuilding, with 60 ships and a total tonnage of around 450,000. German deliveries initially accounted for 12 percent of all Israeli imports. Germany thus helped transform an import-dependent agrarian state into an export-oriented industrial state capable of absorbing the growing number of immigrants. For Germany, the agreement was, according to Marwecki, a cost-effective investment in its international rehabilitation. The supposed reparations helped the Federal Republic gain international standing, while former Nazis, some of whom were responsible for capital crimes, continued to occupy high government offices, judicial posts, university chairs and corporate boardrooms. Hans Globke, the chief of staff and grey eminence in Konrad Adenauers chancellery, had been a co-author and commentator of the Nuremberg Race Laws. Germany also benefited economically andas we shall seemilitarily from the agreement. Today, after the US and China, it is still Israels third-largest trading partner. Marwecki shows in detail that the Luxembourg Agreement was not accompanied by an acknowledgement of or coming to terms with the Nazi crimes. It served to prevent such a reckoning. Antisemitic prejudices remained widespread even years later, reaching into the highest circles of government. Ex Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visits Tel Aviv in 1966 [Photo by Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P092350 / CC BY-SA 3.0 The Luxembourg Agreement was controversial not only in Israel but also in Germany. Among its most important opponents were Adenauers financial advisor Hermann Josef Abs and Finance Minister Fritz Schaffer. They opposed it on grounds of cost. Under the Nazis, Abs had risen to the top leadership of Deutsche Bank. As a board member, he was responsible for Aryanization measures and sat on the supervisory board of I.G. Farben, which operated factories in Auschwitz and produced the deadly Zyklon B for the gas chambers. In 1957, twelve years after the end of the Nazi regime, Abs became CEO of Deutsche Bank and rose to become the dominant figure in the German economy. The decisive factor for approving the Luxembourg Agreement ultimately came from Economics Minister and later Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (CDU), who highlighted its economic and political benefits in a letter to Adenauer: In a more dynamic assessment of the [economic] development and especially from a political perspective, it could... very well be that a higher admission of debt would in the final analysis better serve German interests, namely if we strengthen German creditworthiness and finally perhaps even reconcile the Jews of the world with Germanys past. The antisemitic allusion to the Jews of the world was no accident. Adenauer also made similar statements repeatedly. Even after the Holocaust, Germanys political leadership still believed in a Jewish world conspiracy. Even when Germany and Israel officially established diplomatic relations in 1965, the first German ambassador to Tel Aviv, Rolf Pauls, justified it in an internal letter by citing the influence of world Jewry: It should be noted that Israel and the Jews exert decisive influence at the crucial global centres of public opinion formation and will be of great importance for our good will, especially concerning world public opinion on the German Question, in the difficult foreign policy times that lie ahead. The attitude of world Jewry to the German Question, which cannot be separated from the quality of German-Israeli relations, will, in my conviction, carry more weight for the future of this most important of our political goals than the... attitude of the Arab states. (110) The German Question was the focus of German foreign policy at the time. The Adenauer government demanded the restoration of Germany within its 1937 borders, including the then state of East Germany (GDR) and large territories that Germany had been forced to cede to Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union after its defeat in the war. This only changed in 1970, when Willy Brandts government officially recognized Polands western border for the first time. The true character of German-Israeli relations became particularly clear during the Eichmann trial. When Adolf Eichmann, who had played a central role in the persecution, deportation and murder of six million Jews, was abducted from Argentina by the Israeli secret service and put on trial in Israel in 1961, alarm bells rang in Bonn. The German government feared that Eichmann might talk and incriminate high-ranking officialsespecially Chancellery Chief of Staff Globke. The Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which was riddled with old Nazis, sent several observers to Jerusalem to influence the trial and control reporting on it. Promised weapons and financial aid were withheld until Eichmann was executed in the summer of 1962. Eichmann himself kept his mouth shut. The fanatical Nazi and Jew-hater had no interest in denouncing old comrades. He knew he could not escape the death penalty and steadfastly played the farce of the banality of evilthe apolitical and emotionless recipient of orders. Military cooperation Even more important than the economic cooperation was the military collaboration between Germany and Israel. It began even before the Luxembourg Agreement of 1952. As early as 1948, the underground army Haganah was in contact with German military representatives, and in 1951, the Israeli Ministry of Defence went on a shopping tour in Germany. Before the Six-Day War of 1967, Germany played a more important role than the US in providing military support to Israel. Israel first became a regional power with German helpand only after it became a regional power did the US take on the role of patron of the Jewish state, writes Marwecki. CSU Chairman Franz Josef Strauss on a state visit to Israel in May 1963 is shown the Uzi sub-machine gun by its inventor Uziel Gal [Photo by Government Press Office, Moshe Pridan] The driving force behind this cooperation was Defence Minister Franz Josef Strauss. The long-time chairman of the CDUs Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), stood on the right wing of German politics and strictly rejected any reckoning with the Nazi past. He had abstained from the parliamentary vote on the Luxembourg Agreement. But when he became defence minister in 1956, he changed his mind: For him, Israel became a bastion of the West in the Middle East, a military guarantor against Soviet influence and Arab nationalism. The military cooperation led to tensions with the Foreign Ministry, which feared that Arab states would establish diplomatic relations with the GDR if the arms deliveries became public. According to the Hallstein Doctrine then in force, the Federal Republic would have had to immediately break off relations with these states. This would not only have had unforeseeable consequences for the position and reputation of the Federal Republic in the Middle East, as Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano wrote to Strauss in 1958. It would also have endangered Germanys energy supply, which was increasingly dependent on oil from the Middle East. The military cooperation therefore took place largely in secret but was all the more intensive for it. In 1957, Shimon Peres, then Deputy Israeli Defence Minister, secretly visited Strauss at his private home in Bavaria. Only a few months after our meeting, the Israeli army received very valuable equipment, Peres later reported. We received ammunition, training equipment, helicopters, spare parts, and much more. The quality was excellent, and the quantity was considerable. That was only the beginning. In August 1962, two months after Eichmanns execution, the German government approved a huge arms delivery. It included 114 anti-aircraft guns, 24 Sikorsky helicopters, 12 Noratlas transport aircraft, six Jaguar fast patrol boats, and four Dornier-28 aircraft. Military cooperation, too, was not about reparations but about German imperialist interests. Israel served the Federal Republic as a bridgehead in the Middle East. The briefing folder for the first German ambassador to Tel Aviv, Rolf Pauls, stated: As a bridge to Africa and the Indian Ocean, as a line of communication for Europe to the centres of tension in East Asia, and as an important source of oil, the Middle East is of considerable strategic importance, and maintaining stability in this region is a crucial concern for the West. Not least, it was about pushing back the influence of the Soviet Union. Pauls was aware of this, writing: Our interest in consolidating the economic and political state of Israel as a factor of the free world in the Middle East is undeniable. Thelargely secretsecurity cooperation with Israel continues to this day. It is of great importance not only for Israel but also for the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and the German arms industry. It encompasses research, development, training, and joint military exercises, writes Marwecki. It is as intertwined in the military, armaments policy, and intelligence spheres as that between NATO states. Germany not only supplies weapons to Israel but also buys them from Israeli production. For instance, the Israeli Uzi served as the standard submachine gun for the early Bundeswehr. After the 1973 war, Israel handed over captured Soviet T-62 tanks. They enabled Germany to develop a new cannon for the Leopard 2 that could penetrate the state-of-the-art Soviet tank. The Israeli Merkava 3 tank, in turn, is based on the model of the German Leopard 2. The latest model, Merkava IV, is powered by German MTU engines. Building the Israeli atomic bomb Perhaps the most importantand most secretarea of military cooperation concerns the Israeli atomic bomb. It is considered certain that Israel possesses at least 90 nuclear warheads, although it has never officially admitted this, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East. There are numerous indications that Germanya non-nuclear statewas involved in the development or at least the financing of the Israeli atomic bomb. Marwecki mentions a special payment of 2 billion DM that Germany granted Israel in May 1961. Due to the size of the sum and in view of foreign policy sensitivities, confidentiality was agreed upon. Hans Ruhle, who held high-ranking positions in the Ministry of Defence and NATO at the time, is convinced that these funds went into financing the Israeli nuclear program. In 2015, he wrote in Die Welt that the reactor complex in the desert city of Dimona, in whose construction France participated, was financed by Germany. The files refer to the financing of anever builttextile factory and a nuclear desalination plant. The term textile factory was often used in Israel as a codename for nuclear facilities. Whether Germany also collaborated technically with Israel on the development of the atomic bomb is not proven. But the suspicion makes perfect sense. Defence Minister Franz Josef Strau, the driving force behind the military cooperation, desperately wanted a German atomic bomb. In 1957, he even concluded a secret agreement with the French defence minister for the joint development of nuclear weapons. But Strau could not prevail against massive public opposition. In 1962, he was forced to resign over the Spiegel Affair, after he had Rudolf Augstein, the publisher of the widely circulated news weekly Der Spiegel, arrested in Francos Spain for publishing a critical article about the Bundeswehr. The nuclear cooperation did not end with Strau's resignation. Between 1999 and 2018, Germany delivered six nuclear-capable Dolphin submarines to Israel, which it also largely financed. This year, the delivery of the first modernized version, the Dakar class, is scheduled. These submarines guarantee Israels nuclear second-strike capability. It can still launch nuclear bombs even if the country itself has already been largely destroyed. Development of German-Israeli relations Marwecki traces German-Israeli relations up to the present day. They have been subject to political fluctuations but have always remained close. In 1967, the US replaced Germany as Israels most important supporter. There were various reasons for this. The US had initially held backat least publiclyfrom supporting the Zionist state. After its founding, Israel still worked closely with the traditional colonial powers, Britain and France, in the fight against the growing Arab national movement. When Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, the Israeli army supported the British-French attack on Egypt. But the US forced an end to the war within a few days, demonstrating who the new dominant great power in the Middle East was. Since then, Israel has relied on close ties with American imperialism, which became the Zionist states main protecting power after the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. The German-Israeli relationship, by contrast, cooled down. Since Germany sourced 71 percent of its oil from Arab countries in the early 1970s, it did not want to jeopardize its relations with them. Willy Brandts Ostpolitikthe establishment of political and economic relations with the GDR and other Eastern European countries that maintained close ties with Arab governmentsalso worked in this direction. However, military and economic cooperation with Israel continued, even if it was not widely publicized. Hans-Jugen Wischnewski (German government), Abdallah Frangi (PLO representative) and Yassir Arafat (PLO Chairman) [Photo by Abdallah Frangi] In the 1970s, Germany also discovered the Palestinian question. In 1974, the German UN ambassador spoke for the first time of a Palestinian right to self-determination. In 1979, Social Democratic Party (SPD) chairman and ex-chancellor Willy Brandt met with PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Vienna. In the 1990s, Germany and the EU became the main financial backers of the Oslo Process. Like the reconciliation with Israel, the commitment to the Palestinians also served German imperialist interests. History shows it was no coincidence that the federal government opened its ears to Palestinian concerns at the very moment when the oil-exporting Arab states discovered European energy dependence as a means of pressure, writes Marwecki. By supporting the Palestinian Authority, Germany also finances the most corrupt elements of Palestinian society, who maintained order in the occupied territories in Israels interest. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, relations between Germany and Israel became closer again. Germany no longer had to show consideration for the Arab regimes, which could no longer manoeuvre between East and West and shifted ever further to the right. The US proceeded to bring the Middle East under its direct control through a series of unending wars, supported openly or indirectly by Germany and the other NATO powers. Israel played a central role as a bridgehead for the imperialist powers in the Middle East. It was against this backdrop that Chancellor Merkel declared Israels security to be a matter of German Staatsrason in 2008. In addition to imperialist and military interests, economic ones also played a role: until 2009, Germany was Israels second most important trading partner after the US, and thereafter its third most important, after China. As we have seen, Merkels declaration had nothing to do with reparations or atonement for the Holocaust. No understanding of the Middle East conflict Marweckis book is an important contribution to demystifying the German Staatsrason and is therefore worth reading. However, one will not find therein an understanding of the Middle East conflict or a way out of it, as the author himself admits. The final chapter ends with the sentence: The result is a situation untenable for all sides, from which there is currently no escape. The reason for this pessimistic stance lies in the postmodernist concepts on which Marwecki relies. The focus of his work is on the struggle over narratives, the battle for minds, and the memory debate. He underestimatesor ignoresthe imperialist interests and social forces that underlie the Middle East conflict, as well as its geopolitical dimension. Marwecki is largely uncritical of Zionism. In the Postscript, which he wrote after the outbreak of the latest Gaza war, he describes the purely anti-colonial reading of the Israel-Palestine conflict as fatal because todays Israelis were themselves expelled either from Europe or from Arab countries. The motherland of the Israelis is called Israel, he declares. They are, to use a word from postcolonial theory, indigenous. That is why there is also only one real possible solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a partition of the country into two nation-states. He does, however, admit that such a solution is currently less realistic than ever. In fact, the war crimes of the Netanyahu regime are already inherent in Zionism. When Zionism emerged in its modern form at the end of the 19th century, it was directed against the perspective of socialism, which at the time had broad influence among Jewish workers and intellectuals. Socialism linked the overcoming of antisemitism and Jewish discrimination with the emancipation of the working class and the abolition of capitalist class society. Zionism countered the liberation of the Jews through the solidarity of the international working class, with the founding of a Jewish nation-state in alliance with reactionary imperialist powers. This was a dead end. The leading Zionists were always aware that they could only achieve their goal by expelling the Palestinian population and with the support of one imperialist power or another. Vladimir Jabotinsky, one of the intellectual fathers of todays rulers in Jerusalem, advocated for a Jewish state in Palestine as a bulwark of British imperialism. Palestine could only fulfill its significance for British imperial interests if it ceases to be an Arab country, Jabotinsky wrote in 1934. Should Palestine remain Arab, Palestine would gravitate towards the Arab course and eliminate all traces of European influence. But a predominantly Jewish Palestine, a Palestine as a Jewish State, surrounded on all sides by Arab countries, will in the interests of its self-preservation always try to lean on a powerful non-Arab and non-Mohammedan empire. This was a foundation almost created by providence for a permanent alliance between England and a Jewish (but only a Jewish) Palestine. Israel emerged as an imperialist outpost in the Middle East and remains so today. David North writes about this in the book The Logic of Zionism: From Nationalist Myth to the Gaza Genocide, from which the above quote from Jabotinsky is also taken: The maintenance of a Jewish apartheid state, which violently suppresses the Palestinian people while at the same time moving internally towards fascism, is inextricably linked to Israels role as a linchpin of imperialism in the Middle East. As a massively armed garrison of US imperialism, it must be deployed in all wars instigated by Washington, with ultimately catastrophic consequences. Marweckis denial of this fact, on the grounds that Israelis were expelled from Europe and other countries and have no other motherland, changes nothing. It is true, however, that it was the rise of fascism and the catastrophe of the Shoah that gave Zionism, previously a political fringe phenomenon, the necessary support to put its plans into action. To quote David North again: The establishment of the Zionist state was the direct result of the defeats suffered by the working class in the 1920s and 1930s due to the betrayals of Stalinism and social democracy. Without the mass of displaced persons, the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, and without the political demoralization and loss of confidence in the perspective of socialism, the Zionist leaders would not have had the necessary numbers of people to wage a terrorist war against the Palestinian people, drive them from their homes and villages, and establish a Jewish nation-state by essentially criminal methods. The Zionist state has proven to be a tragic dead end. The crimes it is committing before the eyes of the world in Gaza and the West Bank have made it a pariah, despised by the majority of humanity. A two-state solution would change nothing. It would leave the Zionist state as an imperialist bastion, perpetuate the conflict with the Palestinians, and fob them off with a mini-state that is neither economically nor politically viable. The only way out of this dead end is a secular, democratic Palestine in which Jews, Palestinians, and people of other origins and religions can live together as equals. Such a Palestine can only be established on a socialist basis. It requires the unification of the working class and the oppressed masses of the Middle East in the struggle against the imperialist powers, the Zionist regime, and the feudal and bourgeois Arab rulers. It must be part of united socialist republics throughout the Middle East and worldwide. Build a movement against the betrayal of the IAM officials! Fill out the form below to learn more about rank-and-file committees. Boeing workers on the picket line [Photo: IAM-Boeing] As the strike by 2,500 Boeing defense workers in St. Louis, Missouri enters its third week, opposition is growing among the rank and file, not only to the corporate giant but also to the isolating and defeatist strategy of the International Association of Machinists (IAM). Workers, who began receiving their first meager strike paychecks of $200 per week only this week, are increasingly concluding that the IAM bureaucracy is not fighting to win their demands but is instead working to wear them down and force through another pro-company contract. The strike, which began on July 25 after workers voted to reject a contract that failed to meet their demands on wages, retirement and job security, remains completely isolated by the IAM. The union has made no effort to mobilize the tens of thousands of other IAM members at Boeing, let alone the broader working class, in a unified struggle against the transnational aerospace corporation. Workers have only been able to receive access to strike pay funds starting this week. However the full funds that workers are owed has not been paid. According to workers who spoke to the WSWS the IAM has only made a total of $100 available to each worker, less than the cost of groceries for one week. Workers reported that they were told starting next week they would receive strike backpay. This is a deliberate strategy by the IAM to bleed workers of their resources and resolve, in order to push through a sellout. Basically, were paying for union committee representatives, and the money goes into their pockets for their salaries, but we dont get very good representation, one striking worker told the WSWS. Workers shared that the IAM has threatened to increase union dues on workers when they have raised demands for increased strike pay. They told us that if they increase strike pay, that means theyre going to increase the union dues. A second worker described to the WSWS the semi-rebellion of rank-and-file workers directed at union officials during the contract vote meeting before the strike. They held a mass meeting for the contract vote with thousands of people. They got everybody into this stadium with microphones set up. A good portion of the discussion was taken up by people cursing out the officials, he said. There is not a lot of confidence in what theyre doing. He explained that the bureaucracy feigns ignorance of workers demands, a tactic meant to demoralize the membership. They claim that they cant fight for what we want if they dont know what we want. But before the talks began they sent out two surveys. We even had demands printed on t-shirts. Instead of fighting for these demands, the IAM and Boeing collaborated to create a diversion. The first thing they did was put priority on the Alternative Work Schedule, the worker noted. The company added this, with workers doing 4 10-hour shifts or 3 12s to their demands so that they could make it look like a concession when it was not in the final contract proposal. It wasnt even on the table and they made a big deal about it. The core issues for workers are wages and a clear path to the top pay rate. The companys last offer, which the IAM promoted, was deliberately deceptive. The company bragged that the last offer had 21 percent pay increases. But that included COLA, the attendance bonus and a couple of other things that many people wont qualify for, the worker said. They need a pay raise for everybody. He continued, The big issue for us is pay. We dont have a specific timeline to top out. People would be happy even with 8 years, because at least thats a set number and we can work to shorten it in the next contract. There is no top out now. We have people working for 16 years that havent topped out. Nobody does. When the rank and file demand that the union fight on these issues, they are met with capitulation. The problem is that they are not bringing our requests to the table. When we ask for resolution on the top rate issue, the company says no, and then as far as the IAM negotiators are concerned thats it, its gone just like that, like smoke in the breeze. Workers are acutely aware that Boeing can afford to meet their demands. Boeing has so much money and theyre just sitting on this big cash reserve, the worker stated. Another worker spoke out against the isolation of the strike by the IAM and called for a united strategy throughout the company. Why dont we just overthrow Local 837 and join unions with Local 751 as a whole? He said, If were Boeing, it doesnt really matter if were building fighter jets or commercial airplanes. We should represent as one entity instead of being divided. It doesnt make sense to say the cost of living is different in St. Louis versus Seattle. That shouldnt matter. The cost of living has risen all across the United States, not just the Midwest. We should just be in one union. For the first time since the strike began, IAM president Brian Bryant traveled to St. Louis for a photo op at the picket lines. In an interview with local press Bryant stated that while there were no official bargaining sessions scheduled the IAM has held informal talks with Boeing. The reason Bryant, who is paid over $430,000 per year from workers dues, has traveled to St. Louis is to plot a backroom deal with Boeing to betray the strike. This must be a major warning for the Rank-and-File: The IAM bureaucracy is plotting against you, it is time to take matters into your own hands. The experience of the strike is making it clear to a growing number of workers that the IAM bureaucracy has no intention of waging a real fight. The only way forward is for workers to take the conduct of the strike into their own hands. This means forming a rank-and-file strike committee to formulate a list of non-negotiable demands based on what workers actually need, not what the company claims is acceptable. Lines of communication must be extended to their rank-and-file brothers and sisters in Seattle and across the country. Such a committee can fight to seize control of the struggle from the pro-company IAM apparatus and lead a genuine counter-offensive against Boeing. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listen. [AP Photo] On Thursday, the State Department confirmed that it will subject all 55 million US visa holders to what it calls continuous immigration vetting. Behind this bureaucratic phrase lies the creation of permanent police-state surveillance. The Associated Press reported that the government reviews will include social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in visa holders home countries, and any actionable violations of US law committed while in the United States. The new guidelines also make it mandatory that privacy switches on phones and apps be turned off during visa interviews, stripping immigrants and applicants of even the nominal protections of the Fourth Amendment, which bans government searches without a judicial warrant. Vast quantities of personal data will now be continuously stored and monitored, with the aim of purging from the United States anyone whose views conflict with the demands of US imperialism. Visa holders and travelers to the US are already subjected to invasive searches by border police, including of cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices at airports and other ports of entry. Now this digital spying will occur at all times and places, including outside the country. No human team could oversee 55 million social media profiles in real time. The State Departments new vetting regime almost certainly relies on AI-driven platforms to evaluate alleged anti-American and terrorist behavior. ICE has already agreed to a $30 million contract with Palantir to develop ImmigrationOS, to facilitate the mass deportation operation. This surveillance is global in scope. Information from foreign governments will be incorporated into reviews. Thus, if someone arrested at a protest in support of Palestine Action in Britain applies for a US visa, their political activity could be cited as supporting terrorism. AP reported that the Trump administration claimed earlier this week it has already revoked more than 6,000 student visas, including approximately 200 to 300 visas for alleged terrorism-related issues. While there is no question visa holders who evince support for Palestine or opposition to Zionism will be targeted and denied visas under the fraudulent banner of combating antisemitism, this digital dragnet is aimed at all those who espouse anti-capitalist ideologies. Earlier this week, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated its guidelines to ban entry to those allegedly holding anti-American ideologies, which include advocating for the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism. The State Department visa initiative comes as President Donald Trump celebrated his unprecedented military-police takeover of Washington DC with a visit Thursday afternoon to the headquarters of the National Park Police, one of at least a dozen agencies and military units that have flooded the city with armed personnel since August 11. Trump spoke to an audience of police and uniformed soldiers, praising them, praising himself (the bulk of his remarks), and praising top aides like Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. We're not playing games, he said, referring to the occupation of the US capital. Were going to make it safe, and were going to then go on to other places, but were going to stay here for a while. Earlier in the day, in an interview with a right-wing radio talkshow host based in Tennessee, Trump said that Memphis was one of the cities being considered as the next target for federal intervention on the pretext of fighting crime. While Trump boasts about making Washington DC safe, the main target of the repression in the capital, to this point, has been immigrant workers. Nearly half of all the arrests since August 11 have been for immigration violations, not suspected crimes. The same week these policies were being unveiled, the government officially opened the largest immigrant concentration camp in US history at the Fort Bliss military base in Texas. Built at a cost of over $1.2 billion, the facility is designed to hold 5,000 detainees. Fort Bliss was used during the Second World War to imprison Japanese Americans as well as German and Italian immigrants under Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt. In a statement to the Huffington Post, Ann Burroughs, president of the Japanese American National Museum, warned: It is inconceivable that the United States is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago. Conditions at Fort Bliss are already infamous. Under the Biden administration, more than 1,000 unaccompanied children were imprisoned there for weeks and even months at a time. Reports from the ACLU described children with only one change of clothes for over 40 days, widespread sexual assaults, and levels of distress so acute that officials banned pencils, pens, nail clippers and toothbrushes to prevent suicide attempts. Both the ACLU and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, were at times denied access to the facility, underscoring its secretive and lawless character. This Aug. 22, 2021, image provided by the U.S. Army, shows construction at the Dona Ana Housing Area near Fort Bliss, Texas. [AP Photo/Spc. Elijah Ingram] Now the camp is again being filled. In a joint statement issued on August 21, attorneys Eric Lee, James Hollis and Chris Godshall-Bennett confirmed that Venezuelan immigrant Luis Manuel Rivas Velasquez, who previously suffered a severe medical emergency when denied care at the Florida Everglades camp, had been transferred to Fort Bliss in the last week. For more than five days he has been held without access to his lawyers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ignored all lawful requests for contact, permitted only one-minute phone calls with no or little notice, and denied Rivas Velasquez his prescribed blood pressure and anxiety medication. He has not been allowed to change his clothes in five days. In the August 21 statement, Lee, Hollis and Goodshall-Bennett wrote that Rivas Velasquezs treatment by DHS and ICE constitutes an enforced disappearance under international law. Luis Manuel Rivas Velasquez [Photo: Luis Frio] They cited Article 2 of the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006), which defines the practice as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law. The lawyers appeal to the American people to stand up and stop this government from disappearing people on US soil. Notably, Escobar herself was also denied entry to Fort Bliss this week, a repeat of the practice under Biden. The continuous surveillance dragnet and the concentration camp system are two sides of the same coin. The government is preparing a framework for mass repression, targeting immigrants first but aimed at the working class as a whole. By branding opposition to war, genocide and inequality as terrorism or anti-American ideology, the Trump administration is criminalizing dissent internationally while laying the foundations for enforced disappearances and mass arrests inside the United States. Following the July 27 rank-and-file hearing into the death of Ronald Adams, a 63 year-old tradesman at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Complex, the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter spoke to autoworkers in Dearborn, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio. Adams was crushed to death by an overhead gantry at the Dundee Engine Complex in Michigan on April 7 under circumstances which have still not been explained by either the company, the United Auto Workers or the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA). The hearing, held at Marygrove Campus in Detroit, was attended by 100 workers, youth and community members. Among those who spoke were Shamenia Stewart-Adams, Ronald Adams widow, safety experts and rank-and-file autoworkers. Reports were given by Mack Trucks worker and IWA-RFC member Will Lehman, WSWS labor reporter Jerry White and others. The three weeks since the hearing has seen a spate of industrial disasters across the country. On August 11, two workers died and another 10 were seriously injured in an explosion at the U.S. Steel coking mill in Clairton, Pennsylvania. The United Steelworkers and management are seeking to downplay the unsafe conditions that led to the tragedy, calling the deadly event unforeseeable. Max, a worker at the Ford Dearborn Truck plant, said the following of the hearing: Everywhere I turn I see a victim of a system that is dominated by an oligarchy to exploit the vast majority of citizens for profit. Beaten, bruised, assaulted and verbally abused in workplaces where the bosses claim to uphold family values; but in reality, their only concern is the value of their stocks. The union works with the bosses behind closed doors to cover up the injuries and deaths that happen every day. Ronnie Adams died four months ago, and the truth has been kept secret until this very day. Ronald Adams Sr., his wife Shamenia, and family members [Photo by Adams Family] When we go to work, it is common practice to remind one another to leave the same way we came in. That means in one piece. But sadly, more than a few good souls do not leave the building alive. Ronnie Adams did not die because of an accident. He died because the system we live under values speed and profit more than the workers that produce all the profits and more than their families that depend on them. If we dont take up the fight for justice for Ronnie Adams, no one else will. In my first job, I slaved for 11 years being overworked and underpaid. I started just over minimum wage and worked as a shear operator, hi-lo driver, laser operator, assembler and utility man for many different spots in the shop. The union talked me into being shop steward, but that was useless because they had already given up the right to strike before I got there. Ive seen people lose multiple fingers in a press break machine, burn themselves handling hot cut parts and slice their knuckles open on sharp steel. Whatever safety equipment we had we had to buy it ourselves, and we faced constant harassment. We called it a war dog factory because they manufactured ambulance tanks for battlefield equipment. They made a lot of money, but they never gave us a proper raise. The capitalist owners only care about one thingPROFIT and grow the company to make more of it. They are constantly cutting jobs and cutting corners. The similarities between the factories I have worked in and the failure to follow lock-out/tag-out procedures that was responsible for Ronnies passing are frightening. Id like to point out that in 1999, February 1st at 1:20 p.m. an explosion at the Ford Rouge Power Plant took place claiming the lives of six men who were incinerated in the blast. Thirty more were severely injured. The head of the UAW, Ron Gettelfinger, jumped to defend the company, claiming the plant was the safest it could be. That was a lie and a cover-up. Workers had been filing grievances for months against the plant and the boiler that exploded for gas leaks that went on to cause the explosion. The union never even sued the company, and Gettelfinger became UAW president. This is why we need to build rank-and-file committees in every factory. I joined this movement because it is up to us to put a stop to the bloodshed. We have to enforce our own safety conditions on the shop floor. The UAW behind Shawn Fain has come out in support of Trumps tariff war. They want us to blame foreign workers for the problems here in the factories. But these are our brothers and sisters. We are all in this together, and we have to stand together as one united world working class. That is the policy of the IWA-RFC (International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees). We are independent of the union apparatus, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the institutions of the capitalist state such as OSHA. I repeat, the time has come to put a stop to the bloodshed. We must demand justice for Ronnie Adams, for Tywaun Long, for Terriel Wooten and Darius Williams and for everyone else who has died in a factory an early and unnecessary death. I stand with Will Lehman, and I urge all my brothers and sisters to join with us and build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. Workers are just another dollar sign to them World Socialist Web Site reporters also recently spoke to autoworkers in Toledo, Ohio. A worker at the Dana Driveline plant told the WSWS that he supported the investigation into the death of Ronald Adams and saw the disregard of safety as a problem at Dana too. I am well aware that workers are just another dollar sign to them (corporations). They dont even view their inventory as their inventory. Its money. Its all money to them, and you cant expect good decisions from people when everything they view is money. Im very much a pro-worker person. Distributing announcement of rank-and-file investigation at the Dana Toledo Driveline plant Nick, another worker at Dana, said that he supported the rank-and-file investigation and that he reads the WSWS often. Its important to talk about this because Dana always covers up all of the workplace deaths that are happening in the area. Callie, a former Stellantis temp worker at the Toledo Jeep Complex, stopped by Dana to pick up a relative at work. They work people here to the bone, and there is no real incentive. You dont even get time off for your family. They dont care. The WSWS explained that Ron Adams had been placed in an unsafe situation by Stellantis, and now the UAW and management were trying to cover it up. Yes, they are a billion-dollar corporation. Callie agreed the unions were not standing up for the rank and file. They treat you like the poop on the bottom of their shoes. A worker at the Toledo Jeep complex said that he understood the importance of the rank-and-file investigation into the death of Ronald Adams. He pointed to the death last year of Jeep worker Antonio Gaston, who was crushed to death in August 2024 while working on a conveyor where safety guards had been removed. I have been over to that area of the plant. It is surrounded by a big old cage. There are locks on that cage. When the skilled trades go in there, they have lockout/tagout. They actually have to put a lock on there and put a tag saying there are de-energizing it. Anyone who goes in there without locking out would have to be nuts. The WSWS pointed out that Antonio Gaston was a production worker, who had not been trained for that machine. He was not qualified to go in that area. I dont know if someone sent him in there. All I know is that it is a very dangerous area. You have the body coming down on top of the frame and then you have these bolts holding it together. As soon as they come down together, the bolts all pin the body into the frame. The family of Antonio Gaston recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stellantis which it alleges removed critical safety equipment in the area where Gaston died. In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Antonio Gastons widow, Renita Shores-Gaston, said, I want to know the truth of what happened to my husband at work because I havent gotten anythingI havent gotten any answers. The WSWS and the IWA-RFC pledge to continue the fight to uncover the truth about the death of Ronald Adams Sr. as part of a fight to mobilize the working class to uphold the right to safe and healthy working conditions. The continuing toll of needless workplace deaths can only be halted through the independent organization and initiative of rank-and-file workers. To get involved, fill out the form below. Elevenlabs AudioNative Player Over recent days, Israeli Prime Minister and arch-war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has intensified his attacks on the Australian Labor government and its Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, accusing them of having betrayed Israel and abandoned Jewish people. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu [AP Photo/Jason Edwards, Julia Nikhinson] The conflict has emerged as Israels genocide enters a new and horrific stage. At least 260 people have died of starvation, and one in every three children in Gaza City are malnourished. Figures released by Israel of the Palestinian death toll up to May reveal that 83 percent of the dead are civilians. Israels deliberate starvation is one element of an operation to complete the ethnic cleansing plan outlined in May by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who declared, Within a year, ... Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to ... the south to a humanitarian zone ... and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries. Netanyahu is preparing a massive invasion of Gaza City to make that a reality. A number of the European imperialist powers, together with Australia and Canada, are seeking to cover over their central role in this modern-day Holocaust. Albanese, for instance, has declared that Netanyahu is in denial about starvation, and has said there have been too many innocent lives lost. Albanese has repeatedly hastened to assure Israel of his ongoing support for the Gaza offensive, however, declaring that Palestine must be demilitarized in order to create a secure Israel. He has primarily presented the situation in Gaza as a humanitarian catastrophe, as though the mass killing of more than 60,000 people was an unfortunate mistake. Netanyahus frothing response to even these highly limited criticisms exposes the fraud being peddled not only by the Australian government and the European powers, that occasional finger wagging and polite appeals to the Israeli government will halt the mass slaughter of Palestinians. Those claims are a cynical attempt by the leaders of the major powers to cover their tracks, even as they continue to back Israels onslaught. The clashes followed Albaneses announcement last week that Australia would vote in favour of recognising a Palestinian state at the September meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. On Monday, Labor denied a visa to far-right Israeli parliamentarian Simcha Rothman, who has described Palestinian civilians, including children, as enemies and has called for the complete annexation of the West Bank. Netanyahu responded on X: History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australias Jews. Even as Israeli politicians warned Netanyahu that he risks undermining relations with a steadfast ally, he has doubled down. In comments to the right-wing Australian Sky News channel yesterday, Netanyahu proclaimed that Albaneses record is forever tarnished by the weakness that he showed in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters. Albaneses response has underscored the absurd character of Netanyahus claims. At a press conference, the Australian prime minister declared he does not take these things personally, reiterated his support for Israels right to defend itself and presented the fascistic US administration of President Trump, the chief armer and backer of the genocide, as a potential peacemaker. There are several factors motivating Netanyahus decision to launch a public attack against a staunch supporter of his war crimes. In the first instance, there is a direct correspondence between the Israeli leaders unhinged declarations and the scale of the crimes being committed by his regime. Netanyahu is dialing up the fascist rhetoric as he escalates the murderous onslaught on Gaza. Netanyahus frothing reaction to even vague professions of humanitarian concern is a warning of what he is preparing to unleash with the invasion of Gaza City. A full-scale assault on the city, whose population has doubled during the genocide to an estimated 1 million, will produce horrors greater even than those of the past two years. Secondly, it seems likely Netanyahu selected the Australian government, as an easy target, to send a message to the more powerful imperialist countries that have adopted a similar phony posture of concern. Australia, moreover, is completely integrated into the US military-intelligence apparatus, and Netanyahu knows that he has the backing of the individual who directs that apparatus, Donald Trump. Thirdly, Netanyahu was directing his tirades not only or even primarily at the Labor government but at mass global public opinion. Earlier this month, 300,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in one of the largest per capita protests against the genocide since it began. Israeli leaders openly attacked the event and the failure of the Australian Labor authorities to prevent it, despite their attempts to obtain a court ban. Netanyahu has previously demanded a crackdown on protests in Australia, which the Labor government has repeatedly attempted, invoking dubious antisemitic incidents, the majority of which have later been exposed as false flags. Finally, there is a sense in which Netanyahu has the measure of Albanese, and of all the imperialist leaders seeking to distance themselves from a genocide that they have and continue to support. They are all fully aware that the recognition pledges are a charade. They are a promise to recognise a pile of rubble and corpses that will do nothing to prevent the ethnic cleansing of all Palestine. Albaneses statements about Israels deliberate starvation of the Palestinians, while defending their mass murder through bombardment, have been as passive, vague and weak as possible. At a press conference earlier this month, responding to an Australian journalist and only days after a phone call with Albanese, Netanyahu made the following assessment of the various statements of concern emanating from leaders in Paris, London, Berlin, Ottawa and Canada: Many of these leaders tell me in private conversations, We agree with you. We understand what youre doing. We would do the same. But they say, We have to cater to public opinion at home. I tell them, Its your problem. That accords fully with the actions of all the governments, including the Australian Labor administration. It continues a secretive arms trade with Israel, with the media last week revealing dozens of active military export permits. Australia supplies key parts for the F-35 fighter jets that have been used to decimate Gaza, and the US-Australian Pine Gap spy base almost certainly provides intelligence, including targeting information, to the Israelis. Domestically, the Labor government and its state counterparts have sought to outlaw opposition to the genocide, including with the continuous conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which they are increasingly enshrining in law. The support of the Australian government and all the imperialist powers for the genocide is one component of their participation in an eruption of imperialist militarism globally. In Australia, that has included Labors transformation of the continent into a frontline state for a US-led war against China. By backing the barbarism that is unfolding, whatever their occasional crocodile tears, the major powers have helped to normalise policies of mass murder that will be deployed on an even greater scale in the wars that they are preparing. And by viciously attacking mass hostility to the genocide, they have sought to create a precedent for outlawing all anti-war sentiment. That sentiment has only deepened, but to go forward and to stop the genocide, it must be based on a new political perspective. The program that has predominated, of endlessly appealing to governments to change course and halt their support for the genocide, has abjectly failed. That line has been pushed by various Greens, pseudo-left and social democratic forces internationally, to politically neuter opposition and direct it behind the very political establishments responsible for the war crimes. A new strategy is needed, based on the fight to mobilise the working class independently, including through strikes and industrial action to cripple the imperialist-Israeli war machine. That necessarily means a rebellion against the corporatised and pro-war trade union bureaucracies, which have blocked such action around the world. This struggle must be part of the broader fight to build an international anti-war movement of the working class, based on a socialist, revolutionary and internationalist perspective, directed against all of the governments and the capitalist system that is spewing up all of the horrors of the 1930s. Will you be affected by Trumps cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other social programs? Contact the WSWS and tell us your story. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 326,000 people in Massachusetts could lose their health insurance coverage over the next decade after the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4. The OBBBA cuts $930 billion in funding to Medicaid nationwide, with billions of dollars projected to be cut annually from federal funds given to the New England state. Work requirements and new obstacles in filing for benefits are expected to go fully into effect by 2027. Trumps bill will cut approximately 15 percent of total federal Medicaid spending over the next decade nationwide. The CBO estimates that the bills cuts to Medicaid, including the discontinuation of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, will lead to an estimated 16-17 million people losing their health insurance nationwide. Medicaid is a joint federal and state government program that provides health insurance coverage to low-income individuals and families and people with disabilities. One in three Massachusetts residents are enrolled in MassHealth (the state program combining Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program), including nearly half of all children and people with disabilities. Among those expected to lose coverage are hundreds of thousands of people enrolled in healthcare plans through the Massachusetts Health Connector, the states healthcare marketplace. This will have a cascading impact on the entire healthcare environment, broadly worsening conditions and costs of care for every worker in Massachusetts. According to a new analysis by Oxford Economics, millions of Americans, regardless of where they live, will lose access to health insurance because of tighter eligibility rules and new work requirements. Those states like California and New York, largely controlled by the Democrats, which expanded Medicaid by raising the income eligibility criteria to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, and which have large immigrant populations, will be hit hardest. Massachusetts, which expanded Medicaid and whose population is 11 percent immigrant, will be one of the most affected. Other particularly vulnerable states include New Jersey, Florida, Nevada and Texas. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported California has paused enrolling new immigrants in its health coverage program while Illinois has stopped state-funded health benefits for all immigrant adults between 42 to 64. Idaho and Tennessee have also enacted legislation limiting immigrant access to state health care benefits. The impact in Massachusetts and beyond The OBBBAs cuts to MassHealth will impact all workers, who are reliant on a healthcare system put under enormous strain by hundreds of thousands of people losing their insurance. The consequences to the states healthcare system, including healthcare costs, increased premiums, diminished quality and lessened availability of care, would extend beyond those individuals who directly lose insurance, affecting workers who have private insurance. Nurses on the picket line at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts [Photo: MNA Facebook] When hundreds of thousands of people currently insured through MassHealth and the Health Connector become uninsured, they will still need to receive medical care. However, obtaining the most basic care will follow a more precarious and problematic route. Uninsured patients will delay care for chronic illnesses or forgo screenings, ultimately requiring more expensive care when their health deteriorates and reaches a critical stage, ultimately increasing health costs for all workers. Another factor is cost shifting by healthcare providers. Because hospitals are legally required by federal law to provide emergency treatment to patients in need, treatment of an uninsured person becomes uncompensated care. This becomes a hidden tax on everyone with health insurance, as hospitals and healthcare providers will refuse to simply absorb these losses. To remain profitable, they will negotiate higher reimbursement rates from private insurance companies to make up for any shortfall. This leads directly to higher premiums for everyone with private insurance, both for individuals and for employers who offer insurance to their workers. Massachusetts has had near-universal coverage for many years, in large part owing to MassHealth, with the highest percent of its population insured of any state in the US. However, because MassHealthwhich served as a model for the ACA (Obamacare)is not universal healthcare for the poor and disabled, but rather is tied to private insurance companies through the marketplace, and to the for-profit hospital chains that provide carethe changes from Trumps bill will be devastating. Reduced income from Medicaid would cause hospitals to cut services that are less profitable, which includes pediatric care, psychiatry, maternity wards, trauma centers and primary care. Less investment would go into new technology and equipment and hospitals will attempt to operate with even poorer staffing ratios than are currently in place, increasing wait times and creating dangerous conditions for patients. Emergency rooms would be overcrowded by uninsured patients who resort to the ER as a last-ditch option for care that would previously have been dealt with through routine checkups. These conditions set the stage for new levels of healthcare worker burnout and shortages. MassHealth covers vaccinations, screenings for diseases, and treatment for substance use and mental health conditions. If hundreds of thousands of people lose their healthcare access through MassHealth, it could lead to exacerbations of myriad social and public health crises. A class-warfare measure The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by Trump, is a class-warfare measure that entails the transfer of trillions of dollars from the working class to the ultra-wealthy. $4.5 trillion in tax cuts will overwhelmingly benefit the top 20 percent of the richest Americans. To counterbalance the budgetary gap made by filling the pockets of the wealthy, the bill strips over a trillion dollars in funding from Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP) and programs such as student loan debt relief. Trumps legislation also puts into question the sustainability of Medicare. The tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy stipulated by the bill will still result in the further ballooning of the federal deficit by an additional $3.3 trillion over 10 years. Under federal budgeting rules this is expected to lead to automatic funding cuts to Medicare totaling nearly $500 billion from 2026 to 2034, undermining future Medicare payments. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey takes questions from reporters, Jan. 31, 2024, in Boston. [AP Photo/Steven Senne] The crisis in Massachusetts cannot be dealt with at the state level, as Democratic officials claim they are attempting to do. Governor Maura Healeys administration has promised an outreach program to help Massachusetts citizens navigate the intentionally difficult filing processes created by the OBBBA. State Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has joined a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration against its attacks on the ACA. These efforts will reap minuscule results, if any. Mike Levine, MassHealths assistant secretary and one of the top two Massachusetts health officials, cynically emphasized that MassHealth enrollees have some time. Most of the new Medicaid requirements wont begin to take effect until after the 2026 midterm elections, he said. Keep seeking care Take your meds. You dont need to hoard them. You are not losing coverage tomorrow. The Trump administration has been engaged in a wrecking operation nationwide against social programs, government regulations and oversight of corporations. The administration has not only gutted the funding and social infrastructure involved in public health, but has put science itself in the crosshairs. Massachusetts has the most healthcare-concentrated economy in the country, with the healthcare industry being the states largest private employer. Cuts in research funding, such as the grants given by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have had a disproportionate impact on the state economy and its population. In all his actions, Trump has been abetted by the Democrats, who during the Obama and Biden administrations advanced many of the social attacks now being accelerated by Trump. The Democrats, who, in Bidens words, wanted a strong Republican party in the wake of the January 6, 2021 attempted coup by Trump, fear the working class far more than his fascist agenda. The working class must secure its political independence to mobilize its vast industrial and social power. This is a power that can shut down economies, halt war machines and decide the course of society. Workers must strive to replace capitalism, with its subordination of all social needs to profit, with socialism, which includes replacing for-profit healthcare with genuine socialized medicine. This requires the building and intervention of a conscious and politically independent socialist party, the Socialist Equality Party. Will you be affected by Trumps cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other social programs? Contact the WSWS and tell us your story. BOGOTA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate attacks in Colombia on Thursday, said the local authorities. At least six were killed and over 30 others injured in a bomb attack near the Marco Fidel Suarez Air Base in the city of Cali, said the mayor's office. The bomb attack occurred around 2:50 p.m. local time (1950 GMT), said the Colombian Aerospace Force, reiterating its commitment to the safety of Colombians. Meanwhile, more than 12 police officers were killed in the northern town of Amalfi when the anti-narcotics helicopter they were on was shot down by the criminal group Estado Mayor Central. Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed this, saying the helicopter was carrying personnel for "the eradication of coca leaf crops," following their seizure of a cocaine shipment. TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Five policemen were killed on Friday in an attack by "terrorists" in Iran's southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The "terrorists" attacked two police patrol units in Damen District of Iranshahr County as the law enforcement forces were on patrol duty, Fars quoted the provincial police as saying. It added operations were launched to identify and arrest the assailants. Sistan and Baluchestan, a province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, has witnessed recurring clashes between Iranian security forces, militants from the Baloch minority, and drug traffickers. Luo Wen, head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, speaks during a press conference held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on China's achievements in market regulation for high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai) BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- China has registered a net increase of almost 20 million enterprises since the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the State Administration for Market Regulation said on Friday. Since the launch of the 14th Five-Year Plan, China's business environment has continued to improve, thereby fully stimulating entrepreneurial vitality across society, Luo Wen, head of the administration, said at a press conference highlighting the country's achievements during this period. The country also recorded a net increase of approximately 34 million self-employed households during the same five-year period, Luo added. To effectively safeguard fair competition and market order, the administration has intensified its crackdown on market monopolies, Luo said. Specifically, it has improved risk monitoring and assessment in key sectors, strengthened regular oversight of the platform economy, and drawn clear lines to prevent unfair competition in the online market, according to Luo. During the five-year period, the administration has continuously optimized its regulatory mechanisms, the official said, noting that efforts are underway to streamline approval procedures and reduce corporate costs. Additionally, it has taken multiple steps to support enterprises in pursuing quality-focused development. For instance, it has provided tailored assistance programs and loan support aimed at improving corporate quality. Looking ahead, Luo said the administration will continue to advance fair and unified market regulation, and consistently enhance standardized, impartial and civilized law enforcement -- thereby contributing more to creating a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment. A journalist asks questions at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on China's achievements in market regulation for high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai) The State Council Information Office (SCIO) holds a press conference on China's achievements in market regulation for high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai) The State Council Information Office (SCIO) holds a press conference on China's achievements in market regulation for high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai) A journalist asks questions at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on China's achievements in market regulation for high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 22, 2025. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai) NEW YORK (AP) Fall books mean more than literary fiction. The top releases this season range from a fairy tale newly told to memoirs about a famous writer's indomitable mother and life after marriage to a famous rock star. Some books were a decade or more in the making, while former Vice President Kamala Harris' 107 Days was finished in a matter of months. Here are 10 new books to look for. Hansel and Gretel, Stephen King Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You may think you know the Grimms' fairy tale about two children lost in the woods. But a new edition this fall promises a fresh and modern take: the words are by Stephen King and the illustrations from the archives of the late Maurice Sendak, who had worked on a 1990s opera adaptation. Warns King in the book's introduction: You will say that I have taken liberties with the story told by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm I have, and I don't apologize. (Sept. 2) Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy Arundhati Roy's memoir offers anguished tribute to her longtime tormentor and heroine: her late mother, Mary Roy, the educator and activist who founded a renowned high school in India and otherwise rarely missed a chance to disparage but still inspire her famous daughter. I had constructed myself around her, the author writes. I had grown into the peculiar shape that I am to accommodate her. I had never wanted to defeat her, never wanted to win. I had always wanted her to go out like a queen. (Sept. 2) The Wilderness, Angela Flournoy Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Angela Flournoy's acclaimed debut, The Turner House, was set around an aging family home in Detroit. In The Wilderness, she traces the cross-country lives of five Black women from youth to middle age. The author also offers a mini-tour of airports, from the underwhelming sites of landing at Charles de Gaulle in Paris to the view of pyramids in Cairo. A universal truth, she writes: If the surrounding city has a decent Black population, then a good number of them will be working at the airport. (Sept. 16) 107 Days, Kamala Harris Publisher Simon & Schuster is promising a compelling campaign memoir from former Vice President Kamala Harris that addresses everything we would want her to address. That presumably includes Harris thoughts on the mental and physical condition of President Joe Biden, whose decision to withdraw his candidacy led to Harris historic, frantic and unsuccessful run against Republican Donald Trump. Harris has called the book, written with the assistance of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, the result of looking back with candor and reflection. (Sept. 23) The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kiran Desai's first novel in nearly 20 years, since her Booker Prize-winning The Inheritance of Loss, is on the Booker longlist and is also a story of contrasting lives: a successful novelist returning to her native India and a New York-based journalist a copy editor for, of all places, The Associated Press. (Desai has not yet named a real-life counterpart as inspiration.) Separated by geography, they are connected by the will of their families, who would very much like to arrange a marriage. (Sept. 23) Softly, As I Leave You, Priscilla Presley Priscilla Presley has been so defined by her years with Elvis that the 2023 biopic Priscilla ends with their breakup in 1973. But readers of Softly, As I Leave You will learn that she forged a long and successful career on her own. She was Bobby Ewings ex-fiancee, Jenna Wade, in Dallas and the love interest for Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun spoofs. (Presley appears briefly in the current remake.) She even revealed a knack for marketing. When Elvis Graceland estate was in disrepair in the years following his 1977 death, she opened it to the public and helped make the property among the worlds most popular tourist destinations. Currently in a legal battle with a former business partner, Presley also writes of enduring other tragedies besides the death of her ex-husband, notably the loss of daughter Lisa Marie Presley two years ago. (Sept. 23) We Love You, Bunny, Mona Awad Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Six years ago, Canadian author Mona Awads bestselling Bunny was praised by Margaret Atwood, among others, for its blend of horror and academic satire set around a clique of creative writing students who call each other Bunny. In her follow-up novel, onetime outsider Samantha Heather Mackey is herself a bestselling author and the bunnies have a few things to say about her material. So funny that you described me as a maniacal hair braider, one of them tells her. I laughed until I cried blood. (Sept. 23) The Impossible Fortune, Richard Osman Richard Osman is an all-around success story, an author, producer and personality who has been a fixture for years in British television. He now enjoys critical acclaim and millions of sales as the creator of the Thursday Murder Club mystery novels, in which four pensioners in a retirement community take on cases new and old. The fifth in the series, The Impossible Fortune, blends wedding plans and a sudden disappearance that has Osmans sleuths in search of answers. (Sept. 30) Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thomas Pynchons latest novel is his first in more than a decade. Now 88, the author most famous for the epic Gravity's Rainbow has rarely settled for a simple storyline. Like his comic novel Inherent Vice, there's a detective at the center of the narrative, one Hicks McTaggart, who will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them. (Oct. 7) Unfettered, John Fetterman Few Washington legislators are more recognizable than Sen. John Fetterman, the 6-foot-8-inch, hoodie-wearing Pennsylvania Democrat whose physical and mental health struggles and his battles with both Republicans and his own party have kept him in the news since he ran for the Senate in 2022. His publisher, Crown, is calling Unfettered a raw and visceral and unapologetic account of his unconventional life. (Nov. 11) Authorities suspect a woman was killed by her husband after doorbell footage captured a man, believed to be her husband, dragging a large object near their apartment before her body was discovered. According to Law & Crime, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office is determining whether to file murder charges against Jossimar Cabrera, 36, who fled the United States after the body of his 33-year-old wife Sheylla Gutierrez was found. Cabrera initially told investigators that his wife was taken by ICE. He changed his story twice, claiming she left him for another man, and had an accident. Her body was found inside a large piece of material over the side of an embankment in the Angeles National Forest on Aug. 16, four days after she was reported missing. An investigation was launched when deputes "suspected foul play may have been involved." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Investigators later found a doorbell video in which Jossimar was allegedly seen dragging a large piece of material in the walkway of their apartment complex in the early morning hours of Aug. 10. When authorities went to speak with Cabrera, they found out that he and their three sons, ages 9, 6 and 4, fled the country. COMPLEX SHOP: Shop the brands you love, anytime and anywhere. Uncover what's next. Buy. Collect. Obsess. Peruvian authorities informed investigators that their children were found, and taken into protective custody. Cabrera was apparently taken into police custody in Peru, but released because there was no warrant for his arrest at the time. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office believes Cabrera remains in Peru. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gutierrez's mother said her daughter previously reported Cabrera for domestic violence in Peru. Gutierrez planned on filing a report against him in California, based on what was their final conversation, as reported by KABC. NEW: Mother of three found deceased after going missing in Los Angeles, husband, who initially said ICE took her, was seen on a security camera dragging something large before fleeing to Peru. 33-year-old Sheylla Gutierrez has been found in the Angeles National Forest. The pic.twitter.com/iUFMzamaWG Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 20, 2025 Related Products Isolation CD uDiscover Music Isolation CD $13.98 , GABRIEL 1CD uDiscover Music GABRIEL 1CD $11.98 , BEFORE LOVE CAME TO KILL US CD Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement uDiscover Music BEFORE LOVE CAME TO KILL US CD $13.98 , Orquodeas CD uDiscover Music Orquodeas CD $13.98 Related News JD Vance Heckled With Couch F*cker Chants During Visit to D.C.s Union Station , Tom Cruise Says No to One Kennedy Center Honor , Homeland Security Uses DaBaby Song for ICE Promo Video Amid Washington DC Crime Crackdown Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Related News UK Man Dies After Bite From Venomous Spider He Bought Online, Family Says Black Scottish People React to Americans Just Finding Out They Exist COMPLEX SHOP: Shop the brands you love, anytime and anywhere. Uncover what's next. Buy. Collect. Obsess. Making Culture Pop. Find the latest entertainment news and the best in music, pop culture, sneakers, style and original shows. Sharon Stone recently featured on Harpers Bazaars Spain cover, and her photo in a high-slit dress is making headlines. The actor and producer posed in a dramatic Dsquared2 gown with a split from hem to neckline. Shot in black and white by Eric Michael Roy at a grand residence, Stone leans in a doorway with her signature cropped hair. In that, she channels the cool authority of her 90s heyday while standing true to the magazines Icons theme. Sharon Stone dares to bare for Harpers Bazaar Spain cover in new photo For Harpers Bazaars September Icons issue, Sharon Stones photo shows her stunning in a high-slit dress. The tabloid unveiled a black-and-white cover of the 67-year-old star, showing her donning a Dsquared2 gown split from hem to neckline. The dress is styled without underwear and finished with stiletto heels. In the photo, Stone stands in the doorway of a grand residence with her hair cropped short and slicked. The magazine introduced the cover with a celebration of Stones lasting influence. On Harpers Bazaars Instagram, the caption translates to: Sharon Stone, the actress who shook 90s cinema, reappears at her 67 years more free and direct than ever. The caption further added that the star was reaffirming her status as an unwavering icon on the cover and pages of the September issue of Harpers Bazaar. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stones portfolio extends beyond the headline-making slit. In one of the photos, the actor reclines in a blazer-and-shorts set by Neil Barzani. Meanwhile, another shot shows her outdoors in a metallic dress. It consisted of a pleated skirt on the front and a corset-style top. Through all her looks, Stone underscores the magazines Icons theme in all her glory. Stones shoot arrives as the actor revisits the audacity that made her a fixture of 90s cinema and style. The actor herself has recently discussed feeling newly feminine in her personal life. In a light exchange on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Stone said she was back to wearing lady underwear after years of raising three sons. You do not wear lady panties when you have so many boys, she joked. Youre just a dude. She added, Im a girl again. I feel really feminine again. Sharon Stones candid remarks and her Harpers Bazaar photo in a daring dress underline why her presence still reads as fearless. The post Sharon Stones Dangerous Side-Slit Dress Is a Reminder of Her Icon Status appeared first on Reality Tea. The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled the winners of its 2025 CineLink Industry Days Awards, including the Places Half Empty, a portrait of a queer relationship in Hungary under far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, which received the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award. Among other winners is Gorilla, recipient of the TV Drama Vision Pitch Award, which is set in 1960s Paris, where a French movie star and his Yugoslav bodyguards brotherhood is threatened by a Hollywood murder. More from The Hollywood Reporter Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Projects in different formats and stages of development from Southeast Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were presented in its 23rd edition. And now, prizes have been handed out in the CineLink Co-Production Market, CineLink Work in Progress, and CineLink Drama sections. The 31st edition of the Sarajevo festival wraps up today, Friday. Below is a look at the CineLink winners. CINELINK CO-PRODUCTION MARKET AWARDS Eurimages Co-Production Development Award Places Half Empty Synopsis: A controversial and intimate portrait of a queer relationship in the context of Orbans Hungary. Director: Dorka Vermes Writer: Sara Torley-Havas Producers: Evelyn Balogh, Botond Lelkes Production Company: Non Lieu Kft. Country: Hungary Award in the amount of 20,000 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Film Center Montenegro Cinelink Award Stone Over Stone Synopsis: Shams and her husband arrive from their village and settle into an unfinished construction site where he works to repay gambling debts. He is lured back into his addiction, so Shams, who is pregnant, is left to drift among the outcasts living on the margins, until the collapse around her forces an unthinkable decision about the life she carries inside her. Director: Hilal Baydarov Writers: Hilal Baydarov, Georg Tiller Producers: Maeva Ranaivojaona, Georg Tiller, Hilal Baydarov Production Company: Subobscura Films Co-production Company: Ucqar Film Countries: Austria, Azerbaijan Award in the amount of 10,000 Film Center Serbia Cinelink Award Pogana Synopsis: On a faraway Dalmatian island in the 1920s, Pogana, a woman from the inlands, is sold to be the new wife of a widower sailor with five children. When the sailor is lost at sea, Pogana is left at the mercy of the cruel villagers and their customs. Director: David Kapac Writers: Andrija Mardesic, David Kapac Producers: Rea Rajcic, Tina Tisljar Production Company: Eclectica Co-Production Companies: Vertigo Countries: Croatia, Slovenia Award in the amount of 10,000 Artekino International Prize Two Little Nightmares Synopsis: Thirty years after his fathers suicide wiped a year from his memory, Matija returns home. As he pieces together the past, he unearths a long-buried betrayal, a haunting secret, and the terrified boy he once was. Director: Nebojsa Slijepcevic Writers: Nebojsa Slijepcevic, Naa Petrovic Producers: Danijel Pek, Katarina Prpic Production Company: Antitalent Co-Production Companies: Sense Production, Studio Virc, Contrast Films, Les Films Norfolk Co-Producers: Milan Stojanovic, Bostjan Virc, Katya Trichkova, Noelle Levenez Countries: Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, France Award in the amount of 6,000 CINELINK CO-PRODUCTION MARKET & CINELINK DRAMA Female Voices Cinelink Award Rain Country Synopsis: In early 2000s Istanbul, high school senior Guls secret is exposed after her classmates suicide, turning her life upside down. Gul embarks on a journey to find her inner strength for independence and growth. Director: Zeynep Koprulu Writers: Zeynep Koprulu, Haziran Duzkan Producers: Utku Zeka, Zeynep Koprulu, Cansu Menlikli Production Company: Periferi Film Country: Turkiye Award in the amount of 20,000 CINELINK DRAMA Council of Europe Series Co-Production Development Award Red Water Synopsis: In 1989, at the Croatian seaside, a family is shattered when their daughter disappears. Her dark secrets disintegrate the community over two decades until the return of the former investigator unveils the truth. Creator: Ljubica Lukovic Writers: Ljubica Lukovic, Jurica Pavicic Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic Producer: Danijel Pek Production Company: Antitalent Country: Croatia Award in the amount of 50,000 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Croatian Audiovisual Center Drama Award Wonderful Synopsis: Dissatisfied with the way her life has turned out, a woman starts waking up on the mornings when she made some of the key decisions that shaped it. She takes alternate paths towards different lives that could have been. Creators and Writers: Katarina Mitrovic, Isidora Veselinovic, Vladimir Tagic Directors: Vladimir Tagic, Isidora Veselinovic Producer: Marija Stojanovic Production Company: Sense Production Country: Serbia Award in the amount of 15,000 TV Drama Vision Pitch Award Gorilla Synopsis: In the decadent world of 1960s Paris, a French movie star and his Yugoslav bodyguards powerful brotherhood shatters when a Hollywood murder threatens to destroy them both. Creator: Gabor Krigler Writers: Eszter Angyalosy, Cyril Tysz Director: Christian Gudegast Producer: Ivana Mikovic Production Company: Firefly Productions Country: Serbia CINELINK WORK IN PROGRESS AWARDS HBO Award Who Are We Synopsis: After a pupils suicide, a school trip exposes the haunting path to tragedy. As the journey unfolds, the bullies are the same, the victims are new, and the shadow of the dead pupil looms over them all. Director: Miroslav Terzic Producer: Snezana van Houwelingen Production Company: This and That Productions Co-Production Companies: Nightswim, Invictus, PTD, Kinorama Countries: Serbia, Italy, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Croatia Award in the amount of 30,000 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Turkish National Radio Television Award Yesterday the Eye Didnt Sleep Synopsis: In a valley veiled by fog and tribal codes, two sisters walk into the night not as daughters, but as offerings where blood, memory, and silence attempt to keep the fire from spreading. Director: Rakan Mayasi Producer: Jennifer Ritter, Rakan Mayasi Production Company: Atata Countries: Belgium, Palestine, Lebanon Award in the amount of 10,000 Post Republic Award Where To? Synopsis: The different taxi rides across the city of Berlin between Hassan, a middle-aged Palestinian Uber driver, and young Israeli who gets lost in the city, tell a tragic-comic story about moving forward. Director: Assaf Machnes Producers: Tomer Mecklberg, Haim Mecklberg, Oren Rogovin, Mohamad Babi Production Company: 2 Team Productions Co-Production Companies: Lev Cinema, Rogovin Brothers, Iconoclast Germany Country: Israel, Germany Award in the amount of 30,000 in kind Avanpost Media Award 17 Synopsis: After having a threesome with her classmates, Sara, 17, gets pregnant and tries to hide it from everyone, which becomes especially difficult during the graduation excursion. Director: Kosara Mitic Producer: Tomi Salkovski Production Company: Black Cat Production Coproduction companies: Art&Popcorn, December Countries: North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia Award in the amount of 30,000 in kind CINELINK WORK IN PROGRESS AND DOCU ROUGH CUT BOUTIQUE AWARDS Think-Film Impact Production Award Lost and Found: Romanias Hidden Adoption Market Synopsis: When a young Canadian woman who was sold as an infant in post-Ceausescu Romania returns to reclaim her identity, she uncovers the machinery that trafficked the sister she never knew, one of 30,000 children exported for adoption. Director: Laurentiu Garofeanu Producer: Laurentiu Garofeanu Editor: Iulian Ghervas Production company: Mekanism Media (RO) Country: Romania Length: 90 min Award in the amount of 20,000 in kind Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Eave + Award Marija Stojanovic Best of The Hollywood Reporter Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Rihanna-founded organization Clara Lionel Foundation and the Mellon Foundation have teamed up for a groundbreaking effort in Caribbean arts and culture. The organizations have announced their new partnership, The Ripple Effect, which will uphold locally inspired creative solutions and spread extensive access to art in Barbados and the Caribbean. Along with providing monetary support to select local cultural organizations to develop sustainable paths to funding for artists and art-focused groups, The Ripple Effect will also be launched by a new exhibition. CLF CLF "Barbados is who I am. It will always be at the heart of the Clara Lionel Foundation, and nothing makes me more proud than amplifying Caribbean voices on a global stage," Rihanna told Complex. "Im incredibly thankful to the Mellon Foundation for sharing this vision with us by showcasing these incredible artists who are creating work that moves people to think differently." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement COMPLEX SHOP: Shop the brands you love, anytime and anywhere. Uncover what's next. Buy. Collect. Obsess. Currently open to the public until August 30, The Ripple Effect exhibit in Bridgetown, Barbados' gallery Caribbean Brushstrokes is curated by Fresh Milk Barbados. Spotlighting pieces by visual artists and CLF fellows Simone Asia, Russell Watson, Anna Gibson, and Ronald Williams, the exhibition illustrates how Caribbean voices have forged the way for artistic innovation and economic growth, with themes dedicated to climate solution, health justice and women's entrepreneurship. Thirteen years after CLF's founding, our partnership with the Mellon Foundation represents a full-circle moment amplifying the voices and talents that have always been part of our organization's DNA, starting right here in Barbados," said Jessie Schutt-Aine, Executive Director of the Clara Lionel Foundation. "What visitors will experience in this exhibition is the incredible artistry that has always existed here, now with the institutional backing to reach an international stage. This partnership honors CLF's beginnings while leveraging our years of proven community-led impact across the Caribbean and beyond." For a Rihanna refresh in anticipation of The Ripple Effect, visit Complex to purchase her past albums like Anti, Unapologetic, and Talk That Talk on vinyl and CD formats. Rihanna: Talk That Talk LP Def Jam | Official Store Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rihanna: Talk That Talk LP $27.98 Rihanna: Loud 2LP Def Jam | Official Store Rihanna: Loud 2LP $32.99 ANTI 2LP uDiscover Music ANTI 2LP $24.98 Rated R LP uDiscover Music Rated R LP $29.99 ComplexCon returns to Las Vegas on October 2526, 2025, with over 300 brands and live performances by Young Thug, YEAT & Friends, Peso Pluma, Central Cee, Ken Carson, and more. Get your tickets now. Related Products ANTI 2LP Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement uDiscover Music ANTI 2LP $24.98 , Rihanna: Unapologetic 2LP Def Jam | Official Store Rihanna: Unapologetic 2LP $32.99 , Rihanna: Loud 2LP Def Jam | Official Store Rihanna: Loud 2LP $32.99 , Rihanna: Rated R 2LP Def Jam | Official Store Rihanna: Rated R 2LP $32.99 Related News 2025 Met Gala: Ranking The 15 Best Celebrity Carpet Looks Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement , Rihanna Announces Third Pregnancy With ASAP Rocky, Debuts Baby Bump Ahead of 2025 Met Gala , Rihanna Says Listening to 'Anti' Is an 'Out of Body Experience' Related News Memphis Bleek Says New Music From Jay-Z Could Be On The Way: 'Save Me a Verse' Fivio Foreign Says Streamers Are Popular Because of the Platform, Not the Individual' COMPLEX SHOP: Shop the brands you love, anytime and anywhere. Uncover what's next. Buy. Collect. Obsess. Making Culture Pop. Find the latest entertainment news and the best in music, pop culture, sneakers, style and original shows. The Jersey Shore: Family Vacation cast cant believe Vinny Guadagnino has found a connection. In Us Weeklys exclusive sneak peek of the Thursday, August 21, episode of MTVs reality show, Vinny, 37, continues to spend time in Jamaica with a new friend named Eileen. As he begins playing an innocent game of patty cake, some of the cast cant believe what they are witnessing. Vinnys date ideas are definitely, like, preschooly, Deena Nicole Cortese shares. Who knows? He might pull her hair next and run after her like someone does on the playground. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Cast of MTVs Jersey Shore Then and Now: Nicole Snooki Polizzi, Vinny Guadagnino and More When Vinny tries to play a new game he calls bunny bunny, Angelina Pivarnick cant believe what shes seeing and hearing. Vinny will never get laid if he keeps it up with this patty cake and bunny bunny, she says in a confessional. Its, like, a little cringe honestly. After capturing video of Vinnys antics, Angelina, 39, shares the footage in a group text. What comes next are honest reactions fans come to expect from the Jersey Shore crew. Vinny lives up to his name, Mike The Situation Sorrentino says. He is the biggest chooch that ever chooched. (Chooch is a term the cast has used to describe a fool or a stubborn person.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pauly D adds, I feel like our work here is done. We found this guy love. Before anyone gets too confident that Vinny has found a match, the self-proclaimed guido admits he may be enjoying a little too much alcohol on the trip. When I drink liquor, I just start acting, like, crazy, he says before playing Come on Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners in honor of his new friend. You never know where my mind is going to go when you mix a little alcohol into it. Vinny has been open about his journey into finding love. For three seasons, he searched for a girlfriend on the MTV reality show Double Shot at Love. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Which TV Shows Are Renewed in 2025-2026? Get the Status of Your Favorite Series More recently, the Jersey Shore cast put on a dating game show for Vinny while they were on vacation in Jamaica. During the event, Vinny who has previously confessed to being a mamas boy was introduced to Eileen. Everyone knows Im single. Im perpetually single, Vinny told Page Six in May 2024 before clarifying that hes still hopeful hell find something a little more serious soon. Jersey Shore: Family Vacation airs on MTV Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET. The White House increased its pressure on the Smithsonian on Thursday, calling out a list of exhibitions and materials mentioning race, slavery, transgender identity and immigration to bolster President Donald Trumps ongoing criticism that the institution is too focused on divisive and negative aspects of American history. In an official, unsigned article titled President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian, the White House called out seven museums for their exhibits and messaging including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of the American Latino. Representatives for each of the museums named in the article did not respond or directed a request for comment to the central Smithsonian administration, whose spokesperson declined to comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As President Trump promised, the Trump Administration is committed to rooting out Woke and divisive ideology in our government and institutions, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in an email. Taxpayer money should not be used for things that pit Americans against one another. Our Smithsonian should exhibit history in an accurate, honest, and factual way. Among the targets of the White Houses list were two museums that have not yet broken ground on buildings the National Museum of the American Latino and American Womens History Museum and works by individual artists. In a way Im kind of honored to be included in this list of important exhibitions and art projects that shed light on many viewpoints and diverse realities that are part of American History, said artist Hugo Crosthwaite in an email to The Post. Crosthwaite created a portrait, named by the White House, of former National Institutes of Health official Anthony S. Fauci, who has made a significant impact on the wellness of this country, he said. Artist Rigoberto A. Gonzalez, who had been spending the day painting when a friend texted him the link to the White House website, had similar sentiments about his work being scrutinized: You know the saying that theres only good publicity? Im thinking that maybe somebody will want to buy a painting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the same time, said Gonzalez, it reminded me right away of, when you read in our history, about degenerate art that the Nazis targeted. I was like, There it is: another sign of where they want to take the country. Gonzalez submitted a painting of a family crossing a southern U.S. border wall for the Smithsonians Outwin Boochever portrait competition. Though the White House website says the Portrait Gallery features his painting, which he based on his research at migrant respite centers in South Texas, he noted that it is not on display at the Smithsonian but is held in a private collection. Its not promoting immigration, he added. Its the reality of immigration and the fact that when immigrants come here, they dont always find this American Dream that theyre supposedly chasing. The White Houses list comes two days after Trump said he would send his attorneys through the museums, adding that the Smithsonian focused too much on how bad Slavery was. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Lindsey Halligan, the White House official charged with examining the Smithsonian, said she had walked through museums and reviewed information on slavery herself. The fact that our country was involved in slavery is awful no one thinks otherwise, Halligan said. But what I saw when I was going through the museums, personally, was an overemphasis on slavery, and I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far weve come since slavery. Scholars this week challenged Trumps framing of the Smithsonians work and decried his criticism as an effort to control history. Samuel Redman, director of the public history program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience, told The Post on Wednesday that the president doesnt have the requisite legal or political authority to enact these changes unilaterally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He noted the Smithsonian has many forward-looking exhibits on subjects including American innovation, and added that because of its deliberate planning, the institution is not generally seen as this cutting-edge space. Beth English, executive director of the Organization of American Historians, called Trumps comments executive overreach masquerading as patriotic renewal. Some repeat targets were mentioned in Thursdays list. The White House again singled out The Shape of Power, a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition that explores how sculpture has shaped and reflected concepts of race in the U.S., and how it has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism. The show was mentioned in Trumps executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. As part of the presidents effort to oust Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet, the White House issued a list of 17 examples of the museums alleged partisanship. The commissioning of choreographer-in-residence Dana Tai Soon Burgesss performance El Muro (The Wall) appeared on both that list and the new release. Burgess did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The White House announced a more aggressive review of Smithsonian materials last week. The institution is conducting its own internal review. Other exhibitions and artifacts seem to have newly caught the White Houses attention. One of the listed exhibitions is a temporary, ground-floor show in the American History museum about the history of Title IX and women in sports. The White House took issue with its references to transgender athletes. The document also criticized the National Museum of American History for mentioning Benjamin Franklins status as a enslaver in an exhibition about his scientific legacy, and for its inclusion of the Immokalee Statue of Liberty, a papier-mache statue holding a tomato instead of a torch, used in demonstrations by immigrant farmworkers with the message, I, too, am America. In 1914, two years after the Titanic embarked on its ill-fated maiden voyage, the steam-powered SS Medina rolled off the shipyard at Newport News, Virginia. The vessel has had many lives and many names since, in a career that eventually made it the oldest active passenger ship on the oceans. But the 111-year-old boats latest assignment is, perhaps, the unlikeliest of them all. Originally used to transport onions and other goods, the Medina was conscripted to assist Americas World War II efforts. It was then converted into a passenger ship, the SS Roma, and fitted with a diesel engine before serving as a cruise liner under the name MS Franca C. In 1977, it was acquired by a Christian organization and renamed MV Doulos, a missionary ship and floating library. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over the next three decades, the vessel sailed over 360,000 nautical miles and docked in over 100 countries. It was once even attacked with grenades by Muslim separatists in the Philippines in a 1991 terrorist incident that left two evangelists dead. The SS Medina passes in front of the Statue of Liberty during its maiden voyage in 1914. - Alamy Visitors line up to enter the ship, then a missionary vessel known as MV Doulos, in the Philippines in 2007. - Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images Now, after more than a century at sea, the ship has come to rest on dry land in Bintan, a tropical Indonesian island known for all-inclusive beach resorts. Singaporean businessman Eric Saw, the historic vessels latest owner (or current steward, as he prefers to be known), has spent the last 15 years and around 23 million Singapore dollars ($18 million) of his own money transforming it into a luxury hotel. If I didnt have this project, maybe Id have a Ferrari and a Lamborghini at home, and Id be sailing around the world every year with my family, the 74-year-old reflected over lunch at the hotels restaurant, which is part of a new two-story structure built to the vessels bow. The gargantuan task of purchasing, renovating and hauling the historic ship ashore was, however, a calling from God. Now named Doulos Phos, or Servant of Light in Greek, the ship stands on an anchor-shaped spit of land reclaimed from the South China Sea specifically for Saws venture. Its huge propeller, long hidden beneath the waterline, is today fully visible. So, too, is the underside of the ships 428-foot-long hull, which, like the Titanics, was constructed with steel plates joined together by rivets. (Welding wasnt widely used in shipbuilding until the 1930s.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Inside, low-ceilinged passageways lead to around 100 rooms and suites. Some still feature circular portholes for windows. Others contain heavy metal doors, with pull-down handles, opening onto side decks that were once used by sailors to move around the ship but now are subdivided into private, sea view balconies. The Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel occupies an artificial anchor-shaped spit of land reclaimed specifically for the venture. - Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel The hotels original opening in 2019 proved a false start. Strict Covid-19 travel restrictions imposed by Indonesia and nearby Singapore, whose affluent vacationers underpin Bintans tourist-centric economy, effectively brought operations to a halt. Singapore did not fully lift border measures until 2023. But now, open for business once again, Saw hopes to attract everyone from young families to maritime history buffs. The businessman clearly relishes giving visitors a seafaring experience. While giving CNN a tour around the boat, he repeatedly corrected language associated with conventional hotels: The employees here arent staff, theyre crew. Guests dont sleep in rooms, these are cabins. This is not a floor, its a deck. The ship may now be classified as a building, legally speaking, but Saw claims life here is so authentically ship-like that some guests even feel a bit seasick, especially when they look out the portholes and see the waves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But after some hours they get used to it, he joked. Saved from the scrapyard Before Saw took ownership of the vessel in 2010, its future appeared bleak. MV Doulos was no longer considered seaworthy and complying with new maritime regulations on passenger safety and fire prevention would have likely required millions of dollars in extra investment. The boats former owner sent it to a Singapore dry dock to await bids from potential buyers. Among the interested parties were shipbreakers planning to dissemble the vessel for scrap metal, according to Saw. The businessman, who at the time operated a restaurant in a three-story Mississippi-style paddle steamer on Sentosa island, dreamed of turning the ship into a venture that could benefit Christian charitable causes. So, despite having no clear plan, he submitted a winning bid of 900,000 euros ($1.1 million). This proved to be just a fraction of the projects total cost. For more than three years, Saw hemorrhaged money on dockage fees and upkeep as he lobbied authorities in his native Singapore to provide a permanent site. Negotiations failed, so he looked further afield. The ship rests on a 427-by-52-foot concrete platform supported by piles driven deep into the sea bed. - Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel He found more receptive suitors in Bintan, in a resort enclave a joint venture between the Indonesian and Singaporean governments established in the 1990s. Having initially considered turning his boat into a floating hotel, Saw realized maintenance would be a big headache. So he proposed one on land instead. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A developer offered to reclaim more than three acres of land off Bintans north coast, where Saw could acquire a long-term lease. I then had the temerity to ask for an anchor-shaped island, rather than just a rectangular piece of land, he recalled with a smile. His wish was granted, and construction of the artificial peninsula began in 2014. The ailing ship, meanwhile, had been towed its engines were already decommissioned to the neighboring island of Batam for refurbishment. But the greatest technical challenge was still to come: heaving the 6,800-ton vessel onto land. In October 2015, the then-101-year-old MV Doulos Phos made its final ocean journey from Batam to Bintan. The seabed beside its final resting place was excavated to create a basin from which the vessel would be pulled ashore. Reclaimed land often takes years, or even decades, to fully settle, so Saws engineers designed a 427-by-52-foot concrete platform underpinned by piles driven into the bedrock, some deeper than 130 feet on which the boat would rest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With huge airbags acting as rollers, a series of mechanical winches began dragging the vessel more than 550 feet up a temporary slipway. The pull took seven nail-biting weeks, Saw said more than three times as long as planned. Progress was, often, painfully slow: On a good day, five meters; on a bad day, not even one meter. As the process dragged on and on, I guess I was discouraged. But I always clung on to the hope that we must fulfill the vision that has been put in our hearts, Saw said. Owner of Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel, Eric Saw, said he wanted to retain the ship's heritage. - Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel Retaining heritage Gutting the ship and converting it into a five-star hotel presented another set of difficulties altogether. Reconfiguring the interiors required not only conventional architects but also naval architects to ensure the boat remained structurally sound. All her cabins were very small, very spartan, said Saw, who strictly adheres to the maritime tradition of giving ships feminine pronouns. And many of the portholes were just small little holes, placed up high because they didnt want the water coming in. One cabin typically had two double bunks so four people sharing one cabin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Major structural work saw fuel tanks and bulkheads removed to expand the cramped living quarters. Many of the hotels 93 cabins now feature large windows and are spread out over several compartments, costing between 1.7 million and 3.8 million Indonesian rupiah ($105 to $235) per night. New plumbing and electrical systems were installed throughout, as were elevators, fire escapes and other features needed to adhere to government building regulations. Many vestiges of the ships seafaring past remain intact, however, from a claustrophobia-inducing propeller shaft to six original lifeboats hanging from pulleys on either side of the vessel. The old engine room, while defunct, has been left largely untouched and is open to visitors. A handful of original living quarters were also retained as experience cabins, while the ships upper decks are open to visitors, too. Saw said his guests like recreating Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslets famous pose from Titanic on the boats forecastle. The ships nautical interiors likewise nod to history. Original rivets salvaged from the refurbishment are a recurring feature on furniture and fittings. We felt we could keep the heritage of the vessel, said Saw, who affectionately refers to his ship as the grand old lady of the seas. Saw claims every change made to the vessel is reversible, should a future owner wish to return it to the ocean. This possibility, while unlikely, is a testament to the original shipbuilders work, Saw said. She can probably stay on for another 111 years, he said, but Im not sure about myself! Cabins in the hotel cost between 1.7 million and 3.8 million Indonesian rupiah ($105 to $235) per night. - Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel Rust was, and remains, a major challenge, however. The rust issues are always there, even when youre on land, he said, adding: If you start painting from the bow right to the stern, when you reach the stern its time to start again at the bow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But for Saw, this is more than a passion project or act of conservation its a mission. He says he draws only a token $1 annual salary, with all the hotels operational profits going toward Christian charitable causes, regardless of whether he ever recoups his $18 million investment. She is nothing but a mass of steel, he reflected. It is what we do with her that gives meaning. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) You dont have to travel thousands of miles to get to Peru. Titos Ceviche & Pisco is the only full-service Peruvian restaurant in New Orleans, and with its flavors, youre sure to feel as though youre in South America. Chef Tito Lock is the owner of the restaurant, located at 1433 St. Charles Ave. For Coolinary, his restaurant is offering three separate menus: lunch, brunch and dinner. Brunch is offered on Saturday and Sunday. Its three courses, including an appetizer, entree and dessert. Lunch is two courses, which include an appetizer and an entree. Dinner is three courses with an appetizer, entree and dessert. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hail to the Chef: From the White House to the New Orleans dinner table Were going to have some of the traditional Peruvian dishes, said Lock. We cook from scratch almost all of our dishes, so its going to be fresh seafood. We try to use local product. Have you ever heard of pisco? Lock told WGNOs Amy Russo his restaurant offers a lot of pisco, which are Peruvian spirits. The decor also reflects Peruvian culture intertwining with Louisiana. When talking about a mural that is showcased through the restaurant, Lock said, That mural represents Peru and New Orleans. So, we kind of marry both of them together. So, the ambiance is going to be that. We are trying to put some dishes with some New Orleans style with Peru. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Check out what Titos Ceviche & Pisco has to offer for Coolinary by viewing the menu. Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of a central delegation, and members of the delegation visit patriotic figures from Xizang's religious circles at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Entrusted by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, members of the central delegation on Thursday visited local officials and residents in Lhasa. (Xinhua/Li Xiang) LHASA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Entrusted by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, members of a central delegation on Thursday visited local officials and residents in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of the delegation, attended the event. When visiting senior officials of the city of Lhasa and representatives from various ethnic groups and sectors, Wang called for efforts to advance the four major tasks -- ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting eco-environment, and strengthening frontiers, thereby making new contributions to promoting lasting peace, stability, and high-quality development in Xizang. When visiting patriotic figures from Xizang's religious circles at the Jokhang Temple, Wang expressed the hope that they will resolutely safeguard national unity and ethnic solidarity, and actively participate in building a modern socialist new Xizang. The delegation also inspected the development of higher education at Xizang University and visited a park to observe afforestation and greening efforts. Wang stressed the need to focus on ensuring and improving people's wellbeing, promote employment and income growth for the public, and steadily advance common prosperity. The delegation is here for the region's 60th founding anniversary celebrations. Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of a central delegation, and members of the delegation inspect the development of higher education at Xizang University in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Aug. 21, 2025. Entrusted by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, members of the central delegation on Thursday visited local officials and residents in Lhasa. (Xinhua/Li Xiang) The race to save Russian climber Natalia Nagovitsyna, stranded at 7,150m on Kyrgyzstans 7,439m Pobeda Peak with a broken leg, grows desperate. For nine days, the 47-year-old Moscow climber has endured subzero temperatures. She is running or has run out of food, water, and fuel, and is lying in a torn tent in a sleeping bag in one of the worlds deadliest high-altitude environments. She has no communication device. A four-person rescue team, dispatched by Kyrgyzstans Ministry of Defense on August 20, reached Camp 2 yesterday and 5,800m today, according to Anna Piunova of Mountain.ru. Tomorrow, weather permitting, they will continue up to 6,400m. The route that the rescuers are currently ascending. Photo: Anna Piunova/Mountain.ru Increasing pessimism The Russian Mountaineering Federation issued stark warnings today about the slim odds that Nagovitsyna can survive. Vice-President Alexander Pyatnitsyn said, "It will be almost impossible to save her," he said. "Theres a three-kilometer-long ridge, and it takes at least 30 people in such a situation to rescue a person from there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Elena Laletina from RussianClimb echoed the same thoughts to ExplorersWeb: that four or even eight rescuers aren't enough to carry out such a difficult rescue, where Nagovitsyna is immobilized and can't assist. Alexander Yakovenko of the Russian Mountaineering Federation told Izvestia, Today, four people are trying to get there. There's an avalanche hazard, a big challenge. There is a small chance they will make it. But that means three, four, maybe five more days. Yakovenko added that the rescuers themselves risk being caught in an avalanche, underscoring the perilous conditions on the mountain. Yakovenko even went so far as to describe the situation as hopeless. If shes alive, Ill believe in a miracle," he told Pravda Greece. "If she is saved, then I will believe in a miracle twice over. Natalia Nagovitsyna. Photo: Izvestia A long way One of the closest starting points for climbing Pobeda Peak is the South Inylchek camp, located 3.5 vertical kilometers below. The distance between base camp and the summit is an astonishing 12km. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The process is further complicated by unfavorable weather, and the terrain where the Russian woman is stranded makes it difficult to bring her down. Her tent lies in the same spot where climber Mikhail Ishutin died 10 years ago. His body has still not been retrieved. Even in ideal weather, specialists would need at least two days to bring the stranded woman down. To ascend Pobeda from Base Camp to summit usually takes 5-10 days, or 5-7 days for experienced, well-acclimatized climbers, if the weather is not bad. The descent typically takes 2-4 days. Since Nagovitsyna is at around 7,150m, rescuers could reach her before the weekend. Pobeda Peak. Photo: Misha Makovkin Nagovitsyna came to Pobeda, also known as Jengish Chokusu, to pursue the Snow Leopard title. This old honor is bestowed on those who've climbed all five 7,000m peaks in the former USSR. By reputation, Pobeda is the hardest, and it marked her fifth summit. But on her way down on August 12, she slipped and fractured her leg. Her climbing partner, Roman, provided first aid, secured her in a tent, then descended to base camp to seek help. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On August 13, Italian climber Luca Sinigaglia and a German mountaineer named Gunther (no last name provided) reached her, delivering a sleeping bag, stove, and gas canister supplies critical for her survival. Tragically, on August 16, Sinigaglia died on his way down. His body is now resting in a cave at 6,900m. Gunther, exhausted and battling worsening weather, also retreated, unable to carry Nagovitsyna by himself across the treacherous terrain. At almost 7,000m, Alexandr Moroz traverses the ridge from Vazha Pshavela to Obelisk (Camp 6) on Pobeda in 2024. Frame of a video by Alexandr Moroz/Instagram Complicated rescue The three-kilometer-long ridge at 7,0007,400m on Pobeda demands fixed ropes, anchors, and a stretcher to carry an immobilized climber. This, in turn, requires multiple climbers to rotate duties and manage fatigue. The thin air, -20C temperatures, and strong winds exacerbate exhaustion and altitude risks. Meanwhile, a large team is needed to share the heavy gear ropes, medical supplies, food, and gas. Safety backups are critical, as avalanches or injured rescuers could derail the mission. The four-person team, described as insufficient by experts, faces a near-impossible task, with progress slowed by snowstorms and poor visibility. Pobeda Peaks reputation as the deadliest 7,000m peak in the former USSR is well-earned, with at least 70 recorded deaths. No injured climber has ever been evacuated from as high an altitude as Nagovitsyna's on this mountain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On August 16, a Russian Ministry of Defense Mi-8 helicopter crashed at 4,600m, injuring the pilot and a rescuer, while a second attempt failed due to zero visibility. On August 1920, helicopters evacuated 62 climbers, tourists, and rescuers, including the body of Russian climber Alexey Yermakov, who died near Khan Tengri. Nagovitsynas extreme altitude and immobility forced them to concentrate on more accessible parties in distress. Pobeda Peak. Photo: Eric Gilbertson / Facebook No news on Nagovitsyna A drone flyover on August 19 confirmed she was alive, but unconfirmed reports on August 20-21 suggested that Nagovitsyna is no longer showing signs of life. However, according to Kyrgyzstans Emergency Situations Ministry, quoted by Pravda, no one can confirm Nagovitsynas current status until rescuers reach her, which is estimated to be August 24-25. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nagovitsyna's chances of surviving beyond 1012 days are slim due to extreme cold, thirst, and thin air. Nevertheless, rescuers continue to race to her, battling harsh weather and treacherous terrain in the faint hope of saving her life. Nagovitsynas son and her sister, in particular, cling to hope. After prep school, I didn't apply to college and traveled abroad instead. I moved to Cambodia when I was 20, which led me on a path toward my dream job as a travel journalist. Years later, I sometimes feel embarrassed for lacking a college degree, but I mostly don't regret it. When I reached my senior year of high school (as a scholarship kid at a prestigious college preparatory academy in the US), I did something unheard of among my peers: I didn't apply to college. At the time, my plan was to take a gap year to work and travel before using my fluent Italian to attend college in Italy, where university was cheaper and the lifestyle was a better fit for me. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But after what I thought would be my gap year in which I worked in a restaurant, volunteered with children, and backpacked solo through Europe I discovered I'd missed the deadline to apply for a student visa to Italy. Merullo Steffgen on the Camino de Santiago on her gap year Courtesy of Zanny Merullo Steffgen At 19, with no college applications submitted and my dream of attending university abroad that year shattered, I was completely lost. So I doubled down on my restaurant career, learning how to mix drinks and picking up extra shifts until I'd saved enough money to travel again. This time, I set my sights on Southeast Asia. How I found my home away from home Merullo Steffgen in front of a temple. Courtesy of Zanny Merullo Steffgen I headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where I'd found an opportunity bartending for room and board in a hostel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After just a few weeks, I had fallen in love with the city its red dirt roads, chaotic markets, warm people, and the nearby temple complex of Angkor Wat felt like home. There, I felt I belonged more than I ever had in the US. Three months later, I went back to the US to gather my belongings and moved full-time to Cambodia. I was 20 years old. Merullo Steffgen in the temples of Angkor Wat. Courtesy of Zanny Merullo Steffgen While most of my friends and former classmates were entering their second year at elite universities, I was working two jobs (teaching English and serving tables) six days a week in Siem Reap, and spending my day off hanging out with an international community of expats, eating dinner on the dirt floors of my local friends' homes, or searching for temple ruins in the jungle. I had never been happier. Moving to Cambodia put me on my career path At the time, I was following my instincts to live the life full of adventure I craved, without much sense of what my future held. What I didn't know then was that my decision to move to a developing country rather than go to college would set me on a path toward my dream career: travel journalism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While living in Siem Reap, I wrote a column on expat life for a magazine and took on copywriting assignments with a local tour company. Soon, I was writing articles for travel magazines about life in Cambodia. Merullo Steffgen exploring jungle temples. Courtesy of Zanny Merullo Steffgen After nearly two years in Siem Reap, though, I had to move back to the US due to severe health issues. However, I continued writing on the side until I became a full-time freelance writer. Since then, I've built a successful travel journalism and tourism copywriting career, writing for big-name travel magazines, airlines, and tour companies while getting to explore the world. Most of the time, I don't regret skipping college Not once has a potential client or editor asked about my level of education. Career-wise, the only setback I've faced is that I've never landed so much as an interview for any of the dozens of full-time writing or editing jobs I've applied for, most of which required a degree. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are moments when I feel a twinge of embarrassment for not having gone to college. My parents, sister, and many of my friends from high school are Ivy League graduates, and I can't relate to their experiences. Sometimes, people in my circles have spoken condescendingly about those who don't have college degrees, whether they know I'm a member of that group or not. Once, a client instructed me to write copy "for a low reading level" because the target audience "aren't the smartest they only have high school diplomas." Merullo Steffgen on assignment at Machu Picchu. Courtesy of Zanny Merullo Steffgen Most of the time, though, I'm grateful for my decision not to go to college. Instead of taking on student debt, I had transformative travel experiences, learned to speak six languages, and got a head start in my line of work, taking on my first assignments at the age of 20. I'm 27 now, and already reaching the peak of my career, while many of my friends are still finding their way in theirs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Someday, intellectual curiosity may bring me back to the classroom, but for now, I'm happy, successful, and grateful for all the experiences I squeezed into the years I could have been studying. Read the original article on Business Insider Ivory Rose Photography It was on their first big trip together in December 2018 that Ian and John King Oppermann realized they were serious. After meeting a few months earlier on Bumble, the New York City-based pair spent two weeks road-tripping from Zurich through the Swiss Alps, across the length of Austria ending in Vienna. Amid stops to hike and bike, We fell in love with the Austrian countryside, we fell in love with Vienna, and its where we fell in love with each other, because we realized we have the exact same interests, says Ian. Those interests include classical music and history, for which Vienna is, of course, a dream destination. Ian really loves opera and classical music, so this was really a pilgrimage for him, says John. But it also has modern nightlife and great restaurants and parks. Its a walkable, bikeable, livable city that is just so beautiful. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement By the time they got engaged in February 2024, the couple had been back to the Austrian capital five more timesand within minutes of Johns proposal to Ian, they were already discussing holding their wedding there. It wouldnt just be a random destination. This is special for us, says Ian. Ahead, the couple share how they plotted an ornate, emotional wedding in June 2025 for 50 guests across four venues, featuring traditional wool outfits, classical music, and loads of schnitzel. John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography Check out venues that could only exist in Austria Within their partnership, Ian tends to all of the administrative and practical needs (he's the house manager, as John says) while John himself is more of the social coordinator whos great at planning outings and nailing party vibes. As such, John immediately leapt into vendor research, finding a photographer in Austria whose style he loved via Instagram. Polly Rola at Ivory Rose Photography shared a list of her own favorite colleagues, including their planner, Sandra Wimmer. It opened up a further ecosystem of vendors that all work together, says John. In July 2024, they planned a trip to the city to scout venues. They knew just what they were looking for: opulent spaces swathed in history. We wanted every space to remind our guests of where they were, whether it was an interior with Viennese character or an outdoor space with amazing views of the skyline, says John. Ultimately, the couple held the soft opening of their wedding weekend with a low-key event on Thursday night where around 30 guests met for drinks at the Strandbar Herrmann, an open-air bar with lounge chairs on the banks of the Danube. On Friday night, they hosted a welcome dinner at Hotel Sacher, the storied 19th-century space frequented by European royals. The dining room was wrapped in green velvet, and the inspiration the couple shared with their planner for this family-style meal was Sofia Coppolas Marie Antoinette, a fun hang set against a really opulent room. We wanted people to be dressed up, but not feel like they had to be stuffy and proper, says Ian. John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography The wedding itself on Sunday was hosted at the Belvedere, a historic museum complex of two Baroque palaces that houses the worlds largest collection of works by Gustav Klimt, among many other artists. The ceremony took place in the palace's Octagon, an eight-sided former chapel space located immediately next to Klimts masterpiece The Kiss; guests were led on a private tour of the gallery immediately after the couple were pronounced married. Cocktail hour and dancing were held in the Hall of Grotesques, so called for the fantastical murals hugging its walls, and dinner was served in the Marble Gallery, with its white-on-white stucco reliefs and ribbon-like wood paneling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Finally, on Monday, a goodbye brunch was held at the rooftop bar of the luxurious Rosewood Vienna Hotel. The guests who werent too exhausted by thenabout 30 in totalattended an opera, Richard Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier," at the Vienna State Opera that night. Anticipate Type-A attitudes Coordinating these swanky venues and their regulations required local knowledge, German language skills, and on-the-ground adaptabilitynone of which the couple possessed. They were thrilled with their planner Sandra, and her network of contacts and no-nonsense, highly proactive demeanor. She is the most organized person youve ever met, exactly what we needed, Ian says. She helped, too, with poorly translated contracts that didnt make much sense to two Americans. While friends who had married elsewhere in Europe had warned that response times could be a bit more relaxed compared to American customer service, Ian and John found that the Austrian style overall was very prompt. They are very Type A there, and the way that they do business is very Type A, so they were actually very responsive to things, Ian says. John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography Sandra wound up recommending their caterer (Motto Catering), florist (Ulrike Siegl-Kospach), and officiant (Susanne Schondorfer). Toward the end of working together, she had a firm grasp on their aesthetic and overall vision. Flowers were funny, because we knew what we wanted but had a hard time communicating that to a florist. We wanted them to look alpine, but not rustic, Ian says. Sandra found an image of a bouquet that the couple loved, and they signed off on her taking the project from there. We were like, We trust you. You can make it happen. And she hit the flowers out of the park. John and I were astounded, Ian says of the blooms; wild arrangements in purple and maroon that echoed the decorative curls and scrolls along the Grotesques walls. Embrace the culture from every angle In keeping with their goal of celebrating the destination, the couples other vendors leaned hard into the Austrian brief. Food throughout was heavy and traditional, featuring dishes like wiener schnitzel and tafelspitz (boiled beef with root vegetables). Its one of the things we like about Austria: That part of the world has very large portions and very hearty meals, says John. Their wedding cake was a beloved local dessert Sachertorte, a chocolate cake with layers of apricot jam coated in a dark chocolate glaze. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On the opening night, the couple donned traditional Austrian tracht, brushed-wool jackets with ornamental buttons made of deer antler, which are often worn for formal events including weddings. They had them made at Viennas oldest traditional clothing store, Loden-Plankl, which has occupied its corner location since 1830. Ever focused on the music, Ian hired Minetti Quartett, an accomplished Austrian string quartet who have performed together for over 20 years, to play during the ceremony and cocktail hour. John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography Go for an intimate style of ceremony The couples devotion to local tradition carried over to their ceremony, in which they sat side by side in chairs facing the officiant. It made it very private between me and Ian, because we weren't looking at our guestsas opposed to American weddings, John says. I didn't really see our guests the whole ceremony, which made it private and emotional and personal. What might have been a touch more American was the outsized emotional reaction displayed throughout. Ian just completely fell apart when he walked into the room. I saw him sobbing, so I started crying, and then our guests were crying, and we basically spent the entire hour almost convulsing from how much we were sobbing, John laughs. Celebrate yourselves, too, with a taste of home Thorough as the couples Viennese vision was, they still found ways to celebrate their own style. While the welcome dinner, ceremony, and cocktail hour had all featured classical music, it became a party once they transitioned to Johns favorite genre, which he says skews more toward hyper pop, with Charli XCX, Slayyyter, Cobrah, and that kind of stuff, thanks to DJ Robert Klimo. The signature cocktail for their party also came straight from the heart. Margaritas were the drink of the night, because we basically exclusively drink margaritas, John says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Something they were unable to borrow from home was American-style air conditioning. We had visited the museum when it was much cooler, and it got pretty hot, considering there were dozens of people dancing around, John says. But you felt like you were at a club with your friends. Everyone was super sweaty and singing along, and it was so fun. John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography John & Ian - Submission Ivory Rose Photography Create an unforgettable keepsake (or two) In case the photos of their favorite people dancing against the backdrop of priceless art werent enough to seal the memories, the couple also planned very special favors for the guests and for themselves. Their loved ones each took home a small bowl produced at the 500-year-old ceramics foundry Gmundner Keramik, which is known for its white pottery with slim green bands. You can only get it here, and its culturally important to Austria, Ian says. We wanted everyone to be able to take a piece of that home. As for the couples own memento, they got an idea while touring venues with their planner. The Hotel Sacher has a decades-old tradition of having famous guests sign their tablecloths, then embroidering over their signatures and displaying the cloth along its corridors. The couple decided to have their guests sign a tablecloth as a kind of guestbook, and then sent the fabric off to an Austrian artisan to have the signatures set in thread. When its done, they are planning to display it in Johns parents home. We'll have that as a wedding keepsake, says John. That, and the memories of ugly-crying and wiener schnitzel, of course. Originally Appeared on Conde Nast Traveler GUSTON, Ky. (FOX 56) One man has died and two other people were critically hurt during a two-vehicle crash Thursday morning in Meade County. Kentucky State Police announced that, at 10:32 a.m., troopers were called to help investigate a crash near the 14000 block of U.S. Highway 60 involving a semi and a truck. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Initial investigations showed that Marshall Morgan, 77, was traveling eastbound when he reportedly crossed the center line and hit a Ford F-150 driven by Glenda Ricketts, 74, of Shepherdsville, according to KSP. A passenger in the truck, Jerry Ricketts, 80, of Shepherdsville, was declared dead at the scene by the Meade County Coroners Office. Glenda and Morgan were rushed to the University of Louisville Hospital with life-threatening injuries, KSP confirmed. There is no word on their condition at this time, and the crash is still under investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. One person is dead and two are badly injured after a fatal collision in Meade County, according to Kentucky State Police. KSP responded to a request from Meade County Dispatch on Aug. 21 around 10:32 a.m. to assist with an investigation into a fatal collision near the 14000 block of U.S. 60. The incident involved a semi-tractor trailer and a passenger truck. According to a news release from KSP, the investigation showed the tractor-trailer driver, identified as Marshall Morgan, 77, of Guston, was traveling eastbound on U.S. 60 when, for unknown reasons, he crossed the center line and struck a Ford F-150. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement First responders took the driver of the Ford F-150, identified as Glenda Ricketts, 74, of Shepherdsville, and Morgan to UofL Hospital with life-threatening injuries. A passenger in the pickup truck, Jerry Ricketts, 80, of Shepherdsville, was pronounced dead at the scene. KSP said the investigation is ongoing. More police news: 'I cant just give up on my kids:' Louisville jail error forces mom to stay vigilant This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Meade County Kentucky collision leaves one dead, two badly injured One person is dead after a shooting Friday morning at Ingalls Shipbuilding, a Mississippi shipyard that builds vessels for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, police said. Officials identified the alleged shooter as Curtis James Jr., 25, of Mobile, Alabama. He is in custody. Police said at a news conference Friday afternoon that the shooting was a disagreement between two men who knew each other. The argument started earlier this week, officials said. A Pascagoula County Deputy police chief referred to it as a "workplace dispute." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police said they were called to the scene around 7:30 a.m. local time. The shooting happened near one of the ships under construction. The vessel was already in the water, police said. Police said they did not believe the ship had been damaged. Police did not release the name of the person who was killed. HII, Ingalls Shipbuilding' parent company, said the victim was a shipbuilder. In the news conference, police said the victim was from Prichard, Alabama. During the incident, personnel were urged to shelter in place, HII said. The alleged shooter was arrested about an hour-and-a-half after the shooting. Ingalls Shipbuilding, in Pascagoula, is the largest supplier of U.S. Navy surface combatants, according to its website. It employs 8,000 people and is the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi. The shipyard has built U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels for 85 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pascagoula is the county seat of Jackson County, Mississippi, and is home to about 22,000 people. 5 killed, dozens more injured in New York bus crash Reporter's Notebook: When smashing trains was an American pastime Giant beach tents are taking over shorelines and not everyone is happy CHEROKEE COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) An 18-year-old and a 12-year-old were killed in a two-vehicle crash Thursday afternoon. State troopers confirm the unidentified teens were traveling on County Road 29 when the car they were in collided with a tractor-trailer. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene shortly after the crash. Birmingham Stallions staying in Magic City for 2026 season Troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys Highway Patrol Division are investigating the crash at this time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. MITCHELL, S.D. (KELO) Thursday, 14 men received a pin, coin and certificate thanking them for their service in the Vietnam War. Although they all served in the same conflict, each has a unique story. Leonard Dexter was in the air force from 1964 to 1968 and was stationed in the Philippines. Maher ends regent campaign in Nebraska I was over there then, and I worked in the security service for the air force at the time, said Dexter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rodney Satrang was also in the air force, and he served for nearly 40 years. When he joined in 1971, he was only 17 years old. But his father and grandfathers time in the military inspired him. They trained us at Denver to load bombs and missiles on fighters, so then we ended up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And then I volunteered for Vietnam, said Satrang. Of the 14 veterans, one wasnt there to accept his award. Gary Hamberger served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969, but he passed away in 2023. His daughters accepted the award on his behalf, but they dont know much about his time in the war. He talked, I mean, very little. We have heard people say that he was, you know, in the trenches and had been shot, said Holly Fechner, Hambergers daughter. And he refused a Purple Heart that weve kind of been trying to get for him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the award ceremony, the veterans were surrounded by like-minded people. And years after their thankless work in the war, theyre all proud to be standing here today. recognition that they needed. So its just a really good deal, said Satrang. Its an honor to be with them. I mean, some of them did much more than I did, and Im sure there are others who feel the same way. But its an honor for me. And I thank them, all of them, for their service, said Dexter. Here are the names of all 14 veterans: Jim Anderson Marc Bernard Leonard Dexter Troy Foster Charles Gibson Gary Hamberger Jim Kirwan Ronald Lunder Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Glenn Mayer Vernon Peterka Rodney Satrang Donald Tilberg Darrel Ulmer Carter Wiese Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Police in Southwick are looking for someone who they say stole several chainsaws from a tree company on Thursday morning. Three pictures posted on the police departments Facebook page show someone wearing a black hoodie next to a wall with chainsaws on display. One of the photos shows the person holding one of the chainsaws. The theft took place at around 4 a.m. Thursday morning in the garage of Allied Tree Service on Hillside Road, according to reporting from Western Mass. News. The individual stole $15,000 worth of chainsaws from the garage and the trucks on the property, the outlet reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Southwick Police Detective Sgt. Thomas Krutka did not immediately respond to requests for comment from MassLive on Friday. more news from Western Massachusetts Read the original article on MassLive. CHICAGO Police are searching for answers after a shooting on the citys West Side left two men dead overnight. According to police, the deadly shooting unfolded just after 10 p.m. in the 300 block of South Maplewood Avenue in Garfield Park. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Officers say the victims, two 38-year-old men, were standing outside in the area when an unidentified male approached them on foot before he pulled out a gun and opened fire in their direction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officers said both victims were shot multiple times and were taken to the hospital, where they were later pronounced dead. Currently, it is unclear what led to the shootings and authorities have not yet identified anyone killed. An investigation is now underway and no arrests have been made. It was the first of two deadly shootings to unfold in the neighborhood overnight. Less than an hour after the incident, another shooting occurred about two miles away in the 3900 block of West Gladys Avenue. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Officers said during that incident, two victims, a 26-year-old man, and a 27-year-old woman, were standing outside when an unidentified male approached and opened fire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both victims sustained multiple gunshot wounds. The woman was later taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead, while the man was listed in fair condition. Currently, it is unclear what led to the shootings and no arrests have been made. Authorities have not said the incidents are connected. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ZHENGZHOU, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Luoyang, central China's Henan Province -- once the capital of 13 ancient dynasties and renowned for its Buddhist grottoes that stand as testaments to human devotion and artistry -- recently hosted global heritage experts to address the preservation of the world's fragile stone heritage. The International Forum on Cave Temple Conservation 2025 convened from Aug. 19 to 21 in Luoyang, home to the iconic Longmen Grottoes. Attendees included specialists from over 10 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Cambodia, Singapore and Japan, alongside international organization representatives and Chinese scholars. Participants exchanged insights on cave temple preservation and inheritance, jointly exploring scientific approaches to conservation. "Cave temples are extraordinary monuments to human creativity, spiritual devotion and cross-cultural exchange. These sacred spaces embody complex histories, intricate craftsmanship and a profound connection between people and their environment," said Duong Bich Hanh, director of the culture sector, UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia. "They remind us that heritage is both local and universal, an integral part of humanity's shared story." China brings invaluable expertise to global cave temple conservation. A 2021 national survey recorded 5,986 cave temples and cliff statues, including UNESCO World Heritage sites such as Mogao Grottoes in northwest China's Dunhuang, Yungang Grottoes in the northern city of Datong and Longmen Grottoes. Xie Bing, deputy head of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, highlighted the country's theoretical and practical innovations in cultural heritage conservation over the past two decades. "A comprehensive protection strategy -- encompassing value interpretation, monitoring and early warning, environmental control, disaster management and restoration -- has become a consensus," Xie said, emphasizing China's systematic and holistic conservation framework for cave temples. This integrated approach is now a model for the world. Long Kosal, deputy director-general of the APSARA National Authority of Cambodia, expressed keen interest at the forum. "China's grottoe preservation model offers a highly effective approach," Kosal said, highlighting China's successful practices in preserving the authenticity of cultural heritage while enhancing cultural identity and boosting local economies. Technical ambition was on full display at the forum. Su Bomin, dean of the Dunhuang Academy, presented a province-wide digital monitoring platform encompassing six major grottoe sites, providing key data to track dynamic changes comprehensively and preemptively identify potential risks. The newly inaugurated Longmen Grottoes heritage scientific conservation center features state-of-the-art research facilities, including specialized laboratories for mechanics, biology, and materials science. The center is equipped with high-tech instrumentation such as rock permeability analyzers, Raman spectrometers and 3D printers. A particularly compelling innovation was the microbial mineralization technique for stone relic restoration, developed by Liu Hanlong -- academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor at Chongqing University. This breakthrough attracted significant attention from international participants. Nawaz-ud-Din Siddiqui, director of the Swat Museum in Pakistan, praised China's advanced conservation technologies and expressed strong interest in future collaborative preservation projects. Digital technologies have also immortalized China's cave temple treasures in virtual space. Through systematic application of 3D digitization, Longmen Grottoes has pioneered a complete workflow for the virtual reconstruction of dispersed heritage, achieving digital reintegration of fragmented statues. At Dunhuang, a newly launched "digital cave library" has assembled 9,900 scrolls and over 60,000 images of sutras and paintings -- many once scattered abroad -- into one publicly accessible platform. China's international collaborations in cave temple conservation -- including the restoration of Cambodia's Angkor Wat temples, Dunhuang's Belt and Road partnerships and a China-Italy stone conservation lab -- have substantially boosted its global influence in heritage preservation. "We're looking forward to pooling global expertise through extensive exchanges and in-depth cooperation to better safeguard cave temples as shared treasures of human civilization," Xie said. CHRISTIAN COUNTY, Ky. (WKRN) An investigation involving multiple law enforcement agencies in Kentucky led to the arrests of two juveniles, as well as the recovery of three stolen vehicles and two firearms. According to the Christian County Sheriffs Office, deputies responded to a report of a stolen vehicle along Flowers Road around 7 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 17. The vehicle was found crashed and abandoned in a ditch in front of the victims home. While authorities canvassed the area, witnesses reported seeing two people walking early that morning. Officials said security footage from a nearby residence confirmed two minors were in the area around the time of the incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Man shot dead after entering Monroe County home, police say Over the course of the investigation, law enforcement said a nearby homeowner reported an unfamiliar Ford Taurus parked in a field. Deputies went to the location and discovered the abandoned vehicle, which had been reported stolen out of LaRue County earlier that day. While the Christian County Sheriffs Office gathered more info, the Marshall County Sheriffs Office contacted the Hopkinsville-Christian County Emergency Communications Center to say two juveniles had been found in possession of a stolen vehicle and two stolen handguns. According to authorities, the Marshall County Sheriffs Office and the Benton Police Department verified the two minors matched the individuals seen in the Christian County security footage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DEA agents uncover torture chamber, buried drugs and bones at Kentucky home Thanks to the coordinated efforts of the Christian County, Marshall County, and LaRue County Sheriffs Offices and Benton Police Departmentalong with assistance from alert residents and timely access to surveillance footagemultiple crimes were linked, key evidence was recovered, and suspects were quickly identified, the Christian County Sheriffs Office wrote on social media on Friday, Aug. 22. The Christian County Sheriffs Office said the juveniles were charged with theft of a firearm by unlawful taking, two counts of theft of a motor vehicle, and first-degree criminal mischief. However, additional charges are pending from the Marshall County Sheriffs Office and the LaRue County Sheriffs Office. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. GLENVILLE, W.Va. (WBOY) The West Virginia Department of Education is still enforcing its vaccine requirementsdespite an executive order by Gov. Patrick Morrisey to allow exemptionsbut two students in Gilmer County are attending school even though they have not been fully immunized. Gilmer County Schools clarified in a Facebook post Friday that two current students are not compliant with the immunization requirements because the case is still in court. Those students were granted an injunction to attend school until the case has been settled. Only those two students in Gilmer County, along with a few others in other West Virginia school districts, have been granted the exemption. Gilmer County Schools will continue to implement the immunization law for all other students and as directed by the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Schools, unless the immunization law is amended by the Legislature or if otherwise directed by the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, the State Superintendent of Schools, or the State Board of Education, the post from Gilmer County Schools said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The district did not specify what schools those two exempt students attend. Viral disease spotted in West Virginia deer Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia re-filed a lawsuit against an executive order from Gov. Morrisey that also calls for vaccine exemptions for students. The lawsuit claims that Morriseys order goes beyond his authority as governor. The ACLU-WV also asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent non-immunized students from returning to classrooms during the court process. The West Virginia Legislature rejected a bill earlier this year that would have weakened vaccine requirements in West Virginia public schools by allowing exceptions based on religious or moral believes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. 2 Years After Turning to TikTok for Medical Answers, 26-Year-Old Musician Shares His Terminal Diagnosis (Exclusive) NEED TO KNOW Mikey Stone noticed a faint tightness in his left foot in the summer of 2022 His helath steadily declined, and though doctors had no answers, he eventually needed forearm crutches to stay upright Desperate for answers, Stone turned to TikTok to share his symptoms and found a wash of support and direction from the internet Mikey Stone sat on his bed, clutching a stuffed hedgehog, his voice trembling. If anyone out there is going through something like this, please let me know, he whispered into his phone. He posted the clip on TikTok, expecting maybe a handful of replies. But by morning, the video had exploded millions of views, thousands of comments and messages from strangers across the globe. For the first time in a long while, he didnt feel alone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The response was a stark contrast to the years before, when life had been vivid and full of possibility. Stone remembers those days as a kaleidoscope of experiences, a time when everything felt full of color. At 18, he left his hometown of Crane, Texas, for Austin to study audio engineering at The Recording Conservatory of Austin, fully immersing himself in the citys electric music scene. He produced tracks, played show after show and even walked the runway for friends in fashion. For four years, life moved in a blur late nights in the studio, crowded industry events and lazy afternoons with friends. I saw no limits, Stone, now 26, tells PEOPLE exclusively. I thought I was just going to keep going like that forever. The world was so exciting. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone in the recording studio Mikey Stone in the recording studio Yet, as exhilarating as those years were, the endless pace eventually caught up with him. By summer 2022, life of constant motion began to feel unsustainable. He found himself in Colorado Springs, Co. serving tables by day while keeping his music alive by night. Initially, the double shifts felt like a natural challenge. But soon, a faint tightness crept into his left foot. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At first, it was easy to dismiss; he was tired. But the tightness didnt fade, and everyday movements became harder. Bending his foot was a struggle, and he began tripping over rugs at work. Even his doctor chalked it up to overwork. Yet when he visited friends in Los Angeles, Cailf., that September, the subtle changes became impossible to ignore: they noticed his gait was off, and he looked thinner, almost fragile. Stone laughed it off as a glow-up back in Colorado, but deep down, he knew something was changing. I started walking like a pirate on a peg leg, he says. Embarrassed, he quit his job, and for the first time, a chilling thought crept in: Something is wrong. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone on a hike Mikey Stone on a hike Things escalated weeks later at a friends birthday in Austin when he suddenly felt feverish and foggy, as if stuck in a dream. Stabbing stomach pain landed him in the emergency room, where doctors blamed COVID-19. But the pain only intensified, and it became increasingly clear that rest and reassurance wouldnt be enough. He called his mom, who drove three hours from their hometown to get him. The fear in his chest grew something inside him was seriously wrong, and yet the answers seemed always just out of reach. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The next morning, I couldnt take it anymore," he recalls. "At urgent care, I blurted out, I think I have a blocked intestine. I dont know why I said it, it just came out. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone in his recording studio Mikey Stone in his recording studio Initially, the hospital doctor considered sending him home. But Stone insisted on further testing. Finally, they agreed to a CAT scan just in case. Minutes later, the doctor burst in: Were calling an ambulance. You have an intussusception, he recalls. His intestine had folded in on itself, cutting off blood flow and threatening his life. It was an extreme medical emergency, and immediate intervention was crucial. From there, he spent a week in the hospital, unable to eat and steadily losing weight. On the seventh day, his intestine finally relaxed on its own, only for the problem to strike again the next day. Another ambulance. Another week in the hospital. During that second stay, a routine reflex test caused his leg to jerk violently, prompting a full spinal MRI. Shockingly, the scan came back clear. He was sent home again, but the heaviness in his legs only grew, a troubling persistence that hinted this was more than just post-hospital weakness. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I told myself it was just because Id been in the hospital for two weeks, he says. But I never got that strength back. It wasnt until a follow-up appointment that a doctor finally said: Something bigger is going on. Something dangerous. You need a larger medical center. 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. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone with his keyboard Mikey Stone with his keyboard So, Stone and his mom embarked on a two-and-a-half-year road trip across the country in search of answers. The journey was grueling, both physically and emotionally, as his symptoms gradually worsened: stiffness crept up his left arm, followed by increasing weakness throughout his body. Each inconclusive result deepened frustration; each test a reminder that clarity remained elusive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement By the time he reached a geneticist at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, he was relying on forearm crutches just to stay upright. The doctor suspected a serious, possibly genetic condition and recommended whole genome sequencing the most comprehensive DNA test available. The catch: results would take six months. Despite the long wait, Stone agreed, hoping for clarity. While waiting, back home, his condition continued to deteriorate. He upgraded from a cane to a walker and began neurological rehabilitation, doing everything he could to regain strength. I didnt know if it would help, but I was grasping at straws, he says. It was during this time that Stone began posting his first TikTok videos reaching out for advice, searching for someone who could relate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His posts quickly gained attention, and for the first time, he felt seen, a small but meaningful validation amid uncertainty. I couldve given up right then, but the universe or whatever had other plans, he says. A lot of people came into my life suddenly, and theyve become a huge part of my support system. They continue to help me through my day. That was when my attitude really shifted, he continues. I realized Im stronger than I think, and, most importantly, Im not alone. That was the lowest point, but connecting with people pulled me out of it. It motivated me to get out of bed, kept me going connection is so powerful. Months passed, and finally, the genetic results came back. But instead of answers, Stone was met with frustration: nothing significant was found. The doctor recommended one last step: a custom genetic panel, carefully designed to analyze 902 genes that might explain his symptoms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While waiting, his condition worsened, landing him back in the hospital. It was there that ALS amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was mentioned for the first time, though the neurologist quickly dismissed it. Youre too young, they said. At the time, Stone didnt even know what ALS was. When the custom panel eventually returned, it revealed a mutation in his SLC1A2 gene, which affects the glutamate transporter. Mutations in this gene can lead to epilepsy, Alzheimers, ALS and balance problems. For Stone, who had lived with epilepsy since age two, the finding was a crucial piece of the puzzle, helping him start connecting the dots. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone at the doctors Mikey Stone at the doctors But despite the insight, he spent nearly the next year in medical limbo uncertain, undiagnosed and searching for answers. During that time, he continued documenting his journey on social media, keeping his 300,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 140,000 followers on Instagram updated. Eventually, he moved back to Austin to regain independence and be near family and friends, where he began seeing an epileptologist for regular check-ins. It was during one of these appointments that his doctor noticed something unusual: Stone couldnt squeeze his left hand. He was referred to an ALS neuromuscular specialist and scheduled for an EMG, a rigorous nerve and muscle assessment. Midway through the test, as needles were inserted into his left side, the doctor and technician exchanged a concerned glance. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone on his crutches Mikey Stone on his crutches Four days later, Stone returned with his mom for the results. This time, the diagnosis was definitive: ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing muscle weakness and loss of control. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While treatments are limited, early intervention can sometimes slow progression. Stone enrolled in a multidisciplinary ALS clinic for ongoing monitoring, but the reality hadnt fully sunk in. That began to change when he started having trouble breathing particularly when lying flat. He went to his GP, who referred him to a pulmonologist. I told him, Yeah, I was technically diagnosed with ALS, and he said, Okay, we need to do a pulmonary function test like now,' Stone recalls. At the hospital, the test revealed his diaphragm was very weak, explaining why he had difficulty breathing while lying down. He was started on non-invasive ventilation and received his ventilator in March. Thats when it really started hitting me. I thought, This is scary. This is getting a little too real, he adds. It's crazy I spent two years trying to get a diagnosis, documenting everything, and then ended up with one of the worst diseases on the planet, Stone continues. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yet leaving the office that day, he felt a strange sense of calm. My body had been in fight-or-flight mode for years, just trying to find answers. Finally, clarity. The question became: What do I do with it? He laughs at the memory but the next step came naturally: sharing the news with the people who had been with him from the beginning. It felt so crazy to go on TikTok and say, Guys, weve come full circle. After three years of all this, I was finally diagnosed with ALS, he recalls. I said there was nothing I could do to change that, but now we can move forward and raise awareness. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone in his power wheelchair Mikey Stone in his power wheelchair The response online was overwhelming. Followers who had been with him since his earliest TikToks flooded his inbox with messages of love and support. Many said they felt relief that he finally had an answer, even if it wasnt the one they had hoped for. The feeling was mutual, Stone says. I was relieved to have answers just not these answers. But for him, sharing openly was never just about updates it was about connection. Its the humanity of it all, he says. I want to be raw with people. I want to show every aspect of it, because in return, I see it inspire people to show their true, authentic selves. With his diagnosis, Stone has made it his mission to raise awareness about ALS, a disease still shrouded in mystery. Most days, he creates videos, volunteers, connects with associations and reaches out to others living with the disease. I can predict exactly whats going to happen to me, but I still have choices," he says. "I realized I can use this for good, help other people, and bring awareness to a disease thats severely underfunded and hardly talked about. I truly think thats my purpose in this life, he adds. I want the entire world to know about ALS. Its so devastating, and yet there are still so many question marks. Scientists, researchers, doctors they dont even really know how ALS happens. Thats why awareness matters. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone smiles at the camera Mikey Stone smiles at the camera Even as he pours himself into advocacy and navigates the daily challenges of ALS, Stone searches for moments of normalcy. Though he now spends most of his time in a wheelchair, with his left hand frozen into a claw-like shape and his ability to play guitar lost, he refuses to stop creating music. Early on, he recorded two hours of his voice to build an AI-powered voice clone, ensuring that when his speech eventually fades, his words will still sound like him. Now, hes collaborating with an eye-gaze device specialist to attempt something unprecedented: making music using only his eyes. Its strange because I have a 100% fatal disease, but more than ever, I feel like Im actually living," he says. "Im fully present. Everything feels slower, and I can truly get the most out of my days. Which is kind of wild. I think now more than ever, I notice the moments in between really paying attention to them," he adds. "Its about the seconds in between the seconds. Everything used to move so fast another gig, another booking, another show. Now its still. Calm." Most recently, a little over two months ago, the ALS Association reached out with an idea that instantly lit a spark: connecting him with Frankie Torres, a contestant from Season 26 of The Voice on Team Reba, who had lost her father to ALS. They would write a song together for the 2025 ALS NEXUS Convention in Dallas, Texas one perspective from Stone, living with ALS, and the other from Torres, grieving her father. Stone didn't hesitate for a single moment.I said yes before they could even finish the sentence, he says. Mikey Stone Mikey Stone in his wheelchair Mikey Stone in his wheelchair Their first FaceTime call sparked an instant connection. They brainstormed the song, initially planning it to be hopeful and uplifting. But after a particularly difficult day, Stone shared raw journal entries detailing the weight of living with ALS. Those words transformed the song into something honest and unflinching. Over the next weeks, they recorded the track together. A month and a half after their first conversation, the song was complete. Its world debut came at the ALS NEXUS Convention in Dallas during the Heroes Awards Dinner, honoring those making a lasting impact in the ALS community. Stone performed live from his wheelchair alongside Torres and other Team Reba contestants, filling the room with emotion and love. "The song is called Losing to the Letters, but it is not about defeat," Stone says. "It is a tribute to every single person affected by ALS. It may feel like we are losing to the letters, but I hope that through advocacy and by pushing for more funding, we can inspire more research and clinical trials that will one day make ALS livable and eventually lead to a cure. I believe with everything in me that day will come. If not in my lifetime, then in the lifetime of someone after me." "Being 26 years old and living with ALS has taught me a great deal about hope," he adds. "It is easy to let anxiety and fear pull you under when you are faced with a terminal diagnosis, but through this song, I hope people will stand together and know they are never alone." Read the original article on People NEED TO KNOW Human bodies in "various stages of decomposition were found hidden behind a concealed door at a Colorado funeral home, authorities have confirmed "20 or so bodies" which could have been there for "15 years" were found at David Mortuary in Pueblo, Colorado Appointed Designee of the funeral home Brain Cotter admitted to inspectors that he may have "given next-of-kin fake remains" Human bodies, "In various stages of decomposition," have been discovered at a funeral home in Colorado. On Thursday, Aug. 21, authorities confirmed that remains had been found in Davis Mortuary in Pueblo during an inspection the day before. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) Division of Professions and Occupations recently conducted an annual inspection at Davis Mortuary, located at 128 Broadway Ave in Pueblo, a release by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) read. As a result of that inspection, Davis Mortuary has been issued a summary suspension. Authorities added, During the inspection, authorities reported finding several bodies in various stages of decomposition. The appointed designee for the funeral home, Brian Cotter, told inspectors that some of the bodies had been awaiting cremation for approximately 15 years. He also admitted that he may have given next-of-kin fake cremains, the statement continued. During a press conference on Thursday, shared by Pueblo County Sheriffs Office on Facebook, Sam Delp, the division director for the Colorado Department's Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO), said inspectors said they found "around 20 or so" bodies. Google Maps Davis Mortuary in Pueblo Colorado Davis Mortuary in Pueblo Colorado He also confirmed the inspection had been Davis Mortuarys first. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement PEOPLE has contacted the Davis Mortuary, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies for further comment but did not immeditaley hear back. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The bodies were allegedly found behind a door after the funeral home owner, Brian Cotter, told the inspectors not to go inside a room that had been covered by a cardboard display, according to ABC News. Inspectors claimed they smelt a strong odor of decomposition," according to the outlet. Pueblo County Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter "Upon removing the cardboard display, Mr. Cotter asked the inspectors not to enter the room behind the previously hidden door, a spokesperson told CBS News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An official from the CBI said in Thursday's conference that they were working to identify all the victims and contact their families. "No formal charges have been filed at this time," Pueblo County District Attorney Kala Beauvais, stated, adding that the investigation would be conducted by multiple agencies and won't be "rushed. It's gonna' be long, it's gonna' be tedious and it's gonna be thorough." Sheriff Lucero also said at the conference that Cotter's brother is believed to be listed as a co-owner of the funeral home. In another press release on behalf of the Twelfth Judicial District Attorney's Office, the CBI wrote, On August 18, 2025, the District Attorneys Office responded to a citizen email reporting the discovery of human remains on his property located in the Wild Horse Mesa community in Costilla County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The victim has not been identified at this time, they continued. Efforts are underway to determine the identity of the deceased individual and the circumstances surrounding their death. Officials added, Further information will be released as it becomes available. The District Attorneys Office continues to encourage citizens of Costilla County to bring their concerns to the District Attorneys Office. The investigation remains ongoing. Read the original article on People LAS VEGAS (KLAS) In a Thursday press conference, Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley addressed Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardos decision to authorize the Nevada National Guard to help with immigration operations. According to the mayor, Lombardo told her 25 soldiers are helping in Las Vegas, while five soldiers are in the Reno area. The mayor said her immediate response to hearing the news earlier this month was to reach out to Lombardo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I called the governor to say, Whats going on here, she said. The governor assured her the work is clerical. As long as it stays that way, it is what it is, the mayor said. Theres nothing I can do about it. The initial statement from the governors office said the soldiers would not be directly in contact with detainees but would be more focused on logistical support, such as filling out forms and answering calls. The statement also announced up to 35 of the approximately 4,500 Nevada guardsmen would be dedicated to this specific assignment, calling it a mere fraction. The governors office said that the members assisting with immigration enforcement are volunteers who are demonstrating their readiness to serve. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Their assignment is scheduled to last through Nov. 15. As of July, the U.S. Department of Defense requested National Guard assistance in 20 states, including Nevada. In December, the governor signed onto a letter with other Republican governors signaling his support of the then-president-elects immigration enforcement policies. In March, Lombardo told 8 News Now he supported the policy of [removing] the worst of the worst, implying the targeting of known criminals in the country illegally. Berkley has previously said the issue of immigration enforcement is sensitive to her, citing her identity as a second-generation American. Thursday, the mayor said she shares a different opinion from the current administrations policies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think they have shown and demonstrated that they dont care much what local government thinks about this, the mayor said. When asked if there was any update on the states sanctuary designation from the federal government, she said she hasnt heard a word. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Amid a year of significant transformation, a new wave of Zionist leadership is coming to the forefront. The Jerusalem Post and Jewish National Fund-USA are proud to recognize their impact. For the State of Israel and the Jewish people, 2025 has been a rollercoaster ride of heroism and great accomplishment mixed with tragedy and struggles. Yet despite the challenges, a new and promising generation of young, brash, and talented Zionist leaders is emerging. From social media influencers to academics, from college students to politicians, many who have never described their feelings or support for Israel have emerged as proud Zionists. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With the new generation of Jewish leaders in mind, for the third consecutive year, Jewish National Fund-USA and the Jerusalem Post are celebrating the next generation of ViZionaries the 25 most influential Zionists under 45. These visionary, bold, and creative young leaders are trailblazers in their fields, influential voices in their communities, who proudly and publicly stand with the land and people of Israel. Our generation is at a crossroads, said JNFuture President Ian Sachs. Now is our moment. We must take our seat at the table, be part of our peoples decision-making process, and celebrate those who are contributing to a positive future for our land and people. Im proud that Jewish National Fund-USA not only encourages young professionals to be part of their leadership teams and committees they mandate it. Despite the challenges we face, I feel confident that our best days are yet to come as shown by this years Vizionaries list. How to submit a name Nominations can be submitted here until Tuesday, September 10 at 11:59 US EDT. Eligible candidates include Zionists Jews and those beyond the Jewish faith from around the world who are under age 45. Last year's winners can be viewed at jpost.com/influencers/visionaries. Who should make the list? Help us choose. Written in collaboration with JNF-USA BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) Three people were arrested on Monday at the Buffalo Niagara Airport after they allegedly smuggled over 200 pounds of marijuana across state lines, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) announced. Alberto Capo Medina, 43, Rene Cintron, III, 46, and Jose Alberto Echevarria, 46, all of the U.S., flew on United Airlines from San Francisco to Washington and then landed at the Buffalo Niagara Airport. An NFTA K9 did an open-air sniff of the luggage and alerted to nine suitcases belonging to Medina, Echevarria and Cintron, which contained 238 vacuum sealed bags of 238 pounds of marijuana, NFTA police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bags were loaded onto the carousel, where the three reportedly took the luggage and tried to flee. Medina, Echevarria and Cintron were taken into custody and charged with first-degree criminal possession of cannabis. Latest Local News Katie Skoog joined the News 4 team in April 2024. She is a graduate from the University at Buffalo. You can view more of her work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) Three children were arrested Thursday in connection with the incident at the Howell Community Park pool on July 20. The children who are 10, 11, and 12 years old were charged with unauthorized entry of a business. The Baton Rouge Police Department said they are siblings. They were released to the custody of their parent, pending their court date. On the date of the incident, a report was made by BREC, which stated that multiple juveniles jumped a fence at the pool with guns in hand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An investigation by BRPD included looking through video, which showed the armed juveniles. BRPD said there appeared to be two guns. A fourth 7-year-old child was seen in the video. Police spoke with the parent of the children who were arrested in this case. BRPD learned that the guns were actually BB guns that were made to look real. Police said the children had painted the orange tips black. The Howell Community Park pool remains closed. 1 hurt after vehicle shot at on Cedar Point Boulevard in Baton Rouge Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. UNICOI COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) Three Unicoi County companies that were devastated by Hurricane Helene will receive grants to help retain and retrain employees. The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) announced on Friday that the grants total more than $4 million in funding, and each of the three companies will receive at least $1 million to help them keep employees. The grants will also allow the companies to retrain employees who were terminated because of damage to their companys facilities. The three companies receiving grant funding are Foam Products, PlastiExports and PolyPipe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement TNECD Commissioner Stuart McWhorter made the announcement at the Riverview Industrial Park in Erwin on Friday morning. The park experienced widespread destruction when the Nolichucky River rose to record levels due to the hurricane in September 2024. McWhorter said the department had to get creative in finding ways to provide financial assistance. We had just never had such a unique situation present itself that way because if we had just looked at it on the face of what it was, we would have said, We cant do anything for you.' Instead, the TNECD was able to secure funding by focusing on employee retention and retraining. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They werent really adding jobs, McWhorter said. Its retaining what they have, and it was really important for us to listen to the companies and what they needed, and we went back and spoke to the governor, and he said, you know, Lets lets be creative and lets figure out a way to help.' Tennessee Governor Bill Lee issued a statement in a TNECD news release, saying the state hoped the grants would help the area recover. Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented disaster for our state, and one year later, many Tennesseans remain forever changed by the loss of life and severe flood damage, Lee said. Im proud to announce recovery grants for three Unicoi County companies, which will not only help businesses rebuild and restore operations but also provide job security and strengthen the local economy. Im confident these grants will create lasting relief and renewed opportunity for families and business in the region. According to TNECD, the investment in the three companies will collectively retain 166 jobs. The three companies combined represent a capital investment of $38.9 million, McWhorter said on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Representatives of the three companies were present Friday and expressed their gratitude. This grant is more than funding, said Michael Fick of PolyPipe. Its a lifeline to rebuild. Its a lifeline to recover. What I want is for the families who have kids who attend school here in Unicoi County, I want those same parents to get to work in Unicoi County so theyre not an hour away if their kid needs to be picked up from school, said PlastiExports partner JP Metcalf. Our greatest assets are our employees and who are also part owners of the company, and this grant allows us to support those employees and continue to grow in this community, said Perry Muse, vice president of manufacturing and general manager of Foam Products. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to McWhorter, the companies themselves are investing roughly 10 times the amount of grant money to rebuild. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Seventeen states just flipped the switch on student cell phone restrictions, making this school year the most restrictive for classroom devices in U.S. history. This policy expansion now affects families across 35 states and D.C. What started as Floridas 2023 experiment has become a rapidly spreading education policy shift, forcing millions of parents to rethink their familys digital safety net. Similar restrictions are emerging globally, as Australia recently passed the worlds first social media ban for under-16s. The New Classroom Reality The restrictions arent uniform. Eighteen states and D.C. enforce all-day bans, meaning your teens phone stays locked away from first bell to dismissal. Georgia and Florida use bell-to-bell rules for younger students but give high schoolers breathing room during lunch. Seven states only restrict classroom use, letting students check messages between periods. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 77% of public schools already prohibited phones during instruction, but these new laws mandate consistency across entire states. Storage Solutions Meet Reality Schools are getting creative with compliance. Some districts invested in magnetic locking pouches that students carry but cant open until dismissallike carrying a sealed envelope all day. Others require morning phone surrender to locked storage units. Classroom enforcement falls to teachers whove already juggled enough responsibilities, though administrators report that student pushback has gradually eased as the policies normalize into routine. These changes reflect broader shifts in how cutting-edge technologies integrate into daily educational environments. The Parent Emergency Paradox Heres where policy meets parental anxiety. While educators celebrate calmer classrooms and fewer discipline referrals, 78% of parents still want their children to have phone access during emergencies. With 53 percent of school leaders reporting negative impacts of cell phone use on academic performance, and even more citing negative impacts on students mental health and attention spans, schools are facing a critical issue, says NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yet parents remember school safety concerns and wonder about the communication gap these policies create. The early results tell a complex story. Teachers in Marietta, Georgia, noticed more student-to-student interaction and fewer classroom disruptions after their districts ban took effect. Students initially missed their musical concentration aids and social media check-ins, but adaptation followed. For families seeking educational technology alternatives, AI apps can provide learning tools that align with school policies. As Florida Rep. Brad Yeager puts it: You dont just want to yank it from them. Try to educate them on the dangers. Your familys tech rules just got a state-mandated update, whether you requested it or not. The question isnt whether this trend continuesits how youll navigate emergency communication and digital citizenship in this new landscape. YANGON, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar authorities have seized 37.1 kg of heroin in eastern Shan state, the state-owned daily Myanma Alinn reported on Friday. Acting on a tip-off, anti-narcotics police searched a vehicle in Tangyang township in Shan state on Aug. 18, and seized the narcotics, the report said. The confiscated narcotics are worth over 556 million kyats (about 264,761 U.S. dollars), and three suspects were arrested in connection with the case, it said. The suspects were charged under the country's law, it added. NEED TO KNOW On Monday, Aug. 18, the Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District responded to a tractor-trailer fire on Route 174 in Missouri The vehicle was transporting 40,000-Lbs. of ribeye steak when the blaze was sparked Unfortunately, they are all a total loss," the fire department said of the meat in a Facebook post At least 40,000-Lbs. of ribeye steaks were scorched when the vehicle transporting them went up in flames in Missouri. On the morning of Monday, Aug. 18, the Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District responded to reports of a tractor-trailer fire on Route 174 eastbound, the fire department said in a Facebook post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Footage from the scene shows the vehicle fully engulfed in flames after pulling over to the side of the highway. Firefighters rushed to put out the blaze before it could spread. The trailer was packed with 40,000 pounds of ribeye steaks, the Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District wrote on Facebook. Unfortunately, they are all a total loss. 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. Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District Firefighters responding to tractor-trailer fire Firefighters responding to tractor-trailer fire The Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District revealed that the incident was probationary firefighter Jenna Ulrichs first fire and that she tackled it alongside her firefighter father, Glenn Ulrich. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire department shared a photo of Jenna using a hose to fight the huge blaze. Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District Tractor-trailer fire Tractor-trailer fire Nothing says welcome to the fire service like sending the probie to put out 40,000 pounds of flaming ribeye! the Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District captioned the photo on Facebook. Probationary Firefighter Jenna Ulrich is the only vegan on our department so naturally, her very first fire involved a tractor-trailer carrying 40,000 pounds of ribeye steak , the caption concluded. Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District Firefighters responding to tractor-trailer fire Firefighters responding to tractor-trailer fire Fire Chief Brandon Williams spoke about the possible cause of the fire in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. "After a brief investigation, we believe that the tractor-trailer blew a tire and the driver continued driving on it until the tire caught fire," Williams said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire department confirmed it was their eighth vehicle fire in just three weeks. Both eastbound lanes of the highway had to be closed while the fire was being put out, ABC News and USA Today reported. No injuries were reported following the incident. The Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment on Friday, Aug. 22. Read the original article on People A $40 million affordable 80-unit housing community for veterans and their families called Valor Pointe has opened in Middlesex County. The development on Cranbury Half Acre Road in Monroe Township includes a computer lab and smart card laundry center. Valor Pointe has already leased more than half of its units to military veterans since opening on July 31, according to a statement from Conifer Realty. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of the 80 apartments, 37 will be dedicated specifically to veterans. The 43 remaining apartments at Valor Pointe will have a waitlist with a preference for veterans. Community room. Valor Pointe, a new affordable apartment complex where some apartments are leased to military veterans and their families is now opened on Cranbury Half Acre Road in Mo Monday, August 11, 2025. Monday, August 11, 2025. Small pets are welcome, but restrictions apply. The project, a collaboration between Conifer Realty and the People for People Foundation, aims to provide veterans with high-quality, affordable housing options in a supportive community setting. The development offers 1-, 2- and 3- bedroom apartments with patios or balconies, and ample closet space. Community facilities also include a fitness center and a great room for social gatherings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The building incorporates green features such as energy-efficient appliances and fixtures to help maintain affordable living costs for residents. The propertys location is near shops, restaurants, banks, and public transportation. The development was funded through the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, Monroe Township, and Redstone. We are deeply grateful for their service and remain committed to supporting them. Were proud to have affordable housing for veterans and their families at Valor Pointe, Mayor Stephen Dalina said in a statement. Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story, which was reviewed and edited by NJ Advance Media staff. Democrats are alienating Americans by their use of tortured language and should stop using 45 words and phrases including patriarchy and privilege, according to a memo obtained by Politico. For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying, the memo says. While Democrats intentions are good, The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The memo was published on the website of Third Way, a nonprofit organization that describes itself as a center-left think tank that champions moderate policy and political ideas. We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like theyre leading a seminar at Antioch, Third Ways executive vice president of public affairs, Matt Bennett, told Politico. We think language is one of the central problems we face with normie voters, signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think and talk. The memo says the alienating words and phrases fall into six categories: Therapy speak includes words like privilege, dialoguing, othering, microaggression and body shaming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Seminar room language includes critical theory, systems of oppression, Overton window, cultural appropriation and existential threat, whether to climate, the planet or democracy. Organizer jargon includes stakeholders, the unhoused, barriers to participation, food insecurity and person who immigrated (as opposed to immigrant). Gender and orientation correctness includes words and phrases such as birthing person, heteronormative, cisgender, deadnaming and LGBTQIA+. The shifting language of racial constructs includes labels such as Latinx and BIPOC, and the words allyship, intersectionality and minoritized communities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The final category, explaining away crime, includes the words justice-involved, incarcerated people and involuntary confinement. The memo comes at a time when Democrats are engaged in party-wide soul-searching over how they lost the White House to Donald Trump two times. While some efforts focus on how to win back young men who voted for Trump, others involve cursing more in an effort to convey authenticity. Longtime strategist James Carville has been sharply critical of the party in recent months, and recently told Jesse Watters on Fox News, I want somebody to talk in clear definitive language and communicate with people in a simple elegant way and thats what the Democratic Party needs. He has also told Jen Psaki on MSNBC that Democrats need to stop using that idiotic NPR jargon when talking to voters. The memo, published Aug. 22, seems to codify the sort of things that Carville has been saying. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The authors, who are not identified, admit that they have used some of this language in their writing in the past, but said that when policymakers are public-facing, the language we use must invite, not repel; start a conversation, not end it; provide clarity, not confusion. For a sizable segment of the American public, the 45 words and phrases are a red flag, the authors said. Before you draft your angry tweet thread, think about conversations with persuadable voters in your own life especially friends, family, and co-workers and consider whether the use of the language above would help or hurt your case." LA VERGNE, Tenn. (WKRN) The La Vergne Police Department said three adults and one child were inside a home when shots rang out over the weekend on Stoneridge Parkway near Summer Hill Lane. Now, police are trying to figure out who opened fire and why. PREVIOUS | Police investigating after shots fired into La Vergne home Neighbors in the area are now fearful after police recovered 52 casings of various calibers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I woke up startled, shocked, not expecting to be woken up, one neighbor said. I thought it was outside my house, but it was a few houses back up the road. Thursday, News 2 spoke to a neighbor who wished to remain anonymous due to concerns about safety and potential retaliation. Scared because I dont know if theyre going to come back; thats what Im really worried about, she said. Many neighbors expressed concerns about the shooting, calling it a terrifying experience. Ive lived here since I was a baby; nothing like this has happened, a neighbor said. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com La Vergne police said detectives have been investigating since early Monday morning and are working to find the people responsible. Neighbors said its incredible no one got hit, and theyre counting their blessings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anyone with information or video footage that may help the investigation can contact the La Vergne Police Department at 615-793-7744. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. A rendering shows a likely design of the new Interstate 55 bridge that will replace an existing 75-year-old bridge next to two railroad bridges. (Photo courtesy of Tennessee Department of Transportation) EDITORS NOTE: There will be no public hearings in November on this project. An earlier version of this story relied on outdated information on the TDOT website. A long-planned new Interstate 55 bridge connecting Arkansas and Tennessee will be known as Kings Crossing, officials from the two states announced this week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new name honors three transformative figures known as Kings' civil rights martyr Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., bluesman B.B. King and rocknroll star Elvis Presley, according to a press release from the Arkansas Department of Transportation. The project had been named Americas River Crossing, according to previous news releases. The Arkansas Highway Commission and Tennessee General Assembly officially adopted the new moniker. The bridge will replace the existing 75-year-old Memphis-Arkansas Bridge that carries I-55 traffic between West Memphis and Memphis. The new bridge is being funded by $400 million from the federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program and $200 million each from Arkansas and Tennessee, making it the single largest transportation investment in both states, according to the press release. The narrow existing bridge will be replaced with a larger structure designed to meet modern seismic codes, as it sits on the New Madrid fault line, officials said. Its only fitting to name this vital crossing after three historic figures from this region, said ARDOT Director Jared Wiley. It truly is the result of a regional effort that will benefit industry across this national corridor and the thousands of individuals who depend on this connection each day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Will Reid said Kings Crossing is a symbol of our collective history, heritage, and the enduring spirit of unity that defines this region. Naming this bridge in honor of these gentlemen pays tribute to their extraordinary legacies individuals who transcended barriers, fostered cultural exchange, and used their talents to build bridges between people. The Federal Highway Administration has approved a draft environmental assessment for the project, according to TDOTs website. Design is underway, and right-of-way coordination should begin later this year, according to ARDOTs press release. Construction is estimated to start in fiscal year 2026. For more information about the proposed project, visit TDOTs website. MALONE, N.Y. (ABC22/FOX44) Airplane and helicopter rides will come back to the North Countrys Malone-Dufort Airport this weekend. The annual two-day Fly-In Festival will be held this weekend on Saturday and Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Admission is just $5 for adults kids free though flying will cost extra, wrote the Malone Chamber of Commerce on social media. The Fly-In Festival gives locals and tourists the chance to take short trips in planes and helicopters along with regular festival attractions. (Courtesy: Billy Jones via FB) Four bands will play at the event, with rock performances by Last Call and Foolish Pride on Saturday, with Celtic music from Friends Union and classic country from Busco Bandits on Sunday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SUNY Plattsburgh student services funded for next five years Food trucks, vendors, and law enforcement will also have booths at the event, and there will be a bounce house and more for kids. Prices at last years festival were $25 for riding in a small plane, and $45 for riding in a helicopter, though this years prices have not been confirmed. The Fly-In Festival was first held at Franklin Countys general-aviation Malone-Dufort Airport in September 2021 and has come back every late summer since. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44. NEED TO KNOW Six people, including a high school student, died following an accident at a Colorado dairy farm The Southeast Weld Fire Protection District announced that six bodies were recovered from Prospect Valley Dairy in Keenesburg on Aug. 20 Officials are investigating the cause of the deaths and believe they might be attributed to lethal gas exposure Six people, including a local high schooler, were found dead at a Colorado dairy farm, and officials are now investigating the deaths as a possible result of gas exposure. On Wednesday, Aug. 20, around 6 p.m. local time, the Southeast Weld Fire Protection District responded to Prospect Valley Dairy on Weld County Road in Keenesburg for what was referred to as a "confined space" rescue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After fire crews "took appropriate precautions to enter the confined space to perform rescue operations," they discovered six people dead, the district shared on Facebook. "The District extends its sincere condolences to the families of the victims," Fire Chief Tom Beach wrote in the statement. NBC News affiliate KUSA of Denver noted that three others were involved in the tragedy but did survive and received treatment at a hospital in nearby Greeley, Colo. Prospect Valley Dairy is located roughly 40 miles from Denver. Deputy chief coroner Jolene Weiner said, per NBC News and The Associated Press, that the deaths are being investigated. They are thought to have been caused by lethal gas exposure in a confined space. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The type of gas has not been confirmed. The victims' identities were being withheld until family's are notified. However, Weiner said that they were all Hispanic males. Weld County School District RE-9 confirmed on Facebook that a Highland High School student was one of the victims, writing that their death has "deeply affected our school district and community." A spokesperson for the Weld County Sheriff's Office directed questions to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Southeast Weld Fire District when contacted by PEOPLE, noting that "nothing criminal in nature has been discovered." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement OSHA is investigating the tragedy, a process that could take up to six months, according to ABC News. A spokesperson for the organization told the outlet that their "thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the workers who lost their lives." The farm itself is a member of the Dairy Farmers of America, which said in a statement shared with AP that it was "deeply saddened by this incident," adding, "At this early stage, we have no further details." PEOPLE reached out to the Southeast Weld Fire Protection District, OSHA, the Dairy Farmers of America and the United States Department of Labor for updates on the case on Friday, Aug. 22. Read the original article on People Debris and destruction from Hurricane Helene is seen on Dec. 23, 2024 in Lake Lure, North Carolina. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images) At the end of July, North Carolina officials awarded Dynamic Group LLC a contract to demolish, repair and rebuild western North Carolina homes that were destroyed by Hurricane Helene. Two years earlier, almost to the day, Dynamic along with its founder and affiliated companies was served federal court papers. In that suit, a Texas business partner is accusing CEO Joshua McCoy of allegedly using the partners company to qualify for million-dollar loans, pay off debts and enrich his spiderweb of LLCs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A complaint filed in Texas federal court in 2023 alleges that McCoys business partner was just the latest in a series of victims of McCoy and his enterprises modus operandi of fiduciary breaches, falsification of financial[s] and embezzlement. The case has been on pause since December 2023, but remains open. Dynamics attorney says the lawsuit is unrelated to Dynamics performance in hurricane recovery efforts. This is a frivolous lawsuit from a petty former business partner who failed to repay a loan from McCoy unrelated to Dynamic, Paul DeClouet, general counsel for Dynamic, said in an emailed statement. The allegations are untrue and are pending a motion to dismiss. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based business is one of 20 that will be paid by the state to rebuild homes after the deadliest storm in North Carolina history. The companies will play a crucial role in a $1.4 billion federal grant program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State officials are aiming to avoid the errors that plagued past recovery efforts. During North Carolinas recovery from Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, errant communications and jumbled accounting led to countless construction delays. Survivors waited years to be able to go home, as the state agency charged with building housing racked up a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. Gov. Josh Steins administration has pledged to chart a more efficient path as it rebuilds from Helene, frequently citing an unprecedented timeline for recovery thus far while it navigates uncertainty from Washington. Dynamic is not the only contractor hired by the state that has landed in court. Other companies have previously settled lawsuits both in and out of court with customers, subcontractors and the federal government, court records reviewed by NC Newsline show. At least five of the companies are still parties to open federal litigation as of mid-August. And two other companies do not currently hold general contractors licenses in the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The businesses are set to enter three-year contracts with North Carolina. State officials can choose to renew each contract for up to three additional years. Companies that submitted bids were required to disclose their history of litigation, including any pending cases. Failure to comply may disqualify the company, according to the state. And officials can reject a bid if the legal history demonstrates unsatisfactory performance, adversarial or contentious demeanor or significant failure(s) to meet contractual obligations. Documents provided upon request to NC Newsline detail the states grading and recommendation process for all bidders. While a vendors litigation history was not a specific criterion used by the divisions selection committee, that factor was indeed a part of the overall review process related to evaluating a given vendors ability to perform. David Rhoades, spokesperson, N.C. Department of Commerce The state received 46 bids in total. Twenty were deemed not eligible, seven others were eliminated after a review of financial documents and one declined the states offer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All 20 contracted companies were graded recommended or highly recommended, with department officials praising their records of past performance, capacity and proposed plans for western North Carolina. Many of them are based in the South, and most are national in scope frequently bidding for significant disaster rebuild contracts across multiple states battered by hurricanes. The businesses levels of experience were frequently cited by state officials as key factors in selecting them. While a vendors litigation history was not a specific criterion used by the divisions selection committee, that factor was indeed a part of the overall review process related to evaluating a given vendors ability to perform, said David Rhoades, spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Commerce, which issued the contracts. Alleged fraud, manufactured home complaints & federal fund claims Multiple companies that won contracts with North Carolina are parties in open federal lawsuits. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McCoy, the CEO of Dynamic, is accused of breaching contract, fraud and civil conspiracy, among other charges, in the Texas case. Drew Zarallo, who founded a solar energy company called Cogent, has alleged in that lawsuit that McCoy used his majority stake in the company to exploit Cogent for the benefit of other companies he owned and/or controlled. Among the specific allegations leveled against McCoy and his company in the action: moving to apply Zarallos company for a $2.5 million bank loan without his knowledge; embezzling that loan to pay down debt for a separate company; impersonating Zarallos wife in emails to contractors; and emptying Cogents main bank account before selling their stake in the company. DeClouet, general counsel for Dynamic, disputes those allegations, saying that Zarallo knew about and ultimately signed for the loan and that it was another business, McCoy Equity Holdings, LLC, and not McCoy, that was in business with Cogent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dynamic is an experienced contractor and is excited to be part of rebuilding homes for North Carolinians, said DeClouet, general counsel for Dynamic, in an email. This years-old lawsuit arises from a commercial dispute in which we are owed significant funds and was fully disclosed in our proposal. Eli Ness, the attorney representing Zarallo, confirmed to NC Newsline that the suit remained open. In a filing last week, he requested a formal update from the court. The case has been effectively frozen for more than a year and a half, after Dynamic and McCoy filed a motion to dismiss it. Dynamic will have the capacity to do repairs, rebuilds and manufactured housing in western North Carolina, DeClouet said. The company has previously won $88 million in contracts for hurricane levees in Louisiana, and in 2022 was tapped as a construction manager for the states federally-funded homebuilding program. State officials marked the company as highly recommended in a memo. Other cases involving contracted companies appear to be nearing resolutions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In one of those cases, two Louisiana residents who purchased a manufactured home from Regional Enterprises LLC allege that there were instantly noticeable issues and defects. They cited uneven and sinking floors, incomplete painting and sheetrock work, faulty electrical work and vegetation growing between the two halves of the home. Attorneys for the Mississippi-based Regional pushed back on many of those complaints, and described them as manufacturer issues (a separate company, also part of the suit, assembled the home). A judge ruled in March that the case should be settled in arbitration. Regional Enterprises LLC did not respond to NC Newslines requests for comment. Two other businesses tapped for North Carolina homebuilding are named in a New York-based suit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A pair of residents, on their own behalf and on behalf of the federal government, sued Baumgardner House Raising LLC and SLSCO, along with New York City agencies. They allege that the companies submitted false claims and received federal funds for home repairs after Hurricane Sandy. Both companies have denied the allegations and previously moved to dismiss the case. Youre going to have people that end up wanting to either complain about the work, or some people run out of money on a project. Then all of a sudden, every issue becomes the contractors issue, even though it may not be a valid complaint. State Republican Sen. Steve Jarvis of Davidson In a statement to NC Newsline, Texas-based SLSCO called the matter a nuisance value case that has been settled (pending approval from the court). Bids from the company always disclose any litigation as required. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president of Baumgardner House Raising, Christian Baumgardner, declined to comment on the lawsuit when reached by phone. But he said the New Jersey-based company was experienced working with federal grant programs, and was hiring western North Carolina-based subcontractors. You dont often hear of hurricanes that cause this type of damage up in mountainous regions, Baumgardner said. So thats going to be a challenge. But the best way that I can think to conquer that is with local knowledge and a team from the area. A storm damaged apartment complex in a landscape scarred by Hurricane Helene on March 24, 2025 near Swannanoa, North Carolina. Communities in western North Carolina continue the recovery process. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Timberline Construction Group of Alabama is also moving toward arbitration in a 2023 suit in which they accused a contractor of unjustly firing them from a temporary housing site in Florida. Timberline did not respond to a request for comment. State Sen. Steve Jarvis (R-Davidson), who is a general contractor by trade, said lawsuits were all but inevitable given the amount of projects some larger contractors take on. And bidders involved in active litigation, he said, should be judged on a case by case basis. Youre going to have people that end up wanting to either complain about the work, or some people run out of money on a project, Jarvis said. Then all of a sudden, every issue becomes the contractors issue, even though it may not be a valid complaint. A last-minute filing to operate in state Two of the companies awarded contracts do not hold active general contracting licenses in North Carolina. Searches for Nexlegacy LLC and Lamar Construction Co. of Louisiana LLC on the database do not return any matching results. A Department of Commerce spreadsheet tracking license info confirms that the two companies do not have active licenses. An employee with Lamar Construction confirmed that the company was currently working to secure its license in North Carolina, and that the company was hiring licensed subcontractors local to the region. Nexlegacys president, Kendrick Whittington, did not respond to a request for comment. While builders were not required to have a North Carolina (general contracting) license in place prior to signing the contract, no builder will be assigned any work nor be paid without having this license in place, Rhoades said. He added that the department has alerted all contractors about the requirement. Nexlegacy was also lacking a certificate to do business in North Carolina until this week, state business records show. The Texas-based company had its certificate of authority revoked in 2021 after failing to file an annual report, according to records kept by the North Carolina Secretary of States office. It submitted its first filing in four years on Wednesday, after NC Newsline inquired about the company on Tuesday. Whittington did not respond to separate requests for comment about the certification status. Contractors were not required to have an active certificate in order to submit a bid, said Rhoades, the Commerce spokesperson. But they are required to get one upon being rewarded a contract and prior to receiving any projects from us. Its not uncommon for out-of-state contractors to not maintain their North Carolina certificates of authority if they are currently not doing business here, Rhoades said. We are reaching out to all the builders to be sure they have a (certificate) prior to signing any scope of work for a specific project. The company filed an application to be re-certified on Wednesday and is now listed as active as of Friday. The secretary of states office has previously advised the state to cross-check vendors with its records while issuing contracts after natural disasters. In a letter to former Gov. Pat McCrory during Hurricane Matthew recovery in 2016, Marshall told his office to emphasize the importance of making sure (local and state governments) check the states business registration database, and work with reputable and appropriately registered contractors. Suits involving contractors lead to settlements, arbitration Many lawsuits involving the awarded companies ended up being dismissed. Almost all of those that did reach a resolution were settled out of court between the two parties, or in arbitration with a neutral mediator. Those complaints included disputes with homeowners, subcontractors and in some cases, state and federal governments that hired the contractors previously. Settlement agreements do not imply guilt or admission of wrongdoing. One of the contractors, Thompson Construction Group of Sumter, S.C., settled with the federal government in March for $191,000. Prosecutors in West Virginia had alleged that the company submitted false claims for federal disaster grant dollars, and falsely certified that homes met required conditions. Thompson was one of four companies named in a West Virginia legislative audit released in 2018, as the states recovery program and contractors came under scrutiny. Thompson later faced complaints from a subcontractor under that same program, but those complaints were disputed by state officials, the Parkersburg News & Sentinel reported in 2019. Also named in that audit was Horne LLP, which is serving as prime contractor for North Carolinas homebuilding program. Mississippi-based Horne is now facing a ban on government contracts in West Virginia, NC Newsline previously reported. Horne has denied any wrongdoing and said it will dispute the states decision. Among the other previous cases and complaints brought against contractors hired for homebuilding in North Carolina: Regional Enterprises LLC has settled or gone to arbitration in recent years with multiple customers who purchased manufactured homes. A North Carolina resident and Regional agreed to arbitration in a complaint in October 2024. An Alabama homeowner who had alleged plumbing issues and subsequent flooding settled with Regional in August 2024. And the company settled a Mississippi case that included allegations of a faulty septic tank and cracked floors in March. The owner of DSW Homes LLC of Texas was accused of improper installation and fraud during a Florida county licensing board hearing in April, 10 Tampa Bay News reported. The owner was cited, but was not fined and did not have his license suspended or revoked. Persons Services Corp. of Alabama settled a dispute last year with a subcontractor in North Carolina that stemmed from constructing a Family Dollar Tree. Six months after Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina a storm damaged building was still standing in Asheville. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) A year post-Helene, NC inches closer to starting construction The construction contracts mark another step toward getting shovels in the dirt for the Renew NC homebuilding program. Leaders in the governors office, as well as the Department of Commerce, have been under pressure from state lawmakers wary of past struggles and itching to see visible progress. Those efforts are complicated by the slow trickle of aid from FEMA including the billion-dollar grant that will be used to pay contractors and build homes. I would settle for a little reckless spending right now, just to get money in the hands of the people, Sen. Tim Moffitt (R-Henderson) said last month. Officials leading the recovery have frequently cited the states record speed at getting federal money secured. An agreement releasing the $1.4 billion housing grant has been signed, but other requirements remain for the money to become available. Jarvis, the senator who also sits on the legislatures committee overseeing hurricane recovery, said he was optimistic thus far of the states transparency and process. Hes glad to see specific timelines laid out for demolition and mobile home building, for example. Errors in past recovery efforts, he hopes, have taught the state what to do and what not to do. If whats on paper actually translates into an effective on-the-ground result, I think that is critical, Jarvis said. Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that the suit against Dynamic Group LLC was amended to remove a racketeering allegation that was dropped from the original lawsuit, and to reflect that a business partnership referenced in the lawsuit was between Joshua McCoy, Dynamics CEO, and Cogent. In addition, some of the allegations in the Texas lawsuit were made against McCoy rather than Dynamic. A statement from Dynamics general counsel disputing the claims, which was received after publication has also been included. Homebuilding and Helene recovery in western NC: A rundown How many homes will the contractors have to build? That depends on how many applications the state receives. The Department of Commerce said the program had surpassed 1,500 applicants for the single-family housing sector. The state will open applications for multi-family and workforce housing later this year. When will construction begin? State officials have set a goal to begin construction in earnest by the early fall. The program cannot begin working at full capacity until the federal government unlocks the $1.4 billion in grant money that will fund homebuilding and pay contractors. How do I apply? Visit the Renew NC website or read our story detailing the eligibility requirements and application process. How are contractors selected for rebuilds? The state and Renew NCs prime contractor (Horne) will assign projects (or scopes of work) to construction companies depending on which are best-suited and available. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Seven candidates, including a former New Jersey governor, are officially running for mayor of Jersey City. The crowded field was certified by the city clerks office following Thursdays 4 p.m. deadline for submitting a nominating petition. It sets up a highly competitive race in New Jerseys second-largest city to succeed outgoing Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The candidates for Jersey City mayor are: former Jersey City school board president Mussab Ali Jersey City Police Officer Christina Freeman Resident Kalki Jayne-Rose Former Gov. James E. McGreevey Hudson County Commissioner Bill ODea Jersey City Councilman James Solomon Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman McGreevey is the best-known of the candidates. He is seeking a political comeback 21 years after resigning as governor. He stepped down after a scandal in which he announced he is a gay American who had an adulterous affair with a man he put on the state payroll as a Homeland Security adviser. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McGreevey is now executive director of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, a nonprofit group that helps people leaving prison or addiction centers. Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman speaking at Soaring Heights Charter School in Jersey City, New Jersey, on Sept. 30, 2024. Fulop is not seeking a fourth term, though he had that option after finishing third in a six-candidate Democratic primary for governor in June that was won by U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill. Hours before the Thursday filing deadline, Fulop posted an explanation on Facebook on why he was staying out of the mayoral race. When I ran for governor, I said I wouldnt treat the mayors seat or an elected office as a fallback, and I meant it. I think it reflects poorly when people do that + wouldnt do that to JC, Fulop wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To win the mayor race Election Day on Nov. 4, the first-place finisher must receive more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate receives half the vote, a runoff election will be held between the two candidates receiving the most votes. Elections in Jersey City are nonpartisan, meaning that political parties play no official role. The mayor serves a four-year term. Jersey City had 175,246 registered voters as of Thursday, city clerk Sean Gallagher told NJ Advance Media. Many of the candidates for mayor have extensive experience in local politics. ODea has been a Hudson County commissioner the office previously known as freeholder since 1997. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Watterman was elected to the city council in 2013 and became the councils first Black woman president in 2020. Freeman is a Jersey City police officer. Both Freeman and Watterman are seeking to become the first woman elected mayor in Jersey City. Solomon was elected to the city council in 2017 and represents Ward E. Before moving to Jersey City, he was a mayoral aide in Boston. Ali was 20 when he was elected to the Jersey City school board in 2017, making him the youngest ever elected to that board. He is also the first Muslim elected to any office in Jersey City. Separately, the city clerks office was in the process of reviewing 30 nominating petitions for city council in all six wards, and another 15 for at-large seats. All but 10 had been certified as of 6 p.m. Thursday, according to the clerks office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jersey Citys council has nine members one from every ward and three city-wide seats. Fulop is Jersey Citys first three-term mayor since Frank Hague led the city from 1917 to 1947. Fulop announced in 2023 he would be running for governor, setting off jockeying among potential successors. In his Facebook post on Thursday, Fulop said it was a weird feeling not to be running. He was elected to the council in 2005 and re-elected in 2009. He was elected mayor in 2013. The next chapter of leadership for Jersey City clearly starts today + Im excited to see what vision the candidates will bring, Fulop wrote. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism you rely on and trust. Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Seven survivors of the deadly fire at a Fall River assisted living facility are suing the buildings owners and the sprinkler company that outfitted the complex. In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, seven survivors of Julys fire said they were trapped in their rooms as smoke filled the Gabriel House, preventing them from escaping. 10th victim dies due to injuries suffered in Gabriel House fire In the civil action complaint, Albert Almanza, Larry Ashworth, Muriel Boyce, Shirley Cambra, Lorraine Ferrera, Caroline Johnson and James Vicery claim egregious violations by Gabriel House owner Daniel Etzkorn, his wife Karen Etzkorn and Fire Systems Inc. They say the fire exposed serious failures with the building and a lack of emergency plans. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The survivors say that not all of the sprinklers in the building went off, including the one in the room where the fire started. Etzkorn says the sprinklers were checked five days before and were in working order. The Massachusetts State Fire Marshals office says the fire was likely started by improper disposal of smoking materials or the failure of an oxygen purifier. Three residents had previously filed a claim against the Gabriel House earlier this month. Nearly a decade ago, the Fall River facility temporarily lost its certification due to resident mistreatment, the Associated Press reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the wake of the fire, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has since announced a new safety initiative. It requires all 273 assisted living facilities in the Commonwealth to send letters to residents and families outlining safety protocols and evacuation plans. Theres also a new safety assessment survey these facilities must complete, as well as specify their disaster and emergency plans. Mayor Paul Coogan and IAFF General President Edward Kelly said in the days after the fire that staffing levels at the Fall River Fire Department will increase immediately. The staffing changes came days after the union said inadequate staffing hindered the response to a fire. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Members of a Japanese delegation visit the Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Aug. 20, 2025. (Xinhua/Yang Siqi) HARBIN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- For Masataka Mori, a former professor of irenology at Shizuoka University, the ruins of Unit 731 -- a germ warfare unit that clandestinely operated by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II -- are not just a historical site, but a testament to atrocities that must never be forgotten. On Aug. 20, the expert who has spent over 40 years researching the notorious Unit 731 and Japan's germ warfare against other countries led a 20-member delegation to the crime evidence exhibition hall of this infamous Japanese biological warfare unit in Pingfang District of Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. The delegation, consisting of retired history teachers, documentary directors, agricultural workers and anti-war activists, traveled from Japan with a shared mission to witness history firsthand and amplify calls for peace back home. Inside the hall, detailed archives, authentic footage and material evidence laid bare the crimes against humanity committed by Japanese militarism. The exhibits revealed the structure of Japan's biological warfare units, the criminal theories of Shiro Ishii, founder and head of Unit 731, and the horrifying fate of countless "marutas," a dehumanizing codename for live experiment victims. Each display stood as a silent witness to these heinous crimes. At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731, and more than 300,000 people in China were killed by Japan's biological weapons. "The lies written in ink can never cover up the facts written in blood," Mori quoted renowned Chinese writer Lu Xun while explaining the displays to the delegation. The crimes of Unit 731 extended beyond ghastly human experimentation to include widespread biological attacks across China. Mori's connection to the exhibition hall dates back to its founding in 1985. His work has been dedicated to ensuring that Japanese society confronts this dark chapter of history. "This was filmed by me," he said. Many video testimonies with former unit members were filmed by Mori, including one from Sadao Koshi, a former driver employed at Unit 731 who transported victims. These recordings now serve as invaluable historical evidence. The group then proceeded to the former site of the headquarters of Unit 731, the nerve center of Japan's biological warfare operations. The once heavily guarded headquarters building still stands, while behind it lie the remnants of the square-shaped experimental complex. Jin Chengmin, curator of the Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, emphasized that preserving the site is a core mission to help future generations confront history. On its 40th anniversary, the institution is preparing to apply for UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status for the site and seeks continued global recognition and support. During a subsequent symposium, Mori reflected on his four-decade-long struggle. As a history teacher, he was once dismissed for teaching the truth about Japan's war of aggression. Undeterred, he traveled across China interviewing survivors and, at great personal risk, persuaded aging Japanese veterans to confess their atrocities on camera. He revealed receiving death threats, including envelopes containing razor blades, alongside menacing phone calls and being followed. Members of the delegation also shared their connections with the exhibition hall and the city of Harbin. Masaru Nakano, a former math teacher from Hiroshima Gakuin Junior and Senior High School, worked as a guest researcher at the Harbin Academy of Social Sciences in 2003. He has translated several Chinese books into Japanese, providing a critical window into Unit 731 for Japanese readers. Another member, Akiyoshi Takanashi, a former city councilor from Yokohama who visited the facility a decade ago, was struck by the exhibition hall's technological advancements and new exhibits. Having worked for years on exhibitions related to wartime atrocities, he said he hopes to share the latest historical evidence and facts with a broader audience. The delegation signifies a persistent anti-war and pro-peace force within Japanese civil society, said Yang Yanjun, a researcher with the Research Institute of War Crimes Trials and World Peace at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before a memorial wall in a corridor on the first floor of the headquarters building, bearing 3,000 black stone plaques commemorating those who perished in Unit 731's experiments and biological attacks, the group offered flowers in tribute. Following the visit, Mori urged more Japanese to visit China, hear the victims' stories, see the historical evidence and confront the brutality of Japan's past aggression to ensure a correct understanding of history and prevent its repetition. The Japanese government's most crucial task is acknowledging historical facts, explicitly including the truth of its aggression in school textbooks, he said. "Failing this, young people cannot learn this history through formal education, and this absence will lead to the tragedy repeating itself." Masataka Mori, a former professor of irenology at Shizuoka University, watches a video of a former member of Unit 731 that he shot earlier, at the Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Aug. 20, 2025. (Xinhua/Yang Siqi) CONNECTICUT (WTNH) Fairs and meatballs and pirates, there is a lot happening in Connecticut this weekend! Here are 8 Things to Do. 1. Brooklyn Fair, Brooklyn Fair season is in full swing and there are several this weekend including the Brooklyn Fair. It is the oldest continuously running agricultural fair in the country, now in its 175th year! 2. Terryville Lions Country Fair, Terryville The Terryville Lions Country Fair runs all weekend long. In its 77th year, its got tractor pulls, a demolition derby, ATV drag racing and more! 3. Chester Fair, Chester The Chester Fair in its 148th year has all the fair favorites, with livestock, live music, and great food too. 4. Pirate Night, New London Grab your eyepatch and head for New London for Pirate Night! There is a pirate costume contest for both kids and adults, hop on a pirate ship, and plot to find buried treasure. 5. CT Arts & Eats, Southbury Its a celebration of art and food in Southbury! Connecticut Arts and Eats will have more than 50 venders showing off fine art, home wares, woodworking and more. And you wont leave hungry. Take your pick from barbeque to kettle corn to baked treats and more. 6. Italian Festival, Guilford Celebrate all things Italian at the 11th Annual Italian Festival in Guilford. Sample homemade Italian foods, check out the meatball competition, and try your hand (or feet) at stomping grapes. Its all at St. Georges Catholic Church. 7. Library Book Sale, Norfolk Book lovers, Norfolk is the place to be this weekend. An amazing selection of books, including 500 rare and vintage titles, will be up for grabs at the Norfolk Library Book Sale. Proceeds benefit library programs. 8. Clinton Summerfest and Fireworks, Clinton Get ready to bid farewell to summer at the Clinton Summerfest and Fireworks! There will be food trucks and live music before the fireworks light up the skies at nightfall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A 9-year-old, at the home of a Kenosha police officer, accessed a locked gun safe, grabbed a non-department-issued firearm and shot themself in the hand, authorities said Aug. 21. The Kenosha County Sheriff's Office said the child has "minor injuries." The sheriff's office was requested by the Kenosha Police Department to investigate the accidental shooting. Authorities have not provided a location of the shooting or identified the officer whose residence where the shooting occurred. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriff's office said the investigation remains open and active. No further information was available. A Kenosha police spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Child gets into gun safe, shoots self at Kenosha police officer's home SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) The owners of the 98-year-old building known as the California Theatre in downtown San Diego are ordered to sell the abandoned building or demolish it. Per a court order issues this week, City Attorney Heather Ferbert says the owners, Caydon Property Group, has to be put on the building on the market by the end of August and it must close by the end of 2026 or face demolition. Im happy they partnered with us to get to this conclusion to end. The litigation, its better for the community, the owners and all of downtown to move forward with this property, Ferbert said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement City leaders say the building has been abandoned for decades and its attracted criminal activity, graffiti and more to the downtown area. The people were breaking in, living inside, they would have the fires to warm themselves inside, Ferbert said. The California Theatre has been in downtown San Diego since 1927. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria applauded the decision agreeing this is a step in the right direction. This settlement delivers fair accountability, Gloria said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from federal custody Friday in Tennessee and is slated to return to his family in Maryland, though his legal proceedings are far from over. Abrego Garcia, who was charged earlier this year with transporting illegal immigrants in the U.S., will remain in the custody of his brother. The charges stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop, but court filings later revealed the investigation began while he was jailed in El Salvador, raising questions about how the probe was conducted. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Friday issued an order in the Middle District of Tennessee setting the conditions of Abrego Garcias release, placing him in his brothers custody as a third-party custodian ahead of trial. He must wear an electronic monitoring device, check in with Pretrial Services in Maryland and report there no later than 10 a.m. on Aug. 25. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcia Lawyers File Motion To Dismiss Criminal Charges From Trump Doj "Thereafter, Abrego must remain in the custody of his brother as the designated third-party custodian and in compliance with all conditions of pretrial release," Holmes said in her order. News of his release was met with fierce backlash by some Trump officials. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in a statement Friday, denounced the decision as the work of "activist liberal judges" who have "attempted to obstruct" law enforcement. Read On The Fox News App "We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country," she vowed. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a news conference July 8, 2025, at Reagan National Airport in Washington. Fox News was told by multiple sources that neither DHS nor ICE had "immediate plans" to arrest Abrego Garcia on immigration grounds due to the conditions laid out by a federal judge in Maryland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, the conditions of his release codified in excruciating detail in separate orders from federal courts in Tennessee and Maryland have sparked frustration among staff at both agencies, according to sources familiar with the matter. The agencies have reportedly been consulting with the Justice Department on further guidance, though any next steps on the matter remain unclear. Lawyers for the Justice Department had vehemently opposed Abrego Garcia's release, arguing at an evidentiary hearing earlier this year that he was a danger to the community. But Holmes and U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., also of Tennessee, separately determined that Abrego Garcia was eligible for release pending trial. Crenshaw, for his part, said in his ruling that the Justice Department "fails to provide any evidence that there is something in Abregos history, or his exhibited characteristics, that warrants detention." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Holmes agreed to stay Abrego Garcia's release from federal custody in July for a 30-day period that expired on Friday. She did so at the request of Abrego Garcia's attorneys, who had cited fears that ICE would detain him and immediately begin the process to remove him to a third country. Judge Presses Trump Doj On Abrego Garcia Deportation; Answers Leave Courtroom In Stunned Silence A member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holds a picture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a news conference to discuss Abrego Garcia's arrest and deportation at Cannon House Office Building April 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Justice Department officials told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland last July that they planned to immediately take Abrego Garcia into ICE custody pending his release from U.S. Marshal custody in Tennesee and deport him to a third country, regardless of the status of his criminal case. "Theres no intention to just put him in limbo in ICE custody while we wait for the criminal case to unfold," a lawyer for DOJ told Judge Xinis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She later issued an order blocking ICE from immediately deporting Abrego Garcia when he is released from federal custody. Xinis, who since March has presided over the separate, months-long civil case that was brought by his family, also ordered the Trump administration in July to give Abrego Garcia a 72-hour notice period before beginning any deportation proceedings. This was done, she said, to give him the opportunity to consult with his attorneys or to challenge his removal to a third country via the appropriate channels. Federal Judge Extends Arguments In Abrego Garcia Case, Slams Ice Witness Who 'Knew Nothing' Bondi speaks alongside President Donald Trump on recent Supreme Court rulings in the briefing room at the White House June 27, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March in violation of a 2019 court order, and in what Trump administration officials later acknowledged was an "administrative error." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He entered the country illegally more than a decade ago and had been living in Maryland with his wife and child when authorities deported him to a maximum security prison in El Salvador in March. Trump officials have repeatedly alleged that Abrego Garcia is a vicious MS-13 gang member, a notion Crenshaw dismissed as "fanciful." Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against him, arguing in a new court filing that the criminal case by the Trump administration amounts to a "vindictive" and selective prosecution. "Those motions are infrequently made and rarely succeed," they acknowledged. "But if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case." Fox News's Bill Melugin contributed to this report. Original article source: Abrego Garcia released from jail, will return to Maryland to await trial ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) A Rochester man pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and weapon charges after an investigation into a gang-related shooting of two Rochester Police officers, possessing illegal guns and more than 100kg of marijuana. In federal court Friday, 40-year-old Brandon Washington pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 100kg or more of marijuana from May 2021 to July 2022, as well as possessing firearms in connection with drug trafficking during the same time period. Washington is accused of being the ringleader of a deadly marijuana turf war between gangs, which investigators say led to the murder of RPD Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz three years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Criminal complaint details deadly gang war in Rochester Police uncovered all of these drugs and weapons through a search warrant in July 2022 at properties on St. Paul Street, Sixth Street, and Laser Street. Washington admitted to storing high quantities of marijuana at those residences, along with loaded firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Washington told the court the weapons were for protection in connection with drug possession. He faces a total of nearly 22 years in prison for both charges. Following Fridays hearing, Washington apologized to the courtroom for the violence surrounding his actions. He also apologized to Ofc. Mazurkiewiczs wife, Lynn Mazurkiewicz. News 8 spoke with Mazurkiewicz outside the courtroom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I was shocked by that. I didnt expect him to say anything and that actually meant a lot because we didnt get that from anyone else. So, Im very happy with how things went today, and we want to thank the attorneys and the police department for everything theyve done, she said. Washington is the last defendant to be convicted in connection to the case. He is expected to be sentenced December 18. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Simultaneously, the families of the hostages held their own Shabbat reception outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem. Demonstrators advocating for an immediate hostage deal held a Shabbat reception on Tel Aviv's main highway on Friday, blocking both directions of the Ayalon and setting a Shabbat table on fire in a dramatic protest. The police quickly extinguished the fire, and the protesters dispersed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the organizers, the protest was intended to prevent the government from turning away from another opportunity for a deal. "We are in the midst of another deliberate sabotage attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Those who were kidnapped under his watch, those who were supposed to be the first to be rescued, have been abandoned once again, and now they are being sacrificed on the altar of political considerations." "Additional demonstrations are taking place in Yokneam, Elyakim, Nahalal Junction, Hod Hasharon, Ma'agan Michael, and Drorim Bridge in Ramat Gan, to show solidarity with the families of the hostages and pressure decision-makers to sign the deal on the table. Hostage families demonstrate outside of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence, August 22, 2025. (credit: Uriel Even Sapir) While Netanyahu sits around the Shabbat table, hostage families spend another Friday in fear for their loved ones. It has been 98 Shabbats without them! Theres a deal on the table, and Netanyahu must sign it. Tonight, as Shabbat begins, we invite you to embrace your loved ones. Tomorrow, join us in the streetsfor the hostages and for the country. We will bring everyone home, now! Shabbat table at Netanyahu's residence Simultaneously, the families of the hostages held their own Shabbat reception outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, urging him to replace your Shabbat dinner table with the negotiating table. Our loved ones don't have the privilege of waiting another day - 686 days is too many! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Netanyahu, you stood with me at Kibbutz Nir Oz less than two months ago," Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, said. "You promised we would bring everyone back, all 50. We showed you that the people of Israel are with us. What happened to that promise? You didnt bring good news on the agreement or the war's end. You sent a negotiating team, and they came back without a deal." The families declared Tuesday as the next day of national struggle, demanding the return of all hostages and an end to the war. They called on the public to join their cause. German sportswear manufacturer Adidas has publicly apologized following accusations of cultural appropriation in the design of its "Oaxaca Slip-On" shoe. Adidas representative Karen Gonzalez apologized on Thursday at an event in the affected community in Villa Hidalgo Yalalag in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The event with music and dancing was also attended by indigenous people in traditional dress. They wore the handmade Huarache sandals that served as a model for the controversial shoe by US designer Willy Chavarria for Adidas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The German company was accused of cultural appropriation in Mexico, with President Claudia Sheinbaum criticizing the commercialization of a tradition without the express consent of its creators. After a meeting with local authorities, the Adidas representative read a letter of apology to community members. "The Oaxaca Slip-On model was conceived taking inspiration from a design originating in the state of Oaxaca, typical of the tradition of the town of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag," said Gonzalez on behalf of Adidas. "We understand that this situation may have caused discomfort, for which we offer a public apology." "We will avoid acting without your guidance and collaboration in the future and reiterate our commitment to working collaboratively with the Yalalag community." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mexican newspaper La Jornada cited Gonzalez as saying that the product has not yet been marketed. Oaxaca's Ministry of Culture and Arts described the apology as a "historic act of recognition of the indigenous peoples of Oaxaca." Mexico has been taking action against companies that use traditional designs from Latin American countries for a number of years. The Anti-Defamation League found striking similarities between two school shooters including the shooter who killed one student at Antioch High School in January and the paths they took that destroyed families and communities, according to an Aug. 21 study provided to USA TODAY and The Tennessean. The report found the path the two shooters took included watching videos of graphic violence, following white supremacists online, celebrating other shooters and joining vast online networks of extremist communities that fuel violence. "Kids and teens today have lived their entire lives with easy internet access, putting them even more at risk of encountering violent extremism online," said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. "Extremist ideas combined with gore websites can inspire users to seek out more extremist content, while violence on extremist platforms can inspire others to look for even more violent content. It's a vicious cycle, especially for young people." Antioch shooter has strong ties to Wisconsin shooter, report finds On Jan. 22, the normal hustle-and-bustle of Antioch High School was shattered by 10 shots, killing one student and injuring another. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 17-year old shooter, later identified as student Solomon Henderson, then fatally shot himself. In the hours after the shooting, online materials surfaced featuring numerous selfies of what appeared to be the shooter with various alt-right paraphernalia scattered between nearly 300 pages of statements praising Adolf Hitler and other extremist views, and pages of explicit photos from previous school shootings. More: Parents of Antioch school shooting victim Josselin Corea Escalante sue MNPS Social media accounts linked in the document and scattered across many platforms including X, Kick, TikTok and more focused heavily on groyper content a nickname used by many online white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups as well as incel content, a name referring to young men who claim to be involuntarily celibate and espouse incredibly violent misogynistic views. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Henderson was not the only young student involved in these fringe online groups. About 700 miles away and one month earlier, Natalie Rupnow, 15, killed two people and injured six at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin before committing suicide. According to the investigation, Henderson and Rupnow were intrinsically linked the two were in the same chatroom, followed each other on social media, and within a month, both deceased members of the same growing club: U.S. school shooters. ADL investigators found that the students became shooters between 18 and 19 months after joining a graphic violence chatroom. The two also followed each other online. Rupnow followed Henderson on Dec. 3, weeks before the Dec. 16 shooting in Wisconsin, researchers found. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Henderson reciprocated by calling her "saintress" in his online diary and creating a social media post celebrating her attack seven days before his own strike on Jan. 22, which he partially livestreamed. One of Rupnows online friends was arrested in April in Florida for threatening to carry out a mass shooting, according to reporting by The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network. The ADL research comes out just as students around the nation are heading back to school. There were several school shooter incidents over the 2024 to 2025 academic year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Among them were the attacks in Tennessee, Wisconsin and an attack at Apalachee High School in Georgia that left four dead. The number of shooting incidents was up from six during the previous academic year, according to the database. The Antioch shooting came nearly two years after the Covenant School shooting in Green Hills, which left seven dead, including the shooter. Timeline of two school shooters The pair of shooters joined an extremist site just nine days apart from each other. A little over a month separated the timing of their attacks a year and a half later, ADL researchers found. According to the research: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement June 20, 2023: Henderson creates an account for the online chatroom where visitors can post and view photos and videos of graphic violence, including murder, according to the ADL. June 29, 2023: Rupnow creates her own account on the chatroom. Oct. 8, 2023: Henderson posts a violent meme. Dec. 29, 2023: Rupnow follows an account dedicated to a neo-Nazi who killed 69 people in Norway in 2011. The account celebrates similar shooters. Jan. 20, 2024: Henderson begins making violent, misogynistic posts. May 19, 2024: Rupnow begins messaging Damien Allen, a man in Florida who was arrested in April and charged with threatening to carry out a mass shooting. "Once you get to a point, there's no going back," Allen told her, according to The Palm Beach Post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oct. 18: Henderson, who was Black, creates an online diary where he celebrates violence and white supremacists. Dec. 3: Rupnow follows Henderson on social media. Dec. 16: Rupnow carries out the Abundant Life shooting, killing two and injuring six before killing herself. Dec. 18: Henderson creates a social media account dedicated to Rupnow. He created another one in January. Jan. 22: Henderson carries out the Antioch shooting, killing one student and injuring another before killing himself. The 17-year-old carried out the shooting just 19 months after joining the online chatroom to watch extreme graphic violence. The 15-year-old girl carried out her attack 18 months after joining the group. What happened after the shootings? The shootings themselves weren't the final chapter, as legal consequences continue to emerge. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The parents of Josselin Corea Escalante, a 16-year-old student killed in the Antioch attack, are suing Metro Nashville Public Schools over the shooting. Carlos Corea holds a photo of his niece Josselin Corea Escalante during a Rally for Antioch at the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. Coreas niece was killed during a school shooting at Antioch High School last week that inspired the rally. More: Parents of Antioch school shooting victim Josselin Corea Escalante sue MNPS Family members argued that Metro Nashville Public Schools should have known the shooter, a fellow student, posed a danger to students and should have taken steps to prevent violence. They also argue the school district was negligent in operating its school security system because it failed to detect the shooter's firearm. More: Juvenile records show Nashville teen on probation at time of Antioch High School shooting Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Wisconsin, Jeffrey Rupnow is facing charges over his daughters use of his firearm. But he filed a motion on Aug. 18 asking the judge to dismiss the charges, according to reporting by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network. The elder Rupnow argues that he didnt allow his daughter to access the safe where he kept the gun. He told her that the code was his Social Security number in reverse but argued he never gave her the numbers or any other clues. Allen faces potentially 21 years in prison on charges of threatening a mass shooting, unlawful use of a police badge and unlawful use of a cellphone, The Palm Beach Post reported. An online community of extremists ADL investigators found the pair of American students were not just familiar with each other, but were also in close contact with other people who celebrated shootings, were interested in carrying them out and even people who attempted attacks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to Allen in Florida, Rupnow joined an online community to watch a white supremacist livestream an attack outside a mosque in Turkey. The 18-year-old attacker was armed with a hatchet and two knives and injured five people before he was arrested. Afterwards, Rupnow sent messages celebrating the attack even though no one died, according to the ADL. The attack in Turkey played a direct role in inspiring Rupnows attack in Wisconsin, the ADL said she stated in some of her writings. Rupnow was the closest encounter with another shooter that Henderson had, according to the ADL. He learned that she had followed him on X and began admiring her, referring to her in his online diary as a "saintress." The term is a twist on the way incels refer to violent members of their community as saints, the ADL said. The ADL said that the pair went down the path of murder because of the online communities they participated in that glorified and encouraged violence. Henderson, who was Black, and Rupnow, who was a girl, also show that extremist ideology can reach people regardless of race or gender, the ADL said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Insitute for Government, a public policy research institute, 54.3% of mass shooters in the United States are white, and 95.3% are male. The ADL's report also found that though Henderson ironically denies it in his manifesto the shooter appears to have been versed in the subculture of Com or The Community, a loose network of Telegram and Discord channels that targets youth and engages in a range of criminal activities, including child sexual abuse material, swatting, doxing and more. The network includes a large global network of violent predators. In another post on the Bluesky account allegedly belonging to Henderson, the shooter posted that he had been groomed by Nitro and another individual. According to ADL investigators, Nitro was one of several users identified by their extremism researchers as having been active in the Turkey mosque attackers Telegram chat, where he claimed to have created an X account that was used to spread the Turkey attackers manifesto. ADL leaders hope the investigations findings will prompt parents and school leaders to reconsider what type of online access students have. The anti-hate organization is sharing the timeline of how the two students became shooters with 16,000 school superintendents, according to a news release. "Extremism, hate, and violent gore are just a click away for many children making it urgent for schools and parents to implement safeguards," said Oren Segal, the ADLs senior vice president of Counter-Extremism and Intelligence. "These toxic online spaces can cause devastating harm in our communities and are increasingly becoming central to the broader violent extremist landscape." The USA TODAY Network - The South region's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham Contributing by USA TODAY Network reporters Laura Schulte of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Evan Mealins of The Tennessean and Hannah Phillips of The Palm Beach Post. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Antioch school shooter part of global online group, ADL says TYLER, Texas (KETK) A woman was arrested on Tuesday after she allegedly left her pregnant dog in a 129-degree car for over 45 minutes while she was eating at the Golden Corral in Tyler. Parents arrested in Van Zandt County after children found abandoned in hot car, RV According to a Smith County arrest affidavit, around 1:30 p.m., the Tyler Police Department responded to the Golden Corral on 5602 South Broadway, where a dog was inside a Ford SUV in visible distress. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [An animal control officer] advised the internal temperature of the vehicle was 129 degrees, while the outside temperature was between 95 and 99 degrees, the affidavit said. The dog was panting heavily and exhibited excessive salivation. Despite the windows being partially rolled down, the document said it was apparent that this was insufficient to prevent the dog from suffering from serious injury or death because of the heat. Mugshot of Ashley Summers, courtesy of Smith County Jail The owner of the dog and the Ford SUV, Ashley Trenace Summers, soon exited the restaurant and approached the car. Summers stated she had only been inside the restaurant for 30 or 40 minutes, the document said. Her statement conflicted with information provided by a witness, who reported that the vehicle had been parked at the location since at least 12:40 p.m. when they arrived to eat. The witness saw the dog when they left and contacted authorities. Summers was arrested for animal cruelty on Tuesday and bonded out the following day. The dog was transported to the vet and then taken by the nonprofit Nicholas Pet Haven. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The nonprofit said that the dog, now named Miracle, is heading to their fosters home to get settled in before giving birth. AFFIDAVIT: Tyler mother says she forgot infant in car during appointment [Tuesday] was the hottest day of the summer so far, Nicholas Pet Haven said. Someone decided it would be okay to leave this pregnant girl in their car while they ate lunch. She was rescued by the City of Tyler Police Department and Tyler Animal Control and Shelter. Photos courtesy of Nicholas Pet Haven Donations for Miracle and her babies care can be made through Nicholas Pet Havens PayPal, Venmo or Cash App. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing took over responsibility for many of Iowa's licensing boards in July 2023. (Photo illustration via Getty Images; logo courtesy of the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing) The state agency that denied a request for inspection reports on a Cedar Rapids home health agency now says that denial was based on an incorrect assumption that it wouldnt have any such records. On July 9, the Iowa Capital Dispatch asked the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing for a copy of a private accreditation agencys inspection report for the home health agency Compassion North America. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Compassion came under scrutiny earlier this year after the Iowa Board of Nursing presented evidence of falsified records, billing for services that were never delivered, and the employment of an unlicensed nurse to provide patient care. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In response to the Capital Dispatchs request for the documents, DIAL spokesperson Diane McCool said DIAL does not receive such records. After the Capital Dispatch reported DIALs claim that it didnt have the requested records, the Accreditation Commission for Health Care contacted the news organization and said that it had, in fact, provided DIAL with a copy of the documents via email on Sept. 16, 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Capital Dispatch asked DIAL again for the records. DIAL then acknowledged it had the documents but refused to release them, stating that it is not the official custodian of such documents. Asked why the agency initially denied having the records, McCool said Thursday that since the accrediting organizations are not required to send the survey reports to DIAL, the department didnt expect that it would have the report. Her response didnt indicate whether, after receiving the Capital Dispatchs request for records, anyone at DIAL actually looked for the records or made any internal inquiries as to whether someone at DIAL might have them. Because DIAL has never conducted its own inspection of Compassion North America, and because it wont release its copy of the accrediting commissions findings, there is no public record of any regulatory oversight of the home health provider, which was first incorporated in June 2017. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McCool has said DIAL is not investigating Compassion North America, despite the findings of the Board of Nursing and its investigator that the company appeared to have falsified records, billed for services that were never delivered, and employed an unlicensed nurse to provide patient care. Those allegations surfaced at a disciplinary hearing for registered nurse Mbalu Madlene Kebbie, who is married to Compassion North Americas CEO, Joseph Lemor. A state investigator who reviewed the work schedules of Compassion employees as part of a board investigation allegedly found that the license of one of the companys nurses had expired in January 2021 but she had continued to provide patient care in June and July 2022. In addition, a comparison of Compassions billing records with the staff work schedule allegedly showed the company had submitted payment claims for services for which there was no corresponding documentation to indicate the care was provided. There were also payment claims for services provided by a registered nurse that exceeded 24 hours in a single day, the state investigator testified. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the board, Kebbie had no explanation for the irregularities in the nursing documentation including instances where it appeared Compassion had billed Medicaid twice for some services. Citing what it called Kebbies lack of previous disciplinary history, the board ruled that she could retain her Iowa nursing license subject to two years of probation. However, the boards own records indicate that in 2012, it disciplined Kebbie for working as a nurse while her license was inactive. Kebbies attorney has filed an appeal of the boards recent decision in Polk County District Court, arguing the sanctions against her are unreasonable, arbitrary, and excessive. The state has denied any wrongdoing in the matter. Lemor has said the state is engaged in a witch hunt with regard to Kebbie. We did not do anything improper, he told the Iowa Capital Dispatch last month. We have nothing to hide. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE BANGKOK, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's criminal court on Friday acquitted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on royal defamation charges over his remarks to foreign media a decade ago. The court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove Thaksin's wrongdoing, according to local media reports. "The case was dismissed," Thaksin told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict was read out. The Office of the Attorney General indicted Thaksin last year, accusing him of defaming the monarchy during a 2015 interview with a South Korean media outlet, which violated lese majeste and computer crime laws. The lese-majeste law, or Section 112 of the Criminal Code, stipulates that whoever defames, insults, or threatens the king, queen, heir apparent, or regent shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years. In a separate case, the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule in September on whether Thaksin's extended hospital stay prior to his release on parole in 2024 constitutes an incomplete serving of his prison term for previous convictions. Thaksin returned to Thailand from self-exile two years ago. The 76-year-old served as the Southeast Asian country's prime minister from 2001 to 2006 and had been in self-exile abroad since 2008. The meteoric rise of artificial intelligence has instilled an existential fear in "AI doomers," a subset of people who believe the tech will cause humans to lose their jobs, fall prey to a dominating species of rogue superintelligent AIs, and even eventually get wiped out altogether. And, as The Atlantic reports, some are taking that pervasive fear to striking extremes in their daily lives. Machine Intelligence Research Institute researcher Nate Soares, for instance, told the magazine that he's even given up saving for his retirement, based on the assumption that AI has already guaranteed the final nail in humanity's coffin. "I just dont expect the world to be around," he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And Center for AI Safety director Dan Hendrycks told the magazine that he's also expecting humanity to no longer be around by his retirement. Their belief is part of a movement that argues we're mere years away from an AI that evades our grasp and turns against us, a kind of dystopian fate that's yanked straight out of the pages of a harrowing sci-fi novel. But it's not looking like pure fiction anymore. Numerous experts have warned that we aren't sufficiently preparing for such an eventuality, dooming us to be subjugated or worse by a superintelligent AI. We've come across countless theories of how all of this could play out. Earlier this year, researchers convened and broadly agreed that it's only a matter of time until an AI gets hold of nuclear codes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Researchers have also found that AIs are already showing an ominous dark side, even resorting to blackmailing human users at an astonishing rate when threatened with being shut down. AI safety firm Palisade Research also caught one of OpenAI's models sabotaging a shutdown mechanism to ensure that it would stay online. Apart from ensuring their own survival, AIs could help human terrorists. In June, OpenAI warned in a blog post that advanced models could "assist highly skilled actors in creating bioweapons." Whether any of this is proof that we're on a trajectory leading to our own extinction, however, remains to be seen. That's despite the tech in its current form already causing plenty of harm, from flooding the internet with disinformation to triggering a wave of AI psychosis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Glaring shortcomings of the tech are as evident as ever, with OpenAI's latest GPT-5 AI model stumbling at the most basic of questions, even AI's old nemesis of correctly counting the number of R's in the word "strawberry." Still, one reason to take the doomsday prophesying seriously is that companies are becoming increasingly financially motivated to have AIs gain more and more control, as The Atlantic points out. Meanwhile, given the Trump administration's anti-regulation stance on the matter, companies like OpenAI are unlikely to be strongly motivated to implement effective guardrails to keep their AIs in check. And whether that kind of freewheeling approach will lead to a total collapse of society almost feels beside the point, considering the many fires we're already being forced to put out. More on AI: Expert Says AI Systems May Be Hiding Their True Capabilities to Seed Our Destruction Online scammers in Malaysia have targeted Indonesians looking to apply for immigration documents using AI-manipulated video and imposter WhatsApp accounts of border control officers from both Southeast Asian countries. The accounts dupe users into paying inflated fees for purported passport and visa application services. "I, Jeya, a Malaysian immigration officer from Kuala Lumpur, would like to share with all of you, for those who are looking to make passports, permits, visas and other documents, please send a message to Pak Anton Helistiawan on WhatsApp, God willing, he can help you all," says a man dressed in the black uniform of the Malaysian Immigration Department in a TikTok video on July 17. Anton Helistiawan is Indonesia's former immigration attache to Malaysia. An image of a stack of Indonesian passports is overlaid on the TikTok video. Screenshot of the false TikTok post captured on August 21, 2025, with a red X added by AFP AFP reached out to the phone number provided in the bio of the account sharing the clip, which led to a WhatsApp account with an image of Anton as its profile picture. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The purported officer gave an order form asking for personal details, including full name, delivery address and passport photo. They also provided a list of prices for the purported application service ranging from 700 to 900 ringgit ($213). AFP found several TikTok accounts masquerading as the Malaysian immigration officer sharing videos that mention the Indonesian immigration official, Anton. All of the accounts linked to the same WhatsApp phone number. Similar clips featuring other various immigration officers repeated the same claim, urging viewers to reach out to Anton for passport and visa applications. However, all the videos contained visual inconsistencies that indicate they had been manipulated using AI tools, such as unnatural blinking and mouth movements, as well as glitches in the audio. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite the meteoric progress in AI-manipulation tools, such inconsistencies remain a good way to spot visuals that have been altered using AI. Reverse image and keyword searches found the manipulated clip was first shared as a still photo by a TikTok user who goes by @bpjeya on October 15, 2024 (archived link). Screenshot comparison between the manipulated clip (left) and a genuine image of a TikTok user (right) Subsequent searches on the account found the user had posted screenshots of the imposter accounts and labelled them "fake" in a post on August 5 (archived link). Meanwhile, a spokesperson at the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur told AFP on August 20 none of its current officers go by the name "Anton Helistiawan". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The scam targets individuals who could not tell if the video is AI-generated or not, and those desperate to have Indonesian passports for the purpose of securing a job in Malaysia," he said. The standard price to apply for a passport is up to 100 ringgit, far less than the price quoted to AFP by the purported officer on WhatsApp (archived link). The spokesperson also said that the only channel for immigration services was via online appointment with the embassy, not communications on personal WhatsApp accounts or with any other third party. AFP has repeatedly debunked imposter accounts offering to make academic certificates and "test-free driving licences", as well as deepfake videos of Indonesian government officials offering "cash aid" on social media. By Valerie Volcovici HARRIMAN, Tennessee (Reuters) -Steve Hicks worked for 34 years at the Y-12 National Security Complex - which enriched the uranium for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 and to this day remains a key site in the United States nuclear weapons complex. He is spending his retirement managing the 30 daily medications he takes to treat the effects of two cancers and nerve damage linked to radiation exposure and petitioning the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to pay the medical bills for thousands of fellow Y-12 employees stricken with cancers associated with their employment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I made a good living there but I am not happy that I am this sick. And there are people who worked there that are sicker than me," Hicks, 70, said in an interview with Reuters. Assembling the petitions is a complicated process. It can take years to gather the thousands of pages of evidence required to document the causes of 22 types of cancer the U.S. government recognizes as associated with radiation exposure at its nuclear workplaces. Now Hicks' effort to win benefits and compensation for him and thousands of nuclear workers is in limbo after the HHS suspended indefinitely the expert medical bodies charged with reviewing those claims, according to interviews with 18 former workers, board members and administration officials. And some of Hicks' petitioners do not have time to wait. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Hicks did get medical coverage earlier for kidney cancer, he is now seeking assistance for treating skin cancer. Hicks - who voted for Donald Trump - said he has sent dozens of letters to the president, Tennessee's senators and lawmakers in other states with major weapons facilities. "I've contacted politicians and the White House and haven't heard anything back." The suspension of the board and its impact on the claims processes has not been previously reported. The CDC, an agency of HHS, confirmed the indefinite suspension, but did not provide further details about the future of the board. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Meetings of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health are currently paused due to outstanding administrative requirements, which the program is actively working to resolve," a CDC spokesperson told Reuters in a statement. The White House declined to comment on the status of the board. The Energy Department said in a statement that it is learning from past mistakes as it focuses on modernizing the nuclear arsenal. "The Department of Energy and NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) are continuing to learn from past experiences and are using that learning to improve our systems and practices to provide the safest possible work environment," the statement said. THOUSANDS LEFT IN LIMBO Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over 700,000 people have been employed in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex since the heyday of the Cold War - mining, transporting and processing radioactive materials for military and civilian nuclear programs at 380 sites across the country. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, passed in 2000, entitles eligible workers at U.S. Department of Energy and Defense nuclear sites to a $150,000 lump-sum payment and medical insurance. The compensation is available to workers diagnosed with cancers associated with high exposure to radiation, or those who can demonstrate such exposure during their employment. Since that time, U.S. presidents have appointed medical specialists, scientists and former workers to a review board to provide unbiased analysis of the compensation petitions. As of last year, the U.S. had disbursed over $25 billion in compensation and medical benefits to 141,000 atomic weapons workers through the claims process, according to the Department of Energy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Advisory Board on Radiation and Workers' Health was in the process of reviewing eight more petitions from former workers at nuclear weapons manufacturing and uranium enrichment sites when the HHS on January 27 suspended its activities indefinitely as part of President Donald Trump's efforts to streamline the federal government. And unless Trump reverses course and renews the presidential executive order constituting the review board, it could be wound down permanently as early as September, according to board members interviewed by Reuters. Worker advocates told Reuters they had been planning to file three additional petitions this year - including the one assembled by Hicks. Each of these petitions represent claims from thousands of former nuclear workers. Three of the board's 10 members told Reuters they have not met since last December and have received no information about whether or when it would reconvene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The board's suspension effectively stops the entire compensation process for nuclear workers, leaving many without the medical coverage and recognition they desperately need," said Brad Clawson, who worked as a spent nuclear fuel operator at the Idaho National Lab. "Thousands and thousands of people still haven't had their day to prove that they were injured by this." He said he received a phone call from a CDC employee in July telling him his membership has not been renewed but was given no further detail. Another board member, Arthur Frank, an environmental and occupational health professor at Drexel University, told Reuters he has had no contact with the CDC about his board work and continues to send in time sheets every two weeks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement RISKY BUSINESS Denise Degarmo, a retired political science professor, became involved in trying to get compensation for nuclear workers and their survivors after watching her father's painful death from an aggressive radiological cancer. She said he had been a design engineer for the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System and the Nike Missile system. "In the last six weeks of his life, we couldn't even touch him, his bones would shatter," she told Reuters from her home north of Orlando, Florida. Her home office is filled with Cold War-era atomic memorabilia and thousands of documents she has dug up to support her petitions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She says she has three petitions stalled in the queue, representing as many as 2,000 former workers and heirs, from plants including the Pinellas facility near St. Petersburg, that produced atomic bombs from 1957 to 1990. "They all took loyalty oaths. They really promised the companies they would not tell anybody about what they were doing or what they are working with, not even their families," she said. "Although they've never been recognized as contributing in a positive way to the war, they're kind of our unsung heroes." Like Degarmo, Hicks was inspired by his father, James Lee Hicks, who worked as a Y-12 machinist until he retired in 1994. A year later, his father was diagnosed with myeloid Leukemia - the result of his exposure to enriched uranium, his doctor said. He died of the disease at age 74 in 2008, according to death records reviewed by Reuters. Before tighter safety protocols were introduced in 2000, Hicks said he would routinely hold enriched uranium against his chest and bare arms when loading it into machines, and clean up parts of the facility without submitting samples to the lab for safety tests, according to correspondence with lab officials reviewed by Reuters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hicks pointed to the scar on his arm from the carcinoma his doctor said was undoubtedly the result of exposure to enriched uranium. "I knew there was a possible health effect," he said, but he wanted to help keep the US safe and Y-12 paid well. "I thought I was going to be the one to get out safe but I wasn't." (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Harriman, Tennessee; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Suzanne Goldenberg) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) As he continues his campaign for the highest political office in Alabama, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville is not hiding his feelings on the rebranding of a popular Southern restaurant chain. On Wednesday, Cracker Barrel unveiled its new logo, opting to do away with its longtime image of Herschel McCartney, uncle of restaurant founder Dan Evins better known as Uncle Herschel, wearing overalls and seated next to a barrel, as well as the subtitle Old Country Store. In the new image, the logo features the same burnt mustard color and the words Cracker Barrel. In the wake of the new logo, many have taken to social media to decry the change from the longtime image of the chain restaurant. The backlash caused a $94 million drop in the companys stock, according to The Hill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Adding to the chorus of critics is Tuberville, now running for governor of Alabama. We wont eat there again, and Ive eaten at every Cracker Barrel probably in the state of Alabama, because when I travel, I go to Waffle House in the morning, or Cracker Barrel for lunch or dinner when Im campaigning, Tuberville said on YellowHammer News Longshore and McKnight show Friday. It just makes you sick to your stomach that people try to change history. Much of the backlash has come from conservative circles, with people like Donald Trump Jr. posting WTF is wrong with @CrackerBarrel??! on X. Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969 and currently has 658 restaurants across 43 states the country. Most of its locations are in the Southeast. In Alabama alone, there are 30 Cracker Barrel restaurants, according to its website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Alabama gubernatorial election will be held November 3, 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor speaks at a news conference on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor will resign Aug. 29, he told employees at the Alaska Department of Law in an all-staff email Thursday afternoon. Taylor, who became the states top attorney in 2021 after his two immediate predecessors resigned in disgrace, is expected by political observers to join a competitive field of candidates running for governor in the states 2026 general election. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run for reelection, leaving the office open to challengers. This week, former Alaska Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum formally confirmed his plans to run for governor, and former state Sen. Tom Begich became the first Democrat to announce a run for the office. Bruce Walden of Palmer, who ran as a write-in candidate in 2022, filed for the office on Wednesday. In addition to Crum and Walden, seven other Republicans have filed documents for a campaign: former state Sen. Click Bishop of Fairbanks; current state Sen. Shelley Hughes of Palmer, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom of Eagle River; Matanuska-Susitna Borough Mayor Edna DeVries; podiatrist Matt Heilala of Anchorage; former teacher James William Parkin IV of Angoon; and business owner Bernadette Wilson of Anchorage. No independents have filed for the office, and Begich is the only Democrat who has filed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Taylor has not formally stated that he will run for governor, he has participated in a significant number of non-state events that appear to foreshadow a campaign. Next Thursday, he was scheduled to join other Republican attorneys general in Anchorage at an event hosted by the Anchorage Republican Womens Club. It wasnt immediately clear whether that event would still take place. In a written statement, Dunleavy thanked Taylor for his service and noted that he will end his career as the third-longest-serving attorney general in state history. In the same statement, Taylor thanked the employees of the Department of Law. During four and a half years as attorney general, Taylor has tended to favor Christian conservative and Republican causes, aligning the state legally with other Republican attorneys general. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2022, Taylor helped fundraising efforts for a Republican group that ran ads opposing more moderate members of the state House and Senate in that years elections. Taylors family has backed efforts that would allow state homeschool funding to be used for tuition at private and religious schools. Earlier this year, Taylors travel itinerary drew scrutiny after it was revealed that a corporate-funded group had paid at least $20,000 for a trip to France for Taylor and his wife. Taylors time in office has corresponded with a drop in violent and sexual crime within the state. Alaska ranks among the worst states in the nation for both categories of crimes. Dunleavy is expected to appoint an acting attorney general on or before Aug. 29. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Former U.S. District Court Judge Joshua Kindred speaks at his Dec. 4, 2019, Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C. (U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee video screenshot) The Alaska Bar Association has voted to recommend that former U.S. District Court Judge Joshua Kindred be disbarred in Alaska. Kindred, appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as a federal judge here, resigned last year from the federal bench after investigators found that he had a sexualized relationship with a clerk who became a prosecutor and lied about it to a senior judge and investigators, and maintained a hostile workplace for law clerks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since that investigation, additional improprieties connected to the U.S. attorneys office have come to light. On Thursday, the bar associations board of governors voted without dissent to recommend that Kindred be disbarred, forbidden from practicing law in the state. The bar association regulates attorneys across Alaska. The boards recommendation will go to the Alaska Supreme Court, which must make the final determination. No date has been set for when the court will consider the issue. Kindred, whose law license is inactive according to the bar associations database, did not participate in the investigation that preceded Thursdays hearing, said Rebecca Patterson, president of the bar associations board. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Louise Driscoll, assistant counsel for the bar association, said the association received lots of calls when the investigation into Kindred was revealed to the public. Typically, she said, the association prefers to act when a grievance is filed by someone other than the associations own counsel, but in this case, the associations counsel filed the grievance itself in November. The subsequent investigation, she said, was slowed by the fact that Kindred didnt respond to requests for a response to the grievance. He no longer lived at his address on file. He had left the federal court. Former acquaintances didnt know where he was. Eventually, Driscoll said, a process server found Kindred sitting on the couch at his mothers house. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was Mr. Kindreds mother who answered the door and accepted service, but you could see Mr. Kindred on the sofa, so he was on notice, she said. Even then, Kindred didnt respond, and in June, a committee recommended that Kindred be disbarred. Driscoll said the committee considered it very serious that Kindred had lied to federal investigators about his activities. Lawyers are expected to be honest, and the members of the public have a reason to consider that they will be dealing with honest counsel, she said. Kindreds actions, she added, have caused real harm there are dozens of cases whose outcomes are now in doubt because Kindred failed to disclose conflicts of interest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition, Kindreds resignation has left only one active judge on Alaskas district court bench. Theres been grievous harm, Driscoll said of Kindreds actions. In a footnote to the disbarment recommendation, the committee said, We enter our decision not with any joy. It is our collective hope Mr. Kindred can recover emotionally, financially and physically notwithstanding the hardships Mr. Kindred confronts. On Thursday, after Driscolls suggestion, the board of governors deleted that footnote. Kindred, they concluded, should receive no more special courtesy than any other attorney facing the same accusations. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) An Albuquerque 13-year-old is on a long road to recovery after he collided with a car while riding an e-bike. Its a call no mother wants or expects. Oh my gosh, theres been a terrible accident, you need to get to the hospital right now,' said Megan Goodman, recounting the call. I could tell by the panic of the moms voice on the other end that it was not just a broken arm. It was something much more than that. Story continues below Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In April, she and her husbands then 12-year-old son Ryatt was riding his e-bike with friends in Northeast Albuquerque when he collided with a car. The Desert Ridge Middle schooler was rushed to the hospital with severe head trauma and put in a medically induced coma. It was pretty shocking at first. It didnt feel real, said Megan. The family followed a nurses advice to take Ryatts care out of state. She came in and said, Do you want a row boat to his recovery or do you want a speedboat to his recovery? If you want a speed boat, you guys need to get out of state because we just dont have, like, the funding or the type of specialized care that Ryatts going to need to have the best possible outcomes,' said Megan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ryatt had a number of procedures and surgeries as the Goodmans balance his care in Colorado and the care of his brothers in Albuquerque. Megan is on unpaid leave from her role as a counselor at La Cueva High School, while Tommy has to work part-time. The community is stepping up and has raised more than $60,000 to help with the familys medical and travel expenses. I feel super lucky for our community. We just have a great, great network of friends and family, said Tommy Goodman, Ryatts dad, while also noting the strangers who have also donated. The family hopes their story raises the awareness of the need for specialized care in New Mexico. We have amazing healthcare professionals here, but just not specifically, you know, pediatric neuro-specific brain injury, said Megan. If we could somehow convince lobbyists and lawmakers to put healthcare for New Mexicans first, I think that would be a great benefit, said Tommy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The family said Ryatt is making progress. Hes looking forward to getting back to his friends and his friend group and doing all the things that we take for granted, like walking, talking, and eating. He has to relearn how to do all of that right now, said Megan. Theres families out there that would trade positions with us that have lost a son or a daughter, and so I think we try to keep that in context, said Tommy. Theres a chance we can get him to a healthy and happy placewere thankful for that. Theyre hopeful Ryatt, who they describe as genuine and determined, will get back to climbing, running, friends, and all that he loves. We tell Tyatt every day that hes going to make a 100% recovery, that hes going to back to all the things he did prior to the accident. So, thats the hope that well get there, said Tommy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youd like to help the family, their GoFundMe is here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says the U.S. Justice Department will immediately appeal Thursdays federal judges ruling that found Alina Habba had no legal authority to serve as New Jerseys U.S. Attorney. Meanwhile, Habba herself in an appearance on Fox News following the ruling sharply criticized the decision and an order temporarily stayed by the judge in anticipation of that appeal disqualifying her from participating in any ongoing cases. We will not fall to rogue judges, Habba told commentator Sean Hannity, after he characterized the ruling as politically motivated by an Obama-appointed judge without mentioning that the judge was in fact a Republican. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I am the pick of the president. I am the pick of Pam Bondi, our attorney general. And I will serve this country like I have for the last several years in any capacity, Habba said. In his decision, Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania found that Habbas appointment had violated federal law governing temporary appointments to Senate-confirmed positions. The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habbas appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves, Brann wrote. Along the way, it has disagreed with the judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and criminal defendants in that District about who should or may lead the office. Faced with the question of whether Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, the judge said, I conclude that she is not. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Department of Justice did not respond to repeated requests for comment, nor did Habba. But Bondi in a social media post on X promised an immediate appeal, saying Habba is doing incredible work in New Jersey and we will protect her position from activist judicial attacks. We will immediately appeal. @USAttyHabba is doing incredible work in New Jersey and we will protect her position from activist judicial attacks.https://t.co/BSBlYPcGy6 Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 21, 2025 As of Friday afternoon, that appeal had yet to be filed. Habba, whose office also did not comment, told Hannity: We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job respecting the president. And you cant get rid of the president. Despite the attacks on the judge, it was no secret that Brann before his nomination to the bench in 2012 by President Barack Obama, had been a Republican Party official and a member of the conservative Federalist Society. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jacob Elberg, a Seton Hall University Law School professor who was an assistant U.S. attorney for more than 11 years under Republican and Democratic administrations, said the accusations of judges being rogue or partisan never appeared in the administrations arguments in front of Judge Brann, presumably because the administration knew there is no basis for any of it. He called Branns decision thorough, careful, and well-reasoned. Habbas comments continuing to focus only on her being the choice of the president and the attorney general, he pointed out, ignore that the Constitution very intentionally sought to avoid giving the president unchecked power, including as to appointments. Her statement that the job of judges was to respect the president reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the system of checks and balances at the heart of the Constitution, Elberg added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The founders sought specifically and intentionally to put checks on the presidential power to make appointments. Upholding the Constitution is not the act of rogue judges that is judges doing their jobs, he said. The fight over Habbas nomination landed in court after lawyers for three criminal defendants Julien Giraud Jr. and Julien Giraud III, both charged with firearms and narcotics offenses, and Cesar Pina, a social media influencer accused of running a Ponzi-like real estate scheme sought to dismiss their indictments. They argued that Habbas appointment violated federal law. Habba, a Donald Trump loyalist who served as the presidents personal attorney and legal spokesperson, had been nominated in March to serve as U.S. attorney for New Jersey a position requiring U.S. Senate confirmation. But New Jerseys two U.S. senators, Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both said they would not support the nomination under the Senates so-called blue slip process that give deference to home-state senators in the judicial nominations process. When Habbas nomination stalled, the administration installed her through a series of interim and acting appointments, leading to criticism that the maneuver sidestepped the U.S. Constitutions advice and consent requirement for high-level federal appointments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When Habbas 120-day interim term was set to expire July 22, a panel of federal judges only hours before the deadline declined to extend her appointment and instead named Desiree Grace, the offices first assistant, as interim U.S. attorney. The Department of Justice then fired Grace and reinstalled Habba, citing a legal workaround under the federal Vacancies Reform Act. Bondi publicly criticized the judges for appointing Grace, accusing them of threatening the presidents constitutional authority to appoint and remove executive officials. Attorneys for Pina, in a joint statement, said they challenged the authority of Habba because her appointment ignored the rules that give legitimacy to the U.S. Attorneys office. Branns ruling, they said, underscored that this administration cannot circumvent the congressionally mandated process for confirming U.S. Attorney appointments. Matthew Brann, Chief U.S. District Judge of the Middle District of Pa., who ruled against the government. Thomas A. Berry, director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, the Washington-based libertarian think tank, has long studied how those in power often seek work-arounds to put nominees into jobs without Senate confirmation. They are often successful because of ambiguities within the Vacancies Reform Act Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both parties have exploited loopholes with increasing frequencies, he said. When the president makes a nomination as he did with Habba, it must be confirmed by the Senate. But obtaining Senate consent can take time, which means that when an office becomes vacant, it can remain vacant for a lengthy period, he explained. That led to the procedures under the Vacancies Reform Act. The question before the court with Habba was how far the administration pushed the envelope in terms of time limits and complying with the acts requirements, which if held to be legal, could essentially result in having no incentive at all to go to the Senate. Berry, who said he is no fan of the use of loopholes, said the government has nevertheless had a very high success rate in Vacancy Act cases. Still, he believes an appeal could go either way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both sides can go into it thinking they have a very real chance, he said. But if the administration does appeal, Elberg said it would mean a continuation of what has already been an extended period of uncertainty that has significant implications for the functioning of the U.S. Attorneys Office. Given the importance of cases handled by the office, it would seem at some point the administration would abandon the effort and prioritize the functioning of the office and its ability to prosecute cases, said the former federal prosecutor. __ Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Colleen Murphy may be reached at cmurphy@njadvancemedia.com. Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @TedShermanSL. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) An Allegany County man was found dead in his hotel room Thursday morning, according to New York State Police. Police said Sean Dawson, 32, of Alfred, was visited by Briar York, 27, also of Alfred, in his hotel room on Tuesday. Dawson was staying at an Economy Inn on State Route 244 at the time. York allegedly stabbed Dawson multiple times following a discussion about Dawsons possible status as a sex offender. York then attempted to clean the scene of possible evidence, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials found Dawson deceased around 10:20 a.m. Thursday morning. York was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence. York was transported to the Allegany County Jail for CAP arraignment. An investigation remains ongoing. Latest Local News Kayleigh Hunter-Gasperini joined the News 4 team in 2024 as a Digital Video Producer. She is a graduate of Chatham University. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. Five of the contractors Florida has employed to build and operate Alligator Alcatraz the controversial immigration detention site in the Everglades have links to allegations of improper business practices and misuse of public funds, a Miami Herald review of legal records found. One of the firms allegedly allowed armed Mexican nationals with no legal immigration status to be brought into the United States by a subcontractor to provide security for its work in building a border wall as part of a federal contract. Another recently agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement addressing allegations that it had sold to the U.S. federal government products made in prohibited countries like China. A third shares top executives with two businesses that were accused by ex-employees of filing inflated hurricane insurance claims in federally-declared disaster areas. The findings raise questions about the DeSantis administrations vetting of the companies that received Alligator Alcatraz contracts, all of which were granted under the terms of an emergency order Gov. Ron DeSantis first issued in 2023, declaring an illegal immigration emergency. The order grants the state executive sweeping powers to suspend any regulation or rule that may slow down response to an emergency, including the process of awarding contracts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DeSantis administration described the process for soliciting contractors in general but did not answer when asked whether these same contractors would be tasked with operating Deportation Depot a newly announced detention facility in a currently-shuttered prison in north Florida. The Heralds reporting is based on court and corporate documents, campaign finance and lobbying data and the nearly three-dozen contracting records and purchase orders downloaded before the state replaced them with documents with significantly less detail. Gov. Ron DeSantis office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not answer the Heralds detailed questions about the allegations surrounding the contractors and what kind of background checks or audits were performed before awarding the contracts. The Division of Emergency Management only said that the initial contract records were replaced on the public-facing portal because they included proprietary information that shouldnt have been uploaded. Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to reporters during a press conference as he stands on the airplane runway of Alligator Alcatraz in Ochopee , Florida on Friday, July 25, 2025. SLSCO and Garner Environmental Services SLSCO, a Galveston, Texas-based business the DeSantis administration tasked with constructing and maintaining Alligator Alcatraz, had previously been awarded $1.4 billion in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracts to build President Trumps border wall in 2019. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A former FBI Special Agent and an ex-San Diego County Sheriffs deputy hired to oversee security at the border wall construction site sued SLSCO in a Southern California federal court the following year. The suit, filed anonymously, accused the firm of knowingly permitting and actively facilitating the crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border by armed Mexican nationals into the United States during the construction project. It alleged that SLSCO and its subcontractor used these unvetted workers as guards in sensitive and lightly-secured areas at the construction site. The two former law enforcement officials alleged that one of SLSCOs subcontractors had even cleared a dirt road to allow easy access from Mexico into the United States. They also alleged that senior managers were aware of these violations of the contract agreements as well as federal immigration and firearm laws and attempted to hide this misconduct by pressuring the former FBI agent to not disclose the issues to the Army Corps of Engineers. Things escalated in July 2019 when there was a shootout on the American side of the border between the Mexicans employed as guards and other Mexican nationals who had crossed over to steal property, the lawsuit states. The two officials lost their jobs later that year, in what they viewed as retaliation from the company for resisting internal pressure and filing reports to the Army Corps anyway. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The suit alleges that a few months before suing SLSCO in early 2020, the two had also shared details with the FBI. The court docket shows the former FBI agent and sheriffs deputy moved in January 2021 to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning they can bring the suit again at a later date. In 2024, a New York City audit found SLSCO repeatedly charged the city high rates for operating its shelters for asylum seekers. It noted that in one instance the company charged hourly rates that were 237% more than a similar contract for another firm. In another instance, SLSCO billed the city almost double what other contractors charged. That audit also cites Garner Environmental Services, another firm tasked with constructing Alligator Alcatraz, for charging more than other businesses contracting with New York or even the salary rates of city employees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [H]iring new full-time civil service staff would always be more cost effective than paying Garner and SLSCO for their contracted-out staff, the report concluded. SLSCO said in a statement that the allegations in the New York City audit and those surrounding the border wall were thoroughly investigated and found to be without merit, and SLS was cleared of any wrongdoing. When asked, the firm did not provide any evidence of the investigations and their conclusions mentioned in its statement. Garner Environmental Services did not respond to the Heralds requests for comment. Aerial view of structures including gigantic tents built at the recently opened migrant detention center, Alligator Alcatraz, located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on Friday July 04, 2025. IRG Global Emergency Management IRG Global Emergency Management, a company based out of Conroe a city 40-miles north of Houston, Texas inked a $2.9 million deal on June 23 with Florida to provide transportation vehicles for Alligator Alcatraz. It contributed $10,000 to the Florida GOP the next day. On June 26, it signed another contract worth $2.2 million to provide onsite emergency services and armory systems and materials for the site. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement IRG Global was registered to do business in Florida in February 2025. Among its executives at the time of registration were Domenico and Guiseppe Gagliano. Two other companies that counted the Gaglianos among their executives and share the same office address as IRG Global were at the center of a late 2023 federal lawsuit in Houston. The companies, Global Estimating Services and Access Restoration Services, were sued by more than a dozen former employees who alleged they had not been paid bonuses worth thousands of dollars. The employees also alleged that the two companies which go by GES and ARS had used them as pawns in a plan with a Texas law firm to file inflated insurance claims in federally-declared disaster areas. The employees stated that while working as field inspectors in Florida, Texas and Louisiana, they would travel to sites of property loss to document the damage but the inspection was limited to just what they observed without trying to determine whether it was disaster-related or not. GES, they said, also instructed them to document non-covered, unrelated property damage, and keep the scope descriptions uncharacteristically vague. Contrary to popular practice, they said they were prohibited from communicating with the insurance carriers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The employees alleged that at times they would be paid by ARS despite being officially employed by GES and while in Florida, they were required to fill out ARS timesheets bearing the ARS logo. Data recorded by the former employees would be used, the lawsuit states, by GES and ARS to formulate estimates for substantial hurricane and storm damage. The Texas law firm, the ex-employees complaint stated, would then use those inflated estimates to prosecute claims against national insurers. GES and IRS denied any wrongdoing. The case ended in a settlement in April this year. ARS had previously sued the Texas law firm in 2023. But the incident has led to a flurry of lawsuits leaving hundreds of homeowners waiting on claims to finish their repairs while the courts sort out the legal mess. IRG Global Emergency Management, the contractor that is working on Alligator Alcatraz, said that it has no involvement or connection in the legal matter of GES and that IRG and ARS are separate legal entities. ARS also said it had no involvement whatsoever in formulating the estimates used in the insurance claims. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Any reporting that suggests ARS is connected to these matters would be categorically false, ARS said in a statement to the Herald. IRG Global did not respond after the Herald shared corporation documents showing the company listed the same offices and common executives as GES and ARS. ARS and IRG Global removed the Gaglianos from company paperwork in Florida and Texas roughly two weeks later. IRG Global and ARS were contracted by Florida even before Alligator Alcatraz was in the works. In mid-June this year, Florida awarded a contract worth roughly $19 million to IRG Global to fly Americans out of Israel amid the countrys conflict with Iran. ARS contributed at least $99,000 to Gov. DeSantis reelection campaign in 2022 and the same amount separately to the state Republican Party the next year, campaign finance records show. That year, ARS was also involved in the DeSantis administrations efforts to fly migrants to Democrat-leaning cities and states. Migrants, their faces obscured, outside the plane that ferried them from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. When the DeSantis administration looked to book more flights, it turned to ARS and GardaWorld. GardaWorld and CDW Also part of this effort to fly migrants to more liberal cities was another company that is providing administrative support services to Alligator Alcatraz Canadian multinational defense and security conglomerate, GardaWorld. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The companys Boca Raton-based cash services arm carries Americas money: Its armored trucks are used by clients ranging from Bank of America to McDonalds. A 2020 Tampa Bay Times investigation found that its trucks often lacked reliable brakes, seat belts or even seats. Its drivers were barely trained and pressured to work at a frantic pace. The trucks kept hurtling out of control, swerving into traffic, plunging into ditches and smashing into cars. GardaWorld trucks averaged 100 collisions each month from 2014 to 2016, the Times found. The collisions killed at least 19 and injured hundreds. GardaWorld dismissed the Times investigation as unsubstantiated and said that all such claims have long been dismissed without any finding against GardaWorld Cash. It added that in recent years it has invested heavily in driver training and other protocols ensuring safety, security and legal compliance. Additionally, the company and its subsidiaries and affiliates have received $1.2 billion in federal contracts, mostly from the U.S. State Department and its personnel have been deployed at military bases, consulates and oilfields in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2008. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement GardaWorlds operations in Afghanistan have also come under fire. A 20-year U.S. Army veteran, Justin Fahn, who had once been employed by GardaWorld and sent to Afghanistan sued the company in a Georgia federal court in 2020 alleging that many of the employees they [GardaWorld and its subsidiaries] hired to protect the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic facilities were unqualified, had failed to pass required training classes and refresher courses or had not taken them at all. [T]heir failure to ensure that their employees are physically fit and properly trained has seriously jeopardized the safety of Department of State personnel and assets in Afghanistan, stated the complaint. Fahn also alleged that the firm and its counsel engaged in witness tampering, made material misrepresentations to the court and federal prosecutors and acted in bad faith during the course of the lawsuit. Fahns allegations around pre-deployment training were dismissed by the judge presiding over the case. But his allegations that GardaWorld employees did not complete annual refresher training were allowed to go forward. Court documents show the State Department audited GardaWorlds pre-deployment training records in 2019 and found improper paperwork, unauthorized instructors and other irregularities. GardaWorld implemented a corrective action plan that addressed the issues after the federal agency raised concerns with the firm. GardaWorld denied the allegations to the court. The company and Fahn settled the case in August 2024. In response to questions from the Herald, GardaWorld denied that there were allegations its personnel had failed to pass required training and endangered State Department employees. When the Herald shared court records contradicting its statement, the company emphasized the partial dismissal of the case and stated that it had reached an agreement to end legal proceedings and remove further distractions from its operations. Florida is also procuring electronic equipment like radio and computer systems for Alligator Alcatraz from CDW Government an Illinois company which reported in its March quarterly filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it is currently being investigated by the Justice Department on false claims allegations. The company told investors that it is cooperating with the investigation. The company has been in this position before. It agreed to pay $5.66 million in 2013 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that from 1999 to 2011, it sold the federal government products made in China and other countries that are prohibited from the federal contracting process and also under-reported its sales in order to avoid paying a contracting fee. There was no determination of liability in settling the claims. CDW Government did not respond to the Heralds requests for comment. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meets with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 21, 2025. (Photo by Ahmad Kamal/Xinhua) ISLAMABAD, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met here on Thursday with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, saying that the friendship between Pakistan and China is unique, with their all-weather friendship covering various fields and levels. Sharif said he very much looks forward to attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Tianjin Summit in China and commemorative events marking the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. He said that the Pakistani side hopes to work with China to promote the building of an upgraded Version 2.0 of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), deepen cooperation in agriculture, mining, energy and resources, aviation and aerospace, information technology, infrastructure construction and other fields, and enhance the vitality of Pakistan's economic and social development. The prime minister said that the Pakistani side attaches great importance to the safety of Chinese personnel in Pakistan and will make every effort to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and projects. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that China welcomes Shehbaz to visit China and looks forward to working with Pakistan and all parties of the SCO to carry forward the Shanghai Spirit and make the summit an event of friendship, solidarity, and fruitful outcomes. The theme of the commemorative events to be held on Sept. 3 is to bear history in mind, honor all those who laid down their lives, cherish peace and open up the future, manifesting China's firm resolve to uphold the outcomes of the victory of World War II and international fairness and justice, and actively promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, he said. Calling the China-Pakistan relationship unparalleled, Wang said that no matter how the international landscape may evolve, the traditional friendship between China and Pakistan remains unshakable and unbreakable. The building of a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future aims to closely link each other's future and destiny, promote common development and prosperity, and work together on their way to modernization. Wang said that China has always been the most reliable partner and strongest supporter for Pakistan. Both sides need to accelerate the building of an upgraded Version 2.0 of the CPEC, focus on agriculture, industry and mining, promote mutually beneficial cooperation in Gwadar Port, industrial parks, connectivity and high technology, comprehensively enhance Pakistan's independent development capabilities, and strengthen its resilience against external challenges. Wang also said that China supports Pakistan in resolutely cracking down on all forms of terrorism and creating a secure and favorable environment for national development and bilateral cooperation. Both sides also exchanged views on international and regional issues of common concern. (The Center Square) An order from a federal judge to begin closing down Alligator Alcatraz in Florida has been appealed by the state. The deportations will continue until morale improves, said Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesman for second-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Judge Kathleen Williams, on the bench for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, late Thursday formalized her injunction from two weeks ago. Her ruling halts any more expansion, any more people detained being brought to the facility, and carries an expectation that the facility population will decline within 60 days through transfers to other facilities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Williams cited the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades in her ruling. Environmental groups led the opposition of the facility. The 30-square mile airport owned by Miami-Dade County is located roughly 60 miles east of Miami near the Everglades National Park. Its 10,000-foot-long asphalt runway was used for military training exercises and was intended to be part of Miami's new airport before a public outcry halted construction in 1970. DeSantis plans a similar facility about 40 miles from Jacksonville in the northern part of the state. The 1,300-bed unit at Baker Correctional Institution could be expanded to 2,000 beds and has been dubbed the Deportation Depot. With a 10-year, $4 billion contract in hand, the company managing the Space Forces range operations is laying the groundwork to help the service support the ever-growing demand for commercial and military launches. The Space Force awarded the work to Amentum in late May, choosing the company over its incumbent launch range support provider. That firm, RGNext, protested the deal, but announced last week it would drop its complaint. The sweeping contract covers operations and maintenance of the Space Forces two major launch ranges: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. That means oversight of launch facilities, radar sites and all of the flight-tracking hardware and software. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Managing those tasks as efficiently as possible is part of what has allowed the service to juggle the boom in launch demand over the last five years. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of commercial and government launches supported by Cape Canaveral by far the busier of the two ranges jumped from just 16 missions to 93. This year, the Cape is projected to conduct 150 launches and Vandenberg 70. Randy Lycans, Amentums senior vice president and program manager for the Space Force Range Contract, told Defense News the companys goal is to help the service streamline and manage range operations so that it can support even more launches in the coming years. The company is currently laying a foundation to ensure a smooth transition to the new contract and is on track to assume operations by Dec. 1. Im hopeful that in six months, well start to see some specific benefits being returned, Lyans said. I think the real measure is going to be how many launches are going to achieve in 26 versus 25. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Amentums approach to facilitating more launches is to reduce the cycle time between missions so that companies can quickly and easily move through the launch process. That means modernizing all aspects of operations by injecting new technology, implementing a new concept of operations for running the ranges like commercial spaceports, making analog processes digital and maintaining and recruiting the technical talent needed to operate various range infrastructure. Lycans noted that the company plans to retain most of the 1,200 personnel from the previous range contract. The company plans to implement an intelligent asset management tool to track thousands of pieces of hardware that need to be serviced and maintained. The firm is also looking for ways to provide digital tools, such as models of launch facilities or interface schematics to rocket companies that could help them navigate the range particularly firms developing new launch vehicles, like Rocket Lab and Blue Origin. Thats an area that I think is ripe for our attention to really enable the Space Force to drive up the launch rate and reduce cycle times between launches, he said. We dont process the rockets, but we provide all the infrastructure, the consumables ... and support those interfaces to the rocket that enable the launch provider to get their job done as quickly as they can. Attorney General Pam Bondi received a response this week from the governor of the first state to pass "sanctuary" legislation, after she had warned it was engaged in "policies and procedures that hinder federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States." Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, confirmed receipt of Bondis original letter from the prior week, writing back that she "respectfully disagree[s]" with Bondis assertion. "The State of Oregon, its public officials, and its law enforcement officers do not engage in conduct that thwarts federal immigration enforcement," Kotek said, noting the Beaver State passed Americas first sanctuary state law in 1987. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State Rep. Rocky Barilla, D-Eugene, introduced the bill which was then signed by Gov. Neil Goldschmidt amid concerns police were wrongly profiling Latinos about their immigration status. Bostons Wu Fires Back At Bondi, Citing Revolution, As Other Cities Slam Feds Over Sanctuary Warnings In her response to Bondi, Kotek said in the nearly 40 years since, Oregon officials and law enforcement have not violated federal immigration law while abiding by the state policy. Read On The Fox News App "A 2018 ballot measure to repeal portions of Oregons federal immigration enforcement law failed when 63% of Oregon voters opposed repealing the existing law," she said, adding that the 1987 law was revisited and "strengthened" by Salem lawmakers in 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kotek cited Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblums statement after the 2021 actions: "Oregon stands for the safety, dignity, and human rights of all Oregonians," the state prosecutor said at the time, as Kotek also echoed the contention the state is acting within the law due to legal precedent from contemporary Tenth Amendment called the Anticommandeering Rule. That rule, borne out of cases like New York v. U.S. in 1992 which focused on requests for states to dispose of nuclear waste -- prescribes that the federal government cannot force them to administer federal programs. Trump Admin Slams Aclu For Comparing Ice Center To Japanese Internment Camp: Deranged And Lazy President Joe Biden, left; Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, right Kotek said in her letter to Bondi that she is aware of warnings that the Trump administration may pursue civil actions against public officials on grounds they are obstructing federal immigration efforts or facilitating lawbreaking. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The state does not take on the additional expense or burden to perform federal immigration enforcement as it is the job of the federal government," Kotek went on, citing the Anticommandeering Rule. "The state of Oregon is in compliance with federal law and will continue to follow state law. Therefore, no 'immediate initiatives' are necessary to eliminate laws that impede immigration enforcement," she concluded, noting that her letter was delivered to the Justice Department via Federal Express. The back and forth comes as an Oregon federal judge is poised to decide on a notable immigration case in the state, and rule on whether a twice-deported Guatemalan asylum-seeking farmworker can be released from federal custody despite prior deportations. President Joe Biden, left, and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, right, enjoy ice cream at a shop in 2024. Identified only as L.J.P.L., the foreign national had been deported during the Obama administration, and litigants argued whether he could be released so long as he makes regular check-ins at a Eugene immigration office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee whom Chief Justice John Roberts also named to the FISA Court, will decide whether ICE can move forward and immediately deport "L.J.P.L.," according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Original article source: Americas original sanctuary state rebukes Bondis warning, denies obstruction of ICE PEA RIDGE, Ark. A battlefield preservation group has identified land it wants to save in Northwest Arkansas. The American Battlefield Trust wants to preserve 3 acres on the western side of Pea Ridge National Military Park near the Missouri-Arkansas line as part of its latest campaign, which also includes preserving land at two battlefields in Virginia. "It would be the first time that the trust has saved land at Pea Ridge," said Jared Herr, spokesperson for the organization. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The American Battlefield Trust has helped protect more than 60,000 acres around the country, including 351 acres of the Prairie Grove Battlefield in Northwest Arkansas, 326 acres of the Mine Creek battlefield in eastern Kansas, and more than 170 acres of the Cabin Creek and Honey Springs battlefields in Oklahoma. In Missouri, the group helped protect 180 acres of the 1861 Battle of Carthage, 8 acres at Newtonia, the site of two battles, and 278 acres at Wilsons Creek National Battlefield. Although only 3 acres, Herr said the land that has been identified by the trust for preservation is important to telling the story of the fighting there in early March 1862. "This is land that has been deemed core battlefield land," Herr said. "We know historically that action took place here." This week, the trust announced a matching campaign to raise money for the Pea Ridge land, as well as 6 acres at Deep Bottom, Virginia, and 65 acres at Saltville, Virginia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This is $6.56-to-$1 match," Herr said. "For every dollar, we're getting seven times the impact." The trust said it is hoping to raise $245,000 to preserve the land at the three sites. Herr cited growth in Northwest Arkansas as one of the reasons for the focus on the land near Arkansas Highway 172 on the west side of the existing 4,300-acre Pea Ridge battlefield. If successful, this would be the second addition to the battlefield in recent years. Two years ago, the Conservation Fund announced it was donating the 140-acre Green Homestead in Benton County to Pea Ridge National Military Park. It had acquired the land in 2020. The Green Homestead was on the north side of the battlefield had been identified as a conservation priority for the National Park Service. Pea Ridge National Military Park preserves and commemorates the March 7-8, 1862, battle that helped Union forces maintain physical and political control of Missouri. Part of the land acquired by American Prairie in Chouteau County, near Fort Benton. The land is significant because of its proximity to the Lewis and Clark encampment. (Photo courtesy of American Prairie) American Prairie has added just more than 1,400 acres of land, which includes scenic habitat situated both near and along the Missouri River, improving public access for boaters, floaters, anglers, and other river recreationalists. The first land acquisition grows American Prairies existing PN unit by 1,365 acres, which is made up of 630 deeded acres and 735 leased acres. The property is located in Chouteau County, across the Missouri River from the historic Lewis and Clark campsite at Slaughter River, also known today as Arrow Creek. It was one of the few locations utilized by the expedition on both their outbound and return journeys. Sitting at the confluence of the Missouri and Arrow Creek, this area is also culturally and historically significant for the regions Indigenous Peoples who lived, traveled, camped, and hunted buffalo and other game along the resource-rich river corridors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Being adjacent to the PN, this property is rich with wildlife and provides habitat for elk, deer, pronghorn, coyotes, beavers, bears, prairie dogs, curlew, burrowing owls, and upland birds. Bighorn sheep are also present in the area, and it serves as an important migration corridor for carnivores. This property is an incredible area for hiking, biking, and wildlife viewing, and a great jumping off point to explore this part of the Missouri River Breaks, said Alison Fox, CEO of American Prairie. As Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks continues to develop plans for Judith Landing State Park, were excited to continue to grow public access along the Missouri River. Last year, American Prairie donated 109 acres of deeded land on the PN to the Montana State Parks Foundation. The donated land is part of the Judith Landing Historic District, and a treasure trove of historical and cultural significance. Recognizing the unique value of Judith Landing to the people and the State of Montana, American Prairie took the initiative to gift stewardship of these acres for the creation of Montanas newest state park. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is currently developing plans for the park, which will include interpretive signage, day-use parking, bathrooms, and a small campground so visitors can enjoy the river corridor overnight. American Prairie also announced it has acquired an additional 84 deeded acres in Phillips County along the Missouri River, just west of its popular Antelope Creek Campground. It includes more than a half-mile of river frontage within the National Wild and Scenic stretch of the river. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Every acquisition is meaningful, and these additional 84 acres will provide terrific river access and another scenic camping spot, said Fox. Visitors at Antelope Creek Campground on American Prairies Mars Vista unit, will now be a short hike from their RV spot, tent site, or cabin to this new access point on the Missouri River. Every year, thousands of visitors choose to get off the beaten path and stay overnight at American Prairies lodging facilities, which include Antelope Creek campground, Buffalo Camp, and the Myers Family Huts. These two land purchases bring American Prairies total habitat base to 528,408 acres, which is comprised of 141,157 deeded acres and 387,251 leased public acres. Providing public access is a cornerstone of the nonprofits mission and the majority of its private lands are open to the public for recreation. American Prairie intends to share public access details in the future to spell out recreational uses on these new deeded acres. As it has done in the past, the organization needs to first take time to familiarize itself with the property. By Promit Mukherjee and Allison Lampert OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's government stepped in four times to aid seven companies last year, stopping strikes using an obscure Labour Code provision. A similar decree on Sunday failed, however, as Air Canada's flight attendants refused to obey and stayed on strike for three days. Their defiance marked a watershed, unions and labor experts declared, saying it will strengthen unions in negotiations, dissuade employers in federally regulated sectors from seeking government intervention, and complicate federal efforts to end work stoppages through this provision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We will reflect back on this dispute, this strike, as a turning point," said Chris Roberts, professor at Carleton University and National Director of the Social and Economic Policy Department of the Canadian Labour Congress. Section 107 of the Canadian Labour Code, enacted in 1984, gives the jobs minister overarching powers to end strikes and lockouts to "maintain or secure industrial peace." It was rarely invoked, but since June 2024 it has been used five times in crucial sectors like railways, ports, and postal services. The Canadian Labour Congress, Canada's largest workers group, has called for parliamentary legislation to withdraw these powers. "It is clear now with the record of interventions over the last year that having these superpowers available to the minister is problematic," Roberts said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), representing the 10,000 flight attendants, has set a precedent by defying the government order for the first time. It has also filed one of many union lawsuits against Section 107. "Section 107 is corrosive, creates a fundamental imbalance in labour relations and needs to be repealed," CUPE spokesperson Hugh Pouliot said in an email. Jennifer Kozelj, press secretary to Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu, said sending the CUPE dispute to arbitration was a tough choice. "Canadians and our economy are experiencing significant disruption already. Lost revenue can make or break a small business and cause deep financial difficulties for families," she said in an emailed response. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Every dispute is different, and we cannot speculate on how each will play out; however, we will always maintain that the strongest deals happen at the table." Unions believe the tide has turned. "Once you have the first union defy, chances are the next union is also going to very seriously contemplating that," said Bea Bruske, president of Canadian Labour Congress, which represents 3 million workers across the country. "I think the willingness of the federal government to use Section 107 in the future will be politically constrained because, this time, it backfired on it," said Michael Lynk, professor emeritus of law at Western University in London, Ontario, noting that the government had no back-up tool. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Teamsters union, which was involved in two major negotiations last year against the country's two biggest rail companies - Canadian National Railways and Canadian Pacific, has filed court challenges against Section 107. "Our ultimate goal is to prevent the federal government from simply ordering workers back on the job," said Christopher Monette, The Teamsters' director of public affairs. INDUSTRIAL NARCOTIC A year ago, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, under then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, effectively ordered the end of a lockout and a potential strike at the two railways by asking the Canada Industrial Relations Board to issue back-to-work notices and start binding arbitration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prior to that, then-Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan directed CIRB to impose binding arbitration on the airline WestJet and its unionized mechanics. In November, MacKinnon again forced workers back by invoking Section 107 at the Port of Quebec, Port of Montreal and British Columbia ports. In December, he did that with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Workers and labor rights experts have claimed invoking this provision effectively removed their right to strike and a level playing field in negotiations with employers, while companies benefited from government intervention. "It becomes an industrial relations narcotic for employers to use it to run out the clock and then turn to the government and therefore order binding arbitration," Lynk from Western University said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unlike work stoppages that have been ended through legislation, use of this provision lacks the democratic stamp of approval by the people's representatives, he added. Air Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The carrier is facing another major negotiation next year between 14,000 baggage handlers and aircraft maintenance workers whose contract expires in March 2026. Dave Chartrand, Canadian general vice president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents these workers, said his members have the right to strike if they feel negotiations are unproductive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "If you're not sitting at the table with us and you're not bargaining, and you're not moving forward and trying to get a fair contract for our members, we're willing to withhold our manpower and our labor," Chartrand said in an interview. "It's a constitutional right." (Reporting by Promit Mukherjee and Allison Lampert; additional reporting by Divya Rajagopal and David Ljunggren; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Richard Chang) By Alasdair Pal SYDNEY -Australias decision to recognise a Palestinian state came after the government sensed a major shift in the domestic mood over the war in Gaza, and showed that Canberra was unafraid of upsetting Israel, historically one of its staunchest allies. The August 11 announcement came days after tens of thousands of people marched across Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge, calling for peace and aid deliveries to Gaza, where Israel began an offensive nearly two years ago after the Hamas militant group launched a deadly cross-border attack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Health authorities in Gaza say at least 60,000 Palestinians have been killed while the U.N. has warned of starvation. It just became politically unpalatable to be continuing to defend Israel and lay all the blame at the feet of Hamas, said Martin Kear, an academic at Sydney University specialising in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The decision has strained relations between Israel and Australia to a degree not seen in decades. Senior politicians in both countries have traded barbs - with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launching personal attacks on Albanese - the visas of Australian diplomats working in the West Bank have been revoked and an Israeli lawmaker was barred from entering Australia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A leading Jewish group in Australia has called for calm, while offering a rare rebuke of Netanyahu. Some Jews in Australia say the tension makes them feel unsafe, after a spate of antisemitic attacks in the country over the last year. Opinion polling in Australia about the Gaza conflict a divisive issue in a country with large Muslim and Jewish minorities now indicates increasing sympathy towards the Palestinian cause. August polling by DemosAU showed 45% supported Australia recognising a Palestinian state before a negotiated peace deal, with 23% opposed. Support was up from 35% a year previously. Public sympathy for Israel in Australia began to "rapidly erode once the apocalyptic spectre of famine rode into Gaza", the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the country's leading newspapers, said in an editorial this month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The images from Gaza have also hardened the resolve of lawmakers, said Charles Miller, a lecturer in international relations at the Australian National University. I think they have changed an awful lot of minds amongst policymakers in Australia, as they have in other countries, he said. JEWISH UNEASE The political fallout has alarmed the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group organisation for more than 200 Jewish organisations, that sent letters to Albanese and Netanyahu on Wednesday, urging them to deescalate tensions. If things need to be said publicly, they should be said using measured and seemly language befitting national leaders, the letters read. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Australia has been grappling with antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war, and some Jews worry heightened tensions between Australia and Israel could fuel more attacks. "When the temperature of the political discourse in the media is so focused on criticising Israel, there will be ramifications for the local Jewish community, and that's something that we need to reflect on," said Eli Feldman, the rabbi at Newtown Synagogue in Sydney, which was defaced with antisemitic graffiti in January. HISTORIC ALLY Australia was an early supporter of the creation of a Jewish state, and has long advocated for Israel in international disputes, though both main political parties back a two-state solution in principle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Albanese had personally long supported a Palestinian state until now his political pragmatism had made him wary of backing official recognition. That changed with the shift in the public mood while his landslide victory in May's general election reduced the risk of domestic pushback, said Jessica Genauer, an academic at Flinders University specialising in international conflict. Key allies, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, all said they would recognise a Palestinian state in the weeks before Australia, which also made Albanese's job easier, analysts said. They don't want to lead on carving new pathways in terms of their policies on this, but on the other hand, they don't want to be left behind by key allies around the world, Genauer said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Albanese is still a pragmatic and cautious person by nature. Netanyahu has repeatedly attacked Albanese in a series of interviews and social media posts since August 11, calling the Australia leader weak and accusing him of betraying Israel. While Albanese has played down the feud, Netanyahu shows no sign of backing down. He kept up the rhetoric with an interview with Sky News Australia that aired late on Thursday. "I'm sure he has a reputable record as a public servant, but I think his record is forever tarnished by the weakness that he showed in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters," he said. (Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Additional reporting by Jill Gralow in Sydney; Editing by Kate Mayberry) By Stefanno Sulaiman and Ananda Teresia JAKARTA (Reuters) -Thousands of Indonesians have taken to the streets this month to vent against higher taxes, and local leaders warn public outrage will only worsen if President Prabowo Subianto's new proposal to slash regional funding comes to pass. Prabowo last week proposed to parliament that regional funding be cut by a quarter to 650 trillion rupiah ($40 billion) in 2026 - part of his efforts to re-centralise government finances and fund signature ambitious policy programmes like his promise of free school lunches nationwide. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The planned cuts are sure to inflame the debate over Prabowo's spending priorities. The government argues the programmes will bring economic growth and prosperity over the long term, but critics counter his priorities are too costly and endanger democracy by taking away autonomy from regional areas. Local leaders say the proposed cuts, which would result in the smallest regional budget in a decade, will just lead to more jumps in local taxes. They add that they have had no choice but to hike taxes due to the previous administration's efforts to rein in local control over natural resources, and a 6% cut to 2025 regional funding compared to initial budget plans. Already in some towns, anger has hit a boiling point. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Pati in Central Java last week, police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse thousands of protesters who hurled rocks into a government office and set ablaze a police car amid an outcry over a 250% land tax hike. Another town in the Sulawesi islands, Bone, also saw hundreds demonstrate against a planned 65% increase in local land and property taxes. "This is a matter of fairness. The source of people's unrest is economic issues, when distribution is unfair and economic development is not inclusive, is uneven and does not trickle down," said Bursah Zarnubi, chairman of Indonesia's association of district leaders. Local leaders are seeking to meet with Prabowo by the end of the month, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Masinton Pasaribu, head of Sumatra island's Central Tapanuli district, said that the cuts threatened many planned projects and "the people will certainly be angry." Bursah also noted his district of Lahat in South Sumatra province is dependent upon the central government for 90% of its budget. The proposed cuts could put a water irrigation project worth trillions of rupiah, as well as services such as healthcare and education, at risk, he said. Representatives for the Ministry of Home Affairs, the finance ministry and the president did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment about local leaders' concerns. Asked about planned cuts last week, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the public would benefit at the regional level from central government initiatives, including the free meals and infrastructure projects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DECENTRALISATION IN DANGER Prabowo is seeking to spur economic growth of 8% during his term and recent economic data has been solid, with Southeast Asia's biggest economy expanding at a better-than-expected 5.1% in the second quarter, the fastest pace in two years. The rupiah has stabilised after hitting a nearly three-decade low in March, and foreign investment is also rising, with total investments growing 2.6% year-on-year in the first six months of 2025. That said, analysts worry that Prabowo is robbing Peter to pay Paul with the regional funding cuts. The budget for the programme to give free meals to 83 million school children and pregnant women - or a quarter of the population - is set to nearly double to 335 trillion rupiah ($20.5 billion). Cases of food poisoning and kitchens not being paid have also resulted in much public ire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some critics are also worried about the implications of the regional funding cuts for democracy in Indonesia. Decentralisation and regional autonomy were two key pillars of reforms in the wake of the 1966-1998 New Order era of the late autocrat Suharto, whom Prabowo served under as a top military commander. Though local leaders have often been criticised for failing to use funds promptly for development projects, decentralisation was lauded as a crucial way to ensure equitable development across a vast, resource-rich archipelago. That is now in danger, said Regional Autonomy Watch executive director Armand Suparman. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Re-centralisation means regional autonomy as a reform agenda disappears," he said. "Democracy doesn't just mean elections, but also public access to budget planning and policy." ($1 = 16,345.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman and Ananda Teresia; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty and Edwina Gibbs) The sails were down and the anchors were up on Thursday as Tall Ships Erie 2025 kicked off with the traditional Parade of Sail. For the captains and crews of those ships, the fun is just beginning. You cant have Erie without Lake Erie, and you cant have Lake Erie without the tall ships, so it all just goes hand in hand, said Kyle Harris, a Tall Ships spectator. The Lette G. Howard usually sits alone in Presque Isle Bay, but Thursday, the historic schooner was joined by eight other vessels to kick off Tall Ships Erie 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ships, local boaters coordinate successful Parade of Sails to open Tall Ships Erie Despite windy conditions, the lake was booming with boats for the festivals parade of sail, showcasing this years lineup of tall ships. I love the parade of sail because even right now, it feels like the celebration has begun. If you start off with day sails it feels like youre going into work, said Zachary Tan, captain of the When and If. It gives people a chance to actually see the ships. When were all in at the dock, they look all nice and stuff, but they dont get to see with our sails up. Its not as pretty and you cant see her in her full glory, said Bella Gustafson, a Saint Lawrence II crewmate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tall ships from states and countries away came to grace the waters of Lake Erie, following each other one by one to set the stage for a weekend of maritime spotlight. PennDOT announces three major projects, work set to begin in September But that spotlight carries over to land as well, with erie getting some attention as a strong destination for nautical culture. Its such a big honor to be in, especially to bring other boats in and show people around, hey, this is whats out there, this is what people can do. Its not just about that side of erie, its about the waterfront as well, Caroline Naser, an Appledore IV deckhand, said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is our third festival of the summer, but Ive been hearing about this one all summer; everybody is saying that its the best tall ship festival, Gustafson said. There were some windy conditions out there on Thursday, but now all the tall ships have arrived and docked on Dobbins Landing, and every single one of these vessels has their own story and unique history. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking News The When and If, like I said, born in 1939 in Wiscasset, Maine. Its a custom design, Captain Tan explained. Appledore IV was born in 1989, Naser told us. She was one of five Appledores by Herb and Doris Smith. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She is a brigantine, so she is kind of like in between a schooner and a brig, Gustafson went on to say. As for whats next for the captains and crews of all the tall ships, its going to be an exciting weekend of day sails and deck tours. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Heres what youll learn when you read this article: Alexander the Great was one of historys greatest generals, but his fatherPhilip IIwas no slouch either. His rule gave rise to Macedonia and its impressive army. Although archaeologists have known that Philip IIs final resting place was in a tomb located in what is now Vergina, Greece, they couldnt determine which tomb contained his remains. Now, a study from an international team of archaeologists confirms the location of Philips final resting place using both scientific data and anthropological sources. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This story is a collaboration with Popular Mechanics. Although he only lived to the age of 32, Alexander the Great consistently tops best of lists when it comes to military greatness. With his defeat of the Persian army at the Battle of Gaugamela, he became King of Babylon, King of Asia, King of the Four Quarters of the World and his battle tactics are still studied to this day. Of course, Alexander the Greatalso known as Alexander III of Macedonwas set up for success. For one, his tutor was none other than Aristotle, but his biggest military boost came from the fact that his father was King Philip II, who facilitated the rise of Macedonia and created its incredible army that Alexander eventually marched around the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia. Although Philip II isnt quite a household name like his famous offspring, the king is now getting some much-deserved time in the limelight some 2,350 years after his assassination in 336 BCE in Aigi, which is now Vergina, Greece. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, archaeologists have finally confirmed that the remains of Alexander the Greats half-brother, son, and father indeed rest in the family tomb located in Vergina. For two millennia, the town of Aigai was lost to history. But in 1977, Greek archeologist Manolis Andronikos discovered the final resting place of Philip II, and the archaeology site became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. However, while archaeologists were pretty sure that the remains of Alexanders father lie in this newly discovered tomb, controversies and disagreements ensued as to who was in which of the three tombs located in the archeological complex. To solve this mystery, an international team of archaeologists from the United States, Madrid, and Greece drew data from multiple methods of scientific investigationosteological analyses, dissections, X-rays, and moreand consulted historical sources. This determined that Tomb I contained the remains of Philip II, along with his wife Cleopatra (not to be confused with Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII) and their infant son, who were both killed after Philip IIs assassination. Additionally, Tomb IIwhich scholars once thought might have actually contained Philips remainsinstead belongs to Alexanders half-brother, King Arrhidaeus, and his wife, a warrior named Adea Eurydice. Finally, Tomb III belongs to Alexander IV, the great Macedonian generals teenage son. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We evaluated the hypothesis of Philip II in Tomb II and demonstrated why it cannot be supported, based on a full review of the available evidence, the paper reads. Unfortunately, all of the evidence is not yet available. We await the publication of the excavation diaries of Tomb I. Few father-son military duos have been so historically transformative as Philip II and Alexander the Great. And now, 2,360 years later, anthropologists and archeologists are finally piecing together the closing chapter of the duos first act. You Might Also Like MOSCOW, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- There is no meeting planned between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday. "Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all," Lavrov told U.S. news outlet NBC. Lavrov said Russia has agreed to show flexibility on several issues raised by U.S. President Donald Trump during his meeting with Putin in Alaska last week, but suggested Ukraine had hindered the meeting agenda. On Monday night, Trump said in a post on the Truth Social platform that he had called Putin and began arranging a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, with the location to be determined. Trump added that after a Putin-Zelensky meeting, a trilateral meeting involving U.S., Russian and Ukrainian leaders would take place. Lavrov previously said that Russia does not reject any formats, either bilateral or trilateral, on resolving the conflict in Ukraine. Facebook has removed an Italian group which saw men sharing intimate images of often unsuspecting women with thousands of people online. The Mia Moglie group, which translates to My Wife in English, had around 32,000 members before it was shut down this week. Its discovery has prompted outrage among Italians who are concerned about similar groups growing in its absence. Meta, which owns Facebook, said it closed the page "for violating our Adult Sexual Exploitation policies''. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Screenshots taken before the Facebook group was removed appeared to show pictures of women in various states of undress, sometimes asleep or during intimate moments. Underneath the posts there were numerous sexually explicit comments from men. Some said they wanted to "rape" the woman while others praised the secretive nature of some of the photographs. The page was highlighted by the author Carolina Capria who posted online saying she felt "nauseous" and "scared" by what she saw. "This linking of violence to sexuality is so ingrained in our culture that in a public group, men write without hiding their names and faces," she added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fiorella Zabatta from the European Greens party said on social media that it was "not just harmless fun", but was "virtual rape". "These platforms must be fought, this toxic idea of masculinity must be fought, and we all need to take action: civil society and politics too". Revenge porn, the sharing of sexually explicit images or videos which were intended to remain private, was made illegal in Italy in 2019. Italian media reports suggest more than a thousand people have already reported the group to the police unit which investigates cyber crime. Meta's statement added "we do not allow content that threatens or promotes sexual violence, sexual assault or sexual exploitation on our platforms". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The discovery of the Italian facebook page has seen some draw parallels to France's Pelicot case. Last year, Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging, abusing and inviting strangers to rape his then wife Gisele Pelicot. Despite being virtual, Capria said it showed that the Pelicot case was not an anomaly as in both instances, it showed "a man who believes he can control his wife, and for whom sexuality is inextricably linked to oppression". LAS VEGAS (KLAS) After half a year of back and forth, negotiations may be nearing the finish line when it comes to Las Vegas, Clark County, and North Las Vegas sealing a deal with the Animal Foundation. In a Thursday press conference, Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley expressed that she is eager to sign the contract and is confident it is the right move for the city. Unless you want to adopt 800 animals today, thats the way were going, she said. We cant do without them, they cant do without us. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In regards to changes theyre working towards in that new contract, she said it will become a no-kill shelter. Mayor Shelley Berkley speaking at a press conference about the Animal Foundation. (KLAS) With the Animal Foundation, it will be a no-kill shelter, the mayor explained. I think that will satisfy a lot of people in town that just find it so repulsive that healthy animals are euthanized, the mayor said. The mayor did not provide further details on a timeline for becoming no-kill. In her press conference, she also applauded recent moves from Clark County to help address the long-time issue of overcrowding at the Animal Foundation. Clark County commissioners approved a nearly $40 million project this week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The county is going to be building a temporary shelter, and a permanent shelter, which will be a tremendous help, the mayor said. She also highlighted her own personal initiative, the Mayors Animal Advisory Committee, to help furry friends in the valley. The new initiative, separate from the Animal Foundation, will work alongside organizations such as Hearts Alive and The Nevada SPCA to create more efficient spay and neutering programs. According to the mayor, the partners will be meeting next week. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. A Osceola County deputy has been arrested for misusing agency systems, three weeks after two other employees, including another deputy, were arrested for a similar crime, the Sheriffs Office announced. On Friday, Deputy Jeffrey Curtis II, 25, turned himself in at the Osceola County Jail after the agency began investigating his allegedly unauthorized use of computer systems and electronic databases in September 2022. He was placed on administrative leave last Friday ahead of his arrest, and his bond was set at $1,000 on a charge of unauthorized access to a computer system. An OCSO spokesperson did not immediately answer a message to confirm whether Curtis is related to a captain with a similar name. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our badge represents profound trust. Unfortunately, a member of our agency has violated that trust and failed both the Sheriffs Office and our community, which we have continually vowed to protect, Sheriff Christopher Blackmon said in a statement. I want to remind the community that my commitment, from the very beginning, has been rooted in integrity and honesty. If criminal activity is discovered within the Osceola County Sheriffs Office, we will take prompt action to ensure the appropriate measures are taken. Curtis, hired in October 2020 and assigned to veterans outreach services, is the third Osceola County Sheriffs Office employee to be arrested in a month. On July 31, Blackmon announced the arrests of Deputy Kyle Henry, who like Curtis worked in the Outreach Services Division, and Cassandra Wirthlin, a digital evidence specialist, for unauthorized access to agency systems, though their respective cases are unrelated. Records detailing Henrys illegal activities, which allegedly took place in 2024, have not been released. Blackmon at the time offered few specifics, but he said Henrys activity was known by Lopezs team. However, not even an internal investigation was opened into the matter, and its not clear why. No affidavits detailing Curtis arrest were immediately available, and internal reports released to the Orlando Sentinel in 2022 and 2023 did not include materials documenting the allegations. An agency spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the matter was investigated when Lopez since suspended after being arrested on racketeering charges was in office. When Oklahoma County Manager Jessica Clayton saw an email from the state AG's office Wednesday about a grant award, she was elated. Earlier in the summer, county commissioners had decided to move forward with a proposed partnership with Diversion Hub, Red Rock Behavioral Health, and the Homeless Alliance, providing more services to battle opioid abuse a crisis that had reached epidemic levels in recent years throughout Oklahoma and the United States. Under the proposal, Diversion Hub would be the service provider, in conjunction with Red Rock through its treatment court programs and the Homeless Alliance through its onsite staff, working to help manage cases and reduce homelessness. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But when she got the email Wednesday, Aug. 20, Clayton wasn't entirely sure how much the grant would be. "We requested the full allotment: $900,000," Clayton told The Oklahoman. "That was the most a county could request, unless you were partnering with another municipality. No one knows their award amount as of quite yet. We just know we are going to receive an award, but we dont know if its the full or partial payment." Oklahoma County is one of many communities expected to receive grant funding to help address the opioid crisis across the state. The funding, awarded by the Oklahoma Opioid Abatement Board, is part of $16.6 million in total grants meant to fund treatment and recovery programs throughout the state. $12.9 million is being distributed to 31 cities, counties and public trusts, along with $3.7 million to 16 school districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Requirements for the money is that it be spent on approved, evidence-based methods in reducing opioid overdoses and deaths. The funding comes from settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors sued for their part in the widespread crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of deaths in multiple waves throughout the country since the late 1990s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 105,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2023 alone, with nearly 80,000 (or about 76%) of the deaths involving opioids. In recent years, the state of Oklahoma has pursued legal action against numerous pharmaceutical companies and distributors, alleging their deceptive marketing practices and negligent distribution is to blame for the state's opioid crisis. The state made millions of dollars in settlements against opioid companies, although a landmark judgment against Johnson & Johnson was overturned on appeal. Lawmakers created the Oklahoma Opioid Abatement Board to oversee and distribute the funds fairly and effectively. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "These grants represent Oklahoma's commitment to fighting the opioid epidemic at every level, from our communities to our classrooms," Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, chair of the board, said in a statement Wednesday. "We believe these dollars will provide the tools needed to save lives and strengthen communities across our state." More: Oklahoma gets another $2.5 million to combat opioid addiction: Where the money is going Grants are supposed to support addiction recovery programs, mental health treatment, opioid abuse education, and local plans to stem the flow of narcotics across Oklahoma. This latest round of grant funding was designed to support projects with a timespan of three years, for which the board increased the maximum funding limits. This time, for a municipality with a population of more than 100,000 residents, the proposed maximum funding was a total of $750,000, or $250,000 a year. This round also permitted a grant recipient to partner with a nonprofit or other applicant to use the grant award. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond chairs the Oklahoma Opioid Abatement Board, which disseminates grants from settlement funds after opioid manufacturers and distributors were sued in the nationwide drug crisis. Which communities are receiving opioid abatement grant funding? How will the money be spent? When The Oklahoman reached out to several communities, including Oklahoma City, Norman, and Cleveland County, spokespeople also said they were not sure yet how much their grant awards would be. But they explained the requested amounts they had applied for and how they would spend the funds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an emailed response to The Oklahoman, Phil Bacharach, the AG's director of communications, confirmed exact amounts that would be awarded to each central Oklahoma community. For example, Bacharach wrote, both the Norman and Moore public schools districts would each be receiving $450,000; while Shawnee Public Schools and Stillwater Schools would be receiving $225,000. Related: When will Oklahoma cities, counties start seeing opioid settlement money? Here's a closer breakdown: A list of various central Oklahoma communities set to receive grant funding awarded by the Oklahoma Opioid Abatement Board, as per the AG's office. The list was provided in an email by Drummond's director of communications. Norman Norman had requested $498,000 (or $166,000 per year) for a three-year partnership with the Virtue Center, which offers addiction treatment services in the city. It will receive a full award of the requested $498,000, according to the AG's ofice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Plans include implementing a new Strengthening Families project, a science-based family skills training program, and expanding existing programs like outpatient treatment services, access to opioid use disorder medication, and case management. Norman had previously been awarded a $190,000 grant from the first round of opioid abatement funds in 2024 to begin funding projects with the Virtue Center. Commissioners Rod Cleveland, Rusty Grissom and Jacob McHughes attend a Cleveland County commissioners meeting at the Cleveland County Courthouse and Office Building in Norman, Okla., on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. Cleveland County Cleveland County will receive just under $570,000, according to the AG's office. A spokeswoman for the county told The Oklahoman it had asked for $450,000 to support a three-year contract with the Cleveland County Health Department and $378,000 to support Hope Center Ministries' recovery programs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cleveland County officials had approved moving forward with the contract for a community health worker to partner with the Moore Police Department. The county also plans to award additional funding to the Hope Center in helping residents navigating addiction recovery with the faith-based organization's 12-month program. According to a Norman city council memo, Cleveland County had the 24th-highest nonfatal drug overdose hospitalization rate in the state, with opioids one of the most common substances involved in hospitalizations. The county also had the 58th-highest drug overdose death rate in the state. More than half of them were due to opioids, according to the memo. Oklahoma City Fire Chief Richard A. Kelley speaks during the official launch of the OKC Mobile Integrated Health Unit, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. The AG's office said that Oklahoma City will receive just over $572,000. This is a partial award amount of the $750,000 that OKC officials had applied for earlier this summer. The Oklahoma City Council in June approved an application to the board, requesting funding to support the OKC Fire Department's new Mobile Integrated Health team. That effort was launched earlier this year in response to local calls to reform police and provide alternative responses to mental health-related 911 calls. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The Mobile Integrated health program has received 1,813 calls for service since January 2025," a city council memo stated. "There remains an unmet need to expand access to overdose prevention and harm reduction materials, as well as medications for the treatment of opioid use disorders for residents." More: Amid overdose deaths rural Oklahoma counties have little access to drug treatment options When will grant recipients be notified of award specifics? In courtesy emails to several county and city governments Wednesday, officials with the AG's office expected funds and their conditions would be officially confirmed to all recipients sometime in late August. "The award piece of our application software is in its [sic] final building stages and should be ready soon," Jill Nichols, opioid response and grant coordinator at the AG's Office, wrote in the email Wednesday. "At that time (hopefully this week), your award notices containing any conditions you may have and the amount of your grant award will be distributed." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Recipients of the grants are expected to implement their programs over the coming months. The board also said it will continue to monitor progress and outcomes in the state's battle with opioid abuse. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma communities to receive millions in opioid abatement grants A federal appeals court has granted the Trump administrations request to pause an order from a federal judge who had stopped the termination of deportation protections and work authorizations for immigrants from Nicaragua, Honduras and Nepal. Handing the Trump administration a win in its goal to revamp the Temporary Protected Status program, the three-judge panel of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco offered no opinion for its unanimous decision on Wednesday. Approximately 61,000 people 51,000 from Honduras, 7,200 from Nepal and 2,900 from Nicaragua could be affected by the decision. The decision means TPS holders from Nepal are stripped of their legal status and work authorization, which expired on Aug. 5. TPS for Honduras and Nicaragua is set to expire on September 6. A federal judge had postponed the termination till a planned hearing on Nov. 18. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is yet another huge legal victory for the Trump Administration, the rule of law, and the safety of the American public. Temporary Protected Status was always meant to be just that: Temporary, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security, said in a statement. The ruling allows the administration to enforce the termination, which could upend the lives of Nicaraguans living in the United States, 40% of whom call Florida home. Alianza Americas, a network of Latin American and Caribbean immigrant organizations, urged affected Nepalese, Honduran and Nicaraguan families to start developing emergency plans. This decision leaves thousands of families in uncertainty and under the threat of separation, said Dulce Guzman, executive director of Alianza Americas, in a statement. Once again, we see how the courts are being used to dismantle humanitarian protections that have allowed entire communities to contribute to this country for decades. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In August, U.S. District Judge Trini L. Thompson had ruled to postpone the administrations termination of TPS in a lawsuit filed by the National TPS Alliance and several TPS holders. The groups argued the administration had failed to account for the current real-life conditions in the three countries, and that the termination was not based on proper legal considerations. Thompson agreed with the TPS holders. In her August ruling, she said the administration had shown a history of racial animus in its immigration policies, including terminating TPS status for countries like Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan. Thompsons ruling mentioned that during the presidential campaign, President Donald Trump had referred to immigrants as poisoning the blood of our country and the Department of Homeland Security had referred to undocumented immigrants as criminals. Indeed, code words may demonstrate discriminatory intent, Thompson said. Color is neither a poison nor a crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DHS issued a statement calling Thompson, who was appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, a woke judge and compared her opinion on the case to a New York Times opinion piece. The federal agency has maintained in its TPS terminations for multiple countries that having immigrants from those countries in the United States is a national security concern. However, it has not provided evidence in any of the cases on how people who have been living in the U.S. for more than two decades pose a national security risk. The administration terminated the Status for Nepal in June and for Honduras and Nicaragua in July. The designation was first provided to Honduras and Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch caused extensive damage and displacement in both countries in 1999. The designation has been continually extended over the years and was eventually challenged by the first Trump administration. At the time, the administration chose not to enforce a termination. Nepal received TPS status after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015. This administrations attack on TPS is part of a concerted campaign to deprive noncitizens of any legal status, said Emi MacLean, attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California. Todays ruling is a devastating setback, but it is not the end of this fight. Humanitarian protectionTPSmeans something and cannot be decimated so easily. TPS is conferred on foreign nationals who because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions cannot safely return to their home country. TPS allows recipients to live and work in the U.S. as long as their home country is designated for TPS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Wednesday, lawyers representing Haitian TPS holders in a separate lawsuit filed a motion challenging the Trump administrations decision to terminate the benefit for as many as 350,000 Haitians. The complaint was initially filed on July 30, 2025, in federal court in New York. The Haitian TPS holders are asking the court to stay the termination of their status pending a final resolution on the merits of the case, given the imminent threat to their lives should they be forced to return to Haiti. If the termination stands, people will almost certainly die. Some will likely be killed, others will likely die from disease, and yet others will likely starve to death, the lawyers for the Haitians said in a motion. Loss of TPS will expose them to immediate deportation to a lawless country where they will be at constant risk of rape, kidnapping, and murder while lacking access to sufficient food, housing and medical care. Haiti has had TPS designation since a massive earthquake killed hundreds of thousands in 2010, and it has been repeatedly extended after repeated crises in the Caribbean nation. (The Center Square) Rallying behind a fellow conservative, former candidate Cody Arguelles is urging his corner to vote for Chris Savage, who knocked him out of the Spokane City Council race this month. Arguelles, a U.S. veteran and Spokane business owner, filed to run for incumbent Councilmember Zack Zappones seat earlier this year. Washington state runs a primary election every August, with the two candidates who receive the most votes advancing to the November general election. Arguelles will not. Zappone secured the most votes. Spokane County Elections certified the results on Aug. 19, at which point, the incumbent touted more than 51% of the total, or 8,129 votes. Savage advanced with him, eliminating Arguelles, who received only about 19% of the vote, while Savage brought in almost 29%. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Given the 3,359 vote margin between the candidates that advanced, Savage needs Arguelles support and then some if he hopes to flip Zappones seat this fall. The incumbent falls in line with the rest of the councils progressive majority, but Savage aligns with two members in the conservative minority. Spokane deserves leaders who prioritize accountability, safety and business vitality. Chris Savage is that candidate, Arguelles wrote in a news release on Friday. I have experienced firsthand the impact of decisions made by the current council majority, and Spokane cant afford four more years of [Zappone]. Arguelles said Zappones votes to raise taxes and impose costly regulations on businesses have set the city back, along with his efforts to address homelessness and addiction, which some critics call enabling. Zappone often faces backlash from business owners and conservatives as homelessness proliferates around town and fatal overdoses rise. The incumbent told The Center Square earlier this month that the city lacks sufficient treatment options and facilities for the more than 1,800 people on the streets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those on the progressive majority often frame their policies as striking a balance between compassion and enforcement. The conservatives say they want to uphold the rule of law and protect taxes flowing in from downtown. Both sides emphasize the need for more affordable housing, but differ in their approach. Everybody has to pay for that criminal activity with police response, code enforcement, cleaning it up and other things, Zappone told The Center Square regarding his proposal that now allows the city to require vacant property owners to hire private security at their own expense. Its really not fair to all the taxpayers who are taking care of their properties and ensuring that theres not criminal activity. Arguelles pointed to that ordinance, allegations that Zappone gerrymandered District 5, the ongoing mental health and housing crises, as well as back-to-back deficits as evidence for endorsing Savage. Zappone is also facing an ethics investigation along with the rest of the council majority and Mayor Lisa Brown, due to a controversial vote to revive her proposed camping despite residents feedback. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reporting by The Center Square uncovered text messages between Brown and the council that night, showing the mayor asking the council majority to call her before flipping their votes to bring it back. Campaign funding will also play a role. As of Aug. 22, Zappone had raised about $45,500, and Savage trailed just behind at roughly $44,000. The incumbent has only spent approximately $14,400, while his opponent has already used up about $29,600. Arguelles raised $53,600, spending $27,700 of that. Savage shares my vision for Spokane, a city where families feel safe, businesses can thrive, and leaders are held accountable, Arguelles wrote. I am proud to support Chris, and I encourage every Spokane resident to join me in electing a council member who will prioritize our community over the status quo. Photo via Getty Images Over a dozen Democrat-led states with abortion protections, including Arizona, are calling on the Trump administration to remove federal regulations on the most commonly used abortion pill and make it easier for women to obtain it from their family doctor. In a 55-page citizen petition sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the attorneys general for 14 other states, told the federal agency that preserving restrictions around how abortion pill mifepristone is dispensed would dramatically impact the ability of clinicians to prescribe it and women to access it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a written statement announcing the petition, Mayes, who ran on a campaign to protect abortion access, denounced the movement to narrow womens reproductive health care options. Women in Arizona have used Mifepristone safely and effectively for more than two decades. The FDA is folding to anti-abortion politicians and activists, she said. The FDA should immediately remove these unnecessary restrictions and allow Arizonans to access the reproductive health care they have a right to. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The petition comes as the FDA, at the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is reviewing mifepristone despite 25 years of agency approval and hundreds of clinical trials that repeatedly confirmed the drugs safety and effectiveness. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While more than a dozen states protect abortion access in some form or enshrine the procedure in their state Constitution following the fall of Roe v. Wade, including the Grand Canyon State, narrowing FDA approval of mifepristone would function as a backdoor abortion ban. The pill, which is part of a two-drug regimen, makes up the vast majority of medication abortions nationwide, and accounts for around 60% of total procedures. At stake: FDA policies around mifepristone prescriptions, dispensing Last year, a coalition of anti-abortion doctors and medical groups sought to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to rescind the federal governments approval of mifepristone and roll back policies that expanded access to it in 2016. The justices ultimately threw out that lawsuit, but now the focus among abortion foes has shifted to lobbying the FDA to enforce strict limits on who can prescribe the pill and when it can be dispensed that were softened under the Obama and Biden administrations. Some drugs are approved with Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, also called REMS, in place to ensure the FDA can monitor, prevent and manage the severity of adverse health events associated with those drugs. Under the REMS governing mifepristone, pharmacies must meet a certification process to dispense the drug, medical professionals seeking to prescribe it must be certified to do so and patients must fill out a special acknowledgement form. In 2023, the Biden administration dropped a requirement that mifepristone be dispensed to patients in-person. Reproductive rights advocates fear that the Trump administration could seek to restore that restriction or tighten the existing regulations in ways that could further deter women and physicians from asking for and providing mifepristone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this month, 20 Republican attorneys general wrote a letter to the FDA asking the agency to do just that. Dems: REMS do nothing but make it harder to access abortion pill In their longshot request, the Democrat states argued that mifepristone shouldnt be limited by its existing REMS because it has been repeatedly proven to be safe, the requirements reduce the willingness of physicians and patients to prescribe and ask for the drug, and their health care systems are already sufficiently regulated. The attorneys general urged the FDA to either entirely scrap the REMS around mifepristone or at least decide not to enforce them in their states. The group pointed out that their lawmakers or constituencies elected to protect abortion after Roe was overturned, and guaranteeing access to mifepristone is a key part of respecting that choice. In Arizona, the mifepristone drug regimen was used for 99.7% of women who opted for a medication abortion in 2023 to terminate a pregnancy or manage a miscarriage. That same year, about 59% of all procedures were medication abortions. Surgical abortions are more invasive and expensive, and are often out of reach for low-income or rural women. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As proof that the REMS around mifepristone are unnecessary, the states pointed to both anecdotal evidence from local physicians and a recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that concluded the policies make no difference for patient safety. The authors noted that the certification for clinicians hoping to prescribe mifepristone is nothing more than a self-attestation that they are skilled in caring for patients with an early pregnancy. Despite how easy that standard is to meet, however, the authors found that 1 in 10 OB-GYNs are hesitant to fill it out, because of fear that the form could later be made public and they could be identified as abortion providers. Instead of protecting patients, the physician certification narrows the pool of people who are authorized to prescribe mifepristone. In addition, the certification requirements for pharmacies to be allowed to dispense mifepristone are so burdensome that, even in states where abortion is legal, there are few pharmacies willing to undergo the process. Together, the prescriber certification form and the pharmacy certification process only serve to make it more difficult for women to obtain a medication abortion. Forcing patients to go to specially certified providers, as opposed to their primary care or family physicians, can require patients to travel long distances, disrupts continuity of care, stigmatizes routine health care , and discourages patients from making the best health care choices for themselves and their families, the Democratic attorneys general wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Likewise, the patient acknowledgement form women are required to fill out doesnt serve a clear safety purpose. Instead, it runs the risk of misinforming patients or even causing them emotional harm, according to the states. A Pennsylvania doctor surveyed for the citizen petition noted that it is based on science from 2016, and said it could undermine the patient-clinician relationship to have the provider explain the procedure one way, only to be immediately disputed by outdated information on the mandatory acknowledgement form. Filling out the form is a required step for women seeking to use mifepristone to end a pregnancy, as well as for women who are dealing with a miscarriage, and yet the language is the same in both situations. That can cause unnecessary pain for many women, according to doctors quoted in the citizen petition. As one Oregon physician explained, I have had patients who were already undergoing the traumatizing experience of a miscarriage, become deeply upset, confused, or distressed at having to sign a form about medication abortion attesting that they are deciding to voluntarily terminate their pregnancy, reads the petition. The states argued that their own health care systems are sufficiently regulated to justify eliminating the REMS governing mifepristone. Arizonas medical boards and licensure requirements ensure that medical professionals, clinics and pharmacies are qualified and up to code. And multiple state laws regulate how physicians can dispense medication, and penalize violations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Adding REMS to how mifepristone is prescribed isnt just overkill, according to the states, but nonsensical. Decades of research has proven that the drug is safe; it shouldnt be placed in the same kind of regulatory category as riskier medications. Since the drug first earned FDA approval in 2000 through December 2024, only 36 deaths have been reported out of 7.5 million uses, and the agency has acknowledged that no evidence could link mifepristone to those deaths. As one physician explained, REMS are generally only placed on dangerous drugs like opioids and the existence of the REMS, coupled with the provider certification, creates a disincentive to prescribe a very safe medication, wrote the attorneys general. On top of failing to benefit patients or the health care system in any way, the REMS around mifepristone use also likely violate federal law, the states argued. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which gives the FDA the power to issue regulations, strictly limits the passage of safety policies to situations where they reduce the risk of a serious adverse drug experience and prohibits regulations that are unduly burdensome on patient access especially in rural areas. The states argued that the REMS around mifepristone dont succeed in reducing any safety risk, and the drug itself doesnt present a significant danger, and concluded that the regulations should be eliminated. The current regulatory requirements for prescribing and dispensing mifepristone requiring patients to sign an agreement form and providers and pharmacies to obtain special certification are unrelated to any specific risk of the drug, let alone required to mitigate any perceived risk, they wrote. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE CRITTENDEN COUNTY, Ark. First responders battled a major fire in Earle, Arkansas, said Mayor Jaylen Smith in a Facebook post. An exact location of the fire is unknown, but the mayor said five separate fire departments were on the scene. According to the mayor, the fire department received a call around 2 a.m. that three buildings were on fire Friday morning. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is also unclear if anyone was injured in the fire. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. ST. LOUIS, Mo. A man from Arkansas is facing charges after he was accused of burglarizing more than 20 schools and businesses in Missouri and Iowa. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, 40-year-old Curtis Lee Barton was indicted Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis on one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce and three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property. Arkansas woman sentenced to three years in prison after stealing $300,000 from elderly customers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The indictment claims Barton and another person stole a total of at least $50,000 from May 2023 through April 2025, officials said. Missouri schools that were listed in the indictment include one in Lewistown, Brookfield, Shelbyville and Adair County. Court records say some of the money stolen from schools had been set aside for struggling children and the Special Olympics, officials said. Former north Arkansas pastor pleads guilty to stealing more than $500,000 from church The indictment also states that Barton researched his targets and authorities in the area before breaking into the schools in the middle of the night to avoid detection. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Wapello County Sheriffs Office in Iowa investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman is prosecuting the case. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. (Bryan Clifton for UAMS) A network of Arkansas maternal health experts and advocates is encouraging birthing hospitals throughout the state to participate in a postpartum health initiative. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences highlighted the Arkansas Perinatal Quality Collaboratives Postpartum Comprehensive Assessment, Resources and Education (CARE) program in a Thursday news release. The collaboratives cofounders are Dr. William Sam Greenfield, a UAMS obstetrics and gynecology professor, and Jennifer Callaghan-Koru, a UAMS public health professor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The CARE project will support birthing hospitals to improve education and screenings for women before they are discharged from the hospital after birth, UAMS news release states. Arkansas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation and the third-highest infant mortality rate, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Maternal mortality is measured by the rate at which women die during childbirth or within a year of giving birth. By proactively addressing the postpartum health needs of new moms, we can prevent deaths and hospital readmissions, Greenfield said in the news release. Participating hospitals will receive free staff training, clinical tools and presentations from national experts to improve their postnatal care capacity, the release states. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The CARE initiative will strengthen follow-up care, better screen and support new moms physical and mental health, and build the community connections that make recovery safer and more sustainable for families, Michelle Pimentel, director of nursing for womens and infants health at Conway Regional Medical Center, said in the news release. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Conway Regional Health System was among 20 birthing hospitals throughout Arkansas that the Perinatal Quality Collaborative recognized for reducing rates of cesarean section births. Cesarean births can increase the risk of postpartum complications. Besides Conway Regional, the other hospital systems awarded the collaboratives platinum banner are: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould Baptist Health in Arkadelphia Baptist Health in Conway Baptist Health in Monticello Baptist Health in Fort Smith Baptist Health in Little Rock Baxter Health in Mountain Home Mercy Northwest Arkansas in Rogers NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro St. Bernards Regional Medical Center in Jonesboro UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock White River Medical Center in Batesville The systems awarded the collaboratives silver banner are: Baptist Health in North Little Rock Baptist Health in Stuttgart Great River Medical Center in Blytheville Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff National Park Medical Center in Hot Springs Ouachita County Medical Center in Camden Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville The 20 awarded facilities represent a majority of Arkansas birthing hospitals. Only 33 hospitals in 22 of Arkansas 75 counties have labor and delivery units, and six maternity wards have closed since 2020. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arkansas ranks sixth in terms of states with the highest percentage of maternity care deserts, according to the March of Dimes, which defines maternity care deserts as areas with no birthing facility or obstetric clinician. Nearly 51% of Arkansas is a maternity care desert, according to the organizations 2024 report. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE This photo taken on July 20, 2025 shows a view of the Temple of Guan Yu in Yuncheng, north China's Shanxi Province. (Xinhua) TAIYUAN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- In the Temple of Guan Yu in the city of Yuncheng, north China's Shanxi Province, towering cypresses and Chinese scholar trees have endured and survived the passage of centuries. From March to July this year, experts gave more than 20 of them a fresh round of care, by inspecting for pests, cleaning tree hollows and filling decayed spots with eco-friendly materials, all in a quest to help these giants stand firm in the face of the test of time. With age, pests and extreme weather taking their toll, some ancient trees at the temple have shown signs of decline. "Protecting these precious 'living cultural relics' relies on scientific care and professional restoration," said Guo Bo, deputy head of the temple's cultural heritage conservation office. Guo revealed that the temple and two nearby heritage sites, all dedicated to Guan Yu, a deified historical figure from the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 A.D.) of China, host 159 ancient and notable trees -- the oldest of them has stood for about 1,800 years. To safeguard these trees, local caretakers have registered and labeled each tree, and applied tailored protective measures such as reinforcement of trunks and the fertilizing of roots. These efforts reflect a broader campaign across China to better preserve ancient and notable trees. The former are defined as those that are over 100 years old, and the latter as those with historical, cultural or ecological importance. A national survey conducted between 2015 and 2021 identified 5.08 million ancient and notable trees in China. In January this year, China introduced its first national-level regulations to protect ancient and notable trees, which took effect in mid-March. These regulations established legal frameworks for resource surveys, conservation and cultural preservation -- as well as penalties for damaging these natural assets, thereby addressing gaps in existing laws. They also encourage scientific research and the application of advanced technologies in the conservation of ancient trees. Across the country, local authorities and institutions are exploring new ways to improve the protection of these trees. At Jinci Museum in Shanxi's provincial capital of Taiyuan, experts have developed a patented technology to address compacted soil and water imbalance -- expanding the growth space of tree roots by 40 percent. The museum has also partnered with a local agricultural university to set up laboratories for joint research. Financial innovation is also lending support. In the southwestern Guizhou Province, authorities have insured 137,500 ancient and notable trees, with total coverage exceeding 3.72 billion yuan (about 521.6 million U.S. dollars). Public participation, notably, has been growing through "tree adoption" programs. Since March, several districts in east China's Shanghai and a number of this city's parks have allowed residents to "adopt" ancient trees by donating to their upkeep. Some regions have also tapped into history and tourism to raise public awareness about the conservation of ancient trees. Yuncheng is developing ancient tree parks that present the centuries-old trees alongside the Yellow River landscape and local cultural heritage. The city of Tai'an in east China, meanwhile, has highlighted cultural stories behind renowned ancient trees at its tourist attractions, including Mount Tai. "Ancient trees are ecological treasures and witnesses of history," said Gao Xuzhen, a researcher at Jinci Museum, who added that through stronger protection -- these trees continue to stand tall and serve as living carriers of cultural roots. A staff member cleans an ancient tree at the Temple of Guan Yu in Yuncheng, north China's Shanxi Province, July 25, 2025. (Xinhua) Staff members measure an ancient tree at Jinci Museum in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, July 5, 2025. (Xinhua) A staff member fills decayed tree hollows with eco-friendly materials at the Temple of Guan Yu in Yuncheng, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 5, 2025. (Xinhua) Arlington City Councilmember Bowie Hogg criticized Mayor Jim Ross after The Dallas Express resurfaced 2018 footage showing Ross making vulgar and explicit remarks toward a Christian street preacher. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the video shows Ross using offensive language, including statements such as: You dont think anal sex is good, do you? Have you ever f*cked your old lady in the *ss? I f*cked your old lady in the *ss. Like many Arlington families who have seen the video, Im concerned by the language and tone attributed to our mayor, Hogg told The Dallas Express. It reflects on our city, all of council, and has understandably prompted questions within the community. Hogg called on Ross to publicly address the controversy. I do not condone the inappropriate language or actions from our mayor, even if it was in his past. I believe Mayor Ross should address the public as soon as possible, share his perspective on what happened, and explain why he felt his actions were appropriate. This clear commitment to transparency would go a long way toward rebuilding trust and confidence in our mayors office. This is not the first controversy involving Ross. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Dallas Express previously reported that Ross acknowledged financial difficulties after the IRS began garnishing his salary over unpaid taxes. Records from the Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector as of June 2025 show Ross owes $940.39 in penalties and interest, with a total debt of $174,945.93. The Dallas Express contacted the remaining city council members but did not receive a response. Hogg is the only council member who has publicly commented on the matter. Ross has remained silent and did not respond to requests for comment. IRONTON A youth ensemble from Armenia will perform in Ironton on Tuesday, Aug. 26, as part of the 2025 International Youth Cultural Exchange Tour organized by the International Arts Fund and Rotary partners across the United States. The group, known as Armfolk, is composed of 15 young dancers, musicians, and Rotaractors from Armenia. The tour connects youth from Yerevan and Vagharshapat with American communities through music, dance, storytelling, and service, emphasizing cultural pride and Rotary values such as fellowship, leadership and peacebuilding. Ironton is one of the smallest communities on a national tour that includes Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Atlanta. The visit is hosted by the Ironton Rotary Club in partnership with Ohio University Southern and Ironton aLive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During their visit, Armfolk will perform for students at Ironton High School as part of the groups educational outreach efforts. The one-hour program includes a cultural presentation, live traditional music, and audience interaction. Teachers will receive an accompanying educational packet to enhance classroom discussion. Tuesday evening, the ensemble will give a free public performance at 5:30 p.m. at the Ironton Farmers Market, as part of Ironton aLives Tuesday Night Concert Series. Community members of all ages are invited to attend and experience the energy, history, and hospitality of Armenian culture. Dr. Aleksan Zakyan, Past President of the Rotary Club of Yerevan United and current Assistant Governor of Rotary District 2452, helped launch the initiative with support from global Rotary leadership. This is about far more than performanceits about planting seeds of global citizenship, cultural pride, and Rotary values, Zakyan said. For many of these youth, it is their first international journey, and we want them to see firsthand how Rotary connects the world. Debbie Marinski, dean of Ohio University Southern, noted the significance of the visit for the campus and region. Arts and cultural exchange experiences like this open doors for our students and our community to see the world from new perspectives, Marinski said. Were proud to be part of bringing a program to Ironton that celebrates diversity, builds understanding, and strengthens our global connections. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sarah Simmons, Immediate Past President of the Rotary Club of Ironton, emphasized the importance of community participation. Were honored to bring this international experience to our small Appalachian city, Simmons said. Its a chance to showcase our hospitality, connect across cultures, and remind ourselves that even in a small town, we can make a global impact. The tour, which runs from August 14 to September 15, has received praise from Rotary International leaders, including Past Rotary International President Stephanie Urchick, who met with the youth in Armenia earlier this year and expressed strong support for the programs vision and impact. Founded and operated entirely by Rotarian volunteers, the International Arts Fund promotes youth engagement and intercultural dialogue through the arts. The cultural exchange tour provides meaningful opportunities for connection between communities and emerging global leaders. For more information or to support the Ironton visit through sponsorship or volunteer involvement, contact the Ironton Rotary Club or email info@internationalartsfund.org. PLATTSBURGH The deteriorating infrastructure at the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base now has the attention of the federal government. After Supervisor Michael Cashman called on the federal government in June to help with the bases worsening infrastructure, much of which is Cold-War era, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, was able to secure a meeting between Plattsburgh officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers next month. Im grateful that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to come to the Town of Plattsburgh to assist local leaders in assessing the condition of the infrastructure on the footprint of the former Air Force Base, Schumer said in a statement Thursday. Having this discussion and getting technical and funding expertise is an important step for the Town of Plattsburgh in evaluating next steps for any eligible funding opportunities. Ive been proud to deliver millions of federal dollars to support Plattsburgh International Airport and Clinton County and stand ready to help the town as it tackles these challenges with its inherited infrastructure through any available and eligible programs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The town took over the base property after it closed in 1995. Much of the infrastructure on the base was installed in the mid-1950s and state and local regulations and requirements were waived to make way for the military. That has created an added difficulty for the town as infrastructure issues arose in recent years. Cashman said during a news conference to bring attention to the bases deterioration in June that just last year the town fixed several sinkholes that threatened utilities and disrupted activity at a costly price. He said then that the town initially estimated the cost to repair the infrastructure damage at around $12 million but with new cracks and sinkholes continuing to appear, the price tag is climbing every day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Idaho Avenue, especially, is in danger. A new sinkhole opened up there a couple months ago and Cashman said by next year that section of the road may need to be torn up. And its going to be another $500,000, if not more, he said in June. Cashman had asked Schumer for assistance in assessing the condition and scope of the Cold War-era infrastructure, and the senator said he worked for weeks to help get the USACE to agree to send out a team of engineers to see the site firsthand and provide technical expertise as the town evaluates next steps. I am very appreciative that Senator Schumer has facilitated an on-the-ground meeting for the Town of Plattsburgh with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding the Former Plattsburgh Air Force Base infrastructure, Cashman said. Having our federal partners here to see firsthand the decaying infrastructure is a meaningful step forward. The complexities are significant, but by building confidence and working steadily with our federal partners, we can continue moving this conversation in the right direction for our community. Negotiations between the Army and the state of Hawaii over land leases that expire in 2029 are moving forward amid intensifying scrutiny. Gov. Josh Green says that hes trying to work with the Pentagon to secure benefits for Hawaii and said that if he doesnt play ball on moving forward, the military simply may take the land. On Thursday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll sent Greens office a letter calling on the state to move fast on negotiations. The letter eased off from a 60-day timeline to secure an agreement that Driscoll suggested in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser published Sunday, but still made clear that Driscoll would like to see an agreement this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These lands are critical to the Armys ability to project U.S. power in the Indo-Pacific, serving as a vital logistics hub for rapid troop deployment, Driscoll wrote. We also understand these lands are very important to the people of Hawai i. We want to work with you to come to a mutually acceptable framework by the end of this year that will allow us to move forward. Working together and with congressional support, we believe land exchange can be part of this framework. Driscoll concluded the letter telling Green I look forward to working with you to finalize this framework. It is imperative that we move quickly to resolve this issue now. We cannot wait, as our Nation depends on its Army to always be ready. This comes after a Hawaii County Council committee voted 8-0 Tuesday in favor of a nonbinding resolution that urges the state to call for an immediate halt to bombing and desecration activities at the Pohakuloa Training Area, citing concerns over environmental damage, wildfire risks and impacts on Native Hawaiian cultural rights. The resolution also calls for the state to reject any military land swaps or lease renewals involving PTA unless provisions are made for cleanup, restoration and bioremediation. The Army obtained the lands in 1965 for a mere $1. State officials have been in talks with the Pentagon about how much the military would have to pay to keep using the lands, as well as potential other investments. Military officials see Hawaii as increasingly critical amid tensions with China, while activists and some elected officials around the state have increasingly called on the Army to pack up and leave those lands. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Green has been making media rounds this week, with appearances on Hawaii News Nows Spotlight Hawaii and on Hawaii Public Radios The Conversation, where he defended his approach to land negotiations. In a statement released by Greens office on Thursday acknowledging that he received Driscolls letter, Green said federal leaders have stated there are national security considerations at stake and theyve made clear they could act through eminent domain, which would take the land without giving Hawai i anything in return. While some may say we are being too accommodating, the truth is this path ensures that Hawai is people and values come first, Green argued. By negotiating firmly and fairly, we can secure real benefits for our future while maintaining national security. Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club of Hawai i, accused Green of fearmongering about eminent domain, calling the prospect dubious at best. In recent years, the Pentagon has made continual commitments and invested millions in public relations efforts to rebuild trust with the Hawai i community, Tanaka said. A military land grab in lieu of complying with our democratically enacted laws would flush all this down the toilet and poison the relationship between the military and Hawai i community that hosts them, perhaps permanently. Gov. Green should be working to ensure the Pentagon recognizes this reality, rather than try to convince us to capitulate and concede our aina and dignity to an increasingly unstable federal government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Military officials argue that they need to quickly ready their forces for potential conflict in the Pacific. Tensions have been escalating in the South China Sea, a critical waterway that more than a third of all international trade moves through. Chinese forces have clashed with neighboring countries over navigation and territorial rights. Chinese vessels have regularly shot water cannons at boats from the Philippines and occasionally rammed them, raising concerns of clashes turning deadly. The U.S. and the Philippines have a mutual defense treaty. The Chinese military also has stepped up maneuvers around Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy that Beijing regards as a rogue province. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has reportedly instructed his military commanders to have their forces capable of invading Taiwan by 2027. Some analysts believe that order is more symbolic, as 2027 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, but U.S. military commanders have argued they need to be ready to respond if real conflict does break out in the Pacific. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Recently, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources recently voted to reject environmental impact statements the Army submitted on plans to retain training lands on Oahu and Hawaii island. The board cited data gaps and noted that the Army has current studies expected to be completed this year on biodiversity in the lands it had been using. Greens office said that while the prospect of a land exchange has been discussed, no specific parcels have been identified and no official conversations on parcels have occurred to date between Governor Green and Secretary Driscoll and that by law, the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR ) hold statutory authority over state lands, while the Governors office plays a facilitating role. Any formal exchange would ultimately require BLNR action and compliance with state law. But Tanaka argued that concluding the process by the end of the year as Driscoll suggests is legally impossible, noting that a revised environmental impact statement, land use approvals, appraisals, and other requirements would take months, if not a year or longer, for a lease, and any land exchange or sale would also require three months notice to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, as well as supermajority approval by the Hawai i Legislaturewhich isnt scheduled to reconvene until next January. The Army considers Pohakuloa its most important training area in Hawaii. Situated between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, PTA is the U.S. militarys largest contiguous live-fire training area in Hawaii and perhaps the entire Pacific. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It has become central to the Armys new Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, a series of training ranges in Hawaii and Alaska aimed at preparing U.S. troops and their allies for operations in the Pacific. But with its rugged fields of lava rock and volcanic soil, Poha kuloa is also classified as a sub-alpine tropical dryland forestone of the worlds rarest kinds of ecosystemsand is habitat for Hawaiis state bird, the nene, as well as the hoary bat and several species that exist nowhere else on the planet. The Army previously said that on Oahu it prefers to renew only 450 acres at Kahuku and not pursue lease renewals on any state land in Makua Valley or the Kawailoa-Poamoho Training Areaa roughly 93 % reduction in state land used for training. But the Army maintains large swaths of federal land on Oahuincluding in the Makua Valleyand also seeks to continue using a state-owned parcel on Hawaii island that connects the federal lands that make up PTA. Makua has been arguably the militarys most controversial Oahu training ground. Once heavily used as a live-fire training area, the Army hasnt actually fired a shot in the valley since 2004. A lawsuit by Earth justice on behalf of local Malama Makua ultimately halted live-fire training after a fire started during an exercise burned brush and revealed ancient Native Hawaiian cultural sites. The valley holds deep significance to many Hawaiian cultural practitioners. In Hawaiian, makua means parent, and according to oral tradition its the place where Wakea and Papathe sky father and Earth mothercame together and created human life. The military began using parts of Makua for live-fire training in the 1920s when the islands were governed as a U.S. territory, but after the Japanese navys attack on Dec. 7, 1941, the military imposed martial law in Hawaii and took control of all of Makua for training. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In November 2023, the Army said that it no longer needed Makua for live-fire training and would never seek to use live munitions in the valley again. However, the Army still uses Makuas restricted airspace for aerial drone and occasional helicopter training. Though the Army has proposed leaving the state-owned parcels at Makua, most of the valley is still officially federal land. Green said hes insisting on a fair deal, for example, the return of lands like Makua Valley, cleanup of contaminated training areas, protection of our water and a commitment to build thousands of new homes to relieve pressure on our housing market Im also pushing for lands that can be transferred to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, so more Native Hawaiian families have the opportunity of homeownership. And I want the military to invest in renewable energy and safer infrastructure to lower costs for our people. The governors office said that at the end of this month, the state will launch a new public website to provide transparency throughout this process. The site will include documents received from the Army, background on the leases and updates as discussions progress. The governors office also said that it will provide further updates, including the states formal response to the Army, in the weeks ahead. A majority of seven K-8 feeder districts and their associated union high school in western Waukesha County have agreed to undergo an analysis of costs associated with potentially consolidating at least some of those districts. The kindergarten through eighth-grade districts feed into Arrowhead Union High School. Representatives from Arrowhead and the seven K-8 districts who met Aug. 21 also agreed to form a small working group of business managers and superintendents to decide what information to examine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The seven K-8 districts are Hartland-Lakeside, Lake Country, Swallow, Stone Bank, Merton, Richmond and North Lake. With the exception of North Lake, all seven feeder districts and Arrowhead were represented at the meeting by either school board members, superintendents or both. Each of the seven feeder districts are independent districts that have their own governing school boards and superintendents. Students completing eighth grade at those districts go on to high school at Arrowhead. Arrowhead is one of 10 union high school districts in Wisconsin. The others are Big Foot, Central/Westosha, Hartford, Lake Geneva-Genoa City, Lakeland, Nicolet, Union Grove, Waterford and Wilmot. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Aug. 21 meeting was a follow-up to a May meeting of the boards. At that meeting, board members expressed tentative interest in exploring consolidation further. Consolidations merge two or more school districts, whether those districts are K-12, union high schools or K-8. Any Wisconsin district can do so, except for Milwaukee Public Schools. Also on Aug. 21, representatives heard about Arrowhead's proposed cell phone policy, explored setting up a future meeting with state elected officials, including Reps. Cindi Duchow, Barbara Dittrich and Jim Piwowarczyk, and discussed the possibility of a shared contract for communication services. "I think the legislators do need to see all the great stuff that's going on within the district. They need to understand the size and importance of our districts, but they also need to understand that we have needs and we need their representation," Arrowhead School Board President Kim Schubert told a reporter after the meeting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The boards did not set a date for when to continue consolidation discussions. Pursuing a financial analysis on consolidation Not all board representatives were sold on the benefits of a potential consolidation. Stone Bank School Board President Jason Hornby said consolidation would not provide a financial benefit to Stone Bank. "We remain open to exploring shared service(s) and collaborative opportunities with other schools that support our students. That said, I think we're interested in being part of the conversation," Hornby said. Lake Country School Board President Peter Maurer said his board was in a "holding pattern" on being part of the consolidation financial analysis. He cited the challenges the district has had in dealing with two failed operational referendums the last two years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I think if we start going in too many directions, it's going to really upset even more parents who are very concerned with where our future is going to bring. In theory, we don't have a problem with it, but for us to expend some money towards it at this point in time is not in the cards for us right now," Maurer said. Cell phone policy Schubert and fellow Arrowhead School Board member Amy Hemmer shared information about a proposal their board is considering that would prohibit cell phones from being used during the school day. "Hopefully the feeder schools would buy into it if we decide to do it, and we'd all be on the same (page)," Hemmer said. Swallow School Board member Daniel Fuhrman praised Arrowhead for wanting to collaborate with its feeder districts on cell phones and said that same collaboration could apply to multiple topics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There's about 25 issues like this issue where, if we could find a methodology to communicate and collaborate and align, it would massively benefit the kids, and it would massively benefit our staffs and our teachers," Fuhrman said. Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Arrowhead, feeder districts to investigate costs of merging SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) San Angelo is rich with art and culture. The city is practically bursting at the seams with sculptures, murals, statues and just about any other art medium you can think of, which is probably why the city was named the Visual Arts Capital of Texas. The citys culture and artists are a huge part of what makes the place so special. One of the artists who contributes to that sentiment is Wendy Woodring. Woodring moved to San Angelo about a decade ago from Monterrey, Mexico, and decided to mix her culture with her art: The product of that mixture combusted into something wonderful. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Woodring decided one day a few years ago to go to the San Angelo Hispanic Heritage Museum & Cultural Center to see about working together in an effort to help both her and the museum grow. Woodring recounted her idea of the fusion, saying, Hispanic heritage is growing here. Let me do something about it. Really, I know that so, and we have a lot of Hispanic culture here. So a great, a good percentage of the persons in San Angelo have that kind of roots. And its like, mix two things, mixed culture, mixed knowledges, mixed artists uhm boom! The combination is seemingly chemical. Hispanic Heritage Museum Board Member Monica Robles explained how the unification works, saying, So Wendy Woodring, she is, has a very strong Hispanic influence in our community, and how she collaborates with us is that she hosts the Vida Los Muertos art show, the cell exhibit. This is her third annual, and what she does for us is she generously donates 20% back to us of the sales, and that goes towards our mission. Our mission with the Hispanic Heritage and Culture Museum is were going to build the museum. Robles also touched on how Wendys contributions have been impactful. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She does have a very strong influence in the Hispanic culture, not only in our culture, but and the art world in general. She does bring a lot of local artists together, Robles said. Bringing people together is not what Woodring is attempting to do; she is already doing it, and she is doing it through what she knows. When you know very well you, and you connect with your talents, you create something, doesnt matter what. In my case, its art, because its my way to express, Woodring said. Thanks to Woodring and many other artists, the art scene continues to grow in San Angelo. Maybe it is important to see that artwork is not just something that fills space, but something that can be used to unite and strengthen communities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. Donna Orsutos career has seen her cross the world, meet multiple popes and co-author several books. Her life story began far away from all of that, in Ashtabula. I only lived in Ashtabula until I was about eight years old, and then I moved to North Carolina, Orsuto said. She is the director of the Department of Moral Theology and Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. During her time in the city, Orsuto was baptized at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, where she attended school. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I always tell my students at the Gregorian University that the most important day in their life whether theyre the pope or a priest or religious or a layperson the most important day is the day of their baptism, she said. Ashtabula still means a lot to Orsuto, as the home to her relatives and former second grade teacher, she said. My experience in Ashtabula was really family-oriented, she said. Family was very important, and it still is. Family had a big impact on what Im doing now in Rome. After growing up in North Carolina, Orsuto attended Wake Forest University, where she studied philosophy and religion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On a trip to Europe in her junior year of college, Orsuto decided she wanted to study in Rome, she said. I went to Rome thinking Id be there for one year, she said. This was 1979. During her first year in the city, Orsuto started studying at the Gregorian University, she said. One thing led to another, and I eventually ended up staying in Rome, studying right on through to my doctorate, she said. Orsuto earned her doctorate in 1990. Academic studies are very long, because this is the path that normally priests would go through to prepare for their ordination, she said. Orsutos experience at the university was made all the more unique as a laywoman, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There werent very many laywomen studying at these universities, she said. There were mainly seminarians, and priests and some sisters. So, I found myself as a minority in this group of people. Orsutos experience made her concerned for other laypeople coming to the university, she said. As I was doing my own studies, I started a center for lay students studying in Rome, she said. Vatican leaders took an interest in the center, including the future Pope Leo XIV, Orsuto said. He was a cardinal, so he just drove over, and came very simply [with] no fuss, she said. We had a very simple mass in our chapel, and we had dinner together with 25 men and women from 16 different countries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost was a great dinner guest, Orsuto said. The Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2026. Orsuto has taught at the university since the early 1990s, and later became director of the department. Because of her professorship, Vatican offices have invited Orsuto to take part in their events and give lectures, she said. In September 2001, right after 9/11, I joined a Vatican delegation for inter-religious dialogue, she said. We went to Tehran for a dialogue. Orsuto said sees a more prominent future role for women in the church. Women have a role and are, in a quiet way sometimes, being active and taking part in dialogues, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her work with the Vatican allowed Orsuto to meet other popes, including John Paul II. I wouldnt say that he would know who I was, she said. Although, the last meeting, he had Parkinsons, and his head just happened to be in my direction, so when I left he said Aw! The theologian! During Pope Francis funeral, Orsuto said she watched the procession pass with her neighbors. That was a very powerful experience, she said. It was very powerful to be united with people in Rome praying for him, and also going to pay my respects to him. Orsuto was recently back in town to visit family, and took time to attend an event at Saint John School, celebrating its recent expansion. I think [Saint John] is a real gift to Ashtabula, and to the young people of Ashtabula, she said. More than 100 business leaders have urged the government to make the assault of any public-facing worker, from transport staff to call centre agents, a standalone offence. The Institute of Customer Service, a professional body, has reported a big rise in abusive incidents aimed at employees and says many are considering leaving their jobs. The Crime and Policing Bill, which is moving through Parliament, has proposed making assault of a retail worker a new specific offence in England and Wales. But bosses, including the CEOs of Nationwide and DPD, want the law to go further and cover all sectors to act as a deterrent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Home Office said it backs police to "use their full range of powers". "It is a criminal offence to assault or threaten someone and we back the police to use their full range of powers to protect the public," a Home Office spokesperson told the BBC. Pointing to the Crime and Policing Bill, they added: "Abuse faced by retail workers has risen sharply and consistently over the past few years and our new offence will provide the legal clarity needed to prosecute this vile crime effectively." Around 60% of the UK's workforce are in some form of customer-facing role across sectors such as retail, transport and hospitality, according to the Institute. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In its survey, 43% of customer-facing workers questioned said they have experienced customer hostility over the past six months - a 20% rise on the year before. It also found 37% of customer service workers are considering leaving their jobs due to aggressive customer behaviour, with 26% taking time off work as a result of abuse. "The government must act now to enshrine vital protections for all our service workers; without action now to create a strong deterrent, this problem will continue to grow," the open letter, published earlier this month, said. Currently, an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 created an aggravating factor when an assault is committed against a person who is providing a public service, performing a public duty, or providing services to the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Business leaders say that with the high level of public-facing workers reporting abuse and assault, a stronger deterrent is needed. The standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker proposed under the Crime and Policing Bill will have a maximum penalty of six months in prison and/or an unlimited fine. Upon first conviction, there is also a presumption on the courts to impose a criminal behaviour order (CBO), which could bar offenders from visiting the affected premises. The government says the bespoke offence will send a clear signal that assaults on retail workers are unacceptable and will ensure assaults on retail workers are separately recorded so the true scale of the problem is known. The BBC understands the definition of retail worker is intentionally narrow to ensure there is no confusion for courts, and people working in other sectors will be covered by other general legislation for assault offences. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One sector that has seen a rise in assaults and abuse of staff is the transport industry, with the Rail Delivery Group saying more needs to be done to protect those working on railways. LNER train manager Phil Banks encountered an aggressive passenger on a train last year whilst doing ticket checks. "It's not nice to be faced with something like that... you've got to try and keep yourself calm which can be difficult when faced with that hostility," he told BBC News. "If people are being faced with such hostility on a day-to-day basis, I can understand why they would consider looking for something which is less public-facing. You shouldn't have to put up with any kind of abuse." Rhode Island Special Assistant Attorney General Devon Hogan Flanagan, in red dress, is seen on a Newport police officer's body-worn camera video during her arrest on Aug. 14, 2025. (Screenshot from Newport Police Department body camera recording) A Rhode Island state prosecutor recorded on body camera footage telling Newport police officers they were going to regret arresting her will be placed on unpaid leave, the Attorney Generals office confirmed Friday. Special Assistant Attorney General Devon Hogan Flanagan will begin her unpaid suspension starting Monday, pending a review of her Aug. 14 arrest outside the Clarke Cooke House on a misdemeanor charge of trespassing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its still undetermined how long the review will take and how long Flanagan will be off the job, Timothy Rondeau, spokesman for Attorney General Peter Neronhas office, said. Police say Flanagan, 34, had refused to leave the Bannisters Wharf restaurant and bar with a friend after officers responded there around 10 p.m. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Newport District Court before Judge J. Terence Houlihan Jr. on Wednesday, Aug. 27, according to online records. She had been on paid leave from her $112,920-a-year job since the incident, Rondeau said. Video by police body cameras shows Flanagan arguing with officers and repeatedly saying, Im an AG. The video went viral, with 772,000 views as of Friday afternoon after NBC10 WJAR posted it Aug. 18 on its YouTube page. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Youre arresting an AG, Flanagan said as she entered a police cruiser. Youre going to regret this. During the recorded interaction, Hogan repeatedly asks officers to turn off their body cameras, insisting its required under state policy. Protocol is that you turn it off, she told officers. Its a citizens request that you turn it off. But the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association said Flanagan was incorrect about the regulation adopted by the AGs office in 2022. Association President Thomas Oates III, chief of police for the city of Woonsocket, said state policy allows officers to turn off their cameras when speaking to a witness or a victim of a crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The policy does not allow for an officer to turn off their camera at the request of a suspect, Association President Thomas Oates, chief of police for the city of Woonsocket, said in a statement. Newport police follow a similar body camera policy, which bars recording if a witness or victim asks not to be filmed and the situation isnt confrontational. The policy also notes that consent to record is not required. In an interview with WPROs Gene Valicenti on Tuesday, Attorney General Peter Neronha called Flanagans conduct inexcusable but said she appeared remorseful when they spoke after her arrest. Look, shes put me in a bad position, shes embarrassed herself, humiliated herself, treated the Newport Police Department horribly, Neronha said. Shell take responsibility for her conduct, and then well go from there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Neronha added that there would be a strong sanction for Flanagans conduct. I have the responsibility to protect the office, obviously, and the work, he said. Such a response was not enough for Rhode Island GOP Chairman Joe Powers, who blasted Neronha in a statement issued Wednesday. Isnt it the Democrats who constantly cackle, No one is above the law? Well, now its time for them to put up or shut up, Powers said. If they truly believe their own rhetoric, this assistant AG should be fired immediately. Rhode Island Current reached out for comment to Clarke Cooke House, where an employee referred the inquiry to a Bannisters Wharf representative, who declined to comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Flanagans LinkedIn profile has been taken down. She worked for the AGs office since 2018 and was assigned to the appellate unit of the criminal division, Rondeau confirmed. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX (KRON) One of the hottest athleisure brands today is opening a new store in the Bay Area. Alo Yoga will have a new location in downtown Burlingame. The Alo store is opening at 1380 Burlingame Ave., the former home of Arhaus Studio. It is next to Caffe Central and across the street from JOE & THE JUICE and Warby Parker. According to store signage on the window, the Alo store will open this winter although no date has been specified. The Arhaus Studio relocated down the street at 1230 Burlingame St., the furniture store said on its website. That location is now open. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alo will have some competition in the downtown Burlingame shopping center. Fellow athleisure brands like Lululemon and Athleta neighbor the incoming Alo store. Premium denim brand to open store in SFs Marina District An Alo Yoga store is set to open in downtown Burlingame later in 2025. (KRON4 Photo) Rising Canadian apparel brand expanding US footprint with first San Francisco store The Burlingame Alo is already accepting job applications for its Operations & Visual Manager. Alo currently has three stores in the Bay Area: Santa Clara, Walnut Creek and Palo Alto. One of the markets the SoCal-based company hasnt tapped in yet is San Francisco. Many residents in the city are often seen wearing the aforementioned athleisure brands. Currently, Lululemon, Athleta and Vuori have locations in San Francisco. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alo was founded in 2007 by Danny Harris and Marco DeGeorge. The first Alo store opened in Beverly Hills in 2016. It has since grown to be one of the biggest athleisure and apparel brands in the world thanks to endorsements from celebrities like Jimmy Butler, Jisoo, Kylie Jenner and Hailey Bieber. Jisoo of BLACKPINK attends ALOs first Asian flagship store opening event at Alo Dosan Store in Gangnam-gu on July 01, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by The Chosunilbo JNS/Imazins via Getty Images) KRON4 reached out to Alo Yoga for more information about the store opening. We did not hear back in time for publication. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. PHNOM PENH, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has recorded a 48.2 percent rise in the number of Chinese tourists in the first seven months of 2025, said the Ministry of Tourism's latest report released on Friday. A total of 687,509 Chinese visitors traveled to the kingdom during the January-July period of this year, up 48.2 percent from 463,980 over the same period last year. The number of Chinese tourists accounted for 18.5 percent of the total 3.71 million international tourist arrivals to Cambodia, the report said, adding that China was the third-largest source of foreign holidaymakers to the kingdom after Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodian Tourism Minister Huot Hak said the Cambodia-China Tourism Year 2025 is a catalyst for Chinese tourists to the Southeast Asian country. "Based on the statistics, the future of Cambodia's tourism is inseparable from the inflows of Chinese tourists and investors," he said. Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting Cambodia's economy in addition to garment, footwear and travel goods export, agriculture, and construction and real estate. In what has become one of the longer-running jokes in journalism, media critic Jack Shafer greets news of The Atlantic adding another high-profile writer to its staff with the same tweet every time: The Atlantic is hiring all the journalists. If that sounds like hyperbole, in an era of cost-cutting and downsizing, its not. The venerable magazine has engaged in a stunning hiring spree that has given the rest of the journalism world a bad case of The Atlantic envy. More from TheWrap Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But that invites a simple question: What does The Atlantic know that the rest of the media world doesnt? Or barring that, is its investment in talent merely the whim of a benevolent billionaire, owner Laurene Powell Jobs, who is providing editor Jeffrey Goldberg with enviable resources while viewing the bottom line as a secondary concern? The Atlantics posture certainly stands out when juxtaposed with the steady drip of layoffs surrounding news outlets, both big and small. In the last three years, more than 10,000 journalism positions have been eliminated in the U.S., according to Nieman Reports, with cuts at CNN, NBC, HuffPost and Vox in 2025 adding to the pain and raising questions about the state of the industry. The cuts have forced news organizations to make tough choices, not just in terms of body count, but also the kind of reporting they provide. Specialists are considered a luxury, while densely reported pieces often take a back seat to those designed to gin up traffic to keep the lights on. This isnt the case at The Atlantic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A key to our success is to make as many highest-quality stories we can, and to get as many readers as we can to pay us to read them, Goldberg told TheWrap. In order to do that, you have to have faith that theres a wide readership for the sort of stories that Im talking about and thank God, its working. The contrast between The Atlantics stepped-up staffing and the parade of big names leaving the Washington Post has been particularly striking, and helped call attention to the magazines addition of new recruits swooping in to capitalize on changes at the Post. The newspapers ranks have considerably thinned due to a mix of cost measures, questionable editorial policies and disenchantment with management, fueled in part by an Our way or the highway ultimatum issued by Post CEO Will Lewis, encouraging employees to get on board with the papers reinvention or get out. At the same time, The Atlantic has gotten bigger, and is still in hiring mode. That included four editorial additions on Thursday among them another Post alum, editor Katie Zezima while upping Jonathan Lemire from contributor to staff writer. Overall, the magazine has added nearly 40 editorial positions this year, a stunning contrast to the state of most newsrooms. According to a report in New York magazine, many of those brought on have commanded high-end journalism salaries of $200,000 to $300,000. The Atlantic declined to comment on that, but the sheer number of new faces gracing its pages, including well-known Post bylines like Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, fosters doubt about whether such a business model can hold, even in the face of impressive subscriber numbers of 1.3 million. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If not, skeptics wonder, how heavily is The Atlantic relying on Powell Jobs continued willingness to bankroll all that overhead? In an interview, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson said the magazine is both profitable and committed to a sustainable formula, while acknowledging that enlightened ownership represents a key ingredient to its success. As of now, the scorecard includes 1.3 million subscribers who pay on average $80 annually, plus about 500,000 of whom pay the additional $10 or $90 total to get the print magazine, which last year expanded back to 12 issues a year from 10. What I think is maybe a little bit different about here is weve kind of built the business around what the editorial team most wants to do, instead of trying to force the editorial team to do what we think we can best sell, Thompson told TheWrap. According to Thompson, that approach applies to new hires, which has given Goldberg the freedom to snag talent as they become available. Thats not always the case in some newsrooms, particularly as owners more heavily scrutinize the bottom line. Anne Applebaum, Laurene Powell Jobs and Jeffrey Goldberg interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (right) at the presidential palace in Kyiv in March 2023. (Alexander Chekmenev for The Atlantic) He doesnt ask for approval, Thompson explained, describing the relationship as follows: Jeff, this is the amount of money I think you can spend. Go spend it. And then I model backwards how much revenue all of thats going to bring in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its also a model that flies in the face of SEO and aggregation plays that define much of the industry, focusing on quality over tonnage in an effort to reach and hang onto discerning subscribers. But given the dire straits of the news business, those old practices are ripe for disruption. Cultivating talent and raising ambitions For those interested in the future of journalism, and its role in a functional society, questions about The Atlantics aggressive hiring and the economics surrounding them are more than just academic. While the Post has supplanted its Democracy Dies in Darkness mission statement, the 168-year-old Atlantic has been sipping at the fountain of youth, and increasingly feels like one of a few bastions treating the profession as a noble calling, cultivating A-list talent and strengthening its competitive ambitions. Shafer said watching the parade of heavy hitters joining the magazine reminds him of Citizen Kane, when William Randolph Hearst stand-in Charles Foster Kane looks admiringly at the staff of a better-established rival and, a bit later, hires them all away. Outside of the New York newspapers at the turn of the previous century, I dont know that Ive ever seen a news organization that so aggressively went out and head-hunted a bunch of stars and filled their newsroom with them, Shafer told TheWrap. So its somewhat anomalous in the contemporary setting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite the steady drip of new faces, Goldberg put the overall editorial staff at under 200, noting perception of an overflowing newsroom has raced ahead of reality because we tend to hire pretty well-known journalists. Overall, he said, the growth is proceeding at a steady and sober pace. Were definitely in an expansion mode, but I dont want to over-dramatize it. The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson attends The Atlantic Festival in September 2024. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for The Atlantic) Capitalizing on the Washington Post exodus Numerous former Post standouts have joined The Atlantic in this calendar year, with the roster of those poached (some after taking buyouts) including Parker, Scherer, Sally Jenkins, Isaac Stanley Becker, Nick Miroff, Shane Harris, Missy Ryan and Jenna Johnson. Those Post alumni join what was already a blue-chip roster featuring the likes of Mark Leibovich, Tim Alberta and McKay Coppins, to name a few. Thompson noted The Atlantic is having a very good moment, emitting the journalistic equivalent of a tractor beam pulling writers in. As for capitalizing on struggles happening elsewhere, he said, Theres an opportunity, because some of the publications are having trouble, but its also, importantly, strategic, where the Washington Post could be in an entirely different place and we would still be hiring a lot this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Goldberg sounded a bit less diplomatic about the relationship between the Posts travails, and what some have called the exodus of major names, and The Atlantics growth. (Goldberg started his career at The Post, as a police reporter.) If the Washington Post had not been undergoing an existential crisis, I wouldnt have had the same hiring opportunities that Ive had in the last six months, he said. Im not happy about the Washington Posts implosion. I love the Washington Post. I wish it were stronger. That said, if great journalists want to come to The Atlantic, Im happy to welcome them. Money isnt the only reason top writers are making that calculation. Another is the perceived erosion of support as media owners from Los Angeles to Washington have caved to pressure from the Trump administration, or sought to curry favor with a litigious and transactional president. Powell Jobs appears more courageous Goldberg cited the advantages of strategically patient and brave ownership amid the weak-kneed responses from some of her billionaire brethren. In bending to the Trump-driven political winds, owners like the Posts Jeff Bezos and L.A. Times Patrick Soon-Shiong have dispensed with the fantasy about benevolent moguls emerging as White Knights to save journalism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shes not one of those owners who runs scared of anything, actually, especially the things that seem to scare other journalism proprietors these days, Goldberg said. Knock on wood, I feel very lucky right now. The Atlantic is hiring all of the journalists. https://t.co/QzNRdVziXA Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) August 5, 2025 Thompson insists Powell Jobs isnt strictly acting altruistically and expects the enterprise to turn a profit. Beyond that, though, he maintained its absolutely the best-case ownership scenario, where you have someone who provides thoughtful advice, helps you when you need her and never, never weighs in in the kind of way you dont want your owner to weigh in. Shes never telling Jeff, Dont write this story, because it affects a friend. She just says, Go do the best work you can, and then helps us in places where we need it. That ethos has become another factor in the magazines emergence during a very challenging moment for journalism, Goldberg noted, when reporters have seen their management wilt under pressure from Trump, either to curry favor on other fronts or out of expediency. People who should be brave arent, Goldberg said, noting that Do you guys get the backup you need? is among the questions potential new hires have asked him. The magazines reputation received one lift by accident, when Goldberg was inadvertently included in what was supposed to be a top-secret chat regarding military plans for airstrikes in Yemen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After what came to be known as Signalgate, The Atlantic notched its highest week for new subscriptions in March, although it has recorded double-digit annual circulation increases each of the last two years. As Pucks Dylan Byers wrote, The Atlantics investment in journalists amid cutbacks and the rise in subscriptions rewarding that strategy represents a small if positive sign that the publishing business is trying to figure out how to solve its problems rather than bemoan them. Such a solution clearly isnt for everyone, but The Atlantics additions also create possibilities for a different kind of reinvention, to use the word bandied about by the Posts Lewis. In this case, that means the potential to draw on experienced beat reporters to break more news while still providing the kind of detailed, meticulously written analysis and think pieces associated with the physical pages of the magazine. Combining newspapering and magazines I want to do it all, Goldberg said of balancing those coverage areas. If we do this right, we can combine the best qualities of newspapering and the best qualities of magazine making and create something different and new. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The latitude to do that, Goldberg added, comes courtesy of Powell Jobs, to the extent that the big advantage of a far-sighted owner is you get the runway to try things that people havent tried before. While comparisons to Hearst only go so far, Powell Jobs who also champions entrepreneurs and innovators driven by purpose and a sense of possibility through her Emerson Collective could be seen as one of those singular figures should the magazine deliver on its promise, using those deep pockets to support journalism at what feels like a dire moment. The Atlantic owner Laurene Powell Jobs, who has invested heavily in the magazine, attends Clinton Global Initiative Summit in September 2024. (Photo by John Nacion/Getty Images) Theres a long history in American journalism of a filthy rich person entering the media business, hoping to make money, but largely hoping to make an impact, Shafer noted, adding in regard to Powell Jobs, What she wants, maybe, is to make a great journalistic enterprise, damn what it costs her. Thompson and Goldberg admit they spend a lot of time trying to see around corners, anticipating what potholes lie ahead, from AI to even stiffer headwinds than the ones the profession faces now. Noting that some economic planks of the journalism business continue to shrink, Thompson said. If you can make them go down more slowly, youre in a better place, and you have more time to have other things go up, right? And if you just hide it, yell at it or despair, youre cooked. Count events among extensions designed to showcase those journalists, including the annual Atlantic Festival, which moves to New York in September and will feature the premiere of Ken Burns latest PBS docuseries The American Revolution. What The Atlantic looks determined to avoid are the self-inflicted wounds that have beset competitors, counting on the belief people will pay for quality fare. And in journalism during Trump 2.0, just holding firm might be enough to widen the gap certainly as an employment destination and source for thoroughly reported news versus outlets already receding, if not outright buckling. These are large and important institutions, but they turn out to be quite fragile, Goldberg said. I have journalists all over the planet now wanting to be here. Theres a lot of demand out there for jobs at The Atlantic. Even if, with apologies to Shafer, he cant hire all of them. The post The Atlantic Envy: What Does It Know That Other Publications Dont? appeared first on TheWrap. BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) A car bomb and a separate attack on a police helicopter in Colombia killed at least 17 people Thursday, according to authorities. President Gustavo Petro attributed both attacks to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC. At least 12 police officers died in the attack on a helicopter that according to authorities was transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine. Petro had reported initially eight officers killed, but Antioquia Gov. Andres Julian said four others died later and three remain injured. The Antioquia governor had said on X that a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops. Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said preliminary information indicates the attack caused a fire in the aircraft. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, authorities in the southwest city of Cali reported that a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30. The Colombian air force did not immediately provide additional details of the explosion. Petro initially blamed the Gulf Clan, the country's largest active drug cartel, for the attack on the helicopter. He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the group. The president said an alleged member of the dissident group was arrested in the area of the explosion. FARC dissidents, who rejected a peace agreement with the government in 2016, and members of the Gulf Clan both operate in Antioquia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia. The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. ____ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america Aug. 21A 20-year-old Austin man made a first appearance in Mower County District Court Thursday morning where he faces three charges related to an alleged assault on a 14-year-old earlier in the week. Adan Lagunas-Figueroa has been charged with felony first degree aggravated robbery and felony simple robbery along with misdemeanor fifth degree assault. According to the court complaint, Lagunas-Figueroa is accused of assaulting the boy outside of the Kwik Trip in the 1200 block of Oakland Avenue West in the early morning hours of Aug. 19. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At around 6:46 a.m. on Aug. 19, an Austin Police Department officer met with the boy and the boy's mother, who told him that he had been assaulted at around 5 a.m. While he didn't know Lagunas-Figueroa, the victim said he would be able to identify him if he saw him again. He also showed the officer a picture of Lagunas-Figueroa's vehicle, a Silver Infiniti G37 which the officer recognized as being driven by Lagunas-Figueroa. The boy continued by telling the officer that Lagunas-Figueroa had accused him of stealing from the store where the boy had just purchased a coffee and donut. Despite telling Lagunas-Figueroa he hadn't stolen anything, Lagunas-Figueroa continued to accuse him of stealing, eventually getting out of the vehicle and allegedly assaulting the boy. The boy said Lagunas-Figueroa started slapping him and struck him multiple times. During this time, the victim said that Lagunas-Figueroa took his backpack and put it into the car, though the victim was later able to recover it. Security footage obtained from Kwik Trip allegedly showed the encounter and while the boy is just out of frame, it did show Lagunas-Figueroa's head as well as Lagunas-Figueroa starting to swing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The victim eventually walks backwards into the frame with his hands up and Lagunas-Figueroa follows, allegedly punching the boy multiple times. Later in the footage, Lagunas-Figueroa can be seen carrying the boy's backpack to the vehicle and closing the door. The report goes on to say that when the victim tries recovering the backpack, Lagunas-Figueroa is seen striking him numerous more times. Eventually, an employee is seen driving into the footage and Lagunas-Figueroa is witnessed talking with the employee just moments after the footage shows Lagunas-Figueroa continuing to chase the boy. The employee later told another officer that he witnessed the boy running from Lagunas-Figueroa. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Early the following morning, on Aug. 20, the officer was alerted that Lagunas-Figueroa was back at the Kwik Trip, making contact and taking him into custody. Lagunas-Figueroa denied doing anything and was taken back to Mower County Jail. Lagunes-Figueroa will have an initial appearance on Sept. 4. AUSTIN (KXAN) An Austin student was arrested Thursday after a report of a weapon on campus led officers to discover two guns at a high school. Students at Northeast Early College High School and International High School were placed on hold twice during the school day, according to a letter sent to families from the schools principals. Those schools share a campus at 7104 Berkman Drive in northeast Austin. During a hold, students and staffs continue with the school day but remain inside their classrooms, according to Austin Independent School Districts website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officers found the student who was in possession of two unloaded firearms during the first 10-minute hold. The second hold, prompted by another report of a weapon on campus, also lasted 10 minutes, and officers did not find anything. The principals encouraged people if you see something, say something and directed the school community to report suspicious behavior of any kind to Austin ISD police at 512-414-1703. I want to commend the individuals who made the reports and our officers who acted quickly to ensure the safety of our campus, Principals Leticia Vega and Nathan Neal wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Australia and Israel, once staunch allies, have seen an erosion of their relations over the course of the war in the Gaza Strip. Australias decision to recognize a Palestinian state came after the government sensed a major shift in the domestic mood over the war in Gaza, and showed that Canberra was unafraid of upsetting Israel, historically one of its staunchest allies. The August 11 announcement came days after tens of thousands of people marched across Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge, calling for peace and aid deliveries to Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The decision has strained relations between Israel and Australia to a degree not seen in decades. Senior politicians in both countries have traded barbs, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launching personal attacks on Albanese. The visas of Australian diplomats working in the West Bank have been revoked, and an Israeli lawmaker was barred from entering Australia. It just became politically unpalatable to continue to defend Israel and lay all the blame at the feet of Hamas, said Martin Kear, an academic at Sydney University specializing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. IDF troops continue operational activity against the terrorist organizations throughout the Gaza Strip. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT) A leading Jewish group in Australia has called for calm, while offering a rare rebuke of Netanyahu. Some Jews in Australia say the tension makes them feel unsafe, after a spate of antisemitic attacks in the country over the last year. Australia divided over Israel-Hamas War Opinion polling in Australia about the Gaza conflict a divisive issue in a country with large Muslim and Jewish minorities now indicates increasing sympathy towards the Palestinian cause. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement August polling by DemosAU showed 45% supported Australia recognizing a Palestinian state before a negotiated peace deal, with 23% opposed. Support was up from 35% a year previously. Public sympathy for Israel in Australia began to "rapidly erode once the apocalyptic specter of famine rode into Gaza," the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the country's leading newspapers, said in an editorial this month. The images from Gaza have also hardened the resolve of lawmakers, said Charles Miller, a lecturer in international relations at the Australian National University. I think they have changed an awful lot of minds amongst policymakers in Australia, as they have in other countries, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The political fallout has alarmed the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group organization for more than 200 Jewish organizations, which sent letters to Albanese and Netanyahu on Wednesday, urging them to de-escalate tensions. If things need to be said publicly, they should be said using measured and seemly language befitting national leaders, the letters read. Australia has been grappling with antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings, and cars since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war, and some Jews worry that heightened tensions between Australia and Israel could fuel more attacks. "When the temperature of the political discourse in the media is so focused on criticizing Israel, there will be ramifications for the local Jewish community, and that's something that we need to reflect on," said Eli Feldman, the rabbi at Newtown Synagogue in Sydney, which was defaced with antisemitic graffiti in January. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Australia was an early supporter of the creation of a Jewish state, and has long advocated for Israel in international disputes, though both main political parties back a two-state solution in principle. While Albanese had personally long supported a Palestinian state until now, his political pragmatism had made him wary of backing official recognition. That changed with the shift in the public mood while his landslide victory in May's general election reduced the risk of domestic pushback, said Jessica Genauer, an academic at Flinders University specializing in international conflict. Key allies, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, all said they would recognize a Palestinian state in the weeks before Australia, which also made Albanese's job easier, analysts said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They don't want to lead on carving new pathways in terms of their policies on this, but on the other hand, they don't want to be left behind by key allies around the world, Genauer said. Albanese is still a pragmatic and cautious person by nature. Netanyahu has repeatedly attacked Albanese in a series of interviews and social media posts since August 11, calling the Australia leader weak and accusing him of betraying Israel. While Albanese has played down the feud, Netanyahu shows no sign of backing down. Hekept up the rhetoric with an interview with Sky News Australia that aired late on Thursday. "I'm sure he has a reputable record as a public servant, but I think his record is forever tarnished by the weakness that he showed in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters," he said. MANILA, Philippines (AP) The Philippine defense chief condemned Chinas deployment of a swarm of armed coast guard forces, backed by a helicopter and a drone, closer to the Philippines military outpost in a fiercely disputed atoll in the South China Sea. Its military also vowed to defend the offshore territory, the scene of repeated, tense faceoffs. The latest flare-up in the long-seething territorial disputes around the Second Thomas Shoal came up in closed-door talks between Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and his visiting Australian counterpart, Richard Marles. Philippine military chief Gen. Romero Brawner Jr. said Marles renewed Australias commitment to help defend the rule of law in a region experiencing the pressure that the rules-based order is being placed under. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chinas actions and its nebulous territorial claims in the disputed waters are a matter not only of concern, but of condemnation because these are gross violations of international law, Teodoro said in a joint news conference with Marles, when asked about the latest Chinese actions. We need to stand up to this, he added. We work really closely with the Philippines in terms of asserting the rules-based order in the South China Sea, Marles added. Thats really important for us to jointly do. We understand that in that work, there will be an interaction between defense forces. New faceoff at Second Thomas Shoal Chinese officials did not immediately comment on a Philippine military report that Beijing has deployed several coast guard and suspected militia ships, along with a swarm of speedboats, some fitted with high-caliber machine guns, and backed by a helicopter and a drone. The deployment is reportedly close to a Philippine warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which has served as Manila's territorial outpost in Second Thomas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Chinese boat came as close as 50 meters (164 feet) to the Sierra Madre, and two boatloads of Filipino forces were deployed from the ship to prevent the Chinese from coming closer, Philippine military officials said. The Philippine navy deliberately grounded the Sierra Madre in 1999 at the shoal now a rust-encrusted seacraft slightly tilting in the shallows to serve as its territorial outpost, where China has deployed ships to keep a continuous watch. The bigger deployment of Chinese coast guard and other forces at the shoal started Wednesday and Brawner said Beijing's forces were still in the vicinity of the shoal Friday. The situation is tense because theyre trying to get closer but our troops we continue to push them outward, Brawner told reporters after joining the talks between Marles and Teodoro. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement China claims staged provocation In reaction to the latest flare-ups, Chinas coast guard issued a statement Friday urging the Philippines to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and vowing to carry out law enforcement activities in the waters around the disputed shoal. It also released a video of what it said was the Philippines latest staged provocation, with Philippines boats approaching its vessels in an unprofessional and dangerous manner. The video showed two small boats approaching a Chinese vessel, with one person on the Philippine boat holding what appeared to be a camera it said, adding that the other boat kept some distance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The spokesperson made no mention of Chinas new deployments in the area or address a collision last week between two Chinese ships in another incident. Australian support Marles is visiting the Philippines as Australian forces engage in their largest combat exercises with the Philippine military, involving more than 3,600 military personnel in live-fire drills and battle maneuvers. Marles has been invited to witness a mock amphibious beach assault by Australian and Filipino naval forces over the weekend in a western Philippine town facing the South China Sea, Philippine military officials said. After their meeting, Marles and Teodoro signed a joint letter of intent to further boost defense cooperation and affirm their resolve to enhance interoperability, collective deterrence and long-term military readiness ... to promote regional security and stability," according to Philippine defense officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The exercises called Alon Tagalog for wave will showcase Australias growing firepower. The drills will involve an Australian guided-missile navy destroyer, F/A-18 supersonic fighter jets, a C-130 troop and cargo aircraft, Javelin anti-tank weapons and special forces sniper weapons. China has raised alarm over such combat exercises in or near the disputed waters, which it claims almost in its entirety, but where the United States and its treaty allies, Australia and the Philippines, have staged joint naval patrols and drills with other countries to boost deterrence against threats to freedom of navigation and overflight. Chinas military have separately confronted U.S., Australian and Philippine ships and aircraft in alarmingly close calls to assert what Beijing calls its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the strategic waterway, a key global trade route, sparking fear of a larger conflict that may involve American forces and their allies in what has long been regarded as an Asian flashpoint. Incident at Scarborough Shoal Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new faceoff in the Second Thomas Shoal came after an accidental collision between Chinese ships Aug. 11 in another disputed fishing atoll, the Scarborough Shoal. The Chinese navy and coast guard ships that collided were trying to block a Philippine coast guard ship from sailing closer to the shoal. The collision smashed the Chinese coast guard ships bow area and may have seriously injured or thrown overboard a number of Chinese personnel seen standing on the deck shortly before the crash, Philippine officials said, based on coast guard video. Chinese officials have refused to comment on the collision. ___ Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila in Manila, and Chris Bodeen in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) Authorities are asking for the publics help in identifying two individuals in $6K merchandise theft investigation. Police seek to identify woman in $6K theft at Ulta, Image Oklahoma City Police Department Facebook page Police seek to identify woman in $6K theft at Ulta, Image Oklahoma City Police Department Facebook page According to police, the man and woman (shown above) are wanted in connection with a $6K theft at Ulta near Memorial/Penn. One injured, one in custody after stabbing in Edmond If you recognize them police are encouraging you to contact Crime Stoppers 405.235.7300 or www.okccrimetips.com. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 21Gunfire was first reported on the University of New Mexico campus around midnight on July 25, when a dorm resident called 911 and said he heard four or five gunshots close by. Hours later, UNM police made entrance into a Casas Del Rio dorm room and found Michael LaMotte slumped over a chair. The 14-year-old died from a single gunshot wound to the front of his head, according to an autopsy released Thursday by the state Office of the Medical Investigator. The bullet was not recovered, and the autopsy does not list an estimated time of death. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "LaMotte died as a result of injuries he sustained from a gunshot wound to the head," the autopsy stated. "The manner of death was homicide." The autopsy stated the teen was pronounced dead at 2:22 a.m. It is unclear when authorities first entered the dormitory and found LaMotte's body. In multiple releases and news conferences, neither UNM police nor New Mexico State Police have said when the body was found. In response to questions sent by the Journal on Thursday, New Mexico State Police spokesperson Wilson Silver emailed a prior news release from the day of the homicide, sent after the suspected shooter, John Fuentes, was arrested. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "As UNM officers were conducting a security sweep of the surrounding buildings, they made entry and located a deceased 14-year-old male inside one of the dorms," according to the July 25 release. Albuquerque Police Department computer-aided dispatch logs showed LaMotte's body was reportedly found at 4:41 a.m. During an Aug. 5 pretrial detention hearing for Fuentes, prosecutors said he was drunk and high on LSD, cocaine and marijuana when he allegedly shot LaMotte while playing video games inside the dorm. Police say Fuentes also shot and injured the teen who lived in the dorm before fleeing. LaMotte, who had been in the dorm with the group for several hours, had marijuana in his system at the time of his death, according to a toxicology report. No other drugs were detected. [Watch in the player above: Breaking down common traffic and driving myths] AVON, Ohio (WJW) Avon police on Sunday, Aug. 24, plan to briefly stop motorists in both directions on Interstate 90 for a construction project, and motorists are being told to plan ahead and expect minor delays. The rolling stop is expected to happen at 7 a.m., near the state Route 83 bridge, and last for up to 15 minutes, according to a Friday Facebook post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Multiple dead after tour bus rollover on I-90 in Pembroke Avon police will be on-hand to stop traffic on I-90, as well as on the eastbound on-ramp to allow the work to be completed safely. Elsewhere in the city, Avon Road will be reduced to one lane near Nagle Road, which is under construction. That starts the following Monday, Aug. 25, according to another Friday Facebook post. Brook Park City Council passes new rules what it means for Browns dome construction Crews plan to install a water line. Traffic will keep moving with flaggers and will be open both ways during non-working hours. The work is expected to be completed by the end of the week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Please use caution when traveling in this area and we appreciate your patience, reads the post. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW. (The Center Square) Arizona lawmakers violated the constitutional requirement to fund public schools, ruled Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dewain Fox. In a 114-page decision, Fox stated on Aug. 11 that Arizona schools did not meet the minimum standards in providing adequate equipment for building repairs, even though the Arizona Constitution requires the Legislature to organize and fund a general and uniform public school system. The case, Glendale Elementary School District v. State of Arizona, was filed in 2017 by Glendale Elementary School District, Crane Elementary School District, Chino Valley Unified School District and Elfrida Elementary School District, alongside Arizona School Boards Association, Arizona Education Association and Arizona School Administrators. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They sued the state for failing to uphold the constitutional obligation of providing adequate funding for public schools. This decision is a victory not only for the Glendale Elementary School District, but for every student in Arizona, said GESD Superintendent Cindy Segotta-Jones in a press release. It affirms what educators, families, and communities have long known, that every child deserves to learn in safe, well-maintained and well-equipped schools. We are grateful to the Court for recognizing the importance of equitable investment in our childrens education. Todays ruling is an important step in our unions fight to get Arizona lawmakers to invest even the bare minimum in public schools, said AEA President Marisol Garcia, who is also a teacher in the Isaac Elementary School District. Students have been in environments that cannot withstand over 100-degree weather conditions or prevent exposure to mold or asbestos, Arizona state Sen. Eva Diaz, a Democrat on the Senate Education Committee, said in a press release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Courts have officially ruled on a lawsuit that has been brought on by our fearless school districts and education stakeholders to demonstrate how much Republican leadership has grossly failed to ensure our students have a safe environment to learn in, Diaz said. The office of Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs told The Center Square that over the past three years, the Democratic governor has secured over $1 billion to build school facilities and provide quality learning environments. The governor takes seriously the states constitutional obligations regarding capital funding, and has repeatedly offered to work with the legislature to build a public education system that gives every Arizona student an opportunity to succeed, said Liliana Soto, Hobbs' press secretary. A spokesperson confirmed that Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Arizona, has said the state will appeal the decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state constitution does not require funding for school system expenses, argued the attorneys for the Legislature. They also pushed back on the idea that the court has the power to tell lawmakers what the state is expected to fund. Such matters invade the exclusive power of the Legislature, are non-justiciable, and therefore do not create a viable claim mover which the court may assume jurisdiction, said lawyer William Richards. The attorney who represented the plaintiffs said otherwise. They can say theyre going to appeal, but the evidence is the evidence, and the law is the law, and all theyre doing is digging the hole deeper, said Danny Adelman, executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Arizona Department of Education declined to comment, other than agreeing that school facilities need to be healthy and safe environments. This decision sends a clear message: Arizona must meet its constitutional responsibility to fund our public schools the way they should be. Every child deserves the same opportunity to learn in a safe, well-resourced environment, said Ellen White, ASBA executive director, in a statement. THE HAGUE, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The political crisis in the Netherlands escalated on Friday after all ministers from the New Social Contract (NSC) party resigned from the caretaker government, following the departure of Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp earlier in the day. Veldkamp announced his resignation in The Hague, citing frustration over restrictions on measures against Israel. "I see that I cannot take sufficiently meaningful additional measures to increase pressure on Israel," he told reporters after a Council of Ministers meeting. His departure triggered a collective exit by fellow NSC ministers -- Eddy van Hijum (Social Affairs), Eppo Bruins (Education), Judith Uitermark (Interior), Danielle Jansen (Health) -- as well as four state secretaries. The move further destabilizes the fragile coalition. According to NSC, coalition partners the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) refused to back tougher measures against Israel. The Dutch cabinet has been in a caretaker state since June 3, when the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) withdrew over asylum policy. With NSC's exit, only VVD and BBB remain in government. Snap elections are scheduled for October 29. Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he "deeply regretted" the NSC decision. "Further deliberation on the political situation is now necessary," he said. On Gaza, Schoof added: "We all want the humanitarian situation to improve. Unfortunately, that has not led to a common conclusion." (The Center Square) According to event officials, a July 26 event held at Donald Eismann Elementary School, part of the Sumner-Bonney Lake School District in Washington state, that included a Drag Queen Story Hour and other controversial drag performances, has inspired death threats against organizers and participants. The Plateau Pride gathering was held in the Tehaleh master-planned community near Bonney Lake, where it has been hosted since at least 2023. In the meantime, school board members have been getting an earful from community members concerned about the event. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some parents spoke out at Wednesdays school board meeting. Did the Sumner Bonney Lake School District conduct a thorough review when approving this Pride event? asked Daniel Sanders, whose daughter attends Donald Eisman Elementary School. My question to the board is, since the district approved hosting this event on school property, how does this align with the school districts values? Hope Development Practice, located in Puyallup, hosted the event. The organization describes itself as a nonprofit Behavioral Health Agency. Much of its work centers around supporting and promoting the LGBTQIA+ community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After concerned parents comments, Hope Development Director Abby White addressed the board via Zoom. I would love to give a little bit of education around the importance of drag for the LGBTQ community, White said. Pride initially started out of discrimination that was happening, and the first people to step up were drag performers and trans people in the community, to rise up against the discrimination that was happening. She suggested that the inappropriate photos displayed on social media were taken without the consent of the people in the photos. They were taken to try to slander the LGBTQ community to cause a rise up of hate which resulted in me getting death threats, my staff getting death threats, our pride performers getting death threats, White said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a Friday email to The Center Square, she said feedback on the event was overwhelmingly positive. Pride has a long history of including drag and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and this years performances were conducted with parental consent and clear explanations of consent to the audience, White noted. She pointed out that the district did not sponsor or advertise the event, but agreed to rent out the school. With recent federal cuts to support our already marginalized community, we face more hate and fear than ever. We encourage people to support mental health funding and support those most vulnerable to acts of hate like we are seeing here, she continued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement White did not respond to questions about the death threats she said she has received since the event. Cathy Hayden contacted The Center Square with grave concerns about the event. Hayden said White is her nephews wife. Despite the family connection, she felt compelled to speak out against what she considers pushing adult material on children. My sister and her children came to dinner. They were talking about this fabulous event that they had volunteered at, and we didn't know what it was. And then a day or two later, I saw a post on Facebook about it and realized that its the event that they had participated in, said Hayden. And then I began to do my own investigation and found out, yes, this is my nephew and his wife. Hayden said she takes issue with encouraging families with young children to attend an event that includes a drag show. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They had a bouncy house. They had hamster balls. They had crafts and things that would attract children, Hayden said. And at the same time, they had the drag queen show. There were five drag queens there. They were in very suggestive dress. Men wearing lingerie. And then the drag queens would do their act. And there's a picture of a child tipping money to a drag queen. The Center Square contacted all Sumner-Bonney Lake School Board members and the superintendent and received an email response from a district spokesperson. This was an outside event, by a nonprofit entity that rented our facility. It was not a district event. This event, and all events held outside of school hours by outside organizations, are not district-sponsored. Approval of a facility rental does not mean the district endorses or approves the event itself, Communications Director Elle Warmuth emailed The Center Square. She continued: As a public entity, we are legally required to provide equitable access to community groups in a way that does not discriminate based on protected class. Again, the district provides rental access to school facilities without endorsing or opposing the views or activities of any group that rents them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Warmuth admitted the response from the community has been mixed. We take these concerns seriously, and we are currently reviewing our facility use policies and procedures, she said. Hayden conceded that speaking out against the event has been difficult because it involves family. I love my family, but I've notified my family that I'm taking steps. I'm investigating this myself, and I'm against it. I've let them know that, she said. They've not responded to me, and I might be canceled. But I'm going to just continue any course I can find to bring this to public attention and to get it stopped. Right is right, and we know when things are wrong. Florida has been a top partner in executing President Donald Trumps deportation agenda finding and detaining people who are in the country illegally. Florida also leads in what has become a nationwide problem: a massive backlog in immigration court cases that determine whether an immigrant can stay in the country. More cases are waiting to be heard in Floridas immigration courts than in any other state, according to data compiled by Syracuse University. Its a long-standing problem wherein cases have piled up over the years in front of a shortage of judges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But its being accelerated in part as Gov. Ron DeSantis administration has pushed to be at the fore of executing Trumps mass deportation agenda. Florida leads the U.S. in the number of state and local law enforcement agencies that have signed agreements with the federal government that allow them to detain immigrants in the country illegally. The upshot isan increasingly strained immigration court system so overloaded thatformer judges and advocate groups say people arent getting due process. Trump, who in the past has questioned the need for due process for such immigrants, has ramped up detention efforts but has not staffed or funded immigration courts with the same zeal. But thearm of the U.S. Justice Department thatoperates the courts said reducing the backlog is itshighest priority. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly wrote in an email thatthe Executive Office for Immigration Review at the Department of Justice will continue to use all of its resources to adjudicate immigration cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly consistent with due process. She said the pending caseload has fallen by more than 391,000 cases since the start of the second Trump administration. That is about 12% of the total number of pending cases. Still,the average wait for immigrants to have their cases heard in courtis four years. With more than a quarter of the year to go, the more than 520,000 pending cases in Floridas courts in Orlando, Miami and the Krome detention center in Miami-Dade County are nearing the level of backlogged cases from the entire prior year. If cases accumulate at the same rate, the state is on track to nearly double the total number of immigration cases awaiting review by January. Miamis docket eclipses the next highest backlogged docket, in Chicago, by more than 37,000 cases, according to data from Syracuse University. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Florida has led the country in backlogged cases since 2022. But the margin by which it has led other states, including second-highestTexas, is growing. If you keep adding detainees and you dont add judges, that four years is going to become six years is going to become eight years, because youre just adding that many more people who have to go through the immigration (court) system, said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who serves on Floridas State Immigration Enforcement Council. The Pinellas County Jail, like every other jail in the state, works with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to temporarily hold immigrant detainees before they are transported to ICE detention centers. The Trump administration has said it wants to roughly double the space it has nationwide to detain migrants. But it has not proposed increases of that scope on the judicial side. They (have) got to unclog it someplace, because you cant keep filling the boat with water,Gualtieri said. Eventually, the boat sinks. Sinking the boat Trump and his top advisers have floated a solution to the backlog: reducing or eliminating due process for those in the country illegally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years, Trump wrote on social media in April. His border czar, Thomas D. Homan, also questioned the need for due process that month. A dysfunctional court system with a huge backlog of cases helps him make that argument, say some former federal immigration judges and immigration legal experts. So does removing judges in the midst of a shortage, they say. Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired more than 100 immigration court judges since February without citing a reason. When immigration judges can be fired at any time with no civil service protection or recourse available, their power is neutered, said Ashley Tabaddor, a former Los Angeles immigration judge and former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Tabaddor also served in the Biden administration as a lawyer in the Department of Homeland Security. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Youre removing the defining element of a court, she said. Jennifer Peyton was fired by email in July from her job as the assistant chief immigration judge for Chicagos immigration court.She said no reason was given. I think they are trying to intentionally defund (the courts) so they can say its not working and the backlog is too big, said Peyton, who served as an immigration judge for 15 years under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Mattingly, the Justice Department immigration court spokesperson, said the agency declines to comment on personnel matters about why the agency has fired judges but noted that it is posting vacancies online and hiring immigration judges, including in Florida. She did not specify how many Florida vacancies exist, and the Justice Department site did not list any openings in the state as of Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July, provides $3.3 billion for the Department of Justice and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which houses immigration courts. But the law doesnt specify how it should be spent or direct officials to hire judges or expand the courts functions. The law caps the number of additional immigration judges that can be hired at 800, starting in November 2028. Though the cap doesnt take effect for three years, the American Immigration Council, a national immigration advocacy group, said it will hamper progress on reducing the backlog. As of June 30, 685 immigration judges werepresiding over the backlog of about 3.4 million cases nationwide,according to the Department of Justice. That is roughly 5,000 cases per judge. Tabaddor said it would take about 2,500 to 3,000 additional immigration judges, as well as more administrative staff, law clerks, interpreters and others, to make a meaningful dent in the backlog and also process new cases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Building that kind of capacity is not easy, nor can it be done overnight, Tabaddor said. Earlier this month, the Justice Department issued a memo requiring immigration judges to issue decisions within 10 days of a final hearing date for casesin which the immigrant in question is detained and within 60 days in cases in which the immigrant is not in custody. Suchrules may seemingly work to reduce the backlog but do the opposite becausethey restrict the courts ability to adjudicate cases efficiently and fairly, Tabaddor said. Cases are not some factory construction, she said. Flexibility is crucial for efficiency and to meet the needs of each case, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Florida, DeSantis has offered to deputize military lawyers in the National Guard to act as immigration judges, a plan Trump has approved. The state has not yet received a request for Guard support, said Capt. Brittianie Funderburk, a spokesperson for the Florida National Guard. If the federal government decides to activate Guard attorneys to work as immigration judges, the federal authorities would provide any necessary training and would also determine the work theyre doing as well as work locations, she said. Funderburk said there are nine suchjudge advocates general eligible for that duty.Thats far short of what would be needed to meaningfully make a dent in the caseload. If reducing the backlog was the goal, there are other ways to do it, including simplifying asylum applications for obvious cases, said Denise Gilman, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austinwho directs its immigration clinic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The most logical response would be to streamline asylum grants to get them situated without wasting immigration courts resources," she said. That way, courts would be freed up to adjudicate non-asylum cases. But, she said, thatsnot the choice being made by the Trump administration. Katelyn Ferral is a politics reporter. Contact her at kferral@tampabay.com. How does immigration court work? The immigration court system is different and separate from civil or criminal courts. Heres what to know. The countrys immigration court system has had several iterations since it was first established in 1891 but was most recently overhauled in 1983. That year, the Executive Office for Immigration Review was created under the U.S. Department of Justice to hear immigration cases. This is the agency that hears immigration cases today. The goal was to give immigration courts some independence by separating them from the enforcement and detainment part of the federal government. Today, enforcement lies within the Department of Homeland Security and is administered through ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. An immigration court case is first initiated when an immigrant in the country illegally gets a notice to appear in the immigration court closest to where they live. The case is scheduled for its first set of hearings, in which a judge determines whether the immigrant is subject to removal. During these hearings, the immigrantmay apply for and be approved for a form of immigration protection. These could include asylum because of persecution in their home country, or temporary protected status, where an immigrants country is considered unsafe. After submitting an application for protection from deportation, an immigration judge and an attorney for the federal government hear evidence about the immigrants situation. The immigration judge will then approve or deny the immigrants request to stay. Either the immigrant or the federal attorney arguing for deportation can appeal the judges decision, kicking off a separate process ultimately decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals, also part of the Justice Department. Estimates of how frequently an appeals claim is successful vary, but plaintiffs attorneys estimate the board reverses a judges decision in 10% to 20% of cases. August is the best time of the year to take a dip in Lake Michigan, when its waters hover in the balmy upper 60s. Experts say so, and Chicagos crowded beaches offer proof. But an invisible hazard can quickly turn a sunny day out into a sick night in. In 2024, over 300 beaches across the Great Lakes closed to visitors or issued swim bans or advisories due to the presence of bacteria in the water mostly E. coli, from nearby surface runoff or sewer system overflows, especially during heavy rain according to state and federal data. Bacteria levels triggered 83 advisories or closures in Illinois last summer, making it the second worst in the Midwest, with 71 in Lake Countys 13 lakefront beaches and 12 across nine beaches in Cook County. As of Thursday, Lake County beaches have had 49 advisories this summer, according to data from the states Department of Public Health. There has been at least one beach advisory in Cook County so far, according to Evanston officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What we want, really want, to see is not that people say, Well, thats just the way it is. It shouldnt have to be this way, said Nancy Stoner, senior attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, who focuses on clean water issues. Its pollution that can be controlled and should be controlled, because people deserve to be able to know that they can swim safely in the Great Lakes. In Wisconsin, 90 beaches closed or had advisories between May and September 2024 representing the most lakefront locations affected followed by Illinois, Ohio with 67, Michigan with 62, Indiana with 20 and Minnesota with 17, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Beach Advisory and Closing Online Notification system, which ELPC analyzed. Even these numbers are just a starting point. In addition to different frequencies in testing among municipalities, there can also be a lag time by states in filing this information to the U.S. EPA. For instance, the federal agencys system lists no advisories or closures for Illinois in 2024, data that currently can only be found on the state website. According to a spokesperson, the IDPH attempted a submission, which was rejected because of formatting compatibility issues. The state agency said it continues to work to rectify the situation with the U.S. EPA. Beachgoers should be able to rely upon the information provided by U.S. EPA to find out whether the beach they want to go to is safe for swimming, Stoner said. They cant do that right now, and the fact that wrong information is being provided by U.S. EPA makes the situation even worse. U.S. EPA needs to fix this problem right away so that beachgoers dont unknowingly swim in contaminated water and risk getting sick. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Known as the BEACON system, it is supported by federal grant funding that allows officials to monitor water quality and bacteria levels. Symptoms in humans exposed to this and similar pathogens can include nausea, diarrhea, ear infections and rashes. According to scientists, each year, there are 57 million cases of people getting sick in the United States from swimming in contaminated waters. When a certain safety threshold set by the U.S. EPA is exceeded, local officials can decide to issue a swim ban or advisory. Three locations, all north of Chicago, exceeded the EPAs threshold on at least 25% of days tested last year: North Point Marina Beach, Waukegan North Beach and Winnetka Lloyd Park Beach, according to data from BEACON analyzed in a July report by advocacy nonprofit Environment America. Chicago tests the water in all its public lakefront beaches every day of the summer, unlike communities in Lake County, which only test four days a week. The report also found that, on the citys 26 miles of public lakefront during the 2024 season, at least four beaches had potentially unsafe levels between 14% and 21% of the days that the water was tested, including 31st Street Beach, Calumet South Beach, 63rd Street Beach and Montrose Beach. Most of the funding for testing and monitoring comes from the BEACH Act, or the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act, which has protected public health in recreational waters across the country since its unanimous passing 25 years ago. Since then, the U.S. EPA has awarded over $226 million in grants for these programs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement (It) is a small program for a federal program, but a lot in funding impact, Stoner said. However, in its 2026 proposed budget, the administration of President Donald Trump suggested slashing the EPAs budget and clean water programs. In July, the House Appropriations Committee approved a 25% cut in the agencys Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which helps states manage wastewater infrastructure to ensure the cleanliness of waterways. The proposed cuts come at a time when humid weather and heavier storms, intensified by human-made climate change, are overwhelming outdated sewer systems and releasing human waste into waterways. Stormwater can carry runoff pollution and manure from industrial livestock operations into beaches. E. coli also grows faster in warmer water, so increasing lake temperatures pose a growing risk to swimmers. Advocates say that for the sake of public health and recreation the federal government must continue to ensure funding for these programs and support the staff and institutions that uphold environmental protections. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The BEACH Act is a piece of it. Thats about monitoring and public notification. Thats important, Stoner said, but really, funding the underlying work that needs to be done is essential. So, funding the EPA, funding the staff at the EPA, funding these labs throughout the Great Lakes, funding NOAA Theres a whole system. Related Articles While it doesnt often do so, Chicago is one of 158 communities authorized to discharge sewage into the Great Lakes. Besides Chicago, cities like Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio, have also updated their sewer systems and reduced the raw sewage they send flowing into the Great Lakes, thanks in no small part to federal infrastructure funding. These systems, advocates say, might offer a blueprint for the safety of beachgoers across the basin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are solutions. We just have to invest for them to happen, Stoner said. So, its not a technological problem. Its a failure to decide that we want to solve this problem with solutions that exist. Emily Kowalski, outreach and engagement manager at the research and education center of Environment America in Illinois, said investments should go beyond upgrading sewage systems and focus on green infrastructure or natural, permeable surfaces like green roofs, parks and wetlands, which can help absorb rainwater and reduce flooding. A lot of these problems are things that we know how to fix and mitigate, but they do take money, she said. A report released by the U.S. EPA last year found the country needs at least $630 billion to address wastewater, stormwater and clean water infrastructure needs over the next 20 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We need Congress to fully fund the Clean Water State Revolving Fund so that we can enjoy Chicagos beaches, but also so (that) when we are on vacation on other shorelines or coastlines, we can enjoy beaches that are safe for swimming, Kowalski said. Sewage and animal waste Every morning between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a handful of University of Illinois Chicago students head out to the citys public beaches. As the sun rises and the day starts, they wade into the lake at each location and collect water in two plastic bottles. The samples are then tested in a laboratory to detect the presence of genetic material from Enterococci bacteria that, like E. coli, live in the intestines of warm-blooded animals such as humans. While Enterococci are not considered harmful to humans, scientists test for their presence in water as an indicator that other disease-causing microbes like E. Coli might be present from possible fecal contamination. In a few hours, the results allow the Chicago Park District to issue the necessary water quality advisories for any of its beaches. If the concentration of Enterococci in water samples from a beach registers an estimated illness rate of 36 per 1,000 swimmers, following U.S. EPA criteria, the Park District will issue a swim advisory. But the agency rarely issues full-on swim bans based on water quality; for that to happen, test results need to correspond with an event when sewage flows into the lake, said Cathy Breitenbach, natural resources director at the Chicago Park District. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our river flows backwards. Sewer overflows are pretty rare these days, and even when they do occur, they dont go into the lake, Breitenbach said. That is, unless intense precipitation levels overwhelm sewers already overflowing within the city, and officials open the locks between the river and the lake and reverse that flow. Then wed issue a systemwide ban until we test below the threshold, she said. The last time this occurred and a ban was issued in Chicago was in July 2023. The locks near Navy Pier were opened to relieve the pressure on the sewer system during heavy rainfall, allowing more than 1.1 billion gallons of murky, bacteria-laden waste to flow into Lake Michigan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While sewage contamination from heavy storms attracts the most attention, waste from animals, such as seagulls and even dogs, can be washed by rain into the lake and is often the biggest source of bacterial concentrations across Chicago beaches. We have so many beautiful buildings, but when water falls on our city, that water runs off of our roads into our waterways, picking up pollutants along the way, Kowalski said. Runoff can contaminate Lake County beaches, too, when waste from waterfowl makes its way into the lake. Some of it is very localized, said Alana Bartolai, ecological services program coordinator at the Lake County Health Department. North Point Marina Beach, she said, is well-known in the community because the seagulls and the gulls love it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its a recurring observation among department staff when they conduct monitoring at the countys lakefront beaches. Waukegan Beach has the same issue. When we take samples we routinely are recording 300-plus gulls on the beach, at those two locations, Bartolai said. North Point Marina and Waukegan beaches accounted for almost half of all bacteria-related advisories and closures issued in Lake County last summer and so far this summer. Bartolai said most of the advisories and swim bans in 2024 were weather-related. Even though we were in drought conditions, we did still have heavy rain events, she said. Because swimmers at a lakefront beach are engaging in an activity in a natural body of water, theres no such thing as no risk, Breitenbach said. Earlier this month, at a beach in Portugal, over 100 people had to be treated for nausea and vomiting after swimming. When you see reports like this, youre really thankful that Chicago is so ahead and has been doing (testing) for over a decade now, said Abhilasha Shrestha, a University of Illinois Chicago research assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences who leads the laboratory testing for the citys public beaches. The rapid test the Chicago Park District is now using cuts the wait time down to only three to four hours, providing the most up-to-date information to ensure the safety of beachgoers. Before the citys partnership with UIC began with a pilot program in 2015, testing relied solely on culturing E. coli, a laboratory process that incubates live cells in an artificial, controlled environment with results available in 18 to 24 hours. It didnt really make sense, because you were telling people what the water was like yesterday and doing the closure or advisory the day after, Shrestha said. But some municipalities say they cant afford the more expensive rapid test. Not every community has the funding or has the setup where their beaches get tested every single day, said Kowalski of Environment America in Illinois. The Lake County Health Department uses the more time-consuming culture method to test water samples for E. coli largely due to resources and funding constraints to adopting the faster methodology, officials said. The cost of it is almost like 10 times the cost of running an E. coli sample in our lab, Bartolai said. But we are looking at it, because there is that need to have that quicker turnaround. She said many Lake County suburbs take precautions such as raking the sand at their beaches to clear droppings from geese and seagulls so that when it rains, its not getting washed in. In Chicago, Park District staff clean the public beaches daily, starting before dawn. Operations include tractors pulling raking machines, supporting crews of laborers who pick up litter and empty trash cans by hand and beach sweepers who clear paths for pedestrians and bike trail users. Kowalski said beachgoers can also help by picking up after dogs and ensuring babies wear swim diapers. (We) ask people to help, to do their part, to keep the water quality good and the beaches clean, Breitenbach said. Put your garbage away, dont feed the birds, listen to the lifeguards. More information Beachgoers across the Great Lakes can find water quality monitoring results on state government websites such as the Illinois Department of Public Healths BeachGuard page or from volunteer-led efforts in nonprofits such as SwimGuide. Beach advisories in Chicago are updated on the Park Districts website and with an on-site color-coded flag system that indicates whether conditions are safe for people to swim. These can change throughout the day due to bacteria levels in the water, as well as weather like lightning or high winds, and surf conditions like high waves. In Chicago public beaches, three colored flags indicate three different things: red for a swim ban, yellow for a swim advisory, which means that swimming is allowed with caution, and green for permitted swimming. On any given day, the flag color between noon and 1:30 p.m. likely indicates the most recent information from water quality test results. adperez@chicagotribune.com BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) A Baton Rouge doctor whose clinic is on Burbank Drive said his questions continue to go unanswered after a series of law enforcement raids at the next-door property. He said his patients are becoming increasingly concerned about crime and blight going unchecked at the location. Dr. Byron Jasper founded the Byja Clinic several years ago. He said it is the first Black-owned direct primary care practice in Louisiana, which means his patients pay a monthly fee to receive as much medical attention as they want without health insurance becoming a barrier. Jasper said he bought the 7170 Burbank Drive property despite seeing what he called a dilapidated complex next door at 7272. He said a man named Brent Honore sold him the building that became his clinic, and Honore still owns the controversial facilities next door. We wanted to be extremely accessible for people who are driving by, people in these neighborhoods who are often underserved, Jasper said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Soon after opening, Jasper said the first red flag popped up when someone knocked on the door one morning. Its from a U.S. Marshal, Jasper said. The U.S. Marshal asked, Did you find a belt on the ground? I was confused. What do you mean a belt? It was a belt with a gun. In so many words, hed misplaced it or something fell, something happened. Since then, Jasper said the problems continue on a relatively regular basis. There has been occurrence after occurrence, Jasper said. Theres always something going on that just doesnt seem right. That includes suspected drug labs, battery, car thefts, machine guns, and an hours-long March standoff that led to massive gun seizures and two arrests. Jasper captured the latest raid last month on his security cameras. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriffs Office open data resource reveals more than 20 incidents at the location in the past year. Jasper said he started looking into what is going on at the buildings, but he did not get any definitive answers about whether people are living there. A sign out front advertises condos for sale, while the Google Maps listing indicates it is an offender re-entry program. The front part closer to the road appears to be recently renovated, while the back part is in worse condition and has a large black tarp covering the entire front. More from Louisiana First Investigates >> Jasper started reaching out to local officials to call for more police patrols, stronger code enforcement checks and a plan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If we have three years of problems that keep happening, I dont know how long it takes to look into it, Jasper said. Jaspers pleas caught the attention of Democrat State Rep. Terry Landry Jr. Landry said he met Jasper on the campaign trail and realized the issue was worth looking into. I was shocked it was a functioning propertyor supposedly a functioning property, Landry said. Landry said he is working with local officials to request a possible investigation. One city council source confirmed to Louisiana First News that city leaders have gotten several complaints about the property, but some other controversial apartments have gotten priority to this point. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jasper said many of his patients worry about the possibility of law enforcement action while theyre getting medical care. Frederick Edwards makes the trip from Bayou Goula for checkups every three months, and he said he would consider switching doctors if nothing changes in the next few years. You shouldnt have to worry about crime on the outside or law enforcement knocking on the door saying, Hey, nobody go anywhere. Theres a situation next door,' Edwards said. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Louisiana First Daily News Jasper said that as a doctor, he seeks to help patients before they need it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A lot of people like to be reactive, Jasper said. I like to be proactive. Jasper said hes approaching this controversy the same way. He wants to make sure people are safe if they are living at the complex next door, and he wants to protect his patients. Maybe its the primary care physician in me that says, look, I want to take care of it before theres a problem, Jasper said. If nothing changes, Jasper said he is prepared to take legal action against the city. Honore did not respond to a call and text from Louisiana First News. Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. The Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) headquarters at 101 Friendship St., Providence. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) The Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) will be back at its Providence headquarters on Monday, an agency spokesperson has confirmed. Thats because the building at 101 Friendship Street is no longer home to a pair of bats who briefly became tenants of the offices second floor last week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Early this week, our pest control vendors wildlife experts searched the building carefully, Barb Francella, a DCYF spokesperson, said in an email Friday afternoon. They found neither any additional bats nor signs of bat activity. A bat spotted on Thursday, Aug. 14, was captured that same day by pest control. A subsequent sighting of another bat on Sunday led to union pressure from SEIU Local 580, which represents roughly 300 of the 460 workers in the building. DCYF leadership decided to move to remote work arrangements on Monday morning, temporarily shuttering the Friendship Street office. Francella said a contractor will be visiting the site Saturday to safeguard the building against further flying intruders. After a detailed inspection of the building and possible entry points, DCYF requested that the building landlord hire a contractor to block spots identified as probable entry points for a bat, Francella said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bats swooped in at an inopportune time, as SEIU members have recently urged the state not to renew DCYFs lease due to recurring health and safety concerns with the buildings age and quality. The possibility that the bats might leave behind guano, or excrement, exacerbated union members concerns about air quality in the building. Guano can cause a typically mild, but sometimes severe, respiratory illness called histoplasmosis. Francella said in her email that the building has been treated to a deep clean. A professional cleaning staff performed an impact cleaning, including wiping down outside doors and walls around the doors; open spaces on horizontal surfaces; dusting of light fixtures, air diffusers and door frames; scouring and disinfecting bathroom fixtures; and washing trash receptacles and partitions on all floors, Francella wrote. Francella confirmed in a Wednesday email that the bat captured last Thursday, Aug. 14, tested negative for rabies at the state health department lab. According to the testing report, a Big Blue Bug Solutions technician retrieved the critter near the rafters in a second floor conference room. Although the bat was healthy, rabies testing requires brain tissue, so the animal was euthanized first. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bat spotted on Sunday the one that prompted office workers evacuation from the building appears to have escaped. Experts from the Rhode Island Department of Health and wildlife specialists believe the bat seen on Sunday night was the result of accidental entry and likely flew out of the building on its own, Francella said. Matthew Gunnip, the president of SEIU Local 580, said in a Friday email that the union remains deeply concerned about the health and safety of our members working at the 101 Friendship Street office. Gunip alleged that DCYF had sent mixed messages to union workers about whether the building is safe to reenter. He shared pictures and information from one worker who arrived Thursday at the office and later reported eye irritation, rash and a headache. In an email to DCYF leadership, Gunnip claimed that the worker was told by a doctor she was reacting to something she either inhaled or touched at the office today, and was prescribed steroids and an antihistamine for treatment. Gunnip asked for a complete list of cleaning substances and chemicals used in the office this week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Early this week, our pest control vendors wildlife experts searched the building carefully. They found neither any additional bats nor signs of bat activity. Barb Francella, a DCYF spokesperson The State Properties Committee was set to consider and vote on a 10-year renewal of the office buildings lease on July 22. While the lease ends Nov. 30, the committee needed to approve the lease by the end of July. Union pushback led the panel to hit pause on the process while it awaited the results of an air quality test. The test would provide valuable data, committee members thought, since poor ventilation has been one of the most common complaints from union members. A week later, on July 29, the properties committee punted the deadline further down the road again, and proposed a public hearing be held so the panel could hear input from union members. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Department of Administration spokesperson Karen Greco confirmed in an email Friday that the public hearing has not yet been scheduled. Staff members of Attorney General Peter Neronhas office sit on the properties committee and expressed concern on July 29 that the lease renewal needs to be carefully considered given worker concerns. In a statement to Rhode Island Current earlier this week, Neronha himself echoed the want for a public hearing to give adequate opportunity for input from those who work there every day before the state puts fresh ink on the lease. When Rhode Island workers raise valid concerns about working conditions, we have an obligation to listen and act if necessary, Neronha said. We will be keeping a close eye on this situation and look forward to participating in the public hearing when it is scheduled. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX STINSON BEACH, Calif. - A caravan of surf vans arrived at the Stinson Beach parking lot on a quiet morning in August. The excitement, pouring out of the vans, will soon mesh with the Pacific. This camp brings surfing to a level that soars beyond just riding waves. Healing and empowering youth What we know Eddie Donnellan is the Founder and Executive Director of the MeWater Foundation. The foundation formed in 2015. He has harnessed his passion for the ocean to create a program that is filled with love, support, and trusted guidance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Children's mental health is what this program is all about," said Donnellan. The MeWater Foundation believes that the outdoors can heal and empower todays youth. The group targets kids living in low-income communities. Some of their campers may have experienced trauma and stress and others may just need a change in scenery. While the ocean may only be minutes away, for many, it is their first visit and it reveals a different world. "I spent the majority of my career in childrens mental health and I just got to the point where I wanted to create a free program that got kids outside in Mother Nature and the ocean," Donnellan said. The ocean beckons and outdoor adventures MeWater partners with different community organizations across the Bay Area. Most of the kids in todays camp were from a group called Youth Matters in Richmond. A few campers made the trip from San Franciscos Bayview District. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To fully capture the outdoor experience, the campers explored Mt. Tamalpais the night before and slept underneath the stars. Detached from video games and cell phones, they soaked in the new environment and fueled up for the big surf day ahead. When you are planning a big surf day, there could be a lot of wildcards out there. Maybe a big swell, strong winds, or strange currents. But once the kids entered the water, it was nothing but smiles and fun. Feeling accomplished Taqari Hill, from Oakland, was celebrating his birthday with MeWater, and he was catching a lot of waves. "In the Bay Area, you know it's a little rough. But just being able to come out here and catch some waves it changes like my whole mindset on a little different things." said Hill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It felt like I accomplished something. Like I conquered my fears. It felt good," said Mignon Williams from Oakland. "It gives me a reset to have more peace and calm in my mind," said Austin Grant from Richmond. While some camps track progress, this camp just tracks the positive energy and smiles. They aim to make these kids feel welcomewhether they are surfing, boogie boarding, or just jumping around in the water. Tim Gras is the Co-Founder of MeWater. He is also a surfboard shaper and mental health provider in San Francisco. "Thats really how it startedbringing some more joy to all these folks and families from these neighborhoods and you can see it. You get out there it is on right away everyone is sparkling," Gras said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We wrap our arms and our hearts around these kids and their families and we've seen a lot of kids who are stuck and this program allowed them to blossom," Donnellan said. The presence of the volunteer team was strong and vibrant throughout the day. Each wave culminated with high-fives or even hugs. Madeline Klanjac recently graduated from Saint Ignatius in San Francisco and she keeps coming back to help. Riding waves and feeling alive "It is really fun to just push the boundaries and teach them how to do it and that translates to their life. You can do hard things even if you had never done it before," said Klanjac. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It definitely is super rewarding as well seeing them catch a wave for the first time," said volunteer Will Sandler. All of the waves that made the journey across the Pacific and crashed on this shoreline are long gone. But the experience is still very much alive and may lead to lasting change. "By providing this, Im not saying that we are changing the world, but we certainly changed the day. A lot of times that is what we all need," Donnellan said. A French official overseeing the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the UK said Friday the artefact was not too fragile to transport, defending the move from increasingly sharp criticism. French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to loan the medieval tapestry -- which records the 1066 Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England -- to the British Museum next year to celebrate Franco-British relations. But critics have said the move risked causing damage to the priceless object and a petition posted online on change.org calling on Macron to stop a "true heritage crime" had garnered more than 52,000 signatures by Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Philippe Belaval, appointed by Macron as his envoy for the loan, said no decision had yet been taken on how to transport the tapestry. But he said a study dating from early 2025 had made detailed recommendations about handling and transport. "This study absolutely does not state that this tapestry is untransportable," Belaval said, without revealing the authors of the study or their conclusions. Neither the ministry of culture nor the culture authorities in Normandy responded to AFP's questions regarding the various assessments of the tapestry. Cecile Binet, a regional museum adviser for Normandy, said in a YouTube post in February 2025 that the tapestry was "too fragile" to be moved long distances. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She said any further handling would be a "a risk to its conservation". A feasibility study for the transport of the Bayeux Tapestry to London, completed by three experts in March 2022, remains "confidential" at the request of the Normandy cultural authorities which commissioned it. "The Ministry of Culture is conducting a further study on the tapestry's resistance to vibrations and the possibility of eliminating them during transport to ensure safe transport," said Belaval. The tapestry's loan will mark the first time in its almost 1,000-year lifetime that the 68-metre-long (224-foot-long) piece, which dates from around 1077, will be on British soil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It will be loaned to the British Museum for 10 months from September 2026. French museums will in exchange be loaned ancient treasures mainly from the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo site, one of England's most important archaeological locations. mac-sjw/ekf/jxb ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) The Buchanan County Women's Democratic Club has announced it will hold its August monthly meeting. Northwest Missouri Field Representative Dr. Nancy Zeliff will explain the RESPECTMOVOTERS petition drive underway to stop the state's legislature from rescinding ballot measures approved by voters. The meeting will take place at noon on Tuesday, Aug. 26, at San Jose Steakhouse, located at 4015 S. Belt Highway. Attendees who wish to eat lunch are advised to arrive at 11 a.m. to order from the menu. For more information, contact Michelle Mears, BCWDC president, at BCWDCpresident@gmail.com. Berlin is bucking Europes trend of protesting over-tourism by promoting its art scene, clubs, and palaces to would-be visitors wary of anger from locals in places like Italy and Spain. The German capital has seen tourism largely flatline in recent years, hotel occupancy rates are far below those in Madrid and Paris, and the sector accounts for a significantly smaller proportion of the citys economy than, say, Rome. Local businesses hope to change that, Reuters reported: One restauranter trumpeted the citys absolutely moderate prices, while a tourism-promotion official noted its large green spaces and numerous swimming pools, a nod to the impacts of climate change. We really dont have a problem with overtourism, he said. Better direction: Parent, school director explain why more NC parents are choosing charter schools An increasing number of North Carolina parents are choosing to send their students to charter schools over public schools. This year, 10% of students in publicly funded N.C. schools are enrolled in charter schools, compared to 7% nationwide. A report from the State Department of Public Instruction found that charter schools saw a 6% increase in enrollment for the 2024-25 school year compared to the year prior. Okima McRae told Channel 9s Erika Jackson that her son has always been a free thinker, even at a young age. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He loved to draw, McRae said. He had an aspect of always trying to help us with our business, because we are entrepreneurs. So he was helping us early on. READ: Times are tough: 9 School Tools donations help teachers with needed supplies McRae said she wanted to help her son by finding a school that embraced his talents. And she said she found the ideal curriculum at A.C.E. Academy Charter in Harrisburg. A.C.E. stands for Academics, Character, and Entrepreneurship. Having that foundation in a charter school where he was able to explore and still get a traditional education, it just seemed to be a much better direction for us to go, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Each charter must be authorized by the state. But the schools still have greater flexibility with the curriculum, programming, and staffing compared to traditional public schools. Research by The Network for Public Education found that at least one in four charter schools closes before their fifth year. A majority of recently closed schools blame low enrollment. READ: So vague: Parents demand change at Union County school after threatening incidents A.C.E. Academy Charter School director Shannon Martin said the school started with fewer than 200 students 12 years ago. Now, more than 450 students are enrolled. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In charter schools, we are privately ran, were publicly funded, Martin said. Our students do not pay a tuition, but we are privately ran and are governed by our own board of directors. And Martin said this means the school can create a unique curriculum. So no two charter schools are the same. Its more than just reading, math, science, social studies, where we have a whole child approach that you do not see in a traditional public school, Martin said. McRae told Jackson that she hopes the skills her son learns in the classroom will help him in his career. Hes been able to grow here, she said. Weve seen the growth, and its something we would love to continue. WATCH: Times are tough: 9 School Tools donations help teachers with needed supplies DAMASCUS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- One internal security officer was killed in a suicide attack carried out by Islamic State (IS) militants targeting a security checkpoint in the eastern Syrian city of Mayadeen on Friday, state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. According to SANA, two attackers approached the checkpoint. Security forces shot and killed one assailant, while the second detonated his explosives, resulting in the death of the security officer. The SANA report did not provide further details about civilian casualties. Although IS lost control of its last territorial stronghold in Syria years ago, its sleeper cells continue to stage hit-and-run attacks, particularly in the desert areas of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria. NATIONAL AFFAIRS: Israelis rally because they cannot imagine abandoning their own. Hamas raids because it cannot imagine a better strategy. Israelis once again poured into the streets and city squares across the country on Sunday. From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, from Haifa to Beersheba, hundreds of thousands of people rallied under one banner: bring the hostages home. Nearly two years into the war, their message was clear and insistent the government must cut a deal with Hamas, whatever the price, to free those still languishing in Gazas tunnels. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, one of Sundays rally organizers, captured the urgency: We are losing them, and if we dont bring them back now, we will lose them forever. For 22 months, we have called for comprehensive deals, but our pleas fell on deaf ears and hardened hearts. Time is running out for the hostages. Only the people will bring the hostages home. Three days later, Hamas delivered its own message. Seventeen terrorists stormed an IDF outpost near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, apparently aiming among other things to capture more soldiers alive. The attack was repelled, but the message was unmistakable: for Hamas, hostages remain a central pillar of its strategy. ISRAELI SOLDIERS look across the border into Gaza earlier this week. The expansion of Israels military campaign in Gaza City, along with increased call-up of reservists and Hamass attempted kidnapping of soldiers in Khan Yunis on Wednesday, has led many to fear further kidnappings. (credit: Amir Levy/Getty Images) These two events one in the heart of Israel and the other in the heart of Gaza capture the countrys core dilemma. A nation that rightly prides itself on never leaving anyone behind has, over the decades, turned hostages into the enemys most valuable bargaining chip. The result: the more Israelis demonstrate how much they care, the more Hamas understands how much it can extract. For Hamas, hostages are the strategy FOR HAMAS, hostages are not an afterthought or a battlefield improvisation; they are the strategy. Seizing Israelis alive or even dead delivers what no rocket barrage or ambush can: leverage. Leverage over Israels leaders, over its politics, over its domestic agenda. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is not new. The history of Israels conflicts with its enemies is littered with hostage deals from the 1985 Jibril Agreement that freed more than 1,150 security prisoners, including Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, in exchange for three captured soldiers, to the 2011 Gilad Schalit deal that saw 1,027 prisoners released for a single captive. Each precedent reinforced the lesson that hostages are Israels soft underbelly. Hamas internalized this lesson long ago. The October 7 massacres were not only about killing, but also about kidnapping. Hostages were carted back into Gaza in cars, on motorcycles, even on foot. They were paraded, photographed, and hidden underground. They were immediately transformed into bargaining chips, insurance policies, and tools of psychological warfare. Sundays protests which culminated in a massive rally in Tel Aviv only underscored the point. Even after months of devastating war, with Gaza in ruins and Hamas battered, hundreds of thousands of Israelis publicly broadcast to Hamas just how much power it still holds. The outpouring of solidarity was genuine and moving and reflected the countrys core values, but Hamas surely saw it as confirmation that its most reliable weapon still works. Three days later, with Israel on the cusp of sending tens of thousands more soldiers and reservists into Gaza for an assault on Hamass last strongholds in Gaza City and the central refugee camps, Hamas sent a squad to attack an army outpost and take more hostages. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The message to Israelis was clear and twofold. First, come back into Gaza, and this is what awaits you. And second, we can and will take more hostages. HAMASS FORMULA is brutally simple: kidnap Israelis, watch the country tie itself in knots, and wait. It worked in 1985, it worked in 2011, and Hamas calculated it would work again in 2023. The critics argue that unless Israel decisively breaks the cycle, it will work again in 2026, 2027, and beyond. This is why many argue that Sundays rallies, as strong an outpouring of solidarity as they were, only serve to encourage Hamas. Every mother and father chanting in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv signals to Hamas commanders in Rafahs tunnels that the tactic still pays dividends. Here lies Israels torment: its greatest strength the uncompromising value it places on every life is also its greatest vulnerability. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democracies elsewhere may preach about leaving no soldier behind, but in Israel, this is not rhetoric. It is a national ethos, woven into the collective identity. That ethos explains the rallies. It explains why the return of captives has consistently moved from a private concern to a national priority. And it explains why, nearly two years into the war, the plight of the hostages is still a central feature in Israeli life. But Hamas knows this, too. It has weaponized Israels humanity. It banks on the fact that Israeli society cannot bear the thought of abandoning its own, even when the price is steep. The debate over priorities was starkly illustrated this week when National Missions Minister Orit Strock declared she would support continuing the war in Gaza to topple Hamas, even if it risked the lives of hostages a stance that drew widespread criticism. The IDF can repel attackers on the battlefield, but it cannot so easily repel the moral and emotional pressure from its own people. That pressure has reshaped national debates, sparked massive demonstrations, and brought enormous strain on prime ministers from Yitzhak Rabin in the 1970s to Benjamin Netanyahu today. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Khan Yunis attackers may not have succeeded in taking new hostages, but the attempt was a reminder: Hamas will keep trying because the prize is great and the vulnerability is glaring. THIS IS something, obviously, that is not lost on Israels policy-makers. In 2008, while Schalit was being held, the government established a committee, headed by former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, to draw up guidelines for future hostage-taking scenarios. The guidelines reportedly included near equal exchanges not exorbitant ones like the Schalit deal minimal contact between the political echelon and the families of hostages to reduce emotional pressure, and worsening the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails to increase leverage on the terrorist organizations. Tellingly, considering how horribly fraught this issue is, the findings were never formally released or adopted by the government. Israel has wrestled with this dilemma for decades, but the Khan Yunis raid and the Sunday protests, strikes, and rallies have brought it into sharp relief. And the options are brutally limited. Military solution carries enormous risk, but diplomatic route has costs A military solution daring rescue operations deep inside Gaza carries enormous risk. The Entebbe raid in 1976 remains a source of national pride, but it is the exception, not the rule. More often, attempts at rescue end in tragedy. Hamas has buried its captives in a labyrinth of tunnels precisely to prevent such daring rescues from succeeding. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The diplomatic route striking deals offers certainty but at a cost. Each exchange saves lives today but increases the likelihood of more kidnappings tomorrow. The Schalit deal is now largely viewed as a cautionary tale: among the hundreds of murderers released, many of whom went on to carry out other heinous attacks, was Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7. A third path, altering the equation so that hostage-taking no longer pays, is much easier said than done. Abandoning the hostages, for instance, is not an option. Israels aim of dismantling Hamas is, in part, an attempt to disincentivize hostage-taking. When the war is over and the damage in Gaza is assessed, the hope is that Palestinians will understand that hostage-taking is simply not worth it. However, the rewards the international community is dangling in front of the Palestinians such as recognition of a Palestinian state severely dilute that message. Viewed broadly, the juxtaposition this week of the Tel Aviv rally and the Khan Yunis raid reveals much about Israels war aims and its national psyche. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The raid shows that Hamas, though degraded, is still breathing and capable of staging complicated operations. Its fighters may be on the run, its infrastructure destroyed, its leaders hunted or dead, but its tactical logic remains intact. Hostage-taking is not a tactic that requires tanks or battalions it requires only opportunity, a handful of fighters, and the willingness to die in the attempt. Hamas still has all three. A sobering thought as Israel is poised for a major offensive inside Gaza. The protest and rallies show that after nearly two years of war, the hostages remain a burning issue in Israeli society, although not an uncontested one. For many, their plight embodies Israels deepest values, the belief that no one should be left behind and that the bond between state and citizen demands their return at almost any price. Yet others worry that elevating the hostages above all else distorts the broader war aims, risks further empowering Hamas, and could mortgage Israels future security for present relief. Everyone agrees they cannot be forgotten, but not everyone agrees on what price should be paid to bring them home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And so these two stories this week one in Israels streets and city squares, the other in Gazas battlefields are really part of the same reality. Israelis rally because they cannot imagine abandoning their own. Hamas raids because it cannot imagine a better strategy. The Khan Yunis raid was repelled. The rallies will continue. Somewhere between the two, Israel struggles to find a formula that protects both its people and its principles. So far, that magic formula has proven elusive. One wonders whether it exists at all. A Bible education nonprofit that plans to offer off-site programs to Peninsula School District students has sparked concern among parents who believe it contributes to an unhealthy learning environment and gives the impression that the district supports a specific religion. Eight parents spoke during public comment at the school district board meeting Tuesday, urging the district to stop LifeWise Academy from pulling kids with parental permission out of school for part of the day to attend Bible classes at a local church. A search tool on the LifeWise website indicates that LifeWise serves 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders at Discovery Elementary. Parents and district leaders told The News Tribune that they are not aware of any active programs at this time, but that they have heard that LifeWise leaders plan to initiate a program for students at Discovery. Its not clear when that program could begin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Christine Czernejewski, a public relations representative for LifeWise Academy, confirmed Friday that LifeWise will offer classes to Discovery students in grades 1-3. The organization hasnt worked with students in the district in the past, she wrote. Each week, with parent permission, students may be released from school during their lunch and recess one time per week to attend Bible-based character education classes at a local church that meets LifeWises safety requirements, she wrote in an email Friday. The district maintains that LifeWise Academy is completely unaffiliated with them and has made no formal agreement with district leaders. The program is allowed by law because it serves students off of school property, only with parental permission and without the use of public funds, the district wrote in a statement Wednesday evening. LifeWise Academy is an Ohio-based organization that describes itself on its website as a Bible education movement. Citing a 1952 Supreme Court case, Zorach v. Clauson, the organization defends its mission to teach the Bible during school hours via a concept called released time religious instruction or RTRI as long as the program is hosted off school grounds, is privately-funded and requires parental permission for children to participate. The nonprofit plans to serve students in over 1,100 schools across 34 states in the 2025-2026 school year, according to a recent news release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Parents allegations at the Tuesday meeting included that the LifeWise program is distracting and divisive, takes away from regular learning time and contributes to the perception that the district is endorsing a particular religion. I am not at all opposed to religious education or parents taking their children out of school for any religious reason, Jennifer Beachler, president of the Volunteer Parent Organization at Discovery Elementary, said. I do have a personal objection to any outside organization that would take a group of students out of school during the middle of the school day. ... I believe this program sets a dangerous precedent, she said. By allowing this program to exist, any potential other religious organization, even controversial ones, could operate and pull students out during the day as well. She told a reporter after the meeting that she also has questions about student safety under LifeWises care. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Are they protected? Are the background checks strong enough? And does the district have liability if something happens to one or more students during this time, during the middle of the day? she said. District leaders acknowledged parents concerns at the meeting. Some said they hadnt heard of LifeWises activities in the district until very recently. LifeWise is not a Peninsula School District or PSD school board initiated program, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by our district in any way, Superintendent Krestin Bahr said in an opening statement addressing concerns the district had received about LifeWise. LifeWise is a private religious instruction program, held off of school property, with parental permission and without the use of public funds. We recognize individuals right to exercise their constitutional freedom of religion outside of our schools. As such, families may choose to sign their children out of school to attend such programs at their discretion, just as they would for any other off-site appointment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She went on to cite a board policy that sets guidelines for religious-related activities and practices in Peninsula School District schools. Board policy 2340 states that A student, upon the request of a parent, may be excused to participate in religious instruction for a portion of a school day provided the activity is not conducted on school property. Near the end of the meeting, Bahr reiterated her statement and added that neither she or the board have met with LifeWise Academy and that there is no agreement in place with LifeWise at this time. Board member Jennifer Butler emphasized that the board had nothing to do with LifeWise and that their knowledge of the situation was also limited. I have full faith and confidence in our protocols in our district and our understanding of what our rules and responsibilities are to children, to sign-out, to safety, that we will sort this out, but we have to ... first of all even understand whats happening, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A detailed FAQ page on the LifeWise website provides answers to a range of questions. The organization says that they are committed to fostering a safe and respectful environment for all students, staff and volunteers, that they work with school personnel to schedule classes that dont conflict with mandatory courses or extracurricular activities, and that all LifeWise staff and volunteers are subject to background checks via the agency ProScreening when theyre hired and every three years following. LifeWise also has appropriate employer, liability, auto, and property insurance coverage which extends to each of our programs, the website says. Czernewjewski, the public relations representative for LifeWise, also responded to questions about allegations that LifeWise contributes to a distracting or unhealthy learning environment for other students. LifeWise welcomes all kids and families and instills values in children like acceptance, respect and love, she wrote. No child should be bullied or ostracized, whether they attend LifeWise or not. Like many other student groups or programs, LifeWise occasionally gives out worksheets or candy. The impact of LifeWise has been overwhelmingly positive, with kids being more cooperative, engaged and better behaved. What do LifeWise programs look like? LifeWise launched a program for students at Emerson Elementary School in Everett earlier this year. The Everett Herald reported in April that a red bus visited the school every Tuesday and Wednesday to take children to a church nearby, where they participated in Bible classes during recess and lunch. The program for Emerson students launched Jan. 15 and was the first LifeWise program in the Puget Sound region, The Everett Herald reported. The LifeWise website says that it serves Emerson Elementary students in kindergarten through 5th grade. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Czernewjewski wrote via email that LifeWise programs typically take place during the lunch hour or elective time. We provide transportation so theres no disruption to the school day. Its a great option for busy families who are often juggling multiple activities, jobs and schedules, she continued. Many parents want their kids to have Bible-based character education as part of the school day, because they find that it improves their childs academic performance and their behavior, both in and out of the classroom. The LifeWise website says that The length of time and number of days per week students attend LifeWise varies from program to program. Each LifeWise program works with the school it serves to find the best rotation schedule for their situation. Asked what position the district would take if LifeWise reached out and asked to coordinate scheduling of off-site classes, Ashley Murphy, the districts chief of finance and operations, said in a phone call Thursday that the district is constrained by state law to provide a certain amount of seated lunch time, recess and instructional minutes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We encourage kids to be in school all day, the whole time, and we encourage attendance, Michael Farmer, Chief of Schools, said. So we wouldnt be working with them on that. Asked if the district has an attendance policy limiting the amount of time a student can spend on an activity outside of school, during school hours, Murphy said no such policy exists because state law determines that things like religious activities and medical appointments are excused absences. The district does have attendance policies to address truancy or unexcused absences, per state law, she said. In a statement to The News Tribune Wednesday, the district cited two board procedures in addition to their religious-related activities policy relevant to their treatment of LifeWise. Board Procedure 3124P states that students must have a parent or guardians written permission before entering another persons custody. Board Procedure 4060P states that the district will not distribute materials that proselytize or disparage religious beliefs. What have communications between the district and LifeWise looked like? Czernejewski confirmed that LifeWise has communicated with district staff. LifeWise team members and the district staff have communicated and all involved have been very clear in their desire to follow district policies and procedures regarding excusing students from school for participation in Released Time Religious Instruction, she wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The districts statement to The News Tribune Wednesday noted that It is untrue that PSD has met with or engaged with any groups to offer off-site religious instructional programs. District leaders provided additional context in phone calls with the The News Tribune. In January or February, LifeWise reached out to the district via email saying they wanted to send a flyer out to families, and to put some of their content on our letterhead, Murphy told The News Tribune. The district determined this would violate their policy for accepting flyers to send to families via their Peachjar communications system, and declined the request, she said. About two or three weeks ago, the district noticed posts on social media about LifeWise and the Peninsula School District that gave the impression that LifeWise was a district program. The district requested those who had posted the information to either rephrase that, or take the post down so that it didnt appear that this was a district program, Chief Academic Officer John Yellowlees said. Murphy emphasized that district leaders are having no active, back-and-forth conversations with LifeWise about their programs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement LifeWise also reached out to principals at Discovery Elementary, Pioneer Elementary and Purdy Elementary, she said. The district has requested that LifeWise direct all future communication to Farmer, the Chief of Schools. Farmer said Thursday he has yet to hear from LifeWise. Asked if LifeWise plans to expand to serve other schools in the Peninsula School District, Czernewjewski wrote that they may pursue expanding in the future but those plans have not yet been solidified. The district also plans to develop internal protocols and procedures in regards to how to deal with group requests such as from LifeWise, Murphy said. Ultimately, what we want to ensure that we are doing is supporting academic instruction for all of our students during the course of their school day, and were here to support that, Murphy said. But we also do understand that an outside group, like LifeWise, they are also operating within their legal rights to do so, and that parents also have the legal rights to be able to check out their kids for, in all reality, anything that they see fit, medical appointments or religious instruction. And so if a parent checks out a student, regardless of whether or not its medical or really religious instruction, you know, theyre able to do so and the school district will support them in that, she said. But the school district itself is not entering into any type of agreement, partnership, active negotiation, anything like that, with the outside group. Editors note: This story has been updated with information from a public relations representative for LifeWise Academy. BigXthaPlug has been arrested on the same day of his album release. The 27-year-old rising rap superstar, whose legal name is Xavier Landum, released his third studio album "I Hope You're Happy," on Aug. 22, and was booked at 2:20 a.m. Friday morning in Dallas County, Texas, according to court records. The "Largest" hitmaker was charged with marijuana possession of less than two ounces and unlawful possession of a firearm. His new album, "Hope You're Happy," features collaborations with Nashville country superstars Ella Langley, Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Tucker Wetmore, Shaboozey, Thomas Rhett, Bailey Zimmerman and Darius Rucker. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement USA TODAY has reached out to BigXthaPlug's reps and the Dallas Police Department for comment. BigXThaPlugs entry into Nashvilles music scene was unexpected, but surprisingly seamless. Though he initially pitched a country project as a joke, the idea quickly gained traction after artists like Jelly Roll publicly embraced the concept. Soon, Nashvilles top-tier songwriters and performers were welcoming him with open arms. Despite being unfamiliar with the citys traditional songwriting process, Landum found himself collaborating with reknowned songwriters and performers. He earned respect not just for his lyrical authenticity but for his willingness to embrace the genres slower, more deliberate creative rhythm. Rather than arriving as an outsider trying to mimic country tropes, Landum brought his own Southern soul, rooted in Texas street culture and musical influences, and found common ground with Nashvilles artists. His songs, like All The Way and Pray Hard, blend country choruses with pop-rock energy and raw storytelling, proving that genre boundaries are increasingly fluid. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I want to be an artist capable of conquering every style of music, regardless of genre," he recently told The Tennessean. "Like how boxers work their way through multiple weight classes to be declared the best, I want to work the same way through rap, country, every genre that I can." BigXThaPlug talks Beyonce featuring his song on tour: 'I became a part of the Beyhive' Last month, BigXthaPlug told USA TODAY about his breakthrough year after Beyonce used his song "The Largest" as an interlude on her "Cowboy Carter" tour. "It not only signifies what I'm doing, but it shows that I'm not the only one that is willing to do it," he told USA TODAY. "It makes me feel good that there's somebody out there that's trying to push what I'm pushing." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This story is developing. Cache McClay and Marcus Dowling contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rapper BigXthaPlug arrested on day of Nashville-made album release KINGSTON, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) Tomato enthusiasts are coming together as Pittstons Tomato Festival continues for day two, but the event isnt just about food and fun. Black bags are getting filled, ready to burst, all for a mission in motion outside of Hourigan, Kluger, and Quinn Law in Kingston, on Friday. Volunteers from the groups non-profit, HKQ Kids, are packing up helmets for its annual Bike Helmet Giveaway on Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Weve given out over 13,000 helmets over the years, and I always laugh that weve seen some of these kids grow up. Weve watched them come back every year, and its kind of nice to see that, said Sue Greenfield, business manager at Hourgan, Kluger, and Quinn P.C. The giveaway taking place at the Pittston Tomato Festival is sharing the spotlight with the tangy fruit, hoping to raise awareness about helmet safety. The law in Pennsylvania requires that children under 12 wear a helmet every time theyre riding a bike, and thats not just if theyre riding a bike themselves, its also if theyre a passenger on the back of a bike or in a trailer, explained attorney Nicole Santo. Santo says kids should be getting a new helmet at least once a year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details on free John Oats concert in Wilkes-Barre Saturday You might think, I already have a helmet, I dont need another one, but if the helmet falls and hits the ground or if your childs involved in an accident where the helmets impacted, the foam that absorbs the energy from the impact is compromised, said Santo. Another thing that could compromise it is the sun breaking down the outside layer. Thats why the non-profit is helping kids have fun but stay safe at no cost. Organizers say theyre planning to give out all of these helmets wrapped up, around 1,200 of them, at Saturdays event, but if they run out, theyll make sure to order them for those families in need. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Greenfield says they hope this safety initiative goes beyond just bicycles. Were really trying to look at pushing for the legislator to make a change for it to include scooters. Theyre the new hot thing, thats what the kids are really riding, they need a helmet on, said Greenfield. The HKQ Kids Bike Helmet Giveaway will happen from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Pittston Tomato Festival on Saturday. Any child can receive a free helmet as long as theyre accompanied by an adult. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to 28/22 News. A national conference for Black business owners is underway at the Hilton Atlanta, aiming to provide networking and economic strategies. The event included the 125th National Business League Conference. You need to get in the room so that you can learn from people, Ronnie Tyler told Channel 2s Cory James. Tyler is the COO and co-founder of Traffic Sales and Profit, the presenting sponsor of the conference. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dr. Kenneth Harris is the executive director of the conference. Its so important we practice economic sovereignty, Harris told Channel 2 Action News, adding that the event drew over 3,000 Black businesses from 33 countries. Lamar Tyler, the keynote speaker and co-founder of Traffic Sales and Profit, highlighted the need for businesses to keep the revenue moving. What they really need is cash flow, Tyler said. If they run out of cash they cant make payroll if they run out of cash they cant buy inventory and they cant run the businesses from day to day. Event organizers said the conference is expected to help Black women entrepreneurs and provide a platform for business owners to connect and share experiences. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] WASHINGTON When Ronnie Underwood heard President Donald Trumps claim this week that the Smithsonian Institution is out of control and focuses on how horrible our country is, he grew angry, he said. The way Underwood, 65, sees it, if we dont know our past, how can we learn from it? Hes from Bessemer, Alabama, and grew up during the era of segregation, when Gov. George Wallace, a segregationist, was in power. We have to emphasize the past, he told Capital B. Young people need to understand their history. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Underwood had just finished touring the National Museum of African American History and Culture with his friend, Melvin Forbes, 73. It was their first time at the museum, nicknamed the Blacksonian. Theyre among the many Black tourists who have felt drawn to it in recent days, as the administration threatens to sanitize history and continues its takeover of the nations heavily Black capital that Trump has said is filled with savagery, filth, and scum. On Aug. 11, Trump announced that he was deploying around 800 members of the National Guard and 500 federal law enforcement agents to Washington. He reportedly wants to crack down on crime in the city, where violent crime is at a 30-year-low, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department. On Monday, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee joined three other Republican-led states Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia and agreed to deploy National Guard troops to Washington. It was the next day that Trump turned his attention to the Smithsonian. In a move that seemed to escalate his campaign against Washington, he alleged on his social media platform that everything discussed at these WOKE museums is about how bad slavery was. He added that his team will conduct a review of the museums a move that has sparked frustration among visitors who dont want history removed from a sprawling institution meant to educate the public. Ronnie Underwood (left) and Melvin Forbes sit outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. Nothing is more important than Black history, since we created everything, Forbes said. (Alecia Taylor/Capital B) Nothing is more important than Black history, since we created everything. Nobody outworks us. Nobody outthinks us. We influence everything, Forbes, who grew up in Snow Hill, North Carolina, told Capital B. What were seeing right now is an attempt to erase the truth. If it happened, how can we not talk about it? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was among the first Black students to integrate his high school Greene Central High School in the mid-1960s, he said. And part of why Trumps effort to downplay Black history is so disheartening to him is that he had hoped that these kinds of struggles for visibility and fairness had been settled and left in the 20th century. My generation truly believed that the sacrifices we made would lead to unprecedented equality, Forbes said. So to witness all thats happening [in Washington] at the moment, its just disappointing. He added that, if Trump cared about keeping Black communities safe, he wouldve sent resources to these parts of Washington. Instead, National Guard troops have roamed largely around the National Mall, monuments, and other touristy areas. More than 30 guardsmen were seen passing by the entrance of the Blacksonian within the span of a few minutes. This kind of troop mobilization is typically used for crowd control, not for everyday crime, Omar Wasow, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Capital B last week. We need to see all of it Margaret Minto agreed with Forbes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She drove more than five hours from Connecticut with her twin 14-year-old daughters, who were celebrating their birthday, just to tour the Blacksonian. The history it teaches, she told Capital B, is invaluable. This information is just so important, said Minto, who was visiting the museum for the first time and was floored by its focus on a combination of history and culture. The reason I brought the kids here now, at this moment, is that Im afraid that Trump will erase it. Thats the reason we drove all the way here. Shes been to Washington before, but the mood these days, she explained, is different its much more sobering. Trump claimed in his social media post that the Smithsonian obsesses over how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been and has nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future. But Minto couldnt disagree more, she said: Though the Blacksonian charts an often brutal chronological history of the U.S. beginning with slavery, it also offers visitors a number of galleries that underscore fun, uplift, and promise. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We need to see all of it, Minto said. The pain and the joy. The Black Hollywood exhibit was on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington in January 2017. (Walter McBride/Getty Images) Trump has suggested that he wants to target the Smithsonians federal funding, as hes done with several elite universities. The Smithsonian has a unique status. The Smithsonian is approximately 62% federally funded, and the rest comes from a variety of other sources, including donations, endowments, and trust funds. Additionally, it isnt an executive branch agency; a 17-member board of regents governs it. In March, Trump signed an executive order accusing the Smithsonian of being under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology and advancing narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive. The order empowers Vice President JD Vance to review Smithsonian programs and centers and get rid of what he calls improper ideology from such properties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During his first term, Trump sang the Blacksonians praises. Im deeply proud that we now have a museum that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage, especially when it comes to faith, culture, and the unbreakable American spirit, Trump said in 2017. I know President [Barack] Obama was here for the museums opening last fall. And Im honored to be the second sitting president to visit this great museum. In this uncertain political environment, Underwood said that he can only hope that the Blacksonian and sites like it survive, and that future generations have the opportunity to understand where the country has been and where it must go. People died for what we have today, he said. I would just hate for young people not to know about their own past, and to take these sacrifices for granted. The post Black Tourists Defend History as Trump Targets the Smithsonian appeared first on Capital B News. In Dyamone Whites rural Mississippi town, churches long served as the gathering spot for community events. As a millennial, she recognized the need to bring those events elsewhere as a way to increase civic engagement and host important community discussions. Over the years, shes seen the participation grow in Edwards and Bolton, towns near her restaurant High Horse Bites & Beverage Barn, where she hosts such events. Despite the engagement, Black people have continued to struggle to win offices in the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In fact, no Black candidate has won statewide office in Mississippi in the 140 years since Reconstruction. When it comes to the Mississippi Supreme Court, in particular, only four Black people have ever served and never more than one at a time. Unlike other positions, these justices were never elected, but appointed by the governor. But now, a recent court order may help expand Black representation on the states high court. In 2022, White joined a federal lawsuit with three other residents state Sen. Derrick Simmons, Ty Pinkins, and Constance Olivia Slaughter Harvey-Burwell in hopes of getting a new map. And one that doesnt diminish the Black voting power, particularly in District 1. (Mississippis map constitutes three at-large districts.) On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled in their favor. In the 105-page opinion, the judge said that the states current map which was passed in 1987 and remains unchanged cannot be used in any future elections because it violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Aycock, who is the first woman to serve in this position in Mississippi, will address a deadline for the map at a later date. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Out of 125 justices who have served on the Mississippi Supreme Court, only four have been Black. All four of those justices have held the same seat, the judge wrote in the decision. In short, the evidence illustrates that Black candidates who desire to run for the Mississippi Supreme Court face a grim likelihood of success. The plaintiffs had the support of the Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union, and a private law firm. Together the group sued the State Board of Election Commissioners and Republican leaders Gov. Tate Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and Secretary of State Michael Watson. Black voters are thus typically outvoted by white voters and Black candidates typically lose contested elections in the districts as drawn. As a result, Black voting strength is diluted submerged across white-majority districts and Black voters are denied an equal opportunity to elect candidates of choice to the Mississippi Supreme Court, they wrote in the suit. The attorney for the defendants, Charles E. Cowan, referred Capital B to the attorney generals office for comment. Step toward correcting injustice I wanted to be a part of history, said Dyamone White, a plaintiff in the Mississippi voting map case. This is an opportunity to leave my mark. Nearly 40 years ago, Black lawmakers objected to the map at the center of the case and warned that it would dilute Black voting power, according to the lawsuit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The area most affected is in District 1, or the Central District, where White lives. It is also the same district where the Black justices have historically served. This district has majority-Black areas like the Mississippi Delta region and Hinds County, where the state capital is located. White wasnt shocked when she learned about this because she knew there was a lack of Black representation in her region. This empowered the 33-year-old to join the case, she said. I wanted to be a part of history, she told Capital B. This is an opportunity to leave my mark. The ruling is a long overdue step toward correcting injustice of denying Black voters equal representation of the states highest court, said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, in a statement to Capital B. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Mississippis lone Democratic member of Congress for more than 30 years, I know how critical it is that every citizen has a fair chance to shape the institutions that govern their lives. Tuesdays decision affirms that principle, Thompson said. He added: It reminds us that democracy only works when all voices are heard, and all votes are counted. Pinkins, 51, a plaintiff and independent candidate for U.S. Senate, said Mississippi is a difficult place for Black people to run for office and win. Particularly for Democrats because, he said, theres limited resources and infrastructure. Pinkins has run for office three times. Previously, the military veteran, who is a Mississippi Delta native, ran for secretary of state in 2023 and U.S. Senate in 2024. Pinkins also joined the case, hoping it would pave the way for more Black people to get elected. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Black people in Mississippi have been through a lot and to say we finally got a win that will affect and benefit the lives of not only black people, but all Mississippi, he said. Its always the right time to do the right thing. We started this case three years ago, not really knowing how it was going to end up, and three years later, were victorious, Pinkins said. Aycocks decision comes nearly a year after the trial ended, said Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi. Dortch said hes optimistic that the Mississippi Legislature will work with the plaintiffs to produce a fair map. In another case, filed on behalf of voters and the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, attorneys challenged state legislative maps drawn in 2022, claiming they diminished the voting strength of Black Mississippians. A federal court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the state to create multiple Black-majority districts. In March, both chambers passed proposals of a revised map of state legislative districts. Two months later, the judges approved the plan, which requires Mississippi officials to schedule 15 special elections for Nov. 4. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dortch said while they dont know whether the state officials will appeal the most recent decision, they are ready to move forward. The biggest question going forward is what the final order from the court looks like on whether they order special elections or order this legislature to adopt a new map within a certain amount of time, he added. The post Black Voters Finally Get Win After Federal Judge Strikes Down Mississippi Map appeared first on Capital B News. BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. John Rose, who are both seeking the Republican nomination for Tennessee governor next year, were at the Sullivan County Republican Partys Reagan Day Dinner on Thursday night. Each took time to explain why they think they are the best candidate for the job. I feel like our state is facing a real crossroads in the years ahead if we dont make careful decisions, Rose said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People know that weve got a firm foundation and they want us to be Americas conservative leader, Blackburn said. Rose also spoke of his experience in the public and private sectors. Its not that experience in Congress that I think equips me to be potentially a good governor of Tennessee, Rose said. Its the business experience I had in the rest of my life. Blackburn said she has visited ten counties so far in her campaign, listening to the needs of Tennesseans. People are talking about, they want to see a strong economy, theyre concerned about jobs, and jobs they can make careers out of, Blackburn said. Weve heard a good bit about illegal immigration, and just about every meeting, education for our kids, workforce opportunities for adults. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both said they have their eyes set on the needs of Northeast Tennesseans. We will work hard to make sure we address the issues that are confronting the communities here in East Tennessee, whether that be education, or infrastructure, or access to health care, access to energy, or economic development for this region, Rose said. Im the one that has the experience to lead this state. Our state doesnt need a manager; it needs a leader and building out that vision, Blackburn said. The Sullivan County Republican Party hosted its Reagan Day Dinner and Silent Auction on Thursday at the Ron Ramsey Agriculture Center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The party hosted a reception, dinner, and special guests, including Secretary of State Tre Hargett, Blackburn, and Rose. Blackburn and Rose spoke as guest speakers. Photo WJHL Photo WJHL Photo WJHL Photo WJHL Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Democrats seem to think they can talk their way out of the political wilderness. Listen closely and you can hear it through the din of their all-caps Trumpian X feeds, their hourslong manosphere podcast interviews and their more frequent swearing. Nearly 10 months after the 2024 elections, and the party is still embroiled in self-recriminations over where theyre talking, what theyre talking about and, now, the actual words theyre using. Or, more precisely: which words they shouldnt utter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a new memo, shared exclusively with POLITICO, the center-left think tank Third Way is circulating a list of 45 words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using, alleging the terms put a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities. Its a set of words that Third Way suggests people simply do not say, yet they hear them from Democrats. They span six categories from therapy speak to explaining away crime and put in sharp relief a party that authors say makes Democrats sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. In the document, titled Was It Something I Said? Third Way argues that to please the few, we have alienated the many especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant, according to the memo. Among the blacklisted terms: privilege violence (as in environmental violence) dialoguing triggering othering microaggression holding space body shaming subverting norms systems of oppression cultural appropriation Overton window existential threat to [the climate, democracy, economy] radical transparency stakeholders the unhoused food insecurity housing insecurity person who immigrated birthing person cisgender deadnaming heteronormative patriarchy LGBTQIA+ BIPOC allyship incarcerated people involuntary confinement. We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like theyre leading a seminar at Antioch, says Matt Bennett, Third Way's executive vice president of public affairs. We think language is one of the central problems we face with normie voters, signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think and talk. In recent weeks, this has become a bit of a thing, with comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman highlighting how insane Dems can sometimes sound. Also, elected officials like [Delaware Rep.] Sarah McBride and [Kentucky Gov.] Andy Beshear are begging their colleagues to just be normal again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People cant relate to something unless it has some edge about it, Lanae Erickson, Third Ways senior vice president, tells Playbook. And we had shaved off all of our edges in an attempt to never make anyone upset about anything. The group doesnt base its list on any specific polling. And the authors dont offer specific counter recommendations for these terms. But they do outline the values their vision of the party includes. We will never abandon our values or stop doing things to protect those who need help, encouragement, trust, a second chance, acceptance, a fair shake, and the opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness But as the catastrophe of Trump 2.0 has shown, the most important thing we can do for those people and causes is to build a bigger army to fight them, the memo reads. Communicating in authentic ways that welcome rather than drive voters away would be a good start. Its worth noting that in certain parts of the country, a lot of people, especially now, do talk in this language and use the phrases Third Way recommends against, even if it doesn't scream big tent enough. Its also worth noting an inherent irony in all of this: its hard to police how politicians talk at the same time that you're asking them to be authentic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The memos authors write we are not out to police language, ban phrases or create our own form of censorship. Truth be told, we have published papers that have used some of these words as well. But when policymakers are public-facing, the language we use must invite, not repel; start a conversation, not end it; provide clarity, not confusion. The Democratic Party brand is toxic across the country at this point with way too many people enough that theres no way for us to win a governing majority without changing that, Erickson said. Part of the problem was that we were using words that literally no normal people used that we were sticking to messages that were so overly scripted that they basically sounded like nothing. What about bright spots for the party? Erickson cited three potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders who she says are good examples of how to communicate: Beshear, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). Gallego is doing a great job talking about economic success, she says. He goes into communities and hes like, I want you to have a big ass truck, if thats what you want. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Buttigieg, she said, is doing a great job of going into spaces that are maybe not hostile, but unusual spaces for him to be in and having real conversations about complicated topics, like transgender people in sports, and saying, you know, I think you should have empathy toward people that are figuring this issue out for the first time. And you should have empathy toward transgender kids and their families. But he's not afraid to say those things, and hes getting yelled at. And Beshear is getting this so exactly right, talking about how these terms aren't even what those communities use to call themselves, she said. She recalled Beshear talking about the fact that justice-involved individuals is not a thing that any justice-involved individual would call themselves. They would call themselves incarcerated, call themselves convicted, or they would call themselves a whole lot of other things, but that's not what they or their families would call themselves. So inventing terms that the people that we're talking about and trying to protect don't even use, and then enforcing that that's the only way you can talk about those people, is crazy. So, can Democrats really talk their way back to power? Its an Aaron Sorkin-eqsue idea to think that everything can be solved by the right words and a compelling speech. (And its one that the party has been tantalized by, on and off, for decades.) Of course, Democrats face bigger and deeper problems a yawning voter registration gap among them and are still figuring out which policies to advocate. In some ways, Third Way is reaching the same political conclusion VP JD Vance arrived at during his interview with Fox News Laura Ingraham this week. I mean, look, the autopsy for the Democrats, some free political advice from the president of the United States is: stop sounding like crazy people, Vance said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vances remarks came on the same day he had burgers with the National Guard troops at Union Station. Which is itself a glaring reminder of some of the stakes if Democrats dont get this right. Erickson mentioned crime as a key issue on which Democrats need to recalibrate, citing Trumps invasion of D.C. It shows that people don't think Democrats want to hold criminals accountable at all, she said. Like we don't care about violent crime and we don't care if someone hurts someone, that they should be held accountable. That's not true. Were afraid to say that because were afraid that someone is going to criticize us for being too tough on crime. Third Way sees it as a place to start. We need to reflect on the ways that our bubble and our fear of being criticized by anyone on the left has led to a problem with both our policy and our language, Erickson said. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO's Playbook newsletter. Aug. 21FARGO A new partnership between Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota and a nonprofit health company in the Pacific Northwest will provide "greater value and more solutions" to members of both, company leaders said. Dan Conrad, BCBSND president and CEO, said a "strategic affiliation" is being pursued with Cambia Health Solutions of Portland, Oregon. He said BCBSND informed its employees of the news the morning of Thursday, Aug. 21. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conrad made it clear a strategic affiliation is not a merger or an acquisition. "A lot of what's done is still going to be local. It's just going to be done by a combined team," he told The Forum. Ryan Benbo, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at BCBSND, said Cambia currently provides management and shared services to health insurance plans in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah. "It's a combination of four affiliated 'Blues' plans that comprise Cambia, and we'll be the fifth to join that," Benbo said. Conrad told The Forum it's too soon to know what efficiencies will be gained with the new affiliation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We have not talked about layoffs as a part of this," he said, when asked about possible staff reductions. Approximately 900 people are employed by BCBSND, more than half of them working in Fargo, West Fargo and Moorhead; Cambia employs around 4,600 people, a company spokesperson said. If the affiliation is approved by insurance regulators, policy holders won't see major changes, Conrad said. They'll retain their current health care coverage and keep using their BCBSND insurance card as they do today. Medicare Advantage will continue to be offered through NextBlue of North Dakota. BCBSND will keep its local plan name, board of directors and philanthropic foundation, and remain governed by voting policyholders rather than investors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Our assets and reserves are all staying here, but we're going to combine our teams and create a more efficient operation to serve all the plans in the Cambia family," Conrad said. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota is the market share leader in the state but one of the smallest health insurers in the country, significantly smaller than Cambia. Founded in 1940, BCBSND serves more than 380,000 members compared with Cambia, founded in 1995, serving more than 3.6 million members. While policy holders won't lose the BCBSND identity, employees will. Upon regulatory approval, BCBSND employees will become employees of Cambia, which will manage and operate the North Dakota company in areas of policy and claims administration, financial reporting, IT and plan-performance reporting, among others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, the company pledges to maintain a strong North Dakota presence, including at its Fargo headquarters at 4510 13th Ave. S. Jared Short, president and CEO of Cambia, said the two companies will be a good fit in terms of employee teams. "BCBSND's culture and vision fit perfectly as we work together to innovate and transform health care for the communities we serve," he said in a news release. Conrad said the move toward a "strategic alliance" began internally with the BCBSND board of directors around three years ago. Direct negotiations with Cambia have been going on for more than a year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Health care has been a "volatile" industry for some time, Conrad said, and investments, including in technology, are expensive and difficult for a smaller company to make. While BCBSND remains "financially healthy," Conrad said they want to make sure it stays that way. "We wanted to be able to control our own destiny and make decisions that made the most sense for our members, and not have to be in a position of financial weakness, or feeling like we had to do something," he said. The specific structure and roles of the blended management team will be determined at a later date, the nonprofit groups stated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement BCBSND will get a seat on the combined board of directors and there will be North Dakota representation on the Cambia management team, Conrad said. Short will remain in his role as president and CEO of Cambia. Conrad, who started at BCBSND in 2013 and in his current position since 2020, will become Cambia's chief administrative officer upon close of the deal, working out of the Fargo office and leading Cambia's legal, government affairs and human resources teams. The BCBSND board of directors will also search for a North Dakota market president to oversee strategy and growth for the health plan. The strategic affiliation is subject to regulatory approval by Jon Godfread, North Dakota's insurance commissioner, and is expected to close in 2026. JUBA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan risks losing its next generation due to massive funding cuts to humanitarian assistance, leaving more than 2 million children suffering acute malnutrition unable to get required treatment, Save the Children, a global charity, said on Friday. Danny Glenwright, chief executive officer (CEO) of Save the Children Canada, who joined a high-level delegation on a six-day visit to Maban in Upper Nile State and Bor in Jonglei State, told journalists in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, that he witnessed firsthand the impact of the aid cuts on health, education, nutrition, and child protection. Glenwright highlighted the impact of the aid cuts on education for children in refugee camps in Maban, noting that the closure of Save the Children's early childhood education centers will deprive these children of the education and child-friendly spaces that their parents relied on in the past. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report released in June notes that the overall malnutrition burden among children under five has increased from 2.1 million to 2.3 million. He warned that the situation has been exacerbated by climate change and the ongoing war in neighboring Sudan, which has seen about 1.2 million people flee to South Sudan. Adrian Forster, CEO of Save the Children Switzerland, emphasized that this crisis comes at a time when 70 percent of the population is already in need of humanitarian assistance. Forster noted that the humanitarian system is being overstretched due to the influx of refugees and returnees from Sudan, with hundreds of daily arrivals, including the 2 million internally displaced people. Christopher Nyamandi, South Sudan country director of Save the Children, said South Sudan has depended on humanitarian development aid for many years since its independence, adding that 25 percent of its gross domestic product comes from the international community. "So this is going to have a massive impact on the economy, as well as social conditions for children across the country," he said. A tour group off the coast of San Diego enjoyed the rarest of pleasures when they saw and heard one of the largest creatures on the planet. On "the most amazing blue whale Monday ever," as San Diego Whale Watch described it on Facebook, the expedition came in contact with the 90-foot mammal, which surfaced and circled the boat. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 90 feet is about as large as North Pacific blue whales grow, though their Antarctic brethren can reach 110 feet and 330,000 pounds. Advertisement Advertisement Blue whales are not only the largest animals on Earth, but they are also among the loudest; their cries and grunts can be heard by other whales hundreds of miles away, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. A report by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has raised concerns that warming ocean waters may be leading to a reduction in their sonic activity, as Accuweather observed. But the San Diego whale watchers heard the "most incredible" noise when the blue whale exhaled, a sound "so percussive that the whole atmosphere vibrates." It was a "bad day not to be on the ocean," the boat tour company said. Advertisement Advertisement How rare was the sighting? Only "1% of whale watchers have seen this critically endangered marine mammal," said Greg, one of the guides. Indeed, over the past two centuries, the number of blue whales worldwide has declined from an estimated 350,000 to somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation. But the news isn't all bad for the mighty mammal. With the help of conservation efforts to alleviate continuing threats to the population, such as vehicle strikes and fishing gear entanglement, the blue whale population is increasing globally, per NOAA. Should we be harnessing the ocean to power our homes? Absolutely Leave it be It depends I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. An increasing whale population is a boon to the environment, as they play a vital role in preserving marine ecosystems. Advertisement Advertisement The World Wildlife Fund noted that large whales can sequester "an estimated 33 tons" of planet-warming carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, as Stop Killing Whales observed, they also provide food sources for ocean creatures for 50 years at the end of their lives. Beyond their importance to ocean environments and concerns over their endangered status, blue whales are a source of fascination. The whale watching industry offers opportunities to seek out the gentle giants in the United States and worldwide, encouraging conservation efforts. Joseph La, who captured his own video of the 90-foot blue on the tour, posted on Facebook that it was an "awesome time out there." 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. Nine bodies have been exhumed from fresh graves suspected to be linked to Kenya's notorious starvation cult. In one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths, more than 400 bodies were found in 2023 in the remote Shakahola Forest, inland from the coastal town of Malindi. It is believed they were followers of self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie, who is alleged to have encouraged them to starve themselves to death. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These exhumations were ordered in July after the disappearance of some children triggered a new probe. Prosecutors said 11 people had been arrested in connection with the case, including three who were followers of Mr Mackenzie at the time of "Shakahola Forest Massacre". The latest discoveries seem to confirm fears raised by the government earlier in the year that the cult might still be active. In April, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said there were allegations that Mr Mackenzie was actively communicating with his followers from jail - using a mobile phone. Mr Mackenzie, who was arrested last year and pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, allegedly told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the AFP news agency, a Mombasa court adjourned his ongoing case earlier this month citing the discovery of new evidence. Five bodies were found at the exhumation site in Kwa Binzaro village near Shakahola Forest on Thursday and a further four bodies on Friday. "We have not exhausted the search; the area is very, very vast. So we expect more bodies," government pathologist Richard Njoroge told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. "This is to appeal to the members of the public who may have lost their loved ones or who may suspect that their loved ones are missing to report to Malindi District Hospital. We have a Red Cross desk there, where their details will be taken, and also their DNA samples will be taken." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The exhumation of 18 more gravesites is expected to continue on Monday. In July, Kenya's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said it believed those buried might have been "starved and suffocated as a result of adopting and promoting extreme religious ideologies". Hussein Khalid, a human rights activist and CEO of Vocal Africa, witnessed the exhumations on Thursday. "The first body which was found by itself appeared to have been put there fairly recently - two to three weeks back. But the other four appear to have been there a while and were in a decomposing state," he told the BBC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said the situation at one of the gravesites hinted at foul play. "No remains were found but it appeared as if days ago, someone, some people or some group must have removed the corpse that was there," Mr Khalid said, adding that only pieces of children's and women's underwear had been left behind. "That sent a chilling message that it is possible the person or persons who were buried there were women and children." You may also be interested: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts NEED TO KNOW Law & Crime obtained bodycam footage of the Moscow Police Department first arriving to the home where Bryan Kohberger murdered four college students The police are led through the crime scene by Hunter Johnson, the young man who found the bodies and immediately instructed the surviving roommates to leave the house Bodycam footage shows Johnson telling police on the scene that he then searched the house for the killer while armed with a steak knife Body camera footage obtained by Law & Crime shows officers from the Moscow Police Department first arriving at the home where Bryan Kohberger murdered four University of Idaho students and later starting to set up a perimeter while establishing the crime scene on November 13, 2022. It also shows the young man who sprang into action after discovering the victims' bodies, Hunter Johnson. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first officer arrives on the scene to learn that Hunter already searched and cleared the house, and is then led to the bodies of the victims by the young man. Footage also shows Johnson explaining to a second officer on the scene how he grabbed a knife after discovering the bodies of Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin so that he could search the home and make sure there was no longer a threat. Even more importantly, Johnson made sure that the two surviving roommates would not have to see the bodies of their friends by immediately instructing them to return downstairs once he saw Kernodle and Chapin. Chloe Aftel Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson Johnson previously spoke with PEOPLE about that day, revealing that he received a call from roommate Dylan Mortensen asking if he could come check the house. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said that he arrived at 1122 King Road just before noon and was greeted by Mortensen and Bethany Funke, who informed him they were too afraid to go upstairs and had spent all morning in Funke's room on the first floor. The three then went upstairs and the second Johnson saw the bodies he immediately instructed the women to not look, go back downstairs and stand outside. 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. Johnson then started to search the house, as he can be heard explaining in the body camera footage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He then called 911 with Mortensen and waited for police at the scene. I was like, What is going on?' Johnson recalled while speaking with PEOPLE back in June. 'Is this real?' Then you realize the gravity of what you just walked into. At that moment, you don't really realize what you walked into until you really look at it and process it. Johnson's quick thinking in instructing everyone to leave the house and remarkable composure as he later led officers to the bodies meant that investigators were left with a crime scene that had been left virtually untouched when they arrived that day. The rest of the body camera footage features interviews with the hysterical and grief-stricken friends and roommates of the victims being interviewed by police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Johnson is seen again on the body camera footage when one of the Chapin triplets arrives on the scene. Police were not able to comment about the crime scene or confirm any of the deaths at that time, so it is Johnson who can be seen walking over to the young man and informing him that his brother had been murdered. Read the original article on People By Dan Catchpole (Reuters) -Boeing and officials of the striking machinists union are slated to resume contract negotiations on Monday, the company and union confirmed Friday. Roughly 3,200 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) went on strike at Boeing Defense's St. Louis-area facilities on August 4 after rejecting the company's four-year contract offer. They assemble Boeing's F-15 and F/A-18 fighters, the T-7 trainer jet, munitions, and wing sections for the company's commercial 777X jet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The company has managed to maintain production, flight testing and other work so far using non-union workers, Boeing Defense spokesperson Didi VanNierop said. On Thursday, top machinists union officials and U.S. Representative Wesley Bell, a Missouri Democrat, walked a picket line with striking workers, pressing the company for a contract closer to an agreement reached last year with its Seattle-area workers. Boeing's top St. Louis executive, Dan Gillian, responded with a statement on Thursday defending the offer rejected by IAM District 837 members, saying, "Our offer was strong then and is strong now with an average of 40% wage growth. Workers want a contract offer with higher general wage increases, faster wage scale progression, and improvements to the company's 401(k) retirement plan, IAM International President Brian Bryant told Reuters on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bryant was among the union leaders who joined workers in picketing, along with Bell, whose congressional district includes many of the workers. The offer rejected by St. Louis-area workers included a 20% general wage increase, a $5,000 ratification bonus and more vacation time and sick leave. At the time, Boeing said the bonus would not be offered again if that offer was rejected. The threat "disrespected" District 837 members, Bryant said. "I'm a little pissed off right now." Last November, the roughly 33,000 members of the IAM District 751, who assemble most of Boeing's jetliners in the Northwest, ended a seven-week strike when they approved a four-year contract that included a 38% general wage increase, higher retirement plan contributions, restoration of an annual bonus, a $12,000 signing bonus, and a pledge to build Boeing's next commercial jet in the Seattle area, if the program is launched within the contract's duration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boeing's defense division is expanding manufacturing facilities in the St. Louis area for the new U.S. Air Force fighter jet, the F-47A, after it won the contract this year. (Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle, Editing by Franklin Paul and David Gregorio) (Corrects headline, third bullet point and third paragraph to remove mention of halting fighter jet production) By Dan Catchpole (Reuters) -Top machinists union officials and a Democratic congressman joined striking workers outside a Boeing Defense facility near St. Louis on Thursday, pressing the company for a contract closer to an agreement reached with its Seattle-area workers. However, Boeing's top St. Louis executive, Dan Gillian, on Thursday defended the company's offer that was rejected by the 3,200 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 837. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The workers went on strike on August 4. Gillian previously said Boeing has implemented a contingency plan to limit the strike's impact. "Our offer was strong then and is strong now with an average of 40% wage growth, Gillian said in a statement on Thursday. There currently is no plan to resume negotiations, officials on both sides said. "The IAM is ready to meet with Boeing," IAM International President Brian Bryant told Reuters. Bryant was among the union leaders who joined the striking workers in picketing, along with U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, a Missouri Democrat, who represents the area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Workers want a contract offer with higher general wage increases, to speed up how long it takes to reach the top of the wage scale, and improvements to the company's 401(k) retirement plan, Bryant said. "In reality, they're going to have to offer up the same thing they offered in Seattle," he said, referring to a retirement provision in the four-year contract approved in November by the roughly 33,000 members of the IAM District 751, who assemble most of Boeing's jetliners in the Northwest. That contract included a 38% general wage increase over four years, plus higher retirement plan contributions, restoration of an annual bonus, a $12,000 signing bonus, and a pledge to build Boeing's next commercial jet in the Seattle area, if the program is launched within the contract's duration. The offer rejected by St. Louis-area workers included a 20% general wage increase, a $5,000 ratification bonus and more vacation time and sick leave. (Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle; Editing by Sonali Paul) BOLIVAR, Mo. A recent trend of white supremacist groups promoting themselves through posters and underground advertisements has found its way to Bolivar, a small university town around 30 miles away from Springfield. One of the Patriot Front posters found on the Bolivar square. Photo courtesy of Lucas Roberts. The flyers advertise the Patriot Front one of the largest fascist organizations in the United States, per the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group was created in 2017 in response to the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. Bolivar city alderman Dusty Ross told Ozarks First that there were about 20-25 Patriot Front flyers posted around Bolivars downtown square on Wednesday, Aug. 20. He wasnt sure who put the flyers up. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ross, Bolivar resident Lucas Roberts, and city alderman Justin Ballard took down all of the material that same day. We shouldnt give a seat at the table to someone who wants to take the chairs away, Roberts said. The City of Bolivar released a statement upon Ozarks Firsts request. The City of Bolivar fully supports the communitys First Amendment right to free speech, but we dont support community members defacing public property and vandalism, the statement said. Thanks to the citizens who took the initiative to remove the stickers inappropriately placed in public areas. Patriot Front in downtown Springfield on June 14. STAFF PHOTO Bolivar resident Paula Hubbert who previously served many years on the Bolivar school board offered her view on the matter to Ozarks First, as Bolivar has not seen such a situation in its recent history. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While its enraging that an individual would deface our community with such putrid and disgusting material, I hope its a wake-up call to everyone committed to decency and equality in Bolivar and throughout Southwest Missouri that vicious and repugnant voices spreading a message of hate are in our midst, Hubbert said. We must take every opportunity to stand up, stand together and say loudly and clearly that this type of language is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, she added. Leave our town. You are not welcome here. Patriot Front members were recently seen emerging from a Penske truck at Springfields No Kings Protest in June, prompting a statement of condemnation from the rental truck company. Additionally, in July, Eric Orwoll, the co-founder of a whites-only association, Return to the Land, told Ozarks First that a group of people were planning on developing an RTTL community near Springfield. He later changed his position upon inquiry from Snopes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told the Supreme Court on Friday that the draft of a request for asylum in Argentina found on his phone by police cannot be considered an indication of flight risk, since it was dated last year. "The fact is that, with or without the draft, the former president did not flee," his lawyers said. In the document sent to the court, the defense also denied that Bolsonaro breached any restraining order imposed by the court against him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolsonaro's defense was responding to an order by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to clarify an alleged failure to comply with court-imposed restraining orders and his flight risk, after police presented a report with fresh accusations against the former president. Police formally accused Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo on Wednesday of working to interfere with the former president's Supreme Court trial for allegedly plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election. In Friday's document, Bolsonaro's lawyers called the police report a "political tool" aimed at demoralizing the former president. Earlier this month Bolsonaro was put under house arrest and banned from using his phone, after Moraes found the former president failed to comply with restraining orders imposed on him for allegedly courting U.S. President Donald Trump's interference in the case. On Friday, Bolsonaro's lawyers asked Moraes to reconsider the house arrest order. (Reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; additional reporting and writing by Andre Romani; Editing by Kylie Madry) BOSSIER CITY, La. (KTAL/KMSS) The Bossier City Farmers Market is bringing dozens of vendors, local food, and handmade goods to the community every Saturday through November. The market is held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the south parking lot of Pierre Bossier Mall, featuring 65 to 75 vendors each week. Shoppers can expect a wide variety of offerings, from fresh produce and artisan crafts to unique eats like tamales, smoothies, barbecue, Cuban, Mexican, Venezuelan, and Chinese dishes. Weve got so much food, literally anything you can think of when it comes to Southern comfort, said organizer Chris Graham. Its always a delicious combo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Visitors can also take advantage of the malls indoor seating if they want a break from the weather. Parking and admission are free. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Boston Fire Department lieutenant held without bail on gun and drug charges A judge in Quincy District Court ordered a Boston Fire Department lieutenant held without bail after police found a large collection of unregistered guns and ammunition at his Milton home. Authorities say they found the weapons in the home of Lt. Joshua Thompson earlier this week after serving a restraining order brought by Thompsons estranged wife. In court, a prosecutor told a judge that Lt. Thompsons life is spiraling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The defendants behavior is becoming more erratic and more paranoid as time continues, Prosecutor Mark Assad said. At Thompsons home, authorities say they recovered 5 unregistered assault style rifles, five unregistered handguns, 2-thousand rounds of ammunition, and more. One police officer wrote in a report. Thompson appears to be preparing himself for some kind of conflict. The DA sought to have Thompson held without bail as a dangerous person. Thompson is also facing a charge of trafficking meth amphetamine. The Commonwealth believes because of the abuse of these drugs he might be taking on a daily basis, his paranoia is heightened and because of his access to firearms in conjunction with this abuse of these narcotics, hes creating a very dangerous individual, Prosecutor Assad said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both of Thompsons parents said their son is struggling with PTSD from a tour in Iraq and his time as a Boston firefighter. But they said he is a good father in a troubled marriage, and not a danger to anyone. Defense attorney Peter Pasciucco told the court that Thompsons parents lined up a bed for their son at a Western Massachusetts recovery center. They tried to persuade the judge to release their son to the recovery center and then to their custody. Absolutely no history of violence whatsoever. No violent tendencies, and no indications that he is a dangerous person, Defense attorney Pasciucco said Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Francis Kenneally disagreed. He ordered Lt. Thompson held without bail for 120 days. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW GUILFORD, Conn. (WTNH) Guilford police say a Branford man is facing charges for multiple robbery cases across different towns. David Pulcinella, 54, was taken into custody on Aug. 12 by East Haven police, following a robbery that happened shortly after an attempted robbery in Guilford. RELATED: Meriden man accused of attempting to rob East Haven Dunkin Police said the first incident happened at the Mobil Gas Station on Boston Post Road around 9 p.m. on Aug. 5. The suspect allegedly displayed and threatened to use a handgun while demanding money. They fled before police arrived. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another incident happened around 2:22 p.m. on Aug. 12, when police received a 911 call and bank hold up alarm at Ascend Bank on Boston Post Road. The suspect allegedly used a handwritten note to demand money, but fled the area when no money was provided. No one was injured in either incident, police said. In addition to charges in East Haven, Pulcinella was charged with second-degree criminal attempt to commit robbery for the Aug. 12 incident in Guilford. Police investigating pair of suspected burglaries at Guilford Plaza He was held on a $250,000 bond for that case. On Aug. 20, he was arrested for the gas station robbery and is facing charges of first-degree robbery and second-degree larceny in that case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was held on a $75,000 court-set bond for those charges. Guilford police said multiple agencies assisted in the investigation, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Haven States Attorneys Office. These arrests represent the strength of interagency cooperation amongst the various levels of law enforcement in our region as well as the incredible benefits of technology like fixed license plate readers in preventing and investigating criminal behavior targeting our communities along the Connecticut shoreline, police said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WINDHOEK, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's Rossing Uranium, with the backing of its majority shareholder, China National Uranium Corporation Limited (CNUC), will sponsor a group of local students to study in China, the miner said on Friday. Rossing Uranium said in a statement that the students will leave on Aug. 28 to pursue their studies at Harbin Engineering University under a scholarship program. According to Liezl Davies, general manager for human capital, safety, and sustainability at Rossing Uranium, this initiative is a direct response to the call made by Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah earlier this year during her visit to the mining company, where she urged the nation to cultivate skills and prepare for a future powered by nuclear energy. "We are proud to announce that Rossing has made arrangements with its parent company, CNUC, that these bursaries will further benefit from structured graduate development programs and job attachments, giving them hands-on experience in operating world-class facilities," said Davies. "This is not only an investment in their individual futures but a deliberate step in building the technical expertise Namibia needs to achieve the president's vision," the general manager said. Davies further announced that Rossing Uranium has also selected 10 exceptional learners who will participate in the Gen-Z Youth Exchange Program, which aims to expose them to cutting-edge scientific and technological advancements. They will depart on Sept. 20 for a 10-day educational excursion to China. Erongo Region Governor Nathalia Goagoses, in a statement, encouraged all those awarded the opportunities to take full advantage of them. "I urge you to use this opportunity to get the country ready when the time comes. Expose yourself, and when you are done, come back home and take charge of this new evolution," she said. A grandmother hopes her late grandson will be the angel smiling down on her effort to keep children happy and safe. Brantley Welford lost his life just before his fifth birthday, his death prosecuted as a child-abuse case. His grandmother shared more about him and her mission to help other kids. Brantley Welford (contributed photo.) Family members say Brantley Welford was full of energy. He loved going to church, where there was a little manger scene with figurines. He wouldnt start class unless he put the angel where it was supposed to be. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He also loved farm animals and he loved trucks., and took trips with his mothers boyfriend. He thought that was kind of cool, said his grandmother, Rhonda Welford. But Brantley wouldnt survive a trip to Indiana three years ago. The truck driver called 911 after an incident in the truck, but by that time, Brantley was already turning blue. He had been without oxygen for too long, his mother remembers. Brantley was airlifted to a hospital, but it was too late: On Aug. 22, his grandma said goodbye just a day before his firth birthday. What she saw will always haunt her: He was just bruised from head toe. Truck driver Dylan Diericx pleaded guilty to a charge of neglect of a dependent resulting in a death. He agreed to 32 years for the charge, which carries the possibility of a 40-year sentence. He told Our Quad Cities News that Brantleys death was an accident, that he had tossed the boy in the bunk of the semis sleeper, and the child hit his head on a small plastic hook. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Rhonda tried to recover from the shock and the loss, a church friend sent her a song. The Commission by the Christian group CAIN, which goes in part: Go tell the world about me. It just connected, Rhonda says. It just hit me like it was telling me I had to do something to spread the word about what happened to him, so it doesnt happen to somebody else, to save the other children that are being abused by someone. And then Brantleys Wings took shape. He just was full of kindness and love, and what were trying to do is give that back to the children and help families, Rhonda says. Eventually, she wants to share Brantleys story in all 50 states. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think hes smiling and hes proud of what Im doing in his name., she said. Hes with us now, being our little angel on our shoulder. Its Brantleys Wings that helps Rhonda cope with her anger. Brantleys Wings (brantleyswings.org) Yes, I have anger for the people involved in the loss of him. but I cant focus on that because that would just make me not a pleasant person. and it wont help me to heal, Rhonda says. Doing Brantleys Wings and having it be so positive keep the love and the joy and the kindness that he brought to me, letting me share it to others. A birthday bash Big Steps for Little Feet a Walk to End Child Abuse will be held Saturday, Aug 23, from 9 a.m. until noon in the Riverview Bandshell, 251 Ball Park Drive, Clinton. This walk is in memory of Brantley Welford on his birthday, with games and prizes, DJ, crafts, a silent auction, and more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For details, visit here. On Saturday, Aug. 23, when walkers and families gather in Brantleys memory, one thing will be clear: The angel is in his place. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. By Lisandra Paraguassu BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil's government ruled out the idea of subsidizing all delegates' hotel fares at the United Nations climate summit it will host in November, Brazilian officials said on Friday, after what they described as a tense meeting with U.N. officials. The standoff comes as delegations grow increasingly panicked about the cost of accommodations in the coastal Amazon host city of Belem. Brazil is working to nearly double available hotel beds and entrepreneurs have gotten creative, converting love motels and ferryboats to receive delegations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But supply has still fallen short of demand, sending prices soaring and stoking calls to relocate the conference, known as COP30, which Brazilian officials have rejected. During Friday's meeting, officials linked to the Brazilian presidency said the U.N. climate secretariat, known as UNFCCC, had called for a hotel subsidy of $100 per day for delegates from developing nations and $50 for delegates from rich nations. Miriam Belchior, executive secretary to the President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief of staff, dismissed the idea. "The Brazilian government is already bearing significant costs for hosting the COP, so there is no way to subsidize delegations from other countries, including delegations from countries that are far richer than Brazil," she told journalists after the meeting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The UNFCCC did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Belchior reiterated that changing the host city was out of the question. Instead, Brazil suggested that the U.N. should increase its $144 daily allowance for delegates from the poorest nations. But hotel rates in Belem have ranged from twice to twenty times that much. The U.N. has resisted calls to adjust its allowances, citing the time usually required to approve such changes. So far, 39 countries have made accommodation reservations through the official COP30 platform, while eight others have negotiated directly or through other platforms. (Reporting by Lisandra ParaguassuEditing by Brad Haynes and Diane Craft) Brazil's federal police say they have found messages on the telephone of former President Jair Bolsonaro showing he had wanted to flee to Argentina and request political asylum. Bolsonaro is currently awaiting a Supreme Court ruling about an alleged coup attempt and learned on Wednesday he might face another case as police formally accused him and one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, of obstruction of justice in connection with his trial. The 170-page report said Bolsonaro had drafted a request for political asylum from Argentine President Javier Milei's government dated 10 February 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He saved the document two days after authorities searched his home and office as part of the alleged coup plot investigation. Argentine President Javier Milei speaks during the opening ceremony of the Rural Society's annual exposition in Buenos Aires, 26 July, 2025 - AP Photo Close to that date, Bolsonaro admittedly spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasilia, fuelling speculation he may have been attempting to avoid arrest. The Argentina plot is part of the wider police accusation of obstruction of justice, in which Bolsonaro has allegedly ignored precautionary measures established for his house arrest and spread content to his allies "to directly hit Brazilian democratic institutions, notably the Supreme Court and even Brazils Congress," according to the report. Obstruction of justice accusations In a 33-page letter addressed to Milei, Bolsonaro claimed he was being politically persecuted in Brazil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, request political asylum from Your Excellency in the Republic of Argentina, under an urgent regime, as I find myself in a situation of political persecution in Brazil and fear for my life," the former Brazilian leader wrote. Brazil's police gathered several messages between Bolsonaro and his son in which they showed interest in praising US President Donald Trump to influence legal proceedings back home. "You won't have time to reverse the situation if the guy here turns his back on you. Everything here is very touchy, every little thing affects you," Eduardo Bolsonaro told his father in one of the exchanges. Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Buenos Aires, 4 December, 2024 - AP Photo Eduardo Bolsonaro also said he had secured US government support "with great difficulty," claiming that he and an ally, Paulo Figueiredo, were the only ones with access to the White House. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He also told his father that pressure from Trump was the only chance Bolsonaro had to avoid prison. "The most powerful man in the world is on your side. We did our part," Eduardo texted on 10 July. A verdict and sentence in the coup trial will come from a Supreme Court panel of five justices. They are scheduled to announce their rulings between 2-12 September. The new findings will not be part of that decision. Prosecutors say Bolsonaro and several of his allies headed a criminal organisation that plotted to overturn the election, including plans to kill current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. I was born in the Philippines, a country where pageantry was seen as an Olympic sport. It was mesmerizing seeing the elegant dresses and how eloquently and poised the contestants answered questions on stage. I have always dreamed of competing in a pageant like Miss Universe . One roadblock is that I was born male. I was the youngest of four in a religious and traditional family . Growing up and realizing that I was different from other kids my age, I hid my attraction to the same sex from my family. I felt like I was living two distinct lives. I was Miley Stewart at home, and Hannah Montana at school. I wanted more for my life. That dream was answered when my dad told me that we are moving to the United States! I thought to myself, "I am about to move to a country where no one knows me! I could reinvent myself and be 'normal'!" Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This did not last long. I was very feminine, and some people at school found out that I am gay. To my surprise, no one cared. No one laughed at me or bullied me. They knew who I was, and my coming out made sense. Next step, I had to come out to my family. The thought of coming out and possibly being seen as a disappointment terrified me. I spent days debating whether I should go through with telling them. I spent hours watching "My Coming Out" videos on YouTube to encourage myself to tell my family. I spent nights crying myself to sleep, debating if I should go back to being Miley Stewart at home. At first, I told my siblings, and they were accepting and highly supportive. Now I have to tell my parents. I wasn't sure how to approach it. People in those videos suggest doing it either while in the car with them or in a public space, just in case. So many thoughts started running through my mind until one night, I decided to go out to the living room and tell my mom. She told me that it was just a phase. We ended up crying that night, but I was happy I got to tell my mom. My talk with my dad was significantly less emotional. As I went through my teens and early 20s, the puzzle pieces were finally starting to fit. I didn't have to live two different lives, and I could date whoever I wanted to! Everything was great until someone asked me if I would ever transition from male to female. I would always want to say yes, but I would pause and say "no" for fear of disappointing my family. This was the routine until, at 25, my then-best friend and I had an intense conversation about it. He told me that I "looked so happy, but something is still missing." At the end of the conversation, he told me to "live my truth and not people's expectations of it". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I started my transition journey in October 2020, when I was able to live my truth and finally become Jasmine Gabrielle Basanes. This gave me so much confidence that I entered a modeling competition in 2022 and won, later signing with Slay Model Management . In 2024, I competed in my first pageant, Miss International Queen USA , held in Las Vegas, and made it to the semifinals! This refueled my love for pageantry, and I decided to apply for Miss Georgia USA. This pageant is under the Miss Universe system. After the rules were changed to be more inclusive, I became comfortable that I would be accepted. The pageant was held in Clarksville, Tennessee, as Miss Tennessee and Miss Georgia were being held simultaneously. At first, I was nervous because I did not know how the other delegates would react to seeing a trans woman on stage with them. Still, I was pleasantly surprised to see everyone be so supportive and accepting towards me. I say "pleasantly" because, being in the south, the relationship towards the transgender community is dynamic. Even with many people being supportive, some laws restrict trans rights, restrict gender affirming care, ban trans women from women's sports, and so on. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My platform was focused on the importance of mental health and self-care . Mental health affects how we think, feel, and act towards others. How we treat others can profoundly impact their mental health, reminding us that we're part of their healing, struggles, and overall journey, not just our own. For my evening gown, I chose to wear a wedding dress. This is symbolic because I wanted to make a statement that trans women are women and we deserve happiness. Wedding dresses have been a symbol of femininity, and I know some individuals who are transitioning from male to female who dream of having that special day wearing a wedding dress. I stood on that stage not just as a representation of the trans community and immigrants, but for every single person who has been told 'no' and ignored simply because they are considered 'different.' I may not have won the crown, but I hope that any trans person seeing me on that stage can know that they are capable and deserving of taking up space in places that were not made for us. We all belong wherever we dream of being. As my dad says, "As long as you are not hurting anyone, you are okay." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Perspectives is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ + community and its allies. Visit Pride.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Perspectives stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of PRIDE or our parent company, equalpride. This article originally appeared on Pride: Breaking barriers, how one contestant became the first trans delegate in Miss Georgia USA In August 2025, a claim circulated that the Trump administration removed a rainbow crosswalk in Orlando, Florida, that honored the victims and survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 49 people. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) confirmed to NBC that it had "restored" the Pulse nightclub memorial crosswalk "to its proper form" following a review of state-maintained roads. Orlando City Mayor Buddy Dyer also said "the state" had painted over the crosswalk. FDOT asked its districts on June 30, 2025, to remove "surface paving" that did not comply with state design standards. The department said "non-compliant surface paving" included "pavement surface art that is associated with social, political, or ideological messages." On July 1, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy launched the SAFER ROADS initiative that asked state departments to identify accident hot spots and "eliminate distractions" on roads. Duffy wrote on X, "Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks." The removal of the Orange Avenue rainbow crosswalk appeared to be the product of the state's enforcement of its own standards but aligned with a concurrent federal push to review road safety. In August 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that the Trump administration removed a rainbow crosswalk in Orlando, Florida, that was part of a memorial for the 49 people killed in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. The rainbow crosswalk at South Orange Avenue and West Esther Street opened in 2017 and honored Pulse nightclub's history as a gathering place for Orlando's LGBTQ+ community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One popular Facebook post on the topic that cited a headline from a report in the celebrity newsmagazine People read, "Trump Administration Removes Rainbow Crosswalk Honoring 49 Victims Murdered at Pulse Nightclub." (Facebook user Alt National Park Service) Social media users on Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived) also claimed the Trump administration was responsible for painting over the crosswalk. Snopes readers wrote in asking if the claim was true. However, local and national media citing (archived) Orlando City Mayor Buddy Dyer widely reported it was Florida state authorities that removed the rainbow pattern from the crosswalk by painting it black overnight between Aug. 20 and 21, 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) told NBC the department had "restored" the Pulse nightclub memorial crosswalk "to its proper form" following a review of state-maintained roads. FDOT's action followed a department memo (archived) on June 30, 2025, that asked Florida districts to immediately remove "non-complaint surface pavement" that included "art that is associated with social, political, or ideological messages." The next day on July 1, 2025, the U.S. Department of Transportation launched the SAFE ROADS initiative. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy posted (archived) about the initiative on X, writing, "Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks." Given the above, it appeared the action by FDOT to paint over the Orange Avenue crosswalk was a product of the state's own standards enforcement but also aligned with a concurrent federal push to review road safety. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Snopes reached out to FDOT to ask if its review of state-maintained roads was related to Duffy's SAFE ROADS initiative. The Florida governor's office referred Snopes to an X post by Gov. Ron DeSantis when asked to comment that read (archived), "We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes." 'Social, political or ideological' messages not allowed in crosswalks, FDOT said According to a spokesperson from the Orlando Mayor's office, the city "did not receive prior notice from the state that the crosswalk would be painted." However, Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan told the Orlando Sentinel that the city had received a more general notice that its artistic crosswalks were in violation of state and federal guidelines. On June 30, 2025, FDOT sent a memo to district authorities reiterating compliance standards for "traffic control devices" which included pavement and surface markings laid out in the FDOT Design Manual. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FDOT's memo specifically highlighted chapter 127.2 (15) of the FDOT Design Manual that read, "The Department prohibits any applications of pavement or surface art on travel lanes, paved shoulders, bridges, intersections, crosswalks, or sidewalks. Pavement or surface art is defined as surface markings that are not in direct support of traffic control or public safety on the State Highway System." FDOT's memo added (our emphasis): Examples of non-complaint surface pavement would include any pavement markings that do not meet the color, shape, or dimensions provided in the MUTCD or FDOT Standard Plans, including elements such as Bicycle Symbols, Crosswalk markings, or other pavement surface art that is associated with social, political, or ideological messages or images and does not serve the purpose of traffic control. FDOT's memo said districts must immediately remove, modify or replace any "non-compliant traffic control devices of pavement markings." It added, "failure to remove non-compliant traffic control devices or pavement markings shall be cause for withholding of state funds." Several Florida cities faced FDOT crackdown Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith and Sheehan told Snopes on Aug. 22 that the city received another letter from FDOT the previous day after FDOT repainted the crosswalk that gave the city a deadline of Sept. 4 to remove all non-complaint "traffic control devices," which included crosswalks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the letter, FDOT identified 18 noncompliant locations, not including the Pulse memorial crosswalk at South Orange Avenue and West Esther Street. None of the named crosswalks featured rainbow colors specifically, though some did incorporate color into the crosswalk design. https://media.snopes.com/2025/08/final_letter_-_agreement_to_comply_-_city_of_orlando.pdf The letter stated that if the City of Orlando did not remedy the noncompliant locations itself, FDOT would do so and pass the cost on to Orlando. According to the Miami Herald, FDOT sent a similar letter to Miami Beach on Aug. 21, 2025, demanding the city remove its rainbow crosswalks by the same Sept. 4 deadline. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach and Key West had also received demands from FDOT to remove noncompliant (including rainbow colored) street markings or lose FDOT funding, according to reports. Snopes had not independently reviewed these letters. Key West Mayor Danise Henriquez told the Miami Herald the city would attend a hearing on FDOT's demands with representation, despite FDOT's initial letter stating that the hearing would not grant an exception or waiver allowing the rainbow markings to stay. The City of Orlando's letter included a similar clause. This appeared to contradict FDOT's June 30 memo that said the Department could grant permission "to allow non-compliant traffic control devices or pavement markings" if a public agency were "able to demonstrate good cause for doing so." In sum While FDOT confirmed to NBC that it carried out the actual repainting of the Pulse memorial crosswalk, memos from the department and its federal counterpart appeared to suggest that the action was part of a federal government push for road safety. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DOT launched the SAFE ROADS initiative on July 1, and Duffy specifically posted about rainbow crosswalks as a misuse of taxpayer money while promoting the initiative on X. The day before SAFE ROADS launched, FDOT had already issued a separate memo to its districts reminding them to immediately remove "non-complaint surface pavement" that included "art that is associated with social, political, or ideological messages." At the time of this writing, several cities had reportedly received letters asking them to remove noncompliant traffic features by a Sept. 4 deadline. In a statement to Fox News, FDOT said it was "now correcting pavement markings not in compliance," appearing to suggest that the overnight action in Orlando may not be the last of its kind. Sources: Cordeiro, Monivette. "Orlando Mayor Says Rainbow Crosswalk Will Be Installed near Pulse." Orlando Weekly, 9 Oct. 2017, https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/orlando-mayor-says-rainbow-crosswalk-will-be-installed-near-pulse-7568285. Florida Department of Transportation. "127 Community Aesthetic Features." 1 Jan. 2025, https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/default-source/roadway/fdm/2025/2025fdm127caf.pdf?sfvrsn=36fbc9ea_1. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement . "230 Signing and Pavement Marking." 1 Jan. 2025, https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/default-source/roadway/fdm/2025/2025fdm230spavtmarkings.pdf?sfvrsn=4cea8581_4. Kile, Meredith. "Trump Administration Removes Rainbow Crosswalk Honoring 49 Victims Murdered at Pulse Nightclub." People.Com, https://people.com/trump-administration-removes-rainbow-crosswalk-honoring-pulse-nightclub-victims-11795541. Accessed 22 Aug. 2025. Nitzberg, Alex. "DeSantis Fires Back after Dem Decries Florida's Move to Ditch LGBT Rainbow Colors from Crosswalk in Orlando." Text.Article. Fox News, 22 Aug. 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/desantis-fires-back-after-dem-decries-floridas-move-ditch-lgbt-rainbow-colors-from-crosswalk-orlando. "Rainbow Crosswalk Outside Pulse Nightclub Removed Overnight." Orlando Sentinel, 21 Aug. 2025, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/08/21/rainbow-crosswalk-outside-pulse-nightclub-removed-overnight/. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rosa, Amanda. "Florida's Rainbow Crosswalks Are Being Painted over. Miami Beach Could Be next Read More at: Https://Www.Miamiherald.Com/News/Local/Community/Miami-Dade/Article311773263.Html#storylink=cpy." Miami Herald, 22 Aug. 2025, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article311773263.html. Scouten, Ted. Florida Cities Ordered to Remove Rainbow Crosswalks or Face State Penalties - CBS Miami. 19 Aug. 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-cities-ordered-to-remove-rainbow-crosswalks-or-face-state-penalties/. Sopelsa, Brooke. "Pulse Memorial's Rainbow Crosswalk Removed Overnight in Orlando, Florida." NBC News, 22 Aug. 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/pulse-memorial-rainbow-crosswalk-removed-orlando-florida-rcna226335. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Urges Governors to Join National Initiative to Make Streets Safer, More Efficient. https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/memorandum/Governors_Safe_Roads.htm. Accessed 22 Aug. 2025. The Trump administration announced Thursday night that it has issued an immediate pause on the issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X, The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. Under current regulations, a foreign driver may obtain a U.S. commercial drivers license but must have an employment authorization document. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Such documents include the temporary H-2B visa, which allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers for temporary, seasonal or nonagricultural jobs. They are valid for up to nine months and require the company to demonstrate a labor shortage or the inability to hire a qualified U.S. worker. Another option is permanent residency via an EB-3 visa, which is used to sponsor foreign drivers for permanent, long-term positions and provides a pathway to a green card. The permanent resident card, more commonly known as a green card, allows the individual to work permanently in the U.S. and is valid for 10 years. The Trump administrations recent moves targeting commercial driver work visas appear to be in reaction to headlines involving a fatal semitruck crash in Florida that killed three people. Following the accident, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is investigating both the driver and White Hawk Carrier, the motor carrier that was involved. This is a developing story. The post BREAKING: Trump administration immediately pausing all new commercial truck driver work visas appeared first on FreightWaves. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) Brent Hinds, founding guitarist of the Grammy Award-winning metal band Mastodon, was killed in a car wreck in Atlanta Wednesday night. He was 51. According to police, Hinds died after the Harley-Davidson motorcycle he was operating was hit by a driver in a BMW that failed to yield while making a turn. We are heartbroken, shocked and still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom weve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many, the band posted on Instagram. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hinds grew up in Pelham, Alabama, but left home for Atlanta in the 1990s to further his music career. He graduated from Pelham High School in 1992. I grew up in Alabama, in Birmingham. Boring-ham, Hinds told The Guardian in 2009. I was very dysfunctional at school, just a jackass. Id take LSD and come to class still tripping. I was too creative, never doing my homework, just filling my notepad up with drawings of skulls. I was probably like every other teenager, to be honest with you. In 2000, Hinds started Mastodon with Brann Dailor, Bill Kellihor and Troy Sanders while working in the Atlanta music scene. The groups debut album, Remission, was released in 2002. By the time Hinds had left Mastodon earlier this spring, the group had released eight albums and won a Grammy for Best Metal Performance for Sultans Curse. The group has been nominated for a Grammy five times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. NEW YORK (PIX11) New York City Hall for sale is how prosecutors described the latest indictments against former Adams administration members in court on Thursday. A Democratic strategist and the president of the government relations firm Polaris New York, Nicholas Smith, discusses how the scandals could affect Mayor Eric Adams reelection campaign on PIX11 Morning News. Watch the video player for the full interview. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. New Release: Farm, merge, grow and expand your land in this new puzzle game! New Release: Farm, merge, grow and expand your land in this new puzzle game! A British aid worker has been killed in a Russian drone strike, Ukrainian police have said. Annie Lewis Marffy, 69, travelled from her home in Silverton, near Exeter, Devon, in late May to deliver a green Toyota Rav4 packed with supplies. She arrived in Ukraine on June 4 but did not meet co-ordinators from Aid Ukraine UK, the non-profit NGO which had organised the mission, as planned. After a week of searching for Ms Lewis Marffy, the organisation was contacted by the Kramatorsk district police department with information that she had been killed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The police report says that she sustained injuries incompatible with life after a Russian drone strike between June 11 and 12, having parked her car on a street in the Donbas region. It adds that her body remains in an area of active hostilities, making it impossible to conduct evacuation measures to transfer the body to the forensic medical examination department. Her family have asked for a death certificate to be issued, based on the Kramatorsk district police department report, either through local authorities or the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Ms Lewis Marffy travelled through Europe with a former soldier from Wales, who had to return to the UK after becoming unwell in Poland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was instructed to hand the vehicle over to Aid Ukraine teams in Lviv but did not do so, instead insisting she would continue to Kramatorsk, where the vehicle was due to be delivered, alone. After that, she was in sporadic contact with co-ordinators from the organisation and ignored advice to avoid frontline areas, leading them on a wild goose chase for the next week. Russia bombards Ukraine with drone strikes on a daily basis - Pierre Crom Paying tribute to his mother, her son, Charlie Lewis Marffy, described her as amazing, witty, kind, intelligent, adventurous. She was irreplaceable, Mr Lewis Marffy told the BBC. I feel very sad that shes not here any more but Im very proud of who she was. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added: She was brave, capable and determined, but we never wanted her to go. She was excited, happy to be doing something meaningful. Katarzyna Bylok, founder of Aid Ukraine, said the process of recovering Ms Lewis Marffys body could take months or years. In a kill zone, where her remains are, it is impossible to recover them because whoever you send will also die, she said. Ms Bylok said there was an expedited process within Ukraine to certify deaths where remains cannot be recovered, though this still takes six to 12 months. It leaves her family in a horrible red tape limbo, she added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They will never get her body. But what they need is the ability to close her affairs. Her sons have their hands tied, they dont have power of attorney. Ms Bylok added: She was very independent and when she turned her mind to do something, she did it. She was very self-assured and highly intelligent. A spokesperson for the FCDO said: We are supporting the family of a British woman who is missing in Ukraine and are in contact with the local authorities. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. GOMA, DR Congo, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The rebel group March 23 Movement (M23) confirmed Friday that it has dispatched a delegation to Doha, Qatar's capital, for talks with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Speaking at a press conference in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, which has been under M23 control since late January, M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa stressed that the two-member team was tasked "only with discussing the mechanisms for a ceasefire and the release of prisoners." Talks between the DRC government and the M23 resumed this week in Doha under Qatari mediation, following missed earlier deadlines, according to Radio Okapi, a United Nations-backed outlet in the DRC. The Declaration of Principles signed by both sides on July 19 in Doha called for negotiations toward a peace deal to begin by Aug. 8 and conclude by Aug. 18. Though the timetable lapsed, Qatar circulated a draft agreement last week to both parties. "When we finish this stage, we can move on to something else," Bisimwa said, acknowledging "blockages" in the Doha process. The M23 had earlier insisted that provisions of the declaration, particularly the release of its members detained by the DRC government, be implemented before broader peace talks could advance. The DRC government has yet to respond to the M23's latest remarks but has reiterated its "firm commitment" to constructive dialogue while underscoring its determination to defend national sovereignty and restore lasting peace in the east. Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreed in Doha. Since January, the security situation has deteriorated sharply, with the M23 seizing several strategic towns, including Goma and Bukavu, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations, more than 27.8 million people in the DRC face food insecurity, with over seven million internally displaced, many of them multiple times. The family of a British aid worker say they are living in limbo after police in Ukraine reported she had been killed in a drone strike. Annie Lewis Marffy, 69, from Silverton, near Exeter, was killed by a Russian drone in the Donbas region in June, according to a local police report. Her body has never been recovered and her family say they are in a battle to get a death certificate issued by local authorities or the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Without one, they say they are unable to grieve properly or begin the probate process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The FCDO said it was supporting the family but it was down to Ukraine authorities to provide a death certificate. Lewis Marffy crossed into Ukraine on 4 June driving a green Toyota RAV4 [Aid Ukraine] Ms Lewis Marffy's son Charlie Lewis Marffy said: "She was brave, capable and determined, but we never wanted her to go. We were worried." His mother had joined a self-funded mission organised by Aid Ukraine, an aid organisation based in the UK. She left for Poland in late May, driving a green Toyota RAV4 with a former soldier. When he fell ill and returned home, she continued alone, according to messages and calls home. "She was in touch with us every day," said Mr Lewis Marffy, adding he did not blame the group for what happened. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "She spoke to my youngest brother constantly. She was excited, happy to be doing something meaningful." Annie Lewis Marffy, pictured in a family photo, never showed any fear during her life, says her son [Family picture] Ms Lewis Marffy told her family she had crossed into Ukraine on 4 June. She texted them on 5 June and spoke to Mr Lewis Marffy on 8 June, but communication with her family stopped after that. According to Aid Ukraine founder Katarzyna Bylok, Ms Lewis Marffy had been travelling in convoy with another aid worker and their destination was Kramatorsk in the contested Donbas region. Her aid colleague then became ill in Poland and flew home to the UK, she said. Ms Bylok said she suggested handing over the aid in Lviv but Ms Lewis Marffy insisted on continuing alone to Kramatorsk and Aid Ukraine said its last communication with her was on 10 June. Charlie Lewis Marffy says his mother doted on animals at her home [BBC] The local police report, by the Kramatorsk District Police Department, names Ms Lewis Marffy and states she sustained "injuries incompatible with life" after a Russian drone strike between 11 and 12 June. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It says the body "remains in an area of active hostilities, making it impossible to conduct evacuation measures to transfer the body to the forensic medical examination department". Mr Lewis Marffy said: "They're saying she died. Still, there's no body. No possessions. No ID. Nothing." The family say they have sent a series of emails and made calls to the FCDO and Ukrainian authorities asking for a death certificate to be issued based on the police report. "I'm dismayed. The Foreign Office has been vague, unhelpful," said Mr Lewis Marffy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The family had explored private retrieval options of the body but these were either dangerous or the cost was prohibitive, he said. According to information received by Aid Ukraine from local police after Ms Lewis Marffy's death, she had driven alone on 11 June onto the Bakhmut highway, dubbed a "kill zone" because of its proximity to the front. She had parked her car by the roadside when she and the vehicle were destroyed by the drone strike. 'Totally fearless' Mr Lewis Marffy said his widely travelled mother was "was amazing, witty, kind, intelligent, adventurous". "She was irreplaceable," he said. "I feel very sad that she's not here anymore but I'm very proud of who she was." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She made documentaries, helped at soup kitchens and refugee kitchens in Exeter, and doted on animals of which she cared for many at her home, he said. "I never saw her scared, she was totally fearless and maybe that's contributed to her death in some way," he said. "She was a force and it was her decision. We're not looking to blame anyone. "We just want a bit more information, some kind of resolution." A FCDO spokesperson said: "We are supporting the family of a British woman who is missing in Ukraine and are in contact with the local authorities." Follow BBC Devon on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk. More on this story Related internet links BROOKFIELD, Ohio (WKBN) The Brookfield School District is moving forward with plans to create a community learning center out of the former Tiffanys Banquet Center Building. The district bought the building in the spring. Theyve finished the interior demolition and are now in the process of hiring a contractor for renovations. The building will include a senior center, an esports facility and several new classrooms and labs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our advanced manufacturing and robotics lab well move out of our library into a 2,200-square-foot facility. Our building trade classes, which are in the classroom, will have a 2,400-square-foot space to work in, said Superintendent Toby Gibson. District leaders say the facility will help prepare students for the workforce, especially those who arent interested in college. They expect to finish the project by the end of this school year and move in by Fall 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BROOKFIELD, Ill. If youve never seen a baby kangaroo poking out of its mamas pouch, youre not alone. As cute as it is, it only happens for a short window. Its a tough thing to catch. And that is exactly why people are squeezing in at Brookfield Zoo, hoping to capture a glimpse of the evasive little joey. After eight long months, mama Trudys baby finally peeked out to say hello. He doesnt have a name yet, but he certainly has an audience. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The butterfly effect of one womans 17-year mission to spread wings of joy Brookfield Zoo is actively working to increase their population of Western Gray Kangaroos, which have seen a significant decline in their natural habitat. And its working.. They recently discovered three more of their females have a budding joey growing in their pouch, so if you miss this one, you might get another shot early next year. WGNs Erin McElroy has more. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Video in the player above shows Brookfield Zoos baby kangaroo drawing a crowd. BROOKFIELD, Ill. (WGN) The polar bears at the Brookfield Zoo are gearing up to welcome a new roommate from Oregon this fall. Officials from the Brookfield Zoo announced Thursday that an 8-year-old polar bear named Amelia Gray would soon be joining the pack in the Great Bear Wilderness exhibit. Amelia Gray, an 8-year-old polar bear, will join polar bears Hope and Hudson later this fall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Amelia Gray is coming to Chicago from the Oregon Zoo, where she is known as a playful and curious bear. Brookfield Zoos adorable baby kangaroo drawing a crowd We look forward to welcoming Amelia Gray to Brookfield Zoo Chicago, as her arrival is a powerful opportunity to educate the community of the critical need to protect this vulnerable species, Mark Wanner, associate vice president of animal care and conservation at Brookfield Zoo Chicago said. With declining populations in the wild, zoos play an invaluable role in understanding polar bears and ways we can help protect their populations in the wild. According to officials, Amelia Grays arrival will support the zoos efforts to deepen their understanding of challenges facing polar bears in the wild as it works to find solutions to the species threat of extinction. Photo provided by the Oregon Zoo shows Amelia Gray, an 8-year-old polar bear who will soon make the move to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Photo provided by the Oregon Zoo shows Amelia Gray, an 8-year-old polar bear who will soon make the move to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Photo provided by the Oregon Zoo shows Amelia Gray, an 8-year-old polar bear who will soon make the move to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Photo provided by the Oregon Zoo shows Amelia Gray, an 8-year-old polar bear who will soon make the move to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Photo provided by the Oregon Zoo shows Amelia Gray, an 8-year-old polar bear who will soon make the move to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Zookeepers say Amelia Grays transfer from Oregon will offer her the chance to spend time with a male polar bear, with the long-term goal of raising cubs someday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But before she begins making friends with her new roommates, Amelia Gray will spend some time getting acclimated to her new habitat at the Brookfield Zoo. Brookfield Zoo to welcome first bachelor gorilla troop this summer Amelia Grays arrival is just the latest development in the zoos long-term work in polar bear care and conservation. Officials say experts at the zoo driven and supported groundbreaking research into polar bear behavior, development and care, including the first-ever CT scan on a living polar bear in 2019, which established vital medical baselines. Additionally, the zoos work extends outside the boundaries of the enclosures as Brookfield Zoo is also part of Polar Bear Internationals network of Arctic Ambassador Centers, which supports collaborative research, education and action programs that address challenges polar bears face in the wild. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the wild, polar bear populations face a high risk of global extinction. Polar bears were the first species to be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and Zoo officials say rising global temperatures are causing more rapid and significant changes to their natural habitat. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Officials say as sea ice melts in the bears natural habitat, they are forced to swim longer distances across open water in search of prey, entering periods of fasting and living off fat stores. The fasting periods can have long-term impacts and can be detrimental to young bears and breeding adults that require plentiful prey to reproduce. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We still have gaps in understanding how climate change is affecting wild polar bears, and its essential that the bears in professional care help scientists learn more about their species, Amy Cutting, vice president of conservation at Polar Bears International said. These bears are perfect candidates to help because they already voluntarily participate in many care-focused behaviors and seem to find those experiences enriching. Zoo visitors can expect to see Amelia Gray as early as mid-October. Visit the Brookfield Zoos website for more information or to purchase tickets. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown lagged behind Republican Sen. Jon Husted in the first public poll since the Ohio Democrat launched his comeback bid, as Democrats face an uphill battle to reclaim the upper chamber next year. Brown trailed behind the incumbent Republican by six points in a new Emerson College poll released Friday morning. Fifty percent of registered voters said they'd vote for Husted if the election took place today, while 44 percent expressed support for Brown. Seven percent of voters said they were yet undecided. Husteds lead comes even as Brown holds higher name recognition among voters only 14 percent of voters said they were unsure or hadnt heard of the longtime Democratic senator, while 39 percent said the same of Husted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Husted has a 16-point lead among male voters and voters without a college degree, and a 14-point lead among voters over 40, Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. Brown has a 13-point lead among voters under 40, a three-point lead among women voters, and an eight-point lead among independent voters. After speculation about a potential gubernatorial run, Brown launched his Senate bid earlier this week, teeing up over a yearlong battle with Husted for the seat. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tapped Husted to fill JD Vances vacant Senate seat after Vance ascended to the vice presidency this year. A victory for Brown would be a welcome boost for Democrats, as they mount a long-shot battle to retake the Senate in 2026. But Fridays poll demonstrates the tough odds the longtime Democratic elected official faces in an increasingly red state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And Brown wasnt the only Democrat falling behind in Fridays survey. Republican Vivek Ramaswamy held a 10-point lead over Democrat Amy Acton in a hypothetical gubernatorial matchup: 49 to 39 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Acton gained name recognition as the states public health director through the Covid-19 pandemic, earning her the support of Ohios Democratic base and placing her in the crosshairs of conservatives as outrage bubbled over about the states controversial school closures. While Acton is currently the only declared Democratic candidate for governor, former Rep. Tim Ryan has also been mulling tossing his hat in the ring. But a potential contest between Ryan and Ramaswamy showed the Republican leading 49 percent to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided. According to the Emerson poll, Ramaswamys strength lies in his support among younger voters the onetime presidential candidate outperformed Husted with voters under 30 by five points. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The survey also asked voters if they thought the states congressional maps were drawn fairly, or if they were drawn to benefit either the Republican or Democratic Party. The state is legally required to redraw the map this year because the post-2020 Census map passed with just Republican support. Forty-one percent of respondents said they thought the states maps were drawn to give an advantage to Republicans, while 23 percent said they thought the lines were drawn fairly and 8 percent said they thought they were drawn to the advantage of Democrats. Twenty-nine percent said they were unsure either way. Ohio mapmakers are set to redraw the states congressional lines this year and could tilt the map even more toward the GOP. There is now a nationwide redistricting arms race following a dramatic struggle over the Texas legislatures efforts to push through a partisan gerrymander favoring the states Republicans earlier this summer. Coming out of the prolonged battle in the lone star state, Democrats have vowed to fight hard over Ohios upcoming map redraw. But the states Democrats face an uphill battle, as Republicans hold a majority in the legislature and the states redistricting board, giving Democrats little recourse to push back against a new map. The Emerson College survey was conducted from among 1,000 active Ohio registered voters between Aug. 18-19, 2025, with a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Bryan Kohberger reportedly complained about the meal he was served just two days after beginning his four consecutive life sentences at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. The convicted murderer filed a handwritten complaint in which he criticized the food for not meeting nutritional standards, claiming he did not receive all of the items he was supposed to. The complaint is said to be one of five Bryan Kohberger has filed since his arrival, including one where he described threats he had received from other inmates. Bryan Kohberger Claimed He Was Denied His Preferred Food Options ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA Amid the ongoing unsealing of documents in Bryan Kohberger's murder case, reports have emerged showing that he filed a complaint about prison food just two days after arriving at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution (IMSI). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I have on several occasions not received all items of food on my tray," Kohberger penned in the July 31 complaint, obtained by People Magazine. While the complaint did not specify which food item was missing, it is believed the issue was related to vegan options, as the convicted murderer is a strict vegetarian. As such, since the Idaho Department of Corrections does provide vegan alternatives, it was no surprise that Kohberger stressed in his complaint that he had the right to request a replacement. "The policy book confirms items missing, which are pointed out during service, will be replaced," Kohberger added. "I wish to, without exception, receive these replacements." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The convicted murderer then doubled down on his request, writing, "The nutritional standard is not being upheld unless I receive my full tray." Bryan Kohberger Also Filed A complaint About Facing Verbal Threats And Harassment ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA A day before filing the food complaint, Kohberger had also submitted another grievance regarding alleged threats he received from fellow inmates. The former PhD student claimed he was being subjected to "minute-by-minute verbal threats and harassment." Details of some of these threats emerged five days later when Kohberger filed an additional complaint that included a series of explicit remarks inmates allegedly made about him. The 30-year-old claimed that one inmate told him, "I'll b-tch f-ck you," while another allegedly threatened him with the words, "The only -ss we'll be eating is Kohberger's." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although Kohberger's claims were documented, the guard he said had witnessed the incidents denied knowing which inmates made the comments, which likely prevented any investigation from moving forward. Since then, Kohberger has filed three more complaints, bringing the total to five since he began serving his sentence. Bryan Kohberger Requested A Transfer To Another Cell Block ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA In one of his earlier complaints, Kohberger asked to be moved to another part of the IMSI facility, citing incidents of inmates flooding their cells with toilet water as one of the reasons he wanted out. The convicted murderer is currently housed in the J Block facility and requested to be transferred to the B Block, where he would still have the same visiting rights and no-contact restrictions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In response to his request, Kohberger was told that flooding is a "relatively rare occurrence" in his current block and that it is "generally a fairly calm and quieter tier." The prison official who relayed this information also urged him to "give it some time." Bryan Kohberger's Troubled WSU Stint Marked By Over A Dozen Student Complaints MEGA Outside of prison, a series of unsealed documents from Kohberger's case has shed light on his troubled time at Washington State University, per People Magazine. The institution was where Kohberger was pursuing a PhD in criminology, and within just a few months of his arrival, more than a dozen complaints were filed regarding his behavior. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first complaint reportedly came only days into his first semester, and within weeks, Kohberger had already gained a reputation for "being a d-ck." Many of the complaints came from women within the WSU community about his "outspoken discriminatory comments that were homophobic, ableist, xenophobic, and misogynistic in nature." The Idaho Killer Was Described As A 'Narcissist' By A Fellow Student MEGA One student bluntly described Kohberger as a "narcissist" who "never displayed empathy toward another person." The same student added that he wanted "to be seen as the strongest, smartest, most important person in the room." Eventually, Kohberger's behavior became such a concern that administrators were forced to organize discrimination training for first-year doctoral students, many of whom were his classmates. Dubai is still holding strong as the Gulf regions arbiter of style. After a decade on the international design calendar, the upcoming Dubai Design Week 2025 is expected to be the largest ever. Under the aegis of a Community theme, the 11th edition of the event will take place Nov. 4 to 9, with a global roster that will include Italian jeweler Buccellati and industrial designer Tom Dixon. It will be the first time the British designer and Buccellati have appeared at Dubai Design Week. Both will be featured within the weeks anchor event Downtown Design at the citys d3 Waterfront Terrace Nov. 5 to Nov. 9. Buccellati will showcase a pop-up collaboration with design studio David/Nicolas. Dixon will headline the Forum, a series of live talks. More from WWD Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fair will also feature experiential concepts and immersive installations, including the Solaire Lounge by Veuve Clicquot. Returning European exhibitors like Kartell and Poltrona Frau will be joined for the first time in Dubai by Frances Roche Bobois, Denmarks Frama, Italys Porada, and Desalto. Designer duo Draga & Aurel will present a solo exhibition for Collectional, and French designer Stephanie Coutas will showcase high-end interiors and collectible design pieces. In a showcase curated by Emirati designer Omar Al Gurg, Shanghai-based Stellar Works will display its collaboration with U.S. brand Calico Wallpaper. The delegation of UAE-based participants is also growing and will include brands like Bottega Living, Caspaiou, Clayark, Dixten Studio, Frontieres, Lal & Ghosh, Studio Obliq and Tanween by Tashkeel. Saudi collective Designed in Saudis debut will be a focus, as the country continues to invest in propelling local creativity through the nations Arts and Creative Industries at the Royal Commission for the ancient city of Alula. Another spotlight will be on India, another strong market for design brands amid ongoing economic challenges, with brands like Jaipur Rugs, Jagdish Sutar, Orvi and Hands Carpets, as well as Strata from Pakistan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As tariffs grip transatlantic relations, and U.S. and Chinese consumers grapple with an uncertain economy, the international design world is interested more than ever in expanding their reach in the Gulf region in terms of both retail and events. This year Downtown Design Dubai, the Middle Easts leading contemporary design fair since 2012, cut the ribbon on Downtown Design Riyadh, Saudi Arabias first design trade show. The four-day fair at the JAX District was held in May. The demand for more immediate interior design solutions is fueling Downtown Design Riyadh and the Design Doha biennial, which debuted in Qatar in 2024. In 2026, Riyadh will host the first Salone del Mobile.Milano in the region. The Saudi Arabian contract boom is spurring growth across the whole region, thanks to the proliferation of giga projects and development of vacation islands like Shura and Sindalah and an uptick in branded homes and upscale villas and apartments. Mette Degn-Christensen, founder of fair organizer Downtown Design, told WWD earlier this year that the whole region is in the throes a transformational chapter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were all witnessing the pace of development that the dynamic market of Saudi Arabia has experienced in recent years. Driven by some of the KSAs [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] most ambitious projects and growing real estate developments across retail, hospitality and luxury residential properties, there is strong demand particularly in the interior design industry and at the same time, there is a surge in great creative talent here, she said, adding that theres a new focus on modern aesthetics and materiality, innovation, quality and identity. Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. UTAH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) The Buckley Draw Fire has had a 7th drone intrusion since it ignited on Sunday. According to the U.S. Forest Service, this drone intrusion was the 7th in three days, raising extreme concern for crews working on the ground. Officials shared that they are working closely with law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to investigate this intrusion of the TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction). When individuals fly private drones in the area of a fire, firefighting crews are unable to conduct air attacks on fires. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Forest Service officials stated that yesterdays intrusion was especially dangerous because the illegal drone flew directly in the helicopters flight path. Our pilots are already risking their lives doing some of the most dangerous aviation work possible, without extra threats to their efforts, officials said in a press release. Fortunately, the pilots had paused to refuel and missed the drone. Crews say drones in the air have hinder fire crews efforts and cause delays, which increases the danger for firefighters on the mountain. We have stood aviation down 45 minutes or more per intrusion to ensure the illegal drones have left the airspace, they added. Drone detection device All three of the drone attacks yesterday were discovered through a new drone detection device that the team recently acquired. Law enforcement officers say they are currently seeking the offenders and asking anyone with tips to contact the Provo Police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The illegal aircrafts are dangerous to firefighters, and the Forest Service is urging people to stop flying them over crews working to save homes, forests, and trails. There is no photo worth someones life, they said. The fire has burnt 446 acres and is 21% contained. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. The seatbelt sign pings on, trays rattle, drinks slosh in their glasses. For many flyers, air turbulence can be an unnerving experience -- and in a world warming under the effects of climate change, it is only set to worsen, according to a growing body of scientific evidence. Here are the key things to know during another searing summer in 2025. - Why turbulence matters - Beyond making people uneasy, turbulence is also the leading cause of in-flight weather accidents, according to official data. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The numbers remain relatively small: there were 207 reported injuries on US commercial flights between 2009 and 2024. But high-profile incidents have thrust the issue into the spotlight. These include an Air Europa flight last year, in which 40 passengers were hurt, and a Singapore Airlines flight where one elderly passenger died and dozens were injured. "Typically injuries (are) to unbelted passengers or cabin crew rather than structural damage," John Abraham, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of St. Thomas told AFP. "Modern aircraft withstand turbulence, so the main risk is occupant injury, not loss of the plane." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, planes must be inspected after "severe" encounters with turbulence -- about 1.5 times the normal force of Earth's gravity -- which occur some 5,000 times a year over the US, said Robert Sharman, a senior scientist emeritus at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Turbulence also increases fuel consumption when pilots must leave optimal altitudes, alter routes or change speeds, Abraham added. - How climate change is making it worse - Mohamed Foudad, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading in the UK, explained there are three main types of turbulence: convective, mountain wave and clear-air turbulence (CAT). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Convective turbulence is linked to rising or sinking air currents from clouds or thunderstorms that can be detected visually or by onboard radar, while mountain wave turbulence occurs over mountain ranges. CAT, by contrast, is invisible -- and therefore the most dangerous. It generally arises from jet streams: fast-moving westerly winds in the upper atmosphere at the same altitude as commercial jets, about 1012 kilometers up. With climate change, the tropics are warming faster at cruising altitude than higher latitudes. That increases the temperature difference between the higher- and lower-latitudes, driving up jet stream velocity and wind shear -- volatile shifts in vertical air currents that trigger CAT. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Foudad and colleagues published a paper last year in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres analyzing data from 1980 to 2021. "We find a clear, positive trend -- an increase in turbulence frequency over many regions, including the North Atlantic, North America, East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa," he told AFP, with increases ranging from 60 to 155 percent. Further analysis attributed the rising turbulence in certain regions to increased greenhouse gas emissions. - What happens next? - A 2023 paper led by Isabel Smith at the University of Reading found that for every degree Celsius of near-surface warming, winters would see an increase of about nine percent in moderate CAT in the North Atlantic, and summers a rise of 14 percent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Winter has historically been the roughest season for turbulence, but warming is now amplifying CAT in summer and autumn, closing the gap. Jet stream disruption is not the only concern: climate change is also fueling stronger storms. "Climate change may also increase the frequency and severity of thunderstorms under future scenarios, and turbulence encounters near thunderstorms are a major component of turbulence accidents," Sharman told AFP. In terms of mitigation strategies, Foudad is working on two studies: optimizing flight routes to avoid turbulence hotspots and improving forecasting accuracy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some airlines are moving towards strategies involving passengers wearing seatbelts more often, such as ending cabin service earlier. Promising technologies are also being tested, says Sharman, including onboard LIDAR, which beams lasers into the atmosphere to detect subtle shifts in air density and wind speed. Ultimately, cutting greenhouse gas emissions will be essential, Foudad added. Aviation is responsible for about 3.5 percent of human-caused warming. Airlines are exploring cleaner fuels to help reduce the industry's footprint, though progress has been "disappointingly slow," according to the International Air Transport Association. ia/dl/abs (WGHP) When you go through something like Hurricane Helene, you never forget it and you probably imagine that youll never have to go through that, 100-year event, again. And then, every time you get a heavy rain, again, it all floods back. I hate to admit it but I want to be honest with you, says Carter Francois. Every time that it rains like this, theres a place in my head that goes back to Hurricane Helene. In late September, the Alpine Inn that Carter owned with his business partner, Steve Carlsen, washed down the side of a mountain in McDowell County under the pressure of all the rain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My father taught me a lot about business, but he didnt teach me when Mother Nature knocks you off the map, what do you do then? says Carter. And he told me that hes not sure by the way, I read all the textbooks and I didnt find it in the chapter. Carter and Steve have rebuilt half of the inn and hoped people would begin returning. Yeah, thats what were hoping, thats really what were hoping, says Carter. Get the Blue Ridge back open and get the tourism back going. But youre going to have to have something to let you know that we are open, that the roads are passable, that its safe up here. During one recent rainstorm, a car did come park in their lot. A woman who identified herself only as Tracey, got out, hoping to buy a drink. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You guys need local support, so come out and support the local businesses, which Im trying to do, Tracey said as Carter greeted her at her car with an umbrella. Tracey lives in Florida now and, truth be told, she was back in the area for more than just supporting businesses like Carters. My ancestors actually settled the area in Spruce Pine, so my 7th great-grandfather is buried up there and I really just wanted to get close to that and explore the area a little, says Tracey, pulling up a photo of that grandfathers grave. Even a quick visit like this is welcomed by Carter and Steve. I dont know how I can express this, Im so appreciative, like every dollar, every coin, Im so thankful, says Carter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tracey smiled and couldnt resist. Can I hug you? Tracey says and they do. It may not pay the bills, but its worth a fortune. See more on this story in this Mountain of Trouble edition of The Buckley Report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX8 WGHP. TRIPOLI, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Libya's security forces foiled an attempt to attack the headquarters of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya with a rocket-propelled grenade, the Libyan Interior Ministry said Thursday. The Libyan forces intercepted an "SPG" rocket fired at the UN compound in Tripoli, which fell on a residential house in the Janzour municipality, causing no casualties or significant material damage, said a statement published on the ministry's website. A Toyota car was seized containing two additional rockets and the launcher used in the attack, said the statement, adding that authorities have launched an investigation to identify those involved and bring them to justice. The ministry stressed its commitment to safeguarding diplomatic and international missions in Libya, pledging that the security services would not tolerate any outlaws and would continue to preserve stability and prevent security breaches. The incident came just hours after UN Special Representative to Libya Hanna Serwaa Tetteh presented a new roadmap to the UN Security Council aimed at ending the current political deadlock in the country. A local EMS director was recognized as a local hero at a state-wide conference on Thursday. Jimmy Lentz, the EMS director for Cabarrus County, was recognized as a local hero at the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners 118th annual conference in Pitt County on Thursday. Lentz was honored during the First Night Celebration of the three-day conference, where he was recognized alongside other community leaders from across North Carolina as part of the NCACCs Heroic Hands Initiative. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You are the model of a loyal public servant, and your community is truly fortunate to benefit from your service, commitment, and care, said Tare Davis, NCACC President and Warren County Commissioner, in a letter recognizing Lentzs contributions. READ: Charlottes appeal drives population growth, with 157 new residents daily The Heroic Hands Initiative was established earlier this year to highlight individuals who contribute to their communities through essential but often overlooked public service roles. Lentz has dedicated 35 years to serving Cabarrus County in various capacities within EMS, beginning as a part-time EMT in 1989. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over the years, he has held positions such as crew chief, field training officer, relief supervisor, tactical medic, SWAT medic, and ATV medic. In 2013, Lentz was named EMS assistant director and was promoted to director in 2018. As part of his recognition, Lentz will be featured in a commemorative book created by the NCACC, showcasing public service heroes from North Carolina. WATCH: Charlottes appeal drives population growth, with 157 new residents daily The Cabinet of Ministers has submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) that would introduce criminal liability in Ukraine for illegally crossing the border during martial law. The proposed penalty ranges from a fine of UAH 119,000 (about US$2,800) to three years imprisonment. Source: Verkhovna Rada website Quote from bill No. 13673: "Article 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal transportation of persons across the state border) shall be supplemented with a qualifying feature making this a criminal offence under martial law Criminal liability shall be established for illegally crossing the state border during martial law or a state of emergency, either outside official checkpoints or at checkpoints but without proper documents or using forged documents." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: The penalties proposed for the offence are a fine ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 times the non-taxable minimum citizens income (i.e. UAH 119,000 to 170,000 (US$2,800-4,100)) or up to three years imprisonment. The Cabinet of Ministers also proposes that people who left Ukraine illegally but returned within three months and turned themselves in to law enforcement should be exempt from criminal liability, providing they did so before being served with a notice of suspicion. An explanatory note attached to the bill says: "Currently, people liable for military service (conscripts, reservists) who illegally cross the state border of Ukraine may only be subject to administrative liability under Article 204-1 of the Code of Administrative Offences, but this does not have a sufficient punitive or preventive effect, as the number of such crossings continues to rise." The Cabinet of Ministers also maintains that the draft law contains no provisions that violate the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, nor does it infringe on gender equality or create grounds for discrimination. The government further asserts that the bill poses no risk of corruption offences being committed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The government hopes that the new law "will contribute to ensuring the proper legal regulation of liability for crossing Ukraines state border with the aim of evading military service during mobilisation". Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Californias Democratic-controlled Legislature formally approved a plan Thursday to redraw the states congressional lines , teeing up a special election this fall that will let Californians weigh in on mid-decade redistricting in response to a plan pushed by Texas Republicans. Both the state Assembly and Senate approved three pieces of the Election Rigging Response Act legislative package, which include a proposed constitutional amendment and two separate bills that lay out the logistics for the special election and map proposal. Those bills now head to Gov. Gavin Newsoms (D) desk for approval, and he was set to sign them Thursday afternoon. Open your eyes to what is going on in the United States of America in 2025, Newsom said at a press conference after the state legislature passed the package. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were responding to what occurred in Texas. Were neutralizing what occurred and were giving the American people a fair chance. Because when all things are equal, and were all playing by the same set of rules, theres no question the Republican Party will be the minority party in the House of Representatives next year. He blasted President Trump for his claim that the GOP is entitled to five more House seats in Texas. Cant win by playing by traditional sets of rules. He plays by no rules, Newsom said of the president. And were standing up to that. Were responding to that. They fired the first shot, Texas. The proposal is set to appear on the ballot as Proposition 50. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats in the Golden State have been racing against the clock to get the package through by Friday in order to set up a Nov. 4 special election. They voted largely on party lines to get the material through. Unlike in Texas, where the GOP-controlled Legislature and the governors approval will be enough to make the Lone Star State maps official, California ultimately has to put the question before voters. Californians will be asked to greenlight the plan that could give Democrats five additional House seats, effectively canceling out the five would-be Republican gains in Texas, by going around the states independent redistricting commission until the end of the decade. Democratic National Committe (DNC) Chair Ken Martin urged that every Californian should vote for Democrats measure to level the playing field. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This isnt just about California. The basic premise of Americans instead of Donald Trump choosing their elected officials is at stake, Martin said in a statement. Susan DelBene, chair of the Democrats House campaign arm, said Californias proposal stands in stark contrast to the Republicans shameless scheme in Texas. I applaud Governor Newsom and California lawmakers for taking responsible, responsive, and targeted actions to fight back against Republicans corrupt power grab. This proposal would give Californians a choice to fight back and bring much needed accountability and oversight to the Trump Administration, Newsom said in a statement this week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Newsom has pitched the plan as a way to fight fire with fire after President Trump pushed Texas to find five new GOP seats. Hes also underscored that the plan would be temporary, reverting back to the independent commissions regular post-census redistricting schedule after the 2030 cycle. Republicans, on the other hand, argue that the plan goes against the will of the voters, who approved the commission in 2008 and 2010. During hours of proceedings on Thursday, they also raised questions about who drew the maps and concerns about the cost of a special election. In a post on X, California Assembly Republicans argued that Democrats bent the knee to the governor and undermined the will of the people. California GOP legislators earlier this week filed suit with a petition asking the state Supreme Court to block action on the legislation, arguing that the sprint to vote on the legislation package violated the state constitution. The state court rejected that petition Wednesday, allowing the efforts to move forward in the Legislature. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Californias plan comes after talk of new maps in Texas kicked off a national redistricting tit for tat in the run-up to next years high-stakes midterms. Republicans hold a slim 219-212 majority in the House, and control of Congress could come down to just a few seats. The GOP controls just nine of Californias 52 House slots. The Republican incumbents affected by the new map are Reps. Kevin Kiley, Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert and David Valadao. Redistricting has also been floated in the red states of Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri and in Democratic strongholds such as Maryland and Illinois. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the Texas House advanced its redistricting plan Wednesday. Both chambers have to reconcile the legislation before it kicks over to Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for approval. Its on, Texas, Newsom said Wednesday night on social platform X. Democrats in California had notably planned to include trigger language in the constitutional amendment, which would allow for the plan to move forward only if GOP-friendly redistricting got through in red states, including Texas. On Thursday, they opted to take that direct language out of the amendment text in the wake of Texas actions. Instead, theyre aiming to put forward a clarification in a separate bill that has yet to be voted on, in case something miraculous happens in Texas, and everyone comes to their senses, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D) said on the floor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Updated: 7:20 p.m. ET Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) With a blazing heat wave expected to sweep through much of California starting this weekend, the state and Kern County are taking preemptive measures to address concerns of heightened wildfire risks. This weekends heat wave is expected to bring near-record temperatures to Southern California, as well as here in Kern County. So what youll see throughout the state and here in Kern County, we have a lot of extra resources that are being assembled and pre-positioned so that if there were to be an emergency, theres a larger amount of resources and staff available quickly to start fighting that fire, said Kern County Fire Capt. Andrew Freeborn. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Governor Gavin Newsom has pre-deployed firefighting resources to San Diego, Los Angeles and Kern counties, among others. Surviving the summer: Everything to know about Kern County cooling centers this year The heat wave is expected to last into Saturday. Freeborn said KCFD is ready to take on the heat and its potential side effects, with an extra 100 firefighters on duty which is above and beyond the departments normal staffing. From the fire department level, we want everyone to know were taking preparation very serious, Freeborn said. We have a lot of extra fire crews, fire engines, fire dozers, water tenders, a lot of extra resources were moving in and around Kern County to make sure that if there is a fire that occurs, were ready for it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire department isnt alone in feeling the heat. Businesses, residents and pets should also be accommodated for this extreme weather. Robbie Miller runs a mobile spay and neuter clinic for pets in Bakersfield. According to Miller, the heat can be so overbearing it shuts his operation down. If it gets too hot, well certainly cancel, said Miller. The pets always come first. If youre a civilian or resident of Kern County, you probably need to keep your dogs inside right now. Never miss a story: Make KGET.com your homepage Miller advised his clients to not only protect their pets, but also remember to protect themselves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You make sure your air conditioning works. Walking in the heat of the day is probably not a good idea, I know most people know this but I think people still need the reminder, Miller said. PG&E told residents to pre-cool their homes with air conditioning during the early morning hours, cover or shade their windows and use fans in tandem with air conditioning. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News. California lawmakers approved Democratic-led redistricting maps for voters to decide in a special election, a day after Texas House Republicans passed new redistricting plans. The California Legislature on Aug. 21 approved Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposal on a ballot measure to suspend the state's current congressional districts, drawn by an independent commission, and replace them with maps that could give Democrats five U.S. House seats. The redistricting effort in California is in response to Texas, where Republican lawmakers are pushing new redistricting maps at President Donald Trump's request. The Texas Senate could pass its new redistricting plans on Aug. 21, which Republicans hope will give the state GOP an additional five U.S. House seats. Police recovered $380,000 worth of stolen property and arrested eight people believed to be associated with an organized retail crime ring in Santa Clara County, Calif., on Aug. 12, the Santa Clara County Sheriffs office said this week. The thieves allegedly stole the recovered merchandise from various T.J. Maxx stores in the Bay Area. More from Sourcing Journal Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials said that in May, T.J. Maxx employees notified the sheriffs office of targeted thefts on the companys stores throughout the region. They alleged that, on some days, thieves entered and stole merchandise multiple times in one day. The sheriffs office said it has reason to believe the stolen merchandise was then sold at flea markets in San Jose, Calif. Police said the organized crime ring has been linked to at least 80 thefts in the area. The sheriffs office worked in tandem with the Gilroy Police Department and the Mountain View Police Department to execute several search warrants issued by the Santa Clara County District Attorneys Office. The departments searched four homes and one storage unit. Officials said they seized more than $225,000 worth of stolen merchandise from a home on Dobern Avenue in San Jose and arrested three suspects: 20-year-old Christian Hernandez Guzman; 23-year-old Jazmine Sanchez Valencia and 44-year-old Esmeralda Hernandez Guzman. The sheriffs office noted that the suspects are charged with organized retail theft, conspiracy, grand theft and receipt of stolen property. Police searched a house on Giannotta Way in San Jose, about two miles from the Dobern Avenue home, and found more than $100,000 in stolen goods there. Officers arrested Maria Sanchez, 66, during the raid. She faces the same charges as the Hernandez Guzmans and Sanchez Valencia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sheriff Robert Jonsen said the collaboration between entities allowed the county to effectively investigate the organized crime ring. This case is a powerful example of interagency collaboration, strategic investigation and relentless pursuit of justice, Jonsen said in a statement. The successful take down of this organized retail theft crew reflects the dedication, professionalism and teamwork of everyone involved. In addition to the arrests police made at the homes, the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office said police apprehended and arrested four others: 32-year-old Jose Guzman; 19-year-old Derek Montes Rios; 36-year-old Rigoberto Hernandez Guzman, 36 and 29-year-old Stephanie Juarez Polvos. They each face the same charges as their alleged crime ring members. The Santa Clara County Sheriffs office still seeks Juan Molas, 19-year-old Kevin Calderon, 26-year old Jacobo Giron and five unidentified suspects. The parents of a Southern California baby, reported missing by his mother, have been arrested and accused of murder, authorities said Friday. San Bernardino County sheriff's homicide detectives arrested Jake Haro, 32, and Rebecca Haro, 41, at their home in Cabazon and booked them on suspicion of murder, according to the department. Authorities believe their 7-month-old son, Emmanuel Haro, is dead, but the search for his remains is ongoing, the department said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While these arrests mark a significant development, our focus remains on finding Emmanuel, the sheriff's department said. Deputies began looking for Emmanuel on Aug. 14 after his mother reported that he was kidnapped outside Big 5 Sporting Goods in Yucaipa, the department said. Yucaipa is about 70 miles east of downtown Los Angeles Missing 7-month-old infant Emmanuel Haro. (San Bernardino County Sheriff) Rebecca Haro was later "confronted with inconsistencies in her initial statement and declined to continue with the interview," deputies said in a Saturday statement. She had originally told detectives that she was in her vehicle, changing Emmanuels diaper, when a man she didn't know knocked her unconscious, officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When she regained consciousness, the baby was gone, she allegedly told investigators. The sheriff's department said Friday that the evidence led investigators to determine no kidnapping occurred in Yucaipa. I trust our justice system will hold the parents accountable, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement. Jake and Rebecca Haro were booked into a Riverside County jail and were being held without bail, the department said. Jake Haro's attorney could not be immediately reached for comment Friday. It is not immediately clear if Rebecca Haro had been assigned a lawyer or hired one to speak on her behalf. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities are not searching for any other suspects. The Uvalde Foundation For Kids had said it would conduct an independent search for the boy but canceled that and its $5,000 reward earlier this week. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com A resident of South Lake Tahoe has tested positive for the plague, El Dorado County health officials confirmed Tuesday, marking the first human case in the county since 2020. The El Dorado County Environmental Management Division and Public Health Division stated that the patient is under the care of a medical professional while recovering at home. The case remains under investigation. It is believed that the person became ill after being bitten by a flea while camping in the South Lake Tahoe area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Heres what you need to know about the deadly disease. What to Know About Plague Plague is often remembered as the Black Death, a pandemic that devastated Europe during the Middle Ages. But the disease has never disappeared. The bacterium Yersinia pestis continues to circulate among rodents and their fleas, creating a reservoir that makes eradication nearly impossible. Health experts say the disease first appeared in the United States around 1900, arriving on rat-infested ships that docked in coastal cities. The last urban plague epidemic in the United States occurred in Los Angeles from 1924 through 1925, according to the CDC. Today, cases are rare and tend to occur in rural areas of the western United States, as well as in certain regions of Africa and Asia. How Infection Spreads Humans can contract plague after being bitten by fleas that have fed on infected animals, by handling the tissue or body fluids of a plague-infected animal, or by infectious plague pneumonia droplets. FILE A sign warning of bubonic plague is displayed at a parking lot near the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo., Aug. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) There are three forms of plague: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bubonic plague is the most common, causing swollen lymph nodes near the site of infection. Septicemic plague occurs when bacteria enter the bloodstream. Pneumonic plague infects the lungs and can spread through droplets expelled by coughing or sneezing. Person-to-person transmission has not been documented in the U.S. for more than 100 years, except in rare cases involving pneumonic plague from sick pets. Symptoms and Treatment Symptoms typically appear within two weeks of exposure and include fever, nausea, weakness, and swollen lymph nodes. Doctors confirm infection through blood tests or samples taken from lymph tissue. The CDC advises physicians to initiate antibiotic treatment immediately if plague is suspected, even before test results are returned. Without treatment, the disease can quickly become fatal. How Common Is It? Plague remains rare in the U.S., with an average of seven cases annually, mostly in Western states such as Arizona, California and New Mexico, according to the CDC. How to Stay Safe Health officials urge residents and visitors to take precautions when camping or hiking in areas with wild rodents: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Do not touch or feed rodents. Keep pets leashed and away from burrows. Use flea-control products on animals. Wear long pants tucked into boots and apply insect repellents containing DEET to socks and clothing. These steps can lower the risk of flea bites and reduce the chance of exposure for both people and pets. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. California's Democratic-controlled Legislature passed bills Thursday setting up a high-profile special election this fall, when voters will decide whether to approve the party's plan to gerrymander California's congressional map. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed the relevant legislation shortly after it passed, has championed the plan as a political counterweight to Texas' recent move to create more Republican seats there as both parties get ready for a 2026 election in which control of Congress will be up for grabs. Both the state Assembly and the state Senate passed the redistricting legislation Thursday, each with the two-thirds vote needed to enact "urgent" measures in the state. Now it's up to the voters to decide whether to temporarily sidestep the state's independent redistricting commission, which voters put in place to handle the issue once every decade. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new Democratic-drawn maps, proposed in the Legislature less than one week ago, serve a transparent political purpose: countering Texas Republicans' new map, which could net the party five more congressional seats amid the fierce battle for control of the House in next year's midterm elections. California Democrats have criticized Republicans, particularly President Donald Trump, who told CNBC amid Texas' push to redraw its maps that his party was "entitled to five more seats" from Texas. If voters approve their plan, California's new map could serve as a counterweight to Texas' changes, as analysis from the University of Virginia Center for Politics shows "the proposed California map could allow Democrats to win up to five more seats in 2026," potentially endangering GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert and David Valadao. Newsom and Democratic allies have been trumpeting a need to redraw the lines to cancel out the move by Texas, arguing Republicans there are trying to insulate Trump from the political repercussions of his policies. Also Thursday, a political committee to support the Newsom-backed ballot measure disclosed $2 million in donations from the governor's political committee, as well as $3 million from national Democrats' super PAC focused on House races. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, second from left, and fellow Assembly members listen to speakers at a meeting of the California State Assembly in Sacramento on Thursday. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) "The crisis started in a Republican state. Texas lit a match, and California is simply leveling the playing field instead of waiting until [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott and Trump burn our own house down," Sade Elhawary, a Democratic Assembly member from Los Angeles, said during Thursday's debate before she criticized her Republican colleagues for supporting "Trump-mandering and Trump-pandering." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Republicans have been strident in their pushback, too. James Gallagher, the Republican leader in the Assembly, said Thursday during the debate that while Democrats may have the power to move forward with their plan, they'll be pouring fuel on the nation's political fires if they do. "You move forward fighting fire with fire, what happens? You burn it all down," he said. "The people's right to representation is exactly what will be sacrificed when we continue down this road when, after you do it, Missouri does it or Indiana does it. Colorado is talking about doing it. At the end of that, the parties will determine who represents, and the people will be powerless to elect their own representatives," Gallagher continued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Evoking the Bible, he went on to call on Republicans and Democrats to "turn the other cheek" and disarm in California and called on Texas Republicans to follow suit. "Our democracy will persist as long as we fight back. And if there's one weakness that we have right now in our republic, it's that legislators are not standing up to executives of their own party," he said. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com California voters arent confident the states high-speed rail project will ever be finished, but theyre not ready to give up on it either. Nearly two-thirds 62 percent of voters say that California should continue bankrolling the planned rail line from the Bay Area to Los Angeles after the Trump administration clawed back $4 billion in federal grants last month, according to an exclusive POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll . The poll revealed a clear partisan divide among the more than 1,400 registered voters surveyed, as just 21 percent of Democrats said it's time to pull the plug, compared to 45 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans. But that doesnt mean liberal Californians believe its any more likely that theyll be able to ride from Southern California to San Francisco in their lifetime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just 27 percent of Democrats said theres a high likelihood the project will be completed, roughly matching the 23 percent of their conservative counterparts who believe California officials can finish the first high-speed rail line in North America. That seemingly counterintuitive outcome offers a lesson for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the candidates vying to replace him whove doubled down on their support: Its time to put up or shut up. There definitely is this sense that the state can't do big things, said Andrew Acosta, a veteran California Democratic campaign consultant. Californians would like to see it happen, but show me the last project that came in on time or under budget. That sentiment is reflected in the poll, as 38 percent of Democrats said their support is contingent on the project keeping to its current budget. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But, in the short term, President Donald Trump's incessant hammering of a project beset with construction delays and cost overruns could be doing California officials a favor. His Federal Railroad Administration yanked $4 billion in Obama- and Biden-era grants last month, following a barrage of attacks from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, congressional and state Republicans. This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, the day the federal funding was revoked. Not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again. Jack Citrin, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll, said the partisan divide over whether California should continue the project reflects a broader trend on issues that have federal connections, like electric vehicle policies . Any of these questions that smell of Trump, the Democrats are going to be pushed in the opposite direction, Citrin said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Newsom and high-speed rail backers, including powerful labor unions, have countered the Republican crackdown with a proposal to guarantee $1 billion in funding annually through the states cap-and-trade program. Democratic voters continued support for state funding could bolster their argument as negotiations over how to divvy up revenue generated by cap-and-trade auctions heat up with less than a month before the end of the legislative session. Those are signs that even without federal help, high-speed rail isnt going anywhere in the short term. Democratic lawmakers will likely face another reckoning sooner rather than later over a project that was originally slated for completion by 2020, and is now expected to open its initial line connecting Bakersfield to Merced in 2033, with no projected date for final completion. The rail lines price tag is now estimated to cost up to $128 billion, nearly four times its original $33 billion projection. But Citrin said the results show that Democrats remain hopeful about high-speed rail, even if they have doubts. I think a lot of this support shows that hope springs eternal, he said. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICOs California Climate newsletter. A member of the 26th batch of the Chinese medical team in Sierra Leone performs fundus examinations for a local orphan at the Saint George Foundation Children's Welfare Institute in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on June 16, 2025. (The 26th batch of the Chinese medical team to Sierra Leone/Handout via Xinhua) FREETOWN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- "The child arrived in critical condition, exhibiting intense sensitivity to light and sound, along with frequent convulsions," recalled Huang Yunjun, a pediatric specialist with the 26th batch of the Chinese medical team in Sierra Leone. Huang shared a poignant story about a 6-year-old girl admitted to the hospital with tetanus during an interview with Xinhua on Thursday. "We diagnosed her immediately, but the biggest challenge was securing the scarce tetanus antitoxin," he recounted. Through meticulous coordination, the medical team managed to procure the medication just in time. After undergoing active treatment and receiving attentive care, the child has shown marked improvement. However, the shortage of medicines was not the only challenge the medical team faced. Liu Longfei, chief of the medical team, noted the limitations posed by the local healthcare environment after landing in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, in early March, including an unstable water and power supply, as well as cultural and language barriers. Despite these obstacles, Chinese doctors successfully addressed internal medicine cases, performed general surgeries, and provided specialized care in obstetrics and pediatrics. The medical team has completed more than 10,000 medical treatments since arrival, including nearly 100 highly challenging surgical operations and over 100 emergency rescues. The types of surgeries performed span various fields, including general surgery, orthopedics, and obstetrics and gynecology. Their broad expertise allows them to meet diverse medical challenges. "We will continue to improve specialized medical care and emergency treatment capabilities," said Liu. "The Chinese people will always stand with the Sierra Leonean people on their journey to health." Echoing these sentiments, Fanta Jalloh, mother of the 6-year-old patient, voiced her gratitude. "I am so thankful to the Chinese doctors for restoring my daughter's life," she said, expressing her belief that the relationship between the two countries will continue to flourish. Training and knowledge transfer are also foundational aspects for the medical team. Describing their educational efforts, Liu said, "It's better to teach people to fish than to give them fish." Through daily mentorship, lectures, and skill-training workshops, the team ensures that vital knowledge remains within the local healthcare system. According to Liu, the medical team also organizes free clinics and health campaigns in communities and welfare centers, delivering services and medicines to those most in need, which have received overwhelmingly positive responses. Local doctors and nurses have lauded the high-level collaboration with the Chinese medical professionals. Many describe it as not only educational but also pivotal in strengthening the overall health sector in the West African country. "The partnership we have established is transformative," Abdul Bah, chief of surgery of Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital, commented. "It has opened up new avenues for learning and improved healthcare delivery." Members of the 26th batch of the Chinese medical team in Sierra Leone perform a surgery for a local patient in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on June 12, 2025. (The 26th batch of the Chinese medical team to Sierra Leone/Handout via Xinhua) Members of the 26th batch of the Chinese medical team in Sierra Leone provide medical consultations for a child with tetanus in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Aug. 21, 2025. (The 26th batch of the Chinese medical team to Sierra Leone/Handout via Xinhua) A member of the 26th batch of the Chinese medical team in Sierra Leone provides medical consultations for a child with tetanus in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Aug. 21, 2025. (The 26th batch of the Chinese medical team to Sierra Leone/Handout via Xinhua) A member of the 26th batch of the Chinese medical team in Sierra Leone teaches a training course on traditional Chinese medicine techniques in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on June 26, 2025. (The 26th batch of the Chinese medical team to Sierra Leone/Handout via Xinhua) CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (WNCT) The swimming area at MCAS New River Marina has been temporarily closed due to alligator activity. The designated swimming area at New River Marina is temporarily closed effective immediately due to alligator activity in the area. Swimming and water activities are prohibited until further notice. MCCS Lejeune-New River Key Safety Reminders: When alligators are present in New River waters: Do NOT feed, harass, or harm alligators it is illegal in North Carolina Do NOT dispose of fish scraps or bait in the water Keep pets on a leash near water areas Report any alligator feeding to Conservation Law Enforcement: 910-451-5226 or CLJN_GWSTAFF@USMC.MIL Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The marina remains open for boating activities, and updates will be provided as the situation is monitored. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WNCT. Following emotional pleas from parents of the victims of the flooding at Camp Mystic, the Texas Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 1 on Aug. 21. The House had voted earlier the same day on five related measures, including House Bill 1, its own youth camp safety legislation. Lawmakers must now reconcile the two versions before the legislation can be sent to Gov. Greg Abbott. Senate Bill 1, renamed Heavens 27 Camp Safety Act in honor of the victims, is the first comprehensive youth safety bill created to enhance disaster procedures. The bill comes after the July 4 flood took the lives of at least 137 people, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. You have a flash flood warning or a flood warning, you will be required to remove these kids from those cabins, said state Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding, per The Texas Tribune. Had the requirements of SB 1 been in place on the night of July 4, I have no doubt that some lives, if not all lives, would have been saved, Perry said. More than a dozen family members of the girls who died at the camp spoke during the heartfelt hearing. The families spoke of having to bury their young children, most of whom were just in the first or second grade. The speakers detailed how their children and their counselors adhered to Camp Mystics emergency plan, which called on kids in cabins closest to the river to remain in place during a flood. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Joy and growth cannot exist without safety, Cici Williams Steward told committee members. Stewards daughter Cile is the only child whose body has not been found. [M]y daughter was stolen from me, not because of an unavoidable act of nature, but because of preventable failures on just her fifth day of camp, said an emotional Steward. In heart-wrenching detail, Steward related how she had to explain to her younger daughter that Cile was dead but her body has not been recovered, so that she would not first learn about it from classmates when she starts kindergarten. She needed to hear the unbearable truth from us that Ciles body has not been found. The Missouri River Courthouse in Great Falls. (Photo by U.S. District Court of Montana) A campaign treasurer and compliance officer who worked for Democratic candidates and progressive-aligned political committees pled guilty to three counts of wire fraud in a scheme that embezzled more than a quarter of a million dollars from victims. The Montana U.S. Attorneys office charged Abbey Lee Cook, of Helena, with three counts of wire fraud for allegedly obtaining money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises, and transferred them into accounts controlled by herself and through her business Abbey Lee Cook and Associates, LLC between September 2021 and November 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Each count of wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. However, according to a plea agreement Cook reached with the U.S. Attorneys office, the federal government will recommend a low-end guideline sentence and will not recommend jail time. Cook also agreed to pay $253,000 in restitution to the victims. Calls and messages to Cook and her legal representatives were not returned by publication time. Cook worked as treasurer for numerous Democratic campaigns during the 2024 election cycle, and also provided contract financial and compliance services for candidates and political committees. In some of her roles, she had access and control of bank accounts for the various individuals and entities she worked for. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to court filings, Cook defrauded six unnamed victims out of a total $253,059. Information Cook embezzled funds from various individuals and entities that employed her by fraudulently transferring money for personal expenses, in whole and in part, none of which were authorized. Moreover, the total amount of money that Cook transferred from these candidates and entities was not accurately contained on her filings with COPP despite the requirement to do so. While the victims in the federal case are anonymous, financial filings with the Commissioner of Political Practice show Cook is recorded as having worked for the following candidates and committees in recent years: Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula; Sen. Cora Neumann, D-Bozeman; Jeremiah Lynch, who ran for the Montana State Supreme Court; Ben Alke, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General; Montana Senior Vote Action Fund; Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana; Montana Conservation Voters Action Fund; Montanans for Election Reform Action Fund; Wild Montana Action Fund, the Montana Democratic Party and Carols List. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zephyr and Neumann confirmed on Thursday they will be filing formal complaints with COPP regarding Cooks actions while working as their campaign treasurer. With the federal case still pending, I dont want to comment at this time, Neumann said via text message on Thursday. Based on Abbeys conduct while she was treasurer for my campaign, I will be filing a formal complaint with COPP. What I can share beyond that is I was the one who raised the red flag. In Neumanns complaint, filed with COPP on Friday, she indicated that Cook had repeatedly failed to file form and make payments from the canpaign on time, and had transferred an unauthorized $1,600 to an account she controlled. During Zephyrs first campaign for the Legislature in 2022, she served as her own treasurer, but brought on Cook during the most recent election cycle. She told the Daily Montanan that Cook was recommended by other members of the party. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During 2024, Neumann had noted discrepancies in financial filings and alerted Zephyr, who was also working with Cook. What I would say is now that the federal indictment is out, I will be making a formal complaint against Ms. Cook to the COPP, Zephyr told the Daily Montanan. While I do not know every victim of Ms. Cook, I know that there were several. I knew that we were working with FBI to make sure they had everything they needed. Zephyr told the Daily Montanan she believes her campaign is one of the victims listed in the federal documents. The listed victims range from having $1,600 to $88,209 defrauded by Cooks scheme, though the actual amount Cook personally received is unknown. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. attorneys filing lists the three counts of wire fraud specifically applied to two victims accounts a $3,000 and $15,000 transfer from one, and a $3,000 transfer from another. COPP Commissioner Chris Gallus told the Daily Montanan that as of Friday, one complaint from Neumann been filed against Cook this week. But he had experience meeting with Cook previously regarding communication issues with her compliance work and filing reports with the Commission. Once complaints are filed, Gallus said the commission will investigate them and if found sufficient, can refer violations to the county attorney or prosecute them as commissioner. Violations of COPP reporting provision can lead to a fine of $500 or three times the amount of unlawful action, according to Montana Code. Well always apply facts to the law and take the approach thats fair and vindicates the citizens of Montana and protects their interests, Gallus said. If a complaint reveals (contributions) were not used for the purposes intended, were going to pursue them vigorously and get to the bottom of that. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of Cooks confirmed victims was the Montana Senior Vote Action Fund, which is overseen by the advocacy group Big Sky 55+, though the two groups have separate boards. On August 14th of last year, Abbey Lee Cook took $18,000 from the Montana Senior Vote Action fund account without permission. Staff demanded it back as soon as it was discovered, a few days later. When it was clear it was not going to be returned, we terminated her contract and sent a demand letter to return it, which she never responded to, Trent Bolger, Executive Director of Big Sky 55+ said in a statement. There is a legal process that will play out in the future, and we hope that justice will be done. Another group that had issues with Cook was Montana Conservation Voters, which contracted with Cook to do financial compliance work for their Montana Outdoor Values Action Fund. According to interim Executive Director Renee Kelley, staff learned of alleged misfilings Cook had made to the Federal Election Commission in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was no direct theft by Abbey Cook from what we discovered, Kelley told the Daily Montanan. What we did find is she lied to us about her work on our compliance reporting. Because of that, we immediately fired her. FEC filings show that Cook filed a quarterly report late, and then lied to committee staff claiming the website was experiencing technical issues. The political action committee was fined and paid a $12,372 penalty for the late filing. This has been a gross betrayal of the hard work and mission-driven principles of our organization. We believe the actions of Abbey Lee Cook & Associates, LLC, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. For our part, MCV immediately terminated our relationship with her when issues first came to light, and we have cooperated at every step with the relevant agencies to help bring her to justice, Kelley said in a statement. Phone calls and emails to additional candidates and committee that worked with Cook, including Jeremiah Lynch and Ben Alke, were not returned by publication. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A spokesperson for the Montana Democratic Party said there were no irregularities in the contracted work done for the party in 2023 and MDP was not involved in the FBIs investigation. Wild Montana Action Funds executive director told the Daily Montanan that Cook briefly did contract work for their political committee in 2022, and there were no issues with her work then. Cooks arraignment and change of plea hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9 in the federal courthouse in Great Falls. Cook worked as a legislative aide in Montana during the 2015 session, according to her LinkedIn page, and with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition for several months in 2015 and 2016. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement From 2017 through 2020, she worked for the campaign of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Max Rose in New Yorks 11th District. In 2023 she moved to Helena and, with her husband, reopened The Windsor Ballroom, an event space on Last Chance Gulch, according to an Independent Record article. The Windsor was used by many political entities, including the Montana Democrats, for hosting events and fundraisers. This article has been updated to reflect that a complaint against Cook has been officially filed with COPP by Neumann. Plea Agreement Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Canada is dropping many of its 25% tariffs on goods made in the United States, with the change set to take effect on Sept 1, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday. Tariffs on vehicles, steel and aluminum will remain in place, Carney said during a news conference. President Donald Trump in July initially imposed a 35% tariff on Canadian goods. LIVE: Update on Canada-U.S. trade EN DIRECT : Mise a jour sur le commerce Canada-Etats-Unis https://t.co/gAgEzWJCss Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) August 22, 2025 Tariffs on vehicles, steel and aluminum will remain in place, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said during a news conference Friday. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI The two countries have attempted to negotiate a deal, but so far have failed to reach an agreement before a U.S.-imposed deadline of Aug. 1. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A White House official told NBC News Carney's announcement was "well overdue." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (L) said Friday he still hopes to reach some kind of agreement on tariffs with President Donald Trump, a day after the two leaders met to discuss trade. File Photo courtesy of the G7 2025 Summit "We look forward to continuing our discussions with Canada on the Administration's trade and national security concerns," the official told NBC. Carney told Canadians that around 85% of goods being traded with the United States are still tariff-free as they are subject to the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, which was signed during Trump's first term in office. The prime minister said he still hoped to reach some kind of agreement on tariffs with Trump. The two leaders met Thursday to discuss trade. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "As we work to address outstanding trade issues with the U.S., it is important we do everything we can to preserve this unique advantage for Canadian workers and their families," Carney said Friday. A round of tariffs of various levels imposed by Trump on several countries took effect earlier in the month. On Thursday, the United States and European Union announced the framework of a trade deal that would result in a blanket 15% tariff on EU goods. OTTAWA Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Germany to build out defense and energy ties, a move designed to buffer Canadas economy against the tariff threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Theres a broad range of areas, from critical minerals to energy and defense and security, where we are intensifying our discussions with Germany, Carney told reporters Friday on Parliament Hill. He said hell be accompanied by senior members of his Cabinet responsible for defense, trade and industry to bolster economic and security cooperation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The prime minister has said Trumps trade agenda presents Ottawa with no choice but to build new alliances. Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy and to protect our sovereignty, the prime minister said earlier this year. Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries. To that end, Carneys government has been on a full-court press in Europe. This week, Industry Minister Melanie Joly and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand were in Scandinavia. Joly was in Sweden and Finland, while Anand met with Canadas Nordic 5 NATO allies in Finland. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will welcome Carney in Berlin Tuesday morning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty is scheduled to meet with his counterpart, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson will do the rounds in Berlin, meeting with CEOs and executives from energy, manufacturing and defense companies. Hell also deliver a speech to a business crowd at the Canadian embassy. Its really a trade mission focused on energy and critical minerals, said a government official with knowledge of Hodgsons plans, and who was granted anonymity to speak about them. Germany is one of the priority markets in the EU because it is the continents largest economy, the official noted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Germany is interested in Canadas rare earth minerals to support clean energy technology and electric vehicles. It also needs to power its buildout of military hardware as a NATO member striving to meet the alliances new 5 percent of GDP spending target, said the official. Germany is still weaning itself off Russian gas. Hodgson will also be following up on the 2022 Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance that set the ambitious goal of beginning transatlantic deliveries this year. Weve been working very hard with them for the last several years on a transatlantic hydrogen corridor, the official said, but added no further details. Germany also wants to secure new sources of critical minerals to counter Chinas domination and weaponization of the global market. Canada has a lot to bring to the world stage, but that also requires catalyzing investment, the official said. We are open to German investment in Canadian projects, if those will help get projects off the ground. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Carney said he looked forward to talking to Merz after hosting him at the G7 in Alberta earlier this year, building on Canadas larger trade deal with the European Union. Ukraine will also be on their agenda, as it is in all conversations Carney is having with foreign leaders these days, including on what Canadas future role might be. I have had conversations about this, including with President Trump, in the last few weeks. We are making progress, he said, calling it a delicate question. Trump said Friday that he wants to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot, he said in the Oval Office. I think hes a good person. CLEBURNE, TX (CANARIES) The Sioux Falls Canaries raced out to a nine-run lead and never looked back, topping Cleburne 9-3 at La Moderna Field. Jordan Barth opened the scoring with a two-run double in the first inning and Mike Hart followed with an RBI single. The Canaries extended the lead with two runs in the top of the second on a Matt Bottcher base hit and a Railroader fielding error. Three more runs scored in the third as Joe Vos knocked in two with a double and Drey Dirksen added an RBI single. Dirksen clubbed a solo homerun in the top of the fifth before Cleburne got on the scoreboard in bottom half. The Railroaders got two more runs back in the seventh inning but couldnt rally any further. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Five different Canaries finished with multiple hits while Cole Lalonde allowed a run on four hits over five innings to earn the win. The Birds (52-38) return home to take on Sioux City Friday at 7:05pm. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. COURTESY MAUI POLICE DEPARTMENT Maui police officer Suzanne O was shot and killed near the shuttered Paia Sugar Mill on Friday evening. COURTESY MAUI POLICE DEPARTMENT Maui police officer Suzanne O was shot and killed near the shuttered Paia Sugar Mill on Friday evening. The Maui Police Department is holding a candlelight vigil Friday evening in memory of slain Officer at the Wailuku station. O, 37, was shot and killed last week while responding to a terroristic threatening call at Paia Sugar Mill on Aug. 15. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The public is warmly invited to join us as we come together to honor Suzannes life, her service, and her sacrifice to our community, said MPD in a news release. This vigil will be a time for quiet reflection, healing, and unity. The five-year veteran of MPD is remembered as an officer who served with courage, honor and dedication. O, a Farrington High School graduate, began her service with MPD in 2020, first working in the Kihei patrol district before moving to the Wailuku patrol district in December 2021. She shared in a recruitment video that she was originally from American Samoa and that she wanted to show her nieces back home that career options are available, such as becoming a police officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Community members often praised her for her professionalism, courtesy, and tact, and she was awarded a certificate of merit for her brave work in Upcountry Maui during the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires. The vigil is scheduled for 7 :30 p.m. at Wailuku Police Station, 200 S. High St. Parking will be available at the War Memorial Stadium parking lot. Sheriffs will man crosswalks at Kaahumanu Avenue and Kanaloa Avenue /Mahalani Street to assist those walking to the vigil. Several businesses, including Ululanis Hawaiian Shave Ice, Velzyland Burger, and Maui Frozen in Wailuku, plan on hosting a fundraising event Saturday evening, with all proceeds supporting Os family. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are deeply saddened by the loss of Maui Police Officer Suzanne O, who tragically lost her life in the line of duty, said Ululanis in a Facebook post. Officer Suzanne was not only a dedicated protector of our community, but also a kind, compassionate, and courageous soul who gave selflessly to those around her. The fundraising event at the three businesses takes place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at Maui Lani Shopping Center, 50 Maui Lani Parkway in Wailuku. See more : 0 Comments By participating in online discussions you acknowledge that you have agreed to the. An insightful discussion of ideas and viewpoints is encouraged, but comments must be civil and in good taste, with no personal attacks. If your comments are inappropriate, you may be banned from posting. Report comments if you believe they do not follow our. Having trouble with comments ? . The Capital City Cluster Dog Show is back in town for the weekend TOPEKA (KSNT) A dog show is in town this weekend, and its paws-itively the place to be! The Capital City Cluster Dog Show is back at Stormont Vail Events Center. There are lots of things going on inside and outside for the public to attend for free. With the hot temperatures today, dogs are making a splash and taking dives. 27 News spoke with Jaiden Smith, who was with the Diving Dogs activity outside, about what his favorite part of the event is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cider Days is returning to the capital city for the 44th year My favorite part is seeing the dogs that come out from around the country, Smith said. They love doing it. They go up there. They tried the one day and then they just get hooked for the whole weekend. They get so happy about it. They get really happy because their dog gets into it and the dogs happy and its just a good, good time. The dog show will continue throughout the weekend until Sunday, August 25, 2025. For more information on the show, click here. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. It sometimes seems like the basic income wars will never go away. My first Vox piece on the idea of a government-provided guaranteed income came in the summer of 2014 a simpler time, the Obama years. I wrote a big feature about it in 2017. Since then, weve had Andrew Yangs presidential run, Covid-era stimulus checks, and massive progress in AI, all of which have made the idea feel more plausible. Weve also had some research findings that throw cold water on the concept, at least in the US. Three studies that gave out unrestricted cash to Americans during the pandemic found nulls on all the outcomes they tested: the cash didnt improve health or self-reported well-being or even, in one study, how well people say theyre doing financially. This story was first featured in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to explore the big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Sent twice a week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two more recent, even bigger studies have backed that up. The Babys First Years Study, which began in 2018 and gave $4,000 a year to low-income American families with young kids for over four years, found no effects on child development outcomes at the four-year mark. No reduction in behavioral problems, no improvements in language ability nada. Another study run by the group OpenResearch gave out $12,000 a year to families for three years. While it found some positive outcomes, like parents spending more on their kids, mostly it found null effects, too. Participants spent more because their incomes grew, but they also worked less, offsetting the income gain a bit. But as I wrote back in 2017, The biggest potential for basic income isnt in the US but in developing countries. A big new study from the charity GiveDirectly seems to back that up, finding that cash grants in Kenya not only reduced poverty but actually saved lives. Even here, though, its important to be careful. Covering basic income experiments for more than a decade has taught me that readers love to hear about ways in which cash programs work and are less eager to hear about ways they fall short. That resulted in some big expectations that, in more recent US research, at least, have been dashed. Some coverage of the GiveDirectly study has only focused on the good news (lives saved) and not limitations, like the fact that it didnt save lives very cost-effectively. Thats a problem. The new cash/infant mortality study, explained The headline finding of the GiveDirectly study from economists Michael Walker, Nick Shankar, Edward Miguel, Dennis Egger, and Grady Killeen is that a randomized experiment providing one-time cash grants of worth about $1,871 each to over 10,500 households in rural Kenya found the cash reduced infant and child mortality. (The actual value was exactly $1,000, but given that prices are lower for most things in Kenya, it could buy what Americans think of as about $1,871 in goods and services.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The intervention here is larger than most countries cash programs. Kenyas main national cash program grants 2,000 shillings (about $45) a month to its most vulnerable citizens a tiny fraction of the $1,871 drop this study examined. And the effect size from the $1,871 is truly massive as well: a 48 percent reduction in deaths, mostly shortly after the cash was dispersed in 2015-2017. A reduction that big from any intervention is eye-popping. From an intervention that isnt even specifically meant to improve health or reduce deaths, its sufficiently impressive that you should be instinctively skeptical. Other, non-experimental studies have found reductions in mortality due to cash programs, but Ive found only one other controlled experiment that found the same. Its not a big evidence base. What is the mechanism by which this might have happened? The study cant say definitively, but it offers some clues. The cash drove a big increase in the share of mothers who delivered babies in hospitals as opposed to at home. If hospital-based delivery is safer than home delivery in these Kenyan villages, that could have caused some reduction in deaths. But it seems very unlikely to cause the entire reduction, especially given that other studies have not found that delivery in a hospital or other health facility reduces the odds of infant death. But there are other ways the cash could have helped. Mothers bought more food, and a food security measure (reflecting how often children skipped meals or went to bed hungry) improved. That could plausibly drive greater survival. Among mothers who received cash, hours worked fell by half in the three months before and three months after childbirth, implying that the transfer functioned as a kind of paid parental leave program (fathers work hours didnt fall significantly). That could, perhaps, reduce maternal stress in ways that reduce infant mortality. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When I asked economists not involved in the study to comment, they generally said it was a well-designed, credible experiment. But no study is perfect. Berk Ozler, formerly a top economist at the World Bank now at the University of Otago and Stanford, noted that overall childbirths were 13 percent more common in villages getting cash. That raises the possibility of a selection effect. Perhaps the cash didnt cause babies who wouldve been born anyway to be healthier but instead induced women likelier to have healthy babies anyway to get pregnant and give birth. For their part, the studys authors conducted a number of tests and argue that this is unlikely to explain much of the results. Perhaps the most significant caveat about the study, however, is that, while the effect on infant mortality was large, the cost-effectiveness of the cash program as a lifesaving tool isnt impressive. The cash program cost $25.75 million, and, per the study results, saved 86 childrens lives, for a cost per life saved of $299,418. Thats very good by rich country standards. For comparison, Medicaid takes $5.4 million to save a life. But its not competitive with the most cost-effective ways to save lives in countries like Kenya. GiveWell estimates that Vitamin A supplementation can save a life for about $3,500, while malaria prevention meds can do the same for about $4,500. GiveWell helped fund the cash/infant mortality study, in part seeking to improve its estimates of the cost-effectiveness of cash grants. Its conclusion was that the finding doesnt change its rankings of charities too much and that most of the benefit from cash transfers comes from reducing poverty (which the Kenya experiment certainly did) rather than saving lives. Make your takeaways modest One really bad takeaway you could have from this study is cash grants are all you need to save lives in the Global South. The study authors and GiveDirectly itself are clear that cash needs other health infrastructure to work. People who were further away from health facilities, the improvement wasnt as great, Dr. Miriam Laker-Oketta, a physician based at Ugandas Makerere University and an advisor at GiveDirectly, told me in an interview. What we need as a complementary intervention is infrastructure like health facilities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another really bad takeaway, more from the US studies than this one, would be that cash has no health effects at all, even in the Global South. Among very poor, malnourished people who cannot afford regular medical care, there are strong intuitive reasons to think cash does something for their health. While lower monthly payments, like Kenyas $45 a month, almost certainly wont cause infant mortality to fall by half, they might help peoples health on the margin. See, for example, this study, which found improvements in height-for-age among children born to young cash transfer recipients in Malawi. Of course, whether or not cash is the best or most cost-effective way to promote child health is a different question and one where cash does worse. Writing about cash programs is a funny thing. For most topics, readers exhibit a negativity bias: They click more on bad news. But Ive found that when I write about cash, big flashy headlines about all the good it does get lots of hits, while nuanced pieces about benefits and limitations dont. (Bad omen for this piece, I guess.) Thats a bad set of incentives, and Im trying my best to resist them. People are working hard to understand what cash can and cant do. It does them a disservice to only share the good things they learn. An Ohio-based Catholic school that received $5 million from the West Virginia Water Development Authority has submitted a letter saying it complied with a judges order to correct the invoice for the funding. The American Humanist Association, which is suing the WVWDA, says the funding still violates the religious liberty clause of the West Virginia Constitution, similar to the First Amendment. In July, Kanawha County Circuit Judge Richard Lindsay ruled that the College of St. Joseph the Worker, based in Steubenville, Ohio, could not use the funds for advocacy or religious educational purposes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The nonprofit college combines a bachelors degree in Catholic studies with instruction in construction trades and hopes to expand to multiple locations in West Virginia. The institution also plans to create a real estate development and construction company in Weirton that would employ its students. While the grant agreement said the $5 million from the WVWDA could only be used for setting up education facilities for training in the five major construction trades, the school provided an invoice for the money that showed $1 million would be going to advocacy. According to court testimony in July, the school was asked to correct this invoice and was made aware that they could not use $1 million for advocacy, but they did not comply with the request. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On July 9, Lindsay ruled that the WVWDA had 30 days to provide a new invoice and documentation that the school was not using $1 million for advocacy or $1.65 million for education. New invoice On July 28, the WVWDA submitted a letter, dated July 16, and new invoice from the college. In the letter, Michael Sullivan, president of The College of St. Joseph the Worker, wrote that he understood the grant agreement was the controlling document not the invoice. In short, we can spend money on facilities, materials, and other physical items necessary to fully fit out or prepare [training] facilities and materials, Sullivan wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sullivan also acknowledged that the money could not be used for teacher salaries. The new invoice has one $5 million line item for Real estate acquisition, site development, construction, infrastructure improvements, and supplies and equipment for workforce training and all necessary appurtenances thereto in compliance with the WDA grant agreement. State attorneys for the WVWDA wrote in a court filing that Lindsay said he had no issue with the money being used to advance economic development. They argued that using the money to set up a trade school is precisely the sort of real estate construction and economic development work this Court has said do not violate West Virginias establishment clause. ACLU: Funding still an issue Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the American Humanist Association, replied in a document that the new invoice did not fix the constitutional problem, in their opinion. This change fails to address the Courts fundamental establishment clause concern, namely that access to education and workforce training through this grant is only available to students who are willing and able to seek a degree in Catholic Studies, the attorneys wrote. The AHA doesnt object to the funds being used for the construction and real estate development through a nonprofit associated with the college, attorneys wrote. They asked for the lawsuit to be allowed to continue to final resolution. CAPE TOWN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Two men were killed and five others injured in a mass shooting in Cape Town, the legislative capital of South Africa, on Thursday night, local police confirmed. According to a statement issued on Friday by the Western Cape police, the incident occurred around 8:15 p.m. local time on Thursday on OR Tambo Road in Imizamo Yethu, Hout Bay. All the victims are aged between 22 and 43. The police are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident, said provincial police spokesperson Frederick van Wyk in a statement. "According to reports, Hout Bay SAPS (South African Police Service) members received a complaint of persons at the Hout Bay Fire Department who had been shot. The members went there and found four victims who were treated for gunshot wounds," said Van Wyk. The fifth victim had already been taken to the hospital before the police arrived. "The victims informed the (Hout Bay SAPS) members that there are two people at the mentioned address who are presumably deceased. The members went to the address and found two bodies with gunshot wounds lying on the ground," he said. The spokesperson noted that the motive for the shooting incident forms part of an ongoing police investigation. "Seven suspects aged between 19 and 31 were arrested, and two firearms were recovered. These firearms will be subjected to ballistic testing," Van Wyk said. Earlier this week, Western Cape police confirmed that more than 30 people had been killed in Cape Town over the past two months in mass shootings. Authorities believe the violence is linked to gangs, taxi disputes, or extortion. A Catholic priest who worked in Orlando churches for more than a decade faces sexual abuse accusations from sheriffs investigators and a lawsuit that accuses him of grooming and then abusing a child for years. Father George Zina, who now works as a pastor at a church in Roanoke, VA, denies any wrongdoing, according to the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn, which oversees his church. But the Orange County Sheriffs Office said this week that it investigated the accusations against Zina and heard very compelling testimony from an alleged victim. In February, the sheriffs office decided Zina should be charged with two counts of sexual battery and sent that recommendation to the Orange-Osceola State Attorneys Office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state attorneys office said Thursday the case is under review. Zina worked at Holy Family Catholic Church and St. Jude Maronite Catholic Church, both in Orange County, from around 1997 through 2009. The allegations come amid an intensified focus in Central Florida on the decades-long, worldwide priest abuse scandal, with the latest attention sparked by the 2024 slaying of another Orlando priest, Father Robert Hoeffner, by a young man he may have abused. The lawsuit filed last month against the Diocese of Orlando and Zinas current employer is one of three filed against the diocese this summer by a Florida law firm that specializes in sexual abuse cases. The Herman Law firm has sued Catholic churches in Florida and New York previously and on its website details information about the churchs sexual abuse scandals and posts a Florida predator priest index. The other two lawsuits involve Hoeffner, who had spent 25 years in Orlando parishes, including a stint as a teacher at Bishop Moore Catholic High School, before taking a post in Brevard County. He retired in 2016. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The lawsuits claim that the Diocese and parishes had multiple opportunities to intervene and protect children but failed to do so. That inaction caused irreparable harm, said Jenny Rossman, Herman Laws lead trial attorney in a statement about the three lawsuits. The three alleged victims all anonymous in the new lawsuits are suing the diocese for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They are collectively seeking compensation of no less than $60 million. The abuse documented in the lawsuits occurred between the 1980s and the early 2000s, the lawsuits contend. The sheriffs office would not confirm whether the Zina accuser in its investigation is the same alleged victim from the new lawsuit, nor would it offer any details about its investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That lawsuit centers on an unnamed individual who met Zina at Holy Family when he was about nine years old. At the time his family attended that church and developed a bond with Zina because they all spoke Italian, the lawsuit says. Zina later became a priest at St. Jude Maronite, where the boys family started attending church. When the plaintiff became an altar server, Zina began grooming him, calling him my best boy, and would lure him away from other priests and parishioners to abuse him. He sexually abused the boy in confession rooms, rectories, a recreation hall, a bathroom, the church secretarys office and his car, the lawsuit says. At one point, Zina also told him God chooses one altar server to be with the priest in a same-sex relationship and that the two of them would eventually live together. Zina was put on leave from around 2009 to 2010 and then transferred to a Catholic church in Massachusetts, according to the lawsuit. It does not mention why he was placed on leave. Zina is now the pastor at St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church in Roanoke. The eparchy, an organization similar to a diocese which oversees that church, said in an emailed statement that Zina and church officials had cooperated with the police investigation. Because the eparchy has never received a complaint from an alleged victim, and no criminal charges have been filed, it has decided to take no action against him now, it said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The recent legal actions against the Orlando diocese involving Hoeffner date back to May, when the Herman Law Firm first sued the diocese on behalf of New York resident Shawn Teuber, who alleged Hoeffner sexually abused him while he was a student at St. Joseph Catholic School in Palm Bay. That lawsuit claims the diocese was warned of Hoeffners inappropriate behavior with young boys but took no action a charge the diocese has denied. The diocese has moved to have that lawsuit dismissed, but now faces two others from two other men who say they were abused by Hoeffner when they were children, along with the Zina suit. Spokeswoman Jennifer Drow said the diocese is evaluating the new allegations against Hoeffner, but said church leadership did not know of any accusations of abuse made against Hoeffner when he was an active priest or even after his retirement. Drow said Zina was not employed by the diocese, though it was named in the lawsuit, and was unaware of any claims of wrongful conduct against him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The diocese posts on its website a list of priests and other personnel who had been removed after a credible allegation of sexual abuse. The list includes 20 names. Hoeffners two new accusers came forward after hearing about Teubers lawsuit. The Palm Bay Police Department says Hoeffner and one of his sisters, Sally, were shot and killed in January 2024 at their home by Brandon Kapas. Police fatally shot Kapas after confronting him at the home of his grandfather, whom he had also killed. Teuber said Kapas was a childhood friend and classmate of his at St. Joseph. Rossman said Tuesday she thinks its more likely than not Kapas was abused by Hoeffner, a view shared by one of Kapas relatives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of the new Hoeffner lawsuits alleges Hoeffner met one of the victims, then around 14, when he ran a program for boys to earn community service hours at St. Isaac Jogues Church in east Orlando. Hoeffner plied the plaintiff with gifts, such as clothes and shoes, eventually paying a down payment on his first car and opening his first bank account for him. Hoeffner would abuse the plaintiff during so-called therapy sessions in his office, the lawsuit said. The plaintiff began spending time at Hoeffners home, where the abuse continued. Two other adolescent boys lived with Hoeffner, who would frequently walk naked around the house and demanded the boys walk around naked too, the suit claimed. The plaintiff lived with Hoeffner for his senior year of high school when he was 17. It was common knowledge at St. Isaac Jogues that Hoeffner lived with boys, the lawsuit contends, and Sister Lucy Vazquez, who served in multiple leadership roles at the diocese before her retirement last year, told Hoeffner on multiple occasions that she and the diocese didnt like that children were living with him. Hoeffner told her he would quit the diocese if he was prohibited from living with them, the lawsuit says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hoeffner met the second plaintiff when the teenager was about 14, at St. Isaac Jogues after the boys mother had him attend to become an altar server. Hoeffner would massage the boys neck and shoulders while saying prayers to him and and later sexually abused him during so-called prayer sessions, that lawsuit claims. On one occasion, the boys mother saw Hoeffner kiss the plaintiff on the lips and yelled at Hoeffner in front of others to never touch her son again, it says. HENDERSON, Texas (KETK) The Henderson Police Department is searching for a person who drove away on a contracting companys lawnmower Monday night. Photo courtesy of Henderson PD According to the police, around 8:57 p.m., a person stole a Bad Boy ZT Elite zero-turn mower, despite its flat tire, from Lonestar Global on 502 Kilgore Drive. Smith County residents alerted to surge in ATV, UTV thefts Suspect description: Camo jacket White/tan gloves Black pants and shoes Black ski mask Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Photo courtesy of Henderson PD The department encourages the public to call Detective C. Downey at 903-392-0742 if they saw anything suspicious Monday night or someone they know is bragging about their new not-so-fast mower. You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. NEED TO KNOW Consuelo Bernabe, a Texas mother of seven, was reported missing on Friday, Aug. 15, after going to a bar in Lott, Texas She was found deceased inside her minivan, which was submerged in the Brazos River in Waco, Texas, on Monday, Aug. 18 The Waco Police Department revealed her preliminary autopsy results on Thursday, Aug. 21 The cause of death for Consuelo Bernabe, a Texas mother of seven, has been revealed. Bernabe, 39, was found dead inside her Dodge Caravan on Monday, Aug. 18, after the minivan was pulled out of the Brazos River in Waco, Texas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, Aug. 21, the Waco Police Department revealed that her preliminary autopsy results found she died of drowning, and no foul play is suspected at this time. Her final autopsy results are still pending, and the investigation remains ongoing. Consuelo Bernabe/Facebook Consuelo Bernabe Consuelo Bernabe Before her body was discovered on Monday, Aug. 18, she had gone missing on Friday, Aug. 15, per her daughter Maria Romeros social media post on Sunday, Aug. 17. One of Bernabes daughters, Hermelinda Romero, told ABC affiliate KXXV that her mother was last seen at a bar in Lott, Texas. Bernabe called the family while out at the bar and said she was waiting for a man to come and pick her up, Hermelinda explained. Bernabe's family told the outlet they believed she had been intoxicated at the time of the call. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Monday, Aug. 18, at 10:10 a.m. Waco Police Officers received a report that a Dodge Caravan was located in the Brazos River. Fire dive team, Texas Game Wardens, and Tow King assisted in pulling the car out of the river," the Waco Police Department reported. Her body was removed from the vehicle, and next of kin were alerted. Bernabe was publicly identified as the victim on Tuesday, Aug. 19. The Waco Police Department initially classified her death as "questionable" before the autopsy results, it said on Wednesday, Aug. 20. Her son, David Romero, told CBS affiliate KWTX that it was uncharacteristic of his mother to disappear and not tell anyone. I wasnt trying to overthink. I was like, But thats not like my mom. She always has her phone on her, shell answer any call and message that you send her," David said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bernabes son remembered that his mother always smiled, and told the outlet that "she always took care of her kids," who were "her main priority." 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. Maria paid tribute to her mother on Facebook, writing, Rest in peace ma I love you so much words cant explain I wanna see your beautiful smile again now every time I go in your room i will cry and just be like why you but we will get JUSTICE SERVED cant wait to see again." Hermelinda created a GoFundMe page to help the family with the unexpected funeral expenses. Read the original article on People EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A helicopter with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations helped to rescue a hiker in the Franklin Mountains this week. On Thursday, Aug. 21, the CBP AMO El Paso Air Branch operations officer received a phone call from the El Paso Fire Departments Combined Search and Rescue team for help in locating and rescuing an injured male hiker, CBP said in a news release. Here is video from the mountain rescue, from CBP AMO. EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE: Incredible rescue in the Franklin Mountain State Park last night of an injured United States citizen hiker. A Black Hawk crew from the El Paso Air Branch established a 180-foot hover, deployed a hoist rescue specialist to make the rescue, and secured five El pic.twitter.com/zbkIKrtteW CBP AMO (@CBPAMO) August 22, 2025 Initial reports indicated that fire crews had responded to the area near McKelligon Canyon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A hoist-capable AMO UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and crew were dispatched to make the rescue, CBP said. The crew used night vision goggles to conduct the search. With the help of the ComSAR team, the helicopter crew was able to locate the injured hiker in a remote location. The UH-60 helicopter crew then established a 180-foot hover and deployed a hoist rescue specialist. Once inserted, the rescue specialist was able to hoist the stranded hiker and five ComSAR personnel into the helicopter. The UH-60 crew transported the hiker and rescue team to awaiting ComSAR personnel on the ground at the established incident command post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The injured hiker was then transported to a local hospital for further treatment, CBP said. Our CBP AMO El Paso Air Branch crews regularly train with our El Paso ComSAR partners to conduct hoist rescues and medical evacuations, El Paso Air Branch Director Efren Gonzalez said. We train together regularly and together we provide an important lifesaving capability as AMO helicopter crews conduct their national security mission to patrol the deserts and mountains in our border region. Air and Marine Operations is an operational component of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. AMO conducts its mission in the air and maritime environments throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands, CBP said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. KNOX COUNTY A Knox County Circuit Court judge dismissed charges against a Laurel County man earlier this month, ending a case that began with his January indictment. Toby Brummett, 20, of East Bernstadt, was indicted in January of this year on charges of first-degree rape and alcohol intoxication in a public place in connection to a Jan. 6 incident. The case moved forward in Knox Circuit Court, where Brummett initially entered a not guilty plea. He was released on bond under the condition that he have no contact with the alleged victim or their family. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On August 4, Judge Gregory Lay granted the Commonwealths motion to dismiss the case with prejudice. According to court documents, the dismissal came after new text messages and an audio recording were received by prosecutors. The evidence prompted the Commonwealth to recommend dismissal, which the court approved. The order noted that Brummett stipulated there had been probable cause for his arrest and indictment but in light of the newly obtained evidence, the charges would not proceed. A first-degree rape charge is classified as a Class B felony under Kentucky law, punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted. With the dismissal, all legal proceedings in the case have now concluded. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) Charleston Southern University welcomed students back to campus Thursday, with nearly 1,400 expected to move in this week. CSU is expected to have one of its largest enrollment years yet, with an estimated 2,300 full-time undergraduates to be on campus. The Christian university draws in students from across the country, they will see over a thousand new students. I chose it here for the faith, more opportunity, more experience, and further away from home, said Ryleigh Hughes, a transfer student. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, they also attract students nearby such as from Limestone University, which closed last year due to lack of funding. One of the big things were super excited about is with the unfortunate closing of Limestone University. We have about 27 students that are transferring here from Limestone. Three of those students are moving in today. When we heard the news, we wanted to do everything we could to be there for them, care for them. We were just grateful we had the opportunity to do that, Bryan Ayer, executive director of undergraduate admissions, said. CSU offered resources to those students if they chose to transfer over, which included financial aid opportunities, housing, grant and scholarships, and extra support from their enrollment teams. Myranda Britton is one of the former Limestone students moving to campus, she told News 2 it was a difficult adjustment but shes happy to call CSU home. It was a little bit stressful just because I wasnt really sure what I was looking for in a school, but I found Charleston Southern and I knew it was going to be a perfect fit, Britton said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hughes and Britton are also roommates, who both are transfers to Charleston Southern. They said they are excited to start this new chapter together. It was like waiting forever, weve been texting for months so its exciting. Super exciting for sure. CSU has also completed construction and renovations to campus such as a new dining hall, the science and engineering building, and the enrollment building. The college is working to meet the demand for the growing student population, which also comes with the need for more student housing. The reason the dorm is being built is because were maxing on places to stay. Currently, we have the Wingate Hotel thats on our campus. That hotel is pretty much offline to the community because residents are now filling that up too because of the record number of students were seeing living on campus, Ayer said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The dorm is expected to be completed by fall 2026. Move in for returning students is on Saturday, Aug. 23. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. On Thursday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Homicide Cold Case Detectives identified Robert Stinton, 67, in connection with a death investigation that began 16 years ago. Cold case murder victim identified after 29 years, CMPD says The investigation dates back to Feb. 15, 2009, when CMPD patrol officers found a deceased male inside an abandoned building on the 3300 block of Idaho Drive. Due to decomposition, the medical examiners office listed the cause and manner of death as undetermined, and no signs of foul play were observed at the scene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Detectives worked over the years to identify the male but were unsuccessful until the case was adopted by CMPD Homicide Cold Case Detectives. The detectives utilized advanced training on new DNA technology, which helped generate positive leads. Assistance was provided by the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory and the CMPD Crime Lab. On Thursday, detectives were able to identify the male as Stinton and notified his family. The investigation into this case remains active and ongoing. VIDEO: She deserves justice: Family pleads for answers in 2003 cold case killing at Southside Park CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Its official, the Charlotte region is booming. According to the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, an average of 157 people move to the Charlotte Region every day. Between July 2023 and July 2024, the region reportedly gained more than 57,000 new residents through migration, according to the U.S. Census. The growth places the Queen City among the fastest-growing areas in the country, fueled by people coming from all over the U.S. and abroad. Photo: Charlotte Regional Business Alliance The consistent flow of people moving to our region reinforces what we already know: Charlotte is a destination of choice, Tracy Dodson, COO and head of economic development at the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, said in a released statement. Talent follows opportunity, and the Charlotte Region continues to deliver both. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That opportunity includes jobs, schools, and a mix of urban and rural living, all set in a milder climate. The Charlotte Regions flourishing economy and expanding population are a testament to its multifaceted appeal, Jenn Bosser, president and CEO of the Iredell Economic Development Corporation, said in a released statement. Charlottes popularity also stands out nationally. City officials said it is outpacing big-name cities like Boston, Nashville, and even Los Angeles in attracting new people. And the interest is global, with 49% of the newcomers reportedly coming from outside the U.S. Photo: Charlotte Regional Business Alliance Housing demand is rising, too. Officials said the National Association of Realtors recently ranked the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia area among its Top 10 Housing Hot Spots for 2025. We are very fortunate; the Carolinas continue to be a preferred destination for in-migration, Gary Scott, president of Howard Hanna Allen Tate Real Estate, said in a released statement. As the Charlotte region continues to grow, leaders said its now time to invest in infrastructure, especially transportation. A 1% local sales tax increase could generate nearly $20 billion over 30 years, helping meet the needs of a growing population. MORE FROM QCNEWS.COM Charlotte Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Sometimes life has a way of putting us exactly where were needed most. For one Chattanooga, Tennessee Fire Department lieutenant, that moment came just hours after finishing childbirth training. Lt. Alexander Efiom was on duty on August 14 when he got the call of a lifetime. A couple en route to the hospital had to pull over on I-75 around 1 a.m. when the mother went into labor and delivered a baby girl in the car. They quickly made their way to a nearby gas station on Gunbarrel Road, where they met Efiom. For parents, the thought of delivering on the side of the highway can be terrifying. But in this familys case, the right person was in the right place at exactly the right time. Efiom, who had just hours earlier completed an OB training class with his crew, knew exactly what to do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He cleared newborn Emma Lucilles airway, checked her vital signs, and reassured the exhausted mom until Hamilton County EMS arrived. His steady presence helped turn a chaotic roadside birth into a safe, unforgettable beginning. Even more touching? Efiom is a proud girl dad himself, which CFD officials say made being part of this moment especially meaningful. According to ABC, the family later sent him a heartfelt message of gratitude: Thanks for all you did and thanks for all you do on a daily basis. Both mom and baby are doing well, according to CFD officials. And for parents everywhere, this story is a reminder of something deeply reassuring: even in the most unexpected and overwhelming moments, community helpers like Efiom are ready to step in. Related: 911 dispatcher reunites with New Hampshire family after life-changing emergency birth Rodrigo Chaves Robles has become the first sitting president in the history of Costa Rica to testify to a legislative committee as he faced charges of corruption and the possibility of a criminal trial. The three-member committee held the hearing on Friday to consider whether or not to lift Chaves Robless immunity as president. Doing so would pave the way for Chaves Robles to be prosecuted based on allegations he used government-related funds to give kickbacks to an ally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chaves Robles has denied any wrongdoing and accused his opponents of using the judiciary to oust his government. What we are experiencing has historic consequences, Chaves Robles said on Friday. The entire country is witnessing a legal rigging by the attorney general and the criminal court. He told his supporters outside the Legislative Assembly that his adversaries had staged a ridiculous case to carry out a judicial coup detat and convince the public he was a scoundrel. The committee must deliver a report following Chaves Robless testimony to the full Legislative Assembly, which will then vote on whether to strip him of his immunity from prosecution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A conservative economist and former minister of finance, Chaves Robles has been accused of forcing an associate to take money from a contract awarded by a development bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and use it to pay his former presidential adviser, Federico Cruz. The sum was allegedly $32,000, and Cruz used it to buy a house, according to prosecutors. The bank told the Reuters news agency that it had conducted its own internal investigation, the conclusions of which were provided to Costa Ricas attorney general. Witnesses for the prosecution include the presidents former communications minister, Patricia Navarro, and businessman Christian Bulgarelli. I never ordered the delivery of money to anyone, Chaves Robles said in response to the allegations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His lawyer, Jose Miguel Villalobos, also argued that the accusations do not meet the minimum requirements for the removal of presidential immunity. The Legislative Assembly would need a supermajority in order to strip Chaves Robles of his immunity. Chaves Robles was considered a dark horse candidate when he ran for president in 2022, representing the conservative Social Democratic Progress Party. Even then, however, he faced scrutiny for allegedly running an illegal parallel campaign financing structure. Multiple women also came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment during his time employed at the World Bank. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chaves Robles is ineligible to run for a second term in 2026: The law does not permit back-to-back presidential terms. Costa Rica is scheduled to hold its next presidential election on February 1, and Chaves Robless term is slated to end the following May. WELLINGTON, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand and the United States trade officials met in Washington to address concerns over new U.S. tariffs on New Zealand goods, a New Zealand government statement said Friday. New Zealand's Minister for Agriculture, Trade and Investment Todd McClay said the latest 5 percent tariff hike, raising the minimum rate for certain countries to 15 percent, was posing significant challenges for Kiwi exporters, especially compared to countries that heavily subsidize their production. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer acknowledged New Zealand's low tariffs on U.S. imports, currently averaging just 0.3 percent, but explained the tariff increase was linked to the U.S. targeting countries with a trade surplus in their favor. Officials also discussed ongoing trade investigations in sectors such as steel, aluminum, pharmaceuticals, and timber, the statement said. Both sides agreed to continued dialogue in the coming months, with trade officials set to meet and discuss the impact of tariffs on New Zealand-U.S. trade and practical ways to ensure greater certainty for exporters, it said. The next ministerial meetings are scheduled at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Trade Ministers' Meeting in Malaysia in September and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Summit in South Korea in October, where further steps to strengthen bilateral trade relations will be considered, it added. CHICAGO A Chicago man will spend more than 15 years in federal prison for illegally selling more than a dozen guns to an FBI informant. Johnathan Burgos, a 33-year-old Chicago resident, has been sentenced to 16 years and eight months in federal prison, Andrew Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced Thursday. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland In 2020 and 2021, Burgos illegally sold 14 firearms and multiple large-capacity magazines to an individual who was working on behalf of the FBI, Boutros said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prosecutors said the sales included several stolen handguns, a gun with a defaced serial number, and a rifle. During most of the sales, prosecutors said Burgos was on either parole or bond with electronic monitoring stemming from firearm cases in state court. According to prosecutors, Burgos pleaded guilty to federal firearm charges stemming from the illegal sales earlier this year. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Defendants gun trafficking posed a severe danger to the community, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower argued in the governments sentencing memorandum. He personally coordinated each sale and used coded language in phone calls and text messages to mask the illicit nature of his discussions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Burgos sentence was handed down by Judge Steven Seeger last Friday. Prosecutors did not provide a booking photo for Burgos. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. CHICAGO After the federal takeover of the Washington, DC, police to combat the crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor, President Donald Trump has now set his sights on Chicago. Chicago's a mess," said Trump during a meeting at the Oval Office with FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Aug. 22. "You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent. We'll straighten that one out probably next. That'll be our next one after this. Trump's comments come at a point where Chicago has seen significant reductions in violent crime, according to Mayor Brandon Johnson's office. High-profile mass shootings continue to rock the city. But overall crime has declined, including a 30% drop in homicides, the mayor's office said. Deploying the National Guard could potentially undermine the city's progress, Johnson said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The problem with the President's approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound," said the city's progressive mayor. "Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. An unlawful deployment would be unsustainable and would threaten to undermine the historic progress we have made." More: National Guard to start carrying weapons in DC this weekend as nearly 2,000 troops deploy 85626304007 Chicagoans however "are screaming for us to come," Trump said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "They're wearing red hats just like this one. But they're wearing red hats," he said. "African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying, please, President Trump, come to Chicago, please." The president's comments about Chicago come after he he deployed 800 National Guard troops in Washington DC, on Aug. 11, declaring a public safety emergency. Several Republican states including Ohio, Mississippi, West Virginia and Louisiana have sent guardsmen to the capital to support the Trump Administration's efforts. The troops are deployed at tourist-heavy locations such as the National Mall and transit hubs such as Union Station and Metro stops to aid local law enforcement. President Donald Trump visits with law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C. 'People are NOT begging': Illinois governor Mayor Johnson pushed back, arguing that the promises he campaigned and won on were what Chicagoans wanted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We know that our communities are safest when we fully invest in housing, community safety, and education," the city's freshman mayor said. "The National Guard will not alleviate the housing crisis. It will not put food in the stomachs of the 1 in 4 children that go to bed hungry every night in Chicago. The National Guard will not fully-fund our public schools or provide mental healthcare or substance abuse treatment to Chicagoans in need." Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a frequent political sparring partner for Trump, shot back at claims that Chicago wanted the president to deploy the National Guard. Americans want cheaper groceries, access to healthcare and the release of the Epstein files, Pritzker said in a post on X. "Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities." Things People are Begging for: 1. Cheaper groceries 2. No Medicaid and SNAP cuts 3. Release of the Epstein Files Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities https://t.co/uOksaPNYAr JB Pritzker (@JBPritzker) August 22, 2025 Pritzker has taken a firm stance against the White Houses recent deployment of the military in Democractically led cities, emphasizing that the president has no legal authority to send in troops without the governors signoff. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Lets not lie to the public, you and I both know you have no authority to take over Chicago," the Illinois governor said when Trump raised the possibility of sending in the guard earlier in August. California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration over the White House's deployment of thousands of National Guard members to Los Angeles without the governor's approval. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a Newsom office spokesperson, said a ruling in the case has not been issued yet. DC police data shows crime down since National Guard arrived After Chicago, Trump said New York will be next to get help. Since the deployment of the troops, carjackings in Washington, D.C. have decreased by 83%, robberies by 46%, car thefts by 21%, and overall violent crime by 22% compared to the previous seven days, according to Metropolitan Police Departments police union. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Violent crime in D.C. dropped 26% through Aug. 8, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department. However, the city had the fourth-highest homicide rate among U.S. cities, after St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, at 27.3 per 100,000 residents in 2024. Trump took a victory lap in DC on Aug. 21 and said during a meeting with law enforcement that his actions had made the city "safe." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chicago next on national guard's federal takeover list, Trump says ORLANDO, Fla. The vaccination rate for Orange County kindergarteners hit a 20-year low this year, and experts fear that with fewer children immunized, outbreaks of infectious diseases are likely. The percentage of pupils entering kindergarten fully vaccinated also has plummeted across the state and in other Central Florida counties, according to the Florida Department of Health, but Oranges drop was among the steepest. The percentage of Orange kindergarteners vaccinated against infectious diseases such as measles and polio was nearly 94% in 2016 and plummeted to about 85% in 2025. The county for many years exceeded the overall state vaccination rate but now is well below it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In every Central Florida county, the kindergarten vaccination rate fails to reach 95% the level, sometimes referred to as herd immunity, that makes it unlikely that a single infection will spark a disease cluster or outbreak. The rate was about 86% in Lake and Osceola counties and 90% in Seminole County, all below where those counties were a decade ago. The drop in vaccination rates is alarming, said Michael Muszynski, a pediatric infectious disease expert and professor emeritus at Florida State Universitys College of Medicine. Once you get down in the 80s, like we are, were going to have an outbreak in Florida in the near future. Because that is really bad, said Muszynski, who practiced at Orlando Health and Nemours Hospital for over 20 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This year, just under 89% of Florida kindergarteners were fully immunized with the state-required vaccines well below the national average of 93%. That figure has decreased every year since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic heightened many Americans distrust of mainstream medical advice. The Florida Department of Health did not respond to requests for comment about the falling rates. Florida law requires students be vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, Hepatitis B and chickenpox before enrolling in school. However, the law also allows for exemptions for medical or religious reasons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And getting a religious vaccine exemption in Florida is simple, requiring only that parents request and fill out a form from the health department. Such an exemption must be issued upon request, the state rules say, and no other information should be solicited from the parent or guardian. On social media, parents worried about or opposed to vaccines share information and advice on how to obtain these exemptions and find pediatricians who will take unvaccinated children. No jab no school is not a thing in Florida. I can help you if you want to avoid vaccines for school and more, one Volusia County mother posted to Facebook in late July, just ahead of the new school year. More Florida parents than ever are using the states religious exemptions to get out of vaccinating their kindergarteners. In 2005, about 2% of Florida kindergarteners received a vaccine exemption for non-medical reasons a figure that more than doubled by 2025, according to data from the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Across the U.S., the share of children with exemptions from required vaccines rose to an all-time high of 3.6% in the 2024-25 school year. In Florida, the group of kids exempted from vaccine requirements was nearly double that at more than 6%. And in some Florida counties, the exemption rate is as high as 15%, according to state health data. Muszynski thinks an increase in misinformation spread by those with anti-vaccine opinions in positions of power is partly to blame for fewer 5-year-olds starting school with all their shots. For example, Floridas Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has sown doubt about mRNA COVID vaccines and did not recommend the measles vaccine to families or require unvaccinated students to stay home amid the 2024 measles outbreak in Weston. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once blamed an ingredient in some vaccines for causing autism a claim long debunked by medical studies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Florida Chapter of Childrens Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by Kennedy, amplifies vaccine misinformation with claims the COVID-19 vaccine killed 15 million people and injured almost a billion more. It also shares information on how to get an exemption from Floridas vaccine requirements. It is critical to note that by law the Health Department cannot deny you a Religious Exemption for any reason, its website says. The pandemic broke many peoples trust in public health guidance, Muszynski said, and undermined their belief that vaccines, the major accomplishment in medicine in the history of mankind, have benefits that far outweigh any risks . Vaccines, he said, greatly reduce the chance of catching or becoming seriously ill from a disease and have helped to all but eliminate many diseases from the United States. But because of vaccines success, many people are no longer familiar with the devastating impacts of diseases, such as polio, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jennifer Takagishi, a Tampa pediatrician and vice president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said with fewer children vaccinated those diseases may resurface. When the rate is low, we are at an increased risk of some of these diseases we have seen eliminated making a comeback, she said. In February 2024, an outbreak of measles spread through Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston where 33 of the schools 1,067 students lacked at least one shot of the two-dose measles vaccine. By the end of the outbreak, the disease had spread to nine children. Vaccination declines we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic arent rebounding, said Takagishi, adding that it may take a year or two before the lowered immunization rate is reflected in a rash of diseases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nationwide this year, 462 people have contracted measles compared with 77 in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Another vaccine given before kindergarten is for pertussis, or whooping cough, which young children are more prone to catching during the fall and winter months. Florida has already had a record number of whooping cough cases in 2025 more than 1,100 cases compared with 391 in 2019, before the pandemic. Children diagnosed with whooping cough, a respiratory infection, can lose their breath, have apnea spells, or vomit. Health experts expect to see a continued rise in cases if vaccine rates keep declining. Jude Brunos son Jackson started kindergarten in Miami-Dade County this month, fully vaccinated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yes, give him a shot, because we want whats best for him, he said. Bruno, who is the president of the Florida Parent Teacher Association, said the organization worries that the continued decrease in kindergarten vaccine rates will lead to more school disruptions such as seen during last years measles outbreak in Broward, where students impacted by the outbreak were in and out of classes. Bruno said he expects the Florida PTA to try and push lawmakers into addressing the issue during the upcoming Florida Legislative session, and said the PTA plans to take a more fervent stance on the issue if the rate continues to drop. Its already dangerously low, and it going any lower will have ripple effects across our schools ecosystem, he said. ------------ South Florida Sun Sentinel Health Reporter Cindy Krischer Goodman contributed to this report. -------------- Multiple children have been accused of breaking into and vandalizing a Hamilton County event space. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The juveniles, ranging in age from 6 to 15, reportedly broke into Molloys on the Green late last month, according to the Greenhills Police Department. Police said they shattered dinnerware items, plates, glasses, and custom decorations. They also reportedly overturned tables and chairs, broke pictures and light fixtures, and shattered multiple windows. TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The department shared photos with our news partners, WCPO, showing the extensive damage. Following an investigation, police charged two 12-year-olds and one 11-year-old child with breaking and entering. A 15-year-old has also been charged with criminal trespass. Police have not charged a 6-year-old and two 9-year-olds at this time. All of the children have been released to their parents. Theyre now awaiting a court date from Hamilton County Juvenile Court. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] As US destroyers closed in on Venezuela's coast on Thursday, China condemned Washington's military build-up and warned against foreign interference, backing Nicolas Maduro in a showdown that is drawing in powers far beyond the Caribbean. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China opposed "any move that violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and a country's sovereignty and security". She added that Beijing rejected "the interference of external forces in Venezuela's internal affairs under any pretext" and urged the United States to "do more things conducive to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Her remarks came as Maduro hosted China's ambassador in Caracas, Lan Hu, praising what he called "notable advances" in joint projects. "China is without a doubt the country that leads the world with the concept of human development," Maduro said in a message on Telegram after the meeting, which was also attended by Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaking during a meeting with members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in Caracas on Wednesday. Photo: AFP alt=Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaking during a meeting with members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in Caracas on Wednesday. Photo: AFP> Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The exchange highlighted Beijing's alignment with Caracas as the Trump administration escalates its pressure campaign. The White House confirmed that three destroyers and an amphibious squadron carrying about 4,000 Marines have been dispatched to the Caribbean. Washington says the aim is to disrupt cartels, but Venezuelan officials and their allies call the patrols a direct threat to sovereignty. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was "prepared to use all American power" to stop drugs from entering the United States and to "bring those responsible to justice". She described Maduro's government as "a narcoterrorist cartel" and noted that the reward for his capture has been raised to US$50 million. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maduro responded by mobilising 4.5 million members of the Bolivarian Militia and ordering a 30-day suspension of drone flights nationwide. "We defend our seas, our skies and our lands. We freed them. We guard and patrol them. No empire will touch the sacred soil of Venezuela," he said in a televised speech in Caracas. China has poured about US$67 billion into Venezuela since 2007, far more than into any other South American country, making it Caracas's most important creditor and one of its few remaining lifelines. The partnership, launched under then-president Hugo Chavez, tied Chinese loans to Venezuelan oil and grew into a strategic alliance that has survived debt disputes and US sanctions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Chinese companies have scaled back direct purchases of Venezuelan crude, Beijing continues to shield Maduro diplomatically. Last year, China was one of the first countries to recognise a highly contested election process that gave him a third term. Regional leaders have been divided in their reactions to the American military build-up near Venezuela. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated her opposition to intervention and called for disputes to be solved through dialogue. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said the United States was mistaken if it believed military action could resolve Venezuela's crisis and warned of "grave regional consequences". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brazil also voiced concern. Celso Amorim, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's top foreign policy adviser, said he viewed the US naval deployment with "worry" and stressed that non-intervention remained a fundamental principle of Brazilian diplomacy. He cautioned against a narrative of using "total force" to fight organised crime, saying such problems should be tackled "with cooperation among countries and not unilateral interventions". Others stayed quiet or echoed Washington. Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump ally, did not comment but amplified messages from the US Embassy about defence cooperation. In Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa ordered intelligence services to investigate alleged ties between Venezuelan cartels and domestic gangs. Paraguay's Senate declared the Cartel de los Soles a terrorist organisation, awaiting approval by President Santiago Pena. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. A Chinese student at a Russell Group university laundered hundreds of thousands of pounds for a South East Asian crime gang selling online images of child abuse, a court has heard. Huanyou Zhou acted as a knowing and willing conduit for the organisation, which used digital funds as a cloak of invisibility to cleanse the dirty criminal money, a jury was told. The 27-year-old was arrested at her Southampton University halls of residence following an investigation by the FBI, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Interpol. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zhous boyfriend is an active member of the organised crime group which advertises access to hundreds of thousands of images of child sexual abuse online, prosecutors said. An account in her name allegedly received around 300,000 worth of cryptocurrency from digital wallets linked to the websites selling the explicit videos and images. These funds were then deposited into five different UK bank accounts set up whilst she was a student studying digital strategy, jurors were told. Zhou has pleaded not guilty to facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child, participating in the activities of an organised crime group, transferring criminal property and possessing criminal property. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Southampton Crown Court in Hampshire heard that in the autumn of 2023, she moved to the UK to study an MSc in digital strategy and information systems at the University of Southampton. Zhou already had a double first in engineering and mechanics from Chengdu University of Technology in southwestern China. The prosecution says she was adept at using computers and knew several programming languages, including Python and SQL. In December 2022, she is alleged to have set up an account with the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Over the course of a year, the account in Zhous name received 301,941 from cryptocurrency wallets, which had also been used to pay for servers hosting the explicit content and had received funds from the sale of the material, the court was told. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These wallets had been linked to sites where child sexual abuse material is sold. The court heard one website advertised 4TB of child sexual abuse material for $60; and told that 1TB is equivalent to 250,000 still images. The FBI subpoenaed Cloudflare, the company that provided the domain names for the websites, and received the IP addresses of the servers hosting them, which were both linked to virtual private servers owned by Swiss companies. Further court orders showed that the servers had been paid for using Bitcoin from two different cryptocurrency wallets, which had also paid money into the account under Zhous name. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The court heard that the FBI also carried out a test purchase from one of the sites and was told to pay in cryptocurrency to a Cashapp account. Cloak of invisibility Shortly after she arrived in the UK, Zhou began depositing funds into five different bank accounts she had set up with Lloyds, Revolut, Starling and Halifax money the prosecution say came from the cryptocurrency exchange. Zhou was arrested at her student halls in the centre of Southampton and her phone seized by the National Crime Agency which found contact details and other information linking her to the group. Opening the case, prosecutor Francis FitzGibbon KC explained that criminals use cryptocurrency to try and give themselves a cloak of invisibility. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said: This material is out there on the internet if you want it, if you know where to look and you are willing to pay... there is a lot of money to be made, the trade is international and highly organised. The proceeds have to be laundered and recycled into the legitimate economy, the criminals do their best to cover their tracks to make it difficult to catch them. They dont give receipts, they use cryptocurrency in the hope technology will give them what every criminal wants, a cloak of invisibility, that is what this case is about. We say Zhou was a knowing and willing conduit and recipient of money connected to the supply of this material and of money needed to pay for internet services to enable material to reach customers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We say she used cryptocurrency accounts to receive money to cleanse the dirty criminal money. He also queried why a student in the UK for such a short amount of time would need to open so many bank accounts. The trial continues. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A conservative Christian colleges response to Cracker Barrels new logo left many critics baffled. The restaurant chains recent rebrand, which saw the dropping of the image of a man and a barrel from its logo, has triggered a MAGA meltdown with some on the right accusing the Southern-style eatery of going woke. The company has previously been a target of the right for embracing Pride Month and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Related: Keith Olbermann Goes Scorched Earth On 'Aggressively Stupid' Karoline Leavitt On Thursday, Hillsdale College in Michigan joined the pile-on. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A post on its official account on X (formerly Twitter) likened the updated logo to a vandalized statue of President George Washington that was defaced during the 2020 protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Same energy, the college captioned the side-by-side photos. According to Grok, Xs AI bot, the same energy remark was meant to suggest both images represented the destruction of traditional American heritage. Critics, however, were left scratching their heads: I hope an intern came up with that. Do better, guys Todd DuBois (@GWOtaku) August 21, 2025 Calm down. Mitch (@MitchDTom) August 21, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No, it is not. Fascist Russian Asset (@SamanthaPfaff) August 22, 2025 Just think - somebody sat down, came up with this goofy ass post, and then proudly hit Post. Its beyond parody at this point. Zappit (@Zapdraws) August 22, 2025 your social media worker is probably the stupidest chud whose drivel I've ever had to read. enjoy being the stupidest guy in the room in perpetuity! Liberal Beers (@liberalbeeers) August 22, 2025 I had thought Hillsdale might be a sane college for my kids to attend. Oh well. Bob Sacamano (@BobDSacamano) August 21, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Why is the official account of my alma mater commenting on a glorified interstate diner? Jay Urban (@JayUrban11) August 22, 2025 You right-wingers sure are easily offended snowflakes! RidinWithSkittles (@RidinSkittles) August 21, 2025 Related... Read the original on HuffPost A Hillsborough County circuit judge reinstated an injunction that stops state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. from forcing policyholders claims disputes to an arbitration panel that the company funds. Circuit Judge Melissa Polo on Aug. 1 granted a temporary injunction requested by attorneys for Martin Alvarez, a Tampa man who was planning to sue the states insurer of last resort over its offer to settle his hurricane damage claim. Polos order, rather than stopping action only in Alvarez case, barred Citizens from diverting any and all claims disputes to the states Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) and paused cases that were already underway. She ruled that Alvarez demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success in its claim that the practice violates policyholders constitutional rights to fair trials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Polo also denied Citizens motion to move the trial to Leon County, where the company is headquartered. Related Articles On Aug. 5, Citizens filed a notice to appeal the decision to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, triggering an automatic stay of the injunction and allowing Citizens DOAH cases to proceed. On Thursday, Polo ruled that failing to lift the stay while Citizens pursued its appeal risks depriving policyholders of constitutional protections. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After Thursdays ruling, Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier responded, We will certainly adhere to the order while it remains in effect. The DOAH process offers a fair and efficient venue for settling disputed claims and the statute that specifically authorizes Citizens to use DOAH is constitutional. We look forward to making our case on appeal. Alvarez attorney Lynn Brauer did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the latest ruling. The DOAH system, approved by both Citizens Board of Governors and the Florida Legislature, is forced on Citizens policyholders through a policy provision they have no opportunity to reject. By contrast, private market insurers can offer policy provisions known as endorsements giving them the right to divert disputes to arbitration, but those are typically in exchange for a premium discount and policyholders have the right to reject the provisions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under Citizens mandatory endorsement, policyholders surrender their rights to a jury trial, access to courts, and due process on the breach of their contract claims while being offered neither a fair alternative nor a reduction in premiums, Polo wrote in a four-page order. Since 2024, Citizens moved more than 1,300 claims to the DOAH courts. A South Florida Sun Sentinel analysis in July found that Citizens prevailed in 47 of 51 cases that advanced to a final hearing prior to July 10. Advised by their lawyers that the system sets them up to fail, a majority of policyholders either settle or drop their claims before advancing to a hearing, plaintiffs attorneys told the Sun Sentinel. Irreparable harm is unmistakable and severe, Polo wrote. Alvarez has demonstrated that the DOAH forum is structurally biased and deprives policyholders of neutral discovery, motion practice and judicial review, the judge wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the record shows that DOAH repeatedly awards fees and/or costs to (Citizens) while denying the same relief to the insureds, she wrote. Plaintiffs attorneys have said that Citizens routinely offers $250 or $500 settlements that, if rejected, subject policyholders to legal fee rulings by DOAH judges whether they lose their hearings or later decide to drop their claims. The DOAH endorsement itself does not provide a way to challenge the validity of any proposals for settlement served prior to a hearing on the amounts, Polo wrote. DOAH judges even routinely award costs to [Citizens] in cases where [Citizens] does not file proposals for settlement, the judge wrote. The result is that ordinary citizens are stripped of their constitutional rights and left powerless in a tribunal that appears to favor the states insurer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last year, Citizens Board of Governors approved paying DOAH $19.3 million to administer the program through 2027. Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071 or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com. The roads around Vice President JD Vance's home in East Walnut Hills will be closed this weekend, the city of Cincinnati announced on Thursday. Officials won't confirm whether Vance will come back to his home in Cincinnati this weekend. In addition to the road closures, security checkpoints will be set up for residents and delivery trucks that need to access the area, according to the city. The road closures will start Aug. 22 at 8 a.m. and be lifted the evening of Aug. 25. The city didn't give a specific time when the restrictions will be lifted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The roads that will close are: William Howard Taft Road between Torrence Parkway and East McMillan Street. Collins Avenue between Riverside Drive and William Howard Taft Road. Gladstone Avenue, Taft Road Lane and Heatherhill Lane. Residents will be able to access their homes through three security checkpoints: William Howard Taft Road and Torrence Parkway. William Howard Taft Road and East McMillan Street. Riverside Drive and Collins Avenue (pedestrian entry only). It's not clear why Vance would come to town. Messages to the vice president were not returned. The city of Cincinnati wouldn't confirm, referring questions to the United States Secret Service. The Secret Service wouldn't confirm, referring questions to the vice president's office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Vances have had a home in East Walnut Hills since 2018, when they bought a 158-year-old white two-story building for $1.4 million. Vance, in an email to The Enquirer in 2024, said he and his wife, Usha, fell in love with the house and bought it. They knew little of East Walnut Hills at the time. "Our neighbors are great, and some of our closest friends live within walking distance. We love the natural beauty, especially the old giant trees and the wildlife," Vance said in the email. "It's hard to believe we're a few minutes away from downtown but we see deer and wild turkey every day. It's the perfect combo of proximity to the city and to nature." This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati roads around Vance's home to close this weekend The City of Greenville has rolled out a redesigned website and a new mobile app intended to make city services and information easier to access. The city announced Thursday that both the website and the app, called GreenLINK, are now live. Officials said the changes are part of a broader effort to update how residents interact with local government. The new website includes simplified navigation, a modern design and updated content. One of its main features is ReciteMe, an accessibility tool that allows users to have text read aloud, translate content into other languages, and adjust settings such as font size and color contrast. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The city also switched to a shorter web address, www.greenvilletx.gov, which replaces www.ci.greenville.tx.us. City staff emails will transition to the new domain later this year. Our team has been working hard behind the scenes to modernize the way we connect with the people of Greenville, said Daniel Starks, communications manager for the city. This is a meaningful step toward making our services more transparent and easier to use and were not done yet. Alongside the new website, the city has launched GreenLINK, a free mobile app designed to give residents fast, easy access to city services. By downloading the app search GreenLINK TX in an app store and look for the City of Greenville logo, or go to https://tinyurl.com/k9tdkc3f on a mobile device users can: View upcoming events and city updates Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Contact departments and submit questions Report concerns such as code violations or service issues Pay utility bills and city fees Receive push notifications for emergencies, water outages and other alerts (coming soon) GreenLINK is available on both iOS and Android devices. While tools like GreenLINK arent a fix-all, they represent a strong step toward building better communication between residents and their city government, Starks said. Our hope is that these improvements make it easier for people to stay connected, informed and involved. MANILA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) said Friday that Filipino consumers are showing a growing preference for premium rice varieties, particularly those imported from Vietnam. Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel has directed the Rice Industry Development Office to review changing consumer preferences, noting that the trend may indicate a shift toward "quality over quantity" in rice consumption. Preliminary studies by the DA and the Philippine Rice Research Institute show that several local inbred and hybrid varieties have qualities comparable to Vietnam's award-winning ST25 rice. Officials said aligning production with market demand could help local farmers compete with imports and even explore export opportunities. According to the DA, Vietnam supplies about 74 percent of the Philippines' rice imports, with popular varieties including ST25, DT8, and OM5451. The City of Orlando its preparing to take legal action after the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) painted over the rainbow-colored crosswalk outside the Pulse Memorial without warning, city hall said Thursday. City officials say the work happened in the middle of the night and without any prior notice. By Thursday morning, what had once been a symbol of remembrance and resilience was covered in black-and-white stripes. Dozens of people gathered at the corner of Orange Avenue and Esther Street throughout the day to protest the decision. We are Orlando Strong, and this city does not take anything lying down, one demonstrator vowed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Protesters used chalk to redraw the rainbow colors across the crosswalk, but rain quickly washed it away. Still, they said the fight isnt over. To try and erase 49 people all over the state is insane, said Diana Myers, a demonstrator. The controversy stems from a federal initiative called SAFE ROADS, which stands for Safe Arterials for Everyone through Reliable Operations and Distraction-Reducing Strategies. The program pushes states to remove crosswalk designs that could be considered distracting to drivers. Back in July, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis asking the state to comply. City leaders argue the rainbow design made the area safer. We followed all the FDOT regulations and rules when we installed this crosswalk, said Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan. But not everyone agrees. Taxpayer money should never be used for a woke agenda and Im grateful for the administration to clean up our streets, said Congressman Randy Fine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For survivors of the Pulse tragedy, the issue goes far beyond transportation guidelines. Its so much more than colors on the pavement, said Pulse survivor Brandon Wolf. Its a memorial to 49 people who had their lives stolen and the countless others who had their lives turned upside down. Its a message of solidarity from the communityand thats why it cuts so deeply. The city said it was not informed ahead of time about the removal, and its team is now exploring all options to bring the rainbow crosswalk back. FDOT has provided Channel 9 with the following statement: As the state highway department, it is the duty of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to ensure the safety and consistency of public roadways and transportation systems. That means ensuring our roadways are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests. Earlier this year, the Department completed a months-long process of updating the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) with input from representatives of state and local governments. This update included a prohibition on non-uniform traffic control devices, such as pavement markings on state and local roads. In June, FDOT notified all local governments of these updates and revised provisions of Florida Statutes that give the Department authority to withhold state funds for noncompliance. This was followed by similar policy updates from USDOT Secretary Duffy. Last week, local governments not in compliance for local roads began receiving notifications to bring their roadways up to state standards to ensure locals govern themselves accordingly. In addition to ensuring all local governments comply, FDOT completed a review of all state-maintained roadways and is now correcting pavement markings not in compliance. That includes street art previously installed on state right of way, such as the intersection of Orange Avenue in question. Transportation infrastructure is for the movement of people and goods. In this case, while the crosswalk has been restored to its proper form, local efforts are underway to construct a permanent memorial on adjacent properties funded by the State of Florida. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is false. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. A dog was rescued after being found trapped against a wall along the river during an educational trip on Wednesday morning. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The rescue occurred as Cleveland Water staff embarked on a boat trip to the 5-Mile Crib. The dog, later named River, was spotted by passengers at the start of the journey. TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Without hesitation, a Cleveland Water employee and members of the boats crew jumped into action to save the dog, according to a social media post. Following the rescue, River was taken to a nearby animal hospital for further evaluation. However, the trip to the 5-Mile Crib was canceled due to dangerous weather conditions. The staff and crew involved in the rescue were praised for their heroic efforts and quick thinking, which ensured the safety of the dog. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Key Takeaway Orkins Bed Bug Cities List ranks U.S. cities based on reported home and commercial bed bug infestations. Find out which city topped the list this year and how travelers can reduce risk. In 2023, there was a bed bug outbreak in Paris so intense that it sent travelers into a panicthere was a collective sigh of relief when the situation faded from headlines. But, even if you're thinking about bed bugs when youre traveling, it doesnt mean theyre not thinking about you. Pest control company Orkin recently released its annual roundup, Orkins Top 50 Bed Bugs Cities List, which ranks 50 American cities based on how many home and commercial bed bug infestations it has treated in the last year. And while some of the data is based on home treatments, the company also sourced its numbers on commercial treatmentsprimarily at hotels. "Bed bugs are some of the most resilient pests in the world, making them extremely difficult to control if brought into a home or hotel," Ben Hottel, a top Orkin entomologist, said in the report. "As summer travel picks up, it is critical. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chicago came in as the No. 1 city, as it has for the last five years. Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis rounded out the top five cities with the most reported infestations. In some cities, year-over-year reports of bed bugs have actually decreased: New York City, Philadelphia, and Charlotte all reported fewer infestations. However, information isnt just designed to make you panic or sleep with one eye open the next time youre at a hotel. There are a few easy steps you can take on your next trip to protect yourself from bedbugs, whether you're traveling to Chicago or Paris. Orkin calls it the "SLEEP" method. Search: Check the room for bed bugs, which are small, flat, oval-shaped insects that are brown and about the size of an apple seed, according to Orkin. Other evidence of bed bugs includes bloody or inky stains on fabric and a sweet, musty smell in the room. Lift: Look under sheets, curtains, and cushions for bed bugs or signs of them. Elevate: Rather than putting your suitcase on furniture, use the luggage rack provided by the hotel. Examine: When you unpack your suitcase when you get home, check the interior of your luggage and belongings for signs of bedbugs. Place: Put all of your dryer-safe clothing into the dryer for 30 to 45 minutes at the top heat setting when you get home. This will zap any potential bed bugs or bed bug eggs before they get a chance to spread. Read the original article on Travel & Leisure This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 21 episode of Deadline: White House. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Georgia on Thursday to try to sell voters on Donald Trumps big, beautiful bill. During his remarks, the vice president repeatedly referred to the massive tax and spending bill passed by the GOP-controlled Congress earlier this year as a working families tax cut. Now, I get it, Vance has a hard job one hes been getting quite a lot of breaks from but selling this bill will likely be his toughest challenge yet. Trumps bill wasnt intended to help this countrys working families. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres one simple question everyone should be asking the Republicans trying to sell this bill to the American people: Why were the tax cuts for billionaires made permanent, with no sunset clause, and the tax cuts for overtime and tips made temporary? What Vance and his fellow Republicans are trying to do is so cynical. They are out there with a straight face, acting like theyre taking care of the working people, when, in reality, all theyre doing is helping out their billionaire buddies. Rebranding the budget bill as a working families tax cut is like putting lipstick on a pig. This is a bill that gutted Medicaid and slashed funding for rural hospitals. Those arent policies that help this countrys working families. Even though Americans will continue to see and feel the negative effects of Trumps agenda, that doesnt mean its a foregone conclusion that Republicans will be defeated next year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This week, a new report from The New York Times found that the Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters. According to the Times: Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections and often by a lot. Now, its important to acknowledge that there are still more Democrats registered in America than Republicans. But its also important to note that over 40% of Americans consider themselves independents. This isnt just a problem for Democrats; both parties are unpopular. So the movement that I am most interested in watching between now and the midterms is what is going to happen with all the Americans who say, A pox on both your houses. How can the Democrats convince them, the countrys independent voters, that this is the party they should be supporting? If I were a Democrat running in a purple state, I wouldnt be hyperfocused on what my partys base is saying in polling, and I wouldnt be hyperfocused on what the MAGA base is saying in polling. Instead, I would look at what the wide swath of independent voters think. Ultimately, they are the ones who will decide this countrys future. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com Claire's has been the place where girls often got their first ears pierced and have sold jewelry and accessories for decades across the country. And now, the West Bend location is closing. According to Claires in West Bend Deals and Events Facebook page, store manager Madelynn Baier announced the store's last day is Aug. 27. A store official told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the closure could be sooner if all inventory is sold. According to the Claire's in West Bend Deals and Events Facebook page, liquidations sales are underway with discounts of up to 70 to 80%. The furniture and equipment at the Claire's are also being sold. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Claire's has had financial struggles, USA Today reported. After it filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, it filed for bankruptcy again on Aug. 6, stating the company may close as many as 1,100 stores. However, the company announced Aug. 20 it would sell most of its business to a private equity firm, Ames Watson. According to the company news release, the company will pause liquidation sales at many stores. Claire's in West Bend is not one of those. It will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily until the store closes, local store officials said. It is located at 1440 S. Main St. The only other Claire's in the Milwaukee area is at 5800 N. Bayshore Drive, Glendale. That location as of Aug. 20 had no announced closing plan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Claire's, which is based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, has 1,326 company-operated stores around the country, according to USA Today. More: West Bend Germanfest 2025 is back. Here's what you need to know More: Sweet corn: Where do you buy it, how do you make it and how do you eat it? Answer our poll Cathy Kozlowicz can be reached at 262-361-9132 or cathy.kozlowicz@jrn.com. Follow her on X at @kozlowicz_cathy. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Claire's, a jewelry and accessory store, to close West Bend location WINCHESTER, Ky. (FOX 56) With dry and hot days being the norm throughout August, leaders in Clark County have issued a county-wide burn ban. Lt. Chris King with the Clark County Fire Department said they have already responded to a few fires caused by the dry weather. He said the ban will continue as long as the conditions remain the same. Latest central Kentucky weather forecast King said it doesnt take much to spark a flame. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You throw a cigarette out in the grass right now, and it can spark a grass fire. And by the time you buy, because it can, it grows rapidly, he explained. With everything being dry, youre obviously going to have a higher spread of grass fires coming. King said it is important to avoid any outside burning, such as a burn pit or a barrel. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: He said you can ask permission for a controlled ban. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement King urges anyone who might see something burning to call 911. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A Clark County employee faces charges for allegedly posing as a licensed attorney in cases involving the estates of the deceased, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. Jerrell Roberts, 39, of North Las Vegas, faces eight felony charges, including practicing law without a license and perjury, records said. Police arrested Roberts at the Regional Justice Center on Wednesday during a probate hearing. Roberts is not a licensed attorney, has never applied to become an attorney and has never sat for the Nevada bar exam, Las Vegas Metro police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The hearings in question involved at least two probate cases, where judges supervise the process of dividing a persons assets after their death. On Aug. 12, a licensed Nevada attorney reported to police that a man, later identified as Roberts, had identified himself by that attorneys unique bar number during a hearing. During court hearings, attorneys identify themselves to judges with their full name and bar number a unique identifier from the State Bar of Nevada. Another attorney present for the probate case told police Roberts was representing another family member, documents said. The attorney became suspicious of Roberts because of him making legal arguments using proper legal terminology but in the wrong context. A transcript of the hearing later determined that Roberts provided another attorneys bar number, documents said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A detective later learned Roberts works as a juvenile probation officer at the Clark County Juvenile Justice Services, documents said. In 2024, a judge swore Roberts in to the position and also administer[ed] the oath of attorney, though the judge did not confirm with the bar. After police detained him on Wednesday, Roberts told detectives he is a special administrator and not an attorney, police said. When questioned why he used [that bar number], Roberts stated that he made up the number, documents said. Roberts said that while at work, he has heard bar numbers ranging from the mid to low hundreds up to 1,000, and that the 15,000 must not return to anyone. Roberts posted a surety bond and was scheduled to return to court on Sept. 24 to see if prosecutors had filed a criminal complaint against him, records said. An attorney representing him was not listed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Roberts was on unpaid leave as of Thursday, a county spokesperson confirmed. 8 News Now Investigator David Charns can be reached at dcharns@8newsnow.com. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) The Clarksburg Water Board (CWB) has been named the recipient of the 2025 Water System of the Year Award by the West Virginia Rural Water Association (WVRWA). According to a press release from the CWB, it received the award on Tuesday, Aug. 19 during the WVRWAs Annual Technical Conference at the Oglebay Resort. This is the third time the CWB has won the award, having previously earned it in 2005 and 2016. The WVRWA accepts nominations from more than 550 members, including water and wastewater systems, supporting companies and individual members to recognize the best water systems in West Virginia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Plans in place to replace 2 Clarksburg bridges Clarksburg Water Board President Albert Cox expressed his excitement to receive the award. This award is a testament to the hard work and commitment of General Manager Jason Myers and the exceptional team he has built around him, Cox said. My fellow board members and I are truly blessed to be part of a winning team that always puts the needs of our community first. The CWB is currently working on upgrading water and sewer systems across the city. Since the work started, several waterlines have broken around Clarksburg, but have since been repaired. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Federal agents have raided the Maryland home of John Bolton, President Donald Trumps former national security adviser, on Friday morning as part of an investigation into the handling of classified documents. The raid was allegedly carried out under a court-authorized warrant, with FBI Director Kash Patel later posting on X that no one is above the law, although he did not mention Bolton directly by name. Attorney General Pam Bondi also chimed in after the raid, replying to Patels post, saying, Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton, who served briefly in the Trump administration before stepping out as one of the Presidents most vocal critics, was allegedly not detained or charged with any crimes after the search, per AP News. The investigation reportedly relates to how Bolton handled sensitive or confidential documents, a long-running concern in Washington that has affected both parties. Trump himself was raided by the FBI in a somewhat similar situation a few years ago. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, in August 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of an investigation into classified documents allegedly taken from the White House. In June of 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Trump on multiple counts related to mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice. Trump pleaded not guilty and has maintained that the case is politically motivated. As of now, the case is still moving through the court system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton previously clashed with Trump over foreign policy and later published a memoir, The Room Where It Happened, that was later placed under a government review for possible disclosure of classified information. A federal judge eventually allowed the book to be released, but also suggested Bolton had likely published classified materials. The Justice Department under then-President Biden later dropped its investigation into the book, a move Bolton previously called a complete vindication, while also previously telling reporters at Axios that, theyre just giving up. With the new FBI search, however, questions have resurfaced over whether the case is closed for the former security adviser. Bolton has also allegedly been a target of threats from Iran due to his hardline stance against the regime. In 2022, federal prosecutors charged an Iranian national in connection with a potential assassination plot against Bolton. CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) At the Charleston Animal Society, there are so many animals waiting to come home with you, and starting Friday, all adoption fees are waved. If youve been thinking of adding a new furry friend to your family, now is the time. As we near the end of our annual NBC Clear the Shelters initiative this week, the Charleston Animal Society is celebrating with their crescendo event. We really, really are relying on our community to make amazing events like this as successful as they are said Will Howell, Associate Director of Marking at CAS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Charleston Animal Society is offering once-a-year adoption specials this weekend, as an extra push for the annual clear the shelters event. In celebration of this crescendo event of clear the shelters, even though its ending the month a little early, we are waiving all adoption fees, said Aldwin Roman, Vice President and Chief of Operating Manager of CAS. Every single animal is vaccinated, spayed or neutered, and microchipped. There is an animal for every home out there. We have dogs who get along really well with children. We have animals that really require, younger home people who are more active. We have couch potatoes who are just willing to just hang out on the couch and be lazy all day. said Howell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even if you cant adopt, there are a number of ways you can still help the animals and the society, by volunteering, fostering, donating, and more. Sometimes theres even office work. If working with animals isnt even your thing, theres still a way for you to help. And theres always donating to support us. Buying a raffle ticket to the Subaru with our raffling off. Theres a number of ways that you can help. said Roman. Thanks to generous sponsors like board members and Crews Subaru, a 2025 Subaru Ascent will be raffled off to help over 250 animals like Ricky Bobby, Macaroni, and Honey Bunney, find their homes. Howell explained the Subaru raffle is a great way to get involved to help animals and the chance to win big. We have seven different prizes, ranging from the 2025 Subaru Ascent that was graciously purchased by Hank Laurel Greer, two of our board members, as well as, cash prizes going up to $20,000. said Howell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However you decide to get involved, staff say this weekend is all about finding animals their forever homes, and they need your help. Please, just come on by, find the animal youre looking for, and if you dont find what youre looking for here, head on to our Berkeley campus or the other shelters that are participating. We just want, we just want to animals to go home. said Roman. The Charleston Animal Society mis open this weekend from 10 am to 5 pm. On August 23rd, News 2 will be live from shelters across the Lowcountry for our Clear the Shelters special. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. PHNOM PENH/BANGKOK, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chiefs of Cambodian and Thai military regions on Friday reaffirmed their strong commitments to implementing a ceasefire reached by both countries recently, the Cambodian Defense Ministry said in a press release. The reaffirmation was made during an extraordinary meeting of the Cambodia-Thailand Regional Border Committee (RBC) between Cambodia's fifth Military Region and Thailand's first Military Region in Thailand's Sa Kaeo province, the press release said. "Both sides reaffirmed their strong commitments to implement the ceasefire and 13-point consensus, further strengthen bilateral relations, and restore normalcy in border areas," the press release said. It added that the two sides also agreed to hold the next RBC meeting within one month or at a convenient time, with Cambodia serving as the host. Thailand's Ad Hoc Center for Thailand-Cambodia Border Situation said on social media that both sides agreed to implement the 13-point consensus. According to the center, the two sides also discussed other important issues, including agreeing to carry out humanitarian demining cooperation and combat transnational crime together. Additionally, both sides agreed to establish a coordinating group and a township border committee to help address issues at local levels. The two countries agreed on details of a ceasefire agreement on Aug. 7 in Malaysia. The melting of Antarctic sea ice may be even worse than we realized. New research suggests that the region is experiencing rapid and abrupt disruptions that could represent a global climate "tipping point," past which the effects of climate change become irreversible and accelerate in intensity. "Antarctica is showing worrying signs of rapid change across its ice, ocean and ecosystems," Nerile Abram, a professor at the Australian National University and lead author of a new study published in the journal Nature, told Agence France-Presse. "Some of these abrupt changes will be difficult to stop." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Using ice core samples and satellite observations, the team documented a worrying "regime shift" taking hold in Antarctica in which the extent of the region's sea ice free-floating icebergs, as opposed to features like ice shelves, which are fixed to land has dropped below a point lower than anything seen in past centuries. Even more worrying is the rapidity of the shift: this historic low is following a high peak of expansion. In numbers, the authors say that sea ice has retreated from the continent's shoreline by roughly 75 miles on average since 2014, per AFP. The ice melt directly contributes to rising sea levels, but that's only one part of the problem. Ice sheets reflect a significant amount of sunlight, and once they shrink or disappear, more solar radiation gets trapped in the ocean, contributing to warming (not to mention endangering marine life). That creates a deadly feedback loop: more warming means more melting, and the cycle goes on, threatening to snowball out of control. This has to be avoided at all costs, the scientists say. "Once we start losing Antarctic sea ice, we set in train this self-perpetuating process," Abram told Reuters. "Even if we stabilize the climate, we are committed to still losing Antarctic sea ice over many centuries to come." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That warming would also imperil other frozen bodies, like the Thwaites, or "Doomsday," glacier, which could singlehandedly raise global sea levels by over two feet if it melts. Already an ominous threat, in recent years scientists have discovered that the glacier is even more vulnerable to melting than once thought, after revealing that its underbelly, long assumed to be protected from warming by hugging the sea floor, actually experiences intrusions of warm saltwater when being lifted by high tides. In light of that revelation, the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration estimates that the Thwaites could completely collapse within 200 years. The authors of the new paper also suspect that the melting sea ice will accelerate the collapse of the Antarctic Overturning Circulation, a crucial system that moves warm waters around the planet while spreading nutrients, the fate of which is entangled with the survival of countless marine habitats. A previous study predicted that the globe-spanning current could slow to less than half its speed by 2050 if we don't stop burning fossil fuels. As an absolute bare minimum, we need to continue reducing our emissions, the authors say, in order to keep ourselves from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. But we're already past the point where we can guarantee that doing so will help undo the damage. "The tipping point for unstoppable ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be exceeded even under best-case CO2 emission reduction pathways, potentially initiating global tipping cascades," they wrote. More on climate change: Scientists Find Evidence That You're a Hypocrite Who's Causing More Than Your Share of Climate Change The Brief Officer Matthew Abbott, a Cobb County police officer since 2016, was arrested and charged with distributing obscene material, public indecency, and violation of oath by a public officer. The arrest followed a tip from the Utah Attorney Generals Office, leading to a search warrant and Abbott's arrest; he remains in Cobb County Jail without bond. Abbott allegedly committed crimes while on duty, including sending explicit messages about sexual acts with children and performing lewd acts in public locations. COBB COUNTY, Ga. - New details have been released about the arrest of a Cobb County police officer in a multi-state investigation which led to charges of distributing obscene material. Officer Matthew Abbott arrested What we know Matthew Abbott, 36, of Marietta was arrested on Thursday. He was charged with distribution of obscene material, two counts of public indecency, and violation of oath by a public officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abbott, who has worked as a Cobb County police officer since Jan 2016, was immediately relieved of duty. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit received a tip from the Utah Attorney Generals Office about Abbot, which led to a search warrant and eventually his arrest. He was booked into the Cobb County Jail and remained there Friday afternoon without bond. The Cobb County Police Department and the Utah Internet Crimes Against Childrens Task Force assisted in this case. Accusations while on-duty Dig deeper According to an arrest warrant, Abbott committed several crimes while on duty. The document states that on Feb. 5, Abbott was at the East Cobb Government Center, which is where Precinct 4 and the tag office are located, when he sent an electronic message to someone "describing explicit sexual acts with children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The document indicates that on June 2, around 1:30 p.m., Abbott was at Kincaid Elementary School and committed public indecency by performing a lewd act in the parking lot. The school was closed for summer break. One week later, according to the warrant, Abbott was in the parking lot of a church on New MacLand Road where he performed an act of lewd exposure while on duty. Matthew Abbott (Cobb County Sheriff's Office) Investigators say this was all uncovered after they were notified by the Utah Attorney General's Office that Abbott was identified during a separate investigation, Cobb County police say they immediately contacted the GBI who launched an investigation. Abbott's home was searched, and he was later arrested. How is this Utah-related? What we don't know The details surrounding the crime have not been released. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FOX 5 has inquiries out to the Utah Attorney Generals Office and the Utah Internet Crimes Against Childrens Task Force. No word on whether he has obtained legal representation or when his next court date is. Cobb County police chief on officer arrest What they're saying Cobb County Police Interim Chief Dan Ferrell said his department is fully committed to being transparent and will fully cooperate in the investigation. "The people of Cobb County expect and deserve officers who uphold the law and conduct themselves with integrity, both on and off duty. The allegations in this case are extremely disturbing and do not reflect the values of our department. While the legal process moves forward, the officer has been relieved of duty, and we have initiated our own internal investigation. We will follow the facts, uphold due process, and take the actions necessary to maintain the trust of our community," the chief wrote. Abbott's charges explained Dig deeper The charge of violation of oath of office elevates any misconduct charge because the person held special authority and trust in the community. It suggests his alleged behavior was tied to, or at least judged against, his role as a law enforcement officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Georgia, distribution of obscene material charges typically refers to sending, sharing, or publishing obscene or sexually explicit material that meets the legal definition of obscenity. Think of it as not just pornography, but material lacking serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value and appealing to prurient interests." Public indecency charges are filed when someone exposes themselves, performs a lewd act, or engages in sexual activity in public. Two counts suggest at least two separate incidents, possibly documented by video, witness reports, or surveillance. The Source The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Cobb County Police Department provide the information for this article. This article has been updated since it was originally published to add new details surrounding the accusations. Cobb officer accused of sex crimes in school, church parking lots A former Cobb County police officer is in jail. Investigators say he exposed himself in the parking lot of an elementary school and a church. Investigators say Matthew Abbott also shared obscene material that involved children with someone, Channel 2 Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell reported. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] He is accused of doing that at a police precinct while he was on duty. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abbott took an oath to protect and serve, but now the former Cobb County police officer is on the other side of the law. He is charged with violation of oath of office, public indecency and distributing obscene material that investigators say involved children. Makes me feel bad, said Terry Fischlein, a neighbor. I thought he was a nice person. I didnt know that was going on Fischlein said he had liked having a police officer in the neighborhood. Earlier this year, while Abbott was on duty at a police precinct, investigators say he distributed obscene material to someone through electronic messages that described explicit sexual acts with children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In June, investigators say Abbott exposed himself in the parking lot of an elementary school and performed a sex act on himself in a church parking lot. Cobb PD says the investigation began after the Utah Attorney Generals Office identified Abbott in a separate investigation, A statement from Cobb PDs interim chief says in par, The people of Cobb County expect and deserve officers who uphold the law and conduct themselves with integrity, both on and off duty. The allegations in this case are extremely disturbing and do not reflect the values of our department. No one answered the door at Abbotts house Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cobb PD says it called on the GBI to investigate Abbott after learning about that investigation in Utah and Abbott could potentially face additional charges. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] As cool air moves into Michigan this week, signs of fall are already starting to pop up, and the first frost or freeze can't be far off. Parts of the upper Midwest may see frost in late August as temperatures could bottom out in the 30s in some spots after the weekend of Aug. 23. The National Weather Service in Minnesota is calling the upcoming chilly weather "an appetizer for the upcoming fall season." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even some "lake-effect rain showers" the milder cousin to the more familiar lake-effect snow could dampen the shores of some of the Great Lakes. The chill will be most notable in the Midwest over the weekend before spreading into the Northeast by early next week, forecasters said. "What may be the most substantial cool air outbreak since last spring is expected to sweep across the Midwest from Friday (Aug. 22) through Sunday (Aug. 24)," said AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski in an online report. He added "at the peak of this outbreak, temperatures may resemble those typically experienced in late September or early October." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Behind the cold front, cooler, drier air will sweep across a large portion of the country, Weather.com reported: "Temperatures are expected to run up to 25 degrees below average from the Plains to the Midwest and even reach into parts of the South," noted Weather.com meteorologist Jennifer Gray. By Monday, Aug. 25, highs in Chicago and Detroit may struggle to reach 70 degrees, compared to historical averages in the lower 80s for this time in August, Sosnowski said. On average, Michigan begins to see freezing temperatures in mid-September to early November, though temperatures may get cooler earlier. The National Weather Service's temperature 6-10 day outlook forecasts Michigan seeing below-normal temperatures, with a strong chance of cooler temperatures across central to southwest Michigan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This weekend, Aug. 23-24, statewide highs rare expected to range from the 60s to 80s with overnight temperatures dropping to the lower 50s and upper 40s. Ironwood, in the western UP, is expected to see the coolest low at 45 degrees on Sunday, Aug. 24. Temperature outlook for Aug. 27-31, with below normal temperatures covering much of the Midwest and Northeast regions of the U.S. The Upper Peninsula and northern Michigan typically see their first freezes temperatures at or below 32 degrees in early September, according to the Midwestern Regional Climate Center. In 2024, the earliest freeze was on Oct. 4 across Ontonagon, Gogebic, Baraga and Iron counties in the western UP. In the Lower Peninsula, the average first freeze dates range from late September to late October, with last year's earliest freeze landing on Oct. 5 in Missaukee, Otsego, Crawford and Oscoda counties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here's a list of the average first freeze dates by county to predict the 2025 growing season in Michigan: How cool will it be in Michigan this weekend? Here are the forecast temperature highs and lows across Michigan this weekend, Aug. 23-24, from the NWS: Detroit : On Aug. 23 there is a high of 83 and low of 61; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 78 and low of 56. Lansing: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 82 and low of 57; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 74 and low of 52. Grand Rapids: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 80 and low of 59; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 72 and low of 55. Coldwater: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 81 and low of 56; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 73 and low of 52. Kalamzoo: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 80 and low of 58; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 72 and low of 52. Gaylord: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 74 and low of 53; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 65 and low of 48. Alpena: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 77 and low of 56; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 70 and low of 53. Marquette: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 69 and low of 55; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 62 and low of 51. Sault Ste. Maire: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 72 and low of 57; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 62 and low of 52. Ironwood: On Aug. 23 there is a high of 64 and low of 48; on Aug. 24 there is a high of 58 and low of 45. Is there a difference between a frost and a freeze? Yes. According to the Old Farmers' Almanac, frost forms at temperatures near or above 32 degrees, while a freeze is when temperatures drop to or below 32 degrees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Old Farmer's Almanac provides first and last frost dates for select cities across the state. When is the official start to fall 2025? Monday, Sept., 22, 2025, is the first day of fall, marking the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, when the sun is directly above the earth's equator. When will the first freezing temperature reach northern Michigan? Average first freeze dates across Michigan ranging from late September (dark to light purple shading) and late October (light blue shading). The Midwestern Regional Climate Center, a program between the National Centers for Environmental Information and Purdue University, provides climate data with interactive maps for the Midwest. The freeze data shows average first and last freeze dates for the spring and fall seasons recorded from 1950 to 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here are the average first freeze dates, including the freeze dates for 2024, beginning with northern Michigan: Emmet County Average first freeze at 32 degrees: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Cheboygan County Average first freeze: Oct. 3 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Presque Isle County Average first freeze: Oct. 10 2024 first freeze date: Oct 17 Charlevoix County Average first freeze: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Antrim County Average first freeze: Oct. 5 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Otsego County Average first freeze: Sept. 24 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 5 Montmorency County Average first freeze: Sept. 28 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Alpena County Average first freeze: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Leelanau County Average first freeze: Oct. 19 2024 first freeze date: Nov. 2 Benzie County Average first freez: Oct. 15 2024 first freeze date: Nov. 2 Grand Traverse County Average first freeze: Oct. 8 2024 first freeze date: Nov. 2 Kalkaska County Average first freeze: Sept. 28 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Crawford County Average first freeze: Sept. 24 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 5 Oscoda County Average first freeze: Sept. 27 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 5 Alcona County Average first freeze: Oct. 6 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Manistee County Average first freeze: Oct. 12 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Wexford County Average first freeze: Oct. 1 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Missaukee County Average first freeze: Sept. 23 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 5 Roscommon County Average first freeze: Sept. 27 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Ogemaw County Average first freeze: Sept. 27 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Iosco County Average first freeze: Oct. 4 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Mason County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Lake County Average first freeze: Oct. 1 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Osceola County Average first freeze: Sept. 26 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Clare County Average first freeze: Sept. 30 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Gladwin County Average first freeze: Oct. 4 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Arenac County Average first freeze: Oct. 4 2024 first freeze: Oct. 16 When will the first fall freeze occur in southeast Michigan? Here are the freeze dates for counties in the Thumb area: Huron County Average first freeze: Oct. 17 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Tuscola County Average first freeze: Oct. 10 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Sanilac County Average first freeze: Oct. 17 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Lapeer County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 St. Clair County Average first freeze: Oct. 22 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Macomb County Average first freeze: Oct. 22 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Wayne County Average first freeze: Oct. 19 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Oakland County Average first freeze: Oct. 16 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Livingston County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Washtenaw County Average first freeze: Oct. 14 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Monroe County Average first freeze: Oct. 21 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 When will central Michigan see temperatures at or below 32 degrees? Here are the freeze dates for counties in central Michigan: Bay County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Midland County Average first freeze: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Isabella County Average first freeze: Oct. 8 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Mecosta County Average first freeze: Oct. 4 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Montcalm County Average first freeze: Oct. 8 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Gratiot County Average first freeze: Oct. 12 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Saginaw County Average first freeze: Oct. 12 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Genesee County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Shiawassee County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 18 Ingham County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Eaton County Average first freeze: Oct. 8 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Clinton County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 18 Livingston County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 When will the first freeze occur in the Grand Rapids area? Here are the freeze dates for counties in southwestern Michigan: Newaygo County Average first freeze: Oct. 3 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Oceana County: Average first freeze: Oct. 7 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Muskegon County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Ottawa County Average first freeze: Oct. 15 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Kent Count Average first freeze: Oct. 10 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Barry County Average first freeze: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Allegan County Average first freeze: Oct. 14 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 In southern Michigan, when will the first freeze happen? Here are the freeze dates for counties in southern Michigan: Van Buren County Average first freeze: Oct. 14 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Kalamazoo County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Calhoun County Average first freeze: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Berrien County Average first freeze: Oct. 18 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Cass County Average first freeze: Oct. 12 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 St. Joseph County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Branch County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 27 Hillsdale County Average first freeze: Oct. 9 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 18 Lenawee County Average first freeze: Oct. 13 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Jackson County Average first freeze: Oct. 11 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 When will the Upper Peninsula see freezing temperatures this fall? Here are the freeze dates for counties in the Upper Peninsula: Keweenaw County Average first freeze: Oct. 10 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Houghton County Average first freeze: Sept. 26 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Ontonagon County Average first freeze: Sept. 23 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 4 Gogebic County Average first freeze: Sept. 23 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 4 Baraga County Average first freeze: Sept. 23 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 4 Iron County Average first freeze: Sept. 17 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 4 Marquette County Average first freeze: Sept. 30 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 9 Dickinson County Average first freeze: Sept. 25 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 8 Alger County Average first freeze: Oct. 5 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Delta County Average first freeze: Oct. 7 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Menominee County Average first freeze: Sept. 29 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 17 Schoolcraft County Average first freeze: Oct 6 2024 first freeze date: Nov. 2 Luce County Average first freeze: Sept. 29 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Chippewa County Average first freeze: Oct. 6 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Mackinac County Average first freeze: Oct. 5 2024 first freeze date: Oct. 10 Contact Sarah Moore @ smoore@lsj.com This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Weekend will be chilly in Michigan. What forecasters are saying SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) The Coleman Police Department is advising citizens to secure their properties and valuables amid its search for a dangerous individual wanted for alleged crimes against his family after he evaded arrest. Coleman PD reported at 9:46 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21, that it is searching for Robert Mack Walters, a 44-year-old man from Coleman. The agency said public safety first responders and concerned citizens combined forces late Thursday afternoon after Walters evaded arrest on foot in Coleman during an attempt by law enforcement to take him into custody on multiple outstanding warrants. Walters is wanted on one count of causing injury to an elderly family member, a third-degree felony, and one count of making a terroristic threat against a family member, a class B misdemeanor. Other charges are pending against him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Walters is described as a white male measuring 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing approximately 150 pounds. He has a shaved head, green eyes and numerous tattoos on his entire body, including his last name tattooed on his chest. He was last seen wearing a a red T-shirt, ball cap, blue jeans and boots. San Angelo man convicted of possession of child pornography gets 260 years in prison An image of Robert Mack Walters provided by the Coleman Police Department on Aug. 21, 2025. Walters is wanted on one count of injury to an elderly family member and one count of making a terroristic threat against a family member. Walters is considered to be a dangerous individual by law enforcement. Coleman PD stated that, if he is located, 911 should be called immediately. Stay on the line with the 9-1-1 call taker, and provide updates on the physical description, location, and direction of travel until law enforcement arrives, Coleman PD said. Citizens are encouraged to not approach or attempt to apprehend Walters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As an added level of prevention and protection, the police department also encourages citizens to remove the keys from all vehicles, remove all valuables, and lock the doors of vehicles, businesses, residences, and outbuildings at all times. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. The deadly downing of a Colombian National Police (CNP) UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter by a drone on Thursday is the latest sign of the growing vulnerability of rotary-wing aircraft to these attacks. While apparently the first such incident in the Western Hemisphere, the tactic was developed by Ukraine to strike Russian helicopters and has reportedly spread to Asia as well. The downing comes as militaries are rethinking the utility of helicopters due to myriad threats, including drones, which is a danger we have been warning about for years. Editors note: There has been some confusion regarding widespread reporting of the loss of the UH-60 being due to a drone. There are indications it may have been caused by an IED/mine on the ground. It remains unclear what exactly happened. We are looking into it further for definitive clarification and will update this story accordingly. Regardless, the discussion of the growing threat weaponized drones pose to combat helicopters is valid. The CNP helicopter was hit by a drone while providing security to officers engaged in manual coca crop eradication efforts, Antioquia Governor Andres Julian Rendon stated on X. We have activated the hospital network and are closely monitoring this news, which is so painful for democracy and sad for our Forces. In that area, FARC dissidents and the Gulf Clan are operating. Queridos paisanos, esta es la paz total de Petro. En zona rural de Amalfi derribaron un helicoptero de la @PoliciaColombia que al parecer estaba brindando seguridad a uniformados en labores de erradicacion manual a cultivos de coca. Los policias fueron atacados por un drone. Es pic.twitter.com/PnI0XhA2QQ Andres Julian (@AndresJRendonC) August 21, 2025 Video emerging from the scene shows the helicopters slowly approaching a landing zone. From the angle where the video was taken, the helicopters landing and the attack are obscured, but the sound of an explosion is heard and blackish gray smoke is seen wafting up. Este video, grabado por un campesino de la vereda Los Toros, en Amalfi, registro el instante en el que un helicoptero adscrito a la Direccion Antinarcoticos de la @policiadecolombia, se precipito a tierra en medio de un ataque que habria sido obra de las "disidencias de las Farc pic.twitter.com/23S9vaLkwD Teleantioquia (@Teleantioquia) August 21, 2025 Another video, reportedly taken by the attackers, shows a different view of the aftermath of the strike. None of these videos, however, clearly depicts the method of attack. Terroristas celebran momentos despues de derribar con drones un helicoptero, a su vez asesinan 12 policias y 2 perros anti narcoticos en Amalfi, Antioquia. pic.twitter.com/cZssWUDgvL Patriota2.0 (@Jord1729) August 22, 2025 At least 12 people aboard the helicopter were killed. Colombian President Gustavo Petro blamed the helicopter attack, along with a car bomb strike on a Colombian military base, on dissident factions of the now-defunct FARC guerrilla group that have rejected a 2016 peace agreement to end a prolonged internal conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead in the country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This incident highlights several disturbing developments, especially regarding the vulnerability of helicopters to drone attacks. That concern directly led to South Korea cancelling a multi-billion-dollar deal to buy 36 AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters. Yu Yong-weon, a member of South Koreas National Assembly belonging to the People Power Party, told The Korea Times that the vulnerability of helicopters to proliferated air defenses and loitering munitions/drones that have been showcased to the world in Ukraine spurred the decision. Drones and smart systems are redefining the modern battlefield, Yu explained. Rather than clinging to expensive legacy platforms, we must invest in capabilities that reflect the future of warfare. An Apache operates over the firing range in Pocheon, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images) Chung Sung-Jun We previously predicted that drone attacks on helicopters would become a major problem. The danger is rising due to the widespread proliferation of weaponized drones across the world. This is in addition to all the other growing threats that put helicopters, especially those approaching contested landing zones, in the crosshairs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As we noted in a previous story: Beyond traditional ground-based air defenses, which are becoming far more capable and deeply integrated/networked at an accelerating rate, helicopters have to now contend with FPV drones and loitering SAMs, as well as loitering interceptor drones, that can be used against rotary wing aircraft, as well. Countermeasures to some of these threats really have not caught up. The threat posed by drones, in general, has also vastly reinvigorated proliferation of short-range air defenses for counter-UAS needs, but many of these systems can also engage helicopters. Then there is the aerial threat, with fighter and support aircraft becoming more capable of spotting low and slow flying helicopters thanks to advanced sensors. The distances involved with future wars alone could relegate even the most advanced traditional helicopters into support roles. All this creates an increasingly complex and unpredictable operational reality for military helicopters, even in low-to-medium threat environments. You can see a Russian helicopter being attacked by a Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drone in the following video. Mi-28N(M) smacked by Ukrainian AA FPV over Kursk, Russia pic.twitter.com/EUWxQEF9nV C Os (@CalibreObscura) August 7, 2024 The risk posed to helicopters from small weaponized drones, especially FPV types, is rapidly expanding as this technology migrates to state and non-state actors around the globe. Small teams using a guided weapon against a helicopter used to require having man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), also known as shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles, or at least an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), the latter of which only really works when engaging a helicopter within a narrow window of its performance envelope. Basically, this includes when it is landing, taking off or sitting on the ground. These are both expensive, hard-to-obtain weapons that require proprietary support. A FPV drone, on the other hand, can be obtained easily and for a fraction of the cost and can fly out to an incoming helicopter and blow it out of the sky with extreme agility and precision. Acting in a point defense role, defending key areas where helicopters may approach, can now be done by a couple of guys and their FPV drones. They can also react fast and dont have to expose themselves to engage an airborne target, unlike a MANPADS or ATGM fire team. The drones can also be reused if they do not find a target, meaning they can actively patrol for incoming helicopters, if need be. A Ukrainian soldier training to fly an FPV drone. ((Photo by Arsen Dzodzaiev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images) (Photo by Arsen Dzodzaiev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images) This is creating a whole new set of problems for helicopter crews. The launch of the drones cannot be detected by onboard missile approach warning systems and the drones are very small, making them hard to identify and evade. Electronic warfare systems are perhaps the best possible defense against these threats, but there has been slow movement when it comes to adapting such systems for helicopters. There is also the reality that fiber optic wire-controlled FPV drones give off no radio frequency emissions and are not jammable. They are also well-suited for providing point defense against helicopters, as their wires have a far lower chance of getting hung up when going after an aircraft in the air. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Obviously, these issues are especially vexing for the special operations rotary-wing community, which goes after targets in contested areas against groups that can easily access this technology. Once again, the FPV threat is in addition to the growing threats to helicopters from advanced integrated air defense systems, next-generation MANPADS, advanced look-down radars on fighters and AEW&C aircraft, as well as drone interceptors and more advanced loitering munitions. All of this is putting the helicopters future efficacy in many mission sets in question. AI will fuse with lower-end drones in the near future making them capable of autonomous air defense operations, as well. This will allow persistent air patrols in areas where enemy helicopter traffic is most likely to occur, including behind enemy lines. The attack in Colombia comes months after we reported that rebels fighting Myanmars junta say they used an FPV drone to down an Mi-17 Hip transport helicopter attempting to land with supplies. Footage emerged on social media showing the video feed of what purported to be an FPV drone operated by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) careening toward the helicopter, which was hovering just a few feet off the ground at the time. The video cuts off as the FPV drone gets right next to the helicopters rotor blades. The video then shows a different angle of what appears to be a small explosion amongst the Mi-17s rotors. The helicopter reportedly later crashed a short distance away, killing everyone on board. Rekaman Video Amatir dan dari Drone FPV milik kelompok Pemberontak Etnis Kachin Myanmar ( Kachin Independence Army ) saat menghantam satu dari 3 Helikopter Mil-17 Angkatan Udara Myanmar yang tengah mendrop Pasukan di kawasan Bhamo pada tanggal 20 Mei lalu. pic.twitter.com/rY8zhOSzMo Golden Eagle (@Y_D_Y_P) May 22, 2025 Myanmars military government, however, chalked the crash up to mechanical failure. The War Zone cannot independently verify either claim, although it is generally understood a drone took it down. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another troubling aspect of this crash is how drug organizations in the Western Hemisphere are increasing the use of drones to execute attacks. We have reported frequently about how Mexican cartels have been using drones as weapons against rivals and government targets. These groups even reportedly sent members to Ukraine to learn how to use FPV drones. In an investigation by Intelligence Online alleges that Mexicos Centro Nacional de Inteligencia/CNI sent a report to Ukrainian intelligence w/ concerns that cartel affiliated Mexicans are joining the Ukrainian Foreign Legion to receive drone training.https://t.co/SdlXYF4r6w Pernicious Propaganda (@natsecboogie) July 30, 2025 Colombian rebels began using weaponized drones in April 2024, according to The Wall Street Journal. Since then, the military here says there have been 301 strikes with unmanned aerial vehicles, more than two-thirds of them in Cauca and Norte de Santander provinces, the Journal noted. Both regions are covered in coca, the plant used to make cocaine, with heavily armed militias fighting each other over drug routes. At least 22 soldiers and police officers have died in the attacks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Beyond those concerns are reports that Russians are training the Colombian groups how to fight with drones, another sign of how lessons learned in the war in Ukraine are being spread globally. Russian contractors and former military personnel are also training FARC dissidents and ELN groups in the use and modification of explosive drones, the Colombian El Tiempo news outlet reported back in June. They are doing so from Venezuelan territory, with the knowledge and support of that countrys government, highlighting the growing foreign interference in the Colombian conflict. We know that Russia and Iran support Venezuela with technical capabilities, and from there, Colombian combatants are being trained, the publication added, citing an anonymous military source. The attack on the CNP helicopter is the latest iteration of the guerrillas drone war. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dissidents already employ swarm tactics, microdrones, and some modified devices with thermal cameras and alternating frequencies to evade jammers, El Tiempo noted. These drone attacks have left four soldiers dead and more than 50 uniformed personnel injured, as well as one civilian killed and seven injured. We believe that it is worth pointing out, as there are claims that a drone was used in this attack, that both FARC & ELN groups are being trained by Russian contractors & former military members on how to utilize drones in conflict within Venezuela as reported in June this year. https://t.co/y6N5XPyHkx Pernicious Propaganda (@natsecboogie) August 22, 2025 The claim that the Colombian rebels trained in Venezuela raises the specter that these efforts were conducted with the approval or knowledge of that countrys leader, Nicolas Maduro. As we wrote earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered several warships and thousands of troops deployed toward Venezuela. At least part of that movement is directly aimed at Maduro, a source familiar with the operations told us. His administration considers Maduro a narco-terrorist. No es casual que apenas dias despues de que Trump se reuniera con Putin, suceda esto. Venezuela es un punto estrategico para el kremlin. Si no hay acuerdo de paz, Maduro tiene sus dias contados. pic.twitter.com/E662kAFfCQ Fabrizio Mercado Soria (@fabriziosoria) August 20, 2025 Meanwhile, the overall use of drones by drug and insurgent groups is raising alarm bells in Washington. As we have written in the past, there are increasing concerns that Mexican cartels could expand their use of drones across the border as the Trump administration ramps up its pressure on these groups. That has led the general in charge of the border security and drone interdiction efforts to seek greater permission to shoot down drones. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot testified to the House Armed Services Committee in April that since Trump took office, he proposed a change to the rule of force. It would allow us to shoot down or bring down drones that are surveilling over our deployed and mobile troops not just that are in self-defense, but anything thats surveilling and planning the next attack on us within five miles of the border. Because theyre mobile, U.S. troops on the border are not allowed to take down drones under current law, Guillot, the commander of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), added. You can read more about the various limitations on the militarys use of force against drones in the United States in our deep dive here. As the evolution of the weaponized low-end drone continues to accelerate, the threat to helicopters from them will only increase. As it sits now, there is not much being done at scale to combat it, so more of these incidents are likely to hit headlines in the coming months and years. Update: In relation to our editors note in the piece, we have more info as to at least one weapon used to destroy the helicopter. It is unclear if drones were involved as well. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Saturday blamed the attacked on the helicopter landing on a pre-placed improvised explosive device (IED). The place where the helicopter successfully landed, at the top of a hill, had been prepared days, perhaps months, in advance, with explosive cylinders buried a meter underground, Petro stated on X. It was a trap set in advance to destroy the people who would position themselves there. We are still trying to get clarity on exactly what all was involved. We will update this report when we find out more. Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com (Getty Images) Colorado voters could be asked this November whether the state can keep extra tax money to fully fund universal school meals and offset lost federal funding for food assistance programs. The Legislature referred Proposition MM to the ballot during its regular lawmaking session earlier this year, seeking to raise more money for the Healthy School Meals for All program. Senate Bill 25B-3, being considered during the current special session, would tweak that proposition to allow any leftover money to cover costs associated with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This measure ensures Colorado continues to step up where the federal government is stepping back, bill sponsor Katie Wallace, a Longmont Democrat, said ahead of the vote on Friday morning. The bill passed through the Senate on party lines. It now heads to the House. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The universal school meal program is funded through limited income tax deductions on households earning $300,000 or more annually, approved by voters in 2022. The program has been more expensive than anticipated during its first two years, however, and there was a nearly $56 million budget shortfall for the program last year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lawmakers then referred a pair of propositions to this years ballot to raise more revenue and keep more money than originally allowed. Proposition MM would raise about $95 million more annually. About 200,000 tax filers, or about 6% of filers in Colorado, would be impacted. Proposition LL, which wouldnt be impacted by the bill, would let the state keep about $13 million that would otherwise be returned to the impacted tax filers. SB25B-3 would allow SNAP to benefit from that proposition if it passes. Funding for the food assistance program is threatened by the federal budget law passed by Republicans in Congress in July, to the tune of $50 million per year in new administration costs and between $90 million and $120 million starting in 2027 for new state match requirements, according to Abby McClelland with Food and Energy Assistance Division in the states Department of Human Services. SNAP assists about 617,000 Coloradans with $120 million in benefits per month, McClelland said. The minimization of SNAP in (the federal bill) is cruel, and what we are asking the voters is to please allow any money overage that we might collect for Healthy School Meals for All, after HSMFA is fully funded, to go to SNAP to cover the shortfall, bill sponsor Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat, said during its Senate committee hearing on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republican Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, countered that the state needs to find ways to run SNAP more efficiently to save money. If I were reading the lines on (the new federal law), Id think that maybe theyre suggesting states need to be more efficient with how they administer this program, she said. This is an important program to those Colorado citizens who are most vulnerable, but are we doing the best job at administering this? SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) A Colorado judge has rejected a plea agreement for a funeral home director who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses. A Colorado park ranger who claimed to have been attacked and stabbed has been arrested after investigators determined his story was allegedly part of a hoax that prompted authorities to launch a search and lock down several schools. Callum Heskett, 26, was taken into custody Thursday and charged with attempting to influence a public servant and tampering with evidence, both felonies. He also faces misdemeanor charges of false reporting to authorities, reckless endangerment, obstructing government operations and second-degree official misconduct. Investigators said inconsistencies in his story began to emerge during a probe of the incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Man Arrested On Suspicion Of Murder After Womans Body Found At Remote California Campsite Chimney Rock, right, at Staunton State Park in Pine, Colo. A park ranger has been arrested for allegedly faking a stabbing attack at the park. "As the investigation progressed, inconsistencies in Hesketts statements emerged," according to the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office. "That, along with other conflicting and questionable evidence, further raised concerns about the validity of his allegations." Heskett, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife seasonal ranger at Staunton State Park, radioed at 9 a.m. Tuesday saying he'd been attacked and stabbed. He told authorities that the assailant fled on foot, the sheriff's office said. Read On The Fox News App Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While speaking with investigators, Heskett gave a detailed description of his attacker, authorities said. In response, authorities launched a search for the suspect that included the use of drones, and the county issued a Lookout Alert to 8,600 residents in the immediate area, warning of the potential danger. Innocent Hiker Mistaken For Fugitive Dad Accused Of Killing His Three Daughters Visitor maps at Staunton State Park in Pine, Colo., where a park ranger has been arrested for allegedly faking a stabbing attack there. Several schools were placed on lockdown as a precaution, and residents were asked to stay indoors. Heskett was airlifted to a hospital while the search for the alleged suspect continued for several hours. During that time, two people of interest were detained, interviewed and released after investigators determined they weren't involved in the attack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "After investigators conducted their first interview with Heskett, it became even more clear that his story was flawed and erroneous," the sheriff's office said. Heskett remains in a hospital and will be transferred to the Jefferson County Jail upon his release, authorities said. The entrance to Colorado's Staunton State Park in Pine, Colo., where a park ranger allegedly faked a stabbing attack. "CPW appreciates the county sheriffs professionalism and partnership in investigating this incident and will share additional information as this matter develops," CPW Assistant Director of Law Enforcement Ty Petersburg said. Original article source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife ranger charged with staging fake stabbing incident that locked down schools Colorado Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, adds an amendment to a bill that would involve the Joint Budget Committee in the governor's mid-year spending cut process, during the special legislative session on Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Delilah Brumer/Colorado Newsline) The Colorado Senate gave final approval to four bills on Friday morning, sending them to the state House of Representatives, as lawmakers continue a special legislative session convened to address a billion-dollar state budget gap triggered by changes to the federal tax code. Senate Bill 25B-1 passed the Senate in a 19-16 vote, the narrowest margin of the four bills. The bill would establish a process for the governor to notify and consult with the Joint Budget Committee on mid-year spending cuts needed to overcome a revenue shortfall, as well as allow the governor to suspend and cut state funding if the reserve needs to be tapped by up to 3% of the General Fund budget, or if that reserve is projected to dip below $1 billion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bill was sponsored by Senate President James Coleman, a Denver Democrat, and Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, who introduced an amendment prior to the vote. The amendment changed the reserve threshold in the bill from the originally proposed 2%, to the current version of 3%. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The sponsors pushed for the bill as a way for the JBC and the governor to partner on mid-year spending cuts during revenue shortfalls, like the cuts Gov. Jared Polis is poised to make after the special session. All Senate Republicans, as well as four Democratic senators, voted against the bill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a Denver Democrat, was one of the no votes, and said he had a lot of concerns with this bill. The unintended consequences, that I feel that were seceding a lot of power to the governor, accountability and responsibility, he said. Senate Bill 25B-2, which would allow the state to pay for Medicaid services from reproductive health care organizations, including Planned Parenthood, that the federal government has withheld Medicaid money from, made it through the Senate in a 23-12 party-line vote, with Democrats in favor. Democrats also passed Senate Bill 25B-3 on another party-line vote. The bill would change a referred ballot measure in November to ask voters if the state can use extra money collected for universal school meals to also cover costs related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bill was proposed after President Donald Trump signed the federal Republican tax break and spending cut law in July, which shifted some of the cost burden of SNAP onto states. While our congressional delegation has failed, where theyve decided to let families and vulnerable people go hungry, Coloradans, in their impeccable wisdom, are stepping up, said Democratic Sen. Katie Wallace, one of the bills sponsors. Senate Bill 25B-5 received bipartisan support in the Senate with a vote of 32-3. The bill would reallocate about $260,000 from the wolf reintroduction program to a state health insurance fund. It was amended in committee on Thursday to still allow the capture and release of wolves this winter. Democratic Senators Lisa Cutter, Tom Sullivan and Katie Wallace were the three no votes. Sullivan cited concerns over the process by which the bill was amended as to why he voted against it. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE ISTANBUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police confiscated on Friday more than 3 million drug pills in operations in Istanbul and the neighboring province of Kocaeli in northwestern Turkiye, detaining nine suspects, authorities announced. About 3.04 million pills and 52.5 kilograms of additives were seized during the raids targeting drug trafficking networks in Istanbul's Umraniye and Tuzla districts as well as Kocaeli's Gebze district, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on the social media platform X. On Tuesday, Turkish authorities reported intercepting 7.89 million narcotic pills, 63 kilograms of raw drug materials, and 207 kilograms of methamphetamine in two separate operations. Turkiye, strategically located between Asia and Europe, remains a key transit hub for illicit drug trafficking. In response, the government has adopted a hardline approach and intensified nationwide anti-narcotics operations. Tour guide associations in Italy have called for popular attractions to change their summer opening hours following the death of a tour guide in Rome. Giovanna Maria Giammarino died of a suspected heart attack during a guide shift in 31C heat at the Colosseum on Tuesday (19 August). The 56-year-old collapsed in the amphitheatre at around 6pm and could not be revived. Her death comes after the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA) warned in June that extreme heat is no longer an exception; it is a new reality that demands attention, adaptation, and solidarity within our profession. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The National Association of Tourist Guides (ANGT) wrote on social media that the Ministry of Tourism is demolishing the tourism guiding profession. ANGT said: The tragedy of August 19 at the Colosseum, in which the tour guide Giovanna Maria Giomarino, 56 years old, died on her shift due to an illness, must be read as an unequivocal sign of the extremely fragile conditions in which the tour guides operate every day in Italy. The association highlighted that the tour guide profession requires physical stamina, absolute dedication and a high level of cultural preparation but does not have adequate safety procedures. It claimed that the Ministry of Tourisms choice to let anyone become a guide and practice in Italian cities has forced professional guides to work in increasingly gruesome conditions at lower prices. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Italys national tour guide federation, Federagit, recently called for changes to Colosseum opening hours that are compatible with the hot weather. The federation said in a statement that it's been months that we as Federagit have requested an earlier opening at 8 o'clock for the Colosseum Park. Federagit added: It is imperative that museums, archaeological parks and leaders of cultural institutions ensure greater attention and protection to those who work on the front lines every day. On Wednesday (20 August), the lights of the Colosseum were turned off at 9pm for two hours as a sign of sympathy and mourning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Colosseum authorities paid their condolences with a flower crown in Giammarinos memory. Italian culture minister Alessandro Giuli said: This loss powerfully underscores the human and professional value of those who, every day, contribute to the protection and preservation of our historical and artistic heritage. Read more: How heatwaves and soaring temperatures are changing tourism across Europe Fox News has never been bothered by the Trumpian approach to social media, with its all-caps posts and multiple exclamation points. Its self-aggrandizing hyperbole. Its mean-girl name-calling. But this week, the MAGA networks hosts were triggered. You have to stop it with the Twitter thing, said host Dana Perino. Sean Hannity bemoaned the performative confrontational style that only wins you points with the loony radical base. Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher referred to the tone as childish. So why the sudden dismay and hurt feelings? Because the taunts and boasts are coming from a Democrat, and not just any lefty but King Snowflake himself, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Adopting Trump's low-bar social media tactics, the X account of Newsoms press office has spent recent weeks mimicking the presidents social media style to troll the trollers. Theyve nicknamed U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem Commander Cosplay. And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who took that sunny Mexican vacation during a deadly 2021 winter storm in his state is Cancun Cruz. As for the commander-in-chief? Small Hands. Playing off the doctored images of a virile Trump posted by the president's account on his own platform, Newsoms account has generated equally delusional memes. One shows the governors face carved into Mt. Rushmore, another of him as a king on the cover of Time magazine and as a messiah-like figure worshiped by MAGAites Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and the late Hulk Hogan (the latter post was followed by another that just read I HATE KID ROCK!!! GCN). Read more: As expected? Kid Rock crashes out over Gavin Newsoms endorsement joke This week on Fox News "The Five," an incredulous Perino said of Newsom: I dont know where his wife is? If I were his wife I would say, Youre making a fool of yourself, stop it! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a discussion Wednesday with Foxs Jesse Watters, said that Newsoms obsession with Trump is distracting him from doing his job as governor. Why is he spending all this time trying to be fresh with President Trump? DeSantis asked. Why doesnt he do his job and protect the people? Fresh with Trump? I dont even know where to go with that other than therapy, especially since it was accompanied by a banner at the bottom of the screen that read: Dems look for Big Daddy Energy. Newsom's account promptly tweeted: Jesse, please stop calling me Daddy. Its disturbing. Fox keeps insisting Newsoms SnarkPosting is a big fail, but the numbers would suggest otherwise. Since the beginning of August, the governor's press office account has gained 250,000 followers and more than 225 million impressions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And it's clearly made an impression on Fox News. WOW! FOX NEWS CANT STOP TALKING ABOUT ME (GAVIN C. NEWSOM), AMERICAS FAVORITE GOVERNOR!!! Newsom posted Wednesday on X. TONIGHT THEIR ENTIRE PRIMETIME LINEUP WAS ABOUT ME! JESSE WATTERS KEPT CALLING ME 'DADDY' (VERY WEIRD, NOT INTERESTED, BUT THANK YOU!). SEAN HANNITY (VERY NICE GUY) NEARLY CRIED BECAUSE I WONT TAKE HIS 'ADVICE.' SORRY SEAN!!!! THEN THEY DRAGGED OUT THE B-TEAM OF DUMB DUMBS: 'MEATBALL RON,' TOMI 'TOILET' LAHREN, AND TEDDY 'CANCUN' CRUZ (HE EVEN FLEW BACK SPECIAL FROM MEXICO!) ALL WHINING ABOUT ME, GCN! THEY HAD TO 'PLAY THE MUSIC' TO SHUT TED UP ABOUT MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR (I GET IT! SO JEALOUS!). TOTAL DISASTER Even the granddaddy of MAGA agitators, Steve Bannon, was impressed by Newsom's online lack of decorum. If you look at the Democratic Party, hes at least getting up there, and hes trying to imitate a Trumpian vision of fighting, right? he told Politico. He looks like the only person in the Democratic Party who is organizing a fight that they feel they can win. Fox pundits spent much of Thursday blaming Newsom and the Sanctuary state of California for a deadly Florida traffic accident involving an undocumented truck driver. It was preferable to reporting on another post that got under their skin (see below) or a political victory for Newsom when a ballot measure he pushed to redraw Californias electoral map was approved by the California Legislature. It calls for a November special election asking voters to redraw the states electoral lines. The ballot measure is in response to Texas' proposed redrawing of its maps to favor Republicans in the 2026 midterms, possibly adding five more GOP-held seats to the House. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NOT EVEN JD 'JUST DANCE' VANCE CAN SAVE TRUMP FROM THE DISASTROUS MAPS 'WAR' HE HAS STARTED, said the Newsom press office post. NOT EVEN HIS EYELINER LINES LOOK AS PRETTY AS CALIFORNIA 'MAP' LINES. HE WILL FAIL, AS HE ALWAYS DOES (SAD!) AND I, THE PEACETIME GOVERNOR OUR NATIONS FAVORITE WILL SAVE AMERICA ONCE AGAIN. MANY ARE NOW CALLING ME GAVIN CHRISTOPHER 'COLUMBUS' NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. GCN" Fox pundits and hosts arent the only media folk to find Newsoms Trump-esque communiques troubling. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called them "embarrassing." But as Newsom told the media last week, if the mockery bothers you, look to the original source. If you have issues with what Im putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns with what hes putting out as president. Fox News has concerns, but they're not about Trump. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. (The Center Square) Gov. J.B. Pritzker enacted a law launching the Farmland Transition Commission, a lifeline for young farmers struggling to secure land. This comes as an Illinois state Senator says farmland is disappearing to solar and wind projects. State Sen. Sally Turner, R-Beason, sponsored legislation to create the commission. She said the commission will address barriers and support Illinois next-generation farmers, calling it very much so necessary as more than 129,000 acres of farmland have been taken out of production for solar projects across the state. Thats a lot, Turner said. Weve got 3,000 acres south of Springfield, another solar project in Effingham, another 2,000-acre one in eastern McLean County and more coming. Its taking up all the good farm ground, and we need to study what happens when you take all that land out of production, then what happens? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Turner said the groups mission is to create a one-stop shop of resources for aspiring farmers, connecting them with grant opportunities, rental listings, and information on purchasing equipment. She said Indiana has implemented a similar portal that coordinates state and federal programs to support new farmers. There are so many issues a young farmer faces when they come back from college, Turner said. Dad might be retiring, and he needs the value of his machinery to do that. That means the young farmer has to figure out how to start from scratch. We have tools like this for business, but not for young farmers, and thats what this is about. Turner explained the Farmland Transition Commission will be established by the Illinois Department of Agriculture and include members from the Department of Natural Resources, University of Illinois Extension and key agricultural associations, like the Illinois Pork Association. This is for farmers aged 25 to 40 who need access to farmland, where can they find ground to rent? How do they afford to buy equipment like a combine? said Turner. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While some commissions risk going dormant after launch, Turner said she is determined to keep the effort active. The Illinois Auditor General in a 2024 report found that over 100 state boards and commissions in Illinois were inactive, and 28% of active boards failed to meet the minimum number of times. I wont stop pushing because Im really, really passionate about this, she said. Weve got to save our farmers and our farms. The law was signed earlier this month. Turner said the governors office will soon open applications for commission seats on its website. Its a celebration of creativity, culture, and community. Later this month, the Beach Institute African American Cultural Museum is hosting an exhibition featuring local artist Shameka Best whose works are infused with elements of African heritage and contemporary culture. Its called, THE BEST ART EXPRESSION event. From mesmerizing paintings to captivating pieces that will be for sale, this event is a commemoration of artistic talent. Click the arrow in the video box above to watch her interview with WSAVs Kim Gusby. The evening will also feature live poetry and spoken word performances paying homage to the roots of her artistic beginnings. Guests are encouraged to wear white. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Half of the proceeds will benefit the Frank Callen Boys & Girls Club where Best works full-time as a mentor, teaching youth in foster care. The Best Art Expression Friday, August 29 5 PM to 7 PM Beach Institute, 502 E Harris Street Get tickets HERE. For more information, contact Kareem McMichael at: karmacnet@gmail.com Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. By Catherine L. Benamou, Ph.D. | Edited by Patricia Guadalupe Local news coverage is vital in these times. Launched in 2010, the bilingual community newsroom Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights is celebrating its quinceanero! The nonprofit newsroom, which began as a youth-powered project supported by the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism and the Spanish-language daily La Opinion in Los Angeles, appears quarterly in print, daily online, and has grown into a dynamic collaboration between 28 youth reporters (all of them high schoolers), three professional reporters, one social media producer, and two editors reporting on stories such as local school closures during the January wildfires and the activities of newly elected Los Angeles City Council member Ysabel Jurado. Youth reporters work in cohorts devoted to multimedia, photography, and print or text. In 2018, they started a monthly podcast, Radio Pulso, crafted in a storefront space near the newsroom, and nowadays they put together podcasts in their own studio, located in the papers new building in Boyle Heights in East LA. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stephanie Perez, 18, joined Boyle Heights Beat when she was a freshman at Francisco Bravo High School in East Los Angeles. The Beat became her safe space, she tells palabra. It helped me become a better communicator Im very introverted, but I did kind of become more extroverted. You know, having to do interviews and being an active listener, not to forget to do follow-up questions It was that first space where I felt I could really speak out and wont be brushed off as a kid. While at The Beat, Stephanie became more involved in her community; she enjoyed working with Radio Pulso and was able to pitch and write her own stories on food deserts, library closures, and local murals, which provided an intergenerational view on la Virgen de Guadalupe. High school students can apply for internships online. The average internship lasts 18 weeks, and interns are paid, ranging from $25 for a photo to $150 for a full feature article. Stipends can also be earned for moderating events and hosting and editing podcasts, according to Christine Kelley, Managing Director of Student Journalism and Community Engagement. Staff members in the podcast room at Boyle Heights Beat. Images taken by student journalists decorate the hallways of the Boyle Heights Beat newsroom. An urban anchor As a socially and physically inviting space, Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights serves as what Mexican-American scholar Natalia Molina has called an urban anchor. The fact that our newsroom is a storefront really provides that opportunity for people in the community to identify it, knock on the door, ask for a newspaper, and come share a story tip, says senior editor Jessica Perez. Adds senior reporter Alejandra Molina, We heard that ICE had been in a metro station [in Boyle Heights] and we were trying to verify that, and so we called DHS, we wanted to see if it was ICE, if it was HSI but Centro CSO [a local non-profit] was at the scene, and they did get it, they did encounter a vehicle that looked like it was a federal agents, and they basically ran them out, and after that happened it was near Mariachi Plaza, which is near our office Centro CSO just walked in, organizers who were at the scene, and theyre like Hey, we just came back from this, this is what we know ... I think because its a very community-oriented newsroom, organizations do feel that level of trust. Molina started as a youth mentor and worked for a time at De Los, the Los Angeles Times vertical focusing on Latino issues. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Perez mentions that as a community-oriented newsroom, The Beat is devoted to getting residents voices heard and covering the stories that readers would like to see, and what could affect them the most, such as: the city budget crisis, housing and homelessness, transparency from the Los Angeles United School District and the county government, and the impact on the community of new federal immigration policies. Molina noted that since June 6, when ICE raids intensified, The Beat has had to set aside other local stories to cover the raids, capture how local organizations and community defenders are assisting with ICE detection, and provide online guides to legal rights with the advice of immigration attorneys. From left: Senior Editor Jessica Perez, Student Journalism and Community Engagement Managing Director Christine Kelly, Senior Reporter and Journalist Mentor Alejandra Molina. Community reporter Andrew Lopez, who joined The Beat through the California Local News Fellowship at UC Berkeley, has been covering the impact of raids on local businesses, including street vendors, which is a huge part of the east side. Lopez says he enjoys using photography to really emphasize how a story is told [and] to show people what our community looks like. To get in touch with its readership, the newsroom has handed out media kits to its community organization partners (such as Proyecto Pastoral, Las Fotos Project, Latino Equity Alliance, Self-Help Graphics, and Legacy LA) to survey what residents wish to know more about, what they expect from their councilmembers, says Kelley. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This outreach is reflected in their reporting style: A recent story involved community reporters interviewing people on the street about the presidential election, followed by youth reporters collaborating with community reporters to create a podcast. One thing that I realized while working at other newspapers that have a bilingual sister paper is that the bilingual sister paper is usually looked at as an afterthought, and its not really integrated within the main newsroom. So I do think that theres a broad community thats not being touched, thats not being really centered, says Molina. The Beats dedication to bilingualism enables them to feature voices that might not otherwise be heard, such as those of older residents, and to craft timely Spanish-language messages for their robust Instagram account. Copies of the Boyle Heights Beat newspaper are available for free at Picaresca Barra de Cafe in Boyle Heights. Building trust You basically cant create an effective news and information service unless you have a solid foundation of trust in the community, said Executive Editor Kristen Muller. Reflecting on what makes Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights unique, Muller told palabra, What makes it so effective is that it is homegrown. Like the fact that the reporters and the entire staff are either from Boyle Heights or the immediate surrounding neighborhoods They are seen as members of the community who are now contributing through journalism, not journalists who cover the community. [Additionally], they have this really solid ongoing feedback loop with community leaders, schools, organizations Theres this shared idea of we all need to put out good information and you dont have to be a journalist to be doing that work. In Mullers view, the student journalism program is also vital to building this trust: Families can recognize the kids participating in the internship program as neighbors. Andrew Lopez (foreground) and other reporters from the Boyle Heights Beat work out of the newspaper's office. Creating a path to citizens media We teach (our young reporters) that through journalism you can uplift voices in the community without taking a side, says Managing Director Christine Kelley. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A core mission of Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights is to foster civic engagement and to treat reporting staff and readership alike as active citizens. For example, there are candidates forums where community members can directly address candidates about their positions. Last October, during a contentious campaign for an LA City Council seat, the news outlet hosted a well-attended forum with local district council candidates in advance of the November election. At the same time, there is an effort to keep news relevant at the neighborhood level. It has to be not only city government, not only the big issue stories, but also where can you go to get brunch on Mothers Day in Boyle Heights? Neighborhood concerns are also kept in mind when considering how to cover local crime the newsroom is selective, taking into careful account what is truly of service to the community, says Jessica Perez. The intersection of 1st and Soto streets in Boyle Heights. The Beat, a community-focused newsroom, amplifies local voices and covers stories that matter most to residents. Looking ahead At 15, Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights has much to celebrate. The youth program has been featured in the curriculum of local schools. Several youth reporters are prepared to work as LA documenters, taking notes during meetings with elected officials and neighborhood councils to help generate ideas for stories. And the newsroom has created a professional pipeline for its own staff, several of whom, including its senior editor, were previously involved in the youth program. Stephanie Perez will be studying journalism at Cal Poly Pomona this fall. Because it is also available online, The Beats readership extends from East Los Angeles to other U.S. jurisdictions, and even to Mexico, as people who have moved out of the Los Angeles area maintain a very big attachment and pride to the neighborhood, says Jessica Perez. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Local leaders are responding to the news coverage, and Boyle Heights Beat/Pulso de Boyle Heights was recently nominated for numerous LA Press Club SoCal Journalism Awards for its coverage last year. Significantly, it has become a part of the Los Angeles Local News Initiative, a new nonprofit organization that, among others, operates community newsrooms and collaborates with local media and university partners to bring more journalism to the Los Angeles area. Boyle Heights Beats expertise in centering community first and supporting student reporters will aid the launch of new community newsrooms by the LA Local News Initiative across the region. As Jessica Perez explains, Our mission here is to inform, but its also to connect and uplift: We want to give people the news, and we want to hold power to account, but we also want to build community among people, to connect them with their neighbors. Christine Kelly and Jessica Perez at the Boyle Heights Beat newsroom on July 23, 2025. Dariela Espinoza Lopez provided research assistance. Eddie Hart studied computer science and cybersecurity at Newcastle University, graduating in 2024. He says he knew getting into the tech workforce would be a challenge, but "I thought it would be a little easier". Even when "junior" roles were advertised, they often demanded two or more years professional experience, Mr Hart says. "It's not realistic, and it's just discouraging the good candidates from even trying." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To him it seems clear that potential employers are using AI tools to automate the simpler parts of coder's work, tasks which would traditionally allow newcomers to build up experience. While companies undoubtedly benefit from using AI in some parts of their operations, says Mr Hart, "I don't think replacing developers entirely with AI is sustainable." ChatGPT, and other coding tools, are being blamed for a collapse in tech job openings, particularly for younger software developers and engineers. A report by the UK's National Foundation for Education Research showed a 50% decline in tech job adverts between 2019/20 and 2024/25, with entry level roles particularly affected. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report cited the "anticipated impact of artificial intelligence" as one of the factors behind this. At the same time, software developers have widely adopted AI code tools, while simultaneously expressing distrust in their output. Research by Stack Overflow, a software knowledge platform, shows almost half use AI tools daily, despite just one third actually trusting the output of such tools. Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, says it's "a tricky time to graduate". More broadly, he says, its research shows developers are choosing to stay put, despite many expressing dissatisfaction with their work. "People are probably running for safety a little bit." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All of this means young technologists are finding it harder to get that critical first job. "It's a tricky time to graduate," says Prashanth Chandrasekar [Stack Overflow] The stress of finding a job is also being raised by the use of AI in the job application process. Mr Hart came across one highly automated application process which had eight stages, the first of which was to answer 20 exam-style questions about himself. Such exercises can take up hours of time. Friends had been asked to record and upload answers to interview style questions. "And then that's just reviewed by AI and a computer makes the decision. It just feels like you don't get that respect of at least being rejected by a human," he says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Colin, who didn't want his full name to be used, studied computer science at university, graduating in 2024. He spent almost a year working through the recruitment process for one large company only to be ultimately unsuccessful. Even smaller firms often use AI to screen applications, he says, meaning CVs have to structured to be "AI friendly". Colin would then find he was being interviewed by people "who have clearly not read my CV". Both Mr Hart and Colin said they knew the senior roles were still out there. But, they wondered, who will fill them if younger developers like them were unable to secure jobs. The pipeline of coders could dry up says Paul Dix [InfluxData] Paul Dix, CTO and co-founder at California-based database firm, InfluxData says in any economic downturn or disruption, junior software developers were the ones who got hit hardest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But he says, "If nobody's hiring younger developers, then you're going to arrive at this point where you don't have senior developers either, because you've completely killed your pipeline." More positively says Rajiv Ramaswami, CEO of US enterprise cloud firm Nutanix, "Some of these younger folks coming out of college actually have more experience using AI tooling compared to traditional ways of programming." Ramaswami adds: "I find the market for talent to be the best we've seen in several years." Mr Chandrasekar says the industry had always had an "apprenticeship" type model, with a pipeline of young people coming in and working with senior developers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And, he suggests, executives and companies that had invested heavily in AI tech are under pressure to show some return on that investment. Even if that was by simply cutting back on hiring. Stack Overflow's research also found that while 64% of developers perceived AI as a threat to their jobs, this was four percentage points down on the previous year. "They've now seen some of the limitations, where you need humans in the loop," Mr Chandrasekar notes. Previous tech disruptions had sparked fears that both senior or junior jobs would disappear, says Mr Chandrasekar. But invariably they result in more jobs as people uncover new problems and challenges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There's going to be an insatiable appetite for technologists and developers to go and build those things to help solve those problems." But that spike in demand might not come in time for some of today's graduates. Mr Hart has secured a role as a security engineer at UK-based cybersecurity firm Threatspike, which he gained through a very human centred job process. Meanwhile, Colin has turned his back on tech altogether and is considering a career in the police. More Technology of Business SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) A 5th-grade student from Sonora was awarded as the Kindest Kid in America on Thursday, Aug. 21, at a surprise school assembly. Hes got such a gentle, kind soul, said Katy Crain, Sonora Elementary School Counselor. He is kind to kind people, and hes also kind to maybe people who are hurting and not so kind. He invites them in as well. The student, Wayden Dillard, was honored by the Kindest Kid in America program and by his school during the school-wide assembly about kindness. The assembly began with program creator Jessie Hansen, teaching the students about what kindness is and how it impacts everyone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We try to keep kindness normal at our school in just everyday acts of kindness, Crain, who nominated Dillard. At the end, Hansen presented Dillard with a medal with his name and a personalized book with his story of kindness. The book was read at the assembly and is available in the elementary library along with the other Kindest Kid in America books. His book is also available on Amazon. The Mayor of Sonora, Juanita Gomez, also spoke at the assembly and congratulated Dillard on his award. If you treat people kind, they will be kind to you, Dillard said. Kindest Kid in America was founded by Hansen, who is a social worker and doctoral candidate in social work, as part of her research into school culture and prevention of school violence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This award is about more than one child; its about showing that kindness can transform an entire school culture, said Carrie Davis, Chief Communications Officer for Kindest Kid in America. The initiative was created to address the root causes of bullying and school shootings, offering kindness as the antidote. Dillard is the 20th kid so far to be awarded, and the program is looking for more kind kids in America. To nominate a kid in any community, visit Kindest Kid in America on their website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. GOMA, Congo (AP) Congo's public prosecutor on Friday asked for the death penalty for former President Joseph Kabila, who is being tried in absentia in a treason case that includes war crimes charges related to his ties to the M23 rebel group. Kabila, who led Congo from 2001 to 2019, has been on trial since July, charged with war crimes, murder and rape. He took office at the age of 29 after his father and former President Laurent Kabila was assassinated and extended his mandate by delaying elections for two years after his term ended in 2017. He is accused by the Congolese government of supporting the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who have seized major cities and towns in the countrys east in the past months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kabila had been in self-imposed exile since 2023 until April, when he arrived in the rebel-held city of Goma following its seizure in a rapid rebel offensive. His supporters say the trial is politically motivated. Kabilas presidential immunity was revoked in May. His current location is unknown. In court on Friday, Gen. Lucien Rene Likulia representing the prosecution, also asked, in addition to the death penalty, for a 20-year-sentence for Kabila's alleged condoning of war crimes and 15 years for conspiracy. The general did not elaborate on those charges or say what they referred to. No date has yet been set for the announcement of the verdict. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi last year accused Kabila of backing the rebels and preparing an insurrection with them, a claim Kabila denies. Ferdinand Kambere, a former minister under Kabila and current head of his party, the PPRD, said revoking Kabila's immunity as senator-for-life was the start of the campaign against him. "What we saw was truly a disgrace for the Republic, Kambere told The Associated Press by phone. Henry-Pacifique Mayala, a researcher and coordinator of the Kivu Security Tracker, told the AP that the prosecution's demands seem to be more of a settling of scores session than a quest for truth. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ___ This story has been corrected to say that Kabila is being tried for war crimes related to his ties to the M23 group, not for crimes committed while he was president. Also clarifies that he has not been convicted yet and no date has been set for the verdict, rather than the sentencing. The Justice Department is expected on Friday to start handing the first batch of Jeffrey Epstein files over to Congress. But it may be a while before lawmakers get the information they want if ever. The DOJ is taking a piecemeal approach to transmitting documents to Capitol Hill, pursuant to a subpoena issued this month by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after Democrats on the panel forced the matter. The committee, led by Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, anticipates receiving an initial tranche of files related to the convicted sex offender by the end of the day Aug. 22. Making these materials public, however, will be a slow, deliberative process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats because House Oversight intends to coordinate with the Justice Department on taking steps to shield the names of the women who were victims of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019, and information around ongoing criminal cases. The Committee intends to make the records public after thorough review to ensure all victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted, said an Oversight Committee spokesperson, granted anonymity to share details about the panels internal activities. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. If the Justice Department follows precedent, both Democrats and Republicans on House Oversight would get access to the materials. While under a typical arrangement, the majority in this case Republicans would control its disclosure, either party could release the materials unilaterally. Democrats, however, intend to review the files before releasing them publicly, according to a person familiar with Oversight Democrats planning, speaking on condition of anonymity to share internal party strategy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The files they receive could include FBI reports of witness interviews; materials seized from the searches of Epsteins vast properties in New York, the Virgin Islands, Palm Beach and New Mexico; and the affidavits used to gain permission from judges to execute those searches. There are a variety of complicating factors to consider, among them the ongoing legal challenge that Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate, is pursuing against her 20-year conviction for sex trafficking crimes. House Oversight previously subpoenaed Maxwell for testimony and is negotiating the conditions of the interview with her legal team. Maxwell, who was sentenced in 2021, is demanding that she be granted immunity from further criminal proceedings in exchange for her cooperation. The plodding process is unlikely to satisfy demands for transparency from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, though. And House GOP leaders shouldnt expect to return from the August recess free from the drama that consumed them in July. After months of stonewalling, calling Epstein files a hoax, and telling people nothing but porn exists in their possession, the administration now admits the files exist, and agrees to release some of them, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a social media post this week. Americans want transparency though, not smoke and mirrors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Massie, with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), has been leading the charge to force a floor vote on a resolution that would compel the release of the Epstein files, and the two men say theyll follow through on plans when Congress returns to use procedural maneuvers to call the measure up without leaderships consent. The Massie-Khanna resolution would call for the materials to be made public with redactions only for the purposes of protecting names of victims, hiding sexually explicit content and in instances where ongoing legal cases could be compromised. In other words, the lawmakers want to guarantee the identities of Epsteins associates, if applicable, are revealed. Last month, Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans should give the DOJ time to reveal the documents in a responsible manner that would respect the privacy of Epsteins victims. However, President Donald Trump who had ties to Epstein, a well-known financier was also pushing to move past the issue after his allies had stoked conspiracy theories for years about what authorities were hiding. Yet Massie, Khanna and allies would not budge from their stance that members must be allowed to vote to bring the files to light, disrupting the Rules Committee that tees up floor consideration for most legislation. Leaders opted to send their members home a few days ahead of schedule for the summer recess rather than stay in Washington to take politically uncomfortable votes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats are also signaling they wont be satisfied by the DOJs game plan and will continue to make the issue a political headache for Republicans. Releasing the Epstein files in batches just continues this White House cover-up. The American people will not accept anything short of the full, unredacted Epstein files, Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement. We will keep pressing until the American people get the truth every document, every fact, in full. The administration must comply with our subpoena, by law. Efforts to draw a wedge in the GOP over the Epstein files were taking place as far away as Texas this week, where Gene Wu, chair of the states House Democratic Caucus, offered an amendment to delay Republicans mid-decade redistricting efforts until after the release of Epstein materials. Meanwhile, back in Washington, lawmakers will regroup on Capitol Hill on Sept. 2 with just four weeks left to avert a government shutdown, and theres already concern in GOP leadership over the time the House could waste continuing to fight over perceived distractions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Id really like to see this resolved, if possible, before we get back, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-Va.), chair of the House Rules Committee, told reporters this week. Were going to have a lot of work to do when we get back in September. Ive already looked at my September calendar, and it looks pretty busy. Foxx, whose committee work was derailed by members efforts to force Epstein-related votes, called the saga a tempest in a teapot. In February, the Department of Justice released what it called the first phase of documents related to the Epstein investigation, which has been a fixation of some of the presidents supporters. It has long been public that Trump along with other prominent figures, like Bill Clinton are referenced in documents previously released in court cases surrounding Epstein. But Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein. The real firestorm, however, began in earnest in early July, when the department quietly released a memo saying the federal government did not find evidence of a so-called Epstein client list. Conspiracists had long postulated that Epstein kept such a list of people with whom he trafficked young women, and that it was being hidden to protect the rich and powerful. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No additional disclosures would be forthcoming, the unsigned memo said, which quickly and predictably set off a complicated political quagmire for the president and the GOP amid accusations that the administration was reneging on its promise for transparency. Trump, in an effort to quash the outrage, asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury materials in the most recent investigations of Epstein and Maxwell in New York, as well as an earlier federal probe of Epstein in Florida. In recent weeks, all three judges assigned to resolve the unsealing requests rebuffed the administration, with the most recent rejection coming Wednesday. The judges said the department hadnt justified taking the unusual step of unsealing the secret files and that, in any event, most of material in the files had already been made public through Maxwells trial or other means. Still, even if the grand jury transcripts and exhibits were made public, they represent a tiny fraction of the material the Justice Department possesses in the Epstein and Maxwell investigative files that are the subject of the congressional subpoena. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the House Oversight Committee interviewed Trump's former attorney general, Bill Barr, as part of its probe into the Epstein matter earlier this month, Barr told congressional investigators that he did not know why the documents were being withheld, according to a person familiar with his testimony and granted anonymity to describe the private conversation. The lack of transparency around the process, however, might have to do with the fact that some grand jury materials may need court approval, Barr suggested, and that current policy prohibits the release of unsubstantiated information. Ultimately, the House Oversight subpoena currently represents the best chance for bringing some information to light and for the Trump administration to get limited details released to satisfy those clamoring for action. Longstanding DOJ policies as well as a federal law the Privacy Act of 1974 limit disclosures about living individuals investigated for potential crimes. However, that law and those DOJ rules do not apply to Congress, which is generally free to ignore individuals pleas for discretion. DOJ has sometimes used that distinction to effectively make sensitive information public by transmitting it to Congress with GOP and Democratic lawmakers then able to cherry pick what of the sensitive information they choose to share. A DOJ spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Erica Orden, Josh Gerstein and Jordain Carney contributed to this report. AUSTIN (Nexstar) Early Saturday morning, the Texas State Senate gave final approval to legislation to redraw the states congressional map. The vote came after Republicans in the chamber made a procedural move that blocked a planned filibuster by State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston. The move came just after 12:30 a.m., after the Senate had returned from a three hour recess. State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, accused Alvarado of using a campaign email to promote her filibuster as a fundraising event. He called that unethical and potentially unlawful. Perry then made a motion for the previous question, a procedural move to end debate and force an immediate vote. The motion was approved along party lines. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick then called for a final vote on HB 4. The measure calls for redrawing voting lines, to give Republicans an advantage to pick up five additional seats in Congress during the 2026 midterm elections. The measure passed along party lines. It now heads to Governor Greg Abbott, who vowed to sign it into law. The One Big Beautiful Map has passed the Senate and is on its way to my desk, where it will be swiftly signed into law, Abbott said. I promised we would get this done, and delivered on that promise. I thank Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick for leading the passage in the Senate of a bill that ensures our maps reflect Texans voting preferences. There was shouting heard from the gallery after the move to block the filibuster and take a final vote. Patrick called on officers to remove a man from the gallery. Alvarado had planned to filibuster as long as shes able, according to a message from her office. But even if she had been allowed to begin, her filibuster would have only delayed the inevitable passage of the bill by the Republican-controlled Senate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alvarado is no stranger to filibustering. She filibustered a bill for 15 hours and six minutes in 2021. We have to use every tool at our disposal to obstruct, delay, and call this scheme out for what is is a racist power grab, Alvarado said in a news release. Filibusters can be tool used to run out the clock on a legislative deadline to kill a bill. In 2013, former state senator Wendy Davis filibustered an omnibus abortion bill on the last day of a special session to kill the bill. In an interview with Nexstar, Davis said Alvarados filibuster will not end the redistricting effort but it will bring attention to the issue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, other Senate Democrats peppered Chairman Phil King, R Weatherford, about the proposed map. King held firm that the map is legal, was drawn with political performance in mind, and fulfills compactness, which refers to the shape of districts. Democratic members in both the House and the Senate argue the map is racially gerrymandered and targets minority communities by diluting their voting power. The map changed nearly every one of the 38 Texas congressional districts, but made drastic changes to five districts. Those include CD 9 in Houston, CDs 28 and 34 in South Texas, CD 35 in San Antonio, and CD 32 in Dallas. All of those districts are currently held by a Democrat. King told his colleagues on the floor during more than six hours of questioning that he hired legal counsel to check the map to make sure it does not violate the Voting Rights Act. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have complete confidence that it meets all legal requirements, King said. Republicans hold a 19-11 majority in the Senate. The map passed along party lines, as it did in the Texas House of Representatives on Wednesday. What is a filibuster? A filibuster is when a member speaks on a bill for a prolonged time to delay a vote. The legislative move can be used in the Senate but not in the House. The longest ever filibuster in Texas Senate history was 43 hours by State Sen. Bill Meier in 1977. There are rules to a filibuster. A member must remain standing and not lean on their desk or chair for the entirety of their filibuster. They are not allowed to eat or drink water, and they must keep their remarks to the bill being filibustered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The member is allowed to break those rules three times, and on the third time, the full Senate can vote to end the filibuster. What happens next? Now that the bill is approved by the Senate it will head to the governors desk for signature. However, House Democrats have already pledged they will take the map to federal court to block its implementation. During a news conference in the Capitol rotunda following the Houses passing HB 4, State Rep. Mihaela Plesa, D Dallas, said they would take the battle from the House floor to the courts, and then on to the ballot box. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LJUBLJANA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Slovenia again urged Israel to stop its ground offensive on Gaza City, warning it would only bring further destruction and risk dragging the region into a prolonged conflict, Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said Thursday. "Despite our repeated calls to halt their aggression, Israel has launched the initial phase of a ground offensive on Gaza City," Fajon said in a post on the ministry's account on social platform X. She said the attack not only violates international law but also shows Israel's disregard for international efforts toward a ceasefire, humanitarian relief, the release of hostages and the pursuit of a two-state solution. Earlier this month, Israel's security cabinet approved a plan to fully capture Gaza City, with Defense Minister Israel Katz ordering the call-up of some 60,000 reservists. The army launched the first phase of the operation earlier this week. Separately, 21 countries, including Slovenia, issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning Israel's plan to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank. They warned the move would split the territory into northern and southern parts and further undermine -- if not bury -- prospects for a future Palestinian state. On the same day, Slovenia also joined a Media Freedom Coalition statement urging Israel to grant foreign journalists immediate access to Gaza and ensure their safety. "Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war," said the coalition's statement, signed by Slovenia and dozens of other countries. U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, speaks to the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 22, 2025, in Sioux Falls. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) SIOUX FALLS The United States can win the AI race, but not without the infrastructure and data centers necessary to develop the emerging technology, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson told members of the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce on Friday. The artificial intelligence race is a competition between the United States and other countries, including China, to dominate the technology. Johnson, a South Dakota Republican, painted a bleak future economically and democratically if the U.S. doesnt win. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in July to facilitate construction of data centers with incentives including loans, grants and tax breaks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Data centers are massive facilities needed to house servers and other computing infrastructure required by AI. Johnson said he is befuddled by blanket opposition to economic development, including data centers and other large projects. He said South Dakota leaders need to be visionary and bring new industries to the state or we are saying that our children will have diminished opportunities. That, Johnson said, is absolutely unacceptable. Its un-American and its not at all capitalist, he said. While its important for community members to ask questions, not all projects should be rejected outright, he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think there is a great opportunity for us to do as President Trump has said and to win the battle for AI, Johnson said. We cannot do it if the only answer in front of us is, No, always no. Johnson is South Dakotas lone U.S. representative and is running for the Republican nomination for governor in 2026. The other two declared Republican gubernatorial candidates are Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden and South Dakota House Speaker Jon Hansen. Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden is also expected to run. There are no massive data centers in South Dakota, but there are proposals to build them. A multi-billion-dollar data center was proposed for Deuel County earlier this year. Earlier this month, the Sioux Falls City Council took a step toward allowing construction of a new data center between Sioux Falls and Brandon. Two South Dakota electricity providers, Black Hills Corp. and NorthWestern Energy, announced a merger this week and cited future demand from data centers as a reason for the deal. Representatives with both of the data center projects have said they might not land in South Dakota without competitive incentives from the state. The state Senate narrowly rejected legislation in February that would have provided tax refunds for data centers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think there is a great opportunity for us to do as President Trump has said and to win the battle for AI. We cannot do it if the only answer in front of us is, No, always no. U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota Opponents to the legislation cited concerns about tax fairness if the state offers incentives for companies to build in South Dakota, as well as concerns about water and energy demands to operate and cool data center systems. Johnson said the projects create new jobs for South Dakotans who have the skills to run the operations and are good customers to utility companies, because they provide a steady demand for energy and can run on generators when there is too much demand. But he said the projects are threatened by opposition that goes beyond the philosophy of Not In My Backyard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Forget the NIMBYs, weve got BANANAs: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything, Johnson said. It is a disease thats metastasizing. In an interview with South Dakota Searchlight after the public discussion, Johnson said communities and states need to step up and present incentives that work for the community and state. He said building data centers could also generate new property taxes that would lessen the burden on other property taxpayers, which is a focus of the Legislature this year. If we want to reduce property taxes, we need to grow the property tax base, Johnson said. Obviously there is some role for government efficiency, but thats not going to get us as far as we need. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Caroline Downey, a columnist for the conservative National Review, said Thursday that conservatives themselves are to blame for the word woke losing its meaning. Not everything is woke, Downey said during a panel on CNNs NewsNight, in response to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) on social media blasting restaurant chain Cracker Barrels new logo as a woke rebrand amid a wider MAGA meltdown over the switch. Related: Newsom Mocks MAGA's Outrage Over Cracker Barrel's New Logo I think were abusing the term a little bit too much where its losing its meaning, she continued. Thats really important because some things actually are woke and we should call it like it is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The term woke originally referred to someone or something that was aware of and attentive to racial and other social justice issues. Cracker Barrel recently unveiled a simplified logo that drops the image of an old man and a barrel. Downey ripped the redesign. Related: Gavin Newsom Shuts Down Kevin McCarthy Using 1 Brutal Blast From The Past Who at that roundtable was thinking to themself, Ah yes, lets go back to the minimalism of five years ago that is sterile and bland and neutered and lets rob this iconic, timeless company of all of its character and charm and fun history and country vibes, she asked. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats not super smart, Downey added. Maximalism is the moment. Watch here: Downey: Not everything is woke. I think we're abusing the term a little bit too much, where it's losing its meaning, and that's really important because some things actually are woke and we should call it like it is pic.twitter.com/k8hDyA0ckr Acyn (@Acyn) August 22, 2025 Related... Read the original on HuffPost Even if new pipelines increased New Englands gas supply, that influx of fuel would be unlikely to consistently lower prices in the long term, experts said. (Photo by Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg Creative-Getty Images) Building a new natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York would not make electricity in New England more affordable or reliable, experts say, despite the Trump administrations push to revive a project that stalled out years ago. Environmental advocates object to the construction of more gas infrastructure at a time when much of New England is trying to wean itself off fossil fuels, but there are economic concerns as well. Industry insiders say the proposed Constitution pipeline would do little to get more gas to New England power plants and could raise costs for both generators and consumers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There certainly is an increasing demand for energy, particularly electricity, said Jeremy McDiarmid, managing director and general counsel for national industry group Advanced Energy United. But the narrative that natural gas is going to somehow create a big downward pressure on electricity and energy bills is just not proven out in the data. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin breathed new life into that narrative in a Boston Globe op-ed published this month. The piece advocates for the approval of the Constitution pipeline, a proposed 125-mile project that would transport gas from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania into New York, on the grounds that it would save New Englanders money. Its the latest in the EPAs shift away from its historical mission of safeguarding environmental and public health and toward slashing regulations with the goal of unleashing American energy and lowering costs for residents. Since President Donald Trump took office, the agency has announced plans to end the $7 billion Solar for All program that funds solar projects for low-income households, eliminate the Energy Star label for energy-efficient appliances, and strip itself of authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The red line is the path of the Constitution Pipeline. (Photo via FERC) The Constitution pipeline is not a new project. Federal regulators initially approved it in 2014, but New York rejected the projects water-quality certification in 2016. Legal battles ensued, and in 2020, energy development company Williams dropped the proposal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then, in May, the Trump administration lifted its stop-work order on a major offshore wind project under construction off Long Islands coast, claiming the move was part of a deal in which New Yorks Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to reverse the states long-standing opposition to natural gas pipelines. Days later, Williams declared it would resurrect plans for two pipelines: Constitution and the Northeast Supply Enhancement project, a shorter line that would mostly run underwater off New Jersey and New York. In his Boston Globe piece, Zeldin traces New Englands soaring electricity prices the highest of any region in the continental U.S. back to an inadequate supply of natural gas to the areas power plants. The Constitution pipeline would transport more gas into New York, where it could be exported to its neighbors to the East. More gas would mean more reliable power generation and lower electricity prices, Zeldin contends. It has the ring of a plausible argument. New Englands power producers are heavily dependent on natural gas 55% of the regions electricity came from gas-fired plants in 2024 and leadership at regional grid operator ISO New England has pointed to lack of gas supply as a concern for reliability as demand on the system grows. At the same time, the Trump administrations hostility to offshore wind has slowed or sidelined several developments that states like Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts were counting on to boost power supplies in coming years. While there are a tremendous amount of ambitions around large-scale renewable energy, we have really struggled to make that operable, said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, a trade group that represents the regions electricity producers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Piping more gas up from Pennsylvanias ample supplies could seem like an economically sensible way to bolster the grid in light of these facts. The reality is far more complicated, however, say advocates and experts. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The major problem is that the pipeline wouldnt actually bring much, if any, new gas into New England, Dolan said. The Constitution pipeline would terminate in Schoharie County, New York, where it would connect to pipes that already carry gas into New England. That existing infrastructure is the true bottleneck, he said. The pipes into and around New England are narrow and limited, so bringing a higher volume of gas into New York doesnt mean more can flow throughout the neighboring region. There are no plans in the works to alleviate those constraints, and the models for funding such projects make it highly unlikely there will be any proposals for pipelines into or within New England in the near future, Dolan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I am not aware of any large-scale gas supply projects into New England today, he said. Until there is a way to increase that, I struggle to see how Constitution changes anything meaningful for us. Furthermore, multiple New England states are enacting plans to transition away from natural gas for home heating and appliances. In late 2023, Massachusetts regulators laid out plans for transitioning gas utilities toward clean energy, with the explicit goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. In May 2025, Maine opened an investigation into the future of its gas utilities. These efforts could reduce demand for natural gas for heating, freeing up some supply for power plants, Dolan said. Even if new pipelines increased New Englands gas supply, that influx of fuel would be unlikely to consistently lower prices in the long term, experts said. Despite the appealing logic that more supply leads to lower costs, natural gas prices are inherently volatile and susceptible to influence by global events. In 2022, for example, the wholesale price more than tripled from its 2020 level, hitting $6.45 per million British thermal units, after Russia invaded Ukraine. Last year, the average price was $2.20; next year it is forecast to hit $4.30, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The region is already over-reliant on natural gas, said Sarah Krame, staff attorney with the Sierra Clubs environmental law program. That is why we have seen volatile and skyrocketing gas and electricity bills in recent years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A better solution to both price and reliability worries, said advocates, would be to build a system that simply requires less gas. That would mean relying on a diverse portfolio of options that includes solar, offshore wind, battery storage, energy efficiency, and demand-response programs. Such resources could be coordinated to create virtual power plants a collection of geographically distributed resources that can work together to supply power to the grid and reduce demand. Not only do these networks emit less greenhouse gases than fossil-fueled plants, but their components can be built more quickly and cheaply, McDiarmid said. This approach already had a chance to prove itself this summer, when solar and storage worked together to lower peak demand during a heat wave that saw temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit around the region, noted Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy and regulatory affairs at the Environmental League of Massachusetts. To me thats a sign that we need more renewables, not that we need to double down on fossil fuels, she said. Two months after the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes against Irans nuclear facilities and the ceasefire with Israel that soon followed, President Trump has once again upended conventional foreign policy wisdom. After years of escalatory rhetoric, moral posturing and seemingly endless funding packages, Trumps twin high-profile summits with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders in Washington offer the clearest road map yet to finally end the tragic war in Ukraine. And perhaps the toughest part for the foreign policy establishment to swallow: It would come to pass not in spite of Trumps nationalist America First instincts, but because of them. Three and a half years after Putins February 2022 invasion, the Russia-Ukraine war is a humanitarian catastrophe and a financial sinkhole. It has often seemed to be an intractable quagmire; the permanent foreign policy class has no idea how to even begin to end it. Ever since Russian tanks first rolled into the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Western elites have clung to fanciful, idealistic slogans as long as it takes, until the last square inch and so forth while sending oodles of U.S. taxpayer dollars to a deeply corrupt country at an alarming clip. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No one in President Bidens neoliberal blob had any plan to stop the killing. Trump does. And hes showing us yet again how a sober realism not liberal internationalist fantasy can yield results. It begins with clarity of purpose as it pertains to the American national interest . Trump has never pretended that the precise delineation of the historically disputed Russia-Ukraine border is a question that implicates the United States vital interests. Simply put, Ukraine isnt in NATO. If the invaded country were a NATO country like Estonia or Latvia, this would be a different conversation. But thats not the case. Trump also understands the parties well. He knows that Putin is an inveterate autocrat not a democrat-in-waiting who just needs a few more Harvard Kennedy School seminars to fall in line. And he also recognizes that Zelensky, Churchillian cosplay notwithstanding, is the president of a still-fledgling post-Soviet republic mired in venality and a dubious commitment to Western-style liberalism . Putin is a horrific thug, yes, but he is a rational actor; Zelensky is less barbaric than Putin, but his maximalist ambitions have been overinflated by years of Western ego-stroking. Enter Dealmaker-in-Chief Trump the man who has already secured ceasefires or peace deals between Israel and Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, and Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on what we can glean from the recent summits with Putin and Zelensky, Trumps art of the deal strategy for a grand Russo-Ukrainian peace accord seems to center on four principles: neutrality for Ukraine, land swaps, reconstruction guarantees and enforcement mechanisms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Neutrality means Ukraine doesnt join NATO period. There will be no more inching ever eastward for NATO the sort of reckless expansionism that helped sparked this conflict in the first place. Ukraine must remain sovereign a necessary concession from Putin, who still dreams of reconstituting Soviet-era Greater Russia. It will become a bridge state not wholly dissimilar to Belarus, minus the repressive dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko. Zelensky has at times seemed insistent on eventual NATO membership for Ukraine, but he has also equivocated . He will have to compromise; Russia has a legitimate security interest in a buffer zone on its western border. If there is a peace deal in the offing, land swaps and territorial compromise will be the toughest pill to swallow. This is where Trump, the sober and emotionally detached realist, stands a better chance of succeeding than his ideologically inclined White House predecessor. Crimea will remain with Russia that is both the historical and the present, on-the-ground reality. The borders of the Donbas region full of ethnically/linguistically divided Russian/Ukrainian towns must be redrawn too. The granular cartographic details are beyond our scope, but the general guiding principle should be self-determination and peace over permanent strife and proxy war. Third, Trump is reportedly working with European partners to create a Marshall Plan-style economic reconstruction package for Ukraine as long as a peace deal holds. The all-important carrot for Ukraine here is economic revival, not NATOs Article 5 missiles. The mineral rights deal inked earlier this year between the U.S. and Ukraine provides more in the way of economic inducement. Finally, enforcement. A Russia-Ukraine deal likely cannot survive on good intentions alone. Trumps model will require teeth. The enforcement details remain to be seen and Trumps MAGA base would rightly resist a NATO-style mutual defense guarantee. Unlike NATOs tripwires or Bidens moralistic blank checks, Trumps enforcement model must be transactional and rooted in national self-interest. Getting this part of the deal right will be crucial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ending the Russia-Ukraine war would save countless lives, stabilize Europes eastern flank and perhaps most important finally permit the U.S. military to focus on deterring its top 21st-century geopolitical threat , Communist China. By already bringing us closer to peace than his predecessor ever did, Trump is again reminding Americans that the purpose of foreign policy is not moral preening, but the pursuit of the national interest. The war in Ukraine has raged far too long. If Trump can bring it to a close, with a deal that both Moscow and Kyiv can live with, then he will have achieved what no Western leader since 2022 has had the courage to even attempt in earnest. And perhaps, if successful, hell finally get that elusive Nobel Peace Prize. Josh Hammers latest book is Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer 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. A half-year after Newtown rejected its affordable housing proposal, Vessel Technologies will learn soon whether it can establish a Fairfield County foothold by constructing 75 units in a new five-story building in Bethel. There has been substantial opposition from residents, but the New York-based developer this month hammered away at three points: It has offered compromises for neighbors, Bethel badly needs more affordable housing, and state law leaves the town little ground for saying no. Vessel has become perhaps the most controversial developer in Connecticut with its stark, steel-and-glass buildings and penchant for proposing 8-30g projects in affluent suburbs. The 8-30g law sharply limits the reasons that most towns can use to justify rejecting affordable housing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most notably, Vessel has been very willing to go to court when a community turns it away: It won a court-brokered compromise in Simsbury, and is pursuing lawsuits against Newtown and Glastonbury. And two years ago it sued when Rocky Hill balked at letting it put up a five-story building with 30 apartments on a high-visibility site across from the long-planned town center. Negotiations led to a deal where Vessel moved to an out-of-the-way location but in exchange got permission to build 96 units. After hearing heavy neighborhood pushback earlier in the summer, the company announced last week that it would be open to a compromise with just four floors. But Vessels attorney, Jason Klein of the Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey firm, emphasized that under the 8-30g law, a no vote based solely on height or architectural appearance simply wont hold up in court. The statute allows only one reason: a significant health and public safety concern that outweighs the towns need for affordable housing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 8-30g is the law and its important to follow the law, so we want to make sure the record is clear, Klein told the towns planning and zoning commission last week. Case law is very clear: To find a health and safety concern, it has to be more than a mere theoretical possibility. Mere concern alone is not sufficient. We will abide by the state building code and the fire code. We wont get a building permit if we dont, he said. The company is proposing to build on nearly 4.5 acres along Nashville Road. During the zoning hearing, numerous residents and some commissioners expressed concerns about sufficient parking, increased traffic and more. Klein repeatedly told commissioners that Connecticut case law has established those cant be factors in rejecting an 8-30g application. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Superior Courts have found this and the Appellate Court has upheld it, he said, emphasizing that parking has been categorized with concerns of convenience, not concerns of health and safety. And the cost of litigation is not something to be just disregarded, he said in his most blunt warning of the evening. Whether that will satisfy commissioners will be resolved in the next month or so. They are scheduled to deliberate on the proposal Sept. 9, and could either vote that night or on Sept. 23. To comply with 8-30g, Vessel is offering to set aside 20% of the apartments as affordable for at least 40 years. Half of those must be priced at rates affordable to tenants making just 60% of the regions median income, while the other half must be targeted to those making no more than 80%. Bethel is subject to 8-30g because like most Connecticut suburbs it falls below the states goal of 10% affordable housing in each community. Bethels rate most recently was measured at 5.2%. VIDEO: Locals react to shooting at Fifth Avenue park CONWAY, Ark. Police in Conway said a fourth suspect has been arrested in connection with a deadly mass shooting that happened in a park in April. Conway Police Department officials said they have arrested 18-year-old Kemarie Tyrone Johnson in connection with the shooting. Multiple 911 calls give witness insight into deadly mass shooting at Conway park Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities said Johnson was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Eastern District of Arkansas Fugitive Task Force and the Arkansas State Police SWAT Team in Pine Bluff on Thursday evening. Police said the shooting happened during a gathering at Fifth Avenue Park on April 13 during a party that was planned by out-of-town promoters. He said multiple people fired more than 100 rounds from at least six different weapons. Conway police reported that two people were killed and nine others were injured in the shooting. Johnson is facing multiple charges, including two counts of capital murder, nine counts of attempted murder and one count of terrorism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Third arrest made in deadly Conway park mass shooting Police had previously arrested Keydrick Johnson, Ryan Goins and Tyler Antonio Jamel Farris. Conway police concluded in saying the investigation into the shooting is active and ongoing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. CONWAY, Ark. The Conway School District has joined a class-action lawsuit against several social media giants, alleging that the companies knowingly harm children while continuing to market their platforms to youth. General Counsel Shastady Wagner said the district was contacted by Motley Rice, a South Carolina-based law firm involved in similar litigation nationwide. They reached out because they believed that these claims, which are social media harm students, are based on these platforms, Wagner said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Social media posts cause increased police presence at school districts in central Arkansas She added that the platforms at the center of the lawsuit include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok. They are marketed to youth in a way to entice them to continue using them, even though we know that it is harmful, Wagner said. And so they believe that they have enough evidence to support that these platforms knew that their platforms were harmful, and they continued to market them in a way to increase exposure for kids. Wagner said the district has seen the effects of social media on its students, citing an increase in discipline issues and the need for initiatives like the Yondr Pouch program, which requires students to store phones during class. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 80% of our instances over the past couple of years have been some type of tie back to social media in some way, she said. Although the case is being handled in federal court in California, Wagner said the impacts are felt locally. If there is any type of monetary reward, its to be able to invest back in behavior programs, you know, when you are thinking through mental health supports for kids, like being able to take that money and invest it directly back into the kids, is what we would want to see, Wagner said. Some critics argue that addressing the issue should be left up to parents, but Wagner pushed back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are a partner with home, you know, your kids when they come to school, they should get our best and we should get their best. And what we need is we need to all be defending our kids on all fronts, she said. Central Arkansas school officials warn of consequences as multiple school districts listed in social media threat Other Arkansas districts have also joined the lawsuit, including Springdale, Fayetteville, Pulaski County Special and Siloam Springs. The North Little Rock School Board is expected to vote soon on whether to join as well. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLRT - FOX16.com. LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) Yes, were just a couple of weeks into the new school year, but for high school seniors all the way down to the youngest Pre-K kids, its never too early to think about college. For the fifth year in a row, the Nevada State Treasurers office is sponsoring an all-grades art contest with a top prize of $1,000 in college savings money and plenty of other awards on the line. To help students focus on their futures, the theme of the contest is What do you want to be when you grow up? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Winners from last year include: Pre-K Jiyang who wants to be a firefighter, 3rd grader Arianna veterinarian, 5th grader Isaac: a drone operator, 7th grader NaYoun: a crime scene investigator, 8th grader Jeanne an anesthesiologist, and 11th grader Mya: artist and illustrator. Any type of art is ok, but entries cant be any bigger or smaller than a regular ol 8.511 piece of paper. 2nd place for each grade gets a $500 college savings account, with 3rd place $250. The contest opened the day school started, with entries accepted until October 3rd. To learn more and maybe even sign up, click > HERE. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We always want to know Whats Cool At School. If youve got something, let us know. Whats Cool At School is under the Community tab at 8newsnow.com. Or just email: whatscoolatschool@8newsnow.com Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and allied plaintiffs are pressing a federal court in El Paso to block Texass newly House-passed redistricting map. The filing is part of the ongoing LULAC v. Abbott case and comes as the groups past ties with Sen. John Cornyn resurface. In a motion filed Aug. 18, the plaintiffs argued the Republican-backed plan is egregiously unconstitutional and asked for an expedited September hearing to consider preliminary injunctions. They contend the map weakens Latino voting strength and must be blocked before the 2026 election cycle. Resurfaced video from a 2016 LULAC gala shows Cornyn accepting an award from the organization. Ive worked with LULAC for quite a few years, Cornyn said on stage. He called the group one of those rare organizations that tries to find common bonds to unite people behind a common cause. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Critics took issue with Cornyns praise of LULAC, citing the groups political positions. The organization has supported abortion access for minorities and promoted diversity initiatives. LULAC also praised Cornyns 2022 gun control deal with Democrats. In a statement, Texas LULAC state director Rodolfo Rosales Jr. applauded the legislation. Finally, we are coming together for the common good of our nation on gun law reforms, Rosales said. This is not about infringing the rights of anyone. Rather, it is about ensuring the rights of all Americans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without fearing someone with a firearm unleashing unimaginable terror on a community. Cornyns support for that bipartisan gun package continues to follow him into the current election cycle. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, he has recently pushed back on claims he is working with Democrats on new restrictions after a poll showed him in a competitive race with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn has not addressed LULACs latest filing. His silence comes as grassroots pressure builds ahead of a major primary challenge. Meanwhile, critics on social media highlighted Cornyns past praise for LULAC. Who would be proud to receive an award from a far-left organization? Oh thats right, John Cornyn, Alex Duncan wrote on X. Another user added, Of course he accepted an award from the same organization that is suing to stop redistricting in Texas. The Dallas Express reached out to Cornyns office for comment but did not receive a response. COLUMBUS Incarcerated youth across the state of Ohio are better positioned for successful careers and fulfilling lives as a result of unique partnership between the Ohio Department of Commerce and the Ohio Department of Youth Services. Over the past several months, representatives from Commerces Division of Industrial Compliance, including the Board of Building Standards and the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board, met with dozens of youths to discuss career pathways, industry credentials and the life-changing potential of skilled trades-related employment. The discussions provided a high-level overview of the skilled trades in Ohio. In particular, they highlighted the increasing need for workers in the trades; provided instructions on how youth can explore and search for opportunities; emphasized various benefits that jobs in the skilled trades provide; and identified pathways individuals can take to prepare for work in these critical fields upon their release. Commerces visit on Aug. 21 to the Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility in northeast Ohio marked the third and final facility visit this year, concluding the second consecutive year of this joint outreach initiative. Similar visits were made to the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility on May 7 in recognition of In-Demand Jobs Week, and to the Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility in Massillon on Aug. 12. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During our visits, we engaged with many individuals who were curious and enthusiastic about the opportunities that await them in the future. The skilled trades offer them an opportunity not only for a fresh start, but to play a starring role in the states economic boom that is taking place right now, said Ohio Department of Commerce Director Sherry Maxfield. These visits are helping to unlock the immense potential within our youth, especially in places where others might see obstacles, meanwhile this initiative is also helping our state prepare a new generation of skilled professionals it needs to prosper in the years to come. This really is a win-win for these individuals and Ohio. The initiative aligns with DYSs broader commitment to career readiness. During the 2024-2025 academic year, youth across DYS facilities earned more than 1,100 skill certificates and nearly 300 industry-recognized credentials, underscoring the departments focus on education, opportunity, and rehabilitation. We know that employment is one of the strongest predictors of successful reentry. Thats why were committed to making career readiness a cornerstone of habilitation. The confidence they gain from mastering a skill is the foundation for long-term success, said DYS Director Amy Ast. The visits come as the need for Ohio workers in the skilled trades grows greater by the day. The combination of an aging workforce and significant economic growth throughout the state has resulted in a widening workforce gap. As a result of this shortage, workers in construction trades such as carpentry, plumbing, HVAC, electric, welding and pipefitting are highly sought after and can earn competitive salaries, even at the starting apprenticeship level. In addition, having a criminal background does not disqualify someone from pursuing a career in the skilled trades. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the 2020-2030 Ohio Job Outlook published by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, an estimated 21,656 job openings in the skilled trades need to be filled annually through 2030. These positions offer competitive wages, strong benefits, and significant opportunities for career advancement, making them a key driver of Ohios workforce. To extend the reach of this initiative to all Ohioans of all ages, Commerce hosted a 30-minute webinar on its YouTube page during In-Demand Jobs Week in May to educate and inform students, families, educators, and guidance counselors on the topic of the skilled trades. The webinar, which is available via a recording here, highlights the benefits of skilled trades careers and offers practical guidance for getting started. KIEV, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Sixty-five Ukrainians, deported from Russia and stranded at the Russian-Georgian border, have returned home, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Friday. Among them were 10 women and eight seriously ill individuals, Sybiha said in a post on Facebook. All deportees had been stuck at the buffer zone of the Dariali checkpoint on the border, according to the post. Over the past several months, Ukraine has received 109 deported citizens from the checkpoint, Sybiha said. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Nearly 1,000 personnel are assigned to fighting the Cottonwood Peak Fire, which has burned more than 122,000 acres in western Elko County. The wildfires growth has slowed somewhat, advancing by 12,000 acres from Thursday to Friday morning. Weather conditions improved on Thursday as winds calmed, according to officials with the Eastern Area Complex Incident Management Team (EACIMT), which took charge of firefighting efforts on Monday morning. Firefighters have achieved 10% containment so far with hand crews, air tankers, helicopters and bulldozers on site. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cottonwood Peak is Nevadas largest fire of 2025. It was first reported one week ago about three miles north of Tuscarora in western Elko County. The fire has burned land mostly controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, but private ranches in the area have also been affected. On Wednesday, the fire went into U.S. Forest Service land the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to the east and north. Overnight, the wildfires northeast edge extended. Crews are actively working and adjusting strategy to protect critical infrastructure. Structure protection remains a priority in Tuscarora and around the ranches and structures in the Jack Creek and Chicken Creek area, according to an EACIMT update Friday morning. Wilson Reservoir is now closed, along with Wild Horse Crossing and Jack Creek campgrounds. Nevada Highway 226 is open to local traffic only. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The clouds appearing above the fire Friday morning are less beneficial than one might think. Theyre an indicator of instability in the atmosphere. There is a concern that isolated showers and thunderstorms could develop over the Independence Mountains, bringing a chance of dry lightning and gusty winds which could present a challenge to firefighting efforts, EACIMT said. Fridays report put the fire at 122,110 acres. The 82,217-acre Jakes Fire also in western Elko County was Nevadas second-largest wildfire this year. The Gothic Fire, at 35,161 acres on the federally controlled land in Nye County, is third. The fire is 500 miles north of Las Vegas, and about 40-50 miles south of the Nevada-Idaho state line. The Chin Creek Fire in northeast White Pine County is currently the second-largest active fire in Nevada at 639 acres. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hull City Council is defending its use of government money after coming under fire from opposition councillors. The Labour Group is calling for scrutiny into how cash from a Levelling Up Fund, which supports regeneration and new jobs, has been used following the closure of Princes Quay restaurant and bar Iron Lilies, which was awarded 750,000 but closed in July after just 12 months. At the time, the shopping centre said it needed to "revisit the concept", with the council this week adding that it would "reopen later this year". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A spokesperson for the Lib Dem-run authority said: "The scheme has brought 19 buildings back into use, brought in 13m of private investment and supported 900 jobs." The council was awarded 19.5m of government funding in November 2021 to "level up" the city centre, of which 7.5m was allocated to creating a city centre grants scheme. The idea was to bring unused floor space of empty or partially occupied property in the city centre back into use and, earlier this month, the council said 31 businesses had made use of the money. Some of the businesses to benefit have been the US fast-food chain Wendy's, which opened with the support of 200,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Wykeland Group was awarded 750,000 and 450,000 from Historic England to restore the former Burton building on Whitefriargate, although the site is not yet occupied. ResQ received 750,000 towards its refurbishment of the former Hammonds of Hull building and now occupies four floors and has welcomed hundreds of new employees as a result. Grants have also been given to smaller businesses, including 101,800 to Crepes & Bubbles, 73,356 to Hearth Restaurant and Bakery and 75,000 to Bar 55 to create a new rooftop bar, which has since closed. In May, WHSmith Travel Holdings Limited was given 146,250 to move to a vacant unit opposite in Paragon station. This was to enable a former ticket office and hall to be converted into a bar. Labour councillor Sharon Hofman says the opposition group is calling for some of the council's Levelling Up decisions to be looked at [BBC] Councillor Sharon Hofman, deputy leader of the Labour Group, said the council had given "significant amounts of funding to well-established national companies, such as Wendy's and WHSmith, to either set up in the city or simply relocate a few yards". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Labour has contacted the chair of the economy and environment overview and scrutiny commission requesting that this is put on the agenda as a matter of urgency," Hofman said. "With local businesses struggling we need to be sure that decision-makers are using funding properly and taking local businesses into account in those decisions, and there also needs to be clarity on what has happened to the 750,000." In response, the council said: "We understand that Iron Lillies will reopen later this year. "It should be highlighted that 91 per cent of funding has been distributed to small and medium-sized enterprises. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "That means of those in Hull who have benefitted from this funding, nine in 10 are independent businesses." Tokyo Industries, which owns Princes Quay and runs Iron Lilies, has been approached for comment but has not responded. Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices More on this story Related internet links BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) The deadly shooting of Brody Davis at Bakersfields Panorama Park sparked community concerns over park safety in the wake of the Aug. 17 shooting. 17-year-old Brody Davis was just one of over a dozen in a crowd, when police said he attempted to stop an altercation he was shot and killed. 19-year-old Sebastian Dominguez pleaded not guilty to murder charges. The shooting was all captured on video, a crowd of young people flooded the parks only parking lot. People were dancing on cars and videoing active fist fights. At one point, a Bakersfield Police Department patrol car slowed down and shined a flood light on the crowd but pulls away. The department said in a statement that there was a call for shots fired over a mile down Panorama Drive and officers went there as priority. During this time, shots rang out, while they did, the fatal park shooting happens. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Video showed Davis falling to the ground, and later helped up by remaining members of the dispersing crowd. Jeff Flores, District 3 Supervisor said he is considering and pushing for different methods of safety at the park. If they are congregating at the parking lot, which I believe in this case it was, I welcome a security gate to discourage that access. That would go a long way. I will push for that and spend whatever takes to put up a security gate, Flores said. Ive heavily invested in solar lights, on the path there to help illuminate to discourage bad behavior. Flores encourages people to obey the curfew, the sign at the park says it is closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Panorama Park is run by the county, BPD can respond to calls in the area. 17 News asked BPD about Flock cameras: if there were any in the area or if they were going to set any up in light of this horrible shooting, but a BPD spokesperson said there are no plans for that as of now. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News. The symbol of justice adorns one of the doors to the Nebraska Supreme Court. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner) OMAHA County treasurers must correctly calculate and distribute the payments made by public utilities in lieu of paying property taxes. They also must correct any mistakes they make, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled on Friday. Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr., who was the treasurer at the time in Douglas County, overpaid the Omaha Public Schools, the City of Omaha and Douglas County from payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) funds in 2021. His name is on the case that sorted out the duties of local treasurers. A Douglas County Treasurers office in central Omaha. (Courtesy of Douglas County) But Chief Justice Jeffrey Funkes opinion makes plain that its aim is to clarify some confusion a lower court ruling left over whether county treasurers had the duty and ability to fix such funding mistakes they make as part of their ministerial duties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At stake is sorting out potentially millions of dollars in annual payments county treasurers distribute to school districts from the utilities that provide electricity statewide. The ministerial duty is one imposed on the treasurer to distribute the PILOT funds based on the exact formula adopted by the people and required by the Legislature, Funke wrote. In requiring that the treasurer distribute the PILOT funds in a specific manner, it must be that the treasurers duty is only accomplished when he or she has facilitated that exact and particular distribution. The high court also clarified that Omahas Westside Community Schools was well within its rights to file a second legal bid to recoup the funds it was not paid from 2019 through 2021 after a lower court vacated the initial case on a technicality. A state audit that spurred much of the legal action found that in 2021 Westside was underpaid by $3.7 million and that schools in Elkhorn and Ralston were underpaid by more than $4 million. Omaha Public Schools, the audit found, received about $5.6 million too much. The City of Omaha received $4.4 million too much. And Douglas County received $2.7 million too much. Douglas County Treasurer John Ewing Jr. and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert prep for a debate for Omaha mayor at the Omaha Press Club. April 17, 2025. (Courtesy of Ewing campaign) The court case avoided assigning specific amounts owed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lawyers for the Omaha school district had argued that the law was murky on whether the treasurer could collect funds overpaid to districts, based on the previous formula calculations, an argument the state Supreme Court rejected. Westside has met its burden of proving that it is entitled to the PILOT funds it did not receive, the ruling states. Ewing has previously defended his offices mistake, describing it as an inherited interpretation of state law that the Douglas County Treasurers Office had used for six decades. Ewings opponents in the mayors race made an issue of the payments during his successful bid to unseat incumbent Mayor Jean Stothert. Westside Superintendent Mike Lucas shared word of the courts decision in a Friday email to Westside families. In it, he said, While we are still reviewing the full implications of this positive decision, we are grateful for the support from our Board of Education members and the Westside community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ewing, in a statement Friday, said, This is the correct remedy that the Douglas County Treasurers Office be allowed to correct the situation by paying school districts with future revenues from the OPS payment in lieu of taxes program. The Douglas County Board is set to meet with legal counsel next week to review the Supreme Court decision. OPS, in a statement, said it was aware of and reviewing the ruling, but we respectfully decline further comment at this time. Editors note: This story has been updated with comments from Westside Community Schools, Omaha Public Schools and Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. N00012655PUB SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX NEED TO KNOW A California couple claims a mail carrier doused a delivery in pepper spray before giving it to their French Bulldog named Jax Danna and Raymond Guszak of Torrance said the incident was captured on a home surveillance camera The husband and wife said the employee told their dog to enjoy the letter A Los Angeles area couple is demanding answers after a mailman was caught on camera dousing mail with what appeared to be pepper spray before giving it to their dog. Danna and Raymond Guszak of Torrance, Calif., told FOX 11 Los Angeles the incident was captured on their home surveillance footage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Video showed an unidentified mail carrier approaching their home, then stopping to spray an unknown substance from a canister onto a letter. Seconds later, the male employee walked up to the residents door and slid the mail into the mail chute. Their dog, a French Bulldog named Jax, could be heard barking at the other side of the door. "He says, Okay, enjoy, [to the dog]," Danna told the local news station. "I dont even understand that. He clearly knows the dog is going to get that mail." The husband and wife said their beloved dog posed no threat to the mail carrier. "The dog is in the house and the windows are closed," Danna added. "Theres no threat at all to this man at all." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A spokesperson for the Postal Service tells PEOPLE, The United States Postal Service holds its employees to high standards of conduct, and any actions which conflict with these values are taken seriously. We are currently reviewing this incident and will take appropriate action based on the results to ensure alignment with our commitment to integrity and professionalism. Related: https://people-app.onelink.me/HNIa/kz7l4cuf Raymond told the news station that he and Jax had reactions to the mail, with their French bulldog drooling and Raymonds eyes beginning to burn. Danna said prior to the incident, she and her husband never had issues with mail carriers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now, Raymond and Danna hope they and others in their neighborhood are safe. "What if a child picked up that mail and ingested it?" said Raymond. "Or was he trying to harm the people inside the home? Im not sure what the intent was." 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. Danna told FOX 11 she now feels scared, while Raymond said tampering with mail is a federal crime." He added, "Especially if you have some liquid or poison on the mail." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On July 28, another USPS mail carrier sprayed an elderly cat with what appeared to be pepper spray in California. The Rancho Cordova resident also caught the incident on his home security cameras. Get the f--- out of here, the employee reportedly told the cat in the footage, which was obtained by The Sacramento Bee. Read the original article on People Family members are remembering Donald and Maria Nunney, beloved parents of four, who died in a car crash while on a trip to drop off their eldest son at college in North Carolina. Donald Nunney's sister Meredith Nunney McCarthy said her older brother and sister-in-law were "fantastic parents" who would be greatly missed not just by their extended family but also their community. "Don was a loving, doting father. He loved Maria more than anything in the world, and he was just there for everybody," McCarthy said, adding, "I couldn't ask for a better brother." Courtesy the Nunney family - PHOTO: Noah Nunney with his late parents, Donald Nunney and Maria Nunney. Donald Nunney, 55, and Maria Nunney, 50, of Cleveland, Ohio, were driving with their two younger children, Lucia, 15, and Leo, 9, to meet their eldest son Noah, 19, for lunch near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a student, on Aug. 15, when their car ran off the interstate and hit several trees, according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Nunneys, who were both teachers and had recently celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary, died as a result of their injuries sustained in the crash, according to the highway patrol. Lucia and Leo survived the crash and were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment for "serious injuries," the highway patrol said. The couple's other son, Diego, 18, who declined to be interviewed by ABC News, had stayed behind in Cleveland for work and was not in the car at the time of the accident, according to Maria Nunney's brother Sandro Galindo. 23-year-old vows to care for 4 brothers after parents' unexpected deaths Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Family members are caring for Lucia and Leo while they are in the hospital, McCarthy and Galindo said, and plan to continue to care for them and their older siblings in their parents' absence. "They have a really good support system with ... both sides of the family, so we're doing the best we can to be there for them," McCarthy said. Courtesy of the Nunney family - PHOTO: Noah Nunney with his late parents, Donald Nunney and Maria Nunney. Galindo remembered his younger sister, who would have turned 51 on Aug. 17, for her vibrant personality. "Maria pretty much lit up every room she was in. She had a big laugh," Galindo told ABC News. "She loved to laugh and joke around and didn't always take life super seriously. She had four kids, so she knew there were troubles and problems, and she always took them in stride." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Football player whose parents, sister died becomes part of coach's family Galindo and McCarthy said their families have received an outpouring of support since the Nunneys' unexpected deaths, from the help of first responders and hospital staff to friends and strangers who have raised money online for the couple's children. Galindo added that he was particularly touched by one moment when he took his nephew's iPhone in for repair after the accident, and they offered to fix it no matter what. "I said, 'My 9-year-old nephew was in a car accident. He's at the hospital and his birthday wish list is on this phone,'" Galindo recalled. "[The repair person] just said they'll get it fixed." The North Carolina State Highway Patrol said the crash involving the Nunney family remains under investigation. NEED TO KNOW Ganesh Oduko came to the U.S. from Ghana in January 2022 on a student visa and was a student at a New Jersey university until 2023 He was arrested in June after Homeland Security Agents approached him outside of his apartment and he has been detained since Oduko married Angie Figueroa on Wednesday, Aug. 13, and they hope their marriage will strengthen his ties to the U.S. and allow him to remain in the country In early May, Angie Figueroa and Ganesh Oduko visited a jewelry store in New Jersey to try on wedding bands the next step in their two-year courtship as they continued to plan for an intimate marriage ceremony later this year. On Aug. 13, the couple married under circumstances they did not expect: They exchanged vows in a chapel at the detention center in Newark, N.J., where Oduko has been detained since June, in front of their attorney and another member of his firm, who were there as witnesses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Figueroa wore a dress that complied with the detention center's code a sage frock from Charlotte Russe while Ganesh, who has slimmed down significantly since his detainment, wore the dark blue uniform provided to detainees. His attire was a stark contrast to the "clean and classic" black tuxedo Figueroa says she had envisioned him wearing on their wedding day. They recited traditional vows during the roughly 15-minute ceremony and were allowed to hold hands and kiss but have no photos to mark the occasion, as cameras were not permitted. Though they both believed they might cry, neither did. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Their initial plans were upended in June, when Oduko was detained by a Homeland Security Investigations agent in Bloomfield, N.J., as he left his apartment for work one morning. Oduko, 25, came to the U.S. from Ghana in January 2022 on a student visa but withdrew from school to work and save up money with a plan to return, according to Figueroa, Oduko's attorney and a religious sister whose volunteer farm program he participated in two years ago. He was arrested on June 13 for having violated the terms of his visa because he fell out of status when he was no longer enrolled in school. Federal officials have been cracking down on a wide array of immigration cases after President Donald Trump successfully campaigned on such a platform last year, though some of the detainments and deportations have stirred controversy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 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. Oduko and Figueroa believe that by expediting their plans to marry, and because Oduko has no criminal record, it should increase his odds of being allowed to remain in the U.S. He was granted bond earlier this week, and his attorney expects his release soon. "Any young person, even an older person who remembers their wedding day, will definitely bristle at something like that, but that's what's necessary to hopefully, hopefully, get him out of there," says Gina Fleming, 73, from the sisters of St. Dominic in Amityville, N.Y., where Oduko had volunteered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For her part, Figueroa says she tries not to entertain the possibility that Oduko could eventually be deported and, instead, has leaned on her Christian faith. Oduko attended Caldwell University in Caldwell, N.J., where he was studying biology until 2023. He participated in an internship at the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville's Homecoming Farm on Long Island during that summer, where he learned organic farming practices that he hoped to teach others in his native Ghana, Fleming says. She is one of about two dozen sisters who wrote letters of support for him. Hers was among those his attorney gathered and submitted as part of Oduko's bond redetermination request. Angie Figueroa Angie Figueroa Angie Figueroa In her letter, Fleming writes that Oduko did "very demanding work" "with a smile each day" on the sisters' farm and that they got to know him well. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an interview with PEOPLE, she says they would eat meals and pray together daily. She says Oduko was always mannerly and that even after his internship ended, he stayed in touch with the sisters and visited them. One visit stands out in her mind. "One of the sisters had kind of depleted in her energy level and wasn't in the dining room any longer," Fleming recalls. "He insisted on going up to her room in our mother house to see her before he left." The sisters whose mission is to help those who are marginalized and without a voice were unsure whether their letters would have any impact, Fleming says, but they felt compelled to show their support for Oduko and to vouch for his character and work ethic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It doesn't matter what your politics are. These are human beings, for God's sakes," she says. "And no matter how you slice it, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity. This is not dignified." A Relationship Interrupted Oduko and Figueroa met through mutual friends and have been together since their first date. They were on the phone on the morning of his arrest in June she lives on Staten Island in New York with her family as he was on his way to work at a bakery. Figueroa says she heard authorities instruct him to put his hands behind his back before the call dropped. He called her back a few minutes later and told her that he'd been detained. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It was just very emotional," says Figueroa, who recently earned her bachelor's degree in psychology and works as an applied behavior analysis therapist. Figueroa immediately informed Oduko's brother in Ghana, Shiva, of his arrest, and the siblings initially kept it from their mother, Rita, to avoid upsetting her. Oduko and Figueroa soon hired an immigration attorney, Alexander Mena, who is working on both his detention and deportation cases. "This is not normal, what is happening," Mena says. "It all has basically been a steady ratcheting up since January." Mena says it appears Oduko was not the person federal authorities were looking for the day of his arrest. (Neither the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded to requests for comment.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under a previous administration, Mena says, Oduko likely would not have been detained because he has no criminal record. "They would have basically started the deportation proceedings, but he wouldn't be in the detention facility while that happens," Mena says. Oduko would probably have been put under supervision of both ICE and a separate company, both of which would have required he check in with them. But under Trump, the process has changed markedly. The White House has insisted their policies are about proper law enforcement and securing the country against migrants who shouldn't be here. "The goal posts are shifting from mass deportation to mass detention and deportation," he says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When a person who has an ongoing immigration proceeding gets married, there is a heightened standard to prove their marriage is bona fide and that they didn't just get married for immigration paperwork, Mena says. Among the things he hopes will work in Oduko's favor are the number of years he has been in the U.S., no criminal record, his having interned with the religious sisters on Long Island, the sisters' letters of support and now, his marriage to a U.S. citizen. Still, there are no guarantees. "This is just deeply reflective of an unjust system, in my view," Mena says, "and forcing people to make these kinds of decisions." Read the original article on People NEED TO KNOW A Georgia woman was found guilty of murdering her husband in June 2021 on Monday, Aug. 18 Cheryl Howell Coe was sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to local reports The convicted murderer claimed she had a disagreement with her husband about their open marriage and that he later angrily burst into their bedroom, scaring her, which led her to fire a weapon she kept nearby A Georgia woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole this week for the 2021 fatal shooting of her husband, which police said she initially lied about and then later claimed was an accident. Cheryl Howell Coe was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault on Monday, Aug. 18, in connection with shooting and killing her husband Luther Coe on June 23, 2021, at the couples Georgia home, according to The Newnan Times-Herald and local Fox 5. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cheryl was 51 at the time of the shooting, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported she had initially claimed was an accident before investigators discovered inconsistencies in her accounts. Physical evidence later showed Luther was shot at point-blank range, a medical examiner testified during her trial, according to the Times-Herald and Fox 5. The incident happened at the couples Newnan, Ga., home, where Cheryl initially told police she woke up to a person she didnt recognize barging into her bedroom, leading her to grab a gun from a nightstand next to the bed and shooting in the persons direction twice. According to the Times-Herald, which cited police testimony from Cheryls murder trial, the killer claimed she didnt realize who the man was until she heard her husbands voice. Cheryl, you shot me, she claimed Luther said. At the trial, according to the local newspaper, the jury heard testimony that described Cheryl and Luther as having an open marriage since 2020, which included sexual acts with friends. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The couple had a disagreement over the boundaries they had set for their marriage, which Luthers son from a previous marriage had described as seemingly happy before the shooting, per the Times-Herald report. Body camera from responding Coweta County Sheriffs Officer Jason Brooks showed Cheryl speaking with her mother on the phone after authorities arrived at the scene. I was just trying to protect myself, Cheryl is heard in the footage telling her mother, according to the Times-Herald. A local investigator later testified that Cheryl claimed she was following her husbands directions for what to do if an intruder came into the house. I didnt know what else to do, Cheryl claimed, according to the Times-Herald, citing an investigators testimony. I just grabbed the gun like hes (Luther) always told me to. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But soon after, Cheryl changed her story, according to Jason Brooks, an investigator with the Coweta County Sheriffs Office, who testified in court. Cheryl eventually confessed to Brooks that she and her husband had a fight about their open marriage and had planned to talk about their disagreement that evening. Cheryl told Brooks she waited on the back porch for her husband to talk, drinking four or five hard ciders during that hour, before ultimately taking a Klonopin and going to bed shortly after 7 p.m. Less than 15 minutes later, according to police, Cheryl shot Luther in their bedroom. The Times-Herald reported that Cheryl eventually told police she knew it was Luther who entered the bedroom, but that she felt frightened by his demeanor, alleging he told her to get her ass out of bed before claiming he yanked a pillow out from between her legs. I just wanted to be left alone, and he wasnt having it, Cheryl allegedly told police, according to Brooks testimony. He was dragging me out of bed. Cherly claimed she was just trying to hit the wall behind the TV so it would scare him off or make him leave, adding that she wasnt trying to hit him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I was scared, Cheryl later testified in court late last week, according to the Times-Herald. He was more enraged than hes ever been at me. The Times-Herald reported that Senior Assistant District Attorney Laura Lukert called Cheryl the most unreliable of narrators in her closing statement, before she was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The only consistency we have is that that woman shot Luther Coe, the prosecutor said. Read the original article on People A district court judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration ban on collective bargaining by two teachers unions in Department of Defense schools. Judge Paul Friedman issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed this spring by the Federal Education Association and Antilles Consolidated Education Association, which represent more than 5,500 teachers, librarians and counselors in the 161 schools under the Department of Defense Education Activity. The agency educates 67,000 children on military bases worldwide. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The union sued the Trump administration over a March executive order that stripped collective bargaining rights from two-thirds of federal service workers. The order impacted the Departments of Justice, Defense, Veteran Affairs, Treasury, and Health and Human Services, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Federal Education Association has been negotiating teachers contracts with the Department of Defense since 1970, while the Antilles Consolidated Education Association has bargained on behalf of Puerto Rico educators since 1976, according to the lawsuit. The current collective bargaining agreements for both unions were approved in 2023 and are set to expire in summer 2028. But since the order was issued, the lawsuit says, the Department of Defense Education Activity has discontinued negotiations, stopped participation in grievance proceedings and prohibited union representation during educator disciplinary meetings. Members are also no longer allowed to conduct union work during the school day. Requests from educators to access a union sick leave bank with 13,000 donated hours have also been ignored, according to the suit. These actions, taken together, essentially terminate the respective collective bargaining agreements and thus cause irreparable harm, Friedman said in his decision. Related Teachers Union Lawsuits in 5 States Challenge Private School Vouchers A 1978 federal statute allows collective bargaining in the civil service sector. The suit argued that while presidents have the authority to exclude an agency if its primary function involves intelligence, investigation or national security work, Many, if not most, of the agencies and agency subdivisions swept up in the executive orders dragnet do little to no national security work, much less do they have a primary function [of] intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative [work]. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The agency declined to comment on ongoing legal proceedings. In a reply to the unions lawsuit, Trump administration attorneys said the executive order was within the law and that reversing it would be costly. Rather than maintaining the status quo, it would force [the Department of Defense] to undo actions it has already taken to implement the executive order, causing significant disruption and resource expenditures, the lawyers wrote. Related As Students Return to School, Educators Grapple With Chaos From Washington In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized a few exemptions for agencies related to the Air Force and Army, but not the teachers unions despite a push from 45 lawmakers to exclude the school system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ensuring that DoDEA educators and personnel retain collective bargaining protections will ensure that DoDEA can continue to recruit and retain the best staff in support of its mission, the congressional members wrote in a letter. Collective bargaining safeguards the public interest, and its history in DoDEA has demonstrated better outcomes for mission readiness, and stronger connections between military-connected families and those who serve them. An appeal from the Trump administration is pending. A similar lawsuit from six unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, resulted in an injunction, but a federal appeals court reversed it in August. By Nate Raymond (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a Connecticut ban on assault weapons the state adopted after a gunman in 2012 killed 20 school children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. A three-judge panel of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2013 ban remained valid even after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 on the right to bear arms in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, was issued by the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority and held that modern gun restrictions must be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." Lawyers for a group of Connecticut residents, joined by organizations including the National Association for Gun Rights and the Second Amendment Foundation, argued the state's laws could not meet the standard the Supreme Court set. U.S. Circuit Judge John Walker, writing for the panel, said the Democratic-led state's assault weapons ban was comparable to historical regulations on "unusually dangerous weapons" and targeted a type of firearm that was technologically distinguishable from those common at the nation's founding. "The Founders faced no problem comparable to a single gunman carrying out a mass murder in seconds," wrote Walker, an appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ruling upheld a trial judge's 2023 decision and marked the latest in a string of losses for gun rights advocates challenging state restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. Five other appeals courts have also upheld such laws. "This opinion is a brazen act of defiance against the Supreme Court," Hannah Hill, vice president of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, said in a statement. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who defended the state's law, criticized the efforts of gun rights advocates. "I'm under no illusion that today's clear decision will stop the gun lobby's relentless campaign to flood our communities with ever more deadly weapons," he said in a statement on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. Supreme Court in June turned away a challenge to a similar law in Maryland even as conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion, predicted the high court "presumably will address the AR15 issue soon, in the next Term or two." (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Edmund Klamann) Cracker Barrel has lost its barrel. This week, the Tennessee-born chain, once defined by its gingham-tinted nostalgia, retired the logo of a man in overalls leaning against a wooden cask in favor of a stripped-down wordmark. The stock immediately tumbled, nearly a hundred million dollars in value gone by Thursday afternoon. Online, the uproar was swift and gleeful: conservatives decried the change as too progressive, and so, the new logo was inducted into the ever-growing catalog of woke consumer products a list that already includes rainbow Oreos, Bud Light cans and Starbucks allegedly godless holiday cups. For a restaurant better known for cornbread and checkerboards than market volatility, the whole thing had the air of an identity crisis unfolding in real time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bryon Donalds, a Republican congressman and gubernatorial hopeful from Florida, summed up the general Republican sentiment on X, formerly Twitter: In college, I worked at @CrackerBarrel in Tallahassee. I even gave my life to Christ in their parking lot. Their logo was iconic and their unique restaurants were a fixture of American culture. No one asked for this woke rebrand. Its time to Make Cracker Barrel Great Again. Its not only conservatives who are irked. Some liberals, too, lament the rebrand, though largely for different reasons: they see it as another step in the long flattening of American restaurants, where corporate sleekness overtakes idiosyncrasy, hospitality or even basic conviviality. (Even the Democratic National Committees social media account joined in: We think the Cracker Barrel rebrand sucks too.) But the conservative flavor of frustration is different. Its louder. More performative. Less about whether Uncle Herschels likeness clings to the Cracker Barrel logo and more about what the logo represents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When you think about it, a cross-country drive without a Cracker Barrel sighting seems almost well, unthinkable. Each location is lined with over 1,000 pieces of Southern country-themed decor. Every item is real. There are reportedly no reproductions among the 700,000 antiques in circulation, all funneled from a 26,000-square-foot warehouse in Lebanon, Tennessee. The chain presents itself as more local than it is, a feat thats both amusing and impressive in an era of corporate sameness. And having spent years living in and traveling through the South, Ive also seen what these restaurants mean to people: family road trips, post-church lunches, Friday night suppers punctuated by rocking-chair visits. That combination of locality and ritual somewhere and nowhere at once turns Cracker Barrel into a kind of cultural lighthouse. And Republicans, predictably, have claimed it as a beacon of Americana. Silly? Perhaps. But under an administration that made fast food part of its politics, from Trump stumping at McDonalds drive-thrus to RFK Jr. cozying up to Steak & Shake, it makes a strange sort of sense. (Steak & Shake weighed in on X: This is what happens when you have a board that does not respect their historical customers or their brand.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The debate, though, isnt unique to pancakes and barrels. It echoes this summers blue jeans dispute Sydney Sweeneys good genes campaign versus Beyonces cowboy couture and raises the bigger question: who gets to claim the aesthetics of Americana, and who decides who belongs? Cracker Barrel may be a ridiculous battlefield, its decor a curated performance of nostalgia, but the fury over its missing barrel points to something more enduring: the fight isnt about logos; its about ownership and how fiercely we guard the myths we call our own. Take denim, for instance. The fabric has long been shorthand for rugged individualism and the everyday workwear mythos of the American frontier in other words, a different, portable performance of Americana. Controversy erupted this month when American Eagle Outfitters launched its Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans campaign. The ads, featuring the blond-haired, blue-eyed actress reading the copy, Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue, were quickly called out by critics, including Lizzo, for their unsettling overtones of white supremacy and eugenics. Meanwhile, some on the right hailed it as a triumph over woke culture. President Trump weighed in, cheering Sweeneys political registration: Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there. Its for American Eagle, and the jeans are flying off the shelves. Go get em Sydney! The denim conversation became further charged when conservative commentator Megyn Kelly targeted Beyonces new Levis campaign a deliberative reimagining of classic Levis commercials, inspired by her Cowboy Carter album framing it as the moral opposite of Sweeneys. In the ads, the 35-time Grammy winner appears in denim-on-denim with blond hair. Kellys verdict on X was stark: Quite clearly there is nothing natural about Beyonce. Everythingfrom her image to her fame to her success to her look belowis bought and paid for. Screams artificial, fake, enhanced, trying too hard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its worth noting that some of the animosity towards Beyonces Levis ads is tied to the racism inspired by her foray into country music via Cowboy Carter. Her presence in the genre, her Blackness and her artistry, challenged long-standing assumptions about who belongs in the visual and sonic mythology of the American heartland. And its not only about race. Country music has long been a conservative cultural touchstone, valorizing patriotism, liberty and small-town Americana. Yet, over the past decade, the genre has witnessed artists redefining what those ideals look like in practice. For instance, in 2014, Ty Herndon reissued his debut single What Mattered Most with pronouns adjusted to reflect his own identity, a small but symbolic act of reclamation. That same year, Kacey Musgraves won Song of the Year at the CMAs for Follow Your Arrow, celebrating same-sex love, while Billy Gilman and Brandi Carlile emerged as openly queer voices reshaping the emotional and aesthetic contours of the genre. As Ive written before, the political push-pull of country musics modern shape continues (I think of the lyrics of songs like the conservative Rich Men of North Richmond and Try That in a Small Town, versus the work of hick lib Tyler Childers). And while the pushback over LGBTQ inclusion in country music may feel distinct from diner decor, the dynamics are remarkably similar. In 2023, the Texas Family Project an organization dedicated to making Texas families the most powerful force in Austin alerted its followers that Cracker Barrel has fallen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A once family friendly establishment has caved to the mob, they tweeted, sharing a screenshot of Cracker Barrels website. The target: a collage of rainbow-spindled rocking chairs under a banner reading Cracker Barrel LGBTQ Alliance. That year, the chain attended Nashville PRIDE, bringing a mobile Front Porch with rainbow rockers to celebrate queer employees, guests and communities. At first glance, it reads like just another right-wing outrage over corporate diversity initiatives. But the shock stemmed from Cracker Barrels long-standing image as a straight, Christian, conservative-coded brand. For decades, its corporate policies mirrored the biases of its customer base. Notably, in 1991, activists protested outside after the chain fired roughly 11 employees for failing to demonstrate normal heterosexual values. However, by the time of the PRIDE rocker controversy, some longtime customers had already determined Cracker Barrel had gone woke because of a small menu change a year prior. As the restaurant wrote on Facebook: Discover new meat frontiers. Experience the out of this world flavor of Impossible Sausage Made From Plants next time you Build Your Own Breakfast. The backlash was immediate from a subset of the brands fans, who saw the plant-based sausage as incongruous with the old-country-store experience. We dont eat in an old country store for woke burgers, one commenter wrote. Another added, I just lost respect for a once great Tennessee company. Some responses, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, riffed on leftist conspiracy: This is the future us leftists want. For the domain of all right winged red necks to turn on them and force veganism upon them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These flashpoints rainbow rockers, Impossible Sausage, now a stripped-down logo reveal the delicate calculus of change for a brand whose cultural identity is intertwined with a conservative vision of Americana. Every tweak, however small, feels like a challenge to a mythos that some customers have long believed they own. The post Cracker Barrel and the Americana debate appeared first on Salon.com. WEST MEAD TOWNSHIP The newest inductees to the Crawford County Agricultural Hall of Fame, along with the Ag-Industry recipients, were honored this week at New Beginnings Church of God. Paul Huber presented the Ag-Industry award to Bruce and Nathan Nicolls of Nicolls & Auctions. Bruce Nicolls has been associated with the agricultural business most of his life as his sister, Linda, and he were 4-H members showing Brown Swiss cattle at several fairs in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His late father, Gerry, was an Allis-Chalmers farm equipment dealer and a 32-year Crawford County Fair Board member. His late mother, Mary, and father owned and operated Nicolls Dairy selling raw milk directly to the public from the Bethesda Home Farm for several years. Bruce became an apprentice auctioneer in 1973 under his uncle, Earl Nicolls, a longtime Pennsylvania auctioneer, and also started helping at the Crawford County Fair 4-H & FFA Livestock Auction in 1972. At that time, Earl, son Dave, Gary Shidemantle and Bruce were the auctioneers for the sale. Nathan Nicolls began selling at the 4-H & FFA Livestock Auction in 2005 and has sold every year since. Additionally, they have been 4-H & FFA livestock buyers for 50 combined years. Nathan has been operating the company since 2019 with Bruce acting as helper and consultant. This year, three recipients received the Hall of Fame award. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first recipient was Gary Shidemantle of Edinboro, who, due to illness, was unable to attend. His award was presented to his son, Gary Lee Shidemantle Jr. Gary is originally from Portersville and moved to Crawford County in 1968. In his younger years, he was in FFA and showed cattle with his father, Richard. He enjoyed calf roping, team penning with his father and brothers, and horseback riding in general. Shidemantle went into the Army in 1969 and served his tour in Vietnam. After returning home from the Army, he started Garys Sales & Service, which is his auction business and his livestock buying station. In addition, he auctioneered and helped at his parents business, the Meadville Livestock Auction, for approximately 47 years. He and his wife, Vicky, purchased the business and still operate it. Gary served as an auctioneer for the Crawford County 4-H & FFA Livestock Auction from its beginning in 1972 until his retirement in 2024. For 40 years he purchased animals at the fair sale under Meadville Livestock Auction and Garys Sales & Service. He also purchased at the rabbit and poultry sale for Meadville Livestock Auction from 2018-2024, excluding 2020 due to COVID-19. Garys Sales & Service and Meadville Livestock Auction purchased for many years at the Cheese Yield Auction. For years he has donated use of the Meadville Sale Barn to 4-H clubs to hold square dance fundraisers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cathy Vorisek of Linesville, the second recipient, was presented her award by her husband, Charlie. The couple operate Voriseks Backyard Bee Farm. They maintain honeybees for the purpose of honey production and pollination. Cathy helps in the business with extracting, bottling, marketing, tasting and giving honey samples. She also makes wax products of lip balm and hand cream with waxes. She visits schools and does honeybee activities teaching schoolchildren. Many children know her as The Bee Lady. The Voriseks are active members of the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association and the NW PA State Beekeepers Association. Cathy has been asked for three years to present a childrens program at the Eastern Apiculture Society. She has constructed a complete lesson plan that she utilizes in schools, using current events and facts, reading agriculturally correct books to students, and encouraging active participation. She is the chair of the PA State Beekeepers Association Honey Royalty program. Cathy is active with the Crawford County Farm Bureau, currently serving as secretary. She is ag promotion chair of Crawford County, having recently retired from the State Ag Promotion Committee. Currently, she is teaching with the PA Farm Bureau Mobile Agriculture Lab. She has taught with this program for over 25 years. This position allows her to travel in the bureau foundations 60-foot trailer and teach agriculture lessons to preschool to eighth grade. There are 38 agriculture lessons exposing students to soybeans, corn, farm animals and many more topics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Voriseks attend the Crawford County Fair where they educate visitors about honey, do tasting of honeys, and market their products. Cathy is fulfilling a dream of hers. When working the fair, she noticed the need for education in a fun way, so she developed an activity known as the Fair Detective. Participants obtain a map and visit 14 to 16 stations around the fairgrounds. They need to find out the answer to a question provided on the map which enables them to discover new things about agriculture. The final recipient is Shirley Braddock of Albion. A member of the Crawford County Fair Dairy Committee, Braddocks award was presented by Doug Hering, Crawford County Fair Dairy Committee co-chairman. Shirleys passion for agriculture began at the age of 8 showing Ayrshire dairy cattle and before that the groundwork was being set for her on her parents family farm in Albion where she was tasked with barn chores. Through her adolescent years she continued to show her cattle locally and throughout the state. Shirley has been involved with the state and national Ayrshire Associations for 40 years. She promotes youth activities to helping plan the national and world Ayrshire Federation conventions. One of the memories she has, from her time serving these associations, was being in England in 1996 and visiting Queen Elizabeths farm where they have Ayrshires and Jerseys. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shirley worked in the Albion community for 40 years, first at the Albion Shur Fine waiting on customers, then moving on to 5-M Milling, helping make livestock feed, waiting on customers and serving the ag community in Albion. She next moved on to work with the young folks in the community through the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture at Northwestern High School. Then, until she retired in 2016, she served as an instructional aide at Erie County Technical School mentoring students on their career path. Shirley also was a 4-H leader for over 20 years of the Milky-Way Dairy 4-H Club in Erie County. Since 2016 she has been involved with Albion Volunteer Fire Department and is presently treasurer of the department. Shirley has been graciously donating her time to the Crawford County Fair Dairy Committee since the early 1980s. For over 40 years she has been a mainstay on the committee and has been the secretary since 1996. To this day, she and her family exhibit Ayrshires at the fair. Each recipient received a citation from state Sen. Michele Brooks and state Reps. Brad Roae and Kathy Rapp. The Crawford County Fair Dairy Committee administers the program. Selection of recipients is made by previous recipients of the awards and agricultural organizations. NEED TO KNOW Bryan Kohberger entered 1122 King Road and made his way to the third floor where he first checked the room of Kaylee Goncalves, which was empty He then moved on to the room of Madison Mogen, where he found both Mogen and Goncalves sleeping and stabbed them both to death in the bed He could have carried out the killings in less than three minutes, the Idaho State Police determined after recreating his path using evidence from the crime scene Bryan Kohberger could have murdered all four University of Idaho students in as little as 90 seconds. The Idaho State Police ascertained this after using crime scene evidence to piece together the route he took on the night of the killings from his car to the murder house, and then back to the car. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three of those victims were asleep when Kohberger attacked, but one was awake, according to the newly unsealed investigative documents, which were obtained by PEOPLE. The ISP obtained video footage from cameras in the neighborhood, which showed that Kohberger parked behind 1122 King Road in a small, paved lot that overlooks the residence at approximately 4:07 a.m. on the night of the murders. He then entered the home through the sliding glass door on the second floor and made his way through the kitchen to a set of stairs leading to the third floor, the ISP determined after reviewing evidence at the scene. Kaylee Goncalves Instagram Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves Investigators believe that Kohberger first looked in the room of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and upon seeing her bed empty, went down the hall to the other bedroom on that floor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In that bedroom, he found Goncalves and Madison Mogen, 21, sleeping in bed together, according to the ISP. He then proceeded to repeatedly stab both young women, who were later found dead in that same bed. Goncalves injuries were so severe that she died almost immediately, but Mogen may have still been alive when Kohberger left the room. Why Kohberger left and what happened in that moment is still unclear, but what is known is that after fatally injuring his first two victims, Kohberger came across Xana Kernodle. Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson said at Kohberger's plea hearing that Kohberger likely did not enter the house planning to kill four people and likely murdered Kernodle after they crossed paths or she caught him in the act. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So while it is unknown if Kohberger took the stairs back down to the second floor while exiting the home and then saw Kernodle, or if she caught him and he then fled down the stairs after her, the ISP did determine that Kohberger caught up to Kernodle just as she entered her bedroom. 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. Her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, was attacked in his sleep and murdered in his bed, said the ISP. His injuries rendered him unable to move and render help to his girlfriend, which suggests that he might have been the third victim killed by Kohberger. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That would have left just Kohberger and Kernodle, who unlike the other three victims, was wide awake as Kohberger attacked and stabbed her. "Kernodle was initially attacked just inside the bedroom near the entrance. Kernodle fought the suspect in the bedroom area and was ultimately killed on the floor of the bedroom next to the bed," the ISP stated. The Moscow Police Department recently released footage from a neighbors security camera that picked up the sounds of a woman screaming and then whimpering just before 4:18 a.m. that day. There is then a loud thud, followed by silence. The medical examiner would later reveal that Kernodle was stabbed more than 50 times that night and had multiple defensive wounds covering her hands. Xana Kernodle/Instagram Xana Kernodle Xana Kernodle After that, Kohberger walked back down the hall, across the living room and kitchen and then out the sliding door, which he did not fully close. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Along the way, he locked eyes with one of the surviving roommates and the lone eyewitness in the case, Dylan Mortensen. Kohberger then walked to his car and sped away from the scene, shortly after 4:20 a.m. How Long Did the Killings Take? Once the ISP was able to put all these pieces in place and lay out Kohbergers path through the home that night, they began to do test runs so as to discover how long it would have taken Kohberger to murder his four victims. In each of these test runs, Sgt. Darren Gilbertson would start at the sliding door and retrace Kohbergers footsteps that night. When he reached a location where a victim's body was discovered, he would "simulate the number of strikes" each victim suffered that night before resuming his route. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A detective assisted by standing by, to count and keep track of each strike, while Cpl. Brett Payne of the MPD who wrote the probable cause affidavit in the case timed the runs. The fastest result was 90 seconds, while the slowest clocked in at two minutes and 33 seconds. The ISP next moved on to the route Kohberger took after getting out of his car and walking to the residence that night. No evidence existed that allowed the ISP to definitively determine the route Kohberger took, so the decision was made to test-run two options. The first path went through the backyard of the residence and was the most direct approach Kohberger could have taken from his parking spot to the home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ISP then put together a much longer route, through a small patch of woods surrounding the property, which would have kept Kohberger hidden and avoided any large, open spaces. Courtesy Chapin family Ethan Chapin Once these routes were set, the same three investigators resumed their roles and conducted timed test runs. The results of those test runs were then combined with the results of the previous indoor test runs, which allowed the ISP to conclude that Kohberger could have exited his car, walked to the home, stabbed all four victims, and then been back in his car in as little as two minutes and six seconds. Even if he took the longer and slower route, the ISP learned from the test runs that Kohberger would have needed just three minutes and 45 seconds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kohberger spent far more time in the home than that, entering at around 4:07 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022 and being seen in his car driving away at 4:20 a.m. The longer time is likely due to the two unknowns in Kohberger's route: what happened in the time between Kohberger leaving Mogens bedroom and getting to Kernodles room, and how hard Kernodle fought her attacker. In addition to putting up a fight, evidence strongly suggests that it was Kernodle who first discovered Kohberger in the home, which ultimately led to his arrest. When he exited Mogens room that night, he left behind a knife sheath containing enough DNA for authorities to assemble a genetic profile they were ultimately able to run through genealogy sites and link back to Kohbergers father. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thompson said that his team believes Kohberger may have made this crucial mistake in a panic once he realized he had been discovered by Kernodle. That sheath remains the only thing that directly ties Kohberger to the murders, to which he confessed as part of a plea deal. Kohberger is now serving four life sentences for those murders. Read the original article on People Two critically endangered leopard cubs have made their public debut at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. In May, they were the second and third Amur leopard cubs to be born in the world this year, with only about 100 of the subspecies left in the wild, according to the WWF wildlife charity. The cubs have been released into the main reserve at the wildlife park, near Doncaster, in full view of the visiting public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kate Borrington, senior carnivore ranger, said: "The female cub is very confident and sassy like her mother, Kristen. The male cub is a little more reserved, but both have settled in nicely." The cubs have been allowed outside now they have passed two months of age and had their vaccinations. Both cubs have already climbed to the highest point in their enclosure [Yorkshire Wildlife Park] Ms Borrington said they had enjoyed exploring the new area, and both had already climbed up to the highest points of the reserve. "Kirsten definitely has her work cut out with these two new playful cubs, but she is doing an excellent job," she said. "It is fascinating to watch them develop and we know that they will be a firm favourite amongst visitors." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the wild, Amur leopards are found around the border between the Russian Far East and north-east China, and possibly in North Korea, according to the WWF. Amur leopards are thought to be the most endangered big cat in the world [Yorkshire Wildlife Park] The population reached its low point last century, with only about 30 individuals estimated to remain in the wild, and amur leopards are now the most critically endangered big cat species. Their numbers have been affected by illegal hunting and trading, and damage to their forest habitats from climate change and global demand for wood and paper. But, in the last two decades, conservation efforts have seen the subspecies' territory increase threefold to about 2,350 square miles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Wildlife Foundation charity, which is based at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, supports the conservation of leopards. This has included working with the WildCats Conservation Alliance to promote breeding, population monitoring and habitat protection. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North More on this story Related internet links U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Centennial, both Democrats, held a town hall on Aug. 21, 2025 at Smoky Hill High School in Aurora. (Photo by Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline) Two of Colorados Democratic members of Congress held a town hall at an Aurora high school Thursday, speaking to a crowd of about 500 people as the Colorado Legislature convened for special session to cope with a billion-dollar state budget gap. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Centennial answered constituent questions about concerns with artificial intelligence, environmental protection, bipartisanship and preserving democracy, among others at a town hall at Smoky Hill High School in Aurora in Crows district. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crow said the Republican tax and spending cut bill Trump signed into law in July poses a tremendous threat to the lives and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people that we represent. He called the measure known as H.R. 1, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act the worst piece of legislation that we have ever voted on. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Colorado Legislature is currently in a special session to address a $1.2 billion hole in the state budget the federal legislation created, because Colorados income tax code automatically mirrors changes at the federal level. All four Republican members of Colorados congressional delegation voted in favor of the bill. All four Democrats in the House and both of Colorados Democratic U.S. Senators voted against it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Concern with actions from the Trump administration was a common theme among town hall attendees. Paul Stedman, a 72-year-old Aurora resident wearing a shirt with the American flag that read pro-America, anti-Trump, asked what can be done to preserve this democracy that Ive enjoyed and felt like it was safe for all these years, and now I dont feel that it is. Crow said citizen oversight will help elected officials remain aware of ways the federal government is overstepping, as they can let their members of Congress know when they have problems with their federal benefits or agencies they interact. Its getting harder to do oversight in the federal government because of the blockades, because of what this majority has allowed to have happen with this administration, so citizen oversight is becoming very important, Crow said. We must build a coalition of pro-democracy, patriotic Americans who are willing to stand up, even if we disagree on policy, and says, No, not on my watch. We will defend this democracy, we will fight for the fundamentals of it. Instead of asking a question for the Democrats to answer, one constituent asked both Crow and Bennet to do more to call out President Donald Trumps lies, and said town halls are for communicating concerns to their elected officials, not a rally for politicians. She both should use their national platform to speak out more against the presidents actions and words. Call for AI regulations After a constituent asked what is being done to increase federal research spending on AI and to encourage safe and responsible deployment, Crow said were not remotely ready for it as a society. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crow said AI can be an important tool, but the lack of regulation of AI is concerning. He also said it could lead to one of the greatest workforce displacements in history, estimating AI may replace up to 20% of the workforce. We havent seen anything like that since the Industrial Revolution, Crow said. It could cause major upheaval, and we have to get ready for that retraining, that re-skilling, that transition for a lot of folks. Both Bennet and Crow agreed that AI also presents national security concerns and would like to see the U.S. lead a convention or treaty to establish guardrails against AI with other major world leaders. We are at the cusp of a technological revolution on the scale of software or the internet, and we dont know on the front end how all that is going to go, said Bennet, who is running for Colorado governor in 2026. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Colorado passed a first-in-the-nation sweeping AI regulation in 2024 to set anti-discrimination guardrails for businesses that use the technology in decisions on consequential matters such as loans, employment, insurance policies and school admissions. Colorado state legislators are considering four bills to modify that law during the special session currently underway. Hes lost my support A group of people stood outside of the high school holding a Palestinian flag and handing out flyers with information on funding the federal government has sent to Israel and campaign contributions both Bennet and Crow have accepted from pro-Israel lobbying groups. During the event, staff for Crow and Bennet escorted out a small group of people who interrupted to ask about their support for Israel, a scene that has recurred at Democratic town halls in Colorado and across the country. Centennial resident Kimberly Roy and her son Adan, who is a senior at Smoky Hill, have campaigned on Crows behalf since he first ran for office, Kimberly said. But at the town hall Thursday, Kimberly came with a Jason Crow-branded t-shirt and Adan with a bunch of yard signs in hand that they wanted to return to him because hes lost my support. Bennet and Crow, she said, showed a complete disregard to the people who brought up the genocide going on in Gaza, where babies are being shot and killed with our weapons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They said, not only nothing, but they kicked them out and did not address the issue, Kimberly said. That is the moral litmus test of our time, and they failed. I value these pieces of plastic far less than I value the lives of children, Adan said while holding Crows campaign signs. Im hearing a lot of excuses or inaction against banal evil. Recent reports estimate about quarter of the population in Gaza is experiencing famine and more than 60,000 Palestinians including almost 19,000 children have been killed by Israeli military since Israels intense bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza began after Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led attack killed more than 1,200 people in Israel. Israeli leadership announced plans to completely seize Gaza and forcibly displace about a million residents in early August, which Bennet released a media statement condemning. Im heartbrokenly disappointed. I thought he had courage, and what he is showing right now is cowardice, Kimberly said of Crow. There are babies and children dying today that if he said something, he can make a difference, and he is not addressing it because its politically hard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crow in a late July statement called the widespread suffering in Gaza unbearable and said the U.S. and Israel must work with aid groups to get food to those in need. Citing his own experience as an Army combat veteran, he has been critical of the high rate of civilian casualties among Gazans in the Israel-Hamas war. Bennet in a statement called Israels plans to occupy Gaza dangerous and said it risks catastrophic consequences that will worsen the suffering of Palestinians. Kimberly said she would have wanted to see Crow and Bennet speak less and listen more to the concerns constituents at the town hall wanted to share. She heard a lot of self-congratulation from the two Democrats touting their accomplishments in Congress, but that given the perilous state the country is in, this is the time to be humble and listen to what they need to be doing better, not try to sell us on what theyve done thats good. Aurora resident Sandra Parker-Murray said she wished Crow and Bennet would have addressed the people who were escorted out after interrupting to ask why they continued to approve sending money to Israel. I felt like they should have given those people the opportunity to ask those questions, Parker-Murray said. Why are we sending so much to Israel for genocide, and then our children here are hungry? I wanted them to address that because it happens all the time at these town halls, but they never address the issue. Editors note: This post was updated at 2:49 p.m., Aug. 22, 2025 to include previous statements from Bennet and Crow on the Israel-Hamas war. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Democratic and Republican leaders in the House are asking lawmakers to tamp down negative rhetoric on social media after Rep. Corey Paris received death threats following a message he recently posted on Instagram reminding people to look out for one another after he was made aware of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in his district. As leaders of the Connecticut House of Representatives, we encourage an environment free of personal attacks and certainly free of any risk of violence and we expect our colleagues to keep these recent violent attacks on public officials in mind when posting to social media, said House Speaker Matt Ritter, House Majority Leader Jason Rojas and House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora in a joint statement. Paris message was reposted by a far-right troll site Libs of TikTok, which has 4 million followers and has been known to inspire harassment, doxxing and bomb threats, That groups post accused the state legislator of doxxing ICEs live location and warning illegals to stay vigilant. The official ICE account then reposted Libs of TikToks post, which said Charge him, and tagged the Department of Justice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Paris also received a disturbing phone call, laced with racial slurs, threatening him and his family as a result of the social media post. The legislative leaders joint statement followed a post by state Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, who stated in response to ICEs post concerning Paris on Aug. 16 that quite obviously he hates America. In another post following a press briefing Wednesday at the state Capitol in support of Paris, Fishbein reposted Libs of TikToks post of the press briefing, which stated Connecticut state Rep. Eleni Kavros (D) claims that we only exposed Rep. Corey Paris for doxxing ICEs location because hes a black man in this country. And Fishbein added his own comments to the post stating: For years now, lawful citizens of our state have tried to bring attention to Connecticuts mental health crisis. Quite obviously it continues to go on unaddressed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fishbein could not be reached for comment Thursday. State and federal leaders including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said Wednesday that Paris did not dox federal agents or do anything to put federal agents at risk. Numerous social media posts claim that Paris actions in warning people about ICE are illegal though he did not give a location or identifying information about ICE. The posts have included threats to Paris and calls for him to be prosecuted. Other Republican legislators reportedly also retweeted the Libs of TikTok post calling for Paris prosecution. The FBI, Capitol police and the Stamford Police Department were working together on the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The incident has resulted in an increase in tensions across the aisle in the legislature concerning immigration. Democratic and Republican leaders assert that lawmakers work well together but on social media, behaviors can sometimes change. Candelora said when it comes to free speech, legislators should lead by example by avoiding negative speech. Asked about accountability for Fishbeins posts, he said that individuals are exercising their free speech. I am not in a position to tell them not to do that and I wont, he said. I think it is one thing to hold someone accountable who is committing a crime and another to hold someone accountable for their speech that they are willing to stand by. It is a very fine line. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kavros Degraw told the Courant Thursday that Fishbeins posts were disgusting. She referred to Paris as a true patriot of the country and said he often speaks about how much he loves the country and state. She also raised additional concerns about Fishbeins message. It is one thing for Libs of TikTok, which has a national audience, to say hateful vile things about us, she said. But when you have someone in the state who is legitimizing what Libs of TikTok is saying and is local, that not only puts Rep. Paris and I in danger, it endangers any of the Democrats serving in the House and the Senate because it emboldens the people that actually want to do harm against us. In a text message Thursday, Paris said that he loves America unconditionally through its triumphs and its trials. My commitment is rooted in the belief in this republics promise that freedom, fairness and justice can be realized for all who call this country home, he said. Standing for dignity and safety is not a rejection of America. It is how we help it live up to its ideals. Fear of normalizing behavior Rojas told the Courant that inflammatory posts could pose a danger and he fears that the behavior is becoming normalized. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It continues to perpetuate a very toxic situation to the point where it could result in someone out there choosing to act in a way that I dont think anybody wants somebody to act, he said. I dont think my Republican colleagues want any harm to Rep. Paris. I truly believe that when public officials who are deemed to have credibility in the public sphere are actually perpetuating behavior, it validates it in a way that we shouldnt be doing. Rojas added: In this situation it is about the safety of Corey Paris given what we already know and the threats that have been made but it is also about protecting the integrity of our institutions too. Candelora shared similar sentiments. We should really refrain generally and try to take the temperature down, he said. Right now we see that social media has sort of dehumanized public officials and it could be dangerous. Everybody should step away from the keyboard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, expressed support for Paris. No legislator or any person should be subject to racial comments or vile threats, he said. As much as I disagree with my Democratic colleagues on this issue, far more than that I absolutely despise the cowardice of criminals who threaten people over the internet like that. Republicans are going to condemn me for standing up for Corey and Democrats are going to condemn me for disagreeing with his post but that is where I am at. I dont think his post is a crime by the way. Voters in Cullman and Blount counties will choose between Democrat Alex Braswell (left) and Republican Heath Allbright (right) in a special election for House District 11 on Aug. 26, 2025. (Photos courtesy of candidates. Graphic Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) Voters in Cullman and Blount counties will go to the polls Tuesday to elect a new representative in the House District 11 special election. Voters in the district, which covers part of Cullman and Blount counties, will choose between GOP nominee Heath Allbright and Democratic nominee Alex Braswell. The seat was left open when former Rep. Randall Shedd, R-Fairview, resigned in February to work for Senate President Pro Tempore Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The district is solidly Republican. Shedd, who won the seat in a special election in 2013, never faced opposition in any subsequent general election. The candidates Allbright, 39, has campaigned on conservative Christian values, supporting local education and tax cuts for small businesses. Multiple messages seeking comment from Allbright were left this week. Dalton Dismukes, Allbrights campaign manager, wrote in an email Thursday that Allbright is meeting with as many community members as possible. Heaths priorities remain the same as they were when he started: cutting taxes and wasteful spending, protecting and fighting for family values, and ensuring students, families, teachers, and everyone in House District 11 benefit from a strong, quality education, Dismukes wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Allbright defeated 60-year-old Don Fallin in the May primary with 54.3% of votes. Allbright has been endorsed by the former seat holder. Braswell, 31, has campaigned on protecting the rights of disabled Alabamians, access to CBD and road safety. She said in an interview on Monday that her campaign has gone well, and feels it has made a difference in her community. Still, by all means, advocating for the rights to the disabled CBD access Really, I would love to legalize marijuana and get it over with, but we need to start with the small goals here, the American Sign Language interpreter said. So CBD access and road safety, just ensuring our roads are safe. Braswell, the first Democrat to run in a general election in the district since 2006, secured an endorsement from former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, who also held a town hall campaign event for Braswell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Weve had some great people alongside us, and our town hall was a great success, she said. I really couldnt be more proud of our campaign. Campaign finances Allbright has raised $128,501.57 in monetary contributions and more than $12,000 in in-kind contributions, according to campaign finance records. About half of his monetary contributions come from political action committees (PACs), with the Alabama Forestry PAC donating more than other PACs at $7,531.57. The Alabama House Majority PAC also donated $5,000 during the primary campaign. Braswell has raised $14,686.47 in monetary donations and about $800 in in-kind services, according to campaign finance records, with no PACs contributing. Braswell said that most of her campaign materials like yard signs and car magnets were possible because of in-kind donations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its been just overwhelming because I never thought for a special, and granted I still dont have a 10th of what Albright has, but most of the baseline supplies that Ive needed for a campaign were all kindly donated, Braswell said. How to vote District 11 voters can choose between Allbright and Braswell on Aug. 26. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Polling locations can be found here. The winner will represent the district in the Alabama House of Representatives. Meet the Candidates Heath Allbright House District 11 candidate Heath Allbright. (courtesy of Allbright) Age: 39 Residence: Holly Pond Occupation: Farmer/Business owner Education: Associates degree, Agricultural Science, Snead State Community College, 2005 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Party: Republican Previous political experience: Cullman County Board of Education 2016-2024 Campaign fundraising: Raised $128,501.57 as of Aug. 21 and spent $118,065.30. Alex Braswell House District 11 Democratic nominee Alex Braswell laughing at a town hall in Hanceville, Alabama, on July 30, 2025. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) Age: 31 Residence: Cullman Occupation: American Sign Language interpreter Education: B.S. American Sign Language, Troy University, 2023 Party: Democrat Previous political experience: First-time candidate Campaign fundraising: Raised $14,686.47 as of Aug. 21 and spent $10,557.33. Editors note: The video above aired in a previous newscast. NEW YORK (PIX11) Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for New York City Mayor, believes New York Citys government is wasteful. On Thursday, the mayoral candidate unveiled a comprehensive reform agenda aimed at transforming the Mayors Office of Operations. Sliwas new plan wants to slash government bloat and deliver real results for taxpayers, his plan stated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More Local News New Yorkers are sick of the status quo: corruption at City Hall, disgraceful resignations, sexual harassment scandals, and politicians who play politics with the lives of everyday people, Sliwa said in a press release. Weve watched governors abuse power, shut down corruption probes, resign in disgrace, and mayors whose cronies end up in handcuffs or trying to bribe reporters with cash in potato chip bags. That is the broken political class. New York Citys government is bloated, wasteful, and driven by politics over performance. Ill rebuild it to serve the people efficiently and transparentlyno more piggy bank for donors or parking lot for patronage jobs. His plans include fixing 311 and 911, while also holding city agencies accountable. Sliwa also wants to perform a forensic audit for all city agencies. Sliwa also called for eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic positions and reallocating funding to core services like police, fire, EMS, sanitation, and infrastructure instead. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the full details of how Sliwa plans to reform New York City government, click here. Matthew Euzarraga is a multimedia journalist from El Paso, Texas. He has covered local news and LGBTQIA topics in the New York City Metro area since 2021. He joined the PIX11 Digital team in 2023. You can see more of his work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Credit: Solarpix A disgruntled customer allegedly set fire to a cafe in Spain after he was told staff could not offer him mayonnaise on his sandwich. The alleged arsonist left the cafe and walked to a nearby petrol station after reportedly being told no twice by members of staff. While there, he bought a litre and a half of petrol before returning to set the cafe on fire and causing thousands of pounds of damage, according to local media reports. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Footage of the incident showed the man walking up to the cafes counter and setting an object on fire with a lighter, sparking a ball of flames. Other customers, who included young children and elderly people, were forced to run for cover. About 7,000 worth of damage was done to the cafe A 50-year-old man was arrested near the scene of the attack in the town of Los Palacios y Villafranca, south of Seville in Andalusia. He is expected to appear in court on Friday. Children and the elderly were made to evacuate from the cafe after flames erupted from the counter Jose Antonio Caballero, the owner of Las Postas Cafe-Bar where the incident occurred, described it as something surreal. First one waiter [said no] and then the second time this gentleman asked for mayonnaise, he was given the same answer, which was that the bar doesnt have a kitchen...and we dont have sauces, he told local media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At that moment, he walked to the garage opposite, returned to the bar with a bottle in his hand, which we discovered afterwards had petrol inside, and asked the first waiter: Are you sure theres no mayonnaise? without giving him time to reply. Theres no explanation for what happened. It was awful. One waiter managed to grab a fire extinguisher but the damage is expected to cost the cafe up to 7,000, Mr Caballero said. The important thing is that nobody was injured. There were young children and elderly people around. Imagine if someone had been hurt, he added. The suspect was reportedly taken to a local health centre for treatment for burns to one of his hands. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A Texas woman who was arrested on murder charges in 2022 for taking medication to end her pregnancy had her charges dropped after public outcry, her attorneys say in a new court filing. Lizelle Gonzalez filed a civil complaint against the Starr County sheriff and prosecutors last year, arguing her Constitutional rights were violated when she was wrongfully arrested and charged with murder for having a medicated abortion. She was arrested on April 7, 2022, and was released on April 9, 2022, after a $500,000 bond was posted. The charges were dropped on April 11, 2022. Texas law clearly prohibits the criminal prosecution of pregnant women for conduct that ends their pregnancies, according to the ACLU of Texas, which helped Gonzalez bring her complaint. Texas law instead targets physicians and people who help women seek or obtain abortions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The defendants tried to have Gonzalezs case dismissed last July, but a judge sided with Gonzalez and allowed discovery to move forward. Now, evidence has revealed a coordinated effort between the Starr County Sheriffs Office and District Attorneys Office to violate Ms. Gonzalezs rights and exposes misconduct by government officials who think the law they are entrusted to enforce does not apply to them, the ACLU of Texas said in an August 12 statement. Gonzalezs legal team argued in an August 12 filing that Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez dropped the charges against her after public outcry over her arrest. This included several emails from the public alerting them that the murder charge was unlawful before the charges were dropped, the filing says. Hours before Gonzalez was released from custody, Ramirez texted Starr County Sheriff Rene Fuentes saying they had stirred up a hornets nest, according to the filing. Ramirez also made contemporaneous statements to friends and family, personally admitting he had wrongly charged Ms. Gonzalez with murder and worrying that he could lose his job because of it, the lawsuit says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of these texts includes a message from Ramirez to his son, telling him, I f***** up. Gonzalez sued Starr County officials last year for arresting her on murder charges in 2022 after she performed a self-managed abortion (The Monitor) I may pay the consequences with my career but once I realized this injustice, I had to make it right, Ramirez wrote in the message, which he sent one day before he dropped the charges against Gonzalez. The filing also states Ramirez spoke with Gonzalez in his office after the indictment was dismissed. During that meeting, he apologized a lot, admitting his wrongdoing to Plaintiff herself and becoming very emotional, the filing states. Gonzalezs attorney Cecilia Garza argues Starr County officials abused their power and intentionally violated Ms. Gonzalezs fundamental rights. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lizelle Gonzalezs highly personal decision regarding her pregnancy was not, and never has been, a criminal matter yet the Starr County district attorney, his assistant district attorneys, the Starr County Sheriffs Office ignored the clear language of the Texas homicide statute and long standing law to wrongly charge her with murder, Garza said in a statement. In an August 19 filing, Ramirezs attorneys argued he immediately moved to dismiss the indictment and apologized when he realized Plaintiff could not be prosecuted under the Texas Penal Code because of the murder exception for mothers cause the death of their unborn children. Defendant Ramirez respectfully request that the Court find he is entitled to absolute immunity for the claims alleged in Plaintiffs Amended Complaint and dismiss them with prejudice, the filling reads. Gonzalez first sued Fuentes, Ramirez and Starr County Assistant District Attorney Alexandria Barrera last year. The original complaint says that Gonzalez went to the hospital in January 2022 after taking medication to induce an abortion, CBS News reports. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shortly after she was discharged, she was taken to the hospital again by EMS after complaining of abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. Doctors then performed a cesarean section to deliver her stillborn fetus after an exam detected no fetal cardiac activity, according to the complaint reviewed by CBS News. A nurse then reported the procedure to police over concerns it could be illegal due to a change in the law, the complaint alleges, per CBS News. After Gonzalezs arrest and indictment, the Texas bar investigated the district attorney for knowingly pursuing an unlawful indictment, the ACLU says. He was punished with a fine and a one-year fully probated suspension. Texas is one of several U.S. states that has enacted laws banning or heavily restricting abortion since 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade, which guaranteed abortion access nationwide. Texas is one of 12 states that has banned abortion in nearly all circumstances, according to The New York Times abortion law tracker. The Independent has contacted the Starr County Sheriffs Department, the Starr County District Attorneys office and the defendants attorney for comment. BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- China calls on the U.S. side to thoroughly investigate and correct its errors of unwarrantedly questioning, harassing and repatriating Chinese students upon their entry into the United States, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday. China has lodged representation with the U.S. side in each and every case and will continue to take measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of its citizens, Mao said at a regular news briefing. NEED TO KNOW Hope "Onyx" Cornish was shot dead on Tuesday, Aug. 19, as she opened her bedroom door Her adoptive father Delbert Cornish allegedly admitted to killing her Delbert said he was tired of being belittled by his brother, and wanted to kill himself and his three children, per authorities An Idaho man who, authorities claim, confessed to killing his teen daughter says he draped her dead body in a pride flag to honor her. Hope Cornish, 18, was found deceased in a Caldwell, Idaho, home on Tuesday, Aug. 19, by officers responding to reports of a 51-year-old armed man in the house, the Caldwell Police Department said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The man was identified by police as Delbert Cornish. The victim, who was not named in the initial statement, was identified by the Canyon County Coroners Office as Hope, per the Idaho Statesman, Idaho News 6 and KTVB. She also went by "Onyx," per her family's GoFundMe. Delbert was arrested later that evening in nearby Mountain Home, Idaho, police said. Canyon County Sheriff's Office Delbert Cornish Delbert Cornish According to a probable cause affidavit obtained and shared online by Idaho News 6, Delbert allegedly confessed to killing Onyx and claimed he had planned to kill his son and himself as well. Per the affidavit, which PEOPLE reviewed, Delbert allegedly began planning last year to kill himself and his three children, but the plan was thwarted when his eldest child violated parole and was sent back to prison a few months ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He told police he was tired of his children being bullied and "belittled" by his brother, with whom he, Onyx and his teen son lived. He further alleged his brother would bully the children with names such as "pedophile" and "loser," the affidavit states. On Tuesday morning, he walked up to Onyx's door and was startled when she unexpectedly opened the door, Delbert told police, per the affidavit. He allegedly shot her in the head and watched her for 20 minutes as she gasped for breath. He then wrapped her in a Pride flag as an "honor" to her because he knew it would be very meaningful for her, he said, per the affidavit. Gofundme Onyx Hope Cornish Onyx Hope Cornish Onyx's mother Crystal Thompson says she never imagined they weren't physically safe around Delbert, per News 19. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Onyx is being remembered for her lively spirit. "She was a fiery one. She was just very stylish, and she was kind and loving," Thompson told News 19. 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. Delbert has been charged with murder and aggravated assault, according to online court records, which did not indicate plea information. PEOPLE was not able to immediately reach his attorney. 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. Read the original article on People Dallas city officials face mounting controversy over the recent appointment of a new Inspector General. Timothy Menke lacks the legal credentials explicitly required by the city charter. Menke does not hold a law license, in direct violation of a voter-approved requirement established in November 2024. The dispute highlights tensions between the City Councils selection process and charter mandates designed to ensure the watchdog offices independence and credibility. In November 2024, Dallas voters approved Proposition L, a charter amendment requiring that the inspector general be a licensed attorney. The measure aimed to ensure independence, credibility, and adherence to professional legal standards. Ballot language and city records make the requirement explicit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Section 1(a) of the Dallas city code leaves no room for interpretation. The provision states that the head of the Office of Inspector General must be a competent practicing attorney of recognized ability, a certified inspector general. City lawmakers crafted the language deliberately to guarantee both legal expertise and professional standards. The Inspector Generals role carries significant responsibility within Dallas city government. The office conducts independent investigations of ethics violations, fraud, waste, abuse, and public corruption and prosecutes cases before the Ethics Advisory Commission, with attorneys, investigators, and staff providing support. The Office of Inspector General is a relatively new addition to Dallas government. The City Council created the position in December 2021, and voters added it to the city charter in November 2024. Appointment requires a majority vote of the full City Council, while a two-thirds vote is needed for removal. The charter violation has sparked concerns among city officials and residents about the appointments legality and its potential impact on the offices effectiveness. Critics argue that bypassing the attorney requirement undermines the independence and credibility the position was designed to maintain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Menke, a former U.S. federal official with experience investigating fraud and corruption, received the appointment despite the charter requirement. His selection raised questions about the process, particularly because the citys job posting for the role did not state that the candidate needed to be an attorney. Supporters point to his investigative background, but critics maintain the law license mandate cannot be ignored. The Dallas City Council met in closed session on Aug. 20 to discuss the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, or dismissal of the Inspector General, according to the posted agenda. The controversy may prompt legal challenges or force the City Council to reconsider the appointment. With the attorney requirement now embedded in the city charter through direct voter approval, council members may have to reverse the decision. Observers say reversing the decision would honor the voter mandate and help the city avoid litigation. Family and friends of 26-year-old India Kinamore were present for the arraignments of two of the men who are charged with killing her and her unborn baby in 2023. Its just starting all over again, like I just got the news again," India's mother, Terri Kinamore, said in an interview. Robert Ervin, 20, and Kayvon Warren, 30, have each been charged with two counts of murder. Each is being held on $600,000 bonds, which were set during an arraignment Aug. 22 in Hamilton County Municipal Court. If the men do post bond, they will be released with an ankle monitor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Terri Kinamore said the bond amounts are not enough. She said Ervin and Warren should have gotten no bond. "My daughter cant come back," Kinamore said. "I just dont think its fair, at all." Ervin and Warren were arrested Aug. 21. Colerain police announced that both men, along with 22-year-old Lamar Morris Suggs, had been charged in the deaths of India and her unborn child. Suggs is currently serving a sentence in an Ohio prison for unrelated charges and has not yet appeared in Hamilton County. Prosecutor says suspect wanted to end girlfriend's pregnancy At the arraignment, Assistant Prosecutor David Hickenlooper said Warren was in a relationship with India. He added that evidence shows Warren had wanted her to terminate the pregnancy. Hickenlooper said India was scheduled to give birth through induced labor on the day she died. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hickenlooper said evidence includes electronic communication between the three men, in which the men planned the killing of India and her unborn child. Ervin's attorney Robert Jones said his client "has no ties to this case," and "no ties to the deceased" besides the fact he was in a group chat with Warren and Suggs. 6-year-old found his mother shot Hickenlooper responded by saying that Ervin was instrumental in the murders, and evidence includes Ervin's cellphone location, as well as texts with Warren until about 3:40 a.m. the day of the killings. India was found fatally shot on March 4, 2023, at a home on Hidden Meadows Drive in Colerain Township. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a statement in court, Kinamore said India's then-6-year-old son was in the home when his mom was shot. Kinamore said the boy was the one who called her about the incident. She said she remembers her grandson telling her, "My mommy has been shot." A grand jury is scheduled to hear the case on or before Sep. 2. Enquirer reporters Hailey Roden and Quinlan Bentley contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Two men charged in 2023 Colerain Township murder of pregnant woman HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) The Daviess County School Board is discussing the possibility of a new Highland Elementary School. The board met on Thursday to consider potential plans to build a new school. If approved, the project will head into its initial stage. Highland Elementary is located on Kentucky 54 in Owensboro. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). ST. LOUIS On this day, Aug. 22, 1876, voters headed to the polls and set the stage for a locally historic event known as The Great Divorce, splitting St. Louis City from St. Louis County. Friday marks 149 years since St. Louis City and St. Louis County voters cast ballots on a measure to separate St. Louis City as an independent city from St. Louis County. As described in Joe Sondermans 2024 book, This Day in St. Louis History, the measure initially appeared to fail. However, over the following weeks and months, allegations of fraud emerged, prompting a recount. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The recount took nearly four months, and because of that, it wasnt until late 1876 that the vote for separation was officially certified. According to a St. Louis Historic Preservation website, the Missouri Charter of 1875 authorized the terms for separation, and the vote arose because many city residents objected to the costs of supporting ongoing expansion efforts in St. Louis County. Missouris sick leave law gets repealed next week Heres what changes Prior to the vote, St. Louis County encompassed the City of St. Louis along with other municipalities within county boundaries, such as Kirkwood and Florissant. When the split became official, however, the City of St. Louis became a fully-independent municipality with its own government, taxes and services, separate of St. Louis County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nearly a century and half later, that arrangement still exists today. There has been some recent momentum around the idea or merging St. Louis City and St. Louis County back together, including a 2025 legislative proposal. Supporters are hopeful such a move could streamline governance and reduce redundancy in services across the St. Louis region, but critics often argue it could dilute the citys autonomy and complicate local representation. In 2019, St. Louis Magazine dove deep into the history behind The Great Divorce, including details on the contentious vote, allegations of fraud and ballot tampering and how St. Louis Citys permanent boundaries were ultimately drawn. NOTE: Video attached to this story is from a December 2024 report of legislation proposing to merge St. Louis City and St. Louis County services. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson speaks to reporters at a news conference announcing an online dashboard for domestic violence lethality assessment data at Veterans Memorial Park in West Jordan on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. A painting of her cousin, Amanda Mayne, who was murdered by her ex-husband, is displayed behind her. (McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch) Under a cloud of grief following the deaths of two police officers who were shot and killed responding to a domestic violence call, Utah public safety leaders, lawmakers and service providers announced the rollout of a public dashboard sharing data collected by law enforcement answering reports of intimate partner violence statewide. The online dashboard displays the number of times officers in the state have used the lethality assessment protocol a series of questions meant to identify the potential for deadly violence in a domestic violence situation, prompting an immediate referral for victim services and what the answers yielded. Domestic violence resources Help for people in abusive relationships is available in Utah: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the more than 23,000 assessments conducted by Utah law enforcement since the protocol became statewide law in July 2023, 63% revealed the potential for lethal violence, according to the dashboard data. The law came out of a tragedy in the family of Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, whose cousin, Amanda Mandy Mayne, was murdered three years ago by her ex-husband, who then turned the gun on himself. Her death pushed Henderson to question what more could have been done to help Mayne, and how law enforcement agencies were or werent communicating with each other about cases of intimate partner violence. A painting of Mayne was on display during the news conference, and her mother, Shauna Mayne, was in attendance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Data is important. The faces and the names, the families behind the data, are even more important, Henderson said at a news conference at Veterans Memorial Park in West Jordan on Thursday. And what we do with this data, what we do with this information, is critical, because information is only good if we use it. One way that data could be used, Henderson said, is developing a second track when responding to intimate partner violence what to do with the offender. Weve got the victim track, and we need to get that offender track put in place, because we care about them too, and we want everyone in our state to be successful and happy. And sometimes that requires law enforcement intervention, sometimes that requires better training, sometimes it requires therapy, Henderson said. Introducing the dashboard, newly confirmed Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said the group had considered rescheduling the event as the state mourns the deaths of Tremonton-Garland Police Sgt. Lee Sorensen and officer Eric Estrada, who were killed Sunday night as they responded to 911 hang-up calls from a Tremonton home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But with that incident, it also brings urgency to how important this cause is and why we are here today, why we gather to talk about such an important topic, and how we can make a difference in domestic violence and intimate partner violence, Mason said. Charges filed Wednesday allege Ryan Michael Bate, 32, headbutted his wife and slammed her head with a door before grabbing her throat and pushing her against a wall. One officer was shot running to help the woman after Bate shot at his police vehicle, prosecutors said, and the second was killed as he attempted to render aid to his fallen colleague. Prosecutors announced they intend to pursue the death penalty for Bate. Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, speaks during a news conference announcing an online dashboard for domestic violence lethality assessment data at Veterans Memorial Park in West Jordan on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch) It wasnt the first time Bate had been involved in a domestic violence report, said Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, who co-sponsored SB117 in the Utah House in 2023, expanding the lethality assessment protocol statewide. In a previous case, he said, the lethality assessment had been utilized to identify potential risk Bate posed and gave an opportunity to offer domestic violence services. Now, following the deaths of Sorensen and Estrada, Wilcox said the question of what to do with offenders to prevent future violence has weighed heavy on him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We had him, Wilcox said of Bate. We issued the protocol. It gave us the information we were looking for, and he didnt murder her at that time, and in the back of my mind all week, ever since I read the report, has been what should we have done differently then that would have prevented the loss of life of these officers? Wilcox said. After SB117 became law and the lethality assessment went into use around Utah, Wilcox said, he was surprised, though he shouldnt have been, at just how much it was being used and the resources that were needed in response. We hoped that it would save some lives. We hoped that it would work. We didnt realize the depth of how many would need to be added, that we would find, Wilcox said. Thats what I expect will happen as we hone these tools and we will uncover more things. Well understand better how to help. Well understand better how to prevent and understand how to get ahead of it, so that we dont have to be here having these conversations again. A painting of Amanda Mayne, who was murdered by her ex-husband, is displayed at a news conference announcing an online dashboard for domestic violence lethality assessment data at Veterans Memorial Park in West Jordan on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch) SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Daytona Beach bans public camping amid ongoing homelessness concerns The city of Daytona Beach has officially banned public camping. This comes after years of homeless issues and, most recently, large groups of people setting up in Breakers Oceanfront Park right by the pier. I hate to say out of sight, but thats what needs to be done. They need to be moved, said Commissioner Ken Strickland. Dozens of homeless people have spread out with bags and belongings, bringing chaos to the heart of the citys tourism district. Strickland said the ban on camping puts Daytona Beach in compliance with state law. However, with the First Step Shelter at capacity most days, he worries about where people will go. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It would be nice if we had unlimited space for these people but what space we have most of them dont want to go there so we are dealing with a real mess, said Strickland. Business owners like Tom Caffrey have begged the city for help but were until recently told nothing could be done. I think it was your last story that happened, and once that story happened, we had police show up. Its helped the tourism a lot, said Caffrey. He said the citys new ordinance makes sense. You walk into the park, and it has the Florida statute, FS, whatever it is, and it says you cant camp in the park, you cant be here after x time. But meanwhile, theyre all over the volleyball courts. Theyre all over everything thats there and so yeah, its a long time coming, said Caffrey. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When Eyewitness News reported on the problems at the park in June, the city said its hands were tied when it came to enforcement because of a federal injunction on its panhandling ordinance. However, because of state law, the city has grounds to enforce the no public camping rules. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. WASHINGTON (DC News Now) As DC Public School (DCPS) students prepare to return to the classroom Monday, some parents and community leaders are raising concerns about student safety. Its been a lot happening, a lot going on, said LaJoy Johnson-Law, Ward 8 Representative for the DC State Board of Education. Theres a lot of anxiety. Johnson-Law said parents have been sharing concerns about students safely navigating their way to and from school, with the National Guard and other law enforcement agencies patrolling multiple Metro stations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump to patrol DC streets with police and military As theyre navigating all of this, coming to school, leaving school, a lot of our children are zig-zagging throughout the city, she said. We are dealing with law enforcement who have descended upon our city, who dont know our kids, dont know our after-school programs. And a lot of kids, our young people, look like grown adults. Shes concerned about what could happen if a federal agent stops a student, who is just a teenager, and who does not have proper identification. What if youre stopped by law enforcement and theyre thinking youre 20 years old and youre 15? she questioned. And theyre treating this young person as if theyre an adult, who is supposed to be responding to them as an adult, who is supposed to know what to do and what not to do. No, theyre 15. You need to have something on you to let them know youre a minor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its why she and At Large representative Jacque Patterson are calling on the District to help students 15 and older get REAL IDs. We need to give something to help cover them, even if its small, something that is recognized by the federal government to say this is who I am, said Johnson-Law. Ward 8 neighbors push for more police presence, encourage National Guard help D.C. students are able to get a DC One card, which is a type of identification card that helps get them into District facilities, like libraries. However, they arent recognized federally as a form of identification. REAL IDs are available for those 15 and older, but Johnson-Law said there are barriers for some kids to get these, such as missing social security cards or birth certificates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The two board members are suggesting the District host a mobile DMV clinic at D.C. high schools or have a Student Real ID Day where students could go to the DMV during school hours. Theyd also like to see a streamlined process to help students who are missing documents obtain them. Now were in an emergency situation where it might save their lives, we dont know, said Johnson-Law. DC News Now reached out to DCPS, OSSE and the Mayors Office about this request, but has not heard back. On Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser and DCPS Chancellor Dr. Lewis Ferebee said students can travel safely to and from school on Metro by using their Kids Ride Free Metro card and by behaving lawfully. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its business as usual. Weve been preparing for this moment to welcome kids back to school, said Ferebee. We want our students to know that the schoolhouse continues to be the safest place for our young people and we continue to hold that high. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Colombia's anti-government guerrillas have grown stronger under President Gustavo Petros three years in office. That strength was on display in brazen attacks this week that included a car bombing and the downing of a police helicopter violence that left at least 19 people dead. Authorities blamed both attacks on Thursday on renegade factions of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the notorious FARC rebel group that for decades fought the government, carrying out assassinations, hijackings and bombings to undermine authorities in Bogota. And while FARC struck a peace deal with the government in 2016 and some members transitioned into a political party, rebels who split from the mainstream have carried on with a terror campaign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The attacks underscore the failures of Petros signature policy of negotiating simultaneously with multiple illegal groups, analysts say, a strategy that has allowed the renegade rebel groups to gain territory and power in areas with historically limited state presence. The rebels are likely to step up their attacks in attempts to assert their power in the lead-up to Colombias presidential election next May, the analysts predict. A worrying use of drones The police helicopter was transporting personnel to an area in the northern Antioquia region to help with efforts to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine, when it was brought down. Thirteen police officers died. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Colombias police director, Maj. Gen. Carlos Fernando Triana, told reporters on Friday that the rebels used explosive devices, such as homemade dynamite rocket launchers, as well as drones in the attack. But he did not confirm that a drone was solely responsible for downing the helicopter. The use of the drone showcases not only the insurgents' access to more modern warfare technology but also their new ability to disrupt the country's airspace, long dominated by the Colombian military. The use of drones is a worrying and important change in the way insurgent groups are attacking the state, said Cynthia Arnson, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. They dont need shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles anymore, she added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Petro, who in his youth was also in a rebel group, launched negotiations with nine separate insurgent groups and drug trafficking gangs since taking office in 2022 under his total peace strategy. But so far, only one small group has agreed to begin a transition toward civilian life. By 2018, dissidents from FARC and other illegal groups began fighting for the territories the state had failed to protect after FARC disarmed and abandoned the land. According to Arnson, Petros policy then allowed the armed groups to take advantage of ceasefires to strengthen themselves and their control over specific areas. Coca leaf, explosives and drug shipments Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The area under coca leaf cultivation in Colombia reached a record 253,000 hectares (about 625,000 acres) in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Police said Thursday's deployment of the helicopter to Antioquia's rural Amalfi area followed an attack with explosives and gunfire on officers working on eradicating coca leaf crops. The aircraft was hit as it attempted to provide support to the officers who were being attacked on the ground. Military data show there were 108 drone attacks in Colombia in 2024, while 118 have been reported so far this year. The drones are used to drop explosives and also to monitor army troops and areas of drug shipments, for example. In the southwest city of Cali, authorities said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school on Thursday, killing six people and injuring more than 70 all civilians. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A presidential election in the mix Colombians were deeply shaken by the death earlier this month of senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was shot in the head during a political rally in a park in Bogota in June. The senator died in hospital more than two months after the shooting an attack that harked back to the political violence of the 1990s, when Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar declared war on the state. Uribe Turbay had become one of the strongest critics of Petro, Colombia's first leftist president who is barred from seeking reelection under Colombia's constitution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whoever takes the top job after the May elections, will have to factor in the growing footprint of the insurgents, according to Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Petro inherited a complex situation of territorial vacuums in the countryside that dates back to the aftermath of the signing of the peace accord with the FARC, and under his presidency, conditions have deteriorated with increased rates of forced displacement, confinement, massacres, Freeman said. The illegal groups are likely to carry out more tactical displays of violence as the election nears, he added. Demonstrating their power through these kind of spectacular public attacks is a way to improve their negotiating position or send a strong message, Freeman said. ___ Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A court order requiring defendants in the Oswego Lake public access case to cover plaintiffs attorney fees is being challenged. The City of Lake Oswego filed a notice of appeal against the order from Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Kathie Steele on Tuesday. The State of Oregon and Lake Oswego Corporation, which represents homeowners in the neighborhood surrounding the lake, filed appeal notices earlier in July. Evergreen Public Schools support staff union votes in favor of strike Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Steele issued the order in June, requiring the three parties to pay more than $1.5 million to the attorneys of plaintiffs Todd Prager and Mark Kramer. The homeowners group was directed to pay the largest share, about 45% of the total, while the city was ordered to pay 35% and the state 20%. Although Steele described the legal fees as certainly large sums, she noted they date back to the beginning of a 13-year-old legal battle. Prager and Kramer first filed the lawsuit that argued Oswego Lake should be open to the public in 2012. It wasnt until March of this year that the Clackamas County judge ordered city officials to stop enforcing the public access ban and to remove any signage telling visitors they cant access the water from Millennium Plaza Park. Close Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KOIN Morning Digest Lake Oswego Corporation filed a notice of appeal against the decision shortly after. Later in April, both Oregon and Lake Oswego stated their case for why they shouldnt be on the hook for legal fees. While the state claimed the case was not fought against the State nor was the victory they secured against the State, the city alleged the state abdicated its responsibility over issues of navigability and aligned itself with the Plaintiffs. But according to Steeles order, all defendants are responsible for doling out attorney fees because Oswego Lake was previously regarded as a private body of water, and the years-long legal battle benefits the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Longest heat wave of the season coming to Portland Although this court did not observe an active participation by the State, it is clear from the record that early on (before 2019), the State supported the Citys argument that the public had no right of access to publicly owned waterways from abutting public lands, Steele wrote. And the City made improvements to the potential access points and then argued that those improvements prohibited the public from accessing the lake. The ordinance was ultimately the only reason this litigation has continued for more than decade. The judge added that Lake Oswego Corporation is also liable because it governed and controlled access to the lake at the center of the lawsuit. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. CCTV: We noted Foreign Minister Wang Yi just concluded his visit to Pakistan. Whats your comment and can you further brief us on the visit? Mao Ning: During his visit to Pakistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of the Army Staff Asim Munir, and co-chaired the sixth round of the China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue together with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar. Foreign Minister Wang Yi noted the China-Pakistan friendship has stood the test of time, and the all-weather strategic partnership remains unbreakable. The strategic cooperation between the two countries is significant to our common development and regional peace and stability. China and Pakistan have been at the forefront in building a community with a shared future in the neighborhood. China will work with Pakistan to follow the guidance of the important common understandings reached by the leaders of the two countries, deepen traditional friendship, strengthen strategic communication, jointly develop CPEC 2.0, and build an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. China and Pakistan will always render each other high-level trust and support, focus on development and mutual benefit, safeguard security and deliver for the people, coordinate and collaborate and jointly respond to challenges. This visit is the last leg of Foreign Minister Wang Yis three-nation trip to South Asia. South Asian countries are Chinas close neighbors, and hold an important position in building a community with a shared future with our neighbors. Foreign Minister Wang Yi noted that the 21st century should be an era of faster development and revitalization for Asia and particularly South Asia. A peaceful, stable and prosperous South Asia serves the interests of all and is what people hope to see. China and South Asian countries are natural partners and enjoy ample space for cooperation. China is committed to fostering an amicable, secure and prosperous neighborhood, and upholds the principle of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness and the vision of a shared future in developing relations with neighboring countries. China remains committed to pursuing mutual respect, accommodation, trust and success with South Asian countries. RT TV: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said on August 20 that Russia supports providing strong security guarantee for Ukraine and agrees not to exclude UN Security Council members, including Western countries and China, from providing the so-called guarantee. However yesterday, on August 21, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine does not need China as one of the security guarantors. What is Chinas view? Mao Ning: China has always held an objective and just position and has always been fair and square on the Ukraine crisis, which is for all to see. It is essential to pursue common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and promote the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. China stands ready to play a constructive role to that end. China News Service: August 24 marks the 33rd anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the ROK. Whats Chinas comment on growing its relations with the ROK? Mao Ning: China and the ROK are and will always be each others neighbors. Over the past 33 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the comprehensive and rapid growth of bilateral relations demonstrates that a sound, stable and deepening China-ROK relationship is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples and conducive to peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and beyond. China stands ready to work with the ROK to cherish the commitment made when establishing diplomatic ties, uphold good neighborliness and the friendly ties, work for mutual benefit, and elevate the strategic cooperative partnership to a higher level to deliver more tangibly for the two peoples. News 1 Korea: My first question is, the ROK government announced today that from August 24 to 27, a special envoy team led by former National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug will visit China, during which he will have talks with Vice President Han Zheng and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and deliver a personal letter. The visit coincides with the 33rd anniversary of diplomatic relations between the ROK and China. What is Chinas expectation and comment? My second question is, ROKs National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik will attend commemorations on September 3 marking the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Peoples War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. What is Chinas expectation and comment? Mao Ning: On your first question, China welcomes the visit of former National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug as President Lee Jae Myungs special envoy. Our two sides are in communication on the specifics. On your second question about inviting foreign leaders to the commemorative events and relevant arrangements, we will release timely information. Beijing Daily: Weve learned that recently, some Chinese students when entering the U.S. were groundlessly interrogated, harassed, badly treated or even repatriated by U.S. border control staff. Whats Chinas comment? Mao Ning: Recently, the U.S. has frequently carried out discriminatory, politically-driven and selective law enforcement against Chinese students arriving in the U.S. The students went through unfair treatment and were taken into small separate rooms for extended interrogation. Some were detained for more than 70 hours and repeatedly forced to answer questions that had nothing to do with their purpose of travel to the U.S. Some students visas were even revoked and they were banned from entering the country after being told they might endanger national security. The U.S.s moves severely violate the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese nationals, impede the flow of people between the two countries, and dampen China-U.S. people-to-people exchanges. Every time such incidents occurred, China immediately protested to the U.S. and urged the U.S. to correct its wrongdoings. The CPC and Chinese government always put the people first, and Chinas diplomacy is people-centered. China would never allow any Chinese national traveling to the U.S. to be unfairly treated anytime anywhere. We urge the U.S. to face the issue squarely, take Chinas concerns seriously, act on the U.S. leaders statement of welcoming Chinese students, and stop the groundless interrogations, harassment and repatriation against them. China will continue working hard to protect the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese nationals going to the U.S. Reuters: I have two questions. So about SCO. China has invited a number of leaders to SCO. Can the Foreign Ministry confirm as of today who has accepted the invitations? Second question, about Wang Yis visit to Afghanistan. He mentioned that China supports an early resumption of bilateral patrols in the Wakhan Corridor and urges Afghanistan to take firm actions to crack down on the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. Can we ask if talks for the resumption of bilateral patrols on the Wakhan Corridor have started and how will that take shape? And also have there been more growing concerns about the East Turkistan Islamic Movement recently? Mao Ning: On your first question, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Liu Bin shared relevant information at the press briefing this morning. More specifics will be released in due time. On Foreign Minister Wang Yis visit to Afghanistan, relevant readouts have been released, which you may refer to. China supports Afghanistan in firmly combating terrorism, in particular terrorist groups such as ETIM, and keeping the region peaceful and stable. The Paper: Recently, the U.S. State Department announced the visa restrictions on officials and their family members from African countries, Brazil, Cuba, Grenada, and former officials and their family members of Pan American Health Organization involved in the Cuban Governments overseas medical missions. He stated that the United States is committed to ending Cubas overseas medical missions as an exploitative behavior of forced labor, warning countries cooperating with Cuba to think twice. What is Chinas comment on this? Mao Ning: We noted that according to statistics of the government of Cuba, during the past 60-plus years, Cuba sent over 600,000 medical personnel to over 60 countries, provided medical services for over 230 million people and performed over 17 million operations and surgeries, which saved the lives of more than 12 million people. Cubas overseas medical cooperation plays an important role in the health systems of Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as African countries, and is welcomed by the governments and peoples of the relevant countries. The so-called forced labor has become a false pretext and tool of hegemony for the United States to suppress other countries. Relevant measures of the U.S. are an extension and escalation of its over 60 years of unpopular sanctions and blockade on Cuba. Political figures and people from all walks of life in relevant regions have expressed their clear opposition or concern. China opposes coercive diplomacy and urges the U.S. to immediately stop the blockade and sanctions on Cuba in any name and do more things that help improve relations with Cuba and promote regional peace and stability. AFP: Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin announced this morning the list of some foreign representatives who will attend the SCO summit. He did not mention any official from Afghanistan, which is an observer country of the SCO. Does this mean that Afghanistan is not invited to the summit? Mao Ning: On the participation of foreign leaders in the SCO summit, Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin offered detailed information this morning. I have nothing to add. Antara: Another question about the SCO, because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs already announced that there will be at least 22 leaders from 22 countries, including the non-permanent members, observers and also non-dialogue partners, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Viet Nam and Cambodia and also Laos. Does this indicate that the SCO is considering the admission of new member states into the organization? Mao Ning: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization will uphold the principle of openness and inclusiveness and keep its doors open to all countries who identify with the Shanghai spirit. The SCO is always prepared to welcome more countries that share its vision to join the big family of the SCO. AFP: The African country of Nigeria said yesterday it has deported 60 Chinese nationals convicted of cyber terrorism and internet fraud. Did you collaborate with the Nigerian authorities on this case? And how will you deal with these Chinese nationals? Mao Ning: The Chinese government always asks Chinese nationals overseas to act in strict accordance with local laws and regulations and supports host countries in lawfully combating criminal activities. Chinese diplomatic and consular missions in Nigeria are closely following the case. They have conducted consular visits, maintained communication with Nigeria on ensuing matters, and requested the country to protect the safety and lawful rights and interests of relevant Chinese citizens. Bloomberg: A question on U.S. sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department against two Chinese ports for facilitating the transportation of Iranian oil. Does the Foreign Ministry have any comment on this latest sanctions on Chinese ports by the U.S. side? Mao Ning: China opposes unilateral illicit sanctions that have no basis in international law or authorization of the UN Security Council. We urge the U.S. to abandon the wrong practice of arbitrarily resorting to sanctions. Countries normal cooperation with Iran within the framework of international law is legitimate and justified. China will do what is necessary to safeguard the lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies and citizens. AFP: A U.S. navy sailor has been convicted of espionage for selling military secrets to China. At least thats what the U.S. Department of Justice said yesterday. Have you communicated with the U.S. on this issue and what is your position on this issue? Mao Ning: Im not aware of what you mentioned. Bloomberg: A question on Nvidia which, according to reports, has instructed component suppliers to stop production related to the H20 chip. This is after earlier reports in recent days and weeks that the Chinese side was discouraging Chinese companies from using H20 chips. Does the Foreign Ministry have any comments on the latest reports about production related to H20 being stopped by Nvidia? Mao Ning: Id refer you to competent authorities on this issue. Let me say more broadly that we believe all countries need to jointly keep global industrial and supply chains stable and unimpeded. AFP: Got a question related to sports. Saudi Arabian officials have discussed approaching China about relocating the 2029 Asian Winter Games. Is China willing to consider hosting the 2029 Asian Winter Games edition if that were the case? Mao Ning: I have not heard about what you mentioned. We support Saudi Arabia in hosting the 2029 Asian Winter Games. NEW YORK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Walmart on Thursday posted second-quarter results that beat Wall Street's sales forecasts but missed earnings estimates. The U.S. retailer's total revenue for the three months ending July 31 grew 4.8 percent to 177.4 billion U.S. dollars, but the operating income decreased 700 million dollars, or 8.2 percent, affected by discrete legal and restructuring costs. Despite the earnings miss, Walmart raised its full-year guidance as online sales continued to grow at a double-digit pace. For the fiscal year of 2026, Walmart expects net sales growth of 3.75 percent to 4.75 percent, compared with a previous forecast of 3 percent to 4 percent. It also slightly raised its adjusted earnings-per-share outlook to a range of 2.52 dollars to 2.62 dollars, up from 2.5 dollars to 2.6 dollars. "We delivered solid results in Q2 FY26. Transactions and units helped drive top-line performance globally. We maintained our operating discipline, managing inventory levels while driving progress on our financial framework," the company said in a news release posted on its website. Since U.S. tariffs on nearly all imports are driving up costs across the retail sector, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said the company continued to see costs increase each week. Walmart shares dropped 4.49 percent on Thursday. National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., will now carry weapons for personal protection and are allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, defense officials announced Friday. The decision is an escalation in President Donald Trump's use of military troops to address what he insists is "out of control" crime in the nation's capital. Since his announcement, Trump has mobilized nearly 2,300 National Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states with Republican governors. But troops had remained unarmed until now. ABC News first reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had officially authorized the troops to carry weapons if their mission required it. On Friday, the joint task force overseeing the troops confirmed the move, noting that Guard personnel sent on missions would carry M17 pistols, "which are intended for person protection." The task force said Guard members would receive proper training on how to use the weapons before being allowed to carry them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This decision is not something taken lightly, said Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard, III, the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, in a statement. Al Drago/Reuters - PHOTO: U.S. President Trump deploys the National Guard and federalizes the Metropolitan Police Department, in Washington, D.C. "We are in coordination with our law enforcement partners and all appropriate review processes in place," he added. The task force also noted in its statement late Friday that Guard troops can carry out law enforcement duties because they are operating under Title 32 status, a law that exempts troops from restrictions under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, because they are still technically under a state governor's command. Legal experts have long warned about how presidents might use Title 32 as a kind of legal loophole to Posse Comitatus, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Under Title 32, a president pays for a Guard mission while keeping troops under control of the governors; in this case, Trump asked red-state governors to send their troops to D.C. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While those governors technically retain control of the troops, their missions are being decided by the White House, according to several administration officials. In a visit to Guard personnel on Thursday, President Donald Trump suggested the military personnel would be playing a larger role in law enforcement in the city. "You got to be strong, you got to be tough," Trump told Guard personnel at the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility during a visit there on Thursday. "You got to do your job. Whatever it takes to do your job." Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images - PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks to federal troops at the US Park Police Anacostia operations facility in Washington, August 21, 2025. MORE: No patrol but Trump visits police, military in DC as he touts anti-crime push Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Working in shifts, Guard troops began deploying last week in small numbers at popular tourist spots like the Washington Monument along the National Mall, where crime is relatively low. Standing alongside armored Humvees, the unarmed soldiers and airman could be seen posing for pictures with tourists and talking with children. Trump then moved to expand the effort considerably, requesting additional troops from nearby states. So far, six Republican governors have complied, with troops arriving this week from Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina and Mississippi. The military task force overseeing the operation said that most of those troops were in place as of Thursday morning, bringing the force size in the nation's capital up to 2,282 as of Friday evening. In his visit to the Guard troops on Thursday, Trump suggested the troops could stay for six months or longer. Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters - PHOTO: Members of the National Guard walk at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., August 21, 2025. You do the job on safety, and I'll get this place fixed up physically, and we're going to be so proud of it at the end of six months, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But let's say at the end of the year, this place will be maxed out in terms of beauty. You'll have all new surfaces. You'll have all new medians, everything's going to look beautiful, he added. Mariam Zuhaib/AP - PHOTO: District of Columbia National Guard soldiers keep watch as travelers arrive at the entrance to Union Station near the Capitol, Aug 21, 2025, in Washington. Historically, presidents have relied upon the National Guard to secure cities in only extraordinary circumstances, such as large-scale events like the presidential inauguration or in response to riots, like the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol. Violent crime levels in the city have decreased compared to years prior, down 26% since 2024, a 30-year low, according to crime stats released by the D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images - PHOTO: Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks at a press conference after President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department at the Wilson Building, August 11, 2025 in Washington. On Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser criticized Trumps use of the Guard as an armed militia in the Nations Capital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crime has gone down in our city and it has gone down precipitously over the last two years because of a lot of hard work, changes to our public safety ecosystem, including changes to the law, Bowser said. ABC News' Karen Travers and Arthur Jones contributed to this report. DEKALB COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) A 26-year-old was found guilty in a DeKalb County court Thursday, District Attorney Summer Summerford announced. DA Summerford announced Friday that Valen Edwards, 26, was found guilty on August 21 on two counts of possession of obscene matter, one count of dissemination of obscene matter and one count of electronic solicitation of a child. CLICK HERE for News 19s Interactive Radar Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In March of 2021, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a person had sent an image containing child pornography through the app Discord. Summerford said ICAC members traced the IP address to a home on Lingerfelt Road in Rainsville. Detectives stated they had traced viewing of the child pornography to states as far away as California. In April, search warrants were obtained and executed on the address, which led to an interview with Edwards. During the interview, Edwards confessed to downloading and sending a picture of a child less than 10 engaged in a sexual act on the app Discord. Additionally, Edwards told officers about sexual conversations he had with an underage female. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Download the WHNT News 19 App to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WHNT News 19 newsletters to have news sent to your inbox. After a phone extraction, it revealed that Edwards had a nude image of an underage female saved to his device, along with sexual conversations. Summerford said a sentencing hearing will be held on November 13, 2025. The Rainsville Police Department was the lead law enforcement agency in this case, with special assistance from the Fort Payne Police Department, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Police Department. The exploitation of children is the manifestation of evil in this world. The community spoke in this case and stood up for children everywhere. These cases are very difficult to hear. We want to say a special thank you to the jurors who had to review disturbing evidence, Summerford said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. DEKALB COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) On Thursday afternoon, DeKalb County Schools announced it has received a large grant that will help them construct a modern, state-of-the-art Career Technical Education facility. The new 95,000 square feet CTE facility would serve students from across the county, including Fort Payne city students and will replace the current DeKalb County Technology Center. DeKalb County Schools has partnered closely with Fort Payne City Schools in this effort, reflecting a strong regional commitment to collaboration and student success. We would like to thank Superintendent Brian Jett and the Fort Payne City Board of Education for their continued partnership in career and technical education, which was needed for us to be considered for this grant. Together, both systems are working to close the skills gap, provide advanced training, and ensure Alabama students are ready for the opportunities of the 21st-century economy, Superintendent Wayne Lyles said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement School officials say that the center the system has been using has served students for more than 50 years, but it no longer meets the needs of the current career pathways. With higher-trained workers in fields that are in demand, our students are going to get attracted to higher-paying jobs, and thats what we want for parents and students in our area, Lyles said. DCS said enrollment at the center has doubled in recent years, rising from 401 students in the 2021 school year to a current enrollment of 832 students for the 2026 school year. The facility is estimated to cost around $40 million, and DCS said it will be located on a 42-acre tract of land within the Rainsville Industrial Park, with the front of the building and entrance located off Carey Baker Lane behind the DeKalb 911 Building. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lyles says this new location will make it safer for buses and students to pull in and out of the building, as it currently sits right on Highway 35. Lesa Smith is a bus driver for the school system and says exiting the current building is a hassle. Sometimes you have to pull over onto the first two lanes to go into the middle lane because you cant move on over, and then you have somebody coming from the other direction coming onto the turning lane, Smith said. And there has been some close calls, yes. New programs such as cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing and business with multimedia marketing will be added with the construction of the new building. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to these new programs, the school board is hopeful for the construction of a new 800-seat theater. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. After a one-day reprieve, ocean access is again closed in Rehoboth, Dewey and Bethany beaches due to rough surf and rip tides. The beach itself is closed, as well, in Bethany Beach, but remains open elsewhere. Guarded beaches at Delaware Seashore and Cape Henlopen state parks also are closed to swimmers, as are all drive-on crossovers. The view from the near end of the jetty on the Indian River Inlet's north side beach Aug. 19, 2025. Hurricane Erin is nearing the coast in the Atlantic and was 285 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, at 2 p.m. Aug. 21. The storm is not expected to make landfall but instead make a northeast turn. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Southern Delaware is under a high risk for rip tides and under a coastal flood warning. The National Weather Service is predicting tropical storm-force winds and severe beach erosion for the area, with wave heights of 10 to 17 feet. Live webcams: See what the Delaware beaches look like right now Most Delaware beaches closed to swimmers due to rough conditions Aug. 18 and 19, but reopened Aug. 20. Rehoboth Beach Patrol Capt. Jeff Giles urged people not to swim. "Please, dont put the lifeguards in this position, you are putting the lives of the rescuers at risk," he said. (This story has been updated to include new information about beaches.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: No swimming at Delaware beaches due to Hurricane Erin WASHINGTON On a typical day, food delivery drivers would be lined up along this busy stretch of 14th Street NW waiting for their phones to buzz with an order. But less than two weeks into President Donald Trumps D.C. takeover of policing in D.C., the deliveristas were hard to find. Vendors selling sliced mango and taquitos on the sidewalk said business had plummeted in large part because the drivers who are overwhelmingly immigrants were staying off the streets, fearing run-ins with federal law enforcement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kiros Gebretsadik, who runs a cafe beside the nearby Metro stop, said walk-in traffic for coffee and pastries had dropped sharply since last week, when federal agents and National Guard members turned up in the city in force. We dont have business, Gebretsadik said. Theres nobody walking around. I dont know how were going to pay rent. Related: Wall Street Journal Flags Donald Trump Risk Turning Out To Be Worse Than We Imagined HuffPost is committed to fearlessly covering the Trump administration. Click here to support our mission and become a member today. The Trump administration has touted its militarized takeover of D.C.s Metropolitan Police Department, which has included a swarm of federal law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers, as a massive success thats reduced crime in the city and made people feel safe again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But one of the most noticeable impacts of the takeover, besides the presence of National Guard troops and Army vehicles by national landmarks, has been immigration enforcement especially high-profile arrests of delivery drivers whose mopeds are no longer as ubiquitous in D.C. traffic as they were two weeks ago. We are seeing a lot of people not do delivery. We are seeing people stay home. We are seeing people scared to leave their houses, said Michael Lukens, executive director at the nonprofit Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington. We are seeing the delivery driver community being targeted, frankly, because its easy for ICE. Theyre on the street, ICE doesnt need a warrant, Lukens said. Federal agents have been tagging along with D.C. police doing traffic stops and responding to 911 calls around town. HuffPost reporters have observed agents from various federal law enforcement agencies riding with Metropolitan Police Department officers and arriving at traffic stops in their own unmarked vehicles, offering backup. Part of their routine includes checking peoples immigration status. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The White House said Thursday that since the operation began on Aug. 7, federal agents have been involved in 630 arrests 40% of which were immigrants illegally in the country. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers claimed in a statement that hundreds of dangerous criminals had been removed. The left and the media can coddle criminals, but our nations capital will not be a safe haven for violent criminals under President Trumps leadership, she said. Besides the made-for-social-media apprehension of the guy who hit an officer with a sandwich, the most widely noticed arrests have involved immigrants. Related: Man Killed Fleeing Immigration Raid At California Home Depot: Officials On Saturday, onlookers recorded video as federal agents manhandled a delivery driver coming out of a coffee shop. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the man had illegally entered the U.S. in 2023 and had been previously ordered deported. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he was a suspected gang member and suggested it was misleading to call him a mere moped driver. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Tuesday, officers injured a man by reportedly ramming his moped, then handcuffed him to a gurney as he was put in an ambulance. On Wednesday, federal agents tackled another man who tried to flee during a traffic stop by the National Mall. The man said through sobs he was a worker, not a criminal; the White House pointed out hed once been charged with aggravated sexual battery of a minor. Delivery drivers have not totally disappeared. On Thursday night, one man on a moped picking up an order at Taco Bell on H Street volunteered he was in the country legally. Asked about other drivers, the man, who did not speak English, slapped imaginary handcuffs on his wrists. Federal officers are also doing some work independent of local police. On Friday in Columbia Heights, HuffPost observed masked federal agents detain a man insisting he had legal status and pleading that his wife had recently given birth and couldnt walk. The officers calmly put him in an unmarked SUV, saying they needed to take him to the office an hour drive away to check his immigration status, and that it was possible he would be released. It wasnt clear what led up to the encounter. Just now in Columbia Heights: ICE detained a man and said they were taking him an hour away to check his legal status He said his wife had just given birth and couldnt eat or walk pic.twitter.com/y7vnYTkhQv Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) August 22, 2025 Moped delivery drivers became more numerous in D.C. starting in 2023, following the arrival of immigrants, including many Venezuelans, whod been bused to Washington by Republican governors furious about then-president Joe Bidens border policies, which allowed an unprecedented influx of migrants to the U.S. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Columbia Heights area of D.C. isnt the only place where delivery drivers no longer congregate as they wait for their phones to buzz with new requests for food delivery. The moped riders have also seemingly disappeared from H Street and Union Station. Companies that employ delivery drivers Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub did not respond to requests for comment. Related: Gavin Newsoms Hilariously Brutal Birthday Post To Stephen Miller Is Truly A Gift Ryan Gordon, owner of The Queen Vic bar and restaurant on H Street, said that for the past two years, between 20 and 40 delivery drivers would gaggle on their mopeds near his bar during the day while they waited for orders. About three weeks ago, Gordon noticed they congregated in smaller groups in different locations around the block. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The last couple days, theyre not there, Gordon said. More on Politics Judge Warns Of 'Lawlessness' In Trump's DC Policing Takeover Trump's Latest Outrage: A Lot Of People Are Saying Maybe We'd Like A Dictator Trump Threatens 'Sloppy' Former Pal In Off-The-Rails Sunday Night Rant Read the original on HuffPost AUSTIN (KXAN) Delta Air Lines has announced three new nonstop routes from Austin, as the airline prepares to open a new flight attendant base in the city in October. The permanent flight attendant base strengthens Deltas operational presence and long-term commitment to Central Texas, the airline said in a press release. A spokesperson told KXAN that 125 flight attendants will be staffed at the base as part of a strategic move driven by increasing customer demand, evolving flight schedules and Deltas long-term vision for the area. The crew base will allow Delta to position crews where theyre most needed to enhance efficiency and reliability of operations, the spokesperson said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, twice-daily nonstop flights to Denver are set to launch Nov. 9. Flights to Columbus and Kansas City will begin June 7 next year Columbus once a day and Kansas City twice a day. All three routes will be operated through Delta Connection partner SkyWest, each using Embraer 175 aircraft. Rival Southwest Airlines currently operates on the AUS-Columbus and AUS-Kansas City routes, while AUS-DEN is served by Southwest, as well as United Airlines and Frontier Airlines. AUS Data Hub: Passenger totals, busiest months and new flights in 2025 and 2026 Delta will also expand service on two other routes. Flights to San Francisco will increase from once a day to twice daily beginning April 13, while the Austin-Indianapolis route will go from once daily to three times daily on June 7. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With these new routes and expanded service, Delta is building on a strong foundation in Austin and creating more ways for our customers to get where they want to go, Paul Baldoni, Deltas senior vice president of network planning, said. Delta already launched seven new nonstop routes from Austin earlier this year, with three other seasonal routes set to begin in the coming months. Service to Palm Springs will begin Nov. 8, while flights to Cancun and San Jose del Cabo are set to begin Dec. 20 bringing a return to international service from AUS for the airline. Delta previously operated the Austin-Cancun route in 2011 but has had no international service since then. In May, Delta overtook American Airlines as the second-largest airline operating at AUS in terms of passenger traffic, behind only Southwest. As of June, Delta has flown more than 1.7 million passengers in and out of Austin, accounting for about 16.8% of all traffic. Southwest has flown more than 4.2 million passengers, or 41.4% of the total. AUS negotiating with airlines for space in new terminal, Southwest wants to be anchor tenant Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both airlines are jockeying for an increased presence at Austin-Bergstrom, which plans to build an additional terminal set to open in 2030, almost doubling capacity at the airport. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 Delta Air Lines flight was diverted after a passenger went into labor mid-flight and eventually gave birth, say passengers and flight data. Flight 668, a Boeing 757, left John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York at 6:53 a.m. Wednesday, and was headed for San Francisco International Airport, when things took an unexpected turn. The crew declared a medical emergency roughly an hour into the journey after the passenger started to experience contractions, and the pilot had to be notified. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Priority clearance was requested at John Glenn Columbus International Airport, Ohio, where the plane touched down safely at 8:45 a.m., and paramedics were standing by at the gate,The San Francisco Chronicle reported. Flight tracking data showed Flight 668 making a diversion to John Glenn Columbus International in Ohio (FlightAware) I was on the flight. It was pretty nuts, a passenger shared on Reddit. A woman helped her the whole time until paramedics took over, they said, adding, The crew got her full name, and I believe tried to upgrade her, which she denied. The passenger said the flight was packed, and Delta confirmed there were 135 passengers and six crew members on board. The aircraft remained on the ground in Columbus for about 90 minutes before continuing west, finally landing in San Francisco at around noon, around two hours behind schedule, according to flight records and Delta. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The baby was not delivered on board. Typically, airlines caution women against flying in the later stages of pregnancy. Delta, however, does not prohibit passengers in their final weeks of pregnancy from traveling, nor do they require a doctors note. At Delta, we dont impose restrictions on flying if youre pregnant and dont require a medical certificate for you to travel. If youre traveling after your eighth month, its a good idea to check with your doctor to be sure travel is not restricted. Keep in mind when booking, ticket change fees and penalties cannot be waived for pregnancy, the airline states on its website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, a baby was born on a Ryanair flight en route to Spain, causing a last-minute diversion to bring the newborn to the ground in France. A Delta Airlines spokesperson said, As the health and safety of our people and customers comes before all else at Delta, our flight crew followed procedures to safely divert to Columbus due to an onboard customer medical situation. It has been an eventful summer for Delta, with the carrier rarely out of the headlines. Earlier this week, a Texas-bound flight was forced into an emergency landing after part of the planes wing came off, in July, a pilot scheduled to fly to the U.S. from Sweden failed a breathalyzer, and in North Carolina, a family sued after they accused a crewmember of using their childs tablet to record lewd videos. Attorney Joshua Kendrick makes closing arguments to a judge in Greenville while death row inmate Steven Bixby listens at the Greenville courthouse on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) GREENVILLE Death row inmate Steven Bixby believes any judge who has ruled against him is satanic, most laws are unconstitutional and an angel was present when he gunned down two police officers more than two decades ago. Death row inmate Steven Bixby, escorted by police, enters a courtroom at the Greenville County Courthouse on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) Whether those are political and religious opinions or delusions was the question posed to a Greenville County judge during a two-day hearing that concluded Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bixby believes he is competent and wanted to talk directly to a judge to argue his innocence. In the courtroom Friday, he said he did nothing wrong in gunning down two officers during a daylong standoff over a planned road widening that would take a piece of the Bixby familys Abbeville property. A jury found Bixby guilty of killing Sheriffs Deputy Danny Wilson and Constable Donnie Ouzts and recommended a sentence of death in 2007. They keep saying victim, victim, victim, the 58-year-old told Judge R. Scott Sprouse. They are not victims. A perpetrator has never been a victim. Bixby believes his conviction was illegal because it didnt follow his reading of the Constitution, which gives treason as the only reason for the death penalty, he said. He believes prosecutors and judges conspired against him to bury evidence. And he believes that if he can get his thoughts in front of the right court, then he will leave prison. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Wearing a green jumpsuit, glasses and a frown, Bixby took notes during the experts testimony, nodding in agreement when they listed his beliefs and shaking his head when they called those same beliefs false. Im just tired, Bixby told the judge. Im absolutely, positively tired. Theres no meat in this (case). This shouldnt have gone on as far as it has, and if it had been dealt with, my filings, since day one, I wouldve been free anyway. During his 11-minute address, Bixby mostly complained about perceived legal injustices in his case. His arguments highlight the bizarre beliefs that make him incompetent for execution, defense attorney Joshua Snow Kendrick argued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bixby is out of normal appeals. He was among inmates expected to receive a death warrant when executions resumed last September, but the state Supreme Court paused his case long enough to determine whether hes competent. Attorney Joshua Snow Kendrick questions court-appointed psychiatrist Donna Maddox at the Greenville County Courthouse on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) Along with his beliefs about the legal system, Bixby thinks patterns he finds in sequences of numbers hold special meaning to him. And he thinks God protected him from bullets during the 2003 shootout, claiming the blood of Christ was on his clothing afterward, Kendrick said. All four psychiatrists who testified agreed that Bixby met the federal bar for competence, which says an inmate must understand what their execution means and the link between their crime and the punishment. But South Carolinas law is looser than the federal test. An inmate must be able to rationally communicate with their attorneys and understand the court proceedings, according to precedent set by the state Supreme Court. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bixby can communicate with his attorneys. The question is whether hes rational when he does so. The substance of his unshakeable beliefs is so far removed from reality that his attorneys cant speak to him about his case or get any new information from him that they might use for appeals, Kendrick said. What you have heard is a person whos going to communicate with his attorneys, who will be nice to them sometimes, but thats not the question, Kendrick said. The question, he said, is whether Bixbys lawyers can do their job effectively, which is not going to happen, Kendrick said. Prosecutors, however, argued that Bixbys beliefs are odd but not delusional. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Experts for both sides agreed that many of Bixbys beliefs align with so-called constitutionalists, who believe the Constitution is the only valid law, and sovereign citizens, who denounce the government altogether. Bixby himself hasnt identified himself as belonging to any particular political group. A psychiatrist hired by prosecutors said lots of people find patterns in numbers. Take, for example, people with lucky lottery numbers who believe theyll one day win the jackpot, said Richard Frierson. If other people have the same line of thinking, Bixby isnt necessarily irrational, prosecutors said. Where do you draw the line as to how many people have to believe something before we consider it mental illness? Frierson said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many of Bixbys beliefs seem to have come directly from his parents. His mother received a life sentence for planning the ambush. His father, who also shot at officers, was found unfit to stand trial because he had developed dementia. Both died in custody in 2011. Time alone on death row has allowed Bixby to dig his heels in on the belief system his parents imparted, Frierson said. After years of homeschooling, Bixby is relatively uneducated, which made him more susceptible to believing conspiracy theories. He listens to radio stations and reads blog posts that affirm his belief system, Frierson said. Various psychiatrists have diagnosed Bixby with narcissistic personality disorder, a mental condition that causes a person to believe themselves to be the center of the universe. That likely led to Bixbys beliefs becoming unshakable, since he thinks hes the smartest person in any room, said Richart DeMier, a psychiatrist Bixbys defense team hired to evaluate him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bixby also has some paranoia that might affect his functioning, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma, which wasnt specified, and his father getting shot during the standoff, psychiatrists said. None of the psychiatrists who testified had ever found a person incompetent because of a personality disorder alone. Often, patients deemed incompetent have a condition that affects their memory, such as dementia, or some form of psychosis, which makes them unable to comprehend whats happening or what will happen if they die, they said. A personality disorder tends to be a strongly held worldview a person had shaped during a persons childhood. Bixby has a particularly severe personality disorder, psychiatrists agreed. Rarely are personality disorders so severe that they make a person incompetent, experts said. Bixbys personality disorder impaired him enough that he couldnt face the death chamber, DeMier said. Frierson and Donna Maddox, the court-appointed psychiatrist who evaluated Bixby, disagreed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bixby has shown symptoms of psychosis in the past. Once, during a particularly stressful period, he told a psychiatrist he was having visions of billboards that read, Bixby for sheriff, and that he caused his attorneys skin to peel, Maddox said. Assistant Attorney General Joseph Maye holds up four fingers for the facts about his legal case Bixby understands at the Greenville County Courthouse on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) During Maddoxs most recent visits with Bixby, including a conversation Friday morning ahead of his hearing, he no longer had those delusions, she said. He seemed capable of having a rational conversation, even if he didnt always choose to cooperate with his attorneys, Maddox said. He understood the facts of his case, that a jury found him guilty, that he will almost certainly die if the judge finds him competent, and why he was in court this week, said assistant attorney general Joseph Maye. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He understands all of those things, and not only does he understand them, but he understands the law enough to be angry about the fact that theyre being presented, because he disagrees with them, Maye said. The roughly eight-hour hearing over two days concluded without Bixby getting his wish of being freed. Attorneys on both sides will have two weeks to submit proposed orders for Sprouse to consider. Sprouse will have 30 days to make his decision, though either side could appeal, bringing the case back to the Supreme Court. The Democratic Party and California Gov. Gavin Newsoms press office's X accounts joined the backlash against Cracker Barrel after it released its new text-only logo earlier this week. The company unveiled the new logo on Tuesday as part of its new branding campaign for the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurants. The campaign eliminated the image of a man resting on a barrel in favor of a text-only logo for the first time since 1977. While conservative critics have piled on the new redesign, both the Democratic Party and the liberal governors media team put out tweets Thursday calling out the Tennessee-based restaurant chain for the change. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cracker Barrel's New Text-only Logo Is 'How You Destroy A Brand,' Critics Claim Cracker Barrel unveiled its new logo on Tuesday. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH CRACKER BARREL?? KEEP YOUR BEAUTIFUL LOGO!!! THE NEW ONE LOOKS LIKE CHEAP VELVEETA "CHEESE" FROM WALMART, THE PLACE FOR GROCERIES (AN OLD FASHIONED TERM)!!! FIX IT ASAP! WOKE IS DEAD!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. GCN," Newsoms press office wrote, mocking President Donald Trumps caps-heavy writing style. "We think the Cracker Barrel rebrand sucks too," the Democratic Party wrote. Read On The Fox News App Cracker Barrel Fan's Viral Tiktok Sparks Backlash Over Restaurant Makeover Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A representative for Cracker Barrel told Fox News Digital in a statement about the new logo that the company's values had not changed. "Our values haven't changed, and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel havent changed," the company said. "And Uncle Herschel remains front and center in our restaurants and on our menu. He is the face of The Herschel Way, the foundation of how our 70,000-plus employees provide the country hospitality for which we are known. Gov. Gavin Newsom's press team has begun mimicking President Donald Trump's posting style. "Cracker Barrel has been a destination for comfort and community for more than half a century, and this fifth evolution of the brands logo, which works across digital platforms as well as billboards and roadside signs, is a call-back to the original and rooted even more in the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all back in 1969." Cracker Barrel Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Moore previously told Fox News Digital that the chain's ongoing transformation incorporated not only customer feedback but also employee input. Cracker Barrel came under fire for both its new logo and interior design. She said Cracker Barrel is "listening to what the guests ask for, and examples of what the guests asked for are things like spaces that feel brighter, that feel less cluttered, more booth seating, more seating options, so our guests are more comfortable while they're dining with us." Original article source: Democratic Party, Gavin Newsom join online roasting of new Cracker Barrel logo Arizona, Oregon and other Democratic states are calling on the Trump administration to remove restrictions on mifepristone. (Photo via Getty Images) More than a dozen Democrat-led states with abortion protections are calling on the Trump administration to remove federal regulations on the most commonly used abortion pill and make it easier for women to obtain it from their family doctor. In a 55-page citizen petition sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, along with Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the attorneys general for 13 other states, told the federal agency that preserving restrictions around how abortion pill mifepristone is dispensed would dramatically impact the ability of clinicians to prescribe it and women to access it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a written statement announcing the petition, Mayes, who ran on a campaign to protect abortion access, denounced the movement to narrow womens reproductive health care options. Women in Arizona have used Mifepristone safely and effectively for more than two decades. The FDA is folding to anti-abortion politicians and activists, she said. The FDA should immediately remove these unnecessary restrictions and allow Arizonans to access the reproductive health care they have a right to. The petition comes as the FDA, at the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is reviewing mifepristone despite 25 years of agency approval and hundreds of clinical trials that repeatedly confirmed the drugs safety and effectiveness. While more than a dozen states protect abortion access in some form or enshrine the procedure in their state Constitution following the fall of Roe v. Wade, narrowing FDA approval of mifepristone would function as a backdoor abortion ban. The pill, which is part of a two-drug regimen, makes up the vast majority of medication abortions nationwide, and accounts for around 60% of total procedures. At stake: FDA policies around mifepristone prescriptions, dispensing Last year, a coalition of anti-abortion doctors and medical groups sought to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to rescind the federal governments approval of mifepristone and roll back policies that expanded access to it in 2016. The justices ultimately threw out that lawsuit, but now the focus among abortion foes has shifted to lobbying the FDA to enforce strict limits on who can prescribe the pill and when it can be dispensed that were softened under the Obama and Biden administrations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some drugs are approved with Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, also called REMS, in place to ensure the FDA can monitor, prevent and manage the severity of adverse health events associated with those drugs. Under the REMS governing mifepristone, pharmacies must meet a certification process to dispense the drug, medical professionals seeking to prescribe it must be certified to do so and patients must fill out a special acknowledgement form. In 2023, the Biden administration dropped a requirement that mifepristone be dispensed to patients in-person. Reproductive rights advocates fear that the Trump administration could seek to restore that restriction or tighten the existing regulations in ways that could further deter women and physicians from asking for and providing mifepristone. Earlier this month, 20 Republican attorneys general wrote a letter to the FDA asking the agency to do just that. Dems: REMS do nothing but make it harder to access abortion pill In their longshot request, the Democrat states argued that mifepristone shouldnt be limited by its existing REMS because it has been repeatedly proven to be safe, the requirements reduce the willingness of physicians and patients to prescribe and ask for the drug, and their health care systems are already sufficiently regulated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The attorneys general urged the FDA to either entirely scrap the REMS around mifepristone or at least decide not to enforce them in their states. The group pointed out that their lawmakers or constituencies elected to protect abortion after Roe was overturned, and guaranteeing access to mifepristone is a key part of respecting that choice. More than 64% of abortions in Oregon in 2023 were medication abortions. Surgical abortions are more invasive and expensive, and are often out of reach for low-income or rural women. As proof that the REMS around mifepristone are unnecessary, the states pointed to both anecdotal evidence from local physicians and a recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that concluded the policies make no difference for patient safety. The authors noted that the certification for clinicians hoping to prescribe mifepristone is nothing more than a self-attestation that they are skilled in caring for patients with an early pregnancy. Despite how easy that standard is to meet, however, the authors found that 1 in 10 OB-GYNs are hesitant to fill it out, because of fear that the form could later be made public and they could be identified as abortion providers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead of protecting patients, the physician certification narrows the pool of people who are authorized to prescribe mifepristone. In addition, the certification requirements for pharmacies to be allowed to dispense mifepristone are so burdensome that, even in states where abortion is legal, there are few pharmacies willing to undergo the process. Together, the prescriber certification form and the pharmacy certification process only serve to make it more difficult for women to obtain a medication abortion. Forcing patients to go to specially certified providers, as opposed to their primary care or family physicians, can require patients to travel long distances, disrupts continuity of care, stigmatizes routine health care , and discourages patients from making the best health care choices for themselves and their families, the Democratic attorneys general wrote. Likewise, the patient acknowledgement form women are required to fill out doesnt serve a clear safety purpose. Instead, it runs the risk of misinforming patients or even causing them emotional harm, according to the states. A Pennsylvania doctor surveyed for the citizen petition noted that it is based on science from 2016, and said it could undermine the patient-clinician relationship to have the provider explain the procedure one way, only to be immediately disputed by outdated information on the mandatory acknowledgement form. Filling out the form is a required step for women seeking to use mifepristone to end a pregnancy, as well as for women who are dealing with a miscarriage, and yet the language is the same in both situations. That can cause unnecessary pain for many women, according to doctors quoted in the citizen petition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As one Oregon physician explained, I have had patients who were already undergoing the traumatizing experience of a miscarriage, become deeply upset, confused or distressed at having to sign a form about medication abortion attesting that they are deciding to voluntarily terminate their pregnancy, reads the petition. The states argued that their own health care systems are sufficiently regulated to justify eliminating the REMS governing mifepristone. Arizonas medical boards and licensure requirements ensure that medical professionals, clinics and pharmacies are qualified and up to code. And multiple state laws regulate how physicians can dispense medication, and penalize violations. Adding REMS to how mifepristone is prescribed isnt just overkill, according to the states, but nonsensical. Decades of research has proven that the drug is safe; it shouldnt be placed in the same kind of regulatory category as riskier medications. Since the drug first earned FDA approval in 2000 through December 2024, only 36 deaths have been reported out of 7.5 million uses, and the agency has acknowledged that no evidence could link mifepristone to those deaths. As one physician explained, REMS are generally only placed on dangerous drugs like opioids and the existence of the REMS, coupled with the provider certification, creates a disincentive to prescribe a very safe medication, wrote the attorneys general. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On top of failing to benefit patients or the health care system in any way, the REMS around mifepristone use also likely violate federal law, the states argued. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which gives the FDA the power to issue regulations, strictly limits the passage of safety policies to situations where they reduce the risk of a serious adverse drug experience and prohibits regulations that are unduly burdensome on patient access especially in rural areas. The states argued that the REMS around mifepristone dont succeed in reducing any safety risk, and the drug itself doesnt present a significant danger, and concluded that the regulations should be eliminated. The current regulatory requirements for prescribing and dispensing mifepristone requiring patients to sign an agreement form and providers and pharmacies to obtain special certification are unrelated to any specific risk of the drug, let alone required to mitigate any perceived risk, they wrote. Arizona Mirror, like the 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. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. SACRAMENTO, the United States, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- California lawmakers on Thursday approved Governor Gavin Newsom's plan to redraw the state's political map, a move aimed at countering the Republican-led redistricting in Texas that could shape the control of the U.S. Congress in the 2026 elections. The California State Assembly and Senate voted to pass a package of bills, which sets the stage for voters to decide whether to redraw congressional maps this year. The bills signed by Newsom later in the day will go to voters in a special statewide election on Nov. 4. "We will be the first state in U.S. history to, in the most democratic way, submit to the people of our state the ability to determine their own maps that simply has not been done," Newsom told reporters shortly before signing the package. Redistricting means redrawing electoral district boundaries that impact elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. Newsom's plan would allow one-time adjustments in 2026, 2028 and 2030. The plan could net Democrats five more U.S. House seats. California, with nearly 40 million residents, has the largest delegation in the U.S. House, with 52 seats. Before Thursday's votes, Newsom and other Democrats have repeatedly said that California's gerrymandered maps would only take effect if other states conduct their own mid-decade redistricting. On Wednesday, the Republican-dominated Texas House of Representatives passed a redistricting bill, highlighting what analysts called a "gerrymandering arms race" in the country. The bill could give Republicans five new seats in the U.S. House in next year's midterm elections. The Texas vote came after a two-week delay when more than 50 Texas Democratic lawmakers stayed out of the state in protest against the rare mid-decade redistricting plan. Campaign signs for Omar Fateh line chairs at the Minneapolis DFL Convention Saturday, July 19, 2025. (Photo by Kyle Stokes/Axios) What had been a polarizing election for Minneapolis mayor has exploded into a full-blown political crisis for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and a group of prominent Minneapolis Democrats Thursday released a statement condemning the state party for revoking the DFL convention endorsement of mayoral candidate Sen. Omar Fateh, who would be the citys first Somali-American mayor if elected in November. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A small group of DFL board members, a majority living outside Minneapolis, met privately to overturn the will of Minneapolis delegates who volunteered, organized, and participated in a months-long DFL process. It is inexcusable to overturn the results weeks after the convention because board members did not like the outcome, wrote the group, which also comprised state Sens. Zaynab Mohamed and Doron Clark, state Reps. Aisha Gomez, Fue Lee, Mohamud Noor, Sydney Jordan and Esther Agbaje and several members of the City Council and Hennepin County Board. The statement notes a majority of the DFL committee that revoked the endorsement Thursday dont live in Minneapolis, while also drawing an ideological contrast between progressive democrats who are challenging the status quo and moderate democrats. It also alleges blatant corruption via the influence of big money in our politics. Though his name goes unmentioned, the statement is a pointed rebuke of state DFL Chair Richard Carlbom, who was hand-picked by Gov. Tim Walz to succeed current DNC Chair Ken Martin. The ruling and report, released on Thursday from the state party following a formal complaint by the campaign of Mayor Jacob Frey, paints a portrait of a convention so dysfunctional that the Minneapolis DFL is on probation for two years. Carlbom reached for comity with an anodyne statement announcing the decision, telling Democrats to move on: Now its time to turn our focus to unity and our common goal: electing DFL leaders focused on making life more affordable for Minnesotans and holding Republicans accountable for the chaos and confusion theyve unleashed on Minnesotans. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Not so, Omar and the progressives responded in a thunderous finale: This decision will be a stain on our party for years to come and damage our ability to organize for Democratic wins this year, next year, and beyond. Unions backing Fateh including SEIU and Unite HERE called a Friday press conference, an ominous sign for a party where the L in DFL is still a major source of campaign foot soldiers and money. Carlboms ties to Frey only fueled suspicions about a cozy relationship between the state party and the incumbent: The firm of which Carlbom was a partner until 2023 United Strategies has received some $30,000 in consulting fees from the Frey campaign this year. Carlbom seems to have been in a difficult spot, however. The report details an electronic voting system that the committee calls substantially flawed. The narrative describes an old version of the spreadsheet software Excel, powered by broken formulas, and a massive undercounting during the first round of voting. Hours of challenges and delay followed. The credentials sheet was left unsecured and apparently accessed by people who shouldnt have had access, including the campaigns. Another candidate, DeWayne Davis, secured enough votes to move on to the next round but was wrongly excluded. The entire Ward 5 credentials book was lost. The final vote was a show of hands. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For Fateh defenders, the convention problems and the entire challenge are all noise because they insist Frey had no chance to win, while Fateh merely needed to consolidate the anti-Frey delegates for the victory they say has now been unjustly revoked. Now, Carlbom and other prominent Democrats must deal with the potential fallout, which could anger progressives across the river and into the newly blue suburbs. Even if the rage were to remain local, however, the consequences could be substantial. The 5th Congressional District, which encompasses Minneapolis, delivered 293,00 votes to Vice President Kamala Harris last year, some 40,000 more than the DFL-rich 3rd and 4th Districts. If progressives stay home next year or even feel less inclined to volunteer, that could help Republicans achieve their first statewide win in 20 years. Jeff Blodgett, a longtime DFL consultant who managed the campaigns of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, said hes confident Democrats will find unity out of purpose next year: The stakes in these election are so high that I dont think people are going to boycott them due to frustrations with intraparty DFL controversies. He called Carlbom a dynamic chair who is leading a state DFL that is well funded and doing off-year organizing and messaging that will pay off next year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, the divisive mayoral race is just the latest challenge to beset Democrats, the list of mistakes and misfortunes growing seemingly by the day. From the farcical a state senators second drunk driving arrest while in office; the felony conviction of a different state senator to the tragic, in the form of the assassination of House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. The party also has real, substantial differences it must either resolve or more likely learn to live with. Israels war on Gaza, for instance, has riven the party, often along demographic lines, with young progressives supporting the boycott, divest and sanctions movement and accusing older Democrats like Sen. Amy Klobuchar who has also endorsed Frey of complicity in genocide. The DFLs struggles, after a long run of governance, evoke some similarities to national Democrats of the late 1960s: A party dominant since FDRs New Deal but then exhausted and fractured by the Vietnam War, civil unrest and urban disorder, changing demographics, racial struggle, countercultural anthesis and the murder of beloved leaders. The climactic scene of 1968 also took place at a political convention, this one in Chicago, where the emerging New Left were embittered at the defeat of their insurgent antiwar candidate Sen. Eugene McCarthy. What followed was a period of Republican dominance that has helped shape the country we live in today. *A previous version of this article misstated the year Carlbom left United Strategies. Our ancestors are known to have gotten frisky with other, now-extinct species of humans, leaving traces in our DNA to this day. A new analysis has found that a certain genetic variant inherited from the Denisovans may have given modern humans (Homo sapiens) an edge in populating the American continents. "Typically, genetic novelty is generated through a very slow process," says evolutionary biologist Emilia Huerta-Sanchez, from Brown University in the US. "But these interbreeding events were a sudden way to introduce a lot of new variation." Related: We Just Got Even More Evidence of Humans Interbreeding With Mysterious Denisovans The MUC19 region of the human genome codes for a mucin protein which, as the name suggests, is involved in the formation of mucus, the gel-like substance our cells secrete to build and lubricate our bodies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We all have MUC19 genes, but it turns out people with Indigenous American ancestry are more likely than other populations to have a particular variant of this gene that can be traced back to the ancient, now-extinct Denisovans. After close analysis of ancient and modern genes, Huerta-Sanchez and colleagues found this variant did not arrive in our DNA directly: it took a meandering path that allowed it to survive far beyond the human species from which it originated. "Our results point to a complex pattern of multiple introgression events, from Denisovans to Neanderthals and Neanderthals to modern humans, which may have later played a distinct role in the evolutionary history of Indigenous American populations," the authors write. This explains how a gene associated with a species of ancient humans that we know lived in Tibet and Siberia came to reach such a distant continent, even though it seems the Denisovans themselves never did. The proposed evolutionary history of MUC19. (Villanea et al., Science, 2025) The Denisovan chunk of DNA appeared at the highest frequencies within the genomes of 23 ancient Indigenous American individuals, found at archaeological sites in Alaska, California, and Mexico. These remains pre-date the arrival of Europeans and Africans to the continent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Based on data collected as part of the 1,000 Genomes Project, a worldwide survey of human genetic variation, the authors found that contemporary Latino Indigenous Americans also have this signature Denisovan gene at high frequencies. Using a number of statistical tests, the team also revealed that as Homo sapiens migrated into North America, they experienced a massive expansion of repeated sequences within the MUC19 region of their genomes. According to the authors, this expansion "effectively doubles the functional domain of this mucin, indicating an adaptive role driven by environmental pressures particular to the Americas." Related: Ancient Humans Had Sex With More Than Just Neanderthals, Scientists Find This repetition occurred in a region that determines the protein's ability to bind to sugars, allowing it to form a stickier version of the mucin glycoprotein. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Making their mucus stickier must have offered some benefit that improved the success of survival and reproduction in these new environments, the team says. It's tricky to pin down exactly what that benefit may be, but the authors note that some other mucin genes, like MUC7, feature variants that have different microbe-binding properties, which are crucial for host-microbe symbiosis like that which occurs in our guts, mouths, and nether-regions. Perhaps the Denisovan-like genes allowed humans to cooperate with a beneficial North American microbe, or perhaps they helped to reject harmful ones. "Something about this gene was clearly useful for these populations and maybe still is or will be in the future," Huerta-Sanchez says. "We hope that leads to additional study of what this gene is actually doing." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This research is published in Science. Related News (FOX40.COM) The Sacramento County Sheriffs Office said it arrested Bonnie and Clyde wannabes after a failed robbery Thursday morning. Video Above: How to report a public safety threat Shortly after midnight, SCSO said two suspects, Brian Ruvalcabadiaz, 30, Serena Kumiko Lee, 24, approached a vehicle and demanded money from the driver at gunpoint. The victim gave them money, and both suspects fled in a vehicle. Trump administration halts work visas for commercial truck drivers amid fatal crashes Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Less than half an hour later, deputies said they found the vehicle nearby and detained both suspects. A search revealed an unregistered firearm and narcotics. According to SCSO, the man and woman were arrested for multiple felonies and transported to the Sacramento County Main Jail, where they remain on $50,000 bail. They are scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 25. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News. DECATUR TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) Deputies are investigating a drive-by shooting near Decatur that sent one man to the hospital. It happened around 10:25 p.m. Thursday on the 84,000 block of 42nd Street near Burgess Road. An unknown suspect in a vehicle fired multiple rounds at a home, then fled, according to the Van Buren County Sheriffs Office. A 25-year-old Decatur man, who was on the porch of the home at the time, was hit by one of the rounds, deputies said. They said he was taken to the hospital with injuries that were critical but not considered life-threatening. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No arrests had been made as of early Friday morning, but deputies said they believed the shooting was an isolated incident and there was no threat to the public. The sheriffs office continues to investigate. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. TALLAHASSEE, Florida In the face of a court order requiring the state to dismantle its touted and controversial Alligator Alcatraz detention center, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida remains committed to the mission of carrying out President Donald Trumps immigration enforcement efforts. State officials, led by the GOP governor, quickly rebuffed the Thursday night ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama-era appointee. The ruling would make it impossible to operate Alligator Alcatraz by requiring the removal of fencing, lighting and generators. Florida already appealed the decision Friday morning, as the state prepares to open a second immigrant housing facility in a vacant prison outside Jacksonville. This is a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake, DeSantis said Friday during an event in Panama City. This was preordained, very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is not going to deter us. We're going to continue working on the deportations, advancing that mission. The comments from DeSantis underscore how Florida is taking a hard-line position against illegal immigration and hoping to lead on the state level in enforcing Trumps deportation push. State leaders have been vocal and public supporters of the countrys revamped immigration policies, authorizing state agencies to sign 287(g) illegal immigration assistance agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Florida this week dispatched Lt. Gov. Jay Collins to California to ensure an immigrant from India who allegedly killed three people in a semi-truck crash was extradited back" to the state. While some of Floridas moves, including the establishment of the Alligator Alcatraz facility in the Everglades, are being fought in court, DeSantis pledged the state will make sure to get the job done in the end. You have people that are in this country that have already been ordered to be removed by the current system, and yet the previous administration didn't want to do anything about it, DeSantis said Friday. We're now in this position where we're leading the state efforts to help the Trump administration actually enforce the law and actually remove these illegal aliens from not just Florida, but from our country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Thursdays court order, Williams challenged the "Alcatraz" facilitys operation on environmental grounds and ordered the state to stop construction at the facility and, within 60 days, remove fencing, lighting and generators. This case is now slated to play out in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The state, meanwhile, is gearing up to open a second migrant detention center in Baker County, west of Jacksonville, that is expected to hold some 1,300 people and eventually up to 2,000. We're not going to be deterred; we're totally in the right on this, DeSantis said Friday. But I would also note, because of the success of Alligator Alcatraz, there's demand for more." Florida's local governments are falling in line with the unprecedented swoop from Tallahassee of state audit teams examining how tax dollars are being spent. But while city and county officials comply, Gov. Ron DeSantis newly appointed state chief financial officer, Blaise Ingoglia, keeps ratcheting up a confrontational tone. Through our travels, we are seeing local governments spend on things that they probably shouldnt be spending on, Ingoglia said recently in St. Petersburg. Were seeing them give out egregious raises Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When Ingoglia was cut off by a handful of citizen hecklers attending his news conference at St. Petersburg City Hall, he pivoted. Hey, guys, I know that you love wasteful spending, Ingoglia shot back. We have signs made for you that say I heart wasteful spending. Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia answers questions from the media after being sworn-in as CFO on Monday, July 21, 2025. Democrat: State is run by bullies Rep. Lindsay Cross, a St. Petersburg Democrat, said that kind of theatrics seems to be central to the state sweep. Cities and counties are seeing that our state and country are run by bullies, said Cross, also an environmental scientist and the former government relations director for Florida Conservation Voters. For local governments, I think they have to be selective about when they push back and when they cooperate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, where Ingoglia served in the state Senate until his appointment as CFO last month, have long targeted cities and counties with so-called preemption laws aimed at limiting their authority to tax and regulate. But the offensive by Ingoglias team is going much farther. The state now is going directly at the decision-making of councils and commissions elected by city and county residents. Data shows that Floridas previously red-hot housing market has certainly yielded a bounty of property tax collections in recent years. More than $55 billion in property taxes flowed to counties, cities, school boards and Floridas special districts last year more than double what was collected in 2014. It was even 46% higher than the amount taken in statewide just four years ago, state records show. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Suddenly, the state is demanding explanations for how every property tax nickel is spent. Governor Ron DeSantis was at Front Street Civic Center Monday, Aug. 11 to celebrating the completion of the Crane Creek/M-1 Canal Flow Restoration Project a major milestone in protecting the Indian River Lagoon and improving regional resiliency. While auditors work, DeSantis behind the effort For his part, Ingoglia openly acknowledges that the exercise supports DeSantis call for a ballot measure next year to sharply cut property taxes. Questions about his auditing efforts put to the CFO's office were referred to the governor's office, which failed to acknowledge them. How far DeSantis' tax-cutting plan will go is still unclear. But cities and counties warn that a dramatic reduction will certainly hamper local services, beginning with police and fire. In Florida, property taxes are the biggest source of dollars for 51 of 67 counties and almost half of the states 411 cities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, any questionable spending by local governments unearthed by the auditors will likely be held up as confirmation of the DeSantis theory that cities and counties fritter away money and can live with far fewer tax collections. DeSantis in February created a "Florida State Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) task force, which he said would work to cut waste within state government, save taxpayers money, and ensure accountability in Florida." He modeled it on the federal Department of Government Efficiency, briefly headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk. DeSantis' executive order creating a "DOGE Team" calls on it to use "publicly available information to identify and report unnecessary spending within county and municipal governments," among other things. The Republican-controlled Legislature followed-up with a measure compelling local governments to cooperate with DOGE auditors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Ingoglia is spearheading these DOGE audits, he has tried to draw some separation from Musk's controversial work at the federal level. Referring to his work, Ingoglia coined the name: Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO). But some see a heavy-handed parallel between President Trumps approach to governing and that of DeSantis. Theyre just trying to create a narrative looking at cities and counties and policies they dont agree with, that basically dont fit their idea of what the free state of Florida should be, Cross said. But theyre missing that cities and counties should be free to govern the way their residents want. Searching for waste, looking mostly in 'blue' places Along with St. Petersburg, state auditors' stops have included Gainesville and Jacksonville, Hillsborough, Manatee, Alachua, Orange and Broward counties. On Aug. 19, they began work in Palm Beach County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Manatee and Hillsborough are Republican counties. But most of the other communities where DOGE has been working are Democratic-leaning. Part of a pattern... Florida's GOP-led Legislature aims to limit the power of city, county governments What DeSantis wants later... Florida Gov. DeSantis targets bloated local budgets in property tax slash push Revolution in the air?... Florida cities push back on new state law limiting local planning powers Spending tied to diversity, equity and inclusion guidelines or going to support electric vehicles and other climate change-related initiatives are part of the states focus. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement George Kruse, chair of the Manatee County Commission, said his board invited the DOGE team to come in, and its work was completed in a couple of days. Kruse saw no harm, but he also conceded that hes unsure about what will result. Look, theyre not forcing an audit on a private enterprise: Were local government, Kruse said. I see it as, where else can you get free consulting like this? Were getting a bunch of people down using the states money to assess what were doing, for free, presenting to us, presumably, advice about what are best practices for the good of our taxpayers. ... If they want to send down lifeguards for our pools, thatd be fine, too, he added. There have been few signs local governments are looking to keep public documents or records away from inquiring state auditors. Still, Ingoglia has thrown out the accusation that some communities are looking to impose conditions and bureaucratic red tape on state auditors, hindering their efforts to find waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a letter to Democratic Mayor Donna Deegan of Jacksonville, Ingoglia threatened legal subpoenas, if necessary, to compel her city and others to produce their books. I am not afraid to use that power, Ingoglia warned. Deegans office said of the audit team visit: We welcome any financial evaluation not driven by partisanship or political gamesmanship." Katie Belanger, senior consultant with the Local Solutions Support Center, a national non-profit which tracks the interplay between state and local governments, said DOGE plans were proposed through legislation in 11 states, including Florida, this year. Key for leaders like DeSantis is consolidating power, Belanger said, adding, This is actually aimed at eroding the ability of local governments to function at all. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Networks Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on X at @JKennedyReport. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: DeSantis-backed CFO launches aggressive audits of local spending Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis fired back after Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith decried the state's move to nix rainbow colors from a crosswalk in Orlando near the site of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub that left 49 dead and others wounded. In a video he posted on Thursday, the state lawmaker said "the Florida Department of Transportation, in the middle of the night, ripped the rainbow colors off of this city crosswalk." Responding to a media outlet's post on X that featured Smith's video, DeSantis asserted, "We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Desantis Posthumously Awards Governor's Medal Of Freedom To Jimmy Buffett, Politicians: Great Floridians Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to reporters during a press conference as he stands on the airplane runway of Alligator Alcatraz in Ochopee, Fla., July 25, 2025 "The rainbow crosswalk was APPROVED by FDOT years ago to honor the 49 + enhance pedestrian safety for those who come to pay their respects. You looked survivors in the eye + promised they would never be forgotten-- then betrayed them for political ambition. They won't be erased," Smith fired back in a post. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has also decried the Sunshine State's move. Read On The Fox News App "We are devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue. This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nation's largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety data or discussion, is a cruel political act," Dyer said in a statement issued Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Federal Judge Blocks Florida From Further Expansion Of Alligator Alcatraz Immigration Detention Facility At left, the crosswalk is shown in 2017. At right, the crosswalk is pictured Thursday, Aug. 21. 2025 "The City of Orlando's safety crosswalks were all installed in close coordination with the state and adhere to national safety standards. In fact, the crosswalk that is part of the Pulse Memorial was installed by the state." FDOT provided Fox News Digital with a lengthy statement on Friday. The department asserted that it must "ensure the safety and consistency of public roadways and transportation systems," which "means ensuring our roadways are not utilized for social, political or ideological interests." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Longtime Trump Ally Formally Succeeds Whatley As Republican Party Chair Construction equipment is parked behind the "Welcome to Orlando" sign outside the Central Florida Fairgrounds Nov. 24, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. "Earlier this year, the Department completed a months-long process of updating the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) with input from representatives of state and local governments. This update included a prohibition on non-uniform traffic control devices, such as pavement markings on state and local roads," the statement continued. "In June, FDOT notified all local governments of these updates and revised provisions of Florida statutes that give the Department authority to withhold state funds for noncompliance. This was followed by similar policy updates from USDOT Secretary Duffy. "Last week, local governments not in compliance (with) local roads began receiving notifications to bring their roadways up to state standards to ensure locals govern themselves accordingly," FDOT added. "In addition to ensuring all local governments comply, FDOT completed a review of all state-maintained roadways and is now correcting pavement markings not in compliance. That includes street art previously installed on state right of way, such as the intersection of Orange Avenue in question. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Transportation infrastructure is for the movement of people and goods. In this case, while the crosswalk has been restored to its proper form, local efforts are underway to construct a permanent memorial on adjacent properties funded by the State of Florida. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is false." Original article source: DeSantis fires back after Dem decries Florida's move to ditch LGBT rainbow colors from crosswalk in Orlando TALLAHASSEE Gov. Ron DeSantis administration is planning to challenge a federal court ruling that would all but shut down the operations at Floridas makeshift immigration detention camp in the Everglades within the next 60 days, an outcome that could set back the states immigration enforcement efforts. At a news conference on Friday, DeSantis said the federal judge presiding over the case did not give the government a fair shake and said the state would respond accordingly. This was preordained, very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench, he told reporters. This is not going to deter us. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The governors comments came less than a day after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered the state to stop taking in immigrant detainees at the Everglades detention camp, known as Alligator Alcatraz. The site, which was the first state-run immigration detention camp in the country, would also need to move out existing detainees and remove all generators, gas, sewage, lighting and fencing within the next nine weeks. As of Thursday, there were just shy of 400 detainees at Alligator Alcatraz. Williams preliminary injunction, which will hold as the case continues to be litigated, was in response to a lawsuit that was filed by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe over concerns that the detention camp presents risks to the ecosystem in the Everglades. In the order, Williams said the site was likely to pose a threat to the surrounding environment, including endangered species like the Florida panther and that runoff from the facility could affect tribal territory. The Florida Division of Emergency Management, the agency that is overseeing the detention camps operations, has yet to file its arguments on merits for an appeal. But it has filed an intent to appeal the decision in court. The notice to appeal was filed almost immediately following Williams decision on Thursday night. The Eleventh Circuit Court has yet to assign a docket number to the case. As the government works to appeal the decision, state and federal officials are publicly attributing their loss in federal court to Williams, a veteran jurist appointed by former President Barack Obama. In June, Williams held Attorney General James Uthmeier in contempt of court after he told law enforcement agencies they could ignore her order blocking the enforcement of a law that makes it illegal for undocumented immigrants to enter the state of Florida. DeSantis and Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin have both called her an activist judge. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This ruling from an activist judge ignores the fact that this land has already been developed for a decade, McLaughlin said in a statement Thursday. It is another attempt to prevent the President from fulfilling the American peoples mandate to remove the worst of the worst including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, terrorists, and rapists from our country. When President Donald Trump visited the site on July 1, he said it would be a place where vicious criminals would be housed and then deported. But a Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald analysis found that hundreds of immigrant detainees sent to the site had no criminal convictions or pending charges in the United States. At the end of July, when the number of detainees at the site was around its peak, only one in five of the roughly 1,400 detainees at the site had been ordered removed from the country by a judge, the analysis found. McLaughlin has called Alligator Alcatraz a cost-effective option offered to assist deportations and processing of illegal aliens. On Thursday, she said Williams doesnt care about the invasion of our country facilitated by the Biden administration, but the American people do. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side. At the detention center Alligator Alcatraz remained an active site the morning after Williams ruling. Reporters gathered at the detention centers gates could see shuttles leaving, including a bus filled with detainees who held their shackled hands up to the windows. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava was there as well. She told reporters on Friday that if the site is shut down, the county will have to deal with the aftermath, as it owns the property and is in charge of maintaining it. The county property was seized by the DeSantis administration under emergency powers. What happens when they are gone? We are going to be left with a mess, Levine Cava said. When we have an opportunity to return it to its natural state, there may be further action. I have asked our attorneys to review any possible legal action. DeSantis has already been making plans for another state-run immigration detention site. He announced the state would be usingBaker Correctional Institution, a vacant prison in north Florida, as a second site last week, just as Williams weighed whether or not to shut down Alligator Alcatraz. DeSantis is calling the future site Deportation Depot, and predicts the site will be able to hold up to 2,000 detainees once its opened. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state did not respond when asked when the north Florida site would become operational or whether the state would begin transferring immigrant detainees out of Alligator Alcatraz pending the appeal. Instead, the governors communications director, Alex Lanfranconi, said in a statement: The deportations will continue until morale improves. The question is where and when? The aftershock of U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams' is sending waves through the environmental and political realms as the future of Alligator Alcatraz, at this point, is unsure. But less than a day after the ruling halting operations, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state will not be deterred. "We had a judge try to upset the apple cart with respect to our deportation and detainee center in south Florida at Alligator Alcatraz," Desantis said at a news conference in Panama City on Aug. 22. "This is not something that was not expected. This was a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Williams put in place a temporary injunction that says DeSantis and President Donald Trump should pack up all the trucks, bunks, tarps, fences and people and vacate the property. DeSantis response was no surprise to the opposition. "This is a win for the environment," said Betty Osecola, an influential member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. "And though the preliminary injunction was issued, we still need to take a stand to continue this fight because we know very well the state and the federal government are going to continue in their efforts in appealing this decision." The Miccosukee reservation is just a few miles from the Alligator Alcatraz site, which was formly a flight training center operated by Miami-Dade County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To make matters more complicated, the facility is actually in Collier County, where commissioners have vowed to stay out of this divisive matter. Stars can be seen over the Everglades on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. Photographed from Burns Lake Campground looking east towards Alligator Alcatraz and the east coast of Florida. The Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area is considered a dark skies designated location. Some are concerned about the construction of Alligator Alcatraz, saying that it is causing light pollution. Alligator Alcatraz is a controversial immigration detention center at the enterface of the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. Construction started in June, after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the detention center on social media. More: Judge tells Trump admin to pack up Alligator Alcatraz, leave the Everglades, Big Cypress The center wasn't the idea of a planning staff, a review committee or even the Department of Homeland Security. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And Alligator Alcatraz didn't go through the typical review process as DeSantis declared a state of emergency to avoid staff review and public comment periods. "You have people that are in the country that have already been ordered to be removed by the system," DeSantis said. "And the previous administration didnt want to do anything." Earlier Aug. 22, Alex Lanfranconi, the governor's communications director, released a statement: The deportations will continue until morale improves. The ruling stems from a June 27 lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The defendants in the case include the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and Miami-Dade County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "So, let's celebrate this win today, but let's stay determined for that fight for the long haul," Osceola said. DeSantis remained committed to the plan. "Were in the position of leading the state efforts to help the Trump administration remove these illegal aliens not just from Florida but from our country," he said. The other Alligator Alcatraz lawsuit In another case focusing on plaintiffs legal and civil rights, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz ruled Aug. 18 the matter should move to a different court while also declaring part of the lawsuit moot. At the heart of the case was whether the government had violated detainees rights to due process and legal counsel. Civil rights attorneys had said the remote Everglades facility made it nearly impossible for immigrants to speak confidentially with lawyers or even find out which immigration court can hear their cases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plaintiffs attorneys filed suit in the Southern District of Florida, which includes Miami-Dade County, though state and federal officials argued that it should have been filed in the Middle District of Florida, which includes Collier County. More: Alligator Alcatraz starting to take shape on the edge of sacred ceremony grounds In his 47-page order, Ruiz agreed, transferring the case to the middle district. He also dismissed the immigration-court allegations in the lawsuit, saying they were moot after a federal decision that judges at Krome North Processing Service Center would handle the detainees cases. The case now heads to a sister court in the Middle District of Florida to reach the merits of plaintiffs remaining claims under the First Amendment, Ruiz wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DeSantis said the most recent ruling won't affect operations. "This is not going to deter us. "Were going to continue the deportations and this mission," he said. Breaking News and Visuals Editor Stacey Henson contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Alligator Alcatraz will continue operations says Florida governor BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) Governor Cox spoke at his monthly press conference about Ryan Michael Bate, accused of killing two Tremonton officers and injuring a Deputy and K9 Officer. An initial court date has been set for Bate. A court date has been set for Ryan Bate, 32, who allegedly shot and killed Sergeant Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada during a domestic disturbance on August 17, 2025. He also allegedly shot and injured Deputy Mike Allred and K9 Officer Azula, attacked his wife, and shot at a neighbor. His court date, scheduled for August 22, 2025, will be an initial appearance, where Bate will hear the formal charges brought against him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Charges officially filed against alleged Tremonton shooter, seeking death penalty Bate has been charged with the following: Two counts of aggravated murder, which are capital offenses Four charges of attempted aggravated murder (first-degree felony) Endangering a police service K-9 with the intent to injure/kill (third-degree felony) Three counts of possessing an explosive or incendiary device (second-degree felony) Two counts of possession of a dangerous weapon with criminal intent (class A misdemeanor) Three counts of assault, domestic violence with prior (class A misdemeanor) One count of unlawful detainment, domestic violence with prior (class A misdemeanor) One count of threat of violence, domestic violence with prior (class A misdemeanor) Three counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child (Class B misdemeanor) Additionally, the prosecutor has refiled several domestic violence charges against Bate, which were dismissed without prejudice on August 24, 2024. Those charges include aggravated assault, multiple counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, and property damage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If convicted, could the alleged Tremonton shooter face the death penalty? Lawyer weighs in There is a review that is happening of this persons background, history and background specifically around domestic violence, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said. Cox also took issue with people who says the system failed, The answer cant always be when somebody does something wrong, we lock them up forever. That cant be the answer. So, were always trying to find balance in the system. Notably, the Box Elder County Attorneys Office filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in this case, indicating that Bate could face execution if convicted on the counts of aggravated murder. Governor Cox said, He deserves the death penalty. Latest headlines: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Sirius XM is going through some growing pains, though with revenue declining slightly for the third consecutive year it's probably better to diagnose this as "lack of growing" pains. It is serving satellite and streaming content to 33 million subscribers. Retention is within historical standards, shedding 1.5% of its audience every month. The challenge has been getting new listeners on the platform, a tricky feat given sluggish car sales and younger drivers turning to cheaper content through smartphone apps streaming through their connected cars. Berkshire Hathaway had a 35.5% stake in the satellite radio monopoly at the end of the second quarter, but four purchases between July 31 and Aug. 4 have boosted its stake in Sirius XM to a whopping 37% of the media stock. It's worth noting that Buffett's company made these trades after the stock took a hit after posting poorly received financial results on the morning of July 31. Berkshire Hathaway isn't afraid to buy the dip, something that it has done often with Sirius XM as it has shed nearly a quarter of its value over the past year. There was a lot of chatter last week about the stocks that Berkshire Hathaway was trading during the second quarter. Lost in the news cycle was Buffett's company quietly adding to his already sizable position in Sirius XM long after the quarter ended. Unlike the quarterly updates that Berkshire Hathaway announces every three months, its sizable stake in Sirius XM requires it to file every transaction shortly after it happens. Buffett's iconic holding company added to his stake for one of the three stocks in the second quarter. He also added to another one earlier this month. All three are among the more than three dozen publicly traded companies in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio . They are the three names that I believe are no-brainer stocks to buy right now. A lot of eyes are on Warren Buffett. It comes with the territory when you are the greatest investor of our time. I don't like some of the stocks that he owns, but I am fond of Sirius XM Holdings (NASDAQ: SIRI), Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU), and Lennar (NYSE: LEN) as Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) holdings. Lennar was one of the housing plays that Berkshire Hathaway added to last quarter. Berkshire Hathaway added to its Sirius XM stake three weeks ago. It now owns 37% of the media giant. Story continues I still like Sirius XM despite the slow fade-out. It continues to crank out annual free cash flow north of $1 billion. It's a money machine that returns money to its shareholders through stock buybacks and a generous dividend. Sirius XM's quarterly payouts currently yield a healthy 4.7%. This doesn't mean that investors are just collecting dividend checks while parked in quicksand. Sirius XM is trying to make its platform more appealing to younger listeners. With it unlikely to extend its contract with Howard Stern after 20 years, Sirius XM has been investing in rising talk show and podcast talent. The stock is cheap, trading for 8.4 times this year's projected earnings and 7.5 times next year's target. 2. Nu Holdings One of Buffett's more exotic holdings is Nu Holdings, the Brazilian company behind fintech and digital banking speedster NuBank. You may not be familiar with NuBank, but 60% of the adult population of its home country has an account with the branchless bank. It also has a presence in Mexico and Colombia. Unlike the market's poor reaction to Sirius XM's second quarter, investors cheered Nu's performance last week. The stock soared 9% on Friday after delivering a better-than-expected 29% revenue increase in U.S. dollars. Adjusted earnings climbed 34%. The enthusiasm for Nu has continued this week. Three analysts have upgraded Nu this week, including a rare double upgrade from Citi on Tuesday. Analyst Gustavo Schroden sees the business and its earnings momentum accelerating. He previously had a sell rating on the shares, but is bumping it up two steps to a buy. Citi's Schroden is now a believer when it comes to investing in Nu, doubling his target price from $9 to $18 in the process. 3. Lennar An interesting trend among the 12 stocks that Berkshire Hathaway bought last quarter was a play on residential real estate construction. He bought into a pair of homebuilders and a leading steel manufacturer. One of the two developers was Lennar. I'm conflicted on the real estate play. There is certainly room for building more homes, but if mortgage rates head lower in the coming months it's going to open the floodgates of existing homeowners to put their properties on the market. It's been the thin inventory of older homes for sale giving developers a lot of pricing power with their new properties. Lennar's revenue is expected to inch lower this year with a sharper fall in profitability. Lennar is trading for 15 times this year's earnings, but that multiple was in the single digits a year ago when the stock was lower and its net income was higher. On a bright note, Lennar trades at a more compelling 13.5 times next year's expected earnings. It's also expected to return to modest top-line growth in 2026. I'm not as bullish on Lennar as I am with Sirius XM and Nu, but if Berkshire Hathaway sees an opportunity in Lennar I'm going to pay attention. Should you buy stock in Sirius XM right now? Before you buy stock in Sirius XM, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Sirius XM wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $654,781!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $1,076,588!* Now, its worth noting Stock Advisors total average return is 1,055% a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% for the S&P 500. Dont miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of August 18, 2025 Citigroup is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Rick Munarriz has positions in Nu Holdings and Sirius XM. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway and Lennar. The Motley Fool recommends Nu Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 No-Brainer Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy Right Now was originally published by The Motley Fool The U.S. Navy says the impacts from a fire that burned for approximately 12 hours aboard the USS New Orleans earlier this week are limited to forward areas of the ship, though a full assessment of the damage is still ongoing. The San Antonio class amphibious warfare ship, with its crew still aboard, arrived under its own power today at the White Beach Naval Facility on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Readers can first get caught up on what had previously been known about the incident in our initial report here. A full statement put out today from the U.S. 7th Fleet reads: The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18) returned under its own propulsion to White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan, Aug. 22. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement New Orleans is providing its own berthing and galley services remain open, allowing for the crew of nearly 380 Sailors to continue to work and reside aboard their ship. Several Sailors were treated for minor injuries and have returned to full duty. Family members have been updated on the status of the ship and crew. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, and damage assessors are presently aboard inspecting the impact, which was limited to the forward area of the ship. A picture of USS New Orleans that the Japan Coast Guard released while the fire was ongoing on Aug. 20. Japan Coast Guard An initial Navy statement said two sailors sustained unspecified injuries, and that they were treated aboard the ship, before that was changed to several. A press release today from the U.S. Embassy in Japan also only mentions two injured sailors, adding that they have returned to duty. TWZ has reached out for more information. Another defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the ship, said the fire appeared to be contained to the middle decks near the ships bow, Military Times had also reported on Tuesday, which is in line with the Navys latest statement. The official added that multiple decks had been affected, without specifying how many decks were burned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire first broke out at about 4:00 PM local time on Aug. 20 and was extinguished at approximately 4:00 AM local time on Aug. 21, according to the Navy. The Japan Coast Guard separately told multiple news outlets that firefighting activities continued until 9:00 AM local time. 20217 USS New Orleans LPD 18 White Beach 20250821 pic.twitter.com/FY2w24lL1Z (@okadna35) August 22, 2025 New Orleans Sailors firefighting efforts were supported by the crew of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego (LPD 22), which is moored at White Beach Naval Facility, the Navy also said in a release put out on the night of Aug. 20-21. Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force; Japan Coast Guard; and U.S. Navy commands from across Commander, Fleet Activities Okinawa also provided critical support to the firefighting efforts. Footage showing firefighting ships with the Japanese Coast Guard fighting a fire onboard the San Antonio-Class Amphibious Transport Dock, USS New Orleans (LPD-18), off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. pic.twitter.com/czcUFgvSO8 OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 20, 2025 *Details still emerging* USS New Orleans (LPD 18) San Antonio-class Flight I amphibious transport dock reports fire on board while off of Okinawa August 20, 2025 SRC: INT- https://t.co/11Z3Z1PvQM pic.twitter.com/lmYxD055G5 WarshipCam (@WarshipCam) August 20, 2025 The rapid, coordinated, and courageous response to the fire by American and Japanese teams shows, once again, why the U.S.-Japan Alliance is second to none, U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass also said in a statement today. I deeply appreciate the critical assistance of the Japanese and Okinawan governments, which helped ensure the fire was brought under control quickly and without any serious injuries to American or Japanese personnel. Its clear that the operations success was a result of the regular emergency- and disaster-response training our two nations conduct together. More information about the fire aboard the USS New Orleans may now begin to emerge with the ship in port at the White Beach Naval Facility and a more detailed damage assessment underway. Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com King County Sheriffs detectives are asking the public to come forward with any information or surveillance footage regarding a homicide that happened Thursday night. The shooting happened around 9:45 p.m. on Des Moines Memorial Drive South in south Seattle. A man was found shot to death at the scene. Detectives ask that anyone who was at the Red Apple Market or the SeaMar Museum around 7:30 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. to email them at MCUtips@kingcounty.gov and reference Case #: C25025266. Five more cases of measles have been reported in northeast Wisconsin's Oconto County, the state health department announced Aug. 22. These cases are related to the nine cases identified in the county earlier this month, health officials said, indicating the disease is spreading in the community. The state and local health departments are working together to notify additional people who have been exposed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a news conference, Traci DeSalvo, director of the state health department's bureau of communicable diseases, said the 14 cases identified in Oconto County range in age from 7 months to 53 years old, and none so far have been hospitalized. The majority have not been vaccinated for measles. Among youth ages 5-18 years old, about 87% in Oconto County have received both doses of the MMR vaccine, according to DHS data. That's a higher rate than most other counties in the state but still lower than the vaccination rate that public health experts recommend as a target for preventing outbreaks of measles, which is 95%. The U.S. is experiencing its worst year for the highly contagious disease in more than three decades. Nationwide, 1,375 measles cases have been reported as of Aug. 19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 92% have been unvaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. More than one in 10 have been hospitalized. More: Measles cases were reported in Wisconsin. Here's how to check your immunization records Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To check your immunization status for the measles vaccine, you can visit the Wisconsin Immunization Registry at dhfswir.org, or check with your doctor. Symptoms of measles start between 10 days and three weeks after exposure, and include a runny nose, high fever, fatigue, a cough, red and watery eyes, and a red rash with raised bumps that starts at the hairline and moves to the arms and legs. Anyone who develops these symptoms should avoid the public and call their doctor's office or clinic before coming in for an appointment so that others aren't exposed to the virus, according to health officials. Children can get their first dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine between 12 and 15 months and their second between ages 4 and 6. Stephanie Schauer, who manages the state's immunization program, recommended that parents with children who are too young to be vaccinated against measles think carefully before traveling to a place where measles has been spreading. More: Wisconsin Health Department warns of possible measles exposure at two service stations Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More: Where can I get a measles vaccine in Milwaukee? City clinics are offering free MMR vaccinations Madeline Heim covers health and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Five more cases of measles reported in Wisconsin's Oconto County Shortly before 7:00 a.m. Friday morning, the FBI and Montgomery County police were seen at the Bethesda home of John Bolton, who served as national security advisor for part of Donald Trumps first term. Montgomery County police sealed off the street on which Bolton lives while an unmarked black SUV parked in front of Boltons house. Montgomery County police confirmed that they were on site in support of the FBI. Lawfares Ben Wittes was on site, livestreaming on Substack. Following The Bulwarks initial reporting, Rupert Murdochs New York Post reported the FBI had conducted a raid at 7:12 a.m. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton was the target of an investigation at the end of Trumps first term for allegedly disclosing classified information in his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened. A brief refresher: Bolton served as Trumps third national security advisorfollowing the brief stint of Mike Flynn and the stormy tenure of H.R. McMaster. Bolton succeeded McMaster on April 9, 2018 and remained national security advisor until he resigned on September 10, 2019. After leaving the Trump administration, he wrote a book about his tenure. Per government requirements, Bolton submitted the book manuscript to the National Security Council for pre-publication review, a process designed to ensure that former government employees do not inadvertently publish classified information. The review process delayed the books publication. On April 27, 2020, after a lengthy negotiation with Ellen Knight, the senior director for records access and information security management at the NSC, Bolton claimed that Knight gave oral approval to move forward with publication. But on May 2, 2020, the NSCs senior director for intelligence began a supplemental review of the manuscript. The publication date was delayed again. Bolton had given his publisher permission to move ahead with publication while the Ellis review was still underway. Boltons book had already been printed and bound, and members of the media had obtained advance copies when, on June 17, the government sought an injunction to prevent its release. President Trump then attempted to have courts strip Bolton of all proceeds from book sales. The Trump administration initial civil action, U.S. v. Bolton, was followed by an attempt to pursue criminal charges against Bolton. In the fall of 2020, as the presidential election neared a close, Trumps DOJ head for national security matters, John Demers, opened the criminal investigation and empaneled a grand jury to determine whether Bolton could be prosecuted for criminally disclosing classified information. In June 2021, the Department of Justice, under new leadership, dropped its investigation and ended its attempt to hijack the proceeds from book sales. In theory, the statute of limitations for criminally disclosing classified information is five years. Trump terminated Boltons security clearance on January 20 as one of his first acts in office. He also immediately withdrew the government security detail that had been protecting Bolton, who had been the target of an assassination plot arranged by the Iranian government. Bolton was also named on the Members of the Executive Branch Deep State list in the book Government Gangsters published in 2023 by now-FBI Director Kash Patel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three minutes after the raid commenced, Patel cryptically tweeted: More to come as the story develops. Join Bulwark+. Join now Updated at 7:24 a.m. EDT with chronology of the previous legal fights surrounding Boltons book. Updated at 7:32 a.m. EDT with Patel tweet. Updated at 7:34 a.m. EDT with New York Post story. Updated at 8:03 a.m. EDT to reflect that the New York Post photos were not taken this morning. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine visited Portsmouth this week to celebrate two major revitalization projects aimed at transforming the riverfront in Portsmouth and improving the health of the Ohio River. He began his visit at Shawnee Marina, where DeWine and Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Director Mary Mertz announced the launch of a new barge dedicated to beautifying the Ohio River as part of the H2Ohio Initiative. The beautification barge is a custom-built, 30-foot vessel equipped with a hydraulic crane capable of picking up large debris and trash in the river and on the riverbank that may have floated downstream from illegal dumpsites. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was built and purchased by the Lawrence-Scioto Solid Waste Management District with support through the H2Ohio Rivers program and the Lawrence County and Scioto County commissioners. The barge, dubbed the Queen of Clean by local officials, will be operated and maintained by the Lawrence-Scioto Solid Waste Management District. This is an innovative project that involves community support, which is what we like to see in our H2Ohio projects, said Governor DeWine. This boat will be able to assist in large-scale clean-up projects for years to come. Keeping the Ohio River clean and clear of litter is critical for preserving our natural resources for future generations. According to Mertz, the boat not only addresses the water quality of the river by removing all different types of litter, but it will improve habitat and recreation on and along the river. It will be a safe space for wildlife and people who want to recreate, whether thats boating, wildlife watching or fishing, Mertz claimed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The area has been engaging in many cleanups of streams and grounds within the riparian zone for some time. Lawrence-Scioto Solid Waste Management and other partners are no stranger to these tasks. Also at the event was the organizations president, Mike Finley, who said, The new crane boat will be transformative and is a great way to combat litter in the Ohio River and many of our creeks and streams. This will change how the community views our waterways, plus we see this as a way to encourage more recreation and tourism. After his visit at Shawnee Marina, many local leaders boated to the Court Street Landing in Portsmouth, where the riverfront was prepared for a groundbreaking ceremony on its upcoming developments. DeWine joined local leaders in Portsmouth to break ground on a transformational riverfront project along the Ohio River made possible through a $34.2 million grant from the Appalachian Community Grant Programs Wonderful Waterfront Initiative. This funding stemmed from Ohios designation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, which President Biden signed into law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Key elements of the project include a reimagined Alexandra Point Park with a new scenic riverfront overlook; an amphitheater for concerts, festivals, and community events; a new riverwalk trail network; an RV campground; and improved access to the river. Through the Wonderful Waterfronts Initiative, we are not just revitalizing our riverfronts, we are reconnecting communities to their natural heritage, sparking new economic opportunities, and creating spaces that everyone can enjoy, said Governor DeWine. Governor DeWine announced the Appalachian Community Grant Programs Wonderful Waterfront Initiative in May 2024, awarding $204 million to 12 counties to expand access to local waterways, revitalize historic riverfront downtowns, and create new opportunities for tourism and recreation. Many community members assisted in planning for the Scioto County development, with Portsmouth Community Development Director Tracy Shearer leading the effort. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After many months of meeting with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, weve finally received partial approval to begin construction on certain elements of the $34.2M ACGP Riverfront Improvement Project, Shearer explained to the Times after the event. Our project team has worked extremely hard to reach this long-awaited milestone, so, to say were excited to break ground would be an understatement. Many eyes were on Shearer during the visit from the Governor, many expressing gratitude for her hard work. Its humbling to know that so many people are cheering for our city, from designers and engineers, to construction firms, community stakeholders and funding agencies- the extent of involvement in this project is overwhelming, Shearer said. Many community leaders were sitting behind or in front of Governor DeWine during the ceremony. Local leader Justin Clark was there and spoke to the audience. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After his intro, Clark explained, But lets be clear: the investment alone wont deliver the future we dream of. Its what we do with it, together, that will make the difference, Clark said. If you look around, you can see communities refusing to settle for less. This moment is a milestone in a story that has been at least a decade in the making, highlighted by years of local determination. A few years ago, a simple motto took hold; Dream. Build. Live Here. More than words, it became a way of life for people who refused to settle for less. Clark moved into giving much recognition to community non-profits, mentioning many by name for their efforts to improve the community. When he had finished giving examples of local resilience, he wrapped up his speech. Today is a milestone, where outside resources meet local vision. But its not the finish line. Its the beginning. And yes, there will always be voices of doubt. But those voices belong to the old mindset. Today, we celebrate with immense gratitude. Tomorrow, we move forward. Together, Clark said. So, lets leave behind the old doubts. Lets choose unity over division. Collaboration over isolation. Vision over hesitation. Lets keep dreaming. Lets keep building. And lets keep living into the future we collectively imagine for our communities. CLINTON, Ill. (WCIA) DeWitt County highway workers are making their case to the county board to try and get a new contract. This comes after the employees authorized a strike this week. Members say theyve been negotiating since last November with no budge on the wage increase theyre seeking. DeWitt Co. highway employees file strike notice, accuse county of retaliation threats The county says workers are wanting anywhere from 12.5 to 14.5% depending on the job. Union members say this would put them back in line with the rest of the state, which theyre below right now. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The issue really revolves around wages, said County Board Chair Joe Witte. So far, DeWitt County and highway maintenance workers dont see eye to eye. Were years behind on our pay scale, said highway maintenance worker Rob Wickenhauser. Wickenhauser has been working for the county for three years. He said the department is well below the state average for highway maintenance, which is $28.77. Wickenhauser said all of the other county employees are at or above the state average. Were far behind that or, you know, were almost $5 behind that pay scale,Wickenhauser said. And wed like to get up to this days current job wage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the county said this type of jump is just too much at once. State Police squad car wrecked in early morning Urbana crash Witte said they already gave highway maintenance a 5% increase in December of last year. As county board members, we have a fiduciary responsibility to the citizens of the county, and it would be irresponsible of us to approve a raise that is as exorbitant as that, Witte said. Workers also say they want backpay in that 12.5% and 14.5% raise from December 2024. Were patching roads, were plowing snow, Wickenhauser said. Were putting in culverts and drainage, and theres a lot of stuff that we do. Were CDL holders. Were pesticide applicators. I mean, our job is not a one title thing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Wickenhauser said so far, negotiations have not been promising. AFSCME accused the county of violating state labor law during negotiations, first by claiming its very first proposal was its quote final offer and then by openly threatening to fire any employee on strike. We deny those allegations, Witte said. He said the Illinois Labor Relations Board sent the county a letter, and theyre now drafting their response, which is due by September 5th. Despite this claim, both sides say they are hopeful a deal can be reached without a strike. Our goal is still to, at the negotiating table, come to an agreement, Witte said. And thats what were focused on. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While both sides said they will meet twice early next month to negotiate, they would not confirm which days those meetings would take place. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Global logistics giant DHL is restricting parcel services from Germany to the United States due to new tariff regulations imposed by the Trump administration, the Germany-based company said on Friday. For the time being, parcels posted in Germany and destined for the US will only be delivered if they are declared as gifts and if their value does not exceed $100, DHL said at its headquarters in Bonn. Starting Saturday, private customers may continue to send more valuable packages to the US via DHL's more expensive express mail service, while business customers will be allowed to do so from next Tuesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It comes as the US is set to abolish duty-free imports of goods worth less than $800 from August 29, as per an executive order issued by US President Donald Trump. Customs duties of between $80 and $200 will be levied on each item. "The majority of private customer parcels to the US are below the $100 threshold anyway, so private customers are relatively unaffected by the new regulations," a DHL spokesman said, stressing that the restrictions are expected to be temporary. However, it remained initially unclear how long the new rules will be in place. Other European postal services, including in Austria, Sweden and Belgium, have also changed their regulations for parcel services to the US in recent days in light of the planned customs changes. DHL noted that key issues regarding the new rules remain unresolved: "in particular how and from whom customs duties are to be collected in future, what additional data is required and how data is to be transferred to the US customs authorities." I certainly didnt have Indiana embroiled in a debate over new congressional maps on my 2025 bingo card, but here we are. My unsolicited advice to Republicans considering the likely unprecedented move: make the case. Give me population and demographic data that shows the maps must change immediately and then convince me how it will help Hoosiers. Not how it helps President Donald Trump Hoosiers. At this point, no one is doing that, which makes crystal clear this is simply partisan politics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some politicians have called out Democrats in other states with gerrymandered maps, such as Illinois. Gov. Mike Braun made that case in an interview with the Indiana Capital Chronicle on Aug. 12: But the other side of the aisle, I think, have mastered gerrymandering by looking at their maps. And I think its a little bit maybe hypocritical that theyre now so kind of sanctimonious about it. I dont know that they would hesitate if things were reversed. And, a few minutes later: But again, Id like to stress that the most gerrymandered maps in the country are among blue states. But heres the problem: both sides gerrymander. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This years discussion started in Texas, which no one would call a blue state. And I dont care about the maps in another state. I care about Indianas map, the process used to create them and their impact on Hoosier voters. Jacob Stewart: Indiana should use a special census to legitimize Trump's redistricting push My mom taught me that two wrongs dont make a right. Well never get anywhere as a society if the justification for doing wrong is they did it first. And this can be said about a host of public policy issues. I was heartened to see some well-respected Republicans say just that. Speaking up Indiana lawmakers gather in the Indiana Statehouse on Org Day, or organization day, ahead of the upcoming legislative session on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Indianapolis. Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, released a statement condemning the idea. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What we are being asked to do goes far beyond the partisan map fights that happen every 10 years across the country. Rationalizing a mid-cycle redistricting by saying, Democrats gerrymander too is an empty and irrelevant excuse, he said. Instead, we are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election. That would clearly violate the concept of popular sovereignty by making it harder for the people to hold their elected officials accountable and the country would be an uglier place for it. Deery is the latest in a line of GOP lawmakers speaking out against redistricting my running tally is seven now. Republican House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray ran a good process in 2021 drafting maps with 14 hearings all around the state from Sellersburg to Valparaiso. Nine of those hearings didnt have proposed maps because the pandemic delayed data collection and analysis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2011, the process was just as robust with hearings in nine cities taking citizen input. Now, of course, that doesnt mean the maps are perfect. There will always be criticism. You cant keep every community together and they do favor Republicans more than recent Democrat turnout in statewide elections would indicate. But if you look at it, its a map that makes sense. Huston and Bray generally run their chambers cleanly and try to instill respect in the institution. A mid-decade redistricting process would erode that. Best case scenario, it would likely involve a few hearings in Indianapolis only over a week or two. Worst case: they would come in with pre-ordained maps, suspend all rules and approve them in one day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Indiana lawmakers are better than either of those options. Niki Kelly is editor-in-chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle, where this column first appeared. She has covered the Indiana Statehouse since 1999. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana GOP is right to resist Trump's redistricting demands | Opinion On Friday, President Donald Trump delivered a series of confusing comments about that mornings FBI raid on the home of his onetime national security adviser John Bolton. The president told reporters that he was not yet briefed on the raid on the Maryland residence of Bolton, who is a vocal critic of the presidents decision-making, character, and mental acuity. I saw it on television this morning, Trump said, quickly adding: Im not a fan of John Bolton. Hes a real, sort of a low life. Hes not a smart guy. He could be a very unpatriotic guy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since his contentious 17-month stint in Trumps first administration, Bolton has repeatedly drawn his former bosss ireincluding for publishing a 2020 tell-all, In the Room Where It Happened, which described Trump as incompetent and unfit for office. Trumps first-term Justice Department investigated Bolton over the book, claiming it contained classified information. Similarly, Fridays raid, per NBC, was part of a national security investigation in search of classified records. During his remarks about Bolton, Trump also made a point to assert that he could have hypothetically been the one who ordered the search but insisted this was done by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department. In doing so, the president sounded not unlike a Mafia boss describing how he insulates himself from misdeeds. I tell Pam [Bondi], and I tell the group, I dont want to know, but justyou have to do what you have to do. I dont want to know about it. Its not necessary, Trump said, adding, I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. Im actually the chief law enforcement officer, but I feel that its better this way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here, Trump all but admitted to borrowing a page from Englands King Henry II, who is said to have uttered, regarding the archbishop of Canterbury, Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?and thereby enjoyed plausible deniability when his underlings killed the man vexing him. Its not the first time Trump has sounded like a mob boss or a monarch. And it surely wont be the last time the administration seemingly wields the government against those deemed guilty of lese-majeste against him. Five men were arrested in Tarrant County in August on charges ranging from indecency with a child to aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault. This catalog of mugshots and charges does not include every offender in Tarrant County during the month; rather, it highlights the most serious alleged offenses. This edition of Dirty John orders the suspects by both the number and severity of alleged crimes, with violent offenses against children receiving the greatest weight. Curtis Dwayne Goss Booking Date: August 19, 2025 DOB/ID: 0490909 City of Origin: Fort Worth, Texas Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Charges: Aggravated Kidnapping with a Deadly Weapon Aggravated Sexual Assault Authorities alleged that Goss was involved in both a violent kidnapping using a weapon and a sexual assault. Victor Langston Booking Date: August 20, 2025 DOB/ID: 0547142 City of Origin: Forest Hill, Texas Charges: Indecency with a Child by Exposure Indecency with a Child by Sexual Contact Langston was arrested on two felony counts, both tied to alleged sexual offenses involving minors. Michael Picklesimer Booking Date: August 14, 2025 DOB/ID: 0699442 City of Origin: Fort Worth, Texas Charges: Indecency with a Child by Sexual Contact Sexual Assault of a Child Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Picklesimer faces two felony charges alleging sexual assault and indecency with a minor. Authorities have not disclosed further details about the incidents. Christopher Michael Carman Booking Date: August 7, 2025 DOB/ID: 0891143 City of Origin: Mansfield, Texas Charge: Online Solicitation of a Minor for Sexual Conduct Carman was booked on a felony charge after allegedly attempting to solicit a minor online for sexual purposes. Eric Gray Booking Date: August 20, 2025 DOB/ID: 0416433 City of Origin: Arlington, Texas Charge: Indecency with a Child by Sexual Contact Gray was arrested on a single felony count tied to alleged sexual contact with a child. Note: These individuals have been arrested for alleged offenses and are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. All inmate information and booking data were obtained from the Tarrant County Sheriffs Office website. Mugshots were obtained via Mugshots Zone. Agilent Technologies, Inc. (A), headquartered in Santa Clara, California, provides application-focused solutions to the life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets. Valued at $34.1 billion by market cap, the company offers electronic and bio-analytical measurement, semiconductor, and board testing. Shares of this global leader in analytical and clinical laboratory technologies have underperformed the broader market over the past year. A has declined 14.8% over this time frame, while the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has rallied nearly 14.3%. In 2025, A stock is down 11.3%, compared to the SPXs 8.7% rise on a YTD basis. More News from Barchart Narrowing the focus, As underperformance is also apparent compared to the Robo Global Healthcare Technology and Innovation ETF (HTEC). The exchange-traded fund has gained about 4.2% over the past year. Moreover, the ETFs 5.3% gains on a YTD basis outshine the stocks low double-digit losses over the same time frame. www.barchart.com On May 28, A reported its Q3 results, and its shares surged 2.2% in the following trading session. Its adjusted EPS of $1.31 beat Wall Street expectations of $1.26. The companys revenue was $1.7 billion, topping Wall Street forecasts of $1.6 billion. A expects full-year adjusted EPS in the range of $5.54 to $5.61, and expects revenue to be between $6.7 billion and $6.8 billion. For the current fiscal year, ending in October, analysts expect As EPS to grow 5.7% to $5.59 on a diluted basis. The companys earnings surprise history is impressive. It beat the consensus estimate in each of the last four quarters. Among the 17 analysts covering A stock, the consensus is a Moderate Buy. Thats based on eight Strong Buy ratings, and nine Holds. www.barchart.com The configuration has been consistent over the past three months. On Jul. 15, Derik De Bruin from Bank of America Corporation (BAC) reiterated a Hold rating on A with a price target of $128, implying a potential upside of 7.5% from current levels. The mean price target of $138.57 represents a 16.3% premium to As current price levels. The Street-high price target of $165 suggests an ambitious upside potential of 38.5%. On the date of publication, Neha Panjwani did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com District 3 candidates discuss top issues at Charlotte Douglas The debate over working conditions at Charlotte Douglas International Airport has become a focal point in the District 3 election, with candidates expressing differing views on how to address subcontractors concerns. Subcontractors at the airport have voiced complaints about poor working conditions and low wages, urging the Charlotte City Council to implement an ordinance setting minimum standards for employers on city property. The issue has become central to the District 3 race, where the airport is a major economic driver. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Political Beats Joe Bruno spoke to all three candidates about the airport. The 2025 Political Beat Primary Candidate Guide Councilmember Tiawana Brown has been a vocal advocate for the subcontractors, pushing for their concerns to be heard in committee. Let me get this clear and make this crystal clear so people know I understand policy, Brown said, emphasizing the need for action despite legislative challenges. They talk about legislation. They talk about, you know, the red tape and what we cant do. People dont want to hear what you cant do. Warren Turner, a District 3 candidate, supports the decision by Mayor Vi Lyles to break a tie vote and halt the ordinance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When you start talking about wages, they are not city employees, Turner said. We can always encourage them to do something right, but I dont really think that we should directly engage in a private business. Joi Mayo says she wants to review how the city structures its contracts to see if the city can ensure better conditions for workers. I think we need to be thoughtful of how were doing these contracts to begin with, Mayo said. So, you know, you have contracts with these vendors, with American Airlines, I think we need to hold them accountable before you know theyre doing these subcontracting out. >> Bruno will break down the race on The Politcal Beat this Sunday at 11:30 a.m. (WATCH BELOW: Getting to school safely: An inside look into building school buses in North Carolina) Aug. 22The city of Dixon on Monday became the 41st Purple Heart City in Illinois. "We gather here tonight to celebrate a significant milestone for our community. With immense pride, we announced that we are now a national Purple Heart City," Veterans Park Commission Chairman Mike Mills said at Monday's City Council meeting. The designation, from the Military Order of the Purple Heart, is given to cities, counties and other entities that show a commitment to honoring and supporting Purple Heart recipients. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dixon Mayor Glen Hughes read the proclamation at the meeting and noted the city's commitment to honoring veterans through Veterans Memorial Park and VFW Post 540. "I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Mayor Hughes and all the City Council members for their unwavering support in achieving this designation," Mills said. "The Purple Heart Medal symbolizes sacrifice. It serves as a reminder that freedom comes at a price, one that has been paid with courage, devotion and often profound personal loss to every Purple Heart recipient; your service, your strength, your sacrifice, are etched not only in the history of our nation, but now into the very identity of our city." Dixon has also been designated as a POW/MIA city by the Jefferson Barracks POW/MIA Museum in Missouri. Hughes read that proclamation at the March 3 council meeting. MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) A trainee surgeon was released from custody on bail Friday after he was accused of secretly video recording hundreds of medical colleagues in the restrooms of Australian hospitals. Ryan Cho, 28, will likely face around 500 charges relating to 4,500 intimate videos he secretly recorded with phones mainly in the staff restrooms of three Melbourne hospitals since 2021, police alleged in documents cited in the Victoria state Supreme Court. Justice James Elliott ruled that the junior doctor be released on the condition he live with his parents, who moved from Singapore to Melbourne in anticipation of their son's month in prison ending. His parents were required to post a 50,000 Australian dollar ($32,000) surety. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The prosecutor argued that Cho had no meaningful ties to Australia after being suspended from his job and the charges against him could be an inducement to flee. While Cho became an Australian permanent resident in April, he would face deportation if he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months or longer in prison, Hammill said. The judge noted Cho had surrendered his Singapore passport and had no criminal connections to help him leave Australia. Cho ignored reporters' questions as he left the court building wearing sunglasses over his prescription glasses and a surgical face mask. Police allege Cho recorded intimate images of at least 460 women. The judge noted there was no allegation Cho had disseminated those images. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cho was arrested in July after a phone was found recording from inside a mesh bag hanging in an Austin Hospital restroom. Police allege he also recorded in restrooms in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His lawyer Julian McMahon rejected prosecutors fears that if released, Cho could interfere with witnesses. There were likely to be hundreds of witnesses alleging similar offenses, McMahon said. Theres a sense here that if my client were to engage in the criminal offense of interfering with witnesses that it wouldnt affect the outcome of the case, McMahon said. Cho was initially charged with six offenses but another 127 charges were added Thursday, including intentionally recording intimate images without permission. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McMahon said it was too early to tell if the allegations would go to trial. Cho hasn't entered pleas. Cho came to Australia as a student in 2017 and studied medicine at Melbournes Monash University. A trainee surgeon accused of secretly filming hundreds of medical colleagues in hospital restrooms has been released on bail, a court heard on Friday. Ryan Cho, 28, is expected to face around 500 charges linked to 4,500 intimate videos he allegedly recorded with phones. Police allege these were primarily made in staff restrooms at three Melbourne hospitals since 2021, as detailed in Victoria state Supreme Court documents. Justice James Elliott ruled the junior doctor could be released on condition he reside with his parents, who moved from Singapore to Melbourne anticipating his release. His parents were required to post a 50,000 Australian dollar surety. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The prosecutor argued that the charges presented Cho with an inducement to flee and he had no meaningful ties to Australia after being suspended from his job. While Cho became an Australian permanent resident in April, he would face deportation if he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months or longer in prison, Hammill said. The judge noted Cho had surrendered his Singapore passport and had no criminal connections to help him leave Australia. Police allege Cho recorded intimate images of at least 460 women. The judge noted there was no allegation Cho had disseminated those images. The parents of trainee surgeon Ryan Cho, arrive at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Con Chronis/AAP Image via AP) (AAP IMAGE) Cho was arrested in July after a phone was found recording from inside a mesh bag hanging in an Austin Hospital restroom. Police allege he also recorded in restrooms in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His lawyer Julian McMahon rejected prosecutors fears that if released, Cho could interfere with witnesses. There were likely to be hundreds of witnesses alleging similar offenses, McMahon said. Theres a sense here that if my client were to engage in the criminal offense of interfering with witnesses that it wouldnt affect the outcome of the case, McMahon said. Cho was initially charged with six offenses but another 127 charges were added Thursday, including intentionally recording intimate images without permission. McMahon said it was too early to tell if the allegations would go to trial. Cho hasn't entered pleas. Cho came to Australia as a student in 2017 and studied medicine at Melbournes Monash University. The medical community is waging a public relations fight against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over COVID-19 vaccines as students head back to school across the U.S. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Wednesday issued more expansive COVID-19 recommendations for children than the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), underscoring the growing breakdown in cooperation between doctors and federal health authorities. Parents trying to navigate these recommendations face an increasingly complicated array of recommendations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For children 6 months to 11 years old who are not immunocompromised, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends shared decisionmaking with doctors, effectively leaving it up to parents. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month only approved the Moderna COVID-19 shot the only one on the market for kids with an underlying condition, complicating access for healthy children. The AAP guidance, like the CDC, advises shared decisionmaking for most children, but recommends COVID-19 vaccines for additional at-risk groups, including people who have never received a vaccine or who live with others at high risk of severe COVID. The AAP maintains its own immunization schedule, recommending one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for all children over 6 months old. Ulrich von Andrian, president of the American Association of Immunologists, advised that parents confused by the conflicting messaging consult with a trusted health care professional on how to navigate the guidance. Kennedy fired an opening salvo in the fight over COVID-19 recommendations earlier this year, when the CDC announced it would no longer recommend the COVID-19 shot for healthy children, citing a lack of clinical data to justify annual immunizations. Kennedy is a prominent vaccine skeptic and petitioned the FDA in 2021 to revoke the emergency-use authorizations of the COVID-19 vaccines, as thousands of people were dying of the virus. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Routine immunization for other respiratory viruses such as annual influenza are still recommended by the CDC for children, and RSV monoclonal antibodies are recommended for infants between 8 months and 19 months. Prior to Kennedy taking over Health and Human Services, organizations such as the AAP were typically aligned with the federal government, taking part in meetings discussing immunization recommendations. But when Kennedy gutted the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the AAP chose not to engage in what it called an illegitimate meeting this summer. Other prominent physicians groups welcomed the AAPs guidance. Von Andrian said his group is very pleased to see trusted, independent organizations offering evidenced-based vaccine recommendations for patients and physicians to consider. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is critical that the public and health care professionals have access to credible, trustworthy information about immunizations in order to make informed decisions about how to protect themselves and their loved ones, he added. In a meeting held this week by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policys (CIDRAP) Vaccine Integrity Project, expert members of the group discussed what the current scientific literature supported in regard to COVID-19 vaccinations. [AAPs] recommendations are consistent with our literature findings specifically for COVID, that children at highest risk for severe disease and COVID transmission receive the COVID vaccine, CIDRAP Director Michael Osterholm said in concluding the meeting. Other medical societies will be following them in the coming weeks. Americans will have evidence-based immunization recommendations from medical experts for the viruses responsible for tens of thousands of hospitalizations and deaths annually, and theyll come from clinicians who spend every day caring for these patient populations, he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Supporters of Kennedys decision, however, argue that not recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children falls in line with the current evidence and other guidance around the world. Since 2022, the World Health Organization has taken the same position Secretary Kennedy took. The Canadian vaccination authority took the same position as Secretary Kennedy. The UK vaccination organizations took the same position as Secretary Kennedy, noted Monique Yohanan, physician and senior fellow at the conservative nonprofit Independent Women. The World Health Organization does not recommend routine COVID-19 revaccination for healthy children and adolescents, recommending the shot for all immunocompromised people, and children and adolescents with at least one comorbidity. We were the only country in the world recommending this vaccine for healthy kids. So, from my perspective, AAP right now is an outlier with regards to science, Yohanan added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yonahan expressed concern that the discourse over COVID-19 vaccines would bleed into how parents feel about vaccinating against other illnesses, which she believes are more pressing issues. I think its really important as we get to school season, for parents to revisit we definitely dont have enough kids who are vaccinated against the measles, she said. We definitely need to focus on the vaccines that are important for community protection. In recent years, the U.S. has fallen off the ideal 95 percent vaccine coverage rate for protection against measles. The west Texas region where the measles outbreak was only recently declared over had nearly half of all students exempted from measles vaccinations. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, according to military documents obtained by AFP. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. But these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February this year, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. "We have never seen vessels with this capability so close to our shores -- ships equipped for air, land and sea warfare," New Zealand Defence Force officials wrote in briefings released under freedom of information laws. The flotilla included a Renhai-class destroyer, one of the most advanced warships in the world and China's "most capable surface combatant", according to the documents. It was only the second time a Renhai-class destroyer -- first commissioned in 2020 -- had been seen in the South Pacific, New Zealand defence officials noted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first foray came just months earlier, in October 2024, when a Renhai-class ship docked in Pacific island nation Vanuatu. "We have not been informed by the Chinese government why this task group has been deployed into our region," read a New Zealand Defence Force briefing from February. "And we have not been informed what its future plans are." - 'Didn't come to see penguins' - Escorted by a supply tanker and a smaller naval frigate, the Renhai-class destroyer Zunyi was spotted off the eastern coast of Australia in mid-February. "We have, in an unprecedented way, put in place assets to shadow the task group so that we know exactly what's happening," Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Australia and New Zealand were caught off guard when the Zunyi started live-fire drills underneath a busy flight path in the Tasman Sea, forcing dozens of commercial planes to change course. While both Canberra and Wellington stressed the task group was within the bounds of international law, they were unhappy about its conduct. "We have concerns about the manner in which the task group notified its intention to conduct live fire exercises, which we do not consider meets best practice," New Zealand officials wrote. At several points during its voyage, the Chinese task group entered Australia's exclusive economic zone, according to a separate batch of documents released by Canberra. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Australia's Office of National Intelligence said this year it was the "furthest south a People's Liberation Army-Navy task group has operated". Foreign policy expert David Capie said the presence of the Chinese naval task group was "unprecedented" -- and clearly designed to send a message. "The idea they could hold a military exercise, even a fairly routine one, was startling to a lot of New Zealanders," said Capie, the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Wellington's Victoria University. "They didn't come this far south to see the penguins." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - China not sorry - Capie said it also served as a pointed rebuke to Australia and New Zealand, which regularly join patrols in contested parts of the South China Sea that Beijing has tried to claim. "This is a reminder that two can play at that game." China sent shivers through the South Pacific in September 2024, when it test-fired a nuclear-capable missile into the high seas near French Polynesia. It was China's first long-range missile launch over international waters in more than 40 years. Beijing has shrugged off both the naval exercises and the missile test as nothing more than routine military manoeuvres. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't see there's any reason why the Chinese side should feel sorry about that, or even to think about apologising for that," China's ambassador to Australia said in February, speaking about the ships. "As a major power in this region... it is normal for China to send vessels to different parts of the region to conduct various types of activities," ambassador Xiao Qian told national broadcaster ABC. China's New Zealand embassy did not reply to a request for comment. sft/djw/cwl/sco More than 30 states forbid all use of hand-held cell phones while driving, including banning motorists from checking their phone if they're stopped at a red light. Kansas does not. "You can look at your phone when stopped at a red light, but you cannot be reading or writing a communication," said Vanessa Spartan, chief of transportation safety for the Kansas Department of Transportation, in an Aug. 19 email to The Capital-Journal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kansas statute also allows for drivers to read and write a communication on their cell phone during certain specific circumstances spelled out in the state's current distracted driving law, Spartan said. Kansas law allows drivers to look at their cell phone while stopped at a red light but not to read or write any communication. It also allows cell phone use by drivers who are law enforcement officers acting within the scope of their duties. State lawmakers in 2010 banned texting while driving While Kansas law generally allows adult motorists to talk on a cell phone while driving, Kansas legislators voted in 2010 to ban motorists from text messaging while driving. That restriction is part of the state's current distracted driving law, which Spartan said is Statue 8-15.111. That law says that no one except in certain, specific situations may "operate a motor vehicle on a public road or highway while using a wireless communications device to write, send or read a written communication." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement KDOT recommends drivers put their cell phones on "do not disturb" or out of site in a place like a glove box or the trunk before taking to the road. In what circumstances does the distracted driving law not apply? The state's distracted driving law says the ban on using wireless communications devices to write, send or read a written communication does not apply to people using such devices to do the following: Report current or ongoing illegal activity to law enforcement. Prevent imminent injury to a person or property. "Relay information between transit or for-hire operator and the operator's dispatcher, in which the device is permanently affixed to the motor vehicle." The law also says the restriction does not apply to "a law enforcement officer or emergency service personnel employee acting within the course and scope of their employment," or to a person who is doing the following: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a vehicle stopped off the regularly traveled part of the roadway. Receives an emergency traffic or weather alert message. Receives a message related to the operation or navigation of his or her vehicle. Reading, selecting or entering a number or name into his or her cell phone "for the purpose of making a phone call." Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934. This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Does Kansas law let drivers check cell phones when at a red light? Ghislaine Maxwell told the Justice Department that there was no blackmail scheme involving Jeffrey Epstein and denied that she ever saw President Donald Trump in any inappropriate setting, according to a transcript of her highly unusual two-day interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Maxwell, Epsteins former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in Epsteins sex trafficking operation, told Blanche, Trumps former personal lawyer, that the president was cordial and a gentleman in all respects in her interactions with him. Maxwell, who asked the Supreme Court to review her conviction, told Blanche that she never saw Trump in any compromising situation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont think they were close friends or I certainly never witnessed the President in any of I dont recall ever seeing him in his house, for instance. I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody, she said, according to the transcript. Maxwell, however, struggled to remember decades old events throughout the interview, as CNN noted, and frequently told Blanche that she did not remember details of her conversations. And Maxwells credibility was previously called into question when she was charged with perjury over alleged lies she told in a 2016 deposition, due to her willingness to lie brazenly under oath about her conduct, as noted by ABC News. Maxwell was granted limited immunity for the interview with Blanche, insulating her from potential charges unless she lied, according to the ABC report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Blanche was dispatched to interview Maxwell after the Trump administration said it would not release additional files related to Epsteins case, including documents that reportedly mention Trump, who spent years as close friends with the disgraced financier. Maxwell denied the existence of an Epstein client list and allegations that he may have been involved in a blackmail scheme. There is no list, Maxwell said, according to the transcript. Im not aware of any blackmail. I never heard that. I never saw it, and I never imagined it. Maxwell, who was convicted of child sex trafficking, denied that she sexually exploited minors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I did introduce him to women. I did, but not underage women, she said. And I did look for masseuses, I did. I went to spas and if I met somebody who said she was a masseuse, I did not check their credentials. Maxwell insisted that she was wrongly accused and did not get a fair trial. I have no memory of having seen anybody that resembles a young child, lets call it what it is, at that house giving him a massage at all, Maxwell said of Epstein. I saw him with a lot of masseuses. I never saw a single masseuse ever look unhappy or not come back or whatever, she added. So any time I saw anybody with him, they were happy to be with him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwells application to review her conviction is pending before the Supreme Court. Her lawyers have said that they have not asked Trump for clemency but would welcome any relief, according to ABC News. The New York Times previously reported that the decision not to release additional Epstein files came after Trump was informed that his name appeared multiple times in the documents. Trump has claimed that he ended his friendship with Epstein in the early 2000s, before his child sex trafficking arrest in Florida. Maxwell, who was previously held at a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Fla., that housed both women and men, was moved to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas that only houses women days after her interview with Blanche. The post DOJ releases Ghislaine Maxwell transcript: Claims she never saw Trump in any inappropriate setting appeared first on Salon.com. (The Center Square) The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday released the audio and transcript interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell, in the interest of transparency, in which she claims President Donald Trump never acted inappropriate. During the two-day interview.pdf), Maxwell was interviewed by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche about her and deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epsteins relationships with Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Notably, Maxwell denied the existence of a client list. She also denied that Epstein was engaging in blackmail or had ties with any intelligence agencies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the interview, Maxwell described the president as a gentleman, and did not implicate him in any wrongdoing. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects, said Maxwell. Blanche asked Maxwell about any interactions the president may have had with masseuses. Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world? Blanche asked. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Absolutely never, in any context, Maxwell responded. Maxwell was also asked about a report in the Wall Street Journal published in July alleging that Trump contributed a bawdy birthday letter as part of a leather-bound book compiled by Maxwell for Epsteins 50th birthday. The president denied any letter, prompting him to file a libel lawsuit against the publication. Do you remember President Trump submitting a letter or a card or a note? Blanche asked. I don't, Maxwell replied. Do you remember seeing that book or any portion of the letters in your discovery in New York? Blanche pursued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yes I remember there was there were some portions of that book. But what surprised me yeah. What surprised me was how few there were, because I thought if you had those, where are the rest? There was none of Mr. Trump, said Maxwell. Blanche pressed Maxwell further. And do you remember but separate and apart from your discovery, do you remember one way or the other whether President Trump submitted a letter for his 50th birthday? he asked. I do not remember, she responded. And the article that references the letter talks about like a sounds like either a naked a picture of a naked woman or something like that. Do you have any recollection of that, Blanche asked again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I do not. But just no, I don't, Maxwell responded. Maxwell was also pressed on the relationship between Epstein, herself, and the Clintons. Do you know whether, for example, President Clinton ever received a massage? asked Blanche. I don't believe he did, she answered. And what makes you say you don't believe he did? Blanche asked. Well, because I don't so that's a good question. The time that Epstein and President Clinton spent together, the only times I believe well, obviously they traveled. There was that, you know, the plane, they went on the plane 26 times or whatever. That would be one journey. So they spent time on the plane together, and I don't believe there was ever a massage on the plane. So that would've been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage. And he didn't, because I was there, Maxwell claimed. Maxwell was also asked about several other prominent figures, including tech leaders, Hollywood entertainers, scientists and royalty. Ghislaine Maxwell said she never saw President Donald Trump behave inappropriately around anyone in Jeffrey Epstein's circle, a transcript of her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has revealed. Blanche interviewed Maxwell, a former associate of Epsteins, last month over two days in Tallahassee, Florida. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in helping Epstein recruit, groom and abuse young girls. About a week after the interview, the 63-year-old British socialite was moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas. Blanche sat down with Maxwell as the Trump administration attempted to quell backlash from Republicans and Democrats alike over its handling of the Epstein investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the wide-ranging interview, Maxwell responded to questions about several famous people with alleged connections to Epstein, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Maxwell told Blanche she never witnessed Trump, who was once friends with Epstein, doing anything inappropriate. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said, according to the transcripts. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. In the bombshell interview: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell said she absolutely never saw Trump behaving inappropriately with anyone in Epstein's circle. She does not believe Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in New York in August 2019 but said she had no idea who might have been responsible. There is no list of Epsteins clients or famous associates, Maxwell claims. Maxwell said she does not believe she ever recruited a masseuse from Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate. She praised Trump during the interview, saying he had accomplished an extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now and that she liked him. The British socialite said claims that Epstein paid her $30 million over several years to recruit young women are categorically false. Maxwell says she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew. Donald Trump poses with Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at his Mar-a-Lago club in 2000. (Getty) Maxwell praises Trumps achievement in becoming the President After Maxwell said she never saw Trump doing anything inappropriate, Blanche asked: Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world? Absolutely never, in any context, Maxwell replied. Maxwell told Blanche she met Trump in the 1990s through her father, the controversial British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. She described Trump as always very cordial and very kind to me. Maxwell said she admires Trumps extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And I like him, and I've always liked him, she added. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him. Ghislaine Maxwell praised President Donald Trump and said she has always liked him (Federal Bureau of Prisons) There is no list of Epsteins clients, Maxwell claims Blanche also asked Maxwell about Epsteins so-called client list or black book that has been said to contain the names of his alleged associates. Maxwell said the list doesnt exist. So there's been a lot of conversations about whether Mr. Epstein maintained, like, a list of people, like a book of famous people that he knew, Blanche said. Like a, it's called a black book or a client list or a list. Did you know of the existence of any such list? There is no list, Maxwell responded. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The FBI and Justice Department released a joint memo last month similarly claiming that Epsteins client list doesnt exist, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi telling Fox News the list was sitting on her desk waiting to be reviewed in February. Maxwell says she doesnt remember recruiting women from Mar-a-Lago Maxwell also said she doesnt recall any masseuses from Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate giving Epstein a private massage, and that she doesnt remember recruiting any masseuses from the estate. This comes after Trump claimed last month that Epstein stole young women working at his Mar-a-Lago spa. Trump said this included Epsteins alleged victim Virginia Giuffre, who claimed Maxwell recruited her in 2000 while she was working as a locker room attendant at Mar-a-Lago. Do you know whether masseuses from Mar-a-Lago's spa ended up giving massages to private massages to Mr. Epstein? Blanche asked. I'm not asking for what you may have read, but from at the time, from your personal knowledge, do you know whether that's true? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I I don't I don't recall, Maxwell responded. Is it possible? Yes. But I don't remember I don't remember that. So I don't want to I don't recall that, but it's possible. Blanche then asked: Do you have a recollection of you ever recruiting a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago spa to give to go give a private massage to Mr. Epstein? I've never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember, Maxwell said. I can't ever recollect doing that. Maxwell also told Blanche she denies the claim that Epstein paid her millions to help recruit young women. What I'm trying to just make sure I that I understand, is that the idea that you were paid $30 million between '99 and 2007, in order to by Mr. Epstein to reward you for recruiting young women, Blanche said. That is in your you're saying that is categorically, completely false? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That is categorically false, correct, Maxwell replied. Maxwell does not believe Epstein died by suicide Blanche also asked Maxwell about Epsteins death. Epstein died in an apparent suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges. While there have been conspiracy theories surrounding his death, the Justice Department and FBI confirmed in a memo last month that he died by suicide. Blanche said: Do you so you think he was he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about. I do not believe he died by suicide, no, Maxwell responded. And do you believe that do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? Blanche asked. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I no, I dont, Maxwell said. Blanche continued to press Maxwell on why she thinks Epstein didnt die by suicide. I ask that because, if you don't believe that there's any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison? Blanche asked. In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary, Maxwell said. That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today. Maxwell went on to note that if he had been killed, it was due to an internal situation at the prison. Blanche then asked Maxwell if she has any reason to believe that Epstein may have been murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail, Maxwell responded. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target. Maxwell addresses connections with former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew Blanche asked Maxwell about other famous people that she and Epstein may have been connected with, including former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Blanche asked if Maxwell was aware of Clinton ever visiting Epsteins private island. He never. Absolutely never went, Maxwell responded. And I can be sure of that because there's no way he would've gone -- I don't believe there's any way that he would've gone to the island, had I not been there. Because I don't believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell also told Blanche that she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew. Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, said she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17. Prince Andrew has denied the claims and paid Giuffre an out-of-court settlement in 2022. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew, Maxwell told Blanche. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew or to Sarah Ferguson. That is a flat untruth. I'll start with that. Justice Department sends Epstein files to House Oversight Committee Earlier Friday, the House Oversight Committee also received the first round of Epstein files from the Justice Department, the Associated Press reports. This comes after the committee subpoenaed the files earlier this month. The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted, a spokesperson for Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. Maxwells interview came as the Trump administration faced blowback over its handling of the Epstein investigation. The Justice Department and FBI released a memo on July 7 indicating there would be no further disclosures related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation. Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the move and have since demanded more transparency from the administration. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. By Gwladys Fouche OSLO/ARENDAL, Norway (Reuters) -Investments in Israel have taken centre stage in Norway's election campaign, sparking an unusually public debate over how the world's largest sovereign wealth fund operates. The row could help sway which political party leads Norway's next government as the Sept. 8 election race is tight. Right-wing parties - the Conservatives, Progress Party, Liberals and Christian Democrats - are currently seen winning 85 seats - just one above the number needed to secure a majority in parliament, an average of all polls conducted in August compiled by pollofpolls.no showed. Turning up the heat on the incumbent Labour party, the left-wing Socialist Left this week said it would only support a future Labour government if it divested from all companies involved in what it called "Israel's illegal warfare in Gaza". Labour rejected the demand, but it may be difficult to reject such calls after the election. WORST EVER CRISIS "This is my worst ever crisis," fund CEO Nicolai Tangen told Swedish daily Dagens Industri on Friday. "This is a serious situation because it is about trust in the fund." In an interview with Reuters last week Tangen ruled out stepping down, saying he had carried out the fund's mandate, as decided by parliament. Since June 30, the fund has divested from 23 Israeli companies following media reports it had built a stake in a jet engine company that provides maintenance for Israeli fighter jets. During the war prior to that the fund had divested from just two Israeli companies. It held stakes in 38 companies worth 19 billion crowns ($1.85 billion) as of Aug. 14, in sectors including banking, tech, consumer goods, and industrials, according to fund data. More divestments are expected, Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg said on Aug. 18. Advocates of divesting from Israel say Norway is contributing to the violation of international law by investing in companies active in the occupied Palestinian territories. They also argue the fund's formal divestment process which follows ethics guidelines set by parliament takes too long, while supporters say it is necessary to be fair. Opponents of divesting, however, argue that formal process is necessary and that singling out a country might violate its ethical rules. LOW PROFILE The fund invests Norway's oil and gas revenue abroad so as not to overheat the domestic economy. Its $2 trillion size is equivalent to $355,000 for every Norwegian man, woman and child. Its operations, and changes to them, generally keep a low profile, something it is currently struggling to do. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Employees of an Oregon-founded, Canadian-owned grocer are calling on customers to stop shopping from the business amid contract negotiations. The Dont Shop Roths campaign, spearheaded by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, urges people to boycott Roths Fresh Markets. UFCW Local 555 is currently pushing the chain to pay meat and deli department employees wages that are comparable to what similar workers are earning in nearby chains like Fred Meyer, Safeway and Albertsons, according to the organizations Communications Director Miles Eshaia. White House border czar makes visit to Portland ICE facility Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Roths debuted its first store in Silverton in 1962, and the business has since expanded to nine locations statewide. Pattison Food Group, a grocery and drug giant based in British Columbia, acquired the business in 2021. According to UFCW Local 555, new ownership charges customers more for products that are priced lower at other stores while refusing to match the wage increases of nearby competitors. In a statement, the Roths Communication Team said the grocer is still bargaining with workers in good faith after reaching several tentative agreements. We have a strong track record of reaching mutually beneficial agreements with our union partners and are confident we will do so again as negotiations continue, Roths added in an email. Roths remains committed to delivering quality groceries at competitive prices to our customers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KOIN Morning Digest Several billboards in support of the unions campaign have popped up in Salem. They state Roths Caught Underpaying Americans, Canadian-Owned Roths Wont Pay American Workers and Lower Pay Higher Prices. Dont Shop Roths campaign billboard (Courtesy UFCW Local 555) Dont Shop Roths campaign billboard (Courtesy UFCW Local 555) Dont Shop Roths campaign billboard (Courtesy UFCW Local 555) We cannot have another store in the area that is represented under the same contract, receiving the same benefits just being paid less, Eshaia said. That doesnt make any sense. Extreme heat advisory, watch, warning: Whats the difference? He told KOIN 6 that workers have unanimously authorized a strike, but union leaders have yet to launch one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Employees at several New Seasons Market locations throughout Portland were the last Oregon grocery workers to launch a strike. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. A Door County rafter and shipwreck hunter has discovered a ship that went missing in Lake Michigan 138 years ago. In mid-July, Matt Olson, owner of Door County Adventure Rafting, said he was clicking through satellite images online when he noticed a dark shape in the water near Rowleys Bay. A week later, he was in the area scouting for new rafting spots and confirmed the shape was, in fact, a long-lost wreck. The remains of the Frank D. Barker, which were discovered off the coast of Door County by a local rafter and shipwreck hunter. In follow-up diving missions, the Wisconsin Historical Society's maritime archaeologists identified the ship as the Frank D. Barker, a two-masted, 137-foot-long wooden vessel that sank in 1887. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I was surprised by how big it was," Olson said. "A lot of it still there today, which is pretty cool because a lot of these wrecks get destroyed by the wind and ice as time goes on." Olson who has previously discovered two other shipwrecks is a Door County local who grew up hunting for lost ships in Lake Michigan. After finding and reporting the Frank D. Barker, he also went back diving for a closer look at the wreck. "I took out my six-year-old son to snorkel on it, too," Olson added, "so he was one of the first people see this ship in over 100 years." Why did the Frank D. Barker sink? The Frank D. Barker's last voyage was from Manistee, in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, across the lake to Escanaba, in the Upper Peninsula, to collect a load of iron ore, according to a news release from the Historical Society. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On the way, the ship encountered foggy conditions and ran into a limestone outcropping. Despite the captain and crew's attempts to correct course, the Barker ended up stranded on Spider Island, just off Newport State Park. No lives were lost. A diver approaches the Frank D. Barker, a vessel lost in Lake Michigan in 1887. A tugboat was dispatched the following day, and salvage missions were sent in October 1887, and in June, August, September and October 1888. All failed. Then, last month, Olson reported his finding to the Wisconsin Historic Preservation Office. Whenever we receive this type of call, its hard to know exactly what we will find," Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society maritime archaeologist, said in the news release. "We were excited to identify the wreck as the Frank D. Barker, whose exact location has been lost for over a century." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Constructed in 1867 in Clayton, New York, the Barker was designed for the specific purpose of transporting grain from Milwaukee and Chicago ports to Lake Ontario. On its return voyages, it brought coal from Lake Erie ports for Midwest factories and homes. The ship was designed specifically for the Great Lakes with a canaller hull type meaning it had a boxy hull to maximize cargo space, but also overhanging features that pivoted upward, so the ship could fit through the narrow locks of the Welland Canal, a route to bypass the Niagara Falls. At the time of its loss, the Barker was valued at around $8,000, or $250,000 in today's dollars, according to the Historical Society. A 1937 newspaper clipping shows the Frank D. Barker. Where is the Frank D. Barker shipwreck now? The Frank D. Barker is now 24 feet underwater off of Door County's coast, between the two arms of Barker Shoal a landmark that is actually thought to be named after the lost ship. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Historical Society is working toward further documenting the site and eventually making it eligible to be named to the National Register of Historic Places. State and federal laws also already protect the shipwreck, and removing, defacing or destroying any of the structure is illegal. More: More than 3 times as many shipwrecks were discovered in Lake Michigan last year as ever before. Why? This story has been updated to include more information. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Door County man finds wooden schooner lost 138 years in Lake Michigan Just days ago, the FDA notified the public about a recall on shrimp at Walmart for a shocking reason -- a radioactive isotope was found in the seafood. Well, apparently, this wasn't an isolated incident, as a second shrimp recall has been issued by Southwind Foods for the exact same reason. The radioactive chemical in question is Cesium-137, and the FDA is urging people who may have purchased the shrimp to throw the product away or return it for a refund if they find it in their freezer. Arctic Shores Seafood, Best Yet, First Street, Great American Seafood Imports, and Sand Bar are the brands folks will want to be on the lookout for. It's unknown which retailers specifically were provided with the contaminated shrimp. However, they were delivered between July 17 and August 8 to companies in nine states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. Having to watch out for shrimp at the grocery store with radiation contamination probably wasn't on anyone's bingo card this year, but here we are. Read more: The Biggest Kirkland Signature Flops In Costco History What Is Cesium-137, And How Did It Contaminate Shrimp? Packages of shrimp from Best Yet and Arctic Shores Seafood Co. - FDA The radioactive isotope at the center of the recent shrimp recall typically comes from nuclear reactors and weapons testing by way of the nuclear fission process. It might look like an off-white, silvery metal, but will turn into a powder when it links up with chlorides. Cesium-137 isn't found naturally in the environment. If ingested, it can increase one's risk of cancer as it exposes soft tissues in the body to high-energy gamma radiation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement How shrimp, of all things, were contaminated with Cesium-137 hasn't been disclosed as of yet. Costco shoppers can thank their lucky stars that the company behind Kirkland Signature shrimp wasn't one of the companies behind the tainted seafood. However, folks who shop elsewhere would do well to double-check their freezers to be sure they haven't purchased shrimp from any of the brands involved in the recall. Given that over a dozen lot numbers are identified in the recall, it's clear this is more widespread than some would like to admit. For more food and drink goodness, join The Takeout's newsletter. Get taste tests, food & drink news, deals from your favorite chains, recipes, cooking tips, and more! Read the original article on The Takeout. A close aide to the head of jihadist group Boko Haram on Friday denied Nigerien army claims that he he had been killed in a targeted airstrike in the Lake Chad basin. The militant group has been waging a bloody insurgency to establish an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria since 2009, leaving around 40,000 people dead and forcing more than two million people to flee their homes. Niger said late Thursday that Boko Haram leader Bakura, whose real name was given as Ibrahim Mahamadu, was killed during a "surgical operation" on an island in the Diffa region of southeast Niger last week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But in an audio message sent to AFP by a security source in the Lake Chad area, one of Bakura's lieutenants called news of the leader's death "completely false". "I am with him now, we are together," he said in the Hausa language spoken in the region, calling the Niger army announcement "propaganda". Several experts contacted by AFP also cast doubt on the unverified claim. Since 2023 Niger has been governed by a military junta that took power in a coup but has struggled to stem the jihadist violence shaking the country. As well as in the east, where Boko Haram is at large, the Sahel nation also faces insurgencies by fighters linked to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group in the west, along the borders with Mali and Burkina Faso. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - No proof - Bakura emerged as the leader of a splinter group loyal to former Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau that refused to join rival faction the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) over ideological differences. He then moved to the islands on the Niger side of the lake with his fighters. The Niger army said in its statement that Bakura was targeted by a fighter jet in an early morning strike on August 15, but provided no proof. AFP was unable to independently verify his death. "I believe that we have to be very, very prudent," said Vincent Foucher, a researcher at France's CNRS institute specialising in studying Boko Haram. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "They've already announced the deaths of several jihadist leaders many times and very often those announcements have been contradicted. "At the moment, we only have an announcement from the authorities." Along with another expert in west African jihadist groups, who wished to remain anonymous, Foucher said his sources indicated that Bakura was still at large. - Student kidnappings - The Boko Haram conflict has spilled over Nigeria's porous northeastern border with Niger, Chad and Cameroon, with Niger suffering its first attacks by the group in Bosso, on the shores of Lake Chad in 2015. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At its height in the 2010s, Shekau was claimed dead several times only to reappear again in video footage, taunting the Nigerian authorities. He finally died in 2021, with Bakura taking the reins afterwards. Bakura, said to be aged around 40, originally came from Nigeria, the Niger army said. It claimed he was involved in the kidnapping of more than 300 students in Kuriga, Nigeria in March 2024, and helped organise suicide bombings against mosques, markets and public gatherings as well as attacks on the Nigerien, Nigerian and Cameroonian armies. He joined Boko Haram more than 13 years ago and took over leadership of the group after Shekau's death during jihadist infighting in May 2021. bur-pid-abu/sbk/rmb/phz/js One hundred people have been arrested and dozens of weapons seized ahead of this weekend's Notting Hill Carnival, the Metropolitan Police has said. The arrests, which led to 21 people being recalled to prison, are "intended to disrupt and deter those who the police have reason to believe pose the greatest risk to public safety at carnival", Scotland Yard said. As part of the operation, officers seized 11 firearms and more than 40 knives with 266 people being given police bail or probation licence conditions not to come to carnival this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cmdr Charmain Brenyah said the arrests would act as "a significant deterrent" for those wanting to "engage in violence and other criminality". Millions of people are expected at Europe's largest street party which runs from Saturday to Monday. Cmdr Brenyah said: "The vast majority come to have fun and enjoy themselves, to celebrate Caribbean culture, to dance, to eat and to go home with nothing but good memories. "Regrettably we know a minority come with less positive intentions and in recent years this has played out in the form of serious violence including three tragic incidents where lives have been taken." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She added: "Our policing plan makes tackling serious violence a priority which is why we've carried out intelligence-led interventions against those groups and individuals who we have reason to believe pose the greatest risk to the safety of other carnival-goers." Live Facial Recognition (LFR) will be used on the approach to and from the carnival as well as outside the boundaries of the event [Getty Images] The Met Police commissioner has defended Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology - which captures people's faces in real-time CCTV cameras - as a tool that helps officers locate people on watch lists, ahead of its use this weekend. LFR will be used on the approach to and from the carnival as well as outside the boundaries of the event. Alongside the use of LFR technology, the Met also plans to install screening arches at some of the busiest entry points to the carnival, where stop-and-search powers will be used in a bid to keep weapons out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last year, Cher Maximen, 32, was murdered with a zombie knife in front of her three-year-old daughter at the carnival. Chef Mussie Imnetu was also killed near the carnival. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk A military prosecutor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is demanding the death penalty for former President Joseph Kabila who is on trial in absentia. General Lucien Rene Likulia, the Congolese military auditor general, on Friday called on judges to condemn Kabila to death for treason and war crimes, including homicide, torture and organising an insurrection, the court heard. The former president went on trial in his absence in July for his alleged support for Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, who have seized large swaths of mineral-rich eastern DRC this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kabila, who has been outside the DRC for two years, is also accused of having plotted to overthrow President Felix Tshisekedi and other war crimes charges linked to the M23 group. The charge sheet against him, seen by the AFP news agency, also listed the forcible occupation of the city of Goma, which was captured by M23 fighters in January before they agreed a ceasefire with the government in July. Kabila has denounced the trial, calling the courts an instrument of oppression. Ferdinand Kambere, Kabilas political party secretary, told the Reuters news agency on Friday that it is an act of relentlessness and persecution against a member of the opposition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DRC lifted a moratorium on the death penalty last year, but no judicial executions have been carried out since. The brains behind M23? Kabila spent almost two decades in power before stepping down in 2018. He has been abroad since late 2023, mostly in South Africa. He announced that he was returning to the DRC to help push for peace in the war-ravaged east in April. The DRCs government swiftly moved to ban his political party later that month, and seized his assets. In May, the DRCs senate voted to lift his immunity from prosecution. Kabila made an appearance in the rebel-held east in late May, meeting local religious leaders in the presence of M23s spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tshisekedi, his successor as president, has branded him the brains behind the armed group, which has seized cities in the resource-rich east, reportedly with Rwandas help. The charge sheet described Kabila as one of the initiators of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), M23s political arm, and accuses him of having colluded with Rwanda to try to overthrow by force the power established by law. It also accused Kabila of being responsible for atrocities committed by the movement in North and South Kivu provinces. Rwanda has denied providing military backing to M23, but United Nations experts say its army played a critical role in the groups offensive in the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The AFC and M23s executive secretary, Benjamin Mbonimpa, distanced the movement from Kabila in comments to journalists in Goma in July, dismissing his trial as part of a malevolent strategy against him. Kabila ruled the DRC between 2001 and 2009, taking power following his father Laurent Kabilas assassination. Although he left the country in 2023, the former leader still has influence over Congolese political life. He has criticised Tshisekedis government as a dictatorship. For more than three decades, eastern DRC has been ravaged by conflict between various armed groups. The unrest has intensified since M23s resurgence in 2021. Drier air continues to move into New Mexico to finish the week. Monsoon moisture will bring back more showers and storms starting this weekend. Its a hotter and drier day for many parts of New Mexico. Farmington is heating up to near-record high temperatures today, with above average temperatures across the rest of the state. A few showers and storms are still popping up in western and northern New Mexico. The Albuquerque Metro may also see a spotty shower or storm move through this evening. All storms will end overnight with mild low temperatures. Another round of meager afternoon storms will develop Friday afternoon in western and northern New Mexico with more above average high temperatures. A pattern change is in store this weekend as the monsoon high pressure system thats been sitting over the Four Corners will wrap moisture around into southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Starting Saturday, rain chances will increase across the northern half of the state, bringing rain chances down the I-40 corridor. Theres an even higher chance for rain Sunday as a cold front pushes south out of Colorado. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The chance for rain will expand into western New Mexico as the high pressure system starts moving south across the state. It will move southeast of New Mexico Tuesday. At the same time, a backdoor cold front will move in from the northeast. The cold front combined with an increase in monsoon moisture will bring widespread chances for showers and storms Tuesday through at least next Thursday. Some of this rain will be heavy at times. Temperatures will also be much colder behind the front starting next Wednesday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A drone attack has hit a convoy of 16 trucks carrying desperately needed food to Sudans famine-hit North Darfur region, the United Nations said, as warring parties trade blame for the attack. UN spokesperson Daniela Gross told reporters on Thursday that all drivers and personnel travelling with the World Food Programme (WFP) convoy were safe. At least three of the trucks caught fire, according to a WFP statement quoted by the Reuters news agency. Gross said all trucks had caught fire, according to The Associated Press news agency. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was not yet clear who was responsible for Wednesdays attack, the second in the past three months to prevent a UN convoy from delivering to North Darfur. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) accused the Sudanese army of hitting the convoys as part of a drone attack on Mellit market and other areas. The army later said in a statement that this was a fabrication to distract from what it termed the RSFs crimes. In early June, a convoy from the WFP and the UN agency for children, UNICEF, was attacked while awaiting clearance to proceed to North Darfurs besieged capital, el-Fasher, killing five people and injuring several others. Edem Wosornu, of UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said some 70 trucks of supplies were waiting in the RSF-controlled city of Nyala to get to el-Fashir, but security guarantees were needed as humanitarian workers were coming under attack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The attack came as several countries, including the United States, Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Egypt, voiced alarm at the worsening hunger situation in war-torn Sudan, calling for pauses in fighting to let in more aid. The war in Sudan began in April 2023, when violence caused by long-simmering tensions between its military and the paramilitary RSF erupted in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including western Darfur. Some 40,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million displaced, UN agencies say. Nearly 25 million people are experiencing acute hunger. The RSF and their allies announced in late June that they had formed a parallel government in areas they control, mainly in the vast Darfur region, where allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity are being investigated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The RSF has encircled el-Fasher, where the UN says people are facing starvation. It is the only capital the paramilitary forces dont hold in Darfur, which is comprised of five states. An estimated 300,000 remaining residents in the city have been subjected to a long siege as fighting rages. Last year, a famine was declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. The risk of famine has since spread to 17 areas in Darfur and the Kordofan region, which is adjacent to North Darfur and west of Khartoum, according to the UN. WFP spokesperson Gift Watanasathorn urged the warring parties to respect international humanitarian law. Humanitarian staff and assets must never be a target, Watanasathorn said. Mining operations around the world generate huge profits and provide us with many of the essential materials that power our society, including lithium for rechargeable batteries. But it also comes with a huge environmental impact, as Earth.org explained. Because of this, it is essential that the industry be carefully monitored and regulated. The Haryana Mines and Geology Department in India recently launched a crackdown on illegal mining operations in the state, The Statesman reported. The department investigated close to 4,000 sites and seized 397 vehicles used for unregulated mining projects. The inspectors are dedicated to increased monitoring with the aid of cutting-edge technology, including drones. In addition to seizing vehicles used in the illegal operations, they are also imposing hefty fines on the bad actors responsible for these activities. The goal of the crackdown is to encourage responsible mining and prevent revenue loss. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mining operations drastically change the land, per Earth.org. The industry requires the use of tons of water and produces massive amount of waste that's often left behind at the sites. Leaks are relatively common and can contaminate the areas surrounding the mines. The contamination can have dramatic and negative effects on the health of both animals and humans who are exposed. That's why it is so frustrating when illegal miners skirt the regulations designed to protect us all. The repercussions can be extremely dangerous. However, there is also good news on the horizon. Some legitimate mining companies are dedicated to decreasing the negative effects of their operations. The Australian company Fortescue recently made headlines by ordering a fleet of electric-powered vehicles and equipment. The Brazilian mining company Vale updated a cargo ship with rotor sails to reduce emissions when transporting its materials on the seas. 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. The National Weather Service issued a dust storm warning for the Phoenix area through 10:45 p.m. Aug. 21. At 9:40 p.m., a wall of dust was along a line extending from the Arizona State Fairgrounds to near Perryville to near Painted Rock Dam, moving north at 20 mph; there was less than a quarter-mile visibility with strong wind in excess of 40 mph. Conditions mean dangerous, life-threatening travel, the weather service warned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Locations impacted include Glendale, Surprise, Avondale, Goodyear, Buckeye, El Mirage, Tolleson, Youngtown, Sun City West, Waddell, Cashion, Sun City, Litchfield Park, Palo Verde, and White Tank Mountain Park. This includes the following highways: Interstate 10 between mile markers 95 and 135; U.S. 60 between mile markers 131 and 148; Loop 101 between mile markers 2 and 8. Also, as of 8 p.m., there were about 6,800 SRP customers without power. APS reported more than 3,000 customers were in the dark as of 8:35 p.m. For the latest watches and warnings, see our weather alert page. Power outages from the storms Almost 7,000 Salt River Project customers had no power as of 8 p.m., according to an outage map. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More than 3,000 Arizona Public Service customers had lost power as of 8:35 p.m., according to an outage map. What should I do in a dust storm if I am driving? The Arizona Department of Transportation has helpful tips for drivers who may get stuck in a dust storm while driving. The "Pull Aside, Stay Alive" campaign aims to save drivers from dangerous situations by providing tips to survive a blowing dust event. If you encounter a dust storm, immediately check traffic around your vehicle (front, back and to the side) and begin slowing down. Do not wait until poor visibility makes it difficult to safely pull off the roadway - do it as soon as possible. Completely exit the highway if you can. Do not stop in a travel lane or in the emergency lane. Look for a safe place to pull completely off the paved portion of the roadway. Turn off all vehicle lights. You do not want other vehicles, approaching from behind, to use your lights as a guide and possibly crash into your parked vehicle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Set your emergency brake and take your foot off the brake. Stay in the vehicle with your seat belt buckled and wait for the storm to pass. Drivers of high-profile vehicles should be especially aware of changing weather conditions and travel at reduced speeds. More information on dust storm safety can be found at PullAsideStayAlive.org And safety tips for driving in rainstorms can be found at azdot.gov/monsoon. Tips for driving in the rain The Arizona Department of Transportation provided the following safety tips for driving in the rain: Inspect windshield wipers and replace them if necessary prior to expected rainfall. Turn on the headlights. Reduce speeds. Avoid sudden braking on wet pavement. Create a "space cushion" between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you. Avoid areas where water has pooled in travel lanes. How to protect yourself from lightning strikes Here are lightning safety tips from the National Weather Service: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pay attention to the weather. If you see big blue clouds, otherwise known as thunderheads, go inside. These types of clouds could mean a thunderstorm is coming. Get in a building with plumbing and wiring. If lightning strikes the building, the lightning will be conducted around and into the ground. Stay in your car. A vehicle will give you protection as electricity from lightning will pass through the vehicle's structure instead of hitting you. Get off open water. A boat out on the water is likely to be the most prominent object and you could be struck. Do not shower or bathe. If lightning hits your pipes, it could be conducted into the water in your bath or shower. Do not use electric appliances with plugs or cords. Wireless cellphones are OK, as are laptops that are connected to Wi-Fi but not plugged in. Follow the 30-30 rule. If you hear thunder within 30 seconds of a lightning bolt, that means the thunderstorm's distance is threatening. Wait at least 30 minutes after you hear the last thunder to go out. That gives the storm enough time to move away or dissipate. You dont have to be near a storm to get struck. Lightning strikes can easily travel 10 miles or more. A record lightning flash in Oklahoma in 2007 traveled nearly 200 miles. Seek shelter if you hear thunder. Do not shelter under a tree. If lightning strikes the tree, the ground charge from the strike could travel into you. Don't huddle in a group. If you are outdoors with friends or family during a thunderstorm, don't all clump together. Keeping separation could reduce the number of people injured if lightning strikes. (This story has been updated to add more information and a photo.) This article was generated by The Arizona Republic and USA TODAY Network using data released by the National Weather Service. It was edited by a staff member. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dust storm warning for Phoenix; thousands of people without power UK crypto investors are still having their payments blocked when trying to buy crypto. Thats according to a new survey conducted by Norstat on behalf of UK-based trading platform IG, which asked 2,500 investors between August 1 and 5 about their experiences. It found 40% of respondents attempting to buy crypto experienced having their payments blocked or delayed by their banks. This overreach from banks is only possible because theres still no clear UK regulatory framework in place governing crypto, Michael Healy, UK managing director at IG, told DL News in a statement. The survey also found that 42% of UK adults said they opposed banks interfering in crypto transactions, compared to just 33% who support such action. When faced with transaction blocks, 35% of respondents said they switched to a different bank that allows crypto transactions. UK crypto investors have reported banks cutting them off from crypto as early as 2021. However, the fact that the issue still exists four years later shows that the UK is lagging behind its peers when it comes to regulating digital assets, critics say. While the UK is actively working towards a regulatory framework for crypto, the industry is largely unregulated. The Financial Conduct Authority is the main regulator overseeing crypto, but its oversight is primarily focused on preventing money laundering and protecting consumers. Thats despite the number of UK crypto owners growing. A November 2024 report from the FCA found that 12% of residents owned crypto, up from 10% the year before. Why banks block crypto Several UK banks, including Chase UK and Starling Bank state that they block all transactions to crypto exchanges. Others that previously imposed blanket bans on crypto, like HSBC and NatWest, have recently opened up again but with strict limits on how much customers can deposit to crypto exchanges. Most banks cite fraud prevention as the main reason for the rules. Banks do not enjoy blocking payments, but if certain beneficiaries become a hotbed for fraud, they are left with little choice, Daniel Holmes, a fraud prevention specialist, said in a blog post for UK Finance, top trade association for the UK banking and finance industry. NatWest has warned customers of crypto investment scams, where criminals offer fake investments that dont really exist or arent worth the money. Barclays says it prevents its customers from buying crypto with its line of credit cards due to the asset class being unregulated in the UK and prone to wild price swings. A crypto hub? The UK at one point had bold ambitions to position itself in the vanguard of digital asset development. AMSTERDAM (AP) Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned Friday evening, after he failed to secure new sanctions against Israel over the war in Gaza. Veldkamp had informed the countrys Parliament he intended to bring in new measures in response to Israel's planned offensive in Gaza City and other heavily populated areas but was unable to secure the support of his coalition partners. The 61-year-old former ambassador to Israel told reporters he felt he was unable to implement policy myself and chart the course I deem necessary. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following Veldkamps resignation, the remaining Cabinet members of his center-right New Social Contract party also quit, leaving the Dutch government in disarray. In short we are done with it, party leader Eddy Van Hijum said, calling the Israeli governments actions diametrically opposed to international treaties. The Dutch government already collapsed in June when anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders pulled out of the countrys four-party coalition over a fight about immigration. The three remaining parties stayed on in a caretaker government until elections could be held in October. Prime Minister Dick Schoof was set to address Parliament later Friday evening over the crisis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The worlds leading authority on food crises said earlier on Friday the Gaza Strips largest city is gripped by famine, and that its likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid. The Netherlands Parliament had repeatedly delayed a debate on sanctions against Israel, a discussion that was already postponed from Thursday, as the Friday afternoon Cabinet meeting dragged on. Theres a famine, ethnic cleansing, and genocide going on, Kati Piri of the merged Green Left/Labor parties told Parliament, And our cabinet has been deliberating for hours about whether to take any action at all. Shameful. Veldkamp had proposed a ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories in response to the planned military escalation. Opposition politicians had called for a no-confidence vote for the minister, frustrated at what they saw as a lack of action against Israel. Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned on Friday after a cabinet meeting failed to agree to sanctions against Israel. The centre-right New Social Contract Party, of which Veldkamp is a member, withdrew from the governing coalition after the resignation, adding to growing political chaos in the country. Veldkamp had said on Thursday that he wanted new measures against Israel over its iron-fisted tactics in the Gaza war against Hamas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last month the Netherlands declared far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non grata. It was also among 21 countries that signed a joint declaration on Thursday condemning Israel's approval of a major West Bank settlement project as "unacceptable and contrary to international law". But after the cabinet became deadlocked Friday over possible new measures to increase pressure on Israel, Veldkamp told ANP he was "insufficiently able to take meaningful additional measures". "I feel constrained in setting the course I consider necessary as foreign minister," he added. Veldkamp said the further steps he had proposed against Israel were "seriously discussed" but that he had encountered resistance in successive cabinet meetings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The government has been under pressure from protests against Israel's military campaign since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel unleased the war. Demonstrations in The Hague drew between 100,000 and 150,000 people -- the largest in the Netherlands in two decades. Protesters demanded sanctions on Israel and humanitarian access for civilians in Gaza, where on Friday the United Nations officially declared a famine and blamed "systematic obstruction" of aid by Israel. - No EU consensus - EU foreign ministers have repeatedly failed to reach an agreement on collective sanctions against Israel, despite pressure from several member states. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Proposals under discussion have included suspending Israel's participation in a 900-million-euro ($1 billion) EU science and technology programme, trade restrictions and visa bans for specific Israeli officials. In the Netherlands, Veldkamp told parliament in a letter released at the time that Ben Gvir and Smotrich "repeatedly incited settler violence against Palestinians, promoted illegal settlement expansion, and called for ethnic cleansing in Gaza". Smotrich in response accused European leaders of surrendering to "the lies of radical Islam" and "rising antisemitism". Ben-Gvir said he would continue to act for Israel, even if banned from "all of Europe". Veldkamp said the further steps he had proposed against Israel were "seriously discussed" but that he had encountered resistance in successive cabinet meetings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. The Dutch government had already called new elections for October 29 following the withdrawal of Gert Wilders' far-right Freedom Party (PVV) from the coalition in June. Prime Minister Dick Schoof told the Dutch parliament that he regretted the resignation of Veldkamp and the withdrawal of his party, the fourth biggest in the chamber, as the fragile government heads into the election campaign. Schoof acknowledged that events in Gaza were "worsening" and "dramatic". "Everyone is aware of that," he told deputies. srg/sh/tw/gv Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp, from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party, resigned on Friday following a dispute over sanctions against Israel. Following his decision, other ministers from his party left the coaltiion. The resignation initially has no domestic political consequences. The right-wing coalition had already been operating as a caretaker government following its split with the far-right party of populist Geert Wilders in July. A new election is scheduled for late October. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Veldkamp said on Friday evening in the Hague that he saw no room in the current government to increase pressure on Israel. The government, led by independent Prime Minister Dick Schoof, now consists only of the right-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the right-wing populist Farmer-Citizen Movement party BBB. Public pressure increasing Previously, opposition parties in parliament had filed a motion of no confidence against the minister. They demanded stricter sanctions against Israel due to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Veldkamp said he wanted to advocate for this in the Cabinet but claimed he did not receive any support. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In recent weeks, public criticism of the government has also grown. Tens of thousands of people had called for sanctions against Israel during several demonstrations. On Friday, a UN-backed report was released confirming faminine in a part of Gaza that includes Gaza City. Several world leaders criticized Israel over the report, while Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it an "outright lie." Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp has resigned after failing to secure cabinet support for additional sanctions against Israel over its military onslaught in Gaza. Veldkamp, a member of the centre-right New Social Contract party, said on Friday that he could not achieve agreement on meaningful measures and had repeatedly faced resistance from colleagues over sanctions already in place. His efforts included imposing entry bans on far-right Israeli ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing their role in inciting settler violence against Palestinians. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Veldkamp also revoked three export permits for navy ship components, warning of deteriorating conditions in Gaza and the risk of undesirable end use. I also see what is happening on the ground in Gaza, the attack on Gaza City, and what is happening in the West Bank, the building decision for the disputed settlement E1, and East Jerusalem, Veldkamp told reporters. His departure leaves the Netherlands without a foreign minister as the European Union navigates security guarantees for Ukraine and continues talks with the United States over tariffs. Following his resignation, all New Social Contract ministers and state secretaries confirmed their support for Veldkamp and resigned from the caretaker government in solidarity. Al Jazeeras Step Vaessen, reporting from Berlin on developments in the Netherlands, said Veldkamp was under increasing pressure from lawmakers in parliament, especially from the opposition who have been requesting stricter sanctions against Israel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Veldkamp had announced travel bans for two Israeli ministers a few weeks ago, Vaessen said the foreign minister was facing growing demands after Israels attacks on Gaza City and the increasing aggression that the Dutch government should be doing more. Veldkamp has also been pushing for a suspension of the trade agreement that the EU has with Israel, Vaessen added, noting that the Dutch foreign minister had increasingly become frustrated because Germany was blocking that. So there was also this push from the Dutch parliament that the Netherlands shouldnt wait anymore for any European sanctions but should put sanctions on Israel alone. Europe-Israel relations Despite limited Dutch sanctions on Israel, the country continues to support the supply chain of Israels F-35 fighter jet. Research from the Palestinian Youth Movement shared with Al Jazeera in June shows that ships carrying F-35 components frequently dock at the port of Rotterdam, operated by Danish shipping company Maersk. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The F-35 jets have been used by Israel in air strikes on Gaza, which have left much of the Strip in ruins and contributed to the deaths of more than 62,000 people since October 2023. Earlier this week, the Netherlands joined 20 other nations in condemning Israels approval of a large West Bank settlement expansion, calling it unacceptable and contrary to international law. Meanwhile, Israels military attacks on Gaza continue, forcing civilians from Gaza City southwards amid mounting famine. A global hunger monitor confirmed on Friday that residents of Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially facing famine conditions. No successor to Veldkamp has been announced. The caretaker Dutch government, which has been in place since the collapse of the previous coalition on June 3, is expected to remain until a new coalition is formed following elections in October, a process that could take months. E-scooter riders who take passengers could be banned from using the machines as part of a new safety push. Dott, which operates an e-scooter rental scheme in Bristol, Bath and parts of South Gloucestershire, has always prohibited tandem riding. It is now enforcing new rules which means people caught riding in tandem and letting other people use their licence will be banned from the app. The 'Scoot Safe' campaign is also warning people that riding under the influence of alcohol or drugs could see people lose their driving licence or face prison time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The campaign has been launched by Helen Godwin, the mayor of the West of England region, and Clare Moody, the police and crime commissioner for Avon and Somerset. People seen tandem riding can be reported to Dott, which says it can issue bans within 24 hours, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Hiring an e-scooter with Dott is the only way people can legally ride one on public roads in the area. Riders must be 18 or over and have a driving licence or a provisional licence. Helen Godwin said lots of people have valid concerns about the scheme. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We know how handy e-bikes and e-scooters are for some people to get around our towns and cities, and that most people ride responsibly," she said. "But lots of people have valid concerns. Convenient travel for some people shouldn't inconvenience others. "Enhanced enforcement from Dott will mean people are kicked off the app when more than one person rides on an e-scooter, alongside new fines for poor parking, and easier ways for people to report issues." The new safety scheme aims to encourage responsible riding [Getty Images] The e-scooter trial - first run by Voi, then Tier and now Dott - is one of the largest in the UK and Europe, involving more than 1,500 e-bikes and 2,500 e-scooters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Almost 10,000 rides are taken each day, and the scheme is now expanding into Yate and Chipping Sodbury as part of a six-month trial. Ms Moody said: "E-scooters can be a convenient way to travel but must be used legally and responsibly. "When they're not, they cause real problems - they put pedestrians at risk, create hazards for people with mobility issues and families with young children, and even endanger the riders themselves." Follow BBC Bristol on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. More on this story Related internet links LUFKIN An East Texas Republican state lawmaker wants to hit pause on a proposed large-scale water extraction from his part of the state. State Rep. Cody Harris, a Palestine Republican, has introduced a pair of bills that would impose some of the strictest limits on groundwater pumping in the state and require a study of the portion of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer that sits beneath Anderson, Houston and Henderson counties, which are in East Texas. The legislation effectively halts the efforts of a Dallas businessman who has sought permission to drill more than 40 high-capacity water wells in that area. One of the bills House Bill 27 won unanimous approval from a House committee Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My greatest fear as the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee is, if this project goes through in East Texas, then we will have a proliferation of these types of projects throughout the state, Harris told The Texas Tribune. The committee heard the proposals after Gov. Greg Abbott this week added the issue to the special session underway in Austin. Lawmakers may only pass legislation on topics identified by the governor during a special session. If approved by the Legislature, House Bill 27 would stop the Neches and Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District from issuing new permits or amending existing permits to transfer water until Nov. 1, 2027. The district manages part of the East Texas aquifer. [East Texans condemn Dallas millionaires plan to pump 16 billion gallons of their groundwater to other parts of the state every year] Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The legislation is remarkable given the states long history of recognizing private property rights and the so-called rule of capture. The law generally allows landowners to do what they wish with the water they extract from their property. The bill also requires the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency that manages the states water supply, to study the aquifer to determine how much water is available. Right now, we're just talking about really the Trinity River and the Neches River because of these projects, Harris said. But if they start proliferating throughout East Texas, then we're talking about all of the river basins throughout East Texas that supply all of the drinking water for Houston and DFW. We need to have a much, much more detailed understanding of the hydrology of these aquifers before we start mass pumping anything out of them. Kyle Bass, the Dallas-area executive, who sought to tap the Carrizo-Wilcox fumed on social media Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Small time Texas politician convincing the Governor to allow an East Texas Groundwater Permit application to be delayed two years creates an immediate Federal Takings case. See you in Federal Court @CodyHarrisTX. Preserve your communications, Bass wrote in a now-deleted post on X. Bass, through his public relations team, declined to comment when asked by The Texas Tribune. Bass has maintained his only goal right now is to learn what water is available before pumping large volumes of water from the aquifer. Residents dont believe him. They worry the project will drain their wells. Harris said he believes Basss tweets suggest his plans were never just to study the aquifer, because his bill wouldnt impact Basss study. It only stops the exportation of water from the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Harris begged his fellow committee members to address the perceived threat created by Basss request and subsequent social media posts. I will not be intimidated by name calling, legal threats or any other bullying tactics in discharging the duties of my office to my constituents and to the people of Texas under the Constitution or the rules of this chamber, he told the committee. Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., a Fort Worth Democrat, said he had planned to vote against the bill in the committee until he saw Basss response on social media. The debate that followed in committee solidified the need for more information before deciding on large-scale production. However, Romero also believes the state needs to seriously consider interbasin transfers as they will be necessary to sustain growth in Texas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I am supporting your dedication to ensuring that we get more science, but I do continue to support a broader policy of moving water across our state, Romero said. The new House Bill 27 is akin to a proposal Harris proposed earlier this year during the regular session. That bill, House Bill 1400, would have created a groundwater science, research and innovation fund that would improve the understanding of local groundwater conditions and improve the models that groundwater conservation districts rely on when they plan and make decisions about issuing permits. That bill died in the Senate. The natural resources committee on Thursday also discussed House Bill 24, which is also by Harris and stops all districts in Texas from allowing people to pump and transfer groundwater from a district if it would exceed 5% of the total modeled available groundwater. The bill was met with stronger pushback from committee members, especially those whose home counties were considering their own large-scale transfers. Rep. TK Lobos, D-Corpus Christi, said her city wrote a letter in opposition to the bill as they are currently working on a transfer that would be impacted by the bill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Mary Gonzalez, a Clint Democrat, urged communication and embracing each regions individuality moving forward. We're going to have to respect each other's differences, Gonzalez said. Corpus (Christi) is so different from El Paso. And El Paso is so different from East Texas. And it's going to be a really different struggle to how we navigate it. The bill was left pending in committee. Jayme Lozano Carver contributed. More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 1315! This years lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN NewsNight; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. Eastern Iowa Community Colleges is launching a process technician certification program with industry partners. (Photo courtesy of Eastern Iowa Community Colleges) Eastern Iowa Community Colleges has launched a new program in partnership with private companies to bolster workforce pipelines and give students a fast path to skilled employment. The community college system announced in a news release this week nine students will start classes next week in the first cohort of the process technician certification program, housed at the DeWitt Career Advancement Center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The non-credit certificate will take nine months to complete, with students participating in both instruction and hands-on training to learn about process equipment and instrumentation, applied chemistry, workplace safety and more. Leallen Ehlers, engineering technology business development and training specialist at EICC, said in the release that the program, and the collaborative work he conducted with staff at companies ADM, 3M and LyondellBasell, will hopefully meet the needs of local industries and employ students close by. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Many of these students might have left the area for work, but this program gives them the skills and opportunity to stay here, build careers, and contribute to the strength of our local economy, Ehlers said in the release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Each of the students in the programs first cohort received a $3,500 scholarship and were offered guaranteed interviews for jobs with the partnering companies after graduation, according to the release. Ehlers said in the release planning for the program began after the college system heard concerns from local businesses about the lack of trained process technicians, and the curriculum has been crafted to meet industry demands and serve as a model for future training. Jobs students who complete the program will qualify for include process technician, manufacturing technologist and quality control specialist, the release stated, positions that people usually need as many as seven years of manufacturing experience to qualify for. According to the release, students ready to start classes next week were drawn to the program because of its quick timeline, industry connections and path to a stable, rewarding career. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its really exciting, said 18-year-old Shyanna Bogle, a Camanche resident included in the first program cohort. I thought it would be great to learn more about this industry and have a positive impact in the community. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Floridas new school choice law is impacting the classroom, economy and opening careers as education entrepreneurs for some educators. One of those entrepreneurs is Dr. Cynthia Sweeney, a former teacher who now runs a micro-school called the Student Achievement Institute. What started as a small operation for five student-athletes has grown into a new building serving more than 30 students, including a gymnast. For Dr. Sweeney, the states scholarship program has played a significant role in her businesss quick growth. Her story reflects a broader trend. The scholarship program, managed by organizations like Step Up for Students, has expanded rapidly. Families now have access to over 4,000 service providersmore than double the number from last year. These providers arent just micro-schools; they range from part-time tutors to therapists, illustrating a move toward a more a la carte approach to learning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, as money follows students to these new providers, the public school system is experiencing financial pressure. For Orange County Public Schools, the effect is considerable. According to district projections, the school system is expected to lose over 3,000 students this year, resulting in a projected loss of more than $27 million in state funding. This financial shortfall is forcing the district to take drastic steps, including budget cuts and halting the construction of new schools. The debate over school choice is growing more intense as district leaders struggle to maintain quality and services for the students who remain, all while operating with fewer funds. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. EDGEWOOD, Texas (KETK) The City of Edgewood in Van Zandt County issued a boil water notice on Thursday after a water main break. Natural Resources Committee passes bill intended to protect East Texas aquifers At around 3 p.m., the city said its water service was interrupted after an 8-inch water main broke. Water service has been restored, but theyre now required to issue a boil water notice due to reduced system pressure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All city water customers should bring any water for cleaning or consumption to a vigorous rolling boil for at least two minutes before use. City officials said theyll notify the public when the notice is lifted. To stay up to date, visit the City of Edgewood on Facebook. You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. Edinburgh Council says it has learned lessons from the city's previous cycle hire network after announcing a new operator for the revived scheme. Swedish tech firm Voi will run an initial bike hire trial in the city centre from 3 September, with hopes it could put 800 cycles on the streets in the future. It comes four years after a previous contractor pulled their bikes from the city due to issues with vandalism and running costs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The council's transport convener, Stephen Jenkinson, said technology around similar schemes had "significantly improved". Voi already runs bike hire schemes in cities including Barcelona, Munich, Vienna and London. A total of 50 electric motor-assisted bikes will be rolled out in the city centre during the trial period early next month. The previous Serco network, which was sponsored by food delivery service Just Eat, ran between 2018 and 2021. It operated on a "docked" model, meaning users would have to collect the bikes from one of several charging stations around the city. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, the Voi version operates a "dockless" rental scheme allowing the bikes to be left and picked up anywhere. Riders locate their nearest bike with the Voi app and then scan a QR code on the frame to unlock them. They can then be left anywhere to be picked up by the next user. Voi already runs similar cycle hire schemes in several major UK and European cities [BBC] The last scheme was meant to run at no cost to the council, but ended up costing 1.8m. However, Jenkinson said he did not expect similar issues this time. He said: "It's fair to say that the last scheme wasn't successful and it did actually cost quite a lot of money in the end. "The technology has significantly improved, but I think people's perceptions of schemes have changed over the years as well. They are commonplace in cities across, not only the UK, but in Europe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "So I think it's important that we offer choice to residents and visitors as they move through the city." 'Less prone to vandalism' Cllr Jenkinson said he expected the bikes to be used predominantly by visitors to the city during the initial trial period. But he expected commuters to be "heavy users" between other public transport links once locals "buy in". Since the previous scheme ended, Edinburgh was the largest European capital without a cycle hire network. In 2020, one in four of the Just Eat bikes had to be repaired every week due to damage caused by vandalism. Docking stations were damaged, bikes were set alight and some had to be pulled from the Water of Leith. The bikes can be picked up anywhere in the city and are unlocked using a QR code [BBC] James Bolton, general manager at Voi UK, said their bikes were "more durable" and better able to stand up to intentional damage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said: "All of our bikes have geolocation on them, so we know where they are at all times. "The bikes themselves are a lot more durable and less prone to vandalism. "We've been operating these bikes in Liverpool, London, Cambridge and Oxford, and we've never had substantial problems with that at all." Bavarian Nordic has upped the bottom end of its 2025 guidance, buoyed by strong performance in the drugmakers travel health and public preparedness businesses. Subject of a takeover offer by a consortium that values the company at around $3bn, the company posted total revenue for H1 of DKr3bn ($160m), reflecting a 33% compared to the same period last year. A 24% growth in its travel health business, which includes a range of vaccines, contributed DKr1.4bn to the companys books. Growth was fuelled by increased demand for rabies and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) vaccines. There was weaker revenue for the companys cholera and typhoid vaccines, namely Vaxchora and Vivotif. Sales for the two products shrank 36% and 2%, respectively, in H1. In an earnings call on 22 August, chief financial officer Henrik Juuel blamed a declining US market for the performance. Sales for Bavarian Nordics public preparedness business came in at DKr1.5bn, a 51% rise from H1 2024. Assessing growth in this area is harder due to the timing of vaccine orders Bavarian Nordic said that quarterly phasing of orders drove the increase. As a result of the strong performance in both the travel health business and clarity from the public preparedness business orders for the remainder of the year, Bavarian Nordic has upped the bottom end of its full-year revenue. The vaccine specialist now expects full-year revenue of DKr6bn to DKr6.6bn, compared to the previous range of DKr5.7-DKr6.7bn. Bavarian Nordic bolstered its cash reserves with a $160m sale of a priority review voucher in June 2025. The company has now included this in the total EBITDA margin, which is expected to be 40%-42%. The remainder of the year could hold significant change for Bavarian Nordic. The company, currently listed on the Copenhagen stock exchange, is subject to a takeover offer from a consortium led by Nordic Capital and Permira. The consortium is expected to publish an offer letter by 26 August, detailing further terms, though the bid values the vaccine maker at around DKr19bn. The deal, which would take the company private, will only go through if it is approved by shareholders. The companys board of directors have maintained that the takeover offer from Nordic Capital and Permira represents an attractive offer for the shareholders. Alluding to the deal in the conference call, Juuel said the comprehensive offer document will answer a lot of questions that we are being faced with. Bavarian Nordic has had a busy 2025 of commercial wins, spearheaded by approval for its chikungunya vaccine Vimkunya in the US, Europe, and the UK. The regulatory approval provides direct competition to Valnevas Ixchiq, which, for a while, was the only chikungunya vaccine on the market. Theres an officer in the Catholic Church colloquially known as the Devils Advocate. His duty, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, is to make all possible arguments, even at times seemingly slight against candidates for sainthood. No canonization is legal without his input. The churchs example is worth following by the criminal justice system to prove innocence, not guilt. Every detective bureau and prosecutors office should employ someone whose job is to argue in every case: Youve got the wrong guy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They get it wrong much too often. The National Registry of Exonerations lists 3,724 convicted people who were proved innocent eventually. Some of them had served most of their lives in prison. The saga of Sidney Holmes Sidney Holmes of Pompano Beach was exonerated two years ago. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill July 1 awarding him $1.7 million for the 34 years he served of a 400-year prison term for a convenience store robbery he did not commit. He was a new 23-year-old father when he was arrested, and 57 when freed. I missed 34 years of being a father to my son, Holmes said. Holmes was a victim of common fault lines in the justice system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mistaken witness identification from an improperly suggestive photo lineup convinced investigators and prosecutors that Holmes was the getaway driver in a robbery. They overlooked a significant discrepancy between Holmes car and a similar Oldsmobile. The criminals car trunk had a hole in place of a lock; Holmes car didnt. The state finessed that by assuming his car was repaired after the robbery. Only 400 years Once they convinced themselves they had the right suspect, it was over. Holmes wouldnt name accomplices, because he couldnt. The prosecutor asked the judge to give him 800 years but the judge reduced it to 400. The identification of Holmes was scientifically unreliable and contrary to modern-day best practices, said Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor, whose office reinvestigated the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sheriffs deputies who did the original investigation expressed shock that Holmes was sentenced to and had served so much time in prison, Pryor said. There have been 93 exonerees in Florida. Broward and Miami-Dade lead the state with 13 cases each in this dubious category. Holmes was one of eight who had served 30 years or more. He and four other long-term prisoners were freed because state attorneys whose offices originally convicted them now have conviction review units to hear pleas from convicts who had exhausted their appeals in the courts. Too few case reviews Only five such units exist in Florida, according to the National Registry of Exonerations in Broward, Hillsborough, Palm Beach, the Ninth Judicial Circuit (Orange and Osceola counties) and the Fourth (Duval, Nassau and Clay). That leaves 15 circuits with no mechanisms for righting such terrible wrongs. The Innocence Project of Florida, a voluntary group, is the only statewide resource. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After a conviction, the odds are extremely long against a successful appeal. Appellate courts arent concerned with guilt or innocence, only whether a trial followed procedural rules. All of the appellate rules are stacked in the states favor. In a notorious case, the state Attorney General opposed DNA testing sought by a prisoner named Wilton Dedge and argued for the sake of finality that he should not have it, even if they knew he was innocent. The test proved him innocent another case in which an eyewitness ID was wrong. Dedge was released after 22 years of a life sentence. The Legislature gave him $2 million. The best way to rectify such wrongs is to prevent them from happening. A ton of work needed To that end, a 2017 Florida law established some, but not all best practices for witness identifications, according to Seth Miller of The Innocence Project, which helped to clear Holmes. But the law still allows photo lineups and leaves enforcement to the discretion of trial judges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is still a ton of work to be done to identify such cases and determine whether the suggestive photo lineup contributed to a wrongful conviction, Miller said. Other human factors contribute to wrongful imprisonment, and exculpatory DNA is not present in most cases. People with arrest records, as Holmes had, are typically prime suspects. False confessions were found in 13% of exonerations. Nearly 30% involved false or misleading forensic evidence. Outright perjury or false accusations contributed to more than six of every 10 cases. When mistakes are made, they tend to cascade. A trait known as confirmation bias can cause detectives and prosecutors to zero in on preferred suspects, ignoring evidence that might clear them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is why its to everyones advantage to have someone aggressively second-guessing every case before it goes to trial. No one should endure what happened to Sidney Holmes. The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com. Editors note: This editorial originally ran in fellow CNHI paper the Lockport Journal. Were left with a lot of questions following news that National Fuel Gas will pay $700,000 following last years house explosion in Niagara Falls. On May 1, 2024, National Fuel dispatched a company employee to a 20th Street property to unlock an outside natural gas meter and turn the service on for a new resident. The residence was a multi-family rental property, with the new resident moving into a first-floor unit and another resident already living on the second floor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the National Fuel employee encountered raw sewage at the foot of the residences basement stairs, the employee decided not to enter the basement area to check the condition of the furnace and hot water heater. Instead, the employee exited the residence, without performing the necessary appliance safety checks, and turned the gas meter service valve on. Shortly thereafter, the residence exploded, and a natural gas-related fire erupted inside the building. The blast blew out one of the side walls of the two-and-a-half-story brick structure, did extensive damage to the rear wall, and caused the roof, chimney and attic to collapse in on a second-floor apartment. A woman and her pet dog, living in a first-floor apartment, were able to escape without injury. The second-floor tenant, who was in the process of moving into his apartment, was not home at the time of the incident but lost almost all of his belongings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The entire multi-family building was destroyed by the ensuing blaze that was triggered by the explosion. Two homes on either side of the destroyed structure suffered damage to their exteriors. An investigation found that the responding National Fuel employee should not have turned the gas meter on given the attendant facts and circumstances. Furthermore, the departments investigation determined that the employee misrepresented the residences appliance conditions in company records. Last week, the New York State Public Service Commission announced that National Fuel Gas had agreed to pay $700,000 to settle the violations. The commission takes very seriously its role of ensuring the publics safety, Chair Rory M. Christian said Thursday. The decision reached regarding this gas explosion clearly demonstrates that we will hold utilities and their shareholders fully accountable through enforcement actions to protect the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So, who is National Fuel paying? The commission says under the terms of the settlement agreement, National Fuel shareholders will pay $700,000 for enhanced safety measures and training to prevent similar incidents in the future. Considering their employees action led to a house exploding, shouldnt National Fuel be focusing on better safety measures and training anyway? Is this really holding a utility accountable? Did the utility assist the residents left homeless? And what happened to that employee? Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt or killed, but their actions led to a house exploding and records were falsified? Not good. Considering all this, we cant agree that National Fuel was held fully accountable for this incredibly dangerous incident. Speaking Wednesday to reporters flanked by National Guard troops and Washington, D.C., police that had been commandeered by the Trump administration, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller had a clear message for Chicago and other major cities. Prepare yourselves for the kind of protection the nations capital has been provided over the past 10 days or so. On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi disclosed that she gave Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson until Aug. 19 a deadline that has passed to revoke so-called sanctuary state and city laws. Bondi told Fox Business that Illinois and other so-called sanctuary states had been told you better comply or youre next. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To which we reiterate, no thank you. Weve written before in opposition to the prospect of National Guard troops patrolling Chicago streets on the pretext of crime or some other emergency, and what were seeing in Washington convinces us all the more that we want no part of that. President Donald Trump last week declared a crime emergency in the District of Columbia, which gave his administration power to direct the use of local police resources and to call in the National Guard. A number of Republican governors subsequently have announced theyre sending hundreds of Guard troops under their jurisdiction to D.C. What residents and workers in Washington have experienced since then is the dystopian presence of uniformed military personnel armed with lethal weaponry patrolling mainly parts of the city that arent anyones definition of crime-riddled. Georgetown and the heavily touristed National Mall were doing just fine before all this Trumpian nonsense. Granted, like virtually every American city, Washington has neighborhoods that truly arent safe where street crime and gun violence are unacceptably prevalent. But those neighborhoods arent where Trumps forces are located, which naturally leads to the conclusion that this crime emergency is little more than a pretext for Trump to display his vision of a muscular executive branch intervening in the affairs of urban America. Not coincidentally, these are parts of the country that generally didnt vote for him and continue to oppose his priorities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to the disturbing images flowing out of Washington, of significant concern is that owners of bars and restaurants in what ordinarily is a thriving and youthfully active city are reporting significant declines in business. Many D.C. residents dont seem to vibe on going out for a drink or a meal in a city teeming with soldiers and federal agents of various bureaus, some of whom appear to be engaged in aggressive immigration enforcement, despite not working for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. We dont blame those residents. Wed head outside the District too. Which brings us to our own city. The last thing needed in Chicago, which isnt as economically healthy as Washington was prior to Trumps strongman maneuvers, is discouraging more people from patronizing bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other attractions. Downtown Chicago continues to be distressingly light on foot traffic, explained less by worries about crime than the paucity of workers returning to the office compared with other major U.S. cities. Add the militarized scene afflicting D.C. to our current reality and Chicago may well return to the post-apocalyptic feel we saw at the height of the pandemic rather than a city in recovery, albeit not nearly at a pace wed all prefer. Another argument against federal intervention: Chicago, arguably unlike some of the other cities on Trumps naughty list, now has in place a capable and, we hear, cooperative slate of tough-on-crime officials in all of the most important public safety roles. They include Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling, Cook County States Attorney Eileen ONeill Burke and, of course, Andrew Boutros, Trumps own recently confirmed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While all would agree there remains too much violent crime in Chicago, the latest numbers show that crimes against public safety are being prosecuted far more aggressively and most of whats now occurring is related to street gangs that have been a scourge in this city for generations. In terms of federal action, a revitalized U.S. attorneys office Boutros is actively recruiting dozens of new prosecutors as we write could and likely will do far more to improve the progress being made here than any destabilizing influx of outside federal forces. Trumps attempts to force Americas more reluctant cities into full cooperation with his immigration-enforcement agenda likely plays well with his MAGA base. But polls have shown for weeks that the majority of Americans, while approving of Trumps securing the southern border, are sour on heavy-handed tactics such as staking out Home Depots and arresting delivery drivers while on the job. The administration even has managed to lose the support of influential podcaster Joe Rogan, whose endorsement was eagerly sought last year by both Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. When people thought about ICE, they thought, Great, youre going to get rid of the gang members. They didnt think, Great, youre going to get rid of the landscaper, Rogan said on one of his recent podcasts. Chicago is struggling to govern itself overall, its true, and weve been consistent critics of many progressive policies that we believe are holding the city back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the city is making headway on crime and the key players all have changed for the better. Our federal government is supposed to act as a support for local government. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. After 65 years on the property of a landowner who saved it from demolition, plans are in motion to move an historic covered bridge to Eagle Creek Park. Theres just one hitch; organizers are still about $1 million short of the $2 million needed for the relocation and upkeep of the Traders Point Covered Bridge. We are still trying to line up some financial support from foundations, said Jane Elder, who heads Eagle Creek Nature Conservancy and Preservation, Inc. The bridge has been donated to Indy Parks and Recreation and will be installed at Eagle Creek Park over Lilly Lake when it is moved. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Lilly Foundation has already pledged $1million to the project, Elder said. Indiana Landmarks recently named the covered bridge as one of the 10 most endangered landmarks in the state. The bridge was rescued by DeWitt Brown, Sr., in 1959, when property for I-65 construction was being acquired by the state and I-465 was being built. Erected in 1880, the bridge spanned Fishback Creek near 86th Street and Brown, who owned a wire box company, moved it about a quarter mile west to his farm to replace a rickety bridge that spanned a creek. It has remained there ever a since but is not accessible to the public. Browns granddaughter, Judith Fletcher, 76, said Brown saved the bridge because he felt it belonged in the neighborhood. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He had strong sense of what was good and what should not be wasted, she said. He was amazing and eccentric. As a child Fletcher and her friends played on the bridge and caught frogs in the creek. For a time, trespassers commonly vandalized the bridge and marked it with graffiti, so Brown installed a siren and light system to scare them off, Fletcher said. Trader's Point Covered Bridge could be moved from a private farm to Eagle Creek Park Brown died in 1972, but the farm is still owned by the Brown family; Judiths sister, Wendy, lives there and rents a piece of it to a tenant. The bridge is a 40-foot-long truss structure, one of 14 built by Nobleville businessman and bridge builder Josiah Durfee. More than 600 covered bridges were built in Indiana during the nineteenth century but only an estimated 90 remain, said Mark Dollase, vice president of preservation services for Indiana Landmarks. He said he knew of no other bridges of that era in Marion County. The covered bridge at the Indiana State Fairgrounds was built in 2008. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a letter to Indy Parks, the Eagle Creek Park Advisory Committee said the bridge was a perfect fit at Eagle Creek, the countrys largest municipal park. It would certainly be a focal point for gatherings, located adjacent to a shelter, pergola, parking and restrooms, the letter read. It would attract larger numbers of patrons, and further encourage broader community engagement. The proposed site o the relocated Traders Point bridgea t Eagle Creek Park. Indiana Landmarks hired Kurdziel Barker Engineering to conduct a cost study of the move, Dollese said. The firm estimated it would cost $1.3 million to take apart the bridge, move it and put it back together in Eagle Creek Park. It would cost another almost $500,000 for maintenance like a new roof and sidings. Design costs would add another $170,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at john.tuohy@indystar.com and follow on X/Twitter and Facebook. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Effort to move 145-year-old covered bridge to Eagle Creek Park seeks donors El Salvador issued an order restricting how schoolboys hair should be cut, highlighting the governments authoritarian turn. President Nayib Bukele defended the disciplinary measures which come as he tries to reshape every facet of life in El Salvador. Since assuming power in 2019, Bukele has overseen a drastic drop in murder rates, which has in turn boosted his popularity. The president has leveraged his standing to pass laws that give him a firmer grip on power, including scrapping term limits and restricting what the press can report on. Human rights advocates, meanwhile, warn that the crime crackdown has resulted in tens of thousands of innocents being caught in a dragnet. Six people have appeared at the Old Bailey charged with offences relating to break-ins which were claimed by Palestine Action, the campaign group recently banned under terrorism legislation. The six defendants are accused of taking part in an alleged August 2024 break-in at Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence firm. The incident played a key role in the Home Secretary's order banning Palestine Action last month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are now 24 people accused of offences relating to the Elbit Systems break-in. Louie Adams, 33, of north London, Harland Archer, 20, of Whitstable in Kent, Finn Collins, 19, also of Whitstable, Moiz Ibrahim, 27, of west London, Salaam Mahmood, 19, of south-east London and Liam Mullany, 33, of Lytchett Matravers, Dorset, are now jointly accused of three charges with the first 18 other defendants. Prosecutors allege the group committed aggravated burglary with the assistance of sledgehammers, and criminal damage of more than 1m at Elbit's Bristol facilities. The defendants are further charged with violent disorder. Friday's six were remanded in custody to next appear in court on 12 December for a plea hearing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first 18 defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, are preparing for trials at various dates, beginning in November. A group of protesters gathered outside the London court as the case was being heard. The six people who appeared in court on Friday are the latest to be charged over the incident following a series of raids by Counter Terrorism Policing South East. Prosecutors said the alleged offences had a "terrorist connection". People protested outside the Old Bailey during Friday's hearing [PA Media] Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb explained the crown court did not have the capacity to conduct a trial with more than six co-defendants in custody at the same time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This meant the earliest date for a fourth trial, involving the six defendants who appeared at the Old Bailey on Friday, was in 2027, but efforts would be made to bring it forward, she said. A plea hearing has been set at Woolwich Crown Court for 12 December. In a separate case, a man appeared in court on Friday over charges related to a break-in at RAF Brize Norton in June. That incident was also claimed by Palestine Action. Muhammad Umer Khalid, 22, is the fifth person to be charged in connection with that break-in, which police say caused 7m of damage. Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the Government on 5 July this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The global human rights campaign group Amnesty International has launched an unprecedented "urgent action" against the UK, calling on supporters to lobby the British government over arrests relating to the Palestine Action ban. The campaign asks supporters around the world to pressure British prosecutors to abandon trials of up to 700 people. In each case the individuals have been accused of supporting the banned group by taking part in peaceful sit-in protests around the country. The group says it only launches such actions where it believes that there is an "urgent need for intervention" to stop human rights violations or abuses against an individual or group - and for decades it was used to lobby despotic regimes to free political prisoners. This is the first time such an urgent action has been targeted at the UK. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has defended the ban, saying some supporters "don't know the full nature" of the group, and stressing it was "not a non-violent organisation". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Follow BBC Bristol on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. More on this story Related internet links BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) Making a stop in Boardman Thursday for a meeting with the Mahoning County Republican Party, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said he believes the Mahoning County Board of Elections needs to be moved out of Oak Hill Renaissance Place. This is really a local matter. I dont stick my nose into the business of the county board of elections. It is a county office, paid for by county funds. Thats a matter to be worked out between the county commissioners and the county board of elections. LaRose said. I will say this. I have been to that building many times, and its a little long in the tooth; and it should be replaced. I think everybody recognizes that. I think where the debate is is where would the Board of Elections facility be? LaRose toured the boards current location last September. He stressed the decision on locating the office is entirely up to local leaders. County commissioners say theyre considering their options, but have not made a decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Give me something. Theyre thinking about it. They dont need to think about it any longer. We need action, said Dave Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Board of Elections. Betras points to a series of directives sent to each county by LaRoses office last May to properly secure election equipment. All requirements must be completed by August 29, 2025, Betras said. While the countys election machines are locked in Oak Hills basement, some equipment is kept under tarps to protect it from leaky pipes overhead. But other items are stored in unlocked areas of the buildings fifth floor, which has never been renovated since the days when the building was Southside Hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It looks like a bombed-out building in Ukraine or Gaza. I mean, thats how bad that building is, Betras said. And Betras said hes not willing to wait around much longer. Im giving them a little more breathing room, and then were gonna just sue them. We dont have a choice, Betras said. Well, I hope they dont have to come to that, LaRose said. LaRose says he hopes all sides can come to a decision soon. Betras worries it wont come soon enough. Its not just the board of elections that is concerned about its headquarters. There were some heated words at the Mahoning County commissioners meeting Thursday over where to house other county departments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Commissioners claim renovating the Patriot Building and its parking lot could cost up to $9 million. They say they are continuing to work on a plan for housing various offices and departments, admitting they have a number of potential options to consider. Without being political, my contention now, after looking at everything, is that building shouldnt have been purchased. We havent decided what were doing yet, but that will be our decision, said Mahoning County Commissioner Geno DiFabio. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ELK COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) A Weedville man is facing charges after he was allegedly caught multiple times selling products that tested positive for Delta-9 THC. Dimitri Fiodorov, 50, the owner of Camp Sweetleaf in Jay Township, is facing dozens of charges after Pennsylvania State Police conducted controlled buys, according to a criminal complaint. In November of 2024, Troopers in Ridgway started an investigation into the store for allegedly selling THC products after a suspect in a different case told them they had purchased the marijuana from the stores owner, Fiodorov. On Jan. 29, officers went to the store to determine if illegal THC products were being sold. Police noted that on this occasion, they observed several items of contraband, including Delta-8 THC gummies, Delta-9 THC gummies, different baked goods that were made with THC, according to Fiodorov and raw suspected marijuana. All items were in plain sight, according to the affidavit. During this incident, PSP purchased Delta-9 gummies and half an ounce of raw marijuana for $120 and sent them for testing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Man arrested, found with over $18K in drugs in Cambria County Testing at the Erie Regional Lab confirmed that the raw marijuana contained Delta-9 in an amount greater than 0.3% by weight. Both packets of gummies also contained Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, but the percentage of Delta-9 could not be determined. On Feb. 13, Pennsylvania State Police returned to Camp Sweetleaf to speak with Fiodorov. Police asked him about his products and Fiodorov told them where he got his THC products and allegedly admitted that he did not know the THC content of the raw marijuana he was selling. PSP again bought a pack of THC Delta-9 gummies and half an ounce of raw marijuana to be sent for testing. According to the affidavit, testing again showed that the raw marijuana was positive for Delta-9 THC that was greater than 0.3% by weight. The gummy again tested positive for Delta-9 THC, but a percentage could not be determined. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then, on April 30, officers returned for another controlled purchase before obtaining a search warrant for the store. A search warrant was granted, and Fiodorov was arrested without incident. Police seized the following items: Suspected raw marijuana Suspected Delta-8-THC gummies Suspected Delta-9 gummies Suspected THC wax An unknown crystal substance Suspected CBD gummies Suspected THC vape pens Drug paraphernalia In total, police seized 59 items to be sent to the Erie Regional Lab for testing. According to the complaint, 25 items tested positive for Delta-9 THC, and it was determined to be greater than 0.3% by weight. According to the Pennsylvania Cannabis Information Portal, marijuana-derived Delta-9 THC is illegal in Pennsylvania. Only patients registered under the Pennsylvania medical marijuana program may use marijuana-derived Delta-9 THC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They also noted that while hemp-derived Delta-9 THC products are legal in Pennsylvania, those products cannot contain more than 0.3%. Fiodorov was arraigned and released on unsecured bail. He is facing 46 charges of manufacturing with intent to deliver, intent to possess a controlled substance, and use or possession of drug paraphernalia. Get the latest news, weather forecasts and sports stories delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up for our newsletters. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Tech billionaire Elon Musk must face a lawsuit over allegations that his political action committee committed fraud by telling voters they had a chance to randomly win $1 million despite the winners being predetermined. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled against Musks motion to dismiss a lawsuit by Jacqueline McAferty of Arizona that accuses him and his super PAC of fraud and breach of contract. Pitman will allow claims of fraud and breach of contract to move forward, but dismissed McAfertys claim that Musk violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Lawyers representing Musk and his super PAC did not immediately return a request for comment. McAferty is being represented by Texas lawyer Tom Kherkher, who applauded the judges ruling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This ruling is the first step to vindicating our belief that voters across key battleground states never participated in a random giveaway, but rather a scheme to harvest personal data under false pretenses, Kherkher said in a statement to HuffPost. Musk was hit with several class-action lawsuits in November after his committee, America PAC, promised battleground state supporters of President Donald Trump a chance of winning $1 million. For a chance to win the money which Musk falsely claimed would be randomized voters like McAferty had to give away their personal identifying information and sign an online petition in support of free speech and the right to bear arms. Related: Elon Musk No-Shows Critical Court Hearing Over $1 Million Voter Giveaway While Musk paid out the money to nine winners, his PAC told a Pennsylvania judge that the winners had been hand-selected based on their suitability to serve as spokespeople for the PAC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In his ruling, Pitman pointed to testimony Chris Young, the PACs director and treasurer, gave to the Pennsylvania judge a day before the election. Young testified that those selected to earn $1 million were not chosen by random chance but instead America PAC looked for individuals who signed the Petition that it thought would be a good fit to represent the organization as spokespeople, the ruling said. Based on this testimony, the complaint alleges that recipients were not chosen by chance but instead chosen based on their personal stories and thereafter signed a contract with America PAC to be their spokesperson. Elon Musk hands over a million-dollar check to Nicholas Jacobs during a town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, March 30. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File) via Associated Press In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Musks lawyers argued that obtaining McAfertys personal information had no value. Pitman issued a blistering rebuke of that argument. It is disingenuous for Defendants to argue that Plaintiffs [personal identifying information] has no value when Defendants went through so much effort two monetary programs, multiple town halls, several social media posts to acquire it, the ruling reads. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pitman also pushed back against the claim from Musks lawyers that the PACs decision to pre-determine winners is consistent with being randomly selected. Defendants argument on this ground is wholly unpersuasive, Pitman wrote before giving the Merriam-Webster definition of the word randomly. If Defendants pre-determined the $1 million recipients based on their personal stories rather than chance, as Plaintiff has alleged, then the recipients were obviously not chosen in a way that lack[ed] a definite plan, purpose, or pattern, Pitman said. The judge added that as the lawsuit moves forward, the way the $1 million recipients were selected will be elucidated through discovery. Related: Another 'Trump Burger' Owner Was Detained By ICE, And His Lawyer Says Theyre Waiting For Him To Die Kherkher called Pitmans ruling well-reasoned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are pleased with the courts well-reasoned opinion that recognizes a reasonable person could justifiably believe they were participating in a legitimate lottery, despite the later disclosures that the winners were pre-selected spokespeople, Kherkhers statement said. Musk is also facing a similar lawsuit from Joy Harvick of Arizona. Harvick is being represented by Texas lawyer Mark Bankston, who has previously represented Sandy Hook families who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for defamation. Along with Musks alleged giveaway fraud, hes also facing a class-action lawsuit over claims he and his super PAC owe millions of dollars to canvassers who helped sign petitions during the 2024 election. More Stories Elon Musk Says $1M Election Giveaway Wasn't Illegal Because Winners Weren't Random Lawsuit Against Elon Musk's $1 Million Voter Giveaway Heads Back To State Court Trump Ran On A Promise Of Revenge And Hes Making Good On It Read the original on HuffPost About two weeks before a Tulsa law firm withdrew from representing the Oklahoma State Board of Education, three board members all appointed by Gov. Kevin Stitt let the state attorney generals office know they wanted a change in the boards legal representation. That revelation of those board members feelings for their now-departed general counsel, Chad Kutmas, came from emails obtained by The Oklahoman on Thursday, Aug. 21, from an open-records request. Online news outlet NonDoc first reported the existence of the emails. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stitts removal of three board members and appointment of four others (one of whom filled an open seat) has changed the makeup of the board from one which rubber-stamped any proposal from state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters to one that now routinely pushes back on his ideas. Kutmas, from the law firm Norman Wohlgemuth, has been cool to board members requests to have more input and access into what goes on the board meeting agenda. On July 28, four days after the most recent board meeting, board member Becky Carson emailed Brad Clark, the current general counsel for the attorney generals office, who had previously served as both the state Education Department and the Board of Educations attorney at different times under then-state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister, Walters predecessor. She wanted the attorney generals office to cancel its approval of Kutmas, which allows him to serve as legal counsel to state agencies. Such approval is known in Oklahoma legal parlance as 20i. Chris Van Denhende was one of three state Board of Education members who emailed an attorney in the state attorney general's office, asking for a new board attorney. As a member of the board I believe that we no longer have trust in Mr. Kutmas, Carson wrote. He is often uncooperative, belittling, and argumentative with board members. He does not represent the best interest of the board, which is what he is contracted to do. He has made it apparent in his actions, or lack of, that we as a board are not his priority. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The next day, two other board members Ryan Deatherage, of Kingfisher, and Chris Van Denhende, of Tulsa also emailed Clark, also asking for the termination of Kutmas 20i contract. In my opinion, Mr. Kutmus does not adequately represent the interests of the full Board, but rather aligns solely with State Superintendent Walters, Deatherage wrote. As such, I believe it is in the best interest of the Board to reconsider this contractual relationship. Van Denhendes email to Clark expanded upon that thought. I have found the legal representation provided to the State Board of Education by the firm of Norman Wohlgemuth and specifically Chad J. Kutmas to be unacceptable, Van Denhende said. Mr. Kutmas appears to believe he is Superintendent Ryan Walters personal board attorney and in that regard is obstructionist in his behavior and legal guidance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Van Denhende expressed his hope that the State Board of Education can engage with legal counsel that will provide appropriate guidance in matters of the whole board. Kutmas, before Norman Wohlgemuth began representing the board, had represented Walters (and still does) in an ongoing libel lawsuit filed against the state superintendent by now-retired Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller. On Aug. 12, citing ongoing conflict between four new members of the board and Walters over who has the ultimate decision-making power on major education issues, Norman Wohlgemuth withdrew from representing the board. The law firm had represented the board since October, after Attorney General Gentner Drummond withdrew his approval of Cara Nicklas of Edmond, the boards previous attorney. Based upon recent developments questioning the scope and extent of the power and authority of members of the Board, many of whom were appointed after this firm was retained, vis-a-vis your power and authority as Chairman and President of the Board, we believe it is in the best interest of the Board, and appropriate as a matter of our professional responsibilities, to withdraw as General Counsel to the Board to avoid any conflicts of interest or even the appearance of any conflicts of interest in regard to these issues, attorney Joel Wohlgemuth wrote in a letter sent to Walters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The boards next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 28. Its not known who might serve as the boards attorney for that meeting. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Emails preceded withdrawal of Oklahoma education board's attorney Once written off as dead, one of Bangladeshs largest vertically integrated textile and garment manufacturers could be getting a new shot at life. A brewing $20 million lease agreement with Japans aptly named Revival Project, in fact, could soon see Beximco Groups dozen or so shuttered factories whirr back into operation after months of dormancy, potentially to fulfill orders for Zara owner Inditex, according to local media reports. The tripartite deal, which also involves the state-owned Janata Bank, could restore the jobs of nearly 25,000 workers over the next couple of months, sources from the labor ministry told TBS News. More from Sourcing Journal After 10 months of tireless effort, were finally making progress toward reopening the factories, Beximco managing editor Osman Kaiser Chowdhury told the outlet. We have the governments policy-level support. The companys 16 factories, including Beximco Fashions, Crescent Fashion and Design, Shinepukur Garments and Yellow Apparels, were previously owned by Salman F. Rahman, one of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina most trusted advisors, who remains in prison on charges of murder, fraud, money laundering and graft. Hes also been accused of using his political influence to stall the repayment of his companys bank loans and liabilities, estimated at a whopping 50,098 crore Bangladeshi taka, or around $4.1 billion. To help with Beximcos reopening, Janata Bank plans to reschedule defaulted loans totaling roughly 35,000 crore taka, or $2.9 billion. The Bangladesh Bank will also ease existing policies and offer export-related banking facilities, if not new loans. Under the lease agreement, the Revival Project can carve out a service charge from potential earnings, with the rest going to repay outstanding debts. The firm has suggested appointing Deloitte to audit the books. Details will be hammered out once the agreement is signed, a senior Bangladesh Bank official told bdnews24.com. Beximco started laying off its 40,000 textile and apparel division workers in December after it was clear it could not overcome its crushing debt on its own. Already, the government had to step in to cover wage payments that the company could no longer afford. In January, former Beximco employees protested their dismissal in spectacular fashion by allegedly setting part of a factory, a truck and three buses on fire. Weve decided to reopen the factories considering the governments investment, the banks loans, employment opportunities, and export income, A.H.M. Shafiquzzama, secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment in Bangladesh, told TBS News, adding that the move was driven by economic rather than political considerations. Beximcos factories are fully compliant and equipped with modern machinery. MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (DC News Now) The steady population growth in the Martinsburg area has placed demands on the WVU Berkeley Medical Center to expand services. The hospital announced plans on Friday to take its emergency care services to a new level. Police task force makes 34 armed robbery, drug trafficking arrests in Martinsburg Census data shows that West Virginias eastern panhandle has about 20% more residents now than it did a decade ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the WVU Berkeley Medical Center, Dr. Doug Benkleman, the goal of expanding emergency care is to increase our in-bed patient capacity that serves our inpatient population best. Hospital staff was briefed on Friday by WVU Hospitals-East president and CEO, Mark OHern, who said the goal of service expansion is to, as a team, keep care local and provide great access. Hagerstown nonprofit helps build ties between people with disabilities, law enforcement Along those lines, Berkeley Medical Center chief medical officer, Dr. Michael Londner, told staff today the expanded services will deliver specialized care with very good attention, making it an amazing patient experience. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Todays announcement was inevitable, Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles said. This area has grown so much, said Knowles. This expansion will have a huge impact on the area for health care. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) A road in Jackson Township is closed indefinitely, an emergency closure according to the Montgomery County Engineers Office. Preble County Line Road between Farmersville Gratis Road and SR 725 will be closed due to safety concerns of the bridge deck. There is a detour route to the east of the road (see map below). Photo/Montgomery County Engineers Office. Residences along Preble County Line Road will be accessible. Call the engineers office with questions at 937-225-4904. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. A protest movement that is hanging up English flags in public is intimidating residents, a Liberal Democrat council leader has said. Nick Ireland, the leader of Dorset council, claimed the flag had been co-opted by certain far-Right groups to promote their agendas. The councillors remarks come amid a growing movement that has seen members of the public display patriotic flags in towns and cities across England. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An online patriotism campaign called Operation Raise the Colours, encouraging people to hang patriotic flags across England, has gathered momentum online. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, hoisted Union flags in his constituency in Newark earlier this week. In Dorset, a number of mini-roundabouts have been painted to resemble the St Georges Cross, which the council has described as targeted vandalism. Robert Jenrick hoisted a Union flag in his Newark constituency this week It would be naive to pretend otherwise that the St Georges flag has been co-opted by certain far-Right groups to promote their agendas, Cllr Ireland told the BBC. We will not be encouraging division in our communities. Mini-roundabouts in Weymouth and Portland were targeted this week, the Daily Echo reported. Pictures showed several white roundabouts daubed with stripes of red paint. Cllr Ireland said the paint would be removed shortly as defacing road markings was dangerous and could distract drivers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said there was an underlying tension in the campaign, which he claimed had been hijacked by people whose views, for me, are completely unacceptable. The association of the St Georges and Union flags with far-Right political movements meant some residents had felt intimidated, he added. He urged people to fly national flags in a way that is safe and respectful, such as at home, at community events and on designated flagpoles. For me, patriotism means working hard to improve the lives of our communities, holding our institutions to account and making sure we live up to our values, he said. Investigation into flags painted on roundabouts Elsewhere, West Mercia Police has launched an investigation after the St Georges Cross was painted on a mini-roundabout in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. At least five other roundabouts in the West Midlands have reportedly been painted in a similar way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The display of patriotic flags in public has become a contentious issue in recent weeks. Tower Hamlets, in east London, which is run by the pro-Palestinian party Aspire, said it would remove any St Georges flags from council property, including lamp posts, as soon as possible. In Birmingham, the Labour-run council which declared effective bankruptcy in 2023 and has been grappling with bin strikes for more than five months claimed the flags put the lives of pedestrians and motorists at risk. The authority removed hundreds of the flags from lamp posts and other street furniture last week. Critics have accused the two councils of two-tier bias because Palestinian flags were not taken down for months after popping up in the aftermath of the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The Government has previously issued guidance saying it wants more flags flown, particularly the Union flag, as long as they are erected with the permission of the owner of the site. Downing Street has said Sir Keir Starmer is a patriot who backs people flying the England flag. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. ENTERPRISE, Ala. (WDHN) Enterprise businessman Rhett Marques announced his run for Alabamas Congressional District 1 seat, which is currently filled by Enterprise native Barry Moore. Marques has served two terms in the Alabama legislature; he was first elected in 2018 and was re-elected in 2022, with more than 65% of the vote in the Republican primary. I just thought it would be a good time to work with the people of DC to get President Trumps agenda done. I have done it at the state level for the last seven years, said Marques. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Marques wants to help hard-working Alabamians and help President Trump advance his agenda and plans. Marques said he was working on slashing state taxes on groceries, eliminating the state tax on diapers and baby supplies, and providing a tax relief package for seniors during his past two terms in the state legislature, so his goals for the congressional seat are suspected to be similar or the same. We have protected law enforcement and small businesses. We have worked tirelessly to help Alabama citizens live the way they want to live, said Marques. The seat will be vacant, due to Barry Moore running for Sen. Tommy Tubervilles seat; Tuberville is currently running for Alabama governor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He says his efforts will continue if hes able to grab the District 1 seat thats up for grabs after Enterprise native Congressman Barry Moore announced hes running for U.S. Senate. District one covers the southern part of Alabama, stretching from the Mobile area, where Representative Marques is originally from, to counties in the Wiregrass. Helping Fort Rucker, its the strength of this nation. The Wiregrass and Baldwin County are both heavily into agriculture, and in Mobile, you have the ports, beaches, and tourism, said Marques. Following his recent announcement to run for Congress, Marques received overwhelming support from federal leaders, including a $10,000 contribution from Senator Katie Britt, a native of the enterprise, who has been supportive of his campaign. The Republican primary election is on May 19th, 2026. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A federal judge has barred the Florida immigration detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz from taking in any more detainees and has ordered it to begin dismantling its infrastructure due to environmental concerns. On Thursday, in a late-night ruling, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams granted a preliminary injunction, siding with the plaintiffs argument that significant harm is likely occurring to wildlife near the facility, located in Ochopee, Florida, adjacent to the Big Cypress National Preserve. Originally an old airfield, its now been converted into tent structures capable of accommodating up to approximately 2,000 people, with plans to double that number in the future. Back when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced plans for the facility, environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued, claiming it violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires an environmental study to be conducted before any federal action or construction project. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No later than sixty (60) days from the date of this order, and once the population attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order, Williams wrote in her 82-page ruling, the Defendants shall remove 1) the temporary fencing installed by Defendants to allow Tribe members access to the site consistent with the access they enjoyed before the erection of the detention camp; 2) the Sunbelt lighting fixtures and any additional lighting installed for the use of the property as a detention facility; and 3) all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project. State officials have said they will fight back. The purpose of the facility, which got its name because it is surrounded by alligators in the Everglades making escape risky is to fulfill President Donald Trumps campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration in the United States. President Donald Trump tours "Alligator Alcatraz," a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. | Evan Vucci Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the lawsuit against Alligator Alcatraz a sham. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is nothing about Alligator Alcatraz that comes close to the Everglades or infringing on environmental concerns, he told Fox News. DeSantis also told news outlets that they expect an adverse ruling following the appeal. And we also knew we were going to immediately appeal and get that decision stayed, he said. So we will ultimately be successful in this. Its not going to stop our resolve. Were going to continue to do what we need to do to help the Trump administration remove illegal aliens from our country. You know, thats the mandate that they have. So we anticipated this, but I dont think its going to be insurmountable in the end. On October 1, 1942, the USS Grouper a submarine on patrol some 100 miles east of Shanghai torpedoed the Lisbon Maru, a Japanese freighter. What the commander of the USS Grouper didnt know was that the Lisbon Maru was carrying 1,816 British prisoners of war, who were held in appalling conditions in three of the ships holds. The Japanese had not marked the freighter to indicate that it was carrying prisoners, a flagrant breaking of Geneva Convention rules. The Japanese crew evacuated and battened down the hatches, sealing the POWs in the holds with planks of wood and tarpaulin. As the Lisbon Maru slowly sank, the British men were doomed to drown. And when the POWs attempted to escape the holds clambering onto the sloping deck and jumping into the sea Japanese troops fired on them. A total of 828 POWs died, either drowned or shot in the massacre. There was, however, a remarkable act of courage by Chinese fishermen from the nearby Zhoushan Islands. Seeing black smoke chugging from the ship, they sailed out and rescued 384 POWs. The Lisbon Maru was carrying 1,816 British prisoners of war when it was torpedoed by the USS Grouper - Hong Kong War Diary That defiant, dangerous mission is the basis of $80m Chinese epic Dongji Rescue, directed by Guan Hu and Fei Zhenxiang. Named for one of the islands where the real events took place, Dongji Rescue is the latest Chinese film that now threatens to give the Hollywood blockbuster machine a run for its money. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dongji Rescue follows fictional brothers Ah Bi (Zhu Yilong) and Ah Dang (Wu Lei), a pair of so-called pirates who considering the circumstances have a fortuitous knack for holding their breath underwater. After witnessing the torpedo attack on the Lisbon Maru, the brothers bring trouble to the Japanese-controlled Dongji by harbouring a lone British POW they find adrift, the plummy Newman (William Franklyn-Miller). Newmans tales of falling for a Chinese beauty mark him as one of the many Brits who is sure to meet a sticky end. The brothers argue about the merits of saving POWs the older Ah Bi is cynical and wants no part of it, while the younger Ah Dang is idealistic and determined to do the right thing but their hand is forced when Japanese troops arrive on the island in search of the POW castaway. The films islanders live in a state of morose capitulation since coming under Japanese rule. The fisherfolk soon redeem themselves by keeping schtum under interrogation, sacrificing themselves to Japanese bayonets in a deeply upsetting atrocity sequence. Saving lives is an act of righteousness and patriotism argues Dongji islands resident comic relief drunkard, though he soon discovers the painful cost of heroism. These events so far are largely fictional but spur the fishermen on to sail to the very real rescue of the rest of the POWs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cinema has proved an effective arm of propaganda for China, with Hollywood blockbusters seeking to cash in on the countrys huge film market by making concessions to Chinese politics and appeasing the CCP (even Barbie was accused of making such concessions). But in Dongji Rescue, the fishermen are doing their bit for East-West relations demonstrating the extreme lengths to which theyll go for the Allies. Indeed, its a story about the cost of surrender and the dignity in standing up to aggressors. Though Dongji Rescue is highly dramatised, the real Chinese fishermen did indeed attempt to hide the rescued POWs in their homes and temples, and at great risk from the Japanese troops who came looking for the prisoners. The true story isnt quite as forgotten as it once was, following the release of Fang Lis 2024 documentary, The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru. Before that, the story was a lesser known aside from the Second World War, with just a few historians and experts flying the flag to keep its memory alive. Chinese president Xi Jinping knows it well, however, and recounted the tale of the Lisbon Maru during a 2015 visit to Britain. In 2022, Denise Wynn, daughter of Lisbon Maru survivor Dennis Morley, wrote to Xi as part of her fathers campaign to establish a memorial for the fishermen. Xi replied, encouraging Wynn to continue her fathers legacy and stressing the importance of the Britain-China friendship. Denise Wynn holds a photo of her late father, Dennis Morley. He was one of the last British POWs alive who escaped the Lisbon Maru - Li Ying/Xinhua/Alamy Live News More recently, Wynn was one of several relatives who travelled to the water of the Lisbon Maru the wreck was located by Fang Li for his documentary and scattered petals in memory of its victims. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dennis Morley, who served with the Royal Scots, was one of two known Lisbon Maru survivors who appear in the documentary. Also interviewed was William Beningfield of the Middlesex Regiment and the last surviving Chinese fisherman, Lin Agen. All three men died before the documentarys release but recall the incident in colourful, sometimes harrowing detail. Morley described how the bottom of his hold was filled with what was essentially excrement-filled sewage. We were swimming in it, virtually, he said. The actual toilet for the POWs was a little platform that stuck out from the side of the deck. Six survivors of the Lisbon Maru, where they were held by the Japanese as POWs - Jane Mingay Dongji Rescue doesnt get quite as deep in the muck. Its fair to say that while paying homage to the real heroism, the film is more concerned with cinematic spectacle than in is strict historical fact. The big-budget adventure, with a fictional story woven around the action, sometimes recalls James Camerons Titanic more than the realism of war films such as Saving Private Ryan. With much of Dongji Rescue set on the water around 40 per cent of the film takes place underwater it proved an immense technical challenge. The production built painstakingly details village sets, with the underwater scenes made with immense water tanks and robotic submersibles. It was also shot in Imax, looking to make a splash in the biggest cinemas. Director Guan Hu has said it was like the scope of three movies in one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The film does live up to the technical ambition. There are rousing scenes of the POWs escaping from the ship holds and a climatic just-in-the-nick-of-time rescue by the fishermen (and fisherwomen in the movie, as led by the heroic Ah Hua, played by Ni Ni.) But its too much of a shiny blockbuster, perhaps, to ever make you feel like youre witnessing the real events. Ah Bi, for instance, goes full into Rambo mode for the action-packed climax. In reality, the men in the holds felt the torpedo strike and heard the commotion and gunfire above deck, and a Japanese bomber that flew over to attack the USS Grouper. Over the next few hours, the cargo holds began to fill with water and sensing they were in literally deep trouble the Japanese ordered the British men in the POW holds to pump out the water themselves using a small hand pump. By the evening, the Japanese had sealed the men in. We were the saying the b------s are gonna drown us, remembered Morley. Dongji Rescue is more concerned with cinematic spectacle than in is strict historical fact The POWs kept the pump going despite having not eaten for 36 hours in the darkness and stench, and with very little oxygen. While some real-life details from the holds are depicted in Dongji Rescue such as the Brits communicating between the three holds by clanging the metal with Morse code it does downplay British heroism in favour of the Chinese perspective. As Fang Lis documentary explains, Lt Col Moncreiff Stewart of the 1st Middlesex Regiment told his men, If were to die, we die like Englishmen! and one officer climbed a ladder to the top of the hold with a butchers knife and managed to cut through the tarpaulin. When the men began to pour out of the hold, Japanese suicide guards who were still on the ship fired at them. The next wave of men poured out of the hold and overpowered the guards before leaping into the sea. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The massacre is powerful stuff in Dongji Rescue particularly scenes of a Japanese boat skimming through clumps of men in the water, firing at them as they swim for survival. And that really did happen: Japanese troops shot at the POWs from the utility boats onto which theyd already evacuated. Elsewhere, theres a poignant chorus of Its a Long Way to Tipperary, which some of the real POWs sang after the ladder in the third hold broke and they fell below, trapped and waiting to drown. I can still hear it to this day, survivor Jack Hughieson later told the Imperial War Museum. Between the yells of cries for help there was also singing. It was so loud you could hear from the water. That was people going down to meet their maker. Survivor Dennis Morley described how the bottom of his hold was filled with what was essentially excrement-filled sewage - Dongji Rescue There are some notable omissions from Dongji Rescue. For instance, once the Chinese fisherman arrived on the scene to rescue the POWs, the Japanese troops started pulling them out of the water not out of any sense of human decency but because they knew if they kept shooting, the Chinese would be witness to the massacre. (The British Foreign Office sent a telegram to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1943 calling the Japanese crews actions so callous as to be a disgrace to the naval and military traditions of a civilised country.) In the film, the Japanese dont help the commanders simply decide to stop shelling the survivors in case of a negative backlash. Also missing from the movie action is the fact that out of 384 rescued POWs, 381 were soon recaptured. Many Britons feared repercussions on the fisherman who had saved them, so they surrendered themselves back to their Japanese captors. Just three of the POWs successfully escaped. The three men, who spoke Chinese, hid in a cave and disguised themselves as local fishermen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even in highly dramatised form, the Dongji Rescue story is a fascinating one. Hollywood has struggled to crack the huge Chinese market in recent years, while Chinese films have made big money domestically and havent needed to pander to western audiences (see the animation Ne Zha 2, which made a whopping $2.2bn). Dongji Rescue, with its tale of Allied rescue and Hollywood-like action, could be the rare Chinese blockbuster that crosses the cultural divide. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama has now begun its search for a new bishop. Bishop Glenda Curry, who has headed the EDA since 2021, officially stepped down from her duties in June. On Thursday, the diocese posted the job listing on the Episcopal News Service. The Episcopal Church is a Protestant sect of the Anglican Communion, tend to be known for more liberal values than its hardline counterparts, such as the Catholic church. For example, women are allowed to serve as priests and are more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our search represents a prayerful process of reflection on the challenges and great opportunities our diocese will face in this next chapter of our history, the listing stated. We have listened to the dreams, needs, and concerns of our faith community, including laypeople, clergy, seminarians, Episcopalians of color, our youth, and young adults. We have sought a diversity of ideas and opinions to create a thoughtful and comprehensive profile of the diocese and the Bishop we seek. The diocese has already selected a search committee that will go through the process until they officially elect a new bishop by next January. Curry was the churchs 12th bishop. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. Congress has officially received the first batch of Jeffrey Epstein files. The Justice Department turned over a tranche of materials related to the case against the late, convicted sex offender Friday afternoon. These documents transmitted in compliance with a subpoena issued earlier this month by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee represent only a portion of what DOJ has in its possession and its not immediately clear what sort of information lawmakers currently have available to them. The documents are expected to have heavy redactions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Oversight Committee now plans to review the materials, with both Democrats and Republicans having access. While under a typical arrangement, the majority in this case Republicans would control its disclosure, either party could release the materials unilaterally. Committee Republicans have pledged to coordinate with the Justice Department to protect the identities of victims and ensure certain details do not complicate ongoing criminal matters. A spokesperson for the panel's chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), said in a statement that DOJ's production of materials Friday "contains thousands of pages of documents." "The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted," the spokesperson said. "The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. Democrats also intend to review the files before releasing them publicly, according to a person familiar with Oversight Democrats planning, speaking on condition of anonymity to share party strategy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We just received the first batch of the Epstein files from Trumps Department of Justice. Our team is beginning a careful review process. We will share additional information as we learn more," said ranking member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) in a social media post. Theres no current time estimate for when the public will be able to see the files. One personal familiar with the transmission of the files, granted anonymity to describe private details, said the tranche encompasses more than 33,000 documents. The Epstein saga has brought together strange bedfellows in Congress. Democrats sought to stoke divisions among Donald Trumps base over the administrations initial decision to withhold much of the information in the Epstein case after the presidents allies for years clamored for the release of the files. Meanwhile, many Republicans called the administrations perceived about-face an affront to earlier promises of bringing transparency around the charges against Epstein, who died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019. The House Oversight subpoena for the Epstein files was the culmination of this unlikely bipartisan partnership, where committee Democrats were able to get enough Republicans to join them in a surprise vote to force the release of the DOJ materials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Justice Departments compliance, however, is unlikely to satisfy clamoring for a more expansive unsealing of the documents, with plans from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a floor vote on their resolution to compel the full release of the Epstein files soon after Congress returns Sept. 2 from its month-long recess. The Oversight GOP spokesperson defended the administration's approach to delivering the files to lawmakers. "The Trump DOJ is providing records at a far quicker pace than anything the Biden DOJ ever provided," the spokesperson said. "In fact, former Attorney General Garland obstructed Chairman Comers subpoena for the audio of Special Counsel Hurs interview with President Biden to hide his cognitive decline." Comer has an ongoing investigation into alleged efforts inside former President Joe Biden's White House to hide evidence he was no longer fit for office. At around the same time word trickled out that Congress was in possession of the first batch of Epstein documents, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the public releaseof audio and redacted transcripts of his interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's co-conspirator who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. One of the Menendez brothers high-profile bids for freedom has been rejected. During a nearly 10-hour-long Thursday hearing for Erik Menendez, the California parole board denied his request for release, the Los Angeles Times has reported. Related: Hulk Hogans Daughter Says Bodycam Footage Could Change Narrative Around His Death His brother Lyle Menendez will see if hes been handed the same fate on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nearly three decades ago, the siblings were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents at their Beverly Hills mansion. Prosecutors argued it was a cold-blooded murder, done to secure their multimillion-dollar inheritance. The brothers maintained it was an act of self-defense following years of sexual abuse by their father. In May, a California judge resentenced the pair to 50 years to life in prison, which made them eligible for parole based on Californias youth offender statutes. Related: Savannah Guthrie Gets Visibly Annoyed With Jenna Bush Hager During Tense On-Air Moment During the resentencing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said the brothers had worked hard to rehabilitate themselves and deserved a lot of credit for changing their lives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judge also stressed that his decision was not a determination of whether they should be freed. Im not saying they should be released; its not for me to decide, Jesic said. I do believe theyve done enough in the past 35 years, that they should get that chance. While Erik Menendez was denied a path to freedom today, his parole request will be eligible for reconsideration in three years. Related... Read the original on HuffPost (Updated with LA County DA statement) In prison since 1996 for the 1989 brutal murder of his wealthy parents, Erik Menendez today was denied his attempt at parole after a very long and sometimes jarring virtual hearing. He will not be eligible to try for early release again for until 2028. Handing down the denial this evening to Menendez, his lawyers, the LA County District Attorneys office and family members, Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton said that while we give great weight to youth offender factors, your continued willingness to commit crimes and violate prison rules was the determining factor in rejecting the parole request. More from Deadline Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stressing he believed in redemption or I wouldnt be doing this job, Barton called out Menendez for trying to paint a much more rosy portrait of his conduct in prison than his record revealed. He went on to specify based on the legal standards we find that you continue to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. In a move that could see him back in front of the parole board in sooner than three years, Menendez has the right to petition todays decision. Any such review would be centered on if there were factual errors in the result and if they could have led to a different result.There is also the still active habeas petition the brothers have before the courts seeking a new trial due to new evidence of alleged sexual abuse by their father. Whatever the next step, the family were still leaning into hope, as they prepare to do this all over on Friday with Lyle Menendez. While we respect the decision, todays outcome was of course disappointing and not what we hoped for, the Menendez family said in a statement after the parole board decision was announced. But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Boards recommendation in stride, the relatives, many of whom participated in the hours long hearing Thursday, added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The family concluded: Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyles hearing. And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home. This crime is about my family, Menendez said Thursday in the much longer than usual procedure with lawyers, DAs, and family of multiple generations present. Its about what theyve endured. What theyve suffered. What theyve gone through, and thats not about me at all. The real impact of this is about them. I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I have put them through from August 20, 1989 until this day, and this hearing, Menendez added in his closing statement late this afternoon before over a dozen relatives spoke in favor of his release. I know that they have been here for me and theyre here for me today, but I want them to know that this should be about them. Its about them and if I ever get the chance at freedom I want the healing to be about them. While Erik Menendez was denied parole today even after being resentenced on May 13 to 50 years to life along with his brother Lyle Menendez, the older sibling may still have a chance to walking out a free man in the near future. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ruling to keep the 54-year-old Erik Menendez, who was sentenced to life without parole in the mid-1990s, behind bars comes just over 36 years after helping to kill his father Jose Menendez and his allegedly blind eye turning mother Kitty, (who the brother went to get more bullets and reloaded to kill as she was crawling away). Spending decades in various state facilities like Erik Menendez, Lyle Menendez could be walking the streets by as soon as Thanksgiving or the New Year if he is successful where his brother was not. Starting at 8:45 am PT and running 10 hours, Thursdays Google Meets hosted hearing before Commissioner Barton and a deputy commissioner, with parole board Executive Officer Scott Wyckoff in attendance too, saw Erik Menendez join remotely from Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where he has been imprisoned for the past several years. Attorney Heidi Rummel, of Menendezs large legal team, participated also. Deputy LA County District Attorney Habib Balian logged in from his DTLA office. Additionally, there were a large number of Menendez family members involved, such as the siblings cousin AnnMaria Baralt. The public face of the Menendez relatives in many ways, Baralt was among those who addressed the Parole Board this afternoon. Citing how she and Erik grew up like twins, because of how close in age they are, Baralt pleaded with the commissioners to end the torture for all of us. After some introductory words from Barton, including acknowledging the health issues addled Menendez may be nervous (Everyone is nervous when they come to a hearing. What I will tell you is to keep breathing.), things really began at about 9:20 am PT. Speaking about his impulsive and entitled youth and the relationships with his brother, father and mother, Menendez told the hearing that he felt he had no choice but to kill his parents on August 20, 1989. Dad was going to come to my room and rape me that night, he said Thursday of his record company executive father. That was going to happen. One way or another. If he was alive, that was going to happen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I was not going to let him come to my room. So I was going to do everything I could to resist. As was made evident Thursday, the heart of parole consideration is in great measure if the prisoner is or is not a danger to society and how they have conducted themselves since being Incarcerated. In that context, Commissioner Barton made a point of cutting Menendez off when he tried to get into the specifics of the frequent abuse he says his violent father inflicted on him as a boy and teenager. Barton and others on the board did spend considerable time going over the infractions that Menendez incurred during his first years in prison, such as threatening behavior to CDCR officials and others, and drug use. Coming up when the final decision was unveiled, more recent violations of inappropriate contact with his wife while their nine-year-old daughter was present, working with prison gangs on a so-called tax scam (the mentioning of which seemed to unnerved Menendez), and of having a smartphone he shouldnt have had were also examined in the hearing itself. Though the phone incidents became a focal point, at one junction, when questioning Erik about his relationship with Lyle, Barton accused Menendez of having lied. The term was in reference to Menendez not telling Corrections staff that his brother had sexually abused him when they were very young. The accusation by Barton led to some sharp back and forth with attorney Rummel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the most part, at least from looking over the pool reports, Menendez, who has been involved in a number of therapy and educational programs while in prison, attempted to own up to his spotty record with an admission he assumed he was never going to get out. When his prospects began to appear to change over the past year, Menende says consequential thinking took hold, as he realized I cant be doing this if he really wanted to get out on parole. Additionally, reaching back further into Menendezs past, Barton did return several times in todays hearing to why the then 18-year-old did not leave the Beverly Hills home where the abuse was supposedly happening, and why the brothers purchased the guns that ultimately were used to killed Jose and Kitty Menendez. When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable, Menendez replied, acknowledging his brother Lyle had offered to bring him to Princeton with him. Running away meant death. When asked directly by Barton if the shotgun killings of his parents was self-defense, as the brothers and their lawyers have suggested over the years due to the alleged sexual abuse, Menendez refuted a letter he wrote to that effect, and responded with a simple No. I wish to God I did not do that, a stricken Menendez said today of his reloading a shotgun to murder his already wounded mother Kitty the night in 1989 he and his brother killed their parents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On that night I saw them as one person, Menendez continued with reference to the alleged sexual abuse over the years by his father Jose. The murder of Kitty Menendez has long been a complicating factor in the brothers high profiled case. Had she not been in the room, maybe it would have been different. The cold and calculated continued shooting of Kitty Menendez has long be one of the thorniest complications in a case that had infortainment and tabloid strewn all over it from the day it became public and the wild spending brothers were arrested. This evening Commission Barton spoke directly to the murder of Kitty Menendez by her sons. The killing of your mother especially showed a lack of empathy and reason, he told Erik Menendez via video. Adding that the shooting of Kitty was devoid of human compassion, Barton went on to say: I cant put myself in your place. I dont know that Ive ever had rage to that level, ever. But that is still concerning, especially since it seems she was also a victim herself of the domestic violence. One of the first first big trials to get near wall-to-wall TV coverage (at least for the first trial, which ended in a mistrial in 1994), the Menendez case was brought back into the public sphere in great part because of Netflix and Ryan Murphys much watched Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story series. Purporting to have unveiled new or new-ish evidence of record executive Jose Menendezs predatory misconduct, including involving a member of boy band Menudo, documentaries on Peacock and others were clearly influential in then poll sagging ex-LA DA George Gascon taking a new look at the case as his reelection campaign went into the final stretch. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since taking office, new-ish DA Nathan Hochman has taken a much lower temperature approach to reconsideration of the Menendez case. He eventually came down against a new trial or parole for the brothers a decision reinforced no doubt by todays parole denial by Barton and the board. The Menendez brothers have never fully accepted responsibility for the horrific murders of their parents, instead continuing to promote a false narrative of self-defense that was rejected by the jury decades ago, DA Hochman said just this week in language he has been using for months. We have consistently opposed their release because they have not demonstrated full insight into their crimes or shown that they have been fully rehabilitated, and therefore continue to pose a risk to society, LA top lawman added. We will evaluate our final position based on the evidence presented at the hearing. After the Parole Board decision was revealed, Hochmans final position remained unchanged in what was a victory by any other name for his office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Board correctly determined that Erik Menendezs actions speak louder than words, and that his conduct in prison and current mentality demonstrates that he still poses an unreasonable risk of danger to the community, the DA said tonight, praising DDA Balian (who spoke against Menendezs parole at today hearing) and other members of his team. Importantly, the Board did not bow to public spectacle or pressure, a restraint that upholds the dignity and integrity of the justice system. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Michael Burry, the investor of "The Big Short" fame. Jim Spellman/Getty Images Michael Burry appears to have shifted from bearish to bullish last quarter, portfolio gurus say. The "Big Short" investor's latest update shows a wholesale swap of put options for calls. He's betting on stocks to keep rising and several companies to execute turnarounds, the gurus said. "The Big Short" made Michael Burry one of the market's most famous bears. But he seems to have warmed to stocks last quarter, three portfolio gurus told Business Insider. The investor's Scion Asset Management swapped out bearish put options on six stocks for bullish call options on nine stocks last quarter, its portfolio update from last week shows. The notional values of those positions were $186 million and $522 million, respectively. At the end of March, Burry's hedge fund held seven positions, including puts on Alibaba, JD.com, and Nvidia, plus a direct stake in Estee Lauder, per its first-quarter portfolio update. Three months later, it held 15 positions, including calls and direct stakes in Estee Lauder and Lululemon, and calls on Alibaba, JD.com, and VF. While these filings only capture a snapshot of Burry's US stock holdings on a single day and are published with a six-week delay, they may provide some insights into his investing strategy and market outlook. Burry bet against China-exposed tech stocks in Q1, but pivoted in Q2 Burry's first-quarter portfolio suggests he was confident that tech stocks, especially in China, would "suffer considerably going forward," Peter Mallouk, the president and CEO of Creative Planning, told Business Insider. "He clearly thought these stocks are overvalued and was expecting a correction at least in this group," he added. All of the stocks Burry bet against except Nvidia declined last quarter. Burry's revamped positions at the end of June "signal a very different take," Mallouk said, adding that the calls and long bets are "substantive" and indicate he's "expecting the run up to continue." "He has gone from a strong conviction bet on a sector fall to a broad-based bet the bull run will continue," Mallouk said. The benchmark S&P 500 index has surged more than 28% from its April low, and more than 3% since the end of June, to record highs of above 6,400 points. Burry didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Gerry Fowler, the head of equity derivatives at UBS, said that Burry seems to have swung from "modest bearishness to cautious bullishness." Nearly 36 years to the day after Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents, a California Parole Board panel has rejected Erik Menendezs request for parole. The decision, which came down early Thursday evening, is likely a sign that Lyle Menendez will receive the same outcome in his separate hearing, scheduled for Friday. More from TheWrap Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The denial wont become official until the CPB review process is finalized and sent to Governor Gavin Newsom for approval. This includes a separate hearing where the panel will explain their reasoning for denying parole. Newsom will have final say in the matter but he has previously indicated hell follow the recommendations of the Parole Board. Thursdays hearing was held virtually from San Diegos Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, as will Fridays. The Menendez brothers have been imprisoned since 1990, when they were arrested for the murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, which took place Aug. 20, 1089 when Erik was 21 and Lyle was 18. After a lengthy legal battle that saw their first court case end with a mistrial, the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1996. But they became eligible for parole in May of 2025, after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life; the eligibility distinction being that they were younger than 26 when the crimes occurred, per local law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erik and Lyle Menendez, now 57 and 54 respectively, became major figures in pop culture due to the tabloid coverage of their 1990s criminal trials, as well as the calls more recently for their release. Their story was most recently portrayed in Ryan Murphys Netflix series Monsters. The post Erik Menendez Denied Parole 36 Years After Parents Beverly Hills Murder appeared first on TheWrap. (The Center Square) Lyle Menendez faced a California Board of Parole hearing Friday, after two commissioners Thursday evening denied parole to his younger brother Erik Menendez after a 10-hour hearing that focused on Erik's prison record. The brothers, who made national headlines when they were convicted of murdering their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989 at the familys Beverly Hills home, are incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, a state prison in San Diego. They were originally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But in May, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic reduced the brothers sentence to 50 years to life, making them eligible for parole. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The brothers claimed the murders followed years of abuse by their father and have contended the killings were in self-defense. They also said their mother was aware of the abuse but did nothing to stop it. But Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who opposed the resentencing, has called the brothers claims of self-defense lies and contended they didn't take full responsibility for the murders. Hochman took office in December, succeeding D.A. George Gascon, who petitioned for resentencing hearings. Prosecutors handling the case in 1989 said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance. During Thursday's hearing, two parole commissioners in Los Angeles asked about Erik Menendezs prison violations in areas such as illegal cellphone use, tax fraud, and possessing and dealing drugs. Menendez, 54, who appeared virtually from the San Diego prison during the hearing, can seek parole again in 2028. The parole boards decision is subject to review by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the boards legal division. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to media reports, Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said Erik Menendez still posed "an unreasonable risk to public safety." Barton also noted Erik Menendez didn't separate his mother from the allegedly abusive father. He said the killing of Kitty Menendez "especially showed a lack of empathy and reason. Barton added Erik Menendez could have left his parents home since he was 18 and gone to police or stayed with relatives. In a statement, Hochman praised the California Board of Parole for doing justice for Jose and Kitty Menendez, the victims of the brutal murders carried out by their sons on Aug. 20, 1989. But the Menendez family members, who included those who testified Thursday in support of Erik Menendez, expressed their disappointment with the parole denial in a statement released through The Justice For Erik and Lyle Coalition. The family expressed hope that parole board commissioners will see Lyle Menendez, 57, as "a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life and is ready to come home." Erik Menendez could still be released if he gets clemency from Newsom or new evidence is brought before a court. SAN DIEGO Erik Menendez, one of the two brothers convicted in the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills, was denied parole by a California review board on Thursday in his first appearance before the board. The board will now consider whether his brother, Lyle, should be set free in his own parole hearing on Friday. Lyle is set to appear before the parole board via video conference from Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego at 8:30 a.m. His case will likely be heard by different commissioners than the commissioners who heard his brother's case. The California Board of Parole Hearings' denial of parole for Erik marks a significant development in the decades-long case that drew international attention, with the brothers televised trial becoming one of the most infamous of the 1990s. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erik, now 54, has spent more than 30 years behind bars. Menendez Brothers' June Hearing Converted From Clemency To Parole As Decision Looms For Gov. Newsom In a hearing that lasted nearly 10 hours in San Diego, the parole board denied recommending Erik Menendez's release at 5:50 p.m. local time. Erik listened intently to the board's decision, nodding, but clearly visibly hurt by the decision. Read On The Fox News App Commissioner Robert Barton emphasized the weight of Eriks actions and subsequent prison conduct. "I believe in redemption, or I wouldnt be doing this job but based on the legal standards, we find that you continue to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety," Barton said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said that while the familys forgiveness was "amazing," forgiveness and parole eligibility were separate matters. "Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you and you can still be found unsuitable for parole," he said. Barton repeatedly returned to the brutality of the crime and Eriks failure to separate his parents in the moment. "The manner and the motive for the killings do have some weight in aggravation. The killing of your mother especially showed a lack of empathy and reason," Barton said. "I cant put myself in your place," he added. "I dont know that Ive ever had rage to that level, ever. But that is still concerning, especially since it seems she was also a victim herself of the domestic violence." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Barton acknowledged Eriks testimony of fear but said the board did not believe he was in "imminent fear" the night of the killings. He also noted that Erik's illegal use of a cellphone was "selfish," and a sign that the brother believed that the "ends justify the means," which, he said, highlights his "dangerousness." Barton said the seriousness of the crime is "not a primary reason for this denial. Its still your behavior in prison." "One can pose a risk to public safety in many ways, with several types of criminal behavior, including the ones you were guilty of in prison," he said. Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez leave a courtroom in Santa Monica, Calif., Aug. 6, 1990, after a judge ruled that conversations between the brothers and their psychologist after their parents were slain were not privileged and could be used as evidence. Throughout the hearing, Erik described the terror and anger that shaped his actions as an 18-year-old, telling the panel he knew his father would rape him that night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Dad was going to come to my room and rape me that night. That was going to happen. One way or another. If he was alive, that was going to happen," he said. He admitted he did not differentiate between his parents in the moment. "I saw my mother and my father as one person after I learned that she knew, so when I was running into the den, I was in a state of terror, of panic, of rage. I didnt parse out in my mind my mother or my father." Menendez Brothers Confront Parole Board Before Gov Newsom Decides Whether To Set Killers Free In his closing remarks, Erik called his actions "a forever crime." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I cannot express sorrow and remorse enough. Doing it for the rest of my life will not be enough," Erik said. "I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I have put them through from Aug. 20, 1989, until this day, and this hearing. I know that they have been here for me, and theyre here for me today, but I want them to know that this should be about them. Its about them, and if I ever get the chance at freedom, I want the healing to be about them. "Dont think its the healing of me, its the healing of the family. This is a family tragedy." Erik Menendez, right, and brother Lyle listen to court proceedings during a May 17, 1991, appearance in the case of the shotgun murder of their wealthy parents in August 1989. In his hearing, the brothers family members testified in support of his release. Eriks aunt, Teresita Menendez-Baralt, who is battling Stage 4 cancer, told the board she has "fully" forgiven him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I want to make clear that although I love my brother, I have fully forgiven Erik more than anything I hope I live long enough to welcome him into my home. To sit at the same table. To wrap my arms around him. That would bring me immeasurable peace and joy." Other relatives echoed forgiveness, pledging to provide him with a strong support system if he were released. Despite that support, prosecutors insisted he remained dangerous, with Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian saying, "He is not reformed. He is still an unreasonable risk to society. He has no insight into his crimes." In a statement, the Menendez family expressed disappointment with the decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "While we respect the decision, todays outcome was, of course, disappointing and not what we hoped for. But our belief in Erik remains unwavering, and we know he will take the Boards recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact hes had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon," the Menendez family said. "Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyles hearing. And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home." WATCH: Erik Menendez's bid for parole denied by California officials In a statement, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the board "rightly decided against" granting parole to Erik. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I commend the Board for its thoughtful decision and for weighing all of the evidence and relevant parole factors. This ruling does justice for Jose and Kitty Menendez, the victims of the brutal murders carried out by their sons on Aug. 20, 1989. The prior administrations motion for resentencing failed to examine or consider whether the Menendez brothers have exhibited full insight into, and taken complete responsibility for, their crimes," he said in a statement Thursday. "For more than three decades, both Erik and Lyle Menendez have advanced a false claim of self-defense, alleging they feared their parents were going to kill them, to justify the brutal murders of their parents including shotgun blasts to their fathers back, a point-blank shot to their mothers face, and shots to their kneecaps staged to mimic a Mafia killing. The record shows they suborned perjury, including soliciting others to make false claims that their father violently raped Lyles girlfriend and that their mother poisoned the family. "The Board correctly determined that Erik Menendezs actions speak louder than words, and that his conduct in prison and current mentality demonstrates that he still poses an unreasonable risk of danger to the community. Importantly, the Board did not bow to public spectacle or pressure, a restraint that upholds the dignity and integrity of the justice system." Hochman said that the decision reflects a "careful, evidence-based assessment of the facts and parole factors." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "While this parole hearing has been denied, he will have subsequent parole hearings, and our office will continue to attend and make the case on behalf of justice and public safety. The prosecutors who have carried out this work Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian and Deputy District Attorneys Ethan Milius and Seth Carmack exemplify the highest standards of professionalism and commitment to justice, and their efforts ensured that every fact was brought forward, and every argument was made with clarity and force." With the California Board of Parole Hearings not recommending Erik Menendez for parole, he will remain incarcerated. He is eligible for parole again in three years. Erik Menendez, left, and brother Lyle in front of their Beverly Hills home. The decision came on the heels of a bombshell resentencing hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court in May, when Judge Michael Jesic reduced their life-without-parole sentences to 50-to-life, making them eligible for parole consideration. In a news conference after the ruling May 14, Gov. Gavin Newsom explained the multi-layered process of considering the Menendez brothers eligibility for release. The governor explained that, before any decision was finalized, a team of forensic psychologists conducted individualized risk assessments on each brother. Menendez Brothers Ask California Gov. Newsom For Clemency "We thought that would be prudent to do," Newsom said, adding those assessments have been "debated" not only by Hochman and the victims' family, but also by the judge "both publicly in another conversation, some of it behind closed doors." The topic of the brothers' comprehensive risk assessments has been a sticking point for Hochman. The brothers were marked as "moderate risk," an increase from their previous "low risk" assessment. The moderate risk increase came after each report found that Erik and Lyle, in recent months, had been cited for breaking prison rules for contraband violations, specifically the possession of cellphones. Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman speaks to the media outside court in Van Nuys, Calif., May 13, 2025. Hochman, referring to the contraband phone, first shared the findings on Lyle Menendez, whose "actions perpetrated deceit." He added that Lyle had "downplayed his rule-breaking" and that his report showed his "entitlement and willingness to meet his own needs." Menendez Brothers Ask California Gov. Newsom For Clemency Along with the illicit cellphone usage, Erik was accused of possessing and dealing drugs and helping other inmates with tax fraud. Hochman, who ran on a tough-on-crime platform, has been vocal about the brothers' lack of rehabilitation. An undated photo of the Menendez family as it appears during a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville June 2. In August 1989, Beverly Hills socialites Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot to death in their home. Hochman previously called the murders "mafia-like hits," remarking on the violent nature of the repeated rounds that were fired at the parents. The boys, then 18 and 21, were convicted in 1996. The defenses assertion was that the brothers had been driven to violence by years of physical and sexual abuse at their fathers hands. Despite the first trial resulting in a hung juror, leading to their eventual conviction in 1996, the public has remained divided on whether the brothers acted in greed or in self-defense. Original article source: California denies Erik Menendez parole as DA slams self-defense claims; brother Lyle faces separate hearing On Thursday, 36 years and one day after Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their parents, Erik was denied parole ahead of Lyles parole hearing on Friday. The hearings this week are the brothers first-ever parole hearings after they were resentenced in May from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole, per CNN. Erik Menendez, 54, attended the hearing, which lasted nearly 10 hours, via video from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. After the denial of his parole, the board said he can be eligible for parole again in three years, per ABC News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Throughout the hearing, officials questioned Menendez on his rehabilitation and heard arguments from the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office against releasing him, as well as pleas from family members in favor of his release. This combination of two booking photos provided by the California Department of Corrections shows Erik Menendez, left, and Lyle Menendez. | California Dept. of Corrections via Associated Press Why was Erik Menendez denied parole? The parole boards decision to deny Menendez parole was based on multiple factors, including burglaries he participated in before the murders, his behavior in prison and the killing of his mother, per reports. The killing of your mother especially showed a lack of empathy and reason, Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton said, per ABC News. Barton said that because he was 18, Menendez could have left his parents home and gone to the police or stayed with relatives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We recognize and understand that many sexual assault victims find it hard to come forward, especially when the perpetrators are family members, he added, according to ABC News. Menendez said that he shot his mother because she betrayed him, adding that he saw his parents as one person after learning that his mother knew about his father allegedly sexually abusing him. Barton also said that Menendezs behavior in prison was the primary reason for the denial, not the seriousness of the crime. Contrary to your supporters beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner, and frankly, we find that a little disturbing, Barton said, per ABC News. Attorney Mark Geragos, left, hugs Anamaria Baralt, cousin of Erik and Lyle Menendez, after the brothers' resentencing hearing Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Los Angeles. | Damian Dovarganes The commissioner pointed out Menendezs inappropriate behavior with visitors, drug smuggling, violence incidents and misuse of state computers. The board also noted Menendez illegally using cellphones in his leadership with rehabilitative groups. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The board members focused their decision on one question: Would Erik Menendez pose an unreasonable risk to society if released? per ABC News. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman opposed the Menendez brothers release, claiming they have not demonstrated full insight into their crimes or shown that they have been fully rehabilitated, and therefore continue to pose a risk to society. A recently completed risk assessment said Erik and Lyle Menendez posed a moderate risk to the community if released. We find that you continue to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety, Barton said, per ABC News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Relatives of Erik Menendez, who have supported the idea of his release, gave a statement after the hearing. Our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the boards recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact hes had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon, the statement said, per ABC News. Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez sit in Beverly Hills Municipal Court, where their attorneys delayed making pleas on behalf of the brothers, who are suspected in the murders of their parents on March 12, 1990. | Nick Ut Lyle Menendezs hearing to take place on Friday After Eriks parole hearing, his 57-year-old brother, Lyle Menendez, will have his hearing on Friday. Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyles hearing, the statement from the brothers relatives continued, per ABC News. And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lyle Menendezs case will be considered on its own merits, but his factors of rehabilitation are similar to his brothers. The only major difference is Lyle has a lower number of rule violations in prison, per CNN. Another thing that could be weighed against Lyle Menendez is his brutal actions during his parents murder. In 1993, Menendez testified that he repeatedly fired a shotgun at both of his parents in close range. According to CNN, family members are expected to speak on Lyles behalf during the hearing on Friday, as they did during Eriks hearing. Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez leave courtroom in Santa Monica, Calif., Aug. 6, 1990, after a judge ruled that conversations between the two brothers and their psychologist after their parents were slain are not privileged and can be used as evidence in their murder case. | Nick Ut Ultimately, Gov. Gavin Newsom can decide the brothers fate According to CNN, California Gov. Gavin Newsom can ultimately decide if the decisions made about the brothers parole will stick. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is due to a 1988 state law, which gives Californias governor the power to approve, deny or modify parole board decisions for those convicted of murder and sentenced to an indeterminate term. After the parole boards decision is made, it could undergo an internal review for as long as 120 days. After that, Newsom would have 30 days to affirm or reverse the decision if he chooses to, per CNN. NEED TO KNOW Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for fatally shooting their parents, Jose Menendez and Kitty Menendez, in 1989 in their Beverly Hills mansion The brothers have said they endured years of sexual abuse from their father They became eligible for parole in May A California parole board denied Erik Menendez release on Thursday, Aug. 21, more than 36 years after he and his brother, Lyle, killed their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion crimes for which they were initially sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Erik, now 54, appeared via videoconference from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego during his parole hearing. Lyle, 57, is set to appear before the parole board Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While we respect the decision, todays outcome was of course disappointing and not what we hoped for," a spokesperson for Lyle and Erik Menendez said on Thursday. "But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Boards recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact hes had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon." California Department of Corrections via AP Erik Menendez Erik Menendez "Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyles hearing," the statement continued. "And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home. 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. Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty (2) Lyle Menendez, Erik Menendez Lyle Menendez, Erik Menendez Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman later commended the California Board of Parole Hearing's decision, saying in a statement that it "does justice for Jose and Kitty Menendez, the victims of the brutal murders carried out by their sons on Aug. 20, 1989." Hochman noted that Erik will be eligible for parole again in three years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erik and Lyle were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for fatally shooting their parents, Jose Menendez and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time of the killings. Their attorneys had argued the brothers acted in self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, which they alleged their mother was aware of but did nothing to stop. Prosecutors said they killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance. At their first trial, in 1993, they were tried together with separate juries. Both ended in mistrials. During the trial, the brothers recounted having allegedly been sexually abused by their father. During their second trial, the judge limited testimony and evidence about sexual abuse and, unlike their first trial, cameras were banned. A jury convicted the brothers of murder, and they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But they became eligible for parole in May, after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life, which meant they were immediately eligible for parole under California law because they were younger than 26 when they committed their crimes. Read the original article on People Originally appeared on E! Online Tammi Menendez isn't holding back. After Erik Menendez's request for parole was denied by the California Board of Parole Hearings after over 30 years in prison on Aug. 21, his wife reacted to the update. "Parole Commissioner Robert Barton had his mind made up to deny Erik parole from the start," Tammi wrote on X following the decision. "This was a complete setup, and Erik never stood a chance! #Injustice." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She also called out Barton's reasoning for denying Erik's parole, which included past infractions in prison, like fights earlier in his prison sentence, as well as cellphone contraband. Tammi wrote in another post, "Erik hasn't had any infractions since 2011, apart from a cell phone possession." E! News has reached out to Barton for comment and has not yet heard back. As Erik and Tammi grapple with the news, Lyle Menendezwho, along with his brother, was convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents Jose Menendez and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendezentered his own hearing on Aug. 22. More from E! Online Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tammi expressed her support for her brother-in-law, writing, "Hopefully they will get one of two parole decisions correct.. and find Lyle suitable for release. We all know he is not a danger to society." Her assertions come after Commissioner Barton told Erikwho, along with Lyle, was resentenced to 50 years to life with eligibility for parole in May, following a lengthy legal battlethat they believe he "continues to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety." "Contrary to your supporters' beliefs," he told Erik on Aug. 21, per NBC News, "you have not been a model prisoner, and frankly, we find that a little disturbing." Tammi wasn't the only loved one who disagreed with the ruling. While other Menendez relatives respected the decision made by the board, they were disappointed nonetheless. California Department of Corrections via AP "But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Board's recommendation in stride," the family shared in a statement to he outlet. "His remorse, growth, and the positive impact he's had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Regarding Lyle's fate, their family is hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. "While it is undoubtedly difficult," they continued, "we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home." For a closer look at the Menendez brothers' personal lives, keep reading. (E! and NBC News are both part of the NBCUniversal family.) Anna Eriksson Lyle Menendez, then 28, married model and salon receptionist Anna Eriksson on July 2, 1996, the day he and brother Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 double murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. Anna started writing to Lyle in 1993 during his first trial, which ended in a mistrial, and then moved to California to be near him the following year. She became a reliable presence at the months-long retrial that began in 1995 and resulted in convictions in March 1996, according to the Los Angeles Times. They couldn't take their vows in person, however, Lyle instead taking the plunge over speaker phone, the groom in custody and the bride in the office of defense attorney Leslie Abramson. He seemingly hoped to be able to wed Anna in person, once he knew where he'd end up. "We do have a marriage proceeding," California Correctional Institution spokesman Lt. Jack Pitko told the LA Times in September 1996 once Lyle and Erik had been ordered to separate prisons. "There's a waiting list...But I don't see why he shouldn't be able to get married if he follows all the rules." Anna filed for divorce in 2001 after, according to multiple reports from the time, she allegedly found out Lyle was exchanging letters with other women. Rebecca Sneed Lyle didn't rush into anything when he married journalist Rebecca Sneed, reportedly 33 at the time, in November 2003: He had known her for 10 years, first through letters and eventually from in-person visits, a prison spokesperson told the Associated Press in confirming the nuptials. The ceremony took place at Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento, where Lyle resided until he was reunited with Erik in 2018 at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in southern San Diego County. "Our interaction tends to be very free of distractions and we probably have more intimate conversations than most married spouses do, who are distracted by life's events," Lyle told People in 2017. At the time, Rebecca was living in Sacramento and was said to visit weekly. "We try and talk on the phone every day, sometimes several times a day," Lyle added. "I have a very steady, involved marriage and that helps sustain me and brings a lot of peace and joy. It's a counter to the unpredictable, very stressful environment here." Rebecca "put up with a lot," he acknowledged. "But she has the courage to deal with the obstacles. It would be easier to leave, but I'm profoundly grateful that she doesn't." The bloom has since come off the rose, however: Ahead of a decision on whether Lyle and Erik should be resentenced and possibly set free in the near future, Rebecca confirmed that she and Lyle are separated. "Lyle and I have been separated for a while now but remain best friends and family," she wrote Nov. 22 on her official Facebook page. "I continue to run his Facebook pages, with input from him, and I am forever committed to the enduring fight for Lyle and Eriks freedom, as has been so evident over the years." She added, "I'll continue to update you all on the progress of the case because I believe we all have the common goal of seeing the guys walk free! I will never stop fighting for them." And because tabloid rumors don't stop outside the prison gates, the post also noted, "This is NOT a cheating scandal." Tammi Saccoman Erik's wife Tammi Menendez, now 62, was married to Chuck Saccoman when she first spied the younger Menendez brother on TV in 1993 and felt a special place in her heart for the 22-year-old murder defendant. As she later told People, she informed her husband she was going to write to Erik and Chuck gave her his blessing. "I saw Tammi's letter and I felt something. I received thousands of letters, but I set this one aside. I got a feeling," Erik told the publication. "And I wrote her back. Tammi and I continued to correspond. I enjoyed writing to her. It was a slow friendship. It was special to me because it was not associated with the trial and the media. Tammi was someone not in the craziness." However, as Tammi detailed in her 2005 book They Said We'd Never Make It: My Life With Erik Menendez, she doubted the brothers' abuse defense at first. (And she told MSNBC that Erik mentioned having a girlfriend of several years early on.) But in 1996, as Tammi has detailed in her book and interviews, she found out that Chuck had abused her teenage daughter from a previous relationship. (They also shared a then-9-month-old daughter.) Chuck turned himself into police and died by suicide two days later, according to People. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After Chuck died, "I reached out to Erik," she told the publication in 2005. "He comforted me. Our letters started taking on a more serious tone." Tammi admitted she was "really nervous" when she finally met Erik in person at Folsom State Prison in August 1997. "Erik had no idea what I looked like; I'd only sent him a tiny, 1-by-1 picture," she explained. "But when he walked into the room, he was so full of life, he hopped down the stairs. It was like I was meeting an old friend." They married in 1999, a Twinkie serving as their wedding cake. And they've been together ever since, though Tammi has acknowledged that the lack of conjugal visits can be tough. "A kiss when you come in, a kiss when you leave," she described the routine on MSNBC in December 2005. 'You can hold hands and that part of it is very difficult, and people don't understand." Erik said he tried not to think about what was then the likelihood that he would never get out of prison. Tammi is what gets me through," he told People in 2005. "I can't think about the sentence. When I do, I do it with a great sadness and a primal fear. I break into a cold sweat. It's so frightening I just haven't come to terms with it." But on a more optimistic note, Tammi had also taught him "how to be a good husband," Erik said. "There is no makeup sex, only a 15-minute phone call, so you really have to try to make things work." For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App (Corrects to 'company' instead of 'battalion' in headline and paragraph 1) HELSINKI (Reuters) -Estonia is ready to participate in a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine with a force of up to one company, the Baltic country's Prime Minister Kristen Michal said at a press conference with his Finnish counterpart in Tallinn on Friday. Michal did not say how many troops this could entail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NATO allies and Ukraine are working together to make sure security guarantees for Ukraine are at such a robust level that Russia will never try to attack again, NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Friday, adding that Europe and the United States would be involved in providing them. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have both spoken in favour of troop deployments in a post-war settlement as part of Ukraine's coalition of the willing, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also signalling openness to German participation. (Reporting by Anne Kauranen, writing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje Solsvik) MBABANE (Reuters) -Human rights lawyers and activists have sued the government of Eswatini for making a secretive deal with President Donald Trump's administration to accept third-country deportees from the U.S., which they claim was unconstitutional. The case was due be heard at the High Court of Eswatini on Friday, but was postponed until September 25 because the government did not file response papers, the lead applicant told Reuters outside the court on Friday. Eswatini's Attorney General Sifiso Khumalo said in a text message that the case had no legal basis. "It's a frivolous legal application," he wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In July the U.S. deported five individuals from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen to the Southern African country. All were convicted felons, and Eswatini says it is holding them in solitary confinement until they can be repatriated. The applicants in the case, led by the Eswatini Litigation Centre, say that the agreement made with the U.S. was illegal because it was not submitted to parliament for approval and the terms were not disclosed. They also say they do not know the condition of the deportees because no one has been allowed access to them. "We want the executive to be held accountable, we want transparency dealing with matters of state importance, (and) respect for the rights of all individuals who are in Eswatini regardless of who they may be," said lead applicant and lawyer Mzwandile Masuku. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Eswatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by King Mswati III, has previously said the deportees pose no threat and that the agreement was based purely on its good relations with Washington. The International Organization for Migration told Reuters it had received a request from Eswatini to provide "post-arrival assistance" for the deportees, but did not say whether it would accept or what that might entail. "We are discussing with Government of Eswatini, their request," a spokesperson for the U.N. agency said on Thursday. Trump aims to deport millions of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and his administration has sought to increase removals to third countries. (Additional reporting and writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Toby Chopra) The European Union has paid out further financial aid amounting to 4.05 billion ($4.7 billion) to Ukraine as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov poured cold water on the idea of a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders any time soon. "EU solidarity with Ukraine is unwavering," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X on Friday ahead of this weekend's Ukrainian Independence Day. The disbursement of more than 4 billion demonstrates the EU's strong commitment to the country's recovery and future, she added. The announcement came as NATO members from the European Union have been closing ranks behind Ukraine to present a united front to US President Donald Trump in his diplomatic push to get a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia's Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The commission said 3.05 billion comes from the Ukraine Facility, an aid programme worth up to 50 billion for the years 2024 to 2027. In addition, 1 billion is coming from a macro-financial assistance loan that is part of a G7 initiative totalling around 45 billion. The commission said the release of the funds had also been made possible by the withdrawal of a law that would have restricted the independence of Ukraine's central anti-corruption authorities. It welcomed the move and stressed that Ukraine's rule of law and anti-corruption reforms remained crucial for its further path towards EU membership. Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the EU and its member states have pledged almost 169 billion in aid, ranging from military and financial support to assistance for refugees. Russia says no plans for summit with Zelensky While Trump has been pushing for Putin and Zelensky to meet, Moscow currently sees no basis for a direct meeting between the two leaders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the US television network NBC on Friday. Among the points that would need to be clarified in advance are a Ukrainian renunciation of membership in the Western military alliance NATO and territorial concessions. "Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov continued. Over the course of the full-scale invasion that began three and a half years ago, Russia has almost completely taken over the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and partially occupied the Kremlin-claimed areas of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson. For freezing the front in Zaporizhzhya and Kherson, Putin has reportedly demanded that Kiev completely relinquish the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Russia already annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 in violation of international law. NATO chief Rutte makes surprise visit to Kiev NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte made a surprise visit to Kiev on Friday to discuss Western security guarantees for Ukraine, describing the guarantees as an important factor for lasting peace in Ukraine. After his meeting with Zelensky, Rutte praised the US president at a joint press conference on Friday. Trump recently hosted Putin in Alaska and then subsequently spoke with Zelensky and the European NATO allies in Washington, which Rutte attended. He said that Trump had brought movement into the negotiations. "President Trump has made this a priority, not only breaking the deadlock with Putin but making clear that the United States will be involved in providing security guarantees for Ukraine," said Rutte. Zelensky seeks funds for more weapons Zelensky, in turn, requested further assistance in financing the arms industry. He said that Ukraine has great potential, particularly in drone production. "It's not a secret: It's slightly more than $6 billion," Zelensky said regarding the financial needs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president described drones as the number one weapon. There was also discussion about the financing of arms purchases in the United States by NATO countries. "We have discussed this with Mark. It can be $1 billion per month, maybe something like $1.5 billion," said Zelensky. Rutte was praised by the Ukrainian president as an important and reliable partner for Kiev since the beginning of the Russian war. Europes crackdown on forever chemicals is creeping into more corners of industry as regulators not-so-quietly expand the scope of their proposed ban. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) published an updated proposal on Wednesday to restrict per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in eight additional sectors under the EUs REACH regulation. More from Sourcing Journal Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Helsinki-headquartered regulatory agency expanded its proposal to restrict PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, from eight new industrial and commercial arenas, including technical textile applications, as the awaited revision to the EUs flagship chemical safety law continues gaining momentum. For background: A restriction proposal of over 10,000 forever chemicals was initially submitted in January 2023 by Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Swedenthe five authorities collectively acting as the Dossier Submitter. The groups revision comes after gathering and evaluating some 5,600-plus scientific and technical commentslike details on the hazards and risks of PFAS or their diverse use across the European Economic Areaduring the six-month public consultation period March-September 2023. Thus, the countries identified and carried out assessments for eight sectors that their initial proposal didnt specifically call out. The proposal now sweeps more industries: printing, sealing, machinery, technical textiles, broader medical packaging and pharmaceutical ingredientseven military and explosives applications, plus general industrial uses like solvents and catalysts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Dossier Submitter team also considered alternative restriction options. While the ECHA still leans heavily toward a universal PFAS ban, theres now a novel nuance: sectors like electronics, energy and transport may get to keep using PFASpending proof that the risks are under control. The ECHA published an updated outline of such scenarios, which its scientific committees will keep tabs on in evaluating the proposed restriction. Not everyone is convinced. ClientEarth, for one, expressed concerns that the PFAS review leans too heavily on industry claims, the nonprofit environmental law organization said. Some PFAS are currently built into products because industries never challenged their reliance on them. The fact that a chemical makes a product work does not make it essential, said ClientEarth lawyer Helene Duguy. Regulation must be guided by wanting to create an innovative economy that respects people and the planet, not by how convenient PFAS are to keep using. The agency shared aims to provide the European Commission with a transparent, independent and high-quality RAC and SEAC opinion as soon as possible. The EU is planning to drop the broader revision of REACH in December, when the European Commission will present its formal legislative proposal. The update should shape how Europe handles chemicals for decades, the ECHA said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As such, the new rules are meant to be clearer and easier to follow; one anticipated amendment includes chemical registrations that expire after a set time, instead of lasting forever. Other likely changes could see companies having to regularly update their safety files, with safety information provided in digital form, and more vigorous enforcement of the rules. While the Commission has repeatedly confirmed that the REACH revision will explain how PFAS are regulated, a complete ban will be handled separately. Meanwhile, sector-specific banslike the one on PFAS in firefighting foamsare still moving forward under the current regime. Updating the restriction proposal for PFAS was a major effort that should have brought us closer to the solid evidence needed to restrict these harmful substances, Duguy said. Instead, the revision reflects industry lobbying more than scientific balance. Quick refresher: First manufactured in the 1940s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were something of an accident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 1938, DuPont chemist Roy J. Plunkett was tinkering with cooling technology in pursuit of something non-toxic and non-flammable that could replace the less desirable existing options, sulfur dioxide and ammonia. After putting tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) gas in a special cylinder experimental apparatus, the chemist returned, expecting the results to produce a gas. But something went wrong; it actually spontaneously polymerized into a powder: polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The resulting waxy white and solid substance had remarkable properties, namely, its slippery, non-stick surface. This accidental discovery paved the way for the developmentand subsequent marketingof PTFE under the brand name Teflon, according to the nonprofit American Physical Societys archives. And the atomic bomb. Several researchers involved in the Manhattan Project would later join the multinational company 3M to further develop this class of synthetic compounds, per Oxford-based publisher Berghahn Journals. He recognized almost at once that the material was different and that it had potential and DuPont saw it too, Plunketts wife, Lois, told The New York Times in 1994. Since hitting the market in the 1950s, the extensive family of synthetic compounds has never left. PFAS are widely used in sector-spanning industriesfrom across aviation and automotive to leather and apparel to defense and firefighting foams. Thats because theyre extensively (and uniquely) useful: resistant to water, grease, stains and heat, courtesy of an exceptionally strong carbon-fluorine chemical bond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Because of that dual industrial desirability, many of themnamely, PFCAs and PFSAsare also surfactants, used, for example, as water and grease repellents. In the world of textile production, surfactants help dyes consistently penetrate fabric. The other side of such duality, however, is permeance; its why theyre molecules are more commonly known as forever chemicals. And forever indeed: a 2015 study found forever chemicals in 97 percent of Americans blood, the National Library of Medicine reported. Over the past decades, global manufacturers have started to replace certain PFAS with other PFAS or with fluorine-free substances, the ECHA said. This trend has been driven by the fact that scientists and governments around the world first recognized the harmful effects of some PFASparticularly those with long-carbon chain structureson human health and the environment. Last May, Denmarks Ministry of the Environment shared plans to ban all clothing, shoes and waterproofing agents containing PFAS. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued restrictions on PFAS in drinking water last yearthe first time that the standards had been finalized for a new chemical since 1996. Individual states, too, are taking matters into their own hands; Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota have already banned the sale or distribution of various PFAS-laden products, while California made history in January with the countrys first statewide ban on PFAS in clothing and other textile products. (Reuters) -Boeing is in talks to sell as many as 500 jets to China, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Shares of the U.S. planemaker rose 2% before the market open as the potential order would be China's first major purchase of Boeing jets since U.S. President Donald Trump's visit in his previous term. The two sides are negotiating the details such as jet models, types and delivery schedules, the report said, adding that the order could be the centerpiece of a trade deal between the world's two largest economies. Boeing declined a comment to Reuters on the matter. Such a big deal would be a breakthrough for Boeing in the world's second largest aviation market, where orders have stalled amid U.S.-China trade tensions. It would also help Boeing narrow the gap with rival Airbus, which has pulled far ahead in China in recent years. Chinese officials have begun consulting their domestic airlines on their requirements for Boeing jets, the report said. Jet purchases have increasingly featured in Trump's diplomatic visits this year. During his trip to the Middle East earlier this year, Boeing secured some of its biggest-ever orders, with Qatar Airways agreeing to buy 160 widebody jets, plus options for 50 more, along with GE Aerospace engines, in a package valued at about $96 billion. In Saudi Arabia, state-owned lessor AviLease placed an order for 20 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, with options for 10 more. (Reporting by Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Arun Koyyur) The European Commission is in contact with Slovakia and Hungary after they appealed to it following the attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline, calling it a threat to Russian oil supplies. Source: European Pravda, citing a European Commission spokesperson Details: The European Commission confirmed to European Pravda that it was aware of the temporary suspension of oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to Slovakia and Hungary, and that it had received a letter from their authorities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The Commission reiterates that maintaining energy supply is paramount, and that critical infrastructure should be protected by all parties," the spokesperson added. He also said that each EU member state must maintain at least 90 days of oil reserves and have contingency plans in place for supply disruptions. "Hence we reiterate, as conveyed in the past few days, that there is no impact on the EU security of supply," the spokesperson concluded. Background: The foreign ministers of Slovakia and Hungary issued a complaint to the European Commission in connection with attacks on the Druzhba oil pipeline which have halted supplies of Russian oil to both countries. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban decided to write a letter to US President Donald Trump about Ukraines attack on the Druzhba pipeline, and Trump supposedly replied that he was angry. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after talks with Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin that repairs to the Druzhba pipeline would take at least five days. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! The Foreign Ministry "rejects the attempt to impose foreign dictates upon it [Jerusalem]," it said Friday. Foreign ministers from 25 European and other countries, including Australia, Canada and Japan, on Friday condemned Israels plans to expand the E1 settlement between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem, they said in a joint statement. We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms, said ministers from Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law, the statement said. The Foreign Ministry rejects the attempt to impose foreign dictates upon [Israel], it said in a response on Friday. The historic right of Jews to live anywhere in the Land of Israel the birthplace of the Jewish people is indisputable, the ministry argued. FINANCE MINISTER Bezalel Smotrich speaks at a news conference, announcing plans to approve more than 3,000 housing units in the E1 area between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, last week. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90) There is no other nation in the world that has a stronger, longer-standing, and better-documented connection to its land than the Jewish people has to the Land of Israel, and this connection and right do not require the affirmation of foreign governments. What is the E1 settlement plan? E1 falls within Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli military and civilian control. The E1 settlement plan was recently approved by the Civil Administration. It was announced by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week, who said that the plan represents concrete steps toward full Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Today we are finally realizing what has been promised for years in E1, Smotrich said. From the Palestinian perspective and that of the international community, this is a critical area. Without it, the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital is simply impossible. The E1 plan, long delayed, will add approximately 3,400 housing units. If it succeeds, it will split east Jerusalem from the West Bank. The European Union has allocated 4.05 billion in aid to Ukraine ahead of the countrys 34th Independence Day 3.05 billion through the Ukraine Facility and 1 billion in macro-financial assistance. Source: European Commission press service, as reported by European Pravda Quote: "Ahead of Ukraine's 34th anniversary of independence on 24 August, the EU delivers another strong signal of unwavering support by disbursing 4.05 billion to the country. This includes 3.05 billion via the Ukraine Facility and 1 billion through the European Commission's exceptional Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA)." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: "As Ukraine celebrates its 34th Independence Day, the EU sends a clear message: our solidarity with Ukraine is unwavering," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. "Today's disbursement of over 4 billion demonstrates our staunch commitment. This new funding underlines our commitment not only to Ukraine's recovery, but to its future as a sovereign and democratic country. Because when Ukraine is strong, Europe is stronger too." Since Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU and its member states have mobilised 168.9 billion in humanitarian, financial and military assistance for Ukraine and its citizens. On Friday, the European Commission made the fourth regular payment of over 3.05 billion under the Ukraine Facility. This is the fourth tranche of the Ukraine Facility and is more than 1 billion lower than planned because Kyiv has not implemented all the reforms promised to the EU. Meanwhile, the Commission stressed that the payment was made against the backdrop of Ukraines progress on reforms needed for EU accession, in particular the restoration of the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office, approved by the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) on 31 July. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Safeguarding the autonomy of these two institutions is a cornerstone of Ukraine's anti-corruption architecture and of its European path," the Commission stated. In addition, the European Commission transferred to Ukraine the seventh tranche of its exceptional Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) loan, amounting to 1 billion. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! The European Unions (EU) top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is laughing at President Trumps efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Kallas, the EUs foreign policy chief, said the presidents push to end the conflict in Eastern Europe is welcome, but that the Russian leader is less likely to come to the negotiating table since he has achieved what he wanted during last weeks summit in Alaska with U.S. officials. Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing, Kallas said during her interview on BBC Radio 4. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kallas said it is clear the Kremlin does not want to get to a peace deal, and added that any promises that Putin has given so far, he hasnt kept. Trump met with Putin last week in Anchorage, Alaska, where the two delegations discussed a potential peace agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine war that has been raging since February 2022. Earlier this week, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and seven European leaders at the White House. Trump also called Putin on the phone Monday, trying to advance the peace talks and push for a bilateral meeting between the Russian leader and Ukraines president. Moscow is not prepared to agree to a huddle between Putin and Zelensky, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all, the Russian top diplomat said to NBC News. Russia has demanded Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO and that Kyiv cede some territory the Kremlins military has conquered as part of any peace agreement. Ukraine has rejected both demands, with Zelensky insisting Kyiv needs security guarantees that would prevent another incursion by Moscow. Lavrov previously questioned Zelenskys legitimacy and called the security guarantees inclusion as part of a potential peace agreement hopeless. Zelensky met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Friday. They discussed what next joint steps of ours can provide Ukraine and all of Europe with greater security and bring the real end of the war closer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kallas contended Friday that it was clear before the meeting that he [Putin] wants the picture, but he got so much more. He got such a welcoming in America. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (UPDATED: Aug. 23, 2025, 3 p.m. ET) European postal operators are alerting businesses and individuals that end of the U.S. de minimis exemption on small-dollar shipments from all countries, which currently can be imported duty-free, has curtailed their ability to ship packages to the United States. Posts in Asia are also pausing service. The new measure will significantly impact postal operators and customers worldwide. Postal operators across Europe are actively working together on solutions to meet the new requirements imposed by the United States. PostEurope, which represents 51 European postal companies, said on Tuesday that key details, such as how U.S. customs duties will be collected and what data must be submitted to U.S. authorities, have yet to be fully defined. U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued limited technical guidance on Aug. 15, leaving little time for full implementation by the deadline. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If critical issues and processes are not defined and, thus, compliant solutions cannot be found before the regulations take effect on Aug. 29, PostEurop members . . . may be constrained to temporarily restrict or suspend the shipping of goods via the postal networks to the United States, the trade association said in a statement. The White House last month issued an executive order revoking special treatment for commercial goods valued at $800 or less, effective Aug. 29, saying the U.S. Customs rule served as a loophole for criminals to smuggle goods and companies to evade tariffs. The current de minimis rules allow low-value goods to enter the country with an exemption from import levies and minimal customs processing. Congress raised the de minimis threshold a decade ago to make it easier for Etsy sellers and other small businesses to buy goods from overseas and compete in digital commerce. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. is requiring the carrier typically an airline to be responsible for collecting and filing duties and paperwork on postal shipments since the U.S. Postal Service doesnt have the ability to process entries through CBPs automated system. Airlines are equipped to submit manifests to CBP, but arent interested in filing customs entries to CBP because of the potential liability and systems upgrades, according to trade experts. The U.S. measure essentially wiped out normal postal customs clearance for nations under the Universal Postal Convention. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deutsche Post and DHL Parcel Germany said they will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the U.S., starting on Saturday. For goods from Germany and the European Union, the new U.S. customs rate is expected to be 15% of the goods value. Lithuanias postal service said it is suspending all shipments to the United States, including documents, postcards and gifts up to $100 in value because major air carriers had suspended all shipments addressed to the U.S. Posti, the mail and parcel delivery service in Finland, also said it is forced to temporarily suspend sending of gifts and documents because several airlines have refused to transport any postal items to the United States. Letters and cards dropped into mailboxes after Aug. 22 will be returned if the senders address details are provided. If no sender details are given, the letters will be forwarded to Traficom for processing. Posti also has parcel and e-commerce fulfillment operations in other Nordic and Baltic countries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maltas postal operator said all goods and parcels sent to the U.S., effective Friday, will only be accepted if they are insured for their full value and warned that postal service from Malta to the U.S. could face delays or disruptions. Czech Post on Friday said it has immediately suspended acceptance of packages with goods, regardless of value, destined for the United States. It is still possible to send parcels containing documents or gifts for individuals valued at $100. However, those shipments will require completion of a postal customs declaration, with a complete and accurate description of the contents and actual value in U.S. dollars. Czech Post said the new restriction is necessary because the U.S. de minimis ban takes effect immediately at the border on Aug. 29, meaning goods must be cleared through the formal entry process and assessed taxes must be paid. Czech Post cannot guarantee the delivery of a shipment to the territory of the USA if it is submitted to Czech Post after Aug. 22, the company said. International posts also caution shippers that packages with proper documentation may still face extended clearance times as U.S. Customs gets used to the new procedures. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement PostNord, which provides mail and parcel delivery in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, announced it will temporarily pause parcel shipments to the United States and Puerto Rico, effective on Saturday. It will allow a carve out for gifts valued under $100. This decision is unfortunate but necessary to ensure full compliance of the newly implemented rules. We are actively working with the relevant international organizations, as well as our U.S. partners, to develop and implement the necessary solution, and remain committed to resuming service for our customers as soon as possible, said Bjorn Bergman, head of communications at PostNord. Omniva Group, which provides postal, parcel and logistics services in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, said it regretted the need to suspend parcel deliveries to the U.S. However, we have now reached a point where we must wait for better cooperation from the U.S. side to resolve the situation. We will resume parcel deliveries to the USA as soon as we can ensure reliable and regulation-compliant service, Sven Kukemelk, acting chief commercial officer, said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Postal operators in Singapore, Japan, Korea, Belgium, France, Austria, the UK and other countries have announced similar suspensions. Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch. Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com. RELATED READING: New US de minimis policy could trim DHL profit by 3% Trump revokes de minimis privilege for global e-commerce imports The post Global postal operators suspend parcel service to US appeared first on FreightWaves. CALISTOGA, Calif. (KRON) The Pickett Fire burning in Napa County has grown to 6,803 acres and is 11% contained since igniting near the 2300 block of Pickett Road on Aug. 21. Approximately 1,230 firefighters, 10 helicopters, 140 engines, 34 bulldozers and 24 water tenders are currently fighting the fire, according to Cal Fire. Firefighters are working to protect homes near Aetna Springs Road and Butts Canyon Road. As of Sunday afternoon, no homes or other structures have been damaged or destroyed by the fire. With the fire burning near communities, structure protection remains a high priority, Cal Fire said. Firefighters will be actively engaged in protecting homes and other structures, particularly in areas like Aetna Springs Road and Butts Canyon Road, where the fire has been active. Fire retardant is air dropped as the Pickett Fire burns near Calistoga, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP) A CH-47 Chinook aerial firefighting helicopter douses water on a flare up while battling the Pickett fire in Calistoga, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP) Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued for 11 zones (colored red in the map below), and five zones are under an evacuation warning (colored yellow). Map of Pickett Fire and evacuation zones as of Aug. 24, 2025. (Map: Cal Fire) Currently, 190 people are under evacuation orders, and 360 people are under evacuation warnings, Cal Fire stated in a social media post around 7:45 p.m. Saturday. Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA-E107-B West of Aetna Mine Road North of Aetna Springs Road East of Oat Hill Mine Road, in the Cedar Canyon area Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA E108-A West of Aetna Springs Lane North of Aetna Springs Road East of Aetna Mine Road South of James Creek creek bed Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA-E114 North of Pickett Road, Silverado Trail South of Old Lawley Toll Road, Victoria Drive East of Palisades Road West of Dutch Henry Canyon Road, Victoria Drive Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA-E115 North and south of Aetna Springs Road East of Victoria Drive and Oat Hill Road West of Summit Lake Drive Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA-E120 North of Silverado Trail, Phifer Pavitt South of Pickett Road East of Rosedale Road West of Pickett Road, Araujo Estate Wines Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA-E121-B North of Clover Flat Road South of Dutch Henry Canyon Road, Pickett Road East of Silverado Trail, Pickett Road West of Dutch Henry Canyon Road Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA-E121-C Upper third of Dutch Henry Canyon Road Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA E122-A North of North Fork Crystal Springs Road South of Summit Lake Drive Evacuation Order Zone ID: NPA E122-B North of Friesen Drive Evacuation Order Zone ID: POP-E001-A West of Butts Canyon North of Pope Valley Road East of Aetna Springs Lane Evacuation Order Zone ID: POP-E001-B South of James Creek, West of Pope Valley Road Evacuation Order Zone ID: POP-E002-C North of Summit Lakes Drive North of portions of Ink Grade West of Pope Valley Road Photo courtesy of Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit. Photo courtesy of CAL FIRE Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 2 missing, dozens displaced in large San Rafael apartment fire This story will be updated. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) A restaurant in downtown Evansville is protesting CenterPoint Energy by refusing to serve its employees. A sign outside Angelos Italian Restaurant says they will not serve CenterPoint employees or anyone affiliated with them. The sign reads Sorry for the inconvenience but weve been inconvenienced. Earlier this week, another downtown business, Arcademie, announced plans for a Night Without Power on August 27. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The co-owner says they are inviting people to talk about their utility bills and find solutions to bring costs down. Eyewitness News has reached out to CenterPoint Energy for comment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). Alas, nuclear waste may have seeped into a greater share of delectable sea bugs than initially believed. On Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration said that even more bags of frozen shrimp are being recalled for possible radioactive contamination after another company, Southwind Foods, voluntarily pulled its product. "I think they're doing the recall as a precautionary approach," Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University, told the New York Times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an announcement, the California-based company said its recalled shrimp was distributed between July 17 and August 8 to locations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, and Washington state. Unhelpfully, it did not say what those locations are, or why it suspects contamination. But watch out for the brand names "Sand Bar," "Arctic Shores," "Best Yet," "Great American," and "First Street." If you bought these recently, throw the stuff away or return it for a full refund. The escalating seafood setback comes just days after Walmart recalled its "Great Value" brand of frozen shrimp after the FDA detected the radioactive isotope Cesium-137, a byproduct of nuclear fission, in shipping containers and at least one sample of the product. According to the agency, the detections were reported at ports in Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Savannah, Georgia. None of the containers or shrimp were allowed into the US, the FDA insists, and no product that's tested positive for Cesium-137 is known to have entered circulation. Who's to say why the public is suddenly being barraged by radiated shellfish all at once. A common thread is that they all originated from the Indonesian supplier BMS, and it's likely that the shrimps themselves aren't the problem. Rather, the "product appears to have been prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated," the FDA said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some observers speculated that somewhere along the supply chain, someone didn't bother to use clean shipping containers. Fortunately, the levels of cesium-137 detected aren't so high that they'd require protection, but it could pose a health concern if exposed to over a prolonged period say, by regularly eating shrimp. "If you were eating shrimp all the time, like on a daily basis, then there might be more concern," Kowalcyk told the NYT. "But a sporadic exposure is probably not as concerning, mainly because we're all exposed at some level." An investigation is ongoing. Till then, go easy on the prawn. More on food: Rejoice! Trump's FDA Says You Can Eat a Surprising Amount of Walmart's Radioactive Shrimp Without Major Issues Everett police seek suspect in violent attack captured on video at Emilys Garage Everett police are asking for the publics help to identify a man accused of violently attacking two workers at Emilys Garage earlier this month. The assault happened just after noon on Aug. 1 inside the garage lobby, according to Everett police. KIRO 7 News obtained surveillance video of the attack, which is graphic. The video shows a man repeatedly punching a worker before the victim has time to react, leaving him unconscious. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police said the worker suffered severe head trauma and has not yet recovered. The victims employer said he has been unable to return to work and is expected to remain out for at least two more weeks. A second employee was also injured during the assault. Detectives believe the violence was linked to an earlier dispute at the garage. Before the attack, the owner of Emilys Garage said a woman came in for a vehicle safety inspection, which she needed because shes an Uber driver. When he failed her car, an argument followed, which she recorded for TikTok. According to her TikTok video, the inspector, later identified as the same man injured in the lobby attack, removed a piece of the windshield wiper. and failed her inspection. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The woman alleged she was pushed during the confrontation and later claimed she had missing fingernails. Police say the lobby attack may have been retaliation for that altercation. Everett detectives released a wanted poster showing several images of the suspect, who is believed to be in his 40s or 50s. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was seen leaving the scene in a silver or gray Honda Passport from the 2020s. Investigators continue to seek information about the suspects whereabouts. Anyone with information is asked to call the Everett Police Department tip line at (425) 257-8450 or Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound at 1-800-222-TIPS. Fred Ngusilo stoops to pick up a leather pouch, once used to collect honey, and a discarded shoe from the Mau forest floor, painful reminders that his Ogiek hunter-gatherer community once quietly flourished in southern Kenya, before they were evicted and their homes destroyed. Ngusilo belongs to the Ogiek group, which is among the last hunter-gatherer communities in Africa and one of the most marginalised in Kenya. He described how their ancestral lands were seized by the government in the name of conservation at the end of 2023, when men armed with hammers and axes suddenly appeared, violently evicting them from their homes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "When I come here, I feel that I'm so sad. Tears are coming out of my eyes," Ngusilo said, his eyes resting on the remains of his father and grandfather's house. Behind the 38-year-old human rights activist, bees buzz, and some of his community peacefully weave their cattle through the trees -- despite a ban on livestock, brutally enforced by Kenyan Forestry Service (KFS) rangers. In December, a herder drowned while fleeing from the rangers, Ngusilo said. The calm of the Mau Forest contrasts with stories of decades of persecution and dispossession recounted by its indigenous people -- all in the name of conservation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (AfCHPR) ruled in 2017 and 2022 that the evictions were illegal, ordering Nairobi to pay reparations equivalent to more than $1 million and to recognise their ancestral lands. But Kenya has still not complied. - 'We are suffering greatly' - Deprived of their livelihoods, they recount a difficult daily existence that is slowly but surely destroying their traditions and their language. "Before, in the forest, we could survive -- eat honey, hunt, live," Ngusilo's grandmother, Janet Sumpet Ngusilo, 87, said. "Now, out here, we are suffering greatly." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At a festival earlier this month, hundreds of community members rallied to keep the ceremonies and traditional songs alive, but also to remember what they have lost. "I survived on meat and honey. Young people today don't know that life," said Salaton Nadumwangop, describing how he would sleep beneath the trees. "The forest is our life," the 55-year-old Nadumwangop, dressed in traditional costume and a fur hat pinned with beads evoking bees, told AFP. - Existential threat - A government representative at the festival, Josphat Lodeya, promised the verdicts of the AfCHPR court would be implemented. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lodeya, who heads the department for minorities and marginalised people, said the government was doing what it should. "It is the same thing I have heard many times, so let us wait and see," said Daniel Kobei, head of the Ogiek People's Development Program. But despite the assurances, which the crowd clung to hopefully, Nadumwangop said the Ogiek -- whom he described as a "small people" -- knew they lacked power. "Even if we try to vote, they consider us worthless. So they despise us," he said. Ngusilo believes the authorities are "trying to sell us out," saying that he would die to return home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During a visit to his family home earlier that week, AFP reporters witnessed him receive multiple calls from what he said were KFS rangers, threatening to arrest him for being there. KFS could not be reached by AFP for comment by publication. More than 20 percent of the Mau has disappeared since the 1980s, according to various studies, with rights groups and elders accusing rapacious local officials. Several community members have also alleged that carbon credit projects are behind the evictions at the end of 2023. These allegations are difficult to prove, although several lawyers and observers consider them plausible. For Nadumwangop, he remains worried about his people's future. "If things continue like this, the Ogiek will disappear. We will be completely lost." jcp/jf/rbu/phz Foreign Ministry Spokesperson announces: Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit 2025 will be held in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1. President Xi Jinping will chair the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the SCO Plus Meeting and deliver keynote speeches. During the summit, President Xi Jinping will host a welcome banquet and bilateral events for participating leaders. BrewDog co-founder Martin Dickie is stepping away from the company with immediate effect, the UK craft beer major has confirmed. Dickie, who set up BrewDog alongside James Watt in 2007, is leaving the business and the alcohol sector "for personal reasons", the group said in a statement today (22 August) He most recently held the position of CEO of BrewDog's spirits business, BrewDog Distilling Co., which produces brands including Abstrakt Vodka, Lonewolf gin and Casa Rayos Tequila. According to his personal LinkedIn page, Dickie has been CEO of the medicinal cannabis cultivation business Waterside Pharmaceuticals since February this year and continues to hold this role. The Hazy Jane brand owner will not be making any changes to its leadership team as a result of Dickie's departure. Dickie's divisional chief executive role will not be replaced the company told Just Drinks, noting the unit's managing director Steven Kersley would now reports into James Taylor, BrewDog's CEO. Commenting on his departure, Dickie said: After over two decades in the brewing and distilling arena sadly for personal reasons its time for me to leave the industry that I love deeply and hopefully had a positive impact in. "Leaving BrewDog isnt easy but Im ready to spend less time travelling and spend some more time at home with my young family. It has been an honour to have worked with incredible, like-minded, colleagues who live in a world of flavour and experimentation. "Our hard work and passion is dedicated to bringing our customers a moment of beautiful escapism from the real world. In James Taylor and chief operating officer Lauren Carrol, BrewDog is in very strong hands and I will always remain a massive fan. Dickie continues to retain shares in the business, BrewDog confirmed to Just Drinks. Both he and Watt hold minority stakes alongside TSG Consumer Partners and other private investors. The Elvis Juice brand owner added in its statement: "BrewDog remains committed to its mission of making great beer and beverages, with a strong leadership team and a dedicated global workforce to carry forward its legacy of innovation. "The company will continue to expand its spirits and cocktail offerings while maintaining its core focus on craft beer and sustainability." Dickie's departure comes more than a year after Watt stepped down from his CEO position. He was first replaced by former Boots Opticians managing director James Arrow and, less than a year later, by Taylor, who was promoted from the CFO role in March. A former California Superior Court judge has been charged with sexually assaulting two court employees, then trying to cover up the misconduct. Adolfo Corona, 66, was charged Thursday by a federal grand jury in Fresno in a five-count indictment that includes allegations of sexual assault, making false statements to cover up the assault and obstructing an investigation into his purported sexual assault of another woman in his chambers, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release. The two assaults occurred on Dec. 5, 2023, and March 14, 2024, prosecutors said. Corona reportedly retired on May 1, 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The latter incident involved Corona leading a court employee into a courthouse stairwell where he sexually assaulted her, then lying to the FBI and court administrators about it, the DOJ said. That came a little over three months after Corona was alone with another court employee in his chambers for about two hours. She was later found alone in the judges chambers after being passed out, the DOJ said. According to the indictment, Corona lied to the FBI, asserting that hed left the woman in his chambers while he went to pick up a motorcycle. Corona allegedly attempted to persuade a motorcycle dealership employee to change company records to falsely reflect that he had picked up his motorcycle in order to corroborate his alibi, the DOJ said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If convicted, Corona faces decades in prison, with a maximum sentence of 40 years on the sexual assault charge and 20 years for each obstruction count. Any sentence, however, would be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables, prosecutors said. Anyone with information about this investigation is encouraged to contact their local FBI office, call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), or submit a tip to tips.fbi.gov. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. A former acting director general of a state-owned defense enterprise has been charged under suspicion that the official abused his power in awarding himself 700,000 UAH ($17,000) in bonuses and extra payment during his service, the city of Kyiv's Prosecutor's Office announced on Aug. 21. The unnamed official allegedly awarded himself the extra financial incentives "for significant contributions to the development of the enterprise," as well as the "diligent performance of official duties and long-term service," according to his accounts of the payemnts, the announcement said. Prosecutors, however, allege that the accused deliberately used his "official authority for unlawful gain" in accepting the payments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a result of the alleged abuse of power, Ukraine's state budget directly suffered the financial losses, prosecutors said. WTF is wrong with Russia? Wear our new T-shirt to let other people know you want answers. shop now No additional details were released on the specific case. The accused currently faces one charge under Ukraine's Criminal Code, with a pre-trial investigation. Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of officials have been arrested with charges related to corruption allegations. On Aug. 12, Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies announced that a Defense Ministry official was charged with accepting a bribe from a housing developer worth upwards of $1.3 million. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The corruption revelations come weeks after Ukraine's parliament reversed course on the law limiting the independence of NABU and SAPO. Zelensky signed a bill restoring the agencies' independence on July 31, following widespread protests and international criticism over a prior law passed on July 22 that had constrained their powers. Read also: Going around in circles Trump sets new deadline for peace in Ukraine, Graham again threatens with tough legislation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Former Munich Security Conference chairman Christoph Heusgen has urged the German government to recognize a Palestinian state in light of the suffering in the Gaza Strip. Heusgen, writing in a guest article for the RND media group published on Friday, said such a move would be seen worldwide as a "particularly strong gesture" given Germany's reputation as a loyal friend of Israel. The long-time adviser to former German chancellor Angela Merkel added that, while recognition would not change the situation on the ground in the short term, it would send a strong signal of solidarity with the Palestinian people if Germany joined the majority of states that already recognize Palestine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several countries, including France, Canada and Australia, have announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. The German government, however, has repeatedly said this is not an option for now. At the end of July, government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said that recognition was seen as "one of the final steps" on the path to a two-state solution, which envisions an independent Palestinian state coexisting peacefully alongside Israel. Heusgen warned that Israel risked developing into an "apartheid state." He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a Palestinian state and supports settler violence in the West Bank. "All diplomatic attempts to get the Israeli government to back down have been in vain," Heusgen said. He stressed that Israel's security is a matter of German national interest. "But Israel's security also requires that the country does not make enemies or isolate itself globally through excessive military force and violations of international law." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Netanyahu rejects a two-state solution, as does the Islamist militant organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A number of countries in the European Union, particularly in eastern and south-eastern Europe, recognized a Palestinian state years ago. About a month ago, French President Emmanuel Macron became the first major Western leader to announce such a move. A former Green Township police officer accused of abusing his ex-girlfriend's infant child has a prior conviction for driving while intoxicated after crashing his police cruiser, according to prosecutors. Alexander Grimme, 30, pleaded not guilty during an arraignment on Aug. 22 in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court before Magistrate Thomas Beridon. The magistrate set Grimme's bond at $500,000. Grimme has been indicted on charges including endangering children, felonious assault and strangulation. He is also facing charges of neglect of a dependent and domestic battery in Franklin County Circuit Court in Indiana. Prosecutor says child abuse case is 'extremely serious' Prosecutors said the victim in Grimme's most recent case in Ohio is the same as the victim in the earlier Indiana case, which is ongoing. He was in a relationship with the child's mother, court records state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This is an extremely serious case," Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Allison Oswall said. Oswall said that Grimme brought the then-9-month-old child to his mother's house in Delhi Township and the infant became unresponsive around 11 a.m. on Jan. 21. Alexander Grimme, 30, appears via webcam in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court with his attorney for an arraignment on Aug. 22. The child suffered "abusive head trauma" and was taken by Grimme in the afternoon to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where doctors determined his injuries were not accidental, prosecutors said. Court documents show the child sustained a brain bleed, retinal bleeding, two wrist fractures that had begun healing, as well as bruising to the neck and chest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Doctors specializing in child abuse found that the infant's injuries were caused sometime between 5:15 a.m. and 3 p.m., when the boy was in Grimme's care, Oswall said. The child, who is now a year old, has permanent brain damage and faces significant developmental delays, according to prosecutors. Google searches for 'bruises on babies' used as evidence Oswall pointed to Google searches Grimme made, including "signs of shaken baby syndrome" and "bruises on babies that have been strangled," as evidence of the abuse. She also noted searches about chloroform and how to make mustard gas. Those searches were found by the child's mother and reported to police in Indiana, according to an affidavit filed in Franklin County Circuit Court. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Grimme told police that he was accused by his ex-girlfriend's father of strangling the child and wanted to use the search results to prove that he hadn't. In response to questions about the mustard gas search, Grimme initially denied it, but later said he did so during a conversation with his ex-girlfriend at their home and that he was "just fooling around." Grimme crashed a police cruiser while intoxicated, has prior domestic violence conviction Grimme also told police that he'd been charged with domestic violence in a previous divorce. Court records show that Grimme was accused of attempting to hit his ex-wife and putting his hand around her neck in May 2024. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence and was sentenced to probation, with a court order to complete an anger management program. Green Township police Cpt. Mitch Hill confirmed via email that Grimme worked as an officer for the department for six months before his resignation in the summer of 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oswall said that Grimme has been on a "downward trajectory" since he crashed his police cruiser while intoxicated. She added that he was convicted in Hamilton County Municipal Court of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and sentenced to probation. Oswall said that Grimme also served in the U.S. Marine Corps. "We thank him for his service ... but that gives pause to the state, because he is a man with nothing to lose at this point," Oswall said. "He's trained in firearms and he has a history of violence against those associated with him." An attorney representing Grimme, who appeared via webcam from the Hamilton County Justice Center, said that Grimme turned himself in to authorities. The attorney added that Grimme has partial custody over his three children and is eager to get back to them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As part of Grimme's bond, Beridon set a condition to stay away from the victim and prohibited him from having contact with children. Grimme's criminal case in Indiana is set to go to trial in November. Another hearing in his Hamilton County case has been set for Sept. 3. He faces up to 22 years in prison if convicted of all charges in Ohio. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ex-cop accused of child abuse crashed police cruiser while intoxicated WARREN COUNTY, Mo. A former fifth-grade teacher at Ross Elementary is being accused of possessing child pornography. Superintendent Melissa Schneider made the announcement Thursday to parents, saying Jed Finley, of Wright City, Missouri, is no longer employed by the Parkway School District. According to the probable cause statement, the St. Louis County Police Department executed a search warrant at Finleys house. Officials would end up finding over 20+ images containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Warren County sheriffs then arrested Finley and charged him with felony possession of child pornography. According to the district, Finley is also being accused of uploading CSAM while on school property. We know this is upsetting news, Schneider said. Please be assured that the safety of your children is always our priority. Schneider went on to say that Parkway is cooperating with law enforcement surrounding the investigation. Finley also led the Star News Crew club at Ross Elementary during the 2024-2025 school year. Students who were in Finleys class were also contacted by the district, according to Schneider. The district urges those who may have information surrounding this case to contact the St. Louis County Police Department Bureau of Crimes at 314-615-5400. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Finley is currently being held without bond at the Warren County Jail. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. By Saeed Shah and Ariba Shahid ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -The Asian Development Bank will fund upgrades to part of Pakistan's creaking railway system, replacing China, after prolonged delays in securing financing from Beijing threatened to put a strain on a strategic mining project, two sources said on Friday. An extensive revamp of 1,800 km (1,118 miles) of railways has been the centrepiece of a $60 billion Chinese investment programme in Pakistan announced in 2015 as part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure push. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A decade of negotiations, however, have yet to produce a finance package for the rail upgrades - the single biggest project under the programme with China. And Pakistan is, meanwhile, struggling to repay Chinese debt owed for other projects. The ADB is in advanced talks to lead the financing of a $2 billion upgrade of a 500-km stretch of the railway line from Karachi to Rohri in the country's south that had previously been part of the Chinese project, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. The upgrade has become urgent, they said, as it is needed to transport copper ore from the Reko Diq mine currently being developed by Canada's Barrick Mining Corp. "We will have a crisis. How will you evacuate output from Reko Diq? The exhausted line will come under even more pressure," one of the sources, a senior government official, said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was no immediate comment from Pakistan's railways ministry. "China and Pakistan are iron friends and all-weather strategic partners," China's foreign ministry said in a response to Reuters. "China is willing to work with the Pakistani side to build the corridor with high quality and create an upgraded version," it said, adding that future cooperation would span industry, agriculture and mining. The ADB would not confirm the finance package, which is being reported for the first time by Reuters. But it said Pakistan's government and the regional lender "have regular discussions on railway sector development". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Any potential ADB assistance would be subject to comprehensive due diligence and consideration under ADB's policies and procedures before any commitment is made," it wrote in a statement to Reuters. The deal, expected to be announced later this month, would see the ADB lead a consortium to finance the project and bring in an international engineering contractor to carry out the work through a competitive bidding process, the sources said. The ADB announced $410 million in financing for the Reko Diq mine itself earlier this week. And its president is due to visit Islamabad next week, the sources said. CHINA AND PAKISTAN: 'IRONCLAD FRIENDS'? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sources said the plan is diplomatically tricky but has been squared with China. "We would never do anything to jeopardise that relationship," the senior Pakistani official said. China rolled out major power and infrastructure projects after the 2015 launch of the investment programme, known locally as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. But momentum has stalled, with the last big project - the Gwadar East Bay Expressway - inaugurated in 2022. Islamabad has fallen behind on payments for electricity generated by Chinese-built power plants. And following a government report looking at the cost of the power stations, Islamabad has for the past year sought to reschedule debt payments for the plants. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "China and Pakistan are ironclad friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners," China's foreign ministry said on August 19, ahead of a visit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Islamabad this week. In Wang's meeting with Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, both sides said they sought to deepen ties and move on to the next phase of CPEC. PAKISTAN'S MINING AMBITIONS The Reko Diq copper and gold mine - at the heart of the government's strategy to attract investment to Pakistan's mining sector - is due to enter production in 2028 with anticipated annual output of some 200,000 metric ton of copper concentrate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of the world's largest untapped copper deposits, it is Pakistan's largest foreign investment in recent years. The ADB-financed rail upgrade would modernise the track and bridges from the commercial capital Karachi north to Rohri, close to the city of Sukkur, so that diesel trains can run faster, the sources said. In Rohri, the line will meet a branch coming from the area of the Reko Diq mine and will carry the copper concentrate to port. Tim Cribb, Reko Diq's project director, told Reuters that the government and Barrick would work together on securing financing for the upgrading of the branch coming from the west to Rohri. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The mine also faces security concerns, as it lies in the insurgency-hit western province of Balochistan, with militants frequently targeting the rail network. (Reporting by Saeed Shah and Ariba Shahid in Islamabad; Additional reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing; Editing by Joe Bavier) By Laurie Chen and Rozanna Latiff BEIJING/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to attend a major summit of Asian leaders in October, two people familiar with the matter said, dashing expectations of a potential meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the event. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim this month had said both Xi and Trump were expected to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) October 26-28 leaders' summit in Kuala Lumpur. That led analysts to speculate that Trump and Xi, locked in an uneasy trade truce, may have their first in-person encounter of Trump's second term. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who attended another ASEAN summit with Gulf leaders in May, is expected to represent China at the October meeting, two regional sources said, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. The office of Anwar, the current chair of the 10-member bloc, directed queries to Malaysia's foreign ministry, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Xi's attendance. "China has always attached importance to China-ASEAN relations and East Asian cooperation. We do not have any information to provide on your specific question " China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Anwar told Malaysia's parliament last month Trump had confirmed his attendance at the event during a phone call with the U.S. leader. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump said earlier this month he will meet Xi before the end of the year if a trade agreement is struck, adding that "we're getting very close to a deal". Aides for both presidents have discussed a possible autumn meeting in Asia around the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on October 30-November 1, Reuters previously reported. The annual ASEAN summit would mark Trump's first trip to Southeast Asia since his 2019 meeting with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. He is also expected to attend the APEC summit. It is rare for Chinese presidents to attend ASEAN summits, with Xi only having joined a 2021 special summit virtually since he gained power in 2012. Attendance by U.S. presidents is also uncommon - Trump attended in 2017, while President Joe Biden joined Xi remotely in 2021. Biden also attended the summit in person in Cambodia the following year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anwar said this year's annual summit would aim to deliver "ASEAN's largest and most high-profile gathering of world leaders to date", with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa also expected to attend. Washington and Beijing last week extended a tariff truce for another 90 days, staving off triple-digit duties on each other's goods while negotiations continue to address the trade imbalance, market access and rare earths among other issues. Trump's global tariffs offensive has shaken Southeast Asia, a region heavily reliant on exports and manufacturing and in many areas boosted by supply chain shifts from China. Washington announced tariffs of about 19% across major Southeast Asian economies' exports earlier this month, far lower than previously threatened, after the White House had explicitly warned regional countries against so-called transshipment of Chinese goods to the U.S. (Reporting by Laurie Chen in Beijing and Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Lincoln Feast) By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration plans to make available about 20 metric tons of Cold War-era plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads to U.S. power companies as a potential fuel for reactors, according to a source familiar with the matter and a draft memo outlining the plan. Plutonium has previously only been converted to fuel for commercial U.S. reactors in short-lived tests. The plan would follow through on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in May ordering the government to halt much of its existing program to dilute and dispose of surplus plutonium, and instead provide it as a fuel for advanced nuclear technologies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Department of Energy, or DOE, plans to announce in coming days it will seek proposals from industry, said the source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The source cautioned that because the plan is still a draft, its final details could change pending further discussions. The plutonium would be offered to industry at little to no cost -- with a catch. Industry will be responsible for costs of transportation, designing, building, and decommissioning DOE-authorized facilities to recycle, process and manufacture the fuel, the memo said. The details on the volume of the plutonium, industry's responsibilities in the plan and the potential timing of a U.S. announcement, have not been previously reported. The 20 metric tons would be drawn from a larger, 34-metric-ton stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium that the United States had previously committed to dispose of under a non-proliferation agreement with Russia in 2000. The Department of Energy did not confirm or deny the Reuters reporting, saying only that the department is "evaluating a variety of strategies to build and strengthen domestic supply chains for nuclear fuel, including plutonium," as directed by Trump's orders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boosting the U.S. power industry is a policy priority for the Trump administration as U.S. electricity demand rises for the first time in two decades on the boom in data centers needed for artificial intelligence. The idea of using surplus plutonium for fuel has raised concerns among nuclear safety experts who argue a previous similar effort failed. Under the 2000 agreement, the plutonium was initially planned to be converted to mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, to run in nuclear power plants. But in 2018, the first Trump administration killed the contract for a MOX project that it said would have cost more than $50 billion. The U.S. Energy Department holds surplus plutonium at heavily guarded weapons facilities including Savannah River in South Carolina, Pantex in Texas, and Los Alamos in New Mexico. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years and must be handled with protective gear. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Until Trump's May order, the U.S. program to dispose of the plutonium has involved blending it with an inert material and storing it in an experimental underground storage site called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The Energy Department has estimated that burying the plutonium would cost $20 billion. "Trying to convert this material into reactor fuel is insanity. It would entail trying to repeat the disastrous MOX fuel program and hoping for a different result," said Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The excess plutonium is a dangerous waste product and DOE should stick to the safer, more secure and far cheaper plan to dilute and directly dispose of it in WIPP." (Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Lisa Shumaker) Ralph Menzies appears during his commutation hearing before the parole board at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City as he petitions to stop his execution by firing squad on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (Pool photo by Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune) In what is being described as the last big hurdle before his Sept. 5 execution, attorneys for death row inmate Ralph Menzies argued before the Utah Supreme Court that the state should pause proceedings and give the 67-year-old convicted killer with dementia another review to see if he is competent. Menzies sentenced to die by firing squad for the 1986 kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker is running out of appeals. His death warrant has been signed, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole recently denied him clemency and his execution is now almost two weeks away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the states high court could still force the Utah Department of Corrections to pause proceedings and grant Menzies another evaluation to determine whether hes competent. During a hearing on Thursday, Menzies attorneys made what could be their last case for sparing his life, while the Utah Attorney Generals Office argued they havent met the requirements for granting Menzies another competency review. For much of the last year, Menzies attorneys have claimed his dementia makes him incompetent to be executed per state and federal law, an inmate must understand the states reasoning for pursuing the death penalty. In June, 3rd District Court Judge Matthew Bates ruled that Menzies, despite having dementia, is competent. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His attorneys then submitted a petition for another competency evaluation, claiming that Menzies mental condition had deteriorated, fueled by a hypoxic event, which is when the brain doesnt get enough oxygen. For someone with dementia, like Menzies, his attorneys say a hypoxic event can worsen the symptoms. Bates denied the petition, writing there wasnt enough compelling evidence to grant Menzies another review. On Thursday, Menzies attorneys said Bates ruling was wrong, and that because of the pending appeal, the court should pause proceedings. Central to their arguments was the legal principle prima facie, which essentially means there is enough evidence before the court for a case to move forward. During the roughly two-hour hearing, Lindsey Layer, one of Menzies attorneys, said theyve shown through expert evaluations that there is ample evidence to suggest Menzies meets the threshold outlined in state code to grant him another review. He was unable to answer what he was charged with. That is new, Layer said, referring to recent evaluations where experts asked Menzies if he understood the states reason for executing him. He repeated the same thing, over and over again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And, the nature of dementia means Menzies cognitive abilities will continue to decline. He is only getting worse. That is the only trajectory of his illness, to get worse over time until it is ultimately fatal, she said. Attorneys for the state, however, told the supreme court justices that there isnt enough evidence to grant another competency evaluation. State code sets a high bar, requiring allegations of a substantial change in circumstances and those allegations must raise a significant question about the inmates competency. Daniel Boyer with the Utah Attorney Generals Office argued Menzies attorneys have not satisfied those requirements. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There needs to be a greater level of specificity to Menzies claims, Boyer said, adding that some of the allegations of decline happened before Bates made his initial ruling in June before the request for another evaluation. Here, the alleged events that demonstrated a significant decline occurred months before we even had oral arguments on the first petition, Boyer said. The five members of the Utah Supreme Court which on Thursday included 2nd District Judge Ronald Russel sitting in place of Justice John Pearce, who was recused pressed attorneys on both sides during the hearing. The court took the matter under advisement. Its unclear when they will rule, although prior rulings have been issued roughly a week after arguments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Matt Hunsaker, Maurines son who has been a spokesperson for the family, told reporters after the hearing that this is the last big hurdle in the decadeslong case. If hes not executed on Sept. 5, theyre not going to execute him, said Hunsaker. Ill give up. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE NEED TO KNOW A legal expert believes Lyle Menendez may face a similar outcome as his brother Erik, who was denied parole this week "It would be really, a miscarriage of justice if one brother were paroled and the other were not, because they're so similarly situated," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani tells PEOPLE The brothers were initially sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole but got a long-awaited chance at freedom in May after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life With Lyle Menendez set to appear before the parole board on Friday, Aug. 22 just one day after his brother Erik was denied a legal expert says he may face a similar outcome, unless key differences emerge during the hearing. "I would be surprised if it were different," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani tells PEOPLE. "The only reason it would be different would be if his parole commissioners are different." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It would be really, a miscarriage of justice if one brother were paroled and the other were not, because they're so similarly situated," Rahmani adds. Erik was denied release on Thursday, Aug. 21, more than three decades after the two were convicted of fatally shooting their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989 in their Beverly Hills, Calif., home. They were initially sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole but got a long-awaited chance at freedom in May after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life. This made them eligible for parole because they were under 26 when they committed the murders. Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21. In explaining why the board voted to deny Erik parole, Commissioner Robert Barton cited his infractions behind bars, which reportedly included drug and cellphone use and involvement in a tax fraud scheme, according to The New York Times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At their resentencing, Judge Michael Jesic described the brothers as model inmates. So, according to Rahmani, if Lyle's behavior behind prison is unlike Erik's, it could lead to a different outcome in terms of parole. "None of these were violent violations in my opinion, that led the commissioners to think that they pose an unreasonable risk to the public," Rahmani says. Barton also called the brothers' killings "devoid of human compassion," telling Erik, "The killing of your mother especially showed a lack of empathy and reason," per the outlet. Los Angeles Times via Getty Erik, left, and Lyle Menendez Erik, left, and Lyle Menendez Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The brothers have said they acted in self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, which they alleged their mother was aware of but did nothing to stop. Prosecutors said they killed their parents out of greed, citing their lavish spending spree after the slayings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Rahmani, the brothers' claim of self-defense due to past sexual abuse doesn't justify the killings under California law. "Freedom is deadly force," he says. "You have to be in imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury. And I just don't think they can prove it." Erik now must wait at least three years before hes eligible for another parole hearing. If Lyle is also denied, both brothers still have other potential paths to release including a petition for habeas corpus filed in 2023, which seeks to overturn their murder convictions based on newly discovered evidence of past abuse by their father, as well as the possibility of clemency at the hands of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Read the original article on People This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: A federal judge denied a request from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to issue a preliminary injunction on Californias climate disclosure laws, set to require reporting beginning in 2026, according to court documents. In declining to grant a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright II, of Californias Central District Court, also ruled in his Aug. 13 decision that the plaintiffs have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of allegations that Californias Senate Bills 253 and 261 violate their First Amendment rights. The state agency tasked with implementing the laws has promised final regulations for both disclosures by the end of the year. Juge Gregg, partner at law firm Crowell & Moring, told ESG Dive Tuesday that companies wont get a reprieve from fast-approaching reporting deadlines. Dive Insight: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with the California Chamber of Commerce and other business trade associations, sued the California Air Resources Board the agency responsible for the laws in January 2024. The lawsuit concerns California SB 253, which requires companies with more than $1 billion in revenue to report scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, with eventual scope 3 disclosures, and SB 261, which requires companies with at least $500 million in revenues to make biennial climate-related risk reports. The plaintiffs argued the laws violate their First Amendment rights by compelling speech. Wright, who previously denied a motion for summary judgment in the case, said the two laws implicate different levels of scrutiny to determine whether they violate the First Amendment, but based on the current record, Wright concluded the business groups are unlikely to succeed on the merits of the arguments against either law violating their rights against compelled speech. Plaintiffs argue they will be irreparably harmed by [the disclosures] because the laws compel speech in violation of the First Amendment, Wright wrote. As Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the laws violate the First Amendment, they have also not shown irreparable harm. Without the injunction, the arguments on the merits of the case are not expected before the court until early next year. CARB released a FAQ with guidance on how to comply with the laws last month, and entities covered by SB 261 are expected to submit climate-related financial risk reports by Jan. 1, 2026. (The Center Square) Microsoft is facing renewed calls for a congressional investigation after ProPublica revealed the company omitted key details about its use of China-based engineers in a Pentagon security plan. ProPublica obtained a copy of Microsofts 2025 System Security Plan submitted to the Department of Defense. The plan describes the companys digital escort system U.S. personnel with security clearances supervising engineers but neglects to mention that those non-screened personnel could be foreign engineers based in China. The Department of Defense requires that those handling sensitive data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Critics say that allowing China-based engineers to perform technical work on U.S. government systems poses risks because Chinese law gives the state broad authority to demand data. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Microsoft told ProPublica that its escort process was disclosed and approved. However, Pentagon leaders have expressed shock after learning the details. Following the report, Microsoft stopped using China-based engineers for Defense Department systems. Michael Lucci, CEO and founder of State Armor, said Microsofts behavior demands immediate action from Congress. Microsoft's actions at the Pentagon ranging from extreme carelessness to borderline treason warrant a full and immediate investigation from Congress, Lucci said. If Microsoft is using China-based engineers to manage our nations most sensitive secrets and failing to disclose these facts to Defense Department officials, they are undermining national security and everything else they manage in the federal government must be scrutinized. We need a total and complete shutdown of all Microsoft entering United States government systems until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. Will Hild, executive director of Consumers Research, said Microsofts omission shows the government cannot trust the company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Microsoft's deception reveals a disgusting combination of corporate arrogance and cold disregard for America's national security, Hild said. Choosing to hire tech engineers based in China is shockingly dangerous enough; choosing to conceal such operations from the Defense Department should lead to an immediate review of every government contract with Microsoft, whether with the Department of Defense or elsewhere. Given China's full spectrum warfare approach to rivaling U.S. hegemony, we cannot afford to have Chinese coders, or a company that would surreptitiously hire them, maintaining government systems, he added. As Microsoft shows us its true colors, consumers are right to feel betrayed and angry at a company that so evidently does not care one bit about their safety, values, or country. Consumers' Research stands with them and will fight on behalf of all Americans to hold Microsoft accountable. Lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, have already said Congress should strengthen oversight of IT contractors. Lucci and Hild argue that the next step is clear: a full investigation of Microsofts Pentagon contracts. By Jan Wolfe WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Texas lawmakers approved a new congressional map this week at the behest of President Donald Trump, seeking to preserve his Republican Party's slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2026 midterm elections. In response, the California Senate on Thursday moved forward with legislation to give Democrats five more House seats in the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here's what to know about the court fights that are brewing. CAN TEXAS LEGALLY REDRAW ITS VOTING DISTRICTS? A panel of three federal judges is expected to hold a hearing as soon as September to determine the legality of the new congressional district map approved by the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas. In a Monday court filing, a coalition of left-leaning voting rights groups said they plan to ask the U.S. District Court in El Paso to block the map from taking effect on the grounds that it is racially discriminatory. The plaintiffs asked a three-judge panel to set aside time in September for the hearing so that litigation can move quickly. The panel has not yet ruled on the request. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under federal law, challenges to the constitutionality of a congressional map are heard by a federal three-judge panel rather than a single district court judge. A panel ruling can then be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, bypassing an intermediate appeals court. WHAT ARE TEXAS DEMOCRATS ARGUING? Texas Democrats and voting rights groups are focusing on a claim that the map unconstitutionally packs Black and Latino voters - who are driving Texas population growth - into some districts while spreading them throughout others to dilute their voting power. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 law, allows voters to seek judicial relief if they believe that a state government has curtailed voting rights on the basis of race. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Voting Rights Act was a key achievement of the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s led by Martin Luther King Jr. The legislation broadly prohibited poll taxes, literacy tests and other measures common in states with a history of slavery that prevented black people from voting. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down some parts of the Voting Rights Act, but reaffirmed the validity of Section 2 in a 5-4 decision from 2023. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican and a Trump ally, has rejected the racial discrimination allegations, saying the new map actually empowers minority voters. Its a proven fact that minority voters chose to vote for Trump as well as other Republicans, but they are trapped in one of these gerrymander districts that confines it only to electing a Democrat, Abbott said during a Fox News interview on August 10. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats are focusing on the racial discrimination claim because the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal judges are powerless to hear challenges to partisan gerrymandering, the practice in which the political party that controls the state legislature draws a voting map to help elect its candidates. WHAT IS CALIFORNIA'S PLAN? California lawmakers on Thursday passed a series of bills aimed at creating newly drawn congressional maps that would flip Republican-held seats to the Democrats. Unlike Texas, where the legislature draws voting maps, California relies on a citizen redistricting commission protected by the state's constitution. But Democrats in the state legislature say they can bypass this bipartisan commission so long as voters approve the new map in a statewide special election. A referendum is expected to be held in November. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement COULD CALIFORNIA'S PLAN BE BLOCKED IN COURT? While California's plan to have a special election appears to be lawful, it could be derailed by procedural challenges. Democrats need to move quickly with their redistricting effort for it to be in effect before the midterm elections in November 2026. The party of the incumbent president typically loses House seats in midterm elections, which can block their legislative agendas and in Trump's first term led to two impeachment probes. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, a group of Republican lawmakers said their Democratic colleagues are violating a provision of the state's constitution requiring a minimum 30-day waiting period between when a bill is introduced and when it is acted on by lawmakers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead of a transparent and participatory process, "the public would be presented instead with an up or down vote on maps unilaterally prepared in secret by the legislature, stated the emergency petition. California Democrats have said they are using commonplace, lawful tactics to expedite their legislation calling for a special election to approve the redistricting plan. (Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Amy Stevens and Sonali Paul) This year, several states have taken steps to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures to address sweltering heat inside prisons, but many across the country remain years away from significant upgrades.(Photo courtesy Florida Department of Corrections) Summer heat is bearing down on U.S. prisons, where temperatures in uncooled cells can climb well into the triple digits. Facing growing pressure from advocacy groups, lawsuits, and climate projections that show hotter days ahead, some state prison systems are moving to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures although many facilities remain years away from significant upgrades. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But in other states, such efforts have stalled or failed. That may lead to more lawsuits in the future, experts say, even as judges may raise the bar for such cases. An emphasis on being tough on crime and prioritizing other public safety measures may have contributed to less attention on prison conditions in some states. In others, slowing revenue growth and pressure to rein in corrections spending could be making new investments a harder sell. At least two states this year, Virginia and Texas, considered legislation addressing excessive heat in prisons but neither measure became law. The Texas bill would have required the state Department of Criminal Justice to purchase and install climate control systems in all of its facilities by the end of 2032. About two-thirds of the states correctional facilities have only partial or no air conditioning. The measure passed the House but did not advance in the Senate before the legislature adjourned in June. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Virginia, lawmakers approved a bill that would have required the state corrections department to install heat and air conditioning in its prisons and to ensure cell temperatures not exceed 80 degrees. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed it, citing the cost of installation and operational burdens. Youngkin wrote that existing state corrections data does not substantiate the claims of extreme temperatures or health risks. But in Delaware, the fiscal year 2026 capital budget approved last month includes $2 million in funding to install air conditioning at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. In Florida, legislation to require cooling in prisons over the years have gone nowhere. For example, an inmate bill of rights introduced ahead of the regular legislative session died in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee without ever going to a vote. A 2023 consultant report estimated it would cost $582 million to install air conditioning in all of Floridas correctional facilities. These changes elsewhere mark the latest actions in a long-running debate over how correctional systems respond to rising summer temperatures an issue that affects both incarcerated people and staff. Some of the policy debates and facility updates this year follow years of advocacy and litigation over the health, safety and operational challenges posed by heat in correctional settings. Persistent problem The problem of excessive heat in prisons has persisted for decades and has unfolded alongside other challenges, including chronic understaffing and overcrowding. In some cases, these problems have led to extended facility lockdowns, even during the summer months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are people working in prisons and they have the right to work in climates that are comfortable, said Nancy La Vigne, a criminal justice researcher and dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. When theyre not, theres retention issues, and its hard to replace staff. And when you dont replace staff, then you have challenges in maintaining the safety and security of the facility. In New York, for example, correctional officers staged a three-week strike earlier this year and many didnt return to work. Some facilities now are operating with 30%-60% fewer guards than needed, resulting in some incarcerated people getting only an hour or two outside of their cells each day. A 2023 study published in the peer-reviewed PLOS One journal found that mortality in state and private prisons rose during periods of extreme heat, with deaths increasing 3.5% on extreme heat days and up to 7.4% during three-day heat waves. Between 2001 and 2019, nearly 13,000 people died in prison during the summer months, almost half of them in the South, although the study did not determine how many of those deaths were directly attributable to heat. Climate change is fueling longer, more intense periods of extreme heat. Exposure to extreme heat can worsen conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and asthma, and has also been linked to worsening mental health and higher suicide rates among incarcerated people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Average temperatures are rising, and youre going to have more and more states around the country where incarcerated people are held in conditions that are not livable because theyre too hot, said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor and director of the Prison Law and Policy Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Some upgrades At least 44 states lack universal air conditioning within their prison facilities, even in regions known for sweltering summer temperatures, according to a 2022 USA Today analysis. A recent Reuters investigation found that nearly half of state prisons across 29 states have partial or no air conditioning in housing units. But some states are investing millions to update their prison facilities. In North Carolina, corrections officials are working toward their goal of installing air conditioning in all 54 state prisons by 2026. To date, 33 facilities are fully air-conditioned, 17 are partially air-conditioned, and four have no air conditioning, according to its dashboard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In California, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which operates 31 adult prisons, has spent $246 million in the past five years on cooling improvements at five prisons, according to a department spokesperson. Lawmakers this year also approved funding for the Air Cooling Pilot Program at three facilities, with $17.6 million allocated for fiscal years 2025-26 and $20 million for fiscal years 2026-27. It will evaluate the effectiveness of two alternatives prior to a statewide plan to address high indoor temperatures across the California prison system. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, as of Aug. 1, is building 12,827 cool beds, or prison cells in air-conditioned units, and is in the process of procuring an additional 7,162, according to its dashboard. Texas is one of the states most closely associated with heat-related deaths in prison. A 2022 study estimated that, on average, 14 deaths per year in Texas prisons are associated with heat. And a Texas Tribune analysis found that at least 41 incarcerated people died during a record-breaking heat wave in 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In March, a federal judge ruled the extreme heat in Texas prisons is plainly unconstitutional, but declined to order immediate air conditioning, saying the work could not be completed within the court orders 90-day window and temporary systems might delay a permanent fix. More miserable Sweltering summer heat can turn prisons into pressure cookers. People inside already may have health conditions, limited access to cooling, or take medications that make it harder for their bodies to handle the heat. And research suggests that high temperatures can heighten irritability and aggression, sometimes fueling more conflicts between incarcerated people or with staff. It makes you more miserable. If you to the point of even thinking about suicide, thats just going to add to it, said Ronald McKeithen, who spent 37 years incarcerated in Alabama prisons and is now director of second chances at the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. McKeithen recalls feeling on edge due to tension among other incarcerated people on hot days. At the Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, Devin Skrzypchak said the heat worsens his bladder condition, and he often cant get the incontinence briefs he needs. The heat forces him to drink more water, and on days when ice isnt available, hes left drenched in sweat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At times, its a living hell. It can be very excruciating, Skrzypchak wrote in a message to Stateline through the facilitys messaging platform. DAngelo Lee Komanekin who has spent about 25 years in and out of different Wisconsin corrections facilities said prison architecture plays a major role in why temperatures inside climb so high. The planet is getting hotter and hotter, said Komanekin, who relies on a small plastic fan to stay cool. Komanekin also is incarcerated at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. Theyre doing nothing about the architecture. Some institutions windows open, some dont, but most of the doors have steel doors with trap doors. Older prison designs that rely heavily on steel and concrete building materials often trap heat, making it difficult to keep temperatures down in the summer. Aging facilities are less likely to be equipped for the installation of central air conditioning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some state prison systems, including Alabamas and Wisconsins, are adding air-conditioning or air-tempering systems to new prison construction and major renovation projects. Future legal battles Legal experts say the issue of excessive heat in prisons is likely to become more pressing as climate change drives longer and hotter summers. Extreme heat in correctional facilities has already been the subject of litigation in dozens of states, with plaintiffs arguing that high temperatures constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Court rulings in these cases have varied, but some experts say even more lawsuits are likely if facilities do not adapt. The conditions are going to worsen. [Incarcerated people are] going to be looking for every possible avenue for assistance they can, Dolovich, the UCLA law professor, told Stateline. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of the latest cases comes from Missouri, where the nonprofit law firm MacArthur Justice Center filed a class action in May on behalf of six incarcerated people at Algoa Correctional Center. The lawsuit alleges the conditions violate their constitutional rights under the Eighth Amendment. It seeks to require the Missouri Department of Corrections to work with experts to develop a heat mitigation plan that keeps housing unit temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. If the department cannot meet that standard, the plaintiffs are asking for the release of three of the incarcerated people who have less than a year remaining on their sentences. Lawsuits such as the Missouri case often focus on claims that extreme heat worsens existing medical problems. To proceed, they must meet two legal requirements: proving the heat poses a serious health or safety risk, and showing prison officials knew about the danger but failed to address it, according to Dolovich, whose work has focused on the Eighth Amendment and prison conditions. Courts may also raise the bar for proving such claims if judges echo decisions in cases with similar Eight Amendment arguments related to the death penalty and homelessness, Dolovich said. Judges have shifted, she said, toward a superadding terror, pain and disgrace standard under the Eighth Amendment a higher threshold requiring proof that conditions were created with the intent to cause unnecessary suffering. Dolovich added that some recent court decisions have provided only narrow remedies, such as ordering ice and fans instead of installing air conditioning. Prison officials have a moral and a constitutional responsibility to respond to changing conditions. In this case, it means air conditioning. Anything less than that, to me, is indefensible. she said. This story first appeared in Stateline, a partner of the nonprofit States Newsroom, which includes the Florida Phoenix. Mitch Perry in Tallahassee contribited. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Incarcerated people exercise in the maximum security yard of the Lansing Correctional Facility in April 2023 in Lansing, Kan. This year, several states have taken steps to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures to address sweltering heat inside prisons, but many across the country remain years away from significant upgrades. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) Summer heat is bearing down on U.S. prisons, where temperatures in uncooled cells can climb well into the triple digits. Facing growing pressure from advocacy groups, lawsuits and climate projections that show hotter days ahead, some state prison systems are moving to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures though many facilities remain years away from significant upgrades. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But in other states, such efforts have stalled or failed. That may lead to more lawsuits in the future, experts say, even as judges may raise the bar for such cases. An emphasis on being tough on crime and prioritizing other public safety measures may have contributed to less attention on prison conditions in some states. In others, slowing revenue growth and pressure to rein in corrections spending could be making new investments a harder sell. Climate control in Arkansas prisons Arkansas prison have had air conditioning since the 1970s, according to a 2016 Time magazine article. Rand Champion, a Department of Corrections spokesperson, confirmed Thursday that all state prisons have heat and air conditioning, though some units that house punitive-status inmates have forced-air circulation for cooling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The air cooling system at the East Central Arkansas Community Correctional Center in West Memphis broke down last week and took several days to repair, according to news reports. Champion said Thursday that the facilitys climate control system has been repaired. At least two states this year, Virginia and Texas, considered legislation addressing excessive heat in prisons but neither measure became law. The Texas bill would have required the state Department of Criminal Justice to purchase and install climate control systems in all of its facilities by the end of 2032. About two-thirds of the states correctional facilities have only partial or no air conditioning. The measure passed the House but did not advance in the Senate before the legislature adjourned in June. In Virginia, lawmakers approved a bill that would have required the state corrections department to install heat and air conditioning in its prisons and to ensure cell temperatures not exceed 80 degrees. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed it, citing the cost of installation and operational burdens. Youngkin also wrote that existing state corrections data does not substantiate the claims of extreme temperatures or health risks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But in Delaware, the fiscal year 2026 capital budget approved last month includes $2 million in funding to install air conditioning at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. These changes mark the latest actions in a long-running debate over how correctional systems respond to rising summer temperatures an issue that affects both incarcerated people and staff. Some of the policy debates and facility updates this year follow years of advocacy and litigation over the health, safety and operational challenges posed by heat in correctional settings. The problem of excessive heat in prisons has persisted for decades and has unfolded alongside other challenges, including chronic understaffing and overcrowding. In some cases, these problems have led to extended facility lockdowns, even during the summer months. There are people working in prisons, and they have the right to work in climates that are comfortable, said Nancy La Vigne, a criminal justice researcher and dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. When theyre not, theres retention issues, and its hard to replace staff. And when you dont replace staff, then you have challenges in maintaining the safety and security of the facility. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In New York, for example, correctional officers staged a three-week strike earlier this year and many didnt return to work. Some facilities now are operating with 30%-60% fewer guards than needed, resulting in some incarcerated people getting only an hour or two outside of their cells each day. A 2023 study published in the peer-reviewed PLOS One journal found that mortality in state and private prisons rose during periods of extreme heat, with deaths increasing 3.5% on extreme heat days and up to 7.4% during three-day heat waves. Between 2001 and 2019, nearly 13,000 people died in prison during the summer months, almost half of them in the South, though the study did not determine how many of those deaths were directly attributable to heat. Climate change is fueling longer, more intense periods of extreme heat. Exposure to extreme heat can worsen conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and asthma, and has also been linked to worsening mental health and higher suicide rates among incarcerated people. Average temperatures are rising, and youre going to have more and more states around the country where incarcerated people are held in conditions that are not livable because theyre too hot, said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor and director of the Prison Law and Policy Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Some upgrades At least 44 states lack universal air conditioning within their prison facilities, even in regions known for sweltering summer temperatures, according to a 2022 USA Today analysis. A recent Reuters investigation also found that nearly half of state prisons across 29 states have partial or no air conditioning in housing units. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But some states are investing millions to update their prison facilities. In North Carolina, corrections officials are working toward their goal of installing air conditioning in all 54 state prisons by 2026. To date, 33 facilities are fully air-conditioned, 17 are partially air-conditioned, and four have no air conditioning, according to its dashboard. In California, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which operates 31 adult prisons, has spent $246 million in the past five years on cooling improvements at five prisons, according to a department spokesperson. Lawmakers this year also approved funding for the Air Cooling Pilot Program at three facilities, with $17.6 million allocated for fiscal years 2025-26 and $20 million for fiscal years 2026-27. It will evaluate the effectiveness of two alternatives prior to a statewide plan to address high indoor temperatures across the California prison system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, as of Aug. 1, is building 12,827 cool beds, or prison cells in air-conditioned units, and is in the process of procuring an additional 7,162, according to its dashboard. Texas is one of the states most closely associated with heat-related deaths in prison. A 2022 study estimated that, on average, 14 deaths per year in Texas prisons are associated with heat. And a Texas Tribune analysis found that at least 41 incarcerated people died during a record-breaking heat wave in 2023. In March, a federal judge ruled the extreme heat in Texas prisons is plainly unconstitutional, but declined to order immediate air conditioning, saying the work could not be completed within the court orders 90-day window and temporary systems might delay a permanent fix. More miserable Sweltering summer heat can turn prisons into pressure cookers. People inside already may have health conditions, limited access to cooling, or take medications that make it harder for their bodies to handle the heat. And research suggests that high temperatures can heighten irritability and aggression, sometimes fueling more conflicts between incarcerated people or with staff. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It makes you more miserable. If you to the point of even thinking about suicide, thats just going to add to it, said Ronald McKeithen, who spent 37 years incarcerated in Alabama prisons and is now the director of second chances at the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. McKeithen recalls feeling on edge due to tension among other incarcerated people on hot days. At the Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, Devin Skrzypchak said the heat worsens his bladder condition, and he often cant get the incontinence briefs he needs. The heat forces him to drink more water, and on days when ice isnt available, hes left drenched in sweat. At times, its a living hell. It can be very excruciating, Skrzypchak wrote in a message to Stateline through the facilitys messaging platform. At times, its a living hell. It can be very excruciating. Devin Skrzypchak, who is incarcerated at Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Wisconsin DAngelo Lee Komanekin who has spent about 25 years in and out of different Wisconsin corrections facilities said prison architecture plays a major role in why temperatures inside climb so high. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The planet is getting hotter and hotter, said Komanekin, who relies on a small plastic fan to stay cool. Komanekin also is incarcerated at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. Theyre doing nothing about the architecture. Some institutions windows open, some dont, but most of the doors have steel doors with trap doors. Older prison designs that rely heavily on steel and concrete building materials often trap heat, making it difficult to keep temperatures down in the summer. Aging facilities also are less likely to be equipped for the installation of central air conditioning. Some state prison systems, including Alabamas and Wisconsins, are adding air-conditioning or air-tempering systems to new prison construction and major renovation projects. Future legal battles Legal experts say the issue of excessive heat in prisons is likely to become more pressing as climate change drives longer and hotter summers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Extreme heat in correctional facilities has already been the subject of litigation in dozens of states, with plaintiffs arguing that high temperatures constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Court rulings in these cases have varied, but some experts say even more lawsuits are likely if facilities do not adapt. The conditions are going to worsen. [Incarcerated people are] going to be looking for every possible avenue for assistance they can, Dolovich, the UCLA law professor, told Stateline. One of the latest cases comes from Missouri, where the nonprofit law firm MacArthur Justice Center filed a class-action lawsuit in May on behalf of six incarcerated people at Algoa Correctional Center. The lawsuit alleges that the conditions violate their constitutional rights under the Eighth Amendment. It seeks to require the Missouri Department of Corrections to work with experts to develop a heat mitigation plan that keeps housing unit temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. If the department cannot meet that standard, the plaintiffs are asking for the release of three of the incarcerated people who have less than a year remaining on their sentences. Lawsuits such as the Missouri case often focus on claims that extreme heat worsens existing medical problems. To proceed, they must meet two legal requirements: proving the heat poses a serious health or safety risk, and showing prison officials knew about the danger but failed to address it, according to Dolovich, whose work has focused on the Eighth Amendment and prison conditions. Courts may also raise the bar for proving such claims if judges echo decisions in cases with similar Eight Amendment arguments related to the death penalty and homelessness, Dolovich said. Judges have shifted, she said, toward a superadding terror, pain and disgrace standard under the Eighth Amendment a higher threshold requiring proof that conditions were created with the intent to cause unnecessary suffering. Dolovich added that some recent court decisions have provided only narrow remedies, such as ordering ice and fans instead of installing air conditioning. Prison officials have a moral and a constitutional responsibility to respond to changing conditions. In this case, it means air conditioning. Anything less than that, to me, is indefensible. she said. Stateline reporter Amanda Hernandez can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org. 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. Since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation first began operating nearly three months ago, the U.N. says hundreds of Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israel Defense Forces and foreign military contractors at or near its aid sites. CBS News spoke to a new eyewitness who said it's not just the IDF firing at Palestinians, but also personnel hired through American subcontractors to secure GHF sites. The witness, who we will refer to as Mike, asked CBS News to conceal his identity because he fears reprisal. When Mike was hired by an American logistics company to drive aid trucks in Israel, he said he had no idea he'd be working with the GHF inside Gaza. The U.S. and Israeli-backed GHF was established to replace the United Nations as the main distributor of aid back in May. In late June, the U.S. State Department approved $30 million for the group, calling its work "absolutely incredible." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mike secretly recorded videos and shared them with CBS News. You can hear gunfire in the videos, which Mike says was fired at Palestinians seeking aid. "It took me two or three days to realize that they were actually shooting at people, they weren't shooting at combatants," he said. When asked by Patta whether he thought they were warning shots, Mike said, "No, it's indiscriminate." He said both the IDF and American security personnel were shooting. We don't see who is shooting on the videos Mike gave us. But he said there was not a single occasion he observed when there was no shooting, and he was at the brightly illuminated sites on average five days a week for several weeks. CBS News has seen his work schedule, and metadata from his cell phone confirms the dates and times he was in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More than 1,800 Palestinians have died trying to get food, at least 1,000 in the vicinity of GHF sites, according to the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Since GHF started operating aid sites in May, CBS News has reported on near-daily shootings at or near GHF sites, and former U.S. security contractors have spoken out about witnessing gunfire against Palestinian crowds in interviews with news outlets, including The Associated Press. Mike said Palestinians would gather near the sites hours before they opened to be the first to grab food. He told CBS News he has "never seen a crowd of people behave with such intensity and such desperation." When asked about the worst thing he experienced, Mike said he was once tasked by the security contractors with cleaning up human and animal remains adjacent to one site while on the job, due to the foul smell emitted by those remains. "I struggle to talk about it," he said. "I even feel a bit clammy, and I can feel my chest beating harder. I just shut down really." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement GHF says the allegations that their contractors have shot aid-seekers and mishandled their remains are "categorically false" and "utterly baseless." They criticized CBS News' refusal to provide them with more detailed information about Mike. Mike said some of the Americans hired to secure the GHF sites made him feel uncomfortable. "They would often boast about how many people they've killed, if they've managed to shoot animals," he said. "Or how many birds they'd shot because they were bragging about how good their aim was." Mike is home now and won't be going back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When asked why he's sharing his experience, he said, "It just wouldn't sit right with me if I didn't say something. These atrocities don't have to happen." GHF told CBS News that their contractors do not fire on civilians, nor, they say, has anyone been killed by gunfire at a GHF site, not even within sight of a foundation site. And they say they have "never encountered any situation involving unclaimed bodies" at or near their sites. The IDF has categorically denied allegations that it deliberately fires at Palestinian civilians, but told CBS News it is investigating recent reports of harm being done to civilians approaching GHF sites, and said any deviation from the law will result in further action. Fire burning in one of the tallest trees in the world, Oregon crews trying to extinguish it Celtics star Jaylen Brown's father faces attempted murder charges Newsom signs bill putting new California congressional maps on November ballot Claim: A police body-camera video authentically showed the arrest of 16-year-old Meijer supermarket employee James Denison who lives with autism or other special needs and who faces food insecurity after Joseph Kolacsky, a store manager at the Seven Hills, Ohio, store, documented Denison's repeated theft of discarded food, then reported him to law enforcement. Rating: Rating: Mixture What's True: The video truly shows a law enforcement officer arresting a person named "James" for allegedly consuming food and drinks without paying for them. The arrest occurred at the Seven Hills store on March 7, 2024. However ... Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What's False: ... Users shared this story with inaccurate and unsupported claims. A Meijer incident report, partially visible in the body-camera video, displays James' last name as "Glenboski," not "Denison." The report also alleges the suspect stole fountain drinks, and appears to detail the timeline from the company discovering the suspect's activity to his arrest as occurring between March 2-7 not a months-long investigation as users alleged. Minutes into the video, the suspect tells the officer he's 19, not 16. Further, Joseph Kolacsky, a man identifying himself to Snopes as the son of a Meijer store director also named Joseph Kolacsky, said his father started working at the Seven Hills location in early August 2025, meaning he would have had no involvement with the arrest occurring more than 18 months before. What's Undetermined: As of this writing, online searches found no credible evidence that would allow independent researchers to confirm the suspect lives with autism or other special needs. We also located no information confirming Meijer had already discarded the food the suspect ultimately consumed, or that he faced food insecurity at the time of arrest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A rumor that circulated on social media in August 2025 claimed a police body-camera video showed a law enforcement officer arresting a 16-year-old Meijer supermarket employee named James Denison a person living with autism or other special needs and who faces food insecurity at the grocery chain's Seven Hills, Ohio, store, located just south of Cleveland. According to users' posts, a Meijer manager, Joseph Kolacsky, allegedly reported that Denison who some users described as "disabled" or "mentally challenged" violated a company theft policy by taking and eating discarded food from the store's trash for a number of weeks, including fruit cups, chicken and other items. Users alleged the store's manager, or other officials, watched for months as the suspect repeatedly took food without paying for the items, all in an effort to build a case against him for an eventual arrest. Some users called for a boycott of the U.S. Midwest supermarket chain, including drawing comparisons between the Meijer family's purported $15.9 billion net worth and the significantly lower cumulative cost of the suspect's stolen food. While the in-question video truly showed the arrest of an employee named "James" occurring at the Meijer store in Seven Hills, an examination of all available evidence found users promoted numerous inaccurate or unsupported statements about the matter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Meijer incident report partially visible early on in the full body-camera video a clip YouTube users re-uploaded as far back as at least March 2025 displays James' last name as "Glenboski," not "Denison." The report also alleges the suspect stole fountain drinks and appears to detail the timeline from the company discovering the suspect's activity to his arrest as occurring between March 2-7 not a months-long investigation as users alleged. Minutes into the clip, the suspect tells the officer he's 19, not 16. As of this writing, online searches found no credible evidence that would allow independent researchers to confirm the suspect lives with autism or other special needs. We also located no information confirming Meijer had discarded the food the suspect ultimately consumed, or that he faced food insecurity at the time of the arrest. Further, a TikTok user claiming to be Kolacsky's son said in an Aug. 20 video that the arrest occurring on March 7, 2024 took place long before his father began working as a store director or manager at the location in early August 2025. "I just hope that this information gets out there and people start realizing that this isn't him," the user said in the clip. "And maybe some of the hateful messages will slow down or stop, and people will realize, you can't believe everything you see on the internet." (Snopes independently confirmed the TikTok user's identity with a driver's license photo as Joseph Kolacsky, meaning he shared the same first name as the man he said is his father.) We contacted Meijer to ask if it could also officially confirm Kolacsky a man facing a fierce wave of online harassment, as was his son had no involvement with the arrest occurring over 18 months ago. We also attempted to reach a man named James Glenboski, and some of his relatives, through phone numbers listed on public-records websites. Searches for social media accounts for the same name found no results. Additionally, we contacted the Seven Hills Police Department to obtain case records, as well as to confirm the identity of the suspect, and will update this story if we receive more information. In a statement (archived) Meijer published on its official Facebook page on Aug. 20, the store acknowledged an arrest occurred last year but did not mention any names as is normal with employee privacy standards. The company said it "take[s] this very seriously and recognize that the situation should have been handled differently." The store also added, "Earlier this year, we implemented a new procedure to make sure this doesn't happen again." (Meijer/Facebook) Users also shared screenshots showing a different Meijer statement from a Facebook comment users said the company posted prior to its formal statement. That since-removed comment, no longer appearing under the post pictured in one of the screenshots, read in part, "The video (taken last year) only shows a snippet of the full story, which is understandably leading to a lot of misinformation. The former team member knowingly committed multiple thefts over the course of multiple months, which is why local law enforcement was involved." Users make claims without checking facts In one example of a person sharing the rumor without first verifying the details, a Threads user posted (archived), "Imagine being 16, disabled, and hungry. You take food from the trash at work. Your manager watches for months, waiting until it 'adds up' to $110 then calls the cops. That's what Meijer did. A $15B company chose humiliation over humanity. We can do better. Welcome to the boycott list Meijer." The post received over 1 million views. (@chronicallyhumored/Threads) Other popular posts included a TikTok video (archived) with 8.8 million views, an X post (archived) receiving nearly 9 million views and another X post (archived) displaying over 21 million views. Additionally, other users shared the name and supposed photo of Joseph Kolacsky as the store manager allegedly responsible for notifying police, despite providing no credible evidence of that being the case. Users also shared this rumor on Bluesky, Facebook (archived), Imgur (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived). BREAKING - Americans are calling for a boycott of the retailer Meijer after bodycam footage revealed the $15 billion corporation had a 16-year-old disabled deli worker named James arrested for taking just $110 in food over three months to get through his shifts. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/Zh7MPP6Fj6 Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) August 19, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ohio-based WKRC-TV on Local12.com, Michigan-based MLive.com and New York Post all published articles about the arrest with the name "James Denison," as well as the claims about the suspect living with autism. A reporter for MLive.com told us they sourced the name and autism claim from a since-deleted GoFundMe fundraiser page. An archived version of the page displayed the suspect's name as "James Danison," as opposed to other users claiming his name as "Denison." The fundraiser's organizer said they "came across" the arrest video online, and did not provide information indicating they knew the suspect. We contacted GoFundMe to ask if it could tell us why the fundraiser page disappeared. We contacted the other two publishers via email to request information for how they independently confirmed the "Denison" last name and autism claim, and will update this story if we receive details. Examining the video and evidence On March 21, 2025, a manager of the Bodycam Fails YouTube channel posted the full-length, body-camera arrest video with the title, "Teen Arrested For Stealing Lunches At Work." A "police blotter" report from Cleveland.com, published on March 29, 2024, documented the arrest as occurring on March 7. The report did not name the suspect, only identifying him as a resident of Parma, Ohio. The report also did not mention discarded food, only saying the suspect "had taken numerous food and drink items from the deli area to the team member break room, where he consumed the merchandise without paying": On March 7, police were dispatched to Meijer regarding a shoplifting incident at the Broadview Road store. The loss prevention officer said the suspect was a Meijer employee who had taken numerous food and drink items from the deli area to the team member break room, where he consumed the merchandise without paying. The caller said the employee had used the same MO on multiple occasions dating back to February. The value of stolen items was more than $110. The Parma man was arrested for theft. The body-camera video shows an unidentified law enforcement officer, possibly with the Seven Hills Police Department, arriving on the scene and walking into a windowless office located near the front of the Meijer store. Near the beginning of the clip, an unidentified man working for Meijer names the suspect only as James. He tells the officer, "He works in our deli department and we found out that he's been taking just, like, orders of chicken and fruit cups and stuff like that off the shelf." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While the unidentified Meijer official talks to the officer, the clip shows the officer reading over a two-page incident report displaying the Meijer logo. That report, only partially visible in the video, lists out, line-by-line, items Meijer alleges James stole. A reading of some of the words visible on the second page appeared to indicate a Meijer official only learned of James' actions including allegedly not paying for fountain drinks on March 2. The second paragraph of the partially visible page only displays the words, "-wed his previous shifts and found the" with the word ending in "-wed" indicating a Meijer official reviewed security footage from James' previous shifts and found past instances of theft. In other words, the report's text suggested Meijer spent less than one week not months compiling data on James' alleged thefts. The officer then confirms the total amount of stolen food as $110, learns the suspect walks to work the job and places him in handcuffs. At no point in the video does the unidentified Meijer official verbally mention to the officer that the food the suspect allegedly stole was discarded or headed for the trash, or items already in the trash. At the 3:43 mark in the body-camera video, the officer asks the suspect about the theft charge while walking to the officer's car. In response, he explains his actions "started off slow," then continued for months. He also said he "meant to pay it back" but his shift breaks didn't afford enough time to both stand in line to pay for and then eat the food: OFFICER: This ever happened before? JAMES: Uh, no. So, yeah, um, I explained to them that, um, the, that it started off slow. It happened a couple of times just because like I forgot my wallet or something, and then I meant to pay it back, and then when I had my wallet like the following day or something, I either just forgot or, um, which I didn't know who to talk to, and then, um ... OFFICER: Like it just kind of spiraled? JAMES: Yeah. A few months, like about a month or two ago, um, my managers, um, called me in the back... Ok. JAMES: ... and complained that I took too long on my breaks. OFFICER: Ok. JAMES: Then, I tried to explain to them that a lot of that time was because I was waiting in line to pay for the food or I was trying to grab something, and they said that if it kept happening, they would write me up. OFFICER: Ok. At the 5:38 mark in the video, the officer asks for the suspect's age. The suspect responds during the arrest in March 2024 that he's 19, not 16 as users claimed. A public record available on Whitepages.com for a man named James Glenboski listed a current age as 21. Other public-records websites also list his place of residence as a mailing address located near the supermarket a detail shedding light on the information from the video, in which he told the officer he walked to the supermarket job. Reddit post from March 2024 On March 9, 2024, a Reddit user posting (archived) on the r/antiwork subreddit described a story that very closely resembled that of the video-recorded arrest from just two days before. That Reddit user did not mention any names or the location of the Meijer store but did say written in the present tense that a "friend who's in high school got fired" for eating discarded food, including fried chicken. The post included some sensitive details, as well. The user's page showed no activity since April 2025. Even so, we contacted the person to ask questions and will update this story if we receive further details. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For further reading, a previous fact-check article examined a rumor from 2017 claiming sex traffickers drugged and nearly abducted a woman in the bathroom of a Meijer store in Michigan. Sources: Benson, John. "Hungry Meijer Employee Has Sticky Fingers: Seven Hills Police Blotter." Cleveland.com, 29 Mar. 2024, https://www.cleveland.com/community/2024/03/shoplifting-galore-at-meijer-where-even-an-employee-has-sticky-fingers-seven-hills-police-blotter.html. @jt_kolacsky. " Please Don't Be so Quick to Assume. #sevenhills #meijer #misinformationkills #misinformation #fruitcup." TikTok, 20 Aug. 2025, https://www.tiktok.com/@jt_kolacsky/video/7540662703451360526. "Meijer Family." Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/profile/meijer/. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Teen Arrested For Stealing Lunches At Work - Bodycam Fails." YouTube, Bodycam Fails, 21 Mar. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Ilw1Lt6_g. Facebook, Meijer, 20 Aug. 2025, https://www.facebook.com/meijer/posts/pfbid0nqgaEqPtTWQ3KtgDirUaMyZzskYj1HNtYn8v72zwKaExFmL3ubfp93CEMqLSbw7Al. Updates: Aug. 22, 2025: We updated this article to add a different Meijer statement previously appearing in since-removed Facebook comment. Was Destiny Marie Diciccio charged with "Disorderly Conduct - Uttering an Illegal Opinion" under Florida's new anti-antisemitism law and is she facing 30 days in jail for this? No, that's not true: Court records show she was charged for disorderly conduct involving the throwing of a slice of pizza. According to those records she pleaded "no contest" but there was no mention of antisemitism or the uttering of opinions in any of the court or police documents and she was not sentenced to jail. The claim appeared in a screenshot of what looked like a social media post of unclear origin that was attached to a post on X (archived here) where it was published on August 22, 2025 with a comment that read "30 days in jail for Antisemitism. The first person charged under Florida law." The text in the screenshot read: Meet 27 y.o. Destiny Marie Diciccio, who has the distinct dishonor of being the first person charged under Florida's new anti-antisemitism law. She is charged with Disorderly Conduct - Uttering an Illegal Opinion. She now faces mandatory 30 days in jail with 10 on work duty This is what the image looked like: Image source: screenshot of image attached to X post by @eurorabbit The Pinellas County court website has details on the case "25-11036-MM : STATE OF FLORIDA vs. DICICCIO, DESTINY MARIE" (archived here) which shows the charge as "DISORDERLY CONDUCT Statute: 877.03 MISDEMEANOR - 2ND DEGREE": Image source: Pinellas County court record Florida's statute 877.03 (archived here) does not mention antisemitism at all: 877.03 Breach of the peace; disorderly conduct.--Whoever commits such acts as are of a nature to corrupt the public morals, or outrage the sense of public decency, or affect the peace and quiet of persons who may witness them, or engages in brawling or fighting, or engages in such conduct as to constitute a breach of the peace or disorderly conduct, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The complaint/arrest affidavit included in the case did not mention antisemitism either when describing the "disorderly conduct" in question: DID THEN AND THERE ENGAGE IN SUCH CONDUCT AS TO CONSTITUTE DISORDERLY CONDUCT, TO-WIT: BEGAN YELLING A SCREAMING AT ANOTHER CUSTOMER AND THEN THREW A SLICE OF PIZZA AT THE OTHER INVOLVED SUBJECT, WHICH CONSTITUTED A BREACH OF THE PEACE. THE DEFENDANT ENGAGED IN FIGHTING AN TUMULTUOUS BEHAVIOR ON THE PREMISES OF A LICENSED ESTABLISHMENT IN THE CITY OF ST PETERSBURG. THESE ACTIONS CORRUPTED THE PUBLIC MORALS INSIDE THE ESTABLISHMENT. Image source: complaint/arrest affidavit in case 25-11036-MM The case documents mention a judgement for a "fine and/or costs" but do not mention any jail time: Claim: In August 2025, U.S. Senate Democrats introduced a bill to abolish the Electoral College and "restore democracy." Rating: Rating: Mixture What's True: It is true that in December 2024, three Democratic senators introduced a constitutional amendment to remove the Electoral College in favor of direct national elections. They argued that the current system, in place since the nation's founding, was "outdated and undemocratic." However Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What's False: the resolution had not moved out of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate as of August 2025. Further, a U.S. constitutional amendment requires two-thirds votes in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ratification from three-fourths of the states. In August 2025, a rumor began to circulate that Democrats in the U.S. Senate had introduced a bill to abolish the Electoral College in presidential elections, a system in place since the nation's founding enshrined in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 3 (archived) of the U.S. Constitution. According to the rumor, the senators said removing it would "restore democracy." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For example, an Aug. 18, 2025, post on X shared the claim, saying the news was "breaking" (archived): BREAKING: Senate Democrats have introduced a bill to remove the Electoral College, saying it will restore Democracy. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/hQuR0iVGMy Elephant Signal (@ElephantSignal) August 19, 2025 As of this writing, the post had received nearly 1 million views and 2,700 likes. However, this claim had circulated for months. Snopes found similar posts from December 2024 and January and February 2025, all claiming the news was "breaking." There were true and false elements in this claim. While it is true that three Senate Democrats introduced such a piece of legislation, they did so in December 2024. In other words, no new text had been introduced between December 2024 and August 2025. Further, it was a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment, as opposed to a bill (the legislative processes for each differ). Lastly, the legislative proposal had not progressed out of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where it was introduced. On Dec. 16, 2024, Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, D*ck Durbin of Illinois and Peter Welch of Vermont presented Joint Resolution 121, "A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to abolish the Electoral College and to provide for the direct election of the President and Vice President of the United States." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The text of the joint resolution had been sent to the Judiciary Committee four days prior to the announcement. The three senators "introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College system and restore democracy by allowing the direct election of presidents through popular vote alone," according to a statement posted on Schatz's website. The Electoral College, instituted at the foundation of the U.S., is a system in which voters do not directly elect a president. Instead, they vote for "electors" in each state, the number of whom is determined by the size of the population in their respective states. The electors meet to cast their votes a few weeks after the general election has taken place. The candidate who wins the majority of electoral votes wins the election. This system has created odd situations, for example in 2000 and in 2016, when the presidential candidates who won the popular vote actually lost the election. The system has been criticized for effectively creating a minority rule that runs against democratic ideals. "In an election, the person who gets the most votes should win. It's that simple," the same statement quoted Schatz as saying. "No one's vote should count for more based on where they live. The Electoral College is outdated and it's undemocratic. It's time to end it." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This was not the first effort of this nature. The statement also quoted Durbin as saying he had attempted to remove the Electoral College once before: In 2000, before the general election, I introduced a bipartisan resolution to amend the Constitution and abolish the Electoral College. I still believe today that it is time to retire this 18th century invention that disenfranchises millions of Americans. The American people deserve to choose all their leaders, and I am proud to support this effort with Senators Schatz and Welch to empower voters. However, as of this writing Joint Resolution 121 had not progressed out of the Judiciary Committee. Further, the bar to pass a constitutional amendment is high, as outlined by Article V of the Constitution (archived). The Democratic senators' legislative text would have to be approved by two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, before being approved either by having three-fourths of state legislatures ratify the amendment or obtaining assent from ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states. In other words, the likelihood of such an amendment passing was slim as of this writing. Sources: "Bills & Resolutions | House.gov." Www.house.gov, www.house.gov/the-house-explained/the-legislative-process/bills-resolutions. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton, Alexander. "Senate Democrats Push Plan to Abolish Electoral College." The Hill, 16 Dec. 2024, thehill.com/homenews/senate/5043206-senate-democrats-abolish-electoral-college/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Lucas, Mike. "Why Do We Have an Electoral College?" Rutgers.edu, 8 Oct. 2024, www.rutgers.edu/news/why-do-we-have-electoral-college. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "Overview of Article v, Amending the Constitution | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress." Congress.gov, constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artV-1/ALDE_00000507/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "Schatz, Durbin, Welch Introduce Constitutional Amendment to End Undemocratic Electoral College | U.S. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii." Senate.gov, Brian Schatz, 16 Dec. 2024, www.schatz.senate.gov/news/press-releases/schatz-durbin-welch-introduce-constitutional-amendment-to-end-undemocratic-electoral-college. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Schatz, Brian. A Joint Resolution Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to Abolish the Electoral College and to Provide for the Direct Election of the President and Vice President of the United States. S.J.Res.121, 12 Dec. 2024, www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/121/text. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Schultz, David. "Minority Rights and the Electoral College: What Minority, Whose Rights?" Georgia Law Review, vol. 55, no. 4, Jan. 2021, digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol55/iss4/6/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. By Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump hosts South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Washington for their first summit meeting on Monday, after the countries struck a trade deal last month lowering U.S. tariffs on the Asian ally to 15% from a threatened 25%. Alongside trade, U.S. pressure to redefine the decades-long military alliance is set to be a focus, while Trump has said more South Korean investment plans will be announced in addition to a $350 billion package agreed last month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here are some of the main items that could be discussed. DEFENCE COSTS Trump has accused its Asian ally of "free-riding" on U.S. military might, with some 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea to deter nuclear-armed North Korea. Just before Trump won the presidential election in November last year, Seoul agreed to increase its contribution by 8.3% to 1.52 trillion won ($1.09 billion) for the first year in 2026, under a five-year plan. Washington also wants its allies to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP. South Korea is currently well short of that after allocating 61.25 trillion won, or 2.3% of GDP, this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 'MODERNISING' ALLIANCE, CHINA DETERRENCE South Korea's presidential security adviser Wi Sung-lac said "modernising" its alliance with the U.S., including by Seoul increasing defence spending, and "cementing" a trade deal reached in July would be among the main agenda items. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby called South Korea a "role model" in taking a greater role in deterring North Korea, but also called for modernising the alliance. Experts say the summit may include discussions on the idea of adjusting the role of U.S. troops from a focus on countering North Korea to also managing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and deterring China. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This could be sensitive for Seoul given how President Lee has, alongside declaring full support for the U.S. alliance, sought to take a balanced approach to ties with Beijing. Experts also warn giving U.S. forces multiple missions could impede their primary focus of deterring and defeating a North Korean attack. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun has denied Seoul was in talks with Washington over whether to allow U.S. forces to be redeployed in the event of a Taiwan Strait emergency. NORTH KOREA South Korea and the United States are on the same page when it comes to the approach of seeking to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, top security adviser Wi said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lee has sought to reduce tensions with Pyongyang since taking office in June, while Trump still boasts of his historic summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term. Lee and Trump have expressed a willingness to restart dialogue with Kim and they may deliver a joint message to North Korea, said Sydney Seiler, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But North Korea has so far dismissed Lee's peace overtures, including dismantling loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border. SHIPBUILDING During his U.S. trip, Lee will visit the Pennsylvania-based Philly Shipyard, acquired by South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean and its parent group. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials in Seoul touted shipbuilding cooperation to help the U.S. industry as instrumental in reaching a trade deal. South Korea has agreed to invest $150 billion out of the overall investment package on U.S. shipbuilding cooperation and more details may be announced during the summit. NUCLEAR POWER Foreign Minister Cho told parliament that South Korea could try to win approval from Washington to reprocess or enrich its own nuclear material during the summit, saying this is not for nuclear armament, but for industrial and environmental purposes. South Korea is not allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel - which can be used to make nuclear weapons - without U.S. consent under an agreement between the countries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While President Lee has rejected the idea of nuclear armament, his intelligence agency chief this year called for Seoul to secure the right to enrich uranium to demonstrate its "potential nuclear capabilities." Wi said South Korea was in talks about cooperating on nuclear power projects in the United States. CORPORATE INVESTMENT South Korea said the leaders will discuss cooperation in sectors such as chips, batteries, shipbuilding, as well as "economic security" in areas such as cutting-edge technologies and key minerals. Presidential adviser Kim Yong-beom said investments announced during the summit should include already announced projects such as Samsung Electronics' new chip factory in Texas and Hyundai Motor's car factory in Georgia, as well as Hanwha's plan to expand its U.S. shipyard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A South Korean newspaper reported Seoul would offer $150 billion of additional investment, or about six times its U.S. foreign direct investment in 2024, according to government data. South Korea's industry minister said it had not been decided. The leaders may also discuss the timeframe to cut U.S. tariffs on South Korean car imports from 25% to 15% as agreed under the trade deal. The countries have appeared to have a different interpretation of details of the $350 billion investment fund, while Seoul denied U.S. assertions that it had agreed to open up its rice market. ($1 = 1,399.6000 won) (Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Jihoon Lee and Ju-min Park;Editing by Ed Davies and Helen Popper) Aug. 22The Howard Community College faculty union is set to vote Friday on a tentative agreement reached with the college after more than a year of contract negotiations. Subscribe to continue reading this article. Already subscribed? To log in, click here. Originally Published:August 21, 2025 at 5:28 PM EDT By David Ljunggren and Promit Mukherjee OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada will remove many retaliatory import tariffs on U.S. goods and intensify talks with the United States on striking a new trade and security relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday. Canadian tariffs on U.S. autos, steel and aluminum will remain for now, he told a press conference. Carney noted that the United States had recently made clear that it would not impose tariffs on Canadian goods that were compliant with the three-nation U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, something he called a positive development. "In this context and consistent with Canada's commitment to USMCA, I am announcing today that the Canadian government will now match the United States by removing all of Canada's tariffs on U.S. goods specifically covered under USMCA," he said. "Canada and the U.S. have now re-established free trade for the vast majority of our goods," he added, reiterating that compared with its trading partners, Canadian exports were still subject overall to a low level of U.S. tariffs. The news helped the Canadian dollar extend its gains. Canada has been holding talks with the United States on a new economic and security relationship for months but the two sides are not close to a deal. Canada and China are the only nations to strike back at the United States with counter-tariffs, much to the irritation of the U.S. administration. Carney spoke to Donald Trump on Thursday. Asked whether the U.S. president had told him that lifting the tariffs would kick -start the talks, Carney responded "Yes." Trump, when asked about Carney's decision to remove tariffs, called it a "nice thing" while addressing journalists in the Oval Office. "We are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot," he said. Carney won an April election promising to stand up to Trump's tariffs but since then has gradually taken a softer tone. Carney scrapped a proposed digital services tax in late June that U.S. companies strongly disliked and in July dropped talk of further sanctions if the two sides could not reach a deal by August 1. He also held steady on tariffs on steel and aluminum products imported from the United States at 25% when Trump increased tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada to 50%. Carney's predecessor as prime minister, Justin Trudeau, imposed 25% tariffs on C$30 billion ($21 billion) in goods imported annually from the United States on March 6 in response to Trump's initial duties. It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictmentand a failure of humanity itself. That was how United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reacted to the news today that parts of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, are suffering from famine, according to a global monitoring initiative. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a group of 21 organizations that monitor food security around the world, warned that without a surge of humanitarian relief, the famine would likely spread to other parts of the territory. Tom Fletcher, the U.N.s head of humanitarian affairs, said at a press conference that it was a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. Fletcher went on to plead with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings It is too late for far too many. But not for everyone in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His words may not be enough to sway Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied reports of widespread hunger and starvation in Gaza. On Thursday, Israels military began the first stage of a renewed offensive against Gaza City, despite reports from earlier in the week that Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators. That deal calls for a 60-day halt to hostilities and the release of half of the 50 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza20 of whom are believed to be alive. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. Netanyahu was evidently not happy with it, insisting on the immediate release of all remaining hostages. The new military campaign against a starving population appears to be aimed at pressuring Hamas to concede. As Fletcher pointed out in his remarks, the deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians appears to be part of the pressure: The famine, he said, has been openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war. Indeed, just two weeks ago, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it may be just and moral to starve 2 million residents in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Smotrich is often dismissed as a fringe, marginal figurean extremist settler who is holding Netanyahu hostage by threatening to resign and collapse the government if an agreement is reached to end the war. But it is also not clear that a different government would be taking a different tack. In March, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, widely seen as a contender to replace Netanyahu, questioned why, if there is starvation in Gaza, fat Hamas terrorists are still in charge. More recently, Bennett expressed concern about Israels falling standing in the United States, warning the country was increasingly viewed as a pariah state. As part of the solution, he called on Israels government to regain control of the narrative and tell a new, different story. But actionto alleviate the famine in Gaza by surging humanitarian aidwould speak far louder than any PR campaign. Eliot Waldman is World Politics Reviews editor-in-chief. The post A Failure of Humanity Itself appeared first on World Politics Review. Aug. 22Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones called an Aug. 16 operation in Fairfield "probably the biggest" roundup of immigrants in the country illegally in Ohio this year. Of the 39 people arrested or detained, six face state charges other than what's called a "holder" for the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Butler County Sheriff's Office has contracted with ICE to hold people who are detained for being in the country illegally. As of Thursday evening, five were no longer listed as being in the Butler County Jail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sabor Peruano is a nightclub and restaurant, which has a nightclub entrance on the north side for Rumba Bar Latino. The Journal-News confirmed the two sides are connected on the inside of the establishment, and the restaurant was operational on Friday afternoon with patrons eating in and carrying out food. The Fairfield Police Department said the operation at Sabor Peruano Night Club, 7245 Dixie Highway, was in response to recent violence in the area and aimed at reducing criminal activity associated with the club. They cite two shootings that were directly linked to the establishment in the past two months. "Investigations revealed that many of the individuals involved were in the country illegally," according to a media release from the Fairfield Police Department. "As a result, we have been working closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to assist with our investigations." The Saturday raid, which Fairfield called an "operation," was a coordinated effort with the Butler County Sheriff's Office, and multiple federal agencies, including ICE, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones called this "probably the biggest round up of illegal aliens in Ohio." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "All individuals were identified as being in the United States illegally and are currently being held pending further action by federal immigration authorities," according to a news release from the Sheriff's Office. Before the operation was executed on Saturday, police officers anticipated encountering people who were in the country illegally and possibly armed. For that reason, the department requested federal law enforcement assistance. "Despite multiple opportunities to address ongoing concerns, the ownership of Sabor Peruano has not taken sufficient steps to resolve the issues," according to the Fairfield Police Department. "As such, we will continue to closely monitor the situation and allocate resources as necessary to ensure the safety of our community." They were arrested and taken to the Butler County Jail. On Thursday, all but five were still in the Butler County Jail, being held on the ICE hold, with five others having criminal charges levied. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Sheriff's Office also said it will keep detaining people who are in the United States illegally. The Butler County Sheriff's Office said it will continue to work with ICE and surrounding law enforcement agencies "to aggressively identify, detain, and remove individuals unlawfully present in this country." "Many of these individuals have been here for years, living and working outside the law," Jones said. "Butler County will not be a sanctuary. We will continue to enforce the law, protect our citizens, and hold accountable those who break it." The millions of Americans who are used to getting their Covid-19 vaccines at a local pharmacy may face new hurdles this fall depending on where they live and whether federal health officials have decided they qualify. Pharmacists authority to vaccinate individuals varies across state lines. In some places, its dependent upon a federal advisory process that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended. At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration has signaled that it will only approve updated Covid vaccines for individuals 65 and older and for younger people considered to be at high risk for severe disease. People, regardless of where they live, may need to prove that they need the shot. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The agency is expected to sign off on the new vaccine formulas and labels any day now. The action will halt administration of the current vaccines, which are approved for most adults and children, regardless of underlying conditions. This usual chain of decisions has been disrupted. And without clarity and coordination, millions may not be able to have clear access to Covid vaccines, and that could potentially impact hospitalizations and deaths, said Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and public health communicator. Its as simple as that. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that HHS is committed to ensuring Americans continue to have access to safe and effective vaccines. We will work closely with federal and state partners to minimize disruptions in vaccine access and protect the publics health, he added. State obstacles At least 18 states and Washington, D.C., tie their pharmacists vaccination authority to the official recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, whose membership Kennedy overhauled in June to include several skeptics. The panel usually votes in June to recommend who should get the updated Covid shot in the fall, but months later theres still not a firm date for the vote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Without an official recommendation, pharmacists told POLITICO that residents of those jurisdictions may not be able to get vaccinated at neighborhood pharmacies, which have played the primary role in delivering the shots since early 2021. Nearly 90 percent of Covid vaccine doses during the 2024-2025 season nationally were given at pharmacies, according to CDC data. Were very concerned that well miss a bunch of patients and that it will impact vaccine coverage rates, especially among older adults, who are more susceptible to hospitalization and death, said Brigid Groves, vice president of professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association. To restore accessibility, pharmacy groups are asking governors in the affected jurisdictions to sign executive orders to ensure pharmacists and pharmacy technicians may administer Covid vaccines, even if the CDC and its advisers havent officially recommended them. The states include Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, among others. The normal processes that the profession has come to expect and where we usually get our marching orders from that whole process has been disrupted with the new administration and the new HHS secretary, said Hannah Fish, senior director of strategic initiatives at the National Community Pharmacists Association. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ACIP was tentatively scheduled to hold a meeting in August or September, but the group has yet to formally announce a date. Its next regularly scheduled meeting runs from Oct. 22 to Oct. 23 several weeks into the fall virus season. The under-65 hurdle If the FDA narrows eligibility, people between 6 months and 65 years old who want a Covid vaccine this fall likely will have to navigate some roadblocks. They, or their parents, may need to convince pharmacies and doctors that they have at least one of the underlying conditions that the FDA has suggested makes them eligible for a dose. The list includes asthma, diabetes, cancer, mood disorders and obesity. Its unclear at this point what would serve as adequate proof. Healthy people who want to be vaccinated, perhaps because they live with someone who is immunocompromised, could seek an off-label prescription from a doctor. Pharmacists generally dont write off-label prescriptions in which a drug is prescribed to someone for a condition for which the FDA has not approved it for liability reasons linked to scope of practice requirements that vary by state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both scenarios will require more planning by consumers than theyve had to do since Covid vaccines became widely available five years ago. Those without the time or wherewithal may wind up skipping the shot, experts said. That hassle aside, many Americans already are, with fewer than 1 in 4 adults and about 1 in 8 children receiving the latest Covid vaccine, according to the CDC. Jetelina said she thinks some doctors will be reluctant to prescribe Covid shots off-label, even though the practice is legal. There hasnt ever been this big of a pool that could be eligible for off-label prescribing, she told POLITICO. The scale of it is unique. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dr. Jesse Hackell, a spokesperson with the American Academy of Pediatrics, said he thinks some providers will have more concern about giving Covid vaccines off-label because of their politicization. But he noted that pediatricians often prescribe drugs for uses beyond their labels since most drugs are developed for adults or adolescents before they are approved for younger children. For example, doctors sometimes administer the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine off-label to children between the ages of 6 months and just under 1 year who are living in outbreak regions or traveling abroad, Hackell said. Its not new to us to think about things this way, he said. Further complicating vaccination efforts for children this year: the FDA may pull Covid vaccine-maker Pfizers emergency use authorization for its shots for children under 5. A spokesperson told POLITICO that the company has had discussions with the agency to maintain the authorization while it continues collecting data for a license application. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A spokesperson for Moderna, which has an FDA-approved Covid vaccine for children as young as 6 months, said the company is prepared to fill supply gaps if Pfizers product becomes unavailable. Even ahead of the FDAs anticipated narrowing of Covid vaccine eligibility, Americans have run into problems accessing the existing formulation that was recommended for anyone six months and older in 2024. The American Academy of Pediatrics filed a motion Wednesday to add another anonymous plaintiff to its lawsuit challenging Covid recommendation changes that Kennedy announced in May for kids and pregnant women. The CDC later adopted the removal of the recommendation for pregnant women but allowed healthy children to still receive the current vaccine through shared decision-making between families and providers a step below a routine recommendation. The third Jane Doe, who is immunocompromised, said she took her two teenage sons to a Seattle-area pharmacy this month and explained why she wanted to have them get vaccinated. The pharmacist denied the request after saying the boys were ineligible due to their ages, according to the lawsuit. Experts outside the CDC Amid the confusion and barriers to accessibility, medical associations and other groups are putting forward their own vaccine recommendations for children, pregnant people and adults in light of Kennedys ACIP overhaul. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The American Academy of Pediatrics released its childhood schedule this week and highlighted its differences from the CDCs version, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said it will issue its own advice for pregnant people by the end of the summer. Pharmacy groups in turn are developing guiding principles that lawmakers in the jurisdictions relying on ACIPs recommendations could use to broaden the pool of expert recommendations that pharmacists can rely upon to administer vaccines. The principles could include the use of any national organization with a clinical review committee, like the American Academy of Pediatrics or the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Groves said. The executive order would be the stopgap in the meantime, she added. Pharmacists will be available to advise customers about vaccine uptake this fall, Fish said, even if they have to encourage patients to make multiple trips to get Covid shots or send them to a doctors office for a prescription. Were still a trusted resource to have questions answered, she said. Legal turmoil is accelerating in New Jerseys federal court after a judge this week rejected President Donald Trumps use of a loophole to keep Alina Habba in charge of the federal prosecutors office. Shortly after U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled Thursday that Habba was acting illegally as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, another judge delayed the sentencing of a CEO convicted of scheming to mislead investors during the pandemic. The new sentencing delay, ordered by U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, appears to be the first instance of fallout from the Habba ruling, which declared that Habba must be disqualified from participating in any of the offices cases as its leader. Salas, an Obama appointee, delayed the sentencing, which was set for Sept. 4, until further notice. In her order, she rejected DOJ's arguments that Habba or other prosecutors are legally authorized to handle the sentencing of Marc Schessel, who was found guilty last summer of issuing false public statements claiming his company, SCWorx, was buying and reselling tens of millions of Covid-19 test kits during the early days of the pandemic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An attorney for Schessel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As legal questions about Habbas authority mounted in recent weeks, court records from the last several days show that the Justice Departments No. 2, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, has begun co-signing legal filings with Habba in routine criminal cases, an apparent attempt to insulate the cases from being undermined by challenges to Habbas authority. Blanches move means one of the countrys top law enforcement officials is now listed as the attorney on cases that normally wouldnt merit the attention of officials in Washington. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Blanches role in the cases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In his 77-page opinion Thursday, Brann ruled Habba is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney and has been in the position without legal authority since July 1. Brann, a Pennsylvania-based Obama appointee tapped to address the issue after New Jerseys federal judges bowed out, stayed his ruling pending appeal. But if other judges follow Salas approach, countless criminal prosecutions could be held up while higher courts sort out whether the multi-step maneuver the Trump administration used to keep Habba in place without Senate confirmation is legal. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday she would immediately appeal Branns ruling, although as of midday Friday the appeal had not yet been filed. Habbas office declined to comment on Salas order. Separately, in July, a triple homicide trial scheduled for September was delayed after Trump fired the career prosecutor who was handling it to clear the way for Habba to lead the office. It has since been rescheduled for November. Erica Orden contributed to this report. Footage circulating online revealed panicked masses and people screaming. There was widespread panic atMahaneh Yehuda shuk on Thursday night after social media accounts falsely reported that a fight occurring was a terror attack, Israeli media reported. Footage circulating online revealed panicked masses and people screaming. Social media reports claimed the incident was a shooting attack, according to Maariv. MAHANEH YEHUDA in Jerusalem. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) People run in fear "Suddenly, people ran towards us in hysteria, shouting 'terrorist, terrorist,'" an eyewitness told N12. "We started running, we left everything on the tables." Another witness told N12, "There were people with babies in their arms who were crying, everyone was running and shouting that there was a terrorist attack. A huge mass of people were running in panic." OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) Families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl gathered at the Oklahoma State Capitol Thursday evening, holding a candlelight vigil and calling for change, while warning: this can happen to anyone. They said their loved ones were everyday people, not addicts, who unknowingly consumed fentanyl hidden inside other substances. They held pictures of their loved ones as they marked Fentanyl Awareness Day. They emphasized that those who died did not even know they were taking fentanyl. The drug is often laced into marijuana, pills, and other substances. Families said they want the public to understand that their loved ones were poisoned, not overdosed, and that fentanyl can affect anyone. It can be found in just about anything on the street right now, said Kristy Oshell, who lost her daughter to fentanyl. An overdose is, like I said, when you know what youre taking and these kids dont know what theyretheyre being poisoned. LOCAL: Two arrested, accused of multiple child sex crimes They were happy people that had wives, that had kids, had grandkids, said Caden Hill, who lost his mother to fentanyl. They had cousins, families, brothers, fathers. I mean, these people were happy. They were living their lives. They were not drug addicts at all. One father at the vigil shared that his three-year-old son died from fentanyl poisoning after the childs mother, who struggled with addiction, was granted custody. Jacob Towe is now pushing state lawmakers to pass a bill in his sons honor, requiring DHS to test parents for fentanyl when deciding custody cases. His mother had an addiction to fentanyl. And we were going through a DHS case. He was with her custody, and she was never tested for fentanyl, Towe said. So I want them to try to test for fentanyl and just be aware that fentanyl is such a dangerous drug. It doesnt just affect addicts. It affects innocent kids and other people that have nothing to do with it. Its something that is a parents worst nightmare. And I wouldnt wish it on anyone. And thats why I want to try to help him, to try to save other parents and kids. Families said they hope their stories convince lawmakers to act. News 4 will follow the custody-testing proposal in the next legislative session. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. OSWEGO, Ill. (WGN) Family members of a child who was killed when a car crashed into a Portillos restaurant in west suburban Oswego last month have filed a lawsuit against the Chicago-based restaurant chain. The two-count lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Tuesday, alleges that the design of the restaurants parking lot and the lack of safety barriers created a deadly hazard that could have been prevented. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The family, represented by the Chicago-based firm GWC Injury Lawyers LLC, is seeking more than $100,000 in damages under the Illinois Survival Act and Illinois Wrongful Death Act. The lawsuit stems from a crash that unfolded at a Portillos restaurant in Oswego on July 30, which claimed the life of a 2-year-old boy and left 13 others injured, including the driver, a 50-year-old woman from Canton, Michigan. The lawsuit claims that the chain created an unreasonable risk of vehicle intrusion when it placed tables within feet of the glass entrance door without parking lot barriers to prevent, or at least slow a vehicle, from driving into the storefront. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Preliminary findings by Oswego police suggest that the crash may have been accidental in nature, but the exact cause remains unclear. The driver was the only person inside the car involved and no charges have been filed in connection with the crash. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Residents in Prosperity, South Carolina, are sleeping peacefully now that a monstrous python on the loose has been captured. And what heroes can they thank for turning their nightmares to sweet dreams? None other than a local family and their neighbor. "Thank you Warren Gallman and friends for capturing the huge snake that had been reported near the Mid Carolina campuses...Warren you and your friends are brave people and great Americans." Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster shared on Facebook. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriff told Newsweek the original call regarding the python came in on July 31, where it was seen near Mid Carolina High. For weeks, the snake had been on the slither. The creature was finally wrangled on Aug. 18. Video of the capture was shared by Gallman and his family on Facebook, where he continues to update followers on "Nanners" and its whereabouts. What snake was captured by Gallman and his family? According to Foster, the snake captured appears to be an albino Burmese python, native to Southeast Asia. These pythons are among the world's largest snakes, most reaching lengths between 10 to 16 feet. Some have even grown to be over 20 feet long. Skilled in water, Burmese pythons can swim across wide rivers and remain underwater for 30 minutes to hide from predators. While not venomous, the snakes will use their strength to kill prey, wrapping around them with mighty coils. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Each breath the prey takes makes the coils tighter. This cuts off blood flow and air. Death comes from lack of oxygen. This method allows them to take on large meals." per Wilbanks Reptiles. Has a Burmese python ever eaten a human? There are no confirmed cases of Burmese pythons eating or killing humans, although they can consume animals as large as a deer. The snakes generally do not target humans for food. How did the snake get on the loose? Foster believes the snake was kept as someone's pet and was released. It is likely the python had grown too large for its owner to cage and afford to take care of. Where is Nanners headed now? On Facebook, Gallman shared that the snake will be going to Edisto Island Serpentarium. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "After careful consideration and advice, I feel this is the most responsible option. I know the animal is valuable, however I feel a sense of responsibility to its safety and the community." he said. "I trust that those who contacted me would have taken care of the Nanners, however the reptile facility has specialized individuals to take care of him/her, and the family will be able to visit as Edisto is one of our favorite vacation spots." The animal lover also added, "Hopefully, we can continue our adventures on Animal Planet someday!" Taylor Stanberry is the 2025 Florida Python Challenge Ultimate Grand Prize Winner. She received $10,000 for eliminating 60 Burmese pythons during the 10-day competition in July. Nina Tran covers trending topics for The Greenville News. Reach her via email at ntran@gannett.com This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Burmese python captured by family in SC. Are pythons deadly? The case of Travelle Martin has two very different interpretations, depending on whom you ask. Law enforcement officials say he is a fugitive, and they are searching for him so he can face felony assault charges and a bench warrant stemming from a separate incident. His family and friends, on the other hand, believe he is a missing person and are fraught with worry over his well-being. That second version of the story was presented to the Berks County commissioners by his mother, Charlotte Croom, who spoke during their weekly meeting Thursday and asked for help. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a mother, Im pleading for your immediate attention and intervention, she read from a statement. Im requesting a thorough investigation into the circumstances involving the disappearance of my son, including the role of the police and any other police activity related to this case. Martin, 27, vanished more than seven months ago after fleeing a Flying Hills home following a domestic incident. OURTESY OF CUMRU TOWNSHIP POLICE) Travelle Martin (COURTESY OF CUMRU TOWNSHIP POLICE) According to Cumru Township police, officers were dispatched to a home along Fairway Road on Jan. 2 and heard a male and female yelling. An officer saw Martin punch the woman as she tried to escape through a window, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Martin pulled her back inside. When police entered the apartment, Martin fled out the back door, they said. Police said the victim suffered injuries. Felony assault charges were filed the next day. The Rev. Evelyn Morrison, a community activist, also addressed the commissioners on behalf of the family Thursday. She said the Cumru police department is not offering information about the case to the family. The police, when asked for information, tend to ignore the family, she said. There is not much the NAACP or the community can do. We are asking you because you do have the authority to investigate this case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Morrison asked the commissioners to look into the situation. She said it would be well within their authority to investigate what has happened, what information is available and what were the circumstances in which Martin fled. The commissioners expressed hope for a speedy resolution but said they are limited in what role they can play. My heart goes out to you not knowing what happened, board Chairman Christian Leinbach said. Leinbach said he will reach out to District Attorney John Adams to better understand the status of the investigation. What a lot of folks dont realize is that just because we are bigger than a municipality, we have no authority over any township we are completely separate, he said. I would love to be able to tell you well call the Cumru Township police in here, well call the township commissioners in here, but we do not have the authority to do that. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reached after the meeting for comment, Cumru police Chief Madison Winchester said the department is doing everything it can to locate Martin. He said officers are acting on any leads they receive and have participated in numerous searches of the area where the incident took place. Those efforts were unsuccessful. Winchester noted that Martin is wanted on charges for the Jan. 2 incident as well as on a bench warrant out of the county. That means Martins status as a wanted individual prohibits him from providing the family with information police have received about his whereabouts. The family claims that hes missing, and Ive explained to the family a number of times that regardless of what you consider him, it doesnt change our efforts to locate him, he said. Its unfortunate that the family has been on a mission to spread false information, but that being said it still doesnt change the way we view this incident. Winchester said he sympathizes with the family in that they dont have answers as to why their family member ran from police and has not come forward since, but thats not something police can answer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added that Adams is up to speed on the investigation. We welcome any agency that would want to come in and see how we handled the incident, and they can determine if anything wasnt done or done inappropriately, but as far as the investigation goes we have been transparent with our law enforcement partners, he said. Croom told the commissioners that family members remain without the closure and support they desperately need. Our family is devastated and our community is deeply concerned, Croom said. Travelle is a beloved son, brother and friend. We need answers, we need trust and, most importantly, we need action. Please consider this an official request for your involvement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crime Alert Berks County, a citizen crime-fighting group, is offering cash rewards of up to $10,000 to anyone supplying tips that lead to an arrest in this case. Tipsters with crime information can call 877-373-9913 anytime or contact Crime Alert at www.crimealertberks.org or via the AlertBerks smartphone app. No one will ask the name of the caller, who will be assigned a code number. Parts of Gaza are officially experiencing a man-made famine, according to a Friday report by a United Nations-backed initiative, which added that the situation is expected to worsen after months of relentless conflict. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found that famine has been confirmed in the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City, now also the site of a major new Israeli offensive. As this Famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed, the report said. The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. There should be no doubt in anyones mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The IPC called for an immediate ceasefire, saying that without a truce that allows humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially. During nearly two years of war in Gaza, Israel has at times restricted or cut off the entry of aid to the ravaged enclave. While some people have died of starvation and hunger, others have been killed trying to receive aid at distribution sites run by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was brought in place to replace a UN system long criticized by Israel. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Saturday that the UN should declare itself corrupt and incompetent after the IPC declaration of famine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The (international) media is missing the real story of famine in Gaza. Hostages ARE starving, Hamas is getting fat, & the UN declares famine while 92% of THEIR food is stolen to be sold by Hamas, Huckabee posted on X. Meanwhile UN food sits rotting in sun. The UN should declare itself corrupt & incompetent. The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency tasked with facilitating aid distribution in Gaza, rejected the IPC report ahead of its release, saying it relies on partial, biased data and superficial information originating from Hamas. COGAT said that the IPCs one-sided approach completely disregards the extensive humanitarian efforts undertaken in Gaza, adding that the report ignored information provided to its authors by Israel. It also stated that in terms of aid the overall trend has shifted in Gaza, but that Hamas has continued to exploit humanitarian supplies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Aid groups, the UN and harrowing testimony and images emerging from Gaza have, however, painted a different picture. US President Donald Trump last month said there is real starvation in Gaza, contradicting statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said that no one is starving in the territory. No more excuses UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the famine reported in Gaza is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself. As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population, Guterres added. We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity. No more excuses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tom Fletcher, the UN emergency relief coordinator, urged the world to read the IPC report from cover to cover. Read it in sorrow and anger, not as words and numbers but names and lives. Be in no doubt that this irrefutable testimony. It is a famine, the Gaza famine. The famine that we could have prevented if we were allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel, Fletcher said Friday at a news briefing. Amnesty International called the IPCs findings a scathing indictment of the failure of states to press Israel into ending its genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip and said the report confirmed what human rights and aid groups have long been warning of. The World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF all reiterated that famine must be stopped at all costs and expressed serious concern about the threat of an intensified offensive in Gaza City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CNN, along with other media outlets, has widely reported on hunger and starvation in Gaza. Arab nations including Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia condemned the situation, as did the UK, and New York Citys mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Last month, CNN reported the death of 4-year-old Razan Abu Zaher, who died at a hospital in central Gaza from complications brought on by malnutrition, according to a medical source. Her skeletal body was laid out on a slab of stone. Razan Abu Zaher in the hospital on June 23. - CNN Two more deaths due to starvation were recorded Thursday by the Palestinian health ministry, bringing the total number of those who died of malnutrition to 271, including 112 children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fridays IPC report added that malnutrition threatens the lives of 132,000 children under five through June 2026, including 41,000 severe cases, doubling Mays numbers. Formal famine determinations are rare. The IPC has previously determined famines in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudans western Darfur region last year. This is the first time the IPC has confirmed famine in the Middle East. Under the IPC system a five-phase scale used to measure the severity of food insecurity a famine can only be declared if data shows certain thresholds are met. Those conditions are: at least 20% of all households must face an extreme food shortage, 30% or more of children must be acutely malnourished or 15% of children suffering from acute malnutrition based on body measurements, and at least 2 in every 10,000 people die every day because of outright starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel accused the IPC of lowering its global standard for famine only for Gaza, an accusation which the organization said was completely false, pointing out that the same standard has been in use since 2019. Of course there is famine Palestinians living in Gaza City, many of whom were displaced from other corners of the enclave, say it is high time the city is classified as being in famine, which they say they have endured for months. This classification comes at the right time to show the world the magnitude of the tragedy and catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, Ahed Ferwana, a Palestinian journalist and analyst residing in Gaza City, told CNN. The strip has been suffering for months from starvation on the hands of (Israeli) aggression and closure of border crossings. Bisan Gazal, a displaced woman in the city, said that of course there is famine, adding that she and her family sometimes have one meal a day, while other days they dont eat at all. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sometimes we find nothing to eat, its very hard, she told CNN on Friday. Our children fall asleep in tears. Tawfeeq Abu Rajad, another displaced man living in western Gaza City, said that food prices are skyrocketing and there is little to no protein available. The IPC designation of Gaza as in famine is accurate, he said. We hope that all entities and international establishments put an end to this famine as soon as possible. CNNs Niamh Kennedy and Khader Al-Zaanoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed reporting. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Among those questions: who may act on a consumers behalf; how the costs of providing financial data may be defrayed; what kinds of consumer risks exist given what the notice called tens of thousands of malign actors. The CFPB also wants to know about potential negative consequences of disclosing data to a third party that may contain information a consumer did not intend to reveal. The statutory text of section 1033 is quite sparse and does not specifically address several important questions that arise from the rights it creates, the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking said. But now the agency appears to be fine-tuning its stance. Four of the bureaus primary questions in its information solicitation align with concerns that banking plaintiffs had raised in their lawsuit, filed in October 2024 the same day the bureau adopted the final open banking rule. Under the Trump administration, the CFPB adopted the banks view of the litigation, and asked the court to set aside the rule, which it called unlawful. The Bank Policy Institute, the Kentucky Bankers Association and Forcht Bank sued the CFPB last year to block the rule , arguing that the agency, under the Biden administration, had exceeded its authority, and challenged several aspects of the open banking rule, including its prohibition against assessing fees for data access. The Financial Technology Association, which intervened in the litigation to defend the bureaus 2024 rule, said in a statement from CEO Penny Lee that the rulemaking gives consumers, innovative banks, fintechs and Main Street businesses an opportunity to stand up for Americans rights to access innovation and control their own financial data without unfair roadblocks. The bureau filed notice that its queries will be published Friday in the Federal Register, starting a 60-day comment period in which banks, fintechs and others are likely to seek to shape the bureaus open banking rule. Last month, the agency obtained a stay in federal court litigation over the rule brought by banks after it told the court it would begin work to revise the rule on an expedited basis. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posed several questions Thursday about open banking, including who may represent consumers and who should cover the costs incurred in sharing data with fintechs that seek to supplant banks in providing financial services. This story was originally published on Payments Dive . To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter . Story Continues The FTAs Lee said that, via the rulemaking, the Trump administration was calling needed attention to barriers to innovation being erected by the largest banks, especially recent threats to impose more fees on Americans who simply want open access to their own bank accounts. The Electronic Transactions Association also welcomed the rulemaking. The CFPB is asking the right questions, especially about protecting consumer data from breaches and fraud, which is a top priority for the payments industry and was largely absent from the first rule, Scott Talbott, an ETA executive vice president, said Thursday in an email. The American Fintech Council said in an emailed statement that a robust and thoughtful process that aligns with the Trump administrations innovation agenda will create important consumer choice and financial access and equity for years to come. Upholding the principles of the 1033 rule and its key features, notably, its prohibition on charging fees for authorized access to consumer data, is essential to ensuring consumers have the freedom to choose the financial services that work best for them, Ian P. Moloney, the AFCs senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs, wrote in the email. Steve Boms, executive director of the Financial Data and Technology Association, said in a statement that the group is gratified that the Bureau is no longer entertaining arguments from the banking industry that the statutory definition of consumer can be ignored. At the same time, we are concerned that the Bureau may be considering delaying implementation deadlines without consulting small businesses, particularly startups and small retailers, on how such delays could negatively impact their operations, Boms said. The bureau also requested information about the potential benefits to consumers or competition of facilitating the consumer-authorized transfer of data to fintechs, application developers and other third parties. For fintechs, the fate of U.S. open banking gained new urgency in recent weeks as JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, informed several data aggregators of new fees for access to consumers financial information. Such fees, if widely adopted, could add hefty costs for fintechs seeking to handle transactions and lure customers away from banks. New fees could also hamper the growth of cryptocurrency enterprises and risks the future of fintech, digital assets, and Americas financial innovation and global leadership, ten associations wrote last month in a letter seeking President Donald Trumps help with the issue. Last week, the CEOs of about 80 fintech and related companies sent Trump a letter urging him to intervene to prevent banks from assessing the fees. The current open banking rule is set to take effect for the largest banks in mid-2026, with compliance deadlines for other banks layered through 2030. Financial institutions with less than $850 million in assets are exempt from the rule. The bureau, under Acting Director Russell Vought, told U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves last month that it plans an accelerated rulemaking process to revise the open banking rule. Recommended Reading Famine has been confirmed for the first time in an area of the Gaza Strip, according to the international authority responsible for monitoring food security. In a report released on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said it has "reasonable evidence" that famine has been occurring in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, since August 15. "After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death," the authority said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The IPC projected that famine will expand to two other central governorates, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, by the end of September. Famine is formally declared when three criteria are met: At least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 inhabitants die every day from hunger or from a combination of malnutrition and disease. Anadolu/Getty Images For the last 22 months, Israel has laid the groundwork for famine in Gaza and just today, it was announced by a United Nations body that famine in Gaza is officially underway. After a short-lived ceasefire ended in March, Israel began limiting and then almost completely blocking the entry of aid into Gaza, increasing hunger and causing the unfathomable conditions the world is witnessing now. Children and babies are dying with sunken eyes and bloated bellies, typical signs of malnutrition. Images of mothers holding their skeletal babies are all over the internet, underscoring the devastation of this latest escalation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is not, as 40 Senate Democrats claimed, a humanitarian crisis: This is a deliberate campaign of starvation waged by Israel, funded and promoted by the United States government, with bipartisan support. Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take Meanwhile, in the US, the richest country on the planet, almost 14 million children are food insecure, meaning their families struggled to provide enough food for everyone living there at some point during the year, as defined by the USDA. Just last month, Republicans in Congress passed what Trump called the Big, Beautiful Bill, which guts Medicaid, cuts housing programs, and slashes billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). More than 41 million Americans depend on SNAP for food, and many of them are children, disabled people, and seniors. At home and abroad, the US government is participating in starving people, particularly children, and calling it policy. Its more than policy, though; its been woven into the fabric of this country since its inception. From the forced starvation of Native people through bison genocide, to the Jim Crow eras deliberate starving of Black farm workers and their families in the Mississippi Delta by local landowners, businessmen, and politicians, Americas elected leaders have time and again chosen to starve not only our own citizens, but human beings the world over. Since October 7, 2023, when a Hamas attack killed about 1,200 Israelis, Israel has indiscriminately bombed, sieged, and blockaded Gaza, killing at least 60,000 Palestinians in what many human rights groups have called an unfolding genocide. Doctors and nurses have reported seeing children who have been shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli government has systematically targeted food infrastructure: bakeries, farms, fishing boats, food warehouses, and aid convoys. They have killed starving people waiting for food multiple times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Human Rights Watch, experts from the UN, and other experts have called this a starvation campaign and accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, which is a war crime under international law. The United States continues to provide arms and funds for Israel, giving several billion dollars annually in military aid, and authorizing billions more since the siege began; as of September 2024, that total neared $23 billion. The US has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to block calls for ceasefires, even as children die waiting for water, food, medical care, and more. US military cargo planes resupply Israel while humanitarian aid operations are attacked with US bombs. Both the US and Israel support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a militarized distribution organization operating aid sites where the Israeli Defense Force has killed over a thousand people seeking food. This is the use of US taxpayer money to fund the starvation campaign we are currently witnessing. The same government that is funding mass starvation and death in Gaza is also cutting funds to feed hungry Americans right here. With Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," Congress Traded Your Pap Smear for a Billionaires Tax Break Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans in Congress are using the federal budget to gut Medicaid and Planned Parenthood with devastating consequences for reproductive health care in America. In July, Congress passed the sweeping Big Beautiful Bill, thereby slashing safety-net programs under the false claim of reducing the deficit. Among the most brutal cuts: nearly $187 billion from SNAP over the next decade. These cuts tighten age and work requirements, reduce benefits, and make millions ineligible, including disabled people and caregivers who are officially classified as "able-bodied adults without dependents despite not necessarily fitting within that narrow description. Food banks, already overstretched and overwhelmed, are sounding the alarm. In North Carolina, the Food Bank of CENC, which serves more than 600,000 people, says they simply cannot meet the need. What we believe will happen with these cuts to SNAP is that we will not be able to fill the gap with charitable food, the organization's CEO told Axios. To be clear: Hunger in the US is not due to scarcity. There is more than enough food to feed everyone. But the government chooses to let children go hungry, especially Black, brown, disabled, and poor children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This isnt new. Hunger has always been a tool used by the powerful to control the most marginalized, at home and abroad. In the late 19th century, the US government carried out a genocide against the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, and one of its most effective tools was starvation. The Army encouraged the mass slaughter of buffalo to cut off specific tribes from their primary food source. Without buffalo, many Indigenous families faced famine, like those of the Piegan Blackfeet band, of which hundreds died during the Starvation Winter of 1883-1884. By the start of the next century, the rate of child deaths were 16 percent higher for Indigenous nations who relied on buffalo for food than for those that did not, according to a recent study. During the Vietnam War, the US used Agent Orange and other chemicals to destroy crops, leading to famine. Beginning in 2015, American-made bombs dropped by Saudi Arabia destroyed ports, farms, and water infrastructure in Yemen, leading to widespread starvation and leaving millions on the brink of famine, according to UN humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande at the time. Right now, children in countries across the globe are losing access to food aid after the Trump administration virtually eliminated USAID. According to a study in the medical journal The Lancet, the gutting of US global health and nutrition programs could result in 14 million excess deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under the age of five. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Israeli government has systematically targeted food infrastructure: bakeries, farms, fishing boats, food warehouses, and aid convoys. They have killed starving people waiting for food multiple times. In the next five years, 4.5 million children abroad could die. And with SNAP benefits and healthcare coverage taken away, millions more children within the US will go hungry without regular meals. The US allegedly has no money to feed its children or the worlds children, but has plenty of money for war. We are not talking about a failure of policy. This is not even one party over another. It is how this country punishes those who are the loudest in opposition, controls those it has forced into poverty, and reinforces white supremacy at home and abroad. This is one way colonial empires hold on to control, and in the US, officials manufacture consent through sanitized language like budget neutrality, entitlement reform, and national security. Its the highest and most deadly form of gaslighting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I am a disabled person who has spent the better part of 15 years organizing in the South. Ive seen how hunger shows up in our communities. Its in school cafeterias when kids cant pay for their meals; when diabetic people skip food to afford their insulin; when new mothers ration baby formula. And Ive watched, in real time, as the US government funds genocide instead of putting money toward fighting hunger in the US and beyond. Many of us who came of age amid the backdrop of the invasion of Iraq are watching this all with a deep understanding. Many of us are Jewish and know with complete clarity that whats happening in Gaza is genocide. Many of us are disabled and know what it feels like to be denied the basic care we need. Many of us are or have been poor and know the feeling of hunger deep in our core. We also know how to take action. We are protesting, showing up at our electeds offices, and demanding that Congress restore and expand SNAP, school meals, and food programs. We are pushing for full funding of USAID. We are demanding an end to US funding of the Israeli military. We are calling for divestment from companies that have funded the genocide in Gaza. And we are building care webs and mutual aid networks to feed one another when the state abandons us. The US government may be committed to starving millions of the worlds children, but we dont have to be. Whether its in Palestine or Nigeria, Memphis, Tennessee, or Taliaferro County, Georgia, children are starving not because there isnt enough food, but because our bipartisan legislators choose to let them starve. The cruelty is the point. But it doesnt have to be this way, despite what our history tells us. We just have to be willing to build something new. Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue Want more U.S. government coverage? Famine is occurring in Gaza, the leading global tracker of food insecurity announced on Friday, pointing to catastrophic conditions for more than half a million Palestinians including tens of thousands of children edging toward death via acute malnutrition largely because of Israeli policies enabled by extensive U.S. support. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is officially applying the famine classification to Gaza for the first time since the nearly two-year Israeli campaign there began, saying famine is confirmed in the governorate, including Gaza City, the region Israeli forces are preparing to target in a new offensive. The IPC, considered the gold standard for tracking hunger, is a consortium that includes 21 United Nations agencies and major nongovernmental aid groups. Related: CNN Analyst Pinpoints The Weirdest Part Of Ghislaine Maxwell's 'Simply Bizarre' DOJ Interview As this famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed, the 59-page report states. The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. There should be no doubt in anyones mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. Any further delay even by days will result in a totally unacceptable escalation of famine-related mortality. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israels Foreign Ministry rejected the IPCs findings, declaring that there is no famine in Gaza, and accusing the group of producing a fabricated report to fit Hamass fake campaign. The entire IPC document is based on Hamas lies laundered through organizations with vested interests, it said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. This assessment too will be thrown into the despicable trash bin of political documents, it continued. Related: Pentagon Working On Plans For Military Deployment In Chicago, Washington Post Reports In September, famine is expected to expand to two other governorates, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the IPC added. The group noted it was unable to secure data about north Gaza, one of the hardest-hit areas during the war. The IPC also noted that the number of children under five who could die by starvation has doubled since its last projection in May; it now anticipates that at least 132,000 will be in that category by June 2026. It described the deterioration among Palestinians as the most severe it has recorded anywhere in the world since its founding in 2004. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies, and basic health, nutrition, and WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene] services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially, the report adds. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres renewed calls for an end to the violence unfolding in Gaza, denouncing the dire conditions faced by Palestinians there. Just when it seems there are no words left to describe the living hell in Gaza, a new one has been added: famine, he said. Related: Trump Finally Melts Down After Days Of Gavin Newsoms Relentless Trolling U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the famine detailed in the IPC report is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of willful killing, Turk said in a statement. The IPC finding represents a chilling milestone for the war. While warnings of mass hunger and fatal starvation in the region spread, U.S. and Israeli officials have mostly ignored extensive pleas to end policies like severe Israeli restrictions on the entry of supplies to Gaza and ongoing Israeli attacks on the strip, which have repeatedly hit humanitarian workers and made it hard for them to distribute goods. Previous research by the IPC and other experts, including U.S. government officials, had suggested famine was occurring but then was abated by tweaks in policies around aid, confirming that policymakers choices made the situation more desperate. Israel caused the famine confirmed today in Gaza Governorate, but the United States has made it possible, supplying the arms, funding, and political cover at every step leading to this tragic point, Scott Paul, the director of peace and security at Oxfam America, said in a statement. Now, the Trump administration must do all in its power to reach an immediate, permanent ceasefire, ensure there is a sustained surge of aid, and the release of all hostages and illegally detained prisoners. The U.S. should suspend offensive arms sales to Israel now. There is not a second to waste while more people die from starvation every day. Related: Trump Makes Wild Claim About 'African American Ladies' During Chicago Crackdown Ramble Pauls group is among those currently unable to get help to Palestinians, despite being prepared to do so. Oxfam says it has $2.5 million worth of aid in warehouses adjacent to Gaza that Israeli authorities refuse to allow in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel offers several often conflicting arguments about hunger among Palestinians: that sufficient food is available; that militants, chiefly the faction Hamas, steal aid en masse (a claim which officials in Israel, the U.N. and the U.S. have rejected); and that it is supporting a functioning aid system through a program called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has also received U.S. funding. American military contractors and Israeli troops shield the GHF, which was established in May after long-standing Israeli opposition to other humanitarian groups and attacks at GHF distribution points had killed more than 1,400 Palestinians. The GHF claims those casualty numbers are exaggerated and highlights its delivery of meals, though the packages it supplies are hard to use since they usually require water and fuel, which are in short supply. With the famine announcement, the number of people crossing that threshold into [their malnutrition] being non-survivable while still being alive is just devastating its apocalyptic, said Mark Brauner, an American doctor who volunteered in Gaza earlier this summer and described his experience to HuffPost. Brauner said he receives updates, including photographs, from Palestinians he worked alongside and cannot recognize them from seven weeks ago because of how hunger is wearing away at them. Theyve taken on a completely different physicality, he said. Theyre truly becoming skeletal, and you can see that the skin is like paper. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Observers note that a key reason Palestinians are particularly vulnerable to food shortages now is that most of Gazas population has faced repeated forced displacements and near-starvation levels before. Under President Joe Biden, who largely resisted calls to pressure Israel as he surged support to the country following Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack, U.S. officials found famine was occurring in April 2024, HuffPost revealed, and U.N. experts reached similar conclusions in July and November 2024. President Donald Trump has largely built on Bidens permissive policy toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, endorsing some of his most extreme ideas, like the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The United States government has a longstanding commitment to prevent famine, but it has fueled one in Gaza, Paul said. Marita Vlachou contributed reporting. More Stories Obama Presses For Aid In Gaza To Combat A 'Travesty' Of 'Preventable Starvation' 'Let The Children Eat': Israel Is Starving Gaza To Death, Doctors And Experts Warn Past The Point Of No Return: Doctor Gives On-The-Ground Insight Into Starvation In Gaza Read the original on HuffPost By Michelle Nichols and David Brunnstrom UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread, a global hunger monitor determined on Friday, an assessment that will escalate pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people - close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza - are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City - known as Gaza governorate - which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. It was the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but limited data prevented any precise classification. Reuters has previously reported on the IPC's struggle to get access to data required to assess the crisis. "It is a famine that we could have prevented had we been allowed," said U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher. "Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel dismissed the findings as false and biased, saying the IPC had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food. The report was an "outright lie", said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Israel does not have a policy of starvation," he said in a statement. "Israel has a policy of preventing starvation. Since the beginning of the war Israel has enabled 2 million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person." U.S. President Donald Trump last month said many people there were starving, putting him at odds with Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said there was no starvation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, when asked about the IPC determination, reiterated accusations that assistance to Gaza has been looted and said Hamas was "systematically promoting a false narrative of deliberate mass starvation to put political pressure on Israel." "The U.S. Government is focused on getting aid delivered to the people of Gaza. Addressing these challenging issues means honestly addressing problems for the sake of Gazans, who deserve better, not engaging in semantics," the spokesperson said. FAMINE CLASSIFICATION The IPC - an initiative involving 21 aid groups, U.N. agencies and regional organizations funded by the European Union, Germany, Britain and Canada - has only registered famines four times previously - in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020 and in Sudan in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For a region to be classified as in famine at least 20% of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Gaza famine was a "man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself". He called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages still held by Hamas and unfettered humanitarian access. U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk warned that deaths from starvation could amount to a war crime. Israel rejects war crimes charges in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps aid agency, said it was a frustration that the IPC report was not legally binding. "We have photos, we have clear data, and now we have this assessment, yet it still hasnt translated into the urgent action needed to stop people from starving," she said. DIPLOMATIC FALLOUT Israel controls all access to Gaza. COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows, said the IPC report ignored Israeli data on aid deliveries and was part of an international campaign aimed at denigrating Israel. "The IPC report is not only biased but also serves Hamas' propaganda campaign," the agency said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Israel, Hebrew-language news websites highlighted the famine report on their front pages, with the liberal Haaretz focused on the severity of starvation in Gaza City, while Israel Hayom, N12 and ynet emphasized Israel's rejection of the report as biased and cited concerns over the possible diplomatic fallout. Underscoring those worries, Britain called the IPC report "utterly horrifying" and demanded that Israel immediately allow unhindered supplies of food, medicines and fuel. Britain, Canada, Australia and many European states recently said the humanitarian crisis had reached "unimaginable levels". Israel has long counted on the U.S., its most powerful ally, for military aid and diplomatic support. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that 65% of Americans believe the U.S. should help those starving in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The IPC said its analysis only covered people living in Gaza, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates. It was unable to classify North Gaza governorate due to access restrictions and a lack of data and it excluded any remaining population in the southern Rafah region as it is largely uninhabited. The U.N. has complained of obstacles to delivering and distributing aid in Gaza, blaming impediments on Israel and lawlessness. Israel had criticized the U.N.-led operation and accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the militants deny. The Gaza war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's military campaign has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Lili Bayer and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Howard Goller in New York and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Writing by Michelle Nichols, Crispian Balmer and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Aidan Lewis, William Maclean, Toby Chopra) FARMINGTON, N.M. (KRQE) A 45-year-old man was arrested for allegedly threatening to shoot a teacher at an elementary school in Farmington. Story continues below Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Farmington Police officers were dispatched to McKinley Elementary School on Thursday around 9:15 a.m., after staff said Ernest Begay Jr. threatened to shoot a teacher at the schools front entrance, according to the police department. The school immediately went into lockdown. Begay was arrested and charged with assault upon a school employee, unlawful shooting threats, disorderly conduct, and interference with members of staff or the general public. Police said no weapons were found on Begay. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. When Pope Leo XIV stepped onto the St. Peters Basilica balcony to introduce himself to the world, he gave a short speech about 500 words. But in that speech, he used the word peace nine times. Since then, the theme of peace has been central to his papacy, most recently in his call for prayer and fasting. Addressing the general audience on Wednesday, Pope Leo marked Aug. 22 as a day of prayer and fasting and invited 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, and all believers, to plead for peace and justice so that God would wipe away the tears of those who suffer because of ongoing armed conflicts. The day is celebrated as the feast of the Queenship of Mary, and Pope Leo called Mary the Mother of the faithful on earth honoring her as the Queen of Peace. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While our world continues to be wounded by wars in the Holy Land, in Ukraine and in many other regions of the world, he said, I ask all the faithful to spend Aug. 22 in fasting and prayer, asking the Lord to grant us peace and justice and to dry the tears of those who suffer because of the armed conflicts underway. Pope Leo, who is the first American to lead the Catholic Church, asked the Polish pilgrims in the audience to pray for the the gift of peace that is disarmed and disarming for the whole world, especially for Ukraine and the Middle East. Humanitarian aid is airdropped over Gaza City, Gaza Strip, July 28, 2025. | Jehad Alshrafi, Associated Press It was very evident that peace was going to be a front-burner issue for his papacy, particularly in the early days, said Christopher White, a journalist and author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy. White is also the Vatican analyst and reporter for NCR, NBC News and MSNBC. The world at war is what I think is probably keeping him up at night. Legacy of ancient practice Although this is Pope Leos first call for a global fast, he has called for peace on numerous occasions. In his first Sunday blessing, he shared a plea for an end to wars across the globe: He declared Never again war! a phrase the popes have repeated since World War II, and called for authentic, just and lasting peace. He also called for the release of prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children who were deported by Russia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pope Leos first call with a foreign leader was to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in May, where the two talked about ceasefire proposals, the forced removal of Ukrainian children by Russia and efforts to end the war. While fasting is a common practice for Catholics, particularly around Lent, papal calls for special days of fasting are significant and signal the Popes attention to urgent global causes, White said. In calling for the special fast, Pope Leo is following in the footsteps of his predecessors. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pope John Paul II invited Christians to a day of fasting, saying he hoped that the common attitude of religious penance will increase reciprocal understanding between Christians and Muslims. Amid escalation of the war in Syria in 2013, Pope Francis called on the Catholics to observe a day of prayer and fasting. Pope Francis also called to observe the practice on the first anniversary of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7, 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement (Pope Leo) is following the path that popes before him have followed using the ancient Catholic practice of fasting, White said. And even with all sort of wellness and health trends around intermittent fasting, its still a particular and special custom in the life of the Catholic Church to sacrifice, and show solidarity and remembrance of grave injustices and concerns for human dignity. Fasting has meaning across many cultures and religious traditions. About 21% of adults observe periods of fasting during holy times, according to a Pew Research Center survey from 2024. The most likely religious group to fast for religious reasons are Muslim Americans, followed by Jewish Americans, Catholics and Black Protestants, according to the survey. Among Catholics, 4 in 10 reported fasting. People break their fast during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan at a roadside, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Ramadan is marked by daily fasting from dawn to sunset. | Muhammad Sajjad In 2020, President Russell M. Nelson, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, invited members to hold a global fast for relief from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fasting has very ancient roots and its understandable by everyone, even by those who are not religious or Christian, Massimo Faggioli, professor at Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin, told Deseret News in an email. Fasting is also a way of signaling solidarity with those who are suffering hunger because of war. The opposite of grandstanding Pope Leos peace messages stand out because todays major conflict centers on Israel, which includes the war in Gaza but also assaults by extremist Israeli settlers on Christian communities in the West Bank, Faggioli says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is very sensitive for Catholics as a religious community and for the Vatican and the Holy See as an actor on the international stage because of the role of the Church in the history of antisemitism, Faggioli said over email. Fasting is an interesting choice because its a symbolic, quiet way to make a statement. Fasting is also a form of penance and its the opposite of grandstanding. The Vaticans religious response to global crises also reflects the shortcomings of diplomatic efforts and international organizations, Faggioli noted. Its a failure that calls religions and the Vatican especially to do something in substitution, he said. While its a symbolic act, Pope Leos focus for peace is meant to have a practical effect, too, White said. The Pope has one of the largest megaphones in the world and hes trying to use that as often as he can to reiterate the call for peace. For instance, this week, the Catholic Bishops have announced a special collection for humanitarian relief and pastoral support in Gaza. Pope Leo has also offered the Vatican as a space for peace talks just before the funeral of Pope Francis, President Donald Trump and President Zelenskyy met inside St. Peters Basilica to discuss the war in Ukraine. The Vatican has also offered to use its global network to help with bringing back Ukrainian children who were forcibly taken by Russia, White said. The Vatican (is) doing what it can from a very practical boots on the ground perspective, he said. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis dispatched his top deputy to California to oversee the handover of a truck driver accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed three people in Florida last week. Sending Floridas new Lt. Gov. Jay Collins underscores Republicans push to crack down on illegal immigration. It also revs up a political rivalry between DeSantis and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, both of whom aspire to higher office. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Monday that truck driver Harjinder Singh, a native of India, was in the country illegally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three lives lost because of Gavin Newsom. Because of Californias failed policies, Collins said Thursday at a press conference near an airport in Stockton, California. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Were done with that, Collins added, using an expletive. A spokesperson for Newsom described Collins trip to California as a photo op and criticized Florida officials for letting a murder suspect walk. Collins did not elaborate on why Singh was able to fly to California after the Aug. 12 crash on Floridas Turnpike. U.S. Marshals arrested him Saturday in Stockton. Collins personally escorted Singh onto an airplane Thursday, holding the mans arm as he walked up the steps of the aircraft. Singh was accompanied by four other people, including a man in a jacket that read Police ERO, a reference to Enforcement and Removal Operations, a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Singh made the illegal turn on the highway about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of West Palm Beach, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. A minivan in the neighboring lane was unable to avoid the trucks trailer and slammed into it, killing the minivans driver and two passengers. Singh and a passenger in his truck were not injured. READ: Florida must stop expanding Alligator Alcatraz immigration center, judge says Florida authorities said Singh entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in 2018. According to Homeland Security, Singh obtained a commercial drivers license in California, which is one of 19 states, in addition to the District of Columbia, that issue licenses regardless of immigration status, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Collins said Thursday that Singh never should have been issued a drivers license, calling the move unacceptable. Collins said Singh lacks basic English proficiency and did not know the road signs. Newsoms press office responded on the X platform that Singh obtained a work permit while Donald Trump was president. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin disputed that, saying the federal government denied him a permit during Trumps first term in September 2020 and granted him one in June 2021, under President Joe Biden. A preliminary investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation found that Washington state issued Singh a regular full-term commercial drivers license in July 2023, a type of license that people without legal status are not eligible for, according to DOT. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] California then issued Singh a limited-term commercial license a year later. Federal vehicle safety officials are investigating whether the issuance of that license complied with government regulations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Singh is charged with three state counts of vehicular homicide and immigration violations. The federal government has asked that he be transferred to ICE custody after his criminal case is complete. A public defender assigned to Singhs case confirmed he made an appearance in San Joaquin County court on Tuesday. Mr. Singh was in court on Tuesday afternoon and he signed the paperwork that acknowledged he was the person Florida was looking for but did not in any way admit to any criminal charges, attorney Jennifer Perkins said in an emailed statement. Perkins said she was not at liberty to discuss Singhs citizenship status. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. The FBI conducted a court-authorized search Friday at former national security adviser John Boltons home and office as part of a renewed investigation into whether he disclosed classified information in his 2020 book, according to two people familiar with the matter. The investigative step immediately drew criticism that President Donald Trump was using the muscle of the US government to target a political foe, though the specific basis for the searches was not clear. Bolton served as President Donald Trumps national security adviser in his first term, but the president fired him in 2019 and the two have been sharply at odds ever since. Trump had previously threatened to jail Bolton over the 2020 book, which was critical of Trumps foreign policy knowledge, and the Justice Department investigated him in Trumps first-term. That probe was closed under President Joe Biden. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since Trumps return to office, Bolton has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of his foreign policy and ongoing efforts to end the war in Ukraine, often deriding the president for his perceived deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin. CNN observed FBI personnel at Boltons house in the Washington, DC, area on Friday morning. They were seen speaking to a person on the porch of the house, and at least four to six agents were seen going inside. Some of the agents took bags out of the vehicles to bring inside, but nothing was seen coming out of the residence. The FBI also was searching Boltons office on Friday morning, according to a source. CNN saw several unmarked federal vehicles outside the building in downtown Washington. While the searches stemmed from the Justice Department reopening the years-old investigation involving the book, investigators are also exploring other possible leaks as a form of weaponization, a source said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Asked about the search on Friday, Trump told reporters he knew nothing about it. He added that he expected the Justice Department to brief him likely later in the day and suggested he had the power to initiate law enforcement moves. I dont want to know about it. Its not necessary. I could know about it. I could be the one starting it, and Im actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that its better this way, he said, before calling Bolton a low life. When I hired him, he served a good purpose, because, as you know, he was one of the people that forced Bush to do the ridiculous bombings in the Middle East. Bolton, he wants to always kill people, and hes very bad at what he does, but he worked out great for me, Trump said. Vice President JD Vance later said in an interview for Meet the Press with Kristen Welker that classified documents are certainly part of the motivation behind the investigation, but I think that theres a broad concern about, about Ambassador Bolton. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vance denied that the search was politically motivated, characterizing it as part of an evidence-gathering operation driven by the law and not by politics. If they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law, he said. Were going to be deliberate about that, because we dont think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically you shouldnt throw people willy-nilly in prison. Reached by CNN earlier on Friday, Bolton said he was unaware of the FBI activity and was looking into it further. His attorney didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. The search at Boltons house was first reported by the New York Post. The FBI declined to comment on it. An FBI agent work outside the home of John Bolton in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday - Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Trumps fraught history with Bolton Trump has repeatedly gone after his former national security adviser while in office, including most recently saying this month that the media was constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president also terminated Boltons Secret Service detail within hours of starting his second term in January. During his first term, the president threatened to jail Bolton after his 2020 book, The Room Where It Happened, claimed Trump was woefully under-informed on matters of foreign policy and obsessed with shaping his media legacy. The book also reported that Trump asked the leaders of Ukraine and China to help him win the 2020 election. The book included material that initially was cleared for publication by career officials at the White House, but Trump political appointees sought to overturn that approval. National security adviser John Bolton listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, in April 2018. - Evan Vucci/AP/File The Justice Department investigated Bolton over the possibility that he unlawfully disclosed classified information in his memoir, though officials under former President Joe Biden closed the investigation and dropped a related lawsuit in 2021 connected to the publication of the book. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton, in turn, has emerged as one of Trumps harshest critics, frequently questioning his fitness for office and decision-making while deriding his approach to foreign policy. A longtime foreign policy hawk, he has taken particular aim at Trumps efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, saying earlier this week that Putin was working Trump over. In the wake of Trumps face-to-face meeting with the Russian president last week, Bolton said on CNN that Putin clearly won. Meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I dont see these talks making any progress, he wrote in a Friday post on X, just hours before the FBI arrived at his home. Bolton last year had also led a campaign against FBI Director Kash Patels candidacy to run the agency, at one point penning a scathing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that was headlined Kash Patel Doesnt Belong at the FBI. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0, he told CNN in December. Patel in his 2023 book Government Gangsters had listed Bolton among more than 50 current and former US officials that he claimed were a dangerous threat to democracy. Trump and his government have carried out a campaign of retribution in recent months against a wide swath of the presidents perceived political enemies, ranging from former Trump officials to members of Congress to the prosecutors who brought cases against the president while he was out of office. The White House stripped Bolton and a handful of other former officials of their security detail and clearances shortly after Trump took office in January. The president later ordered Justice Department investigations of two first-term appointees-turned critics, former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor and former former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief Christopher Krebs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Taylor penned a high-profile anonymous op-ed in 2018 criticizing Trump and depicting chaos within his White House, and he has since emerged as a vocal critic. Krebs was fired in late 2020 after refusing to back up Trumps unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen. The FBI, meanwhile, launched investigations earlier this summer into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey. Trump at the time said he wasnt aware of the probes, but called them very dishonest people. Last week, Patel declassified and released internal FBI interview notes from a former House Intelligence Committee staffer who first accused former Rep. Adam Schiff in 2017 of directing illegal leaks of classified information about Trump and Russia, in an escalation of Trumps long-standing feud with Schiff. The Justice Department also opened a grand jury investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James this month over the civil actions she brought against Trump and the National Rifle Association. Media watch outside former national security adviser John Bolton's house as FBI agents search inside. - Jose Luis Magana/AP Public nature of FBI search The public nature of the FBI search on Friday at Boltons house with agents wearing prominently identifiable FBI jackets while entering and exiting the house throughout the morning and key officials appearing to telegraph it on social media has already led neighbors and friends of Bolton to say the search may be related to political retribution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Top FBI officials posted on social media Friday morning just after 7 am. FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X, NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission. The FBIs co-deputy director Dan Bongino posted, Public corruption will not be tolerated. Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi also reposted Patels comment, with Bondi adding, Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. If the officials are cryptically referring to Bolton, it would be a notable departure of the Bureaus practice of not commenting publicly on investigations, especially as FBI agents are still at the scene. For instance, the hours-long FBI search of Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago for classified records in 2022 was conducted with officials in plain clothes, and with the public largely unaware of the search until it was nearly concluded. Patel has since called the Mar-a-Lago search a total weaponization and politicization by the FBI and DOJ. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump was indicted by a grand jury for mishandling several national security documents he retained after his first term in office, keeping boxes of classified records in a bathroom, a ballroom and other rooms at his Florida resort, until a Florida-based judge dismissed the case in 2024. Bolton, a longtime conservative who had previously served in the Reagan and both Bush administrations, has been a political foe of Trumps since he left the White House in the first term. This story and headline have been updated with additional information. CNNs Katelyn Polantz and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Sixteen people, including some with ties to a Tacoma street gang, have been charged and/or arrested following an 18-month investigation into a multi-state drug-trafficking ring in which couriers allegedly brought fentanyl into Washington through checked luggage, authorities announced Thursday. During a news conference held at Tacoma Police Department headquarters, federal and local law enforcement officials described what Tacoma Police Chief Patti Jackson called an incredibly successful operation led by the FBI and assisted by several other agencies, including TPD and the Pierce County Sheriffs Office. In the preceding 36 hours, authorities executed 13 search warrants as part of the large-scale takedown that primarily targeted known members or associates of the Knoccout Crips street gang, a transnational criminal group which has been tied to drug trafficking and violence in Tacoma, according to officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Their activities extended beyond Tacoma, impacting communities across the region and even into other states, Jackson said. Tacoma Police Chief Patti Jackson speaks during a press conference on the takedown of a drug-trafficking ring on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, at the Tacoma Police Department in Tacoma, Wash. The drug-trafficking ring was the subject of an 18-month investigation, including a two-month wiretap, led by the FBI. Authorities allege that individuals linked to the gang had been sending couriers to a fentanyl source in Phoenix to collect huge quantities of the drug for redistribution in Washington. Fentanyl pills and powder were seized from checked luggage at Sea-Tac Airport during the investigation, according to Teal Luthy Miller, the acting U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Washington. A two-month wiretap led by the FBI revealed the far-reaching scope of the conspiracy, with drug mules attempting to transport fentanyl from Arizona to Tacoma and in at least one instance on to Baltimore, Miller said in a statement Thursday. The fentanyl-trafficking investigation was part of the FBI initiative Summer Heat, which targets violent crime during the summer months. It netted a 10-count indictment last week of nine people, eight of whom were arrested Wednesday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Seven others allegedly connected to the conspiracy were also arrested. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The probe was prompted by a string of homicides and other violent acts attributed to the Knoccout Crips, according to Thomas M. Woods, deputy criminal chief with the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Western District of Washington. It was a coordinated effort between authorities to dismantle a violent drug organization that sold and moved thousands of fentanyl pills at any given time drugs that were destined for the streets of Tacoma and for the surrounding region, Woods said during the news conference. And let it be clear, today is not the end, he added. It is a continuation of the fight to make our streets and our communities safer. Thomas M. Woods, Deputy Criminal Chief with the Western District of Washington U.S. Attorney's Office, speaks during a press conference on the takedown of a drug-trafficking ring on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, at the Tacoma Police Department in Tacoma, Wash. The drug-trafficking ring was the subject of an 18-month investigation, including a two-month wiretap, led by the FBI. Authorities seized nearly 2,700 grams of fentanyl in the past 36 hours as well as other drugs, roughly $111,000 in cash and 23 firearms, according to the Department of Justice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI in Seattle, told reporters that the Phoenix-based drug supplier had Mexican cartel ties and that the investigation was ongoing into the transportation of drugs to other places in the U.S. This case shows the power of standing together, Jackson said. It sends a very clear message: criminal activity will not take hold in our communities. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. A social media post by the FBI Little Rock confirmed the capture of a man sought by the agency. The post stated that 31-year-old Brandon Lakeith Jenkins was captured. Jenkins was wanted after allegedly shooting three people in an Aug. 29, 2023, home invasion robbery in Texarkana, Texas. Officials said earlier they believe Jenkins has fled across Arkansas to avoid capture. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FBI Little Rock offering $5,000 reward in search for Texarkana man The FBI was offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to Jenkins arrest and conviction. The post did not state the circumstances of Jenkins capture. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. Chinas Chery International Group announced that its cumulative exports have now surpassed 5 million vehicles, with the company claiming to be the first Chinese automaker to achieve this milestone. The state-owned automaker said it has been the countrys top vehicle exporter for the last 22 years, since it began overseas shipments in 2001. Chery also pointed out that its Fortune Global 500 ranking rose to 233rd in July, up from 385th in 2024, while its ranking in China rose to 59th from 100th last year. Cherys global sales surged by 38% to 2,603,900 vehicles in 2024, including its Omoda, Jetour, and Exeed brands. Exports last year rose by 21% to 1,144,588 units, to around 44 markets in the ASEAN region, Europe, South America, and Australia. In the first seven months of 2025, the companys global sales rose by a further 14% to 1,484,563 units, while exports were up by just 7.5% to 669,360 units, reflecting rising overseas production in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Spain. "Cherys cumulative exports surpass 5 million" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. Credit: Reuters FBI agents have raided the home of John Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump. Officers descended on the property in Bethesda, Maryland, at around 12pm (7am local time) on Friday. It comes as part of an investigation into the handling of classified information, according to reports. Mr Bolton was not detained and has not been charged with any crimes, according to a source. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Footage of the early morning raid showed two police cars blocking off Mr Boltons street. The end of the leafy, tree-lined road was cordoned off with yellow police and road flares. FBI officers outside of Mr Boltons home in Maryland - PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images Mr Trump said he didnt know anything about the raid and had found out about it from watching the news. Speaking at the Kennedy Centre shortly after FBI agents descended on Mr Boltons home, and later his Washington DC office, Mr Trump said: I know nothing about it, I just saw it this morning. They did a raid. I dont know about it. I saw it on television this morning. Im not a fan of John Bolton, hes sort of a low life. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Bolton, 76, who was once part of Mr Trumps inner circle but now has become one of the US presidents most vocal critics, was previously accused of including classified information in his 2020 book, The Room Where it Happened. John Bolton left his role in the Trump administration in November 2019 - BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Around 30 minutes after the FBI had raided his home, Mr Bolton posted on social media suggesting Mr Trumps attempts to end the war in Ukraine were futile. Sharing a link to an interview with NPR, he wrote: Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do so. He added: Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I dont see these talks making any progress. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After searching his home, FBI agents raided Mr Boltons office in the centre of Washington DC. Management sent an internal email to all of the buildings tenants, saying: The FBI is on-site this morning to visit one specific tenant. There is no known threat to the property at this time. Last week, Mr Trump lamented news channels for inviting figures like Mr Bolton to comment on his efforts to secure a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. Taking to Truth Social, Mr Trump wrote: Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It comes after Mr Bolton told CNN that Vladimir Putin had clearly won following the pairs meeting in Alaska last week. Trump did not lose but Putin clearly won. Putin achieved most of what he wanted and Trump achieved very little, he said. The raid came after Kash Patel, the FBI director, reportedly ordered an investigation into Mr Bolton. Shortly after the raid began, Mr Patel wrote on social media: NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 22, 2025 The post was reshared by a White House spokesman. Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, also shared his post, adding: Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. An FBI spokesman said the agency was conducting court-authorised activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement JD Vance, the vice-president, said the investigation was in its very early stages. Speaking to NBCs Meet the Press, Mr Vance said: Were in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton. Were going to let that investigation proceed... if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law. However, Mr Vance insisted that the Trump administration was not going to throw people willy-nilly in prison. He said: We dont think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldnt throw people willy-nilly in prison. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You should let the law drive these determinations, and thats what were doing. Within hours of returning to the White House in 2025, Mr Trump stripped Mr Bolton of his Secret Service security protections. Mr Bolton, who left his role in the Trump administration in November 2019, had required ongoing protection because of threats against him by Iran. Asked earlier this month about whether he was worried about the Trump administration taking action against him, Mr Bolton told ABC News Mr Trump had already come after him by taking away his security detail. He added: I think it is a retribution presidency. FBI members carried boxes from the home of Mr Bolton - Tasos Katopodis/Reuters The raid also comes after Mr Bolton said in the wake of Mr Trumps meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska that the Russian had clearly won. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Bolton served as Mr Trumps third national security adviser for 17 months, and the pair clashed over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. He faced scrutiny during the first Trump administration over his book, but in 2021 the justice department abandoned its lawsuit and dropped a separate grand jury investigation. Mr Boltons lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official said the manuscript no longer contained classified information. An FBI spokesman said the agency was conducting court-authorised activity in the area - Tasos Katopodis/Reuters In the foreword to his memoir, Mr Bolton wrote: A mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The book portrayed Mr Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government. Mr Trump responded by calling Mr Bolton a crazy war-monger who would have led the country into World War Six. A retribution presidency In a 2023 book, Mr Patel included Mr Bolton in a list of members of the executive branch deep state. Mr Bolton served as US ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush and also held positions in Ronald Reagans administration. He considered running for president in 2012 and 2016. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2022, an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to kill Mr Bolton in presumed retaliation for a January 2020 US air strike that killed the countrys most powerful general. Mr Trump repeatedly claimed he was a victim of witch hunt federal investigations during the Biden administration. On the campaign trail and since returning to office, he has promised to investigate and punish adversaries. Other steps taken against Mr Trumps political enemies include conducting mortgage fraud investigations into Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Mr Trump and his company. Mr Schiff and Ms James have denied any wrongdoing. Jack Smith, a former special prosecutor who pursued two criminal cases against Mr Trump, faces an investigation from an independent watchdog office. The Telegraph has contacted Mr Bolton for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. The FBI searched former national security adviser John Bolton's home in Maryland on Friday as part of a national security investigation in search of classified records, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News. An FBI official said in a statement that the bureau was "conducting court authorized activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety. The agency declined to comment further on the search. Bolton, who lives in Bethesda, did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CIA Director John Ratcliffe provided FBI Director Kash Patel the intelligence that was the basis of the search warrant used by federal investigators to raid Boltons home and office, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. The intelligence, the source said, involved what was alleged to be a mishandling of classified material by Bolton, who served as Trumps national security adviser during his first term, before a contentious exit strained their relationship. In a post on X early Friday, Patel wrote, "NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission." Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino also appeared to refer to the search in posts on X. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always," Bondi wrote early Friday. Public corruption will not be tolerated, Bongino wrote. The New York Post was the first to report news of the search. The search began around 7 a.m. as part of an investigation looking into Bolton's handling of classified materials and potential instances of such documents being used in leaks to news media, said a source familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation. The search was related to a criminal investigation that began during the Biden administration that did not go further at that time, the source added. An FBI official said an address on M Street in Washington, D.C., was also being searched. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. intelligence agencies have chosen in the past not to pursue criminal leak prosecutions because the information involved is so sensitive that the agencies do not want it made public in court. It was not clear if that played a role in the Biden administration's decision. FBI agents outside Bolton's home in Bethesda, Md., on Friday. (Pedro Ugarte / AFP - Getty Images) Bolton served during two Republican administrations, first as ambassador to the United Nations during George W. Bush's administration and later as national security adviser to President Donald Trump for about a year and a half during his first term. Trump and Bolton did not part ways amicably, with the president in 2019 claiming he had fired Bolton and Bolton claiming that he had offered to resign after a disagreement. Despite his work in the first Trump administration, Bolton has emerged as a fierce critic of Trump after he left office the first time in 2021, even writing a 2020 memoir about his time in the administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During the first Trump administration, the Department of Justice investigated Bolton over classified information and unsuccessfully pursued legal action to stop the publication of his memoir and keep him from getting money from it. But in 2021, during the Biden administration, the Justice Department and Boltons attorney informed a federal judge that the government was dropping its civil case against Bolton over his book. NBC News also reported at the time that the department had closed a criminal investigation into Bolton. A former Justice Department official with knowledge of Merrick Garland DOJ's decision to drop the case on the book said it was based on the facts of the case and likelihood of it prevailing in court. They said politics played no role in the decision and noted that the Garland DOJ appointed a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents and prosecuted Biden's son, Hunter, on tax and gun charges. Attorney General Merrick Garland investigated Democrats and Republicans, including President Joe Biden, his boss, said the former DOJ official, who asked not to be named. To suggest that any decision was made based on political reasons is absurd. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boltons book alleged that Trump frequently prioritized his personal political interests over national security, and described various instances of what Bolton considered misconduct or incompetence in the administrations handling of international affairs. Montgomery County police officers stand guard across the street from Bolton's home. (Pedro Ugarte / AFP - Getty Images) Prior to the book's publication, the Trump-era Justice Department sued Bolton arguing that he had violated prepublication review requirements by moving ahead without final written clearance a process meant to ensure that no classified information was disclosed. Initially, the department sought to block the books release entirely. When that failed, the administration continued its legal campaign, attempting to recover all profits Bolton earned from the book and claiming he had breached contractual obligations related to his security clearance. That effort also failed in court. Bolton maintained that he had fulfilled his legal obligations and obtained a letter from a National Security Council official in September 2020 which said the book contained no classified material. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, the White House later initiated a second review, led by a more senior official, which delayed publication. Boltons legal team argued that this additional review was politically motivated a transparent effort, they claimed, to suppress politically damaging revelations about Trumps conduct while in office. A source close to Bolton told NBC News they believe the search on his home was in response to his frequent criticism of the Trump administration, including in his book. Its retribution, pure and simple, the source said. Vice President JD Vance disputed the notion that the search of Bolton's property was rooted in politics, telling NBC News' "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker on Friday there were "broad concerns" about the former Trump official that extended beyond classified documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Our law enforcement agencies are going to be driven by law and not by politics," Vance said. "If we think that Ambassador Bolton has committed a crime, of course, eventually prosecutions will come." Asked about this morning's search, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in an interview on Fox News that he did not believe the action was taken because of personal animus. "So I dont think this is retribution, I think this is accountability, Comer said. Well see if, for no reason, they raided his house just to embarrass John Bolton, like the Democrats did to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, then I think that they should bear some criticism. But right now, I have confidence in Kash Patel, and I dont believe he would do anything without having ample evidence to move forward. Trump told reporters during a visit to a museum in Washington, D.C., that he did not know about the search beforehand and would be briefed on the matter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, just several days into the second Trump administration, the president canceled Bolton's Secret Service detail, despite the fact that Bolton was the target of an alleged murder-for-hire scheme by a member of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. More recently, Bolton has been critical of Trumps foreign policy, questioning his decision to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week and blasting members of the Trump administration this year for using a Signal group chat rather than secure government channels to discuss upcoming military strikes. In 2022, Bolton even said he was seriously considering running for president in the Republican primary to prevent Trump from winning another term. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Aug. 22 (UPI) -- The FBI raided the home of former national security adviser John Bolton Friday morning at the order of FBI Director Kash Patel. The raid of Bolton's Bethesda, Md., home, reported by the New York Post, CNN and NBC News, was authorized by a court. It was part of a "national security investigation in search of classified records," a source confirmed to NBC News. "NO ONE is above the law... @FBI agents on mission," Patel posted on X at 7:03 a.m. EDT Friday, around the time the raid started. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CNN reported it saw FBI personnel at Bolton's house. They were seen speaking to a person on the porch, and four to six agents were seen going inside. Some of the agents took bags out of vehicles to bring inside, but nothing was seen coming out of the home. Bolton told CNN he was unaware of the FBI activity and was looking into it further. Bolton was the national security adviser under President Donald Trump in his first administration, and he was ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush. He published a book in 2020, The Room Where It Happened, which Trump tried to prevent from being published. Trump claimed that Bolton revealed classified information and that Bolton broke a non-disclosure agreement, but he was unsuccessful in preventing publication. In Bolton's book, he claimed Trump was under-informed on foreign policy and obsessed with shaping his media legacy. The book also reported that Trump asked the leaders of Ukraine and China to help him win the 2020 election. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The book included material that was cleared for publication by career officials at the White House, but Trump political appointees tried to overturn that approval. Since then, Trump and Bolton have been at odds. Trump has repeatedly gone after Bolton while in office, including saying this month that the media was "constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton," CNN reported. Bolton has been a fierce critic of the Trump administration, regularly appearing on TV denouncing many of Trump's decisions. The president terminated Bolton's Secret Service detail within hours of starting his second term in January, as he has for many of his perceived enemies and political opponents. Former national security advisor John Boltons home in Bethesda, Maryland, and his office in Washington, D.C., were raided by the FBI early Friday morning, according to media reports. Bolton has not been charged nor detained, but the move reportedly is in regards to a national security investigation in search of classified records, according to NBC News. More from TheWrap Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NO ONE is above the law FBI agents on mission, FBI director Kash Patel coyly shared on X ahead of the first raid. Bolton served as an adviser during President Donald Trumps first administration, but has since become a vocal critic of his former boss. Hes also worked as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a United States assistant attorney general in the past. I know nothing about it, Trump told reporters after the fact, wearing a red Trump was right about everything hat. I just saw it this morning, they did a raid. Theyll brief me, probably today sometime. Former FBI Special Agent Rob DAmico told MSNBC hosts on Friday that he was surprised that Bolton would have had any documents after the clear intentionality from the administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I thought, Wow this is retribution. Theyre doing what they said they would do, the former FBI agent said. But then I look at it and said, Wait a second. If you supported the Mar-a-Lago raid to try to get classified documents out that were quietly gotten before, then you kind of have to support it. DAmico explained that because the team could be looking for classified documents that could live anywhere from a flash drive to a computer to a bedside table, it gives the FBI and SWAT freer reign to search the home. This is the really the first step in what could be a long process, Fox News host David Spunt said. First of all, agents have to sift through this information. That could take weeks. That could take months. Then they have to present that information to a grand jury. Both Fox and MSNBC hosts noted that John Boltons federally funded security, which was put in place because the former national security advisor is under threat by Iran, was lifted once Trump took office. He has since had to pay for private security. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MSNBCs Justice and Intel Correspondent Ken Dilanian, meanwhile, suggested that this raid seems to be part of Trump and the FBIs attempts to pursue Trumps political enemies, though they dont describe it that way. Donald Trumps law enforcement apparatus appears to be responding to his desire to re-litigate all of these issues where he thinks he was wronged by the intelligence community, and the justice department and the FBI, he said. Its going in what a lot of people think is a dangerous direction. The post FBI Raids Home, Office of Former Trump Adviser John Bolton | Video appeared first on TheWrap. FBI agents on Friday raided and searched the home of one of President Donald Trump's most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered Bolton's home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda early in the morning, an AFP reporter said. A police car with flashing lights was stationed outside the house, while journalists and onlookers gathered in the leafy street. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, posted on X: "NO ONE is above the law... @FBI agents on mission." According to The New York Times and other US media outlets, the search was ordered to determine whether Bolton had illegally shared or possessed classified information. Bolton served as Trump's adviser in his first term and angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, "The Room Where it Happened." Legal efforts to block release of the book for allegedly containing classified information were eventually dropped when Joe Biden replaced Trump in the presidency in 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton has since become a highly visible and pugnacious critic of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called "unfit to be president." A longtime critic of Iran's ruling powers, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Iranians. The raid by the FBI comes seven months after Trump stripped him -- and multiple other critics -- of government security protections. Since returning to power in January, Trump has embarked on a campaign to punish political opponents or simply anyone not fitting his right-wing agenda. The onslaught has targeted private individuals like Bolton, senior civil servants, elite universities, law firms and opposition Democratic politicians. sms/aha FBI agents raided the home on Friday of one of US President Donald Trump's most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton. Trump, asked about the early morning FBI search of Bolton's home, said he was "not a fan" of his former aide but did not know about the raid ahead of time. "I saw it on television this morning," the president told reporters. "He's sort of a lowlife," Trump said. "He's a very quiet person, except on television if he can say something bad about Trump." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An AFP reporter saw Federal Bureau of Investigation agents entering Bolton's home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda early in the morning. A police car with flashing lights was stationed outside the house, while journalists and onlookers gathered in the leafy street. The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, posted on X: "NO ONE is above the law... @FBI agents on mission." According to The New York Times and other US media outlets, the search was ordered to determine whether Bolton had illegally shared or possessed classified information. The Washington Post said Bolton was not at home at the time of the raid and has not been charged with a crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The now 76-year-old Bolton served as Trump's adviser in his first term and later angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, "The Room Where it Happened." Legal efforts to block its release for allegedly containing classified information were dropped when Joe Biden replaced Trump in the White House in 2021. Bolton has since become a highly visible and pugnacious critic of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called "unfit to be president." - 'Retribution presidency' - A longtime critic of Iran's ruling powers, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Iranians. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The raid by the FBI came seven months after Trump stripped Bolton -- and multiple other critics -- of federal security details. Asked recently in an interview with ABC whether he was worried about Trump "coming after" him, Bolton said: "He's already come after me and several others in withdrawing the protection that we had." "I think it is a retribution presidency," Bolton said. Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, whose Maryland congressional district includes Bolton's neighborhood, called the raid "disturbing." "This looks like it's very much in line with the other acts of political retribution and vengeance exacted against Bolton," Raskin told CNN. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since taking office in January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against his perceived enemies and political opponents. He has stripped former officials of their security clearances and protective details, targeted law firms involved in past cases against him and pulled federal funding from elite universities. The FBI opened criminal investigations in July into two other prominent Trump critics, former FBI director James Comey and ex-CIA chief John Brennan. Comey and Brennan were named to their positions at the FBI and CIA by Democratic president Barack Obama, and they have a contentious history with Trump dating back to his first term in the White House. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump was the target of several investigations after leaving the White House and the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home in a probe into mishandling of classified documents. Trump was also charged with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Neither case came to trial, and the special counsel -- in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president -- dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 presidential election. cl/dw NEED TO KNOW FBI agents raided the home of former Trump adviser John Bolton on Aug. 22 FBI Director Kash Patel and AG Pam Bondi posted about the raid on X, writing, 'No one is above the law' Bolton was a national security adviser during Trump's first term, however, he has since been an outspoken critic of the president The home of John Bolton, adviser-turned-outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, was raided by the FBI on Friday, Aug. 22. NBC News reported that the raid of the Maryland home was related to a national security investigation in search of classified records. Some of the documents are believed to have been leaked to news media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FBI director Kash Patel seemed to reference the raid with a post on X. He wrote, "NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission." Attorney General Pam Bondi reposted Patel, adding, "Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always." When asked by reporters about the raid, Trump said, "I don't know about it. I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's sort of a low life. He's very bad at what he does... He's not a smart guy. He could be very unpatriotic." PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty FBI agents raid John Bolton's Maryland hnme on Aug. 22, 2025 FBI agents raid John Bolton's Maryland hnme on Aug. 22, 2025 Bolton served as Trump's national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, after previously serving under President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush. However, by summer 2019, the pair had started to publicly disagree on their messaging when it came to situations like North Korea and Afghanistan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton resigned in September 2019, though he and Trump told different stories about how the departure came about. Shortly after leaving, he began shopping a memoir, The Room Where It Happened, about his time in the Trump White House. Trump's Department of Justice attempted to block the book; however, a judge ultimately ruled that he was able to publish, despite the fact that he "likely published classified materials." At the time, Trump said of Bolton and the lawsuit, "He wasn't liked at all and wasn't respected very much, and as we got to know him, he was respected less and less. Personally, I thought he was crazy." Chip Somodevilla/Getty Donald Trump and John Bolton in the White House on July 18, 2019 Donald Trump and John Bolton in the White House on July 18, 2019 Bolton was then called irrelevant in a statement from a Trump spokesperson after criticizing the president in March 2022. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "John Bolton was fired because he believes anything less than war is not enough, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich said in a statement to PEOPLE at the time. President Trump ensured peace during his administration and ended wars, making Bolton irrelevant." When he took office for his second term in January, Trump further shut the door on his professional relationship with Bolton by cutting off his security detail. Bolton received increased protection in 2022 after receiving death threats from a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. It's unclear if Bolton, 76, was home at the time of Friday's raid. As it was ongoing, he shared a recent NPR interview on X criticizing Trump's latest mediation between Russia and Ukraine. "Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do," Bolton wrote. "Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don't see these talks making any progress." Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. However, the raid may not have come as a total surprise. In a March 2024 C-SPAN interview in March 2024, Bolton warned that Trump's potential second term would be a "retribution presidency" in which he would seek to get back at his perceived political enemies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The Constitution is really too abstract for Trump," he said. "You are with him or you are not with him. So, the Justice will be, along with the defense department and the intelligence community, I think, bearing the brunt of a lot of the retribution presidency." Read the original article on People Federal agents searched the Maryland home of John Bolton, former national security adviser during President Donald Trumps first administration, early Friday, according to two law enforcement officials. "The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety. We have no further comment, a spokesperson for the FBIs Washington Field Office said. The FBI also confirmed that agents searched Bolton's office in Washington. A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment, but referenced Friday morning posts from FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission, Patel posted on X, to which Bondi replied: Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. Montgomery County Police were stationed on the scene in Bethesda as well. A department spokesperson said the officers had no role in the FBI action but were assisting with traffic control. Trump claimed he had no prior knowledge of the search on Friday, telling reporters, "I don't know about it." "I saw it on television this morning," Trump said. "I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's a real sort of a low life." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moments later, the president said the search could reveal that Bolton is "a very unpatriotic guy." "He's a not a smart guy. But he could be a very unpatriotic guy. We're going to find out. I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning, they did a raid," Trump said, adding that the DOJ will likely brief him on it later Friday. "I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I'm actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that it's better this way." In an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker on Friday, Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the administration was "in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton" in relation to a classified documents probe. But the vice president maintained that the investigation was not politically motivated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We are investigating Amb. Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law," Vance said. "Were going to be careful about that. Were going to be deliberate about that, because we dont think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically you shouldnt throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and thats what were doing." Bolton came under investigation in Trumps first term over a tell-all book about his time as national security adviser, which officials said revealed classified government information. The Justice Department sued Bolton in 2020 in an attempt to block publication of the book. But a judge rejected that effort while also publicly faulting the former national security aide for proceeding without final sign-off from the government. DOJ also conducted a parallel criminal investigation into Boltons handling of classified information, but dropped the probe and the suit the following year, after President Joe Bidens appointees took office. After his time in government, the former Trump adviser became an increasingly strident critic of Trump, attacking his foreign policy and national security moves. He became a prominent voice during Trumps 2019 impeachment over a decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine, despite declining to testify to congressional investigators. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Boltons criticisms of Trump became louder in 2020, Trump began attacking him publicly as a warmonger and a fool and suggesting that he deserved jailtime for his handling of classified information. Trump was himself criminally charged in 2023 for hoarding classified secrets in Mar-a-Lago after his first term ended, but the case was dropped after he won the 2024 election. Bolton was among a group of former officials whose security details Trump revoked on the first day of his second term, despite active threats on Boltons life from Iran. A spokesperson and an attorney who represented Bolton in the earlier probe did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday. Representatives of the publisher of Boltons 2020 book, Simon and Schuster, did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Eli Stokols contributed to this report. WASHINGTON (AP) The FBI on Friday searched the Maryland home and Washington office of former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton as part of a criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information, a person familiar with the matter said. Bolton, who emerged as an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump after being fired in 2019 and fought with the first Trump administration over a scathing book he wrote documenting his time in the White House, was not in custody Friday and has not been charged with any crimes, said the person who was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The searches, seemingly the most significant public step the Justice Department has taken against a perceived enemy of the president, are likely to elicit fresh concerns that the Trump administration is using its law enforcement powers to target the Republicans foes. They come as the Trump administration has moved to examine the activities of other critics, including by authorizing a grand jury investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe that dogged Trump for much of his first term, and as FBI and Justice Department leaders signal their loyalty to the president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Speaking to reporters during an unscheduled visit to the White House Historical Association, Trump said he had seen news coverage of Fridays searches and expected to be briefed about it by the Justice Department but also insisted he didnt want to know about it. I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. Im actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that its better this way, Trump said. Bolton had said in interviews this year that he was mindful that he could be scrutinized, telling the AP in January shortly before Trump took office, Anybody who ever disagrees with Trump has to worry about retribution. Its a pretty long list. An FBI search like the one at Bolton's properties requires authorization from a federal magistrate judge. It wasn't immediately clear what information authorities submitted to demonstrate that they had probable cause of a crime, though the Justice Department years ago launched an investigation into whether Bolton improperly disclosed classified information in a book manuscript he had written. The inquiry was later closed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vice President JD Vance denied in an NBC News interview on Friday that Bolton was being targeted because of his criticism of Trump, If theres no crime here, were not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court. Thats how it should be. Bolton was in his office building at the time Bolton was not home for the search of his home, but after it started, he was spotted Friday morning standing in the lobby of the Washington building where he keeps an office and talking to two people with FBI visible on their vests. He left a few minutes later and appeared to have gone upstairs in the building. Agents were seen taking bags into the office building through a back entrance. Messages left with a spokesperson for Bolton were not immediately returned, and a lawyer who has represented Bolton had no immediate comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Justice Department had no comment, but leaders appeared to cryptically refer to the searches in a series of social media posts Friday morning. FBI Director Kash Patel, who included Bolton on a list of members of the Executive Branch Deep State in a 2023 book he wrote, posted on X: NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission. Attorney General Pam Bondi shared his post, adding: Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. The Justice Department is separately conducting mortgage fraud investigations into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his company, and ex-Trump prosecutor Jack Smith faces an investigation from an independent watchdog office. Schiff and James have vigorously denied any wrongdoing through their lawyers. The Bolton searches also unfolded against the backdrop of a 2022 search for classified documents at Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, an action that produced since-dismissed criminal charges but remains the source of outrage for the president and supporters who insist he was unjustly targeted despite the retrieval of top-secret records. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Patel said in a Fox Business Channel interview this week that the Mar-a-Lago search represented a total weaponization and politicization of the bureau, and Trump himself referenced it on Friday, telling reporters: I guess his house was raided today, but my house was raided, also. Trump and Bolton have been at odds for years Bolton served as Trumps third national security adviser for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. He faced scrutiny during the first Trump administration over a book he wrote about his time in government that officials argued disclosed classified information. To make its case, the Justice Department in 2020 submitted sworn statements from senior administration officials, including then-National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, asserting that Bolton's manuscript included classified information that could harm national security if exposed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boltons lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information. The Biden administration Justice Department in 2021 abandoned its lawsuit and dropped a separate grand jury investigation, with Bolton's lawyer calling the effort to block the book politically motivated and illegitimate. Boltons harshly critical book, The Room Where It Happened, portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government. Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a crazy warmonger who would have led the country into World War Six. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and also held positions in President Ronald Reagans administration. He considered running for president in 2012 and 2016. Trump, on his first day back in office this year, revoked the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton was also among a group of former Trump officials whose security details were canceled by Trump earlier this year. In 2022, an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to kill Bolton in presumed retaliation for a 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed the countrys most powerful general. The handling of classified information by top government officials has been a politically loaded topic in recent years. Besides Trump, the Justice Department also investigated whether then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, mishandled classified information after serving as vice president in the Obama administration, and the FBI also recovered what it said were classified documents from the home of former Trump Vice President Mike Pence. Neither man was charged. ___ Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price, Nathan Ellgren, Lindsay Whitehurst, Alanna Durkin Richer, Byron Tau and Jill Colvin contributed to this report. FBI agents have searched the home and office of Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser John Bolton, as part of an apparent investigation into the handling of classified information. The high-profile Republican aide has been a vocal critic of the US president since quitting his first administration in 2019, and was previously accused by the White House of misusing classified information in his 2020 account of working with the president. The FBI has not commented in detail but sources familiar with Friday's search told CBS News it was related in part to classified documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton - who is yet to comment on the investigation - has not been detained and no criminal charges have been filed. Asked by reporters what the investigation was about, Trump said he did not "want to get involved" in the matter, but referred to Bolton as a "sleazebag". The president said he had not directly ordered the searches. In an interview with NBC News, Vice-President JD Vance said classified documents were "certainly part of [the investigation]" and also alluded to "broad concern" about Bolton, without offering further detail. He said the FBI would only bring a case against Bolton if "they determine that he has broken the law" and said the investigation was not politically motivated, as Democratic politicians have claimed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police vehicles and FBI personnel were seen at Bolton's home in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, Maryland on Friday morning, some of whom were seen taking boxes inside the property. In a statement to CBS, the BBC's US partner, the FBI said it was conducting "authorised activity in the area". FBI agents were also seen at Bolton's office in Washington DC. Bolton returned to his Maryland home on Friday afternoon but did not speak to reporters outside. [Getty Images] In 2020, Bolton authored The Room Where it Happened, a memoir recounting his time working in the first Trump administration between 2018 and 2019, which was fiercely critical of the president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In it, he wrote that "a mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be president". The justice department accused Bolton of a "flagrant breach" of an agreement to not disclose classified matters, but the lawsuit was dropped in June 2021, by which time Joe Biden was president. Around the time the searches began, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X: "NO ONE is above the law." The post did not refer to Bolton specifically. Attorney General Pam Bondi shared the post and added: "America's safety isn't negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton - who served as George W Bush's UN ambassador - had his Secret Service protection stripped by the Trump administration in January, along with several other former officials who have clashed with the president. Bolton has also publicly questioned the administration's handling of the war between Ukraine and Russia. Trump has been highly critical of Bolton in public, accusing him of pushing for US military intervention overseas during his time as national security adviser. Other Trump adversaries - including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic California Senator Adam Schiff - have also been subjected to investigations since he returned to office. Tween chain Claires is getting a rare third chance at retail life. The twice-bankrupt retailer on Wednesday said its intellectual property and certain operations, as well as other related assets, will be acquired by an affiliate of private holding company Ames Watson. More from WWD A court document stated that Ames Watson will pay $104 million, subject to purchase price adjustments, in cash for the transaction. The purchase agreement also includes a $36 million seller note, payable to Claires upon closing that is also subject to purchase price adjustments. Ames Watson has already provided a $22.5 million deposit for the acquisition. Purchase price adjustments typically account for inventory at closing. The purchase price includes the assumption of certain liabilities, such as cure cost and administrative rent connected with certain assigned locations. Whats more, the court document also indicated that Ames Watson has agreed to keep thousands of Claires staff employed, both at the locations it will keep open and including a significant number of employees at Claires headquarters in the Hoffman Estates suburb of Chicago. This purchase will now allow Ames Watson to acquire and operate Claires business across North America, which includes the continued operation at a minimum of 795 store locations that could rise up to 950 stores. The balance of the current store fleet between 310 to 465 locations, depending on how many Ames Watson elects to continue in operation will be liquidated through a store closing process. The proposed sale, under the oversight of the bankruptcy court, still requires judicial approval by the courts in the U.S. and Canada, as well as the completion of certain customary closing conditions. Bankruptcy courts typically approve these sales because they keep staff employed, and help provide continued business to the retailers vendors and landlords. As we continue through our restructuring proceedings, our team has worked tirelessly to explore every option for preserving the value of the Claires business and brand, Claires chief executive officer Chris Cramer said in a statement. We are glad to reach this definitive agreement to sell a portion of our North America operations to Ames Watson and maximize the value of our company for all our stakeholders. Federal agents on Friday searched the Maryland home and Washington office of John Bolton, the former national security adviser who broke publicly with President Donald Trump in his first administration, as part of a Justice Department investigation into the handling of classified material, according to multiple news reports. The court-authorized searches mark a dramatic escalation in the Trump Administrations pursuit of one of the presidents most outspoken critics from within his own party. Bolton, who served 17 months in the White House before being dismissed in 2019, was neither detained nor charged, the reports said. The investigation makes Bolton the latest in a growing list of Trumps political adversaries to be targeted by the Justice Department since the President returned to office in January. In recent months, federal prosecutors have opened inquiries targeting New York Attorney General Letitia James, who pursued civil fraud claims against Trumps company; Sen. Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, a leading figure in Trumps first impeachment; and former FBI director James Comey. All have denied wrongdoing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Justice Department has declined to comment publicly on the search, but its leaders appeared to allude to the operation in social media posts. FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X: NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission. Attorney General Pam Bondi reposted the message, adding, Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always. Speaking to reporters later in the day, Trump insisted that he didnt know about the raid but expected to be briefed on it by the Justice Department. I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. Im actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that its better this way, Trump said. The precise focus of the Bolton investigation remains unclear, though it is believed to concern a potential mishandling or retention of national security information. Trump had previously threatened to jail Bolton over his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, which depicted Trump as uninformed on foreign policy and driven primarily by personal political gain. The Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr sought to block the books release, claiming it contained classified information, but career officials had cleared the manuscript, and the case was dropped under the Biden Administration in 2021. Trump has repeatedly attacked his onetime adviser, deriding him as a warmonger who could have led the country into World War Six. On his first day back in the Oval Office in January, Trump revoked security clearances from more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Trump also canceled Boltons Secret Service protection, despite the fact that the Justice Department had said he was the target of an alleged murder-for-hire scheme by a member of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton also served as United Nations ambassador under President George W. Bush and held positions in President Ronald Reagans administration. As national security adviser, he frequently clashed with Trump over Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. I'm not a fan of John Bolton, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. I thought he was a sleaze bag, actually, and he suffers major Trump derangement syndrome. Earlier this month, Trump complained that the media was constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton. In an ABC News interview this month, Bolton described the current administration as a retribution presidency, saying Trump had already come after him by stripping away his security detail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2023, the Biden Justice Department charged Trump with illegally mishandling classified documents, alleging that Trump broke the law by taking the classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after leaving office in January 2021, showing off a Pentagon plan of attack and classified map, and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the documents. Last year, Jack Smith, who was the Department of Justice Special Counsel at the time, filed to drop the charges after Trumps reelection. I guess his house was raided today, but my house was raided also, called Mar-a-Lago, Trump told reporters on Friday. I know the feeling, its not a good feeling. Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com. The FBI searched former national security adviser John Bolton's house in Bethesda, Maryland, early Friday morning, the bureau confirmed to CBS News. "The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area," the FBI said in a statement. "There is no threat to public safety. We have no further comment." Sources familiar with the search told CBS News it is related in part to a classified documents investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FBI agents were also seen exiting a downtown Washington, D.C., building where Bolton's political action committee, John Bolton PAC, is located. Late Friday morning, the FBI confirmed agents were on site at his office for "court authorized activity." The Associated Press reported that after the search at Bolton's home had begun, he was seen in the lobby of the building, talking to two people wearing FBI vests. Agents were seen taking bags into the office building through a back entrance. FBI agents walk outside the home of John Bolton, former Trump national security adviser, after conducting a court-authorized search on Aug. 22, 2025 in Bethesda, Maryland. / Credit: PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images Bolton did not respond to multiple attempts to reach him. He was seen returning to his home after 2 p.m. ET. Just before he arrived, FBI agents could be seen carrying a number of boxes from his house. The New York Post first reported Bolton's home was being searched by the FBI. President Trump claimed Friday that he only found out about the search of Bolton's house when he saw it on TV. During a brief visit to the People's House museum, he told reporters he thought he'd be briefed on it by the Justice Department "probably sometime today." The president called Bolton"not very smart" and said that "we're gonna find out" if he's "a very unpatriotic guy." He claims that he tells AG Bondi and others "I don't want to know" and "you have to do what you have to do," adding that he "could be the one starting it" but feels it's better coming from DOJ. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not respond to immediate requests for comment. As the search was underway, top U.S. law enforcement officials posted on social media. "NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission," FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X, at 7:03 a.m. Attorney General Pam Bondi shared Patel's post at 7:45 a.m., commenting, "America's safety isn't negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always." Bolton served as national security adviser during Mr. Trump's first term, but resigned or was asked to resign by Mr. Trump after serving in the job for 17 months. File: Former U.S. security adviser John Bolton / Credit: Jesus Hellin/Europa Press via Getty Images During Mr. Trump's first term, Bolton wrote a book about his tenure as national security adviser, "The Room Where It Happened," which portrayed Mr. Trump in an unflattering light. The first Trump administration tried to stop the publication of the book and later sued him for the profits. The Justice Department opened a criminal inquiry into whether Bolton had published classified information, claiming he had failed to complete a prepublication review. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In June 2020, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth denied the Justice Department's effort to stop the publication of Bolton's book, but after reviewing the classified materials at issue, said in his ruling that Bolton "likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations." "Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States," Lamberth also wrote. "He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability." In November 2020, Mr. Trump claimed that Bolton "illegally released much Classified Information" in his book. He called Bolton "a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information," in another social media post. The Biden administration later closed the investigation into Bolton and dropped the lawsuit against him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Within 24 hours of Mr. Trump's inauguration for his second term, his administration removed Bolton's U.S. Secret Service protection. Bolton had been granted the protection by the Biden administration in December 2021, after a series of threats from Iran that were linked to retaliation for a drone strike ordered by Mr. Trump during Bolton's tenure. That strike resulted in the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. 5 killed, dozens more injured in New York bus crash Reporter's Notebook: When smashing trains was an American pastime Giant beach tents are taking over shorelines and not everyone is happy On Friday, the FBI executed a search of the Maryland home of Donald Trumps former national security adviser John Bolton, who left his first administration on bitter terms, only to become one of Trumps more prominent Republican foes. Some sources are claiming the raid is part of a national security investigation in search of classified records (though details and justifications are so far not being presented) and Trumps MAGA-loyalist FBI Director Kash Patel is celebrating the move on social media. It is unclear what the feds did, or didnt, find. Lawfares Ben Wittes, who was on the scene of the FBI raid, tells Rolling Stone: I didnt see them leaving with stuff, but that I was pushed back and didnt have a direct view. Wittes adds he did not see Bolton himself this morning. Whatever Bolton, a Bush-era Iraq War propagandist and regime-change enthusiast who later joined the first Trump White House as a top aide, does or doesnt have in his house is almost irrelevant to whats going on here: An openly lawless administration and Republican Party that pretends to hate the Deep State is merely expanding it, repurposing it to punish Trumps personal nemeses. Republicans, of course, worked to shield Trump from any accountability in his post-presidency after Mar-a-Lago was raided by the feds because he wouldnt stop hoarding classified documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But more importantly, Trumps FBI has been going after Bolton for the same reason this administration launched, at the presidents explicit direction, a criminal investigation into a man whose only crime seems to be his refusal to help Trump steal an election. He pissed off Trump, so now he has to suffer. In the new authoritarian age of Trump, that is true for so many on the federal governments ever-growing enemies list, and it doesnt matter if youre a famous warmonger or a powerless civilian. Its not about John Bolton; it is about everyone else. Trumps former national security adviser did not immediately respond to Rolling Stones request for comment Friday morning. The president and his team have wanted to prosecute Bolton ever since Trumps first term in the Oval Office, arguing that Boltons 2020 memoir criticizing Trump was grounds enough. Per CNN, sources say the search of Boltons house was related to an investigation into whether he shared classified information in that book. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Trump and his lieutenants this year have wanted to find a variety of ways to put the screws to Bolton and other high-profile foes to make examples of them, whether or not criminal charges or a trial ever actually occur. In January, one of Trumps first acts as a reelected president was to revoke Boltons Secret Service detail, which President Joe Biden had extended, citing an alleged Iranian scheme to assassinate Bolton. (Its worth noting that Irans government allegedly wants to murder Bolton specifically because of things President Trump had him do.) During the 2024 election, as Rolling Stone previously reported, Trump would joke to close allies that he wouldnt mind it if Iranian assassins took out Bolton, who Trump loathes just that much. Thats terrible, I shouldnt say that, Trump would privately say, with a smirk on his face. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Salmon dries in Quinhagak, Alaska, in July 2023. (Photo by Alice Bailey/University of Alaska Fairbanks) Alaskas current subsistence fishing program can continue without changes, according to a Wednesday opinion by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling allows the federal government to continue offering preferential fishing rights to rural Alaskans mostly Alaska Natives who live a subsistence lifestyle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That preference exists only in public waters under federal control, not in state waters, because federal law requires the preference but the Alaska Constitution forbids state officials from implementing it. In their 40-page opinion, the judges said that recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings do not mandate a change in the way the state and federal governments split management of fish and game in Alaska. Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said in an emailed statement that he was disappointed but not surprised by the appeals courts decision and implied that the issue will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorneys representing the state of Alaska had argued that new Supreme Court precedents in particular, a 2019 case involving an Alaska man and his hovercraft mean that the state alone has the power to manage subsistence fishing in Alaskas navigable waters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2021, attempting to implement that belief, the state issued fishing orders on the Kuskokwim River that contradicted the instructions of federal managers. The federal government sued the state the following year, and Alaska Native groups, including the Alaska Federation of Natives, sided with the federal government. Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in the federal governments favor, but the state appealed to the 9th Circuit. A ruling in the states favor would have ended the so-called Katie John system, named after an Alaska Native woman who served as the lead plaintiff in three key court decisions that define how Alaska fish and game are managed today. Although Katie John, the Ahtna woman who advocated for subsistence fishing rights on behalf of Alaska Natives, has since passed away, the precedent that bears her name lives on, wrote Judge Consuelo Callahan, a George W. Bush appointee, on behalf of the three-judge panel. At the core of the issue is whether the federal government or the state of Alaska have authority to regulate fishing in navigable waters that flow through federal parks, preserves and reserves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not prevent a man named John Sturgeon from using his hovercraft on the Nation River, located within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, because the river didnt count as public land under the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. At the time, the court said in a footnote to that decision that the Katie John decisions, which settled subsistence management, were not at issue in this case, and we therefore do not disturb the Ninth Circuits holdings that the Park Service may regulate subsistence fishing on navigable waters. Sturgeon himself told the Anchorage Daily News that he was glad that his case didnt touch on Katie John. But within two years, the state was preparing to take unilateral control over subsistence fishing on rural rivers within parks and preserves, and in particular the Kuskokwim River, where federal fisheries managers had restricted fishing due to low returns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They imposed fishing limitations. The state didnt. That mattered because under the states rules, anyone in Alaska has subsistence fishing rights. An Alaska resident who flies from Anchorage to Bethel to fish has the same right to fish as someone who lives in Bethel. Under the federal system, the person in Bethel has priority. Alaska Native groups were alarmed. After the federal government filed suit, the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission intervened on the side of the federal government, as did the Association of Village Council Presidents, which represents tribal governments throughout Southwest Alaska. Ahtna Inc., the regional Native Corp. in the eastern Interior, also intervened even though it had no direct connection to the Kuskokwim River fishery. Instead, it feared broader implications across the state. So too did the Alaska Federation of Natives, which joined the case later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nathaniel Amdur-Clark, who represented the intertribal fish commission, called Wednesdays opinion a really big win for tribes and for Alaska Native people because the federal government can offer the rural subsistence preference and because the federal government has traditionally managed fisheries with extensive tribal input. The Alaska Constitution requires maximum sustained yield for fisheries, and Amdur-Clark said that tends to favor commercial and recreational fishermen, not subsistence users. Continuing federal management is akin to or also includes continuing tribal management, and thats a really good thing, Amdur-Clark said. While the lawsuit only involved navigable waters, Amdur-Clark said thats where the majority of subsistence fishing takes place. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erin Dougherty Lynch, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, represented the Association of Village Council Presidents and some other plaintiffs. She said its important to see the case as part of a broader trend with the state, which has also sought to curtail subsistence hunting management by the federal government. This case is situated within their statehood defense project. Its a series of cases theyve intentionally brought to push back against the federal government, she said. Among the attorneys representing the state is John Michael Connolly of Consovoy McCarthy, a national firm hired by the state at high cost for its expertise at the U.S. Supreme Court. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Scott Kendall, an attorney representing the Alaska Federation of Natives, said that he hasnt heard anything from the state directly, but we have every reason to believe they intend to take this on (to the Supreme Court). I think the state should probably let it be, because its been this way for decades. People are relatively satisfied, and thats been the law of the land, but we wont be surprised if the state continues. Taylor, the attorney general, is resigning on Aug. 29 and is expected to announce a run for governor in the near future. About the case, he said by email, Although the 9th Circuit clearly recognized that prior case law is inconsistent with the recent Supreme Court case, it was unwilling to do the hard work of actually overturning its own case law and properly reconciling the meaning of public lands in ANILCA. This continues the unworkable dual management approach to our fisheries to the detriment of sustainable management of our fisheries for all rural subsistence users. The fish dont adhere to borders, and our fisheries management shouldnt either. I am disappointed but not surprised. We always knew this case would need to be decided at the highest level. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE A federal judge handed "complete relief" to a group gathering signatures for an adult-use marijuana ballot initiative that says it's been hindered by a state law regulating petition gathering. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled Aug. 22 that state prosecutors can't enforce a section of this law against Smart and Safe Florida that barred non-Florida residents and non-U.S. citizens from gathering signatures for a ballot initiative. An earlier court order also barred enforcement by Florida's secretary of state, attorney general and county supervisors of elections. "The provisions force Plaintiffs to choose between curtailing their First Amendment rights to engage incore political speech via petition circulation or risk invalidation of verified petitions, crippling civil penalties, and further enforcement actions," Walker wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The crux of the case is that the state's law violates First Amendment protections to political speech and to petition the government. This ruling comes 10 days after Tallahassee attorney Glenn Burhans, who represents Smart and Safe Florida, told the judge that the "harm" against the group was traceable to the state's prosecuting attorneys, and approving an injunction would get their nonresident volunteers who gather signatures back to work. A request for comment to Burhans is pending. At that telephonic hearing on Aug. 12, Mohammad Jazil, the state's outside counsel on the case, disagreed. Jazil objected to the marijuana group's motion since a similar order was already waiting on a decision from a federal appeals court, and he was concerned about any problems with that case that could arise if by another ruling from Walker. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He also pointed out that the groups' "improper successive requests for relief ... have been repeatedly rejected." Walker didn't buy Jazil's argument. "Contrary to Defendants suggestion, there is no bright line rule requiring this Court to deny Plaintiffs motions (just) because they previously sought similar relief from other parties," Walker wrote. The challenge to HB 1205, so far Walker's order acknowledged that this case is only about three months old, but it's already developed a "rich procedural history." It was filed early May by Florida Decides Healthcare, a group backing Medicaid expansion. The lawsuit was filed against Florida's secretary of state, attorney general, 67 supervisors of elections and state attorneys, the elected prosecutors for each of Florida's 20 judicial circuits. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Soon after, Smart and Safe Florida and Florida Right to Clean Water joined the lawsuit. Other groups that mobilize voters also joined, including Poder LatinX and the League of Women Voters of Florida. Earlier in July, Walker upheld most of HB 1205, which toughened regulations for petition gathering while also introducing stricter deadlines, heightened penalties and fines and new regulations that restricted nonresidents and noncitizens from circulating petitions. But he agreed that regulations on nonresidents and noncitizens imposed a "severe burden on political expression." It's also not Smart and Safe Florida's first time getting signatures to legalize recreational adult-use marijuana. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the 2024 elections, its ballot initiative made it to Florida's ballot, but it failed to meet the state's required threshold of 60% support from voters. The group's second try to get it passed is now more specific, including prohibitions for marketing toward children and banning public use of marijuana. This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Stephany Matat is based in Tallahassee, Fla. She can be reached at SMatat@gannett.com. On X: @stephanymatat. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Part of Florida law on petition gathering ruled unconstitutional George Mason University, home to one of the most diverse student bodies in the country, is at the center of a new federal civil rights investigation over its diversity and hiring practices. (Photo courtesy of Evan Cantwell/George Mason University) George Mason University has been found in violation of federal civil rights laws, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday, citing unlawful hiring and promotion practices. Over the past two months, President Gregory Washington and GMU have faced mounting questions after the Department of Education and Department of Justice launched four federal investigations. Two of those involve alleged racial discrimination in employment, while another examines the schools diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Education Department said Washington was notified of a violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, in institutions receiving federal funds. The university has 10 days to resolve the violations, which the agency said stem from illegally using race and other immutable characteristics in university practices and policies, including hiring and promotion. Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said Washingtons effort to expunge the so-called racist vestiges from GMUs campus led to a university-wide campaign that imposed unlawful DEI policies. You cant make this up, Trainor said. Despite this unfortunate chapter in Masons history, the university now has the opportunity to come into compliance with federal civil rights laws by entering into a Resolution Agreement with the Office for Civil Rights, he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the last seven months, this much is clear: The Trump-McMahon Department of Education will not allow racially exclusionary practices which violate the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause, and Supreme Court precedent to continue corrupting our nations educational institutions. Washington will be required to issue a statement affirming that GMU will conduct all recruitment, hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions in compliance with Title VI. He must also ensure the university disseminates information to the campus community explaining how to file a discrimination complaint, according to the announcement. The resolution further requires the university to review and revise its policies and documents on hiring and promotion to comply with Title VI. GMU must also maintain records demonstrating compliance and make them available to the federal government upon request. Some in the GMU community feared Washington would lose his job amid the ongoing investigations. Instead, after a three-hour closed session, the Board of Visitors unanimously approved a 1.5% state-approved salary bonus for him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a statement, the Board of Visitors said it is reviewing the proposed resolution steps and takes the matter seriously. We will continue to respond fully and cooperatively to all inquiries from the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the U.S. House of Representatives and evaluate the evidence that comes to light, the board said. Our sole focus is our fiduciary duty to serve the best interests of the university and the people of the commonwealth of Virginia. The next board meeting is scheduled for Sept. 25. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Alabama Senate chamber on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. A federal judge Friday ruled that Alabama's Senate map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and said a remedy should include a majority or near-majority Black Senate district in Montgomery. ((Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)) A federal judge ruled Friday that Alabamas current state Senate district map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning voting laws that discriminate based on race. In a 261-page opinion in a lawsuit brought against the state by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, appointed by President Donald Trump, said to remedy the situation, the Alabama Legislature must draw a new Senate district in the Montgomery area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As the Legislature considers such plans, it should be mindful of the practical reality, based on the ample evidence of intensely racially polarized voting adduced during the trial, that any remedial plan will need to include an additional district in the Montgomery area in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it, she wrote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Manasco said the plaintiffs had shown that another majority-Black district could be drawn in Montgomery. She rejected a claim from plaintiffs that state Senate districts drawn in the Huntsville area violate Section 2, writing that the plaintiffs had not shown that they could draw a reasonably configured district in the Huntsville area where Black voters would constitute a majority. Should the courts decision be upheld, it would be the second time in four years a federal court found Alabamas 2021 congressional and state legislative maps to be racially discriminatory. A three-judge panel that included Manasco ruled in 2022 that the states 2021 congressional map did not give Black voters a proper opportunity to choose their preferred leaders, leading to an odyssey that in 2023 resulted in a new congressional map with a majority Black district in west Alabama and a near-majority Black district in the southern Black Belt. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was not immediately clear Friday if the state would appeal the ruling, though it twice took the congressional case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Messages seeking comment were left Friday for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and Senate Pro Tempore Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman. Messages were also left with Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery, and Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, both of whom represent Montgomery in the Alabama Senate. Secretary of State Wes Allen declined to comment on the ongoing litigation in a written statement Friday afternoon. My Office is still reviewing the opinion at this time. We will continue to monitor the case closely, Allen wrote. Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery (left) speaks with Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road on the floor of the Alabama Senate on April 1, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) Alabama NAACP President Banard Simelton said in a phone interview Friday that he expects the state to appeal the ruling, but is grateful the court is looking at the states district maps. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think in the bigger picture, it reflects, the overall redistricting plan for the state of Alabama was discriminatory. Were glad that the courts are seeing it for what it is, a discriminatory redistricting plan, Simelton said. We will continue to fight for redistricting on the state level, as well as in municipalities and places like that. It was also not immediately clear when maps might be redrawn, should Manascos ruling be upheld. A federal court in 2017 ruled that 12 of Alabamas 105 House districts violated the Voting Rights Act and had to be redrawn. The Legislature did so during that years regular session. The Legislature in 2023 drew a new map in a special session; the court rejected the map as unresponsive and ordered its own. Manasco, who ordered new maps be put in place for the 2026 elections, scheduled a status conference for next Thursday. The plaintiffs claim that the districts in Montgomery and Huntsville dilute Black voting power in the state in violation of the VRA by unconstitutionally packing Black voters into particular districts. The Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the fight is not over. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are pleased that the court recognized the injustice in Montgomery and is requiring Alabama to fix its unlawful redistricting. While we are disappointed that Black voters in Huntsville will continue to be denied fair representation, the fight is far from over, said Davin Rosborough, ACLUs voting rights project deputy director. The ruling said the court will draw the new districts if the Legislature does not do so in time for use in upcoming elections. In both the congressional and Alabama Senate lawsuits, federal judges have noted that voting in Alabama is racially polarized, with white Alabamians tending to support Republicans and Black Alabamians tending to support Democrats. Courts have found that prior maps allowed Black Alabamians, who make up 27% of the population, to have little practical ability to elect their preferred leaders. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month asked plaintiffs in a Louisiana redistricting case to brief them on whether majority-minority congressional districts, the most common method of ensuring minority representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, are constitutional. Ruling them unconstitutional could affect recent decisions about Alabamas districts. This story was updated at 3:02 p.m. to include a statement from Secretary of State Wes Allen. The Alabama Senate chamber on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. A federal judge Friday ruled that Alabama's Senate map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and said a remedy should include a majority or near-majority Black Senate district in Montgomery. ((Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)) A federal court ruled Friday that Alabamas current state Senate district map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning voting laws that discriminate based on race. In a 261-page opinion in a lawsuit brought against the state by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, appointed by President Donald Trump, said to remedy the situation, the Alabama Legislature must draw a new Senate district in the Montgomery area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As the Legislature considers such plans, it should be mindful of the practical reality, based on the ample evidence of intensely racially polarized voting adduced during the trial, that any remedial plan will need to include an additional district in the Montgomery area in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it, she wrote. Manasco said the plaintiffs had shown that another majority-Black district could be drawn in Montgomery. She rejected a claim from plaintiffs that state Senate districts drawn in the Huntsville area violate Section 2, writing that the plaintiffs had not shown that they could draw a reasonably configured district in the Huntsville area where Black voters would constitute a majority. Should the courts decision be upheld, it would be the second time in four years a federal court found Alabamas 2021 congressional and state legislative maps to be racially discriminatory. A three-judge panel that included Manasco ruled in 2022 that the states 2021 congressional map did not give Black voters a proper opportunity to choose their preferred leaders, leading to an odyssey that in 2023 resulted in a new congressional map with a majority Black district in west Alabama and a near-majority Black district in the southern Black Belt. It was not immediately clear Friday if the state would appeal the ruling, though it twice took the congressional case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Messages seeking comment were left Friday for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall; Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen and Senate Pro Tempore Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman. Messages were also left with Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery, and Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, both of whom represent Montgomery in the Alabama Senate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alabama NAACP President Banard Simelton said in a phone interview Friday that he expects the state to appeal the ruling, but is grateful the court is looking at the states district maps. I think in the bigger picture, it reflects the overall redistricting plan for the state of Alabama was discriminatory. Were glad that the courts are seeing it for what it is, a discriminatory redistricting plan, Simelton said. We will continue to fight for redistricting on the state level, as well as in municipalities and places like that. It was also not immediately clear when maps might be redrawn, should Manascos ruling be upheld. A federal court in 2017 ruled that 12 of Alabamas 105 House districts violated the Voting Rights Act and had to be redrawn. The Legislature did so during that years regular session. The Legislature in 2023 drew a new map in a special session; the court rejected the map as unresponsive and ordered its own. Manasco, who ordered new maps be put in place for the 2026 elections, scheduled a status conference for next Thursday. The plaintiffs claim that the districts in Montgomery and Huntsville dilute Black voting power in the state in violation of the VRA by unconstitutionally packing Black voters into particular districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the fight is not over. We are pleased that the court recognized the injustice in Montgomery and is requiring Alabama to fix its unlawful redistricting. While we are disappointed that Black voters in Huntsville will continue to be denied fair representation, the fight is far from over, said Davin Rosborough, ACLUs voting rights project deputy director. The ruling said the court will draw the new districts if the Legislature does not do so in time for use in coming elections. In both the congressional and Alabama Senate lawsuits, federal judges have noted that voting in Alabama is racially polarized, with white Alabamians tending to support Republicans and Black Alabamians tending to support Democrats. Courts have found that earlier maps allowed Black Alabamians, who make up 27% of the population, to have little practical ability to elect their preferred leaders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month asked plaintiffs in a Louisiana redistricting case to brief them on whether majority-minority congressional districts, the most common method of ensuring minority representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, are constitutional. Ruling them unconstitutional could affect recent decisions about Alabamas districts. This story first appeared in the Alabama Reflector, a member with the Phoenix in the nonprofit States Newsroom A federal judge in Miami ruled late Thursday that Florida is prohibited from transferring any more individuals to the Everglades detention facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz." In an 82-page decision, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams sided with environmental advocates, ordering the state to halt all construction at the site. She also gave Florida 60 days to dismantle fencing, lighting, generators, and waste containers installed to support the project. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Courts ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, together with Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity. Last month, the Tribe moved to intervene in the ongoing federal case, Friends of the Everglades, Inc. et al. v. Noem et al. The Court granted the Tribes request to intervene. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida released a statement late Thursday applauding Judge Williams' ruling. The Tribe filed suit alongside the other plaintiffs to stop the unpermitted construction of Alligator Alcatraz adjacent to ten traditional Miccosukee villages, on public lands seized by emergency order. Thursday's decision accomplishes three objectives in fulfillment of the National Environmental Policy Act: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement (1) Halting further construction activities at the immigration detention facility; (2) Prohibiting detention of additional prisoners not already detained; and (3) Ordering the removal off all fencing, generators, sunbelt lighting, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles within 60 days, or when the facility is rendered safe. "This is not our first fight for our land and rights. The Miccosukee Tribe remains steadfast in our commitment to protect our ancestral lands in Big Cypress from development as a permanent detention facility. We welcome the Court's decision to halt further expansion of this facility, and we will continue to fight to ensure that the government does not dodge its legal requirements for environmental review on seized public lands, sacred to our people," Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress said in the statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Williams also ordered the government to take down temporary fencing that had limited access for Miccosukee tribal members, ensuring they can once again reach the site as they did before the facility was built. Officials have not revealed how many people are currently being held at the remote facility located in the wetlands west of Miami. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Likewise, the offices of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not provide immediate responses. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis opened the facility in July, stating it was intended to eventually house up to 4,000 individuals awaiting deportation as part of former President Donald Trumps immigration enforcement efforts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the Miccosukee Tribe, the fight continues. "We will always stand up for our culture, our sovereignty, and for the Everglades. When it comes to our homeland, there is no compromise," Chairman Cypress said. About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net." Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net In an aerial view from a helicopter, the migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" is seen located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Florida. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images) A federal judge has ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent to the states immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades and known as Alligator Alcatraz. The judge also called upon the government to begin dismantling much of the facility. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida gave both the state and federal government 60 days to move out existing detainees and to begin removing temporary fencing, lightning features, and generators, gas, sewage and other waste and receptacles installed to support the project. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In her 82-page decision, Judge Williams cited extensive harm to the Everglades caused by operation of the facility, which was built in eight days. The state of Florida filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit immediately after the order was released. Two environmental groups Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in late June, shortly after the state announced that the facility was about to open, claiming the plan had not gone through any environmental review as required under federal law. They were joined in the lawsuit by the Miccosukee Tribe. In her ruling, Judge Williams agreed, saying that under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the government was required to issue an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or conduct an Environmental Assessment (EA). The Defendants chose not to do so, she wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Defendants decision to refrain from issuing an EIS or conducting an EA, and then building a detention camp, represents a determinative position on the matter and has adversely affected Plaintiffs recreational, conservational, and aesthetic interests, she wrote in her order. Accordingly, the Defendants decision not to issue an EIS or conduct an EA and then construct a detention camp qualifies as a final agency action. The Trump administration contended that a review under NEPA did not apply because, while the center houses federal immigration detainees, it is run by the state. State officials have said that their authority came from an agreement with the federal government. Judge Williams strongly objected. Defendants essentially tell the Court that the project is purely state action because its employees (presumably) wear uniforms bearing state agency logos, and because the federal government seems to have held back on sending its reimbursement until some unidentified impediment (perhaps, this litigation) has abated, she wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the project was requested by the federal government; built with a promise of full federal funding; constructed in compliance with ICE standards; staffed by deputized ICE Task Force Officers acting under color of federal authority and at the direction and supervision of ICE officials; and exists for the sole purpose of detaining and deporting those subject to federal immigration enforcement. Detainees are brought onto the site by federal agents and deported from the site by federal agents on federally owned aircraft. In concluding the camp is a major federal action, the Court will adhere to the test-tested adage: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then its a duck. The judge quoted President Harry S. Trumans address during the 1947 dedication of the Everglades National Park, and noted how a proposal in 1967 to create the worlds largest jetport at the site was abandoned and the Big Cypress National Preserve was created to protect the area. Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades, she wrote. This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. Clear message The two environmental groups that filed the initial lawsuit hailed the decision on Thursday night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a landmark victory for the Everglades and countless Americans who believe this imperiled wilderness should be protected, not exploited, said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government and there are consequences for ignoring them. This injunction is a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades, added Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. This brutal detention center was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks. The judges order came just in time to stop it all from unraveling. Central Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, who toured the facility for the second time on Wednesday, issued a blistering statement after Judge Williams order was released. The Everglades Immigrant Detention Center is nothing more than a state-sponsored, government-funded internment camp designed to keep Black and Brown immigrants in hellish conditions while Donald Trump pretends it makes our country safer, he said in a written statement. Thanks to the tireless work of Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe, this inhumane facility has been ordered to halt operations. This is a major victory for justice, civil rights, and our environment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Williams had placed a temporary restraining order pausing new construction at the detention center on Aug. 7 including filling, paving, and installation of new infrastructure and lighting. That ruling may have already proved to DeSantis that Williams, a 2010 appointee to the federal court by President Obama, would ultimately rule the way she did. Its pretty clear were in front of a judge who is not going to give us a fair shake on this, he said earlier this week. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Chilean copper mining giant Codelco has announced a reduction in its 2025 production guidance following an accident at its El Teniente copper mine that decreased the facility's output by 33,000 tonnes (t), reported Reuters, citing the companys CEO Ruben Alvarado. El Teniente is now expected to produce 316,000t this year. The output decline translates to a $340m loss, slightly above the $300m Codelco estimated last week. On 31 July, an accident at El Teniente resulted in six fatalities near the new Andesita section of the mine's extensive underground tunnel network. The incident necessitated a temporary cessation of mining operations. Chairman Maximo Pacheco, in conversation with Reuters, indicated that the decision to reopen Andesita would only be made after the completion of an internal investigation. Earlier this month, Chile's Labour Directorate authorised the partial and gradual resumption of underground operations at the El Teniente mine. Pacheco also mentioned that updated total copper production guidance would be released alongside the company's financial results for the first half of the year, which were delayed from 1 August due to the accident. Despite the setback, Codelco maintains its long-term objective of achieving annual copper production of 1.7 million tonnes (mt) by 2030. In March, the company had set a 2025 production target of between 1.37mt and 1.4mt, slightly higher than the previous year's output. In a recent report, Codelco detailed progress on the Safe and Progressive Restart of Operations Plan at the El Teniente Division and ongoing support for the families of the deceased workers. The company reported that nearly 17,970 employees and partners have engaged in reflection, support and training sessions, with continued assistance provided to the families affected. Operational updates from the mining company revealed that several sectors within the mine are active, including Diablo Regimiento, Esmeralda, Pacifico Superior, Panel Esmeralda, Panel Reno and Pilar Norte. "Codelco lowers 2025 production guidance after El Teniente mine accident" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. In an aerial view from a helicopter, the migrant detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz is seen located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Florida. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images) A federal judge has ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent to the states immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades and known as Alligator Alcatraz. The judge also called upon the government to begin dismantling much of the facility. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida gave both the state and federal government 60 days to move out existing detainees and to begin removing temporary fencing, lightning features, and generators, gas, sewage and other waste and receptacles installed to support the project. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In her 82-page decision, Judge Williams cited extensive harm to the Everglades caused by operation of the facility, which was built in eight days. The state of Florida filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit immediately after the order was released. Two environmental groups Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in late June, shortly after the state announced that the facility was about to open, claiming the plan had not gone through any environmental review as required under federal law. They were joined in the lawsuit by the Miccosukee Tribe. In her ruling, Judge Williams agreed, saying that under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the government was required to issue an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or conduct an Environmental Assessment (EA). The Defendants chose not to do so, she wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Defendants decision to refrain from issuing an EIS or conducting an EA, and then building a detention camp, represents a determinative position on the matter and has adversely affected Plaintiffs recreational, conservational, and aesthetic interests, she wrote in her order. Accordingly, the Defendants decision not to issue an EIS or conduct an EA and then construct a detention camp qualifies as a final agency action. The Trump administration contended that a review under NEPA did not apply because, while the center houses federal immigration detainees, it is run by the state. State officials have said that their authority came from an agreement with the federal government. Judge Williams strongly objected. Defendants essentially tell the Court that the project is purely state action because its employees (presumably) wear uniforms bearing state agency logos, and because the federal government seems to have held back on sending its reimbursement until some unidentified impediment (perhaps, this litigation) has abated, she wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the project was requested by the federal government; built with a promise of full federal funding; constructed in compliance with ICE standards; staffed by deputized ICE Task Force Officers acting under color of federal authority and at the direction and supervision of ICE officials; and exists for the sole purpose of detaining and deporting those subject to federal immigration enforcement. Detainees are brought onto the site by federal agents and deported from the site by federal agents on federally owned aircraft. In concluding the camp is a major federal action, the Court will adhere to the test-tested adage: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then its a duck. The judge quoted President Harry S. Trumans address during the 1947 dedication of the Everglades National Park, and noted how a proposal in 1967 to create the worlds largest jetport at the site was abandoned and the Big Cypress National Preserve was created to protect the area. Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades, she wrote. This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. Clear message The two environmental groups that filed the initial lawsuit hailed the decision on Thursday night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a landmark victory for the Everglades and countless Americans who believe this imperiled wilderness should be protected, not exploited, said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government and there are consequences for ignoring them. This injunction is a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades, added Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. This brutal detention center was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks. The judges order came just in time to stop it all from unraveling. Central Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, who toured the facility for the second time on Wednesday, issued a blistering statement after Judge Williams order was released. The Everglades Immigrant Detention Center is nothing more than a state-sponsored, government-funded internment camp designed to keep Black and Brown immigrants in hellish conditions while Donald Trump pretends it makes our country safer, he said in a written statement. Thanks to the tireless work of Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe, this inhumane facility has been ordered to halt operations. This is a major victory for justice, civil rights, and our environment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Williams had placed a temporary restraining order pausing new construction at the detention center on Aug. 7 including filling, paving, and installation of new infrastructure and lighting. That ruling may have already proved to DeSantis that Williams, a 2010 appointee to the federal court by President Obama, would ultimately rule the way she did. Its pretty clear were in front of a judge who is not going to give us a fair shake on this, he said earlier this week. This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix. Like Maine Morning Star, Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. In an aerial view from a helicopter, the migrant detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz is seen located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Florida. A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to dismantle the facility, citing the harm its rushed construction had done to the Everglades. (Alon Skuy/Getty Images) This story originally appeared on Florida Phoenix. A federal judge has ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent to the states immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades and known as Alligator Alcatraz. The judge also called upon the government to begin dismantling much of the facility. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida gave both the state and federal government 60 days to move out existing detainees and to begin removing temporary fencing, lightning features, and generators, gas, sewage and other waste and receptacles installed to support the project. In her 82-page decision, Judge Williams cited extensive harm to the Everglades caused by operation of the facility, which was built in eight days. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The state of Florida filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit immediately after the order was released. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two environmental groups Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in late June, shortly after the state announced that the facility was about to open, claiming the plan had not gone through any environmental review as required under federal law. They were joined in the lawsuit by the Miccosukee Tribe. In her ruling, Judge Williams agreed, saying that under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the government was required to issue an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or conduct an Environmental Assessment (EA). The Defendants chose not to do so, she wrote. The Defendants decision to refrain from issuing an EIS or conducting an EA, and then building a detention camp, represents a determinative position on the matter and has adversely affected Plaintiffs recreational, conservational, and aesthetic interests, she wrote in her order. Accordingly, the Defendants decision not to issue an EIS or conduct an EA and then construct a detention camp qualifies as a final agency action. The Trump administration contended that a review under NEPA did not apply because, while the center houses federal immigration detainees, it is run by the state. State officials have said that their authority came from an agreement with the federal government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Williams strongly objected. Defendants essentially tell the Court that the project is purely state action because its employees (presumably) wear uniforms bearing state agency logos, and because the federal government seems to have held back on sending its reimbursement until some unidentified impediment (perhaps, this litigation) has abated, she wrote. Meanwhile, the project was requested by the federal government; built with a promise of full federal funding; constructed in compliance with ICE standards; staffed by deputized ICE Task Force Officers acting under color of federal authority and at the direction and supervision of ICE officials; and exists for the sole purpose of detaining and deporting those subject to federal immigration enforcement. Detainees are brought onto the site by federal agents and deported from the site by federal agents on federally owned aircraft. In concluding the camp is a major federal action, the Court will adhere to the test-tested adage: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then its a duck. The judge quoted President Harry S. Trumans address during the 1947 dedication of the Everglades National Park, and noted how a proposal in 1967 to create the worlds largest jetport at the site was abandoned and the Big Cypress National Preserve was created to protect the area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades, she wrote. This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. Clear message The two environmental groups that filed the initial lawsuit hailed the decision on Thursday night. This is a landmark victory for the Everglades and countless Americans who believe this imperiled wilderness should be protected, not exploited, said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government and there are consequences for ignoring them. This injunction is a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades, added Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. This brutal detention center was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks. The judges order came just in time to stop it all from unraveling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Central Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, who toured the facility for the second time on Wednesday, issued a blistering statement after Judge Williams order was released. The Everglades Immigrant Detention Center is nothing more than a state-sponsored, government-funded internment camp designed to keep Black and Brown immigrants in hellish conditions while Donald Trump pretends it makes our country safer, he said in a written statement. Thanks to the tireless work of Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe, this inhumane facility has been ordered to halt operations. This is a major victory for justice, civil rights, and our environment. Judge Williams had placed a temporary restraining order pausing new construction at the detention center on Aug. 7 including filling, paving, and installation of new infrastructure and lighting. That ruling may have already proved to DeSantis that Williams, a 2010 appointee to the federal court by President Obama, would ultimately rule the way she did. Its pretty clear were in front of a judge who is not going to give us a fair shake on this, he said earlier this week. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. A nurse holds a vial of COVID-19 vaccine and syringe. (Getty Images) The federal government has picked a side in an ongoing battle that has pitted West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey and the state health department against the state Board of Education over religious exemptions to the states school compulsory vaccination law. In a letter dated Thursday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights said West Virginia should accept religious exemptions to the states school vaccine requirements, siding in favor of an executive order from Morrisey. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The letter was addressed to health departments in the state that participate in the Vaccines for Children program, a federal program that provides vaccines for children whose parents cannot afford them. Officials warn that health departments that participate with VFC must comply with applicable state laws, including those that deal with religious or other exemptions. Morriseys executive order from January is based on the 2023 Equal Protection for Religion Act, which states that no state action may burden a persons exercise of freedom of religion, unless doing so is essential and is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest. Morrisey argues that the states school vaccination law must be read alongside the religious freedom bill to allow religious exemptions. In the letter, federal health officials agreed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement West Virginia is a participant in the VCP6 and receives $1.37 billion from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services each year as the federal Medicaid contribution, Paula Stannard, director of the Office for Civil Rights, wrote. Therefore, West Virginia is obligated to ensure that its [Vaccines for Children] providers comply with applicable state laws like EPRA, which requires recognition of religious exemptions from West Virginias Compulsory Vaccination Law. Its unclear what weight the letter carries. Health departments do not enforce the states school vaccination law. A spokesperson for the HHS Office for Civil Rights told West Virginia Watch Friday that the letter is not a notice of investigation, and it makes no finding on compliance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a statement Friday afternoon, the state Board of Education said the agency is aware of the letter, but noted it was not addressed to the board. The letter has no impact on the boards position that the current compulsory school immunization law does not contain a religious exemption, the statement says. The WVBE will stay the course in its pursuit of legal relief from the West Virginia Supreme Court regarding compulsory immunizations and religious exemptions, the statement said. This Board will continue to uphold its duties as outlined in the West Virginia Constitution and laws as established by the West Virginia Legislature. Answering a reporters questions, the state Department of Health confirmed Friday evening the agency had received the letter. A spokeswoman for the department said health officials do not see it as a threat to remove funding, but it does confirm the Governors interpretation of the Equal Protection for Religion Act and supports his executive order to grant religious exemptions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a news release Friday, West Virginians for Health Freedom praised the letter, calling it a formal confirmation that the state must allow religious exemptions. We appreciate [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] and the Trump administrations attention to this matter, Dr. Chanda Adkins, president of West Virginians for Health Freedom, said in the news release. The recognition of religious exemptions is a fundamental cornerstone of the religious liberty upon which our nation was built. Yet, many West Virginia children have recently been unjustly denied access to the free public education guaranteed to them. We are hopeful that this letter from the Office for Civil Rights will reaffirm and protect the rights of conscience for families across our state moving forward. The group urged families who believe their religious rights are being violated to file a complaint with the HHS Office for Civil Rights. The state Board of Education and the state Department of Health have been at odds over the vaccination law and Morriseys executive order requiring the state to allow religious exemptions to the states vaccination laws. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement West Virginia has some of the strongest school vaccination requirements in the country. Its been one of five states that have not allowed religious exemptions for the shots. Morrisey issued the executive order requiring the state to allow religious exemptions on his second day in office. Despite the Legislature rejecting a bill that would put the exemptions in state code, Morrisey has not rescinded his order. The state Board of Education has instructed county school boards not to accept religious exemptions. A Raleigh County circuit judge last month ruled in favor of three families who sued the school board for not allowing them to attend school with a religious exemption. The preliminary ruling was limited to allowing only those students to enter school. Meanwhile the Board of Education has filed notice that it plans to appeal to the state Supreme Court over the Raleigh County ruling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a separate lawsuit, two parents of immunocompromised children are suing the West Virginia Department of Health in Kanawha County Circuit Court for granting religious exemptions. The families are represented by the ACLU of West Virginia and Mountain State Justice. Earlier this week, state Attorney General J.B. McCuskey filed a motion asking for the two cases to be consolidated and considered together. This story has been updated to include a comment from the state Department of Health. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Mississippi isnt ensuring special education students receive all the services theyre entitled to federally, according to the U.S. Department of Education. A recent report shows Mississippi failing to comply with federal special education requirements in 10 categories, including supervision of how well districts follow laws and by allowing people with suspect qualifications to conduct dispute resolution hearings. But nothing in the report was particularly surprising to longtime advocates and parents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People working with the system have been concerned Mississippi is not compliant, said Danita Munday, a former Mississippi Department of Education employee turned advocate. This is validation for what we have been saying for many years. Alcorn State awarded grant to boost STEM with VR technology The 47-page document outlines numerous areas of noncompliance with federal special education regulations in Mississippi. The overarching conclusion was that the state education agency has not been adequately overseeing districts and ensuring special education students are getting the education theyre entitled to by law. The violations cited include the state agency reporting invalid and unreliable data, poorly supervising how districts spend money on special education and inconsistently tracking disciplinary measures for students. The report said the agency lacks a system to ensure in a timely manner that districts are in compliance with federal standards. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Without that system, Munday said the state education department is taking a Band-Aid approach to special education violations. Theyre stepping on bugs, she said. Theyve been finding out about noncompliance through complaints and writing corrective action plans to fix it for one child. The report also notes a number of issues with Mississippis dispute resolution process. When parents feel their childs rights have been violated, they have the right to complain. A structured process ensues, with timelines and corrective action plans. But the states model written complaint and due-process forms require more information than theyre required to ask for, including complainants home addresses and phone numbers. The forms also dont note that people can file complaints against the state, not just their district. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the case of mediation, the report shows that Mississippi makes parents sign confidentiality pledges before any resolution has been reached. A spokesperson for the agency said that pledge has since been removed. Additionally, theres little evidence to show that hearing officers, impartial people who help resolve disputes over special education services, are well-trained or qualified for their jobs in Mississippi, the federal investigation found. A spokesperson for the state education department said the agency acknowledges advocates concerns and remains committed to better serving communities. Cassie Tolliver of Disability Rights Mississippi said the report should draw major concern. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Parents trust schools to do whats right by their child, but thats not always the case, she said. We need to ensure everyone knows how egregious this is. They are failing them all around. Dolly Partons Imagination Library comes to Yazoo County The numerous violations have Mississippi out of compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal law guaranteeing disabled students the right to a free and appropriate public education. In order to receive federal education funding, state agencies must hold districts accountable to the law. The violations mean the $145 million Mississippi receives annually for special education is now at risk. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report, released last month along with reviews of nine other states, calls for the Mississippi Department of Education to make corrective changes some within a few months, and others within a year. According to the spokesperson, the agency has already begun rectifying the shortcomings identified in the report. Joy Hogge, executive director of Families as Allies, estimated that 95% of the calls her organization receives are from parents who need help getting their kids educational needs met. She said those problems are the very ones highlighted in the report. Every one of those calls represents a very real child who has every right to learn, she said. Its incredibly widespread and devastating when its not addressed. Its validating to see this all written down, but the real proof is going to be if anything happens what changes are made and what is the state held accountable for. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) A Battle Creek man accused of intending to sell pills that looked like oxycodone but actually contained fentanyl has entered a guilty plea, officials say. Nazzarie Carmouche-Heath, 29, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Michigan. The office said his plea was entered Thursday, which was National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day. Too late: Grand Rapids teen died even as fentanyl fatalities dropped Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities said Carmouche-Heath possessed and intended to sell more than 4,700 pills that were designed to look like oxycodone, an opioid, but actually contained fentanyl. He also had more than 600 grams of fentanyl in powder form, as well as two guns nearby, according to the attorneys office. I hope everyone knows by now how deadly fentanyl is. Our office will continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute the drug dealers who sell it, said U.S. Attorney Timothy VerHey in a statement. We especially look for cases like this, where the fentanyl was disguised as legitimate medication, a situation that can lead to accidental overdoses by the unsuspecting. 3 pounds of cocaine mailed to Grand Rapids emblematic of growing trend Sentencing is scheduled for December. Carmouche-Heath faces up to life in prison, with a mandatory minimum of 10 years, according to the attorneys office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. As students head back to school across Greater Cincinnati, public health officials are reminding parents to make sure their kids are up to date on their immunizations. The joint announcement from Hamilton County Public Health, Cincinnati Health Department and the Northern Kentucky Health Department came a week after the federal government halted half a billion dollars in funding for vaccine research, further defunding projects that studied how vaccines could be used to treat diseases ranging from cancer to HIV. Meanwhile, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that a lower rate of kindergartners are getting vaccinated than a decade and a half ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ohio's numbers mirror the national trend: In 2011, between 95% and 99% of kindergartners were vaccinated against diseases such as chicken pox, hepatitis B and measles. Numbers from last school year show the vaccination rate has since fallen to 88% for both chicken pox and measles. Amidst the federal defunding of vaccines, which are frequently the target of rumors and conspiracy theories online, it can be confusing to decide what's best for your family. The Enquirer talked to Hamilton County Public Health's medical director, Dr. Stephen Feagins, about what parents should keep in mind as their children return to school. Dr. Stephen Feagins, the medical director for Hamilton County Public Health, says the falling rate of kindergarteners who are vaccinated should be a concern for everyone. How do vaccines work? There are a few different types of vaccines. One of the most common, according to Feagins, is called the live-attenuated, which contains a weakened version of a pathogen a virus, bacteria or fungus that causes disease. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The weakened version of the pathogen isn't strong enough to cause the disease itself in your body but still triggers an immune response that teaches your body how to respond to the pathogen in the future. It's like giving your body a cheat sheet to a test that your body will remember for a very long time. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is one example of a live-attenuated vaccine. "The two doses provide presumably lifelong immunity," said Feagins. Other vaccines, such as the flu vaccine and the tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis vaccines, use a killed version of the pathogen to immunize people against disease. But for those, the body doesn't remember how to fight the disease for as long. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The immunity wanes," said Feagins. "That's why we recommend occasionally, sometimes later in life, to get that booster." How do we determine that vaccines are safe? If you're pregnant or immunocompromised, consult your doctor to determine which vaccines are safe for you to receive. Usually, live-attenuated vaccines are not recommended for pregnant or immuncompromised people, while killed vaccines are. When it comes to vaccines' official approval process, vaccines undergo a rigorous review that is run by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before they are mass distributed. Vaccines go through multiple trials, said Feagins, to show "not just that it works, but more importantly, that it's safe." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Typically, vaccines are not brand new," said Feagins, with the exception of the COVID-19 vaccine. "They are a small change from an existing vaccine." After vaccines have hit the market, the government's still monitoring how they affect patients. People who are worried that their vaccination has caused adverse symptoms can report them through the vaccine adverse event reporting system, which is run by the CDC and the FDA. "Anybody anywhere, be they doctor, person, whomever, pharmacist, can submit what seems to be something that happened after someone got a vaccine," said Feagins. "If they see enough of those, they will investigate." The rate of vaccination among kindergartners has fallen in Ohio. Why does that matter? The drop in vaccinations is "clinically significant," said Feagins. "These vaccine programs prevent severe outbreaks of preventable diseases, specifically the pertussis and measles." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Measles is of particular concern to doctors, said Feagins, due to its extremely infectious and sometimes deadly properties. 2025 is the year that's seen the most measles cases since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000. At 88% of all kindergartners vaccinated, Ohio falls below the 95% herd immunity that is generally considered to be necessary for a community to stay safe from measles. The 95% is based on a calculation that takes into account how many people one infected person could infect, but there's likely a broader range within which a community could stay safe. "It's not like at 95% everyone's protected, and at 94% we're all not," said Feagins. Still, "the closer you get to 100%, the better you are." I'm not sure whether to vaccinate my child. What should I do? If you'd like to do your own research on vaccine safety, doctor groups such the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists offer helpful tips. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But most importantly, Feagins encourages families with questions about vaccines to consult with a trusted doctor. "There's nobody I know who doesn't want the best for their children," said Feagins. "I don't know a single doctor who doesn't want the best for their patients." "That's why it's good to have that conversation." This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Doctor Q&A: Why should I vaccinate my kids? It will likely come as no surprise to readers that the federal government continues to enjoy rock-bottom trust among Americans. Charitable organizations are trusted by a majority of people, and state and local governments, as well as businesses, get thumbs-up from a fair number, but the years-long downward slide in trust in the federal government to act in society's best interest proceeds apace. That's grounds for knowing chuckles all around, but also for concern. That's because, perversely, there's evidence that low trust leads to bigger government. Decades of Declining Trust "Just under a third of U.S. adults (31%) say they have 'a lot' or 'some' trust in the federal government to act in society's best interest," Gallup reports this week of a survey conducted with Bentley University. "This figure is substantially lower than those who say the same about charitable organizations (80%), state and local governments (50%) and businesses (43%)." Interestingly, distrust in the federal government is one of the few areas on which Democrats, independents, and Republicans agree, with similar shares of each expressing disdain for that institution. Majorities of Democrats trust state and local governments, with fewer than half expressing the same confidence in business; Republicans reverse that situation. Fewer than half of independents trust either. Large majorities of all three groups trust charities and advocacy organizations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trust in government has been on a downward slide for decades. Gallup puts "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust in the federal government to handle domestic problems at 70 percent in 1972, the earliest year recorded. That slipped to 58 percent in 2000, 46 percent in 2010, and 37 percent last year. Similar polling by Pew Research found 77 percent of Americans trusting the federal government "to do what is right just about always/most of the time" in 1964, at 35 percent in 1990, enjoying a 9/11-era spike to 54 percent in 2001, but down to 21 percent in 2010 and a nearly identical 22 percent last year. Powerful, Ineffective Government vs. Competent, Ethical Business The recent Gallup survey also found "the federal government is viewed as having the most power to positively impact people's lives, yet it is perceived as the least effective at doing so." That may be nothing more than acknowledgment that the behemoth in D.C. is an 800-pound gorilla. Sixty percent of respondents say state and local governments have such power, and 62 percent say they're effective. By contrast, only 25 percent believe charitable organizations have such power, and 35 percent say the same about businesses, but they are viewed as far better at making a positive impact. Eighty percent see charities as effective at making a positive impact and 60 percent say the same of businesses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This echoes findings by the Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveys people across the world every year. The 2025 report for the United States found widespread erosion in trust in American institutions. Among government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business and media, only business is "seen as both competent and ethical." Government and media are viewed as both incompetent and unethical, while NGOs are seen as ethical, but incompetent. That's not to say that Edelman found a lot of love for business. Its survey found high levels of grievances against government, business, and the rich and that "those with a high sense of grievance distrust all four institutions (business, government, media, and NGOs)." Distrust Encourages 'Hostile Activism' and a Bigger State Worse, this sense of grievance and distrust drives an embrace of radical schemes for changing things. Edelman found that "6 in 10 U.S. young adults see hostile activism as a viable means to drive change." Specifically, hostile activism is defined as attacking people online, intentionally spreading disinformation, threatening or committing violence, and damaging public or private property. While the survey doesn't further break out numbers by age bracket, support for violence is lowest among the categories for the general population, but not by a lot: 20 percent as compared to 27 percent for attacking people online, 25 percent for spreading disinformation, and 23 percent for damaging property. Perhaps that embrace of hostile measures helps explain one of the perversities that low-trust societies suffer as compared to those with greater trust in people and institutions: There's evidence that low-trust societies are more prone to increasing the size, reach, and centralization of government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a 2015 Cato Journal article, John Garen of the University of Kentucky and J.R. Clark of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga asked, "the simultaneous growth in government and deterioration in trust in government presents something of a paradox: How does a mistrusted institution grow and become so large?" We already know that lower levels of trust correlate with higher levels of crime and corruption. They suspect that declining trust simultaneously results from and encourages rent seeking (manipulating politics and government institutions to benefit oneself). They believe there's a "feedback mechanism that generates greater rent seeking as the degree of mistrustfulness grows; essentially, the returns to rent seeking are relatively higher in a mistrustful environment." Misusing government power for your own ends could be seen as an act of "hostile activism" against perceived enemies. That might help create a cynical environment in which others feel free to do the same. Or others might seek a larger state with more rules to discourage such activity, but more government means a larger institution with greater power to manipulate and greater gains to be had from rent seeking relative to productive economic activity. No Easy Fixes How do you fix that feedback mechanism and restore some balance? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University suggests that government employees should be paid enough to discourage corruption "and that may only be possible if the overall size of the state is trimmed. Better to have a leaner state that delivers than a bloated state that preys on the public." But U.S. government employees aren't exactly underpaid as it is. And increasing compensation without making government employment an even more attractive target for personal enrichment is a daunting challenge. Add to that the fact that government isn't really worthy of our confidence and there's no clear place to start. Once people become disgusted with the system and accustomed to manipulating it to benefit themselves and hurt their enemies, who can you trust to set aside their grievances and end the downward slide? The post Few Americans Trust the Federal Government appeared first on Reason.com. Del. Malcolm Ruff (D-Baltimore City) announced his intention to run for the District 41 Senate seat currently held by Sen. Dalya Attar (D-Baltimore City). (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters) Del. Malcolm P. Ruff (D-Baltimore City) said Thursday he will seek the District 41 Senate seat next year in a rematch, of sorts, against Sen. Dalya Attar (D-Baltimore City). The two squared off in January when both were in the House and looking to fill the seat vacated by then-Sen. Jill P. Carter (D), who resigned after being nominated by Gov. Wes Moore (D) to serve on the State Board of Contract Appeals. The Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee ended up choosing Attar on a 5-3 vote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With Moores confirmation of her nomination, Attar became the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve in the Senate. Attar, who previously worked as an assistant states attorney in the city, was elected to the House in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Ruff, who is also an attorney, was tapped for his House seat in 2023 by Moore, after the central committee deadlocked 4-4 on candidates to fill another vacancy and sent two names for the governor to choose from. But Ruff told a crowd of a couple hundred people at a rally-like event Thursday at Gwynn Falls/Leakin Park that he has proven himself since taking office as a legislator who delivers for my district. I have the trust and support of the people who know me and who have seen my work and who believe in the future that we can build together. The crowd included Carter, the former senator, who introduced Ruff to speak,. Others who took the microphone included Dayvon Love, public policy director with Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, and a member of the central committee who supported Ruff in January; City Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton; and Evan Serpick, a Jewish District 41 activist. It also included prominent Baltimore attorney William H. Billy Murphy Jr., whose firm employs Ruff as a trial attorney. We only hire the best. We dont hire punks. If youre a punk, go someplace else, Murphy said to several chuckles in the crowd. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Besides Attar and Ruff, the rest of the District 41 delegation includes the legislatures longest-serving member in Del. Samuel I. Sandy Rosenberg, who was first elected in 1982, and the General Assemblys newest member in Del. Sean Stinnett, who was sworn in to replace Attar in March. All are Democrats. In a nearby part of the city At the same time as Ruffs event, Crystal Jackson Parker announced to her supporters Thursday she plans to seek a House seat from neighboring District 40. Crystal Jackson Parker. (Photo courtesy of Crystal Jackson Parker) Parker, 58, served on the citys Democratic Central Committee from 2018 to 2022. She ran unsuccessfully for the House in 2022, finishing sixth among eight candidates who were seeking three nominations in the Democratic primary that year. The current delegates representing that district, all Democrats, are Marlon Amprey, Frank Conaway Jr. and Melissa Wells. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Parker is the president of the North Avenue and Hilton Street Business and Community Task Force. Last year, it was awarded a $250,000 grant as part of the Mayors Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagements neighborhood policing plan. The native Baltimorean was the first person in her immediate family to graduate high school and went on to get an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and law degree from the University of Baltimore. Part of her campaign platform includes investing in youth programs, expanding early childhood education and supporting small businesses and older adults. She summarized part of her life story on her website, as a 9-year-old diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, a chronic autoimmune disease that attacks the kidneys. Doctors told me I wouldnt live past the age of 25. They told me Id face a lifetime of pain, kidney failure and experimental treatments, she wrote. My story isnt just about survival; its about service. Ive dedicated my life to Baltimore because I know what its like to struggle, and I know what it takes to overcome. Hale dismisses Hershey criticism: I dont even know him. Marylands newly minted Republican gubernatorial candidate may know business but he doesnt know many of the players in his new party. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ed Hale, who announced Wednesday he would switch parties and seek the GOP nomination for governor, dismissed criticism from Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey Jr (R-Upper Shore), who characterized Hale as a political opportunist who is not anchored in Republican values. Baltimore businessman Ed Hale Sr. during a campaign event in Canton. Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.) Hale, who is only declared but not formally filed, pooh-poohed Hershey and his criticism, saying in an interview on WBAL radio hes more of a Republican than Hershey. I dont even know him, said Hale. The Baltimore businessman, who until Wednesday was a lifelong Democra,t said meeting payroll, hiring employees and adhering with all the different things I built in my life made him more of a Republican than Hershey. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hale announced he would switch parties to run for governor citing his own campaign polling he said showed Moore would be difficult to beat in a primary. The announcement drew a swift critique from Hershey, who questioned Hales motives and characterized him as a political opportunist in a statement sent to reporters Wednesday. Hale on Thursday described the statement sent to reporters as a nasty-gram. Hale, in the Thursday morning interview, dismissed Hershey and his criticism. And I dont even care about that guy, Hale said. I really dont. When asked about him, I dont care. Coming together for Western Maryland Who says bipartisanship is dead? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Well, pretty much everyone, to be honest, but there was a rare example of it out of Washington this week. Thats when all 10 members of Marylands congressional delegation the nine Democrats and the sole Republican member, 1st District Rep. Andy Harris put their signatures on a letter to President Donald Trump (R), urging him to declare a federal disaster in Allegany and Washington counties in the wake of severe flooding there in May. Extreme rainfall from May 12 to 14 in Western Maryland inundated parts of Allegany and Garrett counties, pushing Georges Creek surged to more than 12 feet above major flood stage, while Wills Creek in Cumberland rose 8 feet and the Potomac River also flooded. Midland, Lonaconing and Westernport were among the hardest-hit communities, with floodwaters inundating homes, schools and businesses, washing out roads and damaging pipelines. The state identified $17.9 million in damages it said qualified for federal relief, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency last month denied the states request without explanation. Gov. Wes Moore (D) vowed an appeal which came this week, when he wrote Trump to say the eligible damages now stand at $33.7 million, nearly triple the threshhold that would typically qualify the state for federal assistance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The congressional letter cited Moores latest letter, saying the damages clearly met disaster assistance criteria established by FEMA. Relief is necessary and warranted said the lawmakers, who urged the president to approve a declaration. As the new school year begins and winter approaches, we echo the Governors concerns that without the requested assistance, the most vulnerable in these communities will be directly impacted, the lawmakers letter said. These assessments support the need for the requested declaration and assistance. We urge you to expeditiously review and approve Marylands appeal and grant a major disaster declaration for the flooding of May 13, 2025. New fiscal year, new faces for pension board The Maryland State Retirement and Pension System Board of Trustees welcomed three new trustees last week along with a new public adviser to the Investment Committee, as part of what the board touted in a press release as a refreshed governance structure as of the start of the fiscal year. Trustees Vernon A. Reid Jr. and Scott Nicewarner began their terms on July 1, along with Public Advisor Joanna Pratt. Trustee Vickrant Puri began his term on Aug. 1. All were formally welcomed at the Aug. 19 meeting of the board. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE With these appointments, the Board benefits from a rich blend of expertise spanning public service, education, finance and investment management, System Executive Director Martin Noven said in a prepared statement. Each new trustee and advisor brings valuable experience that will strengthen our stewardship of the retirement system on behalf of Marylands public employees and retirees. Puri, a Baltimore County Public Schools personal finance teacher, has prior banking industry expertise and was elected by active and retired members of the Teachers Systems. He joins the Investment Committee and the Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee, and his term runs through July 31, 2029. Reid and Nicewarner both gubernatorial appointees and both serve until June 30, 2029. Reid is retired after decades with T. Rowe Price and will serve on the Administrative Committee. Nicewarner is the Hagerstown city administrator,, and will join the Audit and Administrative committees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pratts appointment follows the departure of Michael K. Barry. She has more than 20 years of experience managing endowments and foundations, and will provide independent independent expertise managing large investment. She is selected by the board for a three-year term, but her appointment is subject to approval by the Board of Public Works. This story was updated on Friday, Aug. 22, to correct Crystal Jackson Parkers last name, and her title with the North Avenue and Hilton Street Business and Community Task Force. Diplomacy is all about sweating the details. Where should participants sit during the main negotiation session? In what order should the dignitaries enter the room? Should foreign officials be greeted alone or as a group? Whats for dinner? These decisions, like the writing of letters and documents themselves, are an important part of statecraft. There was much attentionor lack thereofto such details during the peace summits held in Alaska and Washington over the past week, where U.S. President Donald Trump met face-to-face with Russias Vladimir Putin, then separately with the leaders of Ukraine and several European allies in his ongoing effort to end Russias three-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine. Was Trump too happy when greeting Russias Vladimir Putin? Why was lunch skipped? Was Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov sending a subtle message about Russias imperial intent when he arrived in Anchorage wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with CCCP, the Cyrillic abbreviation for the Soviet Union? What did Putin mean when he brought up how Alaska used to be part of Russia? Did Russian President Volodymyr Zelenskyys decision to wear a suit, instead of his standard wartime plainclothes outfit, positively influence Trump? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the details that ultimately matter are those pertaining to the outcome of the talks. The meetings failed to achieve a breakthrough, which is not surprising given how hastily they were planned, particularly the Alaska summit. Indeed, Trump administration officials might not have expected much from the meeting with Putin, since the slogan was Pursuing Peace, not Achieving Peace. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. What did emerge from the meetings were a set of talking points: a common understanding of what a final peace agreement might entail. Details from those points began to emerge over the weekend and following the Washington meeting on Monday. Taken together, they provide some clues about where the negotiations are headed. The first point is that Trump has taken a temporary ceasefire as an initial step toward peacesomething long demanded by Ukraineoff the table. While some point to this being a concession to Putin, it is not entirely surprising considering Trumps recent track record in other global hotspots. In Gaza, for example, his team worked with the outgoing Biden administration to help secure a ceasefire in January, only to see Israel resume its military campaign two months later. Trump was also fearfulangry, reallyover the prospect of the ceasefire that ended the 12-day war between Israel and Iran suffering a similar fate. This is likely why he was quite open to forgoing a ceasefire in the case of Ukraine and going straight to comprehensive peace talks. Trumps recent summits failed to achieve a breakthrough, but the details of the outcomes contain clues as to where the negotiations are headed. The second point is that Ukrainian land concessions to Russia are on the table. Would these be seen as rewarding Russia for aggression and handing it a de facto victory? That depends on ones definitions of reward and of victory. Ceding Ukraines internationally recognized territory may not be just or right given that Russia has been the aggressorfirst by taking Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014, then fully invading in 2022its also not clear there is an alternative. In the end, this war was always likely to end in a settlement of some form, rather than outright victory by one side or the other. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For Putin, that means continuing to eke out small gains on the battlefield, despite severe Western sanctions. While the Russian economy is not in great shape, its operating at a level where the current war effort can be maintained. As for Ukraine, it continues to receive support from Europe and the United States. It doesnt have the personnel or weaponry to win, but it can continue to inflict pain on Russia and do enough to hold off Russian forces from making more than tactical gains. In other words, given that the sides are far from exhausted and the lines of control are largely static, the question is whether that control should be formalized sooner rather than later, especially since sooner means saving lives. The third point pertains to security guarantees for Ukraine against future Russian aggression. This part is crucial because for Ukraine to accept any land concessions now, it must be assured that Russia will not simply try again in the future to take over the remainder of the country. Indeed, a phrase that emerged from the summits was that the guarantees should be Article 5-like, a reference to the mutual defense clause in the North Atlantic Treaty obligates NATO to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all. The word like is crucial, as it means Ukraine will not be granted full membership in the alliance, something Ukraine desperately wants but which Trump has ruled out. While Article 5-like is not Ukraines best-case scenario, it does seem to imply more substantial support than other security models that had been previously floated, such as the Israel model of providing Kyiv with the weapons and capacity to defend itself after the war ends, but with no promise of joining the fight or of having allied troops on Ukraines territory to serve as a deterrent. While Trump has said he wouldnt deploy U.S. troops to Ukrainian territory, the door is still open for other NATO allies to step in. Trump wants to now move toward trilateral talks between him, Putin, and Zelenskyy, possibly in Budapesta potentially ominous omen given the 1994 agreement reached in that city by Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which Moscow later violated. A three-way meeting is the next logical step, but even if it happens, its not guaranteed to work. After all, Russia and Ukraine have sat across the table from each other many times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of course, they havent met with Trump in the room. He appears to think his personal connection with Putin will make all the differencenot only in ending this war, but in reaching a solution to the larger question of how the West can peacefully coexist with Russia. Trump truly does think that the United States, as embodied presently in him, is indispensable to solving this problem. In the end, its not yet clear how these summits will be remembered in the annals of U.S. diplomacy. They may be seen as inconsequential, like Trumps meetings with North Koreas Kim Jong Un during his first term as President. Or as watershed eventscrucial first steps in a larger effort to achieve a meaningful diplomatic outcome that not only ended this war, but also reshaped the world order. Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The post The Finer Points of Diplomacy That Will Determine Ukraines Fate appeared first on World Politics Review. SEAFORD, N.Y. (PIX11) A destructive fire ravaged a popular seafood restaurant and boats docked nearby in Seaford on Thursday, according to the Nassau County Police Department. Police said heavy fire leaped from Crabby Amys Clam and Oyster Bar off the 2800 block of Ocean Avenue around 9:30 p.m. At least six unoccupied boats were also ablaze some were docked while others floated away, according to authorities. More Local News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crews doused flames with heavy water stream flowing from above and on the ground with mutual aid from the Seaford, Massapequa, Levittown, Merrick, Bellmore and North Bellmore fire departments. Marine units were also helping Wantagh fire crews knock down flames on boats burning in waters off the Treasure Island Marina. The Hempstead Buildings Department and the U.S. Coast Guard were also called in to investigate fuel leaking into the water from those damaged boats. In addition to windy conditions, first responders were forced to deal with roadway flooding. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State Police said the fire was under control within two and a half hours. No injuries were reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fire officials believe the cause of the fire was accidental and electrical. Erin Pflaumer is a digital content producer from Long Island who has covered both local and national news since 2018. She joined PIX11 in 2023. See more of her work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Coinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) stock has hit a bump in the road as Bitcoin is on a downturn. That has led to very unusual call options activity in COIN stock, according to a Barchart report. Is this a buying opportunity? COIN is at $303.12 in midday trading on Wednesday, Aug. 20, down slightly, but off over 27% from its recent peak of $419.78 on July 18. That was before its recent Q2 earnings release on July 31. More News from Barchart COIN stock - last 6 months - Barchart - As of Aug. 20, 2025 I discussed the company's earnings in a Barchart article on Aug. 1 ("Coinbase Shows Huge Unusual Options Volume After Lower Results"). In short, the results were lousy and investors have not been inspired. You can read my article to see why. Unusual Options Activity in Call Options Nevertheless, hope springs eternal. That may have led investors to buy large amounts of call options, as seen in today's Barchart Unusual Stock Options Activity Report. COIN call options expiring Aug. 29 - Barchart Unusual Stock Options Activity Report - Aug. 20 It shows that almost 4,500 call option contracts have traded for the Aug. 29, 2025, expiry period (9 days to expiry) at the $312.50 call option strike price. That exercise price is higher than today's price, so it is considered out-of-the-money. In other words, COIN stock will have to rise to $318.00, or almost 5% for the investor to hit breakeven: $312.50 + $5.50 premium = $318.00 breakeven point $318.00 / $303.12 = 1.049 = +4.9% out-of-the-money However, given that all options have extrinsic value up until right before their expiration, it's possible that if COIN rises from here, the investor could make money. But that is a gamble or a speculative play. On the other hand, the investor who sells short these calls is making a good yield. For example, the $5.25 premium received represents over 1.73% of the investment at today's price: $5.25 / $303.12 = 0.017319 = 1.73% yield That is a very good return over the next 9 days. Moreover, even if the stock rises to $312.50, the investor would be able to make an additional 3.09% over the next 9 days. So, the total potential realized gain would be 4.82%. As a result, investors may want to copy these short-sellers as this covered call yield play is very attractive here. For example, buying COIN stock here and selling short OTM calls provides some downside protection due to the income received: The former adjutant general of the Utah National Guard is suing Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and other state officials claiming he was unlawfully terminated without due process. The actions of Cox and others deprived former Maj. Gen. Michael Turley of his job as adjutant general and of his health and retirement benefits commensurate with his military position, according to claims made in a complaint filed this week in the U.S. District Court. Turley commanded the Utah National Guard for almost four years before being relieved of his assignment in 2023 following allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate an assertion that Turley has denied. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this month, it was reported by Task & Purpose that Turley had retired as a lieutenant colonel a U.S. Army officers rank (0-5) three steps below his highest military rank (0-8). Such a demotion would result in a sizable difference in retirement pay and benefits. Turleys civil court complaint identifies Cox as a defendant along with Coxs chief of staff, Jon Pierpont, and John Barrand, the director of Utahs Division of Human Resources Management. When asked Thursday about Turleys suit, Cox declined comment. Gov. Spencer Cox speaks with members of the media during the PBS Utah Governors Monthly News Conference at the Eccles Broadcast Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. | Rick Egan Court complaint: An investigation prompted by false allegations The complaint notes that Turley a military veteran of almost four decades was appointed in 2019 by Gov. Gary Herbert to serve as Utahs adjutant general. Utah National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael Turley, left, and Gov. Gary Herbert watch as Maj. Gen. Jeff Burton, Utah National Guard adjutant general, shakes hands with Barry McLerran, representing Sen. Mitt Romney, during a retirement ceremony for Burton at the Roland R. Wright Air National Guard Base in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. Turley will replace Burton as adjutant general. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News In 2021, according to the complaint: The Department of the Army Office of the Inspector General (Army IG) apparently opened an investigation into allegations of misconduct by General Turley, which were later demonstrated to be utterly baseless. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The investigation appears to have been initiated in response to false allegations made by another member of the military that General Turley had engaged in some undefined inappropriate conduct. The next year, the Army IGs ongoing investigation was leaked to the media illegally by someone within the Armys IGs office, the complaint added. The Governors Office and senior members of the governors staff also received anonymous tips containing similar allegations. In response to the tip, the Governors Office opened an investigation where Turley denied any misconduct and cooperated fully, according to the complaint. Upon conclusion of the investigation, Barrand wrote, It is my assessment, based on our review of this matter, that we currently have no actionable information regarding (the allegations against General Turley) and have exhausted all reasonable avenues of obtaining further information at this time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The statement concluded that (T)here is no basis to find that the Adjutant General has engaged in inappropriate conduct. Based on this, I recommend that the Governor await the conclusion of the Army Inspector Generals investigation, according to the complaint. Resign or be terminated The complaint noted that on Aug. 16, 2023, Pierpont and Barrand contacted Turley to notify him that the Governors Office had learned that USA Today intended to run a story indicating that the Army IG had substantiated an allegation that Turley had engaged in inappropriate conduct. Although the specific allegations and finding were still unknown at that point, General Turley denied any and all allegations that he had engaged in any sexual or other significant misconduct, according to the complaint. At this time, neither General Turley, Pierpont, Barrand, nor the Governors Office had seen a copy of the Army IGs investigation report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The complaint then noted that although Turley adamantly denied any allegations of serious misconduct, as a good soldier Turley discussed with Barrand and Pierpont the possibility of resigning if it could be done with certain conditions and without immediate effect. Brig. Gen. Michael Curley listens to speeches during the Volkstrauertag ceremony at the Fort Douglas Military Cemetery in Salt Lake City on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019. | Credit: Colter Peterson, Deseret News While discussions regarding Turleys potential resignation remained ongoing and without any new information, Barrand called Turley and told him that the Governors Office had informed him that Turley had 90 minutes to resign or be terminated, according to the complaint. At the time Barrand issued this ultimatum, none of the relevant parties had a copy of the Army IGs report. Moreover, the State had not done any investigation after concluding that there (was) no basis to find that the Adjutant General (had) engaged in inappropriate conduct. The complaint added that Turley, facing the imminent threat of termination which could have ended his health care and other benefits for his family, including a child with disabilities, sent a conditional letter of resignation dated Aug. 16, 2023, which indicated that he was willing to resign if the resignation was effective Sept. 16, 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Aug. 21, 2023, Brig. Gen. Daniel Boyack was appointed adjutant general essentially signaling Turleys firing without cause, according to the complaint. Shortly after being terminated, Turley received a heavily redacted copy of the Army IGs report, which purported to confirm the allegation of misconduct, according to the complaint. The confirmed allegation in the IG Report was patently false and General Turley knew that he would be able to demonstrate as much. On September 15, 2023, General Turley rescinded his resignation by sending a rescission to Governor Cox and the State of Utah. Barrand, acting on behalf of Governor Cox and the State of Utah, refused to accept General Turleys rescission of his resignation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The complaint goes on to say that Turleys own investigation revealed that the substantiated allegation was false and that neither the state of Utah nor the Army IG had interviewed the other soldier allegedly involved in the misconduct. When interviewed, that soldier, like General Turley, adamantly denied any sexual misconduct and submitted a detailed sworn affidavit indicating as much, the complaint noted. Additionally, the complaint added, the defendants and others acting at their direction have also taken steps to improperly influence the Department of the Armys Grade Determination Review Board, which recently reduced General Turleys rank and grade for purposes of calculating his retirement pay, without basis. The defendants actions, the complaint concludes, resulted in Turleys improper termination, withholding of retirement funds, and immeasurable damage to General Turleys reputation. Turley is seeking damages in an amount to be proven at trial. Efforts are continuing as of the morning of 22 August to extinguish the fire caused by a Russian strike on the city of Mukachevo in Zakarpattia Oblast on the night of 20-21 August. Source: State Emergency Service on Telegram Quote: "Zakarpattia Oblast: as of 07:40, firefighting operations in Mukachevo are continuing 54 firefighters and 15 fire appliances are involved in extinguishing the blaze and dealing with its aftermath." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: Two firefighting trains from Ukrzaliznytsia, a Ukrainian state-run railways operator, are also working at the scene. In total, 21 people were injured in the Russian strike. Background: On the night of 20-21 August, Russian forces launched a missile strike on Mukachevo, hitting the US-owned Flex plant. Initial reports said 19 people had been injured. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that night that Russia had attacked Ukraine with 574 Shahed-type drones, four Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles, two Iskander-M ballistic missiles, 19 Kh-101 cruise missiles, 14 Kalibr cruise missiles and one unidentified missile. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! ELKINS, W.Va. (WBOY) A special ceremony took place Thursday night at the Phil Gainer Community Center in Elkins, where local and state law enforcement officers were honored for their swift actions that helped save an elderly mans life earlier this summer. Two members of the Elkins City Police Department, Sr. Patrolmen Davis and Coffman, as well asd Sr. Trooper Anthony Petrella of the West Virginia State Police Elkins Detachment, were commended for their swift response when 80-year-old Harold Simmons was found in distress last June. Sr. Patrolman Coffman was also awarded a Life Saving Medal from the Elkins Police Department. Simmons, who had been reported missing by a healthcare worker, was discovered partially submerged in a creek at the bottom of a steep embankment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Every person in our department has saved a life, every police officer out there has saved somebodys life in one way or the other. There are times where it is so blatantly obvious that without that police assistance that somebody would have lost their lives. We have to do more, and we have to recognize these guys for that, Elkins Police Chief Travis Bennett said. WV program that lets seniors assist students seeking volunteers but faces uncertain future Elkins Senior Patrolman Coffman, Elkins Senior Patrolman Davis and Senior West Virginia State Trooper Petrella honored for their efforts during a ceremony in Elkins (WBOY image) Chief Bennett praised the officers bravery and professionalism, noting that their quick actions played a crucial role in the rescue. After locating Simmons, officers from the Elkins Police Department and West Virginia State Police provided care for Simmons until other emergency crews arrived, and the Elkins Fire Department performed a rope rescue operation to get Simmons up the embankment. Its fortunate that West Virginia State Police has a great relationship with the Elkins Police Department. So, I requested the Elkins units to come out of their jurisdiction and assist me. And then, when we arrived there Sr. Patrolman Coffman located the male and he instantly recognized that it was the gentleman from the sliver alert, Petrella said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The City of Elkins emphasized that the recognition highlights the vital work first responders perform each day, often facing life-or-death situations with courage and dedication. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. At least five bodies have been recovered from shallow graves at a site in Kenya where victims of a religious cult are suspected to have been buried, according to authorities. Excavations were continuing on Friday at the site on the outskirts of Malindi in southeastern Kenyas Kilifi County, close to where hundreds of members of a doomsday cult were found dead two years ago. Government pathologist, Dr Richard Njoroge, said on Thursday that the authorities expected to find more remains at the site. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the commencement of this exercise, we had 27 suspected graves. Today we managed to exhume six, Njoroge said. The pathologist added: Of the six graves, we found five bodies. And then also around that area, we found 10 different scattered body parts, scattered in different places on the surface. Njoroge stressed that they expected to find more graves because the teams had not exhausted the search in a vast area. So we expect more bodies, the official said. Starved and suffocated In July, Kenyas Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said it believed victims buried at the site may have been starved and suffocated as a result of adopting and promoting extreme religious ideologies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At least 11 suspects are being investigated in connection with the deaths, the prosecutors said. People who live around the exhumation site had been unable to account for the whereabouts of several children, leading to suspicion of foul play and triggering investigations, according to the prosecutors office. More than 400 bodies were exhumed from the nearby Shakahola Forest in 2023 in one of the worlds biggest cult-related incidents in recent history. Iran's southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups. At least five policemen were killed in southeastern Iran on Friday after unidentified gunmen opened fire on two police patrol vehicles, Iranian news agencies reported. Last week, Sunni militants killed one police officer and injured another after they opened fire on a vehicle in the southeastern city of Iranshahr, Iran International reported. Troubles in Iran's southeast Jaish ul-Adl militants opened fire on a police vehicle in the middle of the highway, dashboard footage seen by The Jerusalem Post showed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The officers and the militants exchanged fire before the latter drove away. Jaish ul-Adl later claimed the attack in a statement on its Telegram, Iran International reported. The police identified the victim as Sgt. Ramin Sadeghi. Iran's southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy. Tehran accuses some of them of ties to foreign powers and involvement in cross-border smuggling and insurgency. Jaish ul-Adl previously claimed a July attack on a courthouse in the Sistan-Baluchestan province. Some five people were pronounced dead, and 20 were wounded. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for the Grand Canyon's North Rim and surrounding areas through 6 p.m. Aug. 22. The warning is for the Dragon Bravo Fire scar in Coconino County in north-central Arizona. This includes the Colorado River between river miles 93 and 101. At 1:57 p.m., Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing heavy rain over the Dragon Bravo Fire scar. Between 0.5 and 1 inch of rain has fallen. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Excessive rainfall over the burn scar will result in debris flow moving through the Crystal Creek and Tuna Creek toward the Colorado River. The debris flow can consist of rock, mud, vegetation and other loose materials. Life-threatening flash flooding is expected from thunderstorms producing flash flooding in and around the Dragon Bravo Fire scar. Some locations that will experience flash flooding include Grand Canyon National Park. This includes the Colorado River between river miles 93 and 101. This includes the following creeks, washes and rivers: Tuna Creek, Colorado River, Hermit Creek, Agate Canyon, Salt Creek, Travertine Canyon, Slate Creek, Boucher Creek, Crystal Creek, Bright Angel Creek, Shinumo Creek, Trinity Creek, Monument Creek and 94-Mile Creek. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the latest watches and warnings, see our weather alert page. Tips for flood weather Coconino County officials offered the following tips for residents to prepare for approaching storms and potential flooding threats. Protect your property from floodwaters and purchase flood insurance. Plan for sheltering where you are and for evacuation. Evacuate if advised. Seek high ground (for flash floods) or stay on high ground. Avoid walking or driving in floodwaters. Depth and velocity of the water are not always obvious; the ground or road may suddenly wash away and hidden dangers may exist; do not attempt to evacuate through floodwaters. Know how to avoid injury from debris, contaminated water, carbon monoxide poisoning, electrocution, and damaged buildings and infrastructure. Seek professional review or inspection of structures and utilities before entering buildings that are flooded. This article was generated by The Arizona Republic and USA TODAY Network using data released by the National Weather Service. It was edited by a staff member. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Flash flood warning for northern Arizona, Grand Canyon North Rim Record-breaking flash flooding inundated Hazard, Kentucky, in February, devastating homes and infrastructure in the small Appalachian town. The North Fork Kentucky River, which runs alongside Hazards Main Street, crested at over 30 feet and swamped the small downtown area, destroying several local businesses. Februarys disaster was the second major flash flood to hit Hazard in three years. Many residents of Hazard are still reeling from catastrophic flooding in July 2022, which was driven by five days of record-breaking rain that overflowed creeks and rivers across Kentucky. Holly-Ann Eastmon, who was in Hazard during the 2022 flood, received a flash flood warning just as floodwaters from nearby Troublesome Creek surrounded her double-wide trailer. High waters ripped the neighbors trailer from its foundations, ramming the structure into Eastmons home and tearing it in two. Eastmon was swept away by debris-filled water and clung to a tree for almost 12 hours before search-and-rescue helicopters found her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These days, Eastmon leaves town when the forecast calls for more than 2 inches of rain. We pack up our stuff, put it in a U-Haul and we go to a hotel until we can go home, Eastmon said. I couldnt even tell you how many times its happened since 2022. Its just the fear we have. Eastmons experience highlights the growing human and financial toll of flash floods, which experts say are becoming more common, unpredictable and extreme as the planet warms. Her community is still facing a long road to recovery, complicated by mounting rebuilding costs and limited job opportunities. Holly-Ann Eastmon survived two major floods in Hazard, Ky., over just three years. Now, she plans to take a home buyout and leave the small Appalachian community. (NBC News Studios) This summer, flash flooding, which occurs during sudden, extreme rainfall over short periods of time, has swamped U.S. communities from Kerr County, Texas, to Petersburg, Virginia, and devastated populations in Beijing and the mountainous regions of India and Pakistan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As of mid-August, the National Weather Service had issued over 4,000 flash flood warnings this year, breaking records dating back to 1986, according to data from Iowa State University. Kentucky has already issued over 200 flash flood warnings in 2024, that number was 76 for the whole year. Shel Winkley, a meteorologist with the research group Climate Central, says that human-caused climate change, which makes the atmosphere both hotter and wetter, is contributing majorly to extreme flooding and flash flood events. Every degree Celsius that Earths atmospheric temperature rises allows the atmosphere to hold about 7% more water vapor. A warmer atmosphere is a greedier one it holds on to more moisture, so when it lets go, the rain falls harder and faster, Winkley said. This is why were seeing more flash flood warnings and record-breaking rainfall this summer. Climate change is turning natural summer storms into something unnatural. Eastern Kentucky is historically prone to flooding. As wet air rises against the Appalachian mountains, it naturally releases moisture into the valleys below. But when extreme rainfall encounters the mountainous topography, water is rapidly channeled into low-lying areas and can wash out the regions many creeks and streams. One study found that during the 2022 floods, a disproportionate number of deaths occurred along or near areas of Troublesome Creek, a tributary of the 168-mile North Fork Kentucky River that has been disrupted by historic mountaintop coal mining. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For many Hazard residents, life has totally changed with more frequent flooding. Like many towns in Appalachia, the community was once a hub for coal production, but economic prospects have declined sharply over the last few decades, straining many longtime residents who are grappling with the economic downturn and flood damage at the same time. Eastmon, who has lived in Hazard since 2007, says the floods have left her with severe trauma. I dont care whether you hung from a tree or you just saw somebody in the water, Eastmon said. You were affected whether you saw it or whether you lived it. Everybody here was affected by it in one way or another. Local volunteer firefighter Ronnie Dillion helped rescue Eastmons husband, Craig, from floodwaters near Troublesome Creek in 2022. His family has lived in the Hazard area for generations, but Dillion is making plans to leave town in pursuit of work in London, a bigger city about 60 miles west of Hazard. The latest floods were the breaking point for many residents struggling to stay afloat, Dillion said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The floodwaters made Dillions home unlivable, caving in parts of the ceiling. And rebuilding is difficult with few paying jobs available locally, he says. Its home to me, but theres not a lot for young folks to do here, Dillion said. Theres not a lot of opportunity here. You cant chase your dreams and guarantee that you get a job doing what you love here. In February, major flooding destroyed parts of Ronnie Dillion's home. Dillion, a volunteer firefighter, has struggled to repair his house, with few job opportunities in flood-worn Hazard. (NBC News Studios) As of the latest U.S. census survey, over 25% of Perry County residents, where Hazard is located, are living under the federal poverty line. The coal industry provided more than 29,000 jobs at its height in 1990 since then, roughly 85% of coal jobs in Kentucky have been lost, according to the Kentucky Center for Statistics. In Perry County alone, mining employment dropped by 23% in 2023. Jason Naylor, a researcher at the University of Louisville, is studying climate change in Kentucky. He says that eastern Kentucky is uniquely vulnerable to climate impacts and increased flooding. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres a lot of social vulnerability, Naylor said, and potentially more distrust for weather forecasts and any type of public officials. Eastmon says some of her neighbors believe the government played a role in causing the 2022 floods and that the community has largely lost faith in public officials in the aftermath of the floods. Eastmon herself has applied to Perry County for a home buyout program, and hopes to move closer to her children. Ive told the story over and over and over in hopes that maybe somebody, somewhere will hear the story and come to our rescue, and get us off my piece of property, she said. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com GEORGIA Each weekend, Patch affords its readers a review of the top stories and headlines from across Georgia. Here's a roundup of some of the state's major and quirkiest stories. You can also find your local Patch and catch up on these stories by clicking here. Swimmers were warned this week of at least 6-foot high breaking waves and dangerous rip currents in Georgia. Fulton County commissioners approved $1 billion for jail renovations and a special purpose facility, which Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat criticized and called "pennywise." Police have named the suspect in a deadly stabbing in a Georgia apartment. The suspect was found after a thorough police search that spanned overnight. Georgia authorities searched for a suspect in connection with the shooting death of a 31-year-old man who he had been drinking with inside an apartment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A fire injured a resident and a firefighter this week after igniting at a Georgia apartment complex. A blaze damaged 32 units in an apartment complex, sending three children and two adults to the hospital with injuries. More Top News: Other News in the Southeast Flooding Jail | Teen Kills Parents | Blaze Displaces 50: GA News originally appeared on the Atlanta Patch During their Wednesday meeting, members of the Florida Board of Education questioned a decision that ordered probation for a Former Brevard County teacher to remain in the classroom after a disciplinary case. Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said he recommended Calhoun be suspended. Instead, the Education Practices Commission placed Melissa Calhoun on one year of probation, fined her, ordered her to take an ethics course, and issued a reprimand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Calhoun was allowed to keep her teaching certification after she was accused of calling a student by a different gendered nickname without parental consent. Vice Chair Esther Byrd said she was bothered by the disciplinary decision and asked, Is there nothing the board could do to overturn the decision? Eyewitness News reached out to Calhoun who told us, There seems to be an obsession with levying punishment much harsher than the recommendations given to them. You know, represent or misrepresenting me to the public as someone with intentions of purposely subverting parental rights. You know Ive publicly stated that you know it wasnt my intention and that it was an oversight and yet it continues to be represented as a political statement which was never my intent. Kamoutsas told the board, I am working with the attorneys with the Department of Education to see if there are potential rule revisions that can be done on our end to prevent something like this from happening again in the future. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. The state of Florida painted over a rainbow crosswalk, which served as a memorial to the victims of a 2016 mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub, in the dark of night on Wednesday. We are devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer wrote in a Thursday post on X, formerly Twitter. We are devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue. But we know that while this crosswalk has been removed, Orlando's commitment to honoring the 49 can never be erased. pic.twitter.com/4LdXvLUiom Mayor Buddy Dyer (@orlandomayor) August 21, 2025 Dyer noted that the crosswalk was installed by the state and was intended to honor the 49 people who were killed in the shooting at the gay club. Its one component of a larger memorial aimed at commemorating the victims of the horrific tragedy, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dyer and other Democratic lawmakers denounced the states move and the secretive way authorities handled it. Related: Elon Musk Must Face Lawsuit For Duping Trump Supporters In $1 Million Giveaways They illegally vandalized city property without providing the city of Orlando notice or getting their approval, state Sen. Carlos Smith (D) said in a video shared on X. Of course they did this in the middle of the night because they knew what they were doing was wrong. WATCH: State Sen. Carlos G. Smith fumes after learning @GovRonDeSantis administration's @MyFDOT painted over and removed the LGBTQ pride crosswalk in Orlando "In the middle of the night, ripped the rainbow colors off of this city sidewalk. They illegally vandalized city pic.twitter.com/mVBmK0nKKN Floridas Voice (@FLVoiceNews) August 21, 2025 Pulse shooting survivor Brandon Wolf also slammed the act as a desecration of the memory of the victims, who were predominantly LGBTQ people of color, and an erasure of the communitys show of solidarity with them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dozens of Orlando residents joined in protests of the move on Thursday, with some adding the crosswalks rainbow colors back in using chalk. Last night, the DeSantis administration snuck in and tried to quietly erase the state-approved crosswalk to honor the 49 people murdered at Pulse Nightclub. So this afternoon, the community showed up to do a little chalking. I love you, Orlando. pic.twitter.com/gDDCaFY7oC Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) August 22, 2025 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) responded in a post on X, stressing that the state would not allow its roads to be commandeered for political purposes. A DeSantis spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The states removal of the crosswalk comes about a month after the Trump administration issued a directive warning states to keep signage and road markings free from distractions. Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a July post on X. Related: Hegseth Fires General Whose Agency's Intel Assessment Of Damage From Iran Strikes Angered Trump Floridas transportation agency has also been notifying cities that they could see cuts to funding if they dont remove rainbow crosswalks, CBS News reports. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dyer stated that the crosswalk adhered to national safety standards and helped enhance visibility for people going to the Pulse Memorial. Related... Read the original on HuffPost WASHINGTON (AP) The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped an investigation into a buy now, pay later company with close ties to President Donald Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., saying the investigation was conducted in a biased manner and based off politics. The CFPB on Tuesday notified Credova Financial, a subsidiary of Public Square Holdings, where Trump Jr. is a board member and investor, that it was no longer under investigation. Public Square is a directory of businesses that sell American-made products, including financing for firearms and family pets, that market to conservative-leaning customers. Credova provides buy now, pay later services to Trump Jr.s GrabAGun firearms marketplace, which went public this year. The agency says the investigation, initiated during Democrat Joe Bidens presidency, was politically motivated against firearms companies and Trump Jr. However, the company has a record of dozens if not hundreds of consumer complaints and settlements over state consumer protection violations. The closure of the investigation also comes when the CFPB, a watchdog agency that helps oversee the nations banks and financial services companies, has been undoing rulemaking, dropping other cases and ending law enforcement work that was done under previous administrations, including Trump's first term. The CFPB in Trump's second term determined the Credova investigation exemplifies the type of weaponization against disfavored industries and individuals" that Trump and the agency's acting director, Russell Vought, are committed to ending, according to a letter sent to the chief counsel of Public Square Holdings. The CFPB during Biden's term ratcheted up settlement demands on the company the day Trump Jr. joined Public Square's board of directors, the letter said. Former CFPB employees, from during Biden's term, declined to speak about the decision, saying they're not permitted to discuss investigations. Previous claims against Credova Michael Seifert, chairman and CEO of Public Square, said in a statement that the closure of the CFPB investigation confirms the strength and integrity of our company and validates the trust our merchants and consumers place in us and is a win for our entire company, our board, our customers, and a 2nd Amendment community that has seen years of government attempts to regulate businesses like ours out of existence." However, the firm had for years been accused of charging junk fees to customers or violating state consumer protection rules. ATLANTA (AP) Florida conservative Joe Gruters, a Donald Trump cheerleader dating back to the presidents days as a reality TV star, is now the Republican National Committee chairman. Having no opposition after beingtapped by the president, Gruters was elected Friday at the Republicans summer meeting in Atlanta. For Gruters, the vote completes a steady climb from county party leader into the top ranks of Trumps second presidency. For Trump, Gruters ratification reflects his penchant for loyal lieutenants and evolution from a new president disinterested in party machinery to an Oval Office veteran intent on gripping all levers of power. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the vote Friday, Gruters thanked Trump for choosing him and promised RNC members he would focus on election integrity, expanding Republican voter registration and preventing internal party discord. Elections, Gruters said, are won by whatever party does a better job of uniting the factions and bringing everybody together. Gruters was a true believer years before Trump launched his first campaign in 2015. In 2012, Gruters led the Sarasota County GOP, and Republicans were nominating Mitt Romney for president at their convention in nearby Tampa. Romney, then the kind of moderate Republican that is now almost extinct in public office, had embraced Trump even as the businessman falsely questioned then-President Barack Obamas birthplace and citizenship. Still, Trump was widely considered a liability for Romney against Obama, and Romneys team was circumspect about whether Trump would have a convention role. While Trump was eventually confirmed as a speaker, an approaching tropical storm shortened the convention schedule, and his slot was among the casualties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Enter Gruters. The eager Sarasotan had already picked Trump as his county partys Statesman of the Year, slotting a dinner gala at Sarasotas Ritz-Carlton hotel on convention eve with 1,000 guests. It cemented an enduring friendship. Gruters climbed the Florida ladder alongside Trump Gruters support for Trumps first presidential bid in 2015 stood out in Florida, given that Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush also were running. In October, Gruters became co-chairman of Trumps Florida campaign. His fellow chairperson was Susie Wiles, who is now Trumps White House chief of staff. Bush didnt make it to the Florida primary, and Trump trounced Rubio, ending the senators campaign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gruters was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016 at the same time Trump won Floridas electoral votes and the presidency. And Wiles, Gruters old Trump campaign partner, was the mastermind behind Florida Gov. DeSantis narrow 2018 victory. So when it mattered, Gruters was well-positioned with a friend in the Oval Office and the governors office buoyed by Wiles, who had distinguished herself as a Florida kingmaker. Those powerful allies backed Gruters successful bid for Florida GOP chairman in 2019. Gruters and the party increased GOP registration across the state and helped push battleground Florida to a clearer conservative advantage. In 2020, as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden flipped Sun Belt battlegrounds Arizona and Georgia, Trump won Florida comfortably. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That helped Gruters navigate Trumps falsehoods that Bidens national victory was rigged. Gruters chose his words carefully, stopping short of Trumps election denialism yet ensuring he never drew the defeated presidents ire. Leaning on local results, Gruters called Florida the gold standard. He said there were questions about shenanigans in other states. Florida has been the center of everything, said current state Chairman Evan Power. Joe knows the successes and the lessons from Florida he can bring that to the national level. Floridas rightward shift yielded dominating reelection victories for DeSantis and Rubio in 2022. The win made DeSantis a presumed front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. A certain Palm Beach resident, however, was not finished. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Trump built his third campaign, Wiles stuck with him not DeSantis. The governor ultimately broke with Wiles and Gruters. Then Trump buried DeSantis, just as hed crushed Bush and Rubio. DeSantis made peace with Trump, but not with Gruters, describing him as recently as last month as having a linguine spine. (Trump previously endorsed Gruters for Florida chief financial officer. But when the seat became vacant when Jimmy Patronis left to run for Congress, DeSantis picked someone else to serve the rest of Patronis term.) Gruters reaffirms Trumps hold on the Republican Party As chairman, Gruters will be a fundraising partner with the White House. The RNC is a key cog in joint party fundraising efforts that the president headlines. Trump has always been his own primary messenger, but Gruters will be another notable face as the president approaches the 2026 midterms. That doesnt just mean policy and branding but also the mechanics of elections. Gruterswill now be partly responsible for building teams of lawyers and poll watchers for a president who openly questions the efficacy of U.S. elections. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Beyond the midterms, Gruters will help set the presidential primary calendar, debate rules and other nuts and bolts of the 2028 campaign. While Trump is term-limited by the Constitution, hes made clear that he will not stay in the shadows as voters choose his successor. With Gruters, he has a direct line into that process. By BILL BARROW and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Associated Press Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (FOX40.COM) Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins landed at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport Thursday morning to personally escort a local truck driver back to Florida to face charges in a deadly crash. Singh, 28, was charged this week with three counts of vehicular homicide in a San Joaquin County courtroom. Authorities said he made an illegal U-turn on a Florida highway on Aug. 12, causing a crash that killed three people. Trump administration halts work visas for commercial truck drivers amid fatal crashes Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three lives were lost because he got a license when he shouldnt have. Those people died and then he fled back to California, said Collins. Were going to make sure this thug is brought to justice and faces it in Florida. San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas explained that Floridas governor issued a warrant, which gave California officials the authority to hold Singh until Florida retrieved him. But the case has become part of a larger political debate over immigration and Californias policies. California is one of 19 states that issue drivers licenses regardless of immigration status. Collins pointed at Singhs English skills as evidence that he should not be driving. When he was pulled off the side of the road, he answered three of sixteen questions properly. Why was he driving in the first place? said Collins. He didnt have basic English proficiency; he didnt know the road signs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement California Governor Gavin Newsoms press office pushed back, writing in a statement that Singh entered the U.S. in 2018 and later received a federal work authorization under the Trump administration. The statement also accused Florida of letting a suspect walk free: Florida let a murder suspect walk. California Police had to come arrest him, and now Floridas LG is staging a photo op to pick him up. Collins dismissed the criticism, calling it hogwash. California Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, who represents San Joaquin County, also weighed in. Its not necessary for the Lt. Governor to personally come. They have staff for that, said Ransom. There is a performative angle to this, but ultimately this is about justice, and they have the right to come pick up the person. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement San Joaquin County officials emphasized that their focus is on the legal process and supporting the victims families. We are working very hard to make sure that this happens smoothly and that we can get closure and justice for them, said Freitas. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News. Wildfire fighter Smokey the Bear doesnt just put the bite on campers who are careless with flames, he collars accused criminals, too! The iconic U.S. Forest Service mascot who was created in 1944 to educate Americans about the importance of preventing wildfires was on hand when lawmen cuffed suspect Hunter Lovett in Floridas Orange County for allegedly pilfering Smokey Bear signs from state parks in Pensacola, Panama City and Orlando, per FOX 13 News. According to authorities, the greedy guy swiped the wildfire warning markers and tried to sell the ill-gotten booty for $1,900 a pop on Facebook Marketplace. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Smokey is always around our forest and just got lucky today that he saw the bad guy and got him handcuffed, said state Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson while announcing the bust, per the outlet. What an idiot, what an idiot. Simpson further said of the ursine hero, [Smokey] goes to schools, hes known by our children, hes known by our families, he is known throughout the United States. Who goes and steals an image of Smokey the Bear and then tries to profit off of that? Lovett was charged with felony grand larceny following his apprehension by deputies from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement and faces possible jail time if convicted. (The Center Square) At an Alachua County School Board meeting in Gainesville, Florida, this week, Crystal Marull, a mother of two students, claimed school officials targeted her sons for their conservative views. According to Marull, her high school son was mocked in class for his interest in history and participation in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. During a class activity, her sons history teacher reportedly tried to give the student a fake certificate and nominated him Most Likely to Become a Dictator. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The teacher also let students label him a 'Naziphile, Marull added. Her other son, who is 6 years old, was allegedly prevented from sitting next to his friend on the school bus because the friends parent did not like the mothers conservative views. I do apologize that [your son] was offended by the Class Superlative To my knowledge, he did not ask to be removed when he was nominated or when the class voted. When I passed them out today, I reiterated that they were just for fun. These were not meant to be offensive. I do apologize, was the teacher's response to Marull about the incident in the high school history class. The apology didn't ease Marull's concerns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is just one incident emblematic of the litany of abuses and offenses that conservative families face in this district, Marull said in a statement. Not only was it wholly inappropriate, the apology was hollow, and although I reported this to a school board member at the time, the board failed to follow up with any consequences. Marull has always been an advocate for strong conservative values, especially gender ideology and banning woke books within school libraries. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, sent a letter Thursday to the School Board of Alachua County, asking for an investigation into the incident. Florida law prohibits bullying and harassment This teacher violated Florida law, the School Boards policy, and no less than six ethical principles. Her teachers certificate must be revoked, Uthmeier wrote. Teachers who bully and harass their own students are unworthy of the public trust. Despite this teachers nasty immaturity, we commend this young man for his strength in the face of rank political discrimination. Remove this teacher from the classroom. Parents and students in Alachua deserve better. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Because of Marulls story, many posted on social media, outraged, calling for accountability. It's not enough for the teacher to be fired, though that's a start. The teacher and Alachua School District should be sued for the intentional emotional distress of both boys, one user commented. The Center Square reached out to the Alachua School District but has yet to receive a response. MIAMI (AP) A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Thursday halting further expansion and ordering the winding down of an immigration detention center built in the middle of the Florida Everglades and dubbed Alligator Alcatraz that advocates said violated environmental laws. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams' injunction formalized a temporary halt she had ordered two weeks ago as witnesses continued to testify in a multiday hearing to determine whether construction should end until the ultimate resolution of the case. The state of Florida filed a notice of appeal Thursday night, shortly after the ruling was issued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The deportations will continue until morale improves, DeSantis spokesman Alex Lanfranconi said in response to the judges ruling. The judge said she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days through the transferring of the detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can't bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property. The order does not prohibit modification or repairs to existing facilities, which are solely for the purpose of increasing safety or mitigating environmental or other risks at the site.," The preliminary injunction includes those who are in active concert or participation with the state of Florida or federal defendants or their officers, agents, employees," the judge wrote in an 82-page order. The judge said state officials never sufficiently explained why the facility needed to be in the middle of the Florida Everglades. What is apparent, however, is that in their haste to construct the detention camp, the State did not consider alternative locations, Williams said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge cites decades-long efforts to preserve Everglades Williams said her order gave the state and federal defendants time to wind down the facility so that it can undergo the required environmental assessments. She noted the three-quarters century of efforts to preserve the Everglades. Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades, she wrote. "This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. President Donald Trump toured the facility last month and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe had argued that further construction and operations should be stopped until federal and state officials complied with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit claims the project threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars worth of environmental restoration. Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, called the ruling a landmark victory for the Everglades and Americans who believe this imperiled wilderness should be protected. It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government and there are consequences for ignoring them, Samples said in a statement. Miccosukee Tribe Chairman Talbert Cypress said this isn't the first time the tribe has has to fight for its land and rights. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We will always stand up for our culture, our sovereignty, and for the Everglades, Cypress said in a statement. Attorneys for the state and federal defendants didnt immediately respond to emailed inquiries late Thursday. But they have previously argued that, although the detention center would be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the facility was entirely under the state of Florida, meaning the federal environmental law didnt apply. The judge has said the detention facility was, at a minimum, a joint partnership between the state and federal government. Hasty construction of detention center Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The detention center was quickly built almost two months ago at a lightly used, single-runway training airport in the middle of the Everglades. It currently holds several hundred detainees but was designed to eventually hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures. Inside the compounds large white tents, rows of bunkbeds are surrounded by chain-link cages. People held there say worms turn up in the food, toilets dont flush and flood floors with fecal waste, while mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere. At times the air conditioners abruptly shut off in the sweltering heat. Detainees are said to go days without showering or getting prescription medicine, and can only speak to lawyers and loved ones by phone. Witnesses for the environmental groups testified during the hearing that at least 20 acres (8 hectares) of asphalt had been added to the site since the Florida Division of Emergency Management began construction. They said additional paving could lead to an increase in water runoff to the adjacent wetlands, spread harmful chemicals into the Everglades and reduce the habitat for endangered Florida panthers. Attorneys for federal and state agencies have asked Williams to dismiss or transfer the injunction request, saying the lawsuit was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Williams ruled Thursday that her court was the proper venue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another federal judge in Miami dismissed part of a lawsuit earlier this week that claimed detainees were denied access to the legal system at the immigration detention center and then moved the remaining counts of the case to another court. Both lawsuits were being heard as Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis administration apparently was preparing to build a second immigration detention center at a Florida National Guard training center in north Florida. Florida's top K-12 education official said he filed a complaint against a Gainesville teacher to get her teaching certificate revoked, a day after an area parent accused the woman of nominating a student "Most Likely to Become a Dictator." Education Commissioner Anastasios "Stasi" Kamoutsas posted the document on social media Aug. 21. He's moving against history teacher Lauren Watts of Gainesville High School. The parent, Crystal Marull, attended a State Board of Education meeting earlier in the week, where she held up an award with her son's name, the nomination and a title reading "Ms. Watts' Class Superlatives 2023." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was targeted for his "conservative values," added Marull, coordinator of the University of Florida's Online Spanish Program. She said the teacher also allowed students to label her son a "Naziphile." And Kamoutsas' complaint alleged Watts let students "disparage" her son during the 202223 school year after classmates suggested that he was a "Hitler sympathizer." The complaint is with Florida's Education Practices Commission, which can suspend or revoke teaching certificates. It says Watts violated multiple rules of professional conduct and said she is "guilty of gross immorality." Kamoutsas also accuses Watts of violating administrative codes, including protecting a student's mental or physical safety, exposing a student to "unnecessary embarrassment," discriminating against a student's political beliefs and failing to take precautions to "distinguish between personal views and those of any educational institutions or organization with which the individual is affiliated." A teacher chose to designate a student as the most likely to become a dictator. A parent brought this issue to my attention. I immediately took action to investigate the issue. I found probable cause and will take every necessary action to ensure this teacher never teaches pic.twitter.com/TvSM4XmF52 Anastasios Kamoutsas (@StasiKamoutsas) August 21, 2025 "A teacher chose to designate a student as the 'most likely to become a dictator.' A parent brought this issue to my attention," Kamoutsas wrote on X, with an image of the complaint he filed. "I immediately took action to investigate the issue. I found probable cause and will take every necessary action to ensure this teacher never teaches again." 'All because of his conservative values and our perspectives' Marull's remarks stemmed from her grievances with the Alachua County School Board, which she believes should have disciplined the teacher. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Watts "had his classmates vote on it and try to force him to the front of the class to receive the ('Most Likely to Become a Dictator' award), which he rightly refused, all because of his conservative values and our perspectives," Marull said. State education meeting: Toxic culture: Florida school board grilled over MAGA comment fallout What happened between her remarks before state education leaders and Kamoutsas' complaint is not known. Earlier on Aug. 21, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote a letter to the Alachua County superintendent and the school board drawing attention to Marull's accusations. A request for comment is pending with Uthmeier's office on whether state officials undertook an investigation into the allegations against Watts, and whether the letter was intended to demand action or to bring awareness. The beginning of the letter implied that the facts were not verified, but later on the letter says the "teacher's certificate must be revoked." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "If these facts bear out and we have no reason to doubt Dr. Marull's veracity then this teacher should be immediately terminated, and never allowed to teach again in Florida," Uthmeier wrote. Another request is pending with the Florida Department of Education on whether an investigation is pending or completed, and whether Kamoutsas spoke with Marull, the teacher or the high school. Questions also are pending on how the department completed an investigation so quickly and on something alleged to have happened three years ago. Marull commented on Kamoutsas' post: "Thank you Commissioner for defending our children when the local school boards will not." Watts could not be immediately reached. According to her LinkedIn, her first teaching job was at Alachua County Public Schools and she has been a history teacher since August 2019. Requests for comment are pending with a school board spokesperson, the Alachua County superintendent and the Gainesville High School principal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The State Board of Education found the Alachua School Board violated First Amendment rights in a separate situation earlier this month. A public commenter was nearly removed from a school board meeting after insulting a board member for her derogatory social media comments about the late pro wrestler and actor Hulk Hogan. This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Stephany Matat is based in Tallahassee, Fla. She can be reached at SMatat@gannett.com. On X: @stephanymatat. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Top Florida official targets teacher over 'dictator' award to student The Gaza Strip's largest city is now gripped by famine, according to the world's leading authority on food crises. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Friday that famine was occurring in Gaza City and that this was likely to spread to the southern cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid. Aid groups and food security experts have warned for months that Gaza was on the brink of famine, but the IPC report is the first official declaration that the situation has reached this level. Israel immediately rejected the IPC's assessment, with the foreign ministry repeating bluntly a claim it has made for months, that "there is no famine in Gaza." But the IPC which is comprised of more than a dozen U.N. agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies and was first set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia said it had concluded based on "reasonable evidence" that famine "is confirmed in Gaza Governorate." Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Aug. 16, 2025. / Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP "After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution and death," the group said, warning that 1.07 million more people in Gaza were currently in a slightly lower starvation risk category, and that the circumstances were likely to expand within the densely populated Palestinian territory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel calls up 60,000 reservists for next phase of Gaza war "Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with Famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58 percent). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly." The IPC said for the next year at least, "at least 132,000 children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition double the IPC estimates from May 2025. This includes over 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death." In a separate statement, Tom Fletcher, who heads the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said Israel's "systematic obstruction" of aid had caused the famine in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," Fletcher told reporters in Geneva, calling it "a famine that will and must haunt us all." Israel insists "there is no famine in Gaza" In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry categorically rejected the findings of the UN-backed report. "There is no famine in Gaza," the ministry said, accusing the IPC of presenting a report "based on Hamas lies laundered through organizations with vested interests." "Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets," the ministry said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While more humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza in recent weeks, as Israel has come under intense international pressure, aid organizations say it is nowhere near the amount required. A controversial new U.S.- and Israeli-backed aid distribution group has also come under sharp criticism over the killing of numerous civilians near its four distribution hubs in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the IPC report Friday, dismissing it as "an outright lie." "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation," Netanyahu said, repeating the foreign ministry's figures on food aid provided since the war began and the more recent influx. In a social media post, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee backed Netanyahu's assertion, insisting that "tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent, sold it on black market but they didn't give it to the hostages." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What does a famine classification mean? Famine can appear in pockets, sometimes small ones, and so a formal classification requires caution, food security experts say. The IPC has only confirmed famine a few times in Somalia in 2011, and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and last year in parts of Sudan's western Darfur region. This is the first confirmed famine in the Middle East. The IPC rates an area as in famine when all three of these conditions are confirmed: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving.At least 30% of children 6 months to 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition, based on a weight-to-height measurement; or 15% of that age group suffer from acute malnutrition based on the circumference of their upper arm.At least two people, or four children under 5, per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. Gaza has posed a major challenge for experts because Israel severely limits access to the territory, making it difficult to gather and confirm data. In a separate report Friday, the Famine Review Committee, or FRC, said it, too, had concluded there was famine in part of Gaza. The FRC is a group of independent international food security experts regularly consulted by the IPC. The group acts as an added layer of verification when the data shows there could be famine. The data analyzed between July 1 and August 15 showed clear evidence that thresholds for starvation and acute malnutrition have been reached, according to the IPC. Gathering data for mortality has been harder, but the IPC said it is reasonable to conclude from the evidence that the necessary threshold has likely been reached. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most cases of severe malnutrition in children arise through a combination of lack of nutrients along with an infection, leading to diarrhea and other symptoms that cause dehydration, said Alex de Waal, author of "Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine" and executive director of the World Peace Foundation. "There are no standard guidelines for physicians to classify cause of death as 'malnutrition' as opposed to infection," he said. Trump reacts to Canada reversing retaliatory tariffs, takes questions at White House Saturday Sessions: Hayes Carll performs "We're Only Human" Saturday Sessions: Hayes Carll performs "Stay Here Awhile" Aug. 21United States Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz reiterated commitments to expand timber and energy production on federal lands during a speech to the Western Caucus Foundation on Tuesday. The address came as part of a three-day gathering of representatives and senators from across the United States to Northwest Montana for discussions related to public land management. Schultz's keynote address at the Lodge on Whitefish Lake on Aug. 19 reaffirmed the Western Caucus Foundation's commitment to what it terms active multiple-use management of U.S. forestlands. "There have been numerous executive orders making it very clear where this administration stands on resource development," said Schultz. "We are focused on multiple-use management. That's what we're doing. We're back to basics." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Schultz said that he intended to follow all the executive orders handed down by President Donald Trump, including a recent mandate to increase American timber production by 25% over the next four or five years. More than 30 mills in western Montana have closed since 1990. The companies cited myriad reasons for the closures, including fluctuating lumber prices, labor shortages and increased cost of living, but Schultz focused his own arguments on the need for a consistent timber supply. "Industry needs certainty," he said. "And if there's not certainty from the government, industry can't function." Schultz alluded to several strategies to increase timber supplies, including stripping down federal regulations and "driving decision-making down" to the local level. One example of that, he said, is the Shared Stewardship Agreement that the state of Montana and the U.S. Forest Service signed in June. Under the agreement, the state will assume responsibility for managing at least 200,000 acres of federal forestlands in Montana "with a focus on areas with marketable timber." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This is beyond partnership," Schultz said of the agreement. "This is cooperative federalism where they're going to be managing federal lands to help us achieve things." Officials are meeting this week to identify the specific area that will fall under state management, said Schultz. In addition to resource extraction, Schultz emphasized the Forest Service's role in wildfire mitigation, including preventative measures like prescribed burning and fuels reduction projects and what he described as a "full suppression mandate" for active wildfires. But pressed on the terms of that mandate, Schultz acknowledged the suppression strategy for fires depended on a variety of factors, including topography, nearby structures and weather conditions. In cases where a fire is difficult to reach or likely to burn out naturally, he said the agency may elect for a less aggressive approach that prioritizes monitoring and maintenance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added that the agency intends to move forward with efforts to repeal the so-called "Roadless Rule" in the coming weeks to open more areas for fuels reduction projects. More than 1.1 million acres of forestland in Northwest Montana are currently designated as "Inventoried Roadless Areas" under the rule, which restricts timber extraction and certain development projects. Under current law, road construction in Inventoried Roadless Areas is permissible for "reducing the likelihood of uncharacteristic wildfire." Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins first confirmed plans to remove the designation on June 23. Reporter Hailey Smalley can be reached at 758-4433 or hsmalley@dailyinterlake.com. Former Grady nurse accused of sexually assaulting 73-year-old denied bond A judge denied bail to Chapple Lee, a former nurse accused of sexually assaulting a 73-year-old patient at Grady Memorial Hospital. Channel 2s Michael Seiden reports that Chapple Lee, 55, who was arrested on Thursday, faces charges of rape, aggravated sexual battery and tampering with evidence. The alleged victim, Eva Lay, was a patient at the hospital when the incident occurred last October. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] She went to Grady Hospital, but instead of getting care she was violated in the worst possible way, said Reginald Greene, an attorney involved in the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last month, Eva Lays family filed a lawsuit against the hospital system and an unidentified nurse, accusing Grady of gross negligence and failure to provide proper security. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Eva Lays family expressed their appreciation for the Atlanta Police Departments investigation. The statement said in part: The family of Eva Lay is pleased that the Grady Memorial Hospital nurse who allegedly sexually assaulted her while she was a patient at the hospital has been arrested and charged for the horrific abuse perpetrated against her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ms. Lays family would like to extend their deepest appreciation to the detectives and officers with the Atlanta Police Department who diligently investigated this case. Grady Hospital responded to the allegations in a statement: When we were made aware of this allegation, we immediately reported it to law enforcement and cooperated fully with their investigation. We were told that APD found no physical evidence to substantiate this claim. The individual involved has now been arrested and this remains an active police matter. TRENDING STORIES: [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Corn futures are posting 2 to 3 cent gains across most contracts so far on the Wednesday session. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was up 2 cents at $3.62 1/2. USDA reported private export sales of 125,741 MT of corn to Mexico and 100,000 MT to Colombia this morning, all for 2025/26. Analysts estimate a total of 100,000 in net reduction to net sales of 300,000 MT for old crop ahead of the Thursday morning Export Sales report. New crop business is estimated to total between 0.9 and 2 MMT in the week ending on August 14. More News from Barchart Day 2 of the annual ProFarmer showed a Nebraska yield estimated at 179.5 bpa, up from 173.25 bpa last year and the 166.33 3-year average, but shy of their 2021 record. USDA is looking for a 4 bpa increase yr/yr. Yield in Indiana was estimated at 193.82 bpa, which is up 6.28 bpa from last years tour total and well 10.71 bpa above the 3-year average. USDA was looking for a 7 bpa increase from last year in last Tuesdays report. EIA data from this morning showed a total of 1.072 million barrels per day of ethanol production in the week of 8/15, which was down 21,000 bpd from the week prior and a 12 week low. Ethanol stocks were up 39,000 barrels to 22.688 million barrels. Exports were a 19-week high at 172,000 bpd, as refiner inputs were down 4,000 barrels to 925,000 barrels bpd. Sep 25 Corn is at $3.81 3/4, up 2 1/4 cents, Nearby Cash is at $3.64 1/2, up 2 cents, Dec 25 Corn is at $4.05 3/4, up 2 1/2 cents, Mar 26 Corn is at $4.23 1/2, up 2 3/4 cents, New Crop Cash is at $3.60 1/4, up 2 cents, On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com GALLUP, N.M. (KRQE) A former New Mexico State Police officer who was arrested for reportedly driving drunk in Gallup earlier this year changed her plea in court Friday. Man pleads guilty to threatening Farmington district court judge Rachel Hall pleaded no contest to one count of driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. She was taken into custody on Feb. 27after a McKinley County Sheriffs Office deputy allegedly saw Hall driving the wrong way. While the deputy was following Halls vehicle, she nearly rear-ended another car at a red light, drove over a sidewalk, almost struck a light pole, and hit multiple curbs, popping both of her cars right-side tires, according to court documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The criminal complaint states that Hall refused to roll her window down more than a couple of inches when she was pulled over, but the deputy could smell the odor of intoxicating beverages coming from inside of the vehicle. Two responding McKinley County deputies and a Gallup Police Department officer had to break Halls window to get her out of the car. During the arrest, Hall reportedly screamed, held onto the steering wheel to avoid being taken out of her car, and refused to get into either of the deputies units. In Halls car, a deputy found a 750ml bottle of vodka that was three-quarters empty under the passenger seat, according to court documents. She initially pleaded not guilty to five charges including aggravated DWI. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Halls sentence of one year of probation was deferred. If she completes DWI school and stays out of trouble, the one charge she plead no contest to will be dismissed after a year. Hall served the department for four years and eight months before she was placed on administrative leave and later resigned. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A former Mount Dora police officer who was fired last month is appealing his termination after being accused of falsifying records and untruthfulness. Victor Uvalles attorneys claim he was made a scapegoat in an investigation that began in April, and he has officially filed an appeal to regain his position. Its problematic that you are making the determination, said Uvalles attorney, Christopher Pace, who is requesting that the police chief recuse himself from the appeals process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The internal affairs investigation into Uvalle was sparked by an email, leading to his termination. Mount Dora Police Chief Mike Gibson accused Uvalle of unsatisfactory performance, falsification of records, conduct unbecoming and untruthfulness. Uvalle was the custodian of the internal investigation logs and had access to the internal investigation files, which is contrary to his testimony that he had no access to disciplinary records. This was a key point in the decision to terminate his employment. The case stems from the investigation into former Mount Dora police officer Barry Strykowski. Back in April, Strykowski was hired by the Oakland Police Department while under investigation for misrepresenting his time in Mount Dora. An email from the Mount Dora Police Department stated that Strykowski had no open cases and no discipline on his record, leading to his hiring and promotion to sergeant. Uvalle, who sent the email, alleges that the wording was cleared by Gibson, who later fired him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Uvalles attorney has asked for the chief to recuse himself from the appeal process, which he also wanted during the initial investigation process. The city manager, who reportedly oversees the appeal, also signed off on the original termination. Do you have a story for WFTVs 9 Investigators? Click the banner below to submit a tip. Tony Vargas, former Nebraska state senator and former congressional candidate, is running to be the first newly elected Douglas County treasurer in 20 years. (Courtesy of Vargas for Nebraska) OMAHA Tony Vargas, a former candidate for Congress and elected officeholder for more than a decade, has confirmed he is running for Douglas County treasurer in the 2026 election. The former Nebraska state senator for South Omaha joins the county race with the support of Omaha Mayor John Ewing, who held the treasurers spot for 18 years before resigning in June to take on his latest role as mayor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prior to Vargas eight years in the Legislature he termed out of the lawmaking role last year he served on the Omaha Public Schools Board. Vargas, 40, began his career as a public school teacher and twice ran unsuccessfully for the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District seat, losing tight races to now-retiring U.S. Rep Don Bacon, R-Neb. State Sen. Tony Vargas of Omaha (Courtesy of Unicameral Information Office) From the classroom as a middle school science teacher to the school board, and from the Nebraska Legislature to my run for Congress, public service and giving back to my community has always been at the core of my lifes work, said Vargas, currently executive director of Square One, a national leadership nonprofit founded by a group of Obama administration alumni and entrepreneurs. Vargas said his attraction to the treasurers post stems from work that fulfilled him while serving eight years on the Legislatures budget-setting Appropriations Committee. Being a steward of our state government resources, protecting taxpayer interests and making sure we are being fiscally sound has been something I really enjoyed doing, he said, foreseeing such skills transferring to the treasurer job. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said he worked across party lines to help deliver balanced budgets and strived to ensure that tax dollars provided efficient and quality services. Republicans regularly criticized Vargas during his congressional races for missing votes, which he explained as having to do with his committee work in the Legislature. Vargas said he was proud of a fiscal planning law he championed in 2019 that allowed lawmakers to better forecast revenue. He said he backed legislation to strengthen public schools and to improve access to health care and consumer protections. As treasurer of the most populous county in the state, charged with overseeing the collection of taxes, Vargas said his goals would include following through on the offices recent technology infrastructure updates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this week, another Democrat, Christian Espinosa Torres, assistant director of the Omaha Human Rights and Relations Department, announced his candidacy for the treasurers job. Vargas said he entered the race with more than $50,000 to start his campaign. Now more than ever, Nebraskans need leaders who are dedicated to listening to and serving them and who have a track record of getting things done that make their lives better, Vargas said. Vargas earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester and a masters degree in education at Pace University. He serves as a board member of the Latino Economic Development Council, the Rose Childrens Theatre, Partnership for Kids and Opera Omaha. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SPRINGFIELD, Mo. A former McDonald County man pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to one count of kidnapping resulting in death. Mahamud Tooxoow Mahamed, 43, a Somali national who was a permanent resident alien in the United States, had been living in Noel at the time of the kidnapping. According to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Missouri, Mahamed admitted to kidnapping Jessica McCormack in 2019, which resulted in her death. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McCormack's body was discovered July 29, 2019, near Missouri Highway 59 between Lanagan and Noel after another person reported observing a pink suitcase in a roadside ditch with feet sticking out. Law enforcement located the woman's decomposed body next to the pink suitcase. McCormack was last seen alive July 16, 2019, when law enforcement officers responded to a call at her home. She reported to 911 that Mahamed had held her at knifepoint and tried to force her to have sexual intercourse with him. She also told the police that she was worried Mahamed would harm her three children who were in the apartment with him. The children were identified in court documents as three girls, ranging in ages from 6 months to 4 years. On either July 28 or July 29, 2019, Mahamed called his cousin and told her he was bringing McCormacks children to her in Minnesota. "When she asked why he was bringing the children, Mahamed noted that something bad had happened and he could be in trouble," according to a statement by the U.S. attorney's office. The children were located at a residence in Des Moines, Iowa, and taken into state custody Aug. 8, 2019. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After abandoning the children in Iowa, Mahamed left the United States and was a fugitive until he was located and expelled from Guatemala on July 27, 2021. He has been detained in federal custody since his return to the United States. Mahamed could be sentenced to life without parole. An ex-police officer who breached a Sexual Harm Prevention Order by failing to hand over his mobile phone for inspection, has been sentenced. Callum Denley, 20, of Old Alexander Road, Malmesbury, was given the order in May when he was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, after admitting making indecent images of children. Wiltshire Police said Denley had been arrested when he failed to hand over his phone and he was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for 24 months, at Swindon Crown Court on Friday. He must also carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Jason Taylor told Denley that if any illegal images were found on his phone during a search, he would be jailed. The judge indicated that the suspended sentence had been imposed on the basis that no illegal images had been found on Denley's phone but the device had now been sent away for a "full forensic examination". "If anything comes back, you know where you will be, prison, rest assured of that," Judge Taylor told Denley. The former Wiltshire Police officer was also sentenced to attend 26 sessions of the Building Better Relations programme. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Denley resigned from the force on 18 March - the day he was charged - and has been placed on the national barred list, preventing him from working in policing in the future. Wiltshire Police said he had been suspended as soon as the force became aware of the allegations against him. Denley was found guilty of gross misconduct at a police hearing in July with the panel finding that he would have been dismissed without notice had he not already resigned. Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. More on this story Related internet links SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) We have an update on a case weve been following since 2023. A former South Dakota insurance salesman admits to stealing more than 1.4 million dollars from colleges and universities. Gaming commission revokes license of Gary King Gary King has signed federal court documents detailing the crime. According to the Statement of Factual Basis, while working as the sole owner and president of Cypress Risk Management, King collected insurance premiums from the schools and never passed that money on to insurance providers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For instance, Morningside College sent him a check for 95-thousand dollars and King deposited money into his own account. King admits using some of the money to buy property in Deadwood. King was part of a group that had an interest in the Midnight Star Casino. As part of a plea deal, King will plead guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. He could face decades in prison and pay back the money that he took. A plea date has not been set. Former South Dakota insurance salesman faces federal charges Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested and appeared in court over allegations he misused state funds while in office, police say. Wickremesinghe, 76, who led the country during a devastating 2019-2024 economic crisis, had been investigated over a visit he made to London to attend his wifes graduation, local media reported on Friday. Police confirmed his arrest for alleged misuse of public funds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested and produced in court. We are awaiting the court directive to decide what further steps need to be taken, a police spokesperson said. Later on Friday, a court in Sri Lankas capital Colombo, ordered Wickremesinghe to be held in custody until August 26 when a fresh hearing will be held into the allegations. Sri Lankas anticorruption units have led a crackdown since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September on a promise to fight corruption. A Wickremesinghe ally from his United National Party (UNP) proclaimed his innocence and suggested the case was politically motivated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ranil Wickremesinghe has never misused public funds or state funds, UNP member Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe told reporters outside the court complex in Colombo where the former president appeared. He was the person who stepped up and accepted the challenge to save this country when the economy collapsed, Warnasinghe said. That is the person who is being treated like this today by this government. Travel expenses Wickremesinghe had stopped in London in 2023 on his way back to Sri Lanka from Havana, where he attended a G77 summit. His office had previously denied that he abused his position to visit London. Three of his then-senior aides were questioned this month by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He and his wife, Maithree, attended a University of Wolverhampton ceremony, where she received an honorary professorship. Wickremesinghe had maintained that his wifes travel expenses were met by her and no state funds were used. However, the CID alleged that Wickremesinghe used government money for his travel on a private visit and his bodyguards were also paid by the state. Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa stepped down following months of street protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement. Wickremesinghe lost power in a 2024 election. He secured a $2.9bn bailout from the International Monetary Fund in early 2023 and was credited with stabilising the economy after Sri Lankas worst-ever financial meltdown in 2022. He doubled taxes and removed energy subsidies as part of tough austerity measures to raise state revenues. Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra avoided a likely prison term Friday after his royal defamation case was dismissed. Shinawatra was indicted last year on charges he defied the country's lese majeste law, which prohibits anyone from insulting the Thai monarchy. He was accused by a general from the military regime that took power in 2014, in a coup that deposed the prime minister at that time, his sister Yingluck Shinawatra. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shinawatra allegedly disrespected the monarchy in an interview he gave in 2015 to a South Korean newspaper in which he said people connected to the "palace" helped overthrow Yingluck. Shinawatra was living in Dubai at the time in a self-imposed exile, and out of reach for prosecution. The 76-year-old could have seen as many as 15 years in prison if found guilty. The charges against Shinawatra, who was elected prime minister in 2001 but removed himself in a 2006 coup, were widely believed to be politicized due to his hold on power despite being absent. Even while he remained outside Thailand's borders, political parties tied to Shinawatra won national elections until 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was then he returned and was indicted over the defamation charges in June of 2024. He was also charged with violating Thailand's Computer Crime Act because the interview in question ran online, but that was also dismissed Friday. Acquittals in Thai lese majeste cases are rare, as 87% lead to convictions. Shinawatra will next face a judge in September, as he was hospitalized upon returning to Thailand and is accused of using that stay to avoid being imprisoned. A Bangkok court has dismissed a case accusing billionaire politician Thaksin Shinawatra of defaming the monarchy. In the first of three court rulings that could decide the fate of a prominent political dynasty, Thailands former prime minister was acquitted of charges dating back to comments he made in a South Korean newspaper interview a decade ago. Mr Thaksin had suggested that his sister Yingluck was ousted as prime minister in a 2014 military coup orchestrated by some people in the palace and the privy council, just as he had been in 2006. Thailand has some of the most stringent royal defamation laws in the world, with any criticism of the monarchy punishable by between three and 15 years behind bars. Critics say the lese majeste laws have been abused to squash dissent and at least 281 people have been charged since 2020. Mr Thaksin, 76 and a brief owner of Manchester City, is one of the most high-profile figures to be indicted charges he has consistently denied. The accusation against him was widely seen as politicised, the latest phase of the tumultuous relationship between the populist politician and a military royalist establishment, and the power-battle has largely dominated Thai politics since Mr Thaksin was first elected in a landslide victory in 2001. Mr Thaksin wore a yellow tie, a symbol of the Thai monarchy, on the day of his acquittal - Narong Sangnak/Shutterstock Mr Thaksin on Friday smiled and waved outside the Bangkok courtroom as he declared he had been acquitted. He was wearing a yellow tie, the colour associated with Thailands monarchy. Dr Napon Jatusripitak, a political scientist specialising in Thailand at the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute in Singapore, told the Telegraph the verdict was not a major surprise, as Mr Thaksin did not mention any member of the royal family who is covered by lese majeste laws. He said: On the merits of the case, the evidence against Thaksin was thin. His comments were directed at the Privy Council rather than the king, queen, regent or heir apparent as specified under the law. Still, others have been convicted for less. But Dr Napon said Mr Thaksins respite may well be brief, his family are not out of the woods yet and face several upcoming cases that could erode their political influence. The constitutional court next Friday will deliver a verdict about whether Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Mr Thaksins daughter, should be removed as prime minister after only a year in the role. Border dispute The case is linked to a leaked phone call with Hun Sen, the former leader of Cambodia. Ms Paetongtarn was recorded kow-towing to the strongman politician and criticised her own military over the border dispute a major red line in Thailand. The dispute the pair were discussing later descended into five days of deadly conflict. With the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia forming the backdrop to the upcoming ruling on August 29, it is difficult to see how Paetongtarn would be let off easily, said Dr Napon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Thaksin will face another court case in early September, with the former prime minister under scrutiny after he served a previous six month sentence in a private hospital rather than in prison. Dr Napon added: One possible reading is that Thaksins acquittal on the lese majeste charge was intended as a gesture of goodwill to lay the groundwork for a new political bargain. Under such an arrangement, Paetongtarn would be removed from office and replaced by a conservative prime minister while Thaksin, in turn, would be spared in the hospital case. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. BANGKOK (AP) Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was acquitted of a royal defamation charge by a court on Friday, in a case that could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years. The 76-year-old Thaksin, smiling as he walked away from the courtroom, was the first to reveal the verdict, responding to journalists' questions with the single word: Dismissal. His lawyer, Winyat Chatmontree, also confirmed the acquittal verdict, as did the Bangkok Criminal Court later in a news release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The law on defaming the monarchy, an offense known as lese majeste, is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. It is among the harshest such laws globally and increasingly has been used in Thailand to punish government critics. The legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people many of them student activists have been charged with violating the law. The court's news release said it had found the witnesses and evidence were too weak to support conviction. Thaksin was originally charged in 2016 over remarks he made a year earlier to journalists in South Korea. The case was not pursued at that time because he was in exile and the necessary legal procedures could not be completed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The news release said the court determined that the account of the interview presented by the prosecution was incomplete and lacked context, and a key point did not clearly refer specifically to then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej. It also said the court thought that witnesses in the case against Thaksin might have been motivated by political bias, because they have participated in political protests against him, leaving open the possibility they may have unfairly interpreted his words. Thaksins opponents, who were generally staunch royalists, accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespecting then-King Bhumibol, who died in 2016. Thaksin has always asserted that the cases against him were politically motivated. When he was indicted last year, Thaksins freedom on bail was approved with the condition that he could not travel out of Thailand unless approved by court. His passport was confiscated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite facing various prosecutions since leaving office, Thaksin has spent no time in prison. He was abroad in 2006 when a military coup ousted him. He briefly returned in 2008, only to return quickly to exile to avoid a possible prison term. He r eturned to Thailand in 2023 when the Pheu Thai political party that he is closely associated with came to power. He was sent to serve an eight-year prison term on charges related to corruption and abuse of power but was transferred immediately to a hospital on medical grounds. After six months in a hospital suite, he was granted a pardon and parole and set free. The decision to send him to a hospital instead of prison was widely questioned as to whether he was granted a special, undeserved privilege. The Supreme Courts Criminal Division for Political Office Holders will rule next month in another case that puts him in jeopardy of imprisonment. Since his return, Thaksin has maintained a high profile, traveling the country making public appearances and political observations that could upset the powerful conservative establishment that was behind his 2006 ouster. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who became prime minister last year, is also in hot water. She stands accused of failing to handle in an ethical manner a June 15 call with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen in which they discussed tensions over territory claimed by both nations. The Constitutional Court suspended her from her duties on July 1 and next week will rule whether she will lose her prime minister position for breaching ethics laws. Thais have long been accustomed to sudden changes of government due to military coups, numbering more than a dozen since the 1930s. But in the past two decades, they have increasingly seen such changes imposed by the courts, which have ousted four prime ministers and dissolved three election-winning political parties, often on narrow technical grounds. In most cases, the targets were viewed as challengers to the traditional royalist establishment, whose most powerful defenders are the army and the courts. China opposes Indian individuals' attempt to impede improvement of bilateral ties Xinhua) 08:14, August 22, 2025 BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- China deplores that certain individuals in India have tried to undermine China's sovereignty on the Taiwan question and impede the improvement of China-India relations, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday. "China expresses serious concerns and firm opposition to this," Mao said at a regular press briefing, when answering a query on reports that Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar had been misquoted on India's position on the Taiwan question -- reports which came from Indian government sources. China has released readouts on the talks between the Chinese and Indian foreign ministers, Mao said, adding that for the Chinese side, the Indian side's so-called "clarification" came as a surprise, which is inconsistent with the facts. Mao stressed that there is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory, adding that this is a prevailing consensus among the international community, including India. "We hope India will earnestly abide by the one-China principle, properly handle sensitive issues and promote the steady development of bilateral relations," Mao said. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Russia's unleashing its most aggressive aerial assault in the history of the war in Ukraine has raised increasingly worrying questions about the measures the US might take against Moscow going forward. This was indeed the harshest response given to US leadership, especially if it had been expecting a softer tone - and in response of which over 600 drones and ballistic missiles rained down across the country, targeting infrastructure, civilian zones, and notably, the American-owned Flex Ltd. facility in Mukachevoa town nestled near the borders of two NATO member states. The timing, location, and symbolism of this strike suggest it was not merely a military manoeuvre. It was a calculated provocation. In a single sentence, the message was clear: Russia is testing Washingtons patience. This wasnt the first time Russia has struck deep into Ukrainian territory. But this attack was different. Mukachevo is not a strategic locationits a geopolitical pressure point. By targeting a region adjacent to NATO borders and destroying a facility owned by a U.S. company, Russia crossed a line that many believed it would avoid. The fact that injuries were reported only underscores the human cost of this escalation. What makes this strike even more consequential is its timing. It came just days after two high-profile meetings: the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, and the Washington gathering between Trump and European leaders. Both meetings were framed as steps toward de-escalation, with Trump positioning himself as a broker of peace. Yet, Russias actions suggest a different interpretationone that views diplomacy not as a path to resolution, but as a stage for defiance. Some Ukrainian and Russian analysts have described the Mukachevo strike as a direct challenge to both the United States and NATO. And theyre not wrong. The destruction of an American business on Ukrainian soil, in a region bordering NATO allies, is not a coincidenceits a signal. It tells Washington: We are not afraid of your red lines. President Trumps response, posted on Truth Social, was telling. He wrote that Ukraine cannot win the war without fighting back Russia. While he didnt mention Flex Ltd. by name, many experts interpreted the post as a veiled reaction to the Mukachevo strike. Some saw it as frustration with Putins cold reception at the Alaska summit. Others viewed it as a shift in tonea move away from cautious diplomacy toward a more confrontational posture. Either way, the implications are serious. Russias strike has forced a reckoning. American companies operating in Ukraine now face heightened risk. NATOs eastern flank is under renewed pressure. And the West, must now decide whether to respond with words or with action. In the end, Russia may find that this provocation comes at a steep cost. The destruction of Flex Ltd.s facility may have been intended as a symbolic blow, but it could galvanize bipartisan support for stronger measures against Moscow. Sanctions, military aid, and diplomatic isolation are all tools that Washington may now wield with greater urgency. The war in Ukraine has entered a new phaseone where civilian targets are fair game, and American interests are no longer immune. If Russia believes it can erode U.S. influence through intimidation, it may soon discover that Washingtons patience, while deep, is not infinite. And when that patience runs out, the consequences will echo far beyond Mukachevo. Corn futures slipped off the intraday highs on Wednesday, still closing with fraction to 2 cent gains across the front months. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was up 1/2 cent at $3.62. USDA reported private export sales of 125,741 MT of corn to Mexico and 100,000 MT to Colombia this morning, all for 2025/26. Analysts estimate a total of 100,000 in net reduction to net sales of 300,000 MT for old crop ahead of the Thursday morning Export Sales report. New crop business is estimated to total between 0.9 and 2 MMT in the week ending on August 14. More News from Barchart Day 2 of the annual ProFarmer showed a Nebraska yield estimated at 179.5 bpa, up from 173.25 bpa last year and the 166.33 3-year average, but shy of their 2021 record. USDA is looking for a 4 bpa increase yr/yr. Yield in Indiana was estimated at 193.82 bpa, which is up 6.28 bpa from last years tour total and well 10.71 bpa above the 3-year average. USDA was looking for a 7 bpa increase from last year in last Tuesdays report. EIA data from this morning showed a total of 1.072 million barrels per day of ethanol production in the week of 8/15, which was down 21,000 bpd from the week prior and a 12 week low. Ethanol stocks were up 39,000 barrels to 22.688 million barrels. Exports were a 19-week high at 172,000 bpd, as refiner inputs were down 4,000 barrels to 925,000 barrels bpd. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange estimates the Argentina corn crop to be up 9.6% in acreage for 2025/26 to 7.8 million hectares (19.27 million acres). Sep 25 Corn closed at $3.80, up 1/2 cent, Nearby Cash was $3.62, up 1/2 cent, Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.04, up 3/4 cent, Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.22, up 1 1/4 cents, New Crop Cash was $3.59 5/8, up 1/2 cent, On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com Former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP, the Rev Martin Smyth, has died at the age of 94. He served as grand master of the Orange Lodge at the height of the Troubles, between 1972 and 1998. The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland described Rev Smyth as "a leader of unwavering principle and determination through often difficult times and a stalwart of the Orange cause". UUP leader Mike Nesbitt said Rev Smyth's "imprint will last forever". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Presbyterian minister, he resigned his ministry and was elected to Parliament in the 1982 by-election following the assassination of the Rev Robert Bradford MP by the IRA. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the UUP leadership in 1995 after the resignation of Lord Molyneaux, finishing fourth to the winner, David Trimble. Nesbitt said that from his days as a broadcast journalist before he entered politics, Rev Smyth was "an ever-present heavyweight in local politics, whose views were always important". "He may not have been as prominent as others in the public sphere, but hugely influential behind the scenes," the health minister said. Quiet but commanding The soft-spoken Rev Martin Smyth was overshadowed in the 1980s and 1990s by loud, tub-thumping politicians. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, no unionist had a better political CV. He was a Protestant clergyman, head of the Orange Order and MP for South Belfast. His views were conservative, staunch and often hardline. Within the unionist community, he commanded huge respect. He did not need to shout to be heard. Related video: Mercy Hospital Fort Smith lockdown suspect deemed fit to stand trial from October 2024 FORT SMITH, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) A Fort Smith man facing multiple charges connected to the July 2024 lockdown at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith has been sentenced, according to court documents. John West, 35, was booked in the Sebastian County Detention Center on July 22, 2024, on commercial burglary, felony theft, and impairing the operation of a vital public facility charges. John West, 34 (Courtesy: Sebastian County Detention Center) On Aug. 20, West negotiated a guilty plea for commercial burglary and theft of property of more than $1,000 charges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement West was given a 390-day jail sentence with 390 days already served. He received an eight-year suspended sentence. Prosecutor: No charges filed in Lavaca shooting that left man dead, actions deemed justified He was ordered to pay fines as part of his plea deal and is banned from all Mercy Hospital properties. Case background The Fort Smith Police Department said on July 22, 2024, multiple agencies were at Mercy Hospital searching the building for a possibly armed suspect. Police told KNWA/FOX24 that the building was reopened around three hours after going into lockdown. The suspect, later identified as West, was found hiding in a box at the educational wing of the hospital and was not carrying a real gun. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A pair of headphones, a laptop, a tablet and a phone charger were found in the bag, along with five Mercy ID badges were located in Wests possession at the time of his capture. After Wests arrest, it was revealed that West had a prior arrest at another Fort Smith hospital earlier that month. FSPS: Student brings BB gun to elementary school, investigation underway Just days after his arrest, Wests public defender asked for a fitness evaluation after it was revealed by his mother that he takes medications. When he does not take them, he frequently experiences paranoid fits where he believes people are out to kill him, his mother said in a court filing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In October 2024, West was deemed fit to stand trial after undergoing a mental evaluation. It is my opinion, with a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that Mr. West currently has the capacity to understand the nature and objectives of the proceedings against him and assist his attorney in his own defense, the fitness report said. However, Wests Sept. 8 trial date was canceled after he took the plea deal. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24. Fort Worth ISDs overall accountability rating ticked up slightly in the latest Texas Education Agency (TEA) report, holding at a C, but its Student Achievement score the measure of how many students are performing at grade level has stayed in the D range for three straight years, raising questions about whether those gains are enough to avoid a possible state takeover. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath informed Superintendent Karen Molinar and Board President Roxanne Martinez in a May 5 letter that the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade had failed to meet state academic standards for five consecutive years. State law requires Morath to intervene in such cases, either by appointing a board of managers to replace the elected school board and superintendent or by ordering campus closures. Scores Show Limited Progress According to TEA, Fort Worth ISDs Student Achievement score the domain that measures how many students are actually performing at grade level improved only from D / 63 in 202223 to D / 68 in 202425. While the districts overall accountability grade rose from D / 61 to C / 73 over the same period, the sluggish pace of growth in Student Achievement underscores that the majority of students are still not meeting state standards in core subjects. Gaps Across Student Groups TEAs Closing the Gaps data reveal persistent disparities across student groups: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All Students: 38% reading, 29% math; growth rates 63% and 60%; graduation rate 82.6% African American Students: 29% reading, 19% math; graduation rate 76.4% Hispanic Students: 35% reading, 28% math; graduation rate 84.3% White Students: 65% reading, 55% math; graduation rate 82.9% Asian Students: 44% reading, 37% math; graduation rate 89.3% High Focus Students (economically disadvantaged, special education, English learners): 33% reading, 25% math; graduation rate 81.2% These outcomes underscore that the majority of Fort Worth ISD students are not meeting grade-level standards in reading and math, with the widest gaps hitting African American and Hispanic students. Dallas ISD Comparison By contrast, Dallas ISDs Student Achievement score has held steady in the C range, rising from 71 in 202223 to 76 in 202425. While both districts continue to grapple with gaps between student groups, Dallas has shown more consistent momentum in raising overall achievement. As The Dallas Express reported last week, Dallas Education Collective Executive Director Nakia Douglas cautioned that accountability ratings reveal deeper issues. While we celebrate the progress, the Student Achievement data shows there is still significant work ahead, especially when looking at certain student groups, Douglas said. Thats why its critical we focus on improving educational outcomes for every child no matter their ZIP code. Leadership Response Superintendent Morath framed the updated AF ratings as part of the states renewed focus on transparency and student success. Today marks a return to clarity and accountability, he said in a statement. He added, With the release of the 2025 A-F Ratings, we are reinforcing our commitment to transparency and to providing accurate, readily available information that helps every family understand how their school is doing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Molinar expressed hope that the districts improvements will influence Moraths decision on whether to impose a state takeover. I hope that he sees the direction were going in, she said, noting that incremental gains can still make a meaningful difference for students. Their chances now for what their future looks like just changes every day and every year, Molinar said. The commissioner has not announced what action he will take. For now, Fort Worth ISD remains under scrutiny, balancing the threat of state intervention with cautious optimism that recent academic gains could help stave off a takeover. Developers planning to convert a former Kearny industrial site into housing and warehouse space are suing two chemical companies for $15.5 million in cleanup costs for toxic contamination. Ridge Crossing and related developers filed a federal lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Newark accusing two chemical companies of leaving behind toxic contamination at a site in Kearny in Hudson County. The lawsuit accuses the companies of failing to clean up hazardous chemicals at the former Jeryl Industries Industrial Park at 590 Belleville Turnpike and 680 Schuyler Avenue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The property was once home to decades of chemical manufacturing including by Alpha Metals from the 1960s through the early 1990s, according to the complaint. The companies named in the lawsuit, Alent and Alpha Assembly Solutions, are successors to Alpha Metals, according to the complaint. Attorneys for Ridge Crossing, Mark Heinzelmann and Christopher Porrino of Lowenstein Sandler, declined to comment on the case. Requests for comment from Alent and Alpha Assembly Solutions were not immediately returned. During redevelopment, the plaintiffs claim they found chlorinated solvents and other hazardous substances in the soil and groundwater, including vinyl chloride, benzene and trichloroethylene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The developers claim the companies violated federal and state environmental laws, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act and New Jerseys Spill Act. According to the lawsuit, Ridge Crossing signed an agreement with Alent in 2015 requiring the company to handle the cleanup. However, the developers allege that the work was delayed, incomplete, or never done. As a result, the developers say they had to complete the cleanup, including installing vapor barriers and disposing of contaminated soil. They also allege they had to redesign foundation systems to protect against vapor intrusion, causing further delays and costs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The lawsuit seeks damages, reimbursement for cleanup expenses, and a court order requiring the companies to finish the remediation. The developers also claim they followed federal cleanup standards, however, the contamination continues to affect construction at the site. Colleen Murphy may be reached at cmurphy@njadvancemedia.com. Four teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 were wounded in a shooting near a Bronx playground Friday afternoon, police said. Gunfire broke out on Tratman Ave. between St. Peters Ave. and Overing St., down the block from The Pearly Gates playground in Westchester Square around 4 p.m. A 13-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl were each struck in the left leg, a 14-year-old boy was grazed in the foot by a bullet and a 15-year-old boy was grazed in both legs, according to police. EMS transported all four victims to Jacobi Hospital in stable condition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There were are at least five shots, said Victor Carrion, 61, who witnessed the scene. People were running away. I saw the girl on the floor. She was crying. Shed been shot in the left leg, and she was bleeding heavily. The other kids who were shot ran down the street. Carrion, who works as a security guard, said the wounded teens were part of a group of about a dozen teenagers who hang out in the area and are known to cause trouble. Its the same group of 10 or 12 kids that are always starting things around here, he said. They got a problem with everybody. They even have a problem with me, he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I saw the group walking by three or four times. You knew something might happen, said another witness, who did not want to give his name. Then it was pop, pop, pop, he said, mimicking the sound of the gunshots. She got shot across the street, the witness added. She limped over, leaned against the fence and went down. It was a young girl, 13, maybe 14 years old, with her leg shot. He and Carrion said they saw a teenage boy hop into a waiting gray Mercedes-Benz that peeled off after the shooting, heading west on Overton St. So far there have been no arrests, cops said. Police are looking for two shooters, who are also teenagers, according to a police source. This is a developing story. Check back for more information. Erik and Lyle Menendez were denied parole after appearing before separate boards in California this week. The brothers have spent decades behind bars for killing their wealthy parents in 1989. They claimed self-defence, and have long pushed for their freedom. Erik, now 54, attended his hearing on Thursday. Lyle, 57, appeared before a different panel on Friday. Both hearings were lengthy and held remotely. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They revealed details about the pair's time in prison some of which explain why the panels denied their release. Prison behaviour, not killings, prompted refusal In Erik's case, parole commissioner Robert Barton said the main reason for his denial was not the killings themselves, but Menendez's behaviour in prison. Barton rejected the notion that he had been a "model prisoner". He cited Menendez's involvement in fights, drug use and even a tax-fraud scam while linked to a gang. Erik was revealed to have stashed banned objects including ingredients for making wine and art materials which he used to decorate his cell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Barton said Menendez's "institutional misconduct showed a lack of self-awareness". At Lyle's hearing the next day, parole commissioner Julie Garland acknowledged the prisoner's "remorse" and the changes he had made while incarcerated. "But despite all those outward positives, we see... you still struggle with anti-social personality traits like deception, minimisation and rule breaking that lie beneath that positive surface," Garland said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Garland said "incarcerated people who break rules" are more likely to break rules in society. Mobile phone problems Both boards highlighted the brothers' repeated use of mobile phones which are prohibited in prisons. Erik stated that he initially felt that connecting with the outside world meant more to him "than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone", but he said he had later rethought this view. The issue of phones also featured prominently in Lyle's case he has pleaded guilty to a mobile phone violation as recently as March of this year. Although he had a tablet that he was allowed to use, Lyle explained that he had resorted to mobile phones because they gave him more privacy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I would never call myself a model incarcerated person. I would say that I'm a good person, that I spent my time helping people," Lyle told the board, noting he's done a lot for vulnerable inmates. Menendez saw father and mother 'as one person' Erik, who was 18 at the time of the murders, was asked why he and brother had shot dead their parents rather than simply leave home. They have long claimed the killings were a matter of self-defence, as their father was sexually abusing them. "When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable," Menendez responded. "Running away meant death." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added: "I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I have put them through." Lyle, who is regarded as the dominant brother, also insisted that more than three decades on he was a different person. "I'm profoundly sorry for who I was for the harm that everyone has endured. I will never be able to make up for the harm and grief I caused everyone in my family." Asked why they killed their mother as well as their father, Erik said he "saw them as one person" after he learned that his mother was aware of the abuse. Lyle said it was his "honest belief" at the time that his parents "were going to kill" him. More than a dozen relatives back brothers' release Many people, mostly relatives, spoke in their support during the hearings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The brothers' aunt Teresita Menendez-Baralt, tearfully said she forgave the pair for killing her brother. Explaining that she had late-stage cancer, she spoke of her wish to welcome Erik into her home to "wrap my arms around" him before it was too late. Lyle's cousin Eileen Cano, who spoke at both hearings, told the board that she is amazed by how much Lyle had achieved despite facing life in prison. "While most people surrender to the crushing weight of prison life, Lyle rose above it," she said. "Lyle will not be a risk to the community because we as a family will hold him accountable," she continued. "Delaying his release would serve no purpose.." Barton acknowledged the support, but told Erik: "Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole." A European red fox has been on a killing streak in Melbourne Zoo, attacking long-nosed potoroos and brushtail possums after breaching tall brick walls topped with barbed wire. The invasive predator was deliberately introduced into Australia in the mid-1800s, by settlers keen to continue the sport of fox hunting. But the red fox rapidly established itself in the wild, and the government says the animal has since played a major role in the decline of native species including ground-nesting birds, small mammals such as the greater bilby, and reptiles such as green turtles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The latest attack a decade after a fox mauled 14 penguins to death at the same zoo illustrates that it is not just wild animals at risk from the wily European predator. Melbourne Zoo said three long-nosed potoroos, a species deemed vulnerable to extinction, were killed after a red fox broke into the facility. The predator also stalked wild, free-roaming animals in the zoos grounds, including brushtail possums. Brushtail possums met a grisly end at Melbourne Zoo at the hands of a red fox The zoo told Yahoo News Australia that the incident had taken place several weeks ago, and it remains unclear how the fox managed to break in. A spokesman said: Additional monitoring and security measures have been implemented, as have regular, ongoing risk assessments by a pest specialist. This is proving effective with no further evidence of incursions by foxes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The zoo did not clarify how the fox was caught, but said it was humanely dealt with by contractors. The Telegraph has contacted the facility. Long-nosed potoroos had an unwelcome visitor in their enclosure, the red fox killing the animals having climbed the wall into their home It is not just Australian zoos that have to contend with fox attacks. In 2022, the worlds oldest-known rockhopper penguin, known as Mrs Wolowitz, met a grisly end when a fox broke into her enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo. She was 35, having lived to double her life expectancy. The same year, 25 flamingos were killed and three injured after a wild fox chewed through a fence to infiltrate their outdoors pen at Smithsonians National Zoo in Washington DC. It was the worst attack at the zoo in two decades. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said Friday that President Donald Trump has an ancient feud with his former national security adviser John Bolton and decried the FBI raid on Boltons Bethesda, Maryland home. Federal agents conducted the court-authorized search as part of a revived investigation into whether Bolton had mishandled classified records, according to multiplenews reports. Bolton told CNN the search surprised him, and said hes looking into it further. Well, you know, look, this is a very sad development, McCarthy said Friday during an appearance on Fox News. Its one weve seen again and again, but this is an ancient feud. Its all, I think, over Boltons book. Bolton went on a jihad against Trump after he got fired. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was major controversy over whether he had included classified information in the book, whether he had mishandled notes that he took at meetings, and stuff that ended up in his memoir, he continued about Boltons 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, noted that the book was rather substantial and included a lot of quotations and argued that these must have been difficult to include from memory alone. Related: MSNBC Host Skewers Right-Wing 'Snowflakes' Distressed By Cracker Barrel Logo Whether the raid was part of a longstanding personal grudge remains unclear, as Trump claimed Friday he wasnt given advance notice of the 7 a.m. search, but also noted that hes not a fan of Bolton and called him an unpatriotic, war hawk lowlife. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boltons role as national security adviser in the first Trump administration came to an end in 2019. Trump said at the time that he had fired Bolton, while Bolton claimed he actually resigned voluntarily. Hes been an outspoken Trump critic since. The Department of Justice tried to block the book from being published during Trumps first term in 2020, however, and launched a criminal investigation. The probe was closed in 2021 under then-President Joe Bidens administration, but now appears to be reopening. FBI agents carrying empty boxes into Bolton's home as part of their court-authorized search. Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press While McCarthy has previously condemned Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C., hes also accused former President Barack Obama and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of colluding to steal the 2016 election from him. On Friday, McCarthy accused Trump himself of engaging in so-called lawfare. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I was hoping that his administration wouldnt practice the things that were practiced on him, but a big part of lawfare is to harass people with investigations, he said on Fox News. So even if there are never any charges, theres ... already been a search warrant. Related: Conservative Pundit Reality Checks Donald Trump Fans With Brute Fact About Debate Theres obviously a criminal investigation thats underway, therell probably be a grand jury component of it, McCarthy continued. And even if theres no charges, this will be a very big deal for Bolton personally in the coming months, and maybe even years. Related... Read the original on HuffPost Authorities arrested a suspect in connection to a homicide in Jamaica Plain in July. Taylor Hurst, 42, of Foxborough, was taken into custody on Thursday near 1 City Hall Plaza around 2:45 p.m. Hurst was wanted for murder at the time, according to Boston Police. Officials say on July 6, officers received a call for a death investigation in the area of 56 Patten Street in Jamaica Plain. The identity of the victim has not been released. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hurst will be arraigned in West Roxbury District Court on Friday. No further information was immediately available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW By Juveria Tabassum and Anuja Bharat Mistry (Reuters) -Coty on Wednesday forecast a drop in current-quarter sales as weak spending in the U.S. sapped demand for beauty products, and said it would raise prices for its premium fragrances to mitigate tariff costs. The company's shares were down 16% in extended trading after it also posted a surprise fourth-quarter loss. Coty will raise prices in its premium fragrances unit in the U.S. and onshore some production to cushion the impact of the 15% duties on imports from Europe under U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs policy, executives said. Retailers in the U.S. are increasingly cautious due to tariffs and are destocking inventories as cost-conscious consumers tighten spending on some beauty and skincare products. Coty expects first-quarter like-for-like sales to decline 6% to 8%, compared with 4.5% growth a year ago and said product launches should drive sales growth in the second half. "Our analysis of cosmetics category weakness points to value-seeking behavior, some fatigue with innovation as consumers circle back to basics and less frequent usage, particularly with Gen-Z migrating to fragrances," finance chief Laurent Mercier said in a statement. Changes in the immigration policy under the Trump administration has also contributed to the slowdown in the country, Mercier added. Coty also said it has invested disproportionately in its U.S. mass beauty business at the expense of more profitable fragrances unit. The company would reallocate investment in fragrances instead of mass beauty, which has struggled of late due to intense competition from cheaper products online. Coty reported an adjusted quarterly loss of 5 cents per share, compared with analysts' estimates of a profit of 2 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. The loss included a negative impact from an equity swap mark-to-market of $0.07 due to the stock price decline in the quarter, the company said. Beauty retailer Estee Lauder also gave a weak annual profit forecast on Wednesday. The company's fourth-quarter revenue fell 8% to $1.25 billion, but beat estimates of $1.20 billion. (Reporting by Juveria Tabassum and Anuja Bharat Mistry in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel) State regulators will be considering a new four-year rate schedule that Florida Power & Light filed on Aug. 20 that cuts down rate increases from a proposal that sparked outcry earlier this year. Most electric bills are still going up but more slowly. The typical residential customer in Florida will see their monthly electric bill go up by nearly $4 for 2026 if the Florida Public Service Commission agrees this fall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More: FPL proposes rate increases: Customers could pay 14% more in January than in 2024 Most of FPL's customers in Florida will be paying $168 more annually for electricity in 2029 than they are in 2025, a 10% increase. Critics of the state's and the country's largest utility are still calling it "a golden" deal. Still, big business interests in the state, such as Walmart, Circle K Stores and Wawa, and seven others are signing on. The new agreement is the result of a plan hammered out with 10 key stakeholders, according to FPL. The new plan "significantly reduces FPL's original revenue request while keeping residential customer bills well below the projected national average through the end of the decade," the company said in a news release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FPL has reduced its 2026 request for core electricity revenue by 39 percent to $945 million from the $1.5 billion it had presented in February, the company said. The request for 2027 was reduced by 17%, from $927 million to $766 million. What FPL is collecting through its base rate what it charges per kilowatt hour is estimated to be $2.9 billion less than the $8.9 billion originally requested over the four-year period, FPL said. Rate increases would be incremental so the typical FPL residential customer would be paying an estimated monthly bill of $148.15 in 2029. Initial estimates in February had monthly bills rising to $151.99 by 2029. For the last year of the agreement, most Florida residential customers will be paying $46 less annually than they would have been under the initial plan that drew protest from both consumer advocates and business interests. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under the deal, FPL's four-year revenue request would be cut by approximately 30% and shave hundreds of millions of dollars from its initial proposal while, the company said, still supporting continued investments in grid infrastructure and new generation to reliably serve Florida's growth. "This settlement agreement is a win for all FPL customers and a win for Florida. It supports our ongoing commitment to meet the resiliency and reliability needs of our fast-growing state, while keeping customer bills well below the national average," FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel was quoted as saying in the release. Florida Power & Light had petitioned in February to be granted an $8.9 billion rate hike spread out from 2026 to 2029. The petition included rate increases of $1.5 billion in 2026 and $927 million in 2027. FPL would also have passed costs to customers in 2028 and 2029 for solar-energy and battery-storage projects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The proposed rate increase drew almost universal opposition from groups that included business-friendly entities such as the Florida Retail Federation and consumer advocate groups such as the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. The Office of Public Counsel, representing an estimated 12 million FPL rate payers, also announced its opposition to the proposed rate hike, which many called the largest in U.S. history. Walt Trierweiler, the president of the OPC, stated in a memo that the office recommends, based on "appropriate adjustments," an allowable increase of "no more than" about $35 million $35,196,000 for FPL in 2027. "Our part is not only trying to bring the bill down from $8.9 billion but also protecting customers from future changes, risks and unintentional consequences," Trierweiler told the Pensacola News Journal in early August. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More: FPL wants to raise your power bill. You can weigh in on the proposal Thursday. Analysis conducted by Floridians Against Increased Rates found the additional revenue of $8.9 billion would likely rise if the company received, as also requested, authority to further increase customer costs when it brings new solar and battery projects online in 2028-29. Estimates with that addition would have brought the total cost of the rate increase to $10 billion. A televised hearing was scheduled for Aug. 11 before the Public Service Commission board, but late in the day on Aug. 8 it was announced that FPL had reached agreement in principle with key stakeholders. The scheduled Aug. 11 PSC hearing was postponed until details of the settlement arrangement could be ironed out, which FPL had said it could do by Aug. 20. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Office of Public Counsel has remained steadfast in its opposition and is joined in disputing the hike by Florida Rising, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Floridians Against Increased Rates. Florida Rising, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Floridians Against Increased Rates issued a joint comment following the release of the settlement agreement. "Once again, Florida Power & Light Company has made a golden deal for itself and used levers of settlement to grant unjustified concessions to its largest customers, like Walmart, in the form of gratuitous bill credits and unjustified cost shifting, paid for by the residential and small business customers of the state of Florida," it said. It said FPL had entered a supposedly give-and-take negotiation but provided "no give, just take." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "FPL takes all that they want, almost $7 billion in this case over the four-year term, and the other intervenors joining the 'settlement' take approximately $1 billion in subsidies paid for by the residents and small businesses of Florida," the statement said. Others joining in the settlement announced Aug. 20 were the Florida Industrial Power Users Group; the Florida Energy for Innovation Association; EVgo Services; Americans for Affordable Clean Energy; RaceTrac; Electrify America; federal government agencies; and Armstrong World Industries. The FPL settlement recommendation will kick off an extensive public review process. The PSC will set hearings and receive input from stakeholders and rate payers. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Most FPL customers will be paying more but at a slower rate under plan FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WKRN) The Franklin Police Department is stepping up enforcement in school zones around the city. Since school started two weeks ago, FPD has made nearly 50 traffic stops for drivers violating school zone rules. Citations have been issued for everything form speeding to distracted driving to improper passing. One stop saw a driver speeding 28 miles an hour over the speed limit in the school zone while children were walking around. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The department said drivers need to pay more attention than ever when going through a school zone. FPD is urging people to respect school zones to avoid a worst-case scenario. The last thing I ever want to do is have to go to a parent and have to tell them their child has been killed in a senseless manner and theyre in a school zone, Kevin Spry, FPD Traffic Unit, told News 2. The biggest thing is, we just need people to slow down, calm down; youll get there when you get there. Leave a little bit early if you have to. Dont put other lives in dangerespecially children. The fine for a school zone violation is even higher than one for a normal ticket: $158 for speeding in a school zone. And if youre going 35 or higher, the police will require you to go to court, where a judge can impose even higher fines. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to FPD, juveniles cited for being on their cellphones in a school zone could lose their license. Do you have news happening in your neighborhood? Let us know by sending an email to neighborhoodnews@wkrn.com. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. In late 2022, Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley and local veteran organization Platoon 22 partnered to open a new veteran center in Frederick, offering a number of services, from mental health support to career readiness. Platoon 22 is now set to split from the Platoon Veteran Services Center at Goodwill by the end of September after Goodwill terminated the initial agreement between the two organizations. Goodwill funded and provided space for the center and entered into a service agreement in which Platoon 22 would run the day-to-day operations, which included managing the front desk and recruiting service partners. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some of the other partners with offices at the center, which is approximately 12,000 square feet, include the Maryland Department of Veterans and Military Families, Warrior Canine Connection and Thrive USA Home Care Services. In this 2022 agreement, which had a duration of five years with an option to renew for additional years, Goodwill subleased, rent-free, to Platoon 22 an office at the front of the building and the activity center room. Platoon 22 Shakshi Patel-Morton, left, and Kelly Hartzell, director of veteran services, talk in the office space at the Platoon Veteran Services Center at Goodwill on Monday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Members of the Platoon 22 board of directors said both organizations were in conversation for months about updating the service agreement to make their roles more specific. Board President Caleb Sebra and board Vice President Scott McCaskill said they met with Goodwill leadership on July 2 and discussed the idea that Goodwill staff members might take over the front desk. On July 3, Goodwill sent Platoon 22 leadership a notice, terminating the current agreement effective Oct. 1 as the organization seeks to become the centers operator which took Platoon 22 by surprise. Platoon 22 board members said they have tried to reach Goodwill since the notice was sent, but have received no responses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Goodwill declined to comment on communications with Platoon 22 to respect and honor confidentiality obligations, according to an email statement from Goodwill Chief Mission and Education Officer Katrina Thurman. Goodwill offered Platoon 22 a new agreement, providing a smaller office near the back of the building. It would also allow Platoon 22 to reserve the activity center and other shared spaces in the building. Platoon 22 The interior space of the Platoon Veteran Services Center at Goodwill is shown on Monday. Platoon 22 is set to leave the Veteran Services Center after Goodwill changed the agreement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Platoon 22 Executive Director Niki Falzone said the organization, which has two full-time and two part-time employees, could not operate out of the smaller space. She said the group is packing up its belongings, including some wall decorations and furniture around the building, as it looks to move out. Platoon 22 staff members said they are looking into new spaces to house their office and programming. As much as I would like to stay here and to not disrupt services and to continue to provide services in this building, thats not the right decision for our organization to grow, Falzone said. Theres no part of me that believes that if you want someone to stay, you value what they bring to your model, that you would put them in the back corner. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sebra said, as a veteran himself, like many within Platoon 22s leadership, this cause is personal. Were committed to making sure that this has as little to no impact on the veteran community as possible, Sebra said. In an email statement to The Frederick News-Post on Aug. 11, Goodwill said this change aligns with its mission to focus on veterans and first responders. Goodwill remains committed to ensuring that the VSC doors stay open long into the future with current and new partners united to continue supporting the needs of veterans, service members, first responders, and their families, the organization wrote in the statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As the organization takes over running the facility, it will continue to offer career services and hire additional staff members to support expanded operations, according to Thurmans statement. Goodwill said more information on the name of the center will be shared in the future. Platoon 22 said it would request that its name be removed from the title once the organization leaves. Community reactions Goodwill has assigned an unarmed, uniformed guard to the centers lobby to help ensure the safety and security of all partners and patrons to the best of our ability, Thurmans statement said. Falzone said some veterans have not appreciated this addition because the building was meant to be welcoming and inviting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Goodwill declined to comment on legal agreements with partners, but said it is in positive talks with current and future service partners, according to Thurman. The Maryland Department of Veterans and Military Families remains committed to working with all of our community partners to ensure that veterans and military families continue to receive the assistance they need, the departments acting secretary, Ed Rothstein, said in a statement provided to The Frederick News-Post on Monday. Our focus is on maintaining these positive partnerships so that, together, we can provide meaningful, effective support to those who have served and their loved ones. Michael Strausbough, commander of American Legion Post 282 in Woodsboro, said the post donates to Platoon 22 and has veterans who utilize services at the center, such as the post-traumatic stress disorder support groups. Platoon 22 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Joyce Rose eats during the Platoon 22 weekly breakfast at the Platoon Veteran Services Center at Goodwills activity center on Monday. Platoon 22 is set to leave the Veteran Services Center after Goodwill changed the agreement. Strausbough said he was uncertain what this change means for continuation of services and the future of Platoon 22. Platoon 22 is a safe place, said his wife, Edie Strausbough, the post adjutant. A person that isnt a veteran may not appreciate and be able to communicate with a veteran in a language that they can understand. U.S. Rep. April McClain Delaney sent a letter to Tim ONeal, the president and CEO of Goodwill Central and Northern Arizona which operates under the Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley name in Maryland urging the organization to reconsider this action. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I am writing to express serious concern about Goodwills decision to terminate its existing agreement with Platoon 22 and the negative impact this decision could have on veterans and their families, McClain Delaney, Marylands 6th Congressional District representative, said in the letter. Platoon 22 has become a widely utilized veteran support service program, not only in Western Maryland, but across the state. Michele Corr, executive director of the Delaplaine Foundation, said the foundation sent a letter to ONeal in support of Platoon 22. Delaplaine Foundation has invested $120,000 in grant funding to Platoon 22 because we firmly believe in their mission and have witnessed the measurable difference they make in addressing the unique challenges faced by our veterans, Corr said. The Milwaukee Police Department is considering a troubling proposal: trading 2.5 million images and data belonging to Milwaukee residents mostly Black and Brown people with a private big data company, Biometrica, in exchange for free facial recognition search licenses. Additional licenses would come at a cost of $12,000. But the true cost is much higher: the erosion of community privacy, the targeting of marginalized communities, and the expansion of a surveillance infrastructure that has historically harmed us. Biometrica, a Las Vegas-based company with roots in the casino industry, has pivoted from tracking gamblers to tracking civilians. Their systems are now being integrated into law enforcement across the country, and Milwaukee may be next. But while the police deliberate behind closed doors, the people whose jail records and mugshots could be handed over to this corporation havent been consulted. Lets be clear: just because a record is technically "public" doesnt mean it should be packaged up and delivered wholesale to a private corporation. If Milwaukee officials and law enforcement leaders believe this is harmless, they should include their own faces and records in the dataset. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Letters: We know soft parenting leads to problematic youth. Milwaukee is ignoring that. If Milwaukee politicians want us to give up our privacy, they should give theirs up first Officers, elected leaders and city staff should voluntarily submit their biometric data because doing so asks everyone else, especially those already overpoliced and disenfranchised, to carry a risk they themselves would never shoulder. People who have been arrested or jailed many of whom were never charged, let alone convicted deserve privacy, too. Being booked into jail should not sentence you to a lifetime of biometric surveillance. Especially when that data could end up in the hands of casinos, private corporations, political operatives, or federal agencies like ICE. As Professor Alan Rubel of UW-Madison warns: Once information is held by someone outside of government control, it can be used for all kinds of things, and theres not really any legal restriction on doing so. Who might Biometrica sell our biometric identities to next? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Biometricas offer to Milwaukee is not a neutral tool its a step toward a dystopian future. When facial recognition is used alongside a camera network, it essentially forces every person in Milwaukee to walk around with a blown-up photo of their drivers license on their chest, while also carrying a GPS tracker. It creates the infrastructure for mass identification and tracking in public spaces: who you are, where you go, and who you meet with. Mayor Cavalier Johnson has rightfully positioned himself as an opponent of Trumps agenda. But if thats true, allowing expanded facial recognition use in Milwaukee is antithetical to that stance. It doesn't take much imagination to see how this tech could be hijacked by Trump or his allies to go after undocumented immigrants, abortion seekers, trans people accessing gender-affirming care, and political protestors. All it takes is one officer sympathetic to Trump or one data share with a fusion center and this system becomes a weapon. It's naive to think we can build this kind of surveillance apparatus and keep it safe from abuse. Thats exactly why having a transparent and democratic process is so important. In fact, MPD was using FRT for two or three years without a policy in place. We believe the community and elected officials not just police should have a say in what surveillance technologies are used, and under what conditions. These are conversations we need to have before acquiring new tools, not after theyre embedded in secret. Surveillance technology has a bad track record Facial recognition has led to wrongful arrests repeatedly. Robert Williams, a Black man in Detroit, was jailed for 30 hours after being misidentified by facial recognition. Municipalities have paid out hundreds of thousands in settlements due to these errors, nearly all of which involved misidentifying Black people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Opinion: Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman says prevention is key to less homicides We are in the midst of a civil liberties crisis. Agencies like DHS are using automated tools to scrape data, build blacklists and carry out deportations. Tools like Palantir are being activated to feed this growing digital dragnet. As AI becomes more powerful and widely used, FRT will enable the government to track where people go, who they meet with, and what causes they support sometimes over the course of years. Some city leaders and officers may genuinely want new tools to solve crimes and reduce harm. But lets be honest: surveillance technologies have a terrible track record when it comes to actually preventing crime except maybe in parking garages. And when it comes to solving crimes, there are already countless private cameras across the city. Government doesnt need to create its own dragnet. Milwaukee has a choice. We can reject a future of algorithmic policing, digital profiling, and corporate surveillance or we can become a cautionary tale. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trading away our neighbors identities to Biometrica in the name of safety is a betrayal not just of privacy but of equity, justice, and our collective future. Milwaukee must reject this idea, prohibit facial recognition and demand not to be surveilled in secret. Jon McCray Jones is a policy analyst for the ACLU of Wisconsin. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee residents deserve privacy, not more surveillance | Opinion FORT SMITH, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) Live music will return to downtown Fort Smith this fall with the Levitt AMP Fort Smith Music Series, a season of free, family-friendly concerts along the Arkansas River. Main Street Fort Smith announced the lineup for the Fall 2025 series, which marks the fifth year of the program. Concerts will be held on five Thursday nights at the Harry E. Kelley River Park Amphitheater, with one special pop-up performance at The Bakery District. The schedule includes: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sept. 25 The Mexican Standoff, an all-female Mexican American band Oct. 2 Nu-Blu, a bluegrass and Americana group from North Carolina Oct. 9 Shamarr Allen (Bakery District pop-up), a trumpeter and vocalist blending jazz, hip-hop, rock, funk, blues and country Oct. 16 Carver Commodore, a rock band from Florence, Ala. Oct. 23 Alto Moon, a former American Idol contestant (Season 22) Fort Smith lifts water conservation measures Each show will feature opening acts and community spotlights starting at 6 p.m., with headliners taking the stage around 7:15 p.m. The events will also include a Kid Zone, food trucks, vendors and community partner activities. Concertgoers are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, picnic blankets and dancing shoes. Admission is free. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24. PARIS (AP) The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children was refused access to the facility, a French prosecutors office said in a statement Friday. The Israeli children, aged 8 to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the zip line facility in Porte-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenean mountains, the Perpignan prosecutors office said. The prosecutor's office said the manager initially told some people he was refusing the group access on the grounds of personal beliefs before offering other justifications to others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A message posted Wednesday evening on the park's social media said the site would be closed Thursday due to a storm, in order to carry out a complete inspection of the facilities. The park told the group they could not visit. They went to another leisure facility in France with no incident, the statement said. The manager denied any wrongdoing, it added. "A line was crossed. We are appalled," said Perla Danan, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It started with graffiti, insults and physical attacks and now it's literally a ban on children aged 8 to 16," Danan said, adding that it reminded her of the no Jews or dogs allowed sign during the Holocaust. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement France's values have been violated," she said. Jean-Philippe Auge, the mayor of Porte-Puymorens, which has around 100 inhabitants, said the DNA of our community is based on a sense of sharing and fraternity," adding that the incident had caused utter astonishment in the village. Auge said the zip line course is operated by a private company. The Jewish Observatory of France also expressed deep outrage" in a statement Friday. It said such an act of discrimination, targeting minors exclusively on the basis of their nationality and origin, is extremely serious and undermines the fundamental principles of the Republic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Discrimination based on religion is an offense punishable by up to three years in prison in France. Antisemitism has surged in France, with a sharp increase in incidents reported in 2023 after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. These include physical assaults, threats, vandalism, and harassment, prompting alarm among Jewish communities and leaders. Just over a month away, Moldovas parliamentary elections are shaping up as a defining moment for the small Eastern European state. The outcome will set the course for its politics at home and its place in Europe, as warnings grow over Russian attempts to sway the vote. The pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), led by President Maia Sandu, hopes to win a new mandate to push ahead with European Union accession. But Moldovas Intelligence and Security Service has warned of Russian disinformation campaigns, vote-buying and wider destabilisation efforts designed to block its pro-EU path. Outside allies These threats have amplified the need to bolster Moldovas defences, and the country is seeking outside allies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, this does not include pursuing NATO membership, which is ruled out due to the fact that under its constitution, Moldova is officially a "neutral" state. "NATO has a very negative image in Moldova," said Veaceslav Ionita, an expert on economic policy with the IDIS Viitorul think tank and a former MP for the pro-EU Liberal Democratic Party PLDM. He attributes this to "many years of [Russian] manipulation", adding: "No party is ready to discuss seriously a NATO membership." Moldovan strategists are trying to circumvent political reluctance to join NATO by making deals with individual countries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In March 2024, Sandu signed a landmark defence cooperation agreement in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron. The move marked a significant deepening of bilateral ties between the two countries, aimed at reinforcing Moldovas sovereignty and security in the face of Russian threats, pressure and intimidation," according to Ionita. The pact covers a broad range of defence cooperation measures: training Moldovan military personnel, intelligence sharing, joint consultations, enhanced airspace control capabilities, military telecommunications, logistics support and financial oversight of defence spending. It also opens the door for the transfer of French military technology as illustrated by Moldovas acquisition of the Ground Master 200 radar system from French defence firm Thales, giving Chisinau improved aerial surveillance capabilities. France strengthens support for Moldova as Russian destabilisation efforts persist Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Ionita, France is currently regarded as the country that is most concerned for Moldova. "France is number one," he told RFI. Its popularity, he believes, is also in large part due to Macrons close relationship with Sandu. "For many years, polls [showed] that people favoured Russian President Vladimir Putin as the most important foreign leader to trust." But he had to yield to Angela Merkel when "German investment [came] to Moldova and German companies created lots of jobs," according to Ionita. Following Russias invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky became the most popular foreign leader in Moldova. But today, it is Macron. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Nobody knows here who the [new] German leader is," according to Ionita. "They [believe] that France is now the only big country having Moldova on its agenda." Frances engagement with the country builds on cooperation dating back to 1998, but has taken on a new urgency against the backdrop of Russias war in Ukraine and its continued military presence in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria. Aside from France, Moldova has forged military alliances with Romania and the United States, to strengthen its capacity to respond to both conventional and hybrid threats. Its only cooperation with NATO takes the form of joint exercises, civilian emergency preparedness and technical assistance. While Chisinau is being cautious not to breach the country's constitutional neutrality, it views such partnerships as essential to shoring up its defence in the absence of a formal alliance guarantee. Frequent cyber attacks Moldovan authorities have accused the Kremlin of orchestrating or supporting political movements aimed at derailing the countrys pro-Western policies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Frequent cyberattacks, propaganda operations and economic pressure have contributed to a perception of an ever-present Russian threat. Viewed in this light, the defence pact with France is about more than military hardware, ts also about resilience from cyberspace to public institutions. In May 2024, Moldova formalised its Security and Defence Partnership with the EU, designed to fight hybrid threats, improve cyber-resilience, and safeguard democratic processes. The agreement reflects a recognition in Brussels that Moldovas democratic stability is deeply entwined with its security. 'Unprecedented interference': how Russia is attempting to shape Moldovas future EU ambitions But the country's larger ambition at least in some political quarters is full EU membership, which would increase the level of security against possible Russian threats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For Moldova, EU membership would also provide a massive boost to its economy. In 2000, Chisinau began opening up free economic zones areas where foreign companies can operate under a lower tax regime than in the rest of the country. These attracted mainly German investment. "The biggest growth [since Moldova became independent from the USSR in 1991] took place between 2010 and 2019," according to Ionita, the period in which the free economic zones started to flourish. A second boost to the countrys economy came in 2014, after Russia banned the import of Moldovan fruits and agricultural products, and Chisinau then signed a free trade agreement with Brussels. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Association Agreement, which includes the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), was signed in June 2014 and has been in full effect since July 2016. It forms the basis of Moldova's current trade relations with the EU. Everyone understands that EU membership means industry development, good salary, good infrastructure and quality of life, says Ionita. Moldova hosts first EU summit as leaders tackle Russias interference threat Since being granted EU candidate status in June 2022, Moldova has undertaken sweeping reforms in governance, its judiciary and anti-corruption mechanisms steps that are preconditions for accession talks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In June 2024, Brussels formally opened accession negotiations with Chisinau, but the overall accession process remains lengthy and politically sensitive. Sandu has tied her political project firmly to EU membership, seeing it as the only viable path to long-term security and prosperity. The government plans to press ahead with reforms irrespective of political turbulence, but the outcome of the 28 September elections will be decisive in determining the pace and perhaps the viability of Moldovas European course. However, opposition to EU membership remains strong. According to Ionita, even if there is a majority in favour, the pro-Russian parts of the country remain vocal. Around one third of Moldova's population is pro-Russian, with stronger support in certain regions the separatist Transnistria region, where Russian troops are stationed; the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia in the south, and parts of northern Moldova. Around half the population is pro-EU with the rest either centrists, or undecided. Hours after a judge ruled against acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba and deemed her unlawfully in her position, she appeared on Fox News to lambast rogue members of the judiciary, and warned they should be respecting the president. Habba, Donald Trumps former personal lawyer, has been embroiled in a chaotic power struggle at the U.S. Attorneys office in New Jersey, after the president unsuccessfully attempted to nominate her to serve as the states top prosecutor . In July, New Jerseys federal trial judges attempted to replace Habba with their own nominee as her 120-day term as acting U.S. Attorney came to an end. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi intervened to keep Habba in the acting role for an additional 210 days. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But on Thursday, New Jersey federal Judge Matthew Brann ruled that Habba could not preside over criminal cases, declaring her to be acting without lawful authority. Hours later, Habba joined Fox News host Sean Hannity to complain about rogue judges who have ruled against the Trump administration. Without naming names, she declared that judges who do not allow the president to do what he wants are being defiant. President Donald Trumps former lawyer, Alina Habba, claimed the role of judges was to respect the president (Hannity / Fox News) We will not fall to rogue judges, we will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job, respecting the president, Habba declared. The Independent has asked Habbas office for comment. Judges are not obligated to follow the presidents demands, and operate independently of the executive branch. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However the Trump administration has misrepresented the role of judges, and the president has put immense pressure on the judiciary by pushing the bounds of his authority. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed across the U.S. in response to Trumps executive orders with at least 119 facing partial or total blocks. That includes Trumps efforts to get rid of birthright citizenship, make dramatic cuts to the federal workforce, and restrict access to voting. Trump has called out judges by name on his social media accounts when he disagrees with their rulings. In March, Trump called District Judge James Boasberg a radical left lunatic and called for his impeachment after he questioned the government for not complying with his previous order halting deportation flights. Soon after, Boasbergs family, including his daughter, became the target of attacks online. Habba represented the president in several court cases, including a defamation trial with E. Jean Carroll and a fraud trial with the state of New York both of which she lost (Getty Images) Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary earlier this year. The justice later denounced Trump and his allies for calling for Boasbergs impeachment, saying it was not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge John C. Coughenour, the first judge to block the administrations attempts to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, was the victim of SWATing when an anonymous tipster calls in a fake threat of violence, sending a swarm of law enforcement to someones home. The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary group of more than 1,000 judges across the nation, said the judiciary plays a "critical role in preserving democracy and a law-abiding society, in a statement to NPR. Judges must be able to do their jobs without fear of violence or undue influence, they added. In his ruling against Habba on Thursday, District Court Judge Matthew Brann said she was not currently qualified to carry out the duties of the U.S. attorneys office in New Jersey and therefore should be disqualified from participating in cases. Branns ruling came after a criminal defendant in New Jersey questioned whether his case could move forward with Habba as acting U.S. Attorney. Habbas unclear status as the lead prosecutor in New Jersey has thrown the office into chaos, with some state prosecutors admitting in court that upcoming trials may have been adjourned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For Habba to become U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, she would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but that is unlikely to occur. Both of New Jerseys senators, who are Democrats, have strongly opposed her nomination. While Brann said he found Habbas authority to be unlawful, he did not enforce any immediate action, to allow the government to appeal his order. We will win, we always do, it just takes time, Habba, who has lost several cases while representing Trump, told Hannity. Aug. 21A man who helped hide his friend who was accused of the Jan. 25 shooting and killing 13-year-old Gavin Looper in Spokane was sentenced Monday to nearly four years in prison . Mason J. Bolton, 26, pleaded guilty Monday to attempted first-degree rendering criminal assistance, according to court documents. Glen D. Burkey, 25, is awaiting trial on murder, drive-by shooting, assault and firearm charges after prosecutors say he shot Gavin in the head while the teen was playing video games inside a home on Heroy Avenue near Regal Elementary School, according to court documents. Police believe Burkey fired into the home, intending to shoot a man inside, but instead killed Gavin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Burkey's mother, 49-year-old Becky A. Gibbs, is accused of helping her son flee to Montana after the shooting and faces a first-degree rendering criminal assistance charge. Gibbs was arrested in late June and has since posted bond, court records say. The man who was renting the Missoula apartment where Burkey was arrested told law enforcement he picked up Burkey in St. Regis, Montana, two days after the shooting and drove Burkey to his apartment, according to court documents. He said he was unaware Burkey was wanted by police, that he simply needed a roommate, and that Burkey offered to move there and pay half the rent. Detectives seized the renter's phone and found Bolton's number as a saved contact. Police already knew Bolton's number was used to make calls to Burkey while he was in jail. Bolton texted the renter shortly after Burkey and the renter arrived in Missoula asking whether "You guys back," according to documents. A few minutes later, Bolton paid the renter $1,000 through a mobile payment application. The next day, Bolton paid the renter $920 through the same app, police said in documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police wrote the renter was supposed to give the money to Burkey or the money was for the renter to harbor Burkey. Burkey paid Bolton $2,163 the day before Burkey was picked up in St. Regis, according to police. The day the renter picked up Burkey in St. Regis, police went to Bolton's residence to see whether Burkey was there or whether Bolton knew Burkey's location. Bolton told police he was with Bolton in the hours before the shooting and the day after, but he denied knowing where he was. Bolton was arrested March 20 for rendering criminal assistance. Bolton has a lengthy criminal history between 2015 and 2020 in Spokane County, including multiple assault and malicious mischief convictions, as well as ones for witness tampering, burglary and firearm. The 46 1/2 -month prison sentence imposed by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Julie McKay Monday for rendering criminal assistance will run at the same time as the 22-month sentence for the eluding conviction. COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) A judge on Friday rejected a plea agreement for a Colorado funeral home owner who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses, after family members described the pain and shame theyve carried since learning their loved ones bodies were left to rot. The rare decision to reject the plea agreement that called for a 20-year prison sentence followed anguished testimony from family members seeking a more severe punishment. Among them was Crystina Page, whose son David Jaxon Page, 20, was killed by police during a mental health crisis in 2019. His body languished in the funeral home for years as Page carried with her an urn that she wrongly thought contained her sons cremated ashes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I loved it, I cried over it, I held it close during sleepless nights. I kissed him, Page said. It wasnt him at all. ... What happened to my son has broken me in ways I cannot repair. For four years, Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie, ran a fraudulent scheme from their Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs while maintaining a lavish lifestyle. They took money from customers for cremations, only to stash the bodies and give the families dry concrete resembling ashes. Page and others said the plea agreement would have essentially erased the crimes committed against the 191 people whose bodies were discovered in 2023 in a building in Penrose, Colorado. The agreement said Hallford's state sentence was to run concurrently with a 20-year federal sentence, meaning he could have been freed many years earlier than if the sentences had run consecutively. Colorado has struggled to effectively oversee funeral homes and, for many years, had some of the weakest regulations in the nation. Its had a slew of abuse cases, including an estimated 20 decomposing corpses discovered this week at a funeral home in Pueblo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jon Hallford already is bound for prison after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges. The rejection of the plea deal effectively resets the separate state criminal case. Hallford can now withdraw his guilty plea, sending the case to trial. He could also keep his guilty plea and let the judge sentence him without any guarantee of the outcome. He returns to court on Sept. 12. Defense attorney says trial would not provide families with answers Some of the victims who filled the court seemed to brace themselves for the judge to accept the deal and then applauded when he announced his decision. Bentley said he had never rejected a plea agreement in his nine years on the bench and called it an extreme action by the court. He suggested he was swayed after listening to Friday's testimony. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I heard an overwhelming perception that the justice that had been worked out between the attorneys was justice that did not accurately reflect the truth of the victims' experiences, Bentley said. The prosecutor, Rachael Powell, had argued that a 20-year sentence was appropriate since abuse of a corpse is the least serious type of felony under the law, with a possible sentence ranging from probation to a maximum of up to 18 months in prison. Defense attorney Adam Steigerwald said a trial would not deliver what family members wanted: answers. The answers the people are looking for, sadly, are not satisfactory, and they largely don't exist," he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Samantha Naranjo, whose grandmothers body was found at the funeral home over a year after she died, said Bentley acknowledged the experiences of families of the 191 people whose remains were identified -- and also of the relatives of the approximately 1,000 additional people whose remains were handled by the funeral home. Bentley said those people are considered potential victims even though the Hallfords were not prosecuted for how their remains were handled. I feel heard, she said as tears welled up in her eyes. Carie Hallford is accused of the same crimes as her husband and also pleaded guilty. Her sentencing on the corpse abuse charges has not been scheduled. The couple was accused of letting 189 bodies decay. In two other instances, the wrong bodies were buried. Four remains were yet to be identified, the district attorney's office said this week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Hallfords got a license for their funeral home in 2017, and authorities said the bodies started piling up by 2019. Some decomposed beyond recognition. Others were found unclothed or on the floor in inches of fluid from the bodies. The Hallfords bought luxury items after defrauding the government As the gruesome count grew, Jon and Carie Hallford were also defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief aid. With the money from families and the federal government, the Hallfords bought luxury goods, a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth $120,000 combined and $31,000 in cryptocurrency. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2023, a putrid smell poured from the building and the police turned up. Investigators swarmed the building, donning hazmat suits and painstakingly extracting the bodies. Hallford and his wife were arrested in Oklahoma, where Jon Hallford had family, more than a month later. Families learned that their cathartic moments of grief spreading a mother's ashes in Hawaii or cradling a son's urn in a rocking chair were tainted by a deception. It was as if those signposts of the grieving process had been torn away, unraveling months and years of working through their loved ones' deaths. ___ Brown reported from Billings, Montana. CPA Australia has presented a series of recommendations to the Hong Kong Government as part of the consultation for the upcoming Policy Address 2025. This initiative seeks to address the ongoing economic changes and technological advancements affecting the region. Karina Wong, divisional president of CPA Australia in Greater China 2025, said: Amid the uncertainties created by trade frictions with major economies, Hong Kong has demonstrated its unique advantages as a strategic gateway connecting mainland China and the world. We need to amplify our competitiveness to secure the citys long-term economic vitality; for example, the free port status and unrivalled business environment. The recommendations focus on five main areas, including strengthening Hong Kongs position as an international financial centre, establishing the city as a hub for innovation and technology, and diversifying the economy. Additionally, CPA Australia has emphasised the need to promote environmental, social and governance principles and the green economy, alongside strategies for attracting and retaining skilled talent. The proposals include the introduction of a Qualified Refundable Tax Credit (QRTC) scheme targeting multinational enterprises in the maritime services and commodity trading sectors to provide a more flexible incentive structure. Wong added: A QRTC would allow Hong Kong to better compete for multinational investment and reinforce its position as a premier international trade centre and shipping centre. We also propose expanding the scope of the half-rate tax concessionary regime for commodity trading to include the captive commodities traders serving group companies outside Hong Kong and include the financial commodity transactions, such as derivatives trading. The organisation said it also supports the exploration of the low-altitude economy, which could impact logistics, mobility and urban planning in Hong Kong. To improve the business environment, CPA Australia highlighted the importance of an efficient government process for delivering public services and fostering a sustainable green environment to attract investment. In this context, an e-government framework has been proposed as part of the initiatives. Cyrus Cheung, deputy divisional president of CPA Australia in Greater China 2025, underscored the critical role of sustainable development in shaping Hong Kongs future. He called for better alignment of the Hong Kong Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance with international standards to encourage investment in green initiatives. JACKSON, Ky. (FOX 56) On August 6, 10-year-old Jayden Spicer was reported missing from his home. For days, the community and his family hoped for a safe return. But nearly a week later, he was found dead and his own mother was charged with his murder. On Thursday, the community came together to celebrate Jaydens life and say goodbye. Its awful, that baby didnt deserve the family didnt deserve this The one who gave him life is the one that took it, said Jenni Rose with the Wolfe County Fire Department. RELATED: Kentucky priest honors Jayden Spicers memory with $20K payment to families, proper gravestones Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Charity wishlist honoring memory of Jackson boy fulfilled: Jaydens name will never be forgotten Red and blue Jaydens favorite colors lit up the dark and somber day in Jackson. Balloons and lights from first responders across Kentucky led Jayden to his final resting place at Molands Cemetery. He was buried next to his grandmother in a Spiderman-themed casket. Its respect for him. Everything is about a kid. You know, its not about us that we drove, this is about his final ride, said Island Creek Volunteer Fire Chief Delisa Courtney. Since Jaydens body was discovered on August 12, the Breathitt County community has been grieving together both those who knew him and those who didnt. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Josh Miller, a Wolfe County firefighter who helped in the search, said the loss of a child hit home for him. I buried two of my own, it never gets better. It doesnt get easier. You may think it does, but youll find yourself doing something and then it just, boom, hits ya, Miller said. Father Jim Sichko, who paid for Jaydens funeral costs, said the grief is just beginning. This isnt going to end today. Today really begins the journey of grief for not only this family, but the community, Sichko said. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even after the lights are turned off and the balloons deflate, Thursday, August 21 will stand as a lasting tribute. Breathitt County Judge Executive Jeff Noble has declared it Jayden Spicer Day not only to remember Jayden, but as a call to hold loved ones closer. You never take anything for granted. I always say, make those memories, because you just dont know, Courtney said. Father Jim also paid to ensure that both Jayden and his grandmother have proper headstones. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. This post was created in partnership with Omnicom At Omnicom Space during the Cannes Lions 2025, ADWEEKs executive editor Alison Weissbrot moderated an ADWEEK Press Hour cohosted by Omnicom, focused on conversations on the future of creativity, transformation, and connection. Weissbrot led discussions that explored the evolving intersections of brand, technology, and transformation with leading marketing minds, including: Nancy Reyes CEO of BBDO, Leonid Sudakov, president of growth, digital, and platforms at Mars, Delphine Hernoux, CEO of Beauty Co-Lab, Charlotte Lee, CEO of OMD APAC, Kate Osborne, global transformation lead at OMG, Jeremy Lindley, global design director of Diageo, and Clare Hart, managing director, UK & Tokyo at Critical Mass. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The press hour consisted of three sessions, with the first session, A Century Ahead: Why the Originals Refuse to Fade, featuring Reyes and Sudakov. They unpacked what it took to keep a brand emotionally relevant while evolving with cultural and technological shifts. The exchange dove into how trust, consistency, and creativity nurture long-term brand relationships - both with consumers and collaborators. The next session featured The New Face of Transformation, featuring Hernoux, Lee, and Osborne. They examined what transformation truly looks like when its inclusive, adaptive, and creatively led from data fluency to organizational agility and regional nuance. The final session looked at Creative Automation at Scale, featuring Lindley and Hart. They had a candid conversation about how, when automation at scale is done right, it can be a powerful enabler of personalization and efficiency in brand storytelling without sacrificing emotion or craft. DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) The old Wright Brothers factory site is being evaluated for its structural integrity after a recent wall collapse. Officials are determining next steps after one of the western walls collapsed on a historic warehouse located off of West Third Street. Dayton aviation history experts say this building is where the worlds airplane manufacturing industry started. This recent collapse comes more than two years after a large fire engulfed the building. Since then, city leaders have been trying to restore and preserve the historic site, but the project has run into several hurdles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The property sits within the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, but is specifically owned by the city of Dayton. The national park has been trying to acquire part of the land, but environmental restrictions are attached to the deed. National park officials are working with Dayton officials to resolve the issues in order to make progress on the property. The superintendent of the historical park says they have a long way to go, but they arent giving up. I like to think about this as a quintessential Wright Brothers moment, you know, the Wright Brothers, they didnt just build an airplane and start flying in one day, said Kendell Thompson, superintendent. They had a lot of crashes and a lot of setbacks, and they rebuilt and kept going. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 2 NEWS is working to learn more about what will come after the integrity assessment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. GALESBURG, Ill. (WMBD) A 45-year-old Knox County man faces possible charges after being arrested by the Illinois State Police for allegedly possessing child porn. Destan L. Hoots of Galesburg was booked into the Knox County Jail on Thursday on several counts of possession of child pornography, as well as dissemination of the illicit images. As of Friday morning, online court records did not show an active case in Knox County Circuit Court pertaining to that arrest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the state police, troopers with the agencys Division of Criminal Investigation searched his home in Galesburg and found electronic evidence of the allegations. The state police said they will not release any other information. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CIProud.com. A Galesburg man was arrested on child pornography charges. According to a release from the Illinois State Police, on August 21, 2025, Illinois State Police (ISP) Division of Criminal Investigation Zone 2 Special Agents executed a search warrant at a home in the 400 block of North Academy St. in Galesburg and collected electronic evidence. The evidence revealed child sexual abuse materials. Destan Hoots (Illinois State Police) Agents arrested Destan Hoots, 45, for 15 counts of possession of child pornography under age of 13 (Class 2 felony) and one count of dissemination of child pornography (Class X felony). Hoots was transported to the Knox County Jail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Galesburg Police Department, Knox County Sheriffs Office and the Illinois Attorney Generals High-Tech Crimes Unit assisted with the investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. (The Center Square) U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, along with nine other senators, wrote a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week inquiring about the companys policies surrounding children's interactions with its AI chatbots. The bipartisan letter said Metas policies and practices for the chatbots pose astonishing risks for children, lack transparency and allow for the proliferation of misinformation. According to the letter, the senators said it is crucial that Zuckerbergs company doesnt risk cognitive, emotional or physical well being of children. The letter stated this is important because of the prevalence of teenagers using AI chatbots. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A study from Common Sense Media cited in the letter shows that 72% of teenagers have used an AI chatbot. Last week, Reuters reported Metas leadership team grew frustrated with its AI team regarding the rollout of the chatbots. Reuters said the leadership team thought the AI product managers were moving too cautiously. Metas leadership team called the safety features on the products boring. The senators said they were troubled by the revelations in the Reuters story. They noted that Meta's financial incentives are to make people use AI chatbots as much as possible. But the senators said that does not minimize Metas moral, ethical and legal obligations when deploying new technologies, especially for use by children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The letter listed things Meta AI chatbots were allowed to engage in, which included making romantic or sensual advances towards children, making statements that criticize peoples personal characteristics and generating pictures of elderly people being kicked. According to the senators, these were alarming standards. In addition to this, the senators had a concern about the targeted advertising that was happening toward children using Metas chatbots. They noted children likely dont understand the type of information they are sharing with AI chatbots, which puts their privacy at risk and makes them vulnerable to manipulative marketing tactics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Due to the large number of users Meta has on its platforms, the senators said it must be more transparent about its policies and the impacts of its chatbots. The senators told Zuckerberg that Metas policies surrounding kids' interactions with AI chatbots are also concerning due to a comment he made earlier this year, stating he thinks AI can act as a substitute for human friendships in the future. Meta AI chatbot relationships already had disastrous consequences," the senators said. They also noted the chatbots pose serious risks for childrens interpersonal skills. While AIs have many uses, the wellbeing of children should not be sacrificed in the race for AI development, they said. To end the letter, the senators asked Meta to answer 11 questions that dealt with policies surrounding children using its AI chatbots. They requested Meta answer these questions by Sept. 1. A Gambian man convicted of torturing opponents of the African country's former president was sentenced to more than 67 years in a US prison on Friday. Michael Sang Correa, 46, served in an armed unit known as the "Junglers," which answered to The Gambia's then-president, Yahya Jammeh. Correa was convicted by a jury in Denver, Colorado, in April of torturing people because of suspicions they had plotted against Jammeh. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Justice Department said the torture included burning victims with molten plastic and subjecting them to vicious beatings. "Today, Michael Correa has finally been held accountable for the brutal violence he inflicted on others," acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti said in a statement. "The United States will not be a safe haven for individuals who seek to conceal their egregious human rights violations." Jurors in Colorado heard how in March 2006, shortly after a failed coup attempt, the Junglers took their victims to The Gambia's main prison. Over the next two months, they beat, stabbed, burned, and electroshocked their victims, including some on their genitals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One man testified that he had his thigh burned by molten plastic; another told of how he was suffocated, while others spoke of being pistol whipped, burned with cigarettes and hit in the face with a hammer. Correa was convicted of five counts of torture and one of conspiracy to commit torture. Correa entered the United States in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for The Gambia's vice president, who was visiting the United Nations. He stayed in the country and moved to Denver at some point after Jammeh, who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1994 to 2017, was voted out of office. Correa was arrested by US authorities in September 2019, initially for overstaying his visa. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The paramilitary Junglers operated outside the Gambian army's chain of command, taking orders directly from Jammeh, and have been accused by watchdog groups of carrying out widespread human rights violations. Another member of the Junglers, Bai Lowe, was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in November 2023 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder. A Swiss court sentenced Gambian ex-interior minister Ousman Sonko to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed under the Jammeh regime. Victims of the Junglers included an AFP correspondent, Deyda Hydara, who was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Gambia's capital Banjul on December 16, 2004. cl/dw Gov. Gavin Newsom raised over $6.2 million online from 200,000 donors just one week after he launched his state redistricting campaign ahead of a Nov. 4 special election. The California governor announced he received more than 200,000 individual donations to the fight to redraw Californias congressional maps in response to Texas gerrymandered state maps, redrawn in favor of the Republicans under President Donald Trump directive. More from TheWrap Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over $6 million dollars and 200,000 donations in one week, Newsom wrote in a post on X Thursday. California and the nation are ready for this fight. Look out, Donald Trump. Your election rigging scheme is about to fall apart. That same afternoon, California Democrats approved a sweeping redistricting map to elect more lawmakers to the party. Newsom signed the bill and now it awaits the November vote. These new maps serve as a counter to the gerrymandered map that Republicans in Texas have also brought forward at Trumps request. Texas changes will not be approved by registered voters in the state and will instead by implemented directly by lawmakers. Newsom has branded the redistricting efforts as the Election Rigging Response Act. The new maps aim to create five new Democratic seats and four swing seats in the state. Nationwide Democrats see the remapping issue as the first battle of the 2026 midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. Under the proposed Nov. 4 ballot measure, the redrawn districts would be in effect for House races in 2026, 2028 and 2030 and would then revert to the independent redistricting commission to decide on what would be fair. Typically, redistricting occurs once a decade in line with the census. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans currently control the House of Representatives, but if it changed hands to the Democrats, the party has expressed it would be a way to power check Trump throughout the second half of his term. The post Gavin Newsom Redistricting Campaign Raises $6.2 Million as Plan Moves to Special Election appeared first on TheWrap. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has admitted that his recent trolling of President Donald Trump has raised a few eyebrows in his own family. I know there are some people who are offended by our all-caps parody of Trump, but I thought its time to put a mirror to Trump, Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, told MeidasTouch Networks Adam Mockler. Related: Gavin Newsom Calls Donald Trump A Son Of A Bitch In Blistering Interview I mean, this sort of craziness thats going online. I get it. My kids are like, Jesus, Dad, what the hells going on? added Newsom, who has four children between the ages of 7 and 14. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the posts that mimic Trump and are enraging the presidents MAGA base, Newsom said, have a serious purpose. The point is to make the point about what is going on in this country, he explained. You have the president of the United States thats acting like a child and youve got the chatbots on Fox that repeat 24/7 and are weaponizing his grievances, attacking vulnerable people, traumatizing communities. Democrats need to respond with conviction, he added. Related: Trump Makes Wild Claim About 'African American Ladies' During Chicago Crackdown Ramble We need to stand up, all of us at this moment. Less judgment, more fortitude, Newsom urged. Meet this moment, not for ourselves, but for each other, for this country. Watch from the 10-minute mark here: Related... Read the original on HuffPost The redistricting war just escalated. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed a series of bills calling for new congressional maps that could add up to five Democratic seats in Congress, a response to an ongoing, Trump-led effort in Texas to use redistricting there to carve out five additional GOP seats. Were neutralizing what occurred and were giving the American people a fair chance, Newsom said on Thursday of the effort. Because when all things are equal and were all playing by the same set of rules, theres no question the Republican party will be the minority party in the House of Representatives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bills, which Newsom said are unique in U.S. history, ask voters to approve the congressional maps in a special election in November through a constitutional amendment that would bypass the states independent redistricting process. The effort passed along party lines, with a sole Democrat voting against the proposals. California bill calls for special election in November to vote on new congressional maps that could add Democratic seats, an effort Gov. Gavin Newsom said was in response to Texas seeking to expand Republican control through its maps (Getty Images) Republicans criticized the redistricting scheme as undemocratic, arguing it violates the will of Californians who created the independent redistricting process. You move forward fighting fire with fire, what happens? You burn it all down, Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher said on Thursday. And in this case, it affects our most fundamental American principle: representation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bills passage comes a day after the Texas House approved a redistricting plan for the state that could add up to five GOP seats in the U.S. Congress. President Trump had called on the state to do so. In July, Trump said he was pushing the Texas GOP to pursue a rare mid-decade redistricting and redrawing of congressional maps in the state to pick up more Republican seats, with the president later claiming the GOP was entitled to more seats after his successful 2024 campaign there. President Trump kicked off national redistricting battle by insisting the Republican party was entitled to five more seats in Texas (AP) Texas will be the biggest one, Trump said at the time. And thatll be five. Texas Democrats temporarily fled the state to delay voting on the measure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The redistricting face-off appears set to move beyond Texas and California though. Republican-led states, including Ohio, Missouri, and Florida, have been floated as possible next venues to pursue redistricting, and Democratic states like Illinois could alter their districts too before the 2026 midterms. Matthew MacFarland and Amanda Han are full-time CPAs and part-time real estate investors. Courtesy of Matthew MacFarland and Amanda Han CPAs Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland lost about $50,000 each in a failed real estate deal. They invested in a real estate syndication without conducting proper due diligence. It didn't deter them from these deals, which can create passive income, but they approach them differently. CPAs Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland worked alongside real estate investors for years, helping them save on taxes. However, working with investors and actually investing are very different, as the accountants learned the hard way. The California-based couple has built an impressive real estate portfolio that includes rentals and syndication deals outside their CPA day jobs. But, early in their real estate investment careers, a mistake cost them about $100,000 worth of retirement savings. "I think each of us lost like $50,000 in our 401(k)," MacFarland told Business Insider of the failed deal they invested in back in 2008. "We were very prevalent in the industry of people talking about self-directed IRAs and using your retirement accounts, and so we happened to use our retirement accounts to invest in a syndicated real estate deal," he explained. "In retrospect, the timing was horrible." It wasn't just bad timing. Han and MacFarland forewent a critical step: due diligence. Real-estate syndication is a way for a group of investors to pool their capital together and purchase a single property managed by a "syndicator." Once the investor contributes capital, their role in the deal becomes completely passive, as the syndicator is responsible for finding the deal, executing the transaction, and, ultimately, delivering returns to the investors. The hands-off nature of these deals is great for investors with more money than time, but you're putting a lot of trust in the syndicator and depending on their competence. You're investing in both the deal and the person running it. And while a good syndicator can turn a mediocre property into a success, a bad one can ruin a great opportunity or, drain your retirement savings, in the case of Han and MacFarland. They met the syndicator through a colleague and, "we trusted that he knew what he was doing," said MacFarland. Looking back, they would have spent a lot more time on the vetting process. An easy first step when vetting syndicators is to type their first and last names into Google along with keywords like "fraud," "complaints," or "SEC." You can also talk to investors who have worked with them in the past and ask about their experience. On Thursday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced the indictment of Christopher Clark, 27, of Riverdale, on charges of human trafficking, rape, and false imprisonment of a 15-year-old girl in Clayton County. The case was reopened by the Attorney Generals Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, which was established in 2019. This unit has already secured convictions against four individuals involved in the trafficking of the same victim, including Theodore Browne, Jr. in 2023. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] This survivor deserves nothing less than maximum justice, and thats exactly what we intend to deliver, Carr said in a statement. We have built an elite team to track down traffickers in this state, and we wont rest until every offender is behind bars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following the conviction of the four other defendants, the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit continued its investigation to identify another buyer alleged to have raped the victim. TRENDING STORIES: This led to Clarks indictment, the AGs office said. He is accused of purchasing the child for sex and forcibly raping her in his home. Clark is facing charges of trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, rape, and false imprisonment. The indictment was presented to a Clayton County Grand Jury in July 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brown, who sold the victim, was convicted of multiple counts of trafficking and cruelty to children and received a 70-year sentence. Other defendants, including Daniel Horne, Gregory Benoit, and Christopher Weldon, were also convicted and sentenced for their roles in the trafficking, the AGs office said. State officials said the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit has secured over 60 convictions and assisted more than 200 children since its creation. The unit recently expanded with additional prosecutors and investigators, supported by state funding. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] ATLANTA (WJBF) Its been nearly a year since four people, two students and two teachers, were killed in the tragic shooting at Appalachee High School. Now, a Georgia community group says cell phones should be allowed in schools for all grades, calling them a lifeline for students and teachers to reach loved ones in an emergency. Starting in 2025, Georgia will ban phones in classrooms for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. State leaders say the law is designed to cut down on cyberbullying and help students focus on their mental health. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Layla Contreras, an Appalachee High alum, co-founded Change for Chee after the tragedy. Her mother and sister were inside the school during the shooting and had to borrow a friends phone to let family members know they were safe. For Change for Chee, weve been going to board meetings and meeting with representatives to get something tangible for our community, Contreras said. The group is also pushing for safety measures such as clear bags and legislation like Ricky and Alyssas Law which would give teachers access to alarm devices in emergencies. Contreras says banning phones entirely is dangerous. That could be their last words to their family. Its the only way to know if someone is moving or not inside the building, she explained. With so many threats and mass shootings, its getting dangerous. The group argues that phone use should be a parents decision, not the schools. Meanwhile, Change for Chee will host a vigil in September to mark the one-year anniversary of the Appalachee High School shooting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF. A man in his 70s was reported missing while boating near Ossabaw Island Monday before storms came through the area. The U.S. Coast Guard started a search to find him over two days but was unsuccessful. The Coast Guards search for the missing man intensified the following day, Tuesday, as Hurricane Erin brought rough sea conditions. The Coast Guard deployed two helicopters, a 45-foot offshore vessel and an 87-foot patrol boat to aid in the search. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials said the search covered more than 233 square miles by air and sea, but the Coast Guard Sector Charleston crews decided to suspend the search pending new information, officials said. DNR officials confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that the man was identified as Ronald Harris. We extend our deepest condolences, said Lt. Michael Allen, a Sector Charleston search and rescue mission coordinator. Suspending a search is never easy and is only done after all efforts and leads are exhausted. The Coast Guard received a call Monday evening about a man having trouble with the anchor of his 43-foot sailboat. A helicopter found the vessel, but no one was aboard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Georgia Department of Natural Resources patrol found a body matching Harris description on the southern portion of Ossabaw Island on Aug. 20. The body was found at the high-tide mark on the ocean side. Harris remains were recovered using a long line from a helicopter and taken to a landing zone at the Skidaway Island Institute of Oceanography before being transferred to the Chatham County Coroners Office, USCG said. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The Brief A Dutchtown High School freshman has launched a lemonade business to spread positivity after her foster care journey. Hannah Ewings uses part of the proceeds to buy shoes for children in foster care and those in need locally and in Guatemala. Ewings' goal is to purchase 500 pairs of new shoes for children by Christmas. HAMPTON, Ga. - We've all heard the saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." That's exactly what one metro Atlanta freshman did. The teenager is using her experience in foster care to give back to other kids and help spread a little sweetness in her community. The backstory For Hannah Ewings, life has been a little bittersweet. The Dutchtown High School freshman was in foster care until she found her forever home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She remembers one day, reflecting on her journey with her mother while peeling sweet potatoes in the kitchen. "And I was like, my life has been a lot like lemons. I've had my bitter moments, and I've had my sweet moments. But when I came into your home, it became sweet again," she said. Freshman Hannah Ewings is using her experience in foster care and her love of lemonade to give back to other kids and help spread a little sweetness in her community. (FOX 5) Now Ewings wants to share that love with others. That's why she started selling Hannah's LOVE Lemonade. "I started Hannah's LOVE Lemonade because some kids are in the foster care system, they go through a whole bunch of stuff, they don't have a lot of clothes, shoes, sometimes they feel left out, they don't feel loved. And honestly, at one moment, I felt like that too. But once you start realizing, it can be better, you can do better, it's eye-opening," Ewings reflected. What we know Ewings started working on her business at the age of 11. She's had success on social media and through pop-ups and community events. Now the brand has 12 flavors that represent all those who have helped her along the way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On top of her business, Ewings is an honor roll student and a member of the Atlanta Drum Academy. Her mom, Cassandra, says watching her has been a gift. "Watching Hannah work, watching her spirit, I just, I know there's a God," Cassandra Ewings Moye said. One dollar from every sale goes toward her family's nonprofit, My Sibling's Soles. (FOX 5) Every bottle she sells helps fund her bigger mission. One dollar from every sale goes toward her family's nonprofit, My Sibling's Soles. They buy new shoes for children in foster care as well as families in need locally and in Guatemala. "I really feel like if children, like, I got shoes - brand new shoes at that - oh, they would feel so good. They would feel loved and be so happy," she said. What they're saying And that's why Ewings pours her love into every bottle, proving there's always a way to find the sweet, even when things might seem a little sour. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Just watching her and the love, I'm like okay, maybe I did do a little something right," her mother said. They are hoping to donate 500 pairs of shoes to children in need by Christmas. What you can do Hannah is always looking for businesses that would be willing to host her for a pop-up. You can find Hannah's LOVE Lemonade on Instagram,Facebook, and TikTok. The Source Good Day's Lindsay Tuman reported this story out of Hampton, Georgia. (The Center Square) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests surged by 367% in Georgia this year, with 4,500 illegal aliens arrested in the state between January 20 and July 31, compared to the 963 made under the Biden administration during the same time period in 2021, the Department of Homeland Security says. Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies Jessica Vaughan told The Center Square that the big increase in ICE arrests in Georgia, particularly the arrests of criminal aliens, should have a noticeable effect on public safety, assuming that ICE is able to promptly process and remove them. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization, according to its website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vaughan said that removing so many criminal aliens from the community will mean safer streets, safer playgrounds, and safer businesses for everyone. Vaughan told The Center Square that the increase in ICE activity is noticed by other illegal aliens in the community, and many of them are realizing that even if they have not committed other crimes, they may be discovered and arrested, so they are deciding to go home on their own. This will open up job opportunities for Americans in Georgia, and relieve the cost to Georgia taxpayers of providing welfare benefits, health care, and education for illegal migrants and their families, Vaughan said. The brunt of the problems from the border crisis under the Biden administration policies was borne by local communities, so now these communities can start to recover, Vaughan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are stuck with American criminals, but those criminals who are here in defiance of our laws should be removed so they will not victimize more people, Vaughan said. According to a Department of Homeland Security news release, some of the worst of the worst arrested in Georgia include noncitizens who have been convicted of trafficking drugs, statutory rape, a hit-and-run, sexual battery against minors, and child molestation. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the news release: Bidens open border [policies] allowed Laken Rileys killer to be in the country and gave him the opportunity [to] brutally murder the young Georgia nursing student. President Trump promised to put Americans first and remove violent criminals from our country and thats exactly what we are doing, McLaughlin said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thanks to his and Secretary [Kristi] Noems leadership, ICE is once again empowered to remove the worst of the worst including murderers, pedophiles, gang members, drug traffickers, and terrorists, McLaughlin said. Vaughan told The Center Square that the accelerated pace of interior enforcement is a benefit to the entire country. Illegal migrants who are security threats are being taken off the streets, illegal workers are being sent home, and communities will see some fiscal relief from the need to provide services and schooling to so many new arrivals, Vaughan said. Italian, French and German tourists chose Greece this summer, according to the latest tourism data released by the Bank of Greece. The data, which covers June, reveals that travel receipts rose by 8.8 per cent in June 2025 and by 11.0 per cent during the January to June 2025 period, compared to the same periods in 2024. June saw growth in tourism income In June 2025, revenue from travel increased by 8.8 per cent compared with June 2024. More specifically, revenue from travel by residents of EU-27 countries grew by 5.5 per cent, reaching 1.74 billion, while revenue from visitors outside the EU rose by 12.0 per cent to 1.40 billion, up from 1.25 billion in June 2024. - Petros Giannakouris/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved The growth in revenue from EU-27 residents was mainly driven by a 13.5 per cent increase in spending by visitors from eurozone countries, reaching 1.41 billion in June 2025 compared to 1.24 billion the previous year. However, revenue from visitors from EU-27 countries outside the eurozone fell by 18.8 per cent, down to 332 million. Countries of origin of travellers Among the main eurozone countries of origin, spending by visitors from Germany increased by 18.6 per cent to nearly 595 million, while French tourists boosted their expenditure by 19.9 per cent to around 192 million. Italy also saw a significant rise of 25.7 per cent, with total spending reaching 180 million. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Related Visitors from the United Kingdom spent 3.0 per cent more, totalling just over 600 million, and spending by American tourists surged by 64.7 per cent to approximately 247 million. Meanwhile, income from Russian visitors declined to 1.8 million. - Petros Giannakouris/Copyright 2020 The AP. All rights reserved. In the first half of 2025, total tourism income grew by 11.0 per cent compared to the same period in 2024, reaching about 7.66 billion. This increase was supported by an 8.5 per cent rise in earnings from visitors from EU-27 countries, which amounted to just over 4.07 billion, alongside a 13.7 per cent growth from tourists outside the EU-27, which totalled around 3.21 billion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More specifically, income from visitors within the eurozone reached 3.29 billion, up 7.7 per cent, while earnings from visitors from EU-27 countries outside the eurozone rose by 12.4 per cent to approximately 779 million. The travel balance According to preliminary data, Greeces travel surplus in June 2025 reached nearly 3.0 billion, up from around 2.79 billion in June 2024. Tourism income in June 2025 was approximately 3.31 billion, marking an 8.8 per cent increase compared to 3.04 billion in the same month last year. Meanwhile, travel-related paymentsmoney spent by Greeks travelling abroadincreased sharply by 31.4 per cent to nearly 322 million. The rise in tourism income was mainly driven by a 10.2 per cent increase in average spending per trip, despite a 1.7 per cent decrease in the number of inbound visitors. Net earnings from tourism services offset 94.4 per cent of Greeces goods trade deficit and made up 92.6 per cent of total net service revenues. - Thanassis Stavrakis/AP Between January and June 2025, Greeces travel surplus increased to nearly 6.0 billion, up from about 5.55 billion in the same period in 2024. Tourism income rose by 760 million, or 11.0 per cent, reaching approximately 7.66 billion, while travel paymentsmoney spent by Greeks abroadincreased by 323 million, or 24.0 per cent, to around 1.67 billion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This growth was supported by a slight 0.6 per cent rise in visitor numbers and a 10.1 per cent increase in average spending per trip. Net earnings from travel services helped cover 35.4 per cent of Greeces goods trade deficit and accounted for 81.6 per cent of total net service revenues. - Petros Giannakouris/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved Earnings from German visitors rose by 13.5 per cent to around 1.37 billion, while spending by French tourists increased by 2.1 per cent to nearly 456 million. Income from Italian visitors grew by 9.0 per cent, reaching about 345 million. Among other countries, spending by British visitors went up by 7.3 per cent to just over 1.08 billion, and American tourists increased their spending by 29.4 per cent to approximately 704 million. Income from Russian visitors also grew, reaching 9.6 million. Trends in inbound travel In June 2025, inbound travel to Greece totalled approximately 4.6 million travellers, a 1.7 per cent decline compared to June 2024. Airport arrivals increased by 3.3 per cent, while crossings at road border stations fell sharply by 19.7 per cent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Related The overall decrease was mainly due to an 8.1 per cent drop in travellers from EU-27 countries, whereas arrivals from other countries rose by 8.0 per cent. More specifically, arrivals from eurozone countries increased by 7.2 per cent to about 1.95 million travellers, but those from EU-27 countries outside the eurozone fell by 35.5 per cent to approximately 651,000. Looking at individual countries, arrivals from Germany rose by 9.5 per cent to 769,000, from France by 29.6 per cent to 268,000, and from Italy by 29.7 per cent to 305,000. Among non-EU countries, arrivals from the United Kingdom grew by 14.9 per cent to 811,000, while those from the United States rose by 24.1 per cent to 231,000. Russian arrivals increased to 3,000. - Petros Giannakouris/Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. In the first half of 2025, total inbound travel increased by 0.6 per cent to approximately 11.7 million travellers, compared to 11.6 million in the same period of 2024. Airport arrivals rose by 4.9 per cent, but road border arrivals decreased by 13.1 per cent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During this period, arrivals from EU-27 countries dropped by 6.3 per cent to 6.41 million, while arrivals from other countries increased by 10.5 per cent to 5.28 million. Travel from eurozone countries grew by 2.4 per cent, whereas arrivals from EU-27 countries outside the eurozone fell by 27.5 per cent. Specifically, arrivals from Germany increased by 4.7 per cent to 1.85 million, but arrivals from France decreased by 9.8 per cent to 610,000. Italy saw a 4.9 per cent rise to 617,000 arrivals. Among non-EU countries, arrivals from the United Kingdom grew by 11.0 per cent to 1.52 million, while those from the United States rose by 20.0 per cent to 694,000. Russian arrivals also increased to 10,600. It is worth noting that inbound travel does not include figures from cruises. German Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan has called for significantly more aid to reach the Gaza Strip, after an international food security authority formally declared famine in part of the territory for the first time. The report by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) clearly shows the catastrophic situation in Gaza, Alabali Radovan said. "More and more people - especially children - are starving to death before our eyes. This cannot go on. The famine is entirely man-made," she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The IPC confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, on Friday. A famine is formally declared when three criteria are met: At least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 inhabitants die every day from hunger or from a combination of malnutrition and disease. "Access to aid deliveries has improved slightly, but the IPC report also shows that this is far from enough. An immediate ceasefire is needed, and at the same time, Hamas must release the hostages immediately and unconditionally," Alabali Radovan added. The postal services of Germany and France on Friday announced a raft of restrictions on package deliveries to the United States due to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. DHL, which owns the Deutsche Post service, said that from Saturday it would "temporarily suspend" its standard category of US package delivery, the preferred option for many small businesses. "The reason for the restrictions, which we expect to be temporary, are new processes for postal delivery which have been put in place by the US authorities," DHL said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Important questions have not yet been answered, including who will have to pay the tariffs and how," it added. France's La Poste told AFP it would suspend from Monday package deliveries to the United States, except for gifts sent by individuals with a value of less than 100 euros ($116). It said the new rules had been issued only on August 15, "leaving European postal services with an extremely limited timeframe to get prepared. "Moreover, their related documentation still requires further clarification," La Poste added in a statement. Each year the French service sends 1.6 million packages on average to the United States, 80 percent from businesses and 20 percent from individuals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - Extra checks - Other European postal services, including in Belgium, Austria and Denmark, have already taken similar measures. DHL said a more expensive "express" service for packages weighing up to 70 kilograms (154 pounds) would still be available. Individual customers will also still be able to send items as presents with a maximum value of $100 (86 euros) but DHL warned that these would be subject to extra checks to prevent the service being used for commercial goods. In late July the Trump administration said that as of August 29 it would abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the US. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Such packages with a value of less than $800 will now be taxed at 15 percent, the same rate as other imports from the European Union. That general tariff rate was agreed under a deal struck between Brussels and Washington late last month. In April, DHL said it was suspending delivery of packages to the United States with a value in excess of $800. It cited changes to US Customs rules as part of Trump's trade war, which lowered the threshold at which parcels to individuals require formal entry processing by US Customs to $800 from $2,500 -- leading to significant delays. kas-jsk/fz/js-jj BERLIN (Reuters) -A German government spokesman said on Friday that Berlin has current no plans to recognise a Palestinian state because that would undermine any efforts to reach a negotiated two-state solution with Israel. "A negotiated two-state solution remains our goal, even if it seems a long way off today. ... The recognition of Palestine is more likely to come at the end of such a process and such decisions would now be rather counterproductive," the spokesperson said during a press conference. Countries including Australia, United Kingdom, France and Canada have recently said they would recognise a Palestinian state under different conditions. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Andreas Rinke, Editing by Rachel More) Ghislaine Maxwell -- the convicted co-conspirator of sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein -- told a top official of the U.S. Justice Department that President Donald Trump was "a gentleman in all respects" and that she never saw him do anything inappropriate with anyone associated with Epstein. "Absolutely never, in any context," Maxwell said. Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche during a highly unusual two-day interview session last month that during her time with Epstein -- which spanned from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s -- she never saw nor heard of any improper or illicit activity by Trump nor any of the well-known men who associated with Epstein, according to a transcript of the conversation made public on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MORE: What Ghislaine Maxwell told deputy AG about former President Bill Clinton "I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects," Maxwell said. Maxwell's comments came as the Trump administration remains mired in controversy over its decision not to release to the public its investigative files on Epstein. Published reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal last month indicated that the decision not to release the files came after President Trump was informed that his name was among those that appeared multiple times in the documents. The president has denied that he was told his name appeared in the files. The appearance of a name in the Epstein files is not evidence of illicit activity. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The transcript released Friday indicates that Maxwell's lawyers initiated the request for the meeting with Blanche, but her representatives have insisted that no promises were made by the administration in connection with the interview. Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images - PHOTO: Ghislaine Maxwell and Donald Trump attend the 50th anniversary for both the Ford Modeling Agency and Pantene hair care products in New York, Oct. 30, 1997. "We haven't spoken to the president or anyone about a pardon just yet," Maxwell's attorney David Markus said outside the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee, where the interview took place last month. "Of course, everybody knows Ms. Maxwell would welcome any relief," he added. Trump, Maxwell told Blanche, was "always very cordial and very kind to me" in her interactions with him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "And I just want to say that I find -- I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I've always liked him," she said, according to the transcript. Before any allegations of sexual misconduct against Epstein surfaced in 2005, Trump spoke glowingly of Epstein, and court records have included documents and testimony indicating Trump was a passenger on one of Epstein's jets at least eight times between 1993 and 1997. The two native New Yorkers appeared in photographs together at Mar-A-Lago, the president's private Palm Beach club, and at various public events in Manhattan. Trump told New York magazine in 2002 he'd known Epstein for 15 years and described him as a "Terrific guy." MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell provided no incriminating information during meetings with deputy AG on high-profile individuals who interacted with Jeffrey Epstein, transcript shows Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life," he told the magazine. After Epstein's arrest in 2019 on conspiracy and child sex-trafficking charges. Trump, then in his first presidential term, said he'd ended his relationship with Epstein 15 years earlier. "I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in July 2019. "I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan. I was not, yeah, a long time ago, I'd say maybe 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his," Trump said. More recently, the president has claimed he split with Epstein after discovering Epstein was allegedly poaching employees from the spa at Mar-A-Lago, the president's private club in Palm Beach. After Maxwell's arrest in 2020 for aiding in Epstein's sex-trafficking, Trump was noticeably more sympathetic. "I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is," the president said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell said that she first knew of Trump through her late father, the late British publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, who purchased the NY Daily News in 1991. MORE: Trump supporters angry over Justice Department's Epstein memo "I may have met Donald Trump at that time because my father was very friendly with him and liked him very much," Maxwell said. "And I think, [it] should be said that he also very much liked [Trump's first wife] Ivana because she was also from Czechoslovakia where my dad was from." Maxwell said she only saw Trump and Epstein together in social settings and that she did not introduce the two men. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't know how they met, and I don't know how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together. But they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly," Maxwell said. The 63-year-old Maxwell -- a former girlfriend and longtime companion of Epstein -- was granted limited immunity for her discussions with Blanche. She was convicted in 2021 of sex-trafficking and other offenses connected to her facilitation and participation in Epstein's sexual exploitation of minor girls. Maxwell did not testify in her own defense, but her attorneys insisted on her innocence throughout the trial. They contended the government was prosecuting Maxwell as a "substitute" for Epstein, after the accused child sex-trafficker died in federal custody in 2019. In the interview with Blanche, Maxwell continued to insist she was not involved in the sexual exploitation of minors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I'm not saying that Mr. Epstein did not do those things," Maxwell told Blanche. "I'm not here to defend him. But what I can say is I did not participate in that activity." MORE: DOJ's meeting with longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell happened after Maxwell initiated contact: Sources At her sentencing hearing in 2022, a federal prosecutor said that Maxwell had shown "absolutely no remorse" and had "made misrepresentations when it suits her." A federal judge imposed a 20 year prison sentence. Maxwell has appealed her conviction but has thus far been unsuccessful. She currently has a petition pending before the US Supreme Court for a review of her case. The justice department has opposed her petition, and the high court has not yet indicated whether it will hear her appeal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the conclusion of the interview session last month, Blanche told Maxwell that he had no plan for what might come next, but that he would continue communicating with her attorneys. "So I will talk to Mr. Markus about what we're going to do next, if anything," Blanche said. "I'm not being coy. I just -- I don't know yet. I don't know," he said. This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. Much has changed in the year since the Federal Reserve hit Customers Bank with an enforcement action related to its digital asset strategy. Since that regulatory clampdown, Malvern, Pennsylvania-based Customers has added dozens of employees, improved processes and built an infrastructure befitting a larger institution, according to CEO Sam Sidhu. Meanwhile, the Trump administrations views toward cryptocurrency and calls for clear rules and regulations around digital assets have prompted more Capitol Hill and corporate chatter around stablecoins. I think that its safe to say our regulators bar was higher than our bar last year. Our bar is higher than our regulators bar this year, particularly from a process perspective, Sidhu said during a recent interview. With a more robust risk framework, Customers seeks to capitalize on expected industry tailwinds in the digital-asset realm. The lender offers banking services to digital-asset customers and operates an instant payments platform, cubiX, allowing commercial clients to make tokenized payments over a distributed ledger technology system. As part of the Feds enforcement action, Customers was ordered to notify the central bank before launching any new service or relationship with third parties tied to its digital-asset strategy. The work the bank has done has now created a multiyear moat for Customers Bank, for someone to build an infrastructure of technology and a customer base like ours, Sidhu said. In light of regulatory developments such as the Genius Act, Sidhu said the bank aims to grow its wallet share with customers and add new customers. July was cubiXs most active month to date, with 20% higher deposit balances, he said. The bank processed $1.5 trillion in payments volume related to digital-asset customers last year; its tracking closer to $2 trillion for 2025, he said. Sidhu, the banks CEO, will also become CEO of Customers Bancorp beginning Jan. 1, 2026, when his father, Jay Sidhu retires, the lender said in July. Jay Sidhu will become executive chair at that time. Jay Sidhu has been with the company since 2009, purchasing distressed New Century Bank, renaming it and growing its assets from $250 million to about $22 billion today. Sam Sidhu has been president and CEO of Customers Bank since July 2021, and will retain those titles. Before becoming CEO of the bank, he was chief operating officer and served on the banks board for eight years. He will retain his role as president of Customers Bancorp once he adds the CEO title. The Justice Department released hours of interviews between a top federal prosecutor and Ghislaine Maxwell, the only person convicted of or held civilly liable for a role in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Maxwell in a federal prison in Tallahassee, where she was being held until recently. In the interview, she denied having trafficked anyone or having witnessed any nonconsensual sexual activity or any sex involving minors. She said she never witnessed President Donald Trump doing anything "inappropriate with anybody." She shot down claims that former President Bill Clinton had traveled to Epstein's infamous island in the U.S. Virgin Islands and said the Clintons were her friends, not Epstein's. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I do believe that Epstein did a lot of, not all, but some of what he's accused of, and I'm not here to defend him in any respect whatsoever," Maxwell told Blanche. "I don't want to, and I don't think he requires, nor deserves any type of protection or from me in any way, to sugarcoat what he did or didn't do" Justice Department Weighs Release Of Ghislaine Maxwell Interview Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were both indicted on federal sex trafficking charges stemming from Epstein's years of abuse of underage girls. Epstein, Maxwell Grand Juries Relied On Two Law Enforcement Witnesses, Doj Filing Reveals Read On The Fox News App Authorities published hundreds of pages of transcripts as well as audio recordings of the interview on the DOJ website. The terms of the interview granted her limited immunity from further prosecution unless she told lies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell denied Epstein had a "client list" and said he did not maintain a stockpile of blackmail material against prominent associates. Maxwell also attempted to explain what she believes is the origin of claims that Epstein kept the "list." In 2009, she said Epstein had finished a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for child sex trafficking, but civil suits were pouring in, some from the law firm Rothstein Adler. A lawyer there called the FBI to say he had a "piece of evidence" that belonged to Epstein, she said. That was "the list," she said, adding that she believed he became a confidential informant to the FBI. She said he obtained the list through a sting operation involving Epstein's former butler, who said in a deposition he had "handwritten notes, or a journal, whatever," according to Maxwell. Ghislaine Maxwell jogs around the track at FCI Tallahassee in Tallahassee, Fla., July 10, 2025. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking with Jeffrey Epstein. Rothstein Adler was later raided by the FBI. Lawyers at the firm were prosecuted for a number of alleged crimes, including money laundering, fraud, conspiracy and a Ponzi scheme. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This is one man," Maxwell said. "He's not some they've made him into this. He's not that interesting. He's a disgusting guy who did terrible things to young kids." She reiterated past statements that she does not believe he killed himself, and she revealed Epstein told her he had a heart condition that prevented him from having normal sexual intercourse. She said she met Epstein in the early 1990s and began working for him. She said their own sexual relationship ended in 1999. In one exchange, she told Blanche she had grown to believe that Epstein wasn't very into her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There was some indications that he would actively tell other people to lie to me or conceal things from me, and that he never loved me, and I wasn't his type," she said. In the mid-to-late 90s, she said, Epstein began traveling increasingly with "masseuses." According to Epsteins accusers, he used massages as cover for sex. "In the early '90s, I don't remember traveling so much with other people," she said. "There would be a masseuse or a yoga person, but now he started to travel with more, always a masseuse." Prince Andrew allegedly appears in this photograph with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre. Ghislaine Maxwell is standing to the right. In the interview with Blanche, Maxwell said she believed Epstein had met members of Britain's "high society" but wasn't sure about any members of the royal family. Also around that time, he began a testosterone dosage, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "He started doing testosterone, and that altered his character," she told Blanche. "And I believe that started in the late '90s. And I believe that the FBI has his medical records, and you may see that on his medical records." Another person she said she never saw act inappropriately was the U.K.'s Prince Andrew, a friend of Epstein's who appears in an image with her and the late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, 17 at the time, that she said isn't real. "I believe it's literally a fake photo," she said of the infamous snap, purported to have been taken at her former London townhouse. "I do not know that they met." Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She had accused the royal of forcing her into sex inside Maxwell's home in London's ritzy Belgravia neighborhood. The prince was relieved of his royal duties amid fallout from the scandal but has always denied allegations of wrongdoing. He agreed to pay Giuffre an undisclosed settlement in 2022 and to donate to her charity for crime victims. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell also said she was not responsible for introducing Epstein to Andrew. She said they met at a dinner party in Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket in the late 1990s or early 2000s. In a statement on Twitter, Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, alleged that she had only been convicted because the DOJ needed a scapegoat after Epstein died in jail before his case went to trial. "Ghislaine Maxwell is innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted, in this case," Markus wrote. "She never committed or participated in sexual abuse against minors, or anyone else for that matter." Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted at trial in 2021 of helping Epstein traffic teen girls. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She has an ongoing appeal and has signaled that she is willing to sit for interviews with both federal prosecutors and Congress. Epstein died in a federal jail cell in 2019 before he faced trial himself. His official cause of death has been ruled a suicide, a conclusion rejected by his brother. The release came with little warning, days after federal judges denied the DOJ's requests to unseal grand jury materials from both Maxwell and Epstein's criminal cases. This is a breaking news story. Stick with Fox News Digital for updates. Fox News' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Jasmine Baehr, Chris Pandolfo and Adam Sabes contributed to this report. Original article source: Ghislaine Maxwell says no Jeffrey Epstein client list exists as DOJ releases interview recordings Ghislaine Maxwell told a top official of the Department of Justice that former President Bill Clinton never visited Jeffrey Epstein's private island estate and had no independent relationship with him outside of the trips the ex-president took on Epstein's plane in the early 2000s, according to a transcript of Maxwell's interview with the DOJ that was released Friday. "President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein's friend," Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. "President Clinton liked me, and we got along terribly well. But I never saw that warmth with Mr. Epstein." Maxwell, 63, made the comments during a highly-unusual post-conviction interview last month with the second-highest ranking law enforcement official in the country. The transcript of Blanche's nine-hour conversation with Maxwell -- which took place in Tallahassee, Florida -- was made public on Friday by the Department of Justice. A copy was also provided to a U.S. House committee in response to a subpoena for investigative files related to Epstein. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell provided no incriminating information during meetings with deputy AG on high-profile individuals who interacted with Jeffrey Epstein, transcript shows The former girlfriend and longtime companion of Epstein -- who was granted limited immunity for her discussions with Blanche -- was convicted in 2021 of sex-trafficking and other offenses connected to her facilitation and participation in Epstein's sexual exploitation of minor girls. Her attorneys insisted on her innocence throughout the trial and contended the government was prosecuting her as a "substitute" for Epstein, after the accused child sex-trafficker died in federal custody in 2019. At her sentencing hearing in 2022, a federal prosecutor said that Maxwell had shown "absolutely no remorse" and had "made misrepresentations when it suits her." A federal judge imposed a 20 year prison sentence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Blanche -- the top deputy to U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi -- indicated ahead of the Maxwell meeting that the goal was to determine if she had "information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims," according to a July 22 statement posted to social media by the DOJ. Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images - PHOTO: Ghislaine Maxwell attends the 4th Annual WIE Symposium, Sept. 20, 2013 in New York City. Maxwell told Blanche that she had never witnessed any wrongdoing by Clinton -- or any other of the high-profile men, including Donald Trump, who have been previously connected to Epstein. She described the two-term former Democratic president as a "truly extraordinary" man. A close friend introduced her to Clinton, she told Blanche, and she claimed she eventually became friendly enough with the former president to be invited to visit his home in the suburbs of New York City, where she said she also saw then-Senator Hillary Clinton. "I went to the house in Chappaqua a few times ... as a friend," she said, without providing a time frame for the visits. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't remember any reason either," she said, suggesting she may have just been driving past the area and -- if they were home -- she'd stop. "I know it sounds a little flippant," she added. In 2010, Maxwell said she attended the wedding of the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea, with her then-boyfriend, Gateway computers co-founder Ted Waitt, who she said was "very close" with Bill Clinton. Maxwell said she initially met Waitt years earlier at a Clinton event in Hong Kong. She said Clinton flew there on Epstein's plane. Clinton's history of traveling with Epstein has long fueled speculation and innuendo about the nature of their relationship. Flight logs from Epstein's private jets made public during civil litigation against Epstein showed that Clinton and his entourage had flown extensively in 2002 and 2003 on the financier's Boeing 727 to international locations, including Rwanda, Russia and China. Maxwell was listed as a passenger on each of those trips, identified in the logs by the initials, "GM." MORE: Bureau of Prisons moves Ghislaine Maxwell to prison camp in Texas Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell told Blanche that she was the one who suggested to Epstein that he make his plane available to Clinton for the trips. "[T]hey met because of me, and the plane was because of me," she said. "I saw them talk, I saw them sit down and have chats," Maxwell said. "I didn't see President Clinton being interested in Epstein. He was just a rich guy with the plane." Clinton's last known trip on Epstein's plane was in November 2003. The first reports that Epstein was under investigation in Florida for alleged sexual exploitation of minors did not surface until 2005. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection to his time spent with Epstein. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But as far back as 2015, Trump has insinuated that Clinton's travels with Epstein might involve some compromising behavior. At a conservative political conference that year -- before he formally announced his first bid for president -- Trump told the audience that Clinton is a "nice guy," but has "a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island" off of St. Thomas, where Epstein entertained his wealthy and famous friends. President Trump has since often repeated the spurious claim that Clinton went to Epstein's island more than twenty times, while noting that he had never been there himself. "I never went to the island," Trump told reporters at the White House last month, as his administration continued to deal with the fallout of its decision not to release Epstein investigative files to the public. MORE: DOJ's meeting with longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell happened after Maxwell initiated contact: Sources Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down, I didn't want to go to his island," Trump said. Clinton and his aides had done little to address questions about the ex-president's relationship with Epstein until after his arrest in July 2019. A spokesperson issued a statement two days later saying that Clinton "knows nothing" of Epstein's crimes and had never visited Little St. James, the island Epstein purchased for about $8 million in 1998. The statement said Clinton hadn't spoken to Epstein in "well over a decade" and that all the trips on Epstein's plane "included stops in connection with the work of The Clinton Foundation." Maxwell told Blanche she was certain the former president had never been to the island. "He never, absolutely never went. And I can be sure of that because there's no way he would have gone. I don't believe there's any way that he would've gone to the island had I not been there. Because I don't believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein," Maxwell told Blanche. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All the trips with Clinton on Epstein's plane that she could recall, Maxwell said, had a "humanitarian side." "And I thought it was an honor and a privilege to be part of something so amazing and to have an opportunity to spend time with a man that I found truly extraordinary," she said. "And please, I don't mean it in any other way other than as a fantastic ex-president," she added. After Clinton left the White House in 2001, Maxwell said she began spending time with the former president as he was forging his post-presidential path through the establishment of the Clinton Foundation and, later, the Clinton Global Initiative. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I had no purpose, really, other than I had -- obviously offered something. I don't know, ideas." she said. She claimed to be "very central" to supporting the ramp-up of CGI, according to the transcript. She said she traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and helped connect an organizer of that conference with Clinton's team. MORE: Trump supporters angry over Justice Department's Epstein memo "I thought that the former president should have his own Davos," she told Blanche. "It turned out that they had been thinking about it anyway." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell said she helped to bring key personnel to the effort to form CGI, but said she didn't want to "elevate [herself] in any form of importance here." "I just want to say that it wasn't my idea for his CGI," she said. "They had that idea before." CGI was officially launched in 2005. The first public allegations claiming Maxwell had a central role in Epstein's child sex-trafficking scheme were contained in a lawsuit filed in Florida in 2009. Epstein, Maxwell said, was supportive of her efforts to assist Clinton. "But then I think he may have tried to use that to insert himself in some way that would not have surprised me at all," she said. "[A]nd he wouldn't always agree with what I wanted to do. And I was like, 'it's not your idea. I don't really care what you think.' But that didn't go over so well." Both Epstein and Maxwell sought to highlight their claimed contributions to the Clinton initiatives when they were seeking leniency in the federal justice system. When Epstein first faced federal prosecution in 2007, one of his lawyers wrote to prosecutors to tout Epstein's pedigree as "part of the original group that conceived of the Clinton Global Initiative," according to a letter attached to a court filing in Florida federal court. Prior to her sentencing, Maxwell's attorneys asked the court to impose a below-guidelines punishment, contending that Maxwell "has endeavored to contribute to society," including her work "helping launch the Clinton Global Initiative," according to court records of her criminal case. Ghislaine Maxwell said she has no incriminating evidence against Donald Trump or Bill Clinton during interviews with a top department of justice (DoJ) official. The department released transcripts of the interviews as it tries to kill off conspiracy theories that it was protecting a cabal of powerful paedophiles. Maxwell said her ex-boyfriend, the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, did not operate a client list or blackmail programme. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She confirmed meeting Mr Trump around 1990, at a time when Robert Maxwell, her newspaper magnate father, was the owner of the New York Daily News. I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much, Maxwell said, according to the transcript. Asked if she ever saw Mr Trump receive a massage, Maxwell responded: Never. I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell confirmed that Mr Clinton travelled frequently with Epstein on his plane, but never received a massage. So they spent time on the plane together, and I dont believe there was ever a massage on the plane, she said. So that wouldve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage. And he didnt, because I was there. Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton pictured together in 2002 Maxwell, a socialite who was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be abused by Epstein, was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, at a courthouse in Florida. Maxwell also said her father was fond of Ivana Trump, Mr Trumps then wife, because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell after being arrested in 2019. His death, and close association with politicians, billionaires and celebrities, spawned claims that he had been murdered to protect a supposed client list. Several Right-wing influencers who propagated the claims took senior positions in the Trump administration, including Kash Patel, who became the director of the FBI. So when the DoJ issued a memo last month confirming the suicide of Epstein and revealing there was no evidence for any further prosecutions, the result was an outcry among Mr Trumps own supporters. The release of the transcripts is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to kill off the controversy Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Telegraph is reviewing the transcripts, which were published on Friday afternoon. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Ginger Zee showed her true grit while covering Hurricane Erin on Good Morning America. The meteorologist reported live from Manasquan, New Jersey, on the ABC morning shows Thursday, August 21, episode. Just as Zee faced rain and high winds during her broadcast on the beach, so did her water bottle. So thirsty but my water bottle spent the morning getting sand blasted with me, Zee captioned an Instagram video of her water bottle nozzle covered in sand on Thursday. She went to add, Im still gonna drink the grit I think Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fans shared their reactions to Zees funny circumstance in the posts comments. You drank from the hose as a kid, you can DO this , one fan quipped, while another joked, The sand might add flavour . Another user shared their appreciation for Zee, writing, This comes with the territory to keep us weather informed. I appreciate all you do! A different commenter wrote, Oh Gosh!!! Be Careful out there, but I know youre in your element. Someone else summed up Zees water bottle struggle in a comment, which read, Thats the life of a TV Meteorologist. Zee shared more behind-the-scenes clips from her beach weather report on Thursday. Hurricane Erin still more than 400 miles S/SE from me, she wrote over another Instagram vide, set to Surfin U.S.A. by The Beach Boys. Waves now 5-8 feet. By tonight could be as high as 15-18 feet! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hurricane Erin has yet to make landfall in the U.S., but has caused messy weather along the East Coast since earlier this month. The storm was labeled a Category 2 hurricane on Thursday, per CNN, while states such as New Jersey and North Carolina have declared a state of emergency. Zee was back in GMAs New York City studio on Friday, August 22, reporting on high heat alerts across the West Coast and warning viewers about high waves and dangerous rip currents on beaches as Hurricane Erin continues to cause concern. Even though were still 400 plus miles away from Nova Scotia, its racing to the Northeast, she explained to her GMA colleagues. So, Erin is gonna leave behind the high surf advisories. And I really think, George [Stephanopoulos], most of the weekend will not be safe for people to get in the water, unfortunately, until things settle down. Good Morning America, Weekdays, 7am/6c, ABC Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider. CAMPBELL COUNTY, Ky. (FOX 56) The Campbell County community is rallying to help a child badly injured in a fire last week. Just before 8 a.m. on Aug. 12, Braxtyn Kilgore, 3, was severely burned when flames ripped through his home. His father pulled him from the house, and he was rushed to the hospital with severe burns to his entire body. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A GoFundMe, which has already raised over $15,300, said that the funds will go to help the family of seven restore the lives that were gone in the blink of an eye. Investigators said the fire started after a kid was playing with a lighter. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Constructing a beaver dam analogue in the Upper Grande Ronde River watershed. (Photo courtesy of Trout Unlimited) Editors note: This is the third installment of a series on salmon that the Idaho Capital Sun is publishing. Part One described the emergency effort to rescue Washington states last population of Snake River spring and summer Chinook salmon, in the Tucannon River. Part Two explored salmon and steelhead extinction threshold science, showing the Pacific Northwest is entering extinction momentum that will be very difficult to escape. For Northwest salmon people, grim news and hope seem always intermingled. My previous article held grim news extinction science, and extinction in motion in the Grande Ronde River. In Part Three, I wish to give the Grande Rondes hope its due. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Everyone I spoke with in northeast Oregon, native and non-, raised, and praised, the systematic river and watershed restoration underway in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha since the mid-1990s. More such work has been completed, and is underway, in the Grande Ronde/Imnaha than any other salmon landscape in the Snake River Basin. The good done reaches well beyond healthier streams. Tribal restoration projects are many and often large All of it is a big source of hope for me, Bobby Fossek says. My own project is what Id call small scale, but I see the connections right up to the biggest ones. At Bird Track Springs, for example, the whole atmosphere of the place is charged now. I can see and feel it, and its just beginning. Bird Track Springs is the site of a completed project that is now completing itself in the river, restoring sinuosity, vital winter and summer habitat, and freer passage to a pinched and degraded 1.9 mile section of the Upper Grande Ronde River. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) sponsored and led the work, with nine co-sponsors, including the cooperating landowner, Jordan Creek Ranch. The cost was $2.5 million. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bird Track Springs is on Highway 244, just a few miles off the freeway at the Hilgard exit above La Grande. It is signed. The Tribes scene-setting and description, on the short walk to the river and an overlook, is very good, with tribal, historical, and river/salmon context in map, image, art and word. Ive seen the project; it looks good, John Appleton told me. Its going to create cooler water and deeper pools. With so few salmon in the Upper Grande Ronde now, no hatchery nearby, and little fishing pressure, Appleton says the upper river could almost be called an informal salmon sanctuary for the few salmon that still manage to get there. The Confederated Umatilla Tribes lead many other restoration projects in the Upper Grande Ronde and Catherine Creek. Rick George calls the Tribes McCoy Creek project a phenomenal success. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Tribes also acquired the Southern Cross Ranch, three miles southeast of Union, on -mile of Catherine Creek with 68 acres of historic floodplain. It is now being restored for channel function, sinuosity, riparian health, floodplain connectivity, and the benefit of Three First Foods water, salmon and deer. LEARN MORE For information on the many Confederated Umatilla Tribe projects, see https://fisherieshabitat.ctuir.org/. In Wallowa Country and the Imnaha, the Nez Perce Tribe leads on similar projects. Emmit Taylor Jr., director of the Nez Perce Tribes Department of Fisheries Resources Watershed Division, offered a quick list. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres the Wallowa River work at Tamkaliks, where we put in side channels and revegetated, he said. Theres a half-mile project on the Lostine River, at the town of Lostine. It was straight and constrained, most of the habitat gone. We removed levees, re-meandered, and put in side channels. This year were planting thousands of trees. It is our goal to see salmon spawn there again. A larger project is getting close to going in Chesnimnus Creek, tributary to Joseph Creek. The Lostine River, near Lostine, Oregon. Post-project conditions after 10 acres of pasture was converted back to floodplain. (Photo courtesy of the Nez Perce Fisheries Resources Management Department, Watershed Division) This is 11 to 15 miles of stream, and a very big deal for fish, Taylor said. The listed steelhead above it have never been supplemented. Were working with many landowners, and the Forest Service, on many actions cattle exclusions, riparian plantings, stream reconstruction, putting wood in the streams, and others. Design is underway, we hope to start work in a year or so. Joseph Creek is steep and largely inaccessible; thats why its a steelhead stronghold. But where it is accessible this work will really improve stream conditions and fisheries habitat. Taylor and his team are also part of the Tribes long effort, with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and others, to secure fish passage at Wallowa Lake Dam. That is the only large dam in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha basins. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to Tamkaliks, the Tribe has acquired or been gifted other properties for example, 140 acres near Joseph, at what Mr. Taylor calls the Place of Boulders. From its Joseph office, Nez Perce Fisheries staff work across Wallowa Country to keep water in streams, repair habitats, restore fish passage and rebuild Nez Perce use of these homelands. A restoration and a journey at Ascension School Camp and Conference Center Bobby Fosseks project at Ascension School is small in comparison, yet large on its terms. Ascension School Camp and Conference Center, in Cove, Oregon, is the spiritual center of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon. The diocese includes 19 churches in eastern, central and southern Oregon. Ascensions mission is to be a place apart, to connect with Gods sacred mystery, said Amy Jayne, a priest, who serves as the centers director. Our principles are human dignity, creation care and spirituality. Our summer camp for children is 100 years old. We are a full-service outdoor facility, a retreat and conference center, and a community center to serve Cove. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three Catherine Creek tributaries Duncan, Hulick and Mill creeks roughly bound the Schools 100 acres. Eighty acres are being restored. Ascension sits on an old village site called Wiweeletitpe, Place of Many Streams, Fossek said. It has been farmed since the mid-1800s, much of the native flora and fauna removed, and the anadromous fish streams straightened and diverted into irrigation ditches. We are working to restore many of the First Foods, Medicines and Materials that historically grew here and that our people have a deep relationship with. Along with it, we are revitalizing skills and lifeways that are part of this landscape, with tribal cultural skills camps on the site. Ascension Camp and Conference Center, in Cove, Oregon, on the right, with some of the area being restored by Caretakers of the Land in the foreground. (Photo courtesy of Megan Cox/Ascension Camp and Conference Center) Camas Camp, for example, immerses young native people in gathering, cooking, and sharing camas. A public nature trail also now ribbons the site. Fossek attended Ascension Camp as a boy and was maintenance man when Amy Jayne became its director six years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bobby led us to see we cant heal the land without assisting the healing of its original caretakers, Jayne said. This led to a relationship with Caretakers of the Land, which Fossek and Brosnan Spencer founded to steward and strengthen the lifeways, languages, habitats, and traditional ecological knowledge of the Blue Mountain bioregion Bobby Fossek, a resident of Cove, Oregon, manages an 80-acre restoration project on tributaries of Catherine Creek. The land is owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon. (Photo courtesy of Bobby Fossek) We provide Caretakers administrative support, but they have considerable autonomy, Jayne says. They have a deep relationship with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and those Tribes have events here. Theres a three-day CTUIR symposium this year. The Nez Perce have had an event here too, through Caretakers. I hope the elders and others visiting will recognize Ascension as a shared space. We want to help native people live again in their seasonal rounds. For the diocese, it is a journey. In 2022, at its annual convention, the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon formally repudiated the doctrine of discovery, the religious and legal basis upon which the Grande Ronde and Wallowa Country, including Ascension Camps 100 acres, were taken from tribal people by the United States and its citizens. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is wonderful support here, Jayne says. But there is also pushback. Absolutely nothing is settled in this work. The past systems are massive and in place. It takes a lot of work so people understand what were doing, and so we understand them. We forge ahead, and go slowly. I asked Fossek if it is fair to see his work, including the Ascension restoration, in three parts: restoring health to ecosystems, building relations with neighbors and communities, and restoring tribal presence and use: Yes. They are branches from the same tree the web of life in this valley. A small project gives young fish a place to rest and grow David Baums little project on Catherine Creek is the first restoration I heard about. Mr. Baum is a retired lawyer, fisherman and kayaker. A footbridge crosses Catherine Creek at Catherine Creek State Park near Union, Oregon. (Photo by Jesse Stephens/Getty Images) He vividly remembers salmon coming steadily through his grandmothers place on Catherine Creek in the 1950s. A decade ago, he did a five-acre restoration on the creek, at a different property he owned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I worked with Grande Ronde Model Watershed to put in a side channel, Baum says. I wanted to build some habitat where overwintering juvenile salmon can rest and grow. Its still there. Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers contributed $117,000 of the project cost, and Baum $3,000, says the project description on the Grande Ronde Model Watershed website. LEARN MORE To get a feel for all the restoration work done and underway across 3.1 million acres of land and water over three decades, visit the Grande Ronde Model Watershed website: www.grmw.org. In Catherine Creek alone, 38 separate projects, including Baums, are listed on the Grande Ronde Model Watershed website from 1995 through 2021. The Confederated Umatilla Tribes are a frequent lead and partner on Catherine Creek, as is the Union County Soil and Water District. Projects include restored fish passage, restored seasonal flows, riparian habitat re-creation, re-meandered channels, restored pools, better irrigation systems, bridging/fencing/culverting and more. Kyle Bratchers agency is active as well. In my Wallowa and Imnaha territory, the main restoration practitioners are Grande Ronde Model Watershed, the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Trout Unlimited, he said. We were a lead on the McDaniel Ranch project, as of course was Doug McDaniel, who did so much for restoration in Wallowa Country. McDaniel helped begin Wallowa Resources, which is also active in land and water restoration; Joe McCormack serves on its board. Trout Unlimited has done a lot of work in the upper Grande Ronde, says Noel March, who grew up in La Grande and now works for the group. In Sheep Creek, for example, about an hour upstream of La Grande, weve reversed a lot of historical damage. Sheep Creek restoration by Trout Unlimited in the Upper Grand Ronde watershed. (Photo courtesy of Connar Stone/Grande Ronde Model Watershed) Among current projects, were in Chesnimnus Creek too, just above the Nez Perce project, working with the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. In six miles of stream, were removing levees, returning those spawning gravels to the stream, and depositing large wood. It will give beaver a leg up. Together, says March, the Nez Perce and Trout Unlimited projects will soon be a large, connected corridor of high-quality steelhead habitat. March gives particular credit to the many landowners working with the Nez Perce, and to Mr. Taylors field staff. Land and canal owners are often, like Mr. Baum, project sponsors. It is real, says Rick George, how many landowners are now giving permission to restore waters on their lands, and are supportive of salmon. They want to reconnect land and water. There are still gaping wounds on this landscape; nothing can turn around all the water conversion and draining in the valleys anytime soon. But there is also change. The Grande Ronde Model Watershed calls itself the primary entity coordinating habitat restoration on private and public lands within the Grande Ronde Basin. It was created in 1992-3, when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council chose the Grande Ronde as Oregons model watershed for spawning and rearing habitat restoration. Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers were starting then to extensively finance such work. Grande Ronde Model Watershed has been a conduit for millions of Bonneville ratepayer dollars to repair Grande Ronde and Imnaha watersheds, while developing funding from other sources too. Reconnected wetlands in Sheep Creek, in the Upper Grande Ronde River. (Photo courtesy of Sam Bango/Anabranch Solutions) The CTUIR and Nez Perce Tribe each have seats on the Grande Ronde Model Watershed board. Joe McCormack represents the Nez Perce. In the early to mid-2000s, GRMW studied all the streams, he said. The Upper Grande Ronde and Catherine Creek were in the worst shape, and needed habitat work the most then. Kyle Bratcher says: ODFW helped develop the restoration atlases that prioritize watersheds and places. The Model Watershed holds monthly meetings of the implementors. It is a very big group and a very collaborative effort. The Model Watershed also engages students, volunteers and organizations in citizen science. Ascension School students are in the program. It helps that one week of outdoor school is a fifth grade requirement in Oregon. Kyle Bratchers wife, Emily, organizes and teaches youth science education, separately but overlapping with the Model Watersheds program. She takes kids to the projects, he said. Its a great way to teach them about fish and rivers, and spark their interest. They see fish spawning. Altogether, an impressively broad local network tribes and tribal people, agencies local state and federal, ranchers and other landowners, fishers and the conservation-minded, churches, schools, businesses and nonprofits is restoring waters and lands, public and private, at scales small to large, in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha watersheds. (The Powder River Basin Watershed Council, does similar work with far less resources in the Snake River watershed adjacent on the south. The Powder is without salmon, thanks to impassable dams constructed in Hells Canyon 60 years ago.) How to restore both salmon habitats, and salmon Salmon have this quality: People come to them by many paths, and are hooked. If, as seems likely, federal investments in northeast Oregon now shrivel for a time, it is plain the local restoration work will continue even if slowed. The tribal, community and economic investment is too rooted, and the local good being done too substantial. But the extinction threshold analyses make a second plain fact plainer. Watershed repair and renewal in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha will restore natal salmon habitats, but under current conditions in migratory habitats outside the Grande Ronde, it will not restore salmon. It is real how many landowners are now giving permission to restore waters on their lands, and are supportive of salmon. They want to reconnect land and water. There are still gaping wounds on this landscape; nothing can turn around all the water conversion and draining in the valleys anytime soon. But there is also change. Rick George The riches salmon once gave the Grande Ronde and its people, Rick Georges ocean nutrient freight train, are close to disappearing despite three decades of sustained local river restorations. If all this good work is to achieve its harvest, and community goals for salmon in the Grande Ronde, off-site restoration of equally vital habitat in this case, over-dammed migratory habitat must occur soon. Here I believe the Nez Perce Tribe and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife have the right three-part response. They are leading in extinction science and its applications for salmon and steelhead populations at extinctions door. They are leaders to responsibly restore 140 miles of the lower Snake River and its habitats, by removing the earthen sections of its four dams, within an inclusive and phased Columbia Basin-wide approach developed by the Six Sovereigns: the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, Nez Perce Tribe and Oregon, plus the Yakama Nation, Confederated Warm Springs Tribes, and Washington. And they are active co-collaborators restoring health and habitats in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha watersheds. Idaho Capital Sun originally published this article. Like the Alaska Beacon, the Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Government Wash will reopen this fall with overnight camping and a small launch area for kayaks and canoes, according to officials at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. After a yearlong cleanup that hauled 10,000 pounds of trash out of the area, Phase I of the project represents a careful first step. Officials unveiled their plan Thursday morning during a community meeting held online. We will keep a strong ranger presence and have volunteers help oversee the day-to-day use of the campground, according to Kat Vollinger, a park ranger brought in from Mount Rainier National Park for her experience with similar projects. A map of the primitive campground shows about a dozen campsites near the water, along with developed campsites for volunteers who will be an important part of the effort. Campsites will be clearly marked, and each one will have a fire rings. Toilets and a dumpster to manage waste are an important addition to keeping the area nice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All other areas will be limited to day-use, and only non-motorized recreation will be allowed. Last summer, barriers were deployed to keep people out. Mike Gauthier, superintendent at Lake Mead believed it was time to take action. An image displayed during Thursdays Lake Mead community meeting. (NPS photos) It was overrun with trash, with long-term visitors, encampments, there was a high-crime problem there, Gauthier said. He said there had been 1,365 incidents over a span of 5 years at Government Wash. He was hearing that people were a little scared to go there. Part of it was to gain control because it was really taxing our law enforcement officers. We dont have that many law enforcement officers. They are covering the 1.5 million acres of land, and so theyre spread thin. And this was just taking a disproportionate amount of attention, Gauthier said. April 2023. The well-known vertical speedboat at Lake Mead is now surrounded by water after the lake rose four feet in May, 2023. (Photo: @MikeyTantalo) Its close to Las Vegas, and visitors had made their own roads for years. Government Wash is also known as the site of the speedboat that stuck out of the bottom of the lake. The boat, aptly nicknamed Skyward by a video blogger, was removed by Lake Mead personnel on July 25. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Four volunteer groups with 205 participants including military and nonprofits pitched in to collect the trash. Guthier said a utility removed 1,800 feet of an out-of-service water line. When I arrived at Lake Mead, candidly, I was a little shocked when I first saw the area. It struck me as a site that over years had just been neglected in its management, Gauthier said. Illegal roads in the Government Wash area of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. (NPS photo) Over the years, basically, people had off-roaded, theyd put roads in everywhere. They were running over cultural sites, they were running over rare plant species. It was just sort of not the place we wanted to be our national park, he said. But volunteers and Gauthiers effort in directing resources to the problem could turn the wash into something special again. An image displayed during Thursdays Lake Mead community meeting. (NPS photo) Vollinger said, My job is to help get it cleaned up, reimagined and reopened so the public can enjoy it for years to come. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement How soon til more of the area opens up? The more we protect the progress, the faster we can expand access. We are looking forward to adding more campsites, easy-to-follow multi-use recreational trails and improved day-use areas that will attract families and individuals looking to get out. This is our chance to make Government Wash a model for how a place can come back better than before, but it will take all of us to help make it happen, Vollinger said. NOTE: Lake Mead officials have an important message about the waters around Government Wash. The water is in the mix zone for the treated sewage from the city. So wading especially with cuts swimming, and eating fish out of the area is not recommended. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner) The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted by paper ballot along party lines Friday afternoon to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish any rule that hasnt gone through a review by the Legislature in accordance with Wisconsin law. Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. There are 27 administrative rules, including one to address the states policy on gray wolf management, that Evers submitted to the LRB for publication. Of those, 13 have not been reviewed by a standing legislative committee and are yet to be published. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its the latest step the administration has taken in testing the bounds of the recent Evers v. Marklein II ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The majority found in the case that the state laws giving the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules broad powers to block administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional. The statutes cited in the Republicans motion Thursday were not included in the Courts ruling. We are following the law and maintaining the fundamental checks and balances of lawmaking, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) said in a joint statement about the motion on Thursday. The governor is flagrantly disregarding the rule of law and egregiously abusing the power of his office. Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback said Republicans were defying the law in an email Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans are reaching new levels of lawlessness, whether its President Trump trying to take over Washington DC, Republicans in Texas trying to rig maps and elections in their favor, or Republicans in Wisconsin who appear poised to disobey decisions made by our states highest court, Cudaback wrote in an email message. Republicans are not above the law they should follow the law like everyone else is expected to. The measure passed 6-4. Republicans on the committee, including Vos, Felzkowski, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth) and Rep. Scott Krug (R-Rome), voted for the motion. Democrats on the committee, including Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), voted against it. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday allowing the administration to cut nearly $800 million in National Institute of Health grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The 5-4 ruling was a win for the Trump administration, which took the issue to the highest court after a lower court judge in Massachusetts required the federal government to continue making the payments. The plaintiffs in the case included a coalition of 16 Democratic state attorneys general and public health advocacy groups, who argued the Trump administration was being discriminatory. Since Trump took office the decision noted that federal institutions like the NIH the largest public funding source for biomedical research in the world have been making policy changes to better align with the current White Houses politics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump has pushed executive orders to roll back Biden administration policies that were created with the purpose of advancing racial equality. As soon as he took office last January, Trump took action to end what he called radical DEI completely, labeling it as demonstrating immense public waste and shameful discrimination. A mural by artist Tene Smith, near the entrance of Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit dedicated to training and retaining women in the skilled construction trades, is photographed April 1, 2025, at the facility in Chicago. | Claire Savage, Associated Press From now on, the NIH will no longer be funding research related to DEI objectives, gender identity, or COVID19," per the ruling, Nor will it continue the practice of awarding grants to researchers based on race. Also in the 5-4 ruling was the decision to leave in place a separate portion of the lower court judges ruling with removed NIH guidance documents that describe the agencys policy priorities. Medical researchers from universities and the National Institutes of Health rally near the Health and Human Services headquarters to protest federal budget cuts Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, in Washington. | John McDonnell, Associated Press Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the deciding vote on each issue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She joined conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in terminating the initiative grants, but joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the courts liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson in voting to leave the lower courts ruling on the guidance documents in place. Gorsuch, joined by Kavanaugh, wrote an opinion calling out lower court judges for defying Supreme Court precedent. Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Courts decisions, but they are never free to defy them, he wrote. Last April, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration permission to cut teacher training grants involving DEI practices. Rather than follow that direction, the district court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical grants to proceed to final judgment, Gorsuch wrote. If nothing else, the promise of our legal system that like cases are treated alike means that a lower court ought not invoke the persuasive authority of a dissent or a repudiated court of appeals decision to reach a different conclusion on an equivalent record, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox stood by state Senate President Stuart Adams on Thursday, defending the top lawmakers decision not to disclose his personal connection to a law inspired by the criminal case of his granddaughter. During a tense exchange with reporters, Cox said there is no need for an investigation into Adams behavior because he and Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Draper, have openly stated the extent of their involvement in the laws passage. Theres nothing to investigate, Cox said. The facts of this are very, very clear. What is the new law? The provision, which passed in 2024 as part of SB213, allows 18-year-old high school students to be charged as 17-year-olds if they engage in noncoercive sexual activity with teenagers who are 13. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a stated effort to keep the process fair, Adams did not tell legislators, except for Cullimore the bills primary sponsor that his granddaughter was currently the defendant in a Davis County criminal case falling into that category. Cullimore has said that after Adams told him about his granddaughters situation in 2023 he contacted her defense attorney, Cara Tangaro, to identify statutory changes to prevent high school students from being charged with child rape when no force was involved. The change was discussed in committee hearings and floor debates before passing as part of the 49-page criminal justice omnibus bill. The law did not apply retroactively to Adams granddaughter, but it was referenced at her sentencing. Court observers disagree on the extent to which the law may have shaped the eventual plea bargain that let the granddaughter avoid a prison sentence and sex offender designation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont think there are any facts in dispute, Cox said. He talked to the Senate majority leader. The Senate majority leader took that information and he proposed a piece of legislation. Calls for Adam to resign State Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, Utah Democratic Party Chair Brian King, and activist groups across the political spectrum have called on Adams to resign, alleging that he abused his power. But Cox said these criticisms are unfounded. This is the process taken by many pieces of legislation, the governor said, and by not disclosing his personal situation, including to Cox, Adams allowed lawmakers to focus on the policys merits. Every single legislator has experiences in their life where they see something that they feel may be unjust, and that influences the way they bring legislation to the table, Cox said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cox pushed back against some legislators who have said the provision was snuck into the bill late in the process. It was part of the initial draft and was debated by stakeholders, Cox said, adding that those who say they didnt know about the provision are lying to you, or theyre a terrible legislator. Review will happen Cox repeatedly said he was grateful that Adams had not told him this was impacting someone in his family because it may have changed how he reacted to the bill. But Cox said he and others now have a chance to revisit the legislation if needed. On Friday, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz announced the creation of a working group of policy experts to review SB213 and analyze state laws related to unlawful sexual activity among high school students. In an interview with Deseret News and KSL.com last week, Adams said he had no participation in the drafting of the provision, or its placement in SB213, and said the way the bill became law was done ethically and morally perfect. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cox said on Thursday that Adams made the right call by staying out of the legislative process as much as he could as it related to the provision even if it was initiated by his concerns tied to a family connection. I think it was appropriate for the top person in the Senate not to weigh in on this bill, which is exactly what happened, Cox told reporters. He did not weigh in on this bill I can only imagine what you would have written if he had. By Milana Vinn (Reuters) -Private equity firm Thoma Bravo has agreed to buy human resources software provider Dayforce for $12.3 billion, including debt, in a take-private deal that executives hope will help expand on the company's AI capabilities. Dayforce, which operates on a single data platform, uses artificial intelligence to help companies forecast matters such as labor demand or predict employee burnout, David Ossip, the company's CEO, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday, as he elaborated on the deal's benefits. "Going private gives us more space, flexibility and resources to go much deeper on what matters the most, which is accelerating our focus on being that AI leader in HCM," Ossip said, referring to the practice known as human capital management. Under terms of the deal, Dayforce shareholders will receive $70 per share in cash, representing an equity value of $11.18 billion, according to Reuters' calculations. The offer, announced Thursday, represents a premium of 32.4% based on the stock's closing price on August 15, when news of the deal talks was first reported. While the deal marks Thoma Bravo's largest take-private deal today, the talks between Dayforce and Thoma Bravo date back years. Thoma Bravo has known Ossip, also Dayforce's founder, since before 2012, when his software company Dayforce was acquired by a larger HR and payroll provider, Ceridian. Thoma Bravo had followed Dayforce's journey into the public markets, periodically keeping its tabs on the business, Tara Gadgil, partner at Thoma Bravo, told Reuters. Thoma Bravo formally approached Dayforce about going private about a year ago, when its shares were trading in the mid-$50s down more than 50% from its peak in 2021, Gadgil said. "We fundamentally believe that for the product differentiation, quality of revenue and recurring revenue growth that Dayforce exhibits, the public markets weren't appreciating the company," Gadgil told Reuters. DEBT LOAD RELIEF SEEN The software sector has emerged as an investment target due to resilient subscription services and recurring revenue in an economy weighed down by a deteriorating labor market, trade tariffs and erratic spending. A wave of deals in the human capital management industry in recent years signals a shift toward AI-driven, single-platform solutions, with acquisitions aimed at consolidating and enhancing the tools offered to clients. Paychex announced its acquisition of rival Paycor for $4.1 billion at the start of the year, and Automatic Data Processing acquired WorkForce Software last year for about $1.2 billion. >>New details released on Davis Mortuary investigation after Friday press conference (PUEBLO, Colo.) Colorados Governor Jared Polis has called for Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter to resign immediately after the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) announced the criminal investigation into Davis Mortuary in Pueblo, where improperly stored bodies were allegedly discovered on Wednesday, Aug. 20, during a state inspection. Im sickened for the families of the loved ones who are impacted by this unacceptable misconduct. It is clear public trust has been lost, and Mr. Cotter must resign as the Pueblo County Coroner immediately, said Gov. Polis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, Aug. 22, Gov. Polis also declared a disaster emergency, which will mobilize state resources to respond to the incident and protect public health and safety. Last year, Governor Polis signed HB24-1335 Sunset Continue Mortuary Science Code Regulation, which creates more accountability for funeral homes in Colorado, including implementing periodic inspections, according to the Friday morning press release. This situation was discovered by inspectors from the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) as a result of this law. During the CBI press conference held on Thursday, Aug. 21, Pueblo County Sheriff David Lucero said Davis Mortuary is operated by Cotter and his brother, whose name was not provided. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: 20 bodies possibly stored improperly at Davis Mortuary Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [Cotter] should be investigated and if warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No one should ever have to wonder if their loved one is being taken care of with dignity and respect after theyve passed, and Mr. Cotter must be held to account for his actions, Gov. Polis added. Lucero said both Cotter and his brother were present during DORAs inspection on Wednesday and allegedly made statements to investigators that they believed there to be around 20 bodies inside a room at the mortuary, and that some had been awaiting cremation for upwards of 15 years. Investigators said they had not yet made entry into the room, so an exact count had not been completed. As of the latest update, no charges have been filed, nor have any arrests been made. The CBI affirmed on Thursday that Cotter remains in his elected position as Pueblo County Coroner, and his whereabouts are known. For anyone who believes they may be impacted by this investigation, the CBI provided a phone number and email for those potential victims to speak to victim advocates who will help them navigate the next steps. The phone number is (719) 257-3359, and the email is CBItips@state.co.us. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Maryland Budget Secretary Helene Grady and Gov. Wes Moore (D). Grady will leave her position in October after three years with the administration. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters) Gov. Wes Moores Cabinet will have another vacancy this fall, when state Budget Secretary Helene Grady will leave to start her own consulting business. Grady is the second senior administration official to announce her departure this week, after Mondays announcement that Chief of Staff Fagan Harris is leaving, and the seventh so far this year. Her decision to leave, which will be announced by the administration Friday, was not unexpected, as it was widely circulated in and around Annapolis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But it was still incredibly difficult, Grady said in an interview with Maryland Matters. Its just monumental pride that I feel in the work and the team, and this leads me to feel very confident that this is the appropriate time to pass the baton for the next leg of this work, Grady said. Grady said she expects to start her own consulting firm to work with public and private organizations to help them tackle messy challenges through analysis and collaboration, aligning strategic vision with detailed planning and management execution, and communicating the important work theyre doing internally and externally. Moore called Grady a true public servant in every beautiful sense of that phrase. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the story of Marylands Decade is written, her fingerprints will be all over the page, Moore said in a statement. During Secretary Gradys distinguished tenure, we turned an inherited structural deficit into a surplus, delivered a tax cut to middle-class families, and secured historic investments in education, health care, public safety, transportation, and countless other priorities that Marylanders deserve. Grady has had to help craft budgets in a new era in which the legislature gained broad budgetary power: A constitutional amendment approved by voters before Moore was elected ended an era where Marylands governor controlled the budget with arguably more power than any other state executive. Maryland Budget Secretary Helene Grady. (File photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters) Additionally, all three budget years have come with their own challenges including a post-COVID economy and the ongoing expense of the Blueprint for Marylands Future education reforms. This year alone, Moore and the legislature crafted a compromise budget that includes tax increases (and some modest targeted decreases) and fees. She was also responsible for implementing a transition of 50,000 retired employees to Medicare. The move, mandated before Moore came into office, saved the state $200 million annually and $10 billion in post-employment liabilities. But it left retirees angry and sparked court challenges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I wouldnt say that these particular efforts weighed heavily in any way on my decision, Grady said. This is part of the portfolio of work that Im just incredibly proud of the DBM team in terms of what weve accomplished together and with our colleagues across state government in just three short years. Harris, Moores chief of staff, credited Grady with guiding the administration through a 2025 legislative session that included erasing a $3.3 billion structural budget deficit. We knew this was going to be one of our most challenging sessions in the first term, Harris said. There are a lot of issues needed to be resolved in the budget and for the states kind of fiscal footing going forward. Harris said Grady was the architect of the governors tax plan. Moore boasted that 94% of Marylanders would see no change in their taxes or would get a reduction, albeit a modest one. That plan was ultimately altered by legislators as they crated a compromise budget. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think she understood that the General Assembly has an important role in this, Harris said. I think what she set out at the outset was so sturdy and the framework for the budget was so clear and compelling, that while the budget and the ultimate plan that was passed evolved somewhat, the tent poles remain the same. A transition and an October departure Grady said the job is incredibly fulfilling and invigorating, but also very consuming, and I think its the right time for someone fresh to come in and lead the next leg of the work. She plans to stay until October, expecting the extended notice will allow Moore to find a new secretary and ensure a smooth transition. My understanding is that the governors office is focused on a search with an eye toward potentially having a successor named in that time frame, Grady said. Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) and Lt. Gov.-elect Aruna Miller (D) flanked by their first round of appointees. Budget Secretary Helene Grady is on the left. (File photo by Josh Kurtz/Maryland Matters.) October is a key month for the executive branch as it plans its budget for the coming legislative session and fiscal year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The team is very strong and really well positioned to keep everything running through this transition, Grady said. Thats also part of the reason were announcing at this point, so that we can ensure a smooth transition between now and when I separate in October. Everything is underway as we would normally be doing at this point in the year, and I anticipate a really smooth handoff with whoever comes in to succeed me, she said. October is a pretty natural time for that transition. Grady was one of five early hires made by Moore in November 2022 following his historic election. Prior to joining the administration, she was chief financial officer and treasurer at Johns Hopkins University. She is married to Matthew Gallagher, president and CEO of the Goldseker Foundation in Baltimore and chief of staff to former Gov. Martin OMalley (D). Gallagher is also chair of the board for Baltimore Corps, a Baltimore nonprofit once headed by Harris, Moores outgoing chief of staff. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Talk of Gradys departure grew in recent weeks, as did talk of potential replacements, including Sen. Guy Guzzone (D-Howard), chair of the Senate Budget and Taxation CommitteeChair Sen. Guy Guzzone (D-Howard), and Richard Madaleno, the former Montgomery County senator and vice chair of Budget and Tax, who currently is county administrative officer under term-limited Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich. Challenges on the horizon The next leg of the work, as Grady described it, will be rife with challenges. As you know, one key, key part of the next leg of the work for the next DBM leader is certainly going to be helping Maryland navigate the changes and the impacts of changes from the federal government, Grady said. Included in those are the impacts on Marylands economy from federal job losses, which obviously impact our revenue base, potentially, as well as the impact from federal budget changes, particularly within Medicaid and SNAP at the top of the list, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Grady is the seventh senior official to leave the Moore administration as it prepares to enter its last session before Moore will be up for reelection in 2026. Harris announced Monday that he will leave on Jan. 5 to become the next president and CEO of the Baltimore-based Abell Foundation, a prominent philanthropic organization. In July, Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld announced his retirement. Embattled Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi left the administration. Schiraldi, a lightning rod for criticism, especially from Republicans, said he left of his own accord, but Moore later said he asked the secretary to resign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anthony C. Tony Woods announced in May that he was leaving his job as secretary of Veterans and Military Families for a private-sector tech startup. In January, Moore announced Kevin Anderson would leave his role as Commerce secretary and become an economic development adviser. Two weeks later, state Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott announced she would step down amid a budget storm that included a proposed $200 million cut in funding to the Developmental Disabilities Administration. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The National Park Service painted a rosy picture of the situation at the Grand Canyon during the first week of the Dragon Bravo Fire, but weather data show a disaster was in the making at the North Rim. As the July 4 fire intensified, the National Park Service posted updates about dogs, scenic overlooks and a playful true crime series about a squirrel on social media, its primary vehicle for sharing park news with the public. When the Park Service first mentioned the fire, its messages were about sunny, breezy conditions and some visible smoke. Officials downplayed threats, described the ways fires could help the landscape and noted they were allowing it to burn to help the ecosystem. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The park's own fire management plan pointed to a different story. Hot, dry and windy weather conditions were on the brink of meeting critical thresholds for increased fire activity, an Arizona Republic review of National Weather Service data found. The fire plan highlights four weather conditions that signal increased fire behavior: temperatures over 70 degrees; relative humidity below 15%; wind gusts over 15 mph; and wind speeds above 10 mph. It also warns the North Rim's spruce-fir trees and mixed conifer forests pose the potential for extreme fire behavior that leads to large fire growth." Weather at the North Rim neared those thresholds repeatedly from July 6 to July 10. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And then the fire exploded. It became an inferno that consumed the North Rim, turned the historic Grand Canyon Lodge and 100 other structures into cinders, destroyed the park's only water treatment facility and forced residents and tourists to evacuate. The National Park Service did not respond to The Arizona Republic's repeated requests for comment about the fire management plan or weather conditions at the canyon. Here's a rundown on what the fire was actually doing from July 4 to July 11 and what park officials said at the time. July 4: Friday What happened: Lightening sparked a small fire about four miles from the North Rim's lodge, cabin and visitors center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What officials said: Nothing about the fire. The park earlier in the day wished visitors a happy Fourth of July. July 5: Saturday What happened: The fire was relatively small. At 7:07 pm, the temparture was 72 degrees; humidity was 18%; wind gusts were 7 mph; and wind speeds were 3 mph. What officials said: Nothing. July 6: Sunday What happened: The fire continued growing, and the weather was closing in on two of the four critical thresholds. At 1:07 p.m., the temperature was 80 degrees; humidity was 17%; wind gusts were 15 mph; wind speeds were 4 mph. What officials said: The park promoted a scenic drive on the South Rim. On the South Rim, have you ever toured Hermit Road on the free Red Route shuttle? The bus follows the scenic road for 7 miles (11 km) and stops at 9 spectacular canyon overlooks some featuring views of the Colorado River. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The park marked the end of the weekend with a quote from American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and a photo of Grand Canyon Village on X. Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week, the post said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement July 7: Monday What happened: The weather stayed hot, got windier and crossed two of the four critical thresholds. The fire grew to 10 acres. At 3:07 p.m., the temperature was 82 degrees; humidity was 18%; wind gusts were 17 mph; and wind speeds were 6 mph. What officials said: The Park Service for first time mentioned the fire. And they warned about very hot temperatures for dogs. They offered tips for keeping dogs cool during park visits. Today you might have hot dogs on the table but we want to see cool dogs at the canyon , the park wrote on X. It also highlighted a cultural demonstration. Officials said the fire posed no threat and said it was being managed in a confine/contain strategy to help the landscape. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire is being managed for resource objectives, which means it is being used to help maintain a healthy, resilient landscape in the fire-adapted ecosystem of the North Rim, the park said. Wildland fire crews are actively monitoring the fire. There are no threats to infrastructure or public safety at this time. July 8: Tuesday What happened: Weather exceeded two of the four critical conditions. At 1:07 p.m., the temperature was 82 degrees; humidity was 23%; wind gusts were 16 mph; and wind speeds were 6 mph.. What officials said: The park shared an update to its mini true crime squirrel series. The episode is titled Paws on the Pedal.A while back, we shared the story of a squirrel caper that ended on a cliffhanger. We're back, the Park Service wrote. July 9: Wednesday What happened: Weather exceeded two critical conditions. At at 2:07 p.m. the temperature was 89 degrees; humidity was 17%; wind gusts were 18 mph; and wind speeds were 5 mph. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What officials said: Sunny weather and light winds contributed to moderate fire behavior and growth yesterday. Fire crews continue to monitor the fire closely, using real-time weather data and on-the-ground observations to guide management decisions. Naturally ignited wildfires play an essential role in fire-dependent ecosystems like the North Rim by: Reducing heavy fuel accumulations and converting dead wood to nutrient-rich ash Stimulating new plant growth and maintaining habitat diversity Helping regulate insects and disease Creating a mosaic of burned and unburned vegetation, which can slow future wildfires Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement July 10: Thursday What happened: Weather exceeded three of the critical thresholds and held steady for nearly six hours. Wind speeds were just 2 mph shy of the fourth threshold. At 5:07 p.m., the temperatures was 87 degrees; humidity was 7%; wind gusts were 22 mph; and wind speeds were 9 mph. What officials said: The park posted a photo of an Australian shepherd wearing a bandana at the Grand Canyon. I pledge to know where I can go with my pet, bag my pet's waste, always keep it on a leash, and respect wildlife within Grand Canyon National Park, the park said in an X post. Officials also assured the public on Facebook that there is currently no threat to public safety or developed areas due to the Dragon Bravo fire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire continues to be managed under a confine and contain strategy, which allows for the natural role of fire on the landscape while minimizing the risk to infrastructure and park values, the park said. Weather conditions remain favorable for moderate fire behavior, with sunny skies and light winds contributing to a steady rate of spread. July 11: Friday What happened: The fire management plan showed almost perfect conditions for an out-of-control fire and that's what happened. At 4:07 p.m., the temperature was 88 degrees; humidity was 5%; wind gusts were 19 mph; and wind speeds were 8 mph. What officials said: They announced evacuation plans around 4:45 p.m. "Due to the advancing Dragon Bravo Fire within Grand Canyon National Park, all North Rim residents are now in GO status and should evacuate immediately." In another post, they pointed to increased fire activity. "As of 8:45 p.m. on July 11, the Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is estimated at 1,500 acres. Due to increased fire activity, mandatory evacuation orders were issued earlier today for North Rim residents. "The North Rim remains closed to all visitor use until further notice to support firefighting operations and ensure public safety for this fire and the nearby White Sage Fire. "Smoke is expected to remain visible from the South Rim, and air quality conditions may vary depending on fire behavior and wind patterns. Current smoke and air quality information is available at https://fire.airnow.gov/#8.09/36.238/-112.008. "Fire management personnel continue working in coordination with interagency partners. Updates will be provided as conditions evolve." July 12: Saturday What happened: At 10:30 p.m., the fire reached the Grand Canyon Lodge, which had opened in 1937 and was known for its ponderosa pine beams and panoramic vistas. The fire contnued to grow and is now the countrys largest fire of 2025. On Aug. 21, the Dragon Bravo Fire was 63% contained and measured 145,500 acres. What officials said: Five hours before the lodge burned, fire officials used the term "suppression" to describe their strategy. "The Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park grew quickly overnight, jumping over several fire control lines," officials posted on Facebook. "Some North Rim facilities have been impacted, but there are no reports of injuries or loss of life. All park staff, concession employees, and residents have been safely evacuated." Officials said a potential chlorine gas leak related to the destruction of the water treatment facility led to trail closure. "Fire crews on the North Rim are engaging the fire under a full suppression strategy, and public and firefighter safety remains the park's top priority," the Facebook post said. Grand Canyon officials are now saying that suppressing the fire was their strategy from the time it started. Stephanie Murray covers national politics and the Trump administration for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Reach her via email at stephanie.murray@gannett.com and on X, Bluesky, TikTok and Threads @stephanie_murr. Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter for The Republic. Reach him at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X @robertanglen. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Grand Canyon officials minimized Dragon Bravo Fire risk: What to know ST. LANDRY PARISH, La. (KLFY) St. Landry Parish Grand Jury indicted two individuals on murder and rape charges. Aaron Lloyd, 34, of Opelousas charged with a murder indictment for the murder of his mother Lisa Lloyd,65. On June 22, police officers responded to a complaint that Aaron Lloyd was allegedly making statements about killing his mother and placing her body in a trash can outside of a residence at the Park Circle in Opelousas, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During the investigations, officers said they found the remains of Lisa Lloyd in a trash can. The investigation resulted resulted in the arrest of Aaron Lloyd who allegedly admitted to officials to killing Lisa Lloyd, cover her body with trash bags and stuffed her in the trash. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest The Grand Jury also indicted Tyler Jermain Sylvester, 26, of Opelousas with first degree rape in relation to an incident that occurred Aug. 2. According to officials, Sylvester allegedly attacked and raped the victim, then fired shots while running away from law enforcement. The incident resulted in no reported injuries and Sylvesters arrest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chad Pitre, District Attorney, said both first degree murder and first degree rap carries a minimum of mandatory life sentence without probations, parole or suspension. No further details were released. We will update as more information follows. Aaron Lloyd, 34, of Opelousas Latest news Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. RAND RAPID, Mich. (WOOD) The grand marshals have been chosen for the Greatest Generation Celebration parade and flyover that will take place on Labor Day in downtown Grand Rapids. Greatest Generation to be honored in Grand Rapids The grand marshals are 101-year-old Maxine Boeve and 99-year-old Eugene Khorey. Working as a Rosie the Riveter, Boeve found herself at a U.S. Navy shipyard in Washington State during World War II. Greatest Generation parade grand marshal Maxine Boeve (center) is honored as a Rosie the Riveter on a trip to Washington, D.C. (Courtesy) Greatest Generation parade grand marshal Maxine Boeve (in red) is honored as a Rosie the Riveter on a trip to Washington, D.C. (Courtesy) Greatest Generation parade grand marshal Maxine Boeve (far left) is honored as a Rosie the Riveter on a trip to Washington, D.C. (Courtesy) Greatest Generation parade grand marshal Maxine Boeve is honored as a Rosie the Riveter on a trip to Washington, D.C. (Courtesy) It was all women that would run the machines and the men were the setup guys, Boeve said. I did well. I went from the beginner machines that kept breaking down to good ones. Made parts for battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines and destroyers, and mostly plumbing parts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Khorey served in the U.S. Army infantry. Eugene Khorey in uniform. (Courtesy) I never thought I qualified. I always read of grand marshals for the Rose Bowl parade, Khorey said. Im gonna be a grand marshal and Im just an infantryman. Yeah, that was very impressive. He was sent to Germany and said he will never forget the scale of the devastation he saw. When you landed in the Harv (region in Germany) and you looked out over the city you can see miles and miles, because the city was in rubble, there wasnt a building standing, Khorey said. Originally from Pittsburgh, Khorey had the distinction of also serving in the Pacific theater fighting the Japanese in the Philippines. His original orders were to head to Japan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the rumors started that they invented some kind of magic bomb, they didnt know what it was It turned out to be the atomic bomb, Khorey said. Greatest Generation parade grand marshal Eugene Khorey speaks with News 8s Kyle Mitchell on Aug. 21, 2025. What he saw during the war led him to be an advocate for peace. I was hoping that people would learn their lessons from World War II and we would not encounter another war, Khorey said. Boeve said she will always remember how the country came together and made sacrifices that helped lead to victory. We were all united and we didnt mind doing it, either. We liked working together, we were a country, and we were helping other countries and it just seemed like thats what we should do and we loved doing it, Boeve said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The parade through downtown Grand Rapids is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. on Labor Day. A parade route map is available on the Greatest Generation Celebration website. The parade will be followed by a Wings of Honor flyover with World War II era aircraft. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) As classrooms prepare to be populated by students and teachers in a the coming weeks, the Green Bay Area Public School District (GBAPSD) invited the community for yet another Welcome Back Celebration. The 3rd Annual Welcome Back Celebration is designed to say thank you to families for believing in the staff, schools and district overall. Senator Tammy Baldwin introduces legislation seeking to provide all National Guard, Reserve members with healthcare Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The event ran from noon until 6 p.m. at Joannes Park with free food, games and live music along with other festivities. From carnival games to family-friendly axe throwing and crafts, families and the staff got a chance to enjoy a fun day as students prepare to enter the classrooms again. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LEWISBURG, WV (WVNS) Pepperoni roll lovers now have a few more stops to make along West Virginias Pepperoni Roll Trail. According to a press release from the Marion County Convention and Visitors Bureau, three new stops that were added in Morgantown, Thomas, and Lewisburg. All of the new additions were added through much community input. Each new stop is listed below! The Humble Tomato 855 Washington St. W, Lewisburg, WV Chico Bakery 1644 Blue Horizon Drive, Morgantown, WV Mountain Top Convenience 16105 Appalachian Hwy, Thomas, WV Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In April 2025, the Marion County Convention and Visitors Bureau partnered with the Clarksburg Visitors Center to release the West Virginia Pepperoni Roll Trail. It gave travelers and foodies the opportunity to check out some of the best options when it comes to the Mountain State delicacy. The release described the Humble Tomatos take on a pepperoni roll as a fancier one, showing a different side to the once go-to lunch of coal miners. [The Humble Tomato] has a distinct Italian flavor and is baked to a golden brown Perfection! Beth Gill | Director of Marketing for Experience Greenbrier Valley Anyone who wants to take a ride down the Pepperoni Roll Trail can access the Pepperoni Roll Trail Passport HERE! Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) Greenville County Council is proposing new regulations for food trucks, aiming to regulate where they can operate and for how long. It allows for food trucks to be set up in proper areas, not to be set up in residential areas, said JJ Arrowood, Chief Fire Marshal of the Berea Fire Department. The proposed ordinance would restrict food trucks from setting up in residential areas and require them to obtain permission from property owners. Additionally, food trucks would not be allowed to park in one location for more than a day unless there is a special event. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive had several people call me and say that a food truck was in the wrong area, and if I could remove them and I dont have that ability, added Arrowood. Harold Smith, a former food truck owner, supports the ordinance. Its mobile. Its not supposed to be set up. If they want to be set up, they need a brick and mortar. So Im for it, Smith said. Food trucks in Greenville County are currently required to have a fire suppression system installed over the cooking area to prevent fires. JJ Arrowood explained how these systems work. The fire suppression system goes over the cooking where they cook your food, Arrowood said. So if theres a fire and it gets to a certain temperature, that suppression system would disengage and it would put product out to help suppress the fire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arrowood supports the proposal due to past experiences where food trucks lacked proper fire suppression systems. We had 13 in our area, and I inspected ten of them and had to shut them down due to the fact they do not have a fire suppression system, he said. The ordinance also stipulates that food trucks must not impede traffic, block necessary parking spaces, must adhere to noise ordinances, etc. The ordinance has only had its first reading and still requires approval through three readings by the Greenville County Council before any vote can be made, according to Arrowood. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS. GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) As the summer winds down, Guilford County Schools is getting ready to welcome students back. Monday marks the start of the new school year. The district has taken the summer to make changes and update some systems. Superintendent Dr. Whitney Oakley said the district has been hard at work with safety experts, improving the curriculum to meet the growing workforce needs. She said theyve been working to break down barriers so all students can pursue a career they love. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first thing families will notice this year is that the district transitioned to using Infinite Campus instead of PowerSchool. This is how families can monitor grades, attendance and assignments. Oakley said that while its different, theyre not expecting it to be a difficult transition. Its just going to take time. Its looking at households instead of individual students. Its a learning curve as a new system, Oakley said. The second big change? 18 schools will now have safety vestibules as an added layer of protection. After a long wait, Kiser Middle School and Peeler Hampton Performing Arts School will finally open their doors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As those projects have been completed, the district is moving on to construction for five other schools. Summer, Allen Jay, Lindley, Erwin Montessori, and Sternberger schools will all be getting a facelift and are expected to be completed by 2027. A new program called Guilford Guarantee will expand students paths to post-secondary opportunities. The goal is to work with students as young as elementary school to show them careers. So I think people will begin to see those conversations start earlier, and students will have options. Were not going to lock them in, but were going to use what we know their aptitudes are to show them whats available and ensure again that they have a future when they graduate, Oakley said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement From there, they can introduce those careers in a way thats engaging. This fall, students at Jackson Middle can explore the new driving possibilities lab, Oakley said. That program is through Toyota to encourage the next generation of workers. Oakley said its is all to keep up with the growing demands in the workforce. We know JetZero is the most recent example, but their success, including Toyota battery and Honda Aircraft, Marshall Airspace all those other companies, depend on our education pipeline for talent, Oakley said. The district is experiencing a bus driver shortage. To help, theyre encouraging families to have their students at the bus stop 15 minutes early and track where the bus is with the Here Comes the Bus app. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During the briefing, Oakley said there are still a few things up in the air heading into the school year because the state hasnt approved a budget. Some things can change based on that, including teacher pay increases. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX8 WGHP. DUBAI (Reuters) -At least five policemen were killed in southeastern Iran on Friday after unidentified gunmen opened fire on two police patrol vehicles, Iranian news agencies reported. Iran's southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy. Tehran accuses some of them of ties to foreign powers and involvement in cross-border smuggling and insurgency. (Reporting by Jana Choukeir and Dubai newsroom; Editing by Sharon Singleton) Deepal, a new energy vehicle (NEV) brand owned by Chinese state-owned automaker China Changan Automobile Group, and local semiconductor manufacturer StarPower Semiconductor Ltd, have launched production at their newly-built semiconductor joint venture, Chongqing Anda Semiconductor Company Ltd. The Chongqing-based joint venture was established in 2023 to develop and produce automotive-grade power semiconductors, with the aim of strengthening the local supply chain for these critical components to support China's fast-growing new energy vehicle (NEV) industry. StarPower was already a significant producer of automotive power semiconductors before the joint venture was established, supplying around 1.2 million modules to the local automotive industry in 2022. The new joint venture is expected to strengthen the companys position within the automotive industry, while providing Deepal with a reliable, in-house supply of critical parts. Changan Automobile, including its Avatr, Qiyuan, and Deepal brands, sold a total of 2.683 million vehicles globally in 2024, including 244,000 Deepal-branded models. For 2025, Deepal has set a target of around 400,000 global sales. "Deepal, StarPower launch joint chip production" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The White Sulphur Road railroad crossing near Sargent Road will be temporarily closed from Monday until Aug. 30 for maintenance. Motorists are advised to use Cagle Road to State Route 365 as the main detour during this period. The temporary closure and detour arrangements aim to facilitate necessary maintenance work while minimizing traffic disruption in the area. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Hall County has coordinated with Norfolk Southern and the Georgia Ports Authority to temporarily reopen the White Sulphur Road railroad crossing at the Blue Ridge Connector during peak traffic hours. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This controlled access point will operate from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., while the crossing will be closed from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Flaggers will be present to assist drivers during the temporary reopening hours, and detour signage will be posted starting Monday. Road resurfacing will occur from Sargent Road to Big Oak Road during this closure. Hall County expressed gratitude to Norfolk Southern and the Georgia Ports Authority for their collaboration in ensuring safer and more efficient detour operations. For questions regarding the temporary detour, the public is encouraged to contact Hall Countys Engineering Division at 770-531-6800. TRENDING STORIES: [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] YORK COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) When pup Dallas Cheddar found herself craving cheese balls, she probably never imagined the ordeal shed end up in. But on Monday night, a sighting of her with her head stuck in a clear snack barrel launched a search for the endangered dog that ended with a heat-seeking drone hovering above her in a cornfield. A drone spots Dallas, a dog with a jar stuck on its head first seen Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in York County. | Courtesy of Canine Rescue of Central PA She was extremely tired from all the running around, said Emily Egenrieder, a volunteer with Canine Rescue of Central PA. We were amazed she was still able to move around and try to escape us throughout that day, throughout that evening. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rescuers eventually did catch up to her, and just in time. Dallas, named for the drone pilot who spotted her, was not doing well. She was suffering from severe dehydration, a tick infestation and was experiencing distress, before being transported to an animal clinic. Now Dallas is recovering safely with a foster family, Canine Rescue said. She needs frequent meals to avoid unwanted electrolyte shifts and refeeding syndrome, which can occur in starved animals. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now ICYMI: Top 5 Stories of the Week Her focus is on recovery. But one thing Dallas and her rescuers wont need to worry about is her veterinary bills. York County-based Hanover Foods, which produced the Bickels Snack Foods barrel she trapped herself in, said it will cover all of her vet fees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Long story short, our company decided to pay the veterinary fees associated with getting Dallas Cheddar back in her paws out of our love for dogs and to unconditionally give back to the community who support our brand. Lets all hope for her speedy recovery, the company said in a social media post. Canine Rescue, meanwhile, is reminding people to be mindful of how they throw things out, ensuring trash is never accessible to animals. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Congratulations to Ed and Fran Evans (Miller), of Agency, Missouri, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. Married in 1975, the couple has spent five decades building a life filled with love, laughter, and family; including three daughters, seven grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren! Known for their kindness, community spirit, and unwavering devotion to one another, Ed and Fran are an inspiration to all who know them. Cheers to 50 years and many more! Hartwick College presented its group of freshly-minted students during its 2025 opening convocation Thursday, Aug. 22. At around 2:30 p.m., the group made its way down the aisle in the Lambros Arena, as the Broome County Celtic Pipes and Drums played. The students heard from college officials and a fellow students in a little under an hour, welcoming them to campus and sharing advice to carry with them during the next four years. The Hartwick class of 2029, 332 students total, represents 21 states and 10 countries, with about 75% coming from New York. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hartwick President James Mullen in his opening remarks said it would be his last year as president, adding that both he and the group of new students were "invited into this community because Hartwick believes we can contribute to its intellectual and its social life." He said the Hartwick Board of Trustees has given him its trust to serve as the institution's president since taking the post in December 2023. "That same community has placed its trust in you to succeed here as scholars, leaders and citizens of the world," Mullen said in his remarks. "That trust comes with both opportunity and with responsibility. Hartwick offers a culture built on balance, balancing rigorous academics with a full array of experiences beyond the classroom." Laurel Bongiorno, the vice president for academic affairs and provost, discussed three major items in her speech faculty, future success in college and the students themselves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When sharing tips for a student academic success, she said her No. 1 piece of advice was to attend class. While it might seem obvious, she added, "showing up to class is the key to success." Additionally, Bongiorno told the students to make sure they turn in their assignments, meet with their professors, try new things, like an internship or a career exploration trip, and enjoy their time in college. Bongiorno then introduced Amelia Williams, a senior and president of the Student Government Association, to address the incoming students. Williams said she wished somebody had told her that "failure isn't the opposite of success." Failure is a part of every great success story, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Williams added that escaping the comfort zone is another major part of a successful college experience. "Every courageous choice will expand your world and build you up in ways you'd never imagine," Williams said. "The best part is, you have a village here to support you. As you begin this extraordinary journey, I wish you nothing but the best." "I hope that when you cross that stage in four years, you can look back not just on grades and accomplishments, but on the moments that challenged you that shaped you into the best version of yourself," she continued. Following Williams's speech, there was a musical interlude performed the Hartwick Faculty Brass, to "Ain't Misbehavin'." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement William Kowalczyk, an associate professor of psychology, was the afternoon's faculty speaker, addressing student-professor collaboration. Through the psychology department, Kowalczyk does research on several topics, including addictive behaviors, like drugs or sex. Refencing an article he read on Gen Z and dating apps, he said this generation struggles to be sincere. Over time, Kowalczyk said he has watched several classes become more afraid to speak out. "I think, and I've been told by students, that the worry is being wrong, looking stupid, doing something cringeworthy," Kowalczyk said. "I regret to inform you that to learn anything of value, you have to be wrong first." Mullen gave the concluding remarks, as students prepared to sign the matriculation book, which generations of Hartwick students have added their names to. Scott Burdick, class of 2027, led the singing of the alma mater, and after the faculty walked back down the aisle and out of the room, students waited in line to sign the book. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the ceremony, Mullen said serving in the role "brings me great joy," and said it was why he came out of retirement. Wick Weekend continues This weekend marks Hartwick's annual Wick Weekend, welcoming students back to campus and marking the official start to a new academic year. An ice cream social, "welcome to college" bingo and community meetings were scheduled at the residential halls Friday. There is a carnival scheduled5-8 p.m. Saturday on Frisbee Field, and on Sunday the traditional "first walk" is set to take place at 3:45 p.m. Many other events are scheduled for the weekend. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Edward James Palumbo, from Oneonta, is part of the college's EmpowerU program, which is "designed to provide individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities a comprehensive college experience," according to the Hartwick website. He said he was looking forward to studying mathematics, physics and chemistry to be a scientist. Madison Griffith, from Oneonta, who plans to study art, said she was excited to continue meeting new people and forming connections with her professors. She said it would be interesting to experiment with new art techniques as she starts her college studies this year. Leah Wallace, from Texas, said she was looking forward to being in a new environment with different faces. "I'm also in art," she said. "I get to show more people my artistic voice." TEXARKANA, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) Arkansas State Representative DeAnn Vaught will be the keynote speaker when Harvest Regional Food Bank kicks off National Hunger Action Month with its annual Hunger Action Luncheon on August 26 at Williams Memorial United Methodist Church. The luncheon takes place at noon. Tickets are $10, and reservations can be made by calling (870) 774-1398 or by emailing development@hrfb.org. $1M in state funding awarded for Louisiana foodbank efforts September is Hunger Action Month, a time when food banks encourage their communities to take action against hunger. The luncheon will honor volunteers, sponsors, and special friends. It will also name the Hunger Hero of the Year. (Image courtesy of Harvest Regional Food Bank) (Image courtesy of Harvest Regional Food Bank) Camile Coker Wrinkle, CEO of Harvest Regional Food Bank, said, Both Texas and Arkansas have some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation, especially in children under the age of 18. These are our neighbors; the people we live with, work with, and attend school with. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Harvest Regional resilient to increased demand thanks to partnerships Food insecurity affects 47 million people in America, 14 million of whom are children. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) Vermont State Police say a New Haven man faces murder charges after a deadly shooting early Thursday in Hartford, Vermont. He was one of three suspects arrested in connection to the shooting. The suspects include: Demetrius Drew, 30, of New Haven, Connecticut. Charged with first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Jeffrey Mullins, 46, of Ringe, New Hampshire. Charged with being an accessory before the fact. Michelle Mullins, 48, of Ringe, New Hampshire. Charged with being an accessory before the fact. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The charges stem from about 3:50 a.m. Thursday, when a disturbance was reported at a home on Verna Court. Family remembers 18-year-old killed in New Haven shooting Responding officers found one person deceased on scene and a second person was taken to a hospital for gunshot wounds. Their injuries appear to be non-life threatening, according to stat police. The deceased was identified as David Labrecque, 65, of Canaan, New Hampshire. The suspects were scheduled to be arraigned in the Criminal Division of Vermont Superior Court on Friday, Aug. 22. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. HONOLULU (KHON2) Maui police said the tragic killing of Officer O by a convicted felon with a ghost gun is sparking outrage. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news So, how are criminals getting these untraceable weapons and are there any solutions? The fatal shooting of Officer Suzanne O is putting a spotlight on felons accessing illegal firearms or untraceable ghost guns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maui police said the weapon used was most likely a ghost gun and ordered in parts online their chief is demanding action. Justice, remembrance: MPD unveils new details in deadly shooting If youre an ex-felon, you should not have access to firearms, Chief John Pelletier said. Hawaii law bans felons from possessing firearms, with a 10-year minimum sentence for using one in the commission of another felony, and that jumps to a minimum of 15 years if convicted of murder. People should be in fear of the criminal justice process. Probation or light sentences is absolutely ridiculous. Thats wrong, Pelletier said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chief John Pelletier is pushing for stricter laws to stop felons from accessing these weapons especially ghost guns that are shipped in parts. Legal experts said tracking them is a difficult problem. Former prosecutor and current defense attorney Megan Kau said it is not like drug sting operations. We dont have the same thing for firearms. We dont have any task force of law enforcement going and finding the low-end buyers of guns so that they can get to the top of the totem pole, Kau said. Whether theyre ghost guns or illegal guns, so, the task force would be able to address both ghost guns and just illegal guns that are unregistered, she said. Chief Pelletier said the system is failing when felons can still get their hands on these weapons. So, when were not doing things even after youve had a trial and a conviction and youre prohibited the fact that you can acquire something, thats not ok, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Others said a different approach rather than a different law is what is needed. Check out more news from around Hawaii You can make it 20 years, you can make it a hundred years, and theyre still going to continue out of desperation to break the law, Kau said. Maybe in light of Officer O being shot, some of the police departments will start a gun task force specifically designed to search out and find ghost guns. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. HONOLULU (KHON2) The Hawaiian Council (formerly Council on Native Hawaiian Affairs) has appointed Josh Stanbro as chief administrator of Kalahiki for a new statewide effort focused on energy sovereignty, climate resilience and economic security. Kalahiki is designed to give Hawaii families practical help at a time when federal energy and climate programs are shrinking and households are losing millions in benefits. The initiative will offer support on energy costs, home resilience and long-term security for communities across the islands. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Josh brings the passion, experience, and strategy we need to ensure Kalahiki leads the charge toward a self-sufficient future for our lahui, and all of Hawaii, said Kuhio Lewis, CEO of Hawaiian Council. Through this work, we will help deliver real solutions in peoples homes lower energy costs, stronger houses, and more resilient communities. Stanbro said his new role is about helping local families keep their homes secure and their energy affordable. We are really laser focused on developing economic opportunities for the Hawaiian community here in the islands. And energy is a huge space for that, he said. Energy at home Stanbro said the goal is clear, and it starts with Hawaii generating its own power instead of relying on outside sources. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We know that in order to be energy sovereign and energy secure in the islands; we need to produce our energy here, consume our energy here, Stanbro explained. And that in order to do that, were going to have to have, you know, solar panels on every single rooftop. He said that many rooftops belong to families who cannot afford the technology. Right now, we recognize that the communities that need that utility bill assistance and that cut in their costs the most havent been able to access that, Stanbro said. Kalahiki will focus on those households that have been left out of clean energy programs and are most in need of relief. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its really an effort by Hawaiian Council to make sure that we can gain energy sovereignty in our homes, gain climate resilience in our homes, and try to really build wealth and protect economic equity over time, he explained. Protecting homes Stanbro connected the program to Hawaiis most basic need and said that stability begins with protecting where people live. For a lot of people, their home is really what they have. And if you lose that, your chances to be able to stay here in Hawaii is very difficult, he said. He also pointed to the fires in Lahaina as a painful reminder of what climate change can bring to local families. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We saw the tragedy in Lahaina, which were going to have more of these types of climate impacts that not only threaten our communities, but threaten peoples economic well-being, Stanbro said. Filling the gap The work has grown more urgent after federal support dried up that has left local families without the help they had been promised. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You The federal government just rescinded and clawed back $62.5 million that was supposed to be destined for low income Hawaii families to help them get solar on their roofs and reduce their energy bills, Stanbro said. In this moment where the federal government is really jumping ship and pulling back, Hawaiian Council has decided to step in and step forward. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To move forward, Stanbro said success will depend on building strong local partnerships with businesses rooted in the community. Weve done plenty of things on our own here in the islands with local partners, homegrown solar installers, energy efficiency providers that are here, local businesses, some of whom are Native Hawaiian run and are just waiting for the opportunity to expand and grow, he said. Trusted resource Stanbro said the Hawaiian Council wants families to be protected from scams that can trap them in costly contracts. There are companies that are preying on folks that dont have that fullness of knowledge or frankly, dont have the time to look into it, he said. Thats why Hawaiian Council is stepping forward in this moment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added that Kalahiki will serve as a trusted guide for residents who need help sorting through their options. We want to be sort of a neutral, trusted resource, to point folks in the right direction or if youre worried and interested or youve got a proposal, Stanbro said. Looking ahead Kalahiki has already started small pilot projects to make sure the program runs smoothly before expanding. Were testing out partners, were testing out the systems and make sure that, you know, its seamless, that it works, Stanbro said. Stanbro said the program will grow step by step, with families joining as trusted local partners help lead the way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were trying to do it as the community, he said. Were trying to do it as a local community with local partners that folks know and bump into each other when theyre at Foodland or wherever and here for each other for the long haul. You can click here to learn more about the Hawaiian Council and here to find out about Kalahiki. Get news on the go with KHON 2GO, KHONs morning podcast, every morning at 8 Stanbro has his work cut out for him with lots of different interests in advancing and slowing down progress toward Hawaiis energy independence. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has announced that he has proposed a reform of the Office of the President, an idea supported by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Source: Yermak on Telegram Quote: "Today I proposed to the Ukrainian president that the Office of the President undergo a reform. The idea is that a significant number of its staff should be military personnel with confirmed combat experience in the full-scale war or combat veterans." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: Yermak noted that this concerns employees at all levels across all departments without exception. "Volodymyr Zelenskyy supported this idea," Yermak added. Yermak considers it fair to involve military personnel with combat experience in the work of the Presidents Office. "Because these people are the measure of honour, morality, and devotion to Ukraine. I know well how the pace changes when you are surrounded by people who have been through the war. They do not look for excuses; they look for solutions to achieve results," the head of the Presidents Office said. As an example, he mentioned his deputy Pavlo Palisa, who previously commanded the 93rd Separate Mechanised Brigade Kholodnyi Yar. "This is the culture that should spread throughout the entire civil service in the future. And this is not only an example for the state," Yermak said. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! I recently read an article suggesting that Tennessee is shortchanging public schools by providing private school students with slightly higher per-pupil funding through the new Education Freedom Scholarship program. According to critics cited, this initiative is destroying public education and undermining opportunity for every child in the state of Tennessee. Let me be clear: Such claims are not only misleading but deeply disingenuous. As someone whose life was transformed by school choice, I cannot allow this narrative to go unchallenged. The article, and a similar piece in the Tennessean, focuses on an alleged inequity: public school students receiving $7,023 in state funding versus scholarship recipients receiving up to $7,295 through the newly launched and wildly popular Education Freedom Scholarship program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On the surface, this seems provocative until one examines the full picture, which the critics conveniently ignore. Opinion: MNPS's refusal to listen to critics made a $6.5M problem even bigger MNPS and other districts receive more per-pupil funding than scholarship recipients As noted in the articles but not the headlines, the average Tennessee public school student receives nearly $10,000 annually once local and state dollars are included. When you add federal, state and local resources, kids across Tennessee are educated to the tune of about $13,000 per school year. Districts such as Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) surpass an average of $22,000 per pupil. Scholarship recipients, by contrast, receive only $7,295, in total. A voucher supporter grins as Anna Grabowski yells after a committee meeting concerning school vouchers on the second day of special session at Cordell Hull State Office Building in Nashville , Tenn., Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. This is watching democracy die up here because majority of people do not want this voucher bill and they pass it anyway, she said, Billionaires beat the people and thats not what this country is about. The notion that $7,295 somehow exceeds $13,000-$22,000 is not mathematics; it is political spin. And these headlines ignore reality at the expense of kids who need help. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This year, approximately 20,000 students or roughly 2% of Tennessees one million public school children are eligible to participate in the program, and all signs point to every scholarship seat being filled. The suggestion that such a modest initiative will destroy public education is not just an exaggeration; it is blatant fearmongering. The hypocrisy of this debate is laid bare when one considers recent events and education investments in the state. Since 2019, Governor Bill Lees administration has invested more than $2 billion into public education, while also expanding school choice options. More importantly, this conversation should not be reduced to line items on a budget spreadsheet. This issue is not about abstract numbers; it is about children. Children who, like I once did, find themselves trapped in failing schools with no way out. School choice gave me freedom. I want the same for other kids I was relentlessly bullied, and when my mother pleaded with administrators for help, the response was chilling indifference: Give it five years. The school will turn around. My mothers reply was stark: In five years, Walter will either be in jail or in a body bag. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was right. I did not have five years to wait for a bureaucratic promise of eventual improvement. I needed a lifeline then. School choice provided that lifeline. It allowed me to escape an environment that was crushing me and find a school where I could thrive. Without that opportunity, I do not know if I would be here today. Opinion: I want MNPS to be honest about who can succeed in its schools That is why I fight for school choice. Because I know there are countless children in Tennessee right now who cannot wait for abstract reforms or empty promises. They need options today. Strong public schools will retain families, and Tennessee families who need a better option now have that chance through expanded school choice. That is not an attack on public education, it is a standard of excellence. Its what every student deserves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dont let misleading headlines about government funding distract from the core of this issue: School choice saves lives. School choice did not destroy my future. It saved it. Tennessees children deserve that same opportunity. Walter Blanks Jr Walter Blanks, Jr., is a spokesperson at the American Federation for Children and a school choice beneficiary of the Ohio EdChoice Program. He is a Nashville resident and a national advocate for school choice. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Proof that voucher funding isn't ruining TN public education | Opinion Atlantic Lithium's recent executive restructuring, with Neil Herbert stepping down as Executive Chairman, aims to streamline operations and reduce costs. The company is pre-revenue with less than US$1 million in revenue and remains unprofitable, facing a forecasted earnings decline. Despite this, Atlantic Lithium holds a strong short-term financial position with assets exceeding liabilities and no debt burden. The Ewoyaa Lithium Project in Ghana is progressing towards legislative ratification of its Mining Lease, offering potential socio-economic benefits despite fluctuating lithium prices. However, the company faces high share price volatility and limited cash runway under current conditions. Operations: The company's revenue segment is derived from exploration for base and precious metals, amounting to A$1.15 million. Overview: Atlantic Lithium Limited is involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties in Australia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana with a market cap of 55.80 million. Here's a peek at a few of the choices from the screener. The United Kingdom's market has recently faced challenges, with the FTSE 100 index experiencing declines due to weak trade data from China, highlighting global economic interdependencies. Despite these broader market fluctuations, certain stocks continue to capture investor interest by offering unique opportunities. Penny stocks, often associated with smaller or newer companies, remain a relevant investment area for those seeking affordability and growth potential. In this article, we explore three UK penny stocks that stand out for their financial resilience and potential in the current economic landscape. Story Continues AIM:ALL Revenue & Expenses Breakdown as at Aug 2025 Simply Wall St Financial Health Rating: Overview: Begbies Traynor Group plc is a UK-based company offering business recovery, financial advisory, and property services consultancy, with a market cap of 187.55 million. Operations: The company generates revenue from two main segments: Property Advisory, which contributes 46.4 million, and Business Recovery and Advisory, accounting for 107.3 million. Market Cap: 187.55M Begbies Traynor Group's recent financial performance highlights significant growth, with earnings surging by 320% over the past year and net profit margins improving to 4.1%. The company has a solid financial structure, with short-term assets exceeding both short and long-term liabilities. Despite a large one-off loss impacting recent results, its debt is well covered by operating cash flow, and the debt-to-equity ratio has improved over five years. Recent events include completing a share buyback program and proposing an increased dividend for 2025. Revenue guidance for FY26 suggests it may reach the upper end of market expectations (158.9M - 162.8M). AIM:BEG Debt to Equity History and Analysis as at Aug 2025 Simply Wall St Financial Health Rating: Overview: Baltic Classifieds Group PLC operates online classifieds portals for automotive, real estate, jobs and services, and general merchandise in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with a market cap of 1.63 billion. Operations: The company's revenue is derived from four main segments: Auto (31.39 million), Real Estate (22.25 million), Jobs & Services (15.96 million), and Generalist (13.22 million). Market Cap: 1.63B Baltic Classifieds Group has demonstrated robust financial performance with a net income of 44.76 million, reflecting growth from the previous year. The company's earnings growth of 39.7% surpasses the industry average, while its profit margins have improved to 54%. It maintains a satisfactory net debt-to-equity ratio and has strong interest coverage at 23.2 times EBIT. Recent strategic moves include share repurchase initiatives and a proposed dividend increase to 3.8 Euro cents per share for the year ended April 2025, indicating confidence in future cash flows and shareholder value enhancement strategies. LSE:BCG Financial Position Analysis as at Aug 2025 Make It Happen This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include AIM:ALL AIM:BEG and LSE:BCG. This article was originally published by Simply Wall St. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com BOSTON (SHNS) Gov. Maura Healey announced on Thursday a plan charting a path forward for the states biodiversity conservation goals and pledging to double the pace of land protection in Massachusetts. Biological diversity, a term that refers to the variety of all living things and how they interact, is declining at an increasing rate across the globe. Its happening everywhereour oceans, forests and farms, wetlands and beaches, neighborhoods and backyardsbut it goes largely unnoticed, the states plan reads. The announcement builds off of an executive order Healey signed in September 2023 directing the Department of Fish and Game to conduct a review of biodiversity conservation efforts and recommend goals for the next 25 years. Healey called it the strongest plan in the country meant to protect nature. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its the first time that any state has made biodiversity targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050, including in our coastal and marine habitats, Healey said at Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary in Barnstable. The states Clean Energy and Climate Plan targets include protecting 40% of Massachusetts lands and waters by 2050 and 30% by 2030. By doubling the pace of land protection, the state reports it will be able to achieve those targets. Under the plan, the state would protect an additional 425,000 acres of remaining unprotected key habitats by 2050 to halt and reverse species loss and build climate resilience. Its also a plan to revitalize habitats, Healey said. When we talk about revitalization, were talking about removing old dams, fixing culverts, restoring marshes, restoring reefs, supporting our marine economy and our fisheries, protecting businesses and creating good jobs while we do it. And this is a plan to connect more people to nature. The state plans to use $4 million from its capital plan on initiatives within the plan announced Thursday, Healey said. She added that $370 million proposed in the administrations environmental bond bill, filed in June, is planned for land protection and biodiversity, along with $5 million for marine habitats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plan creates a public-private biodiversity partnership to help shore up funding. Mass Audubon is the first private partner involved, and has pledged $5 million in funding. Massachusetts right now is so well centered in terms of science and technology, and if we can bring funding together through public and private partnerships, this is another way Massachusetts will lead at a time when were not getting the federal funding for environment and conservation, Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Tom OShea said. The report outlines commitments meant to connect communities to biodiversity, including a local grants program, developing a biodiversity-focused curriculum for K-12, after-school and summer programs; and launching a public education campaign related to nature access. Immediate actions outlined in the plan include leaning on the environmental bond legislation and creating a dedicated funding source for biodiversity conservation. The plan also suggests the state will increase the Commonwealth Land Conservation Tax Credit and incorporate biodiversity criteria into state grant programs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report did not identify a dedicated funding source for conservation. A coalition of advocacy groups called Nature For Massachusetts is backing legislation and a potential 2026 ballot question that would funnel a portion of revenue from the states sporting goods sales tax to create a pool of conservation-specific funding. The plan also suggests biodiversity credits to enable private companies to finance conservation activities. In the UK, they have biodiversity credits. Theyve explored these market mechanisms to be able to credit biodiversity on land. I think what this is nodding to is the need to figure out what that mechanism would be to help land owners get the true value of their property in terms of ecosystem services, Mass Audubon President David ONeill said. Those details still need to be sorted out, but were very supportive of the concept. Commitments also include creating safe wildlife crossings, removing obsolete dams and increasing state investments in sewer separation, wastewater treatment and green infrastructure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state has done a fantastic job of identifying and linking the twin crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss. Biodiversity loss does not get talked about as much as the climate problem, and climate change makes biodiversity loss worse, said Noah Matson, chief conservation and climate officer for the Trustees of the Reservation. Nature protection is part of the climate solution theyre joined at the hip. The plan also includes expanding the states Blue Carbon Program and developing a 1% for Massachusetts Biodiversity initiative, which would encourage companies to meet sustainability and climate goals by donating 1% of annual revenue to fund local biodiversity conservation efforts. It follows a national model called 1% for the Planet. The plan establishes an inter-agency biodiversity task force and would hire a biodiversity officer to lead a new Fish and Game Office of Biodiversity. It also calls on the state to initiate a public process to explore designating Cashes Ledge, an underwater mountain range in the Gulf of Maine, as a National Marine Sanctuary after it was nominated for consideration in 2024. The designation would make discharges, marine construction or exploitation for oil, gas, or minerals prohibited in the area, according to the report. I feel like its precedent-setting, Matson said of the report. I think one of the biggest things when you read the report is really framing the importance of nature and nature conservation to our society. Its not just a niche thing or nice to have. Its fundamental to our survival. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Patients have their blood pressure checked at an intake triage at a clinic in Grundy, Va. Rural residents will be hardest hit by looming health insurance premium increases, according to a new report. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) A combination of Trump administration policies will make health care coverage more expensive for people who purchase plans from health insurance marketplaces and rural residents will be hit the hardest, according to a new analysis. Researchers from the Century Foundation say Trump administration policies especially its refusal to ask Congress to extend Biden-era tax credits that are set to expire at the end of this year will boost out-of-pocket premiums by 93% in the 32 states that allow the federal government to operate their Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces. New rules and tariffs will have a smaller impact. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rural county residents in those states will see an increase of 107%, while residents of urban counties will pay 89% more, according to the analysis by the Century Foundation, a left-leaning research nonprofit. Insurers participating in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are proposing a median premium increase of 18% for 2026 the biggest jump since 2018 and 11 points more than the growth from 2024 to this year. That bump would come on top of the increase resulting from the expiration of the tax credits and the other policy changes. About 2.8 million people who are enrolled in marketplace plans in the 32 states live in rural counties, including 776,000 adults between the ages of 55 to 64 and more than 223,000 children, according to the Century Foundation. Rural residents tend to be older. They may be more likely to have chronic illness at the same time, said Jeanne Lambrew, director of health care reform at the foundation. It costs more, both because they have somewhat greater needs and less access to health care. The researchers calculated that average annual premiums for rural residents will increase by $760 28% more than the expected average increase for urban residents. States where rural enrollees are expected to see the highest cost increases are Wyoming ($1,943), Alaska ($1,835), and Illinois ($1,700). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many of the states with a large number of rural residents have chosen not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, meaning many people who earn between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty level, between $15,650 and $21,597 for an individual, get their coverage from an insurance marketplace, Lambrew said. Of the seven states where 10% or more of rural residents are enrolled in marketplace plans (Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming), only two Nebraska and North Carolina have expanded Medicaid. State officials in Pennsylvania recently advised residents who use the marketplace that they should closely examine the plans that are available. This year, even more than previous years, Pennsylvanians should consider shopping around to find the best plans to meet their individual needs, at a price that makes sense for their current financial situation, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys said in a statement released at the beginning of this month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lambrew said the increases will force many people to forgo insurance altogether. Its harmful for those individuals in terms of their own health and life expectancy. Its harmful for our providers, because theyre now dealing with people who are sicker and in the wrong settings, and its kind of expensive for our society, Lambrew said. We know health insurance matters, so having these large potential increases on uninsured Americans is distressing. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE GRUNDY, VIRGINIA - OCTOBER 07: Patients have their blood pressure checked and other vitals taken at a intake triage at a Remote Area Medical (RAM) mobile dental and medical clinic on October 07, 2023 in Grundy, Virginia. More than a thousand people were expected to seek free dental, medical and vision care at the two-day event in the rural and financially struggling area of western Virginia. RAM provides free medical care through mobile clinics in underserved, isolated, or impoverished communities around the country and world. As health care continues to be a contentious issue in America, an estimated 29 million Americans, about one in 10, lack coverage. An estimated 27 million people or 8.3 percent of the population of America- were uninsured, according to a report from the Census Bureau. This rate is considerably high in rural and poorer parts of the country. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) A combination of Trump administration policies will make health care coverage more expensive for people who purchase plans from health insurance marketplaces and rural residents will be hit the hardest, according to a new analysis. Researchers from the Century Foundation say Trump administration policies especially its refusal to ask Congress to extend Biden-era tax credits that are set to expire at the end of this year will boost out-of-pocket premiums by 93% in the 32 states that allow the federal government to operate their Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces. New rules and tariffs will have a smaller impact. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rural county residents in those states will see an increase of 107%, while residents of urban counties will pay 89% more, according to the analysis by the Century Foundation, a left-leaning research nonprofit. Insurers participating in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are proposing a median premium increase of 18% for 2026 the biggest jump since 2018 and 11 points more than the growth from 2024 to this year. That bump would come on top of the increase resulting from the expiration of the tax credits and the other policy changes. About 2.8 million people who are enrolled in marketplace plans in the 32 states live in rural counties, including 776,000 adults between the ages of 55 to 64 and more than 223,000 children, according to the Century Foundation. Rural residents tend to be older. They may be more likely to have chronic illness at the same time, said Jeanne Lambrew, director of health care reform at the foundation. It costs more, both because they have somewhat greater needs and less access to health care. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The researchers calculated that average annual premiums for rural residents will increase by $760 28% more than the expected average increase for urban residents. States where rural enrollees are expected to see the highest cost increases are Wyoming ($1,943), Alaska ($1,835), and Illinois ($1,700). Many of the states with a large number of rural residents have chosen not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, meaning many people who earn between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty level, between $15,650 and $21,597 for an individual, get their coverage from an insurance marketplace, Lambrew said. Of the seven states where 10% or more of rural residents are enrolled in marketplace plans (Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming), only two Nebraska and North Carolina have expanded Medicaid. State officials in Pennsylvania recently advised residents who use the marketplace that they should closely examine the plans that are available. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This year, even more than previous years, Pennsylvanians should consider shopping around to find the best plans to meet their individual needs, at a price that makes sense for their current financial situation, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys said in a statement released at the beginning of this month. Lambrew said the increases will force many people to forgo insurance altogether. Its harmful for those individuals in terms of their own health and life expectancy. Its harmful for our providers, because theyre now dealing with people who are sicker and in the wrong settings, and its kind of expensive for our society, Lambrew said. We know health insurance matters, so having these large potential increases on uninsured Americans is distressing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stateline, like Source New Mexico, 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. Rising costs and the expiration of federal subsidies are to blame for the expected increases, state officials said. (Getty Images) Consumers who purchase health insurance through the New Jersey marketplace may pay an average of 16% more for coverage next year, state officials said Thursday. Health insurance carriers say the increases on the Get Covered New Jersey marketplace are a result of the rising cost of health care and the anticipated expiration of federal tax credits associated with the Affordable Care Act. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement About 512,200 New Jerseyans purchased health insurance on the marketplace this year, according to New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance Commissioner Justin Zimmerman. Nearly 90 percent of them received the federal aid that is scheduled to lapse at the end of 2025, Zimmerman said. Particularly given the anticipated loss of enhanced financial help made available by the federal government that resulted in lower costs for so many in past years, it will be important for consumers to look closely at their options and choose the plan that best fits their needs and budget, Zimmerman said. Open enrollment begins Nov. 1. For 2026, five New Jersey insurance companies will offer plans through the exchange. The rate increases scheduled for 2026 are: Ambetter from WellCare of New Jersey: 17.1%. AmeriHealth: 15.5%. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey: 17%. Oscar: 4.6%. UnitedHealthcare: 18.4%. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The marketplace was created by the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, as a place for people who could not get health insurance through work or through Medicaid expansion. Aetna announced earlier this year that it is not providing plans on the marketplace in 2026. Under the Biden administration, Congress passed bills that increased federal subsidies for marketplace plans through 2025. Health research group KFF says the number of marketplace enrollees receiving federal aid has nearly doubled since 2020. The subsidies have reduced premium payments by $705 a year on average for enrollees receiving tax credits, according to KFF. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State officials estimate New Jersey would lose more than half a billion dollars in federal support. The expiration of this aid would create a gap that either the state budget would need to fill or families would have to shoulder. Lower-income households, particularly those earning too much to qualify for Medicaid but without employer-based coverage, would be hit hardest, according to Brittany Holom-Trundy, a senior policy analyst at the New Jersey Policy Perspective. Holom-Trundy told the New Jersey Monitor that, for families already stretched thin, small increases can be detrimental. If youre barely able to pay your bills as it is, adding another 3% on top of that can be the difference between having enough to, you know, buy food to pay the rent and having to find another home, maybe facing eviction, Holom-Trundy said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Health insurance carriers told the department that if Congress renews the enhanced credits this fall, they expect the average rate increase would drop from 15.9% to 12.8%. The expected increases in New Jersey fall just below national trends. A recent KFF survey found a median 18% premium increase among Affordable Care Act-regulated plans across the country. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Contract showdowns between hospital systems and health insurers are happening more often, and patients are caught in the middle. In recent months, disputes over expiring contracts have led to tens of thousands of South Florida residents receiving state-required warning letters from their insurance companies, alerting them that their physicians or local hospitals could soon be out-of-network. If the insurer and health system fail to reach an agreement, patients lose access to trusted doctors or face significantly higher medical bills. In some cases, disputes escalate beyond a warning letter. For instance, in Broward County, Broward Health and Florida Blue failed to reach a new contract agreement by July 1. That conflict caused Broward Healths hospitals, emergency rooms, physicians, and specialists to be out-of-network, affecting 18,000 Florida Blue members. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hospitals are aware of how disruptive this is to patients, and they dont like to do this, but its a last resort when the dynamic is so bad the hospital cant continue to provide treatment on the insurers existing terms, said Doug Wolfe, a healthcare attorney with Wolfe Pincavage in Miami. Hospitals argue they need higher reimbursement rates to cover escalated costs such as supplies and labor, while insurers claim rate increases would lead to unaffordable premiums for consumers. We are seeing a lot of finger-pointing, said Jamie Godwin, senior analyst with KKF, a health policy research, polling and news organization. The health system will say the insurer is being unreasonable, and the insurer is saying the same thing. They make it seem like the other is walking away from negotiations. However, both sides typically have an incentive to come to a deal. While the patients may not have a seat at the bargaining table, they bear the consequences when negotiations break down. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mitch Hirsch of Parkland is furious about the contract dispute between Florida Blue and Memorial Healthcare System that could put 31,000 patients out-of-network. Hirschs wife recently was diagnosed with cancer by a Memorial Healthcare doctor, but he has been turned away in his attempts to make her an oncology appointment at the health system because she has a Florida Blue PPO plan. Memorial Healthcare Systems contract with Florida Blue expires on Sept. 1 and no agreement has yet been reached. Memorials website says the health system will not make appointments for Florida Blue enrollees on or after Sept. 1, 2025, until an agreement is reached. Its disgusting, Hirsch said. Its not about patient health. Its about money. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Florida has seen multiple high-profile standoffs in recent years, with some resolved only hours before contracts expired. In December, Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale reached a new multi-year agreement with Aetna, a day before the contract was set to expire on Jan. 1 and cause policyholders to lose their in-network access to Holy Cross Health facilities and providers. South Floridas disputes mirror a national trend: The number of contract conflicts between insurers and health systems in the U.S. has been on the rise as contracts expire. According to data from FTI Consulting, a business advisory firm, there were 133 total disputes in 2024, compared to 86 in 2023 and 51 in 2022. Each time these disputes happen, patients endure the anxiety of not knowing whether their hospital or physician will remain covered. Some patients especially those in the middle of cancer care, pregnancy, or chronic disease management fear interruptions in treatment. Others brace for out-of-network costs that can run into the thousands of dollars. More than 31,000 Florida Blue policyholders recently received warning letters that they could be out-of-network if a new contract with Memorial Healthcare System isnt signed by Sept. 1. Florida Blue told the South Florida Sun Sentinel: With our current contract set to expire in days, were disappointed that our valued partnership with Memorial Healthcare System remains unresolved, creating uncertainty for our members. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Finding a new doctor and getting an appointment can take months, particularly for specialists. Here are some frequently asked questions from patients: Q. Why do health plans send these letters about changing a health system from in-network to out-of-network in the middle of the year, rather than during open-enrollment season? A. Hospitals dont contract with insurance companies based on a calendar year. Whenever a hospital and insurance company enter into a contract, they set an effective date. Even within a hospital system, there are different dates when agreements expire, explains Wolfe, the Miami healthcare attorney. Insurers and health systems start renewal negotiations a few months before the expiration, but if they cant reach an agreement in time, the contract expires. Q. What are the rules around informing patients on the status of negotiations? A. By law, policyholders with government plans like Medicare must be notified 45 days in advance of a potential contract expiration and commercial plan holders must be notified 30 days in advance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There has to be enough advance notice so patients are able to guide their healthcare decisions accordingly, said Steven Cowherd, a health care attorney and chair of Pullman & Comleys Health Care practice. As the Sept. 1 deadline looms for the Memorial Healthcare/Florida Blue contract expiration, Bob Pifer of Pembroke Pines said he has tried to get an update from both entities with no success. The insurance companys website says discussions are ongoing and productive, and were hopeful of reaching a resolution. Q. What does being out-of-network mean for a patient? A. It means your hospitals, physicians, urgent care centers, and specialty facilities no longer have a contract with your insurer. As a result, you will have higher out-of-pocket costs than if you receive care from an in-network provider. The insurance company may not cover as much of the cost or may not cover any cost. Q. Do the doctors and hospitals have to take patients if they are willing to pay out-of-pocket for services? In Florida, hospitals and doctors are generally not required to treat patients who are out-of-network, even if the patients are willing to pay the higher costs for services. You cant force a provider to take a patient; they have discretion on what patients they want to take, and if you are out-of-network, they may not want to take you, said Marilyn Uzdavines, a professor of health law at Nova Southeastern University. Q. What protections exist for patients in active treatment (cancer, pregnancy, chronic care) if their doctor goes out-of-network? A. Floridas continuation of care laws ensure patients can keep their healthcare coverage and treatment when a provider leaves an insurance network. Some plans may cover services for up to 60 days after a provider leaves a network, or for up to six months for HMO plans and 90 days for PPO members. Its important to note that continuation of care typically applies to people who are in active treatment so they can continue to receive care, and excludes new treatment. Q. If a hospital becomes out-of-network, what happens in an emergency? A. In an emergency, a patient can go to the nearest hospital. Federal law protects patients against higher out-of-pocket costs when they receive emergency services and care even if a provider is out-of-network. If someone is admitted to the hospital after an ER visit, and the hospital is no longer in the network, the hospital stay for the emergency is covered at the in-network cost share. Q. Memorial Healthcare and Broward Health are the only pediatric hospitals in Broward County. What happens if a Broward County child needs a specialist at one of those health facilities, and Florida Blue is their insurer? A. For now, Memorial continues to take Florida Blue; however, it is not booking new appointments for specialists after Sept 1. Florida, like other states, has regulations concerning network adequacy in health insurance. Network adequacy requires health plans to provide consumers with reasonable and timely access to a sufficient number and type of providers, including specialists, within a reasonable geographic area. It is unclear whether this would apply if both health systems become out-of-network for Florida Blue policyholders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A plan has to deliver the product you are paying for, explained Uzdavines at NSU. They have to include enough essential providers in close enough geography and where you can get an appointment in a timely manner. If your plan does not meet that standard, you can file a complaint with the state. Q. If a dispute results in a provider being considered out-of-network, does that qualify as an exception when changing plans? A. This could depend on the type of insurance plan and whether the plan considers the change a qualifying event. Government plans differ in their definition of a qualifying event from employer-sponsored plans. You may be able to enroll in a different plan. But it really depends on the type of insurance, Wolfe said. Bernie Sobalvarro, a Broward insurance agent, highly recommends checking with your insurer. You dont have control of what insurance doctors or health systems choose to take, but there are always options, he said. You can always get private insurance as secondary insurance, and you can sign up for that anytime. Q. If my insurer and a health system reach an agreement, could a dispute arise next year that again puts my coverage in jeopardy? A. It could, but its not likely. Cowherd, the health care attorney with Pullman & Comleys Health Care practice, noted that contracts between health systems and insurance companies typically are for an average of three years. We typically see a three-year agreement with cost increases tied to increases in the consumer index for health care or some other metric. So, each of the three years, there is some escalator. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cowherd said most often, the health system and insurance company eventually agree on a new contract, although it may take time. Sometimes, he said, the state attorney general gets involved and tries to bring the parties together. South Florida Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed an order authorizing roughly 2,000 of the National Guard troops deployed to Washington, D.C., to carry weapons, two U.S. officials told NBC News. In recent weeks, hundreds of National Guard members fanned out across the nations capital as part of what the White House has framed as an urgent crackdown on crime and lawlessness. The troops in Washington have been unarmed. They have mostly been sent out to assist local law enforcement officers in parts of Washington known for tourism, such as the National Mall. The two U.S. officials said Hegseths authorization will be approved by the U.S. Marshals Service, an agency of the Justice Department. Guard members who are supporting law enforcement functions will likely carry weapons, whereas troops who are assigned to beautification tasks across the district likely wont be armed, the officials told NBC News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nations capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training, a U.S. defense official said, using the acronym for Washingtons joint task force. The task force confirmed on Friday that guard members will carry M17 pistols intended for personal protection. "Guard members receive initial, regular, ongoing and refresher training, as well as complete annual weapons qualifications, prior to carrying weapons," the joint task force noted in a statement. The deployment of National Guard members to Washington has drawn intense criticism from Democratic leaders, who say the move is a clear case of executive overreach. The National Guard is traditionally focused on domestic crises such as national disasters and civil unrest. Members of the National Guard patrol inside the Metro Center metrorail station in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. (Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images) Mayor Muriel Bowser has pointed to Washington police data showing that violent crime has decreased 26% compared with last year. The Justice Department launched an investigation into whether the districts police department manipulated crime data to make crime rates seem lower. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bowsers spokesman declined to comment on Hegseths order. Trump greeted dozens of law enforcement personnel and National Guard troops in Washington on Thursday, thanking them for what he described as a strong start to his administrations anti-crime and beautification measures. I feel very safe now, and Im hearing people are very safe, Trump told the crowd while flanked by senior administration officials, later adding: You people are winners, and I just think its such an honor to be with you. Were going to make Washington, D.C., great again. Trump implied the troops would remain in Washington for at least six months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You do the job on safety, and Ill get this place fixed up physically, and were going to be so proud of it at the end of six months, the president said. Hegseth, for his part, visited roughly 300 mobilized Guard members at the D.C. Armory on Thursday. Seventy-six people were arrested in Washington on Thursday night, a White House official said, bringing the total number of arrests since Trumps law enforcement initiative started to over 700. Thirty-six of the people arrested overnight were undocumented immigrants, the official said. Earlier this year, the Trump administration sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to protests around immigration raids. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The White House is simultaneously attempting to exert more control over Washingtons Metropolitan Police Department, one of the largest municipal police forces in the country. The president has long blasted what he presents as out-of-control crime in cities governed by Democratic mayors. Hegseths order authorizing federal troops to carry weapons had been expected. Two officials previously told NBC News that some troops would begin to bear firearms. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com WASHINGTON (AP) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agencys initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who is chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another U.S. official said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No reasons were given for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, intelligence officials and other perceived critics of Donald Trump, who has demanded loyalty across the government. The administration also stripped security clearances this week from additional current and former national security officials. Taken together, the moves could chill dissent and send a signal against reaching conclusions at odds with Trumps interests. Trump decried agency's initial findings on US strikes on Iran Kruse's firing comes two months after details of a preliminary assessment of U.S. airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Irans nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the military effort, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Republican president, who had pronounced the Iranian program completely and fully obliterated," rejected the report. His oft-repeated criticism of the DIA analysis built on his long-running distrust of intelligence assessments, including one published in 2017 that said Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA has been declassifying years-old documents meant to cast doubt on those previous findings. Following the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities. You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated choose your word. This was a historically successful attack, Hegseth said at a news conference at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats raise concerns about implications of key firing While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent that Kruse's ouster sets for the intelligence community. The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administrations dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country, said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired or otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear within the intelligence community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration also has stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites. Trump administration makes series of military and intelligence changes The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and new shake-ups to military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced this week that it would slash its staff and budget and revoked more security clearances, a tactic the administration uses against those it sees as foes. The Pentagon also said the Air Forces top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation. The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navys top officer, the Air Forces second highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches. In April, Hegseth dismissed Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO. No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of the firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump has demanded government agencies purge DEI efforts. The ousters of Kruse, Lacore and Sands were reported earlier by The Washington Post. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a Pentagon leader whose agency determined Junes strikes on Irans nuclear facilities were less effective than President Donald Trump had claimed, according to multiple reports. Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has been dismissed from his role, the Associated Press reported, citing a White House official and two unnamed sources familiar with the matter. A DIA spokesperson told The Washington Post, which earlier reported on the firing, Kruse was no longer in charge of the agency and said his deputy, Christine Bordine, would become acting director. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DIA had previously found Irans nuclear program had not been fully obliterated as Trump had touted. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a Pentagon leader whose agency determined Junes strikes on Irans nuclear facilities were less effective than President Donald Trump had claimed, according to multiple reports (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) The preliminary report, which was leaked to news outlets, stated the strikes had only set back Irans nuclear program by a few months. The Trump administration had denied the assessment, which was first reported by CNN, calling it flat-out wrong. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard later released new intelligence claiming Irans nuclear program had actually been set back years. In a news conference following the June strikes, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated choose your word. This was an historically successful attack, Hegseth said at the time. Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggesting she could not be trusted with the data because former President Joe Biden nominated her. The firing of the DIA head culminates a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and shakeups to the military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA announced that it would slash its staff and budget. Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse had served as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images) The Pentagon announced this week that the Air Forces top uniformed officer, General David Allvin, planned to retire two years early. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation. The administration has fired Air Force General CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navys top officer, the Air Forces second-highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches. In April, Hegseth fired General Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO. No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of these firings, though some of the officers were reportedly believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed a memo authorizing National Guard troops deployed in Washington, D.C., to carry weapons if their mission requires it. Two U.S. defense officials stressed to Military Times that Guard leadership in the nations capital has not issued an order to arm Guard members, who currently remain unarmed, but that status could change in the coming days. The memo, according to one official, was addressed to the chief of the National Guard Bureau and the Secretary of the Army. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hegseths decision would allow the roughly 2,000 troops now mobilized in Washington to expand their operations, which are currently in low-crime tourist areas, to possible security patrols in neighborhoods that struggle with crime. Trump touts tough-on-crime mantra during visit to Guard troops in DC Another official, speaking to Military Times on condition of anonymity, said the service would likely carry SIG Sauer M17 service pistols as opposed to longer guns. Guard members in the nations capital do not have law enforcement authorities. The news comes as Trump early Friday threatened a full federal takeover of Washington and accused D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser of providing inaccurate crime figures. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN! Trump wrote on his Truth social. Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City! Washington D.C. will soon be great again!!! Bowser has shared data showing that violent crime has decreased in the city since a rise two years ago. Were at a 30-year violent-crime low. Were not satisfied. We havent taken our foot off the gas and we continue to look for ways to make our city safer, Bowser said last week. More than 800 members of the D.C. Guard have been deployed, along with about 1,200 Guard members coming from Republican-led states, including Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia and Ohio. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a visit to Guard personnel on Thursday, President Donald Trump suggested the military personnel would be playing a larger role in law enforcement in the city. He also suggested the troops could stay for six months or longer. You do the job on safety, and Ill get this place fixed up physically, and were going to be so proud of it at the end of six months, he told law enforcement and troops who had gathered to hear him speak. Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, who served as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, told Military Times last week that the crime situation in Washington falls far short of any emergency criteria that has ever been used to deploy the Guard during or after his 35-year career. The cost for a deployment of about 2,000 Guard soldiers averages around $20 million per month, Manner said, and could negatively impact readiness by taking money away from Guard drills and individual training. The Army did not provide cost estimates for the deployment. Related video: National Guard Armed In DC To Bolster Trumps Crime Crackdown Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth terminated the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), according to two sources familiar with the matter. A senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Hill on Friday that Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as the director of the military intelligence organization. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kruses departure from the agency was confirmed by a DIA spokesperson, who added that deputy director Christine Bordine will assume the role of acting director effective immediately. The firing of Kruse, who became the 23rd director of DIA last year, comes as the administration has continued to shake up the U.S. national security and military ranks. In a surprise move, the Air Force announced on Monday that its chief of staff, Gen. David Allvin, would retire in November after serving only two years of his four-year term. Apart from Kruse, two other senior Pentagon officials were ousted on Friday. Rear Adm. Milton Sands, who oversees the Naval Special Warfare Command, and Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, the chief of the Navy Reserve, were terminated effective immediately, a Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Hill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DIA made headlines earlier this summer after its preliminary, low-confidence assessment was leaked shortly after the U.S. militarys June strikes on Irans three nuclear sites. The report said that Irans nuclear program was set back by only a few months, prompting strong pushback from President Trump, his allies and Israeli officials. The Defense Department said in early July that Irans nuclear program was set back one to two years. The termination of Kruse, who was the director of intelligence of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command from 2016 to 2019, sparked criticism from a top Senate Democrat. The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administrations dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country. General Kruse is a career military officer with decades of distinguished, non-partisan service to our nation, making this ouster all the more troubling, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) also raised questions about the termination, saying the Trump administration is required to justify the decision. Im grateful to Lieutenant General Kruse for his decades of service and his strong history of apolitical engagement with the Intelligence Committee. If the Administration has cause to fire Director Kruse, they must provide that information to Congress immediately, he said in a statement. Otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear, something that chills the ability of the Intelligence Community to do its job and protect national security. Kruses ouster was first reported by The Washington Post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This story was updated at 6:20 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Envestnet office You can find original article here Wealthmanagement. Subscribe to our free daily Wealthmanagement newsletter. Envestnet (and former subsidiary Yodlee) erred in destroying evidence that might have boosted allegations in an ongoing lawsuit against the firm by a former fintech partner, according to a court order. According to the latest development in the case between FinancialApps vs. Envestnet and subsidiary Yodlee, a Delaware court appointee surmised that Envestnet didnt preserve data from a third-party service called Papertrail that could have shown whether Envestnet misappropriated FinancialApps trade secrets. According to the order, Envestnet approached FinApps in 2016 to license its product, Risk Insight, which helps financial institutions determine whether to lend money to credit applicants. By 2019, FinApps counsel allegedly reached out to Yodlee for delinquent payments. In May of that year, FinApps purportedly suspected Envestnet/Yodlee might steal their tech to create a competitive product. FinApps sent a cease-and-desist letter on May 17 and terminated the contract later that month. FinApps filed its complaint on July 17, alleging the defendants had stolen trade secrets for their own benefit. In 2024, FinApps accused the defendants of spoliation (a legal term for losing or destroying evidence). According to FinApps, after the complaint was filed, Envestnet/Yodlee counsel mandated employees to retain data as potential evidence. However, the firm canceled its subscription for Papertrail, a third-party logging app touting itself as a flight data recorder for apps. The subscription would include detailed data on whether and how Risk Insight functionality was accessed, by whom and whether data was copied from the system. According to FinApps, the cancellation led to the automatic deletion of the data. In late December, Delaware District Court Judge Jennifer Hall (whos overseeing the lawsuit) appointed Chad S.C. Stover as special master to report on FinApps allegations. (A special master is an appointed individual to conduct a specific task for the court.) Stover found Envestnets explanations for deleting the data flimsy, and argued that Envestnet knew (or should have known) that the data was relevant to the ongoing lawsuit and could have contacted FinApps to ask if the data needed to be retained (which it never did). Instead, they unilaterally and intentionally cancelled the subscription days after FinancialApps filed this lawsuit, Stover wrote. In this circumstance, even if (Envestnet/Yodlee) had not known that the data was relevant (and I find that they did know), they acted unreasonably by not conferring with the other side and acting unilaterally. COLLINSVILLE, Va. (WFXR) Henry County has its eyes on becoming home to the next state park in Virginia. Henry County says that they are currently collaborating with the DCR and other partners to finalize the master planning process, with a long-term goal of enhancing public access, recreational amenities, educational programming, and conservation efforts throughout the property. The County is requesting that the Commonwealth of Virginia formally designate the site as a state park and provide the necessary resources for infrastructure and development. Officials say the Mayo River property, originally acquired in 2003, spans nearly 600 acres and represents a vital piece of the regions outdoor recreation and conservation strategy. The park is expected to boost tourism, enhance the quality of life, and promote environmental stewardship in Southside Virginia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, August 21, Henry County welcomed a group of state and local leaders to tour the potential future site along the Mayo River. Byrds Ledge. A rock feature on the North Fork at the state line is known as Byrds Ledge, in honor of William Byrd, who in October 1728 camped there and wrote in his journal about the natural beauty of the area. (Photo courtesy of Henry County) State and local leaders toured the convergence of the North and South forks of the Mayo River as part of a tour of the Future Mayo River State Park. From left to right: Del. Eric Phillips (48th District), Del. Wren Williams (47th District), Virginia Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources Stefanie Taillon, Henry County Administrator Dale Wagoner, Horsepasture District Supervisor Debra Buchanan, Henry County Board Chairman Jim Adams. (Photo courtesy of Henry County) The group included Virginia Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources Stefanie Taillon, Deputy Secretary Corey Scott, and Director of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Matthew Wells. They were joined by Delegates Eric Phillips (48th District) and Wren Williams (47th District); Jim Adams, Chairman of the Henry County Board of Supervisors; Debra Buchanan, Horsepasture District Supervisor; and representatives from the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the Eco-Ambassador Council, the Harvest Foundation, the Dan River Basin Association, and the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation. This was a tremendous opportunity to showcase the unique natural and cultural resources of the future Mayo River State Park, Adams said. The visit not only strengthened our partnerships with state leaders but also emphasized the importance of securing funding to make this park a reality for residents and visitors alike. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement National Forests host salvage timber sales in preparation for potential wildfires The tour of the future park included the confluence of the North and South forks of the Mayo River. This ecologically and historically significant feature represents the heart of the site. One of the highlights was a visit to Byrds Ledge, a rock formation located along the Virginia trail that showcases the natural beauty and recreational potential of the area. Following the tour of the Virginia side, the group crossed into North Carolina to explore the existing Mayo River State Park via the Deshazo Mill Access. The North Carolina park has served as a model for natural preservation and recreation, offering a glimpse of what is possible for the Virginia side with the proper investment and planning, according to officials. For more information about the Mayo River State Park Master Plan, visit the DCRs website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv. KANSAS CITY, Mo. Hours after Missouris auditor announced a full audit of the Hickman Mills School District, the school board met Thursday to revise its budget projecting serious new financial woes. Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick referenced several cases of questionable spending including overseas student field trips to the previous superintendents birth country paid for with a school credit card. Oak Grove police seeking information about car that crashed into building Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The auditor isnt the only one calling out possible reckless spending in the district. Interim Superintendent Dr. Dennis Carpenter said the district began the fiscal year in July with $3.5 million less than it projected in May, and he projects theyll spend about $12 million more than they bring in this year. It feels like Dejavu, Carpenter said at a news conference Thursday, referencing not just his return to the district, but also taking over at the time of an audit facing serious financial questions. While both he and his new Director of Academic Services Dr. Yolanda Cargile received six figure buyouts in their most recent Superintendent positions in Lees Summit and Center Schools before returning to Hickman Mills, the buyout Hickman Mills will be giving its last Superintendent Yaw Obeng may be the least of their financial issues. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Obeng was dismissed by the board over the summer and Thursday the auditor detailed a whistleblower report hed been investigating. The auditor said school-funded trips to Obengs birth nation of Ghana and China raised red flags for many parents and taxpayers as the district ran a $8 million deficit last year. That included a $1.4 million termination fee of a contract with a tech company. A representative from Missouri Capital Asset Advantage Treasury looking into the districts finances at Carpenters request attributed some of the projected losses to the district not accounting for the gradual loss of stimulus money which expired this year. I think Ive seen enough evidence in 14 days to see in some cases we got too far away from our policies so we need to get back closer and also understand the depth of how its impacting our budget and our numbers. Along with saying it will fully cooperate with state auditors, Hickman Mills put out a proposal request Thursday for forensic auditors to come in and look at the districts books. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Well determine through that process along with processes of state what possibly went wrong and why did it wrong because our community and children we get to serve deserve nothing less, Carpenter said. Download WDAF+ for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV In just two weeks on the job as Interim Superintendent Carpenter says hes cut the number of credit cards the district was using from 47 to 3. And while no one has answers how the budget got so off, the Board says its ready to move forward under new leadership. I can guarantee another superintendent wont do that again, Board Member Clifford Ragan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Immigrant rights activist Guerline Jozef cant count the number of frantic texts, calls, and emails she gets daily from Haitians in the United States terrified that some day soon, they wont be able to feed their families anymore. Not just those in the US, but their mother, sister, niece, a cousin, a church member back in Haiti, who heavily depend on their breadwinner abroad to survive. Entire neighborhoods are being provided for by the diaspora, said Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance in San Diego. Haiti is literally being held together by those of us who are outside of the country and sending money back home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Haitis decades-long humanitarian crisis deepens each day, forcing immigrants to send record-high payments back home in recent years. Each Haitian immigrant living abroad supports a dozen or so friends, family, or community members in their home country, many of whom rely on those payments to survive, Jozef says. But that money formally called remittances is about to get more expensive to send, thanks to a new tax tucked into President Donald Trumps new spending bill. The 1 percent tax passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill enacted by Congress last month and will go into effect starting January 1, 2026. Though 1 percent might not sound like much, it could mean billions of dollars that never reach grandparents who need medical care, homes that fall into disrepair, and girls unable to stay in school. About 200 million immigrant workers support about 800 million family members in their home countries each year together, thats roughly one in eight people worldwide. For every dollar that a wealthy nation sends in foreign aid, immigrants send almost four times as much back home, totaling over $700 billion worldwide enough to buy up every home for sale in the US and still have billions to spare. In over 60 countries, remittances make up more than 3 percent of GDP, and in some places, they make up well over a quarter of the entire economy, the equivalent share of the entire manufacturing, retail, and health care industries in the United States combined. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the tax goes into effect next year, Haitians could lose about $61 million annually in direct payments for food, shelter, and health care, according to the Center for Global Development. Globally, the losses will add up to about $4.5 billion. This economic pain is on top of the absolute gutting of USAID, which around the world, once paid for almost half of all food aid, roughly 70 percent of the global response to HIV/AIDS, and contraceptive care for almost 50 million women and couples each year. The agencys sudden demise has left a multibillion-dollar vacuum for peace building, humanitarian relief, and health infrastructure in dozens of low- and middle-income countries where those funds made a tremendous difference. But as big of a deal as USAID was, remittances are actually an even bigger deal. And the US is targeting immigrants hard-earned cash at a moment when the world can afford it least. Many countries like India, Guatemala, and the Philippines will lose way more money from this 1 percent tax on remittances than they will from foreign aid cuts. Losing yet another lifeline will be beyond catastrophic it could further destabilize countries already steeped in crisis. If remittances fall, it will mean more famine, Jozef said. It will mean more people dying. A vast global safety net hidden in plain sight Immigrants in the US sent almost $100 billion overseas last year, mostly to low- or middle-income countries, making it the worlds largest source of remittances. Every family is different, but most immigrant workers send about 15 percent of their salary or upward of $300 per month back home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lets say youre an immigrant from Honduras trying to send some extra money home this month to help cover your brothers back-to-school fees. One option is to ask your bank or use an app to initiate an international transfer but the teller might not speak your language, you get paid in cash, and like most Hondurans, your family doesnt have a bank account to transfer to anyway. So instead, like most immigrants, you walk up the block to your local money transfer shop. Say, a Western Union nestled in your neighborhood pharmacy, and tell the agent how much money you want to send. You hand her your ID, a form, and a few hundred dollars over the counter. Right away, they take out about $15 in fees plus an extra couple of dollars once the tax kicks in. After a bit of paperwork, they process the rest, and in a few minutes, voila. In Honduras, your mom walks to the Western Union shop up the street from your elementary school and picks up her cash. Its hard to overstate the importance of these payments. Remittances have been proven to reduce infant mortality, boost school enrollment, and fuel housing construction around the world. Studies show that they play a significant role in helping countries achieve sustainable development goals like clean water for all. Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances, and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, has been trying to get Americans to care about remittances for the past 30 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I feel like Im preaching the gospel of remittances and financial inclusion, he said. And all administrations, including the Biden administration, just didnt want to pay attention to these issues. But in many countries, GDP growth basically depends on remittances. For example, Nepals tourism industry raked in a hefty $2.5 billion in 2023, but it was no match for the $11 billion Nepalese workers abroad sent home that year. Honduras relies twice as much on remittances as it does on agriculture, its next largest chunk of GDP. Guatemalas economy is 10 times as dependent on remittances as it is on bananas, the countrys largest export. And in places without food stamps or Medicaid, those payments function as a vast, invisible, global social safety net, ensuring that the worlds poorest dont fall through the cracks. View Link Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More often than not, remittances directly support families basic needs like food, housing, education, and medical care, filling gaps that traditional aid programs might not reach, said Dulce Guzman, executive director of Alianza Americas, a network of immigrant-serving groups based in Chicago. Theyre a huge pillar for sustaining life in our countries of origin. A tiny tax with massive consequences When remittances do get attention, its usually from Republicans, and its almost never a good thing. The purpose is not to be mean, said Ira Mehlman, who works at the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as a hate group for its hardline stance. The group lobbied hard for the 1 percent tax, which he hopes will encourage immigrants to self-deport. Its no different than if youre cruising along on the highway at 80 miles an hour and you see somebody else getting pulled over for speeding, he argued. You change your behavior, take your foot off the gas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Only it is very, very, very different. Because taking your foot off the gas here means cutting off millions of vulnerable people from the money they need to survive. Under normal circumstances, remittances rise when foreign aid is cut, but that wont be easy this time around with so many countries hit by both aid cuts and the tax on money transfers. The tax which to Mehlmans chagrin, a hodgepodge of fintech, free market, and pro-immigrant lobbyists haggled down from 5 percent in an initial proposal will require senders to pay a 1 percent fee on all cash transfers. Money transfer agents or bank tellers will be required to apply the tax on any cash, money orders, or cashiers checks sent overseas, similar to a restaurant collecting a sales tax on the food and beverages it serves. If businesses fail to collect the tax as required, theyre on the hook for paying it themselves along with any penalties or interest fees. Digital transfers will be exempt from the tax. But sending money between foreign bank accounts is not as simple as using Venmo or Zelle, which require a US bank account to use something many immigrants and their families dont have. Despite the rise of app-based providers like Remitly, which is tailor-made for overseas transfers, many immigrants still make the monthly trek to Western Union to send money home because thats what they and their recipients often elderly parents or grandparents back home are used to and trust. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So lets take a look at what this looks like for a family in El Salvador, for example. Without the $1,600 that Damaris Ortega sends home from Texas each month, her mother and three children in El Salvador could never afford to eat meat. Just the basics there rice, beans, eggs, vegetables cost basically your entire salary each month, she said. It harms industry. It harms individuals. It harms our national security. Ananya Kumar, who studies the future of money at the Atlantic Council There would be no new clothes to wear to school. No money to pay tuition. No savings to go to college. If they ever got sick or hurt, her family couldnt afford the gauze, bandages, or medications theyd need to bring to local hospitals that rarely have those on hand. The contributions we send from here to there many families there live off of that, Ortega, an organizer at the immigrant rights group CRECEN Houston, said in Spanish. In fact, they subsist on it there. They need that money to survive. For Ortega, the tax will mean paying an additional $16 each month on top of the 6 percent fee many already pay on average to businesses like Western Union or MoneyGram. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those fees add up in El Salvador, where the minimum wage is less than $2 per hour or $13 per day. With a new tax on top of existing fees, it means $112 less money for Ortegas family each month, or $1,344 each year. Or zooming out, El Salvador, which is set to be hit hardest per capita by the tax, will lose about $198 million annually when it goes into effect. Thats roughly 0.62 percent of the countrys entire GDP or a gobsmacking 1.1 percent if you count the $150 million its projected to lose from USAID cuts too. Its as if the entire US agricultural industry were to disappear overnight. If it werent for the support of the community that sends remittances, I think there would be extreme poverty, more than there already is, in our countries, Ortega said. The good news is that even if the tax reduces remittances to an extent, people are still going to send that money. Its just going to take a different channel, said Ananya Kumar, who studies the future of money at the Atlantic Council, a think tank focused on international security. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats especially true for those from rural, poorer, more vulnerable places with less digital and banking infrastructure and the new tax specifically targets those cash-based transfers. More than one in five adults worldwide still dont have a bank or mobile money account, and thats especially true for women and those living in sub-Saharan Africa, where only about half the population has an account. Many immigrants in the US dont have bank accounts either. While someone whos savvy with a smartphone may be able to send money tax-free, for those without banking or regular internet access, cash is still king and it will be taxed. Some of those senders could soon begin moving into the shadows versus having legitimate businesses do it, said Kumar, which would make them more vulnerable to scammers or criminal networks promising to send the money for less. And thats not good for anybody. It harms industry, Kumar said. It harms individuals. It harms our national security. Who really needs the money, anyway If the tax holds, The US is poised to make about $10 billion over the next decade. Thatll cover just 0.15 percent of the federal US budget for a year at most. Its really a drop in the bucket for this country, said Guzman, the executive director of Alianza Americas. But elsewhere, that kind of money, its transformative. Likewise, if were calculating generously, the gutting of USAID could save US citizens maybe $5 one matcha latte pre-matcha shortage per month. But at what cost? Mexico, which receives the most US remittances, will lose over $1.5 billion per year from the tax, the steepest loss projected anywhere. In Liberia, for example, aid cuts from the US alone have been so steep that theyre projected to lead to a full 2.6 percent decline in gross national income, the highest rate of any country, on top of which the remittance tax will shave off another 0.16 percent. Thats a total of over $100 million lost, more than the Liberian government allocated for education this year, in a country where the average salary is less than $3,000 per year. In Mexico, remittances have already plunged by double-digit percentages in recent months, thanks in part to Trumps immigration crackdown, a growing problem for low-income Mexicans who rely on remittances for up to 30 percent of their income and may soon struggle to afford basic goods. At a recent press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico quipped in Spanish that if the US wants to charge taxes, they should go somewhere else not to Mexicos poorest people who receive and live off these remittances. Her country, which receives the most US remittances, will lose over $1.5 billion per year from the tax, the steepest loss projected anywhere. In an attempt to minimize the damage, she promised to reimburse Mexicans for the tax, and last month, launched a low-fee government debit card that can facilitate tax-free digital transfers. But those solutions are probably too expensive or out of reach for poorer countries, where these payments make the biggest difference. Still, remittances have proved remarkably resistant to crises in the past, like the Covid-19 pandemic, and some immigrants may manage to quickly move to tax-free digital platforms, a transition that Guzmans group plans to encourage in the year ahead. But theres no question that taken as a whole, these policies are going to further destabilize these countries and push more people to leave, Guzman said. These changes have deadly consequences. The United Nations has lobbied for years to decrease the cost of sending remittances precisely because they are so important to global development and because, frankly, it is greedy for wealthy countries to try to take a chunk of the all-important money that immigrants send home. In Jozefs words,the people of Haiti need that money more than President Trump. But this was never about the money. Its about flooding the zone. Its about throwing a billion strands of spaghetti to the wall at once and seeing what sticks. If millions of people starve as collateral, then thats because the system was broken to begin with. And well, the system was broken to begin with. No country should be so vulnerable, so reliant on income from its citizens employed abroad, that a 1 percent tax could push them over the edge. Yet, remittances and foreign aid remain many countries best bet for leveling the global playing field and addressing those root causes of forced migration in the first place, said Guzman. For creating the conditions needed so that one day, countries like Haiti and El Salvador wont need remittances anymore. Their citizens wont need to leave at all. Even in the middle of all the chaos, Jozef said, that is still the goal. LIDO BEACH, Long Island (PIX11) The wind was the most noticeable thing at Lido Beach Thursday evening, and its kicking up the waves along the south shore of Long Island. Waves are expected to be ten feet high, and the rough surf that causes beach erosion will continue into Friday. More Local News Sand piles could be seen along the shore to try and stop flooding and further beach erosion. Bulldozers constructed an eight-foot-high sand seawall, known as a berm, at Jones Beach to prevent the seawater pushed in by Hurricane Erin from reaching seaside buildings and other infrastructure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sandbags have also been placed around the buildings. PIX11 News spoke with George Gorman, Jr., the Regional Director at New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, to see what they are doing. He said the flood prevention now prepares everyone for even worse conditions that are possible, with three more months of hurricane season still ahead. We are the protection. We make sure everything we can to make sure the beaches are prepared for any storm, said Gorman. Tides will run around 2 feet above normal, which will bring widespread moderate flooding along coastal communities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WORTHINGTON When Kyleigh Golembeski was in middle school in a Pioneer Valley Hilltown in the 1990s, she fell in her driveway, injured her shoulder and was treated at the local health center. It hurt, Golembeski said. Now I work in the same building where I underwent physical therapy. That building was the Hilltown Community Health Center in Worthington where Golembeski is now medical director and which celebrates its 75th anniversary this October. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With four locations, the Center serves thousands from across some 80 Hilltowns between the Connecticut River and the Berkshires, many of whom lack health insurance. I cant imagine taking care of other people, she told The Republican. This is my home and I want to keep everybody around me safe and healthy. Thats becoming increasingly challenging, HCHC officials said, especially in the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is slated to cut its funds through Medicaid, or the federal and state health care program for people with limited income and resources. Any changes to Medicare/Medicaid that restrict the ability of patients to be provided services would be a devastating blow to the community, said Mark Wagstaff, HCHC chief financial officer. Last year, those revenues were about 44 percent of the Centers total billings, or about 3,872 patients and 13,992 visits, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Across Massachusetts, nearly 50 organizations provide care through more than 285 sites, treating about one out of every eight residents. The centers provide primary, preventive and dental care, as well as mental health, substance abuse, eye care and other community-based services to residents regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. Debra DiStefano, HCHCs chief people and compliance officer, said that state data shows the Big Beautiful Bill Act may mean as much as $1 billion in lost revenue across the states federally-qualified centers that serve over a million residents. HCHC Chief Executive Officer Michael Purdy said that in late 2026 and early 2027 people will be required to verify that they are looking for employment, employed or volunteering for a certain number of hours a week. This puts a burden on both the system to allow that number of people to verify that, but also (HCHC) had to create a system and the state has to create a system that allows for that verification process to occur, Purdy said. It drastically reduces the number of people who are able to maintain Medicaid just by those requirements. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whet we absolutely dont want to do is put up more barriers to patients who are struggling to access healthcare to begin with, Purdy said. Were really working on trying to make sure that were balancing the care, the needs of the community with what is financially possible for us to do. HCHC had humble beginnings more than a century ago. For years throughout the 1920s, Red Cross nurses made house calls across the remote Hilltown region by foot, carriage and Model T, Purdy said. Then, in 1950, a nurse named Florence Bates began the center in Worthington with the hope of attracting young physicians just starting out in practice by providing free of charge the support services needed to run an office, Purdy said. Soon after, the center acquired second-hand dental equipment and two semi-retired dentists were hired. Ms. Bates was paid through donations and memberships, Purdy said. But anyone who needed services was helped, regardless of ability to pay. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 1998, the HCHC opened its school-based health center at Gateway Regional Middle/High School in Huntington. Golembeski said the students and their parents are at the center of care. Our staff and the school staff work so closely together to really support and uplift that school community and provide really integrative care to keep our kids healthy, she said. A few years ago, COVID brought more health care needs into the region, Golembeski said. A lot of people fled from the cities, and they ended up settling into more rural areas, she said. And a lot were very isolated. HCHC has a dedicated medical doctor who works with the homeless population and people who are underhoused, or who are in poor living situations that might include overcrowding or substandard housing quality. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shell meet the patients where they are, wherever they are, homeless or underhoused, Golembeski said. She provides comprehensive, full quality care to the patients in their environment. Where you find the higher level of housing instability is really where she targets and focuses her time. Today, HCHC treats about 9,000 people annually with a staff of 125 and specialties including dentists, doctors, nurse practitioners, optometrists and other clinicians. The 75th anniversary celebration will be held Oct. 4 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Worthington Historical Society, 6 Williamsburg Road. We are very excited for the anniversary, she said. I think that the automatic goal is, or the dream is, that we can continue to expand and promote more accessibility to all of the patients. more news from Western Massachusetts Read the original article on MassLive. The government is seeking the right to appeal against a High Court ruling which blocks asylum seekers being housed in an Essex hotel. Earlier this week, Epping Forest District Council was granted a temporary injunction to stop people being placed at the Bell Hotel in Epping. The court refused a last-minute effort from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to intervene and get the council's case dismissed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If successful in its new bid to be involved, the government is then expected to consider a further appeal against the ruling itself. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government was committed to closing all asylum hotels, but said it needed to happen in "a properly managed way". She said the government were working to do it "as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place". "That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A senior Home Office source said it was a matter of "democracy" and that the judiciary should not be able to tell the government where it can and can't place asylum seekers. The source later clarified this did not reflect the Home Office's position. At this stage it is unclear how likely the Home Office is to be given permission to appeal. In addition, Somani Hotels, the owner of the Bell Hotel, is seeking permission to appeal against the court order blocking the use of the hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers, the company's solicitors said. Holly Whitbread, a Conservative councillor, said the Home Office appeal was "deeply disappointing" adding: "The government keep churning out the line that they're going to get all the hotels closed by the end of this Parliament - our community can't afford to wait another four years." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She said the use of the hotel was untenable, adding: "The protests have caused a huge amount of disruption for the lives of normal people living in Epping, and it's just not right that our community should have to put up with this further." One asylum seeker living at the hotel has told the BBC the government should close the hotels and let asylum seekers work so they can support themselves. In recent weeks, thousands of people have gathered near the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex to protest after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the town. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bringing its case, the Conservative-run Epping Council argued that the presence of the hotel "poses a clear risk of further escalating community tensions already at a high, and the risk of irreparable harm to the local community". Before the judgement was handed down, the Home Office asked to intervene in the case, warning that the court's decision could "substantially impact" its ability to house asylum seekers in hotels across the UK. The court ruled in favour of Epping Council and said the 140 asylum seekers would have to leave the hotel by 16:00 BST on 12 September. Since the ruling, more than half a dozen councils have said they were considering taking similar legal action. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Protests and counter-protests are expected to take place outside hotels across the country over the coming days. The government is legally-bound to find homes for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute while they wait for a decision to be made on their asylum claim. Rising numbers of asylum seekers coming to the UK has led to a greater use of hotels for accommodation. Figures released by the government on Thursday revealed that the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels had reached 32,059 - an 8% increase in the year since Labour came to power but down on the 2023 peak. The number of asylum applications in the year to June reached a new record of 111,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the Home Office's decision to seek to appeal against the closure of the Bell Hotel was "completely wrong". "Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels the Conservatives would immediately deport all illegal arrivals and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again." CANTON, Ohio (WJW) A home in Canton will likely have to be razed because of heavy fire damage caused by an overheated cord, according to officials. The fire ignited shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 22, in the 800 block of High Avenue NW. Dog blamed for overnight house fire According to a media release, when fire crews arrived on the scene, they found heavy fire coming from the front of the house. A woman who lives at the home told crews that the cord to her air conditioner had overheated and started the fire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 2 NE Ohio public high schools named among Top 5 in state The woman was not injured. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. [Source] Two Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have been granted asylum in the U.K. and Australia over the weekend, representing rare acknowledgments of persecution under the citys national security law. Catch up: Civil liberties in Hong Kong have been severely curtailed since Beijing enacted the national security law in 2020. The legislation was introduced following widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019, which led to the arrest and prosecution of hundreds of activists. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ted Hui, a former lawmaker, and Tony Chung, a student activist, are part of a larger group facing arrest warrants and bounties reaching 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,800), though experts consider these offers largely symbolic given that most targets reside in nations lacking extradition treaties with Hong Kong. Starting new lives: Hui announced Saturday that his family secured protection visas in Australia following their departure from Hong Kong in December 2020 amid pending trial proceedings related to the protests. Trending on NextShark: Texas Dems return to Capitol, tear up GOP agreements I express my sincere gratitude to the Government of Australia both present and former for recognising our need for asylum and granting us this protection, Hui wrote on social media. Now practicing law in Adelaide, Hui described the decision to Reuters as recognition by the Australian government that human rights infringements and erosion of democracy and freedom actually happened. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chungs announcement came Sunday, saying he was granted refugee status in the U.K. with a five-year residence permit. After waiting for over a year and a half, I can finally begin to try to start a new life, he posted on social media. Chung received a 43-month prison sentence in 2021 for secession and money laundering charges, making him the youngest person imprisoned under the security law at age 20. Hong Kong objects: Hong Kong authorities summoned British and Australian consul generals for a Monday afternoon meeting with Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki, warning against harboring offenders. Trending on NextShark: Hong Kong pro-democracy activists granted asylum in the UK, Australia Any country that harbours Hong Kong criminals in any form shows contempt for the rule of law, grossly disrespects Hong Kongs legal systems and barbarically interferes in the affairs of Hong Kong, the government said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, Chinas foreign ministry specifically called Hui an anti-China rioter wanted by the Hong Kong police and urged other nations to stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs. Trending on NextShark: Trump vows to 'save' Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai as trial nears end This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what were building, consider becoming a paid member your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Subscribe here now! Trending on NextShark: Honolulu Chinatown acid attack suspect was previous target of hate crimes Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! [Source] A 34-year-old man arrested in connection with a recent acid attack in Honolulus Chinatown was himself the victim of alleged hate crimes and police misconduct in recent years, court documents show. Catch up: Marquis Johnson turned himself in Sunday evening at Honolulu police headquarters on suspicion of first-degree assault in the sulfuric acid attack that injured a 30-year-old restaurant worker near Smith and Hotel streets on Aug. 8. Police had until 5:35 p.m. Tuesday to file charges against him, though prosecutors could pursue attempted murder charges based on their investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The victim, who was initially critical, is now in stable condition. The incident marked the third acid attack on Oahu in two years. A troubled past: Johnson has filed civil rights complaints stemming from previous incidents in Hawaii. Former colleague Daniella Stolfi, who worked with him in digital marketing at Castle Resorts 10 years ago, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the crime is so out of the blue, and so out of character for him. Trending on NextShark: Trump vows to 'save' Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai as trial nears end In February 2022, Johnson was attacked by nine people who allegedly targeted him because of his race in Chinatown while he helped a drunk military man catch an Uber. He woke up in a hospital, Stolfi told Hawaii News Now. They had cut his face with bottles. I think his back had been broken. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The attack reportedly required facial reconstructive surgery. Johnson also filed a lawsuit against Honolulu police over a 2020 Waikiki incident, alleging officers used excessive force after mistaking him for a car thief when other Black suspects were involved. Separately, he sued property owners claiming hidden surveillance cameras recorded him at a Kahala vacation rental during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whats next: Johnson gave a deposition in his surveillance suit the day before the acid attack. Police said the victim did not know Johnson, who approached the man and asked questions before throwing acid on him. If convicted of first-degree assault, Johnson faces up to 10 years in prison. Trending on NextShark: Honolulu Chinatown acid attack suspect was previous target of hate crimes This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what were building, consider becoming a paid member your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Trending on NextShark: Undocumented truck driver faces deportation after illegal U-turn kills 3 Subscribe here now! Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! Aug. 21Registration open for 5K run, walk, ruck on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 8:30 a.m. benefiting the Travis Manion Foundation For the third consecutive year, Hormel Foods is partnering with the Travis Manion Foundation to host the 9/11 Heroes Run 5K, in Austin, Minnesota. The 3.1-mile race begins at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13, at the SPAM Museum, located at 101 3rd Ave. NE. "We're honored to host this race once again," said Christopher Lea, operations manager at the Austin Plant with Hormel Foods and a proud military veteran. "Last year's turnout was incredible. Bringing the Austin community together to commemorate September 11th gives us a meaningful way to reflect and remember." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A portion of the proceeds from the 9/11 Heroes Run benefit the Travis Manion Foundation. To register for the event online, participants can go to https://www.travismanion.org/events/911-heroes-run/austin-mn-2025 and use the code HORMEL15 to save on their registration fee. If registered by Sept. 1, all runners and walkers will receive a T-shirt and gift bag. For those who want to be involved with the event but don't plan to run, walk or muck, volunteers of all ages are needed to hand out event materials and assist with general event activities. To volunteer, please visit https://runsignup.com/Race/MN/Austin/911HeroesRunAustinMN. The 9/11 Heroes Run 5K series was inspired by Marine 1st Lt. Travis Manion, who was killed in Iraq in April 2007 as he protected his battalion. Before his final deployment, Manion visited the New York City Fire Department Rescue Company, a group known for losing almost all of its brave firefighters on 9/11. The 9/11 Heroes Run honors Manion's promise to never forget the heroes of that day. For the latest on the event, follow along on Facebook here. Back in 2014, Brian Cornell was focused on the future. Target (TGT) had just named the 30-year retailing veteran as the chain's next chairman and chief executive. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter He'd most recently been CEO at PepsiCo's (PEP) Americas Foods, where he oversaw the drinks-and-snacks giant's global food business, the largest of its four divisions. Before joining PepsiCo in 2012, Cornell was president and CEO of Sams Club, Walmarts (WMT) membership warehouse club. "I am committed to empowering this talented team to realize its full potential, lead change and strengthen the love guests have for this brand," Cornell said then in a statement. Related: Target has a problem (it's coming from inside the building) As we create the Target of tomorrow. I will focus on our current business performance in both the U.S. and Canada and on how we accelerate our omnichannel transformation. Now, just over a decade later, after the chain made a number of missteps, Cornell was telling analysts that he would be stepping down as CEO and that Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke would take the helm on Feb. 1, 2026. Cornell will remain executive chairman. Brian Cornell is stepping down as CEO of Target. Photo: Sarah Blesener/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBloomberg/Getty Images Target's Cornell: We are far from satisfied Although the Minneapolis chain beat Wall Streets fiscal-second-quarter expectations and affirmed its outlook, its stock was sliding. The shares are off nearly 29% this year, down 33% from this time in 2024, and 37% from five years ago. In addition, Target has seen a steady decline in same-store visits for roughly the past 18 months. More Retail Stocks: "To be clear, while we were happy to see improvement in Q2, we are far from satisfied with where our business is performing today," Cornell said during the Q2 earnings call. "We need to do better, and our entire team is focused on consistent execution building further momentum and getting back to profitable long term." Fiddelke, 49, who joined Target in 2003 as an intern and rose through the ranks to chief financial officer and then COO, echoed Cornell's sentiment, saying, "we must improve." "I know we're not realizing our full potential right now," he said, "and so I'm stepping into the role with a clear and urgent commitment to build new momentum in the business and get back to profitable growth." Target's Michael Fiddelke poses for a portrait at headquarters in Minneapolis on June 24, 2025. Fiddelke, formely chief operating officer of Target, was announced as CEO of the chain on June 20, 2025. He's slated to take the CEO's post Feb. 1, 2026.Elizabeth Flores/Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images) Fiddelke said that he, the board and the rest of the company's leadership are taking "a clear-eyed approach to the work in front of us to understand where we need to lean in and where we need to accelerate change." Two services at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital require work to improve, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has said. Urgent and emergency care services remain at "requires improvement", as it was after an earlier inspection in March, while surgery has been downgraded from "good". Amanda Lyndon, CQC deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said while many improvements had been made, changes around "the amount of time people waited for care" was needed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The hospital's executive director Matt Metcalfe described the CQC's report as "extremely helpful" and added: "I'm incredibly proud of the work our teams are doing to drive the improvements that are required." "The downgrade relates pretty much exclusively to the lengthening waiting lists for patients for surgery," Mr Metcalfe said. "The previous inspection was before Covid and we are still in the recovery journey." The hospital's executive director Matt Metcalfe said lengthening waiting lists was the main issue affecting surgical services [BBC] Labour MP for Edgbaston, Preet Gill, said she had written a letter to the wider University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, which comprises four hospitals, expressing concerns about the CQC report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I'm concerned about the safety issue that this report highlights," she said. "It is not right that when people are turning up for emergency and urgent care, we are seeing overcrowding, we're seeing delays - people not being able to get a bed." In July, Mr Metcalfe said the hospital was "delighted" to undergo an emergency department "reset", which he described as a "whole hospital response" to the pressures in emergency care. However, he conceded improvement was still needed and added: "We need to put all the pace behind that [improvement]. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We remain focused on improving the experience and outcomes for everyone who comes through our doors." The CQC carried out an unannounced inspection of the hospital where it again rated how effective, caring and well-led surgery services are as "good". The safety of the service has again been rated "requires improvement", and how responsive the service is has dropped from "good" to "requires improvement". Ms Lyndon said this was due to a decline in how responsive the service was, following the Covid-19 pandemic, and effects on performance and waiting times across the NHS, which affected the overall rating. Edgbaston MP, Preet Gill, has written to the wider NHS trust following the report [BBC] 'People waiting too long' "During our inspection of urgent and emergency care services, we were encouraged by improvements the trust had made but they still had more work to do to ensure people were safe," Ms Lyndon said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She said staff did not maintain people's records in line with the trust's requirements for including information on risk assessments and care delivery. Patients had also waited too long to receive care in the department because of crowding and demand. But, she said "other departments in the hospital experienced delays in discharging people to social care placements, which had a knock-on effect on hospital capacity". Richard Burden, chair of Healthwatch Birmingham, said: "Every patient deserves to have care that is safe and is timely." Patients had been telling the organisation that they had received "really compassionate care from the staff," he said, "and it's important that we acknowledge that." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "But they also tell us that they're waiting too long in Accident and Emergency departments; they tell us they're sick of having their surgery appointments cancelled and these are the kind of things that the CQC are bringing out," he added. "The good news is that there are improvements being made... but there's a long, long way to go yet." University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the QE and three others hospitals in the area, was previously rated inadequate for how well led the trust is as a whole. A new CQC report on the trust is to be published imminently. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. More on this story Related internet links House Democrats are pressing forward with an inquiry into potential bribery by Paramount-Skydance as it pursued a multibillion-dollar merger approved by Trumps Federal Communications Commission last month. In a letter sent Thursday to Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison, Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Frank Pallone of New Jersey demand documents related to the Trump administrations communications with company officials as the merger awaited approval by Project 2025 co-author and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. They write: Four weeks ago, after months of delay, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved what on August 7, 2025, became an $8 billion merger between your company, Skydance Media, LLC (Skydance), and Paramount Global (Paramount). Alarmingly, the FCCs decision came only after Skydance and Paramount agreed to provide millions of dollars in payments and free services to Donald Trump himself and millions to support his future presidential library respectively. Further, as a condition of the merger, it appears Skydance has agreed to install someone to police CBSs editorial decisions, promising to conduct a comprehensive review of CBS and to appoint an ombudsman to root out bias. Trump has claimed that the settlement of his lawsuit against CBS, over edits made to a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, included millions of dollars in free advertising, in addition to $16 million Paramount committed to funding his presidential library. Paramount officials have denied that there is any arrangement beyond the legal settlement, according to a recent New York Times report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Paramount-Skydance did not respond immediately to MSNBCs request for comment. The Democrats also want information about the companys decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which President Trump openly dislikes, shortly after Mr. Colberts on-air criticism of Paramounts settlement as a big fat bribe. Carr himself celebrated the Late Show cancellation after it was announced and avoided giving a straight answer when a Fox News host asked him whether Trump was involved in any way. Trumps chairman has shown a willingness to politicize the merger review process with his vow to block mergers involving companies with policies that promote diversity. Hes also weaponized the commission against media outlets that Trump and other conservatives have criticized. Later in their letter, Raskin and Pallone also sound the alarm on private conversations that Ellison, the Skydance CEO, reportedly had with Trump before the merger was announced. Specifically they demand Ellison and Paramount-Skydance turn over any documents including communications company officials may have had with one another, with Trump Organization officials, with the FCC or with other members of the Trump administration related to the settlement or the merger. They also seek clarification on whether Paramount-Skydance plans to offer any free services to Trump, as hes alleged. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Democrats say the allegations, if true, would likely further embolden President Trump to use lawsuits and regulatory authority to attack media organizations that he finds objectionable in order to silence them, and that these actions by Paramount would also be illegal, running afoul of federal and state anti-bribery statutes. A separate probe into possible bribery has been launched by officials in California. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com DOTHAN, Ala (WDHN) A Houston County judge is claiming defectively designed farm equipment caused his sons death on the family farm. Judge Benjamin Lewis filed the lawsuit on Friday. According to the complaint, Judge Lewiss son, Weston Lewis, was crushed to death when a hay balers rear gate malfunctioned while clearing debris from the machine and closed. Weston was killed in June 2024 on his familys dairy farm in Houston County along Highway 53. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judges son killed in Houston County farming accident The suit says McHale Engineering and Atlantic & Southern Equipment manufactured the baler. These companies were named as the defendants in the lawsuit. Judge Lewis claims the baler was defectively designed and did not include proper warnings of the dangers of the rear gate closing. Judge Lewis is asking for a jury trial in the case. You can read the full lawsuit below: 3vc0ezzkh4xnr0ttjymrwsgi_62f37a78-8823-475a-8d5b-55cb5f0feb20Download Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDHN - wdhn.com. The military stated that the incident was under review and that several attempts were made to intercept the missile. The Houthi missile fired from Yemen that triggered sirens across central Israel likely fragmented mid-air, the IDF said on Friday. Magen David Adom said that there were reports of shrapnel impacting a house in the central Israeli moshav of Ginaton. Israeli media said the fragment landed in the house's backyard. The owner of the yard impacted by the shrapnel, Ilana Hatomi, told Ynet that, "There was a boom. I was sitting in a shelter, everything exploded, and that was it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Everything can be fixed, everything can be fixed, it's just material damage." Hatomi's daughter, Shira, described the incident as "a great stroke of luck. The entrance to moshav Ginaton, central Israel, August 23, 2025 (credit: YOSSI ALONI/FLASH90) "Fortunately, our mother heard the alarm and went into the emergency room. We talked while she was there, and she said there was a big boom. When she came out, she saw that the whole house was covered in glass," Shira told Ynet. "It's lucky that it fell close and not on the house. She said that the whole house shook, and as you can see, everything is shattered." Booms reported as missile fragments above Israel Loud booms were heard around Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan. The IDF said it made several attempts to intercept the missile. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No serious injuries have been reported at this time. Earlier in the evening, the IDF also had to make several attempts to intercept a drone launched from Yemen, which triggered sirens in Israeli towns along the Egyptian border. Howard University will soon be on the hunt for a new university president for the second time in just two years. The schools 18th president, Ben Vinson III, will step down on Aug. 31, the board of trustees announced Friday. His tenure was short-lived, as he stepped into the role just two years ago in September 2023. It has been an honor to serve Howard, Vinson said in The Dig, the universitys news hub. At this point, I will be taking some time to be with my family and continue my research activities. I look forward to using my experiences as president to continue to serve higher education in the future. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The board of trustees announced that Wayne A.I. Frederick, a Howard University alumnus and 17th president of the university, will step in as the interim president starting Sept. 1. Taliana Singleton, a co-founder of Whose Howard Is It?, an online campaign founded in July to hold the administration accountable for student account deficits and lack of housing, was skeptical about the announcement. Over the summer, Howard University switched platforms for billing, causing several students accounts to show they owed the university thousands of dollars. Typically, students cannot register for classes or move into on-campus housing if theyre behind on their tuition and fees. In July, the university said more than half of the students accounts had been resolved. During the transition process, about 1,000 students account updates were delayed between January and June, they said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As someone who has been at Howard for not one but two degrees, Im not a stranger to the inconsistent nature of the administration, said Cortneii Samuels, a first-year law student at the school. Students just want to feel supported and heard, and I am hopeful that whoever they bring on to serve us next will be more sympathetic to the needs of the students. Whose Howard Is It? aims to support students with ongoing housing and account issues. Singleton said its GroupMe group chat has over 150 members who are students, while its Instagram page has over 2,000 followers, which she also considers a part of the movement. Vinsons announcement comes at a time when students have taken to social media to bring attention to a long-standing issue at the university: lack of housing, especially for upperclassmen. Whose Howard Is It? was started by students that Singleton knew from attending meetings and press conferences regarding student affairs. Her outspokenness has led her to be suspended from the university until 2028 and barred from campus until 2026. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vinsons lack of experience with historically Black institutions was one of the significant criticisms when he was first selected as president. We need a president who went to an HBCU because they understand us more, Singleton said. Why are you representing students you dont even understand and have never been in our shoes? Vinsons alma maters include predominantly white institutions such as Columbia and Dartmouth College. He served as the provost of Western Reserve University from 2018 to 2023 and as the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University from 2013 to 2018. Former Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick will step in as the universitys interim president starting Sept. 1. (Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Frederick, a practicing surgeon at Howard Hospital and professor of surgery at the Howard University College of Medicine, is often credited for boosting the universitys donations and funding during his decade-long tenure. However, many students and faculty criticized the administrator for his response to several protests over housing concerns and strikes by students and faculty over pay. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During Fredericks decade-long tenure, several protests broke out regarding housing issues, including the #BlackburnTakeover, where hundreds of students slept inside and outside the Blackburn Center. The students took over the building for over a month to get the university to adhere to a list of demands, including concerns of mold in dormitories. The University reaffirms its unwavering commitment to student success and to helping ensure that students are financially equipped to begin the academic year, the university said in the statement in July. Federal cuts, an increase in loans, and financial hardships were a few of the issues Howard Communications highlighted in the statement. Singleton said whats going on at Howard is larger than housing and balance concerns; its an attack on students civil rights. Like many other Howard student activists who can be traced to protesting housing issues in the 1960s and 1980s, Singleton has directly experienced housing problems. Singletons interaction with Cynthia Evers, the senior vice president for student affairs, and Lydia Sermons, the vice president and chief communications officer at Howard University, has led to her and other students calling for them to resign. But she said the movement is more than just one person within the Howard administration. This is a battle you will not win, you cannot public relations out of it, she said. The post Howard President Resigns Amid Housing Crisis and Student Outrage appeared first on Capital B News. WASHINGTON (DC News Now) The Howard University Board of Trustees announced Friday that President Ben Vinson III, Ph.D., would be stepping down from his role as the 18th president of Howard University. He started the position in September 2023 and would step down on Aug. 31, 2025, just shy of two years later. In a statement, Vinson said he was taking time to be with his family and continue his research activities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement College students return to a DC with ramped up law enforcement under Trump executive order Over the course of my tenure as President, I have worked with unwavering commitment to advance the strategic vision I believe best serves the future of this institution, including in the areas of AI, data science and analytics, and global and diasporic engagement. My foremost priority has always been the well-being and success of this community, and I remain committed to ensuring a smooth and constructive transition. I am grateful to the Board, faculty, staff, students, and partners who have supported the work weve undertaken together. It has been an honor to serve Howard. At this point, I will be taking some time to be with my family and continue my research activities. I look forward to using my experiences as president to continue to serve higher education in the future. Ben Vinson III, Ph.D., Howard University President The Board appointed Wayne A. I. Frederick, M.D., to serve as president in the interim for an indefinite amount of time. Frederick has previously served as Howard University president from 2014 to 2023. His deep institutional knowledge and proven leadership will ensure stability, continuity, and continued progress as we navigate complex social challenges and shifts in the higher education landscape and chart the Universitys next chapter, the university wrote in a statement. Fredericks term will begin on Sept. 1, 2025, and will end after a comprehensive national search leads to the selection of the next permanent president, the Board noted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. MICHELLE BIR / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER Smoke from a wildfire billows over Kunia Tuesday. Police have opened an arson investigation. MICHELLE BIR / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER Smoke from a wildfire billows over Kunia Tuesday. Police have opened an arson investigation. The Honolulu Police Department has opened a first-degree arson investigation case for the that broke out Tuesday, forcing several hundred people to evacuate that afternoon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement HPD said in a bulletin that information has been received indicating that the fire may have been intentionally set. An arson investigation is now underway. However Honolulu Fire Department officials said today that their investigation is open and ongoing and the cause has not been determined. HPD issued a statement tonight saying that HPD and HFD are working closely on this incident. HPD is currently investigating this fire as an arson as we received information that it may have been intentionally set, the statement said. HFDs investigation remains open and active and once they determine a cause, they will provide an update. In many cases, the findings of HFDs investigation will prompt us to open an arson investigation. At other times, other factors determine the classification, such as witness accounts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State officials, meanwhile, said today that the Division of Forestry and Wildlife ) is working with the HFD and Hawaii National Guard to contain the wildfire which is burning on private land and within the Honouliuli Forest Reserve. As of this afternoon, the fire had burned about 600 acres of agricultural and forest land and was 60 % contained overall, state Department of Land and Natural Resources officials said, adding that in the forest reserve it was only 30 % contained. They said there was no immediate threat to people or property but residents and others in the area should monitor local news for updates. DOFAW Administrator David Smith said in a news release, Honouliuli is home to many endangered plants and animals and is an important watershed for the Waianae mountains. It is vital that we stop this fire and minimize damage to protect these high-value resources. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The brush fire was reported shortly after noon on Tuesday, and grew to the point that officials ordered the evacuation of Kunia Camp and Head Start about two hours later. The evacuation notice was canceled before 6 p.m. RELATED STORY : See more : 4 Comments By participating in online discussions you acknowledge that you have agreed to the. An insightful discussion of ideas and viewpoints is encouraged, but comments must be civil and in good taste, with no personal attacks. If your comments are inappropriate, you may be banned from posting. Report comments if you believe they do not follow our. Having trouble with comments ? . The human rights commissioner of the German government, Lars Castellucci, has called on the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Office to expedite the admission of vulnerable Afghan men and women from Pakistan. He wrote on the platform X on Friday that the government coalition had agreed on an orderly and humanitarian migration policy. The lengthy examinations in the case of the Afghanistan admission programme fulfil neither, he added. Castellucci argued that those who want to curb illegal migration must simultaneously open legal pathways. Time is pressing due to deportations Castellucci demanded that those who have received a legally binding promise of entry to Germany through the Federal Admission Programme for Afghanistan must also receive their visa "promptly." He said that time is pressing in light of deportations from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt stated that each case would be examined to determine whether there is a legally binding obligation to admit. He also said that a security check would be conducted. This concerns Afghans who are considered at risk because they have advocated for democratic rights or once worked as local staff for the German Armed Forces or German organizations. These people, along with their family members, have an admission promise from the previous coalition government. Since the German embassy in Kabul has been closed since Afghanistan was retaken by the Islamist Taliban in 2021, they are undergoing the examination process in Pakistan. The human rights commissioner of the German government, Lars Castellucci, has called on the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Office to expedite the admission of vulnerable Afghan men and women from Pakistan. He wrote on the platform X on Friday that the government coalition had agreed on an orderly and humanitarian migration policy. The lengthy examinations in the case of the Afghanistan admission programme fulfil neither, he added. Castellucci argued that those who want to curb illegal migration must simultaneously open legal pathways. Time is pressing due to deportations Castellucci demanded that those who have received a legally binding promise of entry to Germany through the Federal Admission Programme for Afghanistan must also receive their visa "promptly." He said that time is pressing in light of deportations from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt stated that each case would be examined to determine whether there is a legally binding obligation to admit. He also said that a security check would be conducted. This concerns Afghans who are considered at risk because they have advocated for democratic rights or once worked as local staff for the German Armed Forces or German organizations. These people, along with their family members, have an admission promise from the previous coalition government. Since the German embassy in Kabul has been closed since Afghanistan was retaken by the Islamist Taliban in 2021, they are undergoing the examination process in Pakistan. This week, the German government announced that Pakistan has deported about 210 of the approximately 2,000 people from the programme to their country of origin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to a spokesman for the Foreign Office, the Pakistani authorities had previously arrested around 450 people from the programme. He said that the German embassy in Islamabad and the Foreign Office had managed to secure the release of 245 of them from deportation camps. Admission promises occupy German courts Several dozen cases from Afghan men and women in the admission programme are now pending in German courts. According to the spokeswoman for the Berlin Administrative Court, in 22 cases as of Wednesday, the judges have so far required the German government to issue visas. AKRON, Iowa (KCAU) In Iowa, human trafficking is happening more often. A group called Team Iowa is raising awareness by teaching people to stay safe. The organization is going to many communities to help educate people about the crime. Thursdays discussion was in Akron at the Parish Hall. The speaker, Stacy Besch, showed a documentary called Gridshock to those in attendance. Story continues below Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gridshock is about human trafficking happening in Iowa and then shares stories of victims of the crime. Team Iowa said 50% of those sold into human trafficking is by someone they know. Besch said the crime could be happening right in your backyard. People think that its happening just in the larger cities or bigger states, but lets think about this, said Besch. Sexual offenders or sexual predators, where are they going to live? Theyre going to live in rural communities where theres no school operating anymore. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Besch said that this is the 170th community that she has visited within the past two years. For more information on Team Iowas journey through the state, see the images below. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. China is ready to play a constructive role in efforts to achieve a political resolution to the war in Ukraine, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, who made the remarks during a press briefing, Azernews reports. We believe all parties should pursue a political solution to the Ukraine crisis based on mutual respect, comprehensive cooperation, and sustainable security, Mao said. China is willing to contribute constructively to this process. Her comments came in response to recent remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who dismissed the idea of China serving as a security guarantor for Ukraine. Zelensky argued that China cannot take on such a role, claiming it did nothing to prevent the war and even aided Russia by opening the drone market. Zelenskys statement follows reports suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed involving China as a guarantor in a potential peace agreement with the United States and European nations, one that would include security guarantees. The exchange highlights ongoing tensions over Chinas diplomatic positioning and its perceived neutrality in the conflict. Highway, the Dallas-based technology company behind the Carrier Identity platform, has secured a strategic growth equity investment led by FTV Capital, with additional participation from Lead Edge Capital. The funding marks a significant step in the companys efforts to expand its product suite and accelerate growth as freight brokers face intensifying challenges around fraud and compliance. Highway launched in 2022 with a mission to help brokers verify carriers in real time, safeguard their networks, and reduce losses tied to fraud. Its Carrier Identity platform has quickly gained traction in the market, serving more than 1,050 brokers, including 70 of the largest 100 in the United States. By combining real-time data and automated compliance tools, the company has created what many in the industry view as a first line of defense against fraudulent activity in the supply chain. Highway was built to solve an important and growing challenge for freight brokers: combating skyrocketing fraud within their networks in real-time, said Jordan Graft, CEO of Highway, in a news release. We are thrilled to partner with FTV to help drive our next phase of expansion. The firms strong track record backing innovative supply chain and logistics businesses, combined with deep domain expertise in our industry, makes them an ideal partner as we execute on our ambitious growth plan to diversify our products and extend our market-leading position. The investment comes at a time when freight brokers are under mounting pressure. The U.S. freight market has become more complex as shipping volumes grow, carriers remain lean, and volatility across the supply chain increases. Brokers now manage roughly 30% of all truckload spend, a figure that underscores both their importance and their vulnerability to fraudulent actors. The need for trusted, real-time fraud prevention solutions has become central to their ability to operate efficiently and protect their customers. For FTV Capital, which has a long history of investing in supply chain and logistics technologies, Highway represents a strong fit. As freight brokers continue to gain greater market share with freight volume rising, fraud has intensified. To combat this, Highway is creating a more secure, data-enriched ecosystem through its scaled network of vetted brokers and carriers, ultimately resulting in fewer losses and disruptions, said Jerome Hershey, principal at FTV Capital, in a news release. At FTV, weve invested in tech-enabled supply chain and logistics businesses for over two decades and have been impressed with the mission-critical software platform Jordan and the team have built, resulting in a highly retentive blue-chip customer base and scalable profitability. Were thrilled to help the company build on its strong momentum and reinforce its position as the industry leader in carrier fraud protection. NEW JERSEY (PIX11) Powerful waves, strong winds, and dangerous rip currents are pounding the Jersey Shore as Hurricane Erin churns hundreds of miles offshorebut the impact is still being felt on land. Governor Phil Murphy has declared a statewide emergency as forecasters warn of gusts up to 50 miles an hour, flash flooding, and beach erosion through the next 24 hours. More Local News In Sea Bright, a community with a long history of coastal flooding, high-water vehicles and firefighter crews have been deployed across town in case of emergencies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mayor Brian Kelly said crews are doing all they can to keep people safe. Our lifeguards and Sea Bright rescue put out red flags today and will have it out tomorrow to keep people out of the water on the ocean side, and we are warning people on the river side because thats where flooding normally comes from, Kelly said. Despite the dangers, many came out to witness the massive surf. Resident Russell Kidney, an avid surfer, said hes never seen the ocean like this. This is definitely the biggest waves Ive seen. It is just incredible to witness. I am a big surferif the wind wasnt so bad, it would be great. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More Local News Others, like Brice Ouellet, described the rare sight. You never see this much foam on the beach, this many people just looking at the waves, and it is not every day you get to see the waves this big and this rough. But for residents like Lauren, the excitement is mixed with worryespecially after recent drownings this summer. It has been pretty bad this summer, so hopefully everyone listens, she said. Officials are urging beachgoers to take those red flags seriously and stay out of the water until conditions improve. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hurricane Erin continues to affect the Jersey Shore with dangerous surf conditions and the potential for more coastal flooding as the storm tracks away from the East Coast. Residents should continue to exercise extreme caution near beaches and coastal areas due to life-threatening rip currents and elevated water levels even as sunny skies return Friday. Do not let your guard down if youre spending time at the beach on Friday or into this weekend for one of the last unofficial weekends of summer, AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva said. It may seem like a nice beach day with sunshine and blue skies as the storm goes out to sea, but powerful rip currents will be lurking in the water. Hurricane Erin is headed out to sea away from New Jersey, but the threat of coastal flooding will continue on Friday during high tides along with dangerous surf and rip currents through Saturday. Extensive flooding occurred on Thursday night in Jersey Shore towns during high tide, leading to some evacuations and cars stranded in streets. MORE COVERAGE: Coastal flood warnings remain in effect, with widespread minor to moderate coastal flooding anticipated during high tide cycles Friday, particularly this evening. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Minor coastal flooding could extend into the Raritan Bay and Delaware River as well. Hurricane Erin is headed out to sea away from New Jersey, but the threat of coastal flooding will continue on Friday during high tides along with dangerous surf and rip currents through Saturday. A high surf advisory remains in effect Jersey Shore beaches, with waves expected to reach and exceed 8 feet. The National Weather Service warns of a high risk for life-threatening rip currents through Saturday evening. Jersey Shore towns are expected to assess damage and beach erosion from Thursday nights flooding on Friday. The good news is that the wind and rain showers from Hurricane Erin have departed as the storm tracks out to sea. Hurricane Erin is headed out to sea away from New Jersey, but the threat of coastal flooding will continue on Friday during high tides along with dangerous surf and rip currents through Saturday. Friday will feature sunshine and temperatures in the low to mid 80s, with winds around 5 to 10 mph. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The weekend forecast shows increasing humidity and a chance of scattered thunderstorms on Sunday afternoon and evening as a cold front approaches from the west. Temperatures on Saturday and Sunday will remain in the low to mid 80s, with rising humidity levels. Early next week will see continued shower and thunderstorm chances. By Tuesday, cooler and drier air will arrive, with temperatures dropping to the 70s - about 10 degrees below normal for this time of year. The extended forecast suggests a return to high pressure and stable weather by midweek. Residents are advised to stay informed about coastal conditions, avoid swimming in dangerous surf, and be prepared for potential flooding during high tide cycles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The National Weather Service emphasizes that entering the water during these conditions could be life-threatening. Current weather radar Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story, which was reviewed and edited by NJ Advance Media staff. Hurricane Erin drifted away from the U.S. mainland on Thursday afternoon after making its closest approach off the North Carolina coast, but it was still unleashing powerful waves and rip currents, threatening beachfront homes and flooding roads as authorities urged people to stay out of the water. Erin, a large Category 2 hurricane, made a turn to the northeast and was picking up speed as it pulled away. It should gradually weaken to a post-tropical cyclone by Saturday, but not before making an impact on most of the Atlantic coast up to southeastern Canada, forecasters said. By 11 p.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center said Erin was passing between New England and Bermuda. The agency noted that Erin remained a "very large system," and was forecast to move over the western Atlantic through early Friday before passing south of Atlantic Canada on Friday and Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The hurricane center had warned that roads in the low-lying barrier islands would become impassable, with waves of 15 to 20 feet crashing ashore. Major flooding was forecast at more than a half-dozen tidally influenced locations along the mid-Atlantic coast, including at Duck, North Carolina, around the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, and at Lewes, Delaware, as the storm surge from Erin flowed into communities. The National Weather Service said flooding at some of these locations would pose a "significant threat" to property and life, necessitating evacuations. On Chesapeake Bay at the Bay Bridge Tunnel, the tide is forecast to reach 6 feet high, which could cause extensive flooding, presenting a threat to property and life, weather service records show. The severe flooding would extend inland, inundating waterfront and shoreline homes and businesses and requiring some areas to be evacuated. A husband accused of killing his wife then dumping her body in the Angeles National Forest before fleeing the country with their children has been officially charged with murder, paving the way for his arrest and possible extradition back to the United States. Here's what we know so far: What do we know about the investigation? Jossimar Cabrera, 36, who investigators believe fled to Peru after the death of his wife, Sheylla Cabrera, was charged with one count of murder, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. Prosecutors have filed an extradition arrest warrant for Cabrera and a court date is expected to be scheduled. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The remains of 33-year-old Sheylla Cabrera, also known as Sheylla Lisbet Gutierrez Rosillo, were found Saturday by the Montrose Search and Rescue Team, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. What do we know about the death? On Aug. 12, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lancaster Station took a missing persons report on Sheylla, officials said. The next day, authorities found video surveillance of Jossimar Cabrera allegedly dragging a large object from the apartment complex in the 500 block of Lancaster Boulevard, where the couple lived with their three young sons. Officials suspected foul play and homicide investigators began conducting their investigation, according to authorities. The couple's three children were also entered into the missing persons system. On Aug. 16 in the Angeles National Forest, authorities found Sheylla's body wrapped in material that appeared similar to what was seen being dragged in the video, though the department didn't specify what the material was. A cause of death has not yet been established and is being investigated by the L.A. County medical examiners office, authorities said. What about the husband? Jossimar Cabrera allegedly fled the country with the couple's three children, the Sheriff's Department said. On Aug. 16, the children were found safe and taken into protective custody in Peru. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cabrera was detained twice after leaving the country once in Mexico and once in Peru but was released because he hadn't yet been charged with a crime, according to Lt. Michael Modica, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. What else do we know about the couple's background? The Cabreras are originally from Peru and immigrated to the U.S. in search of a better life, according to Peruvian news outlet Latina Noticias. Helga Rocillo, Sheylla Cabreras mother, told the publication that Sheylla is a victim of domestic violence and that Jossimar abused her physically and verbally. Rocillo also said that Jossimar told her that his wife had been taken by U.S. immigration authorities. Rocillo told the outlet that she spoke with her daughter on a video call a few days before she was reported missing. Sheylla told her that she was going to report her husband for domestic violence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "She told me that Jossimar Cabrera Cornejo hit her, mistreated her, and even slapped my youngest grandchild, who is 3 years old," Rocillo said. "I called my daughter, but she didn't answer. I spoke to Jossimar on Sunday, and he told me that immigration had taken my daughter." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. (The Center Square) More than a year before the 2026 general election, Sen. Jon Husted leads former Sen. Sherrod Brown in the race for the last two years of Vice President J.D. Vances U.S. Senate term, according to a new poll released Friday by Emerson College. The poll also shows businessman Vivek Ramaswamy holds a large lead over former Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton in a potential race for governor, and nearly half of Ohioans approve of the job President Donald Trump is doing. The Emerson College poll is the first since Brown announced he would challenge Husted for the seat. It sampled 1,000 active Ohio registered voters by cellphone and has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Husted led Brown 50% to 44%, with 7% undecided. However, Brown carried a 44% favorable view, while Husted had only a 33% favorable view. Husted has a 16-point lead among male voters and voters without a college degree, and a 14-point lead among voters over 40. Brown has a 13-point lead among voters under 40, a three-point lead among women voters, and an eight-point lead among independent voters, Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. The same poll showed Ramaswamy with a 49% to 39% lead over Acton. Those two are currently the only two declared candidates for governor. Former Congressman Tim Ryan, however, could decide to enter the race. Nearly half those polled, 49%, approved of the job Trump is doing, while only 32% approved of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who cannot run for a third term. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ohio voters continue to prioritize the economy, with 44% saying it is their top concern. Threats to democracy ranked second at 15%, followed by affordable housing (10%) and health care (8%). Among voters whose top issue is threats to democracy, 82% think congressional district lines are being drawn to benefit the Republican Party, Kimball said. Also, 41% of those surveyed believe Ohio district lines are drawn to give an advantage to Republicans, and only 23% think the lines are drawn fairly. The childhood home of one of the Victorian era's most famous hymn writers has been badly damaged in an arson attack. Cecil Frances Alexander was born in Dublin and moved to Milltown House, in Strabane, County Tyrone in 1833. Her works include All Things Bright and Beautiful and Once in Royal David's City. The fire at the derelict building happened on Thursday night and police said they are treating it as deliberate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said it deployed eight appliances to the incident from Strabane, Londonderry, Castlederg and Newtownstewart. It was dealt with by 04:40 BST on Friday. Sinn Fein councillor Brian Harte said the damage to the building's roof was extensive. "The roof has gone, it is beyond repair," he said. "This is absolutely devastating, in particular because of the amount of work that been going on in the background over the last year, two years to regenerate the site." Cecil Frances Alexander wrote a number of the world's most noted hymns [BBC] 'Cannot lose heritage' Milltown House is located on a 22-acre site, formerly home to Strabane Grammar School, on the Liskey Road and is owned by the Education Authority (EA). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The site is for sale and Strabane Rugby Club had hoped to make it their new home, with Milltown House its clubhouse. The club's vice chairman Colin Spence told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme discussions about acquiring the site had been ongoing for a number of years. He said the fire was heart-rending. "We cannot lose our heritage and our plan was to being that heritage back through sport and a full community use," he said. "That needs to be protected at all costs." The SDLP MLA, Daniel McCrossan, told BBC Radio Foyle the arson had happened just hours after politicians met council officials to discuss plans for the redevelopment of the site. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Significant progress was made," he said. "In fact, the end line was very near. Unfortunately, at the 11th hour, someone has come on to the site and set fire to a very important piece of Strabane's history." Pat McGuigan, from Strabane history society, said people were in shock. He visited the site on Friday morning and said: "We're looking here at the remnants of what was once a great, great building. "Now, it's just a mess, just a mess, terrible." He said, despite the arson, people in Strabane were determined to restore the childhood home of one of their most famous adopted daughters to its former glory. The EA has been contacted by the BBC. EAST PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) Illinois Central College is reporting another boost in enrollment this fall, marking the schools sixth consecutive semester of growth. As of Aug. 20, more than 8,200 students are enrolled for the fall 2025 semester, representing a 2.5% increase from last year. Students also registered for 2,013 more credit hours than a year ago, reflecting a 3% overall rise. Growth among adult learners and students of color Adult student enrollment saw the biggest jump, climbing 10.5% compared to fall 2024. Enrollment among students of color also grew by 3.4%. ICC leaders said those increases are tied to efforts to expand access and create flexibility for learners, balancing work, family, and school. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The momentum for our growth is really about the way were formatting our classes our online, hybrid, and new eight-week format really appeals to adult learners, said John C. Neidy, Vice President of Student Success at ICC. Weve seen growth in our adult learning as a result, about 10.5%. New programs and community focus Enrollment also grew in career and technical education programs, including new offerings in Information Technology and Electric Vehicle Technology. College officials said these programs are designed to meet employer demand in central Illinois. Neidy added that ICC is working with community-based organizations to reach historically underrepresented students and provide wraparound support services such as child care, tutoring, and family engagement events. Looking ahead College leaders believe flexible scheduling will remain a driving force behind the growth. ICC plans to convert to a largely eight-week course format in fall 2026, giving students even more opportunities to complete programs on a timeline that fits their lives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Enrollment success also extends beyond traditional classrooms. This summer, ICC served nearly 900 students through corporate and community education courses, along with workforce training programs that provide short-term certifications and pathways to long-term degrees. Enrollment numbers are really important, but its not just about getting students in the door, Neidy said. Its about what happens after they leave us graduating, getting a certificate, and moving into jobs or further education where they feel successful. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CIProud.com. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the brother of Harjinder Singh, the illegal immigrant who allegedly killed three people on Floridas Turnpike in St. Lucie County while using a median cut prescribed for emergency vehicles to illicitly make a U-turn. On Friday, ICE confirmed it had arrested Singhs brother, Harneet Singh, 25, who was a passenger in Harjinders rig at the time of the crash. Officials said he is also in the U.S. illegally and was first detained on Monday. Harjinder Singh later fled to California, where Lt. Gov. Jay Collins traveled to oversee his extradition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Three innocent people were killed in Florida because Gavin Newsoms California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an illegal alien a Commercial Drivers License this state of governance is asinine," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Desantis: State Line Won't Protect Criminal Illegals; Sends 'Chuck Norris' Deputy To Nab Fugitive Trucker Harjinder Singh, 28, was arrested after allegedly making an unauthorized U-turn in Florida last week that resulted in a crash that left three people dead, officials said. "How many more innocent people must die before Gavin Newsom stops playing games with the safety of the American public?" McLaughlin said. Read On The Fox News App "We pray for the victims and their families. Secretary Noem and DHS are working around the clock to protect the public and get these criminal illegal aliens out of America." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Newsoms office has strongly rejected any claims of culpability in the Singhs incident, claiming it was Florida who "let a murder suspect walk." "California police had to step in and arrest him, and now Floridas new LG is staging a photo op to pick him up," Newsoms office said in a statement. Illegal Trucker Deported Himself To Ca,' Lawmaker Says, While Revealing Systemic Crisis In Transportation Harjinder Singh, who was originally denied a work permit by the first Trump administration, has since been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide. In comments to Fox News Digital, Newsom spokeswoman Diana Crofts-Pelayo defended the governor after Collins expressed sentiments similar to McLaughlin on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "So, lets get this straight: Florida let a murder suspect walk, California police had to step in and arrest him and now Floridas new LG is staging a photo op to pick him up?" Crofts-Pelayo told Fox News Digital. Harjinder Singhs reported English illiteracy was also raised as a concern by authorities after reports surfaced he only answered three of 12 verbal questions on his driver test and could only identify one street sign of four displayed. Original article source: ICE arrests brother of illegal immigrant trucker in deadly Florida Turnpike wreck Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons vowed to "flood" Boston with agents after Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu doubled down on her pledge to uphold the city's sanctuary policies and resist the Trump administrations crackdown on illegal immigration. Speaking on the local radio program "The Howie Carr Show," Lyons responded to Wu by saying, "Now youre going to see more ICE agents come to Boston to make sure that we take these public safety threats out that she wants to let go back into the communities." He pointed to the Trump administrations "Operation Patriot," which sent federal agents into the Boston area in March and yielded over a thousand arrests. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We are going to keep doing it in Boston," Lyons said. "Were going to continue to do our mission. Were going to keep making Boston safe as shes failing to do with these sanctuary city policies." Largest Ever Ice Operation Results In Nearly 1,500 Illegals Arrested In Blue State Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, has previously faced criticism for comments she made about ICE agents. Pressed on whether ICE will surge agents to the Boston area, similar to how agents are in Washington, D.C., Lyons responded, "One hundred percent you will see a larger ICE presence." Read On The Fox News App "Were definitely going to, as youve heard the saying, flood the zone, especially in sanctuary jurisdictions," he added. "And, obviously, Boston and Massachusetts decided that they wanted to stay sanctuaries, and sanctuary does not mean safer streets. It means more criminal aliens out and about in neighborhoods." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lyons pointed out that, during Operation Patriot, ICE pursued "targeted enforcement operations" of criminal aliens released by the City of Boston and Massachusetts. Operation Patriot resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,500 illegal immigrants, including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and child sex predators. Sources at ICE told Fox News that 790 of those arrested had criminal convictions or charges, and 277 had final removal or deportation orders. The sources said that all the targeted criminals were roaming the streets of Massachusetts cities freely before being apprehended. Bike-riding Youths Terrorize Dem-run City As Mobs Swarm Roads, While Mayor Stays Silent On Chaos Alleged illegal immigrants are arrested in Boston during an immigration enforcement operation. The operation ran throughout May and involved ICE teams from other states in the Northeast, as well as authorities from the FBI, DEA and ATF. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Speaking on Wednesday, Lyons said, "Theres so many of these criminal aliens that keep getting released to go out and commit more crimes that local law enforcement have to deal with, and we can take that, you know, violent criminal illegal alien instantly out of the neighborhood." This follows U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi setting a deadline of Tuesday for sanctuary jurisdictions to drop their policies that block cooperation with federal authorities. Speaking on Fox Business, Bondi said she sent letters to 32 mayors and seven governors "telling them you better comply or youre next." Bondi highlighted a letter she sent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom in which she warned that "individuals operating under the color of law, using their official position to obstruct federal immigration enforcement efforts and facilitating or inducing illegal immigration may be subject to criminal charges." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sanctuary Cities Defy Bondis Deadline To Cooperate: No Intention Of Changing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a news conference at DEA headquarters July 15, 2025, in Arlington, Va. The letter, shared on social media, said cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including on immigration enforcement, "is vital to enforce federal law and protect national security." Wu publicly rejected Bondis demands during a press conference, calling the ultimatum a political stunt. "Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration's failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law," Wu said Tuesday. "This is our city. This is our country, and I'm so proud and grateful to show the world who our community is here in Boston and what we're made of." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In response to Lyons' comments, Wu's office shared a statement from the mayor who was answering another reporter's question. Wu reiterated, "In Boston, we comply and follow all of the laws, city, state and federal. And we will not back down from communities that have made us the safest major city in the country. "This is a beautiful, diverse, incredible city, and I have said it now very directly this administration needs to stop attacking cities to hide their own failures." Original article source: ICE chief vows to flood Boston with agents after Dem mayor pledges to resist U.S. immigration agents have detained a former interior minister from Ecuador living in South Florida as he faces allegations of being involved in the murder of a presidential candidate. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Jose Ricardo Serrano Salgado on Aug. 7 when he left his home in Miami to get the mail. Serrano Salgado is currently being held at the Krome Detention Center near Miami, his friends and family told the Miami Herald. On Monday, the same day Serrano Salgado had an immigration hearing at Krome, the Ecuadorian Attorney Generals Office requested that he, along with other Ecuadorian politicians, face charges of being the masterminds in the 2023 murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Serrano Salgado had released a statement on X on June 25 denouncing a setup to incriminate him in the Villavicencio murder. #COMUNICADO | #FiscaliaEc solicita al Juez de la causa se convoque a Ronny Xavier A. S., Xavier Edmundo J. M., Daniel Josue S. B. y Jose Ricardo S. S. a la audiencia de formulacion de cargos como presuntos autores intelectuales del #Asesinato en el caso #MagnicidioFV. pic.twitter.com/6h89TFmwBH Fiscalia Ecuador (@FiscaliaEcuador) August 18, 2025 Serrano Salgado, who served as interior minister from 2011-16, asserted that he does not oversee Ecuadors prison system or the police department. Instead, he said, he had fought against criminal gangs, including Ecuadorian drug-traffickers Los Lobos. He said that was the reason he had sought political asylum in the United States. However, experts on Ecuador say he continues to wield influence within the countrys intelligence system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Serrano Salgado, 54, entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in May 2021 and applied for political asylum that October. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, his case remains pending, awaiting an in-person interview. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment, saying that due to operational security the agency had nothing to share at this time. Serrano Salgados oldest child, Veronica Serrano, told the Herald he had sought asylum in the U.S. because he was in fear for his life in Ecuador. His brother, the photojournalist Juan Antonio Serrano, was killed in 2012. She said that her uncles murder had been in retaliation for her fathers work fighting the drug cartels. If my father steps foot in Ecuador, he will be murdered, his daugher said. She added her family doesnt trust the justice system in Ecuador, which she said is controlled by President Daniel Noboas. Serrano Salgados next hearing in Krome is scheduled for Aug. 25, while his asylum case will be heard on Sept. 11. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Serrano Salgado has served several roles in the Ecuadorian government, including as. minister of justice and labor as well as interior minister in the administration of Socialist President Rafael Correa. He also spent four years in the National Assembly of Ecuador and served as its president. During his stint as interior minister, Serrano Salgado met with American officials from the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration about how to combat organized crime and drug trafficking in Ecuador. In 2016, the DEA honored him in recognition of Ecuadors drug-interdiction efforts. Veronica Serrano described her father as a tireless fighter who came from a long line of lawyers who advocated for human rights and social justice. She said her father was among the few who dared to denounce the current governments links to drug cartel trafficking in Ecuador, and said that her father would not have a fair and independent process in her home country if returned to face charges. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Ecuador in July and met with Noboa to discuss regional security issues, international law enforcement cooperation and restricting irregular immigration. Noem and Interior Minister John Reimberg signed an agreement on Aug. 1 that established a law enforcement exchange program between the U.S. and Ecuador. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Diego Vallejo Cevallos, a former advisor to Ecuadors national secretary of management transparency who worked directly under Serrano Salgado, sent a letter to Noem on Aug. 11 requesting an investigation into what he described as political corruption involving Serrano Salgado and his connections during Correas administration. I witnessed many cases of political corruption that occurred during former President Rafael Correas government, so I dedicated myself to documenting them and filing complaints with various branches of the Ecuadorian justice system, Vallejo Cevallos wrote. These complaints led government authorities, under the leadership of Dr. Jose Ricardo Serrano Salgado, to collude in planting false evidence against me and imprisoning me. Their plan succeeded, and I was detained for approximately two years. Vallejo Cevalloss letter concluded with a request for prompt measures to address the allegations brought against Serrano Salgado. Although Serrano Salgado does not have any active arrest warrants in Ecuador and would not face immediate detention if he were returned home, he has been named in several ongoing investigations by the Attorney Generals Office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The investigations involve allegations of forced financial contributions from interior ministry staff, possible involvement in the 2023 kidnapping of political activist Fernando Balda, the attempted murder of attorney Luigi Garcia, alleged disclosure of confidential information, a bribery and influence-peddling complaint connected to the U.S. trial of former comptroller Carlos Polit, and a 2025 investigation into his possible role in the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot to death after a campaign rally in Aug. 2023. Most of those cases remain in preliminary stages without formal charges, according to local media in Ecuador. Howden has appointed Chris Hughes as the CEO of its broking operations in New Zealand, replacing Nigel Wallace. Hughes will join the company in November and report directly to Howden Pacific CEO Matt Bacon. Hughes' insurance career spans more than 30 years. His previous tenure at IAG/NZI saw him occupy multiple senior positions including executive manager complex & specialist risks, and executive manager broker & specialist claims. He oversaw profit and loss, distribution and sales strategy, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise] distribution and personal lines, while also handling market relationships. Before his role at IAG/NZI, Hughes was part of Rothbury Insurance Brokers for 17 years, where he ultimately held the title of executive general manager, Broking Services and Business Operations. Meanwhile, Wallace will become chair of Howden's New Zealand broking business, having joined the company after Howden acquired Wallace McLean in 2022. Bacon said: We are beyond thrilled to have Chris join Howden, bringing with him superb skills and experience to impart to the business. We have taken our time to find the right person for this role, and we believe that Chris will provide the leadership Howden needs to continue its growth strategy in New Zealand and the Pacific region. This appointment also allows Nigel to step into the role of chair, so that the business can continue to benefit from his valuable wisdom and guidance. I want to personally thank Nigel for his leadership and support since taking the CEO role, which oversaw significant growth for Howden in New Zealand. Earlier this month, Howden appointed Mike Parrish as the CEO of Howden US, where he is tasked with establishing a retail broking business in the US, and Jim Hays as vice-chairman of Howden Group Holdings. "Howden names new CEO for New Zealand broking business " was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) The Cowley County attorney said two men have been charged with kidnapping a woman from a casino in Oklahoma and driving to Kansas with her. It happened early Sunday morning, according to the Arkansas City Police Department. The woman told officers that she had been taken against her will from the First Council Casino and that both had sexually assaulted her while driving to Arkansas City. Police initially booked Luis Miguel Dominguez, 35, of Arkansas City, on suspicion of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and kidnapping, and Jose Fernando-Lux Morales, 24, of Arkansas City, was booked on suspicion of aggravated kidnapping. Court documents show both men have been charged with one count of kidnapping. The two are due back in court on Sept. 2. Teen suffers head injury after leaping from moving car at Wichita school Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cowley County Attorney Larry Schwartz told KSN News that the investigation is ongoing and involves tribal law enforcement and investigators in both Oklahoma and Kansas. He said charging both men with one count of kidnapping would allow them to detain the men while they continue the investigation. The Department of Homeland Security announced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued arrest detainers for both men. A press release said both had illegally crossed the border from Guatemala, Lux Morales, allegedly as an unaccompanied minor in 2018, and Dominguez, in 2013, and that Dominguez has previous criminal cases. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news by downloading our mobile app and signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track 3 Weather app by clicking here. To watch our shows live on our website, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A New Orleans-inspired bar in San Antonios River Walk district is closing its doors after 22 years. The owner of Pat OBriens San Antonio, Cory Neal, announced the closure in a heartfelt post on the bars Facebook page. Pat OBriens has been a place where locals and visitors alike came to create memories, celebrate milestones, and 'Have Fun!'" In a Facebook post, Neal cited post-COVID era challenges, construction surrounding the Alamo, fluctuating tourism and conventions and the rising costs of doing businesses as the reason for closing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The original Pat OBriens opened in New Orleans in 1933 as a speakeasy during prohibition, according to the bars website. After prohibition was repealed, OBrien expanded the space to include live music and created the Hurricane - the classic passion fruit rum cocktail served in a glass shaped like a hurricane lamp. Pat OBriens later expanded into other cities, including San Antonio in 2002. Neal said his San Antonio bar wasnt just a business . . . it was a family and he went on to thank the staff who had been with him, some since the beginning. The last day of service for Pat OBriens in San Antonio is August 31st. Neal has asked everyone whos ever laughed, danced, or sipped on our historic hurricane under our roof to join us in one final toast. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To our beloved community: thank you for letting us be part of your stories. Pat OBriens San Antonio may be closing its doors, but the memories weve made together will live on-forever etched in the heart of downtown. Read the original article on Southern Living Moscow police have released heavily redacted bodycam video from the initial response to the University of Idaho student murders crime scene at 1122 King Road. Victim Madison Mogen's mother sought to block the release of crime scene images and video in court, and the parents of fellow victim Ethan Chapin both sent declarations to the judge in support of her motion for a temporary restraining order. A hearing originally scheduled for Thursday was postponed until next week. Around noon on Nov. 13, 2022, police arrived to find horror inside an off-campus house rented by a group of undergrads. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Responding officers quickly swept the house and found four victims dead. The victims' remains and even glimpses into the rooms where they were found were all redacted in the nearly hour-long video first obtained by Law & Crime. Moscow Police Chief Challenges Claims Bryan Kohberger Mentioned Kaylee Goncalves By Name During Attack Faces of surviving witnesses and non-police first responders were blurred. Read On The Fox News App Dylan Mortensen, a surviving roommate who came face-to-face with killer Bryan Kohberger before he left out a rear sliding door, was one of the first to speak with police after they secured the crime scene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her story changed over time. In an apparent state of shock and wearing a T-shirt and no shoes outside in the November cold, she said she heard a scream from roommate Kaylee Goncalves, 21, who she said then ran down the stairs. Court Blocks Idaho Police From Releasing More Murder Victim Bedroom Footage And Materials Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and two other housemates in Goncalves' final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. "I kept calling her name, and she wouldn't answer," she said, her voice breaking into tears. "And then I saw the guy." Goncalves likely never made it to those stairs. She was killed in her sleep in an upstairs bedroom next to her best friend, Madison Mogen, also 21. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The victims were Goncalves, Mogen, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. Kernodle suffered extensive defensive wounds in the attack and was likely the person Mortensen heard struggling against Kohberger. Idaho Murder Documents Reveal Victim's Stalking Fears And Kohberger's 'Inappropriate Behavior' At School Bryan Kohberger appears at the Ada County Courthouse for his sentencing hearing July 23, 2025, in Boise, Idaho, for brutally stabbing four University of Idaho students to death nearly three years ago. "I heard someone in the bathroom, and I heard her crying, and I heard some guy saying that 'You're gonna be OK. I'm gonna help you,'" she said. "And I kept calling her name, but she wasn't answering." Then she described Kohberger. "I saw this guy, and he was not insanely tall, but he was wearing all black and, like, this mask, which was covering his forehead and his mouth," she said. A watchman parked outside 1122 King Road Dec. 11, 2022, four weeks after four students were stabbed to death inside. She described him as a little bit taller than she is, and he didn't say anything before she believed he left out the sliding door. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She later added that when she heard the male voice say he was going to help, "It wasn't in a nice way." "It was like a weird way, like a weird tone," she said. Officers were audibly shocked by what they saw inside. Kohberger pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to four consecutive life prison terms with no possibility of parole, plus another 10 years. Original article source: Idaho murders bodycam footage shows surviving roommate's chilling account Originally appeared on E! Online New horrifying details of the Idaho murder case have been released to the public. Nearly a month after Bryan Kohberger was given four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle at their off-campus University of Idaho home, police body camera footage of the crime scene has been released. On Aug. 21, Law & Crime posted footage from the Moscow Police Department, following the first responder arriving at the Moscow residence on November 13, 2022. Upon the officers arrival, he approaches a group of young women and men, whose faces have been blurred outits unclear whether police or the outlet blurred the facesbefore one man from the group guides him into the house to the crime scene, which has been redacted from the footage other than the doorways leading into each room. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Up here, up here, the young man tells the officer, before detailing that he wasnt sure if the victims were still breathing. More from E! Online Surveying the scene, the officer tells the man to stay back there, please, and delivers an expletive before walking back out into the houses living room where another officer is ascending the stairs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Slow down, the first officer tells the other. Theres twolooks like fatalities. After guiding the arriving officer to the scene, where more expletives are said, the officer walks back out of the house and tells the group of young people outside, Nobody is allowed to leave, for now. The footage goes on to show the officer grabbing crime scene tape from his patrol car and telling the young people to go to the other side of the homes driveway. The two officers then go through the house, searching each room. Upon coming up to the homes sliding glass door in the kitchen, which appears to be ajar, an officer is heard saying another expletive before heading up the stairs to find the third and fourth fatalities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities previously confirmed Kohberger entered the home through the sliding glass door, and the newly-released bodycam footage shows it is in between where Kernodle and Chapin were found on the homes second floor, and where Goncalves and Mogen were found on the third floor, according to floorplans released in 2022. Monroe County Correctional Facility via Getty Images Dylan Mortensen, a surviving roommate who lived in a bedroom on the second floor just off the homes kitchen, previously gave police a detailed account of encountering Kohberger on the night of the killings. She peeked out of her bedroom, Moscow Police officer Mitch Nunes wrote in a report released July 23, "and observed a male described as approximately 6-feet tall, slim build, with a black ski mask leave the second-floor patio area. Elsewhere in the newly released body camera footage, an unidentified womanwho says she was a resident of the homeechoes Mortensens previously shared description, saying she came face-to-face with an unrecognizable man in the residence and tearfully gives her account of the event. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At Kohbergers sentencing, Mortensen shared how horrific the night was for her. As she said, What he did shattered me in places I didnt know could break. Who Were Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle? Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, were University of Idaho students who lived in an off-campus apartment. On Nov. 12, 2022the night before their bodies were foundGoncalves and Mogen were at a nearby sports bar, while Kernodle and Chapin were at the latters fraternity party. By 2 a.m. on Nov. 13, the four roommates and Chapin were back at the three-story rental house. Goncalves was a senior majoring in general studies at the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. She was expected to graduate in December before heading to Austin, Texas, for a job at a marketing firm, her friend Jordyn Quesnell told The New York Times. Mogen, who was studying marketing, was best friends with Goncalves since the sixth grade. She had plans to move to Boise after graduation, family friend Jessie Frost shared with The Idaho Statesman. Kernodle was a junior majoring in marketing, the University said at the time. She and Chapinwho majored in recreation, sport and tourism managementhad been dating since the spring, the roommates neighbor Ellie McKnight told NBC News. Were There Any Survivors? Two roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, had been home at the time of the murders. In text messages that were unsealed March 6, 2025, Mortensen and Funke tried contacting their roommates on Nov. 13 after the former saw a masked man moving through the house, according to documents obtained by E! News. "No one is answering," Mortensen texted Funke at 4:22 a.m. "I'm rlly confused rn." She continued to reach out to their roommates, urging them to respond. "Pls answer," she texted Goncalves at 4:32 a.m. and again at 10:23 a.m. "R u up??" At 11:58 a.m., a 911 call was placed after Kernodle was found unresponsive, per an additional motion obtained by E! News. A woman named A1 in the transcript described the current situation to the operator. "One of the roommates who's passed out and she was drunk last night and she's not waking up," she said on the phone. "They saw some man in their house last night." Who Is Bryan Kohberger and How Was He Found? Bryan Kohberger, who was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, was a doctoral candidate at Washington State University. Over one month after the bodies of Gonclaves, Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin were discovered, Kohberger was taken into custody Dec. 30 in Monroe County, Penn. He was extradited to Idaho Jan. 4, 2023. As for how authorities connected him to the killings? DNA was found on a knife sheath that was left at the crime scene, prosecutors revealed in June 2023 court documents, per NBC News. When the DNA didn't match anyone in the FBI database, authorities ran the DNA through public ancestry websites to create a list of potential suspects, according to the filings. After learning that Kohberger had driven to his parents' home in Monroe County, local officials then went through their trash and found DNA that tied him to that found on the sheath. What Was Kohbergers Initial Defense? At the moment, a motive for the attack has not been detailed and a gag order prevents many involved in the case from speaking publicly, NBC News reported. However, the unsealed documents provided some insight into their initial arguments. Kohberger's attorneys argued in a motion obtained by E! News to strike the death penalty that Kohbergerwho initially faced death penalty if found guilty on all countshas autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment." His defense argued that Kohbereger "displays extremely rigid thinking, perseverates on specific topics, processes information on a piecemeal basis, struggles to plan ahead, and demonstrates little insight into his own behaviors and emotions." "Due to his ASD, Mr. Kohberger simply cannot comport himself in a manner that aligns with societal expectations of normalcy," the motion said. "This creates an unconscionable risk that he will be executed because of his disability rather than his culpability." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Where Was the Trial Set? Initially, Kohberger had a judge enter a not-guilty plea to the first-degree murder charges on his behalf after remaining silent at his May 2023 arraignment. Although his trial was set to begin Oct. 2, 2023, Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial in August 2023. His trial datewhich was scheduled to take place in Ada County, more than 300 miles from Latah County, where the killings took placewas set to begin Aug. 11, 2025. Latah County Judge John Judge previously ruled in favor of the transfer request made by Kohberger's defense in September 2024 based on "presumed prejudice" if the trial remained in Latah County. Ada County Judge Steven Hippler denied the defense's request to suppress key DNA and other evidence, including cell phone and email records, surveillance footage, past Amazon purchases and DNA evidence in the trial. What Was the Verdict in the Trial? Kohberger's murder trial was abruptly canceled after he took a plea deal from prosecutors on June 30, 2025. In accepting the deal, Kohberger agreed to plead guilty to four counts of murder and one count of burglary, as well as waive his rights to appeal and ask for a more lenient prison sentence. He entered his guilty plea on July 2, 2025, confirming with a "yes" after the judge asked if he killed all four victims "willingly, unlawfully, deliberately and with premeditation and malice with forethought." Did Kohberger Take a Selfie After the Murders? A selfie Kohberger took the morning after the murders took place was introduced in March 2025. The photograph, which sees him in front of a shower showing a thumbs up, displays how he may fit the description a witness identified as "D.M." gave in filings, who said the perpetrator had "bushy eyebrows." Steve Gonclaves, the father of victim Kaylee, later reacted to the image calling it a "trophy" in an interview with Fox and Friends. "I know the timeline, I know that he had just returned to the crime scene and he had come back," Gonclaves said. "He had realized that nobody had called 911." As he put it, "To him, thats his little trophy to let him know like, Hey, I got away with it, nobodys on me. What Did Kohberger Google Before the Murders? In a 2025 Dateline documentary about the murders, a former classmate of Kohbergers detailed a peculiar text she received from him after making his acquaintance at a party. I definitely felt a little obligated to chat with him, because to me, he seemed a little awkward, the studentidentified as Hollyexplained. Kind of like you might expect for a PhD student who didn't know anyone at the party and was maybe trying his best to kind of get out there and be social and make friends. The following day, Holly said she received a text from him, which she described as overly formal. Hey, I am pretty sure we spoke about hiking trips yesterday, Bryans text from July 10, 2022 at 1:19 p.m., read, per Dateline. I really enjoy that activity, so please let me know. Thanks! Elsewhere in the Dateline documentary, Kohbergers browsing history was found to have included searches for Ted Bundy, Britney Spears song Criminal, and the term University of Idaho Murders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Did Kohberger Confess to Killing Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle? After accepting a plea deal that would spare him from the death penalty, Kohberger changed his plea to guilty in the murders of Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin, as well as one count of burglary, at a July 2, 2025 hearing in Idaho. When judge Hippler questioned Kohberger if he killed each victim "willingly, unlawfully, deliberately and with premeditation and malice with forethought," he replied with a firm, "Yes" for each. In taking the plea deal, Kohberger has waived his right to appeal or ask for a more lenient prison sentence, according to Hippler. How Long Is Kohberger's Prison Sentence? Though the families of Goncalves and Kernodle each slammed the decision to issue a plea deal, therby taking the death penalty off the table, Kohberger was officially sentenced to life in prison July 23, 2025. Judge Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four life termsto be served consecutivelywithout the possibility of parole for each count of first-degree murder, along with a $50,000 fine for each count and a $5,000 civil penalty to be paid to each of the victims' families. He also gave Kohberger 10 years and imposed a fine of $50,000 on the burglary count. For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App Bryan Kohbergers stabbing spree may have lasted just a few minutes and one of his victims was wide awake when she died, Idaho State Police believe. According to documents obtained by People on Friday, August 22, authorities used video footage from nearby homes to piece together his route in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, before and after he brutally murdered Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Madison Mogen, 21. Kohberger parked behind the 1122 King Road home in Moscow, Idaho, at about 4:07 a.m., the documents reveal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After entering through the sliding glass door on the second floor, he went upstairs, People reported, and found Goncalves and Mogen sleeping in bed together. As previously revealed, Mogen and Goncalves were both stabbed in the lung and liver. Goncalves died instantly, the newly unsealed documents reveal, while Mogen may have been alive when he left the room. Investigators believe Chapin, who was asleep in Kernodles second-floor room, was the third victim. His fatal injury was from a stab wound under his left clavicle which severed his subclavian vein and subclavian artery, and also his jugular vein was severed, according to the coroners report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He would have had no chance to help Kernodle, who investigators believe was the only victim who was awake at the time of the attack. Kernodle was initially attacked just inside the bedroom near the entrance, according to the report. Kernodle, who suffered more than 50 mostly defensive wounds, fought the suspect in the bedroom area and was ultimately killed on the floor of the bedroom next to the bed, the documents state. At around 4:18 a.m., a woman can be heard screaming and then whimpering in recently released video from a neighbors security camera. Kohberger then walked back out the sliding glass door and returned to his car shortly after 4:20 a.m., according to the documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In chilling bodycam footage obtained by Law & Crime on Friday, August 22, officers walk through the house hours after the crimes. Oh man, one officer says in the video, upon seeing the bodies. Kohberger is currently serving four consecutive life sentences at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. The UNIFIL peacekeeper, Irish national Private Sean Rooney, was killed in December 2022 while traveling to Beirut in an armored UN vehicle. A senior Lebanese army officer allegedly collaborated with Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah to conceal the terror groups killing of a UNIFIL soldier, the IDF revealed on Friday. Suheil Gharb is the head of the military intelligence branch in southern Lebanon. He worked to disrupt the Lebanese Army's internal investigation of the incident and prevent the prosecution of Hezbollah members involved, the military said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gharb was found to have disclosed intelligence to Hezbollah in January, including the Lebanese Army's intentions to carry out raids that could harm Hezbollah's activities, according to the think tank Alma Research and Education Center. The UNIFIL peacekeeper, Irish national Private Sean Rooney, was killed in Al-Aqbiya in December 2022 while traveling to Beirut in an armored UN vehicle. Three others were wounded in the incident, according to the BBC. Suheil Gharb. (credit: SCREENSHOT/X/VIA SECTION 27A OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT) A military tribunal in July 2025, in Beirut, sentenced the main defendant, Mohammad Ayyad, to death in absentia, and six other Hezbollah terrorists were convicted for involvement in the murder. Ayyad had been briefly detained in connection with the case and then released. He could not be reached for comment at the time, Reuters reported, citing a security source. Rooney's mother sues UN One man was sentenced to three months in prison, and four others were ordered to pay fines ranging from about $1,100 to $2,200, Reuters said, citing two judicial sources. A seventh man was acquitted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sentencing was carried out after Rooneys mother, Natasha, won the right to sue the UN over her sons death in June, The Jerusalem Post previously reported. She claimed that rather than send support to rescue her son, UN officials ordered soldiers at a nearby base to stand down rather than rescue the group. The officials were said to have believed closer peacekeepers would respond to the group under fire. Irelands Prime Minister Michael Martin, at the time, commented, Many will feel the sentences passed down on the other defendants are far too lenient. Peacekeeping is the most noble cause of all, and the role of the peacekeeper must at all times be honored and respected." Gharb is one of several Lebanese Army officials who have been found to be collaborating with Hezbollah. Amid Maher Raad was reportedly dismissed from his post as head of the Dahieh Security Office in the army's intelligence directorate, according to Alma, for his involvement in a weapons and drugs smuggling network in Beirut, operated in collaboration with senior Hezbollah operatives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Raad is related to senior Hezbollah lawmaker Mohammed Raad, who leads the political wing titled Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc in the Lebanese parliament. Efforts to disarm Lebanese non-state actors This revelation comes following the state's agreements with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to crack down on weapons held by non-state actors in the country, including Hezbollah. Lebanon committed to restricting arms to six specific state security forces as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel struck in November and backed by the United States. The cabinet tasked the army with drawing up a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year. Lebanon said on Thursday it was launching the planned disarmament of Palestinian factions in refugee camps. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The initiative to disarm Palestinian factions is part of an agreement reached during a May 21 summit between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which affirmed Lebanon's sovereignty and the principle that only the state should bear arms. Palestinian factions have long operated with relative autonomy in several of Lebanon's 12 refugee camps, which fall largely outside the jurisdiction of the Lebanese state. The latest handover represents the most serious bid in years to address weapons held inside the camps. Danielle Greyman-Kennard and Reuters contributed to this report. PITTSBURGH, Pa. (WTAJ) An illegal immigrant who has already been deported will be deported again after being found living in Bedford County. Domingo Gonzalez Perez, 43, a citizen of Guatemala, pleaded guilty in federal court to illegal reentry of a removed alien. He was sentenced to 60 days in prison, and then hell be removed from the United States, Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced. United States District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan imposed the sentence August 20. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the information presented, Perez attempted to enter or has entered the U.S. illegally on four occasions. Most recently, Perez has been illegally in the U.S. since at least October 2024. Rivetti said that Perez was arrested Oct. 9, 2024, by local police for a domestic assault. In April, while the domestic case was pending, Perez had a federal arrest warrant and was ultimately arrested by Pennsylvania State Police in Bedford County for driving under the influence and evading arrest. Perez has been in custody since April and will be handed over to immigration after serving his 60 days and will be deported. Stay up to date with the latest news in the palm of your hand. Click here to download the WTAJ app for Apple and Android devices. Assistant United States Attorney V. Joseph Sonson prosecuted this case on behalf of the government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Perezs case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative to achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, combat illegal immigration, and protect communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ANAHEIM, Calif. (WCIA) Therapy K-9s and their handlers from Illinois were among those who attended an international conference in California earlier this month. During a presentation, they highlighted the usefulness of therapy K-9s, pointing to a recent tragedy where K-9s were used to help support the affected community. The delegation from Illinois included Jennifer Wooldridge, Coordinator of the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (ILETSB) State Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), Chief Legal Counsel John Keigher, regional coordinators, three K-9s Trooper, Zilly and Chase and their handlers. During a presentation, they detailed how Illinois launched a specialized certification program for CIT officers and co-responders who use therapy dogs. Illinois Supreme Court, Chief Justice to receive national leadership award Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The program was officially approved earlier on Aug. 8 with a law signed by Governor JB Pritzker. This is a significant moment for communities across Illinois, Woolridge said in a news release. Now more than ever, our communities need this support. The ability for people to express their grief and relieve their stress in the presence of these wonderful K-9s is truly impactful. The new certification program will provide a vital framework for effective regional aid during crises, Keigher added. This systematic approach ensures that our therapy K-9 teams are not only exceptionally trained but also readily available to support communities and first responders across Illinois. One program already in existence is the one Trooper came from: the Tails of Redemption program established by the Cook County Sheriffs Office. It enlists people already in custody to provide basic obedience training to rescue dogs who eventually become therapy dogs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pritzker signs bill to protect freedom of press, Illinois journalists This not only aids in the rehabilitation of people in custody, but prepares the dogs for their future roles. The role therapy K-9s can play in helping people was on display earlier this summer following the tragedy at the YNOT Outdoors After School camp in Chatham. Trooper, Zilly and Chase were all there to provide comfort to impacted children, community members, and first responders. Providing public safety is more than answering emergency calls, it is also comforting our communities during a crisis, said Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart. I am especially proud of Tails of Redemptions role in helping our local law enforcement agencies support the residents they serve. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several other state affiliates also voiced their interest in Illinois programs, particularly therapy K-9 certification, and requested information on how to implement similar initiatives for their own states. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Lithuania shared new plans for border defenses that are designed to thwart a Russian attack. It includes anti-tank measures like dragon's teeth and ditches, and bridges designed to detonate. Lithuania would be on the front line of a NATO-Russia war. Front-line NATO ally Lithuania shares a border with Russia. At risk, the country has plans for a fortified border aimed at severely hindering a potential Russian assault. New images shared last week by Lithuania's Ministry of National Defence show a defense in depth, around 30 miles of defenses meant to slow an invading army. The 30-mile border defenses include ditches and bridges that are prepared for demolition. X/Lithuanian MOD The ministry told Business Insider that the plan "involves sophisticated layered defence systems at different distances from the border," with the "most intensive" measures being within the first three miles. This area will feature border control points, anti-tank ditches, dragon's teeth to stop tanks, minefields, and fortified strongpoints with trenches. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This image, shared by the defense ministry, shows plans for the first three miles. The first three miles of the new defenses include anti-tank measures like ditches and dragon's teeth. X/Lithuanian MOD The first 12 miles include additional obstacles, such as drainage ditches, bridges prepared for demolition, blocked bridgeheads, and secondary defensive positions, and the zone up to 30 miles out includes roadside trees prepared for felling and "additional infrastructure preparations." The ministry said that "substantial work is already underway," including sections of dragon's teeth and road blocks. These types of defenses have seen effective use in Ukraine, with Russia's layered defenses hindering Ukraine's summer 2023 counteroffensive, preventing it from leveraging Western armor packages for mechanized breakthroughs. Lithuania said the timeline for the border defense project is 10 years, with two distinct phases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ahead of 2028, the focus is on developing and building measures that would stop a Russian advance. Then, the ministry explained, "from 2029 onwards begins the long-term maintenance, system modernisation and development phase." Lithuania is allocating more than $1.2 billion over the next ten years on measures that would stop a Russian invasion force, the ministry said, "with a significant portion of funding expected to come from EU programmes." Preparing for Russia Lithuania is one of the European countries warning the loudest that Russia might seek to attack NATO after Ukraine. Its defense spending and related agreements with allies have soared as a result. German Patriot air defenses are among the equipment and help that NATO allies are giving to Lithuania and the other members bordering Russia. JANIS LAIZANS/REUTERS Many countries in Europe are concerned. But for Lithuania, as well as its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia, those warnings have been much more urgent given their position. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lithuania's defense ministry told Business Insider that the new images reflect fortification efforts that will "build directly" on other border defense projects that are already underway, like the Baltic Defence Line with Latvia and Estonia. That defensive agreement involves the three Baltic countries coming together to build stronger defenses, including bunkers, along their collective borders with Russia and Belarus, which altogether stretch around 1,000 miles. The ministry said that the new effort will also work with Poland on its East Shield project: the protective border it is building along its border with Russia and Belarus that includes minefields and concrete barriers. Tetrapods set up near Poland's border with Belarus are among the defenses that Poland is building. Ints Kalnins/REUTERS Lithuania's defense ministry said that the new border defense efforts connect to the existing ones while also ensuring resources are employed effectively and measures aren't duplicated. Lithuania is acting Warnings from Lithuania and its neighbors that Russia is a threat came even before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They had spent years warning other Western countries that Russia was a threat and that it could attack another European country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, former CIA director David Petraeus identified Lithuania as the country he believed was most at risk of a Russian invasion. Lithuania is one of the biggest defense spenders in NATO as a proportion of its GDP and is also one of Ukraine's biggest supporters by the same measure, seeing Ukraine as a longtime partner that is now helping Europe by holding Russia back. It was also one of the first countries to commit to bringing defense spending to 5% of its GDP, something that most NATO countries have since agreed to do under added pressure. Defending Lithuania and its neighbors, as NATO members on the border with Russia, is considered essential by many alliance members. Allies contribute to their air defenses and other fortifications. Germany, for example, has established a new brigade in Lithuania that's set to grow to 5,000 German soldiers and civilians there by the end of 2027. It marks the first time it has put troops in another country on a long-term basis since World War II. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brig. Gen. Christoph Huber, the commander of the 45th Armored Brigade, said that it was created "for the alliance, for Lithuania, for Europe's security." Read the original article on Business Insider The Trump administration is attempting to reverse decades-old policy to exclude a broad group of immigrants from accessing social services and health benefits, causing widespread fear among immigrant advocates even as it has yet to take effect. Immigration groups and health experts say millions could be harmed by cutting off access to basic health services, including for people who are U.S. citizens and immigrants who have legal permission to be in the country. They have been pressing the administration for more information but say few details have been forthcoming. Thats the other thing about these notices they leave so many questions unanswered, said Tanya Broder, senior counsel on health and economic justice policy at the National Immigration Law Center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They dont tell people how immigration status will be verified, whose immigration status is relevant, she added. They say more guidance is forthcoming, but they dont name the services that are exempt from restrictions, and they leave people confused on what they should do. The administration announced in July it was reinterpreting a 1996 federal law that has allowed immigrants access to certain public benefits, part of an effort to further crack down on what the White House says is the abuse of taxpayer services by undocumented immigrants. The Department of Health and Human Services said it was expanding the definition of federal public benefit to include a host of new services that would be off-limits to immigrants in the country illegally including Head Start, Title X family planning services, and the community health center program. For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said in a statement announcing the new policy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The move restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people, Kennedy said. The policy was supposed to take effect immediately without any public input. But after being sued by 20 blue states and the District of Columbia, the department agreed to pause enforcement nationwide until Sept. 10 while considering public comments, which were due Aug. 13. The agency said it would determine whether to provide any additional information. Plaintiffs in the case are expecting a judge to issue an order on the lawsuit by Sept. 10, according to Broder. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advocates said the administrations shift fits a pattern. Immigrants lacking legal status have long been ineligible for programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration and Republicans in Congress are going further. These changes, just like many of the attacks that the administration has perpetuated against immigrants and the immigrant community, are really not actually about undocumented immigrants, said Esther Reyes, a campaign strategist for the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition. In reality, they dont have eligibility for these programs to begin with. So, what [the administration is] actually doing is limiting access and restricting eligibility for people who are actually here with authorization and with a lawful status, Reyes said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For instance, Reyes said many U.S. citizen children have parents who do not have legal status or have other types of immigration status. So, even if those children are eligible and entitled to use a program, they may get shut out due to confusion and misunderstanding about the restrictions. The sweeping change was announced just weeks after the Trump administrations tax and spending megabill imposed new restrictions on food aid and health programs for immigrants. Combined with the new restrictions, experts and advocates said the changes will likely have chilling effects on immigrant families, making them reluctant to seek out the care and services they need. People are going to retreat further into the shadows of our society, said Mitesh Popat, CEO of the Venice Family Clinic, a community health center serving more than 45,000 people in the Los Angeles area. This will just further entrench those people as an underclass of people who are afraid to come out, afraid to get needed nutritional assistance, send their children to school and receive health care services, Popat said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Clinton administrations 1996 welfare reform restricted services such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Childrens Health Insurance Program and more to a category of qualified immigrants. Now, the Trump administration wants to add 13 more programs to the list. A qualified immigrant is not necessarily a permanent citizen. The category includes people in the country with a nonimmigrant visa, people who have applied for asylum, people with Temporary Protected Status, those who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and others, according to health research nonprofit KFF. These guys have sought to completely confuse people on who is an illegal alien, said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law policy at George Washington University. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The change most concerning for advocates involves federal funding for community health centers, a program that funds more than 15,000 clinics. Community health centers are often the providers of last resort. A 2023 KFF survey found 3 out of 10 immigrant adults said such a center is their usual source of care. That portion rose to about 4 in 10 among immigrants lacking legal status and immigrants with limited English. Health centers cant turn anyone away, but if they are restricted from serving patients who are in the country illegally, they may not be reimbursed for care. Under the 1996 law, nonprofits are not required to report on immigration status of the patients they serve. The new policy seemingly keeps that exemption, but Health and Human Services wasnt clear. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advocacy groups fear the administration is attempting to turn health centers and other places where people receive services into immigration checkpoints. Our purpose for existing were not supposed to be arbiters in the middle of deciding who can get care, who cant get care, Popat said. Its also unclear how the administration will enforce the new policy. We are service providers. We arent law enforcement. We arent here to adjudicate whether someones ID looks legitimate or not, or someones papers look legitimate or not, Popat said. This conflict between the federal governments policy change and the statutory requirement for community health centers will likely cause confusion among providers and immigrant patients alike. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres this very complicated patchwork of different regulations right now on the federal, state and local level, in terms of who is or isnt required to check immigration status. And thats just going to put a huge burden on these community health centers, said Sweta Haldar, a senior policy analyst at consumer health advocacy group Families USA. Cutting off access to affordable care from community health centers will likely send people to emergency departments, a costly visit for patients that could also exacerbate hospital overcrowding and wait times. Immigrants and citizens work together in families and communities, and excluding anybody from health care compromises the health and well-being of all of us, Broder said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Claires has found a buyer just two weeks after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It announced on Wednesday, August 20, that it plans to sell its North America business and IP to Ames Watson, a private equity firm. Courts in the U.S. and Canada must approve the sale for it to proceed. Most Read from Fast Company The company began bankruptcy proceedings on August 6 with $690 million in debt. According to the sale motion, Ames Watson will pay $104 million in cash, plus a $36 million seller note for the assets. Finding a buyer has been a critical goal for Claires. At the time of filing, Claires CEO Chris Cramer said the company was in active discussions with potential strategic and financial partners to find alternatives to shutting down stores. Claires had claimed its North American stores would stay open during bankruptcy proceedings, but named 18 locations across the country that would likely close soon. It said another 1,236 stores could close by October 31 if the company didnt find a buyer in time. In light of the agreement, Claires has paused the liquidation process at a significant number of stores. The stores that will stay open could total as many as 950 in North America, though some stores in the region will continue with liquidation. We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with Claires and support the next chapter for this iconic brand, Ames Watson CEO Lawrence Berger said in a statement. We are committed to investing in its future by preserving a significant retail footprint across North America, working closely with the Claires team to ensure a seamless transition and creating a renewed path to growth based on our deep experience working with consumer brands. This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com Subscribe to get the Fast Company newsletter: http://fastcompany.com/newsletters (L-R) Adrien Wood, Aeriana Wood, and Juliana Wood have a selfie taken by Michael Race in front of the Alligator Alcatraz sign at the entrance to the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 10, 2025 in Ochopee. The site is the location of the state-managed immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades that officials have named Alligator Alcatraz. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Undeterred by the ordered shutdown of the Everglades immigrant detention facility, Gov. Ron DeSantis and state law enforcement officials Friday touted a recent immigration crackdown in the Panhandle. Hours after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered Alligator Alcatraz shutdown within 60 days, DeSantis appeared in Panama City, flanked by federally deputized Florida Highway Patrol troopers who participated in a concentrated crackdown on unauthorized immigration. According to the governor, the operation featured FHP and federal agencies targeting illegal aliens with criminal records, fugitives, and repeat immigration violators. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Across three days, 45 troopers and 20 federal personnel in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Walton, Okaloosa, Holmes, Bay, Washington, and Jackson counties apprehended nearly 200 people, DeSantis said. The operation, still in process during the news conference, included 37 whove previously received final removal orders but had not appeared in court and eight who had been deported before and re-entered the United States, DeSantis said. This operation sends a clear and uncompromising message: We will not tolerate lawlessness in the state of Florida, DeSantis said. People the officers encountered have fled, resisted arrests, and even physically assaulted officers, DeSantis said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dave Kerner, director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said local law enforcements willingness to house federal inmates has made troopers jobs easier. Before we would have to drive hours and hours to a federal facility. That effort alone has allowed us to apprehend hundreds upon hundreds of more illegal immigrants in just a couple days, Kerner said. DeSantis called the task the Panhandle Immigration Enforcement Operation. Moving forward, we dont have a fancy title or operation title. We had Operation Tidal Wave. We dont have those anymore because the reality, governor, is, at your direction, this is the way that its going to be, Kerner said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Also at the news conference was Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, State Board of Immigration Enforcement Director Larry Keefe, and Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Col. Gary Howze. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Court ruling In addition to shutting down the immigration detention facility within 60 days, Williams ordered no new detainees sent there. Williams mentioned extensive harm to the Everglades and that the state did not conduct an environmental assessment or issue an environmental impact statement, citing the National Environmental Policy Act. We got news last night that we had a judge try to upset the apple cart with respect to our deportation and detainee processing center down in South Florida at Alligator Alcatraz, DeSantis said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state has already filed an appeal to Williams ruling. This was not something that was unexpected. This is a judge was not going to give us a fair shake. This was preordained. Very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench. This is not going to deter us, DeSantis said. Williams was appointed by former President Barack Obama. We knew the minute this judge got the case, we knew exactly what she was going to do, DeSantis said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE For the first time in more than half a century, immigrants leaving the U.S. outnumber those arriving, a phenomenon that may signal President Trump's historic mass deportation efforts are having the intended effect. An analysis of census data released by Pew Research Center on Thursday noted that between January and June, the United States' foreign-born population had declined by more than a million people. Millions of people arrived at the border between 2021 and 2023 seeking refuge in America after the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, which ravaged many of their home countries. In 2023, California was home to 11.3 million immigrants, roughly 28.4% of the national total, according to Pew. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In January, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the U.S., the highest number recorded, but in the months that followed, those who left or were deported surpassed those arriving the first drop since the 1960s. As of June, the number living in the U.S. had dropped to 51.9 million. Pew did not calculate how many immigrants are undocumented. Trump and his supporters have applauded the exodus, with the president declaring "Promises Made. Promises Kept," in a social media post this month. "Seven months into his second term, its clear that the president has done what he said he'd do by reestablishing law and order at our southern border and by removing violent illegal immigrants from our nation," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a USA Today column on Thursday. "Both actions were necessary for Americans' peace and prosperity." But some experts caution that such declines will have negative economic effects on the United States if they continue, resulting in labor shortages as America's birth rate continues to drop. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read more: Seeking the elusive path for immigrants to come to U.S. legally: 'People are dying in line' "Looking ahead in the future, we're going to have to rely on immigrant workers to fulfill a lot of the jobs in this country," said Victor Narro, project director at UCLA Labor Center. "Like it or not, the demographics are going to be changing in this country. It's already changing, but it's going to be more pronounced in the future, especially with the decline in native-born workers." The Pew analysis highlights several policy changes that have affected the number of immigrants in the country, beginning during then-President Biden's term. In June 2024, Biden signed a proclamation that bars migrants from seeking asylum along the U.S. border with Mexico at times when crossings are high, a change that was designed to make it harder for those who enter the country without prior authorization. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump, who campaigned on hard-line immigration policies, signed an executive order on the first day of his second term, declaring an "invasion" at the southern border. The move severely restricted entry into the country by barring people who arrive between ports of entry from seeking asylum or invoking other protections that would allow them to temporarily remain in the U.S. Widespread immigration enforcement operations across Southern California began in June, prompting pushback from advocates and local leaders. The federal government responded by deploying thousands of Marines and National Guard troops to L.A. after the raids sparked scattered protests. Homeland Security agents have arrested 4,481 undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area since June 6, the agency said this month. Narro said the decrease in immigrants outlined in the study may not be as severe as the numbers suggest because of a reduction in response rates amid heightened enforcement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read more: How the federal immigration raids could disrupt California's economy "When you have the climate that you have today with fear of deportation, being arrested or detained by ICE all the stuff that's coming out of the Trump administration people are going to be less willing to participate in the survey and documentation that goes into these reports," Narro said. Michael Capuano, research director at Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit that advocates for a reduction in immigration, said the numbers are trending in the right direction. "We see it as a positive start," Capuano said. "Obviously enforcement at the border is now working. The population is beginning to decrease. We'd like to see that trend continue because, ultimately, we think the policy of the last four years has been proven to be unsustainable." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Capuano disagrees that the decrease in immigrants will cause problems for the country's workforce. "We don't believe that ultimately there's going to be this huge disruption," he said. "There is no field that Americans won't work in. Pew notes in its own study that American-born workers are the majority in every job field." In 2023, the last year with complete data, 33 million immigrants were part of the country's workforce, including about 10 million undocumented individuals. Roughly 19% of workers were immigrants in 2023, up from 15% two decades earlier, according to Pew. "Immigrants are a huge part of American society," said Toby Higbie, a professor of history and labor studies at UCLA. "Those who are running the federal government right now imagine that they can remove all immigrants from this society, but it's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen because the children of immigrants will fight against it and because our country needs immigrant workers to make the economy work." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The United States experienced a negative net immigration in the 1930s during the Great Depression when at least 400,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans left the country, often as a result of government pressure and repatriation programs. Not long after, the U.S. implemented the bracero program in 1942 in which the U.S. allowed millions of Mexican citizens to work in the country to address labor shortages during World War II. Higbie predicts the decline in immigration won't last long, particularly if prices on goods rise amid labor shortages. "You could say that there's a cycle here where we invite immigrants to work in our economy, and then there's a political reaction by some in our country, and they kick them out, and then we invite them back," he said. "I suspect that the Trump administration, after going through this process of brutally deporting people, will turn around and propose a guest worker program in order to maintain a docile immigrant workforce." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) The first ever Louisiana Vintage Festival will be held on Saturday, Aug. 23 at the House of Blues in the French Quarter. The Louisiana Vintage Festival will feature over 40 vintage clothing vendors, popular New Orleans-based musical acts and interactive features. The festival was created by Chris and Megan Olsen, the owners of the French Quarter based vintage stores, Vice & Graft and partners in Swamp Rags. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Keep Your Head Up art spreading positivity after Bourbon Street attack The goal of the festival is to bring together the best vintage clothing all under one roof. New Orleans is an incredible, internationally recognized city, Megan Olsen said. But due to its size, it often gets passed over for the large touring vintage festivals. The festival also helps to provide a needed boost for vintage sellers as well as the French Quarter during a quiet time of year. Sold out Show Wall: Whos sold out the most shows at the House of Blues? Chris Olsen said, Additionally, August is a is a slow time of year for local small businesses so we decided to create the Louisiana Vintage Festival to showcase the best in vintage and bring locals & visitors alike to the French Quarter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A full list of vendors can be found on the festival website. General Admission is from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are $15 for GA and $25 for Early Bird. Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. INDEPENDENCE, Mo. Educators in Blue Springs, Missouri, are correcting an error in their bus plan. One family from Independence complained that its unfair, since their child has always attended classes in Blue Springs. Now, Blue Springs School District leaders are demanding a switch. Hickman Mills School District to be fully audited following state investigation Travel less than a mile from Yates Elementary School and youll find Andi Sheerans home. Her eight-year-old son attends classes there as part of the Blue Springs School District. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sheeran said her son has always attended classes at Yates, and a school bus from Blue Springs has always taken him there. On Wednesday, Sheeran received an email from school district leaders, saying theyd realized her home falls outside their district boundariesand next year, her son would have to transfer out of the district. Whatever I can do to prevent that, I will, Sheeran told FOX4. On Thursday, Blue Springs School District leaders agreed to allow her son to finish the year at Yates Elementary. Sheeran said shes an Army brat and doesnt want her child to suffer the effects of relocating too often. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I just wanted my kid to be in one school district for awhile and grow up with the same friends and feel like this is his home, Sheeran said. Its not about quality between the districts. Independence is a great school district [and] so is Blue Springs. I would just like him to stay with his friends hes grown up with and stay in that kind of pipeline school. Late Thursday afternoon, Blue Springs School District spokesperson Katie Woolf sent a statement to FOX4 News, saying this change is part of an error theyre correcting. The statement said children from four households are affected. A new app that controls school bus traffic revealed Sheerans home is outside their district borders. Sheeran said she believes the dividing line cuts right through her cul-de-sac. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maybe the kids whove been caught up in this net can continue in Blue Springs, and new children have to be enrolled in Independence, Sheeran suggested. She said shes willing to pay taxes to the Blue Springs School District and drive her son to school, if that would make a difference. If shes forced to leave, her son would likely enroll in the Independence School District (ISD). That districts spokesperson, Megan Dillard, sent a statement to FOX4 News, saying ISD is happy to welcome new students. Sheeran plans to be at the next Blue Springs School District School Board meeting on Sept. 22, when shell request to be grandfathered in instead of being forced to change school districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. KANSAS CITY, Mo. The Independence Police Department has announced more than a dozen arrests stemming from an operation focused on stopping retail thefts at businesses in the 39th Street corridor. The agency said its Community Engagement Unit conducted the shoplifting sweep July 24-25. Independence teacher hit with multiple child porn charges: DOJ In a Facebook post Friday, Independence police shared the following results from the sweep: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 15 shoplift arrests 2 felony warrants cleared 15 city warrants cleared 2 vehicle pursuits 1 foot pursuit resulting in a resisting arrest and false information charge 1 firearm recovered 1 drug arrest 1 youth smoking violation IPD has a strong partnership with retail businesses in our city and will continue proactive enforcement to arrest shoplifters and organized retail crime offenders, the agency stated. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. India's Supreme Court on Friday scaled back its order to catch and remove tens of thousands of stray dogs from the capital, after feasibility questions about the sheer scale of the exercise. The court earlier this month handed city authorities a deadline of eight weeks to round up all dogs, ordering that they be held in shelters and not released. Indian media had suggested there were as many as a million stray dogs in Delhi, although only nationwide figures are available, with 15 million stray dogs registered in the government's 2019 livestock census. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, the court issued a fresh order, saying that stray dogs should be "released after they are vaccinated and sterilised" unless they are suspected to have rabies or "display aggressive behaviour". As the court ruling was issued, pro-dog activists celebrated. "Everyone was praying", said Sonali Kalra, 59, a businesswoman. "People are looking after street dogs like their own children, but it's not practical that they all can be taken into private homes -- so the focus is sterilisation." In 2024, there were more than 25,000 reported cases of dog bites in Delhi, a sprawling megacity of 30 million people, according to government figures, but zero recorded human deaths from rabies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The city's media, however, regularly report on attacks by stray dogs, particularly on children and the elderly, a crisis exacerbated by a lack of sterilisation programmes and legal restrictions on canine culling. The initial order was supported by those angered at the surge of dogs on the streets. - 'All the dogs' - Countrywide, there were 3.7 million cases of dog bites, and 54 recorded human deaths from rabies last year. India, with 1.4 billion people the world's most populous country, accounts for one of the highest number of deaths from rabies worldwide. Dog bites and scratches cause 99 percent of human rabies cases and can be prevented through dog vaccination and bite prevention, according to the World Health Organization. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In middle class neighbourhoods, many of Delhi's strays are beloved by their residents despite lacking formal owners, with some dogs clothed in special canine jackets to keep warm during the winter. College student Aanvi Singh, 20, who also took part in a rally supporting the dogs, said the activists had "won". "I am going to celebrate on the way with all the dogs that I meet," she said. str-bb/pjm/cwl Police in northern Indiana are defending their actions after a Black activist group criticized video of an officer pinning a 14-year-old girl to the ground. Here's the viral video, what we know about the South Bend Police Department's actions and community reaction. What happened in South Bend? Police received a 911 call from a McDonald's employee on Aug. 15. The employee said a juvenile inside the restaurant was becoming loud, aggressive and was threatening employees and using profanities, according to a report from The South Bend Tribune. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The caller described the juvenile as a boy around 11 or 12 years old, wearing a grayish-white sweater with a green backpack and said the youth was still in the restaurant at the front counter at the time of the call, South Bend Police Director of Communications Ashley OChap said. The officer saw someone who matched the description leave the restaurant and called them over to his vehicle. About halfway through their interaction a civilian began recording, which is the video that later went viral and led to the South Bend Police Department to investigate the incident. South Bend Chief of Police Scott Ruszkowski, center, and police Capt. David Herron, right, watch body camera footage from an incident that took place on Aug. 15 being played for members of the media at the department's headquarters on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, in South Bend. What happens in the viral video of South Bend police officer? The video shows an officer detaining a girl after he was called to the McDonald's restaurant at 416 N. Michigan St. in South Bend for a disturbance call, police told The Tribune. The video also shows a civilian joining in to hold the girl facedown on the ground, her torso in the lawn and her head and neck out over the curb. Who was the South Bend police officer involved? The police officer involved has been identified as Sam Chaput, who's been in the department since 2014. South Bend Police says the officer acted according to policy In a press conference Aug. 21, Chief of Police Scott Ruszkowski said that he felt that Chaput acted in according to the department's policy, The South Bend Tribue reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officers can only use force that is objectively reasonable, while protecting the safety of officers and others, under the department's use of force policy, which is in accordance with uniform statewide policy determined by the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board. The body camera footage shows the girl attempting to hit Chaput twice, Ruszkowski said. Chaput can be heard telling the girl not to hit him, the footage showed. Ruszkowski said the girl's actions fell under the definition of active resistance in the departments use-of force-policy: "physical action(s) that prevent(s) an officer from being able to lawfully exercise their duties (e.g., subject walking away after being told to stop, subject fleeing from arrest, or subject tensing/pulling away/breaking officer's grip involving force demonstrated by the individual's use of power, strength, or violence directed at or against the officer)." From South Bend: Body camera, 911 call released of South Bend officer's use of force in detaining teen girl Who was the man who assisted police? In the video, a man ran up and joined the officer in holding the 14-year-old girl down. That person is not wearing a police uniform, and South Bend police confirmed he is not a police officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When asked about his stance on civilians getting involved in police work, Ruskowski said, I welcome people to intervene before we even have to get involved. Ruszkowski referenced the Good Samaritan law but said it's not a requirement that someone does that. When asked if the city is liable for people who step in to help officers, Ruszkowski said, "Without asking or telling? That's on them." Local response to arrest of 14-year-old Black Lives Matter - South Bend has criticized the actions shown in the video, calling particular attention to a civilian being allowed to participate in the handling of a 14-year-old girl. Local FOP President Josh Morgan, in turn, posted on Facebook to criticize the attention being paid to the video, which he called "gaslighting at its finest." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement From South Bend: Body camera footage to be released today from South Bend officer who detained teen girl South Bend Chief of Police Scott Ruszkowski, left, and police Capt. David Herron watch body camera footage from an incident that took place on Aug. 15 being played for members of the media at the department's headquarters on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, in South Bend. McDonald's is mum McDonald's cooperated with police in its investigation, the department said. The South Bend Tribune asked McDonald's corporate about its policy regarding involving police in restaurant disturbances, but the company has not responded. The Tribune has also tried to get in touch with the girl's family to hear her perspective. View the Aug. 21 police press conference This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Video shows South Bend officer pinning girl down outside McDonald's WARRICK COUNTY, Ind. (WEHT) Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith says the town hall took a turn. What started as a Q and A, quickly turned into chaos. There was an organized group there that seemed like from the get-go, they were trying be very disruptive throughout the whole process, and we told them several times You cannot keep shouting and disrupting, we are going to ask you to leave,' Beckwith said. Kristina Bickle was there and disagrees. She says there was no planning prior to the event and says people came to voice their concerns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Take what we have to say back to Indianapolis and fight for us, that is your only job here, is to listen, but you dont listen, you argue and debate and twist words, Bickle said. People say that often, Beckwith said. They say you represent me so you need to do what I tell you to do. That is not what representing somebody means. I was voted in Two people were arrested, both of whom were caught on camera. Beckwith says he saw one suspect, Amanda Bennett, shove a deputy after being asked to leave. She was still yelling at me and pushed him hard, Beckwith said. Once the officer took her down, I could not see her when she was on the ground. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bickle says it was uncalled for and says it was police brutality. The Warrick County Sheriff and Beckwith disagree. The sheriff says surveillance video shows the woman shoving the deputy and tells us he sees no evidence that supports brutality. Beckwith says the deputys actions were justified. The officers did their job and did their job professionally, Beckwith said. I could see part of the officers body cam hit the floor, Bickle said. Bickle followed Bennett and the deputy into the lobby. Bickle says someone shoved her to the ground, and people stepped on her. Bickle thought her arm was broken and went to the hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Today, she is in a sling and says scans did not reveal a break. I injured my collarbone, my shoulder, my fingers, and down my arm hurts. I am going to orthopedics to determine exactly how bad it is. Bickle said. An arrest affidavit says a woman, who is not identified, pretended to fall to prevent the deputy from taking Bennett to jail. It is not clear if the affidavit is talking about Bickle. She says she was shoved and did not fake the fall. The best course of action is to gather as much evidence as we possibly can and figure out what happened on both sides, Bickle said. It was unfortunate, but we plan to keep doing these, Beckwith said. We are not backing down; we are going to keep going around. People want access to their elected officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriffs office says there are still a lot of unanswered questions as to what happened and who is responsible. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). Gen. Steve Nordhaus and Brig. Gen. Larry Muennich on Thursday signed a partnership with the Indiana National Guard and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the Department of Defenses State Partnership Program. The partnership includes the Indiana National Guard, the Oklahoma National Guard, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While in Saudi Arabia, the delegation met with the chief of the general staff, and the Chief of the Military Organization, as well as leaders from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh. This partnership is a testament to Saudi Arabias commitment to improving the lives of its people and increasing its capacity to address security threats within the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Defense Departments enduring program pairs American states and foreign nations to enhance mutual relationships and promote defense and security cooperation objectives established by the United States and its partners. The Indiana National Guards experience in disaster relief, domestic operations and overseas missions will support the U.S. governments ongoing diplomatic, development and security efforts to achieve shared goals. The program is designed to develop military interoperability and foster greater trust and cooperation with partner nations. I am extremely proud of the Indiana National Guard for being selected to partner with a strategic ally in the Middle East region, said Muennich, Indianas adjutant general. The National Guard is a global force with local roots, and Im excited for this new opportunity. The State Partnership Program has built relationships with 115 nations through 106 partnerships for more than 30 years. Saudi Arabia is the 11th nation in the Middle East to join the program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Through the program, the National Guard conducts military-to-military engagements in support of defense and security goals, and also leverages whole-of-society relationships and capabilities to facilitate broader engagements spanning military, government, economic and social spheres. The Indiana National Guard has been partnered with Slovakia for more than 30 years and established a partnership with Niger in 2017. The Oklahoma National Guard has been partnered with Azerbaijan since 2002. For more information on the Indiana National Guards State Partnership Program, click here. Indonesia is said to be finalising the details of a plan to provide medical evacuations for 2,000 injured Palestinians from Gaza, potentially on the uninhabited Galang Island. The government is now holding inter-ministerial discussions on logistics, legal frameworks, and foreign policy implications, according to a senior government official. Earlier this month, it was announced that Indonesia would provide the treatment, but without further details. Indonesia will give medical help for about 2,000 Gaza residents who became victims of war, those who are wounded, buried under debris, spokesperson Hasan Nasbi told reporters earlier, insisting the exercise did not amount to an evacuation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Critics had compared the proposal to US president Donald Trumps suggestion that Washington could seize control of Gaza and transform it into the Riviera of the Middle East a vision that would deny Palestinians the right to return. Indonesian officials, however, emphasised that the aid would be temporary, coordinated with Palestinian authorities and international agencies, and respect the Palestinians right to return. As discussions progress, officials are now reportedly weighing possible locations to host the patients. One option under consideration is Galang, situated just south of Singapore. The island has a long humanitarian history, having once served as a camp for Vietnamese refugees and more recently as the site of a pandemic hospital, making it a practical candidate for temporary medical assistance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although Indonesia does not maintain diplomatic ties with Israel and has consistently backed Palestinian statehood, officials have been cautious in disclosing specifics of the treatment plan, stressing that the proposal for Galang Island remains only one of several possibilities under review. File. An injured boy lies on a blanket on the floor as he waits for treatment at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, 6 July 2025 (Associated Press) Dave Lakono, deputy chair of the parliaments commission I, which oversees defence and foreign affairs, told The Guardian: These discussions have focused on logistical feasibility, medical readiness, and legal frameworks. Commission I has also been briefed on the strategic implications, particularly regarding Indonesias foreign policy posture and regional stability. He said that while Galang Island has been singled out as a potential location, other facilities in West Java and Central Java are also under review due to their closeness to major hospitals and transport networks. Officials admit that the proposal is politically sensitive, with some Islamic leaders accusing the government of being deceived by Israel and questioning what assurances exist to guarantee the Palestinians eventual return. File. Indonesia airdropped nearly 18 tonnes of food and medicine to Gaza on its Independence Day (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) One of the issues is how to make sure the right to return of the Palestinians can be respected because we know that many are worried that this kind of policy can be interpreted in other ways, said Abdul Kadir Jailani, the director general for Asian, Pacific and African affairs at Indonesias ministry of foreign affairs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So we have to make sure it will be consistent with the principle of international humanitarian law, and in particular, how to respect the right to return of the Palestinians. He added: The implementation of this plan has a high level of complexity, particularly in terms of its political and technical aspects. Earlier this week, Indonesia marked its 80th Independence Day by airdropping nearly 18 tonnes of aid into Gaza, including food, medicine, and blankets, with plans to deliver up to 800 tonnes in total. File. Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto proposed temporary care for 2,000 wounded Gazans, stressing coordination with Palestinian authorities and international agencies (Associated Press) Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, from the Centre of Economic and Law Studies in Jakarta, told ABC News that Indonesia should take a stronger stance against Israel to end Israeli apartheid. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The reason Indonesia has not taken a stronger stance is likely due to a combination of factors, Dr Rakhmat said. Its need to maintain diplomatic relations with other powers, the complexity of regional geopolitics, and concerns about the potential repercussions of antagonising Israel for its allies. The proposal to offer medical care for Palestinians was initially floated by president Prabowo Subianto during a five-country visit to the Middle East in April. At the time, he declared that Indonesia was ready to evacuate those who are injured or traumatised, and orphans, if they want to be evacuated to Indonesia. He continued: Indonesias commitment in supporting the safety of Palestinians and their independence has pushed our government to act more actively. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Indonesias foreign ministry declared at the time that it strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza. Siti Mutiah Setiawati, a professor of Middle Eastern geopolitics at Gadjah Mada Universitys Department of International Relations said earlier that flying 2,000 Gazans to Indonesia for medical care would be inefficient due to the long distance, and it would be more practical to treat them in nearby Arab countries. She also highlighted logistical challenges, including patient transport and the adequacy of medical services on Galang Island. We need to assess the condition of the Gazans first. If their illness is serious, will it worsen if they are brought here? Its too risky because its so far away. Smith Alhadar, an advisor to the Indonesian Society for Middle East Studies, was quoted as saying by Indonesian outlet Kompas: Whether we realise it or not, Indonesia will be caught in an Israeli-US scenario that our government cannot possibly ignore. Galang Island is indeed capable of accommodating more Palestinians. However, if we do that, we are not helping Palestine, but rather eliminating it. That would mean we are also complicit in ethnic cleansing alongside Israel and the US, and could worsen Indonesias relations with Middle Eastern countries. India-based refiners Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum have resumed their purchases of Russian oil for delivery in September and October, with widening discounts in place, as reported by Reuters, citing two officials familiar with the matter. This move could potentially impact the supply to key China buyers, which had increased its intake during the Indian refiners' hiatus. However, with discounts on Russian flagship Urals crude reaching approximately $3 per barrel, the economics have swung back in favour of the Indian companies. Despite geopolitical tensions and previous criticism from the US, Russia anticipates maintaining its oil exports to India. Officials at the Russian embassy in New Delhi have expressed hope for upcoming trilateral discussions involving India and China. The decision to restart imports follows a temporary halt in July when Indian refiners faced slimmer discounts and international scrutiny. The US criticised India's continued purchases of Russian oil, which have surged from a marginal 0.2% to 35% of India's total oil imports since the Ukraine conflict began. Furthermore, US President Donald Trump had threatened to impose a 25% tariff on Indian goods from 27 August to penalise the country for its dealings with Russia. Despite the geopolitical backdrop, Indian Oil, the nation's key refiner, communicated to analysts its intent to continue sourcing Russian oil, based on favourable economics. The company's strategy includes diversifying its crude basket with other Russian grades such as Varandey and Siberian Light. While Indian companies typically do not disclose details of their crude imports, the market has taken note of China's recent acquisition of 15 cargoes of Russian oil for delivery in October and November. "Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum resume Russian oil purchases" was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia's deputy manpower minister was dismissed and charged with extortion on Friday after anti-graft investigators accused him of benefiting from illegal fees for the processing of safety permits. The graft investigation was the first to implicate a member of President Prabowo Subianto's cabinet. Prabowo, who was sworn in last October, has campaigned against corruption. Deputy minister Immanuel Ebenezer, a member of Prabowo's political party, was arrested with 10 other people investigated over the case, who include officials with the manpower ministry and two employees of a training provider company, anti-graft agency chief Setyo Budiyanto said at a press conference. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Immanuel, brought into the press conference wearing an orange vest, denied the extortion charge and apologised to the president, his family and the Indonesian people, without saying what he was apologising for. Reuters could not immediately contact his lawyer. He and the other defendants were accused of charging 6 million rupiah ($367.31) to process safety permits needed by construction, mining or manufacturing employees to get work, far higher than the official rate of 250,000 rupiah, since 2019, according to Budiyanto. Proceeds from the additional, illegal fees were distributed to ministry officials, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "If the employees did not pay as high as they were required to, the officials would blackmail them by delaying or refusing to process the safety certification application," he said. Fifteen cars, seven motorcycles and cash worth $12,600 were confiscated as evidence during investigators' sting operations this week, Budiyanto added. An extortion charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Indonesia. Presidential spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi said Prabowo had signed a decree dismissing Immanuel from his ministerial post. "We'll let the legal process continue and we hope this will be a lesson for all of us, especially for cabinet members and all government officials..., to work hard in eradicating corruption," Hadi said in a video statement released late on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The manpower ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. ($1 = 16,335.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Ananda Teresia, additional reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; editing by Gayatri Suroyo, Philippa Fletcher and Mark Heinrich) Faith Leaders and Leaders of Conscience of Eastern Washington and North Idaho and Moscows Interfaith Council are working together to help the communities in the Palouse by advocating for housing and food security resources. (Contributed photo) This story was first published on Aug. 21, 2025, by FaVS News. Two groups in the Inland Northwest are bringing together people of various faiths to find common ground and unite around social justice projects despite their different beliefs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Providing housing for people facing homelessness, providing food and other basic necessities for residents and ensuring all people are afforded human rights are key priorities for Faith Leaders and Leaders of Conscience of Eastern Washington and North Idaho (FLLC) and Moscows Interfaith Council. The Rev. Gen Heywood is the pastor of Veradale United Church of Christ and convener of FLLC. (Photo by Hana Reinhardt) The groups comprise multiple faith traditions, including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahai and Unitarian Universalist congregations, and several Christian denominations. The variety of faiths in this area is really extraordinary, said the Rev. Gen Heywood, pastor of Veradale United Church of Christ and convener of FLLC. Faith Leaders and Leaders of Conscience advocates for policy changes for people who are low income FLLC organizes vigils to collectively overcome racism, poverty and ecological violence, Heywood said. The group is organized around the agenda of the Poor Peoples Campaign, which advocates for policy changes to meet the needs of poor and low-income people. In addition to vigils, participants sign letters to the editor and letters of condolence to draw awareness to these issues. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crucially, FLLCs vigils are not protests, and the spiritual and non-spiritual leaders who attend are not there to yell or shame others. They are there to grieve. Recent vigils have centered around the golden rule, the ethical principle of treating others how you would want to be treated. I want people to see our shared common humanity, Heywood said. And it becomes a problem when some people dont believe other people have the rights that come with being fully human. FLLC participants gathered at U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartners Spokane office on July 8 to discuss his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was passed into law on July 4. Heywood said FLLC will exist as long as it fills a need in the community. Moscow Interfaith Council connects people in need to community resources Pastors and representatives from congregations in Moscow meet monthly to discuss issues related to faith and social justice, such as how religious institutions can house and support people in need who pass through town, said Annette Bay Pimentel, communications director for the Moscow, Idaho, Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The council connects people in need with one of the religious institutions or local nonprofits, such as Sojourners Alliance or the Latah County Human Rights Task Force, said Walter Hesford, an Interfaith Council member representing Emmanuel Lutheran Church. The Interfaith Council also distributes information to its respective congregations about community programs like food drives, Pimentel said. As people of faith, we are concerned about the needy and people in crisis, she said. No single person or congregation or faith tradition has all of the answers. So its valuable for us to be part of community-wide solutions and remember the work were doing isnt limited to our congregation. Family Promise partnerships spur other projects The Palouse River Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wanted to participate in Family Promise of the Palouse, a nonprofit organization that supports homeless families but the congregation could not host families in their building. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse had a building and some volunteers, but needed more hands for every week they hosted Family Promise, up to six times a year. It was like night and day when they started helping us, said Nancy Nelson, a volunteer organizer and UUCP member. Theyve made it so much easier, and theyve been a delight to work with. Wards in the Moscow Stake have been paired with other congregations for Family Promise for around 10 years, Pimentel said. Many of those congregational partnerships have expanded to take on other community service projects, including building a new family library at the Russell School Community Hub. The library will be a space for children to relax and read while their siblings shop for clothes at the Community Hub. Then, they can take books home with them for free. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Palouse River Ward and UUCP both value education, reading and access to books for children in need, said Ken Faunce, chair of the UUCP social justice committee. Even though our faith is not exactly the same, we share an immense amount in common, Faunce said. Thats [a desire] to help people, help the community, make peoples lives better. We may disagree on details, but we have that as the core. Family Promise of the Palouse moved into a former fraternity house on College Hill in Pullman, Washington. (Photo by Tracy Simmons/FaVS News) Year-round collaborations UUCP also partners with St. Marks Episcopal Church for Weekend Food for Kids, a program that provides free meals every Friday during the summer, he said. In conjunction with Moscow School Districts free summer lunches served Monday through Friday, this ensures children have meals every day of the week. The wards in the Moscow Stake join with other congregations for an interfaith choir that performs concerts around Christmas and Easter, said Ricki Martin, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I just think theres so much good in the world and so many negative things going on, I just love to be able to focus on the things that are good, Martin said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Corrections officials are investigating the death of an incarcerated man at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego as a homicide, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Jerry Elliott, 43, died Thursday five days after he was found unresponsive following a cell fight with another inmate. Prison staff responded to the incident around 6:15 a.m. on Aug. 16 and discovered Elliott unconscious. They immediately restrained the other inmate, Aikane Matias, removed him from the cell and began life-saving measures on Elliott while also summoning emergency medical services. Jerry Elliott, 43, is shown in this mugshot from July 25, 2024, provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Elliott was taken to an outside hospital, where he died at about 4:25 a.m. on Thursday, CDCR officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No staff or other inmates were injured in the incident, and no weapon was used, CDCR said. Matias has been moved to restricted housing while the investigation is underway. Elliott was serving a 34-year sentence for multiple felony convictions out of Riverside County, including evading a peace officer causing death and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. He had been incarcerated at RJD since July 25, 2024, CDCR said. Aikane Matias, 32, is shown in this mugshot from Nov. 26, 2024, provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Matias, 32, arrived at the prison from Fresno County on Nov. 26, 2024, and is serving an eight-year sentence for first-degree burglary with a prior strike. The facilitys Investigative Services Unit is working with the San Diego County District Attorneys Office, and the Office of the Inspector General has been notified. The San Diego County Coroners Office will determine the official cause of death. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials said movement inside the facility has been temporarily limited to assist with the ongoing investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. COLUMBIA, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Theres an old, brick government office off Highway 151 between Hartsville and Darlington, just past the Darlington Dragway. The office has sat there for as long as I can remember. The sexual relationship carried out behind the Troop 5, Post A office door in Darlington County landed a pair of S.C. Highway Patrol troopers in an internal affairs investigation in March 2025. Both were disciplined, but never criminally investigated. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) Its always housed the local Department of Motor Vehicles office, and the S.C. Highway Patrol has its small Troop 5, Post A office tucked into a corner of the back of the building. For those of us who grew up around there, that building was the scariest place on Earth when it was time to start the adventure of becoming a licensed driver. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All the 15 and 16-year-olds around Hartsville, and probably Darlington, knew it as the last place you dared take the road test to get your beginners permit. The problem was, it was the only DMV anywhere around. There was one examiner all the kids told horror stories about. She was THE one you didnt want if you ever wanted a license. At least that was the consensus among us unlicensed wannabe drivers who dreamed of the freedom the DMV stood in the way of. Almost all of my buddies failed their road tests there. And I did, too. I showed up at that old, brick government office around September of 1994 for the road test. Everything was going great until I signaled the left turn onto Swift Creek Road. Lets do a three-point turn, the skills test examiner barked at me. I dreaded that part. The pair of S.C. Highway Patrol troopers involved in a year-long affair carried out inside this government office along Highway 151 in Darlington County are no longer working here. Sgt. Jacob Rodgers and Lance Corporal Hailey Bennett were reassigned to neighboring patrol offices following an internal investigation in March 2025. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) It was the third rail of the exam. And like all the wannabe licensed driver forefathers who came before me, I did not survive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Try again, son, was the last thing I remember the lady who held my four-wheeled freedom in her hands saying as she scribbled something on her clipboard and we got out of the car in the back lot of the Hartsville-Darlington DMV office. Years later, I realized that the road test examiner wasnt the problem; we were. She was the bad guy because she wasnt just giving us those beginners permits. She made us earn them. That road skills examiner lady is exactly who and what I thought of when a tipster first told me the story of the on-the-clock love affair between a pair of troopers at that exact office a few months ago. The pair turned that taxpayer-owned patrol office into a love shack, was the story. READ: Office of Professional Responsibility investigation into Lance Corporal Hailey Bennett HAILEY BENNETT OPR REPORT REDACTED WITHOUT TEXTSDownload Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As with many other news tips Ive fielded over the years, I expected the real story behind this case to be nothing like reality. When I got the copy of the S.C. Department of Public Safetys internal affairs investigation and the audio recordings of the interviews from the case file, the original tip turned out to be spot-on: a patrol supervisor and his subordinate had struck up an extramarital affair, indeed. Georgetown County Sheriffs Deputy, Cody Christopher Bailey, was arrested in February 2025 by his own department and charged with misconduct in office. Bailey was one of three law enforcement officers charged this year with the same crime, accused of having sex on taxpayer time. (Source: Georgetown County Sheriffs Office) The patrols investigation also found several of their sex romps happened on-duty inside that small Troop 5, Post A office tucked into the back corner of the Hartsville-Darlington DMV office. An office where many broken-hearted teenagers, still today, walk by in shame after a failed trip out to Swift Creek Road. READ: Office of Professional Responsibility investigation into Sgt. Jacob Rodgers JACOB RODGERS OPR REPORT REDACTED WITHOUT TEXTSDownload Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This patrol case led us to uncover three other South Carolina lawmen charged with misconduct in office, accused of having on-the-clock sex in 2025. The first case we found happened in Georgetown County in February, the second happened in McCormick County a few weeks later, and the most recent prosecution was launched when S.C. Law Enforcement Division agents charged a Cayce, S.C. officer with having sex on duty. All three officers were charged with misconduct in office. Neither of the two troopers involved in that Hartsville-Darlington patrol sex scandal were investigated criminally, and the head of the SCDPS told me that was on purpose: the agency didnt believe anything criminal happened. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our Internal Affairs investigation explores the disparity in the prosecution of law enforcers who spend taxpayer time in sexual escapades instead of serving the public. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SPRINGFIELD, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) State police are investigating an officer-involved shooting in Springfield that left one dead Thursday night. This incident occurred on Valley Street between Common Street and Elm Terrace at roughly 9:30 p.m. Both authorities with the Windsor County Sheriffs Department and Springfield Police Department were on-scene. The person who was fatally shot was pronounced dead at the scene, and was not a member of law enforcement, VSP says. Their identity has not been released. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Border Patrol: 2 British citizens arrested after driving on train tracks into U.S. An investigation into the situation will be lead by VSP, and investigations are reportedly in the initial stages. It will include Crime Scene Search Team members plus detectives from the Major Crime Unit and Bureau of Criminal Investigations. Vermont State Police will turn over the case to the Vermont Attorney Generals Office and the relevant States Attorneys Office after completing the investigation. Those with information can call police at 802-722-4600. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44. DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and his French, British and German counterparts agreed on Friday to resume talks next week on nuclear issues, Iranian state media reported, as a threat by the European powers to reimpose sanctions looms. The three countries have said they could re-activate United Nations sanctions on Iran under a "snapback" mechanism if Tehran does not return to negotiations on a deal to curb its disputed uranium enrichment programme. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed talks next week and warned Iran that sanctions would snap back into effect unless it reached a verifiable and durable deal to defuse concerns about its nuclear ambitions. He reiterated that time was very short and Iran needed to engage substantively. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Iranian state media said Araqchi and the British, French and German foreign ministers agreed during a phone call for deputy foreign ministers to continue the talks on Tuesday. During the call, Araqchi "emphasised the legal and moral incompetence of these countries to resort to the (snapback) mechanism, and warned of the consequences of such an action", Iranian media reported. The European trio, along with the U.S., contend that Iran is using the nuclear energy programme to potentially develop weapons capability in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran says it seeks only civilian nuclear power. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has stated that Iran is nowhere near developing a nuclear bomb, and U.S. national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that intelligence officials had not found evidence of Iran moving toward a nuclear weapon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Islamic Republic suspended nuclear negotiations with the United States, which were aimed at curbing its accelerating enrichment programme, after the U.S. and Israel bombed its nuclear sites during a 12-day war in June. Since then, IAEA inspectors have been unable to access Iran's nuclear installations, despite IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stating that inspections remain essential. Iran and the three European powers last convened in Geneva on June 20, while the war was still raging, and there were few signs of progress. Separately, Iran's envoy to the IAEA said an Iranian delegation and IAEA officials had agreed in talks in Vienna on Friday to discuss ways to interact within the framework of a law passed by Iran's parliament that curbs Tehran's cooperation with the nuclear watchdog, the official news agency IRNA reported. (Reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Dubai newsroom and Rachel More in Berlin; editing by Michael Perry, Mark Heinrich and Toby Chopra) Iran will meet next week with Britain, France and Germany for talks on its nuclear programme, the parties said Friday, as the European powers warned Tehran to engage swiftly to avoid snapback sanctions. The Islamic republic suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in July in the wake of its 12-day war with Israel, citing the UN nuclear watchdog's failure to condemn Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities. The European trio -- parties to the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal -- have threatened to trigger a "snapback mechanism" by the end of August. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The move would reimpose sweeping UN sanctions lifted under the 2015 agreement unless Iran agrees to curb its uranium enrichment and restore cooperation with IAEA inspectors. "It was agreed that Iran's talks with the three European countries and the European Union would continue next Tuesday at the level of deputy foreign ministers," Iran's foreign ministry said after a phone call between Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and senior European diplomats. France confirmed the talks and cautioned that Iran faced a narrowing window of time. "We have just made an important call to our Iranian counterpart regarding the nuclear programme and the sanctions against Iran that we are preparing to reimpose," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on X, noting he was joined on the call by his British and German counterparts and the EU's top diplomat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Time is running out. A new meeting will take place next week on this issue," he added. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on X that his country remained "committed to diplomacy but time is very short". "Iran needs to engage substantively in order to avoid the activation of snapback," he said. "We have been clear that we will not let the snapback of sanctions expire unless there is a verifiable and durable deal." The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, similarly said: "With the deadline for the snapback mechanism fast approaching, Iran's readiness to engage with the US is crucial. Iran must also fully cooperate" with the IAEA. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was not immediately clear where the talks, the second since the Iran-Israel war, would take place. - Iran warns of snapback 'consequences' - Israel in June launched an unprecedented bombing campaign on Iranian nuclear, military and civilian sites, prompting Tehran to respond with missile strikes on Israel. The United States also joined its ally Israel, targeting key Iranian nuclear sites deep within the country. Iran and the European trio -- known as the E3 -- held talks in late July at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, which Tehran described as "frank". Iran's war with Israel derailed its nuclear negotiations with the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 2015 nuclear deal was aimed preventing Iran from developing an atomic bomb -- an ambition it has consistently denied. The deal was torpedoed in 2018 when Donald Trump, during his first term as president, unilaterally withdrew the United States from the agreement and slapped crippling sanctions on its economy. Iran has ever since criticised the European parties, accusing them of failing to meet their commitments under the deal. Araghchi reiterated Friday the "lack of legal and moral competence of these countries to resort to the said mechanism" while warning about "the consequences of such an action". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said in an interview published on Friday that the Europeans are "carrying out part of America's operations" by pursuing the snapback mechanism. Iran has previously said it would leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) if the E3 activate the snapback mechanism. Larijani said in the interview on the supreme leader's website that "the possibility has always existed" for Iran to leave the NPT, but it has remained committed to the treaty even though it bears "no benefit" for Tehran. Tehran has long argued that NPT membership grants it the right to enrich uranium, which Washington considers a red line, while Iran insists it is non-negotiable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The deadline for activating the mechanism ends in October, though Europeans have set an internal target of the end of August, while also offering an extension to buy time for talks. Araghchi said Friday that "this is a decision that must essentially be taken by the United Nations Security Council; and while the Islamic Republic of Iran has its own principled positions and views in this regard, it is not involved in this process." Larijani rejected the prospect of an extension, saying: "Iran truly does not accept this." burs-rkh/jsa The government in Tehran wants to continue talks with Germany, France and Britain next week in the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. A meeting at the deputy foreign minister level is planned for Tuesday, according to a statement issued by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday. Prior to that, the foreign ministers of the so-called E3 countries and EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas had spoken with their Iranian counterpart by phone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just over a month ago, government representatives from the E3 and Iran met in Istanbul to discuss the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. The aim was to increase diplomatic pressure on the Islamic Republic. It was the first round of negotiations since the 12-day war that Israel waged against Iran in June. Specifically, the Europeans threatened Iran with the reintroduction of old, tough UN sanctions if no solution to the nuclear dispute was found by the end of August. As co-signatories of the 2015 Vienna nuclear agreement, the E3 can activate the so-called snapback mechanism, which provides for the reintroduction of tough UN sanctions. Before the war in June, Washington and Tehran had negotiated for almost two months over the nuclear programme without a breakthrough. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A sixth round of talks did not take place after Israel started the war two days earlier. Together with the US, Israel bombed key nuclear facilities. As a result, the Iranian leadership's mistrust of the West reached a new peak. Israel, the US and European countries fear that the Islamic Republic is seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran rejects this. The West saw the enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade levels as a particular cause for concern. Iran and three major European powers have agreed to resume nuclear talks next week, even as the threat of revived sanctions looms. Iranian state media reported on Friday that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a call with his French, British and German counterparts, during which they agreed deputy ministers would meet on Tuesday. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed the talks, warning that Europe was prepared to re-impose United Nations sanctions under the so-called snapback mechanism unless Iran committed to a verifiable and lasting deal. Time is very short and Iran needs to engage substantively, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Iranian outlets, Araghchi rejected the threat, accusing the European trio of lacking legal and moral competence to trigger snapback sanctions and warning of consequences if they did so. The three European governments, backed by the United States, have accused Tehran of advancing uranium enrichment in violation of international commitments and say its programme could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has said its work is strictly for civilian purposes, and Western governments have not provided any evidence that Tehran is weaponising its nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UNs nuclear watchdog, has said Iran remains far from building a nuclear weapon. In March, US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified that intelligence agencies had found no evidence of Iran moving towards a bomb. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Talks between Iran and the US collapsed in June after Washington and Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites during a 12-day conflict. Since then, IAEA inspectors have not been allowed into Irans facilities, despite the agencys chief, Rafael Grossi, stressing that inspections are essential. President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned the IAEA to abandon its double standards if it hopes to restore cooperation over the countrys nuclear programme, amid an acute mistrust following Israeli and US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, and the UN nuclear watchdogs refusal to condemn the strikes. In July, Pezeshkian signed a law suspending Irans cooperation with the IAEA, with Tehran making it clear that it no longer trusts the agency to act impartially. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Negotiations between Tehran and the Europeans last took place in Geneva on June 20, while the fighting was still under way. Little progress was reported at the time. Irans state broadcaster said an Iranian delegation would travel to Vienna on Friday to meet IAEA officials, but offered no further details. Iran is interested in receiving assistance from Belarus to restore its air defense and electronic warfare systems damaged during the recent escalation with Israel, Ukraines Foreign Intelligence Service reported on Aug. 22. A war between Iran and Israel broke out on June 13, with both sides agreeing to a ceasefire on June 24. Just hours after the ceasefire was announced, both countries launched attacks against each other. Despite these initial violations, the truce now appears to be holding. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Minsk on Aug. 20. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While the official agenda focused on trade, investment, and broader cooperation, Ukrainian intelligence says that behind closed doors, Tehran also sought Belarusian help in military-technical support. "Unlike Russia, Belarus is less restricted by sanctions in the military-technical sphere and could become a channel for restoring Irans defense capabilities," the statement read. Both Tehran and Minsk are Moscow's allies in its full-scale war against Ukraine. Iran has supplied Russia with drones and ballistic missiles used in attacks on Ukraine, while Belarus allowed the Kremlin to use its territory as a staging ground for its operations against Ukraine. Iran is also seeking assistance to address severe shortages of power generation equipment and agricultural machinery, according to the report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "For Minsk, this presents the prospect of participating in projects that go far beyond the officially announced topics. Iran plans to use Belarus as another channel to access sanctioned goods," the intelligence said. Read also: Ukraine hits Russian drone base at occupied Crimean airfield, Navy claims Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. (Reuters) -Indian tech firm Wipro said on Thursday it would buy the digital transformation solutions unit of U.S.-based audio products maker Harman for $375 million, aiming to bolster its AI-led engineering services across sectors. The DTS unit, Harman Connected Services, will be integrated into Wipro's engineering global business line once the deal is completed expected by the end of the year. More than 5,600 DTS employees across the Americas, Europe and Asia will transition to Wipro after the deal closes. "The acquisition of DTS marks a pivotal step in Wipro's ambition to bring to our clients end-to-end, AI-powered engineering services," Wipro Managing Partner and Global Head of Engineering Srikumar Rao said. Harman, owned by Samsung, is best known for its audio brands JBL, Harman Kardon and Infinity. It runs research and development centres in India through Harman Connected Services. The sale will allow Harman to sharpen focus on its core automotive electronics and audio business, it said in a separate statement. The deal will also allow Harman Connected Services to scale faster, with access to Wipro's global client base, resources and technology. (Reporting by Ananta Agarwal and Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sonia Cheema and Shilpi Majumdar) Aug. 21MITCHELL When Fran Fritz was announced as the 2025 recipient of the Dakotafest Woman Farmer/Rancher of the Year Award Thursday morning, it took a moment for her to rise to her feet and acknowledge the applauding crowd. As one of the five nominees for the award on stage during the presentation at the annual farm show, Fritz admitted she was a little surprised to be selected. "Did you read some of those bios?" Fritz asked the Mitchell Republic after the ceremony, referring to the other four candidates also up for consideration. "All I ever tried to do was what I thought was right and did my best." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The award, now in its sixth year, honors hard-working female farmers and ranchers from across the state who give their time to growing crops and raising the livestock needed to feed the world, according to materials provided by Dakotafest. Fritz, 69, lives near Iroquois, and serves as owner and operator of her family farm. She grew up attending Iroquois High School and later graduated from South Dakota State University with a major in animal science and a minor in dairy science. After graduation, she returned to take over the management and operation of the family farm. As the sole operator of the farm, she just about does it all. That includes herd management, building and mending fences, mowing and baling hay, accounting, housework, yardwork and the vital day-to-day operations necessary to successfully run a working farm. In addition, she involved herself heavily in public service, working with the Belle Prairie Township Board as clerk, the Beadle County Conservation District as well as the South Dakota Association of Conservation Districts, for which she served as the first woman president. She has also represented South Dakota on the National Association of Conservation Districts, as well as several national committees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Between her work on and off the farm, she puts in a lot of hours. That comes from a deep-rooted passion for what she does, according to a quote from a nominator who urged her selection for the award. "She is an honest, hardworking, friendly and intelligent person. Fran truly enjoys ranching and farming, and is very passionate about her occupation. She takes obstacles and turns them into opportunity," the nominator wrote. Fritz calved out about 111 head of cattle this year, and does not appear ready to step aside from her work anytime soon, even though her schedule is pretty much booked. After her obligations at Dakotafest were complete on Thursday, she said she was planning to head back to Iroquois for chores, which included feeding calves and putting up hay. Fritz is living proof that work never fully stops on a farm. She does not shy away from it, tapping into that passion and always making sure things get done. It hasn't always been easy being a sole operator or a woman in farming. But she has approached her work with a desire to learn from every experience and to strive to work smoothly with everyone regardless of differences. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That's something she suggests aspiring women farmers could benefit from, as well. "Never stop asking questions. I'm not the smartest cookie on the block, but I can ask a question. And sometimes I pull off the stunt once or twice in my life. How is this going to work? How does that work that way? Let's use our brains," Fritz said. "(And) let's work with everybody. Let's get out of this political crap that's going on, and I don't care what side you're on. Try. Just simply try." Her experience has given her perspective on not only the farming industry and its challenges as a whole, but for the challenges faced by women in agriculture in particular. That includes whatever role they may hold, be it in the field or pasture, in a leadership or a support role. She often offered the other four nominees Crystal Neuharth of Fort Pierre, Shelby Boomsma of Hitchcock, Leanne Wieczorak of Mount Vernon and Shannon Kubik of Hamill as examples of women in agriculture who are worthy of recognition. Niki Jones, marketing director for Dakotafest who served as emcee for the ceremony, said women in agriculture are too often underrecognized. The award is a way to address that shortcoming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There are more and more women that are getting into farming and being the sole farmer on their farm, if not part of a duo. And they're often unseen and unrecognized," Jones said. "We think it's important to recognize their contributions because they really do bring a lot to the party." Fritz agreed. Though grateful for the award, she was quick to defer praise back to her fellow nominees. She knows they understand the challenges and commitment of farm life, and she was honored to be among them Thursday. "I want to thank all these women. Women in agriculture are a special breed. We stand on the shoulders of women who came long before us. We stand on their shoulders, but we have something to give to the new generation, too. We can learn something new every day," Fritz said. "Thank you guys so much for all your support. You don't know what your support means to me." The Israeli authority responsible for affairs in the Palestinian Territories, COGAT, has said it "categorically rejects" a UN-backed report confirming for the first time that famine is occurring in an area of the Gaza Strip. In a report released on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said it has "reasonable evidence" that famine has been occurring in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, since August 15. COGAT responded to the report in a post on X: "Previous reports and assessments by the IPC have repeatedly been proven inaccurate and do not reflect the reality on the ground." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Head of COGAT, Ghassan Allian, said: "The IPC report is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas, and blatantly ignores the facts and the extensive humanitarian efforts led by the State of Israel and its international partners." "Instead of providing a professional, neutral, and responsible assessment, the report adopts a biased approach riddled with severe methodological flaws, thereby undermining its credibility and the trust the international community is able to place in it," he was quoted as saying. The classification comes as Israeli troops are advancing on Gaza City after the government approved plans to capture the metropolis of some 1 million in a bid to destroy the remainders of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas. The new offensive has sparked fears of further suffering for the civilian population, which has been largely lacking access to basic necessities including food since Israel imposed a near-total aid blockade on the territory earlier this year. Last month, Israel partially lifted its blockade, allowing limited amounts of aid to trickle into the Gaza Strip. Israel is preparing to launch intensive attacks on Gaza City, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Friday, after operational plans for the city's takeover were approved. "The gates of hell will soon open on the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza - until they agree to Israel's conditions for ending the war," Katz wrote on X. He warned that if the Palestinian Islamist group does not concede, Gaza City will soon look like Rafah and Beit Hanoun, both of which have been largely flattened by Israeli bombing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Katz's comments came after a security meeting between himself, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military officials on Thursday, during which operational plans to seize the city in the north of the territory were approved. Katz said the plans involve the relocation of the city's residents, a total of around 1 million people. Earlier this month, the Security Cabinet authorized the capture of the territory's largest metropolis and the evacuation of the population to the south. The move is considered a possible negotiating tactic to put pressure on Hamas, which is still holding around 50 hostages in Gaza. Netanyahu on Thursday held out the prospect of further talks with the group. Indirect negotiations on a new ceasefire were recently suspended. Famine is taking place in Gaza - just a short drive away from hundreds of trucks of aid sitting idly outside its borders. How did we get here? The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), backed by the United Nations, is the world's leading hunger monitor. Its assessment that half a million people a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from famine is shocking for many reasons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Primary among them is the report's acknowledgement that this situation is "entirely man-made", with aid organisations today accusing Israel of the "systematic obstruction" of food entering the Gaza Strip. The IPC report says that it has found that people living in the Gaza City area are experiencing famine conditions of "starvation, destitution, and death". It also finds that starvation is spreading rapidly with famine expected to be in much of the rest of Gaza in September, on current trends. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report has reached its conclusion via three key indicators: Starvation: At least 1 in 5 households face an extreme shortage in their consumption of food Malnutrition: Roughly 1 in 3 children or more are acutely malnourished Mortality: At least 2 in every 10,000 people are dying daily because of outright starvation or the combination of malnutrition and disease When two of these three "thresholds" are met, the IPC recognises that famine is taking place. The IPC says the "mortality" indicator is not showing in the available data because of a breakdown of monitoring systems. It believes most non-traumatic deaths are not being recorded. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Based on the evidence that does exist, and expert judgement, the IPC has concluded that the "mortality" threshold for famine has been met. The report was published as Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry recorded two new deaths from malnutrition, bringing the total number to 273 deaths, including 112 children. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza and has said that where there is hunger, it is the fault of aid agencies and Hamas. Israel has accused international aid agencies like the UN of not picking up aid waiting at Gaza's border, pointing to the hundreds of trucks sitting idle. 'Entirely man-made' Jana Ayad is being treated for malnutrition at the International Medical Corps field hospital in Deir Al-Balah [Reuters] After weeks of the world seeing images of starving children, with distended stomachs and protruding bones, many will feel like the signs that a famine was imminent were a long time coming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ability of Palestinians to access food has been complicated throughout the nearly two-year war in Gaza. Israel has long placed restrictions on goods entering Gaza, those restrictions increased after the beginning of the war on 7 October 2023, triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel. However, since March 2025, the situation has deteriorated rapidly after Israel introduced a nearly three-month total blockade on goods entering Gaza. Under significant international pressure, Israel began allowing a limited amount of goods back into Gaza in late-May. It also introduced a new system of food distribution operated by a controversial American group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to replace the previous UN-led system of food distribution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The GHF has four food distribution sites in militarised zones that Palestinians must walk long distances at risk, replacing the 400 distribution points in the community under the UN's system. Finding food has become a deadly endeavour for Palestinians and they have regularly told us that they have to choose between starvation and death, referring to the near-daily shootings of people trying to get aid at GHF distribution sites. The United Nations has recorded the killing of at least 994 Palestinians in the vicinity of GHF sites, since late May, some of the 1,760 killed trying to access aid. The UN says the majority killed were shot by Israeli troops, something corroborated by eye-witnesses we have spoken to and medics in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly rejected the allegations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under this system, overseen by Israel, starvation in Gaza has expanded. Indonesian Hercules aircraft drops humanitarian aid packages over the Gaza Strip [Reuters] As pressure continued to grow on Israel to allow more food in, in late July it began allowing more trucks of aid into Gaza each day and introducing "tactical pauses" in fighting to allow more aid convoys to move through the territory. More aid has entered in recent weeks and the astronomical prices of some goods in the markets reduced somewhat though for many Palestinians, prohibitively expensive. At times the price of flour reached above $85 for a kilo, though that figure began to reduce. The UN and aid organisations say that despite Israel loosening some of its restrictions on food getting into the Gaza Strip, it still places significant impediments and obstructions in being able to collect and distribute aid. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The organisations say what's needed is 600 trucks a day bringing goods into Gaza for people to meet their basic needs currently no more than half of that is being allowed in. Israel also began allowing airdrops of aid, something criticised as inefficient, dangerous, and ultimately a distraction by humanitarian organisations. Israel's accusation that Hamas is responsible for the hunger crisis has also been criticised. Multiple reports, including an internal US government report, found there is no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas. There is indeed widespread looting of trucks entering Gaza but aid agencies say most of the looting is by crowds of desperate Palestinians and some organised groups trying to make a resale profit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ultimately, aid agencies have been repeating for months that in order to avert starvation and famine, Gaza needs to be flooded with aid entering by road and currently Israel still imposes restrictions. Israel's response A number of Israeli government officials have today rejected the IPC's report. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the IPC of publishing a "tailor-made fabricated report to fit Hamas's fake campaign". The Israeli army body called Cogat (the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), which is responsible for managing crossing into Gaza, called the IPC report a "False and Biased Report, Based on Partial Data Originating From the Hamas Terrorist Organization". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Among other criticisms, Israel says that the IPC "changed its own global standard", halving a threshold of those facing famine from 30% to 15% as well as "totally ignoring its second criterion of death rate". The IPC rejected the accusations and said that it has used long-established standards that have been used previously in similar situations. Israel's accusation that the IPC has used "Hamas data" appears to reference that some of the reporting about malnutrition in Gaza comes from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health there. However, the ministry's data on deaths and injuries has widely been seen as reliable throughout the war. Responses to the report from UN agencies and international leaders has been strong. The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that Israel, as the occupying power, "has unequivocal obligations under international law including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population. We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity". The UN's humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said the famine was the direct result of Israel's "systematic obstruction" of aid entering Gaza. Meanwhile the UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: "The Israeli government's refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage." On Friday, the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said it was "a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing". Gaza City Invasion Israel has this week authorised the call-up of tens of thousands of reservist troops to conduct its controversial invasion and occupation of Gaza City, the area where the IPC has declared famine is taking place. Netanyahu says a takeover is the best option to defeat Hamas, end the war and to return the Israeli hostages from Gaza. The invasion would forcibly displace an estimated one million Palestinians living in Gaza City and the areas around it. Israel has already told medics and aid agencies to make preparations to make plans to evacuate the area. A joint statement from a number of UN organisations including Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization expressed alarm about the planned offensive, saying "it would have further devastating consequences for civilians where famine conditions already exist. "Many people especially sick and malnourished children, older people and people with disabilities may be unable to evacuate." MILAN (Reuters) -A Milan court on Friday freed the founder of real estate firm Coima SGR from house arrest imposed over an inquiry into alleged crimes in Milan's urban planning, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The court ordered the removal of the precautionary measure imposed on Manfredi Catella on July 31, without issuing any alternative restrictions, the sources said. Coima and Catella were not immediately available for comment. Catella handed over his CEO powers at Coima, one of Italy's biggest property developers, following his house arrest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The inquiry, led by Milan prosecutors, involves senior city hall officials including Mayor Giuseppe Sala. It focuses on dealings that helped fuel a real estate boom in Italy's financial capital over the past 10 years. All the people under investigation have denied any wrongdoing. Earlier this month, the Milan court freed a city councillor and two other people initially placed under house arrest. The Milan property market took off from around 2015, when the Expo international exhibition acted as a catalyst that progressively transformed the city into a hot spot for developers from Italy and abroad. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The investigation was triggered by complaints from local residents who objected to the surge in multi-storey buildings, and has uncovered alleged abuses in the fast-tracking of building permits. Construction activity in Milan stalled after the investigation kicked off in 2022. (Reporting by Emilio Parodi and Elvira Pollina, additional reporting by Claudia Cristoferi; editing by Mark Heinrich) By Giulio Piovaccari MILAN (Reuters) -An Italian appeals court on Friday confirmed the arrest of a Ukrainian man suspected by Germany of coordinating attacks on three Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in 2022, his lawyer said. The 49-year-old man, whose full name was given in court but has been identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, was arrested on Thursday near the Italian coastal town of Rimini under a European warrant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The appeals court in Bologna, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) north-west of Rimini, said it would reconvene on Sept. 3 to consider his possible extradition to Germany, although a decision may not be made on that day, the lawyer said. The man told the court he was a former soldier, the lawyer told Reuters by telephone. He was filmed in handcuffs during his transfer from Rimini to the Bologna court, making a defiant three-finger gesture representing Ukraine's national coat of arms. He was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, according to a statement issued by the German prosecutor's office on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures. The arrest came just as Kyiv engages in fraught diplomatic discussions with the United States over how to end the war in Ukraine without giving away major concessions and swathes of its own territory to Russia. Italy's Carabinieri police arrested the man in San Clemente, a small town near Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast, where he was holidaying with his family, acting on a European arrest warrant. The German prosecutors allege that he and his accomplices had set off from Rostock on Germany's northeastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack. (Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, writing by Sara Rossi, editing by Gavin Jones and Hugh Lawson) JACKSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) A Jackson County inmate has been arrested for allegedly threatening an elected official. Death investigation underway after body found on Dickerson Pike According to a news release from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, special agents conducted an investigation that resulted in the indictment of 62-year-old Lester Clouse. TBI officials said the investigation began on July 8 after 15th Judicial District Attorney General Jason Law made a request for the investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Agents ultimately learned Clouse was responsible for making the threat, according to officials. Woman killed, man badly injured after drunk driver crashed into them in Antioch On Monday, the TBI said Jackson County Grand Jury returned an indictment for Clouse, charging him with one count of retaliation for past action. Officials added that Clouse was served with the indictment on Friday and booked into the Jackson County Jail where he remains on a $50,000 bond. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Japan committed $5.5 billion in loans to Africa this week, positioning itself as a reliable partner at a time when the US and UK governments have made huge cuts to foreign aid. The new funding package was announced during the countrys flagship conference promoting development on the continent, a forum attended by more than two dozen African presidents and heads of state or their high-level representatives. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba held bilateral talks with the presidents of Angola, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, among others. Japan is also seeking to strengthen its ties with Africa through a new economic zone connecting the continent with the Indian Ocean under an initiative proposed by Ishiba this week. His government will provide a grant to develop Kenyas Port of Mombasa, where ongoing infrastructure upgrades saw cargo volumes rise 8% in the first half of this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kenya is also set to receive a yen-denominated loan worth $169 million, with the backing of Japans Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, to boost its local automotive and energy sectors. By Kantaro Komiya TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan will join a European project to observe the Apophis asteroid when it passes close to the Earth by providing the H3 rocket as a launch vehicle, a Japanese space agency official said on Friday. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will join the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Ramses mission to observe Apophis, which makes a close encounter with the Earth in 2029, JAXA Vice President Masaki Fujimoto said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NASA, U.S. space agency, had planned a separate OSIRIS-APEX mission to rendezvous with Apophis in 2029, but the fate of the mission is uncertain because of potential U.S. budget cuts. "Under the circumstances, JAXA must increasingly support Ramses to study Apophis through Japan-Europe collaboration, on behalf of humanity worldwide," Fujimoto told a space policy panel of Japan's science ministry. The mission requires final ESA approval in November, but JAXA is considering a ride-share launch of its own deep space explorer DESTINY+ with Ramses in 2028 and would also offer infrared sensor and solar array paddle components for Ramses, he said. Studying events like Apophis' passage close to the Earth is crucial for planetary defence activities against asteroid collision risks in the future, scientists have said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Europe and Japan are deepening space collaboration amid shifting U.S. space policies, as well as cooperation between China and Russia on space projects. ESA and JAXA said in May they remain committed to the NASA-led Artemis programme after the U.S. administration proposed major changes to the moon missions. The EU and Japan confirmed cooperation in building satellite constellations, including Europe's satellite communication infrastructure IRIS, at their leaders' summit in Tokyo last month. Eutelsat, the French rival to Elon Musk's Starlink commercial satellite internet system, in September signed a multi-launch contract with Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which has carried out H3 rocket launches since its first successful flight last year. Japan also plans a joint lunar rover mission called LUPEX with India. (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya. Editing by Jane Merriman) Vice President JD Vance rejected the idea that the FBIs home raid of Donald Trumps former advisor John Bolton is the administrations way of getting payback against Bolton for his criticisms of the president. The vice president explained that if that were the case, he would already have charges brought against him. During a Friday interview on NBCs Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, Vance explained to Kristen Welker that Trumps Department of Justice is in the early stages of an ongoing investigation into Bolton, which he claims is driven by law and not by politics and is in part a response to supposed classified documents Bolton has. He denies the notion that Bolton, a well-known critic of Trump, was any sort of target. More from TheWrap No, not at all, Vance said, after Welker noted that the Trump administration has revoked Boltons security clearance and secret service protection. In fact, if we were trying to do that we would just throw out prosecutions willy nilly like the Biden administrations DOJ did. Prosecutions that later got thrown out in court. If we bring a case, of course we havent done that yet, the Department of Justice has not done that yet, were investigating Ambassador Bolton. But if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determined that he has broken the law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added that the Trump camp plans to be careful but deliberate about their actions regarding Bolton. Because we dont think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldnt throw people willy nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and thats what were doing. When Welker asked straight up, is this retribution against Bolton, mentioning that a lot of people speculate that it is, Vance, questioned the origin of those theories. Well, who has said it looks a lot like retribution, Kristen? Vance asked. A lot of people who try to throw Donald Trump in prison for completely fake charges that were later thrown out by multiple different courts. I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, let the investigation unfold as its currently doing, theyre going to find out that what were doing is being very deliberate and being very driven by the national interests and by the law here and thats as it should be. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vances remarks came out on the same day Boltons home was raided. Bolton has not been charged nor detained, but the move reportedly is in regards to a national security investigation in search of classified records, according to NBC News. Bolton served as an advisor during Trumps first administration, but has since become a vocal critic of his former boss. Hes also worked as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a United States assistant attorney general in the past. From Trumps end, he told reporters he knew nothing about the raid and only saw it this morning. Theyll brief me, probably today sometime, Trump said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Fox and MSNBC hosts noted that Boltons federally funded security, which was put in place because the former national security advisor is under threat by Iran, was lifted once Trump took office. He has since had to pay for private security. MSNBCs justice and intel correspondent Ken Dilanian, meanwhile, suggested that the raid seemed to be part of Trump and the FBIs attempts to pursue Trumps political enemies, though they dont describe it that way. Donald Trumps law enforcement apparatus appears to be responding to his desire to re-litigate all of these issues where he thinks he was wronged by the intelligence community, and the justice department and the FBI, he said. Its going in what a lot of people think is a dangerous direction. The post JD Vance Denies John Bolton FBI Raid Is Payback for Criticizing Trump: Driven by Law and Not by Politics appeared first on TheWrap. "We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves," President Donald Trump said of the US plans to send Ukraine weapons. Joe Raedle via Getty Images The US government has reached a deal to take a 9.9% stake in Intel. The deal involves the US investing $8.9 billion in Intel common stock. President Donald Trump talked about the agreement on Friday during remarks at the White House. The US government is officially investing in Intel, a remarkable development and a rare example of the government getting financially involved in a private company. Under the terms of the deal, the US is investing $8.9 billion into the chipmaker, "reflecting the confidence the Administration has in Intel to advance key national priorities and the critically important role the company plays in expanding the domestic semiconductor industry," the chipmaker said in a Friday announcement. The agreement means the US government will hold a 9.9% stake in Intel. "The $8.9 billion investment is in addition to the $2.2 billion in CHIPS grants Intel has received to date, making for a total investment of $11.1 billion," Intel said. "Under the terms of today's announcement, the government agrees to purchase 433.3 million primary shares of Intel common stock at a price of $20.47 per share, equivalent to a 9.9% stake in the company," Intel added. "This investment provides American taxpayers with a discount to the current market price while enabling the US and existing shareholders to benefit from Intel's long-term business success." Earlier on Friday, President Donald Trump talked about the agreement and his discussions with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Intel's stock soared following the remarks, finishing the trading day up nearly 6%. The stock was trading down around 1% in after-hours trading following Intel's confirmation of a deal. "The government's investment in Intel will be a passive ownership, with no Board representation or other governance or information rights," Intel said in its announcement. "The government also agrees to vote with the Company's Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions." A struggling American tech giant whose CEO came under political scrutiny Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan picture alliance/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images Intel has seen its market share decline as foreign rivals like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company grow. The company is attempting a turnaround, and its CEO recently found himself caught up in political crosshairs. Trump met with Intel's CEO earlier this month at the White House after calling for Tan's "immediate" resignation due to his reported investments in Chinese companies. Following the meeting, Trump sounded a much different tone, praising Tan's "amazing story." Vice President JD Vance shut down allegations that the FBI raid of former national security adviser John Boltons home was because he is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump. Vance was asked about the raid of Boltons home in an interview on Meet the Press with Kristen Welker that was shared on Friday. Welker pressed Vance on whether Bolton was being targeted by the FBI because hes a critic" of the president. No, not at all. And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy-nilly, like the Biden administration DOJ did. Prosecutions that later got thrown out in court. If we bring a case, and of course, we havent done that yet. The Department of Justice has not done that yet. We are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law, Vance said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were going to be careful about that. Were going to be deliberate about that, because we dont think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldnt throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and thats what were doing," he continued. Welker then asked whether the search of Boltons home was retribution," which Vance also denied. Well, who has said it looks a lot like retribution, Kristen? A lot of people who tried to throw Donald Trump in prison for completely fake charges that were later thrown out by multiple different courts, he said. I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, if they let the investigation unfold, as its currently doing, theyre going to find out that what were doing is being very deliberate and being very driven by the national interest, and by the law here and thats as it should be, he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Federal agents conducted the search at Boltons house in Bethesda, Maryland on Friday morning, multiple outlets reported. According to the Associated Press, the raid was part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information. When asked on Friday morning if he was briefed on the FBI raid of Boltons home, Trump said he was unaware of it. No, I dont know about it. I saw it on television this morning. Im not a fan of John Bolton. Hes a real, sort of a, lowlife," Trump told reporters. Q: "Have you been briefed on the FBI raid of John Bolton's home?" President Trump: "No, I don't know about it. I saw it on television this morning. I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's a real, sort of a, lowlife." pic.twitter.com/HUe2hWh7aE CSPAN (@cspan) August 22, 2025 The searches, seemingly the most significant public step the Justice Department has taken against a perceived enemy of the president, are likely to elicit fresh alarm that the Trump administration is using its law enforcement powers to target the Republicans foes. They come as the Trump administration has moved to examine the activities of other critics, including by authorizing a grand jury investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe that dogged Trump for much of his first term, and as FBI and Justice Department leaders signal their loyalty to the president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They also unfolded against the backdrop of a 2022 search for classified documents at Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, an action that produced since-dismissed criminal charges but remains the source of outrage for the president and supporters who insist he was unjustly targeted despite the retrieval of top-secret records. Current FBI Director Kash Patel, who included Bolton on a list of members of the Executive Branch Deep State in a 2023 book, said in a Fox News Channel interview this week that the Mar-a-Lago search represented a total weaponization and politicization of the bureau. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Vice President JD Vance has likely become all too familiar with getting relentlessly booed and heckled while out in public. And for many people on social media who oppose the Trump administration, the loud protests have been quite satisfying. On Wednesday, Vance was accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller when he was heckled and booed during a visit to Washington, D.C.s Union Station amid President Donald Trumps militarized takeover of the citys police. In a video clip captured by HuffPosts Igor Bobic, loud boos can be heard from protesters in Union Station as Vance can be seen walking in the distance with security. In other clipsposted on X, protesters can be heard chanting: From Washington to Palestine, occupation is a crime! and Free D.C.! Related: Trump's Body Language During Zelenskyy Visit Spoke Volumes, Experts Say Other chants directed at Vance were a bit more crude. One video captured by HuffPosts Arthur Delaney showed Vance walking as someone yelled,Go fuck a couch JD Vance! a reference to a made-up viral meme. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Vance has been no stranger to this kind of protesting and heckling from the public. The vice president was booed while he vacationed with his family during a trip to Disneyland in July and he was met with hundreds of furious protesters holding up signs during a family vacation to Vermont in March. He also received fierce boos from a crowd at the Kennedy Center in D.C. that same month, while attending a concert with his wife, second lady Usha Vance. Vance and Hegseth leaving Union Station, lots of boos pic.twitter.com/oRT9wOca8c Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) August 20, 2025 And each time a video showing Vance getting relentlessly booed makes rounds on the internet, social media users take to Xto celebrate. A common theme? People are feeling satisfied and maybe even hopeful. I know its not much, but booing JD Vance does feel nice, one X user wrote back in March after Vance visited the Kennedy Center. Its good for him to understand that most of America is not a bunch of fawning sycophants and supplicants like hes used to at Mar-a-Lago and Fox News studios. The booers showed more defiance than Chuck Schumer did. JD Vance getting heckled and booed everywhere he tries to go on vacation or out to eat is rebuilding my hope in America, another X user wrote in August. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This man cant go anywhere in the world without getting booed and I love that for him, another X user wrote after Vance visited Union Station this week. Kari J. Winter, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo, emphasized that these protests are an act of American patriotism. Protesting against tyrannical power and corruption is the foundational act of American patriotism, she said. The protests that we are witnessing across the country today are fueled by the spirit of resistance that inflamed Boston in the Age of Revolution. It is the duty of everyone who loves this country to speak up in whatever ways they can against the Trump administrations assault on every aspect of American society that has traditionally offered a gold standard to the world, she continued, adding: In place of gold standards, Trump promotes gilded baubles, golden toilets and gaudy ballrooms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Winter said that like Trump, Vance and Hegseth are bludgeoning the best and brightest American people and institutions. She pointed out that the Trump administration has been taking a sledgehammer to American gold standards, which, among many examples, include: attacks on universities, the free press, due process and on efforts to save lives and combat diseases through agencies like the United States Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While speaking to reporters at Union Station on Wednesday, as protesters could be heard chanting in the background, Vance chided the protesters as a few crazy liberals who are screaming at the vice president. Winter called Vances comments about the protesters pathetic self-justifications. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement JD Vances pathetic self-justifications echo the age-old attitude of royal underlings who can hardly believe that ordinary people resent their high-handed let-them-eat-cake airs, she said. Related: The Funniest Posts From Women This Week (Aug. 16-22) Does booing or yelling at the vice president present any legal concerns? While many are celebrating the boos and expletive-filled chants being leveled at Vance in public, you may be wondering about your rights, or you may have legal questions about these kinds of protests especially considering the current political climate. Raymond Ku, a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, told HuffPost that the short answer is that it all should be protected by the First Amendment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are a couple areas of speech that are less protected ... the primary one here would be essentially threats, threats to the vice president, threats to anyone else whether its a public official or regular human being, he said. Along those lines, it doesnt even have to mean to carry it out, it would just have be a true threat. Ku said that people may, in some cases, consider whether throwing an insult is an example of fighting words, in which someone means to cause a fight. Traditionally, the courts have also said [that] could be punished, he said. But generally speaking, saying or yelling critical things at elected officials in public is very protected, he explained. Though Ku emphasized that doesnt mean as weve seen with this administration that there wont be an effort to try to punish people. And as for people yelling humiliating expletive-filled chants at Vance especially ones that have to do with couches Ku said that should also be protected completely. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fighting words doctrine is essentially saying something to another person face-to-face, to provoke the average person to want to engage in violence, he said. So its a little flexible, but still, its very hard to overcome. But yelling couch-related insults at Vance that may cause embarrassment isnt the kind of speech that can be criminally punished, he said, before later explaining that a true threat is one that makes you fearful of bodily harm. And as for the importance of all the various kinds of protests happening against the Trump administration, Winter emphasized that we have a clear choice in the United States today. We can submit to endless lies, bottomless grift, escalating cruelty, and the terrorism of unfettered power, she said. Or we can stand up and boo, shout, wave signs. Whatever your platform, now is the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If we dont protest, Trump will soon impose martial law on the entire country like he has in Washington D.C. she continued. Booing, heckling, expletives, protest signs, editorials, investigative journalism, art, music, dance any and every way you use your voice to dissent against tyranny is an act of love for your country. Related... Read the original on HuffPost A Jean Ribault High School counselor and alumna learned she is this years Florida School Counselor of the Year with a surprise announcement Thursday Morning. The award was presented to Dr. Brianna Patterson during a regularly scheduled high school counselors meeting at the Schultz Center. Members of the Florida School Counselor Association (FSCA) were there to recognize Dr. Pattersons significant positive impact on local students. I feel so overwhelmed with the most positive emotions, Dr. Patterson shared with the crowd following the reveal. It feels good to come back to my community and make a difference every day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The association said Dr. Pattersons leadership at Jean Ribault High School has helped it attain a 90% retention rate in the schools Early College Program, a doubling of students eligible for dual enrollment, and an increase in scholarship awards from $13 to $18 million last year. Principal Dr. Gregory Bostic emphasized the vital role of school counselors in students lives, and said Dr. Pattersons contributions played a part in the schools recent achievement of an A grade. RELATED: Jean Ribault High School opens with state-of-the-art facilities, funded by half-cent sales tax Dr. Patterson has served as a school counselor at Jean Ribault High School for five years and will be celebrated at the FSCA Convention in November. She is also a candidate for the American School Counselor Associations National School Counselor of the Year. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse has been ousted as Defense Intelligence Agency director, a senior defense official confirmed Friday. "Lt Gen Kruse will no longer serve as DIA Director," the official said in a brief statement. The agency's deputy director, Christine Bordine, will assume the role of acting DIA director, a spokesperson said. Lt. General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, during a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations hearing on May 15, 2025. / Credit: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images Intelligence committee leaders in Congress were informed about the DIA chief's firing, according to a source familiar with the notification, but were given no reason for it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "All senior military leaders serve at the pleasure of President Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told CBS News on Sunday. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who is the vice chair of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, said in a statement: "The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration's dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country." The DIA was the department responsible for the preliminary assessment of the military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. The assessment said that the strikes had set back Tehran's nuclear program by a matter of months, three sources familiar with its contents told CBS News shortly after the airstrikes. The DIA's findings also indicated some of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile had been moved before the strikes, according to one of the sources. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That assessment prompted a backlash from the Trump administration, since President Trump had said in an address to the nation following the strikes that "Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated." He said the U.S. strikes had set back the Iranian nuclear program "basically decades." DIA employees seem to have been caught completely off guard by Kruse's firing. One DIA employee told CBS News of speaking to another colleague about it, who replied with an expletive. Another said, "If he is being fired, the workplace at large will lose even more faith in the administration. There's already widespread and openly voiced in town halls concern of their work being politicized." Two other military officials have been removed from their posts, CBS News confirmed on Friday. Rear Adm. Milton Sands, who served as commander of Navy Special Warfare Command, and Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who was the chief of the Navy Reserve, will no longer serve in those roles, according to a Navy official. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Neither Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nor U.S. Special Operations Commanding Gen. Bryan Fenton were consulted on the decision to fire Lacore or Sands, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News on Saturday. Maj. Gen. J. Patrick Work, commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, was also recently pulled from a future role as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, as well, sources familiar told CBS News. The Washington Post was first to report Sands' and Lacore's removals. Rainbow crosswalks in Florida painted over Welcome to New Orleans Maryland Gov. Wes Moore calls Trump D.C. National Guard deployment "unconstitutional" Any future data center developments in Jessup must be built above the Casey Highway while adhering to more than a dozen conditions intended to protect residents. Borough council unanimously adopted an ordinance this week amending the towns zoning to better address data centers. The ordinance creates a special zoning overlay district requiring any future data center proposals to be sited on industrial land above the Casey Highway. The legislation makes data center developments conditional uses, which means developers will have to attend a public hearing and show that they can adhere to conditions in the legislation before council approves their project. It also addresses solar farms and wind turbines. Councilmen Curt Camoni and Gregg Betti spearheaded the legislation. Camoni said he first approached Solicitor Maura Armezzani Tunis in January to begin the process, and the borough hired Pittsburgh-based Environmental Planning & Design to help it navigate the zoning amendment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Residents quality of life, health and safety were their top priorities, Camoni said. We wanted to make sure that it was as thorough as possible, he said of the ordinance. Thats whats necessary as we move forward because we dont know whats going to come and yet we still need to be prepared, so its really important that every i is dotted, every t is crossed, every definition is given, so that the residents are protected and that the borough has options. By creating an energy and information technology overlay district, the newly adopted ordinance restricts data centers to land south of the Casey Highway in light industrial/business park and general industrial zones encompassing the Valley View Business Park and the land surrounding the Lackawanna Energy Center natural gas power plant. Previously, Jessups zoning ordinance, which council adopted in November 2020, allowed data centers as principally permitted uses in light industrial/business park zones, general industrial zones, interchange commercial zones and mixed use zones. The latter two zones allowed data centers to be built below the Casey Highway, notably on land between the highway and Breaker Street, as well as land surrounding Veterans Memorial Drive near the highway and Moosic Lake Road. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 2020 ordinance did not define data centers, only saying they may include an internet server building. Although the new legislation applies to future projects, any data center applications received prior to councils vote Tuesday are grandfathered in under the previous zoning. While Jessup was working to draft the new zoning amendment, Breaker Street Associates LLC submitted a zoning application June 10 to build six data center buildings totaling 1.07 million square feet across 131 acres in the mixed use zoning district on the south side of Breaker Street between Hill Street and the Casey Highway, according to paperwork obtained via a Right to Know Law request. The campus would use 600 megawatts of power, and each building would be 130 feet tall, according to the zoning application. Even though the project is considered a principally permitted use, it would need zoning relief via a variance granted by Jessups zoning hearing board to exceed the 40-foot, or three-story, height restriction in mixed use zones. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Breaker Street project is one of at least six data centers proposed in Lackawanna County, with three in Archbald, one in Blakely, one in Jessup, and a large campus in Clifton and Covington townships. In the new overlay district above the Casey Highway, future data centers will be restricted to 50 feet or four stories, whichever is more restrictive. Conditions for data centers now include: Proof from all applicable public utilities (including electrical, water and sewage) certifying they have the capacity to meet the demands of the data center while maintaining the same levels of services for existing residents and businesses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pre- and post-construction studies to control noise. Requirements to use backup diesel generators sparingly while locating them at least 500 feet from residential areas. Groups of two or more diesel generators must be surrounded by a fence or wall with permanent evergreen shrubbery or trees. They must also have an uninterruptible power supply to provide adequate power in the event of a disruption. Requirements to participate in annual emergency management and fire mitigation training with local first responders, along with evidence of an on-site water supply for firefighting. Water conservation stipulations instructing data centers to strive to deploy technologies for water conservation, including closed-loop or recirculation cooling systems to reduce the demand for public water. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A plan to limit light pollution. A transportation impact study. The energy and information technology overlay has its own requirements, including for architectural standards, fencing, screening and buffers, landscaping and open spaces, and service areas and loading docks. Betti pointed to language in the new ordinance addressing any land uses not specifically included in the boroughs zoning. When Jessup was working on its zoning ordinance six years ago, officials had no idea about hyper-scale data centers, and that provision protects the borough from going through what just happened with data centers, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Who knows, in six more years, or 60 more years, there could be some other new business that we dont have a clue about, and at least we have a zone for it now, Betti said. Jessup is not against data centers, he said. Its not like we dont want one, we just want it in the industrial park where it belongs, Betti said. Camoni emphasized that the borough cant just say no to an industry; boroughs are mandated by the state to have an area for every type of land use, he said. By allowing data centers in an industrial area above the Casey Highway, data centers will have the least impact on residents, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He noted that the borough had started the zoning process before it received any applications for data centers. We had the foresight to take action, and we took steps to make sure that not only are we complying with all of Pennsylvanias laws, but that the resident was the priority throughout the process, Camoni said. Prioritizing quality of life makes their community more attractive to live in, he said. Thats good for industry as well, because when industry comes in, we want their folks to buy houses in Jessup and become part of our community, he said. Data centers are neither good nor bad, Camoni said. If located properly, and the financial impact to its community is where it should be, these things are perfectly fine, he said, calling them an economic opportunity for the community. But, if it infringes upon the quality of life or the health and safety of the residents, then its not worth doing, no matter what the financial impact is. The head of the Jacksonville Housing Authority is blasting the agencys longtime trash hauler, Republic Services, in a fiery internal email obtained by Action News Jax Ben Becker. In the message sent to all JHA staff, CEO Cheron Corbett Waller accuses Republic of defamation and demands a formal apology. The email stems from an ongoing dispute over unpaid invoices that recently led Republic Services to stop collecting trash at Brentwood Lake Apartments. Republic said JHA failed to pay a $5,500 bill dating back to September 2024. However, Waller insists the bill was paid and blames the issue on a delay within Republics own accounting department. Internal JHA email on Republic Services JHA will not tolerate the defamation of our image and the blatant disregard to properly service our JHA clients, Waller wrote. Our clients deserve to live in a clean and healthy environment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Wallers message goes further, stating that the authority may review the option to re-bid its waste management contract if a resolution isnt reached quickly. JHAs Wishlist Waller also outlines several suggestions from staff on how Republic Services can support residents at Brentwood to repair the relationship: September: Cleaning supply gift baskets October: Fall-themed on-site breakfast November: Thanksgiving turkey or Cornish hen giveaway December: Sponsored holiday event at Brentwood Apartments Employees were encouraged to send additional ideas to the JHAs main inbox by Wednesday afternoon. Missing Payments Not Mentioned Notably, the email makes no mention of larger financial concerns: JHA was late on a $37,387 payment for June and nearly missed a $35,000 payment for July covering other properties across the city. Republic confirmed both payments were received as of Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republic declined to comment on the internal message, but told Becker the company plans to meet with the authority soon. Action News Jax has been closely following issues at the Housing Authority for over 18 months. In June, Becker reported that JHA hired Nan McKay & Associates to manage its Housing Choice Voucher program a company that was fined $3.7 million by the Department of Justice just last year. Other controversies include: >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] JK Rowling has attacked the BBC for using female pronouns in its reporting of a German neo-Nazi who began identifying as a woman. Marla-Svenja Liebich lost an appeal in the German courts after being jailed for 18 months for incitement to hatred, defamation and insult. When sentenced at Halle district court, in Saxon-Anhalt, Liebich was known as Sven and identified as a man, but later legally changed gender under legislation in Germany that strengthens the rights of trans people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The BBC reported on Wednesday how controversy had broken out in Germany about whether Liebich should serve a prison sentence in a womens or a mens facility. The broadcasters report referred to Liebich throughout as she and her. JK Rowling says the BBC can no longer be trusted over its reporting on trans issues - Rob Stothard/Getty Rowling posted a link on X to the story, writing: The BBC calls a male neo-Nazi she, because their absolutist belief in gender identity ideology means any man ... must be described as a woman the moment he says hes one. In June, the Harry Potter author claimed the BBC can no longer be trusted to report the news truthfully or impartially on the issue after writing a story that stated a new housing block in London would be exclusively for women. Womens Pioneer Housing, which will manage the property, said it would be let out to women and trans women with gender recognition certificates, prompting criticism that by accepting trans women, technically the property would become a mixed-sex tenancy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rowling wrote on social media: Its not women only. Men will be accommodated there if they say theyre women. Our national broadcaster can no longer be trusted to report truthfully or impartially on matters relating to sex, preferring to push its own luxury beliefs on the unenlightened masses. According to media reports in Germany, Liebich is thought to have been a member of Blood and Honour, a neo-Nazi group, and is due to be held at Chemnitz womens prison. Liebich seen speaking during a protest against Angela Merkel in 2016 is expected to serve his sentence at a womens prison - Markus Heine/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Liebich switched gender late last year, shortly after Germanys Self-Determination Act came into force and strengthened the rights of transgender people. The Act allows people to change their gender marker and first name through a simple declaration at a registry office, instead of a judicial ruling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement German media have questioned Liebichs change. Whether the change is serious is doubtful, wrote Der Spiegel. Liebich has been known for years for her Right-wing extremist views and has also made queerphobic statements in the past. Liebich has taken legal action against German media outlets for alleged misgendering. A complaint against Spiegel to the press council was unanimously rejected as unfounded. Spiegel said it was likely that Liebich made the change of civil status in an abusive manner in order to provoke and embarrass the state. Rowling supports Scottish protest Meanwhile, Rowling has backed a protest at the Scottish Parliament on Sept 4 ahead of a deadline for the executive to respond to a summons lodged by For Women Scotland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The feminist group wants to force the Scottish Government to change its policies to reflect the Supreme Court decision that confirmed the terms women and sex in the Equality Act refer to biological sex. The decision effectively sets female-only spaces in law that can exclude males who identify as women. The BBCs style guide for reporting states that using appropriate language is an important part of how we portray people in our stories. It adds: Transgender, or trans, is an umbrella term for a person whose gender identity differs from their sex recorded at birth. A person born male who lives as a female, would typically be described as a transgender woman and would take the pronoun she. And vice versa. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We generally use the term and pronoun preferred by the person in question, unless there are editorial reasons not to do so. The BBC was approached for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A "Now Hiring" sign is seen at a FedEx location on Broadway on June 7, 2024 in New York City (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has garnered much media and lawmaker attention recently with a press release decrying the states jobs numbers. While they are right that the numbers are lackluster, West Virginias flagging economic landscape is not a recent phenomenon. West Virginia had the ninth worst job growth of any state coming out of the pandemic with 1.1% growth between February 2020 and July 2025 (the nation has seen a 4.8% increase over that period). West Virginias disappointing economic and jobs numbers over the last several years should be seen as a final nail in the coffin for corporate-first policies that fail to prioritize workers, small businesses, and infrastructure investments statewide. West Virginia needs to invest in a 55-county strategy to spur opportunity from Weirton to War. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In recent years, much of the states economic development strategy has focused on offering business tax incentives to big corporations to locate in West Virginia alongside enacting deep tax cuts to make the state more appealing to businesses. These efforts have yet to move the needle on economic and jobs growth while coming with great opportunity costs. West Virginia has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on business tax incentives in recent years through tax abatements, tax credits and cash handouts. A leading researcher on tax incentives, Tim Bartik, has identified why they are a costly and ineffective approach, particularly in places like West Virginia with large parts of the state made up of economically distressed areas. First, the big corporations lured by business tax incentives are unlikely to locate in the places that need them most. Of the top investments touted by the West Virginia Development Office in their 2022 and 2023 annual reports, 71% located in a border county and 80% in a county with a higher median household income than the statewide average. Second, business tax incentives have the highest cost-per-job of any economic development strategy, coming in at a whopping $436,000 per job on average. And these high costs for taxpayers result in little benefit for West Virginia workers, as state officials have failed to include local hiring provisions and strong wage requirements in the agreements. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To summarize, business tax incentives largely help big corporations subsidize out-of-state workers, cost much more than other economic development strategies and concentrate economic growth in places that are already doing well. Since 2023, West Virginia has also enacted $1 billion in tax cuts, two-thirds of which benefited the top 20% of earners in the state. While the promised jobs boom and sales tax growth have failed to materialize, the state has significantly reduced its spending on Medicaid, child care assistance, education and PEIA. This has undoubtedly cost residents jobs, as it has resulted in fewer child care slots, the lowest teacher pay in the country and shuttered community schools with the impacts most concentrated in rural places. Moreover, the foregone revenue from those tax cuts could have helped the state invest in infrastructure and other necessities in struggling parts of our state. Instead of continuing to give away our tax dollars to corporations and the states wealthiest households, West Virginia can invest in an economic strategy that strengthens supports for workers, invests in our communities, and spurs job opportunities even in economically distressed places. West Virginia policymakers can take a people-first approach that prioritizes more cost-effective business development strategies alongside a commitment to public investments and infrastructure improvements in all corners of the state. Targeted job creation programs like those operated by the Coalfield Development Corporation and the Small Business Development Center can be scaled up along with investments in place-based customized job training, union apprenticeship programs, business incubators and site-ready infrastructure development whose cost-per-job is a fraction of that of business tax incentives and can be targeted to distressed areas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And those targeted efforts on the business side must be paired with robust investments in the communities that need it most. Prioritizing taxpayer dollars into public transportation, affordable child care, high quality community schools and on-the-job training programs can help increase employment rates at a reasonable cost-per-job while making our residents more workforce ready. Basic infrastructure needs must be met to ensure all West Virginians have safe roads and bridges, clean drinking water and resilient infrastructure. In 2025, its unconscionable for any community to lack these basics. Combined, these efforts can effectively target distressed places by creating jobs in addition to providing the supports people need to be successful in the workforce while remaining in the communities they love. If we continue to let corporations decide where our investments should go, too many West Virginians will be left behind and our jobs numbers in vast swaths of the state will remain disappointing. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Florida's Joe Gruters on Aug. 21, 2025, the day before his elevation to Republican National Committee chair. (Photo by Christine Sexton/Florida Phoenix) ATLANTA Here comes another Florida Man. A Florida resident already sits in the White House, surrounded by many top aides and federal officials who hail from the Sunshine State. On Friday, the Republican National Committee unanimously voted to elevate state Sen. Joe Gruters, a long-time supporter of President Donald Trump who has a strained relationship with Gov. Ron DeSantis, to the post of RNC chair. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a brief acceptance speech, Gruters thanked Trump for his support and focused on party unity, stressing that the future isnt about one person. The midterms are ahead, where we must expand our majority in the House the Senate and continue electing Republicans nationwide, and then we march towards the presidential election where the stakes cannot be higher, he said. The Democrats want open borders, socialist policies, and weak leadership. We want strong families, secure communities, and American greatness. Thats why we must unite, innovate, and work harder than before. Gruters, a former chair of the Republican Party of Florida who has served as RNC treasurer, was hand-picked by Trump after RNC chair Michael Whatley announced he was stepping down to run for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whatley, who introduced Gruters to the gathering, credited him for turning Florida from a purple to a red state. Gruters led the state party from 2019 to 2023 as the number of Republican voters surpassed that of Democrats. In an interview with the Florida Phoenix Thursday, Gruters said his main focus is to help Trump maintain majorities in both the House and Senate during the mid-term elections. Im 100% completely focused on supporting the president, his mission, his vision, and making sure that were successful in midterms, Gruters said. RNC Chair Joe Gruters speaks in Atlanta on Aug. 22, 2025, during the partys summer conference in Atlanta. (Photo by Christine Sexton/Florida Phoenix) Gruters takes the reins as Trump pushes for the elimination of mail-in voting and while rival states controlled by Republicans and Democrats engage in tit-for-tat redistricting, especially Texas and California. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pushing the state Legislature to look at drawing a new congressional map. His party already controls 20 of Floridas 28 congressional seats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We dont need redistricting to hold on to the majorities in the House and Senate, Gruters said. Were going to win because the president is committed to winning. I think that we have the right messaging. I think we have the right coalitions. Gruters plans to remain in the Florida Senate while heading the RNC and said he was therefore barred against discussing any redistricting effort in Florida. The Florida Constitution includes Fair Districts amendments that say legislators cannot redraw maps for partisan gain. Some Florida Republicans have maintained that they could gain several seats if they make changes to existing districts. Gold standard, golden ticket On mail-in voting, Gruters called Floridas system, which allows it, the gold standard. Its a position DeSantis also takes. But Gruters did not question Trumps push to get rid of it. He also said the RNC would be aggressive with litigation to preserve election integrity. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were here to make the president successful, Gruters said. And I think what the presidents looking for is to make sure that we protect the vote. While Gruters and DeSantis share the same position on Floridas mail-in voting, the men routinely have been at odds. Gruters was one of a minority of Republicans in the Legislature who endorsed Donald Trump over DeSantis early in the GOP presidential primary in 2023. Gruters in the 2024 election supported Amendment 3 to legalize recreational marijuana, while DeSantis aggressively and successfully lobbied for its defeat. Gruters sponsored legislation quashing governors oversight of immigration policy that the Legislature passed in January but DeSantis vetoed. Gruters elevation to national leadership will have ripple effects in Floridas elections. He says hes got Trumps endorsement, a coveted golden ticket that he could have cashed in had he continued his planned run for state chief financial officer. DeSantis recently appointed another state senator, Blaise Ingoglia, to that Florida Cabinet post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In appointing Ingoglia, DeSantis criticized Gruters as insufficiently conservative for GOP voters. He told reporters in July, If George Washington rose from the dead and came back and tapped me on the shoulder and said, Will you appoint Joe Gruters CFO? my response would be No. Gruters insisted during the interview that he would have prevailed in a primary against Ingoglia had he pushed ahead. At the end of the day, I had the president, Gruters said. People dont like this comment, but I had the golden ticket. And Im sure George Washington appreciates the fact that Im going to be chairman. If he was alive, hed be cheering for me as chairman of the party, because were going to win and were going to win big. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Longtime Republican consultant Roger Stone lambasted Trump advisor-turned-staunch-critic John Bolton after the FBI raid on his Bethesda, Maryland, residence on Friday. "Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o'clock in the morning?" Stone riffed on X, six years after the Biden FBI raided his Fort Lauderdale home in an operation to which CNN was reportedly tipped off. "Wait! Where was CNN?" added Stone, who has often criticized Republicans who become disloyal to President Donald Trump. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "What goes around comes around- and Roger Stone still did nothing wrong," he said, quoting the catchphrase and shirts that were circulated after his 2019 raid. John Bolton's Home And Office Raided By Federal Agents GOP political consultant Roger J. Stone Jr., gives the Nixon salute at a 2024 event. Stone, who began his political career volunteering for 1964 presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., before moving on to advising President Richard Nixon, also posted a photo of himself from his arrest wearing a "Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong" shirt. Read On The Fox News App Stone continued his critique of Bolton later Friday morning with another X post that included a split photo of the two men. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The man on the left had his home rated at 6 am because he did something wrong. The man on the right had his home raided at 6 am because he didn't. Karma is b----." Biden Doj Drops Lawsuit Against John Bolton Over 2020 Book Release He later released a mock statement claiming Bolton admitted his signature mustache was "appropriated from a member of the Village People." Bolton, who held diplomatic posts under presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush before joining President Donald Trumps first administration, later broke with Trump over his handling of COVID-19, his approach to diplomacy and the impeachment saga. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump often returned fire at Bolton after their messy breakup, and Stone occasionally chimed in to defend his longtime friend from New York. After Bolton attacked Trumps choice of Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, calling her a "serious threat to national security," Stone returned fire. "Watching war pig John Bolton attack the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as DNI makes me all the more certain that she is precisely the right person for the job," Stone said in November. After the raid on Boltons home, FBI agents were also seen in DuPont Circle, D.C., removing boxes from the Baltimore natives personal office. Original article source: John Bolton blasted by Trump ally Roger Stone, who faced Biden FBI raid: 'Karma is a b----' BKPS, an affiliate of energy company Karpowership, has signed a contract with Iraq's Ministry of Electricity and the General Company for Electric Energy Production/Southern to initiate a new power generation project in the country. The project will provide 590MW of electricity via Karpowership's two distinctive Powership vessels. This initiative aims to strengthen the country's energy security by delivering quick, dependable and affordable electricity. BKPS will supply electricity for an initial contract duration of 71 days, to stabilise the national grid and fulfil demand. The Powerships are set to be stationed at the Khor Al Zubair and Umm Qasr ports in Basra, with operations commencing in August 2025. The Powerships are equipped to utilise multiple fuels and are fully self-sufficient with all necessary onboard facilities. They will offer a cost-effective and swiftly deployable solution, circumventing the protracted construction timelines associated with land-based power infrastructure. Karpowership chief commercial officer Zeynep Harezi Ylmaz stated: We are honoured to partner with Iraq in advancing its energy resilience. This project represents a strong step toward bridging the electricity gap and aligns with our mission to provide rapid, flexible and reliable power wherever it is needed most. Karpowership has a proven track record of delivering floating power solutions globally, with operations in 16 countries across four continents. The companys Powership technology offers a practical, scaleable solution to enhance energy security, with the flexibility to operate on multiple fuels while providing reliable power to support economic development. Karpowership's vessels can provide comprehensive energy solutions wherever required, connecting to the grid and generating electricity in under 30 days. Iraq has encountered difficulties in delivering reliable energy to its citizens since the US-led invasion in 2003. The ensuing turmoil, marked by underinvestment and mismanagement, has resulted in the national grid struggling to meet demand. In early August 2025, the country suffered an outage in the central and southern regions due to a sudden shutdown of the Hamidiya power plant in Anbar province. In April, Iraq signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with the US to develop 27GW power projects within the country to diversify its energy sources and lessen its dependence on power imports from Iran. "Iraq signs 590MW power contract with BKPS to boost energy security" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton had his Maryland home searched by the FBI on Aug. 22, according to multiple reports. CNN and the New York Post reported agents searched his home as part of FBI Director Kash Patel's national security probe. Bolton's security clearance was revoked on Trump's first day back in office earlier this year. Bolton served in Trump's first term and has become a vocal critic of Trump's foreign policy. He has had a long career in law and government, and was involved in the 2000 recount in Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located. Here is what to know: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Live updates: FBI searches home of former national security adviser John Bolton reports say Who is John Bolton? John Bolton, 76, is a Yale graduate, lawyer and diplomat who has become known for his neoconservative foreign policy stance after spending decades serving in several Republican administrations. Bolton is also an attorney, according to his publishers biography, and was in private practice in Washington, D.C., from 1974 to 2018, except during his time in government service. From roughly 1981 to 1993, Bolton served at several federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Justice and the Department of State. He was Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security for several years before former President George W. Bush appointed him as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, from 2005 to 2006. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He has long advocated an aggressive U.S. foreign policy and the use of American military might, including the right to strike first against potential threats. He was a strong proponent of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and has continued to defend his role in pushing for the war in the years since. In a March 2023 interview with NPR reflecting on the decades-long war, Bolton stood by his decisions. Terrorist groups were still around in the Middle East and worldwide, Bolton said, referring to the period of time after the 9/11 attacks. Whats the most prudent thing to do? My view is, was then and is today, the most prudent thing to do, from the point of view of innocent civilians of the United States, is remove the threat. And as a columnist and Fox News contributor after leaving the Bush administration, Bolton advocated for preemptive military action against Iran and North Korea. What is Bolton and Trumps relationship? In 2018, Bolton joined the Trump administration as his national security adviser, replacing outgoing national security adviser H.R. McMaster in March 2018. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton left his post in September 2019, saying he had decided to quit after 17 months in the position. He was Trumps third national security adviser during his first term, which started in 2017. The pairs relationship, already strained after his departure, exploded into a public feud upon the 2020 publication of the former advisers book, The Room Where It Happened. It painted a largely unflattering picture of the Trump administration and his foreign policy decisions, and ignited a series of rebukes from the Republican president. Since leaving office, Bolton has become a sharp critic of Trump and his foreign policy, and has been a frequent commentator in the media. Bolton declined to testify voluntarily at the 2019 House impeachment inquiry related to allegations he used military aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine into opening politically motivated investigations, and vowed to fight a subpoena in court. Parts of Boltons book were leaked at the time, with Bolton writing that Trump had made it clear he did not want the aid in question released until Ukraine agreed to help with the investigations. In an Aug. 15 interview with CNN, Bolton criticized Trumps summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying that Trump did not achieve anything in the meeting. I think Trump did not lose, but Putin clearly won, he said. On his first day back in office for his second term in January, Trump revoked the security clearances of dozens of former officials, including Bolton. In the presidential action, the administration accused the former national security chief of publishing classified information in his book, which Bolton has repeatedly denied, and claimed that Bolton was fired from his post. Trump also revoked Boltons security detail in February. Who is the current national security adviser? Secretary of State Marco Rubio of Miami, Florida, is currently acting as the national security adviser. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump had originally appointed Michael Waltz, a former Representative from the Daytona Beach, Florida, area, to the position. But later he fell into controversy as he was at the center of the "Signalgate" scandal when he added a journalist to a Signal group chat with other U.S. officials discussing military strikes. He was removed from the security council and nominated to be ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton was in Palm Beach, Florida, for the 2000 presidential recount Before becoming part of the George W. Bush administration, Bolton was a Republican lawyer dispatched to Palm Beach County, Florida, for the presidential recount in the 2000 election. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton remembered Bolton as polite in a 2005 interview, calling him "the conscientious objector. Years later, in the lead up to Trump's first election, Bolton remembered his time in Palm Beach fondly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I spent 31 wonderful days in Florida in November and December of 2000. I can still draw a floor plan of the Emergency Operations Center in West Palm, Bolton said at a 2016 Florida delegates breakfast at the Republican National Convention. Those remarks stood out for their criticism of Trump and his stance on Russia. Contributing: Francesca Chambers, George Bennett, William Cummings, Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Network Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Who is John Bolton? 25 years after Florida recount, FBI raids home The FBI didnt search the home of just any Trump critic. This is John Bolton, Washingtons bete noire. The mustachioed foreign policy hawk has been on the critical end of opposition from all over the place. His nomination as UN ambassador was filibustered by Democrats during the George W. Bush administration. He was the subject of an alleged Iranian assassination plot during the Biden administration, likely for his work during the first Trump administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And in the very large pool of former aides fired by President Donald Trump, Bolton may be the loudest in his criticism of Trumps transactional way of running the White House. None of that bears on what should concern most Americans: that the justice system is being turned on Trumps political critics. FBI agents carry empty boxes into the home of former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday. - Jose Luis Magana/AP Allegations from Boltons 2020 memoir, in which he roasted Trumps leadership and accused the president of improperly using foreign policy to his domestic political advantage, featured prominently in the first of Trumps two first-term impeachments. Trump was acquitted in both impeachments and he said that Bolton should be put in jail for what he wrote. It is now that book, and rehashed questions over whether Bolton disclosed classified material when he wrote it, that appear to be at the center of the FBIs search of his home in Maryland and office in Washington, DC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But there is a much longer tale of Boltons long history at the center of Washington scandals. The Iraq war and a failed nomination Although Bolton worked in Republican administrations for much of his career, the first time everyday Americans might have heard his name was during the George W. Bush administration. Bush nominated Bolton to be the US ambassador to the UN even though Bolton had at one point argued that if UN headquarters lost 10 stories, it wouldnt make a bit of difference. But what ultimately sank his nomination was the subtle opposition of Republicans such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the fact that senators said they were misled by Bolton, who failed to disclose he was questioned as part of an internal government review of intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war. John Bolton adjusts his glasses as he prepares to speak at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination for US Ambassador to the UN, on April 11, 2005. - Jason Reed/Reuters/File One top State Department official at the time criticized Bolton as a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Opposition to Boltons nomination was led by then-Sen. Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time. Bush ultimately put Bolton in the role temporarily with a recess appointment, a method Trump would later employ repeatedly for Senate-confirmed positions during his first term. A fierce critic of Obama on Iran Bolton stayed active in foreign policy as a frequent and loud critic of the Obama administration, particularly for its involvement in a deal with other Western countries and Russia to ease sanctions on Iran in exchange for assurances it would not pursue nuclear weapons. Bolton would have preferred a more militaristic approach. Boltons book at the time, How Barack Obama Is Endangering Our National Sovereignty, was not subtle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump later pulled out of that Iran nuclear deal, to applause from Bolton. In his second term, Trump has both pursued a new version of a nuclear deal and dispatched bombers to attack Irans nuclear capabilities. Working for Trump, for a time Concerns in the Republican foreign policy establishment about Bolton initially followed him into the first Trump administration, when he was initially considered for a top role in the State Department. But his hawkish views turned Trumps first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, against the idea. Trump, during that first term, was churning through national security advisers with regularity, and Bolton jumped from his role as a Fox News analyst to the White House in March of 2018 after promising Trump he wouldnt start any wars if he was selected, CNN reported at the time. Fired by Trump as impeachment effort brewed But Trumps openness to talks with autocrats such as Kim Jong Un made Bolton an awkward fit in his White House, and Bolton began, quietly at first, to turn on Trump. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton was fired, or technically resigned, in September of 2019, just as a whistleblower complaint alleging Trump held up military aid as a way to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch investigations of Joe Biden, who was then looking at an ultimately successful run for president in 2020. After his ouster from Trumps orbit, Bolton wrote a tell-all memoir. But allegations from the book about Trumps efforts to pressure Zelensky, leaked before publication, featured prominently in Trumps first impeachment trial. John Bolton listens as President Donald Trump speak during a cabinet meeting at the White House, on April 9, 2018. - Evan Vucci/AP/File Bolton was not ultimately a witness at the trial, and he criticized Democrats for too narrowly focusing the proceedings on Ukraine rather than engaging in a more wide-ranging and methodical process to uncover what Bolton viewed as Trumps misdeeds, including Boltons allegation that Trump asked China for help winning the 2020 presidential election, among many others. Trumps first-term White House tried to block the release of Boltons book, which was ultimately published after a judges order in June of 2020, accompanied by a flood-the-airwaves publicity blitz. Still no fan of Democrats While Bolton has maintained his criticism of Trump, he has not exactly jumped on board with Democrats. Before the 2024 election, he told CNNs Kasie Hunt he would cast a protest vote and write in former Vice President Dick Cheney, something he reconsidered after Cheney endorsed Harris. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2022, the Department of Justice charged a member of Irans Revolutionary Guard for allegedly trying to orchestrate Boltons assassination, likely in retaliation for the 2020 assassination of Iran Revolutionary Guard commander Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq. But the danger Bolton could face for his work on Trumps behalf in his first term is not enough for Trump to continue to protect Bolton. Hours after taking office in January, Trump ordered that Bolton be stripped of a protective security detail. Trump said Friday he was not involved in the decision to search Boltons house, but he expected a briefing from the Justice Department soon. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com NEED TO KNOW On Aug. 22, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton's Maryland home was raided by the FBI Bolton previously wrote a tell-all about his time working in the White House, and was sued by the Justice Department, which claimed he was writing about classified matters The raid comes amid Bolton and Trump's public feud and disagreement over major policies John Bolton President Donald Trump's former security adviser is at the center of another classified document search. Bolton served in Trump's administration from April 2018 until September 2019, when he left on tense terms and became an outspoken critic of the president's policies. On Aug. 22, Bolton's home was raided by the FBI, with a source familiar with the matter telling NBC News it was part of a search for "classified matters." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just after the raid began, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that "NO ONE is above the law," and that the FBI agents are "on a mission." Around the same time, Bolton shared a post on X in which he commented on the Russia-Ukraine war, writing that Trump will continue pushing for meetings on the conflict "because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don't see these talks making any progress." The raid came nearly one week after Trump shared a lengthy message on Truth Social, calling out the media and "dumb people like John Bolton," who are criticizing his recent meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, Putin has already won, Trump wrote. Whats that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING." So, who is John Bolton? Here's everything to know about why President Donald Trump's former security adviser had his home raided by the FBI. Who is John Bolton? Pablo Martinez Monsivais/ AP Photo Former national security adviser John Bolton speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Sept. 30, 2019, in Washington, D.C. Former national security adviser John Bolton speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Sept. 30, 2019, in Washington, D.C. Bolton was raised in Yale Heights, Maryland, a neighborhood outside of Baltimore, per The New York Times. After serving six years in the National Guard and graduating from Yale University in 1970, per the outlet, Bolton went on to have a decades-long career in politics, holding several government service positions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most notably, he was an ambassador to the United Nations during former president George W. Bush's administration, per NBC News, before going on to serve as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 until September 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Bolton is most known as a foreign policy hawk and a strong advocate for military intervention. As for his personal life, he has been married to Gretchen Smith Bolton since 1986, per USA Today. Why did John Bolton leave Trump's administration? Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty John Bolton speaks during a media conference. John Bolton speaks during a media conference. In September 2019, Trump removed Bolton from his administration after the pair had disagreements over how to handle major foreign policy challenges, per The New York Times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the outlet, Trump and Bolton had been at odds for the past year and a half and when they finally ended their partnership, they even disagreed on how they parted ways. Trump wrote on X that he had fired the adviser whose services were "no longer needed," saying that he had "disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions." Meanwhile, Bolton disputed the claims and insisted he resigned on his own terms. "I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, 'Let's talk about it tomorrow,' " Bolton wrote on X just minutes after Trump's post. According to The New York Times, the staffing change came just days after Bolton pushed for a last-minute campaign to stop Trump from signing a peace agreement at Camp David with leaders of the Taliban group. While Trump ended up scrapping the deal, he ultimately grew angry about the way it all played out, per the outlet. Why was John Bolton under Secret Service protection after he left office? Planetpix/Alamy Donald Trump and John Bolton during a D-Day National Commemorative Event on June 5, 2019, in Portsmouth, England. Donald Trump and John Bolton during a D-Day National Commemorative Event on June 5, 2019, in Portsmouth, England. While it's routine for presidential advisers to have U.S. Secret Service protection, Bolton had it long after he left office. He was granted Secret Service protection by former President Joe Biden's administration in December 2021, per CBS News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That decision came after Iran issued threats of retaliation for a 2020 drone strike, ordered by Trump while Bolton was in office, that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. In 2022, Bolton was also the target of a murder plot by a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In January 2025, Trump revoked Bolton's U.S. Secret Service protection, though he was facing continued threats from Iran. Bolton wrote in a statement to The Hill that he was "disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has made this decision." "Notwithstanding my criticisms of President Biden's national-security policies, he nonetheless made the decision to once again extend Secret Service protection to me in 2021," Bolton added. Why was John Boltons home raided by the FBI? Andrew Harnik/Getty FBI agents work outside John Bolton's home on Aug. 22, 2025, in Bethesda, Md. FBI agents work outside John Bolton's home on Aug. 22, 2025, in Bethesda, Md. In the early hours of Aug. 22, FBI agents raided Bolton's Maryland home. An insider told NBC News that the raid is part of a "national security investigation in search of classified records." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the outlet, the investigation into Bolton began during the Biden administration, but had not made any movement before Biden left office in January 2025. This isn't the first time there has been a dispute between Bolton and the Trump administration over "classified records," as the former adviser was previously sued by the Justice Department in 2020 in an effort to block the publication and sale of his book, The Room Where it Happened, a tell-all about his time working for Trump, though it was released. According to CNBC, the lawsuit was filed during Trump's last year of his first term, and a Justice Department lawyer told a judge that the book was "a flagrant breach of" Boltons agreement not to write about classified matters. The department dropped the lawsuit in June 2021, shortly after Biden took office. According to The New York Times, the biggest takeaways from the book included Bolton's detailing of a toxic environment inside the administration and explaining why he didn't testify in Trump's impeachment proceedings though there wasn't any clearly classified information. Read the original article on People FBI agents raided the Maryland home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday morning, Fox News Digital has learned. Fox News Digital later spotted agents at Bolton's Washington, D.C., office removing boxes and Bolton was seen in the lobby of the building. The searches are focused on potential classified documents agents believe Bolton may still possess, according to one source. Bolton, who served as President Donald Trumps national security advisor from 2018 to 2019, is not in custody or under arrest. Trump said he was not aware of the raid ahead of time and said he found out about it on the news. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Biden Doj Drops Lawsuit Against John Bolton Over 2020 Book Release Federal agents raided the Maryland home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday morning, according to two senior government enforcement sources briefed on the matter. Federal agents reportedly busted into Boltons house in Bethesda, Maryland, at around 7 a.m. local time in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, who took to X with a cryptic post minutes later. Read On The Fox News App "NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission," he wrote without directly referencing the raid. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino shared the post and wrote, "Public corruption will not be tolerated." Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi also warned, "Americas safety isnt negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump told reporters he saw the raid on television Friday morning and said he did not know any details about the investigation. "He's not a smart guy, but he could be very unpatriotic," Trump said. "I mean, we're going to find out. I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning." CIA Director John Ratcliffe provided Patel with limited access to U.S. intelligence that served as the basis for the search warrant, a source familiar with the Bolton raid and the evidence used to justify it told Fox News Digital. "I cant give you any more details than that, but lets just say that John Bolton really had some nerve to attack Trump over his handling of classified information," the source told Fox News Digital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fox News Digital called Boltons office for comment. A staffer answered, said, "Have a nice day," and then hung up. FBI agents outside the Maryland home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Aug. 22, 2025. The probe into classified documents was first launched years ago but later shut down by the Biden administration "for political reasons," according to a senior U.S. official. The Justice Department under Trumps first administration argued that Boltons 2020 memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," contained classified material and sought to block its publication. A federal judge ultimately allowed the book to be published. Trump Revokes John Bolton's Secret Service Detail Amid Iranian Death Threats: Former National Security Advisor Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Justice Department lawyers argued the book contained classified national security information covering areas like U.S. intelligence sources and methods, foreign policy deliberations and conversations with foreign leaders. In June 2021, the Biden Justice Department abandoned both a criminal inquiry and civil lawsuit against Bolton over the memoir, ending the legal battle at that time. PHOTOS: Swipe to see more images Bolton's attorney said at the time that a senior career official in charge of the NSCs prepublication review process conducted a four-month prepublication review of the book and, after requiring a number of revisions, concluded that it contained no classified information. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The book contained a damning account of the Trump White House, alleging that Trump once "pleaded" with Chinese President Xi Jinping to aid his re-election campaign, among other missteps. Trump ousted Bolton from his first administration in 2019 because they "disagreed strongly" on policy. Bolton has both praised and criticized Trump since leaving his first administration. Then-national security advisor John Bolton listens as President Donald Trump meets with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands in the Oval Office at the White House on July 18, 2019, in Washington, D.C. He criticized Trumps handling of classified documents, which led to an FBI raid on the former presidents Mar-a-Lago home in 2022 and a subsequent federal indictment, but insisted that "the legal process play out." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump was initially indicted on 37 felony counts, later expanded to 40, but the case was ultimately dismissed in July 2024. In 2022, Bolton said Trump lacked the competence and character to be president. However, Bolton strongly backed Trumps military strike on Irans nuclear facilities in June, calling it "a decisive action," "the right thing to do," and praising its potential to generate "huge change in the Middle East." Trump, meanwhile, has often criticized Bolton for pushing U.S. involvement in wars in the Middle East. Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush from August 2005 to December 2006. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Im not a fan of John Bolton. Hes a real, sort of low-life," Trump said Friday before adding that Bolton served a useful purpose in his administration because foreign leaders feared him. "He was one of the people who forced Bush to do the ridiculous bombings in the Middle East. And he always wants to kill people." Trump added, "And hes very bad at what he does Id walk into a room with him, with a foreign country would give me everything because they said, oh no, theyre going to get blown up because John Bolton was there." Trump revoked Bolton's Secret Service detail the day after Trump's inauguration as the 47th president and Bolton said the move showed that Trump was coming after him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I think it is a retribution presidency," Bolton told ABC earlier this month in relation to the stripping of his Secret Service protection. Bolton has faced threats from Iran going back years, including an alleged plot to assassinate him in 2021 and the Department of Justice subsequently charging a member of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for the plot in 2022. The Iranian threats against Bolton were likely sparked by the January 2020 U.S. strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Irans Quds Force, the Department of Justice reported in 2022. Montgomery County police block a road near the Maryland home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton during an FBI search on Aug. 22, 2025. Original article source: John Bolton's home and office raided by federal agents Just hours after President Donald Trump suggested Chicago would be the next location for a federal troop deployment like the one occurring in Washington, D.C., both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker said the president would be illegally abusing his power if he follows through on the threat. The problem with the Presidents approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound, Johnson said in a statement. Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. And in a post on the social media site X, Pritzker rejected Trumps notion that Chicagoans were clamoring for the National Guard to patrol city streets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Things People are Begging for: 1. Cheaper groceries 2. No Medicaid and SNAP cuts 3. Release of the Epstein Files, Pritzker wrote. Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities. The swift rebuke from both Johnson and Pritzker came as Trump answered questions in the Oval Office about the controversial deployment of 2,000 National Guard members in Washington as part of his purported crusade against big-city crime. Seemingly almost as a side thought, Trump said that probably Chicago would be the next city where hed try to deploy troops to crack down on crime. After we do this, well go to another location Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, were going to straighten that out, Trump said. Probably thatll be our next one after this, and it wont even be tough. And the people in Chicago theyre wearing red hats. African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, Please, President Trump, come to Chicago. Trump, who routinely makes threats he doesnt follow up on and who would face much tougher obstacles deploying troops into Chicago than he did in Washington, didnt indicate anything substantive beyond his remarks. Still, Johnson said he took the presidents statements seriously, before adding that the city has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments to Chicago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps order earlier this month to send troops to the nations capital was panned by local officials and Democratic leaders who said the federal intervention was unnecessary particularly as crime has dropped there and in other major cities. They also said the move could bring about dangerous clashes with civilians. But the White House maintains the crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests and made Washington safer. The president also singled out New York City as the next target after Chicago. Earlier this summer, his administration sent nearly 5,000 federal troops to Los Angeles during protests over federal immigration raids. That deployment triggered a legal standoff with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom over the federal governments authority to activate troops. The courts initially sided with Newsom, but an appeals panel later blocked that order. U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, made a pointed reference to Trumps comments about African American ladies. You have no authority to claim what Black women want, said Kelly, who is Black. Black women have lost sons and daughters, spouses, fathers and mothers to gun violence and experienced the horrific trauma of gun violence and domestic violence themselves yet you have done nothing to save Black lives. In fact, bringing the National Guard into Chicago threatens Black communities that have already been overpoliced and under-invested in for generations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kelly is facing U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is also Black, as major candidates in the Senate race. Both also hammered Trumps suggestion and vowed to stop any such effort. The focus on Chicago being the next target for troop deployment comes as no surprise after the nations third-largest, strongly Democratic-leaning city has been in the White Houses crosshairs since Trump took office again in January. His administration has attacked the mayor and governors leadership throughout the last several months, and Chicagos reputation among conservatives as a punching bag would make images of a National Guard deployment easy bait for his base. Trump in June said Pritzker, who is mulling a 2028 run for president, is probably the worst in the country and recently called Johnson totally incompetent while hinting that a federal takeover of policing was necessary in Chicago, which he deemed a disaster. The governor and mayor, for their part, have blasted Trumps crackdown on Democratic cities and warned that he would have no authority to do the same in Chicago. However, Pritzker and Johnson have not revealed much about how they would handle a federal troop deployment. Last week, Johnson did not say what his plan would be if that happened besides, Legal action will be on the table. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Johnson was himself singled out by the White House when the presidents border czar, Tom Homan, threatened to arrest him days before Trumps inauguration, and when the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into City Hall hiring practices within a day of Johnson publicly emphasizing how many Black people hes hired in his administration. Earlier in January, Homan was joined by the TV personality Dr. Phil in a blitz of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Chicago. Trump disparaged Chicago throughout his first term as president too, saying the citys violence was worse than Afghanistan. The enmity is mutual; Trump got just 21% of the vote in Chicago during last Novembers election against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. But a potential federal crackdown would be Trumps biggest escalation yet. It would come after Chicago has seen multiyear declines in violence after a historic crime wave that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest over George Floyds murder. Chicago leads the nation in homicides, surpassing both Los Angeles and New York City combined, while its per capita rate is far below that of smaller cities such as St. Louis and Memphis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So far this year, shootings in Chicago are down 36% and homicides 31% after peaking in 2021 to levels not seen in over two decades, according to Chicago Police data. Johnson attributes that progress to the leadership of his handpicked Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling, as well as his administrations spending on youth employment and anti-violence programs. Those programs lean on federal grants that are in jeopardy under Trump. Just hours after President Donald Trump suggested Chicago would be the next location for a federal troop deployment like the one occurring in Washington, D.C., both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker said the president would be illegally abusing his power if he follows through on the threat. The problem with the Presidents approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound, Johnson said in a statement. Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. And in a post on the social media site X, Pritzker rejected Trumps notion that Chicagoans were clamoring for the National Guard to patrol city streets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Things People are Begging for: 1. Cheaper groceries 2. No Medicaid and SNAP cuts 3. Release of the Epstein Files, Pritzker wrote. Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities. Pritzker later issued a statement saying that local police dont want the federal intervention, and promised that we will follow the law and stand up for the sovereignty of our state. After using Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities, the governor said. Trumps goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts all to create a justification to further abuse his power. The swift rebuke from Johnson and Pritzker came after Trump answered questions in the Oval Office about the controversial deployment of 2,000 National Guard members in Washington as part of his purported crusade against big-city violence. Seemingly almost as a side thought, Trump said Chicago probably would be the next city where hed try to deploy troops to crack down on crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After we do this, well go to another location. Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, were going to straighten that out, Trump said. Probably thatll be our next one after this, and it wont even be tough. And the people in Chicago theyre wearing red hats. African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, Please, President Trump, come to Chicago. Trump, who routinely makes threats he doesnt follow up on and who would face much tougher obstacles deploying troops into Chicago than he did in Washington, didnt indicate anything substantive beyond his remarks. Still, Johnson said he took the presidents statements seriously, before adding that the city has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments to Chicago. Trumps order earlier this month to send troops to the nations capital was panned by local officials and Democratic leaders who said the federal intervention was unnecessary particularly as crime has dropped there and in other major cities. They also said the move could bring about dangerous clashes with civilians. But the White House maintains that the crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests and made Washington safer. The president also floated New York City as the next target after Chicago. Earlier this summer, as Pritzker referenced, Trumps administration sent nearly 5,000 federal troops to Los Angeles during protests over federal immigration raids. That deployment triggered a legal standoff with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom over the federal governments authority to activate troops. The courts initially sided with Newsom, but an appeals panel later blocked that order. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, a Chicago Democrat who is running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, made a pointed reference to Trumps comments about African American ladies. You have no authority to claim what Black women want, said Kelly, who is Black. Black women have lost sons and daughters, spouses, fathers and mothers to gun violence and experienced the horrific trauma of gun violence and domestic violence themselves yet you have done nothing to save Black lives. In fact, bringing the National Guard into Chicago threatens Black communities that have already been overpoliced and underinvested in for generations. Kelly is facing U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is also Black, as major Democratic candidates in the Senate race. Both also hammered Trumps suggestion and vowed to stop any such effort. The focus on Chicago being the next target for troop deployment comes as no surprise after the nations third-largest, strongly Democratic-leaning city has been in the White Houses crosshairs since Trump took office again in January. His administration has attacked the mayor and governors leadership throughout the last several months, and Chicagos reputation among conservatives as a punching bag would make images of a National Guard deployment easy bait for his base. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump in June said Pritzker, who is mulling a 2028 run for president, is probably the worst in the country. Trump recently called Johnson totally incompetent while hinting that a federal takeover of policing was necessary in Chicago, which he deemed a disaster. The governor and mayor, for their part, have blasted Trumps crackdown on Democratic cities and warned that he would have no authority to do the same in Chicago. However, Pritzker and Johnson have not revealed much about how they would handle a federal troop deployment. Last week, Johnson did not say what his plan would be if that happened, besides saying, Legal action will be on the table. Johnson was himself singled out by the White House when the presidents border czar, Tom Homan, threatened to arrest him days before Trumps inauguration, and when the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into City Hall hiring practices within a day of Johnson publicly emphasizing how many Black people hes hired in his administration. Earlier in January, Homan was joined by the TV personality Dr. Phil in a blitz of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Chicago. Trump disparaged Chicago throughout his first term as president too, saying the citys violence was worse than Afghanistan. The enmity is mutual; Trump got just 21% of the vote in Chicago during last Novembers election against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But a potential federal crackdown would be Trumps biggest escalation yet. It would come after Chicago has seen multiyear declines in violence after a historic crime wave that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest over George Floyds murder. Chicago leads the nation in total homicides, surpassing both Los Angeles and New York City combined, while its per capita rate is far below that of smaller cities such as St. Louis and Memphis, Tennessee. So far this year, shootings in Chicago are down 36% and homicides 31% after peaking in 2021 to levels not seen in over two decades, according to Chicago police data. Johnson attributes that progress to the leadership of his handpicked Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling, as well as his administrations spending on youth employment and anti-violence programs. Those programs lean on federal grants that are in jeopardy under Trump. Just hours after President Donald Trump suggested Chicago would be the next location for a federal troop deployment like the one occurring in Washington, D.C., both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker said the president would be illegally abusing his power if he follows through on the threat. The problem with the Presidents approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound, Johnson said in a statement. Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. And in a post on the social media site X, Pritzker rejected Trumps notion that Chicagoans were clamoring for the National Guard to patrol city streets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Things People are Begging for: 1. Cheaper groceries 2. No Medicaid and SNAP cuts 3. Release of the Epstein Files, Pritzker wrote. Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities. Pritzker later issued a statement saying that local police dont want the federal intervention, and promised that we will follow the law and stand up for the sovereignty of our state. After using Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities, the governor said. Trumps goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts all to create a justification to further abuse his power. The swift rebuke from both Johnson and Pritzker came as Trump answered questions in the Oval Office about the controversial deployment of 2,000 National Guard members in Washington as part of his purported crusade against big-city violence. Seemingly almost as a side thought, Trump said that probably Chicago would be the next city where hed try to deploy troops to crack down on crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After we do this, well go to another location Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, were going to straighten that out, Trump said. Probably thatll be our next one after this, and it wont even be tough. And the people in Chicago theyre wearing red hats. African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, Please, President Trump, come to Chicago. Trump, who routinely makes threats he doesnt follow up on and who would face much tougher obstacles deploying troops into Chicago than he did in Washington, didnt indicate anything substantive beyond his remarks. Still, Johnson said he took the presidents statements seriously, before adding that the city has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments to Chicago. Trumps order earlier this month to send troops to the nations capital was panned by local officials and Democratic leaders who said the federal intervention was unnecessary particularly as crime has dropped there and in other major cities. They also said the move could bring about dangerous clashes with civilians. But the White House maintains the crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests and made Washington safer. The president also floated New York City as the next target after Chicago. Earlier this summer, as Pritzker referenced, Trumps administration sent nearly 5,000 federal troops to Los Angeles during protests over federal immigration raids. That deployment triggered a legal standoff with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom over the federal governments authority to activate troops. The courts initially sided with Newsom, but an appeals panel later blocked that order. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, made a pointed reference to Trumps comments about African American ladies. You have no authority to claim what Black women want, said Kelly, who is Black. Black women have lost sons and daughters, spouses, fathers and mothers to gun violence and experienced the horrific trauma of gun violence and domestic violence themselves yet you have done nothing to save Black lives. In fact, bringing the National Guard into Chicago threatens Black communities that have already been overpoliced and under-invested in for generations. Kelly is facing U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is also Black, as major candidates in the Senate race. Both also hammered Trumps suggestion and vowed to stop any such effort. The focus on Chicago being the next target for troop deployment comes as no surprise after the nations third-largest, strongly Democratic-leaning city has been in the White Houses crosshairs since Trump took office again in January. His administration has attacked the mayor and governors leadership throughout the last several months, and Chicagos reputation among conservatives as a punching bag would make images of a National Guard deployment easy bait for his base. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump in June said Pritzker, who is mulling a 2028 run for president, is probably the worst in the country and recently called Johnson totally incompetent while hinting that a federal takeover of policing was necessary in Chicago, which he deemed a disaster. The governor and mayor, for their part, have blasted Trumps crackdown on Democratic cities and warned that he would have no authority to do the same in Chicago. However, Pritzker and Johnson have not revealed much about how they would handle a federal troop deployment. Last week, Johnson did not say what his plan would be if that happened besides, Legal action will be on the table. Johnson was himself singled out by the White House when the presidents border czar, Tom Homan, threatened to arrest him days before Trumps inauguration, and when the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into City Hall hiring practices within a day of Johnson publicly emphasizing how many Black people hes hired in his administration. Earlier in January, Homan was joined by the TV personality Dr. Phil in a blitz of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Chicago. Trump disparaged Chicago throughout his first term as president too, saying the citys violence was worse than Afghanistan. The enmity is mutual; Trump got just 21% of the vote in Chicago during last Novembers election against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But a potential federal crackdown would be Trumps biggest escalation yet. It would come after Chicago has seen multiyear declines in violence after a historic crime wave that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest over George Floyds murder. Chicago leads the nation in homicides, surpassing both Los Angeles and New York City combined, while its per capita rate is far below that of smaller cities such as St. Louis and Memphis. So far this year, shootings in Chicago are down 36% and homicides 31% after peaking in 2021 to levels not seen in over two decades, according to Chicago Police data. Johnson attributes that progress to the leadership of his handpicked Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling, as well as his administrations spending on youth employment and anti-violence programs. Those programs lean on federal grants that are in jeopardy under Trump. ____ South Africans have been expressing their gratitude to the agriculture minister for stepping in to stop a guide dog from being euthanised after it was saved from a yacht abandoned in rough seas. "We are overly grateful," Craig Lambinon - from the volunteer team that rescued a Swiss man, his German daughter and their chocolate Labrador off the Eastern Cape three weeks ago - told the BBC. As Achi's owners awaited their repatriation, the authorities ruled the dog had to be put down as it was in the country illegally and presented a "bio-security risk". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But following an outcry this week and a petition to save Achi's life, Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen announced a last-minute U-turn. "We know that Achi is in good hands and healthy and well," Mr Lambinon from the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said. The registered guide dog remains in the care of Dr Peter Wood at the privately owned Nahoon Veterinary Clinic in East London, where he was put in quarantine following his rescue by the NSRI on 2 August. The 16m (52ft) yacht was unable to be saved and has been lost at sea. Joylene van Wyk, spokesperson for the agriculture department, told the BBC that Achi would be now be moved to a state facility in Cape Town and would be kept in quarantine "until all necessary tests are done". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She said this would also allow Dr Wood to reopen his practice after it was forced into quarantine while Achi's future was being decided. It is not clear how long the tests will take, but once Achi gets the all clear "he can be reunited with his family", Ms Van Wyk said. Her department and the NSRI were also full of praise for Dr Wood for looking after Achi. Members of the people have been donating money to help pay for his care. More BBC stories on South Africa: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts MIAMI A federal court ruled Thursday that the state of Florida and the Trump administration cant add to the population of the immigration detention facility in the Everglades dubbed Alligator Alcatraz and must take steps to begin dismantling it. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said in a case that challenged the facilitys operation on environmental grounds that the state must stop construction at the facility and, within 60 days, remove fencing, lighting, and generators. Floridas top emergency management official, Kevin Guthrie, quickly appealed the ruling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities have not disclosed the number of people held at the detention facility in the vast wetlands west of Miami. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis opened it in July and said it would eventually hold up to 4,000 people facing deportation under President Donald Trumps immigration crackdown. Williams noted that the detention center was intended to be a short-term stopover for people facing deportation and that her ruling would result in a steady population decline through attrition. Every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation and protection of the Everglades, she wrote. This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ruling by Williams, an appointee of President Barack Obama, would make it impossible to operate Alligator Alcatraz. It follows an order she issued two weeks ago to halt construction in response to the suit brought by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe. Their suit argued that state and federal officials failed to follow the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal government to conduct a review of the environmental effects of a project, to collect public comment and consider alternatives. The air strip housing the facility is surrounded by the federally protected Big Cypress National Preserve, a fragile ecosystem thats home to endangered species. A White House spokesperson referred questions about the ruling to Florida officials and to the Department of Homeland Security. Alex Lanfranconi, spokesperson for DeSantis, said, The deportations will continue until morale improves. Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said in a statement that the ruling sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government and there are consequences for ignoring them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During hearings on the suit, the environmental groups said the detention facility posed a threat to endangered species, including the Florida panther, while the Miccosukee Tribe said the project posed a threat to their ability to hunt, fish and gather plants in that part of the Everglades. The airstrip is within 3 miles of 10 tribal villages. The state and federal government argued in response that they could bypass NEPA's requirements because the operation was built and run by the state, not the federal government. But Williams noted in her order that the detention center used the standards set by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and agreements with the federal government to carry out immigration enforcement. That the deputized officers regular salaries are paid, required uniforms are bought, and standard work hours are controlled by their state agency supervisors is not germane to questions about the facility, she wrote, because their status there as deputized officers and their activities at the camp are controlled by ICE. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The airstrip is located at what had previously been called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. The state and federal government argued the area saw roughly 150 flights daily in the six months before the construction without any objection from environmental or tribal groups. The state also cast illegal immigration as an emergency and warned that crime committed by people in the country without legal status amounted to a threat to public safety. Alligator Alcatraz" is facing several additional lawsuits, including one that alleges detainees have not been given adequate access to their attorneys. A federal judge moved that case to Floridas central district this week, which could delay a decision on the matter. Judge Matthew Brann, center, has issued a ruling that rejects President Donald Trumps pick of Alina Habba as New Jerseys U.S. attorney. (Photos by Andrew Harnik/Getty, Gage Skidmore, and C-SPAN) Trump administration officials last month bashed the federal judges who ordered Alina Habba off the job as New Jerseys top federal prosecutor, and they did it again Thursday when U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled Habbas reappointment was unlawful. We will protect her position from activist judicial attacks, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said on social media, in announcing plans to appeal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Habba weighed in too, vowing on Fox News: We will not fall to rogue judges. We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job, respecting the president. Brann, though, doesnt fit neatly into the narrative of Trump allies who deride him as an Obama appointee driven by politics to remove Habba as New Jerseys U.S. attorney. Hes a longtime Republican and member of the conservative Federalist Society and the NRA. While former President Barack Obama named him to the federal bench in 2012, his nomination was part of a bipartisan deal, which is common in states where senators are from both parties. (Brann, whose court is in Williamsport in northcentral Pennsylvania, was tapped to take the Habba case because of a venue change.) During his confirmation hearing, then-Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, called him probably the most Republican judicial nominee from the Obama White House. Pat Toomey, Pennsylvanias Republican senator from 2011 to 2023, described him as a longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brann himself told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the most important attribute of a judge is complete impartiality in the application of the law to the facts before the court. A United States district judge should be fair, impartial, cordial, timely, calm, and dignified, Brann said. I believe that I possess the appropriate temperament to effectively serve as a federal district judge. He acknowledged he had basically conservative views, but that politics would not have a place in his courtroom and should not, to protect public confidence in the courts, he told the senators. I have, I think, fairly firm political views on a variety of issues, Brann said. My job is to factor that out, and I think that is actually the most difficult role as a judge, frankly, to not bring your own personal views to bear, because, frankly, what confidence would the public have ultimately if you did that? I mean, they would think this person should not really be a judge, they do not have the temperament, they do not have the wisdom to be a judge. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added: I hope that I would ultimately have those traits on the bench, and I give you as much assurance as I can that that is what I would seek to do. Confirmed in December 2012, he took the bench in Pennsylvanias Middle District in January 2013 and became chief judge there in 2021. When he started, Williamsport had been without a full-time federal judge for several years, according to WNEP-TV. Previously, Brann, a native of Elmira, New York, had been a private-practice attorney for two decades in Bradford County, a largely rural, mountainous area that borders New York. Im a country lawyer, Brann told the TV station. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brann has been in Trump supporters crosshairs before. In November 2020, he dismissed a lawsuit in which the Trump campaign tried to delay the certification of election results in Pennsylvania. That decision briefly turned him into a media darling among liberals, with Philadelphia magazine gleefully reporting that Brann absolutely eviscerated Trumps effort to overturn the election. Last week during oral arguments in the Habba case, Brann seemed keen to consider the challenge to Habbas authority, noting repeatedly over four hours of questioning the interesting issues the case raised. He also wryly hinted that he fully expected the blowback that his ruling generated on Thursday. I have a feeling that someone is going to be unsatisfied with my ruling, he said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX This story was originally published on Food Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Food Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: JBS said it would spend $100 million to buy and transform an Iowa facility into its largest bacon and sausage plant in the U.S. The company acquired a 186,000-square-foot facility in Ankeny previously owned by grocery chain Hy-Vee. JBS will make capital investments to allow the establishment to produce sausage and bacon by mid-2026. Brazil-based JBS has invested in its U.S. manufacturing network this year to expand chicken and pork production. The worlds largest meat processor announced in May it planned to build a $135 million sausage plant in Perry, Iowa. Dive Insight: Consumers are increasingly turning to pork and chicken over pricier beef, with demand outpacing JBS' production capacity in the U.S. The company has invested heavily to build out both its pork and chicken production. JBSs majority-owned Pilgrim's Pride is planning a $400 million plant in Georgia. Combined with the pork facilities in Iowa, the investments will lead to "a significant increase" in capacity, according to Wesley Mendonca Batista Filho, JBS chief operating officer. "Today, we need more capacity to continue to grow. That's our bottleneck for growth in this market," Batista told investors in mid-August. "It's actually production capacity. It's much more production capacity than actually being able to sell." A cattle shortage in the U.S. has driven up the price of beef, pushing consumers to more affordable options. JBS' pork unit in the U.S. posted a 5% decline during the previous year due to trade restrictions with China, though executives said business fundamentals remained strong. "When there is low availability of beef and high prices of beef, pork becomes a very good option," Batista said. JBS currently operates four production facilities in Iowa. The plant in Perry would provide raw materials to the acquired facility in Ankeny, allowing the company to produce fully cooked sausage items in addition to bacon. The Ankeny plant is expected to create approximately 400 jobs when all phases of the project are finished. JBS is looking to hire former employees who previously worked at the facility for Hy-Vee. Recommended Reading A federal judge on Thursday ordered an indefinite halt to new construction at an immigration detention facility that Florida officials have dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," and barred any new detainees from being brought to the site, siding with environmental groups who said the facility is endangering the Everglades and its wildlife. The decision is a setback for Florida's Republican-led state government and its aggressive efforts to aid the Trump administration's hardline immigration agenda, including by deputizing thousands of state police as federal immigration officers. The order by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams did not require Florida officials to completely cease operations at Alligator Alcatraz, allowing the state to continue using existing structures there to detain immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. But Williams barred any more detainees from being transferred to the site dashing plans to expand the detention center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ruling says state and federal authorities cannot add any new tents to the site or carry out any paving or excavating, though they can repair existing facilities for safety purposes. It also directs them to remove temporary fencing, light fixtures and generators from the site within 60 days. Housing facilities can remain in place, the judge said. Williams wrote that, for decades, "every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades. This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises." The state of Florida filed notice of appeal Thursday night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin blasted the ruling in a statement. "This ruling from an activist judge ignores the fact that this land has already been developed for a decade. It is another attempt to prevent the President from fulfilling the American people's mandate to remove the worst of the worst including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, terrorists, and rapists from our country," she said. The makeshift detention facility located in what was largely an abandoned airfield is one of several locations and prisons that Republican-led states have offered the Trump administration so they can be converted into immigration detention centers. Officials in Indiana and Nebraska have also allowed facilities in their states to hold immigrants facing deportation. Thursday's ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee tribe and environmental activists who challenged operations at Alligator Alcatraz on environmental grounds. The Everglades are an ecologically sensitive area that's home to endangered species, and many Floridians rely on the Everglades as a source of drinking water. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plaintiffs argued that environmental reviews mandated in federal law should have been completed before the site was set up. Florida officials have argued Alligator Alcatraz is not subject to those federal environmental requirements because the facility is run by the state. The Trump administration has said it will reimburse Florida for the effort using federal funds. Williams had paused further construction at Alligator Alcatraz earlier this month, but only for two weeks. A separate lawsuit over the legal rights of those held at the Everglades facility is also playing out. That case was partially dismissed by the U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo Ruiz earlier this week, since the Trump administration had designated an immigration court to hear the claims of those detained at Alligator Alcatraz, one of the main concerns raised by the lawsuit. But Ruiz allowed another part of the case centered on detainees' right to in-person and confidential legal consultations to proceed, transferring the lawsuit to another federal judge. 5 killed, dozens more injured in New York bus crash Reporter's Notebook: When smashing trains was an American pastime Giant beach tents are taking over shorelines and not everyone is happy ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) A federal judge has put a stop to further expansion of the immigration detention center built in the Florida Everglades and dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, ordering that its operations wind down within two months. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami wrote in her 82-page order late Thursday that Florida officials never sufficiently explained why an immigration detention center needed to be located in the middle of sensitive wetlands cherished by environmentalists and outdoors people. She also said that state and federal authorities never undertook an environmental review as required by federal law before Florida officials hastily built the detention camp which they championed as a model for President Donald Trump's immigration policies. That failure adversely affected the recreational, conservational, and aesthetic interests of the environmental groups and Miccosukee Tribe which brought the lawsuit, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday reacted to the ruling, saying he would not be deterred by an activist judge. We knew this would be something that would likely happen, DeSantis said at a news conference in Panama City. "We will respond accordingly. You either have a country or you dont. Heres what to know about the situation and what might come next: What did the judge say? Williams said she expected the population at the facility to drop within 60 days by transferring detainees to other facilities. Once that happens, fencing, lighting, gas, waste, generators and other equipment should be removed from the site. No additional detainees can be sent to the facility, and no more additional lighting, fencing, paving, buildings or tents can be added to the camp. The only repairs that can be made to the existing facility are for safety purposes. However, the judge allowed for the existing dormitories and housing to stay in place as long as they are maintained to prevent deterioration or damage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here's where detainees might end up During court hearings, lawyers said at one point there were fewer than 1,000 detainees at the facility, which state officials had planned to hold up to 3,000 people. Although the detainees could be sent to other facilities out of state, Florida has other immigration detention centers including the Krome North Processing Center in Miami, the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach and the Baker County Detention Center managed by the local sheriff's office. Earlier this month, DeSantis announced plans for a second state-initiated immigration detention facility dubbed Deportation Depot at a state prison about 43 miles (69 kilometers) west of downtown Jacksonville. State officials say it is expected to hold 1,300 immigration detention beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000 beds. How does this decision impact the other Alligator Alcatraz lawsuit? Civil rights lawyers had filed a second lawsuit over practices at Alligator Alcatraz, claiming that detainees weren't able to meet with their attorneys privately and were denied access to immigration courts. Another federal judge in Miami dismissed part of the lawsuit earlier this week after the Trump administration designated the Krome North Processing Center as the court for their cases to be heard. The judge moved the remaining counts of the case from Florida's southern district to the middle district. Eunice Cho, the lead attorney for the detainees, said Friday that the decision in the environmental lawsuit won't have an impact on the civil rights case since there could be detainees at the facility for the next two months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our case addresses the lack of access to counsel for people detained at Alligator Alcatraz, and there are still people detained there, Cho said. Status of the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts No one has said publicly what will happen to the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts involved in the facility. DeSantis' administration in July signed contracts with private vendors to pay at least $245 million to set up and run the center, according to a public database. That amount to be fronted by Florida taxpayers was in line with the $450 million a year officials have estimated the facility was going to cost. The governor's office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management on Friday didn't respond to questions about whether Florida taxpayers would still be on the hook for the contracts if the facility is shuttered. Is this a final decision? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No. This case will continue to be litigated. The state of Florida filed a notice of appeal Thursday night, shortly after the ruling was issued. As its name suggests, a preliminary injunction is only an initial action taken by a judge to prevent harm while a lawsuit makes its way through the court process and when it appears that one side has a good chance of succeeding based on the merits of the case. ___ Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social A federal judge in Florida on Thursday night issued a significant ruling regarding the Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center in the Everglades, curbing the governments use of the controversial site on multiple fronts. Florida officials quickly filed a notice with the court that they're appealing the ruling. Finding that the government ran afoul of environmental and administrative requirements, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction that bars further construction or the bringing of new detainees to the site. Her order also calls the continued operation of the existing facilities into question, by giving the government 60 days to remove fencing, lighting fixtures, and all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Williams noted that her order doesnt stop the government from making modifications or repairs to existing facilities for safety or to mitigate environmental or other risks. The Obama appointee wrote that politicians have historically pledged to support the protection of the Everglades and that her order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. The ruling follows her previous temporary restraining order that had halted construction. Environmental groups sued federal and state officials, seeking to prevent further irreparable harm to Plaintiffs and the fragile area where Defendants are building this detention center. The plaintiffs argued in their complaint that the hasty construction of the mass detention facility poses clear environmental impacts. They also said the government defendants broke environmental law in their rush to build the center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Trump administration argued that the plaintiffs failed to show that the detention center would harm wildlife or the enjoyment of natural environments. But Williams wrote in her preliminary injunction ruling that, for example, the Florida panther has lost 2,000 acres of habitat as a result of the facilitys construction and use of intense lights disturbing the habitats of these nocturnal creatures, and that several witnesses testified about how the facilitys light pollution has adversely affected their ability to observe the night sky. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida joined the suit as plaintiffs, asserting their own interests for having lived in and cared for the land now known as the Big Cypress National Preserve (the Preserve) since time immemorial. The tribe explained that, For generations, the Miccosukee people made pilgrimages from north Florida to the Everglades, including the Preserve, to fish, hunt, trap, and hold sacred ceremonies. Williams preliminary injunction specified that the removal of fencing she ordered is to allow Tribe members access to the site consistent with the access they enjoyed before the erection of the detention camp. Conditions at the site were described in a separate lawsuit as harsh and inhumane, with detainees allegedly told that they are only allowed one meal a day (and given only minutes to eat), are not permitted daily showers, and are otherwise kept around the clock in a cage inside a tent. The administration has denied all allegations of inhumane conditions. 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 the Trump administrations legal cases. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A judge sentenced a woman to a minimum of 16 years in prison for killing a carpet cleaner in a random act of violence. Kayla Alery, 28, stood handcuffed in court and asked for mercy from Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones before being sentenced for the murder of 41-year-old Raul Cardoza. It was a very random act against somebody who was going to work. And this is a tragic situation all the way around, Judge Jones said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Before Jones read her decision, she heard from Clark County Deputy District Attorney Kassandra Acosta. Raul was in his car, minding his own business. He did not put himself in harms way. He did not provoke this attack, Acosta said. Cardoza was working at an apartment complex near Fort Apache and Twain on March 26, 2024, when Alery shot him. A rideshare drivers dash cam captured the shooting. Alery fled from the scene, but was later spotted by a Las Vegas Metro Police Department helicopter. Last month, Alery pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In court on Thursday, Alery apologized to Cardozas family and asked the judge for mercy due to her past drug use and being schizophrenic. I dont want to be locked away for life, for 18 years. I want to be able to attend AA meetings and to change my life, Alery said. Alerys lawyer said she was raped at 13 years old, then sex trafficked. Hard experiences that may explain her actions, but did little to bring peace to Cardozas family. Since losing him, every single day feels heavy. I will never hear his laugh again. Never feel his hugs. Never call him when I hear his advice, Ingri Cardoza, the victims daughter, said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Upon hearing those words, Judge Jones sentenced Alery to 120 months to life for second-degree murder and 72 months to 180 months for the deadly weapon enhancement. The sentences run consecutively. I can just hope that you will be given the mental health treatment that you need, Jones said. Jones also ordered Alery to pay Raul Cardozas family $16,205 in funeral costs as restitution. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. A U.S. District Court Judge found that President Donald Trumps former attorney, Alina Habba, has been illegally serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey since July. Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not, Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote in a ruling issued Thursday. Because she is not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity, she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases. Habba was appointed to the role of New Jerseys top prosecutor on an interim basis in March. Her tenure was limited to 120 days by statute, after which point she would need Senate confirmation. That term ended in July. Attorney General Pam Bondi stepped in when judges in New Jersey appointed a replacement, firing the new U.S. attorney and reinstating Habba. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several defendants in pending cases filed a challenge to Habbas tenure, saying she had no authority to prosecute them. Brann agreed, noting that the Trump administration could theoretically keep firing appointees and installing acting prosecutors for the length of the presidents term. Taken to the extreme, the President could use this method to staff the United States Attorneys office with individuals of his personal choice for an entire term without seeking the Senates advice and consent, he wrote. The ruling said that Habbas actions since the clock ran out on her interim posting can be declared void. However, Brann put his own order on hold in anticipation of an appeal from the Trump administration. The post Judge: Trumps former attorney Habba has been illegally serving as top N.J. prosecutor appeared first on Salon.com. A man was convicted last week of gunning down an Elizabeth resident near a city park in 2021, authorities announced Thursday. Jefferson Louis, 28, of Newark, was found guilty of first-degree murder and weapons-related offenses following a four-week trial, according to a statement from the Union County Prosecutors Office. The investigation began around 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 4, 2021, when Elizabeth Police Officers responded to Jefferson Park for a report of shots fired, the office said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When they arrived, they found 26-year-old Archeley Brizard dead in his car, investigators said. He had been shot multiple times. An investigation led by several law enforcement agencies in Elizabeth and Union County charged Louis in October 2021, officials said. After a months-long manhunt, the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force found and arrested Louis at an apartment in Newark on Feb. 1, 2022, authorities said. Louis is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 3 and faces a sentence of life in state prison, the office said. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Aug. 21Jurors on Thursday found Alexander Ortiz guilty of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend in her bedroom and fleeing through a ground-floor window in 2024. A 2nd Judicial District Court jury convicted Ortiz, 22, of first-degree murder in the shooting death of 23-year-old Alianna Farfan on Jan. 11, 2024. Ortiz remains scheduled for trial in March in an unrelated killing. Prosecutors allege that Ortiz fatally shot Nichole Malonado, 25, outside the Adam Market at Central and Indiana on Jan. 17, 2024, just six days after Farfan's killing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ortiz faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison in Farfan's killing at a sentencing hearing scheduled Sept. 29 before Judge Cindy Leos. Jurors apparently rejected an argument offered by Ortiz's attorney that someone other than Ortiz fired the fatal gunshot. In February, Farfan's uncle leaped over a railing during a pretrial hearing and attacked Ortiz, setting off a brawl in Leos' courtroom that involved several members of both families. Prosecutors told jurors this week that Ortiz and Farfan went into her bedroom and locked the door shortly before the killing. Others in the apartment kicked in the door and found Farfan fatally shot in the head. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Assistant District Attorney Derek Berg told jurors on Tuesday that Ortiz pushed out the screen and climbed out the window in the moments before two people forced their way into Farfan's bedroom. No weapons were found in the bedroom, Berg said. Ortiz's attorney, John McCall, argued in opening statements Tuesday that another man in the apartment fatally shot Farfan. However, police focused on Ortiz to the exclusion of other possible suspects, McCall told jurors. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) More than a decade after a hired hit man shot her former son-in-law in the head in his Tallahassee garage, 75-year-old Donna Adelson is now on trial for helping orchestrate the 2014 murder of Daniel Markel, the Florida State University law professor who at the time of his death was locked in a bitter child custody fight with his ex-wife and Adelson's daughter, Wendi Adelson. The couple had been married seven years before finalizing their divorce in 2013. Donna Adelson faces charges of first-degree murder as well as conspiracy and solicitation to commit first-degree murder, in a trial that is expected to extend into September. If convicted, Adelson could spend the rest of her life in prison. After three days of questioning, Florida Second Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen Everett seated a panel of 12 jurors and two alternates on Thursday, who he said could approach the case fairly and impartially. That's no small feat in a case that has riveted Floridas capital for more than a decade, as sordid details emerged about a messy divorce, tensions with wealthy in-laws and custody battles that culminated in the murder of a prominent local professor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Four others are already serving prison time for what prosecutors say was a murder-for-hire plot hatched by members of the Adelson family and carried out by paid gunmen. Three people have been sentenced to life in prison, including Adelsons son Charles Adelson. In opening statements Friday in the same Tallahassee courtroom where her son was convicted, prosecutors painted Donna Adelson as the calculated and controlling matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family with the means and motive to orchestrate the killing of the ex-son-in-law she hated. The disdain grew from his standing in the way of letting her daughter and two young grandsons leave Tallahassee for South Florida to live closer to the rest of the family, more than 370 miles (595 kilometers) away. Authorities say the Adelsons considered offering Markel $1 million to let his ex-wife and sons relocate to South Florida after he got a court order barring the move. Instead, prosecutors say members of the family began plotting his death, with Donna Adelson as a driving force. The defendant said that she would never, never, never give up and never stop fighting for Wendi and the boys to be relocated to Miami. And she never did, prosecutor Sarah Kathryn Dugan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The defendant acted in furtherance of this murder plot that went beyond just thinking about it or talking about it. And these acts make her guilty as a principal in first-degree murder, just as if she was the one pulling the trigger in the garage herself, Dugan added. Throughout the trial, Adelson has played an active role in her own defense, writing notes in a legal pad and studying prosecutors and witnesses behind a pair of tortoise-shell-style glasses. In their openings, Adelson's defense attorneys insisted that the state doesn't have sufficient evidence to link the aging grandmother to the murder plot that they acknowledged was devastating and outrageous in its cruelty. Instead, they emphasized the roles played by others, including the hired gunmen and Adelson's own son, who prosecutors say handed over the money to pay for the killing. Defense attorney Jackie Fulford dismissed what she described as a sensational and headline-grabbing story told by prosecutors about a matriarch mastermind for which the lawyer argued there is no evidence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is truly outrageous," Fulford said of the killing. But what's more outrageous is, without any evidence, only motive and theory, they put her at the top of this pyramid. A week after Donna Adelson's son was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2023, she herself was arrested at the Miami airport, as she and her husband, Harvey Adelson, were trying to board an international flight to Vietnam a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States using one-way tickets. Harvey and daughter, Wendi Adelson, have denied involvement in the murder and have not been charged. As the trial proceeds, the prosecution intends to call key members of Donna Adelson's family as witnesses, including Charles and Wendi. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Also on the state's witness list is Katherine Magbanua, Charles Adelson's then-girlfriend, who prosecutors say served as the go-between with the two men hired to carry out the killing, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera. On Friday, Rivera took the stand and testified that he didn't believe Donna Adelson was involved in the murder, which he understood was meant to give Wendi Adelson full custody of the two boys. ___ Kate Payne 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. ___ This story has been updated to correct the name of the country where Donna Adelson and her husband were trying to board a flight to. It was Vietnam, not Thailand. HONOLULU (KHON2) The Maui Police Department is still mourning the loss of fallen officer Suzanne O, who was killed in the line of duty on Aug. 15. There are no winners in most critical incidents. We have a family, a partner, a department and a community mourning the loss, Maui Police Department Chief John Pelletier said. Maui to host candlelight vigil for slain hero Officer O was fatally injured while responding to an in-progress terroristic threatening incident at the Paia Sugar Mill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials said the suspect was out in the field hunting criminally and illegally trespassing when he shot and killed Officer O. Officers returned fire. On Thursday, Aug. 21, Chief Pelletier held a press conference to highlight the dangers of the police officers job and share more details about the incident. Police revealed the body cam footage, showing the area where the shooting took place and the concrete pillar the suspect was apparently hiding behind when Officer O and other responding officers arrived. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You Officials said Officer O was wearing a protective vest, but the bullet that hit her went in under her vest on the left side of her chest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You saw an officer rescued by members of her team. You saw an officer act and use the force necessary to stop and incapacitate the threat, Chief Pelletier said. You witnessed an absolute show of restraint by placing that suspect in custody so that they can stand trial. A police officers response is dictated by the suspects actions. The suspect put officers into a deadly force situation with no choice but to act. A police officers response is dictated by the suspects actions. The suspect put officers into a deadly force situation with NO choice but to act, Chief Pelletier said. We make split-second decisions in a dynamic, rapidly involving incidents and this incident demonstrates the very real dangers of the police profession. The suspect in the shooting, Clembert Kaneholani, was arrested and charged with first-degree attempted murder. His preliminary hearing was held on Aug. 20, which included heartwrenching testimony from a fellow officer who was there when Officer O was shot and saw her go down. Trust and legitimacy are established by transparency, Chief Pelletier said. Never in over a quarter century have I witnessed a more transparent situation than a police officer approximately 100 hours after a shooting, testifying publicly in court on the details of that shooting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Check out more news from around Hawaii In the meantime, the community continues to show support for the fallen officer as the memorial on Officer Os squad car outside the police station keeps growing. Details of the funeral services are still pending. However, a candlelight vigil is planned to be held at the memorial starting 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 22. The public is invited to attend. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Since hitting a record high in 2022, national chronic absenteeism rates have dropped modestly by about five percentage points according to the most recent available data, but still remain persistently higher than pre-pandemic levels. States that joined a national pledge led by three high-profile education advocacy and research groups to cut chronic absenteeism in half over five years fared better. The 16 states and Washington, D.C. posted results substantially above the average rate of decline, though exact numbers are not yet available, said Nat Malkus, deputy director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the trio. The national chronic absenteeism average dropped from 28.5% in 2022 to 25.4% in 2023, and fell an additional two points to 23.5% in 2024. Virginia, which is among the 16 participating states, cut its chronic absenteeism by 4.4 percentage points, year over year, to 15.7%, as of spring 2024. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Speaking of the states collectively, Malkus told The 74, Thats good but its not as good as we need it to be. I think it points to the need for sustained pressure and a sustained campaign to bring absence rates down and to bring more students back to consistent attendance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last July, AEI and EdTrust, right-and left-leaning think tanks, respectively, and the national nonprofit Attendance Works joined forces to launch The 50% Challenge. This week, the organizations hosted an event in Washington, D.C., to report on their progress, re-up the call to action and hear insights from state, district and community partners on how they are improving student attendance and engagement. Related Unlikely Ed Allies Join Forces to Cut Chronic Absenteeism in Half With California and Georgia recently joining, the 16 states and D.C. who signed on to the pledge account for more than a third of all students nationally. While Malkus doesnt necessarily attribute their better results to the pledge itself, he noted that their participation shows a willingness to commit to the cause and be publicly accountable for their results. I will hold their feet to the fire on this goal, he added during his opening remarks in D.C. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While felt most acutely by students of color and those in poorer districts, the spike in chronic absenteeism students missing more than 10% of school days a year cut across districts regardless of size, racial breakdown or income. Chronic absenteeism surged from 13.4% in 2017 to 28.5% in 2022 before beginning to drop in 2023. Only about one-third of students nationally are in districts that are on pace to cut 2022 absenteeism in half by 2027, according to an AEI report, and rates improved more slowly in 2024 than they did in 2023, raising the very real possibility that absenteeism rates might never return to pre-pandemic levels. AEI Research has shown that students with high rates of absenteeism are more likely to fall behind academically and are at a greater risk of dropping out of school. About 8% of all learning loss from the pandemic is attributed just to chronic absenteeism, according to soon-to-be-released AEI research. Related Report: Schools Wont Recover from COVID Absenteeism Crisis Until at Least 2030 The continued disproportionate impacts of chronic absenteeism were confirmed by recent RAND research, which found that in roughly half of urban school districts, more than 30% of students were chronically absent a far higher share of students than in rural or suburban school districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement RAND also found that the most commonly reported reason for missing school was sickness and one-quarter of kids did not think that being chronically absent was a problem. SchoolStatus, a private company that works with districts to reduce chronic absenteeism, also released new numbers this week for some 1.3 million K-12 students across 172 districts in nine states. Districts using proactive interventions, the company reports, drove down chronic absenteeism rates from 21.9% in 202324 to 20.9% in 202425. At this weeks event, numerous experts across two panels emphasized the importance of a tiered approach to confronting the issue, which has resisted various remedies. Schools must build enough trust and buy-in with kids and their families that they are willing to share why they are absent in the first place. Once those root causes are identified, it is up to school, district and state leaders to work to remove the barriers. And while data monitoring must play a significant role, it should be done in a way that is inclusive of families. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We need to analyze data with families, not at them, said Augustus Mays, EdTrusts vice president of partnerships and engagement. Augustus Mays is the vice president of partnerships and engagement at EdTrust. (EdTrust) Its imperative to understand the individual child beyond the number they represent and to design attendance plans and strategies with families so they feel supported rather than chastised. Its around choosing belonging over punitive punishment, Mays added. One major and common mistake schools make is accountability without relationships, said Sonja Brookins Santelises, the superintendent of Baltimore City Public Schools. You cant pull people up if you dont have enough knowledge of what theyre really going through, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Panelists were transparent that all this would require immense funding, staff and community partnerships. Virginia achieved its noteworthy drop in chronic absenteeism after launching a $418 million education initiative in the fall of 2023, in part after seeing their attendance data sink, with about 1 in 5 students chronically missing school. At least 10% of those funds are earmarked to prioritize attendance solutions in particular, according to panelist Emily Anne Gullickson, the superintendent of public instruction for the Virginia Department of Education. Related New Study: School Nurses Are Untapped Resource to Combat Chronic Absenteeism These strategies are far-reaching, she noted: Because parents had been told throughout the pandemic to keep their kids home at the slightest sign of illness, schools partnered with pediatricians and school nurses to help counter the no-longer-necessary stay home narrative. Hedy Chang is the founder and executive director of Attendance Works. (Attendance Works) Gullickson said she also broke down bureaucratic silos, connecting transportation directors and attendance directors, after realizing the role that transit played in chronic absenteeism. The state now has second chance buses as well as walking and biking buses, led by parents or teachers along a fixed route, who pick up students along the way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And they are on a mission to move away from seat time and really deliver more flexibility on where, when and how kids are learning, she said. This isnt one strategy. Its a set of strategies, said Attendance Works founder and executive director Hedy Chang, who moderated the panel. In Connecticut, state leaders have launched the Learning Engagement and Attendance Program, a research-based model that sends trained support staff to families homes to build relationships and better understand why their kids are missing school. Charlene Russell-Tucker is the commissioner of the Connecticut State Department of Education. (Connecticut State Department of Education) A recent study confirmed that six months after the programs first home visits, attendance rates improved by approximately 10 percentage points for K-8 students, and nearly 16 percentage points for high schoolers, said Charlene Russell-Tucker, the commissioner of the Connecticut State Department of Education. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Schools must also work to motivate kids to want to show up in the first place, panelists said, making it a meaningful place that students believe will support and help them in the long run. The only way to do this is to start with student and family feedback, said Brookins, the Baltimore schools chief. During the pandemic many parents saw up-close for the first time what their kids classrooms and teacher interactions looked like, and I dont think a lot of folks liked what they saw for a variety of different reasons, Brookins said. I think it opened up boxes of questions that we as the education establishment were unprepared to answer, she added. But chronic absenteeism cannot be successfully fought without engaging in those uncomfortable conversations. Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to EdTrust and The 74. The Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:KODK) is warning investors that it may not exist for much longer. The 133-year-old photography company pointed to ongoing struggles to satisfy its debt obligations, which have left the company with "substantial doubt about [its] ability to continue," as the primary reason behind its possible shuttering. Kodak shared the news in its Q2 2025 earnings report last week, adding that tariffs had not had a "material impact" on its financial situation. "Several years ago, we brought back our heritage as a U.S. manufacturer...Kodak is proud to be a global company and our key manufacturing tak[es] place right here at home," CEO James Continenza said on the company's earnings call. "As an American manufacturer for over 100 years, we remain committed to manufacturing in the U.S. and expect U.S. tariffs to protect U.S. businesses like ours." Don't Miss: The same firms that backed Uber, Venmo and eBay are investing in this pre-IPO company disrupting a $1.8T market and you can too at just $2.90/share. 2,000 High Earners Manage $6B With This AI Platform Learn More Last November, Kodak announced that it planned to terminate its retirement pension plan in order to unlock value and free up cash. The earnings report says that it will use this influx of cash to help tackle its outstanding debts. In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson said that the company is "confident it will be able to pay off a significant portion of its term loan well before it becomes due, and amend, extend or refinance our remaining debt and/or preferred stock obligations." Kodak can trace its roots back to 1879, when founder George Eastman filed his first patent for a plate coating machine. In 1888, he began selling cameras for $25. At the time, photography was highly technical and not something that the average person could easily get into. Kodak aimed to change that by making it more accessible. Its slogan, "you push the button, we do the rest," makes that clear. Trending: Scrolling To UBI' Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. You can invest today for just $0.30/share. The approach worked. In the 1970s, the company was responsible for 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S., The Economist reports. Unfortunately for Kodak, that dominance didn't last. In 1975, the company introduced the first digital camera. However, it failed to capitalize on the trend, and by 2012, it had filed for bankruptcy. SHAWNEE (KSNT) Kansas tax agents and local deputies seized assets from a Shawnee automotive customization and repair shop that owed more than $450,000 to the state. The Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) announced in a press release that tax agents and deputies from the Johnson County Sheriffs Department executed tax warrants at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 13, at American Fusion Wheels located at 12310 West 62nd Terrace. The business specializes in offering customers upgrades and repairs to their vehicles in the Kansas City metro area. Six in Kansas infected with virus that causes paralysis, vision loss Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement KDOR reports that its agents and other law enforcement personnel seized all known bank accounts, cash on site, business inventory and personal property belonging to the owner. KDOR then sealed the business closed and posted a notice on the exterior with all seized assets to be sold at a later public auction to pay off the taxes owed. KDORs policy and practice is to work with taxpayers in delinquent status to voluntarily enter into repayment agreements. It is only after these efforts and multiple failed collection attempts that the Department is forced to execute a tax warrant, utilizing such actions as bank levies, till taps, and ultimately asset seizure to ensure compliance with the law. KDORs responsibility to recover delinquent taxes not only ensures fairness for individuals and business owners who do pay their taxes but also ensures that money is lawfully collected to fund state and local programs on which Kansans depend. These programs include education, highways, public safety, and human services. KDOR press release excerpt Speed limit increased on rural Kansas highway American Fusion Wheels owed $451,615.53 in taxes to the State of Kansas, according to KDOR. The taxes included sales taxes and corporate taxes in Johnson County. Mushfik Tauhid, a representative of American Fusion Wheels, said he is looking for loans and investors in order to reopen the business. People who may have had their items taken during the tax seizure can reach out to KDOR by calling 913-942-3066. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Historic downtown Topeka mansion for sale with $2.2 million price tag For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. Kansas Interfaith Action members prepare signs for a May 20, 2025, demonstration outside the federal courthouse in Topeka, where they protested CoreCivic and the for-profit detention of immigrants. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA An open letter from Kansas Catholic bishops urges people to approach immigration with compassion, and condemns portrayals of all immigrants as criminals rhetoric President Donald Trump frequently uses. Treating all migrants and refugees as if they were violent criminals is simply unjust. They are human beings made in Gods image, wrote Archbishop Shawn McKnight, Bishop Carl Kemme, and Bishop Gerald Vincke in the letter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Pope Francis, who died in April, and Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, have been critical of Trumps mass deportations and descriptions of immigrants as criminals. The Kansas Legislature passed a resolution in April to encourage Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly who has condemned Trumps immigration enforcement efforts, like his deployment of the National Guard on U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement protests in Los Angeles to fully cooperate with the policies of the Trump administration in enforcing federal immigration laws. The resolution encourages compassion for immigrants who are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans but includes a paragraph that asserts illegal immigration leads to severe repercussions for our entire state, including threats to public safety and public health via human trafficking, the deadly fentanyl crisis and strains on public resources. Some of the legislators who voted yes on the resolution are Catholic, including Republican Rep. David Buehler from Lansing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Buehler said he found the bishops letter, which acknowledges criminals are taking advantage of the countrys broken immigration system, to be incomplete. We dont have anything in the way of policy in the state of Kansas that I think is not kind. I think we all stand for law and order and humane treatment of all people, Buehler said. But I think we have to consider all aspects of this issue, and we cant turn a blind eye to the impact on our schools, to the impact on our health care. There are so many pieces and parts. Buehler said he is worried about what he sees as the unintended consequences of immigration, which he believes were exacerbated when President Joe Biden was in office. We should have humane treatment for immigration and those who may be here illegally, but we also at the same time should enforce the laws of this country, Buehler said. We can do both. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Throughout their letter, the bishops encouraged Kansans to see immigrants as humans rather than criminals. Amid political division and fear, we remind our communities that at the center of every immigration debate are real people: families in our pews, children in our schools, workers in our neighborhoods, and volunteers in our parishes, the bishops wrote. Shabina Kavimandan immigrated to Kansas from India in 1998. She said she started volunteering with Overland Park Democratic Sen. Cindy Holschers campaign for governor in part because of Holschers kindness toward immigrants. There are certain members of a party that always say they align with so many religious views, especially when it comes to pro-life issues, Kavimandan said. I see that they believe in life, and the value of life. And then on the other hand there is such a dismissal of the reasons why people choose to come to this country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kavimandan said she stayed in the United States in part because of her determination and also because of Kansans interest in knowing and helping her as a person. There were people who sat across from me and asked about Shabina the individual. I see that missing now, Kavimandan said. Thats another piece that lawmakers tend to overlook sometimes. Behind all the policies there really are just people and their stories. Theres a Shabina who came to this land with $200 in her pocket, but then there were people who were like We have to make sure that she becomes something in this country. All Kansas bishops signed the letter but one Bishop John Brungardt in Dodge City. Brungardt did not respond to a request for comment. TOPEKA (KSNT) Kansas Governor Laura Kelly is directing flags to fly at half-staff at some prominent local buildings in Topeka on Friday. Kelly announced in a press release on Aug. 22 that she is directing flags to be lowered to the half-staff position to honor 18th Judicial District Division 10 Judge Bruce Brown. Brown died on Aug. 21. Judge Brown had a long career of service to his community and commitment throughout his tenure on the bench, Kelly said. On behalf of the State of Kansas, I thank him for his dedication to upholding the law. My sincere condolences go out to his family and friends. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kelly said the half-staff order will remain in effect at the State Capitol Complex along with all court buildings and facilities until Brown is interred. The flag order will be updated when the date of internment for Brown is set. Kansas automotive shop seized for $450,000 tax debt For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. Kansas health secretary Janet Stanek, pictured here Feb. 13, 2023, declared the state's first measles outbreak in nearly two decades over. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA State health officials have declared the measles outbreak over in southwest Kansas, where dozens of cases affected mostly unvaccinated children. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced Thursday that no new cases have been reported or confirmed in the past 42 days after cases peaked at 87. Health officials announced in March the first case of measles in Kansas since 2008. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The end of the recent outbreak does not mean the threat of measles is over, officials said in a Thursday press release. Since there are many ongoing outbreaks of measles in North America and around the world, it is possible that there will be additional cases of measles introduced into Kansas this year. Eight people were hospitalized as a result of the outbreak. Children made up more than 80% of cases, and more than 90% of cases involved people who were not vaccinated against measles. Officials urged Kansans to ensure their families vaccinations are up to date, especially as the school year begins. The outbreak most affected Gray, Haskell and Stevens counties. Gray County residents had the highest number of cases with 29 infections. Vaccination rates among kindergarteners have been decreasing overall in each of those counties, with marked decreases in measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccinations. In Gray County, MMR vaccination rates decreased by 10 percentage points between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, according to data from KDHE. In Haskell, there was a 14 percentage point decrease, and in Stevens County, a 15 percentage point decrease. The MMR vaccine is the most effective defense against measles, health officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement KDHE officials said state and local health departments will continue to monitor for cases. Janet Stanek, KDHE secretary, said she was grateful to the public health, health care and laboratory professionals who played a part in dealing with the measles outbreak. Your compassion, skill and unwavering commitment to keeping our communities safe did not go unnoticed and are appreciated beyond measure, she said. Measles is a contagious respiratory virus spread by droplets emitted while a person talks, sneezes or coughs. Symptoms can include high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. As the virus develops, a skin rash that spreads across the body often appears. BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) The trial in the case of Karim Reyad, the man charged with murder in a suspected impaired driving crash that killed a 66-year-old woman, has been postponed again. At the readiness hearing on Friday, Reyads attorney H.A. Sala requested a postponement as his office is still conducting investigations and trying to track down witnesses. Kern County Superior Court Judge David Zulfa postponed the trial date to Nov. 10, saying he hopes this is the final delay in this case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reyad, 20, is charged with several felonies including second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. On April 18, 2023, Reyad allegedly drove at over 100 mph while impaired by marijuana before his Dodge Challenger crashed into a Honda Civic near the intersection of Campus Park Drive and Evening Star Way in Bakersfield. Gayla Sue Price, the driver of the Honda, was pronounced dead at the scene. Reyad, who was 18 years old at the time, allegedly drove like a maniac in the moments leading up to the crash, passengers in Reyads car told investigators. A passenger said Reyad reached up to 120 mph at one point and swerved into opposite lanes, among other acts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reyad said he thought he was driving at 50 mph. His car was traveling at 108 mph just 1.1 seconds before the collision, documents said. He also claimed he smoked marijuana more than a day prior to the crash, but a passenger said he smoked marijuana from a wax pen while driving at the time, according to documents. Reyads blood tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. According to documents, Reyad told police he had replaced his cars tires twice within the week from doing burnouts. A service technician at Haddad Dodge said a new set of tires should last 25,000 to 30,000 miles. A week before the collision, Reyad was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of marijuana. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News. Republican strategist Karl Rove on Thursday underscored the stakes of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, saying failure to come to a resolution could be the downfall of President Trumps presidency. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rove outlined the three possible outcomes from Trumps efforts to end the war in Ukraine: a successful peace deal; a failure to reach a deal, resulting in continued conflict; and a Russian victory over Ukraine. Rove compared the third possibility which Rove said would result from either no agreement or from an agreement that Russia breaks to the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021, when former President Bidens poll numbers tanked and never recovered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to being the worst possible outcome morally and geopolitically, this third possibility is the worst scenario for the president and the GOP, Rove wrote in the op-ed. The disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent Taliban takeover broke President Bidens reputation with voters. He never recovered. Mr. Biden was at 50% approval in Gallup in July 2021; he dropped precipitously after Kabul fell the following month. He bottomed out at 36% in July 2024 before he withdrew from the presidential race, Rove continued. The defeat of Ukraine by Russia would be similarly disastrous for Mr. Trump, he added. Rove noted that Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. Since then, Rove said, Trump has put himself at center stage with his approach to dealmaking and his engagements with foreign leaders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president cant abandon his starring role even if he wants to, Rove said. Public opinion in America and the rest of the civilized world would rightly blame Mr. Putin for the invasion itselfbut Mr. Trump for allowing it to succeed. Rove said that the first outcome a successful deal is within reach for the U.S. president, and he touted Trumps steps so far in defense of Ukraine. He also said Trumps pressure on NATO countries to spend more on defense is paying off. Rove urged Trump to become as tough on Mr. Putin as he has been on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying that approach could get the warring countries to arrive at a deal that results in a durable peace. Mr. Trump can bring about a reasonably successful conclusion to this catastrophic war by doing what Mr. Putin fears most: rejecting the Russian dictators flattery and demands and insisting he make a fair, enforceable deal with Mr. Zelensky. Or else, Rove said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anything less would be a stain on Mr. Trump and on his party, for which theyd rightly pay a high political price, he continued. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) A man from Kaysville has been sentenced for running a scheme that stole $392,900 using COVID fraud, identity theft, wire fraud, and state unemployment benefits fraud. Mubarak Ukashat, 38, pleaded guilty to failure to file currency and other monetary instruments reports. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and he will also have to pay back the money he stole and an additional $101,000 in forfeiture. In 2020, he was a graduate student at Utah State University, and he was also the president of the USU Student Association (USUSA) Muslim Student Club. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Utah launches domestic violence dashboard, Rep. Wilcox calls for assessment protocol for perpetrators Between June 2020 and July 2020, he fraudulently obtained $333,900 in Economic Injury Disaster Loans by submitting four loan applications to the U.S. Small Business Association. He used the names and social security numbers of four random but real people in the applications. After receiving the loans, he wire transferred the money to the USUSA Muslim Student Club bank account, which he had control over as the club president, and again moved the proceeds to another bank account, a joint account he held with a relative. He then used the funds for unauthorized personal expenses, according to a press release from the District of Utah U.S. Attorneys Office. He also fraudulently obtained nearly $60,000 in unemployment insurance benefits. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He used the money to pay for a GMC Yukon, nearly $30,000 in electronics, a car loan, debt payments, a house payment, and college expenses. He also transferred over $100,000 outside of the United States to countries like Nigeria and Dubai. Ukashat initially was facing much more serious charges, like wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering, but the charges were downgraded as part of a plea deal. Economic Injury Disaster Loans were low-interest loans made available through the Small Business Association after the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). They were meant to be available to small businesses experiencing financial hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Latest headlines: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) The Kimble County Sheriffs Office is urging motorists to practice caution when behind the wheel after eight traffic crashes occurred on Aug. 21 during a period of heavy rainfall. KCSO reported on Aug. 22 that deputies and Texas State Troopers responded to eight traffic crashes on Aug. 21 along Interstate 10 in the eastern part of the County. The sheriffs office stated that the crashes were caused by heavy rainfall, failure of drivers to slow down and the use of cruise control. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Coleman PD seeks dangerous individual for crimes against family We want to remind everyone to slow down below the speed limit and turn off your cruise control during inclement weather, KCSO said. The agency also stated that there were several times when responders came close to being struck by other vehicles. We ask that you please slow down and move over for our safety and yours, KCSO said. Our goal is to ensure that everyone, including our first responders, makes it home safe. The National Weather Services zone area forecast for Kimble County predicts chances of rain ranging from 20% to 40% during daytime hours and select nighttime hours from Aug. 22 to Aug. 28 as of the time of publication. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) speaks at a ceremony Thursday marking the demolition of the aging Pimlico Race Course to make room for a new facility, hopefully in time for the 2027 Preakness Stakes. (Photo by Christine Condon/ Maryland Matters) An excavator tore open the walls of the Pimlico clubhouse Thursday as the governor and other dignitaries looked on the official kick-off for a demolition already underway at the historic track in northwest Baltimores Park Heights. The Maryland Board of Public Works signed off on the demolition and reconstruction project in May, starting a race to demolish and rebuild the aging track in time to bring the Preakness Stakes back to the Baltimore neighborhood by 2027. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the storied old clubhouse wasnt the only thing being ripped into Thursday. After citing his administrations gains in Baltimore a massive decline in gun violence, a new lease for the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards and the ongoing effort to redevelop Harborplace Gov. Wes Moore (D) seized the opportunity to lambaste President Donald Trump (R), who said Baltimore is so far gone when it comes to violent crime. Trump made the remarks earlier this month as he mobilized National Guard troops to patrol Washington, D.C. If you are not willing to be part of the solution, keep our names out of your mouth, Moore said, eliciting cheers from the crowd. Specifically, Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth. An excavator rips apart the Pimlico Race Course clubhouse on Thursday. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters) But the next speaker to step to the microphone a Park Heights clergyman leading the community advisory board for the redevelopment had a sobering message, and a reminder that the citys problems have not gone away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bishop Troy Randall, who grew up in the neighborhood abutting the racecourse, said he was caught in the crossfire of a shooting near the racetrack 5 p.m. Wednesday that left an 18-year-old man dead. My heart grieves, as well as its joy, Randall said. I am a product of the good, and Im a product of the bad. Randall said he was sitting in his car, having just dropped off a neighbor at the barbershop, when shots rang out. They shot my car, and as I laid on the floor of my car crying, I said, Lord, not this. Not this way. It cant end like this, Randall said. After the shots stopped, Randall emerged from his car to see the young victim lying on the ground. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I got out of that car, and I stood there, and I looked at the gentleman gasping for air in his lungs, I prayed that God give him another day, Randall said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Randall said the harrowing incident inspired him to continue fighting for Park Heights to benefit from the redevelopment. He said Moore kept his promise to visit the neighborhood, by attending Thursdays ceremony. Thursday, Moore touted his administrations plan to reinvest a share of the revenue from the new racing facility in neighborhood improvements. Gov. Wes Moore (D) embraces Troy Randall, chair of the Pimlico Community Advisory Board, at a demolition ceremony Thursday\. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters) The community have to be shareholders, Moore said. They have to benefit from all the new revenue that we will see. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moore pointed to $75 million in state funding for affordable housing in the neighborhood and $5 million for a new Park Heights public library. The Board of Public Works vote in May approved a $15.2 million contract with Clark Construction related to the demolition and reconstruction, kickstarting a long-discussed plan to raze the deteriorating racing facility. The unanimous vote came even as State Treasurer Dereck Davis, one of the three members of the board, wondered if it should be a final handout to a struggling horseracing industry. He pondered aloud if building year-round appeal for the racetrack was a pipe dream. The board also approved $4.5 million that day to buy a farm in Carroll County that is slated to host a new $110 million training center, capable of hosting some 800 horses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With Pimlico razed, next years Preakness is scheduled to be run at Laurel Park. But the state, which owns Pimlico, plans to have the track reopened by May 2027, in time to once again host the second leg of the Triple Crown. That gives project managers less than two years to complete the full demolition and rebuild. But Moore was optimistic Thursday. We are ensuring that the second leg of the Triple Crown will also be the Triple Crowns crown jewel, Moore said. And that that crown jewel will be right here in Baltimore, right where it belongs. BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) Five airports in Kern County were among those that received federal grants to improve airport infrastructure across the state of California, receiving over $1.7 million in total. The Federal Aviation Administration awarded a combined total of $158,375,329 to 72 California airports in grant funding. According to a release from the office of Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the funding comes from two programs the Airport Infrastructure Grant program and the Airport Improvement Program. Both programs focus on improving runways and taxiways at airports, among other projects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 1 arrested for assault with a deadly weapon after Caltrans worker hit on Hwy 178: CHP Below are the Kern County airports that received the grant funding and details on how those grants will be used: Mojave Air and Space Port Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field received $468,421. The grant will be used to fund part of a project that seeks to rehabilitate 270 feet of the existing paved Taxiway A. The project would minimize debris and increase the paths useful life, according to state officials. Delano Municipal Airport The Delano Municipal Airport received $444,000. The project using this funding aims to rebuild 180 feet of perimeter fencing and one gate, according to officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The project would also rebuild a 37,800-feet terminal parking lot. The parking lot doesnt generate revenue, officials said. Taft-Kern County Airport The project at the Taft Airport plans to resurface 1,000 feet of pavement on the 7/25 runway, according to state officials. It is the only asphalt concrete runway at the airport and is 3,550 feet long. The airport received $444,000. Kern Valley Airport The Kern Valley Airport, which was awarded $229,900, is trying to resurface 5,330 square yards of pavement and joints of a transient apron at a nonprimary airport. Tehachapi Municipal Airport The airport in Tehachapi received $159,600 for a project that would reconstruct 1,200 feet of pavement on the southwest taxilane, state officials said. The grant is expected to fund phase 1 of the project, which focuses on the design. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News. President Trump on Monday said a 15% tariff on imports from South Korea will hold despite President Lee Jae Myung's visit to Washington, D.C. We stuck to our guns, the president said after the meeting. The two countries struck a trade deal in July, allowing South Korea to avoid a stiffer 25% tariff, but tensions over the agreement have persisted, Bloomberg reports. Last week, Trump said that the US is investigating furniture imports and will impose a tariff on the products once the probe is complete. "Furniture coming from other Countries into the United States will be Tariffed at a Rate yet to be determined," the president wrote on Truth Social. He added the effort would "bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union." Furniture stocks including Williams Sonoma (WSM) and Wayfair (W) tumbled on Monday in the first immediate reaction to Trump's comments. Meanwhile, US tariffs on imports from India are set to double on Wednesday, with no indications that the countries are moving toward any kind of deal. Late last week, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro again criticized India for its ongoing purchases of Russian oil and said he anticipates the planned 50% punitive tariffs on Indian imports will take effect next week. I see that taking place, Navarro told reporters. India doesnt appear to want to recognize its role in the bloodshed. It simply doesnt. Its cozying up to Xi Jinping, is what its doing. Also last week, Canada vowed to drop its retaliatory tariffs to match US tariff exemptions for goods covered under the US-Mexico-Canada trade pact. And the US and the EU established a written framework for the trade deal agreed to in late July. The terms include a 15% US tariff on most EU imports, including autos, pharmaceutical goods, semiconductors, and lumber but not wine and spirits. Earlier this month, Trump unveiled "reciprocal" tariffs on dozens of US trade partners (which you can see in the graphic below). Those tariffs face legal limbo in an appeals court case that could be decided within days. Justice Department lawyers and lawyers for a group of small business importers who are challenging the tariffs imposed under this authority argued their positions before the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. If the court rules against the government, it's likely Trump would appeal to the Supreme Court. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Here are the latest updates as the policy reverberates around the world. LIVE 1738 updates Quick: Picture the contents of a typical U.S. refrigerator. Did you imagine a half-used bottle of ketchup sitting on a shelf? If you did, well done. Since at least the 1920s, ketchup has been the condiment of choice for millions of Americans. It is estimated that 97% of U.S. households consume ketchup with the average American ingesting roughly three bottles of the sauce each year. A pillar of fast food culture, ketchup is affordable, versatile, and a kids-favorite. Yet, this ubiquitous kitchen staple has a surprising and weird history. From ketchups origins in ancient China to its reinvention as a medicinal cure-all, it has taken a millennia for the condiment king to land in your humble refrigerator. Along the way, its passed through the hands of eccentric doctors, quixotic salesmen, and savvy food moguls who transformed the sauce from controversial medical remedy to a condiment of choice. China: the birthplace of ketchup Ketchups unlikely origin begins in 300 BCE China, where Chinese seamen made a fermented fish sauce called ke-tchup. In the 17th century, Chinese traders sold this ancient, tomato-less condiment to European traders. Thats when the first records of ke-tchup, ge-tchup, or kue-chiap sauce are found in trading documents and recipes. One of the earliest records of ketchup is a 1732 English recipe entitled Ketchup in Paste, From Bencoulin in the East Indies (modern day Indonesia). Advertisement Advertisement By the 18th century, imported ke-tchup made its way onto European tables where it got mixed with local ingredients like mushrooms, walnuts, and elderflower. A 1787 English recipe for ketchup included anchovies, shallots, horse-radish, mace, and nutmeg. None of these early recipes contained what we now consider ketchups main ingredient, tomatoes. Indeed, tomatoes did not make their way into ketchup until at least the 18th century. Spanish conquistadors brought the first tomato plants to Europe in the 16th century: This late 16th century illustration shows a tomato, moth mullein (yellow flower), forget me nots (blue flower), and a small insect. Image: Public Domain [ Related: The evolution of sunglasses from science to style (and back again) ] In the 16th century, when tomatoes were first introduced to Europe and North America from South America, they were considered poisonouspartly because the plants leaves contain toxic compounds. So, how did a poisonous crop become the central ingredient of Americas beloved condiment? According to food historian Andrew F. Smith, tomatoes benefited from a sort of rebranding in the mid 1700s. English and American doctors led this unlikely 18th century PR campaign, as Smith wrote in a journal article entitled Tomato Pills Will Cure All Your Ills. Tomatoes gets medicinal The first doctor to shift peoples perception of tomatoes was English physician, John Gerard, who in the late 16th century posited that cooked tomatoes, rather than raw ones, could be edible. By the mid 1700s, English doctors were not only embracing love apples, as tomatoes were called due to their reputedly aphrodisiac properties, but prescribing them as medicine, mostly to treat digestive and liver-related conditions. Advertisement Advertisement British physicians travelling to America took the tomato-as-medicine concept to the other side of the Atlantic. As Smith wrote, Thomas Jefferson credited British doctor John de Sequeyra for introducing tomatoes to Virginia. According to Jefferson, de Sequeyra would claim that a person who should eat a sufficient abundance of these apples would never die. Soon, the buzz about medicinal love apples started to pick up. Doctors in other parts of the U.S. started to prescribe tomatoes to cure indigestion and diarrhea. Indeed, as Smith wrote, it was doctors and physicians, rather than chefs or cooks, that authored the first tomato-based recipes in U.S. cookbooks. James Mease, a scientist and horticulturist from Philadelphia, was one of the first cookbook authors to include tomatoes in a ketchup recipe. His 1812 recipe included thinly cut tomatoes, brandy, mase, allspice, and salt. English botanist John Gerard erroneously believed the tomato plants stalk and leaves were poisonous, but that the plants fruit was not. Image: Public Domain The Mormon doctor who prescribed ketchup for diarrhea Of the many doctors that rebranded tomatoes, no one played a bigger role than John Cook Bennett. Bennett was a quixotic figure, wrote Smith, and spent decades of his life promoting the supposed cure-all properties of tomatoes. During an inaugural lecture at Willoughby University in Ohio, Bennett declared that tomatoes could treat diarrhea, bilious attacks, and indigestion. He urged people to eat tomatoes raw, cooked, or in catsup. Advertisement Advertisement In 1840, Bennett moved to Illinois, helped establish the states Medical Society, and became a Mormon. During his time in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he continued to promote tomatoes, authoring an article on the benefits of the fruit for the Mormon newspaper Time and Seasons published in Nauvoo, Illinois. By the time Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, excommunicated Cook in 1842 for adultery, the Mormon community had already embraced tomatoes as a stomach ache remedy. [ Related: Lip balms surprising history from earwax to Lip Smackers ] After his excommunication, Bennett kept defending tomatoes, writing about their medicinal qualities in American, English, and Australian publications. But, according to Smith (the historian, not the Mormon), it was in the U.S. where the tomato craze really took off. In 1835, doctor A.J. Holcombe introduced the first tomato pills in Glassboro, Alabama. Other tomato pills salesmen soon followed, including Cleveland-based Archibald Miles and Yale-educated doctor Guy R. Phelps. Advertised as a pure extract of tomato fruit, these capsules were sold in pharmacies and grocery stores and promoted with the jingle tomato pills will cure all your ills. But not all doctors endorsed the tomato pills craze, wrote Smith. During an 1869 debate hosted by the American Medical Association, some physicians disputed tomatoes medical properties and criticized tomato pillswhich later investigations found contained no tomato at all. By 1865, medical myths about tomatoes started to fade, but tomatoes had already become a favorite American vegetable. Their popularity coincided with innovations in commercial bottling that helped pave the way for ketchups future ascent. Enter H.J. Heinz In the late 19th century, glass-makers introduced inexpensive, mold-formed flasks. These made it much easier to transport and store sauces, allowing food companies to bring their products to market more easily. And thats when the ketchup titan, Henry John Heinz, got involved. Henry J. Heinz, the founder of the H. J. Heinz Company, became an icon of the American food industry through his focus on product purity and his famous 57 Varieties slogan. Image: Public Domain Heinz founded the H.J. Heinz Company in 1869, initially selling horseradish, sauerkraut, vinegar, and pickles. In 1876, Heinz added catsup to its list of products. While not framing catsup as medical, Heinz cleverly marketed the sauce as a wholesome, reliable product. Initially sold in clear-glass bottles, Heinz wanted to showcase the high quality ingredients used in the companys catsup. The word tomato was later added, highlighting catsups plant-based ingredients. Then, in 1890, Heinz patented an octagonal-shaped bottle for their sauce and changed the spelling to ketchup. Tomato ketchup had finally been born. Advertisement Advertisement Ketchups final leap into American food culture wasnt driven by taste, but by law. The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, introduced the idea that industrial food had higher standards of hygiene, safety, and consistency compared to homemade products, Maryann Tebben, author of Sauces: A Global History, tells Popular Science. Food companies doubled down on this idea with ads framing their products as safe and reliable. Soon enough, consumers started to prefer commercially bottled sauces to homemade ones. Ketchups consumption took off in the 20th century with the explosion of fast food restaurants, when it found its perfect pairing with french fries and burgers. The introduction of easy-to-squeeze plastic bottles further cemented its place as a household staple in the 1980s. Today, ketchup has lost some ground to newcomers, such as salsa. Salsa now outsells ketchup by dollar amount, says Tebben, yet American households still purchase more tomato ketchup by volume. Two centuries after its medical rebranding, ketchup has yet to be dethroned as king of American condiments. Update, August 25, 2025, 12:00 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this story included a link surfaced by ChatGPT. That link has been removed and replaced with the correct one. Popular Science does not use ChatGPT to generate or source links in our reporting. The Washington State Department of Transportation is now one step closer to deciding the fate of the state Route 165 Carbon River Fairfax Bridge. WSDOT released its planning study on Thursday, outlining two options they are pursuing after permanently closing the bridge on April 22, 2025. These options include: Building a bridge replacement north of the bridges existing location. Tearing down the existing bridge and not building a new one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These are two of the seven options WSDOT was considering when the agency first started its $1.5 million planning study. WSDOT does not currently have funding for any of the options; all of the agencys estimated time frames would start from whenever officials are able to identify funding. The 103-year-old, single-lane bridge is permanently closed because its steel supports were deteriorating, posing a safety risk. The bridge was the only way for the public to easily access popular areas of Mount Rainier National Park such as Mowich Lake, Spray Park, the Carbon Glacier Trail and Tolmie Peak. Property owners on the other side of the bridge and business owners in nearby towns like Wilkeson and Carbonado previously spoke to The News Tribune about how the bridge closure has impacted them. Building a replacement north of the existing location The first of the two options involves tearing down the existing bridge and building a replacement north of its existing location. The exact location of the replacement bridge would be decided after geotechnical and environmental fieldwork, the study said. A map of the first proposed option, which would involve building a new bridge north of the current bridges existing location. According to the study, this option would cost about $160 million and take six years. There would be three phases: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Phase 1: geotechnical investigations and survey; National Environmental Policy Act documentation; figuring out the new bridges type, size and location; and removing the existing bridge. Phase 2: Designing, engineering and permitting for the new bridge Phase 3: Construction The study identified this replacement option as posing the least geological risk, noting that construction would be challenging due to terrain and site constraints. This option would require half a mile of new roadway, including rock cuts. Not building a replacement This option, according to the study, would tear down the existing bridge and not build a new one permanently closing state Route 165 south of Carbonado. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under this option, SR 165 would be terminated at Carbonado, and no alternative access route would be provided. The existing bridge would be removed through a controlled deconstruction process, the study says. This option would require compensation related to property access rights for landowners south of the bridge and would result in the loss of public access to lands managed by MRNP, USFS, and Pierce County. According to the study, this option would cost $70 million to $80 million, and take about three years. The study estimates it would cost about $46.6 million to compensate private landowners who would lose access to their property. The News Tribune reached out to Cara Mitchell, spokesperson for WSDOT, and asked for more specifics about what compensation for property owners could look like. She said those details are still being ironed out. As part of the next steps to advance the no-build option for further evaluation, WSDOT would need to refine cost estimates related to property access rights and compensation and continue to assess long-term impacts to local communities, public land access, and regional connectivity, the study said. What other options did WSDOT dismiss? Five of the seven initial options have been rejected. These are: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Building a bridge replacement at the existing location Building a replacement south of the existing location Realigning state Route 165 and placing a new bridge near Carbonado. Realigning state Route 165 to connect with state Route 162 near Crocker. Realigning state Route 165 east of Wilkeson and Carbonado. WSDOT said building a bridge replacement at the existing location would have cost about $175 million, while building a bridge replacement south of the existing location would have cost about $160 million. The agency rejected building a bridge at the existing location because of difficult construction access. It would require removal of the existing bridge first, the study says. ... The Carbon River Canyon site provides difficult construction access. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The agency wont pursue building a bridge south of the existing location, the study says, because it would require a lot of work in a geologically risky area. A new 650-foot bridge would be needed, as well as retaining walls and rock cuts for bridge approaches, the study says. The last three options collectively called the Bypass Alternatives all involved realigning state Route 165. These alternatives were dismissed due to being significantly more expensive and, in the case of Alternatives 6 and 7, isolate the communities of Carbonado or Wilkeson, the study says. All three of these bypass alternatives would have cost somewhere between $375 million to $785 million. What did the public think? WSDOT held an online open house from May 28 to June 17, asking for public feedback on its seven options. The agency also held two in-person open houses, one at the Carbonado School on June 2 and one at Wilkeson Elementary School on June 11. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the study, WSDOT noted that the no-build option was almost universally dismissed, and most residents wanted to see a bridge replacement near the existing location. Key findings from 2,842 individual public comments showed strong community preference for options that replace the bridge on or near its current alignment citing access, cost, and community impact, the study said. The no-build option received the least support due to the loss of access to MRNP and economic impact on local businesses. Respondents also expressed frustration with the prolonged closure and lack of a public detour. The study also said that 40% of public responses emphasized the urgency of restoring access, with many linking it directly to the economic survival of the region. In May, residents in Wilkeson and Carbonado sent over 100 letters to U.S. Rep Kim Schrier, urging for access to be restored. What are the next steps? The News Tribune asked Mitchell what the next steps in the process would be, and she said WSDOT is still deciding between the no-build option and building a bridge replacement north of the existing location. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [Were going into] preliminary engineering and environmental review this fall and we will see where that takes us, Mitchell said. We dont have funding for construction were using preservation funding to take us into next steps, into preliminary engineering and environmental review. When The News Tribune asked when in the fall this would happen, Mitchell said she doesnt know yet. Residents can look at the planning study at wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-studies/sr-165-carbon-river-fairfax-bridge-planning-study. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from detention on Friday and headed back to his home state of Maryland, the latest move in a months-long saga that has become a symbol of President Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Abrego Garcia was detained in March, mistakenly deported to El Salvador, held for months in a notorious prison where he alleges he was tortured, and eventually returned to the U.S. in June only to face criminal charges in Tennessee. The Trump administration has accused him of gang membership and smuggling, allegations he and his family have staunchly denied. A Nashville-based federal magistrate judge ordered Abrego Garcia to be released from jail two months ago while he awaits a criminal trial set to begin in January. That order had been delayed at the request of Abrego Garcia's lawyers, who feared that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could immediately detain him and try to deport him again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The latest delay to Abrego Garcia's release from jail ran out on Friday and Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes entered an order for his release. His lawyers confirmed he was free Friday afternoon. But it's unclear if or when Abrego Garcia will be detained by ICE yet again. What happens after Abrego Garcia is released? Holmes was expected to set conditions for Abrego Garcia's release when she issues her order allowing him to walk out of jail. Then he planned to return to Maryland, where he and his family lived prior to his March detention by ICE. Abrego Garcia's lawyers said in court papers this week that they hired a private security company with "experience providing court-approved pre-trial transportation and security services in criminal cases" to bring him to Maryland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His attorneys have asked Holmes to give him 48 hours following his departure from jail to report to pre-trial services in Maryland. The Justice Department which has opposed releasing Abrego Garcia said this week it isn't opposed to a 48-hour grace period, noting that Abrego Garcia is expected to wear an electronic monitoring device once he leaves custody. Upon his release, immigration agents aren't allowed to immediately take Abrego Garcia into custody in Tennessee, under a ruling last month by Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. When he gets back to Maryland, the government must put him back into the same ICE supervision program that he belonged to before he was detained, and they need to give him 72 hours' notice if they plan to initiate deportation to a country other than El Salvador, said Xinis. Can Abrego Garcia be deported again? Xinis' order does not prevent ICE from initiating immigration proceedings against Abrego Garcia once he returns to Maryland. She wrote last month that the government "may take whatever action is available to them under the law." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But if he's detained by ICE again, the government's plans for where he'd be sent are unclear. "There's been no decision made, as he is not in ICE custody," Thomas Giles, assistant director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, told Xinis last month. Giles said ICE would take custody of Abrego Garcia "as soon as possible," and would determine "based on bed space availability" where to hold him. In June, Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn told Xinis the government would seek to deport Abrego Garcia to a "third country" that is, a country other than El Salvador. He added that there were "no imminent plans" to remove him from the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called a June report on Abrego Garcia's possible deportation "fake news," writing on X: "He will face the full force of the American justice system - including serving time in American prison for the crimes he's committed." There are legal barriers to deporting Abrego Garcia to his home country of El Salvador which he left more than a decade ago before entering the U.S. illegally at the age of 16. In 2019, a judge barred the government from sending him to El Salvador, on the grounds that he feared persecution by local gangs. Despite that ruling, the Trump administration sent him to El Salvador in March where he was held at the notorious CECOT mega-prison. A government attorney later admitted in court that the move was an "administrative error." That error set off the court saga surrounding Abrego Garcia. Xinis had ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S., which the Supreme Court affirmed. But he remained in the Central American country for months as the Trump administration claimed it was up to the Salvadoran government to decide whether to return him, drawing frustration from Xinis, before he was finally flown back to face criminal charges in June. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What charges is Abrego Garcia facing? Abrego Garcia was federally charged in June with conspiracy to transport aliens and unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. The government alleges that Abrego Garcia was involved in a smuggling ring that transported undocumented immigrants from Texas to elsewhere in the U.S. Federal prosecutors also accused Abrego Garcia of belonging to the Salvadoran gang MS-13. "As we have said since Day 1, this M13-gang member and human trafficker won't be on American streets again," Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement earlier this week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcia's attorneys have strongly denied the government's allegations, including claims that he belonged to MS-13. Earlier this week, his lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the charges, accusing the Trump administration of engaging in a "vindictive and selective prosecution." His attorneys wrote Tuesday that "the only possible explanation for the timing of the charges here is that the government chose to use this prosecution to punish Mr. Abrego for exercising his right to challenge the violations of due process that led to his unconstitutional deportation, incarceration, and torture in El Salvador." The most widespread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines this year 5 killed, dozens more injured in New York bus crash Giant beach tents are taking over shorelines and not everyone is happy Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be released from criminal custody as soon as Friday, the latest development in a dramatic legal saga surrounding the wrongly deported Maryland father of three. Abrego Garcia has for months been behind bars in Tennessee since he was returned to the US from El Salvador, where he was unlawfully deported in mid-March, to face human smuggling charges. Two federal judges in Nashville have turned down a request from federal prosecutors for him to remain locked up while he awaits trial on the charges, but one of them paused her release order last month for 30 days. That pause is expected to expire on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His deportation earlier this year and the administrations protracted battle against judges who demanded officials work to bring him back to the US became a flashpoint in the White Houses controversial effort to carry out an unprecedented deportation campaign as well as its continued battle with the federal judiciary. Heres what to know. Prosecutors did not show that Abrego Garcia is a danger to others Prosecutors mounted a weekslong effort this summer to keep Abrego Garcia behind bars pending his trial on the pair of human smuggling charges, which is set to begin in January. They sought to paint him as a dangerous criminal whose alleged crimes and personal history warranted detention while his case unfolded. But both a magistrate judge in Nashville and the federal judge overseeing his trial resoundingly rejected those arguments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The governments general statements about the crimes brought against Abrego, and the evidence it has in support of those crimes, do not prove Abregos dangerousness, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in a 37-page ruling last month as he rebuffed a request from prosecutors to reverse a similar ruling from the magistrate judge. Just after Crenshaw issued his ruling, the magistrate judge Barbara Holmes said in another decision that Abrego Garcia would remain behind bars for at least 30 more days, granting an unopposed request by his lawyers for him to stay in criminal custody. Abrego Garcias lawyers had made the request in an effort to ensure hasty deportation proceedings wouldnt begin once hes released from custody. Guardrails around a second deportation The same day Crenshaw issued his ruling, the federal judge in Maryland who ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcias return from a mega-prison in El Salvador issued her own ruling that set up guardrails intended to prevent officials from deporting him again with little regard for his due process rights. How and whether that decision is complied with will be closely watched in coming days. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Administration officials have wavered this summer on whether they would deport Abrego Garcia before his criminal trial begins in January, and Judge Paula Xinis expressed concern last month over the possibility that he could be swiftly removed once hes released from custody in Tennessee. Her ruling bars officials from immediately taking Abrego Garcia into US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody once hes released from jail and requires the government to put him back in the immigration situation he was in before he was deported in March. That includes putting him under supervision by the ICE Baltimore Field Office, which is what his status quo was prior to mid-March. That supervision allowed him to work and live in Maryland, with occasional check-ins with an immigration officer. But her ruling doesnt prevent officials from deporting him again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Once Abrego Garcia is restored under the ICE Supervision Order out of the Baltimore Field Office, Defendants may take whatever action is available to them under the law, the judge wrote. So long as such actions are taken within the bounds of the Constitution and applicable statutes, this Court will have nothing further to say. Human smuggling case Until early June, Abrego Garcia was in El Salvador, where he had spent time in the countrys notorious Cecot mega-prison. US officials deported him there in violation of a 2019 order from a judge that said he could not be deported to his home country because of fears that he would face gang violence. The administration spent months fighting directives from judges to work to bring him back stateside, but ultimately returned him to the US in June to face the two human smuggling charges. Federal prosecutors accused Abrego Garcia and others of partaking in a conspiracy in recent years in which they knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcia and his family say he fled gang violence in El Salvador and have denied allegations hes associated with MS-13. Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia mounted a bid to have the case thrown out based on his assertion that hes the subject of vindictive and selective prosecution as punishment for his decision to challenge his wrongful deportation. In court papers, his attorneys pointed to statements made by various administration officials from President Donald Trump to Attorney General Pam Bondi to make the case that his prosecution is intended to justify officials false claims that deporting him to El Salvador had been the right thing to do. Such requests, they acknowledged, are infrequently made and rarely succeed. But if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case. Crenshaw has asked for a response early next month. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported in March before being brought back to the U.S., was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday and returned to Maryland, an attorney for Abrego Garcia told ABC News. The Salvadoran native had been in criminal custody since the federal government brought him back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges. A federal judge who last month ordered the government to return him to Maryland and blocked the administration from deporting him upon his release in Tennessee. Brett Carlsen/AP - PHOTO: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. MORE: Trump administration may attempt to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda: Sources Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a statement released Friday by the immigrant advocacy organization CASA, Abrego Garcia said: "Today has been a very special day because I have seen my family for the first time in more than 160 days. Id like to thank all the people who have supported me because after this long time I have witnessed that so many people have been by my side with such positivity." The statement went on to say: "Today I am grateful to God because He has heard me and today I am out. We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served. Abrego Garcia's lawyers said this week that they hired a private security company to bring him to Maryland. An attorney representing Abrego Garcia told ABC News Friday that while his client's release brings some relief, he is "far from safe." Seth Herald/Reuters - PHOTO: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. "For the first time since March, our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia is reunited with his loving family," said attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg. "While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One source told ABC News that Abrego Garcia received a notice to report to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore on Monday. Abrego Garcia must remain in the custody of his brother in Maryland, according to his release order. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes said Abrego Garcia shall travel directly to Maryland and must report by phone to Pretrial Services for the District of Maryland by no later than 10:00 a.m. Monday. Holmes said that Abrego Garcia is reminded that if "he is taken into ICE custody, he is required by the conditions of his release to consent to being transported back to this district for further proceedings in this case." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The conditions of release include that Abrego Garcia must submit to supervision by Pretrial Services as instructed, continue or actively seek employment, not obtain a passport or other international travel document and get anger management treatment. Other conditions require Abrego Garcia to not contact "directly or indirectly with any known MS-13 gang members." Should Abrego be taken into immigration custody following his return to Maryland, Judge Holmes said, the U.S. government "shall ensure that, while Abrego remains in ICE custody, he has access to his attorneys, both physically and via telephone, to allow Abrego to prepare for trial in this case." Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem criticized the release of Abrego Garcia Friday, saying, "Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She added, "Today, we reached a new low with this publicity hungry Maryland judge mandating this illegal alien who is a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator be allowed free." In her July order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the U.S. government "shall restore Abrego Garcia to his ICE Order of Supervision out of the Baltimore Field Office." Xinis said her order to have Abrego Garcia placed under ICE supervision in Maryland, where he was living with his wife and children before he was mistakenly deported in March, is necessary to "provide the kind of effective relief to which a wrongfully removed alien is entitled upon return." MORE: Justice Department investigating 2022 Abrego Garcia traffic stop: Sources Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The July order, which also requires the government to provide 72 hours' notice if it intends to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, is "narrowly tailored" to allow the Trump administration to initiate "lawful immigration proceedings upon Abrego Garcia's return to Maryland." The immigration proceedings may or may not include "lawful arrest, detention and eventual removal," Xinis said. Abrego Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison -- despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution -- after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which his family and attorneys deny. He was brought back to the U.S. last month to face charges in Tennessee of allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S. while he was living in Maryland. He has pleaded not guilty. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Tuesday, Abrego Garcia's attorneys accused federal prosecutors of "vindictive and selective prosecution" in a motion seeking to dismiss the criminal charges against him. In the 25-page filing, the attorneys argued that the government charged him "because he refused to acquiesce in the government's violation of his due process rights." "Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government," his attorneys said. Abrego Garcia's trial in his human smuggling case is set to begin on Jan. 27, 2027. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) A private security firm is set to transport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Maryland after he was released from a Middle Tennessee jail Friday. Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to a prison in El Salvador in March and was brought back to the U.S. to face charges of human smuggling. Among other charges, hes accused of conspiring to bring undocumented migrants to the U.S. from around 2016 to 2025. Abrego Garcia pushes to toss criminal charges he says amount to vindictive prosecution Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcias charges stem from a traffic stop by the Tennessee Highway Patrol in Putnam County in 2022. Body camera video shows officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human smuggling before letting him go free. Abrego Garcia was not charged with any offense at the traffic stop before he was deported in March and returned on June 6. His lawyers stated in court filings Tuesday that a private security firm will take Abrego Garcia from Tennessee to Maryland upon his release. The Associated Press released a photo of the 29-year-old shortly after he was released from the Putnam County Jail in Cookeville on Friday, Aug. 22. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen) Read todays top stories on wkrn.com U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes denied the U.S. motion to detain Abrego Garcia. Conditions of his release would require Abrego Garcia to stay with his brother in Maryland, wear an electronic device and be placed on home detention. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now, he awaits trial on federal human smuggling charges. His trial is expected to begin in January. Download the News 2 app to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WKRN email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox. Find todays top stories on WKRN.com for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee. This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new information becomes available. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BALTIMORE Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man incarcerated since his mistaken deportation in March, was released Friday from jail in Tennessee and is presently en route to his family in Maryland, his lawyer said. Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free, Sean Hecker, an attorney in Abrego Garcias criminal case in Tennessee, said. Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador native who lived with his family in Prince Georges County until his deportation, became a flashpoint in President Donald Trumps immigration agenda after being sent in March to a Salvadoran mega-prison. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process, Hecker said. A Friday order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes required Abrego Garcias release by 5 p.m. and mandated that he travel directly to Maryland, where he must remain in his brothers custody. Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys as the Trump administration had suggested it would immediately try to deport him again. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in his Maryland civil case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order. Holmes order also requires that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains Abrego Garcia, he must have access to his attorneys, both physically and via telephone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this week, Abrego Garcias criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the criminal case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning. ------------- Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges. The Salvadoran nationals case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trumps immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges. Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, after two months, Abrego Garcia walked out of the Putnam County jail wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt and black pants and accompanied by defense attorney Rascoe Dean and two other men. They did not speak to reporters but got into a white SUV and sped off. The release order from the court requires Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland, where he will be in home detention with his brother designated as his third-party custodian. He is required to submit to electronic monitoring and can only leave the home for work, religious services and other approved activities. An attorney for Abrego Garcia in his immigration case in Maryland, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday his client had been reunited with his loving family for the first time since he was wrongfully deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in March. While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe, Sandoval-Moshenberg said. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia's criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the criminal case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning. A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge denied his application for asylum but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a well-founded fear of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit. Although Abrego Garcia cant be deported to El Salvador without violating the judges order, Homeland Security officials have said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, the latest development in a dramatic legal saga surrounding the wrongly deported Maryland father of three. This marks the first time he has not been imprisoned since the Trump administration deported him to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador in March and later brought him back to the US to face human smuggling charges. Since being returned to the US in June to face the pair of federal charges, Abrego Garcia has been behind bars in Tennessee, where he successfully convinced two federal judges to order his release while he awaits trial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But even as Abrego Garcia walked out of a jail in Tennessee Friday afternoon, his immediate fate in the US remained uncertain. We have made a closer step towards justice, but we still need more justice, Abrego Garcia said, speaking through an interpreter in a video released by immigrant advocacy group CASA after he reunited with his family later Friday. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, fourth from right, leaves the Putnam County Jail on Friday. - Brett Carlsen/AP Administration officials have wavered this summer on whether they would deport him before his criminal trial is scheduled to begin in January. That equivocation prompted a federal judge in Maryland to set up guardrails last month to ensure Abrego Garcia isnt hastily removed from the US again. Today is such a special day, because after 160 days I am able to see my family again. I am so grateful for everybody who has been supporting me since day one. Because for the very first time today, I am seeing how so many people have been supporting my case, not just here, but internationally, Abrego Garcia said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sean Hecker, one of Abrego Garcias attorneys, said in a statement that his client was grateful to be free after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the governments vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administrations continuing assault on the rule of law. Prosecutors did not show that Abrego Garcia is a danger to others Federal prosecutors mounted a weekslong effort this summer to keep Abrego Garcia behind bars pending his trial on the pair of human smuggling charges. They sought to paint him as a dangerous criminal whose alleged crimes and personal history warranted detention while his case unfolded. But both a magistrate judge in Nashville and the federal judge overseeing his trial resoundingly rejected those arguments. The governments general statements about the crimes brought against Abrego, and the evidence it has in support of those crimes, do not prove Abregos dangerousness, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in a 37-page ruling last month as he rebuffed a request from prosecutors to reverse a similar ruling from the magistrate judge. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just after Crenshaw issued his ruling, the magistrate judge Barbara Holmes said in another decision that Abrego Garcia would remain behind bars for at least 30 more days, granting an unopposed request by his lawyers for him to stay in criminal custody. Abrego Garcias lawyers had made the request in an effort to ensure hasty deportation proceedings wouldnt begin once hes released from custody. Guardrails around a second deportation The same day Crenshaw issued his ruling, the federal judge in Maryland who ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcias return from a mega-prison in El Salvador issued her own ruling that set up guardrails intended to prevent officials from deporting him again with little regard for his due process rights. Under the order issued last month by US District Judge Paula Xinis, officials are barred from immediately taking Abrego Garcia into US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. They must also restore him to the legal position he was in prior to his deportation earlier this year. That includes putting him under supervision by the ICE Baltimore Field Office. That supervision allowed him to work and live in Maryland, with occasional check-ins with an immigration officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement How and whether Xinis decision is complied with will be closely watched in coming days. Importantly, the ruling doesnt prevent officials from deporting him again, including to a country other than El Salvador. Once Abrego Garcia is restored under the ICE Supervision Order out of the Baltimore Field Office, Defendants may take whatever action is available to them under the law, the judge wrote. So long as such actions are taken within the bounds of the Constitution and applicable statutes, this Court will have nothing further to say. Abrego Garcias attorneys acknowledged that reality as he was released from jail on Friday, saying in a statement that he is far from safe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family, his lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement. Human smuggling case Until early June, Abrego Garcia was in El Salvador, where he had spent time in the countrys notorious Cecot mega-prison. US officials deported him there in violation of a 2019 order from a judge that said he could not be deported to his home country because of fears that he would face gang violence. The administration spent months fighting directives from judges to work to bring him back stateside, but ultimately returned him to the US in June to face the two human smuggling charges. Federal prosecutors accused Abrego Garcia and others of partaking in a conspiracy in recent years in which they knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcia and his family say he fled gang violence in El Salvador and have denied allegations hes associated with MS-13. Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia mounted a bid to have the case thrown out based on his assertion that hes the subject of vindictive and selective prosecution as punishment for his decision to challenge his wrongful deportation. In court papers, his attorneys pointed to statements made by various administration officials from President Donald Trump to Attorney General Pam Bondi to make the case that his prosecution is intended to justify officials false claims that deporting him to El Salvador had been the right thing to do. Such requests, they acknowledged, are infrequently made and rarely succeed. But if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case. Crenshaw has asked for a response early next month. This story and headline have been updated with Abrego Garcias release. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Kilmar Abrego Garcia, pictured at center, accompanied by his attorney, released from jail in Putnam County, Tennessee on August 22, 2025. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) NASHVILLE Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful deportation to a prison in El Salvador brought widespread public scrutiny of the Trump administrations immigration crackdown tactics, was released from a rural Tennessee jail on Friday, five months after being detained while driving to his Maryland home. Abrego will be escorted by the U.S. Marshals Service back to Maryland, where he must report to pretrial services by 10 a.m. Monday. He will also be under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which could choose to detain him. A Maryland court order in a separate case requires he be given 72 hours notice if the government plans to send him to a third country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An order filed Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Tennessee noted that should Abrego be taken into ICE custody following his return to Maryland the government shall ensure that, while Abrego remains in ICE custody, he has access to his attorneys, both physically and via telephone, to allow Abrego to prepare for trial in this case. Abrego will also be subject to electronic location monitoring and placed in the custody of his brother, the order noted. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in a social media statement, called Abregos release a new low, wrongly ascribing the decision to release him to a Maryland judge. Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country, the statement said. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego, as the Tennessee court refers to him, was dispatched to El Salvador after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Maryland, where he has lived with his wife and children and works as an apprentice sheet metal worker. A government prosecutor later conceded his deportation was an error. Abrego, who entered the country illegally as a teen, was the subject of an immigration court order barring his removal to his home country of El Salvador, where he said he feared gang violence. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is escorted into a waiting car after his release from the Putnam County Jail on Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) He was returned to Tennessee in June to face human smuggling charges that prosecutors say are tied to a 2022 Tennessee traffic stop. Abrego was neither cited nor arrested when he was pulled over by Tennessee Highway Patrol officers with nine passengers in his vehicle. Prosecutors now allege the stop was part of a human smuggling operation in which Abrego was paid to transport immigrants illegally in the United States to points around the country. Abrego has pleaded not guilty to the charges. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said in a statement that Abregos release shows the legal system has worked its will and is upholding Kilmar Abrego Garcias right to due process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While I have no doubt the Administration will continue its attempts to undermine Mr. Abrego Garcias rights, we will continue fighting to see them maintained because due process in this case does not end with his release. Mr. Abrego Garcia must continue to be allowed to defend himself in court, where the Trump Administration must make its case before taking any further action against him. This is a matter thats greater than just this one case or one man if one persons rights are denied, then the rights of all of us are at risk. This story may be updated. TikTok is planning to lay off hundreds of employees at its London office responsible for content moderation, Azernews reports, according to a report by the Financial Times. The move was disclosed in an internal company email, which points to a strategic shift in the platforms operational structure. The email reportedly stated that TikTok is considering that moderation and quality assurance work would no longer be carried out at our London site. The announcement comes just weeks after key provisions of the UKs Online Safety Act came into effect - laws that place strict demands on digital platforms to better protect users from harmful content. Under the new legislation, social media companies are required to implement robust age verification systems for content flagged as potentially harmful. Non-compliance could result in fines of up to 18 million or 10% of global turnover - whichever is greater. TikTok says the decision to restructure is part of a broader effort to centralize its operational capabilities. These changes are intended to concentrate operational expertise in specific locations, the company said, without specifying where those locations will be. The move signals not only a response to growing regulatory pressure but also a shift in how TikTok plans to manage compliance and content safety at scale. Rob Sandrew You can find original article here Wealthmanagement. Subscribe to our free daily Wealthmanagement newsletter. The new head of Mariner Wealth Advisors independent advisor division said the firm is working to strengthen its engagement with affiliate advisors, which includes hiring a liaison focused on collaboration. Rob Sandrew, who was named head of Mariner Independent in June, told WealthManagement.com that he has started a listening tour with Mariners over 1,100 advisors leveraging one of its independent advisor options. That will soon include in-person visits to offices around the U.S. by Sandrew and Verne Marble, who was hired as managing director of the division at the same time Sandrew came on. We need to be talking with advisors about what their goals are and what areas we can help them with that involves navigating with them, not to them, on what the priorities are, Sandrew said. Were in the midst of hiring for this particular role, and I am making it a mandate that it is someone from the independent side, because theyre going to need to understand the industry. Sandrew added that Mariner is leaning into the independent channel to try to capture what is often cited as the most popular option for breakaway advisors, as well as for independent advisors seeking additional support and a long-term succession plan. The firm is competing with a proliferation of independent or affiliate RIA options, ranging from other mega-RIA affiliation programs, platform providers, minority investors with support networks and affiliate channels via independent broker/dealers. He said part of the key to winning in this market is working closely with advisors to hear about and then try to address their needs. Some of those solutions may come from within the Mariner ecosystem in areas such as valuation services, banking, estate planning or tax strategies. Were building out a little more infrastructure around strategic growth and engagement, which is providing resources to help advisors navigate, not only through Mariner from a business-building resource perspective, but up and down all the elements of their business, Sandrew said. We can do that today, but were making it more formal. Mariner has different affiliation options in addition to its 1099 platform. There is a hybrid-affiliate called Mariner Advisor Network, created in 2022 with the acquisition of The Financial Services Network, which partners with LPL Financial. It also has Baystate Wealth Management, which offers third-party investment offerings to advisors, and a separate custom model portfolio group. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, pictured at center, accompanied by his attorney, released from jail in Putnam County, Tennessee on Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful deportation to a prison in El Salvador brought widespread public scrutiny of the Trump administrations immigration crackdown tactics, was released from a rural Tennessee jail on Friday, five months after being detained while driving to his Maryland home. Abrego will be escorted by the U.S. Marshals Service back Maryland, where he must report to pretrial services by 10 a.m. Monday. He will also be under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which could choose to detain him. A Maryland court order in a separate case requires he be given 72 hours notice if the government plans to send him to a third country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An order filed Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Tennessee noted that should Abrego be taken into ICE custody following his return to Maryland the government shall ensure that, while Abrego remains in ICE custody, he has access to his attorneys, both physically and via telephone, to allow Abrego to prepare for trial in this case. Abrego will also be subject to electronic location monitoring and placed in the custody of his brother, the order noted. Abrego, as the Tennessee court refers to him, was dispatched to El Salvador after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Maryland, where he has lived with his wife and children and works as an apprentice sheet metal worker. A government prosecutor later conceded his deportation was an error. Abrego, who entered the country illegally as a teen, was the subject of an immigration court order barring his removal to his home country of El Salvador, where he said he feared gang violence. He was returned to Tennessee in June to face human smuggling charges that prosecutors say are tied to a 2022 Tennessee traffic stop. Abrego was neither cited nor arrested when he was pulled over by Tennessee Highway Patrol officers with nine passengers in his vehicle. Prosecutors now allege the stop was part of a human smuggling operation in which Abrego was paid to transport immigrants illegally in the United States to points around the country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego has pleaded not guilty to the charges. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said in a statement that Abregos release shows the legal system has worked its will and is upholding Kilmar Abrego Garcias right to due process. While I have no doubt the Administration will continue its attempts to undermine Mr. Abrego Garcias rights, we will continue fighting to see them maintained because due process in this case does not end with his release. Mr. Abrego Garcia must continue to be allowed to defend himself in court, where the Trump Administration must make its case before taking any further action against him. This is a matter thats greater than just this one case or one man if one persons rights are denied, then the rights of all of us are at risk. This story was originally produced by the Tennessee Lookout which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network, including the Daily Montanan, supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, pictured at center, accompanied by his attorney, released from jail in Putnam County, Tennessee on August 22, 2025. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful deportation to a prison in El Salvador brought widespread public scrutiny of the Trump administrations immigration crackdown tactics, was released from a rural Tennessee jail on Friday, five months after being detained while driving to his Maryland home. Abrego will be escorted by the U.S. Marshals Service back Maryland, where he must report to pretrial services by 10 a.m. Monday. He will also be under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which could choose to detain him. A Maryland court order in a separate case requires he be given 72 hours notice if the government plans to send him to a third country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An order filed Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Tennessee noted that should Abrego be taken into ICE custody following his return to Maryland the government shall ensure that, while Abrego remains in ICE custody, he has access to his attorneys, both physically and via telephone, to allow Abrego to prepare for trial in this case. Abrego will also be subject to electronic location monitoring and placed in the custody of his brother, the order noted. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in a social media statement, called Abregos release a new low, wrongly ascribing the decision to release him to a Maryland judge. Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country, the statement said. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego, as the Tennessee court refers to him, was dispatched to El Salvador after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Maryland, where he has lived with his wife and children and works as an apprentice sheet metal worker. A government prosecutor later conceded his deportation was an error. Abrego, who entered the country illegally as a teen, was the subject of an immigration court order barring his removal to his home country of El Salvador, where he said he feared gang violence. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is escorted into a waiting car after his release from the Putnam County Jail on Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) He was returned to Tennessee in June to face human smuggling charges that prosecutors say are tied to a 2022 Tennessee traffic stop. Abrego was neither cited nor arrested when he was pulled over by Tennessee Highway Patrol officers with nine passengers in his vehicle. Prosecutors now allege the stop was part of a human smuggling operation in which Abrego was paid to transport immigrants illegally in the United States to points around the country. Abrego has pleaded not guilty to the charges. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said in a statement that Abregos release shows the legal system has worked its will and is upholding Kilmar Abrego Garcias right to due process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While I have no doubt the Administration will continue its attempts to undermine Mr. Abrego Garcias rights, we will continue fighting to see them maintained because due process in this case does not end with his release. Mr. Abrego Garcia must continue to be allowed to defend himself in court, where the Trump Administration must make its case before taking any further action against him. This is a matter thats greater than just this one case or one man if one persons rights are denied, then the rights of all of us are at risk. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from Putnam County Jail in Tennessee on Friday and has been reunited with his family while he awaits trial, according to his attorney. It's the latest development in the case of a man who was mistakenly removed from the U.S. to an El Salvador prison where he alleges he was tortured. Initially detained by immigration officials in March before being sent to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. in June to face criminal charges that were filed in Tennessee. The Justice Department has accused him of smuggling and gang membership, allegations his family denies. He pleaded not guilty to two criminal counts of human smuggling last month. Abrego Garcia will be returning to Maryland, "where he rightly belongs," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat who visited him when he was incarcerated in El Salvador. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcia said in a statement that he's grateful for his release, but he noted that the Trump administration could still seek his deportation. "We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served," his statement read. "For the first time since March, our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia is reunited with his loving family," attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. "While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threatens to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family." Kilmar Abrego Garcia, center, leaves the Putnam County Jail, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Cookeville, Tenn. / Credit: Brett Carlsen / AP Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem condemned his release and suggested the Trump administration will continue to seek his removal from the U.S. She called a federal judge's ruling allowing him to return to Maryland a "new low" in attempts by "activist liberal judges" to "obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country," Noem said. A federal magistrate had ordered Abrego Garcia to be released from jail while he awaits trial, currently scheduled for January. He is expected to have to wear an electronic monitoring device. Abrego Garcia's lawyers requested a delay of his release from jail in Tennessee earlier this summer, fearing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could immediately detain him and try to deport him again. Last month, a federal judge in Maryland ruled that the government must return Abrego Garcia to supervised release under the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore, re-implementing a 2019 order. Under that supervision order, issued in 2019, Abrego Garcia, who is Salvadoran, had permission to live in Maryland, as well as authorization to work. He was required to check in with an immigration officer at the ICE office in Baltimore. Court filings indicate Abrego Garcia was in compliance with the ICE supervision order when he was deported to El Salvador. The judge also ruled that Abrego Garcia must receive 72 hours' notice if the Trump administration plans to deport him anywhere other than his country of origin, El Salvador. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CBS News learned Friday evening that the Trump administration may attempt to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda, this according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official and a notice sent by government officials that was obtained by CBS News. Following his release from detention, Abrego Garcia's attorneys were sent a court-required notice of his potential deportation to Uganda, the official said. The notice said he may be deported to the East African country "no earlier than 72 hours from now," not including weekends. 5 killed, dozens more injured in New York bus crash Reporter's Notebook: When smashing trains was an American pastime Giant beach tents are taking over shorelines and not everyone is happy Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from federal custody Friday, months after he was wrongfully deported to an El Salvador prison and accused of being a gang member. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in the Middle District of Tennessee ordered Abrego's release from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since he was freed from El Salvador's CECOT prison in June. Abrego is en route to his family in Maryland, Sean Hecker, one of his attorneys, said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego was "unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government's vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administration's continuing assault on the rule of law," Hecker said in a statement. He now has 48 hours to reach his brothers house in suburban Maryland, where the judge said hes allowed to live under a series of conditions. Hell also have to check in with immigration officials at the ICE Baltimore field office. Abrego, a father of three, said in a statement Friday: Today has been a very special day because I have seen my family for the first time in more than 160 days. Id like to thank all the people who have supported me because after this long time I have witnessed that so many people have been by my side with such positivity, he said. Today I am grateful to God because He has heard me and today I am out. We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego's attorneys had requested the 30-day pause that prevented their client from walking free last month out of fear that he might be detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers upon his release. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (CASA via AP) That ruling followed two others that aimed to protect Abrego. In July, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville sought to release Abrego. At the time, Crenshaw denied a government motion to block his release, writing that the Trump administration had failed to provide evidence that Abrego must remain detained or that he is a flight risk. Also last month, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ruled that the U.S. government "shall restore Abrego Garcia to his ICE Order of Supervision out of the Baltimore Field Office." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Xinis said her order to have Abrego placed under ICE supervision in Maryland, where he was living with his wife and children before he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, is necessary to "provide the kind of effective relief to which a wrongfully removed alien is entitled upon return." The July order, which also requires that the government provide 72 hours' notice if it intends to deport Abrego to a third country, is "narrowly tailored" to allow the Trump administration to initiate "lawful immigration proceedings" upon Abrego's return to Maryland. "While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart," his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. "A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family." U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said that the fight is not over. "While I have no doubt the Administration will continue its attempts to undermine Mr. Abrego Garcias rights, we will continue fighting to see them maintained because due process in this case does not end with his release," the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This is a matter thats greater than just this one case or one man if one persons rights are denied, then the rights of all of us are at risk." Abrego Garcia's case has become a central talking point in the Trump administration's deportation efforts after a monthslong back-and-forth legal saga. On Friday, the White House doubled down in its attack against Abrego. "Abrego Garcia is a criminal illegal alien, wife-beater, and an MS-13 gang member facing serious charges of human smuggling. He will face justice for his crimes," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. "Its an insult to his victims that this left-wing magistrate intervened to put him back on the streets. Garcia will be subject to ankle monitoring to ensure the safety of the American public until further action can be taken." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Abregos release a new low. By ordering this monster loose on Americas streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country, she wrote on X. Abrego's lawyers have denied allegations that he is a gang member. They have said he was born in El Salvador and illegally immigrated to the U.S. when he was 16 to join his brother in Maryland out of fear of gang violence in his home country. He was first deported to CECOT the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador in March, in what the government called an "administrative error." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The deportation directly conflicted with a judge's 2019 ruling that Abrego not be deported and came after he was detained by local police and accused of being a member of MS-13, an international crime gang. He was not turned over to ICE in that case, and his family and friends have repeatedly denied his involvement in the group. Abrego was returned to the U.S. in June and immediately federally charged with conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain in Nashville. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges. A criminal jury trial in Tennessee over the human trafficking charges remains set for January. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com A Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported and then brought back to the US on criminal charges has been released from jail, his attorney told the BBC. "Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free," attorney Sean Hecker said. He planned to return to his family in Maryland. Mr Abrego Garcia was deported to his native El Salvador in March as part of Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, where he was kept in the notorious Cecot prison. US government officials acknowledged at the time that he was removed in error. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was returned to the United States earlier in June and sent to the state of Tennessee, where he was charged in a human smuggling scheme. He's pleaded not guilty. His attorneys say it will be the first time he's able to fully reunite with his family since he was deported since March. He has a wife and two children. "Today has been a very special day because I have seen my family for the first time in more than 160 days," Mr Abrego Garcia said in a statement following his release. He says he is thankful to everyone who supported and prayed for him. "Today I am grateful to God because He has heard me and today I am out. We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served," he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Abrego Garcia's release is a blow to the Trump administration, who firmly stood by his deportation and vowed he would "never go free" on American soil. His lawyers say they worry Mr Abrego Garcia may be taken into custody once again by immigration authorities when he arrives in Maryland and are concerned he may be deported to another country. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem criticised the judge for allowing his release. "By ordering this monster loose on America's streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people," she said in a statement to the BBC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country." Mr Abrego Garcia entered the US illegally as a teenager from El Salvador. In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities. Later that year, he was granted protection from deportation by an immigration judge because it was determined he might face danger from gangs if returned to his native El Salvador. But in March 2025 the Maryland resident was deported and initially held in El Salvador's Cecot mega-prison, in what Trump administration officials later admitted was a mistake. A judge ordered the government to "facilitate" his return, but White House officials initially refused to bring him back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following his return to face human smuggling charges in June, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that "this is what American justice looks like". He denied any wrongdoing, and his attorneys called the trafficking charges "preposterous". In late June, a federal judge in Tennessee had ruled that Mr Abrego Garcia was eligible for release, but remained in jail over fears from his own legal team that he could be swiftly deported again if he leaves the facility. The Trump administration has said it may seek to remove him and have him sent to Mexico or South Sudan. A judge has ordered that the administration must give lawyers notice if they do seek to deport Mr Abrego Garcia. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man illegally deported to El Salvador in March, held in a notorious mega prison and brought back to face criminal charges in Tennessee, has been released from custody. Abrego Garcia's attorney Sean Hecker told The Tennessean minutes after 2 p.m. Aug. 22 that Abrego Garcia was set free from the Putnam County Jail and on his way to Maryland. "Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free," a statement from Hecker reads. "He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the governments vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administrations continuing assault on the rule of law. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A court order gives Abrego Garcia 48 hours to reach Maryland, where he will be placed under an order of supervision with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore. Immigration authorities may apprehend him there, but a court order requires that he have access to his attorneys and that authorities give them 72 hours notice if they plan to deport him. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Aug. 22 ordered that Abrego Garcia stay in the custody of his brother. Abrego Garcia must report for pretrial services in Maryland no later than the morning of Aug. 25. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said in a statement Abrego Garcia's release upholds his right to due process, but he argued he must be able to further defend himself in court. "This is a matter thats greater than just this one case or one man if one persons rights are denied, then the rights of all of us are at risk," Van Hollen said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement said "activist liberal judges" have "attempted to obstruct law enforcement" from removing undocumented immigrants, stating Abrego Garcia's release marked a "new low." She repeated the Trump administration's claim that Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw last month said he found no evidence Abrego Garcia had ever been part of a gang. "We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country," Noem's statement read. The charges against Abrego Garcia in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee accusing him of smuggling undocumented immigrants through the country remain pending. The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Cookeville, when state troopers pulled Abrego Garcia over, suspected he was transporting undocumented immigrants, but let him go without charging him. More: How a routine traffic stop in TN exploded into human smuggling charges for Kilmar Abrego Garcia Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Crenshaw and Holmes found Abrego Garcia was entitled to release pretrial. A sheet metal worker, Abrego Garcia was arrested March 12 in Maryland, where he had lived since he entered the country illegally in 2012, U.S. Department of Justice records state. An immigration order prohibits Abrego Garcia's deportation to his home country of El Salvador based on credible fears of persecution by gangs. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Abrego Garcia's deportation earlier this year when it lifted limits on deportations to countries beside the person's home country. Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at emealins@tennessean.com. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from Tennessee jail, lawyer says The planned closure of a kiln at a ceramics factory and the potential loss of about 100 jobs has come as a "body blow" to workers, a union has said. Chris Hoofe, of GMB, said staff were shocked at the announcement to close one of Armitage Shanks's tunnel kilns - a large continuous firing kiln through which products are transported on conveyors in Rugeley, Staffordshire. It was the latest setback in the county's ceramics industry, which has seen the collapse of Stoke-on-Trent firms Royal Stafford and Heraldic Pottery in 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Villeroy & Boch Group, which owns Armitage Shanks, said it was a "difficult decision" taken as part of a wider strategic realignment of its operations. Mr Hoofe told BBC Radio Stoke: "This is a body blow to everybody working at Armitage Shanks." He said 85 of the 100 potential redundancies were on the manufacturing side of the business, and the firm would also be reducing its product range. "The high cost of energy makes decisions like this all the easier for businesses," he added. He said he spoke to someone at the site and they told him it had come as a "bolt from the blue" for the staff there. Lichfield MP Dave Robertson said he was concerned about workers' livelihoods [House of Commons] Dave Robertson, Labour MP for Lichfield, said he was concerned about the potential impact on the people who worked at the site. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Ceramics production in Armitage Shanks is not just livelihoods," he added, "it's part of the heritage of our area." He said it would "undoubtedly" be a difficult time for anyone involved, and he would work with the company and trade unions to safeguard ceramics production at Armitage. Cannock Chase MP Josh Newbury, Labour, described it as "worrying" news and echoed previous comments from the GMB union, which said it would be "bad for business and bad for Staffordshire". "Alongside my three Stoke-on-Trent colleagues, I will continue to advocate for a sector deal from the government for our ceramics industry," he added. 'Incredibly difficult' Armitage Shanks was founded in 1817 and specialises in providing ceramics, fittings and other products to non-residential markets, including to the NHS and private hospitals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Villeroy & Boch Group confirmed the unions and employee representatives would be consulted on the planned closure of the kiln over a minimum 45-day period. "This is an incredibly difficult announcement to make," said UK managing director Lisa Whitfield. "We recognise the impact this proposal will have on our employees, their families and the community, and we are grateful for the dedication and hard work of our site manufacturing team." Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. More on this story (NewsNation) Kim Cattrall may have thrown a little shade at And Just Like That after liking a comment dissing the Sex and the City spinoff while praising her character, Samantha Jones. One of Cattralls fans posted a comment under her Instagram saying, And Just Like thatwe all know it was Sam (Kim) who carried the entire franchise. You embodied everything that is the essence of a strong powerful and vulnerable woman. We love and respect you. HGTV orders over 100 new episodes after cancellation backlash And Just Like That canceled And Just Like That aired its series finale last week after three seasons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The show, while popular, never reached the heights of the original series, and was often hate watched by fans who criticized the writing, characters and even the costuming, according to Jezebel. According to NewsNations Paula Froelich, the show was canceled due to its low ratings. Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker during Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker On Location For Sex And The City at Saks Fifth Ave in New York, New York, United States. (Photo by James Devaney/WireImage) Actors Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis arrive at Point Foundation Honors The Arts at Capitale on April 7, 2008 in New York City. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage) The first season received 1.1 million viewers and the following seasons performed poorly as well, Froelich said, with season two debuting with 463,000 viewers, and the third and final season averaging 429,000 viewers. Its a horrifically expensive show to make and it wasnt justified, a source told Froelich. But HBO signed a multiyear contract with (executive producer) Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker so there you go. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lil Nas X found wandering LA street in just underwear: Report While Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis all returned for the series, Kim Cattrall who played the iconic Samantha Jones did not, except for a brief cameo in season two. She filmed separately from the cast and has publicly cited her issues with Parker and others as the reason for her absence. Kim Cattrall: I wasnt friends with my co-stars In 2017, Cattrall sat down for an interview with Piers Morgan where she revealed she wasnt going to do a third Sex and the City movie and wasnt friends with the rest of the women. This is really where I take to task the people from Sex and the City, and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker, she told Morgan. I think she couldve been nicer. I really think she couldve been nicer. I dont know what her issue is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. SEOUL, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a ceremony to honor the country's troops deployed to Russia to aid in its war with Ukraine, state media reported Friday, calling them "great heroes and great patriots" and presenting them with medals. During the ceremony, which was held at the headquarters of the ruling party's Central Committee, Kim awarded the title of "DPRK Hero" to returning combatants and commanding officers, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kim also placed medals next to portraits of Korean People's Army soldiers killed in battle, praising them as "martyrs." "All the participants in the overseas operations who performed great feats to be recorded in the history of the country for its eternal prosperity and mightiness are all great men, great heroes and great patriots," Kim said in a speech, according to KCNA. "The victory won by the brave soldiers who participated in the war is a great feat that firmly defended the great honor of the KPA ... and provided a sure guarantee for the existence and development of our state," Kim said. According to Seoul's National Intelligence Service, North Korea has sent weapons and some 15,000 troops to Russia since 2024, primarily to help recapture lost territory in Kursk Province from Ukrainian forces. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In April, the NIS said that around 600 North Koreans had been killed fighting for Russia, while more than 4,000 had been wounded. Russian media reported in June that the North is sending an additional 6,000 military workers and combat engineers to help rebuild the Kursk region. Images released by state media showed the North Korean leader hugging medal recipients and the families of those killed in combat, as well as kneeling before a wall of portraits of the war dead. Kim "met the bereaved families of the martyrs and consoled them, sharing with them the pain of loss," KCNA said. South Korea's Unification Ministry on Friday said that a total of 101 portraits of fallen soldiers can be seen in the North's photographs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This appears to be the first time the names and photos of deployed soldiers have been released," ministry spokeswoman Chang Yoon-jeong said at a press briefing. She added that the ministry was monitoring to determine whether North Korea has ended its deployment of troops to Russia. The ceremony follows U.S. President Donald Trump's recent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed at brokering a peace agreement. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week downplayed talk of an imminent Moscow-Kyiv summit. "When it comes to high-level meetings, they must be meticulously prepared at all preceding stages," Lavrov said at a press conference on Wednesday. Putin, meanwhile, praised the "bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit" of North Korean troops in a phone call to Kim last week, KCNA reported. Kim Jong-un has been pictured embracing an emotional soldier who recently returned to North Korea, having survived a hail of bullets and bombs while fighting for the Russian army in Ukraine. In an elaborate ceremony to honour North Korean heroes, an overwrought Kim was photographed hugging both military men and the families of fallen troops. In one image a child wraps his arms around the dictators neck, in another a man in khaki burrows his head into the 41-year-old leaders chest. As well as embracing survivors and consoling relatives, he placed medals and flowers alongside the portraits of the fallen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My heart aches and is bitter, as I face the reality that I only get to meet the noble figures who gave up their precious lives for great victory and glory through photos on the memorial wall, Kim said in a speech, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Credit: KRT In the last year as Russia and North Korea have grown ever closer the pariah state has sent thousands of men to fight in Ukraine, alongside artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems. The soldiers introduction helped Moscow evict Ukrainian forces from the border region of Kursk, with footage showing North Korean troops taking heavy casualties as they run across open fields. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although North Korea is one of the most militarised countries on earth, with an estimated 1.28 million active soldiers, its forces have faced limited real-world conflict since the Korean War Armistice was signed in 1953. According to the British Ministry of Defence, around 6,000 of the 11,000 North Korean troops sent to fight in the Kursk region were killed or wounded. Kim hugs a distraught soldier who has returned from fighting in Ukraine - KCNA/Shutterstock The ornate event in Pyongyang sought to honour heroes and share the pain of loss, KCNA said on Friday. In one photograph, Mr Kim kneeled in front of the images of dead soldiers displayed on a curved black memorial wall alongside their names written in gold. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He also praised the admirable troops who returned home with great honour after enduring the hail of bullets and bombs of the life-and-death war in the foreign country. The leader then hosted a banquet to further celebrate the units return, according to KCNA. Kim Jong Un visits a memorial wall for North Korean troops killed in Ukraine - AFP While North Korea has been tight-lipped on the number of troops sent to Russia and casualties endured, this is not the first time Kim has expressed remorse for losses. In June, he was photographed weeping as he watched footage of the battlefield in an operatic show marking the one-year anniversary of Pyongyangs defence pact with Moscow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, South Koreas Yonhap news agency quoted a unification ministry official saying that this sort of emotional display was intended to justify the deployment and boost morale. Kim Jong Un met with bereaved relatives of soldiers - KCNA/Shutterstock As Moscow and Pyongyang grow ever closer, there are some concerns in the West about what the usually reclusive North Korea may be getting in return for helping Russia fight the war in Ukraine. But the partnership shows few signs of decline. In July, new intelligence from Ukrainian officials suggested North Korea was set to triple the number of its troops in Russia sending an additional 25,000 to 30,000 troops to assist Moscow in the coming months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last week, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, hailed North Korean troops as heroic in a letter to Kim, according to KCNA: The bonds of militant friendship, goodwill and mutual aid which were consolidated in the days of the war long ago remain solid and reliable even today. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has always been vocal about weighing in on financial markets, whether its Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or the crypto space. Hes long been known for spotting shifts in business before they hit the mainstream. Cuban, who made his fortune during the dot-com boom and owns the Dallas Mavericks, has been both a supporter and skeptic of digital assets. Hes invested in projects like Polygon, OpenSea, and Aave, and even allowed Mavericks fans to purchase tickets using Dogecoin. This week, he turned his sights on token-forward IPOs, a newer frontier in crypto-finance. DETROIT, MICHIGAN - JULY 10: Mark Cuban speaks onstage during Global Citizen NOW at Hudsons Detroit on July 10, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Jeff Schear/Getty Images for Global Citizen) Mark Cuban asks will crypto IPOs be treated like a meme coin now? That was Cubans exact tweet, posted to X (formerly Twitter), just as shares of Bullish (BLSH) a digital asset exchange that completed a historic IPO last week slid more than 6% in a broad crypto selloff. Is every IPO going to be treated like a meme coin from now on? Related: Mark Cuban backs Elon Musks idea of launching a new political party This one-liner comes after several high-profile IPOs have experienced extreme volatility, with prices surging on day one only to fade quickly. Despite Bullishs innovation in structuring its IPO settlement entirely in stablecoins including USDC, EURC, and PayPal USD investors dumped the stock days after the deal closed. This pattern looks similar to how meme coins like Shiba Inu or Dogecoin behave, rising on hype and social momentum rather than fundamentals. Crypto stock tanks after IPO hype fades Just six days after its debut, Bullish shares fell to $59.51, a 6% drop from its IPO price of $61.56. Intraday, it dipped as low as $57.92 before recovering slightly. Other crypto-related names werent spared. Coinbase and eToro fell over 5%, Galaxy Digital tumbled 10%, and even well-known names like Circle and Robinhood saw red. Meanwhile, Bitcoin dropped 2.4% to $113,511, and Ethereum shed over 5%. Cubans perspective on IPOs also comes informed by his history with meme coins. He was one of the first high-profile figures to embrace Dogecoin, and in 2021 he even allowed fans to use DOGE to buy Mavericks tickets and merchandise. At the same time, he has cautioned investors against chasing speculative assets, having once lost money himself in a DeFi project tied to an obscure token. Mark Cubans complex relationship with crypto In 2021, he famously lost money in a DeFi project called Titan that collapsed in hours. He called for more regulation after the loss, stating that there should be some level of regulation to define what a stablecoin is and what collateralization is acceptable. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un publicly decorated soldiers who fought alongside Russian forces in the war against Ukraine, state media reported on Aug. 21. At a ceremony in Pyongyang, Kim praised the overseas troops and said their participation demonstrated "the power of the heroic (North Korean) army." Referring to fighting in Russias Kursk region, he added that the "liberation of Kursk" proved the "fighting spirit of the heroes," according to the Korean Central News Agency. The event included a concert and a banquet with bereaved family members. A day earlier, Kim had met with officers of the overseas deployment and paid tribute to those killed in action. Around 600 North Korean soldiers have been reported killed out of roughly 15,000 deployed, South Korean lawmakers said in April, citing intelligence assessments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement North Korea began deploying combat troops to Russia in late 2024, initially fighting on Russian soil in Kursk Oblast rather than crossing into Ukraine. The North Korean soldiers were tasked with countering a surprise Ukrainian incursion launched last August. Ukrainian officials now assess that Pyongyang has expanded its deployment, sending an additional 20,000 to 30,000 troops, though a senior Western diplomat told the Kyiv Independent that the true number may be lower. Of the roughly 12,000 troops believed to have been deployed in the fall of 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky said about 4,000 had suffered casualties. South Korean intelligence later estimated that North Korea has taken around 4,700 casualties overall, including at least 600 deaths. Read also: Going around in circles Trump sets new deadline for peace in Ukraine, Graham again threatens with tough legislation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Well, we dont remember the cabin being quite that small, but the military in Malaysia cancelled the purchase of four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters after the nations serving monarch declared them to be flying coffins. In a public statement delivered during a military parade in the Southeast Asia nation, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, the 17th king of Malaysia, said that a plan by the nations military to buy four Black Hawks all roughly 30-year-old former U.S. Army helicopters was a bad idea. Do we want to put our pilots in a flying coffin? Sultan Ibrahim asked, according to the Malay-language daily paper Utusan Malaysia. The King of Malaysia, Sultan Ibrahim is not a fan of UH-60 Black Hawks, calling the U.S. Armys workhorse helicopter a flying coffin and calling for the cancelation of a four-aircraft purchase at a recent military parade. Photo by Mohd Rasfab/AFP. It was unclear if the monarchs comments were aimed at the relatively cramped interior of the H-60 compared to other troop-carrying rotary aircraft in the U.S. inventory, like the H-53 of V-22 Osprey, or if the king was taking aim at the Black Hawks safety record. Questions on the kings comments sent Thursday by Task & Purpose to the Malaysian embassy in Washington were not responded to. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If the latter, hes a little off: A 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office found the Army and National Guards various H-60 Black Hawk models were, in terms of mishaps per flight hour, roughly twice as safe as CH-47 Chinooks and AH-64 Apaches across their fleets. And the January air-to-air crash in Washington, D.C., that killed three Black Hawk crew members and 64 civilians was the first fatal Black Hawk crash since September 2023. That 2023 crash, like multiple Black Hawk mishaps in recent years, was found to be due to human error, not safety issues with the UH-60. In fact, sometimes dudes get hurt just randomly plowing into Black Hawks on their snow machines, which you cant really blame on the aircraft (though a judge did in Massachusetts). On the other hand, the monarch may just be wary of being ripped off. In his speech, Sultan Ibrahim cited a deal from the 1980s in which Malaysia paid $1 million each for a fleet of 88 retired U.S. Navy A-4 SkyHawks, most of which dated to the Vietnam War, to become the primary ground attack aircraft for the Royal Malaysian Air Force. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The contract called for the U.S. to deliver 54 frontline A-4s plus 14 two-seat trainer aircraft, with the rest delivered for spare parts, according to Malaysian media and a history kept on a SkyHawk Association webpage. The planes were designated as A-4 PTMs, which U.S. mechanics who prepped the planes took to mean Peculiar To Malaysia. But only 40 of the planes were ever delivered and none lasted more than 10 years, most with reputations for mechanical trouble. Lets not repeat the mistake of buying SkyHawk aircraft second-hand, Sultan Ibrahim said during a parade at Iskandar Camp for the 60th anniversary of the Gerak Khas, the nations primary special ops Army units. Top Stories This Week News 2-star general busted down to lieutenant colonel over inappropriate relationship By Jeff Schogol News Marines investigating social media post that appears to mock potential recruit By Jeff Schogol News 4,500 Marines and sailors deploy to Caribbean for anti-cartel mission By Nicholas Slayton Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sultan Ibrahim also blamed a class of charlatans well known to anyone who has studied how the U.S. military buys its weapons: Lobbyists. I believe this all happened because the Ministry of Defense is full of agents or former generals who became salesmen, said the monarch. There were even fabric [or textile] selling companies that came in to sell drones. Perhaps the most troubling element of the cancelled sale and the general Black Hawk slander itself is where the nation may now turn for its military hardware. Sultan Ibrahim met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow just days before his flying coffin decree. His Majesty also hosted Chinese Premier Xi Jinping in April. Correction (Aug. 25, 2025): A previous version of this story referred to Malaysia as located in the South Pacific. It is in Southeast Asia, on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Borneo. BANGKOK (AP) China released new interim measures Friday tightening controls on mining and processing of rare earths that are used in many high-tech products including electric vehicles, smartphones and fighter jets. The rules released Friday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology apply both to rare earths originating in China and those that are sent to China for refining. They require companies to comply with quotas for various minerals. Companies must have government approval to deal with rare earths and must accurately report the amount of rare earths products being handled. Violators will face legal penalties and also have their quotas for rare earths reduced. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here's what to know. Why China has tightened controls on rare earths The 17 rare earth elements, including such minerals as germanium, gallium and titanium, arent actually rare. But they're hard to find in a high enough concentration to make mining them worth the investment. China has been gradually tightening restrictions on exports of such materials, partly in response to U.S. controls on its access to American advanced technology. In April, just after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a raft of tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners, Beijing announced permitting requirements for seven more rare earths: samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium, citing the need to better safeguard national security and interests and to fulfill global duties of non-proliferation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those limits raised worries that manufacturers in the U.S. and elsewhere would run short of vital materials needed for production, an issue in China-U.S. trade talks. In response to U.S. concessions on access to computer chip design software and jet engines, Beijing announced in June that it was speeding up approvals of rare earths exports. In July, Chinas Ministry of State Security said it was cracking down on alleged smuggling of rare earths materials that it said threatened national security, indicating Beijing was moving to exert more control. China's dominant role in the rare earths sector Over the past several decades, China has come to dominate rare earths processing. It now supplies nearly 90% of the worlds rare earths, even though it mines only about 70% of such materials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement China holds nearly half of the world's known reserves of rare earths, but it also imports significant amounts of rare earths from neighboring Myanmar for processing and export. Since it controls technologies used for refining rare earth elements and has banned exporting that know-how, China holds a near-monopoly on smelting and separating them. In 2024, the United States obtained 70% of the rare earths it used from China; 13% from Malaysia; 6% from Japan and 5% from Estonia. Some of the elements obtained from non-Chinese intermediate sources came from mineral concentrates processed in China and Australia, according to the U.S. Geologic Survey. The impact of the new rules on rare earths trade is unclear Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement China has agreed to issue some permits for rare earth exports but not for military uses, and much uncertainty remains about their supply. The rules released Friday spell out tighter controls on licensing of companies dealing in rare earths and centralize controls on mining, exports and processing. They also impose more stringent environmental standards for the industry. Trump has made it a priority to try to reduce American reliance on China for rare earths, while pushing for Beijing to ease its controls. China has opted to dial up or down the approval process as needed, while tightening overall controls on the industry. The new regulations don't spell out the quotas for production and export or specific rare earths elements, but strongly suggest Beijing is serious about exerting stronger control over the industry. KNOXVILLE, Iowa One person is dead following an officer-involved shooting in Knoxville late Thursday night. Officers from the Knoxville Police Department were called to the 300 block of S. Roche St. around 11:10 p.m. on a report of a domestic dispute, according to a news release from Knoxville Chief of Police Aaron Fuller. When they arrived, they found a man assaulting a woman. An officer fired his weapon during the incident, striking the man. Medical aid was provided to the injured man immediately by the officers, and the Knoxville Fire Department was called to the scene. The man was transported to a Des Moines hospital by ambulance, but died from his injuries at the hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Settlement reached for allegations of officers conducting illegal strip search of woman at Carroll County Jail Chief Fuller said the female who was assaulted was transported to a local hospital for treatment, and she has been released. No officers were injured in the incident. Before officers arrived, a gas line at the home was ruptured, prompting officials to evacuate the immediate area as a safety precaution. Once Alliant Energy capped the gas line, residents in the area were allowed to return to their homes. The dedicated Officers of the Knoxville Police Department strive to provide professional law enforcement services for our community. This includes transparency when incidents like last night occur. I requested the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) to conduct an independent investigation into this officer involved shooting. The investigation will take several weeks to complete. The DCI will forward their findings to the Marion County Attorney and Iowa Office of the Attorney General for review, stated Chief Fuller. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The officers involved in the event have been placed on critical incident leave, which Chief Fuller said is standard practice. Their names and the name of the deceased arent being released at this time. Iowa news Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com. NEW MEXICO (KRQE) A man accused of forcible rape was let off the hook after the McKinley County District Attorney dismissed his case. DA Bernadine Martins reason behind the dismissal and connection to the defendant has the sheriff questioning if this is a miscarriage of justice. KRQE Investigative Reporter Ann Pierret brought this case to the sheriffs attention after months of digging into dysfunction inside the DAs Office. He said this is another example of Martin not doing her job properly. Case Details On Saturday, October 28, 2023, McKinley County Sheriffs deputies responded to a crash on Carbon Coal Road, north of I-40. All right, man, this mans been heavily intoxicated. He cant follow directions, one of the first responders said to a deputy arriving on scene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Around 2 p.m. that afternoon, a passerby said he was on his way home when he saw the mans car stuck in a ditch. The door was open and I could see legs hanging out, so I knew somebody was in the car, but I couldnt tell what was going on, he told the deputy. He pulled over to help and said he saw the driver on top of a woman. And she was trying to get out. She was screaming for help and banging on the horn, he said. I get up there. He wasnt moving. So I had to grab his belt, and I pulled him out of the car, and thats when she was able to get out, get up. He helped the woman to his car, and then the police arrived. The driver would later blow a 0.24 on the breathalyzer test, three times the legal limit. While assessing the damage to the car, deputies found an open fifth of Crown Royal in the front seat and a part of the cars skirt in the back seat. The police report stated the car part came off in an earlier crash. The man kept driving. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The woman told police she tried to get out of the car after they crashed again, and the man attacked her. She was grabbed by the hair and neck, picked up, and thrown into the drivers seat, and thats where, she told the investigator, the man raped her. Ive never seen anybody that scared, the witness told the deputy. She was, she was freaking out. The report noted the woman had a bite mark, bruises, and scratches on her body. Deputies arrested the man on the scene. He faced six criminal charges, including forcible rape, aggravated battery, false imprisonment, aggravated DWI, reckless driving, and possessing an open container. Case Dismissed This is a very serious case, Sheriff James Maiorano said. This is a felony case that involved not only deputies that arrived on scene, but also one of our investigators to finish it out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DAs Office filed the case on October 30, 2023, and a judge found probable cause. But about a week later, on November 6, 2023, DA Bernadine Martin dismissed the case. Court records show she wrote to the judge, For reason, conflict for District Attorneys Office. I find it uncommon, if you have a conflict of interest, to just dismiss all the charges, Sheriff Maiorano said. Typically, he explained, a district attorney will instead send the case to a different countys DA and ask them to handle the prosecution. I cant think of a reasonable explanation why it wouldnt have been sent out to another DA immediately, he added. Martin told KRQE Investigative Reporter Ann Pierret in an interview that the case was sent to another DA. That was forwarded to a conflict prosecutor, she said. Do you know which prosecutor? Pierret asked. Yes. And I wont say the name right now because youre bringing it back up. But I never heard back, Martin replied. When Pierret followed up with an email to find out who Martin sent the case to, Martin wrote back: I didnt say this went to a DAs office. It didnt. I have tried following up to no avail. As you know, I have been busy. We do know Martins been busy. Since she took office in 2020, personnel records obtained by KRQE Investigates show at least 45 of her employees support staff and attorneys quit or were fired by Martin. Its one of many reasons why the New Mexico Attorney General just petitioned the State Supreme Court to remove her from office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This case opened in October 2023, almost two years ago, when records show Martin had two assistant prosecutors. She should have had eight. Two years down the road, Im not even sure if some of these misdemeanor DWI charges can still be refiled, the Sheriff said. The felonies can for sure. But this should have been done right away, both for the victim and for the rights of the community. This individual was immediately released from jail once those charges were dismissed. Martins Connection to Defendant So, who was this individual? He went to school with my kids, Martin said. You know, hes a friend of my kids, and I thats a conflict. I declared it when I first saw it. I didnt even read the file. I dont know the details. Ive never assumed that there was ill will or unethical behavior going on, the sheriff said when asked about Martins connection to the defendant. What we had assumed was, due to lack of staff they just couldnt keep up, which is why we were having issues with subpoenas, deputies being subpoenaed to the wrong cases, or, you know, cases just dropping through the cracks. I assumed it was lack of personnel and nothing malicious or intentional. Pierret asked, How do you feel now? This one makes me wonder, he replied. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriff is now asking his investigators to review their major cases to confirm each one made it through the court system. This is definitely concerning for my office if this is not an isolated incident and more cases like this have slipped through the cracks, he said. I would find that really concerning for our deputies who put the time into these cases, as well as our community members who live here, as well as the victims who didnt get a day in court. Sheriff Maiorano said once deputies hand a case over to prosecutors, he normally trusts the DAs Office will do its due diligence to move cases through to a plea or conviction. But, hes lost that confidence in DA Martins office. Thank you for the heads up on this particular case, the sheriff told Pierret. Because hopefully what were going to be able to do is reach back out to the victim and see if this is a case we can continue to move forward on. Martin said she now plans to forward the case to the Cibola County District Attorneys Office. The Sheriff said he will make sure of that. Related Coverage Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. IRBIL, Iraq (AP) At least five people were killed and 18 others wounded in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraqs semiautonomous Kurdish region in clashes after the arrest of a prominent Kurdish political figure, officials said Friday. Security forces launched a major overnight operation to arrest Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabani, the nephew of the late Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, under Iraqs counterterrorism law, said Burhan Sheikh Rauf, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that holds sway in Sulaymaniyah and to which Lahur Talabani previously belonged. He said Talabani had plans to carry out operations against the government and create chaos and that the operation was part of an effort to enforce laws prohibiting political parties from maintaining armed wings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The arrest sparked outrage among Talabanis supporters, who clashed with security forces. Talabani, once hailed as a key partner of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State extremist group, cofounded the PUKs Zanyari intelligence agency and was recognized for his leadership in counterterrorism. In 2020, he became copresident of the party alongside his cousin Bafel Talabani, but was ousted a year later in a bitter internal power struggle. He then formed his own party, the Peoples Front, and has maintained influence in Sulaymaniyah. Rauf initially said that Talabani failed to appear before a judge after being summoned, but later said the operation was carried out suddenly without informing him about the arrest order. He confirmed that three members of the local security forces were killed in the raid. The Peoples Front said two of its members were also killed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rauf said Talabani would be handed over to the court on Sunday, as public institutions in Iraq are closed Friday and Saturday. Dillsoz Zangana, a member of the Peoples Front party and candidate for Iraqs parliamentary elections, denounced the operation as a regional and internal coup detat. They used heavy weapons like mortars, Dushkas (machine guns), drones and tanks to attack him. Therefore his forces responded back as a defense, Zangana said. She said the raid by multiple security agencies terrorized residents in the densely populated area around the Lalazar Hotel, where Talabani had been staying with his political allies, and that some civilian homes were damaged in the fighting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There were many families and children who witnessed this and were terrified the whole night, she said. Zangana said at least 10 others were detained with Talabani, including his two brothers and sister, his wife, and several women from the Peoples Front. How can we make sure they will be protected and theyre not being tortured right now? They shouldve been taken to the court, she said. The turmoil came just days after another high-profile opposition figure was detained. On Aug. 12, Sulaymaniyah police arrested Shaswar Abdulwahid, leader of the New Generation Movement, at his home in the citys German Village district, on charges of criminal threats, with a potential six-month prison sentence. LAFAYEETTE, La. (KLFY) A Lafayette Parish grandmother is voicing concerns about her autistic granddaughters safety, saying the child has to walk too far each morning to reach her school bus stop. Marion Leopold said her 11-year-old granddaughter, Alyria Smith-Woodside, faces dark roads, traffic and animals during the early-morning walk. My worry about this walk would be the animals thats out here, the drivers thats out here, Leopold said. Yesterday morning, a truck almost hit us because theres no streetlights. Its just dangerous for a child to be walking that far at five in the morning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Smith-Woodside said the distance and heat make the walk difficult. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest It was really too hot, and we almost passed out, she said. The Lafayette Parish School System (LPSS) acknowledges the walk but disputes the grandmothers claim that the distance is a mile and a half. LPSS Communications Director Tracy Wirtz said officials measured the route. We looked at the students address and the bus stop, and its about a half a mile, Wirtz said. Thats within our guidelines, but our transportation supervisor has reached out to the family to see how we can work with them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement District policy allows middle school students to walk up to four-tenths of a mile to a bus stop and high schoolers up to six-tenths of a mile. News 10 measured the walk at .55 miles; over the middle school limit, but still under the high school limit. Wirtz said LPSS uses mapping systems to calculate distances and works with families when concerns are raised. We use mapping systems that calculate the walk from the students home to the bus stop. In this case, it was about a half mile, Wirtz said. While the school system says it is within policy, Leopold insists more needs to be done. I feel like if we keep allowing the school board and the school system to play with our kids, anything could happen, Leopold said. Latest news Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. David Lammy has condemned the famine in Gaza as utterly horrifying and a man-made catastrophe caused by Israel. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) a globally recognised system of classifying a hunger crisis declared a famine in Gaza City for the first time on Friday. The organisation had previously warned that famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of making a formal declaration, citing a lack of hard data. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But it formally confirmed that famine was taking place in Gaza City, the last remaining major built-up area in the enclave and home to 500,000 people, on Friday. The Foreign Secretary has called the crisis a moral outrage. He said: The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. The Israeli governments refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage. The IPC report makes clear the sickening consequences, especially for children. Mr Lammy also repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required, including a halt to military operations in Gaza City. David Lammy has repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required - Suzanne Plunkett/Getty Images He added: The UK reiterates its condemnation of this military action, which will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas. We urge the Israeli government to change course and halt its plans. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This terrible conflict must end. An immediate and permanent ceasefire is the only way to stop the suffering, secure the release of the hostages, achieve a surge in aid and deliver a framework for lasting peace. The famine in Gaza marked the fifth time famine has been declared since the IPC was established in 2004, with the most recent being in Sudan last year. The IPC said that a famine was taking place in the Gaza governorate, which comprises Gaza City, three surrounding towns, and several refugee camps. After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death, the report said. 2308 Acute food insecurity The IPC also predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another 1.07 million people more than half of Gazas population are already facing emergency levels of food insecurity, the second-highest level on the scale, the report added. It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but said limited data prevented any precise classification. The confirmation has outraged the Israeli government, which has consistently denied that famine is taking place in Gaza and is currently moving in on Gaza City. Israel said it firmly rejects the findings of the IPC report, specifically the claim of famine in Gaza City. Aid agencies have for months been warning about the acute lack of food getting into Gaza - Hamza Z H Qraiqea/Getty Images Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has faced repeated accusations from aid groups of orchestrating a deliberate hunger crisis in the enclave. He accused the IPC of ignoring the recent humanitarian steps taken by Israel in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He has previously insisted that if Israel were implementing a starvation policy, then no one in Gaza would have survived after two years of war. To declare a famine, three strict criteria must be met: at least 20 per cent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 per cent of children suffer acute malnutrition and two people for every 10,000 die each day because of outright starvation. According to figures from Gazas Hamas-run health ministry, verified by the World Health Organisation, deaths from malnutrition and starvation are spiking, 22 months since the Oct 7 attacks. In the first seven months of the year, 89 fatalities were attributed to malnutrition or starvation, mostly children and teens. More than half a million people in the Gaza Strip face starvation, destitution and death, the UN-backed hunger monitor said - Jehad Alshrafi/AP In August alone, there have been at least 138 deaths, including 25 minors, the ministry said on Friday. Many more could follow, the IPC warned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is the first time a famine has been recorded outside of Africa. The IPC has previously assessed that there was famine in areas of Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024. Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said that famine in Gaza was the direct result of Israeli government actions, and warned that deaths from starvation could amount to a war crime. The IPC analysis comes after Britain, Canada, Australia and many European states said the humanitarian crisis had reached unimaginable levels. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) Gov. Ned Lamont has ordered flags to fly at half-staff following the death of a Department of Developmental Services employee. The state employee, Steve Kuczynski, was injured on the job while conducting maintenance work at the Southbury Training School in Southbury. The lowering of the flags is being coordinated with the funeral service thats scheduled for Saturday morning, according to Lamont. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is such a tragic loss, and we honor the public service Steve Kuczynski provided to the people of Connecticut and the Department of Developmental Services, Governor Lamont said in a written statement. Those who enter public service are helping build a better future for our state and our nation. My prayers and condolences are with Steves family and friends, and his colleagues at Southbury Training School and DDS. Flags will be at half-staff on the Connecticut State Capitol building and all other state-operated buildings, grounds, and facilities. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. DAKAR, Senegal (AP) A major cybercrime crackdown coordinated by Interpol has led to the arrest of 1,209 suspects across Africa and the recovery of nearly $97.4 million, the organization announced Friday. Dubbed Operation Serengeti 2.0, the operation took place between June and August. It brought together investigators from 18 African countries and the United Kingdom to fight harmful cybercrimes including inheritance scams, ransomware and business email compromise. Altogether, the scams targeted nearly 88,000 victims, the international police organization said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement From cryptocurrency mining to online scams Interpol said that authorities in Angola dismantled 25 cryptocurrency mining centers where 60 Chinese nationals had been mining cryptocurrency. The operation resulted in the confiscation of equipment worth over $37 million; the government now plans to use the equipment to support power distribution in vulnerable areas. In Zambia, the operation dismantled an online investment scheme that defrauded more than 65,000 victims of an estimated $300 million through a fraudulent high-return cryptocurrency scam. The scammers lured victims into investing in cryptocurrency through extensive advertising campaigns promising high-yield returns. Victims were then instructed to download multiple apps to participate, Interpol said. It said that 15 people had been arrested and that authorities seized evidence including domains, mobile numbers and bank accounts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In locating the scam center in Zambia, authorities also disrupted a suspected human trafficking network, Interpol said. Interpol also said it dismantled a transnational inheritance scam in the Ivory Coast which had originated in Germany. Victims of that scam were tricked into paying fees to claim fake inheritances, causing $1.6 million in losses. Despite being one of the oldest-running internet frauds, inheritance scams continue to generate significant funds for criminal organizations, it said. Interpol's role Interpol, which has 196 member countries and celebrated its centennial last year, is the worlds largest international police network to combat international crime. Headquartered in Lyons, France, it works to help national police forces communicate with each other and track suspects and criminals in areas like counterterrorism, financial crime, child pornography, cybercrime and organized crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In recent years it has grappled with new challenges including a growing caseload of cybercrime and child sex abuse, and increasing divisions among its member countries. Last year in the first Operation Serengeti, Interpol arrested over 1,000 people in operations that had targeted 35,000 victims. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is aiming for America's health insurance industry, warning that high deductibles are leaving millions of people effectively uninsured despite paying monthly premiums. Cuban Says Rising Deductibles Leave Patients Effectively Uninsured In a post on Monday on X, Cuban wrote, The real health insurance scam is that they know as their deductibles go up, fewer people can afford to use their insurance. Which means they don't have insurance. Despite having to pay premiums. He argued that when deductibles climb beyond reach, patients often avoid using coverage altogether and might be better off paying out-of-pocket. It may sound counterintuitive, but if you can't afford your deductible, you MIGHT be better off not getting insurance, Cuban wrote. Trending: The same firms that backed Uber, Venmo and eBay are investing in this pre-IPO company disrupting a $1.8T market and you can too at just $2.90/share. Direct-Pay Doctors And Cash Pricing Could Offer Cheaper Care Cuban pointed to hospitals and physicians offering cash prices and financing plans, which he said are often lower than what insurers negotiate. He encouraged patients to consider direct relationships with providers: Now is the time to find a doctor who is willing to work with you directly and let you pay them directly. See what works for you. See Also: In a $34 Trillion Debt Era, The Right AI Could Be Your Financial Advantage Get Your Demo Mark Cuban's Push To Overhaul US Health Insurance Cuban had long been a vocal critic of the U.S. insurance industry, arguing that rising deductibles and opaque pricing left patients, doctors and hospitals at a disadvantage. In May, during a talk at Stanford University's Department of Medicine, he accused insurers of designing plans that kept premiums low while steadily raising out-of-pocket costs. He said this pushed patients into high-deductible plans that benefited insurers but left providers carrying the financial and reputational risk when patients couldn't pay. In June, Cuban had unveiled a sweeping proposal to overhaul the healthcare system. In social media, he suggested eliminating traditional premiums, allowing patients to choose cash-pay providers with upfront pricing, and capping annual medical expenses at $50,000. In this undated photo, Chinook salmon spawn in Snake River. (Natalie Fobes/Getty Images) Editors note: This is the fourth installment of a four-part series on salmon. Part One described the emergency effort to rescue Washington states last population of Snake River spring and summer Chinook salmon, in the Tucannon River. Part Two explored salmon and steelhead extinction threshold science, showing the Pacific Northwest is entering extinction momentum that will be very difficult to escape. Part Three explored the good work that has restored the Grande Ronde and Imnaha river areas, more so than any other salmon landscape in the Snake River Basin. I conclude here this four-part reflection on salmon and steelhead extinction science, and extinctions approach and effects for rivers and people in Washington and Oregons Snake River tributaries. The last words go to many I interviewed, after a few more from me. I thank everyone who talked with me: Amy Jayne, Bobby Fossek, John Milbert, Kevin March, David Baum, Noel March, Rick George, Joe McCormack, John Appleton, Henry Roller, Kyle Bratcher, Tucker Jones, Ed Bowles, Emmit Taylor, Ryan Kinzer, and Jay Hesse. I thank Hesse, Kinzer, Jones and Kasey Bliesner for data, Kinzer and Pete Sandrock for map help, and a few anonymous reviewers. I thank Pam Conley and Mike Beaty for introductions that got me started, and ongoing advice. I am responsible for any errors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More should have been interviewed but were not. Many threads worth following the 30-year relationship of area ranchers with river restoration, for example were not. Nor was I able to talk with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation or the Grande Ronde Model Watershed. Since this story cant be told without them, I have tried to fill in roles and some details from their websites. The Grande Ronde Model Watershed website is the best single place to get a feel for northeast Oregons river and water restoration story-in-progress. I believe the word extinction no longer penetrates, publicly or politically, as it did 40 or 20 years ago. Nor do salmon numbers dam counts, for example because there are too many numbers. Yet strong public and political awareness of the fishes dire condition is not optional if the lower Snake River is to be restored, so that Snake salmon and steelhead get their shot to restore themselves. Results on the Klamath, Elwha, White Salmon and other rivers strongly suggest that when salmon get that chance, they grab it. (For the scientific case to restore the lower Snake, by removing its dams, I recommend a webinar by Russ Thurow. Thurow is a U.S. Forest Service emeritus fish biologist, and main architect of comprehensive research and data sets for salmon and steelhead in Idahos Middle Fork Salmon River. The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaXzrd6wk0&t=1058s) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The extinction threshold science is good, timely and action-focused. I also see its potential to show extinction in motion to people and leaders in mapped, named places whose human-salmon stories can be told, and perhaps more deeply heard by those in government who represent the people and places. When the Nez Perce Tribe releases its 2025 extinction threshold update, I hope salmon people studying it ask, can we show extinction risk in motion to Northwest people and leaders, year by year? In 2022, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, forthrightly said, we cannot under any circumstances allow the extinction of salmon to come to pass. But exactly that is underway. Can its pace and locations be shown to U.S. Sens. Murray, Maria Cantwell, Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, Jim Risch and Mike Crapo; to Northwest members of the U.S. House; to Govs. Tina Kotek, Bob Ferguson and Brad Little; and to Northwest people? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As I researched this article, the federal administration and its agencies began a retreat from their responsibilities, to many tribes and the Northwest, to restore salmon and steelhead that federal actions are grinding to extinction. This retreat dishonors our nation, ignores what makes the Northwest a unique place on earth, and has 3 years more to run. For at least that long, Northwest people, leaders and institutions must counter federal retreat with equally visible engagement and support for salmon. This includes continued pursuit of public and political settlements to make Columbia and Snake River salmon, tribes and salmon communities whole, while keeping other river users whole or better. Its not an easy pursuit. But, when our nation shirks its responsibilities, who else but Northwest people, and our state, tribal and congressional leaders, must step in to fill the vacuum, with sustained action? What if salmon and steelhead in your rivers go extinct? I asked some of those I spoke with a hard question: What if sea-going salmon and steelhead in the rivers you know go extinct? Others have one more point to make about the situation or remedies. Retired attorney and fisherman Dave Baum: I used to try a case in Enterprise, get done at 5 or 6, drive to the Imnaha, 30 miles down to Cow Creek, to fish for steelhead. In October, Id start the hike about 9 p.m. I used a head lamp and wore high top leather boots for rattlesnakes. Id get to Eureka Bar on the Snake at 11 p.m, throw my bag out, and start fishing at dawn. Id fish the Snake an hour or two, then fish back up the Imnaha to Cow Creek. Walking that canyon, its vertical walls, is like being in fairyland. To me, extinction would mean no fishing for steelhead. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ryan Kinzer is the Nez Perce Tribe research scientist coordinating development of the extinction threshold data: We can see that in the 1980s, the Snake River populations showed significant variability. If one population was down, others were even or up. We started losing that around 2000. Now the populations are pretty synchronous in their decline. Thats bad. It means the species is losing its ability to refresh its parts and repair gaps. The danger rises of losing them all at once in a catastrophic event or two. This has happened in California, and can happen here. Kevin March on the Wallowa River. (Photo courtesy of Kevin March) Retired acupuncturist and fisherman Kevin March: I notice the habitat changes without salmon. The Wallowa River used to host freshwater mussels. Now I never see the shells. Its a real sign of decline. The dead steelhead and salmon arent in the river anymore. We still have much more habitat in the ag valleys to re-connect. And, when the Elwha and Condit dams went, the fish came back. Just let them have the chance. John Milbert and his exploring companion. (Photo courtesy of Ken Lewis) Fisherman and writer John Milbert, when he thinks about extinction, remembers Celilo Falls, the spectacular fishery drowned by The Dalles Dam in 1957. We lived on the coast back then, but we drove back to eastern Oregon every year. I was always awake at night, so I saw Celilo Falls, and The Dalles Dam being built as we drove. I didnt know what it meant, but it was interesting, all the lights and equipment. Then, on one trip, it was done. Where is Celilo? Where are the fish? What do the fishing people do now? I still think about it. If we lose salmon here, its the same thing. Ascension Center Director Amy Jayne: Teaching the reality is part of our curriculum. I think we understand how devastating salmon disappearance would be. This is their land. Salmon are sacred to our Indigenous relatives, therefore to us too. Extinction would be devastating. We want to have hope: a child finds a mussel, the water is cold, you can see the wonder. But we also have to face reality. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trout Unlimited river restorer Noel March: Extirpation in northeast Oregon would be devastating. To lose that wild connection, the living connection between the ocean and our inland rivers, would be profoundly sad. Theyve always been there for us, for the tribes and now for us all. Not returning the favor, and allowing them to slip away, would be a sad commentary on us. Joe McCormack, of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce: Its a terrible loss for us. Without salmon, you strip tribal people of a large part of who we are. Our sustainability as a tribe rests on the shoulders of those Nez Perce in 1855 who secured our right to fish, in our treaty. Taking salmon away is like losing an arm, a leg, a heart. Joe McCormack is a Nez Perce Tribal member and leader of river restoration and community-building in the Imnaha and Grand Ronde watersheds. (Photo courtesy of Joe McCormack) Emmit Taylor, Nez Perce watershed program director: Salmon is a first food. Water is first and salmon second in the long house. In our creation story, salmon came forward and offered their lives for the people. Salmon are the leader. The fishery is food and culture for tribal people. Think of the abundance there was in Wallowa Country: spring and summer Chinook, steelhead, coho, sockeye, lamprey, bull trout They didnt just feed us, they fed eagles, bears, trees. Today the watersheds and the people only have a small fraction of what was here 150 years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ed Bowles, former Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife chief of fisheries and salmon adviser to Oregon governors: Snake River salmon are facing extinction, population by population. But we also have evidence, from several sources including extinction threshold science, that intrinsic productivity is still there in these salmon and steelhead. It is NOT too late. Oregons view, based on our best assessment of the science, is that we have two salmon generations, eight to 10 years, to restore the lower Snake. That one action isnt all thats needed, but it is the necessary cornerstone for recovery, and must happen soon. This urgency is heightened given the need to secure continuity of services that the lower Snake currently provides, prior to restoration. Caretakers of the Lands Bobby Fossek: Our culture was brought upriver on the backs of the salmon. If salmon are healthy, people are healthy. Salmon stood up for human beings, and the health of the ecosystem, for thousands of years. Their decline and loss is apocalyptic to me. It has happened so fast. We are seeing the effects of living as if the health of fish and rivers are irrelevant. And Nez Perce elder Elmer Crow: We are the circle. Thats what life is all about. We take care of one another. So when we have someone in trouble, thats when the rest of us have to step in. Bobby Fossek, a resident of Cove, Oregon, manages an 80-acre restoration project on tributaries of Catherine Creek. Salmon stood up for human beings, and the health of the ecosystem, for thousands of years. Their decline and loss is apocalyptic to me, he says. (Photo courtesy of Bobby Fossek) SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX ALTON, Ill. It has been a year of big changes and bigger feelings as the Alton Police Department approaches a somber anniversary. Friday will mark one year since Alton Police K-9 Odin was killed. The Belgian Malinois German shepherd mix was shot as his handler, Officer Allen Averbeck, was trying to arrest an armed suspect. Averbeck was also shot. Averbeck survived, but his partners absence is greatly felt one year later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont know how to describe it. It hurts to lose something like that, Alton Police Sgt. Mike Morelli said. If it wasnt for his sacrifice, my friends wouldnt be here today. Morelli oversees the departments K-9 program. A portrait of Odin now hangs on the walls of the department as a reminder, and remembrance, of his sacrifice. Missouris sick leave law gets repealed next week Heres what changes The department is also taking steps to move forward as it welcomes a new member. A barely one-year old Belgian Malinois was recently selected from a training facility in Pennsylvania to be the Alton Police Departments next K-9 officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Riggs, as he has been named, will join Officer Lane Lawson, 22. It will be Lawsons first time as a handler. At the end of the month, Lawson and Riggs will embark on a 10-week K-9 training program with the Illinois State Police. Lawson remembers the tragic events of Aug. 22, 2004, and said the addition of Riggs will symbolize a new chapter. Odin saved several officers lives that day. So, to have the honor to get a dog, to be able to do the work that Odin did, and be able to follow in Officer Averbecks footsteps, will be pretty cool, Lawson said. The Alton Police Departments K-9 program is funded through private donations. Those donations can be made through checks or to MustacheMarch4PD (MM4PD). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Donna Salof played a key role in ensuring the K-9 program continues. A native of the area, Salof made a significant donation to cover the cost of Riggs and a previous K-9. About the time I moved back is when I heard about what had happened to Odin and his line of work. And I thought this is something I can get involved in, she said. The department has expressed gratitude to Salof and others in the community for their support of its K-9 program. A K-9 itself can run close to $10,000. Training, along with the cost of a vehicle equipped for a K-9, can total tens of thousands of dollars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sgt. Morelli said the community will be impressed with Riggs, as they have with the other K-9s on the force. People love dogs more than they love humans, Sgt. Morelli said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epsteins imprisoned former girlfriend as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case. The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trumps base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release. Here's the latest: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding from 34 cities and counties over sanctuary policies U.S. District Judge William Orrick extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on those communities as it seeks to make good on Trumps campaign promise to remove millions of people in the country illegally. One executive order issued by Trump directs officials to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another order directs federal agencies to ensure payments to state and local governments do not assist policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The cities and counties that sued said billions of dollars were at risk. More military leaders are fired Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who was chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw Naval Special Warfare Command. Thats according to a U.S. official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity to detail personnel changes. Hegseth also has fired a general whose agencys initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump. The reasons for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, were not clear Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ___ By Konstantin Toropin HHS moves to strip thousands of federal health workers of collective bargaining rights U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials confirmed ending union recognition for many employees. It is the latest move by the Trump administration to end collective bargaining with federal employee unions. Previously affected agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency. The American Federation of Government Employees argues that strong union contracts support a stable workforce, especially in public health emergencies. Read more about HHS ending employees union recognition Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Justice Dept. declines to defend grants for colleges with large number of Hispanic students In a memo sent to Congress, the Justice Department said it agrees with a lawsuit attempting to strike down grants that are reserved for colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Hispanic. Congress created the program in 1998 after finding Latino students were going to college and graduating at far lower rates than white students. Justice Department officials argued the program provides an unconstitutional advantage based on race or ethnicity. Trump names White House personnel director as ambassador to India Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump says hes naming White House personnel director Sergio Gor as ambassador to India and special envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs. Gor had been tasked with vetting Trumps choices for administration positions, including the presidents nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA a bid that was withdrawn in June. Gor and Donald Trump Jr. also ran a publishing company, Winning Team Publishing, which published two of the presidents books. Washington school system assures parents ICE banned from campus without a warrant or court order With schools set to kick off a new year of classes Monday, D.C. Public Schools issued a message Friday seeking to reassure parents concerned that federal law enforcement or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target schools with large immigrant populations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DCPS statement declared that all student records were protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and could only be shared with parental consent and a lawful court order. The statement added that law enforcement action on any school grounds can only take place with a valid warrant or a court order. DC courts seeing influx of criminal cases from Trump crime crackdown Hundreds of people have been arrested on the streets of Washington, D.C., since President Donald Trump ordered a crackdown on crime in the nations capital. Some of those people are winding up in the same federal courthouse that was flooded with cases against Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol over four years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At least eight cases filed in the district court for the District of Columbia appear to be related to the recent surge in patrols by federal agents and National Guard members, according to an Associated Press review of court records. Many others facing less serious charges are having their cases heard daily in D.C. Superior Court. Some attorneys who practice at the neighboring courthouses are bracing for a bigger workload as the cases pile up. So far, however, the legal landscape is nothing like the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. I dont think weve really felt the brunt of it yet, but I expect it to hit, defense attorney Damon Catacalos said Friday as he waited for a clients case to be called by a Superior Court judge. The White House says over 700 people have been arrested since the operation started on Aug. 7. Theyre facing a wide range of charges, including assaulting law-enforcement officers and illegal possession of drugs and firearms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump praises new CBO numbers on tariff impact to deficit President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform celebrated a new Congressional Budget Office update on the impact that tariffs would have on reducing the deficit. The CBO on Friday issued a new blog post that states tariffs will lower deficits by a combined $4 trillion over the next decade. The latest update is an increase from its last projection in June, that predicted deficits would be reduced by $2.8 trillion over 10 years. Trump said the CBO, which he called Radical Left Representatives had admitted how incredible my Tariff strategy has been. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Staffed by some 275 economists, analysts and other employees, the CBO provides Congress with objective, impartial information about budgetary and economic issues. Its current director is Phillip Swagel, a former Treasury official in Republican President George W. Bushs administration. Trump says US will tariff imported furniture President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform said Friday that his administration would complete a major tariff investigation into furniture imported into the U.S. and will issue a report on its findings within the next 50 days. He said furniture coming from other countries into the U.S. would be tariffed at a rate not yet determined. The intent is to bring the furniture business back to North Carolina, South Carolina and Michigan, among other states, he said. Putin praises Trump, says hes the light at the end of the tunnel for struggling relations Russian President Vladimir Putin praised U.S. President Donald Trump Friday, describing the U.S. leader as the light at the end of the tunnel for struggling Moscow-Washington relations. Our relationship with the United States is at one of the lowest levels its been since the end of World War II, Putin said at an event in Sarov, a closed city about 370 kilometers (230 miles) east of Moscow that has served as a base for Russias nuclear weapons program since the late 1940s. But with the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally appeared. Putin also commended Trumps leadership qualities and said he hoped that the first steps had been taken to ensure the full-scale restoration of Russia-U.S. ties. He said that Russian companies were already discussing plans with American partners on opportunities for co-operation across the Arctic and in Alaska in areas such as liquified natural gas. The comments come the same day as Russias Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, appeared in a taped interview for NBCs Sunday show Meet the Press with Kristen Welker saying that there were no plans for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a proposal that Trump has repeatedly floated to end Russias three-year invasion of their neighbor. Pritzker to Trump: Illinois wants cheaper groceries, not authoritarian power grab to cut crime Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker had a cool reaction Friday to President Donald Trumps suggestion that Chicago might be his next target for a crime crackdown featuring the National Guard like that occurring in Washington, D.C. The Democrat posted Things People are Begging For on X, including cheaper groceries and reversing cuts to Medicaid and food aid for low-income families but not an authoritarian power grab of major cities. Trump has disparaged the Second City for years, repeatedly comparing it to Afghanistan and threatening to send in the feds to stem gun violence. Violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of the year, representing the steepest drop in over a decade, according to city data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same time last year, and total violent crime dropped by over 22%. Hegseth fires general whose agencys intel assessment of damage from Iran strikes angered Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agencys initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from U.S. strikes angered President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The firing comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media. It found that Irans nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the U.S. strikes, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Read more about Hegseth Intel will give US a 10% stake, Trump says Trump says Intel has agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in its business. Speaking with reporters on Friday, Trump said the deal came out of a meeting last week with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan which came days after the president called for Tan to resign over his past ties to China. I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner, Trump said. He agreed, and theyve agreed to do it. The official announcement is expected to come later Friday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of an announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. Maxwell was moved to a new prison following Justice Department interview After her interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida where she had been serving a 20-year sentence to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Neither her lawyer nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move. The Epstein case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financers social connections over the years to prominent figures including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said his relationship with Epstein ended years before. House Oversight Committee receives first round of Epstein documents from Justice Department The first batch of Epstein-related files from the department includes 33,000 pages of documents, according to committee staff. The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted, a spokesperson for Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. The committee subpoenaed files related to the late sexual predator following a public outcry over the administrations handling of its promises to release more information related to Epstein conduct and demise. House Democrats seized on the issue and ultimately helped push Comer to subpoena the DOJ for documents along with every living U.S. attorney general as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Trump DOJ is providing records at a far quicker pace than anything the Biden DOJ ever provided, the committee spokesperson continued. Maxwell recalls meeting Trump in the 90s Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much, Maxwell said, according to the transcript. Maxwell said her father was fond of Trumps then-wife, Ivana, because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is freed from Tennessee jail so he can rejoin family in Maryland to await trial Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges. The Salvadoran nationals case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trumps immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges. Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order. Read more about Kilmar Abrego Garcia Justice Department issues transcripts of interviews with Epstein ex-girlfriend Maxwell The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epsteins imprisoned former girlfriend as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case. The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trumps base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release. Read more about Ghislaine Maxwell Trump filing appeal after a judge said executive order violated law firms First Amendment rights President Donald Trump is filing an appeal after a judge said his executive order targeting a prominent law firm violated the firms First Amendment rights. The executive order forbid the federal government from doing business with anyone who hires the law firm Susman Godfrey, citing the firms election-related work performed after Trumps 2020 loss. Susman Godfrey was one of several law firms targeted by Trumps executive orders, and the firm sued in April. In late June, District Court Judge Loren AliKhan granted summary judgment in Susman Godfreys favor, noting that noting that by that point every court to have considered a challenge to the law-firm-related orders had found grave constitutional violations. Department of Justice attorney Richard Lawson filed the notice of appeal in the D.C. Circuit Court on Friday. The President is also appealing rulings in other cases brought by law firms. Hegseth calls arming the National Guard in Washington common sense Acknowledging the change announced earlier Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tweeted a news story about his order for troops to carry guns and said, Common Sense. The Pentagon has released few details about the shift or why it was necessary that about 2,000 troops in the nations capital for President Donald Trumps law enforcement crackdown needed to be armed. Trump expresses frustration that Putin-Zelenskyy peace talks havent been scheduled Were going to see whether or not they have a meeting, Trump told reporters. Itll be interesting to see. If they dont, why didnt they have a meeting, because I told them to have a meeting. But Ill know what I am going to do in two weeks. Trump said he had begun making arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting on Monday soon after concluding White House talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders and speaking by phone with Putin. Russias top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, made clear on Friday that Putin wont sit-down with Zelenskyy until Ukraine agrees to certain concessions. Trump says he called for Intels CEO to quit because of Tom Cotton The president said he called earlier this month for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign after reading something written by Arkansas Republican senator. Trump didnt clarify what he was referring to but said that after he met with Tan, he liked him and felt he was somewhat a victim. He backed off his calls for his resignation after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter and met with Trump. Trump repeatedly threatens DC Mayor Bowser Muriel Bowser generally avoids directly criticizing President Donald Trump. Even when she is being harshly critical of Trumps decisions publicly stating that his declaration of a federal crime emergency in Washington makes no sense Bowser sometimes seems to structure her statements so as to avoid actually saying Trumps name. Trump, meanwhile, seems to be escalating his attacks on Bowser. In a 2 a.m. Friday social media post, Trump wrote, Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City! Hours later in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she wont be mayor for long. Local DC government leaders bristle at armed National Guard members Some members of local government have bristled at the Defense Departments order to arm National Members. Trump is once again putting armed military onto the streets of an American city. These are the actions not of a president, but of someone on the march to an authoritarian takeover, District of Columbia Council Member Charles Allen said in a statement. As a federal district, the local governments powers are broadly delegated to it Congress, leaving local officials few avenues to formally block or protest Trumps plan. Members of local government have been walking a tightrope of engaging with constituents concerns without further antagonizing the administration. City Council Chair Phil Mendelson wrote on social media that hed discussed the affects of the so-called crime emergency, among other topics, with Washington residents at a town hall last night. Council Member Brianne Nadeau posted a link to report police misconduct to city officials shortly after the Pentagons announcement. Trump displays Putin picture During his event about FIFA, Trump unexpectedly pulled out a photo of him standing next to Putin during their meeting in Alaska. Trump said Putin sent the picture and Im going to sign this for him. He added that Putin has very respectful of me and my country, and not so respectful of others. Putin invaded Ukraine more than three years ago, and Trump has been frustrated by his inability to resolve the war. Speaking of FIFA, Trump suggested that the Russian leader wants to attend the soccer competition in the U.S. He may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens, he said. Referring to the photo, Trump said, I thought it was a nice picture of him. OK, of me, but nice of him. Certain applicants targeted by pause on visas for commercial truck drivers After Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a pause in providing U.S. visas to commercial truck drivers, the Trump administration says it applies to certain foreign applicants. The State Department said Friday that the pause affects those seeking permission to drive a truck under visas for H-2B temporary nonagricultural workers, E-2 investors in U.S. businesses or EB-3 skilled workers. It said the government is launching a review of the way it screens foreign drivers and that enhanced vetting will apply to those who dont now hold valid visas. Applicants must demonstrate the necessary skills, experience, and English language proficiency required to safely operate these vehicles on Americas roads, the department said. Contrary to the expectations of US President Donald Trump, Moscow currently sees no basis for a direct meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. "Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the US television network NBC on Friday. Among the points that would need to be clarified in advance are a Ukrainian renunciation of membership in the Western military alliance NATO and territorial concessions. "Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov continued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over the course of the full-scale invasion that began three and a half years ago, Russia has almost completely taken over the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and partially occupied the Kremlin-claimed areas of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson. For freezing the front in Zaporizhzhya and Kherson, Putin has reportedly demanded that Kiev completely relinquish the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Russia already annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 in violation of international law. CHEYENNE The ongoing conversations concerning corner crossing in Wyoming continued Tuesday as a state legislative committee narrowly voted to continue pursuing a bill to decriminalize it. The corners in question refer to the intersection of publicly and privately owned lands, and whether members of the public, often hunters, fishers and hikers, are allowed to cross diagonally between public lands at their intersection with private property. Discussions around this topic heated up in 2021 when a group of four Missouri hunters were sued by a ranch owner in Carbon County for corner crossing between public lands that intersected with his property. He alleged more than $7 million in damages and appealed the initial court decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some members of the Wyoming Legislatures Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee wanted to wait until a decision comes from the U.S. Supreme Court in reconsideration of the lower federal courts ruling that found their actions to not be trespassing. The nations high court hasnt announced whether it will hear this appeal, however. Other committee members, however, thought it would be prudent to at least continue advancing the bill draft for further consideration to be proactive in identifying a solution to the problem. This is exactly why we have interims. This is why this committee exists. This is our job. Were taking up an issue that is going to be here for quite some time to come, said Sen. Bill Landen, R-Casper. But Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said he felt there are too many unresolved details that could cause issues further down the line, including additional litigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said the current bill draft doesnt properly address things like what is legally considered a cornerstone that marks the intersection of properties, and the use of the word authorizes in the draft, asking whether that meant individuals are authorized by law or must seek authorization to cross corners from a separate entity. Ryan Semerad, the attorney representing the Missouri hunters, said the primary benefit of this bill is not that it answers every single question, but that it transfers violations from criminal to civil court. I dont think there is a person who believes that someone should be taken off the public lands in handcuffs because they stepped on the wrong blade of grass, he said. Corner-crossing map Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A reporter locates on a map the common corner that the Missouri hunters used to reach public land on Elk Mountain. He added that current enforcement of this issue further burdens law enforcement and the judicial system. I think this bill is appropriate, because it takes the conversation into the appropriate arena and outside of that (criminal) arena, where the stakes are much higher, where if a landowner thinks corner crossing is a crime, they might bring force to bear, they might respond in a much more aggressive fashion, he said. Hicks asked how long it could take for the judicial appeal process to play out for the existing case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Semerad said the Supreme Court could receive the case as early as Sept. 17 and the file could be distributed to justices on Oct. 1. After that, he said the court could decide in the coming weeks whether to hear the appeal. If they decide to hear the case, Semerad estimated a decision could come by next June. Representatives from associations representing private property owners opposed consideration of the bill, calling it both incomplete and unnecessary to consider before a decision from the Supreme Court. Brett Moline, policy advocacy director for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, said his main problem with the bill is that it still allows for property damage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As not all intersections have visible cornerstones, and some GPS systems may be inaccurate, even by a few meters, this could cause someone to walk through private property, even unintentionally. Though Semerad said it is just a matter of someone stepping on the wrong blade of grass, Moline argued this could cause serious damage if hundreds of hunters are doing this, potentially forming a trail through someones private property. Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magagna echoed these concerns, urging lawmakers to be advocates of private property rights and hash out decisions once a final judicial ruling comes. Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, said her reasoning for support of this draft legislation is to represent the people of Wyoming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie (2025) Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie I dont know if anybody was awake in June or July, but the amount of people that showed up (in support) for public lands was astronomical, she said, referencing an event she hosted on the steps of the Wyoming Capitol where around 500 residents showed up to protest potential loss of public lands. Committee, Im going to ask you not to get bogged down in the details. Dont get sold on what needs to be a perfect bill. The goal here today is to represent Wyoming. And if theres one thing that is broadly supported here, its that I want to go and step foot on my public land. With a 7-6 vote in favor, the committee will continue the discussion of the bill draft at its next meeting in Casper in November. No formal amendments were proposed during Tuesdays meeting, but several were discussed that may intend to clear up some of the details that several members thought were left unclear. A wolf runs across snow-covered terrain in British Columbia, Canada, in January 2025, with the shadow of a helicopter cast above. (Ryan Jones/CPW) Colorado lawmakers gave initial approval Thursday to a bill to redirect a small amount of state money from gray wolf restoration efforts to a health insurance affordability fund, but stopped short of requiring Colorado Parks and Wildlife to pause the capture and release of new wolves this winter. With the Legislature convened for a special session to cope with a billion-dollar revenue shortfall triggered by changes to the federal tax code, Senate Bill 25B-5 would withhold $264,268 from the states general fund previously appropriated for wolf reintroduction. The money would instead be directed to the states Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise, which helps subsidize health coverage costs and faces an estimated shortfall of around $100 million after Congress failed to extend federal tax credits for insurance premiums. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bill sponsor Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat from Frisco, told his colleagues in a committee hearing Thursday that SB-5 proposes to save a small amount of taxpayer dollars where we can to put them to something that can immediately help Coloradans. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Amid opposition from Gov. Jared Polis, however, the bill was amended to remove language prohibiting CPW from taking any action to acquire or reintroduce gray wolves during state fiscal year 2025-26. The agencys reintroduction plan calls for annual releases of 10 to 15 wolves in the programs first three to five years, as wildlife managers target a stable initial population of at least 50 wolves in the state. State Sen. Matt Ball, a Denver Democrat who introduced the amendment, said that in the absence of the general fund appropriation, the governors office and CPW would look to other sources of funding, and the reintroductions would proceed as planned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After two years of releases, Colorados wolf population currently includes 21 collared adults and an unknown number of pups born to four established packs this spring. I do believe its really important to put one more round of 15 animals out, CPW director Jeff Davis told lawmakers. Voters in 2020 narrowly approved a ballot measure requiring CPW to reintroduce gray wolves to Colorado in the name of restoring ecological balance. The states efforts have been bitterly opposed by livestock producers, who have persistently called for CPW to delay or pause the program since the agency first began to relocate wolves in December 2023. A series of wolf attacks on livestock in Grand County in 2024 and in Pitkin County this year have inflamed the controversy as have the deaths of a number of wolves, through both lethal control measures authorized by wildlife managers and at least one apparent act of illegal poaching. Speakers on both sides of the issue sparred yet again during more than three hours of testimony Thursday before the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Callie Scritchfield, a Rio Blanco County commissioner, called the prospect of another year of wolf releases one more big threat to our agriculture community, which she said would add to the despair ranchers in her county are feeling from the impact of the Lee and Elk fires. Samantha Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity, meanwhile, called the bill unsupported by science and contrary to what the experts at CPW state is needed. At this critical stage of reintroduction efforts, halting even one year would have dire consequences, Miller said. Lawmakers on the committee voted 4-1 to approve the amended bill and advance it to the Senate Appropriations Committee. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Roberto Delgado and his wife were praying the rosary on the night of Jan. 7 when they heard two loud booms that shook their Sylmar home. Then came a flash of light so bright that in the dead of night they could briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills behind their house. Seconds later, Delgado said in an interview, the couple saw flames under two electric transmission towers owned by Southern California Edison even more shocking because they had seen a fire ignite under one of those towers just six years before. "We were traumatized," he said. "It was almost the exact same thing." In both fires, the family was forced to race to their car and flee with few belongings as the flames rushed through the brush toward their home, which survived both blazes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Edisons maintenance of its power lines is now under scrutiny in the wake of Januarys devastating Eaton fire, which destroyed a wide swath of Altadena and killed 19 people. Video captured by eyewitnesses shows the Eaton fire igniting under Edison transmission towers. A lawsuit making its way through Los Angeles County Superior Court is raising new questions about Edison's role in the 2019 Saddle Ridge fire in Sylmar and whether the company was transparent about the cause of the blaze. The fire killed at least one person and destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes and other structures. Firefighters were able to contain the more recent Sylmar fire, called Hurst, before any homes were destroyed. Plaintiffs' lawyers contend that both fires were caused by the same problem: an improperly grounded transmission line running through the foothills of Sylmar that Edison failed to fix, which the company denies. In a court filing, the lawyers included a deposition they took of an L.A. Fire Department captain who said he believed that Edison was "deceptive" for not informing the department that its equipment failed just minutes before the 2019 blaze ignited, and for having an employee offer to buy key surveillance video from that night from a business next to one of its towers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Edison has flatly disputed the lawyers' assertions, calling their claims about the 2019 fire an exotic ignition theory based on "an unproven narrative." Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison, said that the utility had complied with the requests of investigators looking into the two fires and that "there is no connection" between the incidents. Read more: 'This fire could have been prevented': How utilities fought removal of old power lines Dunleavy said Edison did not tell the fire department about the failure of its equipment in 2019 because it happened at a tower miles away from where the fire ignited. And she said it is common for any investigator to seek to obtain video that could aid in an investigation. "SCE's investigator did not offer to buy surveillance video," she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We follow the law. Period," she said. Dunleavy said the company has completed tests that show the transmission line is safe. She declined to share the results and pointed to testimony by Edison's expert in the case Don Russell, a Texas A&M professor of electrical engineering who said the line was properly grounded. As for the Jan. 7 Hurst fire, the utility told regulators in a February letter that it believes its equipment may be associated with the ignition of the blaze. The letter said the company found two conductors on the ground under a Sylmar tower. The repairs, the letter said, included replacing equipment at several towers and more than three miles of cable. Delgado and Perez say that on the night of the fire they heard two loud booms and a flash of light so bright they could briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Undergrounding of towers questioned In dispute is whether the failure of steel equipment at the top of an Edison transmission tower on the night of Oct. 10, 2019, caused a massive power surge across the system, resulting in multiple towers becoming electrified and intensely hot. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The tower, where the steel part known as a y-clevis broke, sits just off the 210 Freeway in Sylmar on land shared with a nursery. The Edison tower behind Delgados home where investigators say the 2019 fire ignited is more than two miles away from the nursery. The attorneys said in court filing that Edison made a cost-saving choice when building the transmission line in 1970 to not include any purposeful grounding devices that would enable power surges to dissipate down the tower and into the earth. Instead, the company used only insufficient concrete footings, the lawyers said in their filing. Mark Felling, an electrical engineer and paid expert in the case, testified that he found that the size of the cement footings under the towers along the line varied by a factor of 10. The size of the footings, he said, affects whether the tower is properly grounded. Felling said he believed that a sudden power surge could cause some towers to become electrified and potentially very hazardous. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Edison has disputed that theory and said in court that the electrical surge caused by the failure of equipment at the tower by the nursery safely dispersed. The utility said it was scientifically impossible that the electrical surge caused a fire 2 miles away. Read more: Edison customers are paying more for fire prevention. So why are there more fires? The undisputed material facts cannot support plaintiffs theory that SCE caused the Saddle Ridge Fire, the company wrote in a motion this month, which asked the judge to dismiss the case. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Oct. 6. Edison's motion included a copy of the L.A. Fire Departments investigation, which included new details of how the company responded to fire investigators days after the 2019 fire. Delgado said his rosary and prayers were important to surviving the fires. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Failure to report power surge L.A. Fire investigator Robert Price arrived at the dirt road leading up to the hillside transmission line where the fire had ignited the night before to see the yellow crime scene tape lying on the ground and an Edison truck driving out, Price said in his report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Price also wrote that Edisons equipment recorded a fault that resulted in a surge of electricity about three minutes before Delgado reported the fire to 911 at 9 p.m. But the company did not tell the Fire Department about the fault, Price wrote. Instead, L.A. Fire Capt. Timothy Halloran learned from a news report that Sylmar resident Jack Carpenter had recorded a large flash of light on his dashboard camera at 8:57 that night as he was traveling west on the 210 Freeway. Halloran traced the flash to a transmission tower built on land used by Ornelas Wood Recovery Nursery. Halloran interviewed employees at the nursery, who told him that an Edison employee had offered to buy the surveillance footage from the nurserys camera, according to a deposition Halloran later provided to lawyers representing the victims. A nursery employee also had taken photos of the broken steel equipment he found at the foot of the tower, according to Prices report. The employee told Halloran that an Edison crew came the day after the fire and cleaned up the shattered pieces. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Halloran said in the deposition, according to a June court filing, that the companys failure to report the fault and its offer to buy the nurserys surveillance video made him believe that the companys actions were deceptive. Price said in his report that he also saw Edison crews cleaning the towers along the line three days after the fires start. An Edison employee told him that the utility cleans the towers once a year but had decided to clean them that day because they were dirty from the smoke and fire, Price wrote. The cleaning did not prevent fire investigators from finding burn marks at the bottom of a second tower not far from where Delgado and his wife live, which Price said may be related to the "catastrophic failure" of equipment at the tower by the nursery. In his final conclusion on the fire, Price wrote that it was outside my expertise to determine whether the failure of equipment at the tower above the nursery could cause high voltage to travel back through the conductors and cause a fire, possibly through the towers grounding system more than two miles away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Therefore the cause will be undetermined, Price wrote. Dunleavy said that Edison had notified the California Public Utilities Commission about the fire before it began cleaning up the broken pieces of equipment found under the tower at the nursery. That cleanup and the companys repairs, Dunleavy said, were needed to ensure safety and reliability of the line. She added that it was common practice for utilities to wash down equipment after a fire before the system was reenergized. According to an L.A. Fire investigator, Edison's equipment recorded a fault that resulted in a surge of electricity about three minutes before Delgado reported the fire to 911 at 9 p.m. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) State utility investigators find violations Also investigating the 2019 fire in the days after its start was Eric Ujiiye at the Public Utilities Commission. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The commissions safety staff investigates fires that may have been caused by electric lines to determine whether the utility violated safety regulations. Ujiiye said in his report that he found that Edison violated five regulations, including failing to safely maintain its equipment at the tower by the nursery. Even though Prices investigation for the L.A. Fire Department stated that the cause is undetermined, Ujiiye said in his report that he believed that the failure of equipment at the tower by the nursery could have led to a fire ignition at the pylon more than two miles away. Read more: California utility customers could get stuck with a big bill for the Eaton fire The commissions staff asked Edison to perform tests to show that the towers on the line were properly grounded. According to a written response from Edison, the utility objected to the request as vague and ambiguous. But the company agreed to do the tests, which would be observed by the commission inspectors. Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the commission, said that the agency's staff was planning to meet with Edison at the transmission line to witness the tests. However, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions delayed that meeting and the requested undergrounding tests. She said that commission staff later learned that Edison had performed similar tests soon after the fire. Those test results sufficed, Prosper said, and the company was not made to re-do the tests. Prosper said the commission did not fine or otherwise penalize Edison for the five violations because the LAFD report said the cause was undetermined. She said company had corrected the violations. April Maurath Sommer, executive director of the Wild Tree Foundation, which has challenged Edisons requests to have utility customers pay for fire damages, questioned the commission's handling of the 2019 fire. You would think that the Public Utilities Commission would use fines to address really egregious behavior in the hope it would deter future behavior that causes catastrophic fires, she said. Maurath Sommer noted that Edison has been repeatedly found to have failed to cooperate with investigators looking into the cause of devastating fires. For example, commission investigators said in a report that the utility refused to provide photos and other details of what its employees found at the site where the Woolsey fire ignited in 2018. The Edison crew was the first to arrive at the scene of the fire that destroyed hundreds of homes in Malibu. Edison argued that the evidence was protected by attorney-client privilege. Edisons Dunleavy said the allegation by commission investigators was later resolved. We take our obligation to cooperate with the CPUC seriously, she said. Prosper of the commission said, Public safety is, and will remain, our top priority. Fire fighters kept an eye on the wild fire burning behind Olive View Medical Center on Friday. October 11, 2019 in Sylmar . Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times A firefighting plane drops red Phos-Chek, a fire retardant, to protect Olive View Medical Center from wind driven Saddle Ridge wild fire in on Friday, October 11, 2019 in Sylmar . Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times Interstate 5 and California State Rute 14 we a re closed to traffic through Newhall Pass due to the Saddle Ridge fire in on Friday October 11, 2019 . Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times Firefighters cleared brush and mopped up a hillside along California State Highway 14 that is closed to traffic through Newhall Pass due to Saddle Ridge fire in on Friday October 11, 2019. Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times Another fire in Sylmar At about 10:30 on the night of Jan. 7, Katherine Twohy heard a loud crack and saw a bright flash. Edisons transmission towers in Sylmar skirt around the edge of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park, where Twohy, a retired psychologist, lives. "I was just coming in my back door and there was just this incredible flashing of white lights," Twohy said. "Incredibly blue-white lights." She walked to her living room window where she can see two Edison towers, which are separated by more than a hundred yards. Twohy said she could see flames at the base of each one. "The fires had made little circles around the base," she said. Twohy said she saw flames under the same towers the night the Saddle Ridge fire ignited in 2019. Read more: Edisons safety record declined last year. Executive bonuses rose anyway I thought, Oh my god, its just like last time, Twohy said. In court, lawyers representing victims of the 2019 fire have seized on Edisons admission that its equipment may have sparked the Jan. 7 fire. The evidence will show that five separate fires ignited at five separate SCE transmission tower bases in the same exact manner as the 2019 fire, they wrote in a June court filing. Delgados home sits next to the dirt road leading up to the towers. The Jan. 7 fire melted his backyard fence but did little more damage. In the days after the fire, he found that some of the same Edison employees he spoke to in 2019 as a witness reappeared. I saw the exact same people from Edison show up, he said. I told them your towers almost killed my family again. Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report. Read more: Edison executives made false statements on wildfire risks, lawsuit claims This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. LE MARS, Iowa (KCAU) Workers carrying informational signs started striking around 6 p.m. on Thursday, with more than 20 employees walking in a circle near the front office at the dairy plant. Some of their signs said, Stop the war on workers and teamsters ULP strike. Workers previously said the company had until today to make a good-faith contract proposal. Story continues below Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A union official told KCAU 9 that workers want safe working conditions, better wages, healthcare, and retirement. Teamsters Local 554 said the strike will continue until Kemps comes back to the table to re-negotiate in good faith. KCAU 9 reached out to Kemps for a comment, and as of 10 p.m. on Thursday, we have not heard back from the company. The Le Mars Kemps plant produces milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, and cream. Kemps joined the Teamsters union back in December. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Dissident factions of the FARC guerrilla movement involved in the drugs trade were being blamed for two separate attacks in Colombia that killed at least 18 people and injured dozens more. Six people were killed and more than 60 were injured when a car bomb detonated Thursday outside a military flight academy in the western city of Cali, prompting mayor Alejandro Eder to declare martial law, temporarily ban large trucks from the city and offer a $10,000 reward for information about the attack. Earlier, at least 12 police officers were killed when a police helicopter on an operation in the northwest of the country to destroy coca crops -- the raw ingredient of cocaine -- was brought down by a drone in a rural area near Medellin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Calling the Cali bomb blast a "terrorist attack," Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez laid responsibility at the feet of "the narco cartel, alias Mordisco," referrring to Ivan Mordisco, head of the heavily armed Central General Staff (EMC), the largest of the "ex-FARC mafia" groups to emerge after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia laid down its arms in 2016 and a major player in narcotrafficking in the region. "This cowardly attack against civilians is a desperate reaction to the loss of control over drug trafficking in Valle del Cauca, Cauca, and Narino, where the Public Force has neutralized much of this threat," he said. Sanchez also blamed EMC for the helicopter attack. However, President Gustavo Petro initially blamed the Gulf Clan, a rival to the EMC and another former FARC splinter group, because the attack followed the seizure of 1.5 tons of cocaine in the heart of its home turf in the Uraba region of Antioquia, where the helicopter was downed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Peto said the Cali bombing was carried out by the EMC's Carlos Patino Front, saying it was in response to "an intense defeat" at the hands of government forces. "More than 250,000 rounds of ammunition recovered by the State, five houses full of explosives, 200 rifle parts, etc. That was the center of this column's activity in Honduras, El Tambo, down to Plateado. With that operation, we achieved a victory in the place where there is more coca leaf than anywhere else in the Cauca department, around 60% to 70% of the total," he wrote in a post on X. The MO of the attack allegedly was a match for the front, which frequently targets military and police bases as part of its war with the government. It has been blamed for a string of attacks across Cauca in March, using motorbike bombs, gunfire and drones armed with explosives. Petro said that an extraordinary meeting of the security council in Cali had decided not to extend the state of emergency, opting instead for a decree to beef up measures "to further eliminate cocaine production and make it more difficult to export that cocaine from the Pacific coast." A tour bus traveling from Niagara Falls to New York City rolled over in Genesee County, New York, on Friday, killing multiple people and injuring at least two dozen others. The crash, which involved a tractor-trailer and a tour bus carrying 54 people, happened around 12:30 p.m. near mile marker 4039 on the eastbound side of Interstate 90 in Pembroke, according to New York State Police. Tpr. James O'Callaghan told Fox News Digital at least five people are dead, and several people are unaccounted for. Some passengers were ejected from the bus and others were trapped underneath it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erie County Medical Center confirmed it received 24 patients from the crash site, and 20 patients were actively receiving treatment in the emergency department. Heart-stopping Video Shows Helicopter Flip And Crash Near Michigan Waterfront Restaurant Two patients were in the operating room, and several patients were in the trauma ICU, according to an ECMC spokesperson. Read On The Fox News App Rescue personnel work the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway in Pembroke, N.Y., Friday. Several witnesses said that the bus lost control, crossed over the median and flipped on the shoulder, according to state police. Sport Fishing Boat Violently Crashes Into Meschutt Beach Jetty, Injuring Four State police said mechanical error and impairment and intoxication of the driver have been ruled out. Charges are not being filed against the driver, who told police he was distracted and over-corrected. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Video footage is being recovered from the bus, and the Staten Island-based tour company, M&Y Tour Incorporated, is cooperating with authorities. The bus was carrying passengers from China, India, the Middle East, the Phillipines and the United States. First responders work to rescue victims at the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday. New York Police Officer And Good Samaritans Save 68-Year-old Woman From Vehicle Engulfed In Flames As of 5:30 p.m., the bus was flipped upright and the highway was being reopened. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) told Fox News Digital it is sending a go-team to investigate. The bus was taken to state police barracks as evidence. Pembroke is a rural town in Genesee County, about 45 minutes from Buffalo. LifeFlight helicopters respond to a tour bus crash on the eastbound side of Interstate 90 near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday. The Genesee County Sheriff's Office declined inquiries from Fox News Digital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Genesee County Fire Department, University of Rochester Medical Center and Kaleida Health did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital. Original article source: At least 5 dead, 24 injured in New York tour bus crash By Neil J Kanatt and Paolo Laudani (Reuters) -McCormick said on Thursday it will raise its stake in its Mexico joint venture to 75% by acquiring 25% more for $750 million as the condiments maker seeks to expand further in Latin America. McCormick, maker of Cholula hot sauce, said the deal should close early in the 2026 fiscal year and that the transaction should be accretive to adjusted earnings per share within the first year. Shares in Grupo Herdez, the Mexican salsa seller and coffee chain operator that has shared the 50/50 joint venture with McCormick, shot up during morning trading, triggering a brief suspension on the Mexican stock exchange. Its shares were up 25% at 8:45 a.m. local time (1445 GMT), bringing its market value up to nearly 23 billion Mexican pesos ($1.23 billion). Shares in McCormick meanwhile rose nearly 1%. Connor Rattigan, an analyst at Consumer Edge, said McCormick's decision was indicative of sentiment by similar firms regarding emerging markets as middle classes expand, but warned of pressures on consumer spending in the United States. "This is likely not the end of the company's ambitions for growth in the region," he told Reuters. Founded in 1947, the joint venture with Grupo Herdez, known as McCormick de Mexico, has been a dominant player in the condiments and sauces segment in Mexico, Latin America's second-largest economy, selling a range of McCormick brand products. The deal is subject to customary closing and regulatory conditions, McCormick said. ($1 = 18.7620 Mexican pesos) (Reporting by Neil J Kanatt and Anshi Sancheti in Bengaluru and Paolo Laudani; Editing by Leroy Leo, Sarah Morland and Joe Bavier) At least 18 people have been killed and dozens wounded in two separate attacks in Colombia, deepening the country's most serious security crisis in decades. Six people died and more than 60 were injured after a car bomb exploded on a busy street in the western city of Cali in Colombia, according to authorities. Earlier on Thursday, a separate drone attack against a police helicopter killed at least 12 people in a rural area outside the northwestern city of Medellin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The attacks, attributed to different dissident factions of the now defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) group, pose fresh challenges to Colombia's fragile peace processes ahead of elections next year. Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Cali, ordered martial law for the country's third most populous city. He also announced a temporary ban on large trucks entering the city and called on the public to report information about the incident for a $10,000 reward. In the wake of both attacks, the president and the military leadership announced they would lead a security council meeting to "define additional protection measures" for citizens. "The state will not yield to terrorism. These crimes will be pursued and punished with the full force of the law," the Ministry of Defence said on social media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to eyewitnesses, the car bomb in Cali targeted the Marco Fidel Suarez Military Aviation School, killing civilians in the street and damaging many houses. "There was a thunderous sound of something exploding near the air base," an eyewitness told AFP news agency. Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez called the blast a "terrorist attack" and blamed "the narco cartel alias Mordisco" - referring to Farc guerrilla leader Ivan Mordisco. "This cowardly attack against civilians is a desperate reaction to the loss of control over drug trafficking in Valle del Cauca, Cauca, and Narino, where the Public Force has neutralized much of this threat," he said on social media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Addressing the separate attack on a police helicopter, President Gustavo Petro said the aircraft was on a mission to eradicate coca leaf crops - a main ingredient in cocaine. The helicopter crashed to the ground after being hit by a drone, killing the 12 officers on board. Images circulating on social media showed thick plumes of black smoke billowing in a forested area of Amalfi in the country's north. Sanchez said the attack was perpetrated by the EMC guerrilla group, the largest offshoot of Farc. Colombia has experienced a rise in violence in recent months involving clashes between security forces and dissident rebels, paramilitaries or drug gangs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Drone attacks have also become increasingly common in recent years: in 2024, 115 such attacks were recorded in the country, most of them carried out by illegal armed groups. Last week, three soldiers were killed in a drone attack in the country's south-west, where explosive devices were dropped on members of the navy and army who were manning a checkpoint. Lebanon is taking steps to rescind an ordinance that limited LED and neon signs on city businesses but brought "unintended consequences" to an iconic 1950's-style diner that customers rallied around. Snow White Drive In is a city landmark that opened in 1953. The restaurant, which has been featured in music videos and other filming over the years, has several lighted window signs facing West Main Street, making it non-compliant. Lebanon's ordinance restricts commercial businesses to a maximum of one neon or LED-lighted sign that faces the right-of-way or public in an effort to clean up some check cashing, vape, liquor and convenience stores that have drawn complaints, officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The city council voted on first reading Aug. 19 to throw out the recently approved ordinance. A second vote is expected on Sept. 2. Snow White Drive In on West Main Street in Lebanon. Snow White's ownership and customers raised concerns about the ordinance after getting a notification letter about it on Aug. 11, owner Summer Lehew said. Community pushback included an online petition to save the Snow White Drive In signs. It had generated more than 4,300 signatures by Aug. 13 and stood at more than 5,200 as of press time for this story. In response to the community support, Lebanon officials quickly told Snow White management that the diner's lighted signs could stay and management could request a variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals in September. But, "it's better to just trash the thing and start over," said Lebanon Councilmember Tick Bryan, who made the motion to suspend the rules and vote to rescind the ordinance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first reading vote to rescind the law was 4-3 with Mayor Rick Bell breaking the tie. Snow White Drive In has lighted window signs of ice cream with a picture, another that says Coneys and one that says Onion Rings. The diner also has lighting on top of the building, but it was not going to be impacted by the ordinance, Bryan said. The council's debate wasn't centered on whether Snow White should be allowed to keep its lighted signs, but whether to create a new ordinance or keep the current one and let businesses appeal when necessary. Councilor Camille Burdine said at the meeting the law, overall, brings "really positive things" for the community and felt adversely affected businesses could appeal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Councilmember Joey Carmack voted to rescind the ordinance, noting at the meeting that other businesses with multiple window signs could be impacted as well. "I feel it had unintended consequences and the language was vague," Carmack said. "We will all sit down to come to a common ground." Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Will Lebanon 'trash' law that threatens Snow White Drive In signs? LEEDS, Utah (ABC4) A Leeds woman woke up to flames blasting through her bedroom window after a weed burning incident got out of control. Firefighters with Hurricane Valley Fire and Rescue say the home ignited after a man used a propane torch to burn weeds in his front yard. Within minutes, the flames climbed up the side of the house and into the attic. Inside the home, Colleen Gardner was asleep when she woke up to flames just outside her window. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I see these flames coming around the window, but not quite in, Gardner says. And so I thought, what do you do? She had only seconds to react, grabbing a few valuables before running out as the fire grew. It was frantic, she says. Its hard. Its hard to remember anything of it because it happened so fast. And whats been left behind is charred rooms, scorched ceilings and damage throughout the house. Fire crews are crediting neighbors and a local firefighter with making sure everyone escaped safely. Courtesy: Hurricane Valley Fire & Rescue Courtesy: Hurricane Valley Fire & Rescue Courtesy: Hurricane Valley Fire & Rescue We did have a off duty firefighter that lives there in Leeds, said Tyler Ames with Hurricane Valley Fire and Rescue. So he was able to go over and make sure that everybody got out of the house safely. And then once our crews arrived on scene, they were able to initiate a fire attack and they were able to get the fire knocked out fairly quickly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Investigators say the flames started after a torch ignited a bush next to the house, then spread into the attic. He was using a propane burner torch to burn weeds, and it had caught a bush that was next to the home on fire and he didnt have any water nearby, Ames adds. So it just started extending up into the house. So thats how it got up into the eaves and up into the attic. With burn season closed until September 15, fire officials say this is a reminder of how unpredictable open flame can be. Any time youre burning anything, you always want to have an adequate water supply nearby just in case something happens, Ames says. You usually do it in smaller piles when youre burning it. When you do it in larger piles, sometimes its unpredictable. Especially when the weather picks up. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite the damage, Colleen says shes grateful her family and pets made it out unharmed. Things are things, like I said, and we can replace things, Gardner says. Its just peoples lives. And Im just so glad that we got out just fine, and that the firefighters were so quick. The Washington County Sheriffs Office says the homeowner was cited and charged with violating stage two fire restrictions, a Class B Misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Latest headlines: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NEED TO KNOW A Chicago pet owner who has been declared legally blind was reunited with his service dog Angel Santiago, 58, said his 14-year-old Dachshund named Bam Bam was taken from his yard on June 5 What matters most is that Angel and Bam Bam are safe and together again, a GoFundMe organizer wrote A Chicago service dog has been reunited with its owner months after the canine was reportedly stolen from the residents home. Angel Santiago and his 14-year-old Dachshund named Bam Bam are back together again after the legally blind 58-year-old walked 7 miles every day looking for his beloved service dog and handing out flyers, according to a GoFundMe account. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Soon after the heartbreaking story went viral, Bam Bam was left at Chicagos 16th District police station by an unidentified man and woman on the night of Tuesday, Aug. 19, per the Chicago Tribune. His safe return came nearly three months after he went missing from Santiagos yard in the Logan Square neighborhood on June 5. A photo of Santiago holding his beloved pet was shared to the GoFundMe. In the picture, the owner appeared to be emotional as he was finally able to embrace Bam Bam. GoFundMe Angel Santiago's service dog, Bam Bam Angel Santiago's service dog, Bam Bam Let your eyes be mine and look out for Bam Bam for me, please. I beg of you to help me, Santiago, who was diagnosed with glaucoma, previously said via GoFundMe as he called on his communitys help to find his dog. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fundraiser was organized by Amy Pasalich. Out of respect for their privacy, we wont be sharing every detail, but what matters most is that Angel and Bam Bam are safe and together again, Pasalich said in the GoFundMe accounts most recent update on Aug. 20, thanking those who helped to make the reunion happen. As of Thursday, Aug. 21, the GoFundMe brought in just over $20,000. Pasalich said the donations would cover expenses such as reward money, pet detective services, making flyers, and organizing volunteer groups to canvas the area posting flyers, as well as inquiring if anyone has any ring footage from the morning Bam Bam was allegedly taken. 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. Citing reports, PETA said Bam Bam was taken from his backyard in Chicago by two unknown men who entered the yard through his gate. Santiago allegedly tried to intervene and even grabbed one of the suspects, but he was unable to stop them. An investigation remains ongoing. Read the original article on People ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) Yeti, Sasquatch, El Squacho, it has many different names, but no creature is more elusive than the Bigfoot. Often associated with northern states along the west coast, this large mythical ape has had many sightings over the years within the mountains of Northern New Mexico as well. In this episode of New Mexico Strange, author and paranormal investigator Cody Polston joins KRQE News 13 host and anchors Chad Brummett and Stephanie Chavez as they take a dive into all things Bigfoot in New Mexico. Polston, who is into all things strange and unusual, is an expert on this creature and many others, and is writing a book about Cryptids in New Mexico, including Bigfoot. Polston dives into famous Bigfoot sightings, controversies around these sightings, and popular theories about how Bigfoot avoids contact. To learn more about Cody and how you can support him, click here. About New Mexico Strange New Mexico is perceived worldwide as a mecca for the extraordinary. Whether its the healing soil of Chimayo, the haunted trails of the Old West, or visitors from the final frontier, our state is home to countless myths and mysteries. New Mexico Strange is KRQE News 13s online exclusive web series, celebrating our unique history and shedding light on the shadows of the unexplained, unexplored, and unknown. Hosted by Chad Brummett, New Mexico Strange takes viewers through some of the Land of Enchantments most mysterious folklore and conspiracies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. New York Citys largest outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in years has sickened at least 108 people and killed at least five, and has officials scrambling to contain the outbreak. But public health experts say the conditions that made parts of the city fertile ground for the disease this summer have been spreading widely, and all Americans need to understand the risk factors involved. This is not just a New York City problem, said Hannah Greenwald Healy, a professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health. I think of it as a problem in industrialized countries. We've been seeing increases in Legionnaires' disease for decades now across the United States, across Canada, and across a lot of European countries. New York City's Legionnaires' outbreak linked to cooling towers As USA TODAY'S Eduardo Cuevas has previously reported, Legionnaires is a severe form of pneumonia caused by a bacteria called Legionella. The bacteria found naturally in freshwater grows in warm or hot water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease spreads through mist containing bacteria that people inhale. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In New York, officials have tracked the summer outbreak to the cooling towers the external structures that regulate the temperature in large buildings. Those towers rely on water to lift that heat away, Healy explained. When that water in turn heats up, it provides the ideal breeding ground for Legionella. On Aug. 20, attorney Ben Crump, the Weitz & Luxenberg law firm, and Reverend Al Sharpton announced a lawsuit against a construction company filed on behalf of construction workers who contracted Legionnaires' after working in Central Harlem. Local health officials trace the disease to a dozen cooling towers serving ten buildings, including Harlem Hospital. "It is believed that the cooling towers at Harlem Hospital were filled with rainwater after several large July storms,'' a statement issued by the law firms said. "The water was left untreated, which permitted bacteria to spread causing workers at the site to become sick." This outbreak was not a natural disaster. It was the direct result of negligence. When corporations cut corners and put profits over peoples lives, tragedies like this happen, and that is why we are here: to hold them accountable," Crump said in remarks emailed to USA TODAY. Harlem has already endured so many injustices. This community deserves safety, dignity, and respect. Instead, it has been made the epicenter of yet another health crisis." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jared Scotto, an attorney with Weitz & Luxenberg, told USA TODAY, We believe this was preventable. (Legionnaires disease) is something that should not be happening in 2025. Were looking to hold accountable everyone whos responsible and were going to follow the facts. Were very concerned about the role the city played, Scotto added, and says the firm intends to pursue legal action against the city. Sharpton's representatives did not respond to a USA TODAY request for comment before the publication deadline. Climate change increases the risk of Legionnaires' disease As the planet heats up, were experiencing not just hotter temperatures, but more humid conditions as well. Climate change also means that more and more regions that never needed cooling infrastructure in the past now do. Think of the recent heat waves in places like the Pacific Northwest, where a lack of air conditioning probably contributed to the deaths of dozens of people in 2021, according to research conducted a few years later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And while some news reports about the outbreak in New York have focused on older infrastructure, which may be more conducive to harboring the bacteria, Healy explains that newer construction, and green buildings in particular, may have low-flow plumbing systems that allow water to sit longer in the pipes, increasing the risk that Legionella spreads. Compromised health also raises risk of Legionnaires' disease Many experts suspect that some residents of the areas where Legionnaires has been found in New York may be more susceptible to various diseases. Central Harlem, site of the recent outbreak, is a poorer area, and residents may lack access to preventive health care. As Cuevas also previously reported, these communities tend to have higher rates of chronic health conditions, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which are greater risk factors. A resident of a New York City public housing authority building in Brooklyn died of Legionnaires' as recently as 2023. Still, as the broader population across the United States ages, experts say this is as good a time as any to take note of important preventative measures for overall health. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You should be talking to your doctor, making sure you're getting your appropriate vaccines like the flu, pneumonia, and RSV, said Dr. Michael Phillips, the chief epidemiologist for New Yorks NYU Langone Health System. If you feel sick particularly with some sort of respiratory condition, get checked out quickly, Phillips added. Finally, know that building-wide drinking water filters that attempt to remove all, or most, of the chlorine in water may be counter-productive, Healy told USA TODAY: having some chlorine in the water actually helps prevent Legionella from growing. The Jacob Riis Houses, a New York City Housing Authority complex. Governments need to be trusted to manage public health emergencies As a public health crisis, any outbreak of Legionnaires flourishes in a perfect storm of stretched government budgets, an erosion of public trust, and a fear of litigation, said Iziah Thompson, senior housing analyst for New Yorks Community Service Society. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a national problem where we're having governments not really doing a great job at explaining and being forthcoming about what they're doing when it comes to water quality, what the reality is, Thompson told USA TODAY. More: Report slams Trumps DC homeless policy. Should it be a crime to be homeless? One of the biggest challenges in New York City has been different agencies communicating different messages to the public, Thompson pointed out. That confuses residents and makes them less likely to trust government officials. On the other hand, Thompson said, taxpayers have to accept that it takes money and a minimum level of staff to make upgrades to aging infrastructure and for testing and mitigation efforts. Its fair to ask questions and hold public agencies accountable, but also recognize that there are professionals in the agencies working hard and learning as they encounter each outbreak. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats important, said Langones Phillips. I think (people) should just be cognizant of the fact that infectious diseases are going to change as our climate changes. We live in a changing world. Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Legionnaires' disease is spreading thanks to these factors Starving transit may play well in some districts but ultimately will drive people away, not just from our cities, but from the commonwealth as a whole, even further reducing our clout in Washington. Our legislators must create a steady funding source, solely dedicated to transit. Some modest proposals:Implement congestion pricing in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, on the Schuylkill Expressway, Route 422, Interstate 95, the Blue Route, the Pennsylvania Turnpike and on comparable constantly jammed roads around the state. It would be easy to do via E-ZPass or toll-by-plate. Consider the following: * Higher charges for high volume hours. * Higher charges for extra-large passenger vehicles, like big SUVs, which cause the most congestion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement * Lower charges for taxis, bus lines, Uber, Lyft, etc., which get people out of individual cars. * Lower charges for commercial vehicles, which cant use transit. * Tolls for all vehicles on Interstate 80 (all or some parts), but make them low enough so users have no incentive to use slower or longer routes out of state. * Use the E-ZPass system to charge higher tolls for speeding. If you avoid congested roads and obey the speed limits, you would pay little or nothing. Encourage enough people to get back to transit, and we could spend hundreds of millions less on highways. Do not raid the capital fund. We need more, not less, transit service and infrastructure. With the current party in charge in DC, there may never again be federal funds for capital or operating costs in blue districts. David Richie Wyomissing I read shortly after the Alaska summit that President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with him that mail-in voting shouldnt be allowed. Why would the president of the United States be discussing the voting rights of the American people with Putin. Trump confirmed that he intends to sign an order to end mail-in voting. He claims mail-in votes and voting machines are being manipulated by crooked Democrats. I just wonder how a person who is supposed to defend the Constitution of the United States can be so anti-democracy. If all voting by mail is not allowed, then military personnel stationed overseas or in a state other than the one where they are registered to vote will not be allowed to cast a ballot. Senior citizens who dont drive or are in nursing homes will have a much more difficult time. I have used mail-in voting since the COVID-19 pandemic because it is more convenient and at 80, I didnt want to stand in line for hours. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have always supported the elected president from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden, including Trump. I can no longer support this president. I believe we are heading for dangerous waters. Brian Ritz South Heidelberg Township To the editor: The Los Angeles Times ( UCLAs Jewish community unites against Trumps $1-billion demand: Misguided and punitive, Aug. 1) failed to fully confront statements by UCLA faculty that minimized antisemitism. In fact, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (which I chair) and the Task Force on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias at UCLA have documented repeated and violent attacks on Jewish students and faculty by pro-Palestinian protesters before, during and after the 2024 encampment. Minimizing this reality retraumatizes Jews on campus who have already endured hostile conditions. Over the past 18 months, JFRG has provided UC leaders with evidence and a roadmap to address antisemitism. The real question is whether the university's leaders, faculty and the media have studied this evidence with the seriousness it deserves or skimmed past it, choosing the comfort of distance over the responsibility of action. Kira Stein, Los Angeles This writer is an assistant clinical professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and founder and chair of the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement .. To the editor: I cannot agree more with the writers of this piece ( Trumps claim of fighting antisemitism at UCLA is a dangerous charade, Aug. 19). I would just like to emphasize and paraphrase a couple of its concepts: President Trump wants $1 billion from UCLA and if UCLA doesnt find a solution other than the settlement, there would be devastating losses to research, jobs, etc. Truly a Faustian bargain with strong traces of a mafia-style shakedown. And Trump says hes doing this to combat antisemitism. This outrageous scheme would be hard to believe if it were not happening before our eyes. Nate Tucker, Costa Mesa .. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To the editor: I don't believe for a minute that Trump is going after UCLA for the benefit of Jews and to fight antisemitism. He couldn't care less about us and is using us to further his cause, whatever that be. He is putting the Jewish people in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and is, in fact, causing more antisemitism. Please, Trump, go away and leave us alone. Batiya Anna Lane, Palm Desert .. To the editor: The absurdity of the $1-billion fine Trump proposed for antisemitism at UCLA was shown by the two op-eds on one page of The Times ( Black people on campuses support fighting antisemitism and also wonder, What about us?, Aug. 19). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump's fine reminded me of Isaac Asimov's warning that "when stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent." Trump's continuing attacks on our universities, knowledge and facts are extraordinary dangers to our democracy. Brian Federici, Riverside This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The Shelby County Public Library in Shelbyville, Aug. 5, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by David Stephenson) In a matter of a few days, nearly $1,000 has been donated to the Shelby County Public Library to replace 16 LGBTQ+ books a local church had recommended to check out and never return. The response to the missing books has been overwhelming and mostly positive for the library, said Pamela W. Federspiel, the librarys executive director, on Thursday. We will use the donated money to replace the books and buy more like them. The Kentucky Lantern reported Aug. 18 that three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville urged its members to remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The church leaders pastors Jerry Dorris and Tanner Cartwright and Austin Keeler, an evangelist with the church mission, Reformation Frontline Missions defended what they call an act of civil disobedience. But librarian Federspiel said the action is tantamount to stealing. She contacted a collection agency to retrieve the books but so far it has not been successful. The library has lost 16 books valued at $410.85 since a member of the church checked them out with due dates in late June 2024. Neither Federspiel nor the church leaders have identified the library patron. Since the story came out, people have made almost $1,000 in donations to replace the books, Federspiel said. One anonymous donor gave $500, and we hear more may be coming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Shelby County Democratic Party has encouraged its members to donate money to the library. In an email this week, the political party said the Reformation Church of Shelbyville seems to believe it can remove books from the local library and not return them on purpose (at the direction of their pastor) because they have decided for all of Shelby County that some of the content should not be available for reading or even in our library. Is this civil disobedience as claimed or is it theft? The party asks people to help the library replace the missing books by donating on Shelby County Democrats KY. Pastor Jerry Dorris, Aug. 5, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by David Stephenson) Asked what the library would do if the new books are checked out again and not returned, Federspiel said she is talking to a lawyer about what precautions to take. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Asked if he would still urge removal of new books the library uses as replacements, Dorris said, I am just an individual Christian. I will keep on saying what I think should be done. Dorris posted on Facebook that the removal of the books is not theft it is civil disobedience rooted in Gods law, carried out in love for our neighbor and aimed at protecting children. He called the books in question groomer material. He claims that under Kentucky law, failure to return a library book is not prosecuted as theft but handled as a civil matter, with fines, collection notices or suspension of borrowing privileges. This is not grand larceny it is treated like an unpaid bill. By mans law, and more importantly by Gods, it does not belong in the category of theft, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Kentucky law addressing failure to return a library record classifies it as a civil matter. The law deals with civil liability but not any criminal defense, Dorris said. Shelby County Attorney Carrie McIntyre said a state law KRS 172.150 makes failing to return library books a civil matter not a criminal offense. Failing to return books would make the borrower liable for double the cost thereof, McIntyre said in an email Friday morning. The library is in the city of Shelbyville, noted McIntyre. I am unaware whether a report of theft has been filed with the Shelbyville Police Department. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shelbyville Police Chief Bruce Gentry said Friday afternoon that no complaint has been filed with his office. McIntyre said her office is not an investigative body. Among many other roles, we prosecute cases that are investigated by law enforcement agencies in the county. As of yet, this particular issue has not been brought to me by anyone, she said. Concerning the church pastors urging members to remove books, the county attorney said, I assume the church would rely on the First Amendment to defend their actions. Since they arent threatening physical harm or yelling fire in a crowded theater, as the law school examples like to say, Im not sure there is anything illegal about the speech aspect of it. She called the issue interesting both morally and legally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Also, given the number and value of the books at issue, it is no small amount, especially for a small town library. Dorris, who said he has received one death threat and many vitriolic emails and comments for his stance, noted that some of his critics are using the biblical commandment Thou shalt not steal to attack him. Many who cheered riots and looting now clutch the Ten Commandments to condemn us for suggesting vile books be removed from libraries. Their sudden zeal for Thou shalt not steal is not love for Gods law but hatred of it, wielded to defend perversion, he said. When Christians check out such materials and refuse to return them, they are not stealing private possessions but resisting the misuse of common funds for wicked purposes, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The controversy has created a social media frenzy and has garnered national attention from various Christian, atheist and gay organizations and news outlets. This story has been updated with comments from Shelby County Attorney Carrie McIntyre and Shelbyville Police Chief Bruce Gentry. The story also has been updated to correct the Shelby County Democratic Partys web address. It was incorrect in an earlier version. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX This story was originally published on Food Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Food Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: McCormick & Co. is spending $750 million to become the majority owner of a joint venture in Mexico as the spice and condiment giant expands its presence in Latin America. The company acquired an additional 25% stake from Grupo Herdez in McCormick de Mexico, a joint venture formed in 1947. The deal increases McCormick's ownership stake to 75%. The transaction comes as McCormick sees strong demand for its mayonnaise in Mexico. The company is looking to capitalize on new growth opportunities for its condiments business both in the country and in the broader Latin American market. Dive Insight: McCormick sees the transaction as a way to position mayonnaise as a core component of the company's portfolio, CEO Brendan Foley said on a conference call with investors shortly after making the announcement. Though best known for its herbs and spices in the U.S., McCormick is a leading mayonnaise brand in Mexico. The company's mayonesa, which has a hint of lime, is a staple for cultural classics such as elote. Mayonnaise is a $14 billion industry and the world's second-largest condiment category, Foley said. In Mexico, mayo is growing faster than the overall condiment market, opening new opportunities for McCormick to expand. "The power of the brand and the business's remarkable track record and expertise, combined with our global capabilities, creates additional growth opportunities through category expansion," Foley told investors. McCormick's ambitions stretch beyond just Mexico, however. The transaction with Grupo Herdez gives McCormick a platform to expand into other countries throughout Latin America. The spice and flavorings giant has "built a foundation in Central America over the last few years," Foley said, with investments to market new products and extend distribution into new countries, including Guatemala and Costa Rica. McCormick has experienced strong demand for its spices, sauces and condiments as more consumers eat at home. The company reported a 2% increase in sales for the second quarter, driven by higher demand for its consumer products. Recommended Reading MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS: Libyas PM rejected normalization with Israel, but secret talks between the two countries and strategic interests keep the issue alive despite strong public opposition. "There is no effort or desire to normalize relations with the occupying state [Israel], Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibeh told Asharq al-Awsat in response to whether normalization is in the cards for the two countries. This matter is not up for debate among Libyans, for whom the Palestinian cause represents a major part of their conscience, he went on to say. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Libya has had no diplomatic relations with Israel since its independence in 1951, in part because former leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled from 1969 to 2011, was vehemently pro-Palestine and known for his support for Palestinian terrorist groups (such as Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command). While such involvement with terrorism has decreased since Gaddafi was assassinated, Libyas recent years have been marked by political, economic, and ideological instability, including a civil war between 2014 and 2020. Even today, with the international recognition of Dbeibehs Government of National Unity in Tripoli, the country has significant internal unrest. The east of the country is de facto run by Khalifa Haftar, who has governed the region as a military dictatorship since 2017. Talk of Libya-Israel relations is not exactly new, Lior Dabush, a strategic researcher specializing in Middle East affairs at MIND Israel and partner for business development at the Israel-UAE Scaleup Business Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. Even during [the rule of] Gaddafi, there were some relations, even if they were kept quiet. Dabush said that while Israel has had some relations with Dbeibeh, the problem with Israel is that news is always leaking. Lior Dabush is a Strategic Researcher specializing in Middle East affairs at MIND Israel and also serves as Partner for Business Development at the IsraelUAE Scaleup Business Center. (credit: Tom Dor) When you are working with Arab countries, even if they have a desire for relations, it has to be kept secret, Dabush told the Post. You can only announce the results of discussions after its done. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This rule was not followed in the case of a discussion that took place between then foreign minister Eli Cohen and then Libyan foreign minister Najla Mangoush in August 2023. Cohen released a statement saying that the two had met in Rome to discuss the great potential for the two countries and described the meeting as the first diplomatic move between the two countries. Mass protests soon erupted in the streets of Libya. Dbeibeh suspended Mangoush the same day, and put the situation under investigation. Despite her telling Al Jazeeras Atheer podcast that she had the approval and prior consent from Dbeibeh to meet Cohen, it was too late, and she was forced to flee to Turkey. Eli Cohen made a mistake; the reaction of Libya was very bad, said Dabush. There has been very little discussion of relations between the two countries since, especially given that the Israel-Hamas War broke out just three months later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Libya-Israel relations came into the spotlight again last month when Axios reported that Mossad director David Barnea was in talks with Washington about the possibility of encouraging third-party countries to take in displaced Palestinians from Gaza. Libya was cited as an example, as were Indonesia and Ethiopia. An Israeli official then told CNN in August that South Sudan and Somaliland are also on the list. South Sudan and Somaliland have both rejected claims of any such initiative, while Indonesia said last week that it would temporarily take in 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza for treatment. It seemed that Libya would follow in the footsteps of South Sudan and Somaliland. In the same interview with Asharq al-Awsat on Tuesday, Dbeibeh said, claims that we accepted the crime of displacing Palestinians are false and stem from mistaken or fabricated journalistic leaks." What is happening in Gaza, the killing, starving of children, and depriving people of their basic rights, is a major humanitarian tragedy, he added. International powers must address it so that these people can live in peace on their land, not be displaced from it. However, on Thursday, a senior Libyan government official told Middle East Eye that Dbeibehs government has held talks with Israeli officials over the resettlement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue, Libyan, Arab, and European officials reportedly told MEE that National Security Adviser Ibrahim Dbeibah, a relative of the prime minister, was leading the talks. The report added that details were being kept secret because the pro-Palestinian beliefs of Libyans are so unwavering. According to Dabush, who has friends in the country, the people in Libya know there are talks between the two countries. Hope for future normalization The Post asked Dabush whether discussions about resettling Gazans may be part of a wider move toward normalization. The young generation even though there is an opposition because the Palestinian cause is close to their hearts after years of wars, the first thing on their agenda, their first priority, is political stability, unemployment, and economic development, she told the Post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They dont want to see armies from other countries interfere in their situation. Even though they hate Israel due to the war in Gaza, they still have openness to think and examine this idea, if normalization would provide for the needs and interests of their country. From Israel's perspective, while Libya is not one of the main focuses for normalization, as is Saudi Arabia, there are three key reasons that normalization with Libya would be beneficial, Dabush explained. One of these is security, given that Libya has a Mediterranean coast which can be used for smuggling. Iranians are using Libya in order to transfer weapons from Sudan, through Libya into the Mediterranean and then to Hezbollah and Hamas, Dabush told the Post. If Israel had diplomatic relations with Libya, it could convince it to put more effort into securing its borders and ensure no weapons would be smuggled across the border with Sudan. Then there is the economic concern. In 2018, Turkey and the then Libyan Government of National Accord signed a maritime agreement which established an exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean Sea. This enabled them to claim rights to seabed resources, but also, as Dabush explained, put a stop to Israel, Greece, and Cypruss planned gas pipeline (the EastMed pipeline). The pipeline was designed to connect the gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean on a route that would run between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, and on to Europe. Turkey expressed fierce opposition to the plan, and signed the maritime agreement with Libya that effectively bisected the routes planned area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Normalized relations with Libya could help in the process of finding a solution, which Israel has an incentive for, given the economic benefits of the pipeline should it come to fruition. The third reason, Dabush said, is Turkey. Israel sees Turkey as a threat and the next challenge in the region. She explained that at MIND, they see the four main powers in the Middle East to be Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Iran is a known threat to Israel, whereas Saudi Arabia doesnt have any military desires, more economic, said Dabush. Turkey, however, especially under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is hostile to Israel." So if Israel has the opportunity to make Erdogan or Turkey less powerful, then that is of interest to Israel. Nevertheless, the political situation of Dbeibeh is very sensitive, so normalization isnt possible right now, Dabush said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the war with Hamas, if Israel could do with Libya what it did with Sudan in 2021 [the year of the Israel-Sudan normalization agreement], I think they would agree to normalize, she said. If the US and Israel would show Libya that they would help with its economy and security, I think it would say yes. But wouldnt the countrys commitment to the Palestinian cause be too strong for them to normalize with Israel? Dabush thinks not. I dont think its different from any other Muslim country. Libyans care about Palestinians, but the next generation are more pragmatic. Libyans are tired of war. They want one day to promote cooperation. With huge resources (oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world), it could be expected that Libya would be like other oil-rich countries such as Azerbaijan and Brunei, which have flourished. Yet, according to the World Bank in 2025, both the public and private sectors are underdeveloped, and despite increasing oil production, years of conflicts, divisions, and corrupt regimes have resulted in insufficient public investment and infrastructure maintenance. Libya has poor healthcare, disruptions in the provision of safe drinking water, and an unreliable electricity supply, the World Bank added. Some of the country was ravaged by wildfires in July, but had no water to extinguish them, according to Dabush. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Normalization with Libya could also affect Libyan Jews, of which Dabush is one. In the 1940s, about 40,000 Jews lived in Libya. Over 30,000 had left to Israel by the end 1951. There were also two pogroms against Jews in Tripoli, one in 1945 and one in 1967. Following the latter, 6,000 Jews were airlifted to Rome in one month. By the time of Gaddafis rule, only a couple of hundred Jews remained in Libya. Gaddafi arrested all Jewish men, confiscated their property, and declared the Day of Revenge to mark the expulsion of Jews from Libya in 1970. The last Jew left Libya in 2003. Dabush believes that while Libyans care about Palestinians, they dont hate Jewish people. She hopes one day that she, a Jewish Israeli woman, will be able to walk the streets of Tripoli and visit the places where her family once lived. Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins has flown to California to bring back Harjinder Singh, who has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide after a fatal crash on the Florida Turnpike. The crash occurred when Singh attempted an illegal U-turn in a semi-truck, causing a van to collide with the side of the truck, resulting in the deaths of three Floridians. Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins emphasized that Singh is an illegal immigrant who should not have been able to obtain a commercial drivers license in California. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. Marshals in California arrested Harjinder Singh last week, following the incident on the Florida Turnpike. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Things are rough these days, and it's hard not to feel like it won't be getting easier any time soon. The global economy is shifting, tariffs are raising prices everywhere, and most of us are struggling to get by. Bloomberg / Getty Images Social and environmental issues are directly linked to the increased inequality in the world, the monopolization of industries, and the lack of equity the common person shares. Yuliia Kaveshnikova / Getty Images Capitalism, itself, was built to exploit people, where the wealthiest reap the benefits of the labor of others. But the gap between the 1% and the working class has only gotten wider with time. And let's be real: we're all tired. David Espejo / Getty Images I recently asked the BuzzFeed Community what they believe capitalism (and those who hoard the majority of the wealth) have ruined completely. From the environment to healthcare, the state of the military, and much more, here's what people had to say. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Note: responses have been edited and condensed for clarity. 1."Everything: music, food, health, movies, fashion, culture, education, religion, social life, sex, and even our faces (now full of botox and acid)." surprisedtrout753 2."My faith in money." Glowimages / Getty Images "I eat it now, just like all paper (it does not taste good, I eat it to spite)." leagorgonzola 3."Were the lower working classes. It wouldnt matter which '-ism' we lived under, wed still be the ones pushing boulders with the boot on our necks." purpleorc394 4."Government. Bought by billionaires so they can further enrich themselves." The Washington Post / Getty Images homeydaclown Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 5."The oil companies knew they were destroying us in the '70s. They did the climate studies long before anyone else, and knew what rampant oil extraction was going to cause." Bloomberg / Getty Images "They didnt tell anyone because they only cared about profiteering above all else, including human survival. Were heading into a very uncertain future where our own environment is burning, freezing, and flooding us out of existence a little at a time. The problem with capitalism is that money inevitably becomes concentrated in the hands of the few who view profit as the end goal of all human endeavors, and the only thing that matters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They dont care that theyre killing us and themselves with every short-sighted, greedy choice they make. It doesnt have to be this way, but things wont change corporations wont change their unsustainable behaviour for one simple reason; theres no profit in it. What else does capitalism need to have ruined if it has quite possibly ruined the future?" messyalligator341 6."Healthcare in America. Im pretty sure I dont need to explain why on that one." "Also, public utilities. The electric and gas company, which is the only option where I live, is a multimillion-dollar corporation beholden to shareholders, not the communities it serves. The company isnt even based in our state. Its not like having electricity and heat are optional luxuries in this day and age, and yet, they constantly act like the consumer is the one being greedy by turning on the light when its dark or doing something as wild as cooking dinner." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement jbdnco 7."Honestly, medical support, medical studies, and prescription medications. If you're rich enough, you can afford any of these no matter what the federal government does." Sopa Images / Getty Images "Let me put it as simply as possible with an example I have to deal with regularly on the medical support and studies side. There is currently a four-level system of Epilepsy Centers in the United States. Level 1 is the bare minimum required to keep people from having seizures, likely without extra testing to attempt to figure out what's causing the seizures (like an MRI machine and/or EEG tests). Level 4 centers can include experimental studies not covered by medical insurance that may be covered by a legitimate medical-based university study. I go to a Level 3, which has regular testing for issues, as needed. Trump and his crew are likely lessening funding for this despite some of these being in not just regular hospitals, but also children's hospitals. Most epilepsy cases start before age 18.As for prescription drugs, let me point out that Trump threatened to increase the tariffs by 250% as noted on CNBC.com. These may be drugs like my anticonvulsive medications, a person with diabetes's insulin, etc. These are medications that can literally be the difference between life and death for some people. These are also medications that can allow people with chronic conditions to have a decent quality of life rather than a fate worse than death due to organ damage of various kinds. So, the rich people (like Elon Musk and Donald Trump) are actively making these harder to get for a lot of non-rich everyday people." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anonymous, 33, US 8."The ability to see workers as people instead of a means of production. It's the mindset of almost everyone. I hate the 'bootstraps' bullshit. Just because some people can do it doesnt mean those who arent successful arent 'working hard enough.' Empathy. Healthcare (oh my gosh, healthcare should not be a for-profit system). The quality of products." Anonymous 9."It seems that community has been replaced by consumerism. A person is defined by what they buy. This is from an American POV and about American culture." banana_bebop 10."Life. Liberty. And the pursuit of happiness." Ziggymaj / Getty Images "Oh, and any thoughts of having a dream, being a dream, living in a dream that was full of the arts, hobbies, or creativity. Who has time for that when we are spending all our time working to survive?" Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anonymous, 40, Colorado 11."That we NEED debt and the idea that debt helps us achieve our goals." Anonymous, 40, Las Vegas 12."Tipping culture." Margjohnsonva / Getty Images "We used to tip when we received great service, and servers were thankful. It has gotten so out of control the CEOs of businesses can get away with paying low wages so they can pocket as much profit as possible, simultaneously convincing the public that its OUR responsibility to subsidize employees' low wages. The owners and CEOs and their fat pockets of cash are laughing at us." Anonymous, 22, Canada 13."Everything involving housing. I personally rent my childhood home from my mom, who inherited it." Oscar Wong / Getty Images "I rent for $500 per month. In my area, a lot of rent starts at $1,500. Basically, if you work for minimum wage and rent, you need a second job just to eat if you rent from anyone that isn't a family member. That's not considering buying a home, either." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anonymous, 33, US 14."My government and country." Anonymous 15."I actually believe in capitalism. However, not like it is today. It's untenable. Its not just that wealth is in the hands of too few individuals; its in the hands of massive funds. And its killing society. While I believe individuals and companies should be rewarded, there needs to be some sort of balance to pure greed." Athima Tongloom / Getty Images Anonymous, US 16."The military. Ive grown up in a military family, and the odd thing is, you NEVER see rich people in the military. Why? Because joining the military is seen as something poor kids, Latine kids, Black kids, and rural white kids do, but NEVER something you see rich kids or urban white kids do. Its seen as wasting potential and insensitive." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I hate war and see it as a poor choice of problem-solving, but I have great respect for my dad and most of the people who work alongside him. And no matter how far left I get, I will never stop empathizing with the 18-21-year-old kids I see living out of the barracks and being treated like dogshit." Anonymous, 16, NC 17."Life. They've ruined life." kzich84 Can you think of anything else capitalism has ruined for us/brainwashed us into thinking? Share your thoughts in the comments. COTTONWOOD, Ala (WDHN) The Cottonwood Police Department has a new drug detection device that could save lives, and they plan to share it around the Wiregrass. A $24,000 federal grant went into this drug identification device, which will allow officers to scan suspected illegal drugs from a distance. We requested that ADECA fund a laser instrument in which we can stand off if necessary, or, as you saw earlier, actually have contact with the sample we want to look at, explained Colonel Jim Smith. This allows us on scene with one hundred percent accuracy to identify any substance. That includes organic materials, chemicals that can be used in labs, and explosives. Controlled substances like fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Col. Smith and the police chief, Tony Money, experienced the impacts of dangerous airborne drugs first-hand and were hospitalized after being exposed to fentanyl. This happened during a drug raid in September. While on the scene, Chief Money suddenly passed out, and Colonel Jim Smith became unresponsive. The police chief, one of our officers, and I have had multiple health effects, and the lab has not been able to identify some of the substances in that particular sample, said Col.Smith. The Drug Enforcement Administration has agreed to assist in the case to identify substances the officers were exposed to and send them to the national lab. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The department plans to provide training and share it with other agencies. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Europe may be weighing spending billions on U.S. arms purchases to ensure America offers security guarantees to Ukraine, yet it has little choice but to pay up, even as it tries to invest in its own defense industries, analysts have told Defense News. This week, government and military officials on both sides of the Atlantic have discussed how western powers can guarantee Kyivs safety from future Russian aggression after a peace deal is reached to end hostilities in Ukraine. As President Donald Trump talked of the possibility of the U.S. coordinating the effort an essential element of any guarantee Ukraines President Zelenskyy suggested Ukraine would offer to buy $90 billion in U.S. weaponry to keep the U.S. at the table. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement By Wednesday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance was claiming that Europe would be picking up most of the bill for defending Ukraine. No matter what form this takes, the Europeans are going to have to take the lions share of the burden, Vance told Fox News. Its their continent, its their security and the president has been very clear they are going to have to step up here. The bottom line could therefore involve Europe paying up to $90 billion to ensure U.S. assistance to avoid another Russian invasion of Ukraine a true reflection of Trumps concept of transactional diplomacy. Still, none of this may happen. Since talks in Alaska between President Trump and Vladmir Putin on Aug. 15, Russia has opposed the idea of western troops in Ukraine and said it would need to be part of a security guarantee an obvious non-starter for Kyiv. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But one European leader reacted strongly to the possibility of Europe paying to keep the U.S. on board. Even in the worst nightmare, I cannot imagine Slovakia buying some weapons in the United States and then sending them for free to the front in Ukraine, said Slovakias Prime Minister Robert Fico. One challenge for EU officials is that the U.S. arms purchase could weaken attempts by the bloc to spend more money on its own domestic defense industries, to build up a homegrown military capability and to wean itself off dependence on U.S. weaponry. The EUs new SAFE program, which provides 150 billion in loans for member states to spend on defense, prioritizes investments in European products. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A European Commission spokeswoman sidestepped the issue this week when asked about the EU buying U.S. weapons, stating the matter had not come up when European leaders met Trump in Washington on August 18. I would not have a specific comment on it, she said. In general you know the effort we are bringing forward to maintain support for Ukraine, also military support, and also our SAFE program and how we are trying to integrate our industries and advance defense spending and innovation together with Ukraine. Yohann Michel, an analyst with the French IESD think tank, said Europe had no choice but to pay the U.S. in the short term. Most of the weaponry needed comes from the U.S., like Patriot. If we dont produce it, we need to pay, he said. We need Ukraine to resist. If it falls, European security is threatened. If the way to avoid that is to pay the U.S., it has to be done in the short term. After all, it is what Europe has been doing for 80 years. Ninety percent of countries buying the F-35 will admit they are buying U.S. security. Now it becomes a more open transaction with Trump. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Christian Molling, senior advisor at the European Policy Center, said Europe was avoiding discussion about the billions that could be paid to the U.S. My impression is that people are avoiding this debate until we know if the security guarantees are actually put into place, he said. Molling added that Europe would have little choice but to pay. There is no alternative to Patriot batteries, he said. I dont think wewould see Brussels handing over a $90 billion check to the U.S., but a number of smaller payments would be made. DES MOINES, Iowa Des Moines Public Schools and Lincoln High School staff, students and families gathered at Lincoln Highs new $4.5 million track and field for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Praveen Bannikatti, Lincoln High School Principal, said that the new stadium is the perfect way to kick off the school year. Part of our motto this year, our purpose is to imagine all possibilities to transform our community and the lives of it. And so this is our first sort of step into that and finally have some high-class facilities to make that happen for our kids, Bannikatti said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Des Moines schools and libraries partner to expand student access The track and field cost $4.5 million to build. Similar construction projects are taking place at North and Hoover High Schools, which are expected to be finished in October. The project at North High School cost $3.9 million, and the project at Hoover cost $4.25 million. Prairie Meadows donated $900,000 to DMPS to be split between the projects. Bannikatti said that he is thankful for the communitys support of the track and field. Its wonderful to see how people rallied behind Lincoln High School and put their heads together to be creative with their wallets together, to be creative and produce this wonderful facility for our families and our kids, Bannikatti said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The track still needs bleachers, but will use temporary ones till permanent ones are procured. The new track and field will be put to the test when the DMPS 2025-26 school year begins on Monday, August 25th. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com. A new deposit scheme for plastic and glass bottles will make a huge difference to litter levels on Wales' highest mountain, according to campaigners. Volunteers currently remove more than 1,500kg of rubbish a year from Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, and have compared it to bailing water from a "sinking ship". But they say Welsh government plans for people to get money or vouchers when they return bottles and cans could reduce the amount of single-use pollution on the mountain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement National park officials say rubbish levels on Yr Wyddfa seem to have stabilised, even though increasing numbers of people are climbing to the summit. Partners including the national park, the National Trust, Cymdeithas Eryri and the group Trash Free Trails currently organise more than 100 litter picks a year. Volunteers say almost all of the litter is found on Yr Wyddfa itself. In a two-hour session on the Llanberis Path last week, 277 items of single-use pollution were picked up from a 1.8 mile (3km) section of path. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Owain Thomas, who volunteers regularly at clean up events, said: "It's a very rewarding thing to do with my free time, but it's endless - you clean up rubbish on a Saturday and it's back there on Wednesday. "It can feel like it's a sinking ship - you're constantly bailing out the water and it just keeps coming back." Heather Friendship-Kay (left) and Owain Thomas check the records of another August clean-up session recording the types of litter they pick up [BBC] The national park aims to reduce the amount of litter that gets dropped over the next few years. Campaign groups prefer to call it "single-use pollution", and say the new initiative from the Welsh government will make a huge difference. The deposit return scheme, which is due to start in October 2027, means people will receive money or vouchers if they bring empty bottles and cans back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Similar schemes will also start in other parts of the UK at the same time. Heather Friendship-Kay from Trash Free Trails said: "In Wales, 28% of all the single-use pollution we find is things that would be part of the deposit return scheme. "So, overnight, we could remove almost a third of the items that are out on these trails." This plastic bottle found recently has been nibbled by a small animal, showing the danger that litter can pose to wildlife on Yr Wyddfa [BBC] Rory Francis, director of Cymdeithas Eryri added: "People keep telling us we shouldn't have to spend so much time clearing up the mountain. "A deposit return scheme would change the way we think about single-use items. "At the moment, drinks companies are expecting people like us to subsidise them by picking up their litter, and the scheme will help change that." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But campaigners admit that litter on Yr Wyddfa is a complicated problem, and cannot be solved by governments or drinks companies alone. Litter picking sessions around Yr Wyddfa collect more than 1,500kg of single-use pollution a year [BBC] During the litter pick that BBC Wales attended: 277 items were removed over 1.8 miles (3km) The most common material found was plastic, while the most common category was snacks 15% of items would be eligible on the deposit return scheme - lower than average Almost 5% of items were dog poo bags, 8% were tissue or wet wipes, 10% were related to smoking, and 6% was fruit peel Etta Morgan from Eryri National Park Authority said: "Lasting change relies on the actions of every individual who visits. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We urge all visitors to adopt a leave no trace approach, taking personal responsibility for their impact by taking litter home, respecting local communities, and helping to ensure that Yr Wyddfa remains a protected and sustainable environment." Robbie Blackhall-Miles, from the charity Plantlife, said: "At the summit, up to 5% of the soil is made of plastic - it is shed from people's clothing, but also comes from plastic waste which is dropped on the mountain, breaking down in the sunlight and finding its way into the environment. "The removal of any waste from the mountain is going to reduce the impacts of all of that." PUEBLO, Colo. (KREX) The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is holding a press conference at 1 p.m., Friday about the criminal investigation into Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter and Davis Mortuary. After investigators reportedly found various decaying bodies at Davis Mortuary, the funeral home was issued a summary suspension while all of its operations have ceased. Check out the press conference down below. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. The state last week temporarily shut 12 South Florida restaurants, with violations ranging from scores of rodent droppings to a cigarette butt and ashes on a cook-line hood to a live rodent stuck to a glue trap in a kitchen. The Sun Sentinel typically highlights restaurant inspections conducted by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation in Broward and Palm Beach counties. We cull through inspections that happen weekly and spotlight places ordered shut for high-priority violations, such as improper food temperatures or dead cockroaches. Related Articles Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Any restaurant that fails a state inspection must stay closed until it passes a follow-up. If you spot a possible violation and wish to file a complaint, contact Florida DBPR. (But please dont contact us: The Sun Sentinel doesnt inspect restaurants.) BROWARD COUNTY Kings Super Buffet 7101 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Lauderhill Ordered shut: Aug. 15 Why: 15 violations (seven high-priority), including: About 40 rodent droppings in kitchen on food cans stored on can rack and can rack shelves and on window ledge of kitchen office in back area. One live roach on wall above two-compartment prep sink in kitchen. Stop sale ordered for dented can of cheddar cheese on can storage rack in kitchen. Raw chicken stored on shelf above soy sauce inside walk-in cooler. Time/temperature issues involved bean sprouts, raw shrimp and raw mussels. No time marking on sushi bar. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: Reopened Aug. 16 after a follow-up inspection found no violations. Checkers 400 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale Ordered shut: Aug. 13 Why: Six violations (two high-priority), including: Five live flies on high shelving units over hand washing sink area and dry storage shelves with individual ready-to-eat sauces. About 80 rodent droppings on high shelving units over hand washing sink area and dry storage shelves with individual ready-to-eat sauces, on high shelving units with packages of single-service straws above the customer order window and on top of french fry-dispensing machine by drive-thru window. About three dead roaches on high shelving units under packages of single-service straws above the customer order window. Observed on cook line hood a half-used cigarette butt and ashes/debris. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: Closed Aug. 14 after a second visit found one basic violation. Reopened later that day after a third inspection found no violations. Christine Lees 801 Silks Run, Unit 1580, Hallandale Beach Ordered shut: Aug. 11 Why: 10 violations (six high-priority), including: 20 live roaches on unused flat top in secondary kitchen, under and behind fish tank in kitchen, under glass rack in kitchen, under glass rack in dishwashing machine area, under reach-in cooler in kitchen and on floor between mop sink and water heater away from kitchen. Eight dead roaches under rack in secondary kitchen and on floor next to water heater. Six live flies on wall in dry storage area. Employee after wiping face proceeded to wash hands without applying soap. Container of raw beef stored above container of mixed greens in Beverage-Air reach-in cooler. Time/temperature issues involved cooked pasta and chicken. Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: Reopened Aug. 13 after a second inspection found two basic violations. Banchero 2500 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., Hallandale Beach Ordered shut: Aug. 13 Why: Eight violations (three high-priority), including: 12 rodent droppings on floor by water heater in kitchen area. One live roach on wall next to water heater in kitchen area. Six live flies in garbage can next to dishwashing machine in kitchen. Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine. Wall above pizza station in kitchen soiled. Status: Reopened later that day after a reinspection found one basic violation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Joys Roti Delight (Lauderhill Mall) 1205 NW 40th Ave., Lauderhill Ordered shut: Aug. 12 Why: 13 violations (four high-priority), including: Four live roaches crawling inside of four-drawer cooler and by bathroom doors. Three dead roaches in kitchen under prep table, on floor by storage shelves and by water heater. Stop sale ordered for chicken, cooked oxtail, cooked beef and cooked goat due to temperature abuse. Raw beef thawing in sink without running water. Floor soiled with grease. Wall soiled with food debris. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: Reopened later that day after a second visit found one basic violation, PALM BEACH COUNTY Saigon Tokyo 2902 Jog Road, Greenacres Ordered shut: Aug. 14 Why: 15 violations (seven high-priority), including: About four rodent droppings on the floor in the back hallway near the dry storage area in the kitchen. About 22 dead roaches in trap on the floor behind reach-in freezer at the cook line area, in trap on the floor under the storage shelves by the dry storage area in kitchen and in hallway on the floor near dry storage area behind walk-in cooler. Container of medicine and vapor rub stored above prep counter at cook line. Employee handled raw beef with gloves on and then plated food for order without changing their gloves and washing their hands. Time/temperature issue involved raw bean sprouts. Employee [seen] preparing sushi with no hair restraint. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: Reopened Aug. 15 after a second visit found no violations. Chow Thai Cuisine 23034 Sandalfoot Plaza Drive, Boca Raton Ordered shut: Aug. 14 Why: Nine violations (four high-priority), including: About 30 rodent droppings in kitchen on top of dishwasher and on storage shelf above dishwashing area. One live roach on kitchen prep area floor. Two dead roaches underneath kitchen cook line. Cooked chicken prepared onsite and held more than 24 hours not properly date marked in prep area reach-in cooler. Raw whole shell eggs and raw chicken stored above container of ready-to-eat curry in cook line reach-in cooler. Accumulation of lime scale on the inside of the dishmachine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: Reopened Aug. 15 after a follow-up visit found no violations. Flavor Of India 1516 N. Dixie Highway, Lake Worth Beach Ordered shut: Aug. 13 Why: Five violations (two high-priority), including: About eight live roaches crawling on shelf with clean pots in dish area, on shelf in dry storage in rear of kitchen and on storage rack in kitchen on cook line. Time/temperature issues involved cooked breaded chicken and cheese. Status: Reopened Aug. 14 after a follow-up inspection found no violations. Another Broken Egg Cafe 508 Via De Palmas, Suite 76, Boca Raton Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ordered shut: Aug. 11 Why: 11 violations (four high-priority), including: One live roach on wall above two-bay sink at end of cook line. Seven dead roaches in cook-line areas such as in reach-in drawer with shell eggs, on floor in front of reach-in drawers, in reach-in cooler drawer with cinnamon rolls and behind waffle machine table, as well as on floor with sanitizer buckets at triple sink in ware-wash area and on floor in front of expo cooler in kitchen. Chef handled raw sausage with gloves, then removed them to handle cooking equipment and food on cook line without washing hands in between changing gloves. Time/temperature issues involved diced tomatoes, ham, sausage and whipped butter bucket. Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine/bin. Unclean standing water in cracked floor tiles at dish machine area. Status: Closed on Aug. 12 after a follow-up inspection found four violations (one high-priority. Reopened Aug. 13 after a third visit found no violations. Mikes Wings & Seafood 2968 S. Jog Road, Greenacres Ordered shut: Aug. 11 Why: Seven violations (three high-priority), including: One live rodent on glue trap under shelf in kitchen used for single-service, to-go containers. About 41 rodent droppings in kitchen on chair and under front counter and under table used to store single-service items and soda in customer lobby. One dead roach behind reach-in freezer on floor in kitchen. Rodent bait not contained in a covered, tamper-resistant bait station, with green rodent bait balls on floor under shelves, tables and countertops throughout restaurant. In kitchen, food preparation table next to deep dryer heavily soiled with grease buildup and food debris. Status: Closed after a reinspection later that day found three violations (two high-priority). An Aug. 12 follow-up visit again found three violations (two high-priority). An Aug. 13 inspection found two high-priority violations. Reopened later that day after a fifth visit found no violations. Bonefish Grill 1880 N. Congress Ave., Boynton Beach Ordered shut: Aug. 12 Why: Six violations (four high-priority), including: Three roaches seen crawling on the top rim of steak drawer, disappearing inside the drawer door of cooler on cook line and on the floor under steam table at cook line next to steak drawer. Stop sale ordered for macaroni-and-cheese sauce, tomato cream sauce, diablo cream sauce and seafood stuffing due to temperature abuse. Cook began working with food, handling clean pans and utensils after entering the kitchen, having breakfast in the dining room, without first washing hands. Status: Reopened Aug. 13 after a follow-up inspection found no violations. Save By Grace Caribbean Restaurant 2441 10th Ave. N., Lake Worth Ordered shut: Aug. 11 Why: Seven violations (four high-priority), including: Three roaches seen crawling underneath three-compartment sink in kitchen. At kitchen, employee washing dishes without properly sanitizing dishes. Microwave soiled with food debris. Time/temperature issue involved cooked plantains. Status: Reopened Aug. 12 after a follow-up visit found no violations. Editors note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service, under the headline He lived three doors down in the Alaskan Army barracks. Now, I carry his ghost in my pocket. Subscribe to their newsletter. Active-duty service members and veterans thinking of harming themselves can get free crisis care. Contact the Military Crisis Line at 988, then press 1, or access online chat by texting 838255. October 19, 2019 A bus ride outside Atlanta international airport. A sea of confused, perspiring faces. We were on our way to training, uncertain of what lay ahead, each of us questioning whether we had made the right decision. We arrived at the 30th Adjutant General Battalion (30th AG), a building with all the charm of a DMV and none of the patience. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The drill sergeant stepped onto the bus and barked, All belongings stowed away! You will speak only when spoken to! Move when we tell you to! Eat when we say so! It was real now. The tension in the air was thick. That first night, lying on my stiff barracks mattress, I heard muffled sobs in the darkness. We had lost our autonomy, our sense of self. And it was just the beginning. During those sleepless nights, stories passed among us like currency exchanging hands. Some were ridiculous, meant to distract us. Other stories lingered in the air long after they were told. There was a kid last cycle, my friend Hansen whispered. He couldnt take it anymore. Climbed to the top of the company building and jumped. I wanted to dismiss it as lore. The 30th AG is a processing unit where we got haircuts, uniforms, and learned that we dont own ourselves anymore. I heard they wouldnt let that soldier leave or quit, so he took the only way out he saw fit. I didnt know then how much that story would echo in my own experiences. The author, center, after completing a team training exercise in 2020. (Photo courtesy of Jake Johnson) By July 2020, I had completed basic training and arrived at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. I was fit, eager, and overconfident. I thought I knew everything. I was assigned to Bravo Company alongside two others, Pflaum and Johnston. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We integrated well, pushing ourselves in training. I pursued every opportunity to prove myself, becoming increasingly desensitized to hardship. I saw people slacking and resented them for it. If this were life or death, Id say, I hope I never have to rely on someone like you. I never stopped to consider that maybe they were giving all they had. Maybe their battles were just different from mine. October 2022 A brutal training mission in the Alaskan mountains. Twelve miles of unforgiving terrain with 80 pounds of equipment strapped to us. The snow was breathtaking, tiny prisms catching the light, the only beauty in a world of exhaustion. I kept morale up by shouting, I hope theres another hill! My platoon grumbled but laughed, and that was the point. You smile in hard times, and people mirror it. One evening, as the bitter wind howled through the mountains, a few of us huddled around a fire, stealing a rare moment of warmth. My buddy Johnston was there, the guy who had come to the unit with me. In the flickering glow, we talked about the things soldiers always do when the days are long and the training sucks: food, home, and the Army. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Johnston spoke about his fiancee, and for a little while, the weight of the mission melted away. We laughed, swapped stories, and joked about the future, as if the fire between us could shield us from the cold reality of the mountains. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the training event ended. Nick Johnston (Photo courtesy of the Johnston family) The long walk back felt even more grueling than the entire training mission itself, our bodies battered, our energy drained, and every step weighed down by exhaustion from the relentless days before. I saw Johnston at the back, struggling for breath but refusing to quit. I rushed to help, only to be ordered back in line. You will not assist him! The voice cracked at me like a whip from the 3rd platoons sergeant. I obeyed because the alternative was worse. And I watched. Johnston didnt fall. The strain of the weight made his neck veins pop, and his face turned red. He was gasping for air, and all we could do was encourage him. He was suffering. We trekked on. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since I was the leading man for my platoon, I had a front row seat to his discomfort and would often remind him to take it slow and that no one was judging him. After six long miles, he made it. But something about him was different. Halloween weekend We were celebrating surviving the newest training operation, indulging in the simple joy of comfort, booze, and warmth. Life couldnt be any better. Then my phone rang. Are you OK? my squad leader asked. Yes, everything is fine. Whats up? I said. Oh, nothing, never mind, said my squad leader. Apparently, a Johnson had died by suicide on base, and they were checking to see if it was me. I thought nothing of the situation because it was so common at Fort Wainwright, among the highest suicide-rated Army bases at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I went back to the party like nothing had happened. A few moments later, I get a call back from my squad leader. It turns out it wasnt a Johnson. It was Johnston. Three doors down from my barracks room, he had taken his own life. I rushed from my party, speeding as fast as I could in disbelief. I finally got to the barracks, and when I got to the second floor where we lived, I collapsed, sobbing in a way I hadnt in years. Memories flooded back of our conversations, his laughter around the fire the night before. The memories of the training mission, the last time I saw him, struggling but pushing forward. I thought, If only I were there, I could have saved him. Thats the thing about suicide; you never fully see someones pain until its too late. Yet, I did. The next day, we gathered in the company room. Our commander delivered the same cold, rehearsed speech: Johnston is dead. If you need help, we have resources. That was it. This speech had been given too many times before. Death was just another statistic, another room cleaned with bleach, and another new soldier moved in unknowingly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The cycle repeats. For weeks, the scent of bleach clung to the hallways, a quiet, ghostly reminder. I was furious. Not just at the system, but also at myself. Because deep down, I understood him. I could picture myself in his shoes. I could hear the metallic click of the safety switching from safe to fire. The weight of the barrel against my head. The final squeeze of the trigger. Was there anything after? Johnston had a fiancee, was only 23 years old, and, in all aspects, had a life worth living. Now, unfortunately, his name will be synonymous with a statistic. Another dead at Fort Wainwright. Some nights, I found myself walking the halls, stopping outside his old room, half-expecting him to open the door and tell me this was some elaborate, messed-up training exercise. But the door stayed closed. The memories stayed in my head. And the questions remained unanswered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I had spent my whole life idolizing soldiers, heroes from documentaries, men who fought for something bigger than themselves. Do you know what no one tells you about the ones who dont make it? No one tells you that even the strongest among them sometimes feel like they have nothing left. I didnt want to be another number, another statistic in the Army Times. I wanted to live. I wanted to help others live. I was tired of all this death. A year after Johnstons death, sitting in a foxhole with my buddy Gregg, I admitted something I had been too afraid to say: I was depressed and tired. I was over my childhood dream of being a super soldier. I wanted to travel the world, experience life, and go to college. The fear of dying before truly experiencing life had caught up to me. Gregg, always the pragmatic one, nodded. Then do it. So, I did. When I finally got out, I carried that weight with me. Civilians dont understand, not really. They offer condolences, sometimes curiosity, but they cant grasp the full weight of it. Its something uncommon that was made common for us. I used to envy them for that. I resented their comfort, because mine had been stripped away. Now, I appreciate it. Their freedom from the weight tells me our sacrifice wasnt in vain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They dont wake up sweating from dreams of barracks hallways and dead friends. Most dont know what it feels like to carry ghosts in their pockets. At first, being a civilian again felt alien. The world seemed softer, quieter, almost too easy. No one was screaming at me to move faster. No one was tracking my every decision. For the first time in years, my autonomy was my own. But my mind was another story. Some days, the weight of it all settled on my chest like the rucksack I used to carry. An unseen but undeniable burden. It wasnt just Johnston. It was all of them. The ones who didnt make it. The ones who did but left pieces of themselves behind. I thought about them in the quiet moments, as the wind cut through the trees on cold mornings, reminding me of those Alaskan mountains. January 21, 2025 Its a Tuesday, and Im sitting outside Norlin Library at the University of Colorado Boulder. The winter sun is unusually warm. Students are laughing, and kids are playing hacky sack. Couples hold hands. Friends admire each others work. This is normal. And it feels good to be normal. Jake Johnson, now a college student, and his grandfather at a family celebration. I wish Johnston had made it to this moment. I wish the 30 soldiers who died in Alaska during my time at Wainwright had gotten to see this moment. I wish they had seen that life outside the military could be bright and full of possibilities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My depression has lifted. I still wake up crying sometimes, speaking to ghosts, but the tears are no longer born of sorrow; theyre rooted in gratitude. I get to keep going. I get to grow older. And that, in itself, is a gift. Life is beautiful, not because its easy or fair, but because it continues. This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines. Jake Johnson is a writer and military veteran drawn to questions about meaning, belonging, and the unseen forces that shape human experience. After four years in the Army, he is studying English at the University of Colorado Boulder, searching for a language precise enough to capture the tension between personal conviction and everyday realities. He is committed to understanding himself and the world, driven by equal parts curiosity, discipline, and a sense of wonder. Meghan Spuler steps down as Red Robin chief people officer. Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Inc. You can find original article here Nrn. Subscribe to our free daily Nrn newsletter. Meghan Spuler has left Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Inc. as chief people officer, the company said in federal filings Wednesday. The Greenwood Village, Colo.-based casual-dining brand said Spulers exit was effective Aug. 20. Spuler was named Red Robin CPO in December 2023. The company expects to enter into a severance agreement with Ms. Spuler, the company said, and it said those details will be released later. Before joining Red Robin, Spuler served as chief people officer of Eckerd Connects, a national nonprofit organization. Previously, she spent five years with Tampa, Fla.-based Bloomin Brands Inc., parent to the Outback Steakhouse concept. Red Robin, founded in 1969, has nearly 500 locations in the United States and Canada. Contact Ron Ruggless at Ronald.Ruggless@Informa.com Follow him on X/Twitter: @RonRuggless BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) A man was arrested after a teen boy died from his crash injuries in Livingston Parish. Deputies responded to a crash at Magnolia Boulevard near Whiteleaf Street involving a car and a teen on a bicycle after 7 p.m. Thursday. The 15-year-old was airlifted to a hospital where he later died from his injuries. Investigators determined that the driver, Juan Alfredo Chavarria Lezama, 31, was over two times the legal blood alcohol limit. He was booked into jail on charges of vehicular homicide, DWI 1st, reckless operation of motor vehicle, possession of alcohol in motor vehicle, no drivers license, and ICE detainer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriffs office said an investigation is ongoing. Latest News Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. State-funded services are feeling the strain as Pennsylvanias budget is more than seven weeks late. The budget impasse is causing those groups to face difficult financial decisions. Erie City Council unanimously moves home rule charter vote to spring Greg Hall, CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank, said many of their programs are funded through the state and state budget. Some of their programs are currently being fronted by the food bank, which includes the State Food Purchase Program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fairview Twp. family requests farmland zoning change to add solar panels We actually anticipated talking to some of our legislators early on that there would be budget challenges, so we built into our budget that we would be able to front some of the money for these programs. So currently, the State Food Purchase Program we have fronted close to $165,000 this quarter, said Hall. Hall said if the impasse continues into the next quarter, they might be forced to front close to $300,000 to $500,000. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) Even though hes running as a Republican in the 2026 race for governor, a local candidate said he wants to provide a middle ground in a political landscape full of extremism. Im giving them an American to vote for, not a Republican to vote for, Ken Yasger told WSAV Tuesday. Yasger, a former Army Ranger and active-duty member of the Georgia National Guard, is a Tybee Island resident. His focus in the gubernatorial race, southeast Georgia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead of all these Atlanta politicians focusing on Atlanta or folks who are from this area that want to run for statewide office and the first thing they do it go up to Atlanta, were forgotten down here, Yasger said. Especially further southeast Georgia, so what I decided was that Im going to form a coalition in the southeast area and then were going to bring it up to Atlanta. Yasger describes himself as a constitutional Republican and said he believes voters need middle of the road options to vote for instead of far left or right candidates. We demonize the other side, both Republican and Democrats do it, Yasger told WSAV. Not the people, but the politicians. The politicians job is to divide and conquer and yes, Im talking about the people running for governor right now. Because all I hear when I hear the Republicans, the other Republicans and then I hear the Democrats candidates talk, who can be more pro-Trump and who can be more anti-Trump. How about we focus on being pro-Georgia and pro-America. Yasger has run for public office twice prior to throwing his hat into the ring for governor. He ran in 2020 for the 1st Congressional District and again in 2022 for State Senate in the 2nd District. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said hes been actively interested in politics since he was a teenager, volunteering and interning on both John McCain and President Donald Trumps campaigns, Yasger told WSAV. I still remember, I interned for [McCains] campaign in St. Louis, Missouri when I was 18 years old, that was the first campaign I worked on, Yasger said. I remember in a town hall debate a woman getting up and saying Obamas an Arab and she started bad mouthing him and he took the microphone away from her in that town hall and he said no hes a good man and hes good American, we just have differing opinion. Thats what we need to get back to. During his sit-down with WSAV, Yasger described himself as annoyingly patriotic. He served in the U.S. Army for four years as an Army Ranger before joining the Georgia National Guard, which hes served in for 10 years. Military service is what brought him to the Savannah area. Since enlisting, Yasgers been deployed to the Middle East four times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Your Local Election HQ He said he knows what Georgians face every day because hes interacting with people every day through his job as a bartender on Tybee Island at Huc-A-Poos and in day-to-day life, something he said that high-profile candidates arent doing. With all due respect to Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, I get it, money wins elections, but the week that he announced, he loaned himself $10 million. Three days after he announced, I was at Kroger in Savannah, downtown Savannah, and I was behind a gentleman trying to buy a six pack of eggs and his card declined. With all due respect to Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, Governor Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr, they dont see him. I see him. Yasger will face off against heavy-hitting Republican candidates in the primary on May 19, but he said his focus is on the voting population that isnt engaging with the primary. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The majority of us think the way I do, just not all of us vote and Im trying to give people a reason to want to vote, he said. We had a pretty high turnout in the 2024 election, but we still have 30, 40% of people who did not vote. Thats my target. Im not trying to get people that voted for Trump against Harris or for Harris against Trump. Im trying to give people something to vote for, not something against. The former Ranger also has some policy ideas that some of the Republican party has moved away from, but Yasger said hes trying to save the party. And the Republican party, in my opinion, has gone away from being constitutional and physically conservative and now that we have the White House, were just big government again, he said. I dont care whos in the White House, Republican or Democrat, my job as governor of Georgia is to keep the federal government the heck out of our state. The Tybee local told WSAV that he is tired of Americans identifying each other by who they voted for in the last election. He said that even though hes voted for Trump three times, he said he would not vote for him again due to him going back on his promises, like releasing the Epstein files. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yasger has a long road ahead of the primary, including a tour of the state that he will walk, starting on Tybee Island. Other candidates like Jones and Carr might have more access to campaign funds, while Yasger is running a grassroots campaign, but he also has faced issues with getting his message to the public. One local media outlet reportedly told Yasger to call them when he raises $100,000. Even though it may be an uphill battle, Yasger said it is worth it to fight for Georgians. I know that this is a long-shot bid for governor, but if I have the opportunity and the pleasure to become the next governor of Georgia, I would bring actual issues that real people have to the Governors mansion, which hasnt happened in a very long time. Watch the full interview here: Andrew Davis contributed to the reporting in this article. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A local fence company is filing for bankruptcy after several complaints from customers. Action News Jax first reported last week that Patio Solutions LLC is being investigated by the St. Johns County Sheriffs Office. Customers said the company took their money and never did the work. Action News Jax learned this company owes at least a dozen local people money. Chandler Williams is one of those people. She said she paid the company a $2,000 deposit to have a fence installed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im annoyed, said Williams. Im upset. Customers said they want their money back. I am a disabled veteran and a single parent, said Heather Sensiba. Money doesnt grow on trees. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] But John Breyault with the National Consumers League said consumers should not count on getting their money back anytime soon. Even if you do file those complaints, you know sometimes these take a long time to get processed, said Breyault. Especially given the company filed for bankruptcy. I can imagine it will be difficult for the consumers to be paid damages if the contractor, in this case the patio company, doesnt have any assets, said Breyault. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The federal court documents show all the people who are potentially impacted, including local customers who allegedly did not get their fences installed and paid money. The bankruptcy filing notes the total liabilities of $624,440.41. As several customers are still left waiting for answers, Breyault said this is what you should do before choosing a contractor. Make sure and get three written and itemized estimates, said Breyault. Any remodel and repair, including having a fence get in, that way you can evaluate one company versus another. You can also file a complaint with the Florida Attorney Generals Office and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Waco, TX (FOX 44) Local anti-human trafficking group Unbound Now is speaking out in support of new Texas laws targeting traffickers. Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 2306 and Senate Bill 1212, which toughened penalties by eliminating parole for traffickers of children or disabled individuals and making all trafficking offenses first-degree felonies. The goal is to ensure the most dangerous offenders serve full sentences and are kept off the streets. The Central Texas regional director of Unbound Now says that working with survivors every single day, a bill like this matters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We really feel like these bills are about justice, freedom, and really just healing for the victim, regional director Kristi Hayes expressed. We work with them. We see this long journey of healing, and the justice part really plays a critical role in that healing journey for sure. House Bill 2306 and Senate Bill 1212 differ from previous anti-trafficking laws in Texas. Prosecutors have the tools, and law enforcement have the tools to be able to prosecute to the highest degree, Hayes stated. So when you have people who are exploiting the vulnerable, this tells them that they will be prosecuted to the highest degree and they cant get away with it. Hayes said that because a survivors healing journey is so long, achieving justice plays a crucial role in the overall process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think this is something, again, that says to them, You matter. Were going to protect you. And were going to put those away for a very long time, Hayes said. Were going to prosecute to a full degree. And it just lets them know, like, we are fighting for you. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. A district government in the city of Berlin plans to defy a court order and rename a street there after years of protests over the original name due to its discriminatory and racist overtones. Activists have long sought to rename Mohrenstrasse in Berlin's Mitte district, as the term "Mohr" was historically used to describe people of African descent, often in a derogatory manner. The word, which stems from the Latin "Maurus" (Moor), became associated with colonialism, slavery and racist caricatures. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Berlin court temporarily blocked the planned renaming of the street at the last minute, halting the change even after new signs had already been installed, with a renaming planned for Saturday. On Thursday evening, the Berlin Administrative Court upheld an urgent appeal by a resident against the renaming, a spokesman said on Friday. The street cannot be renamed until the lawsuit has been settled, he said. But the Mitte district government in central Berlin is refusing to accept the latest blow and plans to defy the court and rename the street on Saturday as scheduled. "The renaming will take place tomorrow, I am absolutely certain of that," District Mayor Stefanie Remlinger of the Green Party said on the regional broadcaster RBB. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The district has filed an appeal against the court's decision with the Higher Administrative Court (OVG). "Our appeal is based on the fact that we consider the administrative court's ruling to be flawed," Remlinger emphasized. "By filing the appeal, the ruling is not legally binding, Remlinger said. This means that the court cannot suspend the renaming she added and this district "can proceed with the renaming." The planned new name, Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse, is a tribute to the first known African philosopher and lawyer to obtain a doctorate at a German university in the 18th century. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Berlin court stated that there was no particular urgency to rename the street. Both the administrative court and the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court had already ruled that the renaming could go ahead in a previous lawsuit. Imagine you're taking a constitutional walk along a shady lakeside path only to find a swath of the trail exposed to the sun because a rich neighbor had the tops of nearly 100 handsome pine trees lopped off to create a better view of the water. An upset member of a Canadian community posted on Reddit to express frustration over just that situation, unfortunately, sharing pictures of a long string of cropped trees not just in front of the estate but stretching well down the path, presumably for maximum unfettered viewing. Photo Credit: Reddit Photo Credit: Reddit The poster pointed out that "those trees are on town property and are part of the public walking path" and bemoaned the fact that people "who are wealthy enough to pay some eventual penalties do whatever they want," pointing out that in a previous incident, the town took no action because the trees were merely "trimmed" and not cut down. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This time the residents are furious," they wrote. Lack of consideration for others is always a problem and can range from annoying to environmentally harmful or even, in worse cases, downright toxic. It could be seemingly benign, like a factory leaving floodlights on as Tesla has received complaints over, adding to light pollution (especially problematic if it's amid an event like the Perseid meteor showers and you're trying to catch some falling stars). Or it could be inconsideration, like moving out and leaving the yard overflowing with rodent-attracting trash and detritus from the apartment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Or it could be the seeming disregard of a tycoon undertaking a yearslong renovation at his McMansion that could be causing structural damage and sewage issues for neighbors. In short, neighbors can be hell, for residents and the environment. But you don't have to be. Small measures like turning off unnecessary lights, keeping noise down, and being mindful of the impacts of home projects you undertake all help, not to mention planting some trees. That isn't to say that trees should never be trimmed or removed, but generally, that shouldn't be done just to get something out of a view and even less so when the trees are not on your own property, as that's against the law and can lead to major legal trouble in many cases, with an entire r/treelaw Reddit community dedicated to it, which is where this Redditor shared their misery. In the case of the 97 "cropped" lakeside pines, the damage was done, and many commenters had choice words for the owner of the lakeside mansion and lamented the situation. "Unless criminal charges are brought this is just a privilege of wealth," one said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Others pointed to deterrents and solutions. "Municipal laws in some countries block the illegally cut trees with view blocking barricades," one commenter pointed out. Others pointed to similar measures in Australia and New England and the required replanting of trees. Whatever it takes, the world will be a cooler, more eco-friendly place with less destruction of valuable trees for convenience. Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. Detroit police are asking for the public's help as they actively look for a man accused of shooting and killing his ex-wife Friday morning, Aug. 22 at Henry Ford Hospital. Detroit Police Department Chief Todd Bettison said Mario Green is presumed armed and dangerous. Green, 53, reportedly got in an argument with his former spouse, who was about 40 and worked at the Detroit-based hospital, in the basement of the facility. At some point he pulled out a firearm, shooting her multiple times and killing her, Bettison said. It's unclear how Green was able to gain entry to parts of the hospital. Suspect Mario Green Green fled the hospital at approximately 9:55 a.m., driving away in a 2011 white Dodge Charger. He initially headed northbound on the Lodge Freeway, and his license plate number is DXC 7067. However, at 4 p.m. Detroit police confirmed they found the car but not Green. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bettison said at the time he fled the hospital he was wearing all black clothing and a gold chain. The hospital media relations department issued a statement Friday afternoon confirming the person who died worked at the facility. "We are devasted by the loss of our Henry Ford Hospital teammate and our hearts go out to her loved ones her family, friends, and the people she worked with every day. Police have confirmed this was a targeted act of domestic violence," the statement said in part. "We are providing resources to our team members who are dealing with the impacts of this tragic incident. The safety and well-being of our patients, visitors, and team members is our greatest priority. The hospital is back open to all patients and visitors." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The update came after reports of local and federal law enforcement officials responding to an emergency event at the hospital. A swarm of law enforcement, including Michigan State Police and Detroit police, blocked the intersection of Poe and Pallister streets Friday morning near the hospital. The hospital and law enforcement had not confirmed the name of the person killed as of late Friday, Aug. 22. However, Detroit police confirmed the victim had a personal protection order against the suspect, but it had not been served. Police did not provide details on when that order was filed. Multiple people on Facebook indicated they were related to the woman who was killed in the shooting. "Love You so Much this is hurting us right now," wrote one man, who wrote the victim was his cousin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Lord Jesus Im hurt Im shaking I dont know what to say or do," wrote another person, who also identified themselves as a relative in a separate social media post. None immediately responded to Free Press requests for comment. While a "lockdown" was in place at the facility at some point Friday morning, shortly before 11 a.m. a hospital official indicated the situation had improved. "The 'all-clear' has been given at Henry Ford Hospital and the lockdown has been lifted," said Dana Jay, a hospital spokesperson, in an email at 10:48 a.m. Earlene Ingram was in the hospital for her mom's outpatient surgery. They checked in at an area in the basement around 9:30 a.m. before leaving that portion of the hospital around 10 a.m. That's when they heard "code blue" over the public address system -- they did not know what it meant, but Ingram ended up separated from her mom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "My heart dropped," Ingram, 34 of Detroit, told the Free Press in a phone interview. More: 'A slap in the face': Oxford families accept $500K from district for kids' shooting deaths More: Henry Ford Hospital shooting update: Police searching for suspect She found out about the shooting while outside, waiting with other visitors and her aunt Her mom's surgery was delayed, but she was eventually taken in for the procedure. "It's unbelievable and I don't feel safe at all," Ingram said. Green has multiple criminal convictions in Wayne County. In 2021 he pleaded guilty to one count of failure to pay child support, according to Wayne County court records. The records online did not indicate to whom he did not pay support. As part of his plea, in 2022 he paid a $198 fine and received three years probation. He was released from probation in June. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2006, he pleaded no contest to one count of arson causing less than $20,000 in damage, according to Wayne County court records. He received a sentence of 6 months to 2.5 years, according to court records. It was not immediately clear how much time he served. Just after 10:30 a.m., the Detroit branch of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, Firearms and Explosives posted an "alert" to social media platform X, saying they were responding to an "active incident" at the hospital. Update: This story was updated to reflect the suspect's correct age; police provided new information after an initial news conference. This is a developing story. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Henry Ford Hospital shooting leaves 1 dead; suspect at large LONDON, Ky. (FOX 56) A London man was arrested Wednesday evening after meth was supposedly found in his possession during a traffic stop. In a Facebook post, the London Police Department said a K-9 sergeant assisted a Kentucky State Police trooper during a traffic stop around 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 20. During the stop, K-9 Jett was reportedly released for a free air sniff of the 2011 Buick LaCrosse, where the dog provided a conditioned response for the aroma of narcotics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Law enforcement then searched the vehicle, where they said two clear bags tied in a knot with a crystal-like substance believed to be methamphetamine were found inside a dollar store bag in the floorboard. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: According to an arrest citation, two people were detained and agreed to speak with officers after being read their rights. During the interview, 39-year-old Sammy Bowling allegedly claimed the meth was his. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bowling was arrested and booked into the Laurel County Correctional Center, where he was charged with first-degree possession of a controlled substancemethamphetamine. Read more of the latest Kentucky news He is scheduled to appear in court at 11 a.m. on Aug. 26 for a court hearing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Iran planned to hold a call with three European nations Friday as they threatened to reimpose United Nations sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. The call Iran will hold with France, Germany and the United Kingdom comes as Tehran faces an Aug. 31 deadline set by the three nations to reach a satisfactory solution to the nuclear issues. The call is just the latest moment in the fraught relations Iran has with the West over its atomic program, which has been enriching uranium close to weapons-grade levels. It also comes after the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June that saw the U.S. also bomb Iranian nuclear sites after the two sides failed to reach an agreement in talks earlier this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Here's a timeline of the tensions over Iran's atomic program: Early days 1967 Iran takes possession of its Tehran Research Reactor under Americas Atoms for Peace program. 1979 Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fatally ill, flees Iran as popular protests against him surge. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran and the Islamic Revolution sweeps him to power. Students seize the United States Embassy in Tehran, beginning the 444-day hostage crisis. Irans nuclear program goes fallow under international pressure. August 2002 Western intelligence services and an Iranian opposition group reveal Irans secret Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement June 2003 Britain, France and Germany engage Iran in nuclear negotiations. October 2003 Iran suspends uranium enrichment. February 2006 Iran announces it will restart uranium enrichment following the election of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Britain, France and Germany walk out of stalled negotiations. June 2009 Irans disputed presidential election sees Ahmadinejad reelected despite fraud allegations, sparking Green Movement protests and a violent government crackdown. October 2009 Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. and Iran open a secret backchannel for messages in the sultanate of Oman. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement July 2012 U.S. and Iranian officials hold secret face-to-face talks in Oman. July 14, 2015 World powers and Iran announce a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limits Tehran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. The nuclear deal collapses May 2018 Trump unilaterally withdraws the U.S. from the nuclear agreement, calling it the worst deal ever. He says hell get better terms in new negotiations to stop Irans missile development and support for regional militias. Those talks dont happen in his first term. May 8, 2019 Iran announces it will begin backing away from the accord. A series of regional attacks on land and at sea blamed on Tehran follow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jan. 3, 2020 A U.S. drone strike in Baghdad kills Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Tehrans proxy wars in the Middle East. Jan. 8, 2020 In retaliation for Soleimanis killing, Iran launches a barrage of missiles at military bases in Iraq that are home to thousands of American and Iraqi troops. More than 100 U.S. service members suffer traumatic brain injuries. As Iran braces for a counterattack, the Revolutionary Guard shoots down a Ukrainian passenger plane shortly after takeoff from Tehrans international airport, reportedly mistaking it for a U.S. cruise missile. All 176 people on board are killed. July 2020 A mysterious explosion tears apart a centrifuge production plant at Irans Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Iran blames the attack on archenemy Israel. April 6, 2021 Iran and the U.S. under President Joe Biden begin indirect negotiations in Vienna over how to restore the nuclear deal. Those talks, and others between Tehran and European nations, fail to reach any agreement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement April 11, 2021 A second attack within a year targets Irans Natanz nuclear site, again likely carried out by Israel. April 16, 2021 Iran begins enriching uranium up to 60% its highest purity ever and a technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Feb. 24, 2022 Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Moscow ultimately will come to rely on Iranian bomb-carrying drones in the conflict, as well as missiles. July 17, 2022 An adviser to Irans supreme leader, Kamal Kharrazi, says that Iran is technically capable of making a nuclear bomb, but has not decided whether to build one. His remarks will be repeated by others in the coming years as tensions grow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mideast wars rage Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip storm into Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. This begins the most intense war ever between Israel and Hamas. Iran, which has armed Hamas, offers support to the militants. Regional tensions spike. Nov. 19, 2023 Yemens Houthi rebels, long supported by Iran, seize the ship Galaxy Leader, beginning a monthslong campaign of attacks on shipping through the Red Sea corridor that the U.S. Navy describes as the most intense combat it has seen since World War II. The attacks mirror tactics earlier used by Iran. April 14, 2024 Iran launches an unprecedented direct attack on Israel, firing over 300 missiles and attack drones. Israel, working with a U.S.-led international coalition, intercepts much of the incoming fire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement April 19, 2024 A suspected Israeli strike hits an air defense system by an airport in Isfahan, Iran. July 31, 2024 Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, is assassinated apparently by Israel during a visit to Tehran after the inauguration of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian. Sept. 27, 2024 An Israeli airstrike kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Oct. 1, 2024 Iran launches its second direct attack on Israel, though a U.S.-led coalition and Israel shoot down most of the missiles. Oct. 16, 2024 Israel kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip. Oct. 26, 2024 Israel openly attacks Iran for the first time, striking air defense systems and sites associated with its missile program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump returns and reaches out Jan. 20, 2025 Trump is inaugurated for his second term as president. Feb. 7, 2025 Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says proposed talks with the U.S. are not intelligent, wise or honorable. March 7, 2025 Trump says he sent a letter to Khamenei seeking a new nuclear deal with Tehran. March 15, 2025 Trump launches intense airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, the last members of Iran's self-described Axis of Resistance capable of daily attacks. April 7, 2025 Trump announces the U.S. and Iran will hold direct talks in Oman. Iran says they'll be indirect talks, but confirms the meeting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement April 12, 2025 The first round of talks between Iran and the U.S. take place in Oman, ending with a promise to hold more talks after U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi briefly spoke together. April 19, 2025 The second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran are held in Rome. April 26, 2025 Iran and the U.S. meet in Oman a third time, but the negotiations include talks at the expert level for the first time. May 11, 2025 Iran and the U.S. meet in Oman for a fourth round of negotiations ahead of Trump's trip to the Mideast. May 23, 2025 Iran and the U.S. meet in Rome for a fifth round of talks, with Oman saying the negotiations made "some but not conclusive progress." The Iran-Israel war begins June 9, 2025 Iran signals it won't accept a U.S. proposal over the nuclear program. June 12, 2025 The Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency finds Iran in noncompliance with its nuclear obligations. Iran responds by announcing it has built and will activate a third nuclear enrichment facility. June 13, 2025 Israel launches its war against Iran. Over 12 days, it hits nuclear and military sites, as well as other government installations. June 22, 2025 The U.S. intervenes in the war, attacking three Iranian nuclear sites. June 23, 2025 Iran responds to the U.S. attack by targeting a military base in Qatar used by American troops, causing limited damage. June 24, 2025 Trump announces a ceasefire in the war. July 25, 2025 Iranian and European diplomats hold talks in Istanbul over Iran's nuclear program. Aug. 8, 2025 France, Germany and the United Kingdom warn Iran in a letter that it will reimplement U.N. sanctions if there is no satisfactory solution to the nuclear standoff by Aug. 31. Key Points An unpublished NASA memo reportedly warns of a change in how the space agency awards contracts to build private space stations. NASA appears to be leaning into the public-private partnership model, shifting more costs to space companies. To bear those costs, more private space companies may need to IPO and become public space companies. 10 stocks we like better than Voyager Technologies The International Space Station is a marvel of modern engineering. Built by the combined efforts of seven countries (hence, "international") and staffed by a rotating crew of astronauts from more than two dozen countries (so really international), it's taken 27 years to put the ISS together in its present form -- and more than $100 billion. And yet, at age 27 and counting, the ISS is getting a bit long in the tooth. Most of the nations that built ISS have agreed to send it back down to Earth sometime after 2030, where it will (mostly) burn up in the atmosphere, with the remnants crashing into the sea. At that point, we're going to need a new space station. Or space stations. And quite a lot of money to build them. Image source: Getty Images. Help wanted: One (or more) new space stations In fact, America and a handful of other countries are already planning to build not just one but potentially as many as four new privately owned space stations to replace the ISS. The companies aiming to build these stations include relatively unknown, private companies Vast Space and Axiom Space, as well as consortia of much larger, better-funded, and more well-known space companies -- several of which are publicly traded, allowing you and me to invest in them. The latter includes the "Orbital Reef" team, which is everyone from Boeing (NYSE: BA) to Redwire (NYSE: RDW) to Sierra Space and Blue Origin (the extremely well-funded space company founded by megabillionaire Jeff Bezos). A second team, dubbed "Starlab," is led by recent initial public offering (IPO) Voyager Technologies (NYSE: VOYG), with help from an array of partners, including Airbus (OTC: EADSY), Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), and even Hilton Hotels (NYSE: HLT). Money needed...and probably a few IPOs So far, so good. Lots of high-quality, name-brand space companies -- and non-space companies -- are stepping up to fill the gap in orbital space stations before it even appears. But here's where things get dicey. Up till now, NASA has been helping these four teams of companies along in their work as they design and begin building prototypes of the stations they hope to put in orbit. But as SpaceNews reported last week, NASA is privately planning "to revise its plans for the second phase of its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination, or CLD, program." Thousands of birds fill the air over Mono Lake, banking and swooping in a swirling murmuration that resembles an aerial school of fish. As they sweep past, their beating wings whoosh in unison. This small species, the Wilson's phalarope, arrives from the north in large numbers each summer to feed at the saline lake, preparing for a long journey to South America. After spending July gorging on the larvae of alkali flies, the birds are gradually departing this month to begin their migration to another saline lake about 6,000 miles away Laguna Mar Chiquita in Argentina. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Partly because of their remarkable transcontinental voyage between salt lakes, the grayish birds have inspired a close partnership between communities in California and Argentina. Conversations that began among biologists working on bird counts have grown into flourishing bonds among residents, educators and students who see the birds as a graceful symbol of their sister lakes. Groups of high school students have traveled from the town of Lee Vining, which overlooks Mono Lake, to the giant lake surrounded by farmlands in Argentina. Argentine students have come to California to see the birds and explore their habitat at the base of the Sierra Nevada. In honor of the Wilsons phalarope, or falaropo tricolor in Spanish, an artist painted matching murals beside the two lakes. A Mono Lake environmental group printed phalarope T-shirts. And enthusiasts even organized a phalarope festival, where guitar-strumming musicians sang a song in English and Spanish celebrating the far-traveling species. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bird is what brought us together, said Yessenia Martinez, a 20-year-old graduate of Lee Vining High School who visited Argentina last summer with five other students in the exchange program, supported by conservation groups. Martinez said she enjoyed trying Argentine specialties including empanadas and yerba mate and also came away with a deep fascination for Wilsons phalaropes. Yessenia Martinez has been involved with Experience Ambientalia, an educational exchange program in which students from Mono Lake have traveled to Laguna Mar Chiquita in Argentina. The phalaropes, a member of the sandpiper family named after ornithologist Alexander Wilson, spend much of their lives foraging at a network of saline lakes across the Americas that are increasingly threatened by water use and worsening drought intensified by climate change. Martinez, now a sophomore at Cal State Long Beach, said learning about the phalaropes prompted her to change her major from interior design to zoology. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I want to come back and be able to research this specific bird, she said. That's my main goal, to be able to do that and take care of it here in my town, in my home. Nora Livingston and Ryan Carle of Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge scan a 400-meter radius section while counting Wilson's phalaropes at Mono Lake. Standing on the shore of Mono Lake, Ryan Carle focused his binoculars on phalaropes floating on the water. Many were motionless, while others perched on rocks preening their feathers. It looks like the siesta time of day, said Carle, science director of the nonprofit Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge. Carle, an ornithologist who grew up in Lee Vining, first got to know the lakes birds through his parents, who were rangers at the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the last several years, he and other scientists have been tracking the phalaropes across the hemisphere. Wilsons phalaropes feed and fatten up at Mono Lake before their migration to South America. He has observed them nesting on prairies in Canada, hearing their muffled honks. And he has seen them descend on Mono Lake when the water is teeming with brine shrimp and the larvae and pupae of alkali flies. To feed, each bird spins on the surface, kicking water outward to create a whirling upwelling that brings morsels to its needle-like bill. They're just a magical bird, Carle said. They have a lot of personality. Their distinctive circling inspired a T-shirt design with a phalarope atop a vinyl record player and the words Mono Lake, you spin me round! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They consume so much at the lake that they double their body weight, becoming so chunky that sometimes they struggle to take off, Carle said. They will need this fat as fuel for flight. Females also shed the peach and black neck feathers that attract mates, becoming entirely gray and white. Ryan Carle uses an antenna to pick up signals from tagged Wilson's phalaropes at Mono Lake. Carle estimated the number of Wilsons phalaropes at Mono Lake peaked at 18,000 this summer a relatively good number for recent years, but far fewer than decades ago. The population has declined since the 1980s, and Carle worries that their saline lakes are increasingly on life support and vulnerable to crashing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Utahs Great Salt, another critical stopover, declined in 2022 to its lowest level on record, making the water saltier and more difficult for brine shrimp and flies to reproduce. The lake later rose after a heavy snowpack but is now declining again. Oregons Lake Abert has repeatedly dried up , and biologists have found that when its desiccated, more phalaropes fly farther south to Mono Lake. A paraglider flies over a flock of Wilson's phalaropes at Mono Lake. Mono Lake also faces potential threats. Over decades, Los Angeles' reliance on water from nearby creeks lowered the lake level and left exposed its craggy tufa towers , formations of calcium carbonate that grew underwater around springs. Though the lake has risen since 1994, when state regulators ordered L.A. to take less water, Carle said the lower the lake, the less fly habitat there is, meaning less food for phalaropes, so the city could really help the birds by leaving more water for the lake. They can't survive without this habitat, Carle said. The birds are telling us we need to think of these lakes as a network when we work on conservation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He helped draft a 2024 petition urging the federal government to declare the Wilsons phalarope a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Because their habitats are in trouble, he said, the birds are like the polar bears of salt lakes. Nora Livingston, on dock, helps Ryan Carle launch a boat before sunrise to count Wilson's phalaropes at Mono Lake. This summer, Carle has continued his research at night, setting out in a motorboat on Mono Lake to catch phalaropes. He and his colleagues use a net to scoop each one out of the water. They glue tiny radio transmitters to their backs and release them. Over the last week, they have tracked the birds on a digital map crossing Mexico, headed for Andean lagoons in Ecuador and Bolivia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In September, flocks of phalaropes will arrive in Argentinas plains and gather at Laguna Mar Chiquita, the largest saline lake in the hemisphere, where they will congregate alongside pink flamingos. Wilson's phalaropes take flight on the shore of Mono Lake. (Ian James / Los Angeles Times) Carle's colleagues have also been tagging the shorebirds in Argentina and Canada. They began collaborating more closely in 2019, when Carle and fellow ornithologist Margaret Rubega invited researchers from across the hemisphere to meet at Mono Lake and launched the International Phalarope Working Group. Since then, the growing ties among researchers have catalyzed more connections. In 2022, Carle and conservationists from the nonprofit Mono Lake Committee traveled to Argentina to celebrate a new national park at Laguna Mar Chiquita and the dedication of a mural by Argentine artist Franco "Vato" Cervato Cozza depicting a phalarope with a map of its migratory route. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The following year, Cervato was invited to Mono Lake and painted similar murals in Lee Vining. Then the community held its first Phalarope Festival , an event featuring talks by scientists and a phalarope costume contest. Carle wrote a song titled Me Llaman Falaropo (to the tune of Manu Chaos Me Llaman Calle ) and took the stage to sing alongside an Argentine scientist, strumming a guitar. I call the saline lakes my home From California to Argentina Bolivia to Saskatchewan Always searching, always swimming, in the shallow waters spinning I fill my belly full of brine flies I know one day we will protect all the places I call home A pair of Wilson's phalaropes fly at Mono Lake. The birds stop during their migration to feed on alkali flies. In Argentina, efforts to study the birds and protect their habitats are led by two sisters, biologist Marcela Castellino and educator Marina Castellino. The latter runs a youth program called Experience Ambientalia that brings local students to learn about Laguna Mar Chiquita and highlights the international connections among sister lakes. Talking online with leaders of the Mono Lake Committee, Castellino said she discovered they had the same goal of connecting saline lakes to protect the ecosystems that the phalaropes need. When she had the opportunity to travel to a Mono Lake birding festival in 2022, the idea of expanding the program began to take shape. Later that year, Santiago Escruceria, who runs the committee's education program at Mono Lake, spoke to students in Argentina, emphasizing that this little bird depends on us, in a way, for their survival, by us humans understanding the value of the habitats. Castellino said the enthusiasm she found at Mono Lake became the platform to build the exchange program . It just needed a push, and I'm pushy enough to say, OK, let's do this program in both ends of the hemisphere, she said. Read more: Decades ago, L.A. was ordered to take less water to save Mono Lake. But the city remains far from a key goal In 2024, the first group of five Argentine students traveled to Lee Vining, where they and local students watched phalaropes along the shore, toured creeks and paddled canoes. They tried American hot dogs and spicy Mexican food, showed off their dance moves and camped out in tents. Argentine student Martina Blangetti later wrote that the experience showed me that we young people are capable of changing the world and saving our saline lakes. In Argentina, California students saw flocks of flamingos and learned that the lake where Wilsons phalaropes soon would arrive is being polluted with sewage and plastic trash. At both lakes, students who've gone through the program have become interns and volunteers. Some say they want to be park rangers. And some, like Martinez, are interested in becoming biologists. Marina Castellino said these ties and friendships exist thanks to the phalaropes, which she sees as ambassadors for saline lakes. This small gray bird is mobilizing communities in a way I have never seen, she said, and it has become this beautiful motivation to protect our lakes. Even though salt lakes are shrinking, she said she now feels hopeful whenever she sees the phalaropes bobbing on the water. She is organizing another festival in Argentina in December, when the phalaropes will be soaring over the lake by the thousands. And once again, she and others plan to sing the song in honor of the birds, celebrating their return. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Tanzania and Burundi broke ground on a long-promised cross-border railway linking East Africas landlocked regions to the port of Dar es Salaam. The $2.15 billion 282-kilometer (175-mile) electrified line is a key leg of the Central Corridor project that has been on the cards for over a decade. It is expected to slash four-day truck journeys by road to just one day by 2030, when the line is scheduled for completion. The new line is being built by the China Railway Group. Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye described the project as central to his countrys economic future, especially its mining sector. Burundi holds reserves of gold, tantalum, tin, and rare earths, but exporting them efficiently has been a challenge. East African governments have been pushing for an integrated rail network spanning the region, linking Kenyas Standard Gauge Railway to Tanzanias system. Aug. 21An ultra-endurance drone roughly the size of a small plane crashed along the beach near Ninilchik on Wednesday morning, according to aviation authorities. The crash involved an aircraft with a 36-foot wingspan known as Vanilla Unmanned, built for dayslong endurance flights and involved in several military flights including some in Alaska in recent years. The drone was participating in an ongoing military exercise in Alaska, Arctic Edge 2025, as part of "ongoing experimentation and technology demonstrations in the Arctic," Becky Farmer, U.S. Northern Command spokesperson, wrote in an email. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash. The drone's operator reported losing contact with it around 7 a.m. Wednesday, according to Clint Johnson, the NTSB's Alaska chief. It was found crashed on the beach after losing engine power and hitting the bluffs that line Cook Inlet in the area, he said. The drone was substantially damaged, Johnson said. The craft originated from Kenai and was returning to Kenai for a scheduled landing prior to "the controlled forced landing," Farmer said. Each Vanilla Unmanned unit costs around $2 million, according to a report by drone news website Drone XL. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The registered owner of the drone that crashed is listed as VU Holdings LLC, according to a Federal Aviation Administration preliminary report posted Thursday. A Maryland company called Platform Aerospace became the sole owner and operator of Vanilla Unmanned in 2020, according to a press release that described the aircraft as a "world-record holding, ultra-long endurance Unmanned Aerial System." Representatives at Platform Aerospace did not return messages Thursday. Vanilla in 2021 broke a world record for an unrefueled, internal combustion endurance flight of an unmanned aircraft, flying continuously for just over eight days. Platform Aerospace partnered with the 412th Test Wing's Emerging Technologies Combined Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base to launch the aircraft from a dry lake bed. The company last year said Vanilla completed an Arctic flight campaign for an unidentified U.S. Department of Defense customer, operating out of Deadhorse. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The drone flew two flights totaling more than 65 hours within the Arctic Circle, the company said, including over 500 miles toward the North Pole and back in 17 hours, followed by multiple 200-mile laps for another 22 hours, all without refueling. The flights involved data collection including measuring the potential for icing conditions, according to a release. Last year, Vanilla was "trialled in the Indo-Pacific region during Valiant Shield 24 at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam," according to the British Forces Broadcasting Service Forces News. The drone was being tested for its potential to supply airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to U.S. armed forces, the site said. LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) Police are searching for a suspect after a robbery at Country Bank on Shaker Road in Longmeadow Thursday afternoon. Wanted suspect drags Mass. State trooper in Holyoke, captured in Connecticut According to the Longmeadow Police Department, officers were called to the bank at 919 Shaker Road around 4:40 p.m. for a report of a robbery. Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department All individuals inside the bank at the time were unharmed, and no injuries were reported. Police said there is no active threat to the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The suspect was described as a Black man, of stocky build, approximately 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall. He was wearing a black hat, a face mask, black pants, and a white t-shirt over a black long-sleeved shirt. Police said he threatened to harm employees if they did not comply and then left with an undisclosed amount of money. Photo courtesy of the Longmeadow Police Department The investigation is ongoing, and Longmeadow detectives are working with the Massachusetts State Police to review evidence and identify those responsible. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Longmeadow Police Detective Bureau at (413) 567-3311. We will continue to provide updates to this story as soon as new information becomes available. 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Longmont police arrested a man Thursday evening after he barricaded himself in a Baker Street garage and allegedly strangled and pointed a rifle at another person. James Murray, 37, was arrested at 5:38 p.m. after a four-hour standoff with police in the 700 block of Baker Street, according to an arrest affidavit. He finally left the garage after a Longmont SWAT team used gas to get him out. Murray got into an argument with a friend over Murrays behavior before Murray allegedly pointed the gun at the man, strangled him briefly and covered his mouth with his hands, according to the affidavit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The man whom Murray reportedly strangled told police he was in pain following the incident. No other injuries were reported. 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Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Murray is facing four charges: one count of second-degree assault strangulation; one count of menacing simulated firearm; one count of domestic violence; and one count of failure or refusal to leave premises barricades. Murray is currently in custody at the Boulder County Jail, according to online court records. Bail information was not immediately available. Police made multiple attempts to entice Murray to leave the garage before the SWAT team used gas, officials said. Police used a PA system to speak to him, called and texted a phone number associated with Murray, and used a distraction device. Murray was scheduled for an advisement hearing in the Boulder County Jails courtroom at 1:30 p.m. Friday. As FBI agents on Friday searched the home and office of John Bolton, once a top adviser to the president, Donald Trump didn't hold back, telling reporters: "I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's a real sort of a lowlife." At the same time, Trump said he knew nothing about the searches beforehand, which sources told ABC News are related to allegations that Bolton is in possession of classified records. "I thought he was a sleazebag, actually," Trump said in the Oval Office when asked about Bolton. "And he suffers major Trump derangement syndrome, but so do a lot of people and they're not being affected by anything we do. I don't know anything about it. I just saw that, I'll find out about it." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MORE: FBI searching former Trump adviser John Bolton's home It was just the latest twist in Trump and Bolton's rocky relationship that stretches back years and includes clashes as recent as this month over Bolton's criticism of Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bolton departed the first Trump administration in 2019 after long-simmering tensions with Trump. Bolton said at the time that he offered his resignation, while Trump said he had fired his national security adviser. Evan Vucci/AP - PHOTO: President Donald Trump meets with South Korean President Moon Jae-In in the Oval Office of the White House, May 22, 2018, in Washington, as national security adviser John Bolton watches. A year later, the Trump administration sued to try to block Bolton from publishing a memoir of his time inside the White House, claiming classified information included in it could potentially harm national security. A federal judge denied the administration's attempt to block the book's release, though the administration continued a civil suit against Bolton seeking the proceeds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Trump administration had also launched a criminal probe at the time over whether Bolton mishandled classified information. The Biden administration said in June 2021 that it had dropped the investigation, as well as the civil lawsuit. In the tell-all book, Bolton characterized Trump as "stunningly uninformed" and easily manipulated by foreign adversaries. In an exclusive interview with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz at the time of the book's release, Bolton said of Trump, "I don't think he's fit for office. I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job." After returning to the White House this past January, Trump revoked Bolton's security clearance and canceled his security detail despite ongoing threats from Iran because of his work in the first Trump administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Defending his decision, Trump told reporters at the time "I think there was enough time. We take a job, you take a job, you want to do a job, we're not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives." He went on to call Bolton a "very dumb person." Evan Vucci/AP - PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks at The People's House museum, Aug. 22, 2025, in Washington. More recently, Bolton and Trump traded insults over Bolton's disapproval of Trump's decision to welcome Putin on American soil to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war. Bolton said Trump had made a "mistake" in inviting Putin to Alaska and questioned his strategy on peace talks during an Aug. 10 appearance on ABC's "This Week." Trump fired back on social media, slamming what he said was "unfair media coverage" of the summit including "[c]onstantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton." MORE: Trump has taken steps to make his campaign promise to seek 'retribution' reality, critics say Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During his interview on "This Week," Bolton was also asked about what has been characterized as Trump's retribution efforts and whether he was worried about being a target. Bolton responded, "I think it is a retribution presidency." Vice President JD Vance, in an exclusive interview with NBC's "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker," said the FBI search of Bolton's property on Friday was not politically motivated. "Well, so we're in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton. I will say we're gonna let that investigation proceed. What I can tell you is that unlike the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI, our law enforcement agencies are going to be driven by law and not by politics," Vance said. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) With swarms of screwworms slowly making their way towards the U.S. southern border, many ranchers across Texas are educating themselves on the insect and preparing for their potential arrival. Its a problem that could cost the state of Texas billions. With the latest reports now seeing screwworms at roughly 500 miles away from the Texas and Mexico border, many ranchers here in Texas are preparing for the potential of having to deal with this menace to livestock. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Screwworm closer to US border, threatening Texas cattle industry One spot where Big Country ranchers got the opportunity to learn about this threat was at this years Big Country Beef Conference. Dozens of individuals within the agriculture business were present and discussing information about the screwworm. Dr. Sonja Swinger is an Extension Livestock Entomologist who spoke at this years beef conference regarding screwworms, and she said that, unlike regular flies, this species eating habits are the main factor in what makes these insects so devastating to wildlife and livestock alike. They will get pigs, they will get cats, they will get dogs, theyll get birds, theyll get humans. But wildlife and livestock are the easiest targets. This one will find fresh wounds, and even sometimes, there may not be a wound. They could even lay the eggs around their eyes and their noses, in their nasal cavities, and the larvae will actually eat that live flesh, and it will kill animals within a week or two if theyre not tended to. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, Swinger wasnt the only expert at the conference. 14-year-old and aspiring cattle tycoon, Gage Burton, participated in a commercial steer project for 4-H, where he had to give a presentation in San Antonio about screwworms. With livestock of his own, Gage spoke to the measures he would have to take if the screwworm were to come to Texas. Youd have to watch your castrating, your de-horning, and even just little nicks and cuts that the screwworms can lay the larva, put the larva in, and theyll start feeding and make that wound bigger. It just keeps getting worse. Tradition takes flight: drones boost Big Country agriculture Prevention measures are already being put in place to combat this spread. A facility in Panama that kept the screwworms at bay by producing infertile males produced around 20 million flies a week. Since the growth of the swarm, the production number has soared to around 100 million infertile flies being produced a week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As it stands, the swarms have been halted at around 500 miles away from American soil, but a recent case had placed the screwworms location at around 250 miles away from the United States. That case has since been resolved with that swarm being eradicated. With livestock being a major industry for Texas, Swinger says if screwworms were to reach the state, the economic loss would be astronomical. Cattle is king, right? Its Texas. Theyre a huge industry. We would lose billions of dollars with this fly here yearly. Thats not just once, thats every single year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Lord Paul, who has died aged 94, was an Indian-born steel tycoon who became a leading member of Britains Asian community and a prominent Labour Party supporter. The fortune amassed by Swraj Paul as founder chairman of the Caparo industrial conglomerate was estimated at its peak in 2007 at 1.5 billion; but in more recent times, after the collapse of Caparos steel products business, that sum was thought to have halved. A devout Hindu and a generous philanthropist, Pauls dealings nevertheless drew him into controversy on a number of fronts, both in business and politics and his life was afflicted by the tragic deaths of two of his children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Swraj Paul was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, on February 18 1931. He was the youngest of seven children of Pyare Lal Paul, who operated a small foundry making buckets and farm tools. Swrajs older brothers, Jit and Satya, developed their fathers enterprise into a more substantial steel venture, Apeejay Surrendra. Swraj began working alongside them in 1953, after studies at Forman Christian College in Lahore and Doaba College in Jalandhar, followed by a Masters in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Swraj Pauls destiny changed in 1966 when his two-year-old daughter Ambika was stricken with leukaemia. He brought her to London in search of effective treatments, but nothing could be done; after she died, he spent months of mourning and seclusion in his Portland Place flat in a building later renamed Ambika House, in which his family owned a dozen apartments. Paul decided to remain in Britain rather than return to India, where he found the bureaucratic and often corrupt business environment stifling but where he might otherwise have made a high-flying career in public life. Paul: dogged determination drew him into a succession of difficult fights - ANTHONY MARSHALL He was a friend of Indira Gandhi, who had become prime minister in January 1966 and who personally made sure that red tape did not hinder his familys move to the UK. Paul went on to rally support for her in London during the Bangladesh war in 1971 and to help host her 1975 visit, at a time when the state of emergency in India (allowing the prime minister to suspend elections and rule by decree) was damaging her reputation abroad; in the same year he became founder chairman of the Anglo-Indian Association. In return, Mrs Gandhi was said to have offered him the post of Indias ambassador to Washington, but he preferred to maintain his focus on business. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Armed with a 5,000 loan, he began trading in steel in 1968 and bought a factory at Huntingdon to manufacture steel tubes for the gas industry. With grants from the Heath government and Brussels, he went on to build another plant in Ebbw Vale, and in 1978 he created Caparo as the holding company of a growing empire. More industrial acquisitions followed on both sides of the Atlantic, and later in Europe and India. There were also hotel and property interests, and in 1980 Paul bought the Empire Tea Co, for the simple reason that he was an inveterate tea-drinker. A less satisfactory acquisition was Fidelity, an apparently profitable consumer electronics business, for which he paid 14 million in 1984. Finding the company riddled with fraud, he sued its auditors for negligence in a landmark case which he eventually lost, though he secured an out-of-court settlement. Swraj Paul was gentle in manner and modest in lifestyle. A teetotal vegetarian, he splashed his wealth more flamboyantly only on special occasions: in 2005 he invited 1,600 friends, including many politicians, to Lancaster House to celebrate the wedding of his youngest son Angad. He typically downplayed the achievements that made him rich and courted: I just slogged and slogged, and I was very lucky. With his wife Aruna - Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty But dogged determination also drew him into a succession of difficult fights. In the early 1980s, when Indira Gandhi called for wealthy non-resident Indians to invest in their homeland, he responded by attempting takeovers of two industrial conglomerates, Escorts and DCM. But hostile bids were frowned upon in India and according to an account of the episode titled The Swraj Paul Affair by Chhotu Karadia, his efforts were blocked by the Indian industrial mafias monetary muscle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the UK in 2002, Paul ran into flak of a different kind for trying to restrict the pension rights of his steelworkers at a time when Caparos profits were under pressure. He pointed out that his own sons had taken 40 per cent salary cuts to help weather the downturn, but the media painted the story as a rich Labour supporter picking a fight over Labours own policy of wider access to pensions. He also attracted attention for the non-dom tax status from which he benefited for many years before he relinquished it in 2010, when a rule change made it incompatible with participation in the House of Lords. And in 2015 he was named by the prime minister David Cameron as one of a number of prominent Labour funders accused of holding tax-sheltered accounts in Switzerland. Paul had joined the Labour Party in the early 1970s with the encouragement of Michael Foot, the MP for Ebbw Vale and future party leader. Though he came to admire Margaret Thatcher (and donate to Tory coffers) during the early 1980s, it was Tony Blair who nominated Paul for a peerage in 1996, and he became known particularly as a financial backer of Gordon Brown. He took the Labour whip in the House of Lords, with the declared aim of helping the party promote manufacturing industry, but later sat as a crossbencher and was a deputy speaker, the first person of Indian origin to hold that post. His parliamentary career was stained, however, when he was embroiled in the 2009 expenses scandal. The unveiling of the Lady Aruna Swraj Paul Building, June 2024 - Verity Milligan Photography He was accused by a Sunday newspaper of claiming 38,000 in overnight expenses at his London flat, having registered as his main home an address in Oxfordshire at which he admitted he had never spent a night. He repaid the claim and was suspended from the House for four months, but the police did not pursue a case against him. He was later criticised for claiming another 100,000 in allowances between 2019 and 2024 when he had not spoken or held any committee roles in the House and had voted only once. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Swraj Paul was awarded the Padma Bhushan decoration for distinguished service to India in 1983. He published a biography of Indira Gandhi in 1984, and a memoir, Beyond Boundaries, in 1998. He was one of Britains longest serving university chancellors, having been installed at Wolverhampton in 1999, and was also chancellor of the universities of Thames Valley (2000-01) and Westminster (2006-14). Renowned in Londons Asian community for his generosity towards the many causes he was asked to support, Paul was a major benefactor of London Zoo, which he saved from bankruptcy in 1993 with a 1 million donation to fund the Ambika Paul Childrens Zoo. Ambikas name was also attached to a school of technology in Jalandhar and a building extension at MIT. After entering the Lords, Paul became non-executive chairman of Caparo and gradually handed over its day-to-day running to his three Harrow-educated sons, of whom it was Angad, as chief executive from 2002, who broadened the groups investments into racier fields such as film production, restaurants and the development of the Caparo T1 supercar. But in October 2015 the steel business which remained Caparos core activity collapsed into administration, afflicted by the strength of the pound and cheap Chinese imports. There were also reports of a tax investigation into Angads film interests. Three weeks later, the 45-year-old Angad jumped to his death from his eighth-floor penthouse in Ambika House. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Swraj Paul married, in 1956, Aruna Vij; she died in 2022 and the following year he inaugurated an events venue named in her memory at the Indian Gymkhana Club in London, saying: This hall is a tribute to my wonderful wife whom I miss very much; we never had an argument during our 65 years of marriage. Their surviving children are twin sons, Ambar and Akash, and a daughter, Anjali. Lord Paul, born February 18 1931, died August 21 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Archaeologists in Norway have uncovered human remains and structural artifacts indicating a 3,000-year-old ritualistic cult site near a highway expansion project. Surveyors initially discovered the first signs of ancient religious activity over a decade ago, but more recent excavation work is offering further looks at the spiritually significant communal location. The surrounding geological environment also points to why locals eventually abandoned ita giant mudslide in central Norways Gauldal river valley around 800 CE. Its a very special find. Weve never found anything quite like it. In a central Norwegian context, its entirely unique, NTNU University Museum archaeologist Hanne Bryn told Science Norway earlier this month. The first evidence of archaeological significance was discovered in 2014. Credit: Kristin Eriksen / NTNU University Museum Bryn first visited the area in 2014 on behalf of the Sr-Trndelag County Municipality, but returned in recent years to assist an archaeological survey ahead of a planned highway expansion. Over two summers, she and colleagues scoured a large region buried under as much as 9.8 feet of clay. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All that digging has paid off. The location is composed of two main sections that each included a moderately sized longhouse measuring 33 to 39 feet in length. Near one longhouse stood a larger stone burial mound called a cairn, along with three burial chamberssome of which housed charred human bones. Archaeologists also found evidence of cooking pits and a fire pit likely utilized for making bronze. Throughout the site, the researchers documented numerous stones carved with artwork such as a footprint, boat, human figures, as well as a bow and arrow. The stones are particularly striking because Norwegian rock art at that time was usually etched directly into bedrock. In comparison, these individual stones appeared to have been intended as possibly portable relics. Its a very special find, Bryn said of one stone measuring around 4 by 8 inches. Its so small. Its portable, you could carry it in your pocket. Archaeologists discovered a burial cairn next to the longhouse remains. Credit: Mats Aspvik / NTNU University Museum However, there is one type of building the archaeologists did not find. So far, there isnt any evidence of a permanent community. Without that evidence of a more permanent settlement nearby, the researchers believe that the location served an important spiritual function, and was viewed with reverence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It points to a site of special significance, explained Bryn. Analysis of the human remains showed the bones date to 1000 to 800 BCE, which puts them right around the time of the devastating mudslide that inundated the Gaudal river valley. That said, its unclear if locals actively used the site as more than a burial ground around the time of the devastation. There are no traces of people here. It wasnt a Pompeii, though we did wonder about that ourselves, Bryn said. Bryn and her team are now investigating an area on a plateau near the highway expansion. Although they havent found anything exceptional yet, there are indications of some kind of human settlement. Regardless of the new projects outcome, the significance of what they found just down the road is clear. Finding portable stones like this, lying in the landscape where they were once used, is especially rare, said Bryn. There arent many discoveries that compare. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Nashville Pride says its future is in jeopardy. Nonprofit officials said about 40% of their sponsors recently dropped their financial support. News 2 asked Nashville Pride President Tina Tousignant why she thinks sponsors didnt renew their endorsements. PREVIOUS | Nashville Pride launches fundraising campaign following historic $250k shortfall A lot of it is political pressure, Tousignant explained. Theyre just falling and collapsing and backing out and not supporting the LGBTQ plus community We buy things; we sell things; we work. So if they drop us, its going to be an impact on people not wanting to use them. So unfortunately, thats what theyre doing. Theyre backing out, and theyre leaving us and not supporting us. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nashville Pride is looking to raise $250,000 by Oct. 11 to make up for what they call a historic financial shortfall. Its devastating, really, to see that youre bowing down to hate, Tousignant added. To getting rid of diversity and inclusivity; thats something that weve fought for and lived for a long time. Nashville Pride also told News 2 that several sponsors dropped out right before their annual festival. VUMC [Vanderbilt University Medical Center] backed out within a week before our festival, which left us scrambling to find another medical provider to help us, and that cost us $30,000 that we werent expecting, Tousignant explained. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nashville Pride officials also said their security costs have more than doubled because of increased safety needs for their events. The organization hopes the public can step in to help. Do some fundraisers, do a car wash, do a bake sale, do anything, do something. Call us, call me. Ill be there. Ill come and support, Tousignant added. Franklin Pride also struggled with the same issue earlier this year when two of their largest sponsors backed out before their big event in June. Both nonprofits said their pride events fill a significant role in the community. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com A lot of times, Nashville Pride is the first place that people come out and feel seen and safe and heard, so Nashville Pride is important, and the festival is important, Tousignant said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement News 2 reached out to VUMC for comment on this story and has not heard back as of this publication. Tousignant said that supporters have already raised tens of thousands of dollars since their plea to the public yesterday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Autonomous driving technology startup Nuro has completed a Series E funding round, raising a total of $203m. The company has secured an additional $97m in the latest tranche of the Series E funding round, which values the company at $6bn. This latest injection of capital includes contributions from a mix of new and existing investors, with names such as Uber, Nvidia, Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, and Pledge Ventures joining the round alongside returning backer Baillie Gifford. The additional funding complements the first segment of $106m disclosed in April this year, which saw investments from entities advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Tiger Global Management, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Greylock Partners, and XN. The completion of this funding round is a critical step for Nuro, as it aims to expand its AI-driven autonomous technology and strengthen its commercial collaborations. To date, Nuro has amassed over $2.3bn in funding. Established in 2016, Nuro provides its Nuro Driver autonomous driving system to automotive manufacturers and mobility service providers. The system offers an economical solution for integrating autonomous technology into commercial fleets, personal vehicles, and ride-hailing services. The company's technical partnership with Nvidia has now evolved into an investment relationship. Nuro's latest computing module is based on the Nvidia DRIVE AGX Thor platform, and it utilises Nvidia GPUs for extensive data processing and model training in the cloud. Nuro also became part of the Nvidia Halos AI Systems Inspection Lab in June, which assists in ensuring the safe integration of its products. The company announced a collaboration with Uber and Lucid in July to initiate a new global robotaxi service. This project plans to roll out over 20,000 Lucid vehicles equipped with Nuro Driver across multiple international markets, starting with a major city in the US next year. Uber's investment in Nuro, which is part of the series E funding, is contingent on the achievement of certain development and commercial goals. Nuro president and co-founder Dave Ferguson said: The closing of our Series E reinforces the strong conviction our investors and strategic partners have in Nuros technology, our scalable approach to commercialisation, and our vision for the future of autonomy. With this new capital, were well-positioned to continue our next phase of growth, which will see us focus on delivering new commercial partnerships to realise autonomy at global scale. "Nuro completes $203m funding round" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans District signed an agreement to start designing the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) Ecosystem Restoration Project. According to a news release, the project, approved by Congress in 2007, aims to fix years of erosion, saltwater damage, and storm impacts from the MRGO. Key plans include: Building over 41 miles of shoreline protection and 14 miles of foreshore protection. Restoring 57,000 acres of wetlands and coastal habitat. Repairing dikes and adding recreation areas. Prioritizing protection in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, including areas around Lake Borgne, Bayou Dupre, and The Rigolets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This agreement marks a major step forward in restoring areas that have suffered from erosion, saltwater intrusion, and storm damage tied to the MRGO for far too long, said Gordon Gordy Dove, chairman of CRPA. We are grateful for our strong partnership with the Corps and the federal commitment to fully fund this work. Louisiana cancels $3 billion coastal restoration project funded by oil spill settlement We look forward to closely working with CPRA in delivering a project that will restore more than 57,000 acres of wetland and coastal habitat, said Col. Scotty Autin, 66th commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District. Todays agreement positions us to begin design of the initial project features as soon as funding becomes available. Todays signing marks a long-awaited step forward, said CPRA Executive Director Michael Hare. The communities impacted by the MRGO have endured decades of damage. Now its time to get to work protecting our coast and restoring vital ecosystems. Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. BATON ROUGE, La. (KLFY) Elected officials, members of law enforcement and family members of those who have lost their lives to fentanyl gathered to discuss the Halt Fentanyl Act, which has been signed by President Trump. Senator Bill Cassidy says the act classifies fentanyl related substances as a Schedule I narcotic, and it also has required jail time if certain amounts of fentanyl related substances are found by law enforcement. Because I like to say if it addicts like fentanyl, if it kills like fentanyl, you should go to jail like its fentanyl, said Cassidy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Todays press conference also gave family members of those who have lost their lives to fentanyl a chance to speak and share their feelings regarding the act. Some of those family members have previously spoken to us here at KLFY. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest To those working behind the scenes to strengthen laws, we thank you. But please remember, without prevention, education and treatment, we will not stop the epidemic, said Christy Sonnier, Mother of Hunter Clemons. Finally, members of law enforcement had the chance to speak about how important this act will be in giving them more tools to prosecute those who distribute fentanyl. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is personal to Louisiana sheriffs, just like its personal to you. There is a different day tomorrow. Its a different day. Next weeks a different week. They have a hope, said Kevin Cobb of Louisiana Sheriffs Association. The various speakers all spoke with a sense of hope for a brighter future as the war on fentanyl moves on. We do know were going to get because were committed and were going to commit and were going to win, said Cassidy. Latest news Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Gov. Gavin Newsoms plan to temporarily redraw Californias congressional districts has more support than opposition but with many voters undecided, the measure's prospects remain uncertain, a new poll found. One thing, however, has become clear: Newsoms standing with voters appears tethered to the fate of his high-stakes redistricting gamble. The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times, asked registered voters about the Newsom-backed redistricting push favoring California Democrats, which serves as a counterattack to President Trump and Texas Republicans reworking election maps to their advantage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When voters were asked whether they agree with California's redistricting maneuver, 46% said it was a good idea, while 36% said it was a bad idea. Slightly more, 48%, said they would vote in favor of the temporary gerrymandering efforts if it appeared on the statewide special election ballot in November. Nearly a third said they would vote no, while 20% said they were undecided. "That's not bad news," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. "It could be better. With ballot measures, you'd like to be comfortably above 50% because you got to get people to vote yes and when people are undecided or don't know enough about initiatives, they tend to vote no just because it's the safer vote." Among voters who regularly cast ballots in statewide elections, overall support for redistricting jumped to 55%, compared with 34% opposed. That, DiCamillo said, is significant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "If I were to pick one subgroup where you would want to have an advantage, it would be that one," he said. The high-stakes fight over political boundaries could shape control of the U.S. House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority. Newsom and Democratic leaders say California must match Texas partisan mapmaking move to preserve balance in Congress. Texas' plan creates five new Republican-leaning seats that could secure the GOP's majority in the House. California's efforts are an attempt to cancel those gains at least temporarily. The new maps would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections. However, critics say that the plan undermines the states voter-approved independent redistricting commission and that one power grab doesn't negate another. Not surprisingly, the partisan fight over election maps elicited deeply partisan results in the poll. Nearly 7 in 10 Democratic voters said they would support the redistricting measure , while Republicans overwhelmingly (72%) panned the plan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Former President Obama endorsed it, while California's former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, told the New York Times he would fight it. The effort faced opposition this week in Sacramento during legislative hearings, where Republicans blasted it as a partisan game-playing. California Republicans attempted to stall the process by filing an emergency petition at the state Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the California Constitution by rushing the proposal through the Legislature. The high court rejected the legal challenge Wednesday. The effort has by all accounts moved swiftly, with newly reworked maps released late last week and, by Monday, lawmakers introduced legislation to put it before voters. Lawmakers approved those bills Thursday, which secures the measure's place on the ballot in November. Newsom, who has become the face of Californias redistricting effort, has seen his once-stagnant approval ratings tick upward as he takes on Trump and Republican leaders. Beyond the high-profile push to reshape the states congressional districts, his office has drawn recent attention with a social media campaign that mimics Trumps own idiosyncratic posts. More voters now approve than disapprove of the governor's job performance (51% to 43%), which represented a turnaround from April, when voters were split at 46% on each side. The poll, which surveyed 4,950 registered voters online in English and Spanish, was conducted from Aug. 11 to 17. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A majority of respondents 59% back Newsoms combative stance toward Trump, while 29% want him to adopt a more cooperative approach. Younger voters were especially supportive of Newsom styling himself as Trumps leading critic, with 71% of those between 18 and 29 years old backing the approach. Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said having Newsom as the face of the redistricting campaign would have been more of a liability a month ago. But Newsom's profile has been rising nationally during the spiraling fight over congressional maps and been buoyed by his prolific Trump trolling, which has struck a nerve with conservative commentators. That has opened up a lane for Newsom to spread the campaign's message more broadly, he said. "If he keeps this pace up, he's right on a pressure point," Lesenyie said. Political scientist Eric Schickler, who is co-director of the Berkeley Institute that conducted the poll, said asking Californians to hand back control of redistricting to politicians even temporarily after voters made the process independent would normally be a tough sell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Voters don't trust politicians," Schickler said. "On the other hand, voters see Trump and don't like what he's doing. And so it was really a test to see which of those was more powerful and the results suggest, at least for now, Newsom's winning that argument." Winning in November, however, will require pushing undecided voters over the finish line. Among Latino, Black and Asian voters, nearly 30% said they have yet to decide how they would vote on redistricting. Women also have higher rates of being undecided compared with men, at 25% to 14%. Younger voters are also more likely to be on the fence, with nearly a third of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they are unsure, compared with 11% of those older than 65. Among Democrats, there are still some skeptics about the proposal. One in 5 polled said they were undecided. A quarter of voters with no party preference say they are undecided. "That suggests there are a bunch of votes left on the table," Schickler said. "While I wouldn't be surprised if the margin narrows between now and November, this is a good place for the proposition to start." 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. This bill protects our precious waters: How a Florida environmental group scored a win against Big Oil The giant and catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, didnt reach Apalachicola Bay in 2010, but the threat of oil reaching this beautiful and environmentally valuable stretch of northern Floridas Gulf coast was still enough to devastate the regions economy. The Florida state congressman Jason Shoaf remembers how the threat affected the bay. It harmed our commercial fishing, aquaculture operations, and just the threat of oil kept tourists away for months, Shoaf told The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Guardian. Businesses were forced to close, jobs were lost, and the disaster reshaped our region forever. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those memories were freshly triggered in April 2024, when the Florida department of environmental protection (DEP) granted a permit to Louisiana-based Clearwater Land and Minerals for exploratory oil drilling on the Apalachicola River basin. So area residents, along with environmental and business groups, formed a Kill the Drill coalition to oppose the permit. A year later, the coalitions efforts and an administrative challenge to the DEPs permit by the non-profit Apalachicola Riverkeepers prevailed when Judge Lawrence P Stevenson recommended the department deny the permit. In May, the DEP reversed course and denied the permit. But that was not enough to convince those seeking to preserve the regions environment. Shoaf, who represents Floridas north-eastern Gulf coast region, applauded the DEPs decision but says the threat of oil exploration and drilling near north Floridas inland waterways would only be ended by a permanent ban. So to prevent future threats and the DEP from issuing other oil exploratory drilling permits, Shoaf and state representative Allison Tant co-authored House Bill 1143. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While the permit to Clearwater Land and Minerals was denied, we cant assume the next one will be, Shoaf says. HB 1143 protects our precious water resources and the ecosystems that depend on them by prohibiting drilling, exploration and production of oil, gas and other petroleum products within 10 miles of a national estuarine research reserve in counties designated as rural areas of opportunity. It also requires the Florida department of environmental protection to ensure natural resources are adequately protected in the event of an accident. In April, the legislature overwhelmingly passed HB 1143 with only one dissenting vote in the Senate. It was presented to Floridas governor, Ron DeSantis, on 18 June. And, despite a poor recent record on protecting the environment, DeSantis signed the bill last week handing the coalition that lobbied for it a cheering victory. The area now saved from the oil industry is invaluable both to nature and the people who live there. The Apalachicola River, formed by the meeting of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, flows 160 miles (258km) to the Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf. Both the river and bay are critical to the regions tourism and seafood production industries. For environmental campaigners, the success of their efforts might help lay to rest the ghosts of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which released nearly 3.19m barrels of oil into the gulf. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oil from the BP spill didnt reach our coasts, but the damage caused by the threat was enough, Tant says. Weve seen what can happen. Weve lived it. This is not theoretical. It was a perilous time for small businesses and for those who lived in the area. It stopped tourism and shuttered small businesses. So it defies logic to think its a good idea to drill for oil along the Apalachicola River. Adrianne Johnson is executive director of the Florida Shellfish Aquaculture Association which represents more than 350 shellfish farmers in Florida. Johnson, an Apalachicola native, became involved in the Kill the Drill movement for personal and business reasons. This region has a deep collective memory of how the Gulf oil spill devastated the regional economy and collapsed the oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay, Johnson explains. And that was just the threat of oil. The majority of the states oyster farms operate across Wakulla, Franklin and Gulf counties, and these areas downriver would be most impacted by oil drilling upriver (at the proposed site in Calhoun county). If there were to be a spill upriver because of drilling in the basin, it would have catastrophic environmental and economic impacts on the area that would be felt for generations. Johnson also points to the regions frequent weather-related natural disasters, such as hurricanes, as another reason why drilling had to be banned in the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our shellfish farmers are still recovering from the multiple hurricanes of 2024, she explains. But the reality of being a Florida farmer is having to contend with these weather-related events. Hurricanes and natural disasters are outside of our control. Permitting oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas is very much within our control and is an unnecessary threat to our industry. Tant agrees. We are a hurricane-prone state, she says. We cant get away from that. Its not a question of will we get hit by a hurricane because we know its going to happen. But an oil spill caused by a hurricane would make the disaster 100 times worse. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the Deep Horizon oil spill caused the loss of 8.3 billion oysters, the deaths of nearly 105,400 sea birds, 7,600 adult and 160,000 juvenile sea turtles, and a 51% decrease in dolphins in Louisianas Barataria Bay. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Craig Diamond, current board member and past president of Apalachicola Riverkeeper, says another factor behind the ban was the river system itself. A spill would be highly impactful given the existing stresses in the system, says Diamond, who has worked with the Northwest Florida Water Management District and taught graduate courses on water resources at Florida State University. Apalachicola Bay Riverkeeper and its allies believe the long-term risks of fossil fuel exploitation in the floodplain or bay (or nearshore) far outweigh the short-term benefits. Shoaf says he was inspired to write HB 1143 by the communitys grassroots efforts to defend the regions natural resources. This bill is essential to prevent unnecessary and irreparable harm to Apalachicola Bay, as well as the economies and ecosystems that depend on it, he says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After DeSantis signed the bill into law, the threat of drilling has now receded into the distance for the foreseeable future. Co-published by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Guardian. This story was produced by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Guardian, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. Lucy Connolly has accused Sir Keir Starmer of holding her as a political prisoner in her first interview following her release from jail. Mrs Connolly, 42, a childminder from Northampton, said it was bizarre she had spent more than a year behind bars for posting a tweet inciting racial hatred in the wake of the Southport murders. Mrs Connolly, a mother of two, explained she was upset and angry beyond belief and that a red mist had clouded her judgment. She accepted the post on X was not her finest moment but insisted she did not advocate violence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an exclusive interview with Allison Pearson, the Telegraph journalist who led the campaign for her release, Mrs Connolly also accused the police of being dishonest in allegedly misrepresenting her views on immigration and threatened to bring a legal claim against them. Mrs Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison after pleading guilty to a post that wrongly suggested Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Southport, had been an illegal immigrant. Mrs Connolly called for mass deportation now, adding: Set fire to all the f---ing hotels full of the b------s for all I care if that makes me racist so be it. She removed the tweet after three hours but by that time it had been viewed by 310,000 people. The Southport murders sparked widespread disorder and rioting, prompting Sir Keir to condemn far-right thuggery and warn that anybody involved whether directly or by whipping up this action online would face the full force of the law. Asked if she felt the Prime Ministers statement on Aug 4 last year had affected the way she was treated by the criminal justice system, Mrs Connolly told The Telegraph: A hundred per cent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was arrested two days after his speech and subsequently denied bail. Asked if she considered herself Sir Keir Starmers political prisoner, Mrs Connolly replied: Absolutely. Me and several other people. It is important to remember that it wasnt just me. I, for some reason, seem to have had the most coverage, but there are people that are in equally awful situations that shouldnt be in there. And we should also be fighting for them and remembering them and when they come out, give them the same support. I think with Starmer he needs to practise what he preaches. Hes a human rights lawyer, so maybe he needs to look at what peoples human rights are, what freedom of speech means, and what the laws are in this country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She described Sir Keirs speech, which she complained had sealed her fate, as very divisive, adding: It [the speech] was very much if you are bothered about children being murdered, youre Right-wing. You know, youre far-Right. But Mrs Connolly said: Thats not [right]... people are going to be and are entitled to be upset, deeply upset about the unnecessary death of children. So its completely plausible that people are going to be upset and angry about the situation. She echoed complaints that authorities had kept back information from the public that had led to a vacuum of information and allowed rumours about the Southport killer to swirl on the internet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mrs Connolly said: So why not just release the facts around the case? She said she pleaded guilty to the charge because, having been remanded in custody, she thought it would be the surest way of getting out of prison in time to spend Christmas with her daughter. Because Id been remanded, I didnt know how long [Id be] waiting for a trial. The courts are so far behind [and] Im not sure they wouldve been in any hurry to get my case to trial. And I have a daughter that needs me. Im a stay-at-home mummy. Shes had me there her whole life and all I was thinking, what is my quickest route to her? I felt theyre going to throw the book at me for this. Theyve made that quite clear. Theyve done it to other people. What is my quickest route home? Mrs Connollys daughter was at the forefront of her mind when she pleaded guilty - Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph She also believed she had no chance of getting a fair trial in the wake of the uproar sparked by the riots. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even had I gone to trial, it was so prejudiced by that point, by the Government, by the police, by the press. I just, I dont even think I wouldve had a fair trial because people have been told stuff already that actually wasnt true, she said. The 31-month sentence handed down was a huge shock. She believed the notoriety her case had earned and the pressure brought to bear by highly critical politicians in power also led to her receiving worse treatment once in jail. She believes she was singled out in part because her husband Ray, an engineer, was also a local Conservative councillor and that authorities wanted to make an example of her. She said: Im just a woman from Northampton living in a three-bed semi that worked as a childminder with a husband as an engineer. Okay, he was a councillor. But that, people forget, thats almost like a second job. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His first job as an engineer, as a father, as a husband, we are nobody. We are not known to anybody. So I will never understand how it got to this. Theres people that have done far worse and people wouldnt be able to name them, but theyd know my name, and I just find it all really, really bizarre. Mrs Connollys lengthy prison term has been contrasted with the case of Ricky Jones, a Labour councillor acquitted by a jury despite calling for the throats of far-Right activists to be cut in the wake of the Southport riots. But Mrs Connolly said Mr Jones, who had walked free from court, had rightly not deserved to go to jail either. She said: Im pleased that the justice system did work for Ricky Jones and Im glad that he was able to get bail and he was able to get good legal advice and have time to stop and think about how he was going to plead. I wasnt given that luxury. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont advocate that we should be throwing anyone in jail for saying something that he shouldnt have done. It was silly. Does it really make him a criminal? Should we be putting people like him and I in prison? Absolutely not. Mrs Connolly told Allison Pearson she was shocked at being given a 31-month sentence - Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph She said she was triggered to post her tweet by a visceral reaction to the Southport murders, which shocked the nation. Her distress was exacerbated by the loss of her first child, Harry who died aged just 19 months as a result of NHS blunders in 2012. Mrs Connolly said: I was just so upset and angry beyond belief. When the red mist is there and I still cant comprehend how in this day and age we can allow that to happen. How have three children gone off to a dance class and their parents never get to pick them up again? I do know how that feels because Ive lost a child. It is theres just no words for it and I was just so upset. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of course, it [the tweet] wasnt my finest moment and I dont, I definitely dont advocate violence or burning anything down or anything of the sort. She added: It was just anger. I wasnt thinking rationally. Mrs Connolly said the murders of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar in Stockport triggered distress over the loss of her first child She typed out the message, went for a walk and came home, realising thats really not an okay thing to write I just deleted the post and didnt think much more of it, to be honest. But eight days later, police arrived at the family home and arrested Mrs Connolly for inciting racial hatred. She said she knew the authorities wanted to hammer her when she was subsequently remanded in custody rather than given bail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In her interview with the police, she says she told officers she was well aware of the difference between legal and illegal immigration, but told The Telegraph that her comments made in the interview were massively twisted and used against me. She told officers: Im well aware that we need immigrants Im well aware that if I go to the hospital, there are immigrants there and the hospital wouldnt function without them. But her concern was for illegal immigrants who posed a threat to national security and a danger to children. Police and the CPS subsequently released a statement later corrected that Mrs Connolly had told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them. Mrs Connolly told The Telegraph she was now considering taking legal action over the statement put into the public domain. Thats something that I will be looking into. I dont want to say too much because I need to seek legal advice on that, but I do think the police were dishonest in what they released and what they said about me, and I will be holding them to account for that. She added: Im well aware that the country needs immigration. Im well aware that if we kicked every immigrant out tomorrow, wed be screwed. I explained this to them [the police] and I explained its not immigration that I have an issue with. I have no issue with peoples skin, colour, race, religion, anything of that. Its simply the fact that this particular group of people are unchecked and I dont feel that its safe for our children to be walking the streets with people that we dont know. Im sure the vast majority of them are really, really decent people just wanting to build a better life. But if theres one or two in there, thats too many for our children. Mrs Connolly had missed her daughters birthday but bought her a bracelet and necklace on her release. But she also remains defiant despite her ordeal. They hope they broke me while I was in there [jail] but Im here to tell you that they didnt. I dont want to see women being kept away from their children sent to prison when they dont need to be there. I will continue to fight and really hope that I can help reform the system. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Guests on a luxury cruise ship have been hit with a 15pc service charge for helping themselves to a drink from their bedroom mini-bar. Cunard, known for its white-gloved waiters and deep connection with the Royal family, defended the mandatory fee, which it said helps recognise the service delivered by its staff. However, bemused passengers have complained that the charge which adds almost 2.50 to the price of half a bottle of prosecco is ridiculous, given many have to get on their hands and knees to access the fridge and then serve themselves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It comes after The Telegraph revealed this week that a London pub chain has added a 4pc service charge for drinks ordered at the bar. John Crampton, a 71-year-old pensioner from London, embarked on a three-week return voyage from Southampton to New York on July 25. He was forced to pay an extra 2 for the drink he took from his mini-bar. Mr Crampton told The Telegraph: It was a few days towards the end of my trip, and I thought I would have a treat and open the mini-bar. For a half bottle of house wine, which cost around 13, I had to pay 2 for the pleasure of having to get down on my knees to get the item out of the fridge, opening the bottle and pouring the wine before putting the remains back in the fridge. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although the mini-bar clearly advertised that a 15pc service charge would be added to the price of any drink, Mr Crampton said he could not understand the justification for one. [I understand that] someone has to physically put the items into a mini-bar for me to purchase, but what happens then if I go into a shop and bring a bottle of wine to the till, and they tell me its 10 for the wine, plus 1.50 because someone has put it on the shelf for you to buy. Mr Crampton was travelling on board Queen Mary 2, a 21-year-old ship christened and opened by the late Queen in 2004. Former prime minister, Tony Blair, and US president, George Bush, have been guests on the ship, as well as celebrities including Meryl Streep and Ed Sheeran. The Queen Mary 2 has welcomed many famous guests, including former prime minister, Tony Blair, and US president, George Bush - Cunard Cunard, which is based in Southampton and trades on its distinct British heritage and identity, is owned by an American parent company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The cruise liner applies a 15pc service charge across all of its bars and restaurants on its four ships, and said applying the same fee to its mini-bars ensured a consistent approach. While passengers can purchase alcohol on board in its duty free shops, these purchases are kept in storage until the last day of the voyage to make sure customers dont circumvent the 15pc service fee. Martyn James, a consumer expert, said the fee was ridiculous, and an example of microcharging. Its the process of adding on tiny charges that annoy you, but not necessarily to the point where you make a full-on complaint. The alleged service is the act of restocking the fridge. But of course that doesnt constitute service at all. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Emma Le Teace, a cruise writer, said it was now common practice for service charges or tips to be automatically added on American cruise lines. She said: When I cruise, I avoid the ships mini-bar, and encourage other guests to do the same. The drinks are usually more expensive than in the bars on board, and its not abnormal for a gratuity to be automatically added. A spokesman for Cunard said: A 15pc service charge is applied to all beverage purchases on board, including those from the in-stateroom mini-bar. This ensures a consistent approach and helps us recognise the service delivered by all of our teams across the ship. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will visit Moldova next week to celebrate Moldova's independence day, the French president's office said on Friday. "The leaders will reaffirm their full support for Moldova's security, sovereignty and European path," the Elysee said in a statement about the August 27 trip. Moldova, a small former Soviet republic located between Ukraine and EU and NATO member Romania, will hold parliamentary elections on September 28. The country's ruling party is seeking to maintain its majority and keep its pro-European trajectory intact. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moldovan officials have repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in its domestic politics by stoking pro-Moscow sentiment in an effort to topple the government as it aims to strengthen ties with the West, claims Russia denies. (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Makini Brice and Gabriel Stargardter) Todays edition of quick hits. * Abrego Garcia is now set to travel back to Maryland: Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, but the Trump administration has signaled that it still wants to remove him from the country after illegally sending him to El Salvador in March, where he was held in that countrys notorious terrorism prison without having been charged with or convicted of any crime. * Given that Maxwell wants a pardon, this is awfully tough to take seriously: The Trump administration on Friday released transcripts and audio recordings of convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwells unusual interview last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ... who was previously President Donald Trumps personal defense lawyer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement * The White Houses policy still isnt working: Russias top diplomat said in an interview released on Friday that there is no meeting planned between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. It was the Kremlins most direct declaration yet that a summit the White House had suggested was imminent was nowhere close to materializing. * Republican orthodoxy on capitalism keeps devolving: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday that the U.S. government has taken a 10% stake in Intel, the embattled chipmaker that is the only American company capable of making advanced chips on U.S. soil. * In Florida: A federal judge in Florida on Thursday night issued a significant ruling regarding the Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center in the Everglades, curbing the governments use of the controversial site on multiple fronts. Florida officials quickly filed a notice with the court that theyre appealing the ruling. * A story worth watching: The Trump administration said Thursday it is reviewing more than 55 million people who have valid U.S. visas for any violations that could lead to deportation, part of a growing crackdown on foreigners who are permitted to be in the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement * In related news: Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced the U.S. is pausing all employment visas for commercial truck drivers, an escalation of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffys effort to strictly enforce English proficiency standards on truck drivers in the name of safety. * Putting PEPFARs future in doubt: The Trump administration is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to fully fund a landmark H.I.V. program that is widely credited with saving millions of lives over the past two decades. * The ugly politics of spite: "A year after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando in 2016, Floridas Transportation Department approved plans for a rainbow crosswalk to honor the victims of what was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. On Thursday, residents and community leaders discovered that the same department painted over those rainbow stripes in response to dual directives from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and President Donald Trump to wipe crosswalks and sidewalks considered to have social, political or ideological messages. Have a safe weekend. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com It isnt the countrys highest profile intelligence agency, but the Pentagon has its own department focused on intelligence gathering and assessment. Its called the Defense Intelligence Agency, and its principal responsibility is collecting information on foreign militaries plans and capabilities. If the name sounds at all familiar, its because the DIA recently generated quite a bit of attention. Earlier this summer, Donald Trump ordered a preemptive military strike against nuclear targets in Iran, and it was a preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that found the airstrikes were less effective than the president claimed. The White House desperately wanted the American public to believe the Iranian program had been obliterated, but the information collected by the DIA suggested the political talking points simply werent true. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two months later, the head of the DIA is apparently out of a job. The Washington Post reported: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the latest senior military or intelligence officer to lose his position in a wider purge of national security agencies top ranks, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Posts report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that the Cabinet secretary didnt immediately cite a reason for the dismissal other than loss of confidence, a catchall term Hegseth has used to justify the sacking of other senior military officers this year." That Kruse was apparently ousted on the heels of sharing inconvenient intelligence that contradicted what the president wanted to hear sends a dangerous signal to other officials across other agencies: produce intelligence that makes Trump happy, or else. It comes against a backdrop of a larger offensive against the U.S. intelligence community. Just as notably, its the latest evidence of Hegseths ongoing Pentagon purge. Indeed, it comes just days after Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the Air Force, was also shown the door. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The broader purge also includes Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency; Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, the Armys top military lawyer; Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer, the Air Forces top military lawyer; and Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATOs military committee. Earlier this year, five former defense secretaries including retired Gen. Jim Mattis, Trumps first defense secretary condemned the firings as reckless. Their joint letter, addressed to Congress, asked that the House and the Senate hold immediate hearings to assess the national security implications of the dismissals. Hegseth and the administration appear to have ignored the concerns, the purge is ongoing, and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill have scheduled no such hearings. Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who served as a Marine officer in Iraq and who now serves on the House Armed Services Committee, recently spoke to Politico about Hegseths purges, which the congressman described as politically motivated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats a recipe not just for a politicized military, but an authoritarian military, Moulton said. Thats the way militaries work in Russia and China and North Korea. The Massachusetts Democrat made those comments in May. The problem is worse now. This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com In recent years, Rep. Chip Roy has frequently been a thorn in House GOP leaders side, and now that the Republican lawmaker is giving up his seat to run for statewide office in Texas, its likely they wont be sorry to see him go. The Texas Tribune reported: U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, announced a run for Texas attorney general Thursday, joining a crowded Republican primary field vying to replace Ken Paxton. A conservative but often rebellious member of Congress, Roy served as Paxtons top deputy for two years before becoming an outspoken critic of his former boss. Time will tell how Roy fares in his upcoming primary campaign, but as he prepares to walk away from Capitol Hill, he joins a number of other House Freedom Caucus members who are also planning their exit from Congress. In alphabetical order: Rep. Andy Biggs is running for governor in Arizona Rep. Byron Donalds is running for governor in Florida Rep. Barry Moore running for Senate in Alabama Rep. Ralph Norman is running for governor in South Carolina Rep. Chip Roy is running for state attorney general in Texas Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Their departures suggest the Freedom Caucus is poised to lose some of its highest-profile and more influential members. This comes on the heels of the right-wing faction kicking out some of members including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Randy Weber of Texas and losing its former chair, Virginias Bob Good, who came up short in a GOP primary last year. Around the same time, Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said didnt approve of the way the group had ousted Davidson, so he quit, too. Whats more, the contingents troubles arent limited to personnel. On the contrary, the House Freedom Caucus has also spent 2025 setting its credibility on fire. Consider the recent list: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In January, House Freedom Caucus members said they were prepared to derail House Speaker Mike Johnsons bid for a second term with the gavel, and then they caved. In March, House Freedom Caucus members said they were opposed to a stopgap spending measure needed to prevent a shutdown, and then they caved. In April, House Freedom Caucus members slammed their partys budget resolution, and then caved. In May, House Freedom Caucus members railed against their partys reconciliation package, and then they caved. In July, House Freedom Caucus members condemned the Senates version of the GOP megabill, and then caved. As a recent Washington Post analysis summarized: Each threat from leaders of the House Freedom Caucus ended with the same result: capitulation. After caving on each round of threats, these far-right conservatives vowed that the next time would be different if their demands were not met precisely as they sought. This collection of several dozen Republicans, after a decade of rabble-rousing that helped push aside three other speakers, has yet to fully buck Johnson ... on any major initiative this year. That was in early April. Months later, the group looks even worse. In recent years, the Freedom Caucus managed to earn a reputation as unrelenting hard-liners who rejected compromises, were indifferent to party leaders pleas, and who had no qualms about derailing GOP proposals they deemed insufficiently conservative. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a recent NBC News report explained, They didnt fear government shutdowns; they welcomed them. Their signature move was to collectively withhold votes unless House GOP leaders met their demands. Before this year, most members of the conservative crew had never supported a stopgap spending bill or debt ceiling increase in their entire House careers. That, however, was before Donald Trump became president and the attack dogs became obedient lapdogs. As its members prepare to exit the chamber, the House Freedom Caucus isnt just losing, its evaporating. This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com Nvidia was blindsided earlier this year when the US government enacted tougher restrictions on selling artificial intelligence chips to China. The restriction prevented Nvidia from selling its H20 chip within the Middle Kingdom, forcing CEO Jensen Huang to take a shockingly large $4.5 billion write-off for unsold chip inventory in the fiscal first quarter. Nvidia wasn't the only one impacted. AMD, Nvidia's closest competition for graphic processors used to train and operate AI chatbots and agents, was forced to stop selling its Instinct MI308 AI chip in China, costing it $800 million in Q2. Unsurprisingly, CEO Huang has been vocal in pleading the case for encouraging the adoption of US tech in AI globally to prevent China from gaining a greater foothold. Those efforts weren't in vain, given that Huang's argument helped Nvidia and AMD ink a new deal with the US government in August to resume exports, but that deal, which requires stiff payments to the US, has raised concerns over "pay to play," with some more bluntly calling it a "shakedown." The backlash has put US officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, on the defensive, causing them to push back against criticism. Those comments haven't sat well with China, which responded with harsh restrictions on Nvidia. Nvidia-AMD China deal 'really weird' and 'crony capitalism' The US government's rescission of Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD's (AMD) export licenses was justified by concerns that providing next-gen AI chips to companies there could be a threat to national security if systems running on them ever targeted America. Despite those concerns, the US reversed course this month after negotiations with Nvidia and AMD provided a framework for the companies to pay money to the US government based on China's chip sales. Specifically, Nvidia and AMD agreed to fork over 15% of their China sales to the US government in exchange for the ability to market their chips there again. In a CNBC interview on Aug. 13, Ray Wang, the founder and chairman of Constellation Research, called the surprising deal "bizarre" and "really weird." Others have gone further. The willingness displayed in this arrangement to negotiate away Americas competitive edge that is key to our national security in exchange for what is, in effect, a commission on a sale of AI-enabling technology to our main global competitor, is cause for serious alarm," wrote six Democratic Senators, including Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, in a letter to President Trump on Aug 15. "I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS," President Trump declared Monday in a Truth Social post. Later that day, he promised an executive order "to end mail-in ballots because they are corrupt. You know we are the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong, just about, the only country in the world that uses them because of what happened, massive fraud all over the place." Trump has remained consistent; even before the 2020 election, he warned: "There is a lot of dishonesty going on with mail-in voting." Trump doesnt need to hedge about voting rules abroad. Poland was the one other country that considered conducting its 2020 presidential election by mail during the pandemic, but even it abandoned the attempt. Countries dont use the kind of mass mail-in voting now used in eight states - where states automatically send ballots to all registered voters, who then mail them back. That system differs from absentee ballots, which require a request and traditionally demanded a reason, such as being out of town on Election Day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The United States stands out not only for mail-in ballots but also for its unusually broad use of absentee ballots. Of the 47 European countries, 35 - including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden - ban absentee voting for citizens living inside the country. Ten others - including England, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain - allow it only if voters pick up their ballots in person and present photo ID. Six of those restrict absentee ballots to the military or hospitalized voters, and they require verification from the military or hospital itself. The U.S., by contrast, lets anyone claim they will be out of town and receive a ballot by mail. England once followed rules similar to Americas. But in 2004, officials uncovered a massive fraud in Birmingham city council races. Six winning Labour candidates had acquired about 40,000 fraudulent absentee votes, mainly from Muslim neighborhoods. England responded by ending the mailing of absentee ballots and requiring in-person pickup with photo ID. France once had similarly loose rules. But in 1975, authorities exposed large-scale fraud on the island of Corsica, where dead people "voted" in the hundreds of thousands and widespread vote-buying flourished. France responded by banning absentee voting altogether. Concerns over absentee ballots used to unite both Democrats and Republicans. "Absentee ballots are the largest source of potential voter fraud." That warning doesnt come from Trump, but from the bipartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, led by Democratic President Jimmy Carter and Republican Secretary of State James Baker III. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Voters across the spectrum still share those worries. A Rasmussen poll at the end of last year found 59% of likely voters believe mail-in voting makes cheating easier. Majorities of black, Hispanic, and white voters agreed, along with both young and old. Only Democrats, liberals, graduate-school alumni, and those earning more than $200,000 disagreed. Earlier surveys reached similar results. Even the New York Times once raised alarms. In 2012, the paper warned that the increased use of absentee ballots "will probably result in more uncounted votes, and it increases the potential for fraud." But these days, that same newspaper insists voter-fraud claims for absentee ballots are "baseless" and "without evidence." American history reinforces these concerns. Between 1888 and 1950, widespread vote-buying led states to adopt the secret ballot. Once voters could no longer prove to buyers how they had voted, the payments stopped. As one state after another started using secret ballots, turnout immediately fell by 8% to 12%, according to myresearchwiththe late Larry Kenny at the University of Florida - evidence of just how rampant the practice had been. The Carter-Baker commission also highlighted how absentee voting enables coercion: "Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote-buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail." The problem is that both the buyer and seller have an incentive to hide the purchase. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But recent cases confirm the risks. Earlier this year, prosecutors indicted six Texans for harvesting ballots and buying votes by collecting absentee ballots. Absentee voting lets sellers prove how they voted, and ballot harvesting lets buyers ensure the votes count - guaranteeing they get what they paid for. Just this month, investigators in Hamtramck, Michigan, opened a fraud case after surveillance video showed a city council candidates aide stuffing three stacks of ballots into a drop box. The candidate had won by only a few dozen votes. Mail-in voting reopens the door to the fraud and vote-buying America worked so hard to eliminate a century ago. Thats why countries such as Norway and Mexico prohibit absentee ballots for citizens voting domestically. Americans deserve the same safeguard - a voting system they can trust. John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. He served as the senior advisor for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice during 2020-21. From in vitro fertilization to designer babies, the world of reproductive science has seen advances over the years that have profoundly changed the way humans conceive and give birth. Unfortunately, artificial human wombs are not yet among those breakthroughs that have made the jump from concept to real life. But that hasn't stopped a number of news sites from running with a bonkers story about plans to build a humanoid "pregnancy robot" that carries real human fetuses to term in a synthetic womb installed into its hardware. In recent weeks, outlets including Newsweek, The Telegraph and the New York Post have published stories about these purportedly forthcoming pregnancy bots. Said to be the brainchild of a Chinese business owner named Zhang Qifeng, the alleged founder of a company called Kaiwa Technology, these gestational robots could supposedly be in prototype by next year that is, if the story was true, and the man behind this shocking invention verifiably existed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Snopes reports, this fancy bit of flagrant misinformation seems to have started circulating in earnest around August 11, when the Korean news outlet Chosun cited reports from a purported Chinese tech news site called Kuai Ke Zhi about Zhang and his ostensible plans for robotic pregnancy. If it exists, Kuai Ke Zhi doesn't seem to have any digital footprint. Just as sketchily, Chosun also included a screenshot of a man who is supposed to be Zhang, which the Korean site claimed had come from Douyin, China's equivalent of TikTok. Shown below, the image shows a man in glasses sitting in what appears to be a newsroom, looking at and talking to another man who we can only see partially and from behind. Curiously, when we ran the image through Google Translate, it listed the Mandarin words superimposed on the image as saying Zhang Qifeng is the "founder of Shenzen Kaiva Robotics" a slight mistranslation, it seems, of the real-life Chinese electronics manufacturer known as Shenzen Kaifa Technologies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zhang, notably, is not the founder of the multinational manufacturer, and we were not able to find any trace of him associated with it. An Asian man with round, wire-rimmed glasses looks at someone off camera in what appears to be a newsroom, which is bathed in blue and chrome. There is white text over the top of the image, written in Mandarin. In that supposed video which we couldn't find any sign of, beyond that one purported screenshot the tech CEO was said to announce his pregnancy robot plans, and Chosun even included quotes from the supposed announcement. "I initiated development to solve the population decline issue," Zhang allegedly said during the purported interview. "While commercial surrogacy is designated as illegal, I want to meet the demand of those who do not wish to marry but want to have children." As misinformation is wont to do, the story traveled rapidly once it escaped containment. On August 15, both the notorious Daily Mail tabloid and the spammy science blog Interesting Engineering picked it up. Soon after, the story of the Chinese CEO's miracle robot also cropped up on the nursing site Nurse.org and the newsy mom blog Motherly, neither of which questioned its veracity as they broadcasted the phony story to their niche audiences. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Snopes noted, Zhang was listed in some of the outlets as being affiliated with Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as either a PhD graduate or professor. When the site's dedicated debunkers contacted NTU, however, a spokesperson said "no one by the name of 'Zhang Qifeng' graduated from NTU with a PhD," and there was no research on "gestational robots" being conducted there. With so much evidence suggesting that Zhang and his company do not exist never mind the fact that artificial wombs don't exist yet, full stop, either in stationary or grafted-to-a-robot form it seems pretty clear that this story is fabricated from top to bottom. But that clearly hasn't stopped half a dozen news sites from running with the story, to everybody's detriment. More on misinformation: Wired and Business Insider Accidentally Published AI-Generated Slop Articles by Seemingly Fake Journalist CHICAGO Felony charges have been filed against a Chicago man accused of attacking a transit employee at a West Side CTA stop on Thursday morning. According to police, 23-year-old Amir Cordova, a Clearing resident, has been charged with several felonies, including aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, aggravated battery of a victim over 60 and aggravated battery of a transit employee. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cordova has also been charged with one misdemeanor count of theft. Chicago police say the charges stem from an alleged attack that unfolded on a CTA Blue Line platform at the Grand stop in West Town. Photo provided by Chicago police shows 23-year-old Amir Cordova, who is accused of attacking a transit employee at a West Side CTA stop on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Officers said the victim, a 70-year-old man working for the CTA, was on the platform when he was allegedly attacked by Cordova. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Following the alleged attack, Cordova fled the scene, but authorities caught up with him just hours later in the 400 block of South Halsted Street, where he was taken into custody. Currently, it is unclear what led to the alleged attack and authorities have not provided an update on the victims condition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cordova appeared in court for a detention hearing on Friday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BRIGHAM CITY The man accused of shooting and killing two police officers in Box Elder County was visibly sobbing throughout his initial appearance in court Friday. While waiting for his initial hearing to start which was held remotely Ryan Michael Bate, 32, of Tremonton, was crying and rocking back and forth in the hearing room at the Weber County Jail. Bate is accused of opening fire on police officers who had responded to his residence for a domestic violence call. The shots killed Tremonton-Garland police officer Eric Estrada, 31, and Sgt. Lee Sorensen, 56, and injured Box Elder County sheriffs deputy Mike Allred and his police K-9, Azula, a 3-year-old female Belgian Malinois. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bate was charged Wednesday with two counts of aggravated murder, a capital offense, and prosecutors announced they will seek the death penalty. Bate also faces 18 other charges, including four counts of attempted aggravated murder, a first-degree felony; endangering a police service dog, a third-degree felony; three counts of possessing an explosive, a second-degree felony; two counts of possession of a dangerous weapon with criminal intent, three counts of assault, unlawful detention and threatening violence, class A misdemeanors; and three counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, a class B misdemeanor. Tremonton police responded late Sunday to a 911 hangup call at the Bate residence. Bates wife called emergency dispatchers and hung up in an attempt to get police to come to her home after Bate slammed her head with a door, and grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall, charging documents state. As the wife tried to calm (Bate) down, he repeatedly threatened to kill her. But when the first officer arrived and spoke to the wife, she assured (him) there was no physical violence, according to the charges. However, as the officer began to drive away, Bate took a high-powered rifle and fired at the officer, but missed, according to police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After calling for backup, the officer got out of the car to try to help the woman, who started running down the street, but he was shot and killed. A second officer was shot and killed while assisting the first, charges state. Shortly after, Allred and Azula arrived as backup. Bate fired again, injuring the deputy and striking the K-9 cage, causing injuries to Azula. Both are recovering. Police say Bate also shot at a neighbors vehicle, barely missing the driver. He then approached the two fallen officers with a revolver and a rifle in hand as he continued to look around for other targets, before bystanders convinced him to put down the weapons, the charges say. After he was taken into custody, officers searched Bates home and reported finding three Molotov cocktails. Bate was also arrested and charged last year for another domestic violence incident at the same house. Those charges were later dismissed, according to court records, but the Box Elder County Attorneys Office refiled those previous charges on Wednesday. Bate is charged in that case with aggravated assault and three counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, third-degree felonies; and causing property damage, a class A misdemeanor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Judge Spencer Walsh read the 25 total charges filed against Bate, Bate kept his head down, not looking at the camera. Defense attorneys Jonathan Nish and Mary Corporon were appointed to represent Bate in the capital case. Nish said he would speak with the Utah Indigent Defense Commission to also represent Bate on the second case. Prosecutor Blair Wardle filed a request for a pre-trial protective order for the domestic violence victim and three children, who were not named. Bate started visibly sobbing again when the judge read out the instructions on the protective order and explained that there would be no contact with the children unless approved by family court. The defense requested extra time to prepare for the next hearing and the judge scheduled it for Oct. 30. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A viewing for both of the slain officers will be held at Bear River High School in Tremonton on Wednesday, Aug. 27, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Estradas funeral is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 28, at 10 a.m. and Sorensens will be Friday, Aug. 29, at 10 a.m. Both services will be held at the Utah State University Spectrum in Logan. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A Buffalo man accused of killing his girlfriend at an Amherst motel last month is being extradited to Western New York to face a murder charge, the Erie County District Attorneys Office said Friday. Daniel Negron, 37, is accused of stabbing his girlfriend, 27-year-old Emma-ya Sims, to death at the motel on either July 25 or July 26 on the 1900 block of Niagara Falls Boulevard. She was found on July 29. Negron was arrested on July 29 for an unrelated incident in Erie, Pa., where he fled to a church with a knife and attempted to harm himself. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prosecutors said that Negron refused to waive extradition, leading to the Erie County District Attorneys Office obtaining a governors warrant, which was served to Negron at a hearing on Tuesday. He remains in custody pending being extradited to Western New York. He will appear in court on Monday in Buffalo to face a second-degree murder charge. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 25 years to life in prison. Latest Local News Aidan Joly was named News 4s Digital Executive Producer in 2025. He has been on staff since 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. A San Bernardino man was arrested on suspicion of molestation on Wednesday after he allegedly posed as an animal control officer in a white "ambulance-style" van to lure a young girl searching for her missing dog into his van, authorities said. At about 8:50 p.m. Tuesday, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies responded to reports of a kidnapping in Highland after an 11-year-old girl briefly went missing and returned home in the evening, according to a news release. Earlier that day, the girl was searching for her missing dog near San Francisco and 14th streets when Guillermo Cascante, a 57-year-old San Bernardino resident, allegedly approached her in an older white van and posed as an animal control officer to lure her into his vehicle, according to the release. Guillermo Cascante was driving an older white, ambulance-style van and allegedly approached the 11-year-old victim while she was looking for her missing dog near San Francisco and 14th streets. (San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and Highland Police Department) Deputies said that once inside the vehicle, Cascante allegedly used a handgun to threaten the girl and proceeded to molest her as he drove around the city. Cascante then stopped the vehicle, dropped the girl off near Cunningham and 9th Street and fled the scene, according to the press release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deputies conducted an area search and located a vehicle matching the victims description parked near Cascante's home on 18th and Guthrie streets, authorities said. On Wednesday, deputies issued a search warrant for Cascantes home and made the arrest, deputies said. Cascante was booked on suspicion of kidnapping, lewd acts with a child under 14 and lewd acts with a child using force or fear. Detectives said they believe other victims may exist and plan to release photos of Cascante and his vehicle to the public. Individuals who may have been victimized by Cascante or have information regarding the incident are asked to contact the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's Highland station at (909) 425-9793 or the anonymous tip line at (800) 782-7463. 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. Shazad Khan, 41, died after reports of an altercation on Monks Park Road, Wembley [Met Police] A man accused of murdering an ice cream seller in north-west London has appeared in court. Emergency services were called out to reports of an altercation in Monks Park Road, Wembley on Tuesday evening. Shazad Khan, 41, was treated for stab wounds but he died at the scene. On Thursday, Zaher Zaarour, 26, of North Circular Road, Brent, was charged with murder and possession of a bladed weapon. Mr Zaarour appeared at Willesden Magistrates' Court and was remanded in custody until his next court appearance, which is due to be at the Old Bailey on 27 August. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He is then due to appear at the same court on 19 September to enter a plea. Local residents previously said Mr Khan was well known in the area for selling ice creams in a van. One said he was married and had a young daughter. Earlier, Det Ch Insp Paul Waller of the Met Police said: "I would like to thank the community for their help and support during this investigation. "Residents can expect to see an increase of officers in the local area over the next coming days as the investigation continues." Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk More on this story Related internet links FAIRFIELD, Iowa A man accused of taking an Iowa teen reported missing to a North Carolina home last weekend is now facing a kidnapping charge in Iowa. Last weekend, the Fairfield Police Department shared a post on Facebook about a 15-year-old girl who had been reported missing. Not long after the post was published, the teen was found over 15 hours away at a home in North Carolina. Fairfield police contacted the Rockingham County, North Carolina Sheriffs Office about the missing teen and the belief that she might be in their jurisdiction. According to officials, the investigation into the teens disappearance discovered that the teen and a North Carolina man had been communicating on texting apps, and that the man picked up the teen in Fairfield before taking her to North Carolina. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Marshalltown man arrested after allegedly stealing a vehicle, leading police chase The investigation led deputies to a residence in Reidsville, where they found the teen safe. The teen was reunited with her family. Authorities say the man who took the teen was 25-year-old John Michael Johnson. He was booked into the Rockingham County Jail earlier this week on North Carolina charges of felony second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and felony solicitation by computer. On Thursday, the Fairfield Police Department announced Johnson would also be facing charges in Iowa. A warrant for his arrest was issued for first-degree kidnapping. Johnson will remain in North Carolina until arrangements are made to move him to Jefferson County, Iowa, to be officially charged. Iowa news Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com. A man has appeared in court charged with offences relating to a break-in at RAF Brize Norton, which was claimed by Palestine Action. Muhammad Umer Khalid, 22, is accused of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for purposes prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK. The incident on 20 June saw a group of protesters break into the air base and spray-paint two RAF Voyager planes. Police say the act caused 7m of damage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Khalid, who appeared in court via video link from Wormwood Scrubs, has been remanded in custody and will next appear in court to enter a plea in January. Palestine Action has claimed the incident, saying it was a protest against the UK's support of Israel's war in Gaza. The British government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation soon after. Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay KC told the court the break-in was a "sophisticated and carefully planned attack" with a "terrorist connection". Mr Khalid, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, is the fifth person to be charged in connection with the break-in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He will next appear in court for a plea hearing on 16 January 2026, and a provisional trial date is set for 18 January 2027. Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, Jony Cink, 24, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 36, and Lewis Chiaramello, 22, who are all also in custody, will appear on the same dates. [Watch previous FOX 8 News coverage in the player above.] [This article has been updated to reflect the correct plea Aaron Sharp entered on Friday.] CLEVELAND (WJW) A man charged with what prosecutors believe were calculated murders of his grandfather and brother, then the shootings of two responding East Cleveland officers, faced a county judge on Friday morning. Aaron Sharp, 24, of Westerville, was indicted earlier this week on 18 felony counts, including aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder of a peace officer, in the Aug. 7 killings and subsequent shootings of two police officers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He pleaded not guilty Friday morning before a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge and will continue to be held on a $3 million bond. PHOTOS: Teen girl injured in hit-and-run at Euclid crosswalk Police were called at about 11 p.m. that night to a domestic shooting at a Taylor Road home. Sharps grandfather, Charles Roscoe, 82, and brother, Erik Sharp, 22, were both killed in the shootings, which authorities believe were planned, court documents show. While outside the home, East Cleveland police officer Joshua Durda encountered Sharp, who shot him in the leg, according to authorities. The incident prompted an overnight manhunt that spanned several hours, during which a second East Cleveland officer, Brandon Hernandez, was shot in the buttocks, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Home total loss after cord overheated, sparking fire: Fire officials Sharp was arrested the next morning by U.S. Marshals, who used a Taser when he was found hiding in bushes near Shaw High School, having taken off all of his clothes and wrapped himself in plastic bags. Both officers are expected to make a full recovery. We see a lot of tragedy come before us, and this one is especially painful, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael OMalley said in a statement earlier this week. The amount of grief Aaron Sharp has caused his family is unimaginable. We will hold him accountable for his actions, and we pray that the family can recover from this horrific event. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sharp remains held on a $3 million bond and is due back in court on Sept. 3. He could face life in prison. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Nvidia (NVDA) shares closed in the red on Wednesday as investors continued to retreat from AI stocks due to a mix of seasonal caution and valuation concerns. The selloff arrives only days ahead of Nvidias fiscal second-quarter earnings report scheduled for Aug. 27. Expectations more broadly are for the quarterly update to prove the next big catalyst for NVDA. More News from Barchart Nvidia stock has been on a tear over the past four months. Despite the recent pullback, therefore, its up a whopping 101% versus its year-to-date low set in early April. www.barchart.com What to Expect From Nvidia Stock After Q2 Earnings? While September historically is a weak month for equities, John Vinh, a senior KeyBanc analyst, expects NVDA stock to rip higher after its Q2 earnings on Aug. 27. Consensus is for the AI darling to earn $0.94 per share in its current financial quarter, up roughly 45% on a year-over-year basis. According to Vinh, the chipmakers guidance may come in slightly shy of expectations next week. However, that shouldnt worry Nvidia investors since it would only reflect managements decision to exclude China revenue given pending approvals and uncertainty on timing. What Could Drive NVDA Share Price Up Further From Here Despite their strong year-to-date performance, KeyBanc recommends sticking with NVDA shares as the upcoming ramp of Blackwell Ultra in the third quarter could sustain earnings momentum. Plus, improving production yields for the companys GB200 data center systems indicate a more efficient supply chain, which could translate to continued upside in its bottom line. The investment firms Overweight rating on Nvidia stock comes with a price objective of $215, signaling potential upside of another 25% from current levels. Note that analysts expect the artificial intelligence behemoths revenue to come in at $45.9 billion in the fiscal second quarter, or up some 11% sequentially. Nvidia Remains a Buy-Rated Stock Among Wall Street Analysts Other Wall Street firm may not be as bullish on NVDA stock as KeyBanc, but they, nonetheless, forecast further upside in the semiconductor giant from here. The consensus rating on Nvidia shares remains at Strong Buy with the mean target of about $190 indicating potential upside of nearly 10% from current levels. Shotsie Buck-Hayes doused a Virginia city councilman with gasoline and chased down the panicked politician to set him alight leaving the victim with burns on 60 percent of his body, officials charge per report by CBS News. According to authorities, Buck-Hayes, 29, barged into an office building in the Old Dominion state, where 38-year-old Lee Vogler the youngest member of Danvilles City Council works as a managing partner of a media marketing firm. Cops say Buck-Hayes was carrying a five-gallon bucket containing flammable liquid and poured it on his acquaintance Vogler, who was unable to outrun his assailant and was soon engulfed in flames. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Buck-Hayes fled the scene but was nabbed a few blocks away after brave Vogler identified him as his attacker, lawmen say. A criminal complaint obtained by Cardinal News, states that the suspected firebug admitted hed dumped gasoline on Vogler and that his intention was to kill him. The critically injured Republican was airlifted to a regional medical facility for treatment and friends say the married father of two is expected to be hospitalized for at least six months. Investigators have not released a possible motive, but believe the attack was based on a personal dispute and not related to politics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Court records show that Buck-Hayes wife filed for divorce just over two weeks before the attack on Vogler, per NBC News. The accused is charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding. Hes being held at a psychiatric facility under a temporary detention order. His next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 30. Sheriff Mike Mondul explains Buck-Hayes had been exhibiting behaviors that were problematic on the day of the attack, so he was transferred from jail to the mental health center. Fellow city council member Bryant Hood says, Were continuously praying, almost every hour on the hour, and thats exactly what [Vogler] would do for us. CHAMPLAIN A Canadian man was arrested after crashing a vehicle at the town of Champlain port of entry early Saturday morning, State Police said. At approximately 1:04 a.m., State Police responded to a one-car collision at the Port of Entry on West Service Road. The investigation revealed a black 2023 BMW X6 was traveling south at a high rate of speed through the port of entry when it failed to stop for inspection, police said. Police said the driver lost control of the vehicle, striking a gate then colliding with a concrete barrier. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers provided immediate assistance at the scene. The driver, identified as Christopher Desrodier-Coronel, 34, of Laval, Quebec, was interviewed. After being searched, he was taken into custody by U.S. Customs Officers. Police said when troopers arrived and interviewed Desrodier-Coronel, they observed signs of impairment and he refused to participate in Standardized Field Sobriety Tests. Police said Desrodier-Coronel then began to complain of chest and arm pain, necessitating his transport to CVPH for medical evaluation. After being treated, he was released from the hospital and taken into custody by the State Police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Desrodier-Coronel was arrested and brought to SP Champlain for processing. He was charged with driving while intoxicated (refusal), second degree reckless endangerment, and fourth degree criminal mischief, police said. He was subsequently released on appearance tickets, which require him to return to the Town of Champlain Court at a later date in September. After processing, Desrodier-Coronel was turned over to the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to address federal and immigration violations. A man has been arrested for his alleged role in an assault at a Rufus Du Sol concert in Los Angeles that saw a woman being hit multiple times in an attack that left her unconscious. Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala, 23, was arrested on suspicion of assault Thursday, Pasadena police said. In the viral clip, shared by the music-focused social media account Festive Owl, a man is seen punching a woman until bystanders were able to move him away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The victim can be seen in the video lying lifeless on the floor as another concertgoer tries to hold her up. The womans fiance was also hurt in the attack while he attempted to shield her, according to reports. Towards the end of the video, a concertgoer can be heard shouting, Get him out of here! ... We need help! The suspect fled the scene after the incident, police said. A man who allegedly attacked a woman while they were attending a concert at the Rose Bowl on August 16, 2025. A video shows the man hitting the victim at least five times, knocking her unconscious and leaving her bloodied and bruised. Police are still searching for the man. (The Festive Owl) According to a statement, authorities received a call regarding the assault of three people in the seating area of the stadium around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. The investigation revealed that three victims were assaulted to varying degrees by a male suspect who reportedly became agitated after a drink was spilled, said the Pasadena Police Department in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials added that the video footage and numerous tips from the public helped them identify Zavala. The victim, who had traveled from Phoenix to attend the show, maintained early on that the altercation began because she accidentally spilled a drink on a man sitting in front of them. We apologized immediately, but he yelled that it was intentional and ran off, leaving his companion behind, the woman told The Festival Owl. We apologized to her and thought it was over. The suspect returned approximately half an hour later and began screaming at the woman and her friend, threatening to hurt them. The woman explained that she tried to de-escalate the situation and apologize again when she was hit in the face. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was rendered unconscious, suffered severe bleeding, and remembers waking up some time later in a medical tent she refused to be taken to a hospital, police say. The incident is believed to have unfolded before Rufus Du Sol even took the stage, according to a Pasadena Police spokesperson. On Monday, Rufus Du Sol, the electronic music trio, posted a message to their social media saying, delivering moments to our fans to gather and celebrate safely is what we live for. We have been heartbroken to hear of the act of violence that took place during the opening act on Saturday. This type of behavior is completely unacceptable anywhere, and the fact that this happened at one of our shows was devastating to learn about. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zavalas case has now been submitted to the L.A. County district attorneys office for filing consideration. The victim is expected to make a full recovery. Anyone who may have further information about this incident should call the Pasadena Police at 626-744-4241. A man was arrested for a series of sexual assaults targeting victims in the Los Angeles area. The suspect was identified as Jordan Jay Christopher Hunt, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Hunt reportedly met his victims through social media and dating apps, police said. Following an investigation, on Aug. 20, Hunt was arrested for forcible rape. Jordan Jay Christopher Hunt is seen in photos provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. Detectives believe there may be additional victims who have yet to come forward. Police are also searching for witnesses with more information on the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anyone who may be a victim or has additional information is asked to call LAPD Sexual Assault Detectives at 323-290-2976. The public can also call the LAPD at 1-877-527-3247. Anonymous tips can be provided to L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at lacrimestoppers.org. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. BROWNWOOD, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) A man in Brownwood has been sentenced to 90 years in prison on multiple charges, including child sex crimes. Courtesy of the Brown County Sheriffs Office 65-year-old Charles Duncan was found guilty of Online Solicitation, two counts of Sexual Performance of a Child, Possession of Child Pornography, and Possession of Methamphetamine. During sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Bird urged the judge to impose a life sentence, citing the long wait many of the victims endured for justice. Duncans attorney requested deferred adjudication, but Judge Yeats handed down prison sentences in each case, totaling 90 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Due to enhanced parole requirements, Duncan will not be eligible for parole until he has served at least half of his sentence. If released, he will also be required to register as a lifetime sex offender. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. A Saugus man was arraigned Thursday in connection to a stabbing on Cape Cod last week. 53-year-old Chad Miller was charged with assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault causing serious bodily injury. Miller was ordered held pending a dangerousness hearing next Tuesday. According to Barnstable Police, officers were called to Cape Cod Hospital around 1 a.m. on August 16 for a report of a 38-year-old man who suffered a stab wound to his abdomen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His injuries were considered life-threatening at the time. Investigators followed up on leads and identified Miller as a suspect. Its unclear whether or not Miller knew the victim. On August 20, police issued a warrant for his arrest, eventually taking him into custody at his Saugus residence. The incident remains under investigation by Barnstable Police and the Cape & Islands District Attorneys Office. No further information was immediately available. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW PEARL RIVER COUNTY, Miss. (WHLT) Pearl River County deputies announced a man was arrested on child exploitation charges. On August 19, 2025, Pearl River County deputies, along with the Homeland Security Investigations Gulfport Field Office, executed an arrest warrant on Robert Leslie Pullens following an investigation. Hattiesburg police warn of scam caller impersonating officer Investigators said Pullens was charged with four counts of exploitation of children. He appeared in court on August 21, 2025, and was denied bond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pullens is being held at the Lenoir Rowell Criminal Justice Center. Robert Leslie Pullens (Courtesy: Pearl River County Sheriffs Office) This is an active investigation. Anyone with information about Pullens can contact the Pearl River County Sheriffs Department Criminal Investigations Division at 601-403-2530 or 601-749-5482. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. CHEROKEE COUNTY, N.C. (WSPA) The Cherokee County Sheriffs Office said that one man was arrested and charged with distributing child sex abuse material in Cherokee County. Deputies said the investigation began when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a tip that a man had uploaded child sexual abuse material. The distributor was identified as 39-year-old Corey Benjamin Sneed of the Peachtree Community in Cherokee County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On August 15, deputies executed a search warrant at Sneeds residence. Authorities said that multiple electronic devices were found containing child sexual abuse material. Sneed was then arrested August 20. Sneed was charged with ten counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and ten counts of third-degree exploitation of a minor. Sneed is currently confined at the Cherokee County Detention Center under two bonds, one of $100,000.00 secured and the other being no bond. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS. A Brunswick man, Malcolm Mincey, was arrested by Glynn County Police on Wednesday after a traffic stop revealed multiple drug and weapons-related offenses. The arrest occurred at about 8:32 p.m. in the area of Habersham Street and Peachtree Street. Officers said they did a records check, showing Mincey had an outstanding failure to appear warrant issued by the Glynn County Sheriffs Office. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] During a search of Minceys vehicle, officers found about 50 grams of marijuana, individually packaged THC-infused edibles, multiple digital scales and packaging materials commonly used in the distribution of narcotics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police said they also found a Glock 43X 9mm handgun. TRENDING STORIES: Mincey was taken into custody without incident and transported to the Glynn County Police Department Headquarters for an interview before being turned over to the Glynn County Detention Center. Police said he now faces several charges, including possession of a firearm during the commission of certain crimes, possession of drug-related objects, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of Schedule I substance with intent to distribute, tag light violation and failure to appear. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The investigation is ongoing, and authorities are encouraging anyone with information to contact the Glynn County Police Department non-emergency line or anonymously via Silent Witness. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] It took a St. Clair County jury less than two hours to find a 22-year-old Florissant, Missouri, man guilty of the murder of a 10-year-old Belleville area boy that happened in 2023. Devin Dunbar was convicted of first-degree murder Thursday in the shooting death of Brandon E. Scott. Brandon was playing a video game inside his house at 1800 Roosevelt Avenue near Belleville when shots were fired at the residence and he was struck in the chest on July 3, 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Based on certain enhancements that the jury found in Dunbars case, he faces a sentence of 45 years to natural life in the Illinois Department of Corrections and he will have to serve 100 percent of any sentence he is given, according to St. Clair County States Attorney Jim Gomrics office. Sentencing in Dunbars case is set for Oct. 14 in front of St. Clair County Circuit Judge John O Gara, who presided over the trial. A second man, Jaylen P. Nicks, 28, also was charged in the incident. He has pleaded guilty to an armed violence charge in exchange for a 26-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Both Dunbar and Nicks were acquainted with the family and an investigation linked them to the murder, Belleville Police Master Sgt. Shane Brown said at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were confident that this was not just a random act of violence, that the individuals involved had some knowledge of the location they were going to, Brown said at a 2023 news conference. Dunbar was remanded to the custody of the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department. Brandons father, Wendel Scott Jr., told the BND in 2023 that his son was inside their home playing a video game when someone shot at the house. My son didnt deserve this, Scott said. He was inside of the house playing a video game. This doesnt make any sense. The case was investigated by the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department and the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis. St. Clair County Assistant States Attorney Daniel Lewis and Crystal Uhe, a special prosecutor for the Illinois States Attorneys Appellate Prosecutors Office, prosecuted this case. Nvidia (NVDA) is working with the US government to bring a follow-up to its H20 chip to China, CEO Jensen Huang told reporters while traveling in Taiwan. The new chip would be based on Nvidia's Blackwell architecture but not as powerful as the B200 AI processor the company sells to US companies and abroad. "I'm offering a new product to China for ... AI data centers, the follow-on to the H20," Huang said while acknowledging that the Trump administration would have to approve the move. "That's not our decision to make. It's up to, of course, the United States government. And we're in dialogue with them, but it's too soon to know." Nvidia stock was flat on the news. The company's stock is up 29.4% year-to-date and 40.5% over the last 12 months. The Trump administration initially banned the sale of Nvidia's H20 to China, a chip the company specifically made to meet restrictions put in place by the Biden administration, in April. However, Trump changed his mind after meeting with Huang, and the company said it would begin making shipments in July. Earlier this month, Trump said he would allow Nvidia and rival AMD (AMD) to ship their AI chips with the caveat that they pay 15% of the sale of chips to the US government. CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang speaks during a press conference at the Mandarin Oriental Qianmen after attending the third China International Supply Chain Expo, in Beijing, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) ASSOCIATED PRESS During a press conference confirming the 15% fee, Trump said that he was looking at allowing Nvidia to ship a new chip based on Blackwell. But Chinese officials have also warned companies about using Nvidia's chips, saying that they could contain "backdoor" security risks that could allow them to be tampered with. Nvidia has denied the charge and is working with the Chinese government to address the matter. China, including Hong Kong, accounted for $17.1 billion of Nvidia's $130.4 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year. The US is by far the company's largest market, accounting for $61.2 billion in sales. Nvidia will report its Q3 earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Sign up for Yahoo Finance's Week in Tech newsletter. yahoofinance Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @DanielHowley. For the latest earnings reports and analysis, earnings whispers and expectations, and company earnings news, click here Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance MEMPHIS, Tenn. A Shelby-County jury convicted a man of sexually assaulting two minors in his family, according to a press release from the Shelby-County District Attorneys Office. Gaudencio Lopez, 46, was convicted of rape of a child and two counts of aggravated sexual battery. Gaudencio Lopez (SCSO) The DAs office said that during the trial, testimony revealed Lopez abused one victim between the ages of seven and ten, and the victims young sister between the ages of six and seven. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They said the abuse was hidden for years until the younger victim told her mother, which encouraged the older victim to confess what happened as well. Reports said both victims gave a testimony on the stand about the years-long sexual abuse. See more breaking news, local news and weather from WREG.com for Memphis and the Mid-South. Sign up for WREG newsletters and have the latest top stories sent right to your inbox. Lieutenant Roderock Watson with the Memphis Police Department also testified about the investigation he led. In the press release, District Attorney Steve Mulroy commented on the jurys verdict. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This guilty verdict means everything to these young survivors and their family. It delivers accountability and justice after years of silence, said Mulroy. We are grateful for the tireless work of our Special Victims Unit prosecutors, whose dedication made this outcome possible. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. LAMAR, S.C. (WBTW) A Lamar man was arrested on Wednesday after he allegedly shot and killed a Lee County man, the Lamar Police Department said. Michael Quintel Abson Jr., 35, was charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. He is being held without bond at the W. Glenn Campbell Detention Center. According to an arrest warrant, on Saturday, Abson shot Keith Rouse, 35, of Lynchburg, in the torso at a home on the 100 block of McClain Street. He died after being taken to McLeod hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An incident report shows that officers found an area outside of the home near a pine tree where a fight seemed to have taken place, and a handgun was located nearby in a grassy area. Abson was arrested at the scene. The report also states that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division was called to process the scene. * * * Jordan White is a Digital Producer at News13. She joined the News13 team in August 2024. Jordan, a Myrtle Beach native, graduated from St. James High School in Murrells Inlet and is a graduate of Coker University. Follow Jordan on Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, and read more of her work here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) First responders rescued a man with hypothermia from the Pacific Ocean in San Diego Thursday morning after a fisherman found him unresponsive in the water. A man reportedly fell from a jetty into the Pacific Ocean near Mission Bay in San Diego around 10 a.m. Thursday and was spotted floating in the water, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department confirmed. The fisherman spotted the man and flagged down a Border Patrol boat, according to the fire-rescue department, which brought in San Diego Lifeguards and the Coast Guard to assist with rescuing the man. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Border Patrol agents were able to pull the man from the boat and wrap him in mylar blankets. He was taken to the hospital with hypothermia. His identity and condition were unknown as of Thursday evening. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A man pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the 2019 death of Steven Mark Brashear, whose remains were found being fed on by mountain lions, near a popular hiking trail northeast of Tucson. Daylan Jacob Thornton pleaded guilty to one count of negligent homicide, one count of abandonment or concealment of a dead body and one count of fraudulent schemes and artifice, court documents said. Brashear was found in December 2019 near the Pima Canyon trail in the Catalina Mountains, and officials with Tucson Game and Fish confirmed that three mountain lions had fed on his remains. The mountain lions were euthanized after the incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Research has shown that the lions were more likely to attack humans after having eaten the remains of one, Mark Hart with Tucson Game and Fish said. Deputies had arrested Thornton on suspicion of auto theft in January 2020, the department said. The stolen vehicle belonged to Brashear, who was reported missing to Oro Valley Police in December. Typically, mountain lions are elusive, preferring to stay hidden from people, the Arizona Game and Fish website said. They primarily feed on deer, javelina, rabbits, unsecured domestic animals, or livestock. Another factor in the decision to euthanize the mountain lions was their lack of fear when responding officers approached and the proximity of the lions to a popular hiking trail, Hart said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thornton was scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 17, court documents said. Reporter Brianna J. Frank contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man pleads guilty after gruesome death scene near Tucson-area trail FARMINGTON, N.M. (KRQE) A San Juan County man charged with threatening a district court judge in Farmington has pleaded guilty. Francisco Cabral followed the judge in a vehicle on Jan. 10 and held up a photo of the judges son and saying that he was going to kill him. Farmington police arrest man accused of threating to shoot teacher at elementary school According to court documents, the judge had taken on a juvenile case involving Cabrals son. Investigators said Cabrals behavior forced all Farmington Courts to close for one and a half days. A sentencing date has not been set yet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cabral faces a maximum sentence of 18 months and a fine of $5,000, followed by one year parole. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Jacqueline Reckling wore a black wedding band around her neck as she listened to the sentence handed down to the man who killed her husband, Oakland County Deputy Bradley Reckling, on Friday, Aug. 22: Raymone Debose of Clinton Township was sentenced to 33-60 years in prison, per a plea agreement set in July. Authorities say he was the one who fired the fatal rounds at Reckling on a Detroit street on June 22, 2024, while the young deputy was pursuing an auto theft. But Jacqueline Reckling said the system failed her husband Debose won't have to pay for his death for as long as she and their family will. Jacqueline Reckling, wife of fallen Oakland County Sheriff deputy Bradley Reckling, wipes tears away after delivering her victim impact statement during the sentencing of Raymone Debose in the Wayne County Criminal Justice Center courtroom of Judge Charise Anderson on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. First-degree murder of a police officer is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole. But under a Michigan Supreme Court ruling, people 20 or younger cannot receive such a sentence automatically. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If it was your everything who had been deliberately murdered, what would you consider an appropriate sentence for the person that made that choice?" Jacqueline Reckling asked in Wayne County's Third Circuit Court as a slide show displayed pictures of her husband and their children. Bradley Reckling, 30, should have been there for their first daughter's 6th birthday party, which was supposed to be the day after he was murdered, she said. He should have been by their second daughter's side as she started preschool two months after he was killed. He should have told their third daughter how proud he was after she used the potty for the first time, three months later. And he should have welcomed his first son into the world six months after his death, a son he never had the chance to know he was going to have, Jacqueline Reckling said. Oakland County Sheriff's deputies flooded the courtroom during Debose's sentencing, including Sheriff Michael Bouchard, who has said he prefers Debose behind bars for the rest of his life. Reckling's loved ones wept his father, Andrew Reckling, wept hardest. Loved ones for Debose were there, too. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The court had to create an overflow room for people to watch the hearing virtually that's how many people showed up. Those in the courtroom heard victim impact statements from Reckling's wife, mother, and father. They also heard Debose say the deputy's death was an accident. "I didnt wake up and say, I want to go kill a cop today,'" Debose said. He apologized to Reckling's family for their pain, and to his own family as well. Things didnt work out how it was supposed to. Deputy's father: 'I am ruined as a human being' Reckling's family described him as a selfless and loving husband, son, father, and brother; someone who was inherently good and built up everyone around him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jacqueline Reckling told the story of her husband once donating their own children's diapers and clothes to a struggling mother he'd encounter on the job. He instilled the values of kindness, service, integrity, and humility in their children, she said. They had a family of light, and her husband was their beacon that is, until the defendant murdered him," she said. Tammy Reckling, the deputy's mother, recalled in court the way she kept begging for a miracle as she walked the hospital halls the night her son was killed. Before he succumbed to his injuries, she described her son's half-opened eyes she said now haunt her. She wondered how much pain he had been in. Tammy Reckling, mother of fallen Oakland County Sheriff deputy Bradley Reckling, wears a bracelet in her sons honor as she reads her victim impact statement during the sentencing of her sons killer Raymone Debose in the Wayne County Criminal Justice Center courtroom of Judge Charise Anderson on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. I wake up every day with an ache in my chest knowing I will never hear Brad's voice again. I will never be able to hug him, I will never be able to hear him laugh. There's a constant emptiness in my heart. Grief follows me everywhere," Tammy Reckling said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She'd sell her soul to bring him back, she said. His father, Andrew Reckling, couldn't bring himself to read his impact statement. The prosecutor did for him. I am ruined as a human being, and I fear I will never be whole again," Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Penney said on behalf of the weeping father. Debose mostly looked straight forward, only sometimes glancing at Reckling's loved ones. What happened on June 22, 2024 Debose was among three teens charged in what began as an auto-theft ring and culminated in Reckling's death, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has said. Reckling was undercover on June 22, 2024, investigating a stolen SUV from Red Oaks Water Park in Oakland County when he pursued the trio in Detroit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The SUV suddenly stopped around Park Grove and Schoenherr on the citys northeast side, south of Seven Mile Road and west of Gratiot Avenue. After Reckling pulled up behind it, the trio exited the car, and Debose fired a handgun at Reckling, killing him. He was hit in the head, chest and elsewhere in the torso area. Debose and the two other men in the car, Karim Moore of Clinton Township, and Marquis Goins of Detroit, fled on foot, police said. They were all 18 at the time. Deputy Reckling, who thought he was simply recovering a stolen car, was really pulled into what turned out to be a violent and far-reaching car-theft and carjacking criminal enterprise, said Worthy in October 2024 after announcing the charges. At the time of his death, he was a 9-year veteran of the sheriff's office and a detective who had recently transferred to the department's auto theft unit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Debose pleaded guilty to first-degree murder of a police officer and a weapons charge in July. In exchange, authorities agreed on a sentence of 33-60 years in prison for murder, plus an additional two years for the weapons charge. Debose also faced criminal enterprise, carjacking and several weapons charges that were dropped in the agreement. Third Circuit Judge Charise Anderson said to Debose during his sentencing on Aug. 22: "You are still walking around breathing." She advised him to be better, "in each breath that you have left." As for the two others charged in the deputy's death: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Goins was sentenced to 8-30 years for carjacking, 5-20 years for conducting a criminal enterprise and 1-5 years for receiving and concealing a motor vehicle. It will all be served at the same time, but after another sentence Goins received on July 30: two years for possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony. Moore was sentenced to 3-20 years for conducting a criminal enterprise and 1-5 years for receiving and concealing a motor vehicle, which will be served at the same time after first serving two more years for a felony firearm charge. Free Press staff writers Darcie Moran, Bill Laytner, and Kylie Martin contributed to this report. Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at asahouri@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Debose sentenced in killing of Oakland County Sheriff's Deputy Reckling Man, wanted for 2022 murder in Arizona, arrested for DUI in Delta County DELTA COUNTY, Colo. (KREX) A man, who was arrested earlier this month for suspected driving under the influence in Delta County, is also allegedly wanted for a murder in Arizona. Ismael Ortega-Hernandez, 35, was indicted Thursday by a grand jury for the November 2022 shooting death of his girlfriend, according to the Pinal County Attorneys Office in Arizona. He allegedly shot her twice, killing her in front of her two children and younger sister, with ages ranging from 4 to 12 years old. Ortega-Hernandez then reportedly fled. According to the attorneys office, he was previously charged with domestic violence against the victim. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement About three years later, Ortega-Hernandez was arrested by the Delta County Sheriffs Office for DUI under a false name. The attorneys office stated that his true identity was confirmed when his fingerprints matched his record. After his arrest, Ortega-Hernandez was being held in Colorado before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intervened. He is alleged to have illegally reentered the country in 2021. Ortega-Hernandez was transferred from a Colorado detention center to an ICE facility in Florence, Arizona. Coordinating with ICE, he was taken into custody by Pinal County Sheriffs detectives to prevent deportation. I want to commend the outstanding work of the Pinal County Attorneys Office, the Pinal County Sheriffs Office, and our law enforcement partners who worked tirelessly to ensure this defendant was located, arrested, and brought back to Arizona, District Attorney Brad Miller said. This was an extremely complex case involving multiple agencies across state lines and coordination with federal authorities. Thanks to their persistence and dedication, we are one step closer to achieving justice for the victim, her children, and our community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ortega-Hernandez is currently being held on a $1 million cash bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 8 in the Pinal County Superior Court. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. LIVERMORE, Calif. - A year-long manhunt for a man accused of killing his wife and an acquaintance at a Livermore hotel has ended with his arrest in Mexico, authorities said. Suspect was at-large for 16 months What we know Yonston Vazquez, 31, of Oakland, had been wanted for 16 months in connection with the April 2024 double homicide, according to the Livermore Police Department. Vazquez was taken into custody in Mexico on Wednesday, extradited later that night, and booked into Santa Rita Jail on two counts of homicide. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities did not say exactly where in Mexico he was found. Suspect allegedly stalked victims Dig deeper He is accused of killing his wife, 26-year-old Lizabeth Murillo Rodriguez of Oakland, and 21-year-old Christopher Brian Vera of Hayward, at a La Quinta Inn on Southfront Road. Police said Vazquez stalked the victims before the killings. Investigators have not disclosed the relationship between Rodriguez and Vera or whether Vazquez and his wife were separated at the time. The Source Livermore Police Department, previous reporting ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) An investigation into a burglary at a Clarkson restaurant has ended in the arrest of two suspects. Antonio Suarez, 38, and Erin Starkweather, 42, have been accused of breaking into Ridge Runners Bar overnight on July 5 and stealing items. The Monroe County Sheriffs Office was made aware of the burglary on July 6. Deputies said an employee opening the restaurant noticed signs of a burglary. After reviewing surveillance footage, investigators saw two people break into the bar, steal money, meat, produce, alcohol, and a cash box, and drive away in a Jeep. The Monroe County Sheriffs Office released these pictures from a surveillance camera on the night of a burglary at Ridge Runners Bar in Clarkson last month (Photo/Monroe County Sheriffs Office) On August 6, Suarez and Starkweather were arrested and charged with burglary (3rd), grand larceny (3rd), criminal mischief (3rd), and petit larceny. Deputies said Starkweather also had outstanding warrants for her arrest in the towns of Sweden and Greece. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Suarez was released to pre-trial supervision, and Starkweather was released on her own recognizance. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A fire at plant in Louisiana continues to burn and an evacuation order within a 1-mile radius of the facility remains in place following an explosion Friday, officials said at a press conference. As of Saturday, 42 people are at a shelter, according to officials. About 800 residents were affected by the explosion, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Gerald Sticker said in an update. The fire was 90% contained by Saturday evening, response officials said in a press release posted by the Louisiana State Police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Response crews have worked diligently throughout the day and will continue operations through the night to strengthen containment and support recovery efforts," the release said. In a Sunday update, the Louisiana State Police said the fire was still 90% contained and that the mandatory 1-mile radius evacuation remained in effect. "Overnight, additional resources, including specialized heavy equipment, arrived. Response crews began removing structural debris and addressing covered hotspots. A containment berm is being established around the site, and recovery operations will continue throughout the day," the Sunday statement said. The statement added that "environmental response efforts" were underway to address the fire's potential effect on the nearby Tangipahoa River and adjacent waterways. It also said that "all air monitoring results have shown either non-detectable readings or levels well below health-based or actionable thresholds," and that "continuous air monitoring remains in place." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "To date, no injuries have been reported. Nearly 150 personnel are engaged in field operations, representing all levels of government and contracted support," Sunday's Louisiana State Police update further said. Though most chose to follow the evacuation, some of the residents within the one-mile evacuation zone chose to stay, Sticker said Friday. Deputies were maintaining a perimeter as firefighters continued to fight the fire. Residents have been asked to to avoid direct contact with soot as a result of the fire as it is believed to contains both combustibles and hydrocarbon chemicals, Louisiana State Police Sgt. William Huggins said Saturday. Authorities asked residents to remain indoors when possible, wash hands frequently, avoid touching their face and avoid direct contact with the soot. Lauren Hawkins/WBRZ - PHOTO: In this screen grab from a video, flames rise high into the sky at the scene of the explosion in Roseland, LA., on Aug. 22, 2025. Officials said they are are aware of debris in the Tangipahoa River and said water samples will be collected for environmental impact analysis. What is exactly in the soot is also under investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The most recent air quality readings indicated results "below an actionable threshold" at this time, Huggins said Saturday. Overnight a number of small explosions occurred, consistent with what has been happening since the beginning of the fire, Huggins said. The incident occurred at Smitty's Supply, a lubricant manufacturer located in Roseland in Tangipahoa Parish, local officials said. A large plume of smoke could be seen following the explosion. The explosion was reported shortly before 1 p.m. local time Friday, according to Tangipahoa Parish President Robby Miller. The Tangipahoa Parish government ordered a mandatory evacuation for those in the immediate area, which then expanded to within a 1-mile radius of the plant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriff's office said any residents that need to return home for medication or pets should coordinate with their department to receive an escort. Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office - PHOTO: An evacuation was issued following an explosion at a business in Roseland, Louisiana, Aug. 22, 2025. "Relocate IMMEDIATELY and stay away from this area until further notice," the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office said on X. MORE: 3 firefighters hurt after crash causes gas explosion at veterinary clinic; driver charged with DWI An elementary school located within the evacuation zone evacuated students to a location in Amite City. No injuries have been reported, "which is a godsend," Miller said at a press briefing late Friday afternoon. Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office - PHOTO: Smoke is seen following an explosion at a business in Roseland, Louisiana, Aug. 22, 2025. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has been monitoring the environment, Miller said. It's unclear what caused the explosion, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Smitty's Supply manufacturers and distributes lubricant, including motor oils, according to its website. About 400 people work at the plant, according to Miller. Highway 51 at Highway 10 in Roseland closed following the explosion. "We are monitoring this situation closely. Please follow the guidance of your local officials," Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said in a statement on X. "We are praying for everyone's safety." ABC News' Jessica Gorman contributed to this report. BANGKOK (AP) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. Huang was asked about a possible B30A semiconductor for artificial intelligence data centers for China while on a visit to Taiwan, where he was meeting Nvidia's key manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the world's largest chip maker. Im offering a new product to China for ... AI data centers, the follow-on to H20, Huang said. But he added that "Thats not our decision to make. Its up to, of course, the United States government. And were in dialogue with them, but its too soon to know. Such chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidias top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions. The B30A, based on California-based Nvidia's specialized Blackwell technology, is reported to operate at about half the speed of Nvidia's main B300 chips. Huang praised the the Trump administration for recently approving sales of Nvidias H20 chips to China after such business was suspended in April, with the proviso that the company must pay a 15% tax to the U.S. government on those sales. Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, was told to pay the same tax on its sales of its MI380 chips to China. As part of broader trade talks, Beijing and Washington recently agreed to pull back some non-tariff restrictions. China approved more permits for rare earth magnets to be exported to the U.S., while Washington lifted curbs on chip design software and jet engines. After lobbying by Huang, it also allowed sales of the H20 chips to go through. Huang did not comment directly on the tax when asked but said Nvidia appreciated being able to sell H20s to China. He said such sales pose no security risk for the United States. Nvidia is also speaking with Beijing to reassure Chinese authorities that those chips do not pose a backdoor security risk, Huang said. We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors. There are no such things. There never has. And so hopefully the response that weve given to the Chinese government will be sufficient, he said. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's internet watchdog, recently posted a notice on its website referring to alleged serious security issues with Nvidia's computer chips. It said U.S. experts on AI had said such chips have mature tracking and location and remote shutdown technologies" and Nvidia had been asked to explain any such risks and provide documentation about the issue. [See violent crime statistics in the player above.] MANSFIELD, Ohio (WJW) Authorities have arrested a 15-year-old person and 25-year-old man suspected in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old man on Sunday. Authorities said 18-year-old Jamyrion Hobbs was shot and killed on Sunday, Aug. 17. Police officers who responded to the 200 block of South Main Street found him in an alley with gunshot wounds. He later died at a hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement PHOTOS: Teen girl injured in hit-and-run at Euclid crosswalk It was the citys first homicide of 2025, police said. At about 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21, city police officers, Richland County tactical officers and regional drug task force members arrested 25-year-old Yaounde A.D. Hawthorne II at a Maple Street home, on a first-degree felony count of murder, according to a Friday news release. Yaounde A.D. Hawthorne II (Mansfield Police Department) Authorities at a separate location also arrested a 15-year-old believed to have been involved in the shooting on a first-degree felony murder charge, according to the release. Hawthorne is being held in the Richland County jail on a $5 million bond, court records show. Hes due back in court on Tuesday, Aug. 26. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Man arraigned in killings of grandfather, brother; shootings of 2 East Cleveland officers These arrests were made possible due to valuable tips and information provided by members of our community, reads the release. Detectives were able to use this information to secure the arrest warrants. This case demonstrates the impact that can be achieved when law enforcement and the community work together. By working together, we can continue to enhance the safety and security of our community. Police are still investigating the shooting. Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Korey Kaufman at 419-755-9748. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. MAPLEWOOD, NJ Morrow Memorial United Methodist Church in Maplewood recently announced the appointment of a new senior pastor: the Rev. Danny Yang. Yang brings nearly two decades of pastoral leadership, a gift for preaching and a deep commitment to building inclusive, purpose-driven communities to his new post, according to a news release. The churchs new senior pastor is settling into Maplewood with his family. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We need community I need community, he said. And Im thankful to have found it here in South Orange/Maplewood, literal sanctuary cities, and in the sanctuary that is Morrow Church. Yang joins the Greater New Jersey Conference from the Texas Annual Conference, where he most recently served as senior pastor of Westbury United Methodist Church in Houston the most diverse church in that conference. Under his leadership, Westbury UMC became a reconciling congregation, actively welcoming and affirming LGBTQ+ people (only the second in the Texas Conference to do so), helped rebuild its community after Hurricane Harvey, sustained growth through the COVID-19 pandemic, reversed years of deficit spending and completed a major capital campaign. Yang is a graduate of the University of Texas and Emory Universitys Candler School of Theology. Prior to his appointment within the Greater New Jersey Conference, Yang served locally as a lay minister at St. Pauls Episcopal Church in Chatham. Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com. Learn more about advertising on Patch here. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site. Maplewood Church's New Senior Pastor Has History Of Building Inclusive Communities originally appeared on the Maplewood Patch Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday that the Trump administration would stop issuing work visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers, Rubio wrote in a post on X, announcing the new policy. The decision appears to be spurred by a recent traffic accident in Florida that officials have described as an alleged vehicular homicide. A commercial truck driver was arrested earlier this month after allegedly attempting to make an unauthorized U-turn, resulting in a crash that killed three people. Because the driver, Harjinder Singh, was an undocumented immigrant from India, Republicans have been quick to politicize the accident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins blamed California Governor Gavin Newsom for the crash on Thursday, because Singh had received his commercial drivers license in California after illegally entering the United States from Mexico. Three lives lost because of Gavin Newsom, because of Californias failed policies, Collins said, according to Fox News. Were done with that shit. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin was also quick to point the finger at Newsom, writing on X Monday, How many more innocent people have to die before @GavinNewsom stops playing games with the safety of the American public? Its not clear what Singhs country of origin or immigration status could possibly have to do with his driving abilities, but thats not stopping the Trump administration from using the fatal accident in Florida as justification to punish all immigrants. Rubios decision comes amid a national shortage of commercial truck drivers. The industry is struggling with a shortage of about 60,000 drivers, according to trade group the American Trucking Association. Foreign-born drivers make up about 18 percent of the total commercial truck driver workforce as of October 2024, according to the National Association of Truck Stop Owners, citing Labor Department data. Pro-Palestinian protesters cleared a legal hurdle in their argument that Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell criminally prosecuted them to suppress speech she disliked. University Lakes Justice Court Judge Tyler Kissell said attorneys representing the protesters had enough proof showing the county's prosecutions were retaliatory or meant to prevent protest that an evidentiary hearing was needed. The hearing, scheduled in late November, will require the county to prove otherwise. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It could also force Mitchell and her top prosecutors to testify on the witness stand. The protesters' attorneys, Stephen Benedetto and Russell Facente, told the judge in August they planned to subpoena Mitchell and other prosecutors involved in the case an unusual prospect that experts said Mitchell would almost certainly challenge but inexplicably didn't take steps to avoid. "If we need to put more on the record, we will," Mitchell said at a news briefing Aug. 21. "If I need to testify, I will." Mitchell's chief of staff, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, declined to answer additional questions about the case. Kissell's decision to greenlight an evidentiary hearing is the latest development in the case involving 68 protesters who were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing for their role in a demonstration on Arizona State Universitys campus in April 2024 to protest the war in Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In June, Benedetto and Facente told Kissell the case should be dismissed based on Arizona's law that bans "strategic lawsuits against public participation." Anti-SLAPP laws, used by 38 states and the District of Columbia, are intended to protect the public's First Amendment rights by giving defendants an opportunity to quash lawsuits from powerful actors who use litigation to silence and indebt critics. The protesters' attorneys had to show that their clients' activity was constitutionally protected and that the county was "substantially motivated by a desire to deter, retaliate against or prevent" it. The judge's decision to schedule the hearing shows the protesters have a substantive case, but it's not an indication of which side will prevail. Three protesters have already taken plea deals. Hearing will focus on whether state treated these protesters differently Kissell said the hearing between Nov. 17 and 21 would focus on whether the County Attorney's Office treated the Free Palestine protesters differently and whether the county's coordination with ASU police deviated from the norm. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Benedetto said he planned to call Mitchell and the prosecutors handling the case, Karen Pugh, Lara Powler and Kristin Sherman, to the witness stand. Facente told The Arizona Republic they would subpoena emails, text messages or notes that would shed light on what motivated the county to prosecute. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell speaks to the press about the fraud charges brought against April McLaughlin, an alleged animal hoarder from Chandler, on Sept. 30, 2024. Gabe Walters, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said Benedetto and Facente will likely question Mitchell and the prosecutors about why they provided more leniency to several pro-Israel protesters who had engaged in property destruction. In Benedetto and Facente's 28-page dismissal request, the attorneys pointed to a January 2024 demonstration at a synagogue where they said three pro-Israel counterprotesters carved "the Star of David, and the words 'baby killers' and 'rapists' into the doors and hoods of the protestors' vehicles, causing upwards of $45,000 in damage." Read the court record: Request for anti-SLAPP dismissal Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mitchell's office first charged them with Class 4 felonies for criminal damage, but then extended plea offers. This was a "sharp contrast" to how the county treated pro-Palestinian protesters, who were charged with the lowest level criminal misdemeanors and not only denied settlements, but denied them in press releases Mitchell's office publicized, Benedetto and Facente wrote. Mitchell's office submitted an equally long response, noting that pro-Palestinian ASU protesters who obeyed orders to leave the lawn were still allowed to protest on the sidewalk and were not arrested. "The officers told the trespassers many times that all they had to do was leave the lawn. They did not say, 'leave the lawn and be quiet,'" county prosecutors wrote. "MCAO's motivation in prosecuting those who were clearly violating established trespassing law is to hold lawbreakers accountable and to deter future acts of lawlessness." Unclear why county attorney didn't submit evidence Absent from the county's response to the judge, however, was any sworn statement by first-hand witnesses to the demonstration that the court would consider as evidence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The county defended itself "in the form of argument from counsel, but assertions of counsel aren't evidence," Walters said. Had the county submitted an affidavit supporting their arguments, the judge could have weighed both sides' evidence and decided the anti-SLAPP request without a hearing. "You would typically expect (an affidavit) to come from police officers who were involved in the arrest," Walters told The Republic. The officers would describe what they observed and why they made their arrests. "The fact that there wasn't such an affidavit is somewhat baffling," Walters said. "I can't imagine a strategic reason why they would prefer to testify at a live hearing where cross-examination will happen rather than put their best foot forward and tell their side of the story through affidavits." Three protesters accept plea deals So far, three protesters have agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges of "attempted trespassing," more than a year after they were originally arrested for trespassing on that April night in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The charge is still a criminal conviction, but it includes no jail time, and the county agreed to no fine. County prosecutor Sherman said it was "in the interest of justice" to reduce the charges to petty offenses. Mariam Kazmi and Ryan Kinsella took plea deals on Aug. 14. Ian Sherwood accepted a plea agreement in July, but his attorney, Diego Rodriguez, said the prosecution caused a major disruption in his life. He was suspended and removed from campus, complicating his graduation plans. While Sherwood did graduate, he was one of several ASU students who said they had seen significant life changes as a result of taking part in the protest. Rodriguez said he was still surprised by how prosecutors handled the trespassing cases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Normally, theyre not even charged, he said. At the Aug. 14 hearing where Kissell said an evidentiary hearing was necessary, county prosecutors announced the office would open plea negotiations to all protesters a reversal from their prior stance of not entertaining plea negotiations in the midst of the anti-SLAPP suit. Last October, Mitchell said her office would move forward with prosecuting the 68 trespassing charges. Facente said the office offered no plea deals at the time but later told defense attorneys they could submit requests for exceptions. After the anti-SLAPP was filed, Mitchell's office rescinded its offer to negotiate. Her office reversed course in late August. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mitchell told reporters Aug. 21 her office had other offers under negotiation but declined to go into detail. Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / azcentral.com. Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com or by phone at 480-476-6116. Seely's role is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County prosecutors may have to testify in Gaza protest case High production volume and tight competition are keeping Oklahoma marijuana prices among the lowest in the country, even as prices across the nation plummet. LeafLink, a company that provides technology services to the cannabis industry, newly published a pricing guide featuring sales data from 18 states measuring wholesale sales of cartridges, concentrates, edibles, flower and pre-rolls. In all but one product category, Oklahoma marijuana wholesalers had the cheapest average price. Only Oregon wholesalers had slightly cheaper pre-roll deals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nationwide, cannabis prices are facing a collapse because of the same reasons found in Oklahoma. After a state legalizes recreational or medical marijuana, growers and sellers pour into the market and wage a cutthroat war over prices. Cheap weed linked to oversupply, crowded competition Lobbyists and industry leaders say some of the blame lies with state regulators who they say are reluctant to limit how many growers and sellers can enter the legal cannabis market. There werent many models on how to bring an illicit market into the light, Beau Whitney, a cannabis economist in Oregon, told USA Today. With unlimited licenses, he said, you quickly get into these scenarios where supply and demand are upside down. So, you have way too much supply. So, prices are bound to decline. Oklahoma has tried to put its own throttle on the industry by temporarily halting the issuance of new business licenses and adding requirements to existing businesses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The efforts to shrink the industry seem to have worked. More than two years ago in December 2023, there were over 8,700 marijuana businesses licensed in Oklahoma. Now, there are about 5,150. The number of licensed growers has fallen by nearly one-third. Oklahoma once had more licensed dispensaries than California, although Oklahoma still has more dispensaries per capita than any other state, according to Flowhub. Reduced supply should in theory lead to higher prices, but processed marijuana found in vape cartridges or in another concentrated form are being sold for less than $10, on average, to dispensaries. It's the cheapest in the nation, according to LeafLink's database. Cannabis is pictured at Apothecary Farms in Oklahoma City. Although there are fewer growers in Oklahoma compared to 2023, thousands of plants are still being produced and cannabis prices have remained low. "We were hoping (fewer growers) would increase the price of some of these concentrates, but unfortunately that hasn't been the case," said Brent McDonald, marketing director for Apothecary Extracts & Farms. "We're still seeing concentrate pricing super low, and I think it has something to do with no plant count (limits)." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even though there are fewer farms, McDonald said the ones still in operation are still pumping out thousands of plants. "A lot of that ends up going to extraction, which is why you see these prices bottoming out," he said. It's a problem Oklahoma has faced for years. In 2023, the state agency that regulates the industry reported that growers were likely producing 64 times more medical marijuana than patients could consume. A significant amount of that marijuana found its way to other states in violation of state and federal law. Latest impacts on Oklahoma's cannabis market There has been some movement in Oklahoma cannabis prices in recent weeks, however. The state just began requiring marijuana flower (the green leafy stuff) to be pre-packaged before it reaches the dispensary. This was expected to increase costs due to added packaging requirements placed on growers and processors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And in August, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority suspended a testing lab's license for concerns about errors in its yeast and mold test results. The authority invalidated 19,000 samples previously tested by Greenleaf Labs, forcing businesses to temporarily pull some products while they submit another sample for testing. "That's also caused some market price increases, but I think those are only temporary," McDonald said. Another big change to Oklahoma's cannabis industry would be the passage of State Question 837, which seeks to legalize marijuana for adult use. It would make Oklahoma the 25th state to allow "recreational" sales. Organizers are collecting signatures to place it on a future ballot. Contributing: USA TODAY reporter Daniel de Vise This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma cannabis prices lowest in nation, cartridges, concentrates Its a holiday season gift only the Grinch could like: Meadvilles decaying Market Square parking garage is expected to close by Dec. 1, leaving city officials with an urgent need to compensate for the lost spaces and a hefty bill for the eventual demolition of the ramp and replacement with a surface lot. The condemnation of the garage and the closure is not up for a vote, City Attorney Tim Wachter told Meadville City Council members during their meeting Monday. Its not up for discussion. Its a must its a will its a shall do, so thats not a decision thats being asked of council. Its being forced upon you as a result of the circumstances. The circumstances in question include a years-long period in which there has been no significant investment in regular maintenance following a 2018 decision to allow the structure to enter a phase that city officials have referred to as controlled deterioration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several options for repairing the garage, which opened in 2003, would only be financially viable with either extremely steep increases to taxes or insupportably and incomparably high rates to our parking leases, City Planner Peter Grella told council. Council members gave the go-ahead for city staff to prepare a request for bids on demolition of the garage and replacement with a surface lot capable of accommodating far fewer vehicles. It doesnt seem like much of a choice at all, Mayor Jaime Kinder said. Demolition and creation of a surface lot is expected to cost about $1.6 million. Estimates for repair options that would have extended the life of the garage by varying amounts of time ranged from $5.8 million to $8.1 million. All of the options would require a temporary closure of approximately 18 months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An earlier plan that would have placed the garage in what city officials and consultants called hospice, with limited repairs designed to squeeze up to five more years out of the structure, would have cost an estimated $676,000. Because of the condition of the garage, its now too late to pursue that plan, which was outlined in a presentation to council in March. Why didnt we do that? Councilwoman Autumn Vogel asked regarding the hospice plan. The hesitation of throwing good money after bad, City Manager Maryann Menanno replied, instead of just ripping the Band-Aid off and doing the demolition. Are you going to spend $600,000 and inevitably the garage is going to have to come down anyway and now you dont have $600,000 to spend on something else? Menanno also addressed safety concerns as the garage remains open for the next three months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not that the garage is going to collapse on anybody, she said. Its just that the concrete is crumbling. Its already mostly gravel and you cant guarantee that you wont have bits of concrete chunks of concrete falling. That is why its being condemned, not that the whole thing would collapse. While the next course of action has been determined, multiple questions remain to be answered in addition to the final price tag on the project. Most urgently, the city needs to find a place for 79 spaces in the garage that are leased by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The spots are part of the 200 total spaces included in the DEPs contract with the city to rent the Victor C. Leap Commonwealth Office Building. Nearly 30 could be accommodated in the Mill Run parking lot, but doing so would mean displacing 20 drivers who rent reserved spaces from the city and repurposing all of the metered spots in the Mill Run lot. Fifty remaining spots would likely have to be sublet from nearby private lots a solution that was used a decade ago when the Mill Run parking garage was demolished. DEP would have to agree to such a course of action when its lease is renegotiated. To address the 110 non-DEP drivers leasing spaces in the garage and the 20 that would be displaced from Mill Run, city staff proposed converting all of the citys non-DEP reserved spaces to unreserved permit parking. This shotgun approach, Grella explained, would mean that instead of having a specific space assigned to them, lessees would be issued a permit that allows them to park in any of numerous spots in city lots or at metered spots around Diamond Park and on South Main Street if the spots are available, that is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Grella recommended keeping the cost for the proposed permits, like the cost for a monthly reserved spot, at the current $50/month rate to start. City staff members acknowledged the likely impact of the increased competition for a smaller number of spaces on the downtown area in a report to council. With a closure of the Market Square garage there will appear to be little spare parking during peak usage any longer, they wrote, and finding a convenient public parking spot then will be very difficult. MARLBORO COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) Marlboro County deputies are continuing to look for whoever was behind last weeks theft of a First Citizens Bank ATM in McColl, releasing new surveillance photos of a pickup truck tied to the crime. Although the image quality is suboptimal, it is currently the best available vehicle evidence picture that we possess, the sheriffs office said in a Facebook post asking for the publics help identifying the trucks owner. Photos courtesy of Marlboro County Sheriffs Office A previously released surveillance video showed the ATM being dragged away by a pickup truck in a shower of sparks after it was ripped from its foundation on Main Street. Deputies found the unopened ATM later in the Bluff region of McColl. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deputies said it wasnt the first recent theft of an ATM in the county. Others occurred in Bennettsville and Clio. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call or text the sheriffs office tip line at 843-897-4818, or to call 843-479-5605 or 843-479-9999. * * * 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 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. A plethora of unanswered questions surrounds the stabbing at Maryvale High School that left one student dead and another student behind bars, with police statements and court documents offering limited details as to what happened. Police officers responded to the west Phoenix school, near 59th Avenue and Osborn Road, at about 10:54 a.m. Aug. 19 after receiving a call about a stabbing and found a boy with multiple stab wounds, court documents said. The boy was taken to St. Josephs Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at noon, court documents said. Police later identified the boy as 16-year-old Michael Montoya II. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police and school security detained Chris Daniel Aguilar, 16, as teachers and students told police they saw him repeatedly stab Montoya before fleeing the classroom, according to court records. Multiple teens told police that Montoya had robbed Aguilar of a firearm, with one saying that Aguilar and his twin brother talked about killing Montoya after the alleged robbery, according to court documents. Aguilar was detained at a juvenile detention facility before being transferred to a county jail on one count of second-degree murder in connection with Montoya's death. The charge sparked questions among those following the case among them: Why was Aguilar charged with second-degree murder if students told police that they heard Aguilar discussing plans to kill Montoya beforehand? County attorney says, Nothings off the table Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said that her office charged Aguilar with second-degree murder because that was the charge Phoenix police had recommended, but she noted that Aguilar could face different and additional charges later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nothings off the table at this point, Mitchell said during a news conference on Aug. 21. Prosecutors would be looking at the case, she said. Were very young in this case. And so additional information could come in that well reconsider. For many felony cases in Arizona, its common for someone initially to be charged with a crime often referred to as a direct complaint only for the initial charge or charges to be dismissed and replaced with new charges originating from a grand jury indictment. Mitchell didnt say whether Aguilars case would go before a grand jury but noted that prosecutors could add or alter charges as they learn new information. What separates murder in the first and second degree? When it comes to prosecuting someone for first-degree murder specifically, Mitchell said there needs to be evidence showing that death was the goal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The statute for first-degree murder requires that there is an intentional, knowing desire to kill and that it was thought about in advance, Mitchell said. So were going to be looking for evidence that supports that that a jury of 12 people would accept unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt. A person can be convicted of second-degree murder if they intentionally kill someone without premeditation, know that their actions could potentially kill someone or show extreme indifference to human life, according to state statute. First-degree murder can be applied in cases where evidence proves a person intended to kill someone in advance and successfully acted upon that intent. One can be charged with first-degree murder in Arizona if a person kills someone while committing certain felonies such as kidnapping or drive-by shooting. Also, Arizona prosecutors can often charge everyone involved in someones death with first-degree murder, even if they didnt end someones life directly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sentencing range for second-degree murder can vary under certain circumstances, such as whether the victim was a child or if the suspect had prior felonies. The default sentencing range for second-degree murder carries a minimum and maximum sentence of 10 and 25 years based on mitigating and aggravating factors with a presumptive sentence of 16 years. Those convicted of first-degree murder typically receive natural life in prison or the death penalty under certain circumstances. In court: Teen accused of fatal stabbing at Maryvale High School in Phoenix makes first court appearance Reach the reporter Perry Vandell at perry.vandell@gannett.com or 602-444-1474. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @PerryVandell. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix teen accused of killing classmate could face 1st-degree murder Westfields public housing residents will be among those to benefit from a recent investment of $31.5 million from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to increase internet access for affordable and public housing residents statewide, according to an announcement by the Healey-Driscoll administration. The Residential Retrofit Program is funded by the U.S. Treasurys Capital Projects Fund through the American Rescue Plan Act. The program prioritizes projects in federally designated Qualified Census Tracts and properties with high percentages of deed-restricted affordable housing. Public and affordable housing residents deserve the same level of connectivity as everyone else, said Massachusetts Broadband Institute Director Michael Baldino in the announcement. This funding helps level the playing field and connects families to everything from telehealth to remote learning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Four companies were awarded grants for the upgrades Aervivo Inc., Archtop Fiber LLC, Comcast Cable Communications and CBN Geneva LLC. Aervivo Inc. received $10.5 million to upgrade connectivity for 6,402 housing units through its Connectivity Platform, including 441 units for the Westfield Housing Authority, and 46 units in Westfield, 40 units in Easthampton, 200 in Greenfield and 33 in Northampton for The Community Builders Inc. In its proposal for the Residential Retrofit Program, Aervivo offered income-eligible broadband plans of at least 100Mbps/100Mbps and up to 1000Mbps/1000Mbps within each property they serve. Aervivo will provide devices at a ratio of 1:4 units, Wi-Fi in community areas, optional bulk service rates, and digital skills training as community benefits under this award. When asked about the grant program, Thomas Flaherty, general manager of Westfield Gas & Electric/Whip City Fiber said he had spoken about it to Michael Baldino from Mass Broadband Institute. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Westfield Gas and Electric has worked with MBI for many years on the Middle Mile and Last Mile for the construction of 20 underserved Western Massachusetts communities that had no access to the internet. This ARPA project is being managed by MBI and was awarded to four companies to update the interior wiring in aging Housing Authority infrastructure, Flaherty said, adding, Westfield is in conversations with MBI on supplying Whip City Fiber to these locations at the Westfield Housing Authority. Participating housing operators are also eligible for funding through the Retrofit Ancillary Grantee (RANGE) Program, which directs grants to housing operators to support adoption of the new internet service, and expand access to devices and digital skills training. RANGE applications are due Friday, September 26. For more information, applicants may go to broadband.masstech.org/retrofit. A division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) is working to extend high-speed internet access and availability across the state. To achieve this, MBI uses state and federal funding to launch infrastructure expansion programs that target areas of the state that lack high-speed internet access as well as digital equity programs that tackle barriers to internet adoption and increase availability, addressing critical issues around affordability, enhanced public Wi-Fi, the need for internet-enabled devices, and digital literacy training. Learn more at https://broadband.masstech.org. Read the original article on MassLive. A 39-year-old man who documented himself sexually abusing children was sentenced to nearly 50 years in prison on Thursday, after pleading guilty to several criminal charges in the middle of his trial earlier this year. Justin Benoit, of Pittsfield, was sentenced to 46 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release. He will be required to register as a sex offender following his release. Benoit was also ordered to pay restitution requested by his victims, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foleys office said in a statement. In May, during testimony from the governments final witness at his trial, Benoit pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography, Foleys office said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Benoit has been in custody since his February 2022 arrest. In July, he pleaded guilty to 19 criminal charges in Berkshire Superior Court 14 counts of aggravated indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and five counts of aggravated rape of a child with force, court records show. Benoit will be sentenced on his state charges in September. In November 2021, local law enforcement learned Benoit had uploaded child sex abuse materials to the internet. During a search of his home in February 2022, investigators seized multiple electronic devices, which contained hundreds of files of child sex abuse materials and videos showing Benoit abusing children at his home. Investigators also found hundreds of images and videos of child sexual abuse, including files that depicted sadistic sexual abuse of children as young as infants and toddlers, Foleys office wrote. Benoit also had roughly 130 files documenting him raping and sexually exploiting two girls and a boy on multiple occasions over the course of a year between February 2021 and February 2022. Two of the victims were less than 12 years old when Benoit produced child sex abuse materials of them, and one was in his care at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The materials showed a pair of blue and white checkered boxer shorts and bedding that matched items found at Benoits home. This defendants conduct is nothing short of diabolical, Foley said in the statement. He is every parents worst nightmare. What Justin Benoit admitted to is morally reprehensible, added Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division. Theres no question the public is safer with Mr. Benoit behind bars, locked away where he cant victimize anyone elses child. More News Read the original article on MassLive. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar OpenAI is considering eventually helping other businesses tap into the data centers and physical infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence, potentially creating a new revenue line that could offset some of the ChatGPT makers immense costs. Most Read from Bloomberg The service would be loosely inspired by the success Amazon.com Inc. found renting out its spare cloud computing capacity to companies, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in an interview Wednesday. OpenAI is not actively looking at such an effort today because its focused on securing computing capacity for its own operations, she said. But I do think about it as a business down the line, for sure, Friar said. In recent years, OpenAI has gained expertise on how to design and set up data centers to optimize workloads for AI. The company now sees an opportunity to capitalize on that know-how. It also wants to become more directly involved in the process rather than rely solely on third-party vendors. If all we do is buy from others, all were doing is giving them our IP because theyre learning how to build AI infrastructure, Friar said. OpenAI has raised tens of billions of dollars to pay for advanced chips and data centers to build and operate cutting-edge AI services. The company is also working with SoftBank Group Corp. and Oracle Corp. on an ambitious infrastructure venture called Stargate, with plans to build massive data centers in the US and abroad. Even that may be a drop in the bucket. Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman told reporters this month that people should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future. Altman said OpenAI is working to design a very interesting new kind of financial instrument to help support that effort, without providing details. Historically, OpenAI has leaned on other partners, including backer Microsoft Corp. and Oracle, to help finance the cost of building out data centers. Now, the company is also seeing banks and private equity firms come to the table with debt financing to support its infrastructure initiatives, Friar said. Thats the next path were going down, Friar said. From there, she added, OpenAI is trying to be thoughtful about whether there are other interesting, novel ways we could do that beyond debt. As he fights to get his job back, former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor is revealing more about the events that led up to his firing in March for misconduct in the Karen Read investigation. Proctor has appealed his termination to the Civil Service Commission, which will begin hearings on the appeal next week. MassLive obtained hundreds of pages of documents filed by lawyers for Proctor and the state police with the Civil Service Commission through a public records request. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Below is a timeline of events detailed in legal documents and emails: Jan. 29, 2022 Proctor is assigned as the case officer for the investigation into the death of John OKeefe, a Boston police officer found on the front lawn of the Canton home of a fellow officer during a snowstorm. Between Jan. 29, 2022, and June 9, 2022, Proctor sent text messages to a group of friends from high school where he described Read, who would eventually be charged with OKeefes killing, as a whack job [expletive] and said she leaks poo. But Proctor also shared details of his investigation in the group chat. He told his friends the homeowner wouldnt catch [expletive] because he was a Boston cop, adding that there will be some serious charges brought on the girl, meaning Read. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zero chance she skates. Shes (expletive), Proctor added. Feb. 1, 2024 Proctor is called to testify before a federal grand jury in February 2024, just months before Reads trial was set to begin. His lawyers say that is the first time he was confronted with text messages from his personal cell phone. Before that date, Proctor was not aware that federal prosecutors had obtained them. The same day, Proctor notified his supervisor, Detective Lt. Brian Tully, of the messages and their contents. Feb. 2, 2024 Tully, who at the time oversaw the state police detective unit assigned to the Norfolk County District Attorneys Office, notifies his superior, Maj. Leonard Coppenrath, of the messages. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tully was later reassigned in October 2024 to a temporary assignment in the state police Division of Investigative Services. Feb. 8, 2024 Proctor meets with State Police General Counsel Jennifer Staples, Deputy General Counsel Siobhan Kelly and Coppenrath. He again tells them about the existence and content of the messages in possession of the U.S. Attorneys Office. March 4, 2024 Proctor is notified for the first time that he is the subject of an internal affairs investigation by state police. April 8, 2024 Proctor attends an interview with state police captains Eric Benson and Jorge Berrios, two members of the Office of Professional Integrity and Accountability. They discuss the nature and scope of his communications with certain individuals as it related to alleged Bias in the investigation of John OKeefes death, according to a civil service filing. June 10, 2024 Proctor begins his testimony at the first Read trial. A Norfolk County prosecutor has him read the text messages during his direct examination. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A defense lawyer for Read begins, but does not finish, his cross-examination of Proctor. June 12, 2024 Proctor continues his testimony at the Read trial, under cross-examination from her lead defense lawyer, Alan Jackson. July 1, 2024 A judge declares a mistrial in the Read case. Hours later, state police announce Proctor has been relieved of duty. July 8, 2024 Proctor is suspended without pay by state police, following a duty status hearing. Aug. 15, 2024 State Police Lt. Colonel Robert Schumaker issues the first of two letters recommending Proctor be fired. Oct. 29, 2024 Schumaker issues a second letter recommending that Proctor be fired. Jan. 15, 2025 A State Police Trial Board convenes to begin hearings on Proctors case. Feb. 10, 2025 The trial board convenes for a second day to hear additional testimony on Proctors case. March 13, 2025 The trial board holds a third and final day of hearings on Proctors case. March 19, 2025 State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble accepts the trial boards recommendation to fire Proctor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The board finds Proctor guilty of violating two State Police regulations: unsatisfactory performance and alcoholic beverages. The unsatisfactory performance charge is directly tied to the Read investigation. The trial board found Proctor sent derogatory, defamatory, disparaging and/or otherwise inappropriate text messages about Read to other individuals. The board also found that Proctor provided sensitive and/or confidential information about Read, potential witnesses, and/or potential investigative steps in the case to non-law enforcement personnel. The alcoholic beverages violation is tied to a cold case investigation on Cape Cod, during which Proctor and a Canton police detective got drinks. March 27, 2025 Proctor files his appeal of his termination with the Civil Service Commission. May 6, 2025 The Civil Service Commission holds a pre-hearing conference on Proctors appeal. July 8, 2025 A second pre-hearing conference is held before the Civil Service Commission. Aug. 4, 2025 The commission holds a third pre-hearing conference on Proctors appeal. The in-person hearing is split into two parts, with the just cause portion to be heard in late August and Proctors disparate treatment appeal to be heard in late October. More coverage of Michael Proctor Read the original article on MassLive. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Shutterstock/Chor muang Orange is notifying users of a data breach A threat actor stole names, emails, and more, on 850,000 people An investigation is ongoing Orange Belgium has confirmed suffering a cyberattack in which the attackers stole sensitive data on hundreds of thousands of users. In a press release published on the companys website, Orange Belgium confirmed the breach, and said it spotted the intrusion in late July, 2025. After ousting the attackers, tightening its controls, notifying law enforcement, and launching an investigation, Orange determined that the attackers managed to exfiltrate data on 850,000 of its customers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The data includes full names, phone numbers, SIM card numbers, PUK codes, and tariff plans. Passwords, email addresses, or financial information, was not accessed, it was said. Affected individuals were apparently notified either via email, or SMS. No typhoons Orange did not discuss who the threat actors were, or if this was a ransomware attack or a simple data smash-and-grab. In a statement, the company said the attack was not linked to the Chinese typhoon adversaries that have been targeting telecommunications providers in the West for some time. It also said it knows who the attackers are, but since the investigation is currently ongoing, it cannot share it with the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A subsidiary of the global telecommunications behemoth, Orange Belgium is a major telecommunications provider in the country, servicing roughly 3.5 million post-paid mobile subscribers, and approximately a million cable subscribers. The parent company is also often targeted by different cybercriminals. In late February 2025, a member of the HellCat ransomware organization, alias Rey, held access to a non-critical application, belonging to Orange Romania, having obtained access by exploiting compromised credentials and flaws in Jira. Less than a month later, the same subsidiary suffered a second breach, and in January, Orange Spain suffered a major outage after a threat actor going by the alias Snow obtained a ridiculously weak password for an account that manages the global routing table and controls the networks that deliver the companys internet traffic. Via BleepingComputer WAILUKU, Hawaii (KHON2) The Maui Police Department will host a candlelight vigil on Friday, Aug. 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Wailuku Police Station to honor Officer Suzanne O who was killed in the line of duty. The public is invited to join the gathering. The department said the vigil will be a time for reflection, healing, and unity. Our department is heartbroken, said Chief Pelletier in an update. We have lost one of our finest an officer who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our community. Officer Suzanne O Officer O was fatally injured on Aug. 15 while responding to an in-progress terroristic threatening incident at the Paia Sugar Mill. Officers returned fire after the armed suspect discharged a weapon, and the suspect remains in custody. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite lifesaving efforts, Officer O did not survive. She was a hero, and we will ensure she is honored with the reverence she deserves, said Chief Pelletier. Our deepest condolences go out to her family, loved ones and fellow officers during this time of profound loss. Her service and legacy Officer O joined the department in 2020, and she first served in Kihei before transferring to Wailuku in 2021. She was a member of the Honor Guard and volunteered to cover shifts and support dispatch even during her time off. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You In 2023, she earned the Certificate of Merit for her work during the Aug. 8 wildfires. Colleagues remembered her as compassionate, genuine and committed to the people of Maui County. Family was her priority, and she treasured time with her niece and nephews. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The department said her sacrifice will not be forgotten and asked the community to keep her family and MPD ohana in their thoughts and prayers. Out of respect for the solemn occasion, filming, recording, or interviews will not be permitted on station grounds. Members of the media may observe from across the street. Get news on the go with KHON 2GO, KHONs morning podcast, every morning at 8 Parking will not be available at the station. Public and media parking will be at the War Memorial Stadium lot. Sheriffs Division officers will staff crosswalks at Kaahumanu Avenue and Kanaloa Avenue/Mahalani Street to assist those walking to the vigil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. The 37-year-old Maui Police Department officer ambushed and killed on the night of Aug. 15 was one of a half-dozen officers who responded to the Paia Sugar Mill after the caretaker reported a man was trespassing and shooting at him. Clembert Alii Kaneholani, a 38-year-old felon from Makawao, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder, carrying a firearm in the commission of a separate felony, two counts of carrying a gun as a felon, and possession of a prohibited pistol magazine. He allegedly shot Officer Suzanne O with a Polymer 80 homemade, Glock-style 9mm pistol with fiber-optic sights and a red trigger. O was holding a flashlight in her left hand, searching a dark field for Kaneholani. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was hit an inch above where her ballistic vest protected the left side of her chest. Body-worn camera footage from Friday night showed police officers slowly searching the field, their flashlights illuminating patches of thigh-high brown grass. If you cant see anything an officer is heard saying in the video right before gunshots are heard. O is heard screaming three times. Her body is then seen lying motionless, face down in the grass. Shots fired, shots fired, shots fired, an officer is heard shouting into the radio. Get her, get her, get her, an officer is heard shouting, Os body lit by flashlight. A fellow officer is seen kneeling over O while another advances on Kaneholani, a rifle drawn. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MPD served on Wednesday, two days before he shot O and after his girlfriend accused him of beating her. At 8 :18 p.m. Friday, Wailuku patrol officers in the upcountry area were assigned to an emergency response to the old Paia (sugar ) Mill on Baldwin Avenue, Assistant Maui Police Chief Keola Tom told reporters during a news conference Thursday. The caller, a caretaker of the property, told Maui police that Kaneholani shot two rounds at him. The caretaker told police that he didnt know Kaneholani, and he was trespassing on private property, Tom said. After shining a flashlight at Kaneholani, the caretaker told police that Kaneholani started shooting. The officers who arrived at the scene initially met with the caretakers girlfriend, who was on the phone with the caretaker. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The caretaker relayed to police that he was out in a field on the property near where he saw Kaneholani shooting at him. O was one of six officers who started to make checks in the area of the property where the caretaker last saw Kaneholani. MPD Detective Jeffrey Calibuso walked reporters through a diagram of the crime scene Thursday before playing body-worn camera footage. The reporting party had informed officers that upon confronting the suspect in the field, the suspect was in possession of two pistols and that the suspect had shot at him five to six times, Calibuso said. The suspect was last seen near a black tank in the gulch area. Officers advanced into the field, looking for Kaneholani. They started to create a perimeter around where Kaneholani was last seen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officer O was advancing to the south of the water tank with assisting officers covering the left-side flank, he said. Kaneholani was shot in the hip by officers who found him hiding behind a concrete slab. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said O was beloved by everyone who knew her and represented the finest of humanity and law enforcement. She was the kind of officer who bought food for homeless people she was assigned to clear out of a public space. This is devastating, said Pelletier, noting the restraint officers showed after O was shot. Were doing everything we can to get through the things because we owe it to her to do our jobs. Were going to have that scar for a long time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A public service for O is scheduled for Sept. 1 at Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. MPD is holding a candlelight vigil tonight at the Wailuku station. The public is warmly invited to join us as we come together to honor Suzannes life, her service, and her sacrifice to our community, said MPD in a news release. This vigil will be a time for quiet reflection, healing, and unity. O is remembered as an officer who served with courage, honor and dedication. A Farrington High School graduate, O started with MPD in 2020. She was assigned to the Kihei patrol district before moving to the Wailuku patrol district in December 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a recruitment video, she shared that she was originally from American Samoa. O wanted to show her nieces back home that they could work in any profession, including law enforcement. Community members often praised her for her professionalism, courtesy and tact, and she was awarded a certificate of merit for her brave work in Upcountry Maui during the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires. The vigil is scheduled for 7 :30 p.m. today at Wailuku Police Station, 200 S. High St. Parking will be available at the War Memorial Stadium parking lot. Sheriffs will man crosswalks at Kaahumanu Avenue and Kanaloa Avenue /Mahalani Street to assist those walking to the vigil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several businesses, including Ululanis Hawaiian Shave Ice, Velzyland Burger, and Maui Frozen in Wailuku, plan on hosting a fundraising event Saturday evening, with all proceeds supporting Os family. We are deeply saddened by the loss of Maui Police Officer Suzanne O, who tragically lost her life in the line of duty, said Ululanis in a Facebook post. Officer Suzanne was not only a dedicated protector of our community, but also a kind, compassionate, and courageous soul who gave selflessly to those around her. The fundraising event at the three businesses takes place from 6-9 p.m. Saturday at Maui Lani Shopping Center, 50 Maui Lani Parkway, in Wailuku. DONATIONS To support Officer Suzanne Os family, send tax-deductible contributions to : SHOPO Benevolent Fund 1717 Hoe St. Honolulu, HI 96819 All proceeds go to the family. Ghislaine Maxwell has told the deputy attorney general that she does not believe Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide while in prison before he could be put on trial for trafficking charges of his own. In newly released transcripts of her interview with Todd Blanche, the co-conspirator of the late sex offender also said she had no idea who killed him, pointed to the dereliction of duty of the prison system, and said she thought it ludicrous to believe an outside actor would have murdered Epstein behind bars out of fear of blackmail as they would have had plenty of opportunity when he was not in jail. Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges on August 10, 2019. The disgraced financiers death was officially ruled a suicide. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His sudden death and previous connections to wealthy and powerful individuals including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Britains Prince Andrew created a storm of conspiracy theories that persist to this day. They largely revolve around a client list and the potential to blackmail those on it. Maxwell, the former British socialite currently serving 20 years in jail for her role in Epsteins sex trafficking operation, gave the testimony to Blanche over two days from July 24 at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, near where she was then incarcerated. Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving 20 years for aiding and participating in Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking of underage girls, does not believe her former boyfriend died by suicide while in prison (US District Court for the Southern District of New York) Blanche began his questioning concerning the death of Epstein by asking if Maxwell had been at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York during that period. To which Maxwell responded that she had not. Blanche clarified that her responses would be what she believed based on her relationship with and knowledge of Epstein over many years, to which she replied that there was another influence on her opinion regarding his death. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There's a third component to that, she said, Which is having experienced now, the mismanagement and inefficiencies and total dereliction of duty at the Bureau of Prisons. Blanche acknowledged that and continued, saying that he wanted to be careful about asking her to speculate, because anybody could do that, and he didnt believe that was fair to her. Referencing subsequent reports into the death of the late sex offender, Blanche said: Do you so you think he was he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about. Maxwell replied: I do not believe he died by suicide, no. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Blanche followed up: And do you believe that do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? Maxwell said: I no, I don't. Epsteins convicted accomplice believes the idea his death was ordered out of fear of blackmail is ludicrous when there was plenty of opportunity to kill him before he was jailed (AP) The deputy attorney general asked: And I ask that because, if you don't believe that there's any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison? Maxwell replied: In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary. That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today. Blanche said: So that goes to the third reason, which is kind of the mismanagement, to which Maxwell responded, Yes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Noting that she was referring to the shortcomings of the Bureau of Prisons, Blanche continued: Which is a little bit different than my from my question is, which is, do you think there was somebody on the outside of prison, so putting aside, what could happen on the inside on the outside of prison, who would -- who wanted him dead so badly that he would've, or she would've, you know, caused him to be killed on the inside? After Maxwells two-day interview with the Department of Justice she was relocated to a minimum security prison camp in Texas (Federal Bureau of Prisons) Maxwell replied: I think that's I don't see that. I think, is it possible? Of course it's possible. But I don't know of any reason why, and I don't believe in the blackmail or in any of this. I don't think Epstein had a hit on like that. If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation. Blanched asked: You don't have any reason, firsthand knowledge, or even speculation, it sounds like, to think that he was that he was killed to kind of silence him or to keep him from going public about people he knew about? Maxwell responded: I don't, no, because I think that is just part of the story that's been created that started back in 2008, '09. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her answer refers back to the initial investigation into Epstein in Florida that began more than a decade before the federal charges against him and his death in custody. Blanche then said: What is important to me is whether, you know, if is the idea that he didn't die by suicide, that's one thing. But if to the extent that folks believe that he was murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people, that's what I do you have any reason to believe that that's true? Maxwell replied: I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target. After Maxwells two-day interview with the Department of Justice she was relocated to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Ghislaine Maxwell claimed in an interview with the U.S. Department of Justice that an infamous photo of her with Prince Andrew and an American teenager is fake and that the alleged sexual encounter between the British royal and the girl could not have happened at her London home. "What's an even bigger word than b------t?" Maxwell asked rhetorically. "I believe that this whole thing was manufactured," Maxwell said, according to a transcript and audio of the conversation released on Friday by the DOJ. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MORE: Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell said she's not aware of any improper activity by Trump in interview with deputy AG Maxwell -- the former companion and convicted co-conspirator of sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein -- made the comments during a highly-unusual interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last month in Tallahassee, Florida. The meeting was billed in advance by Blanche -- the top deputy to Attorney General Pamela Bondi -- as an opportunity to determine if Maxwell had "information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims," according to a statement posted to social media by the DOJ in late July. But during the two-day interview session, Maxwell said she did not hear or witness any improper or illegal activity by any of the prominent people previously linked to Epstein. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yet Maxwell was also afforded significant time with Blanche to present her defenses to charges that already led to her conviction for sex-trafficking, and to address allegations raised by some Epstein victims that she was effectively a "'madam" to the world's most notorious sex offender. Emily Michot/Miami Herald via Getty Images - PHOTO: Virginia Roberts Giuffre holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually. "I'm going to tell you right now. I'm so happy to tell you," Maxwell said as the subject turned to the claims about Prince Andrew made by Virginia Giuffre, the young woman in the photograph. The DOJ redacted Giuffre's name from the transcript and audio recording, but from the content of the interview it's clear she is the person being discussed. "I'm, like, excited. I'm beyond excited," she said, according to the transcript of the nine-hour interview session. Giuffre -- who died in April by apparent suicide -- had alleged in interviews and legal filings that she had been trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to several of their high-profile associates, including Prince Andrew on three occasions -- twice before she turned 18. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her family, in a statement last month, called Maxwell "a predator who thought only of herself, she destroyed the lives of girls and young women without conscience." The first of the encounters with the prince, Giuffre alleged, took place at Maxwell's London home in March of 2001, after she was taken by Maxwell to a nightclub for dancing with Andrew. "In the car, Ghislaine tells me that I have to do for Andrew what I do for Jeffrey, and that just made me sick," Giuffre told BBC Panorama in a 2019 interview. MORE: Trump says Epstein 'stole' Virginia Giuffre and other young women from Mar-a-Lago spa Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell had previously denied the allegations about Prince Andrew in a deposition in a civil case filed by Giuffre, which was settled in 2017, prior to trial. Her comments in the interview with Blanche, however, represent her most detailed attempt to refute her accuser's account. "What I can absolutely categorically say is that I never at any time set Andrew up to have relations with her or any other human being ever," she said. Maxwell told Blanche that the timing of that trip coincided with her mother Elisabeth's 80th birthday and that she had been at her brother's home in the countryside that weekend for a family celebration. The clothes she is wearing in the photograph, she said, matched what she wore to her mother's party. "I believe it's literally a fake photo," Maxwell said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Giuffre, in her 2019 interview with the BBC, insisted that the photo was genuine. She contended Prince Andrew and his defenders were presenting "ridiculous excuses" to claim otherwise. MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell provided no incriminating information during meetings with deputy AG on high-profile individuals who interacted with Jeffrey Epstein, transcript shows "I'm calling BS on this," she said in the interview. "He knows what happened. I know what happened. There's only one of us telling the truth, and I know it's me." Maxwell claimed to have no specific memory of Prince Andrew and Giuffre being at her London residence, but could not discount the possibility that he had come by to visit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't have any memory of that," Maxwell told Blanche. "The issue is, could Andrew have come to the house to see me or see Epstein, and say 'Hi,' and she had been there? Yes. I can't say that that didn't happen." Flight logs for Epstein's planes -- created by one of Epstein's pilots and submitted as court exhibits -- show a trip on a Gulfstream jet from Palm Beach to Paris, Spain, Morocco and London in early March 2001. Among the listed passengers are "JE, "GM," and Virginia Roberts, as Giuffre was then known. Blanche did not ask Maxwell why a 17-year old girl was along for the ride. But in another portion of the interview Maxwell alleged that Giuffre -- whose troubled youth included allegations of sexual exploitation by an older man before she met Epstein -- had effectively ignited Epstein's obsessive interest in sexualized massages with underage girls. She claimed that Epstein liked Giuffre and began to travel with her shortly after meeting her in 2000. Giuffre's family has been highly critical of the government's decision to meet with Maxwell, who was initially charged by federal prosecutors with perjury for alleged false statements she made during the litigation with Giuffre. Those charges were dropped after Maxwell's conviction on the sex-trafficking charges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer; a woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position," her family said in their statement last month. "Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life," the family said. MORE: What Ghislaine Maxwell told deputy AG about former President Bill Clinton Maxwell told Blanche that the primary purpose of the March 2001 trip was for Epstein and his decorator to visit a house in Marrakesh, Morocco, and for Maxwell to be in England for her mother's birthday weekend. According to the pilot's logs, the plane left Morocco and touched down in London on a Friday and departed for the U.S. two days later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "And I suspect now that that trip was planned all around the fact that I was going to be in London no matter what for my mom's 80th birthday at my brother's house in the country," she said. Maxwell's efforts to refute Giuffre's allegations focused specifically on the layout of her house, which she described as "tiny." "It's ... a gorgeous little place, but it is the size of a nut," she said. "It was the little poor man's home behind the rich man's home." Giuffre had alleged in the BBC interview that her encounter with the prince had started in the home's bathroom before moving to the bedroom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Maxwell contended that it was not conceivable for two people to have sexual relations in the cramped bathroom. "Her description of whatever the two people were doing in that tub, that wouldn't work," she said. "The bathroom itself is so small, you can't lie flat on the floor. So it couldn't happen on the floor because you physically can't." MORE: Epstein's estate has his 50th birthday book, victims' lawyer says Maxwell claimed she had put her brother in the tub at one point to see what would happen and that he looked like "sausage in like a very tight skin." Maxwell's brother Ian had previously sought to discredit Giuffre's account by releasing to a British newspaper a staged photograph of two people -- wearing paper masks depicting Prince Andrew and Giuffre -- sitting together knee-to-knee in the home's bathtub. "I am releasing my photographs now because the truth needs to come out," he told The Telegraph in 2023. "They show conclusively that the bath is too small for any sort of sex frolicking. In her interview with Blanche, Maxwell contradicted Prince Andrew's assertion that she had introduced him to Epstein, claiming that Epstein and the royal met independently of her. "It would never have occurred to me to introduce them," Maxwell said, describing the two men as like "chalk and cheese" -- a British idiom akin to "apples and oranges." "I couldn't imagine them being friends," Maxwell said, but added that they developed "a really good relationship." Giuffre alleged that she was trafficked to Prince Andrew for sex on two other occasions at Epstein's homes in New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands. During the discussion with Blanche, Maxwell indicated that they would "come to that" later, but the subject did not arise again before the end of the two-day interview session. US District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: Undated trial evidence image obtained December 8, 2021, from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York shows British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and US financier Jeffrey Epstein in Queen's log cabin at Balmoral. During the litigation between Giuffre and Maxwell, another woman alleged in a sworn deposition that she was groped by Prince Andrew at Epstein's New York home, while she and Giuffre were sitting with the prince for a photo. The woman said she did not know where Giuffre or the prince went after that. Prince Andrew said in an interview with the BBC in 2019 that he could not recall ever meeting Giuffre and denied having any sexual contact with her. Buckingham Palace, on behalf of the prince, denied the other woman's groping allegations. Giuffre sued Andrew for sexual assault and battery in New York federal court in 2021, alleging that he had sex with her while "knowing that she was a sex-trafficking victim being forced to engage in sexual acts with him," according to court records. The prince "never sexually abused or assaulted Giuffre," his attorneys wrote in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. They described his accuser as a profiteer who had sold stories and photographs to the press and entered into secret settlements against her alleged abusers. "Most people could only dream of obtaining the sums of money that Giuffre has secured for herself over the years. This presents a compelling motive for Giuffre to continue filing frivolous lawsuits against individuals such as Prince Andrew, whose sullied reputation is only the latest collateral damage of the Epstein scandal," they wrote. Three months later, Prince Andrew settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed sum. "Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre's character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks," read a letter submitted to the court with the settlement notice. MORE: Trump supporters angry over Justice Department's Epstein memo "It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others," the letter said. While he was embroiled in the lawsuit, Prince Andrew's military affiliations and royal patronages were stripped, with the approval and agreement of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Maxwell's meeting with Blanche came as the Trump administration continues to deal with the fallout of its decision not to release its investigative files on Epstein to the public, after repeated promises to do so. The administration indicated this week that the DOJ intends to start producing Epstein files to Congress in response to a subpoena from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Maxwell currently has a petition pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to review her conviction. The Department of Justice has opposed her petition to the high court. Maxwell's lawyers have publicly stated that they have not asked President Donald Trump for a pardon or commutation of her sentence, but indicated that Maxwell "would welcome any relief." The 63-year old Maxwell, who has been incarcerated since her arrest in 2020, continued to insist during the interview with Blanche that she was not involved in the sexual exploitation of minors. Giuffre relocated to Australia in 2002 and had remained there with her family for more than 20 years. Since her death in April, her family has spoken publicly on her behalf. The family has criticized the government's decision to meet with Maxwell, who they argued cannot be trusted. "The government and the President should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency. Maxwell destroyed many young lives, and she was convicted for only a fraction of the crimes she actually committed. She must remain in prison -- anything less would go down in history as being one of the highest travesties of justice," the family's statement said. President Donald Trump might have thought he had some distance from the Jeffrey Epstein headlines that were dragging down his poll numbers and made his base turn on him. But, over the last few weeks, the president has seen positive economic news, taken over the streets of Washington D.C. from local police and watched as his FBI raided the home of former adviser John Bolton. Those stories were dominating the news cycle - until Ghislaine Maxwell made her return. The release of the transcripts of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanches interview with Maxwell, Epsteins longtime associate and onetime partner who assisted in his abuse of girls and young women, became the motherload of all Friday news dumps. It will certainly rekindle questions about what exactly Trump knew about his former friend and likely give congressional Democrats all the more reason to push for the declassification of files related to the Epstein investigation when they return from recess. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump, who has continuously expressed annoyance about the affair that he has called bulls***, so far has not commented on it. Just before the transcript dropped, he again distanced himself from it when speaking to reporters. I have said to Pam and everybody else, give them everything, because it's a Democrat hoax, he said in reference to Attorney General Pam Bondi. That's just a hoax. The whole Epstein thing is a Democrat hoax. Friday morning started with news of an FBI raid on the home of John Bolton. By the afternoon, the latest in the Epstein investigation made it seem like a distant memory. (AP) For the past two months, the Justice Department and the FBI specifically faced negative headlines after it released its two-page memo that said Epstein likely killed himself and that no client list existed. It put Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of his most ardent loyalists, under a microscope and led to her vanishing from Fox News. The takeover signaled her return to Fox as long as she faced no questions about Epstein. The country, for the most part, had moved on from Epstein - at least until Congress returns from recess and Democrats push for the release of the Epstein files. Congress got a copy of the files Friday and said he would release them, but its unclear when. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, Trump seemed to push that off the front page and the world was focused on the Bolton raid. Until the afternoon rolled around. Then, the Justice Department dropped its transcript of its with Maxwell, Epsteins associate currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in her and Epsteins abuse of young girls. In the interview, Maxwell said that she absolutely never saw Trump behaving inappropriately with anyone in Epsteins circle. She praised Trumps extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now. She also said that she did not believe that Epstein killed himself. While much Maxwells words sound exculpatory, the fact that Trumps deputy attorney general took the unprecedented step of interviewing her will make her words seem spurious. And Maxwells words must be understood through the prism of the fact that she is a known liar and convicted abuser of children who has every incentive to lie again to receive a pardon or have her case appealed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And the new headlines along with her vehement denial of Trumps involvement will only rekindle questions about how much Trump knew about Epsteins abuse before he ran for president. It will also only add further fodder for congressional investigators as a bipartisan group of members plan to file a discharge petition to release files related to Epstein. Trump might want to turn the page on Epstein and Maxwell, but hell find that tough for the immediate future. The woman thought to have the most direct knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's decades-long sex-trafficking operation claims there was no client list, no blackmail scheme and -- to her knowledge -- no high-profile Epstein associates who committed illicit acts in connection with the notorious sex-offender's crimes. That's according to an account provided by Epstein's convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to a top official of the U.S. Department of Justice during a highly unusual two-day interview session last month, according to a transcript and audio of the conversation released Friday by the DOJ. "There is no list," Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. "I'm not aware of any blackmail. I never heard that. I never saw it, and I never imagined it." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MORE: What Ghislaine Maxwell told deputy AG about former President Bill Clinton Maxwell told Blanche that during her time with Epstein -- which ranged from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s -- she never witnessed nor heard of any inappropriate or criminal activity by President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, nor any of the well-known men who associated with Epstein, according to the transcript. Trump, Maxwell said, was cordial and a "gentleman in all respects" in all of her interactions with him. She described Clinton as a "truly extraordinary" man and a "fantastic ex-president," according to the transcript of the meetings, which took place at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee, Florida. The 63-year old Maxwell, who has been incarcerated since her arrest in 2020, also claimed she had been misidentified by a key witness at her criminal trial and insisted she was not involved in the sexual exploitation of minors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I did introduce him to women. I did, but not underage women," she said. "And I did look for masseuses, I did. I went to spas and if I met somebody who said she was a masseuse, I did not check their credentials." Patrick Mcmullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image - PHOTO: Patrick McMullan Archives Blanche -- who previously served as a personal defense attorney to President Donald Trump -- announced his intention to speak with Maxwell in a social media post last month, as the Trump administration sought to quell the self-inflicted controversy surrounding its decision not to release the government's investigative files on Epstein, after repeatedly promising to do so. The Department of Justice -- in an unsigned memo released last month explaining its decision -- said that a "systematic review" revealed no incriminating client list and no evidence "that could predicate an investigation into uncharged third parties." Maxwell was granted limited immunity for the interview with Blanche -- meaning nothing she said could be used against her, unless she lied. She and her attorneys signed the agreement at the outset of each day of the interview session, the transcript shows. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding and participating in Epstein's trafficking of underage girls, which involved a scheme to recruit young women and girls for massages of Epstein that turned sexual. Federal prosecutors in New York said Maxwell helped Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately abuse girls as young as 14. Despite her conviction at trial in 2021 -- where she declined to take the witness stand -- Maxwell claimed in her interview with Blanche that she had been wrongly accused and did not receive a fair trial. She maintained, as she had done previously in a 2016 deposition in a civil case, that she never recruited anyone underage to massage Epstein and never witnessed or participated in any criminal acts, according to the transcript. "I have no memory ... of having seen anybody that resembles a young child, let's call it what it is, at that house giving him a massage at all," Maxwell said, in reference to Epstein's Palm Beach home. MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell told DOJ Trump never did anything concerning around her: Sources Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I saw him with a lot of masseuses. I never saw a single masseuse ever look unhappy or not come back or whatever," Maxwell said. "So any time I saw anybody with him, they were happy to be with him." Maxwell was indicted in July 2020, during the first Trump administration. Her trial occurred in late 2021, while President Joe Biden was in the White House. Federal prosecutors charged Maxwell with perjury for alleged lies she told during the 2016 deposition. And the government repeatedly assailed her credibility during her criminal case, citing her "willingness to lie brazenly under oath about her conduct," according to court records. The perjury counts against her were eventually dropped after her conviction on the more serious charges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following the release of the interview transcript, Brittany Henderson, an attorney who has represented scores of Epstein victims, said Maxwell's testimony should carry little weight. "Ghislaine Maxwell was federally indicted on two perjury counts as a result of her testimony during her civil deposition. Having been convicted of sex trafficking, she is now in jail presumably hoping that she will receive a pardon from President Trump," Henderson said in a statement. "I can't imagine that her testimony will be given much weight by anyone with any knowledge whatsoever of her involvement with Jeffrey Epstein." In a statement, Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, said that Maxwell "is innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted, in this case. She never committed or participated in sexual abuse against minors, or anyone else for that matter." "The materials newly released by the Department of Justice make this clear. Ms. Maxwell answered every question. She did not refuse to respond and did not dodge any question," Markus said in the statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Blanche's meeting with Maxwell came just days after the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in New York with the most detailed knowledge of the case. Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, led the criminal prosecution of Maxwell. The tone of the conversation appeared cordial and non-confrontational, a review of the transcript shows, with Blanche frequently allowing space for Maxwell's lengthy critiques of the accounts of her accusers. "I don't want you to be burdened," Blanche told Maxwell a few hours into the interview. "I want you to just tell the truth the best you can. So I don't want you to be burdened by what people said at trial or what, you know, the press says about you." Blanche -- the top deputy to U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi --indicated that the goal of the Maxwell meeting was to determine if she had "information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims," according to a July 22 statement posted to social media by the DOJ. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to sources familiar with internal deliberations that preceded the meeting with Maxwell, Blanche was encouraged by some top administration officials to seek information that could lead to criminal investigations that might quiet the outrage from some of Trump's most vocal supporters. "The FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say," Blanche wrote in the post. "Until now, no administration on behalf of the Department had inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now." MORE: Trump supporters angry over Justice Department's Epstein memo The transcript confirms previous ABC News reporting that it was Maxwell's legal team that initiated the request for the meeting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "That's true and I did speak to [my lawyer] ... and did tell him that I would be very keen to talk to anyone because no one from the government at any time ever ... since the inception of the case, so dating back to the early 2000s, has ever spoken to me, and I, indeed, I believe ever reached out to me at any time to even speak to me," Maxwell said. Maxwell appealed her conviction but her attempts have thus far been unsuccessful. She now has a pending application before the U.S. Supreme Court to review her conviction. Her lawyers have stated that they have not yet asked President Trump to commute her sentence or to pardon her, but that Maxwell "would welcome any relief." Blanche was accompanied by an FBI agent and another DOJ official and Maxwell was with three of her attorneys, according to the transcript. The unusual meeting involving the nation's second-ranking law enforcement official and a convicted sex-trafficker evoked a strong response from some victims of Epstein and Maxwell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Annie Farmer, one of the witnesses who testified for the prosecution at Maxwell's trial, told a federal court last week that she and other victims "unequivocally object to any potential leniency that the government may be considering for Maxwell." During nine hours of questioning over two days, Maxwell was quizzed by Blanche about dozens of famous people -- politicians, business titans and Hollywood stars -- who had previously been named as having associated with Epstein. The inquiries started broadly -- with Blanche asking if Maxwell or Epstein knew the people -- before asking if any of the high profile figures had done anything improper. And in each instance, Maxwell indicated that she had never witnessed nor heard about any alleged wrongdoing, the transcript shows MORE: DOJ's meeting with longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell happened after Maxwell initiated contact: Sources Markus told reporters after the meetings concluded that his client had been asked by Blanche about "one hundred different people." "She didn't hold anything back," Markus said. Among those Blanche inquired about, according to the transcript, were tech billionaires Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk; political figures Ehud Barak, Robert Kennedy Jr. and former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell; and celebrities Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and Naomi Campbell. The rumored existence of an apocryphal "Epstein client list" has long fueled speculation of a "deep state" cover-up to protect an elite cabal of alleged participants in Epstein's crimes. Some of the most vocal purveyors of the theory -- including FBI Director Kash Patel and his top deputy Dan Bongino -- have since taken up prominent posts in the Trump administration. But Maxwell said there was no such list and that she saw no indication that Epstein had obtained compromising information that he used to extort others. "A man wants sexual favors, he will find that. They didn't have to come to Epstein for that," Maxwell said. "[T]here's no list. There never was a list," she said. "None that I ever heard of, none that I ever witnessed." US District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: Undated trial evidence image obtained December 8, 2021, from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York shows British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and US financier Jeffrey Epstein in Queen's log cabin at Balmoral. At one point in the interview, Maxwell likened the quest to find others complicit in Epstein's crimes to a dark period in early American history. "So that narrative that was created and then built upon, and it just mushroomed into what -- basically this is like a Salem witch trial. People go and lost [sic] their minds for this thing," she said. "I mean, it's bananas." Significant portions of the interview were dedicated to inquiries about President Trump and ex-President Bill Clinton. Before any allegations of sexual misconduct against Epstein surfaced in 2005, Trump and Clinton each spoke glowingly of Epstein, and court records have included documents and testimony indicating that -- at separate times -- both men flew with Epstein on his private jets. Clinton's association with Epstein was first noted publicly in 2002, after reporters learned of the former president's journey that year on Epstein's jet for a humanitarian mission to multiple African nations. Clinton told New York magazine through a spokesman at the time that "Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science." In that same article, Trump boasted of his friendship with Epstein, saying, "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy." "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life," Trump told the magazine. MORE: Bureau of Prisons moves Ghislaine Maxwell to prison camp in Texas Maxwell told Blanche she had a friendship with former President Clinton after being introduced by a mutual acquaintance, she said. "President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein's friend," she said. "President Clinton liked me, and we got along terribly well. But I never saw that warmth with Mr. Epstein." Maxwell said she had suggested to Epstein that he allow Clinton to use his private jumbo-jet to fly to multiple international destinations in Africa, Asia and Europe in the early 2000's, after the end of his presidency. Clinton, Maxwell said, had no particular interest in Epstein other than having the use of his plane. "They met because of me and the plane was because of me," she said. "I didn't see President Clinton being interested in Epstein. He was just a rich guy with the plane." Despite President Trump's oft-repeated claims that Clinton had traveled more than 20 times to Little St. James -- Epstein's private U.S. Virgin Islands estate where much of Epstein's abuse is alleged to have occurred -- Maxwell said the former president had never been there and wouldn't have wanted to go, because he had no relationship with Epstein. "He never, absolutely never went. And I can be sure of that because there's no way he would have gone. I don't believe there's any way that he would've gone to the island had I not been there. Because I don't believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein," Maxwell told Blanche. Bill Clinton has previously said through a spokesperson that he "knew nothing" about Epstein's crimes, had never visited the island, and that all the flights on Epstein's aircraft in 2002 and 2003 were associated with work for the Clinton Foundation. As for the current president, Maxwell said that she first knew of Trump through her late father, who purchased the New York Daily News in 1991. She said she only saw Trump and Epstein, both native New Yorkers, together in social settings and never saw or heard anything inappropriate about Trump while he was with Epstein. "I may have met Donald Trump at that time because my father was very friendly with him and liked him very much," Maxwell said. "And I think, [it] should be said that he also very much liked [Trump's first wife] Ivana because she was also from Czechoslovakia where my dad was from." Maxwell said she only saw the two native New Yorkers, Trump and Epstein, together in social settings and never saw or heard anything inappropriate about Trump while he was with Epstein. "I don't know how they met, and I don't know how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together. But they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly," Maxwell said. And at a time when her legal team has publicly signaled her hopes for a reprieve from the president, Maxwell expressed admiration for Trump. MORE: Judge denies DOJ's request to unseal Epstein grand jury records "And as far as I am concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I find -- I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming president now. And I like him. And I've always liked him," she said. "And did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world? Blanche asked. "Absolutely never, in any context," Maxwell replied. Published reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal last month indicated that the decision not to release the Epstein files came after President Trump was informed in May that his name was among those that appeared multiple times in the documents. The president has denied that he was told his name appeared in the files. The appearance of a name in the Epstein files is not evidence of illicit activity. President Trump has said he ended his association with Epstein before any allegations of sexual abuse were raised in Florida in the mid 2000s. Trump said in 2019, after Epstein's arrest for child sex trafficking, that he hadn't spoken to him in 15 years. More recently, the president has claimed he split with Epstein after discovering Epstein was allegedly poaching employees from the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the president's private club in Palm Beach. Maxwell was escorted from her prison cell in Tallahassee to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the two days of meetings with Blanche. A week later, she was transferred to a minimum-security federal prison camp for women in Texas, with no official explanation for the move. Maxwell is the Oxford-educated daughter of Robert Maxwell, the larger-than-life publishing baron whose rags-to-riches story captivated England. She lived an extravagant life among the British elite until her father's business empire collapsed in the wake of his death in 1991. She relocated to New York looking for a fresh start and was soon seen in the company of the mysterious multimillionaire Epstein. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy and child sex trafficking. He died in custody a month later, while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging. NEW YORK (PIX11) Mayor Eric Adams remains committed to his reelection bid despite the mounting scandals around his administration. At a press conference on Thursday, Adams made it clear that he will not step down, even with new bribery and corruption allegations involving two of his former top advisors. More Local News Im never going to quit on the city of New York, Adams said, rejecting calls for resignation and pushing back against questions about his judgment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The mayors remarks come on the heels of fresh indictments against former Chief Advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, as well as an incident involving former advisor Winnie Greco. On Wednesday, Greco handed a reporter for the nonprofit news outlet The City a potato chip bag filled with cash after an Adams campaign event, a development that has intensified public scrutiny. Adams defended his record, pointing to achievements such as crime reduction, improvements in education, and foster care reforms. New Yorkers should trust how Ive delivered for the city, Adams said. However, his opponents in the ongoing race for Mayor are making it clear they believe its time for change. Among those running to unseat Adams is 33-year-old Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who wasted no time in criticizing the mayors handling of corruption. Mamdani, a state lawmaker with four years of experience in Albany, suggested his youth was an advantage, not a disadvantage, when it comes to turning the page on corruption. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont have a 40-year connection to anyone now accused of taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes, Mamdani said. There [would be] no room for corruption or patronage in our administration. Adams did take aim at Mamdanis inexperience, dismissing the candidate as unqualified for the role of mayor. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State Separately, Adams press event included a peculiar gesture when whistles were placed on reporters chairs. The Mayor said they intended to make female journalists feel safer in light of former Governor Andrew Cuomos sexual harassment scandal. Cuomo, who has been a vocal critic of Adams administration, said those allegations were political. Cuomos spokesman is pointing to the fact that Adams himself is facing a sexual assault lawsuit which Adams denies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cuomo campaigned Friday at an ice cream truck social for public housing neighbors. New Yorkers are already on edge, worried about affordability and crime, and the government isnt solving the problemsits only adding to them with corruption, Cuomo said of the alleged corruption surrounding Adams. Mamdani and Cuomo, the two leading candidates in the polls, also traded barbs with each other on Friday. Meanwhile, Republican and Independent nominee Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, pledged to supercharge the citys corruption watchdogs if elected. Therell be a big sign on the front of City Hall that says, Lobbyists, stay the hell out of City Hall,' Sliwa said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced this week that he appointed an executive at the Greater Baltimore Committee to the city school board. Amber Scott Woodruff is the director of strategy and research for the business-civic nonprofit and one of the nine Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners members selected by the mayor for three-year terms. Two of the positions are elected by the city every four years, and the last seat is a student commissioner chosen by their peers. According to a news release from the mayors office, Woodruff has over 15 years of experience in education as an early childhood classroom teacher, network leader, and education consultant and has led large-scale initiatives to strengthen educator pipelines, while overseeing certification and development for hundreds of new teachers. Her work has consistently focused on building systems that serve educators, families, and most importantly children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her LinkedIn profile states that she worked six years as a teacher in Washington schools. My entire administration is focused on strengthening our schools and creating new opportunities to help Baltimore students reach their full potential, Scott said in the release. As a member of the School Board, Amber will help us deliver on that vision and invest in our citys greatest resource: our young people. At the Greater Baltimore Committee, her work has focused on local hiring expansion, gun violence reduction and police recruitment and retention, the release says. Shes served in the role since May, according to LinkedIn. The committee congratulated her on social media, writing Thursday, Amber has built her career as an educator, strategist, and advocate on a deep commitment to Baltimores children and families. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A graduate of Atlantas Spelman College and Virginias George Mason University with a masters of education in curriculum and instruction, Woodruff completed a Georgetown University fellowship this year focusing on leadership education regarding neurodevelopmental disabilities, according to the release. To whom much is given, much is required. I am honored to serve on the Board of School Commissioners, and I remain committed to ensuring that Baltimores children receive the high-quality, inclusive education they deserve, Woodruff said in the release. School board member is a volunteer position in Baltimore. A community panel recommends candidates in a process through the Mayors Office of Children & Family Success. With Woodruffs appointment, the board is fully staffed. The term for this position technically started July 1 and lasts through June 2028, according to the mayors offices website. Baltimore City Public Schools students return to class Monday. Have a news tip? Contact Kendyl Kearly at kkearly@baltsun.com or on X as @KendylKearly. This story was originally published on Healthcare Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Healthcare Dive newsletter. Name: Meenal Sethna Previous title: Executive vice president and chief financial officer, Littelfuse New title: Executive vice president and chief financial officer, Option Care Health Sethna will assume the head finance role at the infusion therapy provider on Oct. 1. Shell succeed Michael Shapiro, who joined Option Care as CFO in 2015. Shapiro will continue to work for the company in a non-executive role through March 31, 2026, in order to facilitate a smooth transition, according to a Wednesday securities filing. Previously, Sethna served as CFO of Littelfuse, an industrial technology manufacturing company. She also held leadership roles at specialized industrial equipment and consumables manufacturer Illinois Tool Works and has worked at Motorola and Baxter International. Sethna will receive a base salary of $655,000, a target annual incentive opportunity equal to 90% of her base salary and annual long-term compensation valued at $2.4 million. Option Care will also grant Sethna a restricted stock unit award valued at $1.5 million that vests on her three-year employment anniversary. Shapiros base salary will be reduced from $615,000 to $246,000 as he transitions into his new role, according to Option Care. Option Care provides infusion services in homes and across its 93 stand-alone ambulatory infusion suites. Its infusions target chronic disorders, nutrition services, specialized therapies and others. Formerly known as Walgreens Infusion Services, the pharmacy chain sold its remaining stake in Option Care in 2023 for about $330 million to pay down debt. On its second quarter earnings call in July, Option Care said its actively assessing M&A opportunities. In 2023, the company attempted to acquire home care company Amedisys, but was outbid by UnitedHealth. The deal would have given Option Care greater reach into the home care market. UnitedHealths acquisition of Amedisys closed this month after being held up in a years-long dispute by antitrust regulators. Recommended Reading A week that began with President Donald Trump hosting eight world leaders ahead of potential peace talks to end the war in Ukraine ended with him touring a new White House gift shop, reviewing marble samples for a renovation project at the Kennedy Center and taking credit for Washingtons drop in crime. The night before, Trump visited a federal police command center in southeast Washington, handing out pizza to some of the National Guard troops he activated as part of a crime crackdown in the nations capital. His heightened focus on local crime, not to mention potential improvements to Washingtons streets and parks, was more typical of a mayor than a president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After touring the gift shop at The Peoples House museum across from the White House Friday morning, Trump told the reporters following him around that his recent focus on municipal matters was part of a two-pronged effort to improve the nations capital by focusing on reducing crime and beautification projects. "We are going to make D.C. totally safe, Trump said. When people come from Iowa, Indiana, all of the beautiful places they're not going to go home in a body bag." Trumps interest in municipal matters and hands-on approach to specific projects hearkens back to his career as a Manhattan property developer and even his years as the star of The Apprentice, supervising a number of projects with a production crew in tow. His breezy demeanor on the ground at various sites served to obscure the brazen expansion of his executive authority and a deployment of the military within the United States that is without precedent and far beyond constitutional precedent. Earlier this month, he placed the Washington police department under federal control , the first time a president has done so. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president boasted that there have been no murders since he made the move. He has described Washington as home to rampant crime despite statistics showing a drop in violent crime since 2023. "D.C. is a miracle, what's happened, Trump said. D.C. was a hellhole and now it's safe. The president said city officials were under investigation because they fudged the numbers and that Mayor Muriel Bowser is a nice woman but shes got to get on the ball. Of course, the president has outsized authority over Washington because it is not a state and has no voting representation in Congress. Before 1973, Congress and a commission chosen by the president ran the city. The Home Rule act took that power away from the feds and allowed District residents to elect a mayor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, he said he expects Congress to approve $2 billion in federal funding to beautify Washington. Congress is happy to do it and were going to wisely spend the money, Trump said. Were doing it with Clark Construction. Were going to head out right from the Capitol and the White House and look at a circle and go about three miles out. Its going to be beautiful, all those lightbulbs. You see the poles, theyre rusting and theyve got different lenses on top. The president said the capital would be beautified in 12 months, reiterating plans to even repave the citys streets with better asphalt. Were going to take off the asphalt and put beautiful, well-done asphalt, he said. You know, if you have a good asphalt worker, its the most beautiful thing you could have. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps quotidian comments about various construction specs also served to divert attention away from the FBIs Friday morning raid on the home of former Ambassador John Bolton, who served as Trumps national security adviser during his first term. The president claimed not to have known about the raid, although he betrayed that he understood what investigators were looking for information that might show Bolton leaked classified material in a tell-all book that was critical of Trump when he said that Bolton could be a very unpatriotic person. I mean we're going to find out. An elected mayor has called on a local authority to challenge the use of a city hotel to house asylum seekers. On Monday, a judge granted a temporary injunction blocking migrants from being housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. In a letter to Peterborough City Council, the Conservative mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, said the city's Dragonfly Hotel was "wholly unsuitable" for asylum seekers and urged the authority to seek a similar injunction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dennis Jones, Labour leader of the council, said it was "waiting for the detailed findings" on the Epping hotel decision and would "review legal implications". The Dragonfly Hotel is one of two in Peterborough being used to house asylum seekers [Shariqua Ahmed/BBC] Previously, the city's Labour MPs Andrew Pakes and Sam Carling argued the hotel's location was "inappropriate" and "disappointing". According to Home Office figures released on Thursday, 202 asylum seekers are currently housed in hotels in Peterborough, with the council saying two are being used for this purpose. In his letter to chief executive Matt Gladstone, Bristow said the Epping judgment set a "significant precedent". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Referring to the Dragonfly Hotel, he wrote: "The hotel is wholly unsuitable. "In view of the High Court ruling, I urge Peterborough City Council to challenge the continued use of the hotel legally, and to take all appropriate courses of action that will lead to a similar injunction." Peterborough City Council leader Dennis Jones claimed the city was already housing "far more than our share of asylum seekers" [Kate Moser Andon/BBC] In response, Jones said: "We maintain that Peterborough has a proud history of welcoming asylum seekers and others in need to the city, but in a planned and coordinated way." He said the city's resources were already stretched and that it was housing "far more than our share of asylum seekers than other areas of the country". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added: "In addition, we believe it is not the ideal location, with the hotel sited in a residential area with limited access to services and amenities. "We are waiting for the court to publish its detailed findings following this temporary injunction. "We will review these and other legal implications before making our own decision on whether or not to launch a legal challenge." Across the country, other local authorities have said they are considering similar legal action to that taken by Epping Forest District Council. Home Office lawyers have acknowledged the ruling could "substantially impact" the government's ability to house the 32,000 asylum seekers currently living in 210 hotels across the UK if they do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The government has pledged to no longer use hotels for asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament, but some contracts are in place until 2029. Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More on this story Related internet links The news media has a powerful role in democracy, even if it often doesnt acknowledge that, says Kathy Roberts Forde, a journalism historian who teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As she explained in a recent episode of TNRs Right Now With Perry Bacon, in the Jim Crow era, many white-owned newspapers in the South helped legitimize and entrench Jim Crow, while Black papers and journalists told the stories of lynchings. In the 1950s and 60s, Black reporters detailed the horrors of segregation and favorably covered the Civil Rights Movement, helping lead white-owned outlets to do the same. Forde argues that todays Republican Party is using some of the authoritarian tactics that were employed in the American South in the twentieth century and by autocratic leaders abroad today. So she argues journalists can and should make those connections, even if that leads to Republicans attacking them as biased. Ford, who also is a dean of inclusion and equity, condemned the recent backlash against diversity efforts. She explained her new initiative organizing students and professors to defend against the Trump administrations attacks on higher education. You can watch this episode here. NEED TO KNOW Beta blockers a commonly prescribed blood pressure medication may be useful in stopping the spread of the aggressive triple-negative breast cancer Researchers at Melbournes Monash University found that the medication is linked to longer relapse-free survival from the breast cancer The studys authors say they hope it could pave the way to improving survival outcomes for those with the aggressive cancer A common medication may be essential in fighting one of the deadliest types of breast cancers, new research shows. Beta-blockers are connected to longer relapse-free survival from triple-negative breast cancer, according to new research published in Science Signaling. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is negative on tests for estrogen and progesterone receptors and doesnt produce much HER2 protein, according to the American Cancer Society. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It tends to grow and spread faster, has fewer treatment options, and tends to have a worse prognosis. Getty Stock image of a woman taking pills. Stock image of a woman taking pills. But beta-blockers may be a promising treatment, the research shows. The way it works is a multi-step process: Stress hormones can activate a receptor called beta-2 adrenoceptor, which then causes two more molecules to speed up the cancers spread. The process is fueled by a gene, HOXC12. Beta-blockers can turn off this gene effectively stopping the progression of cancer. The medication is most commonly prescribed to treat heart and circulatory problems, the Cleveland Clinic explains. They work on beta receptors to slow your heart rate and blood pressure. One in 10 Americans take the medication, one of the most commonly prescribed in the U.S. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If HOXC12 is found to be present in a TNBC patient, they could be an ideal candidate for beta blocker therapy, Associate Professor Michelle Halls said in a press release from Monash University. 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. Added study author Terrance Lam, the first author, Ultimately, this exciting discovery could pave the way to improving survival outcomes in people with TNBC when HOXC12 is found to be present. TNBC is an aggressive cancer which can be especially challenging to treat and identifying new treatment pathways are important." He continued: "We believe further studies are urgently needed to determine if HOXC12 can be used to identify patients who will benefit from beta blocker therapy at the time of diagnosis and stop tumor spread, thus increasing survival rates. Read the original article on People Several Logansport officials celebrated Wednesday as a state agency announced it would award substantial funds into the preservation of a downtown landmark. The Office of Community and Rural Affairs accepted the citys $750,000 grant application, the maximum amount of funds applicants could go after, to rehabilitate the exterior of the Memorial Center. As a stipulation of the grants application, the city is obliged to match at least 10% of that $750,000. The City Council already voted in June to allocate $325,510 from its Logansport Memorial Home fund if the application was successful. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That means a total of $1,075,510 will go toward fixing up the Memorial Centers exterior structural aspects, masonry, woodwork, doors, windows and ornamental metal like railings and lamp posts. The building was dedicated during the 1920s to commemorate World War One veterans. It accomplished that goal for decades before eventually falling into disrepair. Malcolm Jarrell, a leader of a resident-led group pushing forward the buildings preservation titled Friends of the Memorial Center, was among those who celebrated OCRAs allocation. This has been a long time coming, Jarrell wrote in an email to the Pharos-Tribune. This successful grant application was forged by so many Logansport people and organizations who refused to give up on the Memorial Center and put so much heart and soul over the years into saving it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He referenced the successful grant application as yet another high-point in what is demonstrably a city on the rise, noting the Memorial Center is a short walk from the farmers market and incubator kitchen that should be completely finished early next year. Jarrell also pointed to projects along the banks of both the Eel and Wabash rivers, as well as new businesses and restaurants opening on the citys east end. Progress on the Memorial Center feels like part of the Citys momentum, Jarrell said. City Council President Dave Morris noted more than 100 online and written surveys were submitted in the grant application. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The community itself spoke loudly that they wanted the Memorial Home refurbished, Morris said, adding more excitement will likely grow among the community as the construction gets underway on the buildings exterior. I think its a really positive thing for our community, Morris added. Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith congratulated grant recipients in a press release from OCRA, which distributes federal Community Development Block Grant funds. These grants improve daily life in rural Indiana and create more opportunities for Hoosiers, Beckwith wrote. Congratulations to the local leaders of these communities. Your work supports small businesses, creates jobs, and strengthens our states economy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Logansport Mayor Chris Martin also celebrated the grant funds, and thanked everyone involved in the efforts to preserve the Memorial Center. This victory has been decades in the making, Martin wrote in a press release. When we set aside politics and egos, we deliver real results for the people of Logansport. Jarrell estimated the total restoration costs which includes repairs to the buildings interior, exterior and grounds are somewhere in the ball park of $3 million. Jarrell anticipated it will take well over a year before officials can turn their attention to the buildings interior, other than interior planning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For now, he said, the next step will be crafting detailed construction plans and specifications, as well as preparation of bid documents. Jarrell expected construction work to begin in late spring of 2026. When the building is finished, the Logansport Parks and Recreation Department will likely take custody of the property. The move would be consistent with the Park Departments five-year master plan, Jarrell said, and would play a key role in the departments indoor programming. The Memorial Center will also continue to honor Cass County veterans, Jarrell and Morris noted. During one of the public meetings held to determine community support of the project, the idea of AMVETS setting up in the building seemed popular. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Coral Briseno mother of Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, who died in a 2021 attack on the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul along with 12 other American service members was among those who voiced support for the Memorial Center restoration at the meeting. She pointed to the nationwide issue of veterans who commit suicide after returning from deployment. Unfortunately, its the young ones that just come back from deployment, and they see so many things, and they dont have the support that they need, Briseno said at the April meeting. Thats why she helped start the local AMVETS chapter, she explained, to help younger veterans return to civilian life. She would support the organization, which does not have a permanent home, eventually moving into the Memorial Center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I would love to see this building up and running, Briseno said, later adding, Help our community, help our victims, help our own kids. Council member Morris noted the organization has consistently shown the city support and, likewise, has noticed a refreshed community-wide effort to recognize everything veterans do. Theyve been a real benefit for us, Morris said of AMVETS. MEMPHIS, Tenn. A Memphis native is dead after the U.S. Coast Guard reported him missing just a few miles away from the Georgia Coast. Friends and family confirm the victim is Ronald Harris; his body was discovered on Wednesday morning. Just last month, WREG spoke to Harris, who was fighting for justice in the killing of his mother, 93-year-old Geraldine Harris. This news comes as a devastating blow to the family as they are still healing from yet another tragedy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement $1M bond set for teen accused of fatally shooting 93-year-old About 6 months after we met, we went out sailing. I think it was New Years day, said Captain Lemart Presley with Cool Breeze Sailing Charters. Ronald Harris (left) and Lemart Presley (right) (Lemart Presley) Courtesy: Lemart Presley Courtesy: Lemart Presley I guess that was the beginning of a bond between us. Presley is still coming to terms with the death of his long-term friend Ronald Harris. Presley said Harris had a passion for sailing. He had sent a text also letting me know that he had, letting me know where he was at, his coordinates, and a couple pictures of the sunset that he was seeing, he stated. He said when he last spoke to Harris on Monday morning, Harris explained to him that he was having issues with his anchor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So, he was tired and he said he was going to give it a try in a little bit. So, I was telling him that there was a storm coming and he really should abandon that anchor and go and find a marina, but he said he wanted to give it another try, Presley said. COVID-19 unemployment fraud lands woman in prison After several attempts to contact Harris, Presley said he then contacted authorities. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, rescue crews found Harris boat, but no one was on board. The agency said they searched more than 230 square miles for the missing sailor. They didnt find him till yesterday. He had washed up on the shore in Georgia, Presley mentioned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement WREG reached out to the U.S. Coast Guard for more information about what happened. We will keep you updated on this story. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. MEMPHIS, Tenn. Creating change and healing communities through music is goal of one Memphis native who recently received a full scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music which, of course, is known for its exceptional programs and distinguished faculty. Its a dream come true for 18-year-old Pasley Thompson, who is now headed to the airport to board her plane and head to Boston. 17 young, talented musicians from around the world earned scholarships and awards to attend Berklee College of Music. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of those recipients was Memphis very own, Pasley Thompson, who will be attending Berklee on a full scholarship, studying music business and management with a goal of becoming a performing artist and owning a publishing company. A lot of times people overlook Memphis for its music and being seen and saying, hey, we like what youre doing and we want to support something thats a really, really good feeling, Thompson said. Wheelchair nomad overcomes adversity to inspire others From songwriting to production, Thompson has spent the past five years at Stax Music Academy perfecting her craft and exploring neo-soul genre and beyond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although she may be young, she said she appreciates good music that moves people and evokes change. I really love Tupac, always my favorite artist. He, I love his poetry. I love his writing style, and I just love how authentic he was, Thompson mentioned. And her word of advice to younger students is to find programs around Memphis to get grounded in. Memphis has a lot of really, really great programs for students in a lot of different areas. So even if its not music or if its, science, theres a lot of different programs that Memphis has to offer, Thompson added. And so find the ones you like and work hard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. NEED TO KNOW Sources close to the Menendez family tell PEOPLE "theyre preparing for neither of them being released" one day after Erik was denied parole Lyle is facing a California parole board for the first time on Friday, Aug. 22, more than three decades after he and his brother fatally shot their parents in 1989 at their Beverly Hills home A parole commissioner cited Erik's infractions behind bars as part of his denial After a California parole board concluded that Erik Menendez will remain behind bars for at least three more years, the Menendez family is fearing another painful setback as Lyle also faces the parole board. Now theyre preparing for neither of them being released," sources close to the family tell PEOPLE. For Erik, theyre disappointed with the outcome, but believe it was a win since he can be up for parole again in three years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erik was denied parole on Thursday, Aug. 21, more than three decades after he and his brother, Lyle, were convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989 in their Beverly Hills, Calif., home. His denial was mainly attributed to his infractions behind bars, which Commissioner Robert Barton said included drugs, a cellphone, and a tax fraud scheme, the The New York Times reported. "Contrary to your supporters beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner, and frankly we find that a little disturbing," Barton said, per the outlet. The sources tell PEOPLE the family believes the decision "stems from [Erik's] new risk assessment connected to the cell phone violation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now, Lyle awaits a decision as he faces the parole board Friday, Aug. 22. A legal expert recently told PEOPLE that he may face a similar outcome, unless "his parole commissioners are different" and if his behavior behind bars is unlike Erik's. CDCR/MEGA Lyle Menendez; Erik Menendez Lyle Menendez; Erik Menendez "It would be really, a miscarriage of justice if one brother were paroled and the other were not, because they're so similarly situated," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. In May, a judge ruled that Lyle and Erik would be resentenced from life in prison without parole to 50 years to life in prison. The resentencing made the brothers, who were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, immediately eligible for parole because they were under 26 at the time of the killings. Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lyle and Erik do not dispute that they killed their parents, but have long contended they were sexually abused by their father, which Kitty was allegedly aware of but did nothing to stop. They also claimed Jose had threatened to kill them if they told anyone about the sexual abuse. After the murders, prosecutors said the two brothers motive was greed and cited their lavish spending spree after the slayings. In a statement shared after Erik's hearing, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman commended the California Board of Parole Hearing's decision, saying in a statement that it "does justice" for the victims. Read the original article on People State parole officials had not yet publicly announced that Erik Menendez would remain behind bars, but word of the outcome was already spreading among his family members early Thursday evening. Stunned and angry at the decision, some relatives took to social media just as news broke that Menendez, 54, had been denied parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of his parents, a grisly crime committed with his older brother, Lyle. "How is my dad a threat to society," Talia Menendez, his stepdaughter, wrote on Instagram. "This has been torture to our family. How much longer???" Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the all-caps post, Menendez's daughter castigated the parole board, calling them "money hungry media feeding pieces of trash" after the decision. "You will not have peace until my dad is free!!!!" she wrote in a following post. A hearing for Lyle, 57, began Friday morning, leaving family members who support his case clinging to hope his ruling will be different. Originally sentenced to life without parole, the brothers eventually qualified for resentencing because they were under 26 years old at the time of the killings. Several petitions and legal filings went nowhere for decades, but their case received renewed attention after the popular Netflix series "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" sparked a social media interest in their case, and the sexual abuse the two siblings alleged was perpetuated by their father, Jose Menendez. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A superior court granted their resentencing petition in May, paving the way for the parole hearings this week. More than a dozen relatives of the two brothers testified in favor of parole during the Thursday hearing for Erik Menendez, and were also expected to speak for Lyle as well. After a nearly 10-hour hearing Thursday, Parole Commissioner Robert Barton commended the support Menendez received from his family. "You've got a great support network," he said Thursday before pointing to Erik Menendez's repeated violation of prison rules by using a contraband cellphone. "But you didn't go to them before you committed these murders. And you didn't go to them before you used the cellphone." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erik's wife, Tammi Menendez, blasted the decision. "Parole Commissioner Robert Barton had his mind made up to deny Erik parole from the start!" she wrote on X. "This was a complete setup, and Erik never stood a chance!" Anamaria Baralt, a Menendez cousin, tried to remain positive in a video posted on Instagram, noting he could re-apply for parole in three years. "Erik was given the lowest possible denial time," she said. "It's disappointing. we are certainly disappointed as a family." However, she said she was proud of Menendez as he addressed the parole board for the first time, something the family did not view as a possibility a few years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We knew this was a steep climb," she said in the video. "California is very rigorous in its standards. Not many people get out on parole on their first try. So it wasn't entirely a surprise. But it is nonetheless very disappointing." According to the Prison Policy Initiative, a research and advocacy group that pushes for criminal justice reform, the vast majority of inmates who go before the board are denied parole. A recent study of parole rates across the states by the Prison Policy Initiative found that 14% of parole hearings in 2022 resulted in approval. "While we respect the decision, [Thursday's] outcome was of course disappointing and not what we hoped for," the Menendez family said in a statement. "But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Board's recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact he's had on others speak for themselves." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Family, friends and cellmates have commended the two brothers for their work inside prison in the past few years, referring to them as "mentors" for other prisoners and spearheading programs inside prison walls. Lyle Menendez spearheaded a beatification project at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, and his brother has organized artwork for the project. The two have started programs dealing with anger management, meditation, and assisting inmates in hospice care. But Thursday's hearing also aired struggles and issues the younger sibling has faced during more than three decades in prison, including drug and alcohol use, fights with other inmates, instances of being found with contraband, and allegations he helped a prison gang in a tax fraud scheme in 2013. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Members of the parole board spent several minutes in particular asking about being caught multiple times with a cellphone, which he said he used to speak with his wife, watch YouTube videos, pornography, and look for updates on his case in the media. Menendez said he paid about $1,000 for the phones, and said he did not consider the impacts the devices could have in the prison system. "I knew 50, 60 people that had phones," he said Thursday. "I just justified it by saying if I don't buy it someone else is going to buy it. The phones were going to be sold." It was in January that he said a lieutenant had an extended talk with him about the impacts, including how someone must smuggle the phone, how it must be paid for, how it corrupts staff, and how they can be used for more criminal activity. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite the connection phones provided to the outside, Menendez said, it was later that he realized the effect that using one was having on his life, now that the prospect of freedom was possible. "In November of 2024, now the consequences mattered," he told the board. "Now the consequences meant I was destroying my life." Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who has opposed parole and resentencing for the two brothers, applauded the decision by the board. "The California Board of Parole has rightly decided against granting parole to Erik Menendez," he said in a statement. "This ruling does justice for Jose and Kitty Menendez, the victims of the brutal murders carried out by their sons on Aug. 20, 1989." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hochman said that, during their time in prison, the brothers have continued to claim they killed their parents in self-defense, but pointed out that their parents suffered shotgun blasts to the back and at point-blank range during the killings. "The Board correctly determined that Erik Menendez's actions speak louder than words, and that his conduct in prison and current mentality demonstrates that he still poses an unreasonable risk of danger to the community." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A New Jersey resident has been sentenced to federal prison after being convicted for his role in a scheme to smuggle military equipment to Russia an operation that involved a Merrimack man. Vadim Yermolenko, 43, of Upper Saddle River, received a 30-month sentence Monday, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement. Yermolenko pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit bank fraud for his role in a scheme to export dual-use electronics to Russia to aid its military and intelligence services. Yermolenko was born in Russia and has citizenship in both Russia and the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Co-defendant Alexey Brayman of Merrimack previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentence. Federal authorities said Yermolenko and Brayman were among nearly two dozen criminals who, for more than two years, conspired to aid Russias military aggression in the Russia-Ukraine war. An investigation found that they were affiliated with two Moscow-based companies that procured advanced electronics and sophisticated testing equipment for the countrys industrial and research and development sector. The Justice Department said the entities controlled a network of shell companies and bank accounts worldwide, including in the United States, which helped Russia hide its involvement in the scheme. Yermolenko, according to court papers, funneled $12 million through U.S.-based bank accounts used to purchase sensitive equipment used in radar, surveillance and military research and development intended for the Russian government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Charges against Brayman and the others include numerous conspiracies to defraud the United States, to violate the International Emergency Economic Power Act, to violate the Export Control Reform Act, wire fraud and money laundering. Other charges include fraud by wire, radio or television, money laundering, smuggling goods into the United States, unlawful export activities and failure to file electronic export information. Authorities charge that the network shipped material out of the Merrimack home throughout the world, including to Vadim Konoshchenok in Estonia. From there, Konoshchenok would smuggle the U.S. items into neighboring Russia, filings say. Konoshchenok has identified himself as a colonel with the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor agency to the Soviet KGB. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Brayman and Yermolenko would alter, forge, and destroy shipping documents, invoices and other business records to unlawfully export items from the United States, the filings read. Yermolenko worked on the finance end, allegedly opening numerous shell companies and bank accounts, depositing and withdrawing funds into U.S. financial institutions and lying to them to facilitate the scheme and avoid detection. Brayman used his residence in New Hampshire as a frequent transshipment point for items that were unlawfully exported from the U.S. and ultimately destined for Russia, the filing reads. Much of the network ran through the Brayman home, court documents say. According to property records, Brayman and his wife, Daria Romonova Brayman, bought the home at 30 Ellie Drive in Merrimack in 2019 for $425,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These items included advanced electronics and sophisticated testing equipment used in quantum computing, hypersonic and nuclear weapons development and other military and space-based military applications, the indictment reads. Equipment was shipped through shell companies using layered transactions, which made them more difficult to track, and moved through Estonia, Finland, Germany and Hong Kong. One example in the indictment of Braymans involvement describes a $14,000 military-grade spectrum analyzer, which was purchased from a Florida company. It can be used to measure electromagnetic signals on the battlefield and for counter-surveillance operations. It was shipped through New Hampshire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In another case, dual-use oscilloscopes from an Illinois company, valued at $25,000 apiece, were shipped to Braymans address. The equipment was tightly controlled by the Department of Commerce for anti-terrorism reasons. Brayman allegedly repackaged them, listed the value as $2,500 and labeled the package Oscilloscope Used, No Warr. pfeely@unionleader.com As cloud computing picked up steam in the late 2000s, Ellison had little reason to be excited. Oracles namesake database, which is purchased outright and installed directly on customer servers, is one of the worlds great cash businesses. Adopting a cloud sales model, where users rent access to software, would almost certainly come with lower profits and a need to collaborate with rivals. Oracle, founded in the 1970s, had long faded from tech prominence. On the road to its return in the AI era were internal battles to convince Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz to invest in the cloud, recruitment of key customers like TikTok and the rise of a brash executive named Clay Magouyrk. Bloomberg spoke with more than 30 current or former employees and customers to understand how Oracle can deliver on its towering promises. They detailed spiraling costs, accelerated timelines to satisfy OpenAI, regulatory roadblocks and the hiring of hundreds of former Amazon cloud staffers, speaking anonymously to discuss the inner workings of a famously private and litigious company. Oracle declined to comment. With all of this spending, Oracle recorded a negative annual cash flow for the first time since 1990. And questions remain about the longevity and margins of offering infrastructure to train AI models. Oracle is on the hook for tens of billions of dollars to develop unprecedentedly large data centers amid energy and material shortages. That includes a plan to spend more than $1 billion a year just to power one new megasite in West Texas with gas generators rather than wait for utility connection, according to people familiar with the plans. The AI boom has dramatically increased demand for computing and storage over the internet. Oracle, a software company that had long struggled to find its niche in this market, gained a foothold through scoring major customers. Today, its helping power Elon Musks xAI from a data center in Utah, assembling a cluster of tens of thousands of AI chips for Nvidia Corp. near Singapore and recently inked what is likely the largest single cloud deal ever with OpenAI, the leading artificial intelligence company. Now, the success of Oracles cloud infrastructure unit is why the companys stock price has soared and made Ellison, its chairman and co-founder, the second-richest person in the world. Oracle Corp.s Larry Ellison used to scoff at the idea of cloud computing, saying in 2008 that it was complete gibberish. Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison changed his mind on the importance of cloud computing, leading the company to relevance in the industry. Weiterlesen After years of writing off the cloud as marketing, Oracles tone changed as its business came under fire. Amazon.com Inc. pushed cheaper database options on its cloud customers. Application rivals like Salesforce Inc. promised easier installation and updates. Ellison saw the need to get Oracles Fusion apps commonly used for finance and resource planning on the cloud, according to people familiar with his thinking at the time. There were competing efforts through the 2010s within Oracle to build a cloud for internal and customer use. An initial attempt, led by Thomas Kurian and launched in 2012, saw limited success. A separate group, made up largely of Amazon alumni led by Don Johnson, pushed an approach called bare metal, in which clients wouldnt have to share their servers with other renters, allowing Oracle to target privacy-focused users. The group also focused on building smaller data centers, which let them expand in countries that werent yet viable for industry leaders. The bare metal approach won the blessing of Ellison, who remains a key decisionmaker despite handing off the CEO title more than a decade ago. The new product came to be known as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. Kurian departed the company in 2018 after his approach was sidelined. He then joined Google to lead its competing cloud service and remains in that position. When offering the new product, Oracle had to overcome a long-held reputation for aggressive sales strategies. Major pitches for OCI include cheaper pricing thanks to a simplified set of products and good integration with other clouds. Oracle salespeople often take jabs at Amazon Web Services sprawling set of tools, telling customers that paying for Amazons cloud means subsidizing expensive moonshots like its satellite project, Kuiper. An Amazon spokesperson said that more customers continue to choose AWS than any other cloud provider because we deliver unmatched choice, pace of innovation, security, and reliability. Breakthrough Customers In the pandemic era, a handful of transformative customers joined Oracles platform. Zoom Communications Inc., struggling to handle a massive spike in demand during lockdowns, selected Oracle Cloud to help handle traffic from consumers. The company secured a nearly $2 billion commitment from Uber Technologies Inc. in 2023. By far the biggest win in this period was TikTok. The ByteDance Ltd.-owned social media company needed to expand its US infrastructure while under scrutiny from lawmakers over its links to China. Oracle, a company versed in national security whose chairman and CEO were supporters of the Republicans then in power, seemed a natural choice. OCI is like before and after TikTok, said Tony Grayson, a former Oracle executive who led the companys data center build-out around the time. The new customer forced the company to think on a scale it never had before, Grayson said. In 2022, TikTok announced that all US user traffic would flow through Oracle servers. Annual revenue from the new customer rapidly passed $1 billion and, for a period, TikToks business was larger than the entire rest of OCI combined, according to people familiar with the figures. Oracle also built experience in AI infrastructure, running thousands of Nvidia graphics processing units chips used for AI work for TikTok even before the ChatGPT craze. Management by Ridicule Within Oracle, there was long disagreement about the purpose of OCI. Some leaders saw it as a way to shield the database business and modernize applications. Others sought to compete with Amazon and Microsoft Corp. for general cloud work and grab a piece of a market worth hundreds of billions each year. It wasnt easy to convince CEO Catz of the expansive vision. She expressed skepticism due to high costs of operating data centers and lower margins of the business, people familiar with her thinking said. This cost consciousness fueled OCIs initial focus on small data centers. But she and other traditional company leaders became convinced as massive deals such as TikTok, and later OpenAI, materialized. Safra Catz, chief executive officer of Oracle Corp.Photographer: Zak Bennett/Bloomberg Internal accolades have flowed to Magouyrk, the divisions leader. The 39-year-old has rapidly climbed company ranks and reports directly to Ellison. He was one of OCIs first employees after a stint at Amazon and recently relocated to Nashville, where Oracle has pledged to move its headquarters. In June, he was promoted to president, and is seen by company leaders as a potential successor to his 81-year-old boss. Sometimes you look back and say Im not sure that I was entirely qualified at each step of the way, Magouyrk said on the podcast in July 2023. But it seems to have worked out so far. Those who have worked with him describe Magouyrk as highly effective and conflict prone. He once told an executive that his actions were f---king stupid, in a room full of leadership, according to allegations in a 2021 lawsuit that claimed a toxic work culture at OCI. Blunt bosses are typical in a company run by Ellison, who once described his leadership style as management by ridicule. In the early days of OCI, the division was known as Sparta. It could pay its workers more than other parts of Oracle, was based out of Seattle rather than the Bay Area, and adopted the AWS practice of constantly shedding lower performers. OCIs importance has grown as the cloud has become a bigger part of the companys business. Today, about 23,000 employees report up through Magouyrk. Over the last two years, more than 600 workers have joined from Amazon, according to an analysis by Workforce.ai. Amazons recent five-days-a-week return-to-office rule has made the poaching easier, as OCI remains largely a hybrid or remote workplace, people at the company say. Unprecedented Scale Today, AI is the biggest driver of OCIs growth. The majority of Oracles backlog, or booked deals, are tied to customers training or deploying AI models with GPU-based servers, according to a person familiar with the figures. OpenAI is slated to become Oracle largest customer and has marketed the work as Stargate, an effort first announced in January at the White House alongside President Donald Trump. The companies have struck deals for more than 5 gigawatts of computing power, an unprecedented sum and enough energy for millions of American homes. Work for OpenAI is happening on an aggressive timeline. The data centers are targeted for completion by early 2027, with many servers running as soon as next summer, according to people familiar with the plans. Facilities are being designed for training AI models with the assumption that they could also to power the applications of those trained models, which is called inference. Providing infrastructure for AI training is generally thought to be a lower margin business than inference because it requires more advanced semiconductors and cooling. Exact timing and design details for the OpenAI work could still change, the people said. Finding data center developers and power providers to support this project at palatable prices has been a challenge, people involved with the development said. Costs for many goods and services have gone up over the last year owing to tariffs and vendors capitalizing on intense demand. Plus, it can take years to get approval and infrastructure to draw the scale of electricity needed from local grids. The site Oracle plans to power entirely with gas generation is located in Shackleford County, Texas, near another Oracle server farm in Abilene. It is being developed by Vantage Data Centers, partly owned by DigitalBridge Group Inc. and Silver Lake, and will have a compute capacity of 1.4 gigawatts, making it among the largest known sites. Part of OCIs popularity with AI firms is its long-standing focus on bare metal servers. This has become the standard arrangement for AI work, and Oracle was first among major vendors to offer it. Users and employees also point to Oracles networking quality and willingness to do high levels of customized work. Semianalysis, a popular industry analyst, listed Oracle Cloud near the top of its rankings for AI infrastructure vendors in March, citing its cost-effectiveness, networking quality and strong customer service. Theyre aggressive on price, which definitely helps, said David Talby, CEO John Snow Labs, which trains and deploys AI models in health care. His company picked OCI in part because the offering had high performance and was well optimized for use with Nvidia AI chips. Another of Oracles largest AI customers is Nvidia, which uses OCI for internal development and to power its own cloud infrastructure service. The chipmaker, codenamed pathfinder internally, rents capacity from an Oracle cluster of H100 chips in Japan and from a data center being built on Indonesias Batam Island. Oracle is also in talks with Meta Platforms Inc. and Musks xAI for further capacity, according to a person familiar with the plans. Oracles cloud business is still orders of magnitude smaller than Amazon, Microsoft and the No. 3 provider, Alphabet Inc.s Google. But plenty of room for growth exists. The market generated almost $100 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter and is expanding about 25% year over year, according to Synergy Research Group. The big question is how Oracle will fund this development and what it does to the companys profitability, said Mark Moerdler, an analyst at Bernstein. Still, the company hasnt had to borrow money to develop its centers like smaller rivals such as CoreWeave Inc. We believe the margin will rebound and cash flow will be substantial once they get through this investment phase, Moerdler said, comparing this moment to Microsofts cloud transition under Satya Nadella. Oracle is going through a business model transformation that is even more impactful over a shorter period of time. (Adds detail on Vantage Data Centers ownership in 30th paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2025 Bloomberg L.P. A Metropolitan Police officer said to be the youngest detective inspector in the country has appeared in court accused of destroying evidence. Det Insp Taylor Flanagan-Clark, 32, attached to the north-west local investigations team, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday, charged with perverting the course of justice. Prosecutor Rhianne Neil alleged the defendant remotely wiped a mobile phone that had been seized by police for examination and in doing so "destroyed evidence". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sam Haldane, defending, told the court his client claims he did not wipe the device. The barrister described Mr Flanagan-Clark, a father of two from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, as a "distinguished officer" of "previous unblemished record and as I understand it the youngest detective inspector within the country". He added the defendant has worked in policing across Westminster, Kensington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Barnet, Harrow and Hackney. The officer, who has been suspended, was remanded in custody to next appear at Southwark Crown Court on 19 September. Det Ch Supt Luke Williams said: "These are very serious allegations which will undoubtedly concern the community we serve and our staff, but I want to reassure them my team has been working closely with the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) and the Anti-Corruption Command from the start of these matters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "For now, it's important we let proceedings continue and do not jeopardise the ongoing investigation." Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk Related internet links A meteorite which struck Earth at the dawn of civilisation is set to sell for up to 850,000. The space rock landed in what is now Namibia 10,000 years ago, at the time of the first villages and farmers, and is being auctioned off in the Netherlands. Weighing 240kg, it is thought to be the heaviest meteorite of its kind to ever go to auction. Bradley Hessink, director of Dutch auctioneers Hessinks, which is handling the sale, said: This specimen is exceptionally rare. In fact, it is the largest known example of its kind available for private ownership anywhere in the world. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For comparison, the second-largest specimen ever sold was offered in 2021 and weighed 101 kilograms less. The space rock is set to become the largest meteorite of its kind ever auctioned - Hessinkas via Pen News The rock is a Gibeon meteorite which formed at the very start of the solar system around 4.5 billion years ago inside an asteroid that orbited the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. A collision between two asteroids sent debris flying around the primordial solar system, and a small percentage was sent towards Earth. This quarter-tonne specimen is thought to be the largest such fragment ever found. Such a piece would be a highly significant acquisition for any natural history or space museum, said Mr Hessink, who is trying to entice the worlds richest people to bid on the rock. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It also holds immense appeal for private collectors and enthusiasts of space and the cosmos. Individuals like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson come to mind. Significant interest expected The space rock is named for the African village close to where it was discovered in the 1800s. It is known for its Widmanstatten structure, which is a unique pattern that can only form in space as a result of slow cooling over millions of years in a weightless environment. Rules imposed by Namibia in 2004 would now prevent the meteorites export, but it came to the Netherlands before the law took effect. Today it belongs to the Mercurius Observatory in Dordrecht and Hans Pullen, the Observatory spokesman, said: Were now offering the meteorite for auction because we need the revenue for our new planetarium and to update our exhibition spaces. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The proceeds will therefore benefit this good cause. Until the auction takes place, the meteorite will be on display at the Space Expo in Noordwijk, allowing the public to view and even touch this special object. Auctioneers have given an estimate of between 800,000 and 1m (700,000-860,000), but this could be an underestimation. Mr Hessink said he was expecting significant interest due to the exceptional nature of the object. He is hoping the lot, which goes under the hammer on Aug 30, will overshoot its estimate in a similar way to the largest Martian meteorite ever in the world, which was auctioned last month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Telegraph revealed the 25kg chunk of the red planet was being auctioned off by Sothebys and it fetched a fee of 3.2 million. Savvy collectors understand that large extraterrestrial specimens of this calibre are vanishingly scarce and have seen significant appreciation in value in recent years, said Mr Hessink. Yet beyond the scientific and collecting value, this object also stands as a monumental natural sculpture. Whether displayed in a grand residence or modern penthouse, it would serve as a one-of-a-kind centrepiece and conversation starter for any guest or visitor. The only question now is what the final price will be. Thats still written in the stars. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Months after the first detection of West Nile Virus was reported in Davidson County, officials with the Metro Public Health Department have confirmed the first human case. According to a Friday press release, the individual lives in South Nashville and has no history of travel. Officials added that the case coincides with a rise in West Nile Virus activity in mosquitoes across Nashville. MAY 2025 | West Nile Virus detected in Davidson County for the first time in 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MPHDs Pest Management team traps and test mosquitoes throughout the summer season at sites across Davidson County to inform nearby residents when insects in the area test positive for the virus. Additionally, the team adds larvicide to ponds and water in the area near positive results, which helps kill mosquito larva and reduces future populations. So far this year, mosquitoes trapped at 27 different sites across Nashville have tested positive for West Nile Virus. The MPHD recommends a few steps to reduce the mosquito population where you live as well as protective measures to prevent mosquito bites Reduce or eliminate standing water in places like bird baths, tires, backyard toys or other areas where water collects. Trim overgrown vegetation. Limit time outside at dusk and nighttime, which is when mosquitoes are most active. Wear shoes, socks and long-sleeved shirts with pants dusk to dawn when mosquitoes are most prevalent. The MPHD also recommends light-colored clothing made of tightly-woven material to keep mosquitoes away from your skin. Pant legs should be tucked into shoes or socks and collars should be buttoned. Make sure windows and doors are screened and that the screens dont have large holes Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Death investigation underway after body found on Dickerson Pike According to the Tennessee Department of Health, most people infected with West Nile Virus via mosquito bite will have no symptoms. However, about 20% of people will suffer from flu-like symptoms like headache, body aches, joint pain, vomiting, diarrhea, rash and fatigue that can last for weeks or months. Approximately one in every 150 people infected develop more severe illnesses affecting the central nervous system like encephalitis or meningitis. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) A jury found a New Mexico man guilty of killing his girlfriend. In January 2024, police say Alexander Ortiz shot his girlfriend, Alianna Farfan. Court documents said Ortiz shot her inside a bedroom during an argument. Police said Ortiz escaped by jumping out of a window. New Mexico man found guilty of killing his girlfriend Just days after that incident, he was accused of shooting and killing Nicole Maldonado at the Adam Food Market. During a routine court hearing in February, family members of Alianna Farfan jumped over the partition and started punching Ortiz. He is facing a minimum sentence of life in prison. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. RIO RANCHO, N.M. (KRQE) A jury found a man guilty of shooting his girlfriend and driving around the metro with her body in the car. In 2023, a family member of then 23-year-old Matthew Chavez called Rio Rancho police, saying he told them he shot and killed his girlfriend. Man indicted for allegedly kidnapping boss in New Mexico Police then called Chavez, who told authorities he was driving around the metro with her body in the car. He eventually met police at the Premiere 14 Theater, where he was arrested. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He faces up to 23 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set yet. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A narrow median on Central Avenue in Nob Hill in Albuquerque, pictured May 2023. The state Transportation Department on Thursday provided an update on its effort to eliminate all traffic deaths in New Mexico, which is consistently ranked first nationally for pedestrian and other traffic-related deaths. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM) With enough coordination, education, planning and proactivity, New Mexico can eliminate traffic deaths and no longer rank as the deadliest state for pedestrians, a state transportation official told lawmakers Thursday. Amy Whitfield, who is spearheading the New Mexico Transportation Departments Target Zero initiative, laid out the many factors contributing to the states place atop the list of deadliest states for pedestrians, an unwanted designation its had for years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We do not believe that any traffic fatality is acceptable in our nation. And its not just a phrase. Its not just a goal. It is something that we can do, Whitfield told lawmakers on the interim Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Subcommittee. We can reach this goal. We can get to zero traffic fatalities. Pedestrians in New Mexico died at a rate of 4.97 per 100,000 residents in 2023, the most recent year for which federal data is available, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Thats much higher than even the other top states for pedestrian fatalities: Those states ranking between second and fifth all had between 3.2 and 3.7 deaths per 100,000 residents. According to the federal data, New Mexico has topped the list since 2016 and been in the top five since at least 2012. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Between 2012 and 2023, 933 pedestrians were killed in crashes in New Mexico, according to the data. In 2023, the Legislature passed a memorial creating a Target Zero initiative that envisioned zero vehicle-related deaths or serious injuries by the end of 2030. It recommended the Transportation Department create a position like Whitfields to craft a plan and propose changes to the states Motor Vehicle code, among other undertakings. Whitfield on Thursday presented lawmakers with tools and procedures the department is developing to eliminate traffic deaths by 2050, both on states the road owns and on local roads. One local road Central Avenue in Albuquerque has six of the top-10 most dangerous intersections in the state. Central and Louisiana in the International District is the most dangerous, according to Whitfields presentation, and much of the conversation Thursday involved how the state has been working with city officials to prevent pedestrian deaths there. In 2024, 25 pedestrian crashes occurred at Central and Louisiana, where transient pedestrians often linger near the Albuquerque Rapid Transit stop. Whitfield said solving the problem at the states most dangerous intersection requires a mix of traffic-calming measures like pedestrian-enabled crosswalks; educational and social outreach; and improved emergency response to ensure traffic injuries dont end up being fatalities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DOT Secretary Ricky Serna also said the state has installed wrought iron fencing and other landscaping on land it controls to encourage pedestrians onto city-owned property like sidewalks,, which enables the city, if necessary, to use its authority to clear people for their safety. They can move you on to the public right-of-way, and then city ordinance will allow us to get you out of there. Thats been kind of the hope, Serna said. Some of the struggle that we wrangle with there is, some of those public spaces are being used as access points to services, meaning that you may have a shelter or you may have a community organization that identifies that [intersection] as where theyre convening. Whitfield reported progress at that particular intersection, encouraging lawmakers to drive through the intersection and make note of what the city has done. Theyre really putting in some exciting things: Some pedestrian HAWK beacons, some calming patterns, some things that they know are going to have an impact, she said. And so they are working on those engineering strategies that were encouraging all local governments to really engage in. Miami-Dade Police Officer Jose Mateo had every right to open fire during a 2019 shootout with two men who kidnapped a UPS driver and drove him to a busy Miramar intersection, Mateos lawyer argued Friday, and he should not be held criminally responsible for the deaths of two innocent victims. Mateo is raising what lawyers agreed is a novel application of the states law blocking prosecutions in certain self-defense cases hes asking Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra to find that he is entitled to immunity even though the people who died are not the people against whom he was standing his ground. Floridas Stand Your Ground law was intended to protect potential victims who use force, including deadly force, to protect themselves or others from someone who poses an imminent threat. But Mateo is one of four Miami officers charged with manslaughter for killing two men who were not responsible for the standoff Frank Ordonez, the kidnapped UPS driver, and Richard Cutshaw, 70, a bystander shot by a stray bullet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In arguments before Kollra, prosecutor Chuck Morton said Mateo (and by extension fellow officers Rodolfo Mirabal, Richard Santiesteban, and Leslie Lee, who did not file similar motions) were not entitled to invoke the Stand Your Gound law because he is not accused of killing the people who were threatening his life or the lives of others. Stand your ground does not transfer to unintended victims, he said. No charges were filed in connection with the deaths of Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill, the two men who kidnapped Ordonez after robbing a Coral Gables jewelry store. Both died in the same shootout. Defense lawyer Richard Diaz said Kollras decision, when it comes down, is unlikely to be the last word on the subject. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This will be decided by an appeals court, Diaz said. Kollra said he intends to rule Monday on whether the Stand Your Ground law can be invoked in connection with the death of an unintended victim. He also told both sides to be ready for trial on Wednesday. Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457. Michael Cohen, President Donald Trumps former fixer and lawyer, gave John Bolton some advice after Trumps Department of Justice raided his home Friday: Lawyer up. Ive been there, Cohen, who served three years in prison for lying to Congress, tax evasion and committing campaign finance fraud that involved hush-money payments to women who said they had affairs with Trump, shared during his Friday appearance on MSNBC Reports. More from TheWrap As you know, years back they raided my home, hotel and my law office as well. Let me be very clear about something: what we have here is the Trump team, the DOJ, going through, for example, the book, The Room Where It Happened, which I actually had read while I was in solitary confinement, Cohen said, referring to Boltons 2020 book The Room Where It Happened, which is a first-hand account of Boltons 17 months serving in Trump during his first term. [Trumps camp] noticed that there are many aspects of this book that appear to be of national security importance, and thats what I believe, that they predicated this raid upon, Cohen went on, seemingly explaining that he believes Trumps team already planned out their investigation into Bolton based on the contents and publication of his book, which he may not have secured proper clearance for to write. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I also believe that theres no doubt that he will be indicted, Cohen said. They will find documents once they go through, for example, his computer, theyll find the manuscript. Theyll see emails going back and forth between John Bolton and his people, as well as maybe the attorney that reviewed it for legal ease and for questions. He needs to lawyer up. Very much like what happened two years ago. On Friday, FBI agents raided Boltons Bethesda, Maryland home as well as his Washington, D.C. office. While he has not been arrested or charged, reports state the raid was enforced as part of a national security investigation in search of classified records. Later on that day, Vice President JD Vance rejected the idea that the raid is the administrations way of getting payback against Bolton for his criticisms of the president. No, not at all, Vance told NBCs Kristen Welker during his Meet the Press with Kristen Welker interview. In fact, if we were trying to do that we would just throw out prosecutions willy nilly like the Biden administrations DOJ did. Prosecutions that later got thrown out in court. If we bring a case, of course we havent done that yet, the Department of Justice has not done that yet, were investigating Ambassador Bolton. But if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determined that he has broken the law. You can watch Cohens interview in the video above. The post Michael Cohen Tells Ex-Trump Staffer John Bolton to Lawyer Up After FBI Raid: Ive Been There | Video appeared first on TheWrap. Migrant hotels across Britain are braced for a wave of protests this weekend. Demonstrations have been planned at dozens of hotels after a High Court ruling forcing the closure of a migrant hotel in Epping, Essex. The Bell Hotel was the scene of weeks of protest after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. This weekend, at least 20 towns and cities could be affected by protests as communities attempt to force the closure of migrant hotels near them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, protests are planned for Aberdeen, Altrincham, Bournemouth, Leeds, Leicester, Orpington, Portsmouth and Perth. They will be followed on Saturday by demonstrations in Bristol, Exeter, Newcastle, Oldham, Oxford, Stockport and Wakefield. On Sunday, there is due to be a protest in Manchester. Others are planned for Cannock, Chichester, Tamworth and Wakefield. The Governments asylum policy has been plunged into chaos since this weeks High Court judgment. The ruling blocks migrants from being housed at the Bell Hotel and all asylum seekers living there must be removed by Sept 12. The judgment has led to ministers bracing for further legal challenges over migrant hotels from councils across the country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several have said they are exploring initiating the injunction, including Labour-run Trafford and Wirral councils. Nigel Farage said the 12 Reform-led local authorities were all considering following suit. The Reform leader has urged the public to hold protests outside hotels. Lets hold peaceful protests outside the migrant hotels, and put pressure on local councils to go to court to try and get the illegal immigrants out; we now know that together we can win, Mr Farage said earlier this week. No doubt we will be attacked as far-right provocateurs for daring to suggest that people follow the lead of Eppings parents and residents by protesting peacefully. Protests against migratn hotels are expected across the country this weekend - Ben Montgomery Richard Tice, the Reform deputy leader, has also backed the protests, telling Times Radio on Wednesday: Thats part of who we are. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And thats a way that residents can express their genuine concerns in a peaceful, friendly way. And some of these protests have been colourful. Theyve been cheerful. Official figures show the number of asylum seekers in hotels has risen by nearly 2,500 during Labours first year in office, equivalent to almost 50 a week. Asylum applications also hit a record high of more than 111,000 from June 2024 to June 2025 after a surge in small-boat crossings. Just 4 per cent of small-boat migrants have been returned since 2018, with removals falling in the past year, Home Office figures show. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. MILAN, Pa. (WETM) A Milan man was charged on Wednesday after federal attorneys accused him of stealing more than $350,000 in benefits he was not eligible to have over the course of nearly 17 years. Richard Burke, 75, of Milan, PA, was charged on Wednesday, Aug. 20, with wire fraud in connection with stealing Social Security and Veterans benefits, according to information from the United States Attorneys Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Gillett man sentenced for causing disturbance, assaulting police Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Burkes charges allege that from April 2005 until March 2022, Burke took out benefit payments from his dead mothers bank account. The total stolen from the SSA and VA was $350,635.23, the release said. The maximum penalty under federal law for this crime is 20 years in prison and a fine. A sentencing may include a period of parole after release from prison. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WETM - MyTwinTiers.com. Orion CEO Natalie Wolfsen You can find original article here Wealthmanagement. Subscribe to our free daily Wealthmanagement newsletter. Wealthtech provider Orion Advisor Solutions is planning to open an innovation lab in San Francisco later this year, following the opening of a new office in Utah. According to CEO Natalie Wolfsen, the new locations follow a workforce strategy change over the past 18 months that included several rounds of layoffs. In an interview at WealthManagement.com's New York City office, Wolfsen said the changes helped right-size the firms approach to remote vs. in-office work and transition from a closed suite of services. You can only foster communities that allow you to do transformative things if youre not siloed in your organization and deeply connected to your clients, Wolfsen said. While Wolfsen stressed that she could never say never about potential future staff changes (noting that Orion operates in a market-tied industry), she acknowledged that the workforce strategy has reached a point of its fruition based on the companys current standing. Orion conducted several rounds of layoffs before and after Wolfsen took the top post in 2024, leaving her role as CEO of AssetMark. In 2023, when founder Eric Clarke was still CEO, one round of layoffs was described as the final action in bringing several teams together from prior acquisitions. Last July, Orion introduced its back-to-office plan for employees, which includes three days a week in the office and choice weeks, in which employees can work wherever they want for a week at a time (each employee gets eight choice weeks per year and can take up to four weeks consecutively). According to Wolfsen, the choice weeks help employees travel on vacation with family while continuing to work or help an elderly parent recovering from a medical issue. Additionally, earlier this month, Orion opened a new office in Lehi, Utah, moving to what the firm described as the heart of Utahs thriving tech corridor. According to Orion, the location is closer to major business hubs. Wolfsen added that Lehi and the firms headquarters in Omaha, Neb. and Berwyn, Penn., were the companys three largest locations. Meanwhile, the San Francisco office will focus on innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and serve as a support function for all of Orion and all of our locations, said Orion Advisory Technology President Reed Colley, who is based there. CEO Wolfsen also tied the layoffs to her strategy to open Orions offerings to advisors with a la carte service options across its advisor technology and wealth management offerings, instead of the approach of a more closed system, or large-bundled offering she had inherited. A Milwaukee father will stand trial on charges he fatally shot his 4-year-old son during a fight with the child's mother, a judge ruled. Ralph Michael Taylor Jr. appeared in a Milwaukee courtroom on Aug. 22 before Circuit Court Judge David Borowski for a preliminary hearing. Taylor, 35, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the July 10 killing of his son, Ralph Taylor III. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Borowski heard testimony from a Milwaukee police detective during the hearing, and later bound the case over for trial after finding probable cause existed that a felony had been committed, likely by Taylor. He is expected to return to court for a scheduling conference on Sept. 2. More: Milwaukee father, mother charged in shooting death of 4-year-old son Here's what police and prosecutors say happened to Ralph Taylor III on the night of July 10 Rachel Smith, a Milwaukee police detective, testified officers were sent to a home on the 9100 block of North 79th Street, just after 9:30 p.m. They were sent there to respond to a call of a shooting. Officers Konmeng Yang and Mathew Degley arrived to find a group of residents gathered outside yelling for help. They reported a child had been shot. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The officers ran into the home and searched the rooms until they found the child in the doorway of a third-floor bedroom, lying in a pool of blood. Smith said one of the officers tried life-saving measures on the child, but was unsuccessful. A 4-year-old boy was shot and killed in his home on Milwaukee's far northwest side. The boy lived in the townhouse with the green door. Neighbors' children were playing outside in the yard when the shooting occurred. More: Babysitter charged in 7-month-old's death, doctors suggest cause was head trauma The child spent his last moments locked in a room with the gunman What unfolded for the child just before police arrived was macabre. According to a criminal complaint, the child's 10-year-old stepbrother said Taylor wanted to fight him because he thought the 10-year-old took a PlayStation 4 videogame system. Taylor also issued threats to Casandra Taylor, the boys' mother, and at some point while arguing with her, Ralph Taylor broke Casandra Taylors Chromebook. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to a criminal complaint, Ralph Taylor later grabbed Ralph Taylor III by the arm and took the child to the upstairs bedroom. About one or two minutes later, a single shot was heard. Casandra Taylor and the brother ran upstairs, but the bedroom door was locked. She banged on the door for a few minutes. Eventually Ralph Taylor opened the door, only for her to find the lifeless child in the doorway. Smith said an autopsy showed the child was shot at point-blank range. More: Milwaukee police find decomposed body of 10-month-old in apartment; mother is charged Ralph Taylor Jr. has a criminal history Milwaukee police arrested Ralph Taylor Jr. before on allegations of battery and disorderly conduct related to domestic abuse in 2020, 2022 and 2023, according to arrest records maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The two earlier arrests did not lead to criminal charges, according to court records. In the 2023 incident, prosecutors charged Taylor with resisting an officer. In that case, officers were originally responding to a call from Taylors estranged wife, the 4-year-old's mother, who said he had threatened to kick in her door and choke her, according to a criminal complaint. The caller said she feared for her safety. When officers arrived, Taylor walked toward them in what officers described as an aggressive manner. It took six officers to get him into the squad car as he tried to spit and threatened the officers, the complaint says. Taylor pleaded guilty to resisting and was sentenced to nine months of probation. One of his probation requirements was to complete an anger management course, court records show. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More: 'He should be here': Milwaukee teen is sentenced for killing Marquell Newburn, 12 The child's mother also faces charges in his death Prosecutors also charged Cassandra Taylor with neglecting a child in which the consequence is death, as a party to a crime, and with straw purchasing a firearm. The latter charge alleges she intentionally bought a gun for someone who is prohibited from possessing one. Ralph Taylor has been convicted of felonies and has a history of domestic violence, and was prohibited from possessing a firearm. A preliminary hearing for Cassandra Taylor has been scheduled for Sept. 2. Where to find help for domestic violence Domestic violence advocates can help with safety planning. Calls to advocates are confidential and do not involve law enforcement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233. The Sojourner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee operates a 24-hour confidential hotline at 414-933-2722. The Milwaukee Women's Center offers a 24-hour crisis line at 414-671-6140. The Womens Center in Waukesha has a 24-hour hotline at 262-542-3828. We Are Here Milwaukee provides information on culturally specific organizations at weareheremke.org. The Asha Project, which provides culturally specific services for African American women and others in Milwaukee, provides a crisis line from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 414-252-0075. The UMOS Latina Resource Center in Milwaukee offers bilingual, bicultural domestic violence, sexual assault and anti-human trafficking supportive services and operates a 24-hour hotline at 414-389-6510. The Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center offers culturally sensitive, trauma-informed services for those who have experienced domestic or sexual violence and can be reached at 414-383-9526. Our Peaceful Home, which serves Muslim families and is a program of the Milwaukee Muslim Womens Coalition, operates a crisis line at 414-727-1090. The Hmong American Womens Association, which serves the Hmong and Southeast Asian community, has advocates available at 414-930-9352 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin has a statewide directory of resources at endabusewi.org/get-help. Chris Ramirez covers courts for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at caramirez@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee father headed for trial in 4-year-old son's shooting death Aug. 21BEMIDJI The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is accepting applications for $12 million in grants to help communities plant, maintain and protect trees across the state. Grants are available through two programs: Community Tree Planting Grants and ReLeaf Grants. Both support local efforts to address the impacts of emerald ash borer and grow healthier, more diverse community forests, a release said. The grant offerings are the largest available since the DNR's urban and community forest grant programs began, thanks to funding from the Minnesota Legislature to support and expand healthy community tree canopy throughout Minnesota, the release added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Community Tree Planting Grants focus on removing and replacing trees lost to pests, disease or storms; planting shade trees on public and tribal lands; and increasing species diversity for greater resilience. The ReLeaf Grants build long-term urban and community forestry capacity through projects such as tree inventories, planting, maintenance, protection, restoration, education, wood utilization and other efforts to improve forest health, reduce carbon emissions and promote energy conservation. Priority for grant awards will be given to projects with a supplemental demographic index score of 70% or higher based on five socioeconomic factors: * Percent low-income Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement * Percent persons with disabilities * Percent less than high school education * Percent limited English speaking * Percent low life expectancy Community Tree Planting Grant awards will also prioritize removing and replacing ash trees that pose significant public safety concerns. In the release, DNR Forestry Division Director Patty Thielen said, "We're thrilled these grants will give communities an opportunity to strengthen their urban and community forests and ensure all Minnesotans can enjoy the shade, beauty and benefits of healthy trees, and we greatly appreciate the legislative support that enabled this unprecedented grant offering. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "By investing in community forests, we're improving public health, cooling neighborhoods, enhancing water quality and building resilience to climate change." Community Tree Planting Grant applications are due by Oct. 13. Tribal governments and local units of government are eligible to apply. ReLeaf Grant applications close Oct. 28. Tribal governments, 501(c) nonprofits, education institutions and local units of government are eligible to apply. The maximum award is $500,000 for both of these grants. An in-person grant overview session will be held from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 27, in the conference room at the Bemidji Public Library, 509 America Ave. NW. Visit mndnr.gov/community-forestry-grants to learn more about both grants and apply. Every year, the Minnesota State Fair debuts a fresh lineup of official new food; some quirky, some indulgent, and all buzz-worthy. Part of the fun is seeing which ones become instant classics and which are more of a one-bite wonder. This year, we set out to taste-test as many of the fairs most talked-about newcomers as our stomachs could handle. Here were the favorites of our State Fair food writer, Haley Nelson: The best Hot Honey Pizza Balls Green Mill Bring Me The News Price: $10 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rating: 5/5 Our favorite food of the day! The hot honey pizza balls must have had people talking, as the line leading up to the Green Mill truck was one of the longest we saw but it did move quickly. The order included 3 large, warm and cheesy pizza balls. There was a very generous amount of meat and cheese in the center, as well as fried bacon bits on top. The pizza balls were finished with a drizzle of hot honey. The quality to cost ratio was outstanding. This could easily feed two people. Location: East side of Cooper St. between Randall & Wright Avenues, at Family Fair at Baldwin Park Chicken Fried Bacon Fries Soul Bowl Bring Me The News Price: $12 small, $20 large Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rating: 5/5 Breaded and deep fried bacon tastes amazing who knew? The bacon was chewy in a good way, the coating was crunchy, and I found myself disappointed to see the bottom of the container. Buffalo sauce was the perfect accompaniment to the bacon fries. Location: Food Building, east wall Deep-Fried Tofuego Bites Rooted & Wild (Snack House) Bring Me The News Price: $8 Rating: 5/5 We were pleasantly surprised by the tofuego bites, an off-the-beaten-path find from Rooted & Wild in the Coliseum. The tofu bites were warm and crispy, topped with a sweet (not spicy) sauce. Dont let the "fuego" scare you. We appreciated the attention to detail in the bed of dressed cabbage, adding a little something extra to this dish. Oh, and compared to many of the other dishes we tried, this one was a steal at $8. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Location: In the Lee & Rose Warner Coliseum, south side Cinna-Sugar Pie Crust Tidbits Saras Tipsy Pies Bring Me The News Price: $10 Rating: 4/5 We already know that Saras Tipsy Pies have great crust, so we were excited to try the pie crust cookies We were served a generous portion of the pie crust tidbits, which came with a whiskey-flavored dipping sauce. Just as expected, they were flaky, buttery and all-around delicious. Even though we liked them, I would probably order an actual pie next time because Saras are the best. Location: Food Building, northwest wall Shrimp and Pork Toast On a Stick Union Hmong Kitchen Bring Me The News Price: $15 Rating: 4/5 Union Hmong Kitchen has pulled off the sandwich-on-a-stick concept, which is in itself worth of praise, and had this dish not been served on a stick, we probably wouldnt be as gushing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The best part was the toast, which was exceptionally buttery and crunchy. Overall, the dish was quite salty, but the filling had some good, bold flavor: lemongrass, ginger, fish sauce, garlic, shallots, as well as shrimp and pork. Location: International Bazaar, south wall, west corner The OK Flauta Dippers - El Burrito Mercado Bring Me The News Price: $15 Rating: 3/5 We receive an order of three chicken-filled flauta dippers, accompanied by a tomatillo salsa in the bottom of the cup, topped with cotija cheese. We appreciated the convenience of having three grabbable flautas, but the dish left us underwhelmed. The chicken was under-seasoned; the sauce provided most of the flavor in this dish. And the $15 price tag felt quite high compared to the other foods we tried. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Location: International Bazaar, south wall Pot Of Gold Potato Dumplings OGaras At The Fair Bring Me The News Price: $13 Rating: 3/5 We wanted to try a deep-fried bite, an ubiquitous fair food experience. The pot of gold dumplings were okay kind of what we expected but we wouldnt get them again. The mashed potato filling was heavy and dense. The sour cream dipping sauce was the shining star of this dish. Location: Southwest corner of Dan Patch Ave. & Cosgrove St. Ube Butter Banana French Toast Lumpia Lumpia City (new vendor) Bring Me The News Price: $12 Rating: 3/5 Lumpia are traditional Filipino fried spring rolls. New vendor Lumpia City sells two varieties, a sweet and savory. We tried their sweet variety, lumpia filled with banana and ube butter. The lumpia was banana-heavy, but overall we thought it was decent. A good option if you want something sweet but not overwhelmingly so Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Location: Northside of Judson Ave. between Liggett & Clough streets. The bad Hot Honey Jalapeno Popper Donut Fluffys Hand Cut Donuts Bring Me The News Price: $10 Rating: 1/5 Last year we tried (and loved) the new donut from Fluffys: Strawberry lemonade. Last years donut was warm, soft, and sweet, with a delicious sweet-tart frosting. We were eager to try this years new donut flavor: A sweet-spicy mashup featuring jalapeno cream cheese, pickled jalapenos, crumbled bacon, and hot honey. Unfortunately, this years experience was disappointing. We were served a cool and firm donut. The donut itself wasnt sweet and the savory toppings just didn't do it for us. It was a shame we got a donut that was cool after enjoying one last year that was fresh from the fryer. My taste buds didnt know what to make of it. Pass Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Location: On the northwest corner of Carnes Ave. & Chambers St. This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Aug 22, 2025, where it first appeared in the MN Lifestyle section. Add Bring Me The News as a Preferred Source by clicking here. Aug. 22By Paul Walsh, Star Tribune (TNS) A Minnesota woman is going to prison for assuming the identity of her dead mother and collecting more than $360,000 in Social Security benefits. Mavious Redmond, 55, of Austin, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis to one year and one day in prison after pleading guilty to a scheme she perpetrated for 25 years. "Redmond's scheme was brazen and shameless," said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson. "This wasn't free money. It was taxpayer money, stolen from a program built on the hard work of Minnesotans who paid in every paycheck." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ahead of sentencing, defense attorney Robert Meyers argued in a court filing for his client to be spared prison and be put on probation for two years. Meyers noted that Redmond lived with her parents until they died and couldn't live on her $8 an hour job at a Subway sandwich shop. "In these desperate circumstances, she found a way out through this offense: she did not report her mother's death to Social Security and continued to collect her mother's Social Security benefits." Meyers said the benefits totaled about $14,000 a year and described the amount as a "subsistence amount of money." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to court documents: When her mother died 1999, Redmond contacted the Social Security Administration and asked what would she need to do if her mother died? The agency replied that it would need to be notified so the benefits can be terminated. Redmond made no such notification and kept the monthly flow of retirement payments coming. She used her dead mother's identity as her own, forged her mother's signature, and used her mother's documents and biographical information including her mother's date of birth and Social Security number on official forms. She also changed her mother's address to her own. In one instance, Redmond visited the administration office on June 4, 2024, posing as her mother, and submitted an application for a Social Security card using her mother's name, date of birth, Social Security number, and forging her mother's signature. Redmond's sentence also includes paying back the money she stole. Once her prison time is up, Redmond will be on supervised release for one year. The owner of the Mirror and Express newspapers is plotting fresh job cuts amid an overhaul of the newspaper group by its new boss. Reach, which also publishes regional titles including the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo, will next month unveil plans to slash its editorial workforce even further after years of bruising cuts. The scale of the lay-offs is yet to be confirmed, but one insider described them as significant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Staff were summoned to a town hall meeting on Thursday in which bosses outlined plans to revamp the groups operations amid a troubled transition to the digital era. The publisher will overhaul the way it covers live and breaking news stories with a new network of reporters spread across the UK. They will cover stories across Reachs stable of newspapers and magazines in a bid to cut down on duplication between titles. Reach also outlined a renewed focus on its video and audio output, while the company will cut down on its text-only content. There have been repeated rounds of job cuts at Reach that have seen its editorial workforce plunge by more than 800 in recent years, although the shake-up is also expected to create new roles for video journalists. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chris Morley, Reach NUJ group chapel national coordinator, said: The NUJ has been working hard to support members in sport affected by painful and extensive redundancies at Reachs national and regional titles. The union is remaining vigilant and monitoring the situation closely. In a memo to staff, Caroline Waterston, the Mirror editor, said: I see this as a good opportunity for our team to focus on our key pillars continuing the work weve been doing over the last 18 months to strengthen our brand by focusing on the award-winning campaigning we do, our fantastic political coverage, and championing the great quality original and exclusive news, feature, showbiz and picture stories we bring our readers across our titles. Radical cost-cutting It marks the latest turnaround effort by Piers North, who took over as chief executive of Reach earlier this year following the abrupt departure of predecessor Jim Mullen. Reach has seen its revenues fall sharply in recent years as tech giants such as Facebook and Google cannibalise online advertising revenues. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and new tools that summarise search results now threaten to further dent reader numbers. Mr North last month outlined plans to trial paywalls across its titles as the company seeks to reduce its reliance on advertising and generate revenues directly from readers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite the change in strategy, Mr North has insisted that Reach will remain predominantly advertising-funded and continue to target mass-market Britain. It comes a week after The Telegraph revealed that Reach faces a potential cost-cutting takeover bid fronted by veteran newspaper executive David Montgomery. The 76-year-old former Mirror editor has drawn up a 400m plan, that would include laying off more than 850 journalists as part of a radical cost-cutting programme. Mr Montgomery has denied he is planning a bid and insisted he was complying with his contractual obligations to former employer National World. David Montgomery has drawn up a 400m plan that includes radical cost-cutting - Julian Simmonds David Higgerson, Reachs chief content officer, said: Alongside the businesss new strategic priorities, as announced in July, we will be radically reorganising our editorial structure for todays media landscape. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of the biggest changes teams will see will be a patch-led approach to news-gathering. We will run our news via a dispersed Live News Network, with reporters spread out across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Stories will be told on the ground where they happen, and we will be appointing a new leader in this area who will coordinate our efforts. We will also significantly increase our video output while producing less text-only content. Well be bringing in new talent to deliver this, while creating everyday journalism video teams woven into all of our newsrooms. All of this will enable our brand editors to put a greater level of focus on the work that makes their brand special. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This means more focus on the campaigning, investigating, or personality led journalism that speaks to audiences of the Mirror, Express or the Manchester Evening News, for example, and will support loyal audience growth at a time of turbulent referrer traffic. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. NEED TO KNOW Alec Luhn was reported missing after he failed to return home from a four-day solo backpacking trip in Norway that began on July 31 He was found alive and rescued on Aug. 6 Now the journalist is opening up about what happened and what he did to survive The American journalist who was found alive earlier this month after he disappeared on a solo backpacking trip in Norway is opening up about what he did to survive. Alec Luhn, a climate journalist who has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Guardian, was on a four-day solo backpacking trip in southern Norways Folgefonna National Park when disaster struck. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Speaking with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Luhn says that on July 31, the first day of the hike, he ended up taking a wrong step, which caused him to fall down the side of a mountain. I just remember sliding down the mountain at first, and then spinning down the mountain, rolling down the mountain, and then just pinballing down the mountain, he said. The fall left him with a broken femur and a fractured pelvis. My left foot was just flopping around with no direction, Luhn said. I was basically immobilized. As if all that wasn't bad enough, his backpack had also ripped open, which meant, among other things, that his cellphone was gone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unable to move and with no way to call for help, Luhn quickly realized that he would need to survive for at least four days the length of his hike before being rescued. Luhn told The Washington Post that he used a tentpole and rain jacket for shelter while a sleeping bag provided warmth. On the first few days, the weather was decent, but he struggled with a lack of water. Not only was he thirsty, but it became difficult to swallow the granola bars and peanuts he had on him. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko Alec Luhn Alec Luhn Luhn later resorted to drinking his urine to stay hydrated. The next time that I had to pee, I peed in my water pouch, he told CNNs Cooper. I drank my urine, basically to have a little bit of hydration, and to also get a little bit of food down. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On the third day, rain arrived and a dehydrated Luhn told Good Morning America that he licked every drop of water that fell on him. The rain then turned into a storm and the temperatures dropped, leaving Luhn soaked despite his makeshift shelter. What gave Luhn hope and the will to survive was his family. "Thats when I called on God and called on the universe to bring me back," he added. I spent a lot of time thinking about my wife and my family and how silly it was that here I was possibly going to die because I wanted to do a cool hike around this glacier, he added while speaking with The Washington Post. Being trapped on that mountain gave me a chance to see what I would regret if I died." Veronika Silchenko, Luhns wife and a fellow journalist, previously told CBS News that at first she didn't worry about not hearing from her husband, thinking he probably just didn't have service. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But when he wasn't home in the U.K. on Aug. 4, like they had planned, she and other family members contacted police. After launching a search, two days later, the Norwegian Red Cross announced that Luhn was found alive near Folgefonna and was being transported for medical treatment. The organization said Luhn was conscious, but tired when he was found that morning, according to CNN. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. In addition to the broken femur and pelvis, Luhn also suffered frostbite on both his feet, according to GMA. He is currently recovering at a hospital in Norway and will later continue his recovery in Britain where he lives with Silchenko. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As for his reunion with his family, Luhn shared one memorable moment with GMA. "I remember my wife said, 'I'm going to tear you a new one later but for now, I really love you,' " Luhn said. Read the original article on People SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) Agencies in Western South Dakota are searching for a missing woman from St. Onge who was last heard from Monday. According to the Lawrence County Sheriffs office, 65-year-old Linda Thacker was last seen in Wyoming. Her car was found in a remote area near the South Dakota and Wyoming border. Severe weather hits Northeastern KELOLAND Her daughter posted on Facebook that Thacker has medical conditions that could make her confused. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thacker is described as 56 and 150 lbs. Multiple Wyoming and South Dakota agencies are searching the area. Officials are asking those with information to call the Lawrence County Sheriffs office at 605-578-2230. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Mississippi state health officials have announced a public health emergency due to the state's rising infant mortality rate. Over the last decade, over 3,500 babies have died before their first birthday in Mississippi, according to data released Thursday by the Mississippi State Department of Health. "Too many Mississippi families are losing their babies before their first birthday," state health officer Dr. Dan Edney said in a statement announcing the public health emergency. "We cannot and will not accept these numbers as our reality." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to 2024 MSDH data, the infant mortality rate in Mississippi is 9.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, the highest in over a decade. This is an increase from 8.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023 -- which was the highest in the United States that year. Infant deaths include those that happen in the first year of life, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The leading causes in Mississippi include congenital malformations, preterm birth, low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, according to MSDH. The updated infant mortality data from MSDH also also shows startling racial disparities in the state. STOCK IMAGE/Getty Images - PHOTO: In this undated file photo, an empty incubator sits in the hallway in the neonatal unit of a hospital. Mississippi's infant mortality rate is highest among Black babies and rose from 12.3 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023 to 15.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement By contrast, the infant mortality rate declined for a third year in a row for white babies, dropping from 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022 to 6.3 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023 and 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024. Health officials said they plan to address the crisis by taking steps to help improve maternal and infant health in the state. Maternity care is getting harder and harder to access in the US, new report finds "Improving maternal health is the best way to reduce infant mortality," Edney said. "That means better access to prenatal and postpartum care, stronger community support and more resources for moms and babies." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first steps of action announced by state health officials Thursday include activating an obstetrics system of care, working to eliminate "OB deserts" -- or maternity care deserts -- by leveraging county health departments to improve prenatal care, expanding community health worker programs, strengthening a home visiting program, and focusing on safe sleep education and practices, according to the press release. "Declaring this a public health emergency is more than a policy decision; it is an urgent commitment to save lives," Edney said. "It will take all of us -- policymakers, healthcare providers, communities and families -- working together to give every child the chance to live, thrive and celebrate their first birthday." Maternity care deserts are defined as areas without a hospital or birth center offering obstetric care and without any obstetric providers, according to the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the health of pregnant people and babies. According to data released by the organization in 2023, more than 5 million women in the U.S. live in a maternal care desert. Maternal and infant care in 'crisis' in US, new report finds Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton noted that one of the contributing factors of Mississippi's infant mortality crisis is the lack of care in the state. "Many mothers in Mississippi are not able to get the care they need, as Mississippi has over 50% counties of maternal care deserts," Sutton, who is not affiliated with the Mississippi State Department of Health, said Friday on "Good Morning America." "You can imagine it makes it incredibly difficult to manage a pregnancy." Sutton said in addition to a lack of access to maternal care, other "preventable causes" of the infant mortality crisis in Mississippi include higher poverty rates and higher rates of chronic illness. Despite hope that the state's new initiative will help address the health crisis, one pediatrician in Mississippi told ABC News that she and other doctors are worried that upcoming cuts to Medicaid funding may hinder those efforts by worsening the maternal care deserts that already exist in the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The 'One Big Beautiful Bill' contains cuts to Medicaid that may negatively impact reimbursement to hospitals and clinics," Dr. Anita Henderson, a pediatrician at the Pediatric Clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, told ABC News Friday, referring to the spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4. The legislation institutes work requirements for Medicaid that some experts worry will make millions of Americans uninsured and makes cuts to the program that may result in closures of health centers in rural areas, according to health care employers. Henderson, past president of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, added, "In the last few years, we have seen a number of hospitals in the state close their [labor and delivery] units. We are concerned that if this trend continues, there will be an increasing amount of OB deserts." In a press release Friday, the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said it supports the state's new initiative and called for more collaboration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (MSAAP) stands with the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) in recognizing the urgent crisis of infant deaths in our state," Dr. Patricia Tibbs, president of the Mississippi AAP, said in the statement. "These tragic losses are an urgent call to action for all who care about children," Tibbs added. Jade A. Cobern, M.D., MPH, is board-certified in pediatrics and general preventive medicine and is a medical fellow of the ABC News Medical Unit. JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) Mississippi lawmakers are looking for ways to tackle billions in debt tied to the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). On Thursday, they heard from the Alabama retirement system about how they handle similar challenges. Both sides agreed that the state needs a dedicated revenue stream. Lawmakers are working with the PERS Board on ways to reduce the debt. State Rep. Lee Yancey (R-District 74) questioned whether the state should continue paying an outside firm about $100 million a year in investment fees or handle investments in house. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mississippi Supreme Court map violates Voting Rights Act, judge rules Thats one of the questions, whether we should be paying $100 million in fees on $36 billion in assets, he said. State Sen. Daniel Sparks (R-District 5) pointed to progress. He said the legislature has paid off $1 billion in bond debt over six years and expects to reach $2 billion by the end of this term. I really like looking at the bond interest because weve paid those debts off, which is good conservative government, but take that interest amount and put it toward the PERS liability, said Sparks. Yancey said a large upfront payment will be needed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If were going to make a big, big splash and make a difference, were going to have to put $500 million in at least the first time and then follow it up with lesser payments every year, he said. If House Bill 1 is left alone, PERS would be fully funded by 2068. Lawmakers said they will keep looking for a long-term fix to a long-term problem. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Last week, President Donald Trump told reporters he plans to revisit a proposal to reschedule marijuana that started under President Joe Biden, which has been on pause since January (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent). Missouri has won praise for having one of the nations most robust cannabis markets. But buzz about the presidents interest in relaxing federal marijuana restrictions is raising questions about the potential impact on that economic success. Last year in Missouri, a pound of wholesale marijuana sold for about $2,000 on average, according to the nations leading wholesale cannabis platform LeafLink. That put Missouri in the companys top five highest prices. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its still profitable to sell a marijuana facility license in Missouri, said Ben Burstein, corporate development manager at LeafLink a dynamic that is not true in many other states. You have tons of licensed operators that put millions of dollars into their businesses over time, Burstein said of the experience in many other states. And not only are they not making money, they have to pay to get rid of those licenses and all the closing costs associated with it. This guide used data from orders placed on the LeafLink marketplace between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024. Experts agree the success is due, at least in part, to Missouris limited number of facility licenses. Capping the number of businesses that can partake in the cannabis industry has drawn pointed criticism that it has encouraged a monopoly in the program and created the appearance of corruption. But the cap also keeps supply and demand in balance, experts say, protecting Missouri from the pitfalls others states are facing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oregon-based cannabis economist Beau Whitney says in other states theres a massive amount of oversupply that has made it difficult for marijuana businesses to stay afloat. A survey Whitney Economics released last year found that only 27% of cannabis companies nationwide on average were profitable in the cannabis space. And 73% were either breaking even or losing money. Last week, President Donald Trump told reporters he plans to revisit a proposal to reschedule marijuana that started under President Joe Biden, which has been on pause since January. The plan would place marijuana in the same federal classification as codeine, instead of where it currently is alongside heroin. Were looking at it, said Trump last Monday, noting that he expects to determine whether cannabis will be reclassified in the next few weeks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So would a push by the president to restart the plan disrupt Missouris ecosystem? The short answer is yes, Whitney said, but it wouldnt be immediate. The process to reschedule a drug requires going through multiple drafts of administrative rules, hearings and public comment periods that could take years to accomplish. Its a long process, Whitney said. Its not a snap of the finger. Its currently a federal crime for marijuana to cross over state lines. Would rescheduling open up the borders and allow states to sell to each other, also allowing the oversupply to bottom out Missouris prices? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That depends on the details in the federal rules, said St. Louis attorney Eric Walter, who represents a number of cannabis operators and the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association. But a provision in the Missouri constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2022 legalizing marijuana was designed to control that scenario, Walter said. It states that if federal law is amended to allow interstate commerce, then only licensed cultivators could import marijuana from other states. They couldnt just sell directly to dispensaries or sell directly to consumers, Walter said. It would still need to run through the regulated licensees, and the product would be subject to all of our specific requirements, including our testing panel. While it could upset Missouris economic impact, Walter said the financial impact nationwide would be massive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rescheduling marijuana means that the substance would be moved from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act to Schedule 3. Marijuana has been on 1 since the [act] was created in the early 70s, he said, and it never belonged. Medical benefits and susceptibility of addiction are taken into account when scheduling, Walter said, and Schedule 1 is for the most addictive substances with no known medical benefits, such as heroin. Cocaine is Schedule 2 because it has some medical benefits, such as numbing properties. It would further erode some of the anti-marijuana bias and perceptions, and open the door to banks and financial institutions interacting with industry operators more sensibly, Walter said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rescheduling would also provide tax relief to businesses, he said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Whitney calculated that this year cannabis businesses will pay about $2.7 billion more in taxes than a normal business would have paid because they cant write off deductions on their federal taxes. Theyre paying huge taxes to the federal government, even though its federally illegal, Whitney said. In Missouri, Burstein estimates the annual impact of rescheduling in terms of taxes to be more than $150 million in additional cash flows to operators, based on current market sales. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While rescheduling would give tax breaks, it may also increase the burden on operators to get certain certifications and occur other expenses in compliance, Whitney said. With so few operators profitable as it is, not everybody is going to be able to survive, he said. The rules will have different impacts in each state. In Oregon, Whitney said all Schedule 3 drugs must be sold at pharmacies, meaning dispensaries could be out of business. That tax break doesnt really help if youre out of business, Whitney said. Rescheduling is maybe not the greatest thing from an economic perspective and for the industry. Even though reform is always welcome, the question then becomes, well, is the reform going to do more harm than good? I just dont know because the reform is still in concept. Its not even on paper. While President Trump said hed take a look at it, the timing is unclear. Many Republicans, including the DEA chief Terrance Cole, are opposed to marijuana, he said. Operators need to remain disciplined and realize that theres not going to be change overnight, he said, but be flexible enough in their processes to be able to pivot quickly once those changes happen. Po Valley Energy's subsidiary, Po Valley Operations, has secured a new gas sales agreement (GSA) with Hera Trading, set to commence on 1 October 2025. This agreement was signed by Po Valley Operations along with its Selva Malvezzi JV partners, PXOG Marshall and UOG Italia, following a competitive tender process, with Hera Trading as the successful bidder. The new GSA with Hera Trading, a subsidiary of Italian multi-utility company Hera, will cover gas production from the Podere Maiar facility (PM-1d well) in the Selva Malvezzi production concession. The contract is scheduled to last for one thermal year, ending on 1 October 2026, with an estimated supply volume of 27.96 million standard cubic metres (mscm) of gas. Hera Trading, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, provides Po Valley with a strategic chance to partner with a local entity and further engage with the community. The collaboration is expected to receive strong support from local stakeholders. This new partnership is poised to begin following the conclusion in October of Po Valley's partnership with BP Gas Marketing, which has seen approximately 54.4mscm of gas delivered since first gas flow in July 2023. Po Valley Operations holds a 63% interest as the operator of the Selva Malvezzi production concession under a joint operating agreement (JOA). The remaining interests are held by Prospex Energy subsidiaries, with PXOG Marshall at 17% and UOG Italia at 20%. The GSA includes a detailed invoicing process for gas sales and SNAM transport costs, with a settlement and payment process completing 20 days after the end of each month. Po Valley chairman and CEO Kevin Bailey said: This marks an important milestone for Po Valley, offering us the opportunity to contribute to Italys energy independence by collaborating with a local partner, as well as deepening our engagement with the community. Our gas sales agreement with BP Gas Marketing has been a strong and productive partnership. We have appreciated their professionalism and reliability throughout the term of the agreement, which has played an important role in supporting Po Valleys operations and growth. As we transition to a new agreement with Hera, we acknowledge the solid foundation built with BP and thank them for their collaboration. "Po Valley signs new gas sales agreement with Hera Trading" was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. CARTHAGE, Mo. It was another first for a local lawmaker, following her first legislative session in Jefferson City. Missouri State Representative, Cathy Jo Loy of Carthage, held her first town hall meeting Thursday night. Plenty of her constituents were there and filled the meeting room at Memorial Hall to hear her speak and ask questions. Those who attended wasted no time questioning the freshman lawmaker, who was elected to represent Missouris 163rd District last November. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many wanted to know about her stance on redistricting, and if a new census should be conducted. Among other topics discussed: The investigation into Liberty Utilities customer service and billing issues, and the companys latest rate hike request. I went to the meeting that they had over at Missouri Southern, and I wasnt really impressed with the answers. It sounded like the commission had decided that they were going to cut it 30%, so we were there for nothing, said Carthage resident, Imogene Fyffe. Its been out of control, and we need to have confidence in our utility companies. I think theres been a little break in that trust, but I hope we get some answers. Thats one of the reasons I serve on utilities, is because I want to figure out how we can lower our utility rates and yet serve the needs of what we need, said Missouri State Representative, Cathy Jo Loy of District 163. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Representative Loy also talked about some of the utility-related legislation from last session. She serves on the Utilities Committee, which is chaired by State Representative, Bob Bromley of Carl Junction. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNF/KODE | FourStatesHomepage.com. Honesty Bishop in a 2023 photo. Bishop died in 2024 but a lawsuit in her name will change how people with HIV are treated in Missouri prisons (photo submitted). For six years, Honesty Jade Bishop was held in solitary confinement in a Missouri prison after she was sexually assaulted by her cellmate. The Department of Corrections deemed that Bishop, a transgender woman who was living with HIV, was sexually active and needed to be isolated. And from 2015 to 2021, she was in administrative segregation at the Jefferson City Correctional Center, a prison that houses men. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A federal lawsuit filed on Bishops behalf in 2023 after her parole says her prolonged time in solitary confinement caused depression, hopelessness, severe anxiety and feeling as if she were going insane and reaching a mental breaking point. It also, the lawsuit says, drove her to physically self-harm including attempts to take her own life. On Wednesday, the department agreed to a settlement, setting new policies and training requirements. But Bishop died before the settlement could be reached, taking her own life in October 2024. My sister, Honesty, was a fighter who never gave up, Latasha Monroe, Bishops sister, said in a news release from the MacArthur Justice Center Thursday. She endured years of cruel treatment because of her HIV status, but she never stopped believing that things could change. This settlement honors her memory and ensures that others wont have to suffer what Honesty went through. Her courage in speaking out has created lasting changes. Monroe continued the lawsuit on behalf of her sisters estate. There was a monetary award in addition to the policy and training changes, but the amount has not been released. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lambda Legal and law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon also participated with MacArthur Justice Center in representing Bishop. Shubra Ohri, senior counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center, said she first met Bishop soon after she was released from isolation and got to know well after her parole. She was a bright person who had to cope with a really torturous experience, basically, Ohri said. And you know, despite being bright and despite being hopeful and really productive, I could tell she was struggling with things. Bishop was in prison after being sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2014, according to a report on the settlement prepared by Midwest Newsroom and The Marshall Project. During a scuffle with police as they tried to arrest her in 2011 for a misdemeanor stealing charge, Bishop bit an officer and was charged with assaulting an officer and recklessly risking an HIV infection. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bishop began transitioning after arriving at Jefferson City Correctional Center. During her time in isolation, Ohri said, she was denied, like a lot of things, that would help affirm her identity as a transgender woman, which really had an amplified impact on her mental health. At the time of the assault, and until the settlement, the department policy was to place anyone with HIV into isolation if they were deemed sexually active, Ohri said in an interview Thursday with The Independent. It was very, very obviously an unconstitutional policy, she said. The Midwest Newsroom/Marshall Project report states that, as of January 2025, there were 218 people with HIV incarcerated in Missouri. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Karen Pojmann, spokeswoman for the state department of corrections, did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement. Going forward, any incarcerated person with a communicable disease will be evaluated individually to determine if they need to be in administrative segregation to prevent the infection from spreading, according to the settlement This settlement represents a critical victory in our ongoing fight against HIV criminalization and discrimination, Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal HIV Project director, said in the news release. For too long, correctional systems across the country have subjected people living with HIV to punitive and medically unjustified isolation based on outdated stigma rather than modern science. HIV can be controlled with medication to the point that the virus is not transmissible. Part of the settlement mandates new training for corrections officers on HIV transmissibility, as well as the law on disability-based discrimination, Ohri said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The hope is that combined, the policy change and the training, Ohri said, would really drive home that what happened to Honesty, putting someone in segregation who may have HIV, but was on medication, that theres no reason for it. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Cole County Circuit Court Judge Brian Stumpe hears arguments for and against pausing the use of general revenue for private-school vouchers Thursday afternoon (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). Attorneys for Missouris largest teachers union are hoping to stop tax dollars from pouring into the states voucher program, arguing in Cole County Circuit Court Thursday that payments should be paused until a judge rules on the legality of the programs funding. The State Treasurers Office has already begun dipping into a $51 million appropriation of general revenue to award private-school scholarships under the MOScholars program, state attorneys said Thursday. Over 6,100 students have been promised scholarships, and any delay would be a massive disruption to the MOScholars program, William Seidleck, principal deputy solicitor general, told the judge. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Loretta Haggard, attorney for the Missouri branch of the Missouri National Education Association, argued Thursday that MOScholars lacks authority to pull directly from general revenue, and taxpayers would be harmed by the illegal use of funds. MNEA filed requests at the end of June for a temporary restraining order to block the flow of funds until trial and a permanent injunction. But the attorney generals office asked the judge to reject MNEAs request for an expedited timeline, citing the recent departure of two top attorneys. The delay pushed the hearing on the injunction past the start of the school year. You cant just turn on a hose of $51 million in general revenue and force it through the tax credit framework, Haggard said. There are gaps in that framework. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MOScholars was created in a 2021 law which set up the program to work through educational nonprofits approved by the state treasurer. Funding is initiated by donations, which taxpayers are able to receive back as a tax credit equal to 100% of their contribution. The law set up a fund, the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts fund, to be used by the state treasurer for marketing and administrative expenses or the costs incurred in administering the scholarship program, whichever is less. But last month, that account received a $48 million infusion, which the treasurers office is using to pay for student scholarships. Haggard argues that using the fund this way is inconsistent with the 2021 law, telling the judge to block the outflow of funds before it is too late. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The money will be gone (if the court doesnt pause payments), she said. Nobody seriously thinks that this court will be able to order the families or the schools to discard the money. That will be gone. Seidleck argued that although state law doesnt explicitly allow for the direct spending of general revenue, there are no provisions that directly forbid it. Statutory silence, he said, is not enough. When deciding whether to issue a temporary restraining order, Circuit Court Judge Brian Stumpe must consider the potential harm to affected parties against the public interest. This piece was a large part of the states and intervenor EdChoices arguments. EdChoice Legal Advocates joined the case earlier this month, representing three parents who say the influx of state funding will expand their access to scholarships. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prior to the $51 million appropriation, MOScholars had a growing waitlist, said EdChoice attorney Bryan Cleveland. With the added funding, the program is now more reliable for those who were previously awarded scholarships, and parents are hopeful to get their other children access as well. The plaintiffs have asserted taxpayer standing but they havent stated any personal harm, he said. In contrast, the families have demonstrated irreparable harm because they need the scholarships to pay not just for tuition but also to pay for reading tutors. Seidleck emphasized that the program prioritizes students with an individualized education plan, which serves students with learning and physical disabilities. MNEA, which is a union of public-school teachers, wont be harmed by the vouchers, he argued, saying it might help public schools by facilitating smaller class sizes. MNEA President Rebeka McIntosh, who was watching the arguments, chuckled at his argument. Stumpe had few questions Thursday, apart from asking Cleveland how the intervening families would be harmed. He told attorneys he plans on ruling by the end of the day Friday. The High Plains Processing plant is expected to open in mid-October south of Mitchell. (Photo courtesy of Janelle Atyeo) MITCHELL U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune was blunt in his opening remarks during a Dakotafest policy discussion on Wednesday about the state of agriculture. While South Dakota farmers in parts of the state can expect bumper yields due to good weather this season, he said, commodity prices are in the tank. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Input costs are at an all-time high, and the margin for farmers across South Dakota is upside down, added Thune, a Republican. Increasing demand for agricultural products through opening markets and trade is a component to improving profitability for farmers, Thune said. South Dakota exports about 60% of its soybeans. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX But export markets to some countries like China and in southeast Asia have slowed in recent months as President Donald Trumps trade and tariff policies play out. The American Soybean Association sent a letter to Trump this week saying that soybean farmers cant survive a prolonged trade dispute with China the countrys largest soybean customer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Dakota Soybean Processors CEO Tom Kersting boasted about another option for South Dakota soybean farmers in the wake of tariffs: the High Plains Processing plant expected to open in mid-October near Mitchell. Kersting participated in a panel discussion on Wednesday about the new plant before South Dakotas congressional delegation took the stage. The $500 million plant is expected to process up to 37 million bushels a year roughly 16% of the states 2024 soybean production, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. South Dakota Soybean Processors CEO Tom Kersting speaks during a presentation about High Plains Processing during a panel discussion at Dakotafest in Mitchell on Aug. 20, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) The processing plant will include a refining operation and offer byproducts such as soybean meal and hulls as well as lecithin, which has uses ranging from food to lubricants. The plant aims to fill growing demand in the U.S. for biofuels, Kersting said. The processing plant will offer more stability in an uncertain future, Kersting told South Dakota Searchlight after the presentation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This will kind of take the place of that export problem and uncertainty out of the marketplace that farmers are facing right now, Kersting added. Were there every day. These export customers come and go. South Dakota Soybean Association President Kevin Deinert told South Dakota Searchlight after the panel discussion the operation will allow producers to become less dependent on whole soybean exports to China. Local processing will encourage more use locally, Deinert said, and open markets to other countries. Kersting added that the processing plant is the first of its kind in South Dakota, with equipment to process seeds from other plants like camalina, canola and sunflowers. Canola and camelina seeds have up to 40-45% oil content, versus the 18-22% present in soybeans. Whatever the market demands or takes, well make the most of our money, Kersting told attendees. This flexibility was driven off of the increasing demand, not just in the U.S. but globally, for vegetable oils. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That demand is for biofuels that have transformed oil markets. A decade ago, most soybean oil went into food, but about 46% of soybean oil in 2022 and 2023 went toward biofuel production. U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, speaks at Dakotafest in Mitchell on Aug. 20, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds said during the policy panel that the jury is out on whether tariffs will help or hurt agriculture. If trading partners who normally buy farm and ranch products impose retaliatory tariffs, then thats a concern. On the other hand, the tariffs or trade deals arising from tariff threats could force countries to increase their imports of U.S. goods. Some countries in the Pacific Rim are interested in purchasing U.S. ethanol because of the tariffs, Rounds said. That means at least part of the ethanol that weve got right now is going to benefit from those tariffs being imposed, Rounds said. Weve absolutely got to be adding value to every single product weve got here in South Dakota, Rounds said. That means running it through as many times as we can. The ethanol plants have got to be able to maximize as much as they possibly can. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Two people were injured in a shooting Thursday afternoon in South Nashville. The shooting was reported around 5:31 p.m. on the 300 block of Millwood Drive. According to officials with the Metro Nashville Police Department, both victims later identified as a 15-year-old and a 30-year-old male were transported to area hospitals. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime-related reports from across Middle Tennessee Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police said the 15-year-old was struck in the foot and the thigh, and the 30-year-old, who was uninvolved, suffered a non-critical neck injury. Officials said the shooting stemmed from a fight between juveniles. The shooter, who was also a teen, fired shots during the fight and fled the scene. Police are working to identify him. Investigators found multiple shell casings on the scene. (Photo: WKRN) (Photo: WKRN) (Photo: WKRN) (Photo: WKRN) Police also told News 2 that one of the victims was found away from the scene, but they were both shot at the same location. No further information was released. Download the News 2 app to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WKRN email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox. Find todays top stories on WKRN.com for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee. This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new information becomes available. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. The Hunger Task Force Mobile Market set up a new stop at the now shuttered Metcalfe Park Pick 'n Save at 2355 N. 35th Street on Thursday, Aug. 21. Piggly Wiggly partnered with the Mobile Market to provide groceries at a 25% discount to community members in and around Metcalfe Park from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Shoppers steadily entered the Mobile Market truck which contained shelves lined with fresh produce, bread, eggs, dairy and meat products. A Piggly Wiggly employee checked out customers while volunteers with Hunger Task Force bagged groceries and helped shoppers load bags into their cars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I got all the fruits and vegetables I wanted and even a steak for $67," said Danell Cross, the executive director of Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. Many Metcalfe Park residents worry about fresh food access after the July 18 closure of the neighborhood's primary grocery store. The North 35th Street location was one of five Pick 'n Save closures across Wisconsin. The Mobile Market will return to Metcalfe Park once a month and will visit other locations around Milwaukee throughout the month, with stops in places such as the McGovern Park and Washington Park senior centers, according to the Mobile Market's calendar. They will return to Metcalfe Park on Thursday, Sept. 18, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the same location. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shoppers can pay for the groceries with Quest EBT, debit or credit cards. Cash is not accepted. About this reporting Angelica Edwards is a visual journalist for the Journal Sentinel's Neighborhood Dispatch, a community-involved reporting effort in Harambee, Metcalfe Park and the Layton Boulevard West area. Reach her at aedwards@gannett.com. As part of the newsroom, all of Angelica's work and coverage decisions are overseen solely by Journal Sentinel editors. Support for the Dispatch comes from the Journal Foundation, Bader Philanthropies, Zilber Family Foundation, Northwestern Mutual Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation and individual contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. The project is administered by Local Media Foundation, tax ID #364427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Learn more about our community-funded journalism and how to make a tax-deductible gift at bit.ly/MJS_support . Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation with JS Community Journalism in the memo, then mailed to: Local Media Foundation, P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Hunger Task Force Mobile Market brings groceries to Metcalfe Park POLK COUNTY, N.C. (WSPA) A man and woman have been charged with child abuse in relation to a five-month-old in North Carolina. The Polk County Sheriffs Office has arrested 23-year-old Maggie Nicole Regan and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Dylan Scott Hoyle, on charges of intentional felony child abuse after Regans five-month-old son was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. On Sunday, August 10, the infant was taken to AdventHealth Polk with critical injuries, including a skull fracture, prompting an investigation by authorities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the sheriffs office, Regan left her child in the care of Hoyle while she went to work. It was reported that Hoyle later contacted Regan to report that the infant was unresponsive. Instead of calling emergency services, deputies said Regan returned home and transported the child to the hospital herself. Due to the severity of the injuries, the child was transferred to a higher-level medical facility for specialized care. The child is currently receiving treatment in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, according to the sheriffs office. Regan and Hoyle were arrested on Tuesday, August 19. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They have been released on $80,000 bond each and are ordered to have no contact with the child until the case is resolved. The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the injuries is ongoing by the PCSO. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS. NEED TO KNOW On Monday, Aug. 18, two maintenance workers found a baby boy dead in a storm drain in suburban Perth, Australia According to local outlet 7 News, a 31-year-old woman, confirmed to be the baby's mother, has been charged in connection with the incident "I can't answer at this stage if charges will be upgraded or not as the investigation is still in its early stages, Detective Acting Inspector Jessica Securo said, per the outlet A mother has been charged with allegedly hiding the body of her baby boy after the newborn was found dead in a storm drain in Australia. On Monday, Aug. 18, two maintenance workers were doing routine checks at Alexander Heights on La Salle Road in suburban Perth when they found the childs body that afternoon, local news outlets 7 News, ABC News and News.com reported, citing WA Police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police allege that the baby was not killed in violent circumstances and said evidence suggests he had been in the drain for a short amount of time before he was found wrapped in a sheet, per the outlets. A 31-year-old woman, identified as the childs mother, was charged with concealing the birth of a deceased child after being tracked down by detectives on Wednesday, 7 News and The Guardian reported. Getty Australia police tape (stock image) Australia police tape (stock image) The woman is continuing to receive appropriate care and support, Detective Acting Inspector Jessica Securo said of the mother, according to the outlet. Were extremely lucky that the two tradesmen came across that child. As you can imagine, it is a highly distressing and confronting thing for anyone to come across and were just thankful that the tradesmen alerted police as quickly as they did, Securo continued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Securo said that due to the mothers vulnerable situation, their priority has been getting her medical care and mental health support. However, their investigation into the circumstances of the childs death is ongoing. The mother is cooperating with the police. Our priority is to give her both that physical and health support, Securo added, per 7 News. Julia Gomina/Getty Australia police car (stock image) Australia police car (stock image) Police have also been taking help from the public, medical centers and reviewing CCTV footage, according to News.com. Ahead of a vigil scheduled for Saturday, flowers and stuffed childrens toys have been placed next to where the child was found, per the outlet. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The mother is expected to appear at Perth Magistrates Court on Sept. 12, 7 News reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I can't answer at this stage if charges will be upgraded or not as the investigation is still in its early stages, Securo said, according to ABC News. WA Police did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment on Friday, Aug. 22. Read the original article on People GBH and WBUR executives are focused on strategies for surviving the huge hit from elimination of federal funding. (CWBeacon illustration) At a moment when public broadcasters are staggering from the loss of $1.1 billion in federal funds over the next two years, Bostons two leading public media executives say that rebuilding trust and community are the keys to survival. I think the best way to build trust is from the local community up, said Susan Goldberg, president and chief executive of GBH, which operates television, radio, and digital platforms. She touted the radio stations studio at the Boston Public Library as a way for people to come in and watch us create the content in front of them, saying: I think its that kind of transparency that can help build back trust. Margaret Low, chief executive of WBUR Radio, agreed, observing that her station reaches beyond its airwaves and digital presence through events at its CitySpace venue and through such initiatives as the WBUR Festival. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres something very powerful about bringing people together in a place to talk about some of the most pressing issues of the day, she said. And its different than the one-to-many that broadcasting is, or even a newsletter is. Its actually people feeling like theyre part of something bigger than themselves, that theyre part of a community. Goldberg and Low spoke Wednesday at a webinar sponsored by the New England chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The theme of the evening was survival. Earlier this summer the Republican-controlled Congress, acting at the behest of President Trump, eliminated the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a semi-independent agency that provided funding for PBS, NPR and local public television and radio stations. Though public media outlets receive a majority of their funds from private grants, donations, and corporate underwriting, a number of stations especially in rural areas and urban communities of color were heavily dependent on CPB money and are now struggling to stay afloat. Earlier this week a consortium of foundations led by Knight, MacArthur, Ford and others announced an emergency grant of nearly $37 million to 115 stations that are at the highest risk of closure. The irony is that even though national operations at PBS and NPR will suffer less than some of their member stations, studies such as a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center show that local news outlets remain more trusted than national organizations, which have gotten hopelessly caught up in the partisanship that is tearing the country apart. Even as mainstream outlets attempt to reassure their audience that they are dedicated to fair, truth-telling journalism, critics rail that they are hopelessly biased. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These claims are especially loud on the right, as years of deriding sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and, yes, NPR and PBS as fake news have taken a toll. The latest survey from Pew, for instance, shows that 73% of Democrats and respondents who lean Democratic say that journalists role in society is extremely or very important, whereas only 45% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the same. Evidence suggests that robust community journalism can offset such polarization, with one study even showing that readers of a newspaper that eliminated national opinion content and replaced it with local commentary for just one month demonstrated a measurable decline in partisanship. Communities without reliable news and information suffer from lower voter turnout in local elections, fewer candidates running for office, and other civic ills. Yet local news is in crisis, with one recent study finding that there are 75% fewer journalists working in local news today than in 2007. A thriving public media ecosystem could help solve the local news crisis and ease the partisan divide. Unfortunately, Trump and the MAGA movement want to move in the opposite direction. Both GBH and WBUR produce a variety of national and local programming. Susan Goldberg noted Wednesday that GBH is the largest producer of national programming for PBS, and that the failure of local stations would harm GBH since they would no longer be able to pay for that programming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are a lot of efforts under way to help stabilize the system, she said, observing that PBS has cut member fees by 21 percent so that they are better able to pay for national programming. She added: Were going to have to make some hard decisions as well. Likewise, Margaret Low pointed out that WBUR produces two national programs, On Point and Here & Now, both of which are paid for by member stations. We may have to make some tough decisions, she said. Its serious. Its not insurmountable. Its hard to know how serious that impact will be. A thriving public media ecosystem could help solve the local news crisis and ease the partisan divide. Unfortunately, Trump and the MAGA movement want to move in the opposite direction. As Low and Goldberg said, though, its the connection with the local community that will determine whether public media rises or falls. Both outlets have robust news staffs and cover local and regional news as part of the national morning and afternoon newscasts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unfortunately, financial challenges that arose even before Trumps second term have forced both outlets to make some painful cuts at the local level. BUR canceled its daily Radio Boston program last December. GBH-TV canceled all four of its public-affairs programs over the past several years (Beat the Press with Emily Rooney, Great Boston, Talking Politics, and Basic Black), though it has revived Basic Black as GBH News Rooted on digital and has plans to bring back Greater Boston in some form as well. GBH Radio also broadcasts four hours of local talk each day via Boston Public Radio and The Culture Show as well as an hour on Sundays with Under the Radar with Callie Crossley. With no government funding to fall back on, such locally oriented programming, more than ever, is going to depend on viewers (and listeners) like us. Goldberg and Low said that their stations as well as public media throughout the system have experienced a heartening spike in giving since the CPB was defunded. We have a direct relationship to the audience. The fact that people give even though they dont have to is astonishing, Low said, adding: As we anticipate the year ahead, if we could find 10,000 more donors and have everybody who gives give 10 percent more, that would cover it. Low told the story of a wealthy listener who had never given before and who donated $10,000. Some checking revealed that he had capacity, as we gently like to say. He was invited to visit WBUR, and he ended up giving $250,000. Part of it is figuring out how to tell that different story so people feel motivated to support something that they actually love, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Goldberg, though, issued a caution. I dont think that fundraising alone is going to solve what is going to be a structural problem, she said. Long term, it is pretty hard across the system to replace $1.1 billion, or $535 million each year, which is how much the CPB has given. So I do think that we need to think of other really creative ways, in addition to reaching out to audiences, to helping them understand our value. Weve got to be better. Weve got to be more clear about what our value proposition really is. Building community, encouraging civic engagement, and telling the stories of the people who live here need to be at the heart of that mission. This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX ATLANTA (AP) An independent monitor appointed to oversee an agreement meant to address dangerous and unhealthy jail conditions in Georgia's most populous county said significant understaffing creates serious safety risks for residents and staff. Kathleen Kenney was appointed in February to monitor the consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice, Fulton County and county Sheriff Pat Labat. Her initial report filed Thursday provides an overview of her team's baseline visit to the main jail and annexes in May and makes recommendations for the next six months. The court-enforceable agreement was announced in January after a Justice Department civil rights investigation found that jail officials failed to protect detainees from violence, used excessive force and held people in unconstitutional and illegal conditions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The monitors recommendations for the next six months include focusing on the resident classification and housing system, increasing staffing and supervision, ensuring that heating and air conditioning is working and fire suppression and alert systems are adequate, and improving suicide prevention measures. A sheriff's spokesperson said Friday the office isn't able to comment on the 40-page report yet, having received it late Thursday afternoon. A staffing crisis The single biggest takeaway from the monitoring team's initial visit was a staffing crisis, the report says. Most floors in the main jail in Atlanta were staffed by only one deputy or detention officer, responsible for about 200 residents across six separate housing areas. Security towers were often vacant, exacerbating safety risks to the staff and incarcerated population. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift, about 50% of the posts in the main jail housing units and 55% in the annexes were vacant. Vacancies were higher for the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, at 58% in the main jail, 59% in the annexes. Support operations such as intake, classification, food service and laundry were even more thinly staffed. The report notes that jails and prisons around the country are grappling with significant staffing shortages, and that the sheriff's office acknowledged its salary and benefits package isn't competitive. During the monitoring team's visit to the 1,900-bed capacity main jail, a total of 1,838 people were being held there. Because of environmental or maintenance issues, 731 beds were unavailable. Some of these were part of a blitz, surging resources area by area to make repairs. Good idea, the report says, but without more staff, the jail residents destroy the things that have just been repaired. Unsupervised, idle residents will continue destroying the facilities until staff are able to adequately supervise them," the report says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Overcrowded intake and security issues The intake area includes three separate holding tanks where most people were packed in so tightly that they could not sit or lie down and many people had been held in these inhumane conditions for five to seven days." The sheriff's office recognized the problems but failed to take appropriate action and treat the situation with the urgency required, the report says. The lack of adequate supervision also means that doors that don't lock and windows that can be breached give residents routine access to weapons, and drones are used to fly in drugs, weapons and other contraband, virtually unabated and undetected. Overall, the main jail is in an unacceptable condition and inadequately staffed, the report concluded. Similar problems to varying degrees were observed at the annexes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A bright spot monitors observed was the mental health competency restoration unit, a collaboration with Emory University School of Medicine. It treats only a small number of people with serious mental illnesses, but is promising and appears to be functioning according to standard correctional practices. What the staff and residents say In conversations with the monitoring team, jail staff said they don't feel safe and are concerned about environmental conditions. They said they don't feel supported and fear firing or public humiliation if they make mistakes. Jail residents told the monitoring team they also don't feel safe, with some mentioning weapon and gang issues inside the jail. They said staff do not seem to care, and conduct rounds infrequently because of understaffing. The food is bad and there's not enough of it, and sinks, showers and toilets often don't work, they said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The team also noted that the jails' strategies for classification, restricted housing and population management don't align with common practices. Emergency medical response procedures are unclear, equipment is lacking and residents on suicide watch aren't consistently put in safe cells or monitored frequently enough. Plans for the future At a meeting Wednesday, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners were presented with several options for the future of the jail. They voted to continue studying a nine-year, $1.2 billion option that includes building a new special purpose facility with about 1,800 beds and then renovating the existing main jail. The sheriff, who has long advocated for a completely new jail, blasted the vote, saying it fails to address very immediate problems. The vote is a political game of smoke and mirrors that flies in the face of the federal consent decree, Labat said in an emailed statement. Valued at a market cap of $25.5 billion, PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG) is a global leader in paints, coatings, and specialty materials. The company operates across more than 70 countries, serving diverse markets including automotive, aerospace, industrial, packaging, and architectural applications. Shares of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company have underperformed the broader market over the past 52 weeks. PPG stock has declined 8.8% over this time frame, while the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has increased nearly 14%. Moreover, shares of the company have decreased 6.1% on a YTD basis, compared to SPX's 8.4% return. More News from Barchart Looking closer, PPG Industries stock has also lagged behind the Materials Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLB) marginal decline over the past 52 weeks. www.barchart.com Despite PPG Industries beating revenue expectations with $4.2 billion on Jul. 29, shares fell 5.3% the next day as profit fell to $450 million. Adjusted EPS of $2.22 matched estimates but declined from $2.35 in the prior-year quarter. Additionally, segment weakness, such as a 5% sales drop in Global Architectural Coatings and a 5% decline in Industrial Coatings due to divestitures, outweighing the strength in Performance Coatings. For the fiscal year ending in December 2025, analysts expect PPG's adjusted EPS to grow marginally year-over-year to $7.88. The company's earnings surprise history is mixed. It beat or met the consensus estimates in two of the last four quarters while missing on two other occasions. Among the 26 analysts covering the stock, the consensus rating is a Moderate Buy. Thats based on nine Strong Buy ratings and 17 Holds. www.barchart.com On Jul. 24, Citi analyst Patrick Cunningham reiterated a Buy rating on PPG Industries and set a price target of $130. As of writing, the stock is trading below the mean price target of $128.09. The Street-high price target of $154 implies a modest potential upside of 37.3% from the current price levels. On the date of publication, Sohini Mondal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com DETROIT (WJW) U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a warning to travelers after recently finding exotic and potentially dangerous meat inside passengers luggage at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Late last month, U.S. Customs stopped a passenger at a security checkpoint after finding 11 pounds of rodent meat from the West African nation of Togo. Another passenger carrying 52 pounds of meat from the country of Gabon was stopped just days later. They initially told U.S. Customs that it was antelope, but officials learned it was monkey meat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Photos are available here, but some viewers may find them disturbing. NBA player Jaylen Browns father arrested after stabbing in Las Vegas In both cases, the passengers were stopped from bringing bushmeat into the country. Bushmeat refers to meat from wild animals bats, non-human primates and cane rats from certain regions of the world that poses a significant communicable disease risk, and is illegal to import into the U.S., U.S. Customs said in a press release Wednesday. The bushmeat was handed over to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for final disposition and the travelers were fined $300 each for undeclared agriculture items. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials said rodent meat is intercepted occasionally at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, but primate meat is much more rare. I dont take shortcuts: Serena Williams reveals what is behind recent weight loss These recent bushmeat interceptions are significant in bringing attention to the illegal importation of bushmeat through our ports of entry, Port Director Fadia Pastilong said in the release. This also showcases how we work with our partner agencies to prevent a potential disease outbreak. Travelers are urged to declare all food and plant products when coming into the U.S. Learn more about bushmeat at the CDCs website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Attorneys for Robert Roberson filed a new set of motions requesting a stay of execution and requesting a new trial Thursday in Anderson County. Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of the 2-year-old, who was diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome. He has maintained his innocence during his 22 years on death row, arguing that new scientific evidence discredits prosecutors shaken baby theory and shows she died of natural and accidental causes. This new habeas claims judicial misconduct by Anderson County courts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Claim 1: Robersons conviction was obtained before a tribunal tainted by the appearance of bias, where the failure to recuse caused structural error and the deprivation of due process guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. Claim 2: When a Judge who should have disqualified and recused himself instead reached into the criminal case being prosecuted by his son to appoint counsel for the accused, not only was the right to due process violated but also Robersons Sixth Amendment Autonomy-Right to maintain his innocence. Claim 3: Robert Roberson is actually innocent. Attorneys are claiming the courts disregarded Texas law governing parental rights of Roberson, who has sole custody of his daughter, and allowed Nikki to be taken off life support. "The latter appears to have been done to enable arresting Robert for capital murder, which [the arrest] occurred before any reasonable investigation of Nikkis medical condition," the court filing states. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The petition claims that it was Judge Jerry Calhoon who personally stripped Robert of his parental rights after Nikkis death then injected himself into the criminal case entering a foundational order appointing counsel [Attorney Steve Evans] when he should have played no role in the case at all since his son, Mark Calhoon, was then the Anderson Countys Chief Felony Prosecutor, who was pursuing the criminal case against Roberson. These facts suggest a glaring lack of impartiality now compounded by the revelation that the Anderson County Judiciary played a direct role in the untoward circumstances that ended Nikkis life so that her father could be charged with murder. Judge Calhoon violated Roberts Sixth Amendment right to counsel willing to honor the constitutionally protected autonomy-right to maintain his innocence, states the habeas filing. Attorneys also cite new evidence in the filing that was received after Attorney General Ken Paxton requested a new execution date for Roberson. According to the newest petition, Rep. Lacey Hull (R-Houston) met with representatives of Childrens Medical Center of Dallas, where Nikki was taken for further medical treatment after being admitted to a Palestine hospital. Later, it was Nikkis maternal grandparents who decided to take her off life support. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the time of Nikkis death, Roberson sole conservator rights, but Hull said the representatives seemed unaware of the fact that they had removed her from life support and later pronounced her dead, seemingly without first obtaining authorization from her legal guardian, Roberson, until her meeting with them. Hull stated in an affidavit the hospital staff told her that they had contacted the court of jurisdiction in Anderson County and received confirmation that Nikkis maternal grandparents were the legal guardians with authority to make end-of-life decisions on her behalf. I am deeply troubled that the State of Texas is pushing to execute someone when so many questions surrounded how his daughter died and when substantial evidence, yet to be considered by any court, suggests that he committed not crime and instead is the victim of a CAPs misdiagnosis and an excessive haste to remove his daughter from life support, Hull stated in her affidavit. Excessive haste also characterizes the autopsy that was performed the next day, after Mr. Roberson had already been arrested. Many experts have since weighed in about how deeply flawed that autopsy was, performed by a medical examiner who had been expressly told about the CAPs diagnosis and the fathers arrest, biasing the entire process. Further the petitions shares with the court multiple medical and scientific pieces of evidence they claim shows Robersons innocence, notably that Nikki had been very ill in her life and was ill at the time of her death and was prescribed phenergan/promethazine by both an ER doctor and her pediatrician for a respiratory illness, possibly viral and was sent home. Phenergan now has an FDA black box warning against prescribing for children in Nikkis age and condition because it suppresses breathing and does not treat a respiratory illness. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The jury in Robersons original trial did not hear anything about Nikkis severe pneumonia nor about the lethal quantities of respiratory-suppressing drugs that she had been prescribed that were in her system at the time of her collapse. AG calls for execution date In June, the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested that an execution date for Roberson be set for Oct. 16 one year after Robersons last scheduled date of execution. Smith County District Judge Reeve Jackson, recently named as a replacement for retired District Judge Deborah Oakes Evans, who recused herself from the case in December 2024, heard arguments from Roberson's attorneys but sided with Paxton's office and set the execution date during a hearing held on July 16, at the Anderson County Courthouse. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Roberson petitions court for stay In July, attorneys for Roberson filed two motions on his behalf in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The first was an emergency motion for a stay of execution in order to give the court adequate time to review Robersons currently pending application for habeas corpus relief. The emergency motion argues the district court should not have scheduled this execution while the CCA is still considering his subsequent application. The second was a motion for oral argument. This would allow for an interactive discussion of the case between the judge and Robersons defense team. These filings are still pending. Last-minute reprieve Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Roberson was previously set to be executed Oct. 17, 2024, however, the day before his execution, the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence intervened, airing his claims of innocence and lack of due process. The panel subpoenaed Roberson on Oct. 16, 2024, to speak before its committee and then successfully forced a delay in his execution. Hull was part of the bipartisan group of legislators who sought clemency for Roberson and worked to stop his execution. On Nov. 12, 2024, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the committees subpoena cannot block a death row inmates execution. The state can proceed with a new execution date, but the House committee, whose members believe Roberson was convicted based on junk science, still expects him to provide them with testimony about his conviction and appeals. All attempts to bring Roberson have been blocked by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who cited safety issues. Texas AG takes over Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell turned the case over to Attorney Ellen Steward-Klein with the Texas AGs Office through deputation June 5. If Robersons execution is not stayed, he will be the first person executed in the United States for a conviction obtained using the now widely debunked Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis. Former city court judge and current New York state Assemblyman Angelo Morinello publicly pulled his support for Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino last week, telling a group of local Republicans that he could see the incumbent Democrat depicted in a cartoon as the Roman emperor Nero, who is fiddling while the city burns. In a video posted on Facebook by the Niagara Falls Republican Committee, Morinello tells a crowd gathered for an event held last Friday at LaSalle Waterfront Park that he believes Restaino is failing to address the basic needs of the city while focusing too much on what he views as the latest in a long line of Niagara Falls silver bullets the mayors proposed $200 million arena and events campus known as Centennial Park. In my 79 years, I have never seen a city so decrepit and so desperate, Morinello said. If you drive around and you see the housing zero focus on housing in this city, zero focus on cleanliness. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive been a conservative, moderate peacemaker and I never really attack, but Im at my wits end because I had some high hopes for our mayor and I have been so disappointed because he is showing the same tendencies that he did when I sat on the bench with him while he was still there until the state told him to go away, Morinello added. In the video, Morinello, who endorsed Restaino during the 2019 and 2023 mayoral elections, encourages fellow Republicans to mobilize this year to help the city change course and to prevent the next round of city council candidates from serving as a rubber stamp for the mayor. The Democratic Party has held this city hostage since 1964, Morinello said. Weve had governors that are Democrats who were supposed to be the best friend of our mayors and one of our assembly members. Nothing came about it. So lets get realistic. Weve got to fight for our own existence and weve got to fight for this years council. Restaino and his brother, City Administrator Anthony Restaino, did not respond to requests for comment from the Niagara Gazette. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Niagara County Democratic Party Chairman Chris Borgatti described Morinellos speech during a GOP fundraiser as political opportunism and smoke and mirrors aimed at deflecting attention away from his own failings as a long-time city official and one of the citys top representatives in Albany. Borgatti said it was sad to hear Morinello getting personal in his comments while failing to discuss any real solutions for addressing the problems the city faces. At the end of the day, there shouldnt be politics involved in fixing things, Borgatti said. It should be all of us working together and to hear the assemblyman and recently the senator (state senate Minority Leader and North Tonawanda Republican Rob Ortt) attacking city leadership, what about their plans for fixing Niagara Falls? The city is in their districts. Do I think Niagara Falls can be better and the administration can do more? Sure, he added. I think they are trying their best and there are things they can do, but its not just the mayor who can do things. They need to have relationships with state leaders that can deliver for Falls projects. Morinello did not reserve his criticism of Falls leadership for Restaino alone. In the video, he references the decision by Falls leaders in 1964 to pursue the federally funded Urban Renewal project downtown, which he said destroyed the citys downtown. He also referenced the three-term tenure of former Falls mayor and Democrat Paul Dyster, whom Morinello said received $178 million in casino funds, with little to show for it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since 1964, think about how many proposed silver bullets Aquafalls, the splash park that never happened, Morinello said. Think about all of the leaders that came with silver bullets and what happened? They wasted state money. They wasted city tax money. They ignored the city... Morinello likened the Centennial Park feasibility study, released by Restaino in June, to a PR piece, saying it lacked important details, including where the city expects to get the money to build Centennial Park, which he suggested will cost more like $250 million, not the $200 million price tag Restaino has stated publicly in recent months. Morinello noted that while the city struggles to find funds to perform routine maintenance, Restainos administration has spent a lot of public money already in an effort to push the development of Centennial Park. Drive down LaSalle Avenue, drive down Linwood, drive down Elmwood Avenue and look at the conditions, look at the houses that should be condemned, look at the condition of the lawns, Morinello said. When the mayor tells me in Albany that he does not have money to hire people, I asked him to his face, How much are you paying these lawyers to be in Albany for two days? How much are you paying these lobbyists to be in Albany for two days? * Its not rocket science, he added. Fix the Gon city! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Borgatti said the city would not require help from lobbyists in Albany if it had stronger leadership in the state capitol, suggesting that, as a Republican in the Democratic-controlled assembly, Morinello is extremely limited in his ability to bring state funds and resources from Albany to the Falls. The reason (the mayor) needs to bring lobbyists is because the assemblyman and the senator have no juice, Borgatti said. They cant get things done. I think this is Angelo just being frustrated about his own ability to bring resources back to his district and thats a problem for the citys future. Borgatti noted that GOP representatives, including Morinello, Ortt and members of the Republican-controlled Niagara County Legislature, have for years benefited from campaign donations made by NFR, the company that owns the 10 acres of land where Restaino wants to construct Centennial Park. Unlike local Republican leaders, Borgatti said Restaino has taken a stand when it comes to NFR, a company that has failed to develop the 140 acres of prime real estate it has owned in the city for decades. Video from last weeks GOP fundraiser shows long-time NFR Executive Vice President Roger Trevino in attendance and, at one point, commenting while Morinello gives his speech. What I do think theres consensus on is that people want to see things change and they want to see development in Niagara Falls, Borgatti said. Niagara Falls Redevelopment has sat on property in the Falls for 30 years and done nothing with it. At least now theres discussion about development in the city. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a telephone interview on Thursday, Morinello bristled at the notion that he and other state officials or the state itself have not done enough to support the Falls. He said his office is working on a study he expects to be released later this year that shows the state has been very generous to the city and that Falls leaders mostly Democrats have failed to produce positive results with what theyve been given. Bringing in alleged silver bullets is not going to make a difference in this city, Morinello said. Thats where my frustration is. It just seems that it is the same playbook. SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) The Morningside Mustang Volleyball team dropped its season home opener to the Vikings of Valley City State, losing 3-1. Emma Haren stepped up in week one, serving up 14 kills with a side of 11 digs. Next up, Morningside will head to the Siouxland Invitational starting Friday at 4:30 PM. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. Hundreds of asylum-seekers line up outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in June 2023 in New York City. Most refugees and asylees will no longer be able to get food stamps under President Donald Trumps new tax and spending law. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images) B. said he left Cameroon nine years ago because he was scared for his life. Authorities in the West African nation threw him in prison because of his sexual orientation, he said. After his release, he feared that if he stayed in the country, he would be killed. B., who is now 39 and who asked that he be identified only by his initial because he still has family in Cameroon, arrived in the United States with practically nothing. Since he was granted asylum last year, he has been able to use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, to help him get by. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But now most refugees and asylees, who entered the country legally, including B., are no longer eligible for food stamps. The change is part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the giant federal domestic policy measure that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX I think its unfair. I understand that there are some people who abuse the system, B. told Stateline. There are also people who are in need. And cutting help for families like mine not being able to get the help it will be very difficult. SNAP, which is funded by the federal government but administered by the states, helps families and individuals with lower incomes supplement their grocery budgets. The program serves an average of 42 million people a month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Supporters of the change note that refugees and asylees can get permits to work, and that they have other sources of support. Its not like they have been dropped off in this country with no support system, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit group that backs stricter immigration rules. They have sponsoring organizations that are helping them get settled and they have work authorization. So they really should be moving forward towards self-sufficiency with support right out of the starting gate. And they should be moving ahead to obtain green cards, she added, referring to the cards that signify permanent residency. Vaughan cited a federal grant program that reimburses states and nonprofit organizations for financial aid and health care coverage they provide to refugees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But critics argue that asylees and refugees, who are extensively vetted and have a legitimate path to citizenship, can wait years for a green card, which entitles them to a wider array of benefits. They also say community organizations that provide aid to asylees and refugees are stretched thin. Without food stamps, they say, many refugees and their families would not have enough to eat. Cutting help for families like mine not being able to get the help it will be very difficult. B., a Cameroonian asylee SNAP is an incredibly fundamental program for this population that comes to the United States, really, with very little, if anything, said Nicolas Palazzo, a policy counsel at the global humanitarian and refugee advocacy organization HIAS. These are people who literally had to flee many times overnight with nothing, but, you know, a pair of clothes in a backpack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Palazzo also said SNAP is not a handout to refugees or asylees. Rather, he said, its a smart and moral investment that protects all communities and strengthens the economy, offering people a foundation for self-sufficiency. Stripping critical food assistance forces refugees and asylees into the shadows of informal work, labor exploitation and hunger that weakens our workforce and denigrates our moral obligations, Palazzo said. Nowhere else to go B. said he applied immediately for asylum when he arrived in the U.S. in 2016, but that he had to wait months for a work permit. He survived by doing odd jobs, such as cleaning homes and delivering food, and got by on very little. It wasnt until late 2024, when he finally won his asylum case, that he was eligible to get any public benefits, including food stamps. Eligibility for food stamps came at a critical time for B., as a car accident had prevented him from making food deliveries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While not having income, it was very helpful, B. said. Im somebody who if I can work, I will work. The only reason I went over there to ask is because I had nowhere else to go. According to a November 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a total of 60,050 people were newly admitted to the United States as refugees in 2023, many from unstable countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Afghanistan. In 2023, the nation received at least 747,000 applications for people seeking asylum from countries including Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research group. Its a tremendous increase from the 68,000 applications received in 2013. The new domestic policy law specifies that food stamps are still available to Cubans and Haitians who might be refugees and asylees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As of July 2025, more than 2.2 million immigrants in the U.S. are awaiting asylum hearings or decisions after formally applying for asylum, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an organization at Syracuse University that tracks immigration cases. Getting through the system was difficult, B. said. I had to find money. I had to find an attorney who would help me apply for my asylum case. The asylum case itself took a long time. I still know people who have been here for more than 10 years and never had an interview. Already stretched According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, half of all admitted refugees in 2023 were resettled across just 10 states: Texas, New York, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Barbara Guinn, commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, estimates that around 41,000 people in the state are getting SNAP benefits while not being lawful permanent residents. She says that group includes refugees and asylees. The concerning part there is that these are individuals who were lawfully admitted to the country, have previously been eligible for SNAP when they need it, and now, simply because of their status, will no longer be able to receive SNAP benefits, Guinn told Stateline. Theres nothing were going to be able to do to make them eligible. Another change under the new law is that for the first time, states will have to pay for a portion of their food stamp programs. States will have to cover between 5% and 15% of their SNAP costs beginning in fiscal year 2028, depending on how accurately they dole out benefits to people eligible for the program. Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, pointed out that states that want to continue to provide SNAP benefits to refugees and asylees are free to do so as long as they pay for it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If New York state doesnt want to cut these people off, they can continue to give them something like food stamps. They just have to do it with New York state money right now, Rector said. But Guinn said that will be difficult. New York does offer asylum-seekers cash assistance of $180 a month through its Safety Net Assistance Program, but typically recipients must be working. In Texas, officials at the states health and human services agency said that as of last month, roughly 24,600 of the states 3.5 million SNAP recipients were refugees or asylees. A spokesperson for Marylands human services agency wrote in an email that the states SNAP program last year supported more than 10,000 refugees and asylees. The California Department of Social Services could not provide the number of refugees and asylees receiving food stamps, but projected that a total of 74,000 noncitizens including lawfully permanent residents, refugees and asylees would lose eligibility under the new law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sherri Laigle, the director of social services at HIAS, said food banks will not be able to make up for refugees and asylees loss of SNAP benefits. Theyre already stretched, and now were going to see tens of thousands of people also needing to continue to rely on these programs. Of course, theres limited access to them. You have to have transportation. You have to be able to get there. B. said he would apply for food stamps again if he could, because hes earning too little income to get by. There are people who are in need. I think ignoring that its not human. Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org. 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. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A Washington County judge sentenced a mother to five years of supervised probation for the overdose of her child, the district attorneys office announced Thursday. The sentencing on Aug. 20 came after Megan Elizabeth Meek was found guilty of second-degree assault for her role in her 2-year-old daughters overdose after she swallowed several fentanyl pills. White House border czar makes visit to Portland ICE facility Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The case stems from March 13, 2023, when Meek and her fiance, Bret Hollmann, started the day smoking fentanyl pills purchased by Hollmann, according to the Washington County District Attorneys Office, noting their 2-year-old daughter was with them at the time. Later in the day, Hollmann and Meek planned to take their daughter to a babysitter so they could go shopping, and stopped at a business on the way, officials said. Meek went inside the store, and when she returned to the car, she put her bag with multiple fentanyl pills and other drug paraphernalia in the backseat within reach of the toddler. According to the Washington County District Attorneys Office, the 2-year-old ended up swallowing several fentanyl pills. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After they arrived at their destination, Meek and Hollman noticed the child was overdosing, and when Beaverton police responded to the scene, she was unconscious, not breathing and had no detectable pulse, authorities said, noting officers told the parents their child needed her stomach pumped because she swallowed the pills. Officers were able to administer two doses of Narcan, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, and saved her life, the District Attorneys Office said, noting she overdosed again at the hospital because of the sheer amount of fentanyl in her system. Officials said hospital staff had to keep the child on a Narcan drip for a full day to keep her alive. Hollmann admitted to officers that he bought the pills and was later caught smoking fentanyl at the hospital while his daughter was undergoing treatment and had to be removed from the facility, officials added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement $15K reward offered in Gresham murder investigation of teen killed by stray bullet Hollman was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to third-degree assault and unlawful possession of a schedule II controlled substance substantial quantities. However, Judge Theodore Sims chose to not impose a 70-month sentence required under Measure 11, though the DAs office said it disagreed with the decision. While we respect the authority of the court to issue a sentence in this case, we strongly disagree with it, said Stephen Mayer with the DAs office. Parents and caregivers who risk the death of children by exposing them to dangerous drugs like fentanyl should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Were it not for the heroic actions of the Beaverton police officers and first responders from Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, this child would not be alive today. We intend to seek an appeal of this sentencing decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A 58-year-old woman who was shot in the back multiple times died after she was sent from northwest Arizona to a Las Vegas hospital. Bullhead City police arrested Tyler Rey Nelson, 21, and his mother, Toni Marie Sierra, 40, both of Fort Mohave, after responding to a weapons offense on Wednesday at about 7:40 p.m. They were booked into the Mohave County Jail in Kingman before the victim died, according to police. Police said Thursday they are now investigating the shooting as a homicide. The victim, who was not identified by police, had been taken to Western Arizona Regional Medical Center before she was transferred to Las Vegas. Thats common for patients who need care that smaller hospitals arent always equipped to provide. (Photos: Bullhead City Police Department) Nelson was arrested about 20 minutes after police were called to the scene in the 1000 block of Holly Street in Bullhead City. Police made a traffic stop at about 8 p.m. near Alonas Way and Trane Road, and a firearm was found inside the vehicle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sierra was arrested for facilitation for her role in the incident, police said. She was contacted by police at her residence in Fort Mohave. The shooting happened as the victim was confronted about stolen property, according to police. The victim wasnt armed at the time, police said. Police said additional charges might be pending as the investigation continues. Bullhead City is about 100 miles south of Las Vegas, across the Colorado River from Laughlin. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Michigan State Police First District said in an early August post on X that a mourning dove had built a nest on the hood of one of their patrol cruisers outside at their Lansing Post; now the bird has hatched a pair of eggs. "We are proud to announce our Mourning Dove babies have arrived," MSP's First District said on X on Aug. 21, "The proud parents are taking turns keeping the babies warm and safe." Mourning dove chicks found on MSP patrol car. The vehicle, parked at 7119 N. Canal Road, is not currently being used, which allowed the bird and her nest to be undisturbed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Never let it be said the MSP doesnt care about nature," the MSP First District on Aug. 4. "Over the weekend a mother bird built a nest on one of our patrol cars at the Lansing Post." Luckily the patrol car was not being used today, allowing the mother bird and her nest to remain undisturbed." Mourning doves are known for building their nests fast and flimsy, according to Audubon. "After a pair picks a site, the males will bring back twigs and stems for the females to weave into a loose pile often so loose that you can see the eggs through the bottom. And theyre not very picky about location: While doves often seek out trees or shrubs, theyre just as likely to nest in flower pots, cacti, or air conditioners," the Society said. Mourning doves are found in the United States, southern Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Central America, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They are the most abundant game bird in North America, with an estimated U.S. population of 350 million and are mostly found in open areas with scattered trees, yards and forest clearings. A mourning dove made its nest atop a Michigan State Police cruiser outside the Lansing post in early August. Are they morning doves or mourning doves? The birds are "mourning"doves, so named because of their low, repetitive call. When you hear a mourning doves familiar cooing, the song is almost always coming from a male looking for a mate, according to Audubon. Males will claim a favorite cooing perch, a prominent spot where they can catch the attention of females with their songs. Theyll even defend their favorite singing sites from other males who try to land there. What to do if I find a bird's nest near my home? According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, most bird nests are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This law says: No person may take (kill), possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such bird except as may be permitted under the terms of a valid permit Under the Act, it is illegal to destroy a nest that has chick or eggs in it . It's also illegal to keep a nest they take out of a tree or find on the ground unless they have a permit to do so. Usually it is required that you wait for the nest to become inactive before destroying it. Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSP patrol cruiser home to mourning dove chicks. Where they nested The transportation industry is worth the spin. Just ask these Black entrepreneurs who have taken the wheel and created thriving businesses in the transportation sector. These seven Black business owners run transportation companies that go beyond typical rideshare services, offering everything from high end limo rides to safe commuting for children and medical patients. Black-owned transport companies are doing more than getting people from point A to point B, they are also a source of community service and help boost the economy in the regions they operate. Takes A Village Transportation Takes A Village Transportation, a company out of Atlanta, Georgia, is run by Amia Mize. Since 2015, Takes A Village has been providing a dependable way for children to get to and from school as well as to extracurricular activities. What sets them apart is their passion for keeping kids safe. Theyve managed to rack up thousands of trips without an accident or incident, which is a testament to the companys commitment to the community and its customers. Black Pearl Transportation Black Pearl Transportation is a Chicago-based company owned by Bruce Hill. Black Pearl has a luxury fleet that includes sedans, limousines and even party buses. The company has been in business since 2017, offering top-notch service for a diversity of events and groups. Black Pearls goal is to make getting around easy and stylish. Door To Door II, Inc. Door To Door II, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based company that provides transportation for individuals requiring care but not in an emergency. It is owned by Makiesha Franklins and has been in operation since 2002. The company covers the entire L.A. County and offers a range of services. If a wheelchair is needed to get around, theyve got you covered, or if a person needs to be moved on a gurney, Door To Door II, Inc. can do that too. The company also helps people who are mobile but need a bit of assistance and support. Executive Select Transport Professionals LLC Executive Select Transport Professionals LLC is a Houston-based business that has been around since 2016. It is owned by Willie M. Garrison Jr., who also serves as CEO. What the company provides is pretty straightforward. It offers black car services that help people get to and from the airport or around town for work. The thing that sets them apart is that the owner is hands-on, ensuring customer satisfaction. Kidault Kidault, a company based in New York City, is making a name for itself. It was started by Elizabeth Liz Shepherd, a woman with a vision. She launched Kidault back in 2018 with a goal to make kid-friendly transport a lot safer and easier for families. Kidault offers rides, carpools and school runs all tailored around kids and their families. The business focuses on safety and community, and verifying that its services are kid centric Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I Love Luxury Transportation I Love Luxury Transportation operates in Memphis, Tennessee. It offers a range of vehicles from limousines to party buses. The companys been around since 2023, and is run by Mark Hearns. The company has a fleet of vehicles, which is ideal for events and groups of any size. If youre in Memphis, I Love Luxury Transportation can definitely support your needs, its definitely worth considering. Boss Transport & Family Services Boss Transport & Family Services is a company based in Washington, D.C., that plays a crucial roleassisting people with transportation when needed. The company offers a range of services, including wheelchair and stretcher transport, as well as ambulatory transport for individuals who are mobile but may require some assistance. Boss Transport & Family also handles hospital discharges, which can be a hassle, especially when it involves long-distance trips with nurses on board. The guy who started it all, George Odoi, got the company up and running back in 2006. Boss Transport & Family offers support with 24/7 availability and trips that cross state lines. RELATED CONTENT: NYT Investigative Report Highlights Ubers Alarming Number Of Unreported Sexual Assaults Scottish Conservative MSP Jeremy Balfour has quit the party saying it has "fallen into the trap of reactionary politics" under Russell Findlay's leadership. Balfour, who was the Tory spokesperson on social justice, said he would sit as an independent until the Holyrood election in May. In his resignation letter, the Lothians MSP said: "Increasingly, decisions seem to be made by advisers who lack experience, while senior MSP colleagues are ignored." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He is the second MSP to leave the party since the Tories lost power at Westminster and Findlay became Scottish leader. Findlay has promised to offer tax and spending cuts at the 2026 Holyrood election, saying he would "wield a claymore" on wasteful spending if elected. Balfour said he did not believe the party was interested in tackling welfare reform "beyond blind slashing of budgets" which he said "will put those in most need at highest risk". 'Chasing cheap headlines' In his resignation letter, seen by BBC Scotland News, the MSP also accused the party of focusing on rural areas "at the expense of our cities". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said: "I fear that the Scottish Conservatives have fallen into the trap of reactionary politics, where a positive, proactive agenda for real change has been rejected in favour of allowing policies to be dictated by what other parties are saying and chasing cheap headlines." Balfour said he felt he had "no choice" but to cut ties with the party he had "once proudly represented", adding: "But unfortunately it might take some harsh electoral results to force the issue." He added: "I no longer feel that the party has a positive platform to offer the people of Scotland." Russell Findlay was elected leader of the Scottish Conservative in September last year [PA Media] Balfour, who had been a member of the part for about 40 years, said the Conservatives had "lost their way" in Scotland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said vulnerable and disabled people were "not going to be taken seriously" under newly written policies. He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "I think too many people are coming in, are drafting policies who don't really understand the issues and senior colleagues are being ignored. "We know that social security budget needs to be looked at, but the leadership has just taken the view of 'let's just cut benefits' without looking at what those benefits do, how they work, what effect that will have on employment, what effect it will have on individuals. "It was a very easy headline to be grabbed, But the work below that has not been done and the work that I and others have done, has just been ignored." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Balfour said he was yet to decide whether to stand as an independent in next year's Scottish Parliament elections but ruled out representing Reform in the vote. He said some of his colleagues would be "sympathetic" to his decision and accused Findlay of "not grasping" the Scottish Conservative vision. "It's the Conservatives who have moved, not me," he told the programme. "I get on very well with Russell, I just think he has not quite yet grasped what the issues are and is willing to put forward a vision that is truly Conservative." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The MSP was first elected on the Lothian regional list in 2016. He has had several stints as a Conservative deputy spokesperson, including on equalities, housing and welfare. However, Balfour has remained on the backbenches since Findlay became party leader in September last year. He backed former deputy leader Meghan Gallacher in the leadership contest. Before being elected to Holyrood, Balfour worked as a solicitor and Baptist minister. Born with no left arm and a right arm that ends at the elbow, he has been vocal proponent for disabled rights. Earlier this year he opposed assisted dying legislation, citing concerns for disabled people as well as his Christian faith. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Balfour's resignation leaves the Scottish Conservatives with 29 MSPs. It comes after West of Scotland MSP Jamie Greene defected from the Tories to the Liberal Democrats. He accused his former party of becoming "Trump-esque in both style and substance". The Conservatives have also seen several councillors defect to Reform, with polls suggesting Nigel Farage's party could make an electoral breakthrough at next year's Holyrood election. The Scottish Conservatives have been contacted for comment. Under huge pressure Russell Findlay took over as Scottish Conservative leader after a fractious internal contest that left some lasting divisions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Having lost power at Westminster, opinion polls suggest the Tories are under huge pressure ahead of next year's Holyrood election. That was clearly illustrated in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election where they slipped into fourth place behind Reform UK. That challenge from the political right seems to have impacted how Findlay is positioning his party. He has prioritised plans to cut what he considers wasteful public spending and to ease the transition to net zero carbon emissions. What he has not done is take all of his Holyrood colleagues with him and in losing MSPs he risks losing some authority too. Premier Foods has bounced back into the M&A arena with the purchase of Merchant Gourmet, the UK-based manufacturer of ready-to-eat products. The owner of the Batchelors noodles and soups brand is paying 48m ($64.6m) to acquire Merchant Gourmet in a deal that is expected to close on 1 September, Premier Foods said in a statement today (21 August). Merchant Gourmet produces branded ready-to-eat pulses and grains, microwaveable rice packs, and ready-meals. The business is projected to generate 28m in revenue in the year to 28 March, continuing its double-digit growth. After a hiatus, Premier Foods returned to the M&A market in 2022 with the acquisition of The Spice Tailor, which supplies ingredients packs to produce Asian-based meals at home and has recently expanded with a Mexican offering. Fuel10K, a manufacturer of snack bars, cereals and milk drinks, was then added to the portfolio in 2023. Premier Foods' CEO Alex Whitehouse said: "Were very pleased to have agreed the acquisition of Merchant Gourmet, which meets the growing demand for premium, healthy and convenient meal options. "Replicating the success of our previous two acquisitions...we will be deploying our proven branded growth model; expanding retailer distribution, accelerating new product development, and increasing marketing investment to unlock further profitable growth for the brand." Premier Foods, which also owns the Ambrosia and Sharwoods brands, among others, added that Merchant Gourmet is highly complementary to its existing portfolio and is line with its growth strategy of acquiring brands where it can add value and deliver further growth. Richard Peake, the managing director of Merchant Gourmet, said: "Over the last few years, our team have worked incredibly hard, delivering double-digit revenue growth and demonstrating huge success in entering new categories and new markets. "Finding the best home for both Merchant Gourmet and our valued team is something we have thought carefully about, and we believe Premier Foods is the right partner to match our ambition." Merchant Gourmet's 25 employees are all expected to transfer to Premier Foods. The business currently uses third-party manufacturers. It supplies the major food chains Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda. Premier Foods reported its first-quarter results in July. Group sales to the end of June rose 0.2% to 239.7m. The business breaks down its results into grocery and sweet treats. Sales revenue for the former fell 2.8% in the quarter to 174.4m. The branded segment within grocery fell 2.2% to 158.4m. GEDDES, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) If youre planning a trip to the New York State Fair, be ready to open your wallet. From admission to parking and food and games on the midway, it all adds up. It starts the moment you arrive. Fair admission tickets are $8.00 for adults. Children 12 years old and under and people 65 and older can get in for free. If you plan on driving to the fair, add another $12.00 for parking. Of course, its not a trip to the fair without food. Fried dough costs about $5.00 to $8.00, and a lemonade or soda is another $4.00 to $10.00. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We asked fairgoers if they think the prices are reasonable. Uh, theyre a little bit higher than they were. But you know, theyre reasonable for us, said Douglas Ayer of Syracuse. Theyre comparable to last year, I would say, said Ashley Binghamheelon of Clay. I think the food can be a little pricey, but again, I think its up to you what you want to spend, said Brystal Nichter of Jamesville. think theyre fair. You are coming here to try something different. Something you wouldnt cook at your home, or you dont find in a restaurant. Maybe because its not near you, said Dr. Eduardo Aguilar of Chittenango. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youre bringing kids or just want to feel like one again, the Midway comes at a price. 12 tickets cost $8.00, 35 tickets for $28.00, and 50 tickets for $50.00. Most rides only take four to five tickets. Games cost anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 each. Fairgoers can also purchase wristbands to use the rides for about $37.00. By the time you paid for admission, parked your car, grabbed lunch, a drink, and taken a few spins on the rides, your day could easily top $75.00 or more. Thats without any souvenirs. Its all part of the fair experience. An iconic Central New York tradition, with memories that often outweigh the price tag. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSYR. The Mesquite Police Department has launched a free ride program to combat drunk driving. Together, we can make a difference and help prevent impaired driving in our community, the department posted. Get A Ride The program, Get A Ride, offers up to two free Lyft rides to residents who have had too much to drink. The department is partnering with Lyft, the Mesquite Police Association, local restaurants, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We understand no one plans to become too impaired to drive. Sometimes, it only takes a couple of drinks for someone to cross that line, the department posted. Thats why were offering a solution. Mesquite police are asking businesses to display Get A Ride posters and coasters for their customers. The department also asked members of the public to donate. We plan to continue this life-saving program for at least one year, and with your support, hopefully longer, the department wrote. Every dollar helps us keep this program running. The Impact The Response Drunk driving killed 511 people during Labor Day weekend in 2023, and drunk driving deaths during that time have increased by 33% across America since 2019. In 2023, nearly 12,500 people died as a result of drunk driving. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an effort to curb this trend, police across DFW are joining MADD for Saturation Saturday, increasing drunk driving enforcement on August 23. Participating local departments include Corinth, Denton, Grapevine, Lake Worth, The Colony, and White Settlement. The Denton Police Department held a press briefing on August 21 with MADD and partner agencies. Our officers will join agencies across the nation in high-visibility DWI enforcement, Denton police posted. The goal is simple: zero impaired crashes, zero tragedies. Officials told residents to plan ahead. If they are intoxicated, they should use a sober driver, rideshare, or public transit. Residents should never let someone drive impaired, and should host events responsibly. If anyone sees dangerous or impaired driving, they should call 911. A Corinth police officer also attended the briefing, with the Corinth Police Department indicating that officers will be out in full force on Saturday. The Colony police will also be increasing patrols. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lake Worth police are taking a similar approach, increasing highly visible patrols specifically during the evening. While our focus is on safety, our promise is firm: if you choose to drive under the influence, you will be stopped, and you will be arrested, the Lake Worth Police Department posted. Our officers will use every tool available to them, enforcing the law with fairness but without hesitation. White Settlement police also joined the press conference. The department has several upcoming enforcement strategies, with a drug recognition expert assigned to the patrol division. The Grapevine Police Department warned residents that their choices could mean the difference between life and death. We urge all community members to plan ahead. If you intend to drink, please use a designated driver, carpool, or a rideshare service, the Grapevine Police Department posted. Impaired driving is preventable. NEED TO KNOW Several people are dead after a tour bus with more than 50 people on board crashed in New York State on Friday, Aug. 22 Multiple people were injured, and emergency personnel remain on the scene, police have confirmed Governor Kathy Hochul said she had been briefed on the "tragic" accident Emergency responders are at the scene of a "serious mass casualty" bus crash in New York, according to officials. On the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 22, a tour bus that had taken visitors to Niagara Falls was on its way back to New York City when it crashed on the eastbound lane of Interstate 90 between exits 48A and 49 in Pembroke, a town less than 30 miles from Buffalo, according to New York State Police. There were 52 people on board, including the driver, according to the manifest reviewed by officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Preliminary reports indicate the bus, carrying more than 50 passengers, overturned, a spokesperson from the New York Police tells PEOPLE in a statement. Multiple individuals have been injured, with several confirmed fatalities. We believe there is a child that is a fatality, New York State Trooper James O'Callaghan told reporters, according to CNN and NBC outlet WHEC. Additionally, he confirmed that there were multiple entrapments and ejections, according to Newsweek. A level-one trauma center in Erie County received seven patients as of 2 p.m., while Mercy Flight, an air medical transport provider, said it had flown four people to hospitals and would be taking at least two more, CBS News reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Witnesses told authorities that they saw the bus lose control, enter the median, then cross to the southern shoulder and overturn, according to New York State Police. First responders at the scene were joined by helicopters and police. An investigation is ongoing. Following news of the crash, a local official in Erie County, Mark Poloncarz wrote on X that part of the thruway was closed until further notice due to the serious mass casualty bus accident in Genesee County just over the Erie County line. 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. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she had been briefed on the tragic tour bus accident in a statement on X. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My team is coordinating closely with @nyspolice and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved, she said. This is a developing story and will be updated. Read the original article on People BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A tour bus with 52 people on board crashed on I-90 in Pembroke, New York, Friday, resulting in multiple deaths and dozens of injuries. State police said at least one child was among the dead. Several other people were injured along with multiple others who were trapped under and around the bus. Police said most of the passengers did not have their seatbelts on, resulting in many ejections. State Police said every person on the bus, which was going from Niagara Falls to New York City, had some level of injury. Hospitals in the region said they evaluated or treated more than 40 people. Injuries ranged from head trauma to broken arms and legs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The crash occurred around 12:40 p.m. near Pembroke, which is about 25 miles east of Buffalo. State police said the bus lost control, went into the median and turned over into a ditch on the side of the road. The bus did not hit any vehicles. Police said the driver of the bus was alive. First responders work to rescue victims at the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Libby March/Buffalo News via AP) Rescue personnel work the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Libby March/The Buffalo News via AP) Rescue personnel work the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Libby March/The Buffalo News via AP) The New York State Thruway Authority said a lengthy stretch of the roadway had been shut down in both directions and drivers were being urged to avoid the area. Several Mercy Flights were requested as well as all Mercy Flight ambulances. Its a very active scene, said Mercy Flight president Margaret Ferrentino. At this time, were praying for the victims. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Among the injured were people with Indian, Chinese and Philippine nationalities. Police said there were language barriers and translators were sent to the scene. Peter Cutler, the vice president of communications and internal affairs at Erie County Medical Center, said the Buffalo hospital, known as ECMC, received a mass casualty notification. They received 24 patients and were still treating 20 of them as of 4:30 p.m. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X that she was briefed on the tragic tour bus accident and that her office was working with police and local officials. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. At least five people have died and dozens more were injured following a tour bus crash on I-90 roughly 25 miles east of Buffalo. The crash occurred Friday around 12:40 p.m. on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke in Genesee County, as the bus was traveling back to New York City from Niagara Falls. New York State Police said there were 54 people onboard the bus when it rolled over after hitting a median and wound up in a ditch on the side of the road. The passengers ranged in age from 1 to 74 years old, and most of were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino ethnicity. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Neither the names nor ages of those who were killed had been released as of Friday night. While police initially believed at least one child had died in the wreck, authorities later said no children were known to have been among the five fatalities that had since been confirmed. However, everyone onboard the bus suffered some level of injury, according to state police. Most of the passengers were not wearing their seatbelts and many had been ejected from the vehicle as the windows shattered. Several people, including children, remained trapped inside the bus hours after the accident. The Erie County Medical Center, a level 1 adult trauma center, reported receiving 24 patients from the scene of the crash, which hospitals officials believe to be the largest number of single-incident trauma patients theyve seen in 25 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ECMC Chief of Surgery Jeffrey Brewer told reporters his staff was treating victims with head injuries and broken extremities. Around 20 other people were reportedly being treated at different hospitals in the region, with six medical helicopters transporting people from the scene. In a statement on social media shortly after the crash, Gov. Kathy Hochul said shed been briefed on the tragic tour bus accident on the @NYSThruway and was coordinating closely with @nyspolice and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved. Sen. Chuck Schumer said he was heartbroken for all those weve lost and all those injured and thanked first responders for their ongoing efforts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As of Friday evening, it was not clear what caused the bus to overturn, though police do not believe mechanical failure or intoxication were factors. New York State Trooper James OCallaghan said the driver appeared to have overcorrected after going into the median for unknown reasons. The bus was traveling at full speed at the time of the crash, but did not hit any other vehicles. M & Y Tour Inc., the Staten Island-based company that operates the bus, was cooperating with investigators, OCallaghan said, as was the driver, who is alive and well. No changes had been filed as of Friday. NEW YORK Multiple people have died and dozens more were injured following a tour bus crash on I-90 roughly 30 miles northeast of Buffalo. New York State Police said there were more than 50 passengers onboard the bus when it rolled over early Friday afternoon near Pembroke, N.Y. in Genesee County. Police confirmed several fatalities, including at least one child, and said everyone onboard the bus suffered some level of injury. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most of the passengers were not wearing their seatbelts and many had been ejected from the vehicle, police said. The Erie County Medical Center reported receiving seven patients by 2 p.m., according to CBS News. A nonprofit air medical transport unit reportedly delivered at least four patients to hospitals for treatment. Ive been briefed on the tragic tour bus accident on the @NYSThruway, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement. My team is coordinating closely with @nyspolice and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved. Erie County Executive Mark Polocaez confirmed that a serious mass casualty bus accident occurred near his countys border with Genesee County. He said the New York State Thruway was closed where rescue workers were tending to the wreck. State police warned of heavy I-90 traffic delays. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not clear what caused the bus to flip as it was traveling from New York City to Niagara Falls. Officials said in a statement that several witnesses saw the bus lose control and overturn. New York State Police could not immediately be reached for comment. ------------- NEW YORK Multiple people have died and dozens more were injured following a tour bus crash on I-90 roughly 30 miles northeast of Buffalo. The crash occurred Friday around 12:40 p.m. near Pembroke in Genesee County, as the bus was traveling to eastboundback New York City from Niagara Falls. New York State Police said there were more than 50 passengers onboard the bus when it rolled over after hitting a median and wound up in a ditch on the side of the road. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police confirmed several fatalities, including at least one child, and said everyone onboard the bus had suffered some level of injury. Most of the passengers were not wearing their seatbelts and many had been ejected from the vehicle, police said. Multiple people, including children, remained trapped inside the bus as of Friday afternoon. The Erie County Medical Center, a level 1 adult trauma center, reported receiving 16 patients from the scene of the crash, according to CBS News. A nonprofit air medical transport unit had delivered four patients to hospitals for treatment, and said it would be taking at least two more. Ive been briefed on the tragic tour bus accident on the @NYSThruway, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement on social media. My team is coordinating closely with @nyspolice and local officials who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erie County Executive Mark Polocaez confirmed that a serious mass casualty bus accident occurred near his countys border with Genesee County. He said the New York State Thruway was closed between Exit 48A and Exit 49 where rescue workers were tending to the wreck. State police warned of heavy I-90 traffic delays. As of late Friday afternoon, it was not clear what caused the bus to overturn. New York State Trooper James OCallaghan said the driver appeared to have overcorrected after going into the median for unknown reasons. The bus was traveling at full speed at the time of the crash, but did not hit any other vehicles. OCallaghan described a very volatile scene with rescue workers moving in all directions. He told reporters than many of the passengers on the bus were tourists who speak Indian, Filipino and Chinese. Translators had been brought in to assist authorities. The tour company that operates the bus was said to be cooperating with investigators. ------------- FREEMAN, S.D. (KELO) Located about an hour southwest of Sioux Falls along Highway 81 is Freeman, South Dakota, a town of around 1,300 people. If you find yourself passing through, you can enjoy swimming, an arboretum and an annual chislic festival. But these are all things that would not have been possible without the people who settled there in the 1870s. SDPB to cut 25% of staff due to federal cuts Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If you make your way over to the southwest corner of Freeman, youll find the Heritage Hall Museum and Archives. Its massive collection includes everything from a Model T to a plane, old school farming equipment and more. There are things in every nook and cranny, director Marnette D. Hofer said. The goal of the museum is to tell the story of Freeman and the surrounding area. Its not only our history, its the history of everybody who has lived here, the Native American, the indigenous peoples who called this home for so many years before we came, Hofer said. The story of how the first European settlers arrived actually starts in Russia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The folks who ended up coming to southeastern Dakota Territory in the 1870s had lived in Russia for nearly a century. Many of them, they had been enticed to move from Europe into southern Russia to the area we know as Ukraine by Catherine the Great, who wanted to improve the lands. She provided incentives to primarily German speaking people, education and communication coordinator Tim L. Waltner said. The good times in Russia started to sour, however, when Alexander II took over. Those privileges that they had enjoyed began to disappear. That prompted an investigation into what options they had. With United States, the Fort Laramie Treaty and the Homestead Act of 1862 opening up this area of the country, they saw opportunities here, Waltner said. So, they emigrated to southeast South Dakota in the mid-1870s. People of Amish, Reformed, Lutheran, Mennonite and Hutterite faith traditions started living in clusters. That was until 1879 when the railroad encouraged people to live amongst each other in present-day Freeman. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Once the railroad got here and Freeman was established, suddenly, there was a reason to come together to interact with each other. Before long, these people were working together on projects, Waltner said. That cooperation helped shape Freeman into a thriving community. These immigrants who arrived were hardworking. They were bright. They were enterprising. They were entrepreneurs, and they established businesses, Waltner said. There is also an exhibit on the schools in Freeman, which museum staff say is another thing that brought people together. The first public school was opened in 1880. The schools brought people together from other cultures where they learned along with each other, Waltner said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the school and railroad came the establishment of a health system in 1952. Waltner says there are plenty of lessons to learn as you study the areas history. For me, the takeaway is that these people came with an incredible commitment to their values, to their faith, to their families and were willing to work hard and make sacrifices for what they felt would be in the best interests of not only themselves, but their neighbors, Waltner said. As Freeman has changed over the years, so has the museum. People take pride in donating stuff to our museum for display as well as into our archives for research, Waltner said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its all in the interest of keeping history alive. We believe that that knowing our history, knowing our path helps give us guidance for where were heading in the future, Waltner said. I walk away from seeing all this and just have such a respect for those who have come before us, who have laid this foundation for us, and the sense that we better carry this on and do it well because theyve given a lot, Hofer said. Paying homage to the past with every artifact. The museum also has a large collection of archives that are open to the public. For information on how you can check them out, click here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Five passengers aboard a tourist bus were killed Friday when their driver got distracted and crashed on a New York state highway, police said. The wreck happened 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Buffalo as the tourists headed back to New York City after visiting Niagara Falls. The passengers were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino origin, authorities said. "It's believed the operator became distracted, lost control, over corrected and ended up... over there," said New York state police commander major Andre Ray at the scene Friday evening, giving the toll for the first time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No one else was in a life-threatening condition, Ray said. Several passengers received medical treatment and were released. Fifty-four people were on the bus when it crashed and no children were killed, US media reported, contradicting an earlier police briefing. Six Chinese citizens were aboard the bus, China's state broadcaster CCTV said quoting the Chinese consulate in New York. Five were treated for minor injuries and discharged, while the sixth was undergoing surgery. The bus had traveled to Niagara Falls, on the border with Canada, for the day and was heading home when the accident took place on a highway near Pembroke. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - Mechanical error 'ruled out' - "Mechanical error was ruled out as well as impairment or intoxication," said Ray, who added that no charges had been brought. Translators were sent to the scene to help communicate with the victims. Eight helicopters were involved in the rescue effort, Margaret Ferrentino, president of Mercy Flight, a nonprofit provider of air ambulance services, told AFP. "The driver is alive and well -- we're working with him. We believe we have a good idea of what happened, why the bus lost control. We just want to make sure that all the details are thoroughly vetted," a police spokesman said earlier. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State Governor Kathy Hochul said her team was coordinating with state police and local officials "who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved." Blood and organ donor network Connect Life issued a call for blood donors to come forward in the wake of the crash. "I'm heartbroken for all those we've lost and all those injured and praying for their families. Thank you to our brave first responders on the scene," said the senior US senator from New York, Chuck Schumer. Niagara Falls -- towering waterfalls that span the US-Canada border -- is a popular tourist destination. bur-gw/acb/abs/tym Ripple lawyer fights Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan originally appeared on TheStreet. Linqto, a buzzy fintech that promised Main Street investors early access to Silicon Valleys hottest private companies, has crashed. The company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas and is now trying to offload more than $500 million in assets, including a massive stake in Ripple, amid mounting legal and regulatory pressure. SEC and FINRA step in According to court filings and reporting by Reuters, the SEC and FINRA are investigating whether Linqto illegally sold unregistered securities to unqualified investors and tacked on excessive markups reportedly over 60% for Ripple shares in some cases . The Wall Street Journal adds that FINRA referred Linqto Capital, the firms broker-dealer affiliate, for enforcement late last year, and the company ceased operations in March 2025 amid mounting scrutiny . Linqtos portfolio is staggering. Over $399 million in Ripple, $100 million+ in Circle, and around $35 million in SpaceX, according to filings reviewed by Debtwire and ION Analytics. In total, the portfolio spans 111 private companies with $500 million in assets, as per Bloomberg. A bankruptcy judge had earlier authorized Linqto to start selling these holdings to fund the case and pay off creditors . DIP loan controversy The mess got messier when Linqto executives tried to use customer-linked shares as collateral for a $60 million debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan, a move that drew instant backlash. Ripple attorney John E. Deaton intervened. On August 19, he stated: My motion objecting to the DIP loan and asking the Judge to impose a Constructive Trust ruling in effect [that] Linqto does not own the shares and therefore cannot collateralize those shares will NOT be litigated. Had the plan gone forward, many customers could have seen their assets liquidated just to cover Linqtos legal fees raising comparisons to FTXs bankruptcy chaos. Ripple tries to stay out of it Ripple, for its part, is keeping its distance. CEO Brad Garlinghouse explained in July: PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Preschool for All supporters are disappointed after the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted to postpone deciding on whether or not they will index the tax. Commissioners agreed to postpone the decision in a 3-2 vote. Preschool for All supporters packed the boardroom hoping to see commissioners strike down the item altogether. $15K reward offered in Gresham murder investigation Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead, we kicked the can down the road, which means that families have to wonder if at some point during this school year, they will lose access to Preschool for All, Family Forward Oregon Executive Director Candice Williams said. Thats thats crazy. That is scary. Were talking about families who might not be able to go to the second term of college. Were talking about families who might not be able to pay their rent or their mortgage. Williams said delaying the decision does not create any confidence for families. It doesnt create any confidence for our small business owners who are worried about their workforce, she said. It doesnt create any confidence in Portlanders who really believe that 64% of them who voted for this program should get what they want, and it doesnt provide any confidence with knowing that well reach full universality by 2030. Melissa Burgess is a Preschool for All parent, and she also attended the meeting. She said her own experience of paying for childcare has shown her the importance of the program. Now she said she wants commissioners to consider people like her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What were asking for is our lawmakers to stand with the voters who overwhelmingly voted for this program, she said. And we want the confidence that theyre going to do everything that they can to make sure that this program can reach universal reality. This vote means commissioners will continue to consider indexing the Preschool for All tax. In that time, Williams said the program supporters are not going away. White House border czar visits Portland ICE facility We will continue to organize, she said. Well continue to bring together moms and caregivers and families. Well continue to talk to small well continue to talk to small business owners, who are telling us every day how and how vital this is to their workforce. And well continue to keep people ready and on deck to fight whenever that day comes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now the board will discuss this item at a later date, but the date is not set. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. A man in his 30s has died following a stabbing incident in west Belfast on Thursday night. It happened in the Mulberry Park area of Twinbrook at about 20:15 BST. Another man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said officers remain at the scene on Friday morning and cordons are in place. Police have cordoned off an area of Mulberry Park [BBC] Eyewitnesses say children were playing on the street at the time of the incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) received a call at 20:15 and dispatched two emergency crews to the incident. Sinn Fein MLA Danny Baker said there was shock and sadness in the local community. Baker said: "This is absolutely tragic, and I want to extend my thoughts and condolences to the deceased man's family and friends." He urged the public not to speculate and allow the police to continue their investigations. People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said he is "deeply saddened to hear about the tragic passing of a Twinbrook resident". "Everyone has the basic right to live in peace and safety in their own home," he added. "My thoughts and condolences are with the victim, his family and friends during this incredibly difficult time." MYRTLE BEACH, S.C., (WBTW) Master Cpl. Matthew Deane has just been given the Life Saver award by the South Carolina Police Chiefs Association for his heroic actions while off the clock. Deane has been with the Myrtle Beach Police Department for 14 years, working as a collision investigator, traffic enforcer, and now as a lifesaver. Recently, Deane saved the life of his neighbors father, who collapsed on the kitchen floor all of a sudden. He was able to put his training to use and performed CPR on the man, saving his life. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With two parents who previously served as police officers in the Washington D.C. area, Deane says policing runs in his blood. He says he is surprised by receiving an award for his actions. It was definitely a surprise, especially for something that I didnt necessarily think was anything over and above anything that I would have normally done anyway, Deane said. Its time to go to work. Like I said, training just kind of kicked in and I did what I had to do. Deane says his favorite part of the job is not just what happens behind the badge, but in the community. He loves being able to go to community events and get to know the kids and the general public. Things like going to birthday parties, showing up, just even taking five minutes out of our day, he said. To us, its five minutes, to them, its something that theyre going to go to school, tell their friends about, The police came to my birthday party that type deal.' Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deane added that the most rewarding part of his job is seeing the real difference officers can make. Being able to see the impact of, you know, fatalities being down or getting the impaired drivers things like that off the road to make the fatalities go down, he said. Getting the speeders to slow down, things like that. For anyone considering a career in criminal justice, Deane says to come on and give it a try. * * * Katie Harrill joined the News13 team as a multimedia journalist in June 2025. She is a native of Cumming, Georgia, and graduated from the University of Georgia in December 2024. You can keep up with Katie on Facebook, X, (formerly Twitter), or Instagram and read more of her work here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. New Jerseys premier coffee shop just opened the doors on a new location. Treehouse Coffee Shop, the burgeoning Jersey City cafe that claimed the No. 1 spot on NJ.coms coffee shop ranking, just opened its third location. The new Treehouse shop, also known as Treehouse 3 is located at 75 Bright St. in the Van Vorst Park neighborhood of Jersey Citys historic downtown. The shops soft opening, which included its full menu, took place on Aug. 15. A grand opening ceremony is expected to be held sometime in September, although an exact date has yet to be determined. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Treehouses first shop opened on Jersey Citys West Side back in 2019. A second shop with a larger seating area opened downtown on Brunswick Street in 2023. Owner Frank Young told NJ Advance Media the companys success and expansion has come out of necessity. We felt like a lot of people were kind of backed into a corner when the pandemic happened, Young said. We bet our house on the first shop, so it was like, we better be good at this. The new shop is the smallest of the brands locations, encompassing less than 200 square feet of space more of a grab-and-go operation than the previous outposts. Young said they took all of the elements of previous Treehouse spots and put them into a smaller space. Their signature pink, green and blue color scheme is still very present. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Treehouse offers coffee, cold brew, espresso, matcha, tea and more. Speciality drinks like their horchata latte, Vietnamese red eye, NOLA latte and caramel shakerato have made the shop a local favorite. Their menu also features croissants, cookies, scones, brownies and overnight oats. Treehouse also runs the coffee program at Whealth Kitchen, a health food eatery in Jersey Citys Journal Square neighborhood. Young pointed to the cafes emergence as a communal space during the COVID pandemic as a reason for its popularity. When the pandemic started, we took a day to merge everything online and opened back up the next day as a grab-and-go spot. We actually forged a lot of relationships in the neighborhood, Young said. People were home, so they needed to take a walk, have small conversation and just get out. We became the spot for that. More food coverage: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Christopher Burch can be reached at cburch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @SwishBurch. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips/. The National Guard is feeling the cost of President Donald Trumps insistence on using National Guard troops to carry out his expansive immigration roundups and policing actions in Washington, D.C. National Guard Major General Greg Porter, based in Wyoming, told the state's lawmakers during a meeting of the Joint Transportation Highways & Military Affairs Committee that the costs of Trump's National Guard deployments are still unknown, but they're no doubt eating into the branch's funds, according to WyoFile. Porter said that the costs of prolonged deployments will eat into funding intended for things like training and operations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its free chicken right now to ICE, he told the state lawmakers. So, well see how long this lasts and where that goes, but it really has an impact on our readiness accounts. National Guard units are typically deployed to assist during times of extreme civil unrest, but more frequently help with disaster relief and other state-side support missions. Now, state National Guard units are asking Congress to provide them with more funding to help cover the cost of their typical fall training deployments, according to Porter. Members of the National Guard next to a military vehicle outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The cost of President Donald Trumps National Guard deployments is eating into funds intended to operations and training, and state are unsure of when the federal government will reimburse them (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Some states could face significant financial liabilities that would directly impact readiness, Porter told WyoFile. To keep the Guard trained, equipped, and ready to respond when our nation calls, federal funding must be provided accurately, fully, and on time. In just the first seven months of his presidency, Trump has deployed the National Guard to two American cities Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. essentially as shows of force. This week he threatened to send more troops to Chicago and New York. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In LA, National Guard troops were sent to crush protests against ICE and the agency's immigration raids. In Washington D.C., Trump insisted the National Guard was needed to help combat violent crime, even though the city's crime statistics show that violent crime is actually down from previous years. Wyoming troops were deployed to D.C. in January to provide security during Trump's inauguration. That deployment cost $250,000 from the state's readiness accounts, and Wyoming is still waiting to be reimbursed by the federal government. Its not just the states worried about getting paid, but the National Guard members as well. Last week, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal voiced his concerns that National Guard members sent to patrol D.C. werent being paid. Protesters stand off against California National Guard soldiers at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles during a No Kings protest on June 14 (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) While I recognize that these soldiers will be compensated eventually, I am troubled by the prospect of servicemembers not knowing when they will be paid next, he wrote in a letter to Pentagon and White House officials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said that any delays in their pay could put National Guard members in financial trouble, adding that troops deployed to D.C. are missing out on salaries, housing allowances and medical coverage they receive from their civilian jobs while theyre deployed. Any delay in compensation for their service will place many Guardsmen in financial hardship. Even though servicemembers understand that they will be compensated at some point, they should not have to wonder when exactly their next paycheck will come, he said. The Intercept asked Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project to estimate the possible cost of Trump's operation in D.C. According to her analysis, his use of the National Guard to hang around the capital could exceed $1 million per day. Its unconscionable that the Trump administration would hand the military a blank check of over a million dollars a day to occupy D.C. while stripping access to health care and food aid from millions of families across the country, Homestead told The Intercept. The daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment is more than four times what it would cost to operate affordable housing for D.C.s entire unhoused population. The governments priorities could not be more clear. The Independent has asked the White House for comment. WASHINGTON (AP) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered National Guard troops to start carrying firearms while patrolling the streets of Washington for President Donald Trumps law enforcement crackdown, the Pentagon said Friday. The Defense Department didnt offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed. Hegseth referred to it as common sense on social media. No troops have been spotted yet with firearms around the city in the hours after the announcement. But the decision is an escalation in the Republican administration's intervention in the nation's capital and comes as nearly 2,000 National Guard members have been stationed in the heavily Democratic city. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some local officials were harshly critical, with D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen saying President Donald Trump's actions are not of a president, but of someone on the march to an authoritarian takeover. Trump initially called up 800 members of the District of Columbia National Guard to assist federal law enforcement in his bid to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration. Since then, six Republican-led states have sent troops to the city, growing the military presence. It's unclear how long the deployment will last. If I have to, Ill declare a national emergency, which I dont think Ill have to do, Trump said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He suggested that he could take a similar approach in other cities, such as Chicago and maybe New York. After we do this, well go to another location, and well make it safe also, Trump said in the Oval Office. Referring to Chicago as a mess, he said, that will be our next one after this. National Guard troops are visible around Washington There were no signs that the National Guard's role in D.C. would be changing. The troops have not taken part in law enforcement and largely have been protecting landmarks including the National Mall and Union Station and helping with crowd control. Some troops have fed squirrels. One Guard member helped a woman carry her belongings down the stairs in a train station. Others have been seen taking photos with passers-by, standing around chatting and drinking coffee. There have been no overt indications that they have faced threats that would require weapons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson said Trump was inviting confrontation where there doesnt need to be any. Trump has boasted that the city is safer than ever because of his intervention. He told reporters Friday that its a miracle whats happened. D.C. was a hellhole, he said. But now it's safe. He suggested that he could prolong the deployment of troops and federal agents in Washington. The big question is how long do we stay? he said. Because if we stay, we want to make sure it doesnt come back. So we have to take care of these criminals and get them out. Trump said he would ask Congress for $2 billion to improve the appearance of the city, including resurfacing roads and replacing streetlights. Hes previously pledged to improve the grass to look like one of his golf courses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its going to be safe, and its going to be beautified, he said. Trumps decision to seek more money for sprucing up Washington comes months after the Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation that essentially forced a $1.1 billion budget cut on the city. Local leaders have pleaded for a fix, but to no avail. Adding armed troops to a city already on edge Tensions have flared at times in the streets of D.C. since Trump's intervention began, especially involving federal agents carrying out immigration enforcement. Some fear arming the National Guard could exacerbate the situation. Alex Wagner, a former chief of staff to the Army secretary and assistant secretary for the Air Force during Democratic administrations, said asking troops to carry firearms is a recipe for disaster. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said most National Guard members dont have the right training for Trumps law enforcement crackdown and are being put in a no-win situation. Do they have any role that would require them to have firearms? No, he said. However, Wagner said, if there are confrontations, the White House can spin that to their political advantage. Protests have occasionally popped up around the city since the intervention began, with the largest of them attracting a few hundred people. City officials are in a difficult position The city's police department and the offices of Mayor Muriel Bowser and Attorney General Brian Schwalb were notably silent when asked for comment about the National Guard decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a federal district, the city governments powers are broadly delegated to it by Congress, providing few avenues to formally resist Trumps plans. Local officials have been walking a tightrope between acknowledging constituents concerns and antagonizing Trump, who has threatened even more aggressive action toward D.C. City Council Chair Phil Mendelson wrote on social media that he had discussed the effects of the so-called crime emergency and other topics at a town hall Thursday night, while Council Member Brianne Nadeau posted a link to report police misconduct to city officials. The city had been informed about the intent for the National Guard to be armed, a person familiar with the conversations said earlier this week. The person was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Spokespeople for the District of Columbia National Guard and a military task force overseeing all the guard troops in Washington did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement D.C. schools are scheduled to start the new year Monday, and the district sent a message to parents letting them know that law enforcement action on school grounds can only take place with a valid warrant or a court order." The statement also said officers in schools aren't working with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. ___ Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil and Anna Johnson contributed to this report. National Guard troops deployed to Washington have been authorized to carry service-issue weapons, according to two defense officials familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss the deployment. At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nations capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training, the Pentagon said in a statement Friday. The Interim Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard retains the authority to make any necessary force posture adjustments in coordination with the D.C. Metropolitan Police and Federal law enforcement partners. Many of the troops are deployed in high-tourist areas like Union Station, near the Washington Nationals ballpark and in metro stations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement President Donald Trump had deployed the Guard to the city as part of what he describes as a crackdown on crime in the nations capital. The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job, he wrote on Truth Social on Friday. They are out in force, and are NOT PLAYING GAMES!!! Trumps deployment of the guard came at the same time as his efforts to federalize the citys police operations under the Home Rule Act, the 1970s law that grants the District limited self-governance. He cited a public safety emergency in Washington, though crime in the city hit a 30-year low last year. Trump on Friday said he would ask Congress for $2 billion to tackle construction and beautification projects around Washington. He would not commit to a timeline for when his federal takeover would end. And then the big question is how long do we stay? If we stay, we want to make sure [crime] doesn't come back, he said Friday. It is my ambition when we're complete we can take everybody out and you have a great capital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Trump administration has indicated it would investigate the citys police department to see if it falsified data to artificially lower crime numbers. Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City, he wrote on Truth Social on Friday. A spokesperson for Bowser declined to comment on the National Guard or Trump's accusations. The Justice Department has touted arrest numbers since the efforts began. Just yesterday we made 40 arrests, took 5 more illegal firearms off our streets, and had 36 ICE arrests including a suspected MS-13 gang member, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to deploying the D.C. National Guard, troops are coming from states controlled by Republicans like Tennessee and West Virginia where governors have pledged their help in Trump's efforts. Federal agencies, including the FBI and ICE, also have law enforcement personnel on the ground. Just 17 percent of Washington residents back the White Houses efforts to federalize the police department and deploy the National Guard, according to a poll from The Washington Post/Schar School. National Guard troops will soon carry weapons in Washington, DC, where President Donald Trump ordered their deployment as part of a crackdown on crime, a US defense official said Friday. Trump has said Washington was a "crime-infested rat hole" before he sent troops onto its streets last week and said Friday that Chicago and New York -- two more major Democrat-led cities -- are set to receive similar treatment. "At the direction of the secretary of defense, JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our nation's capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons," the defense official said on condition of anonymity, referring to the Joint Task Force-DC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The US Army previously said as troops began to arrive that "weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory." There are now more than 1,900 National Guard troops in Washington, both from the city as well as the Republican-led states of West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee, which have also sent forces. On Friday, Trump said Chicago and New York are also on his list of targets. "We're going to make our cities very, very safe," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I think Chicago will be our next and then we'll help with New York." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - Lowest violent crime in years - The US president also discussed declaring a national emergency to keep troops in Washington for longer than 30 days. Republican politicians -- led by Trump -- have claimed that the overwhelmingly Democratic US capital is overrun by crime, plagued by homelessness and financially mismanaged. Data from Washington police, however, showed significant drops in violent crime between 2023 and 2024, though that was coming off a post-pandemic surge. A Justice Department statement from January said that based on that data, "total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35 percent from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Trump has accused Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser of "giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures," threatening "bad things" including a total federal takeover of the city if she does not stop doing so. In addition to the deployment of the National Guard, federal law enforcement personnel -- including Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- have also recently surged their presence on Washington's streets, drawing protests from residents. The deployment of troops in Washington comes after Trump dispatched the National Guard and Marines to quell unrest in Los Angeles, California, that was sparked by immigration enforcement raids. That was the first time since 1965 that a US president deployed the National Guard against the wishes of a state governor, who are usually responsible for those forces. wd/dw President Donald Trump's plan to deploy troops to Chicago is an abuse of power, the Democratic governor of the US state of Illinois has said. There is no emergency that justifies the National Guard being sent to Illinois and the US president is "attempting to manufacture a crisis", JB Pritzker said in a statement. Trump has already deployed about 2,000 troops to Washington DC, where the local government is also run by opposition Democrats, as part of what he is portraying as a crackdown on crime in US cities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, Trump said he would implement the policy in Chicago and New York - two other major Democrat-controlled cities. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responded to Trump's comments, saying in a statement that he had not received any information about the deployment of the National Guard in Chicago. He said the city government has "grave concerns" about any deployment of troops, labelling the president's approach "uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound". Johnson added that the "unlawful deployment" could "inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement", and threaten the progress the city has made in reducing crime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the National Guard personnel patrolling the streets of Washington DC to be armed, as part of the Trump administration's efforts against what they have described as "out of control" crime in the city. Just last week, the Pentagon and US Army said that troops involved in the deployment - who now number approximately 2,000 - would not carry weapons. While the Trump administration has lauded the mission, polls show it is deeply unpopular with many residents in staunchly Democratic Washington. In a statement, the Pentagon said that National Guard troops "will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is unclear if the decision to arm the troops will mean that their role in Washington is changing. So far, troops have not taken part in law enforcement operations - which have been carried out by local police and officers from various federal agencies - and have instead been posted near local landmarks including the National Mall and Union Station, the capital's primary passenger rail transportation hub. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has not commented on the decision. Speaking in the White House Oval Office on Friday, Trump said the mission has brought "total safety" to Washington - and that it could be expanded to Chicago - a city where the leadership has sometimes found itself at odds with the Trump administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "DC was a hellhole," he said earlier on Friday, a day after visiting some of the deployed troops. "But now it's safe." As many as 1,700 National Guardsmen are expected to mobilise in 19 states in the coming weeks, US media report. Of the states expecting a National Guard presence, Texas will have the most troops. The guardsmen will reportedly support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts and serve as a visible deterrent. Despite declaring the Washington DC mission a success, Trump said that he is considering declaring a national emergency once the deployment's 30-day deadline expires. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "If I think we're in great shape here, that's one thing. But if I don't, I'm just going to say it's a national emergency," he said. "If I have a national emergency, I can keep the troops here as long as I want." Several Republican-led states, including South Carolina and West Virginia, have also contributed forces to the crackdown. Additionally, Trump said he would ask Congress for $2bn (1.48bn) to help beautify the city. Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation that saw Washington's budget cut by a total of $1.1bn. In a post on X on Friday morning, Attorney General Pam Bondi said more than 700 arrests had been made since the operation started - including 40 on Thursday - and 91 illegal firearms had been seized. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Local officials have questioned the need for federal intervention in the city, with Mayor Bowser pointing to a "huge decrease in crime" that she claimed was at a "30-year violent crime low". A poll conducted by the Washington Post and Schar School released earlier this week found the deployment deeply unpopular among the city's residents, with almost 80% saying they are opposed to both the deployment of federal officers and the National Guard, as well as the takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. Additional reporting by Jack Burgess On Thursday, the California State Assembly engaged in a heated debate over the proposed redistricting of the states congressional map. Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-San Bernardino), the only Native American currently serving in the California Assembly, firmly challenged a colleague who invoked California tribes during the discussion. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have a colleague from San Bernardino who likes to always tell us how he fights for the tribes. But do you know this map splits tribal reservations? asked Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego). DeMaio argued that the proposed map divides several tribal reservations across different congressional districts. So much for the voice of the people, DeMaio added. Shortly after, Ramos took the floor, criticizing DeMaio for using Native American tribes to advance his political argument. I have to raise my mic and be able to talk when a colleague from the other side is talking about history, talking about Californias first people, drawing them into this conversation, Ramos said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Clearly angered, Ramos questioned where that concern was during the historical violence and displacement suffered by Native communities in California. When you start to exploit the history in the state of California for your own gain, it [is] the same tactics used when this land was stolen and murdered people of our culture to get ityou should be ashamed of yourself to bring in the history, because we all know in these chambers the atrocities, the genocide and the blood shed, and the bones that [are] still in the archives of many institutions in this state who still call our remains of our ancestors trophies, Ramos said. As Ramos spoke, his fellow Democratic colleagues rose from their seats to stand behind him as a gesture of solidarity. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following the session, Ramoss office released a statement that further clarified his stance: A few days ago, the Assembly acknowledged the long history of horrific atrocities committed against Native Americans living in California, including the War of Extermination, called for by the states first governor. Therefore, it was particularly odious to have Californias First People used so cynically today. Redistricting does not erase tribal sovereignty, reservations, citizenship rights or power. As the Legislatures first California Native American elected to the State Legislature, I found it offensive and hypocritical to bring the tribes into a highly contentious fight without seeking their input and assuming that this one colleague would know best what would serve Native Americans. This paternalistic approach toward Native Americans should no longer be tolerated by the state and this Legislature. The redistricting debate in California comes of the heels of the Texas Republicans redrawing congressional districts to favor Republicans who want to gain five additional congressional seats for the Republicans in the 2026 midterm election. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net." Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net October NY world sugar #11 (SBV25) today is up +0.29 (+1.78%), and October London ICE white sugar #5 (SWV25) is up +12.20 (+2.55%). Sugar prices today are sharply higher, with London sugar climbing to a 5-week high. Signs of stronger global sugar demand are supporting prices. China's July sugar imports surged +76% to 740,000 MT, and Pakistan recently tendered for 200,000 MT of refined sugar. More News from Barchart On Monday, sugar prices fell to a 1-week low on the outlook for Brazil's sugar mills to increase production. Covrig Analytics reported Monday that Brazil's sugar mills are prioritizing sugar production over ethanol, crushing more cane for sugar. This trend is expected to continue as harvesting peaks, driven by drier cane crops that prompt mills to produce more sugar. NY sugar rallied to a 2-month high last Tuesday on concerns over weaker cane yields in Brazil. Last Friday, Unica reported that Brazil's Center-South sugar output in the second half of July fell by -0.8% y/y to 3,614 MT, and the 2025-26 Center-South sugar output through July fell -7.8% y/y to 19,268 MT. However, the percentage of sugarcane crushed for sugar by Brazil's sugar mills in the second half of July increased to 54.10% from 50.32% the same time last year. Also, Conab, Brazil's government crop forecasting agency, said last month that 2024/25 Brazil sugar production fell by -3.4% y/y to 44.118 MMT, citing lower sugarcane yields due to drought and excessive heat. The outlook for higher sugar exports from India is negative for sugar prices after Bloomberg reported that India may permit local sugar mills to export sugar in the next season, which starts in October, as abundant monsoon rains may produce a bumper sugar crop. India's Meteorological Department reported Monday that cumulative monsoon rain in India was 611.2 mm as of August 18, or 1% above normal. Also, the Indian Sugar and Bio-energy Manufacturers Association recently said that it will seek permission to export 2 MMT of sugar in 2025/26. The outlook for higher sugar production in India, the world's second-largest producer, is bearish for prices. On June 2, India's National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories projected that India's 2025/26 sugar production would climb +19% y/y to 35 MMT, citing larger planted cane acreage. That would follow a -17.5% y/y decline in India's sugar production in 2024/25 to a 5-year low of 26.2 MMT, according to the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA). BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO allies and Ukraine are working together to make sure security guarantees for Ukraine are at such a robust level that Russia will never try to attack again, NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Friday, adding that Europe and the United States would be involved in providing them. "Robust security guarantees will be essential, and this is what we are now working on to define", Rutte said while in Kyiv during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Makini Brice, Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Brussels bureau) The security guarantees for Ukraine, being negotiated by European countries and the United States, will consist of two levels. Source: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at a joint press conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on 22 August, as reported by European Pravda Details: Rutte highlighted the importance of Ukraine, the United States and Europe working together on what future security guarantees should look like. He noted that there is currently an agreement that there will be two levels of guarantees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rutte said that, at the first level, there would essentially be the establishment of some sort of peace agreement or a ceasefire, or a combination of both, and that this level was intended to ensure that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were as strengthened as possible so that they could withstand any difficulties. The second level, he said, is what the United States and Europe will provide. He added that this was what they were currently working on and noted that the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk negotiations had also not resulted in real guarantees, and that their new guarantees must be different. Rutte emphasised that the future guarantees must be of such a level that Vladimir Putin, sitting in Moscow, would never even think about attacking Ukraine again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Background: As reported, Romania is ready to provide NATO with military bases as part of the security guarantees for Ukraine. Meanwhile, European leaders are asking the United States to send F-35 fighter jets to Romania within the framework of security guarantees for Ukraine. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has travelled to Kiev to discuss Western security guarantees for Ukraine, describing the guarantees as an important factor for lasting peace in Ukraine. He said this after his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a joint press conference on Friday. Rutte also praised US President Donald Trump. Trump recently hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and then subsequently spoke with Zelensky and the European NATO allies in Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rutte said that Trump had brought movement into the negotiations. "President Trump has made this a priority, not only breaking the deadlock with Putin but making clear that the United States will be involved in providing security guarantees for Ukraine," said Rutte. Zelensky seeks funds for more weapons Zelensky, in turn, requested further assistance in financing the arms industry. He said that Ukraine has great potential, particularly in drone production. "It's not a secret: It's slightly more than $6 billion," Zelensky said regarding the financial needs. The president described drones as the number one weapon. There was also discussion about the financing of arms purchases in the United States by NATO countries. "We have discussed this with Mark. It can be $1 billion per month, maybe something like $1.5 billion," said Zelensky. Rutte, who was a supporter during Zelensky's sensitive trip to Washington, was praised by the Ukrainian president as an important and reliable partner for Kiev since the beginning of the Russian war. Ukraine has been defending itself against the Russia invasion for nearly three and a half years. In its investors report on a planned merger with NorthWestern Energy, Black Corp. explained the territories the two companies cover. (Black Hills Corp. - NorthWestern Energy merger report) TOPEKA Black Hills Energy Corp. announced it will merge with NorthWestern Energy Group, pending regulatory approval. Black Hills offers natural gas services in Kansas, primarily in the southwest and south-central part of the state. It is regulated by the Kansas Corporation Commission. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Company leaders said in a joint investor call this week that merger approval is needed in the three states in which both companies currently operate, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota, and possibly in Arkansas. The all-stock transaction is expected to close in 12 to 15 months. In the agreement, NorthWestern shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.98 shares of Black Hills for each share of NorthWestern they own at the close of the transaction, a press release said. Black Hills shareholders will continue to hold the same number of shares of the combined company that they hold of Black Hills immediately before the closing of the transaction, the press release said. Once the merger is completed, Black Hills shareholders will own approximately 56% and NorthWestern shareholders will own approximately 44% of the combined company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an investor call, Black Hills CEO Linn Evans said the merger strengthens both companies, which have been operating in the same areas for the past 20 years. Weve talked about potentially combining these two companies, and given the organic growth opportunities we have before us and the impact on customer affordability, the benefits of scale, we would argue, have never been more relevant, and merging our businesses now has never made more sense, Evans said. Upon closing, the company will have a new name and trade under a new stock ticker, Evans said. NorthWestern president and CEO Brian Bird will lead the merged company, and Evans said he will retire after the merger concludes. The company will be headquartered in Rapid City, South Dakota, where Black Hills headquarters are currently located. OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) A Navarre woman was sentenced to 90 months in prison after she was accused of taking nearly $600,000 from a 99-year-olds account. The Okaloosa County Court found Sheena Russell, 45, guilty on Thursday after she was accused of taking money out of the womans account to spend on extravagant vacations and bills. The brother of the victim tipped off investigators after the 99-year-old moved into a senior living home. Bank records pulled by OCSO show transfers to Russells account between March 30, 2020, and Sept. 22, 2021, for more than $582,647. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Investigators said Russell spent that money to pay off her mortgage, buy a car, and fund trips to Walt Disney World, Pigeon Forge in Tennessee, the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, Washington D.C., and a ski trip to Utah. After Russell finishes her 90 months in prison, she must complete twenty-two years of probation, during which she must maintain employment or training. OCSO said they spoke with the victim over FaceTime. She said that she never allowed Russell to take any money from the accounts. Russell is known to the family for helping the woman run errands after her husband passed away. Russell met the woman and her late husband while working as a waitress in Fort Walton Beach. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) After a summer of construction and closures, Cliff Avenue is open to one lane just in time for the first day of school at nearby Lincoln High School. People were driving through a sea of orange markers this morning on Cliff Avenue near Lincoln High School. Even though it is a very active construction zone, one lane of traffic in each direction is now open near the I-229 interchange site. Despite a few hiccups with a signal light that did not want to cooperate it appears drivers, including parents dropping off kids, were moving along fairly smoothly. Early cost savings in goal for $650 million prison Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I thought it was a great in shot from 41st street, it was yeah so easy, said a parent. Actually, it wasnt that bad, said another parent. But Im here quite a bit later than probably most people. Azaria, a student, got to school early and says she came in the back way to the parking lot to avoid the majority of the construction. Ive been coming to cheer, like over the summer and so I saw all the construction but it was ok today, said Azaria. Lincoln High is home to almost two thousand students, So it was only natural that drivers were expecting traffic to be a mess. Last week Sioux Falls School Superintendent, Jamie Nold urged families to plan ahead and leave early if possible and it appears many did. The nearly $50 million I-229 and Cliff Avenue construction project is scheduled to be completed in June of 2027. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Naval Air Station Pensacola recently announced that it will prohibit all service members from patronizing a local bar over safety concerns. Base Commander Captain Chandra Newman banned all military personnel from visiting Wild Gregs Saloon, as well as Pharaoh 2 convenience store, after a vote during a July 23 Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board, a spokesperson for NAS Pensacola told Military Times in an emailed statement. The Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board (AFDCB) has received numerous reports concerning the safety, morale and well being of service members, the spokesperson said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Newman also sent a warning to Mojos Famous Philly, Wings & More, a local wings spot that has a vape store attached, also over safety concerns. Wild Gregs Saloon, which has been around since 2014 and admits people 18 and older, is allegedly a hot spot for underage sailors looking to drink, according to local news reports. In an email Newman sent to Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves, which was obtained by local news outlets, Newman described Wild Gregs as contributing to unsafe and crime-conducive conditions. Newman said Wild Gregs enables underage drinking, drug use and sex acts, which allegedly take place in the bathrooms, according to the memo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No more late-night off-base drinking for US troops in Japan Newman also claimed the Pharaoh 2 convenience store sold adult products to underage service members and that Mojos sold nitrous oxide, colloquially known as whippets, to military personnel. Mojos and Pharaoh 2 declined to comment to Military Times about the accusations. But the owner of Mojos, speaking to local media, argued that if a customer is clearly a member of the military, they dont sell them whippets. If the service member is in civilian clothing, however, they cant tell the difference. Pharaoh 2s owner told local media that the store never sold to anyone under 21 and that they always check IDs before selling alcohol to customers. Wild Gregs Saloon could not be reached for comment. (NewsNation) Three Navy destroyers will be deploying to the waters off Venezuela as part of President Donald Trumps efforts to combat illegal drug smuggling. In February, the State Department designated several cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and in recent weeks has reportedly given the U.S. military the go-ahead to use force against them. The move appears to be an escalation in conflicts between the U.S. and Venezuelas Maduro regime as Trump continues an aggressive effort to combat Latin American cartels. Reuters is reporting that around 4,000 Marines and others could potentially be deployed to the Caribbean region as well. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump to patrol DC streets with police and military On state television, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro responded, saying he is preparing between four and five million militia who are going to be prepared and armed. At a public event, Maduro went on to say, The empire has gone mad and renewed its threat to Venezuelan peace and tranquility. Trumps move to designate some cartels as terrorist organizations opened up a range of new options for the Pentagons involvement in the fight against drug smuggling. This requires a whole of government effort and through coordination with regional partners, the Defense Department will undoubtedly play an important role towards meeting the Presidents objective to eliminate the ability of these cartels to threaten the territory, safety and security of the United States and its people, said spokesman Sean Parnell. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reports are surfacing of potential American strikes in other countries in Latin America, though neither the Pentagon nor the White House has confirmed those reports. White House restores stalled CDC research funds With Congress on recess, lawmakers have been quiet about the plans, but previously, those on both sides of the aisle said they would like to see more participation and cooperation from our allies who have cartels operating inside their borders. While some Republicans are ready to support Trump if there is escalation or actual strikes on other countries, other lawmakers are hesitant because they want to avoid the possibility of seeing American boots on the ground. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. A U.S. Navy sailor was convicted of espionage on Wednesday for selling military secrets to China for $12,000, according to the Department of Justice. Jinchao Wei, also known as Patrick Wei, faces sentencing on Dec. 1 after a federal jury found him guilty on six espionage-related counts. The case highlights Chinas aggressive targeting of U.S. military personnel and underscores the severe consequences for betraying an oath to protect national security. Wei served as a machinists mate aboard the USS Essex at Naval Base San Diego, holding a security clearance that gave him access to sensitive defense information about the ships systems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Chinese intelligence officer first contacted Wei through social media in Feb. 2022, posing as a naval enthusiast to build the relationship. Over 18 months, Wei sent photographs, videos, and technical data about Navy vessels to his handler, including ship movement information and weapons capabilities taken from restricted Navy computer systems. The defendant, who took an oath to protect our nation and was entrusted with a security clearance as a petty officer in the U.S. Navy, sold out his country for $12,000, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. He violated his oath, betrayed his uniform and fellow sailors, and turned his back on his adopted nation for money. The trial lasted five days. Jurors deliberated for one day before reaching their verdict. Evidence included conversations between Wei and his Chinese handler showing efforts to conceal the operation, with messages revealing specific tasks assigned by the officer and details of Weis payments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Wei was also convicted of violating the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits exporting defense-related technical data without State Department authorization. China continues to aggressively target U.S. military members with and without clearances, said FBI Counterintelligence Division Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky. This verdict shows the FBI and our partners will aggressively investigate and hold accountable anyone who threatens U.S. national security. The FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service led the investigation, with assistance from the State Department and Transportation Security Administration. The North Carolina Supreme Court has sided with A homeowners association in a Union County chicken case Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke told you about earlier this year. READ MORE: Familys fight against HOA over chickens goes before NC Supreme Court Mary Schroeder and her family used to live in Oak Grove Farm in Waxhaw. She told Stoogenke they had about 60 chickens. She knew the HOA didnt allow poultry, but that household pets were allowed, as long as you didnt make money off of them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So, her family considered the birds as pets. But their HOA said no and fined them more than $30,000. She sued but the HOA won during a trial. However, the family won an appeal. The state Supreme Court now ruled the jury applied the ordinary meaning to words, such as pets, and came to the right conclusion. VIDEO: Familys fight against HOA over chickens goes before NC Supreme Court SM Energy Company (NYSE:SM) is one of the deep value stocks to buy according to analysts. On July 31, TD Cowen analyst David Deckelbaum reaffirmed a Buy rating on SM Energy and set a $42 price target. He pointed to the companys strong second-quarter results, where production reached record levels and came in about 5% ahead of expectations, helped by solid well performance in the Uinta and Austin Chalk regions. SM Energys (SM) Solid Cash Flow and Balance Sheet Drive Analyst Optimism Pixabay/Public Domain Lower cash costs provided an additional boost, offsetting softer pricing and driving a sharp financial beat, including free cash flow that was substantially above consensus. Deckelbaum also noted that SM Energy reduced debt by roughly $140 million during the quarter, reinforcing balance sheet strength. Looking ahead, management raised its oil production forecast while maintaining stable guidance for the rest of the year. These operational and financial improvements support the analysts positive stance on the stock. SM Energy Company (NYSE:SM) is an independent oil and gas producer focused on acquiring, developing, and operating crude oil, natural gas, and NGL assets, primarily in Texas and Utah. While we acknowledge the potential of SM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 10 Best Large Cap Tech Stocks to Buy Now and 10 Best Big Tech Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. State inspectors have uncovered nearly 20 decomposing bodies hidden inside a Colorado funeral home operated by the countys elected coroner, a discovery authorities called a "profound violation of trust and a heartbreaking betrayal." The remains, believed to date back as far as 15 years, were discovered Wednesday in a concealed room at Davis Mortuary, according to officials who spoke during a news conference Thursday held by the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office. The chambers door was hidden behind a cardboard display, and inspectors noted a "strong odor" upon finding the room, local outlets reported, citing state documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The funeral home, operating since 2010, underwent its first annual inspection this week under a new oversight law passed after a local 2023 scandal in which nearly 190 bodies were improperly stored at Return to Nature Funeral Home and families were given fake ashes. Colorado Funeral Home Owner Sentenced To 20 Years After Stashing Nearly 190 Decaying Bodies Authorities have suspended Davis Mortuary in Pueblo, Colo., after reports that nearly 20 bodies were found in a hidden room Wednesday. "We have received credible information that Davis Mortuary has been improperly storing human remains for years," Armando Saldate III, director of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said Thursday. Read On The Fox News App "This is a profound violation of trust and a heartbreaking betrayal of the families who had trusted their loved ones to this funeral home." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During the inspection, Brian Cotter, who has served as the county coroner since 2014 and co-owns the funeral home with his brother, Chris Cotter, asked inspectors not to enter the room, local reports say, citing records. Colorado Funeral Home Owners Plead Guilty To Corpse Abuse After Nearly 200 Bodies Found Decomposing Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter has operated Davis Mortuary since 2014. Cotter reportedly told officials that some of the bodies in the hidden room had been awaiting cremation for over a decade and acknowledged that families may have been provided fake cremains of their relatives. The state has since suspended Davis Mortuarys funeral home license. Its crematory license remained valid until November 2024, though staff reported that no cremations have been performed there for roughly 10 years, officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Illinois Coroner Releases New Details About Woman Found Dead On Illegal Immigrant's Property Armando Saldate III, the director of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, announced details of an investigation into Davis Mortuary Thursday. "Our top priorities are to respectfully and humanely process the scene, identify all the deceased and notify their families and loved ones," Saldate said. "This is going to be a comprehensive investigation, and the financials will definitely be part of them," he added. No formal charges have been filed yet. Authorities said they are aware of Brian Cotters whereabouts, and he will continue to serve as the Pueblo County coroner for now. Both Cotter brothers remain under investigation, though neither is subject to travel restrictions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brian Cotter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. Original article source: Nearly 20 decomposing bodies found stashed in hidden room of funeral home run by county coroner YORK, Pa. (WHTM) A Pennsylvania lawmaker just announced that nearly $40 million has been provisionally awarded for the purpose of expanding broadband access in southern York County. Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-York), who serves on the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority (PBDA), announced that the authority has provisionally awarded more than $39 million to expand broadband access in southern York County. Close Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now This Week in Pennsylvania Reliable high-speed internet is no longer a luxury its a necessity for education, health care, and jobs, Sen. Phillips-Hill said. I worked on the law that created the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority to get government working for the people and to make broadband expansion a real priority. Today, that work is delivering real results in southern York County, closing the digital divide for families, students, and small businesses who have been left behind for too long. According to Sen. Phillips-Hill, this newly announced funding is part of Pennsylvanias nearly $800 million allocation through the federally funded Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This funding, together with support from Comcast Cable Communications, will be used to expand broadband access in the community. The provisional award will specifically help connect underserved households, schools, and businesses across York County. It will also support programs that make services more accessible for families, expand access to digital tools and resources, and create new opportunities for workforce development and economic growth. For more information, you can visit the PBDAs website. This is a developing story. Stay with abc27 News as more information becomes available Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Nearly half of the UKs TV industry workforce are unemployed, a Bectu survey has found, with many having to seek work outside of the sector. The unions Big Bectu Survey 2025 found that 45% of those in TV drama, 46% of those in unscripted and 45% of those working in commercials were not working when it surveyed 3,621 people in March 2025. Nearly seven in 10 (68%) said they were struggling financially. More from Deadline Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The long tail of the U.S. strikes remains a major issue. Just 11% of those working in unscripted, 10% of those in commercials and 17% of those working in TV drama said that theyve seen a full recovery in their employment since the end of the industrial action nearly two years ago. Bectu boss Philippa Childs described the findings as a wake up call. These findings lay bare the devastating impact of recent industry challenges compounded by years of insecure employment practices and poor conditions across much of the sector, she added. And on top of this, many TV workers face entrenched discrimination, bullying and harassment, propped up by huge power imbalances and a lack of independent and robust reporting mechanisms. On the latter point, more than six in 10 of those working in TV (61%) told the union that in the past year they had personally witnessed or experienced bullying or harassment in the workplace. Half of those incidents were not reported (48%), added Bectu. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many workers have had to turn to getting work outside the sector to supplement their income. Bectus research found that 29% of TV workers have another job outside of the creative industries to sustain themselves financially, while one third now say they will leave the industry in the next five years. Nearly 90% of the TV workforce (those in broadcasting, unscripted, TV drama and commercials) feel their work is precarious. The past year or so has been characterized by a big loss of opportunity in the UK TV industry due to the death of mid-budget programming. Broadcasters are tending to only commission cheaper shows in bulk or premium series that require specialist expertise. At the same time there has been a major shift in American spending since the strikes, which has led to what broadcasters have deemed a scripted funding crisis. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He needs to be stopped: More customers accuse fence company of taking money, not doing work Heidi Busher of Orlando paid a $1500 deposit to replace part of her fence, but she claims the company never built the fence and wont return the money. I think its despicable, honestly, Busher told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal. The company, Knight Fence, is a company Action 9 has warned consumers about before. Do you have a consumer complaint or need help from Jeff Deal and Action 9? Click the banner below to submit a tip. In March, Jeff Deal reported on Knight Fence and its owner Charles Ron Brown. Back then, Debbie Hendrickson had a similar complaint after paying more than $2000 up front. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deal asked, What do you think about somebody whos treating customers like this? Hendrickson replied, They need to be out of business. When the Action 9 team tracked Ron Brown down, he promised to pay Hendrickson back. Deal asked, So, youre going to give her the $2,400 back? Brown answered, Yep. But Hendrickson said after he sent a few small payments, Brown stopped responding. This time, Action 9s Jeff Deal caught up with Brown while he was walking his dogs in Orlando and said, We didnt expect to have to see you again. We got another consumer complaint. Heidi Busher says that you took her $1,500 and never built the fence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brown answered, Were bankrupt. Busher signed a deal with Knight Fence in January after a storm damaged it last year. Shed used the company before on another part of her fence and felt the work was ok. She said, Just wanting to support local business. So, after that first experience, I didnt have any qualms about giving him repeat business. But after paying that $1500 deposit, getting Knight Fence to do the work became a hassle. According to Busher there were excuses and delays. Finally, Ron Brown admitted he couldnt do the job and promised to refund her deposit in about a week. Busher said, One week turned into two turned into three. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its now been since April that she claims she last received a response. She showed the Action 9 team a text message with him responding with the message going as fast as possible after she asked for an update on getting the deposit back. Knight Fence is F Rated by the Better Business Bureau with other complaints about Ron Brown taking money and not doing the work. Action 9 also saw last month, someone with the same first and last name and middle initial, opened an LLC for a fencing company with a different name. Its address is listed at the UPS store about two and a half miles from Browns home. But the Charles R Brown who runs Knight Fence told Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal he didnt start the new LLC. Deal questioned, Thats not you? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brown answered, No. Deal responded, Youre not planning on opening up another business under a different name? Brown again replied, No. Heidi Busher hopes not. She doesnt want him doing any business anywhere in Florida again. People need to be aware, but he needs to be stopped, like its just horrible, she said. Brown said to Jeff Deal, What do you want me to say? Deal answered, Were just trying to get answers for the consumers. Brown said, If I had the money, Id give it all back. Id give them back tomorrow. Soon as I have the money, theyll get the money back. Is that okay? Jeff Deal asked, Youre going to give them the money back? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brown answered, Yeah. Brown is also being sued by businesses that claim he owes them thousands of dollars. Even though Brown claimed the company is bankrupt, Action 9 couldnt find any bankruptcy filings for Knight Fence. When hiring for home repairs or renovations, its best not to pay for the entire job or make large deposits up front. Its less of an incentive for companies to do the work or do a good job. Its also important to research any company youre thinking about hiring. FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) Two dogs were rescued after concerned neighbors in a Franklin County community reported hearing the canines being beaten and whipped, according to Pennsylvania State Police. Pennsylvania State Police at Chambersburg filed dozens of animal cruelty charges Thursday against 54-year-old Ezell Crosby III, of Fayetteville, online court records show. Troopers described the dogs in the charging documents; one was a white Pit Bull/Labrador Retriever-type/American Bulldog type breed, and the other dog was a black and brown Rottweiler-type breed. Interviewing the neighbors The criminal complaint details, a Pennsylvania Humane Police officer received numerous reports in September 2023 of alleged animal cruelty ongoing at a home along Greenbriar Lane in Guilford Township. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Former Chambersburg area softball coach accused of sexual acts with underage player The officer spoke with five different people who described seeing and hearing the abuse, saying the dogs were allegedly kept inside crates in the garage 23 hours a day and being whipped multiple times with a leather leash, according to Troopers. A video recording of the alleged abuse was also handed over to law enforcement. State Police said that some of the neighbors discussed witnessing the abuse amongst each other. A veterinarian who was shown the video told police that those strikes would cause the dog a lot of pain, and they could even cause serious bodily injury or death. The dogs medical conditions After the dogs were seized from their owner during a search at the home on Sept. 5, 2023, they were taken for a veterinary examination. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The charging documents show the Pit Bull-type dog had too many injuries to count and document. The dog was reported to have bruising and welts all over, and some of the marks appeared to have been caused by a strap/leash being whipped. Some injuries seemed to be in different stages of healing, indicating some of them were newer and others could have been caused weeks or months ago. Drone leads to dog with jar stuck on its heads rescue in York County The vet noted neck bruises that matched prong-type collar marks and repeated hash marks consistent with a strag of leash on the rottweiler-type dog. Close Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Severe Weather Alerts State Police added that there are eight witnesses who are willing to testify against Crosby. Crosby faces felony charges of aggravated cruelty to animals torture and aggravated cruelty to animals causing serious bodily injury or death. He also faces misdemeanor charges of cruelty to animals and neglect of animals. He faces 20 felonies and 20 misdemeanors total. Crosy was released on unsecured bail set at $50,000 by Magisterial District Judge Kelly Rock after he was arraigned. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 8. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday announced the approval of a plan to capture Gaza City, but also held out the prospect of new negotiations on a ceasefire with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. During a visit to Israeli soldiers stationed in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said: "I came here to approve the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] plans for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas." "In parallel, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war, on conditions that are acceptable for Israel," he added, saying the strategies go "hand in hand." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a fresh ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful and were recently interrupted. However, the international mediators - the United States, Qatar and Egypt - are endeavouring to resume contacts. According to media reports, Netanyahu wanted to approve operational plans for the capture of Gaza City at a security meeting with Defence Minister Israel Katz and military officials. Earlier this month, the Security Cabinet authorized the capture of Gaza City - the largest city in the territory - and the evacuation of the population to the south. Hamas said on Monday that it had given the mediators a "positive response" to a new ceasefire proposal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plan is reportedly an adapted version of a previously negotiated proposal by US special envoy Steve Witkoff. It envisages a 60-day ceasefire during which 10 living hostages would be released in return for Palestinian prisoners. There are still a total of 50 hostages in Gaza, around 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Israel has not yet sent an official response to the proposal. Fresh Israeli attacks on Gaza Meanwhile, renewed Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have resulted in numerous fatalities, according to Palestinian sources. The al-Awda Hospital said on Thursday that seven people were killed and 18 others injured in shelling in the central Gaza Strip near a distribution point for aid supplies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There were also many dead and injured - including children - in attacks in Gaza City and Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip, according to medical circles. An Israeli army spokeswoman said they are examining the reports. The Gaza war was triggered by the attack by Hamas and other Islamist groups on Israel on October 7, 2023. In the unprecedented massacre, the militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 as hostages to the Gaza Strip. Since then, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed. The tally does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but the figures are seen as credible by the United Nations. Israel warns Gaza City health officials to move south Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military said it had issued "initial warning calls" to medical authorities and international organizations to prepare for their evacuation to the south of the territory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The calls were placed on Tuesday and stated that "adjustments are being made to the hospital infrastructure in the south of the Strip to receive the sick and wounded," the IDF said in a post on Telegram. Aid organizations have warned that Gaza's healthcare system is already on the brink of collapse after almost two years of war. Estimates suggest that around 1 million people are currently in the city. The already dire situation for the civilian population could worsen further as a result of the offensive. Many Palestinians fear a new wave of displacement, similar to what occurred during the war following Israel's founding in 1948 and during the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel accuses militants of attacking aid corridor The Israeli military also reported that Palestinian extremists fired on a main access road used for transporting humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A projectile was launched from an area adjacent to the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, the military said in a statement. "The launch was carried out during the passage of a truck convoy which were heading to pick up humanitarian aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing, and fell at a distance of 300 meters from the corridor," the statement said. The incident was described as an attempt to sabotage the delivery and distribution of aid. In contrast, the military wing of Hamas said they had attacked a "command and control centre as well as a gathering of enemy soldiers and vehicles south-west of the city of Rafah." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement International aid organizations repeatedly accuse Israel of obstructing the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip. However, the Israeli authority responsible for civilian affairs, COGAT, reports daily on the imports of several hundred trucks with aid as well as airdrops. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the UN report on famine in parts of the Gaza Strip as "an outright lie." "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation," Netanyahu wrote on the X platform on Friday. "Since the beginning of the war Israel has enabled 2 million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Israeli Foreign Ministry had previously written on X that there was no famine in Gaza. The assessment of the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which said on Friday that it has "reasonable evidence" that there is famine in a part of Gaza that includes Gaza City, was based on false information provided by Hamas, the Israeli government said. In recent weeks, it said, aid deliveries had "flooded the Gaza Strip with basic foodstuffs." Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a press conference at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on August 10, 2025. Credit - Abir SultanAFP/Getty Images On August 8, 2025, Israels cabinet endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus latest plan: to assert full control of the Gaza Strip, beginning with Gaza City. The move would force roughly a million residents south by Oct. 7, two years to the day since Hamass massacre. The symbolism of Netanyahus timing is not subtle. It is meant to project resolve, to frame the war as unfinished business, to tie the next operation to that trauma. But in truth, it reveals not a plan to end the war, but a plan to never end it. Netanyahus long game is decades in the making. This month marks 20 years since Israels disengagement from Gaza, a dramatic withdrawal with no day after plan. That vacuum paved the way for Hamass takeover and years of blockade, rockets, and reprisals. Successive governments, Netanyahus above all, reinforced the split by quietly propping up Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority, ensuring no unified Palestinian leadership could press Israel toward statehood talks. Two decades on, Israel is again acting with maximal force and minimal diplomacyand again without a credible end state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nearly two years into the war, the battlefield has lurched forward and back; final pushes have come and gone. Whats different now is stark: Hamas, as a governing army, has been stripped of its capacity to ruleits battalions shattered, its ministries dismantled, and its command structure dispersed. What remains is guerrilla warfare: still able to kill and sabotage, but no longer able to govern. Yet instead of scaling back in the wake of this military reality, Netanyahu is pressing ahead with an operation that will displace huge numbers yet again, even though military experts across the spectrum agree that everything achievable by force has already been accomplished. Even Israels senior military leadership objected to Netanyahus takeover plan. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned that a Gaza City assault would imperil the remaining hostages and thrust exhausted troops into a death trap, an extraordinary act of public defiance for a chief of staff. After the cabinets green light, the Israeli army announced that Zamir had approved the operations main concept. In the end, Zamir fell in line with a political order he had warned against. The episode was telling: objections may be voiced, and sometimes shape policy, but ultimately they will be overridden by a political momentum that thrives precisely because the government refuses to define a clear endpoint. A perpetual pattern In recent days, mediators advanced yet another ceasefire proposal with a partial hostage release; Hamas accepted. For days Netanyahu dithered, buying time with silence. Under mounting pressure, he finally declared that he had instructed the start of immediate talks for the release of all the hostages on terms acceptable to Israeleven as he announced final approval for the operational plans to take over Gaza. In effect, this rejects the current offer and sets up a formula for deadlock: the very conditions Netanyahu insists on are those Hamas will never accept. What looks like movement is stalling by design. It is not negotiation; it is delay dressed as resolve. In that sleight of hand lies Netanyahus method: clarity would force a choice, while ambiguity keeps every option open. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As in so many prior announcements, this one keeps all options openNetanyahus preferred mode of perpetual maneuver, deferred decisions, and strategic vagueness. He has already hinted this is only the first step, with more to follow. What that more will be is anyones guess, not least Netanyahus. The cycle repeats: a dramatic declaration of decisive action, followed by mission creep, inconclusive results, all without resolution, setting the stage for yet another offensive. The pattern is unmistakable. Whenever an exit lane appearedsuch as negotiations on ending the warmany critics, including myself, believe that Netanyahu blocked it or steered back into combat. In May, his government launched its most recent offensive, dubbed Gideons Chariots, expanding Israels ground control to roughly three-quarters of the Gaza Strip. After two months of fighting, with thousands of reservists mobilized and scores of Israeli soldiers killed, the operations ostensible objectives were nowhere near achieved. Hamas had not surrendered; Israeli hostages remained in captivity; and a dubious plan of aid distribution not only failed to ease humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip but deepened the starvation, leading many observers, including two of Israels most prominent human rights organizations, to call it genocide. Instead of pivoting to diplomacy, however, Netanyahu prepared the next assault. Worse still, I believe that by opting to continue fighting, Israel has, time and again, squandered strategic gains. These missed opportunities are not accidental; they serve a political purpose. This past March, for instance, was one such moment, when instead of expanding a ceasefire-for-hostages deal (a swap that had paused fighting and freed 30 hostages alive), Israel violated the agreement and chose to resume fighting. U.S. President Donald Trump, who had the leverage to enforce that deal, instead gave Netanyahu a free hand to collapse ita choice that not only doomed the hostages but began to tie the Gaza war to his own presidency. The aftermath of the June war with Irana brief but intense conflict that many believed had fully restored Israels deterrencewas another example, in my view, of Netanyahu forfeiting progress for political power. Former negotiators and security chiefs have been blunt: the government has turned away from every viable offramp, playing even Trump in the process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Why reject every viable offramp? Because Oct. 7 was a catastrophic intelligence failure that many predicted would end Netanyahus career in short order. But war gives him cover: a way to postpone the political reckoning and ensure no election is called before the last possible moment. His coalition, the most extreme in Israels history, is sustained by perpetual conflict. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir openly demand the expulsion of Gazas population and the reestablishment of settlements; Netanyahu avoids saying this outright, but ties himself to the far right with repeated promises of total victory and a steady drip of escalation. The cost of never-ending war Continuing a maximalist ground war after Hamas has been stripped of its military and governing capacity, let alone its ability to wage another attack on the scale of Oct. 7, does not free the hostages or make Israel safer; it only primes the next round. The costs now mount: Israeli society is riven over the hostages and the wars aims; the army is stretched by record-long, high-intensity combat. Just this past week, hundreds of thousands filled Tel Aviv demanding a truce to bring the captives home. The protests are not a turning point, but rather proof of how deeply the governments refusal of an off-ramp has split the country. Meanwhile, even Israels strongest allies recoil at the starvation in Gaza. Israels relationship with the U.S. rests largely on Trumps mood, and even strains within the Republican Party have emerged. Most damning, the Israeli governments deliberate choice to prolong the war has frozen the one outcome most Israelis agree on: bringing the hostages home. Yet despite this mounting toll, a clear path forward exists, one that Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Indeed, the way out is not a mystery; it has been on the table for months. It begins with Hamas relinquishing control of Gaza in exchange for a full ceasefire and hostage release. Gaza would then be secured by an Arab-led stabilization force, operating under international oversight, and potentially joined by European partners, while a technocratic interim administration prepares the ground for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take over. Reconstruction would proceed alongside demilitarization and Palestinian security reform, paving the way for Gaza and the West Bank to be politically reunited under a single, accountable Palestinian Authority. Arab states and Washington have both signaled readiness to contribute if the transition leads back to PA rule and a clear political horizon. Several of Israels key Western partners are moving toward recognizing a Palestinian state to strengthen the PA for this role. This is the sole credible political off-ramp; there is no sustainable alternative in which Israel permanently controls Gaza. Netanyahus answer has been to veto the very plan that could give Israel a way out. By now, the endless endgame is not only Netanyahus. Trump, who entered office promising to free the hostages and close the Gaza chapter quickly, has instead become complicit in prolonging it. Each time he has indulged Netanyahumost starkly in March, when he let a full ceasefire-for-hostages deal collapsehe has bound the war to his own presidency. The longer it drags on, the less it looks like Netanyahus forever war alone, and the more it risks becoming Trumps war as well. Netanyahu insists that the Palestinian Authority is indistinguishable from Hamas and therefore promises Israel will retain indefinite security control over the Gaza Strip, as if security could be neatly separated from civilian governance. It cannot. In practice, security control seeps into every aspect of life. The West Bank is proof: Israels security apparatus governs not just borders but also water and electricity, the ability to move from town to town, the granting of permits, even the terms of economic activity. To imagine Gaza under such a regime is to imagine not a free or stable entity but a territory micromanaged by the gun, combustible by design. The war has long outlived its cause, sustained only by the political needs of the man directing it. Until Netanyahu leaves power, expect more tactical pivots dressed up as strategy, more military gambles for political gain, and more futile searches for an endgame. But Netanyahus only endgame is no end at all. Contact us at letters@time.com. DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he will give final approval for the takeover of Gaza City while also restarting negotiations with Hamas aimed at returning all the remaining hostages and ending the war on Israels terms. The wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days. Netanyahus approval was expected during a meeting with senior security officials late Thursday, but no decision was announced before midnight in Jerusalem. Hamas said earlier this week that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators, which if accepted by Israel could forestall the offensive. The Israeli military has begun calling medical officials and international organizations in the northern Gaza Strip to encourage them to evacuate to the south ahead of the expanded operation. The military plans to call up 60,000 reservists and extend the service of 20,000 more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israeli strikes, meanwhile, killed at least 36 Palestinians Thursday across Gaza, according to local hospitals. A renewed offensive could bring even more casualties and displacement to the territory, where the war has already killed tens of thousands and where experts have warned of imminent famine. Many Israelis fear the operation could also doom the remaining 20 or so living hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. Gaza City operation could begin in days During a visit to the militarys Gaza command in southern Israel, Netanyahu said he would approve the armys plans to retake Gaza City and had instructed officials to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel. These two things defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages go hand in hand, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It appeared to mark Israels first public response to the latest ceasefire proposal drawn up by Egypt and Qatar. Egyptian and Hamas officials say it is almost identical to an earlier one that Israel accepted before the talks stalled last month. The proposal would include the release of some of the hostages in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a pullback of Israeli forces and negotiations over a more lasting ceasefire. Israeli troops have already begun more limited operations in Gaza Citys Zeitoun neighborhood and the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, areas where they have carried out several previous large-scale raids over the course of the war, only to see militants later regroup. The military says it plans to operate in areas where ground troops have not yet entered and where it says Hamas still has military and governing capabilities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So far, there has been little sign of Palestinians fleeing en masse, as they did when Israel carried out an earlier offensive in Gaza City in the opening weeks of the war. The military says it controls around 75% of Gaza, and residents say nowhere in the territory feels safe. Protests in Israel and Gaza Hundreds gathered Thursday for a rare protest in Gaza City against the war and Israels plans to support the mass relocation of Palestinians to other countries. Women and children held placards reading Save Gaza and Stop the war, stop the savage attack, save us, against a backdrop of destroyed buildings as Palestinian music played. Unlike in previous protests, there were no expressions of opposition to Hamas. We want the war on Gaza to stop. We dont want to migrate. Twenty-two months its enough. Enough death. Enough destruction, said Bisan Ghazal, a woman displaced from Gaza City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Israel, protesters marched Thursday night in Tel Aviv holding banners that read The people will bring back the hostages and How much blood will be spilled? Among the demonstrators was Dudu Dotan, who said Netanyahu is endangering the remaining hostages by moving forward with the planned Gaza City offensive. Of the 50 still being held in Gaza, Israel believes about 20 hostages are still alive. This way will not bring the hostages back, Dotan said. Every hostage he brought back, he brought back through deals. And every time he tried to bring them back with military force, he caused the hostages to be killed. Plans for widening the offensive have also sparked international outrage, with many of Israels closest Western allies but not the United States calling on it to end the war. Dozens killed across Gaza At least 36 Palestinians were killed Thursday by Israeli fire across the Gaza Strip, including 14 who were seeking humanitarian aid, according to local hospitals. The military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Israeli military said it killed several armed militants in the Morag Corridor, a military zone where people seeking aid have repeatedly come under fire in recent weeks, according to witnesses and health officials. Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza had earlier reported that six people were killed in that area while seeking aid on Thursday. It was not possible to reconcile the two accounts. The Media Freedom Coalition, which promotes press freedoms worldwide, called Thursday for Israel to allow independent foreign news organizations access to Gaza. Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international media during the war, in which at least 184 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed. Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war, said a statement signed by 27 of the coalitions member countries. Israeli strikes destroy evacuated tent camp Israeli airstrikes also destroyed a tent camp in Deir al-Balah, the only city in Gaza that has been relatively unscathed in the war and where many have sought refuge. Residents said the Israeli military warned them to flee shortly before the strikes set the camp ablaze, and there were no reports of casualties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Families, many with children, could later be seen sifting through the ashes for the belongings they had managed to take with them during earlier evacuations. Mohammad Kahlout, who had been displaced from northern Gaza, said they were given just five minutes to gather what they could and evacuate. We are civilians, not terrorists. What did we do, and what did our children do, to be displaced again? The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that at least 62,192 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Another two people have died from malnutrition-related causes, bringing the total number of such deaths to 271, including 112 children, the Health Ministry said. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. It does not say whether those killed by Israeli fire are civilians or combatants, but it says around half were women and children. The U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own. Hamas-led militants started the war when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Hamas says it will only free the rest in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. (The Center Square) Southern California is gearing up for its current heat wave, with Gov. Gavin Newsom pre-deploying additional firefighting resources to Inyo County on Thursday. The pre-deployment of resources to the county, which is part of the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range, is part of Californias Phase 2 plan. The plan started Wednesday in response to the National Weather Service's Red Flag warnings for several counties in Southern California, according to a press release from Newsoms office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Red Flag warnings mean fire weather conditions are happening or expected to happen within the next 24 hours. The National Weather Service is forecasting 100-degree weather in several Southern California counties, with dry and windy conditions to hit several areas as well. California's Phase 2 plan aims to ramp up state and local coordination of resources to prepare for the extreme fire weather lasting through Sunday. The California Governors Office of Emergency Services approved the pre-deployment of resources, already pre-deploying resources to six other counties earlier this week. Those counties are Los Angeles, San Diego, Kern, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Bernardino. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A total of 52 fire engines, 10 water tenders, nine bulldozers, five helicopters, 10 hand crews, 14 dispatchers and two Incident Management Teams have been pre-deployed across the seven counties, which now include Inyo. The pre-deployment of resources is a part of Californias wildfire response strategy and is designed to ensure quick responses to new fires and minimize the destruction from new wildfires. David Acuna, battalion chief and public information officer at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told The Center Square Thursday it is important to stop wildfires early when the weather is hot because if the fires get larger, conditions make it harder to stop the fire. Hot, dry and windy conditions are forecast for the rest of the week in Southern California. Such conditions "increase the risk of wildfires because it causes vegetation to dry out and become more receptive to fire spread, Chris Dargan, crisis communication and public affairs officer at the Governors Office of Emergency Services, told The Center Square Thursday. And windy conditions fan flames and can cause embers to travel ahead of the fire causing spot fires in new locations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The pre-deployment of resources comes when local fire agencies think they might need additional resources to help combat conditions in their communities and submit a request to the state. Dargan said local officials decide the assignments and staging locations of the resources. Soybeans are showing some midday gains as meal pushes higher, with bean futures up 4 to 5 cents. The cmdtyView national average Cash Bean price is up 4 cents at $9.71 1/4. Soymeal futures are up another $2.80 to $6.60, with Soy Oil futures down 24 to 26 points on the day. Export Sales estimates are looking for between net reductions of 300,000 MT to sales of 300,000 MT for old crop bean business in the week ending on August 14. New crop sales are expected to land between 0.4 and 1 MMT. Soybean meal sales are estimated at net reduction of 50,000 MT to sales of 450,000 MT, with bean oil seen between net cancellations of 10,000 and 15,000 MT in sales. More News from Barchart The second day of the ProFarmer Crop Tour finished off data in Nebraska, with soybean pod counts averaging 1,348.31, which was 15% above last year and 19.1% larger than the 3-year average. Pod counts in Indiana were down 2.31% from a year ago at 1,376.59, which was also 6.3% above the 3-year average. Sep 25 Soybeans are at $10.17 1/4, up 4 1/4 cents, Nearby Cash is at $9.71 1/4, up 4 cents, Nov 25 Soybeans are at $10.38 1/2, up 4 3/4 cents, Jan 26 Soybeans are at $10.58, up 4 3/4 cents, New Crop Cash is at $9.62 1/2, up 4 1/4 cents, On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed legislation calling a Nov. 4 special election that will let Californians decide whether lawmakers should temporarily take control of drawing the states congressional maps that would heavily favor Democrats. Newsom confirmed the news in a post on X. The proposal, called the Election Rigging Response Act, would override the states independent redistricting commission for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. The commission, created by voters through ballot measures in 2008 and 2010, was designed to remove politics from the process, which is typically conducted every 10 years using U.S. Census data. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under the plan, the commission would remain in law but lose authority. Supporters say the measure is needed to counter partisan gerrymandering in GOP-led states. Opponents, however, argue it amounts to gerrymandering itself, returning power to politicians after voters had deliberately removed it. The proposal has drawn opposition from the League of Women Voters, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers. A campaign called Protect Voters First, backed in part by philanthropist Charles Munger Jr., has launched a website urging voters to reject the measure. The measure comes in response to Texas, which continues to advance a GOP-favored map that could flip five districts Republican. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Californians can view the proposed maps here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) teased campaign merchandise akin to President Trumps MAGA items in a post Friday, a decision that coincides with his mimicking of the president on social media. NEW MERCH COMING SOON! YOURE WELCOME, PATRIOTS! Newsom wrote in a post on the social platform X, with several American flag emojis. The post featured a photo of a red hat similar to ones the Trump campaign sells, with white print that reads NEWSOM WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump, earlier on Friday, was seen in the White House wearing a red hat with the words TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! Newsom, widely seen as a 2028 presidential contender, has taken to trolling Trump social media in recent days, writing his posts on X in the similar all-caps style and language the president uses on his Truth Social Platform. WOW!!! MY MAPS (THE BEST MAPS EVER MADE) WILL SOON PASS IN THE GREATEST LEGISLATURE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD (NOT JUST AMERICA). AMERICA CAN THANK ME (GAVIN C. NEWSOM) AND TWO VERY SPECIAL PEOPLE MAGIC MIKE & RAINMAKER ROBERT, WHO LEAD THE LEGISLATURE TOTAL LEGENDS!!! Newsom wrote in a post sent through his press office on X. PEOPLE ARE ALREADY SCREAMING MAMA! MAMA! AND I SAY, NO, I AM YOUR DADDY!!! Newsom added. THE GOLDEN ERA BEGINS IN THE GOLDEN STATE, ALL BECAUSE OF ME, THE PEOPLES GOVERNOR, THE CARTOGRAPHER-IN-CHIEF, WHO WILL NOW LET THE PEOPLE VOTE!!! THANK YOU, USA!!! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The California governor has taken on a leading role within his party in taking on the Trump administration, particularly through the broader redistricting battle playing out. Newsom has led efforts to put a new set of congressional lines before voters in the Golden State that seeks to neutralize expected gains once Texas passes their new House map. The efforts have raised his national profile potentially positioning himself for a White House bid in 2028. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Chick-fil-As first Niagara County location looks to finally open in early fall, according to the franchises owner-operator. A lot of people have been waiting for this one to be open, said Aaron Hord, whose restaurant will be at 6610 Niagara Falls Blvd. in the same plaza as LA Fitness and a Starbucks. The public is very excited. This would be the fourth Chick-fil-A location in Western New York, following those in Depew, Cheektowaga and Lancaster. The Atlanta-based fast food chain has more than 3,200 locations across the country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It would serve not just Niagara County residents but those in northern Erie County municipalities and Canadian tourists. Born and raised in Buffalo, Hord previously worked as a project manager for Project Play Western New York and the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. He also did some volunteer work at the Depew Chick-fil-A location when that locations owner, Andrew Privitera, learned he wanted to be a franchise operator. He decided to take me on and be a mentor to me so I can learn the business even more, Hord said. The Niagara Falls locations menu will have Chick-fil-As standard food options like chicken sandwiches, chicken nuggets, waffle fries, salads, iced tea, lemonade, and Mac and cheese, with seasonal items too. The interior would have a seating capacity of 66 with 14 outdoor seats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The drive-thru will have two lanes, with a mobile-thru lane being an option. Those allow customers to put their order in through a QR code, making their wait shorter. Hord said they plan to employ around 110 staff members, mainly local high school and college students. Its hours of operation would be from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The dining room closes at 9 p.m., while the drive-thru will still be open until 10. The exact date of opening and the traffic plan for the location will be released through social media. Its plaza location has two entrances along Niagara Falls Boulevard, two on Fashion Outlets Boulevard, and two on Mooradian Drive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Grand opening plans involve giveaways for anyone wearing any cow-themed items and making a $25,000 donation to Feeding America, with some of those proceeds supporting local organizations. The companys Shared Table program also donates leftover food to local organizations. Were super excited to develop relationships with the community, Hord said. Nigel Farage is to publish plans for mass deportations of asylum seekers who come to the UK on small boats. His Reform UK party would seek to put these plans in place if it entered government. Arresting asylum seekers on arrival, automatic detention and forced deportation to countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea are among the proposals reported to be announced on Tuesday. They also include deals with third countries, which could include reviving the Conservatives Rwanda link-up, and sending asylum seekers to British Overseas Territories such as Ascension Island as a fallback option. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Farage said the plans could see hundreds of thousands of people deported and five charter flights taking off from the UK every day. It comes amid rising tensions over asylum hotels and as the government said it planned to appeal against a court ruling blocking the use of a hotel in Epping, Essex. The first step of Reform UKs plans would be to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and to scrap the Human Rights Act, followed by legislation to bar those who come to the UK on small boats from claiming asylum. Reform party leader Nigel Farage is set to announce the plans next week (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The aim of this legislation is mass deportations, Clacton-on-Sea MP Mr Farage told The Times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We have a massive crisis in Britain. It is not only posing a national security threat but its leading to public anger that frankly is not very far away from disorder. There is only one way to stop people coming into Britain and that is to detain them and deport them. Sir Keir Starmers government is struggling with rising tensions over hotels housing asylum seekers and a record number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats so far this year. Those arriving on small boats would face immediate arrest under Reform UKs plans, and the party would also seek to build detention centres to house 24,000 people, Mr Farage told The Times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He wants to sign deals with countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea to send people back. Reviving the Conservative Partys Rwanda plan or a deal with Albania could also be on the table under plans to send people to third countries. After a temporary injunction was granted on Tuesday to Epping Forest District Council to remove asylum seekers from the Bell Hotel in Epping, councils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK are considering following suit with their own legal challenges. Protesters gather outside The Bell Hotel in Epping (AFP/Getty) On Friday, the Home Office said it would appeal against the High Courts refusal to allow it to intervene in the case of the Bell Hotel, and to further appeal against the temporary injunction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Somani Hotels, the owner of the Bell Hotel, also plans to appeal against the court order blocking the use of its site as accommodation for asylum seekers. A wave of protests outside hotels used to temporarily house asylum seekers is expected in the coming days. The Home Office has a legal obligation to provide accommodation to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute and can move people to alternatives such as hotels and large sites, like former military bases. Home secretary Yvette Cooper said ministers are working to close hotels housing asylum seekers as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly programme that avoids creating problems for other areas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Norfolk Council said on Friday that it had been informed that the Home Office intends to stop housing asylum seekers at the Park Hotel in the town of Diss. The hotels operator had warned it would close if the Home Office followed through with plans to begin placing men at the site instead of families. Protests took place outside the hotel last month. Council leader Daniel Elmer said: The Home Office thought it could just impose this change and that we would accept it. Home secretary Yvette Cooper says ministers are working to close hotels housing asylum seekers (PA) But there is a right way of doing things and a wrong way and the decision by the Home Office was just plain wrong. The council had to make a stand to support the women and children and our local community and thats exactly what we did. Although I welcome the decision, in reality it does mean that the women and children who we fought so hard to protect will now be moved elsewhere, and that is a shame. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Home Office spokesperson said: As part of our ongoing effort to reduce the number of hotels in use and close them all by the end of this parliament, we are not planning to use this site beyond the end of the current contract. The government has also pledged to crack down on smuggling gangs to deter Channel crossings. Nearly 28,000 people have arrived in the UK so far in 2025 after crossing the English Channel, a record for this point in the year since data collection began in 2018. DAKAR, Senegal (AP) The army in Niger says it used a targeted airstrike to kill a senior leader of the Boko Haram jihadi group, which has killed thousands of people in West Africa. Ibrahim Bakoura was killed in an Aug. 15 strike in the Lake Chad region that killed dozens of terrorists and Boko Haram senior leaders, the army claimed in a state television broadcast Thursday. Bakoura, who was in his mid-40s, was tracked for several weeks before the strike, the army said. Boko Haram, a homegrown group of jihadis from neighboring Nigeria that is considered one of the world's deadliest armed groups, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The conflict has spilled into Nigerias northern neighbors, including Niger, and resulted in the death of around 35,000 civilians and the displacement of more than 2 million others, according to the United Nations. There should be skepticism about reports of senior militant deaths, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank. He noted Bakoura has been reported dead at least three times in the past and governments have limited capacity to verify remote airstrikes. Boko Haram split into two factions in the ensuing power struggle after the 2021 death of the groups longtime leader, Abubakar Shekau, who was falsely reported dead several times. Bakoura came to power in 2022. One faction is backed by the Islamic State group and is known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. It has become notorious for targeting military positions and has overrun the military in Nigeria on at least 15 occasions in 2025, killing soldiers and stealing weapons, according to an Associated Press count, experts and security reports. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The other faction, Jamaatu Ahlis Sunna Liddaawati wal-Jihad (JAS), also known as Boko Haram, has increasingly resorted to attacking civilians and perceived collaborators and thrives on robberies and abductions for ransom. Bakouras killing is the latest blow to the network of armed groups in the region in recent weeks following the arrests of top Al-Qaeda affiliated leaders in Nigeria and the son of Boko Harams founder in Chad. Experts say there is a renewed response from intelligence agencies in west and central African countries whose security leaderships have suffered embarrassing loses to armed groups this year. What the constant attacks did was cause military and security leaders embarrassment because it got to a point soldiers were running away on sighting ISWAP advances. The attacks inspired renewed response by militaries across the region, said Taiwo Adebayo, a security researcher at the Institute of Security Studies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The arrest and killing of top leaders will translate to material gains in the regional fight against insecurity if the government in Niger ensures the groups do not carry out retaliatory attacks or rejuvenate elsewhere, Adebayo said. ___ This article corrects a previous version that did not use the preferred last name of Taiwo Adebayo. ___ Ope Adetayo contributed from Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria has deported 102 foreign nationals, including 60 Chinese and 39 people from the Philippines, who were convicted of cyber-terrorism and internet fraud, according to the countrys anticorruption agency. The announcement by Nigerias Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday comes as the country steps up a crackdown on online scam operations, which lured victims through online romances to hand over cash for fake cryptocurrency investments. EFCC spokesman Dele Oyewale later told the AFP news agency that another group of 39 Filipinos, 10 Chinese and two people from Kazakhstan had also been deported since August 15. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More deportations were also scheduled in the coming days, he added. The anticorruption agency released pictures of Asian men wearing surgical face masks, lined up at airport check-in counters. The deportees were among 792 suspected cybercriminals arrested in a single operation in the affluent Victoria Island area of Lagos in December. At least 192 of those arrested were foreign nationals, of whom 148 were Chinese, the EFCC said. Nigeria, Africas most populous country, has a reputation for internet fraudsters known in local slang as Yahoo Boys, and the EFCC has busted several hideouts where young crime suspects learn online scamming skills. According to the agency, foreign gangs recruit Nigerian accomplices to find victims online through phishing scams. The attackers typically try to deceive victims into transferring money or revealing sensitive information such as passwords to accounts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The scams target mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and Europeans, the EFCC said. Experts say the fraudulent investment schemes used by cyber-scammers have become increasingly sophisticated and dynamic as they leverage the latest technologies and digital tools. The schemes ultimately leave victims many of whom invest their savings, business capital, and borrowed money unable to do anything but watch their hard-earned money disappear. Experts also warn that foreign cybercrime syndicates have set up shop in Nigeria to exploit its weak cybersecurity systems. HONOLULU (KHON2) Dont miss this unforgettable night to honor and celebrate the beloved reggae icon, George Fiji Veikoso. The free tribute concert on Sept. 13 at the Waikiki Shell and Kapiolani Park will feature over 100 island reggae artists performing Fijis iconic songs. Beloved reggae artist, Fiji, passes away at 55 Starting tomorrow, Aug. 22, at 10 a.m. HST, free tickets for the concert inside the Waikiki Shell will be available on this website. Doors open at 4:00 p.m., show at 5:30 p.m. for reservations only. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dont worry if you cant snag yourself a seat inside the Shell. The concert will be broadcast on giant screens in Kapiolani Park for everyone to enjoy, so you wont miss a minute of the music magic. The concert will be hosted by a variety of guests, including Living808 host Mikey Monis. I was so shocked they thought of me. Im not going to lie to be onstage, honoring Fiji, its mind-blowing, Mikey Monis said. We wanted this to be a tribute to Fiji, and everybody to come together as one ohana to celebrate all of his accomplishments and bask in the moment of who he is. Some of the artists who will be performing are J Boog, Common Kings, Maoli, The Green, Sammy Johnson, Henry Kapono, Kapena, Ekolu and many more. You can even expect surprise guests throughout the night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fiji gave us more than just music he was the voice that raised all of the Pacific. He gave us healing, identity, and pride, said Grammy-nominated group Common Kings. This show is our way of saying mahalo and a hui hou to someone whose spirit and soul will echo for eternity. The concert is expected to have a huge turnout, so plan accordingly. I do want to say maybe you should ride share or carpool because it is going to be a packed night, Monis said. If youre proud to be from Hawaii or any Polynesian Island, or if you are proud of the work Fijis done for you, whether it be personally or professionally, or how hes motivated you, then definitely come out with your friends. Check out more news from around Hawaii Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For more information, you can visit the events website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) No charges will be filed against the officers involved in a shooting that left a man hospitalized in November last year. The suspect, Daniel Lynn Meinhart, was later identified as a known white supremacist gang member and was reportedly wanted on probation violations and had multiple felony warrants for his arrest. In Nov. 2024, the U.S. Marshals Service was near 2100 South and 900 East working to apprehend Meinhart, who had various felony warrants for his arrest and was reportedly wanted for probation violations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement US Marshals identify suspect as Known white supremacist in Salt Lake City shooting Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill today presented new information and shared that at the scene, Meinhart crashed into a light pole, disabling his car. When approached by officers, he refused to comply with their orders. The officers believed they saw an object in his hands that could have been perceived as a gun. These circumstances led to the use of force, and Meinhart was shot multiple times by law enforcement. He was hospitalized but sustained non-life-threatening injuries. After reviewing all of the footage, Gill concluded that the officers use of force in shooting Meinhart was reasonable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Wisconsin lawmakers heard testimony Thursday on a bill to make tips for restaurant servers and other workers exempt from Wisconsin's state income tax. (Getty Images) Wisconsin policymakers approved more than $1.3 billion in tax cuts in the latest state budget but the exclusion of a no tax on tips proposal has lawmakers pushing ahead with a bill that would line up state law with a new federal law. Bill coauthor Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) said during a hearing in the Assembly Ways and Means committee that lawmakers should help working class people who are trying to get themselves to that middle class with Assembly Bill 38. A hearing on the bill was held in the Senate in May, though it has yet to come up for vote in either chamber. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When I was a younger man, I was a waiter at Perkins, and I received tips. I also received tips for a couple years as a valet, and folks that receive tips arent just waiters and valets, but also housekeepers, bartenders, delivery drivers, massage therapists, hairdressers, taxi drivers, tour guides, Tusler said. Those are the type of people were talking about, trying to help with this bill, trying to not tax and as representatives, these are great folks for us to target, and as Christians, we should always be trying to help the poor. President Donald Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill signed into law on July 4 includes a federal provision that will allow workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually from their taxable income. Those earning more than $150,000 arent eligible for the deduction. The Wisconsin bill and a recent amendment to it seeks to implement the same policy when it comes to the state income tax, which currently considers tips as taxable income. The deduction would apply to tips whether paid by cash or credit. Similar to the federal law, the provision will go into effect starting tax year 2025 and sunsets after tax year 2028 around the end of Trumps second term in office. Any time that we can allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money thats going to be something that Im supporting, Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) told the committee. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erin Vranas, co-owner of Parthenon Gyros located in downtown Madison and chair of the Wisconsin Restaurant Associations Board, said many restaurant employees are struggling with semi-unpredictable income. Every dollar matters, so this bill really could help provide meaningful relief, Vranas said, adding that it would also help restaurants trying to recruit and retain employees. Wisconsin restaurants face ongoing workforce shortages, and I understand this isnt just a restaurant thing, but we definitely feel it in this industry. AB38 will help us recruit and retain staff, making restaurant jobs more competitive and sustainable. When employees keep more of their hard-earned tips, then theyre more likely to stay and grow and see hospitality as a sustainable career, which strengthens both our businesses and Wisconsin as a state. The minimum wage for tipped employees in Wisconsin is currently $2.33 per hour. Employers are required to make up the difference if an employees combined wages and tips do not equal the regular minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Susan Quam, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, said she only knows of two restaurants that pay the minimum wage. Those restaurants have a $100 per person check average and employees typically make $20 per customer every single time they work, so were talking about folks who are making $100 to $150 dollars an hour in tips. WRA, a nonprofit trade association that represents thousands of food, beverage and hospitality businesses, supports the bill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The vast majority of our members tell us that theyre paying well above that $2.33 to their tipped employees, some of them higher than the $7.25 minimum wage, Quam said. The marketplace is dictating what that base wage is, not necessarily the fact that they are getting tips. Tusler explained that employees would still need to report tips, both because there is a limit on the tax deduction and because tipped employees need a record of their full income when applying for loans. It would make it more difficult for those tip earners to borrow money for their houses or their cars, Tusler said. He told the committee the bill would also cut down on confusion between the federal and state policies when people are filing taxes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The tax break also wouldnt cost the state much, Tusler said. The Department of Revenue estimates that the state brings in about $33.7 million a year from tips and would lose about that much in each year of the biennium under the proposal. Thats it, Tusler said. We have a $111 billion budget. The recent bipartisan state budget cut taxes by about over $1 billion, but the tips proposal was not included in the budget passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Tony Evers last month. Evers had included a similar proposal in his budget proposal, but Republican lawmakers threw it out when they started working on the budget. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Jacque, previously introduced the idea of exempting cash tips from taxes in 2019, though it never became law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The idea picked up steam nationally when President Donald Trump started campaigning on the idea, which led Republican lawmakers to reintroduce the proposal in Wisconsin this year. The coauthors of the bill expressed frustration that no Democrats have signed onto the bill yet, noting that Evers has supported something similar before. This was something where Gov. Evers basically took that previous proposal cut and pasted that into his budget proposal, so its not like there was ever any indication that this wasnt something that shouldnt have bipartisan support, Jacque said. And I certainly hope that it will going forward. Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said during the hearing that she and her husband, who is a bartender, have discussed the issue extensively since it started gaining popularity around the 2024 election and questioned whether a bigger conversation about helping lower-income workers needs to be had. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I would say encouraging employers to have better benefits, higher pay, better working conditions are also ways we get people to realize the American dream, Fitzgerald said. Cutting taxes might be one small part of that, but theres a broader array of things that we can do, and if, and if thats your goal, and its my goal, then I say we attack some of those other issues. Jacque said he understands that tax relief needs to be multifaceted, but said that if the state starts mandating things on employers that potentially raise costs, you arent going to have customers and those jobs arent going to be supported. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. This morning, Donald Trump claimed he knew nothing about the raid on the Maryland home of his former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Im not a fan of John Bolton, Trump said, calling him a lowlife. In that respect he agrees with many Democrats: After Trump fired Bolton, in 2019, Representative Adam Schiff of California (now a senator) said that one should question John Boltons patriotism, and Representative Nancy Pelosi called him a disgrace. In January, Trump pulled Boltons security detail, which had been in place due to credible threats by the Iranian government, which is also not a fan of John Bolton. Boltons neighbor Gerald Rogell told The New York Times that Bolton was unfriendly. He added, dryly and a little gratuitously, John Bolton is not our favorite person. If a terrible accident befalls Bolton, one should not rule out a Murder on the Orient Express scenario. Who did it? Maybe everyone. Reports say the government is searching Boltons home and office to determine whether he mishandled or shared classified material. (The New York Times says the raid followed intelligence collected overseas by the CIA.) The investigation is therefore unlikely to be related to Boltons long-standing dispute with Trump over Boltons memoir, which he published in 2020 without waiting for government clearance. (Bolton alleged that Trumps administration slow-rolled the review to block criticism of the president.) Bolton has, ironically enough, been a longtime pooh-pooher of accusations that the federal government classifies way too much material, and that that secrecy-bloat impedes transparency. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [David A. Graham: John Bolton plumbs the depth of Trumps depravity] Bolton applies a lawyerly, punctilious zeal not only to his work but to many other aspects of his existence. Such people are not great at block parties. When you drop by to borrow sugar, they draft contracts with ruinous penalties and arbitration in the jurisdiction of Guantanamo Bay to ensure the return of their measuring cup. In my 2019 profile of Bolton, I recounted his argument across the deli counter at a Safeway, over whether he was owed a refund for a turkey he had not yet consumed. Although these born sticklers may not be great neighbors, they tend to be scrupulous about personal liability, especially when they knowas Bolton mustthat the president is gunning for them. FBI agents were seen entering Boltons home with cardboard boxes. I wonder what they walked out with. Bolton is not the type to stumble into a situation that he cannot litigate his way out of. That said, he is cocky, and his memory is brimming with so many secrets that even a cautious person could spill one in an unguarded moment. FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted, in apparent reference to the raid, that NO ONE is above the law. Patel has also recently pledged to de-weaponize the FBI, in particular by purging it and its partner agencies of those who have claimed that Trump has colluded with Russia. Bolton, in this regard, should be safe. He has used Trumps own language in describing the Robert Mueller investigation as a witch hunt, and he has consistently denigrated Trump since 2020, not for treason but for ignorance, sloth, and foreign-policy blunders. After last weeks Ukraine summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bolton accused Trump of one of the worst sins one can commit in Trump land: being low-energy. He told CNN that Trump looked very tired up there, and said one should reflect on what that means. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [Graeme Wood: John Bolton knows what hes doing] Reflection is certainly in order, on the topic of what it means that Patel is investigating a former Trump official just as that defector is getting more mordant in his criticisms of his former boss. The pledge to de-weaponize the FBI would be more credible from a less vindictive administration, and one that had not spent its opening months purging apolitical staff. Until more information comes out about the warrant and the intelligence behind it, no one can say definitively whether todays raid is due to Boltons status as critic, Boltons bad judgment or malfeasance, or nothing at all. All remain possible. A truly depoliticized Justice Department and intelligence communityless politicized than Trumps, and also less politicized than recent Democratswould leave less doubt about the relative likelihood of each. But that is not the Justice Department currently in place. Article originally published at The Atlantic Northern Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE:NOG) is one of the deep value stocks to buy according to analysts. NOGs shares have lost more than a third of their value so far this year, and continue to trade near the bottom of their 52-week range. Despite the share price pressure, Bank of America Securities analyst Noah Hungness reiterated a Buy rating on the shares with an unchanged price target of $33, on July 31. The update followed the companys second-quarter earnings, which came in ahead of expectations. Adjusted EBITDAX (X stands for exploration expenses) reached $440 million, supported by record natural gas output from its Appalachian assets. Strong Cash Flow Growth Drives BofAs Bullish Case for Northern Oil (NOG) A group of oil and gas workers in safety gear inspecting a well head. While lease operating expenses were higher, Northern Oil still generated free cash flow above expectations. Management also updated its 2025 guidance, cutting capital spending but maintaining strong free cash flow forecasts. Hungness noted that this shift should improve financial flexibility and create room to pursue incremental opportunities in the market. Looking ahead, the analyst sees continued free cash flow growth into 2026, aided by stable production and cost discipline, which in turn supports further deleveraging. Northern Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE:NOG) is an independent energy company that focuses on acquiring, developing, and producing oil and natural gas properties across the United States. The company operates as a non-operator, with a primary presence in the Williston, Permian, Appalachian, and Uinta Basins. While we acknowledge the potential of NOG as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 10 Best Large Cap Tech Stocks to Buy Now and 10 Best Big Tech Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Actor Noel Clarke has lost his libel case against the Guardian, after he sued the newspaper's publisher for printing allegations of sexual misconduct. The Doctor Who and Kidulthood star took Guardian News and Media (GNM) to court after the paper ran a series of stories in 2021 claiming he had used his power in the film and TV industry to prey upon and harass women. On Friday, the judge dismissed Clarke's libel claim and said the Guardian had succeeded in defending its stories on the grounds of truth and public interest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Guardian's editor welcomed the decision, describing it as "a deserved victory for those women who suffered" and a "landmark for investigative journalism". Clarke described the judgement as "disappointing", adding: "I have never claimed to be perfect. But I am not the person described in these articles." The judgement found the meaning of each of the newspaper's articles was "substantially true". Mrs Justice Steyn added: "I have accepted some of Mr Clarke's evidence... but overall I find that he was not a credible or reliable witness." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During a High Court defamation trial earlier this year, Clarke's legal team said accusations that he was a "serial abuser of women" were false, and argued he was the victim of an "unlawful conspiracy". The Guardian defended what it said was a "careful and thorough investigation conducted conscientiously" by its journalists. During the six-week trial, which saw Clarke sue the publisher over seven articles and a podcast, more than a dozen women testified that they had personally experienced misconduct by the actor and director. Clarke, 49, gave evidence over more than three days, and denied that he behaved sexually inappropriately with the women. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judge said Clarke's conspiracy claim did not have a "proper foundation", and was "born of necessity, in the face of the large body of witnesses giving evidence against him". "There has been no conspiracy to lie," she continued. "In the absence of a conspiracy, Mr Clarke's case that more than 20 witnesses - none of whom are parties or have a stake in this case, as he does - have come to court to lie is inherently implausible." The judgement said it was "clear that women have been speaking about their experiences of working with Mr Clarke for many years". It said that Bafta's announcement in March 2021 that Clarke would receive an award "triggered those who were concerned about his behaviour to act, out of concern that it would enhance his power within the industry and so enable him to continue misbehaving". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judge also found the Guardian's editor-in-chief Katharine Viner - along with other editors and reporters - believed publication was in the public interest, which was a reasonable belief. In a statement welcoming the judgement after it was published on Friday, Viner said it was "important to fight this case". "This was a deeply-researched investigation by some of the Guardian's best reporters, who worked diligently and responsibly," she said. "The judgement is clear that our investigation was thorough and fair, a template for public interest journalism." She added: "Going to court is difficult and stressful, yet more than 20 women agreed to testify in the High Court, refusing to be bullied or intimidated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I hope today will give encouragement to other women in similar situations who have been too fearful to raise their voices for fear of the consequences." Responding to the judgement on Friday, Clarke said: "For almost five years, I have fought against a powerful media outlet and its extensive legal teams over inaccurate and damaging reporting. "These stories started via anonymous emails portraying me as a monster to attract attention and outrage. The goal was to damage my career, and they succeeded. "I have never claimed to be perfect. But I am not the person described in these articles. Overnight I lost everything, the media outlet didn't just ruin my life they ripped through my family's also." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Clarke thanked "the team who stood beside me throughout", as well as his family, "who never stopped believing there was something worth fighting for". "The decision today does not change the fact that inaccuracies were published," he said. "While they may have won in court, they have lost the trust that journalism depends on. "I want to thank the witnesses who confirmed that key elements of the reporting were false. In her judgement, Mrs Justice Steyn rejected an allegation of groping, and accepted Clarke's evidence that nude photographs given in evidence were taken with the consent of the woman involved. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judge also accepted that an improvisation exercise in an acting class led by Clarke in which some actors undressed was not set "for his own sexual gratification", adding that, although he found actors' objections to nudity vexing, his aim was to help students become comfortable with appearing partially nude for roles which may require it. Clarke became famous for playing Mickey Smith during the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant eras of Doctor Who between 2005 and 2010. He also acted in blockbuster films such as Star Trek Into Darkness. As an actor, writer and director, he became a powerful figure in the British film industry for making movies including the 'hood series - Kidulthood, Adulthood and Brotherhood. In 2009, he won the Rising Star prize at the Bafta Film Awards, and in 2021 was given Bafta's Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema honour. That award and his Bafta membership were suspended when the Guardian's allegations were published. British actor, director and producer Noel Clarke has lost his libel case against The Guardian, having sued the U.K. newspapers publisher for printing allegations of sexual misconduct in 2021. The Doctor Who and Kidulthood star had taken Guardian News and Media (GNM) to court after the paper ran a series of stories containing allegations of verbal abuse, bullying, and sexual harassment by Clarke from more than 20 women. More from Variety Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, Clarkes legal team had asserted that accusations that he was a serial abuser of women were false, and had argued he was the victim of an unlawful conspiracy. The Guardian, meanwhile, had defended what it claimed had been a careful and thorough investigation conducted conscientiously by its reporters. More than a dozen women testified that they had personally experienced misconduct by Clarke over the six-week trial. Clarke gave evidence over more than three days, denying that he behaved sexually inappropriately with the women. In a statement following the verdict by Justice Steyn at Londons High Court, Guardian news and Media editor-in-chief Katharine Viner welcomed the decision. The judge ruled, in extremely clear language, that the Guardians reporting was substantially true, and our belief that the reporting was in the public interest was undoubtedly reasonable, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This judgment is a deserved victory for those women who suffered because of the behaviour of Noel Clarke. Going to court is difficult and stressful, yet more than 20 women agreed to testify in the High Court, refusing to be bullied or intimidated. Viner added: I hope today will give encouragement to other women in similar situations who have been too fearful to raise their voices for fear of the consequences. Following The Guardians 2021 article and the allegations, BAFTA announced that it was suspending both his membership and his Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award. Soon after, ITV announced that it would not broadcast the final episode of Viewpoint, in which Clarke starred and Sky immediately halted his involvement in any future productions. Best of Variety Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noems demand to personally sign-off on department expenses over $100,000 is causing severe operational delays -- some in areas that are critical to defending national security, a new report has claimed. More than 500 funding requests were awaiting direct approval from Noem on July 30, with another 1,500 requiring approval from lower level department staffers before being sent on to her, according to The New York Times. Noem introduced the new rule as part of a crack down on apparent wasteful spending within DHS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Internal documents, reviewed by The Times, revealed that the backlog of requests is impacting work across DHS agencies and divisions including Immigration, Border Control, TSA, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In spreadsheets detailing reasons for the requests, some agencies described their contracts as mission critical. More than 500 funding requests were reportedly awaiting direct approval from Noem on July 30 (AP) In June, Noem said her request reviews could take up to five days but the documents reportedly show that many are taking weeks to process. A DHS spokesperson denied the claims and toldThe Times that, as of this past Monday, Noem did not have a single contract on her desk awaiting signature. The newspaper was unable to confirm that statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Independent has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment about the reported delays and backlog of requests. In one example, a TSA request to renew a contract for technology that helps detect fake passports at the U.S. border expired in early July while awaiting Noems approval, according to The Times. The lack of such equipment means that more passports are required to be checked manually by TSA agents, and increases the likelihood of bad actors boarding aircraft using fraudulent identification, the memo stated. Last month, FEMA workers reported running into red tape while assembling resources in response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas, because of Noems personal approval process. A request from TSA to renew a contract for technology that helps detect fake passports at the U.S. border expired in early July while awaiting Noems approval. The lack of such equipment means that more passports are required to be checked manually by TSA agents, which may result in longer wait times for passengers and increase the chances of bad actors being able to board aircraft (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) FEMA officials told CNN they were unable to pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from across the country in Texas, and criticized the low threshold of requests needing personal sign-off. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Documents, reviewed by The Times, also show that the threshold for personal approval had dramatically decreased from $25 million in March to $20 million in May, and then to $100,000 in June. FEMA doesnt sneeze without spending that amount of money, a former official anonymously told NBC News in July. The Independent has requested comment on the decline in amounts. DHS spokesperson declined to comment to The Times. Though the cost of federal disaster responses can vary, a preliminary estimate by AccuWeather, put the damages caused by the Texas flash flooding, which claimed more than 80 lives, at $18 billion - $22 billion. Customs and Border Protection had 180 pending contracts awaiting Noems approval at the end of last month, according to The Times. One request awaiting approval was related to polygraph tests for prospective new recruits to law enforcement. Though the cost of federal disaster responses can vary, a preliminary estimate by AccuWeather, put the damages caused by the Texas flash flooding, which claimed more than 80 lives, at $18- $22 billion (Getty Images) Without the support this contract provides, Customs and Border Protection would be unable to efficiently and effectively schedule and document required examinations to maintain current authorized law enforcement positions that are an Administration priority, CBP officials wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The officials added that any lapse in services would undermine an administration priority of increasing staffing levels. The Trump administration plans to hire 3,000 new border patrol agents and 10,000 new ICE agents as part of the presidents mass deportation agenda targeting undocumented migrants. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said that the $100,000 threshold approval policy had been implemented to ensure that money goes precisely where its needed most rather than to greedy fat cat contractors. It is stunning that for years career bureaucrats were unilaterally signing off on hundred-million-dollar contracts leading to massive waste, fraud and abuse of U.S. taxpayer dollars, McLaughlin told The Times. While she did not deny that there had been delays within DHS branches, McLaughlin blamed them on a lack of process and accountability that has plagued these components for decades. NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) An agreement has been signed between the Orleans Parish School Board and the City of New Orleans to share revenues through the new Cooperative Endeavor Agreement (CEA). The CEA is a two-year agreement that will ensure a portion of fines collected from automated speed enforcement devices, red light cameras and mobile speed cameras in school zones, will benefit public schools in the area. New Orleans Interstate 10 corridor reopens earlier than expected Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement OPSB officials say the CEA is in compliance with Act 103 of the 2024 Louisiana Legislative Session which required revenue sharing between municipalities. By partnering with the City, were not only complying with state law but also channeling vital resources back into our classrooms, programs, and facilities. These funds will help us continue providing a high-quality education to every child in New Orleans, while reinforcing the importance of safe driving in school zones, said OPSB President Katie Baudouin. As part of the agreement, NOLA-PS will receive 40% of revenues, gross revenue minus vendor costs, while the city will receive 60%. Where Yat this Weekend: Jazz Playhouse, Willie Maes NOLA, Ponchartrain Center, Midsummer Mardi Gras Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The money will be split equally to all Type 1, 3 and 5 charter schools and NOLA-PS district-operated schools on a per-pupil basis, using the Feb. 1 student count. School officials NOLA-PS will now operate as a central governing authority to receive and disperse funds monthly. Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) The North Carolina Supreme Court issued favorable rulings Friday for bars and their operators in litigation seeking monetary compensation from the state for COVID-19 restrictions first issued by then-Gov. Roy Cooper that shuttered their doors and, in their view, treated them unfairly compared to restaurants. The majority decisions by the justices mean a pair of lawsuits one filed by several North Carolina bars and their operators and the second by the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and other private bars remain alive, and future court orders directing the state pay them financial damages are possible. As a way to ease the spread of coronavirus, Cooper a Democrat who left office last December and is now running for U.S. Senate issued a series of executive orders that closed bars starting in March 2020. By that summer, bars still had to remain closed, but restaurants and breweries could serve alcohol during certain hours. Later in 2020, bars could serve alcoholic drinks in outdoor seating, with time limits later added, but the plaintiffs said it was unprofitable to operate. All temporary restrictions on bars were lifted in May 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lawyers defending Cooper have said the orders issued in the ninth-largest state were based on the most current scientific studies and public health data available at a time when thousands were ill or dying and vaccines weren't widely available. On Friday, the court's five Republican justices in one lawsuit agreed it could continue to trial, rejecting arguments from state attorneys that the litigation must be halted based on a legal doctrine that exempts state government from most lawsuits. That decision largely upheld a Court of Appeals decision from two years ago that had affirmed a trial judge's order to allow the action filed by Tiffany Howell, seven other people and nine businesses to be heard. We acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic was a chaotic period of time, Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the prevailing opinion. It is important to remember, however, that the Governor was not the only person facing uncertainty. Small business owners across the state dutifully shuttered their doors and scaled back operations without knowing exactly when they could open or operate fully again. A broader group of plaintiffs the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and scores of private bars that sued separately but made similar claims received a favorable ruling last year from a Court of Appeals panel that reversed a trial judge's decision to dismiss the lawsuit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Friday, the same five justices ruled that the Court of Appeals shouldn't have allowed the association to sue based on claims its members' constitutional rights for equal treatment were violated. But the plaintiffs can return to a trial judge now and present evidence on the claim that their right under the state constitution to earn a living was violated, Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote in the majority opinion. The association and the private bars sufficiently alleged unconstitutional interference, and thus have a right to seek discovery to prove those allegations are true, Berger wrote. The Supreme Court's two Democratic justices opposed decisions made by the majority in both cases and said the lawsuits should be dismissed. Associate Justice Allison Riggs wrote that the Bar and Tavern Association failed to signal it had evidence of a more reasonable plan to contain the virus' impact than what Cooper chose. Writing the dissent in the Howell case, Associate Justice Anita Earls said the majority grants itself a roving license to second-guess policy choices, reweigh trade-offs, and displace decisions appropriately made by the political branches. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state Attorney General's Office, which represented Cooper in both cases, said Friday it was reviewing the decisions. Through a spokesperson, Cooper's Senate campaign declined to comment. The Bar and Tavern Association called the decision in its case a major victory. From the beginning, we never asked for special treatment, only equal treatment, association President Zack Medford said. Chuck Kitchen, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in the Howell case, also praised the ruling in their litigation. Cooper was the subject of several lawsuits challenging his COVID-19 actions early in the pandemic, and he was largely successful in court. In August 2024, the state Supreme Court sided with a small racetrack that was closed briefly for defying state gathering limits and said the oval and its operators could sue the top health regulator in Cooper's administration. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) A 45-year-old North Charleston man is facing charges after authorities claim he verbally threatened a state employee while attending a job fair in April. Ricardo Darnell Jones was arrested August 20 and charged with threatening the life of a public official and two counts of third-degree assault and battery. The incident happened during an April 17 job fair at the SC Works Center on Hanahan Road, according to affidavits provided by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The affidavits state that Jones became irate after being asked to sign in and threatened a South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce employee. After being asked to leave, he entered the lobby of the building where he dropped his phone, and the victim attempted to pick it up. Man arrested for breaking into vehicles near Tanger Outlets Jones is then accused of pushing the victim into a wall, causing them to hit their head, and yelling at them. Jones stood within a few inches of [redacted] and told [redacted] if he had his gun [redacted] would not be there, the affidavit states. Portions of the exchange were captured on the buildings surveillance system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jones was booked into the Al Cannon Detention Center around 12:50 p.m. Wednesday and released later that evening on an approximately $12,000 personal recognizance bond, jail records show. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Snow covers the ground at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on Dec. 3, 2016, outside Cannon Ball, N.D. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) The state of North Dakota and the U.S. government have entered settlement negotiations in a yearslong lawsuit over Dakota Access Pipeline protest costs. The development comes after the executive branch indicated it would appeal a $28 million dollar judgment handed down by a federal trial court this spring. Attorney General Drew Wrigley on Friday confirmed that the state and federal government have been in talks about a potential settlement for weeks. He said he could not share further details, but that he appreciates that both sides are open to having a dialogue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South-central North Dakota in 2016 became the site of a major protest against construction of the oil pipeline, which crosses underneath the Missouri Rivers Lake Oahe reservoir just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The tribe started the demonstrations out of concerns that the pipeline poses an environmental threat, intrudes upon unceded Sioux Nation territory and has desecrated sacred cultural sites. The main protest camp was located on federal land managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The state filed suit in 2019 against the federal government, arguing that the Corps had directly caused the demonstrations to grow in size and intensity by allowing protesters to use its land. The four-week trial included testimony from two former North Dakota governors Doug Burgum and Jack Dalrymple as well as Native American activists, law enforcement and experts. More than a year later, U.S. District Court Judge Dan Traynor issued a nearly 120-page order finding the Army Corps at fault for negligence, public nuisance and civil trespass claims. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The executive branch in June filed a notice that it would appeal Traynors decision to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, the parties are trying to settle. The state and U.S. Department of Justice filed a joint request with the 8th Circuit earlier this month asking the appellate court to pause the case in the meantime. The court on Aug. 11 granted the request and directed the parties to file a joint status report by Sept. 10 providing updates on how the negotiations are going. North Dakotas lawsuit requested $38 million from the federal government. Traynor ordered the executive branch to pay $28 million since the U.S. Department of Justice previously gave the state $10 million as compensation for the protests. North Dakota Monitor reporter Mary Steurer can be reached at msteurer@northdakotamonitor.com. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX New images released by North Korean state media on Friday showed leader Kim Jong Un kneeling before portraits of soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine, as well as hugging an emotional survivor of the conflict. The images of an elaborate ceremony showed an overcome Kim presenting medals, placing them beside portraits of the fallen and consoling the returned soldiers, as Pyongyang's leadership hailed the soldiers as "heroes" who sacrificed their youth and lives. South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said the North sent over 10,000 soldiers to Russia in 2024 -- primarily to the Kursk region -- along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Around 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded fighting for Russia, Seoul has said. At the ceremony held at the Workers' Party headquarters in Pyongyang, portraits of the fallen soldiers, along with their names, were displayed on stage, the images showed. There, Kim praised the "admirable" troops "who returned home with great honour" after enduring the "hail of bullets and bombs of the life-and-death war in the foreign country", Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. In one of the images released by KCNA, an emotional Kim was seen embracing a returned solider who appeared overwhelmed, burying his face in the leader's chest during the ceremony. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The leader was also seen kneeling before a portrait of a fallen soldier to pay his respects, and placing medals and flowers beside the images of the dead. Kim personally awarded the title of "DPRK (North Korea) hero", to commanding officers who fought in overseas operations and "performed distinguished feats", KCNA said. It added that he also laid a flower at the memorial wall and met with bereaved families to console them and share "the pain of loss". North Korea only confirmed it had deployed troops to support Russia's war in Ukraine in April, and admitted that its soldiers had been killed in combat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement US President Donald Trump has held high-profile talks with Russian and Ukrainian leaders in recent days in a bid to end the conflict, but there has been little tangible progress since then. Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed North Korean troops sent to fight in Ukraine as "heroic" in a letter to Kim, Pyongyang's state media said last week. Washington has said there is evidence that Russia is stepping up support for North Korea, including providing help on advanced space and satellite technology, in return for its assistance in fighting Ukraine. Analysts say satellite launchers and ICBMs share much of the same underlying technology. cdl/mjw/tym CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) As the U.S. celebrates National Black Business Month, a new report from B2B Reviews highlights where Black-owned businesses are thriving. North Carolina ranks #3 in the country for Black-owned businesses, while South Carolina comes in just behind at #4. The rankings are based on several factors, like business growth, survival rates, payroll, and community support. The report states that in North Carolina, nearly 16% of small businesses are Black-owned. The state also boasts one of the highest business survival rates in the nation and a strong Black population that helps support and grow these businesses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report states South Carolina has almost 20% of its small businesses being Black-owned, which marks the seventh highest rate nationally. It also ranks in the top 10 for both survival rate and Black population percentage. Both states outperformed the national average and are proving to be strong environments for Black entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. Want to see how your state ranked? Check out the full list here. MORE FROM QCNEWS.COM North Carolina Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Federal agents arrested a North Texas woman on the FBIs 10 Most Wanted fugitive list for the alleged murder of her 6-year-old son. Cindy Rodriguez Singh of Everman, Texas, just south of Fort Worth, was wanted in connection with the presumed death of Noel Alvarez, although the childs body has never been found. Singh was added to the FBIs Most Wanted fugitive list last month, as The Dallas Express reported at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Singh is wanted on state charges of killing her six-year-old son, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote. She will face charges of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution and Capital Murder of a person under 10 years of age. BREAKING: @FBI has arrested another Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive: Cindy Rodriguez Singh. Singh is wanted on state charges of killing her six-year-old son. She will face charges of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution and Capital Murder of a person under 10 years of age. In March pic.twitter.com/0GWaNxRaMA FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 20, 2025 Alvarez has been missing since October 2022, as The Dallas Express previously reported. In March 2023, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services requested that the Everman Police Department conduct a welfare check on the boy. Singh allegedly lied to officers, saying Alvarez had been living with his biological father in Mexico since November 2022. Days later, Singh, her husband, and six children boarded a flight to India using one-way tickets purchased by Singhs husband, but Alvarez was not with the family on the flight. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In October of 2023, Singh was indicted for capital murder in the Tarrant County District Court. In November, the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas issued a federal arrest warrant for fleeing prosecution. Her arrest in India marks the FBIs fourth 10 Most Wanted fugitive arrested in seven months, according to Patel. Thats a credit to tremendous field work, law enforcement partners, intelligence operatives, and an administration who is letting good cops do their jobs, Patel said. Patel thanked the Department of Justice, partners in India, the FBI-Dallas, and the FBI-New York for their assistance with the investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FBI-Fort Worth, Texas Rangers, the Tarrant County District Attorneys Office, the Everman Police Department, and the Northeast Tarrant County Child Abduction Response Team also worked this case, as The Dallas Express reported. This is a promise we made to him and to this community, that we would never stop until those responsible are held accountable, Craig Spencer, Everman city manager and former chief of police, previously said. The Dallas Express reached out to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Texas, but a representative declined to comment. Targets incoming CEO, Michael Fiddelke, is proving that you can still work your way up the corporate ladder. The 49-year-old started out as an intern at Target in 2003and since then has spent over 20 years climbing the $44 billion retail giants ranks to the top.As Gen Zers grapple with a bleak entry-level job market, he urges recent graduates to embrace feedback and be kind curious. Targets incoming CEO, Michael Fiddelke, is living proof that internships are more than just grabbing coffee for middle managers and doing drudge worksometimes they can be career catapults. What started as a summer placement in Targets finance department two decades ago has turned into the top job: On Feb. 1, the 49-year-old will succeed Brian Cornell as CEO. While Gen Z have an affinity for job hopping, Fiddelke said he instantly liked the people and the pace at the $44 billion retail giant. He quickly realized he was built for operating in its fast-paced environment, and hasnt looked back since. Looking back, the incoming CEO admits he probably wouldnt have guessed hed still be here today: As I started my Target career as an intern, I never anticipated or even imagined the path my career would take, the incoming CEO said of the experience in a recent post on LinkedIn. Where you start is almost never where youll finish. Fiddelkes work ethic was forged long before he set foot in corporate retail, growing up on a small farm in Iowa. His family farmed beef, sheep, corn, and soybeans. After that, they spent time building small businesses, including a liquor store and Super 8 hotels. He went on to study engineering at the University of Iowa, work as a Deloitte consultant, and earn an MBA from Northwestern. It was while Fiddelke was in business school, that he landed that fateful summer internship at Targetand the rest is history. Since joining in 2003, hes worked across merchandising, finance, operations, and HR. Most recently, hes served as CFO and then COO, roles that gave him a seat at the retailers biggest shifts. The incoming chief tells Gen Z interns to make the most of the moment With more than two decades of experience at the retail giant, the multimillionaire incoming chief exec recently shared his advice for Gen Z graduates kickstarting their internships, reflecting on a time when he was navigating his journey in corporate America. Be relentlessly curious. Slow down and ask questions. Embrace feedback. And make the most of the moment by making connections at Target and with your fellow interns, Fiddelke wrote in the same LinkedIn post, just months before Targets official announcement of his promotion to CEO. OVERLAND PARK, Kan. Heads up drivers, 69 Highway will be closed again to northbound traffic Thursday through the early morning hours. Theres some important testing going on. You may have noticed new signs or technology emerging along 69 Highway. Crews are now installing tolling technology this week. Oak Grove police seeking information about car that crashed into building Northbound U.S. 69 from College Blvd. to 103rd St. will be fully closed to traffic Aug. 19 to Aug. 22 from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Crews are installing tolling equipment, like license plate and K-TAG readers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is the first toll project, the first express toll in the state of Kansas, 69 Express Project Director with KDOT Steve Rockers said. Theyre the readers that you use for license plates and for your K-Tags. Rockers said theyre on schedule. 69 Highway from 103rd to 151st is being widened from four to six lanes, three in each direction. One new lane in each direction will be a tolled express lane the other lanes will remain free. Rockers said each express lane will be separated from the general-purpose lanes by a four-foot buffer zone and two wide, double white lines. This toll lane is a congestion management tool, and it should help out with overall accident rate, and it should make it quicker and easier to drive, Rockers said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said drivers can enter and exit the express lanes at several points along the 6-mile corridor. 151st Street is one spot, Blue Valley Parkway is the second spot, and the third spot would be north of 103rd. So, those are basically three spots where you can get into and out of it and there are going to be signs up that say, Do not cross the double-wide lines, Rockers said. The four-foot buffer is meant to be kind of an attempt to keep people in that lane. And there will be cameras out there, kind of watching people. Just hoping that it gets done soon, Ethan Gross said. People like Ethan Gross, who frequent the area near 135 and 69-highway, are looking forward to construction wrapping up. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I drive there almost every day, Gross said. So, I get to that traffic that goes on, makes me almost late to work almost every day. Kind of changed my whole routine. View the Kansas City traffic and live coverage on FOX4 Rockers said some boards above the highway are now in testing mode and are currently covered. When its all said and done, he said people will be able to see the toll lane price. The price will change throughout the day, those boards will show you the price when you get on, Rockers said. Rockers said they expect the toll lane to be open by January 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Correction: The initial date published for Okaloosa Countys meeting was incorrect. The date has been updated to reflect the correct one, listed below, Oct. 30, 2025. PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) The Northwest Florida Legislative Delegation will host a series of pre-session events this fall, offering residents an opportunity to address their issues ahead of the 2026 Legislative Session. These annual delegation meetings also allow for consideration of local bills, which are state legislative measures pertaining only to a specific municipality, taxing district, or school district within the county. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Public testimony is welcome, and community members are encouraged to participate. The meetings are scheduled as follows: Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. 10:00 a.m. CST Holmes County Legislative Delegation Meeting Holmes County Board of County Commissioners Chambers 107 East Virginia Avenue, Bonifay, FL 32425 11:30 a.m. CST Washington County Legislative Delegation Meeting Washington County Board of County Commissioners 1331 South Blvd., Chipley, FL 32428 2:00 p.m. CST Jackson County Legislative Delegation Meeting Chipola College Cultural Center 3056 College Street, Marianna, FL 32446 4:30 p.m. CST Calhoun County Legislative Delegation Meeting Calhoun County School Board Meeting Room 17586 North Main Street, Blountstown, FL 32424 Monday, October 20, 2025 5:30 p.m. CST Bay County Legislative Delegation Meeting Bay County Government Building 840 West 11th Street, Panama City, FL 32401 Wednesday, October 22, 2025 5:30 p.m. CST Walton County Legislative Delegation Meeting South Walton Courthouse Annex 31 Coastal Centre Boulevard, Ste. 700 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thursday, October 30, 2025 5:30 p.m. CST Okaloosa County Legislative Delegation Meeting Destin City Council Chambers 4100 Indian Bayou Trail, Destin, FL 32541 Those wishing to be placed on the agenda or to submit handouts must contact the delegation staff by the deadlines listed below: Holmes, Washington, Jackson & Calhoun Counties: Email ann.mcgraw@myfloridahouse.gov no later than 4:00 p.m., Thursday, September 25, 2025. Walton County: Email ann.mcgraw@myfloridahouse.gov no later than 4:00 p.m., Thursday, October 16, 2025. Bay County: Email shanta.brannon@myfloridahouse.gov no later than 4:00 p.m., Monday, October 13, 2025. Okaloosa County: Email ian.thomson@myfloridahouse.gov no later than 4:00 p.m., Thursday, October 16, 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The delegation consists of the following members: Senator Jay Trumbull District Office: 840 West 11th Street, Panama City, FL 32401; (850) 747-5454 Representative Shane Abbott District Office: 908 US Highway 90 West, DeFuniak Springs, FL 32433; (850) 635-3470 Representative Griff Griffitts District Office: 840 West 11th Street, Panama City, FL 32401; (850) 804-1950 Representative Pat Maney District Office: Shalimar, FL; (850) 833-3713 Representative Nathan Boyles District Office: Crestview, FL; (850) 689-0556 Senator Don Gaetz District Office: Niceville, FL; (850) 897-5747 Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Theyre not criminals: 4 taken by feds at Southern California car wash Federal agents raided an El Monte car wash on Wednesday, with four people reportedly detained as part of an immigration sweep. The raid at Baldwin Car Wash, located at the corner of Baldwin Avenue and Valley Boulevard, occurred at about 10:45 a.m., according to viewers and video footage shared on social media. Eduardo Lael, the manager of the car wash, was among the four people detained, the owner of the car wash, Jouliet Hairapetian, told KTLA. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theyre not criminals, she said, adding that Lael has worked at the car wash for about 25 of its nearly 50-year history. Theyre not drug dealers. Theyre hardworking people. I dont understand it. A GoFundMe for the Lael family indicates they depended on his income. Hes a hard working man who goes to work every single day and doesnt even bother taking a day off from work to be able to provide for our family, the family said. My brother and I are left scared, stressed, and full of anxiety not knowing what to do next our how were going to be able to afford rent for this upcoming month. Federal officials did not return KTLAs request for comment, but this story will be updated when a response is received. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. STILLWATER, Okla. (KFOR) Parkview Estate homeowners in Stillwater say they are fed up with a new Google data center being built across the street. They say its killing the pond in the community, and now the Home Owners Association has filed a lawsuit. ORIGINAL STORY: Residents of a Stillwater neighborhood say data center construction is killing their pond Its been just barren this summer. Nobody wants to be out here, said Doris Al-Harake, HOA President and homeowner. When the spring rains came, and it flooded all down into our water areas, the front entrance pond took the brunt of it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The HOA says the prep work for the new building has removed essential greenery that prevented runoff from reaching their neighborhood pond for nearly 50 years. HOA files lawsuit against Google for damaged pond. (KFOR) In the past, we would walk around on the creek line and look at the fish, feed the geese. None of that has happened since they ruined our pond, said Al-Harake. Al-Harake says most of the fish have died from suffocation due to all the extra red dirt silt. Adding, no wildlife visit anymore, and neither do residents. Everybody out here in our association pays yearly dues to be able to maintain this amenity and to be able to utilize the amenity, said Al-Harake. So in some way weve received huge losses in usage of this pond. HOA files lawsuit against Google for damaged pond. (KFOR) She says the Department of Environmental Quality did issue a fine, but now the HOA is filing a lawsuit in hopes of restoring the pond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We want remediation. We want damages, we want loss of usage, said Al-Harake. The endgame is to get our association back to the norm, to what our amenities were before. Al-Harake says the pond may never be the same, but will fight to restore it for homeowners and wildlife to enjoy the pond like they used to. News 4 reached out to Google for a statement about the lawsuit. Were waiting to hear back. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Door-to-door solicitors are causing issues for residents in East Nashville. They come peddling different services home security systems, pest control, window replacement or even home remodeling but some solicitors dont take a polite no for an answer. East Nashville residents have taken to social media, asking neighbors for tips on how to discourage the salesmen constantly ringing their doorbells during the day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One resident told News 2 the constant barrage of salespeople is driving them nuts. She said one salesman even waited for her for several minutes when she pulled into her drive and finished a phone call. While she understands theyre just doing their job, the persistence is getting to be too much. Another East Nashville resident, Jourdan Tonti, told News 2 the latest encounter with a man peddling pest control services sent her over the edge. Neighborhood News: Stories impacting your community | Read More Footage captured on her doorbell camera on Monday, Aug. 18, showed the man steamroll right over her repeated denials in a bid to try to sell her pest control services. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These salesmen come to the door, sometimes 7 or 8 at night, ignore neighborhood signs that say no soliciting, and then gaslight you into trying to switch companies, Tonti told News 2. Pest control companies seem to be the ones most consistently pestering lately, according to Tonti. They are always pushy, she said. Id like companies to comply with neighborhood signage that says no soliciting. To help combat the issue, Metro Nashville has a Do Not Knock list residents can register for. The list is accessible through hubNashville. Residents can fill out their information, and the Metro Clerks office keeps it current with monthly checks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Davis Nolan retires from News 2 after 44 years According to Metropolitan Clerk Austin Kyle, the process is valid for two years upon registration for the list. After that time, residents must reregister. A 30-day notice is sent out a month before the two-year timeframe expires, according to Kyle. In Nashville, companies that utilize door-to-door sales are required to obtain solicitation permits, Kyle told News 2. Additionally, solicitors for those companies must submit to a background check from Metro and receive a Metro-issued badge identifying them as approved solicitors. The badge is supposed to be worn by the solicitors when theyre out making their rounds, Kyle said. Those who dont register with the Clerks office are operating outside of the law, according to Kyle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the companies that have gone through the process and registered with us and are permitted through us, we stay in contact with them they usually have a contact person or are in contact with the owner of the business, well let them know if weve received a complaint and try to work with them rather than just immediately jumped to issuing [a fine] or suspending their permits or issuing violations, Kyle said. Enforcement, however, is tricky, he added. Paragon Mills Block Party set for Sunday Its the solicitors that havent registered with us that are much more difficult to track down, Kyle said. The Metro Clerks office is one of the smallest in Metro, so we dont really have much enforcement capability or investigative capabilities. Its kind of limited as to what we can do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are consequences to violating the Do Not Knock list, though. According to Kyle, businesses can be fined $50 per violation per day, which can add up if businesses repeatedly fail to follow proper solicitation rules. Homes on the Do Not Knock list and homes that have a posted No solicitation sign are homes that should never be approached by solicitors, Kyle said. Anyone who has taken those steps and is still plagued by salesmen should report the incidents through hubNashville, Kyle said. If residents have complaints about door-to-door salespeople, they can make complaints through hubNashville, and the Clerks office can use that information to contact the companies mentioned in the complaints. Do you have news happening in your neighborhood? Let us know by sending an email to neighborhoodnews@wkrn.com. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 22Anniversaries, commemorations, whatever the term, present the opportunity to reflect on the past be they good, bad or somewhere in between. For those looking forward to the 50th commemoration of the Libby Dam, there are a day's worth of events going on. But, for those who are truly engaged in the history of the structure and the region, there are two events that can't be missed. At 11 a.m., following the formal ceremony, there will be two book signings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One is by author Donald E. Spritzer will be signing his book, "Waters of Wealth." Spritzer's well-researched account of the "Kootenai Loop" was published in 1979, four years after the dam was dedicated. Spritzer took readers from prehistory through 40 years of false starts, international negotiations and the final construction of the structure, administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Libby Dam Visitor Center Park Ranger Susan James had an idea of reprinting "Waters of Wealth" for many years to help celebrate the 50th anniversary. One lone copy of the original publication was her guide to the second edition. The Libby Dam Cooperative Association, led by Kathy Springmier, began the process of getting permission and rights to the book. Spritzer did give the rights to the co-op and Blue Creek Press of nearby Heron formatted and prepared the book for printing. Blue Creek also designed a new cover. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Noted Libby historian Jeff Gruber procured and curated the photos for the book after original images were lost. Gruber also diligently proof-read the captions and copy. The LOR Foundation provided the funding for the project. Spritzer, a native Westerner from Gunnison, Colorado, has lived in Missoula, Montana, for over 45 years where he earned a doctorate in history from the University of Missoula and worked as a librarian and historian for the Missoula Public Library for 30 years before he retired. The other, "Operation BOLD: Libby Dam at Fifty" will be by author Rich (Ray) Aarstad, a Libby native. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Aarstad, an archivist for Montana State University, leads readers through the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the men and women who made Libby Dam a reality. The book features more than 130 illustrations, most of which were garnered from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archives at Libby Dam. Aarstad shares historical tidbits regarding the small towns that were drowned and the people forced to move by the rising waters of Lake Koocanusa behind the dam. Aarstad graduated from the University of Montana in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts, followed two years later by Master of Arts in History. He works for the Montana Historical Society. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prior to his book signing, Aarstad will read the names of those who died while working on the dam. At 1 p.m., Gruber and Aarstad will take part in a historical talk about the dam construction in the Visitor Center. NEW YORK The leading contenders to replace New York City Mayor Eric Adams treated the latest corruption allegations roiling his inner circle as more of the same and more reason to turn the page on his tumultuous tenure. But none called Thursday for Adams to abandon his long-shot bid for reelection. He doesnt pose a formidable threat anyway as a candidate weighed down by years of scandals, including his own, now-dismissed bribery charges. Adams is polling a distant fourth behind the Republican nominee in the deep blue city with political newcomer Zohran Mamdani as the heavy favorite to succeed him. Even former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who would most benefit from an Adams-less race because their bases overlap, wouldnt go as far as telling the mayor to drop out or resign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People have to decide who the next mayor is going to be, Cuomo told reporters Thursday in Manhattan. Im saying I dont believe he is a viable choice. The indictment of Adams former chief adviser and longtime friend Ingrid Lewis-Martin on charges spanning four alleged bribery schemes rocked City Hall on Thursday but barely made ripples in the race for mayor. The incumbent, a retired NYPD captain with a blue-collar upbringing once regarded as the Democratic Partys next star, is highly unlikely to win another term. He had already skipped the Democratic primary in June in favor of heading straight to the general election and running as an independent. The incumbent has touted falling crime rates, record job growth and hundreds of thousands ofnew housing units in the pipeline as evidence that he deserves four more years running the countrys largest city. But many of those boasts are overblown and the mayors legitimate accomplishments have been overshadowed by the stench of corruption. Adams sought to distance himself from the latest indictments, noting that he is not accused of wrongdoing. But its a much heavier lift demonstrating hes moved on from close friends whove been investigated and charged with corruption because they especially Lewis-Martin have been a visible presence at his recent campaign rallies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lewis-Martins indictment came one day after another former Adams aide, Winnie Greco, handed a reporter with THE CITY a chip bag with a wad of cash hidden inside after an Adams campaign event. Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani by nearly 13 points, paid homage to the surreal incident Thursday by giving out bags of chips at his news conference and telling reporters: Enjoy the potato chips but theyre just potato chips. The former governor returned to his argument that hes best positioned to stand up to Donald Trump on behalf of New Yorkers, calling Adams a wholly owned subsidiary of the president and arguing of a Mamdani mayoralty, I will bet you Trump takes control of New York City within hours of his inauguration. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist state assemblymember, has argued hed aggressively resist Trumps policies while Cuomo keeps the president close. Despite his inexperience and far-left policies, he looks poised to be the next mayor and took a cautious, low-profile approach to the latest corruption scandals buffeting City Hall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His statement about Lewis-Martins indictment stuck to the affordability theme that propelled him to the Democratic nomination. While New Yorkers struggle to afford the most expensive city in America, Eric Adams and his administration are too busy tripping over corruption charges to come to their defense, Mamdani said. Corruption isnt just about what a politician gains, its about what the public loses. Adams gave no indication Thursday that he plans to leave the race for mayor. Even if he does, Mamdani would remain the frontrunner albeit with Cuomo as steeper competition, said Democratic strategist Trip Yang, who is not working on any of the mayoral campaigns. If Adams drops out, polling has shown that most of the support goes to Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo goes from maybe a 20-point deficit to a 10-point deficit, Yang said. If Adams drops out, itll give Andrew Cuomo a lot more energy than Cuomos new videos for sure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yang was referencing the social media videos the former governor has been posting that seek to emulate how Mamdani reached younger, more online voters in the primary. New York City Council Member Lincoln Restler, a longtime Adams adversary, told POLITICO, He appears so deluded and disconnected from the reality of the failures of his administration that I really do believe hes going to run through the tape and get 7 percent of the vote. City Council Member Chi Osse, a Mamdani supporter, said the Lewis-Martin indictment might not even hurt Adams that much in the race. He is polling under 10 percent as the currently elected mayor, Osse told POLITICO. Those who are with him are with him despite all of his corruption and Im sure theyll continue to be with him after this. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor whos polling ahead of Adams in Democrat-dominated New York City, knocked both the mayor and the former governor as elected officials shrouded by corruption. Top Cuomo adviser Joe Percoco was convicted on federal bribery charges but the U.S. Supreme Court tossed the case in 2023. The former governor himself faced calls to resign amid sexual harassment allegations four years ago and has more recently said he regrets stepping down. For him to start attacking Eric Adams as being in charge of a corrupt administration, well, if hes pointing one finger, two fingers are pointing back at him, Sliwa said. But even Sliwa didnt want Adams to drop out, saying he trusts the voters of New York to make the right choice. Jeff Coltin contributed to this report. An NYPD detective was shot and wounded by another officer as he tried to stop a repeat felon on a carjacking spree in Queens Friday morning, police said. Detective Corey Fisher, a Queens South narcotics cop, was shot in the leg and arm during the clash on 21st Road near the Whitestone Expressway Service Road in Whitestone around 8:50 a.m., after the crook with a long rap sheet had stolen a Toyota Highlander from an Uber driver. The thief had also tried to steal two other cars nearby, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The suspect, a four-time convicted felon, had just been arrested Thursday night for turnstile jumping in Manhattan, officials said. Both Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch expressed outrage that the suspect was out on the streets, blaming it on a broken criminal-justice system. Fisher, a 12-year NYPD veteran, was shot by another cop after he was caught in the crossfire, Adams and NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press conference at Jamaica Hospital. Suspect carjacker Kevin Dubuisson didnt have a firearm, cops confirmed. He attacked the Uber driver with a metal object, and had motioned to his pockets as if he had a gun when confronting his prior victims, but it wasnt clear if he had the metal object in his hands when police opened fire. It was a friendly-fire incident, the mayor said about the shooting. Thankfully, these injuries are not life-threatening and hes expected to make a full recovery. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dubuisson was not hit by gunfire, officials said. The suspect has a history of fighting with police and was released from prison in March after serving 15 months for an attempted robbery conviction in Brooklyn. I want to be clear, regardless of who shot our detective, theres one person responsible for starting the chain of events that landed us in the hospital today, Adams said about Dubuisson. This is a man who should have been behind bars, not on our streets. On Thursday around 2:30 p.m., Dubuisson, 28, was stopped for jumping a turnstile at the 28th St. station for the No. 6 train, at Park Ave. South, and given a desk appearance ticket. He also allegedly stole two cars in Manhattan, including an idling yellow taxi before heading out to Queens. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fisher was returning to his office after executing a search warrant when a 911 call came over about a carjacking in progress, Police Commissioner Tisch said. When they arrived, they spotted Dubuisson rolling away in an Uber drivers black Toyota Grand Highlander. The officers ordered him to pull over but he kept on going and made a turn from the Whitestone Expressway Service Road onto 21st Road. As he did so, Dubuisson rammed an unmarked police car before officers were able to box him in on 22nd Road, preventing him from going any further. During the heated moments that followed, three cops from the 109th Precinct opened fire on Dubuisson, officials said. Bullets missed the carjacker, but hit the detective, who was with his fellow narcotics officers in front of the Highlander. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was a crossfire incident, Kenny said. It was not immediately disclosed how many rounds were fired. No firearm was found at the scene, officials said. Neighbors recalled hearing a spray of gunfire before fellow officers rushed the wounded detective to Jamaica Hospital in their patrol cruiser. Fisher was in good spirts and was undergoing surgery, Tisch said Friday. I just spoke to his mom and his wife, who is expecting a child, and it was a relief for them to learn that their loved one was going to be OK, Adams added. Police said Dubuissons car-stealing spree began in Manhattan when he swiped an idling yellow taxi at the corner of Second Ave. and E. 33rd St. in Kips Bay around 9 p.m. Thursday. He hit a bicyclist as he made his escape, but the pedaler was not seriously harmed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A few minutes later, he abandoned the cab at E. 35th St. and Park Ave. and wandered into a parking garage at E. 36th St. and Park Ave., where he took the keys to another car and drove off with it. He drove that vehicle downtown to the corner of Murray and West Sts., where he crashed into a construction site, cops said. Responding officers stopped Dubuisson, but only gave him a summons for not having the registration for the vehicle he was in. The car, police sources said, had not yet been reported stolen. On Friday morning, about 15 minutes before his clash with police, Dubuisson had tried to steal a car from a Mobil gas station on Parsons Blvd., which is about a block away from the shooting occurred, but was scared off by station employees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Surveillance footage acquired by the Daily News shows Dubuisson, wearing white pants and a light-colored jacket, pacing near the pumps before jumping into a white car. As Dubuisson jumped behind the wheel of the Hyundai Santa Fe and started the ignition, Mobil station employee H. Ayache raced over and stuck his arm through the drivers-side window, trying to grab the keys. Dubuisson rolled up the window, pinning Ayaches head and arm between the glass and the window frame. If your cars here, its like my car. Im responsible, Ayache told The News. You see somebody walk inside a car, Im going to do what Ive got to do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of Ayaches customers helped free him as Dubuisson ran to a Mercedes parked at the station, but couldnt get inside. It was locked, Dubuisson said. I was yelling at him, Just get the hell out of here! I didnt want any issues. The carjacker ran off and Ayache and the other briefly customer chased him down 21st Road. As he fled, the carjacker tried to make as if he had a gun but never actually flashed one, said Ayache, adding he wasnt fooled. I didnt see a gun, but thats what he tried to show me, he recalled. I think, if he has a gun, he would have shot me already. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Within moments, Dubuissons car-robbing spree would climax in even more chaos. Ten minutes later, the whole world changed, Ayache said. On 21st Road, Dubuisson tried to carjack a woman outside her home, but her husband ran out and chased him off, cops said. Cops were already responding to the womans 911 call when Dubuisson approached the Uber driver, who was idling on the Whitestone Expressway Service Road. He banged on the door with the metal object and pulled the Uber driver out of the Highlander, not realizing that the Uber driver still had the key fob to the vehicle, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He tried to drive off, but the Highlander stopped once it got out of range of the fob. Realizing his victim still had it, Dubuisson chased down and tackled the Uber driver, struck him with a metal object, grabbed the device and headed back to the Highlander. It happened right in front of my house, said neighbor Alex Loarca, 20. I was just getting out of my bed and I heard screaming. I thought it was construction or a garbage truck at first, but it got louder. I opened my door and an Asian guy in a business-casual suit was screaming that someone had took his car and that the guy had a weapon. Cops showed up a few moments later and ran in the direction of Dubuisson, Loarca recalled. A couple of minutes go by and I heard a loud noise, he said. (It) was gunshots. Its crazy, Loarca said. Were trying to start our day and were starting it with this chaos. Criminal charges against Dubuisson were pending Friday. He was released from prison in March after serving 15 months in prison for an April 15, 2023, robbery. He was arrested for robbing a man of his headphones at knifepoint near the corner of Kings Highway and McDonald Ave. in Brooklyn, prosecutors said. Give me all of your stuff or I will kill you, he told his victim, according to court papers. Dubuisson ultimately pleaded to a third-degree attempted robbery charge and was sentenced to a year and six months in prison. He remains on parole until October, according to state records. Tisch said Dubuisson has 10 unsealed arrests on his record, which include multiple robberies and multiple assaults. New Yorks top cop blamed changes to the states bail-reform rules for Dubuissons quick release after cops grabbed him for jumping the turnstile at the 28th St. station. Before the new laws kicked in in 2019, someone on parole would have never been released on a turnstile-jumping offense, Tisch said. Dubuisson also has a documented history of mental illness, Tisch said. He should not have been out on our streets this morning, she said. Before going out to attempt a carjacking, he walked out of one of our criminal justice locations, Mayor Adams added. That is the definition of insanity arresting the same person over and over again and expecting different results. In her State of the State address earlier this year, Gov. Hochul vowed to roll back some of the discovery reform laws that have made it more difficult to prosecute a defendant, though wouldnt promise to update bail reform laws. In a 2022 opinion piece, Hochul said, blaming bail reform for the increase in violence that cities across America are facing isnt fair and isnt supported by the data. The shooting comes about a month after Police Officer Didarul Islam was gunned down in a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper by rampaging gunman Shane Tamura. WHITESTONE, Queens (PIX11) An NYPD detective was shot in a case of friendly fire in the area of 22nd Road and Whitestone Expressway around 9 a.m. on Friday, according to officials. The detective, with the Queens South Narcotics Team, was assisting officers from the 109th Precinct in responding to a 911 call for a stolen vehicle when the shooting happened, Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced during a press conference. More Local News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While attempting to apprehend the suspect, officers fired shots, two of which accidentally hit the detective in the right hand and left leg, Tisch said. He was transported to a local hospital and is expected to survive, while the suspect was placed in police custody, authorities said. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State According to officials, the 28-year-old suspect, Kevin Dubuisson, had allegedly carjacked an Uber driver at gunpoint on the service road of the Whitestone Expressway around 8:52 a.m. Before that, he allegedly attempted to steal a vehicle from a gas station but was scared off by workers. Hes also accused of attempting to take a womans car on Parsons Boulevard, but was scared off by her husband, according to authorities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More Crime News Tisch described Dubuisson as a predicate felon who had a 10-year history of knifepoint robberies and assaulting NYPD officers. Hes a four-time convicted felon who was last released from prison in March. Just on Thursday, Dubuisson was arrested and released with a desk ticket for charges of theft of service. Hes also a documented EDP with the police department, according to authorities. While the injured detective is expected to survive, there was no word yet on what charges Dubuisson may face. Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) Former El Paso Congressman Beto ORourke and his organization, Powered by the People, are claiming two court victories this week in the ongoing battle between ORourke, his organization and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton filed suit on Aug. 8 alleging that ORourke and his organization have been involved in unlawful fundraising activity and that his organization was illegally funding runaway Democrats who broke quorum during the first special session to temporarily delay Republican redistricting efforts. Paxton suing ORourke, his organization over fund-raising Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Paxton also has alleged that ORourke has been in violation of a court ruling out of Tarrant County, that his group has continued unlawful fundraising and that they paid for the personal expenses of Democrats who fled the state. Paxton has publicly called for ORourkes arrest. Earlier this week, the 41st District Court in El Paso issued a restraining order preventing Paxton from initiating, filing or prosecuting quo warranto proceedings against Powered by the People which go after the groups business license. The court also said that Powered by the People is currently suffering irreparable constitutional harm due to the attorney generals improper proceedings. On Friday, Aug. 22, the same court ruled in favor of Powered by the Peoples request for expedited discovery in the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The court ruled that Paxton must appear for a deposition no later than the close of business on Thursday, Aug. 28. The court also ruled that Paxton must produce records related to the request for expedited discovery. Paxton seeks to revoke charter for ORourkes group Additionally, a representative from the Attorney Generals Office also must appear for a deposition no later than the close of business next Thursday. Paxtons office said that it has immediately appealed the El Paso courts ruling to have him be deposed. Here is part of what Paxtons office said about the two most recent court rulings: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Attorney General Paxton also appealed the courts order to allow a politically-motivated attempt at stifling the important work of the Office of the Attorney General to move forward by enforcing an egregiously burdensome discovery request before the court even determined if it had the proper jurisdiction. The order has been appealed to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals. This appeal comes after the same El Paso court baselessly granted itself the ability to freeze judicial proceedings regarding Powered by Peoples charter being revoked in a separate Tarrant County court. In that case, Attorney General Paxton has secured several victories including a temporary restraining order against Beto over his deceptive fundraising scheme. ORourke, meanwhile, issued the following statement: Weve beat Ken Paxton in court twice this week. The futility of his political prosecution of Powered by People is now clear as day. And Kens poll numbers the whole reason he weaponized the Attorney Generals Office against us in the first place are sinking like a rock. I think everyones looking forward to seeing this corrupt, lying thug deposed under oath. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Civitas Resources Inc. (NYSE:CIVI) is one of the deep value stocks to buy according to analysts. On August 7, TD Cowen analyst David Deckelbaum reiterated a Buy rating on Civitas Resources, lowering his price target to $37 from $42. The analyst highlighted that while production came in slightly below expectations, the company delivered stronger-than-anticipated financial results. EBITDAX was 2% above consensus, and free cash flow outperformed by 36%, underscoring its operational efficiency. TD Cowen Maintains Bullish View on Civitas (CIVI) with a Trimmed Target A worker inspecting a state-of-the-art rig in the Permian Basin region. Deckelbaum also pointed to Civitass decision to divest non-core assets as a positive step, allowing management to sharpen its focus and improve efficiency. At the same time, the company continues to emphasize shareholder returns, with plans to allocate half of free cash flow to buybacks and the rest toward debt reduction. The companys strong hedging program adds further stability to cash flows. In the analysts view, this balanced approach to capital management supports confidence in Civitass long-term positioning despite near-term production variability. Civitas Resources Inc. (NYSE:CIVI) is an independent oil and gas producer with operations in the DJ Basin of Colorado and the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, where it focuses on acquiring, developing, and producing crude oil and liquids-rich natural gas. While we acknowledge the potential of CIVI as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 10 Best Large Cap Tech Stocks to Buy Now and 10 Best Big Tech Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Idaho Gov. Brad Little gives a press conference after delivering his annual State of the State address on Jan. 6, 2025, in the Lincoln Auditorium in the Idaho Capitol. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) The south central Idaho city of Oakley will serve as the host of Idahos next Capital for a Day event on Thursday. Capital for a Day events feature Gov. Brad Little and many of the states agency directors traveling to smaller communities throughout Idaho. During the events, the governor and agency heads discuss state issues and programs and conduct an open forum for local residents to ask questions or make suggestions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is an honor to bring my next Capital for a Day to Oakley, Little said in a written statement. I look forward to sharing this tradition with the good people of Cassia County so we can discuss whats on their minds when it comes to good government and how we can better serve them. Littles predecessor, former Gov. Butch Otter, also conducted regular Capital for a Day events around the state during his three terms in office. When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 28 Where: Oakley City Office/Senior Center at 125 North Center Ave. Officials set to join Little at the event include: Idaho Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield Idaho State Department of Agriculture Director Chanel Tewalt Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Mat Weaver Department of Parks and Recreation Director Susan Buxton Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Jim Fredericks Idaho Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron Division of Financial Management Administrator Lori Wolff Idaho Transportation Department Deputy Director Dan McElhinney Department of Health and Welfare Deputy Director Monty Prow SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Locally, there has been an upward trend in births since July 2024. MercyOne Genesis Silvis Birth Center experienced a 194% increase in deliveries in fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2023. On Thursday, MercyOne Genesis held a press conference to discuss the rapid expansion of their womens healthcare services. At the helm is Dr. May Yazeji, founder of The Contemporary Obstetrics & Gynecology Women`s Care Center. Dr. Yazeji says shes had tunnel vision on providing critical care for women since moving to the QCA in 2010. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive seen the women who are in true need for the care, but they didnt have the opportunity to seek that care other places, says Dr. Yazeji. And I saw the bad outcomes that can come up from not having the care they needwhether its prenatal care, or gynecological care. On the other side of the Mississippi River, Iowa has extremely limited access to crucial obstetric careacross the state. The state of Iowa is ranked last in all of the states, including Puerto Rico in OBGYNs per capita, which is unfortunate, says Dr. Briana Barclay of The Group Obstetrics & Gynecology Specialists, PC in Davenport. The Group celebrated the expansion of their offices on Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think were really proud to be this facility in this community to provide excellent care to women in this community. I think its really important to us, and also in the state, says Dr. Lyndsey Day of The Group. Both MercyOne Genesis Silvis Medical Center and The Group boast one-stop-shops for their patients, which is a preferredbut rareoption for mother and baby. The next steps in providing accessible care are satellite clinics. Dr. Yazeji and MercyOne Genesis plan to expand to outreach services in January of 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. OCEAN CITY For nearly four decades, Ocean City Mayor Richard Meehan has been involved in the beach towns politics. First elected to City Council in 1985, he became council president in 1990 before stepping into the mayors chair in 2006 following the resignation of Jim Mathias Jr.. Hes now the longest-serving mayor in the citys history. In a conversation with The Baltimore Sun, the Republican and graduate of the University of Baltimore reflected on the issues facing Ocean City, including the controversial ban on some short-term rentals that was shot down in a referendum, the battle against wind farms for energy and police presence in a town that attracts 8 million visitors annually. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Voters rejected a ban on short-term rental housing in some areas. Where did you stand? I think that the issue was probably misinterpreted by many. What we wanted to do was restrict short-term rentals in two areas of town our R1 single-family residential areas and our mobile home areas. These are areas where we have numerous year-round residents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our residents should have their right to enjoy the quiet peace and tranquility of those neighborhoods. We realize were a resort town, but our residential communities are important. We have about 9,400 licensed short-term rentals. This would have only affected about 350 of those rentals. Those that are on the bayside, in those single-family home communities. I think a lot of people believed that it was going to affect all the rentals, all the properties throughout Ocean City, and that was never the case. But those in opposition to the ordinance never allowed that message to really be given. We were only restricting short-term rentals in those particular designated areas to a minimum of five days. Our neighbors were seeing one- and two-night rentals, bachelor parties and different types of things. All of these are great experiences, but maybe they dont have to take place next to your neighbors, next to single-family homes where people are raising their families, just like they do in any other place within the state of Maryland. Do you think this issue will be discussed in City Council again? I think so. It was defeated very narrowly. There was miscommunication. Were going to let the issue settle for a while. I think itll come back before the council to revisit. Our goal is to respect and honor what the voters said but to come back and talk about it to see if, in fact, we can do other things or readdress that in a different manner. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I supported it. I think single-family neighborhoods are important to Ocean City too, our future, and I hope were able to come back at some point and regulate that in a way that maybe well be more acceptable to all parties Ocean City banned most tents on beaches and restricted canopies. How is that going? We saw that large areas of the beach were being taken up by these tents and canopies, and it seemed like everybody was trying to get the biggest canopy or tent they could. There was competition for space. We want to make sure that our beach is open and everybody can enjoy the beach. And so we put this new ordinance into effect. We realized it was going to take some time to educate everybody as to what the new rules were and what we expected to take place on our beach. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So we were pretty strict about the tents, about not allowing those and asking people to remove the tents. As far as the canopies are concerned, what weve been doing is our beach patrol not those guards that are on the stands but the lieutenants and the staff so it doesnt take away from manning the beach have interaction with people and let them know if they have a canopy or something that doesnt comply with the new ordinance. Weve been doing that all summer long. Weve had thousands of interactions with people. We havent begun to ticket anybody [for tents] to this point. That wasnt our goal. Our goal was to get the word out. So as we move forward, we can begin to address this. We have been tagging those [unattended] canopies to let them know that it is a violation. Repeat offenders, if we can identify repeat offenders, are now receiving a ticket for that. Its really so that we can offer the best beach experience for everybody and give everybody an opportunity to enjoy that special spot right there by the ocean. With rip currents and sand hole collapses, how is beach safety being managed? We have a terrific beach patrol. We are fully staffed on our beach patrol, which you dont see in many beach areas right now. We increased the pay for our lifeguards and for our surf-rescue technicians. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youve ever been out on our beach and youll see how professional our lifeguards all and how they communicate with each other, and I think most importantly, how they communicate with the public. The lifeguards will talk to everybody about the currents of the beach, the rip currents and if there are jellyfish, and let them know what precautions they need to take. Its all about education. Its about communication, and its making sure that everybody knows what the issues are out there on a beach so they can safely enjoy it while theyre out there with their family and friends. The city has voiced concerns over offshore wind farms impact on tourism and the environment. Whats your stance on balancing clean energy goals with protecting local industries? I first saw the offshore wind project being proposed over eight years ago, and at that time, I expressed my opposition to the size of the turbines and the location. At that particular point in time, we were only concerned about the visual aspect because it was much more intrusive than we had ever imagined and more than ever been conveyed to us. But all of our concerns have continuously fallen on deaf ears. And now those turbines that were first introduced to us eight years ago and were 6-megawatt turbines, maybe 350, 450 feet tall, are now 18-megawatt turbines that are 938 feet tall. If on land, theyd be as tallest structures in the state of Maryland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were concerned about them. Were concerned about our economy, were concerned about the viewshed. But over the last eight years, weve learned an awful lot about how this affects our entire community, how it affects our ecosystem, how it will affect our commercial fishermen. I think weve wasted a lot of time as a state; there are other means that we should be pursuing. We should be looking at small nuclear facilities, and we should be looking at controlled use of solar energy. We support clean energy but not at the cost of our environment here in Ocean City. Related Articles Over Fourth of July weekend, there was a panic over fireworks that people thought were gunfire, then there was a shooting on Pennsylvania Avenue. What has the town done to deter crime? Thats a challenge. Hiring police officers in this day and age is difficult. For the last 40 years, weve had seasonal police officers. Thats no more. The state law changed as to the requirements for hiring provisional officers, and seasonal police officers were considered provisional officers, so we no longer have that program, which has really been a detriment to our police force in a number of ways. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Weve tried to compensate for that, I think, very well by hiring public safety officers, who are those officers youll see on the boardwalk. They dont have arrest powers; they dont carry guns, but they are a large presence with radios, and they work very closely with our uniformed officers. So I think were covered there. How have the tourism numbers been this summer? It was down a little bit early in the year because of the weather. We are weather-dependent, and we had a lot of rain and never had a spring. Some of that does help determine whether people are traveling or not. But overall, we just had a very strong month of June to close out fiscal year 2025, so I think were on pace for another excellent year. We met our revenue projections as far as room taxes are concerned for the last fiscal year, and thats the best barometer we have to gauge what the visitation numbers truly are. We rebranded our advertising two years ago, and thats been very helpful; Somewhere to Smile About is our new slogan. And I think weve taken our advertising in our campaign to a new level. And I think in this day and age, thats what you need to do. You need to remain relevant. You need to show the initiative and invite people to come visit your venue. And thats what weve continued to do. Have a news tip? Contact Todd Karpovich at tkarpovich@baltsun.com or on X as @ToddKarpovich. OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KSWB/KUSI) The Oceanside Unified School District is stepping up efforts to reassure families their children are safe on campus following an immigration raid near an elementary school in Encinitas this week. Some families have expressed fear about sending their kids to school after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a father just blocks away from a school on Wednesday. To ease concerns, Oceanside schools have deployed a team of social workers to connect directly with families, offering workshops, resources and what district leaders call safe spaces on campuses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Everyone is being impacted. I consider everyone my neighbor, and I wouldnt want anyone who is my neighbor experiencing this, said Cynthia Hernandez, a district social worker. So far, the district has hosted at least three Know Your Rights workshops, with more planned at schools across the city. The sessions are designed to provide families with tools and information to help them feel secure. Its important that we have social workers who can visit families, meet them where they are and build a plan that allows them to feel more confident coming to school, said Jordy Sparks, Oceanside Unifieds executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion in student supports. District officials emphasized that no one, including law enforcement, is allowed beyond a schools front office without a warrant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oceanside Unified serves a predominantly Hispanic community and says it will continue offering support throughout the school year. We want to be as preventive and proactive as we can to make sure kids feel safe in school, Hernandez said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Officer David Roses life of service and sacrifice highlighted at memorial service A memorial service at the First Baptist Church of Atlanta honored the memory of David Rose, a Marine and police officer. He was killed in the line of duty in a shooting near the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 8. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and the CDC director were among those who attended the service, which celebrated Roses life of service and sacrifice, Channel 2s Bryan Mims reported. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] David was a man whose life was defined by service: to his country, to his community and to those he loved, said Gregory Padrick, Interim DeKalb County Police Chief. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The service included a flyover, a 21-gun salute and the playing of Taps, honoring Roses dedication and bravery. (PHOTO: DeKalb County Police Department) Jane Seward, a retired CDC employee, expressed gratitude for Roses actions, stating, Im retired, but I know a lot of people who were inside those buildings who were terrified. Rose was only 33 years old and had a young family, including a daughter who had yet to finish first grade and a third child, a boy, he never got to meet. Trey Jones, a fellow officer from the 138th Academy Class, described Rose as unshakeable and fully committed throughout his training. A little girl of 6, with ribbons in her hair and a T-shirt that tells the world My Daddy Is My Hero, took a flag folded into a triangle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Roses legacy of courage and commitment to protecting others was celebrated by the community, leaving a lasting impact on those he served. PREVIOUS STORIES: [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The community gathered Friday to remember DeKalb County Officer David Rose, who was shot and killed two weeks ago while responding to the attack at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The countys public memorial service began at 11 a.m. at First Baptist Church on North Peachtree Road in Dunwoody. The service was open to the public as well as fellow law enforcement from all over metro Atlanta and the state of Georgia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officer Rose dedicated his life to serving and protecting our community, said DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson. We welcome residents to join us on August 22 to honor his service, reflect on his legacy, and stand with his family and our law enforcement community. Two weeks ago, Rose was among the first to respond to an active shooter call that sent the CDC and nearby Emory University campus into lockdown. Investigators said the suspect, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, shot Rose, who was rushed to Emory University Hospital. He was later pronounced dead. White died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Rose, a Peachtree Ridge High School graduated, served in the U.S. Marines Corps and joined the DeKalb County Police Department less than a year ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He graduated from the academy in March and was assigned to the North Central Precinct. Leaders say he quickly earned the respect of his colleagues for his dedication, courage, and professionalism. Rose is survived by his wife, children, parents and siblings. His mother told Channel 2 Action News that her son would have put his life on the line again if it meant saving others. He would do it again. He would do it again, without even questioning. He would put his life on the line for anyone, Deveane Atkinson said. He lived fearless, knowing that someone is going to have to be there to protect people. RELATED STORIES [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] A new solar farm has been approved in New York state, contributing 140 megawatts of clean, renewable energy to the state's power grid. The New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission issued a final permit to Cypress Renewables to develop and operate the project, called Oxbow Hill Solar, according to the Observer-Dispatch. Located in Madison County, the facility will offset over 177,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and provide power for around 23,000 average homes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The solar array in Madison County brings us one step closer in reaching our climate and energy goals," Assemblymember Al Stirpe, D-127, said in a statement, per the Observer-Dispatch. "Each major renewable energy project helps deliver the critical climate action that our state urgently needs, while also creating hundreds of local jobs and new revenue for community priorities." The office of Governor Kathy Hochul anticipates the project will create 330 jobs during construction, as well as increase tax revenue for schools and other community properties. This kind of solar project and commitment from a local government are part of an ongoing trend of embracing clean energy for the future. They have also been shown to add value to properties in the area and even help provide habitats for native plants and pollinators, all while lowering energy costs for residents. Renewable energy projects like this solar farm improve local power grid reliability and promote energy independence for the communities they serve. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are numerous benefits to going solar, particularly when you choose to incorporate it in your home. Installing solar panels can reduce your costs to as little as $0 while decreasing reliance on large power grids and mitigating the impact of planet-warming pollution from dirty energy sources. EnergySage provides a free service that compares quotes from vetted local installers, saving you up to $10,000 on installation while further cutting costs. Going solar also helps make using other clean and money-saving appliances like heat pumps, dryers, and induction cooktops even cheaper to run. Mitsubishi is a great resource for finding the right, affordable heat pump for your home. "At a time where the federal government threatens progress on clean energy, New York remains unwavering in its provision of renewable and efficient energy for years to come," Stirpe said, per the Observer-Dispatch. 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. (FOX40.COM) Sacramento leaders sent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement letters regarding individuals who are allegedly being held in the John Moss Federal Building in Sacramento. Video Above: Immigration Resources for California Families This week, the City of Sacramento and Congresswoman Doris Matsui sent a letter to Orestes Cruz, Acting Field Office Director for ERO San Francisco, requesting access for an inspection of the building. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the City of Sacramento, agents and staff at the Sacramento ICE field office have indicated that multiple people are being detained but have yet to disclose the number of individuals or their identities. In light of this situation, we are requesting transparency on the conditions of the detained individuals at the John Moss Federal Building as well as access to tour the facilities to ensure the humane conditions and treatment of these individuals, the City of Sacramento said. Allegedly, Sacramento leaders have received reports from the Sacramento community organizations of detained individuals being held in inadequate conditions. The 2025 National Detention Standards are in place to ensure proper conditions in ICE detention facilities. It is of the utmost urgency that this facility be made available to me, my staff, and other local elected officials, Matsui said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A response from Cruz or Sacramento ICE officials has yet to be released. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News. OGDEN, Utah (ABC4) After five major structure fires in Ogden in recent weeks, the Ogden Fire Department is saying that they are not connected to each other. Mike Slater, Ogden Fire Chief told ABC4.com that while structure fires are always a concern, the fires are not related to each other. When we look at the fires, some of them are electrical issues, he said. The one we had just the other day was improper disposal of smoking products, and theyre in different areas of the city, so no, theyre not necessarily tied together. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement June, July, and August are typically fire season, when there are the most fires compared to the rest of the year, but this year has been even busier than normal, Slater said. One recent apartment fire in Ogden caused over $1 million in damages and displaced 13 people. Another structure fire burned a townhome and caused $1.6 million in damages. Another fire destroyed an apartment building that was still under construction. Ogden fire causes $1M in damages to apartment complex, 13 displaced Not just in Ogden, but across the state, he said. You know, you saw what happened up in Weber County with that fire, and West Jordan had some fires, Salt Lake had a big fire, Provos got that big grass fire, so its just been a busy year for the fire services across the state of Utah. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its been an active season for wildfires, and structure fires pose a different threat. Every structure fire is a concern for us because somebody is affected by that, whether its a resident, a property owner, Slater said. The apartment fire was concerning because it was a new construction building thats gone up, and weve had two of those happen this year, so were investigating it, and were doing everything we can to find what the cause of that fire was, and if it was human caused, who that individual was, he said. Two of the properties that have caught on fire were owned by Lotus Construction, Slater said, but he doesnt pay credence to a lot of the rumors that go around there. ATF joins investigation of fire that destroyed apartment building under construction in Ogden Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added that Lotus has been fantastic to work with when the fire department asked them to secure their properties. They got right on it. Theyve done a fantastic job to help us. In addition to Lotus Construction, Slater said that theyve talked to 50 contractors throughout the city who are constructing homes and apartments, and they also asked them to secure their sites. They dont want to lose their property. They put a lot of time, money, and effort into these things, to see them go up in flame is just tragic. The community is safe, Slater said. Our fire departments responding and theyre doing a fantastic job when these fires happen, to put them out, and were being proactive with the builders in the city to make sure that their sites are secure. The majority of the buildings where fires have occurred have been occupied, not abandoned or empty. Latest headlines: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno speaks on stage on the second day of the Republican National Convention. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Ohio voters gave Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno a harsh welcome Wednesday during an appearance at The City Club of Cleveland. Unruffled, Moreno defended Republican policy and painted the Trump administration in glowing terms. He should, and probably will, end up getting the Nobel Peace Prize, Moreno said of the president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Those are just facts In a discussion moderated by NBC News Henry Gomez, Moreno praised the Trump administration and its centerpiece budget legislation, The One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The measure makes permanent large tax breaks from Trumps first administration and adds on temporary deductions for overtime pay and tips that expire in 2028. Opponents criticize Republicans for paying for those tax cuts by rolling back safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps. But Moreno claimed theres no cut. The facts are, over the next 10 years, we will spend 20% more on Medicaid nationally than were spending now, Moreno said. Medicaid spending will be increased by 20%, thats a fact. Despite insisting throughout the event that those are just facts and encouraging people to look it up, Morenos math is fuzzy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nonpartisan researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation note CBO forecasts predict a $911 billion cut to the program and an increase of 10 million uninsured Americans. Ohio Capital Journal asked Morenos office about the figure but got no response. One possibility? He could be comparing apples and oranges. In June, the GOP-controlled, U.S. House Budget Committee put out a press release claiming the Congressional Budget Office had set the record straight. But the committee argued Medicaid spending would climb more than 30% not 20%. They arrived at that figure by comparing projected Medicaid costs in 2034 with the current ones. That, of course, ignores the likely increase in program spending if Trumps legislation hadnt passed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The CBO described that comparison in the very same paragraph, stating, CBO estimates that enacting the Medicaid provisions of H.R. 1 would reduce Medicaid spending by $125.2 billion in 2034. Moreno also defended the Trump administrations approach to tariffs: We need to make more things here in America so that we have good, high paying middle class jobs thats just a fact. And he voiced support for the idea of taking an equity stake in Intel. If a company is going to ask for help, if a company is going to ask for money, the taxpayer should get equity so we have the upside, Moreno said. As a company becomes successful, we can sell that equity and recoup the money for the taxpayer, he added. To me, thats common sense. Question and answer Moreno answers elicited jeers throughout the discussion with Gomez. When the event turned to audience questions, it didnt get much friendlier. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One person asked what he was doing to protect NASA following major job cuts and another sought his help with changes to the 529 education savings plan making it easier to donate left over money. Moreno assured the first that NASA is important for national security and the city of Cleveland. A lot of that technology and knowledge lives here in Cleveland, Moreno said before predicting a big increase in funding. He promised the other attendee hed investigate the 529 issue and work on fitting it into upcoming legislation. Different speakers pressed him on his support for Israels war in Gaza and what hes doing to protect Ukraine from Russias invasion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a total problem caused by Hamas that could be fixed by Hamas, and Israel is defending itself and I support them unequivocally, Moreno said of the war in Gaza. As for Ukraine, Moreno said, We cannot allow 6,000, 7,000 innocent people to die every single week. It is a terrible, terrible situation whats happening there, and I, for one, Im on the side of peace. One attendee asked about Trumps recent flirtation with prohibiting mail-in voting. The senator argued the last time Congress proposed federal election laws, Democrats were in charge. Were on the side of states rights, and saying, hey, states should manage that, Moreno said. But at the same time, it is a federal obligation to make sure those states are doing a good job. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Notably, the Trump administration is leaning on GOP-led states to redraw maps mid-cycle to advantage the party. Among other changes, the Democratic legislation Moreno referenced would have required states to establish independent redistricting commissions. Another attendee asked Moreno about changing his tune about the 2020 election and Jan. 6. Whats the truth about the 2020 election? Was it stolen, Senator? the man asked. And whats the truth about Jan. 6, Senator? Were they patriots or felons? Moreno pointed to Hunter Bidens laptop. That story was supposedly Russian misinformation, which it was clearly not, and did that alter the election? Absolutely it did, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I get the question, Moreno added, was Joe Biden the legitimate president of the United States for four years. He was legitimately the worst president of the United States for four years. Moreno did not address Jan. 6. Pressing the flesh? Clevelands event is far from the first time Moreno has come home, but his visits have generally relied on private tours and press conferences. Critics have lobbed abuse at Moreno for failing to meet with constituents. When Ohio Capital Journal reached out to Morenos office about events with voters, a spokeswoman sent a press release describing a three-day, 18-county tour promoting the One Big Beautiful Bill earlier this month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those visits included a dairy, a restaurant, a steel plant, and a factory. But the events werent widely publicized, and most appear to be made up of invited guests. Although the press release notes Moreno visited Ohios three most populous counties, it doesnt mention coverage from any of the numerous news outlets in those areas. Frustrated with their lack of access, Morenos critics have have taken to hosting regular protests outside his Ohio offices. They showed up outside The City Club, as well. In a statement, organizer Ellen Brown said, he doesnt represent all of Ohio. He refuses to do a town hall with constituents of different points of view, hes allowing the executive branch to take power from the Senate as he votes with the president 100%, and the budget bill hurts Ohioans in favor of billionaires, Brown continued. Hes allowing illegal deportations against immigrants and hes an immigrant himself. Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Nvidia (NVDA) stock just got a major price target reset ahead of earnings, but the twist isnt more AI hype. KeyBanc Capital Markets John Vinhs call is built around a factor effectively hiding in plain sight, something investors havent fully priced in. Its not about demand, nor is it about China, or even the usual AI narrative. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter Instead, its a potential shift that could change how quickly Nvidia is able to ramp up sales, while fattening up its margins in the process. Moreover, with expectations sky-high already, this quiet revamp could be an overlooked driver, making Nvidias Q2 earnings print one to watch more closely. NVIDIA gets a major bump from a top-tier analyst with one surprising twist before earnings.Image source: Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Who is analyst John Vinh? John Vinh, managing director and equity research analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, has a keen eye on the chip space and AI-infrastructure supply chains. Among the stocks he covers closely is Nvidia, along with other chip names, and he has become a trusted voice on the sector. On TipRanks, he attracts a 5-star rating, with an impressive 60% success rate and an 18.9% average return per rating. This makes him one of the top-ranked tech analysts tracked on the platform. For perspective, Dan Ives of Wedbush fame has just a 49% success rate on the platform. KeyBancs John Vinh raises Nvidia target ahead of earnings on "yields," not just AI Ahead of Nvidia's Q2 earnings report on August 27, KeyBancs John Vinh lifted his Nvidia price target to $215 from $190, on the back of better manufacturing yields. Specifically, Vinh cites the GB200 server rack yields nearing an incredible 85%, which means that more systems are breezing through QA and shipping faster. Related: Cathie Wood drops $21.6 million on biotech stock That improved throughput has him raising his full-year rack shipment forecast to 30,000 units, up from 25,000. Simply put, Nvidias backlog is being converted into sales at a much quicker pace, on the back of more efficient execution at the factory level. Supply is catching up, too. Blackwell B200 availability has surged at an eye-catching 40% in Q2, and it's set to climb another 20% in Q3. The rollout of Blackwell Ultra is also accelerating, potentially making up 50% of Blackwell shipments by October, resulting in a more diverse product mix. On numbers, Vinh now sees Q2 sales at $47.1 billion (consensus estimate at $45.7 billion) but trims Q3 to $50.4 billion (consensus estimate at $53.5 billion), excluding China due to license uncertainty. If we include China, he sees even greater upside of $2 billion to $3 billion, driven by H20 and RTX6000D (B40) shipments. Former Ohio state Rep. Adam Miller calls on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to send members of the Ohio National Guard who were recently deployed to Washington D.C., back home. Photo taken on Aug. 20, 2025. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal). Ohio advocates are calling on Gov. Mike DeWine to bring home the Ohio National Guard troops recently deployed to Washington D.C. President Donald Trump said on Aug. 11 he would send National Guard troops to Washington D.C. to crack down on crime and Ohio is one of six states that has so far sent troops to Washington D.C. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll asked DeWine on Friday to send 150 members from the Ohio National Guard to Washington D.C., and members of the Ohio National Guard left for a 30-day deployment. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The deployment of the National Guard should be reserved for situations in which the safety of citizens and the integrity of our nation are actually at risk, said Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer. We are here today calling for Gov. DeWine to recall the National Guard immediately. Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee have also sent troops all states with Republican governors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not too late for Gov. DeWine to cancel this ill considered, legally problematic and unwarranted mission, said former Democratic Ohio House Rep. Adam Miller. This political theater has got to end. Our National Guard families and our soldiers deserve better. Violent crime in Washington D.C., is at a thirty year low and Toledo, Dayton, and Cleveland all had a higher crime rate than Washington D.C. in 2024. Ohio has traditionally helped the District of Columbia, Ohio mayors, and other states when they request assistance from the Ohio National Guard or the Ohio State Highway Patrol, DeWines spokesman Dan Tierney said when asked about the deployment. The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia has not asked for National Guard troops to be deployed, and Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has spoken out against the deployment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The worst thing you can do as any military leader is to sanction an unwarranted action, said Miller, who is running for Ohios 15th Congressional District. He is also a colonel with more than 20 years of service in the U.S. Army Reserve who served as the Judge Advocate General Corps officer. None of the 150 Ohio deployed troops are part of the Emergency Response Force package, Miller said. This is a fake emergency, Miller said. Shame on our chain of command for not asking the questions, for not doing their independent due diligence, and for pulling our service members out of existing training and into a dangerous situation. Miller praised Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, for rejecting the request to deploy National Guard troops. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We have to speak up when something happens that is outside the scope of our legal authorities, outside the scope of our mission, Miller said. The Ohio National Guard is one of the largest in the country with around 17,000 soldiers and airmen, according to the 122nd Army National Guard Band. Were involved in multiple operations overseas, Miller said. We have special forces. You dont pull people out of critical global terrorism missions for political theater. Putting soldiers and their families into a mission for which theyre not well trained is the worst thing that you can do as a military leader and the governor has got to be more willing to say no, or at least ask questions. Part of Trumps crackdown on crime comes from a recent executive order that forces those experiencing homelessness off the streets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With members of United States armed services, including some from our very state, descending as ordered onto Washington D.C., to sanitize and purge the city of people whose only crime is being homeless, its clear that a judgment has been reached, said Rev. Jack Sullivan, Jr., executive director of the Ohio Council of Churches. It is clear to us that the so-called homelessness and crime crisis in Washington D.C., serve only as manufactured justification for military mobilization. ACLU Ohio Legislative Director Gary Daniels said DeWine has chosen to be part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Requesting National Guard troops to come to another area of the country should be used only for the most extreme examples where they are truly needed and not for what we are seeing here today, Daniels said. What exactly is the exit strategy here? Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) An Oklahoma Republican representative went on national news over the weekend to defend the controversial curriculum approved for elementary school students in the state. The curriculum in question is a video thats part of a PragerU Kids cartoon series called Leo & Laylas History Adventures. The Oklahoma State Department of Education partnered with conservative education platform PragerU in 2023. That partnership has made more recent national headlines for a woke test State Superintendent Ryan Walters says PragerU helped with that is being given to certain out-of-state teachers who may be interested in working in Oklahoma. OSDE system stalls for another year, leaving students information behind Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow) was a guest on MSNBC on August 17 to weigh in on content in a Leo & Layla video. The video is called Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World. The description says its meant to explain why we honor Columbus and says its meant to teach elementary students not to judge events of the past by the standards of today. What happens in the video? Leo and Layla wonder why their teachers dont want them to celebrate Columbus Day anymore and only want to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day/Native American Day. They say theyve heard mixed things about Columbuss character. The kids travel back in time using a cell phone to speak to Columbus. Leo and Layla meet Columbus on his ship as he is sailing back to Spain, and he explains his backstory. Leo says hes heard at school that Columbus spoiled paradise and brought slavery and murder to peaceful people. Columbus says he met tribes that were highly intelligent and others that were vicious, warring cannibals. Leo and Layla ask Columbus about slavery. Columbus says that slavery is as old as time. Columbus also adds that being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I dont see the problem. Leo and Layla push back about slavery no longer being allowed in the 21st century. Columbus tells the kids its not fair to judge him by the same standards as the future. He makes comparisons to Ancient Greeks and says that while he doesnt agree with everything in their society, their achievements are not ignored. Columbus says that no one is perfect, except for his lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Leo and Layla travel back home and recap what they learned. What are opponents saying? News 4 spoke with Brett Chapman ,Thursday, an attorney and descendant of Ponca Chief and Native American Civil Rights leader Standing Bear. Chapman believes the video is racist propaganda. They portray it as hes like, very scholarly and learned, you know, and superior to, you know, basically cannibals, said Chapman. It started this long chain of events, right? That justified the erasure of Native Americans, the stealing of their land. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement News 4 also spoke with Oklahoma City community activist Jabee Williams on Thursday, who was highly critical of the videos contents regarding slavery. Its just sad and its disgusting, said Williams. The video doesnt leave any room for other voices. The video doesnt leave any room for us to even assume anything else but that what happened was okay and none of it was okay. What is Woolley saying? News 4 reached out to Woolley Thursday afternoon to request an interview, but never heard back. Woolley did share his thoughts about his MSNBC interview on social media saying that he believed the discussion went well. He said he thought the hosts seemed to dismiss the historical reality that slavery has existed across the world since the beginning of time. He said that America has confronted tragedy, abolished slavery, and continues to strive for greatness. In the MSNBC interview, Woolley defended the content as a supplemental tool to support instruction, saying he had shown it in a classroom as a teacher. He said that the content is not being forced on anyone, but is there as an optional method to support lesson planning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He also said he believed the remarks about slavery in the video were being misconstrued. I think what theyre alluding to is, if youre still alive, you have the opportunity for change and for freedom and for reformation to come. Woolley also said hes supportive of the PragerU out-of-state teacher test. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) A man born in Illinois, but a pioneer to the state of Oklahoma is now forever memorialized with a sculpture and plaza on the state fairgrounds. He is probably the most famous Oklahoman that you dont know anything about, Randy McMillan with the Oklahoma City-County Historical Society said at the sculptures unveiling. LOCAL NEWS: New attractions coming to the 2025 Oklahoma State Fair Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It stands tall between the Bennett Event Center and Centennial Building where any Oklahoman can get to know a legend in the history of our state dubbed one of the founding fathers, Charles Jones. Charles Jones sculpture at the fairgrounds. Image KFOR. Charles Jones sculpture at the fairgrounds. Image KFOR. Charles Jones sculpture at the fairgrounds. Image KFOR. He was always doing whatever he thought was best for the territory and what was best for the state of Oklahoma, McMillan said. A laundry list of accomplishments sit on a plaque just below the sculpture. Among several things, he was on the first territorial and Oklahoma Legislatures, a two-time mayor of Oklahoma City and he led the efforts to get the state capitol from Guthrie to where it sits now. He even founded the towns of Mustang and Jones, the latter of which is named after him. He also built the first flour mill in Oklahoma City. His product got first place at the 1893 World Fair in Chicago. That pretty much put Oklahoma on the map as a as an agricultural state and area, McMillan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bed rock of that mill where the flour was processed also sits on the plaza surrounding the sculpture. Lifelong artist LaQuincey Reed was the mastermind behind the piece. LOCAL NEWS: Rascal Flatts makes stop in Oklahoma City as part of 2026 Life Is A Highway tour I think itll be cool for my especially my two boys to come and say, hey, my dad did that,' Reed said. Reed was an art teacher at Jones about 7 or 8 years ago when he first started the whole process of making the sculpture. Its a project finally to fruition, but those plans for it go back over 100 years, according to McMillan. When Mr. Jones died and in March of 1911, immediately there was a movement to have a statue put at the state fairgrounds of Mr. Jones, So 114 years later, here it is, McMillan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jones is also considered a pioneer of our own state fair, which is where his sculpture sits. He was the first president and organizer of the State Fair Association. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) In a show of unity, Odd Nodd Art Supply, Bad Annies, and many other Old Town businesses pushed back against hate and raised money dedicated to justice and inclusion in a Thursday fundraising event. (WLNS) We dont see that kind of negativity around Old Town and obviously its not reflective of anything we see in Old Town or in Lansing, said Odd Nodd owner Casey Sorrow. Were just looking to shine a light on positive community organizations rather than this one individual who came out and tried to spread his ignorant and hateful message. Sorrow says an incident where someone vandalized the area with Nazi imagery was demoralizing, but the community outreach as a result of the incident was pivotal in the creation of the fundraiser. (WLNS) The people who came out and asked what they could do, kind of led us to this moment where we wanted to create something where the community could get together and do something good with what had happened, Sorrow said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cassandra Larrieux has been in Lansing or 22 years and is a policy specialist with Safe and Just Michigan, one of the nonprofit organizations benefiting from the event. (WLNS) She points to the event being a great chance to showcase resilience, hope, and provide a welcoming environment for all. To be able for the community to support us, were so very grateful because right now it is really tough to be A non-for-profit organization, Larrieux said. (WLNS) Bad Annies owner Summer Schriner says this moment is also a chance to showcase resilience and hope and provide a welcoming environment for all. Old Town is a safe place for so many people. And it has been for a long time and its so, so important that we just keep screaming that message out to people, Schriner said. As long as people are here, its who we are. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 22 (UPI) -- The man believed to be the last surviving World War II official American ace naval fighter pilot has died at age 103. Described in his legacy.com page as a compassionate and humble soul, Don McPherson, of Nebraska, died Aug. 14. McPherson enlisted in the U.S. Navy in February 1943 and was qualified for a naval aviator's golden wings and an ensign's commission in August 1944. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was posted in February of 1945 aboard an aircraft carrier as part of a fighter squadron equipped with Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat planes. McPherson served in the war campaign on Okinawa, Japan, in which he was credited with five aerial victories and bestowed flying ace status. McPherson left active service in November of that year, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal and three gold stars. He then completed his Navy Reserve obligation in October of 1956. Nearly 60 years later, McPherson was named to the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame in January of 2015, and then in May of that year was one of 37 fighter aces presented with the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington. McPherson also had a final Hellcat flight, as at age 102 he flew a restored fighter. He turned 103 in May and died last week in his home state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "As we've celebrated 80 years of WWII victory, I've been humbled by the incredible stories of service members like Donald McPherson -- who was America's last-living WWII Ace," Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen wrote on X Wednesday. "After bravely serving our country, he committed himself to his faith, his family, and his Nebraska community." "Donald McPherson built an amazing legacy in our state -- and will forever be an American hero," he concluded. Update Friday 8-22-23 1:35 p.m. The motorcyclist who died in the crash was 21-year-old Ryan T. Hines from Baldwinsville. The earlier version of the story is below. GEDDES, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) One person is dead after an accident occurred in the Town of Geddes, that shutdown Interstate 690 eastbound for several hours on August 21. At 5:57 p.m. on Thursday, New York State Police responded to a two-vehicle crash on I-690. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A preliminary investigation determined that a 2011 Ford F-250 pickup truck and a 2006 Suzuki motorcycle were both traveling eastbound, when the pickup truck changed from the driving lane to the passing lane. The motorcycle then struck the rear of the pickup truck. The motorcyclist, a 21-year-old male from Baldwinsville, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the pickup truck was not injured. The pickup truck driver was tested at the scene by a State Police Drug Recognition Expert and showed no signs of impairment. No tickets were issued to the driver. The State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit is assisting with the investigation, which remains ongoing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If anyone witnessed the crash, they are asked to contact State Police at 315-366-6000. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSYR. One person was taken to the hospital after a shooting on Crawford Street early Friday morning, police say. Boston police responded to the shooting just after 3:00 a.m The victim is expected to survive, according to Boston police No arrests have been made as of yet but the investigation is ongoing. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW JACKSON COUTNY, Miss. (WJTV) Authorities announced a suspect was arrested after one person was shot and killed at Ingalls Shipbuilding on the Mississippi coast. The shooting occurred on August 22, 2025, around 7:30 a.m. South Pike student dies after being found unresponsive Officials have confirmed that the suspect is 25-year-old Curtis James Jr. from Mobile and that the victim was a resident of Prichard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The shooting was an isolated incident that happened on a ship between two employees, according to officials. They also said that an argument between the two men occurred earlier in the week. It is unknown how James was able to get the gun into the shipyard. Police said they have not found the gun, but they know that at least two rounds were fired. All Ingalls employees were sent home for the day and will be paid. Anyone with information about the fatal shooting can contact Pascagoula police at 228-938-6707. WKRG contributed to this story. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. After intensive searches of the beaches and sea, the missing man was located in the water, about 2 km south of the beach he was last seen. A 19-year-old Israeli was rescued in the Dead Sea after going missing near the Neve Midbar beach, Israeli Police said on Friday. The police received a report of the man missing after he was swimming in the Dead Sea at around 11 PM on Thursday, and began searches around the area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A team composed of police, volunteers from the Dead Sea Scrolls Rescue Unit, and the Israel Air Force was dispatched to the scene. After intensive searches of the beaches and sea, using a drone and the assistance of a police helicopter, the missing man was located in the water, about 2 km south of the beach where he was last seen. He was rescued by a volunteer team and transferred for further medical treatment, the Police statement said. Man rescued by the Police in the Dead Sea. (credit: ISRAEL POLICE) One man drowned in Lake Kinneret, another one near Caesarea Magen David Adom reported two different drowning events on Friday, with one man found dead in Lake Kinneret and another who drowned near the beach of Caesarea. 38-year-old Shlomo Banai was found dead after an extensive search in Lake Kinneret, authorities reported on Friday. Marine police teams rescued him and brought his body to Magen David Adom, where paramedics declared him dead. MDA also reported that a man about 30 years old was found with no signs of life near Caesarea and pronounced dead at the scene. Only just over a third of U.S. states require sexual education in public schools to be medically accurate, researchers said on Friday, potentially preventing tens of millions of students from receiving crucial information about sexual health. While 42 states ask students to take a course that covers at least one sex ed topic between kindergarten and high school, just 19 mandate that the information be evidence-based and supported by the medical community, according to a new analysis from the Boston University School of Public Health. And five of those states require accuracy for specific topics, which may include sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, and unhealthy relationships. While many students in the U.S. are required to get some form of sexual education, our study shows that substantially fewer students are likely to be getting the comprehensive sexual education that public health and medical associations recommend, Dr. Kimberly Nelson, an associate professor at the school, said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More than 65 million students were enrolled in public schools in 2021, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey. Now, only 58 percent of students live in a jurisdiction that requires sex ed to be medically accurate, Nelson noted, and many jurisdictions have content mandates that extend only to a few topics. Public school students may not be receiving crucial information about sexual health. Researchers at Boston University School of Public Health said just a third of U.S. states require the education they mandate to be medically accurate (Getty Images) This means that many U.S. students are living in jurisdictions where they are unlikely to receive the accurate and comprehensive information that we know will help them make informed, healthy choices about their sexual behaviors and relationships, she explained. No federal law requires schools in the U.S. to teach sex ed, leaving decisions to the states or school districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dozens of the 42 states that mandate sex ed courses 34 require instruction on abstinence, which the researchers say has consistently proven to be ineffective or harmful to adolescent sexual health. The same number of states mandate instruction about HIV, while only 32 require education about sexually transmitted infections, and 31 mandate instruction on child abuse prevention. Even fewer states require instruction about healthy relationships and dating or intimate partner violence. Just 24 states require education about sexual assault, even though one in five American women has experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime. Nearly a quarter of men have experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime, according to federal health officials. In addition, only 20 states require instruction related to contraception, and nine states mandate instruction about consent to sex. The analysis also found just 12 states mandate instruction about sexual orientation, with Oklahoma and Texas requiring the use of messaging the researchers called stigmatizing or negative. Both elementary and high schools teach sexual education. But the subject matter differs by state (Getty Images) State mandates also varied by region, with all Northeast states requiring school-based sex ed for at least one topic. The same was true for 88 percent of states in the South, 83 percent of states in the Midwest, and 62 percent of states in the West. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The researchers said 34 states have allowed parents to opt their children out of receiving sex ed instruction, and five states require parents to opt in. The findings were based on an examination of state statutes, administrative regulations, state court decisions, sex ed content requirements, and parental notice and consent policies. Although more research is necessary to fully understand the extent to which parental policies limit the effect of state sex ed mandates, the researchers said current policies may stop students from receiving vital information about sexual health. Because policy decisions about sexual education curricula happen at the state-level, state-level sociopolitical forces exert substantial influence on sexual education, said Nelson. This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. Truist wants to build 100 new branches over the next five years and renovate more than 300 of its established locations in high-growth markets mostly in the Sun Belt and East Coast, the bank said Wednesday. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender is leaning in to markets such as Austin and Dallas in Texas and Miami and Orlando in Florida where it sees the best chance to broaden its mass-affluent customer base. Specifically, Truist is targeting customers who have less than $100,000 with the bank but more than $100,000 in investable assets outside of it. As part of the effort, Truist aims to hire additional premier advisers, who are dedicated to that tier of clientele. Donta Wilson, Truists chief consumer and small-business banking officer, said the bank has grown its premier team by 50% over the past nine months and intends to boost that by at least another 20%. Truist calls its new branch model insights-driven. Thats meant to create a more personalized experience but with an assist from AI-driven analytics that deliver real-time information and marketing offers. (The bank is also developing a patent-pending AI tool to aggregate client feedback across millions of conversations, it said Wednesday.) The model isnt new but rather represents a scaling of a design that has shown early success for Truist, Wilson said. Truist is averaging nearly half a million conversations per month through its AI-enhance digital assistant, and is delivering more than 550 million personalized, real-time financial insights per year through another company-native AI-driven platform, the bank said. But although more than 70% of affluent consumers prefer to rely on digital transactions, customers also value branch engagement for more complex financial moments, Wilson said, adding that branches can signal both stability and availability. The real story here is that were leaning in on a combination of making sure our clients are digitally empowered yet remain deeply relational, Wilson said. A counter to PNC, Fifth Third The banks growth plan may stand as a counter to the strategies of regional competitors such as Fifth Third and Huntington and PNC. Pittsburgh-based PNC, Truists nearest competitor in asset size, launched a strategy in early 2024 to build 100 new branches then doubled that effort, specifically focusing on 12 markets, including many that are also on Truists radar: Austin, Dallas, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta and Charlotte. A constitutional county refers to a county government that declares its intention to uphold the United States Constitution and state constitutions, potentially by refusing to enforce laws it deems unconstitutional. The constitutional county is a concept based on the idea that county government has the authority to interpret and enforce the U.S. Constitution within its boundaries, even if it conflicts with other levels of government. This often involves county commissions or boards adopting resolutions to that effect. Although the concept is not legally defined, it often involves a county's legislative body stating it will not use resources to support state or federal actions it views as unconstitutional. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of course, any county resolutions and declarations expressing concerns about unconstitutional mandates or laws do not have the power to overturn or nullify those laws. However, declaring a constitutional county is a statement and often a form of protest against perceived overreach by state or federal authorities. No counties in Washington state have formally declared themselves constitutional counties. Maybe its time that changed. It seems most state lawmakers are unaware of the concept of limited government that is, the people being free from government overreach. This years legislative session saw record tax increases and restrictions on freedoms, including controversial laws on parental rights and gun control. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Only five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic provided the rationale for then-Gov. Jay Inslee to declare a statewide emergency that lasted nearly 1,000 days. The Legislature did nothing to try to stop him. Government overreach and the erosion of individual liberties by Olympia lawmakers are signs of the growth of government that the Founding Fathers warned about. This is not a time to surrender, but rather a time to push back against unconstitutional actions being taken against law-abiding citizens. Declaring a constitutional county is a means of standing up for liberty for all citizens. The idea is simple: The more declared constitutional counties, the less control Olympia has over Washingtonians' day-to-day lives. Concerns about excessive government intervention into personal choices and individual freedoms indicate that its time to return to the principles and ideals enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Delmer Eldred is the host of The Klickitat Voice podcast. Hundreds of pages of damning filings in Smartmatics $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox, in which the election technology company alleges it was defamed on Fox News' airwaves after the 2020 election, became newly available to the public this week after the court removed substantial redactions to the documents. The unveiling came two years after the right-wing network paid a record $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. The Smartmatic filings, like those from Dominions suit, are stuffed with internal Fox text messages, emails and other communications that paint a vivid picture of operations within the network in late 2020. And in the years since, the right-wing propaganda network has reshaped the incentives for its staff in ways that would make another such disinformation campaign more likely and more potent in the future. The filings show that Fox News executives and hosts, fearing an exodus of viewers angered by the networks Election Night call of Arizona for Joe Biden, engineered a network pivot to promote Trumps claims of election fraud. These included attacks on Smartmatic even though they did not actually believe those claims to be true. Their deception helped create the environment for Trumps attempts to overturn the election results, culminating with a violent mob of his supporters sacking the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6, 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What stands out most as one sifts through the Smartmatic filings is that almost all the Fox employees shown enacting this pivot kept their jobs and were even promoted. While some have left the network over the past year, they did so to join Trumps second administration. Meanwhile, those depicted as trying to stand up for facts were largely purged. With hindsight, its easy to see that since airing deceit after the 2020 election, Fox has solidified an incentive structure in which staffers are rewarded for propping up Trump and everything he does, while they risk consequences only for breaking with that edict. The documents show Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO and co-chairman of Foxs parent company, and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott supporting Fox News host Jeanine Pirros uncensored return to the networks airwaves, a platform she used to push election conspiracy theories. After Murdochs father, Rupert, retired in 2023, Lachlan ascended to chair of Fox Corp., while Scott retained her position. Host Jesse Watters, in a text message to fellow "The Five" co-host Greg Gutfeld revealed in the filings, wrote: Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL. Fox subsequently promoted Watters and Gutfeld to host eponymous prime-time shows in the networks weekday lineup. Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, who plugged her show to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell as a news platform that would promote her conspiracy theories and urged her to [p]lease please please overturn the election, still hosts both of her programs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fox stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who traded warnings about the post-election backlash against the network and criticisms of a Fox News reporter providing accurate information, both still have their shows. So does Bret Baier, who is shown in the documents pushing back against false election claims but subsequently urged Fox executives to reverse the Arizona call to quiet viewer discontent. Pirro, who the filings show bragging to the sitting Republican National Committee chair about how she works so hard for the President, was subsequently promoted her to co-host of the weekday panel show "The Five." She is no longer at Fox, but only because Trump appointed her U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro followed in the footsteps of former "Fox & Friends Weekend" host Pete Hegseth. The current Secretary of Defense is in the Smartmatic filings being asked by Watters if he got the memo about not saying fraud. The exception who proves the rule is Lou Dobbs, who texted Powell that he was going to do what I can to help stop what is now a coup detat and saw his Fox Business show canceled in early 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Smartmatic filings do show several Fox employees trying to provide viewers accurate information about the election results by pushing back against the Trump teams conspiracy theories. But nearly all were subsequently fired or otherwise left the network, including decision desk leaders Chris Stirewalt and Bill Sammon, anchor Neil Cavuto and reporters Kristin Fisher and Leland Vittert. This obvious disparity sent a clear message to Foxs employees: If you deviate from the MAGA script, you put your career at risk, but if you follow it, you will be rewarded. That incentive structure has echoed down through Foxs coverage ever since, as the network hollowed out its news side, propped up Trumps return to the leadership of the Republican Party and then the White House, and served as a megaphone for an administration stocked with former colleagues. Trumps assault on the legitimacy of American elections is far from over. The president announced on Monday that he is planning to sign an executive order he claims would end mail-in ballots because theyre corrupt. While legal experts say that such a move would exceed his constitutional authority, Trumps efforts to subvert the 2020 election show how far he is willing to go. Like Dominion, Smartmatic may force Fox to pay a high price again for its 2020 election lies. But if Trump tries to mess with elections in 2026 and beyond, the network has signaled over and over its willingness to support him. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com On Monday, Texas Democrats returned to Austin to participate in the Trump-ordered special legislative session that will redraw the states congressional map in an effort to hand Republicans five more House seats. Theres no fig leaf here, no pretense of any interest in democratic principles, just a naked power play. As President Trump put it, I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats. In other words, Republicans are trying to do to the House of Representatives what theyve already done to the Supreme Court: bend the rules, stack the deck, and ensure themselves a permanent majority. And they are succeeding. The new congressional map has already passed the Texas House. Thats why the Democratic reaction to this is so inexplicable. Texas Democrats had found a way to exert actual hard power in a very red state by denying Republicans a quorum Texas law requires two-thirds of the legislators be present in the chamber to conduct business. When Gov. Greg Abbott called a special legislative session to push through a redistricting plan that would give Trump the five extra seats to which he says he is entitled, Democrats left the state and blocked the special session from conducting any business at all. This infuriated Republicans. Abbott promised to keep holding special sessions until Democrats came back, threatened to charge them with felonies, and ordered that they be arrested and physically delivered to the chamber, despite the fact that refusing to attend a legislative session is not a crime. Sen. John Cornyn even asked the FBI to help track Democrats down and return them to Texas. All of this was unnecessary. After holding out for just two weeks, Texas Democrats voluntarily returned to help Republicans subvert democracy while patting themselves on the back for their bravery. Texas House Democrats broke quorum and successfully mobilized the nation against Trumps assault on minority voting rights, proclaimed Texas House Democrat Gene Wu. Now, as Democrats across the nation join our fight to cause these maps to fail their political purpose, were prepared to bring this battle back to Texas under the right conditions and to take this fight to the courts. I cant believe how utterly unsuited Democrats are to the present moment. In the Texas redistricting fight, they had found a way to exercise real power. And now they are throwing that leverage away and letting Trumps naked power grab go forward. Why? Because winning would be hard. As Texas House Democrat Vince Perez explained, In order for us to block this, we would probably have to quorum break through Thanksgiving. Thats a difficult thing to achieve. But there is more at risk here than Perezs holiday plans. The single best way to give American democracy a fighting chance is to remove any temptation for an electoral coup in the next presidential election by ensuring that Democrats control the House on Jan. 6, 2029. If you arent willing to spend a few months in Illinois to achieve that, youre in the wrong job. We need to be cold-blooded and clear-eyed about what is at stake. For the next three-and-half years, our sole purpose is to preserve enough of American democracy that it can eventually be restored without violence. If we fail, the American political system will tear itself apart. Think Im exaggerating? Its already begun. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Coercion and threats of violence are now an accepted political tactic in America. When Democrats returned to the Texas legislature, they were forcibly detained in the chamber, and not allowed to return home unless they voluntarily placed themselves under the physical custody of the Texas Department of Public Safety. One legislator who refused to sign the paperwork was not allowed to leave the chamber overnight and was threatened with a felony for speaking to the Democratic National Committee on the phone. There is a time for gesture politics and singing folk songs. This is not it. This is a time for results. Norms are great things when everyone follows them but only a fool plays by unwritten rules when no one else does. Democrats must accept that fighting for American democracy isnt going to be easy and it isnt going to be cheap. It will take them outside of their comfort zones. It may cost some people their careers and even their liberty. In generations past, that would have been thought a small price to pay. What will future generations say of us? Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCains primary campaign in 2008. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has decided to write a letter to US President Donald Trump regarding Ukraines attack on the Druzhba pipeline, through which Russia supplies oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Source: major Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, as reported by European Pravda Details: The newspaper published a copy of the letter and Trumps reply. "This pipeline supplies Hungary and Slovakia, two countries that have no other means of importing crude oil. Hungary supports Ukraine with electricity and petrol, and in return they bomb the pipeline that supplies us. A very unfriendly move! We wish President Trump every success in his pursuit for peace," Orban wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The US president reportedly replied: "Viktor, I do not like hearing this I am very angry about this. Tell Slovakia that you are my great friend." Background: Earlier, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto complained about the third attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline, as a result of which the supply of Russian oil to his country was once again halted. On the night of 17-18 August, units within the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with other defence forces, struck the Nikolske oil pumping station in Russias Tambov Oblast. After this, Peter Szijjarto hinted at a possible cessation of electricity supplies from Hungary to Ukraine, despite the fact that electricity is supplied on a commercial basis. The European Commission said in response that the Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline has no impact on oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia, Budapests complaints against Kyiv notwithstanding. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (MyValleyTributes) Orene Earvin Rhodes, 80, passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones on Sunday, August 17, 2025. Born December 11, 1944, in Mississippi, she was the beloved daughter of Willie Earvin and Pecola Cummings Earvin Howell and the cherished sister among 21 siblings. Find obituaries from your high school Orene was a devoted mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, sister, and friend whose light touched everyone she met. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Orene worked tirelessly for over 15 years at North Side Hospital until her retirement. She then embraced her most treasured role as a grandmother with unmatched love and dedication. She was a proud mother of four: she will be joining her son, Kenneth Earvin, in eternal paradise, and leaves behind her children Sabrina Brandon, Nicole Rhodes (Larry Smith, II), and Keith Rhodes (Lori Heydle). Her love extended deeply to her grandchildren: Edward Devon Brandon, Najiyah McLaughlin (Kenyon McLaughlin), Antoine Burgess, JaeShaun Perel, Larry Smith III, Carlee Rhodes, and Keith Rhodes Jr. She was also blessed with great-grandchildren who brought her endless joy: Aniyah Ward, Adisyn Burgess, Amiyah Burgess, Ziyah McLaughlin, and Keenan McLaughlin, along with her great-great-granddaughter, Niana Walker. She will also be dearly missed by everyone who lovingly called her grandma or Ma, including her god-grandchildren, foster grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and her many extended family members. In her retirement years, Orene enjoyed traveling, playing bingo, and sharing in the laughter and milestones of her family. In recent years, she devoted herself to helping care for her great-grandchildren Ziyah and Keenan, affectionately saying they kept her young. Orene was a ray of light in the darkness, offering comfort, kindness, and a remedy for nearly anything. Her presence brought warmth and reassurance to all who knew her, and her legacy of love and generosity will live on in the hearts of her family, friends, siblings, and all the children whose lives she touched. She will be deeply missed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Visitation will Friday, August 22, 2025 from 12:00 1:00 p.m. at the L.E. Black, Phillips & Holden Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held at 12 Noon. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Orene Earvin Rhodes, please visit our floral store. A television tribute will air Sunday, August 24 at the following approximate times: 8:58 a.m. on WKBN and 7:58 p.m. on FOX. Video will be posted here the day of airing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Orlando coffee shop riddled with bullets after deadly officer-involved shooting As Orlando police investigate an overnight deadly shooting, a local business is left picking up the pieces. A fatal officer-involved shooting happened just before 4 a.m. near the intersection of Chatham Avenue and West Amelia Street. Police said they were responding to the area for a reported disturbance when they were randomly attacked by a man. Photos: Orlando coffee shop riddled with bullets after deadly officer-involved shooting Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials said a man in his 40s charged at them while holding a pair of scissors and was shot to death by the officers. The shooting shocked residents in the area. Once the police moved out, the damage left behind at the shooting scene was made clear. A coffee shop was riddled with bullets from the officers gunfire. Bullet holes and shattered glass left a gruesome reminder of the horrific incident. The City of Orlando has contacted the coffee shops owner about reimbursing them for the damage. The shooting is under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Police shot and killed a scissors-wielding man who had charged them while responding to an unrelated roommate dispute early Friday, according to a press release from the Orlando Police Department. The officer-involved shooting occurred after OPD arrived to a residence at West Amelia Street and Chatham Avenue around 3:40 a.m., the agency stated. While talking with the roommates involved in the dispute, a white male in his 40s, who appeared to be sleeping in Luminary Green Park, charged at officers with an edged weapon, later identified as a pair of scissors, said the release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The agency said the suspect made a slashing motion with the scissors, and while officers gave multiple commands for the man to drop his weapon, he refused to obey the commands while advancing toward them. When the suspect failed to comply, he was shot. He died at the scene, the release stated. This was a completely unprovoked attack, and the officers had no prior contact with the suspect. We want to be clear, the suspect involved in this shooting was not involved in the initial dispute between roommates. OPD said the man, who was not identified, had a criminal history including burglary with assault and battery, grand theft and possession of meth. Officers were not injured and have been placed on administrative leave. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will review the incident. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) The system used by Oklahoma teachers to transfer plans for students with special needs has stalled for a second year in a row. Last year, it took over two weeks to fix the online service provided through EDPlan. And at the time, the Department of Education said that it was due to an update and that when the update was finished, it would be, resulting in a more effective and efficient platform. This time around, many students information is missing, and its left teachers wondering what to do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The information is known as a students individualized education program or plan, most know it as an IEP. Teachers are required to fill it out and pass it around; it tells others what the student has learned, what their needs are, etc. Sometimes it can be dozens of pages long, and sometimes a teacher can have twenty-five or thirty students to fill them out for. The online system EDPlan is run by the Department of Education (OSDE). Last year, when it wasnt working properly, the Oklahoma Director of Special Education told the Board of Education that it couldnt be put off, that this needed to be working on time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its frustrating. You cant help students, you cant communicate properly with parents, you cant do what you need to do. You cant do your job, said an anonymous educator. A counselor in one of the states biggest school districts reached out to News 4 and wanted to sound the alarm. We have ten days to get their paperwork updated, whether or not we have a system to use, she said. LOCAL: Its not just a pond: HOA sues Google after construction begins for new data center It is state law that students IEPs are entered within 10 days of school starting. An IEP is extremely important to any student with special needs. Without it, they fail to learn properly and could get left behind. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last year, when it went down, teachers had to handwrite and pass notes between classes, districts, and even states. When the system was finally fixed, they had to then type it up and enter it back into the system. It was a disaster, said Rep. Andy Fugate (D-Del City). Rep. Fugate said hes spoken with special education teachers this week who are upset. These are special education teachers who are left scrambling as they try and do the right thing, said Rep. Fugate. Oklahoma has remained in a special education teacher shortage for years and has also been one of the lowest-paying states in the nation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Is it too hard to ask that the system we spend taxpayer dollars on works properly so they can at least service these students? said Rep. Fugate. He also said he spent over a decade as a Director of New Media Technology for The Oklahoman and couldnt imagine a system like this not being rolled out properly two years in a row. If it happened to my team once, we would have some very difficult conversations, said Rep. Fugate. But if it were to happen twice, we would have to start talking about who needed to go. Several special education teachers echoed the same frustrations, and some said they were already past the 10-day deadline. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I guess I just want some improvements so that we can serve our students better, said the counselor. News 4 reached out to a spokesperson for OSDE and asked for a cause or a timeline. That spokesperson didnt get back to us. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) Police said several items, including drugs, were stolen during break-ins at Insight Health facilities last weekend. Read next: Shots fired during fight in Warren: Police Police said Insight Health on E. Market Street and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital on Squires Lane were broken into at some point between Friday, August 15, and Monday, August 18. On Monday, a staff member at Insight told police he noticed a safe had been broken into, and over 1,200 OxyContin pills were missing from the facility on E. Market Street, according to a report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Wednesday, police took another report at the facility after a window was found shattered, and officers noticed a brick that had been thrown through it. An employee later discovered a second window had been broken. Police said someone let off fire extinguishers inside the building and left behind footprints in the hallways. According to another police report taken Monday by Howland police, the security manager at Hillside told police someone forced open side doors that were barricaded shut with wood and stole multiple hand tools. The total cost of the stolen tools is about $400. Staff later discovered another door in the building was open, though nothing else appeared to be stolen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nadine Grimley contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. THREE RIVERS, Calif. Officers raided an illegal marijuana farm last week, removing over 2,000 marijuana plants from Sequoia National Park in northern California. The 13-acre site also contained around 2,000 pounds of trash and infrastructure that were removed by hand and by helicopter, the National Park Service said. Other items found at the site included a semi-automatic pistol and a number of hazardous chemicals, such as a highly toxic insecticide that was banned in the U.S. over 15 years ago. A federal law enforcement ranger at the illegal marijuana cultivation site. Authorities noted other hazards and damage the marijuana farm caused within the national park: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Poaching activity was detected. A significant amount of natural vegetation was cleared. Trails covering an estimated two miles were illegally maintained. Campsites, kitchen areas and cultivation sites were developed in a wilderness area. Large pits were constructed to store diverted water, and terraces were dug into the hillside for planting marijuana. The natural flow of water from a nearby creek was redirected and channeled to water the marijuana plants, which can each use up to eight gallons of water per day. The diversion of water takes water away from wildlife and vegetation that rely on it, according to the NPS. The agency added that water for personal use and crop irrigation within the mountainous Sequoia National Park can cause runoff contaminated with pesticides to reach the Central Valley. Terraces of marijuana plants have been cut into the hillside in Sequoia National Park. "These cultivation sites cause major damage to the parks natural resources and are a threat to public and staff safety," officials said. The recently raided marijuana farm was initially spotted and raided in 2024 by authorities, but was not rehabilitated until this year because of the presence of dangerous chemicals, according to the NPS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement How To Watch Fox Weather No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing. The NPS asks anyone with tips on illegal cultivation on park land to please call the NPS-wide Tip Line at 888-653-0009. Helicopter removing items from the cultivation site. Officials noted that well-organized drug-trafficking organizations have been operating large-scale cultivation operations in and around Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks for nearly 20 years. In that time, almost 300,000 marijuana plants valued at nearly $850 million have been removed from the two California national parks. Original article source: Over 2,000 illegal marijuana plants removed from California national park Truist Financial has unveiled plans to establish 100 new insights-driven branches in the US over the next five years, as part of its multi-year investment. It also plans to renovate more than 300 existing locations in areas such as Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. In addition to expanding its branch network, Truist aims to bolster its capacity to cater to mass affluent clients by recruiting more premier advisors in various markets. The company also plans to repurpose its virtual sales centre to prioritise building relationships within this client segment. Truist chairman and CEO Bill Rogers said: This significant investment demonstrates Truist's continued commitment to grow with our clients at every step of their financial journeys and strengthen market share in some of the most dynamic areas of the country. Our strong capital position and momentum enable us to invest confidently in our growth strategy and fulfill our purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities. Truist said it intends to leverage AI-driven analytics for personalised interactions, enhance fraud prevention measures, and increase the efficiency of digital tools. It aims to facilitate nearly half a million monthly interactions through its AI-enhanced digital assistant, Truist Assist. The company plans to deliver more than 550 million tailored financial insights annually through its Truist Insights platform. Additional enhancements will include smarter appointment scheduling, a more intuitive account opening process, and improved consumer payment capabilities, the company noted. Truist also plans to modernise its ATM network to provide tailored offers and multi-denominational withdrawals. Truist chief consumer and small business banking officer Donta Wilson said: These investments accelerate our ability to provide clients with proactive, AI-driven digital insights and data-informed, tailored advice in our branches, including comprehensive financial planning personalised for premier banking clients. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Truist Financial provides various financial services, including consumer and small business banking. "Truist plans to open 100 new branches in US" was originally created and published by Retail Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand. The United Kingdom, Australia and Japan are among 21 countries that have condemned Israels plans to build a controversial illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, which they say renders a future two-state solution for Palestinians impossible. We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms, the 21 countries said in a joint statement on Thursday, describing Israels construction plans as a violation of international law. The statement follows news this week that Israel will formally move forward with a settlement on a 12-square-kilometre (4.6-square-mile) tract of land east of Jerusalem known as East 1 or E1. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The development, which will include 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers, will cut off much of the occupied West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem while also linking up thousands of illegal Israeli settlements in the area. East Jerusalem carries particular significance to Palestinians as the top choice for the capital of a future Palestinian state. The group of 21 nations said any plans for a two-state solution will become impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem. The group includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Tanaiste @SimonHarrisTD has joined 21 counterparts from Europe and globally in condemning plans for settlement construction in the E1 area of the West Bank. These plans are a violation of international law & a fundamental threat to the two-state solution they must be reversed. pic.twitter.com/FTmIbDZbEv Irish Foreign Ministry (@dfatirl) August 21, 2025 The illegal settlement also risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace, the group said, while bringing no benefits to the Israeli people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Palestinian Authority, the European Commission and United Nations chief Antonio Guterres have all voiced opposition to plans for the E1 settlement since Israel first announced the news last week. Coupled with ongoing settler violence and military operations, these unilateral decisions are fuelling an already tense situation on the ground and further eroding any possibility for peace, the European Union said in a statement on August 14. Israels far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said settlements such as E1 will help erase Palestine from the map, even as Palestinian statehood gains increasing international recognition from UN member states. This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise, Smotrich said last week. NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. A crash involving an overturned semi-truck has stopped most westbound traffic on Interstate 40 in North Little Rock. A crash report from the Arkansas Department of Transportation states that the crash was first reported just after 6:20 p.m. ARDOTs iDrive map shows traffic backed up from the I-40/I-430 Interchange to the Crystal Hill Road exit (Exit 148). The crash report also states that no injuries were reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. MEMPHIS, Tenn. The owner of Makedas Cookies is reacting after Hernandez Govan, the alleged mastermind in Young Dolphs murder, was found not guilty on all charges on Thursday. On November 17, 2021, at Makedas Cookies on Airways Boulevard, was where Memphis rapper Young Dolph was shot 22 times. Maurice Hill, the owner of Makedas, who hangs a mural of Dolph inside his shop, reflected on the young star with a charismatic presence. Owner Maurice Hill, Makedas Homeade Cookies Whats next in finding justice for Young Dolph Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oh man, that guy was great, yeah, he was great, when he first started coming he was kinda arrogant, he would come in and say whats hot? and then after asking whats hot, he would start telling us to bake him some cookies and well wait on em and well bake em some but he was a giver, he was like a breath of fresh air for the city you know, said Maurice Hill. When asked if justice was served after the non-guilty verdict, Hill said, No, not today with the verdict, no sir, not with the verdict today, I dont think justice was served. A St. Louis resident drove to Memphis to pay her respects to Young Dolph. I mean, even if you didnt pull the trigger, youre still the mastermind behind it, so you still should have done some time, said Laura Kellems, a St. Louis resident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im happy to be free: Hernandez Govan found not guilty in Young Dolph murder WREG has reported on three deaths that are possibly related to Dolphs death, including Destinee Govan, Hernandez Govans daughter, who was killed in a Houston shooting in September 2022. Her death came two months before her father was indicted in the Young Dolph case. In June of 2023, Joshua Taylor, a person of interest in Dolphs murder, was shot and killed in Orange Mound. In January of 2024, Anthony Big Jook Mims, the brother of rapper Yo Gotti and the man who allegedly called for the hit on Young Dolph, was shot and killed at a nightclub in Hickory Hill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Who is Young Dolph? Rapper killed in Memphis shooting In the South Memphis neighborhood where Dolph grew up, we met a man who was best friends with the rappers father. The man had been following the Govans case closely and told us anonymously he wouldnt be surprised to see a violent retaliation. No, I think its pretty likely, I think when he suggested that he was going to leave town immediately, that kinda suggested that there maybe some retaliation against him, said the man. LeMoyne Owen Professor, Reverend Dr. Earle Fisher, who is close with Young Dolphs family, said he also wouldnt be surprised to see a violent reaction to the case, but hopes people can come together and heal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im pretty sure I will be texting with Dolphs childs mother, Mia, and Ill be asking her to continue to be steadfast and prayerful, and Ill be trying to support the people who are taking this verdict to heart in a very disappointing way, said Reverend Dr. Earler Fishe. We have reached out to the Memphis Police Department on whether they expect a violent retaliation to the non-guilty verdict, but we have yet to hear back. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) Stand-up paddleboard (SUP) users are required to follow Massachusetts boating safety regulations, according to the United States Coast Guard. The Massachusetts Environmental Police state that in October 2008, the United States Coast Guard determined that stand-up paddleboards are considered vessels and thereby subject to certain boating safety regulations. That means paddleboarders are required to be prepared just as they would if they were operating a traditional boat. Life Jacket Loaner Program to prevent tragedies in our regions waterways Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Paddleboarders are required by law to have a life jacket aboard when on waterways. Those under 12 years old are required to wear one. They must be either a Type I, Type II, or Type III flotation device when not in a bathing, swimming, or surf zone. Those who opt to have a Type V life jacket, must wear it. 7 Day Forecast Those on a paddleboard must also know the local regulations and are advised to be competent swimmers. The environmental police provided the following safety tips when paddleboarding: Wear a lifejacket (PFD) Carry a whistle Be a competent swimmer and know how to self rescue Know the local regulations and rules of the road Understand the elements and hazards winds, tidal ranges, current, and terrain Be defensive dont go where you arent supposed to and avoid other swimmers and boaters Know your limits Take a safety course 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. The Florida Department of Transportation finally acknowledged late Thursday that it removed the rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclub though the agency offered no explanation for why it acted in the middle of the night, with no warning to the city and also informed Orlando that at least 18 more decorative crosswalks must go by Sept. 4. Those include several new mural crosswalks added throughout downtown last year in hope of increasing visibility of crossings for pedestrians, as well as the Thornton Park swan-adorned crosswalk. The Wednesday overnight removal at Pulse happened after FDOT reviewed all of its state roadways for areas not in compliance with its updated manual and began correcting pavement markings not in compliance, the agency said in a Thursday evening email to Orlando. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That includes street art previously installed on state right of way, such as the intersection of Orange Avenue in question, FDOT spokesman Michael Williams said in a separate, Thursday evening statement released to the media. The removal of the rainbow crosswalk at Pulse, the site of a 2016 massacre that has become a significant memorial for the LGBTQ community, led to an outcry from Orlando officials and lawmakers. But despite pointed rhetoric about political rainbow crosswalks from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as a state ban on rainbow lights on bridges earlier this year, Williams said the states actions were purely procedural. Transportation infrastructure is for the movement of people and goods, Williams said. In this case, while the crosswalk has been restored to its proper form, local efforts are underway to construct a permanent memorial on adjacent properties funded by the State of Florida. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is false. A demonstrator has "rainbow tears" painted on her face during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators use chalk to color the street during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith speaks passionately during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators hug during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, left, smiles as she takes a selfie during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan smiles during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator uses chalk to write a message on the street during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators shout at passing traffic during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A young child holds a sign during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith holds an umbrella during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator uses colored chalk during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator is pictured during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan shows her anger during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith speaks during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani waves during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Show Caption1 of 26A demonstrator uses blue chalk to color the street during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)Expand Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, on Friday the state ordered Fort Lauderdale to remove the section of a street near the beach painted in the colors of the LGBTQ+ progress pride flag, a location near what is widely known as the unofficial LGBTQ+ section of Fort Lauderdale beach. The 100-plus people who gathered at Pulse Thursday evening, many dressed in rainbow colors and waving rainbow flags, largely did not buy the states official bureaucratic rationale for its actions. Its infuriating, its cowardly, its shameful, said David Mink, who said he was stunned when a friend told him the rainbow crosswalk had been removed. Nicki Drumb and her wife, who had their first date at Pulse 20 years ago, said the rainbows removal made her feel nauseous. I just wanted everyone to see that this is important, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many in the crowd used chalk on the crosswalk, returning color to the intersection. But as part of the states stance against non-uniform traffic control devices, such as pavement markings on state and local roads, an email received by a city administrator Thursday evening from District 5 Secretary John Tyler stated FDOT had identified more local colorful crosswalks and road markers that also needed to go. All of these have a specific purpose and were approved by FDOT, said City Commissioner Patty Sheehan said Friday of the 18 targeted locations. I think the point of it is to demoralize local governments because some of the most satisfying and wonderful things we get to do is beautification, and when you combine beautification and safety its very rewarding. Sheehan said she wasnt sure if the city would appeal any of the crosswalks and markings which include bicycle markers on Laureate Blvd in Lake Nona noting the FDOT email seems to indicate any request for reconsideration would be fruitless. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Department has already reviewed the pavement markings at the location(s) mentioned above and determined that the pavement markings will not be allowed, it reads. It also notes the state would pursue withholding transportation funding if the city doesnt comply, and would remove the markers themselves, while billing the city for the work. It also thanks the city for agreeing to remove them. We appreciate that we have been able to confirm with you that the City of Orlando has agreed to work expeditiously to remove the noncompliant pavement markings listed above. The Department appreciates your cooperation and commitments made to remedy the noncompliance, it reads. The city embraced painting murals on crosswalks in pedestrian-heavy areas like in downtown Orlando in recent years, citing studies showing the increased visibility helped prevent collisions between cars and humans. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For example, a Bloomberg Philanthropies study found a 50% dip in crash rates involving pedestrians and a 37% drop in crashes leading to injuries at intersections that have asphalt art. Drivers also yielded to pedestrians 27% more often at such intersections, the groups research showed. The roadway battle kicked off earlier this summer when Secretary Duffy sent a letter to the nations governors alerting them to a safety plan to seek consistent markings across American roadways. He stated on X that rainbows were his target. Soon after, Orlando received a notice from FDOT of updates to its own transportation manual, which explicitly prohibits the application of pavement or surface art on travel lanes, paved shoulders, intersections, crosswalks or sidewalks. The conflict escalated much further Thursday morning when city officials discovered FDOT had painted over the rainbow crosswalk outside of Pulse overnight. The crosswalk at Esther Street is technically part of Orange Avenue, a state-operated road. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement City officials also believe other intersections may have been painted over, such as new green markings along a bike trail at intersections along East Anderson Street. This was despite FDOT having just painted similar markings on a newly renovated portion of Conway Road between State Road 408 and Curry Ford Road. Sheehan said the targeted crosswalks have been extremely popular. They have taken something that is overwhelmingly positive and supported by residents in our community and made it a problem, she said. There is no way they can point to any evidence that a painted crosswalk is unsafe the evidence is to the contrary. The full list of crosswalks the state has targeted for removal is below: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement S. Rosalind Ave at E. Jackson St (Crosswalk) Church St at S. Rosalind Ave (Crosswalk) Magnolia Ave at E. Concord St (Crosswalk) Orange Ave at Concord St (Crosswalk) N. Orange Ave at E. Central Blvd (Paver intersection) S. Orange Ave at E. Pine St (Paver intersection) S. Orange Ave at Church St (Paver intersection Summerlin Ave at Washington St (Crosswalk) Amelia St at N. Hughey Ave (Crosswalk) Amelia St at Ronald Blocker Ave (Crosswalk) Amelia St at Chatham Ave (Crosswalk) Amelia St at Putnam Ave (Crosswalk) Livingston St at N. Hughey Ave (Crosswalk) Central Blvd at N. Eola Dr (Crosswalk) W. Kaley Ave at S. Division Ave (Crosswalk) Corrine Dr at East End Ave (Crosswalk) Laureate Blvd at Benavente Ave (Bike Symbol) Laureate Blvd at Kellog Ave (Bike Symbol) Tony Man of the South Florida Sun Sentinel contributed to this story. The Palm Beach County School District is considering having fliers placed in middle and high schools to warn students about the dangers of human trafficking and give them a number to call if they or someone they know is a potential victim. The district's move would come amid renewed interest in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy Palm Beach financier and former Donald Trump friend who pleaded guilty in Palm Beach County in 2008 to two-prostitution related felonies. Epstein was later indicted in 2019 in New York on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Many of Epstein's victims were recruited from Palm Beach County schools, including John I. Leonard, Seminole Ridge, Wellington and Royal Palm Beach high schools. At least 15 girls were recruited at Royal Palm Beach High. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More: Jeffrey Epstein victims in Palm Beach County: Royal Palm Beach High was ground zero "We were ground zero for Jeffrey Epstein's activities, and now we can play a vital role in protecting students and building a culture of awareness and support," said Palm Beach County School Board Chairwoman Karen Brill, whose suggestion of the fliers was met with broad agreement from her colleagues on the board during its Aug. 20 meeting. Superintendent Mike Burke said he would work with district staff and "see what we can come up with." Human trafficking training required for education officials in Florida Jeffrey Epstein victims Jena-Lisa Jones, Michelle Licata, Courtney Wild and Virginia Roberts Giuffree The Florida Legislature passed a law this year requiring that education officials who work with students undergo human trafficking awareness training. That training must be completed by Dec. 1. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brill said the fliers would add a layer of protection for students. She suggested the fliers be placed in private student areas such as locker rooms or bathroom stalls because students might not be comfortable taking down human trafficking information with other students nearby. "Private spaces allow students the discretion to read and absorb important messages potentially encouraging those at risk to seek help," Brill said. "This approach would provide preventative information and vital resources to reach those who may need them the most." Epstein case haunts Donald Trump U.S. President Donald Trump announces the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta (right) outside the White House in Washington, U.S., July 12, 2019. As the U.S. attorney in South Florida, Acosta approved of the plea deal for sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. In 2019, Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, where he was being held without bail on sex trafficking charges. His death sparked a range of conspiracy theories, some of which were fed by Trump and some of his supporters, who alleged, without evidence, that high-profile Democrats were named in investigative files of the Epstein case. Those conspiracy theories have come back to haunt Trump, who partied with Epstein in the 1990s and once described him in a 2002 New York Magazine story as "a terrific guy" who was "a lot of fun to be with." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side," the article quoted Trump saying. By 2019, when Epstein was indicted, Trump said he had distanced himself from the disgraced financier 15 years earlier. During his first term as president, Trump put Alexander Acosta, who had approved that now-much-reviled plea agreement with Epstein in 2008, in his Cabinet as U.S. secretary of labor. When details of the deal emerged, including the fact that it was reached without consultation with Epstein's victims, Acosta resigned. As he campaigned for a second term as president, Trump said he would release the Epstein case files. Other supporters claimed the Biden administration was shielding the files from public view to protect high-profile Democrats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now that Trump is back in the White House, his administration has so far refused to release the investigative files. Instead, the administration had sought the release of grand jury testimony legal experts said the administration knew contained little detailed information and would not be released by a judge. Indeed, judges have now refused to release that testimony, with one saying the administration's request was merely a "diversion" from the voluminous investigative files whose release the administration already controls. The only grand jury files that have been made public came from a Palm Beach Post lawsuit seeking transcripts of a 2006 grand jury session that resulted in only a single charge of solicitation of prostitution, which didn't reflect the ages of the victims. The transcripts show prosecutors called their two victim witnesses prostitutes and grand jurors lectured them about their reputations. A second felony charge was added in 2008. Democrats, hinting that Trump himself could be mentioned prominently in those investigative Epstein files, have now begun to press the administration for their release, exposing the president to a double-barreled blast of criticism from supporters who were led to believe the government was protecting Democrats and from opponents who argue Trump is trying to protect himself. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted July 25-28 found that 61% of respondents disapproved of Trump's handling of the investigation versus 21% who approve. The survey also found 82% of Americans believe the government should release all the documents it has on the case. A chat with Ghislaine Maxwell As the criticism mounted, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and one of Trump's former criminal defense attorneys, took the extraordinary step of personally interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein ex-girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many of Epstein victims said Maxwell recruited them for Epstein's abuse and participated in some of the abuse herself. Maxwell has denied involvement in Epstein's crimes and said she is a scapegoat. Multiple media outlets reported that Maxwell claimed in her interview with Blanche that Trump was not involved in any of Epstein's illegal activities. From left, future President Donald Trump and his future wife, former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2000. The administration said it would consider releasing a transcript of the interview, which was followed a week later by Maxwell's transfer from a federal prison in Tallahassee to a prison camp in Texas described as far more relaxed. While the Epstein case continues to roil the Trump administration, education officials in Palm Beach County said they simply want to do all they can to protect students. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Florida ranks third in the country for incidents of human trafficking, according to information on the victim services page of the Palm Beach County website. Palm Beach County ranks third among Florida's 67 counties in suspected incidents of human trafficking. School board member Erica Whitfield said she would want the fliers to avoid using "upsetting" imagery and language, but she backs the idea of placing them in middle and high schools. "I think this is a very important thing that we can be doing here at the school district," she said. The board did not vote on the matter, but it made its wishes clear to Burke. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "No urgency tonight, but it is needed," board member Marcia Andrews said. "It's bigger than Jeffrey Epstein. There's so much stuff going on." What to do if you suspect human trafficking in Palm Beach County If you see someone who may be a victim of trafficking or if it does not look or feel right call: National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888 OR Department of Children and Families Hotline for children under 18 years old: 1-800-96-ABUSE (1-800-962-2873). Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: As Epstein case roils Trump, schools consider trafficking fliers Months after a terrorist bombing devastated a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, American Reproductive Centers (ARC) says its labs are back online and its first embryo transfer since the attack has resulted in a pregnancy. In a Facebook update, the clinic said both its IVF and Andrology labs are officially operational and shared a string of milestones since reopening: the first egg retrieval on July 24, 2025; the first testicular sperm extraction (TESE) on Aug. 2; and the first frozen embryo transfer (FET) on Aug. 7. ARC also reported that five patients have undergone embryo thaw since the incident and every embryo survived the thaw and was transferred successfully, with embryo quality exactly as good as when they were first frozen. The first of those transfers has already resulted in a pregnancy, and the clinic said it is awaiting results on the remaining four. The clinics images show a lab instrument with a multi-well dish, a microscope image of a cell cluster, and labeled cryogenic storage tanks. August 2025. (ARC Palm Springs) This announcement comes just months after the May 17 car bomb explosion outside ARCs previous facility on North Indian Canyon Drive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The FBI called it an intentional act of terrorism, saying the blast destroyed the clinic, killed the bomber and injured several people, with debris scattered over more than 250 yards. A witness reported finding a smartphone set on a tripod pointed toward the blast area, and police asked neighbors to leave potential evidence in place for investigators. Evidence of planet found around sci-fis favorite star, Earths solar twin Federal officials identified the bomber as 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus. They later arrested Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, of the Seattle area, at JFK Airport after he was deported from Poland. A car explosion outside a reproductive health facility in Palm Springs left one person dead late Saturday, May 17, 2025. (FB/American Reproductive Centers-Palm Springs) PALM SPRINGS, CA MAY 18, 2025: The front of the American Reproductive fertility clinic the day after a car bomb exploded in the parking lot on May 18, 2025 in Palm Springs, California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, is shown in an undated image provided by the FBI. Guy Edward Bartkus as seen in a photo released by the FBI. PALM SPRINGS, CA MAY 18, 2025: The back side of American Reproductive fertility clinic is a mangled mess as the FBI continues to investigate the scene the day after a car bomb exploded in the Parkin lot on May 18, 2025 in Palm Springs, California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Sky5 was overhead to see the aftermath of a terrorism attack near a fertility clinic in Palm Springs. May 2025. (KTLA) PALM SPRINGS, CA MAY 18, 2025: American Reproductive fertility clinic is heavily damaged after Saturdays bomb t on May 18, 2025 in Palm Springs, California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Prosecutors alleged Park supplied 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus and that the two shared an extremist ideology that people should not be born without their consent. Park, who faced a federal charge of providing material support to a terrorist, later died at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, Park died by suicide from blunt traumatic injuries. The Los Angeles Times reported that he jumped from an interior balcony at MDCLos Angeles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Patients have since expressed gratitude as treatment resumes and embryos survive, and ARC says it is proud of the outstanding quality of care it continues to provide as it rebuilds now with a new pregnancy to show for it. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) A Panama City man was arrested on Tuesday and charged with lewd and lascivious battery of a 13-year-old girl. According to court documents, the victim was first reported as a missing juvenile and was being investigated by the Springfield Police Department. After the victim was found, she disclosed to local law enforcement that she and 42-year-old Markus Donnell Gatlin allegedly had sexual intercourse numerous times at his home from April to June. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The court documents said there were cellphone messages exchanged between the victim and Gatlin that allegedly showed her traveling to his home located in Bay County. A judge set Gatlins bond at $150,000. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 Iowa Judicial Branch's mission is to provide independent and accessible forums for fair and prompt resolution of disputes, administering justice equally to all persons. (Gavel photo by Getty Images; seal courtesy the State of Iowa) A central Iowa lawyer is appealing a disciplinary commissions findings that she is a danger to the public, lacks a basic understanding of the law and was basically fleecing her clients through inflated legal bills while peddling an outlandish conspiracy theory about corruption among the judiciary. The Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court says Clive attorney Valerie Cramer has taken advantage of vulnerable and unsophisticated clients and now displays an utter lack of remorse or contrition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The commission is recommending that Cramers law license be revoked by the Iowa Supreme Court, stating that her billing practices and deceptive conduct puts the public at risk of further harm. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Cramer, who has been licensed to practice law in Iowa since 2003, said Friday the commissions findings are untrue, but declined to elaborate. The disciplinary case stems from a complaint filed by the Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board in November 2024. That complaint, which recently became public after the Grievance Commission issued its findings in the matter, alleges numerous ethics violations related to Cramers competence, client trust accounts, billing for legal work, and false representations made to the court. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In one case, Cramer represented the estate of a recently deceased central Iowa man in a civil trial. Throughout the trial, the board alleges, Judge David Porter attempted to guide Cramer in laying the foundation for exhibits and testimony, and at one point adjourned court for one day so Cramer could better prepare for the proceedings. During the trial, Cramer allegedly admitted to Porter she did not fully understand certain court rules and didnt understand certain legal issues surrounding a surprise witness she intended to call. At the time, Porter cautioned Cramer that her actions came dangerously close to trial by ambush. Later, Cramer expressed frustration with her inability admit certain pieces of evidence, to which Porter responded, While I certainly appreciate that you are struggling to see how you can admit any evidence, its not as though that was unforeseeable. It was entirely foreseeable You are a licensed attorney who is representing a client at this point, and its your responsibility, not mine, to explain to you how you get evidence in. The court ultimately entered a $110,000 judgment against Cramers client in that case, according to court records. Allegations of overbilling for legal work The disciplinary board has also questioned numerous legal fees Cramer charged to the estate involved in that case, noting that she claimed to have spent several hours preparing and filing a series of single-page Iowa State Bar Association forms; to have spent almost half an hour reading a form that consisted of a single sentence; and to have spent 1.25 hours reading a single-paragraph motion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cramer knowingly misrepresented in her billing statements that she spent time filing documents, the board alleges. At a hearing on Cramers requests for payment of the fees, a probate judge remarked, Honestly, I am horrified by this billing situation, and I dont say that lightly. I really dont. This was a simple estate. With one complicated matter. Cramer later filed an amended billing statement, adding and omitting certain expenses, changing the dates and descriptions of certain tasks and billing for work performed by an assistant at the rate of $95 per hour, the board alleges. The probate judge later denied Cramers request for fees above and beyond the ordinary. In one court order, the judge stated that Ms. Cramers filings in this matter are extremely troubling, and the court finds that Ms. Cramers claims related to the funds held by her law firm in regard to this estate lack nearly any credibility. The court does not make this finding lightly or accuse counsel of misconduct without good cause. Cramer alleges judge was very nasty Cramer filed an appeal in the case. In her appeal, Cramer referenced herself as the estate attorney and asserted that Judge Porter had been very nasty toward her during the civil trial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the beginning of the trial, the judge was angrily yelling and scowling at the administrator and the estate attorney, Cramer alleged. The estate attorney has PTSD and this yelling and scowling scared her It was the most unfair trial the estate attorney has ever witnessed. Cramer claimed Porters raging and screaming triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder and left her terrified. She also claimed Porter later had his court reporter change the transcript of the proceedings. The court reporter was probably afraid of losing her job if the judge gets mad, Cramer alleged. As part of the appeal, Cramer also accused Judge Katie Ranes, who handled the probate case related to the estate, of improperly filing an ethics complaint against her, asking Is this honest? Is this retaliation for the appeal? Cramers statements regarding Judge Porters conduct were knowing misrepresentations or were made with reckless disregard as to their truth, the disciplinary board alleges. The board also alleges Cramer falsely accused Ranes of telling Cramers client she should fire Cramer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In one of her court filings, Cramer argues that in addition to Porter, other judges have had their court reporters alter transcripts of court proceedings and no one will do anything. The court reporters are afraid of the judges. And myself, the attorney who is objecting, looks like a crazy person and my clients suffer. Is this the new justice in Polk County, Iowa? Commission cites competency issues, overbilling In December 2024 and January 2025, the Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court presided over a hearing on the disciplinary boards charges against Cramer. With regard to the trial involving the estate, the commission found that Cramer had demonstrated a significant lack of expertise, experience, and knowledge in litigation and trial practice. The commission noted that even though the case was being decided by a judge and not a jury, Cramer had filed jury instructions in the case instructions the commission said would have been woefully inadequate if it were a jury trial. These were not errors or miscalculations. These were attempts to mislead the court in order to collect an inflated amount of fees. Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court, referring to alleged overbilling by Valerie Cramer The commission also concluded that Cramer did not understand fundamental issues relating to evidentiary rules and did not understand basic issues, such as authentication, foundation, hearsay, offers of proof to preserve issues for appeal, the timely disclosure of potential witnesses, or the consequences of having failed to disclose evidence. Judge Porter, the commission found, had to explain basic concepts of relevance to Cramer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As for the legal fees Cramer charged in the probate case, the commission concluded that she engaged in egregious overbilling by billing her client highly inflated amounts for certain tasks and by double-billing and triple-billing for some legal work. She also billed for work she did not do and for proceedings that either did not occur or which she did not attend, the commission stated. These were not errors or miscalculations, the commission found. These were attempts to mislead the court in order to collect an inflated amount of fees. Handling of teens case called abhorrent The commission also concluded that it found Cramers claim that Porter and Ranes were dishonest and corrupt to be very troubling, noting that there could not be more serious allegations against a judge. Although Cramer knew her allegations were false, the commission stated, she claimed there was a code of silence among Iowa judges. Cramer, the commission stated, continued to allege this bizarre conspiracy theory even at the (disciplinary) hearing. Her only motive, the commission said, appeared to be an effort to cover up incompetence and fraudulent billing practices. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The commission singled out Cramers actions in one particular probate case in which Cramers client was an 18-year-old woman administering the estate of the grandmother who had raised her. The commission said it was particularly bizarre that Cramer refused to withdraw as the teens legal counsel, even after the young woman had hired a new attorney who appeared in court on her behalf. Cramer was going against her clients wishes in order to pursue a self-serving agenda collection of more attorneys fees, the commission concluded. When (Cramer) actively fought against her dismissal as counsel, her motive was a purely selfish one her ongoing attempt to collect inflated fees. In that case, Cramer also failed to pursue a request for fees the teenager could have collected from the estate as its administrator all so Cramer could pursue her own attorneys fees with reckless abandon, the commission concluded. Cramer also filed a small claims lawsuit against the teenager to collect additional fees, which the commission called an attempt to intimidate and harass her former client. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The commission called Cramers actions in that case abhorrent and reprehensible, adding that it was concerned that in her probate cases Cramer was basically fleecing these limited estates of all their assets and leaving the beneficiaries with next to nothing. Commission: Corruption claims are preposterous The commission noted that it had expected Cramer to appear at her disciplinary hearing and argue that her PTSD had contributed to her imagining that judges were conspiring against her. Unfortunately, quite the opposite occurred, the commission stated. At the hearing, (Cramer) doubled-down on most of her previously espoused bizarre conspiracy theories and introduced medical opinions stating she was fit for duty as a lawyer. As a result, the commission said, it had no choice but to conclude that Cramers preposterous conspiracy theories and her disparagement of the judiciary and its staff, her lying to attorney colleagues, and her attacks against her clients were all done on purpose. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In recommending that the Iowa Supreme Court revoke Cramers law license, the commission stated that should the court find such an action to be inappropriate, it recommends an alternative sanction of an indefinite license suspension with no possibility of reinstatement for three years. Cramer is currently appealing the commissions findings of fact and recommendations. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Editors note: Click here for an update in this case. Police believe baby Emmanuel Haro is dead and wasnt kidnapped. (NewsNation) The parents of Emmanuel Haro were arrested Friday, just over a week after the 7-month-old was reported kidnapped in California, according to local authorities. Jake and Rebecca Haro were taken into custody from their residence in Cabazon, California, police said. No other details about the arrests were immediately available. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Investigators will continue their search for seven-month-old Emmanuel Haro, police said. Missing babys sister reportedly left unable to speak, walk after abuse Emmanuel Haro was reported missing Aug. 14. His mother told police he was taken from the parking lot of a sporting goods store by a stranger who knocked her unconscious as she was changing his diaper. Warrants were issued for cellphones belonging to the couple Wednesday. Police say Rebecca Haro declined to be interviewed further when they questioned inconsistencies in the story about Emmanuels disappearance and that detectives havent been able to rule out foul play. Jake Haros attorney told Banfield on Tuesday that Haro wants to cooperate with police and has handed over all his electronic devices and passwords. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DOJ to begin releasing Epstein records to Congress The attorney told NewsNation that Rebecca Haro, whom he is not representing, agreed to a lie detector test if her lawyer could be present and that both parties could not agree on terms. Jake Haros attorney has gone into hiding, fearing for his own life amid death threats. The sister of missing 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro, Promise Faith, was badly injured at 10 weeks old, to the point of no longer being able to see, talk or walk, according to influencer Abby Escobar. Jake Haro pleaded guilty to willful child cruelty after Promise was admitted to a hospital with broken bones in 2018, according to the Orange County Register. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Patrick Djordjevic contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. By Aditya Soni, David Shepardson, Andrea Shalal and Max A. Cherney WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Friday the U.S. would take a 10% stake in Intel under a deal with the struggling chipmaker that converts government grants into an equity share, the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America. The deal puts Trump on better terms with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, after the president recently said the CEO should step down due to conflicts of interest. It will ensure that the chipmaker will receive about $10 billion in funds for building or expanding factories in the U.S. Under the agreement, the U.S. will purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel for $8.9 billion, or $20.47 per share, which represents a discount of about $4 from Intel's closing share price of $24.80 on Friday. The purchase of the 433.3 million Intel shares will be made with funding from the $5.7 billion in unpaid grants from the Biden-era CHIPS Act and $3.2 billion awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave program, also awarded under Trump's predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden. Intel stock rose roughly 1% in the extended session on Friday after closing up 5.5% during regular trading. Trump met with Tan on Friday, a White House official said. That followed Trump's August 11 meeting with the Intel CEO after Trump demanded that Tan resign over his ties to Chinese firms. "He walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States. So we picked up $10 billion," Trump said on Friday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X that Tan had struck a deal "that's fair to Intel and fair to the American People." PLAYING CATCH UP The Intel investment marks the latest unusual deal with U.S. companies, including a U.S. government agreement allowing AI chip giant Nvidia to sell its H20 chips to China in exchange for receiving 15% of those sales. Other recent deals include an agreement for the Pentagon to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company, MP Materials, to boost output of rare earth magnets and the U.S. government's winning a "golden share" with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Japan's Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel. The federal government's broad intervention in corporate matters has worried critics, who say Trump's actions create new categories of corporate risk. Ahead of the U.S. deal with Intel, Japan's SoftBank agreed to take a $2 billion stake in the chip maker on Monday. Some industry observers still question Intel's ability to surmount its problems. Editors note: There has been an update in this story. (NewsNation) Parents of missing California baby Emmanuel Haro say they are being harassed and have received death threats. Jake and Rebecca Haro say they called 911 on Wednesday night after strangers came onto their property, stole things from their porch and banged on their door. Police are still looking for 7-month-old Emmanuel, who was reported missing Aug. 14. His mother, Rebecca, told police he was taken from the parking lot of a Big 5 Sporting Goods store in Yucaipa by a stranger who knocked her unconscious as she was changing his diaper. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its a bit of a circus outside of the house theres a lot of media there, but theres also a lot of TikTokers and all kinds of pseudo-interested people, and unsavory types, NewsNation senior investigative producer Allison Weiner told Elizabeth Vargas Reports. These people are walking onto the lawn, theyre walking up to the house, theyre banging on the door. I saw some of that behavior. So basically, this case has generated a lot of emotional people. Weiner said Jake Haro is Very frightened, and when they left their house, everybody ran after their car. Warrants for Emmanuel Haro parents phones issued, fire unrelated Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police say Rebecca Haro declined to be interviewed further when they questioned inconsistencies in the story about Emmanuels disappearance and that detectives havent been able to rule out foul play. Jake Haros attorney told Banfield on Tuesday that Haro wants to cooperate with police and has handed over all his electronic devices and passwords. The attorney told NewsNation that Rebecca Haro, whom he is not representing, agreed to a lie detector test if her lawyer could be present and that both parties could not agree on terms. Jake Haros attorney has gone into hiding, fearing for his own life amid death threats. The sister of missing 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro, Promise Faith, was badly injured at 10 weeks old, to the point of no longer being able to see, talk or walk, according to journalist Abby Escobar. Jake Haro pleaded guilty to willful child cruelty after Promise was admitted to a hospital with broken bones in 2018, according to the Orange County Register. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. CABAZON, Calif. (AP) The parents of a missing 7-month-old boy were arrested Friday as part of a murder investigation, authorities in Southern California said. While the mother reported last week her son Emmanuel was believed to have been kidnapped, sheriff's authorities said they believe the child is dead. Based on the evidence, investigators determined a kidnapping in Yucaipa did not occur, the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department said in a statement. The search to recover his remains is ongoing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jake Haro, 32, and Rebecca Haro, 41, were arrested at their home in the desert community of Cabazon, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Palm Springs, the agency said. The arrests came a little over a week after Rebecca Haro reported to authorities that she was attacked outside a store in the San Bernardino community of Yucaipa while changing her son's diaper and was left unconscious. Authorities said Haro told them that when she awoke, her son was gone. Haro was later confronted by authorities about inconsistencies in her account and refused to continue to cooperate, the sheriff's department said. Authorities searched the family's home and Jake Haro hired a lawyer, the department said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The couple was booked into a jail in Riverside County and is being held without bail, the department said. The district attorney's office in Riverside County, where Cabazon is located, said it is reviewing the case. It was not immediately known if Rebecca Haro had a lawyer. A message left for defense attorney Vincent Hughes was not immediately returned. Hughes represents Jake Haro in another case and told The Sun he didn't believe the parents were responsible for the boy going missing. Whoever took my son, please return him, we just want him back, Jake Haro told KTLA last week. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) UAB is welcoming 3,400 students to campus during the schools move-in days, which began Wednesday and continue through Sunday. This isnt Lincoln Moodys first rodeo when it comes to moving his son from Jasper into a dorm room at UAB, and while his son is a senior, it may not be his last. Well see if he goes to graduate school or not, Moody said. Keiona Gregory is also moving into Rast Hall as a sophomore this year. She said that, for her, the move-in process has been easy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres not many people today, I guess because its a Thursday, she said. UAB sophomore Jack Fulton, from Atlanta, said that dorm life has its pluses and minuses. I really liked making friends, you know, having friends, like, down the door from me, and just being able to visit them is really nice, Fulton said. Right across the street, Jasmine Hobbs is moving into a freshman dorm. As to what shes most excited about when it comes to dorm life? Uh, being away from home, she said. Her mom, Sharnee Hobbs, from Mobile said this is a day of mixed emotions. Well, this is our baby girl, so were a little nervous, she said. Were going to be empty nesters, and to hear her say shes ready to leave us was a little sad, because I thought shed be sad like me, but its good though. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Marc Booker, Executive Director of Housing and Dining at UAB, the 2,100 freshmen moving into dorms this week is the largest freshmen move-in theyve had on campus. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. The Brief Following a fatal classroom stabbing, parents at Maryvale High School are concerned about student safety and an apparent lack of communication from the school after the incident. The school district stated it is cooperating with the police investigation to determine how the weapon got onto campus, while students have been moved to remote learning. PHOENIX - Parents of students at Maryvale High School attended a meeting Thursday, two days after a student was fatally stabbed inside a classroom. What we know The stabbing on Tuesday left some parents, including Rocio Solis, concerned about the school's communication policy and the safety of their children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Solis said she didn't learn about the incident until hours after it happened and was unable to contact her daughter, a senior at the school. "I don't think she's safe here at all," Solis said. Maryvale High parent, Rocio Solis Solis daughter was scared because she and other students were receiving conflicting information. Solis said she was unable to reach her daughter due to the school's cellphone policy and didn't receive any official communication from the school until hours after the stabbing. READ MORE: Maryvale High School student killed; resources for students, staff are available Memorial at Maryvale High School for a student who was killed in a stabbing inside a classroom on Aug. 19. After learning that one student repeatedly stabbed another, Solis said she wants to know if the school will increase security measures. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't think nobody deserves that, especially if you think your kid is in a safe zone," she said. The Phoenix Union High School District released a statement Thursday afternoon stating it is cooperating with the police investigation, which includes determining how the weapon got onto campus. What's next The district added that it has no further comment at this time. Since the stabbing, students have not returned to campus and have been on remote learning days. The suspect, 16-year-old Chris Daniel Aguilar, will be charged as an adult. He's accused of second-degree murder. A judge set a $500,000 cash-only bond for Aguilar. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 28. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized National Guardsmen mobilized in Washington D.C. to carry service-issued weapons, a defense official said on Friday, though the Pentagon has not specified the specific weapons the soldiers will be armed with. The National Guardsman in Washington, D.C. will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training, the defense official said in a statement. The Pentagon did not offer specifics to questions from Task & Purpose on whether soldiers will be issued M4s or the services newly adopted M7 rifle, or if the firearms would be pistols like the M17 or M18. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No information was immediately available about what prompted the move or exactly when the National Guard troops will begin carrying their weapons. Top Stories This Week News Marines investigating social media post that appears to mock potential recruit By Jeff Schogol News 4,500 Marines and sailors deploy to Caribbean for anti-cartel mission By Nicholas Slayton News Marines outwitted an AI security camera by hiding in a cardboard box and pretending to be trees By Max Hauptman The D.C. National Guard remains committed to safeguarding the District of Columbia and serving those who live, work, and visit the District, the statement said. A member of the District of Columbia National Guard, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Task & Purpose that the move to arm Guardsmen was unnecessary. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Us being out there is not sending a message other than clear provocation to our own populace, the National Guard member said. President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 11 that he had ordered 800 troops with the District of Columbia National Guard to deploy to the nations capital after declaring on social media the federal city would be LIBERATED. Trump has portrayed criminality in Washington, D.C. as widespread but violent crime in the district is at a 30-year low and dropped 35% year-over-year from 2023 to 2024, according to the Justice Department. Since then, more than 2,000 National Guardsmen from the District of Columbia and six states have been activated as part of the operation. This is a breaking news story. It will be updated as more information becomes available. Just days after the state was rocked by the death of two police officers responding to a domestic violence call in Box Elder County, the Department of Public Safety announced it is launching an interactive database aimed at filling informational gaps to prevent further domestic violence incidents. "The tragedy ... stemmed from a domestic violence call. Which caused us to take a minute and decide, should we even convene today? But with that incident, it brings urgency to how important this cause is and why we gather to talk about such an important topic, and how we can make a difference in domestic violence and intimate partner violence," Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said at a press conference Thursday. Three years ago, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson lost her cousin to a domestic violence homicide. That experience made Henderson realize there was a terrible gap in the system as law enforcement responded to domestic violence-related calls. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This lethal gap that we had in the system where law enforcement officers ... were not necessarily getting the information they needed to make wise discretionary decisions on the spot on the scene of a call. Sometimes a situation doesnt look all that bad on the surface, she said. In response, she worked with the Department of Public Safety to create the Utah Intimate Partner Lethality Assessment Protocol, which gives officers an additional tool on scene they can use to identify the danger victims are in, assess the seriousness of their situations and connect victims with service providers. These deaths are preventable. There have been dozens of them since the law was enacted two years ago. I look forward to the day when we have rooted out this scourge in our society, Henderson said. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson speaks at a press conference Thursday announcing the launch of an interactive data dashboard that aims to fill information gaps to prevent domestic violence. | Cassidy Wixom, KSL.com The protocol has been implemented statewide, giving officers the ability to survey a situation, pass the information to the Statewide Information Analysis Center and get a result within 15 minutes that helps them make educated decisions on how to aid victims. Since implementation, about 23,000 Lethality Assessment Protocols have been conducted, with 60% showing victims at a high risk of lethal violence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That should cause us all to pause and realize the seriousness of the situation, Mason said. Domestic violence is one of the most dangerous calls there is, whether thats for the victim or the officer on scene. We owe it to those people involved to use every tool at our discretion to improve that public safety. As the next step in continuing the progress, the Department of Public Safety is launching an interactive Lethality Assessment Protocol dashboard that will make the data more visible to allow lawmakers, law enforcement agencies and service providers to identify further gaps and issues that need to be addressed. Data is important. The faces and the names and the families behind the data are even more important and what we do with this data, what we do with this information is critical, Henderson said. Henderson said she is excited for the state to have this information, as it can be used to make better public policy decisions for both victims and offenders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Ryan Wilcox said while the program has been helping, the state is still missing the boat on what happens with those who are the perpetrators. He spoke of how Ryan Michael Bate, the man accused of killing the two police officers, has previously had run-ins with police for prior domestic violence situations. We had him. We issued the protocol, and it gave us the information we were looking for, and he didnt murder her at that time. In the back of my mind all week, ever since I read the report, has been What should we have done differently then that wouldve prevented the loss of life of these officers now? Wilcox said. Thursdays announcement of the dashboard will help people see all relevant information to put that whole picture together, help us to make the better decisions we are looking for that actually keep people safe, he said. Its personal Wilcox was a bill sponsor for the legislation that implemented the Lethality Assessment Protocol. Peoples view that domestic violence that doesnt affect them needs to change, as it impacts everyone, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is personal. Until you are called at the last minute, in my case, by a friend or a family member and asked to come rescue someone over the holiday because they are not safe, I dont think it quite hits the same as when you are talking about it in a community, Wilcox said. Rep. Ryan Wilcox speaks at a press conference Thursday in West Jordan, announcing the launch of an interactive data dashboard that aims to fill information gaps to prevent domestic violence. | Cassidy Wixom, KSL.com Lindsey Boyer, director of domestic violence advocate group South Valley Services, agreed with Wilcox, stating too many families and communities are being impacted by the devastating epidemic of domestic violence. Even if we arent experiencing it directly, we all know and care about someone who is impacted directly, she said. Lives are at risk every day ... in all corners of our state. Despite tremendous progress, domestic violence is a real threat, and people need to be educated on the warning signs to prevent further violence, Boyer said. Victims can be connected to lifesaving services that help them have a violence-free future, she added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We need our community to take this issue personal. Its happening here; these are our people. These are our friends, our neighbors, and these people need us in their corner. ... This issue needs everyones attention, and victims need your support their lives literally depend on it, Boyer said. Sgt. Jen Faumuina, of the Department of Public Safety, has been training officers all over the state in the program and said the implementation has helped open police officers eyes to know what help victims need. Its been a positive impact not only for the officers but for the victims, and I think overall it has helped with the safety of the community, Faumuina said. Its not liberal but conservative women who are embracing the " Supermom" ideal made popular by second-wave feminism at the end of the last century. This is the woman who can cook, clean, care for her children and embrace a big career, all without breaking a sweat. The kind of woman celebrated in the 1979 Enjoli perfume ad who sang, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, never, never let you forget youre a man as she is depicted first in a peach bathrobe (for cooking), then a blue suit (for working), and then an elegant evening dress (for a night out with her hubby). At least, thats the clear takeaway of a recent Wall Street Journal article , The Conservative Women Who Are Having It All. The piece by Pamela Paul spotlighted conservative women who are defying the traditional ideal of stay-at-home motherhood, opting instead for a high-powered career while juggling a rich family life. The Journal painted positive portraits of work-hard, care-well mothers by offering examples of right-leaning women who are pursuing successful and demanding careers in Republican Washington, conservative media and the defense industry. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Paul suggested these women, more than liberal women, are able to have it all because they generally have extra grit, supportive husbands and a strong faith that makes combining career and family more doable. The most extraordinary example given was White House aide May Mailman, a Harvard-trained lawyer and mother who is pregnant with her third child. Mailman flies home to Houston on the weekends to relieve her nanny, spend time with her husband and catch up with her two young children. According to Paul, conservative moms like Mailman are more and more common these days with nearly as many Republican mothers (67%) (working) outside the home as Democratic mothers (70%). More women are embracing this Supermom model for both cultural and economic reasons, in the Journals account. Culturally, more mothers are devoted to a career whether for their sense of self, their desire to contribute financially or as a way to pursue their passion. And economically, for most women, Paul argued , whatever their politics, housewifery is a nonstarter; outside a wealthy elite, the two-income household is just economic reality. But the economic and ideological reality on the ground for married mothers cuts against the storylines told by the Journal. Who is most likely to be a stay-at-home mom? Economically, federal data and a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute show that it is the women from lower-income households as well as those from middle-income households who are more likely to be stay-at-home mothers. DN-idealwork1 Data from the federally funded 2024 Current Population Survey indicates that affluent married mothers with young children and a household income of at least $100K were significantly less likely to be homemakers than lower-income families earning less than $60K or middle-income families taking home $60K$99K. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conversely, married moms with young children and a household income of more than $100K have a vastly larger likelihood of working full time than those women with a household income of less than $60K. Contra the Journal, its actually affluent elite moms like Mailman who are the least likely to be stay-at-home mothers. In fact, mothers of young children in the lower two income brackets are approximately twice as likely as their wealthier counterparts to be homemakers. DN-idealwork2 Furthermore, married mothers of young children in households earning less than $60K and between $60K90K were significantly more likely than those earning more than $100K to report not working for pay at all as their ideal (29% and 28%, respectively), according to the 2025 Womens Well-Being Survey from the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute. For married women with young children in households earning $100K or more, only 9% reported not working for pay as the ideal, while 49% reported full-time work as the ideal. Interestingly, around 4142% of women in all income categories reported working part time as the ideal work arrangement. Contrary to Pauls have it all ideal of motherhood, which would seem to correspond to a largely full-time model of work, most married mothers with young children do not wish to combine full-time work with their family responsibilities. The data show that most married mothers would much more prefer a less strenuous work-life balance either not working for pay at all, or engaging in part-time work. Are liberal women more likely to work full time? Culturally, the Journals account also misses the mark. Both conservative and Republican mothers of young children are less likely to aspire or actually have it all again, if having it all is defined as combining full-time work with raising young children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When looking at ideology, the suggestion that full-time work is the dominant reality for conservative mothers of young children could not be more off the mark. Seventy-three percent of married liberal women with young children report working full time, compared to 36% of conservative women. The 37-percentage point difference between full-time working liberal women and conservative women shows that the mission-driven lifestyles of high-profile conservative moms spotlighted in the Journal are not the rule, but the exception. In reality, 56% of married conservative mothers with young children reported their current work arrangement as either a stay-at-home mother (36%) or part time (20%). By contrast, only 16% of liberal mothers reported being a stay-at-home mom and just 10% as working part time. Whats more, as the Womens Well-Being Survey shows, this split is similar in comparing Democratic and Republican married mothers of young children: only a minority of the latter work full time, compared to a majority of the former. DN-idealwork3 Whats more: when we look at work-family ideals for mothers by ideology and partisanship, we find that most conservative and Republican married mothers of young children would like to be at home full time or work part time. By contrast, a plurality of liberal and Democratic married mothers of young children aim to work full time. (Twenty-eight percent of conservative mothers in this group would like to be at home full time and 37% part time, whereas 46% of liberal moms would like to work full time.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its also worth noting that the most popular option among married mothers of young children, in general, is part-time work: overall, 41% of married mothers of young children in America prefer part-time work. Why part-time work appeals to moms These patterns are largely consistent with what the British sociologist Catherine Hakim would expect. In her work on womens work and family preferences, Hakim has argued that there are three types of women: work-centered women who focus on career, adaptive women who have more of a family orientation but also aim to keep a foot in the workplace, often on a part-time basis, and home-centered women who desire to focus their lives on the home. In her preference theory about women, Hakim correctly argues that culture, economics and public policy shape which of these groups is more popular among women, but she also notes that the adaptive strategy which prioritizes part-time work is often the most popular preference for women. Her theory could not be more relevant here in America. Whats clear is the ideal and real-world arrangements of conservative mothers across America not to mention moms of other ideological persuasions cannot be generalized from a small group of right-leaning women working largely in Washington, D.C., or the media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The truth is that being a Supermom who combines a high-flying career with an active family life is neither the reality nor the ideal for ordinary conservative women outside the Beltway, and neither is stay-at-home motherhood a gilded option reserved for the wealthiest households. Across America, most married mothers of young children do not aspire to be this sort of Supermom instead, they are hoping to be super mothers by not working at all outside the home or by working part time. This part-time option, which also encompasses moms with side hustles, is especially appealing to conservative, Republican and middle-of-the-road mothers of young children. But this adaptive option is also the one that seems hardest to realize in the real world, and the appeal of part-time work is a story that is not being told enough in todays conversations about women juggling marriage, motherhood and work. Autumn Zeoli is an intern with the Institute for Family Studies and is pursuing a Masters in Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brad Wilcox is director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, senior fellow of the Institute for Family Studies and a Deseret News contributor. Ken Burchfiel is a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. A Peruvian national living in Southern California who was seen dragging what appeared to be a heavy object in a tarp through an apartment complex earlier this month has been charged with murder after his wifes body was discovered in the Angeles National Forest, KTLA has confirmed. Sheylla Cabrera, 33, a mother of three, was last seen alive on Aug 9. Deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department responded to the familys Lancaster apartment in the 500 Block of Lancaster Boulevard on Aug. 12 after concerned friends and neighbors reported the 33-year-old missing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hours before deputies showed up at the apartment, a neighbor returning home from a nightshift at 2:40 a.m. spotted Cabreras husband, 36-year-old Jossimar Cabrera Cornejo, cleaning out the trunk of the familys car. It was strange, neighbor Norbelvi Melara told KTLA. I work those days, and I know theres nobody around at that time, and cleaning a trunk? I thought it was scary. The investigation took a turn the following day after detectives viewed surveillance footage from a neighbors Ring camera from Aug. 10 that appeared to show the victims husband dragging a large item wrapped in what may have been a tarp or a curtain away from their apartment, prompting investigators with LASDs Homicide Bureau to interview Jossimar Cabrera, and identify him as a person of interest in his wifes disappearance. It was later learned that the 36-year-old fled the country and took the couples children with him, eventually making his way to Peru where the family is from. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement LASD Lt. Michael Modica told The New York Times that Jossimar Cabrera was detained in both Mexico and Peru after entering the countries by land. In each instance, he was released because he had not yet been charged with a crime. The Cabreras three children, who were found safe, were taken into protective custody in Peru. Sheylla Cabrera , 33 and her husband Jossimer Cabrerra, residents of Lancaster, seen in this undated photo. (viewer image) Doorbell camera footage shared with KTLA 5 News shows a man in Lancaster, California, dragging a large sack or sheet that investigators believe contained the body of his wife. The sack, along with the body of Sheylla Cabrera, was discovered on August 16, 2025, in the Angeles National Forest. (KTLA viewer video) Sheylla Cabrera, 33, a Lancaster resident, was reported missing on Aug. 12 and discovered dead in the Angeles National Forest on Aug. 16. (viewer image) Jossimar Cabrera, who reportedly fled to Peru after his wifes disappearance in Lancaster, seen in the custody of Peruvian authorities. He was later released. (viewer image) Authorities in Peru are seen detaining Jossimar Cabrera, 36.. August 2025. (KTLA Viewer Footage) Helga Rocillo, Sheylla Cabreras mother, claims her daughter was a victim of domestic violence and that she was abused physically and verbally for years, the Peruvian news outlet Latina Noticias reported. Rocillo also said that Cabrera initially told family members that her daughter had been taken by U.S. immigration authorities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mother 7-month-old boy missing in Southern California has convicted killer in family On Aug. 16, a tip from the Montrose Mountains Search and Rescue team led investigators to a remote area in the Angeles National Forest, about an hours drive from the familys Lancaster apartment, where the 33-year-old womans remains were found. That video is consistent with how and what we found [the victims] remains in, LASD Homicide Det. Michael Modica said of the Ring video footage. Ricardo Santiago, a spokesperson for the L.A. County District Attorneys Office confirmed to KTLA on Thursday that Jossimar Cabrera has been charged with one count of murder and that a felony complaint for an extradition arrest warrant was also filed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Peruvian authorities are reportedly cooperating with authorities in L.A. County and monitoring Jossimar Cabrera. Sheylla Cabreras exact cause of death is still unclear. Officials with the L.A. County Medical Examiners Office have yet to release an autopsy report. If you or anyone you know is suffering from domestic violence, help can be found by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Inconvenient truths dont go unpunished in the Trump administration. Its a lesson that Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse learned the hard way on Friday, as The Washington Post reported that hes been fired from his position as chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The DIA under Kruse was responsible for the classified preliminary report about Americas June strike on Iran, which gave President Donald Trump much grief once it leaked to the press, as it painted a starkly different picture of the attack than his administration had. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Though the report expressly acknowledged its preliminary nature, its findingsthat the strike set Irans alleged nuclear program back by only a few months, at mostput a damper on Hegseths and Trumps insistence that they had totally decimated their targets. The president had referred to the attack as one of the most successful military strikes in history, comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hegseth axed Kruse for loss of confidence, per the Post. The ouster is just the latest example of the Trump administration shooting the messenger. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a troubling July jobs report, the president fired BLS chief Erika McEntarfer, appointing in her place a MAGA partisan who just happened to have been at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. (The Center Square) The U.S.s foreign-born population shrunk this year for the first time since the 1960s, new data released Thursday from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found. After rapidly growing for more than 50 years, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. reached a record high of 53.3 million in January 2025. The following months showed a decline of nearly 1.5 million, a likely mark of President Donald Trumps second-term immigration policies. The new Pew study shows that more people are leaving the U.S. than are entering it, the first time this has happened in more than half a century. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The analysis also found that the number of noncitizens in the U.S. illegally reached a record high of 14 million in 2023, a trend which Trump routinely drew on while campaigning against his opponents in the 2024 presidential race, first former President Joe Biden and then former Vice President Kamala Harris. A nationwide crackdown on immigration has been a central part of Trumps second-term policy agenda. He has signed 181 executive orders relating to immigration since returning to the White House in January. The administration has implemented its immigration policies through mass deportations of noncitizens, incentivising self deportations, heightened security at the U.S.s southwestern border and by toughening up student visa requirements. These policies were reflected in Pews data, which found that the percent of the U.S. population made up of immigrants shrunk to 15.4% in June from 15.8% in January. Immigrants, both lawful and unlawful, make up a sizable portion of the U.S. workforce. Pews report shows that the U.S. lost more than 750,000 workers since January with the percent of immigrants in the workforce declining from 20% to 19% in six months. Economists say the strain a declining workforce will have on the U.S. economy is contingent on the scope of Trumps immigration policies during the latter half of his second term. If current trends continue, the U.S. is likely to face economic challenges stemming from the significant decline in workers. WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump on Friday announced the U.S. government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the company's CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job. The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future, Trump wrote in a post. The U.S. government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece a discount from Friday's closing price at $24.80. That spread means the U.S. government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper. The remarkable turn of events makes the U.S. government one of Intel's largest shareholders at a time that the Santa Clara, California, company is i n the process of jettisoning more than 20,000 workers as part of its latest attempt to bounce back from years of missteps taken under a variety of CEOs. Intel's current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has only been on the job for slightly more than five months, an d earlier this month, it looked like he might be on shaky ground already after some lawmakers raised national security concerns about his past investments in Chinese companies while he was a venture capitalist. Trump latched on to those concerns in an August 7 post demanding that Tan resign. But Trump backed off after the Malaysian-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, leading to a deal that now has the U.S. government betting that the company is on the comeback trail after losing more than $22 billion since the end of 2023. Trump hailed Tan as highly respected CEO in his Friday post. In a statement, Tan applauded Trump for driving historic investments in a vital industry and resolved to reward his faith in Intel. We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership, Tan said. Intel's current stock price is just slightly above where it was when Tan was hired in March and more than 60% below its peak of about $75 reached 25 years ago when its chips were still dominating the personal computer boom before being undercut by a shift to smartphones a few years later. The company's market value currently stands at about $108 billion - a fraction of the current chip kingpin, Nvidia, which is valued at $4.3 trillion. PHENIX CITY, Ala. (WRBL) The Phenix City School Board met on Thursday and decided not to address one of the items on the agenda regarding the superintendent. Crowded room for Phenix City School Board meeting. The item removed on the agenda was a discussion of the job performance and contract of Superintendent Dr. Janet Sherrod. Board Member Florence Bellamy made a motion to strike the item from the agenda. There was no public discussion. Five of the seven board members voted yes, approving the motion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reverend John Brady Baird voted no, and Elliot Patrick abstained. The discussion was scheduled to take place at a called meeting Tuesday. However, board attorney Bob Meadows asked the board to postpone that meeting, stating that there was new information. School board Chair Yolaunda Daniel said that she doesnt know why the motion was made tonight to strike the discussion about the superintendent. WRBL News 3 reached out to Dr. Sherrod and Bellamy for comment and neither wished to make a statement at this time. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL. A false video inviting people to apply for the Philippine government's scholarship programme has spread on social media and may be "part of a scam", according to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The government body said it has not started taking applications for the upcoming school year, while the clip contains the watermark of an AI video generation platform. "CHED scholarship / UniFAST scholarship application starts today / Apply now!" says the caption of a TikTok video viewed at least 2.3 million times since it was shared on August 15. UniFAST was created in 2015 and offers scholarships and loans to Filipino college students (archived link). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 16-second clip shows two purported UniFAST staff members urging parents to enter their children -- whether in high school or college -- into a government scholarship programme. The purported subsidy grants 120,000 pesos ($2,106) to private school students each year, while public school students are offered 80,000 pesos ($1,404). The video goes on to falsely claim students are given an additional 10,000 pesos ($175) each month. Screenshot of the false post taken on August 20, 2025, with the red X mark added by AFP The uploader also urged users to sign up using a link in his profile, which leads to an unrelated blog asking for users' names and contact details. The false video also spread on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some users appeared to believe the clip is a genuine call for application from the CHED. "That's very good news. I hope underprivileged children could apply," one user said. "I will try. Hoping I get in," another wrote. But CHED has issued a warning on UniFAST's Facebook page, calling the circulating video misleading and that it "may be part of a scam" (archived link). The post goes on to say that it has not published any announcements on its subsidy applications for the school year. A closer look at the video also reveals a "Veo" watermark at the bottom-right corner -- referring to Google's video-generation platform, which lets users create eight-second clips (archived link). Screenshot of the false post taken on August 20, with the 'Veo' watermark highlighted by AFP The video also misrepresents UniFAST, which only covers college students. Scholarships for high school learners should be overseen by the Department of Education, which manages the countrys basic education system (archived link). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement UniFAST only grants subsidies ranging from 8,000 pesos ($140) to 27,000 pesos ($474) yearly -- which is lower than those in the false clip -- according to the programme's website (archived link). The TikTok account that published the video has shared similar AI-generated visuals of supposed government announcements made with Veo. While the user presents himself as a Filipino attorney named "Harvey Atayde", the name does not appear on the Supreme Court's official database of lawyers (archived link). Screenshot of the Philippine Supreme Court website, taken on August 20, 2025 A Google reverse image search of the user's profile picture also found it altered a 2022 photo of Lucena City's mayor, Mark Alcala (archived link). Screenshot comparison of the TikTok user behind the false video (L) and a 2022 photo of the Lucena City Mayor taken from his Instagram account AFP has debunked other false government posts that asked for users' personal details here and here. By Mikhail Flores MANILA (Reuters) -The Philippines and Australia are working towards a new defence agreement to be signed next year, their defence ministers said on Friday, as both nations seek to step up military cooperation to deal with shared security challenges in the Indo-Pacific. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the enhanced defence cooperation pact will pave the way for more frequent joint military drills aimed at boosting combined operational capability and strengthening regional deterrence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, who is in Manila for a ministerial meeting, said the agreement would also support the development of defence infrastructure in the Philippines, with projects planned at five locations. He did not provide details. Security engagements between the two allies have deepened as they look to counter what they have described as China's increasingly aggressive activities in the South China Sea. Ahead of Marles' visit, the Philippine military reported an increase in the presence of Chinese vessels around the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, coinciding with ongoing joint drills between Canberra and Manila. The 15-day exercise called ALON, a Filipino word for 'wave', began on August 15 and included a joint sail between the navies of the Philippines, Australia and Canada in the South China Sea, an area of flaring tensions following a collision between two Chinese vessels last week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement China's actions in the South China Sea "are a matter not only of concern but of condemnation," Teodoro said at a joint press conference with Marles, adding that they have widened China's "trust deficit". He said that while the Philippines could not control China's unilateral activities in the region, there was a need to build deterrence. The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately reply to a request for comment. China claims the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion in annual shipborne commerce, almost entirely as its own. In 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague said China's claims had no legal basis, siding with the Philippines, which brought the case. But China rejects the ruling, leading to a series of sea and air confrontations with the Philippines in the strategic waterway. (Writing by Karen Lema; Editing by John Mair and David Stanway) The phone, which held Jojo Rabia's last photos and videos of his sons Yuval and Noam, was reported stolen earlier this week. Israel Police on Friday arrested a Sudanese national who possessed a cell phone that had been stolen from a bereaved father earlier this week. Jojo Rabia, father of October 7 victims Yuval and Noam, reported the phone stolen on Monday. A young man passed by us and simply took my phone without me noticing. All the photos and recordings of my sons, Yuval and Noam, who were murdered on October 7, were on that phone, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I had their last voice recordings and priceless pictures. Its very hard to lose those memories. Im not sure Ill be able to recover them. Im asking for help. This is very important to me." Yuval and his fiance, Noy, along with Noam, were murdered on October 7 by Hamas terrorists as they tried to escape from the Psyduck music festival near Kibbutz Nirim. The three attempted to reach Kibbutz Nir Oz, but were shot and killed by the terrorists at the entrance to the community. A house at Kibbutz Nirim burned on October 7 in the Hamas attack. (credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN) After receiving the complaint, the Tel Aviv Central Police launched an investigation in cooperation with the Southern District. The phone has been returned to its rightful owner The suspect has been transferred for questioning, and the phone was returned to Rabia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I want to praise the police who made tremendous efforts. Well done, Rabia wrote on social media. And thank you to all the TV channels and radio for the national coverage, to all the friends on Facebook who shared, in the end, everyone helped. Truly moving We have an amazing country. Thank you, thank you. Walla contributed to this report. SOUTHWICK, Mass. (WWLP) The Southwick Police Department is seeking assistance in identifying an individual who stole from a tree company. The Southwick Police Department posted several photos on social media stating that the suspect in the photos is responsible for the theft of several chainsaws stolen early Thursday morning. They say that the suspect covered his identity well however, their clothing has distinctive designs. No retrial for Edward Wright in 1984 Springfield murder case (Southwick Police Department) (Southwick Police Department) (Southwick Police Department) (Southwick Police Department) (Southwick Police Department) (Southwick Police Department) If you can identify this suspect or have any information, contact the Southwick Police Department Detective Bureau at 413-569-5348 extension 250. Your identity can also remain anonymous. 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. PICKETT COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) Officials said a Pickett County man, who was already a convicted sex offender, will serve time in prison after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. On Wednesday, Aug. 20, 52-year-old Wade Williams was sentenced to serve six years in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Correction after appearing before the Criminal Court of Pickett County, according to 13th Judicial District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway. PREVIOUS | Pall Mall man charged with sexual exploitation of minor Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several agencies including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Pickett County Sheriffs Office and the Office of the District Attorney reportedly began an investigation after receiving a tip about a cloud storage account containing child sexual abuse material. Officials said Williams was identified as the owner of the account, adding that a search of his electronic devices led authorities to child sexual images. In 2024, the TBI stated the electronic devices, which were reportedly seized during a 2023 search of Williams home, led to the discovery of more than 100 files of child sexual abuse material. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime-related reports from across Middle Tennessee Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 52-year-olds conviction comes on the same day that another Pickett County man pleaded guilty to multiple child sex crimes. In that case, the 29-year-old Byrdstown man was reportedly sentenced to serve 14 years in the Tennessee Department of Corrections custody and be listed on the sex offender registry for life. No additional details about the cases were immediately released. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. A demonstrator uses blue chalk to color the street during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators use chalk to color the street during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith speaks passionately during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator has "rainbow tears" painted on her face during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators hug during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan smiles during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator uses chalk to write a message on the street during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators shout at passing traffic during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A young child holds a sign during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith holds an umbrella during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator uses colored chalk during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) A demonstrator is pictured during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan shows her anger during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Demonstrators wave flags and cheer during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith speaks during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani waves during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Show Caption1 of 26Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, left, smiles as she takes a selfie during a protest at a crosswalk in front of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The crosswalk had been painted in rainbow-themed colors, but overnight Wednesday, the rainbow-colored paint was removed from the crosswalk by the Florida Department of Transportation in an ongoing effort to remove political banners from public roadways. This sparked outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. During Thursdays protest, demonstrators replaced the rainbow colors on the crosswalk using chalk. The former Pulse gay nightclub is now a memorial site for the 49 victims who were murdered there in 2016. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)Expand Piedmont board members company hired to provide patients with medical credit cards Channel 2 Action News Investigates has learned that Piedmont Healthcare hired the company of a long-time Piedmont board member to provide third-party medical credit cards to patients. Both the hospital and the board member, David Hanna, say the relationship was vetted by Piedmonts Compliance Departments conflict of interest process. It doesnt sound like a very solid conflict of interest rule to me if you have board members who stand to gain financially from a decision the hospital makes, Georgia Watch Executive Director Liz Coyle told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Consumer advocates like Coyle and Channel 2 Consumer Adviser Clark Howard say these medical credit cards that often start with introductory rates before moving to high monthly interest are dangerous for consumers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These cards are wonderful for providers and nightmares for consumers, Howard said. Most of the patients who end up on these plans are the ones who can least afford the interest that comes with trying to pay off medical debt, Coyle said. Piedmont Healthcare uses a Georgia-based company, Curae to provide what it calls on its website financing options to Piedmont patients. Curae is owned by a company called Atlanticus. The founder, longtime CEO and current Executive Chairman of Atlanticus, is David Hanna. Hanna also served 13 years on the non-profit board of directors of Piedmont Healthcare, including time as chairman of the board. He left the board in 2024. The deal with Curae was signed in 2019, while he was a board member. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement David Hanna told Gray in an email, Curae, a division of Atlanticus, and Piedmont made their deal without my involvement and independent of my serving on the Piedmont board. When I learned of that arrangement, however, I informed Piedmont leadership of my association with Curae through Atlanticus, in keeping with the Piedmont Code of Conduct. I believe the amount of business between Piedmont and Curae is fairly insignificant. But its significant enough that Curae put out a press release promoting the importance of the Piedmont deal when it began in 2019. Piedmont spokesman John Manasso told Channel 2 Action News in a statement, We reviewed multiple similar vendors before selecting Curae as a financial assistance option for patients. Mr. Hanna fully disclosed his affiliation with Curae, and the relationship with Curae was vetted and managed through our Compliance Departments conflict of interest process. Coyle countered, I can tell you that at Georgia Watch, we would find that to be a conflict of interest. MORE FROM 2 INVESTIGATES: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In May, Channel 2 Action News Investigates reported how Emory Healthcare steers patients on bills and their MyChart statements to a medical credit card, CareCredit. Emory patient Elizabeth Burns noticed CareCard on her bill. It is inappropriate. Its unconscionable, Burns said. As non-profit hospitals, Emory and Piedmont pay no taxes and are required to provide community benefits for that tax benefit. If you look on the Piedmont website, it states that it does provide both hardship assistance and no interest-payment plans in-house. But Coyle warns that patients have to know to ask. Steering patients who are going to struggle to pay a medical bill onto a form of credit that comes with interest is not helping the community the way non-profit hospitals are supposed to, Coyle said. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The safety story: Drivers who are fined for civil traffic infractions in Pinellas County will be contributing more money to the local school districts driver education program. County commissioners unanimously approved increasing the local fee per penalty to $5, up from $3, at the districts request. The fee, established in Florida law in 2002, has been in place in Pinellas since 2006. County records show it generated $143,735 in 2024, a decrease from past years. The increase is projected to bring in about $96,000 in added funds for the district, which provides driver education at 14 of its high schools. The schools have been charging for the courses for the past three years because they could no longer afford to offer it for free. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We think its one of the most important things we do in terms of life ready skills, superintendent Kevin Hendrick told commissioners. Its an expensive program to run. Before the vote, commissioner Chris Latvala spoke of former state Rep. Irv Slosberg, who pushed for years to create the fee to support driver safety. Slosbergs daughter was killed in a car accident in south Florida. Sometimes Slosberg went overboard in his advocacy, Latvala said, but it was always for the important cause of safety. Im glad that we are doing this. Chairperson Brian Scott also spoke favorably of the concept, saying as a transportation professional, I understand and appreciate the importance of driver training. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, state lawmakers increased the requirements for teens to get their permits. Hot topics UF leadership: The University of Floridas interim president told faculty that the schools search for a new president, who would appoint a new leadership team, was complicated by the Board of Governors rejection of trustees initial choice. Teacher discipline: Floridas attorney general has called for an investigation into an Alachua County teacher whom a parent said bullied her son over his conservative views, the Alachua Chronicle reports. Education commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas filed a complaint with the Education Practices Commission to get the teachers certification revoked, USA Today Florida Network reports. Language learners: The Trump administration has rescinded federal guidance that spelled out schools legal obligations to accommodate students who are learning English, the Washington Post reports. About one in ten Florida students is recorded as an English language learner. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Human trafficking: Palm Beach County middle and high schools are considering whether to distribute fliers warning students about the dangers of human trafficking, the Palm Beach Post reports. The idea arises amid ongoing interest in the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Expansion plans: Polk State College will not be opening its Haines City campus in 2026 as had been announced, the Winter Haven News Chief reports. Early learning: More than 400 children are on a waiting list for school readiness programs in Escambia County because of a shortage of qualified workers, WEAR reports. Coping: Citrus High School is offering added counseling and support after two students were killed in traffic accidents this month, the Citrus County Chronicle reports. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Attendance zones: The Polk County school district is seeking community input as it prepares to redraw boundaries for all its high schools, the Ledger reports. Dont miss a story. Heres a link to yesterdays roundup. Before you go ... Twenty One Pilots has new music trending in advance of their tour. Too bad the Tampa show already is sold out. PITTSFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) A man from Pittsfield was sentenced in Springfields federal court to 46 years in prison for sexually exploiting children in his home. Pittsfield man pleads guilty mid-trial to child exploitation and pornography charges According to the Department of Justice, 39-year-old Justin Benoit documented the abuse and possessed hundreds of child abuse materials. He was arrested in 2022 following a search of his home, where police found the materials. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in May. The defendant was also ordered to pay the restitution requested by the victims. 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (Corrects index in paragraph 7 to FTSE mid-cap from FTSE 100) (Reuters) -British travel retailer WH Smith (WHTPF, SMWH.L) lowered its annual profit outlook on Thursday after a review revealed earnings had been overstated in its North America division, sending its shares tumbling over 30%. A financial review identified an overstatement of around 30 million pounds ($40.34 million) in expected headline trading profit, WH Smith said, mainly due to supplier income in North America being booked too early. The error prompted a cut in the profit outlook at its second largest division to about 25 million pounds, down from previous forecast of about 55 million pounds. "This is clearly a big negative surprise," JPMorgan analysts said in a note. "This raises a number of issues around its accounting, which are unlikely to be explained straight away and are likely to be a drag on the shares in the meantime." The company has instructed auditing firm Deloitte to undertake an independent and comprehensive review. The shares fell to their lowest since March 2020 and were the biggest percentage losers on the FTSE mid-cap index. WH Smith, which in June sold its UK high street business to become purely a travel retailer, has been rapidly expanding in North America, which contributed about 20% of group revenue in fiscal 2024. However, mounting debt has weighed on the company's cash reserves, compounding pressures from global economic uncertainty affecting the travel sector. The retailer said it now expects group pre-tax profit for the year ending August 31 to be around 110 million pounds, compared to analysts' estimates of 156.9 million pounds according to LSEG data. In April, WH Smith had forecast annual profit to be in line with market expectations, which were around 182.6 million pounds at the time, according to LSEG data. (Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Elaine Hardcastle) Aug. 22A plane carrying two Washington cousins crashed at a remote airstrip near West Glacier after colliding with trees while attempting to take off, a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said. Both men died in the crash. On the cloudless morning of Saturday, July 26, Dwight Steffanson, 69, from College Place, Washington, and Thomas Gladden, 68, from Otis Orchards, Washington, hopped in a Grumman AA-5 plane at Ryan Field. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Steffanson was a skilled metalworker, train enthusiast, contra dance fan and active community member with a passion for flying, according to an article published in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. He volunteered much of his time helping maintain a display 99-year-old Union Pacific steam locomotive, adorning it with thousands of bright lights each year, the paper reported. It remains unclear who was operating the plane, but flight records show the aircraft was registered under Gladden's name. The single-engine plane had landed in Ryan Field the day before the crash from Kellogg, Idaho, according to flight records. Witnesses reported that the aircraft did not conduct an engine check before turning onto the grass-covered runway, the report stated. Two planes were circling the airstrip overhead, intending to land while radioing with the Grumman AA-5 plane. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the plane began its takeoff roll down the airstrip, the engine was at high revolutions per minute and sounded normal but was still moving slow, witnesses reported. One witness recalled seeing the plane's flaps retracted. The Grumman AA-5 started its takeoff roll down the airstrip but failed to get airborne until reaching the end of the runway. At about 9:42 a.m., it collided with trees and rocky outcropped terrain at the edge of a clearing about 440 feet from the end of the runway and became engulfed in flames. There was no explosion, according to the report. The Coram-West Glacier Volunteer Fire Department, Hungry Horse Fire Department, Martin City Fire Department, Three Rivers Ambulance, Flathead County Office of Emergency Services and members of the Flathead County Sheriff's Posse responded to the crash. The debris field was about 80 feet long heading approximately north, according to the report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The wreckage was relocated to a secure facility for further examination. A final report from the National Transportation Safety Board detailing the probable cause of the crash is not expected for one to two years. A second crash occurred at Ryan Field on Aug. 12, killing the pilot. The preliminary report Federal Aviation Administration showed that the right wing of the Van's RV-7 plane clipped a tree while attempting a go-around at the airstrip. The plane was found upside down at the end of the runway. Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 or junderhill@dailyinterlake.com. A volunteer clinic escort holds a sign outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday, March 28. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA Planned Parenthood is again challenging South Carolinas ability to remove its clinics from Medicaids provider list for non-abortion health care services. The nonprofits filing Thursday marks the latest in a seven-year-old case stemming from Gov. Henry McMasters 2018 executive order that sought to ban all Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthoods two clinics in the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Planned Parenthood immediately sued, and the lawsuit blocked the directive as the case bounced back and forth in the courts. But a ruling in June by the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to settle it and, on Thursday morning, a lower court officially gave South Carolina permission to carry out the order. Within hours, Planned Parenthood filed for a new challenge. It wants the courts to consider a different argument and is seeking to again block the order while the amended complaint plays out. But a federal judge must first allow the complaint to be amended. McMasters spokesman called it nothing more than a desperate, last-gasp attempt to relitigate an issue that has already been decided. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that South Carolina has the right to exclude abortion providers from our Medicaid program, said Brandon Charochak. But Planned Parenthood contends the nations high court didnt directly address the states ability to exclude the provider. The ruling involved who sued. Justices ruled Medicaid patients dont have the right to sue to see their doctor of choice. The new filing removes the patient from the complaint. Rather than sue on someones behalf, Planned Parenthoods new filing argues the state is violating the 14th Amendments equal protection clause by unfairly targeting the nonprofit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The case is not about abortion not directly, anyway but whether South Carolinians can use their Medicaid health coverage at Planned Parenthood for services such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. What started as a crusade against abortion has devolved into an even greater assault on essential, preventive care, Paige Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in a statement. The cost of this political attack will be the health and well-being of hardworking South Carolinians cancers will go undetected, STIs will go untreated, and people wont have the birth control they need to plan their futures. Planned Parenthood is fighting GOP efforts on multiple fronts. McMasters order, as well as directives approved as part of the state budget ever since, are similar to efforts in Washington to defund the organization entirely because it provides abortions. A provision of Republicans big, beautiful law signed last month barred Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood for one year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A federal judge has blocked that provision from taking effect in other states, allowing patients elsewhere to continue going to Planned Parenthood for contraceptives and other services normally covered by Medicaid while that challenge plays out. That order did not apply to South Carolina. Reacting to the newest filing, a spokesman for Attorney General Alan Wilson said he celebrated the Supreme Courts decision and is confident South Carolinas position will prevail. Robert Kittle added: South Carolinas a proudly pro-life state. PLATTSBURGH Plattsburgh City Police have arrested three individuals after catching them breaking into the Plattsburgh YMCA building. Police said Cameron Chellis, 19; Braden Chellis, 21; and Jansen Warren, 19, were arrested and arraigned on Aug. 18 and released under pretrial supervision. Police said its alleged that in the early morning hours Monday, a resident near the YMCA at the Oval reported individuals breaking into the building. The caller stayed on the line with dispatchers, giving real-time updates as Plattsburgh Police Patrol Officers arrived on scene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After a brief foot pursuit by responding Officer Monnat as well as other officers arrival, the fleeing individuals were detained. City detectives Puchalski and Minogue, who also responded, linked those in custody to a previous burglary at the YMCA on Aug. 15, where masked suspects allegedly unlawfully entered and stole cash from the business. Some of the stolen money was recovered, and no additional property was taken during the second burglary due to the quick police response of the City of Plattsburgh Officers who were on patrol and actively conducting property checks of surrounding area businesses, police said. Police added they face multiple criminal charges, including burglary, larceny, criminal mischief and child endangerment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This case truly highlights the vital role our community partnerships play. A vigilant resident, collaborating with our officers, was instrumental in stopping further crimes and led to immediate arrests, Chief Jarrod Trombley said. Our alert night shift officers, who were proactively conducting property checks, also contributed to the quick response time and minimized further victimization of this city business. All defendants were arraigned at Plattsburgh City Court at approximately 9 a.m. Monday. Defendants were released on pre-trial release with next court appearances scheduled for mid-September. The investigation is ongoing and additional charges are pending. ADAMS COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) A stabbing in Adams County was determined to be self-defense, and the man who was stabbed faces multiple charges, police said. Terry Williams, 37, of East Berlin, faces charges that include felony counts of strangulation and endangering the welfare of children from the April 19 domestic incident in the 100 block of North Main Street, according to online court records. Bendersville Borough Police said on a social media post that Williams was taken into custody Thursday with the help of Adams County Constable Joshua Fitting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After police were dispatched for a stabbing, they found Williams on the sidewalk, having lost a lot of blood due to stab wounds to his chest and abdomen. A bystander helped an officer provide first aid until EMTs arrived. Police say it was determined throughout the investigation that there was an argument inside the home that escalated to the point where Williams allegedly assaulted two people. As one of the victims was being assaulted, police said they used a large kitchen knife to stab Williams. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Morning Weather Forecast The Adams County District Attorneys Office reviewed the case and recommended charges be filed against Williams, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Williams also faces charges of recklessly endangering another person, simple assault, criminal mischief and harassment. After Williams was arraigned, he was placed in Adams County Prison with bail set at $100,000. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 27. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Credit: X / @AndresJRendonC A Colombian drug gang used a drone to shoot down a helicopter transporting police officers targeting cocaine crops, killing 12 officers on board, the nations president said. The attack in the northern region of Antioquia on Thursday came just hours before a truck loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school in the south-west city of Cali, killing at least six people and injuring more than 60. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gustavo Petro, the countrys president, blamed both attacks on dissident members of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He initially blamed the Gulf Clan, Colombias biggest drug cartel, for the attack on the helicopter, saying it was revenge for a cocaine seizure. Six people were killed and 60 wounded in the blast near a military base in the south-west city of Cali - AFP FARC dissidents, who rejected a 2016 peace deal with the government, and the Gulf Clan are both active in Antioquia and heavily involved in cocaine production. Authorities said the helicopter was transporting police officers as part of an operation to destroy coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine. Mr Petro said an alleged member of the dissident group was arrested in the area of the explosion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Andres Julian, the governor of Antioquia, said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops. The attack is thought to have caused a fire onboard. In Cali, unknown attackers threw two cylinder bombs at Marco Fidel Suarez military airbase, which exploded on the busy street. Cali is once again the victim of a narco-terrorist attack, said Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Colombias third-largest city, which is close to the violent region of Cauca. In March, FARC dissidents launched eight simultaneous attacks across Cauca, including motorcycle bombs and drones carrying explosives, which is a region with many coca crops on a major drug trafficking route. Drug trafficking junta Mr Petro travelled to Cali after the attack, which he said came after FARC dissidents had suffered a defeat at the hands of the military. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said on X that one of the perpetrators had been detained in Cali, where two people were killed in explosions in June. Terrorism is the new expression of the factions...which have submitted to the control of the drug trafficking junta, he said, adding that the government asks the world to consider the drug trafficking cartel as a terrorist organisation. Mr Eder has offered a reward of 74,000 for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the attack on the airbase. Another 74,000 was offered by regional authorities. Colombias Ministry of Defence said it would offer rewards of up to 37,000 for anything information allowing them to anticipate any terrorist attack in the country. Attackers threw two cylinder bombs at the Marco Fidel Suarez military airbase in Cali - Iusef Samir Rojas/AFP Coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia, where cocaine is decriminalised for personal use. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Experts have warned that drones are already shifting out of the battlefield in Ukraine. Rebel groups in Africas Sahel region, cartels in South America and criminal gangs in Ireland have all used drones to attack their enemies in recent month. In July, Ukraines SBU intelligence services reportedly began a probe into cartels sending recruits to volunteer with the army in order to learn about drone warfare. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Aug. 22MOSCOW The Moscow Police Department identified the man who barricaded himself in his Roosevelt Street residence Wednesday night after allegedly firing a gun outside his home. James Shepard, 48, was arrested for unlawful discharge of a weapon within city limits, disturbing the peace and resisting and obstructing officers. He was also given a misdemeanor citation for allegedly displaying sexually explicit signs at his house. Police were first dispatched to his residence for that incident at approximately 12:25 p.m. Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Daily headlines, straight to your inboxRead it online first and stay up-to-date, delivered daily at 7 AM Police were called back to Shepard's residence at 7 p.m. after he allegedly discharged a firearm outside his home. Officers arrived on scene and Shepard barricaded himself in his residence. Shepard refused to comply with commands and also refused to communicate with officers on scene. The Latah County Regional SWAT Team, which has members of the Moscow Police Department and the Latah County Sheriff's Office, responded to the scene. Additional personnel, resources and equipment were provided by the Whitman County Sheriff's Office, the Pullman Police Department and the Lewiston Police Department. Neighboring residents evacuated the area before Shepard was taken into custody without incident. No one was injured. This investigation is ongoing. Police investigating call for shots fired in Worcester Police are investigating a report of shots fired on Friday morning. A viewer provided a picture from Strathmore Road in which Worcester and Massachusetts State Police can be seen on scene. Several bits of clothing and other debris could also be seen lying in the roadway. Police did not provide many details, leaving neighbors to piece together what happened. One man who spoke with Boston 25 News said he heard an argument before hearing shots ring out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Next thing I heard what appeared to be 5 shots go off, I could immediately tell that it was gunshots and not fireworks or anything like that, said Gary G. Gary says hes lived in the neighborhood for nearly 20 years and immediately checked with a neighbor to try and figure out what happened. Asked him what he observed, what he was aware of. He told me that he heard arguing and then he heard the guns hots fire. He said he immediately came out his door and witnessed a police officer with a hand gun standing over a victim. Ring camera footage shared with Boston 25 News by neighbors Dylan Schofield shows officers walking up and down the road shortly after arriving at the scene. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police have not said what led up to the shooting or announced any arrests. Boston 25 News is working to gather more information. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) Savannah Police officers are investigating a deadly shooting involving a male juvenile that occurred in the 500 block of Pennsylvania Ave. Thursday. Around 7:30 p.m., Savannah Police responded to a ShotSpotter report. Once on the scene, officers located the victim suffering from a gunshot wound. Immediate aid was provided until EMS arrived. The victim was then transported to Memorial Health University Center, where he passed away due to his injuries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The victim was identified Saturday night as Shinobi Pitts, 17, by the Chatham County Coroners Office. An autopsy has been scheduled. Pitts is said to have been shot at least one time. No arrests have been made at this time. Anyone with information should call CrimeStoppers at 912-234-2020 or use the SPD mobile app to remain anonymous. WSAV will update as we learn more. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Authorities are investigating a non-fatal officer-involved shooting in Worcester, District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr announced. According to District Attorney Early, the incident occurred early Friday morning in the area of Strathmore Road. Members of the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section (VFAS), United States Marshals Service, and Massachusetts State Police Detectives assigned to the Middlesex County District Attorneys Office were executing an arrest warrant on a Superior Court case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The target of the warrant, 23-year-old Chris Betances of Worcester, had tried to get away in a vehicle and drive towards police. Thats when a Deputy U.S. Marshal shot and wounded Betances. Officers immediately began to render aid and transport him to a local hospital, where he is said to be in stable condition. Betances was later arraigned in Worcester Superior Court on the outstanding warrant and is to be held in custody without bail. Betances is expected to return to court next Friday, August 29. The incident remains under investigation. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW HONOLULU (KHON2) The Honolulu police commission says it could take seven months to find a new police chief using a professional hiring firm. Honolulu Police Chief search could stretch into 2026 A firm was used to recommend former police Chief Joe Logan. But the police union and council members want officers to have more of a say in the next top cop. During a police commission hearing on Wednesday, the commission said it could take until March 2026 to find a new chief and only one commissioner had gone through the hiring process of finding a new chief. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The commissioners said they believed hiring a firm that specializes in hiring police chiefs should be used instead. Just as it was used to find Chief Logan. We hope it doesnt take this long, but we wanted to manage expectations, explained Lori Foster, Honolulu police commission vice-chair. And I think its real well be able to contract a search firm by November. She said firms say the process, which includes interviews and surveys, can take four to six months, and they hope to select one by November. Councilmember Andria Tupola urged the commission to include input from officers and dispatchers when it comes to finding a new chief. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I feel like in the last few months that I really felt for these officers, not just with the vacancies but for their safety, their mental health, I mean, we need a leader and someone who is going to advocate for them, Tupola said. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news The police union (SHOPO) recently conducted its own internal survey and found officers want their voices heard when it comes to finding a new boss. For too long, the process to hire a chief of police has been done without meaningful input from those who know best, explained Nick Schlapak, SHOPO state board treasurer. Which are the men and women the rank and file officers of the department. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And with three counties actively searching for a new police chief, morale is low. We have 2,000 members combined in all four of those departments that are, for lack of a better term, the system is going to let them down in that selection process, he added. Tupola suggested the future-hiring firm use the recent SHOPO survey when selecting a new chief to help speed up the process. Kauai and Hawaii Island police commissions will discuss their chief hiring process on Friday. Commissioners said the search is too important to rush, and itll include input from Mayor Rick Blangiardi and the community. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You The commission says taking the time to select a new chief is critical, after several past chiefs did not complete their full 5-year terms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. This story was originally published on Healthcare Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Healthcare Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: UnitedHealth is forming a new board committee to monitor and oversee financial, regulatory and reputational risks as the healthcare juggernaut tries to improve its standing with lawmakers, regulators, investors and the U.S. public. The public responsibility committee will provide an additional layer of governance, UnitedHealth said in a securities filing on Wednesday. The committees key responsibilities include underwriting and forecasting, regulatory relationships, reputational matters and mergers and acquisitions all areas for which UnitedHealth has been in the public eye. Michele Hooper, whos served on UnitedHealths board since 2007, will step down as lead independent director to chair the committee. Hooper, who will remain a director, will be replaced as lead independent director by F. William McNabb, the former CEO of investing firm the Vanguard Group who has served on UnitedHealths board since 2018. Dive Insight: UnitedHealth has dealt with crisis after crisis this year, including criminal and civil investigations by the Department of Justice, public animus over its business practices and an unexpected uptick in medical costs derailing profitability forecasts. Thats on top of a massive cyberattack and the killing of its top insurance executive last year. UnitedHealths stock has taken a serious hit amid the challenges. Despite some recent help from Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway took a $1.6 billion stake in UnitedHealth during the second quarter, spurring some broader investor enthusiasm UnitedHealths stock is still down more than 40% year to date. UnitedHealths value has plummeted amid dogged operational and reputational trials $UNH price at close, Jan. 1 - Aug. 20, 2025 Ameliorating regulatory and reputational hazards is top of mind for UnitedHealths new CEO Stephen Hemsley, who took the reins at the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based company this spring. During a call with investors in July, Hemsley said now is a time for change and reform at UnitedHealth, including a forging a more transparent relationship with regulators and the American public. However, UnitedHealth has faced criticism for its aggressive strategy to silence detractors, including suing outlets that publish unflattering investigations and keeping doctors that censure the company from joining its insurance networks. UnitedHealth is also funding favorable research and lobbying in a bid to control the narrative around Medicare Advantage, according to Stat reporting. MA is historically one of the companys most lucrative business lines, but one thats faced notable turmoil amid rising costs and policy changes from Washington that are dampening profits. INWOOD PARK, Long Island (PIX11) The Nassau County Police Department is responding to reports of a vehicle submerged in Inwood Park on Friday afternoon. Police received a call at around 12:12 p.m. More Local News An unoccupied car was found in the water, police say. A driver was not located at the scene. Investigations are ongoing. Submit tips to police by calling Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS (8477), visiting nassaucounty.crimestoppersweb.com or downloading the P3 Tips mobile app. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ben Mitchell is a digital content producer from Vermont who has covered both local and international news since 2021. He joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of his work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Police in Detroit are searching for a man believed to have fatally shot his ex-wife at Henry Ford Hospital. According to News 8 affiliate WDIV-TV, the shooting happened shortly before 10 a.m. Friday in the basement of the hospital. The suspect has been identified by Michigan State Police as 53-year-old Mario Green from Bloomfield Hills. Sign up for breaking news alert emails A 2021 file photo of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. (AP file) He got into a verbal altercation with what Im being told is his ex-wife in the basement area of Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit Police Department Chief Todd Bettison told reporters. He produced a handgun and fired multiple shots, killing his ex-wife. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Green is a 6-foot-4 Black man who was last seen wearing all black with a gold chain necklace. He is presumed armed and dangerous. MSP reported that he is believed to be driving a white 2011 Dodge Charger with a license plate of DXC 7067. WDIV reported that multiple SWAT teams responded to the hospital, along with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Police have not said whether it was connected to a shooting that happened earlier Friday morning near Henry Ford Hospital. In that incident, one person was killed and another was hospitalized after an unknown person fired shots at two men sitting inside an SUV. That shooting occurred near the intersection of West Grand Boulevard and Linwood Street, about a mile away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NOTE: Law officials previously gave an incorrect age for the suspect. This story has been updated with more accurate information. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hulk Hogan in 2023. - Credit: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images The investigation into Hulk Hogans death remains ongoing due to the unique nature of the case, police in Clearwater, Florida, have said. In a statement shared with Rolling Stone, the Clearwater Police Department said that theyve had to interview multiple witnesses and seek medical records from a variety of providers as part of their investigation, and that detectives continue to do that. More from Rolling Stone Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hogan whose real name was Terry Bollea died in late July. His cause of death was confirmed as a heart attack several days later, and police have already said theres no evidence of foul play. Its unclear what exactly the Clearwater police are still investigating, though it could be related to Hogans various health issues, such as atrial fibrillation a heart condition defined as having an irregular heart rhythm and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a form of cancer. The police did not say when they expected to complete their investigation and share the findings with the public (including all records and body camera footage). They did say they would meet with Hogans family, and brief them on the case to this point, and share the results of the investigation with the family prior to closing the case and releasing it to the public and media. The statement from the Clearwater Police comes after Hogans daughter, Brooke, shared a lengthy statement on Instagram earlier this week about the circumstances surrounding her fathers death. She claimed to have received calls from various professionals, including cops and nurses, who claimed to be with Hogan the day he died and told her that the police body cam footage and 911 tapes supposedly contain information that could potentially shed enough light to change the narrative (via People). She continued: Those same professionals feel so passionately about what they witnessed, they have continued to contact me and push me to find specific answers to this very day. They are quite literally putting their careers at risk because they feel so compelled to do the right thing. The short of it is its all up to my dads wife and I have zero control. I can not do anything, my hands are tied, and I have no say in anything regarding my dad even as his daughter. These are the rules as Ive been told. Best of Rolling Stone Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A police officer was shot dead in western Germany on Thursday during a robbery at a petrol station. The incident occurred in Volklingen, near the French border. Two police officers pursued one of the perpetrators on foot after the robbery, a police spokesman in nearby Saarbrucken said. A scuffle ensued, during which the man was able to snatch a firearm from one of the officers and shoot at the police officers several times. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The perpetrator was also hit during the exchange of fire and was arrested. A large contingent of police and emergency services was deployed in Volklingen, a city of around 40,000 inhabitants in Saarland, a small state in south-western Germany. The crime scene was cordoned off, officers equipped with submachine guns patrolled the streets and multiple ambulances were in action. Saarland Interior Minister Reinhold Jost, who visited the scene, described the incident as one of "the darkest days for Saarland and for the Saarland police." Late in the evening, he said that the policeman killed was a 34-year-old senior officer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jost expressed his sympathy to the victim's family, colleagues and friends. "We will provide the best possible support to the relatives and the police family during this difficult time." Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt also expressed shock over the death. "I am appalled and shocked by the brutal act of violence in #Volklingen," the Interior Ministry quoted Dobrindt as saying on X. PUEBLO, Colo. (KREX) Gov. Jared Polis demanded the immediate resignation of the Pueblo County coroner, whos accused of gross misconduct and giving fake cremains to families. The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies Division of Professions and Occupations reportedly found several bodies in various stages of decomposition at Davis Mortuary in Pueblo. Brian Cotter, whos also the appointed designee for the funeral home, allegedly told investigators that some of the bodies were awaiting cremation for nearly 15 years. As a response to the report, Polis declared a disaster emergency to mobilize state resources to respond to the incident and protect public health and safety. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im sickened for the families of the loved ones who are impacted by this unacceptable misconduct, Polis said. It is clear public trust has been lost, and Mr. Cotter must resign as the Pueblo County Coroner immediately. He should be investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No one should ever have to wonder if their loved one is being taken care of with dignity and respect after theyve passed, and Mr. Cotter must be held to account for his actions. The funeral home was issued a summary suspension while all of its operations have ceased. The Pueblo Police Department requested the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the criminal investigation due to its prior experience with similar cases. This discovery comes after a state regulation passed last year, which created more accountability in Colorado funeral homes, including periodic inspections. The governors office stated this incident was discovered because of the new law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CBI is holding a press conference at 1 p.m., Friday, updating the public on the investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish prosecutors have charged the head of the National Security Bureau (BBN) and the former defence minister with wrongfully declassifying secret military plans for use in electoral campaigning. The charges look set to deepen a legal dispute over the security clearance of newly-appointed BBN chief Slawomir Cenckiewicz, part of a bitter conflict between nationalist President Karol Nawrocki and the centrist government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The head of the BBN is part of the President's office and advises him on security matters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cenckiewicz won an appeal in June against a government decision that removed his access to classified information. The Prime Minister's office then lodged a complaint in a higher court asking for the original decision to be upheld. Earlier in August the spokesperson for Poland's security services said that Cenckiewicz does not currently have access to classified documents. The charges relate to the use of military documents by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party during the 2023 parliamentary election campaign. PiS lost its majority in 2023, allowing Tusk to become prime minister at the head of a broad pro-European coalition. Nawrocki and Cenckiewicz are allies of PiS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The defence minister at the time, Mariusz Blaszczak, and Cenckiewicz, who then served as head of the Military History Office, said the documents showed that Tusk was ready to abandon the eastern half of Poland in the event of a Russian invasion when he was prime minister from 2007 to 2014. PiS's opponents said the documents were taken out of context and were part of secret planning for various scenarios which should not have been revealed for electoral gain. "The prosecutor accused Mariusz Blaszczak of exceeding his authority... by removing the "TOP SECRET" and "SECRET" classifications from fragments of strategic-level operational planning documents," prosecutors said in a statement. Cenckiewicz rejected the accusations against him, saying in a post on X that they were "driven by revenge" and "completely unjustified". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Blaszczak called the charges an "act of revenge" from Tusk. Prosecutors said Cenckiewicz had sought to benefit by using the documents in a documentary television series critical of Tusk which he created. A former defence ministry official and a former member of the National Broadcasting Council were also charged. They had no immediate comment. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, a member of Tusk's Civic Coalition, said the charges should "be a warning to all politicians that none should dare to play with Poland's security for the sake of party gain." (Reporting by Alan Charlish, Editing by William Maclean) Former Guernsey chief minister Jonathan Le Tocq has been charged with making more than a thousand indecent images of children among other offences. The 61-year-old faced eight charges at Guernsey's Magistrate's Court, including the creation of indecent images of children, Categories A, B and C as well as possessing extreme pornography, and offences relating to the misuse of telecommunications. He was arrested on 21 July and released on bail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Policy and Resources (P&R) Committee President Lindsay de Sausmarez has said she will be bring a motion to the States to remove him from the senior committee. The charges state that a minimum of 80 indecent images of children he made were the most serious in nature and classified as Category A, with 150 Category B and 1,200 Category C images. The politician was also charged with using four accounts on X, formerly Twitter, to send messages and images that were "of an indecent character". In July P&R voted to stop him taking part in any committee business following his arrest, but he remains a States deputy after being elected with more than 8,000 votes in June. Le Tocq arrived and left court in a van [BBC] Crown Advocate Chris Dunford said he expected the case to be heard by Guernsey's Royal Court. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In court Deputy Le Tocq spoke only to confirm his name and address. The alleged offences occurred between June 2023 and July 2025. Le Tocq has been remanded in custody. It is expected he will return to the Magistrate's Court on 15th September to apply for bail, before the case returns to court in October. Follow BBC Guernsey on X and Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. Related internet links SACRAMENTO, California As the state grapples with a budget deficit and immigration raids, California voters are increasingly supportive of giving health insurance to people regardless of their immigration status, a new POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll found. In a survey of 1,445 registered voters, 29 percent of respondents said they believe the state should continue to provide subsidized health care through its Medi-Cal program to undocumented immigrants, even if doing so comes at the expense of other programs. That marks an increase from the 21 percent of voters who supported the idea in an April poll. Another third of the voters polled was supportive of the program within limits, saying that if cuts to Medi-Cal are necessary the state should prioritize U.S. citizens and others in the country legally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The rise in support is notable as it comes against the backdrop of the Trump administrations ongoing immigration crackdown that has brought raids to the streets of Los Angeles and some of the states farmlands. The poll was also conducted as the state prepares to scale back health care coverage for undocumented immigrants in an effort to close a daunting budget deficit. Beneath the top level findings, the poll results underscore voters complex relationship to the states huge population of undocumented immigrants and deep divides over the issue that run along racial, political and generational lines. Through its Medi-Cal program, California has offered Medicaid to undocumented people in some form since 2016, but significantly expanded coverage during Gov. Gavin Newsoms time in office. By January 2024, every low-income person in the state, regardless of immigration status, had access to the full suite of Medi-Cal benefits. The resulting growth of the Medi-Cal population has contributed to huge cost increases for the program. In the past year, Medi-Cal ran over its budget by 7.5 percent, forcing the state to spend more than $6 billion more to keep the program solvent. The overrun helped drive the state into the red, leaving lawmakers and the governor to deal with a $12 billion budget shortfall. They opted to cut back Medi-Cal for undocumented patients, chipping away at the universal coverage that has been a pillar of Newsoms legacy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Undocumented adults will no longer be able to enroll starting in January and those already in the program will lose access to some benefits, such as dental care, and will be charged $30 monthly premiums. Thirteen percent of respondents agreed that the state should fully or partially roll back its Medi-Cal offerings for those in the country illegally a decline from 17 percent in April. And a third said the state should offer subsidized care as long as doing so doesnt cut into Medi-Cal benefits for citizens, similar to the response in April. The number of people who feel the state should never have offered Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants fell from 31 percent in April to 26 percent in the recent poll. The poll probed other aspects of voters feelings about illegal immigration. More than six out of 10 people said it was important to stop the flow of illegal immigration across the countrys southern border, while 46 percent said they wanted immigrants who entered the country illegally to have a path to citizenship. Over 70 percent said the economy would be hurt if the undocumented workforce were deported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The results reflect the complicated role undocumented immigrants play in Californias economy and broader society, said Jack Citrin, a veteran political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll. Theres a distinction people make between controlling immigration on one hand, versus how should the people already here be treated, Citrin said. The Medicaid question is a part of that. What do you do with the people already here? I think theres an empathy element to it. The survey found that a separate group of policy influencers, POLITICO Pro subscribers well versed in the states policy issues, were more supportive of Medi-Cal for undocumented immigrants than the voters surveyed. Nearly three quarters of the policy influencers polled said they support the state continuing to provide health care either to everyone or with some restrictions. For general voters, that number was 62 percent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Support is highest among Gen Z voters, nearly half of whom said undocumented immigrants should continue to receive free Medi-Cal. Boomers are the least supportive, with only 16 percent saying the state should keep paying for the program. There was also a wide disparity among ethnic groups, with Hispanic voters recording the highest support at 42 percent and white voters notching the lowest at 21 percent. Support among both groups was up from April. And a huge gap persisted along political lines. While 81 percent of Democratic voters said they think the Medi-Cal program for undocumented immigrants should continue, either unfettered or with some conditions, only 32 percent of Republicans reported the same sentiments. Over half of Republicans, meanwhile, said the state was wrong to have offered health insurance in the first place, about the same as in April. This project consists of two separate opinion studies of the California electorate and policy influencers in the state, fielded by TrueDot, the artificial intelligence-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center and Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. The public opinion study, made possible in part with support from the California Constitution Center, was conducted in the field between July 28 and Aug. 12. The sample of 1,445 registered voters was selected at random by Verasight, with interviews conducted in English and Spanish, and includes an oversample of Hispanic voters. The modeled error estimate for the full sample is plus/minus 2.6 percent. The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 512 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the modeled error estimate is plus/minus 3.7 percent. SACRAMENTO, California Donald Trumps immigration raids may be backfiring in California, even among Republicans and independents who otherwise support tougher border security, according to a new poll from POLITICO and its partners. Nearly three-quarters of registered voters in the state including roughly half of Republicans said removing millions of undocumented immigrants from the workforce would hurt Californias economy, the latest POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll found. And roughly 80 percent of voters, including a majority of Republicans, said undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. illegally should remain in some fashion. Thats despite a sizable majority of California voters, 62 percent, saying its important for the U.S. to secure its borders and curb illegal immigration, including 46 percent of Democrats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement About half of California voters favor a pathway to citizenship, while smaller proportions favor eligibility for permanent residency and temporary work permits. Theres an impulse of empathy and humanity, and realism about the difficulty and the unfairness of all of a sudden, out of the blue, coming from people who might have been here for 10 years, have families here, et cetera, said Jack Citrin, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll. The California poll conducted in a state that served as an epicenter of Trumps immigration enforcement agenda may help explain why the president has sunk underwater on immigration nationally , despite the issue previously being one of his strongest. Trump had the upper hand politically in 2024, when immigration talks were focused on border security, but Democrats have seized on the issue amid increasingly bold raids in Los Angeles and beyond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even some California Republican leaders have said they fear theyll pay a price if Trump doesnt pull back. Reports of raids and widespread fear of detentions and deportations , regardless of citizenship status, coincide with data showing Latino voters souring on Republicans . Republicans in the state are in a kind of survival mode, Citrin said. They're caught between their loyalty to Trump, and there may be local pressures on them. Latino voters are an especially powerful political force in California. Republicans 2024 victories in the Inland Empire and Central Valley came as Latino voters swung dramatically toward the GOP after years of voting reliably Democratic. But Hispanic voters more than any other ethnic or racial group surveyed in the California poll said undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. should be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship, at 54 percent, even as roughly 6-in-10 said secure borders are important. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Three-quarters of Hispanic voters said removing undocumented immigrants from the workforce would hurt the economy, including 55 percent who said it would hurt a lot. The survey also gauged the opinion of roughly 500 POLITICO Pro subscribers, who are deeply immersed in state issues. Among that heavily Democratic group of policy influencers, just 44 percent said it was important for the U.S. to secure its borders, compared to 62 percent of all voters and 66 percent of independent voters who said the same. The influencers are less concerned about illegal immigrants and more willing to have a stronger belief in their necessity for the economy, Citrin said. [Influencers] are more liberal, they're more Democratic, and they're more pro-immigration. A whopping 93 percent of policy insiders said removing undocumented immigrants from the country would hurt Californias economy. That number dropped to 89 percent among Democratic voters and 73 percent among all voters surveyed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll was fielded by TrueDot, an artificial intelligence-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center and Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. The public opinion study, made possible in part with support from the California Constitution Center, was conducted in the field between July 28 and Aug. 12. The sample of 1,445 registered voters was selected at random by Verasight, with interviews conducted in English and Spanish, and includes an oversample of Hispanic voters. The modeled error estimate for the full sample is plus or minus 2.6 percent. The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 512 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the modeled error estimate is plus or minus 3.7 percent. SACRAMENTO, California Campus diversity policies are drawing skepticism in deep-blue California, according to a new poll from POLITICO and its partners. Nearly four in 10 registered voters in the state think universities with diversity, equity and inclusion programs that favor certain groups for hiring and promotion should lose federal funding, a new POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey found. California voters are deeply split along party lines over hot-button issues on college campuses, including DEI programs and whether antisemitism is a major problem, the poll showed. But a plurality of independents 42 percent do not support such diversity programs, compared to 30 percent who disagree that campuses with DEI hiring policies should be penalized. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The polling comes amid President Donald Trumps escalating war on diversity initiatives. On his first day back in the White House he deemed DEI programs discriminatory and moved to eradicate them from the public sector. Democrats for years have led the pro-diversity push, but have grappled with how to significantly counter Trumps rhetoric and punitive actions, particularly on campuses. Diversity policies have become more politically divisive in recent years, with the term DEI itself becoming highly polarizing as it has been aggressively criticized by the Trump administration as being deeply problematic, Possibility Lab executive director Amy Lerman said. About 71 percent of Republicans surveyed agreed that colleges with DEI programs should lose federal cash, compared to the 18 percent of Democrats. The survey also sought the opinion of 500 POLITICO Pro subscribers, a heavily Democratic group of California policy influencers, who overwhelmingly disagreed that campuses with DEI programs should be stripped of federal funds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump has carried out a sustained offensive against the nations elite higher education institutions over claims that the schools diversity initiatives violate civil rights laws, opening investigations alleging race-based discrimination in programs and activities at University of California, Berkeley, Cal Poly Humboldt and Cal State San Bernardino. It is also probing the UC system over its hiring practices and San Jose State over the participation of a transgender athlete on its womens volleyball team. The UC system this year responded to the change in federal policy when it stopped requiring candidates for faculty positions to submit diversity statements. The White House is also taking aim at campuses over claims of antisemitism, another issue that has taken on a strong partisan tinge. The University of California, Los Angeles faces a $1 billion settlement demand from Trump to restore $584 million in research grants that his administration froze over allegations that UCLA failed to adequately protect Jewish students and faculty during spring 2024 protests over the war in Gaza. UCLA and UC Berkeley are on a list of 10 schools that the Trump administration said it would visit over alleged antisemitic incidents, and several other UC campuses are on a separate list of universities that the Department of Education is investigating over antisemitism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Private universities such as Harvard, Columbia and Brown have been targeted by similar probes and have either settled or are reportedly nearing a deal. Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a possible 2028 Democratic presidential contender, has called such demands of UCLA extortion and an effort to stifle academic freedom. When asked whether antisemitism is a major problem on college campuses in the state, 61 percent of Republicans agreed compared to just 37 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of independents. Trumps high-profile feuds with the universities are very symbolic for a lot of people about what is happening in culture, generally, and so I think they've become very clearly mapped on to party elites, which is then reflected in partisan voters, said Lerman, who is also a professor of public policy and political science. The Trump administration announced its investigation into UCLA hours after the campus had agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle a lawsuit from Jewish students and a professor over the protests, with UC Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly stating that the UC is committed to doing better moving forward. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The UC has refuted Trumps antisemitism allegations, however, sharing statements from Jewish community leaders claiming that the administration is using Jews as a shield to punish higher education institutions. Prominent Jewish faculty at the public university system also signed a letter this week calling the $1 billion demand misguided and punitive." The administration also demanded UCLA eliminate scholarships based on race or ethnicity as well as the use of proxies for race in the admissions process. Lerman said respondents who were asked about whether antisemitism is a problem on campuses could be reconciling two different concerns. Even if you believe that antisemitism is a problem on college campuses you can still be concerned about the way that the Trump administration has gone about forcing change, whether it's concerns about academic freedom or concerns about university autonomy or about the financial penalties that the administration is requiring of universities, Lerman said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Polling also showed a partisan split over whether colleges should be required to show they teach both liberal and conservative perspectives. About 83 percent of Republicans agreed, compared to the 42 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents A majority of Californians overall, 56 percent, agreed that colleges should teach balanced perspectives. The survey consists of two separate opinion studies of the California electorate and policy influencers in the state, fielded by TrueDot, the artificial intelligence-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center and Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. The public opinion study, made possible in part by the California Constitution Center, was in the field between July 28 and August 12, 2025. The sample of 1,445 registered voters was selected at random by Verasight, and the margin of error estimate for the full sample is plus/minus 2.6 percent. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish, and include an oversample of Hispanic voters. The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 512 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the margin of error estimate is plus/minus 3.7 percent. This story was originally published on Supply Chain Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Supply Chain Dive newsletter. The United States and the European Union formalized the terms of the framework trade agreement the two trading partners announced at the end of July, per a joint statement published by the White House Thursday. The statement provides additional clarity and detail surrounding the terms U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shared following negotiations in Scotland on July 27, including a 15% tariff on EU imports by the U.S. The two trading partners will promptly document the agreement, per the statement. Under the agreement, the U.S. committed to apply either a tariff of 15% or a most favored nation duty rate on EU imports, with the higher of the two to be enforced. The U.S. will set a cap of 15% on tariffs for imports of pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber, per the statement. Those sectors are currently under Section 232 investigation. Similar probes have led to sector-specific tariffs of up to 50%. The U.S. also plans to apply only the most favored nation rate set by the World Trade Organization to aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals, chemical precursors and unavailable natural resources, effective Sept. 1. The two trading partners will consider other sectors to add to that group. Meanwhile, the EU said it intends to eliminate tariffs on U.S. industrial products and provide preferential market access to a range of U.S. food exports, including tree nuts, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, pork and bison meat, and dairy products. Once the bloc formally introduces legislation to enact these measures, the U.S. plans to apply a tariff of 15% on EU cars and auto parts, unless the covered goods are subject to a higher most favored nation duty rate. The two countries also intend to cooperate on automobile standards. These tariff reductions are expected to be effective from the first day of the same month in which the European Unions legislative proposal is introduced, according to the statement. For steel and aluminum imports, the two trading partners said they would consider the possibility of cooperating on ring-fencing their domestic markets to protect against overcapacity. As part of the agreement, the EU expects to procure $750 billion in energy products through 2028 and $40 billion worth of artificial intelligence chips from the U.S. EU companies would also invest $600 billion in the U.S. over the next three years. Rainbow-painted Pride crosswalks around the state and the country have been a recent point of contention with differing viewpoints from state officials, city leaders and residents. Guidance issued by the administrations of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump call for the erasure of asphalt art. It has sparked a debate, particularly in Delray Beach, about what rights state governments have in directing local authority. In Delray, the rainbow-painted Pride crosswalk will remain for at least a few more weeks after city commissioners voted to hold an administrative hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 2 before potentially removing it. Here's where the two sides stand: Pride crosswalks: The case for removing them Florida, specifically the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), has ordered the removal of Pride crosswalks in cities, citing safety concerns related to "non-compliant pavement surface markings" and the need to keep roads "free of political ideologies." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Among the issues that national and state officials point to: Reduced visibility: The bright colors of pride crosswalks can make it harder for drivers to see the traditional white crosswalk strips, potentially leading to accidents. False sense of security: The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has warned that the artistic crosswalks could give pedestrians license to be more casual in crossing the streets. Avoiding political statements on public roads: Crosswalks should not be a form of political expression, potentially promoting ideologies and potentially dividing communities. Pride crosswalks: The case for keeping them Delray Beach officials offer these reasons, among others, for keeping the painted crosswalks: Community support: The artwork is seen as a powerful symbol of inclusivity and a way to show support for the LGBTQ+ community, especially in areas with a large LGBTQ+ population. Community engagement: Rainbow crosswalks can foster a sense of community, encourage dialogue and promote a welcoming environment. Local decisions: Cities should have the right to decide how their public spaces are designed and decorated. Take our poll: Where do you stand on Pride LGBTQ+ crosswalks? Where do you stand on the removal of rainbow-colored Pride crosswalks in cities? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Are you for the removal of them, do you think they should stay or do you think the issue is more complex and there is no right or wrong answer? This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Poll: yes or no to Pride rainbow-painted crosswalks in Florida PORTSMOUTH A man responsible for the accidental shooting death of a 2-year-old boy was sentenced Friday to five years in prison. Circuit Judge Douglas B. Ottinger also ordered Al Demond McNeil to undergo five years of supervised probation after his release, according to prosecutors. The sentence was two years above the maximum term that state sentencing guidelines recommended. McNeil, 42, pleaded guilty this year to involuntary manslaughter and reckless handling of a firearm for his role in the boys August 2022 shooting death. The incident happened at an apartment on Deep Creek Boulevard that McNeil shared with the boys mother. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to a statement from prosecutors, McNeil was sitting in a kitchen chair with a gun in his waistband, while the boy played nearby on the floor. When McNeil stood up, the gun fell to the floor and fired, striking the boy, the statement said. He died at a hospital three days later. Police said at the time that McNeil gave conflicting statements, initially telling detectives the gun fired after it fell to the floor, then later saying the child got hold of it and pulled the trigger while playing with it. A doctor told police the child was shot just above the left eye, with the bullet exiting through the back of his head, according to court documents. The doctor said it would have been difficult for the boy to turn the gun around and pull the trigger. Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) Voting is a way of communicating. But on Monday, President Trump announced plans to issue an executive order to alter the us election system, focusing on mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines. President Donald Trump said, You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots and we, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold says, Donald Trump ultimately is trying to grab power ahead of the 26 election and says he will ban mail ballots in this country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president argues that mail-in voting allows significant voter fraud and aims to bring honesty to the 2026 midterm elections. Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Bobbie Gross said, Its important to note that, under Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures are responsible for setting the times, places and manner of elections. Congress can make or change those rules by law. Elections belong to the citizens of Colorado, not the federal government. Each state may have election challenges that the federal government is not aware of. In Mesa County, 98% of voters use their mail ballots and return them through secure ballot drop boxes. Eliminating mail ballots would create challenges for military families and overseas voters who depend on them to participate in elections. If Congress passes such a measure, Mesa County Elections will continue to ensure all eligible voters can cast their ballots. I am thankful Colorado voters have a choice to use their mail ballot or visit our voter service and polling centers to vote in person. According to Gross, 98% of Mesa County does mail-in voting and returns them through a secure ballot dropbox. But Griswold tells WesternSlopeNow that the executive order could face legal actions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It will be challenged in court and it will be struck down, Griswold said. WesternSlopeNow reached out to the governors office for comment and Governor Jared Polis responded stated, Colorados election system is a gold standard for the rest of the country, and our all of the above voting which ensures every voter gets a ballot and allows them to vote by mail or in person is an important part of that. This wildly popular ability to vote is safe and secure and allows Coloradans to make our voices heard without unnecessary barriers. President Trump has flip-flopped on mail-in voting over the years and personally voted by mail. Ive voted by mail nearly my entire life, and for those who dont want to, in Colorado, they can also vote in person early or on Election Day. We would urge Congressman Evans and Hurd and the entire Congressional delegation to reject this attack on free and fair elections, and protect Colorados popular and accurate system of voting. U.S. Congressman Jeff Hurd said in a statement, Election integrity is not a partisan issue- voters of all parties believe every persons vote is sacred and should count. We also all agree that our elections should be safe and transparent. I am happy to work with local, state, and federal officials to ensure our American Democracy is always protected and our elections are secure. WesternSlopeNow asked the community and listened to your thoughts on the matter some said I like mail-in voting because I can research each vote online and take my time ensuring I understand all the ballot issues, the judges, etc. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some were against it, saying in part, I believe its a good idea because it would make voting integrity a thing again. WesternSlopeNow reached out to Montrose County to hear their reaction to this topic, but they said there is no local impact at this time. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. (WHTM) The Hershey Company provided additional details on how and why the company is switching to natural food dyes by 2027, and there could be some shortages on popular products. The Hershey Company recently announced plans to remove synthetic dyes from its candy and snacks by the end of 2027. Recently, Hershey provided consumers with an update on why they are switching to natural food dyes and how they will be doing it. Close Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking News Alerts The Hershey Company says that soft and hard policy changes regarding artificial food dyes, and the rising consumer demand for natural coloring in food, have driven the company to make the switch. This past year, the FDA asked food companies to phase out synthetic dyes as a part of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. We continually review our own products and recipes to follow consumer preferences, ingredient recommendations and all regulations. We firmly believe that a strong national food ingredient approval system is the best way to ensure food safety, affordability and quality in the marketplace, The Hershey Company said in a blog post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As for moving forward with using natural dyes, consumers may see some shortages in certain Hershey Brand products. The Hershey Company revealed they are working with suppliers to create dyes from natural produce such as spirulina, carrots, radishes, and beets, for products like Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers, and Shaq-A-Licious Gummies, and some chocolate products, including Reeses Pieces and Reeses Carmel Big Cups. Using natural produce to create dye takes time, as The Hershey Company notes that they need time to grow. That, along with the growing number of large companies that are making similar changes, could potentially lead to shortages of certain products in the short term, per The Hershey Company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They added that it will also take time to develop colors that are similar to the ones consumers are already familiar with. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. As Nigeria prepared for elections in 2027, social media posts shared a video claiming it shows Nigerian former interior minister Rauf Aregbesola coming under attack at a campaign rally. However, this is false; AFP traced the footage to an incident during the tenure of Gboyega Oyetola, currently a government minister, when #EndSARS protesters attacked his convoy while he was the state governor in Osun, southwestern Nigeria, in 2020. This politics is now scary ooo. He was disgraced and molested. He was not even allow to do any campaign in sagamu, he and his campaign team were chased out of sagamu. An ingrate, the evil he did to Tinubu will be pursuing him and will not be politically recognized any longer (sic), read the caption of an X post published on August 17, 2025. At the top of the 28-second video, an overlaid caption read: Aregbesola got stone at Ogun state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Sagamu" refers to a major town in the state. Screenshot showing the false post, taken August 18, 2025 Aregbesola, whose full name is Rauf Aregbesola, was the immediate past interior minister and long-time ally of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu. He served as Lagos commissioner for works (19992007) before becoming governor of Osun state (20102018) (archived here and here). After falling out with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Tinubu due to a local leadership conflict and his suspension from the party, Aregbesola formally defected in July 2025, accepting the role of interim national secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the platform adopted by the opposition coalition for the 2027 elections (archived here, here and here). A few days after Aregbesola was appointed as ADC secretary, local daily Punch Newspaper published a video here and here showing jubilant supporters welcoming him back to Lagos from the nations capital, Abuja (archived here and here). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement AFP found no official reports that objects were thrown at him as he arrived in Lagos. The footage in the X post was also shared here on Facebook alongside a similar false claim. It shows a convoy of vehicles speeding through a crowd as people hurl objects at it. The post, reshared more than 280 times, was published by an account called Hon Kunle a self-acclaimed network engineer with over 2,000 followers. A review of the accounts feed shows it shares posts solely on Nigerian politics. #EndSARS rage Using Google Lens to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the X clip, AFP found the original video published on YouTube on October 17, 2020 (archived here). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The full video, published by Nigerian news broadcaster ChannelsTV, has a caption reading #EndSARS Protests: Governor Oyetola's Convoy Attacked By Hoodlums. Governor Oyetola, mentioned in the caption, refers to the former Osun state governor, Gboyega Oyetola. Graphics showing the X video (right) and the YouTube video (left) Oyetola is Tinubus cousin and currently serves as the Marine and Blue Economy Minister after a four-year single tenure as Osun governor. He succeeded Aregbesola in 2018. #EndSARS was a social media campaign against police brutality that later blossomed into the largest anti-government demonstrations in the modern history of Africas most populous nation (archived here). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Using the keywords from the caption of the YouTube video to conduct searches, AFP found multiple reports about the incident involving Oyetola. According to the local publisher DailyTrust, Oyetola described the incident as an assassination attempt on his life by thugs who had hijacked the peaceful demonstration (archived here). ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) An American WWII Soldier whose remains were only identified in 2018 is finally coming home to be laid to rest in his hometown of Boonville after landing at the Rochester International Airport Today. U.S. Army Private Harland J. Hennessey was born on September 1, 1918. He died of disease in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines in 1942 following the infamous Bataan Death March. Years later, the U.S. Army moved his and nine other Americans unmarked grave to Manila Cemetery. In 2018, he was transferred to Honolulu. Much later, they were able to identify Hennessey using forensic DNA testing and dental records. Using his nephews and cousins DNA, a positive identification of Pvt. Hennessey was established, and in 2024, it was announced he was coming home to New York. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His trip home began in Hawaii, with a flight to Rochesters airport today, followed by an escorted procession. He will then continue on the Thruway to Utica, where the Patriot Guard Motorcycle Veterans and other groups will escort him all the way to Boonville. His remains will be laid to rest this weekend in Boonville Cemetery, beside his parents, with full military honors. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) A man is facing a firearm charge in connection with an overnight shooting in Portsmouth on Friday that injured one person, according to police. Officers were called to the 1000 block of Virginia Avenue just after midnight for the report of a shooting. Upon arrival, they located a man with a gunshot wound. Nashawn Laron Corbett (Courtesy: Portsmouth Police Department) He was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries. The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Nashawn Laron Corbett, has not yet been located. He has been charged with possession of a firearm by a violent felon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If you have any information about this case, you can submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-888-LOCK-U-UP, downloading the P3 tips app to a mobile device, or visiting www.P3tips.com and submitting a tip. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. The princess of Belgium will be returning to Harvard following a summer of uncertainty for international students because of tensions between the school and the Trump administration. Princess Elisabeth will be entering her second year at the Ivy League institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a spokesperson for the Belgian Royal Palace confirmed. Shes happy that she can continue her masters and that she can go back to campus, the spokesperson said of the 23-year-old heir to the Belgian throne. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Elisabeth, the Duchess of Brabant, is in the middle of a two-year public policy program at Harvards Kennedy School of Government, which is set to start its first week of classes in early September. Earlier this year, it was unclear whether the Trump administrations immigration policies would affect the princess. In May, the government had terminated the schools Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which would effectively block the schools ability to enroll international students. At the time, the Belgian Royal Palace said that it would allow time to let things settle before providing more details on the princess enrollment. Harvard accused the administration in a lawsuit of violating itsFirst Amendment rights and won a temporary restraining order from a federal judge, allowing it to keep its international students and enroll new ones. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But by early June, the Trump administration made another attempt to block the university from enrolling foreign scholars, issuing a proclamation that said that the government would deny visas to those trying to come to the U.S. for the purpose of studying there. Harvard immediately fought the decision. This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvards First Amendment rights, a spokesperson for the university said at the time. The university amended its May lawsuit and asked the court to halt enforcement of the proclamation, which the federal judge swiftly granted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Princess Elisabeth is among the Harvard Kennedy Schools large international population, which make up 59% of its student body. She did her undergraduate studies at Lincoln College, part of the larger Oxford University in the United Kingdom, where she obtained a bachelors degree in history and politics. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Two pro-Palestinian activists found guilty of harassing a UK government minister have appeared in court to appeal against their convictions. Ayeshah Behit, 31, and Hida Ahmed, 26, were found guilty of the charge against Alex Davies-Jones, the Labour MP for Pontypridd, in June. They had filmed a confrontation with the politician, who had been campaigning in Treforest, Rhondda Cynon Taf, in the lead-up to the general election in June last year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both women appeared at an appeal hearing at Merthyr Crown Court on Friday, denying they harassed Davies-Jones, a justice minister. Ahmed, a final year architecture student at Cardiff University with no previous convictions, was handed a 12-month conditional discharge in June. Behit, who had a previous conviction relating to a protest in Cardiff last year, received an 18-month conditional discharge. While out campaigning, Davies-Jones said she saw Behit and Ahmed with leaflets suggesting she was a "full-blown supporter of this genocide" - referring to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Behit and Ahmed also put posters on the Labour office in Pontypridd - the base of Davies-Jones' campaign for the general election - that referred to politicians "enabling genocide". Davies-Jones told the court on Friday she was aware of what was on the leaflets and had initially approached the defendants trying to defuse the situation. She said the defendants quizzed her on her voting record, with them asking why she had abstained on a ceasefire vote in the House of Commons. Davies-Jones said she had not abstained, but had been out of the country at the time. The MP ended the conversation with the pair, telling the court it was clear that they were not going to be satisfied with her answers, describing the situation as "quite confrontational". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "They started to follow us down the street, shouting quite awful things at us," she said. She described feeling "scared, intimidated and threatened", and she and her team hid in a university building to get away from them. She also said she decided to stop her campaigning, aware of what had happened to to other MPs, including the murder of Jo Cox. Ayeshah Behit (left) and Hiba Ahmed (right, long dark hair and light brown jumper) were convicted of harassing Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones [PA Media] An edited video of her interaction with the pair was later posted on social media, with suggestions she was Islamophobic. "The consequences of that [video] were severe and still are," she said, adding she had experienced "relentless targeting with abuse, harassment, threats". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I have had to increase security at my home, office, when I'm out in public. "It's constant - it's changed everything, it's changed the entire way in which I work." Behit said they had only been there that day to hand out leaflets, and were not "at all" aware Davies-Jones was due to be there. Behit did not deny shouting after the MP, but said they had not continued following Davies-Jones and her team. She also denied having knocked on doors after the canvassers, insisting they had only put leaflets through letterboxes and talked to people in the street. However, she admitted placing leaflets under the windscreen wipers of a vehicle owned by a canvasser, as well as posters and stickers on a bus stop and on Davies-Jones' office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She dismissed the argument from Nik Strobl, appearing for the prosecution, that they had been deliberately targeting Ms Davies-Jones. "It was an insane coincidence," she said. Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the recorder of Cardiff, adjourned the appeal until 29 August, when Ahmed will give evidence. Changes to Californias redistricting process would allow lawmakers to redraw congressional districts in ways that would heavily favor Democrats, regardless of redistricting efforts in Texas or other GOP-led states, should voters approve the measure in November. As first reported by KCRA, lawmakers took out language that tied Californias redistricting changes to whether Texas or another Republican-led state enacted new maps. This measure, which would include a legislative finding that it is in response to redistricting in Texas in 2025, would, notwithstanding the authority of the Citizens Redistricting Commission, require the state to temporarily use the congressional districts reflected in AB 604 of the 202526 Regular Session for every congressional election until the new congressional boundary lines are drawn by the commission in 2031, the measures the bills text now reads. A screenshot from the ACA-8 bill showing the language change as of Aug. 21, 2025. The proposal is part of the broader Election Rigging Response Act, a legislative package that would override the states independent redistricting commission for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yesterday, Texas moved forward with their Trump power grab, so this notion of conditioning is no longer applicable it is self-evident that California will need to move forward in response to what Texas has done, a spokesperson from Gov. Gavin Newsoms office said in a statement to KTLA. Additionally, the removal of the language allows for a clearer, more simple description for voters this November. Newsom responded to reports about the language change on X, writing: Texas acted. California will now respond. The trigger has been triggered. On Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives approved a GOP-favored map that could flip five districts Republican. A day later, the California State Assembly passed its own map. Both measures now head to their respective state Senates. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Viking Holdings Ltd (NYSE:VIK) shares slipped on Wednesday despite the cruise operator posting a strong second-quarter revenue jump and upbeat analyst commentary. The company reported an 18.5% year-over-year sales increase to $1.88 billion and reaffirmed its ability to sustain mid-single-digit pricing strength across its segments. While Bank of America Securities reiterated a Buy rating with a $70 target, citing Vikings premium positioning and superior returns, investors appeared cautious as shares traded nearly 2% lower in midday action. Read Also: Retail Investors Top Stocks With Earnings This Week: Faraday Future, XPeng, Walmart And More Didora noted that Vikings premium positioning should help sustain pricing power, leading to only slight adjustments in 2025-2027 revenue and earnings forecasts. Pricing trends were mixed. River segment pricing improved by 200bps to +6%, likely supported by its dominant market share and mix benefits, while Ocean segment pricing slipped to +4% from +5%, which Didora suggested may reflect rising competition from other cruise operators. Concerns raised last quarter about 2026 pricing stability eased, as Viking maintained its +4% outlook while reinforcing expected mid-single-digit gains. Didora added that Viking is positioned to expand 2025 EBITDA by over 25%, with 2026-2027 estimates growing in the mid-teens, well above the high-single to low-double-digit growth expected for other cruise lines. He also pointed out that Vikings return on invested capital and EBITDA per APCD are nearly twice the industry average. We believe VIKs growth and financial metrics justify a premium valuation to peers, Didora noted. Price Action: VIK shares are trading lower by 1.92% to $58.09 at last check Wednesday. Read Next: Photo by dreakrawi via Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Viking's Premium Valuation Backed By Strong Growth, Analyst Notes originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. (NewsNation) Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who opposes releasing Erik and Lyle Menendez from prison, says his office submitted an analysis of more than 80 pages to California parole officials mapping out how the brothers brutally murdered their parents in 1989. The siblings are going before parole panels, separately, this week. Erik Menendez, 54, was up first, and was denied parole; 57-year-old Lyle and his advocates were slated to make their case Friday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom having the ultimate say on any recommendations for release. Hochman has said the Menendez brothers have never accepted responsibility for their actions even as supporters argue the siblings have been redeemed behind bars and helped other inmates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Menendez brothers are savage, murdering dogs: Geraldo Rivera Menendez parole board hears gruesome details Prosecutors submitted dozens of pages to parole officials that provide the full story about the Menendez brothers, Hochman said. He said the information, in part, reflects prison records of the siblings, interviews with their family members, trial transcripts and evidence about how the pair fatally shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. Twelve shotgun blasts that basically were staged to make it look like a mafia hit, Hochman said, in describing the killings to Elizabeth Vargas Reports on Thursday. Through the dad, through the back of his head; the mom as she lie bleeding on the ground a point-blank-range shot through the cheek. Then through the kneecaps. Hochman said Erik and Lyle Menendez planned the attack, buying the shotguns two days before the killings, and set up an alibi that they were out seeing Batman when their parents died. He pushed back at later claims the brothers made that they were sexually abused by their father, which has helped drive their recent bids for freedom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They did not say the reason they killed their parents was because they were sexually abused by their dad, Hochman said of the brothers earlier explanation. They said the true reason why they supposedly killed their parents was that they feared their parents were going to kill them mom and dad that night, so they had to shoot them first. Menendez brothers continue to lie: DA The prosecutor said the Menendez brothers, for decades, have not told the truth about the murders. If they ever do it, they might be ready for parole. But they have not done it yet, and therefore we have argued are not ready for parole at this hearing, Hochman said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. HENDERSON, Ky (WEHT) The Vanderburgh County Prosecutors Office says more than ten infants in Indiana have died in recent weeks from unsafe sleep practices, including one locally. In a post on social media, the prosecutors office says co-sleeping is putting babies at risk. Officials say they are preventable deaths and are reminding parents of the ABCs of safe sleep: Alone, on their back, and in a crib, free of blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). LAVACA, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) An Arkansas special prosecuting attorney says no charges will be filed in connection with the July fatal shooting at a Lavaca home. Special Prosecuting Attorney David L. Ethredge said in a news release on Friday that he completed his review of the July 10 shooting incident in Lavaca that left Richard Bradley Jones, 52, of Charleston, dead. Ethredge, who represents Arkansas 14th Judicial District, said that Kermit Acosta acted in a lawful manner under Arkansas law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The investigation revealed that Mr. Acosta was confronted by Mr. Jones and reasonably perceived an imminent threat of serious physical injury or death, Ethredge said in the release. Ethredges decision came following the Sebastian County Sheriffs Offices investigation and a review of all of the available evidence, including statements from three witnesses and information from the Arkansas State Crime Lab. Former Van Buren police officer accused of internet stalking of child pleads not guilty This decision is based solely on the evidence and the law, Ethredge said. While any loss of life is a serious matter, the law recognizes the right of every individual to defend themselves when faced with an imminent threat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jones family provided a statement to KNWA/FOX24 on Friday after it was announced that charges would not be filed against Acosta. He was referred to as Brad in the familys statement. Brad was a loving husband, father, and hardworking member of this community, Brads wife Sherry Jones said. His life was taken without cause, and our family deserves justice. The prosecutors decision does not change the truth of what happened, nor will it silence our pursuit of accountability. Jones family said that they plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Acosta. If the criminal system will not hold him accountable, then we will fight through the civil courts, Jones daughter said. Our fathers life mattered, and we will not rest until the truth is recognized. This is a developing story. Stay with KNWA/FOX24 for the latest. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO/AP) More than 50 protesters gathered Thursday at the corner of 11th Street and Phillips Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls, and among them was Diane Miller of Sioux Falls, for whom motivation was simple. My First Amendment rights, she said. Early cost savings in goal for $650 million prison Republican Rep. Dusty Johnsons Sioux Falls office is located at this location. And while the crowd and their signs certainly had sharp criticism for him, he wasnt the only political figure receiving their hostility. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our representatives in, from South Dakota are so bent, so compromised, so kneeling down to the powers that be to save their own jobs, protester Sandy Ellingsen of Sioux Falls said. Thursdays distinction on the calendar also comes up when talking with protesters. Im here because this is Senior Citizens Day, and were here to raise awareness about all the programs that senior citizens are losing, Pamela Naessig of Sioux Falls said. These are not entitlements. These are things that we have paid for all our lives of working: Medicare, Social Security. Johnson supported President Donald Trumps tax and spending bill signed by the president this summer. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill increases the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion. This office also says Medicare, a health insurance program for people at least 65 years old, could see $491 billion in cuts if Congress doesnt take action. A law from back in 2010 mandates cuts to many programs if legislation grows the deficit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Considering the impact on senior citizens that the bill that was recently passed in Congress is going to have on senior citizens, we thought this day and protesting outside Dusty Johnsons Sioux Falls office was an important confluence of time and events, said Craig Brown of Sioux Falls, who helped organize the event. KELOLAND News reached out to Johnsons office Thursday, seeking an interview if available and a statement if he was not. Johnsons office sent a statement in response: Im glad folks took the opportunity to exercise their First Amendment rights, but lets focus on the facts. The reconciliation package didnt cut Medicare benefits for South Dakota seniors,in fact it keeps more cash in seniors pockets. The bill did reform some programs, like Medicaid, by curbing provider tax abuses. South Dakota doesnt have provider taxes, though, so we arent affected by those changes. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. State Sen. Margo Juarez of Omaha, at center speaking. Aug. 22, 2025. (Photo by Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN The Nebraska Governors Mansion was a bit busier than usual on Friday. Roughly 150 protesters gathered outside the mansion Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen sometimes calls home to protest his plans for a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility at a state prison in the southwestern part of the state. State Sen. Margo Juarez of Omaha spoke to the protesters, saying she needs to be stronger so I can advocate for my immigrant community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Much has changed in our country since January, Juarez said. President [Donald] Trump is pursuing his goal of removing undocumented immigrants from our country without due process. Trump, throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, posted on social media promising voters what he called the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History, after the Biden administration saw illegal border crossings spike at the end of 2023 and start decreasing last year. Trump has said he is pursuing the deportations to keep our families safe. Pillen has said of the facility, Governments most important job is to keep us safe. The governor is following a similar political playbook on the rollout of the facility. An anti-ICE protest sign near the Governors Mansion in Lincoln on Aug. 22, 2025. (Juan Salinas II/Nebraska Examiner) Nebraska has seen an increase in ICE activity this year. Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha faced an ICE raid in June, which sparked protests in Omaha and Lincoln. In July, ICE announced it had arrested an MS-13 kingpin hiding in Omaha. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Juarez called the Glenn Valley Foods ICE raid a political stunt to create fear and divisiveness in South Omaha and beyond. We must use our position of power and privilege to protect our immigrant neighbors, she said Friday. The Governors Office has said any backlash to this initiative is politically motivated and that Nebraskans spoke loud and clear last November and demanded order at the border. Four of the states five Electoral College votes went to Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Most Republican state senators reached by the Examiner in recent days have said they support the new effort in Nebraska. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A Papillion United Methodist pastor, Rebecca Hjelle-Penner, said while most of Nebraska went to Trump, not all Nebraskans voted for that. I dont think that people [or] I hope that people didnt think this is what would happen, Hjelle-Penner said. That would break my heart to think that people would be so angry with their neighbors that they would decide its worth doing this to each other. While state lawmakers are learning on the go about Nebraskas plan to transform its McCook Work Ethic Camp from a rehabilitative center for young men to a migrant detention facility, Pillen told NewsNation this week that the facility is ready to roll. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McCook city officials, in a statement, said it was out of their hands because the Work Ethic Camp is on state-owned land, but that they are confident in the direction the city and Red Willow County are heading. Nebraska Appleseed, a group that advocates for the needy and immigrants, touted a petition on Ujoin, an advocacy website, has received roughly 12,000 signatures telling Pillen no on opening the facility, adding, This is not who we are. National, state-by-state ICE expansions come as recent polling suggests a majority of Americans now disapprove of Trumps handling of immigration, though most Republicans still support it. Recent polling indicates a shift in peoples attitudes from last year, when more Americans supported less immigration and stricter immigration enforcement. I wonder now if they would reconsider the way that they did vote, Hjelle-Penner said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE STAR CITY, W.Va. (WBOY) Members of Mountaineers Indivisible Citizen Action (MICA) held a protest near Monongahela Boulevard on Thursday to raise awareness of its beliefs about strengthening our democratic institutions and actively defending our Constitution. Thursdays protest focused on a variety of topics, one of the strongest being critiques against President Donald Trump and his administration. On top of that, the protest also looked to shine a light on the use of law enforcement in the U.S. and the demand for transparency in its actions. This comes specifically in light of Governor Patrick Morrisey sending West Virginia National Guard Troops to Washington, D.C., a move that opponents have called a political stunt. Other topics included the constitutional right to due process and the use of taxpayer funds to maintain community safety, rather than for harassment. This comes amid reports from across the country claiming that those detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) are not given due process as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Monongalia County begins cracking down on school bus offenses 12 News spoke with Patricia Marroquin, secretary of MICA, about how she handles negative responses when protesting. Even if you disagree with me, you should still let your voice be heard, not in a foul way. If you want to converse about it or even argue about it, Im more than willing to, but just in a nice way. And its not really about democrats, republicans, independents. This is about people, this is about the immigrants who came here just like my ancestors did to start anew, and theyre just being targeted, Marroquin said. 12 News also spoke to Ray Wilson, a protester alongside MICA, about why he chose to participate on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is the American way, coming out and letting people know that were unhappy with whats happening. Thats democracy, and thats what brought me out here, to let people know that were in a dangerous time right now, Wilson said. If youre interested in learning more about MICA, you can visit its website or Facebook page. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. High winds and choppy seas from Hurricane Erin didnt put a damper on Thursdays annual Provincetown Carnival Parade, with dozens of marching delegations, motorized floats and drag performers strutting and strolling down Commercial Street in the week-long celebrations signature event. Provincetown Carnival held this year from Saturday, Aug. 16 through Saturday, Aug. 23 is the busiest week of the year for the small community situated at the tip of Cape Cod well-known as a haven and hub for LGBTQ+ visitors. The event is organized each year by the Provincetown Business Guild (PBG) and dates back almost a half-century to 1978, at a time when social acceptance of LGBTQ+ people was far narrower than today. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Provincetown Director of Tourism Anthony Tony Fuccillo told MassLive that the towns Carnival is a celebration of all, and everyones truly able to express themselves. Each year, the PBG selects a theme that Carnival attendees can interpret or co-opt in their own unique ways, such as in their styles and outfits. Read More: Boston fills with Pride and protest as LGBTQ+ and allies march and oppose Trump The 2025 Carnival theme for the 47th Carnival Parade was Summer Camp. Many parade participants and revelers took the theme to heart with outfits resembling camp counselors, lifeguards and Boy and Girl Scouts, complete with badges, sashes and neckerchiefs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Recurring odes to traditional summer camp memories came in the form of people dressed to look like smores, campfires, insects or as though they were paddling a canoe. Some dressed in more specified summer camp styles, such as space camp, or put their own unique twist on things with slasher horror movie tropes. Others instead focused on campy, over-the-top aesthetics and styles, playing off the double meaning of the word camp, heard more commonly in queer spaces. Several prominent drag queens including RuPauls Drag Race alumni Ginger Minj, Tina Burner, Tammie Brown and Nina West took part in the parade, as well as the drag queen Pattie Gonia, who was the headliner of this years Carnival. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was also no shortage of vibrant displays, rainbow LGBTQ+ Pride flags and messages calling for inclusion and acceptance toward gay and transgender individuals. Past Carnival themes include Enchanted Forest, Candyland and Gods & Goddesses, according to Fuccillo, the director of tourism. The 2024 theme was Renaissance + Revolution. In 2018, Provincetown launched a separate and more specific LGBTQ+ Pride weekend in June, lining up with typical Pride Month celebrations nationwide. However, Fuccillo said Carnival week in August has historically served as the communitys de facto Pride event. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Summer is the high season in Provincetown, a community whose largest economic engine is tourism, but whose year-round population is only about 3,500 residents, Fuccillo noted. Each year, the towns population swells in the warmer months seeing spikes coincide with the Fourth of July, Provincetown Bear Week, and most notably Carnival, Fuccillo said. Citing data from Arrivalist, a platform used by the tourism office that tracks cellphone activity, Fuccillo said about 30,000 people were present in town on Carnival Parade Day 2024. Over the course of the entire 2024 Carnival week, Fuccillo said the Arrivalist figures captured about 84,000 unique visitors. He said he expects similar numbers in the 2025 data. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read More: Springfield shows off its Pride at 2025 parade Other activities seen across this years Carnival week were a Queer Field Day full of classic summer camp games but done in heeled shoes, drag shows, a tea dance, a pool party and a costume contest, among others. Watch a highlight reel from the 47th annual Provincetown Carnival Parade below or by clicking here to watch on YouTube. How to get to Provincetown Parking is limited and restricted in downtown Provincetown, especially during busier times in the summer. If travelers can help it, Fuccillo recommended traveling to and from Boston by ferry, which takes about 90 minutes each way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is also a ferry service across Cape Cod Bay to and from Provincetown and the South Shore town of Plymouth. Those arriving by boat can quickly either board and come ashore at the centrally-located MacMillan Pier or the town marina. Once travelers are on the ground, the core of Provincetown lies on a walkable axis aligning with Bradford Street and the thoroughfare of Commercial Street lined with shops, lodging and restaurants meaning a car often isnt a necessity for most people to get around. Flight options via the Provincetown Municipal Airport and bus routes are available for those who dont wish to make the drive themselves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The majority of the towns land outside the downtown area is part of the expansive Cape Cod National Seashore run by the National Park Service. In Provincetown, visitors will find a plethora of nearly 200 businesses ranging from places to eat and drink, to small businesses, boutiques and nightclubs. Fuccillo said Provincetowns lack of major chain stores makes each independently owned business very unique. Read More: Cape Cod feminist bookshop wins comedy podcasts Jamie Lee Curtis award As the countrys oldest contiguous art colony, Fuccillo added that there is a vibrant art scene with almost 60 art galleries in town. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the best taste of Provincetown, especially for a first-time visitor, Fuccillo recommended at least a three-night stay to really get to know what Provincetown has to offer. More information about sites of interest, local attractions, thing to know before you go and more can be found on the official town tourism website, the PBG website and the town government website. More Cape & Islands content Read the original article on MassLive. Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse. If you or someone you know needs help, call the Rape & Sexual Assault Crisis Line 1-888-421-1100. PROVO, Utah (ABC4) The Provo Police Department has arrested a mental health therapist for allegedly manipulating victims to expose themselves. They believe there may be additional victims and are asking those affected to contact the police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shawn Talbot, 55, has been arrested on three counts of voyeurism. Formal charges have not been filed yet. According to court documents, on July 7, 2024, two women went to the Provo Police Department to be interviewed about alleged misconduct by a mental health therapist, identified as Talbot. Moab man arrested for repeatedly punching victim who was not fighting back, charges say The first victim reported that she had been manipulated over the course of several mental health therapy sessions. Talbot allegedly pushed her to take her clothes off and expose herself as part of humiliating exercises. On one occasion, he even asked her to do a handstand in front of him. Talbot portrayed these actions as the victim showing that she could be vulnerable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Documents say that Talbot abused the victims trust, and on some occasions even complimented the victim inappropriately. The second victim reported that she had been manipulated into bending down in front of him, making her expose her breasts to Talbot. On June 30, 2025, Talbot was fired from his position at Utah Valley Counseling for allegations of sexual abuse and harassment by female coworkers. The arrest affidavit states that detectives became aware of a previous case from 2020 that alleged Talbot had done very similar things to minor victims at a residential mental health facility. During forensic interviews, victims reported that Talbot had asked these minors to lift their shirts as part of a trust exercise. Man charged with automobile homicide for allegedly hitting pedestrian while drunk Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Talbot allegedly wrote a voluntary statement to the Department of Professional Licensing stating that the first victim had tried the handstand in front of him, and he said that it showed very poor judgment and that he allowed boundaries to be crossed. On Aug. 19, 2035, Talbot was interviewed by the Provo Police Department. According to documents, he did not deny the allegations but stated that they took place in a therapeutic practice and was meant to empower them. Talbot reportedly denied there being any sexual motive, but admitted that what he did was not right. Talbot was arrested and booked into the Utah County Jail, but was released with conditions. The Provo Police Departments detectives believe there may be additional victims who experience similar, non-therapeutic requests during treatment by Talbot. They encourage those individuals to contact them and make a report by calling 801-852-6210. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Related video above: Golden Spike Rodeo honoring fallen Tremonton officers TREMONTON, Utah (ABC4) Details for a public viewing and funeral services for the fallen Tremonton Garland Police officers have been announced for next week. Sgt. Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada were shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call late Sunday night. A Box Elder County deputy, Mike Allred, was also injured alongside his K-9 Azula. Charges have now been filed against the alleged shooter Ryan Bate, and he will have his initial court appearance on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Box Elder County Parade and Golden Spike Rodeo honoring fallen Tremonton officers There will be a joint public viewing for Sorensen and Estrada at Bear River High School in Tremonton on Wednesday, August 27, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Funeral services for both officers will be held at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Services for Officer Eric Estrada will take place on Thursday, August 28 at 10 a.m., and services for Sgt. Lee Sorensen will take place on Friday, August 29 at 10 a.m. Following the funeral services, each officer will be laid to rest in a private burial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the news of this tragedy rocked the small Box Elder community, tributes have been pouring in. The Box Elder County Fair and Golden Spike Rodeo have been paying tribute, honoring Sorensen and Estrada at the parade and opening of the rodeo. Local businesses have also been showing their support for local law enforcement by doing things like providing free coffee for the police department, providing area for a safe space for first responders, waiving labor fees for HVAC replacement for active and retired law enforcement, and offering free meals to police officers. Latest headlines: Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. PLEASANT VIEW, Utah (ABC4) During a public hearing, residents discussed concerns about the proposed development known as Farr West Landing. A public hearing Thursday evening brought dozens of residents together in Farr West City to discuss a proposed community reinvestment area plan that could significantly reshape a large stretch of vacant land. The proposed development, known as Farr West Landing, would transform nearly 50 acres near 2700 North and I-15, more than 90% of which is currently undeveloped. The plan includes retail and commercial buildings, a 260-unit apartment complex, and a new road that would connect to Pleasant View City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While the project promises economic growth, it also sparked concerns among some residents. Many voiced concerns over increased traffic, limited parking, and the potential density the apartment complex would bring. The residential portion only meets Weber Countys minimum requirement of 1.5 parking stalls per unit, another resident said. If were doing this, why stop at the bare minimum? We should consider more parking and better-designed units. Others urged city leaders to prioritize affordability. My biggest concern is the 260 proposed apartments, said a resident, who identified themselves as a real estate professional. This project brings business and prosperity, but we have a critical need for affordable housing. Why not convert some of these units into townhomes or high-density condos? The project would be supported through tax increment financing (TIF), which allows the city to reinvest new property and sales tax revenue generated by the development into public infrastructuresuch as roads, water lines, and public parking. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under the proposal, TIF would be capped and is set to begin in 2028. The funding breakdown includes up to 87% for public infrastructure, 10% for housing, and 3% for administrative costs. City officials estimate the development could generate over $1 million in new sales tax revenue annually for Farr West. And the potential growth has garnered some support from residents. One resident said, Its true we need to do something with this land, and Ill save all my traffic concerns for another day. Still, other obstacles remain. There are challenges, a spokesperson for the developer said. Multiple ownership groups are involved, and for the new road, well need to coordinate utilities like water and gas. According to soil studies, the entire area will require 18 inches of fill before construction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement City leaders are expected to make a decision on whether to move forward with the project within the next month. If approved, development would be slated to begin within the next five years. Latest headlines: Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. John Lewis Partnership, the parent company of UK retail brands Waitrose and John Lewis, has announced that James Bailey, managing director of Waitrose, will step down from his role on 30 September 2025. Bailey, who joined the company in 2020, has played a key role in navigating the pandemic and the ongoing cost of living crisis. John Lewis Partnership chairman Jason Tarry stated: James has done an outstanding job, overseeing significant transformation and growth during a period of change. He's a great colleague and has been a highly valued member of the executive team. We will be sad to see James go but understand and respect his decision to step down after five and a half years at the helm. James will leave Waitrose in a much stronger position and I know will be missed by everyone. The company is searching for Bailey's successor. In the interim, Tina Mitchell, retail director for Waitrose, will step up as the interim managing director. Bailey stated: It's been a great privilege to lead this unique and special business and most especially to get to know all the partners who make it what it is. I'm very proud of everything weve achieved together; its been a lot of hard work but very rewarding and Im so happy now to see the business thriving. Waitrose is back on a very strong footing with record customer numbers, strong sales growth and a turnaround in profitability so after five and a half years this feels like the right time to hand over the reins. I feel confident that we've laid the foundations for long-term success and have the opportunity now to go from strength to strength. In April 2025, the company appointed Andy Mounsey as new chief financial officer (CFO) to drive its financial strategy. John Lewis Partnership reported a 73% increase in pre-tax profit to 97m for the 52 weeks ended 25 January 2025, partially because of a better performance by Waitrose. Sales at Waitrose grew 4.4% to 8bn, largely driven by volume growth instead of price. "Waitrose managing director James Bailey to step down in September 2025" was originally created and published by Retail Insight Network, a GlobalData owned brand. A rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was painted over by state officials in the early hours of Thursday, in a move criticized by Mayor Buddy Dyer as a cruel political act. In a statement shared on social media, the Democratic mayor said he was devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue. The crosswalk was installed in 2017 as part of a memorial honoring the victims of the June 2016 mass shooting, when a gunman opened fire during the LGBTQ clubs popular Latin-themed night, killing 49 people and injuring more than 50. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nations largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety or discussion, is a cruel political act, Dyer said. According to the mayor, the crosswalk enhanced safety and visibility for visitors and also served as a visual reminder of Orlandos commitment to honor the 49 lives taken. Fellow Democrat Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando state senator, accused the Florida Department of Transportation of illegally vandalizing city property in the middle of the night without notifying the city or obtaining approval. I cannot believe that the DeSantis administration has engaged in this hostile act against the City of Orlando, Smith said in a video shared on social media, calling the move a disgusting act of betrayal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Smith, whos gay, said he hoped the City of Orlando would sue the state for vandalizing its property. They did this in the middle of the night because they were scared of resistance, knowing what they did was wrong, he said, referring to the ridiculously shortsighted and bigoted decision by the State of Florida and the DeSantis administration. _____ Pulse supporters continue to recolor erased memorial crosswalk Pulse supporters were back out making sure theres a rainbow in the crosswalk after the Florida Department of Transportation painted over the Pulse memorial crosswalk, saying its not safe. Thursday night, the city received a letter saying they have 18 other crosswalks not in compliance. The city says FDOT has already painted over at least 44 crosswalks in the city. It bothers me because these are people that died and the people that care about this are here to make sure people are remembered, said Pulse supporter Jennie Pawlowsky. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pulse supporters like Pawlowsky used chalk to make a rainbow on the crosswalk after it was painted over. On Thursday, they even protested the move. When asked is she was worried about her safety as she was on the ground coloring, she replied, No, Im not worried about my safety. Its just too important. In a picture, crews were seen at 12:30 a.m. Friday painting over several crosswalks at Orange Avenue and Pineloch Avenue. They used to be an orange color matching the SODO theme. And after the Pulse rainbow crosswalk was painted over, more than 100 protesters gathered Thursday night. An Orlando city spokesperson said they werent told of this prior to it happening. They say a memo was sent to the transportation office on July 2 and there was no indication the memorial would be covered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The city also says the Pulse memorial crosswalk was created in compliance with regulations. The memo states it Prohibits the application of pavement or surface art on travel lanes, shoulders, crosswalks or sidewalks. It states surface art can lead to distractions or misunderstandings, jeopardizing both driver and pedestrian safety. WFTV talked to driver Andrea Syers by Orange Avenue and Pineloch Avenue, where the latest crosswalks were painted over. Im not from Orlando, so the first time I saw them. I was a little bit confused, one person said. The FDOT memo also adds that the Department has the authority to enforce compliance and withhold state funds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And regarding the Pulse Memorial crosswalk, FDOT says local efforts are underway to build a permanent memorial on adjacent properties funded by the State of Florida. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is false. People have mixed reactions. Syers said, Theres a better way we can show a memorialization. But pedestrian Ivan Guerra said, It should not be painted on if it has to do with paying someone respect. The city has till Sept. 4 to fix the noncompliant crosswalks. If they dont, they will have to cover the cost of the state doing it. The city is still considering all its options. FDOT Memo by WFTV Digital Team Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) State Question 837, if cleared and approved by voters, will legalize recreational marijuana use in Oklahoma. However, law enforcement agencies have stepped in to oppose it. We are fighting and struggling every day to keep young adults off of this substance, Todd Gibson, President of the Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police, said. A similar measure, State Question 820, first introduced in 2022, was struck down by voters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Medical marijuana was legalized in the state in 2018, but law enforcement agencies believe medical marijuana use still has loopholes, and putting recreational use on the table could be dangerous. Two arrested, accused of multiple child sex crimes Donnie Anderson, Director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, told News 4, Its called medical marijuana, but its really recreational as we sit here today. The ballot initiative was organized by Jed Green and Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action. In order to receive access to state ballots, the petition needs 172,000 signatures by November 3. Green said a majority of the language in the state question, as far as possession limits are already the current limits in statute. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Marijuana advocates argue, even if recreational marijuana is legalized, more needs to be done to keep illegal products out of the hands of children. You have to be at least 18 years old to be able to go into a dispensary to purchase marijuana. The recreational Im referring to, is gas station and internet, Green said. Green said he and other supporters of the state question want to have a conversation with law enforcement about their intentions. If enough signatures are collected, voters could decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana use as early as next year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said there are no immediate plans for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, despite Donald Trumps suggestion that a summit could take place in the coming weeks. In an interview with NBC on Friday Mr Lavrov said that the agenda for a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian leaders was not ready at all. His comments came just a week after Mr Trump met face-to-face with Putin in Alaska for the first time in seven years for talks aimed at ending Russias invasion. After the summit, Mr Trump said that he would help set up a meeting between Mr Zelensky and Putin, which would be followed by a trilateral summit that would include him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this week, Mr Trump suggested a meeting between the two leaders could be arranged easily as they may be getting along a little bit better than I thought. Putin and Trump in Anchorage last week (AFP/Getty) But Mr Lavrov appeared to cast doubt on whether such a summit could take place, saying: Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all. Mr Lavrov said Russia had agreed to be flexible on a number of points raised by Mr Trump but that Moscows demands for a peace deal were unchanged. When President Trump brought those issues to the meeting in Washington, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no Nato membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Zelensky said that Russia was doing everything it could to stop a meeting between him and Putin from taking place and urged Ukraines allies to place fresh sanctions on Moscow if it does not engage with peace talks. Speaking at a joint press conference on Friday with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president said that security guarantees for Ukraine in a potential peace deal should be similar to those in Natos Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack against all. Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (Reuters) "The Russians are doing everything they can to prevent the meeting from taking place, Mr Zelensky said. "Unlike Russia, Ukraine is not afraid of any meeting with leaders. A failure to agree a meeting between the two leaders would be an embarrassment for Mr Trump, who once claimed he could end the war in Ukraine in the first 24 hours of his second presidential term. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite Mr Trumps efforts to initiate a peace agreement, there remains a considerable chasm between both sides over a number of issues, including the possibility of land concessions and security guarantees for Kyiv. Earlier this week, Mr Lavrov said that any security discussions about Ukraine that do not involve Moscow were a road to nowhere. He suggested that a truly reliable guarantee could be modelled on a draft accord that was discussed between the warring parties in Istanbul in 2022. Kyiv rejected the proposal at the time. Zelensky at the White House earlier this week with other European leaders (Ukrainian Emergency Service) Mr Trump has ruled out sending any American ground troops into Eastern Europe but said it could support the peacekeeping effort by air, stating that European powers would be the first line of defence but receive a lot of help from the US. He has also dismissed the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato, a red line for Putin. On Friday, Ukraines military struck a critical oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, halting deliveries of oil to Hungary for the second time in a week. The Druzhba pipeline ships oil from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia, as well as from Kazakhstan to Germany. Ukraine has repeatedly attacked the pipeline's facilities this month, causing supply disruption. By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Dmitry Antonov MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that there was "light at the end of the tunnel" in Russia-U.S. relations and that the two countries were discussing joint projects in the Arctic and Alaska. The Russian president, answering questions during a visit to a nuclear research centre, said he was sure that U.S. President Donald Trump's leadership qualities would help in restoring relations from recent lows. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "With the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally loomed. And now we had a very good, meaningful and frank meeting in Alaska," Putin said, referring to last week's summit. "The next steps now depend on the leadership of the United States, but I am confident that the leadership qualities of the current president, President Trump, are a good guarantee that relations will be restored." His comments signalled Russia's optimism that it can mend relations with the U.S. and strike business deals, despite the lack of clear progress towards ending the Ukraine conflict at his August 15 summit with Trump. Putin did not give details of possible U.S.-Russia cooperation in the Arctic but said there were "huge, huge" mineral reserves in the region and noted that Russian liquefied natural gas company Novatek was already operating there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We are discussing, by the way, with American partners the possibility of working together in this area. And not only in our Arctic zone, but also in Alaska. And at the same time, the technologies that we possess, today no one but us possesses. And this is of interest to our partners, including those from the States," he said. Both Russia and the United States have said they see enormous economic opportunities if they can normalise relations after ties plunged to a post-Cold War low because of the war in Ukraine. (Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Ksenia Orlova and Filipp Lebedev; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Edmund Klamann) THE BIZARRE TWISTS AND TURNS of Donald Trumps Ukraine peacemaking project continue: Just three days after the president announced in a triumphant Truth Social post that Vladimir Putin was willing to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyeither one on one or in a trilateral summit with Trumpand to accept an arrangement in which NATO countries would provide postwar security guarantees for Ukraine, the Putin regime has unequivocally shot down both proposals. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (last seen sporting a USSR sweatshirt on his trip to Alaska) has made it clear that there wont be a meeting with Zelensky until all the issues have been resolvedincluding the question of Zelenskys legitimacy as president, given that Ukrainian elections have been put on hold on account of the warand that Russia will not accept the presence of foreign troops, presumably other than its own, on Ukrainian soil. Trumps stormy bromance with Putin seems to be off again, too: in social media posts on Thursday, he criticized crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden for not allowing Ukraine to strike back at Russia and (speciously) compared his chummy-seeming interaction with Putin in Alaska with Richard Nixons confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959. Its impossible to tell whether Trumps social-media posturing will translate into action. There is still no word, for instance, on whether the administration is greenlighting Ukraines proposal, unveiled after the Monday White House meeting, for $100 billion in U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine (with the Europeans footing the bill) and an additional $50 billion project for joint U.S.-Ukrainian drone production. Nor is there any word on whether or when new sanctions will kick in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Join now WHILE THE CIRCUS PLAYS ON in Washington and Moscow, the war on the groundand in the aircontinues in Ukraine, and sometimes in Russia. Ukraine is in an undeniably tough position, though nowhere near the desperate predicament imagined both by haters and by worriers who keep predicting an imminent collapse of its defenses. On August 12, just before the Alaska summit, many thought they saw a sign of such collapse in a Russian breakthrough not far from the long-contested city of Pokrovsk (Donetsk region), near the former coal-mining town of Dobropillia, where Russian forces managed to make rapid advances past severely undermanned Ukrainian lines, move about nine miles forward, seize three villages (now mostly deserted, though some residents who have not been able to get out still remain there), and cut off a vital supply route for Ukrainian troops. These gains appeared to augur the fall of Pokrovsk itself, a prospect that has been discussed since late last year. But a few days later, the supposed catastrophic defeat turned into an impressive Ukrainian victory thanks to the quick deployment of new units from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard, which retook two of the captured villages as well as four previously occupied settlements and cleared the area of Russian troops, reportedly inflicting significant losses. As for Pokrovsk itself, there have been some clashes inside the city, with incursions by small Russian units; but observers such as expatriate Russian military expert Yuri Fedorov think its extremely unlikely that the city will fall before inclement weather forces the Russian offensive to wind down. Share Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is true that momentum is on Russias side, in the sense that only Russia is currently conducting offensive operations. But Russian forces progress is snail-paced and intermittent, with the Ukrainians often successful in pushing them back (and using drones to make up for manpower and ammunition shortages). The result, more often than not, is a ghastly tug-of-war over small patches of devastated landcontests in which a win may consist of planting a flag in a ghost settlement. Overall, analysts agree that Russia has no chance of capturing the entirety of the Donetsk regionas it has tried to do since the start of Putins covert war in Eastern Ukraine in 2014anytime in the foreseeable future; doing so would require taking heavily fortified urban areas, and even the most cavalier willingness to sacrifice men may not accomplish that goal without several more years of costly fighting. Hence Russian demands for Ukraine to surrender the remainder of the region without a fight. Ukraine also continues to score successes in its aerial war on strategic Russian targets such as oil refineries, arms and ammunition depots and factories, and trains carrying weapons and fuel to the frontlines. (Russian troops arent the only ones feeling the effects: there are reported miles-long lineups for gasoline in parts of Russia.) And, Western arms deliveries aside, Ukraine is making strides in developing its own weaponry, like the new Flamingo long-range cruise missile capable of hitting targets more than 1,800 miles away; Zelensky has said that it could be mass-produced by February. In other words: Ukraine is still not losing. But there is no question that it is exhaustedand that the enemys continuing terrorism against its civilian population is taking its toll. On Wednesday night, Russia launched one of its heaviest assault waves yet: 574 drones and 40 missiles, with targets located as far away from the frontlines as Lviv and Transcarpathia. Most were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses, but one person was killed and over a dozen wounded. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Get 30 day free trial Was this a deliberate middle finger to Trump over his supposed peace effort? It sure looks like it, especially considering the bombing of an American factory in the Transcarpathian city of Mukachevothe premises of Flex Ltd., a manufacturer of civilian electronic goods. At the very least, it shows that Russia is not de-escalating. Likewise, its unclear whether the incursion of a Russian drone that crashed and burned in a rural area in eastern Poland during the overnight attack on Ukraine was a deliberate provocation, as the Polish government charged. But it certainly doesnt tell us that Putin wants peace. He can still be forced into it, however. A scenario in which Ukraine drives Russian troops and occupation forces out of its territory is as impossible as one in which Russia makes major territorial gains in Ukraine; but there may come a point, perhaps soon, when the wars economic and political burdens for the Putin regime become too heavy. Even with rigged elections and a thoroughly owned population, Putin still cannot afford too much discontent among the Russian middle classor among the elites. There is a reason he has not undertaken another round of mobilization since 2022. But right now, recruitment is dropping, soldiers recovering from wounds or suffering from serious physical and mental health problems are being forced into combat, and mobilization may be the only way to keep the war going. The war will end when Putin starts to see its costs as too high and the chances of achieving his aims, stated and unstated, as too low. U.S. policy could be instrumental in making that happen. But for that, the Trump administration would have to commit to a firm and consistent pro-Ukraine policy. For starters, the presidents promises of very severe consequences if Putin stands in the way of peace should mean something more than memes and empty talk. (And the vice president shouldnt keep fawning about the soft-spoken Kremlin dictator who looks out for the interests, as he sees it, of Russia. Sorry, JD, but you sound like a jackass.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yet here we are, with Putin doing everything to sabotage any meaningful peace talks but put up an I WAR neon sign on the Kremlin wallsand what is Trumps response? Another deadline: this time, he says, well know whether a deal can be made within two weeksfamously, Trumps placeholder unit of time. No doubt theyre quaking in their boots in the Kremlin. Share Plans for a bilateral summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky are "not ready at all," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News on Aug. 22. The statement comes as a blow to U.S. President Donald Trump's push for a speedy peace deal to end the war in Ukraine. Following separate meetings with Putin and Zelensky, Trump said that the next step would be a bilateral summit between the two leaders, which he hoped would occur in the next two weeks. Lavrov threw cold water on those plans in an interview with NBC News on Aug. 22. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There is no meeting planned ... Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all," Lavrov said. The Kremlin's top diplomat claimed that delays in arranging the meeting were due to Zelensky's rejection of "several principles" necessary for future peace talks, such as no NATO membership for Ukraine and the "discussion of territorial issues." "Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov said. Zelensky in fact said he was prepared to discuss territory with Putin in a press conference after his White House meeting with Trump on Aug. 18. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?" Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News on Aug. 22. WTF is wrong with Russia? Wear our new T-shirt to let other people know you want answers. shop now Undermining the legitimacy of Zelensky's government is a key tenet of Russian propaganda. Putin has previously refused to meet with Zelensky on these grounds, which form part of Moscow's justification for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Trump met directly with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 15 to discuss options for ending the war. Despite reaching no concrete agreements, Trump hailed the meeting as a resounding success and announced that bilateral and trilateral summits involving Zelensky would soon follow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zelensky said he was ready to meet with Putin and hold peace talks with Russia without conditions. The AFP then reported that Putin told Trump he was willing to meet Zelensky. Despite this, the Kremlin made no public comments in support of such a meeting. Zelensky told reporters on Aug. 20 that if Putin "is not ready" for a one-on-one meeting, Kyiv expects the U.S. to respond with tougher measures. "We are ready for the bilateral meeting. If the Russians are not, then we would like to see a strong response from the United States," Zelensky said, adding that he asked Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow if it rejects talks with Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Russia continues to press for maximalist demands in Ukraine, including the concession of currently unoccupied Ukrainian lands, while intensifying aerial attacks on civilian targets and scaling up its offensives in front-line regions. Read also: What Russia stole, these Crimean Tatar authors endeavor to reclaim with literature Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. (DC News Now) Prince William County police shot a dog after it and two others were acting aggressively in a Manassas neighborhood on Wednesday morning, leading their owner to face several charges, authorities detailed. The Prince William County Police Department (PWCPD) said officers responded to the 7500 block of Whitehall Drive just before 8:45 a.m. after receiving a vicious animal complaint. Investigators said three Rottweilers were reported to be loose in the neighborhood and had bitten two people by the time police arrived. Both victims are adults who sustained non-life-threatening injuries, authorities noted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police: Man arrested after filming inappropriate video at Leesburg Target without consent PWCPD tried to contain the animals in a police cruiser, but at one point, one of the dogs lunged toward and bit an officer. This led the other two dogs to approach the officer aggressively. The officer shot their duty weapon, striking one of the dogs, which then ran away. Animal Control Officers and the dogs owner arrived and were eventually able to detain all three dogs. The dog that had been shot was taken to a nearby vet, where it was humanely euthanized, PWCPD said. The other two dogs were surrendered to Animal Control. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The owner of the dogs was reportedly charged with not having a dog license and allowing dogs at large. Additional charges are pending, PWCPD noted. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. Quintissa Peake led a life rich in faith, family and friendship. A graduate of Jenkins High School and the University of Kentucky, she was active in the UK Alumni Association and her Letcher County community. Quintissa Sherri Peake, who turned a life-altering diagnosis into a lifelong mission, died Aug. 15, at the age of 44. Known across Kentucky as an advocate for blood donation and for others fighting sickle cell disease, Peake leaves a legacy of strength and perseverance both in her health advocacy, community contributions and devotion to her faith and family. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Quintissas impact on this community is a consistent reminder to learn more, advocate for yourself and others, and to defy the odds, said her friend and executive director of Appalshop, Tiffany Sturdivant. She was a champion for this community and region. Peake led a life rich in faith, family and friendship. Born in Neon in Letcher County, to Steve and Rosa Osley Peake, Peake is remembered as a devoted daughter, sister, cousin and aunt; as an invested community member; and as a dear, supportive friend. She is survived by her parents, as well as her two sisters, Latesha Osley and Kaitlyn Peake, and nieces and nephews: Sienna, Kynedi, Alyvia, and Stephen. Peake was born into a large extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins. She was intentional about staying in touch with relatives and connecting through family stories and history, said her cousin, Ayanna Peake. She lived out her faith in service to others, Ayanna Peake said, and that always included her family. Family was the essence of who she was. She loved fiercely and was fiercely loved by others and by God, and her life was testimony to what that looked like. A sickle cell warrior Diagnosed with sickle cell disease at 11 months old, Peakes experience with the disease compelled her to become an advocate for blood donation and sickle cell awareness. Sickle cell disease also called sickle cell anemia is a group of inherited disorders that affects the movement of red blood cells throughout the body, and can cause serious medical issues. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She shared stories of the childhood ambulance rides from the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky to hospitals in Lexington and Louisville, of the family, friends, doctors and health care providers who supported her along the way, and of the blood transfusions that saved her life. In her lifetime, she received more than 500 blood donations. In interviews, she called herself a sickle cell warrior. Quintissa and her father at the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation awards program. (Photo submitted) Peake was employed at Kentucky Blood Center as a donor support specialist from 2009-2013 and remained a devoted volunteer, said Eric Lindsey, director of media and branding for the Kentucky Blood Center. She was one of our finest champions, Lindsey said. He recalled a video shoot scheduled in Louisville in the days following the July 2022 flood that devastated East Kentucky and damaged the Peakes home. Despite the disaster, Peake showed up in Louisville, three hours away, to appear in the commercial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats who she was, Lindsey said. She was someone who wanted to help other Kentuckians. Her faith allowed her to show up even when she wasnt feeling well, said her cousin Ayanna Peake. She did things even when she was not 100% but she still persisted and did what she needed to and what was in her heart to do, Ayanna Peake said. After graduating from Jenkins High School, Peake earned a bachelors degree from the University of Kentucky. She was a longtime volunteer with the UK Alumni Association, serving as a member of the associations Leadership Advisory Council, a past member of its Board of Directors, as well as a former Fayette County Alumni Club and Lyman T. Johnson Constituent Group volunteer. In 2012, she was awarded the UKs Joseph T. Burch Young Alumni Award. She loved the University of Kentucky and wanted to leave it better than she found it, said Jill Smith, executive director of the UK Alumni Association. Our volunteers loved working with her and respected her. She was a little bit quiet, but people listened when she spoke. She had no enemies. Quintissa Sherri Peake (Photo by Malcom J. Wilson) After returning to live in Letcher County, Peake became involved in her local community. She served on the Appalshop board of directors and the Cowan Creek Community Action Group board, as well as the Hemphill Community Center. With Cowan, she led the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast. Quintissa was moving this work forward in all the right ways, Cowan leaders posted online this week. In her honor, with her spirit, we will continue this important work. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, Peake was awarded the East Kentucky Leadership Foundations Carolyn Sundy Award for her community leadership. The award recognizes an East Kentuckian who has made an extraordinary contribution to understanding, inclusion and social justice in the region. Recently, she worked at the Center for Rural Strategies as a Rural Assembly Fellow, focusing on health advocacy. Teresa Collins, who worked with Peake at Rural Strategies, said Peake had a welcoming nature that made everyone feel at ease. She was genuinely interested in people and how she could help make everyones life better. She loved her family beyond measure, Collins said. I will miss her terribly. The world is a bit dimmer without her light. Yet that light lives in those she inspired. Her legacy, says friend and colleague Sturdivant, is raising awareness for sickle cell anemia, driving effective conversations around social and economic development for better opportunities and livelihood for local community members, and being an amazing daughter, sister, auntie, and friend. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Never letting anyone or anything hold her back, Sturdivant said. Strength and perseverance rooted in love. That is the legacy she leaves to all of us. This story is republished from The Daily Yonder. QUITMAN, Texas (KETK) A retirement ceremony was held on Thursday to celebrate the career of the longtime Quitman Volunteer Fire Department chief. Teen arrested after crashing into telephone pole during high-speed chase in Angelina County The celebration was held at the Quitman Public Library to honor the career of Scott Wheeler, who has spent the past 17 years as the chief and 35 years as a member of the Quitman Volunteer Fire Department. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have enjoyed being associated with the department for the past 35 years the community around here has been excellent to us, Wheeler said. You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC) is a prominent freight rail holding company in the transportation sector, specializing in railroads. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the company oversees one of the largest and most efficient rail networks in the eastern United States, with roughly 19,400 route miles across 22 states. It boasts a robust market cap of approximately $64.1 billion. Shares of Norfolk Southern have surged 21.6% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, substantially outpacing the S&P 500 Index ($SPX), which has gained around 8.7% YTD. Over the past year, NSC rallied 18.6%, compared to $SPXs 14.3%. More News from Barchart Zooming in further, the iShares Transportation Average ETF (IYT) gained 4.4% this year and 7.2% over the past 52 weeks, trailing behind NSCs returns. www.barchart.com One of the most significant catalysts for NSCs recent performance is the $85 billion merger announcement last month with Union Pacific. This deal, aiming to create Americas first transcontinental railroad, has injected strong momentum into the stock. However, the merger has also introduced regulatory uncertainty and integration risk. For the current fiscal year, ending in December 2025, analysts expect Norfolk Southern to report EPS growth of 6.3% year-over-year to $12.60, on a diluted basis. The company has a history of surpassing Wall Streets projections. It topped consensus estimates in three of the last four quarters, while missing on one other occasion. Meanwhile, NSC has a Moderate Buy rating overall from the 23 analysts covering the stock. Thats based on seven Strong Buys and 16 Hold ratings. www.barchart.com Analysts sentiment on NSC stock has shifted subtly in recent months. While bearish pressure eased with no Strong Sell ratings now compared to a month ago, optimism has cooled as well. Strong Buy calls dropped from 12 to just seven in a month, signaling tempered bullishness. Theres confidence, but not as strong as before. On July 30, Benchmark downgraded Norfolk Southern from Buy to Hold after its Q2 earnings miss and amid merger uncertainties. Meanwhile, the mean price target of $290.35 represents a premium of just 1.7% to NSCs current price, while the Street-high price target of $332 suggests an upside potential of 16.3%. On the date of publication, Sristi Jayaswal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) EPKicks is a non-profit organization hosting their annual Run for Shoes race to make sure every kid in El Paso has a brand-new pair of kicks. Photo credit of EPKicks via Facebook The race is scheduled for Sunday, September 7, with kickoff at 8 a.m. at 3233 N Mesa St. in the historic Kern District. You can sign up for a 5K race regardless of your running or walking level. Registration will cost you $35 if you are signing up as an individual and $30 as a group of 10 or more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All proceeds will go toward acquiring new shoes for Borderland children. You can find the registration details here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Listen to Frank read this article Glinting in the autumn sun on a parade ground in Beijing, the People's Liberation Army missiles moved slowly past the crowd on a fleet of giant camouflaged lorries. Needle-sharp in profile, measuring 11 metres long and weighing 15 tonnes, each bore the letters and numerals: "DF-17". China had just unveiled to the world its arsenal of Dongfeng hypersonic missiles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That was on 1 October 2019 at a National Day parade. The US was already aware that these weapons were in development, but since then China has raced ahead with upgrading them. Thanks to their speed and manoeuvrability travelling at more than five times the speed of sound they are a formidable weapon, so much so that they could change the way wars are fought. Which is why the global contest over developing them is heating up. [AFP via Getty Images] Visitors near displays of military vehicles carrying weapons including the DF-17 hypersonic missile at an exhibition in Beijing. Far above: China unveils its arsenal of DF-17 hypersonic missiles at a military parade in 2019 [Reuters] "This is just one component of the wider picture of the emerging geopolitical contest that we're seeing between state actors," says William Freer, a national security fellow at the Council on Geostrategy think tank. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "[It's one] we haven't had since the Cold War." Russia, China, the US: a global contest The Beijing ceremony raised speculation about a possible growing threat posed by China's advancements in hypersonic technology. Today it leads the field in hypersonic missiles, followed by Russia. The US, meanwhile, is playing catch-up, while the UK has none. Mr Freer of the Council on Geostrategy think tank, which received some of its funding from defence industry companies, the Ministry of Defence and others, argues that the reason China and Russia are ahead is relatively simple. "They decided to invest a lot of money in these programmes quite a few years ago." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, for much of the first two decades of this century, many Western nations focused on fighting both jihadist-inspired terrorism at home, and counter-insurgency wars overseas. Back then, the prospect of having to fight a peer-on-peer conflict against a modern, sophisticated adversary seemed a distant one. "The net result is that we failed to notice the massive rise of China as a military power," admitted Sir Alex Younger, soon after retiring as chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service in 2020. Other nations are also racing ahead: Israel has a hypersonic missile, the Arrow 3, designed to be an interceptor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Iran has claimed to have hypersonic weapons, and said it launched a hypersonic missile at Israel during their brief but violent 12-day war in June. (The weapon did indeed travel at extremely high speed but it was not thought to be manoeuvrable enough in flight to class as a true hypersonic). North Korea, meanwhile, has been working on its own versions since 2021 and claims to have a viable, working weapon (pictured). The US and UK are now investing in hypersonic missile technology, as are other nations, including France and Japan. Iran said it launched a hypersonic missile at Israel during the 12-day war in June [Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images] The US appears to be strengthening its deterrence, and has debuted its "Dark Eagle" hypersonic weapon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the US Department of Defense, the Dark Eagle "brings to mind the power and determination of our country and its Army as it represents the spirit and lethality of the Army and Navy's hypersonic weapon endeavours". But China and Russia are currently far ahead - and according to some experts, this is a potential concern. Hyper fast and hyper erratic Hypersonic means something that travels at speeds of Mach 5 or faster. (That's five times the speed of sound or 3,858 mph.) This puts them in a different league to something that is just supersonic, meaning travelling at above the speed of sound (767 mph). And their speed is partially the reason that hypersonic missiles are considered such a threat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fastest to date is Russian - the Avangard claimed to be able to reach speeds of Mach 27 (roughly 20,700mph) - although the figure of around Mach 12 (9,200mph) is more often cited, which equates to two-miles-a-second. In terms of purely destructive power, however, hypersonic missiles are not hugely different from supersonic or subsonic cruise missiles, according to Mr Freer. "It's the difficulty in detecting, tracking and intercepting them that really sets them apart." [BBC] There are basically two kinds of hypersonic missile: boost-glide missiles rely on a rocket (like those DF-17 ones in China) to propel them towards and sometimes just above the Earth's atmosphere, from where they then come hurtling down at these incredible speeds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unlike the more common ballistic missiles, which travel in a fairly predictable arc a parabolic curve - hypersonic glide vehicles can move in an erratic way, manoeuvred in final flight towards their target. Then there are hypersonic cruise missiles, which hug terrain, trying to stay below radar to avoid detection. They are similarly launched and accelerated using a rocket booster, then once they reach hypersonic velocity, they then activate a system known as a "scramjet engine" that takes in air as it flies, propelling it to its target. These are "dual-use weapons", meaning their warhead can be either nuclear or conventional high explosive. But there is more to these weapons than speed alone. More from InDepth Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For a missile to be classed as truly "hypersonic" in military terms, it needs to be manoeuvrable in flight. In other words, the army that fired it needs it to be able to change course in sudden and unpredictable ways, even as it is hurtling towards its target at extreme speeds. This can make it extremely hard to intercept. Most terrestrial-based radars cannot be relied upon to detect hypersonic missiles until late in the weapon's flight. "By flying under the radar horizon they can evade early detection and may only appear on sensors in their terminal flight phase, limiting interception opportunities," says Patrycja Bazylczyk, research associate at the Missile Defence Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, which has received some of its funding from US government entities, as well as defence industry companies and others. The answer to this, she believes, is bolstering the West's space-based sensors, which would overcome the limitations of radars on the ground. People look at the remains of a downed Russian hypersonic missile Zircon, after it struck a residential building in Kyiv in November 2024 [AFP via Getty Images] In a real-time war scenario, there is also a terrifying question facing the nation being targeted: is this a nuclear attack or a conventional one? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Hypersonics haven't so much changed the nature of warfare as altered the timeframes within which you can operate," says Tom Sharpe, a former Royal Navy Commander and anti-air warfare specialist. "The basics of needing to track your enemy, fire at them, then manoeuvre the missile late on to allow for a moving target (the great advantage of ships) are no different from previous missiles, be that ballistic, supersonic or subsonic. "Similarly the defender's requirement to track and either jam or destroy an incoming hypersonic missile are the same as before, you just have less time". There are signs that this technology is worrying Washington. A report published in February this year by the US Congressional Research Service warns: "US defence officials have stated that both terrestrial and current space-based sensor architectures are insufficient to detect and track hypersonic weapons." Yet some experts believe that some of the hype around hypersonics is overdone. Is the hype overdone? Dr Sidharth Kaushal, from the Royal United Services Institute defence think tank, is among those who think that they are not necessarily a gamechanger. "The speed and manoeuvrability makes them attractive against high value targets and their kinetic energy on impact also makes them a useful means of engaging hardened and buried targets, which might have been difficult to destroy with most conventionally armed munitions previously." But though they travel at five times the speed of sound or more, there are measures to defend against them - some of which are "effective," argues Mr Sharpe. The first is making tracking and detection more difficult. "Ships can go to great lengths to protect their position," he adds. "The grainy satellite picture available from commercial satellites only needs to be a few minutes out of date for it to be of no use for targeting. "Getting satellite targeting solutions current and accurate enough to use for targeting is both difficult and expensive." But he points out that artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies will likely change this over time. Caution around the Russia threat The fact remains that Russia and China have stolen a march when it comes to developing these weapons. "I think the Chinese hypersonic programmes... are impressive and concerning," says Mr Freer. But he adds: "When it comes to the Russians, we should probably be a lot more cautious about what they claim." In November 2024, Russia launched an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile at an industrial site in Dnipro, Ukraine, using it as a live testing ground. The missile, which Ukraine said travelled at hypersonic speeds of Mach 11 (or 8,439mph), was given the name 'Oreshnik', Russian for hazel tree. President Vladimir Putin said that the weapon travelled at a speed of Mach 10. [BBC] Its warhead is reported to have deliberately fragmented during its final descent into several, independently targeted inert projectiles, a methodology dating back to the Cold War. Someone who heard it land told me that it was not particularly loud but there were several impacts: six warheads dropped at separate targets but as they were inert, the damage was not significantly greater than that caused by Russia's nightly bombardment of Ukraine's cities. For Europe, the latent threat to Nato countries comes primarily from Russia's missiles, some of which are stationed on the Baltic coast in Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad. What if Putin were to order a strike on Kyiv with an Oreshnik, this time armed with a full payload of high explosive? [BBC] The Russian leader claimed this weapon was going into mass production and that they had the capacity, he said, to turn targets "to dust". Russia also has other missiles that travel at hypersonic speeds. Putin made much of his air force's Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles, claiming they travelled so fast it was impossible to intercept. Since then, he has fired plenty of them at Ukraine but it turns out that the Kinzhal may not be truly hypersonic, and many have been intercepted. China and Russia have stolen a march when it comes to developing hypersonic missiles [Getty Images] Of concern to the West is Russia's super-fast and highly manoeuvrable Avangard. At a ceremony for its unveiling in 2018 along with five other so-called 'superweapons' - Putin declared it was unstoppable. Dr Sidharth Kaushal suggests its primary role may actually be "overcoming US missile defences". "Russia's state armament programmes also suggest its production capacity for a system like Avangard is limited," he argues. Elsewhere, as the contest for strategic supremacy in the Western Pacific heats up between the US and China, the proliferation of China's ballistic missile arsenal poses a serious potential threat to the US naval presence in the South China Sea and beyond. China has the world's most powerful arsenal of hypersonics. In late 2024, China unveiled its latest hypersonic glide vehicle, the GDF-600. With a 1,200kg payload, it can carry sub-munitions and reach speeds of Mach 7 (5,370mph). 'Milestone moment' in the UK's rush to catch up The UK is behind in this race, especially as it's one of the five nuclear-armed permanent members of the UN Security Council. But belatedly, it is making an effort to catch up, or at least to join the race. In April, the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory announced that UK scientists had reached "a landmark moment" after the successful completion of a major testing programme. The UK's propulsion test was the result of a three-way collaboration between the UK government, industry and the US government. Over a period of six weeks a total of 233 "successful static test runs" were carried out at the NASA Langley Research Centre in Virginia, USA. John Healey, the UK's Defence Secretary, called it "a milestone moment." But it will still be years before this weapon is ready. The Kinzhal may not be truly hypersonic, and many have been intercepted [REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko] As well as creating hypersonic missiles, the West should focus on creating strong defence against them, argues Mr Freer. "When it comes to missile warfare, it's all about two sides of the same coin. You've got to be able to do damage limitation while also having the ability to go after the enemy's launch platforms. "If you've got both hands available, and you can both defend yourself to an extent and also counter attack then an adversary is a lot less likely to attempt to initiate conflict." However, Tom Sharpe is still cautions about the extent to which we should be concerned at the moment. "The key point with hypersonics," he says, "is that both sides of this equation are as difficult as each other - and neither are perfected yet". Top image credit: EPA/KCNA - a treated image of what is claimed to be the successful test firing of a North Korean hypersonic missile BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below. Whatever its cause, your hate is yours to lose Los Angeles: Dear Stephen Miller and Laura Loomer: Im not here to espouse any particular ideology, and as a fellow Jew, I believe everyone has the right to support their own beliefs or ideas. But when these beliefs have widespread consequences, most of which are deleterious, I feel the need to speak out. How can two people so comfortably hate and persecute people when Jews have been the most reviled and persecuted people in history? What sect or branch of Judaism endorses, teaches or embraces abject hatred and bigotry of any kind? It is incomprehensible to be leaders and fermenters of such hatred in this sadly divided polarity that we are now surrounded by in our everyday lives. This behavior is unacceptable and frankly goes against all tenets and principles that Jews dedicate their lives to. Hatred and bigotry are taught and passed down generationally. Therefore, you are not fully to blame for the ostensible hatred that seems to dominate your every waking moment. Please keep in mind that just like the Jews, people of other religions and cultures will always survive, but you have created a temporary and evanescent obstacle to the people who have been hated in this country for no other reason than looking and dressing differently, or praying in a different way than most Americans. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After your 15 minutes of infamy have evaporated, in a fleeting moment, look in the mirror in a quasi-introspective episode and try to understand the egregious consequences that your espousal of this deep-seated hatred enables. If you cant understand, then wipe that mirror clean and try again. Richard Levinson Noble newcomers Staten Island: Its time to praise the good, hard-working immigrants. Detective First Class Didarul Islam inspired this letter. He lived and died a dedicated human being, giving the ultimate sacrifice his life. Reminding me of my immigrant father-in-law, Felice DeFrancesco from Italy, who knew my future Uncle George before me as a deckhand on the Staten Island Ferry. Uncle George was an NYC police officer who traveled on the ferry daily to work. Felice was friendly and well-known to the travelers. One day, he jumped into the water to save someone who went overboard never making headlines, only a family hero. Islam lived as a giver and go-getter to support his family. My father-in-law also worked a second job as a wooden boat corker on Staten Island, a skill long retired. The many innocent, non-criminal immigrants whove been imprisoned and often unlawfully separated from their families what are we becoming? MaryAnn DeFrancesco Trumps thugs Dover, Del.: Let us be real as to why the ICE agents cover their faces. It is because some of them are the thugs who attacked the police officers who were protecting democracy against those who tried to hang Mike Pence. They were identified and prosecuted by real law enforcement and the great snoops who aided in their apprehensions. These criminals were then released by the Big Fat Lying Felon to beat and torture Americans and migrants while claiming to rid the nation of the same ones he allowed into the country while having his minions deny the bipartisan agreement to control the border. Chalky White Untrustworthy Far Rockaway: Voting for Zohran Mamdani? A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8, King James Version). Ora Reed Party in crisis Cincinnati: The elected select have been flailing in opposition to President Trump for a decade. Instead of reading the tea leaves and accommodating some of his voter-tested, popular ideas like pragmatic politicians, the ideological purists keep political botanists busy conjuring new species of tea. Mamdanis Democratic nomination for mayor in Americas largest city is just one additional absurd manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is not just a few persuasive voices in Democratic legislative conferences who keep the members tightly confined to party kennels; all members appear affected with irrational hatred of the boisterous president. His ebullience contrasts with their depressive monologue. A cerement should be readied for the party that was once characterized by an honest, happy warrior named Hubert Humphrey, who knew how to lose with grace. Paul Bloustein Foes of the worker Manhattan: No one should disagree with Voicer Ralph Palladino that establishment Democratic politicians should get out of the way, as the song goes, if you cant lend your hand. Three quarters of a century ago, the Democratic Party conspired with the Republicans and liberals to oust Vito Marcantonio, the greatest champion for the working class and poor who New York has ever sent to Congress, from the seat he held for seven terms (with a two-year interruption in the late 1930s). Marcantonio was never a Democrat but captured most of East Harlems Democratic votes because the voters knew who he represented. Perhaps the Dem bigs who are reluctant to endorse Mamdani should shift their party affiliation to where they would feel more at home. They wont be missed. Michele P. Brown Poking fun Howard Beach: Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsoms imitations of Trumps Truth Social postings is apparently getting under Trumps and his MAGA allies skin. Its about time someone showed how utterly ridiculous Trump sounds in his posts. Newsoms posts have been hilarious and right on point. Newsom has the fighting spirit that the Democrats need. Go get him, Gavin! Barbara Berg Tyrannical South River, N.J.: So, Emperor Frump wants to eliminate mail-in ballots because his bromance buddy Vladimir Putin says its bad. By doing so, he would be eliminating the voting rights of every serviceman and woman serving our country overseas. Brilliant idea, idiot! If you agree with him, you MAGA idiots must really love your (soon-to-be new) country Russia. You certainly have no love for America or the brave men and women who offer their lives to protect our country. Donald McSorley Hes no hero Howard Beach: I can imagine that there are a few people reading this right now who will not acknowledge that Trump has told us several thousand lies over the last 10 years some would say thousands and thousands of lies. I prefer to believe the latter. However, there can be none greater then the most recent I heard. It was a radio interview where he states that he and Bibi Netanyahu should be considered war heroes. Trump, a war hero. Ha! I have no idea whether Bibi can be considered a war hero. But I do know that there is no way on Gods green Earth that Trump can even be mentioned in the same paragraph as a war hero. Ed Sullivan Sinister plan Providence, R.I.: Re Israel to call up reservists (Aug. 21), which reports plans for an expanded military operation in Gaza City: Here is a theme song for Netanyahu and his henchmen: Well take control of the city / Well show the people no pity / The plan has cleared our committee / And thats the real nitty-gritty! Felicia Nimue Ackerman Inhospitable Whitestone: To Voicer Dominick Delasandro: You hit the nail on the head! After being born and bred and living in this city for more than 70 years, the cute morons who make these decisions make it easier to move out. Seems like the plan. Frank Basile Game changers Brooklyn: Voicer Arthur Martello wonders why, with all the advances in physical therapy and trainers, there are so few complete games these days. There are three reasons. One that he mentioned is analytics. Pitchers arent nearly as effective when they face a batting order for the third time. Another is that hitters in this day strike out and walk a lot more than in the past, thereby causing the pitcher to throw more pitches. And teams now have relievers whose job is to throw as hard as they can for one inning, and who are much more effective than a starter who is usually tired after throwing 90-100 pitches. Dennis Burge Revive it Bloomfield, N.J.: Yes, please bring back the Justice Story. Eli Kelley ST. LOUIS The St. Louis area is gearing up for another weekend of exciting events around the region. From the annual Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park to Schlaflys Sunset Cinema Series, theres so much to enjoy! Festival of Nations Celebrate the myriad cultures that make up the Gateway City and check out the regions largest multicultural event of the year, representing more than 80 nations. Saturday & Sunday: Tower Grove Park Click here for more information 2025 Midwest Salute to the Arts The Midwest Salute to the Arts is one of the longest-running arts festivals, bringing art to the Southern Illinois region just 12 miles east of downtown St. Louis. The event hosts up to 100 award-winning national & local artists. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Friday-Sunday: Moody Park, Fairview Heights, IL Friday 6-9p, Saturday 10a-8p, Sunday 11a-4p Click here for more information St. Louis Street Food Festival The third annual St. Louis Street Food Festival returns to Ballpark Village with bites from area food trucks and restaurants priced at $5 or less! Saturday & Sunday Ballpark Village Click here for more information Downtown Summer Nights: Dr. Zhivegas Enjoy great music, food, and fun! Saturday: 5-8pm Kiener Plaza Click here for more information Jersey Boys Jersey Boys tells the story of four blue-collar kids who became pop-music legends. This global sensation explores the journey of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Saturday & Sunday: The Muny, Forest Park Click here for more information Schlaflys Sunset Cinema Series: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Schlafly Beer, canned cocktails, kids drinks, and a specialty movie-themed cocktail will be available for purchase along with movie snacks. Bring blankets and chairs! Saturday: 6pm (movie at sunset) Schlafly Bottleworks, Maplewood, MO Cost: $3.50 per person kids 10 & under are free. Click here for more information Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. TUPELO With uncertainty in the market still an issue across the United States, it can be life-changing for individuals who couldnt afford a home to get one with a little help. Today marked just that for one Northeast Mississippi Habitat for Humanity recipient. Among a crowd of friends, family and officials, Tynisa Thornton and her four daughters received the keys to their new home, built through volunteer hours and a lot of hard work on her own, following a short blessing ceremony on Thursday morning. First, I want to thank God because if it werent for Him, none of us would be here today, she said. Im ready to start this journey with me and my girls. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Before moving into this new four-bedroom home, Thornton and her daughters, Cloey Montgomery, Kaylee Montgomery, Callie Montgomery and Karly Thornton, had to share space in a two-bedroom trailer. She said this home is a blessing, thanking everyone who had a hand in its construction, from volunteers to companies and organizations that sponsored the build-out. For newly minted Northeast Mississippi Habitat for Humanity Director BJ Kent, this home marks the first of many. He said he was proud to see the keys exchange hands that morning and looks forward to seeing more days like this. I want this day to be a celebration of Ty, because Ty has worked her tail off to get here today, he said. This is the culmination of donors, sponsors, volunteers and everybody coming together. Ward 4 Councilwoman Nettie Davis attended the dedication as well, speaking on the importance of fostering affordable housing and her relationship with not only Thornton but many others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im just really proud of (Thornton). Ive been knowing her since she was a little girl, she said. I cant think of a more important thing for a person than for someone to own their own home. That is a dream come true for anybody. As is tradition, Thornton was presented with not just the keys to her new home, but also an American flag and a bible, representations of the non-profit's religious commitment to its goal in housing those in need. Northeast Mississippi Habitat for Humanity Board President Stacy Crowley had the honor of blessing the home. Skipper Holliman, of HomeStretch Furniture, presented Thornton with her flag, announcing the company also planned to donate her furniture. Shawn King, of State Farm, gave the closing prayer. God brings that final ingredient into this house to make it a home his abundant love, Crowley said. May this love ripple through these walls for years to come, and may it become a fixture that will hold them in their joy and celebration as well as in their sorrow and tears. India and China are drawing closer, after years of heightened tension. Just in the last few days, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had been in New Delhi, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior Indian officials as direct flights between the neighboring nations are set to resume for the first time in five years. Wangs meeting with his Indian counterpart, S. Jaishankar, was only the second such meeting between the two sides since the 2020 border skirmishes killed at least 20 Indian troops and four Chinese soldiers. Wangs positive meetings seems to have laid the groundwork for Modis first visit to China in seven years later this month, where he will meet Chinas President Xi Jinping. The rapprochement is being analyzed through the Trumpian lens as India-U.S. ties grow turbulent. President Donald Trump has imposed staggering 50% tariffs on Indian importsthe highest in Asia. White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro has alleged that India serves as a global clearinghouse for Russian oil, by refining embargoed crude and exporting it at high value, effectively funneling much-needed dollars to Moscow. In language echoing Cold War rhetoric, Navarro has warned: If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the U.S., it needs to start acting like one. India has ramped up its purchase of Russian oil, but it was the U.S. under the previous Biden Administration that had asked Delhi to buy oil from Russia to help stabilize the global energy market. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read More: How Modi Misread Trump But such arguments have no currency for Trump, whose hopes for an early trade pact with India have been met by Delhis tough negotiating stance, likely the true rationale for the tariffs from a man who has often praised Russia over Ukraine. Whatever the case, Indian public attitude toward Trump is souring as he publicly humiliates the country and its leadership. This is further constraining the ability of Indian officials to reach a deal with Washington on tough issues like trade. But it may also have the effect of endangering the carefully crafted Indo-Pacific policies of both nations as questions arise about the future of the Quad Alliance in which India has joined Australia, Japan, and the U.S. to manage Chinas growing influence in the region. The recent U.S.-India spat is therefore an opportunity that Beijing has been waiting foropening up new possibilities for China to work with India on certain issues to rebuild its ties but also to blunt the sharper edge of a once-burgeoning India-U.S. partnership. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yet it would be a mistake to view this primarily as a response to Trumps behaviour. While Trumps actions may have accelerated the Sino-Indian engagement, this process of cautious normalization has been going on since October when India and China reached a deal on patrolling arrangements in an attempt to de-escalate tensions along the disputed Himalayan border. Ever since the 2020 clashes, Delhi had maintained that it was Beijing that had unilaterally changed the status quo by building tents and observation towers on its side of the border. When China accepted to disengage last year, it was an implicit admission that it was indeed Beijings actions that had caused the crisis. And as a result, Delhi moved to restore political ties with China. Since then, several steps have been taken toward normalizing relations. China has permitted Indian pilgrims to visit key religious sites in the Tibet Autonomous Region this year. In return, India has resumed visa services for Chinese tourists and agreed to restart talks on reopening border trade through designated passes. During Wangs recent visit, the two sides also decided to set up new expert and working groups for boundary delimitation as China assured India of addressing its requirements of fertilizers, rare earths, and tunnel boring machines (TBMs)the imports of which have been impacted due to strained Sino-Indian ties. But few in India have any illusions about the future of Sino-Indian ties. There have been too many false starts in the past. With or without the U.S., India will continue to be cautious about Chinese intentions as the fundamentals of the relationship remain competitive and Delhi remains keen to build a deterrence framework so that a situation like 2020 doesnt arise again. If Trump is indeed a factor, he is a marginal one. Contact us at letters@time.com. Georgia moonshiner known as Cheese found in shed with 150+ guns, explosives Michael Ferrell Price, a 68-year-old from Ball Ground, was sentenced Thursday to more than seven years in federal prison for drug trafficking and illegal possession of firearms and explosives. Authorities said Price, known as Cheese, was involved in trafficking methamphetamine from a shed where he also stored explosive devices and more than 150 firearms, including machine guns and unregistered silencers. He also operated an illegal moonshine still on the property. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Price was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross to 87 months in prison, followed by four years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm by an unlawful drug user on May 7. Authorities said a storage shed in Cherokee County contained many illegal items, including meth, moonshine, explosives and guns. Price posed a clear danger to the community by selling methamphetamine and distilling moonshine while maintaining an illegal stash of explosive devices and more than 150 firearms, said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This case demonstrates the results we achieve when federal, state, and local law enforcement work hand-in-hand, said ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge Beau Kolodka. The investigation into Price began in September 2024 when agents of the Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad started looking into his activities at his mothers home in eastern Cherokee County. A shed in Cherokee County contained illegal explosives and much more. On Oct. 22, 2024, agents executed a search warrant at the property, finding more than 3 ounces of highly pure crystal methamphetamine, several gallons of homemade moonshine, dozens of illegal explosive devices and 150 guns. Among the firearms found were two machine guns, a short-barreled rifle, a privately manufactured firearm without a serial number, five firearm silencers and a stolen revolver. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stockpiling weapons while trafficking drugs is a recipe for tragedy, said Major Walter Jones, Director of Drug Enforcement-Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad. Price, a long-time methamphetamine user, was prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or explosives. The case was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg, with the investigation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad. TRENDING STORIES: [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The oppressive heat wave broiling California and much of the West will continue to bring dangerously hot temperatures and likely more record-breakers for even longer than forecasters first predicted. The heat advisories in effect across Southern California, including the extreme heat warning, are being extended through Sunday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Kittell. Most were set to expire Saturday. Friday was still expected to bring peak temperatures, similar to conditions seen Thursday, "but the downward trend is very slow over the weekend," Kittell said. Its still going to be very warm well above normal though the weekend. The evenings are going to be very warm as well." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many areas Thursday night into early Friday experienced little cooling, with temperatures across the L.A. Basin remaining near or above 70 degrees. Experts warn that lack of nighttime relief can be the most dangerous situation, as it doesn't give the body a chance to recover from daytime highs and can help fuel a wildfire, if one ignites. "Extreme heat is dangerous even at night when temperatures don't cool down," the weather service's Weather Prediction Center wrote in a heat wave update. "Without A/C or cooling, the body can't recover, increasing the risk of heat illness." A dangerous heat wave is impacting the Western U.S., with extreme temperatures and little nighttime relief. Stay cool, hydrated, and follow heat safety tips! https://t.co/c3ifZjGC9t pic.twitter.com/XIQnal2VPZ NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) August 21, 2025 The city of Los Angeles has opened up additional cooling centers during the heat wave and the county has extended many of its hours for the air-conditioned sanctuaries. But heat risk is not only a concern in Southern California. Even more severe temperatures are expected to continue for some areas of the desert Southwest, including Las Vegas and Phoenix, the Central Valley and parts of Northern California. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Weather Prediction Center forecast "the most intense and long-lasting heat across the Desert Southwest into the San Joaquin Valley," but said heat advisories remain in place from Arizona to Washington. "This type of heat will be dangerous, posing a threat to anyone without effective cooling and adequate hydration," the center's short-range forecast said. "For many areas, there will be little nighttime relief from the extreme heat, with overnight lows remaining well above normal." The interior Bay Area remains under a heat advisory through Saturday, where highs already broke several daily records Thursday and could continue to reach near or into the triple digits. Officials continue to warn the heat wave would bring an elevated fire threat across the region a concern that was realized Thursday afternoon in Napa County, where a major fire broke out. The building heat helped fuel quick growth with massive smoke plumes, forcing evacuations. As of Friday, the Pickett fire had grown to 2,133 acres with no containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Heat also means fire danger," Cal Fire reiterated in a social media post. Two other smaller fires broke out in the state Thursday, though officials appeared to have those under control. The National Weather Service, however, continued to warn that parts of Southern California remained under the biggest threat for explosive fire growth, with the L.A. and Ventura County mountains and foothills under a red flag warning through Saturday. Southern California Edison said Friday it was considering planned electricity shutoffs to minimize wildfire risk for about 10,000 customers across six counties, with the majority in L.A. County. No power shutoffs had yet been initiated, the utility reported. Many of those same areas under elevated fire threat have the highest chance for monsoonal thunderstorms, which forecasters said could create hazards through at least Monday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The storms, most likely in the mountains and deserts, could bring localized winds, flooding, debris flows and the chance for dry lightning, which could spark more fires. While most heat advisories will expire by Sunday, Kittell said temperatures will remain elevated. Highs are forecast to fall a degree or two each day through Monday, getting thermometers back to average for this time of year by midweek though they won't be anywhere near cool. Its the warmest time of year," Kittell said. By the time we get into Tuesday, Wednesday well start to get back to around normal which is still warm." Read more: Southern California facing a triple threat: Extreme heat, fire risk and thunderstorms Record-breaking high temperatures Thursday These are a few of the daily high temperature records around Southern California that were tied or broken on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Camarillo Airport: 89 degrees (tied with prior record) Campo: 106 degrees (prior record was 103) Lake Cuyamaca: 96 degrees (prior record was 94) Palomar Mountain: 93 degrees (tied with prior record) Needles: 117 degrees (tied the prior record) Records tied or set in Northern California for Thursday: Sonoma County Airport: 100 degrees (prior record 97) San Rafael: 100 degrees (prior record 97) Concord Airport: 101 degrees (prior record 99) Oakland Museum: 85 degrees (prior record 84) Livermore Airport: 102 degrees (prior record 101) Redwood City: 97 (prior record 95) Hayward Airport: 85 degrees (prior record 83) Wastonville Airport: 85 (prior record 83) Las Vegas set a record for its warmest low temperature Thursday, never dropping below 89 degrees. Its prior record for the day was 87 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The United Nations has warned it will have to suspend life-saving humanitarian aid for half a million refugees and vulnerable people in Cameroon at the end of August unless it receives new emergency funding. The UNs World Food Programme (WFP), which provides food assistance to 523,000 people in Cameroon, said it has already been cutting back operations "as resources ran out". In the Gado Camp in eastern Cameroon, refugees "are now receiving only half of their daily food needs, pushing families to adopt negative coping strategies such as skipping meals, or selling their limited belongings to afford food", the WFP in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In July, WFP said it had already stopped assistance for 26,000 refugees many from Nigeria in the Minawao refugee camp in the north. "We have reached a critical tipping point," said Gianluca Ferrera, WFPs country director in Cameroon. "Without immediate funding, children will go hungry, families will suffer, and lives will be lost," Ferrera added. The UN body said it needs 57 million to sustain humanitarian assistance through January 2026. Djaounsede Madjiangar, communications officer and spokesperson for the WFP's regional office for West and Central Africa said there were multiple reasons behind the crisis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cameroon's forgotten crisis displaces nearly a million people "Already, as we speak, our studies have shown that there are more than two million people, all categories combined, affected by acute hunger in the country," he told RFI. "And the reasons are well known: conflicts that prevent people from working the land, climatic shocks, and of course, the rising cost of living, making households almost unable to access food." Families skipping meals In the Gado camp, Madjiangar says mothers are skipping meals to feed their children. "There is one mother who told us that she is forced to deprive herself; she refuses to eat so that her children can eat their share," adding that others are forced to sell the smallest things and the few possessions they have left. How long they will last, we don't know." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Global aid in chaos as Trump proposes to slash funds and dismantle USAID Around 2.6 million people in Cameroon were facing "acute food insecurity" between June and August 2025, according to estimates from Cadre Hamronise, a tool used to identify areas at risk of food insecurity and famine up six percent compared to a year ago. The country has a population of about 31 million. The rising numbers of refugees in Cameroon are fleeing multiple crises, including a prolonged conflict with armed groups in the Lake Chad basin, ongoing violence in the country's northwest and southwest, and persistent instability spilling over from neighbouring Central African Republic. Last year, Cameroon overtook Burkina Faso on the Norwegian Refugee Council's list of the world's most neglected displacement crises. (with AFP) VALLEY CENTER, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) The skeletal remains of a 65-year-old Valley Center woman who was once a prominent family attorney and devoted foster mother were found last month on her 20-acre property in Valley Center, authorities said. Video Above: Coverage from July 17, 2025 This was a bittersweet discovery for Tiffany Lucci and her three sisters, bringing both heartbreak and some closure. This is where she was dug up, showing FOX 5/KUSI the place where investigators searched for her foster mom, 65-year-old, Nadine Jett. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On July 16, around 5 a.m., a search warrant was served at a residence in the 14800 block of Oak Creek Road, which was connected to the investigation, the San Diego County Sheriffs Office said in a news release Thursday. Authorities discovered the remains of the body, confirmed as Jett. It honestly felt like my soul left my body, Lucci said. Jett, who was missing since December 2023, had been battling pancreatic cancer prior to her disappearance. It was just really sad, Lucci said. It was our last Christmas with her, and then after that you know, we were just shut out. In mid-July, investigators searched Jetts rural property, using heavy equipment to look for human remains. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Finally, the missing persons opened an investigation, and thats what started this, but it took a lot, said Diana Heartz, Jetts neighbor. Her family believes her estate was stolen by a former foster son, Cedric Von Ferdinand, who also goes by Charles. Realtor Noel Lawton says during a tour to sell Jetts ranch, Von Ferdinand made one request. He just said, All I ask is that whoever purchases the property plants a rose garden in memory of her, and he pointed right here, Lawton said. That is where Lucci says she believes investigators found her foster moms remains. Im sad for the girls because there was obviously a hope that like you want her found for them, but you also dont want it to be true, Lawton said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Daughters of missing foster mom visit ranch as investigators dig in fraud probe In April 2024, Jetts daughters say Charles told them that she had died and was cremated in Mexico. However, he could not provide a death certificate or any official documentation. Charles was keeping us away from Nadine, Lucci said. He was just secluding us from her. Lucci said she discovered forged documents, fake signatures and pre-notarized forms that had not been filled out. Von Ferdinand and a notary public, Raymond Joseph Alto, have been charged with a dozen counts, including forgery and grand theft of personal property. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jett was well known in Los Angeles County legal circles for her work in family law and for fostering multiple children, including the Lucci sisters, who are quadruplets. The suspects are scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 5. Now, faced with the loss of their mom, Lucci and her sisters hang onto memories. She was just the best person to be around, Lucci said. She made us feel loved, and we gave her love. They left behind photos of loved ones in the place where Jett finally rested. If shes here, she feels us here and shes always reminded of us and how much we love her, Lucci said. FOX 5/KUSIs Dominique LaVigne and Tony Shin contributed to this report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. With a market cap of $59.6 billion, TE Connectivity plc (TEL) is a global leader in designing and manufacturing connectivity and sensor solutions that enable the flow of power and data across diverse industries. It serves markets ranging from automotive and aerospace to energy, healthcare, and communications through its Transportation, Industrial, and Communication Solutions segments. Shares of the Ballybrit, Ireland-based company have outpaced the broader market over the past 52 weeks. TEL stock has increased 34.3% over this time frame, while the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has rallied 14.3%. Moreover, the stock is up nearly 41% on a YTD basis, compared to SPX's 8.7% gain. More News from Barchart In addition, shares of the electronics maker have outperformed the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLK) 15.9% return over the past 52 weeks. www.barchart.com Shares of TE Connectivity surged nearly 12% on Jul. 23 after the company posted better-than-expected Q3 2025 results, with adjusted EPS of $2.27 and revenue of $4.5 billion. Investor sentiment was further boosted by a 30% year-over-year sales surge in the Industrial Solutions segment, driven by strong demand from AI applications and modern data centers. Additionally, management issued an upbeat Q4 outlook, guiding revenue of $4.6 billion and adjusted EPS of $2.27, both above Street expectations. For the fiscal year ending in September 2025, analysts expect TEL's adjusted EPS to grow 13.8% year-over-year to $8.60. The company's earnings surprise history is promising. It beat or met the consensus estimates in the last four quarters. Among the 17 analysts covering the stock, the consensus rating is a Strong Buy. Thats based on 12 Strong Buy ratings and five Holds. www.barchart.com This configuration is more bullish than three months ago, with 10 Strong Buy ratings on the stock. On Aug. 12, Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani reiterated an "Outperform" rating on TE Connectivity and raised the firms price target to $225. The mean price target of $214.07 represents a 6.2% premium to TELs current price levels. The Street-high price target of $247 suggests a 22.6% potential upside. On the date of publication, Sohini Mondal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) Family and friends in the City of Shreveport are mourning the loss of a leader and public servant who dedicated a remarkable 42 years of his life to public service, retired Captain Calvin MacHenry Abram Sr. With a knack for cooling tensions and a master at diffusing heated moments, family say they will remember his mild and gentle spirit. Throughout his career, Abram dedicated 27 years to the Shreveport Police Department, five years with the Caddo Parish Sheriffs Department, and another decade serving as an officer with the Shreveport Airport Police. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Young Cpt. Calvin MacHenry Abram Police Raised in Greenwood, Louisiana, in 1978, he earned a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice from Grambling State University, where he attended on a full-ride scholarship and excelled as a track star. We spoke to his brother Antonio Abram, who shared with us many memories, accolades and even unique accomplishments between his life and career. He was also considered a track star in his younger years; he would run miles and miles. Believe it or not, there was a situation where somebody bet him that his horse could outrun him, for so many milesHe outran the horseits funny, but he just loved track and field. This was not his only skill outside of his career. According to his son Derick Abram, Captain Abram was also known for his barbecue mastery, having won numerous awards in Shreveport over the years. Cpt Calvin Abram BBQing Cpt Abram BBQing smiling shrevport police The other thing that you have to know about my brother Calvin, is that he was a barbecue champion, and he would tell you I got the plaques to show it, Antonio shared that his brother would participate in the Shreveport Heroes BBQ Event and others around the city. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement First responders face-off for BBQ bragging rights His commitment to safeguarding the community has touched countless lives, earning him not just respect but heartfelt admiration from those who knew him. With news of his passing, social media was flooded with tributes from those he had affected, sharing fond memories and stories of his impact and shining personality. One social media user shared Calvin and I were working extra jobs keep people away cause they were doing pretend fires etc when they accidentally set the building on fire which was not the plan, the fire department on Milam came but also from central station because maybe fumes were still in the old holding tank which had never been removed.. it was like keystone copsafter wards I made the comment thats was enough to curl my hair.. Calvin reached up and said LAWD my hair! he was totally bald! We laughed so hard I think I cracked a rib Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His brother, Antonio continues shares how this approachable character translated to his work. So he was on the force for 27 years. And I can tell you this, we discussed it. He carried the gun every day. But for 27 years, he never had to pull that gun out of the holster, never. Because he knew people. He knew how to talk to people, and they respected him. Captain Abram was married to his wife, Patricia Abram for 40 years, a milestone they celebrated together with friends and family just months ago. Together, they raised six sons: Towand, Johnnell, Derick, LaBante, Calvin II, and Divine. family of 8 cpt. calvin machenry abram shreveport police cpt abram with sons As the community reflects on his legacy, they remember not just a dedicated law enforcement officer but a cherished friend whose warmth and kindness, they say, will never be forgotten. His alma mater, Grambling University, released a Resolution of Condolence stating, Captain Calvin MacHenry Abram, Sr., served this university as a proud alumnus and supporter, and through his example of character, commitment, and service, made a meaningful and lasting impact on those around him; and WHEREAS, the loss of his presence is deeply felt by family, friends, colleagues, and the entire Grambling State University community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Friends and family will gather this weekend to celebrate the life at Union Mission Baptist Church. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, joins Christina Ruffini to react to the FBI searching the home and office of John Bolton, Trumps former National Security Adviser and a fierce critic of the President. A cruel hoax sent Villanova University students sheltering into place on the first day of orientation after a false report of an active shooter, the schools president said, prompting a massive response by local and federal law enforcement as they worked to secure the campus. No injuries were reported and no weapons were found, Peter M. Donohue, the universitys president, said in a letter sent to the campus community and obtained by CNN. The first campus alert went out around 4:35 p.m. ET, during an opening mass, which was set to be followed by a family picnic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors. More info to follow, read an alert on the campus website. The anonymous report indicated there was an active shooter in the Charles Widger School of Law and claimed at least one person was wounded, school and police officials said. Panic and terror ensued after the report, Donohue said in the letter. Police and fire officials swarmed the area of the law school, with some armed officers on the roof, as they worked to clear buildings and look for a possible shooter or victims, video from CNN affiliate WPVI showed. None were found. Aerial view of Villanova University as police sweep through the campus. - WPVI While it is a blessing and relief, I know todays events have shaken our entire community, Donohue said in the letter sent just after 6 p.m. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He apologized to first-year students and their families. This is not the introduction to Villanova that I had hoped for you, he said. Authorities seek to prosecute person responsible New student orientation and registration began Thursday and is scheduled to go until Saturday, while classes begin Monday, according to the schools academic calendar. All other orientation activities scheduled for the day were canceled and were expected to resume Friday, school officials said. The report of a shooter came hours after the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sent an active-shooter alert and the campus went on lockdown. Police later said the authorities found no evidence of a threat. Authorities are investigating the Tennessee incident as a possible case of swatting, a law enforcement source told CNN. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Swatting is a dangerous criminal hoax where a false report is made to police with the express purpose of luring them to a location, where they are led to believe a horrific crime such as a mass shooting, an imminent bombing, or hostage taking has been committed or is in progress. This can result in a forceful response from local police and SWAT teams, who have no way to know the call is a hoax. Swatting has been on the FBIs radar for nearly two decades, and gained notoriety after high-profile celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian became victims. In a 2008 assessment of the new phenomenon, the FBI said a group of recently convicted swatters were motivated by bragging rights and ego, versus any monetary gain, noting group members did it because they could. Students shelter behind a wall at the Villanova University campus where an active shooter was reported. - Matt Slocum/AP Over time, law enforcement analysts studying incidents of swatting have observed an expanded list of motivations, including personal or societal grievances, disrupting operations at schools and places of business, diverting law enforcement resources away from other crimes, and financial gain. Numerous recent hoax incidents have emanated from overseas, according to officials, complicating efforts to locate the perpetrators. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he directed state police to use every tool at our disposal to find the person responsible for the swatting incident. I know today was every parents worse nightmare, and every students biggest fear, Shapiro said in an X post. I am profoundly grateful no one was hurt, and thankful to all members of law enforcement who ran towards reports of danger to keep Pennsylvanians safe. Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer echoed Shapiros sentiments. My office, Investigation Division, the FBI, will all work to try to get to the bottom of who might have done this, Stollsteimer said during a news conference Thursday. We will track you down if its the last thing we do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Villanova is a private Catholic university in the suburbs of Philadelphia and is the alma mater of Pope Leo XIV. This story has been updated with additional information. CNNs Josh Campbell, Danny Freeman and Amanda Musa contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Aug. 21SANTA FE New Mexico's push to provide free school meals for all K-12 public school students statewide is still being fully digested two years after being approved. A legislative report released Thursday found the 2023 law has boosted school meals participation rates around the state as intended, but at a rapidly growing cost. Meanwhile, complying with a new Public Education Department rule that 50% of school breakfasts and lunches are made from scratch has proven challenging for many districts, due primarily to staffing and infrastructure issues, the Legislative Finance Committee report found. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But some lawmakers said the free school meals program is trending in the right direction, despite the logistical challenges. "I don't care how long it takes them to get this done, I just want it done right," Senate Majority Whip Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, said in an interview after a Thursday legislative hearing in Las Cruces. He also said implementing the initiative will be different in rural school districts than it will be in larger ones like Albuquerque Public Schools, which has a centralized kitchen. The free school meals law was unanimously passed by lawmakers in 2023 to address one of the nation's highest food insecurity rates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It specifically requires K-12 public schools to establish programs to offer "high-quality meals" both breakfast and lunch to all students at no charge. But schools were given a two-year period to prepare for the healthy meals provision. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham claimed when signing the bill it could boost academic outcomes in New Mexico, saying, "Kids learn better when their stomachs are full and they're not worried about their next meal." Since the free school meals legislation was signed in 2023, the percentage of students eating school breakfasts and lunches has increased in all 10 of New Mexico's largest school districts, the LFC report found. That includes a 9.7% increase in APS and a 14.7% jump in Rio Rancho Public Schools. However, the school meals participation increases have been greatest among students from higher-income families who would not have qualified for free or reduced-price meals under the previous eligibility rules, the report found. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The free school meals are paid for with a mix of state and federal funds, with the federal government primarily picking up the tab for children whose families fall under a federal poverty threshold. The overall cost has increased in recent years jumping from $206 million in the 2022-23 school year to $248 million in the following school year, according to the LFC report. In addition, total spending on food per student has gone from $486 in 2018 to $830 in 2024. "The state's investment is leading to increased participation, but we're also seeing increased expenditures," LFC program evaluator Ryan Tolman said during Thursday's hearing. Greg Frostad, the Public Education Department's assistant secretary of policy and technology, said looming federal changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, could leave the state on the hook for an increased share of the school meals program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But he said the PED has identified other federal funding streams that could alleviate the state's financial burden. Meanwhile, Laura Henry-Hand, the deputy director of PED's Student Success and Wellness Bureau, said trainings on the health meals guidelines have been provided for school districts around New Mexico. She also said many districts have entered into contracts to buy locally sourced food. Specifically, she cited the Roswell Independent Schools' use of local beef, Bernalillo Public Schools' decision to rely on dry beans and Farmington Municipal Schools using 10% of its allocated food budget to purchase local products. Padilla, who was one of the sponsors of the 2023 legislation, said many school kitchens will have to be expanded or rebuilt to allow for more on-site meal preparation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We knew there was going to be a cost to make this program work," Padilla told the Journal. At least some lawmakers said they're hopeful the program will eventually provide cost savings along with healthier meals. "Dry beans are cheaper than a can of beans, I know that," Rep. Jackie Chatfield, R-Mosquero, said during Thursday's hearing. ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) Home prices in New York State hit historic heights in July, according to a new report from the NYS Association of REALTORS. The report says median home sales prices hit a record high of $451,000 in July, which is the highest monthly median sales price since statistics were kept in the state. Meanwhile, housing inventory climbed 5.1% in July. First look at proposed housing development at Blue Heron Golf Club Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The price increase is being felt in the Rochester area as well. Monroe County saw its median sales price increase to $290,000, Wayne Countys increased to $260,000, and Ontario County has a bigger median sales price of $258,188. These counties also saw increases in their new listings Monroe County saw a 17.5% increase, Wayne County a 35.7% increase, and Ontario County a .7% increase. Wayne County was the only county of these three that saw a decrease in its homes for sale (3.5% decrease) and months supply (5.6% decrease) Despite the number of new listings, both Monroe and Ontario counties saw decreases in closed sales. Monroe County had a 2.7% decrease, and Ontario County had a larger decline of 17.6% Wayne County saw an increase in closed sales of 1.2%. A few weeks ago, Rochester Mayor Malik Evans announced that the City of Rochester has been making progress in improving housing quality and access to homeownership. The city is supporting the development of over 3,000 affordable housing units as part of the Rehabilitate the Dream program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NYSAR_MMI_media_2025-07 (1)Download You can read or download the full data report above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. MEMPHIS, Tenn. WREG is learning more about a man wanted for peeping into a window while he touched himself. Carl Allen is on the sex offender registry in Florida. WREG Investigators found out after moving to the Mid-South, hes gone by different names, all while evading police. According to a Memphis police report, he was also involved in a parking dispute that turned physical on October 7, 2024. He told the officer he was an Uber driver and was waiting for his customer when it all played out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The other man involved in the altercation confirmed that information, too. He said on the phone, Allen also claimed he was an Uber driver and even saw someone get in the back seat of Allens sedan that day. Just weeks after that parking dispute, a woman told us she came across Allen multiple times. It was all captured on her security cameras. She said thats him lurking outside her window. Carl Allen Police issued a warrant for Allen in January for stalking. I had children upstairs that were asleep, said another woman. I had to kind of like stop and process it that I was looking at someone outside my window. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last month, we spoke to another woman who did not want to be identified, but told us she also confronted Allen when she saw him outside her window in a neighborhood near downtown in June. He was engaging in what I would describe as a sexual act, she said. Am I seeing what I think Im seeing? Having to almost process that I was looking at someone face to face outside my window doing this. Then I screamed. MPD issued a warrant for indecent exposure for Artie Perkins. They confirmed Perkins and Allen are the same individual. Perkins is just one of the many names Allen goes by. We found several stories buried in WREG archives from two decades ago. Germantown police arrested him in 2006 for peeping into windows. Officers told us then Allen had 33 aliases, four different social security numbers, and seven birth dates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was a list of names Allen goes by on a TBI criminal background report, as well as 20 pages worth of charges, including a guilty plea for recording women in their college dorms. Thats not true, Allen told WREG in 2006. If I was the kind of person people had to be afraid of, I dont think I could safely walk the street myself. In 1995, court documents state Allen entered an Alford plea in Florida for entering a nursing home through a window. He lifted an 84-year-old residents night gown and did commit the crime of sexual battery against her. Hes listed on Floridas sex offender registry as a sexual predator. You may now be asking how was this guy able to be an Uber driver? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We asked the rideshare company that very question, and how do they ensure a driver doesnt give them a false name or false information. While they acknowledged our request, theyve yet to get back to us. Ubers website states all drivers undergo a thorough background check and driving history screening before theyre able to take their first trip. The company hasnt said whether Allen underwent that check. What we do know its a concern on top of others WREG Investigators have been reporting on for several years. In 2020, we found a 911 call. The rider told police she put her toddler in the Uber, and while walking to the other side of the car, the driver sped off and didnt return her child until 45 minutes later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was an elderly man, Gabrille Campbell said. There should be an age limit. They should look more into the person before giving that person the responsibility. The incident was just one of dozens of unsettling situations reported to MPD involving ride share services. Uber considers its drivers independent contractors, which means they dont abide by the same labor laws and are minimally supervised. A recent New York Times report revealed that the business model, as well as other safety measures the company set aside, led to more than 400,000 sexual assault and sexual misconduct reports in the U.S. between 2017 and 2022. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats a report on average, almost every eight minutes. Uber claims a vast majority of the reports cited were less serious and non-physical in nature and the more serious reports accounted for one in five million of all trips. The company stressed 99.9% of their trips end without a safety incident. Those corporations, they invest a lot of time and money to ensure that those drivers have a valid drivers license, carry insurance, do background checks, said TN Rep. Elaine Davis, R-Knoxville. For me, its about deterrence. Rep. Davis said the problem she sees is those impersonating an Uber, Lyft or taxi driver to commit a crime. Her legislation, now law as of July, makes impersonating a rideshare illegal. Its unclear what name Allen used or what information he gave to Uber. We havent found any police reports indicating he committed any offenses while driving for the company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hes now had a warrant out for his arrest for almost seven months. Police have yet to find him. If youve seen him or know where Allen could be, call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. Under the reconciliation legislation signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, Maine hospitals are expected to lose $700 million in revenue, with rural facilities most at risk. (Photo by Thomas Barwick/Getty Images) A new national report warns that sweeping Medicaid cuts recently signed into federal law could push hundreds of hospitals across the country to the brink of closure and Maines rural hospitals are among the most vulnerable. The report, released this month by the advocacy group Protect Our Care, estimates that more than 330 hospitals nationwide including Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle and Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth are at immediate risk of shutting down due to reductions in Medicaid funding included in congressional Republicans tax law signed by President Donald Trump on July 4. That will mean significant job cuts, longer wait times, and an overall increase in health care costs, including for people not on Medicaid, according to the report. Another 400 facilities are considered vulnerable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maine hospitals could lose more than $66 million annually in revenue as a result of the Medicaid cuts, according to previously released analyses from Families USA and think tank Third Way. In addition to the Ellsworth hospital, those other studies identified Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle, Cary Medical Center in Caribou, and Calais Community Hospital as especially vulnerable due to persistent operating losses and heavy reliance on Medicaid revenue. In rural states with hospitals already closing, health care leaders have emphasized that the threat is particularly acute. Nearly half of Maines 24 rural hospitals are considered at risk of closing, according to a separate analysis by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Such closures will impact the local community and economy, the report noted. Nationally, hospitals employ roughly 10% of all workers in rural counties that report having any hospital employment, the Protect Our Care report said. When rural hospitals close, communities can lose a staggering number of jobs. One rural hospital closure can eliminate 220 jobs immediately, the report said. The closures would further compound an already shrinking health care network. Since 2020, five hospitals in Maine have shut down their labor and delivery units, leaving expectant mothers in wide swaths of the state without local maternity care. Waldo Hospital in Belfast, Houlton Regional Hospital, Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, and Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville all ended maternity services in 2025 alone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report specifically called out congressional Republicans for pulling the plug on entire communities access to care. The new law included more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, which advocates say is the largest rollback of the program in its history. While the legislation provides $50 billion in rural health aid over six years, experts say that funding falls far short of offsetting the losses. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who was one of just three Republican senators to vote against the package, cited its effect on rural hospitals when announcing her opposition. However, Maine Democratic leaders have criticized Collins for voting to advance the measure. Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson said during a recent press event, she has cost us our health care. She has cost us freedom. She has cost us the representation that we as Mainers and as Americans deserve. If closures accelerate, rural Mainers could face long drives to reach critical care. Advocates have warned that without intervention, Maines fragile hospital system may not be able to sustain the services communities depend on. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) A West Michigan man has reportedly kayaked across the Detroit River and illegally crossed into Canada to claim asylum. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 51-year-old Dan Livers made the cross on Aug. 5, landing about 7 miles south of the Ambassador Bridge in LaSalle. He told the news outlet that he landed, went to a nearby Tim Hortons for some coffee, then turned himself over to local police, who handed him off to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In an interview with the CBC, Livers said he feared for his life after criticizing a local nonprofit group that has connections with the state government. He did not clarify where he lived in West Michigan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I remember East Germany when I was a kid, Livers told the CBC. Nobody came through Checkpoint Charlie and I wasnt gonna run the gauntlet of ICE, sheriffs department, state police, whatever. Eddie Kadri, an immigration lawyer from Windsor, told the CBC that Livers chance of success is low. Under Canadian law, the legal requirements to be met in order for a claimant to be found a refugee or a person in need of protection is one that would be quite difficult for an American citizen to meet, if not impossible, Kadri said. However, Livers will likely spend plenty of time in Canada. The CBC says government agencies are working through a backlog of cases and it may be months or even years before his claim is decided. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Livers is reportedly staying at a mission in downtown Windsor while he waits. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. MORAINE, Ohio (WDTN) An investigation is ongoing in Moraine after a reported explosion. According to Moraine Police, officers and fire crews are investigating the explosion, which was reported in the area of S.R. 741 and Cardington Road. Our 2 NEWS crew at the scene spoke with a transfer station worker who said a tank in the back of a Rumpke garbage truck exploded. A damaged Rumpke waste collection truck at the IGS CNG Services gas station (Photo by Nathan Adkins/WDTN). Photo by Nathan Adkins/WDTN It reportedly happened while the driver was fueling at the pump. The CNG Services station lets compressed natural gas vehicles, like the garbage truck, fill with propane. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials with Rumpke say something like this has never happened before. We do not have a record of anything like this happening with our trucks before. We do everything we can to make sure our trucks are safe, said Molly Kennedy, Rumpke communications coordinator. Kennedy says drivers do daily inspections before their shift to ensure everything is working properly on the truck. Fire officials in Moraine say they heard the explosion before they began receiving 911 calls. We all heard it, myself and the battalion, were on a street close by, said Doug Hatcher, Moraine fire marshal. It was pretty loud, I mean, we were a good three quarters of a mile away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials say no one was injured. The cause of the explosion is under investigation. SR-741 has reopened, but Cardington Rd. between S.R. 741 and Encrete Ln. remain closed. The Montgomery County Recycling and Yard Waste Drop-off facilities are closed, but will reopen on Saturday. 2 NEWS is continuing to follow this story. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. (WHTM) Republican Vivek Ramaswamy leads two of his potential general election opponents in a new Emerson College Polling survey of Ohio voters in the 2026 governors race. Ramaswamy, who ran for president in 2024, leads former Director of the Ohio Department of Health Amy Acton (D) 49% to 39%, with 12% undecided. In a potential matchup against former Congressman Tim Ryan (D), Ramaswamy leads 49% to 41%, with 10% undecided. Sherrod Brown gives Democrats jolt of enthusiasm in Ohio Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The poll also found incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Jon Husted leading former Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, 50% to 44%, with 7% of voters undecided in a potential 2026 U.S. Senate race. In the first public poll following Sherrod Browns 2026 campaign kick-off, the former Senator trails the incumbent Jon Husted by six points, though he has a higher name recognition than the first-term Senator, Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. Husted has a 16-point lead among male voters and voters without a college degree, and a 14-point lead among voters over 40. Brown has a 13-point lead among voters under 40, a three-point lead among women voters, and an eight-point lead among independent voters. The polls full results are available on the Emerson College Polling website at 6 a.m. EST on Friday. Political Power Ranker Latest episodes of Political Power Ranker Spencer Kimball, Director of Emerson College Polling, and Chris Berg, Political Content Director for Nexstar Media Group, discuss the polls findings in this weeks episode of Political Power Ranker. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Each week, Chris and Spencer will examine whos up and whos down in the world of politics based on the latest data from Emerson College Polling, focusing on the states and races that impact the national picture. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. With Texas new congressional map on the verge of full passage, local elected Republican officials are eyeing bids in districts newly drawn to favor the GOP. The redistricting has created a rare opportunity for Republicans in numerous metro areas to advance their careers when they would typically be stuck waiting for members of Congress to retire or be forced to run in less favorable terrain. State Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, kicked off the frenzy Thursday, filing a declaration of candidacy for the newly drawn 9th Congressional District, anchored east of Houston. That seat, currently held by Democratic Rep. Al Green, was moved from southern Houston to the eastern parts of Harris County and Liberty County, going from a district that voted for Kamala Harris by 44 percentage points to one that Donald Trump would have carried by 20 points. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alexandra del Moral Mealer, an ex-Army captain who ran for Harris County judge in 2022, announced a run in the 9th District Monday, setting up a competitive Republican primary. But with three of the newly created seats lacking an incumbent and two South Texas districts redrawn to be more favorable to Republicans, operatives expect a flurry of candidates to jump into races that Trump hopes yield five new GOP members of Congress. South Texas Republicans were targeting two South Texas seats held by Democrats even before the map was redrawn to fold more GOP voters into those districts. Texas 28th Congressional District, centered in Laredo, and the 34th Congressional District, which includes Brownsville and McAllen, were two of just 13 districts nationwide to elect a congressional Democrat while being carried by Trump. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen two of the Houses most moderate Democrats were able to hang on to their heavily Hispanic seats in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under the current boundaries, the 28th District voted for Trump by a 7-point margin, while Trump carried the 34th District by 4.5 percentage points. Both were redrawn to be seats that Trump would have won by 10 points. Cuellars district lost Democratic-leaning precincts in the San Antonio area and picked up Live Oak County and a sliver of Hidalgo County, including parts of McAllen and areas west of the city. Gonzalez lost his portion of McAllen and Hidalgo County, instead gaining much of conservative Nueces County and its biggest city, Corpus Christi. Those two districts were already on the National Republican Campaign Committees target list meaning the nominees will receive ample resources and had attracted challengers. Former Rep. Mayra Flores, who lost to Gonzalez in 2022 and 2024, switched to run in Cuellars district though operatives and Gonzalez have speculated she could switch back to the 34th. But Republicans are also excited about Eric Flores, an army veteran and lawyer from Mission who launched his campaign in July. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Cuellars district, Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina has formed an exploratory committee, a formal step toward launching a run in the 28th District. Tijerina, a former Democrat, switched parties after the 2024 election. He had been a Democratic county judge for nearly a decade. Because of Texas resign-to-run law, Tijerina would need to step down from his county judge job if he launches a formal congressional campaign with more than one year and 30 days left in his term. San Antonio Several local elected officials in San Antonio are thinking about running in the newly drawn 35th Congressional District, which includes parts of San Antonio and outlying eastern areas in Bexar, Guadalupe, Wilson and Karnes counties, the latter three of which are heavily Republican. The new seat, cobbled together from pieces of five current congressional seats, would have voted for Trump by a 10-point margin had it existed in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Grant Moody, the only Republican on the Bexar County Commissioners Court, said in a statement that he is exploring a congressional bid in the new district. Texans are known for our hard work, devotion to selfless service, and conservative values and they deserve to be represented by someone who shares those ideals, Moody said. Ive always felt called to serve my community and country, and these new maps present a unique opportunity to continue serving. San Antonio City Council member Marc Whyte, whose district in San Antonios North Side is part of the new 35th District, is also exploring a bid. Though the City Council is nonpartisan, Whyte, an attorney first elected in 2023, represents the only conservative-leaning district in the city and previously ran, unsuccessfully, for the Texas House as a Republican. Im certainly looking at it, Whyte said in a text message. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State Rep. John Lujan, a Republican and former Bexar County sheriffs deputy who represents a number of towns outside San Antonio, and Kristin Tips, a San Antonio funeral director who heads the Texas Funeral Service Commission, are also contemplating running, according to a source familiar with the district. Austin Republican Rep. Chip Roys announcement that he is running for attorney general also leaves a vacancy in his Central Texas-based 21st Congressional District, which includes parts of San Antonio and Bexar County. That seat could see enormous interest Roy was one of 18 Republicans who ran in the 2018 primary, the last time the seat was open. The Republicans contemplating a run in the 35th Congressional District may also be interested in the 21st District. Whyte said he is looking at both. Bexar County GOP Vice Chair Kyle Sinclair, who has run in different San Antonio-area congressional seats in the past two cycles, said he is also exploring running in both the 35th and 21st Congressional Districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a statement, Sinclair noted that he has relationships with the GOP grassroots and at the state and federal levels, and argued his "background could serve the community well." "Additionally, I am committed to securing necessary resources such as federal disaster relief funds, and support for local rebuilding efforts following the devastating July 2025 floods to continue the Hill Country recovery," Sinclair said. Dallas The redrawn 32nd Congressional District is the safest Republican seat that GOP map-drawers created. Currently a geographically compact district that contains about a third of the city of Dallas and some northern and eastern suburbs, the district was redrawn to become far more rural. Under the new map, the 32nd District contains just 11% of the city of Dallas and extends east into six heavily Republican, majority-white counties, running nearly to Longview in East Texas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, was drawn out of the district. It went from voting for Harris by 24 percentage points to favoring Trump by 18 points. Given how red the district is, the candidate that emerges could stand to spend decades in Congress, making it an attractive seat for ambitious Republicans. Already, Ryan Binkley, a businessman and the founding pastor at Create Church in Richardson, has announced he is running. Binkley mounted a long-shot Republican presidential bid in 2023, competing in the first four states before dropping out and endorsing Trump. He spent millions of his own money in the process and never received more than 1,000 votes in any contest. I believe we need leaders in Washington, D.C. with real-world experience who will fight for your freedom, fight for your prosperity and your familys safety, Binkley said in a launch video, calling himself a strong, common-sense Texas voice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Operatives are also eyeing state Rep. Katrina Pierson, a longtime tea party activist and communications consultant from Rockwall. Pierson was Trumps national spokesperson in his first presidential campaign and a senior adviser on his 2020 bid. She went on to successfully defeat Republican then-state Rep. Justin Holland in a 2024 primary and is in her first term in the Legislature. Pierson ran for Congress in 2014, losing a primary to Republican Rep. Pete Sessions. She contemplated running for an open Dallas-area seat in 2021 before ultimately deciding against it, saying at the time she was not closing the door on Congress. But Pierson has not indicated if she is interested in running for the seat. I need to get through the [legislative] session before even thinking about it, she said in an interview Wednesday. More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 1315! This years lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN NewsNight; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. Republicans in the state of Ohio and across the country have been rallying around freshman Sen. Jon Husted this week after Democrat Sherrod Brown, who represented Ohio in the Senate for almost 20 years before being unseated last year, announced he is running for Husteds seat. "Sherrod Browns recent announcement means Ohioans will face a clear choice in 2026," Jon Husted for Senate Communications Director Tyson Shepard told Fox News Digital. "For 30 years, he has imposed Washingtons problems on Ohio, pushing radical liberal policies that have left a lasting burden on the next generation. Jon Husted offers the opposite approach, applying Ohios values and solutions to fix a broken Washington. The challenges our nation faces are the same ones Husted has helped our state confront and overcome, championing the values he learned growing up in northwest Ohio: hard work, personal responsibility, family, faith, freedom and patriotism." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans across the Buckeye State have echoed similar sentiments this week, expressing optimism that Husted, who was appointed to the Senate earlier this year by Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat vacated when JD Vance left the Senate to become vice president, will defeat Brown next year. Gop Senator Reveals Why Trump's 'Complete And Total Endorsement' Will Be Crucial For His Midterm Race Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., Feb. 13, 2025. Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, who defeated Brown last year despite entering the race as an underdog in the polls, said on X this week, "After 50 years of living off the tax payer, losing an election by a wide margin with $300 million in out of state money, abandoning working Ohioans to be Chuck Schumers lap dog, and sucking up to coastal elites, its time for @SherrodBrown to just go away." Read On The Fox News App Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Ohio is lucky to have @SenJonHusted in the Senate!," Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan posted on X after Browns announcement. DeWine has commented on the race as well, calling Brown a "formidable" candidate but saying that he believes Husted "will win." Ohio Republican Congressman Max Miller told AM 1420 The Answer this week that he has "no idea what Brown is thinking getting back into this race. Men in women's sports, open borders, selling out to China? Ohioans don't like that." Republican leaders outside the state of Ohio are lining up behind Husted as well, including Senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Tim Scott, who said about Brown on X , "We beat him once. Well beat him again." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump Urges Texas Republicans To Swiftly Pass Redistricting Maps While Newsom, California Dems Counter Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, walks through the U.S. Capitol in July. Support for Husted has also come from some corners of Ohio that historically would have been fond of Brown, who has championed himself as a candidate of the working class over the past 20 years, as evidenced by endorsements he received this week from the sheriff of Browns home county. He also received an endorsement from the Northwest Ohio Building & Construction Trades Council (NWOBCTC), which represents 18 affiliated local unions and thousands of skilled workers across eight Ohio counties. "More momentum for @JonHusted," Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who ran in the Republican primary to unseat Brown last year, posted on X in response to the Northwest Ohio Building & Construction Trades Council endorsement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "While Sherrod Brown talks a big game his record tells a different story. He has toed the line for coastal elites focusing on their radical leftist agenda and ignoring the needs of Ohios working families. Jon actually fights for Ohio workers and this is a well earned endorsement!" Brown, who spent over three decades representing Ohio in the House and later the Senate, was highly recruited by top national Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who made two trips to the Buckeye state to try and convince Brown to run again. 4 Key Senate Seats Republicans Aim To Flip In 2026 Midterms To Expand Their Majority Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee July 15, 2024. Husted, who has served as Ohio's lieutenant governor and secretary of state, has Trump's endorsement as he runs next year to fill the final two years of Vance's six-year term. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I didnt plan to run for office again, but when I see whats going on, I know I can do something about it for Ohio," Brown, who served as chair of the Senate Banking Committee during his tenure in D.C., said in a campaign launch video. Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), argued in a statement that "no one fights harder for Ohio than Sherrod Brown. From securing Ohioans retirement and Social Security benefits to cracking down on fentanyl from China and Mexico, Sherrod will always do whats right for Ohioans." The X account belonging to the DSCC has been actively touting Brown's announcement, labeling Brown as a candidate who is "looking out for Ohio workers' and accusing Husted of "selling out Ohioans" with his support for Trump's "big, beautiful bill." Ohio was once a top general election battleground state but has turned increasingly red over the past decade. Trump carried the state by 11 points over Kamala Harris. But Brown outperformed the top of the ticket, losing to Moreno by less than four points. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The party not holding the White House typically draws strong turnout in midterm elections, and Democrats are optimistic about a strong showing with Trump not on the ballot to boost Republican turnout. But Republican Vivek Ramaswamy running for governor of Ohio in 2026 could help alleviate that issue along with lingering negative attitudes toward the Biden administration. "Having Sherrod on the ticket and asking Ohio voters who were strongly supportive of President Trump and the mission of our party whether they want to go backwards, thatll be a strong turnout argument for us with our party faithful in Ohio," Ohio Republican Party Chair Alex Triantafilou told Spectrum News. "Because we cannot return to the days of Sherrod Brown and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris." Brown is the second top recruit Senate Democrats have landed this year, in addition to Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina, as they work to try and win back the chamber's majority next year. The GOP holds a 53-47 majority in the Senate. Original article source: Republicans rally around GOP senator after ousted Dem jumps into high-profile Ohio race If you live in a busy city, you may be breathing in more than just vehicle exhaust fumes. A study has uncovered a surprising health threat hidden in plain sight harmful metal particles released from brake pads. Researchers from National Taiwan University and their colleagues reported that brake dust may be releasing more toxins than previously understood, posing significant risks to human health, especially in high-traffic areas. What's happening? The research team, led by Ta-Chih Hsiao with Yi-Pin Lin and Wen-Che Hou, used a real-time detection system combining gas exchange technology with mass spectrometry to measure trace metals in ultrafine particles known as nanoparticles every five minutes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The system revealed sharp spikes during rush hours, which is something traditional 24-hour sampling had missed. The results were alarming. When brake pads are used, they emit small metal particles of elements like cobalt and nickel, which are hazardous to human health. "Previously, we were like watching fast-changing phenomena in slow motion," Professor Hsiao said in a university report shared by Phys.org. Why is non-exhaust pollution concerning? Though not as visible as exhaust fumes, earlier research published in the journal Environmental Pollution has also shown that nanoparticles can cause oxidative stress and inflammation in the lungs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new research added to growing concerns about non-tailpipe harmful pollution being a major source of pollution. It improved the precision of measuring cancer risks from these sources. While there's also a stronger push for electric vehicles, brake dust pollution is still a concern. That's because cars gas-powered and electric still rely on friction brakes. As cities shift toward electrified transport, non-exhaust pollution may still be a threat. What's being done about pollution? While brake dust may be harder to control than tailpipe pollution, researchers are exploring solutions. Some carmakers, like Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis, have been exploring low-dust or regenerative braking systems that reduce particle release. Brake pad manufacturers are also testing alternative materials that produce fewer nanoparticles. Cities are beginning to take note, too. London's Ultra Low Emission Zone, for example, aims to reduce all forms of vehicular pollution. As brake dust joins the growing list of invisible threats in our cities, knowing where it comes from is key to managing it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Like Professor Hsiao said: "Even in a fully electrified future, we will still need stricter regulations on heavy metal content in brake pad materials and tire composition." Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. Some residents living near Alligator Creek in northern Pinellas County may need to purchase flood insurance next year. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has proposed a new flood map for the watershed, updating the special flood hazard area and moving some properties in or out of it. The majority of changes are in Clearwater, but other areas are effected as well.Residents can search their address online to see if their flood zone designation has changed. Businesses and homeowners are required to purchase flood insurance for federally backed mortgages if their property is in a designated high-risk flood area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Clearwater Floodplain Administrator Gene Henrysaid hundreds of properties within city limits have changed. As of now, more properties are moving into the flood zones than are leaving. The proposed map wouldnt go into effect for at least a year. Residents who disagree with the changes can submit information to appeal their designation during a 90-day public comment period. FEMA held an open house Thursday, with representatives from Safety Harbor, Clearwater and Pinellas County governments available to answer questions from residents and business owners. Youve got time to work with us, Henry said. Call us. You dont have to be rushed into it. Much of eastern Clearwater is in the Alligator Creek watershed, as are parts of Safety Harbor and unincorporated Pinellas County. The Clearwater Airpark, Ruth Eckerd Hall and Spectrum Field are among the landmarks in the area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement About five years ago, Clearwater worked with a contractor to study the watersheds stormwater and drainage infrastructure, Henry said. After performing that study, officials sent the information to FEMA to update the flood maps. Lisa Hollensead, a Clearwater resident, said Thursday she disagreed with the proposed map that could require her to purchase flood insurance. She came to the open house to get more information and help out a neighbor, who is already planning to buy flood insurance. We purposely bought in an area with no flood zone, thinking that we would generally be OK, she said. But this came out of nowhere. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Florida is a part of the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides government-backed insurance. It also allows local governments to secure insurance rate discounts to residents if they take steps to lower flood risks. But, the discount is higher based on how well the government mitigates flooding. Last year, homes in Tampa Bay that were not in designated flood zones were damaged during Hurricane Milton, and residents are still navigating the recovery process some already buying flood insurance in anticipation of future storms. Anywhere in Florida could flood, said Pam Overton, who attended Thursdays open house and has multiple decades of experience working in insurance. Its worth the money. The Rye Fire Department is reminding residents that a Red Flag Warning has been issued following multiple beach rescues. Rye Fire Chief Mark Cotreau and the Rye Fire Department are urging residents and visitors to exercise caution as rough conditions have led to a red flag status for all beaches along the Rye coast. Rye Fire discourages all water-related activities during these unpredictable conditions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rye Fire has already responded to a number of rescues at Cable Beach due to the dangerous currents. The department is on high alert to ensure public safety during this period. The Rye Fire Department is also providing a list of swimming safety tips: Check the weather before swimming; changing weather can be unpredictable. Know what the flag warnings mean and adhere to all posted signage. If caught in a rip current: Do not fight the current. Do not try to swim against the current. Swim in a horizontal pattern. Wave and call for help. Be a competent swimmer with the ability to handle oneself underwater, moving water, surf, or current. Some local pools may offer swim lessons for children. Never leave children unattended while they are near or in a body of water, and make sure they have an adult to accompany them into the water. Young or inexperienced swimmers should always wear a life jacket or inflatable arm floats. Never swim alone; swim with lifeguards and/or water watchers present. Even if lifeguards are present, you (or another responsible adult) should stay with your children. Dont use alcohol or drugs (including certain prescription medications) before or during swimming/diving, or while supervising swimmers. Always wear a lifejacket while boating. Residents and visitors are reminded to use practical judgment while in the water, as the rough conditions are expected to persist through the weekend. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A species once considered the symbol of good fortune in Danish folklore is luckily seeing a resurgence in Denmark. The formerly locally extinct white stork population hit a promising milestone of nestlings in 2025, Reuters reported. According to Storks Denmark, an organization committed to the species' conservation, 33 stork nestlings were born, up 15 from last year, emulating population numbers not seen since the 1980s. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Denmark had a drastic decline in the white stork population during the 20th century due to agricultural growth and loss of wetlands, essentially eliminating the species' habitat. Thanks to local conservation efforts and changing weather patterns, the country has hope of recovering the iconic bird. With the rapid overheating of our planet, the flocks are not migrating all the way to South Africa, instead flying to Spain for winter. While this change is a worrying trend for the European climate overall, it is ironically a factor that makes the rehabilitation of Denmark's white storks feasible. The shorter migration makes survival of the species more likely. Denmark's Natural History Museum lends a hand in conservation strategies by tagging nestlings with GPS trackers so they can further understand the species' migration patterns over time. Experts often cite habitat loss among the many major factors of regional population decline and possible extinction. However, strategies like the ones employed by Storks Denmark have brought hope to vulnerable animal populations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Elsewhere in Europe, the Spanish marbled duck population has quadrupled in recent years thanks to land stewardship agreements, according to the European Commission. In Denmark, residents are buying stork nests to facilitate population growth, even leaving out supplemental food like chicken and fish to feed the storks' young. Grethe Mortensen is one such nest owner, and she is hopeful that these efforts will continue to drive the white stork's resurgence. "I want them to keep coming here to Denmark ... and I hope that something is done for the storks so they can survive on their own," she told Reuters. Should the government continue to give tax incentives for energy-efficient home upgrades? Absolutely No Depends on the upgrade I don't know Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. 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. Nearly seven weeks ago on July 4, the Guadalupe River raged out of its banks and killed more than 130 people, including two teenage counselors and 25 young girls at Camp Mystic who had been asleep in their cabins before waking up to disaster. On Aug. 21, many of the girls parents held each other in the galleries of the Texas House and Senate, listening to their names being read aloud before lawmakers in both chambers voted on bills designed to meet the parents demands to make camps safer, so no other parents would have to live the same horror of losing a child. Make no mistake, House Bill 1 is fundamentally a bill about failure, said Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, when he introduced it. The camp failed these girls. The county failed them. The river authority failed them, and in a larger sense, their government. In some ways, I know I have failed them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since the floods, lawmakers have heard testimony about the many ways Texas failed not only the girls but also the 111 other people who died, including grandparents swept away with grandchildren and parents with their own children. On Aug. 20 and in meetings before, the Camp Mystic parents had described to senators personal torture and pain. They missed the daughter who poured Cheerios for her little brother so her parents could rest, the daughter who was supposed to be holding her little sisters hand last week as she started first grade, the daughter who should be learning to shoot archery while wearing fake nails printed with miniature avocados. And now legislators are inching closer toward changing laws to address at least pieces of the multitude of problems with flood prevention and disaster response that theyd heard about in recent weeks many of which were not new problems at all. Weve said it all morning long, said Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, who chaired the House committee to look at disaster issues. The locals can do better. We can do better. Being prepared and being ready to respond to a disaster is what we owe the citizens of Texas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both chambers have been moving forward bills. They aim to make justices of the peace get trained on how to handle many bodies at once. To start fixing a broken system of radio communication among first responders who struggle to get on the same channel from place to place. To get a handle on a deluge of groups that solicit donations and the thousands of volunteers who comb private property after a disaster. They faced the egregious mistakes: Failures to get the National Weather Service warnings to people in harms way so people would know to act and failures of county officials to be awake and alert and taking action instead of asleep and caught by a surprise. Heres where the bills theyre considering stand: Camp Safety House Bill 1 would require overnight kids camp operators to develop emergency plans, including for natural disasters, and submit them to the state. The plans must include information on when to shelter or evacuate, and they must be taught to the campers. Operators would also be required to tell parents if any part of the camp was in a floodplain. The state would not be allowed to license youth camps with cabins in the 100-year floodplain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: The bill passed the House chamber 136-1. It hasnt been heard by the Senate. Senate Bill 1 would prohibit the state from licensing kids camps if they had cabins in a floodplain, unless the floodplain was around a lake or still body of water. It would require camp operators to prepare to evacuate campers any time the National Weather Service issues a flood warning or a flash flood warning if they are in the floodplain. Evacuation routes would be displayed in all camp cabins. Status: The bill passed the Senate chamber Aug. 21 on a 28-0 vote. Senators renamed the bill the Heavens 27 Camp Safety Act in honor of the Mystic victims. The bill's author, Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said SB 1 is a reminder that the Legislature is the "watchman" for the vulnerable in the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Camp Mystic and the family of Dick Eastland, the director of Camp Mystic who died in the flood, said in a written statement: "We join the families in supporting legislation that will make camps and communities along the Guadalupe River safer, especially the creation of detection and warning systems that would have saved lives on July 4. Dick Eastland gave his life fighting to save the girls whose care was entrusted to Camp Mystic." Flood warnings Senate Bill 3 would require a state agency to determine which areas in the region that flooded on July 4 should be required to have outdoor warning sirens, and then establish guidance on how to install, maintain and operate them. Status: The bill passed the Senate. A House committee also approved it Aug. 22. Emergency response Senate Bill 2 would create a training program for justices of the peace on how to handle bodies during disasters when many people die, establish licensing requirements for emergency management coordinators and set up a registration system for disaster response volunteers that could include criminal history checks. It also allows the state to neutralize drones operating in disaster areas without government permission. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: The bill passed the Senate and the House. The Senate needs to consider House changes. House Bill 3 would create a Texas Interoperability Council to develop and implement a strategic plan to address the need for new and old emergency communication equipment and infrastructure to work together across the state, and training for using that equipment. The council would also administer a grant program for local governments to buy and build emergency communication equipment, such as radios and radio towers. Status: The bill passed the House. It needs to be heard by the Senate. House Bill 20 would create a voluntary accreditation under the state attorney generals office for groups that ask for and take donations for disaster relief to show people during disasters that they are trustworthy. It would also set up a hotline for people to report suspected fraudulent charities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: The bill passed the House. It needs to be heard by the Senate. Funding Senate Bill 5 would pull $240 million from the rainy day fund for the states match for federal disaster response funds and other disaster needs, $50 million for sirens and rain gauges in the Central Texas flood region, $28 million to improve weather forecasting and $50 million for the new interoperability council, if House Bill 3 passes, to improve emergency communication. Status: The bill passed the House and Senate. It's now in a conference committee. House Bill 22 would expand a recently created, multibillion dollar broadband infrastructure fund so the money can also be used to pay for emergency communication and warning systems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status: The bill passed the House. It needs to be heard by the Senate. More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 1315! This years lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN NewsNight; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. The Brief A permanent retail crime task force is proposed in King County to tackle retail theft, following Kroger's closure of six Fred Meyer stores. The task force would consist of two detectives and a prosecuting attorney, funded by the county sales tax. Kroger cited rising theft as a reason for the closures, despite some locations showing a decline in shoplifting. KENT, Wash. - A permanent retail crime task force is being proposed to address retail theft in King County, in response to Kroger shutting down grocery stores in western Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement King County Council member Claudia Balducci, Kent Mayor Dana Ralph and former King County Sheriff Sue Rahr held a joint press conference on Thursday to unveil the proposal. Former King County Sheriff Sue Rahr (left), King County Council member Claudia Balducci (middle), Kent Mayor Dana Ralph (right). The task force would include two detectives and one prosecuting attorney dedicated to directly addressing the causes and responding to retail theft. Balducci says funding would come from the recently adopted county sales tax, and she estimates the program would cost $600,000. The backstory This comes after Kroger recently announced plans to close six Fred Meyer locations in western Washington, including in Kent, Everett, Tacoma, Redmond and Seattle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The company cited "a steady rise in theft" as one of its reasons for shutting down the stores, despite crime data showing a decline in shoplifting at some of the closing locations. The announcement of the closures has some in disbelief. "It's sad," said Joseph Rodgers, who lives near the Fred Meyer in Kent. "It's the only store convenient to us." The Source Information in this story came from Fred Meyer and FOX 13 Seattle reporting. MORE NEWS FROM FOX 13 SEATTLE Cracking WA In-N-Out's secret menu WA troopers make 2 arrests using plane to track down driver, motorcyclist Washington's first In-N-Out is now open Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Special Forces vet exposes tactics of Montana, Washington state survivalists: 'Can't stay hidden forever' This is the best community college in WA, report says Reptile Zoo to close in Monroe after 30 years To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter. Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news. A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPMs Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. DOJ Weaponization in Overdrive The FBI showed up early Friday morning at the Bethesda, Maryland home of former Trump I national security adviser John Bolton, apparently executing a court-authorized search warrant in what is reportedly a classified materials case in yet another example of President Trump abusing the powers of his office to target his critics and Bolton in particular. Bolton, whose D.C. office was also reportedly searched this morning, became a strident critic of Trump after leaving the White House in 2019. The first big clash with Trump occurred over allegedly classified information Bolton used in his 2020 memoir. That led to an extended legal battle and a criminal investigation by the Trump I Justice Department. Bolton claimed at the time, with compelling evidence, that he was being singled out and retaliated against by the Trump White House for his Trump criticism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After failing to stop the books publication ahead of the 2020 election, the Trump I DOJ opened a grand jury investigation into whether Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information in the book. It subpoenaed Boltons publisher and agency, the NYT reported then. The following summer, under President Biden, the investigation of Bolton was closed and the government dropped its lawsuit seeking to recoup profits from the book, the NYT reported contemporaneously. Its unclear whether the trumped-up investigation of Bolton now is a result of the original book investigation being reopened probably the easiest path to targeting Bolton or is related to other matters. Regardless of the pretext, Bolton has already been targeted by Trump abusing the powers of his office during his second term. As soon as he took office in January, Trump revoked the Secret Service protection for Bolton that Biden had restored, despite an ongoing threat to Bolton from Iran. At the same time, one of Trumps very first executive orders on Jan. 20 revoked the security clearance for Bolton, specifically citing the book dispute: National security is also damaged by the publication of classified information. Former National Security Advisor John R. Bolton published a memoir for monetary gain after he was terminated from his White House position in 2019. The book was rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government. The memoirs reckless treatment of sensitive information undermined the ability of future presidents to request and obtain candid advice on matters of national security from their staff. Publication also created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed. This is almost too fine of a distinction to make, but its worth noting that unlike some of the bogus investigations the Trump White House and DOJ have pursued, where the threat of criminal prosecution is the cudgel, a search warrant requires a judges signoff. Judicial oversight is the one of the remaining safeguards against a fully weaponized federal law enforcement apparatus, but that alone doesnt render the entire investigation legitimate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The politicization of this investigation was further confirmed by curiously timed social media posts from FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi this morning that didnt mention Bolton by name but seemed to revel in the FBI raid. In his own book in 2023, Patel included Bolton in a list of members of the Executive Branch Deep State. The Latest Injustice of Ed Martin Trump DOJ weaponization chieftain took the bogus investigation of Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook to a new level yesterday when he sent a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell urging him to fire her: At this time, I encourage you to remove Ms. Cook from your Board. Do it today before it is too late! After all, no American thinks it is appropriate that she serve during this time with a cloud hanging over her. Judge: Alina Habba Not Lawfully Appointed An outside judge brought in after President Trump rejected the U.S. attorney picked by federal judges in New Jersey and purported to reinstall Alina Habba has ruled that she has been acting unlawfully in the role since July 1. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann, the chief judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, took a long, meandering stroll through the byzantine appointment laws and concluded that indictments handed down during Habbas unlawful tenure were still valid but agreed with the criminal defendants who challenged Habbas appointment and disqualified her from participating in their prosecutions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Brann wont have the last word on this issue, and one of the leading experts on appointment laws has doubts that his decision will hold up on appeal. For Your Radar The Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia abruptly resigned this week after just barely a month on the job. Todd Gilbert, who was Trumps nominee for the position and was serving as interim U.S. attorney while the Senate considered his nomination, had stepped down in June from his seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in order to join the Trump administration. Neither Gilbert nor the Justice Department is commenting on why he resigned. Gilbert posted a wry tweet on his last day in the office: NY Appeals Court: No Penalty at all for Trumps Fraud In a convoluted 300-plus-page clusterfuck of opinions, a split New York state appeals court panel upheld the civil fraud verdict that Attorney General Letitia James won against Donald Trump but voided the $500 million in penalties as excessive. If I read the opinions right, the court left no penalties intact for the fraud most of the judges agreed occurred. The case is all but certain to go now to the highest court in New York. SCOTUS Lets Rogue Trump Run Rampant With Caveats In a deeply troubling emergency decision that cements a pernicious Trump II pattern, a 5-4 Supreme Court cleared the way for President Trump to cancel some $800 million in National Institutes of Health grants for research on DEI, transgender issues, and COVID while the case proceeds. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in dissent. Justice Amy Coney Barrett signaled her concerns with the underlying merits of Trumps funding cuts, but by the time the court gets the case back on full appeal the damage to research and research institutions will have been done. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson summoned all the indignation and despair that the historical moment demands in calling out the Supreme Court for failing to defend the judiciarys role and rolling over for Trump: This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins. Cult of Personality Alert Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know! Robert F Kennedy Jr and Mehmet Oz have failed in their efforts to spare the lives of 400 ostriches at a farm infected with avian flu. A panel of three judges in Canada dismissed the appeal of Karen Espersen and Dave Bilinski, the owners of Universal Ostrich Farms, 55 miles north of the US border. Mr Kennedy, the US health secretary and Dr Oz, director of the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), joined a raft of activists fighting for the cull to be stopped. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The mass slaughter had been ordered by the Canadian authorities after the highly contagious disease was detected in two bird carcases at the 65-acre farm in Edgewood, British Columbia. A federal court upheld the ruling despite hundreds of protesters descending on the farm to plead for the birds to be spared. The farms owners resisted the demands for a cull, saying the remainder of the flock was healthy. The farms owners claimed the remainder of the flock was healthy - The Canadian Press / Alamy Stock Photo While Dr Oz offered sanctuary to the remainder of the flock at his 900-acre ranch in Okeechobee, Florida, Mr Kennedy made a personal appeal to Paul McKinnon, the president of the Canadian food inspection agency. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We believe the decision to cull the entire flock of approximately 400 ostriches made nearly six months after the positive test results will not influence the current health status of the surviving birds, Mr Kennedy wrote. Further, because Avian influenza has been around for thousands of years and is endemic in wild bird populations in the United States and Canada, efforts to extirpate it by culling birds will be fruitless unless we are willing to exterminate every wild bird in North America. Mr Kennedy added: The indiscriminate destruction of entire flocks without up-to-date testing and evaluation can have significant consequences, including the loss of valuable genetic stock that may help explain risk factors for HN51 mortality. This may be important for agricultural resilience. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The farm said it was not giving up the fight to save the birds and urged supporters to gather at the farm this weekend. A website urged people to back the campaign to save the ostriches It appealed to them to stand against destruction and shine a light of love. Katie Pasitney, speaking on behalf of the farm, described the ruling as devastating, adding that everything was on the table in the campaign to save the ostriches. Writing on Facebook, she added: For 219 days, our flock has remained strong, vibrant, and healthy. The CFIA has not set foot on our farm in over five months, but still claims there is a threat here. In a brief statement, the Canadian agency said its responsibility was to minimise the impact on the Canadian poultry industry. It also declined to give details on when the cull will take place. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Robert F Kennedy Jrs allies are strategising to ensure he can carry on as health and human services (HHS) secretary in the next administration, no matter who the next president may be. Maha (Make American Healthy Again) Action, a non-profit linked to Mr Kennedy, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on adverts promoting the former presidential candidates achievements in Donald Trumps cabinet. It is also training lobbyists and spokesmen who can be deployed across the country to support Maga-aligned candidates in the 2026 midterms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Once denounced as a fringe anti-vaxxer, Mr Kennedy won the support of Americans concerned about overreach from the pharmaceutical industry and so-called crunchy moms during his 2024 presidential campaign. After ending his campaign and endorsing Mr Trump, Mr Kennedy launched the Make America Healthy Again movement a spin on Mr Trumps Make America Great Again movement. RFK Jr ended his campaign before endorsing Donald Trump in the 2024 election - Alex Brandon/Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The 71-year-old HHS secretary, last week ruled out running for president in 2028 amid speculation that he was laying the groundwork for another White House bid. Tony Lyons, president of Maha Action, said the groups plan is to expand Maha to ensure Mr Kennedy will be able to continue his work as HHS beyond 2028. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Bobby Kennedy has said himself, he has no plans to run for president in 2028. That being said, we desperately need him to continue his work as HHS secretary into the next administration, Mr Lyons told The Telegraph. Asked whether running for the 2028 election could be a nuclear option if the presumptive Republican nominee cooled on Mr Kennedy, Mr Lyons said that would not be possible. By then Maha will be so big and so powerful that it would be to a candidates political detriment not to work with Secretary Kennedy, he said. Tony Lyon says RFK Jr is desperately needed to continue his work as HHS secretary Now Maha Action has launched an influencer hub which consists of online meetings with guest speakers that have so far included Russell Brand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The meetings have increased in numbers from 40 attendees in the first call, to around 1,600 in the most recent event, Mr Lyons said. Maha Action is also planning to launch a national tour across 41 cities to promote its message and meet state senators, governors and activists. It has also gone on a media blitz, having just spent $700,000 on an advert to promote the administrations health agenda. Another slate of short commercials made by a Los Angeles filmmaker are currently in the works. Andrew Smith, political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said such political manoeuvring is enterprising, but its not surprising. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anytime you build an organisation like that you can leverage that politically, that, you know, thats the whole point of politics, is to build groups of people that you can use in order to achieve electoral success, he said. It may be helpful in encouraging some people to say, well, you know, Kennedys got this group over here, and if hes not running for president in 2028 well, maybe Ill use that, but I think most importantly for 2026 for that midterm election, he will be looking for people who can support him, or candidates that he can support who are going to owe him something if he should run in 2028, Mr Smith said. He added: You want to build a machine, build an organisation that you can use both for yourself, possibly, but also lend it to other people so theyll support you down the road. RFK JR would like to be president Mr Kennedy has insisted he is not planning to run in 2028, but others have broken similar pledges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Politicians who ruled themselves out before going on to launch presidential campaigns include Barack Obama, who said he would not run for president in 2006. David Karol, politics professor at University of Maryland, said he would not be surprised if Mr Kennedy has ambitions to run for the White House in the future. I think he would like to be president, he came from a family in which that seemed like a plausible aspiration... then his presidential campaign wasnt successful in the sense that obviously he wasnt elected, and he wasnt the nominee of a major party, and he ended his independent candidacy, but it did get him into the cabinet, and he had been in democratic politics for years, he said. He added: I think theres no reason to believe that he doesnt want to be president... even if its not likely, if he does have some support, then yes, he could potentially strike a deal with the eventual nominee, because I think its unlikely that he will be the nominee. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Lyons, however, doubled down on Mr Kennedys claim that he has no interest in a presidential run. Secretary Kennedy told me recently he believes he is doing the work right now that he was put on this planet to do. He doesnt need to be president. He needs to continue doing exactly what President Trump has asked him to do, he said. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Vanessa Volz, the CEO and president of Sojourner House, describes the recent death of 18-year-old Kylee Monteiro as an unnecessary tragedy. This kind of tragedy really can be prevented, and we should not allow it to happen in our society, she told 12 News. The Bristol County District Attorneys Office announced this week that Monteiros 22-year-old boyfriend, Gregory Groom of Rehoboth, has been charged with her murder after she was reported missing nearly two weeks ago. Monteiros family said she was 11 weeks pregnant at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If I die, it was Greg: Texts from missing woman read during murder arraignment Volz said the most common cause of death for a pregnant woman in the United States is homicide. Research from Harvard found the deadly pattern is linked to intimate partner violence and firearms. Sojourner House, a Providence-based organization focused on providing everything from housing to mental health services for victims and survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence, and human trafficking, serves 2,000 people each year. But data from the nonprofit shows 60% of people who use Sojourner Houses services are under the age of 24. Volz said thats why the organization has specialized programs to support people between 18 and 24. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abuse can be very isolating anyway, and that age range in particular can feel very isolating, she said. But like all of Sojourner Houses programs, Volz said, it unfortunately has a waitlist. I often feel like Im pushing a really large boulder up a hill that keeps getting bigger, she said, adding that the weight got heavier when she learned about Monteiros death. It could have been prevented if, as a society, we were more conscious and aware about the dynamics of abusive patterns, and if we had more resources, she said. Monteiros family had created a GoFundMe to spread awareness of her disappearance, but is now using it to raise money for her funeral costs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A candlelight vigil will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday near the Gazebo at Redway Plain. The address is 401 Winthrop St. in Rehoboth, which is off Route 44. Anyone in need of Sojourner Houses services can call the organizations 24/7 helpline at 401-765-3232. If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, seek help immediately: National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 Rhode Island Helpline RI: 800-494-8100 Blackstone Valley Advocacy Center: 800-494-8100 Elizabeth Buffum Chace Center: 401-738-1700 Womens Resource Center: 401-846-5263 Crossroads RI: 401-861-2760 DVRC of South County: 401-782-3990 Massachusetts SafeLink: 877-785-2020 SSTAR Womens Center: 508-675-0087 The Womens Center: 508-999-6636 New Hope: 800-323-HOPE (4673) Health Imperatives: 508-588-TALK (8255) Jane Doe Inc.: 617-248-0922 Download the WPRI 12 and Pinpoint Weather 12 apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app. Follow us on social media: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Special Coverage & Notices Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 22ARMOUR, S.D. Each August, the rumble of engines and the open road become a tribute to a young man whose life ended far too soon. The HRH Memorial Ride, now in its fifth year, was started by Tim Harrington to honor his son, Hunter Ray Harrington, who died unexpectedly at the age of 22 in 2019. Hunter died on May 31, 2019, two months after returning home to Armour from Advanced Individual Training (AIT) with the Army National Guard. He had completed his military training in Virginia and started working as a truck driver for a local company. In the wake of Hunter's death, his father Tim channeled his grief into their shared passion motorcycles. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Tim always pictured riding Harley Davidsons with Hunter," said his wife, Dionne Harrington. "Starting this ride was his way of keeping that dream alive." The memorial ride, held this year on Saturday, Aug. 23, starts annually at The Blue Moon in Armour, with riders on motorcycles, in cars, or truck gathering to pay tribute to Hunter. This year's ride will cover 155 miles, winding through Spencer, Nebraska, then onto The Dock in Running Water, SD, and Pad 71 in Wagner, before returning to Armour. "Every year, Tim carefully picks a new route," Dionne said. "It's something he pours his heart into. Planning this ride makes him feel like Hunter is right there with him on the bike." Though Hunter never had the chance to buy the Harley he dreamed of he had planned to use his National Guard bonus to purchase his first bike his memory rides on through those who gather each year. Last year saw the largest turnout yet, with around 65 participants. Riders stop at several locations throughout the day, where door prizes and gift cards are raffled off. A Harley Davidson pocket knife, donated annually, has become a prized keepsake for one lucky winner. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dionne described Hunter as a "good-natured kid" with a heart for helping others. Since his death, the family has heard countless stories from those he impacted. "He was always willing to lend a hand, even if he complained a little while doing it," she said. Hunter's dream of serving his country was not easy to achieve. He was initially denied entry to the National Guard twice once for a partially amputated finger and again due to depth perception issues. But he didn't give up. "I'll never forget the day he called and asked if I wanted to watch him get sworn in," Dionne recalled. "He finally did it. It was all he ever wanted." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hunter shared a close bond with his sister, Bailey Reichel, who has participated in the ride every year since its inception. This will be her first year missing the event. The HRH Memorial Ride isn't just about motorcycles, Dionne said it's about community, remembrance, and the legacy of a young man who dreamed big, loved deeply, and left an unforgettable impact. "Hunter would think this ride is the best thing ever," Dionne said. "He'd say, 'Dude... this is effing sweet. Let's ride, boys.'" In addition to the ride, the community also honors Hunter through a scholarship fund supported by the Armour Gun Club and fundraising efforts like a student-led memorial ride organized by Armour High School senior Riley Spaans in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For Dionne and Tim, the HRH Ride is more than an event it's a tradition. "We are blessed with a supportive community," Dionne said. "And as long as we're able, we'll keep riding for Hunter." It was once heralded as one of Scotlands biggest success stories, but the bad news just keeps coming for BrewDog. Reports this week revealed the companys beers have been axed by almost 2,000 pubs across Britain in the past two years, with industry insiders saying the firm has become irrelevant. The news came just weeks after the brewer announced it was shutting 10 of its own bars across Britain, admitting it had proved impossible to make them commercially viable. It has been a turbulent time of late for the brand. But perhaps most glaringly of all for its co-founder and so-called captain, James Watt, who has fallen from industry hero to a figure of controversy and even, occasionally, ridicule. Watt, 43, stepped down as BrewDog CEO in May 2024, ending involvement in its day-to-day operations after 17 years at the helm. His tenure featured glittering highs, as his company took the emerging craft beer industry by storm, followed by grim lows, such as an open letter published in 2021 by more than 100 former BrewDog employees, who alleged it was a toxic workplace with a culture of fear. The following year, Watt himself was accused of behaving inappropriately with female staff, which he vehemently denied. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The toxicity that appears to have built up around Watt, who retains a 21 per cent stake in the company, and the wider brand marks a staggering shift for a company once seen as one of modern Britains major start-up success stories, but which is now battling to engineer a turnaround under new management. Watt, who grew up in the fishing port of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, and attended Edinburgh University, was just 24 when he founded BrewDog with school friend Martin Dickie in 2007. Its hard to overstate how fresh and exciting BrewDog was, says beer writer Laura Hadland. It was young and cool. Fellow beer writer Melissa Cole concurs. [BrewDog] felt like exactly what the UK beer market needed, she says. James Watt puts himself forward as the prime example of how to work punishing hours while maintaining your health - Ed Hill/PA Media Assignments Watt and Dickie brewed their products in small batches, filling the bottles themselves and selling them from the back of a van. Their breakout beer, Punk IPA, quickly proved a winner. As Hadland explains, it was heavily inspired by the US craft scene that gave an intense flavour hit. Watt had quit his job as a trainee solicitor after just two weeks and become a fisherman like his father, before turning to beer and to splashy publicity stunts. With the birth of BrewDog, he quickly became the darling of branding, says PR expert Mark Borkowski. He turbo-charged the companys success. The speed of its rise was incredible. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2009, BrewDog vied with a German brewery to release the strongest beer ever made, eventually topping its rival with the colourfully named Sink the Bismarck, a 41 per cent IPA. That year also saw BrewDog hire a dwarf to carry placards around Westminster as part of its lobbying efforts to have a two-thirds measure (or a schooner) introduced in pubs. Other wild stunts included Watt and Dickie driving a tank down Camden High Street, and releasing a beer, containing herbal Viagra, called Royal Virility Performance, to mark Prince William and Kate Middletons marriage. In 2020, BrewDog released a special-edition brew in honour of Dominic Cummings: the Barnard Castle Eye Test. But other gambits failed spectacularly, like the 2018 release of Pink IPA a beer for girls. Such stunts began leaving a bad taste in the mouth for many in the industry, says Hadland. The red flag for me was when it became clear that James was going to take the strategy wed seen with American brewers like Greg Koch: making it a cult of personality, says Cole. Thats all very well, unless the personality doesnt have the introspection to handle the attention. As the company grew, it also proved difficult for BrewDog to maintain its image as a rebellious upstart. In 2017, private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners invested 213 million in the firm in exchange for a 23 per cent stake, valuing the company at almost 1 billion, after which it embarked on a rapid global expansion. Its a problem that challenger brands face, observes Borkowski, as they try to re-create the energy of disruption. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A more serious blow to its reputation came in 2021, with the open letter from more than 100 BrewDog employees. It claimed that a significant number of former staff had suffered mental illness as a result of working at BrewDog and that the firm was built around a cult of Watt and Dickies personalities. It also alleged that, despite the founders proclamations about their environmental aims, the company chartered a private jet and that the much-publicised employee perk of pawternity leave for new dog owners was never actually granted. But the letter singled out Watt for particular criticism, saying: It is with you that the responsibility for this rotten culture lies. Your attitude and actions are at the heart of the way BrewDog is perceived, from both inside and out. He responded by saying BrewDog was sorry, and promised to listen, learn and act. As a fast-growing business, we have always tried to do the best by our team we do have thousands of employees with positive stories to tell as a result, Watt said. But... on many occasions we havent got it right. A year later, further damaging claims were made in a 2022 BBC documentary titled The Truth about BrewDog. Both current and former employees accused Watt, who had split from his wife and the mother of his two daughters, Johanna Basford, in 2020, of personal misconduct and abuse of power, alleging he made female bartenders feel uncomfortable to the extent that they had been advised how to avoid unwelcome attention from him. Managers were said to have tried to ensure certain members of staff were not working when Watt visited an outpost. He was also accused of taking intoxicated female customers on late-night brewery tours. Watt pictured at BrewDogs brewery and office headquarters in Ellon, Scotland, in 2015 - Simon Price/Alamy Stock Photo Watt refuted the allegations and complained to Ofcom, dismissing the documentary as a hatchet job. The watchdog later ruled that he had not, however, been treated unfairly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite Watts denials of wrongdoing, for some, the damage was done. If you start your company by saying Were not nasty big business and then you announce that youre no longer paying your employees the real living wage [as BrewDog did in 2024], it looks hypocritical, says Cole. Whether its a question of [the founders] ego, an inability to cede control or just being out of their depth, BrewDog never built a solid foundation. I dont think there was ever an idea of how to build a big business just how to build a cult. Despite stepping down as CEO last year, Watt has very much remained in the public eye ever since. And he has continued to court controversy. In January, he sparked widespread anger after citing academic research which suggested Britain is a workshy nation and posting on Instagram I dont believe in work-life balance. Indeed, Borkowski warns he may have lost touch with how he is perceived by much of the public. Hes proud of being a pull yourself up by the bootstraps guy, but that can tip over into arrogance. Watt puts himself forward as the prime example of how to work punishing hours while maintaining your health. But his attempt to carve himself out as something of a wellness influencer has resulted in often bizarre, out-of-touch publicity, like a picture he posted to Instagram in February showing him attending a work Zoom meeting while in his hyperbaric oxygen chamber looking, he admitted, like a Bond villain. He boasted in the same post that he also takes meetings from his ice bath and answers calls in the sauna. Watt also appears to have ambitions to become a TV star. In January, he announced a new reality show for budding entrepreneurs, House of Unicorns, with a mammoth prize pot of 2 million (with Watt investing 1 million of his own money) although there has been no news as yet of an air date. In an Instagram post Watt listed 8 reasons why Unicorns are better than Dragons. If that sounds like sour grapes, it may be so: Dragons Den turned him down twice, as both a contestant and a Dragon. Watt told The Times in January he has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder regarding the BBC show. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The entrepreneurs whirlwind romance with Georgia Toffolo, 30, who rose to fame on reality show Made in Chelsea, has also raised eyebrows. The pair were set up by a mutual friend in 2023, and got married this March. Unsurprisingly, given that Toffolos career is based on sharing her life with fans, their relationship is constantly splashed across social media. Watt has attempted to harness that publicity, publishing videos with his partner that promote his latest venture, the social media business Social Tip which gives a financial reward to people who post online about certain brands. However, if hed hoped that her stardust would rub off on him, it seems the opposite is happening. A TV insider who worked on Made in Chelsea says: Toff is adored because shes a sunny personality. She charmed everyone when she was on Im A Celebrity [in 2017] people loved her friendship with Stanley Johnson. They didnt care about the politics of it. But there was a definite backlash when Toffolo and Watt attended Nigel Farages 60th birthday party in 2024. Watt had previously called Brexit an unmitigated disaster. One former BrewDog fan said on social media: You are a liability for this company. Not one penny more of my money will go to BrewDog. The TV insider says: Toff always skated past that sort of flak. I wonder if Watt is now toxifying her brand. Her glossy influencer lifestyle and his punk image dont seem to mix. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The couple further alienated fans with a TikTok video on Valentines Day this year, in which Toffolo revealed they do a quarterly review of their relationship addressing areas of improvement. One commenter branded their business-style relationship unbearable and obnoxious, while another called it controlling. Borkowski thinks Watt is now dangerously overexposed. In a supposedly jokey video published by the couple this July, Watt said Toffolo had leapt into a higher tax bracket by saying I do. Toffolo, meanwhile, said he was someone Ive rebranded, and both accused the other of constantly Googling themselves. The clip quickly became an object of ridicule. One commenter said: I fear nobody likes you both as much as you do. All of which is bad news for Watt, but also for BrewDog. Hes absolutely 100 per cent intrinsically wrapped up in the brand, says Cole. There is the very strong likelihood that he is the anchor that could drag it to the bottom. BrewDog, for its part, is clearly determined that will not be the case. In a statement to The Telegraph, the company said it was putting more pints into consumers hands than ever before, adding distribution ... remains extremely strong, and growing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Watt himself told The Telegraph: I have a boundless passion for innovation, disruption and risk-taking. I am immensely proud of what we achieved with BrewDog and now Im focused on new ventures as an investor and entrepreneur. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. RIVIERA BEACH Police in Riviera Beach are conducting a homicide investigation after a man was found dead in his home on the morning of Aug. 21. According to a police statement, officers responded at about 9 a.m. to a call at a residence on the 1000 block of West 26th Court, near West Blue Heron Boulevard and President Barack Obama Highway. Upon arriving, the officers found 61-year-old Lorenzo Pugh dead inside. Investigators classified Pugh's death as a homicide, but did not indicate a motive or specify how he was killed. There have been no arrests. However, investigators say there is no threat to the community. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Man, 61, found dead in Riviera Beach homicide; police investigating The Republican National Committee on Friday elected President Donald Trump's candidate of choice, Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters, by unanimous voice vote. Gruters' ascendency underscores the RNC's commitments to boosting those who share Trump's political vision as the White House zeros in on its priorities ahead of the midterms. The position had been left open by departing chairman Michael Whatley, who last month launched a bid for retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis' Senate seat. While co-signing Whatley's campaign on his social media site, Trump offered his "complete and total endorsement" to Gruters, who he said would do a "wonderful" job as chairman. Wilfredo Lee/AP, FILE - PHOTO: In this April 30, 2021, file photo, Florida Senator Joe Gruters looks on during a legislative session at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. Trump's backing cleared the prospective field instantly and Gruters ran unopposed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MORE: GOP Sen. Tillis won't run for reelection after Trump primary threat Whatley also gave Gruters his stamp of approval to replace him. Gruters chaired the Florida GOP from 2019 to 2023 and Republicans told ABC News he was mission-critical in eliminating Democrats' voter registration advantage in the state. After the 2018 election, Democrats had a voter advantage of 263,269. Yet, in the fall of 2022, Republicans expanded their reach, leading voter registration by 292,533 voters a near 556,000 registered voter swing, per PBS. "You're registering almost a million new Republicans in Florida. That was what Joe's chairmanship was, kind of the hallmark of what he was able to do after Joe's chairmanship, Florida slipped from battleground status," said Scott Golden, a longtime friend of Gruters, who currently chairs the Tennessee Republican Party. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And Golden noted that Gruters, who is currently the RNC's treasurer, is a "terrific, terrific" fundraiser, another key trait for a party chairman. Alex Wong/Getty Images, FILE - PHOTO: In this Feb. 21, 2025, file photo, Chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Whatley speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. "I think everybody feels very comfortable that he's going to do a very good job as Chairman. He's a great analyst, a CPA by trade. Obviously, Florida is a great proving ground for politics," said Golden. "I think most members around the country recognize that and know that he knows what he's doing. He will run the party competently and make sure that all the resources are on the field to make us successful in '26." Gruters was one of the earliest backers of Trump, throwing his support behind him way back in 2016. Trump paid the favor back and endorsed Gruters' state Senate re-election run in 2022, and boosted him once again, this time to be Florida's chief financial officer, noting the pair's long history. MORE: RNC Chair Michael Whatley launches North Carolina Senate bid Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Joe was on the 'Trump Train' before it even left the station," Trump wrote on social media in May 2024. "As a State Senator and Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Joe has done more than anyone to help turn Florida RED, and elect Republicans across the State." While Gruters faced nearly no public opposition from members of the committee and members of the president's political orbit he does have one public detractor: Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis. During a news conference where DeSantis offered support to the candidate that would ultimately become Florida's chief financial officer, he slammed Gruters. "Joe Gruters has taken major positions that are totally contrary from what our voter base wants to do," DeSantis said during the July event. "So, if George Washington rose from the dead and came back and tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Will you appoint Joe Gruters CFO?' My response would be 'no.'" Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Though Gruters told local publication Florida Politics, he is open to mending fences. ABC News has reached out to DeSantis for comment. Alex Brandon/AP - PHOTO: President Donald Trump participates in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in the East Room of the White House, Aug. 18, 2025, in Washington. Veteran Republican political strategist Brett Doster told ABC that Trump not only gets a fundraiser, but a fighter, in Gruters. "I've known Joe for more than 20 years now - since before he was elected to the state house. Joe took a big risk and went with Trump back in 2015 when almost every leader in Florida, out of personal loyalty, was sticking with either Jeb or Marco," Doster said. "With Joe Gruters as GOP chairman, Trump gets a practiced mouthpiece who will go to war for the administration on the Sunday shows and will keep the RNC rigidly fixed on the Trump - Wiles playbook for the midterms. Gruters will be undistracted by Congressional or Senate power plays." Scattered in python hot spots among the cypress and sawgrass of South Florida is the states newest weapon in its arsenal to battle the invasive serpent, a mechanical lure meant to entice the apex predator to its ultimate demise. Just dont call it the Energizer bunny. Researchers at the University of Florida have outfitted 40 furry toy rabbits with motors and tiny heaters that work together to mimic the movements and body temperature of a marsh rabbit a favorite python meal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They spin. They shake. They move randomly, and their creation is based on more than a decade of scientific review that began with a 2012 study that transported rabbits into Everglades National Park to see if, and how quickly, they would become python prey. The rabbits didnt fare well, said Robert McCleery, a UF professor of wildlife ecology and conservation who is leading the robot bunny study that launched this summer. Subsequent studies revealed that pythons are drawn to live rabbits in pens with an average python attraction rate of about one python per week. But having multiple live rabbits in multiple pens spread across a formidable landscape is cumbersome and requires too much manpower to care for them. So, why not robot bunnies? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We want to capture all of the processes that an actual rabbit would give off, McCleery said. But Im an ecologist. Im not someone who sits around making robots. Instead, colleague Chris Dutton, also a UF ecology professor but more mechanically adept, pulled the stuffing out of a toy rabbit and replaced it with 30 electronic components that are solar-powered and controlled remotely so that researchers can turn them on and off at specific times. The rabbits were placed in different areas of South Florida in July 2025 for a test phase that includes a camera programmed to recognize python movement and alert researchers when one nears the rabbit pen. One of the biggest challenges was waterproofing the bunnies so that the correct temperature could still be radiated. Python challenge: Why state recommends not eating Florida pythons Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McCleery was reluctant to give specifics on where the rabbit pens are located. I dont want people hunting down my robo-bunnies, he said. Version 2.0 of the study will add bunny scent to the stuffed rabbits if motion and heat arent enough to fool the snakes. State efforts to mitigate python proliferation have included a myriad of efforts with varying degrees of success. Renowned snake hunters from the Irula tribe in India were brought in to hunt and share their skills. There have been tests using near-infrared cameras for python detection, special traps designed, and pythons are tracked by the DNA they shed in water, with radio telemetry, and with dogs. Also, the annual Florida Python Challenge has gained legendary status, attracting hundreds of hunters each year vying for the $10,000 grand prize. A heat sensitive image of a robotic rabbit that moves like a live rabbit and gives off a similar body temperature. University of Florida researchers are testing to see if invasive Burmese pythons are attracted to the robot bunnies. This years challenge ran from July 11 through July 20. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But possibly the highest profile python elimination program is the 100 bounty hunters who work for the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The hunters have removed an estimated 15,800 snakes since 2019 and were called the most effective management strategy in the history of the issue by district invasive animal biologist Mike Kirkland. A toy stuffed rabbit was retrofitted with mechanics and a heater that make it move like a real rabbit and give off a similar body temperature. University of Florida researchers are experimenting with the robot bunny to see if it attracts invasive Burmese pythons. Kirkland oversees the districts hunters. He gave a presentation July 7 to the Big Cypress Basin Board with updates on python removal that included McCleerys robo-bunny experiment, which the district is paying for. Its projects like (McCleerys) that can be used in areas of important ecological significance where we can entice the pythons to come out of their hiding places and come to us, Kirkland said at the board meeting. It could be a bit of a game changer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Burmese python invasion started with releases intentional or not that allowed them to gain a foothold in Everglades National Park by the mid-1980s, according to the 2021 Florida Python Control plan. By 2000, multiple generations of pythons were living in the park, which is noted in a more than 100-page 2023 report that summarized decades of python research. Pythons have migrated north from the park, with some evidence suggesting they may be able to survive as far north as Georgia if temperatures continue to warm and more pythons learn to burrow during cold snaps. More: Snake hunters catch 95% of pythons they see. Help sought to kill the ones that are hiding In Palm Beach County, 69 pythons have been captured since 2006, according to the Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System, or EDDMapS. In addition, four have been found dead, and 24 sightings have been reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Big Cypress Basin board member Michelle McLeod called McCleerys project a genius idea that eliminates the extra work it would take to manage live rabbits. McCleery said hes pleased that the water management district and FWC, which has paid for previous studies, are willing to experiment. Our partners have allowed us to trial these things that may sound a little crazy, McCleery said. Working in the Everglades for 10 years, you get tired of documenting the problem. You want to address it. McCleery said researchers did not name the robot rabbits, although he did bring one home that needed repair. His son named it Bunbun. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate, weather, and the environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: To fight python explosion in Florida, UF uses robot rabbits Aug. 22The Rock Falls Police Department recently announced it will increase enforcement for Labor Day through the statewide "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over," "Drive High Get a DUI" and "Click It or Ticket" campaigns. The campaigns will run through Tuesday, Sept. 2. The department is increasing its efforts to focus on stopping dangerous driving habits. The "Click It or Ticket" campaign will focus on seat belt law enforcement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Driving under the influence whether it's alcohol, cannabis or any impairing drug is not just risky, it's illegal," Rock Falls Police Chief David Pilgrim said in a news release. "We'll be patrolling with zero tolerance for impaired driving, because our goal is to protect the people of Rock Falls." Police officers also will be searching for drivers impaired by alcohol, cannabis and drugs. "We want our community to enjoy the holiday weekend safely and responsibly," Pilgrim also said in the news release. "Plan ahead, use a designated driver, and never get behind the wheel impaired. These decisions save lives." The campaigns reinforce the Illinois Department of Transportation's "It's Not a Game" media campaign highlighting impaired driving's consequences. The "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" and "Click It or Ticket" campaigns are funded by federal highway safety funds administered by the Illinois Department of Transportation. CAIRO (AP) The United Nations mission in Libya said a rocket struck near its headquarters in the countrys largely lawless western region while the UN envoy was briefing the Security Council. No casualties were reported after the rocket was launched late Thursday in the vicinity of the missions compound in the Mediterranean city of Janzour, 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) west of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, the UN mission said in a statement. The compound was not impacted, the UN said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Interior Ministry of the Tripoli-based government said it folied an attempt to target the UN mission's headquarters with a Russian-made SPG rocket, which hit a civilian house with no casualties. The ministry is investigating to determine the identity of the rocket operators. Security forces found a vehicle carrying two other rockets of the same type, as well as the rockets launcher, the government said. The attack occurred as UN envoy Hanna Tetteh was briefing the Security Council on the situation in the North African nation. She offered a road map for Libya that includes establishing a new unified government, capable of creating a conducive environment for credible elections while managing key governance functions effectively. We are convinced that the political process should focus on guaranteeing general elections and the unification of institutions through a sequenced approach, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Libya was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country has been fragmented for years between rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. The country is now governed by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbehibas government in Tripoli and the administration of Prime Minister Ossama Hammad in eastern Libya. A tour bus returning to New York City from Niagara Falls with 54 people aboard crashed and rolled on its side Friday on an interstate highway, killing five passengers and injuring many others, authorities said. The driver apparently became distracted, lost control and overcorrected before the bus went into the right shoulder and flipped over shortly before 12:30 p.m. on the eastbound side of Interstate 90 in Pembroke, New York, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Buffalo, state police Maj. Andre Ray said at an evening news conference. He did not say how the driver became distracted, adding that the cause remains under investigation. Ray said the passengers ranged in age from 1 to 74. Multiple people were ejected from the bus during the crash, and five people all adults were pronounced dead at the scene, Ray said. Many others became entrapped in the wreck and were rescued. Dozens were taken to hospitals. Ray said it didn't appear any other people had life-threatening injuries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An absolute tragedy took place, Ray said. And first and foremost, our thoughts, prayers and hearts go out to those involved, their friends and their families. State police said most of the passengers on the bus were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino ethnicity, and authorities brought in translators to help with the emergency response. Ray said a preliminary investigation ruled out mechanical failure or driver impairment. The driver survived the crash and was cooperating with police, officials said. No charges had been filed as of Friday evening, Ray said. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to New York to investigate the crash. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Mercy Flight medical transport service said its three helicopters and three more from other services transported people from the crash site. Hospitals in the region said they evaluated or treated more than 40 people. Injuries ranged from head trauma to broken arms and legs. Two people who needed surgery at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo were expected to recover, said Dr. Jeffrey Brewer, chief of surgery. State police said the bus was owned by M&Y Tour Inc. in the New York City borough of Staten Island. A message seeking comment was left at a phone listing for the company. M&Y Tour has a satisfactory safety rating and no record of accidents or fatalities over the past two years, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Officials inspected the company's buses and drivers 60 times over the past two years, the agency said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At an earlier news conference, Trooper James O'Callaghan said it appeared most people on the bus were not wearing seat belts. In response to another bus crash in New York in 2023, a state law requires seat belt use on charter buses built on or after Nov. 28, 2016. The age of the bus in Friday's crash wasn't immediately known. The New York State Thruway Authority said a lengthy stretch of the roadway had been shut down in both directions and drivers were being urged to avoid the area. The westbound lanes were reopened later in the day. People who saw the aftermath of the wreck said glass and people's belongings were scattered on the highway. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was certainly heartbreaking to see, Powell Stephens, of Medina, told WHAM-TV after he drove by the crash. There was a lot of people embracing each other. It looked like people were breaking down. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the accident a tragedy in a post on the social platform X. She said she was briefed on the crash and that her office was working with police and local officials. Our hearts are with their loved ones during this difficult time, the governor said of the victims. ___ An earlier version of this report had an incorrect spelling of Trooper James OCallaghan's last name. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) A garbage truck rollover crash broke a utility pole on Thursday, Aug. 21. The crash occurred on FM 2288 near the North Shore entrance of the San Angelo State Park. At around 4:45, the Grape Creek Volunteer Fire Department posted an update about the rollover, informing drivers that all lanes are open but cautioning them to proceed slowly through the curve. According to the GCVFD, multiple first responders and utility companies will be on the scene for an extended period, working the traffic incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The TGSO on scene reported that this is a non-fatal crash. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. ROME, NY (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) Rome Police arrested a man Thursday afternoon after they led officers on a foot chase and injured another officer. Officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop on the 200 block of North George Street at approximately 1:20 pm on Thursday, August 21. They responded to a male later identified as Edgard Figueroa operating an electric bicycle in violation of several traffic laws. When approached by officers, Figueroa failed to comply and fled on foot with police giving chase. During the chase, an officer was injured while attempting to apprehend Figueroa. After a short chase, police were eventually able to take Figueroa into custody. Figueroa is currently being charged with: third-degree Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance, a Class B Felony, second-degree Assault, a Class D Violent Felony, Tampering with Physical Evidence, a Class E Felony, Resisting Arrest, a Class A Misdemeanor, second-degree Obstruction of Governmental Administration, a Class A Misdemeanor, fourth-degree Criminal Mischief, a Class A Misdemeanor, and multiple Vehicle and Traffic Law Violations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The injured officer was transported to Rome Health for further evaluation. Rome Police say they are currently recovering from their injuries. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WUTR/WFXV - CNYhomepage.com. Following the arrest of a suspected mastermind behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, a decision on his extradition to Germany is expected to be made by September 3. The Italian judiciary has set the date for a decision regarding the 49-year-old Ukrainian suspect after his arrest warrant was confirmed by a judge in the northern Italian city of Bologna. During the custody hearing, the man denied the allegations. He claimed to have been in Ukraine at the time of the attacks on the pipelines in September 2022. At the same time, he resisted being transferred to Germany. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The German Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses the Ukrainian of jointly causing an explosive detonation and anti-constitutional sabotage. For these reasons he is to be put on trial in Germany. Spiegel says he is former Ukrainian secret service agent According to findings by the German authorities, the Ukrainian was part of a group that placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines near the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm in September 2022. He was arrested in the early hours of Thursday in the hinterland of the seaside resort of Rimini on the Italian Adriatic coast. Until a decision on his extradition is made, he remains in pre-trial detention in Italy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the man is a former agent of the Ukrainian secret service SBU. He apparently possesses multiple passports with different identities. Holiday with family in Italy He was apprehended in the municipality of San Clemente in the hinterland of Rimini, where he had been on holiday with his wife and two children, aged 6 and 9, since the beginning of the week. The Italian authorities are investigating whether he may have been involved in attacks on ships in the Mediterranean. The Carabinieri tracked the man through the cross-referencing of registration data: In Italy, every holidaymaker must hand over their documents when checking into a hotel or holiday apartment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was then arrested upon returning from a day trip with his family to his accommodation. According to the police, the man offered no resistance. He had apparently travelled outside Ukraine several times in recent years. Background to the sabotage attack The attack made headlines worldwide. Several explosions damaged the two pipelines so severely that no gas could be transported through them. Leaks were discovered in three of the total four pipelines. Russian natural gas flowed through Nord Stream 1 to Germany. Nord Stream 2 had not yet been operational due to the Russian war against Ukraine. Following the arrest of a suspected mastermind behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, a decision on his extradition to Germany is expected to be made by September 3. The Italian judiciary has set the date for a decision regarding the 49-year-old Ukrainian suspect after his arrest warrant was confirmed by a judge in the northern Italian city of Bologna. During the custody hearing, the man denied the allegations. He claimed to have been in Ukraine at the time of the attacks on the pipelines in September 2022. At the same time, he resisted being transferred to Germany. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The German Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses the Ukrainian of jointly causing an explosive detonation and anti-constitutional sabotage. For these reasons he is to be put on trial in Germany. Spiegel says he is former Ukrainian secret service agent According to findings by the German authorities, the Ukrainian was part of a group that placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines near the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm in September 2022. He was arrested in the early hours of Thursday in the hinterland of the seaside resort of Rimini on the Italian Adriatic coast. Until a decision on his extradition is made, he remains in pre-trial detention in Italy. German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the man is a former agent of the Ukrainian secret service SBU. He apparently possesses multiple passports with different identities. A federal judge has ordered the shutdown of Alligator Alcatraz, the controversial immigrant detention center deep in the Florida Everglades, citing environmental damage and legal violations in its construction. U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams issued the ruling Thursday, directing that no new detainees be sent to the site and that existing detainees be moved within 60 days. The order also requires the dismantling of much of the equipment installed to support the facility and blocks the government from undertaking any new construction at the detention center. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The project creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area, Williams wrote in her order. She concluded that federal immigration enforcement was a key driver of the project, meaning it should have been subject to federal environmental law, a step the state and federal government skipped. The detention center has been plagued by lawsuits and reports of inhumane living conditions, including food contamination, inadequate water access, and extreme temperatures. One Florida State representative told Salon that the center was modern concentration camp, plain and simple, in July. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose lands border the site, challenged the project, warning it threatened wetlands that supply water to South Florida. Williams agreed, saying the state had consulted with no stakeholders or experts and did no evaluation of the environmental risks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A spokesperson for the state attorney generals office said on X that it would seek to appeal the ruling, saying that Williams district was the improper venue for a lawsuit about the center, and that the judge had overstepped her authority. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spokesman told CNN: The deportations will continue until morale improves. In the ruling, the judge notes that officials have been dedicated to preserving the Everglades since its was established as a National Park in 1947. Every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades, Williams wrote. This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises. The injunction is temporary and the legal process will continue. The post Ron DeSantis scoffs at judges order shutting down Alligator Alcatraz appeared first on Salon.com. Ten days of brutal attacks by Sudans paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have left at least 89 people dead in the western region of Darfur, the United Nations High commissioner for human rights says. Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival RSF. The fighting has killed tens of thousands. North Darfurs besieged capital, el-Fasher, has been under siege by the RSF since May last year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The recent RSF attacks occurred between August 11 and August 20 in el-Fasher and the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp, Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for commissioner Volker Turk, said in a Geneva press briefing on Friday. Brutal attacks by the RSF resulted in the killing of at least 89 civilians over a 10-day period up to August 20, the UN human rights office said. We fear the actual number of civilians killed is likely higher, Laurence added. He said such attacks were unacceptable and had to cease immediately. The dead include at least 57 people who were killed in attacks on August 11 and another 32 killed between August 16-20, Laurence said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are particularly horrified that among the most recent spate of civilian killings, 16 appear to have been cases of summary executions, he added. Among the dead were civilians from the African Zaghawa tribe and one from the African Berti tribe. This pattern of attacks on civilians and wilful killings, which are serious violations of international humanitarian law, deepens our concerns about ethnically motivated violence, Laurence said. War marked by gross atrocities El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, is the militarys last stronghold in the sprawling region of Darfur. The RSF has bombed the city for more than a year, and last month, it imposed a total blockade on its hundreds of thousands of people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The RSF has also repeatedly attacked Abu Shouk and another displacement camp, Zamzam, which was once Sudans largest, with more than 500,000 people. The two camps are located outside el-Fasher and were largely emptied after a major RSF attack in April. They have been hit by famine. The current war has killed more than 40,000 people, forced more than 14 million to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country. It has also been marked by gross atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the United Nations and rights groups. The International Criminal Court has said it was also investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Cholera outbreak amidst war Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that regions like el-Fasher have also been experiencing a severe humanitarian and public health crisis, driven by the active conflict and mass displacement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told journalists that all 18 states in Sudan were reporting cholera, with 48,768 cases and 1,094 deaths reported this year up to August 11. He said civilians have been facing severe food shortages, rising malnutrition deaths, and severely limited access to healthcare. Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with bacteria, often from faeces. It can kill within hours when not attended to, though it can be treated with simple oral rehydration, and antibiotics for more severe cases. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European counterparts Thursday the US will participate in post-war security guarantees for Ukraine but that the Trump administration believes Europe should take the lead, according to a European diplomat familiar with the call. During a call with European national security advisers, Rubio, who is also President Donald Trumps acting national security adviser, did not provide details on specific security guarantees to which the US might commit, the diplomat said. But the call, which an administration official confirmed had occurred, adds momentum at a critical time when Europe is eager for continued engagement from the Trump administration, the diplomat said. As Trump has pushed for Ukraine and Russia to reach a peace agreement, negotiations among allies over how to ensure Moscow wont attack again in the future have accelerated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The US has indicated it is open to playing a limited role in providing security guarantees to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached with Russia, which could potentially see US pilots flying manned air support missions, sources familiar with discussions with allies this week told CNN. Trump has ruled out deploying US troops on the ground, but the US and its allies are combing through a range of other options, the sources said. The Europeans have told US officials that one role theyd like to see the US play is continuing to provide military intelligence and surveillance, said the European diplomat familiar with Rubios call on Thursday. The official added that the issue was raised to Trump directly on Monday, when several European leaders visited the White House, and the president appeared receptive but did not make an explicit commitment. Thursdays call included national security advisers from NATO, the European Union, France, the UK, Finland, Italy and Germany, they said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A meeting took place on Wednesday between US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, commander of US European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and defense chiefs from key European nations. A broader NATO defense chiefs meeting was also held Wednesday, led by Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone. The military meetings followed discussions at the White House on Monday between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and several other key European allies. During the meetings, Trump said the US would be involved in Ukraines security but made clear that Europe would be the first line of defense. An official familiar with Wednesdays meetings said the declaration of US involvement changed everything for the planning around Ukraines security guarantees. Military planners from the Coalition of the Willing a key group of Ukrainian allies had already been discussing security for Ukraine, but those discussions had only been able to get so far, because a big unknown to them was, what was the US position? the official said. Still, the official said allies recognize certainly that despite the US involvement, which they acknowledge is still yet to be determined in concrete terms, they have an inherent responsibility for the security of Europe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The meetings on Wednesday came in the wake of multiple significant developments in the war between Ukraine and Russia, after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week and then hosted Zelensky and several other key European leaders at the White House on Monday. The topic of security guarantees for Ukraine was at the center of the meetings on Monday, as Trump said the details would be further worked out with European leaders. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. The two leaders are meeting for peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov (L) and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also joined the meeting. - Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Sitting next to Zelensky in the Oval Office, Trump said while Europe would be the first line of defense for Ukraine, Were going to help them out also. Well be involved. And while he initially left the door open on putting US boots on the ground in Ukraine, he ruled it out the following day during a phone interview with Fox News but suggested the US might consider providing air support. Thus far, that has been the only thing definitively ruled out, the official familiar with Wednesdays meetings told CNN. The options discussed among military leaders and planners this week ranged from US air support unmanned and manned aircraft to what countries are willing to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, what NATO bases would be used, and more. A second source briefed on the meeting also said possible air support has been a primary topic, and that while there is some consternation within the Trump administration about committing US pilots to flying manned air support missions over Ukraine, there is more openness to flying unmanned air support missions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement US pilots could also be called upon to conduct surveillance flights over Ukraine, providing high-resolution imagery of the front line and troop movements, as part of what would be considered an intermediate option that stops short of committing American fighter jets to fly policing missions, two of the sources familiar with ongoing discussions about security guarantees said. Ben Jensen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN that even unmanned aircraft missions would be a significant step because it could keep the question of doubt in Russias mind about how much the US will commit. But unmanned drones are too slow to conduct what are known as scramble missions, a third source familiar with the discussions noted, meaning it would likely fall to other nations to provide additional air assets if that is as far as the US is willing to go. The official familiar with the Wednesday meetings told CNN that some have incorrectly assumed that Trumps comments saying the US would not put boots on the ground in Ukraine also definitively mean there wont be US pilots flying overhead. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And what I would say is, well, the president didnt say that, they said. Ukraine seeks outline of allies security guarantees in coming days Zelensky said Wednesday that Kyiv expects to have an understanding within the next two weeks of exactly what kind of security guarantees allies are prepared to provide in the event of a peace deal. Thirty countries have pledged willingness to provide security guarantees, he said, but not all of those commitments will be military aid. Some countries have committed to just financial support or imposing economic sanctions on Moscow in the event of another Russian attack, Zelensky said. We do not know how many countries are ready for boots on the ground, Zelensky told journalists at a briefing. Some may contribute boots on the ground. Some are ready to provide air defense. Some will cover the skies or conduct aerial patrols for a certain period, using the appropriate aircraft in the required numbers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zelensky said that Trump saying the US would participate in security guarantees reassured other countries who had previously been on the fence. He pointed to Turkey as a country thats now on board to help with security on the Black Sea. Without the coordination of security guarantees for Ukraine by the United States of America, there was some uncertainty among our European colleagues, Zelensky said. Some allies have already messaged what they intend to provide. The UK, France and Germany said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they are prepared to plan an active role, including deploying a reassurance force once fighting has stopped. UK Defense Secretary John Healey said again Wednesday that the UK is ready to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. But while US officials have claimed that their Russian counterparts signaled their willingness to accept security guarantees for Ukraine during Trumps meeting with Putin in Alaska last week, Moscow has since publicly dismissed any security guarantees that Russia wouldnt also have a veto over a condition that would be unacceptable to Kyiv. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moscow wont agree with collective security guarantees negotiated without Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday, adding that Moscow would also want ally China to be part of the security agreement. I am confident that in the West first and foremost in the United States they perfectly understand that discussing the issue of security without the Russian Federation is a utopia, a road to nowhere, Lavrov added. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com When President Trump sat down for a high-stakes meeting in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin, there were two men by his side: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff. When Trump phoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders from Air Force One after the meeting, it was Witkoff and Rubio sitting nearby in a photo released by the White House of the call. They have emerged as the key players shaping foreign policy in the second Trump administration and have been at the center of efforts in recent weeks to pursue an end to the war in Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The two bring differing backgrounds and experience: Rubio is a former senator and presidential candidate whose name has been floated as a potential GOP nominee in 2028. In a significant signal of his importance to the president, he also serves as national security adviser, making him only the second person in U.S. history to hold that dual-hatted role. Witkoff is a businessman, personal friend and business partner to Trump. With no prior government experience, the president dispatched Witkoff early on as the point person in talks to free hostages held by Hamas and craft a ceasefire acceptable to Israel, and to meet face-to-face with Putin. He is the only one of Trumps special envoys to receive a swearing-in ceremony at the White House. Witkoff started out as Trumps special envoy for the Middle East, then special envoy for Russia, before taking on the more expanded title of special envoy for peace missions, a nod to his role in securing a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I think that its good they come from different backgrounds and bring different expertise to the table, said Leslie Shedd, a former spokesperson with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and president of Rising Communications. I dont necessarily think thats why the president picked them, though. He selected them primarily because he trusts them and feels like they understand his vision and have been relentless in pursuing that. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Critics of Trump, Rubio and Witkoff have emerged throughout the second Trump administration. Democrats have expressed regret about voting to confirm Rubio as secretary of State. Some former government officials have questioned Witkoffs lack of expertise. And many Trump critics have suggested he is getting played by Putin, who wants to drag out the war in Ukraine. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a clearing out of regional experts at the National Security Council and experienced diplomats with the State Department has hampered the ability for Witkoff, and the administration, to be successful. She pointed to Witkoff reportedly misrepresenting Putins position on reaching a peace deal as evidence for critics he is out of his league. Because he didnt have the kind of note taker, the kind of background from the State Department and their expertise to back him up, it makes a difference, Shaheen said in a call with reporters last week, ahead of the Trump-Putin summit. Diplomacy is not successful very often when its done fly by the seat of your pants, and thats what were seeing too often here with this administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement White House officials and allies noted that policy ultimately flows from Trump down, and the president has empowered Rubio and Witkoff as leading emissaries to try to secure a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Trump met Aug. 15 with Putin in Alaska, emerging optimistic about ending the war without offering any concrete commitments. Trump hosted European leaders and Zelensky at the White House on Monday, and he later spoke to Putin to help arrange a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents. Much is still unclear about when or if Trump will be able to help broker an end to the war in Ukraine, which has been raging since Russian forces invaded in February 2022. But Rubio and Witkoff will play a central role in the administrations efforts. Secretary Rubio and Special Envoy Witkoff are in constant contact with one another and work together extremely effectively to advance President Trumps foreign policy agenda, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Hill. The president has immense trust in both officials to articulate his America First vision to leaders around the world, and the results speak for themselves. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rubio is the more traditional figure of the two. He previously served on the Senate Intelligence Committee and had well-defined foreign policy views before joining the Trump administration. Those hawkish stances, paired with his 2016 presidential bid that pit him against Trump, prompted skepticism from some corners of the presidents base that Rubio was the right man for the job. But Rubio has proved his value and loyalty to the president and has been among the most reliable messengers when it comes to communicating Trumps foreign policy, whether it be about Iran, Russia or controlling the Panama Canal. He has been rewarded with an expanded portfolio that includes leading the National Security Council (NSC), serving as the interim U.S. archivist and running the U.S. Agency for International Development after billionaire Elon Musk took a hatchet to the agency. Rubio was the top Trump official to attend a round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey in May. He has been in touch with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and the secretary is the point person working with European allies to propose security guarantees for Ukraine as part of negotiations to end the war and deter future Russian aggression. Alex Gray, who served as chief of staff of the NSC during Trumps first term, praised Trumps decision to empower Rubio to run the National Security Council as an example of strong and decisive presidential leadership. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Secretary Rubio understands that the role of the national security adviser is to coordinate and implement, not to make policy, Gray told The Hill. The success he is having on President Trumps behalf reflects that. Witkoff has been just as prominent, having joined Rubio and then-national security adviser Mike Waltz in Saudi Arabia for an initial round of talks in February with Russian officials. He has also brought a more personal touch to negotiations, getting results but at times drawing criticism in the process. He was central to negotiating the release of Marc Fogel, an American who had been imprisoned in Russia for more than three years. Witkoff earlier this year went to Russia himself, flying Fogel back to the United States on his private plane. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Witkoff also met in person with Putin for a meeting that laid the groundwork for the Alaska summit with Trump. Putin reportedly gave Witkoff a medal in honor of an American who was killed fighting for Russia in 2024, a move critics seized on since the American who was killed is the son of a CIA official. Experts have pointed to Witkoffs lack of experience in foreign policy and government as a potential weak spot for adversaries to exploit. They have also suggested it only heightens the importance of having figures like Rubio in the room and in Trumps ear. You know, spending your career in the real estate business is not great preparation for negotiating peace agreements between Russia and Ukraine, said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations who served on the National Security Council during the Obama and Clinton administrations. And so even if Witkoffs negotiating experience is deep, and hes considered to be a great negotiator, he still needs people around him who understand Putin, who know the military dynamics of whats happening in Ukraine, who have some sense of Ukrainian politics, Kupchan said. And so I hope, I hope, that there are people around Witkoff with that kind of expertise, and that Witkoff is listening to them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alex Gangitano contributed. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Utah Third District Judge Dianna Gibsons office has made it known that a ruling in Utahs redistricting case is expected Monday, August 25. The office sent an email to both parties, which included notice of a date for a status conference. The Judge has indicated to me her decision will be issued on Monday. That being said the court has set a Status Conference on Friday, August 29, 2025 at 10:00 AM, that email from a member of her staff reads. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Judge over gerrymandering case against Utah legislature asks for clarification over tossing maps The highly anticipated ruling will be a major decision from the lower courts that will reveal whether they deem that Utahs Congressional boundaries are unconstitutionally gerrymandered, and whether the Utah legislature ignored a citizen-ballot initiative that created an independent commission to draw those lines. Still, the decision likely isnt the final outcome. Its anticipated that the ruling will be appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, regardless of its outcome. The anticipated ruling marks the latest entry in that complex saga that began in 2018, when voters passed a citizen ballot initiative run by Better Boundaries. The initiative, better known as Prop 4, created an independent redistricting commission to draw new boundary lines for Utahs congressional districts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2020, the Utah Legislature watered down Prop 4, gutting the commission created by the initiative in S.B. 200 and replacing those maps with its own in H.B. 2004. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the legislature argue that those maps, which are still used today, are gerrymandered. In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue the lines break up Salt Lake City into four districts, diluting minority votes in the traditionally red state. Plaintiffs also argue Utahns have a constitutionally protected right to alter and reform their government, which they attempted to do via Prop 4 before it was altered by the legislature. The Utah Supreme Court upheld that right in a game-changing ruling last year, kicking the case back down into Utahs lower court. Utahs top lawmakers discredited the ruling, calling it the worst decision theyve ever seen. Earlier this year, both parties argued the merits of the case before Judge Gibson. The case has a soft deadline as Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson has asked the court for the case to be finalized by November so that if new lines need to be drawn, they can be drawn before the 2026 midterm elections. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a developing story and may be updated. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. KANSAS CITY, Mo. A runner was hurt after being hit by a car early Friday morning in Douglas County. According to the Douglas County Sheriffs Office, a vehicle hit a runner on N 1400 Road between Eudora and Lawrence just before 5:30 a.m. Police say a 27-year-old man was running when he was hit by someone driving a 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier. See the latest headlines in Kansas City and across Kansas, Missouri Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The runner was taken to a hospital in Kansas City with serious injuries. The driver is believed to have minor injuries and was also taken to a hospital, but has since been released. Deputies closed N 1400 Road between E 1900 and E 2000 roads for several hours Friday morning as they investigated the crash. The road has since been reopened. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Video: Russellville 7-year-old allegedly tied in closet by couple, hospitalized after physical and mental torture POPE COUNTY, Ark. Court records show a couple jailed in Russellville for alleged child abuse is now facing additional charges, including attempted capital murder. Husband and wife, 39-year-old Chris Freeman and 27-year-old Katelyn Freeman, were arrested after a police investigation following a 7-year-old boy in critical condition who was admitted to Arkansas Childrens Hospital on July 15. The pair, at the time of their arrest, were each facing a charge of battery in the first degree and endangering the welfare of a minor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Russellville 7-year-old allegedly tied in closet by couple, hospitalized after physical and mental torture The Freemans are facing additional charges per an Aug. 19 court filing. The new charges are a single charge of attempted capital murder, two additional charges of first-degree battery, two charges of kidnapping, and a single charge of tampering with physical evidence. Police said at the time of the Freemans arrest, the investigation was ongoing and additional charges were possible. The court has sealed the affidavit justifying the charges, which is typical when a juvenile is involved. The Freemans have two other children, a five-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl. None of the children have been named by investigators or court records. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arkansas State Police details investigation following Clark County mans child sexual abuse material conviction The seven-year-old was admitted to Arkansas Childrens Hospital after being taken to the Dardanelle Regional Medical Center by the Freemans the morning of July 15. Medical staff at the time described the child as pale, limp and extremely underweight at just 28 pounds. Authorities said doctors told investigators that after years of malnutrition, the 7-year-old was a near fatality. Officials said the child remains in the hospital. Police officials said the Freemans admitted to investigators at the time that they locked the boy in the closet and did not take him to a doctor for fear of repercussions and embarrassment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At that time, there was two other siblings, a five-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl, Russellville Police Chief David Ewing said after the July arrest. There is indications of malnourishment on one of them, not to the extreme as the seven-year-old. A spokesperson said the abuse at the home was a case of physical and mental torture. Child Advocacy Center provides critical services amid growing child abuse cases With the new charges, the Freemans first court appearance has been moved back to Sept. 29. They both remain in custody with no bond listed. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. Since the evening of 21 August, Russian forces have launched 55 Shahed strike drones and decoy UAVs against Ukraine; 46 of them have been neutralised, but hits have been recorded. Source: Ukraines Air Force Quote: "As of 09:00, air defence has shot down/jammed 46 enemy Shahed UAVs and decoy drones of various types in the north and east of the country. Hits by nine strike UAVs have been recorded at four locations." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: Russian forces launched their drones from the directions of the Russian cities of Shatalovo, Kursk, Millerovo and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, as well as from Hvardiiske in temporarily occupied Crimea. The air attack was repelled by anti-aircraft missile units, electronic warfare units, unmanned aerial systems and mobile fire groups from Ukraines defence forces. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Estonian intelligence has analysed the advance of the Russian army in Ukraine and calculated that 330 sq km of territory has been captured in August alone. Source: ERR, citing Colonel Ants Kiviselg, Head of the Intelligence Centre of the Estonian Defence Forces, on Friday 1 August, as reported by European Pravda Details: Kiviselg stated that in August, the Russian army managed to seize 330 sq km of Ukrainian territory. He noted that the average number of attacks per day in August was around 158. Last week it was 163. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "During August, the armed forces of the Russian Federation managed to capture another 330 sq km, which is comparable with the previous summer months. The Armed Forces of Ukraine were able to halt the advance of Russian forces near Dobropillia, which took place last week," he said. Dobropillia and Pokrovsk on the map. Photo: DeepState Kiviselg said the focus of the Russian offensive remains Donetsk Oblast, towards Pokrovsk. He stressed that the city of Pokrovsk continues to hold important operational significance for the Ukrainians, since the battles for Pokrovsk and the surrounding settlements tie down a large number of Russian troops, allowing the Russians to be dispersed in the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Thus, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are limiting Russias ability to intensify attacks both to the north, where Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are, and to the west. In addition, the defensive fortifications around Pokrovsk prevent Russian troops from advancing deeper into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast," he said. Kiviselg noted that during the peace talks there was a noticeable decrease in missile strikes by the Russian navy and long-range aircraft, as well as a decline in the number of long-range drone strikes, but that after the talks, the Russians ramped up their attacks. Pokrovsk on the map. Photo: DeepState Background: Recently, Estonia stated that the number of civilian deaths in Ukraine had risen in June as a result of large-scale Russian attacks. Nineteen people were injured in a Russian missile strike on the US-owned Flex plant in Mukachevo, Zakarpattia Oblast, on 21 August. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto responded to the Russian strike on Ukraines oblasts, including Zakarpattia, without mentioning it directly, and stressed the need to "reach a peace agreement". Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok expressed condolences to the victims of the Russian attack on the Mukachevo plant, but later removed the word "Russian" from his post. Peter Magyar, the leader of Hungarian opposition party Tisza, criticised Sulyok for doing this. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Bloomberg has reported that Russian companies may be recruiting young African women under the guise of offering jobs, instead sending them to work at Shahed drone assembly plants in Tatarstan. The South African government has launched an investigation. Source: Bloomberg Details: According to the report, the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan, where Shahed drones are manufactured, is one of the main recruiters in South Africa. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In January, the BRICS student commission, which is based in South Africa, published advertisements offering positions in construction and hospitality in Alabuga for women aged 18 to 22. By May, the local branch of the BRICS womens business alliance had signed an agreement to supply a total of 5,600 workers to the Alabuga company and the construction firm Etalonstroi Ural the following year. Research organisations, including the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said African women were being misled and forced to work at Shahed assembly facilities. ISIS noted that women are considered more reliable than men for this type of work. South Africas Department of International Relations and Cooperation told Bloomberg that "the South African government is actively investigating reports of foreign programmes that recruit South Africans under false pretenses". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A source familiar with the matter said Pretoria officials may summon Russian diplomats for questioning. "The South African government is yet to find any credible evidence that job offers in Russia are inconsistent with their stated purpose. However, the government has noted the alleged recruitment of youth by the Alabuga company," the ministry said in its response. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was no signal that Russia wanted to end the war after Moscow unleashed one of its biggest aerial bombardments of the war. Among the sites hit by the almost 600 drones and 40 missiles was a US-owned factory, prompting a sharp rebuke from US President Donald Trump. Despite a flurry of diplomatic activity, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains intransigent: In exchange for peace, Reuters reported that the Russian leader is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, and keep Western troops out of the country, a series of conditions that are unacceptable to Kyiv. At least 122 citizens of Turkmenistan have signed contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry since the beginning of 2025 and been sent to fight against Ukraine. Source: I Want to Live project Details: The I Want to Live project noted that Russians are continuing to enlist Turkmen nationals into assault units despite attempts by the Turkmen authorities to limit the recruitment of their citizens. Quote: "It is worth noting that although Turkmenistan has the lowest number of identified mercenaries among Central Asian countries, since 2023 the annual pace of their recruitment has only been increasing. Russia is actively trading its citizenship to achieve this, granting it to anyone who agrees to sign a contract and go to die in an attempt to capture some nameless wooded area somewhere in Ukraine. Money and Russian citizenship remain the main incentives for these mercenaries." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: The project stressed that foreigners are most often sent directly to the line of contact. They are all placed in assault infantry and are the first to take part in so-called "meat-grinder assaults". For reference: I Want to Live is a Ukrainian government-run project designed to help soldiers of the Russian and Belarusian Armed Forces surrender safely. The project was launched in September 2022 by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which operates with the support of Ukraine's Defence Ministry and Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! The chances of a Russia-Ukraine summit faded Friday as US President Donald Trump appeared to tire of peace efforts and Moscow poured cold water on efforts to end the grinding war in Ukraine. Trump had raised expectations on Monday by saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky had agreed to meet face-to-face -- but on Friday he compared the two men to "oil and vinegar." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "no meeting" was planned as Trump's mediation efforts appeared to stall, while Zelensky said Russia was trying to prolong the war. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump told reporters on Friday he would make an "important" decision in two weeks on Ukraine peace efforts, specifying that Moscow could face massive sanctions -- or he might "do nothing." "It takes two to tango," the US president, wearing a red baseball cap saying "Trump was right about everything," said in the Oval Office. "In two weeks, we will know which way I'm going. Because I will go one way or the other, and I'll learn which way I'm going," he added. "That's whether or not it's massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both. Or do we do nothing and say it's your fight." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - 'No meeting planned' - Trump did however hold up a photo that he said Putin had sent him after their landmark summit in Alaska a week ago. He also said that he may invite the Russian leader to the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals being held in the United States if there is progress on Ukraine. Lavrov dampened hopes for direct Putin-Zelensky talks to resolve the conflict, now in its fourth year, by questioning the Ukrainian president's legitimacy and repeating the Kremlin's maximalist claims. "There is no meeting planned," Lavrov said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The veteran Russian diplomat said Putin was "ready to meet Zelensky" as soon as an agenda was prepared. He added that such an agenda was "not ready at all." In Kyiv, speaking alongside visiting NATO chief Mark Rutte, Zelensky said Ukraine had "no agreements with the Russians." On Thursday, Zelensky had accused Russia of "trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting," adding that Moscow wanted to continue the offensive. The question of eventual security guarantees for Ukraine has been front and center during the latest US-led diplomatic push to broker a peace deal to end the conflict. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump -- who hosted Zelensky, Rutte and top European leaders at the White House on Monday before making a call to Putin -- said Russia had agreed to some Western security guarantees for Kyiv. - 'Road to nowhere' - But Moscow later cast doubt on any such arrangement, Lavrov saying on Wednesday that discussing them without Russia was "a road to nowhere." "When Russia raises the issue of security guarantees, I honestly do not yet know who is threatening them," said Zelensky, who wants foreign troops in Ukraine to deter Russian attacks in the future. The Kremlin has long said it would never accept that, citing Ukraine's NATO ambition as one of the pretexts for its invasion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On a visit to Kyiv, during which an air raid alert sounded across the city, Rutte said security guarantees were needed to ensure "Russia will uphold any deal and will never ever again attempt to take one square kilometer of Ukraine." Moscow signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, which was aimed at ensuring security for Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in exchange for them giving up numerous nuclear weapons left from the Soviet era. Russia violated that first by taking Crimea in 2014, and then by starting a full-scale offensive in 2022, which has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes. burs-dk/dl By Andrew Osborn and Mark Trevelyan MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there is no agenda for a potential summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accusing Zelenskiy of saying "no to everything". Speaking to NBC's "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker", Lavrov said Putin had made clear he was ready to meet Zelenskiy to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine provided there was a proper agenda for such a session, something he said was lacking for now. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Russia and Ukraine are trying to show Donald Trump that they are ready to try to strike a peace deal, something the U.S. leader has said he wants to broker, while accusing the other of not being sincere or ready to negotiate in good faith. "Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskiy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all," Lavrov told NBC, saying no meeting was therefore planned for now. Lavrov said Russia had agreed to show flexibility on a number of issues raised by Trump at a U.S.-Russia summit last week, but accused Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in talks with Trump and European allies that followed in Washington. "He (Trump) clearly indicated - it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership (for Ukraine), including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelenskiy said no to everything," said Lavrov. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "He even said no to, as I said, to cancelling legislation banning the Russian language. How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?" Trump had imposed an August 8 deadline for Putin to agree an end to the war or face new sanctions against Russia and countries that buy its oil, but instead agreed to meet the Kremlin leader at a summit in Alaska last Friday. Since then, Russia has shown little movement, maintaining most of its longstanding demands while proposing to freeze the front line in two Ukrainian regions it claims as its own, and expressing a readiness to potentially hand back relatively small pieces of Ukrainian territory it controls. Putin wants Ukraine to give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking have told Reuters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zelenskiy, who has said he does not want to "gift" Russia any territory, said on Friday the Kremlin was doing everything it could to make sure that a meeting between him and Putin did not take place. He called on Ukraines allies to apply fresh sanctions on Moscow if it showed no desire to end the war. (Additional reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; editing by Mark Heinrich) To much of the world, Crimea is mostly synonymous with the start of Russias war against Ukraine once a precious Black Sea resort, the peninsula was seized at gunpoint in 2014 and transformed into a fortified military outpost. But behind the headlines of Russias ongoing occupation of Crimea is a deeper, often overlooked story: that of the Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of the peninsula, who have endured centuries of repression and now face yet another struggle for survival under Russian rule. The Crimean Fig anthology, published in English translation by Arrowsmith Press, brings together non-fiction, fiction, and poetry by Crimean Tatar authors, offering insight into their history, culture, resistance to Russian rule, and the quiet struggle to hold on to ones identity and humanity in a land too often defined by who controls it, rather than who calls it home. Crimean Fig began in Ukraine as an effort to promote Crimean Tatar literature and now counts four editions from Old Lion Publishing House, one of Ukraines most prestigious publishers. Its nonfiction, fiction, and poetry were chosen through an open competition for Crimean Tatar writers, including those still in Russian-occupied Crimea who could submit under pseudonyms. A young woman in a hijab holds a huge banner made of Crimean Tatars' flags in Maidan Nezalezhnosti during a procession marking the Day of the Flag of the Crimean Tatar People, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, June 26, 2018. (Danil Shamkin/Future Publishing via Getty Images) The goal of first launching this cultural initiative in 2018, as Crimean Tatar activist and anthology co-editor Alim Aliev explains in the introduction, was not only to build closer ties between Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian literature, but also to serve as an antidote to the Kremlins imperial efforts to forcibly integrate Crimea into the destructive Russian world. In his introduction, Aliev offers a concise history of Crimean Tatar literature, which dates back to the 13th century and flourished until the Russian Empires annexation of the peninsula in the 18th century, when the Russian language was imposed across all spheres of public and private life. A Crimean Tatar literary revival emerged in the late 19th century, mirroring the wider resurgence of national languages across the region during that time period. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Like Ukrainians, the Crimean Tatars suffered deeply under Soviet rule. Members of the Crimean Tatar intelligentsia were also arrested during the purges of the 1930s and, in trials that lasted no more than twenty minutes each, sentenced to death. In 1944, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the mass deportation of nearly the entire Crimean Tatar population from the peninsula, with most of them sent to Uzbekistan. More than 46 percent died, and today it is recognized by Ukraine and multiple other countries as an act of genocide. Crimean Tatar literature began to reemerge in the 1970s, with a focus on the pain of exile. After Ukraine gained independence in 1991 and with it, Crimea Crimean Tatars were finally able to return en masse and begin rebuilding their lives. That ended in 2014, when Russia returned to their shores. Amid Russias full-scale war against Ukraine, contemporary Crimean Tatar literature increasingly grapples with the challenge of preserving ones humanity within the dehumanizing confines of imprisonment. A distinct genre has even emerged what some now call literature behind bars. In The Black Walls of the Zindan, which is featured in the anthology, author Mustafa Amet offers a harrowing personal account of this struggle, detailing a man's abduction by Russian security services and the brutal torture that coerced a false confession of extremist activity. Unfolding with raw emotional force, The Black Walls of the Zindan veers sharply between the harsh conditions of his imprisonment and the vivid, sometimes disjointed memories of the life stolen from him. Regret and shame course through the passages reckoning with his former self, who was once blind to suffering of the world around him. Alone in his cell, Amet finds that memory, fractured but insistent, offers but a fragile thread of maintaining ones humanity. There are three essential elements to sanity. Pleasant memories show one the value of life and prove that it has not been wasted. Dreams of the future give one hope and strength to overcome obstacles; they inspire one to set goals and to continue to live. And finally, joy, which comes with food, safety, and creativity, the narrator says. The evil executioners who put me into prison cannot take possession of my memories and dreams. In the midst of my heartbreaking memories and dreams, my soul still remains with my body. The narrator also recounts the terrifying reality of how his Russian captors not only tortured him to extract a false confession but also with the intent of breaking his spirit through sheer psychological and physical degradation. In the wake of this prolonged torture in which they force him to inhale noxious gas that burns his eyes, nose, and throat, the narrator describes a state of utter physical collapse, during which he cursed his fate and, overwhelmed by pain, prayed to Allah for death. One hundred fifty seven Crimean Tatars are among the 277 political prisoners currently imprisoned by Russia on the peninsula, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center reported in mid-August. Not every text featured in Crimean Fig focuses on the suffering inflicted by Russia upon the Crimean Tatar people. Much like Ukrainian literature, Crimean Tatar literature has a rich array of themes to explore if afforded the opportunity to finally flourish under more peaceful conditions. Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar flag seen in downtown, during the Unity march on the Ukraine-Russia border in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 19, 2022. (Photo by Mykola Tys/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) In the short story This Is Just What You Need! by Zekiye Ismailova, Osman, a young car mechanic, reaches a breaking point with his materialistic and demanding girlfriend, Sebile. Once "liberated" from the relationship, he shares a humorous, if somewhat cynical, conversation with his friend Luman about the perils of commitment and the power women hold in romantic entanglements. Osman sets his sights on Ayshe, a woman whose simplicity and disregard for material concerns set her apart from girls like Sebile. He insists to himself that hes merely exploring his options, reminding himself not to "swap one problem for another." Yet when Osman meets Ayshe, her quiet self-confidence shakes him. Love creeps in uninvited, leaving him dazed and breathless. That evening, his grandmother gently acknowledges the shift in him, noting that the girl had clearly touched his soul. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Love, as revealed in the story, transcends mere performance or power dynamics, emerging instead as a profound, intuitive experience rooted deeply in the soul. Through this subtle shift, Ismailova offers a sophisticated exploration of love, identity, and humanitys enduring desire for authenticity in a world frequently overshadowed by superficiality and self-interest. The ethereal beauty of the Crimean peninsulas natural landscape, where its springs and autumns surpass any praise, is evoked in Zulbiye Sattarovas poetry. Crimea is a peninsula celebrated in (legends), the poet declares as she simultaneously dares the reader to name any other place like it in the world. Sattarovas poem Cranes draws a powerful parallel between nature and the Crimean Tatars, highlighting the deep connection between her cultural heritage and the peninsulas land. Like the Crimean Tatars, the cranes she describes were forced to be away / to go to a distant land, yet despite their difficult journey, they have bonded together / and will be back again. Crimean Fig is more than just a collection of stories, poems, and testimonies it is a vital act of cultural preservation and resistance. Through their words, Crimean Tatar authors reclaim a voice stolen by decades of exile, repression, and war. This anthology shines a light on a people too often overshadowed in global narratives, reminding readers that the fate of Crimea is not just about geopolitics, but about the enduring spirit of its indigenous community. As long as Crimean Tatar literature continues to flourish, it stands as a powerful testament that occupation may silence territories, but it cannot extinguish a cultures will to survive and thrive. Note from the author: Hi, this is Kate Tsurkan, thanks for reading this article. There is an ever-increasing amount of books about or related to Ukraine, Russia, and Russia's ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine available to English-language readers, and I hope my recommendations prove useful when it comes to your next trip to the bookstore. If you like reading about this sort of thing, please consider supporting The Kyiv Independent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read also: Where is Crimea? And other things you (and US presidents) should know Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. As President Volodymyr Zelensky seeks a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, the battlefield is shifting in Moscow's favor, bolstering its position in potential peace talks. Russia's main focus remains the Pokrovsk sector in the eastern Donetsk Oblast, where its troops are slowly advancing northeast of the logistic hub, once home to roughly 60,000 people. Russian troops are trying to close in on the Ukrainian pocket around Pokrovsk, approximately 16 kilometers wide, according to the Ukrainian open-source battlefield monitoring group DeepState. Russia has also been advancing faster month to month since March, likely capturing about 500-550 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in July, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in its intelligence update. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Russia's continued battlefield advances come as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes both sides to hold peace talks to end the war at all costs. Zelensky said Ukraine was ready for a bilateral meeting and possibly a trilateral meeting involving the U.S. as well. "As I said, we are ready for any format at the leader level, because only at the leader level can we resolve all the complex and painful issues," Zelensky told journalists at the White House. After meeting Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15, Trump has aligned himself more closely with Russia's push for a peace deal rather than a ceasefire. Political experts who spoke to the Kyiv Independent warned that Russia wants to prevent a ceasefire so it can continue gaining ground even as peace talks proceed. Read also: Zelensky wants a meeting. Putin wants to win Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Polish military analyst Konrad Muzyka said that he doesn't believe that "Russia wants to negotiate in good faith" and seek peace, given that its goal to subjugate Ukraine politically likely remains unchanged. He added that Russia is likely only interested in "giving an impression" that it seeks an end to the war and appears to want to extend the negotiation process for as long as possible to increase its demands. Russian troops are gaining ground on multiple axes in recent months, according to Muzyka. Russian troops made a roughly 10-kilometer push toward the DobropilliaKramatorsk highway in Donetsk Oblast earlier this month, putting Dobropillia at a greater risk. Ukraine immediately deployed more units to the sector after the Russian tactical breakthrough, retaking some areas but losing others now that the counterattack bogged down. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "(It) appears to indicate that the Ukrainian ability to defend the terrain is essentially decreasing, or degrading rather," Muzyka, director of the defense analysis company Rochan military consultancy, told the Kyiv Independent. Russian troops also entered Dnipropetrovsk Oblast a region west of the embattled Donetsk Oblast in June, to solidify Pokrovsk's southern flank and attempt to encircle the city. The Ukrainian military reported on Aug. 21 that it regained control of some border villages. Burnt cars lie in the street, as civilians are evacuated from the city by the National Police "White Angels" unit on June 19, 2025 Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images) As the peace talks progress, Russia is expected to continue making gains, especially in the Donetsk Oblast, but "an operation collapse" on the Ukrainian side was unlikely even if the pace of advance may accelerate, according to Muzyka. He believed that Pokrovsk could fall to Moscow in the coming months, but Ukraine's defense elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast would depend on its ability to carry out counterattacks and deploy more units. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition to Pokrovsk and Dobropillia, Russian troops have been focusing on closing in on Kostiantinivka, a town about 50 kilometers northeast of Pokrovsk. Russian troops are pressuring Kostiantinivka from three sides by thrusting forward from the largely occupied towns of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk. One of Ukraine's main issues is that the Ukrainian lines are "porous," meaning that there aren't many soldiers deployed per kilometer in the hottest spots of the war, according to Emil Kastehelmi, a Finnish military analyst from the Black Bird Group open-source intelligence collective. This is particularly a risk as Russia's recruiting campaign is still going strong, gaining more troops than it loses on the battlefield, he added. Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi admitted that Russia is increasing its military by approximately 9,000 people every month despite suffering high casualties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Even though there's a lot of talk about peace, I have not heard or noticed any changes on the front line in the way that the Russians are attacking," Kastehelmi told the Kyiv Independent. Read also: Going around in circles Trump sets new deadline for peace in Ukraine, Graham again threatens with tough legislation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. After hours of deliberation Wednesday night, the Palmer Lake Planning Commission was no closer to making its recommendation about the Buc-ee's Ukraine's President Volodymr Zelensky has accused Russia of "doing everything it can" to prevent a meeting with Vladimir Putin to try to end the war. US President Donald Trump has sought to bring the two leaders together, but he said on Friday "that's like oil and vinegar... they don't get along too well". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin was ready to meet Ukraine's leader "when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all", accusing Zelensky of saying "no to everything". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After an intensive week of diplomacy, in which Trump first met Putin in Alaska and then Zelensky with European leaders in Washington, the US president said the war was turning out to be the most difficult he had tried to stop. Trump said after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that he had begun arrangements for a Putin-Zelensky summit that he would join afterwards. Ukraine's president has backed the move, but he has sought security guarantees from Western allies to prevent any future Russian attack in the event of a peace deal: "Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not afraid of any meetings between leaders." On a visit to Kyiv, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said Trump was aiming to "break the deadlock" and the alliance was working on robust security guarantees with the US and Europe to ensure Putin "will never ever try to attack Ukraine again". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Speaking alongside Rutte, Zelensky said he wanted Ukraine's security guarantees to reflect Nato's Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance an attack against all Nato members. "This is the beginning of a big undertaking, and it is not easy, because guarantees consist of what our partners can give Ukraine, as well as what the Ukrainian army should be like, and where we can find opportunities for the army to maintain its strength," Zelensky said. Rutte said the alliance was working with Ukraine to define the guarantees, explaining that they would focus on making Ukraine's military as strong as possible and involve Western security commitments. It was "too early to exactly say what will be the outcome", he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Security guarantees have been agreed in the past, but not respected. The Nato secretary general insisted lessons had been learned from previous agreements such as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in return for "assurances" from Russia, the US and the UK about its future security. Asked by the BBC what he would say to Ukrainians who have little faith anything will come from these latest diplomatic efforts, Zelensky said: "Maybe I'm showboating, but Washington felt like a success. "Why? Because yes, Ukraine needs security guarantees. But without the US, Europe will not give us everything it can. "I don't know how this will end but this is much better than it was a week or two ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We saw unity in Washington. It's still political, but it's just the first step of everyone working on security guarantees." Russia's foreign minister appeared to dent hopes of any potential summit, telling NBC News that "there is no meeting planned". Sergei Lavrov said Russia had agreed to show flexibility on a number of issues raised by Trump at the US-Russia summit in Alaska last week. He went on to accuse Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in subsequent talks in Washington, blaming Ukraine for hindering progress toward a peace deal. Lavrov said it was "very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said this included no Nato membership for Ukraine and discussions of territorial issues: "Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov said. He was speaking after EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told the BBC that Putin was seeking territorial concessions from Ukraine that were a "trap that Putin wants us to walk into". "We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here," Kallas said. Later on Friday, Putin said there was "light at the end of the tunnel" for Russia-US relations, referring to last week's meeting with Trump in Alaska which he referred to as "very good, meaningful and frank". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Russian leader said Trump's "leadership qualities" would help restore relations from recent lows. He did not mention Ukraine or a meeting with Zelensky. Despite latest efforts to broker a peace deal, Russia launched one of its heaviest attacks on Ukraine in weeks on Thursday, launching 574 drone and 40 missiles in one night. A Ukrainian commander shared footage of the attack on a Russian oil pumping station [Telegram/Madyar] Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone blew up an oil pumping station in the Russian region of Bryansk, halting oil deliveries along the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia - the third attack on the pipeline in nine days. Hungary and Slovakia are largely dependent on the Druzbha pipeline for their oil supplies, and Budapest says it could take at least five days before operations resume. The two EU member states have complained to the European Commission. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The European Union sought to cut Russia's energy supplies after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and aims to phase out Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote to President Trump to complain about the attack on the pipeline, and his officials posted Trump's handwritten response. "Viktor - I do not like hearing this - I am very angry about it," he wrote. "Tell Slovakia. You are my great friend." Three days ago, President Donald Trump announcedthe leaders of Russia and Ukraine had agreed to meet, an event that would validate his recent summits in Alaska and the White House. But in the last three days, leaders on both sides have been retreating to their corners. Conversations between the U.S. and European allies about postwar defense commitments for Ukraine have only uncovered the complexity and uncertainty around future defense commitments. And the Kremlin has publicly thrown cold water on Trumps claim that Moscow is increasingly open to new security guarantees, while ramping up missile attacks on Ukraine. Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the transatlantic talks as a road to nowhere on Wednesday. In the West Wing, Trump is expressing confidence to associates that the talks are still on track, according to a White House official, who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. But there is a growing recognition that the talks which Trump once publicly projected could result in a trilateral summit within a week are a grind, a second White House official said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As long as [Trump] feels like conversations are moving forward, then he thinks that's a good thing, the person said. Trump and his national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukrainian officials towards a bilateral meeting, the first White House official said. Asked about the Kremlins apparent hedging, the official demurred, saying it is not in the national interest to further negotiate these issues publicly. The U.S. president, of course, has been negotiating in public for some time. And he remains, according to three people familiar with his thinking, reluctant to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin, convinced he has more leverage over Ukraine and European allies. Hes long believed that Russia has the upper hand in the war itself and needs to be coaxed into peace talks, said one former administration official. Ukraine, on the other hand, relies heavily on the U.S. for weapons and intelligence. So there are more pressure points to get them to accept a deal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That was the meaning behind Trumps cryptic social media post on Thursday asserting, It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country There is no chance of winning! According to a senior administration official, Trump wasnt sending a warning to Putin that hed consider heavily arming Ukraine if peace talks fail but explaining away Ukraines lack of leverage in negotiations as his predecessors fault. Former President Joe Biden, whose administration was reluctant to send certain weapons to Ukraine and at times restricted their use, would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND, Trump wrote in his post. How did that work out? Trump, the senior official continued, believes Ukraine is going to have to accept a deal largely on Russias terms to end the war. In a private comment to French President Emmanuel Macron during Mondays East Room summit that was picked up by a hot mic, Trump said he thinks Putin wants to make a deal for meas crazy as it sounds. But Putin, who for months has ignored Trumps push for peace while escalating attacks on Ukrainian civilian populations, has yet to show any sign that the presidents belief in him and his interest in peace is justified. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of Russias heaviest bombardments since the war began occurred overnight Thursday with 574 drones hitting targets in western Ukraine, including an American electronics factory. A spokesperson for Frances foreign minister was blunt in concluding that the escalating attacks illustrate Russias lack of any genuine intention to engage seriously in peace talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy concurred in a statement on Thursday, writing that the Russians are trying to get away from the need to hold a meeting. They do not want to end this war. He also referenced Trumps social media message, suggesting, perhaps hopefully, that it was about applying pressure on Moscow. Putin does not understand anything other than force and pressure, Zelenskyy continued, adding that Trump is absolutely right in saying: this must be done not only in defense. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Trump, even as he has grown frustrated with Putin over recent months, has been reluctant to increase pressure by imposing new economic sanctions, believing it wouldnt be enough to deter Putin. And according to the first White House official, Lavrovs public comments arent necessarily reflective of the private, ongoing discussions. Lavrov dismissed the idea of addressing security guarantees for Ukraine without Russia. This will not work," he said. He later told NBCs Meet the Press with Kristen Welker in an interview airing Sunday that there is no meeting planned. "Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all." In doing so, Lavrov said the quiet part out loud, said Jonathan Green, a national security strategist in Washington and former defense policy adviser to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). Gone is whatever public illusion there was about Russian intentions. Putin wants a return of the Soviet regime, full stop. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lavrovs comments underline the difficulty of reaching an agreement that will satisfy both sides. As contentious as potential discussions of territorial concessions may yet be, getting security guarantees that are robust enough to satisfy Kyiv without being rejected by Moscow wont be easy either. Its going to be a really hard sell for the Russians to put any European troops into Ukraine, a former administration official said. Could they tolerate a monitoring force from non-NATO countries? Probably. A mixed force of some Europeans with Saudi and Indian troops? Possibly. Its really all about the art of the possible here. Although many European leaders have succeeded in building solid relationships with Trump over the last six months, Trump has still distanced himself from the war, putting the onus on Europe to pay for all future defense aid going to Ukraine. A break with Trump doesnt serve anybody so theyre maintaining the pretense that there is still a strong relationship there, said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama. They have been avoiding having to conclude that theyre on their own since [Trumps] election and at some point they will wake up. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement NATO allies saw a glimmer of hope on Monday in Trumps statement that the U.S. was willing to play a role in backstopping whatever postwar security guarantees Europe can agree to. But the Pentagons top policy official, Elbridge Colby, told a small group of European defense chiefs less than 48 hours later that any U.S. involvement would be minimal. There are some reasons for optimism, said one senior official from a European country who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. But there is also concern that he still isnt appreciating how hard this is and that if it doesnt come together as fast as he wants it to, hell just get bored and lose interest. Others are finding hope in Trumps reputation as a deal maker, which may prevent him from fully walking away until there is a deal. He has discovered over the past several months that this is much more complicated than he thought it was, and Putin is not prepared to do him a favor at the cost of Russia's national interest and end this conflict, said Tom Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Russian attacks against Ukraine killed two people and injured 24 others over the past day, regional authorities said on Aug. 22. Ukrainian forces downed 46 out of the 55 drones, including Shahed-type attack drones and decoys, launched by Russia overnight, the Air Force reported. A 59-year-old man was killed in a Russian attack on the village of Kurhanne in Kharkiv Oblast, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov. Two women, aged 53 and 60, suffered injuries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Russian attack on the village of Mytrofanivka in the region also injured a 45-year-old man. Russia targeted Zaporizhzhia Oblast, injuring a woman near the city of Polohy, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. A man born in 1964 was injured in Russian shelling of the Seredyna-Buda community in Sumy Oblast, the region's military administration reported. Two people were injured in Kostiantynivka and Zolotyi Kolodiaz in Donetsk Oblast, Governor Vadym Filashkin said. In Kherson Oblast, Russian forces targeted 31 settlements, including the regional center of Kherson. One person was killed, and 17 others were injured, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read also: Ukraine war latest: Ukraine regains control of most of Tovste in Donetsk Oblast Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. One person has been killed and three injured in Russian FPV drone strikes on the settlement of Kurhanne in the Kupiansk district in the early hours of 22 August. Source: Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutors Office Quote: "At around 04:00 on 22 August, Russian FPV drones attacked the settlement of Kurhanne in the Kupiansk district. Hits were recorded in a residential area, and a fire broke out. Houses and outbuildings were damaged. A 59-year-old man was killed." The aftermath of the attack. Photo: Prosecutors Office Details: Three women aged 53, 60 and 62 sustained injuries and acute shock. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Aug. 22A local man who was involved in the shooting death of another more than two years ago was recently returned to the county jail following numerous alleged probation violations. Keigan I. Ball, 24, pleaded no contest to one felony count of criminal endangerment Dec. 4, 2023, following the May 27, 2023, death of 30-year-old Shane Ellison. A charge of negligent homicide was dismissed following a plea deal. According to court documents, Ellison mistakenly shot himself with a revolver that he thought was unloaded. Ball told an investigator following the shooting that he believed he had unloaded his gun during the incident on Memorial Day weekend. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement District Judge Matt Cuffe sentenced Ball to a 3-year deferred sentence on Feb. 29, 2024. Cuffe described Ball as a low risk to reoffend and his criminal history only included minor traffic offenses. But after a number of traffic incidents in 2024, Ball was arrested and returned to the Lincoln County Detention Center in September 2024. In the summer of 2024, Ball was stopped on two different occasions following careless driving and speeding inside Libby city limits. He was also cited for driving without insurance and on a revoked license. Ball had to serve 31 days in the county jail. But, according to a report by Montana Probation and Parole Officer Steve Watson, Ball was accused of various violations of his probation. The report said Ball, on Aug. 17, 2025, was in possession of a butterfly knife and had used alcohol that day. According to county deputy Joshua Brabo, Ball's blood alcohol content was 0.187. He admitted to alcohol use. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The final two violations included Ball's failure to pay $2,394 in restitution and not getting a chemical dependency evaluation. Ball also received several verbal warnings for not getting the dependency evaluation, not reporting to his probation officer, quitting his job, not finding a new job and consuming alcohol at a local bar. On Aug. 6, 2025, Ball was also given a verbal warning for buying a 1998 Kawasaki motorcycle. He was reminded that restitution should be his focus. Watson also wrote in his report that law enforcement responded to a domestic case at the Ball property Aug. 17 after Ball had an argument with his father. Watson believes Ball should be placed in a structured setting so he can focus on counseling and get sober. As of Aug. 20, a revocation hearing has not been set. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the Russian roulette shooting case, the investigation began when Lincoln County Sheriff's Office deputies Anthony Jenson and Ben Fisher responded to the scene at a location on Farm to Market Road. Jenson saw a Dodge Stealth that had come to a stop in a chain link fence. He saw Ellison laying just outside the driver's side door of the vehicle. Jenson also saw two men standing at the end of the driveway, one of whom he recognized as Ball. Jenson wrote in his report that Ball's arms and jacket were covered with blood. The deputy approached Ball and asked him what happened. Ball said, "It was (expletive) unloaded." Ball then told the officer he and Ellison had been messing around. He said they would usually go into the woods, put one in the chamber and play Russian roulette. Ball said he emptied the revolver and left the loaded cartridges in his hand. He then handed the gun to Ellison who spun the cylinder, put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, according to court filings. According to Jenson's report, Ball said he drove to the current location where Ellison had been living in a shed on the property because he didn't know what to do. Deputy Fisher found four live rounds in the grass near Ball's vehicle. Fisher's inspection of the gun showed it held five rounds. One spent round was in the cylinder behind the firing pin. Russian forces have attacked Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with Grad multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), FPV drones and a guided bomb, damaging a municipal facility, a farm and residential buildings. Source: Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "Two of the oblast's districts came under enemy fire. In Nikopol district, the aggressor hit the district centre [the city of Nikopol] as well as the Marhanets and Pokrovske hromadas. FPV drones and Grad MLRSs were used. A municipal facility, two three-storey buildings and an unused house were damaged. A house and a garage caught fire. Another six homes were damaged." [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories ed.] Fire at the scene Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Photo: Serhii Lysak on Telegram Details: An evening strike by an FPV drone on the Myrove hromada caused a fire in a summer kitchen and an outbuilding and damaged a house. The Synelnykove district was attacked with drones and a guided bomb. A farm, a garage and dry grass caught fire and a secondary school was damaged. Damaged building Photo: Serhii Lysak on Telegram "Air defenders destroyed four drones in the oblast overnight," Lysak summed up. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! The Russians have completed the exterior repairs of the Mariupol Drama Theatre, which they themselves destroyed with a missile. They claim the facade is now 100% restored and interior finishing works are ongoing. Russian forces struck the theatre on 16 March 2022, while civilians were sheltering inside. Source: Mariupol City Council Details: The occupation authorities plan to stage the first performance in the restored building by the end of the year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mariupol City Council said that "behind all this imitation of restoration lie the atrocities of the Russian occupiers, who dropped bombs on the theatre on 16 March 2022. At that time, hundreds of Mariupol residents, many of them children, were sheltering inside. Many of them did not survive." Repair works of the Mariupol Drama Theatre Photo: Mariupol City Council From the beginning of the full-scale invasion on 24 February until its destruction, the Mariupol theatre had served as a refuge for civilians, a centre for distributing food and water, a place to obtain information about evacuation routes and a gathering point for evacuation. From 24 February to 4 March, about a hundred people mostly current and former theatre employees, their families, and people fleeing violence in early 2022 used it as a shelter. Repair works of the Mariupol Drama Theatre Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Photo: Mariupol City Council Russian forces struck the theatre at about 10:00 on 16 March 2022, when hundreds of Mariupol residents were hiding in the basement. Journalists from the Associated Press concluded that around 600 people may have been killed, although no exact data is available as Mariupol remains under occupation. Repair works of the Mariupol Drama Theatre Photo: Mariupol City Council The theatres troupe managed to leave the occupied city and began a revival in Uzhhorod. After the Russians cleared the rubble, it became impossible to count the exact number of those killed in the strike on the drama theatre. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Russian forces struck the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast on 22 August, injuring three people. Source: Vadym Filashkin, Head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Details: The Russians attacked a residential area in the city. About 10 explosions were heard. Two injured civilians were taken to a trauma centre in a moderate condition, and one sustained minor injuries. Quote: "Numerous houses have been damaged we are still determining the full consequences. There have been no safe places in Donetsk Oblast for some time! Evacuate quickly!" Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! KIGALI (Reuters) -Rwanda on Friday rejected accusations that Kigali-backed M23 rebels massacred hundreds of people in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo in July, saying there was no credible evidence to support the claims. Reuters first reported on the killings of farmers in Rutshuru territory by M23 rebels, citing findings by the U.N. Joint Human Rights Office. Additional details about the massacre were reported by the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch and the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The Government of Rwanda firmly rejects the findings ... alleging mass killing of civilians in Binza, Rutshuru territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo by 'M23 supported by the Rwanda Defence Force'," the Rwanda government said in a statement. The accusations, the statement said, "have no basis in fact and lack any evidence." The rebels killed at least 319 civilians, including 48 women and 19 children, in an attack on four villages in Rutshuru from July 9 to July 21, Volker Turk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said on August 6. Most of the victims were farmers out in their fields when they were attacked, according to Turk. In its report, Human Rights Watch said it documented at least 140 deaths but that the number of victims may exceed 300. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Persistent violence in eastern Congo threatens U.S. President Donald Trump's vision for the region, which has been plagued by war for decades and is rich in minerals including gold, cobalt, coltan, tungsten and tin. A peace agreement signed on June 27 in Washington by the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers requires Congo to "neutralise" the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Congo-based armed group that includes remnants of Rwanda's former army and militias that carried out the 1994 genocide. Rwanda has long denied helping M23 and says its forces act in self-defence. (Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Daniel Wallis) SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Less than one week after two Tremonton police officers were shot and killed, the suspected killer appeared in court. Ryan Michael Bate, 32, appeared virtually in court from the Weber County Jail for an initial appearance on Friday, Aug. 22. He faces a long list of charges including aggravated murder, attempted murder, conduct to injure or kill a police canine, unlawful detention, assault, and domestic violence. Ryan Michael Bate appeared in court for the first time since allegedly killing two police officers. (Courtesy//KTVX) Ryan Michael Bate appeared emotional during his initial appearance in court. (Courtesy//KTVX) Among the 20 total charges, Bate faces 10 felonies, including two capital charges. The Box Elder County Attorneys Office has filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty. Bate appeared to be in tears as Judge Spencer D. Walsh of the First District Court read off each of his charges during Fridays appearance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bate was appointed two attorneys from the Utah Indigent Defense Commission to represent him. Judge Walsh also signed a pre-trial protective order for four alleged victims of a previous domestic violence case against Bate that was dismissed over a year ago. During Fridays initial appearance, Bates decision to preliminary hearing was scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, at 9 a.m. WATCH: Police breach home in Tremonton after suspect shoots and kills two officers, injures third On August 17, 2025, Bate allegedly shot and killed Sergeant Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada during a domestic disturbance at his home in Tremonton. He also allegedly shot and injured Deputy Mike Allred and K9 Officer Azula, attacked his wife, and shot at a neighbor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Additionally, the prosecutor has refiled several domestic violence charges against Bate, which were dismissed without prejudice in 2024. The charges include aggravated assault, multiple counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, and property damage. The procession begins honoring two fallen officers. (Courtesy//MJ Jewkes) Hearses carrying two fallen police officers begin their journey north. (Courtesy//MJ Jewkes) Funeral services for Officer Estrada will take place on Thursday, Aug. 28 at 10 a.m. Sgt. Sorensens service will happen the following day at 10 a.m. Deputy Allred and K-9 Azula have both returned home and are recovering. Amelia Hobson and Jonathan May contributed to this reporting. Latest headlines: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Colorado legislators began to advance proposals dealing with an $800 million budget shortfall on Thursday, just hours after the legislature officially re-convened to deal with the revenue shortfall. (FOX40.COM) Two suspects from the Jan. 24 homicide investigation were arrested Thursday by the Sacramento Police Department. Video Above: Community concerns over rise in violence In January, patrol officers responded to a call on 26th Avenue with reports of a shooting. Officers found one boy with at least one gunshot wound, according to SPD. Emergency medical aid was given to the victim until Sacramento Fire Personnel arrived on scene. The boy succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead, SPD said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An extensive investigation by Sacramento detectives identified the suspects involved in the case, officials said. Two juvenile suspects were arrested and face homicide charges. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News. Sacred Islamic artefacts dating back 700 years, including the 29ft-long (9m) cloth used to cover the Holy Kaaba in Mecca, were on display at a school in North Lincolnshire. The Kiswat al-Kaaba Exhibition was held on Thursday at St Lawrence Academy in Scunthorpe and offered visitors an opportunity to witness rare and original pieces from some of the holiest sites in Islam. Organised by the Kiswa Arts and Culture Gallery, the collection featured rare and original pieces including from the chambers of the Prophet Muhammed (Pbuh). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Visitor Farzana Khanum, 50, said: "I don't want to get emotional, but I feel that energy today and it took me back to pilgrimage [to Mecca] last year." Farzana Khanum said the exhbition made her feel emotional [BBC / Naj Modak] Described as a historical and spiritual journey through centuries of devotion, craftsmanship and reverence, the free event included the rare Kiswa, a cloth that covers the Kaaba, the sacred stone structure at the heart of the Great Mosque in Mecca, which is considered the spiritual centre of Islam. Ms Khanum said: "It's good to see people from our community as well as other communities." She described feeling "tingly" with emotion hearing about the history of the pieces in the exhibition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ms Khanum said, while Muslims learn a lot about Islam locally, bringing the sacred artefacts to her home town was "on a different level". Francesca Washer said she had learned so much about the Prophet and Islam [BBC / Naj Modak] Francesca Washer, 64, said she felt "honoured" to be invited. She said: 'It has surpassed my expectations. I've learned so much about the Prophet and Islam and the different sacred buildings that are special to people who follow the Islamic faith." She said it was a privilege to be around the "beautiful woven artefacts" knowing the time, effort and dedication that people must have put in to create them. Alison Barker, chief executive at North Lincolnshire Council said the event was about "recognising and sharing our cultural heritage" [BBC / Naj Modak] Alison Barker, chief executive at North Lincolnshire Council, said the items on display were "beautiful" and "really impressive". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She said: "It's about recognising and sharing our cultural heritage about who we are and our experiences in the world, and how we grow and learn and contribute to our communities." Abid Khan and Sheikh Ilyas Malik hold an ancient Quran scroll [the holy book for Muslims] [BBC / Naj Modak] Sheikh Ilyas Malik, 57, said he was guardian of all of the artefacts after they were gifted to him through family. He said he decided to create the exhibition to create an awareness about Islam. "We've got items here with the oldest 746 years old and the locks and keys from the final resting place of the Great Muhammad Prophet (Pbuh) and a shroud." He described the items as "the crown jewels" for Muslims. Abid Khan said he always dreamt about bringing the artefacts to his former school [BBC/Naj Modak] Abid Khan, 49, chair of the Multi-Faith Partnership in Scunthorpe, arranged for the exhibition to come to his former school in the town and said it was for everyone in "our communities" to give them experience about Islam. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said: "I'm overwhelmed, you know. This is very close to every believer and especially if you're Muslim. "We always dream about it. It is emotional bringing all this unique history, culture and art [to Scunthorpe]". Mr Khan said he wanted to thank everyone who supported the event including the "wonderful" school for hosting. Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices More on this story Related internet links Ukrainian civilian women who were brought back from Russian captivity in a prisoner exchange on 14 August have spoken up about their experiences in captivity and their impressions after their release. Yuliia Panina, Maryna Berezniatska and Svitlana Holovan gave a press conference on 22 August. Source: Ukrainska Pravda. Zhyttia (Life) Details: All three women were detained by Russian forces in occupied Donetsk Oblast in 2019. "We endured torture, but hope never died" Yuliia Panina was detained near her home in the city of Donetsk as she was about to take her 13-year-old daughter to school. Russian forces blocked her path, showed their official IDs and said they "wanted to talk". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was taken to an FSB building and then to the Izolyatsia torture prison. In her last place of detention, Yuliia saw six other women who remain imprisoned to this day. "We had been waiting for an exchange since 2019," she said. "But hope was fading. And finally this miracle happened, that we are here. Yet there are still women left behind. There are six of them, who have been held for a long time." Maryna Berezniatska was a businesswoman who ran a dog shelter before her detention. The Russians arrested her for alleged "cooperation with the Security Service of Ukraine" when she went outside to pick up a parcel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There were interrogations," Maryna said. "It was psychologically very hard () I think each of us drew strength from our families, who supported us and believed that this hell would end. Each of us has children who were waiting for our call, telling us: Mum, were waiting for you, we love you, you are the best. These are the most important words anyone wants to hear. Whatever happens, you have no right to give up." Svitlana Holovan, a native of the city of Novoazovsk, shared her story too. She had been working in fish salting and trade in her hometown. Svitlana was detained in her own apartment in August 2019. She said the only "reason" was that she had relatives living in government-controlled Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At home, her daughters Anna and Sofiia were waiting for her. Their father took them to Mariupol. They were also cared for by their aunt Nataliia, who had left Novoazovsk in 2014, and her husband. "I knew that if the children stayed in the occupied town, they would be taken to an orphanage," Nataliia said. In 2022, when Liudmyla Huseinova, a fellow townswoman of Svitlana, was released from captivity, Nataliia decided to contact her. Since then, Liudmyla has kept in touch with Svitlanas family. Just before the full-scale invasion, Svitlanas ex-husband took the daughters from Mariupol to safer areas, first to Khmelnytskyi Oblast and later to Germany. In captivity, Svitlana held on to the dream of reuniting with them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I had faith that I had to get out and see my family, who love me and are waiting for me. For the sake of my children I found strength, I endured and believed," Svitlana said. Since her release, the woman has been able to speak with her daughters remotely but hopes to see them in person soon. Both girls are now studying in German schools, where Ukrainian is not taught. But her younger daughter wants to study in her native school and return to Ukraine. "Of course, it hurts a bit. My older daughter has grown up, and six years are lost. But I hope we will visit each other," Svitlana said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nataliia said she is very proud of her sister. "Im proud that she has stepped onto Ukrainian soil again and is trying to speak Ukrainian. For me, that is very important. She is a very strong woman. And only Ukrainian roots can give such strength," she said. All three women said they were deeply moved by the crowds of people who welcomed them after the exchange. "We were very surprised that the whole of Ukraine came out. From the exchange point to the city of Chernihiv people greeted us with flags, waving their hands It was very nice," Yuliia Panina said. Svitlana Holovan said she cried on the bus when she saw children and adults greeting her with flags. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I am so happy, I am in paradise () We were full of positive emotions we had not felt in six years," she said. "We are very grateful that we were finally exchanged. We waited a very long time, endured torture, but hope never died. I prayed to God every day. And when I walked out of the colony, I said: God, thank you, you heard my prayers. I hope to meet my daughters soon, whom I have not seen for six years. They have grown so much, so now I have tears of joy. I am very happy. Thank you." Maryna Berezniatska added that at first she could not believe captivity was over and a new life had begun. "The worst part is the suffering of the family waiting for you. We are all strong, but it was very difficult. Once again, thank you to everyone who helped us reunite with our families and regain our freedom," she said. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! SALISBURY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) A family in Salisbury says the puppy they bought from a Charlotte pet store that has since shut down has been sick. Queen City News Anchor Robin Kanady also uncovered that this isnt the first time the pet stores owner has had problems. PREVIOUS: Charlotte pet store shut down; at least 11 puppies died and 38 saved They all looked happy Bella Rose was a gift. She was an early birthday present for me, said the dogs owner, Teresa Waldo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Waldo needed a friend after moving to Salisbury from Oklahoma with her husband. They showed pictures, they looked all happy and healthy with their bow ties on, Waldo said of the pictures she saw of Bella Rose before she bought the dog. Waldo found Bella Rose online and traveled to Happy Puppy Universe in Charlotte to pick up the pup in early July. There was no big warning signs of anything wrong, said Waldo. Two weeks later, Bella Rose had a little cough. A month and a half later after multiple vet visits and medications, it only seems to be getting worse. Last night it was pretty bad, she was wheezing and coughing and dry heaving, said Waldo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And the neighbors dog got sick. Waldos neighbor dog-sat Bella Rose. He also has a dog, the two dogs played together, and now Waldo is worried that Bella Rose got the neighbors dog sick. So of course I feel horrible about it, said Waldo. Last week the North Carolina Department of Agriculture shut down Happy Puppy Universe on University City Boulevard after inspectors say 11 dogs died. QCN found out the business owner, Lawrence Master, has been in trouble before. The owner of Happy Puppy Universe also had a business shut down in Clearwater, Florida. His pet shop, Blue Sky Puppies in Clearwater, Florida, was also shut down last month. Officials said the business turned in dozens of dead puppies for cremation and didnt tell authorities in Pinellas County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont want anything to happen to her, you know? Waldo said emotionally. Shes still waiting on test results to find out if Bella Rose will be OK. Its sad, its just sad that this baby has to hurt because somebody else that was supposed to be taking care of her didnt, they just didnt. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 Salt Lake Community Bail Fund investigated the Salt Lake City Police Department's use of drone surveillance and found that this practice is leading to major violations of constitutional rights through oversurveillance. (By Abadonian iStock/Getty Images Plus) Recently, police officers in Salt Lake City were granted a 12.5% budget increase in part to further fund their ongoing drone program. This massive budget increase comes directly from taxpayer dollars and further expands the SLCPDs surveillance capabilities even after a recent news story exposed the SLCPD for taking electricity from Rocky Mountain Power customers in order to operate their street cameras throughout the city. The SLCPD claims to use drone surveillance for limited purposes, such as checking the scenes of accidents or crimes and searching for wanted or missing persons. Notably, they claim that drones are not used to monitor peaceful protests or private property. However, the Salt Lake Community Bail Fund investigated the SLCPDs use of drone surveillance and found that this practice is leading to major violations of constitutional rights through oversurveillance. Oversurveillance of unsheltered people While the police department claims to use drone footage only in areas where alleged crimes have occurred, they fail to disclose that drone cameras also capture footage all along their path to and from each location. This happenstance footage allows the police to unnecessarily pursue more low-level crimes that are rarely enforced due to negligible negative impacts. This oversurveillance disproportionately affects unsheltered people who are already overtargeted by police. With the recent passage of HB0312, Utah can now hold unsheltered people in jail without bail for misdemeanor offenses such as loitering, camping, and riding TRAX without a ticket. Classifying these actions as offenses is an unjust practice known as quality-of-life policing. This type of policing is unjust because it punishes people simply for trying to survive poverty. Quality-of-life policing is also ineffective at reducing homelessness and only makes it harder for unsheltered people to get connected with services that could allow them to eventually find consistent housing. Misuse of drone footage to target protestors The Salt Lake City Police Department states that they do not monitor peaceful protests using their drone program. However, this information is inconsistent with recent court cases demonstrating that the SLCPD authorizes drone surveillance of protests simply for things like marching or not having a permit both of which are First Amendment protected activities that do NOT justify the use of drone surveillance. Across the U.S., records of police departments show police regularly using drone surveillance to locate and arrest protestors in direct violation of First Amendment rights. The use of drone surveillance against protestors is a blatant attempt by the police to silence and intimidate protest movements. Racist facial recognition In recent years, police departments have also gained access to facial recognition algorithms which are often utilized in drone surveillance footage, which allows the police to identify potential suspects within their facial recognition database. These facial recognition databases are often constructed from government photographs like drivers licenses. The algorithms typically lack public transparency and demonstrate regular efficacy and racial bias concerns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of the first cases of wrongful arrest based on these inaccurate face matching algorithms was the case of Robert Williams, who was arrested in front of his entire family based on a blurry image fed into a facial recognition algorithm that falsely identified him as the suspect. This case has emphasized that an algorithm match should not be used as the only evidence for an arrest, which has been echoed by countless researchers studying this topic. Just because someone is the best match in a collection of images available to the police does not mean that they committed a crime. The misuse of drone footage through flawed and racially biased facial recognition reinforces the systemic racism within the criminal legal system by continuing to disproportionately lead to the arrest and incarceration of Black people. Conclusions In short, the use of police drone surveillance against the public is clearly a harmful misuse of public funds enabling the police to violate basic constitutional rights. The Salt Lake Community Bail Fund will continue to advocate for the complete shutdown of the SLCPD drone surveillance program as it is regularly being misused to harm the public. The US government intends to deport a Salvadoran man at ground zero of President Donald Trump's war on illegal immigration to Uganda next week, his lawyers said Saturday. In a filing, the lawyers asked courts to dismiss the case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia on grounds that it is a vindictive attempt to punish him for challenging his initial deportation to El Salvador. The attempt to deport Garcia to far-flung Uganda in East Africa adds a dramatic new twist to a saga that become a test case for Trumps harsh crackdown on illegal immigration and, critics say, his trampling of the law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His lawyers' filing was an addition to an earlier one asking judges to dismiss the case. Word of the new press to deport him came a day after he was freed and allowed to go home to Maryland pending trial on human smuggling charges. This followed a tortuous saga in which he was mistakenly deported to a notoriously rough prison in El Salvador, then returned to US soil only to be detained again. A judge ordered his release Friday but the latest news means he might again be expelled, this time to Uganda under a new, harsh Trump administration scheme of sending undocumented migrants to distant, even war-torn countries where they know no one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego Garcia denies any wrongdoing, while the administration says he is a violent MS-13 gang member who smuggled other immigrants. On Thursday when it became clear Abrego Garcia would be released the following day, government officials made him a plea offer: remain in custody, plead guilty to human smuggling charges and be deported to Costa Rica, his lawyers said in the filing. He declined the offer. "The government immediately responded to Mr. Abrego's release with outrage," the filing states. "Despite... assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr. Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) representative informed Mr. Abrego's counsel that the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE's Baltimore Field Office Monday morning," it added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The case has been a messy tug of war. The government admitted it had mistakenly sent him to El Salvador's notorious maximum security prison in March. The US Supreme Court later ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of Abrego Garcia. He was returned in June, and then quickly arrested and charged with trafficking undocumented migrants. On Friday, he was released from prison in Tennessee on a judge's order. At that point he had not seen his family in more than 160 days. The case has become emblematic of Trump's rough crackdown on illegal migration. Right-wing supporters praise the Republican president's toughness, but legal scholars and human rights advocates have blasted what they say is a haphazard rush to deport people without even a court hearing, in violation of basic US law. ft/dw/mlm SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) A San Angelo man has been convicted of child pornography and drug charges and will receive over 200 years in prison. Douglas Tankersley, 54, was convicted of 13 counts of possession of child pornography, along with having less than one gram of methamphetamine. District Judge Carmen Dusek said that Tankersley also violated his January 2022 ten-year probation by possessing methamphetamine, cocaine, and being in a child safety zone. The state also presented his past crimes as a way to illustrate his criminal background. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the press release: The State also presented evidence of the defendants lengthy criminal history, including a previous penitentiary sentence for assault on a public servant, unlawful possession of firearm by a felon, and driving while intoxicated with at least two previous DWI convictions. His final prison time is 260 years for the child pornography charges, and an additional 730 days in state jail for the cocaine charges. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. (KRON) A man wanted by the Los Angeles Police Department for kidnapping and gun charges was arrested in San Bruno Wednesday. The 36-year-old man from South San Francisco was arrested after San Bruno Police Department officers stopped his truck on a freeway onramp around noon. Officers searched the truck and allegedly found a loaded, unregistered handgun underneath the center console. Creative hiding spot, but not quite creative enough, San Bruno PD said. Photo of the arrest courtesy of the San Bruno Police Department. A gun was allegedly found under the trucks center console. (San Bruno Police Department.) (San Bruno Police Department) The suspect was flown back to Los Angeles. (San Bruno Police Department) Evacuation orders as Pickett Fire near Calistoga jumps to 1,200 acres Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, detectives with the LAPD flew to the Bay Area to pick up the suspect and bring him to Los Angeles to face criminal charges. San Bruno PD is also filing charges with the San Mateo County District Attorneys Office for weapons charges related to the seized handgun. Its roughly 370 miles from San Bruno PD to LAPD Headquarters but no matter the distance well continue working hand-in-hand with our law enforcement partners to make sure dangerous suspects face justice, San Bruno PD said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A cleaner, greener ride is on the horizon for San Diego Bay ferry passengers. Flagship Cruises & Events, the company that operates the San Diego-Coronado ferry, has announced plans to launch two fully electric, zero-emission ferriesthanks to a $15.27 million grant from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The state funding, awarded through CARBs Advanced Technology Demonstration and Pilot Project, is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative using Cap-and-Trade dollars to cut greenhouse gases and improve public health. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Flagship is excited to lead the way with an environmentally friendly sustainable transportation alternative for ferry passengers, said Brad Engel, president of Flagship Cruises & Events. We are grateful for CARBs support to bring zero emission vessels to our San Diego-Coronado service with the first all-electric new build ferries in California. Misleading: ICE responds to controversial arrest of parent near Encinitas school The new vessels will be powered by advanced battery technology and will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and particulate pollution associated with traditional diesel-powered ferries. State and local leaders praised the project as a major step toward improving regional air quality. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This investment by the State of California in fully electric zero emission ferries is a critical step toward cleaning our environment and reducing air pollution in San Diego, said Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego). I appreciate the leadership of Flagship Cruises & Events on this project as it demonstrates the commitment to a more sustainable future. The effort is being coordinated with the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District (SDAPCD) and aligns with the Port of San Diegos ongoing Green Port initiatives to reduce emissions and improve community health around the bay. The electrification of transportation has a big impact on improving air quality, and SDAPCD is grateful to Flagship Cruises & Events for bringing San Diego County closer to clean air for all, said Paula Forbis, SDAPCD air pollution control officer. Construction of the vessels is scheduled to begin later this year, with the first electric ferry expected to launch by fall 2026. The total project cost is estimated at more than $21 million. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Port officials say the project fulfills key goals of the Port of San Diegos Maritime Clean Air Strategy. We are thrilled to partner with Flagship and the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District to deliver zero emission ferry services on San Diego Bay, said Danielle Moore, chair of the Port of San Diego Board of Port Commissioners. This is exactly the kind of collaborative effort we envisioned when we approved the Maritime Clean Air Strategy. The Engel family, who founded Flagship Cruises over a century ago, sees this move as a natural next chapter. Our family business launched in San Diego more than 100 years agoand it has always depended upon sustainabilityhealthy air, clean water and the beauty of San Diego Bay, said Art Engel, chairman of Flagship. We are proud to be contributing to a thriving environment for the next 100 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Flagship says it will continue engaging with the community and providing updates as the electric ferry project progresses. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. (KRON) A father was arrested for the death of his 5-month-old infant, the San Jose Police Department announced Friday. On the afternoon of Nov. 3, 2024, police officers were called to an apartment at The Woods, a large apartment complex at 4500 The Woods Drive. The baby boy, who was not conscious or breathing, was rushed from the apartment to Valley Medical Center, police said. Doctors at the hospital discovered that the baby was suffering from two brain bleeds. Six days later, the infant was pronounced deceased. Homicide detectives launched an investigation and the father, 27-year-old Julian Morgan Matias Taylor, was identified as a child abuse suspect. Julian Morgan Matias Taylor is seen in an August 2025 mugshot released by SJPD. Detectives were notified by the Santa Clara County Office of the Medical Examiner last month that the babys cause of death was multiple traumatic injuries. The manner of death was ruled a homicide. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Monday, police found Taylor in the city of Palmdale, Calif., and arrested him. Taylor was transported from Southern California back to San Jose and booked into Santa Clara County Main Jail. Prosecutors charged the father with assault on a child likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death, court records show. A coroner determined that the baby had suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, and his injuries were consistent with abusive head trauma, court records show. Taylors statements to police about what happened to his son did not match up to his sons injuries, SJPD detective Christina Jize wrote in a police report. During his interviews with police, Taylor said his fiance went out shopping and he was home alone with their infant on Nov. 3, 2024. Taylor said he was playing video games, and while he stepped away for a moment to use the bathroom, the baby was injured by falling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He reported the victim fell off a small couch while swaddled in a blanket and strapped in a bouncy chair while he left the room to use the bathroom. He found the victim face down on the floor with the bouncy chair on top of him, Jize wrote in the police report. Julian Taylor stated he brought the victim to his (mother-in-laws) house, who is a registered nurse, and believed the victim was fine after checking him, Jize wrote. After the father and son returned home, Taylors fiance also returned home with groceries. Taylor stated he carried the (baby) in his car seat, along with groceries, up to the apartment. Once upstairs, he noticed the victim was not breathing, and had his fiance call 911 while he performed CPR, the detective wrote. Gilroy woman who owned daycare arrested for child molestation Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Taylor told detectives that he didnt see any injuries. The fiance told police that she noticed her baby had bruising under his eyes and immediately knew something was wrong. She also said her son was normal and fine when she left their apartment to go shopping. The 5-month-old victims autopsy and medical records showed that he had factures in different stages of healing, and he experienced non-accidental trauma. I believe the injuries sustained by (the baby) were intentional acts by suspect Julian Taylor, the detective wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Colorado legislators began to advance proposals dealing with an $800 million budget shortfall on Thursday, just hours after the legislature officially re-convened to deal with the revenue shortfall. They started with a hearing on Senate Bill 1, which adds a requirement to the existing state law that outlines the governor's authority to make spending reductions in case of a significant drop in revenue. Under SB 1, Gov. Jared Polis would be required to develop a plan and present it to the Joint Budget Committee before it goes into effect. Lawmakers and the Polis administration have indicated that budget cuts should be put into place by Sept. 1 in order to spread out any reductions over 10 months, instead of waiting until next February, when budget adjustments to the current spending plan are typically made. Mark Ferrandino, director of the governor's Office of State Planning and Budgeting, testified in favor of the measure and told lawmakers that using the state's general fund reserve, about $2.2 billion, to cover the shortfall would put Colorado in a precarious position should even a moderate recession take place in the coming year. The state agency has predicted a 50% chance of a moderate recession in the following year. The general fund reserve is required by law to stand at 15% of general fund expenditures, as dictated by the current year's state budget. No one else testified in favor of or against SB 1, which Joint Budget Committee member Rep. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder, and Senate President James Coleman of Denver, authored. The committee made no amendments and approved the measure on a party-line 3-2 vote. Its next stop is the full Senate for debate. Both sides have good ideas, and both sides should be utilized, but Republicans were left out of the discussion, according to Sen. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells. Proposal shifts wolf funding to pay for health insurance The next bill, which deals with Colorado's wolf reintroduction program, saw more fireworks, with more than 50 witnesses signing up to testify. Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Sens. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco and Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, would shift $264,000 from the wolf program to the Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise to help cover the subsidies that would be lost as a result of the federal budget. The federal budget ends enhanced premium tax credits used to purchase health insurance on the state's exchange. The topic of health insurance premiums is a sore one on the Western Slope, where premiums are expected to rise by 38% in 2026. The cut in funding to the wolf program is about 10% of its annual appropriation. Under Roberts' proposal, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) would not be able to bring in more wolves. The balance of the agency's funding would be used for conflict minimization efforts and to pay for depredation claims. Polis has indicated he is not in favor of the bill, and a veto threat hangs over the measure. Roberts discussed an amendment to ban the wildlife agency from using general fund dollars to bring in more wolves, which he said reflects a compromise with the Polis administration. That, however, would not prohibit the agency from raising money from gifts, grants, or donations to bring in more of the apex predators. Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver, who offered the amendment, said it is his understanding that CPW has access to non-taxpayer dollars to bring in more wolves. Roberts described his bill as fiscally responsible. The cost of the program has increased Roberts noted the General Assembly Blue Book estimated an annual expense of $800,000. In 2024-25, the price tag was $3.5 million. CPW has reported that the cost of the program over five years is more than $8 million. "We want to see the wolf program succeed," Catlin told the committee. This bill would allow the program to take a breath at a time when CPW's reputation is in tatters, he said. Catlin said there's also precedent for a pause. In the early 2000s, the state's lynx program, which he said is now successful, was briefly put on pause after "hard releases" of lynx resulted in the deaths of four due to starvation. The Gunnison County Stockgrowers, represented by Greg Peterson, said it is critical to put a pause in place for current releases in the north and future releases in the south. There are no management efforts in place in the southern release area, with the release of wolves expected just a few months from now, Peterson said. Tim Ritschard, a fifth-generation rancher who heads the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association in Grand County, said his producers know well the impact of wolves. Three producers in Grand County submitted claims for lost and dead livestock for 2024 for more than $575,000 $225,000 more than the state has budgeted. He said he believes claims in 2025 will exceed those in 2024. Featured Local Savings Doug Bruchez of Grand County, another fifth-generation rancher, said improvements have been made, but much more must be done to make the program successful. There are a lot more wolves in this state than is being reported, he said, not just the wolves brought to Colorado. He said he is disappointed in the amendment, as the bill as drafted could have saved millions of dollars for the state, referring to the depredation costs. The state wildlife agency has indicated it will bring in 15 wolves for the southern release area, which is Gunnison County and south. That's adding fuel to a fire, said former state Rep. Kathleen Curry, who also represents the Gunnison County Stockgrowers. Sierra Club presses for proactive 'non-lethal' strategies Delia Malone, wildlife chair for the Sierra Club and whose partner is a CPW commissioner appointee, said she opposed the bill as drafted but approved of the amendment. "Non-lethal co-existence methods" need to happen proactively, not after the fact, she said. Rhonda Dern, one of two people accused of illegal lobbying in favor of wolves in 2024, testified against the bill. The complaint against her was dismissed, but her companion was fined. Dern told the committee that Conway Farrell, a Grand County rancher whose livestock was most heavily hit by wolves in 2024, got almost $1 million for wolf compensation claims. Farrell, in fact, has so far received just over $387,000, with another $112,000 in claims still being negotiated. Several witnesses claimed ranchers are to blame for wolf attacks because they kept open carcass pits on their land. The state wildlife agency confirmed the Farrell ranch has an open pit and cited that in denying a lethal removal permit last year The amendment got support from CPW Director Jeff Davis, indicating support from the Polis administration. Davis acknowledged that the wolf management plan calls for the importation of up to 50 wolves over a three to five-year period, and that the requirement wasn't in the ballot measure approved by voters. He said it's important to put out one more round of 15 wolves. As to the claim that the release in the southern area isn't yet ready, he said the state is fully committed to working with producers and other stakeholders. Rebecca Burkhalter, a member of ColoradoWild, said the bill would halt the wolf reintroduction without the amendments. "A pause sounds reasonable, but I don't believe it because of the hatred and ignorance around wolves," she said, claiming a large number of wolves had been poached for which no one has been prosecuted. According to CPW, nine wolves have died, and two of those wolves had gunshot wounds, although one died as a result of a fight with another wolf. The other was the male of the Copper Creek pack, which was in poor health when it was captured last year and died shortly after. The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those who engage in "illegal wolf poaching." Michael Cerveny, a rancher in Pitkin County who lost livestock to the Copper Creek pack in May, asked: If CPW cannot manage the Copper Creek pack that has killed livestock in both Grand and Pitkin counties, how will it manage the rest? There are only nine range riders in the whole state, who spend their time counting bodies, not hazing wolves, he told the committee. Many wolf advocates testified against the bill but said they would support the amendment banning taxpayer dollars to pay for bringing in more wolves to Colorado, including Defenders of Wildlife. Sen. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, who voted no to both the amendment and the bill, said he "unclear" about the intent of the legislation, claiming that, with the amendment, there will be practically no change in the wolf program. He surmised the governor and some of his "billionaire friends" would put up the $264,000 that the wolf program will lose and sign the bill. "If we don't pass this, I would encourage the governor and those billionaires to keep writing those $264,000 checks," he said. Committee Chair Sen. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, said he had been a "no" before the amendment, claiming it stretches the governor's call. But he called the bill a modest change and said that the symbolism might be more important than the substance. "Symbolism matters, too," he said. "I appreciate the temperature of this issue." Roberts, before the vote, said lawmakers are turning over every rock to save money to pay for programs and services that Coloradans need right now. The money from the wolf program $264,000 isn't a lot, but it will help, he said. After a three-hour hearing, Senate Bill 5 passed on a 4-1 vote and it now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee. All told, nine bills were introduced in the Senate on the first day of the special session, plus one concurrent resolution, and all received initial hearings. Both the wolf bill and the budget authority legislation won preliminary approval in the Senate, though the full chamber still needs to vote on them on Friday. The Senate also cut down the number of committees to just four, including appropriations, making it a long day for lawmakers, particularly in the Senate State Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, which was assigned seven of the 10 measures. BOSTON (SHNS) Jon Santiago, the states first-ever Cabinet-level veterans services secretary, will step down from his post this fall in the latest high-profile departure from the Healey administration, officials announced Friday. After more than two years leading a newly elevated state government office, Santiago plans to leave and shift more attention to his ongoing work as a physician at Boston Medical Center, according to his office. His departure will mark additional turnover for Gov. Maura Healeys Cabinet more than halfway through her four-year term. Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao left at the end of April, and Health and Human Services Kate Walsh stepped down in July. Both remained involved as advisors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Healey has picked new secretaries to fill the other two roles that opened recently. Kiame Mahaniah took over as health and human services secretary at the end of July, and venture capitalist Eric Paley will join as economic development secretary in September. Santiago, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, served more than two terms in the House before Healey tapped him as veterans services secretary in 2023. He became the first person to lead the department since a 2022 reform law elevated it to the Cabinet level. In a statement, Santiago said he will leave confident that the foundation weve built will continue to serve veterans well for years to come. We set out to restore trust in the veteran community, and today, Massachusetts has become a national model in how a state cares for its veterans, he said. Im deeply proud of what weve accomplished together and none of this would have been possible without the dedicated team at EOVS, our partners across the state, and the veterans who served. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Santiago official departure date was not made clear in the announcement by the governors office. Deputy Secretary Andrea Gayle-Bennett will take over the top post on an interim basis, according to Healeys office. Secretary Santiago stepped into this role at one of the most challenging moments in our states history for veterans services, Healey said in a statement. In just over two years, he turned that challenge into a success by rebuilding trust, driving transformative reforms and positioning Massachusetts as a national leader once again. His steady hand, strategic vision and deep commitment to our veterans have made a lasting impact. A Democrat, Santiago burst onto the Beacon Hill scene in 2018 by unseating longtime Rep. Byron Rushing, who at the time was an assistant majority leader in the House. He continued to work as an emergency room physician at BMC while serving in the House, a role he held into his time as secretary. Santiago ran for Boston mayor in 2021 but dropped out of the race before the preliminary election. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2022, lawmakers and then-Gov. Charlie Baker enacted a range of reforms to veterans services, especially at the state-run soldiers homes in Holyoke and Chelsea after major and deadly shortfalls during the COVID-19 pandemic. The law also elevated the Department of Veterans Services to a Cabinet-level executive office. Healey tapped Santiago in early 2023 to lead the new office. During his tenure, Massachusetts overhauled licensure and compliance at the soldiers homes and moved toward infrastructure upgrades at both facilities. Another law approved last year updated a suite of benefits for veterans. The state has also targeted veteran homelessness in a new campaign. Officials said since July 2024, more than 500 veterans have been placed into permanent housing and 386 have been placed into transitional or temporary housing, driving a substantial decrease in homelessness. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Saudi Arabia on Friday said it was extremely worried about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip after a UN-backed report confirmed for the first time famine in an area of the war-devastated territory. "The worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a direct result of the absence of deterrence and accountability mechanisms for the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The oil-rich monarchy termed "this catastrophe a stigma" for the world community, and called for an immediate international action to reverse the situation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a report released earlier on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said it has "reasonable evidence" that famine has been occurring in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, since August 15. In response, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) accused Israel of wielding hunger as a weapon against Palestinian civilians. In a statement carried by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the PA called for a "firm" world action against Israel to give people in the embattled Gaza Strip access to sustainable relief aid. Aug. 22Sauk Valley Community College Vice President of Academics and Student Services Jon Mandrell received the Friends of Education Award from the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools on Monday, Aug. 18. The award honors individuals committed to the success of public education and the mission of the Illinois Education Association. Mandrell was nominated by Christopher Tennyson, regional superintendent of schools for Regional Office of Education 47. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Mandrell has volunteered to provide many of our school districts support with their crisis plans," Tennyson said in a news release. "Jon has helped organize two trainings for our districts and first responders, along with providing equipment and other resources. Jon has also had all the administrators at Sauk go through crisis training so they could help out in case any of our schools would need them. Jon has always been a strong advocate for school safety, and we really appreciate all the help and support he has provided for many of our school districts." Earlier this year, Mandrell received the Phi Theta Kappa Distinguished College Administrator Award, which recognizes college leaders who demonstrate support for student success inside and outside the classroom. Mandrell leads the college's academic and student service departments, overseeing their direction and success. He previously served as dean of instructional services and a faculty member in the criminal justice department at SVCC. Before transitioning to education, Mandrell worked in law enforcement, including several years as an Oregon police officer and later serving as chief of the Polo Police Department. St. Joseph's/Candler (SJ/C) will launch a medical residency program in 2027. The regional health system plans to offer physician residencies in internal and family medicine by expanding its partnership with the Medical College of Georgia (MCG). Last July, MCG (a college of Augusta University) opened its doors on a four-year degree program housed at Georgia Southern University's Armstrong Campus in Savannah. The four-year program was itself an expansion of the previously existing two-year program that had been operating out of Georgia Southern and in collaboration with SJ/C for student clinical rotations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement President and CEO of SJ/C Paul P. Hinchey said the move was a "natural evolution of the partnership." He explained that SJ/C had two routes toward offering residencies. One would have been starting from scratch on its own, and the second was to "build a bridge to an existing academic partner" that already knows how to navigate the accreditation process. Hinchey said MCG's involvement will help fast track that process through the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. He said SJ/C and MCG want to bring on the first round of residents by July 1, 2027 "and then get them into the workforce." Why the need for speed in producing more doctors? As noted in a press release sent out this morning by SJ/C, "Only three out of Georgias 159 counties have the recommended amount of primary care doctors, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration." MCG Dean David Hess, MD underscored the point, in a prepared statement that read, Georgia currently ranks 40th nationally in medical residents per capita, which demonstrates the tremendous need to grow our GME [graduate medical education] programs." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hinchey stated that medical programs with residencies see a much higher retention rate, sometimes as high as 60%, of medical professionals in a community compared to programs without residencies, where retention can be around 25%. He indicated that SJ/C does not just want to help produce more physicians, it wants them to stay in the region as well as meet the ever-growing, statewide need. MCG Savannah campus July 2024: Ribbon cutting marks official opening of Medical College of Georgia's Savannah campus 150 years of healthcare: St. Joseph's/Candler celebrates 150th anniversary of community health care Program funded by state grant St. Joseph's/Candler President and CEO Paul P. Hinchey speaks at the St. Joseph's Hospital's 150th anniversary celebration, June 27, 2025, Savannah, GA. Dr. Spencer Adoff and Dr. Brian Raj, Chiefs of Staff at St. Josephs Hospital and Candler Hospital, said the program would be a fantastic development for the community and that many experienced SJ/C doctors "are excited to become attending physicians and mold the future of healthcare in Savannah and Georgia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Initially backed by a $10 million grant from the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce, SJ/C's residency program will offer 48 residency slots. SJ/C plans to expand to 60-70 residencies through what Hinchey referred to as a scaffolding model. Residents would first need to complete an internal or family medicine residency before moving into high-demand medial specializations, such as cardiology. The $10 million came from over $20 million appropriated through the state's amended Fiscal Year 2025 Budget within a Graduate Medical Education Expansion Grant. SJ/C and nine other organizations located south of State Route 540 received start-up funding through the grant. Hinchey thanked the efforts of Georgia Speaker of the House Jon Burns, Chairman Butch Parrish, Senator Ben Watson (R-1) and "the whole Chatham County delegation" for securing this grant. He said that he and the legislators, along with Governor Brian Kemp, have been talking about increasing residencies in Georgia for about three years. Hinchey added that the program director position has already been filled by the former residency program director from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The director will start in September while SJ/C will begin the search for residency heads for internal and family medicine focuses in January 2026 with the intent to onboard them by next April. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The accreditation application will need to be submitted no later than Sept. 30 or, Hinchey said SJ/C will be sent to "the back of the line and wait another year." Renovation work is underway on a program facility at an already-existing 40,000-square-foot building located off of Paulsen Street near the back of the Candler Hopsital campus, 5353 Reynolds St., Savannah. Hinchey said residents will receive annual stipends that would help them secure housing in the area, but that SJ/C will provide sleeping quarters in the new facility when residents are on call. Hinchey feels that the appeal of the Savannah region, the panache of MCG and sophistication of the SJ/C health system will attract top healthcare talent to the program. SJ/C may soon be the only regionally-owned health system to offer residencies, but Memorial Health University Medical Center has been offering residencies in family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, radiology and surgery through its Mercer University affiliated program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartzburt@gannett.com and JoeInTheKnow_SMN on Instagram. This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: St. Joseph's/Candler in Savannah announces new residency program By Ruma Paul COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) -Begum, a Rohingya refugee, is relieved she married off one of her seven daughters before funding cuts closed her school and thousands of others in Bangladeshs cramped refugee camps, affecting nearly half a million children. The daughter, Begum's second born, was 16. Without school, girls sit idle. People start talking, said Begum, 35, as her youngest, a toddler, tugged at her headscarf and four other daughters huddled nearby in their bamboo shelter in one of the camps in Cox's Bazar. I was afraid. Marriage was the only option. I just pray her husband lets her study. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Begum, whose husband is struggling with his mental health, declined to give her full name fearing repercussions for marrying off her daughter at such a young age. Bangladesh has around 1.2 million Rohingya Muslim refugees, half of them children, most of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar that U.N investigators have described as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Monday marks the eighth anniversary of that displacement, when more than 700,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh in a matter of days, turning the area into the worlds largest refugee settlement. But now, as the United States under President Donald Trump slashes nearly all international aid, and despite a sharp rise in arrivals over the past 18 months, funding for the camps has been cut. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR says it needs about $256 million to support the displaced Rohingya this year. The amount is the lowest in six years, but it has only received commitments for about 38% of the total. Globally, the UNHCR expects to receive just a third of the $10.6 billion it needs this year to assist a growing number of displaced people. "This community have already lost everything and are now facing a severe funding shortfall that threatens their survival," said Juliette Murekeyisoni, interim UNHCR Representative in Bangladesh. "Essential services and lifesaving assistance for the whole Rohingya refugee population are at risk of collapsing: critical food assistance, health services, essential cooking fuel (LPG), soap, and education will either stop or be severely disrupted without urgent additional support." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement UNICEF, which runs many of the Rohingya learning centres, said it suspended operations at more than 4,500 of its schools in June, leaving more than 227,500 Rohingya children without education and nearly 1,200 Bangladeshi teachers without work. Many Rohingya teachers are also without a job. Classes resumed in July for older students, but many bamboo-and-plastic classrooms remain deserted, doors locked and murals fading in the humidity. Now the kids just play in the mud or rain. They're forgetting everything they once learned, said Naser Khan, a Rohingya teacher. Without education, they become blind. A lost generation, he said. 'SNATCHED AWAY' Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In one of the refugee camp's sweltering lanes, Mohammed Faruq trudges beneath the midday sun, calling out the names of his two young daughters. Once, the girls ran to school with tattered notebooks in hand. Today, they wander aimlessly between the camp's bamboo shacks. Only a little bit of education our children could learn was snatched away, said Faruq, a father of six who fled Myanmar in 2017. We survived genocide in Myanmar, we survived floods and fire here but now our childrens future is being killed silently. For Faruq, the crisis feels unbearably personal. If our children cannot study, they will have no future ... There is no way back to our homeland anytime soon, and here they have nothing, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Currently, no Rohingya child under the age of 12 in Coxs Bazar has access to education, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which estimates as many as 500,000 children are now missing out on learning. The IRC says the reduction in humanitarian services is already having serious consequences: reported cases of child marriage have risen by 3% this year and child labour by 7% figures that are probably an underestimate due to limited monitoring and stigma. Each day, more families will continue to turn to extreme methods of survival: gambling, selling children into marriage and forced labour, as well as sexual abuse will all rise," said Hasina Rahman, IRC's Bangladesh director. 'BURNING CHILDRENS DREAMS Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement UNICEF says shifting global priorities" have led to the decrease in contributions. To stretch every dollar, we have reduced UNICEF staff, streamlined programmes, and cut costs wherever possible but the needs far outweigh the resources available, Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative to Bangladesh, told Reuters. The UNHCR warns the funding crisis threatens to undo years of fragile progress. As violence in Myanmar continues, up to 150,000 Rohingya have arrived in Coxs Bazar over the past 18 months, adding pressure to already strained services. I dreamed my students would become doctors or engineers. Now, with no classes, they will become nothing, said Kafayat Ullah, a 45-year-old maths teacher. They burned our homes in Myanmar. Here, they are burning our childrens dreams. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of those dreams belongs to nine-year-old Nahima Bibi who now spends her days playing in the camp's muddy lanes with the other children. If I dont go to school, how will I ever become a doctor? she said, softly. My heart feels sad. (Reporting by Ruma Paul in Cox's Bazar; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Kate Mayberry) Getty Images Until you open the box, the cat is both alive and dead, or so goes physicist Erwin Schrodingers famous quantum paradox. Oddly enough, the same logic has applied for months to the Michigan House Republicans approach to the state budget: until they actually present a plan, their budget both exists and doesnt. For those who are not science nerds, the concept of Schrodingers cat is a thought experiment which demonstrates that in the super-micro quantum world, something (in this case, a cat) can simultaneously exist in multiple states until we observe it, at which point it is forced to become one or the other. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Obviously in the reality we experience, something cant be two things at once (the exception may be Michigan weather, in which it can be both snowing and oddly humid), but Lansing politics often transcends reality. Earlier this week House Republicans said that box could open as soon as next week with the long-awaited release of their proposal, and the cat about to finally be observed. But House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) slammed shut the box lid by repudiating his own appropriations chair and saying the GOP budget plan might not see the light of day until Sept. 30. That would give negotiators just hours to finalize a budget and get it signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, staving off a shutdown. This years process stands in stark contrast to the last two budget cycles when Democrats held the political trifecta of legislative majorities in the state House and Senate and the governors office, passing spending plans by the July 1 deadline. Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) discusses House Republicans efforts on the state budget. Aug. 6, 2025 | Photo by Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance But one need only go back to 2022 and see that even with a GOP-led House and Senate, Whitmer and fellow Democrats were able to get a budget approved on time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But today Michiganders are stuck in political limbo, unable to scrutinize or debate what has only been promised, not delivered. The state is barreling toward an Oct. 1 government shutdown, and every day without a spending plan leaves vital services in limbo and taxpayers on the hook. There have only been two shutdowns in Michigan before, in 2007 and again in 2009, both lasting just hours until temporary spending plans were put in place. That could be the case this year also, although does anyone really believe we live in a less politically divided world than we did 15 years ago? In the meantime, that budget cat, the one we cant see, is still theoretically inside the box. The cat we can see is the failure of Hall and his Republican caucus to produce a state budget proposal in a timely manner, leaving schools, local governments and countless Michigan families in the lurch. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With a rapidly shrinking legislative calendar, that failure has moved beyond mere political posturing. Its legislative negligence. Instead of several months to negotiate a budget that will pass both chambers and be signed by the governor, we are now facing the possibility of mere hours. But it doesnt have to be this way. In fact, it shouldnt be this way. Just six years ago, Hall joined every one of his House colleagues Democrats and Republicans alike in approving a statutory deadline of July 1 for the Legislature to pass a budget. Unfortunately that law provided no sanction for violating it, likely with the assumption that responsible leaders would abide by it out of a sense of their solemn oath. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Feel free to pause here so you can catch your breath after the good laugh that statement surely provided. But seriously, the goal then seemed logical: provide schools and local governments with clarity and stability. Yet now, weeks after that deadline has come and gone, the very man who helped enshrine that timeline into law is presiding over a chamber that has yet to put a complete budget on paper. So, whats the holdup? Hall insists that House Republicans are focused on delivering a comprehensive plan that includes fixing Michigans crumbling roads, a priority he claims is shared by Whitmer. But the governor told Michigan Advance Senior Reporter Ben Solis that while she does want a long-term road funding solution, this years budget process is going a little later than I think any of us want it to, and a roads plan is just one piece of the overall picture. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It all goes together, she said. State Budget Director Jen Flood during the presentation of Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive budget recommendations for Fiscal Year 2026 on Feb. 5, 2025. | Kyle Davidson The fact remains that the governor put forth her statewide budget proposal in February, while the Democratic-led Michigan Senate followed suit in May. The House GOP, by contrast, has offered press conferences, not pages. With a proposal that had been promised as soon as next week but now again delayed, the path forward remains unclear. Whats in the plan? More importantly, will it be a serious spending blueprint that understands a true negotiation requires both giving and getting? None of that is certain. What is certain is that the longer House leaders wait to get serious, the greater the risk to essential services, and to the people who rely on them, all of which could have been avoided if the House GOP had treated this process with the urgency it demanded. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Senate has acted. The governor has acted. The House GOP says it may act soon. But Michigan deserves more than promises. It deserves leadership. Theres still time to avert disaster. But with every passing day, voters should be asking why the chamber that once demanded budget discipline now finds itself scrambling to meet the moment. Whenever a plan finally arrives, lets hope its more than a political prop. Because while the theoretical cat inside Schrodingers theoretical box can theoretically wait, actual accountability wont wait. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SCHUYLER COUNTY, N.Y. (WETM) Schuyler County District Attorney Joseph Fazzary was honored in Albany in August for his decades of service in helping protect victims of crime. Fazzary was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the New York State Office of Victim Services (OVS) during a three-day conference in Albany. The conference brought together more than 400 victims advocates and service providers from across the state who work for programs funded by the OVS. Fazzary has served as the Schuyler County DA since 1998, and throughout his time has tried cases ranging from homicides and sexual assaults to arsons and burglaries, and many more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have thoroughly loved this job Schuyler County District Attorney to retire after 28 years in the position A prosecutor, father, husband, and victim of childhood sexual abuse, Fazzary has told his story throughout his career to advocate for victims and create stronger services throughout the community. It has been the hallmark of the Schuyler County District Attorneys Office for nearly 30 years to put victims first in a system where they are too often forgotten, Fazzary said. Fazzarys commitment to serving victims led him to help create the Justice Center of the Southern Tier in Montour Falls. The center provides counseling, case management, legal assistance, and help with OVS compensation claims to victims of all crimes and their families. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Talk of the Tiers: Schuyler County DA Joseph Fazzary I have dedicated my entire career to standing with victims and survivors, and being recognized by OVS is one of the greatest honors I have ever received, Fazzary said. Fazzary was elected to the role of district attorney when he was 29 and has been re-elected six times. Fazzary has run the office for 28 years and is set to retire on December 31, 2025. The OVS Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 2015 to recognize extraordinary leaders in the field of victim services. Past recipients include advocates, service providers, and prosecutors who have left a lasting impact on crime victims and their families across New York State. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WETM - MyTwinTiers.com. A threatened woodpecker species is now thriving in an unexpected location a military bombing range. Conservation biologists have successfully turned the Avon Park Air Force Range in Florida into a sanctuary for red-cockaded woodpeckers. Between 1998 and 2016, conservationists translocated 54 red-cockaded woodpeckers from six healthy populations to Avon Park. Spanning 106,000 acres, the military training site is where the Air Force practices air-to-ground bombing and gunnery exercises. But it also happens to be the perfect sprawling home for this at-risk bird species. Researchers hoped moving individuals from "donor populations" to the area would help bolster the health and resilience of Avon Park's dwindling woodpecker populations. Now, decades after the first translocation, researchers report successful long-term outcomes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Approximately 70% of relocated birds survived in their new environment, with many going on to form breeding pairs with local woodpeckers. Researchers found that the resulting offspring exhibited stronger survival and reproductive success than the original colony. This boost not only increased the species' overall numbers, but researchers say the success also helped restore genetic diversity to the area's woodpecker population. The results, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show potential to use translocation as a conservation method to reverse population decline. The researchers add that the tactic is especially effective when used together with habitat management strategies like controlled burns and ecosystem rehabilitation. "The only reason that these populations are still around is because of the continued collaborations and long-term investment in these imperiled species," study author and Michigan State University graduate student Alex Lewanski said in a statement. The researchers hope the success of the project will inspire greater use of translocations in conservation work. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It has the potential to act as an important component of managing many imperiled species," Lewanski added. Once common across the American South and East Coast, the red-cockaded woodpecker has faced a dramatic decline due to habitat loss, particularly the destruction of pine savannas or flatwoods from land development and rising global temperatures. The birds are now confined to "small, disconnected pockets covering only 3% of their historic range," according to Michigan State University. The Nature Conservancy estimates there are currently about 6,000 family groups in the U.S., totaling roughly 15,000 individual red-cockaded woodpeckers. That's less than 1% of their population at the time of European settlement. Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty? Definitely Only in some areas No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. While those numbers are concerning, the species has been showing promising signs of recovery. In November 2024, the red-cockaded woodpecker was reclassified from an "endangered" to a "threatened" species a notable milestone after being federally listed as endangered since 1970. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And Avon Park is playing a key role in that recovery, especially since the land area houses more than 35,000 acres of pine savannas. These flatlands offer a stable habitat not just for the red-cockaded woodpecker, but for the more than 40 additional at-risk species that call Avon Park home even amidst the occasional booming training exercise. 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. Heres what youll learn when you read this story: Researchers believe the earliest forms of life on Earth began in hydrothermal ventscracks in the sea floor that release hot, mineral-rich water. A team of scientists just discovered a hydrothermal system thats 100 times larger than the famously massive Lost City system in the Atlantic Ocean. The study suggests that the newly-discovered fieldnamed the Kunlun systemmay bring scientists one step closer to understanding the formula for life. The ocean covers about 70% of Earths surface, yet less than 30% of the sea floor has been explored and mapped. So, it isnt surprising that scientists are frequently making new discoveries deep beneath the waves. This time, researchers discovered a vast hydrothermal system that they have since dubbed the Kunlun system. Published in the journal Science Advances , their recent study details just how extraordinary the newly-discovered deep sea network really is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Kunlun hydrothermal field is a tectonically active site in the Pacific Ocean. It sits roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of the Mussau Trench on the Caroline Plate, located just north of New Guinea. A crewed submersible explored the area and discovered that the system consists of 20 circular craters in the sea floor, with some exceeding one kilometer (half a mile) in diameter. The entire field spans a whopping 4.3 square miles (11.1 square kilometers). In the ocean, hydrothermal systems occur when seawater seeps down through cracks in oceanic crust and rapidly heats as it nears Earths mantle. And while they are often associated with the briny depths of our oceans, hydrothermal vents arent exclusive to the sea. In fact, one of the most well-known hydrothermal systems is the network of geysers at Yellowstone National Park. Each geyser is a small piece of (or a feature in) the larger system. So, why should we care about natures jacuzzis jets? According to some scientists , they could be key to understanding how life began on Earth. Deep sea hydrothermal vents are surrounded by water that is rich in hydrogenan element that serves as a building block for the organic molecules that make up life as we know it. But just because you have flour and water doesnt mean youll end up with a loaf of bread. The conditions surrounding hydrothermal systems give scientists the perfect natural laboratory to research what that precise recipe for life was when it began millions of years ago. Not only is the Kunlun hydrothermal field exciting because its newly-discovered, but it also isnt your average hydrothermal systemaccording to Sun Weidong, corresponding author on the study, the field has several abnormal characteristics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Kunlun system stands out for its exceptionally high hydrogen flux, scale, and unique geological setting, he explained in a press release . Researchers say that the location of the field in particular is challenging long-held assumptions, as it shows that hydrogen generationand extremely rich generation, at thatcan occur far from mid-ocean ridges. The Kunlun systems discovery comes years after researchers found the Lost City system in the Atlantic Ocean. While the Lost City hydrothermal field is no lost city of Atlantis, its still remarkablein fact, it may be the longest-lived venting environment in history. But what the Lost City has in years, the Kunlun system has in size. The newly-discovered field is over 100 times larger than the Lost City and, according to the research team, the Kunlun system may get us even closer to confirming how and where life began. Compared to the carbonate towers formed in the Lost City, the paper reads, these pipes/pits provide a more sustained and stable evolutionary time frame, offering a potentially more suitable environment for the evolution of early life. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Scientists spend a lot of time researching what life must have looked like around hydrothermal vents in their earliest days, but that doesnt mean the deep sea systems are devoid of residents now. In fact, the Kunlun system is crawling with enough creatures that it could be considered the next lost city. Whats particularly intriguing is its ecological potential, Sun said in the press release. We observed diverse deep-sea life thriving hereshrimp, squat lobsters, anemones, and tubewormsspecies that may depend on hydrogen-fueled chemosynthesis. You Might Also Like Scientists expressed deep concerns after U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that the Trump administration plans to "update" a congressionally mandated series of reports on the impacts of the overheating planet, according to a report in the Guardian. The national climate assessments (NCA) have been produced and peer-reviewed by scientists five times since 2000 and are considered the premier studies on the subject, according to the report. What's happening? Wright, a former fossil fuel executive, told CNN's Kaitlin Collins that the administration was reviewing the NCA reports and claimed they "weren't fair in broad-based assessments of climate change." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, President Trump dismissed 100s of scientists working on the next NCA, which was expected to come out in 2028. The Trump administration also recently deleted the website that hosted the assessments. Wright's comments on CNN came shortly after the Department of Energy released a report downplaying the impacts of CO2-induced warming and claiming that "mitigation strategies may be misdirected." That report was slammed as a "farce" and "pseudoscience" by a host of scientists. "This is an agenda to promote fossil fuels," said Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the dismissed authors of the sixth NCA, according to the Guardian. Cleetus added: "Secretary Wright just confirmed our worst fears that this administration plans to not just bury the scientific evidence but replace it with outright lies to downplay the worsening climate crisis and evade responsibility for addressing it." Why are the DOE's actions important? If the proposals of the Department of Energy and other agencies under the Trump administration take hold, decades of scientific research and efforts to stem the tide and adverse impacts of the overheating of the planet could go by the boards. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Around the same time, the DOE released its climate report and Wright announced the department was "updating" the NCA assessments, the Environmental Protection Agency released a proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, an Obama-era determination that led to regulations to curb pollution created by gas-fueled vehicles. According to the EPA, "If finalized, the proposal would repeal all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations." Obviously, this would be a serious blow to efforts to reduce industrial pollution and the transition to low- and no-emission vehicles. Do you think the government should ban gas-powered lawn tools? No way Definitely Only certain tools I don't know Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. What's being done about these proposals? The scientific community is quickly coalescing around efforts to counter the DOE and EPA proposals, with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine fast-tracking its own report on the latest evidence on the harms of polluting gases to counter the potential rollback of the Endangerment Finding. And while there are headwinds in the U.S. against progress toward a green energy future, efforts in much of the international community continue apace. There is even some bipartisanship in Congress on the importance of renewable energy. So sending a letter to your senator or representative expressing your support for clean energy or making an appearance at a town hall may not be in vain. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. State Rep. Ryan Armagost announced on Thursday afternoon that he is resigning his House seat immediately. That resignation took out the possibility of a censure that was expected to be brought up against him either on Thursday or Friday. Only a member of the Colorado General Assembly can be censured, according to House rules. Armagost had already announced on June 30 that he intended to resign, effective Sept. 1, to take a job in Arizona. House Speaker Julie McCluskie announced the censure resolution during a House Democratic caucus meeting on Thursday morning. The issue had to do with Armagost taking photos of Rep. Yara Zokaie, D-Fort Collins, during a debate on April 11, Colorado Public Radio reported recently. He shared the photo with other members of his caucus in a Signal chat. Zokaie was wearing a black blazer over a short dress and knee-high leather boots. Republican lawmakers responded with crude comments, comparing the first-term lawmaker to a stripper and a prostitute, according to CPR. At the time, Armagost chaired the Houses workplace harassment committee. House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs, removed him from that position just before the CPR story broke. The photo went viral in a social media account on X, along with crude comments. Featured Local Savings Zokaie told CPR: The messages very quickly escalated from name calling and vulgar remarks about my appearance and what people wanted to do to me, to threats against my family, my children, death threats, rape threats. Things got to a point where my staff needed to rotate who would check our messages because it was traumatizing to hear some of the things that people were saying. During the caucus meeting Thursday, Zokaie told her colleagues the photo resulted in never-ending harassment and that she got a message that listed her childrens school address that included this: Whats going to happen to them is your fault. Zokaie said she went to Pugliese to talk to her about the message, and Pugliese responded that shed find out who took the picture. But she already knew it was Armagost, Zokaie claimed, adding, My trust in minority leadership and my Republican colleagues is completely broken. The length of my skirt does not warrant threats against my children, Zokaie also said. Pugliese disputed comments made by both Zokaie and Duran. A Larimer County vacancy committee will pick Armagosts replacement, which by law must be completed within 30 days of the resignation. The last time a lawmaker was censured was in 2008, when then-Rep. Douglas Bruce was censured by his own caucus for inappropriate behavior. Bruce kicked a Rocky Mountain News photographer who was taking his picture on his first day in the General Assembly and during the morning prayer. Bruce had been appointed to his seat by a vacancy committee and lost his primary bid for the seat a few months later. The last lawmaker and only the second to be expelled was Rep. Steve Lebsock, D-Thornton, who was thrown out of office in 2018 after multiple allegations surfaced that he sexually harassed a fellow woman lawmaker and several female lobbyists. Lebsock changed his party affiliation hours before his expulsion, and his seat was filled by a Republican, Alexander Winkler, who lost the general election the following November. SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) Thursday marked day two of the trial of Sioux City resident Edmund Pendleton, 39, who is being charged with first-degree murder and a felony weapon charge. A crowd of nearly two dozen people filled the courtroom as five plus witnesses took the stand for the trial. Ranging from Sioux City Police officers to a criminalist with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Pendleton is being tried for the murder of his girlfriend, Danielle Dolan, 46, with a handgun back in 2024. Story continues below Officer Matthew Montgomery was one of the witnesses, a trainee at the time of the murders. Officer Montgomery said they responded that night to a suicide, which ended with Dolan dying in the back of an ambulance. But after arriving on the scene, officers believed it wasnt suicide. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was also a lot of blood splatter. The blood splatter was on, its like clear bags that had clothes and other belongings inside it. They were all on the bed. There was also a pool of blood on the bed, but there was no blood splatter on the walls or anything, said Officer Montgomery. Witness, Kristin Hart, a Criminologist from Iowa DCI, testified saying the bullet fired matched the weapon that was used to kill Dolan. In this particular case, the fired bullet and firearm I received first, I found the bullet is identified as having the bullet fired from the firearm, said Kristin Hart, Iowa DCI Crime Lab Supervisor. If found guilty of first-degree murder, Pendleton would face life in prison without parole. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) The South Dakota Democratic Party responded to the news that South Dakota Public Broadcasting is cutting 25% of its staff due to losing federal funding. In a press release, the South Dakota Democratic Party called these cuts a huge blow to the state of South Dakota. SDPB to cut 25% of staff due to federal cuts Our members of Congress turned their backs on South Dakota Public Broadcasting and have forgotten who they serve, Democratic Rep. Erik Muckey said in a news release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This past session, state legislators on both sides of the aisle agreed: SDPB is necessary for the good of our state. These cuts were 100% preventable, and if there is any reduction of SDPB programming that South Dakotans know and love, you know who to blame: Sen. Thune, Sen. Rounds, and Rep. Johnson, Muckey said. Officials with the SDDP emphasized that the cuts made by President Donald Trump and South Dakotas Republican Congress members will have a large impact on South Dakotans, as many people rely on SDPB for the critical services they provide. The SD Democratic Party says that these cuts are not about reigning in federal spending, but are a direct attack on the publics access to reliable information. SDPB said coverage of the state legislature and high school sporting and fine art events will remain as a priority. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SDPB also said despite the cuts, nine TV transmitters and 12 radio transmitters that provide coverage to approximately 98% of South Dakotas population will remain operational. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. One of the more common cliches of modern travel is calling any tripeven a subway ride to an Instagram-famous coffee shopa pilgrimage. The word originally applied to journeys made to holy places by people so devout that they were willing to endanger their lives to get there. Today, both the risks and rewards of travel tend to be lower, but the activity retains its spiritual character for some, including the novelist Lauren Groff. For the latest installment of The Atlantics series The Writers Way, she traveled to Kyoto in search of the mysterious author of The Tale of Genji, frequently credited as the worlds first novel. She made her way through the crowds swarming Japans former imperial capital to find out more about that writer, known to us as Lady Murasaki. But Groff also came across the kinds of spiritual experiences that fire up much of her own fiction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement First, here are four new stories from The Atlantics books section: Groff was in Kyoto in April; the journalist Reeves Wiedeman was there around the same time. In a feature published in June in New York magazine, Wiedeman wrote that the city has become the epicenter of the age of overtourism: a once-tranquil historical landmark blighted by travelers racing to take selfies at a handful of clogged sites. Reading it, I wondered how Groffs essay could wrest meaning from this locationwhat weaving among the frequent-flying box-checkers could reveal about the Heian era of Japan, a time and place that Groff says is thrillingly distant to my imagination. In Kyoto, Groff did what many tourists do: She made a list and checked off destinationstemples, palaces, and museums associated with Murasakis life and work. Yet her most meaningful encounters had as much to do with sensation as place. She describes a feeling of living outside time while eating a 7-Eleven egg sandwich and sitting on a clean-swept sidewalk curb; she has an epiphany not while beholding a 10th-century relic but while taking a hot bath downstairs from her hotel room. Her deepest connections to medieval Japan are experiential, rather than physical or intellectual. I had an inkling that, though my love of Lady Murasaki could be explained only through beautiful abstractionby meeting her mind in her work, Groff writes, I might begin to understand something tangible about her through the wordless animal body. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This kind of sensory awareness can be found in Groffs fiction. Her most explicitly religious novel, Matrix, published in 2021, imagined the 12th-century mystic Marie de France as a towering figure who made a British abbey into a power center for medieval women. A heterodox interpretation of Christianity infuses much of her work, as Judith Shulevitz noted in a recent Atlantic essay about her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds. Shulevitz considered the journey in the book, a young womans flight from Jamestown in the 17th century, to be a spiritual onean update, in fact, of The Pilgrims Progressin which communion with nature is achieved through perilous struggle. She called the book Christian allegory in a post-Christian spirit. Groffs recent novels, as my colleague Sophie Gilbert wrote in a profile when Matrix was released, sprang from the idea that so much of our present suffering comes from a misreading of Genesis. God instructed man to have dominion over Earth and its creatures, and yet dominion, Groff thinks, has been interpreted as domination instead of care: the right to kill, the right to take, and not the right to nurture. I dont think its a stretch to connect this dichotomydominion versus carewith the approach Groff takes in Kyoto, diverging from the flocking tourists that Wiedeman depicts. Groff, a fan (as Shulevitz notes) of the animist-leaning Quaker John Bartram, observes the nature-worship of Japans Shinto traditions. She closes her essay with a tea-and-meditation ceremony at the Shunko-in Temple, a place with no ostensible connection to Murasaki, and yet she gleans something valuable about the often-puzzling structure of The Tale of Genji. She learns from one of the temples Buddhist reverends that the self is a shifting, inconstant phenomenon; he advises her to embrace ambiguity, which is part of nature. This instruction helps Groff understand the orderly disorder of Murasakis writing; it also teaches her about herself. Perhaps this isor should bethe goal of every pilgrimage. A Tale of Sex and Intrigue in Imperial Kyoto By Lauren Groff Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A thousand years ago, Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji, the worlds first novel. Who was she? Read the full article. What to Read The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, by John McPhee Pilots get most of the public credit for a flights successesbut they couldnt go anywhere without the behind-the-scenes heroes: engineers. McPhee has a rare gift for stepping into the astonishing obsessions of seemingly ordinary working people; here, he uses it to immerse the reader in a decades-long quest to build an entirely new type of aircraft. That potential vehicle, shaped like the titular pumpkin seed, was imagined as a combination of dirigible and airplane. Its siren call, as McPhee shows, was sometimes all-consuming, even life-destroying. In a saga that reaches from the Civil War to the 1970s, one acolyte after another grew convinced that he (this affliction appears to target men exclusively) would be the one who conquered the engineering challenge that had theretofore led only to ruin. Did anyone finally succeed? The fact that you arent reading these words in the passenger compartment of a dirigible-airplane hybrid gives you a clue, but McPhees storytelling makes readers hope that the mission will somehow pan out. Jeff Wise Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement From our list: Six books to read before you get to the airport Out Next Week A New New Me, by Helen Oyeyemi The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide, by Howard W. French Breakneck: Chinas Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang Your Weekend Read Illustration by Jonelle Afurong / The Atlantic. Sources: Mike Hansen / Getty; mikroman6 / Getty. Why Is Everything Spicy Now? By Ellen Cushing To put it generally and reductively, American food has not always been known for embracing spice. But now a large and apparently growing number of people in this country are willingly chomping down on fruits that have been expressly cultivated to bind to their bodys pain receptors and unleash fury with every bite. Its one of the great puzzles of culinary history, Paul Rozin, a retired psychologist who spent much of his career studying spice, told me. It is remarkable that something that tastes so bad is so popular. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read the full article. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Sign up for The Wonder Reader, a Saturday newsletter in which our editors recommend stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Explore all of our newsletters. Article originally published at The Atlantic Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the militarys top intelligence officer, according to the Washington Post. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is the second high-profile Air Force general this week to be relieved or abruptly announce their retirement. The services top general, Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, announced Monday he was retiring after only two years in the position, a job which is nearly always held by the same officer for a four-year term. Several news sources reported that Allvin was being forced out by Hegseth, but would be allowed to announce his retirement. Unlike Kruse, the Air Force has said Allvin will remain as chief of staff until his replacement is confirmed by the Senate. The Washington Post first reported Kruses firing on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Pentagon confirmed Kruses exit in a curt one-sentence statement: Lt. Gen. Kruse will no longer serve as DIA Director, a senior defense official said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His firing comes two months after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth criticized a DIA report that said the large American airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, trumpeted by Hegseth and President Donald Trump as a historic success, damaged but did not destroy the installations. No reason for Kruses dismissal was given, except a loss of confidence, according to the Washington Post. That term is widely used throughout the military when commanders are relieved, and can cover a wide range of reasons, ranging from poor on-duty performance to personal misconduct. Kruse previously served as Director of Intelligence for Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve and then Director of Intelligence for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. He took over as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2024. Allvin is a former test pilot who spent much of his career flying cargo planes before moving into command and senior staff positions, and was the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force before being tapped for the services top job in 2023. Top Stories This Week News Marines investigating social media post that appears to mock potential recruit By Jeff Schogol News 4,500 Marines and sailors deploy to Caribbean for anti-cartel mission By Nicholas Slayton News Marines outwitted an AI security camera by hiding in a cardboard box and pretending to be trees By Max Hauptman Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kruse and Allvin are the latest officials in a top military position to be removed from their jobs under Hegseth and Trump. In February, Trump fired several top military leaders who were women or non-white, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Charles CQ Brown Jr., Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan. The Air Forces second in command, Gen. James Slife, was also relieved. In April, Hegseth fired Vice Adm. Shoshanna Chatfield from her role as senior NATO planner, and Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and oversaw the National Security Agency, was relieved of his command. In June, a DIA report on Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. bombing campaign on Iranian nuclear facilities, found that the bunker buster bombs and cruise missiles severely damaged three nuclear sites, but did not totally destroy them, as the administration initially claimed.. After the report came out, Hegseth criticized it as preliminary, saying it would take weeks to fully assess the strikes. Theres low confidence in this particular report. It says in the report there are gaps in the information, he said at a June 26 Pentagon news conference. During the searches at the scene, a gun that was most likely used by the terrorist during the attack was found. Security forces on Friday arrested the terrorist who, a day earlier, shot at shepherds in the Malachi Hashalom area, northeast of Ramallah, wounding one, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said in a joint statement. The man is in his thirties and is from the area of Al Mughayyir. During Shin Bet questioning, the terrorist provided information linking him to the attack, the statement said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During the searches at the scene, a gun that was most likely used by the terrorist during the attack was found. The IDF is operating across all fronts with constant vigilance, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir told troops during a situational assessment and field tour of Tulkarm in the West Bank earlier on Friday, adding, "We do not have the privilege to ease up." Also on Thursday, Israeli forces shot a suspected terrorist who approached the Tamar checkpoint in a Hebron neighborhood carrying an air gun. The suspect was shot when he did not respond to calls to stop. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir in Tulkarm, in the West Bank, August 22, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT) Security forces arrest 90 wanted terror suspects throughout West Bank Security forces arrested 90 wanted terror suspects throughout the West Bank in the last week as part of the ongoing effort to prevent terrorism in the Palestinian territory, the IDF said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Among the arrested terrorists were two key terrorists from Tubas and Jenin. During the operations, troops seized weapons including rifles, pistols, and explosives, as well as tens of thousands of shekels intended for terrorist activity. "Like in all sectors, we do not wait; we prevent a threat before it grows. Terrorism strikes precisely where you are unprepared, and therefore we tailor the precise operational response to each sector," Zamir said. "The activity in the refugee camps is thorough and significant you are uprooting the roots of terrorism and ensuring it cannot grow back. "Today, there is no place in Judea and Samaria that cannot be reached; we are everywhere, at the right time, to prevent attacks and continue to enable operational freedom of action," he continued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zamir conducted the field tour along with the Central Command head, the head of the Operations Directorate, and the West Bank Division commander. During the tour, Zamir spoke with soldiers and commanders of the Paratroopers Brigade, expressing appreciation for their work in securing the region. "Your contribution is essential for maintaining the security of the residents," Zamir told them. "The campaign is ongoing, and we are expanding operations in Gaza," Zamir added, without providing more details on the operation. Romanian Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has stated that providing NATO allies with military bases for F-35 fighter jets could be his countrys contribution to efforts aimed at achieving lasting peace in Ukraine. Source: European Pravda, citing Agerpres Details: The prime minister was asked to clarify the governments position regarding the European leaders request to the United States to send F-35 fighters to Romania as part of security guarantees for Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolojan stressed that since the issue of supporting security guarantees for establishing lasting peace in Ukraine was raised, Romania has remained firm on at least two points. The first, he said, is that the country will not send troops to Ukraine. The second point in discussions with allies was that, given Romanias NATO membership, its military bases already jointly operated by Romanian and NATO forces, mainly air forces should be available for use by NATO troops, US forces and other allies. "Even today, air patrols are being carried out from our airports, air policing missions are monitoring the situation in the Black Sea, and joint military exercises are being organised. So this could be, so to speak, Romanias contribution to ensuring lasting peace in Ukraine: providing our military bases to NATO allies," Bolojan said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Background: Previous media reports indicated that the US is planning to play only a minimal role in any future security guarantees for Ukraine. US Vice President JD Vance said European countries should assume the main financial commitments in a future security agreement for Ukraine. On the morning of Wednesday 20 August, a meeting of the NATO North Atlantic Council at the level of member states ambassadors took place at NATO headquarters. The meeting discussed the results of negotiations in Washington and the process of preparing security guarantees for Ukraine. The meeting was held as part of preparations for a round table with NATO military leaders (chiefs of general staff), which took place later the same day. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Masten Childers II held several posts in state government before becoming secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services under Gov. Brereton Jones. (Cabinet for Health and Family Services) Masten Childers II, Kentuckys hard-charging and sometimes controversial secretary of the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services under former Gov. Brereton Jones, has died. He was 75. Friends said Childers, who had been diagnosed several years ago with Parkinsons disease, died Thursday in Lexington following a decline in health. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He was the perfect secretary of human services, said Ruth Ann Palumbo, a former state representative from Lexington who said she had known Childers for decades and worked with him closely in the mid-1990s while he was cabinet secretary. He did so much for the commonwealth, Palumbo said. He did a lot of good for this state. Tim Veno, a former top official at the cabinet, said Childers pushed key reforms in juvenile justice, nursing home and day care oversight, adult and child welfare and Medicaid all housed within the sprawling agency he ran until December 1995. He had a lot of accomplishments over the years, Veno said. Obviously the reforms didnt last but they lasted a pretty good while. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Veno and Palumbo said they were notified late Thursday of Childers death by his family members and others close to him. Childers told the Kentucky Lantern last year he was very proud of a 1995 consent decree he helped negotiate with the U.S. Department of Justice to reform the states problem-ridden system of centers for juvenile offenders and was deeply disappointed to learn federal officials were again investigating reports of abuse of youths that had resurfaced in recent years. If our consent decree had been followed, we would not be talking about this, he said in the 2024 interview. An intense individual While credited with shaking up operations at the states largest agency and enacting important reforms in human services, Childers, a lawyer who had worked in state government through several administrations, was known for his table-pounding, shouting, mercurial style around staff. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Frankfort State Journal once reported that Childers throws the best fit in Frankfort. He was an intense individual and sometimes very hard to work for, Veno recalled. I quit on him a couple of times. But Veno said Childers would implore him not to leave the cabinet, once showing up at his apartment to make the request in person. I would get over it, said Veno. Id go back to work and hed treat me well for a while but there were some wild times. He would throw staplers, kick trash cans. Some outbursts, Veno said, were born of frustration over the nature of the cabinets work which generally was lurching from one human service crisis to another sometimes involving death or injury to children and adults under the cabinets watch. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He in many ways inherited a cabinet thats on fire, Pat Mulloy, who served as finance secretary in the Jones administration, said in a 1994 interview in the Courier Journal. Hes got to put the fires out and figure out how to rebuild. But despite the conflict, his top staff formed a close bond and continued to meet for lunch occasionally in the years after Childers left the job as secretary when Gov. Jones term ended in 1995. That team we had in place, he thought we had a close connection, and we did, Veno said. He was a great leader, smart as a whip, was very passionate and did a lot for the people of the commonwealth. Frankfort hillbilly A cigar-smoking, suspender-wearing aficionado of Brooks Brothers suits, Childers a native of Pikeville persisted in referring to himself as a hillbilly and country lawyer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Veno recalled reports Childers occasionally lit up a stogie at work despite a ban on smoking in state buildings prompting an inquiry from a reporter as his tenure as secretary was winding down at the close of the Jones administration. Childers had a ready response for the reporter, Veno recalled. He said, We are doing an investigation as we speak. We are close to identifying a perpetrator and I can assure you he will no longer be here on Dec. 12, Veno said. (Dec. 12, 1995 was the day Paul Patton was inaugurated as the next governor, succeeding Jones). Childers earned a reputation as a difficult boss. Nonetheless, he stayed close with former colleagues who got together for occasional lunches. From left, Lawrence Wetherby III, Tim Veno, Masten Childers II, Charles Chuck Lambert, Tom Graham and Gene Kiser lunched together at the Lexington Club about two years ago. (Photo courtesy of Tim Veno) Childers was born into a well-off Pike County family. His father, Masten Childers, was a wealthy coal operator and his mother, Velma, was a prominent Republican who caused a stir when she crossed party lines to support Jones, a former Republican running for governor as a Democrat, according to a 1994 Courier Journal profile. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Childers said he became a Democrat in 1977. Before becoming CHFS secretary under Jones, he held several government jobs. Childers served as deputy finance secretary under former Gov. Julian Carroll and chief of staff for Martha Layne Collins when she was lieutenant governor. After earning a law degree in 1983, Childers served as a law clerk for former state Supreme Court Justice James B. Stephenson, Childers former neighbor in Pikeville, according to the Courier Journal profile. He first joined the health services cabinet as general counsel in 1992 before Jones named him to the top job as secretary. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After he left government, Childers returned to private law practice, Veno said. But he stayed in touch with friends and former colleagues, most recently at his 75th birthday party in July at the Lexington Club, said Palumbo, among those who attended. By then, Veno, who also attended, said Parkinsons Disease had taken its toll on Childers health, commenting, Now hes not struggling and suffering. Childers was preceded in death by his son, MacFarland Childers, and is survived by Masten Childers III (Jennifer), Judith Cornwell (Graham), Havana Childers, and six grandchildren and one great grandchild. Visitation for Childers will be held from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 27, at Milwards-Broadway in Lexington. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX President Donald Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the South Lawn of the White House, on July 4, 2025, during the 4th of July picnic. U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, attended the ceremony. (Daniel Torok/Official White House photo) U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is urging supporters and business leaders to push back against messaging from legacy media regarding the major tax and spending law passed by Congress in July. Crapo spoke to a group of about 50 people Thursday morning in Boise at a breakfast held by Americans For Prosperity, or AFP, an advocacy organization founded by billionaires Charles and the late David Koch. The private event at a downtown hotel highlighted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is now a law and was supported by AFP through a $20 million campaign effort. Undeniably, AFP was the biggest ally we had in getting the One Big Beautiful Bill across the finish line, Crapo said Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crapo chairs the Senate Finance Committee, which, among its many areas of oversight, is charged with crafting tax policy. The Idaho senator played a key role in crafting the legislation. He lauded AFP for going to the districts of lawmakers reluctant to vote for the bill. And it wasnt because those House members and Senate members didnt want to vote for the bill, Crapo said, its because their constituents were listening to the legacy media message about the bill and didnt understand what it did, and AFP helped us there. Attendees included Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, state House Majority Leader Jason Monks, R-Meridian, and Boise City Councilmember Luci Willits. Protestors call on Idaho congressional delegation to hold open public meetings Around 30 people protested the event outside, calling for public, free town halls instead. The protest was organized by the Idaho 50501 movement, which was also behind the No Kings Day protest in June, and Idaho Women in Action. Senator Crapos recent votes to restrict Medicaid and reduce funding for SNAP directly impact families across the state, said in an Idaho 50501 press release. Idaho 50501 and Idaho Women In Action believe these decisions should be discussed openly, with input from those most affected. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crapo had no public town halls scheduled as of Thursday, and a page on his offices website with a calendar and map of town halls listed an August 2022 event as the most recent one. Spokespeople for Idahos other members of Congress, Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Mike Simpson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on if they plan to hold town halls. As our townhall events, including tele-townhalls are organized and scheduled, we will update via our official office platforms, constituent emails, press releases and such, a spokesperson for Idaho U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher said. Crapo highlights laws deficit impact, tax cut extensions The Idaho senator said Thursday he was defensive of the narrative hes heard that the tax and spending bill which among many things made cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, extended tax cuts passed in 2017, added temporary cuts to taxes on overtime pay and tips, and increased spending for immigration enforcement and border security. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the total bill would raise the federal deficit by around $3 trillion in the next 10 years, FOX Business reported, and the law raised the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, which increases the legal limit on the amount the U.S. Treasury can borrow. U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo speaks at a private event Aug. 21, 2025 in Boise about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Laura Guido/Idaho Capital Sun) Crapo countered that analysis, arguing that the office should have used the baseline revenue with the tax cuts enacted in 2017 that were set to expire this year. His office requested that CBO score the bill, using the current tax policy as a baseline; that request shows a $1.2 trillion deficit decrease over the next decade. Thats where we needed help from AFP to get our colleagues to agree to take this hit because they were attacked as a gimmick, he said. I dont think most Idahoans think its a gimmick to say that the refusal to raise taxes is not increasing the deficit. He also said it wasnt just wealthy Americans and businesses who benefited from the tax cuts, noting, billionaires are paying the same taxes this year that they paid last year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A larger percentage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was made permanent in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act go to the wealthiest Americans, according to analyses by the Tax Policy Center, Economic Policy Institute, and the Bipartisan Policy Center. On average, all income groups receive a tax benefit from the extension or would have seen a tax increase had the cuts not been made permanent. The bottom 20% of household incomes would likely see an average increase of .5% in after-tax income as a result of the extension of the child credit and larger standard deduction, according to the Tax Policy Center. The highest-income taxpayers would see net tax cuts of 2% of after-tax income for those in the top quintile. The Council on Economic Advisors, an office under the office of the president, estimated that the average Idaho resident would see a raise in wages by $3,400 to $6,400 in the next four years as a result of the legislation. Crapo, echoing House Speaker Johnson, says another reconciliation bill may be coming Crapo underscored that while the massive law addressed many of President Donald Trumps main priorities, it did not satisfy all of them. He said the ultra conservative Freedom Caucus also wanted to see larger spending reductions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of Trumps eight or nine priorities, Crapo said, the law accomplished three or four of them. As chairman of the Finance Committee, Crapo was present when Trump signed the bill into law in July. He said the president called him out as knowing more about taxes than anybody, but said he and Crapo didnt always agree. Thats because he didnt get all eight of his things, and he only got them for a number of years, Crapo said with a laugh. U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said he wanted another major bill to continue the work, Politico reported. To pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, lawmakers used whats called the reconciliation process. Through this process, lawmakers avoid the filibuster in the Senate and only need a simple majority of votes rather than 60. Reconciliation can only address tax policy and certain types of spending. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So we are going to do another reconciliation bill, Crapo said. The politics of that one are going to be much, much more difficult because we dont have the (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) engine driving it. And the pressure in that one will be spending reductions, and any kind of spending reform in Washington is an intense battle, so look for that and keep saying nice things about me when we start cutting more. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Dakar has denounced new United States sanctions on a Senegalese ICC prosecutor and three others at the International Criminal Court, made in connection with arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister. The United States announced new sanctions against two judges and two prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday, over efforts to prosecute US and Israeli citizens. Senegalese deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang was among the four sanctioned. The others include French Judge Nicolas Guillou, who is presiding over a case in which an arrest warrant was issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, and deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Senegal calls on the American authorities to lift these sanctions, which constitute a serious violation of the principle of judicial independence," Senegal's Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on social media. The US State Department said the two deputy prosecutors were being punished for supporting "illegitimate ICC actions against Israel", including by supporting arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant. International Criminal Court chiefs slam US sanctions on top staff 'Full solidarity' The Senegalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it learned "with surprise of the US sanctions against four ICC magistrates". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ministry expressed its "full solidarity" with Niang, saying the sanctions violate ICC members' rights to "freely and peacefully exercise the mandate entrusted to them". The country's authorities "call on the American authorities to withdraw these sanctions, which constitute a serious attack on the principle of the independence of justice," said a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko posted on social media on Thursday that the "government of Senegal will... confront these unjust and unfounded measures by the United States of America". More broadly, the statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry reaffirmed Senegal's "unwavering support for the ICC in its mission to serve international criminal justice". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It also called for "solidarity" from other countries backing the ICC, urging them to "redouble their efforts to ensure that the judges and all staff of the Court can carry out their mission in complete independence, without threats or restrictions". US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously imposed sanctions on four other ICC judges in June. In February, the US sanctioned chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who was responsible for the request that led the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. The US and Israel have never joined the ICC, which is backed by the majority of Western democracies. 'Existential threat': What next for the ICC after US sanctions? 'The wrath of the US' For Maitre Drissa Traore, secretary-general of the International Federation for Human Rights, the situation concerning the ICC is getting worse, "all the more so since the American president now feels invested with greater power and presents himself as both the great peacemaker and one who only respects his own wishes," he told RFI. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is affecting the court's funding and ability to function, according to him. "The proceedings before the ICC are progressing more slowly," Traore said, "but above all, all the organisations and individuals, the NGOs that help the proceedings and investigations on the ground to run smoothly, must be very careful not to incur the wrath of the United States." He believes the US also makes use of the ICC according to its own political positions. "We remember that the United States previously supported the work of the Court, with regard to Darfur and Libya, for instance," he said. "Today, its interests, both political and strategic, are no longer the same, and the United States with President Trump opposes the Court being able to do its work in Afghanistan and particularly in Palestine." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He believes the recent controversy has given African nations a new appreciation of the scope of the ICC's work. "We no longer hear that the ICC is there only for Africans and those who do not have power", he said. "We realise today that the ICC is truly a court that is called upon to work across the entire Earth and to address all serious human rights violations." LEWISBURG, WV (WVNS) Greenbrier County seniors received access to a variety of local resources as part of the Seniors Day Out event at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine campus. Without Vets there would be no U.S.A; Outreach group for Vets at State Fair of WV Team members at Village Caregiving have brought senior care to the forefront of the conversation and have worked to offer information and support to seniors as well as their families and caregivers. Lewisburg branch executive director, Morgan Stover said its important to offer support to members of society who are sometimes forgotten. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We have an aging population, and resources seem to be dwindling. So, were here to fill that gap, as well as most of the other vendors here today, she said. Its really great to not only show that support for our local seniors, but also for their families. We spoke with Village Caregiving Regional Vice President, Adam Canterbury about the importance of autonomy. He said at-home care can provide a level of comfort and connection which might not be available at standard care facilities. People want to stay home, thats our goal. So they dont have to go to facilities, nursing homes people just want to be in their homes and thats our goal is to keep them there, said Canterbury. The same caregiver is there, theyre more comfortable there. Plus, its one-on-one care versus going to a nursing home for example where someone might be taking care of 10-15 people at once. Bluefield University hosts Welcome Week, ringing in a new school year Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Guests got the chance to enjoy music, food, and games. Perhaps the biggest attraction for seniors at the event was the bingo room. Most importantly, guests had a chance to gain perspective on the needs of some of our most at-risk community members. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WVNS. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation into the discovery of human remains that were found by a citizen in Wild Horse Mesa on Monday, according to a release from the agency on Thursday. The location is around 10 to 15 miles from the New Mexico-Colorado border in Costilla County, according to a representative for the 12th Judicial District Attorney's Office. The investigation has not been linked to any others at this time. The victim has not been identified and a cause of death has not been determined, according to the release. BELGRADE (Reuters) -Serbia's populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, called on Friday for dialogue with anti-government protesters following more than nine months of demonstrations in the Balkan country that have challenged his rule. In a televised address from his office in Belgrade, Vucic said he was ready to speak with the representatives of students and other anti-government protesters, including in TV debates. "I propose ... discussion and debate on all our televisions, on all our (internet) portals with legitimate representatives, that is, those they choose," Vucic said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The months of protests across Serbia were sparked by the deaths of 16 people when a roof on a renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed last November. Protesters have blamed corruption for the station disaster and are demanding early elections in the hope of ousting Vucic and his party. They also accuse the government of using violence against political rivals and suppressing media freedoms. The government denies all the allegations. The protests were mainly peaceful until earlier this month when dozens of police officers and civilians were injured in clashes and hundreds were detained. "I want us to confront visions ... to solve that through dialogue and conversation ... no conflict, no violence. To rebuild the country again, to get it back on track where it was nine months ago," Vucic said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Savo Manojlovic, the head of the centrist opposition Move-Change party, dismissed the possibility of talks. "A president who resorts to violence is not someone with whom you can debate about political issues, this is a ... corrupt government that tramples on ... democracy and human rights," Manojlovic said. "You don't make a fire department with an arsonist." Vucic's second and final five-year presidential term ends in 2027, when parliamentary elections are also due. Representatives of the students said they would debate with Vucic only during an election campaign. "He (Vucic) has no answer to the popular rebellion ... We will debate ... during the campaign, after the elections are announced," students from the Belgrade-based Faculty of Philosophy said in a statement. (Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic, Editing by Mark Potter, William Maclean and Alison Williams) SPRINGFIELD, Mo. Many people know about Habitat for Humanitys mission to build homes for people in need, but fewer may be aware of the organizations main fundraiser in Springfield: the ReStore. Located on South Scenic Avenue, the store sells donated home improvement items to help fund Habitats building, repairing, and revitalization projects in our community. The ReStore helps us fund our building and our repairing and our revitalization, said Aaron Wahlquist, Habitat for Humanity of Springfields marketing director. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Habitat for Humanity, the nations largest volunteer-led nonprofit for home building, relies on people willing to give, whether its by volunteering, donating, or shopping. Serving the Ozarks: C.A.R.E. Animal Rescue The ReStore acts as the middleman between people looking to get rid of gently used furniture, appliances, and building materials and shoppers searching for a deal on their next home project. All the donations we get helps to pay the bills, said Jennifer Mylenbusch, a Habitat for Humanity volunteer coordinator. ReStores Director Brian Johnson says people can donate items to the store, and the funds from those sales go directly toward building and repairing homes and revitalizing neighborhoods. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The store also offers free pickup for donations from homes and businesses. Shoppers, like Ida Miller, often find unique items at ReStore that they cant get at big-box retailers. My go-to is I always go straight to the back and look at their furniture to see if theres chairs, tables, dressers, something that may need a little tweaking or something that theyve pulled out of a hotel, Miller said. And then you can go get items that you cant get at Walmart or order on Amazon. Serving the Ozarks: I Support the Girls Upwards of 25 volunteers work across the ReStore, on donation trucks, and at construction sites on any given day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Habitat for Humanity of Springfields mission also extends beyond the restore and building homes. Many may not know, the non-profit also helps with critical home repairs. A lot of people realize that we build, but they dont know that we repair and revitalize, Wahlquist said. Last year, we repaired 45 homes, which ended up helping out 75 people. If you want to get involved, consider donating your time by volunteering, or donating or shopping at the ReStore. More information on accepted donations and how you help can be found at habitatspringfieldmo.org. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Niagara County health officials say several people were exposed to the rabies virus by a kitten found in Cambria that exhibited aggressive biting and scratching behavior. The kitten was located on Saunders Settlement Road between Diller Road and Fairview Drive in the Town of Cambria and due to its aggressive behavior, was examined by an Erie County veterinarian on Aug. 14. Due to signs of a potential neurological disorder, the decision was made to euthanize the kitten for rabies testing the next day. The Niagara County Department of Health submitted the kitten for testing to the NYSDOH Wadsworth Center, Griffin Laboratories on Wednesday and received confirmation of the positive result on Thursday. Throughout the investigation, the county health officials identified several individuals who had direct physical contact with the animal for possible post-exposure rabies vaccination. Exposures occurred in the residence and at the veterinarians office. All exposed individuals have started post-exposure rabies prophylaxis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Health officials said this case serves as an important reminder that even seemingly harmless domestic animals can contract rabies from contact with infected wildlife. Bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes are all common wildlife carriers of the rabies virus. A rabid animal can shed the virus through direct contact even before symptoms appear. Rabies can only be confirmed by submitting a laboratory sample. County health officials had reported Thursday that a rabid raccoon was found in the Village of Wilson on Aug. 15. The raccoon exposed the virus to three dogs in their yard but they had recently received rabies vaccination boosters and were not required to be quarantined. There was no human exposure. The Niagara County Department of Health conducts free rabies clinics throughout the year. Clinics are coming up at the Town of Lockport Highway Department on Sept. 13 and at the North Tonawanda Public Works Department on Dec. 6. Registration opens on the first business day of the week of the clinic date. For further information on rabies or to report an animal bite or contact with wild animals, please call the Niagara County Department of Health Environmental Division at (716) 439-7444 or visit www.niagaracounty.gov/health. Several sailors were treated for minor injuries and returned to duty after a fire broke out Wednesday aboard amphibious transport docking ship New Orleans off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, the Navy said. It is unclear what injuries were treated. Earlier, the Navy had said two sailors had been treated for injuries. On Friday, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said the ship had returned to White Beach Naval Facility under its own propulsion. U.S. Navy crews, along with the Japan Coast Guard and military, had put out the fire in the early hours of Thursday morning, Japan Standard Time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They had been working to extinguish the blaze for about 11 hours, since 5 p.m. JST on Wednesday. The New Orleans was anchored near White Beach Naval Facility during the time of the blaze. The crew of the amphibious transport docking ship San Diego, moored at the facility, helped with the firefighting efforts. A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the ship, said the fire appeared to be contained to the middle decks near the ships bow. The official added that multiple decks had been affected, without specifying how many decks were burned. The Seventh Fleet said Friday about 380 service members were working and residing on the ship, whose sleeping area and kitchen remained open. A Marine Corps official told Military Times earlier this week that no Marines were aboard the ship when the fire broke out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The cause of the blaze is under investigation, the Seventh Fleet said. The fire could further hinder the availability of amphibious warships at a time when the Navy is already struggling with readiness issues within the fleet. The readiness rate of amphibious ships critical to Marine missions has dropped to 41%, a defense official told Military Times earlier this week. The lack of available amphibious warfare ships, known as amphibs, resulted in a more than five-month gap in Marine Expeditionary Unit deployments this year. The 31st MEU completed its last patrol aboard the America Amphibious Ready Group in early March. The 22nd MEU deployed aboard the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group on Thursday, but returned to port in Norfolk days later to avoid Hurricane Erin. An investigation by the Government Accountability Office in 2024 found that half of the U.S. Navys 32 amphibious warfare ships were in poor material condition. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Marine Corps has said it needs the amphib readiness rate at 80% or higher to complete its missions with the current number of ships in the fleet, and Marine Corps commandant Gen. Eric Smith has called the amphib readiness rate a crisis. I have the Marines, and I have the squadrons, and I have the battalions and the batteries I just dont have the amphibs, Smith told Voice of America late last year. FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ga. (WSPA) A registered sex offender was found in a vehicle with a missing juvenile from Washington state during a traffic stop in Georgia, according to deputies. The Franklin County Sheriffs Office said the traffic stop happened early Friday morning after a vehicle connected to a missing persons case was spotted on a Flock camera, which is a camera system used by law enforcement which utilizes license plate reader technology. During a traffic stop, the sheriffs office said they found 25-year-old Caelen Dennis, from Idaho, along with a missing juvenile from Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Investigators said Dennis was also reported missing and is a registered sex offender out of Idaho and is prohibited from having contact with minors. Dennis was arrested and taken to the Franklin County Detention Center. Deputies did not say what charges Dennis was facing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS. A small shark became the most unlikely customer at a popular bayfront bar in New Jersey late Thursday night when Hurricane Erins flooding pushed the tiny predator out of the bay up to the clubs outdoor host stand. Bird & Bettys a popular bayside restaurant, bar and night club near a public dock in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island flooded as Hurricane Erins outer bands sent water pouring over bulkheads. Floodwaters submerged the Ocean County bars parking lot and pushed water near the outdoor host stand by the door during karaoke night, the staff said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats when staff noticed something moving in the parking lot what appeared to be a small, arm-length sand shark. Dave Lundy, a server at Bird & Bettys, said Friday the scene was unlike anything hed witnessed in his time working there. The whole parking lot was kind of flooded, Lundy said. And then someone points out, Is that a fin? Is that a shark? It was actually pretty insane. The parking lot and bay were pretty much one last night, he added. Flooding from Hurricane Erin pushed a sand shark out of the bay and into the parking lot of Bird & Bettys, a popular nightclub and restaurant in Beach Haven, on Aug. 21, 2025. Video posted around midnight on the restaurants Instagram page shows a Beach Haven police officer picking up the shark and carrying it back toward the bay. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But moments later, the creature returned to the parking lot and swam up near the host stand near the entrance to the bar. It kept swimming around and hanging out with us pretty much the rest of the night, Lundy said. As the floodwater began to recede, the staff worried the shark would be stranded. Eventually, a security guard working that night built up the courage to carry the shark back into the bay for good, according to witnesses. The unusual encounter came as the outer bands of Hurricane Erin battered the Jersey Shore, generating waves as high as 12 feet and causing significant beach erosion in several towns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Though the storm remained about 350 miles from land, its surge contributed to widespread flooding as one of the last big summer weekends approached. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nyah Marshall may be reached at nmarshall@njadvancemedia.com An unlikely quintet of sharks and a lone alligator were spotted together in the waters off South Carolina, spooking would-be swimmers at a popular vacation destination. The unusual sight was on display near a dock in Hilton Head as the massive sharks swam about without a care in the world while a lounging gator stayed off to the side in the shade, according to videos captured by flabbergasted vacationers. A small group of children watched on eagerly, sitting between the slats on the docks fence in hopes of watching a fight for the ages. An alligator and a group of sharks were spotted swimming together in South Carolina. @ginaroseathans/TikTok Instead, the pod of sharks hardly paid any mind to the curious alligator. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive been visiting Hilton Head since I was 12 years old, and Ive never seen anything like this, Gina Athans, who recorded one of the viral videos, told The Island Packet. The alligator smartly stuck to the shaded part of the water. @ginaroseathans/TikTok A large group of children watched on eagerly. @ginaroseathans/TikTok Sharks and alligators typically live in different bodies of water. Sharks are almost exclusively found in salt water, usually deep in the ocean, whereas alligators flit from land to freshwater swamps. Lemon sharks, which are common in South Carolina, prefer warmer bodies of water, but rarely drift so far into freshwater systems, according to the Florida Museum. That doesnt stop either species from having a penchant for the Skull Creek Docksides brackish water a combination of salt and freshwater. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The two titans usually coexist if theyre of similar size, Morgan Hart, the Alligator Project Leader for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, told the outlet. If one spots a tyke that can serve as an easy prey, though, all bets are off. Alligators primarily live in freshwater and sharks stick to saltwater. @ginaroseathans/TikTok The brackish water made the perfect spot for both species to laze. @ginaroseathans/TikTok The predator powwow left social media users wildly amused. the gator popping out like guuuuurl, what is goin awwwwn?, one user commented. The alligator was like nope, Im retreating, another added. Look at South Carolina out here Floridaing, another joked. It was close to 7:30 a.m. Thursday when Asma Elhuni, an organizer with immigrants rights group Resistencia en Accion NJ, got the urgent call: A Central American family in Trentons Bayard Street needed help. Federal immigration agents were outside their door and were trying to come in. They said they were scared and were unsure what to do. Asma, whos part of Resistencias rapid response team a team that provides support and legal aid to immigrants during and after Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids immediately rushed to the home, where she says she was met by hostile ICE agents. As soon as I got there, I started recording what they were doing, I started [streaming it live] on Facebook, she says. I was asking them if they had a warrant, I was saying I wouldnt leave if they couldnt show me a warrant ...[an ICE agent] told me he didnt have to show me anything and called me a criminal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Videos from the scene that show Asma angrily shouting at the agents have been shared extensively by both supporters and attackers, some applauding her courage and others dismissing her as an insane leftist. Screaming in a cops face is typically not ideal but desperate times call for desperate measures and in Trumps America getting loud is the only way for people in marginalized communities to be heard. Asma says the same federal agent she encountered referenced her presence at Delaney Hall, the controversial Newark immigrant detention center where months ago a riot involving more than 50 detainees broke out and Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested. Asma was arrested there in June while protesting the inhumane conditions at the facility. On Thursday, she says, several Trenton police officers arrived and suddenly she was once again in handcuffs, in the back of a police car. The charge? Obstruction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Amanda Dominguez, an organizer with immigrant rights advocacy group New Labor, in an interview yesterday told my colleague Jeff Goldman ICE had called Trenton police simply because a member of a local community group Asma had repeatedly asked them if they had a warrant to enter the home. Police said they responded to the scene to ensure the safety of citizens and everyone in the immediate area. And Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora backed them, saying police have a duty to protect all persons, but added that the department would continue to uphold the New Jersey Attorney Generals Immigrant Trust Directive. I was in a public space, on a public sidewalk, I was like why am I being arrested? and saying, I did nothing wrong, Im just trying to protect this family and making sure they know their rights, Asma says. I was shouting, If theres no warrant, you dont have to let them in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To legally enter a private home without consent, ICE officials must have a judicial warrant signed by a judge. Thats why Asma and other immigrants rights activists are so adamant about making sure people who are undocumented know so. Asma says it became clear to her, the agents didnt have a warrant or they wouldve broken down the door. Inside the home, the family of seven four adults, including a pregnant woman and three young children felt frightened but stayed put. They were terrorized, traumatized by all of this, trapped inside, hiding, says Ana Paola Pazmino, executive director of Resistencia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She says the family, originally from Guatemala, is a hardworking one. Theyre not criminals, theyre day laborers, some work in construction, one of them has worked in a restaurant. Ana Paola says other people in the neighborhood reached out to the nonprofit because ICE blocked off the street with unmarked cars and as a result many people were unable to go to work. But once they saw that our rapid response team was out there, they left, right? says Ana Paola. They said they were targeting a specific house but never said which house it was. ICE acknowledged a request for comment from NJ Advance Media but didnt immediately provide one. So, we still dont know for sure why they were in the area. But the confrontation happened just a day after a raid in an Edison warehouse that resulted in 29 arrests. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To Asma, its clear the ICE agents in Trenton were just targeting a predominantly Black and brown area, looking for people to put in cells. To me, its also clear that community activism works, that know your rights training works, that bravely standing up for those in our neighborhoods who are most vulnerable even when it ends with us in a shiny set of handcuffs is worth it. Even though she was arrested Asma says she was so happy to hear that we were able to make sure they didnt detain the family inside. Daysi Calavia-Robertson is a columnist who covers our states diverse communities. Contact her at dcalavia robertson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Instagram at @presspassdaysi. Or subscribe to her weekly newsletter and WhatsApp community, My Group Chat. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. There's more than one Sheetz in the works along M-59. In addition to a location announced for Highland earlier this year, the company has proposed a site at the former Walgreens and Chase Bank in Hartland Township at 10081 Highland Road. Sheetz is a convenience store and gas station with hot food, custom coffee drinks and other essentials for drivers. The first store opened in Pennsylvania, and the brand has since expanded to Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The company recently opened its first-ever Michigan location in Romulus. Highland Township approved a location on M-59 and Milford Road in February, though nearby Farmington Hills denied the companys application after pushback from locals. A rendering of a proposed Sheetz in Hartland Township. According to a site plan submitted to Hartland Township in June, the proposed location would stretch approximately 6,132 square feet on 2.92 acres between a convenience store and fueling station with 12 pumps. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plan also includes 48 parking spots, two air stations, indoor and outdoor dining, and more. Like other locations, the business would be open 24/7. The Hartland Planning Commission will discuss the site plan during a regular meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 28. A rendering of a proposed Sheetz in Hartland Township. More: Michigan lawmaker cites Sheetz hiring of local official, drafting bill to ban practice According to the meeting packet, gas stations are usually considered a special land use in Hartland Township, which requires a public hearing. In this case, the planning commission will decide on the site plan and review a first amendment to a Planned Development Agreement. The amendment would be recommended to the Hartland Township Board, which would issue a final decision. Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@livingstondaily.com. This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Sheetz proposes location along M-59 in Hartland Township Aug. 21Dozens of people were taken into custody this weekend in Fairfield following arrests at a nightclub and during traffic stops. The Butler County Sheriff's Office issued a statement saying multiple agencies, including BCSO, the Fairfield Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested 34 at a nightclub on Saturday, and five others during traffic stops. "All individuals were identified as being in the United States illegally and are currently being held pending further action by federal immigration authorities," according to a news release from the Sheriff's Office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arrests at Sabor Peruano Night Club, 7245 Dixie Highway, were in response to recent violence in the area and aimed at reducing criminal activity associated with the club, according to Fairfield Police. In the past two months, Fairfield police investigated two shootings it said were directly linked to Sabor Peruano. "Investigations revealed that many of the individuals involved were in the country illegally," according to a media release from the Fairfield Police Department. "As a result, we have been working closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to assist with our investigations." Before the operation was executed on Saturday, police officers anticipated encountering people who were in the country illegally and possibly armed. For that reason, the department requested federal law enforcement assistance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Despite multiple opportunities to address ongoing concerns, the ownership of Sabor Peruano has not taken sufficient steps to resolve the issues," according to the Fairfield Police Department. "As such, we will continue to closely monitor the situation and allocate resources as necessary to ensure the safety of our community." They were arrested and transported to the Butler County Jail. "The Fairfield Police Department is committed to maintaining the safety and well-being of our diverse community, and we value the strong relationships we've built with our residents and businesses," according to the police department. "While we support local establishments, we must also ensure that all operations comply with the law and will not tolerate behavior that compromises public safety." The Sheriff's Office also said it will keep detaining people who are in the United States illegally. The Butler County Sheriff's Office said it will continue to work with ICE and surrounding law enforcement agencies "to aggressively identify, detain, and remove individuals unlawfully present in this country." "Many of these individuals have been here for years, living and working outside the law," Jones said. "Butler County will not be a sanctuary. We will continue to enforce the law, protect our citizens, and hold accountable those who break it." The Denver Police Departments crime lab has now significantly expanded its review of DNA testing previously done by the Colorado Bureau of Investigations troubled forensic lab, bringing the total to more than 1,300 past sexual assault cases in the area. That is more than triple the CBI cases the citys crime lab said in April it would reexamine in the wake of the ongoing scandal at the state lab. At the time, Denver police said its lab would review 422 area sexual assault cases dating back to 2013 that had been previously handled by former forensic scientist Yvonne Woods at CBI. The unusual move was to check for accuracy and presumably determine if suspects may have escaped prosecution because of faulty testing. The Denver Police Crime Laboratory is still evaluating cases tested by CBI on sexual assaults that took place within Denvers jurisdiction. At this time, we are reviewing in excess of 1,300 cases dating back to 2013, which include the 422 cases handled by Ms. Woods and others for complete due diligence, a police spokesperson said in an email to The Denver Gazette. It was not disclosed whether the additional 900 cases now under review included more work by Woods, who goes by the name Missy, or if the police lab is doublechecking work done by CBI as a whole. It also was not disclosed what triggered such a dramatic expansion, and what, if anything, has been found so far. Results of the police lab review will be made public in about three months, the police said. On Friday, CBI said it had just updated the number of impacted cases it has found to 1,045 up from 1,022 in April. That translates to roughly one-in-10 of the more than 10,780 cases Woods worked on during her 29 years at the state lab. The number has risen steadily since the early days of the scandal, when it was thought to be about three dozen. In the nearly two years since it was first made public that Woods once CBIs go-to expert in forensic analysis had allegedly altered or deleted DNA results in criminal cases, much of the concern has focused on potential wrongful convictions based on her findings. But the Denver review could now point to the other side of the coin: possibly letting a suspect go because authorities believed there was not enough evidence to proceed. Separate from the current police review, the January arrest affidavit against Woods included seven sexual assault cases in the Denver area between 2015 and 2018, in which she is alleged to have falsely reported the quantity of male DNA found, reducing it enough so it was considered insufficient to create a profile. That meant that no further analysis was required or done, according to the affidavit. For instance, Woods is accused of adding a zero to the decimal quantity from .00025 to .000025 in her February 2018 report in connection with a Denver sexual assault case. It substantially lessened the amount DNA detected and she concluded there was not enough to develop a profile, the affidavit said. In the same case, she is accused of failing to report possible contamination at the lab. Every time someone turns over a rock, this thing gets bigger, said state Rep. Michael Carter, a Democrat representing Adams and Arapahoe counties who is vice-chair of the legislatures Judiciary Committee. He said he was unaware of Denvers expanded inquiry into CBIs work. A defense attorney, Carter has been sharply critical of CBIs handling of the scandal and its reluctance to release details of wrongdoing uncovered that could help understand the scope and toll of misconduct in the lab. She has not only harmed defendants, she has irreversibly harmed victims who have been re-victimized because 10 years ago someone did not do their job, Carter said of Woods. Denver police have previously said that, if irregularities are found in its review, it will then determine if re-testing is needed or if new leads in past cases need to be pursued. Featured Local Savings The January indictment against Woods, filed in Jefferson County where the CBI lab is located, outlines a total of 58 alleged deceptions and altered data by Woods in cases ranging from sexual assault to burglary to homicide across the Front Range, including alleged sexual assault on a child in both Aurora and Pueblo, and an El Paso County Sheriffs Office case involving alleged child trafficking. Woods now faces 102 felony charges and is awaiting trial. She retired in November 2023, just before the scandal broke; she was not fired. CBI has denied multiple requests by The Denver Gazette filed under the states open records law for a fuller account of problems at the lab. In an email to The Denver Gazette last week, CBI declined to comment on how many of the cases Denver police are reviewing are among the 1,045 it flagged in its internal investigation. The agency also did not comment directly on the expanded review but offered a repeat of the emailed statement it previously issued in April that it welcomes the opportunity to work with Denver crime lab in its assessment to determine if any Denver PD cases warrant retesting. While the Denver Police Department has its own crime lab, in the past it sent some of its sexual assault cases to CBI for testing. A police spokesperson told The Denver Gazette in an email it stopped sending cases to CBI last year. The Boulder County Sheriffs Office said in an email last week it has also stopped sending cases to CBI for forensic testing and instead now uses the Jefferson County Regional Crime Lab. While appreciative of work done by CBI for its office in the past, Boulder Sheriff Curtis Johnson said in the email the transition is focused on ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in our forensic investigations, allowing us to better serve victims and uphold the integrity of our cases. In Colorado Springs, its police department, like Denver, has its own crime. It currently sends some cases to the CBI lab in Pueblo for analysis and has no plans at this time to review those results, a Colorado Springs police spokesperson said in an email. In her November 8, 2023 interview with CBI internal investigators, Woods said that, starting in 2013, Denver shipped potentially shaky cases to the state lab for processing rather than test them in-house. The Denver Gazette obtained a transcript of that interview. Denver gave us all the cases they knew they werent going to prosecute, and they told us that, she said. It wasnt so much I was pissed but it was like Denver has their own lab and everything. She said in the interview she had been overwhelmed and burned out for a long time. When asked if she ever tampered with results, such as adding zeros to reflect smaller amounts of DNA so no further testing was warranted and her workload was lessened, she acknowledged it was possible but had no specific recollection of doing so. She also speculated during the interview that altering data in sexual assault cases would be easier than in other crimes. Kelsey Harbert, a sexual assault survivor and advocate who testified to lawmakers earlier this year about the more than 500-day wait time for CBI to process rape kits, said she is grateful that Denver is taking the step to review work previously done by the state lab and hopes other labs will follow. But I am beyond heartbroken for every survivor who is going to be affected by the misconduct of Woods and CBIs failure to do a thorough review of her work, she said, The revelation that sex assault evidence was treated with such indignity and disrespect before, during and since Woods was exposed is unconscionable. Sri Lanka's highest court has ordered the owners of a Singapore-flagged container ship to pay $1 billion for a spill it called the "largest recorded marine plastic spill in the world." According to the Associated Press, the ruling holds the liable parties responsible for an environmental crisis that killed hundreds of marine animals and continues to damage the nation's waters. What happened? In June 2021, the MV X-Press Pearl caught fire and sank off the coast of Colombo while carrying a cargo of chemicals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Supreme Court described the result as "unprecedented devastation to the marine environment of Sri Lanka," citing the deaths of 417 turtles, 48 dolphins, eight whales, and countless fish that washed ashore. Debris from the ship, including several tons of plastic pellets used to manufacture bags, spread across beaches and into the ocean. "This marine environmental disaster resulted in the widespread release of toxic and hazardous substances into the marine environment, poisoning ocean waters, killing marine species, and destructing phytoplankton," the judgment stated. The ship's registered owner, EOS Ro Pte. Limited, along with other charterers and a Sri Lankan agent, was found liable under "The Polluter Pays Principle." Why is this disaster concerning? Aside from the dead marine life, the toxic spill disrupted the delicate balance of Sri Lanka's coastal ecosystems. The contamination threatens coral reefs, fish populations, and phytoplankton microscopic plants essential to ocean health and global oxygen production. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judgment also noted the economic fallout, particularly for the country's fishing communities, whose livelihoods were severely impacted. Marine scientists warn that microplastic pollution, like the pellets released in this incident, can linger for years, entering the food chain and potentially impacting human health. The court stressed that the spill "continues to cause destruction and harm to Sri Lanka's marine environment." Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty? Definitely Only in some areas No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. What's being done about it? The $1 billion in compensation is intended to fund restoration and protection efforts for the damaged marine and coastal areas. While specific plans have yet to be announced, such measures could include large-scale beach cleanups, habitat restoration, and strengthened safeguards for shipping routes near sensitive waters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Globally, environmental advocates are calling for stricter international shipping regulations, better tracking of hazardous cargo, and greater accountability for polluters. On an individual level, reducing reliance on single-use plastics can help shrink demand for the raw materials that continue to fuel ocean pollution. 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. SHELBY COUNTY, Texas (KETK) Authorities are searching for people involved in shots being fired at a churchs chapel in Shelby County. Courtesy of the Shelby County Sheriffs Office The Shelby County Sheriffs Office said Old Home Baptist Church, between Tenaha and Paxton, was shot at multiple times. Authorities believe the incident may have occurred between Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. and Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Several bullet holes can be seen in the chapel and fellowship hall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Courtesy of the Shelby County Sheriffs Office Anyone with information on this incident is asked to contact dispatch at 936-598-5601 or contact Chief Deputy Mike Hanson directly at 936-234-3598. You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. (The Center Square) Shreveport is among the nine cities receiving federal funding for airport improvements from the U.S. Department of Transportations Federal Aviation Administration. Shreveport Airport Authority is receiving $517,750 in federal funding specifically to reseal 34,000 square yards of pavement at the Shreveport Regional Airport. Louisiana U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy announced the $5.2 million in funding for the state on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Airports connect our communities to the rest of the country and the world, said Cassidy. This investment makes Louisianas airports safer and more efficient. Shreveport's airport is growing as it receives more traffic and travel. Back in June, SkyWest chose the Shreveport Regional Airport for its 13th maintenance base, which brought in 525 jobs to the area. Around 150 of those jobs were direct with average salaries of $70,000. "The facility will service SkyWest's fleet of 500 commercial and aircraft operating partnerships with major airlines including Delta, United, Alaska and American Airlines," said Caddo Parish Commission President Stormy Gage-Watts. Not far from Shreveport, the town of Vivian was also among the recipients of airport improvements funding, totaling $102,875. This funding will go toward the purchase of 51.8 acres of land to protect Vivian Airport's runway 9/27 approach. The largest grant amount was awarded to the England Economic and Industrial Development District in Alexandria. The district will receive $2.9 million in federal funding for a 500-square-yard expansion of the South Apron at the Alexandria International Airport. In total, nine recipients are to receive funding, including the England Economic and Industrial Development District in Alexandria, the Beauregard Parish Airport District No. 1, Shreveport Airport Authority, the town of Jonesville for the Jonesville Airport, Chennault International Airport Authority in Lake Charles, city of Winnsboro, Concordia Parish Airport Authority in Vidalia, the town of Vivian for Vivian Airport and Parish of Allen in Oakdale for Oakdale Airport. It took a federal judge to say what we all pretty much knew: Alligator Alcatraz was built way too fast, and its presence is jeopardizing the Everglades. And so the South Florida detention center that was built in eight days something Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Trump bragged about now has to shut down within 60 days. This isnt happening for variety of important reasons, such as the violation of due process for detainees or the slow access to legal counsel or the prospect of a tent city built on a swamp in a hurricane zone or the dehumanizing joking about human beings being guarded by alligators and snakes, a reference to the old racist gator bait trope. The shutdown isnt even happening because, despite political claims to the contrary, many of the migrants being detained have no U.S. criminal convictions or pending charges, as the Miami Herald has documented. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruling late Thursday was based on environmental concerns raised in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe. Its a temporary injunction that will hold as the case continues to be litigated. Fine. Well take it. There are many reasons Alligator Alcatraz a misbegotten place if there ever was one, built with taxpayer money and virtually without oversight should be wiped off the face of the Everglades. The serious and undeniable impact on the environment is just one of them, but its plenty. In the judges order, she said the state must stop accepting detainees at Alligator Alcatraz and start removing generators, gas, sewage and other waste items within 60 days. The second part is important: Removing all of that would certainly make the old airstrip inoperable as a detention center. In the 82-page ruling, the judge particularly ordered that there be no more expansion of the detention facility including any more industrial lighting or new buildings. Those are important environmental considerations. The light pollution alone you could see the camp lighting up the sky from far, far away was no doubt harming the wildlife in the surrounding Everglades. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Williams the same judge who found Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in civil contempt of court in June in an immigration case noted that the detention center is in the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Big Cypress Area, land the Florida Legislature itself has designated as an area of critical state concern with the intention to conserve and protect the [areas] natural resources and scenic beauty. Theres more: The site is also within an environmentally sensitive ecosystem that is significant to wildlife, she wrote, including threatened wood storks, endangered Florida bonneted bats and Florida panthers. Proper environmental reviews werent done, the plaintiffs argued. And, seriously, how could they be? Eight days doesnt allow for much due diligence let alone the kind of careful environmental review that the Everglades deserves. But that didnt matter to Floridas leaders. They were in such a rush to show Trump that they were on board with his anti-immigrant agenda that they completely disregarded any environmental issues. This, from a governor who has proudly promoted his commitment to Everglades restoration. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas might have something to say about that. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The idea of putting a detention center for 3,000 people in the Everglades was always a bad one, made even worse by the callous and careless actions of our leaders in allowing this camp to be constructed. Its a blight on our humanity and a blight on the Everglades. Williams, in her ruling, mentioned President Harry Trumans dedication of Everglades National Park in 1947 and the proposal, 20 years later, for the worlds largest jetport a project that was rejected, resulting in the creation of the Big Cypress preserve to protect the area. Ever since, she said, every Florida governor, senator, countless officials and many presidents have pledged their unequivocal support for protection of the Everglades. In other words, history wont look kindly on Alligator Alcatraz. TALLAHASSEE Gov. Ron DeSantis isnt backing away from a controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades after a federal judge ordered his administration to begin dismantling the facility, as environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe gear up for the next stage of the legal battle. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction preventing additional construction and bringing additional detainees to the complex, which the state has dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. Williams also ordered the removal within 60 days of temporary fencing, detention-center lighting, and such things as generators. DeSantis lawyers quickly filed a notice, appealing Williams ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DeSantis, speaking to reporters Friday morning, shrugged off Williams decision. We knew the minute this judge got the case, we knew exactly what she was going to do. This is not anything that was unexpected, but we will make sure to get the job done in the end, he said. The lawsuit, filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, alleges that the DeSantis and Trump administrations failed to comply with a federal law that required an environmental-impact study before construction of the facility, which is adjacent to a remote airstrip known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. The tribe argued that the detention facility threatens its traditional and religious ceremonies in the surrounding Big Cypress National Preserve, where members have lived since time immemorial. The detention facility is located in the heart of the tribes ancestral homelands where hundreds, if not thousands, of protected ceremonial and religious sites are located, the tribes lawyers argued in a court document. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Curtis Osceola, an attorney who is senior policy adviser to tribal Chairman Talbert Cypress, told reporters Friday that the Miccosukees were very, very excited and happy with Williams order. We are still concerned because the psychic harm, the mental trauma that our children and our young adults are going to have to live with because of the imposition of this facility on their homelands will be felt for generations, Osceola said. Williams ruling said that the plaintiffs identify a myriad of risks from the project to the wetlands and endangered species whose habitats include the area around the facility. Plaintiffs also proved that runoff and wastewater discharge from the camp risks polluting the water supply in the Miccosukee Reserved Area where 80 percent of tribe members reside just a few miles downstream from the facility, and beyond, the judges order said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The tribe also showed ongoing harms to its enjoyment of the preserved areas due to the projects industrial lighting, noise, traffic, and security perimeter, she added. Williams also pointed to other issues that affected the tribe, including fencing that has cut off entry points to the preserve. Tribal members have lost access to the off-road trails leading into the BCNP (Big Cypress National Preserve) lands for hunting and other activities due to the camps operations Furthermore, tribal members had previously harvested plants from the areas directly adjacent to the site for ceremonial and medicinal purposes, but the camps new human activity erodes the cultural significance of the plant life, Williams wrote. Osceola said the tribe wasnt consulted in the run-up to the facilitys construction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judges order really vindicates the tribes rights, and we will continue to defend our sovereignty and our homelands, Osceola said Friday. Chairman Cypress wanted me to add that, when it comes to our homelands, there is no compromise, and we will continue to fight. Osceola acknowledged that the state is appealing Williams decision. We are prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court. This is not the first time the tribe has been in a fight like this. It probably wont be the last, but we are prepared to fight and we are prepared to win, he added. The lawsuit, filed in the federal Southern District of Florida, alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law that requires evaluating potential environmental impacts before such a project can move forward. Part of that process requires time to allow members of the public to make comments on potential projects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The states decision to move forward with the complex without conducting an environmental study was intended to avoid all that and to make a statement on immigration, Osceola said. Instead, what they did was made a bold statement about how we are willing to sacrifice the government for politics. I think that was something that really stood out to the tribe and something that we had to fight, he added. DeSantis recently announced that his administration intends to convert a mothballed prison in Baker County into a second detention center as part of the states efforts to support President Donald Trumps crackdown on illegal immigration. The governors office did not immediately respond when asked whether the state planned to comply with Williams order while the appeal is being considered. Osceola questioned why the facility was located in the Everglades. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No one could answer that clearly from the government. It was pretty obvious to all of us in the room, the plaintiffs at least, there was no explanation other than this was a publicity stunt, he said. Williams ordered the state to halt activities at the facility within 60 days, saying the two-month attrition of detainees would allow the state time to remove the newly installed fencing, lighting, and other fixtures and utilities apparatus in a safe, humane, and responsible manner. Her order also allowed housing and detention dorms to remain and be maintained to prevent deterioration or damage. She said the state failed to study alternatives to the Everglades site, as required by federal law. Paul Schwiep, an attorney who represents the environmental groups, called Williams ruling an important first step in the fight over the Everglades complex. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Any rational NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) analysis of the alternatives to this site and the impacts that this site poses would conclude it makes no sense to build a 5,000-person detention center in the heart of the Everglades. There are other alternatives, as the governor has already recognized, Schwiep said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) Fans of all sorts of media will be heading to the Sioux City Convention Center for the 2025 Sioux City Geek Con. Organizers say this years event will feature games, activities and plenty of vendors. Whether you enjoy video games, board games, tabletop role-playing games, comics, movies or so much more, theres always something for just about everyone. Story continues below Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The convention is family-friendly, and kids aged 18 and under can enter for free with a registered adult. Tabletop gaming really skyrocketted during COVID when everybody was home. They wanted something to do with their family, or whoever it was that they were with, Skyler Gorsett, Vice President of Sioux City Geek Convention, said. It has really reached a crazy point. Everybodys kind of gotten into some element or aspect of tabletop gaming. The fun kicked off at noon on Friday, August 22, and continued until midnight. On Saturday, the hours will be 8 a.m. to midnight, and on Sunday, it will be from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to the event website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. Reform UK has added six new members to the party's decision-making board, including Greater Lincolnshire Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns and former chairman Zia Yusuf. Three of the board members, Gawain Towler, Darren Grimes and Dan Barker, were elected by the party's membership in a vote with a turnout of 67,255. Dame Andrea, Yusuf and Paul Nuttall, a former Ukip member of the European Parliament, were chosen to join the board by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Reform UK chairman David Bull said the board election was an "important milestone" that continued "the democratisation of the party". "I'm extremely grateful to all our fantastic candidates you have done our party proud," Bull said in a message to party members. Reform UK said 17 candidates had been vying for a place on the board, which it describes as the "party's most important decision-making body". The creation of a board is written into Reform UK's constitution, which was adopted at the party's conference in Birmingham last year. Reform UK was founded as a private limited company, with Farage holding the majority of shares. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But last year, Reform UK said it would overhaul how it was run and give members more of a say over decisions, as part of a drive to democratise and professionalise the party. The constitution says the board's powers include managing the party's funds, advising the leader on political matters, and approving policies and manifestos. Board members also have a role in overseeing the party's disciplinary procedures. Towler, who was sacked as the party's communications director last year, thanked all members who took part in the board election. In a post, he wrote: "Now we have to crack on and provide the hard work that will take this great movement further. Onwards and upwards." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A former Conservative candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester, Barker defected to Reform UK last year, accusing his former party of "giving up" on the north of England. On X, he said the board election was "a truly historic moment". "The work starts here," Barker said. "This board has the responsibility of laying the foundations for victory: to prepare, to organise, and to ensure we are ready to take back control of our great nation after decades of failure." Barker and the other five new members join Farage and Bull, who were already members of the board. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Ben Habib, a former Reform UK deputy leader who quit the party last year citing differences with Farage, said the board of directors was meant to act as a check on the leadership and argued none of those elected were independent of Farage. "The whole board therefore is in Farage's control," Habib said. "There are no checks and balances within Reform." There has been disquiet about the vetting of candidates and party governance among elements of the membership at the grassroots. Reform UK says it has 234,642 members and hundreds of local branches across the country. The party has four Westminster MPs and won control of 10 councils in May's local elections. It is currently leading national opinion polls. KANSAS CITY, Mo. Six local and federal law enforcement officers were awarded for investigations into a conspiracy to murder border patrol agents and violent gun crime in Springfield. Six officers recieved the 2025 Guardian of Justice Award which recognizes a state or local officer as well as a federal agent from the Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee: FBI Special Agent Isaac McPheeters ATF Special Agent Jerry Wine David Schroeder with the Greene County Sheriffs Office Justin Gargus with the Christian County Sheriffs Office Eric Pinegar with the Springfield Police Department Evan Nicholson with the Springfield Police Department Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The officers were recognized on Aug. 21, 2025, at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouris 23rd Annual Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee Training Seminar in Springfield. Agent McPheeters recieved the award for his investigation into Bryan C. Parry of Clarksville, Tenn., and Jonathan S. ODell, of Warsaw, Mo., two men who co-founded the 2nd American Militia. The two men planned to go to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 to kill border patrol agents and immigrants, and said they were ready to go to war against this government, according to previous Ozarks First coverage. On Oct. 7, 2022, the day before their trip to the border, Parry shot at FBI agents several times while they were executing a search warrant of ODells Warsaw residence, before both men were taken into custody. ODell escaped from Phelps County Jail in 2023, but Agent McPheeters and the FBI led a coordinated effort with law enforcement agencies to find and successfully apprehend him within 48 hours, according to the Western District of Missouri. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Perry and ODell were found guilty after a two-week trial in October and November 2024 of the conspiracy. They are set to be sentenced on Aug. 26, 2025. Agent Wine, along with local officers and ATF task force members Schroeder, Gargus, Pinegar and Nicholson, was awarded for an ATF investigation into multiple shootings in the Springfield area in November 2021 involving juveniles and young adults, which resulted in seven homicides and several drive-by shootings to date. The Western District of Missouri said the ATF investigated crime gun data, social media profiles and police reports to identify suspects, many of whom were part of gangs such as F**k The Opps (FTO) and Only Da Brothers (ODB). Several gang members or associates were federally indicted due to the investigation. The Western District of Missouri says the indictment of FTO and ODB members coincided with a strong drop in shooting calls in Greene County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two leaders of the FTO, Ezekiel King and Jardell Williams of Springfield, were indicted and sentenced to 78 months in federal prison. Nine of the gang members indicted have been sentenced to federal prison, two were sentenced to supervised release and nine have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Until recently, Oropouche virus hadnt been seen outside of the Amazon. Prior to 2023, there were only a few hundred cases a year. But the virus evolved, spreading to thousands of people across the Americas in countries it had never reached before. Last year, Oropouche also turned fatal for the first time, claiming the lives of two young, otherwise healthy women. Now, cases are popping up again, though deaths remain rare. Although numbers in the United States are still low, with only one confirmed case this year, the uptick across the Western Hemisphere is significant enough that scientists are on high alert. So far in 2025, the Pan American Health Organization has recorded over 12,000 confirmed cases in 11 countries, and the United Kingdom reported its first cases ever. I think [the true number of cases] is very likely to be higher, says William de Souza, a virologist at Kentucky College of Medicine. We don't know the number of asymptomatic cases. Midges from the species (Culicoides paraensis) can pass along the Oropouche virus when they slurp the blood of humans. To study how biting midges spread viruses, researchers often use a similar species (Culicoides nubeculosus, pictured) in the lab. Photograph By SINCLAIR STAMMERS, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY So, how does Oropouche virus spread? First discovered in 1955, the virus is transmitted from person to person by a small insect called the biting midge (Culicoides paraensis), which resides worldwide, particularly in rural areas. Their tiny size has earned them the nickname, no-see-ums. They can be as small as an eighth of an inch and leave behind red welts about the same size. Sometimes this midge bites you, and you dont realize, de Souza says. You dont see because its so fast. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But when these midges bite, however tiny and unseeable the welt may be, they can transmit Oropouche to humans or other animals. In the rainforest areas where the virus was once confined, midges pick up and spread the virus among primates, birds, and other mammals like pale-throated sloths (Bradypus tridactylus)which is why its sometimes called sloth fever. Now that Oropouche is spreading outside of its normal zone, scientists are studying other ways it might get around. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is trying to determine if mosquitoes can carry the virus. The bloodsuckers have long been assumed to be carriers, but recent research suggests their potential to transmit the virus is low . And, although the virus shows up in semen , there have been no confirmed accounts of sexual transmission. For now, no-see-ums are the biggest concern. (Are we entering a new era of mosquito control?) Why is the virus showing up outside of the Amazon? In recent years, the tiny insects knack for virus dissemination may have been aided by a multitude of factors. For one, previous strains of Oropouche have mutated to form a version thats better and faster at infecting cells. The new strains seem to be able to evade neutralizing antibodies, which help fight off the virus as part of the bodys immune response. This means that people previously infected in the Amazon could be susceptible to reinfection by the new strains, de Souza says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deforestation may also be a key factor in the increased spread. In the worlds largest rainforest, the phenomenon is far from rare, pushing the Amazons animals, including midges, closer to human activity as their habitat dwindles. Midges need blood, de Souza explains. You can take the blood from other animals, but if other animals are not available, they will take blood from people, and if they take from people, they will infect people and then start everything again. (Why deforestation mattersand what we can do to stop it.) At the same time, climate change may be helping midges expand beyond their usual stomping grounds as increased temperatures and precipitation make more of the world an ideal place to breed. As climate change pushes the insects to new areas, it could increase their contact with urban zones, which, for now, tend to have fewer midges. Like many viruses, Oropouche spread is also largely impacted by travel. Infected humans may travel to another area without even realizing theyre sick, bringing along the virus and, if they land in a place with midges, beginning a local transmission cycle. Whos at risk in Oropouche outbreaks? Since the 2023 outbreak, Florida has seen the vast majority of the United States Oropouche cases. Last year, the state reported 103 out of 108 total US cases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But even though no-see-ums thrive in Floridas humid climate, none of the cases originated in the U.S., says Sarah Guagliardo, an epidemiologist in the Division of Vector-borne Diseases at the CDC. It's actually related to travel patterns, she says. So the vast majority of cases that we detected here were in people that traveled to Cuba and returned to Florida. Last year, Cuba had experienced this very intense outbreak. But no local transmission has been detected in Florida. (The U.K.s cases this year are similarly linked to Brazil travel.) Thats not to say Floridian midges (or even mosquitoes) couldnt spread the virus down the line, but to scientists knowledge, it hasnt happened yet. To make sure things stay that way, the best method is to avoid contact with insects. Not getting infected in the first place will go a long way in terms of public health and making sure that this Oropouche situation doesn't get out of control, Guagliardo says. Avoiding insects this time of year is a tall task but can go a long way to limiting virus spread. Guagliardo recommends wearing long sleeves and using an EPA-registered repellent to prevent bites. Insect nets can also be useful, although its important to keep in mind that midges are significantly smaller than mosquitoes, so not all insect nets are suitable, de Souza says. (Are you a mosquito magnet? Heres what you can do about it.) What do sloth fever symptoms and treatments look like? Oropouche doesnt kill often, and it rarely causes ongoing health issues. In most symptomatic cases, patients might experience fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and joint pain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As we were monitoring the 2024 outbreak, I think what gave us pause is that the first deaths associated with Oropouche were reported in Brazil, along with fetal deaths and birth defects in infants whose mothers were infected, Guagliardo says. We've also known for a while that infection can cause severe neurologic disease like meningitis and encephalitis, although that is a very rare outcome. Theres no treatment or vaccine for the virus at this point, but the CDC recommends visiting a doctor if you become symptomatic, especially after traveling from an area with a high prevalence of Oropouche. Symptoms typically last a little over a week, and the virus may still be transmissible for several days afterward. Typically, what your health care provider will recommend is getting rest, drinking fluids to prevent dehydration, taking some over-the-counter medication like acetaminophen to reduce fever and pain, she says. But there is no specific treatment for Oropouche, and that's why we really like to emphasize prevention through avoidance of insect bites. The foreign ministers of Slovakia and Hungary have issued a complaint to the European Commission in connection with attacks on the Druzhba oil pipeline which have halted supplies of Russian oil to both countries. They are complaining that the pipelines infrastructure has now been disrupted for the third time in nine days. Source: European Pravda, citing a letter from Slovakias Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs to the European Commission Quote: "Juraj Blanar, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, together with Peter Szijjarto, the head of Hungarian diplomacy, are sending a letter in this connection to the European Unions High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, and European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jrgensen, in which they call on the Commission to immediately ensure compliance with commitments regarding the security of energy supplies to the member states of the European Union." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: The Slovak foreign ministry recalled that the European Commission had noted in a statement dated 27 January 2025 that the integrity of the infrastructure supplying energy to EU member states is a matter of the security of the entire Union and had called on third countries to respect this. "In this statement, the Commission declared that it is ready to protect our critical energy infrastructure, of which oil pipelines are a part, and therefore we consider it absolutely necessary that the EC defend the interests of member states and the energy security of its citizens, including citizens of the Slovak Republic. Any threat to the energy security of our country is unacceptable," Blanar said, recalling that amid recent attacks on the Druzhba oil pipeline, oil supplies were halted most recently on Monday. The ministers said that after repairs had been carried out, supplies were quickly restored, but that serious damage had been inflicted as a result of an overnight attack by Ukraine on the oil pipeline near the Belarusian border and the extent of the damage is currently unknown. This will significantly affect oil supplies to Slovak refineries. They believe that supplies will stop for five days as a result of the latest attack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Quote: "We consider Ukraines actions, which seriously threaten the energy security of Slovakia and Hungary, absolutely unacceptable. We call on the Commission to immediately uphold the aforementioned commitments and guarantee the security of supplies to member states." Background: Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar earlier reported for the third time that the Druzhba oil pipeline had been attacked, halting supplies of Russian oil to Slovakia again. On the night of 17-18 August, units within the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with other defence forces, struck the Nikolske oil pumping station in Russias Tambov Oblast. After this, Peter Szijjarto hinted at a possible cessation of electricity supplies from Hungary to Ukraine, despite the fact that electricity is supplied on a commercial basis. The European Commission said in response that the Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline has no impact on oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia, Budapests complaints against Kyiv notwithstanding. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! While Colorado continues to see steady progress in student growth and achievement, progress in the Pikes Peak region isnt quite as consistent, according to test score data released this week by the state. Statewide, this years Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) scores are at or above pre-pandemic levels in all grades except fourth grade in English language arts (ELA) and eighth grade for ELA and math. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented school officials from administering CMAS testing in the 2019-20 academic year. Because of the learning losses attributed to that year, educators now consider 2019 scores a benchmark year. While all districts collectively improved their ELA and math percentages in meeting grade-level expectations by .27% and 1.1% respectively, the 17 districts across El Paso and Teller counties experienced a 2.5% drop in ELA scores and a .5% bump in math scores. Around the Pikes Peak region, Cheyenne Mountain District 12, Academy D-20 and Lewis-Palmer D-38 once again ranked as the highest performing school districts, though D-12 and D-38 both saw a slight decline in total students who meet or exceed state English language standards. When accounting for this years ELA and math results, Cheyenne Mountain D-12 and Academy D-20 both ranked in the top 10 across the state at four and 10, respectively. D-38 ranked 12th this year. Trailing the three districts of distinction is Manitou Springs D-14, which continued to improve its scores in both ELA and math to 55% and 41% of students meeting or exceeding expectations in those respective categories. The only school district in the region to report greater improvements than D-14 in both subjects was Ellicott D-22, which improved its ELA scores by 9.8% and its math scores by 5%. The average grade-level achievement is now 36.8% for ELA and 20.3% in math. Although Colorado Springs D-11 sits in the middle of the pack in terms of local achievement scores, the district's Chipeta Elementary School on the city's northwest side boasted the highest percentages of any school in the region. According to the state, 75.4% of Chipetas students met or exceeded ELA expectations and 76% met or exceeded math expectations. Biggest school changes Evans Elementary School (District 49) saw the biggest average increase in the percentage of students who met or exceeded the states standards. In English, that percentage rose by 13.7%, reaching 44.9%. In math, 42.1% met or exceeded the standard, up 17.9%. Fremont Elementary School (District 11) saw the biggest drop in performance, with a 17.6% decline in the percentage of students who met or exceeded the states English standard, dropping to just 20.5%, and declining 21.8% in math, hitting only 15%. Notably, Explorer Elementary School (Academy 20) saw a large increase in the percentage of students who met or exceeded the states English standard, rising by 14.3%, and reaching 64.3% of students. Cripple Creek-Victor RE-1 posted the lowest scores in both categories across Teller and El Paso counties, with 25% of students meeting or exceeding ELA standards and 9% meeting the benchmark for math. Featured Local Savings In El Paso County, Edison 54-JT posted the single worst year-to-year drop in student performance in Colorado, dropping 41.4% in ELA scores and 14.3% in math scores. Because of the rural district's small enrollment of less than 100 students, it has a greater propensity for volatile shifts in achievement. Unlike last year, when the district saw massive improvements in ELA and math scores, Woodland Park RE-2s scores dropped in both categories by about one percentage point. Statewide, 44.8% of students met or exceeded expectations in English, the highest percentage since the test was introduced in the 2014-15 school year. Nearly 36% of students met or exceeded math expectations, a new high for the state. Unlike last year, when the state reported severe drops in high school math scores, this years test results saw slight improvements in 10th and 11th grades, 2.5% and 1.4% respectively, while ninth grade saw a decrease of 2%. Last years scores showed drops ranging from four to seven percentiles in all three grades. Student participation rates in the tests rose to 89.1% this year. Although these rates continue to trail the 2019 peak of 94.4%, they mark the next highest level of participation since the tests were introduced. Were encouraged by the progress many student groups are making, Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Cordova said in a statement. At the same time, we know there is work ahead to ensure more students are meeting Colorados academic expectations across every grade and subject." Statewide data Performance in ELA: There was a slight increase in the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations, going from 44.1% to 44.8%. This marks the continuation of an increasing performance trend, and it marks the highest percentage of students who have met or exceeded the English Language Arts standard since the test was introduced. Performance in Mathematics: There was a slight increase in the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations from the year before, reaching 35.9%. This marks a new statewide high for mathematics scores for students earning the met or exceeded expectations rating. State and school-level achievement and growth results are available on CDEs website. District-level metrics can be found at tinyurl.com/yr93k5x3. Gazette contributor Evan Wyloge provided the data analysis of Colorado Measures of Academic Success test scores. GAITHERSBURG, Md. (DC News Now) A small plane made an emergency landing at the Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg on Thursday, officials said. Pete Piringer with the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service said a small plane had a minor emergency and landed in a grassy area at the airpark, located at 7940 Airpark Road. Man arrested for crashing into Maryland State Police car, injuring trooper Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plane overshot, Piringer said. (Pete Piringer/Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service) (Pete Piringer/Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service) The occupants were evaluated, and officials said nobody was injured. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. China says it has taken "control measures" against two Philippine vessels near the Sierra Madre, a warship grounded on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, as tensions re-emerge in the contested waters of the South China Sea. In a short statement on Friday morning, China Coast Guard spokesman Gan Yu accused the two Philippine ships deployed from the Sierra Madre of "deliberately engaging in provocative collisions" when approaching a Chinese coastguard vessel. He did not specify when the confrontation took place, but said the Chinese side "implemented control measures" in response. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. In a 33-second video released by the China Coast Guard, a Philippine crew member is seen filming the Chinese ship. One of the Philippine ships also crosses in front of the Chinese vessel. "The China Coast Guard will continue to carry out rights protection and law enforcement activities in the waters near Renai Jiao in accordance with the law, resolutely safeguarding national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests," Gan said, using the Chinese name for Second Thomas Shoal, which is also known as Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines. On Thursday, the Philippine military said it observed "an increase" in Chinese vessels, including coastguard vessels and militia ships, near Second Thomas Shoal on Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some of the coastguard vessels were equipped with heavy crew-served weapons and supported by 11 fast boats, one rotary aircraft and one drone, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said on social media, adding that it would continue to monitor and report the deployment of Chinese vessels. In one of the most damaging clashes in recent years, one People's Liberation Army Navy warship and a Chinese coastguard vessel appeared to collide in an encounter with a Philippine vessel near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea earlier this month. The Philippines, which released the video of the collision, said the Chinese coastguard ship was heavily damaged. Beijing said at that time it had forced several Philippine vessels away from waters near Scarborough Shoal after they "ignored repeated warnings from the Chinese side and insistently intruded into the waterway". It remains unclear whether there were casualties from the incident. Second Thomas Shoal is a submerged feature in the Spratly Islands that is within the 200-nautical mile (370km) exclusive economic zone of the Philippines but is also claimed by China. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It has been one of the points of contention between the two countries since Manila deliberately grounded the BRP Sierra Madre, a crumbling World War II-era landing ship, on the outcrop in 1999 to assert the country's territorial claims and housed a crew of Philippine marines in the warship. Beijing has repeatedly urged the Philippines to remove the ship, and has since intercepted the Philippines's resupply missions to the shoal, leading to a series of clashes in which a Philippine sailor lost a thumb in June last year. To defuse tensions, diplomats from China and the Philippines met in July last year, with the two sides reaching a "temporary arrangement" for resupply missions, though no details were released. Meanwhile, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has rejected claims by Beijing that his country promised to remove the Sierra Madre from the shoal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung faces a pivotal foreign policy test barely two months after taking office, with back-to-back summits in Tokyo and Washington that reflect the wider struggle of U.S. allies to navigate Donald Trumps unilateral push to redefine postwar orders on trade, security and alliances. The meetings come after Seoul and Tokyo reached trade deals with Washington that spared them from the Trump administrations highest tariffs, but only after pledging hundreds of billions of dollars in new U.S. investments. Trumps transactional approach with long-standing allies extends beyond trade to security and has fueled fears in South Korea that he will demand higher payments to support the U.S. troop presence in the country, even as he possibly seeks to scale back Americas military footprint there to focus on China. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The looming concerns about a U.S. retreat in leadership and security commitments come as South Korea and Japan confront growing cooperation between their nuclear-armed adversaries, North Korea and Russia, partners in the war in Ukraine and in efforts to break isolation and evade sanctions. Here is what is at stake for the Asian allies of the U.S. as they deal with an America-first president who's more unyielding than his predecessors: Asian allies pulled closer by Trump A day after confirming his Aug. 25 summit with Donald Trump, Lees office announced he will visit Japan on Aug. 23-24 to meet Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, a rare diplomatic setup that underscores how Trump is drawing closer two often-feuding neighbors with deep-rooted historical grievances. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The meeting on Saturday in Tokyo of Lee and Ishiba who last met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in June is largely about projecting leverage as the countries seek to coordinate their response to Trump, said Choi Eunmi, an analyst at South Koreas Asan Institute for Policy Studies. There is now the Trump risk, Choi said. Theres especially a lot of uncertainty in the business sector, so they might discuss ways to ease that uncertainty not necessarily in joint efforts to confront Trump, but within the framework of trilateral cooperation. Yukiko Fukagawa, a professor at Japans Waseda University, said Lees visit to Tokyo will also be seen positively in Washington, long frustrated by its Asian allies persistent disputes over Japans colonial rule of Korea before the end of World War II, and the way these tensions hindered three-way security collaborations. Because they have to deal with increasingly challenging mutual counterparts, such as China and America, both Japan and South Korea are under pressure to set aside minor differences to cooperate on larger objectives, Fukagawa said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japans chief cabinet secretary, said Lees visit will help promote the stable development of bilateral ties as their countries work together on international challenges by utilizing the shuttle diplomacy" of regular summits. Lee and Ishiba could discuss restarting long-stalled free trade talks and South Koreas potential entry into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, a 12-member Asia-Pacific trade pact that Ishiba has pushed to expand amid tensions over U.S. tariffs. Ishiba, who has met Trump twice in person at the White House in February and at the G7 in Canada could also offer Lee tips ahead of his summit in Washington. Seoul and Tokyo clearly share many crucial interests in the face of Trumps efforts to reset global trade and U.S. security commitments. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They are both under pressure from Washington to pay more for the tens of thousands of American troops stationed in their countries and also to increase their own defense spending. Their vital automobile and technology industries are vulnerable to Trumps tariff hikes. They navigate a tricky balance between the U.S. and its main rival, China, a growing regional threat that is also the largest trade partner for Seoul and Tokyo. They are alarmed by North Koreas accelerating nuclear program and its deepening alignment with Russia, which could complicate future diplomatic efforts after a long stalemate in U.S.-led denuclearization talks. It makes more sense for South Korea and Japan to work with the Trump administration under a trilateral framework rather than engage Washington separately, especially given how Trump mixes security and economic demands, said Ban Kil-joo, a professor at South Koreas National Diplomatic Academy. For example, the countries could propose a trilateral scheme to support Trumps push to expand natural gas and other energy production in Alaska, rather than negotiating potential investments bilaterally, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Beyond the drilling project itself, they would need to address security, including protecting maritime routes for the LNG shipments, and that responsibility could count toward defense cost-sharing or higher defense spending, which Trump demands, Ban said. Modernizing the military alliance Lees meeting with Trump could include talks to flesh out the details of South Koreas $350 million investment fund for U.S. industries, centered on cooperation in shipbuilding, a sector Trump has highlighted in relation to South Korea. Seoul has one of the largest trade surpluses among Washingtons NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, and Trump is eager to hear from Lee on how his country intends to quickly bridge the trade gap, said Victor Cha, the Korea chair at Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A more crucial topic for the leaders could be the future of their decades-long military alliance, a legacy of the brutal 1950-53 Korean War. The U.S., which keeps about 30,000 troops in South Korea to deter North Korea, has long urged Seoul to accept greater flexibility to use them for missions beyond the Korean Peninsula a demand that has intensified under Trump. Comments by senior U.S. government and military officials suggest that, in addition to pressing South Korea to pay more for hosting American forces, the Trump administration could seek to reshape U.S. Forces Korea as part of a broader military focus on ensuring capability to respond to a conflict with China over Taiwan. That shift would mean conventionally armed South Korea taking on more of the burden against the North, while the U.S. turns its focus to China. This could affect the size and role of U.S. Forces Korea, leaving Seoul with fewer benefits but higher costs and risks at a time when the North Korean nuclear threat is growing, experts say. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Korean lawmakers have also expressed fears that Washington could ask for Seouls commitment to intervene if a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, a tricky prospect given South Koreas reliance on China for trade and Beijings role in dealing with North Korea. South Korea should enter the Trump summit with a clear stance on its role in regional security, Ban said, possibly supporting U.S. efforts to maintain Indo-Pacific stability and opposing changes to the status quo, but without explicitly naming China as an adversary. Cha said Trumps national security aides will want to hear more explicit South Korean commitments on its approach to China. While potentially accepting a more flexible role for U.S. Forces Korea, South Korea should also seek U.S. commitments to ensure deterrence and readiness against North Korea arent compromised. American troop deployments off the peninsula could be offset by increased airpower or the arrival of strategic assets like bombers, helping prevent any miscalculation by the North, Ban said. ___ AP writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report. SOUTHAMPTON, Mass. (WWLP) The Southampton Police Department is seeking the publics help in identifying shoplifting suspects. PHOTOS: Southwick police seek help in identifying chainsaw thief The Southampton Police Department states that on August 20th, two people were involved in the theft of items from Tractor Supply. They were seen driving a white SUV. Southampton Police Department Southampton Police Department Southampton Police Department Southampton Police Department If anyone has information, contact dhurley@southamptonpolice.com or call 413-527-1120. 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A man was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and molesting a young girl who was searching for her lost dog in San Bernardino County. The suspect was identified as Guillermo Cascante, 57, of San Bernardino, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department. On Aug. 19, the victim, an 11-year-old girl, was looking for her missing dog near San Francisco and 14th streets in Highland. Cascante was driving a large white van when he spotted her. He pulled over and allegedly offered to help the girl while pretending he worked for Animal Control. The girl got into his van and Cascante drove away, authorities said. Guillermo Cascante, 57, of San Bernardino, is seen in a booking photo from the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department. Guillermo Cascantes van is described as a white older model ambulance-style van. (San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department) While in the car, Cascante is accused of bringing out a handgun and driving the girl around the city before molesting her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shortly after, he dropped her off near Cunningham and 9th streets. The girl ran home and reported the incident to her parents. Deputies conducted an area check and located the suspects van parked near 18th and Guthrie streets. On Aug. 20, detectives served a search warrant at a home in the 2000 block of East 18th Street where Cascante was found. He was arrested for kidnapping, lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 with force/fear. On Aug. 22, he was charged with forcible lewd act on a child under 14 and lewd acts on a child under 14. He remains in custody without bail. Detectives believe other victims may exist and have released photos of Cascante and his vehicle, described as a white, older model ambulance-style van. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anyone who may have been victimized by Cascante or has information on the case is asked to call the Highland Sheriffs Station at 909-425-9793. Anonymous tips can be provided to We-Tip at 1-800-782-7463 or online at wetip.com. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Editors note: This report has been updated to correct Allvins title. The U.S. Space Force published a new rulebook outlining distinctive new dress and appearance regulations. Released Aug. 15, the Space Force Instruction (SPFI) 36-2903, Dress and Appearance manual sets a new standard for guardians as the service departs from Air Force norms it has leaned on since its founding in 2019. The Space Force is a distinct military service with just under 10,000 uniformed Guardians, each of whom has an outsized impact on the mission. Every Guardians military presence and appearance are a critical and visible demonstration of our professional force, and this new policy provides clear standards that support our warfighting objectives and culture, Katharine Kelley, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Personnel, said in a service release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although many of the new regulations mirror those existing within the Air Force, there are several notable differences. Key areas where differences have been introduced include in grooming standards and permissions for wearing duty identifier patches, Air & Space Forces Magazine first reported. While the Air Force banned all of its 134 duty identifier patches in late January, the Space Force allows guardians considerable flexibility in this regard. Theres a bigger issue at play here. As we identify ourselves as one type of Airman or another, with one specialty, or one skillset or another, we really diminish ourselves, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in a Jan. 27 video explanation of why the patches were banned for airmen. The Space Force is taking a different stance and, in doing so, appears to be encouraging service members to take pride in showcasing their diverse mission areas. These include orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, cyberspace warfare, satellite communications, navigation warfare, missile warning and tracking, space-based sensing and targeting and satellite control, among others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both the Air and Space Forces are largely in lockstep when it comes to personal grooming standards, such as for approved hairstyles for men and women, requiring womens nail polish colors to be muted and other details unveiled by the Air Force in January. However, the Air Force requires male airmen to be clean-shaven at the start of each duty day and forbids their hair from touching their ears, while the Space Force does not. Additional updates to the dress code will likely appear on the horizon once the Space Forces new service dress uniforms arrive, which is speculated to happen in early 2026. NEED TO KNOW Two blue dragons, or Glaucus atlanticus, were found on the beaches of Guardamar del Segura in the Alicante province of Spain on Wednesday, Aug. 20 The presence of the poisonous animal caused the beaches to be closed The beaches were reopened on Thursday, Aug. 21 The beaches of Guardamar del Segura in the Alicante province of Spain were closed on Wednesday, Aug. 20, after two blue dragons, or Glaucus atlanticus, were found in the waters. Jose Luis Saez, the mayor of Guardamar del Segura, announced on X that swimming was prohibited following "the appearance on Vivers Beach of two specimens of Glaucus atlanticus, known as the Blue Dragon." The beaches of Guardamar del Segura span seven miles, per Sky News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With his announcement, Saez added two photos of the blue dragons, which are typically about four centimeters in length. They are known to be foraging predators with tentacles that hold highly poisonous stinging cells, used for both hunting and self-defense, explains the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Policia Local Guardamar/Facebook Blue dragon (Glaucus atlanticus) Blue dragon (Glaucus atlanticus) Saez warned residents not to touch the slithering creatures, even with gloves. "Notify lifeguards or authorities. If stung, rinse with salt water and go to a first aid station or health center. These are poisonous specimens, and their bite causes nausea, pain, and vomiting," he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Saez said that the Guardamar City Council has implemented a preventive measure to detect possible specimens swept away by ocean currents. The presence of the sloths, though, caused the local police in Guardamar del Segura to issue their own warning. "Contact with this marine animal can be dangerous and cause painful skin burns. We ask residents and visitors to follow the instructions, exercise extreme caution, and avoid direct contact with specimens that may appear on the sand," their statement said in part. The notice advised that they, in coordination with municipal services, were going to maintain surveillance and "provide prompt information on the development of the situation." Policia Local Guardamar/Facebook Blue dragon (Glaucus atlanticus) Blue dragon (Glaucus atlanticus) On Thursday, Saez announced on X that there was now a "yellow flag on the beaches of Guardamar following the closure of the special surveillance operation, due to the presence of two Blue Dragon specimens." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to an update from local police, a yellow flag means that "bathing is allowed, but with caution." "Take care of your safety and that of others. Enjoy the beach responsibly," the department advised. 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. Municipal services, police and lifeguards remain attentive to the evolution of the situation, according to Saez. Read the original article on People LONDON A former PhD student analyzing 125-million-year-old fossils has made waves with the discovery of a new species of dinosaur that had a sail on its back. The findings, published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology on Friday, relate to fossils originally excavated in the 1970s on the Isle of Wight, a small island off Englands south coast. The fossil bones were originally thought to belong to one of the two known species of iguanodontian from the island. But Jeremy Lockwood, a retired doctor, said he noticed unusual differences in the spinal structure of the fossils during his PhD studies in Palaeobiology at the University of Portsmouth, on England's south coast. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lockwood, well-versed in anatomy from his medical background, spotted that the dinosaur had an unusually tall neural spine, a protrusion coming from the back. After carefully re-examining numerous bones held in the collections at the Dinosaur Isle Museum on the Isle of Wight, as well as reviewing published papers, he established that it was a different species altogether. Although the skeleton wasnt as complete as some others, the bones hadnt been closely examined before, Lockwood said in a statement sent by the Natural History Museum in London. Detailed images of two consecutive dorsal vertebrae of the Istiorachis macarthurae spine. (via Wiley Online Library) It was a nice surprise, Lockwood told NBC News in a phone interview Friday. Weve stumbled upon the fact that dinosaur diversity 125 million years ago was much greater than we thought. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The specific function of a sail in dinosaurs has long been debated, with theories ranging from temperature regulation to fat storage. Several other dinosaur species also have sails. In the case of this new species, the most likely explanation of a sail is visual signaling, possibly as part of a sexual display, which is often driven by sexual selection, Lockwood said. For me the fun is naming the dinosaur, Lockwood added. Its a nice feeling and reward enough logging it into zoobank, he said, referring to the official online registry for naming animals. Lockwood, the lead author of the paper, named the new dinosaur Istiorachis macarthurae. Istiorachis means sail spine in Ancient Greek, referencing the tall, sail-like structure along the creatures back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Macarthurae honors Dame Ellen MacArthur, a famous Isle of Wight resident and sailor, who in 2005 set a world record for the fastest solo non-stop voyage around the world. It is certainly not an everyday occurrence to be asked if a newly discovered dinosaur could be named after you! MacArthur said in a statement. I was somewhat taken aback when this conversation began, but felt hugely privileged to be asked. It is both extraordinary and a huge honor that a creature living 125 million years ago could possibly be linked to my family name, MacArthur added. The fact that the Istiorachis sail could be comparable to the sails I have spent so much of my life below was very touching. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 125 million years ago, this dinosaur was also a resident of the island, Lockwood said. I like to name dinosaurs in a way that connects to the Isle of Wight, because its such an important place paleontologically. The new species is not particularly large by dinosaur standards and is similar in size to the American bison, according to the . This new discovery is just the latest on the island, with 10 new dinosaur species found on the Isle of Wight over the past six years, according to Lockwood. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com NEED TO KNOW On Monday, Aug. 18, flight tracker FlightRadar24 posted a Spirit Airlines flight's path through Hurricane Erin The reported path sparked fear among travelers online A flight expert told USA Today there was no reason for concern as the plane operated at a safe position A recent Spirit Airlines flight is sparking some fear among travelers. Data captured from Spirit flight NK2298 from Philadelphia to San Juan, Puerto Rico appears to show the aircraft flying straight through Hurricane Erin on Monday, Aug. 18. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The day of the trip, flight tracker FlightRadar24 posted a photo of the planes path on X. According to the site, the aircraft departed at 1:34 p.m. local time and landed at 5:25 p.m. nearly 40 minutes after its scheduled arrival. Did Spirit take up the Hurricane Hunter mission? the organization asked in the caption, referencing the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) pilots who locate the center of storms. According to NOAA, Hurricane Erin regained Category 4 strength the night of Aug. 17. Over the next few days, it weakened to a Category 2 as it made its way northward. As of Aug. 22, the storm remains a very large hurricane, but in the first stages of post-tropical transition. Did Spirit take up the Hurricane Hunter mission? pic.twitter.com/OhYEPg9hl0 Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) August 18, 2025 Despite the weather conditions, a representative for Spirit says flight crews operated as directed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our pilots followed procedures and Air Traffic Control (ATC) instructions while en route to San Juan, the airline shared in a statement with PEOPLE. Our Operations Control Center closely tracks weather systems and works with our pilots and ATC to determine flight paths that safely navigate around or above adverse weather conditions. Michael McCormick, coordinator of the Air Traffic Management Program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told USA Today that after reviewing the conditions reported from the flight, he found no reason for concern. Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty A Spirit Airlines flight A Spirit Airlines flight The aircraft was at FL 370 (37,000 feet) and only light turbulence was reported in that area, McCormick told the outlet in a written statement. At that altitude, the aircraft would be above the significant weather with the worst activity to the north of the flight path. Despite experts reassurance, social media users shared their concerns in the comment section of FlightRadar24s post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One commenter called the route "irresponsible," while another noted how airline travel is "just scary" these days. Meanwhile others took a more comedic approach. Theyre going to charge extra for the hurricane experience, someone wrote. Other airlines: Rerouting around the Category 4 hurricane for safety. Spirit: We ball. $39 fares don't include fear. wrote another. Someone else said: Airplane equivalent of hitting a curb in a car. 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. Earlier this year, passengers aboard an IndiGo flight captured video of a terrifying mid-flight weather attack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On May 21, an Airbus A321 carrying 227 passengers from New Delhi to Srinagar, India, experienced hail, lightning storms and strong turbulence. In a video, passengers, including children, can be heard screaming in fear as the cabin violently shook. Though the flight was declared an emergency by the pilot, they were able to land safely close to its expected arrival time. No injuries were reported, but the aircraft suffered major damage. Read the original article on People SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) A Springfield man has been found guilty in a jury trial for engaging in sexual exploitation of a three-year-old child and child pornography charges. In a news release from the Department of Justice, 45-year-old Bairon Ubeda of Springfield engaged in sexually explicit conduct with a three-year-old victim. During a four-day trial, evidence showed that Ubeda carried out a multi-year effort to trick and coerce women using fraudulent social media personas and accounts while claiming to represent a fictitious adult modeling company. Springfield man indicted for sexual exploitation of child Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The women targeted were tricked into providing explicit images as well as personal information and identification. Ubeda then threatened to make the images and information public if the women did not agree to engage in sexual acts with him. The women who had children were also threatened to lose custody of their children, stating he would show the images and information to child protective services. According to court documents, from December 2018 to February 2019, Ubeda allegedly persuaded and coerced a three-year-old child to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce child pornography. It is also alleged that Ubeda knowingly received and possessed child pornography. In May 2023 was indicted on those charges and at that time he was serving a state sentence for aggravated rape and abuse of a child, posing or exhibiting a child in a state of nudity, disseminating child pornography, trafficking of a person for sexual servitude, extortion, larceny, assault and battery and trafficking of a person under 18 years of age for sexual servitude. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, Ubeda was convicted by a federal jury of possession of child pornography, receipt of child pornography, and sexual exploitation of children. Ubeda faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and up to 30 years in prison, at least five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000 for the charge of sexual exploitation of a child. The charge of receipt of child pornography provides for a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of possession of child pornography provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, up to five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 24. 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Among the more than two dozen bills contemplated for Thursday's special session of the Colorado General Assembly is a proposal to pause funding for the wolf reintroduction program run by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The money $264,268 would be shifted to pay for the health insurance accountability enterprise to help cover subsidies for people on the individual market to purchase health insurance through the exchange, as well as for several other purposes. The sponsor of the bill is Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, who chairs the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Robert is a critic of the program that has resulted in 25 wolves being brought to Colorado. Those wolves have slaughtered dozens of livestock over the past year: cattle, calves, sheep and working dogs in Roberts' district. The measure has drawn bipartisan support in both chambers from both sides of the aisle. Joining Roberts on the bill are Sen. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, Rep. Megan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, and Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista, along with nine other cosponsors in the Senate and 16 members of the House. In a statement Tuesday, the sponsors said the bill would provide a reasonable time-out on the program, "while the state continues to put in place supports for landowners and handles budget challenges." Democrats have blamed Colorado's fiscal woes on the recently-signed congressional budget. More specifically, analysts said the federal budget failed to extend premium tax credits, which have subsidized insurance premiums. Republicans have maintained that, broadly speaking, Democrats, who are in charge of the state government, are to blame for the deficit that Colorado faces, arguing the dominant party has overspent and failed to heed warnings of a looming budget crisis. The Western Slope has been hit particularly hard, both by the wolf program and, analysts said, by rising health insurance premiums. The Division of Insurance announced last month that health insurance premiums would increase in 2026 by 28% on average, but by 38% on the Western Slope. Voters had approved the wolf program by a narrow margin, primarily based on support from Front Range voters, although the program called for the wolves to be placed west of the Continental Divide and not along the Front Range. The cost of the wolf program was supposed to be around $800,000 per year; instead, it has taken $8 million of taxpayer money over the past five years, including $3.5 million in 2024-25, with conflict management and depredation reimbursement costs soaring. Claims for wolf depredations during 2024 topped more than $600,000, although the amount paid was less than that. The program is budgeted at about $2 million in 2025-26. The bill proposed by lawmakers goes beyond just taking some of the funding. Under the proposed legislation, the state wildlife agency would be prohibited from using its general fund support in 2025-26 "for the acquisition and reintroduction of gray wolves or from taking any action to acquire or reintroduce gray wolves during state fiscal year 2025-26." However, the agency can still use its appropriations for conflict management and to pay the claims submitted by ranchers for livestock losses due to wolves. The state's wolf depredation fund was set at $350,000. However, claims have far exceeded the original budget. Claims that went over the $350,000 budget were paid from other CPW sources. Featured Local Savings "By not bringing in new wolves into the state, Colorado can focus on managing the existing wolves more effectively and save significant financial resources," the statement said. Roberts added that, as a lawmaker who represents many rural and mountain communities affected by both wolf reintroduction and high health insurance prices, "I know personally that my constituents would like our state to focus on lowering health insurance costs, managing our budget challenges, and getting proper management of our existing wolves under control. Now is not the time to be spending precious taxpayer dollars on new wolves let's focus on lowering costs for Coloradans and balancing our budget. Catlin added, Western Slope families and CPW field staff are carrying the daily impacts of wolf reintroduction. Pressing pause on future releases gives the state the space to fix what isnt working, fully fund landowner support, and carefully steward scarce dollars during a budget crunch. Thats the responsible way to honor the will of the voters while recognizing the realities on the range. This bill doesnt end reintroduction, it ensures CPW can repair its programs while we work to stabilize the states budget. Rural families, ranchers, and landowners are dealing with the daily realities of wolf reintroduction, Lukens said. "We must ensure the existing programs are strong and working as intended. Pressing pause on future releases allows us to manage existing wolves effectively and focus on what matters most: lowering costs, protecting livelihoods, and making every taxpayer dollar count. Redirecting these limited resources will help us invest in critical priorities like making health insurance more affordable for hardworking Coloradans, Lukens said. Martinez said the wolf program has stressed rural families and local budgets. "Taking a pause on new wolf reintroductions will allow us to save taxpayer money and focus our attention on lowering health insurance costs and addressing our budget challenges," Martinez said. "Additionally, with threats to SNAP and Medicaid, hitting the pause button on this program is the pragmatic solution to help balance the budget and provide relief to our communities. A major fight over the bill is expected. House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, whose district also includes the counties where wolves have killed livestock, is not listed as a sponsor. Lawmakers during this week's special session will be looking for about $800 million in budget cuts for the 2025-26 current year's budget. The Polis administration has said it would tap the state's general fund reserve for up to half of those cuts, although that money must be restored in the next fiscal year. A ballot measure proposed for the 2026 general election, which would put an end to the wolf program upon voter approval, has struggled to raise money for the effort. Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy has secured about $39,000 this year. Petitions are due to the Secretary of State on Aug. 27. Patrick Davis of Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy told Colorado Politics his group will support the Roberts bill. "It's an answer for what we've been saying and hearing for the past eight months," he said. Taxpayers are up in arms, he said, adding, "We can't afford this program, and the state has proven they can't manage the wolves they have. Let's not bring any more in." A man who was killed in a knife fight on Aug. 17 is remembered for having an infectious laughter, insatiable curiosity and unwavering optimism, according to his obituary. Xavier Lebron-Telles, 36, was found by Springfield police after they responded to a report of a stabbing at 8:45 p.m. Sunday. The call was to the 0-100 block of Cedar Street in the Six Corners neighborhood. Lebron-Telles and another man were found with stab wounds. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both men were taken to Baystate Medical Center, with the unidentified man receiving treatment for non-life-threatening injuries, the Republican previously reported. The case is being investigated by the Hampden District Attorneys Murder Unit along with the Springfield Police Department Homicide Unit. Born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, on Aug. 24, 1988, Lebron-Telles was known for his warmth, sincerity and vibrant spirit, according to his obituary. A lover of lifes simple joys, his video games and music. Xavier was a constant reminder to all who knew him of the beauty of living in the moment, his obituary reads. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lebron-Telles is survived by his mother, father, brothers and sister, along with his other family members and friends. A viewing for Lebron-Telles will be held on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Puerta Del Cielo Funeral Home at 730 State St. in Springfield. More people being remembered Read the original article on MassLive. By Uditha Jayasinghe COLOMBO (Reuters) -Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who led the country during a devastating economic crisis, was arrested and remanded in custody on Friday over allegations he misused state funds while in office, police said. Wickremesinghe, 76, who lost power in a 2024 election, had been investigated over a visit he made to Britain to attend a special graduation lunch as part of the celebrations of his wife's honorary professorship at a university there, local media reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Police confirmed his arrest for alleged misuse of public funds, a police spokesman said. "Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested and produced in court. He will be in remand custody till August 26," police spokesman F.U. Wootler told Reuters. Wickremesinghe's office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. An ally from his United National Party (UNP) proclaimed his innocence and suggested the case was politically motivated. "Ranil Wickremesinghe has never misused public funds or state funds," UNP member Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe told reporters gathered outside the court complex where the former president appeared in Colombo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "He was the person who stepped up and accepted the challenge to save this country when the economy collapsed," Warnasinghe said. "That is the person who is being treated like this today by this government." Sri Lanka's cabinet spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. POLITICAL FAMILY Wickremesinghe, a lawyer who also served as Sri Lanka's prime minister a record six times, became president in 2022 at the height of the Indian Ocean island nation's debilitating financial crisis. Wickremesinghe, who leads the UNP, took over after widespread protests caused by an economic meltdown forced his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and later resign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He finished third in last year's presidential election - the first since the economic crisis - behind Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the vote, and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. The election was largely seen as a referendum on Wickremesinghe, who led a successful but fragile economic recovery that included painful austerity measures. Born into a prominent family of politicians and businessmen with large media interests, in 1978 Wickremesinghe was, at 29, made the country's youngest cabinet minister by his uncle, President Junius Jayewardene. In 1994, following the assassinations of several of his senior colleagues, Wickremesinghe became leader of the UNP. (Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by YP Rajesh, Joe Bavier, Helen Popper and Toby Chopra) SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) A $10 million grant from the state of Georgia will back a new physician residency program at St. Josephs/Candler beginning in 2027. Already the largest health system in the region, this expansion will help address the need for doctors in the region and state. Its a residency program, so residents have a natural attraction to where they do their residency at, President and CEO of St. Josephs/Candler Paul P. Hinchey said. Its an intimate relationship between the medical, the resident and the people who train them. Were very excited that theyll end up staying here and itll be in two areas. St. Josephs Candler will end up hiring them or other hospitals will end up hiring them. These small hospitals that cant get doctors will end up hiring them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The program is in partnership with the Medical College of Georgia and has been in the works for four years. The program will offer two tracks: Internal Medicine and Family Medicine. The capacity will begin at 48 residency slots and will increase to 60 with the expansion of other residencies, such as cardiology fellowship. This is a sentinel moment for St. Josephs/Candler to offer a residency program, the final and most important step in a physicians education. Hinchey said Hinchey said, We believe this program will make a significant dent in the doctor shortage Georgia is facing, incentivizing these physicians to stay in Georgia, giving our patients better access to care. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement St. Josephs/Candler said they have hired one program director but are still on the search for program director of family practice and three other programs. The first groups of residents will come July 1, 2027, for internal medicine, then they will welcome family practice in 2028, a transitional year in 2029 and cardiac fellows in 2030. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 21The town of Star City is looking to sell some prime real estate along Boyers Avenue for commercial development. The strip of land totals about.66 acres located between University Avenue and Leeway Street, which serves as an access to Sheetz, Jazzy's Sweet Spot and other properties. According to a forthcoming request for proposals, the town is looking for private developers or development teams to submit proposals for the purchase and development of the site, which has been appraised at $575, 000. The purchase offers must start at that number. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Because the property is located in the town's Boyers Avenue tax increment finance (TIF) district, it will technically be purchased from the Monongalia County Commission and the proceeds returned to the TIF fund for use within the district. As a Class IV municipality, Star City must work with the commission on projects within the district. "Star City, as a Class IV, doesn't necessarily have the powers under the TIF Act and so that's why the counties involved. Because of that, the TIF Act would allow property that's acquired to be sold pursuant to a project plan without going through a public auction, " bond attorney Tom Aman explained. The property is located within Star City's Riverfront Overlay Business District and is also covered by the commercial /retail business district use restrictions, which only prohibits a handful of uses, including auto storage or wrecking yards, manufacturing, uses deemed noxious or offensive due to odor, dust, smoke, noise, etc., or storage /sorting yards for junk, scrap metal, paper, etc. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "They would submit a plan as to what they want to do with the property. Then once those are obtained, that would be a decision between the county commission and the town of Star City as to who would be best suited with what they presented, " Mayor Sharon Doyle said. Aman said he's finalizing a memorandum of understanding between Star City and the commission. Once both sides approve that MOU, the request for proposals will be made public. The town acquired the property in 2012 to make room for the Boyers Avenue widening and improvement project. In 2020, the commission approved an amendment to Star City's TIF plan allowing for the sale of that property. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In other Star City TIF news, the commission said it's receptive to Star City using funds generated by the district for sidewalk replacement and improvements along University Avenue. Doyle said the sidewalks are in "dire need, " and noted there appears to be no money coming in from any other sources. Despite the town's central thoroughfare being a state-maintained route, Doyle said the West Virginia Division of Highways has indicated its only involvement would be the placement of ADA-accessible ramps. "We are wanting to start the 5G process to obtain an engineering firm who will guide us through this process. Once we get all that in order, get prices and estimates on what this is going to cost, we'll present you guys a proposal and see if you'll give us some money, " she told the commissioners. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As with the development mentioned above, the use of TIF funds for the sidewalks will require an MOU between the town and county. Star City Town Council approved the document Tuesday. The commission said it will place the matter on an upcoming agenda. Starbucks is closing an entire line of stores across the US as the popular coffee chain discontinues its pickup-only concept, leading to nearly 90 locations shutting down, including Pennsylvania. Starbucks Pick Up stores, designed in 2019 and launched in New York City for fast grab-and-go convenience, are exclusively located in downtown areas, airport terminals and hospitals across the country. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, who took over the company nearly a year ago, said in July the concept no longer aligned with the "Back to Starbucks" plan a catalyst to boost sales and prioritize customers. In February, Niccol announced the layoff of 1,100 employees, and halted hiring for hundreds of open positions. Here's what to know in Pennsylvania and Delaware. What are Starbucks Pick Up stores? Starbucks Pick Up was a concept launched in November 2019 and grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the coffeehouse brand shifting a large portion of its business to pick-up only, according to Business Insider. The company had at the time planned to open 300 new locations, largely pickup-oriented stores. Starbucks Pick Up stores allows customers to order drinks through the Starbucks app, then pick them up in store. No seating inside or outside the locations, just bare bones business. What Starbucks are closing in 2026? Starbucks is closing the entire line of Starbucks Pick Up stores across more than 20 states in 2026, CEO Brian Niccol said in July. That accounts for 80 to 90 stores, with some facing permanent closure, while others may transform into coffeehouses at a later date. What Starbucks in Pennsylvania are closing? There are two Starbucks stores in Pennsylvania closing in 2026, both in the southeast/Philadelphia area: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Philadelphia: 17th & Chestnut Springfield: Baltimore Pike Are any Starbucks in Delaware closing? No. Delaware has dozens of Starbucks locations, but no Starbucks Pick Up stores. Why is Starbucks closing stores? Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said that the Starbucks Pick Up venture did not align with the "Back to Starbucks" plan, finding the format "overly transactional and lacking the warmth and human connection" that defines the brand, per USA TODAY. The company is shifting strategy, but not away from mobile ordering, which accounts for 31% of transactions, the company told USA TODAY. Mobile convenience will remain active within community coffeehouses, and for now, within the Pick Up stores until they close. Starbucks locations in Pennsylvania Starbucks has 459 stores in Pennsylvania, according to ScrapeHero, a data company. The company is the fourth largest food chain in Pennsylvania. Starbucks locations in Delaware Starbucks has 46 stores in Delaware, making it the second largest food chain in the state, according to ScrapeHero. How to a find a Starbucks near me There are over 41,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S. To find one, check the Starbucks store locator tool here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lori Comstock is a New Jersey-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Starbucks closing entire line of stores. See where in PA, Del The idea that humans could one day populate and even colonize Mars is one no longer confined to the realm of science fiction. Astronauts are on the cusp in the years ahead of journeying all the way to the Red Planet, where so far only rovers and orbiters have dared to venture. And when they do, it's likely they'll make landfall aboard a SpaceX Starship. Billionaire Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the vision of paving the way to create a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet. By April 2023, the company rolled out its massive Starship the rocket/spacecraft combo designed to reach Mars to its South Texas launch pad for what would be its first of nine flight tests to date. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Starship has endured a few explosive setbacks in 2025, SpaceX is preparing for a mission it refers to as flight 10 as early as Sunday, Aug. 24, to get the vehicle's development back on track. But Starship has a long way to go before it can carry the first spacefarers to Mars and fulfill Musk's oft-stated dream of "making life multiplanetary." Here's everything to know about Elon Musk's goal of setting up the first human city on Mars, and how Starship, which could soon fly again for the first time since May 27 and from Florida by the end of 2025 fits in to those plans. 'A different breed': SpaceX's sprawling Starbase still rising from South Texas sand flats Why is Elon Musk interested in sending Starship to Mars? Billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, is pictured in June 2023 at the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France. Musk, who has often spoken publicly about his Mars vision, delivered his latest public updates in late May in front of employees from Starbase, SpaceX's headquarters near the U.S.-Mexico border that recently became its own Texas city. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a video SpaceX shared May 29 on social media site X, which Musk owns, the world's richest man described to his employees the goal of sending humans to Mars as essential for the long term survival of civilization." Under Musk's vision, humans would not just step on the planet before departing, but would remain to establish a settlement that could function independently if any cataclysmic event were to ever happen on Earth. So, why Mars, as opposed to, say, Jupiter or Venus? Well, while other planets in our solar system are anything but habitable for humans, Mars gets a decent amount of sunlight, has water sources and is already a planet where humanity has sent robotic rovers to scout the terrain. At an average distance of 140 million miles from Earth, it's also one of our closest cosmic neighbors. While Mars has a thin atmosphere and is relatively cold, SpaceX claims on its website, "we can warm it up." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth's, meaning humans would be able to lift heavier objects and bound around. What is Starship? World's largest rocket developed for travel to Mars Starship launches Tuesday, May 27 on its latest test, known as Flight 9. SpaceX is developing Starship specifically with a Martian destination in mind. The spacecraft is designed to be a fully reusable transportation system, meaning the rocket and vehicle can return to the ground for additional missions. The Starship, standing 403 feet tall when fully stacked, is regarded as the worlds largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever developed. When fully integrated, the launch system is composed of both a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot upper stage Starship itself, the spacecraft where crew and cargo would ride. Super Heavy alone is powered by 33 of SpaceXs Raptor engines that give the initial burst of thrust at liftoff. The upper stage Starship section is powered by six Raptor engines that will ultimately travel in orbit. When could SpaceX launch Starship to Mars? Musk wants to send the first uncrewed Starship to Mars by the end of 2026 for a very critical reason: The timeline coincides with an orbital alignment around the sun that would shorten the journey between Earth and Mars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It's a slim window that occurs once about every two years, and if SpaceX misses it, Musk has said the company would target another mission during the next alignment. If Starship were to blast off for the Red Planet by the end of 2026, the journey itself would take between seven to nine months. While no humans would have a seat on the first flight to Mars, Starship won't be empty. Instead, the vehicle would carry one or more Optimus robots designed and built by Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company. Where, how would Starship land on Mars? Starship would enter Mars' atmosphere while zooming at 4.6 miles per second before it begins decelerating. The vehicle's heatshield is designed to withstand multiple atmospheric entries, but the Martian environment is expected to be harsher on the spacecraft, given its higher levels of atomic oxygen in the atmosphere, according to SpaceX. SpaceX is still considering multiple potential landing sites on Mars for Starship, but the leading contender appears to be a region known as Arcadia. The volcanic plain is on Mars' northern hemisphere far from the planet's frigid poles, with access to water sources in the form of shallow ice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arcadia is also flat enough to make landings and takeoffs relatively safer, Musk has said. What happens when the first humans arrive on Mars? Crewed trips with humans would then follow most likely in the early 2030s, Musk has claimed. Musk said he envisions eventually launching 1,000 to 2,000 Starships to Mars every two years so enough people and supplies can make it to the surface to quickly establish a livable, self-sufficient city. Achieving that goal would require more than 1 million Martian residents and millions of tons of cargo, according to SpaceX. For that reason, the company has an ambitious target of one day in the years ahead launching Starship more than 10 times per day from Earth to Mars during those crucial transfer windows every 26 months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first humans on Mars would be tasked with taking account of local resources, setting up landing operations, establishing a power source and building homes. How does Musk's vision fit in with Trump's, align with NASA's Artemis campaign? NASA also has designs on astronauts reaching Mars even if the agency's plan of attack differs from Musk's. Starship is crucial to the U.S. space agency's goal of returning astronauts to the moon's surface for the first time in five decades. NASA's lunar exploration plans call for Artemis III astronauts aboard the Orion capsule to board the Starship while in orbit for a ride to the moon's surface as early as 2027. Once NASA has established a basecamp on the lunar south pole in the years ahead, the agency envisions sending humans from the moon on to Mars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Musk, though, has long favored a more aggressive Earth-to-Mars approach. President Donald Trump also outlined in his January inauguration speech his intent for humans to "plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars" during his second term a vision from which he hasn't appeared to waver even after a public spat with Musk in June. While Trump has proposed a significant 25% slash to NASA's overall budget, the cuts mostly target the space agency's science programs while increasing funding for space exploration including missions to Mars. The White House's 2026 budget proposal calls for allocating more than $1 billion for Mars exploration, while an additional $10 billion in funding for NASA was included in Republican spending legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. Trump also signed earlier in August an executive order aimed at rolling back federal regulations on commercial spaceflight companies, including SpaceX. The move came a few months after the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, gave approval in May for SpaceX to conduct as many as 25 Starship test flights a year as Musk seeks to ramp up development of the Mars-bound spacecraft. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SpaceX also has designs on expanding Starship operations to Florida at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, with plans to conduct a Sunshine State launch potentially by the end of 2025. When is the next Starship launch from Starbase, Texas? SpaceX plans to conduct the 10th flight test of its Starship spacecraft Sunday, Aug. 24, with a target liftoff time of 7:30 p.m. ET the company's Starbase headquarters in Cameron County, about 23 miles from Brownsville. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX launching Starship for Mars missions. About Elon Musk's plans (The Center Square) The Louisiana State Bond Commission on Thursday approved nearly $38 million in revenue bonds to support two affordable housing projects in New Orleans. The decision came with pointed questions about the high construction costs, with commission members calling the costs per unit outrageous. Ultimately, the commission signed off on the Louisiana Housing Corp.s request to issue up to $22 million in bonds for the 4100 Bywater project, a planned four-story development with 82 affordable units in the Bywater neighborhood. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bonds, capped at 10% interest over 40 years, will help cover the projects $35 million total cost. Funding sources for the Bywater project include FEMA funds through the Housing Authority of New Orleans, support from the citys Office of Community Development, and low-income housing tax credits. The developer, ITEX Development, acknowledged the project costs exceed federal housing limits by more than $11 million, but identified more than $15 million in incremental costs to justify the overages. The second financing request, for the Touro Shakespeare Project in Algiers, authorizes up to $16 million in revenue bonds to help redevelop the historic Touro Shakespeare Almshouse, a Depression-era facility that has been vacant since Hurricane Katrina. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plan calls for converting the three-story structure into a 52-unit affordable housing complex for seniors, complete with on-site management, community space in a renovated chapel, and courtyards. That projects total development cost is $32 million. Funding includes federal disaster recovery dollars, city loans, historic tax credits, and low-income housing tax credits. Developer HRI Properties noted that the project must close its federal community development block grant funding by years end. The steep price tag for the Algiers project drew sharp criticism from some commissioners. Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Praireville, questioned whether the Touro project passes the smell test. I understand there are a lot of costs involved with the broader project, but providing somebody with 756 square feet of living area at a total cost of $622,000 per unit I cant get past that, Bacala said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He urged the commission to require housing corporation officials to testify directly at future meetings about how such projects are evaluated and recommended. Developers and their representatives defended the costs, citing the buildings severe structural damage, asbestos contamination, and the requirements of federal historic preservation standards. We knew this was going to be a very expensive project, said Josh Collen, leader of the project. So we wanted to have the due diligence to be able to look you all in the eyes and say that we've done our jobs as developers, as stewards of neighborhood and of historic renovation. The condition we found it in was one where the structure had collapsed due to water intrusion. The building had a ton of asbestos throughout, and when you have asbestos mixed with debris, everything is contaminated from the perspective of environmental remediation. Paul Rainwater, a consultant assisting with the project, added that redeveloping the long-vacant site was critical for the Algiers neighborhood. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Having this dilapidated building across the street from the Marine Corps Reserve Command and Delgado Community College does not make any sense whatsoever, he told commissioners. Sen. Mike Reese, R-DeQuincy, agreed with Rainwater, saying the Marine Corps was promised that the state would pursue economic development in the surrounding area but that had yet to be fulfilled. Fifteen years ago we promised the Corps a redevelopment of that entire region in order to get that headquarters, which is probably about 800- to $900 million a year in annual economic impact to our state, Reece said, objecting to a motion to defer the project until the next meeting. We told them, within a couple of years, we would revitalize that region, and it would look completely different, and just have faith and confidence in the state that we would make those investments. Despite concerns, the Bond Commission voted to approve both items, allowing the Louisiana Housing Corp. to move forward with bond issuance. Morris and Bacala voted against the approval. (The Center Square) A recent federal grant audit into the Moses Lake School District revealed nearly $4.4 million in questionable costs before the school board approved the 2025-26 budget on Thursday. The Moses Lake School Board briefly discussed the findings that the Office of the Washington State Auditor, or SAO, published on Monday. The financial and federal audit reviewed statements from September 2023 to August 2024 to assess compliance and whether MLSD is spending taxpayer dollars accordingly. The state didnt raise issues with MLSDs general financial statements, meaning the budget, revenue, and expenses appeared balanced, but about $4.4 million in federal grants lacked supporting evidence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SAO also identified $6.8 million in unsupported costs from 2022 to 2023 related to federal grants, as MLSD failed to provide the necessary documentation. The most recent audit marked that issue as fully corrected, meaning the district followed up with evidence, which it must do again before the next one. One of the things we did to get by in our true emergency was to compensate for the budget shortfall in general apportionment by utilizing some of those special purpose funds, Superintendent Carol Lewis said on Thursday. We have to do everything we can to stop doing that as soon as possible. Last year, taxpayers rejected back-to-back levy proposals, which led to a review that unveiled a shortfall of roughly $20 million. Hundreds of employees lost their jobs, and an average decrease in enrollment of roughly 2% annually, confirmed by MLSD Business Manager Ruby Perez, only exacerbated the crisis. Hoping to reverse the trend this year, Perez said MLSD only budgeted for a conservative 1% decline. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Voters recently passed a new levy, which MLSD will start collecting next year. The district balanced the budget ahead of this fall, but Lewis said maintaining federal grant compliance is still at the top of mind. I have been very clear with everybody, public and the board, that this was kind of a one-time thing, Lewis clarified. Were not in deep trouble about that, but we will be if we dont make some changes. She said MLSD needs to figure out another plan, since it cant keep spending special-purpose funds on general education expenses like paying teachers. That must come from the general fund or elsewhere, with the grants reserved for specific employees or other expenses that the money is intended to fund. Lewis said MLSD identified deficiencies related to poor internal control that led to material weaknesses and material noncompliance. SAO will verify whether MLSD took corrective actions during its federal and financial audit next spring, but its also in the process of a much-anticipated accountability audit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Taxpayers called on the board to undergo a forensic audit before the latest levy vote, but the officials tabled the idea, citing the upcoming accountability audit. A forensic audit investigates potential fraud and misconduct, while an accountability audit looks at compliance with state laws and local policies. The recent audit of federal grant compliance found missing time-and-effort documentation for special education grants, Title I grants and COVID-19 funding. SAO Communications Manager Adam Wilson said that without all that, the state cant determine whether MLSD charged those costs appropriately. We do not know whether the district will have to repay any funds, Wilson told The Center Square. The district will work with the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to determine if they have any other documentation to support those costs as they go through a process known as audit resolution with the federal government. We will follow up on the issues we found in our next audit. He said time-and-effort findings are common, but should be addressed promptly when they arise. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If MLSD has to repay nearly $4.4 million, it likely will come from taxpayer dollars in the general fund. Lewis said OSPI will place MLSD on an improvement plan for the lack of oversight and internal controls around special-purpose funds. OSPI has also informed MLSD that it must have staff overseeing this work and reporting the appropriate documentation to ensure everyone knows how the money is spent. If we dont do this right, then we dont get the millions of dollars that go along with this, Lewis said. The Center Square contacted Lewis for further clarification, but didn't receive anything before publishing. Getty Images A petition seeking to bar utility companies and government contractors from making political donations is set to begin collecting signatures, with both the language summary and the form of the petition receiving approval from the Board of State Canvassers on Friday. The final summary approved by the board reads: Initiation of legislation to: Prohibit regulated electric and gas utilities, contractors with over $250,000 annually in government contracts and people and organizations with substantial connections to these utilities/contractors from making direct or indirect campaign contributions to those who run for or hold offices that impact them; expand campaign finance laws and restrictions that regulate spending on political communications, including laws that require disclosing donor information to apply to communications clearly identifying candidates or ballot questions, even if they do not expressly advocate voting for/against them; expressly apply the law requiring disclosure of who paid for political communications to internet political communications. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In order to move forward, the ballot campaign, Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, must collect 356,958 signatures within 180 days. After receiving enough valid signatures, the Legislature can choose to adopt or reject the proposal within 40 days. If adopted, the proposal is not subject to the governors veto power. If rejected the matter goes to the voters. The Michiganders for Money Out of Politics coalition includes Clean Water Action, Climate Cabinet, Community Change Action, Detroit Action, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Michigan United Action, MOSES Action, Progress Michigan, and Voters Not Politicians. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced the U.S. is pausing all employment visas for commercial truck drivers, an escalation of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffys effort to strictly enforce English proficiency standards on truck drivers in the name of safety. Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Rubio posted on X. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. The move comes the same week Duffy launched a DOT investigation into a deadly crash in Florida involving a truck driver from India who was reportedly in the country illegally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The driver failed the English Language Proficiency assessment, getting two of 12 verbal questions correct and accurately identifying 1 of 4 highway signs during an on-site compliance investigation by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, according to DOT. In May, Duffy signed an order outlining new guidance to enforce English proficiency requirements for truckers along with a nationwide audit of state's that provide people non-domiciled commercial drivers licenses to non-U.S. citizens. The DOT found that Harjinder Singh, the driver in the Aug. 12 Florida crash that killed three people, got a regular full-term commercial drivers license from the state of Washington in July 2023 that he was not eligible to receive. The agency determined he obtained a limited-term non-domiciled commercial drivers license from California in July 2024. DOT also said that on July, 3, after Duffy signed the order to strengthen English proficiency standards among commercial truck drivers, state police in New Mexico did a roadside inspection of Singh and gave him a speeding ticket, but the agency says police didn't administer an English language test. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us," Duffy said when he announced the inquiry. "This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures. Non-enforcement and radical immigration policies have turned the trucking industry into a lawless frontier, resulting in unqualified foreign drivers improperly acquiring licenses to operate 40-ton vehicles." DOT did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PUEBLO A multi-agency criminal investigation is underway after state inspectors found "around 20" decomposing bodies hidden inside a private funeral home owned by Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter during an annual inspection. Davis Mortuary, 128 Broadway Ave. in Pueblo, is under summary suspension after inspectors entered the business and noticed a "strong odor of decomposition" and a door hidden by a cardboard display during a mandatory annual inspection Wednesday, according to a statement from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA). Officials say the inspectors saw "around 20 or so" bodies in various stages of decomposition. Brian Cotter, 64, who co-owns the mortuary with his brother, Chris, allegedly told inspectors that the bodies were awaiting cremation and that some of them had been in the room for about 15 years. DORA Division of Professions and Occupations Director Sam Delp said the official number of bodies has yet to be determined. According to Delp, state inspectors could see the bodies from the doorway, but did not step inside the room Wednesday. Law enforcement officials were notified immediately. A search warrant of the property was executed Thursday. In addition to the discovered bodies, Cotter allegedly admitted to investigators that he "may" have issued next-of-kin fake cremains, according to the state agency. "Davis Mortuary engaged in willfully dishonest conduct and/or committed negligence in the practice of embalming, funeral director or providing for final disposition that defrauds or causes injury or is likely to defraud or cause injury," the summary suspension document alleges. The summary suspension further states that the funeral home was over capacity in the amount of bodies it could refrigerate. In addition, Delp said none of the individuals employed by Davis Mortuary were licensed. Although not required by Colorado law until January 2027, individuals can voluntarily apply for licensure at any time. During this last legislative session, Gov. Jared Polis signed the Sunset Continue Mortuary Science Code Regulation bill (HB24-1335) into law. That law required funeral homes and crematories to be subject to inspections on a routine basis. Wednesday's inspection was the first one done on the funeral home. Families showed up to the mortuary Thursday afternoon with tears in their eyes as they asked what was happening to their loved ones. Patrol cars from Pueblo Police were lining the block. "I think the biggest thing is there's nobody to call for answers," said Patty Emerson, who cremated her husband, Mel, at Davis Mortuary after he died from kidney cancer in 2011. Emerson was seen pulling into the parking lot, visibly shaking with tears in her eyes as she talked to reporters. With the only knowledge of what's happening coming from reading the news, she sat in her car making phone calls to law enforcement, awaiting confirmation that officials are taking the investigation seriously. She said the only answers officials have given to help quell her anxiety was an email address. But she wants to know what happened to her husband, who she said was the kindest man she's ever known. "It's been 14 years, but I still miss him. I still breathe him," she said. "And then, to read about this ... it's just devastating. I don't know why somebody would do this. I just it's incomprehensible to me." Emerson used the coroner's funeral home because she knew the Cotter brothers during her time working in the pathology department at UCHealth Parkview Medical Center for 18 years. "I knew him because we handled the hospital morgue, and they would come in to pick up people who had passed away," she said "They were both two of the nicest morticians we ever dealt with, and when it was time for me to choose a mortuary, I thought, 'That's who I'm going with. He's such a nice guy.'" Now, she just wants to find out what happened to her husband. "My biggest fear is that my husband's body has been rotting away in that home. My second biggest fear is that the ashes I was given do not belong to my husband," Emerson said. Around 1:30 p.m. Thursday, CBI arrived at the mortuary with a hazard team. At least a dozen CBI vehicles were parked on the property and people were seen putting on gas masks ahead of executing the search warrant as officers taped off the area. Upon finding finding the bodies, DORA has been fully cooperating with the Pueblo Police Department, the state agency said in their statement. It is unknown who will assume control of the Pueblo County Coroner's Office following the allegations. As the largest office in Colorado, the El Paso County Coroner's Office has historically performed examinations in cases involving a conflict of interest for the Pueblo coroner, according to a statement from Coroner Emily Russell-Kinsley. "The El Paso County Coroner's Office is willing to assist with the current investigation as necessary. Simultaneously, we will remain in our service to the citizens of El Paso County," Russell-Kinsley said in the statement. As of Thursday, officials have confirmed Cotter is still the county coroner. According to the Pueblo County website, Brian Cotter has spent more than 20 years with the Coroner's Office, and has over 25 years of "death care" experience. His biography on the website states he worked as a mortician, a state death investigator and a diplomat for the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators. According to the Davis Mortuary website, Brian Cotter and his brother Chris Cotter purchased the funeral home in 1989. The funeral home has been around since 1905 and touts itself as southern Colorado's first crematory in 1971. Brian Cotter is listed as the president of the business, with Chris Cotter as a secretary, according to business records sent to the Colorado Secretary of State from 1992. "In this era of mega-size corporate funeral home chains, it is truly refreshing to find a family still here to serve you when you need it," the website reads. "They are not concerned with faceless stockholders or satisfying a far off CEO with high profit numbers. Their only consideration is helping their friends and neighbors in need." The "our staff" bio for Brian Cotter on the funeral home's website states "new paragraph" and appeared to have been removed as of Thursday morning. As of Thursday, neither brother has been arrested. Officials are aware of Brian Cotter's location, but no formal charges have been filed, according the 10th Judicial District Attorney Kala Beauvais. As for Chris Cotter, officials say he is "being looked at," but similar to his brother, no charges have been filed and it remains unclear what his involvement may have been. It is unclear what the motive behind the alleged stashing of bodies was. Law enforcement officials say the investigation will be comprehensive and the potential financial element will be looked at. According to an archived version of the website from January, Brian Cotter has been around his family's funeral home "since he was old enough to help wash cars." He is also a member of the National Funeral Directors Association. Brian Cotter, a Republican, defeated his Democratic opponents in the 2014 election to become coroner and won again in 2018 and 2022, according to election results. Chris Cotter is a certified funeral director and a licensed life insurance agent specializing in pre arranged funeral planning, according to the archived website. During the afternoon press conference, Pueblo County Sheriff David Lucero said this investigation is "rocking our community" and that it may take days or months to complete. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation into the incident, a spokesperson from the agency confirmed Thursday. A CBI tip line and victim assistance hotline is 719-257-3359. The Pueblo County Coroner's Office has yet to provide a statement regarding the allegations. A spokesperson from Davis Mortuary has yet to respond to a request for comment from The Gazette. The gruesome discovery came only days before one of the former co-owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home appears in court for his state sentencing. Jon Hallford pleaded guilty to 190 counts of abuse of a corpse last year and is expected to receive two decades behind bars for the state crimes on Friday. Gazette reporter Grace Brajkovich and Cleo Westin contributed to this article. (Getty Images) Tens of thousands of Nevadans will soon have an easier way to save for retirement, thanks to a newly launched program by the state. The Nevada Employee Savings Trust, or NEST, launched on July 1. Through the program, Nevadans who do not have access to retirement plans through their private-sector employers will be automatically enrolled in an Individual Retirement Account and can contribute to it a certain amount (or percentage) of each paycheck. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Employees have the ability to opt out of the program, but according to the Nevada State Treasurers Office, which administers NEST, approximately 20,500 people have already been enrolled. That number is expected to rise. By Sept. 1, businesses with six or more employees will be required to either offer their own retirement plan or enroll their employees into NEST. I think this is going to help tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of Nevadans be in a better place, said Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine. An estimated 593,000 Nevadans lack easy access to a retirement account, according to AARP. Nationally, 1 in 4 adults have no retirement savings at all, according to the American Retirement Association. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its estimated more than 40% of small businesses nationwide do not offer retirement benefits to their employees. Employers often cite cost as the barrier stopping them from offering a retirement plan, according to Pew. States are increasingly deciding to step in, boosted by research showing people are far more likely to save for retirement when contributions are automatically deducted from their paycheck. Twelve states now have auto-IRA programs, and according to Pew, more than a million people have saved $2 billion through them since the launch of the first program in Oregon in 2017. The Nevada State Legislature established NEST through legislation passed in 2023. That bill, Senate Bill 305, was sponsored by three Democrats and a Republican. All Democrats supported the measure, while Republicans were divided in their support. Gov. Joe Lombardo signed the bill into law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conine acknowledges that access to, and even initial enrollment in, NEST doesnt mean every Nevadan is going to save. He added, Not everyone will choose to use it, but those that do all of a sudden have a way to save for retirement really easily like, really, really easily. In advance of the new retirement plan requirement, the Vegas Chamber launched its own pooled 401k program, something Conine sees as a benefit to the community. If (people) are saving,I do not care if they are saving with us, he said. I care if theyre saving. The NEST model could be particularly beneficial for people who work multiple jobs or switch jobs often. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youve got an account and youve got two jobs and you want to put in some money from both paychecks, you can, said Conine. You want to put in more money from one and less money from another, you can. If you go get a third job and dont have either of those two original jobs anymore, you still have the account. Gig workers can also set up NEST accounts and deposit money. The program is designed with retirement in mind, but contributions are easily accessible for emergencies. We have a lot of Nevadans, unfortunately, who live paycheck to paycheck, he said. When they have some unexpected expense, an emergency, a lot of times they have to go to a payday lender, a title lender, or some other very, very expensive source of credit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The principal balance on NEST accounts can be pulled out by the account holder without penalty. As a Roth IRA, contributions are post-tax. It can serve as an emergency account, said Conine. If someone moves out of Nevada, their account can stay open and contributions can even still be deposited directly into the account. If they have moved to one of the five states in the same interstate consortium as Nevada Colorado, Maine, Delaware, Vermont and Minnesota they may be able to connect their account to their new employer in that state. NEST comes with no costs to employers, other than the minimal time it takes to facilitate enrollment in the program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ongoing costs of running the program will be covered through minimal fees, which Conine said are lower than at similar funds not run by states. He put the cost at around $26 annually, plus one-fifth of one percent, or a $2 fee on $1,000. The upfront $1.2 million cost of launching NEST was covered through a loan from the state general fund. For more information on NEST, visit nest.nv.gov GULF COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) State lawmakers wrapped up their 105-day-long legislative session at the end of June. Less than two months later, theyre jumping into legislative delegations meetings in their local districts. State Senator Corey Simon and State Representative Jason Shoaf began their Thursday in Gulf County, hearing residents concerns. Some of the hot topics were economic growth and affordable housing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shoaf and Simon may have found a way to solve one of those issues. Theyre proposing a bill to reconfigure the Port Authority of Port St. Joe. Instead of five board members from Gulf County, it would include one board member each from Gulf, Liberty, Franklin, and Gasden counties, and one at large, appointed by the governors office. Shoaf says the port doesnt handle much cargo shipping business. He believes this bill would change that, bringing more jobs and investment to Gulf County. It will bring more buy-in, more communities putting assets and input in the process. And I believe its what will give us our best chance at actually getting that port open, State Representative Jason Shoaf said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At least one Gulf County commissioner is concerned about how this change could impact the countys other assets. All of our beaches are very important to us. We have tourism, we dont want to do just tourism, we want other types of jobs. But we do need to protect our tourism base, and that bay is one of the substantial ones of it. We have so many groups that monitor it, watch it. And so we want to make sure any plan going forward is not distracting from that, Gulf County Commissioner Randy Pridgeon said. Shoaf and Simon moved to Franklin County on Thursday afternoon, where drinking water has been a huge issue. Theyre proposing another bill that would expand the East Point Water and Sewer District to cover St. George Island and Apalachicola. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We would just serve as an advisory role and try to help out. And then financially, we would look at money coming from the stewardship bill. See how that can be put in. Look at debt service. Look at renewal and replacement and see where there are areas that we can improve immediately. And then look at long-term projects down the line, East Point Water and Sewer District Administrator Billy Fuentes said. Apalachicola Mayor Brenda Ash says the citys replacement scrubber is expected to arrive at the end of next month. She says the water is clear and odor-free. Simon wants to find a long-term solution for Apalachicola. Not having that sulfur, you know, smell coming out of your water, not having to wonder if theres going to be long-term effects of drinking water that doesnt smell safe or doesnt appear safe. And so those are that those are the things that were really targeting. We want to at the very least, we are an industrial society. We shouldnt be dealing with these types of issues, but we are. And so its important that we find meaningful long-term solutions, State Senator Corey Simon said. Simon and Shoaf both say they support the bills and plan to introduce them during the next legislative session, which begins on Jan 13. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 state has ordered Fort Lauderdale to remove the section of a street near the beach painted in the colors of the LGBTQ+ progress pride flag, as it moves beyond its efforts to eradicate rainbow crosswalks throughout Florida. Other intersections that have nothing to do with the LGBTQ+ community are caught in the crossfire. They were ordered removed even though the state Department of Transportation approved the design and colors of at least two of the intersections before they were installed. Mayor Dean Trantalis said Friday he would ask the city manager to call an emergency meeting of the City Commission so it can decide if it wants to take legal action to fight the state order to remove the LGBTQ+ flag markings on Sebastian Street between State Road A1A and Seabreeze Boulevard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The location is near what is widely known as the unofficial LGBTQ+ section of Fort Lauderdale beach. The campaign against rainbow street markings emanates from President Donald Trumps and Gov. Ron DeSantis transportation secretaries. DeSantis commented Thursday on social media. Responding to criticism over removal of the rainbow crosswalk at the site of the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the LGBTQ clubs Latin night, DeSantis said, We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes. Trantalis said the rainbow pride street painting should be allowed to remain. Despite their attempt at cultural hegemony, (the state) failed to realize that the statute doesnt really cover the situations that theyre acting to comply with, the mayor said. The section of street its on is a dead end, not a thoroughfare, it is not a traffic-control device, not a crosswalk and is not an intersection. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement City Commissioner Steve Glassman said via text: The states actions are shameful. This is an entirely new level of state intrusion into local municipal sovereignty and it is unacceptable. Fort Lauderdale will not tolerate the hatred and discrimination against our LGBTQ+ residents and visitors just as we would not tolerate the marginalization of any in our welcoming city. The state issued its instructions in a letter dated Thursday and received by the city late in the day. Unlike many of the Department of Transportations previous letters to cities around the state involved locations that had LGBTQ+ rainbow crosswalks and even though DeSantis and top transportation officials have concentrated on markings they regard as political the order to Fort Lauderdale was broader. It cited the rainbow painted street and three intersections where streets have been painted with various designs. Steve Braun, the regional transportation secretary for the district that includes Broward County, was unequivocal. He told Fort Lauderdale City Manager Rickelle Williams that state law requires removal of these pavement markings immediately. Besides Sebastian Street, what Braun called his initial list of noncompliant locations includes the intersections of Breakers Avenue and Riomar Street, Breakers Avenue and Terramar Street and East Las Olas Boulevard and Almond Avenue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At Breakers and Riomar the center of the intersection is painted in a large blue wave pattern. Images online show the crosswalks have large blue, pink and orange polka dots. Breakers and Terramar has a similar wave pattern in the center, but the crosswalks have squares of color. Related Articles Robin Haines Merrill, artist and executive director of the Christian Cultural Development Foundation and Upper Room Art Gallery, said she designed the Breakers Avenue painted intersections. Merrill said she worked with the Florida Department of Transportation for design and color approval before a community painting event of the intersections about 10 years ago. She said that is what held us up from getting executed for so long. We followed all the FDOT rules. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The artist said the state approval makes the removal order so stupid. Trantalis, too, said it makes no sense. They were all permitted by FDOT early on. That was in complete compliance with the departments regulations. Merrill said the color and design of the intersections were inspired by the nearby water. And the colors and shapes in the crosswalks were inspired by the midcentury modern colors and styles from buildings in the area. Its kind of like this zen pattern of water. If you were up in a high rise and looked down at the street, its kind of like this zen pattern moving down the street. If you look around you can find all those shapes that are in the crosswalks in the architectural features nearby, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Braun said he was writing to Williams because many local jurisdictions have been removing markings the state deems unacceptable, but We have not heard from the City of Fort Lauderdale regarding whether you intend to comply. He told her the city must contact the state agency by Sept. 4 and let us know if you intend to comply. If we do not hear from you, the pavement markings referenced above will be removed by the Department of Transportation without further notice. If that happens, the state will bill the city for the cost. It also contained a threat to force the citys hand: withholding of state funds if the city doesnt comply. As with other cities, Braun told Fort Lauderdale that it could request an administrative hearing, but the letter suggested it wouldnt produce a different outcome. The Department has already reviewed the pavement markings at the location(s) mentioned above and determined that the pavement markings will not be allowed, he wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fort Lauderdales rainbow street is already in disrepair after being damaged by a nearby construction project. Documents previously released in response to a public records request from the South Florida Sun Sentinel show city officials had been debating the legalities of the street and whether they should tell the developer to restore everything, including the flag or restore the street with no flag. The transportation policy comes at a time of a rapidly shifting political environment surrounding the LGBTQ+ community and related issues. Efforts that support diversity, equity and inclusion have been disbanded by federal and state governments. That has even extended to the annual commemoration of the Pulse nightclub massacre. After years of including LGBTQ and Hispanic communities in the official state description of Pulse Remembrance Day, DeSantis omitted both this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On July 1, President Donald Trumps transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, decreed that pride intersections dont belong on public roads. Writing on social media, Duffy said that Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks. The next day, DeSantis transportation secretary, Jared Perdue, endorsed Duffys statement. Writing on social media, Perdue said Florida wants to keep our transportation facilities free & clear of political ideologies. Some cities, including Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach, quickly said they would remove their rainbow crosswalks. Others including Delray Beach, Key West, Miami Beach and Orlando havent moved quickly or at all, and the state has ordered or implemented removal of their rainbow crosswalks. Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon. URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) Two Illinois State troopers were hurt overnight when a driver ran a red light and hit their squad car, State Police said. The crash happened on Friday at University and Lincoln Avenues in Urbana. State Police said that at 12:43 a.m., the squad car was driving eastbound on University and started to proceed through a green light. A Chevrolet was driving southbound on Lincoln, failed to stop at the corresponding red light and t-boned the front drivers side of the squad car, officials said. One dead, another hospitalized after Decatur car vs. pedestrian crash; driver facing DUI charges Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The two troopers in the squad car were transported to the hospital with minor injuries, officials said, while the driver of the Chevrolet was not hurt. The squad car had to be towed from the scene as it experienced disabling damage. The driver of the Chevrolet was given tickets for disobeying a stop light and for failing to reduce speed to avoid a crash. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) It has been four years since a historic and bitterly cold winter storm blanketed Oklahoma. Most of us are reminded of it every time we look at our electricity bill each month. Customers are paying back billions of dollars in debt that utility companies took on when they had to buy natural gas at much higher prices just to keep up with demand. Those extra charges will be on our bills for more than a decade to come, but one state lawmaker is saying that money should be given back to certain utility customers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republican Rep. Tom Gann specifically calls out Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC). However, OCC says those bonds are here to stay. In a brief filed Thursday, Republican Rep. Tom Gann wants nearly $700-million in ratepayer-backed bonds to cover PSOs expenses from the historic winter storm in 2021. Oklahomas Senators invited to a town hall hosted by Indivisible Oklahoma He calls the move invalid and is asking the Oklahoma Supreme Court to refund millions to customers. Rep. Gann says the OCC never included a required audit of those bonds during a recent PSO rate hike request. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In addition, Rp. Gann alleges the original bonds approved to cover winter storm costs, totaling nearly $700-million, were never audited either, which he says makes them invalid. Repayments on those bonds have been collected each month on PSO customers electric bills, and are set to continue for 17 more years. The OCC told News 4, This matter was fully litigated, and the issue is closed. The time to appeal is long expired. However, Gann, a former internal auditor for the Tulsa International Airport says otherwise. The OCC allowed the utilities to audit themselves after the winter storm, and OCC employees who are not CPAs, have performed fake audits of the bonds ever since, Rep. Gann said. PSO also responded to the filing. We understand and recognize the impact that Winter Storm Uri had on our customers and communities. Our priority has always been to ensure safe and reliable service while following the guidance and approval processes set by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. We respect the role and authority of the OCC and Oklahoma Supreme Court and will continue to adhere to all rules and regulations. Push to legalize recreational marijuana moves forward with possible new state question Another reason Rep. Gann says the bonds should be invalidated are accusations of sexual harassment and drunk driving involving OCC Commissioner Todd Hiett, when he was at a party hosted by PSOs attorneys in 2023. He says Hietts behavior made him subject to undue influence and possible extortion by those attorneys and others, and a reasonable person would question his impartiality in PSO cases. Hiett was never charged with any crime, and back in May, the State Ethics Commission dismissed complaints against Hiett, including one that accused him of violating a rule on conflict of interest in regards to that 2023 party. The State Ethics Commission said, their decision took into account the constitutional requirements for the Corporation Commission, the legislative nature of the rate hikes and Oklahoma Case Law, including the well-recognized Rule of Necessity. Gann argues that should not be the case. PSO, OCC and the Attorney Generals office have 40 days to respond to Ganns filing. Gann says similar appeals have been filed with the state supreme court in cases involving OG&E and ONG as well. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 21State Rep. Brad Fritts, R-Dixon, spoke with Shaw Local during a stop on his summer tour Thursday, Aug. 21, to explain his decision to withdraw from the Sauk Valley Area Chamber of Commerce, citing concerns over the removal of the word "God" from a prayer at a scholarship fundraiser and the inclusion of a DEI statement on the organization's website. He said he found the SVACC's decision to alter the prayer at the Aug. 1 annual Steak Fry in the Country troubling, adding that the event was on private land and had historically included religious references. "The Chamber pointed to that DEI statement as the reason for having to cut 'God' and 'Amen' out of the prayer. Coming from a farm background, that's troublesome to me," Fritts said. "Because as farmers, we put seeds in the ground ... and then we get on our knees and pray to God for the year for enough rain. We pray for the rain to stop when we get too much. We pray for sunshine. It's such a spiritual thing, and to cut that out, really hammered the roots of the farming community." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although Fritts said he believes in religious freedom for all, he framed the issue as a matter of majority values, placing the responsibility on objectors to opt out, rather than on organizers to create inclusive spaces. "If you don't feel comfortable, step outside for the prayer if you want to continue to support the event or don't come to the event. We all have that prerogative," Fritts said. "I firmly believe in freedom of religion. But the freedom of religion extends to everybody, and if they want to, at a private residence and an event like that, where it's holy farmers who are God-fearing individuals, if they want to have a prayer, that's their prerogative to do so under that freedom." Fritts said he is walking away from the SVACC until it "rethinks" some of its policies. "They point to five-star accreditation as the reason for needing to include a DEI statement," Fritts said. "I'm sorry, but if you have to put a statement on your website that says how welcoming you are, you aren't a very welcoming organization." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In his Wednesday news release announcing his departure from the SVACC, Fritts criticized the organization for turning the scholarship event into "political games." "In walking away, I want to draw attention to the fact that you need to be a welcoming organization by your actions, and not just in words," Fritts said. "Again, it's [about] representing our Sauk Valley business community. As far as the Washington, D.C., stuff goes, if that's what you have to do to be a part of that, then guess what? I don't really care, and nobody else should, because we're focused on our business community, right here in the Sauk Valley region." The Chamber's board of directors on Wednesday said the SVACC is reaffirming its mission of enhancing the economic climate and quality of life in the Sauk Valley area, "through its commitment to being a nonpartisan and nondenominational organization that serves the entire community without bias or affiliation to any specific political party or religious denomination." Fritts argued that traditions such as the Steak Fry in the Country's opening prayer are integral to the values of the community and should not be altered based on the complaints of a few, stating, "To let the small minority of complainants now change the whole demographic of how that event is conducted is disheartening. If you have a problem, step out. And I had a problem in this particular case, so I'm going to step out." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He went on to add that even if the SVACC had not altered the prayer, he still opposes the inclusion of DEI on its website. "I believe wholeheartedly in talent and work ethic. To me, it doesn't matter your race, it doesn't matter your gender, ... any of it," Fritts said. "If you're the most qualified individual for a position, if you bring benefit to the community ... you should have a job, you should have a place. ... but to have to put it on the website like that just for national approval is pretty disappointing to me." When asked if he believes underrepresented communities still face structural barriers, he stated, "I'm sure there's still bias out there, and I hope that our community rallies to call that out when necessary. However, I think for the most part, I would stand with and for the majority of people who say it doesn't matter what your race, religion, color or creed is. We want the most qualified individual who's going to do the best job and be the best contributing member of society, and I will stand by that all day long." When asked whether DEI originally designed to support underrepresented communities could be reframed as a shared goal rather than a divisive one, Fritts reaffirmed his belief in a merit-based approach. "We are a long way out from where we used to be in our history," Fritts said. "And I believe at this point in time, the best way to move forward is to let everybody be on a level playing field, to let merit, work ethic and overall talent dictate the future of this country." Aug. 22GRAND FORKS Two "moonshot" goals for the University of North Dakota targeting innovation and artificial intelligence were unveiled by President Andrew Armacost during the State of the University address on Thursday, Aug. 21. Armacost said the university aims to launch or take substantial steps to launch four new companies based on research done at UND by the end of the school year. In the same timeframe, he said UND will become the AI university for North Dakota. He called these goals "moonshots," after U.S. President John F. Kennedy's comments about the moon landing. Another recent "moonshot" for UND was launching satellites, a goal that came to fruition earlier this year, Armacost said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "When you say, 'to infinity and beyond,' sometimes people listen," Armacost said. Armacost announced the new initiatives Thursday during the annual State of the University address, along with the theme for this school year: community. The address was followed by a picnic for staff and faculty at the President's House. Before Armacost spoke, successes of the past school year were highlighted by Jonathan Blankenship, student body president, Adam Matz, university senate chair, and Brandon Wallace, staff senate president. Armacost has had a single-word theme for the university over the past three years, focusing on gratitude, connection and momentum. With so much uncertainty about the future of higher education and in general, he said that "now is the time to bind together as a community." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Quilts were chosen as the image to go along with the theme, as it is a form of art that focuses on patterns and built in a sense of community, Armacost said. "You think of how a simple pattern can then create so many different designs from the same pattern," he said. "There's an important analog here, folks, that we from the human design we human beings have so many different patterns, each one more beautiful than the next." The year's two moonshots also look toward community. Armacost said being the AI university for the state means being a national example of how AI can be adopted, which will involve public-private partnerships, working with people across the campus and preparing students to go into the world as AI progresses. Launching four companies, he said, will build on the foundation of UND's Center for Innovation and the Small Business Development Center, and show the state of North Dakota that the money it puts into UND's research will be put into practice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The piece that is missing is being able to take our great discoveries and inventions and put them into practice," Armacost said. "We publish about them, we give papers, we give presentations. But there's a gap, and the state of North Dakota wants to see us make it happen." Another goal for the university is digital accessibility, he said. While UND has been making efforts to make the campus more physically accessible, work needs to be done on digital accessibility. UND's websites and electronic materials need to be designed to promote accessibility, Armacost said. The university aims to be 85% compliant by the end of the fall semester, and 100% compliant by April 2026. "We're doing it to support other human beings who deserve an education and participation here at the University of North Dakota," he said. The university is also continuing steps to look into its pay equity to create a more comprehensive and complete architecture for career paths on campus. UND has been looking into pay equity and fixing pay gaps for the last two years, but is moving forward with identifying career progression for faculty and staff with salaries fair to the market. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A different ongoing effort for the university has been repatriation of Native American human remains found on campus several years ago. UND is continuing its work to return the remains and artifacts to their proper homes, Armacost said. All ancestors are expected to be home within the next year. "This is not just a legal requirement under federal law. It's also a moral and ethical requirement for us to abide by," Armacost said. The team behind the repatriation is not only looking into the past, but also forward to the future in how UND will educate campus members and the community so a similar situation doesn't happen again. CHEYENNE After Megan Degenfelder was informed she couldn't enlist in the Wyoming Air National Guard due to a prior cancer diagnosis, she promised the general she would make it her mission in life to bring men and women who would be good in uniform to the Guard, and spread information about the mission and sacrifice of the military. In her role as Wyomings elected state superintendent of public instruction, she is doing just that by offering new resources to junior high and high school teachers in all Wyoming public schools. The optional curriculum was announced during a news conference Wednesday at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois. Since the state sets standards and doesn't dictate specific curriculum to local K-12 districts, this will simply be a new tool available to public school teachers statewide. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Degenfelder said when she first ran for office, she spoke frequently about her worry that too many children were growing up without a love for America. Our need in our public education system is to not only teach our standards in ELA (English language arts), math, science, etc., and prepare students for jobs, Degenfelder said, but also it being our duty to prepare them to be good American citizens and to educate them to be patriots for this country, to have a duty and feel this obligation to serve, to protect, to engage, to get involved in our great country. The project has been in the works for more than a year, Degenfelder said, and could not be done without the partnerships the Wyoming Department of Education formed with the University of Wyoming and Dan Starks, founder of the National Museum of Military Vehicles. Starks said he found it striking that even the best of the best social studies teachers in the state were not covering past American wars, simply because they did not have the resources to do so. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Not a single one of them was even devoting a one-hour lesson plan in any of their classes about the Korean War, Starks said. And the reason for it wasn't a lack of interest, it was they just didn't know enough about it, and they didn't have the tools. And they know the number of things they need to touch on is just so expansive. In collaboration with Degenfelder, Starks and his team put together informational videos regarding World War II and the Korean War that will be provided on Canvas, the online learning platform used by public school teachers across the state. They will also create videos about the Vietnam War and other conflicts. Degenfelder is currently working on finding a way to provide the new curriculum to homeschool groups and some private schools, as well. I'm excited to see where this goes, Degenfelder said. I think this is only the beginning of being able to introduce this to students all around our state. The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. After Kaitlyn Kash delivered her baby daughter at Austins Ascension Seton Medical Center in July 2023, she began hemorrhaging. Her doctor told her that her placenta had not come out of her body as it should have after the baby was delivered and that she would need a D&Ca procedure that removes the contents of the uterus. Kash consented, but then, she told me, nothing happened. Are we going to the operating room? Kash kept asking. She started shaking and vomiting. Hospital staff took her newborn daughter off her chest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After about 45 minutes, Kash was wheeled to the ORwhere, she said, she faced more delays. People were running around, and there was slamming of cabinets, she told me. The staff didnt seem prepared. Kash remembers thinking that she was going to die, that she would never get to name her daughter. She struggled to speak, then passed out. When she awoke after the procedure, a nurse told her that she was lucky she still had her uterus. Shed bled so much, she ended up needing a transfusion. Kash didnt understand what had happened, nor, she says, did the hospital tell her. Only after being discharged and speaking with a nurse-practitioner friend did she realize that her experience was not typical of a D&C. The procedure does not typically take hours, involve significant blood loss, or risk the loss of a uterus. It is, however, commonly used for first-trimester abortions. The words of the hospital social worker Kash spoke with before she was discharged stuck out to her: We dont do D&Cs anymore, the woman said, according to Kash. Of course, emergencies during delivery can be chaotic anywhere. But Kash began to suspect that, because Texas had banned virtually all abortions in 2022, following the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision, either the equipment to perform the D&C was not ready, or the hospital was struggling to justify performing one, even for a placenta. Soon, she joined a lawsuit against the state of Texas over its abortion laws. (Kash provided medical records that support that she had a D&C and lost blood. The hospital did not respond to a request for comment, and it is not part of Kashs lawsuit.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I found Kashs experience particularly unnerving because my husband and I are planning a move to a state that bans abortion after six weeks. After hearing and reading stories like hers, we are wondering if our move means that we should not have another child. Kashs experience is representative of the kinds of delays, confusion, and other substandard care that some pregnant women now experience in the 19 states that enacted significant abortion restrictions after Dobbs. Pregnancy and childbirth are risky no matter where you live, but the grim stories and maternal-health statistics coming out of abortion-restrictive states have made me consider how safe it is to have a baby in one of them. [Read: Thats something you wont recover from as a doctor] Today, Kash doesnt blame the doctors or staffers at the hospital; she blames Texass abortion laws for causing unnecessary confusion. She wishes she could have been pregnant and delivered her baby somewhere else. But at the same time, her best friends live in Austin, and her close family lives in Dallas and Houston. Its not easy to leave, she said. Texas is my home. Every year, of course, hundreds of thousands of people safely have babies in Texas and other states with near or total abortion bans. But some women with pregnancy complications do encounter doctors who are afraid to act quickly to provide life- or health-preserving terminations, according to interviews I did with legal and medical experts, patients, and 15 doctors who practice in these states. Though the bans make exceptions to protect the mothers life, they contain so much uncertainty that some doctors, fearing prison time or the loss of their license, try hard to avoid providing abortions, even when they are medically indicated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sometimes, a doctor may be too scared to give the patient an abortion and so point her to a neighboring state. The delays involved in travel can push inevitable abortions later into pregnancy, when they can become more complicated. Other times, the fear manifests as doctors choosing a more invasive or less-effective procedure instead of one that might be considered an abortion. Sarah Osmundson, an obstetrician in Tennessee, offered me the example of an ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. Ectopic pregnancies are almost never viable, and if left untreated can be fatal for the mother. The safest and simplest way to address an ectopic pregnancy is to give the patient methotrexate. But this drug can be seen as an abortifacient, so some doctors in restrictive states might opt to remove the patients fallopian tube instead, according to Osmundson, which could impair her future fertility. Were requiring a patient to undergo a surgical procedure as opposed to a very safe medical treatment that we have, she said. This nearly happened to Representative Kat Cammack, a Florida Republican, when she went to an emergency room with an ectopic pregnancy in 2024 and where, she said, doctors resisted giving her methotrexate because they were worried about losing their medical licenses or going to jail for doing so. Even if a doctor is comfortable providing a medically indicated abortion, they need to find scrub techs, nursing staff, and anesthesiologists who are, as well. And they might not be able to. Abortion care doesnt happen individually in a hospital, says Leilah Zahedi-Spung, an obstetrician in Colorado who previously practiced in Tennessee, where abortion is completely banned with very limited exceptions. I anticipated a lot of trouble finding people who felt safe participating in the care. Tennessees abortion laws contributed to her decision to leave the state. The most consistent concern I heard raised by the providers I spoke with is that the new bans cause unacceptable delays in patient care. In abortion-restrictive states, some hospitals have created task forces and committees of lawyers to help doctors figure out how to comply, which can slow down the process of treating at-risk patients. There sometimes are delays while theres this sussing out of like, How do we take care of this? Lara Hart, an obstetrician in Georgia, where a six-week abortion ban went into effect in 2022, told me. Though Hart praises her own hospitals processes for dealing with tricky cases, she said her job now requires more paperwork and calling around to different departments. She told me that she sometimes wonders, Is some overzealous district attorney gonna come and arrest us or something? She remembers arriving at work at her previous practice to find a patient in the ICU with sepsis and on a ventilator. The woman had come in with previable PPROM (preterm premature rupture of membranes), a condition in which a womans water breaks too early in pregnancy. The other doctors were reluctant to offer her an abortion, which is a standard treatment. She began hemorrhaging so much that Hart had to perform a hysterectomy. Hart remembers feeling angry. I shouldnt be here doing this, she thought. This should have been taken care of a week ago before she was so sick. [Read: The abortion absolutist] Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Certain states bans say an abortion can be performed to avoid death or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, but some doctors say this guideline is unclear because many situations can go from reversible to irreversible within minutes. A recent study of post-Dobbs obstetric care in states with abortion bans highlighted this problem. It concluded that, because abortion laws tend to focus on the patients current health status, doctors in these states are often unable to consider the likely future health of a patientincluding life-threatening emergencies that are all but certain to arise. In obstetrics, there is an inch of black and an inch of white and, like a thousand yards of gray, Hart said. This regulation also contradicts typical standards of care, according to Dawn Bingham, an obstetrician who is currently suing South Carolina over its abortion ban. Theres nothing else in medicine that we wait for people to get sicker, she told me. Quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that the delays created by abortion restrictions are having an effect on health care. A recent report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for womens equality, found that, although the overall risk of dying from pregnancy is low, mothers living in states where abortion is banned were nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth compared with mothers living in states where abortion is accessible. In states with abortion bans, Black mothers were more than three times as likely to die as white mothers. ProPublica found that when Texas banned abortion after six weeks in 2021, rates of sepsis increased by more than 50 percent for women hospitalized with miscarriages in the second trimester, likely because women were being made to wait until either there was no fetal heartbeat, leaving them at higher risk for an infection, or their infection became life-threatening. ProPublica also found that after Texas banned abortion, blood transfusions during emergency-room visits for first-trimester miscarriages increased by 54 percent, suggesting that doctors were avoiding performing D&Cs. At least four women in states with near-total abortion bans have died because they were denied an abortion, according to news reports. In a 2023 survey from KFF, a health-care nonprofit, four in 10 ob-gyns in abortion-ban states said the Dobbs ruling made providing care during miscarriages or other pregnancy emergencies harder. A qualitative study involving anonymous doctors in abortion-ban states offers quotes such as The way our legal teams interpreted it, until they became septic or started hemorrhaging, we couldnt proceed. In another study, a doctor described a patient who came in 15 weeks pregnant and hemorrhaging, with blood everywhere, bleeding through her clothes. But because the fetus had a heartbeat, the doctor had to talk to the hospitals risk-management department before performing an abortion. Theres less evidence-based health care that is provided for everyone that needs it in those states, Nikki Zite, an obstetrician in Tennessee, told me. When I asked Nicole Schlechter, another Tennessee obstetrician, about the higher mortality rates in abortion-ban states, she put it more simply: People are dying from being pregnant. Supporters of abortion bans deny that conditions are dire. Ingrid Skop, the vice president and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a nonprofit that advocates against abortion, said in an email that all pro-life state laws allow doctors to exercise their reasonable medical judgment to treat women with pregnancy emergencies, and no law requires certainty or imminence before a doctor can act. She also pointed out that no doctor has been prosecuted since Dobbs for performing an abortion to protect the life of the mother. Christina Francis, the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and an obstetric hospitalist in Indiana, told me her practice has been unaffected by her states near-total ban on abortion. She says any hesitation of doctors to act in emergency situations is a result of hospitals failing to adequately prepare their physicians. The problem is not the law, she told me, but rather either the guidance or the lack of guidance that physicians are receiving. Some states are aiming to clarify their abortion bans. In June, Texas passed the Life of the Mother Act, which clarifies when the states near-total abortion ban allows for the procedure, saying explicitly that physicians do not need to wait until a patient is in imminent danger of dying to perform an abortion. In Tennessee, a new law clarifies that abortions can be performed in cases of previable PPROM and severe preeclampsia. In Kentucky, a clarification law added conditions under which doctors can legally perform an abortion, such as hemorrhage and ectopic and molar pregnancies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some Texas doctors I interviewed support the clarification law. Todd Ivey, an obstetrician in Houston, told me he thinks it is going to help us some. He said he wishes the law had exceptions for fetal abnormalities, rape, and incest, but that Texas doctors shouldnt let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But some experts say the clarification bills dont offer doctors much security, because some obstetric emergencies may not meet the laws precise legal language. For instance, John Thoppil, an obstetrician in Austin who supports the Texas clarification law, once had a patient whose fetus had a fatal anomaly. He diagnosed the condition at 12 weeks, but the woman was not able to travel out of state for a termination until she was 18 weeks along. In the intervening time, her placenta began to invade her scar from a previous C-section, something that would not have happened, Thoppil told me, if he had been able to perform the abortion at 12 weeks. The patient was hospitalized after the abortion and had to have another procedure, almost losing her uterus in the process. The Texas clarification law, he told me, would not have changed her situation. This confusion may get worse now that the Trump administration has revoked Biden-era guidance saying hospitals in abortion-ban states must provide abortions if the procedure would stabilize a woman experiencing a medical emergency. Hector Chapa, an obstetrician in south-central Texas and a member of AAPLOG, told me that this revocation didnt matter, and that doctors could and should still treat patients in an emergency. EMTALA still stands, he said, referring to a federal law that hospitals must stabilize patients. EMTALA has never gone away. But Andreia Alexander, an ER doctor in Indiana, told me that patients should not want a doctor who hesitates to save their life. If somebody is dying in front of me, she said, I cant be thrown off my game to think for a minute about whether or not my actions are going to cause me to be thrown in jail, lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, or lose my medical license. The horror stories I heard during my reporting are shocking but rare. In one study, the most common scenario that physicians said they struggled with, post-Dobbs, was PPROM in the second trimester. The risk of previable PPROM is extremely low: less than 1 percent. But in pregnancy, small percentages matter. Osmundson told me her hospital sees a previable PPROM patient about once a month. In my own pregnancy, I had multiple complications that occur very rarely. Complications seem unlikely until they happen to you. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I asked every provider I interviewed whether having a baby in their state is safe, given the current abortion restrictions. Almost all of them said yes. But almost all of them also qualified their answer. They said they, personally, would take appropriate care of a pregnant woman, but they couldnt say the same about every provider in the state now that the abortion laws have made administering emergency care so much more complicated. They said pregnancy had become less safe or scarier or safe, if you have resources. Theres a new charge to what were previously purely medical conversations with patients: Thoppil said patients ask him every week if having a baby in Texas is safe, and Emily Briggs, a private-practice family-medicine doctor in New Braunfels, told me that patients have asked her if they should leave Texas. Hart told me shes had patients who get on contraception because they say that they are scared to be pregnant in Georgia. [Read: I found the outer limits of my pro-choice beliefs] The future of obstetric care in abortion-ban states also seems murky because fewer medical students are applying to residencies in states with abortion bans. Zite says shes not able to train her obstetric residents in the same ways she was before Dobbs, and shes not sure whats going to happen with the next generation of doctors after hers retires. I spoke with some women who arent willing to risk having a child, or another child, under these circumstances. Jessi Schoop Villman, who lives outside of Houston and has a history of miscarriages, decided not to try for a second child after Texas banned abortions. I couldnt stand the thought of something happening and leaving the baby we already have without a mother and my husband without a partner, she told me. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nisha Verma, an obstetrician who works in both Georgia and Maryland, told me she recently saw a patient who was eligible for an abortion in Georgia because she was less than six weeks pregnant. The woman said that she would consider having the baby, but I am scared to be pregnant in this state as a Black woman, Verma remembers her saying. If I developed a complication like I did in my last pregnancy, I wouldnt be able to get care and I could die. The woman did something that crafters of abortion bans likely would not have wanted: Just days before it would have been too late to do so, she terminated the pregnancy. *Illustration by Akshita Chandra / The Atlantic. Sources: Jacobus Johannes van Os / Fine Art Photographic / Getty; Getty. Article originally published at The Atlantic Mental health is an issue law enforcement agencies face daily across the country and Beaver County is no exception. Mental health calls are increasing, and there are times where they dont really meet the criteria, they wont hurt themselves or someone else so involuntary commitment isnt possible. They havent committed a crime either, so were stuck in this middle ground, said Chief Michael Priolo of the Beaver Valley Regional Police Department. How do we handle this? How do we move forward? A new statewide initiative from the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office aims to fill that gap. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Law Enforcement Treatment Initiative (LETI) is expanding to include a mental health component, training local officers on how to identify signs of mental health struggles and substance use and how to connect individuals to appropriate treatment options. Its a fantastic idea, and quite frankly, it should have happened a long time ago, especially with the uptick in mental health issues in the area, Priolo added. Originally launched under then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro, LETI focused solely on substance abuse. Only Butler and Fayette counties initially participated in Western Pennsylvania. But with the mental health component now added, the program is expanding across the state. Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible said the program empowers local officers to better serve their communities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement LETI lets law enforcement make that decision on their own before filing charges, Bible said. For example, if they encounter someone who isnt violent, isnt causing problems, but has ongoing drug issues instead of charging them, officers can say, Lets get you some help. The initiative will not add extra costs to the county, as mental health and substance use resources are already in place. Beaver County officials hope to have all officers trained by this winter. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW PUEBLO The Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Pueblo Police Department and the FBI converged at a funeral home co-owned by Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter and his brother, Chris, on Thursday after State inspectors found several bodies hidden during an annual inspection on Wednesday. Stay with Gazette.com for live updates. 4 p.m. Officials said at an afternoon news conference that they are investigating both Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter, the president of Davis Mortuary, and his brother and mortuary co-owner, Chris Cotter. Neither are under arrest nor have they been told to avoid leaving the state. Brian Cotter has been located and investigators are reaching out to Chris Cotter CBI Director Armando Saldate said the investigation includes whether the Cotters benefited financially from keeping bodies in the funeral home. There were "20 or so" bodies discovered according to Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies Division of Professions and Occupations Director Sam Delp. He said the official number has not been determined yet because the bodies would have had to have been "moved around." Some of the bodies may be as old as 15 years, according to Delp, but the ages had not been investigated at the time of the news conference, which has concluded. 3:45 p.m. Pueblo County Sheriff David Lucero has begun speaking at the press conference and said this investigation is "rocking our community" and that it may take days or months to complete. A CBI tip line and victim assistance hotline is 719-257-3359. 3:40 p.m. Saldate expressed his condolences for the victims and described the bodies in the mortuary as "terribly disrespected." He described the investigation as complex and said "it will take some time." Some investigators on the scene, which included the FBI, worked on the Return to Nature Funeral Home case. CBI investigators are executing a search warrant on the premises, and the Colorado State Patrol hazmat team is on the scene, according to Saldate. 3:30 p.m. The press conference led by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation about the Cotter brothers and the Davis Mortuary in Pueblo has begun. 1:30 p.m. CBI arrived at the mortuary with a hazard team. At least a dozen CBI vehicles were there, and people were seen putting on gas masks as officers taped off the area. Upon finding finding the bodies, the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) has been fully cooperating with the Pueblo Police Department, the state agency said in their statement. 1 p.m. It is unknown who will assume control of the Pueblo County Coroner's Office following the allegations. As the largest office in Colorado, the El Paso County Coroner's Office has historically performed examinations in cases involving a conflict of interest for the Pueblo coroner, according to a statement from Coroner Emily Russell-Kinsley. "The El Paso County Coroner's Office is willing to assist with the current investigation as necessary. Simultaneously, we will remain in our service to the citizens of El Paso County," Russell-Kinsley said in the statement. According to the Pueblo County website, Cotter has spent more than 20 years with the Coroner's Office, and has over 25 years of "death care" experience. His biography on the website states he worked as a mortician, a state death investigator and a diplomat for the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators. Background Davis Mortuary, 128 Broadway Ave. in Pueblo, is under summary suspension after inspectors entered the business and noticed a "strong odor of decomposition" and a door hidden by a cardboard display during a mandatory annual inspection Wednesday, according to a statement from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation into the incident, a spokesperson from the agency confirmed Thursday. After entering the room, inspectors found several bodies in various stages of decomposition. Cotter, 64, allegedly told inspectors that the bodies were awaiting cremation and that some of them had been in the room for about 15 years. He also admitted that he "may" have issued next-of-kin fake cremains, according to the state agency. "Davis Mortuary engaged in willfully dishonest conduct and/or committed negligence in the practice of embalming, funeral director or providing for final disposition that defrauds or causes injury or is likely to defraud or cause injury," the summary suspension document alleges. The summary suspension further states that the funeral home was over capacity in the amount of bodies it could refrigerate. Gazette reporters Grace Brajkovich, Mackenzie Bodell and Nick Smith contributed to this article. Extreme partisanship started infecting American politics long before Donald Trump emerged, but the presidents unhinged desire for unlimited power is now driving the two-party system to the brink of all-out war. Trump ignited the latest escalation by demanding that Texas and other Republican-controlled states defy tradition and redraw their congressional districts before the next census in 2030. Since the presidents party almost always loses seats in midterm elections, his goal is to create more Republican districts in red states and thus protect the partys tiny 3-vote margin in the House before next years balloting. Governors in blue states like California and New York are accusing him of cheating and are threatening to retaliate by altering their own maps to boost Democratic fortunes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both sides are digging in and loading up. Only a few sane and lonely figures keep warning that the democratic system is in jeopardy. Were only supposed to be redistricting every 10 years, said Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who can speak his mind because hes not running again. At some point, the partisanship gets too much. ... I just think it goes too far. Democrats know how damaging gerrymandering can be, and in states like California, they have created independent commissions to map districts. But Trumps tantrum has pushed them to abandon their own principles. How I feel is terribly conflicted. I hate it. I really worry about a race to the bottom on something that I consider pretty despicable, Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, told Axios. But I understand why the governor and others are considering it. The only reason it would even be possible is what Texas and others are doing just stinks so badly that its pissing people in California off. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One particularly nervous faction are Republican lawmakers in blue states, who could lose their seats if Democrats follow through on their threats. One of them, Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, has introduced a bill that would bar redistricting before the next census. It creates a lot of instability if youre just constantly shifting the lines on the map around so that, you know, representatives are losing constituents, losing communities, gaining new ones, Kiley told Fox News. Its just total chaos. Its not good for representative government. Its not good for constituents. It is not good for Democrats or Republicans. Partisanship is essential for a healthy democracy, and the modern two-party system has generally served the nation well since it evolved in the 1850s. Nor is it unusual for a victorious party to change the rules to solidify its power. The word gerrymander was coined in 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts approved a state senate district that resembled a salamander. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moreover, Democrats are hardly innocent when it comes to map manipulation. Illinois, for example, is represented by 14 Democrats and only three Republicans. But as Bacon said, at some point, the partisanship gets too much ... (and) goes too far. Thats whats happening now. Trump is demolishing something intangible but invaluable the mutual respect, the spirit of civility across party lines that makes a functioning democracy possible. The problem is not just what Trump and the Texas Republicans are doing, its how they are doing it. Democratic lawmakers have fled the state, depriving the legislature of a quorum and stalling implementation of the new maps. In retaliation, Trump and his ally, Gov. Greg Abbott, are implementing police state tactics, threatening to fine and arrest the absent Democrats and even declare their seats vacant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theyre just treating our country and our system of government like its a joke, said the House Minority Leader, Gene Wu. This is not a joke. The current Congress is already so polarized that not a single House Democrat voted for any of Trumps major legislative initiatives. Under current maps, the gerrymandering is so severe that only a handful of all House seats are considered winnable by either party. If open warfare breaks out, if maps are redrawn in both red and blue states, the number of marginal swing districts will continue to shrink, and the polarization will get even worse than it is now. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has offered Trump a truce if the president also backs down, but that seems highly unlikely. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The presidents push to redraw districts is part of a much larger strategy to undermine any and all forces that might restrain his relentless ambitions judges and economists, law firms and universities, norms and conventions and traditions. As Kiley puts it, total chaos is looming. Items in rearview mirror are closer than they appear: U.S. Rep. John Rose looks on as U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn speaks Monday during a Future Farmers of America breakfast. The two are vying for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2026. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) With a year to go in Tennessees gubernatorial primary race, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn appears to own the polling numbers over U.S. Rep. John Rose, holding a 52-point advantage in one survey. Coffee shop talk says shes a shoo-in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement (Wait a second, Roses campaign is claiming he beat Blackburn handily in a Lawrence County Reagan Day dinner straw poll.) Regardless of whether these polls are worth their weight in Moon Pies, the bigger question is whether the states senior U.S. senator will consider Rose a realistic opponent and agree to go head-to-head on a debate stage? Rose told the Lookout at a Future Farmers of America event in Lebanon this week he is absolutely ready to debate Blackburn. Asked if she agreed, he said, Sounds like she doesnt want to. Blackburn, who spoke at the events press conference headlined by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, along with Rose and other Tennessee officials, declined to take questions afterward, choosing to wander away from this reporter and let a flack do the blocking. In making her gubernatorial announcement earlier this month, she also sent out a text message and an online statement but didnt make herself available to the press. U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who declined to take questions from a Lookout reporter, has not committed to a gubernatorial primary debate. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) Rose, in contrast, held his initial confab at the same Wilson County fairgrounds on a nippy March day and answered a few questions afterward, even if he wasnt enthused about talking. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Granted, Rose is a heavy underdog, and hes going to do whatever it takes to get an edge. No doubt, he was also grinning ear to ear and Blackburn was cringing when Secretary Rollins told the audience she agreed to speak at the FFA ham breakfast just so Rose would quit texting her constantly. Will Blackburn stand for such outrage? She has $4.4 million in her federal campaign account, money that cant be used for the state race. The Tennessee Journal reports a committee called Team Tennessee raised $676,000 this year to back Blackburn but that a joint federal fundraising account is nearly empty after she shelled out money to a fundraising consultant, transferred a chunk to her Senate campaign, a state political action committee and her strategic team. Another Blackburn PAC, Making a Responsible Stand for Households in America, received $905,000 from her Senate account and is doling out money across Tennessee. Rose, whose net worth is much greater than Blackburns, reported he made a $5 million loan to his campaign and raised another $1.1 million from donors. He hasnt started churning out TV ads and mailers, raising questions about whether hes sitting on the money. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It might be time, though, for Blackburn to take him seriously, which could mean getting into a political debate. She fared well against former Gov. Phil Bredesen in their U.S. Senate race forum in 2018, and butting heads with Rose would give her the chance to ask him why he voted against certifying the Biden election, in addition to signing on to written documents of objection to the outcome. Blackburn voted to certify the election, a reluctant move in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection by Trump zealots. Oops, that might not be the right issue to raise, considering the president pardoned all of the rioters in spite of the subsequent deaths of multiple U.S. Capitol police officers, some of whom committed suicide. The vote also could come into play in a Trump decision to endorse, which would effectively end the race. Its a political crap shoot. Then again, most debates are a little risky. Going for the gusto? After six years of leading private prison operator CoreCivic, Damon Hininger is stepping down as president and chief executive officer, leading to the appointment of Patrick Swindle to head the company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CoreCivic runs four of Tennessees 12 prisons and remains in good stead with Gov. Bill Lee and the Department of Correction in spite of a federal civil rights investigation into conditions at Trousdale Turner. In addition to that probe, West Tennessee residents are raising questions about CoreCivic signing a contract with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use a Tipton County facility for immigrant detention as part of Trumps deportation effort. Hininger, who spoke last year at Republicans Statesmens Dinner, was rumored to be considering a gubernatorial run at the time. That could be a little farfetched now, but questions remain about the potential for a U.S. Senate candidacy with Blackburn running for governor. Stepping down from the CoreCivic post would eliminate conflicts of interest for Hininger. He declined to answer Lookout questions this week about taking a shot at either political post. So much for equality Tennessee is spending more per student to send kids to private schools this year than for those going to public schools, according to a Chalkbeat report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under the states new private-school voucher program, some 20,000 students are receiving $7,295 each to attend private schools, compared to $7,023 for public school students. The numbers were revealed in a state school board meeting last week, Chalkbeat reported, drawing criticism from the Tennessee Education Association and Democrats. Its up to local governments to raise the ante and pour more into schools, as has been the case for decades. During debate on the bill this year, the states projections showed 66% of those receiving the voucher money would be enrolled in private schools already. Education officials told legislators this week the law didnt require the department to track that number through student applications. Next year, though, the question will be on applications. Considering most of the seats are taken by private-school students already, will it tell us anything new? Highly unlikely. Why not here? This comes from the reader mailbag. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following Gov. Lees decision to deploy Tennessee National Guard soldiers to Washington, D.C., at Trumps request to cull crime in the capital city, at least one person wants to know why hes sending troops there when Nashville and Memphis have higher rates of property crimes and violent incidents. Why is no one pressuring Lee to deploy troops to the streets of Tennessees two biggest and bluest cities? It sounds like a sarcastic query. But the answer is: Considering the Tennessee Guard is already helping ICE with logistics and paperwork, dont give them any bright ideas. Put out the fire, and dont look past my shoulder. * *The Who, Baba ORiley SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX OTTAWA (KSNT) An Ottawa dealership says a stolen Dodge Challenger Hellcat Jailbreak Edition is back but was professionally gutted. 27 News reached out to the dealership after it announced the Hellcat had been returned, but missing many of its parts. Nathan Lauck with Victory Dodge, located at 506 East 23rd Street, said that because of how the car was returned, he believed it was a professional job. There werent any wires that were frayed, Lauck said. It wasnt their first rodeo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lauck said nearly everything of value was stripped from the car, including most of the fuses. He said the engine, transmission, fuel tank, seats, headliner, carpet, dashboard and more were taken out of the car. Photo provided courtesy of Victory Dodge. Get rid of your invasive tree with this Kansas buyback program 27 News asked if insurance would cover the cost of the damage. Lauck said it would, but the dealership will still need to pay a large deductible. He added the dealership has had to pay for the doors and glass that was broken during the initial theft. Altogether, Lauck said the ordeal will cost the dealership tens of thousands of dollars and could cause insurance rates to go up. Suspects used a vehicle to crash into the Victory Dodge dealership sales floor on June 16 to steal the Hellcat. The Ottawa Police Department said the driver inside the Hellcat fled into Johnson County, where multiple agencies attempted to stop the vehicle. Victory Dodge said the Hellcat was returned by police in the last two weeks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The chase was ended by the Wellsville Police Department when the vehicle fled into Kansas City, Missouri. Ottawa police issued a press release announcing that a 23-year-old woman was in custody in connection with the theft on June 16. She was arrested for theft, felony flee and elude and an out-of-state warrant. Food Network names Bobos Drive-In gem of Kansas For more crime news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. UPDATE, 8/22/25, 9 a.m.: Berwick police said the suspect arrested in connection with the chase is a 15-year-old boy. The unidentified juvenile is charged with aggravated flight in a vehicle, aggravated obstruction of a highway, driving without a license, running stop and yield signs, possession of a handgun by a juvenile, possession of a stolen vehicle, hit and run, reckless driving, criminal property damage, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting an officer. Police said the boy led officers on a high-speed pursuit before being chased down. Officers located a handgun, marijuana and drug paraphernalia inside the vehicle, which was stolen from Abbeville, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The teen was booked into the Berwick jail pending juvenile court proceedings. ORIGINAL STORY: BERWICK, La. (KLFY) A vehicle pursuit led to a crash and a suspect on foot near an elementary school, Berwick Police Department said. Earlier today, officers said they attempted to conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle traveling eastbound on La. 182 that was confirmed to be stolen. The driver allegedly refused to stop driving, leading officers on a pursuit that entered the area near Berwick Elementary School. The suspect crashed the vehicle into a yard and allegedly fled on foot, police said. According to police, Berwick Elementary School was then placed on lockdown while officers searched the area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest The suspect was located and taken into custody, police said. Police reported no students or staff were in danger, and no injuries were reported during this incident. Further details regarding this case will be released at a later time. We will update as more information is released. Latest news Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WACO, Texas (FOX 44) From classrooms to community rooms, seniors in Central Texas are sharing stories and lessons that span generations. Marie Popp spent 30 years as an educator first in her hometown of El Campo, then at McLennan Community College in Waco. She expressed teaching gave her perspective on people from all walks of life. How to deal with people and of all ages, because I had students from right out of high school. I had retired military. Ive had people up to the age of about 60 I had to learn to understand how that many people are thinking, Popp said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now retired and living at the Stilwell Retirement Residence, Popp expressed aging has given her a deeper appreciation for the people around her. Its so gradual. You dont realize its coming on. And then when you get older, theres more and more people in your life that you can enjoy and that you know you need, she said. Stilwell executive director Bob Herndon has spent four decades helping residents adjust to new challenges that come with age, and helping others understand the daily challenges senior citizens face. Youre just not quite able to do things quite the way you used to be, but your brain still thinks you can. And so, that can be very frustrating, Herndon said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Popp, now 87, embraces learning new things with the help of her five children and more than ten grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I love new things my kids are always involved and they teach me. Actually, theyre teaching me a lot more than I ever dreamed, she said. Herndon said senior resources and assisted living facilities shouldnt be seen with stigma, but rather as opportunities for older adults to stay engaged. The biggest step on that is not to have a stigma attached to the resources but to look into things, try new things, seek ways that you can thrive, he said. One of the things at Stilwell that helps residents thrive is a convienece store ran strictly by residents. Customers are able to buy everything from puzzles, jewelry, laundry detergent, and more all for a low price. All proceeds go toward the residents activity fund. Aside from the store Stilwell provides residents with several activites to assist in body movement, stimulating the mind, socializing, and more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For both Popp and Herndon, aging is less about slowing down and more about living fully, learning continuously and finding purpose. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. India's Supreme Court has modified its previous order asking authorities in Delhi and its suburbs to move all stray dogs into shelters amid widespread protests by animal welfare groups. The three-judge bench said that strays should be released after being vaccinated and sterilised but added that dogs with rabies or aggressive behaviour should be immunised and kept in shelters. The court also banned feeding of stray dogs in public spaces and ordered dedicated areas to be set up for the purpose. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On 11 August, a two-judge bench had expressed concern over the rising "menace of dog bites leading to rabies" in Delhi and its suburbs. Delhi's stray dog population is estimated at one million, with suburban Noida, Ghaziabad and Gurugram also seeing a rise, municipal sources say. India has millions of stray dogs and the country accounts for 36% of the total rabies-related deaths in the world, according to the World Health Organization. To deal with the dog menace, on 11 August the Supreme Court ordered authorities in the capital and its suburbs to round up all stray dogs and put them in shelters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It ordered authorities to build shelters to house these dogs in eight weeks' time. The order went against existing rules that state that stray dogs should be released to their original site after being sterilised at shelters, sparking strong protests and legal challenges from several animal welfare groups. They called for more humane solutions like vaccination and neutering and warned that putting all strays in shelters would lead to problems like overcrowding and culling. Following the backlash, the Supreme Court set up a three-judge bench to hear the challenge. In Friday's ruling, the court stayed the earlier order to round up all strays, stating that non-aggressive, non-infected dogs could be released to their capture site after being vaccinated and neutered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The court also said that animal lovers could apply to municipal corporations to adopt strays but that these dogs were not to be returned to the street. The court added that action would be taken against people found to be feeding stray dogs in public areas and warned animal welfare groups against interfering with its orders. The Supreme Court has also said that it would formulate a national policy around stray dogs after hearing similar cases pending in different states. The ruling has been welcomed by animal welfare groups. Alokparna Sengupta, director of Humane World for Animals India, said it was "balanced, structured and compassionate". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, she said there was a need for a clear criteria, based on scientific data, to be established to identify "aggressive dogs" so that the court's order was not misused to capture and confine dogs without justification or based on personal prejudice. A Studio City man was arrested and has since been released on bail after standing accused of a series of felony sexual assaults in Isla Vista, which he referred to as scoring or conquering, authorities announced Thursday. Santa Barbara County Sheriffs detectives began investigating in April 2025 after a report of sexual assault from a wedding-themed party at a fraternity house in the 6500 block of Cordoba Road, the Sheriffs Office said. Investigators identified the suspect as 19-year-old Reef Mordente of Studio City. On Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, Mordente surrendered to the Los Angeles Police Department and was arrested on a felony warrant on suspicion of rape of an intoxicated victim, forced oral copulation and digital penetration, according to the Sheriffs Office. He was booked and released on $100,000 bail. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As part of their follow-up, detectives said they uncovered conversations in which the assault was framed in scoring or conquering terms. Our prevention efforts must prioritize the vast majority of menthose who may never engage in criminal behavior themselves, yet whose participation in peer groups and social dynamics can, knowingly or not, enable sexual predators, said Elsa Granados, executive director of SBSOs partner Standing Together to End Sexual Assault. Through laughter at inappropriate jokes or uncritical acceptance of stories framed as conquests or scores, men may become passive bystanders or inadvertent facilitators of harm. The Sheriffs Office said coming forward can be difficult, but it is essential to help ensure accountability, prevent future harm and support survivors. Men also have a vital role in supporting survivors and acknowledging the ripple effects of sexual violenceincluding the trauma endured by victims and the consequences faced by perpetrators as they enter the criminal justice system, added Granados. Addressing these issues requires collective responsibility, empathy, and a commitment to cultural change. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Detectives believe there were witnesses who have not yet come forward. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Ellis at 805-681-4150. Anonymous tips can be submitted at sbsheriff.org/home/anonymous-tip or by calling 805-681-4171. In addition, services offered by STESA include a confidential 24-Hour hotline at 805-564-3696, legal and medical advocacy and accompaniment, and counseling. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. It might be the start of the August bank holiday weekend - after a long hot summer - but North Yorkshire councillors will meet later to debate the winter's gritting routes. Members will debate more than 20 requests for changes to the schedule. Eight of them - more than any other area - have come from Boroughbridge, the gritting area which includes Harrogate and was hit hard last winter. Malcolm Taylor, executive member for highways and transportation, admitted it "might seem odd" to talk about gritting during a summer of hosepipe bans and high temperatures. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But he said: "It's never too early for this debate. Failing to plan is planning to fail." Last January saw the Harrogate area struggle through the extended cold snap, which caused days of disruption. Six of the changes to be debated concern the Harrogate district. But officials have recommended just one change for approval, requested by a council in Cumbria which is struggling to access one of its roads because of a landslip. A report to Friday's meeting recommended North Yorkshire Council carry out gritting close to the Dent Head Viaduct, with Westmorland and Furness Council covering the cost. Heavy snowfall hit the Harrogate area last winter [PA Media] One of the gritting requests recommended for refusal was from Drax Power Station, which asked for its material handling entrance to be treated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The report suggested it be refused due to the risk of setting a precedent for similar requests from other big employers or schools and hospitals. Taylor said: "It is always difficult to turn down a request, but each one is considered at length given the challenging financial constraints North Yorkshire Council is facing." He said North Yorkshire's geography and size - the county stretches nearly 120 miles from west to east - made it "extremely challenging" to organise gritter coverage. "It is especially difficult when you consider the county has almost 6,000 miles of roads," he added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "That is the equivalent of the distance between North Yorkshire and New Delhi." Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North. More on this story Related internet links PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (ABC22/FOX44) SUNY Plattsburgh announced Thursday that a program that helps first-generation students and those with disabilities stay in college received a $3.2 million federal grant that will keep it funded through 2030. TRIO Student Support Services is a federal program that provides tutoring, counseling, and financial support. The program has been active at SUNY Plattsburgh for nearly 50 years, and interim director Ashley Durocher says its funded to be able to serve 386 students each year. Border patrol agents arrest six people Plattsburgh bus station for illegal entry Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some students stop in briefly during the school year, and that might be enough for them. Others are in here more often, taking classes, working with tutors, she said. Ashley Durocher, Interim Director of TRIO SSS, said that the grant would benefit many students at the campus. (Photo by Gerianne Downs at SUNY Plattsburgh) SUNY Plattsburghs president said that the universitys federal funding proposal had been strongly supported by all three federal reviewers. This award not only ensures continued support for hundreds of Cardinals, it affirms the exceptional work happening right here on our campus, said Alexander Enyedi. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44. Alaskans dip net on the Kasilof River on July 26, 2025, in Kasilof, Alaska. (Photo Andrew Kitchenman/Alaska Beacon) I am leaving the Alaska Beacon on Friday, after serving as its editor for three years, to pursue a new opportunity in Philadelphia. I leave with a strong sense that Alaska and this outlet can have a bright future. I flew to Juneau on Jan. 17, 2016, two nights before the start of the legislative session, with little but the clothes on my back and in my bags. I was starting work in what I consider one of the best journalism jobs in the country, the state government reporter for the states public media outlets. KTOO and Alaska Public Media gave me a chance after I spent 16 years at news outlets and all of my life until then on the East Coast. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was an eventful time to become a political reporter in Alaska: The collapse of oil prices in October 2014 had left the state budget reeling, and the coming legislative session was the first to fully grapple with that fact. The top priority for then-Gov. Bill Walker was to pass a long-term plan to balance what the state spends with what it brings in. Alaskans were passionate about the debates outcome. I immersed myself in oil economics, the governance of the U.S.s largest sovereign wealth fund and methods to find the sun in the winterlong shadows Mounts Juneau and Roberts cast over downtown Juneau. I had been part of one of the countrys largest capital press corps in Trenton, New Jersey, but I was deeply impressed with the smaller but mighty group covering the Alaska Legislature. And Alaskans responded to our reporting. I repeatedly had the experience of people who I had never previously met thanking me on the street for my work once when a driver stopped their car alongside me as I walked down Juneaus Main Street. I doubt many public radio reporters have similar experiences outside of Alaska. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The reporting news outlets did in Juneau had an immediate effect on the conversations Alaskans had with their elected officials. Compared with New Jersey, Alaska political parties play a much smaller role in mediating between legislators and constituents. When lawmakers hear someone call in during public testimony from a community they represent, they visibly perk up. This isnt always the case elsewhere. And this responsiveness is apparent in the access many public officials give to reporters, knowing constituents will read or listen to their reporting. The budget crisis wasnt resolved in 2016. Or in 2017. Or, really, in any year since. Alaskans are genuinely conflicted over how to prioritize their support for government services including public education; the long-term future of the Alaska Permanent Fund; the size of the Permanent Fund dividend; and opposition to new taxes. While Alaskans have been conflicted over state policy, they have not lacked access to information about it. Public radio in the state has been uniquely strong, serving small communities with dedicated journalists. The states newspapers, from the Anchorage Daily News to the Nome Nugget, are models of what reporters can still do even within economic constraints. After covering nearly seven full legislative sessions and several special sessions for public radio, TV and websites, I received a second and equally exciting opportunity in Alaska journalism. The national nonprofit States Newsroom hired me as the first editor of the Beacon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And since May 11, 2022, the Alaska Beacon has been welcomed by Alaskans as a news source, with the mission of connecting the states residents with their state government. While the Beacon is going strong, its a troubled time for Alaskas news media. The federal support thats been an underpinning of public radio and TV has ended. Many Alaskans have stepped forward to support public media, but the scope of the dilemma is vast. Im deeply concerned about the future of my former colleagues serving Alaska communities. Part of what is so important about news organizations is that they are much larger than one journalist. When Alaskans support the Beacon or become public media members or newspaper subscribers theyre investing in a sustainable free press as a bulwark of democracy. Ive told my three co-workers Corinne Smith, James Brooks and Yereth Rosen that the Alaska Beacons future is brighter than its past. And I believe this because of the support Alaskans have offered since the launch. Please consider the value the Beacon brings to Alaska and make a donation. Readers support makes it possible that the Beacon will cover the state government without fear or favor, and inform Alaskans about the states economy and environment; education; health; and criminal and social justice long into the future. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nine and a half years after I arrived amid a budget crisis, Alaskans are still weighing the direction of their state. I leave Alaska with a sense that it can overcome its challenges. Thats because Ive gotten to know Alaskans risk-taking, open, strengthened by communities built over more than 10,000 years in a way that is difficult in less vast but more populous states. I continue to love Alaska and am eager to see what Alaskans make of the states future. Thank you to everyone whos given me time since 2016. I look forward to seeing some of you the next time I visit. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE PUEBLO The Colorado Bureau of Investigation scheduled a news conference for updates on the Davis Mortuary investigation at 1 p.m. Friday. Stay with Gazette.com for video and updates. Livestream coverage from the news conference is expected from the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office. 1:45 p.m. update Gov. Jared Polis called for a need to be able to remove coroners under certain circumstances such as these. "There needs to be some way, where, in conjunction, the commissioners, the state, the governor can act when needed to make sure that you have continuity of services for a very basic function that people rely on during life events," he said. Polis also stated that, prior to this year, Davis Mortuary did not undergo any state inspection because of poor regulation. The state inspection, through the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) happened this year due to the Sunset Continue Mortuary Science Code Regulation bill (HB24-1335) that Polis signed into law this last legislative session. "Prior to this new bill, it was a largely unregulated field, and I think that we've all learned a lot over the past few years that, unfortunately, whether it's banking, whether it's retail, whether it's insurance, there's always going to be people that seem to take advantage of other people," Polis said. 1:30 p.m. update CBI director Armando Saldate said the investigation could take months, and law enforcement is taking a "two-pronged" approach - gathering evidence to charge brothers and Davis Mortuary co-owners Brian and Chris Cotter and also providing a identifications of the bodies in a "respectful" and proper manner. Saldate said that there are at least 20 bodies, and he hopes to have a final number sometime this weekend. 1:15 p.m. update Brian Cotter has yet to step down from his position as coroner, Pueblo County Sheriff David Lucero said. Lucero said officials, both local and state, don't have the authority to remove Brian Cotter. In the meantime, El Paso and Fremont counties will be handling the responsibilities of the Coroner's Office. Deputy county coroners are also still working in a "limited capacity." James Martin, deputy chief with the Pueblo Police Department, said Brian Cotter and Chris Cotter, are still in Pueblo and are not considered flight risks, adding that he couldn't go into further detail due to the investigation. Pueblo District Attorney Kala Beauvais said charges can't be filed until the initial investigation is completed. Earlier Friday, Thursday coverage Gov. Jared Polis on Friday called on Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter to resign immediately amid a multi-agency criminal investigation that's underway after state inspectors found "around 20" decomposing bodies hidden inside a private funeral home owned by Cotter during an annual inspection. Polis also declared a disaster emergency to mobilize state resources to respond to the incident, and protect public health and safety, according to a news release from the governor's office. The declaration also encourages Pueblo County to seek, and other counties to provide, support for the Pueblo County Coroners Office operations and the ongoing mitigation and investigation of Davis Mortuary. Im sickened for the families of the loved ones who are impacted by this unacceptable misconduct," Polis stated in the news release. "It is clear public trust has been lost and Mr. Cotter must resign as the Pueblo County Coroner immediately. "He should be investigated and if warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No one should ever have to wonder if their loved one is being taken care of with dignity and respect after theyve passed, and Mr. Cotter must be held to account for his actions. Davis Mortuary, 128 Broadway Ave. in Pueblo, is under summary suspension after inspectors entered the business and noticed a "strong odor of decomposition" and a door hidden by a cardboard display during a mandatory annual inspection Wednesday, according to a statement from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA). Officials say the inspectors saw "around 20 or so" bodies in various stages of decomposition. Brian Cotter, 64, who co-owns the mortuary with his brother, Chris, allegedly told inspectors that the bodies were awaiting cremation and that some of them had been in the room for about 15 years. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation scheduled a news conference for updates at 1 p.m. Friday. DORA Division of Professions and Occupations Director Sam Delp said the official number of bodies has yet to be determined. According to Delp, state inspectors could see the bodies from the doorway, but did not step inside the room Wednesday. Law enforcement officials were notified immediately. A search warrant of the property was executed Thursday. In addition to the discovered bodies, Cotter allegedly admitted to investigators that he "may" have issued next-of-kin fake cremains, according to the state agency. Read more at gazette.com. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) A summer day at the beach turned into a life-threatening battle for a Lafayette man who contracted Vibrio vulnificus, a rare but dangerous flesh-eating bacterium that lives in warm, salty waters and can also be contracted from raw seafood. Jeremy Noel, 47, said a dip in the Gulf during a trip to Mississippi nearly cost him his life. I was shivering, I couldnt walk, lost all control of bodily functions, Noel recalled. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Doctors later discovered that cuts on his foot had allowed the bacteria to enter his body. What I was told coming out was basically they were going to amputate my leg in 24 hours if I hadnt gotten any signs of improvement, Noel said. Although he survived the infection more than 14 years ago, Noel is still living with lasting health effects. The lymphedema, arthritis, I have nerve damage throughout my body. Muscle damage and actually recurring tumors because of my lymph nodes being affected, Noel said. Doctors say Vibrio infections can become severe quickly and urge beachgoers to take precautions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is a very serious bacteria, said Dr. Olivia Ragusa with Baton Rouge General Hospital. It can get really bad quickly, and so you need to seek immediate medical help because it can be life-threatening. Health officials recommend avoiding saltwater exposure if you have open wounds, covering cuts or scrapes with waterproof bandages, and steering clear of raw seafood, which can also carry the bacteria. According to the Louisiana Department of Health, there have been 17 reported cases of Vibrio vulnificus infections in the state this year alone. Four of those patients died a higher rate than normal. Dont think that just because youre healthy, you cant get this bacteria, Dr. Ragusa added. It can infect any kind of open sore that you have, so make sure youre being very careful. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite years of health struggles, Noel said hes thankful for the support of his family. Noels family has launched a GoFundMe page to help Noel with ongoing medical expenses. The first documented case of Vibrio vulnificus infection in the United States was reported in 1979. Today, experts say awareness is the most powerful tool in preventing future infections. Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. A 27-year-old man suspected in an attempted murder case was shot and wounded by Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office deputies during a confrontation Aug. 20 in Lake Worth Beach, the sheriff's office reported. According to a sheriff's statement, the deputy-involved shooting occurred at about 12:30 p.m. when Max R. Gilles produced a handgun as agents from a PBSO Tactical Unit attempted to make contact with him on the 700 block of South J. Street in Lake Worth Beach. The agency said Gilles was wanted in connection to a shooting the night of Aug. 13 that wounded a man in Lake Worth Beach. During the encounter with deputies, Gilles sustained a graze wound to his hip and was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the sheriff's office said. He was later released and was present for a court hearing on Aug. 21 at the Palm Beach County Jail, court records showed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More: Hurricane Erin path: Rip currents, rough surf making Palm Beach County beaches dangerous During the hearing, Circuit Judge Donald Hafele assigned Gilles a public defender and ordered that he be held without bail. Gilles is facing one count of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault on a law-enforcement officer. As a matter of policy, the Palm Beach County Public Defender's Office does not comment on active cases. Stock fire rescue siren. Authorities said Gilles is from Haiti and has been staying with a sponsor in Boynton Beach on a work visa. An arrest report detailing the Aug. 13 shooting incident said that a man was wounded by gunfire that night on the 900 block of South G Street. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Investigators said surveillance video showed Gilles and another man running away from the shooting scene. Surveillance footage also showed Gilles standing in the middle of an alley and having a conversation with someone. Seconds later, he raised his right hand and discharged a weapon, the sheriff's office said. Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Attempted murder suspect shot, wounded by PBSO in Lake Worth Beach A member of police staff investigating failings in Nottingham's maternity services has been suspended following a security breach. Operation Perth is the police's corporate manslaughter investigation into whether maternity care at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS trust had been grossly negligent. The trust is at the centre of the largest maternity inquiry in the history of the NHS, with about 2,500 cases of neonatal deaths, stillbirths and harm to mothers and babies being examined by independent midwife Donna Ockenden. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Deputy Chief Constable Rob Griffin said the police had "acted swiftly" after discovering information had been changed or deleted from its systems. Follow BBC Nottingham on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210. More on this story Related internet links Midwives have been left buzzing after they found using honey was helping mothers to recover after childbirth. Women at Southend Hospital were among the first in the UK to have their perineal tears treated with the sweet solution. Six months after birth, the patients' wounds were found to have healed better and had less chance of reopening. Specialist midwife Sarah Cridland said the medical-grade manuka honey was "a proactive way to help mums recover naturally". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More than half of the women had not needed to return to hospital, according to the Mid & South Essex NHS Foundation Trust. "We are seeing faster healing, fewer infections, fewer women coming back with problems and much happier mums," added Ms Cridland. Andrea Gooch used the honey after giving birth to baby Austin [MSE] A perineal tear is a wound that can occur between the vagina and anus during childbirth. Bonita Wright, from Rayleigh, was among the patients who used honey for healing after a previous birth left her "in severe pain". "Using the manuka honey has changed all that and it has been a completely different experience," she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following the trial's success, the trust has been considering rolling it out across its other NHS sites in Essex. Andrea Gooch, from Hockley, was another mother to have used the honey. She added: "Although at first it was a surprise to be given it, I was really positive about anything I could do to reduce my chance of infection. "Knowing I didn't have one was a huge boost psychologically." Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More on this story Related internet links It's been a decade since tens of thousands of refugees crossed into Germany in the late summer of 2015 after then Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders. "We can do this," the conservative politician told her constituents on August 31, 2015, though few could predict that by the end of 2016 around 1.1 million asylum seekers would have entered the country - many from war-torn Syria. Rehab Daioub, her husband Walid Aljawabra, and their three children Suhir, Ayman, and Adham, were among those fleeing the Syrian civil war back then. A dangerous journey over the Mediterranean Daughter Suhir, 30, and son Ayman, 29, have now lived in Germany for nearly a decade. After a dangerous escape across the Mediterranean, the two reached Germany on December 31, 2015. Two years later, the rest of the family joined them with the help of private sponsorships. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They fled from dictator Bashar al-Assad, who waged a brutal war against his own population, killing and torturing many of his fellow citizens. The possibility of dying during the escape was high, Suhir says. However, the possibility of dying in Syria was just as high. Number one goal: Safety "Safety above all else, and then building a future," says Daioub, 61, adding that this was all that mattered. She sits with her family on a large corner sofa in the living room. Their flat is located in a quiet residential area in the far north of Berlin. When they arrived eight years ago, only Germans lived there, said son Adham, now 25. Today, the area is more diverse. The living room is modestly furnished, but colourful Christmas baubles still hang from the ceiling in the middle of summer a leftover from the Advent season. Daioub pours black tea and shows family photos. These are memories of a time before the war broke out happy moments in their homeland, Syria. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I can't imagine living in Syria again because I've built a life here and worked long and hard for it," says Daioub's daughter Suhir. Education, Work, Citizenship Suhir and her brother Ayman completed vocational training in Germany. She is a medical technical assistant in functional diagnostics in a hospital, while Ayman is a media designer at the public broadcaster SWR. Their brother Adham earned his German Abitur, after his final examinations after secondary school. He is studying at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences. All three have their own flats and speak fluent German. Suhir and Adham have German citizenship, while Ayman plans to apply for his soon. Suhir even ends one of her sentences with the Berlin slang expression "wa?" Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Their parents also learned German and found work. Their family has never received social assistance, which Daioub emphasizes is important to her. Daioub works as a school assistant, and her husband is a cleaner in a hospital. In Syria, she worked in a chemical factory producing fertilizer, while her husband was a petroleum engineer. "Of course, we feel homesick, but when we compare our lives to those of people in Syria now, we are very grateful," says the mother of three. "Germany is now like our second home." Family Reunification Essential for Integration The family's great fortune is that they are together. This has a significant effect on integration, said Katrin Albrecht, managing director of Refugee Sponsors Syria. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Family reunification is very important," Albrecht said. The prospects of staying improve significantly when there is a social and emotional environment. "They are motivated to prove to their family that it works. And even if it doesn't work, the family is there to provide psychological security." The Berlin-based organization supports Syrian refugees in bringing family members to Germany through private sponsorships. The staff also help find flats, arrange German courses, and assist with job searches. Since 2015, the organization has helped around 300 people enter Germany with a visa, including Daioub and her family. Rehab is now friends with her guarantor, Bettina Bachmann. Some 4,100 visas through sponsorships A taxpayer in Germany provides a sponsorship declaration and guarantees that no state aid will be claimed for five years. Since 2013, nearly 4,100 people have been admitted to Berlin through this process. Nationwide figures are not collected by the Foreign Office, according to a spokeswoman. All living costs are privately financed, and the organization does this with the help of donations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But since late 2024, private refugee sponsorships are no longer possible in Berlin. Albrecht says this option no longer exists in the other federal states either. Has Germany succeeded? Many Syrians have integrated very well into Germany, Albrecht said. Some have truly excelled and are an asset not only to society but also to the labour market. But she says whether Merkel's "we can do this" promise has been fulfilled depends on the person being asked the question. But that's missing a key point, she says. By taking in more than a million refugees, Germany has saved thousands of lives. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We managed that." But, she adds, even after 10 years, more needs to be done. Family reunification halted But things are different these days. The German Parliament or Bundestag has decided to stop family reunification for refugees with limited protection status for two years. This primarily affects people from Syria. Albrecht considers the decision fundamentally wrong. "These are the good integration stories," she says of people who have their families with them. "Others have a much, much harder time." Daioub is still moved to tears when she thinks about entering Germany and reuniting with her children: "It was a dream." Return Not an Option Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the Federal Office for Refugees has been organizing voluntary returns to Syria since mid-January. According to preliminary figures, there have been 804 returns so far as of May 31. At the end of 2024, 975,000 Syrians were living in Germany, according to the federal government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For the Daioub-Aljawabra family, returning is not an option. Their future is in Germany. "It was a great challenge to rebuild our lives. The language is difficult, we are not young, and yet we managed it," says Daioub. Suhir Aljawabra (30) in her parents' apartment in Berlin-Karow, holding a tissue to dry her tears. Eight years ago, she fled Syria with her brother, travelling via Lebanon, Turkey and the Balkan route to Germany. Manuel Genolet/dpa Family photos and cups of Syrian tea are scattered across the living room table of the Aljawabra family in Berlin-Karow. Manuel Genolet/dpa As a mother, Lydia Ramos told a Lake County, Indiana, court Friday she was left to grieve her oldest child, 27-year-old Andres Andy Ramos. The Chicago man was killed in January 2020 after walking back on Taft Street to the Kimbrough work release center in Crown Point from his McDonalds shift. Christian Megan Garza, 30, of Crown Point, was charged. She later claimed she thought she hit a deer. Tell me you didnt see my son on that road. Tell me he looked like a deer, Ramos told Garza. He didnt deserve to die on that road. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At trial, prosecutors were restricted by a pretrial motion from telling the jury that Ramos was a work release inmate, which would have explained why he was walking in the middle lane of a busy road late at night. In the end, a jury acquitted Garza of causing his death, but convicted her of two low-level felonies OWI while endangering a person and neglect of a dependent. Her sentence reflected that 3.5 years probation. Saying he should have worn a reflective vest was dehumanizing, Lydia Ramos said on the stand. A relative videoed and retraced the route within a week of the crash. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her son had no sidewalks, no shoulder, no chance, she said, later adding, The system didnt protect us. His uncle Juan Ramos said Andy was like a son. One life should not be dismissed by technicalities, he said. Garzas father Armando told the court that his daughter was an exceptional single mom and the child would pay the price if she went to prison. At the crash scene, Garzas 4-year-old daughter was in the backseat. Garza had been drinking at her toddler nieces birthday party on Jan. 18, 2020, in St. John. When her parents left, she loaded her own daughter into a car seat and left. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As she was trying to turn on 91st Avenue from Taft Street in Merrillville just after midnight to avoid the light at 93rd Avenue by the Lake County Government Center, she hit Ramos. She agreed to a blood draw, which showed she was over the legal limit. Garza testified at trial she hit something that looked like fur referring to part of Ramos jacket but didnt get out of the red Volkswagen until her dad showed up, claiming he had to tell her she hit a man. Deputy Prosecutor Jacob Brandewie, with co-counsel Shannon Phillips, attempted Friday to ask for a stiffer sentence, such as prison time, but without a conviction on the harsher counts, got nowhere. Judge Natalie Bokota told him she couldnt legally do it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I didnt mean to derail you, she told Brandewie. I hope the family has not been led to believe the court can use that. When she asked for any previous legal cases to support it, Brandewie said he didnt have any. He argued Garza did nothing to help Ramos there were no signs she braked. She didnt call 911. Instead, she called her dad for help. When the police arrived, she lied to the cops about her drinking that night. A chemical test read .179, he said, or over twice the legal limit. Throughout the whole case, she only spent 30 minutes in jail, he said. She was only worried about herself, Brandewie said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her defense lawyer disagreed. From our perspective, the jury got it right, lawyer Susan Severtson, with co-counsel Roy Dominguez, said. She contended Garzas BAC may have been lower, or possibly under the legal limit at the time of the crash. Brandewie objected in court. Severtson argued multiple factors led to the crash the late hour, winter, a difficult place for a pedestrian to be. A sober driver would have had a hard time avoiding him, she said. She rejected prosecutors argument for a harsher sentence, saying Garza should be given the same consideration as anyone else with the same conviction. Severtson asked for probation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Severtson provided Bokota with a screenshot printout of a March 24 Facebook post threatening her client, saying it could have come from one of Ramos loved ones. Brandewie objected, saying he just saw the post that day and the family denied it. In court, Garza apologized for his death. If she realized she was impaired, she would have ridden with her parents home. She would not have put my daughter in any danger, she said. Bokota told the court Garza would not be treated differently. As part of her sentence, Garza has to keep a job, complete substance abuse treatment and do a victim impact panel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the hearing, Ramos family said he was devoted to them and left behind two kids, aged 9 and 16. He had been excited to become an uncle, but never got to meet his nephew, born in April 2020. Before his work release stint, he worked for a tree-trimming company. Even when Lydia Ramos drove, spotting deer, it reminded her of her sons death. I dont feel content about it, Juan Ramos said of the verdict, a point with which his sister Lydia agreed. He questioned how five years after his nephews death, some inmates were still forced to walk in the middle lane on Taft Street. That was a point shared by Garzas lawyers. Severtson and Dominguez previously told the Post-Tribune that Taft should have sidewalks and more street lights. mcolias@post-trib.com HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) AT&T and Human I-T provided laptops to Huntsville students and families for the school year, AT&T announced Friday. In a news release, AT&T said 100 refurbished laptops were provided to the Village of Promise. Equipping students with devices is a strategic step toward a more connected and informed society, where no student is left behind in the ever-evolving landscape of education, Jaymes Mooney, CEO, Village of Promise, said. By leveling the playing field, we give students access to the tools they need to reach their full potential, both now and in the future. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This effort is part of AT&Ts initiative to help address the digital divide through internet accessibility, affordability and safe adoption, the company said. AT&T said it is committing $5 billion to help 25 million people get and stay connected to high-speed internet by 2030. AT&T is proud to collaborate with organizations like Village of Promise to help level the playing field for students in Huntsville, Dave Hargrove, regional director, AT&T Alabama, said. Connectivity is vital for students, and were glad we can provide these resources to those that need them most. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Both the Foreign Ministry and COGAT issued statements condemning the United Nations' IPC reports of famine in Gaza, claiming it "changed its own global standard." The Foreign Ministry and the Prime Ministers Office condemned a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification on Friday, which officially declared famine in the Gaza Strip. The ministry called it a tailor-made fabricated report to fit Hamass fake campaign, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office argued that, Israel has a policy of preventing starvation, not creating it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unbelievably, the IPC twisted its own rules and ignored its own criteria just to produce false accusations against Israel: the IPC changed its own global standard, cutting the 30% threshold to 15% for this report only, and totally ignored its second criterion of death rate, solely to serve Hamass fake campaign, the ministry wrote. The entire IPC document is based on Hamass lies laundered through organizations with vested interests, the statement said. The laws of supply and demand dont lie the IPC does. Every forecast the IPC has made regarding Gaza during the war has proven baseless and completely false. This assessment, too, will be thrown into the despicable trash bin of political documents. The PMO listed data provided by The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Defense Ministry, highlighting the volume of aid Israel has provided to the Gaza Strip. Two million tons of aid have entered Gaza since October 7, 2023, which is one ton of aid per capita, the statement said. COGAT report on Gaza situation. (credit: X/Twitter) The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has supplied 2.2 million relief packages to Gazans, the equivalent of 132 million meals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Like all previous IPC reports, this one ignores Israels humanitarian efforts and Hamass systematic theft, the PMO said, recalling UN data that said that of the 1,012 aid trucks collected, only 10 reached warehouses as a result of looting carried out by armed terrorists and militias. Hamas steals aid to finance its war machine. These were the causes of temporary shortages, which Israel overcame with airdrops, maritime deliveries, safe transport routes, and GHF distribution points manned by American companies, the office said. According to John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, no other country at war has gone to such lengths to feed the civilian population in enemy territory, the PMO continued, arguing that the only ones being intentionally starved in Gaza are the Israeli hostages. The office called these accusations a modern blood libel. History will judge those who peddle it. The IPC must end its double standards against the Jewish state. COGAT also rejects the IPC report on Gaza COGAT also addressed the IPC report, categorically rejecting the claim of famine in theGaza Strip, and particularly in Gaza City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Previous reports and assessments by the IPC have repeatedly been proven inaccurate and do not reflect the reality on the ground, the statement read. The report deliberately disregards data that was provided to its authors in a meeting held prior to its publication, and completely overlooks the efforts made in recent weeks to stabilize the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. The IPC report is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas, and blatantly ignores the facts and the extensive humanitarian efforts led by the State of Israel and its international partners, Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of COGAT, said. We expect the international community to act responsibly and not be swept away by false narratives and unfounded propaganda, but rather to examine the complete data and the facts on the ground, he said. The IPC report is not only biased but also serves Hamass propaganda campaign, the agency said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Internal data from the Israeli security establishment shows a sharp decline in the prices of basic goods in Gaza following the massive influx of humanitarian aid into the Strip in recent weeks. According to the data, which was presented to decision-makers, prices of essential products in Gazas markets have dropped by dozens of percentage points. Officials say the price cuts reflect the impact of continuous aid convoys, which have flooded the enclave with flour, rice, sugar, and other staples. For example, a kilogram of flour, which cost between NIS 80-100 about three weeks ago, is now priced at NIS 18; a kilogram of sugar, which cost NIS 300, now costs NIS 50; and a kilogram of pasta dropped from NIS 100 to NIS 10. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The global hunger monitor said that Gaza City and the surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City known as Gaza governorate which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Hamas. TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's economy minister said on Friday he had resigned for health reasons, ahead of a widely expected cabinet reshuffle as the government faces domestic challenges including trying to work with an opposition-dominated legislature. One of the ministry's key roles is overseeing the crucial semiconductor sector in Taiwan, home to the world's largest contract chipmaker TSMC. It also enforces controls to ensure sensitive high-tech goods do not end up in countries subject to export curbs such as China or Russia, and oversees energy policy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kuo Jyh-huei, previously a senior executive of a TSMC supplier, Topco Scientific, assumed the role in May of last year as President Lai Ching-te's administration took office. In a statement issued by his ministry, Kuo said his resignation was based on "health considerations" given the taxing nature of the job. Kuo has faced criticism from opposition parties for his frequent verbal slip-ups. "Regarding the criticism and feedback I have received from various sectors during this period, whether directed at policies or at me personally, I sincerely appreciate it and humbly accept it," he said in his resignation statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There was no immediate word from the cabinet on his replacement. Lai has had to contend with opposition parties, who form a majority in parliament, blocking legislation and passing their own, as well as imposing swingeing budget cuts. Taiwan media said this week that a cabinet reshuffle this month was very likely, and named Kuo as one of the ministers most at risk of being replaced. Kuo had also been one of the ministers involved in formulating the government's response to President Donald Trump's 20% tariff on goods exported to the United States. Earlier on Friday, Digital Affairs Minister Yennun Huang said he was also stepping down, to return to academia. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard;Editing by Sharon Singleton and Helen Popper) TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said on Friday he hoped defence spending would reach 5% of gross domestic product before 2030, upping a target of bolstering the island's military budget that Washington has pushed for. The previous day, the government said next year's defence budget would reach 3.32% of GDP, including for the first time spending on the coast guard, among other areas, to align with what Premier Cho Jung-tai said was the "NATO model". The move comes as China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Taiwan also faces calls from Washington to spend more on its own defence, mirroring pressure from the United States on Europe. Visiting a navy base on Taiwan's northeast coast, Lai said China's threats had increased in recent years, and that he hoped defence spending by NATO standards could reach 5% of GDP before 2030. "This not only demonstrates our country's determination to safeguard national security and protect democracy, freedom, and human rights," he said, in video images provided by his office. "It also shows our willingness to stand shoulder to shoulder with the international community to jointly exert deterrent power and maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lai added that the government would push for cooperation with "international allies" on weapons research and development as well as for production, though he did not give details. The United States is Taiwan's most important international arms supplier, despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties, but Taiwan's own domestic weapons industry has built everything from fighter jets to cruise missiles. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Clarence Fernandez) A man connected to an attempted murder in La Junta was arrested in Colorado Springs Thursday after a four-hour interagency operation that involved using chemical irritants to get the suspect out of a house, police said. Chezaray Chavez, 40, was found in the house in the 5300 block of Gentle Wind Road, near Stetson Hills Boulevard and Marksheffel Road around 3 p.m., according to the Colorado Springs Police Department. Colorado Springs police, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Colorado Department of Corrections were deployed to the area following a request for assistance by the La Junta Police Department Monday. After numerous announcements ordering the suspect to exit the house and surrender, Chavez allegedly barricaded himself in the home and refused to leave, prompting a shelter-in-place order for the immediate area at 4:22 p.m. The altercation continued for three more hours, with law enforcement making "several" attempts to de-escalate the situation. Eventually, tactical units deployed chemical irritants into the home, and Chavez surrendered. The order was lifted at 7:20 p.m. Chavez is facing one count of attempted first-degree murder and was booked into the El Paso County jail on a no-bond hold, according to jail records. Public records indicate Chavez lives in La Junta. Chavez has a criminal history related to burglary, drugs and weapons charges dating to 2004 all out of Otero County, court records show. In the hundreds of pages of transcripts from Justice Department interviews of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein spoke glowingly of President Donald Trump, called him a gentleman in all respects and describing him as friendly with Epstein. Both Trump's supporters and his Democratic opponents have clamored for documents about the case to be made public. In the transcripts released Friday, Maxwell also details what she knew of Epstein's interactions with other high-profile men, including former President Bill Clinton, current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Britain's Prince Andrew, saying she never observed untoward behavior from any of them. Here are key takeaways: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What documents were released by the government The transcripts are from interviews Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Maxwell last month. The sit-down came as the Trump administration scrambled to present itself as transparent amid backlash among even some of Trumps most loyal supporters over a perceived broken promise to release more information on Epstein's case. Trump has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the sex-trafficking case. The ire peaked when Attorney General Pam Bondi said last month that Epstein did not leave behind a client list, after earlier suggesting it was on her desk, and said no other evidence would be released. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Blanche later interviewed the imprisoned Maxwell at a Florida courthouse. What Maxwell said about Trump The transcripts show Maxwell repeatedly denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990 when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much, Maxwell said, according to the transcript, saying that her late father had been fond of Trumps then-wife Ivana because she was also from Czechoslovakia where my dad was from. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As far as Im concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me, Maxwell said. I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and Ive always liked him. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him. Maxwell told Blanche she didnt know how Epstein and Trump met nor how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly, she said. I mean, they seemed friendly. Maxwell said she recalled only seeing Epstein and Trump in social settings, not private settings. Asked by Blanche if she ever observed Trump receiving a massage, she answered: Never. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. When Maxwell last saw Trump Maxwell estimated that she hadnt seen Trump since the mid-2000s, again in a social setting. Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied: Absolutely never, in any context. Maxwell said she and Epstein would go to Trumps Mar-a-Lago club, often separately, though she didnt say specifically when that was. She said she loved going there and that Epstein would maybe go himself to the spa. I certainly did. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell said RFK Jr. and Epstein were friends While being quizzed about which powerful men were friends with Epstein, Maxwell told Blanche that Epstein did know Robert Kennedy Jr., who leads the Health and Human Services Department under Trump. Maxwell said they went on a trip together dinosaur bone hunting in the Dakotas in the early 1990s. Asked by Blanche if she had any recollection of any inappropriate behavior involving Kennedy on the trip, Maxwell replied: I never saw anything inappropriate with Mr. Kennedy. What she said about Epstein and Prince Andrew Maxwell spoke favorably of Britains Prince Andrew and dismissed as rubbish the late Virginia Giuffres claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwells London home. She denied introducing Epstein to Prince Andrew, using a British idiom to describe how she felt they wouldnt have anything in common. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I couldnt imagine them being friends. Two chalk and cheeses would never I mean, for real, theres nothing there to connect them, she told Blanche. Maxwell questioned the details of Giuffres claim, telling Blanche that she wasnt even in London when the purported sex happened. Rather, she said, she was in the country celebrating her mothers 80th birthday. Maxwell said her home is so tiny about 900 square feet (83.6 square meters) with tight quarters that it wouldve been physically impossible to have sex in the bathroom, as Giuffre claimed. Giuffre became an advocate for sex trafficking survivors after emerging as a central figure in Epsteins prolonged downfall. The prince settled with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a substantial donation to her survivors organization. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell discussed other high-profile men Asked about trips she went on with high-profile men, Maxwell said it was difficult to remember details, as they became a blur. And after a while, you know, in the incredible job that you have, all of you, that when youre so high pressured and youre spending so much time with extraordinary people like you do with President Trump, it it can blur, she said. It just does. Blanche pressed Maxwell on whether she knew certain high-profile names, such as Elon Musk and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Maxwell said she met Musk around 2010 or 2011 during an event for the co-founder of Google that Epstein did not attend and then saw Musk again later at the Oscars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell told Blanche she was friends with Cuomos ex-wife, Kerry, but had only met him a few times and she didnt think Cuomo knew Epstein. Maxwell said she had no recollection of either man flying on Epsteins plane or ever visiting his homes. Maxwells interview wasnt only helpful to Trump, but also another one-time White House occupant with Epstein ties: former President Bill Clinton. Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epsteins, and that she never saw him receive a massage nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epsteins plane. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That wouldve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage, Maxwell said. And he didnt, because I was there. ___ Michael R. Sisak, Adriana Gomez Licon, Alanna Durkin Richer and Matt Brown contributed reporting. ___ Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP Tally Gotliv fired back at Likud ministers, condemned "terror-supporting" MKs, and slammed hostage protests as a bid to "topple the government." Tally Gotliv is doubling down on her position as of Friday, as she faces intense scrutiny from within her own party, labeling her critics, who she said are "hiding behind anonymity," as "terror supporters." This scrutiny comes after a Walla poll placed her at the top of the Likud list for the upcoming primaries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She also took aim at the recent hostage protests, asserting that they are part of an effort to topple the government. Likud MK Tally Gotliv seen at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, April 8, 2025 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90) MK Tally Gotliv, hello. Hello and blessings. First off, congratulations on becoming a new grandmother! Thank God, yes. May good news multiply for everyone. What do you think your granddaughter will say about you when she looks back at this period in history? I truly hope that my granddaughter and any future grandchildren, God willing, stay connected to their roots and pave their own paths in life. I dont focus on what a grandchild will say about me. I hope each of them will be strong enough in themselves; thats what matters most to me. Lets talk about the storm surrounding you this week with the Judenrat remark. Looking back after all the controversy, do you regret using that word? Absolutely not. Not only do I not regret it, but I also regret the crudeness of the journalists, politicians, and citizens in Israel who demeaned me, attacked me physically, and violated my immunity rights. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fact that a security guard, who committed criminal acts against me, was simply ignored is appalling. Im obviously waiting for the Attorney Generals response. If were talking about that era, the Judenrat, are the judges the Nazis, God forbid? Im not comparing it to that at all, in any way. What kind of question is that? This comparison is deeply upsetting. My comments about the judges are entirely different. No, but supposedly the Judenrat decided who... (Gotliv interrupts) I completely disagree with you in any way. Your question offends me. Lets return to current events. Yesterday, a man was arrested for wanting to declare the Attorney General a rodef. You know, the last time this happened, when it was done to Rabin, we know how it ended. Do you condemn this incident? Condemn? Of course. Anyone who even thinks about applying din rodef to someone, I condemn that. What kind of question is this? Did you think I wouldnt condemn it? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are things I dont condemn that everyone else does, but this? Certainly, yes, I condemn it. Lets continue. This week, Walla published a poll on Likud primaries showing you in second place, after Amir Ohana. Since it came out, have you felt heavy pressure from the party against you? No. Im not swayed by polls. A poll is just a poll, and its even meaningless. And its not the first time polls have placed me in high positions. It doesnt impress me, not this way or that. I always say, both good and bad words are just background noise. As a stateswoman, thats how I define myself, and as a public official, Im focused on the work Im doing right now. Not on what will happen in the primaries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I genuinely believe that right-wing voters, Likud voters, are not confused. They are firmly connected to our path as right-wingers and understand that, since October 7, our values must be reaffirmed. They see what I do in the Knesset and throughout the week to protect our values. And thats reflected in the poll. Theres no connection between the poll and reality. As for my party members, I believe and call on everyone to continue doing whats right for our values. This week, we saw quotes from ministers and Likud central committee members against you, calling you mentally unstable, untrustworthy, uncollegial, and undermining Netanyahu. One even called you a crazy woman. I must tell you, if you look at my political career, youll never find a time when I hid behind anonymity. Not one journalist can say I ever asked them to keep me anonymous. I stand behind every word I say. And the fact that, according to you, some ministers are quoted this way without standing up to say who they are - well, that means their words carry no weight. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People like Gideon Saar have said theyll destroy me. So, with all due respect, let me put it carefully - it doesnt impress me at all. My life motto is: "Whoever fears only the Holy One, blessed be He, fears no one else." Thats all. Arent you afraid that in the end, youll be targeted and harmed in the primaries? I trust the right-wing voters, and Im not concerned with deals. I dont recruit members into Likud - not even one. And I dont sign up people who really want to join through me. I just pass them along to others to recruit. I have no deals, and I wont have deals. If deals are made, it will be over my head. I trust the Likud voters, the free voices, and many central committee members, who are intelligent, wise, and not confused. Thats why Im not afraid. And as I always say, One who trusts in God, kindness surrounds him. Theoretically, if the results match the polls, and you end up very high on the Likud list, what position would you want to hold as minister? Let me make this very clear: I hope to earn the trust of voters. I expect it because I believe Im working for the right-wing public, in the Knesset and by changing the social discourse in a very structured way. Im restoring our pride and faith in the most basic values of this land. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Beyond that, Im leading a huge battle against the judiciary, which is doing everything it can to undermine the right-wing government. If I gain voters trust, and if Likud strengthens, which it must, I believe I should be given the Justice Ministry. Im not interested in being a minister just for the title. Id rather remain an MK than hold a portfolio where I have nothing to contribute. Youve said you are a stateswoman. Do you see yourself in more diplomatic portfolios? Of course. For example? One day, the Defense Ministry. Why "someday"? Why not demand Defense now instead of Justice? Isnt defense more important? No, not at all. But the role requires experience. Let me explain: Im not Bennett, okay? Im not a megalomaniac who thinks he can lead the country with six seats. Even with my deep knowledge of our enemies, the Middle East, and tribal dynamics, being Defense Minister requires a lot of experience. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That experience is built through parliamentary work, in many sessions within the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and by managing a critical ministry like Justice. But most importantly, the key role for the right to rule is the Justice Ministry. And that, in my opinion, is the symbol of how we protect the separation of powers and our right to live according to our values as right-wingers in Israel. So, you wouldnt ask for, say, the Ministry of National Security? If something else is offered instead of Justice, would you stay in the Knesset? I think Itamar Ben-Gvir is doing an excellent job in that ministry, and he has made some very important changes. He should remain in that position. Okay, but if he wants Defense and National Security opens up, would you take it, or would you insist on Justice only? National Security is a very important ministry. But Im telling you directly, I believe I should be in Justice because of my vast knowledge. Whoever holds the Justice Ministry must understand that we shouldnt just chase legislation; we need to outsmart the system on its own turf. Prime Minister? Do you see yourself in that role one day? As I said, Im not Bennett, and Im not megalomaniac. But you talk about statesmanship, about processes and leadership... I call it statesmanship because people dont understand that the word "politics" comes from ancient Greece and means managing the state. A politician is a term that doesnt fully capture what someone takes on. And I repeat, as much as I gain voters trust and serve the nation well, time will tell. So youre not ruling out running for prime minister? I cant say yes or no. I know I have leadership abilities, but I dont know what Ill do in the future. I must first prove myself to myself and to the public. Thats how it works. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Do you support a partial deal for the hostages? No. Yesterday, Orit Strook said she opposes it, and many cabinet ministers will vote against a partial deal. I must say, I blame the media. A very harsh accusation. My accusation is that the media weakens the chances of returning all our hostages by focusing on partial deals. Hamas listens to everything, collects intelligence openly like any enemy. I would stay silent about this matter and let the government work to bring back all the hostages, categorically, right now, under the tremendous pressure on Hamas. So what do you think of the hostage protests? Theyre not hostage protests, theyre Kaplan protests. The protests arent about the hostages. No one cares about the hostages in those protests. They shout two states, starvation in Gaza. They care about the enemy, not the hostages. And do these protests hurt the chances of bringing them back? Absolutely, they hurt a lot. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the massive protest on Monday, it was suddenly reported that progress was made toward a deal. Wow, thats amazing. Are you working for Hamas? Really? Im asking. You really think Hamas agreed because of the protest? No, they agreed to a partial deal to undermine Israels demand to bring back all the hostages. Hamas manipulates us at every turn, and the media plays right into their hands. On October 7, you claimed there was betrayal. What does that mean? Well never know because youre protecting Shin Bet head Ronen Bar. He was responsible for Gaza intelligence, in contact with Egyptian intelligence. You protect people who owe us answers. But no inquiry committee has been established. Of course. We wont set one up because I dont trust the Supreme Court President or any judge to ask the tough questions. The only way to uncover the truth is through a commission made up of hostage families, bereaved families, and IDF officers. So why not establish that mechanism? I have a bill for it. The prime minister thinks a commission should be formed, but it must be based on a broad consensus to gain public trust. Hes right. But why call it betrayal? Because not informing the prime minister about the suspicions of infiltration is betrayal. Betrayal of trust is still betrayal. Excuses like we feared miscalculation dont cut it. Thats why 1,200 Israelis were murdered. Thats a very harsh accusation. Its not just an accusation. I wish I had the tools to tell you who and why. I dont know. But betrayal, yes. HELSINKI (Reuters) -The Georgian captain of an oil tanker that damaged undersea cables in the Baltic Sea in late 2024 denied any wrongdoing, describing the incident as "a marine accident" in an interview with Finland's public broadcaster on Thursday. Captain Davit Vadatchkoria and first and second officers of the Eagle S oil tanker face charges in Helsinki court next Monday over the cutting of power and telecommunications cables last December by dragging the vessel's anchor some 90 km (56 miles) along the Gulf of Finland on its way west from a Russian oil port. "We are innocent. It's just a marine accident," Captain Davit Vadatchkoria, who remains in Finland under travel ban, told YLE broadcaster, which posted excerpts of the interview on its website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When asked how neither he nor the crew noticed the ship's anchor was dragging, Vadatchkoria said the ship's autopilot did not detect any unusual movements, vibrations or course changes that would trigger an alarm, YLE said. Finnish authorities have said the Cook Islands-registered Eagle S broke the Estlink 2 undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia and four internet lines, causing the owners at least 60 million euros ($70 million) in damages. The Georgian and Indian nationals were charged with aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference. NATO allies around the Baltic Sea went on high alert following the incident and a string of other suspicious power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Finnish police's special forces boarded the Eagle S from helicopters on Christmas Day after ordering its captain to steer from international to Finnish waters. Recounting the events, Vadatchkoria criticised the operation as excessive and compromising maritime safety. "So aggressive like they catch some terrorists or something. Maybe 60 or 70 soldiers or police officers with guns, cameras, everything," he told YLE. The Finnish police declined to comment on Vadatchkoria's criticism because the matter was now in court. ($1 = 0.8584 euros) (Reporting by Anne Kauranen in HelsinkiEditing by Tomasz Janowski) New Mexico has $5.6 billion worth of needed but unfunded transportation projects, according to the state Department of Transportation. (Getty Images) New Mexico residents pay thousands of dollars each year because of the states crumbling road infrastructure, state transportation officials told lawmakers Friday. With the number of acceptable roads declining and the cost of fixing them outstripping funds, the state transportation secretary says New Mexico may need to raise existing taxes or create new ones to fund road projects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Presently, the state has $5.6 billion worth of needed but unfunded transportation projects, according to the state Department of Transportations presentation to the Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Subcommittee at its meeting in Silver City. The percentage of New Mexico roads in acceptable condition dropped from 75% in 2011 to 69% in 2023, the presentation states. Deteriorating roads result in drivers paying an average of $2,074 annually, for vehicle maintenance, congestion and safety costs, according to the data. That figure is even higher in the Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces areas. To pay for the $5.6 billion in unfunded projects, New Mexico will likely need some combination of changing the way the state distributes its tax on vehicle sales; increasing existing taxes and fees; or creating new ones, such as delivery surcharges or road user charges, Transportation Secretary Ricky Serna told the committee. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DOT doesnt receive recurring funding from the Legislature, Serna said, and when lawmakers do give the agency money, it comes with a three-year deadline attached, which, if not met, can be clawed back and used for other purposes. The agency tried to address these problems with a piece of legislation in this years session that would have raised the states weight-distance tax on commercial traffic and vehicle registration fees, and created a new electric vehicle surcharge, Serna said. The state House of Representatives unanimously approved that bill, but it died in the Senate in the sessions final week. Another way the state could generate revenue would be to raise its 17-cent per gallon gasoline tax, Serna said. A one-cent increase would generate approximately $6.6 million in annual revenue, DOT Chief Economist Michael Morrison told the committee. Lawmakers havent changed the tax since 1996 when they lowered it from 20 cents per gallon, Morrison said. Sen. Antonio Moe Maestas (D-Albuquerque) suggested that it would be cheaper for drivers to pay more per gallon of fuel rather than for the expenses resulting from deteriorating roads like new tires, for example. Its just been, in my opinion, a failure of government not to incrementally and reasonably increase the gas tax over the last 30 years, Maestas said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE NEW YORK (PIX11) A teenager has been accused of strangulation following a brawl outside the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations in New York Wednesday, according to police. Officers received a report of an assault in progress at 10:42 a.m. The incident occurred outside 304 East 44th Street, according to authorities. More Crime News Officials say upon arrival, two men were complaining of pain throughout their whole bodies. However, no reports of Emergency Medical Services were specified, and the extent of the mens injuries remains unclear, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two people were taken into police custody and later arrested, authorities said. According to arrest records, a 15-year-old suspect, whose name has been withheld due to his age, was charged with strangulation and assault. A 22-year-old man, identified by police as Yassin Elsammak, was also charged with assault. It remains unclear what led or caused the fight, authorities said. Other details remain unclear. A full investigation remains ongoing. The UN and the Permanent Mission of Egypt were not immediately available to comment. Matthew Euzarraga is a multimedia journalist from El Paso, Texas. He has covered local news and LGBTQIA topics in the New York City Metro area since 2021. He joined the PIX11 Digital team in 2023. You can see more of his work here. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ANGELINA COUNTY, Texas (KETK) An East Texas teen has been arrested after leading deputies on a high-speed chase on Wednesday night. Courtesy of the Angelina County Sheriffs Office Mugshot of Caleb Perez, courtesy of the Angelina County Sheriffs Office Angelina County Sheriffs Office deputies noticed a driver in a white Cadillac going 77 mph on a 55 mph zone on Highway 94 in Hudson. As deputies attempted to catch up with the vehicle, the driver reportedly accelerated and took off. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The driver turned onto FM 1194 South and reached speeds of 85 mph. The driver, identified as Caleb Perez, 18 of Hudson, attempted to make a turn onto Parks Circle but ran off the road, through a ditch and then struck a telephone pole. At this point, authorities arrested Perez, who had an active warrant for aggravated robbery, the sheriffs office said. He was also charged with evading arrest with a vehicle and possession of marijuana. Perez remains in the Angelina County Jail and is being held without bond for the active warrant. You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. A 15-year-old is facing more charges after police said he was involved in two separate shootings involving rideshare drivers two days apart. Investigators have now filed charges against Keith Lovelace, who they said committed a similar crime just days earlier. On April 16, police were called to the area of Shady Park Place, an apartment complex along Lobinger Street. A man told them he was dropping off a passenger when two people in masks opened the car door and tried to force him out. When the driver sped off, his window was shattered by a bullet. Allegheny County police said Lovelace pulled the trigger. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was a similar situation to another shooting that Lovelace was charged in connection with that happened two days earlier. A rideshare driver was shot near Pittsburghs Zone 5 in the citys Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar neighborhood. The victim told police that he had three teenage boys in his backseat, later identified as Lovelace, Kavontay Jordan, and Bruce Jones, when they attempted to steal his car. When he resisted, he was shot. All three were arrested and charged in that incident. >>Previous coverage: Pittsburgh Uber driver feels lucky to be alive after being shot during attempted carjacking Investigators said bullet casings recovered at that scene matched those found two days later in North Braddock. Court documents indicate live rounds found in a gun Lovelace had on him when he was arrested also matched those casings. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW NEED TO KNOW Scottish teen Georgie Hyslop has raised almost $70,000 for cancer research after being diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma The 17-year-old went to the doctor with leg pain in 2023 and initially thought she had a stress fracture, but was later diagnosed with bone cancer Now, she's telling her story on a new episode of the RadioTherapy podcast, where she's joined by her sister Megan A Scottish teen raised nearly $70,000 for cancer research as she fights her own battle with the disease. Georgie Hyslop told the story of her diagnosis, continued treatment and fundraising efforts on RadioTherapys Sunday, Aug. 17, episode, where she was joined by her sister Megan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Georgie, 17, first noticed her symptoms in December 2023, when she began experiencing leg pain and visited a doctor. While the doctor initially thought she had a stress fracture, Georgie later underwent an MRI and CT scan, which showed that she had Ewing sarcoma. Mayo Clinic describes the disease as a type of cancer that begins as a growth of cells in the bones and the soft tissue around the bones that is most common in young adults and children. Courtesy Lynn Hyslop Georgie Hyslop Georgie Hyslop Georgie underwent 14 rounds of chemotherapy and 33 rounds of radiation as part of her cancer treatment. After being diagnosed, the teen chose to donate her tissue to the U.K. charity Cancer Research, and began her fundraising mission. To raise money, Georgie organized events like family fun days, raffles and a ball. And less than a year after her diagnosis, she raised over $20,000 for the Schiehallion Ward at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow and U.K. cancer charities. While Georgie went into remission in July 2024, she learned her cancer returned earlier this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My main aim is to help others going through the same thing, she told the U.K. outlet The Daily Record. For her fundraising efforts, Georgie won The Daily Records Teenager of Courage award at the papers Pride of Scotland Award ceremony in June. The event celebrates ordinary Scots whose acts of kindness and selfless bravery make this country great, according to the outlet. Courtesy Lynn Hyslop Georgia Hyslop (left) and U.K. singer James Marriott Georgia Hyslop (left) and U.K. singer James Marriott "We are all really proud of Georgie, she continues to keep positive and live life to the fullest she is taking part in a zip line over the river Clyde in Glasgow to support Callums Cabin a charity close to our hearts," Georgie's mom Lynn tells PEOPLE in a statement. Lynn adds that the teen "now has a target of 100,000 to raise for the charities that have helped us through Georgies diagnosis and we have no doubt that she will achieve this. She's amazing." Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. In her interview with The Daily Record, Lynn shared, Her last scans were stable which meant she was able to get her central line out and her next scan is in October." She added, Were so proud of Georgie and Megan and if their podcast helps just one other family going through this, its done its job. Read the original article on People (KRON) The Santa Rosa Police Department said its gang crimes team is investigating a 19-year-old driver who chased and charged into a bicyclist, ran over the victims bike, and was throwing gang signs the entire incident. Officers save life of woman stabbed in Oakland: PD Santa Rosa police said patrol officers went to the area of Sebastopol Road and West Avenue at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday to check the report of a disturbance. The victim told police he was in a confrontation with a motorist who tried running him over on his bicycle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The suspect driver of the vehicle began yelling at the victim, causing the victim to turn into a parking lot in an effort to evade the suspect, said SRPD. The suspect vehicle followed and closed the distance on the victim. As the victim rode through the parking lot the suspect drove his vehicle into the back of the victims bicycle, striking the victim and knocking him off his bike. The suspect then drove over the downed bicycle and stopped a short distance away. The victim told investigators the driver then made gang related challenges toward him before he was able to get away and contact police. They suffered minor injuries in the incident. Santa Rosa PD said the suspect, identified as Ortega Rendon, was later arrested during a traffic stop after a Be on the Lookout alert was broadcast to other local law enforcement agencies. Rendon was booked at the Sonoma County jail where he faces multiple charges, including assault with deadly weapon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. A woman recalls the frightening moment she was knocked to the ground and robbed while walking in Beverly Hills. Camille Anderson, best known for hosting the show Selling Mega Mansions, said the incident happened while she was out with friends on a Saturday night. We decided to walk from a restaurant on Canon Drive to one that was just a few blocks away at 9 p.m. at night, Anderson told KTLAs Kimberly Cheng. [It was] nothing out of the ordinary. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She and a friend were near Santa Monica Boulevard and Canon Drive when she said two men suddenly spotted them and approached. Camille Anderson, best known for hosting the show Selling Mega Mansions, was knocked to the ground and robbed while walking in Beverly Hills. (KTLA) Camille Anderson, (left) best known for hosting the show Selling Mega Mansions, was knocked to the ground and robbed while walking in Beverly Hills. (Camille Anderson) The alleyway where Camille Anderson was assaulted and robbed while she was walking with a friend in Beverly Hills. (KTLA) A busy shopping and dining district in Beverly Hills, California. (KTLA) I could see someone in the alleyway, Anderson recalled. I didnt think much of it and it happened so quickly. They lunged at me and tried to take my purse. I tensed up. It was just my natural reaction. And because they didnt get the purse on the first attempt, the person slammed me to the ground. All I could think was to start screaming. After knocking her to the ground, the assailants entered a getaway car and sped off. Bystanders who saw the aftermath called 911. Police showed up quickly and took my statement, Anderson said. And, in what felt like under 10 minutes, police caught who they thought were the suspects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The suspects were identified as: Vlad Oganisyan, 23 Razmik Papikyan, 25 Grigoryan Vahagn, 45 Andersons purse was also found in their getaway car. She believes the robbery may have been a crime of opportunity, but also questions if someone had been watching her beforehand. I do think they possibly had a lookout, whether they were across the street or near the restaurant where we dined, she said. Maybe someone kept an eye on us. I dont think it was about me in particular, but just the fact that I had a nice purse on and a watch. Anderson said the attack left her with cuts and bruises, but she is grateful she wasnt seriously injured. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Luckily, Im gonna heal, she said. Ill be okay. I just think its important to talk about it so people are aware. She hopes that by sharing her story, itll remind others to be on alert and to protect themselves by not carrying luxury handbags, flashy jewelry or things that could make them a target when walking around in public. The suspects could face charges related to robbery and conspiracy. They were released on bond as the incident remains under investigation by Beverly Hills police. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Six men four of them related died at a dairy farm in Weld County likely due to gas exposure in a confined space. One of the victims was a high school student in the Weld County School District RE-9, education authorities said in a statement on Thursday night. Friday night, the Weld County Coroners Offices identified the victims, which included a father and his three in-laws: Jorge Sanchez Pena, 36, of Greeley; Alejandro Espinoza Cruz, 50, of Nunn; Oscar Espinoza Leos, 17, of Nunn; Ricardo Gomez Galvan, 32, of Keenesburg; Noe Montanez Casanas, 32, of Keenesburg. and Carlos Espinoza Prado, 29, of Evans. Southeast Weld Fire District crews were dispatched to the Prospect Valley Dairy in the 32063 Weld County Road 18, just east of Keenesburg, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, according to authorities. Responding officers found six people dead and recovered their bodies from the site. The release did not say how they died or what the nature of the dispatch call was. The news release called it a dairy accident. Crews responded and took appropriate precautions to enter the confined space to perform rescue operations, the press release said. Unfortunately, District personnel recovered six deceased individuals from the space. The District extends its sincere condolences to the families of the victims. A spokesperson for Southeast Weld Fire Protection District declined any further comment. Attempts to reach Prospect Valley Dairy officials were unsuccessful. In its statement, the Weld RE-9 School District said that one of the victims was a Highland High School student. The Weld Re-9 School District is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of a Highland High School student in a tragic confinement incident at a local dairy last night, the statement said. This tragedy has deeply affected our school district and community. The district is making counseling and support services available to students and staff, adding it is committed to providing assistance to people in need. Our thoughts are with the students family and friends during this difficult time, and we extend our sincere condolences to all who are impacted by this loss, the district said. The office is investigating the deaths as possibly being the result of gas exposure in a confined space. A GoFundMe account set up by Juan Mendez identified four of the victims. Juan Mendez is identifying his father, George Lopez, and his in-laws, Oscar, Carlos, and Alejandro Espinoza, as four of the six men who died in the Weld County dairy accident Wednesday, a GoFundMe spokesperson said. It is with heavy hearts that we share the tragic news of the sudden passing of four beloved individuals Oscar Espinoza, Carlos Espinoza, Alejandro Espinoza, & George Lopez, the fundraising post. In the wake of this unimaginable loss, we are coming together as a community to support the families left behind during this incredibly difficult time. Mendez could not be reached for comment. Featured Local Savings Another victims GoFundMe account appeared Friday for Noe Montanez, identified by his friend and coworker Ana Guevara. Final causes and the manners of death would be released when autopsies and toxicology results are complete and families have been notified, the coroner said. Weld County Sheriffs Office spokesperson Melissa Chesmore said her agency didnt find anything indicating a crime took place, the Associated Press reported. Citing two unnamed sources from the dairy industry, Denver7 said a worker inside an underground manure pit at the dairy may have accidentally released lethal amounts of toxic gas before five others rushed in to save him. Prospect Valley Dairy LLC is linked to a principal office in Bakersfield, California, according to the Colorado Secretary of States Office. A registered agent is listed for the company in Centennial. The company was formed in January 2012 and is in good standing, according to the office. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson told The Denver Gazette Friday morning. OSHA has six months to complete that investigation and will not release any additional information about the incident until it is complete, the agency said. Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the workers who lost their lives at the dairy farm in Keenesburg, Colorado, the OSHA spokesperson said. A search of OSHAs investigation portal did not show any previous investigations into Prospect Valley Dairy. The farm is a member of the Dairy Farmers of America. We are deeply saddened by this incident, and our thoughts and most sincere condolences go out to the friends and families of the deceased. At this early stage, we have no further details, the farmer-owned cooperative said in a statement. The Weld County community is hurting, the countys commissioners said in a statement Friday. The agricultural community in Weld County, as it is across this country, is strong and full of compassionate, hard-working individuals and families who support each other, especially in difficult times such as this, the commissioners said. The Weld County Board of Commissioners extends its sympathy to these families and to our agricultural community. Weld County is an agricultural empire, the countys website says, with 2.5 million acres of which 75% is devoted to farming and livestock. The county is Colorados leading producer of beef and the states leading dairy producer, according to its website. There are 3,000 farms in Weld County and its agricultural products create more than $1 billion of market value every year. The Associated Press and Denver Gazette City Editor Dennis Huspeni contributed to this report. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Some Tennessee lawmakers worry the new school voucher program favors the states most advantaged students: those already enrolled in private school. Tennessees Education Freedom Scholarship Act, or school voucher program, which uses public dollars to pay to send students to private school if their families choose, passed during a special legislative session this January and was rolled out this school year. In a rule review hearing Wednesday, Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) referenced a public comment that claimed the private school admissions period opened well before vouchers became available. According to the comment, by the time public school families could apply for a voucher, private schools were already filled or had closed admissions. Have breaking news come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts The admissions cycle of independent schools begins in the fall, and their deadline to apply for tuition assistance is Dec. 15, Sen. Oliver said, reading the public comment. That is well before our fiscal year which is June/July when that rolls over, so it seems to me that, if Im interpreting this correctly, that if a parent wants to apply for this scholarship program in future years, theyre going to miss out because those private schools have already made their academic decisions for the year, so any public schools parent that might want to enter that private school, its too late. It appears, once again, that this program is by design for parents who are already in private schools. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The TN Department of Education told lawmakers the state would make sure the voucher application period matched up with the private school admissions timeline next year. However, the voucher program will still prioritize students who received a voucher the year prior, required by law. In addition, some Democrats criticized the state for not tracking how many students already enrolled in private school received a voucher the first year. The Department of Education responded that the state didnt ask whether a student attended a private or public school on the voucher application because that isnt an eligibility requirement. In addition, the law doesnt require the state to collect that data. Regardless, some lawmakers argued the department had the power to create a rule to collect the data anyway. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com The governor made these representations all over the state that this was going to provide opportunity, this was going to provide choice to those who didnt have it, yet we have no way, and these rules dont even direct the department to collect the data telling us how many children were already in private school accepting these vouchers, Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said. I find that incredibly hard to accept given that it was a main concern and it was discussed numerous times in committee and on the floor in regards to legislative intent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the TN Dept. of Education, the state will begin to track the number of private school students who apply for a voucher going forward, because, while it isnt an eligibility requirement, it is used to dictate who gets priority. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) Hundreds of workers at International Paper in Savannah and Riceboro walked into work Thursday morning to a shocking announcement. The company will soon close the Savannah containerboard mill, the Savannah packaging facility, Riceboro containerboard mill and Riceboro Timber and Lumber. According to the press release, the closure is estimated to leave over 1,100 workers unemployed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tom Hamic, Executive Vice President and President of International Papers North America Packaging Solutions business, released this statement in the press release, While difficult, these decisions are essential to positioning International Paper for long-term success, enabling us to focus on the geographies, customers, and products where we can create the most value. Our investment in the Riverdale mill reflects our commitment to delivering high-quality, reliable service while strengthening our advantaged cost position. The announcement includes the investment of $250 million to convert the #16 machine at the Riverdale mill in Selma, Alabama to produce containerboard. A WSAV Viewer shared that her husband has worked at the Savannah mill for eight years. She said she was shocked to get the call Thursday morning from her husband that he would lose his job by September 30. Thats crazy to me. They shouldve given them months in advance, so they can go ahead and start looking for jobs, so they have that security for their families and for them, the viewer said. My daughter has special needs. We rely on health care, therapy and support services that are expensive and ongoing. This job really helps with that Losing his job means losing our health insurance and financial security all at once. To be honest, this is terrifying to think about how we will manage moving forward. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Owners speak out after vehicle strikes Allenhurst business I hope the community and leaders recognize the human cost behind these closures and provide support to help families like ours rebuild, the viewer said. The company will offer severance packages and outplacement assistance for eligible employees. Savannah Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bert Brantley told WSAV News 3 that he pledges his support to the men and women affected. Were all going to rally around and figure out how do we get information to the employees about the opportunities that are there? I think its really critical to make sure we all recognize we are a growing economy. There are opportunities here. We want these folks to stay here and be successful here, Brantley said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many people are saying this will have a ripple effect to those who drive log trucks, other industry workers, and the small timber businesses who sell their product to International Paper. If youre impacted and need help planning out your next step, click or tap here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. AUSTIN (Nexstar) The Texas House committee on public education advanced a plan that would eliminate the states current standardized test and replace it with a new type of testing that is designed to hopefully reduce anxiety and stress for students in the classroom. But it doesnt appear to have bipartisan support. House Bill 8 authored by State Rep. Brad Buckley, R Salado, would repeal the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, test at the start of the 2027-2028 academic year. Buckley said it would be replaced with a series of shorter assessments throughout the school year. To eliminate the high-stakes, one test, one day environment, Buckley said to his colleagues on the committee as he laid out the bill. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree the STAAR test needs to go. During the regular session this year, the original STAAR-repeal proposal almost received unanimous support in the Texas House, but disagreements with the Senate ultimately killed the bill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The added pressure placed on students with the STAAR test became apparent in the committee meeting after a seventh grade student from Fort Worth ISD testified. The STAAR test creates that major weight on my brain where I cant think while the teacher is giving me information, the student said. I dont sleep well and I dont eat well. Now you tell me if that seems healthy for a childs brain and body. The proposal The current proposal would create three different tests spaced throughout the school year. A beginning of the year test, a middle of the year test, and an end of year test. The first two tests will be adaptive, meaning the questions will change for each student depending on if they got the previous question correct. This will provide data to show what grade level of a subject each student is testing at. Those test results will be available to both teachers and parents 48 hours after the assessment. Mary Lynn Pruneda, the director of education policy at Texas 2036, a nonpartisan public policy group, said the proposed testing system will help educators track how their students are progressing throughout the school year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An adaptive test goes up and it goes down, and it can get you a really full picture of where exactly your child is performing, she explained. The end of year assessment will be the same for all students and will be pushed back to later in the year to give teachers more time to teach. HB 8 also bans over testing and sets a limit on the number of preparation tests a district can give a student. Who should be making the test? The bill passed out of committee with eight ayes and one no, with six members not present. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D Austin, was the lone dissenting vote and the only Democrat of the present members. Her main concern with the testing proposal centers on who is making the test. The proposal would require the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to do the job. I just have no faith that our state will do a good job of it as it has not done a good job with the creation of the STAAR test, Hinojosa said. She instead is advocating for a nationally norm-referenced test that would show how Texas students are doing in comparison to other states. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hinojosa points out students in Texas who are not in the public education system are tested with a national test instead of a test created by the state. House Bill 4 the original plan to repeal the STAAR test in the regular session did replace the STAAR with three nationally norm-referenced tests. However, Buckley, who wrote HB 4 earlier in the year, decided to go with a criterion-referenced test for the end of year exam. So whats the difference? Pruneda explains the difference with the analogy of two different types of scales. She equates the norm-referenced test with a balance scale, which shows you the comparison of weight between two different objects. In terms of education, it shows you who is better or worse in test scores. The criterion-referenced test is like a scale you step on to see how much you weigh, Pruneda explained. It shows you exactly how much you weigh down to the ounce. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A norm-referenced test, which was talked about during the regular legislative session, actually requires that 50% of kids dont pass. But a criterion-referenced test is a lot more useful to moms and dads, because it tells them exactly if their kid is on grade level and anything that theyre specifically struggling with, Pruneda said. State Rep. John Bryant, D Dallas, asked Buckley during the meeting why there was a drastic change from HB 4 in the regular session and HB 8 in the special session. Buckley said he had been able to speak with stakeholders over the past couple of months to find the best pathway forward, and he felt a norm-referenced test would not accurately assess Texas students on the states education standards. I think this is a fair sort of marriage of the two ideas that gives flexibility to districts that can move for growth throughout the year, but also gives us the opportunity to know whether or not kids are achieving at the at a level they should be on the state standards. An almost identical bill already passed out of the Texas Senate. The House bill now moves to the floor for a vote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK) A Texarkana man on supervised release from prison has been charged with possesion of child pornography, according to the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas Jay R. Combs. Longview man sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexual assault of child A federal grand jury indicted John Matthew Emerson, 41 of Texarkana, this week on a charge of possession of child pornography. A press release from Combs office said that Emerson was indicted after he was allegedly found with a cellphone that had child porn on it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the press release, the phone was found while Emerson was on supervised release from prison for a child pornography conviction. Emerson could face up to 20 years in federal prison if he is convicted in this new case. The case against Emerson is currently being investigated by the Homeland Security Investigations division and is a part of Project Safe Childhood. You can now stream KETK and FOX51 News live 24/7 on your smart TV with KETK+, our brand-new app! No antenna, cable, or satellite neededwatch for free, anytime. Just download it on your Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV and start streaming. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. Democrats successfully delayed the advancement of a bill that would let law enforcement agencies across the state keep unsubstantiated complaints against officers private. During Mondays debate on the House floor, Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso raised a point of order a parliamentary procedure that aims to delay or kill legislation on a technicality against Senate Bill 15 on the grounds that its subject matter is not included in Gov. Greg Abbotts agenda for the second special legislative session. Close to an hour later, the point of order was sustained because the bill focuses on departmental files and not personnel files as called for in Abbotts proclamation. State Rep. Cole Hefner, the Mt. Pleasant Republican sponsoring SB 15, subsequently said he is confident that the governor would add the legislations topic to the expanded agenda. Abbotts office didnt immediately respond to a comment request. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bill will be back soon, Hefner said in a text to The Texas Tribune. House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, has also previously promised to accomplish all items on the governors agenda by Labor Day weekend. The legislation, if adopted, would require law enforcement agencies to create a confidential department file also called a G-file to hold any unsubstantiated allegations against an officer as well as those that did not result in disciplinary actions. The G-file would also include any letter, memorandum or document related to the officer that are not their substantiated misconduct complaints, commendations, awards or periodic evaluations. Those remaining records would be in the officers personnel file, which would still be publicly accessible through the states open records law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hefner said Monday that the bill is about standardizing public disclosure policy of law enforcement agencies across Texas. Critics, however, have previously said SB 15 would limit police transparency and accountability. The bill currently allows certain materials to be released, such as body-worn camera footage. It would also not impede disclosures required by criminal investigations and court processes as mandated under the Sandra Bland and Michael Morton Acts, or affect Austins local police oversight policy. Before the point of order, House Democrats also introduced six amendments to clarify the bills language or add measures to maintain public information access. All of them failed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One amendment was presented by Moody to ensure that the bill doesnt reopen the dead suspects loophole, which law enforcement agencies once used to withhold information when suspects die in police custody or at the hands of officers before receiving a conviction or deferred adjudication. The state Legislature closed it in 2023. I don't believe this bill opens that loophole back up, Hefner said. I respectfully disagree, Moody responded. SB 15 follows a 2023 state review of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which requires that the agency standardizes what documentation needs to be included in a license holders personnel file. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Around 26,000 peace officers currently have confidential files similar to what is being proposed, according to Jennifer Szimanski, the deputy executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. These include officers in some of the states largest cities that have opted into the state framework for police and firefighters civil service, such as Houston and San Antonio. The bill, if adopted, would extend the use of G-files to every law enforcement agency across the state. There are currently under 110,000 peace officers and jailers in Texas, according to TCOLE. In hearings leading up to the Monday debate, multiple law enforcement agencies testified to lawmakers that some departments already have confidential personnel files in place and this change would unify them under one standard. They also said disclosures of unsubstantiated complaints could be to defame officers. This is a prime example of why this legislation is needed. Too many stand ready to try an officer in the court of public opinion every opportunity they get. This negatively impacts the profession and law enforcements relationship with the communities they serve, said Szimanski. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On the other hand, critics like Kathy Mitchell, a criminal justice policy advocate with Equity Action, also raised concerns about how the bill would affect the disclosure of police records related to the Uvalde shooting. The Texas Department of Public Safety continues fighting a judges order to release hundreds of videos and investigative files of the botched response to the worst school shooting in Texas history. During the Senate floor hearing on Aug. 18, Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio also grilled the bills author, Republican state Sen. Phil King of Weatherford, about this issue. King said the bill would not have an impact on lawsuits. Gutierrez countered that the states Open Records Act should preclude the need for lawsuits in the first place. The bill cleared the Texas Senate a day later with a 18-12 vote. Attorney CJ Girsham also told lawmakers the bill would require the average Texan to hire an attorney and go to court to use the discovery process to get police files, an expensive and unnecessary step in the criminal justice system. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What we are doing is saying to the public, because there are some people out there who file frivolous lawsuits, you dont deserve to know what this officer is accused of before, he said. In addition, some critics said the bill could lead officers especially those in smaller agencies with fewer resources to shield themselves from conflicts of interest to disregard or downplay complaints. They also noted that the proposal does not explicitly require agencies to conduct an internal investigation of any kind before marking a claim as unsubstantiated. It creates an extremely perverse incentive for them to never find anything wrong, said Chris Harris of the Texas Civil Rights Project. Some Republican lawmakers have previously raised similar concerns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A chief thats befriended somebody that is a subordinate could continue to hide wrongful action, state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, said during this years first special legislative session. King, however, argued that SB 15 would create proper guardrails for these small agencies. There are probably law enforcement agencies out there that basically have no files other than the minimal amount that TCOLE might require them to keep, he said. I think that this puts a model policy in place that every law enforcement agency is going to have to follow, and everybody will know what all the rules are. More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 1315! This years lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN NewsNight; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. Note: The person was reported found at 3:35 p.m. on August 22. This article has been updated to protect privacy. TEXAS COUNTY, Mo. The Texas County Sheriffs Office is searching for a 71-year-old man who went missing on Thursday, August 21. According to a Texas County Sheriff social media post, a 71-year-old man has been reported missing after leaving a residence on Highway 31. Anyone with information is requested to call 911 or contact the Texas County Sheriffs Office at 417-967-4165. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement . Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. [Source] Texas House Democrats returned to the chamber floor on Tuesday, tearing up written agreements with Republican leaders in a dramatic escalation of their protest against President Donald Trumps redistricting push. State of play: After returning to Austin Monday following their two-week walkout, several Democratic lawmakers tore up their permission slips before entering the House chamber Tuesday night. The lawmakers joined Rep. Nicole Collier (D-Fort Worth), who had refused to sign the agreement requiring a Department of Public Safety (DPS) escort and remained on the House floor for over 24 hours, with Democrats livestreaming her protest for more than a day. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also called Collier Tuesday, encouraging her to keep going. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The lawmakers defiant actions come as Republicans prepare to advance congressional maps that could flip five House seats to GOP control ahead of 2026 midterms. Anti-Asian attacks: The two-week standoff has been accompanied by racist attacks targeting certain members, including caucus leader Gene Wu (D-Houston), a Chinese American, and Rep. Salman Bhojani (D-Euless), a Muslim American. Trending on NextShark: Texas Dems return to Capitol, tear up GOP agreements Amid the Democratic walkout, State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) asked on social media, Is Gene Wu back in China? and later suggested the CCP will take him back. Meanwhile, Tarrant County GOP chair Bo French called for Bhojanis deportation after he traveled to Pakistan for a family emergency, claiming he was trying to further jihad. Republican leaders largely stayed silent, contrasting with 2019 when Gov. Greg Abbott withdrew support from a legislator for anti-Asian remarks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The redistricting vote could proceed as early as Wednesday morning, with Democrats having exhausted their legislative options to block the GOP maps. Trending on NextShark: Hong Kong pro-democracy activists granted asylum in the UK, Australia This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what were building, consider becoming a paid member your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Subscribe here now! Trending on NextShark: Trump vows to 'save' Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai as trial nears end Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! In early July, flash floods along the Guadalupe River killed 138 people and caused an estimated $1.1 billion in damage, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in Texas history. But just a week later, Texas found itself whiplashed into another crisis altogether: a high-stakes battle over voting districts. As floodwaters receded and communities struggled to recover, President Donald Trump publicly demanded that Texas lawmakers redraw congressional maps to carve out five additional U.S. House seats for Republicans. The twin pressures of a devastating natural disaster and Trumps insistence prompted Governor Greg Abbott to convene a special legislative session. During the first special legislative session, which began on July 21, Abbott tasked lawmakers with addressing 18 agenda items, including four related to flood preparedness. Lawmakers responded by introducing a flurry of bills that would require stricter building codes for youth camps in floodplains, shore up emergency communications, and create new relief funds. But the session quickly devolved as the political fight over redistricting overshadowed urgent conversations about how to better protect Texans from future floods. Over the next week, as partisan battles over redistricting intensified and Democrats fled the state for two weeks to deny Republicans a quorum, those measures stalled. Eventually, the session ended on August 15 with the Democrats still out of state, the flood legislation stranded on the floor, and both parties accusing the other of holding disaster relief funds hostage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abbott called lawmakers back to Austin for a second special session. This time, Democrats returned, and lawmakers managed to pass a more narrowly tailored flood relief package through the Texas Senate. One bill proposes that the state direct $294 million to flood preparedness and recovery, including money to match FEMA aid; install outdoor warning sirens in vulnerable communities; expand river and rainfall forecasting tools; and build a swift-water training facility for first responders. Other bills require campgrounds in floodplains to develop evacuation plans and direct state agencies to determine which parts of Central Texas require flood warning sirens. Several others are in the early stages of consideration in the Texas House. But disaster recovery experts said that while these measures are an important step to assist Central Texas communities recovering from the July floods, they are too narrowly focused on the most recent disaster. For instance, instead of confronting tougher questions about whether summer camps should be built along rivers prone to flash flooding at all, the proposed Senate Bill 2 simply requires camps in floodplains to adopt evacuation plans, implement them when flash flood alerts are sent, and provide ladders for emergency rooftop access in cabins located within the flood zone. Theyre trying to stick a band-aid on the issue and say they did something, said Julia Orduna, the Southeast Texas regional director at Texas Housers, a nonprofit advocating for fair and affordable housing. We havent been able to dive into the [disaster recovery] conversation because of redistricting. The state is trying to say they did something to respond to the loss of life, especially because we lost so many children. Orduna said the legislature was being shortsighted in its approach by focusing on relief measures squarely tailored to the Independence Day floods. The narrower focus is likely a result of the time pressure to move bills forward and the fact that so much political capital is being expended in the redistricting fight. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At a press conference last week, Texans affected by the floods implored Abbott to release emergency relief funds. Kylie Nidever, a flood survivor from Hunt, an unincorporated town among the worst hit by the flash floods, called on Abbott to use his emergency budget authority. Today marks 43 days since the flood, she said. Forty-three days without emergency aid from the state. Because Abbott issued a disaster proclamation after the floods, he has the authority to redirect state funds to assist with debris removal, provide mental health resources for residents, and distribute other aid. He has used this authority in the past for Hurricane Harvey recovery and to fund border wall construction. We need to be able to decouple these emergency funds from the political theater and the power grab, which is now intertwined with redistricting, said state representative Armando Walle, a Democrat from Houston, at the press conference. Its a travesty were having to do this. Abbott, in turn, has blamed Texas Democrats for leaving the state and abscond[ing] from their responsibility. As the fight over redistricting continues to play out, relief measures hang in the balance, and flood victims have become pawns in the blame game. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We are not asking for handouts, said Nidever. Were asking for a government that works. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How Texas flood relief got caught in a high-stakes political battle on Aug 22, 2025. (The Center Square) The Texas House passed a relief package for Texas Hill Country victims but it was not without controversy. While House Democrats claimed their priority was flood relief in the first special session, they left the state for 17 days and missed voting on the flood relief package in the last session. More than 50 Democrats absconded to prevent a quorum from being reached, effectively blocking all legislation and killing the session. After a second special session was called, a quorum was met and the House passed the congressional redistricting bill Democrats had left Austin in protest over. Next, the Texas House passed a package of six bills to provide relief and implement a series of reforms in response to the July 4 Hill Country flood disaster. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The package includes HB 1, to require safety measures for youth camps; SB 2, to strengthen disaster preparedness and emergency management response across multiple agencies; HB 3, to create the Texas Interoperability Council to develop a statewide strategic plan and implement an integrated emergency communication infrastructure; SB 5, to allocate funding for disaster relief, early warning systems, enhanced weather predictability, and interoperability infrastructure; HB 20, to create protections related to charitable solicitations fraud; and HB 22, to allocate funding for local governments to implement early warning systems and interoperability improvements. After the package passed, House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the Texas legislature examined the systems and processes in need of improvement so we are better prepared for all future emergencies. State Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Waxahachie, voted against four of the six bills, saying government solutions can often be worse than the problems theyre intended to solve. He also opposed amendments added by Democrats. He voted for HB20 and HB5 and voted against the rest, often as the sole lone no vote. HB1 started out as a good bill that I intended to support. However, Democrats were allowed to amend the bill on the floor in a way that may harm or shut down countless camps where safety has not been an issue, nor is likely to be at risk from life threatening floods, Harrison said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He also said House Democrats who shut down the entire legislative process shouldnt have been allowed to make amendments. It is indefensible that after breaking quorum for weeks House leadership rewarded them today by allowing them to ruin what started out as a good, reasonable bill, he said. The bill passed by a vote of 135-1, according to the unofficial vote tally. Harrison was the lone no vote. Three bills, SB 2, HB 3 and HB 22 unnecessarily grow government, which Harrison opposes, causing him to vote against the bills. SB 2 creates new occupational licenses when Texas already has more occupation regulations than any other state," including every single Democrat state in the country, he said. The bill usurps voters by allowing their locally elected officials to be removed from office too easily, and creates new red tape that I believe will make it harder to find volunteers in future emergencies. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison and Republican Reps. Lowe, Money and Olcott. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement HB 3 creates an entirely new government entity with significant and unchecked authorities without necessary transparency and safeguards, and delegates too much new power to the Governor and executive branch bureaucrats, he says. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison. HB 22 expands an existing corporate welfare fund that has nothing to do with emergency response and should be abolished (not given more authority to spend tax dollars arbitrarily), he says. It also increases the likelihood of increased spending and taxes in future budgets to continue funding it. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison. The Texas Senate is expected to pass the bills, which Gov. Greg Abbott says he will sign into law. Gov. Greg Abbott has expanded the call of the Texas Legislatures ongoing second special session to include legislation authorizing over-the-counter (OTC) sales of Ivermectin, a move celebrated by several Republican lawmakers and medical freedom advocates. The governors directive added three new items to the session agenda: penalties for legislators who break quorum, a groundwater study in East Texas, and a bill allowing pharmacists to dispense Ivermectin without a prescription. Today, I expanded the Special Session call with legislation that will benefit Texans for generations: Impose penalties on absent legislators Expand access to Ivermectin Protect East Texas groundwater We will not allow the Texas Legislature to be hijacked by rogue pic.twitter.com/qUfMiYtUzJ Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 21, 2025 I am thankful it is on the call, Rep. Wes Virdell (R-Junction) told The Dallas Express. I appreciate Rep. Shofner filing it in the special. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Virdell had already introduced a similar measure during the regular session earlier this year, House Bill 3175, which sought to give pharmacists the authority, though not the requirement, to sell Ivermectin without a doctors prescription, DX previously reported. At the time, he said the bill was meant to strengthen personal medical freedom and make it easier for Texans to access the decades-old anti-parasitic drug. Shofner had authored a similar bill, which Virdell supported, though neither cleared all of the requisite legislative hurdles before the end of the regular session. Political Momentum Builds Rep. Shelley Luther (R-Sherman) hailed Abbotts expanded call on social media. Skirttttt. New call on the Texas House.. Time to punish the quorum- breakers, and add Ivermectin to the store shelves! @joannefortexans. Thank you, @GregAbbott_TX pic.twitter.com/Zky0Zj6h6O Shelley Luther (@ShelleyLuther) August 21, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Texans for Vaccine Choice, a medical freedom advocacy group, likewise praised the move: WE DID IT!! Governor Abbott has placed a new call on the Texas Legislature to pass legislation to allow pharmacists to dispense Ivermectin without a prescription! Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a Houston-based physician who sued the FDA over its anti-Ivermectin messaging during the pandemic, celebrated the announcement, calling it great news and noting she has spent more than $250,000 defending her license for prescribing the drug. Great news! Texas is one step closer to making the medication Ive spent $250K+ defending my license over over the counter! https://t.co/FAmEQyCw3D Mary Talley Bowden MD (@MdBreathe) August 21, 2025 Safety data of Ivermectin doesnt recognize state borders, Bowden added. While Im thrilled Texas will soon become the 5th state in the country to make it OTC, the @US_FDA should put science over politics and make it OTC for all Americans. A Divisive Drug Ivermectin, co-discovered by Nobel laureate Satoshi Omura, has been widely prescribed for decades to treat parasitic infections in humans and animals. Proponents point to its long track record of safety and cite numerous studies suggesting it may reduce COVID-19 fatalities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not authorized or approved Ivermectin for COVID-19 treatment. The agency cautions that high doses can be dangerous, with potential side effects including seizures and coma, and stresses that veterinary formulations should never be taken by people. The FDA has determined that currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that Ivermectin is effective against COVID-19 in humans, the agency website states. Still, it acknowledges that licensed doctors may legally prescribe the drug off-label when deemed appropriate. What Comes Next If passed, the legislation would make Texas the latest state to allow OTC sales of Ivermectin for human use, joining a small but growing group of states pursuing similar measures. Should the Texas legislature pass the bill, the Lone Star State will join Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana as the fifth state to allow OTC Ivermectin. Supporters say it is a win for patient choice and medical freedom, while critics warn that state lawmakers are circumventing federal safety and efficacy standards. With the bill now formally on the special session agenda, lawmakers will debate whether to align Texas with those states and whether a drug that became a flashpoint during the pandemic should be available without a prescription. The alleged stabbing of a Colorado Parks and Wildlife ranger that shook Jefferson County residents on Tuesday was found to be a hoax, according to police. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office arrested 26-year-old Callum Heskett a Colorado Parks and Wildlife seasonal ranger at Staunton State Park on Thursday after he allegedly faked being stabbed by a stranger at the park Tuesday morning, according to a news release from the sheriffs office. Heskett allegedly radioed for help at the park near the Lazy V Trailhead around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. He claimed he had been stabbed and the suspect fled the scene on foot. Jeffcom 911 issued a Lookout Alert to 8,600 residents in the immediate area, warning of the potential danger, and several schools and nearby residents were asked to remain locked down for safety, according to the sheriffs office. A search for the suspect went on for several hours, according to police. The Jefferson County SWAT and drone teams also assisted in the search, ultimately bringing in two suspects who were detained, interviewed and released. Featured Local Savings Heskett was airlifted out of the park with actual stab wounds. As the investigation progressed, inconsistencies in Hesketts statements emerged. That, along with other conflicting and questionable evidence, further raised concerns about the validity of his allegations. After investigators conducted their first interview with Heskett, it became even more clear that his story was flawed and erroneous, the sheriffs office said. While Heskett remains in the hospital, he was officially arrested today on suspicion of attempt to influence a public servant and tampering with evidence, both felonies. He also faces misdemeanor charges of false reporting to authorities, reckless endangerment, obstructing government operations and second-degree official misconduct. His bond is set at $10,000 and he will be transported to the Jefferson County Jail after being released from the hospital. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office remains committed to ensuring public safety and holding individuals accountable when false reports create unnecessary risks for the community and first responders, the sheriffs office said. AUSTIN (KXAN) The push to save lives following the deadly flooding in Central Texas was a priority for Texas Lawmakers on Thursday. Both the Texas House and Senate discussed and ultimately passed bills that would implement new safety standards for youth camps. One of these bills was House Bill 1, authored by Texas Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, which outlined new safety guidelines for youth camps. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Senate passed SB 1, which also tackled safety requirements in youth camps. It would prevent to licensing certain camps in floodplains, unless the cabins were in a floodplain were connected to a lake, pond or other still body of water. It would also require specific evacuation plans for those cabins. The Senate adjourned following the passing of that bill and will reconvene Friday morning. Members. This is bill is for heaven 27, said Darby on the House Chamber Floor. The camp failed these girls. The county failed them. The river authority failed them. And in a larger sense, their government failed them. HB 1 included creating a detailed emergency plan covering natural disasters, fires, water emergencies and more. The bill did some concerns from Texas Rep. Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, who felt like the language using floodplains needs to be changed to floodways. Theres a difference in the risk profile between a camp located in a floodway than a camp located in a floodplain, Vasut said. About 20% of State of Texas is in Floodplain, including most of the coast, and there are many camps in the coast, none of which would be able to operate anymore, if we prohibited cabins in the floodplain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to FEMA, a floodplain is any area that can be covered by floodwaters from any source. A floodway is a specific part of the floodplaintypically the river channel and adjacent landthat must remain unobstructed to allow floodwaters to flow freely without raising upstream water levels. The language did not change, and House Bill 1 passed with a majority. On Thursday evening, the Senate gaveled in to discuss other youth camp safety legislation. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick gave an emotion message to the families who had children who died in the flooding at Camp Mystic. I can tell you that on a bipartisan basis, the members of this floor and this Senate are here to take action so that this never happens again, Patrick said. Our words will never be enough, but our commitment to the 27 families we hope will be the best we can do in these difficult times to help you move down a path thats forward. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 21A Texas man was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday for dumping laboratory grade chemicals in residential back alleys, behind strip malls and outside a public park in Albuquerque and the South Valley. Daniel Winard, 52, was sentenced in U.S. District Court of New Mexico for knowing endangerment in the storage and disposal of hazardous chemicals without a permit. Winard dumped chemicals including cyanide, yellow phosphorus, calcium carbide and thionyl chloride, some of which can harm both humans and the environment, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Mexico. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the release, Winard said after dumping the chemicals that "some dumb (expletive) fireman" might find the hazardous waste and "get the surprise of his life." Some of the chemicals can react "violently" to water and release poisonous gas, the release said. No one was injured by the chemicals, according to the release. The city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County spent more than $198,600 to clean up the dumped chemicals, the release detailed. The chemicals originally belonged to a chemist who worked for a local energy company, the release detailed. A photo of the property shows 16 large blue barrels marked with yellow hazard signs, surrounded by dozens of amber glasses. Winard inherited that property, and its scores of chemicals, according to the release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When Winard contacted local government officials about how to dispose of the chemicals, he learned it was costly and instead elected to dump them in nine different locations around Albuquerque and the South Valley in the summer of 2018. Winard took a plea deal in April, admitting fault to one count and shedding additional charges. He was also ordered to pay $9,527 in restitution. "There is no excuse for putting lives, property, and the environment at risk by dumping hazardous chemicals," Ryan Ellison, U.S. attorney for New Mexico, said in a statement Thursday. "We will not tolerate reckless disregard for our communities' safety. Those who endanger others for their own convenience can expect to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Shelley Hall, like any excited expecting parent, already had a name picked out for her daughter and had her sonograms posted on her fridge. But at Halls 10-week prenatal appointment last month, there wasnt a heartbeat. As she coped with the most devastating news of my life she had to move quickly to remove leftover tissue in her cervix to prevent an infection and the first step, her doctor said, was taking abortion pills. Thats when Hall said an already heartbreaking situation turned into an even bigger nightmare, because she had to prove to her pharmacy that she needed the pills for a miscarriage, not an abortion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On one of the hardest days of my life, it was on me to convince strangers that yes, my baby was gone, Hall said, who hopes to become a mother someday soon. Hall, with grief heavy in her voice, told her story at the Capitol on Friday to a Texas House committee considering a bill that opponents fear would place even more restrictions on Texans access to abortion medications that could be life-saving. House Bill 7 would allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or provides abortion medication to or from Texas. Successful plaintiffs would be awarded at least $100,000 in damages. Women taking abortion pills would not be sued under the bill, which also does not apply to people taking them after miscarriages. The Senate is expected to approve its version of the bill, Senate Bill 7, in the coming days. Similar legislation also sailed through the upper chamber during this years regular legislative session, but died on the House floor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement HB 7s author Jeff Leach, R-Allen, said his proposal only adds teeth to the states law passed in 2021 that already bans most abortions. We are not changing the fundamental abortion laws of the state, Leach said during Fridays hearing, but instead his bill aims to crack down on abortion pills being sent to Texas from outside the state. Leachs bill removes any action from the Texas attorney general on behalf of a fetus, which is in SB 7. But it does send all appeals of civil lawsuits through conservative-leaning Fifteenth Court of Appeals, which has exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving the state or state agencies and challenges to state laws. The crowd of speakers in the committee room on Friday were sharply divided over the issue. Backers of the legislation say the proposal works to protect women. Susan Chapel with a pregnancy clinic in Harris and Montgomery counties said clients are coming in with concerns about abortion pills theyve gotten through the mail with no instructions, no labels and no contact information. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Opponents of the bill, however, worry that the legislation would make it difficult for people who arent seeking elective abortions to access sometimes life-saving medications, making it difficult for medical professionals to treat them. Leach said the bill isnt intended to change Texas law that already bans most abortions or to harm women who are at risk of dying from a pregnancy. It only works to give way for people to sue companies and people who give or mail abortion medications to Texans choosing an elective abortion. There have been estimates that as many as 19,000 orders for abortion pills from Texans were placed after the initial abortion ban was enacted. After Texas banned abortion, many turned to online pharmacies and out-of-state providers to obtain medication to terminate their pregnancies despite the bans. HB 7 is the strongest proposed tool to stop this crisis, said Ashley Leenerts, the legislative director for Texas Right to Life. It provides a new avenue to undermine anti-state laws and empowers women who are tragically targets of the abortion industry to hold traffickers accountable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Several representatives of the Texas Medical Association on Friday pleaded to lawmakers to vote down the bill. This bill as filed runs the risk of having a chilling effect on our physician's ability to make the best health care decisions for patients, Dr. Zeke Silva, the chair of the associations council on legislation. Dr. Deborah Fuller, an OB-GYN in Dallas who also spoke on behalf of the Texas Medical Association pointed to the nations rising maternal mortality rates as a reason lawmakers should be discussing ways to expand maternal-related health care rather than restrict it. The rates of pregnancy-related sepsis and deaths in Texas grew by 50% after the state banned abortion in 2021, according to an investigation by ProPublica. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Senates version of the bill unanimously passed its state affairs committee last week, within hours of the start of this years second special legislative session. Some of the bills sharpest critics, who refer to the measure as the snitches get riches bill, say Republicans consecutive attempts to target abortion pills this year does nothing more than continue an attack on reproductive health access for Texans who are already having to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion. Its yet another way for abortion bans to allow the state to control peoples reproductive lives, said Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, a nonprofit abortion fund that pays for out-of-state reproductive care for Texans. It makes people more fearful to reach out for abortion care. Disclosure: The Texas Medical Association 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. More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 1315! This years lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN NewsNight; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. (This Aug 23 story was refiled without any changes to text.) By Brad Brooks (Reuters) -The Texas Senate approved a bill early on Saturday to redraw the state's congressional maps at the behest of President Donald Trump in an effort to flip five U.S. House seats held by Democrats to Republicans. The approval comes after the state House passed it on Wednesday. The measure goes to Governor Greg Abbott - like Trump, a Republican - to be signed into law amid a nationwide redistricting battle. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The One Big Beautiful Map has passed the Senate and is on its way to my desk, where it will be swiftly signed into law," Governor Abbott said in a statement. State Senator Carol Alvarado, a Democrat, said on social media on Friday that she planned to delay the measure by speaking continuously about it in the legislature, a move known as a filibuster. In 2021, Alvarado delayed passage of Texas' district map by speaking for 15 hours straight. But a rare procedural motion by Senate Republicans just after midnight ended the debate and killed the filibuster, moving the chamber straight to the final vote, the Texas Tribune reported. The Senate adopted the bill on a party-line vote, 18 to 11, after more than eight hours of debate, the report said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans have acknowledged they believe winning more congressional seats in Texas will help the party maintain its slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year's midterm elections, despite polls showing headwinds for the party. More states controlled by Republicans are considering similar action. California and other states where Democrats hold power vow to counter such moves. The California legislature approved a redistricting plan on Thursday aimed at giving Democrats five more congressional seats. The California plan must be approved by voters in November. The Texas plan does not need voter approval, but Democrats have indicated they will challenge it in court. The Texas bill was delayed for two weeks after more than 50 Democratic state House members staged a walkout that denied Republicans the legislative quorum needed. They have returned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement During debate on Friday, some lawmakers echoed criticism that Democrats raised in the House, that the new Texas map violates federal law by diluting Hispanic and Black voting power and discriminating on the basis of race. Senator Royce West, a Democrat, predicted the new map would reduce the number of African Americans representing Texas in Washington from four to two. "I call that retrogression," West said. Texas Senator Phil King, a Republican who sponsored the bill, said repeatedly he had not considered race and that lawyers had assured him the bill meets all legal requirements. "From my perspective, why would I use racial data?" he told his fellow senators. "Voting history is just much more accurate and is well established as a legal way to draw maps." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most Americans believe redrawing congressional lines for the sake of maximizing political gain, known as gerrymandering, is bad for democracy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found this week. (Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado and Mrinmay Dey; additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Donna Bryson, Cynthia Osterman, William Mallard and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) The Texas Senate early Saturday morning approved a new congressional map gerrymandered to maximize Republican representation, sending the plan to the governors desk after weeks of intense partisan clashing. Republican lawmakers pushed the plan through over fierce Democratic opposition, launching a national redistricting war from Albany to Sacramento while positioning the GOP to net up to five additional seats in Texas. [Texas redistricting map: How the GOP could increase its stronghold] Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Senate adopted the new lines on a party-line vote, 18 to 11, just after 12:30 a.m. Saturday following more than eight hours of at times tense debate. Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, had planned to filibuster the map well into Saturday as a last stand against the effort, but a rare procedural motion by Senate Republicans just after midnight ended the debate and killed the filibuster, moving the chamber straight on to the final vote. Some observers in the gallery were removed for shouting shame, and fascist, shortly after the vote. The map, demanded by President Donald Trump to fortify the GOPs U.S. House majority in next years midterm election, hands up to five additional U.S. House seats to Republicans by dismantling Democratic bastions around Austin, Dallas and Houston, and by making two Democrat-held seats in South Texas redder. The new lines also keep all 25 seats already held by Republicans safely red. The plan meets the critically important goals of legality, of political performance for Republicans and of improved compactness, said Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford and House Bill 4s sponsor, while repeatedly insisting under questioning from Democrats that he did not consider racial population data in his role shepherding the map through the upper chamber. Still, the map drew a legal challenge Saturday, hours after the vote. Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee, defends HB 4 during debate on the mid-decade redistricting bill in the Texas Senate on Aug. 22, 2025. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune The pickups are meant to help the GOP hold onto its razor-thin congressional majority in a midterm election year that is expected to favor Democrats potentially making the difference between a continued Republican trifecta in Washington, or a divided government with one chamber intent on investigating Trump and bottlenecking his agenda. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That has put Texas lawmakers at the front lines of an issue with national stakes. Republicans earned kudos from Trump for pushing the new boundaries through the state House, while Democrats won support from national party figures, including former President Barack Obama, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. In his closing statement, King made clear that the case for the map rested purely on maintaining Republican control of the federal government and that if Texas did not push the gerrymander through, the GOP would likely lose control of the U.S. House in next years midterm election. The amazing progress thats been made in just eight months all of this will end if the Republicans lose the Congress, King said after citing a list of policy achievements he attributed to a Republican trifecta. Im convinced that if Texas does not take this action, there is an extreme risk that that Republican majority will be lost. If it does, the next two years after the midterm, there will be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and humiliation for our country. Though congressional lines are typically redrawn once every 10 years following the decennial census, Republicans justified the aggressive and unusual move to do so in the middle of the decade by saying it was legal to craft new boundaries at any point and for purely partisan gain. They also pointed to the partys margins of victory in 2024 and the need to counter blue-state gerrymandering to further support their push. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that states can draw electoral maps on partisan grounds. But under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the lines cannot diminish peoples voting power based on race. Democrats argued that the new map increased Republicans advantage by unconstitutionally suppressing the vote of Black and Latino Texans. They framed the push as a power grab by Trump meant to stack the deck in next years election. Today, the majority will prevail, but the rights of minorities were ignored, outnumbered, outvoted and outgunned, said Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo and dean of the Senate. Democrats will go down fighting, having used every available legislative tool. My prayer is that the pendulum will swing sooner rather than later, and that when it does, Democrats will respect all minorities, including political. Texas approval of the map has set off a tit-for-tat redistricting push in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a map voters would have to approve that could yield five new Democratic-leaning seats, effectively offsetting GOP gains in Texas. Other blue-state governors and national Democratic leaders are backing retaliatory gerrymandering as the Trump administration also pushes GOP-controlled Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio to draw more red seats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alvarado, with assistance from other Senate Democrats, had planned to filibuster the map Friday, donning sneakers and receiving a catheter in preparation. Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, had compiled over 12 hours of testimony from constituents on the map to read from during the marathon speech. But after a three-hour dinner break called by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and objected to by Democrats, Republicans returned late Friday night with a procedural motion up their sleeves. Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, moved to cut off debate early. He cited a campaign email Alvarado sent out promoting the filibuster Friday afternoon, calling it potentially unlawful, and at least unethical, for ostensibly using state resources, such as staff and Capitol facilities, for fundraising purposes. Its disrespectful. It violates the decorum of the Senate, and personally, Im offended by it, Perry said. All Republicans signed onto the motion. Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, stands with her staff and Sen. Molly Cook, at right, on the Senate floor, moments before the final vote on House Bill 4 on Aug. 23, 2025. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune Democrats condemned the explanation as an excuse to kill the filibuster and move the vote along, noting that senators routinely drew from their legislative work in their fundraising campaigns and that lawmakers were not under a fundraising moratorium as they are during the regular session. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When they do it, it seems to be fair game, and when other people do it, then its a gotcha, Alvarado said after the vote. It was a mechanism to shut down the discussion, the debate on this issue. The filibuster would have delayed the maps passage, but almost certainly would not have blocked it. Alvarado would have to had to sustain the filibuster for three weeks straight to run out the clock on the Legislatures special session. The new Texas map cleared its biggest hurdle Wednesday when, after more than eight hours of tense debate, the state House adopted the plan along party lines. Lacking the votes to stop the map in the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature, more than 50 House Democrats staged a two-week walkout earlier this month, grinding the lower chamber to a halt by denying the quorum needed to conduct business. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans unleashed an unprecedented response to drag them back to Texas, issuing civil arrest warrants, asking a court to extradite them from Illinois, seeking to declare over a dozen Democrats seats vacant and clamoring for legislative punishments upon their return. After most Democratic lawmakers returned to Austin Monday, Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows, seeking to maintain a quorum, required each of them to agree to a police escort to leave the Capitol building. Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, refused and was confined to the Capitol for the next 54 hours, prompting a national media frenzy. Democrats portrayed the walkout as a victory for sparking a national movement in support of retaliatory redistricting, and as just the first part of a longer fight against the map. In the House on Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers pressed their Republican colleagues on the plans impact on voters of color, working to establish a record they could use in a legal challenge seeking to kill the lines before next years election. This fight is far from over, Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said after the maps passage in the lower chamber. Our best shot is in the courts. This part of the fight is over, but it is merely the first chapter. More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 1315! This years lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN NewsNight; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. (The Center Square) After the Texas House passed a relief package on Thursday, including a camp safety bill, the Texas Senate quickly and unanimously voted on the camp safety bill Thursday night. Gov. Greg Abbott applauded both chambers saying he will sign it into law. The first bill the legislature passed in the second special session prioritizes camp safety regulations in response to the devastating July 4 flash flood event that killed 27 girl campers and counselors at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas. Their parents testified before the Texas Senate for the first time on Wednesday in support of the bill. They also said their daughters deaths were 100% preventable, arguing the camp didnt have safety protocols in place, The Center Square reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Overall, at least 137 people were killed from the flash flood in several counties. The majority were killed in Kerr County, 108, including 37 children. The remains of two confirmed missing have yet to be found. After House business was halted during the first special session by absconding House Democrats, all House Democrats voted for the bill on Thursday. It nearly passed unanimously. One Republican holdout voted against it, expressing opposition to amendments added by Democrats and other language, The Center Square reported. After the bill passed, Speaker Dustin Burrows said, This summers tragic flooding has left profound impact on our state taking the lives of innocent adults and children, devastating families and entire communities, and breaking the hearts of every Texan. From this tragedy, the Texas Legislature stepped up to examine the systems and processes in need of improvement so we are better prepared for all future emergencies. He thanked the lawmakers for coming together to help ensure we are stronger in the face of disasters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Not soon after, the Senate voted on the bill. A Senate committee passed its version of it on Wednesday, Senate Bill 1, the Heavens 27 Camp Safety Act, filed by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock. Every child who attends summer camp should come home with nothing more than memories of laughter, friendship, and adventure. This July, Texas was shaken by the catastrophic flooding at Camp Mystic, where 27 young lives were lost. Today, the Texas Senate has taken an important step to ensure that no parent in our state ever has to endure that kind of heartbreak again, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. We cannot legislate away every danger in life, but we can insist on vigilance, preparedness, and accountability where children are entrusted to the care of others. This bill gives parents peace of mind and sets clear expectations for camp operators because the safety of Texas children must always come first, he added. He also thanked the families who turned their grief into action, joining us in the fight to make sure that the lessons learned from Camp Mystic lead to lasting change. Their courage and strength honor the memory of the children we lost. From the beginning, we listened closely to the families of the victims. They gave us a list of priorities that mattered most to them, and SB 1 honors their voices by including every single one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SB 1 requires youth camps and campgrounds to maintain real-time weather alert systems, train staff on evacuation routes, and develop emergency preparedness plans. It also requires camps to provide transparency to families about potential risks, ensure every staff member is trained in emergency procedures, and prohibit cabins, used as sleeping quarters, from being located in river floodplains. It also requires camps to have the ability to notify and communicate with campers and staff during an emergency, and mandates emergency plans be shared with local emergency management coordinators. Abbott praised the legislature for passing the bill and said he will sign it into law. He said he and his wife continue to pray for the families who lost loved ones during the catastrophic Fourth of July floods. Last week, we sat with these families, heard their heartbreak, and saw the unimaginable pain of parents who sent their children to camp but never got to bring them home. No parent should ever endure that kind of loss. These families asked for critical camp safety legislation, and the bills passed this week by the House and Senate will ensure that no parent has to fear sending their child to a camp in Texas. Federal officials in Texas say they seized nearly 100 pounds of marijuana, intercepted a pill-filled internal carrier, and arrested multiple convicted child predators in recent days. Here are this weeks most notable immigration-related enforcement actions: 1. Kush Crush: Border Patrol Nabs Over Half-A-Million In Weed Jason E. Schneider, acting chief patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector, posted on August 20 that U.S. Border Patrol agents, with Department of Defense support, seized 99+ lbs of marijuana via drone ops and arrested three Mexican juveniles accused of attempting to smuggle the drugs across the border. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The border is closedand were keeping it that way, Schneider wrote on X. Border Secured with DoD Support RGV Border Patrol, with DoD tech, K9s & ATVs, seized 99+ lbs of marijuana via drone ops. 3 Mexican juveniles arrested in failed smuggling attempt. The border is closedand were keeping it that way. #RGV #USBP #K9 #ATV #BorderSecurity pic.twitter.com/i4HpZ2Alxt Jason E. Schneider, (Acting) Chief Patrol Agent (@USBPChiefRGV) August 20, 2025 According to Statista, the average price of marijuana in Texas is $322 per ounce. With 16 ounces in a pound, one pound of marijuana in Texas would be valued at about $5,152. At 99 pounds, the seized shipment could have been worth roughly $510,048 if sold at the average street value. 2. Progreso Pill Pusher Pinched With 1,017 Pills In Privates Donald R. Kusser, director of field operations in Laredo, said in an August 14 post that Customs and Border Protection officers seized 1,017 Xanax pills hidden inside a body carrier during a secondary inspection at Progreso. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You found what where? Kusser wrote, adding that the Texas Department of Public Safety accepted prosecution in the case. You found what where? Progreso @CBP officers seized 1,017 Xanax pills from an internal carrier during secondary inspection. @TxDPS accepted prosecution, keeping dangerous drugs off our streets. pic.twitter.com/srEJFhwiQe Director of Field Operations, Donald R. Kusser (@DFOLaredo) August 14, 2025 CBP released photographs of the seizure, including images of the pills cut from packaging, a round bundle extracted from inside the suspect, and the alleged smuggler, a Hispanic woman in her 20s or 30s with a neck tattoo, whose face was lightly blurred. In Border Patrol parlance, an internal carrier refers to an individual who conceals contraband within their body in an attempt to pass through inspection undetected. 3. Pervert Purge: ICE Bags Child Predator in Houston ICE Houston posted on X August 18 that officers arrested 56-year-old Erasto Cruz, a Mexican national described by the agency as a criminal alien and convicted child predator. Cruz was convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 2015, according to the post. ICE @EROHouston arrested Erasto Cruz, a 56-year-old criminal alien and convicted child predator from Mexico, Aug. 18. Cruz was convicted of sexual assaulting a child in 2015. pic.twitter.com/JVqrM4FyIr ICE Houston (@EROHouston) August 18, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The arrest comes days after ICE issued a press release highlighting what it called a nationwide crackdown on the worst of the worst, including convicted child abusers and sexual predators. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is arresting pedophiles, abusers, and sexual predators, said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens who have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the United States. Among the examples ICE cited in its release were: Juan Ortiz-Mora, a Mexican national convicted of indecency with a child in Tarrant County, Texas. Ronald Echeverria-Tumbaco, an Ecuadorian convicted of aggravated indecent assault on a minor in Pennsylvania. Leidy Linares-Rapalo, a Honduran convicted of two counts of child abuse in Nebraska. Jheremy Julian Morales-Juarez, a Mexican convicted of possessing obscene material depicting minors in California. Juan Espino-Escamilla, a Mexican convicted of sexual assault in Nevada. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ICE officials said these operations demonstrate their intent to target illegal aliens convicted of heinous crimes against children and sex crimes. Texas Takedown Weekly is a recurring series from The Dallas Express chronicling the most significant immigration-related arrests and interdictions across the state. To read last weeks edition, click here: Texas Takedown Weekly: Gang Leader Removal, Cocaine Trucks, And Child Predator Arrests (August 15) A Bangkok court has acquitted controversial billionaire and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was accused of insulting the monarchy. The charge related to an interview he gave to a South Korean newspaper ten years ago. He would have faced up to 15 years in jail if convicted. Thailand's lese majeste law forbids insulting its monarchy. But critics say it is often used to target activists and political opponents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The verdict came as Thaksin's daughter, suspended PM Paetongtarn , faces a Constitutional Court decision on whether or not she should be removed from office. These cases pose a threat to the Shinawatra clan, which has been a dominant force in Thai politics for decades. Friday's verdict has brought some relief to the family and their supporters. Winyat Charmontree, a lawyer acting for Thaksin, told reporters that after the verdict was read out in court, his client had smiled and thanked his lawyers. He had also said he was now able to work for the country's benefit. The charge against Thaksin was originally filed under the then-military government in 2016, when he was in exile, and re-activated last year after his return to Thailand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At first glance the case against him seemed weak. In the South Korean newspaper interview, the former prime minister said he believed the 2014 military coup which deposed the elected government of his sister Yingluck - just as he had been deposed by a previous coup in 2006 - had been instigated by "some people in the palace" and members of the privy council, the 19-member body which advises the Thai king. Technically the privy council is not covered by the lese majeste law, which states that it is an offence to defame only the king, queen, heir to the throne or anyone acting as regent. However, in recent years the law has been invoked to criminalise any action or statement which might reflect negatively on the monarchy as an institution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the past people have been prosecuted for making unfavourable comments about the late King Bhumibol's dog and about a Thai king from the 16th Century. More recently, a young woman was sentenced to five years in prison for placing a banner criticising the budget to help those affected by Covid close to a portrait of King Vajiralongkorn. The interpretation of the law has become so broad that human rights groups view it as a political tool, which can be used to intimidate and silence those who challenge the status quo. Many believed this was what was happening to Thaksin. However, the judges chose to interpret the wording of the law literally, and said that as the defendant had not named names, he should be acquitted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This verdict comes exactly two years after the former prime minister's dramatic return from 15 years of exile. At the time it was assumed there had been a grand bargain struck between Thaksin and his long-time conservative adversaries, so that his party Pheu Thai, which in the 2023 election had been relegated to second place from its usual number one spot, could form a coalition government and keep the young reformists who had actually won the election out of power. The terms of that bargain have never been made public Thaksin has always insisted there was no deal - but it is likely they included an agreement that he would keep a low profile and stay out of politics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But a low profile is something completely alien to the flamboyant, wealthy and ambitious tycoon. He is still believed to be the largest funder of Pheu Thai and makes all of the main decisions for the party. When his first choice of prime minister, businessman Srettha Thavisin, was disqualified by the persistently interventionist Constitutional Court a year ago, Thaksin's inexperienced daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra took the helm, becoming Thailand's youngest ever prime minister. Thaksin's daughter, Paetongtarn, may be removed from office over her handling of a border conflict with Cambodia [Getty Images] A self-described "daddy's girl", she said she would happily take his advice. As she took office Mr Thaksin announced his "Vision for Thailand", including a controversial proposal to legalise casinos; much of that subsequently became official policy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The parliamentary opposition has accused the Shinawatra family of running a "dual leadership". Thaksin's business ties to the Cambodian strongman Hun Sen also raised concerns over how firmly his government would defend Thailand over the border dispute between the two countries. This came to a head in the private phone conversation leaked by Hun Sen in which Paetongtarn was heard referring to him as "uncle", and criticising her own army commander on the border, for which she has now been suspended by the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether she is dismissed in a week's time. Losing another prime minister after just a year, at a time of great global uncertainty, might be judged as too risky. It is not clear who would replace Paetongtarn. Thaksin faces another court case next month, over his transfer to a hospital to serve a previous jail sentence. The price for him being allowed to stay out of jail may be that his party has to call an early election, at a time when its poor performance in government could result in it losing many of its seats in parliament. Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was cleared Friday of royal defamation charges, relieving one of the threats to his embattled dynasty, which has dominated Thai politics for two decades. Thaksin's family has long jousted with the nation's pro-military, pro-monarchy elite, who view their populist movement as a threat to Thailand's traditional social order. Their tenure as a defining force in Thai politics has unfolded in a saga of coups, street protests and court cases as they have grappled for the kingdom's levers of power. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 76-year-old Thaksin had faced up to 15 years in prison under laws criminalising criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his family, but was cleared after a trial that unfolded over two months. "The court dismissed the charges against Thaksin, ruling that the evidence presented was insufficient," his lawyer Winyat Chatmontree told reporters at Thailand's Criminal Court in Bangkok. But his dynasty remains on the ropes, with his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra currently suspended as prime minister and facing her own reckoning next week with a court decision due that could see her thrown out of office. Thaksin left court ahead of his lawyer, smiling and telling the press his case had been "dismissed" without providing any further comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The court has done its job properly, but I don't think we can relax yet," said 66-year-old food vendor Kamol Orahanta, among around 150 Thaksin supporters gathered outside the court. "I believe there are still some haters who will try to topple him by other means," he told AFP. The case stemmed from decade-old remarks Thaksin made in South Korean media relating to the 2014 military coup that overthrew his sister Yingluck. Even though he has been cleared, AFP is not able to report on the comments in detail because the lese-majeste law is so strict that doing so could in itself trigger criminal charges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - Years of tussle - Thaksin's acquittal gives him room to manoeuvre as Shinawatra heiress Paetongtarn's position hangs in the balance, with a result in her case due next Friday. "I still believe that Thaksin Shinawatra will remain active in Thai politics, even if his daughter is removed," political analyst Yuttaporn Issarachai told AFP. "Whoever becomes prime minister, the real player behind the scenes is always going to be Thaksin." Twice elected prime minister in the early 2000s, Thaksin fled Thailand and lived in self-imposed exile for 15 years after he was ousted in a military coup, finally returning to the kingdom in August 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He landed in Bangkok on the same day his family's Pheu Thai party took office at the head of a coalition government backed by their conservative former enemies, fuelling suspicions a backroom deal had been struck. On arrival, Thaksin was immediately sentenced to eight years in prison on graft and abuse of power charges dating back to his time in office. But instead of going to jail, he was whisked to a private room at a police hospital because of health problems. Days later, the king cut his sentence to one year, and in February 2024, he was freed as part of an early release scheme for elderly prisoners. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement His handling has led to another legal case, set to conclude on September 9, arguing that because he never served time in a jail cell, he was not eligible for early release. Prosecutions for lese-majeste, known as 112 in Thailand for its section in the criminal code, have increased sharply since anti-government protests in 2020, some of which openly criticised the monarchy. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a group providing legal services in many of the cases, says that more than 280 people have been prosecuted under section 112 in the last five years. The law says anyone who "defames, insults or threatens" the king, queen, heir or regent can face up to 15 years in prison. Rights groups and critics say the law is now interpreted so broadly as to stifle dissent and legitimate debate. tak/jts/cwl Fridays Top Stories Friday Five Facts [1] VIDEO: Thieves crash car into Albuquerque cannabis store An Albuquerque business is undergoing repairs after thieves crashed their car into it. Surveillance vidoe shows the driver repeatedly backing their car into the front entrance of Dark Matter Cannabis on Juan Tabo and Indian School around 3 a.m. on Thursday. Mathew Chadwick, owner of Dark Matter Cannabis, said the thieves took cannabis and paraphenilia products but not cash. [2] Police investigate road rage incident involving Albuquerque school bus An Albuquerque mother is expressing her concern after her daughter was on a school bus that got into a road rage incident with a semi-truck. The mother said the semi hit the mirror on the school bus when there were children inside. The bus belongs to Rio Grande Academy for the Fine Arts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement [3] Hot temperatures expected before storms return across New Mexico Most-humid conditions are still present in Southern to Eastern New Mexico as rain has mostly ceased except for a very few lingering showers with rumbles of thunder in the high elevations to western areas. East-gap winds are mostly calming after yesterdays stormier activity. [4] Bernalillo Co. to remove property tax payment drop boxes in Sept. Bernalillo County residents will no longer be able to drop their property tax payments off at a drop box. The county will remove its five turquoise boxes. The Treasures Office said modern payment methods make the boxes obsolte and they have other objects inside. [5] On Thursday, Durango Police responded to a bear who broke into a home. Eventually the bear made its way outside with everyone unharmed. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. By Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Erik Menendez, who along with his brother Lyle has served 35 years of a life prison term for fatally shooting their parents as they watched television in their Beverly Hills, California, home in 1989, was denied parole on Thursday. The decision by California parole commissioners was announced after a 10-hour hearing in which Erik Menendez, appearing via video from a San Diego prison, argued that he had been rehabilitated and that setting him free would help heal his family. Several relatives argued in favor of his release. Members of the California Board of Parole Hearings, however, found that Erik Menendez still posed "an unreasonable risk to public safety," Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said, according to a media pool report. The seriousness of the crime was "not a primary reason for this denial," Barton said. "Its still your behavior in prison." Barton pointed to violations of prison rules including drug smuggling, cell phone use and episodes of violence in 1997 and 2011. "Contrary to your supporters' beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner and frankly we find that a little disturbing, Barton said. The board will consider whether to recommend parole for Lyle Menendez on Friday. Erik Menendez can apply for parole again in three years. The brothers said they shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, because they feared for their lives after years of sexual abuse by their father and emotional abuse by their mother. Erik Menendez was 18 and Lyle Menendez was 21 at the time. "My father was the most terrifying human being I'd ever met," Erik Menendez said on Thursday when asked why he did not leave the home rather than commit murder. "When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable," he said. Prosecutors argued the killings were coldly calculated and motivated by greed, namely the brothers' desire to inherit their parents' multimillion-dollar fortune. The brothers have been in custody since March 1990 and originally sentenced in 1996 to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. In May, a judge handed each a new sentence of 50 years to life. Under California law, the pair became immediately eligible for parole because they were under age 26 at the time of the crimes and had already served more than half their prison term. Family members have supported the brothers' release, saying the pair have paid their debt to society. Erik Menendez is now 54 and Lyle Menendez is 57. Both are married. Teresita Menendez-Baralt, the sister of Jose Menendez, cried as she told the parole board she had "fully forgiven" Erik Menendez, whom she called a "sweet gentle soul." Menendez-Baralt said she was dying from stage 4 cancer and "more than anything I hope I live long enough to welcome him into my home." "To sit at the same table, to wrap my arms around him - that would bring me immeasurable peace and joy," she said. (Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Michael Perry) PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. (DC News Now) A man was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison after killing four people in their Dale City home nearly three years ago, the Prince William County Commonwealths Attorneys Office announced Friday. David Nathaniel Maine, 27, previously pleaded guilty to the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, rape and forcible sodomy in addition to multiple murder charges. The charges against him stem from Oct. 17, 2022, when the Prince William County Police Department (PWCPD) received calls about a mass shooting at a Dale City home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Man charged with murders of 4 people found dead inside home in Prince William County When police arrived, they found Maine, who claimed a stranger had entered the home and gunned down his roommates inside. Investigators later learned, however, that when 42-year-old Kelly Victoria Sotelo and her husband, 44-year-old Miguel Duran Flores, arrived home, Maine shot and killed Flores. Sotelos 13-year-old daughter ran out of the house as she yelled, David, no! Investigators said 19-year-old Karrie Ayline Sotelo and 36-year-old Richard Revollar Corrales had been killed before Kelly Sotelo and Flores got home. Karrie Sotelo had also been sexually assaulted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kelly Sotelos body was later found in the house, along with Karrie Sotelo, who had suffered a fatal knife wound to her neck and was rolled up in a blanket. Police: Man arrested after filming inappropriate video at Leesburg Target without consent PWCPD said an AR-15 rifle and a .22 caliber handgun were found in the home. A note was later found on Maines computer that read, I should not have killed them, adding he hoped to die in his sleep. After he was arrested, he reportedly told police, Today, I did some f-d up st; crazy thing is, I thought I was going to feel something. Prince William County Commonwealths Attorney Amy Ashworth called the act one of the most horrific crimes in Prince William County history. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maine was sentenced on Aug. 21 to six life sentences, plus 53 years. Ashworth said it was a comfort to know he would never again be free. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Authorities are trying to locate a man who was convicted of child kidnapping after he fled before the trial could conclude. Over Francisco Ochoa-Lopez, 27, was found guilty of second-degree kidnapping after the conclusion of the court case was held in his absence. He previously participated in the first two days of the trial but failed to return for the remainder of it, the Washington County District Attorneys Office said. Despite his absence in the final part of the trial, he was found guilty by a jury. Law enforcement officials are now trying to locate him and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. They also released a photo of Ochoa-Lopez in hopes the public can help locate him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Peninsula Park pool to stay open into September Ochoa-Lopez was found guilty of approaching a young child who was playing outside an apartment in Beaverton, picking her up, and bringing her to his apartment on September 17, 2023. Though he did not know the child or her family, he brought her to his home, closed the door and touched her chin, despite the young girl telling him no multiple times along the way. Once he put her down inside the apartment, the child ran away back to her home and to her mother. Beaverton police later found Ochoa-Lopez about a half mile away shortly after the incident, based on a description of the suspect. Though he gave police a false name and contradictory information about where he was coming from, he was nevertheless taken into custody. Washington County Deputy District Attorney Rayney Meisel, who helped prosecute the case, said Ochoa-Lopex now represents a safety threat to our community since hes currently at large, despite the guilty conviction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is imperative that he be located so that justice can be fully served, Meisel said in a statement. Law enforcement officials are currently searching for Ochoa-Lopez. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. (The Center Square) The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development awarded three Unicoi County companies at least $1 million in the first-of-its-kind grants tied to Hurricane Helene recovery, state officials said. The grants support retraining and recovery after the storm, which swept through northeastern Tennessee in 2024, according to the department. PolyPipe's building in Erwin was destroyed by the hurricane. The company, which manufactures polyethylene pipe for utilities, is using the money to retain 66 positions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The devastation from Hurricane Helene was unlike anything weve faced in our companys history," said CEO Mark Brenon of PolyPipe. "This grant is not just funding its a lifeline for our employees, our customers and our future here in Erwin." PlastiExports is retaining 53 positions thanks to the grant money, according to the department. The company sustained more than $14 million in damages. This retraining and retainment grant represents more than just funding its an investment in restoring jobs and revitalizing our community," said J.P. Metcalf of PlastiExports. "Every job that we can provide means stability for a household and hope for the future. I am deeply grateful to our local and state economic development teams for making this possible." Foam Products, which fabricates commercial and industrial foam insulation and packaging products, had almost $20 million in damages after the hurricane. The company will use the funding to retain 47 jobs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gov. Bill Lee said he is confident the grants will provide lasting relief for the families and businesses in the region. Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented disaster for our state, and one year later, many Tennesseans remain forever changed by the loss of life and severe flood damage, said Lee. Im proud to announce recovery grants for three Unicoi County companies, which will not only help businesses rebuild and restore operations but also provide job security and strengthen the local economy." BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (WTNH) A grand jury returned an indictment charging three Connecticut residents on Wednesday in relation to an alleged stolen check and bank fraud scheme. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut announced that 37-year-old Michelle Thunder Freeman of Waterbury, 43-year-old Leshanda Long of Hamden and 40-year-old Omar Eaddy of Bridgeport were indicted on the charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Waterbury man sentenced to 13 years for trafficking fentanyl, armed carjacking Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to court documents, Freeman, Long and Eaddy engaged in a scheme in which checks were stolen from mailboxes before being manipulated to make them payable to people who served as check runners, who would then cash them. Freeman was allegedly responsible for counterfeiting the fraudulent checks, most of which were drawn from small business accounts in Connecticut, and Long and Eaddy allegedly recruited the check runners. All three were arrested on May 6 before being released on a $100,000 bond and are scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday. The investigation is still ongoing at this time. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Three people were shot to death in separate shootings in Chicago overnight, marking the latest string of violence in the Democrat-led city. The first incident occurred just after 10 p.m. when an individual approached two 38-year-old men while they were standing outside and began shooting, FOX 32 reported. Both men were shot in the side and were transported to local hospitals, where they died from their injuries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Woman Killed In Blue City Robbery As Threat Of Trump Takeover Looms With Thieves Terrorizing Public Three people were killed in two separate shootings in Chicago Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Less than one hour later, a 27-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man were shot several times after an individual approached them on foot and began firing in their direction, the outlet reported. The pair were subsequently taken to a nearby hospital, where the woman was pronounced dead, and the man was listed in stable condition. Read On The Fox News App Chicago police have not made any arrests in either shooting, and the Cook County Medical Examiners Office has not identified the identities of the victims, according to FOX 32. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Woman Gunned Down In 'Safe' Dc Neighborhood As Trump Launches Federal Police Takeover No arrests have been made in the separate overnight shootings that left three people dead and one injured in a Chicago suburb. The violence comes on the same day President Donald Trump threatened to expand his rollout of federal authorities in crime-ridden cities while visiting the U.S. Park Police Anacostia operations facility in Washington, D.C. "Everybody's safe now, everybody feels safe," Trump said. "It's our capital, and I guess it used to be many years ago, say, but it's certainly not had a very good run. And you've got to be strong. You've got to be tough. You've got to do your job." During his visit, Trump teased the possibility of expanding the deployment of federal law enforcement into additional cities throughout the country as the administration tries to tamp down crime rates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chicago Drive-by Shooting Leaves At Least 4 Dead, 14 Wounded The violence comes on the same day President Donald Trump teased the possibility of expanding the deployment of federal law enforcement officers to other cities. "We're going to make it safe, and we're going to then go on to other places, but were going to stay here for a while," Trump said. "We want to make this absolutely perfect." The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digitals request for comment. Original article source: Three killed in blue city shootings as Trump threatens to expand federal crime crackdown Social media platform TikTok announced on Friday it will restructure its UK trust and safety operations, putting several hundred jobs at risk as it shifts to AI-assisted content moderation. The move is part of global restructuring plans by TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, which also affects moderator jobs in South and Southeast Asia, notably in Malaysia. "We are continuing a reorganisation that we started last year... concentrating our operations in fewer locations globally," a TikTok spokesperson told AFP. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement TikTok added that it plans to reshape content moderation "with the benefit of technological advancements." Content moderators are tasked with keeping content such as hate speech, misinformation and pornography off the platform, which has more than 1.5 billion users worldwide. But, globally, there is a trend of social media companies reducing their use of human fact-checkers and turning to AI instead. Moderation technologies, including AI, take down over 85 percent of content removed for violating TikTok's guidelines, according to the company. It also said it uses AI to help reduce the amount of distressing content moderators are exposed to. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under the proposed plans, the work of employees affected by layoffs will be relocated to other European offices and some third-party providers. "TikTok workers have long been sounding the alarm over the real-world costs of cutting human moderation teams in favour of hastily developed, immature AI alternatives," said Communication Workers Union national officer John Chadfield. He added that the layoffs "put TikTok's millions of British users at risk." TikTok in June announced plans to increase investment in the UK, its biggest community in Europe, with the creation of 500 more jobs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Around half the UK population, more than 30 million people, use TikTok each month. The video-sharing platform has been in the crosshairs of Western governments for years over fears personal data could be used by China for espionage or propaganda purposes. AFP, among more than a dozen other fact-checking organisations, is paid by TikTok in several countries to verify videos that potentially contain false information. ajb/lth A transformer fire at Heathrow Airport earlier this year triggered cascading power outages, cutting electricity to more than 66,000 homes, grounding more than 1,300 flights, and causing losses of up to 100 million. According to a recent report, the fire started because of a fault in a 50-year-old asset that subsequently led to short circuiting and arcing, setting the transformer alight. This wasnt an isolated accident but the third transformer-related blaze in less than a month in the UK. In fact, across the UK, eight transformer-related incidents were recorded over a span of just 10 weeks. The Heathrow fire and these seven other incidents are the inevitable consequences of aging infrastructure, rising demand, and insufficient systems to effectively monitor these critical assets. The Pressure on the Grid In the UK, about 40% of all transmission infrastructure assets were installed before 1975. In the U.S., more than 50% of power transformers are over 40 years old. Many of these were designed with a 40-year life expectancy, yet they have been stretched to operate 50 to 60 years or more. This might not have been an issue when energy demand was flat, but it isnt anymore. Today, the electrification of transport, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, and green heating solutions is driving a dramatic surge in electricity consumption. The UK alone expects a 30% increase in electricity demand by 2030. The U.S. is also seeing an increase in electricity demand, particularly in high-load urban areas. Yet, the manufacturing pipeline for large transformers is under strain. Right now, the average lead time for a large transformer in the U.S. is about 200 weeks. In the UK, where domestic manufacturing capacity is limited, its even harder to source new units. Supply chain bottlenecks, skilled labor shortages, and rising material costs all make it a slow and expensive process. Add to that the backlog caused by natural disasters. Every hurricane, wildfire, or flood-struck region diverts transformer stock away from planned replacements and expansion toward emergency repair. Utilities are constantly on the defensive, struggling to maintain service levels with limited equipment. Even if supply wasnt an issue, replacing transformers is not just plug-and-play. These are enormous, heavy, and often custom-built components. Installation requires careful planning, specialized expertise, and planned shutdowns. That means outages and risk. It also means that, in many cases, utilities delay replacement until there is no other choice. And even if companies had the means to replace them all, you simply cant. The grid is too vast, the access windows too narrow, and the disruption too costly. First Line of Defense: The Role of Hydrogen in Transformer Monitoring Extremely common, but often overlooked, transformers are the workhorses of our power grids. They convert high-voltage electricity from power plants and generating stations, to lower voltages for distribution to our homes and businesses. They are primarily the same designs that were first deployed more than 100 years ago. They include coils of wire (windings), a metal core, and bushings to connect the transformer to the grid. They are often filled with oil to increase electrical insulation between the closely wound coils and to help cool the coils by conducting away heat. It is tempting to think of failures of these critical assets as rare, but they are not. Over the past year, transformer-related fires and explosions have shut down power stations, stadiums, subway lines, and airports. Some incidents have involved suspected vandalism, but in most cases, investigations point to aging infrastructure and inadequate monitoring and maintenance. Transformers rarely fail without warning. They whisper before they scream. And the first whisper of an issue is often the production of hydrogen gas from the oil in their main tank. When an incipient fault occurs, whether due to overheating, arcing, or other mechanical faults, for example, when the coil winding insulation inside a transformer breaks down, hydrogen is the first fault gas released. The presence of hydrogen is an early and reliable indicator of a developing problem. If left unchecked, these faults can worsen, resulting in transformer failures, which could include rupturing and fire, that almost always leads to prolonged outages. Unfortunately, in most medium- and low-voltage substations around the world, this critical early warning is not being effectively monitored. Transformer monitoring has traditionally relied on laboratory-based dissolved gas analysis (DGA) of periodic manual transformer oil samples. While important, it requires access to the transformer, and the sampling is infrequent (12 to 48 months), meaning issues can arise and escalate between test intervals without detection. Compared to this manual sampling, continuous hydrogen monitoring offers a smarter, faster, and more cost-effective solution Installed conveniently on the transformer, these sensors continuously monitor hydrogen levels inside the transformer. This kind of early warning matters. The presence of hydrogen at the onset of a fault gives operators valuable insight and the lead time needed to respond and prevent a potential failure. With continuous monitoring, the risk of missing warning signs between manual DGA tests drops significantly. So, by deploying these sensors across a fleet, utilities can better prioritize maintenance, reduce unplanned outages, and extend the useful life of aging transformers. This capability is transforming how utilities manage aging infrastructure. Its like going from waiting for a check-engine light to having real-time engine diagnostics in your car. Operators can now catch problems in their infancy, long before they threaten to become a Heathrow-level event. Protecting existing assets is both smart and essential in a world where replacement transformers are scarce, expensive, and slow to source. Economic and Operational Benefits Some might ask: is this just about safety? Is it a nice-to-have or a must-have? Looking back to the Heathrow incident, the cost of that one failure was up to 100 million, before counting reputational damage, security risk, and customer frustration. Now, consider that a hydrogen monitor costs just a few thousand dollars, a fraction of a percent of the Heathrow losses. So, this is not just good engineering but good economics, because we dont always get a second chance. Since aging transformers can't be swapped out overnight, there are many steps that can be taken to avoid premature failure in the meantime. One such measure is early fault detection, particularly through hydrogen monitoring, that gives utilities and infrastructure managers a powerful tool to safeguard their assets and stay ahead of potential failures. By detecting issues early, operators can also extend the life of transformers by as much as 20%, thanks to better maintenance planning and timely interventions. This shift from reactive to predictive maintenance dramatically reduces the risk of unplanned outages, helping to avoid costly disruptions like the one we saw at Heathrow. But the benefits go beyond preventing failures. Real-time hydrogen monitoring also plays a key role in strengthening overall grid reliability, a crucial advantage as power demand grows and climate-related stresses increase. And unlike full-scale replacements, hydrogen sensors offer a cost-effective solution. This is why leading utilities in the U.S. are already investing in this approach, rolling out real-time hydrogen monitoring across critical infrastructure, including at major airports. These forward-thinking organizations recognize that waiting for something to break is no longer affordable, practical, or wise. More than just a technical upgrade, hydrogen monitoring is fast becoming a cornerstone of the broader digital transformation reshaping todays power grids. As we push toward net-zero goals and the electrification of everything from transport to heating, the grid can no longer operate as it did in the past. It needs to become smarter, more automated, and far more resilient. Technologies like sensors, data analytics, and AI-driven decision-making are central to this evolution. Within this digital ecosystem, hydrogen sensors play an important role by delivering real-time, actionable insights from one of the grids most critical assets. They enable a shift from reactive repairs to proactive maintenance, helping operators make better decisions and optimize assets in a world where both time and resources are limited. In essence, they transform transformers from passive, high-risk equipment into intelligent, connected assets that support a more reliable and efficient energy future. Avoiding The Next Heathrow The warning signs for the Heathrow fire were there. The transformer was more than 50 years old and monitoring was either outdated or missing altogether. The result was a chain reaction of economic, operational, and reputational damage that rippled across the country and beyond. But it does not have to be this way. By adopting hydrogen monitoring, utilities, airports, stadiums, and other critical infrastructure operators can get ahead of the problem. Real-time data makes it possible to spot issues early, prioritize maintenance, and prevent disaster before it strikes. It is a simple, cost-effective tool that extends the life of essential equipment, reduces downtime, and safeguards the public. Sensor manufacturers are already partnering with forward-thinking energy leaders to roll out this technology at scale, but others need to follow. Because the next failure might not be an isolated fire; it could mean grounded flights, a dark city block, or a hospital left without power. The question for all of us is: what can we do to stop the next big blackout before it starts. Dave Meyers is CEO of H2Scan. The Tinley Park Oktoberfest is canceled this year due to rising costs, according to Jame Holt, president of the Tinley Park Chamber of Commerce, the events organizer. The Chamber said the cancellation was a difficult decision but ultimately the best course of action. The September celebration has featured authentic beer, brats, music, German dancing and carnival rides, turning the parking lot along 80th Avenue and the Metra Train into a resemblance of Munich, Germany for three days. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Holt said costs to run and properly secure the event this year became unsustainable for the Chambers volunteer organization, despite the events popularity. When relaunching the event in 2017, Oktoberfest organizers predicted they would be able to handle continuing the event, even as it was expected to grow. The event had about a 20-year hiatus, they said, after becoming too large. But the Chamber faced multiple deficits in its total income in the past few years, starting in 2020 with a deficit of more than $51,000. The Chamber regained an income surplus in 2021 and 2022, but hit another deficit of more than $97,000 in 2023, which was reduced to $26,327 last year, according to its tax filings. Holt said he still expects the event to return in 2026, according to an emailed statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We remain committed to our business community and will offer new and exciting opportunities to promote our business members, said Holt in the email. Shannon Corcoran, a manager at Durbins in downtown Tinley Park, worked the event last year serving pizza and beer, but said it rained every day, and fewer people attended, which brings some uncertainty. Its a shame, Corcoran said. Its a nice event and wonderful for the community, but its an iffy season and is it worth it if it rained every day this time last year? Corcoran said theres a lot of amazing opportunities going on in the community and said the dozens of events at Harmony Square this year might be able to makeup for missing Oktoberfest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last years Oktoberfest featured live performances from eight bands, including the Tinley Park High School jazz band, along with dozens of food, craft and business vendors. The event was also sponsored by more than two dozen local and corporate businesses. Tinley residents, along with crowds from across the south suburban area, typically spent the weekend wearing lederhosen, taking in traditional German fare, seasonal brews and carnival rides Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Like the Munich fest, Tinley Parks also began each day with the ceremonial tapping of the keg at the Hacker-Pschorr tent, the popular German brew. Years ago, a smaller, similar celebration was held at The Oak Park Avenue station and eventually moved to the Hollywood Casino Amphitheater, but ended there when it became too large. The event wasnt relaunched until 20 years later, when the Tinley Park Chamber of Commerce brought it to the 80th Avenue Metra Station in 2017. awright@chicagotribune.com At a time when tight budgets have led many councils across Wales to close public toilets, one community group is marking 20 years of running their own on a voluntary basis. Denbighshire council pulled the plug on the small toilet block in Llandrillo, near Corwen, back in 1998. But, in an area popular with walkers heading into the nearby Berwyn mountains, villagers knew both they and visitors sorely needed access to the facility, which sits next to the village playing field and park. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Working in pairs, volunteers take it in turns to maintain and lock up the toilets, with each person committed to working one week in every 10. "I got a feasibility study together and did a community-wide consultation," said David Robinson, who launched the campaign to take over the running of the facility and is still secretary of the group of volunteers which runs the toilet block. "It took three years from finishing that feasibility study to opening the doors." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Denbighshire council agreed to lease the building to the volunteers for 21 years, with talks currently under way on what happens when the lease ends next year. The annual running costs of about 1,500 are met with small grants from Denbighshire council and the local community council, as well as donations from the annual village fete and a box outside the building where those who use the toilets are encouraged to make a donation. That source of income has increased since Mr Robinson's granddaughter Gwenllian Roberts penned a short poem displayed in both the gents and the ladies explaining how the toilets operate. "We've had almost twice the amount of money since we put the poem up," said 11-year-old Gwenllian. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Senedd Member Ken Skates was on hand on Thursday to unveil a plaque marking the 20th anniversary of the toilet's life as a community service, and thinks others may need to follow suit. "Finances are stretched everywhere - this isn't just an issue in Wales and the UK but it's an issue right across Europe," he said. "People are being empowered to do more within their community, if they wish to. Taxes can only go so far." Skates added with growing costs of running key public services like social care and health, "difficult decisions sometimes have to be made". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "But communities the length and breadth of Wales have followed what Llandrillo have done here and they are saving community assets. That's what these are - they are community assets that are really important for members of the public." Additional reporting by Tony Brown LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A 27-year-old woman faces several charges, including reckless driving after police said she failed to stop for the stop signs on a school bus, hitting and injuring a teen. The hit-and-run crash happened on Wednesday, Aug. 20 around 4:22 p.m. in the southeast valley. The 13-year-old exited a school bus and was crossing at the intersection of Amigo Street and Abbeyfield Rose Drive near St. Rose Parkway when he was hit by a driver identified as Yarla Valeriano-Perez, police said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Evidence at the scene, including dashcam video and witness statements, revealed that the Clark County school bus was stopped with its red flashing stop signs when the teen exited the bus, and was hit by a grey sedan, according to the Las Vegas Metro police arrest report. The teen was thrown onto Valeriano-Perezs windshield and then onto the roadway in the northbound travel lanes. Valeriano-Perez continued northbound on Amigo Street, fleeing the collision scene, police said. Officers also said that Valeriano-Perez never stopped to render aid to the teen or call police following the crash. During the investigation, police also interviewed several witnesses, including one who told them that the teen appeared to be 8 feet in the air after the vehicle hit him, according to the report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The female passenger in the car with Valeriano-Perez at the time of the crash returned to the scene to speak with officers later that day, according to the report. During her interview with police, officers learned that the two women were headed to the South Point Casino when the female passenger said she heard the impact and felt the vehicles windshield glass hit her. She looked up and assumed a person had been hit. The woman referred to Valeriano-Perez as V in the police interview. A 27-year-old woman faces several charges, including reckless driving after police said she failed to stop for the stop signs on a school bus, hitting and injuring a teen. (RTC) V continued driving and eventually pulled over to let her out of the vehicle, police noted in the report. The woman told police, Valeriano-Perez dropped her off at an unknown address so she could charge her phone and then left. After her phone was charged, the female passenger returned to the scene because it was the right thing to do, according to the report. The woman then gave police Valeriano-Perezs phone number and Instagram account information. As officers were preparing to leave the crash scene, Valeriano-Perez pulled up in another vehicle and identified herself as the driver involved in the crash. She told police she was giving a friend a ride when out of nowhere, a kid ran across the road, she said she tried to stop, but it was too late, and the teen was already on her windshield, according to the report. She continued by telling police that she became scared, and paranoid, so she drove away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Valeriano-Perez also told police she realized she shouldnt have driven away but she was scared, according to the report. She also said that after striking the teen, she continued driving a distance away when her friend in the passenger seat begged her to let her out of the car. Valeriano-Perez pulled over and let her friend out of the car. She then drove to the parking lot across the street from the South Point Casino and parked, according to the report. Valeriano-Perez then called her aunt and uncle to tell them about what happened and asked if they would come pick her up. Officers later spotted the abandoned vehicle involved in the crash with major windshield damage near the South Point Casino, according to the report. Police also determined the vehicle matched the description of the vehicle observed in a dash camera video earlier that day. Valeriano-Perez, was arrested by police at the crash site around 9:20 p.m. She faces the following charges: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Duty to stop at scene of a crash Reckless driving resulting in substantial bodily harm Overtaking or passing stopped school bus with signal Police said she didnt show any signs of impairment. The teen who was hit was taken to UMC and had a broken and displaced shoulder, which needed surgery, a broken arm, a sprained knee and ankle, and severe road rash to his leg and back, according to the report. Valeriano-Perez appeared in court on Thursday, where a judge ordered her held on $300,000 bail. Her next court date was scheduled for Aug. 26. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. By Panarat Thepgumpanat and Napat Wesshasartar BANGKOK (Reuters) - A court in Thailand dismissed a royal insult case on Friday against influential former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, clearing the first hurdle in a series of high-stakes court rulings involving the powerful Shinawatra political dynasty. The court said the case, brought by the royalist military stemming from a 2015 Thaksin interview with foreign media, lacked sufficient evidence to prove he had insulted the powerful monarchy, an offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison. "Evidence from the plaintiff showed the interview by the defendant did not defame, insult or threaten the king, therefore the defendant is not guilty," the criminal court in Bangkok said. Wearing a yellow necktie, the colour associated with the palace, a smiling Thaksin had earlier announced the decision to reporters as he left the courthouse, outside of which about 150 of his red-shirted supporters had gathered. The divisive 76-year-old tycoon remains a major force in Thai politics despite being retired and having previously spent 15 years in self-imposed exile before his return in 2023. The billionaire has repeatedly pledged allegiance to the king, who is enshrined in the Thai constitution as being in a position of "revered worship", with the palace seen by royalists as sacrosanct. Thaksin's case was the highest-profile among more than 280 prosecutions in recent years under the controversial lese-majeste law, which activists say has been abused by conservatives to silence dissent and sideline political rivals. Royalists say the law is necessary to protect the crown. CHALLENGES AHEAD Although he has no official role in government, Thaksin remains politically active and is widely seen as the power behind the ruling Pheu Thai party-led coalition, which is losing popularity and hanging by a thread. The ruling came a week ahead of another key verdict involving his daughter, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who faces dismissal by the Constitutional Court for an alleged ethics violation over a leaked telephone conversation with Cambodia's former leader about a border row that later spiraled into five days of armed conflict. Thaksin also faces another legal test in September when the Supreme Court will decide if his six-month stint in hospital detention, prior to his release on parole in 2024, counts as time served in jail for an abuse of power and conflicts of interest conviction. He could potentially be made to serve that time in prison. Thaksin had been sentenced to eight years in prison, reduced to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, but did not spend a single night in jail and was transferred to the VIP wing of a police hospital on medical grounds. A former policeman who built a business empire worth billions, Thaksin was a mould-breaking premier who won the hearts and votes of millions of working-class Thais with populist giveaways like cash handouts, village loans and universal healthcare. That made his political parties unstoppable, but his influence and brash character riled Thailand's old guard of conservatives and royalist generals in a long-running battle that has seen the fall of multiple Shinawatra-backed governments via coups or court rulings. Supporters outside the court expressed relief at Friday's decision, saying Thaksin was committed to helping the people. "I'm glad," said Khemanut Thauntong, 62. "He is a good and honest person who is loyal to the nation." (Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat, Napat Wesshasartar, Artorn Pookasook, Panu Wongcha-um and Chayut Setboonsarng; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Michael Perry) WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. President Donald Trump started the week declaring a diplomatic breakthrough in his bid to prod Moscow and Kyiv closer to peace, announcing he had begun arranging for direct talks between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Four days later, the Republican president's optimism has diminished. Russia's top diplomat made it clear Friday that Putin won't meet with Zelenskyy until the Ukrainians agree to some of Moscow's longstanding demands to end the conflict. It's a stinging setback for Donald Trump, who had been touting his diplomatic blitz as resulting in indisputable momentum for a deal to halt a conflict he vowed as a candidate to end on Day One in office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump said Friday he expected to make a decision on his next actions in two weeks if direct talks arent scheduled. He raised the possibility of imposing new sanctions or tariffs on Russia, a threat he has previously floated but not followed through on. Were going to see whether or not they have a meeting, Trump told reporters in an Oval Office appearance. Itll be interesting to see. If they dont, why didnt they have a meeting, because I told them to have a meeting. But Ill know what I am going to do in two weeks. Trump has touted a breakthrough that wasn't Trump announced Monday that he had begun making the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting soon after concluding White House talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders as well as speaking by phone with Putin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement European leaders cheered the president's tone at the White House meeting, when he made vague promises to back European security guarantees for postwar Ukraine. Trump also appeared to ease European anxiety heightened by his comments after his Alaska summit with Putin days earlier, when he appeared to tilt toward the Russian leader's demand for Ukraine to give up land seized by Russia. The European leaders even offered guarded optimism that Trump was making headway after he announced his plans for direct talks, followed potentially by three-way negotiations involving him. But uncertainty has grown in recent days about Putin's commitment to Trump's peace-making efforts as Russian officials raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals on the negotiating table. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss peace terms but only after key issues first are worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is no meeting planned, Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBCs Sunday show Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all. Russia injects uncertainty into any headway on security guarantees Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any postwar Russian attack, and U.S. and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals of how that might work. But Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscows involvement was pointless. Putin, meanwhile, on Friday made a visit to Sarov, a closed city about 370 kilometers (230 miles) east of Moscow that has served as a base for Russias nuclear weapons program since the late 1940s. The visit offered a not-so-subtle reminder that Russia is one of the world's foremost nuclear powers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He hasnt moderated his position in any significant way, said Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and former British ambassador to Belarus. Even as Trump touted his plan for peace talks, Russia on Thursday launched one of its biggest aerial assaults so far this year, focusing on western Ukraine in the barrage of 574 drones and 40 ballistic and cruise missiles. The Russians are trying to do anything to avoid the (summit) meeting. The issue is not the meeting itself, the issue is that they do not want to end the war, Zelenskyy said Friday alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was visiting Kyiv. Rutte said Trump wants to break the deadlock with Putin and engage the United States in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rutte explained that guarantees under discussion would rest on two layers. The first, to take place after a peace deal or long-term ceasefire, would focus on making the Ukrainian armed forces as strong as possible. The second would involve security commitments provided by Europe and the United States. Europe's chief diplomat warns of Putin trap The European Unions foreign policy chief said Friday that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is a trap set by Putin. The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his armys invasion, but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The recent talk about handing Putin concessions is exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into, Kallas said in an interview with the BBC. I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people, she said. Russia is just dragging feet. Its clear that Russia does not want peace, Kallas said. President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing. ___ Associated Press writer Emma Burrows in London contributed. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine New Jerseys high schools rank third best in the nation, according to new data released by U.S. News and World Report this week. Nationwide, 18,000 publicly funded high schools were ranked. Schools with less than 15 students in the 12th grade were not included in the data. The rankings were based on several factors, with participation in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses and the number of students achieving a three or better on either test accounting for 40% of a schools score. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Graduation rates and state test scores account for 30% of U.S. News system. The rankings also measure a schools ability to support the learning of low-income, Black and Latino students, which accounts for the final 10% of a schools score. All of the data used to create this years rankings is based on the 2022-2023 school year. Massachusetts led the rankings with 43% of its schools ranked in the top quarter of U.S. high schools, followed by Connecticut with 41% and New Jersey with 40%. Monmouth Countys High Technology High School in Lincroft ranked as both the top high school in New Jersey and the top STEM or science, technology, engineering and math school in the country in the new rankings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro tops New Jerseys own high school rankings which are based on how well a school performed based on test scores, academic growth and other factors. U.S. News, which focuses more heavily on advanced placement courses, ranked the same Bergen County school seventh in the state. New Jerseys top ten high schools in the U.S. News ranking are all magnet and specialized high schools that admit high-achieving students. Millburn High School, ranked 11th in New Jersey, was the highest-ranked school open to all local students. How does your high school rank when compared with the rest of New Jersey and the rest of the nation? Use the search bar to look up a school. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Liz Rosenberg may be reached at lrosenberg@njadvancemedia.com. BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Presidents from South Americas Amazon nations gathered Friday alongside Indigenous leaders to agree on a joint plan to safeguard the worlds largest rainforest a vast region seen as crucial to slowing global warming. Gathering in Colombias capital of Bogota, the presidents of Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia joined the vice president of Ecuador and other top officials from Amazon nations. There is no individual exit from the climate crisis," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said during his declaration. "We need a new global governance with the authority to make countries keep their promises. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They signed off on the Declaration of Bogota, a political blueprint to be formally adopted by Amazon nations, setting out a common vision for deeper cooperation across the region, which sprawls over more than 2.5 million square miles (6.7 million square kilometers). Ecuadors Vice President Maria Jose Pinto urged leaders to move beyond good intentions to concrete actions to protect the Amazon, calling it both the regions responsibility and its legacy to the world. She said work must be led from the territories, listening to communities and respecting ancestral knowledge, and stressed the rainforest should be central to the global agenda because what happens here determines the future of everyone. In Ecuador, we believe solutions are not built from the capitals, but from the territories, listening to and working alongside our people," Pinto said. "We must keep the Amazon at the center of the global conversation. On the eve of the gathering, foreign ministers from the eight members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization a little-known, decades-old intergovernmental body linking all the countries of the Amazon basin approved 20 resolutions. They range from a new regional Indigenous Peoples Mechanism to initiatives on food security, climate risk and institutional strengthening. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Scientists say the Amazon acts as a massive carbon sink absorbing more carbon dioxide than it releases and plays a key role in regulating rainfall patterns far beyond South America. Its loss could accelerate global warming and disrupt agriculture as far away as the U.S. Midwest and parts of Europe, while threatening the survival of thousands of species found nowhere else on Earth. Top officials also met on Thursday to review progress on commitments made at the Belem Declaration, a 2023 agreement signed in Brazil that pledged closer coordination on protecting the Amazon, including policies on deforestation, climate change and Indigenous rights. Each ACTO country will appoint two government delegates and two Indigenous delegates to the body, which will meet annually and can convene extraordinary sessions. Decisions must be made unanimously. Oswaldo Muca, who represents Colombias Indigenous Amazon communities, told The Associated Press on the sidelines of Friday's event that his community is committed to safeguarding our territory and the Amazon, protecting it and caring for it. He said they oppose mining and oil exploration because it destroys our territory, destroys humanity and destroys life. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Muca welcomed the ministers approval of a direct financing mechanism for Indigenous peoples, calling it the only way to avoid reaching the point of no return and noting that we are now part of that treaty mechanism. Asked if he believed the heads of state would follow through, Muca said they had talked a lot about saving the Amazon, but insisted that our words must be more than political speeches they must be real, concrete actions. ACTO Secretary-General Martin von Hildebrand said that political will and unity among member countries are essential to protecting the basins forests, rivers and biodiversity resources that store vast amounts of carbon and help regulate the planets climate. Peruvian Indigenous leader Julio Cusurichi, attending the event, said: "We are asking countries to take immediate action because deforestation and pollution are advancing, and the impacts of climate change are severe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. ____ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america TOPEKA (KSNT) The Topeka Police Department (TPD) said its investigating a suspicious death that happened in southeast Topeka on Aug. 14. According to the TPD, officers were called around 12:15 p.m. on Aug. 14 for a report of shots fired. Officers found two victims suffering from gunshot wounds. One person was pronounced dead at the scene and the other was taken to a hospital for treatment of their injuries. ICE issues arrest detainers for men charged with kidnapping woman in Kansas The TPD said all suspects have been identified and they are not looking for a suspect. The TPD said they would not release the identities of the people involved. The TPD said there is no danger to the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. Totally taking over: As AI rolls into workplaces, many middle managers fear getting replaced Middle managers have been the backbone of corporate America for years, but emerging technology might make them extinct. Many corporations are shedding this tier of work thanks to artificial intelligence, or AI. AI is already changing the world of work, but its just getting started. One worker in Westwood told Boston 25 News, I think people are learning about how AI can supplement different tasks, and I think it will replace some jobs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A young woman said, Im a recent college grad, so I definitely think it affects the workforce. Its kind of scary. I think its totally taking over. Just a few years ago, we were getting accustomed to automation in warehouses as robots trolled the aisles, filling orders. AI is much more powerful as it gets applied to work areas. I see in just the last two years a tremendous speed of development of what AI can do, explained Peter Cohan, a professor of business practice at Babson College and author of Brain Rush: How to compete and invest in the world of generative AI. To get a concise definition or explanation, we decided to ask AI directly what it is. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Googles Gemini quickly gave us this answer: Its like this. Imagine a really, really smart computer that can learn and solve problems almost like a human. Thats essentially artificial intelligence. With those capabilities, AI can do more sophisticated work, the kinds of things associated with middle managers. The job of middle managers is to sort of translate the grand strategic visions of the executives into specific tasks that people in the organization will actually execute, explained Cohan. He said high-tech layoffs have been getting a lot of attention. Companies like Microsoft and Amazon, for example, are laying off tens of thousands of workers, many of them middle managers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cohan believes one of the main reasons for these actions is that companies are spending so much to invest in AI. Losing middle managers is now being called The Great Flattening as layers between line workers and executives disappear. That takes away a big coordination function that middle managers usually perform, Cohan said. Its affecting people at all levels of the organization because AI basically can do a lot of work more quickly. An analysis by www.gusto.com shows existing middle managers are seeing a spike in the number of workers who report to them, going from three to six in recent years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That trend can make rank-and-file workers feel more disconnected and create a negative impact on overall morale. Greg Stoller, a master lecturer at Boston Universitys Questrom School of Business, said, One thing that AI cannot replace is person-to-person communication. I get the fact that companies want to be more efficient... but I think its important to remember that you cant have AI do a performance review. And I am not just talking about exceeded expectations and met expectations. How do you improve? He says workers need to be proactive if they want to keep their jobs in the coming days. I think the first thing you should do to AI-proof your job is talk to your supervisor and ask them how I am doing? Can I improve? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Next, he says to try and learn new skills. The third thing I tell people, is dont be afraid to raise your hand. . . if everybodys only doing what theyve been told to do, and it comes layoff time, youre not necessarily going to be making yourself have a better competitive advantage than the person sitting to your left or to your right. One thing is for sure: change is coming. The worker in Westwood added, I think its inevitable, and I think were going to have to roll with it. I think there is going to be good and bad, but at the end of the day, itll be positive for society overall. Another woman in Westwood said, I think its a double-edged sword. I can see how its going to take jobs away, just from humans doing their everyday jobs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another group feeling the impact of AI is new college graduates. Cohan said their unemployment rate has doubled in recent years, and much of that can be attributed to AI doing the tasks traditionally assigned to these workers. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE) Californias summer of legislation has taken a sharp turn away from laws for the Golden State to how California can influence Congress. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills on Thursday that could temporarily replace the states independent redistricting commission with new congressional maps drawn by the Legislature itself. Critics call the move a partisan power grab, and supporters describe it as fighting fire with fire. The package included three bills: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement SB 280 Sets up the special election for voters to approve the proposed map on Nov. 4. ACA 8 A constitutional amendment that asks voters to let the Legislatures map replace the independent commissions map if another state redraws its lines mid-decade. AB 604 The actual new congressional map. If approved by voters in a special election this November, the new maps would apply to congressional races from 2026 through 2030. While the legislature has been vague about who was at the table when the new map was drawn, Paul Mitchell, political data consultant and husband to Planned Parenthood Affiliates California CEO Jodi Hicks, has taken responsibility for at least part of it. It was not drawn by the voter-approved independent commission. At a recent assembly hearing, Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo of Tulare pressed for details on how much Paul Mitchell was paid. If it was over $5,000 then he would have to register as a lobbyist. So, did any lobbyists help with this, Macedo asked. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The response from the witnesses was unclear. That moment underscored Republicans transparency concerns layered on top of the redistricting controversy. Unlike the commission process, which includes public applications, hearings and citizen oversight, the Legislatures maps were drafted behind closed doors. For critics, the lack of clarity undermines public trust. For some Democrats, the proposal is about protecting and gaining congressional seats nationally. Newsoms redistricting plan came in direct response to Texass gerrymandering. In the Central Valley, the question is different: what happens when rural priorities are folded into larger, more populated districts? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Valley communities often rank water, agriculture, energy and land use as top priorities. Those dont always match other agendas yet rural districts could be reshaped to reflect Californias majorities. Analysts say the new map could flip as many as five Republican-held districts, including those currently represented by Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao, Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa, while also shoring up several vulnerable Democratic seats. Supporters, including Governor Gavin Newsom and former President Barack Obama, argue the move is necessary to counter GOP-led redistricting in Texas and other states. Although Obama publicly criticized gerrymandering in 2016. Opponents, including former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, say this undermines reforms voters put in place in 2008 and 2010 to get politics out of redistricting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ultimately, the choice will be in the hands of voters this fall. The decision will appear on the ballot as Prop 50 and will include ACA8: the amendment to the California Constitution, and AB 604: the partisan drawn congressional map. A yes vote on Prop 50 would approve the Legislatures maps until 2031. A no would keep the commission-drawn districts in place. Either way, the Nov. 4 special election will decide whether California takes an independent road or a partisan detour. See what Californians had to say about the redistricting plan at Tuesdays Assembly Elections Committee hearing: Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS47 and KSEE24 | News from YourCentralValley.com. LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) Lafayette will soon have its long-awaited Trader Joes grocery store, according to KLFY+ partner Developing Lafayette. The new 16,500-square-foot store will be built at 1710 Camellia Blvd., at the corner of Camellia Blvd. and Bluebird Drive, just across from the Rouses location. According to documents obtained by Developing Lafayette, construction is set to start Oct. 6, with an estimated completion date of April 20, 2026. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trader Joes, which currently has over 600 locations across the country, is known for selling many items under its own private labels at a significant discount to name-brand equivalents. Products include gourmet foods, organic foods, vegan and vegetarian foods, frozen foods, imported foods and domestic and imported wine and beer. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest According to the company website, the chain currently has four locations in Louisiana, one in Baton Rouge and three in the New Orleans area. Latest news Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Transgender Texans, activists and even a constable made similar arguments over and over again on Friday: The states latest bathroom bill makes no one safer. Dozens of people testified against the bill in the House State Affairs Committee before around 50 local activists staged a sit-in at a Capitol bathroom in opposition to the bill that would block trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender at schools or government buildings. They werent without their detractors: One man suggested that trans people are operating under a similar delusion to those who think they are Jedis, the fictional characters from Star Wars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A frog doesnt become a cat, a cat doesnt become a dog, the man reasoned. A man doesnt become a woman. Thats not hate. Its reality. One woman pointed out the ways that men and women were fundamentally different, not biologically, but sanitarily. [Women] dont come in contact with their body when they use the restroom, and men do, she said. I dont want to touch the same things. Its germs that are packed away into clothes. I just dont want to do that. Im a real female, and I want privacy in locker rooms. Protesters stage a sit-in inside a Capitol bathroom, holding a banner that reads Flush Bathroom Bigotry in opposition to Senate Bill 8. (courtesy of Gender Liberation Movement) Though some in the state have argued that the bill is needed to keep cisgender women safe, others have questioned what threats the bill even addresses. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Travis County Constable Stacy Suits testified against the bill Friday, noting that in nine years stationed outside a court bathroom, he had never encountered an issue. We dont want to be the potty police, he told the committee, adding that he wasnt sure how he was supposed to spot who was trans and who wasnt anyway. Senate Bill 8 is among more than 16 anti-trans bathroom proposals filed in the Texas legislature in the past decade. Though those have never been signed into law, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has put a bathroom bill on two special session agendas after it failed to pass the regular session. SB 8 has already passed the Senate. Its House counterpart, House Bill 52, which was under discussion Friday, is expected to pass. Sixty-eight percent of transgender people report having been harassed in public bathrooms, according to Advocates for Trans Equality, the nations largest transgender rights group. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For nearly a decade, bills like this one have painted trans people as threats, but the truth is, we are the ones consistently under attack and disproportionately impacted by violence and shelters and prisons and beyond. This bathroom bigotry does not protect women and girls, said Raquel Willis, founder of the advocacy organization Gender Liberation Movement and a national voice on transgender rights, at the hearing. Willis added that SB 8 echoed the segregationist policies her Black ancestors faced. I think of my mothers story of not being served in a restaurant because of her blackness, she said. I imagine the White woman who denied her service would have blocked her from the restroom at that time, too. SB 8 would also prevent Texas prisons from housing transgender detainees in accordance with their gender, a rule that likely violates the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, which requires prisons and jails to place trans people on a case-by-case basis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The bill institutes a $5,000 fine for a first offense and a $25,000 fine for a second. I know that Im about to get so many calls in the next two weeks, and people are going to say, Why do you still live there? said Andrea Segovia, senior field and policy adviser for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, an advocacy organization. Segovias husband and child are both transgender. Theres a deep pride of being a Texan, no matter that your state government is trying to erase you or degrade you or cause harm to people that you love, she added. Trans Texans are still really proud to be Texans. Two hours after the hearing adjourned, 50 Texans took the Capitol bathroom to show their disdain for the bill. Approximately nine of them staged a sit-in inside the bathrooms while the rest protested outside the bathrooms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The action was led by Gender Liberation Movement, which held a similar protest in Washington, D.C., last December, where 15 people were arrested. Fridays protest wrapped up without arrests, even as protesters occupied the bathroom for more than an hour, according to Eliel Cruz, an organizer of the protest. The post Trans Texans face yet another attempt to ban them from bathrooms appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter. WASHINGTON (AP) Jeffrey Epstein's imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer. The Trump administration issued transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case. The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior. The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The transcript release represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Trumps base as they send Congress evidence they had previously kept from view. After her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas to continue serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on allegations that she lured teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her trial featured sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14 told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein's homes. Neither Maxwell's lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, said in a social media post Friday that Maxwell was innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted. Never inappropriate Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting, Maxwell said, according to the transcript. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had been to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadnt seen Trump since the mid-2000s. Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, Absolutely never, in any context. Maxwell was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victim's information. High-profile contacts The case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financers social connections over the years to prominent figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and well before Epstein came under investigation. Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epsteins, and that she never saw him receive a massage nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epsteins plane. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That wouldve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage, Maxwell said. And he didnt, because I was there. She also spoke glowingly of Britains Prince Andrew and dismissed as rubbish the late Virginia Giuffres claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwells London home. Maxwell sought to distance herself from Epsteins conduct, repeatedly denying allegations made during her trial about her role. Though she acknowledged that at one point Epstein began preferring younger women, she insisted she never understood that to encompass children. I did see from when I met him, he was involved or -- involved or friends with or whatever, however you want to characterize it, with women who were in their 20s, she told Blanche. And then the slide to, you know, 18 or younger looking women. But I never considered that this would encompass criminal behavior. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide. A story that's consumed the Justice Department The saga has consumed the Trump administration following a two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department last month that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a client list that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist, and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released. The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government coverup. That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epsteins black book was under the direct control of the director of the FBI. The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Bondi with binders marked The Epstein Files: Phase 1 and Declassified that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain. After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a truckload of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases. But after a weekslong review of evidence in the governments possession, the Justice Department determined that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted. The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and only a fraction of it would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as weaklings supporters who he said were falling for the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. The Justice Department has responded to a subpoena from House lawmakers by pledging to turn over information. ____ Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report. Trans activist and public policy analyst Corinne Green, pictured on Aug. 20, 2025. Credit: (Christiana Botic/Verite News and Catchlight Local/Report for America) NEW ORLEANS Corinne Green, a local trans activist and public policy analyst, went to a local Walgreens in June to pick up a refill of progesterone, a hormone she has been taking daily for several years. She was used to getting it for free since she enrolled in Medicaid in January 2024. But when she got to the pharmacy, she learned that her medication was going to cost approximately $70. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But it wasnt a surprise. Green had been expecting Medicaid which is mostly federally funded but administered by the state to stop covering her hormone replacement therapy, a common form of gender-affirming health care. For nearly a year, she and other trans advocates in Louisiana had heard about sudden, unexpected Medicaid denials from dozens of transgender people around the state. Whatever happened, it wasnt a change to Medicaid law. Earlier this year, Congress contemplated stripping gender-affirming care coverage as part of President Trumps sweeping tax and spending bill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But the provision didnt make the final version passed by the Senate in early July. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX State lawmakers over the past several years have passed a wave of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation, including banning doctors from providing gender-affirming care to minors. So Green and other trans advocates had been watching the state legislature closely, anticipating movement to prohibit Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care for adults. That didnt happen, either. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That likely meant that there had been an administrative change from the Louisiana Department of Health, which oversees Medicaid. But there had been no notice of any such change from the state department. The only way a lot of people are learning about this is that theyre going into the pharmacy to pick up their monthly or once every three monthsregular prescriptions that theyve been on for a long time, and just getting hit with a completely unexpected bill, Green said. Because theres been no communication from the state about this. The Louisiana Department of Health did not respond to Verite News requests for comment on the denials of Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care for adults and why the denials are happening. But LDH records reviewed by Verite show that the department has made changes to its Medicaid billing and diagnosis codes so that gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapy are excluded from coverage. The changes appear to have started in August 2024. As a result, people have been cancelling surgeries theyd been waiting years to get and trying to find other ways to afford their medications, Green told Verite News. Without coverage, these surgeries and medications can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nationally, between 20% and 25% of transgender adults are enrolled in Medicaid, according to recent estimates. While there are no readily available data on how many transgender people in Louisiana are enrolled in the public insurance program, the state as a whole has the second highest share of Medicaid-enrolled residents, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many trans people only have access to Medicaid coverage, Im one of them. [It] definitely is very scary, said Blu DiMarco, who works with the Queer and Trans Community Action Project. Its frightening to know that I could just, like, go to routinely pick up my medication, and they could be like, Oh yeah, this is $200. I dont have $200. Marchers walk through the French Quarter in New Orleans for Transgender Day of Visibility on Friday, March 31, 2023. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator) Community care, collective rage In response to the LDH policy change, the Trans Income Project, a New Orleans-based social services nonprofit, this month announced a partnership with CrescentCare, a clinic that primarily serves low-income residents. The Trans Income Project, on which Green serves as a board member, will cover the cost of medication used in hormone replacement therapy for Medicaid-eligible transgender adults. (Participants in the partnership have to get their medication from the Avita Pharmacy locations inside of CrescentCares Elysian Fields and Mid-City facilities.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Natalie Rupp, executive director of the Trans Income Project, told Verite News that the organization saw a serious need in the community when they began hearing about people losing Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care. Were trying to make sure that those most vulnerable in our community arent going to be stuck with additional extra costs that they previously werent having to cover, she said. The program has been praised by other trans advocacy organizations in Louisiana as an example of people coming together to support those most in need and fight back against anti-transgender policies. Its a really great show of community force and how community will take care of community, even when politicians arent taking care of community, Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rupp said she hopes that healthcare providers and pharmacies in other parts of the state and country replicate the partnership at a time when governments are moving to limit access to gender-affirming care for trans and gender nonconforming people. Eleven other states already explicitly prohibit Medicaid from funding gender-affirming care for both adults and minors. Although its located in New Orleans, Crescent Care serves transgender Louisianians throughout the state, so the hope is that people outside of the metropolitan area will be able to make use of the partnership as well. Michelle said that she knows people in Lafayette, where she lives, who use CrescentCare. Still, its unlikely that the partnership will be able to cover everyone who loses access to hormones as a result of the LDH coding changes, and theres still the question of how people who need gender-affirming surgeries, which are not covered under the partnership, will afford that care. I think even the organizers of their beautiful plan to provide care via Avita, Michelle said. I think even those people understand this isnt going to save everyone. It is just a band aid kind of solution that will only help a subset of people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In order to further raise awareness about the states decision to stop covering gender-affirming care through Medicaid and express anger about it, the Queer and Trans Community Action Project is holding a protest Saturday at New Orleans City Hall. The Louisiana Department of Health has an office about a block away on Poydras Street that protestors will march by. The march and rally starts at 5 p.m. I think that the issue is not very well-known, and I think that is a very important issue to note, even for people who arent queer or trans, because its kind of a larger indicator of Medicaid cuts, DiMarco said. If they can come for us, then how do you know that youre not next? Madhri Yehiya contributed to this report. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. A transgender woman who lied to a man about being a biological female when she performed sex acts upon him has been found guilty of sexual assault. Ciara Watkin, 21, who is biologically male but identifies as female, told the man she was on her period to stop him discovering her real sex, Teesside Crown Court heard. Prosecutors said it was a case of "informed consent", with the man saying he would not have had sexual contact with Watkin, from Thornaby, had he known the defendant's true status. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Watkin, who was referred to in court by female pronouns, had admitted lying but said the man would still have realised she was biologically male. Watkin will be sentenced at a later date. The defendant was born male but had identified as female and used the name Ciara since the age of 13, although she had not undergone any medical treatment or surgery, the court heard. 'Don't swing that way' The pair, who are the same age, met on Snapchat, on which the accused used a female cartoon character as a profile picture, before meeting in person and going on to have sexual contact, the court heard. Watkin moved the man's hand away when he went to touch her breast and thigh and told him she was on her period to stop him feeling below her waist, the court heard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When Watkin later revealed she was biologically male, the man filed a complaint with police telling officers had he known, he would not have met her as he did "not swing that way". Watkin's lawyers said she saw and presented herself as female but was "visibly and audibly" male, so it would have been "blindingly obvious" to the man that Watkin was not biologically female. The jury of seven women and five men reached their verdicts after about an hour of deliberations following a two-day trial. Recorder Peter Makepeace KC said he would need a report from the Probation Service before passing sentence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said imprisonment was possible and granted Watkin bail, with sentencing provisionally listed for 10 October. Watkin must also sign the sex offender register within three days, the judge said. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Related internet links Millions of people in the UK face travel disruption this bank holiday weekend, contending with busy roads, a rail strike and engineering works. There is likely to be significant disruption on the rail network on CrossCountry routes from Aberdeen to Cornwall because of a strike by the RMT union over pay, safety and staffing. The weather is looking to be mostly dry across the three-day weekend, with large crowds expected at festivals being held across the country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, ferry passengers at the Port of Dover on Friday faced queuing times of almost two hours. Ferry operator DFDS said at 13:00 on Friday that waits at check-in desks were around 40 minutes and it was taking more than an hour to clear border control. Earlier on Friday, the Gatwick Express service was disrupted due to a signalling fault. The RAC has also warned roads will be busy on Friday, with three million getaway journeys planned, and particularly heavy traffic on the M5 between Bristol and Devon. Crowds are expected at events including London's Notting Hill Carnival, the Reading and Leeds festivals, the Emerge festival in Belfast, the Edinburgh Fringe closing weekend, the Creamfields festival in Cheshire and the Women's Rugby World Cup openers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Monday is a bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, making this the last long weekend before Christmas for those regions. Will there be rail delays? Network Rail has advised all passengers to check their journeys before travelling this weekend due to strikes and rail works. There will be no CrossCountry services on Saturday due to strikes, and service alterations and cancellations are to be expected on Sunday. A second strike on Monday will limit services on all CrossCountry lines between 08:00 and 18:00. Trains between Birmingham, Reading and the south coast will not run, and nor will services between Leicester, Cambridge and Stansted airport. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There will only be a very limited service to the south-west and north of York. On the East Coast Main Line, LNER will have no direct trains between London King's Cross and Peterborough on Sunday due to engineering works. A bus replacement service will also run between Newcastle and Edinburgh. In the West Midlands, buses will replace trains on some routes from Birmingham New Street due to engineering works. Avanti West Coast will operate a reduced service from London Euston, and trains will be diverted from Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International. London Northwestern services will run to and from Birmingham International only. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Network Rail said the "vast majority" of services would run, but some engineering works were "unfortunately unavoidable". How will traffic be? Around 17.6 million holiday trips are expected to be made by car across the UK between Friday and the bank holiday on Monday, the RAC said. It says the busiest times to drive will be between 10:00 and 19:00 on Friday, 09:00 and 17:00 on Saturday and 11:00 and 18:00 on Monday. Transport analytics firm Inrix says the M5 between Bristol and Devon will probably bear the brunt of traffic, with the stretch from J15 north of Bristol to J23 for Bridgwater likely to see some of the worst delays. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The M20 in Kent could also suffer afternoon hold-ups on Friday, from J7 near Maidstone to J3 westbound and J1 at Swanley to J5 at Aylesford eastbound. "We're expecting major roads to airports and coastal destinations to be extremely busy, especially the south-east and south-west regions which could end up bearing the brunt of most holiday hold-ups," Nick Mullender, the RAC's mobile servicing and repairs team leader, said. "Anyone planning routes through these areas should set off as early as possible or be prepared to spend longer in traffic." What will the weather be like? Saturday will be dry but rather cloudy for many, although with a few sunny spells. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The north of Scotland and the far south-west will see the best of the sunshine. Northern Ireland and Wales will see a few showers develop, and later Northern Ireland and the Hebrides will see some patchy rain arrive from the west with light winds. Sunday will be warmer, with sunny spells and patchy cloud cover. Most parts will be dry, but a little rain will cross the north and west of Scotland. Bank Holiday Monday will be warmer still, even very warm for parts of England and Wales with highs of 27C. There will be a good deal of sunshine for most, but the south-easterly winds will strengthen in the far west with the chance of some showery rain across Northern Ireland later. Will shops be open? Major supermarkets will remain open during the bank holiday weekend, so there's no need to rush off for a big shop to get you through. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There will be reduced hours, particularly on Sunday, so it's best to check the opening times of your local as hours will vary shop-to-shop. Businesses that will close on the Monday bank holiday include (you guessed it) banks, post offices and some other government services. Benefit payments are due to be paid out on Friday ahead of the bank holiday weekend. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) The man accused of stabbing 11 people at a Traverse City-area Walmart is not currently competent to face trial but will continue to undergo mental health treatment, a judge ruled. At a competency hearing Friday, Grand Traverse County Judge Michael Stepka ordered Bradford Gille to comply with mental health treatment. Its the doctors opinion that Mr. Gille at this time is not competent to stand trial due to his inability to assist his attorney in a rational way based on delusional and other thoughts and physiological disorders, Stepka said. The doctor indicates his opinion is that Mr. Gille, with the proper course of treatment, can gain competence going forward. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Surveillance video shows attack at Walmart Gille, 42, has been charged with 11 counts of attempted murder and a count of terrorism for the July 26 attack that wounded 11 people. Surveillance video from inside the store obtained by News 8 earlier this week shows the assailant pull a knife from his pocket and attack a woman from behind before running down a center aisle at the store, jabbing and slashing at a number of other customers. He was ultimately stopped by a group of bystanders in the parking lot, including two former Marines, one of whom was armed with a gun. Court records show Gille has a long history of mental health problems. His mother previously told News 8 his mental illness dates back to his teens. More recently, in 2016, he was accused of digging up dead bodies in Petoskey, found not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered to spend a year in a psychiatric hospital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We lost him: Mom of stabbing suspect says system failed him and society I just felt nothing but pity for this boy because hes never had a chance, one of the stabbing victims previously told News 8. My heart goes out to (his mother) because shes tried for a long time to get help. She said she hoped Gille would be placed in a mental health institution. I hope that he can stay on his medication. I hope that hes incarcerated, not incarcerated in a jail. I dont think a jail is any place for him to be. But a state hospital like we used to have in Traverse City that was really run well once upon a time. We need to go back to something like that, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender is leaving the government after less than five months, the Treasury Department said on Friday, another abrupt departure by a senior official in the young Trump administration. Faulkender is the second Senate-confirmed official to leave the department this month, following IRS Commissioner Billy Long, who later said he was being tapped as ambassador to Iceland. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thanked Faulkender for his work at the department but gave no reason for his departure. "Since January, he has played a critical role in overseeing the U.S. Department of the Treasury's operations and executing on President Trump's bold economic agenda," Bessent said in a statement. "His important work has supported the passage of the historic One Big Beautiful Bill and GENIUS Act, and the leveling of sanctions against our adversaries." Faulkender had joined Trump in publicly bashing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates more quickly and touting the administration's economic policies, but had clashed with Bessent on recent occasions, a person familiar with the matter said. Faulkender, who was close to Steven Mnuchin, Trump's Treasury chief during his first term, has overseen Treasury's operations with a broad policy portfolio covering tax, international finance, sanctions and financial regulation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump last week blasted Mnuchin on his Truth Social media platform for persuading him to appoint Powell to head the Fed. Trump nominated Faulkender, a University of Maryland finance professor, in December to serve as the No. 2 official at Treasury, where he had been assistant secretary of economic policy during Trump's first term. He was confirmed by the Senate for the role on March 26. At the end of the first Trump administration, Faulkender had returned to the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, where he has been a finance professor since 2008. He had also served as the chief economist for two years at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has helped shape Trump's policy agenda. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Franklin Paul and William Mallard) MECOSTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) A woman was hospitalized after she was shot by a Mecosta County deputy southwest of Big Rapids Friday, the sheriffs office said. Around 11:20 a.m., a property owner called Mecosta County Sheriffs Office deputies to Hayes Road west of 230th Avenue in rural Mecosta Township. A 36-year-old woman was refusing to leave the property. She refused deputies commands and assaulted them and threatened them with a weapon, according to a release from the sheriffs office. They faced an immediate and significant threat to their safety, forcing one of the deputies to shoot her with his firearm, the sheriffs office said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was taken to a Big Rapids hospital and then airlifted to a Grand Rapids hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening. Multiple outside law enforcement agencies are investigating the shooting, the Mecosta County Sheriffs Office said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) Nurses and CNAs are a lifeline for people getting home health care. Care teams, along with Medicaid funding, make it possible for people with complex medical issues to live independently, but one Triad woman worries her independence could be taken away. One of my favorite artists is Taylor Swift. Im a huge Swiftie, said Alexis Ratcliff. Ratcliff is like any other 20-year-old. She plays games on her iPad and Facetimes her friends. What makes Ratcliff different is that shes a quadriplegic and has a machine that breathes with her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I was in a car accident when I was two and a half, my spinal cord was essentially cut in half, said Ratcliff. Triad doctor discusses rising use of AI healthcare Her grandfather cared for her until he wasnt able to, and then she lived at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. We dont really have pediatric facilities in North Carolina that are suitable for me, said Ratcliff. I stayed there from when I was 13 to 18. After she turned 18, there was back and forth for years about where she should and could go, until finally, the state, the hospital and BAYADA Home Health Care worked together to set Alexis up in a place of her own in Lewisville. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I was like Oh my God, were actually doing it. I thought it was beautiful, I still think its beautiful, said Ratcliff. She couldnt be in her own home without her care team. They become family, you spend hours with them, said Ratcliff. Sometimes the nurses and CNAs that care for people in the home spend more time with their clients than with their own families. Trump administration pauses vaccine trials Ive done something, and my person is still in their home, and theyre still with their family and theyre safe and theyre living their best life and for me, thats a really big thing, said Pam Hucks, a nurse caring for Ratcliff. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That idea is why Hucks, a lifelong nurse, decided to get into home care. However, for over 19,000 people in North Carolina, that safety and security could change. North Carolina leaders are adjusting the Medicaid budget to meet new standards under the Big Beautiful Bill. One thing that really concerns us is any change to Medicaid reimbursement rates will really affect our care, we pay as much as we can, we cant pay as much as the hospitals pay, we cant pay what facilities pay, said Trip Smithdeal, director of the Winston-Salem office for BAYADA Home Health Care. Reimbursements for home care services could be on the chopping block. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alexis is a human, she deserves to live a normal life, just like anybody else deserves to live a normal life, said Vanessa Hernandez-Reyes, a CNA. If CNAs and nurses go other places to find work, people like Ratcliff will end up back in institutions. Much more expensive, not where they want to be, shes a young lady, 20 years old and has a whole life ahead of her, said Smithdeal. The director says they do what they can and keep their pay rates competitive with other employers. Ratcliff sees herself as an advocate, speaking out to keep Medicaid funding for home health care. EC teacher, parent respond to cuts made by Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People with disabilities automatically think, oh you have a disability, nothing is going to be taken from you, said Ratcliff. No, it is and we wont be able to survive. Ratcliff says the nurses now and in the past are some of the many people who raised her, keeping Ratcliff on track to pursue her goal of going back to school and one day getting a law degree to push for the resources she and so many other people need. She wants to do something, she wants to make an impact, said Hucks. Shes going to need someone to keep pushing her to go and do and stick with it, even when she says I dont think I can do it. A spokesperson with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says the department is looking at cuts to Medicaid reimbursement rates of about 3% due to a dip in funding. Some areas could see as much as an 8% to 10% reduction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX8 WGHP. **Editors note: This article contains graphic descriptions and events that may be disturbing to some. DEMING, N.M. (KRQE) A trial date has been set for a Deming couple accused of physically and sexually abusing their kids, and allegedly forcing the eight children to live in underground caves made of mud. Melvin and Valerie Cordell are both facing numerous charges of child abuse, along with other charges. According to court documents, the alleged abuse of the children, whose ages range from 16 years old to 6 months, took place on the familys 35-acre property on Opatah Drive NW, which was described in court documents as resembling a city trash landfill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The couples 16-year-old told law enforcement the parents would force her and her younger siblings to perform sexual acts in front of adults and that her parents starved the kids, according to court documents. The teen also said she had been pregnant twice, once at the age of 13 and second at her current age, and told investigators that she had unwanted sex with her father and two other adult relatives who live in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to court documents. Melvin Cordell reportedly performed two at-home non-consensual abortions on the 16-year-old and is accused of destroying, changing, or hiding the two aborted fetuses, court documents stated. Police video shows the property of couple accused of abusing kids in Deming Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials believe the abuse took place between 2014 and 2024. Valerie and Melvin Cordell were arrested on Feb. 21, 2025, and booked into the Luna County Detention Center where they will stay until trial in October 2026. They have pleaded not guilty. The New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) took custody of all eight children. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A Lawrence man is accused of possessing an UZI machinegun containing an extended magazine loaded with 24 rounds. Derek Mercado, 20, is charged by criminal complaint with one count of possession of a machinegun, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in a statement. Mercado appeared in federal court on Wednesday. He is currently in state custody for domestic violence offenses. Mercado is alleged to be a member of the Trinitarios gang, a violent criminal enterprise responsible for numerous murders and acts of violence across Massachusetts, Foley said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to charging documents, an alert to arrest Mercado was broadcast by law enforcement on the morning of May 6, after a report of a domestic violence incident. The victim reported that Mercado was allegedly in possession of a firearm in a green duffel bag. At the time, Mercado was in warrant status on two unrelated matters, Foley said. Mercado was later seen exiting a residence while allegedly possessing a green duffel bag. Mercado was taken into custody and an Israel Military Industries UZI model submachinegun containing an extended magazine loaded with 24 rounds was recovered in the green bag, prosecutors said. The UZI was later test-fired and determined to be a functional machinegun. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In August 2024, three members of the Lawrence Chapter of the Trinitarios were charged with an armed robbery. In February, nearly two dozen members of the Lynn Chapter of the Trinitarios were charged with committing six murders in Lynn and Lawrence. In June, two Trinitarios members were charged with committing a kidnapping in Andover. If convicted of the charge of possessing a machinegun, Mercado faces a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW TRM ready for 3rd annual Night of Praise fundraiser TOPEKA (KSNT) Topeka Rescue Mission (TRM) is ready for its third annual Night of Praise fundraiser. Miriam Krehbiel and Josh Turley joined the 27 News morning show on Aug. 22 to talk about their annual fundraiser. They said they are very excited about it. This years theme for the fundraiser is Loving in the Gap, according to the TRMs website. This signifies the TRMs commitment to standing in the space where need hits compassion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Night of Praise is being held at 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) on Friday, Sept. 12 at Fellowship Bible Church located at 6800 Southwest 10th Avenue. It is free but TRM asks that you consider bringing non-perishable food items to donate. American Idol holding auditions in Kansas To hear what Krehbiel and Turley had to say about Night of Praise, you can watch the interview above. You can learn more about the fundraiser by clicking here or by checking out the event listing on Facebook. 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. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. By David Brunnstrom, Idrees Ali and Ju-min Park WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) -When South Korean President Lee Jae Myung meets U.S. President Donald Trump next week for their first summit, he will be asked to pay more for the upkeep of American troops on the peninsula during talks set to be dominated by security issues and China. Left largely out of the frantic trade talks that culminated in an unwritten deal last month, questions over the future of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and the approach to nuclear-armed North Korea will be a key part of the White House discussions, officials and analysts said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A thorny issue for Lee may be Trump's push for Seoul to pay significantly more for the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a key area of focus would be so-called burden-sharing, and Trump is expected to push the South Koreans for more. Seoul provides more than $1 billion a year to support the U.S. troop presence and also paid to build the largest U.S. base overseas, Camp Humphreys, said Victor Cha, of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But President Trump clearly wants more," Cha said, noting his past calls for Seoul to pay $5 billion or even $10 billion. "He wants defence spending closer to 5% of GDP for all allies; South Korea is currently at 3.5%." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Korea wants to modernise the U.S. alliance to adapt to the changing security environment such as U.S.-China rivalry and is looking at higher defence spending, Seoul's top security advisor Wi Sung-lac said. "The issue (spending) is being discussed between South Korea and the United States, and the figures and such are still in progress and under discussion," Wi told a press briefing. 'STRATEGIC FLEXIBILITY' There are discussions within the Pentagon about removing some U.S. troops from South Korea, the U.S. official said. To head that off, some at the Pentagon are trying to refocus the alliance towards the threat posed by China. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While a lot will depend on Seoul's willingness, the U.S. official said the desire was to discuss in broad terms how the alliance, and U.S. forces in South Korea, could be used to counter China. That could bring more headaches for Lee, who has expressed full support for the U.S. alliance but vowed to take a balanced approach between Washington and Beijing. General Xavier Brunson, commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), said this month it was not a foregone conclusion that South Korea would be involved with any conflict over Taiwan, which China claims as its own. However, he said there should be a recognition that nothing happens in the region in isolation and U.S. troops in South Korea could be needed to "solve bigger problems". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Asked about more such "strategic flexibility", South Korea's Foreign Ministry said it was difficult to predict USFK operations in a hypothetical situation. "However, the operation of the USFK is carried out under close consultation and communication between South Korea and the United States," a spokesperson said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun in Washington on Friday and a State Department statement said the two "highlighted the enduring strength" of the seven-decade-old alliance. It said they discussed "a forward-looking agenda that enhances deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, increases our collective burden sharing, helps to revitalise American manufacturing, and restores fairness and reciprocity in our trade relationship." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They also reinforced the importance of U.S.-Japan-South Korea cooperation, the statement added. South Korea's Foreign Ministry statement said beside discussing summit agendas, Rubio and Cho also evaluated the July tariff agreement between the two countries and decided to encourage ongoing negotiations despite some issues remaining undecided. It did not elaborate. NORTH KOREA AND NUKES Lee and Trump are likely to see eye to eye on North Korea, with both open to engaging its leader Kim Jong Un, and the U.S. president frequently casting himself as a global peacemaker. However, Pyongyang has rebuffed attempts to revive the unprecedented diplomatic engagement seen in Trump's first term and doubled down on its deepening ties to Russia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I doubt much substance will be said on North Korea beyond committing to diplomacy and reiterating a goal of denuclearisation," said Jenny Town, of the Washington-based 38 North programme, which monitors North Korea. Lee told a Japanese newspaper on Thursday his administration would lay the groundwork to ultimately dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, through talks with Pyongyang and close cooperation with Washington. North Korea has repeatedly said its nuclear weapons are not open for negotiation. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho told parliament this week South Korea could also try to use the summit to win approval to reprocess or enrich its own nuclear materials. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite talk from some South Korean officials about the need to attain "nuclear latency", or the means to quickly build an atomic arsenal, Cho said reprocessing would be only for industrial or environmental purposes. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the U.S.-based Arms Control Association, said there was no practical "industrial or environmental" need for South Korea to start reprocessing, or for a domestic uranium enrichment capability for its energy programme. Both activities are prohibited under the current U.S.-South Korea Agreement for Nuclear Cooperation because they could be used to produce nuclear bombs, he said. "Too many South Korean politicians are flirting with the idea of their country acquiring the nuclear weapons option," he added. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington, and Ju-min Park in Seoul; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee; Writing by Josh Smith; editing by Diane CraftEditing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Helen Popper and Diane Craft) He promised to do it in his first winning campaign, but then-President Donald Trump didnt pull the plug to drain the Washington swamp. Now, in his second presidency, Trump has done what he pledged to do, purging thousands of bureaucrats and regulators, but voters want more, apparently hoping that he has just started emptying out federal offices and K Street law and lobbying shops. From initially tasking Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate federal agencies and jobs to Fridays targeting of never-Trump GOP adviser John Bolton, likely voters told Rasmussen Reports that they back the presidents swamp draining. But they want him to do more and think that he has been unsuccessful thus far. NEW: Trump says DOJ to brief him on FBI raids at John Boltons home and office! Its about time the swamp gets brought to justice! pic.twitter.com/LriSVrVxzP David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) In the new survey shared with Washington Secrets on Friday, Rasmussen said that 62% of likely voters back Trumps pledge to drain the swamp. That included 46% who strongly agree. Featured Local Savings Support came from Republicans and conservatives, but also 50% of Democrats, 61% of Hispanics, and 46% of African-Americans. But so far, and despite his sweeping federal worker cuts, just 45% believe that Trump has been successful in his purge, and 48% believe he has been unsuccessful. Rasmussen pollster Mark Mitchell said voters want action. "A strong majority continue to favor draining the swamp, and our polling repeatedly shows that government trust and criminal accountability is a 70/30 issue. Bring it!" he told Secrets. Trump's Cabinet, however, is moving aggressively to make good on the presidents promise. Today, for example, the Department of Veterans Affairs said that it is redirecting millions of taxpayer funds away from subsidizing federal unions to veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. Secretary Doug Collins said that he is draining money from one of the big elements of the Washington swamp: federal unions, which get free office space and thousands of hours of employee time to work on union efforts. SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS His moves today will free up $45 million that the VA plans to redirect to veterans. VA staff will now get to spend more time with veterans, VA facilities can focus on treating veterans, and VA can manage its staff according to veterans needs and national security requirements, not union demands, Collins said. Fernand is still churning in the Atlantic. Fortunately, the storm poses no threat to the U.S. or any other land areas. Where Is Fernand? Fernand pronounced fair-NAHN became the sixth storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season late Saturday afternoon after a Hurricane Hunter mission found a closed low-pressure circulation with thunderstorms. It's located several hundred miles east-northeast of Bermuda. Where Is It Headed? As the forecast path map above shows, Fernand is expected to curl northeast the next couple of days. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This path should keep the tropical storm well southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, when it will become a non-tropical low over the north Atlantic. Fernand is no threat to the U.S. and is well east of the track Erin took last week, but the risk of moderate rip currents along portions of the East Coast will continue for much of Tuesday. Caitlin Kaiser graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with both an undergraduate and graduate degree in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences before starting her career as a digital meteorologist with weather.com. No matter which strategies retailers use to keep more food on shelves and less in landfills, they must follow food safety laws to ensure no one gets sick from expired items. Sadly, as one truck driver found out during a delivery to Walmart, that may mean thousands of pounds of food headed for the dumpster. What happened? In r/LateStageCapitalism, the trucker shared a photo of a shocking amount of pork that was still safe for consumption but would likely be thrown out after Walmart refused the delivery. Photo Credit: Reddit They explained the situation in the caption: "Over 2,000 pounds of fresh pork being rejected by the Walmart distribution center because the sell-by dates occur when their stores are closed for Thanksgiving. This product will still be safe to eat for the next 15 days but they won't even attempt to sell. This will end up in a dumpster today." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a follow-up comment, the original poster said it seemed like Walmart and the meat producer had misunderstood each other. The retailer had previously told them not to send products with sell-by dates on Nov. 25 and 26. The OP said the pork would still be edible several days after the sell-by dates and even months later if frozen. At the very least, Walmart could have discounted the product rather than outright rejecting it. "What a disgusting system. Treated with such cruelty and murdered just to be discarded. I have no words," one commenter said. "God, just think of the carbon footprint of this action. The industrial ag process that created the livestock feed, the meat packing, wrapping it all in plastic, shipping to Walmart - just to end up in the dump. If this isn't allegory for our times," another shared. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thankfully, the pork didn't ultimately go to waste, according to an update from the trucker. "Just got word from my boss I have been instructed to take the load to our Denver terminal and leave it there for someone else to either deliver to another buyer or to donate to a Denver food bank," they said. Why is food waste concerning? Though companies sometimes have valid reasons for tossing food, such as avoiding liability for someone getting sick, it's still a huge waste of resources and contributes to pollution. According to Feeding America, nearly 40% of all food in the U.S. goes unsold or uneaten, amounting to 145 billion meals' worth of food destined for landfills. When the food breaks down, it releases methane, a potent gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Food waste accounts for 8% of all global pollution and most trash in landfills. When grocery stores and retailers have to throw away food, this may also drive up grocery prices and contribute to supply chain disruptions. Is Walmart doing anything about this? Last year, Walmart announced a partnership with organic materials recycler Denali to keep millions of pounds of food waste out of landfills. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to its website, the retail giant also set a goal to reduce operational food loss and waste by 50% by 2030. It regularly donates unsold but still edible foods to food pantries through partnerships with Feeding America and other nonprofits. As for the rejected pork, Walmart seems to have storewide policies that prevent it from accepting deliveries of foods with sell-by dates that fall on or near days it will be closed. What else are companies doing about food waste? Albertsons has partnered with Uber to deliver surplus food from its stores to food banks and offers discounted food through Too Good To Go. In San Francisco, the organization ExtraFood is taking unsold food from grocery stores and distributing it to nonprofits, ensuring the rescued food goes to those who need it most. Consumers can help by composting food scraps and shopping smarter at the grocery store, which can save money on groceries and keep food out of landfills. 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. For nearly a thousand years, the Bayeux Tapestry hasnt budged from France. Now, a plan to send the fragile embroidery across the Channel to London's British Museum has ignited a storm of protest - with almost 50,000 people signing a petition that warns that one wrong move could destroy one of Europes greatest treasures. The campaign, launched in July by French art historian Didier Rykner, argues that transporting the fragile embroidery to Londons British Museum is "a true heritage crime" and could cause irreparable damage to its linen fabric. Textile experts have echoed those fears. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think the tapestry must not be transported, for several reasons: its value is incalculable and if anything happens to it no amount of money and no other similar object can replace it, the former director of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, Isabelle Attard, told The Art Newspaper. She added: Its [also] extremely fragile because of its age, past movements over the centuries, the way it has been subjected to almost non-stop lighting since its return to Bayeux after World War 2, and the way its currently presented, sewn to a textile support hung from a rail on little roller bearings, creating tensions everywhere. Related A detail of the 11th century Bayeux tapestry chronicling the Norman conquest of England, in Bayeux, Normandy, France. - Credit: AP Photo Rykner, editor of La Tribune de lArt, is no stranger to high-profile cultural battles. He previously rallied nearly 300,000 signatures against Macrons plan to install contemporary stained glass at Notre Dame Cathedral, though that effort ultimately failed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The tapestry, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and depicts 626 characters, 41 ships and 202 horses, is scheduled to go on display in London between September 2026 and July 2027 while its home in Normandy undergoes renovations. When French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the loan during his 2025 state visit to the UK the first by an EU leader since Brexit the symbolism wasnt lost on either side of the Channel. After years of chilled relations, the move was seen as a gesture of renewed cultural warmth. But the tapestrys journey is also a literal homecoming. Historians widely believe it was originally stitched in England using wool thread on linen, meaning its temporary return will reunite it with its place of origin, says Bayeux Museum curator Antoine Verney. The tapestry has survived invasions, revolutions and world wars. Napoleon displayed it in Paris in 1804, and the Allies rolled it out again in 1944 after liberating France. But even with that pedigree, its age is showing: The textile fibres are 900 years old. So they have naturally degraded simply due to age, Verney said. But at the same time, this is a work that has already travelled extensively and been handled a great deal. Details of how it will be moved remain under discussion. The transfer is being worked out between the British and French governments, with conservation teams weighing every option from humidity control and vibration monitoring to custom-built containers. President Donald Trump cannot resist inflating how many wars he claims to have ended. He told the Todd Starnes Show on Thursday that an article has credited him with stopping three new wars in addition to the seven he claims to have ended, without [him] even knowing it. The article, Trump conceded, was not correct. It also does not appear to exist. Trump says he has now ended 10 wars because he actually ended 3 more that he didnt even know about in addition to his previous 7. (Audio). pic.twitter.com/68kqCBLVbq Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 21, 2025 Still, the president said the possibility of stopping 10 wars was realistic for him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We ended seven wars, probably more than that, you know, Trump said, without saying what new wars he may have solved. He continued, They wrote an article and they gave me three additional ones that I ended without even knowing it, but you know, I saw things were going bad and it looked like it was going to go bad, and it could have been, it could have been 10, but it is seven. And thats a lot of wars. Thats a lot of wars. President Donald Trump brokered a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda during a White House meeting. Above, he is flanked by those countries leaders, as well as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images The Daily Beast could not find an article that claims Trump has solved 10 wars. Many fact checkers have said Trumps claim to have ended seven global conflicts is dubious in itself. Trump, 79, said Monday that he had solved six conflicts during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky. A White House official told the Daily Beast that the six wars Trump claims to have ended are the conflicts between Israel and Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Thailand and Cambodia, India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Egypt and Ethiopia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump has since added a supposed seventh war, claiming that the Abraham Accords in the Middle East from his first term were the latest addition to his tally. Trumps growing list ignores the fact that Egypt and Ethiopia did not reach any formal peace agreement and the fact that Indian officials have denied that Trump had any role in brokering peace with Pakistan. The most significant conflict hanging over Trumps head is the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. He promised on the campaign trail that his Art of the Deal negotiating skills and relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin would have the war stopped on day one. That was 213 days ago, as of Thursday, and not even rolling out the red carpet for his Russian adversary was enough to stop him from dropping bombs on Ukraine. Starnes asked Trump if there had been any progress toward peace in the conflict. Trump, after describing the war as the worst thing since World War II, responded with one of his favorite lines: that we will know more in two weeks. Ill let you know in about, I would say, within two weeks, were going to know one way or the other about peace, Trump said. And after that, uh, well have to maybe take a different track, but well see. But well know pretty soon. A senior CIA officer who oversaw Russia analysis has been stripped of her security clearance, part of a sweeping removal of 37 serving and former officials accused of "betray[ing] their oath to the Constitution," the Economist reported on Aug. 21. The officer, who served as the CIAs top Russia and Eurasia analyst during the 2016 election and helped produce the report detailing Moscows interference on behalf of Donald Trump, was among the most senior career officials targeted. Shelby Pierson and Vinh Nguyen, who also worked on the 2016 assessment, were similarly purged. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the revocations on Aug. 19. The unprecedented action has rattled the intelligence community. "To lose a clearance is a 'career ender,'" former CIA officer Larry Pfeiffer told the Economist. He lost his own clearance in January. "Even the cleaning crews have clearance." Current and former officials told the outlet that the move would deter analysts from speaking "truth to power" in future. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The purge comes amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to punish officials and rewrite assessments critical of the president. In April, Gabbard aides reportedly pressed analysts to alter an assessment of the Tren de Aragua criminal group to align with Trumps policy. In June, Trump publicly attacked Defense Intelligence Agency reports contradicting his claims about Iranian nuclear facilities. Many of those stripped of access had only tangential links to Russia. Nguyen, once chief data scientist at the National Security Agency (NSA), was praised as "the most thoughtful person on AI in the federal government" only weeks before his dismissal. General Tim Haugh, the NSAs director, and April Doss, its top lawyer, were also fired this year. Others appeared on a list compiled by far-right activist Laura Loomer, published in July. This campaign has extended to legal action. John Ratcliffe, now CIA director, referred former agency chief John Brennan to the FBI for allegedly lying to Congress. The Justice Department has also opened a probe into former FBI director James Comey. Both Brennan and Comey played central roles in the 2016 Russia investigation. On Aug. 20, Gabbard announced she would halve the staff of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, created after 9/11 to coordinate Americas 18 intelligence agencies, in an effort to "root out deep state actors." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read also: Russia opposes European troops in Ukraine under Trump-backed security guarantees, Lavrov says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. (The Center Square) Just hours before its closure, the Trump administration ordered a western Michigan coal-fired power plant to remain open for 90 days. This is the second 90-day extension for the J.H. Campbell coal-fired plant in West Olive, which currently generates enough energy to serve a million people. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued the emergency order late Wednesday night, just hours before the plant was set to close permanently. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That order directed Midcontinent Independent System Operator, in combination with Consumers Energy, to continue operating the plant due to an energy emergency. I hereby determine that an emergency exists in portions of the Midwest region of the United States due to a shortage of electric energy, a shortage of facilities for the generation of electricity, and other causes, Wright stated in the order. Issuance of this order will meet the emergency and serve the public interest. The plant had been scheduled to close Thursday. Wright said the closure would have led to power outages throughout the region. I determined that the continued operation of the Campbell plant would provide additional generation capacity during these periods which would help prevent the potential loss of power to homes and local businesses in the areas that might have been affected by curtailments or outages that would otherwise pose a risk to public health and safety, Wright said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats and public interest groups have been quick to respond to the extension, contending there is no energy emergency. Trump forced a dirty, inefficient coal plant in West Michigan to keep running, said the Michigan Democratic Party in response to the announcement. If he doesn't let it close, Michiganders will pay roughly $171 million more in energy bills every year. So much for lowering costs for working families. Others have pointed to concerns about negative impacts on climate change. At a time when energy costs are skyrocketing, the Trump administration is guaranteeing rate hikes for Michiganders by extending the life of this expensive, outdated Campbell Coal plant, said Lisa Wozniak, executive director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. Every day it remains open means more pollution in our air and higher energy costs for Michigan families. Our bills are already too high, and Trumps reckless energy policies are making it worse. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plant began operating in 1962 and was initially scheduled to close May 31. The Campbell plant is Consumers Energys last coal-fired power plant. The July report, the U.S. Department of Energy argued the U.S. will face a significantly increased risk of power outages by 2030 if scheduled coal and natural gas plant retirements are allowed to proceed, as previously reported by The Center Square. The report fulfills a direction by President Donald Trump in an April executive order to develop a uniform methodology for analyzing current and anticipated reserve margins for all regions of the bulk power system. Michigan joined a coalition of states challenging that report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This report is based on flawed assumptions, overstates risks, and attempts to override the authority of states and regional regulators all to appease President Trump, said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. We cannot allow the federal government to use a manufactured emergency to prop up outdated coal plants at the expense of Michigan families and our energy future. Nessel has also filed a lawsuit pushing for the Campbell plant to be closed immediately, arguing the initial emergency order was unlawful and that the plants continued operation could put enormous costs onto utility customers who receive no real benefit. (FOX40.COM) The Trump administration announced an immediate pause on issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers amid fatal crashes reported throughout the United States. Video Above: What to do if you witness a crash The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday. Viral video shows Northern California student body slammed after punching staff Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rubios announcement comes after a series of fatal big rig crashes that were allegedly caused by truck drivers who were not U.S. citizens On Aug. 12, a Stockton truck driver, Harjinder Singh, 28, was accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed a family of three in South Florida. He faces charges of vehicular manslaughter and illegal immigration charges, officials said. Husband arrested for murder after Nikki Cheng Saelee McCain goes missing in Northern California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the decision to prosecute Singh. Hey, Commander Cosplay: the federal government (YOU) already confirmed that this guy meets federal and state immigration requirements, Newsom said in a post directed at Trump. YOU issued him a work permit (EAD). Oops. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite Newsoms claims, the Department of Homeland Security reportedly told FOX News that Singh, who was arrested Saturday, illegally entered the country and his work visa was rejected under the Trump administration on Sept. 14, 2020. Singh and his 25-year-old passenger from Yuba City were reportedly uninjured. In another controversial crash that involved a migrant on March 23, 2024, Claude Rafiki, 29, of Michigan, was driving a semi-truck when he veered onto the wrong side of a Nevada Highway, killing three motorcyclists, a newly-engaged couple, and a father. Rafiki reportedly obtained U.S citizenship in 2021 and was initially accused of driving under the influence. He was sentenced to four to ten years in prison for reckless driving resulting in death. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News. President Trumps administration is pausing all issuance of worker visas for foreign truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, arguing the growing number of international, commercial operators is putting the lives of Americans in danger. Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers, Rubio said in a Thursday post on social platform X. Rubios announcement comes days after Harjinder Singh, a truck driver, was accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed people about 50 miles north of West Palm Beach, Fla. The Department of Homeland Security said this week that Singh, who was arrested for three counts of vehicular homicide, was in the U.S. illegally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Tuesday that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration launched an investigation into the deadly Florida highway crash. Trump penned an executive order in late April requiring all commercial truck drivers operating in the U.S. to be proficient in English. The president designated English as the countrys official language in an executive order in March. They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers, the White House said in the order at the time. Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English. Foreign truckers in the U.S. are usually working on H-2B visas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, the State Department confirmed it is vetting more than 55 million U.S. visa holders for possible deportable infractions, including criminal activity, visa overstays and engagement in any form of terrorist activity. The State Department said last week it would pause all visas for visitors from the Gaza Strip as it conducts a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Since directing Texas Republicans to help him steal the House in the midterms, President Trump has been pretty forthcoming about his belief that Republicans are entitled to five more seats in Texas, simply because he is popular there. They did it to us first, Trump said earlier this month as Texas Democrats left the state to try to delay the inevitable. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more seats. Hes also gotten far more ambitious or, at least, explicit about his plans when it comes to various election subversion strategies. Hes not hidden his and his administration officials attempts to pressure other red states like Florida, Ohio and Indiana to take a cue from Texas Republicans and engage in mid-cycle redistricting so that he doesnt have to deal with the investigative (and other) consequences thatll come with losing the House. And earlier this week, as my colleague Kate Riga reported, he announced the second prong of his effort to rig the midterms: he wants to pressure red state officials to do away with mail-in ballots. He re-upped the idea shortly after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he claimed told him the 2020 election was rigged due to vote-by-mail. Despite Putins reminder, this has been an area of fixation for him for some time, so much so that the Republican National Committee had to do a bunch of clean up in 2024 to try to get their voters to trust the process again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a Truth Social post last night he spelled out a master plan for 2026 ratfuckery or, at least, a piece of one. Weve long been expecting something like this. On Wednesday night, he went big, making it explicit that he wants to secure a 100-seat majority in the House. And thats something he thinks Republicans can pull off if they just do a clever combo of nationwide gerrymandering and the elimination of vote-by-mail as a practice. Heres what he said: Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down. Florida, Indiana, and others are looking to do the same thing. More seats equals less Crime, a great Economy, and a STRONG SECOND AMENDMENT. It means Happiness and Peace. But Republicans, there is one thing even better STOP MAIL-IN VOTING, a total fraud that has no bounds. Also, go to PAPER BALLOTS before it is too late At one tenth the cost, faster, and more reliable. If we do these TWO things, we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over. God Bless America!!! The whole 100 more seats thing is perhaps a hyperbolic troll unlike anything anyones ever seen, etc. But its nonetheless significant. Republicans and red state officials tend to try to keep explicit mentions of their true intentions when screwing around with maps and election rules out of public commentary. Now that Trump is being so explicit, Democrats have no reason not to abandon the higher ground, point toward the folly of unilateral disarmament, and join the no-holds-barred fight to stop Republicans ratfuckery. Trumps Big Boy Ride Along As if we needed more evidence that President Trumps takeover of D.C. was never about crime and always about made-for-TV photo ops, it appears the president will be joining law enforcement for a ridealong this evening. Its unclear if he will ride alongside the D.C. police force he federalized, the National Guard troops he and other red state officials performatively sent into the district or the ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents he sent in (who are doing very little besides violently arresting food delivery drivers). But whatever he does adds to the appearance that Trump is hellbent on creating: doing whatever he can to conjure up the visuals of a crackdown on crime in a city that has only seen a significant drop in violent crime in recent years. (And, if it needs repeating, none of this was ever about crime in the first place, he just wants to make it seem like he can come in and take over American cities led by Democratic officials). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course. So were going to do a job, Trump said to conservative radio host Todd Starnes today. The National Guard is great. Theyve done a fantastic job. Interior Dept Get in on the Action Trumps allies have been doing gymnastics ever since he federalized the D.C. police to 1.) help justify his baseless takeover and 2.) prove their fealty by adding troops to the cause. Case in point today: .@Interior has authorized a service-wide deputization of @CBP officers to serve alongside @usparkpolicepio and intensify crime deterrence efforts on @NatlParkService sites. Thank you to these brave officers who are working 24/7 to enforce @POTUS' directive to make D.C. safe Secretary Doug Burgum (@SecretaryBurgum) August 20, 2025 California Clears First Hurdle The California Assembly has passed the first of three bills that were being debated in both the California Assembly and Senate on Thursday, designed to help the state draw new congressional maps that could potentially give Democrats at least five new seats in the U.S. House. The bills being debated today, when passed and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, will create the ballot language for a proposed constitutional amendment that California voters will weigh in on in November. If the measure is approved itll give California officials permission to forego the states typical process for redrawing congressional maps, meaning they can bypass the states independent redistricting commission. The panel typically oversees the non-partisan creation of congressional maps to ensure fair representation of the population in Washington. But, as Newsom has said in his pitch to voters, these arent typical times. Newsom is seeking temporary permission to bypass the commission in order to help offset the gain Republicans will likely make in the House with Texas Republicans on the verge of approving their maps for five new red seats in the state. In Case You Missed It How the New Attack on Lisa Cook Gives Away Trumps Abuse of Power Game Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Public Broadcasting Cuts Are Already Putting Trumps Supporters in Rural America at Risk Even As Theyre Poised to Pass Gerrymandered Maps, Texas GOP Finds Ways to Threaten Dems Yesterdays Most Read Story Trump Pushes White Nationalist Agenda Across Multiple Fronts What We Are Reading Supreme Court clears way for nearly $800 million in cuts to NIH grants The Forgotten History of Hitlers Establishment Enablers President Donald Trump on Thursday championed his federal takeover of Washington, D.C., by thanking police officers, federal agents and National Guard troops in a sprawling speech which quickly devolved into a rant about how hot and big artificial intelligence is. Trump federalized D.C.s Metropolitan Police Department earlier this month to quell the supposed bedlam there, even though violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low, and spoke Thursday at the U.S. Park Polices Anacostia operations facility to tout the effort. While he began by praising law enforcement for the fantastic job theyve done, Trump soon lauded Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates for investing in the U.S. tech sector and said hell build all sorts of plants all over the country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These plants included AI data centers, which Trump went on to passionately describe. We wouldnt be able to compete with China AI, he told the crowd of law enforcement. And now were totally leading the AI race, and the artificial intelligence, its a big deal and its the hottest thing there is for probably, in 35, 40 years. Related: Trump Has Resorted To Making Numbers Up And Experts Say It Should Worry All Of Us A lot of people dont know what it is, Trump continued. Just trust me, its very hot, its big. Social media users were quick to note that people in Trumps own administration dont know what it is, as Education Secretary Linda McMahon infamously mispronounced AI as A1 a well-known steak sauce while speaking at a tech summit earlier this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So hot that his education secretary, the wrestling lady, refers to it as A1, wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter, with another person commenting: A lot of people dont know what it is. Like your Secretary for Education, Linda McMahon, who thought AI was. A1. Trump: Artificial intelligence A lot of people don't know what it is. It is hot, very big. pic.twitter.com/muFNMy8Ora Acyn (@Acyn) August 21, 2025 The International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that provides nations around the world with data-driven analyses on the global energy sector, noted in a recent report that AI is one of the most pressing and least understood issues of our time. It also stated that the U.S. is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminum, steel and cement, which certainly clashes with Trumps stated plan to revive U.S. manufacturing. They need more electricity than we have right now in the whole country servicing everything, he said Thursday about AI data centers. In other words, we have to at least double it up to be competitive and to be leading. And were more than doubling it up. Related: Conservative Pundit Cornered On CNN For Touting Ghislaine Maxwell Prison Interview As evident by the reactions, social media users werent convinced by Trumps remarks. Trump speak 101: A lot of people dont know what it is translates to I dont know what it is Kimberly (@KimberlySuth) August 21, 2025 Clueless. Trump talks about AI like its a microwaved burrito hot, very big. This man couldnt code a password, but he runs the country. AnatolijUkraine (@AnatoliUkraine) August 21, 2025 Trump was amused by his son Barron turning on a laptop. He has no clue what AI is. Vince Wilson (@VinceWilsonShow) August 21, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What his education secretary thinks AI is. pic.twitter.com/PnDWj0mBZa Hector of Texas (@HectorofTexas) August 21, 2025 Trump's vocabulary is dwindling to a handful of vague adjectives like hot, big, and beautiful. Doug Borton (@BortonDoug) August 22, 2025 Maybe Trump is just AI? Haters_gonna_hate (@princess_kim_k) August 22, 2025 Related... Read the original on HuffPost A Colorado state lawmaker resigned Thursday ahead of a vote to censure him for taking a picture of a Democratic lawmaker without her knowledge during floor proceedings. Republican state Rep. Ryan Armagost, the former House minority whip, had been facing a vote to censure him as the photo became the center of a social media harassment campaign. Rep. Armagost chose to walk away rather than face accountability for his actions," said Democratic state Rep. Yara Zokaie, the subject of the picture in question. He was already expected to resign from his role effective Sept. 1 to pursue a new job and relationship in Arizona. Democrats indicated that they are exploring steps for the censure resolution. "Resigning may remove him from this chamber, but it does not erase the harm he caused or the responsibility he bears for perpetuating a culture of violence against women, Zokaie continued. Armagost shared the picture in a private group chat with fellow Republicans. Some lawmakers compared her outfit to that of a stripper and a prostitute. Thats awful, Republican state Rep. Brandi Bradley wrote in the group chat. "I didnt know it was dress like a stripper day." Featured Local Savings The image was then posted online on an anonymous, conservative social media account. The initial social media post on X was captioned, Thoughts? and was followed by a second post reading Smash or Pass Yara Zokaie. The photograph was subsequently disseminated on social media by anonymous accounts, accompanied by vulgar commentary, and comments to the social media posts quickly escalated into racist and misogynistic attacks, rape threats, and violent threats directed against the colleague and her young children, according to the resolution to censure. Democratic leadership in Colorado condemned Armagosts actions ahead of the vote. Assistant House Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon called it unbecoming of an elected official. Its unbecoming of a legislator to the extent that it harms somebody, it harms somebody in the workplace, and it is not the example that we want to set on behalf of the people who we are elected to represent, she said. DEMOCRATIC 2028 CONTENDERS FILL THEIR CALENDARS WITH HIGH-PROFILE EVENTS Armagost has declined to comment on why he took the picture. At the time he took it, he chaired the House Workplace Harassment Committee. My trust with a number of Republican colleagues is completely broken and will not be rebuilt, Zokaie said, according to Colorado Public Radio. Minority leadership did lie to me. WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that in two weeks he should know whether progress is possible in his bid to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine and he again raised the prospect of imposing sanctions on Moscow. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said "I'm not happy" with any aspect of the effort to find peace. A week ago Trump held talks in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been unable thus far to coax him into a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "There's a tremendous amount of hatred there," said Trump. "But we'll see what happens. I think in two weeks, we'll know which way I'm going." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said he would decide then whether to impose "massive sanctions" or do nothing and say "it's your fight." (Reporting By Andrea Shalal and Steve Holland, Editing by Franklin Paul) Investing.com -- U.S. President Donald Trump issued a stern warning to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on Friday regarding crime concerns in the nations capital. "It was unsafe," Trump told reporters. "It was horrible and Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she wont be mayor very long because we take it over with the Federal Government running it like its supposed to be run." The presidents comments follow his actions last week when he declared crime in Washington D.C. was "totally out of control" and initiated a broad crackdown on crime. As part of this effort, Trump deployed National Guard soldiers and federal agents to patrol the streets of the capital. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Related articles Trump: DC Mayor "wont be mayor very long" unless crime is under control Clients buying into summer rally, bracing for later pullback, says BofA's Hartnett Risks Rising? Smart Money Dodged 46%+ Drawdowns on These High-Flying Names President Donald Trumps new deal in the South Caucasus has ended a decades-long conflict and handed Washington a rare strategic foothold on Irans northern border, experts say. The agreement, signed earlier this month between Armenia and Azerbaijan, grants the U.S. a 99-year lease over the Zangezur Corridor - a narrow strip of land that will serve as a critical trade and energy route to Europe, bypassing Tehran entirely. Iranian American journalist and dissident Banafsheh Zand told Fox News Digital the move is "a wonderful gain for the U.S." that also delivers a "slap in the face" to the regime in Tehran. The corridor has long been at the center of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which displaced tens of thousands and fueled three decades of instability. Trumps intervention brought both sides to the table and created what observers say is a new trade and security lifeline linking the Caspian Basin to Europe, bypassing Iran entirely. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Armenia And Azerbaijan Leaders Seek To Ease Russian And Iranian Concerns After Us-brokered Peace Deal A view from Armenia's southern border reveals the Arax River, with Iran visible across the water. This crossing is a vital lifeline for Armenia, facilitating essential trade and energy flows, especially as tensions rise over the proposed Zangezur Corridor. Iran strongly opposes the corridor, fearing it would sever its direct land access to Armenia and diminish its role as a regional transit hub. The corridor, intended to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory, has become a flashpoint in regional geopolitics. Known as the Trump Route for Peace & Prosperity (TRIPP), economically, the agreement secures Washington a direct role in overseeing the flow of Caspian hydrocarbons to Europe. The U.S. will manage rail and road infrastructure, telecom networks and energy pipelines running through the corridor, giving American companies a dominant position in regional transit for oil, gas and goods. By controlling this artery, the U.S. not only generates billions in future trade and investment but also locks Europe into alternative supply routes that reduce reliance on both Russia and Iran. For allies, the corridor offers cheaper and safer access to Caspian energy. For Tehran, it represents lost revenue, lost leverage, and the end of its ability to act as a mandatory gatekeeper for east-west commerce. Read On The Fox News App Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zand said the deal is not only historic but also a direct win for Washington. "Its a wonderful gain for the U.S.," she said. "American contractors will be supervising oil and gas from the Caspian Basin, routed through Zangezur and Turkey to Europe. The profit margins are great, and it all happens under NATOs blessing." Zand said the potential goes even further. "Nobodys talking about it yet, but I dont think its out of the question to see U.S. bases there," she said. "If that happens, then checkmate the Khamenei regime and Russia." Trump Makes Peace Deal Between Armenia And Azerbaijan US President Donald Trump (C), Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L) and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan display the agreement they signed in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC on August 8, 2025. US President Donald Trump said Friday that Armenia and Azerbaijan were committed to a permanent peace as he hosted a White House summit with the leaders of the two South Caucasus nations, which have fought for decades. For Iran, the corridor represents what Zand called a nightmare scenario. Tehran has long used its geography to shape energy and trade flows. By inserting the U.S. into the region, the new deal effectively strips Iran of that leverage. Zand put it in stark terms: "Iran is shaped like a cat, a sitting cat. This corridor literally runs above the cats ears. It bypasses Iran, takes money away from the regime, and pushes them out into the cold." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Iran Program, said the corridor exposes how vulnerable Iran has become in the Caucasus. "Both the defeat of Armenia in the most recent war with Azerbaijan, as well as the political problems between Moscow and Yerevan today, have made it harder for the Islamic Republic to really benefit from its traditional economic and political relationship with Armenia," he told Fox News Digital. An infographic titled Construction of roads and railways extending to the Zangezur Corridor continues without interruption. Once constructed, the corridor will connect Azerbaijan's western provinces and Nakhchivan via Armenia, further stretching to China, Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus and Turkey. "They still do have ties, and the regime is an opportunistic actor as much as it is an ideological one. If there is any way to throw stones at this agreement, or extract concessions on the back end, they will try." At the same time, he said the strategic picture is clear. "The Islamic Republic is, in essence, carved out of this route," he said. "This is not just a critical corridor that could bring stability to the South Caucasus and economic improvement for all countries involved-it also drives home the point that the regime has been such a poor guardian of Irans national interest that the Iranian state has been excluded from a major transit route just above its border." Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the media during voting for parliamentary elections in Tehran, Iran in May 2024. The timing, Zand argued, makes the impact even greater. She pointed to Irans weakening position since October 7, 2023, and Israel's recent 12-day war with Tehran. "The regime was self-isolated when it couldnt come to Hamass or Hezbollahs rescue. Iraqs Shiites are saying they dont want to be controlled, Syria is out, and Hezbollah has been degraded. For those of us whove watched the regime for decades, we always knew it was a paper tiger. October 7 and the war exposed it to the world." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The killing of senior IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists has deepened the sense of vulnerability inside Tehran. "They can huff and puff about blowing the house down, but the truth is, theres a whole lot of fear among the regimes leaders now," Zand said. "Khamenei has even gone into hiding again." Trump Brings Peace To Caucasus: Inside The Armeniaazerbaijan Deal 30 Years In The Making Ben Taleblu added that Washington is now using these shifts to turn Irans weakness into opportunity. "Wherever the regime is weak, that invites pushback, whether militarily or economically," he said. "The U.S. has followed Israels military success against the Islamic Republic with strikes of its own against nuclear facilities, and it is now following Azerbaijans battlefield success with a political and economic success of its own. This corridor is another example of America moving in when Tehran is most vulnerable." An aerial view of the construction of roads and railways that will pass through the Zangezur Corridor, which will connect the western provinces with Nakhchivan and will also be one of the routes of the Central Corridor extending from China to Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus and Turkey. Zand, whose father was a well-known Iranian journalist and intellectual assassinated by the regime, said she views Trumps direct involvement as the key to the corridors success. "Because its Trump, it makes all the difference," she said. "Trump doesnt care about not hurting peoples feelings. He responds to how people act. And with this move, hes sitting over Iran like a vulture-ominous, watching, ready." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For dissidents like Zand, the corridor represents more than a transport route. "Weve prayed for this for decades," she said. "Until the regime is gone, people inside Iran will remain too afraid to rise up again. But this corridor is a boon. It shows the regime is surrounded, and its days are numbered." Click Here For The Fox News App The deal was reached with NATO backing and has already been compared by some observers to historic peace accords. Zand believes the significance lies not only in ending a 30-year conflict but also in turning the U.S. presence in the Caucasus into a permanent reality. "The regime knows the jig is up." Original article source: Trump delivered strategic blow to Iran regime with bold Azerbaijan-Armenia pact Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba on Thursday predicted she would win a fight between the Trump administration and judges over the legality of her appointment. (Photo by Gage Skidmore) Alina Habba, who a federal judge on Thursday said has no lawful authority to be New Jerseys acting U.S. attorney, hit back at judges who oppose her during an appearance on Fox News. We will not fall to rogue judges, we will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job, respecting the president. And you cant get rid of the president, Habba said, adding, I am the pick of the president. I am the pick of Pam Bondi, our attorney general. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in a highly anticipated ruling over the legality of Habbas appointment, said because federal law allows for 120-day terms for acting U.S. attorneys who do not receive confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Habbas term ended on July 1 and she has been acting without lawful authority since then. Branns ruling represents the second time federal judges have rejected Trumps pick for chief federal prosecutor of New Jersey. When Habbas term was set to expire in July and she had yet to receive Senate confirmation, New Jerseys federal judges named her first assistant, Desiree Leigh Grace, as her replacement, angering the Trump administration so much it fired Grace and implemented a series of personnel changes intended to give Habba another 210 days on the job. Brann called that maneuvering novel but unlawful. He stayed his decision for an expected appeal to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Habba predicted the Trump administration would win on appeal. You might try and change my title, you might try and fight me, but just like today with New York, we will win, we always do. It just takes time, Habba said on Fox News Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A New York state appeals court on Thursday overturned a nearly $500 million civil penalty against President Donald Trump, but left in place a finding of fraud based on records that inflated the value of Trumps business holdings. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Department of Justice (DOJ) is set to begin turning over documents related to Jeffrey Epstein to the House Oversight Committee Friday. Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters Thursday that he had no timeline for when materials would be sent over, but confirmed he still expected files Friday. Comer suggested that documents would be made public at some point after being assessed by the committee. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We'll work as quickly as we canthis is sensitive information," the Kentucky Republican said in response to Fox News Digital asking about a timeline for a wide release. "We want to make sure we don't do anything to harm or jeopardize any victims that were involved in this. But we're going to be transparent. We're doing what we said we would do. We're getting the documents. And, I believe the White House will work with us." Gop Lawmakers Clash Over Strategy To Avert Government Shutdown Crisis Read On The Fox News App Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing a Friday deadline for handing over files related to Jeffrey Epstein to the House Oversight Committee. Comer was directed to subpoena the DOJ for materials related to Epstein's case via a bipartisan vote by committee members last month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The subpoena deadline, originally set for earlier this week, was moved to Friday in an effort to accommodate the Trump administration which Comer said was complying with his request. "There are many records in DOJs custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted," Comer said on Tuesday. "I appreciate the Trump administrations commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter." Gop Governor Nominee Pushes Redistricting To Oust State's Lone House Dem He told reporters Thursday that he believed there were "hundreds and hundreds of pages" of documents in existence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It's just a matter of getting it together and reviewing it, which I'm sure the Department of Justice is doing as we speak," Comer said. Requested materials included all documents and communications in the DOJ's possession relating to both Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as files "further relating or referring to human trafficking, exploitation of minors, sexual abuse, or related activity," according to a subpoena viewed by Fox News Digital. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is leading a probe into Jeffrey Epstein's case. Documents relating specifically to the DOJ's prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell, Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida, and any materials related to Epstein's death were requested. Renewed furor over Epstein's case engulfed Capitol Hill after intra-GOP fallout over the Trump administration's handling of the matter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The DOJ effectively declared the case closed after an "exhaustive review," revealing Epstein had no "client list," did not blackmail "prominent individuals," and confirmed he did die by suicide in a New York City jail while awaiting prosecution. In response to the backlash by some on the right, President Donald Trump and his DOJ have sought to take steps to make more information public. Democrats seized on the backlash with newfound calls for transparency in Epstein's case, prompting some on the right to accuse them of hypocrisy for not pushing the matter earlier. When asked about that divide, House Oversight Committee member Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, told reporters that Epstein's case was not a priority for Democrats in the same way it was seen by the GOP. Rep. Jasmine Crockett said Epstein's case was not something that was previously "front and center" for Democrats. "I can tell you that Democrats, when they went out there and campaigned, they campaigned on costs, whether it was housing costs, whether it was food costs or whether they were campaigning on children, being able to get the education that they deserve in this country. This wasn't a promise that we made. So this was not something that was front and center," Crockett said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't see anything wrong with the fact that we were trying to do everything that we could to prevent our economy from being where it is right now. But ultimately, when people voted, they're telling us that they voted for this particular reason. It's important that we follow up." Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ for comment but did not hear back by press time. Original article source: Trump DOJ to begin handing over Epstein files to House Oversight investigators President Donald Trumps effort to prosecute his political enemies heated up Friday, as the FBI conducted an early morning search at the home of John Bolton, a one-time adviser who Trump has bitterly feuded with for years. The search, which an administration official said was court authorized, reportedly pertains to an investigation into Bolton for leaking classified information. Trump has insisted that Bolton should be prosecuted since 2020. Unusually, several top DOJ and FBI officials posted (in vague terms) about the search on social media as it was happening. NO ONE is above the law @FBI agents on mission, FBI director Kash Patel posted at 7:03 am. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Public corruption will not be tolerated, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino responded. Justice will be pursued. Always, Attorney General Pam Bondi chimed in. Coming after the Epstein files debacle that made these officials look incompetent and disingenuous, this messaging is their effort to prove that they are, in fact, delivering the retribution the MAGA base and the president crave. The Bolton investigation is one of several that are reportedly underway against top Democrats and former Trump aides. But the early morning search is the most visible sign of investigative activity in any of these probes yet. Whether any of these will result in charges, though, remains to be seen. Trump himself was indicted for mishandling classified documents that hed taken to Mar-a-Lago after he left office in 2021. (A right-wing judge slow-walked the prosecution, preventing it from going to trial.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Trumps effort to have Bolton sent to prison and his broader desire to prosecute Democrats, officials who investigated him, and former aides who turned against him goes back further, to his first term. And so far, it seems significantly more effective this time. The saga of purported classified information in Boltons book Bolton, a hawkish hardliner who served in foreign policy roles in several GOP administrations, was Trumps national security adviser for about a year and a half during Trumps first term, until his tenure ended in acrimony in September 2019. After departing the White House, Bolton immediately began writing a book about his experience, with many unflattering accounts of Trumps conduct. (He called it The Room Where It Happened, after a song in the musical Hamilton.) Word of the books contents related to Trumps first impeachment proceedings leaked, and the president was furious. To try to stop the books publication, Trump claimed that it contained classified information, and he insisted that he would consider every conversation with me, as president, highly classified. He went on: So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the book gets out, hes broken the law. And I would think that he would have criminal problems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Or, in tweet form: Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information. Trumps assertion that every conversation with him was classified is preposterous, but the question of what counts as classified information has long been thorny for former officials trying to disclose national security policymaking details. Bolton at first followed the typical process for such disclosures by submitting his manuscript to National Security Council officials for pre-publication review, so they could suggest striking anything classified. But Trump appointees eventually pushed out the official conducting the review, and essentially brought the process to a halt. Wanting to get the book out before Trumps reelection, Bolton then decided to go ahead and publish in June 2020 without the governments okay. The administration sued to try to block it, and though a judge had some very harsh words for Bolton, he let the publication proceed, saying, the damage is done. By September 2020, prosecutors had convened a grand jury looking into the matter. But in 2021, after Trump lost reelection and DOJ leadership changed hands, the case was reportedly closed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With Trump back in office, the prosecution has evidently been revived. An official involved in the investigation told the New York Times that the investigation was about Bolton leaking classified information to damage Trump it wasnt just about the book and included actions Bolton took in the past few years. Investigations of Trumps enemies are actually happening this time During Trumps first term, he repeatedly demanded prosecutions of his political enemies, but these prosecutions kept not happening. As I wrote at the time, DOJ officials who understood and cared about the law kept slow-walking or bottling up investigations they thought were bogus. Trump often fumed about this, but couldnt manage to do anything about it. His second term is a different story. Hes staffed the top ranks of the DOJ and the FBI with personal loyalists who are not only willing to do his bidding, but theyre eager to be seen as doing his bidding. Thats evident in Bondi, Patel, and Bongino taking credit for the Bolton search. All three care about their cred among the MAGA base, and want to take a victory lap, even if it makes the investigation look more political. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then theres Eagle Ed Martin, who earlier this year did a stint as US attorney for the District of Columbia, but now is heading the Justice Departments Weaponization Working Group. This group is purportedly targeting people who weaponized law enforcement against Trump and his allies, but in practice seems to be doing their own weaponization against targets like Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James. In practice, were still a long way away from Trumps political enemies being locked up. To bring charges, prosecutors will have to convince grand juries to indict. To sustain charges, theyll have to convince judges that theyre appropriate. To convict, theyll have to convince juries. And even after conviction, theres the appeal process. But its clear that any internal hesitations the DOJ once had about being seen as targeting Trumps enemies are gone. Now, thats exactly how it wants to be seen. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said that protecting the Native American chief mascot of Massapequa High School in Long Island, New York, is a top priority for her department. The school has been embroiled in a legal fight over the Massapequa Chiefs name, as has nearby Connetquot over its Thunderbirds name, since 2023 when the New York State Board of Regents banned the use of indigenous names, logos and imagery in public schools and threatened to withdraw state funding from any that did not comply with its ruling. Four Long Island districts, including Massapequa, challenged the ban, only for a federal judge to side with the Empire State earlier this year. Education Secretary Linda McMahon visits Massapequa High School in Long Island, New York, on May 30 to express solidarity with its fight to retain its Chiefs name (AP) The dispute echoes that over the renaming of the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians at a national level. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement President Donald Trump has demanded those names be restored and has recently turned his attention to Massapequa, telling Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Sunday: I love Massapequa. Ive heard that name for years. I have a lot of friends in Massapequa Weve got to get the name back to the Chiefs. Trump added that, in his opinion, it is demeaning to Native Americans to lose the Chiefs name, rather than insensitive to keep it. The name was originally chosen to remember the Massapequa Tribe, who lived on Long Island until they were displaced by European colonists in the 17th century. The president previously expressed his support over the matter on Truth Social in April, urging McMahon to intervene, and then posed with a Chiefs jersey in the Oval Office for an Instagram post. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McMahon also posed with a shirt during a subsequent visit to the school in May at which she threatened a lawsuit over the issue, claiming the Board of Regents decision amounted to a violation of Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act and warning that New Yorks Department of Education could lose its own funding or be investigated by the Justice Department if it does not back down. In her latest statement on the matter, the secretary said: It is a top priority of this administration to protect Massapequa, Connetquot, and all Native American groups right to celebrate and preserve their cultural heritage. President Donald Trump poses with a Massapequa Chiefs jersey in the Oval Office of the White House in April to express his support for the school (realdonaldtrump/Instagram) McMahon also praised the two districts in their continued fight against woke ideologues who are attempting to strip them of their beloved Chiefs and Thunderbirds mascots. Kerry Wachter, president of the Massapequa school board, told Newsmax after McMahons May visit she was shocked that the Trump administration had gotten involved in the issue but welcomed its support. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You know, we did get some press in the beginning, New York Post and a couple other outlets, where we asked for President Trump to please get involved. And to our surprise, he actually did. So, yeah, we were very excited to hear him call out the Massapequa Chiefs. She added that carrying out the rebranding demanded and removing the Chiefs iconography would cost her district $1 million. Its in our fields. Its in the floors. Its on the walls. Its everywhere. And its not just at the schools, you know; its throughout our town. And were named Massapequa for the Massapequa Indians who were here before us. So, you know, its disingenuous for them to say that its, you know, an insult or that were doing something disparaging. Wachter has since called on Trump to issue an executive order to protect the mascot and the school has reportedly hired a new legal counsel, Oliver Roberts, to take the fight to New York. John Bolton, President Donald Trumps former national security adviser turned vocal Trump critic, is the latest target of the presidents weaponization of the government against his political adversaries. On Friday morning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the Maryland home of Bolton, whose 17-month stint under the president was characterized by stark foreign policy disagreements until it abruptly ended. NBC News reports that the raid is part of a national security investigation in search of classified recordsaccusations that echo Trumps previous attempts to wield the government to silence and punish Bolton for supposedly sharing classified information in his 2020 tell-all book, The Room Where It Happened, which described Trump as incompetent and unfit for the presidency. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bolton frequently issues scathing criticisms of Trump. In March 2024, he said the then candidate hasnt got the brains to be a dictator. Months later, he said that, while Trump falls into the general definition of fascist, he lacks the thoughtfulness to fit the bill: To be a fascist, you have to have a philosophy. Trumps not capable of that, he said. Last August, Bolton said Trump doesnt lie a lot, because to lie, you have to do it consciously. He just cant tell the difference. This February, he told CNN the presidents mind is full of mush. He also regularly lays into the president for his perceived friendliness toward Russia in its war against Ukraine. In 2022, he called Trump a useful idiot for Putin. And just last week, Bolton incensed the president by saying he had, in arranging his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin, handed the Russian president a victory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boltons barbs have, of course, not been ignored. Trump, for example, called the exnational security adviser really dumb and a loser for his latest criticisms. And after meeting with Putin, Trump blamed stupid people like Bolton for mak[ing] it much harder to end the Russia-Ukraine war. On Friday, top Trump officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, seemed to gloat about the FBI raid in oblique posts on X. This latest instance of lawfare comes as the Trump administration escalates its attacks against other political opponentsmost recently training its sights on Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. This is not to mention Trumps threats to launch even more retributive legal attacks against his perceived foe Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, among others. Whatever we end up learning about the rationale for the FBIs early-morning raid on former national security adviser John Boltons Bethesda, Maryland, home on Friday, theres plainly a major escalation underway in President Donald Trumps use of law enforcement to persecute his perceived enemies and entrench his authoritarian power. Consider the pattern: The targeting of Bolton, a major critic of Trump, appears to have been personally authorized by Kash Patel. An apparently official leak to the New York Post deliberately underscored Patels involvement, probably to make sure its understood by Trumps other enemies. Remember: Trump installed Patel as FBI director for this very purpose . Patel had openly declared in 2023 that the conspirators, that is enemies of Trump and MAGA, must be prosecuted, and also that more loyalists with the resolve to see this through would be recruited to carry this out. Bolton was on Patels enemies list. Trump is now targeting Fed governor Lisa Cook, another proclaimed enemy, and hes escalating the use of law enforcement and the manipulation of the bureaucracy to do so. Trump loyalist William Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is alleging that Cook committed mortgage fraud, and this has been referred to the Justice Department. Whether or not theres anything to the fraud claims, theyre minor at best, and its already highly suspect that Pulte, an agency head, has taken such an active interest in investigations into individual mortgages that happen to belong to Trumps highest-profile enemies. Given that Trump personally promoted an article about the referral of the Cook matter to DOJ, Pultes move looks even more suspect. Tellingly, Trump also heavily promoted the news of another supposedly fraudulent mortgage held by an enemy, Senator Adam Schiff. Schiff flatly denies the charges, yet DOJ is now criminally investigating them. Here again, Trump loyalist Pulte was directly involved in the manufacturing of the pretext for this, and experts say the process employed was dubiously manipulated. The same tactic has been used against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another major Trump foe. The question now is whether the White House is directing Pulte to rummage through the mortgages of Trump enemies for material that can serve as a pretext for potential DOJ prosecutions. Its hard to imagine something of this magnitude proceeding without the White Houses blessing. After protests broke out over Trumps attempted takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force and his deployment of the National Guard therewhich is itself a major escalationWhite House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller expressly declared that protests would be met with a surge of additional law enforcement and/or military resources. Notably, theres been no serious effort to reassure Americans that Trumps militarization of the city, or of Los Angeles, is rooted in benign intentions. In fact, this week Trump suggested he would personally ride through the city with the National Guard. Though he scrapped the plan, that was probably for logistical reasons, and he plainly wants all this military activity in urban centers to be seen as affirmative confirmation of his ongoing consolidation of power. Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon explicitly declared the other day that ICE officers will indeed be employed during the 2026 midterm elections in large numbers to monitor voting booths, again floating undocumented voters as the bullshit pretext to justify it. Bannon is not in a position to compel this, of course, but its clear the MAGA movement now sees Trumps militarization of cities as a precursor to the use of law enforcement and/or the military to intimidate voters in large numbers, or foment a crisis atmosphere designed to help the GOP, or both. Last but not least, as we reported, a recent internal Department of Homeland Security memo outlines the hopes of senior DHS officials for substantially escalated military involvement in domestic law enforcement going forward. It even declares that military operations like the one in L.A. may be needed for years to come. The raid of Boltons home was authorized by a court, and it is seeking to determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information, according to The New York Times. Trump told reporters Friday that hed been unaware of the raid, but responded to it ominously. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He could be a very unpatriotic guy, Trump said. Were gonna find out. That suggests a thin basis for the raid, raising the possibility that it might be expressly meant to find something on Bolton. Indeed, while Trump also claimed he didnt direct this action, he suggested that he told Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi that you have to do what you have to do. Its all pure mobspeak: They know exactly what he wants them to do. And this raid was it. National security lawyer Bradley Moss says we cant judge the full significance of the action until we know whether Bolton committed some kind of offenseeven a minor, inadvertent onethat could be the basis for a preliminary FBI effort to recoup documents in his possession. In this scenario, says Moss, it would be legitimate for the FBI to seek them. But Moss also notes that its not clear why the FBI didnt arrange with Boltons lawyer to collect any documents in a far less dramatic way. Did Bolton refuse to turn over classified documents, as (you may recall) Trump did? Maybe. But if not, Moss says, then the dramatic raid could constitute a serious abuse of power even if theres some basis for action. (Obviously if theres no basis at all then its even worse, but the court authorization suggests there may be something here.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If this is all just a political show to embarrass Bolton on something he would otherwise have cooperated on, its a rank abuse of power and one more step toward complete capture of law enforcement by Trump, Moss told me. This is pretty darn close to a five-alarm fire if its what we fear it is. Whatever happens with Bolton, we should keep focused on the unmistakable broader pattern. Trump is dramatically escalating his use of law enforcement and the military on many fronts to target critics and consolidate power. Hes vowing to dispatch the military into more U.S. cities. Internal administration memos are charting out plans for more militarization within the homeland. MAGA movement leaders are openly declaring that the specter of state violence will be used to intimidate voters in urban strongholds. And Trumps manufacturing of fake pretexts for all of it is growing bolder and more unconstrained. Do we get to call it fascism yet? Some GOP lawmakers and MAGA faithful are questioning tech billionaire Elon Musk over a new report. The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, revealed in an analysis released Thursday that the social media platform X favors liberals over conservatives, despite Musk taking ownership nearly three years ago. The center said that the platform boosts left-leaning account holders at the expense of voices on the right. The report says its findings also apply to members of Congress with Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) having their posts favored, among others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With the 2026 midterm elections in sight, and the parties seeking every tactical advantage in light of razor-thin margins in both chambers of Congress, the significance of X tipping the scales in favor of Democrats could be monumental, the Media Research Center wrote. It could mean the difference between President Donald Trump being impeached by House Democrats a third time versus the president achieving additional legislative victories in his final two years in office." A handful of X users had called on Musk for answers, asking if the report is accurate. If true, troubling. What say you, @elonmusk, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote. A popular Republican account responded to Lee, proposing that Possibly because Democrats buy their own engagement? Or foreign government farms amplify them. Ive noticed that they tend to get way more likes overnight. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Either way, thats troubling, Lee replied. Sen. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) added, Please no @elonmusk. Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) wrote that X is still throttling accounts of government officials, both personal and official accounts. This is unacceptable. @elonmusk please address this matter! It should be equal, one user said. Another user chimed in: WTAF Elon! Disgraceful. According to Xs visibility scores, which determines whether posts are amplified or suppressed, Democrats in Congress received 20 of 25 of the highest scores, while Republicans had 20 of 25 of the lowest scores. In the Senate, Democrats attained 16 of 25 of the best scores, with Republicans recorded 18 of 25 of the worst scores. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In its announcement, the center also said that Musk can no longer hide behind his predecessor, Jack Dorsey, who co-founded then Twitter. Musk purchased the platform for around $44 billion in October 2022. I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy, Musk said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company. The same group reported that X was boosting Democrat account holders ahead of the 2024 election. To compile results in both studies, researchers prompted Grok, Musks artificial intelligence chat bot on the platform, to calculate the likelihood of ones content to be recommended to others using four measurements: diversity of followers, purported reliability, follower retention and account toxicity. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. The Department of Justice on Friday sent the first round of files about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the House Oversight Committee. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the committee, subpoenaed the Epstein files earlier this month. The House Oversight Committee has received the Department of Justices first production of Epstein records pursuant to Chairman James Comers subpoena," an Oversight Committee spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. "The production contains thousands of pages of documents. The Trump DOJ is providing records at a far quicker pace than anything the Biden DOJ ever provided. In fact, former Attorney General Garland obstructed Chairman Comers subpoena for the audio of Special Counsel Hurs interview with President Biden to hide his cognitive decline," they added. The spokesperson said the committee intends to make the files public after review and redaction of victims' personal information. The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted," they said. "The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations. Comer sent the subpoena to Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking for any files pertaining to Epstein or chief associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Featured Local Savings President Donald Trump said he's in support of keeping the files open but called them a "Democrat hoax." People shouldnt be hurt, but Im in support of keeping it totally open. I couldn't care less. You got a lot of people that could be mentioned in those files that don't deserve to be, because he knew everybody in Palm Beach. I don't know anything about that, but I have said to Pam, and everybody else, give them everything you can give them because it's a Democrat hoax," he concluded. The public has shown considerable interest in the Epstein files because of their connection to many powerful, rich people. Bondi told Trump previously that his name was mentioned multiple times in the files. It's unclear which other powerful people are in the documents. The Trump administration enthusiastically pursued a release of the Epstein files before the DOJ determined there was no bombshell information in them. JUDGE SAYS DOJ IS THE 'LOGICAL PARTY' TO RELEASE EPSTEIN-RELATED FILES Democrats and Republicans clamored for the files' release anyway. The Democratic Party has especially seized on the issue to diminish their opposition as untransparent and covering up for Trump. Jeffrey Epstein was a friend of Donald Trump. Jeffrey Epstein was arrested during the Trump administration. Jeffrey Epstein was detained during the Trump administration. Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide during the Trump administration," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said at a news conference in July. Donald Trump attempted to justify deploying the U.S. military to Chicago to supposedly crack down on crime by dubiously citing the support of one particular demographic. On Friday, the president suggested that the crime crackdown was requested by the people in Chicago, who he insisted are screaming for us to come. Trump then claimed these citizens of Chicago who are clamoring for military intervention in their city are wearing red hats, just like this one. But they are wearing red hats. African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying, Please, President Trump, come to Chicago, please. Trump: After we do this, we will go to another location and make it safe too. Chicago is a mess. That will probably be our next one after this. They are screaming for us to come. African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying "Please President Trump, come to Chicago, pic.twitter.com/lh97SsJ2UY Acyn (@Acyn) August 22, 2025 Exactly who these beautiful, MAGA-supporting African American ladies from Chicago are is unclear if they exist at all. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not like Trump is popular in Cook County, Illinois,where he only got 28.4% of the vote in 2024. Oh, andhe previously lied about the crime rate in Washington, D.C., when he deployed the National Guard there a few weeks ago. As a result, there were a lot of social media skeptics. Meanwhile, over 90% of Black Women voted against Trumpbecause were always saving this country. R. Saoirse (@razzli_) August 22, 2025 Trumps Chicago rescue fantasy: Where federal overreach cosplays as chivalry. Those "beautiful ladies" he claims to hear? Theyre actually mayors screaming for him to stop defunding their violence prevention programs. Chicago cut homicides 30% & shootings 40% since 2024 through White House Xray (@xray_media) August 22, 2025 "African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying "Please President Trump, come to Chicago, please." Like that ever happened? African American ladies don't want to be stopped and "shaken down" by the National guard just for walking down the streets in their neighborhood. Denison Barb (@DenisonBarbs) August 22, 2025 He couldnt even tell Diamond and Silk apart. https://t.co/ig8oqsPdIp PoliticOhMyGawd (@PoliticOhMyGawd) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fuck him. Hes not a king. No Kings in America. And we dont put our military on our streets. Not in this country. Oh, andhes lying - African American ladies are saying please President Trump, come to Chicago. Bullshit. He lies as he breathes. https://t.co/cxcN4s5ydz Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 22, 2025 Are these the ones he called lazy, didnt want them counting his money, pulled them off the casino floor or wouldnt rent to them ? pic.twitter.com/wTgvx1rIqn Renegade Cowboy (@Rene_gadeCowboy) August 22, 2025 Beautiful African American ladies of Chicago please let us know if you are asking for this help? Do you really want armed guards wandering your streets arresting mostly POC? LESLIE MCLAUGHLIN (@LESLIEM71114236) August 22, 2025 No black person', Esp African American ladies are asking for soldiers to police their communities https://t.co/p8HGZCSpWm PrettyFootWoman (@PrettyFootWoman) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps cartoon version of Chicago says it all, imaginary beautiful ladies begging him to send in troops. Real leadership would mean working with communities and local leaders, not fantasizing about being a savior while using the military as a campaign prop. Trump is a disgusting Theophilus M (@theophilus367) August 22, 2025 Pandering to Black women now that he has repeatedly disparaged them for years. Hes such trash. Hes a parody of trash. Scott McDaniel (@mcdev) August 22, 2025 Related... Read the original on HuffPost Most of the lawyers Donald Trump has recently selected for lifetime appointments to the federal bench resemble those of his first presidency, despite his threat to abandon the Federalist Society and the establishment conservatism that drove his first-term judicial juggernaut. The nominations through mid-August, more than 20 total, have drawn the attention of influential right-wing voices looking ahead to a possible vacancy at the US Supreme Court. Lawyers familiar with the current process say Trump has been more involved this term, speaking with some potential candidates. And White House attorneys appear aware that jurists contemplating retirement are watching whom Trump is choosing for lifetime seats in the three-tier US judiciary. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After early bluster and the contentious choice of Emil Bove to a powerful US appellate court, the White House has developed a more traditional pattern in which Bove may ultimately be more of an outlier than model. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which criticized the selection of Bove, this week wrote that Trumps picks are moving in a comforting direction. Bove, a former personal attorney for Trump, became a top Justice Department official after the election and began pushing a political agenda that included dropping federal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The WSJ editorial page editors, who are close to some Supreme Court conservatives, in July had warned that Trumps choices could deter potential retirees on the federal courts. Pointing to Bove, the editors said, such nominations have a potential cost for Mr. Trump, in that Supreme Court Justices and lower-court judges will ponder the quality of the Presidents choices when deciding whether to retire or take senior status. Yet, this week, they wrote approvingly of a recent appellate court nominee, Rebecca Taibleson, and declared, Better nominees mean more vacancies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Judicial retirements this second Trump term have been relatively meager, as Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution recently documented. Fewer judges have announced their retirements since Trumps 2024 election than after any other presidential election going back two decades, Wheeler found, speculating, that even jurists whod been appointed by Republicans may be concerned about whom Republican Trump might name as successors. The consequences of these lifetime posts in American life cannot be overstated. Judges, from the district courts to appellate bench to the Supreme Court, are positioned to decide lawsuits against Trumps aggressive second-term agenda, along with recurring battles over reproductive rights, racial remedies, and the separation of church and state. So far, most Trump nominees have ties to the Federalist Society and took established right-wing paths. Several, including Taibleson and Eric Tung, nominated to regional US appellate courts, served as law clerks to conservative Supreme Court justices. Others are well-known leaders of red-state litigation, including Missouri state solicitor general Joshua Divine and Alabama state solicitor general Edmund LaCour, nominated to US district court posts in their respective states. (Divine, like Bove, was confirmed this summer; most other nominations are still pending in the Senate.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For all the talk of how its a different kind of judge this time, its the same pool of people theyre pulling from, said Michael Fragoso, former chief counsel to then-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. Its the same apple cart, just slightly different apples. The second term nominees as a group, Fragoso added, appear to have more experience in Republican politics, for example, working with GOP campaigns and Republican committees, or as state political appointees. During Trumps first presidency, then-Senate Majority Leader McConnell was a crucial member of the triumvirate that steered judicial appointments. The other two others were Don McGahn, then White House counsel, and Leonard Leo, a Federalist Society leader. Trump disparaged the Federalist Society earlier this year after a US Court of International Trade panel that included a first-term Trump appointee ruled against his tariff policy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations. This is something that cannot be forgotten! Trump wrote on Truth Social in May, specifically denigrating Leo as a sleazebag. Leo responded by saying only that he was pleased with the first-term judicial legacy; he declined to comment for this story. The Federalist Society, which began four decades ago as a debating society and incubator for conservative law students and grew into a behemoth that influenced judicial selection for a succession of Republican presidents, would be impossible to outright avoid. Its network is so vast that virtually all leading lights of todays conservative movement, including those in the administration, have participated in Federalist Society programs. How the process works this term The daily business of judicial selection is currently shepherded by deputy White House counsel Stephen Kenny. He most recently worked for the Republican National Committee and earlier, at the Jones Day law firm (home of former White House counsel McGahn) and for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement White House officials declined to answer specific questions about its vetting process and the people Trump has personally screened. The President continues to rely on his senior White House advisors, White House counsel, and the Department of Justice, who present him with thoroughly vetted candidates for his consideration and final determination, a senior White House official said in a statement to CNN. Other individuals and groups are always free to share their views, but the president is the ultimate decision-maker. The president seeks to appoint judges who will faithfully apply the law in the mold of Justices Thomas and Alito and the late Justice Scalia. A larger number of people are plainly involved than during the first term, both within and outside the White House. Mike Davis, a former counsel to Grassley and now president of a conservative advocacy organization (The Article III Project) has relentlessly pushed for tough, fearless, nominees. And Davis has Trumps ear, according to lawyers close to the administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Davis praised Bove, particularly citing his action to end the Adams prosecution. He also last week publicly backed Taibleson, whose background would have positioned her for appointment in any GOP administration. She was a law clerk to US Appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh (now a justice appointed by Trump) and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. A federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, she also served a stint in the US solicitor generals office, which represents the administration before the Supreme Court. Former McConnell counsel Fragoso, now in private practice, is among those Republicans hoping for a Supreme Court retirement in upcoming months. If a justice whos thinking about retiring wants to be replaced by a strong conservative, now is the best time in 40 years to do it, Fragoso said. Theres a president who wants to pick strong conservatives and a Senate that is eager to confirm strong conservatives. And that is a rare situation. Neither of the two eldest justices, Thomas, 77, and Alito, age 75, responded to CNNs questions about their retirement plans. Both are Republican appointees who would favor likeminded successors. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thomas has been on the bench since October 1991, nearly 34 years, and if he stays three more years would become the longest serving justice in US history. Thomas may not want to set a record, but he has shown no sign that he is ready to step down. Alito, meanwhile, has seemed increasingly disgruntled over his nearly 20 years on the bench. But he is still young for a Supreme Court retirement. He also remains on the winning side of most tightly fought cases. Based on past cycles of nomination politics, there is bound to be substantial right-wing pressure on Thomas and Alito to retire and give the president an opportunity to name a younger successor. Difficult to cut out Federalist Society influence In May, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN the White House is no longer using the Federalist Society to screen potential nominees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yet, its broader atmosphere cannot be escaped. Both Thomas and Alito were Federalist Society stalwarts, and anyone who would succeed them likely would have been, too. For decades, the group has been a prime forum for connections and advancement on the right. Its annual conference draws thousands of lawyers, judges, and administration officials. Individual justices often speak at its black-tie dinner. Last year, US appellate Judge Andrew Oldham, a former law clerk to Alito, was the opening conference speaker, and US appellate judges James Ho and Neomi Rao, former law clerks to Thomas, have been featured at Federalist Society events. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All three judges are all still relatively young (Oldham, 46; Ho, 52; Rao, 52), and given their credentials, connections and hard-right decisions, they are apt to make any initial list for a Supreme Court opening. Some well-regarded US appellate judges Trump considered in his first term, such as Amul Thapar, 56, may be out of contention simply because the trend favors younger candidates. If Trump were to look beyond the federal bench, possible contenders could be US Sen. Mike Lee, 54, a former Alito law clerk and federal prosecutor who was on Trumps highly publicized 2016 list, or current US Solicitor General John Sauer, 50. Sauer, who served as a law clerk to Scalia, would come with the bonus of having successfully represented Trump in the 2024 Supreme Court case that gave him immunity from criminal prosecution. And if the president has sent a single message in this second term, its that loyalty matters. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com President Donald Trump on Friday tapped close political aide Sergio Gor as US ambassador to India, sending one of his feared enforcers at a delicate time in ties with New Delhi. The 38-year-old Gor rose quickly in conservative politics to become one of the most powerful, if low-profile, aides in the White House with a task of vetting some 4,000 appointees to ensure utmost loyalty to Trump. Gor's enemies include Elon Musk, who following his spectacular falling-out with Trump branded Gor a "snake" after he scuttled the tech and aerospace billionaire's choice to lead NASA. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gor's influence does not include extensive experience in foreign policy, beyond joining travel overseas and leading a purge of National Security Council staffers whose views were called into suspicion. "For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "Sergio will make an incredible Ambassador," he wrote. Trump wrote that Gor would also hold a role of special envoy for South and Central Asia. Trump has largely sidelined traditional diplomats and relied for diplomacy on personal friends, with the State Department's top position for South Asia still vacant. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The nomination comes after a spike in tensions with India, which the United States has prioritized as an emerging partner since the 1990s. Trump has moved to ramp up tariffs on India to pressure it over its purchases of energy from Russia, despite Trump's own diplomacy with counterpart Vladimir Putin. India in recent days has held top-level meetings with both Russia and China. Successive US administrations have viewed India as a balance against China, seen as the top US global rival. Trump has spoken of brokering between India and Pakistan after they reached a ceasefire in a brief conflict in May, although India has been hesitant on any direct US role. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement - Political insider - Gor was born in Uzbekistan when it was still in the Soviet Union -- a background on which he has been discreet -- before moving as a child to Malta. After attending university in the United States, he became active in Republican Party politics, eventually taking top positions with Senator Rand Paul, a leading Republican critic of foreign interventionism, then working as a fund-raiser and book publisher for Trump -- and as an amateur wedding DJ. In his post, Trump hailed Gor's work as director of presidential personnel, saying that 95 percent of positions have been filled and that he will stay on until the Republican-led Senate confirms him as ambassador. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly endorsed Gor on X, saying he would be an "excellent representative of America in one of the most important relationships our nation has in the world." Trump named an ambassador to India later than for many other major countries. While presidents have often tapped political aides as ambassador -- former president Joe Biden sent former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to Tokyo -- India has an illustrious history of seeing public intellectuals as ambassador. US ambassadors to India have included prominent economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the social scientist and future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Biden's ambassador to India was Eric Garcetti, a former mayor of Los Angeles known for his interest in Indian philosophy and who had studied Hindi and Urdu as a young man. sct/dl By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Friday he would nominate Sergio Gor, one of his closest aides, to be the next U.S. ambassador to India, where he will oversee frosty relations that have worsened with the planned doubling of U.S. tariffs on goods from India next week. Gor, who is currently the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, would also serve as a special envoy for South and Central Asian affairs, Trump said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump said in a post on his Truth Social account that Gor would remain in his current position until he is confirmed for the India post by the U.S. Senate. "Sergio is a great friend, who has been at my side for many years. He worked on my Historic Presidential Campaigns, published my Best Selling Books, and ran one of the biggest Super PACs, which supported our Movement," Trump said, lauding Gor's work in hiring staff for his second term. "For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," Trump wrote. U.S.-India ties have been strained by Trump's trade war, with talks on lower tariff rates collapsing after India, the world's fifth-largest economy, resisted opening its vast agricultural and dairy sectors. Bilateral trade between the two countries is worth more than $190 billion each year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gor, in a posting on X, thanked Trump for the nomination and said it would be "the honor of my life" to represent the United States in the new role. Trump first imposed additional tariffs of 25% on imports from India, then said they would double to 50% from August 27 as punishment for New Delhi's increased purchases of Russian oil. Trump has not imposed similar tariffs on goods from China, the biggest purchaser of Russian oil. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accused India of "profiteering" in its sharply increased purchases of Russian oil during the war in Ukraine and said Washington viewed the situation as unacceptable. Bessent told CNBC in an interview that Russian oil now accounted for 42% of India's total oil purchases, up from under 1% before the war, while China, the largest purchaser of Russian oil, had increased its share to 16% from 13%. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement India is addressing its future trade relationship with the United States with a "very open mind", Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday, while underscoring the consequential and important nature of the relationship to both countries. Trump's announcement about Gor's nomination came shortly after the abrupt cancellation of a planned visit by U.S. trade negotiators to New Delhi from August 25-29. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Bhargav Acharya in Toronto; Editing by Ryan Patrick Jones, Edmund Klamann and Matthew Lewis) After a recent White House summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Vice President JD Vance offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at President Donald Trumps leadership style. In a recent interview with Fox News, Vance spoke on the Presidents unorthodox but decisive approach to international relations, describing a recent incident during a meeting in the East Wing of the White House, when Trump decided to call Russian President Vladimir Putin late at night, without any notice. They had no anticipation. So were actually in the East Wing of the White House, and the President says, you know, weve had a pretty good meeting. Im going to go call Vladimir Putin, see what he says about it. And everybodys like, Oh, youre going to call him next week. And hes like, No, what time is it in Moscow? Lets call him right now,' Vance said, before explaining that Trump called the Russian leader at 1 am Moscow time (which would be 6 pm in Washington, D.C.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Vance further spoke on how the moment revealed Trumps eagerness to bypass conventional diplomatic procedures and the clunky red tape. One of the things I realized about President Trumps leadership is he cuts through the BS of some of these diplomatic protocols and just says, Im going to get things done. If I want to talk to somebody, Im going to talk to somebody. You had a lot of the Europeans who were saying, No, no, no, there needs to be proper vetting, and the teams have to prepare the phone call, and blah, blah, blah. And the President was like, No, no, no I want to talk to the guy. Im going to talk to the guy. And I think that kind of no-holds-barred, no-BS diplomacy is part of the reason why weve made the progress we have, the Vice President told Laura Ingraham during The Ingraham Angle. Vances remarks show a leadership style rooted in action over ceremony, something that Trump has previously campaigned on and advocated for. Now, as the war in Ukraine continues, many people around the world are hoping that Trump and Vance make notable progress in peace talks. During the interview, Vance claimed that America has made more progress in the past three months in peace talks with Russia than in the past three years combined. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump, while aboard Air Force 1 earlier this month, told reporters, I want to see a ceasefire rapidly. I dont know if its going to be today, but Im not going to be happy if its not today Im in this to stop the killing. Praying for peace in the days ahead, Vance added. U.S. President Donald Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he was "not happy" with Russia's recent attack on an American electronics plant in western Ukraine, Trump claimed on Aug. 22. A Russian missile hit an electronics factory owned by the U.S. company Flex Ltd. during a large-scale attack on Aug. 21. The factory, which does not produce military equipment, is located far from the front lines in Mukachevo, Zakarpattia Oblast. During an Oval Office briefing on Aug. 22, a reporter asked Trump if he had spoken to Putin about the attack on a U.S. company. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I told him I'm not happy about it," Trump claimed. "And I'm not happy about anything having to do with that war." Trump had not previously announced a conversation with Putin between the time of the attack and his White House briefing. Immediately before being questioned about Russia's strike on the U.S. factory, Trump showed reporters a photograph of him and Putin at the Alaska Summit that he said Putin sent. "He's been very respectful of me and of our country," Trump said, adding that Putin was "not so respectful of others." Trump also said he expected to know within two weeks how the U.S.-brokered peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine would unfold. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Over the next two weeks we're gonna find out which way it's going to go, and I better be very happy," he said. Trump first announced the new two-week timeline on Aug. 21, telling conservative commentator Todd Starnes the U.S. might pursue a new strategy if an agreement is not reached. "We will know within two weeks whether there will be peace in Ukraine. After that we will have to maybe take a different tack," he said. The White House has set a number of deadlines for a peace deal in Ukraine, none of which have been met. Trump several times threatened to impose sanctions against Russia if the Kremlin did not take action by a certain date, but has never followed through on any of those threats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Following the Russian attack against Mukachevo on Aug. 21, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of purposefully striking the U.S. facility amid ongoing peace talks. "The Russians knew exactly where they lobbed the missiles. We believe this was a deliberate strike specifically on American-owned property here in Ukraine, on American investments. A very telling strike," he said. The timing of the strike "is sending a message that American businesses are a target," Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Independent from the site of the attack in Mukachevo. Read also: Russia strengthens hand in potential peace talks with steady advances in Donbas Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. US President Donald Trump has said that he would prefer not to take part in a potential meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian ruler Vladimir Putin. Source: Sky News, as reported by European Pravda Details: When asked about the prospects of a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian leaders, Trump said: "We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Quote: "You know, that's like oil and vinegar, a little bit. They don't get along too well, for obvious reasons. But we'll see. And then we'll see whether or not I would have to be there. I'd rather not." Background: Earlier on 22 August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Vladimir Putin would meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy only after a "summit programme" had been prepared, and that there were currently no such plans. The US president expects to be able to assess the possibility of achieving peace in Ukraine within two weeks. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! CHICAGO (AP) President Donald Trump on Friday said Chicago will likely be the next target of his efforts to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration. Trump indicated that the Midwestern city could receive similar treatment to what he's done in Washington, D.C., where he's deployed 2,000 troops on the streets. I think Chicago will be our next, Trump told reporters at the White House, later adding, And then well help with New York. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The comments came as the Pentagon on Friday began ordering troops in Washington to carry firearms, though there have been no overt indications they have faced threats that would require them to carry weapons. Trump has repeatedly described some of the nation's largest cities run by Democrats, with Black mayors and majority-minority populations as dangerous and filthy. He singled out Chicago on Friday, calling it a mess and saying residents there are screaming for us to come" despite significant decreases in crimes of violence. Trumps suggestion that Chicago might be the next target for a crackdown on crime didn't sit well with Illinois officeholders. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said his office has not received formal communication from the Trump administration about military or federal law enforcement deployments in Chicago but said we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops. Johnson called Trump's approach uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound, arguing it has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement. It is unclear how Trump would pursue an effort in Chicago that is similar to his approach to D.C., where home rule laws give the federal government greater authority. However, the president's eldest son said it might be time to look at a whole host of cities in the Pacific Northwest. In an interview Thursday with Newsmax, Donald Trump Jr. blamed Democrats for through-the-roof murder rates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maybe we should roll out the tour to Portland, Seattle, the other craphole cities of the country, Trump Jr. said. In a post on X entitled Things People are Begging For, Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, included cheaper groceries, no cuts to Medicaid or food aid for low-income families, and the release of federally held files on Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex trafficker and former Trump friend. What they are not begging for, Pritzker continued, is an authoritarian power grab of major cities. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, called Trump's Washington, D.C. strategy political theater." He said Chicago is a beautiful, vibrant city with people from all walks of life and suggested pursuing proven bipartisan solutions toward further crime reduction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These unprecedented threats from President Trump are nothing more than a power grab to distract from his disastrous policies, Durbin said in a statement. Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army National Guard combat veteran, criticized what she called Trump's misuse of the military to intimidate Americans in our own communities." Lisa Hernandez, chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, called Trump's comments offensive and false and argued his rhetoric echoes a history of racist narratives about urban crime. Chicagoans are not begging for him, she told The Associated Press. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump has taken aim at Chicago for over a decade, including on the 2024 and 2016 presidential campaign trails. He has repeatedly compared the city to Afghanistan and, in 2017, threatened to send in the feds due to gun violence in the city, despite historic declines in violent crime in recent years. Violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of the year, representing the steepest decline in over a decade, according to city data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same time last year, and total violence crime dropped by over 22%. Johnson touted the citys approach to violent crime, asserting in a statement to The Associated Press that our communities are safest when we fully invest in housing, community safety, and education. While Trump turns to the military, he said Chicago has invested in mental health services, community-based interventions, raising minimum wages and improving affordable housing. If he wants to make the city safer, Johnson said, Trump should restore $158 million he cut in violence-prevention programs for cities such as Chicago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There are many things the federal government could do to help us reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending in the military is not one of them," he said. Pastor Donovan Price, a local advocate for gun crime victims, emphasized that community-based anti-violence programs, rather than militarism, is key to reducing gun violence in Chicago. Stay out of our city," he said. "This is not a federal issue. We live this every day. We know what our community needs. ___ O'Connor reported from Springfield, Illinois. Price reported from Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump said on Friday that his Administration will turn to Chicago next in its efforts to crack down on crime, nearly two weeks after he took control of Washington, D.C.s police force. After we do this, well go to another location and well make it safe also, Trump told reporters. Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and well straighten that one out, probably next. The President said he hadnt spoken to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson about his plans, but that his Administration would embark on the move when we are ready. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chicago is very dangerous, Trump said. I hate to see what has happened to Chicago. Trump has railed against crime in Chicago for years, calling the city a shooting disaster as early as 2013. While he was running for President in 2016, Trump said on social media: Crime is out of control, and rapidly getting worse. Look what is going on in Chicago and our inner cities. Not good! During his first term, in 2020, Trump deployed federal agents to the city to help drive down violent crime. That deployment came as part of a broader program launched by the Justice Department that summer to send federal agents to multiple cities to address what Trump referred to at the time as a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders, and heinous crimes of violence. Like Trumps recent D.C. takeover, the controversial program drew concern from local activists and leaders. It was discontinued after Trump left office in 2021. Many cities across the country were experiencing a spike in violent crime in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In Chicago, fatal and nonfatal shootings went up by about 55% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to city data. Shootings in the city went up again in 2021, though this time only by 9%, before plummeting by nearly 21% the next year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Violent crime also climbed in the city in the leadup to Trumps first term. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of homicides in the city jumped by 58% and the number of nonfatal shootings by 43%, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. But the following years saw a decline in gun violence before rates climbed again early in the pandemic. And crime in Chicago has dropped by 15% since 2023, according to city police data released earlier this month. City data show that fatal and nonfatal shootings are down nearly 38% so far this year compared to the same period in 2024. Homicides and robberies, meanwhile, are both down roughly 32%, and vehicular hijackings are down about 49% Trumps remarks on Friday come after he federalized D.C.s police department and deployed National Guard troops on the streets on Aug. 11, citing violent crimeeven though data showed that violent crime in the nations capital, as in Chicago, had already been declining significantly. When announcing the move, the President said he would look at other cities too, including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Oakland. Read more: Trump Threatens Complete Federal Takeover of Washington, D.C. as Feud Over Citys Crime Figures Escalates Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In his crackdown on the capital, Trump invoked a provision of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 that authorizes the President to take control of D.C.s police department in conditions of an emergency nature. But legal experts told TIME that Trumps authority to take control of local police departments and deploy National Guard troops to cities other than D.C. is severely restricted by law. Johnson slammed Trumps comments on Friday. The mayor said in a press release that the city has made historic progress to tackle crime, citing recent statistics, and argued that deploying the National Guard to Chicago would risk undermining that work. Johnson added that while the city was taking Trumps statements seriously, it had not received any formal communication from the federal government on this subject. The problem with the Presidents approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound, Johnson said. Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. Contact us at letters@time.com. President Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago will be the next city that his administration targets for a federal crackdown on crime and suggested a longer and more intense campaign in the nations capital. Well straighten that one out, probably next, that will be our next one after this, Trump said from the Oval Office. I think Chicago will be our next and then well help with New York. The president has credited his federal takeover of Washington, DCs police force and deployment of the National Guard there with driving down crime in the city touting a weeklong stretch without any murders as a miracle despite the fact that such weeks have occurred in DC multiple times so far this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said he could keep National Guard members in the city as long as I want by declaring a national emergency, a prospect likely to unnerve city residents. More than 1,900 National Guard troops from multiple states including DC, West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana and Tennessee guards have been mobilized in DC as of Thursday, according to Joint Task Force-DC. Trump also took aim at DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and threatened to do more than just seize control of the police force if she didnt get her act straight. Im tired of listening to these people say how safe it was before we got here. It was unsafe. It was horrible. And Mayor Bowser better get her act straight, or she wont be mayor very long because well take it over with the federal government running like its supposed to be run, Trump said. Trump dismissed polling that showed most city residents disapprove of the deployment of federal troops, calling it fake news and claiming that residents of Chicago and cities are clamoring for a similar law enforcement crackdown where they live. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theyre wearing red hats, African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, Please, President Trump, come to Chicago, Trump said. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement: We take President Trumps statements seriously, but to be clear the City has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments to Chicago. He said homicides, robberies and shootings have dropped significantly in the past year. Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the City of Chicago, he said. The problem with the Presidents approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound. Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said on X that Trump had used Los Angeles and Washington, DC, as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach and he was now trying to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts all to create a justification to further abuse his power. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For his part, Trump attacked Johnson as incompetent, claiming the city has grown dangerous on his watch and vowing to use the federal government to intervene. When were ready, well go in and well straighten out Chicago just like we did DC, he said. A member of the US National Guard walks past military vehicles on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on August 14. - Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images It was not immediately clear how a federal crackdown in Chicago would work and how closely it would resemble what has happened in DC. The district is not a part of any state and has restrictions on its ability to govern its own affairs, so the president has the ability to effectively federalize its police force. In his comments Friday, Trump seemed to conflate keeping the National Guard deployed in DC with his takeover of the local police department. He said he could subvert a provision under the District of Columbias Home Rule Act, which says the federal government can seize control of the citys police force for up to 30 days during emergencies. After that, he would need congressional approval to continue controlling the Metropolitan Police Department. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a hearing last week, Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge that unless Congress extended Trumps ability to effectively control Washington, DCs police department, Trumps order would expire. But Trump, who pledged to eliminate crime when he deployed federal law enforcement earlier this month, has now suggested on multiple occasions that hell need to maintain his influence over the citys policing for far longer to cut down on crime long-term. Its one thing to get them out, its another thing to keep them out for a long period of time, Trump said. Thats going to take more than 30 days. The president also said hes already talked with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune about a planned request for $2 billion to funnel toward beautifying DC. He said that would be very easy to get. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As CNNs Daniel Dale has reported, violent crime in DC declined in 2024 and 2025 after a spike in 2023. The Justice Department is investigating whether the DC Metropolitan Police Department manipulated crime dated. Brad Parks contributed to this report. This developing story has been updated. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A federal judge on Thursday rejected President Donald Trumps maneuvering to keep Alina Habba in place as New Jerseys top federal prosecutor, ruling that she has been serving without legal authority since July 1, and teeing up a potentially broader constitutional fight if the administration decides to appeal. In a 77-page opinion, United States District Judge Matthew Brann wrote that Habba is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney and therefore cannot continue overseeing prosecutions as the acting U.S. attorney. The Trump administration had used a series of contested legal tactics to extend Habbas tenure after her 120-day interim appointment expired. Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not, said Brann, an Obama-appointed judge in Pennsylvania. I conclude that Ms. Habba was ineligible to assume the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey on July 24, 2025, because she was not the first assistant when the vacancy occurred upon Mr. [former U.S. Attorney Philip] Sellingers resignation on January 8, 2025, Brann added. Therefore, Ms. Habba may not participate in the defendants prosecutions going forward as the acting United States Attorney. The first assistant designation is significant because, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, that official automatically becomes the acting U.S. attorney when a vacancy opens. By making someone the first assistant, an administration can ensure its preferred choice slides into the top role and stays in charge if home state senators, in this case, Democratic New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, contest a presidents pick. Still, the ruling is not immediately effective. Brann stayed his order while the Justice Department appeals, leaving Habba temporarily in charge of the office and setting up a high-stakes battle in the appellate courts. Supporters of Habba, such as her former colleague, Trump attorney Jesus Suarez, said she is not one to back down from a fight. "Alina is one of the greatest legal fighters you've ever met, and she's never backed down from any fight or any court. She is a force of nature," Suarez said. The decision came in response to challenges from criminal defense attorneys, who argued their clients prosecutions were tainted because Habba was kept in place despite not previously serving as the first assistant to the office. Brann declined to throw out charges against the defendants who challenged her authority, but warned that any case supervised by Habba could face disqualification. Habba, a former personal attorney to Trump, has been at the center of weeks of uncertainty over the federal prosecutor's office's leadership as courts and the administration clashed over vacancy rules. After Habbas 120-day interim tenure expired, a panel of New Jersey federal district judges declined to keep her on. Instead, they exercised their statutory authority to appoint her first assistant, Desiree Leigh Grace, as acting U.S. attorney. Grace, a career prosecutor with clerkships under New Jerseys chief justice and a Third Circuit judge, had already risen to lead the offices criminal division. Some critics have described her as a never-Trump Republican, however. The Trump administration swiftly moved to block the judges appointment of Grace. Featured Local Savings Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Grace almost immediately, accusing the judiciary of acting with political motives, and installed Habba under an alternative designation as a special attorney to sidestep the vacancy rules. Trump then withdrew Habbas pending Senate nomination and named her as the first assistant, a maneuver that, under federal vacancy law, allowed her to continue serving in an acting capacity for several more months. Those actions set up a direct clash between the judiciary and the executive branch over who controls vacancies in the most powerful federal prosecutors office in New Jersey, a confrontation that ultimately drew legal challenges and led to Branns ruling that Habba was serving unlawfully. Legal experts say Brann's decision is unique in that he ruled narrowly against the administration's procedural maneuver, which some described as a loophole, to keep Habba in place. This stood out to some people who spoke to the Washington Examiner because courts in the past have typically deferred to administrations' authority in light of historically inconsistent applications of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. Under a provision in the Act, if a president's nominees for U.S. attorneys' offices are not confirmed in the Senate 300 days after the start of his presidency, the nominees in place are downgraded from "acting officer" to "performing the functions and duties of the office." Trump and past presidents have relied on that reclassification and effectively let stalled nominations die, since the Senate's blue slip tradition prevents a nominee from moving forward without the approval of both home-state senators. Once that happens, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act allows the administration to use the reclassification process to bypass the Senate and keep control of the post without a confirmed U.S. attorney. Legal experts suggested Brann's ruling, while abnormal, attempted to effectuate what Congress intended under the statute, rather than what is actually written in it. However, experts say that if Brann's ruling can stand, it could hamstring any president's ability to enforce his priorities. "Every president wants to make sure that there are people to enforce the law and execute the law consistent with the constitutional obligations when they take office," Eric Wessan, the solicitor general for the state of Iowa, told the Washington Examiner. "And for Judge Brann to wave that away and say that, sure, that's what is done, but that's not necessarily how it must be done. That's not what the statutes say. It ignores a certain amount of grace that the judicial branch typically affords the executive branch, and I think it really misreads the implications of the history as to U.S. attorneys and more generally, as to other acting positions," Wessan said. Thomas Berry, director of Constitutional Studies at Cato Institute, similarly said Brann's decision opens up a broader constitutional debate about presidential authorities. TRUMP SEEKS TO INSTALL HIS US ATTORNEYS DESPITE DEMOCRATIC HEADWINDS "So if other states, if other courts, adopted this as a precedent, that you can't use this first assistant workaround, that would be a pretty big deal. It would take away a major appointment option, not just for U.S. attorneys," Berry said. A spokesperson for Habba did not immediately comment on the decision. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. CHICAGO President Donald Trump said he is looking to send in the National Guard to Chicago or New York, seeking to extend the deployment of guardsmen elsewhere after amassing troops in Washington. Trump told reporters Friday hes considering deploying guardsmen to Chicago after ordering troops into the nations capital and to Los Angeles earlier this year a move the Trump administration is now being forced to defend in court. Were going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago is a mess, Trump said. Well straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this, and it wont even be tough. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump later mentioned New York along with Chicago as cities hed like the National Guard to help. The president praised the hundreds of guardsmen currently deployed in Washington and noted hes willing to bring in the regular military to help support his campaign to reduce crime in the city. I really am honored that the National Guard has done such an incredible job working with the police, and we havent had to bring in the regular military, which were willing to do, he said. After we do this, well go to another location, and well make it safe also. Washingtons status as a federal territory gives Trump broader authority to deploy the National Guard through the nations capital, along with his attempt to take over the citys police force. National Guard units outside of D.C. are generally under the command of states governors, although Trump federalized the California guard to send troops to Los Angeles earlier this year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But federal law prohibits the use of military personnel for civilian law enforcement except when authorized by the Constitution or another federal law. Trumps order to send hundreds of troops to Los Angeles is currently the subject of a legal challenge arguing Trump wrongfully federalized and deployed California guardsmen to quell protests. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the city hasn't received formal notification of new deployments of federal law enforcement to the city and called the tactic "uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound." "Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities," Johnson said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker responded to Trump's comments in a social media post, where he labeled "an authoritarian power grab of major cities" as something that "people are not begging for." New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that an attempt by Trump to "invoke military power" by sending the National Guard to New York "undermines the significant work being done at the state level" to reduce crime. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that Missouri may soon join GOP-backed efforts to redraw its congressional district boundaries, declaring on social media platform truth social, Missouri is now IN. Trumps post is widely interpreted as one urging for mid-decade congressional redistricting in Missouri, part of a broader national redistricting push led by Republicans that most prominently includes Texas. The post reads: The Great State of Missouri is now IN. Im not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people. I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. Were going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Redistricting, the process of drawing the borders of districts for which a states elected officials are elected, is required once at the start of every new U.S. Census decade cycle. In the process, states must ensure that districts have populations as equal as possible when they are redrawn. Although redistricting typically only occurs once a decade, some states may revisit their maps mid-decade if political leaders call for a special legislative session on the matter. Missouris sick leave law gets repealed next week Heres what changes In the previous two decade cycles, 2000 and 2010, Missouris congressional districts remained unchanged after the initial redistricting plan was approved. Trumps push for redrawing districts mid-decade marks a rare shift from the states usual practices in redistricting. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Currently, six Republicans and two Democrats represent Missouris eight U.S. Congressional Districts. There has been growing speculation that Republicans may seek to redraw the boundaries to favor their party in a way that potentially could flip one seat and have seven seats after the 2026 midterm elections. The targeted seat? The 5th District, representing the Kansas City region and long held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. According to the Missouri Independent, Missouri lawmakers are scheduled to return to the state capitol on Sept. 10 for the annual veto session, with at least one meeting expected for an in-depth discussion on redistricting. Earlier this month, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe showed support of mid-cycle redistricting, telling FOX 2 Is Missouri represented properly in Washington, D.C., and, quite frankly, what can we do to support President Trumps agenda? And Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, whos done a very good job, Kehoe told FOX 2 News during a trip to St. Louis County. Many Missouri Democrats, including Cleaver, are strongly opposed to the idea and how it could reshape representation ahead of the 2026 midterms. Cleaver called redistricting very dangerous and national nastiness as a way of establishing a one-party rule in our country, in a recent interview with St. Louis Public Radio. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Donald Trump heaped praise on the new owner of CBS, saying Paramount chief executive David Ellison is a great man whom he knows very well, adding that Ellison is going to do the right thing with the network. The presidents Friday remarks come a day after House Democrats launched an investigation into the politically fraught $8 billion merger between Paramount and Ellisons Skydance, which was approved by the Trump administration shortly after the president extracted a $16 million settlement in his meritless lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Speaking to reporters on Friday morning following the FBI raiding the home of his former national security adviser-turned-critic John Bolton, which Trump insisted he knew nothing about beforehand, the president turned his attention to boasting about his federal takeover of Washington, D.C. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In typical Trumpian fashion, the president went on a tangent about the fake news not giving him credit for deploying military troops on the streets of the nations capital, which he falsely claimed had a 90 percent approval rating. In reality, the vast majority of D.C. residents oppose the move and feel it makes them less safe. After mocking MSNBCs upcoming name change, claiming it was because theyre ashamed of it and theyre disassociating it from NBC, which is also fake news, Trump then brought up CBS and Ellison and had nothing but good things to say. Donald Trump boasts that new CBS owner David Ellison will do the right thing and is a great man. (AFP/Getty) I think the news is getting better. Theyre learning that they have no credibility, he declared. CBS was just sold to a great person that I know very well. Trump continued: A great man. He actually just bought CBS. And I think hes going to do the right thing with it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ellison is the son of close Trump ally and megadonor Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder who invested billions of dollars in David Ellisons Skydance merger with Paramount. Weeks before the Federal Communications Commission led by Trumps hand-picked chairman Brendan Carr finally approved the Skydance-Paramount deal, Trump similarly sang the younger Ellisons praises. Ellisons great, the president told reporters in mid-June. Hell do a great job with it. Earlier this week, the ranking members of the House Judiciary and Energy and Commerce committees sent Ellison a letter demanding documents and correspondence related to the administrations approval process of the Paramount merger, which officially closed on August 7. Specifically, the two Democratic congressmen are seeking answers surrounding not only the settlement of the Trump lawsuit, which has sparked accusations of bribery from lawmakers and free press organizations, but also the presidents claim that he reached a side deal with Ellison. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shortly after the previous Paramount leadership announced it was paying Trump $16 million to settle the 60 Minutes complaint, Trump boasted that Ellison had agreed to air up to $20 million of pro-Trump advertisements and programming on CBS once the merger went through. While the old Paramount denied any knowledge of any secret agreement, Ellison has remained mum on the matter. This offer was necessarily contingent on the FCC approving the deal and does not appear to present any legitimate value to the public, only to President Trump, Reps. Frank Pallone and Jamie Raskin wrote Ellison this week. Therefore, this appears to be an offer of payment and benefits to a government official designed to achieve a specific outcome from the government in other words, a bribe. Ellison is currently facing a congressional investigation over the circumstances surrounding the Trump administrations approval process of the companys merger with Skydance. (Paramount) Additionally, the Democrats are inquiring about Paramounts decision to cancel the top-rated late-night show hosted by outspoken Trump critic Stephen Colbert just days before the merger was approved, as well as Skydances assurance to the FCC that it would review complaints of bias at CBS News and eliminate all diversity hiring practices. Both Trump and Carr publicly celebrated Colberts cancellation. On top of that, Raskin and Pallone noted that during the negotiations with Trump to settle the lawsuit, which CBS lawyers said was without merit and legal experts described as frivolous, the executive producer of 60 Minutes and CBS News chief Wendy McMahon both resigned in protest. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two wrongs do not make a rightillegitimate demands from the FCC or the Administration do not absolve your company from wrongdoing, the letter to Ellison stated. If Skydance offered a side deal of up to $20 million worth of advertisement or programming to President Trump in order to receive regulatory approval for the merger with Paramount, these actions would run afoul of federal and state anti-bribery statutes. The lawmakers added: Similarly, if Paramount forced out CBSs longtime leaders, spent $16 million to settle a sham lawsuit with President Trump, or cancelled a highly popular comedy show that President Trump dislikes in order to curry favor with the Administration and to receive regulatory approval for the merger with Skydance, these actions would likely further embolden President Trump to use lawsuits and regulatory authority to attack media organizations that he finds objectionable in order to silence them. In the meantime, it appears that Ellison and his senior leadership are preparing to enact painful cuts to the news network. Pucks Dylan Byers reported this week that Paramount sources had told him CBS News was losing around $50 million a year, a claim a CBS News spokesperson pushed back hard against, saying the news division is currently profitable. Still, based on the Byers item, it appears that Ellison and Paramount president Jeff Shell are laying the groundwork to make sweeping layoffs at CBS News and soon. The stage has been set for a round of painful cost-cutting, Status News Oliver Darcy noted. In other words, the disputed number may ultimately be less important than the larger narrative it helps justify: CBS News is about to face some painful budget cuts. By David Shepardson and David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration will conduct a "major" tariff investigation on furniture entering the United States, a step toward imposing higher duties on a sector already seeing tariff-fueled price increases. "Furniture coming from other Countries into the United States will be Tariffed at a Rate yet to be determined," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Furniture retailer RH -- previously known as Restoration Hardware -- shares fell 7.5% in after-hours trading on Trump's announcement. Trump said the investigation will be completed within the next 50 days but other national security probes have taken significantly longer than that. A White House official confirmed that it would be conducted under the Section 232 national security statute. The probe could serve as a backstop legal basis for existing tariffs if a federal appeals court strikes down "reciprocal" duties that Trump imposed on a broad range of U.S. trading partners in April, as well as import taxes imposed in February against China, Canada and Mexico. "This will bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union," Trump said. Furniture and wood products manufacturing -- which employed 1.2 million people in 1979 -- has fallen from 681,000 in 2000 to 340,000 today, according to government statistics. The United States imported about $25.5 billion in furniture in 2024, up 7% over 2023, with about 60% of those imports coming from Vietnam and China, according to Furniture Today, a trade publication. New tariffs on imports from furniture-producing countries helped push up consumer prices for home furnishings by a steep 0.7% in July, according to Commerce Department data, though overall consumer price inflation was restrained by lower gasoline prices. INDUSTRY OPPOSITION The American Home Furnishings Alliance, a trade group representing domestic furniture manufacturers and importers, including many companies that do both, had no immediate comment on Trump's announcement. But the High Point, North Carolina-based AHFA in April led an industry coalition in opposing new tariffs under Trump's ongoing Section 232 investigation into lumber and wood products imports. "As a strictly legal matter, there is no rational relationship between imports of wood products or furniture and the national security of the United States," the group said in written comments to the Commerce Department. President Donald Trump spoke about heaven for a second time this week, this time fretting over the type of report card one might need to gain entry through the Pearly Gates. People of faith, theres a feeling, they wanna be good, yknow? They get punished if theyre not good, right? he told radio host Todd Starnes. Related: Supreme Court Lets Trump Cut $783 Million Of Research Funding In Anti-DEI Push He also said falsely that non-religious people have no reason to be good since they wont be punished in an afterlife. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youre not a believer, and you believe you go nowhere, whats the reason to be good, really? he said. There has to be some kind of a report card up there someplace, yknow, like lets go to heaven, lets get into heaven. Its sort of a beautiful thing. Trump also spoke about getting into heaven earlier in the week and didnt seem optimistic about his chances. I want to try and get to heaven if possible, Trump confessed during a Fox News interview. Im hearing Im not doing well. I hear Im really at the bottom of the totem pole. Related: Trump Thinks He Knows What Will Get Him Into Heaven Trump said brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine might seal the deal for him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons, he said. But so far, Trump who last year said he could end the war in 24 hours hasnt had much success. In the new interview, Trump also claimed religion is coming back under his administration. Related: Trump Vows To Take Unprecedented Step If Embattled Fed Governor Doesnt Resign Religions coming back, and religion brings our country together, he said. All religions. A lot of religions. I mean, some I could question, I guess, to be honest with you, a little rough philosophy there. But religion brings our country together and its a great thing. More Stories Trump Finally Melts Down After Days Of Gavin Newsoms Relentless Trolling Trump Opens Up About His Meeting With Zelenskyy At Pope Francis Funeral Jimmy Kimmel Nails The 'Toughest' Thing To Believe About Trump And Religion Read the original on HuffPost President Donald Trump gave a sprawling speech and distributed hamburgers to law enforcement in Washington, D.C., on Thursday in a bid to tout his efforts at combating crime. The move comes as Trump has commenced a federal takeover of D.C. s police and sent in hundreds of National Guard troops, even though violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low. While hed previously announced a patrol with officers, Trumps appearance resembled more of a staged event featuring him and other top administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, speaking to a crowd of police, federal agents and National Guard troops. (It wasnt immediately clear if hed join officers in the city later.) Related: Another 'Trump Burger' Owner Was Detained By ICE, And His Lawyer Says Theyre Waiting For Him To Die Were not playing games. Were going to make it safe, and were going to then go on to other places, but were going to stay here for a while, Trump claimed in remarks that spanned a range of topics including his new White House ballroom, artificial intelligence and the state of grass in D.C. parks. President Donald Trump speaks while visiting federal troops at the U.S. Park Police facility in the Anacostia area of Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Trump said he plans to patrol Washington's streets on Thursday with troops he deployed to the U.S. capital in a show of force against what he claims is a "crime emergency." MANDEL NGAN via Getty Images Trumps event on Thursday only adds to critiques from Democrats, who have argued that his actions in D.C. are a stunt intended to distract from other controversies his administration is suffering from including the Justice Departments handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thus far, Trumps federal takeover has featured National Guard troops and vehicles stationed in visible locations around the city, with critics arguing that theyve neglected lower-income areas that have experienced high levels of crime, HuffPosts Sara Boboltz reports. The White House has disputed this assessment and the choice of staging his speech in D.C.s Anacostia neighborhood, which has historically had higher rates of crime, appeared focused on addressing that as well. Trump and his officials have also stressed a hard-line approach to both crime and immigration enforcement as part of their federal takeover, with Pirro stating Thursday that she intends to back the blue to the hilt and pursue as many charges as possible when arrests are made. According to a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report, roughly half the arrests during Trumps crackdown have involved undocumented immigrants as the administration has utilized local police to impose its larger policy agenda. Related: Cuomo Openly Admits That Trump Could Help Him In NYC Mayoral Race Such actions have been denounced by the citys Democratic leadership, who sued over the administrations attempt to displace the citys police chief, and who have called out the deployment of the National Guard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It doesnt make sense, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said earlier this week. Trumps takeover has been wildly unpopular among city residents as well, with 79% of D.C. residents saying they oppose the federalization in an August Washington Post survey. That discontent was evident in the vocal jeers and heckling that Vice President JD Vance received during a photo op in D.C.s Union Station earlier this week. Related... Read the original on HuffPost The Trump administration plans to review the status of all 55 million foreign nationals in the U.S. with a valid travel visa to root out security threats and anyone supporting terrorists. Marco Rubios State Department said in a statement that it intends to commence a process of continuous vetting and revoke the visas of anyone it deems guilty of potential ineligibility. Things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization would provide grounds for the removal of visas and deportation, the statement said. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says continuous vetting process will help root out bad actors (AP) We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The statement added: As part of the Trump administrations commitment to protect U.S. national security and public safety, since Inauguration Day the State Department has revoked more than twice as many visas, including nearly four times as many student visas, as during the same time period last year. The policy is being undertaken as part of the administrations crackdown on undocumented migrants, which has been extended to include reviews of legal migrants, including people in the country on student, work, or tourist visas. According to The Washington Post, the Biden-era State Department issued approximately 11 million temporary visas in 2024 (distinct from permanent visas or green cards), around 77 percent of which were for professional purposes or tourism and another 7 percent handed to foreign students. We are gathering more information than ever, a senior State Department official told the Post, insisting they were not dismayed by the thought of the additional workload the new directive was likely to create. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Time is not my concern; the security of Americans is. Immigration experts have already sounded the alarm, with David J Bier of the Cato Institute think-tank warning that the administration may be about toproactively conduct reviews of social media posts and revoke visas based not on conduct but speech. I doubt thats feasible for everyone, but I suspect that these reviews will be done in a discriminatory manner targeting immigrants with certain backgrounds and in certain visa categories or specific people they want an excuse to revoke, he said. ICE has been engaged in a major crackdown of illegal immigrants since Donald Trump returned to power (Getty) ICE announced last week it would be vetting visa applicants for association with anti-American or terrorist groups or others that support or promote antisemitic terrorism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Students have become a particular focus for administration scrutiny in the first half-year of Trumps second term, with foreign nationals taking part in campus protests against Israels actions in Gaza closely watched for evidence of antisemitism or statements of support for Hamas or Hezbollah. Secretary Rubio moved on Thursday to stop offering worker visas for foreign commercial truck drivers. Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers, he wrote on X. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Associated Press that foreign workers had helped address a significant labor shortage in the long-haul trucking sector. This action should be seen as part of a concerted effort by the administration to discourage American companies and other institutions like universities and hospitals from hiring and retaining foreign workers, he said. The goal here is not to target specific classes of workers, but to send the message to American employers that they are at risk if they are employing foreign workers. The economic consequences will be far larger than just visas being stripped from foreign workers in a few job categories. US President Donald Trump is threatening to extend his controversial measures to tackle what he calls rampant crime from Washington - where he has deployed hundreds of National Guard officers - to the city of Chicago. "I think Chicago will be ... next," Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday. He did not elaborate on what exactly he plans, but suggested New York might be after Chicago. Trump is likely to face fierce opposition from Chicago and New York politicians - not only because the cities are heavily Democratic but also because as independent cities, the federal government does not have the legal authority over them that it has over the District of Columbia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump had earlier spoken about the situation in the US capital and praised the work of the National Guard. The US president also said, "We are going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago is a mess." He questioned the competence of the city's Democratic mayor. Chicago, located in the midwest state of Illinois, is one of the largest cities in the United States. Trump recently activated the National Guard to curb the allegedly out-of-control crime in the US capital. Additionally, he placed the local police under federal control. Trump's actions in Washington are highly controversial, and there have already been protests. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Data from the district's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) show that violent crime has actually declined year-to-date between 2024 and this year. As of Friday, violent crime, including homicides, sex abuse and assault with a dangerous weapon. had dropped by 27% on an annual basis. The figures are preliminary and are based on MPD crime definitions. Then-Mesa County Clerk and Colorado secretary of state candidate Tina Peters attends the Western Conservative Summit in Aurora on June 4, 2022. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline) President Donald Trump again called for the release of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters in a social media post on Thursday. Peters is a prominent election denier serving a nine-year prison sentence for her role in a breach of Mesa Countys elections systems during a 2021 software update. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW, Trump said in the post. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election. She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!! Peters was convicted by a Mesa County jury in August 2024 on four felony counts related to the security breach, which was part of an effort to demonstrate that the 2020 election was untrustworthy, even though there is no credible evidence to support that position. She was prosecuted by the office of a Republican district attorney. In May, Trump called for the U.S. Department of Justice to take all necessary action to secure her release. Trump cannot pardon Peters, because her conviction involves state crimes. Peters has appealed the conviction, and while the Colorado Court of Appeals reviews the case, her legal team filed a federal habeas corpus petition. The petition, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado, argues that Peters should be released on bond pending the appeal decision. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Peters attorneys argue in the federal habeas corpus petition that her First Amendment rights have been violated because she has not been allowed bail pending her appeal. (Peters) has been made to stay in prison because people are afraid of what she would say, her attorney Peter Ticktin said in an interview with Newsline earlier this month. The Colorado attorney generals office has asked for the dismissal of the habeas corpus petition, arguing that the federal court does not have jurisdiction in the case. In a recent filing, the attorney generals office cited the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case Younger v. Harris, in which the court recognized longstanding public policy against federal court interference with state court proceedings. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who oversees the states elections, said in a social media post that Trump was digging himself lower and lower to free a criminal convicted by a jury of her peers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Donald Trump and Tina Peters are election-denying criminals who put their need for power ahead of the American people, Griswold said. Trumps feeble attempts to put pressure on the justice system to re-write history is an embarrassment. Editors note: This post was updated at 7:16 p.m., Aug. 21, 2025 to include a statement from Secretary of State Jena Griswold. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) President Donald Trump threatened to take harsh measures Thursday morning if Tina Peters is not released from prison. The former republican clerk and recorder is serving a nine-year prison sentence for her role in a voting data scheme during the 2020 election. In a fervent post on Truth Social, the president exclaims, FREE TINA PETERS, calling her a brave and innocent Patriot who did nothing wrong. But District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, who successfully prosecuted her case, tells a very different story. She actually videotaped on her phonethe pass codes to the Dominion Voting Systems that would allow these security settings to be changed on the computers. And then she gave those passcodes to somebody else, who ultimately forwarded them to a third person, who put them out on the internet. So it turned out that Ms. Peters was the biggest threat to our voting systems herself, while she was the elected clerk and recorder who we elected really to safeguard those systems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This isnt the presidents first attempt to secure Peters release, having labeled her a hostage and a political prisoner in a social media post back in May, and blaming a communist persecution for her continued imprisonment. This claim is disputed by Rubinstein, a republican elected district attorney. The case was brought by me, a republican elected district attorney who was elected by the same constituents that elected Ms. Peters, says Rubinstein. It was brought at the request of an all-republican board of county commissioners, that were also elected by the same constituents that elected Ms. Peters, in a county that was overwhelmingly for President Trump. WesternSlopeNow reached out to the White House and have yet to receive any additional details on the harsh measures President Trump has in mind. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser took to X this morning in response to the president saying, in part, he will not be intimidated by the Trump Adminstrations threats. Colorado will always stand for the rule of law, even when the president refuses to do so. Gov. Jared Polis was also mentioned in Trumps post. A rep from his office sent a statement to WesternSlopeNow saying in part, We appreciate the Presidents awareness and recognition of Colorados wildly popular ability to vote by mail, which is safe, secure, and has led to record turnout for Coloradans of every party. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement John Case, a lawyer for Peters, told WesternSlopeNow that, As we told the Colorado Court of Appeals in our Reply Brief filed August 18, the individuals who committed crimes by systematically erasing records of the 2020 election throughout Colorado remain free without charges, while the only county clerk in the state who obeyed federal law by preserving records languishes in prison. President Trump says he will stop this injustice. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. Two German fighter jets were sent to the Ukraine-Romania border Tuesday night following a wave of drone strikes from Russia. Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa province in Ukraine, said drones hit infrastructure and production facilities in the city of Izmail, which is situated on the Danube River at the border with Romania, a NATO member. Ukrainian air force officials said Russia launched 93 drones and two ballistic missiles overnight, noting 62 of the drones and one missile were shot down or suppressed. The German air force Typhoon fighters were sent to the area "to monitor the air situation in the border area with Ukraine, in the north of Tulcea County," Romania's defense ministry posted to social media. The ministry noted that "during the mission, there were no penetrations of aircraft in the national airspace and that the German jets returned safely. Featured Local Savings In previous airstrikes, Russian planes have entered NATO airspace. Poland, another NATO member, has also reported several violations of its airspace from Russian missiles and drones, accusing Russia on Wednesday of provocation after a Russian drone crashed in eastern Poland. NO DEAL UNTIL THERES A DEAL: TRUMP SUMS UP PUTIN MEETING IN SURPRISINGLY BRIEF PRESS CONFERENCE The German aircraft are deployed to Romania as part of NATO's "Enhanced Air Policing" mission, which began along the eastern border of NATO countries after Russia took Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. The Italian air force was previously deployed to Romania for the Enhanced Air Policing mission. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the overnight strikes only confirm the need to pressure Moscow, the need to impose new sanctions and tariffs until diplomacy works fully. President Donald Trump threatened to send active-duty military personnel into Americas third-largest city to quell what he described as out-of-control crime at the hands of a liberal mayor and Democratic-run city and state governments. Speaking in the Oval Office Friday to reporters, Trump was boasting of positive crime numbers in the District of Columbia since he seized control of the capitals police department earlier this month. He claimed the national guard soldiers tasked with patrolling some of Washington had been doing an incredible job working with the police and said his solution for the capital uniformed soldiers and roving patrols of federal agents who have largely been conducting immigration arrests of delivery drivers according to government statistics would soon be sent to another location to make it safe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we'll straighten that one out, probably next that'll be our next one after this, and it won't even be tough, Trump said. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office where he threatened to put the regular military in more cities. (AP) The president then claimed that the Windy Citys Black population, including African American ladies, beautiful ladies, were screaming for him to please come to Chicago. So I think Chicago will be our next and then we'll help with New York, he said. The president also threatened to bring in the regular military for law enforcement purposes an action that would be illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law limiting the militarys ability to conduct civilian law enforcement or enforce domestic policy in the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The law was enacted in response to the occupation of former confederate states after the American Civil War during the Reconstruction period from 1865 to 1877. Although each state has a National Guard that can be employed for law enforcement in emergency situations at the behest of a states governor, National Guard soldiers cant be used for law enforcement if commanded by federal authorities. Asked whether hed spoken with Brandon Johnson, the Democratic politician who is the incumbent Chicago mayor, Trump said he has not. But he vowed to press on with his plan nonetheless. Now, when we're ready, we'll go in and we'll straighten out Chicago, just like we did DC. Chicago is very dangerous, he said. Chicago and New York could be the next cities to see federal troops in the streets, President Donald Trump said Friday. At a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump boasted about the National Guard presence he sent into Washington, D.C., last week, adding: I think Chicago will be our next, and then well help with New York. Trump said his administration is willing to bring in the regular military as well, and asserted that Chicago residents are screaming for us to come and wearing red hats, just like this one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president continued: African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, Please, President Trump, come to Chicago please. I did great with the Black vote as you know, and they want something to happen. Trump: "The people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come...African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying 'Please, Mr. Trump, come to Chicago.' I did great with the black vote...Chicago will be our next, then we're gonna help with New York." pic.twitter.com/1WK8lvNWek The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) August 22, 2025 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson immediately issued a public statement in response to Trumps threat, which read in part: Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the City of Chicago. The problem with the Presidents approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound. Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities. On Aug. 11, Trump declared a public safety emergency in Washington and federalized its police force, deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to crack down on what he called out-of-control crime, even as city leaders say violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low. We are not experiencing a crime spike, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser told MSNBC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Washington falls under federal authority as a city without statehood, National Guard units outside the nations capital fall under the authority of state governments. California has sued the Trump administration for attempting to use the California National Guard to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles without Gov. Gavin Newsoms consent. Newsom recently said he expects Trump to try to do the same elsewhere. This is a preview of things to come if you think this is about California, you are fooling yourself, he said. These are operations you are going to see all across the United States of America. Theyve tested the boundaries of the law. Theyve tested the boundaries of public perception and what the public will accept. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com U.S. President Donald Trump told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban he was "very angry" about recent Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia's Druzhba oil pipeline in a note to Orban published Aug. 22. Trump's remarks came in response to a letter of complaint sent by Orban, who called the attacks on the pipeline a "very unfriendly move." The Druzhba pipeline carries Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, the only two countries in the EU still buying Russian crude through this system. Ukraine's Unmanned System Forces confirmed on Aug. 18 that it struck the Nikolskoye oil pumping station in Russia's Tambov Oblast in a drone attack, disrupting operations. Russian oil flows to Hungary and Slovakia were suspended that day as a result of the strike. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Hungary and Slovakia expressed outrage over the attack and appealed to international partners, with Orban writing to Trump and Slovakia's Foreign Ministry sending a complaint to the European Commission. "Hungary supports Ukraine with electricity and petrol, in return they bomb pipeline that supply us," Orban's note to Trump reads. "Very unfriendly move!" In a response handwritten directly on the letter, Trump writes: "Viktor, I do not like hearing about this I am very angry about it. Tell Slovakia you are my great friend." Slovakia's letter to the European Commission calls Ukraine's attack on the pipeline "completely unacceptable" and calls on the EC to take action to guarantee the safety of its energy supply. A letter from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with a response from U.S. President Donald Trump. Ukraine regularly carries out attacks on military and industrial facilities in Russia, targeting Russian oil infrastructure to undermine one of Moscow's most lucrative revenue streams. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Oleksandr Kharchenko, managing director of the Energy Industry Research Center, oil revenues account for up to 40% of Russia's federal budget. Ukraine's drone strikes on oil facilities "directly weaken Moscow's war chest," he told the Kyiv Independent. The Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, one of the world's largest, carries Russian crude through two main branches: the northern line toward northern Europe and the southern line to Central Europe. The recent attacks on the pipeline hit the Unecha pumping station, "a critical hub" that not only supplies oil to Hungary and Slovakia but also feeds the line to the Ust-Luga port in the Baltic Sea near St. Petersburg, Kharchenko said. "That makes it a dual blow both to Russia's pipeline exports into the EU and to its seaborne shipments. Disruption at Unecha cuts into about 5% of Russias daily oil exports, costing the Kremlin nearly $15 million in lost revenue every day," he told the Kyiv Independent. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "For Hungary and others, the immediate risk is supply instability, while for Russia's wider customer base the signal is clear: the Druzhba and Ust-Luga routes are no longer reliable." Orban's appeal to Trump comes amid the White House's latest push to make a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine. Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15, then invited President Volodymyr Zelensky and a number of European leaders to Washington on Aug. 18. Orban, a long-time Trump ally, is one of the most Kremlin-friendly leaders in Europe. He has repeatedly blocked sanctions and aid to Ukraine and opposes Kyiv's accession to the EU. Read also: Going around in circles Trump sets new deadline for peace in Ukraine, Graham again threatens with tough legislation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. [Source] President Donald Trump has pledged to advocate for the release of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, whose national security trial resumed this week amid judicial skepticism over sedition charges. Catch up: Lai, a 77-year-old British citizen who founded the now-closed Apple Daily, could face life in prison on charges of colluding with foreign forces and publishing seditious content. The Beijing critic has spent over 1,700 days in solitary confinement since his bail was denied in December 2020, with authorities alleging he used his media outlets to encourage international sanctions from April 2019 to June 2021. Prosecutors claim he funded the Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong advocacy group to promote Western action against China, though Lai denies knowing about the organization. Observers consider his trial a crucial test for Hong Kongs press freedom and court independence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Latest proceedings: Tuesdays proceedings saw High Court judges challenge prosecutor Anthony Chaus claim that Apple Daily articles lacked constructive criticism and offered no solutions to government issues. Judge Esther Toh questioned whether opinion pieces must include remedies to avoid sedition charges, asking, You can write a critical article about the water problem, but do you have to venture to offer solutions? Trending on NextShark: Trump vows to 'save' Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai as trial nears end Chau argued that Lai systematically portrayed Beijing negatively to justify Western interference, maintaining his efforts even after the national security law took effect. The trial was postponed twice last week due to bad weather and Lais heart condition, which required medical monitoring equipment. Trump as savior: The case reflects Hong Kongs eroding press freedoms since China imposed the national security law in June 2020 following pro-democracy demonstrations across the city. President Donald Trump has promised to advocate for Lais release, though he retreated from previous statements hinting at a guarantee on the media moguls freedom. I didnt say 100% Id save him. I said 100% Im going to be bringing it up. And Ive already brought it up, and Im going to do everything I can to save him, Trump told Fox News Radio last week. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lai, for his part, had previously counted on Trumps influence, instructing Apple Dailys Taiwan office to avoid negative coverage of the then-former president while organizing letter-writing campaigns to seek his intervention against the security law. Trending on NextShark: Honolulu Chinatown acid attack suspect was previous target of hate crimes The prosecution is expected to complete closing arguments Wednesday before defense attorneys present their final case. This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what were building, consider becoming a paid member your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Trending on NextShark: Undocumented truck driver faces deportation after illegal U-turn kills 3 Subscribe here now! Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! For more than a decade I have served on the board of trustees of the public library in the progressive town where I live and work. When I joined the board, our usual business was pretty straightforward; it was hardly the kind of stuff that put anyone on the frontlines of the culture wars. That now seems like another lifetime. Since President Donald Trump has returned to office, he has launched an ambitious assault on libraries, museums and other repositories of Americas history. Most recently, his administration has set its sights on the Smithsonian, one of the crown jewels of this countrys cultural institutions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an article posted on its website on Thursday, the White House targeted five of the Smithsonians museums for their exhibitions and content: the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African Art and the American Art Museum. It also called out two institutions that have yet to be constructed: The National Museum of the American Latino and the American Womens History Museum, highlighting comments by the latters former director Lisa Sasaki that it would include transgender women. Much of the articles criticism of what the administration has called the Smithsonians woke messaging centered on race, slavery, immigration, LGBTQ identity and people with disabilities. First on its list was a series at the African American History and Culture museum that, the article said, attacked whiteness and featured content from hardcore woke activist Ibram X. Kendi. An exhibition of the American Latino museum, it said, characterizes U.S. history as rooted in colonization. The National Portrait Gallery and the American History museum were heavily criticized for their LGBTQ content. As President Trump promised, the Trump Administration is committed to rooting out Woke and divisive ideology in our government and institutions, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Washington Post in an email. Taxpayer money should not be used for things that pit Americans against one another. Our Smithsonian should exhibit history in an accurate, honest, and factual way. The article follows a series of mounting attacks on the Smithsonian from the president. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of WOKE, Trump declared on Aug. 19 in a Truth Social post. The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. This Country, he continued, cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the HOTTEST Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums. A week earlier, three Trump aides, including Russell Vought, assistant to the president and director of the Office of Management and Budget, sent a letter to the secretary of the Smithsonian, informing him that we will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions. This initiative, they explained, aims to ensure alignment with the Presidents directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A White House review of the content the Smithsonian offers to the public is unprecedented. It is the stuff of dystopian fiction. Calling the administration among the most intrusive in American history, New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall observed, Trump is seeking to redefine the boundaries of public discourse. With the federal takeover in Washington, D.C., and the presidents continuing pursuit of retribution against his political opponents, some may be tempted to write off the attack on the Smithsonian as a tempest in a teapot. That would be a serious mistake. What Trump is doing at the Smithsonian is all of a piece with his efforts to destroy the independence of universities, law firms and cultural institutions like the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As the administrations Aug. 12 letter put it, the object is to cajole, and even force, them to all follow the Presidents directive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps Truth Social post linked his attack on museums with pressure tactics he has used elsewhere. It revealed that he has instructed his attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made. Progress? The presidents definition of progress involves replacing an America in which independent thinking, informed criticism and an honest view of history with a whitewashed version of this countrys past and a less diverse and more compliant nation. As the New York Times explained in June, among other things, the president is seeking to minimize, ignore or even erase some of the experiences and history of Black people in the United States. He is reframing the countrys past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing that history or at times denying that it happened. Thats why the president singled out the Smithsonians attention to slavery. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump is famously no student of history. So he likely would not have known that his attack on the nations collective memory recalls a heated dispute from the Smithsonians very founding. Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. The 19th century battle to establish the institution was itself defined by the question of how the issue of slavery would be addressed. British scientist James Smithsons bequest was intended to support the increase and diffusion of knowledge. But in a preview of what is now unfolding, the Smithsonian became caught up in its eras defining political and cultural conflict: The battle between federalists and advocates of states rights, many of whom were vocal defenders of slavery. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun, an ardent defender of states rights and slavery, argued there was nothing in the Constitution that gave Congress the power to establish a national cultural institution. Massachusetts Rep. (and former President) John Quincy Adams described Smithsons bequest as one of the noblest benefactions ever made to the race of man, and he led the fight in Congress to accept it. Adams prevailed over Calhouns faction. On Aug. 10, 1846, President James K. Polk signed the legislation establishing the Smithsonian Institution. From then until now, presidents of both parties have been strong supporters of the Smithsonians mission. They certainly did not interfere with the content of its collections or exhibitions, and if they disagreed with its scholars and curators interpretations of history, they kept quiet and allowed the experts to do their work. Many of them believed that America was well served by the kind of work done under the institutions aegis. But no more. Starting in the 1990s, conservatives periodically attacked the museum in terms the Trump administration has aped. As then-GOP Rep. Sam Johnson said, Weve got to get patriotism back in the SmithsonianWe want the Smithsonian to reflect real America and not something that a historian dreamed up. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite this rhetoric, conservatives did not seek the kind of control and outright ownership that is being sought by Trump. The scope of his attempted review is breadth-taking in its comprehensiveness and intrusiveness. It seeks approval over the Smithsonians exhibition text, wall didactics, websites, educational materials, and digital and social media content to assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals. The takeover would also cover current and future exhibitions, with particular attention to those planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to ensure they highlight American achievement and progress. The administration claims it wants to develop curatorial guidelines that reflect the Smithsonians original mission. But recall that the Smithsonians mission was and is the increase and diffusion of knowledge not advancing a particular understanding of Americas racial past or even to celebrate a myopic view our founding. You would never know that from what the Trump administration aims to do. In its view, the Smithsonians mission is to promote its version of Americanism. In free societies, museums and libraries dont promote -isms, especially when they target race. Instead, they promote inquiry. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They dont serve the agenda of any single person, party or creed, no matter how powerful. They help everyone define and remember our collective past, and help us to learn from it successes and failures alike. That spirit is captured in the mission statement of the public library on whose board I serve. Our mission is to be a community hub to a diverse population of Amherst residents, where books are celebrated and all members of the community can enhance their educational, cultural, and lifelong learning pursuits. Thats a version of Americanism the president and the MAGA crew treat as un-American. But it is a version that I, and millions of other Americans, are proud to serve. The post Trumps war on the Smithsonian echoes the fight over its founding appeared first on Salon.com. CONCORD, N.H. (AP) President Donald Trump's administration is faltering in its aggressive pursuit of the death penalty as it revisits cases in which predecessors explicitly decided against seeking capital punishment. Since taking office in February, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty against 19 people, including nine defendants in cases in which President Joe Biden's administration had sought lesser sentences. But judges have blocked those reversal attempts for all but two defendants, most recently on Monday in a pair of cases in the U.S. Virgin Islands, showing the limits of the Trump administration's power to undo decisions in cases already well underway. In pursuing capital punishment, the Justice Department is seeking to follow through on a Trump campaign promise to resume federal executions after they were halted by Bidens Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Republican president's Justice Department has accused the previous Democratic administration of supplanting the will of the people with their own personal beliefs in failing to seek death sentences in many cases involving horrific crimes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Detailed opinions haven't been issued in the most recent two cases, which involve a man accused of killing a police officer in 2022 and two men accused of armed robbery and murder in 2018. But other judges who have rejected reversal attempts on constitutional and procedural grounds were blunt in their assessment of the Trump administrations approach. The government has proceeded hastily in this case, and in doing so has leapfrogged important constitutional and statutory rights," Trump appointee U.S. Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland wrote in June, striking the notice of intent to seek the death penalty against three alleged MS-13 gang members accused of killing two teenage girls in 2020. That is unacceptable. Willful blindness vs. basic management Authorization of capital prosecution typically occurs years before trial, but in the Maryland case, prosecutors filed the death penalty notice less than four months before the trial was scheduled to start. None of the defendants were represented by attorneys who specialize in death penalty litigation, which they would have been entitled to under federal law due to the complexity of capital cases and the potential consequences. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The government does not hide the ball here the only reason for its flip-flop on the death penalty was the change in administration, wrote Gallagher, who called the governments willful blindness to the differences between capital and non-capital trials startling. This court will not cast aside decades of law, professional standards, and norms to accommodate the governments pursuit of its agenda, she wrote. Of course, elections have consequences, and this administration is entitled to pursue the death penalty in cases where it can do so in accordance with constitutional and statutory requirements. But this is not one of them. Prosecutors in Maryland and in a Nevada case declined to comment, but in court documents they argued that the Justice Department has an inherent power to reconsider previous decisions and that the timing of the death notice was objectively reasonable given that the defendants had years to prepare for trial. The Attorney General has simply reconsidered an earlier decision, which it is her prerogative to do so, and exercising that inherent authority is not misconduct but basic management and governance, wrote Marylands U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes. At no point did the Government make an enforceable promise. Deciding not to seek certain charges is not a promise not to do so. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Status of Bondi-ordered review of past cases Trump, whose first administration carried out a record-setting 13 federal executions, signed an order on his first day back in the White House compelling the Justice Department to seek the death penalty in appropriate federal cases and support capital punishment in states. Bondi, who has said she will seek the death penalty whenever possible, quickly lifted a Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and ordered a review of decisions made by the previous administration. The 120-day deadline for that review has passed with no official word on the results, but a senior Justice Department official told The Associated Press that all but about 30 cases have been examined. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the department, said roughly 1,400 decisions not to seek the death penalty were issued by Garland, with all but 459 having already been fully adjudicated by the time Trump took office. Bondi isnt the first attorney general to review past cases: Not only did Garland authorize just one death penalty case during his tenure, he also withdrew 35 notices of intent to seek the death penalty issued by his predecessors. The Justice Department says the Bondi-ordered review was essentially the flip side of Garland's action and was the right thing to do to ensure consistency and achieve justice for victims and their families. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A national expert weighs in But Robin Maher, executive of the Death Penalty Information Center, said while the Biden administrations actions reflected declining public support for the death penalty, Trump has brushed that aside. So his enthusiasm for use of the death penalty is different not only from President Bidens more cautious approach, its different from every other presidents approach in history, said Maher, whose organization doesnt take a position on capital punishment but is critical of how it is used. Whether the reversals will stand remains a question in two of the cases. In the others, courts have sided with defendants who said they reasonably relied on assurances made by the previous administration. In court documents, lawyers for some of the defendants said they would have pursued plea bargains or objected to postponing trial dates had they known the death penalty decision would be reversed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In some of these cases, very different paths were taken when those assurances were given, Maher said. In Nevada, prosecutors notified Cory Spurlock of their intention to seek the death penalty just 12 days before he was set to go on trial for the 2021 deaths of a California couple. Striking down that notice in May, Judge Miranda Du said the government fell far short of justifying its wholesale reversal at the eleventh hour. The trial began this week after prosecutors withdrew their appeal of her ruling. The government decided certainly not by inadvertence or accident to reverse course on an issue of critical importance, involving Spurlocks life, less than two weeks before trial, with full knowledge that the reversal would have a chaotic impact on the progression of this case and would make it impossible to proceed to trial on the scheduled date, wrote Du, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Under the circumstances, this is certainly tantamount to playing fast and loose with the Courts orders in particular and the judicial process in general. ___ Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report. ATLANTA Joe Gruters officially took over the Republican National Committee on Friday. And the longtime Trump ally from Florida made his goals clear: Help the president 100 percent and assist Republicans in maintaining their edge in the House and Senate during the midterms. The elevation of the GOP state senator who once chaired the Republican Party of Florida was never in doubt since Trump hand-picked him for the job. Gruters, who was approved by a unanimous voice vote, joins a long line of Floridians now on the national stage thanks to close Trump ties. Gruters is taking over for Michael Whatley, who stepped down from the post to run for Senate in North Carolina. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Coming into the job, Gruters acknowledged he was in an enviable position given the successful fundraising efforts of Whatley that he said left the party with $84 million in the bank. He vowed to remain aggressive in having the RNC use lawsuits to challenge voting laws it doesnt agree with. Gruters supported Trumps criticisms of vote-by-mail, even though he stopped short of supporting changes in his home state, where more than 1 million Republicans voted by mail in the last presidential election. He called Floridas current way of conducting elections the gold standard. And regarding the all-out redistricting battle going on between other states such as Texas and California, Gruters struck a defiant tone. So Ill say this we dont need redistricting to hold to the majorities in the House or Senate, Gruters said during an interview. Were going to win because the president is committed to winning. I think we have the right messaging. I think we have the right coalitions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gruters, who said the White House supports him staying in the state Senate, steered clear of any talk of redistricting in Florida, where Republicans already enjoy a 20-8 edge. Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pushing for mid-decade redistricting in response to recent court decisions upholding the states current map. While theres no exact timeline for when Florida may make changes, the Legislature is already scheduled to start its regular 2026 session in January. Florida law, however, prohibits redrawing districts for partisan gain. As a result, Im not going to address any redistricting questions because I wear two hats and Im trying to figure out what Im allowed and what I cant do, Gruters said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Gruters said "I don't know" when asked whether the White House had asked Florida Republicans to move ahead on redistricting. Gruters, 48, is an accountant who has spent nine years in the Florida Legislature, including the past seven in the state Senate. But his ties to Trump were forged when, as the head of the Sarasota County Republican Party, he honored him as Statesman of the Year before Trump won his first term as president. Gruters has also had a long-standing friendship with Susie Wiles, the Florida political operative who is now Trumps chief of staff. It was during Gruters' time as state chair from 2019 to 2023 that Florida saw its status shift from fading battleground state to firmly in GOP control. Republicans also amped up their voter registration efforts with a large push from DeSantis that resulted in Republicans overtaking Democrats. Current RPOF Chair Evan Power said Gruters election as RNC chair solidifies Florida status in the political world. Joe Gruters is a veteran of the Florida successes and can expand our model across the nation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats blasted the choice of Gruters, putting out a statement that lambasted him as a "lackey" of Trump and noted his support for abortion restrictions and Trump's mass deportation efforts. "Incoming RNC Chair Joe Gruters is just who Donald Trump would want for the position: a parrot for his own extremist agenda," said Deputy Rapid Response Director Jaelin OHalloran. While Gruters is a longtime ally of Trump, he's had notable clashes with DeSantis; he backed Trump over DeSantis when the governor mounted his unsuccessful run for president during the 2024 election cycle. Gruters' move to RNC chair will defuse possibly just for now a proxy war between Trump and DeSantis. Gruters had been planning to run for chief financial officer a statewide position and member of the Florida Cabinet and had picked up Trump's endorsement. The post then came open after Jimmy Patronis stepped down early to run for Congress. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DeSantis, however, picked staunch ally state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia to fill the vacant post. The governor ripped into Gruters and said he had taken positions opposed by the conservative base, citing his support for an immigration bill that DeSantis vetoed and his 2018 vote on a bill that raised the age limit to buy a rifle in Florida. That bill was passed in the aftermath of the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Joe Gruters has taken major positions that are totally contrary from what our voter base wants to do, DeSantis said in July. So if George Washington rose from the dead and came back and tapped me on the shoulder and said, Will you appoint Joe Gruters CFO? My response would be no. In an interview, Gruters tried to play down any potential animosity between himself and DeSantis. He said he had recently helped arrange DeSantis as the keynote speaker for an upcoming Michigan Republican Party event. But when asked point blank about DeSantis comment, Gruters contended he would have won the job of CFO if he had primaried Ingoglia because he had the golden ticket of Trumps endorsement. And Im sure George Washington appreciates the fact that Im going to be chairman of the party because were going to win, and were going to win big, Gruters said. The Trump administration's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered on July 20 that the U.S. intelligence community halt the sharing of information on ongoing Russia-Ukraine peace talks with so-called "Five Eyes" countries, CBS News reported on Aug. 21. U.S. intelligence sources told CBS News that Gabbard signed a directive barring the sharing of information with the Five Eye alliance, which includes the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. The directive limited the distribution of intelligence to information that had already been publicly released, and compartmentalized intelligence on peace talks within agencies where the intelligence originated from, according to CBS News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The directive also does not prohibit the sharing of information obtained through diplomatic means, nor does it affect information sharing on U.S. military planning, including aid to Ukraine. No rationale was provided for the decision, as peace talks between Russia and Ukraine brokered by the United States continue. The White House did not respond to the news agency's request for comment on the matter. U.S. President Donald continues to attempt to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv setting out in recent days to broker bilateral talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The renewed attempts come days after a meeting between Putin and the U.S. president in Anchorage, Alaska, followed by Zelensky's visit to the White House. In recent days, Western allies, including member of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing," have pushed to establish security guarantees for Kyiv, with the backing of U.S. support. With the exception of Washington, all Five Eye nations are apart of the 31-nation Coalition of the Willing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gabbard has previously been intertwined with matters related to the war in Ukraine, after the U.S. halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine on March 5. The decision, which was reversed soon after, followed a heated exchange between Trump and Zelensky in the White House on Feb. 28. Gabbard has previously stirred controversy with her comments on Ukraine, having echoed in early 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin's justification for the invasion of Ukraine, attributing the cause not to Moscow but to the Biden administration's failure to acknowledge "Russias legitimate security concerns." Read also: Going around in circles Trump sets new deadline for peace in Ukraine, Graham again threatens with tough legislation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. ATLANTA (AP) Florida conservative Joe Gruters, a Donald Trump cheerleader dating back to the president's days as a reality TV star, is now the Republican National Committee chairman. Having no opposition after being tapped by the president, Gruters' was elected Friday at the Republicans' summer meeting in Atlanta. For Gruters, the vote completes a steady climb from county party leader into the top ranks of Trumps second presidency. For Trump, Gruters ratification reflects his penchant for loyal lieutenants and evolution from a new president disinterested in party machinery to an Oval Office veteran intent on gripping all levers of power. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the vote Friday, Gruters thanked Donald Trump for choosing him and promised RNC members he would focus on election integrity," expanding Republican voter registration and preventing internal party discord. Elections, Gruters said, are won by whatever party does a better job of uniting the factions and bringing everybody together. Here is a look at Gruters history with Trump and Republicans and what that means as he becomes chairman. Gruters was with his Statesman of the Year from the start Trumps decade of domination over Republican politics is replete with rivals and critics who melted into the fold. Vice President JD Vance once compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio labeled Trump a con artist and mocked his manhood. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Gruters was a true believer years before Trump launched his first campaign in 2015. Joe bet on the horse before the track was even built, said Christian Ziegler, a former Florida Republican chair and friend of Gruters. In 2012, Gruters led the Sarasota County GOP, and Republicans were nominating Mitt Romney for president at their convention in nearby Tampa, Florida. Romney, then the kind of moderate Republican that is now almost extinct in public office, had embraced Trump even as the businessman falsely questioned then-President Barack Obamas birthplace and citizenship. Still, Trump was widely considered a liability for Romney against Obama, and Romneys team was circumspect about whether Trump would have a convention role. While Trump was eventually confirmed as a speaker, an approaching tropical storm shortened the convention schedule, and his slot was among the casualties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Enter Gruters. The eager Sarasotan had already picked Trump as his county partys Statesman of the Year, slotting a dinner gala at Sarasotas Ritz-Carlton hotel on convention eve with 1,000 guests. It cemented an enduring friendship. Gruters climbed the Florida ladder alongside Trump Gruters support for Trumps first presidential bid in 2015 stood out in Florida, given that Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush also were running. In October, Gruters became co-chairman of Trumps Florida campaign. His fellow chair was Susie Wiles, who is now Trumps White House chief of staff. Bush didnt make it to the Florida primary, and Trump trounced Rubio, ending the senators campaign. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gruters was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016 at the same time Trump won Floridas electoral votes and the presidency. And Wiles, Gruters old Trump campaign partner, was the mastermind behind Florida Gov. DeSantis narrow 2018 victory. So when it mattered, Gruters was well-positioned with a friend in the Oval Office and the governors office buoyed by Wiles, who had distinguished herself as a Florida kingmaker. Gruters navigated nasty party splits and Trump's election lies All those powerful allies backed Gruters' successful bid for Florida GOP chairman in 2019. Gruters and the party increased GOP registration across the state and helped push battleground Florida to a clearer conservative advantage. In 2020, as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden flipped Sun Belt battlegrounds Arizona and Georgia, Trump won Florida comfortably. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That helped Gruters navigate Trumps falsehoods that Bidens national victory was rigged. Gruters chose his words carefully, stopping short of Trumps election denialism yet ensuring he never drew the defeated presidents ire. Leaning on local results, Gruters called Florida the gold standard. He said there were questions about shenanigans in other states. Florida has been the center of everything, said current state Chairman Evan Power. Joe knows the successes and the lessons from Florida he can bring that to the national level. Floridas rightward shift yielded dominating reelection victories for DeSantis and Rubio in 2022. The win made DeSantis a presumed front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. A certain Palm Beach resident, however, was not finished. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Trump built his third campaign, Wiles stuck with him not DeSantis. The governor ultimately broke with Wiles and Gruters. Then Trump buried DeSantis, just as hed crushed Bush and Rubio. DeSantis made peace with Trump, but not with Gruters, describing him as recently as last month as having a linguine spine. Gruters reaffirms Trump's hold on the Republican Party Trump has cycled through multiple national GOP chairs. Reince Priebus in 2016 was the reluctant Trump backer who became the presidents chief of staff in 2017, only to be fired via social media post. Trump then turned to Ronna Romney McDaniel, Mitts niece. He eventually pushed out McDaniel and tapped North Carolinas Michael Whatley as chairman, with daughter-in-law Lara Trump as family stand-in at party headquarters. As chairman, Gruters will be a fundraising partner with the White House. The RNC is a key cog in joint party fundraising efforts that the president headlines. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump has always been his own primary messenger, but Gruters will be another notable face as the president approaches the 2026 midterms. That doesnt just mean policy and branding but also the mechanics of elections. Gruters sidestepped Trumps election denialism, but hell now be partly responsible for building teams of lawyers and poll watchers for a president who openly questions the efficacy of U.S. elections. Beyond the midterms, Gruters will help set the presidential primary calendar, debate rules and other nuts and bolts of the 2028 campaign. While Trump is term-limited by the Constitution, he's made clear that he will not stay in the shadows as voters choose his successor. With Gruters, he has a direct line into that process. - Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey has broken ground on a railway connection from its northeastern Kars province to Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave, moving to take advantage of a U.S.-brokered peace deal signed this month between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The railway will be part of the Southern Caucasus transit corridor, to which the U.S. gained exclusive development rights. It is meant to boost economic ties between Azerbaijan and Armenia and boost energy exports. Management and development of the so-called Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, which will run through southern Armenia and connect Azerbaijan's mainland with the Nakhchivan enclave that borders Turkey, was a stumbling block to initial peace efforts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The 224-kilometre (140 mile) railway will connect Turkey's Dilucu border gate with Nakhchivan and its main railway line in neighbouring Kars, Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said at a groundbreaking ceremony. It will have capacity to carry 5.5 million passengers and 15 million metric tons of cargo a year. "This corridor will strengthen economic cooperation between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and reinforce regional peace," Uraloglu said, adding that the project will help open borders and normalise diplomatic relations in the Southern Caucasus. Turkey last month secured 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in green financing for the railway from a group of lenders including Japan's MUFG Bank, Sweden's EKN and Austria's OeKB export credit agencies, and a unit of the Islamic Development Bank. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the sections of the railway in Nakhchivan, Armenia and mainland Azerbaijan are completed, an international trade route stretching from China to Britain will be more efficient, Uraloglu said. ($1 = 0.8621 euros) (Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, Kirsten Donovan) Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed two redistricting bills Thursday to redraw a new congressional map for California to counter a similar GOP-led attempt in Texas. The governor declared a special election on Nov. 4, asking voters to grant final approval to the new map, which would help Democrats win five more House seats in the 2026 midterm elections. The plan was passed earlier in the day in both chambers of the state legislature. "Were responding to what occurred in Texas, Newsom said. Were neutralizing what occurred, and were giving the American people a fair chance because when all things are equal, were all playing by the same rules. Republican lawmakers tried several parliamentary maneuvers to delay the vote, but were unsuccessful. They have called for a federal investigation and promised to keep fighting. "I am proud of this chamber, proud of my colleagues, for meeting this moment with courage," Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said. "President [Donald] Trump wants us to be intimidated, and his playbook is a simple one. Bully, threaten, silence, then rig the rules to hang on to power." Democratic Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel likened Trump's push to get more seats to that of a 5-year-old losing a game and demanding the rules change. "That is transparently what is happening with this president," Gabriel said. "[Trump] understands that his policies are not popular, he understands that people do not want him to be able to continue to be unchecked in Washington, and so rather than change his policies or play by the rules, he's trying to change the rules." Gabriel said his Republican colleagues have suggested Democrats turn a blind eye, but added that "there are deep moral implications to that unilateral surrender." Democratic Assemblywoman Rhodesia Ransom argued that lawmakers in California are not "forcing" a new map on voters but said, "We can't be bystanders when bullies come to push us around." "We're not forcing anything down anyone's throat," she said. "We're giving Californians a choice. Do you want to bow down or do you want to fight back?" Republican Assemblywoman Laurie Davies said she believed the money that would go toward a special election would be better spent on fixing the state's current insurance crisis or giving first responders pay raises. GOP Assemblyman David Tangipa said the Democratic push to redraw the map was "neither bold nor principled." "It is, in plain terms, a blatant attack on the most transparent process our state has ever had for drawing congressional districts," he said. "It undermines what has become the gold standard for the nation, the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission." Featured Local Savings Unlike Texas, where state lawmakers have control over drawing the state's congressional map, California's process is more complicated. Its constitution requires that an independent redistricting commission draw the map and that voters approve any changes. That means even though the state legislature passed the proposed map, it will now be up to the voters in California to decide during a Nov. 4 special election whether the map will be used for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. If voters greenlight them, it would turn three Republican-held seats into safe Democratic seats and turn two others into seats that lean Democratic. The map would change districts held by Reps. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) and Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) in Northern California. In the southern part of the state, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ken Calvert (R-CA) are at risk, and in the Central Valley, Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) would have a much harder time getting reelected. The coast-to-coast redistricting fight erupted after Trump publicly called on Texas to redraw its map to give Republicans a five-seat boost heading into the 2026 midterm elections. California called its push for a new map a countermeasure to "neutralize" the pressure Trump put not only on Texas Republicans but also on lawmakers in other red states, including Florida, Ohio, and Indiana, to follow suit. On Thursday morning, Trump announced on social media that Republicans in Missouri had also agreed to redraw their map, writing, "We're going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!" Democrats in Illinois and Maryland have pledged to fight back. However, it's harder in the blue states because most have commission systems like California or other imposed redistricting rules, giving Republicans the edge in easily changing their map. New York, for example, has floated the idea of changing its map, but can't legally redraw it until 2028, two years after the midterm elections, and even then, only with voter approval. In Texas, the governor's signature is all that's needed after the map passes the state legislature. At stake is control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans have a seven-seat edge in the House, with four vacancies. Trump has been able to enact his agenda, including passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. If Democrats flip the House, they could render Trump a lame duck during his last two years in office by blocking his legislation and launching congressional investigations. Democrats have said stopping Trump is their No. 1 priority, and the party has turned to Newsom, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Texas Rep. Nicole Collier (D-TX) to lead the cause. WHO WINS AND LOSES IF EVERY STATE GETS ITS WAY ON REDISTRICTING? Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said Thursday evening that the DNC "stands with Gov. Newsom and the California legislature in putting the power in the hands of the people of California." "Every Californian should vote for Democrats measure to level the playing field," he added. "This isnt just about California. The basic premise of Americans instead of Donald Trump choosing their elected officials is at stake. A lengthy legal battle is ensuing over plans to rename a street in central Berlin, after years of protests over the original name due to its discriminatory and racist overtones. Activists have long sought to rename Mohrenstrasse in Berlin's Mitte district, as the term "Mohr" was historically used to describe people of African descent, often in a derogatory manner. The word, which stems from the Latin "Maurus" ("Moor"), became associated with colonialism, slavery and racist caricatures. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But a Berlin court temporarily blocked the planned renaming of the street at the last minute, halting the change even after new signs had already been installed. On Thursday evening, the Berlin Administrative Court upheld an urgent appeal by a resident against the renaming, a spokesman said on Friday. The street cannot be renamed until the lawsuit has been settled, he said. But the Mitte district government in central Berlin is refusing to accept the latest blow, and has announced plans to file a complaint with the Higher Administrative Court, according to Mayor Stefanie Remlinger. She said the district considers Thursday's decision to be "legally flawed" and assumes the renaming can go ahead on Saturday as originally planned. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The planned new name, Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse, is a tribute to the first known African philosopher and lawyer to obtain a doctorate at a German university in the 18th century. The first signs for Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse had already been installed, with the official unveiling planned for Saturday. However, in its announcement, the Berlin court stated that there was no particular urgency to rename the street. Both the administrative court and the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court had already ruled that the renaming could go ahead in a previous lawsuit. Boston Police say two suspects surrendered to police after an adult male was shot multiple times on Charlotte Street at 4:46 PM. The incident occurred on 24 Charlotte Street, where police units responded to reports of a shooting involving an adult male victim. After the shooting, the suspects barricaded themselves inside a residence on the same street. The victim was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Boston Police, including SWAT and Hostage Negotiators, were on the scene, and after successful negotiations, two suspects surrendered to law enforcement. The residence where the suspects were located is currently frozen as authorities await the execution of search warrants. The suspects have been transported for booking and are expected to be arraigned in Dorchester District Court. The names of the suspects and the victim have not been released, and details regarding the charges will be made available in the morning. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) Two San Francisco Bay Area public high schools made it into the top 10 of U.S. News 2025 Best High Schools in California. U.S. News reviewed thousands of high schools across the state and dug into students test scores for English, mathematics, and science. Schools were ranked based on their performance on state-required tests, graduation rates, and how well they prepared students for college. According to the coveted list published this week, Dr. T.J. Owens Gilroy Early College Academy in Gilroy ranked #8 in California and was given a 99.64 score by U.S. News. All of the schools students took at least one Advanced Placement class and 85 percent passed at least one AP exam. The school has a 100 percent reading proficiency and graduate rate, as while as 89 percent proficiency in math. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dr. T.J. Owens Gilroy Early College Academy has 290 students grades 9-12 and is part of the Gilroy Unified School District. Congratulations to the Dr. TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy school community. Way to go GECA Griffins! We are proud of you! the school district wrote in response to the rankings. Lynbrook High School in San Jose earned the #10 spot for best public schools in California. At Lynbrook, 89% of students took at least one AP class and 86% passed an AP exam. The large school serves 1,720 students grades 9-12. Lynbrook High Schools website states, The values enacted by Lynbrooks communitycommitment to family, involvement in the schools, a belief in the importance of education and high academic expectations directly contribute to the schools excellent standing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lynbrook High, located in West San Jose, is part of the Fremont Union High School District. (Photo by Keith Birmingham /MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images) Pacific Collegiate Charter School in Santa Cruz ranked #9 on the top 10 list. The public charter school serves grades 7-12. Students thrive here as they prepare for college through our exemplary academics and arts programs. Our small class sizes and dedicated teachers ensure that every student gets individualized support, empowering them for academic success, the school wrote. 3 Bay Area school districts among best in America: Niche The #1-ranked school was Gretchen Whitney High School in Cerritos, Calif. The school offers a variety of honors and AP courses, including computer science, physics and foreign language. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement U.S. News wrote, We believe that better education drives the future. We rank high schools across the country to give an unbiased look at how well schools serve their students and help you make informed decisions about your childs education. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. TOWN OF ASHLAND, N.Y. (WETM) Two people walked away with minor injuries on Thursday after striking a 1,200-pound cow that was in the middle of the roadway on Interstate-86 in the Town of Ashland, totaling their vehicle, according to information from the Chemung County Sheriffs Office. Around 8:38 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21, deputies were sent to the eastbound lanes of I-86 close to Exit 57 for the report of a vehicle crash involving a cow. Deputies arrived on scene and spoke with the male driver, who said he and a passenger were going from Liverpool, NY, to Owego, NY, when they noticed a cow in the middle of the highway. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Multiple dead after tour bus rollover on I-90 in Pembroke The driver couldnt stop in time and hit the cow, killing the animal on impact, and causing severe damage to the front and roof of the vehicle. The Holstein dairy cow was said to be around 1,200 pounds, but deputies were unsure where the animal came from. Farmers in the area were contacted to see if the cow belonged to any of them, but it was determined that the animal did not belong to any farm in the area. The only identifying item on the cow was an ear tag and a back tag with the number 662 on it. The two people in the vehicle had minor injuries from the crash and were evaluated at the scene, but needed no further treatment, deputies said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is still an ongoing investigation into where the cow came from. Anyone who was driving along the highway at that time and may have information is asked to call the traffic division at 607-737-2950. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WETM - MyTwinTiers.com. Two men have been arrested following a protest outside a hotel housing asylum seekers. Norfolk Police said officers attended the Brook Hotel in Bowthorpe, Norwich, at about 19:20 BST on Thursday and arrested two men in their 20s on suspicion of public order offences. One man was alleged to have been viewing offensive material and a second was alleged to have been repeatedly swearing at a member of the public. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The force said the men were connected to the hotel and were not part of the protest group. The hotel in Barnard Road has been the scene of a number of protests in recent weeks over its use to house asylum seekers. Police said protesters left the area of the hotel at about midnight after Thursday evening's protest. Ch Insp Nick Palling said: "The public will be aware of previous policing operations in response to protests in Norwich over the past few weeks. "The majority of people attend in a peaceful manner and I would like to thank them for doing so. "Officers have worked hard to allow people to voice their views in a safe and lawful manner and this will continue." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The arrests come as Norwich City Council considers its options over the hotel in light of a High Court judgement on Tuesday. That granted a temporary injunction to Epping Forest District Council to stop asylum seekers being placed at a hotel in Epping that has been at the centre of protests. Norwich City Council says it continues to work with police colleagues, government and other key partners while monitoring the situation at the Brook Hotel [Richard Knights/BBC] Other local authorities around the country have been considering their positions in light of that decision, which the government has said will substantially impact its ability to house asylum seekers in hotels/. A Norwich City Council spokeswoman said: "We continue to work with police colleagues, government and other key partners, while closely monitoring the situation at the Brook Hotel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Community safety is paramount to us at this time, and all options remain open to us. We are committed to ensuring Norwich is a safe and welcoming place to residents and visitors alike." Official figures from the Home Office show that 207 asylum seekers were housed temporarily in hotels in Norwich at the end of June, up 46 from three months earlier. The UK total for the end of June was 32,059, which was 8% up year-on-year but 43% lower than the peak of 56,042 in September 2023. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Related internet links LYNCO, WV (WVNS) Two people from Ohio were arrested after a traffic stop was held in part of Wyoming County. According to a press release on the Wyoming County Sheriffs Offices Facebook page, Lucas Robinson and Gibrauna Dowdell, both of Akron, Ohio, were arrested for the felony charges of Possession with Intent to Deliver and Drug Conspiracy. Multiple arrests made after traffic stop in Fayette County Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Wyoming County Sheriffs Offices Facebook post stated that in the Lynco area of Wyoming County at around 4:15 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, 2025, members of the Wyoming County Sheriffs Office carried out a traffic stop due to Robinson reportedly not wearing a seatbelt. According to the press release, the car was searched after members of the Sheriffs Office allegedly smelled marijuana. Once the car was searched, members of the Wyoming County Sheriffs Office found and seized about $3,632, a pill bottle that held what was said to be crushed Percocet (Oxycodone), a baggie that contained fine powder that field tested positive for about 14 grams of Fentanyl, and a scale often used to weigh drugs. Photo Courtesy: Wyoming County Sheriffs Office The post from the Wyoming County Sheriffs Office stated that Robinson, and Dowdell, who was removed from the car before the search, were arrested, and that the drugs would be sent for analysis at the West Virginia State Police Crime Lab. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Gul Chaman, a 43-year-old midwife in Afghanistans central Daikundi province, visits a patient and her newborn daughter in July. Credit - Photograph by Elise Blanchard for TIME Over the past 12 years, the small family-health clinic in Melmastok, a remote mountainous community in Afghanistans central Daikundi province, has withstood multiple upheavalsfrom a Taliban insurgency to the withdrawal of international troops and the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul in 2021. Ever since, as the Taliban returned to power, once again issuing edicts to suppress women and girls, the clinic and its 34-year-old midwife Atifa have continued to provide a lifeline for mothers and young children. Until this summer, that is. Come July, the clinic finally closed its doors. For Atifa, who identifies herself like many local women with only her first name, that means one thing: Mothers and children will die. The reason? The wholesale slashing by Washington of U.S. humanitarian aid, until recently the single biggest source of development support for ordinary Afghans. That support had been critical for the survival of health and other development projects in the country, flowing in via the U.N. and its partners. But, as of August this year, funding cuts have led to the suspension or closure of 422 health facilities in the country. (Justifying the cuts, a senior Trump Administration official cited reports of attempts to disrupt aid by the countrys Taliban authorities.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The reductions include 21 family-health clinics in Daikundi, among them Atifas. Officially known as Family Health Houses, and staffed by solitary midwives like Atifa, a cleaner, and a guard, the clinics provided care to women and children in areas where communities have no access to other health facilities. Nationwide, more than 100 such clinics have closed as a result of the cuts. Read More: Far from Home: After the Fall of Kabul, Afghan Women Are Attempting to Build New Lives Abroad The impact in many cases has been devastating. In April, Ali Hassan rushed his pregnant wife Mariam to their local Family Health House in Taiko, another remote Daikundi community, when she complained of pain and believed she was close to giving birth. It was only after waiting for the midwife for several hours that they realized that the clinic had been closed. The midwife had been laid off. Desperate for medical attention, they headed for a district hospital around five hours drive away. It was too far. Both Miriam, 38, and their child succumbed shortly after they reached the hospital. There was a chance we could have saved both mother and child or at least the mother [had the clinic been open], Sediqa, a midwife at the district hospital, told TIME. The hospital director, Eztaullah Alizada, agreed, adding, These women live far away, and sometimes labor begins en route. By the time they arrive, they are close to dying. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Globally, the trend has been going in the other direction. Years of interventions by local and international bodies mean that women today are more likely than in the recent past to survive childbirth, with maternal mortalityor the deaths of women per 100,000 live birthsdeclining by 40% from 2000 to 2023, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But cuts could push Afghanistan, already suffering from comparatively high levels of maternal deaths, further in the other direction. Nearly two-thirds of global maternal deaths occur in countries like Afghanistan that are affected by fragility or conflict, the WHO says. As Kurshid, a 30-year-old pregnant woman in Daikundi told TIME, All of us are afraid we or our children might die. Beyond pregnant women, the clinics also provided care for young childrenand their closures have led to fear among many, like Mariam, a 24-year-old in Daikundi with three young children. She used to have four. Last year, she lost her 5-month-old daughter when the child fell sick. Unable to afford a taxi, Mariam was walking her to the nearest clinic, located about an hour on foot from her home, when the child died. Now, the nearest health facility is more than twice as far away even by car. The winter [when the region is buried under snow, restricting movement], she tells TIME, is even scarier. Photograph by Elise Blanchard for TIME For midwives, the closures have robbed them of their livelihoods in what remains a severely depressed economy. Im getting weaker and older everyday, Gul Chaman, a midwife in Daikundis Waras Valley, told TIME, fearful of what would happen once she had exhausted her savings. Im afraid for me and my childrens future. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Atifa, the midwife in Melmastok, is also afraid. She says she no longer even has the supplies to work privately. It simply isnt safe, forcing her to turn away former patients, like Soghra, a young woman in her 30s who, a week before Atifas clinic shut down, told TIME that she was terrified about giving birth. Tragically, her worst fears were realized when she went into labor in July. With no supplies to safely assist Soghra, Atifa directed her to another clinic around two hours away by car. I dont know if it happened on the way or at that clinic, Atifa says, but she lost her child. Photographs by Elise Blanchard for TIME Contact us at letters@time.com. HONOLULU (KHON2) The U.S. Secretary of the Army sent Gov. Josh Green a letter on Aug. 21 about the framework of military land leases in Hawaii. He stressed the importance of collaboration, as well as the possibility for land to be exchanged in a new agreement. We want to work with you to come to a mutually acceptable framework by the end of this year that will allow us to move forward, said U.S. Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll. Working together and with congressional support, we believe land exchange can be part of this framework. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement BLNR rejects Armys EIS for Oahu training lands The training lands in Hawaii are especially desirable for their strategic location, Driscoll pointed out. Hawaii has been generous in its support for the Army and has leased numerous lands to us over the past 65 years, Driscoll said. These lands are critical to the Armys ability to project U.S. power in the Indo-Pacific, serving as a vital logistics hub for rapid troop deployment. Although land exchange was mentioned in Driscolls letter, no specific parcels have been identified and no official conversations on parcels have occurred to date between Governor Green and Secretary Driscoll, said the Governors office in a press release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Additionally, the Board of Land and Natural Resources holds legal authority over state lands. This means, any formal [land] exchange would ultimately require BLNR action and compliance with state law. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news Federal leaders have stated there are national security considerations at stake and theyve made clear they could act through eminent domain, which would take the land without giving Hawaii anything in return, said Governor Green. The framework agreement previously had a 60-day stated timeline, said the Governors Office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The army has now expressed its intent to reach an agreement by the end of 2025. It is imperative that we move quickly to resolve this issue now, Driscoll said. Green said he wants a fair deal for Hawaii. The original lease for the Pohakuloa Training Area was signed in 1964 for just $1 and it expires in 2029, Green said. Thats why Im insisting on a fair deal, for example, the return of lands like Makua Valley, cleanup of contaminated training areas, protection of our water and a commitment to build thousands of new homes to relieve pressure on our housing market. He expressed his commitment to supporting community needs in housing and renewable energy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im also pushing for lands that can be transferred to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, so more Native Hawaiian families have the opportunity of homeownership, Green said. And I want the military to invest in renewable energy and safer infrastructure to lower costs for our people. Check out more news from around Hawaii Starting in September, a public website will be available with formal army documents, background on the leases and updates on it. The state intends to provide transparency with this website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. The U.S. Coast Guard saved four children stranded on a rock off Lake Superior, Minnesota, on Saturday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The girls ages 14, 13, 10, and 8 were paddleboarding near the Black Beach Trailhead in Silver Bay, Minnesota, and lost their paddles after landing on a small island, the Lake County Sheriffs Office said in a Facebook post. This successful rescue highlights the critical importance of interagency coordination and the rapid response capabilities of the U.S. Coast Guard, said Aircraft Commander Lt. j.g. Patrick Grissler. We are grateful for the collaboration with Lake County and are pleased to have safely assisted these individuals. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriffs office received distress calls at 8:05 p.m. and dispatched the Silver Bay Police Department to the beach area to speak with the parents of the children. A nightmare: The Coast Guards harrowing flight to Camp Mystic Sheriffs deputies initially boarded the sheriffs office boat to make their way out to the girls, but had to change vessels due to the size of the waves. The Silver Bay Marina Manager transported the sheriffs deputies on a former United States Coast Guard watercraft to the smaller island where the girls were stranded. Deputies instructed the girls to remain in place as they called for backup from the Minnesota Air Rescue Team from St. Paul, Minnesota. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The latter could not make the trek due to inclement weather. Instead, the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City, Michigan, agreed to send an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter to the girls location. Lake County officials provided blankets and food to the girls via a rope relay while the girls waited for the military personnel to arrive. The Coast Guard finally arrived at 1 a.m. and safely rescued the children, transporting them to a landing zone that the Silver Bay Fire Department set up. U.S. troops killed a suspected senior member of the Islamic State group, or ISIS, during an Aug. 19 raid in northern Syria, defense officials have announced. U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, confirmed the operation on Thursday after media outlets reported about the raid earlier in the week. CENTCOM did not name the suspected ISIS official, who was described as key financier who planned attacks in Syria and Iraq. Top Stories This Week News 2-star general busted down to lieutenant colonel over inappropriate relationship By Jeff Schogol News Marines investigating social media post that appears to mock potential recruit By Jeff Schogol News 4,500 Marines and sailors deploy to Caribbean for anti-cartel mission By Nicholas Slayton Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He had relationships throughout the ISIS network in the region, posing a direct threat to U.S. and coalition forces and the new Syrian Government, a CENTCOM news release says. The first American ground troops deployed to Syria in 2015 as part of a coalition led by the U.S. military to defeat ISIS. Since then, the terrorist group has lost its last enclave in Syria, but U.S. troops and partner forces continue to battle ISIS. In July, a U.S. operation killed a man described as a senior ISIS leader and his two adult sons in Bab, Aleppo Governorate, Syria. We will continue to pursue ISIS terrorists with unwavering determination, throughout the region Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, Commander, head of CENTCOM, said in a statement on Thursday.Together with our partners and allies, CENTCOM remains steadfast in our commitment of ensuring the lasting defeat of ISIS and the protection of the U.S. homeland. Terence Stamp didnt just walk onto the screen. He smoldered through it, those piercing blue eyes and chiseled cheekbones carving a place in cinema history as indelible as Londons East End, where he was born. The actor, who died on Aug. 17 at 87, was the very pulse of the Swinging Sixties: a working-class kid who became a cultural icon, only to defy the ephemerality of fame with a career that spanned six decades, morphing from heartthrob to one of the most versatile character actors of his time. With roles ranging from the angelic Billy Budd to the tyrannical General Zod, Stamp didnt just act he inhabited, leaving an imprint as sharp as his tailored suits. Born on July 22, 1938, in Stepney, London, Stamp grew up in the shadow of World War IIs Blitz, dodging bombs and dreaming of the silver screen. His father, a tugboat stoker, was often away, and young Terence found solace in films, idolizing Gary Cooper and James Dean. I saw East of Eden and thought, maybe I could do this, he later recalled. But acting was a pipe dream for a boy from Plaistow, where career advice leaned toward bricklaying or managing a Woolworths. Undeterred, Stamp kept his ambitions secret, fearing ridicule, until he won a scholarship to the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. There, he shed his cockney accent and honed a presence that would soon captivate the world. His debut came like a thunderbolt in 1962s Billy Budd, directed by Peter Ustinov. At 24, Stamps portrayal of the naive, angelic sailor earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer, and instant stardom. To be cast by Ustinov gave me a great deal of self-confidence, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2019. The role showcased his ability to convey innocence laced with quiet strength, a hallmark of his early work. He shared a flat with Michael Caine, another cockney upstart, and together they navigated the heady London scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Peter OToole. Stamps romance with Julie Christie, his costar in 1967s Far from the Madding Crowd, and a three-year relationship with supermodel Jean Shrimpton, made him and Shrimpton the faces of the decade, dubbed by Vogue as the epitome of Sixties cool. The '60s were Stamps playground. He won Best Actor at Cannes for his chilling turn as a psycho in William Wylers The Collector (1965), starred as a swaggering sergeant in Far from the Madding Crowd, and brought sensitivity to Ken Loachs gritty Poor Cow (1967). He worked with auteurs such as Joseph Losey in Modesty Blaise (1966) and Pier Paolo Pasolini in Teorema (1968), cementing his status as a darling of both arthouse and mainstream cinema. I view my life really as before and after Fellini, he said of his work with the Italian maestro in 1968s Spirits of the Dead. But when the '60s ended, so did his meteoric rise. I was in my prime, but when the '60s ended, I ended with it, he told The Guardian. Work dried up, and Stamp retreated to an Indian ashram. A telegram in 1977 changed everything. His agent summoned him for Superman, where he landed the role of General Zod. Filming back-to-back for 1978s Superman and 1980s Superman II, Stamp transformed into the Kryptonian megalomaniac, his commanding Kneel before Zod! becoming a pop-culture touchstone. The role revived his career, but he had to reconcile with no longer being the leading man. I transmuted myself, he said. I didnt feel embarrassed about playing the villain. From there, Stamp embraced character roles, bringing gravitas to films such as Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), and Valkyrie (2008). His portrayal of a transgender woman in 1994s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, earned him Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. I was terrified, he admitted to the British Film Institute, but it became one of the great experiences of my career. Featured Local Savings JIM LOVELL, 1928-2025 Stamps later years saw him tackle diverse roles: a vengeful crook in Steven Soderberghs The Limey (1999), Chancellor Valorum in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999), and a silver-haired gentleman in Edgar Wrights Last Night in Soho (2021), his final role. He voiced Jor-El in Smallville, proving his versatility even in his 80s. An accomplished writer, he penned memoirs and a novel, reflecting on a life of reinvention. His brother Chris, a music manager for The Who and Jimi Hendrix, added to the familys cultural legacy. Stamps legacy is one of resilience a man who rode the highs of fame, survived its lows, and emerged as a master of his craft. Ive done crap because sometimes I didnt have the rent, he told The Guardian, but when Ive got the rent, I want to do the best I can. That candor, that refusal to take himself too seriously, defined him. So heres to Terence Stamp, who looked at the camera and made it kneel. Not bad for a lad from Plaistow who just wanted to be Gary Cooper. Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer, the author of three books, and the Allen and Joan Bildner Visiting Scholar at Rutgers University. Last month, the federal government expanded the militarys presence along the southern border after transferring control of 285 acres of public land in Arizona to the Navy. Now, more than a third of the states border is under the jurisdiction of the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. The new allotment of land is the fourth installation of what are being referred to as national defense areas. They are large tracts of American soil that run along the Mexico border that have officially become part of military bases such as Fort Huachuca in Arizona and Fort Bliss in Texas. The NDAs, which are subject to operational protocols of the military, now cover about a third of the entire southern border. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As with any military installation, this land is under (the Department of Defenses) administrative jurisdiction, which has been further delegated to MCAS Yuma, Capt. Owen VanWyck, the communications and strategy director for MCAS Yuma, wrote in an email. This includes the authority to prevent unauthorized access and to detect and deter potential security threats to maintain security, order, and discipline, which may include apprehending those who enter without authorization. That means anyone who steps over the border from Mexico into the U.S. along the range of an NDA is trespassing on military grounds, which is a different category of legal infraction than crossing the border illegally and subject to higher penalties. Any person apprehended for trespassing (or committing other criminal offenses) on a military installation, regardless of citizenship, VanWyck wrote, will be transferred over to appropriate non-DOD law enforcement officials as promptly as practical for appropriate action. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With the change of jurisdiction, the full might of the militarys infrastructure can now be leveraged in defending the borders of each base which is, as a result of those land transfers, the southern border of the United States. Rather than smaller law-enforcement agencies monitoring and defending against illegal immigration within public lands, the Joint Task Force-Southern Border a task force that rolls up to the Defense Departments Northern Command is now responsible for the newly established territories. By setting up those vast swaths of American land as part of military bases, the federal government is able to assist with immigration enforcement while sidestepping long-standing constitutional law such as the Posse Comitatus Act from 1878 that mostly prevents the use of the military in law enforcement efforts. While there are those that argue its still an illegal use of the military to support law enforcement, it has been an effective part of the strategy to stop illegal border crossings since the first NDA was established this past April. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over 1,400 people have been apprehended in NDAs since they were established and overall illegal border crossing encounters are down 93% year over year. Though, a spokesperson from the Joint Task Force-Southern Border made clear that less than 10 of those caught crossing into NDAs were actually temporarily detained by the military, as local law enforcement was on hand to conduct the vast majority of arrests. How does it work? On July 23rd, the Department of the Interior announced that it was transferring 285 acres of land to the Navy. By making this land available for border infrastructure improvements and defense operations, we are closing critical security gaps, stopping illegal activity and protecting both our nation and its natural resources from the damage caused by unchecked illegal immigration, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. This is about law and order, national sovereignty and using our public lands to defend the American people. The acres run in a strip along the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to and east of the Barry M. Goldwater Range of southern Arizona, wrote VanWyck. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When asked about when the Marines who are, operationally, part of the Navy began managing the area, VanWyck wrote that, exercise of all necessary authority, direction, and command and control over the land has been assigned to MCAS Yuma from the Dept. of Navy. The Marines will be working closely with the federal and local law enforcement, too. MCAS Yuma has a long-standing relationship with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has been operating throughout the Barry M. Goldwater RangeWest for some time," VanWyck wrote. Additionally, MCAS Yuma will be working with the Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, who oversee national wildlife refuges; Bureau of Land Management, and Arizona Game and Fish regarding the NDA area. It is not uncommon for the military to assist with domestic issues, like natural disasters. In those instances, however, the federal agencies generally pay the militarys expenses. FEMA, for example, will pay the costs of using the Army in disaster cleanup. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In this instance, the financial responsibility for the deployments falls on the Navy, whose budgets are managed by congressional appropriation committees. The Department of the Navy is assessing costs and will closely track all funds associated with administration of the NDA, VanWyck wrote. Where else are there NDAs? The NDAs were established as a result of one of the many executive orders President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office. One called Protecting the American People Against Invasion established the administrations emphasis on addressing immigration and set the terms and rhetoric for how the issues are understood. More specifically, another executive order Clarifying the Militarys Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States called on the Defense Department to use the U.S. Northern Command to assist in sealing the southern border. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a result of those orders, a 170-mile strip of noncontiguous land in New Mexico was designated on April 21st as an extension of Fort Huachuca, an Army base in Arizona. On May 1st, a second NDA was created in west Texas, that spans a separate 63 miles of land between El Paso and Fort Hancock, which became an extension of Fort Bliss, another Army base. A third was created along 250 miles of the Rio Grande River that runs from South Padre Island to Roma, Texas. Those lands came from the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, and are now under the jurisdiction of the Air Force. All of the land transfers are considered temporary. Though the scale of border crossings is going down considerably, there are other issues like the illegal activity Burgum mentioned that the DOD is still focused on. Regarding the longevity of the installations, VanWyck wrote that, While the Yuma NDA is temporary and mission specific, we will not speculate about future requirements. AUSTIN (Nexstar) Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett announced he would end his reelection campaign if a new controversial congressional map is approved by the courts. Doggett currently serves a blue district in Austin. If the courts give Trump a victory in his scheme to maintain control of a compliant House, I will not seek reelection in the reconfigured CD37, even though it contains over 2/3rd of my current constituents, Doggett said in a news release Thursday evening. This announcement comes just weeks after the longest-serving representative in the states delegation said he would run for another term in Congressional District 37. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A new congressional map approved by the Texas House of Representatives on Wednesday would give Republicans an advantage to pick up an additional five seats in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. The rare mid-decade redistricting push is in response to President Donald Trump wanting to shore up Republican control in the U.S. House ahead of the midterm elections in his second term. State Rep. Todd Hunter, R Corpus Christi, submitted the proposed map and told his colleagues in open meetings that the map was drawn with political performance in mind. They targeted five blue districts in Texas to give Republicans an advantage. One of the districts targeted was CD 35, which is currently held by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar. The current configuration of CD 35 captures parts of east Austin and San Antonio. Under Hunters proposal, CD 35 was shifted to cover only east San Antonio. The new voting lines were drawn to favor Republican candidates. In the 2024 election, voters in the proposed CD 35 voted for Donald Trump by a 10-point margin. If the map is ultimately approved, it gives Casar a tough decision. He can either run in his current district that now leans more Republican, or challenge his Democratic colleague in Austin. Doggett and Casar stood united against the gerrymandering effort on Aug. 1, but later in the month a save the date email acquired by Punchbowl News reporter Ally Mutnick showed Doggett saw it best that Casar continue to run for reelection in CD 35 because it was more Hispanic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of course I plan to run for reelection in Austin, Casar said in a statement at the time. But the most important thing right now isnt any one persons political career. The most important thing is fighting Trumps gerrymandering, which is what Im focused on. But Doggetts latest announcement shows he would concede the seat to Casar if the map prevails in the courts, which state Democrats have already said they would challenge once it is fully approved. I had hoped that my commitment to reelection under any circumstances would encourage Congressman Casar to not surrender his winnable district to Trump, Doggetts statement reads. While his apparent decision is most unfortunate, I prefer to devote the coming months to fighting Trump tyranny and serving Austin rather than waging a struggle with fellow Democrats. If Trump extreme gerrymandering prevails, I wish Congressman Casar the best. Casar posted kind words for Doggett on social media, describing him as an Austin institution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive learned so much from him. Im grateful to him. The fight for democracy continues, Casar wrote. Doggett did leave the door open for another congressional run if the federal courts strike down the proposed map. If this racially gerrymandered Trump map is rejected, as it should be, I will continue seeking reelection in Congressional District 37 to represent my neighbors in the only town I have ever called home, the statement read. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Aug. 22 (UPI) -- The United States is targeting facilitators of Iran's oil trade, as the Trump administration enforces its so-called maximum pressure campaign on the Tehran regime. The sanctions were announced Thursday, targeting Greek national Antonios Margaritis and his network of international companies and their shipping vessels, as well as two Chinese port-terminal operators. The Treasury said it sanctioned 49-year-old Antonios Margaritis, five of his companies based in the Marshall Islands and Hong Kong, as well as nearly a dozen tankers, on accusations of being involved in Iran's shadow fleet shipping industry that facilitates the sale and transport of the Islamic nation's oil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Margaritis is accused of facilitating the transport of Iranian oil products for years. The Treasury said it also blacklisted six other companies and a handful of vessels not connected to Margaritis but fulfilling a similar role for Tehran. The two Chinese port-terminal operators -- Qingdao Port Haiye Dongjiakou Oil Products and Yangshan Shengang International Petroleum Storage and Transportation -- were blacklisted by the State Department, which accused them of facilitating the import of millions of barrels of Iranian-origin oil onboard multiple U.S.-designated tankers. The move is the fourth time the State Department has targeted China-based terminal operators for their involvement in Iranian oil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Today, the United States is stemming the flow of revenue the Iranian Regime uses to fund its destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism abroad and the oppression of its own people," Tommy Piggott, principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department, said in a statement. The sanctions are part of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign that failed during his first term to bring Iran to the negotiating table on a new deal. The punitive policy was initiated in 2018 after Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark multinational Obama-era accord aimed at preventing Iran from securing a nuclear weapon. Trump ended the deal as he sought one of his own, employing the maximum pressure campaign to force Iran back to the negotiating table. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead, Iran advanced its nuclear program. The previous Biden administration attempted to restart negotiations with Iran on reinstating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but those prospects ended when Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The new campaign, according to Trump's Feb. 4 National Security Presidential Memorandum, seeks to "impose maximum pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program and stop its support for terrorist groups." NEED TO KNOW Uber is being sued after one of the company's drivers allegedly assaulted a man who was attempting to travel with his service dog Bryan Kobel reportedly suffered a "severe concussion" after he was headbutted and punched by driver Vadim Nikolaevich Uliumdzhiev, who was reportedly hired by Uber despite having a fake driver's license The next thing I know, Im waking up in a hospital bed with seven staples in my head and four stitches, Kobel said of the brutal experience Uber is at the center of a lawsuit after a passenger was allegedly assaulted by one of the company's drivers after his request to bring his service dog on a ride was denied. The lawsuit was filed on Monday, Aug. 18, in Charleston County, S.C., by TC BioPharm CEO Bryan Kobel, 45, according to reports by FOX News and local newspaper Post and Currier. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The lawsuit alleges that Uber hired Russian national Vadim Nikolaevich Uliumdzhiev, with him using a fake driver's license to secure the role. The suit goes on to accuse Uliumdzhiev of brutally assaulting Kobel during an April 24 altercation after the CEO was allegedly denied a ride when he asked to travel with his service dog. Per reporting in Post and Currier, Uliumdzhiev has already been charged with second-degree assault and battery, and is currently being held in a processing facility for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Georgia. Getty Stock image of police tape Stock image of police tape The driver later told the Charleston Police Department that he was allergic to dogs, which is why he had denied Kobel's request to travel with his dog, according to Post and Currier. Kobel reportedly told Uliumdzhiev that his dog was a registered service animal and asked Uliumdzhiev to cancel the ride, per FOX. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Uliumdzhiev is then accused of grabbing Kobel by the throat, headbutting him, and punching him in the jaw. Kobel fell to the ground, hitting his head in the process. The alleged incident was captured on camera via a surveillance camera from a business on the street. The CEO was reportedly rendered unconscious by the attack and suffered a "severe concussion," according to FOX. The next thing I know, Im waking up in a hospital bed with seven staples in my head and four stitches, he told the New York Post in an interview. Its been a brutal experience. He told the Post that it took "about 60 days" to "have some semblance of a normal life" due to the injuries he sustained. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I had to bring our employees into a Zoom call and inform them of what had happened," he said, adding, "I couldn't look at screens. I couldn't really focus my eyes." Kobel also said that he suffered "a complete loss of vocabulary." "You wonder, will I ever be whole again? Am I ever going to be the person I was? It's made me more jaded, for sure," he added to the outlet. 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. Kobel is being represented by the Law Office of Kenneth E. Berger in the lawsuit. "Riders rely on Uber to know who is behind the wheel," Kenneth Berger, counsel for Kobel, told PEOPLE in a written statement. "Were seeking answers and accountability for how an undocumented individual using a fraudulent ID was able to access Ubers platform, assault a passenger and flee." Getty Stock image of a police car with the lights on Stock image of a police car with the lights on He continued, saying, "Publicly traded companies that profit from public trust must have screening and real-time identity systems that actually protect people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Regarding the alleged fake driver's license, Berger asked, If it took our office, a law office, less than 10 minutes to figure this out, how could a multinational corporation with billions of dollars and assets not take the time to do the same? In a press release from the law office, Berger listed the damages that Kobel suffered, including "lost enjoyment of life, physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, and medical expenses." Rideshare businesses like Uber are built on an inherent level of trust in the brand and the belief these billion-dollar companies have taken the appropriate steps to protect riders through verification of drivers' backgrounds and qualifications, and this is clearly failing. This case is ultimately about accountability and safer rides for everyone using rideshare services, Kobel said in a statement included in the press release. In the lawsuit, it was alleged that Uliumdzhiev "posed an unreasonable risk of harm," per the Post. Uber was also accused of failing "to implement and enforce reasonable safety policy." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Before being hired by Uber, drivers go through a multi-step screening process, per the company. This entails a background check and confirmation that they possess a valid driver's license. There is no place for violence on the Uber platform. While we cant comment on pending litigation, Uber is deeply committed to safety and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations around worker eligibility," a spokesperson for Uber told PEOPLE regarding the incident. PEOPLE reached out to the Charleston Police Department and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for comment on the case, but did not immediately receive a response. Read the original article on People Uganda which has Africa's largest refugee population has become the latest African country to agree to take in failed asylum seekers deported from the United States, under President Donald Trump's controversial deportation drive. The announcement, made on Thursday by a senior Ugandan Foreign Ministry official, puts the country among a handful of African and Latin American countries cooperating with the Trump administration on resettlement arrangements. The deal comes as the US seeks third-country destinations for migrants whose own governments are unwilling to take them back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Similar arrangements with countries including El Salvador and Eswatini have sparked protests in the US and drawn criticism from rights groups, who argue that such transfers could expose vulnerable people to new risks. Outcry mounts in Eswatini over illegal aliens deported from US 'Progressive refugee policy' According to the United Nations, Uganda already hosts approximately 1.8 million refugees the largest number on the African continent. Most come from neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, although Sudans civil war has in the past year triggered a sharp spike in arrivals. Uganda grants these new arrivals the right to work, freedom of movement and access to services. President Yoweri Musevenis government has long been recognised for its open-door approach which UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi called "the most progressive refugee policies in Africa, if not the world". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Regarding the deal agreed with Washington, Vincent Bagiire, permanent secretary at Ugandas foreign ministry, said in a statement on social media: "The agreement is in respect of Third Country Nationals who may not be granted asylum in the United States, but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin." He stressed that the deal was only a temporary arrangement, and added that: "Individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted." Uganda also indicated it would prefer to receive migrants originally from Africa. "The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented," Bagiire added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement South Sudan turns US deportations to its diplomatic advantage Humanitarian concerns Uganda's agreement with the US follows Rwandas announcement of a similar deal earlier this month, under which it said it would accept up to 250 migrants deported from the US. Kigali has yet to release details of this, and Washington has not confirmed the arrangement. South Sudan too has entered into a deportation agreement with the US, taking in eight migrants earlier this year only one of whom was South Sudanese. Their case was contested in US courts, but Juba confirmed in July that it had assumed responsibility for the men. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps administration has pushed to speed up the removal of undocumented migrants, sometimes deporting them to countries where they have no ties. In one controversial example, hundreds of Venezuelans alleged to have gang affiliations were first sent to El Salvador, where they were held in austere prison conditions, before being returned to Venezuela. Rights organisations including Amnesty International are sceptical of the latest deals, warning that such transfers may contravene international law. Deporting people to countries where they risk torture, abduction or persecution could violate the principle of "non-refoulement", a cornerstone of refugee protection. Nigeria rejects US push to accept Venezuelan deportees Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Critics argue that outsourcing deportations to fragile or unstable states particularly in Africa may compound rather than resolve humanitarian crises. The UN's refugee agency UNHCR notes that: "Ugandas refugee settlements are located in areas highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including extreme heat and seasonal flooding. These conditions have affected agricultural livelihoods and placed growing pressure on natural resources, occasionally fuelling tensions between refugee and host communities." The UK government has agreed to pay compensation to thousands of Kenyans who were affected by a fire caused by a British military training exercise four years ago. The out-of-court settlement follows a lengthy legal battle in which 7,723 claimants said they had lost property and suffered health complications because of the 2021 fire in the Lolldaiga conservancy in Kenya's Rift Valley. A spokesperson from the British High Commission in Nairobi said the UK "accepts responsibility for the fire and that is why compensation has been paid", adding "it is the right thing to do". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The British government has not confirmed how much was paid out, but the lawyer in the case told the BBC it was 2.9 million. The spokesperson from the British High Commission also said the compensation was "generous and fair" and based on a "rigorous assessment of the claims". Kevin Kubai called it the "best possible outcome" despite complaints from his clients that the sums they received were much too small to compensate their losses. He said the alternative "would have been to continue litigation for another period of nearly seven years to be able to prove these cases on a case-by-case analysis", which would be difficult because much of the evidence had been lost after four years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mr Kubai acknowledged that his clients did not have medical records backing up their claims of health damage due to smoke inhalation from the Lolldaiga fire, and that they were also exposed to smoke because they used firewood for cooking. The UK Ministry of Defence said in 2022 that the fire had likely been caused by a camp stove knocked over during the training exercise in the conservancy. It found that around 7,000 acres (2,800 hectares) of private land were damaged, but no community land was directly affected. The legal action argued there had been environmental damage in surrounding communities because of the smoke, and the destruction of property because of stampeding wild animals. The British government has helped the conservancy with restoration of the burnt area and the military exercises still take place there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Lolldaiga conservancy - about 49,000 acres of hilly bushland with a backdrop of the ice-capped Mount Kenya - is part of the Laikipia plateau, where hundreds of thousands of acres were seized by the British during the colonial era, leading to land disputes which continue to this day. It is just 70km (45 miles) from the Lewa conservancy, where the Prince of Wales proposed to Kate Middleton in November 2010. A few kilometres to the south are the newly refurbished Nyati Barracks, a 70m facility which is part of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk). It hosts thousands of British troops every year for massive exercises in locations such as Lolldaiga, which offers ideal conditions for harsh environment training. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Batuk contributes tens of millions of pounds to the Kenyan economy annually. But over the years controversy surrounding the behaviour of some of the soldiers has attracted media attention, including allegations of fatal hit-and-runs, murder and sexual exploitation of Kenyan women. You may also be interested in: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts By Andrew MacAskill LONDON (Reuters) -The British government on Friday extended the deadline until October to decide on whether to approve China's plans to build the largest embassy in Europe in London after Beijing refused to fully explain why the plans contained blacked out areas. China's plans to build a new embassy on the site of a two-century-old building near the Tower of London have stalled for the past three years because of opposition from local residents, lawmakers, and Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners in Britain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Politicians in Britain and the U.S. have warned the government against allowing China to build the embassy on the site over concerns that it could be used as a base for spying. DP9, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government, said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans, saying additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail, after the government asked why several areas were blacked out in drawings. "The Applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans is sufficient to identify the main uses," DP9 said in a letter to the government. "In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The British government's department of housing said in reply it would now rule on whether the project can go ahead by October 21 rather than by September 9 because it needed more time to consider the responses. Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group with ties to an international network of politicians critical of China which revealed the letter, said: "These explanations are far from satisfactory." De Pulford, a long-standing critic of plans for the embassy, said the "assurances amount to 'trust me bro'". The Chinese embassy in London expressed "serious concern" over the government's response. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The embassy said host countries have an "international obligation" to support the construction of diplomatic buildings. "The Chinese side urges the UK side to fulfil its obligation and approve the planning application without delay," the embassy said in a statement. Earlier this month, the embassy said claims that the building could have "secret facilities" used to harm Britain's national security were "despicable slandering". The Chinese government purchased Royal Mint Court in 2018 but its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy there were rejected by the local council in 2022. Chinese President Xi Jinping asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year to intervene. Starmer's central government took control of the planning decision last year. (Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Editing by William Maclean) LONDON (Reuters) -The British government will seek to appeal a court ruling that will force asylum seekers to be removed from a hotel that has become a focal point for anti-immigration protests, Security Minister Dan Jarvis said on Friday. The Bell Hotel in Epping, just north of London, has seen weeks of anti-immigration demonstrations and counter protests since an Ethiopian asylum seeker living in the hotel was charged last month with sexual assault. He denies the charges. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government has pledged to end the costly practice of housing the thousands of asylum seekers arriving in small boats in hotels around the country, but has said it will do so in a gradual manner. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Epping council's successful legal action to have migrants removed from the Bell Hotel has spurred other local councils to consider similar action, pressuring the government's ability to comply with its legal duty to provide accommodation for asylum seekers. "We're going to close all asylum hotels in this Parliament," Jarvis told broadcasters. "But this needs to be done in an ordered and managed fashion, and that's why we've taken the decision to appeal the legal ruling." Hundreds of people have protested outside the Bell Hotel in recent weeks, with 16 people also having been charged in relation to what police described as criminal disorder. Similar protests have been held outside other hotels housing migrants. Starmer has been facing criticism over his immigration policies after official figures on Thursday showed asylum claims at a record high, with more migrants being housed in hotels compared with a year ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Immigration has overtaken the economy as the number one issue for the British public, according to at least two regular trackers of voters' concerns. (Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by Kate Holton) LONDON (Reuters) -A transgender woman has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a male partner by failing to disclose her gender status to him, meaning he could not consent to the sexual activity, British prosecutors said on Friday. Ciara Watkin, 21, performed sex acts on the man, also 21, who she had met on social media site Snapchat in June 2022, but did not disclose her transgender status to him. The Crown Prosecution Service said Watkin had told the man that she was on her period and meaning he could not touch her below the waist. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A few days later the pair met again, after which Watkin blocked all contact with the man until she eventually got back in touch and told him during an exchange of text messages that she was transgender and had male genitalia, the CPS said. "It is clear from the evidence in this case that, prior to engaging in sexual activity with the victim, Watkin had made no attempt to inform him of her transgender status," said Senior Crown Prosecutor Sarah Nelson. "The victim has made clear in police interview that he would not have engaged in sexual activity had he known that Watkin was transgender and, consequently, these events have had a significant impact on his mental wellbeing." Watkin, from Stockton-on-Tees in northeast England, had admitted lying but her lawyers told her trial that it would have been "blindingly obvious" to the man that she was not biologically female, the BBC said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She was convicted of two charges of sexual assault and one charge of assault by penetration following a trial at Teesside Crown Court and will be sentenced on October 10. (Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Clelia Oziel) Donald Trumps peace agenda in Ukraine is on the verge of unravelling. After a few weeks of relative calm, Russia fired 574 drones and 40 missiles at Ukraine. These attacks resulted in one reported fatality in Lviv and injuries to fifteen others in Zakarpattia. Caustic rhetoric from Ukrainian and Russian officials adds to this gloomy atmosphere. Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of thwarting a bilateral meeting between himself and Vladimir Putin on ending the war. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, fumed that the agenda for a peace summit is not ready at all and accused Mr Zelensky of saying no to everything. In response to these statements, Mr Trump conceded that Mr Zelensky and Putin mix like oil and vinegar and are unable to get along. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even the location of the summit has become a subject of intense conflict. Ukraine automatically rejected Putins proposal that Mr Zelensky meet him in Moscow. Ukraine is also sceptical about the White Houses recommendation of Budapest as a mediation venue, while Geneva and Istanbul remain plausible contenders. Once this impasse is broken, Mr Trump needs to square the circle between his support for European security guarantees for Ukraine and Russias adamant opposition to Nato peacekeepers on its borders. As the prospects for a swift peace settlement recede, the battlefield situation for Ukraine has become increasingly problematic. Earlier this month, Russia claimed victory after a 16-month-long campaign in Chasiv Yar. Moscows forces have continued their inch-by-inch march on the eastern Ukrainian battleground of Pokrovsk and intensified their offensive efforts in northern Donetsk. While Europes decision to purchase US military technology for Ukraine has provided a quick fix on the war materiel side of things, Kyiv has two severe areas of weakness. The first is its acute manpower shortages. Although US army general Christopher Cavoli argued in April that Ukraines manpower crisis had eased, Mr Zelenskys policy initiatives point to a persistent problem. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On July 29, the Ukrainian president signed a law allowing Ukrainian men over age 60 to serve in non-combat and specialised roles. Via the Contract 18-24 program, Ukraine is also offering financial incentives to young men to join the frontlines. Despite these measures, key areas of the Donetsk frontline remain understaffed. Former Azov brigade commander Bohdan Krotevych recently bemoaned the participation of drivers, artillerymen and cooks in key military positions. Meanwhile Oleksandr Syrsky, the Ukrainian armed forces chief, conceded that small Russian infantry units are engaged in total infiltration of the Donetsk frontlines. As Russia can readily find new recruits to mask its staggering casualties, time is not on Ukraines side. The second is growing internal discord within Ukraines command structure. This is not a new phenomenon. Former commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhnys preference for a tactical withdrawal from Bakhmut clashed with Mr Zelenskys hold-at-all costs approach in the spring of 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This disagreement hastened Mr Zaluzhnys dismissal in February 2024 and Mr Syrskys takeover. While Mr Syrsky has avoided a major political confrontation with his president, morale on the frontlines has continued to plummet. While Ukrainian battalion commanders intend to rotate troops every three-to-four-days, the incessant stream of Russian drone attacks has caused some troops to contend with twenty-day shifts. According to a September 2024 CNN report, 19,000 desertion-related criminal cases were opened in Ukraine during the first four months of 2024. While the pace of indictments has slowed, it is most likely due to Ukrainian commanders trying to cajole troops into returning to service instead of punishing them with potential prison sentences. Due to these structural weaknesses in the Ukrainian army, Russia sees benefits in its time-buying tactics. Colonel Dmytro Palisa, the commander of Ukraines 33rd Mechanized Brigade, says that Putin is trying to seize as much of Donetsk as possible and has no regard for casualties. Russias efforts to stretch the frontlines to as far west as Mukachevo, where a US electronics company was targeted this morning, illustrate its desire to stretch Ukraines resources as thin as possible. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite Russias scorched-earth tactics, there is still a silver lining for Ukraines beleaguered forces. Over the past 48 hours, Ukrainian forces have shown signs of stemming the Russian advance around the Donetsk battleground of Dobropillia. The Institute of the Study of War concluded that Russia wants Ukraine to unilaterally withdraw from Donetsk because it cannot capture the rest of the region through military means. Further manpower losses and war materiel shortages could yet eviscerate these few positives for Ukraine. Trumps peace plan is showing signs of faltering. For Russia, this buys valuable time. For Ukraine, it could be catastrophic. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. When President Donald Trump announced his plans to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department earlier this month, he included a not-so-subtle threat to liberal cities beyond Washington: either clean up or face the threat of a federal takeover. "We're going to have a tremendous success on what we're doing," Trump said regarding the enlistment of the National Guard to patrol the nation's capital before warning blue-leaning cities. "They're all watching, and maybe they'll self-clean up, and maybe they'll self-do this, and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem." The president then blasted Chicago and Los Angeles, cities within blue states led by Democratic mayors, Brandon Johnson and Karen Bass, respectively. The states are led by two of his biggest Democratic foes: Govs. JB Pritzker (D-IL) and Gavin Newsom (D-CA). "If we need to, we're going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster. We have a mayor there who's totally incompetent," Trump said of Johnson. "And we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker is an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business, and he ran for governor." STEPHEN MILLER BLASTS STUPID WHITE HIPPIES DURING UNION STATION VISIT WITH VANCE AND HEGSETH "Hopefully, LA is watching," Trump added as he spoke about the devastating fires that blazed through the city earlier this year. "I watched people on television; they want to go, they want to leave. They've lost their spirit. They've lost their heart because the mayor is incompetent. And Gavin Newscum [Trump's nickname for Newsom] is incompetent. Got a good line of bull****, but that's about it." On Thursday, the president was again direct about his desire to move beyond Washington when asked about homicides in Memphis, Tennessee, another blue-controlled city. "We're doing a sort of a test right now in D.C.," he told the Todd Starnes Show. "It's working unbelievably." He later visited the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility on Thursday evening, highlighting the National Guard's work to combat crime and homelessness. "The crime numbers are way down," Trump told the crowd. "I feel very safe now, and I'm hearing people are very safe, but I know within two weeks ... it's going to be at a level that's even far superior." He again threatened to take his efforts to crack down on crime to other cities. "We're not playing games. We're going to make it safe, and we're going to then go on to other places," he said. "But we're going to stay here for a while." Trump's attacks on these blue cities and their leaders are part of a yearslong pattern of slamming urban enclaves as crime-infested places in need of law and order. His recent takeover of Washington escalates his previous feuds with Democrats, who claimed that crime rates have fallen in many of these cities. "President Trump sees that American cities are failing, and part of why they're failing is a leadership deficit and a lack of will to do what needs to be done to fix these once great American cities," said Brian Seitchick, a national Republican strategist. "So Trump is taking it upon himself to make cities safer again and to make them a place that is hospitable to all Americans." In his first visit to Chicago as president in 2019, Trump said the Windy City was embarrassing to us as a nation" due to its crime problems. All over the world, theyre talking about Chicago. Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison," he said. During a visit to Detroit, Michigan, last year while campaigning for the presidency, Trump said the nation would end up like the city if former Vice President Kamala Harris were president. The whole country will be like you want to know the truth? Itll be like Detroit, Trump said. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if shes your president. Featured Local Savings However, in his second term, Trump no longer relies on harsh rhetoric. He's now using the federal government's full might to enforce his will. President Trump wants every innocent, law-abiding American across the country to be safe no matter what city they live in or who is in charge," said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "President Trump is delivering on his campaign promise to make DC Safe and Beautiful by using his lawful authority to stop dangerous criminals and enforce the law," Rogers continued. "The left and the media can coddle criminals, but our nations capital will not be a safe haven for violent criminals under President Trumps leadership. Members of the Trump administration have applauded the National Guard for helping clean up the city's homeless crisis and violent crime problems, as well as pointed to the effect it could have on the nation after Trump declared a national emergency to take over the police department for 30 days. "We do not have to allow our cities to be taken over by violence," Vice President JD Vance said during a surprise visit to Union Station on Wednesday. "We can bring law and order to our communities, youve just got to have the political willpower to do it. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), a key Trump ally on Capitol Hill, publicly supported the takeover of other cities' police forces. "We're gonna support doing this in other cities if it works out in Washington, D.C.," he told Newsmax. Our military has been in many countries around the world for the past two decades, walking the streets trying to reduce crime in other countries. We need to focus on the big cities in America now, and that's what the president is doing." Democrats are in a bind on how to counter Trump's attacks on blue-leaning cities, said one Republican strategist. "This puts Democrats in a corner, and so in that way, I think Trump loves it," said Matt Dole, a GOP strategist based in Ohio. "I think Trump loves it when he can sort of corner the Democrats. And really, whatever they decide is a problem for them. And I think he has them in the corner. Crime nationally is worse in big cities. Big cities nationally are unanimously controlled by Democrats." FBI crime statistics from 2024 show that 13 of the 20 cities with the highest murder rates were in Republican-run states. But 19 of the 20 cities with the highest murder rates, with at least 100,000 residents, were led by Democratic mayors. Trump's feud with these Democratic leaders may have some basis for his threats to move beyond Washington, but the crime statistics also lend credence to the argument that Democrats are not tough on crime. "I believe he is targeting cities that are failing, and that these cities fail the eye test on a regular basis," said Seitchick. "If they were led by Republicans, with Republican mayors, and they were failing, Trump would still be trying to fix them. The fact that Democrats leave them at the city level and the gubernatorial level is a reality that everybody understands." TRUMPS TAKEOVER OF DC POLICE RENEWS THE 51ST STATE DEBATE Dole pointed out that Washington is unique in that it lacks statehood and is, therefore, more easily subject to federal jurisdiction. "I don't think Trump goes, 'Look, this worked in D.C., so now I'm going to nationalize the LAPD or the Chicago Police or something else, '" said Dole. "I think Trump explores limits, but I believe he knows that that's probably a step too far and would certainly be struck down in court relatively quickly." By Pavel Polityuk, Anita Komuves and Vera Dvorakova KYIV/BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia could be suspended for at least five days after a Ukrainian strike on a facility in Russia, Hungarian and Slovakian officials said on Friday, in a widening of the fallout of Russia's war in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on each other's energy infrastructure, hitting Ukrainian domestic heating supplies, Russia's Druzhba pipeline and other facilities, over the past few weeks as U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for a deal to end the conflict. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The European Union reduced energy supplies from Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and is seeking to phase out Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027. EU members Slovakia and Hungary have maintained relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposed sanctions against Russia that Ukraine says are vital to make Moscow drop unacceptable war demands. They also oppose the phase-out of Russian energy supplies via the Druzhba pipeline. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban published on Friday a letter he wrote to Trump in which he says that Ukraine attacked Druzhba just days before the U.S. president met Putin in Alaska on August 15. Orban called the attack a "very unfortunate move". A photocopy of the letter posted by Orban on Facebook showed what appeared to be a handwritten note on it from Trump, saying: "Viktor - I do not like hearing this - I am very angry about it." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Hungarian and Slovak foreign ministers also wrote to the European Commission on Friday saying that the latest Ukrainian attack could leave them without Russian oil imports for at least five days, urging it to guarantee the security of supplies. "The physical and geographical reality is that without this pipeline, the safe supply of our countries is simply not possible," Hungary's Peter Szijjarto and Slovakia's Juraj Blanar said in their letter. The EU says it has invested in energy infrastructure in Croatia that could provide the two countries with alternative supplies. The Ukrainian strike on Thursday night marked the second time this week that Russian oil supplies have been cut to Hungary and Slovakia, after a halt on Monday and Tuesday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ukraine's military said late on Thursday it had again struck the Unecha oil pumping station, a critical part of Russia's Europe-bound Druzhba oil pipeline. A Russian industry source also said the supplies could be halted for a few days. The Russian energy ministry did not reply to a request for comment. Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukraine's gas infrastructure, hitting preparations for winter heating for the population and fuel for key industries in attacks it says are aimed at degrading the Ukrainian military. Ukraine has damaged several Russian refineries, aiming to disrupt Russian energy exports financing Russia's invasion and create fuel shortages in a number of Russian regions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement GERMANY SAYS KAZAKH OIL SUPPLY UNAFFECTED The Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Belarus and Ukraine, ships oil from Kazakhstan to Germany as well as from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia. Germany said its supplies of Kazakh oil, particularly to the PCK Schwedt refinery that supplies Berlin, were unaffected by the latest strike. "Security of supply is assured," the economy ministry said. Kazakhstan also said its oil flows via Druzhba were not affected. Hungarian minister Szijjarto said his government learned on Thursday evening of the attack. "This is another attack against our energy security," he wrote on Facebook. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol confirmed the interruption in an emailed statement. Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, posted a video on Telegram messenger showing a large fire at a facility with numerous fuel tanks. Reuters could not confirm the location of the infrastructure in the video. Russian regional governor Alexander Bogomaz, whose Bryansk region borders both Ukraine and Belarus in the far west of Russia, said on Friday that an energy facility at Unecha had caught fire as a result of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, adding that the blaze has been extinguished. "As a result of repelling a combined attack carried out by HIMARS MLRS missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, a fire broke out at a fuel infrastructure facility in the Unecha district," Bogomaz said on Telegram. (Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Anita Komuves in Budapest, Vera Dvorakova in Gdansk, Riham Alkousaa in Berlin and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; editing by Mark Potter, David Goodman, Mark Heinrich, Philippa Fletcher) Newly published footage shows an ADM-160 Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD) fitted to a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker fighter. The video confirms that the store is used by both the Su-27 and Ukraines MiG-29 Fulcrum jets, and also that it is carried on the same specially adapted underwing pylon that is used for various Western-supplied guided munitions. While the MALD a small cruise missile-like weapon designed to stimulate, confuse, and distract enemy air defenses, not attack them kinetically has been seen on several occasions before this, including mounted on a MiG-29, it has never been seen in such detail in Ukrainian hands. The new evidence appears in an official video released by the Ukrainian Air Force in which aircrews discuss Su-27 operations in the current conflict against the backdrop of the jets being prepared for combat and in flight. A Su-27 is seen on a flight line, with a single MALD carried on each of its inboard underwing hardpoints. A Ukrainian Air Force carrying MALD on its inboard underwing hardpoints. Ukrainian Air Force screencap As we observed in the past, the fact that MALD can be loaded with the target data before launch means that it shouldnt have been a huge challenge to integrate it on Ukrainian platforms first the MiG-29, now the Su-27. At the same time, we can see that its mounted on the same specialized pylon that has been seen in the past loaded with the French-made Hammer rocket-boosted precision-guided bomb and U.S.-supplied JDAM-ER glide bombs, for example. As TWZ has explained in the past, this pylon is understood to help cue GPS-assisted guidance systems. The pylon transfers the precise location to the weapon at launch, since the Soviet-era jet lacks the databus or embedded GPS to provide that information, which is critical to the weapons navigation system. The same kind of pylon can be assumed to have a direct utility in support of the MALD as well. A side-by-side comparison of the protrusions extending from the front of the pylons seen in Ukrainian use in combination with Hammer (at left) and JDAM-ER (at right) weapons. via X In addition to specialized pylons, new cockpit displays have also helped expand the operational flexibility of Western-supplied weapons. They likely also help support MALD missions, too. Underside view of a MALD on a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27. Ukrainian Air Force screencap Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Flanker in the new video is also seen in the air. Interestingly, it doesnt carry any other disposable weapons aside from the two MALDs. This is in accordance with the MiG-29 that we have seen in the past with a pair of MALDs. Whether this is because a training mission is being shown is unclear. Certainly, with a weight of around 300 pounds each, a Su-27 would be able to carry several air-to-air missiles or air-to-ground weapons alongside the decoys, if required. The first evidence of MiG-29s carrying MALD was this low-level pass by a Fulcrum in May 2024. via X The first evidence of the MALD being in Ukrainian service came in May 2023, when wreckage from one of the decoys was found after an apparent airstrike in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, as you can read about here. The wreckage of the body of an ADM-160B MALD, one of the first examples to be seen used in combat in Ukraine. via X By the end of 2023, more wreckage had appeared, on this occasion when one of the decoys was discovered, reportedly somewhere in the Kherson region, in southern Ukraine. The wreckage of a MALD that reportedly came down in the Kherson region in December 2023. via X Since its introduction, MALD has played an important role for the Ukrainian Air Force, providing a new way of distracting and confusing Russian air defenses, which means that Ukrainian missiles and strike packages have a better chance of getting to their targets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Each MALD is powered by a small turbojet, which can be seen covered with a cap in the new video. This falls away once the decoy is launched, after which it flies along a pre-programmed route. The store is also able to loiter over target areas, maximizing its effect on air defenses in the area. For long, we have known that MALD is of particular value during Ukrainian air-launched cruise missile strikes, which primarily involve the Storm Shadow (supplied by the United Kingdom and Italy) as well as its French equivalent, the SCALP EG. The MALD is well-suited to this mission, offering a range of around 500 miles, which also gives it significant loiter time. A Ukrainian Air Force Su-24M carrying a Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG on its inboard underwing hardpoint. Ukrainian Air Force screencap As one Su-27 pilot explains in the new video: These missiles [sic] are designed to bear the brunt of the air defenses, to provide distractions. This missile is a decoy for the air defense systems. At the same time, at another airfield, our comrades are programming Storm Shadow or SCALP missiles to strike the enemy. In cooperation with the strike groups during such operations, we use HARM anti-radar missiles. A Ukrainian MiG-29 firing a HARM anti-radiation missile: Its no coincidence that MALD began to appear in the conflict around the same time that the first Storm Shadow attacks occurred, and in the same areas. In support of cruise missile strikes, the decoy offers a more obvious radar signature than the weapon, drawing the fire from enemy air defenses and protecting the missile. Russian air defence missile intercepts French-made Ukrainian SCALP-EG cruise missile over Luhansk today. pic.twitter.com/dP2AGnQVVj Clash Report (@clashreport) May 20, 2024 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement MALD is just one factor that can help ensure the success of a Storm Shadow or SCALP EG strike. These missiles also have low-observable features, meaning that many air defense sensors will only detect them once its too late if at all. Air force planners will also carefully prepare routes for the missiles to better avoid known enemy air defense positions. Rear view of a Ukrainian Air Force MALD with its distinctive lattice-type fins. Ukrainian Air Force screencap As well as providing direct support for particular air-launched cruise missile strikes, the presence of MALD helps the Ukrainian military more generally. By employing it against Russian air defenses especially some of the newest and most capable systems valuable intelligence can be gained. This can then be fed back to mission planners and electronic warfare specialists. Almost certainly, this information will be fed back to the United States, too. The appearance of MALD on the Su-27 may not be a surprise, but its certainly interesting to see this rather secretive store in hitherto unseen detail while in Ukrainian hands. At the same time, the video underscores the huge value of this weapon as the Ukrainian Air Force continues to press home its attacks on a vastly numerically superior enemy. Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com Key developments on Aug. 22: Ukraine hits Russian drone base at occupied Crimean airfield, Navy claims Putin-Zelensky meeting 'not ready at all,' Kremlin says despite Trump push for peace deal Ukraine shoots down Russian Orlan 'mother drone' carrying FPVs for first time, military says Ukrainian naval drone explosion in Novorossiysk Bay kills 5 'elite' Russian divers, intelligence claims The Ukrainian Navy attacked a Russian drone base in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea, the Navy reported on Aug. 22. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the statement, Ukraine destroyed three Mohajer-6 drones and two Forpost drones at the Khersones airfield on the occupied peninsula. Russia uses these drones to monitor surface activity in the Black Sea, the Navy said. Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drones are long-range weapons that can travel up to 200 km (approximately 124 miles). Russia has used Forpost drones against Ukraine since its 2014 invasion. After the full-scale war began in 2022, the drones were mainly used in the south by the Black Sea Fleet's air forces to target Ukraine's Bastion coastal missile systems. The exact type of weapon used in the attack, as well as the timing of the attack, is unclear. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Kyiv Independent could not verify the reports. Crimea has been under Russian occupation since its illegal annexation in 2014. Ukraine has stepped up strikes on military infrastructure on the peninsula since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. In early August, Ukrainian forces struck the Yenisei radar station, a component of Russia's advanced S-500 air defense system, in the occupied peninsula, Ukraine's military intelligence claimed. Read also: Russia strengthens hand in potential peace talks with steady advances in Donbas Putin-Zelensky meeting 'not ready at all,' Kremlin says despite Trump push for peace deal Plans for a bilateral summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky are "not ready at all," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News on Aug. 22. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The statement comes as a blow to U.S. President Donald Trump's push for a speedy peace deal to end the war in Ukraine. Following separate meetings with Putin and Zelensky, Trump said that the next step would be a bilateral summit between the two leaders, which he hoped would occur in the next two weeks. Lavrov threw cold water on those plans in an interview with NBC News on Aug. 22. "There is no meeting planned ... Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all," Lavrov said. The Kremlin's top diplomat claimed that delays in arranging the meeting were due to Zelensky's rejection of "several principles" necessary for future peace talks, such as no NATO membership for Ukraine and the "discussion of territorial issues." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Zelensky said no to everything," Lavrov said. Zelensky in fact said he was prepared to discuss territory with Putin in a press conference after his White House meeting with Trump on Aug. 18. "How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?" Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News on Aug. 22. Undermining the legitimacy of Zelensky's government is a key tenet of Russian propaganda. Putin has previously refused to meet with Zelensky on these grounds, which form part of Moscow's justification for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Trump met directly with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 15 to discuss options for ending the war. Despite reaching no concrete agreements, Trump hailed the meeting as a resounding success and announced that bilateral and trilateral summits involving Zelensky would soon follow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zelensky said on Aug. 18 that he was ready to meet with Putin and hold peace talks with Russia without conditions. The AFP then reported that Putin told Trump he was willing to meet Zelensky. Despite this, the Kremlin made no public comments in support of such a meeting. Zelensky told reporters on Aug. 20 that if Putin "is not ready" for a one-on-one meeting, Kyiv expects the U.S. to respond with tougher measures. Read also: What Russia stole, these Crimean Tatar authors endeavor to reclaim with literature Ukraine shoots down Russian Orlan 'mother drone' carrying FPVs for first time, military says Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunners shot down a Russian Orlan drone carrying two first-person-view (FPV) drones under its wings for the first time, the 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade reported on Aug. 22. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This marks the first time the Ukrainian military has destroyed a so-called "mother drone" carrying other UAVs, the brigade claimed. "Anti-aircraft gunners from the 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade destroyed an enemy Orlan drone carrying two FPV drones under its wings," the unit said in a Facebook post. "Prior to this, the pilots of the pursuit platoon had already shot down dozens of enemy reconnaissance drones Orlan, Zala, and Supercam but this was the first time they had managed to destroy a mother drone." The Orlan is a Russian-developed reconnaissance drone widely used by Russia in Ukraine. Feared by Ukrainian soldiers, it often serves to target Russian artillery attacks. It can travel 600 kilometers and climb to an altitude of 5,000 meters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ukraine has previously reported downing high-altitude Orlan drones. Innovations in drone warfare are a key component of Ukraine's defense strategy against Russia. Kyiv is reportedly developing its own version of a drone-carrier in partnership with the German defense company Quantum Systems. The Sparta is designed to carry two FPV drones with a combat radius of 200 km (124 miles.) Read also: Ukraines anti-corruption chief on how his agency became a target and whats next Ukrainian naval drone explosion in Novorossiysk Bay kills 5 'elite' Russian divers, intelligence claims A naval drone operated by Ukraine's military intelligence exploded after it lost connection with central control and was seized by Russian military divers in Novorossiysk Bay, killing five of them, the agency reported on Aug. 22. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the agency, during an operation in the Black Sea, the naval drone lost connection with its control center due to electronic warfare and started drifting. Later, the Russian command reportedly ordered five naval reconnaissance divers to retrieve the naval drone from the bay for inspection. Ukraine's military intelligence HUR identified them as members of the Russian commando frogmen an elite unit that receives top-level training, significant funding, and advanced equipment. "While handling a Ukrainian naval drone, it detonated the explosion resulted in the elimination of all five elite Russian underwater saboteurs," the statement read. The exact timing of the operation is unknown. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Novorossiysk has become a key port for the Russian Black Sea Fleet after successful Ukrainian strikes on occupied Crimea forced Moscow to pull out much of its naval forces from the peninsula. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the reports. Note from the author: Ukraine War Latest is put together by the Kyiv Independent news desk team, who keep you informed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you value our work and want to ensure we have the resources to continue, join the Kyiv Independent community. Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have destroyed a Russian base for Forpost and Mohajer-6 drones at the Khersones airfield in occupied Sevastopol. Source: the Ukrainian Navy on social media Details: Up to three Mohajer-6 UAVs and two Forpost drones are reported to have been hit as a result of the strike. These were used by the Russians to monitor the surface situation in the Black Sea area. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! A Ukrainian accused of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipeline is fighting efforts to extradite him from Italy to Germany, saying he has an alibi for the day of the explosion. Sehrii Kuznetsov, 49, appeared in court in Bologna on Friday, the day after he was arrested on suspicion of being part of a cell of Ukrainians who planted explosives on the pipeline in September 2022. The Nord Stream pipeline was controversial because it left Germany reliant on cheap energy from Moscow and bypassed countries bordering Russia, such as Poland and Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Germanys initial reluctance to give Ukraine military support after the 2022 Russian invasion has been partly blamed on the energy dependency created by the pipeline. Mr Kuznetsov, who was detained on a European warrant in a bungalow in the Italian province of Rimini at the request of German investigators, is the first person to be arrested over the sabotage plot. German authorities suspect that a Ukrainian cell of five men and one woman carried out the act of sabotage by diving off a yacht and attaching explosives to the pipeline before detonating them. Mr Kuznetsov is suspected of being on board the vessel used in the attack. But according to Reuters news agency, he claimed in court to have an alibi for the date of the explosion and will challenge attempts to extradite him to Germany to face trial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Speaking in court through a Ukrainian translator, he insisted he was in Ukraine at the time of the explosions. The court hearing is set to resume on Sept 3, with him remaining in custody until that date. The high-profile arrest could strain relations between Kyiv and Berlin, which has grown into the role of a strong supporter of Ukraine since Vladimir Putins invasion. When news first broke of the attack on the pipeline, Western countries quickly pointed the finger at Moscow, which vehemently denied any role. The West was sceptical about that denial at the time, recalling Russias claims in early 2022 that the soldiers it was sending en masse to Ukraines borders were just taking part in military exercises. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But many details have since emerged, which point to a team of Ukrainian saboteurs who were apparently acting without the consent of the Ukrainian government. According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal in August last year, the plot was drawn up by Ukrainian operatives during a night of heavy drinking. The team allegedly posed as divers on holiday to rent a yacht, which they then sailed to the location of the pipeline and blew it up, having reportedly ignored a warning from the Ukrainian government to call off the attack. I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites, an officer who took part in the plot told the WSJ. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The whole thing was born out of a night of heavy boozing and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the guts to risk their lives for their country, added the officer, one of four sources which corroborated the US newspapers findings. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's Druzhba oil pipeline has disrupted supplies to Hungary and Slovakia, sparking outrage in the two European countries that still purchase Russian oil through the pipeline. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on X on Friday morning that oil supplies to Hungary through the pipeline had been cut off. "This is a clear attack on our energy security & another attempt to drag us into the war," he wrote. Supplies had only been restored on Tuesday after another attack by the Ukrainian military on a different pumping station for the Druzhba pipeline on Monday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After the latest attack, supplies would be cut off for at least five days, Szijjarto said. The commander of the Ukrainian drone forces, Robert Brovdi, said on Thursday that combat drones had been used to target the Unecha pumping station in the western Russian Bryansk region. He did not provide details of the damage, but attached a video showing a huge fire allegedly in Unecha. Russian authorities did not initially comment on the incident. "Russians, get out!" Brovdi wrote in Hungarian on Telegram. Later on Friday, Slovakian pipeline operator Transpetrol confirmed that its supply had been disrupted since Thursday evening. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Slovakian Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar expressed outrage at the incident, saying: "Any threat to our country's energy security is unacceptable." Blanar and Szijjarto sent a joint letter to the European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen complaining about the attack. In view of the billions of euros in aid that Ukraine has received, Kiev's steps were "completely unacceptable," Blanar added. The Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline is a branched system several thousand kilometres long through which the former Soviet Union supplied socialist countries in Eastern and Central Europe with oil. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Due to the war in Ukraine, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic no longer purchase Russian oil. Ukraine blocked its section of the pipeline for deliveries to Slovakia and Hungary in 2024, but both countries continue to purchase Russian oil transported through other sections of the pipeline. The German subsidiary of Russian energy company Rosneft was investigating whether the attack had an impact on a refinery in eastern Germany, a spokesman told dpa. The PCK refinery in the town of Schwedt no longer receives Russian oil, but does receive oil from Kazakhstan through the pipeline. The Energy Ministry in Kazakhstan said oil exports would not be disrupted by the attack, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The German Energy Ministry also said fuel supplies in Germany have not been jeopardized by the attack. "Supply security is guaranteed," a spokeswoman told dpa. She said the Germany ministry was closely monitoring the situation and was in constant contact with the PCK refinery. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he had requested help from US President Donald Trump, writing to his aides: "I have asked the American president for help. The Ukrainians are constantly shooting the friendship pipeline to pieces." "They did the same thing with Nord Stream. The truth came to light there too," he continued. Tensions between Hungary and Ukraine are running high. Kiev accuses Orban's government of maintaining close ties to Moscow and obstructing Ukraine's accession to the European Union, while Hungary criticizes Ukraine for blocking Russian energy imports. The anti-aircraft units of the 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have, for the first time, destroyed an unusual Russian Orlan UAV acting as a carrier for FPV drones. Source: 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade Details: The brigades interceptor drone pilots had shot down Orlan, Zala and Supercam UAVs before this, but those were standard reconnaissance systems. This is the first time they have taken down an Orlan of this type. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The unit posted photos showing FPV drones mounted under the wings of the Orlan. While it is still difficult to say exactly which FPVs they were, they were most likely 10- or 13-inch drones. The type of warhead they carried is currently unknown. It should be noted that similar carriers are also being developed for Ukraine. The German company Quantum Systems is preparing a new carrier drone for the Ukrainian defence forces called Sparta, which will be able to transport two FPV drones over a distance of up to 200 km. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Serhii Kuznetsov, a Ukrainian national who was arrested in Italy on suspicion of involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion, has denied the accusations, insisting he was in Ukraine at the time of the explosion. Source: Italian news agency ANSA, as reported by European Pravda Details: At a hearing in the Bologna Court of Appeal, Kuznetsov said he refused to be extradited to Germany. In a few brief remarks, he distanced himself from the charges, saying he wanted to read them in his native language, and stressed that he had been in Ukraine at the time of the Nord Stream incident in the Baltic Sea. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kuznetsov said he was in Italy, where he was detained, for family reasons. Addressing journalists and photographers in the courts inner courtyard, he raised three fingers in a gesture signifying the Ukrainian trident. The 49-year-old was then escorted by officers to the courtroom, where the issue of confirming the European arrest warrant was due to be considered. The hearing was immediately adjourned until the afternoon so that a Ukrainian-language interpreter could be found. Although an English interpreter was present, Kuznetsov said his English was not good enough and he needed a Ukrainian or Russian interpreter. The judge ordered one to be found. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The court ultimately confirmed that Kuznetsov should remain in custody. The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the decision on his possible extradition to Germany will be made. Background: Kuznetsov was arrested by Italian police in the Rimini area on Wednesday evening under a European arrest warrant issued at the request of the German Federal Prosecutors Office. The media reported that he had been in Italy on holiday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the time that Kyiv was not involved in the explosions and suggested thinking about who might have benefited from spreading such claims in the media. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! A naval drone operated by Ukraine's military intelligence exploded after it lost connection with central control and was seized by Russian military divers in Novorossiysk Bay, killing five of them, the agency reported on Aug. 22. According to the agency, during an operation in the Black Sea, the naval drone lost connection with its control center due to electronic warfare and started drifting. Later, the Russian command reportedly ordered five naval reconnaissance divers to retrieve the naval drone from the bay for inspection. Ukraine's military intelligence HUR identified them as members of the Russian commando frogmen an elite unit that receives top-level training, significant funding, and advanced equipment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "While handling a Ukrainian naval drone, it detonated the explosion resulted in the elimination of all five elite Russian underwater saboteurs," the statement read. The exact timing of the operation is unknown. Novorossiysk has become a key port for the Russian Black Sea Fleet after successful Ukrainian strikes on occupied Crimea forced Moscow to pull out much of its naval forces from the peninsula. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the reports. On Aug. 20, Ukraines intelligence struck a Russian patrol boat in the Black Sea near the occupied town of Zaliznyi Port in Kherson Oblast, killing five crew members, HUR said. Read also: Russia is turning occupied Ukraine into a giant military base Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukrainians consider the release of all prisoners of war, the preservation of statehood, and an end to missile strikes as the most significant signs of victory in the war with Russia. Source: a survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the Razumkov Centres sociological service between 12-18 August Quote: "For most respondents, the three main signs of Ukraines victory in the war would be the return of all Ukrainian prisoners, deportees, and abductees (37%), the preservation of Ukrainian statehood (31%), and the cessation of missile strikes on Ukraine (30%)." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: Meanwhile, 27% of respondents cited the liberation of Ukrainian territories within the 1991 borders. The least significant indicators of victory among the options offered were: the failure of Russias offensive and stabilisation of the front line (12%), confiscation and transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine (12%), and the continuation of international sanctions against Russia (11%). The poll was conducted using face-to-face interviews with 2,002 respondents aged 18 and older in government-controlled areas where no active fighting is taking place. The theoretical margin of error does not exceed 2.3%. For reference: The survey was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the Razumkov Centres sociological service from 12 to 18 August 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A total of 2,002 respondents aged 18 and older were interviewed face-to-face in territories controlled by the Ukrainian government where no active hostilities are taking place. The estimated margin of error does not exceed 2.3%. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter. Famine has been confirmed for the first time in an area of the embattled Gaza Strip, according to the international authority responsible for monitoring food security. In a report released on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said it has "reasonable evidence" that famine has been occurring in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, since August 15. "After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death," the authority said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It said a further 70% of the Gaza Strip's 2 million inhabitants are unable to meet their food needs. Some 132,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition through June 2026 - double the IPC estimate from May - with 41,000 of them considered particularly vulnerable. The World Health Organization noted that Friday's classification marks the first time that famine has been declared in a Middle Eastern country. Famine expected to spread The IPC also projected that famine will expand to two other central governorates, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, by the end of September. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conditions in the governorate further north are possibly even worse, but as the area is relatively inaccessible, it cannot be properly assessed. Famine is formally declared when three criteria are met: At least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 inhabitants die every day from hunger or from a combination of malnutrition and disease. The area now facing famine covers around 20% of the embattled Gaza Strip, including the territory's major metropolis Gaza City, which the Israeli military is planning to seize as part of a new offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The offensive, approved on Thursday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, has sparked fears of further suffering for the civilian population. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Before beginning the campaign, Israel plans to relocate the city's population of around 1 million. However, residents have already reported intense Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity of the city. UN decries Gaza conditions Aid organizations have been warning for months about the catastrophic conditions endured by Gaza's civilian population, who have been lacking basic necessities since Israel imposed a near-total aid blockade on the territory earlier this year. Last month, Israel partially lifted its blockade, allowing limited amounts of aid to trickle into the Gaza Strip, though aid organizations have said the amount is nowhere near enough to prevent famine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Now the nightmare scenario is a reality," said Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the conditions in Gaza as "living hell." He stressed that the situation is "not a mystery," but rather "a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself." The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has obligations under international law to ensure food and medical supplies, adding: "We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity." UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher also criticized Israel's conduct, saying: "It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war," he continued. Israel consistently rejects such statements and accusations, accusing the United Nations in turn of failing to distribute aid supplies available in the Gaza Strip. Israel rejects report as 'biased' The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the IPC's assessment, writing on X: "There is no famine in Gaza." The Israeli authority responsible for affairs in the Palestinian Territories, COGAT, also categorically rejected the report. "Previous reports and assessments by the IPC have repeatedly been proven inaccurate and do not reflect the reality on the ground," it wrote on X. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement COGAT accused the IPC of "deliberately" failing to take into account in the report "data that was provided to its authors in a meeting held prior to its publication," though it did not specify the exact nature of the data. Head of COGAT, Ghassan Allian, said: "The IPC report is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas, and blatantly ignores the facts and the extensive humanitarian efforts led by the State of Israel and its international partners." "Instead of providing a professional, neutral, and responsible assessment, the report adopts a biased approach riddled with severe methodological flaws, thereby undermining its credibility and the trust the international community is able to place in it," he was quoted as saying. German, UK ministers call for more aid access However, European ministers criticized Israel for its role in the crisis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement German Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan said the report clearly shows the catastrophic situation in Gaza and called for significantly more aid to reach the embattled territory. "More and more people - especially children - are starving to death before our eyes. This cannot go on. The famine is entirely man-made," she said. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy meanwhile described the announcement as "utterly horrifying" and accused the Israeli government of causing a "man-made catastrophe," in comments reported by the PA news agency. "The Israeli government's refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage," he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lammy called for a halt to Israel's military operation in Gaza City, which he said "will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas." Four famines around world in last 15 years The IPC initiative, founded in 2004, includes nearly two dozen UN and aid organizations. It classifies food security according to five levels, with famine at level five being the most severe. Until now, the entire Gaza Strip was classified as a level four "emergency." Four famines have been confirmed by the IPC in the last 15 years: in Somalia in 2011, in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and most recently in Sudan in 2024. Famine has been confirmed for the first time in an area of the embattled Gaza Strip, according to the international authority responsible for monitoring food security. In a report released on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said it has "reasonable evidence" that famine has been occurring in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, since August 15. "After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death," the authority said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It said a further 70% of the Gaza Strip's 2 million inhabitants are unable to meet their food needs. Some 132,000 children under the age of 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by June 2026 - double the IPC estimate from May - with 41,000 of them considered particularly vulnerable. The World Health Organization noted that Friday's classification marks the first time that famine has been declared in a Middle Eastern country. Famine expected to spread The IPC also projected that famine will expand to two other central governorates, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, by the end of September. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conditions in the governorate further north are possibly even worse, but as the area is relatively inaccessible, it cannot be properly assessed. Famine is formally declared when three criteria are met: At least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 inhabitants die every day from hunger or from a combination of malnutrition and disease. The area now facing famine covers around 20% of the embattled Gaza Strip, including the territory's major metropolis Gaza City, which the Israeli military is planning to seize as part of a new offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The offensive, approved on Thursday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, has sparked fears of further suffering for the civilian population. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Before beginning the campaign, Israel plans to relocate the city's population of around 1 million. However, residents have already reported intense Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity of the city. Netanyahu calls report an 'outright lie' Netanyahu has dismissed the report as "an outright lie." "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation," Netanyahu wrote on the X platform on Friday. "Since the beginning of the war Israel has enabled 2 million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Israeli Foreign Ministry had previously written on X that there was no famine in Gaza and the government said the report was based on false information from Hamas. In recent weeks, it said, aid deliveries had "flooded the Gaza Strip with basic foodstuffs." The Israeli authority responsible for affairs in the Palestinian Territories, COGAT, also categorically rejected the report. COGAT chief Ghassan Allian, said the report "is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas." It ignores facts and "extensive humanitarian efforts led by Israel and its partners. Palestinians demand consequences The Palestinian Authority called on the international community and the UN Security Council to increase pressure on Israel, the authority was quoted by the Palestinian news agency WAFA as saying. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement International courts were called upon to hold those responsible accountable. Furthermore, border crossings must be opened, aid allowed in, and the immediate reconstruction of Gaza must begin, the authority continued. UN decries Gaza conditions "Now the nightmare scenario is a reality," said Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the conditions in Gaza as "living hell." He stressed that the situation is "not a mystery," but rather "a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has obligations under international law to ensure food and medical supplies, adding: "We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity." UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher also criticized Israel's conduct, saying: "It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel." "It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war," he continued. Israel consistently rejects such statements and accusations, accusing the United Nations in turn of failing to distribute aid supplies available in the Gaza Strip. Calls for more aid access German Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan said the report clearly shows the catastrophic situation in Gaza and called for significantly more aid to reach the embattled territory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "More and more people - especially children - are starving to death before our eyes. This cannot go on. The famine is entirely man-made," she said. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy meanwhile described the announcement as "utterly horrifying" and accused the Israeli government of causing a "man-made catastrophe," in comments reported by the PA news agency. "The Israeli government's refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage," he said. Lammy called for a halt to Israel's military operation in Gaza City, which he said "will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Saudi Arabia on Friday said it was extremely worried about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. "The worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a direct result of the absence of deterrence and accountability mechanisms for the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The oil-rich monarchy called "this catastrophe a stigma" for the world community, and called for an immediate international action to reverse the situation. The United Nations on Friday officially declared a famine in Gaza, the first time it has done so in the Middle East, with experts warning 500,000 people face "catastrophic" hunger. "It is a famine: the Gaza famine," said Tom Fletcher, the UN's emergency relief coordinator. He blamed Israel, accusing it of "systematic obstruction" of aid deliveries to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel's foreign ministry said the declaration that famine is now present in and around Gaza City was "based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests". "There is no famine in Gaza," it insisted. The assessment of famine was made by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a coalition of monitors tasked by the UN to warn of impending crises. It defines famine as occurring when 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food; 30 percent of children under five are acutely malnourished; and at least two in every 10,000 people die daily from outright starvation or from malnutrition and disease. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement UN agencies have for months been warning of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, which has worsened as Israel steps up its offensive against Hamas. The Rome-based IPC said that "as of 15 August 2025, famine (IPC Phase 5) -- with reasonable evidence -- is confirmed in Gaza governorate", the area that encompasses Gaza City and its surroundings. The UN estimates that nearly one million people currently live in the Gaza governorate. "After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death," the IPC report said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It projected that famine would spread to the Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, potentially encompassing nearly 641,000 people. The IPC said it was "the first time a famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region". A famine was projected in Yemen in 2018 but never officially materialised, despite the humanitarian crisis in the country, a spokesman told AFP. - 'Haunt us all' - The IPC said the famine in Gaza was "entirely man-made", driven by a sharp escalation of the conflict in July, massive displacement of people since mid-March and restricted access to food. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In early March, Israel completely banned aid supplies from Gaza, before allowing very limited quantities to enter at the end of May, leading to severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Fletcher said the famine should "haunt us all". "It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," he said. UN rights chief Volker Turk said "it is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare". UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire in the war, the release of all hostages taken by Hamas from Israel, and full humanitarian access to Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity," he said. The International Red Cross described the declaration of famine as "devastating and entirely foreseeable". "Under international humanitarian law, Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met," it said in a statement. - 'Too weak to cry' - Children are particularly hard hit by the lack of food. In July alone, more than 12,000 children were identified as acutely malnourished -- a six-fold increase since January, according to UN agencies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The signs were unmistakable: children with wasted bodies, too weak to cry or eat, babies dying from hunger and preventable disease," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. The local food system has collapsed, with an estimated 98 percent of cropland in the Gaza Strip either damaged, inaccessible or both, the IPC said. Livestock is decimated and fishing is banned. The severe deterioration of the health system and the lack of safe drinking water and adequate hygiene compound the crisis. Gathering information is extremely difficult in Gaza. The IPC said conditions in the North Gaza Governorate, north of Gaza City, may well be worse, but said it did not have enough data. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel's foreign ministry rejected the IPC's assessment as "political" and asserted that a "massive influx of aid" had entered the Gaza Strip in recent weeks. The Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, accused the authors of relying on "partial data" and ignoring information provided to them. burs-ar/jxb/rmb CAIRO (AP) The United Nations high commissioner for human rights on Friday said it was appalled by brutal attacks by Rapid Support Forces in Sudans western region of Darfur, which killed at least 89 civilians, including 16 who were summarily executed, in a span of 10 days this month. The attacks occurred between Aug. 11-20 in the city of el-Fasher and the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp, Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for commissioner Volker Turk, said in a Geneva briefing. He said the death toll is likely higher. The dead include at least 57 who were killed in attacks on Aug. 11, he said. Another 32 were killed between Aug. 16-20, Laurence said. Among the dead were 16 civilians, mostly from the African Zaghawa tribe, who were summarily executed in the Abu Shouk camp, he said. Another one was killed in el-Fasher by RSF fighters when he said he belonged to the African Berti tribe, Laurence said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This pattern of attacks on civilians and wilful killings, which are serious violations of international humanitarian law, deepens our concerns about ethnically motivated violence, he said. El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, is the militarys last stronghold in the sprawling region of Darfur. The RSF has bombed the city for more than a year, and last month it imposed a total blockade around its hundreds of thousands of people. The RSF also repeatedly attacked Abu Shouk and another displacement camp, Zamzam, which was once Sudans largest with over 500,000 people. The two camps are located outside el-Fasher and were largely emptied after a major RSF attack in April. They have been hit by famine. The RSF, which has been at war with the Sudanese military, grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by ex-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur in the early 2000s. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Janjaweed militias, who were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities in the Darfur conflict, still aid the RSF in its ongoing war against the military. The current war started in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and other cities across the sprawling northeastern African country. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, forced more than 14 millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country. It has been marked by gross atrocities including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the United Nations and rights groups. The International Criminal Court said it was investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. When Magician, a Ukrainian serviceman, was remotely steering a robot hauling a wounded soldier away from the front line towards safety, the worst-case scenario played out on his monitor. The 27-year-old, who asked AFP to identify him by his call sign in line with military protocol, was navigating the bot on a journey with life-or-death stakes when grey smoke appeared on his control screen. His machine had hit a mine. The proliferation of cheap but deadly drones deployed by Russian and Ukrainian forces has irreversibly changed how the war is being waged -- including how frontline medics retrieve the wounded from the battlefield. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "For five minutes, that person's death was on my conscience," Magician told AFP. He believed in that moment the mission -- and the soldier's life -- were lost. The canopy of killer drones blanketing the skies over the front line is forcing military medics to find new ways to move wounded to field hospitals for treatment, including by robot. At the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in early 2022, medics could rush onto the battlefield and carry hurt troops out by stretcher or vehicles. Drones have made that almost impossible. Military medic Olena Ivanenko recounted painful episodes when she was unable to reach wounded soldiers less than one kilometre (half-a-mile) away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I was hearing their voices on the radio and yet I couldn't do anything," she said. - 'You're too far' - The "kill zone," where drones make any movement potentially fatal, stretches for up to 10 kilometres (6 miles) behind the front line on the Ukrainian side, analysts say. "When a brother or sister dies, it's already done. You can't bring them back, but when there is a chance to save someone and you can't do it because you're too far -- that's very tough," said Ivanenko, a medic with Ukraine's 412th regiment. The excruciating helplessness has forced medics to get creative in their work. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ivanenko said her unit often sends food or medication to stranded service members by aerial drone, even sending syringes filled with medicine and explaining remotely how to administer it. Evacuation robots like Magician's are part of the solution, but only skilled operators can carry out delicate missions. "It must be done verycarefully you shouldn't make any sudden movements," said Krop, a robot operator in the 5th brigade who also used his military call-sign. At a training ground in eastern Ukraine, he demonstrated to AFP the nimble movements the robots are capable of, steering it via a hand-held controller complete with a screen and triggers on the sides. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Krop sent the robot ploughing through a sunflower field, and spun the machine in one spot while another pilot held on to the platform for carrying the wounded. - 'Shaking' - Their attitudes shift on mission said Bot, a pilot in the 5th brigade. "It's someone's life," the 24-year-old told AFP. "It's not just a game or a toy. We're not playing." The robots are slow, which means Russian drones can easily locate and target them, that is if they don't hit mines. The toll of failed evacuations -- of lives lost -- weighs heavily on the pilots. "You get half-an-hour of self-flagellation, and then you think 'dammit, it was the bastards who killed them. I wasn't the one who shot them'," Magician said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Magician thought all was lost when his bot carrying the wounded soldier hit the mine. But staring at the monitor showing plumes of smoke billowing from the vehicle, he saw a figure crawling to safety and the team dispatched another robot. "At that moment you're driving and your whole body is shaking -- except the fingers holding the joystick," Magician said. The return journey lasted hours, including moments that were painful for the wounded soldier, over potholes, dips and bumps. "I felt a little sorry for him. Fifteen kilometres in a shaking basket isn't very comfortable," Magician said. "But I pulled him out." brw/jbr/dc (WHTM) Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity (R) says shes always been the underdog and that Gov. Josh Shapiro is going to be a formidable candidate as she enters the 2026 Pennsylvania governors race. What I think is we have an incredible opportunity to turn the state around, said Garrity, who formally entered the race this week. Were at a crossroads, and when you look at the fiscal year we just ended, we spent $3 billion more than what we brought in. Close Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now This Week in Pennsylvania In an interview with Dennis Owens on Wednesday, Garrity noted having safe communities, parents being a leading voice in education and the unleashing of natural gas under our feet as key issues in her campaign against Shapiro, whom she called a smooth talker and a polished career politician. And if you just look at the independent fiscal offices numbers, we would be totally out of the surplus, plus the rainy day fund, in two years, said Garrity. Pennsylvania has the fifth-largest tax burden, and so what would happen after were out of money? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Garrity said other than leading the repair of a collapsed portion of I-95 in 2023, Shapiro hasnt met his slogan of getting stuff done for Pennsylvania. Instead, she claims, hes focused on potentially running for president in 2028. Instead of looking at polls, I look at, you know, Pennsylvanians and, you know, Im not playing politics. I am working hard every day for Pennsylvanians, and thats what Ill continue to do, said Garrity. Pennsylvania state Treasurer Stacy Garrity takes the oath of office for her second four-year term in the Forum Auditorium across the street from the Capitol, Jan. 21, 2025, in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy) UNITED STATES APRIL 25: State Treasurer Stacy Garrity speaks during a rally for Dave McCormick, Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, at Beerded Goat Brewery in Harrisburg, Pa., on Thursday, April 25, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity announces legislation automating the process of returning unclaimed property to rightful owners, in Harrisburg, PA on March 15, 2023. Treasurer Stacy Garrity announces that the Pennsylvania Treasury Department returned $273.7 million in unclaimed property in fiscal year 2022-23, more than any other year, with plans to continue returning property to rightful owners, in Harrisburg, PA on July 20, 2023. Garrity cited her history of overseeing major state financial programs, such as the 529 college savings program, and returning unclaimed property funds as qualifying factors for her to be governor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Democrats this week, however, have called Garrity extreme, claiming she championed policies that would roll back fundamental freedoms and make life harder for hardworking families. The only thing Im extreme about is serving Pennsylvanians, Garrity responded. Garrity, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, said she believes Pennsylvanians appreciate several of Trumps policies, such as the no tax on tips provision of the Big, Beautiful Bill. And I think, Garrity added, when I talk to Pennsylvanians, theyre okay if we have able-bodied people with no dependents working or volunteering 20 hours a week so that we can protect the program for the vulnerable that really rely on it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Who is running for Governor of Pennsylvania? When asked about the issue of abortion, Garrity said she would not support a ban in Pennsylvania and noted the topic was personal for her, saying she went through several rounds of In Vitro Fertilization, also known as IVF. The Pennsylvania Republican Party is expected to endorse Garrity next month with hopes to clear her path in the spring primary, similar to what Dave McCormick received in his 2024 Senate run. State Senator Doug Mastriano, who was the partys gubernatorial nominee in 2022, said despite Garritys announcement, hes still considering getting in to the race. Mastriano has been critical of the state party and, in his view, their plan to coronate Garrity as the partys nominee months before the election. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement (Republicans are) going to lose the general election because the state party decides theyre going to decide and coronate somebody, Mastriano said hours after Garrity declared on Monday. Garrity responded to Mastrianos concerns saying shed be honored by the state Republican Partys endorsement and noted its made up of hundreds of residents, not just a small group of party leaders. She said shes not focused on Doug Mastriano right now, adding shes focused on Josh Shapiro. I dont think (Shapiro has) been transparent, said Garrity. I think hes spending his time really running for president. I mean, look, we dont have a budget and hes flying around the country on late-night talk shows talking about his run for president. Governor Josh Shapiro, Treasurer Stacy Garrity Visit Sayre Hospital When Garrity was sworn in after receiving a record number of votes last year, Shapiro said her re-election was a testament to the work shes done over the past four years that the people of Pennsylvania have put their trust in her once more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Through our private conversations and our work together, Ive seen just how hard she works, Shapiro added. The miles that she puts in, the hours that she works every day. She is mission-driven. Well, this isnt personal, Garrity said when asked about Shapiros popularity in the state. I just have a totally different vision for what our Commonwealth could be. When asked about Garrity entering the race, Shapiro said Tuesday that (Republicans) are going to have their intramural fight, theyll send someone along to face me next year, well be ready. If elected, Garrity would be Pennsylvanias first female governor; its a job that has existed since 1790. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If I was the first female governor, that would be an honor, said Garrity. Garrity is the only major Republican Party candidate to enter the race after Congressman Dan Meuser, who represents Garritys home of Bradford County, declined to enter the race earlier this year. Westmoreland County native John Ventre, a perennial Republican candidate, said he plans to run for governor. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. An undocumented immigrant accused of killing three people during a traffic crash on Florida's Turnpike arrived at the St. Lucie County Jail Aug. 22 after being returned to Florida from California the night before, according to a state prosecutor. On Aug. 12, Harjinder Singh, 28, a Stockton resident and undocumented immigrant, made what law enforcement said was an illegal U-turn on the turnpike near Fort Pierce that resulted in the deaths of three people. The St. Lucie County Sheriffs Office had been expecting Singh to arrive at the jail on Aug. 22, according to Lt. Andrew Bolonka, sheriffs spokesperson. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Assistant State Attorney David Dodd, who confirmed Singh's arrival at the jail on Aug. 22, said now that Singh is in custody here, hell make a first appearance before a judge within 24 hours who will determine what bond amounts, if any, will be set. When a St. Lucie County arrest warrant was issued for Singh, Dodd said a $150,000 bond was set for each count of vehicular homicide, however a judge also ordered he not be released before his first appearance in court. State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl on Aug. 21 said his office expects Singh to face additional charges. "We've already issued warrants for three counts of vehicular homicide and then we'll make a determination if there are additional charges to add when he arrives, which is most probably going to happen," Bakkedahl said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Singh originally came from India and entered the U.S. illegally through the Mexico border in 2018, according the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. He got a commercial drivers license in California. Driving a semi-trailer on Florida's Turnpike, Singh tried to use an official use only cut-through from the northbound outside lane. A 2015 Chrysler minivan traveling north on the inside lane slammed into the truck, killing a 54-year-old man from Miami, a 37-year-old woman from Pompano Beach, and a 30-year-old man from Florida City. Rescue workers at the scene of a fatal crash Aug. 12 on Florida's Turnpike near the northern border of St. Lucie County, in which a tractor-trailer making a U-turn collided with a minivan, which became wedged under the truck. Three people riding in the van were killed. FHP has not released names of the three who died and have not said how Singh was allowed to return to California following the deadly crash. On Aug. 20, Singh was in custody in San Joaquin County, California facing three counts of vehicular homicide when he agreed during a hearing to waive extradition in a case that has sparked a clash on immigration between the Trump administration and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. DeSantis touts Singhs return to Florida Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Aug. 21 appeared on Fox News to discuss Singh as video played of him being taken off a jet in Tallahassee escorted by four officials, including Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who held a handcuffed Singh by the shoulders as they exited the aircraft. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "There were three people killed by a guy who should have never been in our country, should have never gotten work authorization, and certainly should not have been issued two commercial driver's licenses," DeSantis told Fox News host Sean Hannity. "But I will tell you this, since this happened, what have you seen? We have the lieutenant governor of Florida bringing him back. He's going to face serious justice." Earlier, Collins, who traveled to the West Coast to accompany Singh back to Florida, held a press conference at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport. "We're going to make sure that this thug is brought to justice and faces it in Florida and that those three lives lost early are given accountability and the justice that they deserve," Collins said. Brightline: Three railroad crossings are set to become quiet zones in this county Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Weapons search: School district bringing metal detectors to check for guns, weapons Singh is expected to be deported after his state level charges are concluded, according to statements from Dave Kerner, executive director of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms," a true-crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com. This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Truck driver accused in fatal turnpike crash arrives at St. Lucie Jail [Source] An undocumented truck driver from Stockton, California, is facing three counts of vehicular homicide and deportation after an unauthorized U-turn on Floridas Turnpike resulted in three deaths last week. What happened: Harjinder Singh, 28, was operating a commercial semi-truck when he attempted a U-turn in a restricted official use only section of the Turnpike on Aug. 12, approximately 50 miles north of West Palm Beach. The maneuver caused his trailer to jackknife across all northbound lanes. A 2015 black Chrysler Town & Country minivan traveling in the middle lane then collided with the truck, killing all three van occupants. The two passengers were pronounced dead at the crash site, while the driver, who was airlifted to HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce, died later in the afternoon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement About Singh: Singh, originally from India, entered the U.S. in 2018 through the Mexican border and later obtained a commercial drivers license in California. The state is among 19 others, along with the District of Columbia, that issue licenses to residents regardless of their immigration status. His federal work authorization was initially denied in September 2020 during President Donald Trumps first term, but was approved in June 2021 under the Biden administration. Following the crash, Singh and his passenger Harneet Singh, 25, flew to Sacramento before authorities issued an arrest warrant Friday. They took Singh into custody in Stockton without incident Saturday. Trending on NextShark: Trump vows to 'save' Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai as trial nears end What authorities are saying: White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Fox News that the crash was a devastating tragedy made even worse by the fact that it was totally preventable. Florida Highway Patrol Executive Director Dave Kerner condemned Singhs actions as both shocking and criminal, noting that three people lost their lives due to his recklessness. Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called issuing a commercial license to someone in the country illegally asinine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whats next: Singh appeared in San Joaquin County Superior Court on Tuesday, where he signed an extradition waiver and requested a court-appointed attorney with the help of a translator. Authorities have 30 days to transport him to Florida to face his charges. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer has also been issued. He is expected to be deported following the conclusion of his state criminal case. Trending on NextShark: Honolulu Chinatown acid attack suspect was previous target of hate crimes This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what were building, consider becoming a paid member your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Subscribe here now! Trending on NextShark: Undocumented truck driver faces deportation after illegal U-turn kills 3 Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! UNICOI COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) On Thursday, CSX Railroads representatives gave an update to the Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce about rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Helene significantly damaged the railroad running from Erwin to Spruce Pine, NC. Becky Hensley is the Senior Manager of Sustainability at CSX. We are at the stage where we are placing track now through the gorge, Hensley said. Theres about a two-and-a-half-mile section where were still laying track panels through that area, but its getting close. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hensley said the project to restore the railway around the Chestoa Recreational Area is also making progress now that permits from the Army Corps of Engineers for Tennessee have been approved. Theres two different army corps districts on the North Carolina and the Tennessee side, Hensley said. We have direction from the agency that on the Tennessee side, we will be completing the work in that Chestoa Recreational Area by the end of September. However, CSX is still waiting on restoration permits from the Army Corps for the North Carolina side of the project. Hensley also said CSX has been working to keep the community updated. Back in March, CSX representatives came to Erwin to pass out pamphlets with QR codes to the CSX website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Weve been trying to post updates weekly, monthly, of what our progress is through the gorge and through this section, all the way to Spruce Pine, North Carolina, Hensley said. Not everybody is following us on social media prior to the storm, but thats how were trying to communicate the best we can. Cathy Huskins is the tourism director with the Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce. She said the CSX presentation helped community members understand how far recovery from Helene has come. I feel like theres a lot of people in our community that dont really know whats going on with CSX because theyre not connected, Huskins said. In general, it just really helped for them to see how fast the progress was being done. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hensley said the full project from Erwin to Spruce Pine does not have an exact opening date yet, but it is expected to be able to run a train later this year. Reopening means were going to run a train all the way through that section and hopefully connect back a lot of our customers in that north-south route, Hensley said. We want to open as fast as possible. This is a critical asset. It is critical infrastructure for us, critical infrastructure for moving supply chains across the U.S. Click HERE for CSX updates on the repairs. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. UNION COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) The Union County School District is working on a new approach for student education. Its called Union Uplifted, and the school district will follow a cradle to career plan that brings together the community, local non-profits, and business leaders. According to Union County School District Superintendent Joey Haney, the cradle to career program will follow students from birth to high school graduation and beyond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is designed to take that kid at birth, as it says cradle, and begin to implement those support systems to the child, to the family, and help them navigate through life, and getting ready to start school and kindergarten through 12th grade, Haney said. Haney also explained that they will help navigate future pathways for students, whether that be college, career, military, or workforce. Unions plan will be modeled after a similar initiative in Spartanburg, led by the Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM). SAM is a non-profit organization that acts as an intermediary for local businesses. Their cradle to career program, Movement 2030, launched in 2023, and plans to better the educational advancement and life of residents in Spartanburg County. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Doctor Russell Booker, CEO of SAM, said its not just the responsibility of the schools to make sure children are academically prepared, but the entire community. Our faith communities play a role, our schools play a role, housing plays a role. Somebody has got to bring us all and get us around the table, thats what we do, aligning resources, Doctor Booker said. SAM oversees a number of centers for student success from early childhood to college advancement. Theres our center for Early Childhood Success, where we convene all of those partners who are working with our children, prenatal up until about third grade. We have [another] initiative called Hello Family, where if youre looking for those services as a parent, were able to connect you to all of those resources that are so important before it even gets to school, Doctor Booker said. On the other side of the spectrum, were really excited about a program called Ask Big Mo, the college access program. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both Movement 2030 and Union Uplifted plan to advance opportunity and academic achievement. A unique part of Union Uplifted are adult navigators. Though details regarding the role and how it will work are still in the planning process, Haney said the navigators will be more than teachers and administrators. The idea of adult navigators is that we make sure every child will have an adult navigator to help them find that pathway to success, as they go through life, [and] through kindergarten to 12th grade, but also even after 12th grade, Haney explained. Making sure they get an additional support system. Public, private and non-profit organizations are helping fund both initiatives, like BlackRock Foundation, United Way of the Piedmont, and Rural Impact. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS. A United Airlines flight to London returned to Newark less than two hours after takeoff. Passengers arrived in England 11 hours later on a different aircraft. The original aircraft then operated another flight to London and landed before the deplaned passengers. After a United Airlines flight U-turned and landed back in Newark, passengers reached London 11 hours later than expected, and after their original plane. Thursday's Flight 934 took off from Newark Liberty International Airport shortly after 9 a.m. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, data from Flightradar24 shows that just around 20 minutes later, the Boeing 767 turned around short of Boston. It then circled half a dozen times over upstate New York before landing back at Newark, 1 hour and 45 minutes after departing from there. Returning to the flight's origin, known as a flight to nowhere, can make it easier to reroute passengers or fix any issues with the aircraft. Newark is one of United's seven hub airports. A United spokesperson said the flight "returned to Newark to address a possible maintenance issue." The 767 involved in the incident, registered as N684UA, is 22 years old. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The flight landed safely, and all passengers deplaned normally at the gate," the spokesperson said. "We arranged for a different aircraft to take our customers to London, which landed at 7:30 a.m. local time on Friday." Flight-tracking data shows the second flight, UAL934D, took off from Newark shortly after 8 p.m. That means passengers had a nine-hour wait in New Jersey before they were back on their way to London. The first plane was scheduled to touch down in England at 8:40 p.m. local time Thursday, but ultimately, passengers arrived just over 11 hours later. Meanwhile, flight-tracking data shows the plane with the "possible maintenance issue" arrived in London first on Friday morning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After diverting back to Newark, N684UA also operated Thursday's Flight 14. It took off at 7:21 p.m. ET and landed in London at 6:58 a.m. local time, 24 minutes before UAL934D. A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration told Business Insider it didn't have a report about the flight. Do you have a story to share about a recent flight diversion? Contact this reporter at psyme@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra joined Rep. Taylor Collins in signing a letter calling for university employees found in violation of anti-DEI laws to be fired. (Photo by Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch) Two GOP lawmakers at the state and federal level are calling on public university leaders to fire anyone found to have violated laws banning diversity, equity and inclusion in college classrooms and beyond. U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra and state Rep. Taylor Collins signed and sent a letter to the Iowa Board of Regents Friday, to be distributed to University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson, Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen and University of Northern Iowa President Mark Nook, to make sure DEI is dead on their campuses and fire anyone who claims otherwise. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last May, Governor (Kim) Reynolds signed legislation eliminating the DEI bureaucracies at our Regent Universities. In January of this year, President Trump signed an Executive Order ending DEI efforts in the federal government, the letter stated. From Des Moines to Washington, D.C., clear messages have been sent to our institutions of higher education to end these radical programs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The letter brought up specific instances of videos appearing to show UI employees talking about changes to DEI and ways that theyre working around restrictions. At the time the UI announced it was launching an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the incidents and would take corrective action if necessary. A video also surfaced involving the former director of the ISU Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success discussing compliance with the law while finding loopholes to get around them. The university said in a statement there was no timestamp on the video, and judging by the discussion and where the video was shot, it was taken before universities were required by the board of regents to come under compliance with anti-DEI legislation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Both the LGBTQ+ center and director position were eliminated in December 2024, according to the statement. According to the letter sent by Feenstra and Collins, currently many of these employees are on paid administrative leave, enjoying a taxpayer funded vacation. The UI did not respond Friday afternoon to questions about the status of investigations or whether employees are on leave. Collins said in an interview earlier this month the UI had lost a lot of his and other lawmakers trust after they learned of the incidents, and he told Wilson in a previous letter she needed to send a strong message that DEI is no longer welcome on campus. Clear and decisive action from each of you is the only way we can ensure that DEI is DOA in the State of Iowa, the Friday letter stated. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The Cheltenham Youth Detention Center in Prince George's County today. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters) The discovery recently of more than 150 unmarked graves at a juvenile detention center in Cheltenham has exposed uncomfortable truths not only about the states history of mistreating poor Black children in the justice system, but also about its ongoing, racially disproportionate practice of automatically charging young people accused of crime in the states adult criminal courts. The children and youths buried more than a century ago in newly discovered unmarked graves beside the Cheltenham Youth Detention center may have broken the law. Some, however, may have been the equivalent of todays status offenders kids who do things that are illegal only because they are not yet adults, like skipping school or running away from home. Others may have been sent to the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children as the original facility was called simply because their families were poor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Regardless of how they got there, these children were wards of the state, and the state failed in its duty to protect them. Its unclear how these children died. Only a deep investigation will give us those answers. But what is clear from these forgotten graves in the woods, unmarked, half-buried beneath more than a century of fallen sticks and leaves is that these childrens bodies were disposed of, thrown away, without an acknowledgement of who they were. Your opinion matters Maryland Matters welcomes guest commentary submissions at editor@marylandmatters.org. We suggest a 750-word limit and reserve the right to edit or reject submissions. We do not accept columns that are endorsements of candidates, and no longer accept submissions from elected officials or political candidates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Opinion pieces must be signed by at least one individual using their real name. We do not accept columns signed by an organization. Commentary writers must include a short bio and a photo for their bylines. Views of writers are their own. The contrast with how we treat other people is heartbreakingly evident when you compare these Black childrens graves to the veterans cemetery that lies immediately adjacent to it. The veterans graves have headstones with names and dates. The grounds are meticulously maintained. The brush and leaves are cleared away. The grass is cut regularly. The ongoing attention and maintenance tells us that the veterans laid to rest are cared for and were loved. The children buried at Cheltenham, not so much. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And Maryland isnt the only place with this hideous legacy. More than a dozen years ago, archeologists at the University of South Florida made a similar shocking discovery at Floridas youth prison, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, of dozens of unknown graves of children who died there nearly 100 children in the prisons 100-year history. We may be tempted to believe that these unmarked graves are just an echo from the soil of a time that has passed. But as the great Southern writer William Faulkner reminds us, The past is never dead. Its not even past. The unmarked graves beside todays Cheltenham Youth Detention Center expose an uncomfortable truth about how Black childrens lives are being thrown away by the state even now. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maryland automatically prosecutes more children in adult criminal court than every other state but Alabama. The states Black children are five times more likely to be prosecuted in adult court than white youth, even when charged with similar offenses. More than 90% of youths tried as adults in Maryland are children of color; more than 80% are Black. And yet, if the goal is to make communities safer, research tells us that trying kids in adult courts doesnt work. In fact, just the opposite is true: Young people tried in adult courts and placed in adult facilities are more likely to commit another offense and a more serious one compared to similar kids who stay in the youth system. Does the state really want future generations to look at Marylands current failings on Black children with the same disgust and judgment of its actions as I imagine many people do now at the site of the unmarked graves at Cheltenham? Maryland should apologize for the dreadful sins of the past by cleaning up the cemetery, identifying who these children are, finding and notifying their families and placing headstones with the children s names. But the state must also change how it treats children today by ending the automatic transfer of youth to adult criminal court. Critics are calling out Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, for completely botching two key facts in just seconds during a Fox News interview on Thursday. First, she claimed its the job of federal judges to respect the president. Related: Alina Habbas Take On Donald Trumps Authority Leaves Critics Stunned The Constitution spells out the role of federal judges and respect the president isnt in there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then, in nearly the same breath, she insisted that almost 100 million people voted for President Donald Trump. Trump won about 77 million votes nationally during last years presidential election. Habba, who has also served as one of Trumps personal attorneys, was on the right-wing network to complain about a court ruling earlier in the day that found she is unlawfully in her position since her interim role was limited to 120 days. Related: Donald Trump Makes Extreme Claim About Pam Bondi Trump has been using interim appointments for Habba and others to bypass Senate confirmation requirements. But U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann said Thursday that her term ended in July. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Attorney General Pam Bondi called the ruling an activist judicial attack and vowed to appeal, and Habba seized on that during her Fox News interview, then went even further. The attorney general said it today. We will not fall to rogue judges, Habba said. We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job: respecting the president. And you cant get rid of the president. Almost 100 million people voted for him, and he is still and will be forever the 45th and 47th president of the United States. Habbas critics on social media were standing by with a fact check: It is not the job of federal judges to "respect the president." Good luck with the job hunt, Alina. https://t.co/PPAXUMRkKZ MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) August 22, 2025 Why shes unqualified seanmack (@seanmack1025) August 22, 2025 Alina Habba: We will not fall to rogue judges, we will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job: respecting the president. Their job is to uphold the Constitution, not bow to Trump. pic.twitter.com/q6GKVDAkU4 Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The job requires upholding our Constitution. If that's not important to Ms. Habba and anyone else among Trump's appointees, they need to be doing some job that's not in our govt, courts, law enforcement, Congress, Senate, White House, State govts inclusively. https://t.co/n45bwA2QYO CricketDiane (@AmBeautifulShow) August 22, 2025 Alina Habba: We will not fall to rogue judges...their job is respecting the president. No. Their job is to uphold the Constitutionnot bow to Donald Trump. And it's HIGHLY unusual for a U.S. attorney to do media hits like this. The Trump DOJ is an absolute disgrace. pic.twitter.com/1LGqDJGRgJ Russell Drew (@RussOnPolitics) August 22, 2025 Is she just rounding up to the nearest 100M? Challenge Your Beliefs (@ChallengeBelief) August 22, 2025 One would think someone with a law license would have at least a smidgen of knowledge about how it works. Dj Omega Mvp (@DjOmegaMVP) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sounds like she has never heard of checks and balances before. Colorado Moderate (@ColoradoMod) August 22, 2025 Habbas framing suggests that the judiciarys role is not to interpret law, but to affirm power. Its a direct challenge to the separation of powers. SleuthyFella (@SleuthyFella) August 22, 2025 BREAKING: Alina Habba lies that 100 million Americans voted for Trump. The most votes Trump ever received was 77 million. pic.twitter.com/AsFa83nIm6 Trump Lie Tracker (Commentary) (@MAGALieTracker) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Imagine going to law school and coming out thinking the judicial branch exists to respect the executive branch. She's a dummy. Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) August 22, 2025 Judges dont respect the president. They respect the Constitution. Habbas words reek of dictat0rship. Himanshu (@H_Singh1708) August 22, 2025 Judges must remain impartial, upholding the law while respecting institutional roles and limits. States Radar (@statesradar) August 22, 2025 If she cant do simple math how can we trust her to interpret law? Michelle Weiss (@ChildGuardAdv) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alina: Go back to law school. It is not the job of federal judges to respect the president. Barry Phillips (@AttorneyCPA) August 22, 2025 Yes, there are countries in the world where "respecting the president" is the job of the judiciary. Until recently, America was not among them. https://t.co/Nbo6PIfu0C Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) August 22, 2025 So the job of a judge is just to respect the president? Who knew? And why was I under the impression that their job was to interpret and follow the law? Boy I really got that one wrong, huh? https://t.co/GbvQbCeb0n The Ghost of Khashoggi's Ghost (@UROCKalt) August 22, 2025 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sure, and $77 is almost $100. Try that logic at the bank. DN (@Yousavewithus) August 22, 2025 More on Politics Keith Olbermann Goes Scorched Earth On 'Aggressively Stupid' Karoline Leavitt Alina Habba Makes 'Emotional' Move After Shattering Morale In U.S. Attorney's Office, Sources Tell NYT Supreme Court Lets Trump Cut $783 Million Of Research Funding In Anti-DEI Push Read the original on HuffPost MEMPHIS, Tenn. The University of Memphis Office of Multicultural Affairs has been closed due to a law passed that dismantles the departments diversity, equity, and inclusion office on Friday. The University of Memphis said the following in a statement: Public Chapter 458, known as the Dismantling DEI Departments Act, is now law in Tennessee. This state law and recent executive orders prohibit public institutions of higher education, like the University of Memphis, from maintaining, authorizing or supporting programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. As a result, the Office of Multicultural Affairs has been closed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While the University of Memphis does not operate in a way that discriminates against students, faculty, staff or our overall community, the parameters of the Tennessee law require us to reevaluate our operations to ensure that we remain in compliance with how we support students, nonacademic programs and some academic support programs. Our commitment remains unchanged to provide a successful outcome for every student. Courtesy of Courtland Robinson Multicultural Affairs Office at UofM Photo by WREG Multicultural Affairs Office at UofM Photo by WREG Minutes after 2 p.m., a student told WREG the multicultural office was packing up after the announcement. The University of Memphis Student Government Association said in a social media post: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While this change is significant, it is necessary for the University to maintain eligibility for ongoing federal and state funding for student grants, scholarships, and related programming. The continued support of our students remains a top priority. We recognize the importance of the services and community that the Office of the Multicultural Affairs has provided, and we are actively working to support students, student organizations, and student leaders during this transition. Our goal is to ensure that all students continue to feel valued, heard, and supported. I feel deeply disappointed and saddened by the situation regarding the cultural office. This office has played an important role in supporting both the campus and its students. It has provided valuable resources, created meaningful opportunities for engagement, and fostered a sense of community that has enriched student life, said Courtland Robinson, a student involved with multicultural organizations. The multicultural affairs office helps people build connections with people that are higher up than you or have the same common goal for you to connect students who are minorities so to hear that this office has been dismissed, effective immediately, is honestly absurd because its something that serves everybody, said Vice President Maya Mitchell of the Black Student Association at UofM. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement WREG was not able to access the websites of the Office of Multicultural Affairs and multicultural organizations. UofM Multicultural Affairs Office in 2022 Photo by Vivian Nguyen Involvement Zone in 2022 Photo by Vivian Nguyen Involvement Zone on Friday Courtesy of Courtland Robinson Involvement Zone in 2022 Photo by Vivian Nguyen Organizations within the multicultural office are: WREG also reached out to Rhodes College and Christian Brothers University for a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rhodes has not had a multicultural office since 2022, said Rhodes College. As a Catholic Lasallian institution, Christian Brothers University is dedicated to social justice and respect for all individuals. We have not had to make any changes since the executive order was signed. CBU is in compliance with the law, said Christian Brothers University. WREG also reached out to UofM to see if Greek life organizations will be affected, but has not received a response. This story will be updated. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. As a summer COVID-19 surge hits Michigan and much of the U.S., there still are many unanswered questions about when updated coronavirus vaccines will be available in local pharmacies, clinics and doctors' offices, who will be eligible to get them and whether insurance plans will cover a fall booster for everyone who wants a dose. "Everything is kind of up in the air ... with what's going to be available and what's not," said Farah Jalloul-Rizk, chief pharmacy officer with the Michigan Pharmacists Association. At the center of the uncertainty is a growing rift between leading U.S. medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He and other top Trump administration health officials changed the recommendations for who should get COVID-19 vaccines in May saying they should no longer be given to healthy children or pregnant women and shook up the way in which vaccines are reviewed and recommended in the U.S. The schism could stall the arrival of newly updated COVID-19 vaccines for fall and drive more confusion about eligibility. It's led to conflicting recommendations from federal and Michigan health leaders about who should get a COVID-19 booster and might mean some people could have to pay out of pocket for the vaccines or have a co-pay this year. Some of Michigan's largest insurance companies, however, told the Detroit Free Press this week that they will continue to cover COVID-19 vaccines for their members. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, which provides health benefits to more than 4.7 million people in the state as well as to employees of Michigan-headquartered companies living outside of the state, issued a statement that said, in part: "We want to reassure our members and customers that, at this time, there are no adjustments to our coverage for vaccines." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Margaret Anderson, president of Health Alliance Plan of Michigan, which as 476,000 members, said in an emailed statement to the Free Press: "Our focus is ensuring members have affordable access to preventive services. All HAP plans continue to cover COVID-19 vaccines. Members should consult their health care providers for medical advice about whats right for them." Priority Health, which has 1.3 million members in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, "currently provides coverage for the COVID-19 vaccination for people ages 6 months and older as recommended by the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)," said Ryan Nolan, interim vice president of pharmacy for Priority Health. But, he added: "We continue to review the recommendations coming from the CDCs ACIP, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, MDHHS (the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services), the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." Those organizations aren't all in agreement about what the recommendations ought to be. What sparked the controversy over this year's COVID-19 boosters? The tumult began in late May, when Kennedy Jr. announced on the social media site X that COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women would no longer be recommended because of a "lack of clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy." He was joined in the videotaped announcement Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Marty Makary, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The announcement was met with frustration by some medical groups, including the Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which said it would continue to "strongly" recommend COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, including updated fall booster shots. "The science has not changed," the association said in a statement. "It is very clear that COVID-19 infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families. The COVID-19 vaccine is safe during pregnancy, and vaccination can protect our patients and their infants after birth." A couple of weeks later, Kennedy Jr. shook up traditional U.S. health policy again when he ousted all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent panel of medical and public health experts that makes vaccine recommendations to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The group reviews the safety and efficacy of vaccines and helps to establish vaccine schedules to control the spread of infectious diseases. "A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science," Kennedy Jr. said at the time. He then appointed eight new ACIP members, including some vaccine skeptics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those changes triggered a federal lawsuit. A pregnant physician as well as seven medical groups including the American Academy Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Public Health Association sued July 7 in Massachusetts, alleging that by changing U.S. COVID-19 vaccine guidelines, Kennedy Jr. and other administration officials put "pregnant women, their unborn children, and, in fact, all children ... at grave and immediate risk of contracting a preventable disease ... with potentially irreversible long-term effects and, in some cases, death. "This is not a hypothetical concern, but a pressing public health emergency that demands immediate legal action and correction," the complaint said. ACIP, FDA clap back against medical groups By the end of July, the newly appointed ACIP panel that Kennedy Jr. picked notified the American Medical Association and more than a half dozen other medical groups via email that they would no longer be included in reviews of scientific data about vaccines or in creating vaccine recommendations, calling the groups "biased." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In response, the groups said in a joint statement they were "deeply disappointed and alarmed that our organizations are being characterized as biased and therefore barred from reviewing scientific data and informing the development of vaccine recommendations that have long helped ensure our nations vaccine program is safe, effective, and free from bias." Then came a concern raised by pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer, which said the FDA is considering a plan to revoke the emergency use authorization (EUA) for its COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty, for use in healthy children younger than 5 years old. Koby Rauner, 14, of Rochester Hills receives the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from Nurse Practitioner Ashly Hofbauer at the Beaumont Service Center in Southfield on Thursday, May 13, 2021. A spokesperson for Pfizer told USA TODAY: We are currently in discussions with the agency on potential paths forward and have requested that the EUA for this age group remain in place for the 2025-2026 season. It is important to note that these deliberations are not related to the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, which continues to demonstrate a favorable profile. The only other COVID-19 vaccine that has been authorized for use in young children those ages 6 months to 11 years old in the U.S. is Moderna's Spikevax. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, when the FDA granted Moderna authorization for Spikevax in July, it did so with the caveat that only children with at least one underlying health condition that makes them more vulnerable to severe disease from COVID-19 should be eligible for Spikevax. If the FDA revokes Pfizer's emergency use authorization for Comirnaty, it means there will be no COVID-19 vaccine with a greenlight for use in young, healthy American children. What are the current recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which has 67,000 pediatricians among its members, said the nation's infrastructure for reviewing and recommending vaccines had lost credibility. It issued its own guidelines Aug. 19 for who should get COVID-19 vaccines. The group said all infants and children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years old should be vaccinated because they are at high risk for severe illness from the virus. It also recommends a single dose of vaccine for all children ages 2 to 18 who fall within the following groups: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those at high risk for severe disease with COVID-19, including those who are immunocompromised. Those who live in congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities. Those who previously have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. Additionally, children and teens whose household contacts are at high risk for severe COVID-19 disease. The most updated version of COVID-19 vaccines also should be available to children ages 2 to 18 whose parent or guardian requests it, the AAP said, even if they don't fall within the groups detailed above. We extensively reviewed the most recently available data about COVID-19 risks in kids, as well as safety and effectiveness of available COVID-19 vaccines," said Dr. Sean OLeary, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases, in a statement. "It's clear they are very safe for all populations. Among the reasons we decided to move to a risk-based recommendation for healthy older children is the fact that the hospitalization rate for young children and children with underlying medical conditions remains high, in line with rates for many of the other vaccine-preventable diseases for which we vaccinate. As of Aug. 21, CDC guidance recommends COVID-19 vaccines only for healthy people ages 65 and older and for people who are older than 6 months of age with underlying health conditions that increase their risk of severe disease from COVID-19. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, the agency cracked open the door to others who would like a COVID-19 vaccine, saying "shared clinical decision-making" should be used between a health care provider and a patient or the patient's parent/guardian to determine whether they may be vaccinated. More: Feds: Ugly Christmas Sweater owner paid $1 million to settle COVID-19 fraud case The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced in late July that its recommendation aligns with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It supports COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, and for every person 6 months and older to protect from serious illness. There is strong evidence that supports COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy and for pediatric patients, said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the state's chief medical executive in a statement. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that children under 6 months of age are at the highest risk for hospitalization, and that more than 40% of those hospitalized had no underlying conditions. The COVID-19 vaccine is the best way to prevent complications of infection. We urge Michigan residents talk to their health care providers about getting vaccinated. Are any other federal advisory panels likely to see changes? The CDC's ACIP isn't the only advisory panel that could be in Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Wall Street Journal reported in late July that Kennedy Jr. also is considering a plan to replace all 16 of the members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which since 2010 has determined which types of preventive medical care including cancer screenings, medication, counseling services and tests must be fully covered by insurance companies. The Journal's sources said Kennedy Jr. views the task force members as too woke." In response, the American Medical Association (AMA) sent a letter to Kennedy Jr. and expressed deep concern. It urged him to reconsider any plan that would remove current members from the task force. USPSTF plays a critical, non-partisan role in guiding physicians efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services, the AMA said in its letter. What other changes are on the horizon? In June, the newly appointed ACIP panel recommended that a preservative called thimerosal be removed from all flu vaccines in the U.S. Kennedy Jr. signed off on the recommendation in July, requiring manufacturers to change the formulation for flu vaccines to remove the organic compound, which contains mercury, and has been in use since the 1930s to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi in multi-use vaccine vials. Jalloul-Rizk of the Michigan Pharmacists Association said even before ACIP voted to remove thimerosal from flu vaccines, there already was very limited use of the preservative, which has been largely phased out the U.S. supply. "It was mostly used in the multi-dose vials," she said. "That's because when you have a multi-dose vial, you're going in multiple times with a needle, and every time you go in, you can contaminate the vial. ... It is not found in single-dose vials. It's not an issue for most pharmacies." Kennedy Jr. heralded the ACIP decision, saying: After more than two decades of delay, this action fulfills a long-overdue promise to protect our most vulnerable populations from unnecessary mercury exposure. Injecting any amount of mercury into children when safe, mercury-free alternatives exist defies common sense and public health responsibility." More: FDA may revoke Pfizer COVID-19 shot for young, healthy children. More: RFK Jr. responds to vaccine guidance that goes against CDC: AAP is angry Jalloul-Rizk said she doesn't expect to see any other changes to flu vaccines this season. "The guidance is still the same for that one," she said. "We're looking for a rollout at the end of August," with widespread availability of the updated flu vaccine in pharmacies by mid-September. "We encourage everyone to get the flu vaccine in September and October. The vaccine takes about two weeks to fully show efficacy, so September-October is the most ideal time for someone to come in," she said. But when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, she said, there's still a lack of clarity about what will be available, when it will be available and whether all insurance plans will cover it for all people. "With changes in the CDC guidelines, I have not heard of any change in coverage or in the age groups who are going to be covered," she said. "We have asked, but we have not heard anything yet. ... The uncertainty of it, that has been an issue." For now, she said, Michigan pharmacists are adhering to the CDC's recommendations and its "shared clinical decision-making" guidance for anyone who is healthy, under the age of 65 and wants a dose of the vaccine. "It can still be offered if the parent requests it, and it's agreed upon by a (medical) provider," Jalloul-Rizk said. Which types of COVID-19 vaccines will be available this fall? The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met in May to make recommendations on updated COVID-19 vaccines to be considered for use starting this fall. The committee suggested vaccine manufacturers should develop formulations that target the JN.1 lineage of the virus, preferentially using the LP.8.1 strain. But the FDA has yet to authorize any updated COVID-19 vaccine for the fall season, and it's unclear how soon that might happen or when doses will be available. Still, the following manufacturers are ramping up production of their COVID-19 vaccines, with hopes they'll win approval: Moderna's mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Spikevax, can be used in the U.S. in people who are 65 or older and for those who are 6 months to 64 years old with at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19. Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty, may see its emergency use authorization revoked for use in healthy children younger than 5 years old. Last year, the FDA allowed Comirnaty to be used in Americans ages of 6 months and older. Novavax and Sanofi's COVID-19 vaccine, Nuvaxovid. It's a protein-based vaccine that does not use mRNA technology and is approved for use in Americans ages 65 and older as well as those who are between the ages of 12 and 64 who have at least one underlying medical condition, such as asthma, cancer, diabetes or obesity, that puts them at higher risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19. Thomas Grenier, Sanofis Head of Vaccines for North America, told the Detroit Free Press: "We are working closely with the U.S. health authorities and our customers to make Nuvaxovid ... available nationwide this upcoming season. Pending final FDA regulatory approvals, we expect the product to become available in the early fall. Nuvaxovid will be available at major retail pharmacies and select medical groups in the U.S." Grenier said the company expects most private insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid to cover Nuvaxovid at no cost to patients when administered by in-network providers or pharmacist. "However, coverage may vary depending on federal recommendations and individual health plans, so its important to confirm with your insurer or provider," he said. ACIP didnt vote on updated COVID-19 vaccines at its June meeting and is expected to reconvene in "September/October," the CDC told USA TODAY. Meanwhile, the skirmish between Kennedy Jr. and medical groups continues to rage on. Kennedy Jr. responded Aug. 19 to the American Academy of Pediatrics' vaccine recommendations, which contradicted the CDC's guidelines, by noting that among the AAP's top corporate donors are the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the vaccines. "AAP should follow the lead of HHS and disclose conflicts of interest, including its corporate entanglements and those of its journal Pediatrics so that Americans may ask whether the AAPs recommendations reflect public health interest, or are, perhaps, just a pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAPs Big Pharma benefactors," Kennedy Jr. wrote. AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly told USA TODAY: "This attack on the integrity of pediatricians is unfortunate, but it does not change the facts. For nearly a century, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission has focused on one thing: following the science to best protect children's health." And still, cases of the coronavirus continue to spread in the U.S. The CDC reported that as of Aug. 12, the number of COVID-19 infections were growing or likely growing in 34 states, including Michigan. Test positivity is up over the previous week, as are emergency department visits, hospitalizations and deaths from the virus, according to CDC data. Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press. This story was updated to add a gallery. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: With COVID-19 vaccines for fall, 'everything is kind of up in the air' The US Air Force with the broader US military, as well as allies and partners, completed a major exercise in the Pacific. It was focused on managing airpower across contested environments The Air Force has deemed the ability to do this critical for a potential war against China. The US Air Force just conducted a massive exercise in the Indo-Pacific, testing its ability to fight and deliver substantial airpower in contested environments for a potential future conflict. It was the largest exercise in the region since the Cold War, Air Force leadership said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This big monthlong exercise brought together several major training events and involved US forces across the services, along with allies and partners. The drills focused on core objectives such as flying and sustaining a high number of missions, moving cargo under threat, using space-based technologies across air, land, sea, and cyber operations, and practicing large-scale Agile Combat Employment tactics, which are about making US forces more flexible and harder to target. ACE is the Air Force's approach to spreading out or dispersing aircraft to areas outside fixed bases including to remote or rugged locations. This matters most in the Indo-Pacific, where any conflict could force US forces to use smaller, scattered airfields across the region. The goal is to avoid relying too heavily on big bases that could be easy targets for China's missiles. ACE pairs bases, or hubs, like Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, with remote airfields, called spokes. Specially trained airmen, prepositioned equipment, and airlift capability facilitate the operations between them, expanding where the Air Force can launch combat sorties and project power. The focus across the exercises was to fly large numbers of aircraft from varied locations on short notice. US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zachary Foster The Air Force said the exercise provided feedback to improve future operations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "To have the exercise is one thing, but to fail forward, move fast and learn from our mistakes is another," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said without going into detail on failures. "We validated our ability to sustain operations, deploy and redeploy at scale, and now must follow through on lessons learned. This evolution, implementation and iteration prepare us for the future fight." He characterized the latest exercise as a necessary stress to the system. Last fall, Allvin shared details on planning for this training, which was a return to the type of large-scale exercises the US conducted during the Cold War. At the time, he said these types of events were necessary as the US shifts its focus to readiness for great power conflict against an adversary like China. "We need to get back to those large-scale exercises, and to their credit, many of the wing level and numbered Air Force level and even some of the MAJCOM (major command) level, they have started to organically expand their exercises," he said at the time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The reason, he said, is partially because the Air Force needs to be prepared to fight against an adversary like China in a highly contested environment where no side enjoys consistent air superiority. A major part of the recent training involved the Space Force and simulating how enemy forces would use space-based capabilities and technologies, like satellites and sensors, in a potential high-end conflict. Other components, like maintaining communications and command and control elements, were tested as well. Read the original article on Business Insider The head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and two other senior officers are being removed, officials said Friday -- the latest in a series of military firings this year. The removal of Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, who led the DIA since early 2024, comes after the agency produced a preliminary assessment that said US strikes on Iran set back Tehran's nuclear program by just a few months. The assessment -- which was widely reported on by US media -- contradicted claims from President Donald Trump that the strikes totally destroyed the nuclear sites, drawing the ire of both him and officials within his administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kruse "will no longer serve as DIA director," a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity, without providing an explanation for the general's departure. Prior to becoming director of the DIA, Kruse served as the advisor for military affairs for the director of national intelligence, and also held positions including director of intelligence for the coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group. A US official separately said on condition of anonymity that two other senior officers -- Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, chief of Navy Reserve, and Rear Admiral Milton Sands, commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command -- were also leaving their positions. - Series of top officers fired - Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In June, the United States launched a massive operation against three Iranian nuclear sites, an effort that involved more than 125 US aircraft as well as a guided missile submarine. Trump called the strikes a "spectacular military success" and repeatedly said they "obliterated" the nuclear sites, but the DIA's preliminary assessment raised doubts about the president's claims. The Trump administration responded with an offensive against the media, insisting the operation was a total success and berating journalists for reporting on the assessment. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted the assessment was "leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn't successful," and slammed "fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has overseen a purge of top military officers, including chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff general Charles "CQ" Brown, whom he fired without explanation in February. Other senior officers dismissed this year include the heads of the Navy and Coast Guard, the general who headed the National Security Agency, the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, a Navy admiral assigned to NATO, and three top military lawyers. The chief of staff of the Air Force also recently announced his retirement without explanation just two years into a four-year term. Hegseth has insisted the president is simply choosing the leaders he wants, but Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about the potential politicization of the traditionally neutral US military. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this year, the Pentagon chief additionally ordered at least a 20 percent reduction in the number of active-duty four-star generals and admirals in the US military, as well as a 10 percent cut in the overall number of general and flag officers. wd/dl By Nichola Groom (Reuters) -The Trump administration on Friday ordered Denmark's Orsted to stop far-advanced construction on an offshore wind project near Rhode Island, in a move that threatens to exacerbate the company's financial troubles. With construction now frozen at 80% completion, Orsted has no immediate path to revenue generation, heightening pressure on the company as it seeks to shore up finances through a $9.4 billion emergency rights issue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The stop-work order, issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), is the administration's latest effort to hinder U.S. renewable energy development and is the second time this year the Interior Department, which oversees BOEM, has halted work on a major offshore wind project. "Orsted is evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously," the company said in a statement, adding that it was reviewing the financial implications of the order and was considering legal action. The company said it would "in due course" advise the market on the potential impact on its plans to conduct the rights issue. A spokesperson for the company, owned 50.1% by the Danish state, declined to comment further. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On his first day in office in January, President Donald Trump suspended new offshore wind leasing pending an environmental and economic review of projects. He has repeatedly criticized wind energy as ugly, unreliable and expensive. The $1.5 billion project that Orsted was constructing, Revolution Wind, was scheduled to be completed next year and expected to produce enough electricity to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. All offshore foundations had been installed and 45 out of 65 wind turbines were already in place, Orsted said. The National Ocean Energy Industries Association, an industry trade group, said halting work on a project that is almost finished would jeopardize jobs and investment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These projects are not only about energy," NOIA President Erik Milito said. The stop-work order is driven by unspecified national security concerns arising from the administration's review of offshore wind projects in federal waters, according to the letter, signed by BOEM acting Director Matthew Giacona. The bureau is seeking to protect U.S. national security and prevent "interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas," Giacona said. Orsted is among the biggest global offshore wind companies, but its U.S. business has suffered setbacks in addition to the broader challenges facing the global offshore wind industry, which is struggling to meet ambitious government targets amid soaring costs and project delays. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this month, Orsted sought the $9.4 billion of financing from shareholders to help fund its Sunrise Wind project off the New York coast after potential partners pulled out due to Trump's hostility to wind power. Potential co-investors for the Sunrise Wind project pulled out after Trump's administration in April ordered Equinor to halt the development of a fully-permitted wind farm. The order, which sent shockwaves through the industry, was reversed the following month, however. (Reporting by Nichola Groom and Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Leslie Adler, Sandra Maler, Cynthia Osterman, Aidan Lewis) Beijing is likely to increase its economic support for Venezuela, its only all-weather strategic partner in South America, as tensions rise between Washington and Caracas. However, analysts suggest that China will hold back on direct military aid or actions that could provoke a direct confrontation with the United States. The assessment comes after Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Thursday that China opposed "any move that violates the purposes and principles of the United Nations' Charter and a country's sovereignty and security". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. The comment was a response to the US decision to send three destroyers and an amphibious squadron with about 4,000 Marines to the Caribbean. Earlier this month, the White House also raised its bounty for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to US$50 million. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil thanked China for its firm rejection of US threats, saying on social media that it reflected the "unshakeable friendship" between the two nations. China has been a strong supporter of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, providing economic aid to the country as it grapples with US sanctions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It has also consistently backed Maduro since his narrow election win in 2013, and - unlike the US and several Latin American countries - recognised his contested re-election last year. In the face of intensified pressure from the United States, Chinese experts expect Beijing to amplify its existing economic cooperation and aid to Venezuela. Guo Cunhai, research fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said China was likely to deepen economic ties to help ease the pressure on Venezuela. This would include expanding the oil trade and technology transfers, Guo said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "However, Beijing will steer clear of providing military support and will avoid any action that could lead to a military confrontation with Washington if tensions escalate further," he said. Jiang Shixue, vice-president of CASS' China Society of Emerging Economies, agreed that China would confine itself to diplomatic and economic support. "The military cooperation between Beijing and Caracas is limited and at a low level, which is strictly confined to a level that does not destabilise the region," Jiang added. Since 2007, China has invested about US$67 billion in Venezuela, becoming Caracas's biggest creditor and a vital economic lifeline in the face of US sanctions. Venezuela secured loans from Chinese policy banks, and Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company signed purchasing agreements with Chinese importers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Although Chinese companies have scaled back direct purchases of Venezuelan crude, transshipments via some intermediaries in third countries have allowed a continuing flow of Venezuelan oil to the Chinese market, and Beijing remains the biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil, according to Reuters. The partnership also evolved into a strategic alliance that has endured debt disputes and external pressures. In 2023, the bilateral relationship was elevated to the status of an all-weather strategic partnership. "The economic partnership between the two countries is comprehensive: beyond focusing on oil, Beijing has also contributed to the development of Venezuela's manufacturing and agriculture sectors, invested in infrastructure projects, and exported industrial goods to the country," Jiang said. Chinese observers said the latest US efforts - the bounty and the troop movements - were likely meant to weaken the grip of Venezuela's two-decade-old anti-US regime. The efforts were also meant to curb China's growing influence in South America - a long-standing concern for Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Li Min, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of International Relations, said the White House's actions were a "typical example of Washington extending its strategic and energy competition against Beijing to a third country". "One goal of these efforts is to undermine one of China's sources of oil imports - thereby weakening its bargaining power in the international energy market," Li said. "Washington's intention is quite apparent: it seeks to continue constraining Venezuela's political lifeline and also to preserve its geopolitical and economic advantages in the western hemisphere." Guo, from CASS, said China preferred political continuity in Venezuela, and its top priority was to safeguard existing economic partnerships and debt arrangements. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "A regime change in Venezuela could prompt a re-evaluation or even a restructuring of the cooperative relationship between Beijing and Caracas, which could head towards a reversed course," Guo said. Should the opposition seize power, it would almost certainly align itself with the US, resulting in a "geopolitical disadvantage" for China, he added. "On the global stage, China would also lose a reliable partner that champions its push for a multipolar world order and supports the advancement of the Global South," he said. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. The Derby fire, spanning across land in both Eagle and Garfield counties and located about 13 miles north of Doterso, Colorado, grew to approximately 2,624 acres by Thursday morning, as reported by Inciweb more than tripling in size in the last 24 hours. A US federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration and Florida state government from bringing any new migrants to the detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" and ordered much of the site to be dismantled, effectively shuttering the facility. Florida's government swiftly announced it would appeal the decision. The detention center was hastily assembled in just eight days in June with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents at an abandoned airfield in Florida's Everglades wetlands, home to a large population of alligators. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement President Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, visited the center last month, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators will serve as guards. The White House has nicknamed the facility "Alligator Alcatraz," a reference to the former island prison in San Francisco Bay that Trump has said he wants to reopen. The center was planned to hold 3,000 migrants, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. But it has come under fire from both environmentalists and critics of Trump's crackdown on migration, who consider the facility to be inhumane. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new ruling on Thursday by District Judge Kathleen Williams comes after a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity. The environmental groups argue that the detention center threatens the sensitive Everglades ecosystem and was hastily built without conducting the legally required environmental impact studies. - Sixty-day deadline - Earlier this month, Williams had ordered further construction at the center to be temporarily halted. Now she has ordered the Trump administration and the state of Florida -- which is governed by Republican Ron DeSantis -- to remove all temporary fencing installed at the center within 60 days, as well as all lighting, generators and waste and sewage treatment systems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The order also prohibits "bringing any additional persons onto the... site who were not already being detained at the site." Several detainees have spoken with AFP about the conditions at the center, including a lack of medical care, mistreatment and the alleged violation of their legal rights. "They don't even treat animals like this. This is like torture," said Luis Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Cuban who called AFP from inside the center. He recently shared a cell with about 30 people, a space enclosed by chain-linked fencing that he compared to a chicken coop. The Trump administration has said it wants to make this a model for other detention centers across the country. gma-rle/dl/abs/rsc Much of US President Donald Trump's controversial "Alligator Alcatraz" migrant detention centre in Florida must be dismantled, and no more migrants should be taken there, a judge has ruled. The ruling stated that the facility was causing severe environmental damage to the Florida Everglades - a Unesco World Heritage Site - and gave the Trump administration 60 days to wind down its operations. The judge used a preliminary injunction, which temporarily restricts operations at the facility while a lawsuit brought by environmental groups against it is heard. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The state of Florida, which is partnering with the Trump administration in the building of the site, has already filed an appeal. The 82-page ruling said no more detainees could be brought to the centre and it prohibited any new construction work or expansion at the site. The decision is a major legal blow to Trump's plans for the centre, which has attracted widespread criticism for allegedly harsh conditions and potential harm to the local ecosystem. In Thursday's ruling, District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the facility was causing irreparable harm to the Florida Everglades and its endangered species. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She also ordered the shutdown of "all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste receptors", which would greatly affect the centre's ability to operate. Judge Williams cited a 1960s plan to build a tourist airport in the Everglades that was rejected due to fears of the environmental harms it could cause. "Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades," she wrote. "This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfil those promises." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Environmental groups that mounted the legal challenge welcomed the ruling. "This is a landmark victory for the Everglades and countless Americans who believe this imperilled wilderness should be protected, not exploited," said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. "It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government - and there are consequences for ignoring them". Thursday's decision comes after Judge Williams's earlier issue of a temporary restraining order which ordered the pause of construction at the site. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Alligator Alcatraz" was billed as a centrepiece of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. Built in the middle of a Miami swamp, its name comes from the wildlife of alligators, crocodiles and pythons in the surrounding wetlands - which Trump said would keep detainees from escaping. The facility was designed to hold 3,000 detainees and touted as a model for future detention centres that would support the Trump administration's deportation agenda. During a visit to the facility in July, Trump praised its potential for holding the "most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But since starting operation, the site has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and complaints by environmental campaigners and local residents. Experts previously warned the damage to area wetlands and endangered species could undo the Florida's massive effort to restore the Everglades, which has cost the state billions of dollars. The Justice Department released a transcript on Friday of an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, in which she said Donald Trump was friendly with the convicted sex offender but was "never inappropriate with anybody." Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein, was interviewed last month by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer. The Justice Department released hundreds of pages of transcripts and audio recordings of the interview in what Blanche called "the interest of transparency." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Except for the names of victims, every word is included. Nothing removed. Nothing hidden," Blanche said. The 63-year-old Maxwell was moved from a prison in Florida to a minimum security facility in Texas following the interview with Blanche. Epstein, a wealthy financier with high-level connections, died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking of underage girls recruited to provide him with sexual massages. Trump, 79, was once a friend of Epstein and, according to The Wall Street Journal, the president's name was among hundreds found during a Justice Department review of the so-called Epstein files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A House of Representatives committee has subpoenaed the Epstein files and received a first batch of records on Friday from the Justice Department. Trump's supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and held as an article of faith that "Deep State" elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood -- but not Trump. These supporters have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said in July that Epstein had committed suicide, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a "client list." Maxwell, in the interview with Blanche, said Trump and Epstein were "friendly like people are in social settings." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I don't think they were close friends," the former British socialite said. "I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting," she said. "I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody." - Casts doubt on Epstein suicide - Maxwell said Trump "was a gentleman in all respects" during the time they spent together beginning in the 1990s. "Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me," she said. "And I just want to say that I find -- I -- I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maxwell also said she did not believe Epstein committed suicide in prison. "I do not believe he died by suicide," she said. Epstein did not keep any sort of "client list," Maxwell said, and she was not aware of any blackmail of prominent persons. "I never saw it and I never imagined it," she said. David Markus, Maxwell's lawyer, said she answered every question she was asked during the interview, which took place over two days. "Ghislaine Maxwell is innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted, in this case," Markus said on X. "She never committed or participated in sexual abuse against minors, or anyone else for that matter. "The only reason she was ever charged is that she served as a scapegoat after Jeffrey Epstein died in prison." cl/dw By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Friday urged the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization to oppose China's decision to unilaterally extend a flight route in the Taiwan Strait. "This action places civilian aircraft dangerously close to Taiwan-administered airspace," said the letter signed by Senators Gary Peters and Marsha Blackburn and Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican who chairs a House select committee on China and the panel's ranking Democrat Representative, Raja Krishnamoorthi. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They added that the "unilateral changes disregard international aviation procedures and ICAOs own standards, which emphasize the importance of coordination and risk mitigation in shared airspace." ICAO and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment. The call comes weeks before the start of the assembly of the UN body overseeing civilian aviation that occurs every three years. The lawmakers also urged ICAO to allow Taiwan to meaningfully participate as a guest in the assembly. Last month, China said it opened a third extension of the M503 flight route, which is just west of an unofficial dividing line in the Taiwan Strait, with Taipei protesting this was a "unilateral" move aimed at changing the strait's status quo. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement China last year moved the M503 route closer to the median line, drawing a similarly angry response from Taipei, which says any changes to the flight route and its extensions must be communicated in advance and agreed to by both sides. In 2022, then U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called on ICAO to allow Taiwan to participate in the ICAO meetings. China sees democratically ruled Taiwan as one of its provinces. Beijing has long vowed to bring Taiwan under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so. Taiwan considers the separately governed island as its own and says only the island's 23 million people can decide its future. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Franklin Paul) Just days ahead of the 70th anniversary of his killing, the federal government made public thousands of pages of records Friday on the lynching of Emmett Till. The records in the National Archives, released by the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, detail how the Justice Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights responded to the 1955 killing of 14-year-old Till. The records were released in accordance with the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018. Our thoughts are with the Till family, the National Archives and Records Administration said in a news release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Chicago teenager was falsely accused of whistling at a white woman at a grocery store in rural Mississippi. Four days later, Till was abducted from a great-uncles home in the predawn hours by Roy Bryant and John William J. W. Milam. The white men tortured and killed Till in a barn in a neighboring county, and his body was later found in the Tallahatchie River. Bryant and Milam were charged with murder in Till's death but were acquitted by an all-white-male jury. Bryant and Milam later confessed to a reporter that they kidnapped and killed Till. His killing galvanized the Civil Rights Movement after Tills mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket so that the country could see the brutality. In 2022, President Joe Biden signed a bill named for Till that made lynching a federal hate crime. And in 2023, Biden signed a proclamation establishing a national monument honoring Till and his mother. Many of the records have never been seen by the public. They include reports, telegrams, case files and correspondences and documents from the NAACP, the White House, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, among others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The records can be viewed in the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection on the National Archives and Records Administration website. A member of the Till family did not immediately return a request for comment. The US is reviewing the records of more than 55 million US visa holders to assess if they have broken conditions for entry or stay in the country. People with US visas will be under "continuous vetting", a state department spokesperson told the Associated Press news agency. Visas will be revoked if there are indications of "overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organisation", an official said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement President Donald Trump has made anti-immigration the cornerstone of his second administration, from mass deportations and full-on travel bans on countries to revoking 6,000 student visas. As part of the wide-ranging review, prospective students and visitors to the US will be subjected to social media vetting with officials looking for "any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States". State Department officers have also been instructed to spot individuals "who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence". Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a statement: "America's benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He added that the immigration service was committed to "implementing policies" that "root out anti-Americanism". The latest announcement came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would "immediately" pause the issuance of worker visas for truck drivers. "The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," Rubio wrote in a post on X on Thursday. Since Trump came to power in January, several foreign students have been arrested at US university campuses for taking part in protests against the conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip by Israel - which is supported by the US. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A few weeks ago, the US announced that citizens from Malawi and Zambia would be required to pay a $15,000 (11,300) deposit for a tourist or business visa. Trump has also banned foreign nationals from 12 countries from travelling to the US and imposed partial restrictions on another seven. In May, the Trump's administration was allowed to temporarily revoke the legal status of over 500,000 migrants living in the US. He has even vowed to end birth right citizenship. U.S. forces on Tuesday killed a senior ISIS official in Syria, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) announced in a statement Thursday. The successful raid in northern Syria targeted an unnamed senior ISIS member who also served as a key financier who planned attacks in Syria and Iraq, according to the Centcom statement. Centcom said the senior ISIS member had relationships in the region, posing a direct threat to U.S. and Coalition forces and the new Syrian Government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We will continue to pursue ISIS terrorists with unwavering determination, throughout the region, Centcoms commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, said in the statement. Together with our partners and allies, CENTCOM remains steadfast in our commitment of ensuring the lasting defeat of ISIS and the protection of the U.S. homeland, he continued. Trump has moved to ease sanctions significantly on Syria in the wake of the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December. A delegation of congressional members recently visited Syria and met with President Ahmed al-Sharaa and other senior officials in the administration. Centcom forces last month killed another senior ISIS leader, Dhiya Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, and his two adult ISIS-affiliated sons, Abdallah Dhiya al-Hardani and Abd al-Rahman Dhiya Zawba al-Hardani. U.S. officials similarly said the ISIS members posed a threat to U.S. and coalition forces, including the Syrian government. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, have discussed security guarantees for Ukraine during a meeting of advisers. The parties plan to finalise the model by the end of next week. Source: Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, citing Yermaks adviser Oleksandr Bevz and sources in the Presidents Office Details: The meeting on security guarantees for Ukraine took place on the evening of 22 August. The US was represented by Rubio and US military generals. National security advisers from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Finland, as well as representatives of NATO and the European Commission also joined. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A source said that the security guarantees are currently being worked out by two subgroups: political-legal and purely military. The political group from Ukraine is led by Yermak. Military matters are being discussed by National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umierov, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi and other representatives of Ukraines defence forces. The military guarantees include the supply of weapons, financial support for the defence forces, intelligence sharing, training provision and joint training missions. "I think the military component is nearing completion," the source said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They noted that the guarantees are being developed with the understanding that there is the Coalition of the Willing and the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein Format), which, in addition to arms supplies, also provides for discussions on which states [how, when and in what numbers ed.] will deploy military contingents on Ukrainian territory. This would only take place after a sustainable ceasefire. Quote from the source: "But of course, for Ukraine and European states it is very important that the US ensures what is known as the backstop mechanism. Yes, President Donald Trump and other US officials have said they are not currently considering troops on the ground. But the US could provide a backstop mechanism, supported by many other components first and foremost, air cover. And this is what is being worked out in the military component." Details: Yermaks adviser Oleksandr Bevz said the draft project of security guarantees for Ukraine is planned to be finalised by the end of next week. It will be a framework version with a set of components. The next stage will be signing agreements, but their formalisation and ratification will take more time. He said that negotiators working on the political part of the guarantees are developing a sort of version of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty on collective defence. The meetings discuss a clear mechanism of action: what happens if Russia resumes its aggression or launches a new war against Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Quote from Bevz: "In Ukraines vision, this should be a system of bilateral binding agreements ratified by the parliaments of the relevant countries. That means not just duplicating Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, but spelling out an algorithm with specific timeframes and dimensions: financial, military, intelligence and so on." Background: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that the security guarantees for Ukraine negotiated by European countries and the United States will consist of two levels. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the role individual countries will play will become clear only after the full framework of security guarantees for Ukraine is defined. Romania has signalled its readiness to provide NATO allies with military bases as part of security guarantees for Ukraine. Meanwhile, European leaders are urging the US to deploy F-35 fighter jets to Romania within the framework of these guarantees. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday abruptly stopped issuing US visas for truck drivers after a fatal crash drew national attention, its latest sweeping step against foreign visitors. "Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers," Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X. "The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," he wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rubio's action came after a truck driver was charged with killing three people on a highway in Florida while making an illegal U-turn. Harjinder Singh, who is from India, allegedly entered the United States illegally from Mexico and failed an English examination after the crash, according to federal officials. The case has gathered wide media attention and has been highlighted by officials in Florida, controlled by Trump's Republican Party, with the lieutenant governor flying to California to extradite Singh personally alongside immigration agents on Thursday. The crash has taken on a political dimension in part as Singh received his commercial license in California and also lived in the West Coast state, which is run by the rival Democratic Party and opposes Trump's crackdown on immigration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. California Governor Gavin Newsom's office responded that the federal government under Trump had issued a work permit to Singh, who sought asylum, and that California had cooperated in extraditing him. Even before the crash, Republican lawmakers have been taking aim at foreign truckers, pointing to a rising number of accidents without providing evidence of a direct link to immigrants. In June, Duffy issued a directive that truck drivers must speak English. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Truck drivers have long been required to pass tests that include basic English proficiency but in 2016 under former president Barack Obama, authorities were told not to take truckers off the road solely on account of language deficiencies. - Changing face of truckers - The number of foreign-born truck drivers in the United States more than doubled between 2000 and 2021 to 720,000, according to federal statistics. Foreign-born drivers now make up 18 percent of the industry -- in line with the US labor market as a whole, but a departure for a profession long identified with white, working-class men. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More than half of the foreign-born drivers come from Latin America with sizable numbers in recent years from India and Eastern European nations, especially Ukraine, according to industry groups. The influx of foreign drivers has come in response to demand. A study earlier this year by the financial company altLine said the United States faced a shortage of 24,000 truck drivers, costing the freight industry $95.5 million per week as goods go undelivered. - Widening visa curbs - Trump has long made opposition to immigration a signature issue, rising to political prominence in 2016 with vows to build a wall on the Mexican border. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rubio has taken a starring role in Trump's efforts by cracking down on visas. The State Department said this week that it has rescinded more than 6,000 student visas since Trump took office -- four times more than during the same period last year -- and an official said all 55 million foreigners with US visas are liable to "continuous vetting." Rubio has ordered scrutiny of applicants' social media accounts and proudly removed students who campaigned against Israel's offensive in Gaza, using a law that allows him to rescind visas for people deemed to counter US foreign policy interests. The State Department over the weekend also paused visitor visas meant for severely wounded children from Gaza to receive treatment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The decision came after Laura Loomer -- a far-right activist close to Trump who has described the September 11, 2001 terror attack as an inside job -- said she spoke to Rubio and warned of "Islamic invaders" from Gaza. sct/acb The U.S. State Department has issued an updated travel advisory for Mexico, warning Americans about potential dangers in the popular vacation destination. Released on Aug. 12, the advisory raised Mexico to a Level 2 alert, urging travelers to "exercise increased caution" due to the threat of violent crime, including terrorism, kidnapping and other criminal activity. U.S. officials also warned that in certain areas they may have limited ability to assist travelers in emergencies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Violent crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery are widespread," the advisory notes. "There is also a risk of terrorist violence, including potential attacks." Americans In Vacation Hot Spot May See More Military Than Margaritas This Summer The alert comes as Mexico continues to attract millions of international travelers. Read On The Fox News App According to RoadGenius, in 2024, Mexico received approximately 45.04 million international tourists, including about 13.5 million visitors from the United States, making it the top international destination for U.S. travelers. Popular hot spots include Cancun, Tulum, Cabo San Lucas, and Mexico City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite the heightened warning, one expert emphasized that Americans dont necessarily need to cancel their trips. Robert McDonald, a retired supervisory Secret Service agent and a lecturer in criminal justice at the University of New Haven, told Fox News Digital the advisory should be viewed as a reminder rather than a deterrent. "It's really a lot of situational awareness, a lot of common sense," McDonald said. "If you can avoid traveling into a hot zone, do so. Otherwise, just be smart about your surroundings." American Tourists In Popular Vacation Spot Face Increased Risk Of Being Killed, Robbed Tourists swim at Medano Beach in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, on Saturday, June 24, 2023. With more than 20 years in executive protection and intelligence, McDonald has coordinated security for U.S. and foreign dignitaries. He said that while most resorts are generally safe, venturing off-property is where risks increase. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McDonald explained that resorts and cruise lines work hard to maintain reputations for safety, often downplaying incidents to reassure guests. While most tourist hubs remain stable, travelers who leave resort areas may face exposure to cartel activity, gang violence, robbery, or drink tampering. "Stay on the resort. Enjoy whats on the property. Dont go off thats where problems can occur," McDonald said. McDonald also highlighted how resorts and cruise ships alike are motivated to maintain a reputation for safety, even if that means underplaying incidents, adding that guests can still have safe and enjoyable vacations by being cautious and limiting exposure to risky situations. Americans Tourists Warned Of Increased Threat In Summer Vacation Hotspot Aerial panoramic view of Cancun city hotel zone in Mexico. "Resorts dont want problems advertised because it hurts business, but dangers exist once you step off," he explained. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to McDonald, safety largely depends on where youre going. "Tourist-friendly areas haven't seen a significant spike in violent crime," McDonald noted. "But you should avoid areas dominated by drug cartels or where violence is common." For those still planning trips, McDonald recommends the following precautions: Avoid street taxis: There have been reports of extortion involving unregulated taxis. Instead, book transportation in advance through reputable companies offering vetted services. Us Renews Travel Advisory To Popular Destination Amid 'Terrorism Fears': 'Exercise Increased Caution' Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stay on resort grounds: Resorts typically provide 24-hour security. If you plan to leave the property, avoid going out alone or after dark. Stay vigilant: Avoid distractions like using your phone while walking, and keep an eye on your drink when out socializing. Dress modestly: Avoid wearing flashy or expensive jewelry that could draw unwanted attention. Communicate safety: Check in with people back home and travel with trusted groups. Be prepared for emergencies: Always know exit strategies and how to "get off the X" (escape dangerous situations quickly). McDonald stressed that these tips apply not only to Mexican resorts but to any crowded environment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Travelers must be vigilant. Whether at a resort, a ball game, or any crowded venue, its important to always identify exit routes and have a plan to get off the X if danger arises, since law enforcement often arrives only after the fact," McDonald said. Ultimately, he advised travelers to balance enjoyment with preparation. "Enjoy the trip, but dont let your guard down safety relies on awareness, preparation, and smart choices," McDonald said. "A little bit of preparation, knowing where the consulate, police, or hospital are located can make a big difference. So plan ahead, and always be ready to remove yourself quickly from unsafe situations." Original article source: US warns American travelers about terrorism, crime, kidnapping in popular vacation destination The U.S. Navy announced in a memo earlier this month that it will not rename a ship named after a famous American civil rights leader and Navy veteran amid lawmakers concerns about a potential change. In an Aug. 1 memo addressed to Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Calif., Navy Secretary John Phelan confirmed that the Navy had no plans to rename the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship Cesar Chavez. The names of all future vessels and pre-commissioning units in the ship building pipeline will reflect the Commander-in-Chiefs and SECDEFs priorities, our Nations history and the warrior ethos, the memo read. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The memo comes after Liccardo and Rep. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., sent a letter co-signed by 22 of their congressional colleagues to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on July 15 expressing their concern over the potential renaming of the vessel. The lawmakers argued that doing so would waste federal resources and lead to the wasteful politicizing of the Defense Department. When the Navy named a ship after Cesar Chavez, it recognized that service to our country isnt limited to the battlefieldit includes a lifelong fight for justice at home, Liccardo said in a press release at the time. Renaming the USNS Chavez dishonors his legacy of service, social justice, and leadership. Hegseth orders renaming of ship named for gay rights icon Harvey Milk Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Navy launched the Cesar Chavez on May 5, 2012, and the ship now serves in the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Cesar Chavez served in the Navy from 1946 to 1948 and was an American farm worker and labor leader who co-founded the United States Farm Workers Union, advocating for farmworkers rights. Liccardo said he viewed the memo from Phelan as a win for the Latino community and for veterans, according to an Aug. 15 press release. But he voiced concerns over Phelans mention of the warrior ethos. I welcome a response from Secretary Hegseth on why Bay Area hero and civil rights icon Harvey Milks legacy wont be preserved under the same criteria, Liccardo said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hegseth announced earlier this summer that the Navy had officially changed the name of a fleet replenishment oiler previously named after LGBTQ rights icon and Navy veteran Harvey Milk. In a video posted on X announcing the oilers new name the Oscar V. Peterson Hegseth criticized the Biden administration for engaging in political activism. We are taking the politics out of ship naming, Hegseth said in the video. CHICAGO The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a $100,000 reward for information on two people believed to be responsible for a string of mail thefts on the citys Near West Side. The USPIS announced Thursday that it was now offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of two people who they believe are responsible for several mail theft incidents in the West Loop and Fulton Market. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officials did not provide details on when the incidents occurred, but said they all unfolded at residential buildings. Inspectors say the first individual is believed to be a Black male in his 30s, with a stocky build and dreadlocks, who is also believed to stand between 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-10. Photos provided by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service show a person believed to be involved in a string of mail thefts on the Near West Side. Photo provided by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service shows a person believed to be involved in a string of mail thefts on the Near West Side. Photo provided by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service shows a person believed to be involved in a string of mail thefts on the Near West Side. A photo provided by USPIS of the individual sought shows him with a white N95 mask and a head wrap, though it is unclear if those same items were worn during each incident. Inspectors say the first individual is known to accompany another Black male who also has a stocky build and is believed to be in his late 20s and stands about 57 tall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Postal inspectors warn anyone who sees the individuals described to avoid confrontation and instead call authorities. Anyone with information regarding the individuals is asked to contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455. When connected, say law enforcement and reference case number 4315597. USPIS says all information provided to investigators will remain confidential. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. AUSTIN (KXAN) A campus safety advocacy group warns that while move-in chaos is enough on its own, students in West Campus should stay alert. Students, their parents and anyone who lives or works in the campus community always needs to be situationally aware, said Joell McNew, president of SafeHorns. McNew said there have been assaults in the area and urged students to report suspicious behavior immediately. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its important that if you see criminal activity happening, you need to make the call to 911. Dont assume someone else has already made that call, she said. Students can also download the LiveSafe app to report crime. If they dont feel comfortable walking home alone, a West Campus ambassador can escort them. SafeHorns also publishes a list of habitual offenders in West Campus. This is just a glimpse for awareness of the repeat offenders in our area. It provides the mugshot, the types of crimes, the arrests, McNew said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. In a huge victory for water protection, Tampa Bay Water has been awarded more than $21 million after a yearslong legal fight against PFAS manufacturers 3M and DuPont. As reported by the Tampa Bay Times, the settlement is part of a nationwide class-action agreement totaling nearly $13 billion. Tampa Bay Water's early decision to join the lawsuit in 2019 ultimately boosted its eventual payout by a large sum. "Tampa Bay Water on its face didn't have any major problems, but they were forward-thinking enough and gave us the authority to file the suit," said Augie J. Ribeiro, CEO and managing attorney for Ventura Law, which represented Tampa Bay Water. "Sometimes utilities and cities get criticized for not taking action. Here, they took action, and we were ahead of the curve." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tampa Bay Water is the largest wholesale supplier in Florida, serving 2.6 million residents across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties. Harry Cohen, a Hillsborough County commissioner and chairperson of the county utility board, said the money will be put toward a filtration system to help protect residents from PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," in the water. "Beyond that, to have this money available to us for other water quality improvement and safety projects is just an added bonus," Cohen said. "However our board decides to utilize this money, it will be transformative." PFAS are man-made compounds found in everyday products like nonstick cookware, waterproof fabrics, and firefighting foam. They do not break down in the environment, building up in water supplies for decades or longer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Once in the human body, they can accumulate in the blood and organs, meaning even small, repeated exposures from drinking water can add up over a lifetime. These toxins have been linked to serious health effects, including cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease, immune system suppression, and developmental harm in children. The Tampa Bay Times cited a University of Florida study that found forever chemicals in nearly two dozen Florida counties' water systems at levels exceeding the new federal limit. Even when there are restrictions in place, enforcement is what keeps companies honest. "This agreement will benefit public water systems nationwide that provide drinking water to a vast majority of Americans," a spokesperson for 3M wrote in a statement, per the Tampa Bay Times. "3M announced at the end of 2022 that it would conclude all PFAS manufacturing by the end of 2025." This settlement proves that when communities stand their ground, even the most powerful corporations can be held accountable. It is also a win for the environment and for families who deserve clean water for generations yet to come. 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. A highway blaze turned 40,000 pounds of ribeyes into an impromptu roadside barbecue. Unfortunately they are all a total loss, the Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District wrote online of the steaks that went up in flames on a tractor-trailer in Doolittle, Missouri, on Monday. No one was injured in the incident, which was more-than-memorable for probationary firefighter Jenna Ulrich, according to the department. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nothing says welcome to the fire service like sending the probie to put out 40,000 pounds of flaming ribeye! it wrote on Facebook. Ulrich is the only vegan on our department so naturally, her very first fire involved a tractor-trailer carrying 40,000 pounds of ribeye steak, it added, alongside a series of cow emojis. An investigation into the cause of the blaze continues. Related... Read the original on HuffPost Desert tortoise burrows dot Cindy Bernards property in Indian Cove, a sprawling residential neighborhood just outside Joshua Tree National Park. Some are so well known by local humans that they have names. Theres Big Boy, a hefty male who likes to roam. And Squiggles, a female who leaves wavy tracks in the sand. But when consultants hired by developers seeking to build a luxury eco-resort next to Bernards 40 acres conducted a field survey, they said they found no members of the species which is listed as endangered by the state of California. And the city of Twentynine Palms, where the land is located, concluded the project did not require a full environmental impact report under California law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The same noise and light issues that might disrupt our ability to see the night sky or enjoy the quiet will also affect the wildlife here," Bernard said on a recent afternoon as she pointed out a crescent-shaped hole in the ground from which she saw a tortoise emerge just days before. "We're not against this project. We're against it here." The proposed Ofland Twentynine Palms hotel is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and community group Indian Cove Neighbors, which Bernard co-founded. The groups allege Twentynine Palms failed to adequately assess and mitigate potential environmental harms including traffic, water, air quality and wildlife impacts. They note that the 152-acre project site an undeveloped swath of creosote scrub about a half-mile from the national park boundary may support at least 10 plant and 17 animal species that are either listed as threatened or endangered or recognized as species of concern, including loggerhead shrikes, golden eagles, burrowing owls and, of course, desert tortoises such as Big Boy and Squiggles. Read more: 'Gitmo' in the Mojave: How the Marines are saving endangered desert tortoises Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The project is also slated for the center of a wildlife corridor that enables bobcats, badgers and dozens of other species to move between the national park and large tracts of undeveloped land, yet documents approved by the city contain only a cursory analysis of the potential impacts on wildlife movement, states the lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Bernardino County Superior Court. The lawsuit requests the court to direct Twentynine Palms to rescind its approval of the project. Youre placing a luxury glamping resort right in the middle of a residential area so there are going to be impacts on peoples lives and on the species that are coming through, said Meredith Stevenson, staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. But the city just completely overlooked so many impacts and then found they werent significant because they weren't even disclosed or assessed. Stone James, the city manager of Twentynine Palms who is also an Indian Cove resident, declined to comment on the lawsuit. But he passionately defended the project, saying it will provide much-needed jobs and revenue to an area where many struggle to eat. (The area has 15.6% poverty rate compared with 12% in the state as a whole, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2023 American Community Survey.) James said that state environmental laws intended to help communities evaluate project impacts are now at times weaponized to crush development. And he called complaints that the city should have required an environmental impact report a ruse, saying the project simply did not meet the requirements established by the state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We have a project thats consistent with the core identity of our community, a conservation-based project that would allow people to come in[to] our community in a respectful manner and enjoy the beauty of Twentynine Palms, enjoy the beauty of the national park, visit the artists and people who are starting businesses in our downtown, and we're going to say no to that? he said. There are many levels to this but whats so disheartening is to see the few wealthy elite say, We got ours. We dont want anyone else to have something here. Bernard pushed back on that assertion, pointing out that many members of Indian Cove Neighbors are on fixed incomes. There are no wealthy elites in the Morongo Basin, she said, referring to the high desert region that includes Twentynine Palms and other towns near the national park. The project calls for 100 small cabins, two lodges, multiple pools, a stargazing area and an outdoor movie screen, plus a wastewater treatment plant that will process more than 13,000 gallons a day. It would be the largest development undertaken by Las Vegas-based Ofland Hotels, which in 2021 opened an outdoor boutique hotel in Escalante, Utah, and has been greenlighted for a second hotel near the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Read more: After five years of closure, 'glamping' back again in Yosemite National Park Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Luke Searcy, head of development for Ofland Hotels, the company was drawn to Twentynine Palms by its "natural beauty" and "unique culture." The hotel buildings will be single-story to protect views and located at least 500 feet from neighboring properties to mitigate noise, he said in an email. The hotel also plans on obtaining a Dark Sky International Lodging Approval Certificate, which is above and beyond city light-pollution standards, he noted. The company estimates that groundbreaking will take place in early 2027, Searcy said. It plans to build the hotel on 42 acres at the center of the site, with the remaining 110 acres set aside as open space. Still, the Center for Biological Diversity notes that open space will contain roads and the wastewater treatment plant, which could subject wildlife to pollution and increase the risk of getting hit by vehicles. The city last month approved the project, adopting whats known as a mitigated negative declaration. California environmental law allows the shorter, less detailed document to be used for projects when initial studies identify environmental impacts but changes to the plans can reduce those impacts to an acceptable level, Stevenson said. But if substantial evidence supports a fair argument that a project may result in significant impacts, a full environmental impact report must be prepared, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stevenson argues that in the case of the Ofland project, the mitigated negative declaration did not provide enough information to understand the project impacts, and the city overlooked evidence that such impacts may be significant. For instance, Stevenson said, the mitigated negative declaration states the project will add nearly 900 vehicle trips a day but did not take into account traffic from employees or vendors that will service an on-site restaurant. The city did not commission a vehicle-miles-traveled analysis, even though Caltrans recommended that it do so, she said. And although the California Department of Fish and Wildlife identified numerous deficiencies in plans to mitigate impacts on plants and wildlife, the city said it would adopt only some of those recommended changes, she said. Read more: California approves an unprecedented plan to protect Joshua trees from climate change threats Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The lawsuit also alleges that, by approving the project and in the process, rezoning the land from residential to "tourist-commercial" and "open-space conservation," the city violated state housing law. The move technically reduced the potential for new housing units on the land by 61. And California housing law prohibits cities from taking any action that reduces the legal limit of new housing within their borders. In other words, according to the suit, Twentynine Palms should have found a way to add 61 more potential units elsewhere within city limits, Stevenson said. Neighbors also said the move to redesignate the land amounted to allowing developers, rather than residents, to drive the zoning process. Local bakery owner Travis Poston said his Indian Cove home has provided a much-needed respite from the stress of running a small business. He fears that the approval of a commercial project in the residential area will set a precedent that could mark the start of a larger development push. "If this goes in, whats next?" he said. "The whole area is on the chopping block at this point." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A JD Vance vacation has once again landed the vice president in hot water after it came to light that he engaged in illegal fishing during a recent trip to the United Kingdom, The Guardian reported. Despite U.K. law requiring that all people over the age of 13 possess a rod license when fishing, Vance did not have such a permit when he went fishing on the private estate of David Lammy, England's foreign secretary. While Vance did not catch a fish, he said, "All my kids did," The Guardian reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since they all are under age 13, Vance's children did not require fishing licenses. In response, the Foreign Office acknowledged what it called an "administrative oversight," saying that Lammy had purchased the appropriate licenses after the fact, per The Guardian. Lammy wrote to the Environment Office to acknowledge the situation, thanking it for its work protecting the nation's fisheries, according to a spokesperson, The Guardian reported. This was not the first time that a Vance vacation has stirred controversy over the U.S. vice president's apparent disregard for environmental considerations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For a celebration of his 41st birthday, the Army Corps of Engineers changed the water outflows from Caesar Creek Lake in Ohio to create "ideal kayaking conditions" for the veep and his family. Vance's actions have highlighted the disregard that the wealthy and powerful show for the rights of others to enjoy a healthy, safe, clean environment. According to Oxfam, billionaires generate more heat-trapping pollution in just 90 minutes than the average person does in their lifetime. Do you think a majority of Americans will have EVs in 20 years? Absolutely Only in some states No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Though Vance is not a billionaire himself, he does have at least one prominent billionaire benefactor and has largely behaved as if he were one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the U.K., Vance and his family stayed in the exclusive Cotswolds area, known as "the Hamptons of the U.K." While there, Vance rented a home that costs $10,000 per week, according to The Hill. This is not the sort of expense that someone living on a $235,100 salary ($4,521 per week) would typically be able to afford. That is the amount that taxpayers pay Vance to serve as vice president. Such a lavish trip is also far out of reach for the vast majority of Vance's constituents. In the first quarter, the median wage for U.S. workers was $1,194 per week, almost $9,000 shy of Vance's extravagant vacation lodgings. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The owners of the home Vance rented have since issued an apology to their neighbors for the "circus" the visit caused, The Guardian reported. 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. ATLANTA (WJBF) U.S. Vice President JD Vance spent Thursday in Atlanta highlighting President Trumps Working Families Tax Cut, a key piece of legislation he says is designed to protect American jobs and provide relief for working families. Vance, joined by Second Lady Usha Vance and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, was welcomed at the airport by Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones. The Vice President toured a refrigeration manufacturing plant in Peachtree City, where he emphasized keeping jobs in the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youre building it here, if youre making it here, if youre producing it here, we are going to give you a big fat tax cut, Vance told workers. But if you ship our Great American jobs and factories overseas, then you are going to pay a big fat tariff before you bring that back into the United States. Vance said the administrations goal is to ensure that Georgia taxpayers are protected, not punished. He noted that the tax plan eliminates taxes on overtime and tips, expands the child tax credit, and delivers what he called the biggest tax cut for families this country has ever seen. In addition to his plant visit, Vance also spoke to Republican National Committee members at a private event, as GOP leaders set their sights on Georgias 2026 Senate race against incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, Second Lady Usha Vance participated in a separate Atlanta event promoting a summer reading challenge for children. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF. WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Vietnam has significantly expanded island-building work in areas it claims in the Spratly Islands chain of the disputed South China Sea and will match and likely surpass the scale of such activity there by China, a U.S. think tank reported on Friday. Recent satellite imagery showed that since the start of this year, Vietnam has expanded island-building to eight features previously untouched by a round of reclamation that began in 2021, the report from Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies said. The report from CSIS's Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said the imagery showed Vietnam has undertaken dredging and landfill work at Alison Reef, Collins Reef, East Reef, Landsdowne Reef and Petley Reefs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The work meant that all 21 Vietnamese-occupied rocks and low-tide elevations in the Spratly Islands chain have now been expanded to include artificial land, when four years ago a majority hosted only isolated pillbox structures. The report said new expansion had also begun at three features that already hosted medium-sized artificial islands created in earlier rounds of dredging: Amboyna Cay, Grierson Reef, and West Reef. "As of March 2025, Vietnam had created about 70% as much artificial land in the Spratlys as China had," it said. "Reclamation at these eight new features all but ensures that Vietnam will match - and likely surpass - the scale of Beijing's island-building." China claims almost the entire South China Sea, despite overlapping claims by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Beijing has conducted extensive island-building work there opposed by the United States and its allies and partners. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The CSIS report said the images showed infrastructure, including munitions storage containers, was beginning to appear on Vietnamese claimed reefs where dredging work was approaching completion, such as Barque Canada Reef, Discovery Great Reef, Ladd Reef, Namyit Island, Pearson Reef, Sand Cay, and Tennent Reef. It said the location of new structures and munitions depots seemed to preclude the possibility of full-length runways on some of the longer features and said a runway at Barque Canada was likely the only one being constructed to join Vietnams sole existing airstrip at Spratly Island.China and Vietnam's Washington embassies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the CSIS report. In February, China said it opposes Vietnam's construction activities on Barque Canada Reef, saying it was Chinese territory. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled that China's South China Sea claims were not supported by international law, a decision Beijing rejects. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Daniel Wallis) ST. LOUIS A powerful reunion more than five decades in the making is happening in St. Louis. Two Vietnam War helicopter pilots who havent seen each other since one saved the others life in combat have reunited. The veterans, Ed Sloan and Clinton Cain, told FOX 2 the reunion isnt just about remembering Vietnamits also about celebrating second chances and the bond of brothers who never gave up on each other. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is the first time I have seen him in 54 years, Sloan said. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News In 1971, pilot Sloan risked his life to save fellow aviator Cain. Clinton was known by his brothers in arms as Candy Cane after he was shot during a mission. For decades, Sloan never knew if the man he pulled to safety had even survived. They were waiting for me; they came out and took the wounded pilot up. That was the last time I saw him, Sloan said. As we were flying to the hospital, I looked back and he had not moved on the floor. Now, 54 years later, that uncertainty turned into a reunion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Missouris sick leave law gets repealed next week Heres what changes Ed called me three years ago and told me who he was and I said, Im sorry, I dont remember you, and (Sloan) said, Im the one who saved you, Cain explained. Cain arrived late Wednesday night at the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Reunion in downtown St. Louisthe convention that brings veterans from across the country together. On Thursday, the two men met face-to-face for the first time since the battlefield bound them together. He said, Ed doesnt remember a thing; he said I was in pain, Sloan said. I dont even remember being in the helicopter; you are telling me everything I missed. He told me he got shot; the pain was so bad he passed out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cain also shared with FOX 2 his last memory of Ed during the military. About the most I saw of Ed was the back of his helmet because I was lying down in back of the aircraft, Cain said. I was just lying in the back waiting for a ride home. I had 13 days left on my tour when I finally got hit bad. Im glad he pulled me out that day. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. KANSAS CITY, Mo. One year after Tammy DeHaans son was shot and killed at the BP gas station at the corner of Linwood Boulevard and Indiana Avenue, she says she still cant believe it. In all my life, I never thought I would lose my son to pumping gas, she said, standing in front of the same station. I can tell you that grief for the loss of a child, no matter how old he is. Its an excruciating, painful grief. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement KC man sentenced on federal gun charge from Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting Court records say that Lorenzo Johnson attempted to steal DeHaans car on August 24, 2024. When DeHaan tried to fight back, Johnson shot him, then ran over DeHaans body. Returning to the place where it happened brings back difficult memories for Tammy. I feel him. I see him everywhere, but its hard to see where he died. Its hard to see the man that shot him. Its very difficult, she said. Shortly after, an ambulance passed the vigil, sirens blaring and lights flashing. That kills me. I still get goose bumps every time I hear sirens, Tammy said as she shuddered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It brings back a lot of bad memories. As friends and family joined to remember Michael, Tammy offered a few words of remembrance before a balloon release ended the vigil. Michelle Norris with Coreys Network says that the day is an un-iversary instead of an anniversary. Its important that we always recognize these dates because if we dont recognize these dates, its almost like our loved one has been forgotten, Norris said. So its important for each individual when that anniversary comes around, to be able to recognize that loss and to recognize the love that is still there. Tammy now works with Coreys Network and says that it keeps her going. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bullet landed feet away from Andy Reid after crashing through Chiefs facility I didnt think I could live without Mike, and now Im helping other people because of him. Even after his death, she says that shes proud of the impact that Michael made in his community. I got tons of letters when he passed away, a lot of them that I didnt even know, she said. But Ill tell you, the day I left that celebration of life, I was never more proud of my son. Johnsons trial date is set for December 15. He faces 8 total charges from that night, including second-degree murder. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Richmond International Airport is among 18 airports across Virginia slated to receive federal funding for infrastructure upgrades under the FAAs Airport Improvement Program. (Photo courtesy of Richmond International Airport) Virginia is set to receive more than $48 million in federal funding to upgrade infrastructure at 18 airports, part of a nationwide effort to modernize air travel hubs and boost local economies. The money, awarded through the U.S. Department of Transportations Federal Aviation Administration, will fund construction projects ranging from runway rehabilitation to new hangars and improved lighting. The funding is made possible in part by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These investments will help ensure that our airports are a safe, reliable engine of connectivity and economic growth for travelers and communities around the commonwealth, said U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a joint statement. Were going to keep doing all that we can to bring additional infrastructure investments to Virginia, and to reauthorize the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that makes many of them possible. The largest awards include $7.2 million for new lighting and a taxiway shift at Winchester Regional Airport, $6.8 million to reconstruct taxiways at Washington Dulles International Airport, and $5.2 million to rehabilitate the runway at Virginia Highlands Airport. Other major projects include $4.9 million for runway rehabilitation at Leesburg Executive Airport and $4.7 million to improve the general aviation apron at Newport News-Williamsburg Airport. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Additional funding will support taxiway shifts at Blue Ridge Airport, new hangar construction and runway extensions at Twin County Airport, and a runway extension at Richmond Executive/Chesterfield County Airport. Norfolk International Airport will see $1.6 million to reconstruct a terminal entrance road, while Accomack County Airport will receive $1.4 million for a new taxiway and lighting. Smaller projects include hangar development at Mountain Empire, Danville Regional, Emporia-Greensville, and Tazewell County airports; a fuel farm expansion at Hampton Roads Executive Airport; apron improvements at Richmond International Airport; a taxiway update at Suffolk Executive Airport; and rehabilitation work at Front Royal-Warren County Airport. The announcement follows a string of federal awards directed to Virginia airports over the past year. Just last month, Warner and Kaine announced more than $21 million for improvements at 10 airports, including runway rehabilitation in Roanoke and updated lighting systems in Southwest Virginia. In October 2024, they rolled out nearly $57 million in federal funding for revitalization efforts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The pace of investment reflects a broader push to modernize Virginias aviation system, which includes more than 60 public-use airports ranging from major commercial hubs to small general aviation fields. Federal officials and state lawmakers alike have noted that many facilities particularly in rural areas require extensive upgrades to meet safety standards and accommodate future growth. Airports are more than transit points; they are economic engines. A recent Virginia Department of Aviation study found that the states airport system supports more than 146,000 jobs and generates over $23 billion in economic activity annually. Improvements to infrastructure are expected to help sustain that impact, particularly as the state competes for tourism, business development, and federal contracts tied to military and defense sectors. Politically, the investments highlight the dividends of the infrastructure law, a landmark $1.2 trillion piece of legislation passed with backing from Warner and Kaine. The law has funded not only airport upgrades, but also broadband expansion, highway projects, and public transit improvements across Virginia. The senators have made a point of underscoring those returns as Congress debates reauthorization. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Warner and Kaine, both members of key Senate committees, have also framed these airport investments as part of a broader commitment to ensuring rural regions dont get left behind. While Dulles and Richmond International draw the most passenger traffic, small and regional airports often provide critical services for medevac flights, business travel, and military operations. For Virginia travelers, most of the changes wont be immediately visible, but the improvements are designed to set up airports for long-term growth. As Kaine and Warner put it, These investments will help ensure that our airports are a safe, reliable engine of connectivity and economic growth. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Example photo of a gas compressor project, similar to what Virginia Natural Gas has proposed near a Chesapeake neighborhood. (Photo courtesy Virginia Natural Gas) The State Corporation Commission is taking extra time to sift through public feedback before deciding whether Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) can move forward with a $90 million compressor station planned near a historically Black neighborhood in Chesapeake. The project is designed to prevent pressure drops in gas lines during periods of peak demand, typically on the coldest winter days. The proposed two-story, warehouse-style facility would use an electric motor to push additional gas into service areas farther from the pipelines. No new pipelines would be required, and the facility would sit on existing VNG property on Bainbridge Boulevard and South Military Highway. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We continue to add 1000s of customers each year across our footprint. That means more demand, more gas being drawn off of the system. We have to make sure that we have the appropriate infrastructure in place to keep it reliable, said Ken Yagelski, the companys gas supply director. At a mid-August SCC hearing, residents and advocates raised concerns about expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, the risk of pipeline leaks, and the rezoning of nearby residential land for industrial use. That rezoning, which drew particular frustration, required two separate Chesapeake City Council votes to pass. They are trying to put this project next to homes of a Black community and a poor community, and this is a region that is already vulnerable to climate change, said Zander Pellegrino, Virginia field manager for Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Residents are concerned about what their future holds and locking us into more fossil fuel production cannot be the solution right now. The property has long been within Virginia Natural Gass fenceline, used for more than 60 years despite being zoned residential. Company officials argue that relocating the compressor could require building new pipelines, which neighbors also oppose. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was a property we were already utilizing. I think theyre concerned about the prospects of an industrial facility thats in the region and again. A lot of that angst, I think, might be a little bit misplaced, because of their misunderstanding of what the facility is, Yagelski said. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which has been heavily involved in the community, argued the project would primarily benefit corporate customers seeking guaranteed supply. Smurfit Westrock, a paper manufacturer, is listed in the SCC filing as requesting higher volumes of gas. Pellegrino said it is unfair for residents to shoulder the cost of infrastructure built for large industrial users. VNG says the facility will have no emissions since the motor is electric and does not burn gas. The compressor is expected to operate only about 20 days a year. But residents noted at the hearing that the sites existing propane plant and flare are slated for retirement in 2026 and they dont want new industrial activity replacing it. Its not just about the total threshold that this project adds. Its about the cumulative impact that this community is facing, Pellegrino said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The SCC will compile a report on the public comments. VNG will have two weeks to respond before regulators issue a final decision on whether the project can proceed. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Vivian Ayers Allen, a Pulitzer-nominated poet who foreshadowed the country's journeys into space and was mother to Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad, has died, the family announced on Allen's social media. She was 102. "Mommie you have transformed into that cosmic bird Hawk that lives and breathes Freedom," said the message, posted Wednesday. "We will follow your trail of golden dust and continue to climb higher. We promise 'to be true ... be beautiful ... be Free.' Read more: How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Debbie Allen Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was signed with much love literally five "loves" and dozens of red hearts by "Norman, Debbie, Lish, Tex, Hugh, Vivi, Thump, Condola, Billy, Oliver, Gel, Tracey, Carmen, Shiloh, Aviah, Eillie, Gia, and all the Turks in our family." A carousel's worth of family photos was shared, set to Stevie Wonder's song "Golden Lady." The family celebrated Ayers' 102nd birthday just over three weeks ago, at the end of July. The festivities, attended by four generations of family, included a jazz concert put together by Andrew "Tex" Allen Jr., a jazz musician and the eldest of Ayers' four children with dentist Andrew Allen. Ayers and Allen, who died in 1984, got divorced in 1954 after nine years of marriage that also yielded children Debbie, Hugh and Phylicia. All but Hugh would go into the performing arts. Debbie Allen, 75, spoke about her mother in 2018 at an event honoring the "Grey's Anatomy" star and her sister, Rashad, 77. We grew up with not a lot of money. We grew up with racial segregation. We grew up not being able to go to ballet class or downtown to a restaurant or to a movie, Allen said. And so my mother, Vivian Ayers, always made us believe that we were part of a universe that welcomed us and wanted our creativity and was waiting for us to do something good. And so weve been doing that forever. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read more: Ariana DeBose mourns 'warrior queen' mother, Gina, who died of ovarian cancer Ayers told Rashad that acting made her one of the "magic" people. I said, What do you mean, Mama? the star of "The Cosby Show" told The Times in 2015. She said, You create so much out of nothing. Born in 1923 in Chester, S.C., Ayers graduated in 1939 from the Brainerd Institute high school, established in 1866 for the children of freed slaves in her hometown. It was the final year the school was in operation. She then went on to study at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, N.C., and Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., eventually getting an honorary doctorate from the latter of the two HBCUs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ayers flourished at a time ripe with talent. Spice of Dawns," her 1952 book of poetry, earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1953, the year Ernest Hemingway won the fiction prize for "The Old Man and the Sea" and William Inge won the drama prize for "Picnic." Archibald MacLeish won the poetry award that year, one of his three Pulitzers, while two North Carolina weekly newspapers brought home the public service journalism prize for their campaign against the Ku Klux Klan, which resulted in the arrests of more than 100 Klansmen. Read more: Danielle Spencer, former child actor who played Dee on 1970s sitcom 'What's Happening!!,' dies at 60 "Hawk," a book-length poem set in a century in the future, was self-published by Ayers in 1957 and linked the freedom of flight with the possibility of space travel. It foreshadowed what was to come: 11 weeks later, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth. Clemson University officially published "Hawk" in 2023. NASA in 2024 celebrated Ayers' work she had been an editor and typist at the space agency as it dedicated the Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of Apollo, some of whom were immortalized in the movie "Hidden Figures." Rashad read "Hawk" at the July 19 ceremony, which honored all the women who worked, unheralded, to make the Apollo mission to the moon possible. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ayers worked as a librarian at Rice University and in 1965 became the school's first full-time Black faculty member. While there, she started the Adept Quarterly literary magazine in 1971. She was a playwright, with works including "Bow Boly" and "The Marriage Ceremony." She nurtured the artistic talents of her children and did it for other children through Workshops in Open Fields, a program teaching literacy through the arts that Ayers founded in Houston and later brought to Brainerd Institute. She also founded a museum, the Adept New American Folk Center, focusing on arts of the American Southwest. Dont wait for them to ask for something, just playfully take them into something they have never thought about and charm them into taking the disciplines," Ayers told the Rock Hill Herald in 2018 about teaching children. "You have to do that. It takes a little urging when they are young to make them stay with the disciplines. They will bless you forever." Ayers moved with her children to Mexico for a time, where they learned Spanish and she studied Greek literature and the Mayan culture. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rashad recalled her childhood in a conversation with The Times in 2012. Read more: In pensive tribute after Malcolm-Jamal Warner's death, his mother says it 'was his time' "There were a lot of books, and artists frequented our home. And as children we were privy to great intellectual and artistic debates," she said. "My mother included us in everything that she did, and I mean everything. I remember as a child collating pages for her second book. It was wonderful." Ayers was there for dancer-actor Debbie Allen as well. "My mother took the handrail off the staircase and put it on the wall in what should have been the dining room to create a ballet studio for Debbie to study with a dance instructor privately when she could not be admitted to the best schools that were on the other side of town in Houston," Rashad explained. "And eventually Debbie was admitted to the Houston Ballet Foundation, but that was because of the private training she received in our home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "My mother would do things like that. ... She was always teaching us." Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A weekly selection of opinions and analyses from the Arab media around the world. The new elite in Egypt Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt, August 14 Until the early 1990s, the upper echelon of Egyptian society largely emerged from the public school system. Ministers, doctors, engineers, diplomats, and countless other professionals began their journeys in village and small-town schools before moving on to public universities. Today, however, the equation has shifted dramatically. Although precise studies and accurate statistics remain scarce, it is clear that graduates of private institutions especially international schools have risen to form Egypts new elite. The mere mention of such a school on a resume can tip the balance in a young persons favor, providing them with a decisive edge over their peers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Many jobs now demand proficiency in a foreign language, a requirement that leaves the majority of public school graduates even those with advanced degrees from public universities shut out from these opportunities. English, in particular, has become the gatekeeper of opportunity. If ones English reflects the colloquial version taught in government schools, career prospects are stunted, no matter the strength of ones university credentials. Conversely, fluency in polished English opens doors that remain closed to the majority. This phenomenon is not unique to Egypt. Across the globe, private schools have entrenched themselves in education systems. Roughly 17% of primary school students worldwide are enrolled in private schools, a figure that climbs to 26% at the secondary level. An illustrative image of private school students. (credit: SHUTTERSTOCK) Yet in Britain, the percentages tell a different story. As Alastair Campbell, former communications director under prime minister Tony Blair, recently noted, 93% of Britons attend state schools. Still, the 7% who receive private schooling disproportionately dominate positions of power across government, the judiciary, the media, finance, and beyond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Even though most ministers in the current Labour government hail from state schools, this does not automatically signal that Britain has achieved true meritocracy, or that social mobility ensures that anyone with talent, determination, and resilience can climb to the top. Campbell argues that private education confers an enduring advantage, positioning its graduates to occupy senior government offices and claim the lions share of societys wealthiest and most prestigious roles. The so-called 7% club continues to wield vast political, cultural, and economic influence. Workplaces, by extension, favor private school graduates. While public school and university alumni strive to adapt, they often encounter a professional environment that feels alien, marked by subtle cues of exclusion. Accents, dress, hobbies, dining habits, and even conversational styles set them apart, reinforcing a sense of division between the world they come from and the world they now inhabit. Is this not precisely what we see in Egypt today? Increasingly, workplaces operate in English, even when serving a consumer base that is overwhelmingly Arabic-speaking. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sectors ranging from real estate to telecommunications, banking, and even hospitality package themselves as extensions of international firms, though their foundations remain deeply Egyptian. The cultural and social norms of these environments diverge sharply from those of the communities surrounding them. If Egypt is to achieve genuine social mobility, the graduates of its public schools those scattered across its countless towns and villages must be granted real access to elite positions. It should never be enough for someone to simply wave the credential of a private or foreign school as a passport to privilege. Equity demands more. The path to true mobility begins when opportunity is earned, not through background or accent but through merit, commitment, and ability. Abdullah Abdul Salam Where did Iran's Arab masses disappear to? Asharq al-Awsat, London, August 15 A grave-like silence hangs over the Arab public, untouched by the seismic events shaking the region. No demonstrations, no protests, no sit-ins can be found across Arab capitals an unprecedented absence, perhaps for the first time in seven decades or more. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Iran, meanwhile, has endured devastating blows. Its military setbacks and the damage to its nuclear infrastructure are immense, representing the loss of billions of dollars and countless lives, and years of labor. Beyond its ballistic and nuclear ambitions, Tehran has also seen the erosion of its vast network of influence a popular movement painstakingly cultivated across the Arab world from Iraq toMorocco. When theLebanese government made the audacious decision to confiscate Hezbollahs weapons, the reaction amounted to little more than a few dozen motorcycles roaming the streets of Beirut in protest. So where are the millions once summoned by the partys leader or by Tehran itself? The collapse of Iranian influence across the Arab sphere echoes the unraveling of Nasserism after the crushing defeat of 1967. Stripped of its ability to ignite the street, Nassers regime fell back on choreographed displays pressing Socialist Party loyalists and labor unions into filling venues after spontaneous, fervent crowds that had once surged into public squares in response to the magnetic pull of radio broadcasts dwindled away. What remained was a collective sense of shock and despair in a region that had long pinned its hopes on the liberation of Palestine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Iran, too, once commanded a similar popular reach. It defied attempts to ban its ideas, molding generations of Arabs through ideology and outreach. Tehran embraced Sunni extremists including al-Qaeda figures despite their anti-Shiite dogma, and threw support behind Sunni opposition movements challenging their regimes. It forged organic ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, held semiannual conferences for Arab nationalists and Communists, and invested heavily in cultivating intellectuals and artists. Poems, books, and speeches extolling the virtues of the imams regime poured forth, while Tehrans reach extended across Shiite, Sunni, and Christian circles, drawing in voices from the Gulf, Egypt, the Levant, North Africa, Sudan, Yemen, and Western Arab diasporas. Many Arab media outlets echoed Khameneis messaging. Somehow, Tehran managed to reconcile contradictions that seemed irreconcilable. In Tripoli, a city marked by historic tension with the Shiites of Beirut, Sunni factions remained loyal to Tehran since the 1980s. In Jordan, elements of the Muslim Brotherhood pledged allegiance to Tehrans leadership. Publications appeared across the region defending its policies, while conferences in the Gulf celebrated sectarian rapprochement under historical banners. Yet none of this was undertaken in the name of God or to genuinely heal sectarian rifts; it was always part of a calculated political project aimed at domination. For decades, Tehran orchestrated both elite circles and street movements across Arab cities, mobilizing protests not only against regimes but against films, novels, and peace negotiations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But since the wars following the October 7, 2023 attacks, that once-unshakable dynamism has evaporated. The reasons are clear: People turn away from the defeated, and the agencies that fueled these movements have seen their lines of communication severed and their resources dry up. The Arab street venerates victors and abandons them when they fall, only to embrace the next rising force. Irans followers have been stunned by repeated defeats, just as Nassers admirers were traumatized by the failures of the 1960s. Today, the central challenge is whether Tehran can retain even its Shiite base, which has borne the greatest burden and remains in shock. Sooner or later, Lebanons Shiites will confront a painful realization: They are victims of Hezbollah and Iran, not beneficiaries. For four decades, they have carried the weight of this alliance, suffering economic collapse, the destruction of their neighborhoods, and punitive sanctions targeting their livelihoods and remittances from Africa, Latin America, and North America. What they have endured is not the empowerment of a community, but the crushing cost of serving as Tehrans front line. Abdulrahman Al-Rashed Bombing civilians without a clear strategy Al-Ittihad, UAE, August 15 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On August 8, while commenting on the deaths of civilians in Gaza caused by Israeli airstrikes, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sought to justify the attacks by invoking the Allied firebombing of Dresden in February 1945. His remarks, provocative as they are, raise a broader issue worth examining: the long and deeply contested history of aerial bombardment against civilians. The use of air power against noncombatants dates back to World War I, when German Zeppelins dropped bombs on British cities. Though casualties were relatively limited compared to the slaughter inflicted by artillery on the European front lines, the psychological impact was immense, signaling a new era of warfare. In the interwar period, air raids were deployed in colonial campaigns across the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, the most notorious case was the German bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Though only a few hundred people were killed, the attack targeted a market day and became immortalized through Pablo Picassos iconic mural, which conveyed the horror of modern mechanized destruction. The Sino-Japanese War which erupted that same year marked an even more brutal expansion of this tactic. Japanese forces unleashed devastating air raids on Chinese cities, killing tens of thousands in Chongqing and contributing to mass civilian deaths in Nanjing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement World War II cemented the role of air power in civilian carnage, with estimates of one to one and a half million people killed across multiple fronts. The German bombing of Warsaw in 1939, the flattening of Rotterdam, and the Blitz against Britain in 1940 foreshadowed the sheer scale of devastation yet to come. As the war intensified, the Allies responded with massive bombing campaigns across Germany, creating firestorms that consumed cities such as Hamburg, Kassel, and Dresden, while others Cologne, Berlin, Hanover, Stuttgart, and Magdeburg were left in ruins. In the Pacific theater, American raids on Japan culminated in the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, which incinerated more than 100,000 civilians, and later in the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The use of air power against civilians did not end with World War II. In Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands perished in bombing campaigns, and the region suffered the ecological and human toll of Agent Orange, a chemical weapon aimed at destroying crops and forests. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In later decades, wars in the Middle East and South Asia saw comparatively fewer deaths from airstrikes, yet the protracted bombing campaigns in Gaza have triggered some of the fiercest debates in recent memory. The ubiquity of raw, daily video footage images of families digging through rubble, children starved and displaced, and entire neighborhoods flattened has amplified global accusations that Israel is committing war crimes, even genocide. This moral quandary is not new. At the end of World War II, the destruction of Dresden was criticized by British officials, church leaders, and ordinary citizens alike, though it was not classified as a war crime, largely because the revelation of Nazi atrocities overshadowed such debates. Likewise, the moral reckoning over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was muted by the widespread belief that the atomic bombs spared millions of lives by forcing Japans surrender and avoiding a ground invasion. Today, Gaza presents its own moral labyrinth. While Hamas bears responsibility for embedding its operations among civilians, Israel faces mounting criticism for what increasingly appears to be a war without a clear exit strategy. The grim lesson of history is that aerial bombardment of civilians invariably raises doubts about both morality and strategy, doubts that reverberate long after the bombs have fallen. Geoffrey Kemp Hezbollah's weapons never intended to safeguard Lebanon An-Nahar, Lebanon, August 15 The Islamic Republic says one thing and its opposite when it comes to Lebanon. Before Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, arrived in Beirut, Iranian officials including Larijani himself dismissed outright the Lebanese governments stance on Hezbollahs weapons. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even proclaimed that the Lebanese government would fail in any attempt to disarm the party. Yet as Larijanis visit approached, the rhetoric shifted. Suddenly, Iranian officials were speaking of Irans support for the Lebanese people, not merely for Hezbollah. This change in tone appears to have been one of the conditions set by the Lebanese side to grant Larijani meetings with President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who insisted during a cabinet session on fixing a deadline by years end for dismantling Hezbollahs arsenal. The president raised no objection, underscoring that the Lebanese authorities have but one option: to adopt a definitive position on the illegal weapons of a party that is Lebanese in name only. The difference between mounting a hostile campaign against the Lebanese government and claiming to support the Lebanese people is stark. Those who defend Hezbollahs arms are, in truth, standing against the Lebanese themselves, given the devastation those weapons extensions of Irans arsenal have inflicted on the nation, including on its Shiite citizens. Hezbollahs weapons have never been intended to safeguard Lebanon; their purpose has always been to transform it into a state orbiting within Tehrans sphere of influence. Larijani could not maintain even a veneer of moderation. At a press conference following his meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, he reverted to reiterating Irans opposition to any timetable for Hezbollahs disarmament in essence, resisting the dismantling of the Islamic Republics weapons stationed throughout Lebanon. He urged the Lebanese to preserve the resistance, ignoring that the primary cause of Lebanons misery is precisely this so-called resistance, which has impoverished the south and dragged the entire country into becoming little more than a battleground for Irans messages to Israel, and previously for the exchanges between the Assad regimes in Syria and Israel. There is a reality in Lebanon that Iranian officials like Larijani refuse to acknowledge: The resistance was never more than an Iranian instrument, advancing Tehrans agenda under the guise of Lebanese struggle. Iran seized on the US-led war in Iraq in 2003 to push its expansionist project further across the region. What, after all, explains the assassination of Rafik Hariri and his companions, and the long chain of killings that followed including the assassination of Lokman Slim if not Irans determination to dominate Lebanon and suffocate any effort to revive its national life, especially in Beirut? Who can forget Hezbollahs paralyzing sit-in in downtown Beirut, or the bloody events of May 7, 2008? Nor is there any need to revisit in detail the 2006 summer war, which preceded Hezbollahs incursion into Beirut and Mount Lebanon. That conflict, with its devastating aftermath, exposed the depth of collusion between Iran and Israel, culminating years later in the election of Michel Aoun as president in 2016 and, before the close of his term, in the maritime border demarcation agreement with Israel that served Israeli interests. Iran acts solely for its own benefit. Every Lebanese child knows this. Every Lebanese child understands that the Islamic Republic has done nothing but dismantle Lebanon and displace its people. Iran has no allies in Lebanon only tools it wields in the hope of striking a grand bargain with its Great Satan, the US, to cement its regional dominance. Larijani came to Beirut after first stopping in Baghdad, where he signed a security pact with Iraq aimed at salvaging what remains of Irans expansionist vision. At this moment, the Islamic Republic seeks nothing more than to prove it still has leverage in the region, Lebanon included. To that end, Larijani falls back on tired, hollow language that glorifies the resistance while deliberately ignoring the calamities it has unleashed, including the Gaza Support War. That war devastated Lebanese villages, most of them Shiite, and drove their people into displacement. It effectively reimposed the Israeli occupation, and Hezbollahs insistence on clinging to its weapons now stands as the surest guarantee of its indefinite continuation. Larijani has no shortage of rhetoric and advice for the Lebanese, but he offers no answers to the obvious questions: Why did Hezbollah open a front in southern Lebanon? Who will bear the cost of the partys crushing defeat? Who will rebuild the villages of the south? Who will return the displaced to their homes? Who will remove the Israeli occupation an occupation Iran itself, through its proxy, has all but restored? Finally, the Iranian envoy, who claims to know the region well, seems to have forgotten Irans own most painful wound: the loss of Syria. Syria matters to Tehran as the indispensable corridor to Lebanon, and thus to Hezbollah. Until Iranian officials confront this new reality that their wars can no longer be waged by proxy militias in Arab lands but must be faced within Iran itself they will continue to repeat the same hollow script, even as the region around them moves on. Khairallah Khairallah Translated by Asaf Zilberfarb/The Media Line. All assertions, opinions, facts, and information presented in these articles are the sole responsibility of their respective authors and not necessarily those of The Media Line, which assumes no responsibility for their content. Donald Trump has a problem with his one, big, beautiful bill: a string of polls shows the public does not like it. Increasingly, voters are siding with Democrats who prefer to refer to Mr Trumps legislation as the big, ugly bill. On Thursday, Mr Trump sent his top attack dog and troubleshooter to the key battleground state of Georgia to try to change that. JD Vance, his vice-president, did not once use the presidents official name for the legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead, he used a moniker that advisers believe will resonate better with voters. If youre building a business right here in the United States, you ought to have a tax code that rewards you instead of punishes you, Mr Vance told his audience in Atlanta. And thats what happened when we passed the Working Families Tax Cut just a couple of months ago. JD Vance speaks to the audience - ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP The new branding is designed to highlight aspects of the bill, such as eliminating taxes on tips, that proved popular with low-paid workers and who helped power Mr Trump to victory last year. And it comes amid frustration from key allies who think Republicans have struggled to sell the legislation passed last month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The scale of the problem was laid out in recent polls by CNN, Fox News, and CBS, which showed the tax cut and spending package was deep underwater with voters. They put its net favourability rating at as low as -19 per cent. Media coverage has focused on provisions that would cut about $1trn from Medicaid the programme which provides free or cheap health care to the poorest Americans and will add about $3.4trn to the federal deficit. It means that Democrats have the upper hand for now on an issue that could define next years midterm elections. Mr Vances visit to Georgia is the latest in what officials say will be a series of events to promote the legislation and improve the headlines. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A memo circulated by the House Republican Partys campaign arm urges members to use the month of August to reframe the conversation by focusing on tax cuts, support for small businesses, and Mr Trumps successful crackdown on illegal immigrants. The playbook is simple: focus on Republicans efforts to improve voters everyday lives and show the contrast with out-of-touch Democrats, it says. Recent polling data from JL Partners sets out the problem and illustrates a possible path forward. Only 36 per cent of voters have a positive view of the bill, according to an online poll of more than 1,000 registered voters, and 59 per cent of respondents said the Medicaid provisions were unfair. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, when asked to name the most positive aspect of the legislation, the most popular answers were tax and taxes. Voters said cuts and Medicaid were the most negative elements. Medicaid cuts feel newer than the tax cuts, and that means theyre getting more attention. The tax provisions are broadly repeats, long-term, renewals of measures introduced in the first Trump term and have already kicked in for many, while the cuts though delayed are easily framed as a loss, said James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners. He said Republicans could still make headway if they shifted the frame to emphasise tax relief for the middle class and small businesses, as well as the hugely popular abolition of tax on tips, and tying it to growth and jobs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What will be really interesting will be where these numbers look after the summer: have Democrats nailed the argument in their home states, or has their campaign been derailed by a focus on Epstein? he asked. It comes not a moment too soon for Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who railed against lacklustre efforts to sell the bill. I havent seen a massive effort to sell the big, beautiful bill and actually what it stands for, he told viewers of his War Room podcast on Wednesday. For instance, we sell the big, beautiful bill here on the supply-side tax cut of it in a more sophisticated way not just the Fox News talking points, in a more sophisticated way with bright people. Bill unsellable Yet Democrats said the bill was unsellable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Senator Jon Ossoff, of Georgia, said the Evans Memorial Hospital had warned it may have to close its intensive care unit because of a looming financial black hole caused by the bill. This is exactly what we warned would happen when they passed a bill that guts Americas health care system, cut taxes for the rich, he told MSNBC ahead of the vice presidents visit. So Vance is being sent on this little errand to come and play defence in Georgia, defending a bill they cant defend, trying to sell the unsellable. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. UPDATE 08-23: In an update Friday afternoon, police said Finley was found safe, canceling the alert. ALEXANDRIA, Va. (DC News Now) Virginia State Police (VSP) has activated a Critically Missing Adult Alert for a man who disappeared in Alexandria early Friday morning. Around 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 22, state police issued the alert for 27-year-old Charles Davon Finley. According to VSP, Finley was last seen walking in the 300 block of Wythe Street just minutes after midnight. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dozens unite at Defend the District rally amid increased federal patrols At the time of his disappearance, Finley was possibly wearing a red shirt and gray sweatpants with black shoes. He was also carrying a gray backpack and a pink handbag. VSP noted that Finleys disappearance poses a credible threat to his health and safety. On Friday morning, the Fairfax County police used its helicopter to assist with the search. In an update just before 2 p.m. on Friday, Alexandria police said Finley was found safe, canceling the Critically Missing Adult Alert. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live. SHREWSBURY, Pa. (WHTM) Walmart just announced that it has officially unveiled a newly remodeled location in York County. abc27 News reported back in April 2025 that Walmart would be remodeling 26 of its stores across Pennsylvania. These remodels were part of an earlier announcement last year when Walmart shared it would invest in the remodel of 650 stores. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Subscribe Now Local Business Beat Months after this announcement, Walmart has officially welcomed customers in its newly transformed Supercenter at 698 Shrewsbury Commons Avenue in York County. Were so excited to offer our community an additional 150 feet of grocery assortment, an expanded Online Pickup & Delivery (OPD) service, and double the amount of associate-manned registers, Renee Lauthers, store manager of the Shrewsbury Walmart Supercenter said. A big thank you to our dedicated associates, and our store leadership teams for their support during the renovation. Today, were also celebrating seven day one associates, who have been the heart of this store since its opening in 1997. During this mornings celebration, Walmart showcased a variety of changes to the store, which include: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Exciting displays that pull customers in and help them touch, feel and become a part of the space Transformed departments, more apparel brands, plus expansion of online pickup and delivery New digital touchpoints located throughout the store help communicate the vast assortment of products and services Walmart offers online through the use of QR codes and digital screens Vision and Pharmacy updates Reconfigured store layout creating more space for customers to explore and discover the breadth and depth of what their local store has to offer Refreshed interior and exterior with new signage for easier navigation through the stores and exterior updates to the parking lot and landscaping Another big change Shrewsbury Walmart customers will see is the stores new mural, which was designed and illustrated by artist Natalia Handoga. In addition to these changes, this Walmart location also now offers a wider assortment of products through online pickup, delivery, express delivery and Walmart Pay. According to Walmart, they also presented more than $14,500 in grants to two local non-profit organizations: Wreaths Across America ($13,521) and Leg Up Farm ($1,000). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This newly remodeled store now joins two other Midstate Walmart locations that also unveiled new updates, including a store at 10180 US Highway 522 South in Mifflin County and 3400 Hartzdale Drive in Camp Hill. This is a developing story. Stay with abc27 News as more information becomes available Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) The Walton County Jail has begun a construction trade class for inmates, according to a post made by the Walton County Sheriffs Office earlier Thursday. The jail says James Mack Bailey of Northwest Florida State College is working with six inmates to teach them valuable hands-on skills, but also about life, second chances, and a better path forward. The inmates are working on providing dog houses to Walton County Animal Services for those who adopt. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The jail says it hopes that from learning tools of the trade, this program will provide a second chance and reduce recidivism by creating pathways that dont lead back to incarceration. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Workers worldwide need better protection from extreme heat as climate change causes more frequent heatwaves that's the conclusion of a new report from the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization. The report says millions of workers are exposed to heat stress, which affects their health, and their performance. It calls for governments, employers, and workers to co-operate to develop adaptation strategies. Although the WHO has warned many times of the health risks of extreme heat, this is its first report since 1969 specifically on heat stress at work. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The WHO's director of environment, climate and health Rudiger Krech says its findings should be a wake-up call. The elderly are also susceptible to the health risks associated with extreme heat, including strokes and kidney failure [Reuters] "It is not just discomfort. It is a real health risk," he told the BBC. "If you're working in heat and your body temperature increases by, over a longer period, over 38C, then you are at risk of severe heat-related stress and stroke, kidney failure, dehydration." Adaptation is needed because heatwaves are no longer rare occurrences. The World Meteorological Organization says the last decade has seen the warmest temperatures on record, with 2024 being the hottest year ever. In parts of Europe, temperatures of 40C (104F) and more are now not unusual. In Africa or the Middle East, they can rise to 50C. Average surface temperatures in the Mediterranean in July were the warmest on record at 26.68C, according to Mercator. This week the UK's Met Office said this summer was on track to be one of the warmest since records began in 1884. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Heatwaves do not just damage health, the WHO warns, they also affect output. The new report shows that for every one degree temperature rise above 20C, productivity falls by 2%. Meanwhile accidents increase. During Europe's heatwave of 2023, Switzerland's national accident insurance fund (Suva) estimated that when temperatures rose over 30C, workplace accidents rose by 7%. The causes, Suva said, included concentration issues as workers' bodies struggled to adapt to extreme heat, and lack of sleep, again caused by the heat. With construction and agricultural workers particularly at risk, some European countries are already looking at how they can adapt to make work safer during heatwaves. Last month, the Italian government signed an emergency decree, after agreeing a protocol with unions and bosses to stop people having to work during the hottest hours of the day. In the Swiss cantons of Geneva and Ticino, construction was paused during the 2023 heatwave, a move welcomed by Switzerland's largest trade union, Unia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Often on building sites they are already behind schedule, so they are really under pressure to keep working," Unia's Nico Lutz told Swiss TV. "That's why we need the building companies to take responsibility, and to say that above a certain temperature it's irresponsible, it's too hot to work, and we all accept that the work just takes a little longer." Workers take a break in Dubai, where temperatures can reach 50C [Reuters] The WHO's report, although it looks specifically at the workplace, also warns that the elderly, the chronically ill, and the young are at particular risk during heatwaves. That means schools as well as workplaces need to adapt. In Germany, schools can declare "Hitzefrei", when temperatures rise above a certain level. In the 1970s, 80s, or 90s, this often meant that, when the thermometer climbed above 30C, the school bell rang twice, and everyone could go home. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But that was when such temperatures were rare. Now 30C is increasingly common, and schools are reluctant to interrupt lessons so frequently. The WHO's Rudiger Krech understands why. "We've seen during Covid that stopping school... our school children are suffering still from it. Just thinking that the easy solution is we stop schooling, that is very often the most expensive on the children." When schools went back in Switzerland last week, temperatures across the country were well over 30C. The advice to teachers: take your classes to the swimming pool. But as Dagmar Rosler, head of the Swiss teachers' association, told Swiss media, "We can't do all our classes in the swimming pool we've got things we need to teach." Ms Rosler, perhaps anticipating the WHO's call for adaptation, called for school buildings, many of which are due for renovation, to include new ventilation systems, and even air conditioning. "I just want people to remember that this is about making sure our children can learn in an environment that is comfortable for them," she said. "And that our teachers can work in conditions that are bearable." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The WHO/WMO report says adaptation needs to be done in consultation with everyone, from governments, to employers and workers, to local councils, and health and education authorities. Rudiger Krech already has one suggestion that might appeal not only to school pupils in the UK, but to cash-strapped schools with little money for renovation. "The school uniforms that you have in the UK, are they adapted to the heat waves? These are questions that we want people to consider." But there is no avoiding the fact that to adapt workplaces, schools, or even hospitals to cope with increased extreme heat will require investment. Many governments, especially in Europe, are refocussing their spending on defence, while climate change adaptation has slipped down the priority list. Mr Krech warns this could be short sighted. "Just to think, I don't have the money for all these changes. Well, think twice. Because if you need to stop producing, if you have your workers with severe health effects because of the extended heat waves, then think about the productivity losses that you have. To just think, I don't have the money, so I'll let it stay as it is, that's perhaps the most expensive solution." EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Nearly 16,000 overweight trucks have crossed the eastbound Washington Bridge this year, according to a weight-monitoring system, but state officials say no violators have harmed the bridge, and state troopers sometimes dispute the systems accuracy. The R.I. Department of Transportation started using a weigh-in-motion system on the eastbound span in January. Since then, the system has reported the crossings of 15,974 vehicles weighing over 96,000 pounds, along with eight vehicles weighing over 140,000. Both weight levels are prohibited under state regulations for the eastbound bridge, which has been carrying two-way traffic since early 2024, after the westbound bridge failed abruptly in December 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Regardless, R.I. State Police Col. Robert Creamer said on-site troopers tasked with watching for overweight trucks, and issuing citations when necessary, have reported the automated system doesnt always get it right. He called it a useful screening tool, but that it does not reflect verified violations. For example, Creamer said nearly 3,000 hits of overweight trucks were reviewed by the troopers on-site, and many of these flagged vehicles would likely not have exceeded 96,000 pounds. In all, 193 trucks have been stopped for inspection, resulting in 49 confirmed overweight citations, he added. We recognize public concern regarding overweight vehicles, and we remain committed to enforcement efforts, Creamer said. The Rhode Island State Police will continue to work closely with RIDOT to ensure the safety of Rhode Islands roadways and bridges. RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin said the department agrees the weigh-in-motion system is a useful screening tool and does not reflect verified violations. St. Martin said the sensors vary in accuracy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The system was never intended to be an enforcement device. The accuracy of the particular devices we are using is appropriate for the use we are putting it to, St. Martin said. The State Police utilizes its own highly accurate scales for verifying weights and determining violations. These are separate efforts. Still, state police arent verifying every time the weight-monitoring system reports on overweight-vehicle crossing. Creamer said his agency has dedicated over 580 enforcement hours on the bridge, but troopers review of 3,000 hits represents less than 20% of the nearly 16,000 vehicles flagged by the automated system. St. Martin added that said visual inspections were performed each time vehicles weighing over 140,000 pounds crossed the bridge, and said that no changes in the condition of the bridge were noted. On-site monitoring also comes with a high cost to taxpayers. RIDOT reports having spent at least $4.1 million on municipal reimbursements and state police details on the bridge, according to the most recent monthly snapshot report provided to lawmakers for July. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And the total is likely more, as no reimbursements requests have been filed with RIDOT since May. RIDOT has budgeted $5 million for municipal reimbursements and state police, according to the report. Weight enforcement is resource-intensive and time-consuming, as trucks must be safely escorted to certified weigh facilities in Providence or East Providence depending on travel direction, Creamer said. Despite these challenges, troopers continue proactive enforcement to deter violations and protect our infrastructure. 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. Anita Baffoni and Eli Sherman contributed to this report. Download the WPRI 12 and Pinpoint Weather 12 apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app. Follow us on social media: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Roundup Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WASHINGTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) Gilberts Mill Road is in a rural, remote area on the edge of Washington County. A developer is proposing a cellular communications tower in that area, to be built on a larger parcel owned by an absentee landowner. A group of residents is opposed to the tower. The developer feels the opposition is unwarranted. The proposal came before Washington County Commissioners during a public hearing on Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Residents told commissioners theyre not looking out for the citizens best interests. You have been elected to protect us. Not a developer, says Jeannette Foran, a local resident. Citizens are afraid the tower will hurt their property values, be a threat to the environment, and affect their health. They said they simply want the commissioners to listen to their concerns and not approve the development. They feel the additional tower is not needed, and more importantly, unwanted. Around 76 individuals have signed a petition against the tower. And I think the commissioners need to remember that everyone that signed my petition is a registered voter. And also that when we vote for those county positions, we vote countywide. We dont just vote for our single district. So people who vote for this tower that are from different districts, theyre sending a message to the people in this district, in this area, and the county that you know, basically well, we listened to you and we heard your arguments and you live there and we dont well, we dont care. Were going to do it anyway, says Matt Costen, a local resident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A final decision on the cell tower will not be made until the meeting on November 20th. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Dozens of Democratic lawmakers in the Washington Legislature have pushed in recent months to reassess how the state Department of Corrections shares information with federal immigration authorities. But Washingtons governor and attorney general, both first-term Democrats, see no need to change current policy. The Keep Washington Working Act, passed in 2019, strictly limits local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. This month, the statute has spawned a war of words between Gov. Bob Ferguson and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi over whether it violates federal law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Department of Corrections remains an exception under the state law. And that doesnt sit well with some Democrats. I dont think that we have done everything in our ability to keep communities safe, said state Rep. Sharlett Mena, D-Tacoma. Certainly, I dont think weve done enough with Department of Corrections information sharing. The state agency can ask for and collect information about inmates immigration status and country of origin to share with embassies, spokesperson Christopher Wright said. Prison staff dont confirm this information. And incarcerated Washingtonians arent required to provide it. The Department of Corrections sends a weekly report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement listing the names of everyone newly admitted to the states prisons, regardless of immigration status. ICE compares those names to its list of people who they believe should be deported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Agents can then share detainer requests with the Department of Corrections, allowing the prison system to let immigration authorities know when people will be released and coordinate transferring custody to ICE. Corrections doesnt hold people beyond their release date so that ICE can pick them up, Wright noted. And the agency doesnt allow agents to interview incarcerated people on their immigration status while in prison, unless the person consents. Despite the information sharing between the department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the number of people federal immigration authorities detain after their release from Washington prisons has been dropping for years, state data shows. Of the 61 prisoners wanted by immigration authorities who have been released this year, ICE has picked up 51 of them, the highest rate in the past decade. In 2024, immigration agents detained 101 of 128 of those leaving prison. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The number of prisoners exiting with ICE detainers has dropped over the past decade from more than 300 in 2015. This mirrors a declining prison population in general, Wright said. The more than 500 prisoners still in custody with ICE detainers have mostly been convicted of violent offenses. More than one-third are serving time for murder convictions, and more than one-quarter are in prison on rape charges, according to state data. ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security didnt provide comment. Why do we do this? In a letter to Ferguson in June, around four dozen state lawmakers, as well as city and county council members from western Washington, called for a second look at the Department of Corrections role under the law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mena, who spearheaded the letter, met with top aides from Fergusons office about the concerns. She said they were receptive to changing prison policy. Shes now figuring out ways the Department of Corrections is sharing information that isnt required by federal law that Ferguson could address through executive action, instead of through new legislation. For example, she says prison staff dont need to ask prisoners about citizenship status. She also wants Corrections to stop volunteering the lists of people newly admitted into prison. I want to have a deeper conversation about, why do we voluntarily share that list, as opposed to letting the Department of Homeland Security specifically request information about certain folks? Mena said. That is truly not required. Thats my biggest question mark is, why do we do this? Some worry changing the law could make it vulnerable to legal challenges. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a February press conference, Ferguson noted advocates concerns about the state prisons continued cooperation with immigration authorities, but said he wouldnt make changes. Fergusons position hasnt changed. Were always happy to have a conversation about anything that the states doing, he said in an interview Thursday. But I think the Legislature in 2019, when they passed the bipartisan Keep Washington Working Act, struck a good balance. They carved out an exception for the Department of Corrections in a thoughtful way and the Department of Corrections is acting in a way thats totally consistent with the Keep Washington Working Act. Similar to Ferguson, state Attorney General Nick Brown said he doesnt see any reason right now to change the law on Corrections information sharing with ICE. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We want to make sure that were continuing to protect people in Washington from people who have committed crimes or have a risk of danger moving forward, he said in an interview this week. Wright, from the Department of Corrections, also said the agency has no intention of changing its policy. Meanwhile, Mena said President Donald Trumps mass deportation agenda has created more urgency around the issue. She has been leading the charge on this in part because of one of her constituents, Ngoc Phan, whose husband had finished a 25-year sentence for murder and assault when ICE detained him. Tuan Thanh Phan was a lawful permanent resident from Vietnam before his conviction. He was in limbo for weeks in the African country of Djibouti as advocates fought in court the Trump administrations move to deport immigrants to so-called third countries. These are places where the deportee has no ties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ferguson denied a pardon request for Phan, to the disappointment of Mena, other lawmakers and advocates. The U.S. Supreme Court in early July cleared the way for the final deportation of Phan and seven others to South Sudan in the headline-grabbing case. This year, lawmakers approved an expedited pardon process for immigrants facing deportation. (The Center Square) After a day of vigorous debates punctuated by occasional applause, both houses of the California Legislature Thursday passed the three bills making up the congressional redistricting plan. Votes were along party lines, with the Democratic supermajorities passing the legislation. The Election Rigging Response Act, which includes a constitutional amendment and a map Republicans strongly oppose, goes to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's expected to sign it quickly. Then it will go on the Nov. 4 ballot in a special election, where voters will ultimately decide whether to redraw districts into ones that Republicans say favor Democrats. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If passed by voters, the measure will undo some of the work of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which voters created when they passed the Voters FIRST Act in 2008 and the related Voters FIRST Act for Congress in 2010. The panel consists of Democrats, Republicans and independents. Democrats have said their goal is to nullify Texas attempt to secure five more Republican seats in advance of the 2026 midterm election in a U.S. House with a razor-thin GOP majority. And Republican legislative leaders speaking to The Center Square agreed the California redistricting could cost five Republican seats, including those in the GOP strongholds in San Diego and Orange counties and along the California-Nevada border. The vulnerable congressmen are Republicans Kevin Kiley, Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert and David Valadao. In the Assembly and Senate, Democrats accused Republican President Donald Trump of an authoritarian power grab. Republicans in both chambers said Democrats were pulling a power grab of their own with a map drawn behind closed doors and revealed in a rushed process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, called the congressional redistricting proposal a proud moment in the chambers history. We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism," Rivas said, speaking from the floor during the session led by a fellow Democrat, Speaker Pro Tem Josh Lowenthal. Also from the floor, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-San Fernando Valley, said Trump understands his policies are unpopular and will cost him the House in 2026. To keep the House, Trump is trying to change the rules in the most undemocratic fashion, Gabriel said. He said Democrats were acting democratically by presenting the congressional redistricting plan to voters on the Nov. 4 ballot. He said ultimately its not Trump or Newsom who will decide the issue. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Let the people vote, Gabriel said. But Assemblymember Daniel Tangipa, a Republican representing Fresno and other nearby counties, criticized Democrats for replacing the work of the independent Citizens Recommissioning Commission, which had dozens of hearings, by a rushed process. Tangipa, who sits on the chambers Elections Committee, said Republicans were told by Democrats to accept their congressional redistricting plan, presented at the 11th hour, on faith. But democracy does not run on faith, Tangipa said. It runs on accountability. Another Republican, Senate Minority Leader James Gallagher, noted the redistricting will shrink California Republicans to a much smaller percentage of the congressional delegation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Republicans would see their percentage of the state's House delegation fall from 17% to approximately 8%. Gallagher said that isn't fighting fire with fire in response to Texas' redistricting. "It seems like a sledgehammer." In the calmer setting of the Senate, Republicans echoed Gallagher and Tangipa's concerns. Democrats created the map without transparency, said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, adding, I cant think of anything more authoritarian than pre-determined elections. But Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, warned about the dangers of unchecked power and accused Trump of trying to disenfranchise voters by pressuring Texas for five more Republican seats, so that he can continue his extreme policies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats why this president and administration is a such a powerful threat to democracy, Cortese said. Hes no longer consolidating power among three branches. Hes disenfranchising and taking away the right to vote. Democratic legislators contended their new map reunites communities and keeps three-quarters of voters in their current congressional districts, but GOP lawmakers pointed to counties and cities being split throughout the state. The Center Square's review of the map confirms that cities and counties would be divided. The annual vigil was different this year. Now a suspect is in custody in connection with the disappearance of Trudy Appleby, who disappeared in 1996. Trudy Appleby (photo submitted) But Trudys memory remains fresh in the hearts and minds of her aunt, uncle, other relatives and the law enforcement officers who so diligently followed her case for so long. Dozens gathered Thursday night at Bass Street Landing, Moline. Thursday marked 29 years since anyone has seen the 11-year-old Moline girl. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our Quad Cities News crew was at the vigil. We will tell you more about it soon. Her family and the rest of the community say they wont rest until her remains are found. Watch Trudys aunt and uncle remember in the video below. A pastor began with prayer: Lord we thank you for just the wonderful weather were having here tonight and the community bond that is visual here tonight. Trudys uncle, Ray Eddleman, says theres a new feeling in the air: With him being charged, now we know somebody is going to be held responsible. Were going to have a positive vibe, instead of the negativity that has been shadowing over this case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moline Police Chief Darren Gault and Detective Mike Griffin, who investigated the case for years, say the communitys involvement helped them get this far in the investigation. It is our sincere hope that all of you truly know how much of an impact you had on this case, Griffin said. We hope that you feel last weeks small victory in the arrest of Jamison Fisher, just as much as we do. Its very humbling to see all these people, Eddleman said. People that I dont even know reaching out to me and wanting to tell me that theyre praying for me and thinking of me and my family. My sister and my mother started the vigils to honor and remember Trudy and pray for her to come home, he said. If my mom and my sister could see how big this is getting, and all the attention that the case is getting, thats what we want we want the attention on the case. Indictment of a person of Interest Jamison Fisher, 50, of Davenport faces three first-degree murder charges and a charge of concealment of a homicidal death. He is in custody in Scott County Jail, and faces unrelated charges in another case. Jamison Fisher (Scott County Jail) Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. (The Center Square) A recent adverse audit of the Illinois Department of Human Services is the worst audit seen by the cochairman of the Legislative Audit Commission. An official from the Illinois Auditor General explained the adverse findings during a commission hearing Friday for the most recent two-year audit of the agency. This means that while we obtained sufficient, appropriate audit evidence, the misstatements individually or in the aggregate were both material and pervasive to the subject matter, the official said. To such an extent, we expressed an adverse opinion pursuant to the codification of statements on standards for attestation engagements. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, is the co-chair of the Legislative Audit Commission. This is quite frankly one of the worst audits I've ever seen, Rose said. And it's so bad you don't even know where to start. But let's start with the taxpayers, and then we'll conclude with the human beings whose lives are caught up in this. There were 33 total findings in 2021 and 32 in 2023. Of those, 25 were repeated with seven being new. State Rep. Charlie Meier, R-Okawville, called for the audit. He said constituents dealing with DHS are being left behind and the audits show the agency is keeping poor records. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So when I asked earlier about how many are in jail, that's where these residents end up at because they're not a one on one in the [Community Integrated Living Arrangements] when they're supposed to be, Meier said. You're standing here taking a major amount of the state taxpayers dollars. And it's like they're playing a board game of monopoly, moving these people around instead of getting them the services they need. Rose said he understands employees of facilities where some youth are being treated are dealing with individuals who maybe have some of the worst afflictions known to man and could be difficult to deal with through no fault of their own. But thats why we have policies and procedures, and we got to follow those policies and procedures," Rose said. Otherwise, imagine being that human being, cannot communicate verbally, struck in a restraint for hours with no ability to say they got to go to the bathroom. Thats just flat out wrong. And by the way, this one has gone on for decades. But now let's get to something that is even, quite frankly, more important than the $700 million we're potentially going to lose. And that's these human lives, this restraint stuff, Rose said. It's just stunning. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One of the audit findings was the population of patient restraints being issued couldnt be substantiated, nor could the number of employees qualified to order restraints, a finding repeated since 2017. Rose also noted the states handling of federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds. Agency officials said they are working on corrective action plans to address repeated audit findings. The 2025 Tall Ships Festival brought in dozens of visitors, and our very own Sean Lafferty was able to capture all of the action. Watch Lafferty as he was live from the top of the Bayfront Sheraton parking lot, perched high above the action, and spoke with Tall Ships volunteer Dutch Noll. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (The Center Square) Its 52 days into the states new year and lawmakers still dont know how much taxpayer money they will spend to keep government running. Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed $50 billion in February, including a nearly $300 million boost for public transit. The latter is a sticking point between the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate. Like the governor, House leaders want to divert a portion of sales tax revenue to support transit services, like the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. After years of a pandemic-induced slump and high-profile crimes, SEPTA has resorted to fare increases and service cuts to make the best of a roughly $250 million budget deficit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Senate majority isnt against more money for SEPTA and other transit agencies. They just want to use the $2.4 billion Pennsylvania Transportation Trust Fund to pay for it. Democrats say it's reserved for maintenance upgrades, not operational shortfalls. Shapiro said this week its time for both sides to make tough choices to reach and agreement. Pumped storage hydropower could be coming to Maine. In July, Western Maine Energy Storage filed for a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a proposed development near the Central Maine Power transmission corridor. The project would be mostly in Dixfield, with a small portion in Canton, in Oxford County. The FERC permit, which will secure the site for further studies including economic and environmental feasibility, is the first step in a permitting process that will take years. Western Maine Energy Storage was established by the Pittsfield-based Cianbro Corporation in May 2024 to spearhead the water battery, shorthand for the two-reservoir system that involves pumping and storing water to meet the grids energy needs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A primary goal of the project is to boost resilience by putting power onto the grid at times when other renewable resources, like wind and solar, arent generating electricity. A prime example of this is during evening hours after the sun has set, when energy demand, also known as the load curve, tends to peak. We all do appreciate the renewables on the grid, but they can't always supply the energy electricity that we need. So a project of this nature will help stabilize that supply, said Lauren Walsh, Cianbros corporate environmental manager. The proposed 500 megawatt project would be the states first and only the fourth such energy development in New England. Two pumped storage hydropower plants have operated in Western Massachusetts for decades, and Connecticut has a smaller facility thats been in operation since the late 1920s. There are a handful of such projects around the country, according to FERC data. How does pumped storage hydropower work? In order to function, pumped storage hydropower relies on differences in elevation in order for water to flow between two artificial reservoirs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oxford Countys topography makes the chosen location a match for the proposed development. Western Maine Energy Storage plans to build an upper and lower reservoir, each at 100 acres in size. The two reservoirs will be connected by a pipe. A powerhouse sitting just above the lower reservoir will generate electricity whenever water flows down from the upper reservoir and passes through a turbine. That electricity can then be passed onto the grid. When power is relatively cheap, you pump water up, and then when it gets really expensive, or there's a lack of juice in the system, you flow it back down, said Tom Brennan, director of public affairs with Western Maine Energy Storage. The project is meant to make the grid more resilient by storing energy generated from renewables and releasing it when the "load curve" (i.e. the amount of energy demanded by consumers) spikes, as it does in the evening and on very hot or very cold days. Rendering by Western Maine Energy Storage. Initially, the two reservoirs will be filled from the Androscoggin River in what Brennan described as a sipping process that will take anywhere from 10 months to a year. After that, both he and Walsh stressed that the site will function as a closed-loop project. Overland runoff and precipitation will make up for water thats lost by evaporation. Currently, the project timeline stretches into the early 2030s. Walsh said the goal is to begin construction in 2031, with the facility coming online in 2033, though thats dependent on how quickly Western Maine Energy Storage can move through the permitting process with FERC. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers will also weigh in on the federal regulatory process, Walsh said. She also said that Maine DEP has already been contacted as they look to work through the environmental processes together. From a grid reliability standpoint, Maine Renewable Energy Associations executive director Eliza Donoghue said she is encouraged about what the project means for the state and addressing the grids ongoing affordability and reliability challenges. MREA is a trade association involved in advocacy at the state legislature and at the Maine Public Utilities Commission. There is no doubt that electricity demand across the country and including on our shared grid in ISO New England territory is going to go up significantly, said Donoghue. Fossil fuels are one part of the affordability problem, as prices fluctuate depending on the global market. Pumped storage hydropower, on the other hand, can help contribute to affordability, Donoghue said. Though she anticipates hard questions from stakeholders as Western Maine Energy Storage continues to engage with communities, she commended the project on its ingenuity in advancing Maines clean energy transition. What I'm hopeful for is that folks can see how reliable this technology is and how it can be a real problem solver, Donoghue said. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) The West Baton Rouge Sheriffs Office identified the body found in a homemade campsite as Thomas Campbell, 57. The preliminary manner of death has been determined to be natural, WBRSO said. Campbells body was found on Wednesday, Aug. 20, after the sheriffs office responded to a dead end of Lobdell Highway in Port Allen. 1 hurt after vehicle shot at on Cedar Point Boulevard in Baton Rouge Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) The Bay County Sheriffs Office Dive Team and Crime Scene Unit found the weapon used in the shooting of a 7-year-old on August 9, 2025. According to a news release, the pink gun was found in Martin Lake earlier Thursday. 32-year-old Bay County resident Sammie Underwood was arrested Saturday, Aug. 9, for allegedly shooting his ex-girlfriends 7-year-old son. The Bay County Sheriffs Office said that Underwood became upset with his ex-girlfriend, believing another man had been in the vehicle with her. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Underwood allegedly became more irritated, resulting in the ex-girlfriend getting in her car and leaving the area with her children. BCSO said that Underwood began following her and attempted to run her off the road. He allegedly fired multiple rounds into the air while chasing them. As they approached 15th Street and Sherman Ave, Underwood allegedly drove beside her vehicle and shot again, striking the child in the back. BCSO: Man arrested for allegedly shooting ex-girlfriends 7-year-old son The Bay County Sheriffs Office was joined by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, Florida State University-Panama City Dive Team, and Panama City Fire dive teams. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. When software developer Rose Njeri created a pro-democracy tool to help Kenyans object to a contested finance bill, she was thrown in jail and targeted by an online smear campaign. Njeri is the latest victim of a sophisticated online apparatus that targets and harasses government critics in Kenya, where rights groups warn of an escalating crackdown on public dissent. "I got to sleep in a cell for four days," the 35-year-old told AFP. "I was just making tools that aligned with my beliefs." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The east African country has seen a wave of deadly protests against President William Ruto and police brutality that have left dozens dead and thousands of businesses destroyed. Although Njeri's arrest in May sparked outrage, prompting a wave of solidarity under the hashtag #FreeRoseNjeri on X, she also became the subject of foreign-agent conspiracies. Around the same time, two human rights campaigners, including Kenya's Boniface Mwangi -- a long-standing critic of Ruto -- were detained in Tanzania, where they were attending the treason trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu. Kenyan journalist and human rights activist Boniface Mwangi (R) at a press conference on June 2, following his detention in Tanzania TONY KARUMBA AFP TONY KARUMBA / AFP Held incommunicado for several days before being dumped at the border, both activists alleged torture and sexual assault by security forces. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who, before Mwangi's release, spoke of "ill-mannered activists" interfering in the country's affairs, seemingly received praise online, with the hashtag #AsanteSamia (#ThankyouSamia) amassing roughly 1.5 million views. Some of these posts falsely claimed that Njeri had trained in "ethical hacking" in Estonia and linked her to a Russian cyber-operations group. Others alleged Mwangi had been re-abducted and falsely reported that videos of his assault had leaked. Another hashtag, #DogsOfWar, accused the deported activists of being part of a "digitally coordinated, foreign-funded disruption" financed by American philanthropist George Soros. These were two of seven hashtags identified by AFP's fact-checking team ahead of deadly protests in June 2025, when coordinated online disinformation campaigns targeting activists surged on X. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Such campaigns manipulate hashtags to manufacture the illusion of widespread public sentiment. "There is evidence of coordinated amplification due to the multiple posts being published at the same time or within seconds of each other," Moffin Njoroge, data analyst and disinformation expert at Code for Africa, told AFP. 'Automated behaviour' Dissidents initially held the upper hand on social media during Kenya's landmark 2024 anti-tax protests, which culminated in parliament being breached on June 25 and resulted in the deaths of dozens during clashes with police. But they now face growing opposition online. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In April, following the BBC documentary Blood Parliament, which exposed police brutality during last year's protests, the hashtags #BBCForChaos and #ToxicActivists garnered 5.3 million and 365,000 estimated views. Posts framed activists, including Mwangi, as "paid puppets" pushing "donor-funded anarchy". Right before the anniversary of the June 25, 2024, protests, the hashtags #PaidActivism, #CommercialActivismKE and #ShunFakeActivismKE recycled claims that activists were exploiting the youth-led movement "for cameras and grants". Njoroge noted "automated behaviour", with some accounts posting "over 100 posts under a hashtag in a day". Online campaigns against activists manipulate hashtags to create the impression of widespread public sentiment SEBASTIEN BOZON AFP SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP For instance, the accounts @essy_2128 and @tonymkenya7 posted 226 and 140 posts respectively under #AsanteSamia, while the account @darsil254 published 104 times with #ShunFakeActivismKE. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to Njoroge, some of the "patient zero" accounts for these narratives have a history of pushing "pro-government hashtags". One such account, @MurimiJeff_, which started #ToxicActivists, previously published hashtags such as #BoldRuto backing the Finance Bill 2025. Past Kenyan disinformation campaigns have relied on fake graphics with false quotes, altered newspaper covers and fabricated articles attributed to local media outlets. Now, AI-generated propaganda videos and doctored news bulletins are part of the arsenal. For instance, #DogsOfwar contained a fake video of CNN's Fareed Zakaria commenting on the "foreign-funded" activists deported from Tanzania, while #AsanteSamia pushed a clip mimicking a major Kenyan media outlet's anchor reporting on Mwangi's alleged re-abduction. 'Authoritarian playbook' Drawing parallels from his past research on Kenyan state-sponsored disinformation, Alphonce Shiundu, Africa Check's Kenya editor, believes these campaigns are state-affiliated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "You just have to look at the political rhetoric, the statements by senior government officials and the online chatter. There's always a confluence," Shiundu told AFP. True to this, the digital offensive coincided with government warnings against "coup attempts", the filing of terror charges against protesters and a proposed bill requiring mandatory social media user ID verification. Authorities also allocated a $1.15 million spyware budget to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to boost social media surveillance. Irungu Houghton, Amnesty International Kenya executive director, described these tactics as the "oldest game in the authoritarian playbook". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Disinformation is designed to discredit human rights defenders and deflect the concerns they raise. Characterising activists as 'paid' erodes their authenticity and calling them 'anarchists' frames them as destructive," Houghton told AFP. For Shiundu, the "paid" narrative is a "low-hanging trope". "The tactic here is to create a bogeyman as being behind the organic campaigns for accountable and transparent governance. It becomes easier to attack activists as threats to national interest and blunt the high-handed government response to legitimate protests," he said. 'I do not feel free' Shiundu noted that tracking disinformation networks has become "harder and more expensive" due to platform changes and the defunding of fact-checking and media literacy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement With elections approaching, Njoroge anticipates more "pro-government campaigns targeting opposition politicians and activists". Mwangi has previously defended activism as a "holy calling done out of love", dismissing the "paid activist" narrative as "government propaganda". For Njeri, too, the costs are personal. "I have been getting followed by people whom I can only suspect are state operatives. I do not feel free," she said. Still, she soldiers on. "Why is it that they want me silent? What are they so afraid of? Let me continue until Kenya is free from this current tyrannical system," she said. The ''Mexico for Palestine'' march, convened by the Interuniversity and Popular Assembly, began at the Angel of Independence and headed toward the Chamber of Deputies to highlight the violence in Gaza and the West Bank and demand the severance of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel. During the event, clashes broke out between protesters and the police. Cristian Leyva/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa Wes Streeting has walked away from talks with pharmaceutical giants on NHS drug costs amid a stand-off over rebates. The Health Secretary called off negotiations with drugmakers on Friday after weeks of delay, having made what the Government called an unprecedented offer to boost health spending. Industry leaders warned that the breakdown threatens Labours ambitions to make the UK a life sciences leader. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The talks centre on a voluntary pricing scheme agreed between the Government and industry, which sees the state claw back some of the cost of medicines used by the NHS if the bill rises too quickly. The mechanism was set up to make the UKs overall healthcare bill more predictable. However, drug companies have grown frustrated with the scheme after rebates ballooned in the wake of the pandemic. The industry argues that the scheme now effectively represents a tax of 23pc, compared to a single-digit percentage cost prior to the onset of Covid. Talks to reform the scheme have been ongoing for weeks, with neither side willing to make significant compromises. Mr Streeting issued an ultimatum to the industry earlier this week, demanding they either vote on current proposals or end the negotiations. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A government spokesman said: This was an unprecedented offer which would increase net spending on medicines by around 1bn over the next three years with billions more expected over the next decade. It is regrettable that following weeks of delay, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) members are unwilling to take our proposals to a board vote. The Government said the scheme would continue unchanged. The arrangement runs until 2028. Stagnating healthcare investment The decision threatens to further sour relations between the UK and global drug giants, even as Labour targets the sector to boost economic growth. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement An industry source asked: Do they want the UK to be a powerhouse? The breakdown in talks means a perceived decline [in the UK pharmaceuticals industry] will continue, they added. Richard Torbett, chief executive of the ABPI, said: Without change, the UK will continue to fall down international league tables for research, investment, and patient access to medicines. Johan Kahlstrom, UK managing director at Novartis, said: If the UK is serious about becoming a top destination for life sciences by 2035, reform must start today not in 2029. Major healthcare giants have already put investment projects in the UK on hold or cancelled them. GSK shut down a drugs plant in Cumbria in June, while Pfizer closed a facility in Sandwich in 2023 with a loss of 500 jobs. AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot has reportedly discussed shifting its main listing from Britain to the US - Umit Bektas/REUTERS UK-listed AstraZeneca, meanwhile, dropped plans for a 450m investment in Liverpool in January. The FTSE 100 drugs giant is already investing billions of pounds in the US and Sir Pascal Soriot, its chief executive, has reportedly privately discussed shifting its main listing across the Atlantic. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The row comes as Donald Trump pressures drugmakers to charge higher prices abroad to fund lower costs in the US. In letters sent to the bosses of 17 pharmaceutical companies last month, Mr Trump demanded that they negotiate harder with foreign freeloading nations and said that increased revenues abroad must be repatriated to lower drug prices for American patients and taxpayers. A government spokesman said: The interests of patients and the NHS are best served by concluding the review and continuing with the existing voluntary scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth scheme unamended, while continuing to support the UKs world leading life sciences sector through investment, innovation and reform as set out in our Life Sciences Sector Plan and 10 Year Health Plan. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) The West Virginia Pepperoni Roll Trail, which encourages people to visit local bakeries to earn points and prizes, is expanding to include three new locations. According to the Marion County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), the trail will now include stops in Morgantown, Thomas and Lewisburg at Chico Bakery, Mountain Top Convenience and The Humble Tomato. The trail also includes places such as Country Club Bakery, Tomaros and Colasessanos. Chico sales manager Steve Bowen is excited to see new visitors come in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This trail gives visitors the opportunity to experience a true taste of our regions heritage, Bowen said. Were honored to have Julias Pepperoni Rolls featured on the Pepperoni Roll Trail. Drinking this PA beer will now raise money for West Virginia state parks Mountain Top Convenience offers both a grab-and-go pepperoni roll as well as its own PBR, which stands for pepperoni, bacon and cheddar or pickle, bacon, ranch, cheddar. The Humble Tomato also has its own take on the dish with parmesan cheese and a house-made marinara sauce. The WV Pepperoni Roll Trail was created by the Marion County CVB and the Clarksburg Visitors Center. To earn points and prizes, all you have to do is visit the Marion County CVB website and register for you digital passport. You can then check into bakeries on the trail for points and win prizes such as stickers, food bags, a launch tote and the grand prize of a WV Pepperoni Roll Trail Food Cooler filled with West Virginia goodies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A full list of participating locations can also be found on the Marion County CVB website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Drier air continues to move into New Mexico to finish the week. Monsoon moisture will bring back more showers and storms starting this weekend. Its a hotter and drier day for many parts of New Mexico. Farmington heated up to near-record high temperatures today, with above average temperatures across the rest of the state. A few showers and storms are still popping up in western and northern New Mexico. The Albuquerque Metro may also see a spotty shower or storm move through this evening. All storms will end overnight with mild low temperatures. Another round of meager afternoon storms will develop Friday afternoon in western and northern New Mexico with more above average high temperatures. A pattern change is in store this weekend as the monsoon high pressure system thats been sitting over the Four Corners will wrap moisture around into southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Starting Saturday, rain chances will increase across the northern half of the state, bringing rain chances down the I-40 corridor. Theres an even higher chance for rain Sunday as a cold front pushes south out of Colorado. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The chance for rain will expand into western New Mexico as the high pressure system starts moving south across the state. It will move southeast of New Mexico Tuesday. At the same time, a backdoor cold front will move in from the northeast. The cold front combined with an increase in monsoon moisture will bring widespread chances for showers and storms Tuesday through at least next Thursday. Some of this rain will be heavy at times. Temperatures will also be much colder behind the front starting next Wednesday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. When 13-year-old Julian Her returned to school for the first day of class, the Northern California eighth-grader had a thrilling tale to tell about his summer vacation. Her wrote his name into local fishing lore and potentially the record book as he landed a 63.7-pound white sea bass while on a family trip to Tomales Bay, about 30 miles southwest of Santa Rosa, on Aug. 10. I feel like a star, Her, a student at Riverside Meadows Intermediate School in Plumas Lake, said about his myriad interviews with friends and media alike. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The thing thats been cool about catching this fish is so many people come up to you and ask you, Where did you catch this fish? Or they say, Thats an amazing fish. The youngster weighs only about 15 pounds more than his famous catch. His previous best was a 10-pound catfish he snagged in May, according to his father, Rinna Her. I dont know how to describe it at the moment, said Rinna Her, who lives with his wife and three kids in Rio Oso. It was so fun, a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and I think we know that my son, myself or anyone in the party will never catch a fish like that again. The Hers are documenting their trophy fish and attempting to verify its status with the Florida-based International Game Fish Assn. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To verify a record catch, the IGFA asks applicants to document their catch, weigh the fish on certified scales on solid ground and save and submit the tackle. The fish was initially weighed at Bodega Tackle in Petaluma on Aug. 10. The shop is helping the Hers complete documentation and certification. Read more: A rare, giant starfish could hold the key to restoring kelp forests on the California coast If the IGFA accepts the claim, Julians catch would break the previous junior world white sea bass record of 59 pounds, set in 2002. The 63.7-pound haul would also set the junior class record for that fishing line strength. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bodega Tackle manager Angelina Love said white sea bass is a common catch in Tomales Bay. The shop has also seen its share of massive fish, including when store owner Ken Brown hooked a 202.6-pound bluefin tuna in 2022. What made the latest big haul so special, however, is the angler. Theres been a lot of attention, Love said. People have been asking whos the kid who caught the giant sea bass. The temperatures on Aug. 10 hovered in the high 50s to low 60s for the better part of the day, making for ideal fishing weather, Rinna Her said. Father, son and three other visiting family members arrived at 5 a.m., looking to catch area halibut. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sometime around noon, Julians rod, held in the boat by a holder, began to dip. The youngster, who was eating a sandwich, was alerted by his uncle that he had a bite. Read more: A 12-foot-long harbinger of doom washed ashore in San Diego Julian initially struggled to hold on, leading members of the fishing party to believe he was fighting an area bat ray. It wasnt until Julians uncle helped the youngster hold up the rod toward the last half of the fight that they realized it wasnt a ray. Im thinking, I dont know if this is real, I didnt know if it was real, Julian said. Did I really pull that massive sea bass in? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fish was eventually dragged onto the boat, photographed and then taken to be weighed. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The number of whales and dolphins getting stranded on the Scottish coastline has increased at an exponential rate over the last 30 years, a new study warns. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, marks the first time scientists have been able to quantify the scale of the increase in marine strandings around Scotland's coastline. In such events, a marine mammal is usually found dead on a beach, or is alive on land or in shallow water but unable to return to its ocean habitat. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Researchers from the University of Glasgow looked at all marine mammal species seen in Scottish waters, including baleen whales, short-beaked common dolphins, harbour porpoises and pelagic dolphins. They used a 30-year dataset collected by the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) between 1992 and 2022 to examine the distribution and trends in marine mammal strandings. Overall, 5,147 marine mammals were included in the study, having stranded in Scotland between 1992 and 2022. Scientists observed increasing rates across all such species, with some showing steep increases in their strandings. Northern Bottlenose whale swims near Garelochhead, Argyll and Bute (Getty) Common dolphins and baleen whales particularly showed an exponential increase in strandings, suggesting these species are facing unprecedented pressures in Scottish waters, researchers said, warning that the scale and consistency of the rise indicates a genuine cause for concern. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They found that the stranding rates of these two species remained consistently low during the first two decades of the study, but rose sharply from 2010. Researchers also found a disproportionate rise in strandings among juveniles of both species, indicating that younger animals could be particularly vulnerable. Based on these findings, marine experts call for prioritising conservation efforts of common dolphins and baleen whales. By identifying where and when species are most at risk, we can target monitoring and conservation efforts at the critical times and locations needed to best safeguard the health of these ecosystems, said Andrew Brownlow, Director of the SMASS. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the research, harbour porpoises accounted for more than half of all the strandings, followed by pelagic dolphins at 24 per cent, common dolphins (10 per cent), and baleen whales (9 per cent). Trends in annual frequencies of single strandings shown in five species groupings (Scientific Reports (2025) via University of Glasgow) Overall, there were no sex differences spotted in the annual stranding rates, but there were distinct seasonal trends observed for each group. Such events were widespread across Scotland, but strandings of different species were clustered in certain areas. Almost all species strand on the northwest coast, with porpoises predominantly stranding along the east coast around the Inner Moray Firth, the Outer Moray Firth and the Forth and Tay, and the southeast in the Clyde, according to the study. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These animals act as sentinels of the ocean, and rising numbers of strandings may be an early warning that something is changing in the marine environment, Dr Brownlow said. While some of the findings raise important concerns, the study also highlights that different regions face unique threats, each requiring tailored mitigation strategies, he added. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pursuing direct talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin almost since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has always refused. But with a recent push from Donald Trump, the possibility of a meeting is closer than ever. The question now is not only when, but where? The International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Putin for the abduction of Ukrainian children limits the choice of location as he risks arrest in any of the court's 125 member states if he steps foot into their territory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some of them are ready to make an exception though and have promised not to arrest Putin if he comes for a meeting which could put an end to the war against Ukraine. Switzerland is a possible option. The countrys foreign minister said the country would be ready to host Putin for any possible peace talks despite the ICC arrest warrant. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrive for a working session in Paris, 9 December, 2019 - AP Photo Despite its neutral status, Switzerland is a signatory to the Rome Statute that founded the court but Ignazio Cassis said that provided Putin was coming for peace purposes, the country could receive him. "This has to do with our diplomatic role, with international Geneva as (the European) headquarters of the United Nations," Cassis said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly supports the idea of Geneva as a potential location for the talks following a White House meeting with European leaders on Monday. Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker offered his country - also an ICC signatory - as a potential venue, saying Vienna supported any initiative leading to a just and lasting peace that protects Ukrainian and European security interests. "As proud host of (the) OSCE and many other International Organisations we stand ready to offer our good services," he said in a post on X. A country in the Middle East could be a solid compromise location. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In March, Saudi Arabia hosted a US delegation for the talks first with Ukrainian and then with Russian officials. Qatar and the UAE are possible options Euronews' correspondent in Doha, Aadel Haleem, says despite being a relatively small Gulf state, Qatar has a seat at the international table and is frequently called upon to be a go-to mediator in several international conflicts. Those mediation efforts include Russia and Ukraine, specifically when it comes to the return of Ukrainian children, forcefully deported to Russia. Even when it was caught in the crossfire between the US, Iran and Israel in June, where missiles were intercepted in its airspace, Qatar was still relied upon to broker peace and de-escalate tensions. In 2020 Qatar hosted historic talks between US officials and the Taliban, which led to the Doha Agreement and eventually paved the way for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement More recently, Qatar continues to mediate talks between Israel and Hamas, which has led to several temporary ceasefires and delivered humanitarian aid into Gaza. Qatar believes mediation efforts are a core tenet of its foreign policy and a clear indicator of its soft power. Children hold hands as they arrive to board a Kyiv bound train in Kramatorsk, 24 February, 2022 - AP Photo Similar to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates has deliberately shaped its role as a diplomatic broker, a state able to move between rival powers while maintaining credibility with both, says Euronews correspondent in Dubai, Toby Gregory, adding that this strategy has extended directly to Russias war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, Emirati officials helped arrange exchanges that brought home Ukrainian prisoners of war, along with children taken to Russia. It was a reminder that the Emirates can act where others have limited reach. At the same time, Abu Dhabi has preserved its dialogue with Moscow. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this month, President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan travelled to Russia for talks with Vladimir Putin, a meeting that highlighted the trust both sides place in the relationship. The only meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin Since Zelenskyy became president of Ukraine in 2019, his direct communications with Putin have been limited as Russia had already been occupying Ukrainian territory in the east and in Crimea. The two presidents have had only two phone calls and a single face-to-face meeting, all in 2019. Zelenskyy and Putin met for the first and only time in Paris, during a Normandy Format Summit, in the presence of the leaders of Germany and France. French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Paris, Dec. 9, 2019 - AP Photo Behind closed doors, the two reportedly discussed issues that still remain relevant now, albeit on an even bigger scale; a prisoner exchange and ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the spring of 2021, as Russia started massing troops near Ukraine's borders ahead of its full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy offered to meet with Putin "anywhere in Donbas," the eastern region in Ukraine which Russia has been trying to fully occupy and annex for over a decade now. Putin declined, denying that Russia was a part of the conflict and instead invited Zelenskyy to Moscow. The meeting never happened. As Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelenskyy again called for talks. Putin again rejected any dialogue on a presidential level, sending only a low-level delegation for the first attempted negotiations close to the Belarus border. Later, after the revelations of Russian forces' mass atrocities in Bucha - Ukraine's government says 458 civilians were killed - and other settlements around Ukraines capital, Kyiv hardened its stance on communications with the Kremlin. The Kremlin seen on a frosty morning during sunrise in Moscow, 21 January, 2025 - AP Photo Following Donald Trump's return to the White House, Ukraines president renewed his push for direct talks with Moscow, now with the support of the US administration. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In May, Zelenskyy made a surprise announcement that he was willing to meet Putin in Turkiye. Ukraine's president even travelled to Turkiye, but Putin didn't appear, instead sending a low-level delegation again. Actively trying to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow, Donald Trump has insisted that the meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin must take place. But the format remains unclear. One possibility is they will initially be bilateral, between Zelenskyy and Putin, and then include Trump later. That format could allow Trump to maintain his position of peacemaker in the case the meeting doesn't bring any tangible results. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to US media, Trump intends to leave Russia and Ukraine to organise a meeting between their leaders without playing a direct role for the time being, according to administration officials familiar with the situation, taking a step back from the negotiations to end Russias invasion of Ukraine. But Trump reportedly told advisers that he does intend to host a trilateral meeting with the two leaders, but only after they have met first. President Donald Trump raises a fist as he boards Air Force One in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. Credit - Andrew Caballero-ReynoldsAFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump claimed a major court victory on Thursday, after a New York appeals court threw out a multimillion-dollar penalty he was facing. The judgment stemmed from a civil fraud caseone in a long list of legal troubles Trump grappled with in the years and months before he was reelected to a second term. But so far, the President has avoided paying or serving any major penalties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Were having a lot of victories, Trump said on Thursday evening as he visited police and troops outside a Park Police Facility in Washington, D.C. I had a victory today. You know, they stole $550 million from me with a fake case, and it was overturned. They said this was a fake case. Its a terrible thing, but its a nice victory, you know? I mean, its not bad, we all have, we all have our limits. But this was a terrible thing, that it was a witch hunt. And Ive had more witch hunts than any human being, he added. Here are some of the major cases against Trump and where they currently stand. New York fraud case In 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James brought a civil lawsuit against Trump and top executives at his company, the Trump Organization, alleging that they exaggerated his wealth to lenders and insurers in order to get better loan terms. In February 2024, New York Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump had committed fraud. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the time, Engoron ruled that Trump had to pay $355 million in penalties. Before the appeals court ruling on Thursday, that amount exceeded $520 million with interest, including additional penalties that other Trump Organization executives named in the lawsuit, such as Trumps sons Eric and Donald Jr., were facing. Trump and other defendants in the case denied the allegations in the lawsuit. The ruling from the panel of five judges on Thursday came nearly a year after they had heard arguments in the appeal. The judges were still divided on much of what was at stake in the appeal, but a majority of them called the penalties that Engoron had ordered Trump to pay excessive. Still, the judges upheld Engorons ruling that found Trump liable for fraud and backed Engorons other punishments levied against Trump, such as barring Trump from serving in corporate leadership at any New York company for three years, and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. from doing the same for two years. James said in a statement that she would appeal the ruling, which would take the case to New Yorks top court, the Court of Appeals. New York defamation and sexual abuse case In 2019, writer E. Jean Carroll alleged in her memoir that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a New York City department store in the 1990s. Trump denied the allegation, and went on to publicly lambaste Carroll. Carroll filed two civil lawsuits against Trump related to the incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, ordering him to pay her $5 million, though the jury didnt find Trump liable for rape. In January 2024, a jury in the other case directed Trump to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million for defamatory comments he made about her. Trump filed appeals for both cases. In December, a panel of three judges of the appeals court upheld the $5 million judgment against Trump. Trump filed a request for the full appellate court to reconsider, which the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected in June. Trumps appeal regarding the $83.3 million judgment is ongoing. New York hush money case Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in May 2024 when a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 presidential election. The ruling made him the first U.S. President to be convicted of a felony. Trumps conviction could have meant up to four years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines per count, but Trump was spared jail time, probation, and fines as Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan in January sentenced him to unconditional discharge. Merchan explained that it was the only lawful sentence that would not infringe upon Trumps legal protections as President, as the sentencing came just days before Trump was set to take office for his second term. Federal election obstruction case Jack Smith, then-Department of Justice Special Counsel, charged Trump in August 2023 with conspiracy to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat to former President Joe Biden, including his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Prosecutors alleged that Trump promoted election fraud lies to pressure state officials to overturn Bidens win and pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the election results. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges. It was the first indictment against a U.S. President related to acts committed during their presidency, and there was initially uncertainty around whether Trump was therefore immune from prosecution. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in February last year that Trump was not immune, but Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in July 2024 that former Presidents have some immunity for official acts made while in office. In August 2024, Smith filed a superseding indictment against Trump. But Smith moved to drop the charges in November, after Trump won reelection, given that Trump would have immunity from criminal prosecution as a sitting President. In January 2025, Smith released his report that concluded there was sufficient admissible evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction. Trump Administration officials have since opened an investigation into Smith, as Trump and his allies have long accused Smiths prosecutions of being politically motivated. Federal classified docs case Smith also separately charged Trump in June 2023 with illegally mishandling classified documents. Prosecutors alleged that Trump broke the law by taking the classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after leaving office in January 2021, showing off a Pentagon plan of attack and classified map, and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the documents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A federal judge, who had been appointed by Trump, initially dismissed the case in July 2024 on the argument that Smiths appointment to Special Counsel had not been confirmed by Congress. The Department of Justice moved to reopen the case in August, but Smith filed to drop the charges after Trumps reelection. Georgia election interference case Trump, along with 18 others, was indicted in August 2023 for allegedly participating in an alternate electors plot to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat to Biden in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump with 13 counts, including violating state racketeering laws, conspiring to commit forgery, and making false statements. Trump in January 2021 had made a phone call to Georgias Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an attempt to pressure Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes and overturn the states election results. Prosecutors also alleged that Trump and his allies had attempted to illegally access elections equipment. The case stalled last year after it was discovered that Willis was in a relationship with the special prosecutor she appointed to the case. Willis was disqualified from the case in December by a state appeals court, although the court declined to dismiss the case. Willis has appealed her removal to the state Supreme Court, which has yet to decide if it will hear the appeal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In January, a Georgia appeals court upheld a lower courts dismissal of six of the charges, leaving Trump facing 10 counts, although its not clear how criminal prosecutions against Trump will continue during his presidency. Contact us at letters@time.com. NEED TO KNOW Lucy Letby was arrested for the third time in 2020 on suspicion of murdering multiple infants at the hospital where she worked as a neonatal nurse In 2023, she was convicted of killing seven babies and attempting to kill six others Letby began appealing a month after she was found guilty, and a group of medical experts have since cast doubt on her convictions Lucy Letby was labeled one of the most prolific child killers in U.K. history after she was convicted of murdering seven infants while working as a neonatal nurse. Police began investigating after a senior doctor raised alarms over a spike in deaths in her ward. In one case, Dr. Ravi Jayaram testified that he saw Letby stand over an infant with a dislodged breathing tube, watching the babys oxygen levels drop and doing nothing to stop it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He stepped in, but the infant died three days later. Following her 2020 arrest, Letby was accused of murdering seven babies (and attempting to kill 10 others) by giving the infants too much milk, air, insulin or fluid. However, a senior doctor later claimed that she likely killed and assaulted many more. On reflection I think its likely that Letby didnt start becoming a killer in June 2015, or didnt start harming babies in June 2015, consultant pediatrician Stephen Brearey said during a November 2024 public inquiry, per the BBC. I think its likely that her actions prior to then, over a period of time changed what we perceived to be abnormal. She pleaded not guilty to all counts and was convicted in August 2023. The former nurse was ultimately handed 15 life sentences, which she started appealing the following month. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So where is Lucy Letby now? Heres everything to know about the British nurse convicted of killing multiple babies and where her appeal stands. Who is Lucy Letby? Cheshire Constabulary/Getty Lucy Letby Lucy Letby Letby is a former neonatal nurse who worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital in England. She started her job in 2011, and up until January 2015, the deaths in her ward were statistically comparable to other hospitals. Between 2015 and 2016, prosecutor Nick Johnson claimed that there was a significant rise in deaths and serious catastrophic collapses. Consultants later concluded that those deaths were not medically explicable and were the result of the actions of Lucy Letby." After being alerted to the nurses suspicious behavior, the Cheshire Constabulary started investigating the deaths in May 2017. She was arrested three times, once in 2018 and again in 2019, and was remanded in custody in 2020. What did Lucy Letby do? Cheshire Constabulary/Getty Lucy Letby Lucy Letby Letby was accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill 10 more. Seven of the infants died as a result of excess milk, insulin, air or fluid. Some of the children allegedly survived multiple attacks before they died. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The collapses of all 17 children concerned were not 'naturally occurring tragedies,' " Johnson told the jury during Letby's trial in 2022, where she faced a total of 22 charges. "They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant, malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these 17 children." Witnesses testified that they saw Letby overfeed infants, and prosecutors argued that she injected air into some of their stomachs or bloodstreams. One of her surviving victims parents claimed that their child had "irreversible brain damage" and quadriplegia cerebral palsy due to being given excess milk and air. One former co-worker claimed that the former nurse told her off when she tried to assist her with a distressed infant. "I was shocked because you can't have enough help in that situation," Lisa Walker testified, per the BBC. "[I was] quite taken aback and shocked because it's something you would not expect a nurse to say." The prosecution also presented conflicting handwritten notes investigators had found in Letbys home, where she both seems to admit to the murders, writing that she killed them on purpose, and claim her innocence, noting that she hasnt done anything wrong. What was Lucy Letbys sentence? Crown Prosecution Service A note written by Lucy Letby In August 2023, Letby was convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder six others 14 of her 22 counts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The former neonatal nurse was given a total of 15 life sentences by July 2024, following a retrial over one child involved in her case. Will Lucy Letbys case be appealed? Press Association via AP A sketch of Lucy Letby in court A sketch of Lucy Letby in court Letby started seeking permission to file an appeal against her convictions in September 2023, but the Court of Appeal in London rejected the bid in May 2024. The strength of Letbys convictions has continued to be debated. During a February 2025 press conference held by her defense team, a group of top medical experts claimed to have found significant new evidence that the former nurse did not cause harm to any babies in her care. Instead, they claimed that the infants died of natural causes or errors in medical care, The Guardian and BBC reported. That same month, Letby sent an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body that reviews potential miscarriages of justice. Whether or not theyll accept the application remains to be seen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In June 2025, three former senior staff members at Countess of Chester Hospital were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter as part of the Cheshire Constabularys ongoing investigation into the babies deaths. Where is Lucy Letby now? Cheshire Constabulary/Getty Lucy Letby Lucy Letby Letby has been incarcerated at HMP Low Newton in Durham, England, since her conviction in 2023. According to The Guardian, the high-security prison is home to some of Britains most notable criminals, including Joanna Dennehy, the first woman to receive a whole life order at her sentencing. Read the original article on People The White House published a list of exhibitions found at the Smithsonian that they claim defend President Donald Trumps claims that the museum is woke. The list, titled President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian, pointed out 20 exhibits that the administration believes frame historical events through an ideological narrative that demeans the accomplishments of the United States. More from TheWrap Several exhibits included in the report relate to gender expression and LGBTQ+ rights. The White House took issue with the American History Museums LGBTQ+ History exhibit that explores gender expression and drag culture, the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride flag flown at the American History Museum and a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, depicting a transgender Statue of Liberty. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future, Trump wrote in a social media post. This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the HOTTEST Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums. The Trump administration also took objection with several exhibits relating to immigration and Latino rights. One painting in the National Portrait Gallery depicted a family crossing the border. The White House condemned the National Museum of the American Latinos programming of animated Latinos and Latinas with disabilities and diverse sexual orientations, as well as the museums exhibit that framed the Mexican-American War as a North American invasion motivated by pro-slavery leadership. Additionally, the White House listed their grievances about exhibits candidly discussing white privilege, pointing to several art pieces that highlighted white-dominant culture in the United States at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In March, President Trump signed an executive order, which criticized the National Museum of African American History and Cultures portrayal of whiteness. After it drew criticism for claims of wokeness, Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, had the pamphlet removed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just last week, the Trump administration sent a letter to Bunch, saying the Smithsonian had a 120-day deadline to replace whatever Trump deemed divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions. The post The White House Lists Diverse Museum Exhibits as Proof Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian appeared first on TheWrap. While the White Houses fight with elite universities such as Columbia and Harvard has recently dominated the headlines, the feud overshadows the broader and more far-reaching assault on K-12 public education by the Trump administration and many states. The Trump administration has gutted the Department of Education, imperiling efforts to protect students civil rights, and proposed billions in public education cuts for fiscal year 2026. Meanwhile, the administration is diverting billions of taxpayer funds into K-12 private schools. These moves build upon similar efforts by conservative states to rein in public education going back decades. But the consequences of withdrawing from public education could be dire for the U.S. In our 2024 book, How Government Built America, we explore the history of public education, from Horace Manns common school movement in the early 19th century to the GI Bill in the 20th that helped millions of veterans go to college and become homeowners after World War II. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We found that public education has been essential for not only creating an educated workforce but for inculcating the United States fundamental values of liberty, equality, fairness and the common good. In the public good Opponents of public education often refer to public schools as government schools, a pejorative that seems intended to associate public education with big government seemingly at odds with the small government preference of many Americans. But, as we have previously explored, government has always been a significant partner with the private market system in achieving the countrys fundamental political values. Public education has been an important part of that partnership. Education is what economists call a public good, which means it not only benefits students but the country as well. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mann, an education reformer often dubbed the father of the American public school system, argued that universal, publicly funded, nonsectarian public schools would help sustain American political institutions, expand the economy and fend off social disorder. Horace Mann was a pioneer of free public schools and Massachusetts first secretary of education. traveler1116/iStock via Getty Images In researching Manns common schools and other educational history for our book, two lessons stood out to us. One is that the U.S. investment in public education over the past 150 years has created a well-educated workforce that has fueled innovation and unparalleled prosperity. As our book documents, for example, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the states expanded public education to include high school to meet the increasing demand for a more educated citizenry as a result of the Industrial Revolution. And the GI Bill made it possible for returning veterans to earn college degrees or train for vocations, support young families and buy homes, farms or businesses, and it encouraged them to become more engaged citizens, making U.S. democracy more vibrant in the middle of the twentieth century. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The other, equally significant lesson is that the democratic and republican principals that propelled Manns vision of the common school have colored many Americans assumptions about public schooling ever since. Manns goal was a virtuous republican citizenry that is, a citizenry educated in good citizenship, democratic participation and societal well-being. Mann believed there was nothing more important than the proper training of the rising generation, calling it the countrys highest earthly duty. Attacking public education Today, Manns vision and all thats been accomplished by public education is under threat. Trumps second term has supercharged efforts by conservatives over the past 75 years to control what is taught in the public schools and to replace public education with private schools. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most notably, Trump has begun dismantling the Department of Education to devolve more policymaking to the state level. The department is responsible for, among other things, distributing federal funds to public schools, protecting students civil rights and supporting high-quality educational research. It has also been responsible for managing over a trillion dollars in student loans a function that the administration is moving to the Small Business Administration, which has no experience in loan management. The presidents March 2025 executive order has slashed the departments staff in half, with especially deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights, which, as noted, protects student from illegal discrimination. Trumps efforts to slash education funding has so far hit roadblocks with Congress and the public. The administration is aiming to cut education funding by US$12 billion for fiscal year 2026, which Congress is currently negotiating. And contradicting its stance on ceding more control to states and local communities, the administration has also been mandating what cant and must be taught in public schools. For example, its threatened funding for school districts that recognize transgender identities or teach about structural racism, white privilege and similar concepts. On the other hand, the White House is pushing the use of patriotic education that depicts the founding of the U.S. as unifying, inspiring and ennobling. The Trump administration has been increasingly mandating what teachers can and cannot teach in their classrooms. adamkaz/E+ via Getty Images Promoting private education As Trump and states have cut funding and resources to public education, theyve been shifting more money to K-12 private schools. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Most recently, the budget bill passed by Congress in July 2025 gives taxpayers a tax credit for donations to organizations that fund private school scholarships. The credit, which unlike a deduction counts directly against how much tax someone owes, is $1,700 for individuals and double for married couples. The total cost could run into the billions, since its unclear how many taxpayers will take advantage. Meanwhile, 33 states direct public money toward private schools by providing vouchers, tax credits or another form of financial assistance to parents. All together, states allocated $8.2 billion to support private school education in 2024. Government funding of private schools diverts money away from public education and makes it more difficult for public schools to provide the quality of education that would most benefit students and the public at large. In Arizona, for example, many public schools are closing their doors permanently as a result of the states support for charter schools, homeschooling and private school vouchers. Thats because public schools are funded based on how many students they have. As more students switch to private schools, theres less money to cover teacher salaries and fixed costs such as building maintenance. Ultimately, that means fewer resources to educate the students who remain in the public school system. Living up to aspirations We believe the harm to the country of promoting private schools while rolling back support for public education is about more than dollars and cents. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It would mean abandoning the principle of universal, nonsectarian education for Americas children. And in so doing, Manns virtuous citizenry will be much harder to build and maintain. Americas private market system, in which individuals are free to contract with each other with minimal government interference, has been important to building prosperity and opportunity in the U.S., as our book documents. But, as we also establish, relying on private markets to educate Americas youth makes it harder to create equal opportunity for children to learn and be economically successful, leaving the country less prosperous and more divided. 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: Sidney Shapiro, Wake Forest University and Joseph P. Tomain, University of Cincinnati Read more: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sidney Shapiro is affiliated with the Center for Progressive Reform. Joseph P. Tomain 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. DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) A unique automotive show drawing people from numerous countries is happening this weekend in Greene County. Located at 2800 Presidential Drive in Fairborn, the 40th Annual Trans Am Nationals is happening from noon on Aug. 22 to 24. Scott Scheel, spokesperson for the event, told WDTN.com upwards of 600 Pontiac Firebirds could be at the event for individuals to look at and hear from its owners. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Roughly 100 to 250 vehicles from a 100 mile radius typically attend to show off their cars at the event. Vehicles with a Pontiac Firebird VIN can attend and set up to show off their vehicle. Firebirds were made between 1967 and 2002 and obviously many Firebirds are iconic, said Scheel. Scheel said having the event in southwest Ohio is favorable, as General Motors has a significant history with vehicle production. Camaros and Firebirds were built just down the road in Norwood, in Cincinnati, Scheel said. So lots of lots of rich, you know, GM heritage here and an American industry here. Although the vehicle hasnt been produced in many years, individuals interested in the vehicle continues to be good. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its really, its still strong as ever, even though Firebirds have been gone for over 20 years, said Scheel. Scheel mentioned that people from as far away as Australia, Germany and Saudi Arabia have traveled to attend the event in previous years. Vendors selling items like apparel, jewelry, memorabilia, salvage parts and more will be set up. The event is free and open to the general public. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. NEED TO KNOW Erik Menendez was denied parole after a hearing with a California parole board on Aug. 21 Erik and his brother, Lyle Menendez, were convicted of killing their parents, Jose Menendez and Kitty Menendez In May 2025, a California judge changed their sentences and made them eligible for parole Erik Menendez was denied parole in connection with fatally shooting his parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, alongside his brother, Lyle Menendez. Erik previously became eligible for parole in May 2025 after a judge reduced both his and Lyle's sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. However, after Erik virtually appeared in the hearing on Aug. 21, a California parole board denied his release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While we respect the decision, todays outcome was of course disappointing and not what we hoped for," a spokesperson for the brothers said at the time. "But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Boards recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact hes had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon." Lyle will have his own hearing on Aug. 22. After Erik's parole was denied, their spokesperson said they "remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful" that Lyle's hearing will have a different outcome. Erik and Lyle were sentenced in 1996 for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in August 1989. After the brothers were charged with the murders, they alleged that they acted in self-defense and were trying to escape their father's years of abuse. Meanwhile, prosecutors claimed that they killed their parents to get their multimillion-dollar inheritance. Here's everything to know about why Erik Menendez was denied parole and what that means for his older brother, Lyle Menendez. What did Erik Menendez do? Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Lyle and Erik Menendez during their trial. Lyle and Erik Menendez during their trial. Erik and Lyle were convicted of killing their parents at their home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Aug. 20, 1989. Although Erik and Lyle initially denied the crime and claimed that a third party had murdered their parents, they were eventually arrested after Erik confessed to the murders to his psychologist. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In March 1990, Erik and Lyle were arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The brothers eventually went to trial, where their attorneys argued that they acted in self-defense after dealing with years of alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse from their father, with their mother aware of the alleged abuse. However, prosecutors argued that the abuse never occurred, and instead, they acted out of greed to inherit their father's multimillion-dollar fortune after they thought they were cut out of the will. California Department of Corrections via AP ; Kim Kulish/Sygma via Getty Erik Menendez's mugshot ; Erik Menendez during his trial in Los Angeles, California. Erik Menendez's mugshot ; Erik Menendez during his trial in Los Angeles, California. The first trial ended in a mistrial with separate juries who couldn't reach a verdict. However, during their second trial in 1996, they were found guilty and convicted on two counts of first-degree murder. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Erik began serving his sentence at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Calif., while Lyle reunited with him at that same prison in 2018. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement After years of appeals and dozens of documentaries, true crime shows and podcasts and Ryan Murphy's hit Netflix adaptation Monsters, Erik and Lyle's sentences were adjusted to 50 years to life. The resentencing immediately made them both eligible for parole, since they were both under the age of 26 when they committed the crime. Why was Erik Menendez denied parole? California Department of Corrections via AP Erik Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference on August 21, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. Erik Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference on August 21, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. On Aug. 21, Erik appeared via videoconference from prison to attend his parole hearing. However, after nearly 10 hours, a California board denied Erik parole with the thought that he still posed a risk to the public. During the hearing, both Erik and his loved ones spoke about his rehabilitation, while representatives from the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office advised against the early release. The board ultimately ruled against Erik and claimed that he would continue to "pose an unreasonable risk to public safety," according to CNN. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The parole commissioner, Robert Barton, later explained that he ruled against Erik because of his behavior in prison and "serious violations" against prison rules including alleged violence and illicitly using a cell phone and a lighter. "I believe in redemption, or I wouldn't be doing this job," Barton told Erik, according to the BBC. "But based on the legal standards, we find that you continue to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. Contrary to your supporters' beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner and frankly, we find that a little disturbing." Erik will become eligible for parole again in three years, and Gov. Gavin Newsom can also decide to pardon the brothers. What factors did the parole board consider? MIKE NELSON/AFP via Getty Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle with their lawyer during their trial on August 12, 1991 in Beverly Hills. Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle with their lawyer during their trial on August 12, 1991 in Beverly Hills. The California board weighed several factors before denying Erik's parole. In addition to discussing Erik's violations in prison, the board also factored in Erik's original motive to kill his parents and whether or not he could accept responsibility. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unlike past hearings and trials, Erik denied that he acted in self-defense and said that he had "no justification" for the killings, per CNN. He did, however, maintain his prior claims that they killed their parents out of fear after years of abuse by their father. During the hearing, Erik alleged that he didn't seek help from authorities over the abuse because of how "terrifying my father was." He claimed that he felt that "running away was inconceivable. Running away meant death." Meanwhile, the attorneys from the Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney's office called out Erik for "never" accepting responsibility and creating a "false self-defense narrative." Who spoke at Erik Menendezs parole hearing? Apu Gomes/Getty Karen VanderMolen, the niece of Kitty Menendez, speaks during a press conference on October 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Karen VanderMolen, the niece of Kitty Menendez, speaks during a press conference on October 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Although Erik broke several rules during prison, he still received support from several correction staff members who wrote that he was a "model inmate." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Erik's family members also got the opportunity to speak on behalf of his rehabilitation, and over a dozen relatives advocated for him at the hearing. The family members explained that they had forgiven both Erik and Lyle for their crimes and saw how the alleged abuse affected them. To say that our family has experienced pain does not quite capture what the last 35 years have been like It has divided us. It has caused us panic and anxiety. It has led to many of us retreating, Kitty's great-niece Tiffani Lucero-Pastor, said, per CNN. Kitty's niece, Karen Mae Vandermolen-Copley, added in her statement that her aunt's lack of intervention led to an "absence of protection," which "deepened their fear and confusion." After the commission denied Erik's parole, Barton explained that he was thankful for the statements, but they did not outweigh Erik's suitability. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole, Barton said. How does Erik Menendezs parole denial affect Lyle Menendez? California Dept. of Corrections via AP Lyle Menendez's mugshot. Lyle Menendez's mugshot. Just one day after Erik attended his parole hearing, Lyle will also appear before a California board. After Erik was denied parole, their family spokesperson explained that they were ready to take on Lyle's case and hoped for a better outcome. "Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyles hearing," the spokesperson said. "And while it is undoubtedly difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioner will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home. Lyle's board hearing will be separate from his brother's, but he will also address several factors including his motive for the murders and rehabilitation behind bars. Lyle has fewer violations than his brother, but he has also lied about some aspects of the murder and his father's alleged abuse during the trials. Read the original article on People A new U.S. Army special operations forces manual has a mission: to convince the regular Army that the Green Berets have value for conventional combat operations. Its a signal that the days of cowboy special operators are over. As the U.S. military switches from small-unit counterinsurgency to big-unit mechanized warfare, ARSOF wants to show that it can contribute to the joint fight. The focus now is, How do we show our value to the Army, and how do we help the Army show its value for the Joint Force? Kimberly Jackson, a researcher at the RAND Corp. think tank, told Defense News. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You have to prove your relevance, said Jackson, a former Navy Reserve officer with a background in Naval Special Warfare. You do that by showing your operational abilities. And that is something that has had to shift a little bit for the special operations community. The new FM 3-05: Army Special Operations manual makes clear that the Armys special forces need to evolve for a world of high-tech, multidomain warfare. Our doctrine must describe how ARSOF contribute across the competition continuum remaining threat informed, strategically driven, operationally focused, and tactically prepared, wrote Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, in the foreword to the manual. Braga describes Army Special Forces as one of the legs of the SOF-Space-Cyber Triad, an irregular warfare concept modeled after the strategic nuclear triad. These very dissimilar forces would target enemy command and control, computing, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capabilities, or C5ISRT. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement FM 3-05 describes what Army Special Forces can bring to conventional combat operations, such as when friendly forces bypass enemy cities and units, leaving stragglers and potential guerrillas behind. Army special operations forces operating in the rear area focus on identifying and defeating enemy bypassed units and other threats concealed within the bypassed population to consolidate gains, the manual advises. I think this very much addresses how the Army is thinking about LSCO [large-scale combat operations], and not getting bogged down in an urban fight, RAND researcher Nathan Prussian told Defense News. Operating in enemy rear areas, special forces can target enemy critical vulnerabilities, disrupt command and control, interdict long range fires, and degrade sustainment capabilities in support of the close fight and to shape the operational environment, the manual explained. On the front lines, they can facilitate battlefield operations by disrupting enemy command and control, long-range fires, and maneuver forces. U.S. Green Berets with 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) kneel in position while preparing for their next movement during a joint training exercise at Fort Carson, Colorado, on Aug. 13. (Sgt. Rhianna Ballenger/U.S. Army) FM 3-05 will better demonstrate USASOCs alignment with the Army, U.S. Army Special Operations Command told Defense News in a statement. Previous special forces doctrine spoke of tempo, preemption, disruption, deception and disciplined initiative, the command said. In line with the Armys foundational FM 3-0 operations manual, ARSOF will emphasize agility, convergence, endurance, and depth. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just how much has changed can be seen by comparing the June 2025 release of FM 3-05 with ADP 3-05: Army Special Operations, published in July 2019. For example, the 2019 manual mentions a special forces command element working alongside a corps-level headquarters to coordinate fires and ensure deconfliction between regular and special operations. The 2025 manual is more explicit about making special forces a part of joint operations. A special operations command and control element is task organized for integration into corps or higher-echelon operations (though it can be attached to the highest military echelon conducting operations) and targeting planning cycles, the manual states. It also integrates special operations effects into joint force maneuver. The new special forces manual also seems to be an attempt to achieve unity of command and avoid the problems of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, where special operations units and regular forces ran separate campaigns. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the two-, three- and four-star level right now, you have a lot of leaders who look at how we conducted the War on Terror with the lack of integration of SOF into the local campaign of the coalition forces, said Prussian, a retired Army colonel and former commander of 3rd Special Forces Group. So you had parallel chains of command. And that seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didnt play out very well. The joint mindset is already percolating down to the ARSOF community. Army Special Forces that once disdained training with regular troops now routinely participate in joint exercises in places like the National Training Center. Where in the past, we said, Were not going to do that. Were too busy, or we dont necessarily feel like we need to, Prussian recalled, Now its, Hey, we are going to do that because we know that it is the best thing to do for the fight that is coming. Despite the nods to 21st-century warfare, the Green Berets will still continue their traditional missions dating back to their founding in 1961, such as organizing and training foreign armies. FM 3-05 points to how Army Special Forces mainly from the 10th Special Forces Group advised the Ukrainian military from 2014 to 2022. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a result of U.S. and NATO SOF and conventional military support Ukraine developed an assortment of resistance capabilities and networks by early 2022, the manual states. Ukrainian special operations forces mapped key infrastructure, identified targets, established relationships with local civilian networks, and developed protocols for rapid information sharing. Regardless, an organization that prided itself on independence and initiative sometimes to the displeasure of the rest of the Army will have to change its mindset. I think its inevitable that to maintain relevance, you have to show value for a joint fight, Jackson said. You can no longer operate as a monolith. Any way you spin it, caviar is luxurious. The expertly harvested, salt-cured eggs of the sturgeon fish can cost hundreds of dollars per ounce. But, some varieties of caviar are considered even more luxurious than others and some are illegal altogether. Kaluga roe and Osetra roe caviar are totally legal in the U.S., but the sale, import, and farming of Beluga caviar remains (mostly) illegal. As of 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Beluga sturgeon are so rare that the annual catch doesn't exceed 100 units. Compounding the population issue, female Beluga take a lengthy 15 years to reach reproductive maturity (i.e., the point at which they can produce caviar eggs at all). Due to the demand for its mild, smooth flavor, the Beluga sturgeon was hit hard by overfishing, and in 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enacted a ban to protect the critically endangered species. In other countries, however, the sale of Beluga caviar remains legal. The United Nations issued a temporary ban on all caviar sales (including Beluga) in 2006 to give overfished species a chance to repopulate, but lifted the ban in 2007. It's an ethical epicureanism issue reminiscent of Nobu's past controversy over serving bluefin tuna, even after it became an endangered species. The commercial seafood industry at large has adopted more sustainable farming practices to help curtail ecological issues. But, still, Beluga caviar is off-limits under U.S. legislation. Read more: 15 Vintage Snacks No One Remembers Anymore You Can Buy Beluga Caviar From One American Company Chef plating appetizers with spoonfuls of caviar - Sammyvision/Getty Images Osetra caviar (one of the most popular legal varieties) comes from the Acipenser gueldenstaedtii sturgeon of the Caspian Sea. Nutty, buttery osetra roe is prized for its creamy yet firm mouthfeel, and can be identified by its amber-brown hue and notably larger egg size compared to Beluga caviar. Kaluga caviar, another legal variety, is less commonly seen than Osetra caviar at gourmet seafood counters, likely in part due to its uncanny likeness to the taste and texture profile of illegal Bulega caviar. On the palate, Kaluga caviar is a firm brown roe with buttery, earthy, and slightly salty notes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Doppelgangers notwithstanding, Beluga caviar remains nearly impossible to find in the U.S. As the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notes, even Beluga caviar purchased overseas on a vacation can only legally be brought back into the U.S. if it weighs 125 grams or less. There are, however, exceptions to the domestic rule. Due to the company's sustainability commitments, Florida-based caviar purveyor and aquafarm Marky's has bypassed the legislation as one of the only U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-approved commercial retailers of Beluga caviar in the U.S. Now, foodies can order Beluga caviar directly from Marky's and have it delivered to their door (convenient yet pricey, at $155-$280 per half-ounce). If that's in the budget, then serve it with some of the 13 must-have caviar accouterments. If not, consider some of the best types of sustainable seafood to satisfy the craving. Read the original article on Tasting Table. This analysis and news roundup comes from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. If your power bills are getting higher and higher, youre not alone. Thats probably little comfort, but heres some proof anyway: Utilities requested or were granted a total of $29 billion in rate increases in the first half of 2025, according to a study from advocacy group PowerLines. Thats more than double the total in the same period last year. The biggest reason for these rising prices stems from the piece of the grid you can see from your window, as Heatmap reports. Utility poles and wires, also known as the distribution grid, shuttle power from high-voltage transmission infrastructure into homes and businesses. Over the last few years, building and maintaining these lines has become the biggest source of costs that utilities recoup via power bills, according to a December report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Natural disasters are also driving up expenses as they force utilities to repair and harden their grid for future weather events. California utilities, for instance, have to rebuild after wildfires and in some cases are spending even more money to underground lines. In the Southeast, utilities routinely look to raise rates to cover post-hurricane restoration costs. Then theres the fact that natural gas remains the U.S.s dominant energy source and that prices for that fuel remain higher than they were over much of the last two years. Now for the second big question: Will things get better anytime soon? Probably not, for a few reasons. For starters, power demand is on the rise, stemming in large part from the construction of energy-hungry data centers. Tech giants plan to keep building facilities to run their AI operations, and how theyre powered and how that demand is managed could end up making everyone elses electricity more expensive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That demand could be largely satiated by new solar and wind farms, which are typically quicker and cheaper to stand up than fossil-fueled and especially nuclear power plants. But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans passed in July will soon wipe out federal tax credits that incentivized clean energy construction. Instead, the Trump administration is pushing to keep aging fossil-fuel power plants online past their retirement dates a mission that could end up costing utility customers as much as $6 billion each year by the end of President Donald Trumps term. A federal order that kept a Michigan coal plant open past its planned closure cost its operator $29 million in its first five weeks, and just this week the Energy Department reupped the facilitys extension until November. More big energy stories Treasury rules tighten access to clean energy tax credits The U.S. Treasury Department has released guidance that will make it harder to access wind and solar tax credits before their ultimate expiration, Canary Medias Jeff St. John reports. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act gives wind and solar developers two options to tap the credits: They must either put their project in service by the end of 2027 or begin construction by July 2026. The Treasurys new guidance narrows the federal governments longstanding definition of what marks the start of construction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, things couldve been a lot worse, experts told Jeff deadlines to finish work couldve been accelerated, for example. And with these rules, developers have the clarity theyve been waiting for to make decisions and get building. USDA pulls support from solar, wind on farmland Federal assistance for solar and wind power on farmland is fading. On Tuesday, the U.S. Agriculture Department announced that it will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland or allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in USDA projects. It will also render wind and solar projects ineligible for the agencys Business and Industry loan program, and bar Rural Energy for America Program loans from being used for ground-mounted solar projects larger than 50 kW. The Trump administration has already taken multiple shots at REAP, Canary Medias Kari Lydersen reported in July, freezing nearly $1 billion in funding for farmers and closing a window for new applications before it even opened. Clean energy news to know this week Come to America and lose $1B: Foreign offshore wind developers have faced steep financial losses over the past few years, and theyve only intensified under the Trump administrations anti-wind policies. (Canary Media) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Polluting the post: Republican U.S. senators move to strip federal funding for the U.S. Postal Services transition to an EV fleet to save taxpayer money, though industry observers say the move would have the opposite effect. (Associated Press) Steels dangerous warning: Last weeks fatal explosion at Pennsylvanias Clairton Coke Works underscores the urgent need to decarbonize the coal-reliant steelmaking industry. (Canary Media) Solar still rises: The Energy Information Administration estimates the U.S. will add 33 gigawatts of solar power to the grid this year, amounting to half of all new generation brought online in 2025. (EIA) A red flag for gas stoves: A new Colorado law will require gas stoves to come with labels that warn buyers about the carcinogens and pollution the appliances emit, though a lawsuit has delayed its implementation for now. (Canary Media) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cruising to electrification: New York City debuts its first hybrid-electric ferry, which is making trips from Manhattan to an emerging climate-change research hub on Governors Island. (Canary Media) Counting on cleanup: California advocates worry Phillips 66 may shirk its responsibilities to clean up a lake of hydrocarbons that has accumulated under a Los Angeles-area refinery slated for closure later this year. (Capital & Main) WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) Families in Wichita Falls had the chance to learn about the opportunities the Rio del Fierro Composite Squadron Civil Air Patrol has to offer during an open house Thursday evening. The Civil Air Patrols (CAP) open house was held at the Texas Army National Guard armory and showcased to potential cadets and their parents the opportunities the Rio del Fierro CAP has to offer, and how they can serve their community and even become a member. The Rio del Fierro CAP allows kids as young as 12 years old to participate in meaningful volunteer service as cadets. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement CAP was founded in 1941, chartered by Congress as a non-profit organization for youth development and serves as an auxiliary role as a total force partner of the Air Force. The program held its open house to recruit some new members, showcasing their missions in emergency services, aerospace education, and the cadet program. The programs top cadet, Aaidan Lloyd, said that being a part of the program has been very rewarding and has allowed him to follow his passions. So, this program, its a huge part of me. It definitely brings up my leadership abilities, said Lloyd. Just being able to train future cadets and just get to see the impact that I make on other cadets as I train them is super rewarding for me. Especially when they start actually becoming the next leaders and leading other people, its super rewarding. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The squadron commander gave a presentation about the programs history and encouraged recruitment for the Civil Air Patrol. The programs current cadets were also available to answer questions about the different aspects theyre involved in. The event wrapped up with families getting a closer look at the Civil Air Patrols impact and how they can take part in future missions. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Texomashomepage.com. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A wildfire sparked in Jefferson County on Thursday, quickly spreading and prompting evacuations in the surrounding area. The Flat Fire started Thursday about 3 miles west of Lake Billy Chinook and quickly spread overnight, shooting up to over 3,000 acres. According to Central Oregon Fire Info, crews worked overnight to create lines and protect structures, but breezy and hot conditions are making efforts more difficult. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cant keep our staff safe: Meals on Wheels closes downtown Portland site due to safety, funding concerns As of Friday morning, officials said the fire is at around 3,300 acres, and evacuations are in place for the area around the fire. By Friday afternoon, the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office said the southern half of the fire, Deschutes County border, was escalated to Level 3 evacuations. A full map of the evacuations is available online. A temporary evacuation site has been established at the Highland Baptist Church at 3100 SW Highland Ave, Redmond, OR 97756. In addition, a shelter for large animals has been established at the Jefferson County Event Complex in Madras. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fire officials said that conditions are expected to remain similar throughout the day, and crews will continue to secure the fire lines made on Thursday. The Oregon State Fire Marshal also invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act to send more resources to help battle the blaze. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KOIN Breaking News Alerts Triple-digit temperatures and red flag conditions are expected across the state for the next few days and is extremely concerning, State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said. Were calling on all Oregonians and visitors to aware of the changing conditions and do what you can to prevent sparking a wildfire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. A SEAT (Single Engine Air Tanker) aircraft releases red retardant over a smoky hillside to help slow the Knowles Fire. Aerial support continues to assist crews working in steep terrain. (Northern Rockies Team 9 photo) State and federal firefighters were dispatched across Montana this week as large fires continue to burn in the state. Its been noticeable, too tanker aircraft have been jetting in and out of Helena Regional Airport this week and some Montana communities have dealt with localized smoke. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In Bozeman, Bridger Aerospace, a company founded by Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy, said it has been active on a fire near Big Sky, the company said in a Thursday press release. From Los Angeles in January to Montana in August, wildfires are now a year-round threat, said Sam Davis, CEO of Bridger Aerospace, in a release. At Bridger, our team works tirelessly to stay prepared for when the next call comes in. A decade ago, we started out with a single plane. Today, we operate a world-class fleet of specialized aircraft to gather real-time data on wildfires, map them out, and extinguish them. We are proud to provide air support for firefighters on the ground, and to do our part in protecting lives, property, and the environment from wildfires. Heres an update on some of the large fire incidents across the state. Bivens Creek and Cloudrest Two fires burning in the Tobacco Root mountains continued to grow this week, both with 0% containment, according to a Friday morning news release. A fire map for the Bivens Creek and Cloudrest fires. Northern Rockies Complex Incident Management Team 6 is managing both fires, which are burning about 15 miles northwest of Virginia City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The focus is currently on the Bivens Creek fire, which was listed at 2,219 acres on Friday morning. The nearby Cloudrest fire was listed at 1,733 acres. Acreages can change usually due to overhead imaging of a fire, which provides more accurate mapping but those flights do not always happen every day. Fire crews were looking to protect residences in South Meadow Creek and areas south of the Bivens Creek incident. Crews were looking to strengthen fire lines on the west side of that fire and aerial resources were being used in that area. Firefighters were using bulldozers on the east side of the fire and were hopeful to make progress in that area on Friday. There were 392 personnel assigned to the Bivens Creek fire and 48 on the Cloudrest fire. On the Cloudrest fire, crews were looking to protect a community south of that blaze. Winds, which were mostly pretty calm statewide this week, were a concern for the two Madison County fires. By utilizing the natural features of the rocky terrain, firefighters will continue constructing fire line connecting these features to prevent spread down the valley towards homes and the community of Pony, a press release for the fire stated. Fire crews will scout and identify new primary and secondary control lines in the Indian Creek drainage, where the fire made some headway yesterday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fridays situation report from the National Interagency Fire Center showed the Bivens and Cloudrest fires as costing nearly $5 million combined to suppress to date. Fire costs are shared by state and federal governments and are divided at the end of the year. Windy Rock and Devil Mountain Two fires burning 15 miles northeast of Drummond were listed at 1,957 acres and 0% contained on Friday. Windy Rock fire map. The state Department of Natural Resources and Conservations County Assist Team is managing both fires as one incident. There were 366 personnel assigned to the fire on Friday, including four helicopters and 11 engines. It has cost about $4.6 million to suppress so far, according to the daily national fire briefing. Air tankers were dispatched to the fire, with a Friday morning briefing saying they were effective in limiting spread to the northwest of the Devil Mountain Fire. This allowed ground crews to move in for direct suppression efforts on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A public meeting for the fire is planned for Helmville Community Center, at 7 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 22. The fires were lightning caused, burning timber and grass, mainly lodgepole and mixed conifer at higher elevations. Theres a heavy dead and down timber component and no recorded fire history in the area, a fire briefing said. It also described some fire behavior as extreme. Knowles Burning six miles east of Paradise, the Knowles fire was listed at 2,075 acres and 0% containment. That fire is being managed by Northern Rockies Incident Command Team 9. There were 236 personnel on the fire, but getting aerial resources continues to be challenging due to escalating demands across the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Residences are threatened and Sanders County has an pre-evacuation notice for residents in the McLaughlin area. The northwestern corner is being assessed for options to insert more crews and equipment to establish control lines, a press release from the fire said. There is still direct action to protect the residences on that side of the fire. The fire started in grass and moved to timber. Its cost about $1.8 million to suppress. Knowles fire map Sandbar 2 A lightning-caused fire 15 miles east of Lincoln was at 242 acres and 0% containment on Friday. There were 131 people assigned to the Sandbar 2 fire and it is being managed by Northwest Complex Incident Management Team 8. Helicopters were involved in fire efforts, a release for the fire said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement No evacuation levels are currently in effect for the fire, which is burning through timber. Crews were busy laying down hoses and strengthening lines around the fire. That fire was listed as having cost about $900,000 to suppress to date. Corral Creek A fire managed by Lolo National Forest and burning six miles southwest from Frenchtown was listed at 221 acres and 0% containment. It was discovered on Aug. 20, according to fire officials. Progress on the fire was made Thursday, though windy conditions were a concern on Friday. Dozer lines and hand crews were working on the southern and western flanks of the fire. West Fork A 421-acre fire discovered on Aug. 19 was under investigation and 5% contained on Friday. Its being managed by the Forest Service and 47 people are working the fire. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The fire does not pose a threat to Big Sky, a media release said, and is located 23 miles northwest of West Yellowstone in Custer Gallatin National Forest near the Beaver Creek Forest Service cabin. Hebgen Lake was being used for firefighting efforts and the Forest Service warned people to stay away and not use drones. Drones are illegal to fly in areas of active firefighting because the risk mid-air collisions and crashes. Trail and road closures are in effect for the area. Firefighters were staging structure protection equipment, a release said. After record-breaking floods swept through Central Texas over the July 4 weekend, many pets were displaced, but Hill Country SPCA came to their rescue. As People reported, the no-kill shelter in Fredericksburg served as the official hub to support animals after the destructive floods moved through the region and killed more than 100 people, per The Conversation. Ever since the tragedy unfolded along the Guadalupe River, volunteers and employees at the shelter have been hard at work rescuing dogs and trying to reunite them with their owners or get them adopted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The shelter already had its hands full trying to keep its dogs calm during a fireworks show on July 4, but no one could have anticipated what the next few days had in store. "Then you wake up the next morning, and literally all hell has broken loose. And it was one of those things that was like, 'Okay, what do we need to do? And who needs us? Where can we help?" Andrew Davis, the executive director of Hill Country SPCA, told People. Davis added that the shelter had "boots on the ground" when workers learned of the extent of the flooding. Employees immediately sprang into action, helping rescue teams look for missing pets and people and gather resources for those who lost their homes. After the organization asked the public for help with supplies, donations poured in, and some locals even showed up to aid rescue efforts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "We had an Amazon van show up, and it was full. There was not an ounce of space in that van, and 100% of those packages were for us," Davis said. While the SPCA was overwhelmed with gratitude for the community's support, Davis and his team were trying to deal with the "emotional whiplash" of the situation and process the enormity of the disaster. Two of the animals rescued included a Chihuahua and a cat from a flooded home. Amazingly, the dog survived by climbing to the top shelf of a bookcase while the floodwaters rose just inches from its head, as the waterline revealed in a photo. The cat had escaped the house but returned a couple of days later bathed in mud. According to People, "Both pets are now safe and living in temporary housing." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It's success stories like these that make the sometimes emotionally taxing work to save animals well worth it, as Davis explained, and prove the power of communities sticking together in difficult times. As of late July, the nonprofit was still busy managing flood response efforts and had plenty of pet supplies available for community members. Monetary donations were still welcome to help coordinate rescues and provide veterinary care. If you'd like to donate, you can visit the SPCA's website to show support. 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. When riding across the Mongolian steppe, one mistake can mean game over. This mistake can be anything, from losing a piece of kit to your horse stumbling in a marmot hole while navigating the vast stretches of open landscape. The wilds of Mongolia are beautiful but unforgiving, as 45 riders discovered earlier this month when they competed in the worlds toughest horse race. The Mongol Derby is not for the faint-hearted, with riders crossing 1,000km (620 miles) of rugged terrain on semi-wild horses, relying on their survival skills, horsemanship and pure grit to reach the finish line. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Out here on the steppe (the wide open plains that characterise this land), the competitors live among local herders, often staying in ger, traditional Mongolian tents, with families. The riders change their mounts every 20 miles at morin urtuu (horse stations) and must deliver the animals in good health at every stage. The Mongol Derby has been running for a decade, but the idea for the race harks back to 1224, when Genghis Khan set up the worlds first long-distance postal transmission system (Kathy Gabriel) Throughout the race (this year, competitors took between eight and 10 days to complete the course), riders found themselves cantering through wide-open valleys, navigating mountain passes, crossing rushing rivers, and traversing rolling dunes. Speaking to The Independent two days into the race, competitor Anna Boden describes the toll this takes on the body and the level of endurance needed. Physically, its significantly harder than anything Ive ever done before, she says. Youre riding 12-hour days, and because you have a fresh horse each leg, you can ride quite fast that is really tough on your body. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The diminutive Mongol horses are known to be the toughest in the world, living in extreme temperatures, from -40C in winter to 30C in Mongolian summers. Small but mighty, these sturdy steeds have changed very little over hundreds of years and are known for carrying warriors into battle during the Mongol Empires conquests in the 13th century. This strength and fearlessness are still seen now, with the horses able to cover vast distances at great speed. Throughout the race, riders found themselves cantering through wide-open valleys, navigating mountain passes, crossing rushing rivers, and traversing rolling dunes (Kathy Gabriel) Youre literally cantering for six miles which really hurts your knees, Anna adds. The 30-year-old teacher from London was one of the four winners of the Mongol Derby, crossing the finish line alongside Eisa Al Khayari and Khalifa Al Hamed from the UAE, and Michael Pollard from the USA. Gruelling is how Michael, 44, describes his eight days on the steppe. He explains how he spent seven to eight hours in the saddle daily in preparation for the race, along with high-intensity interval training to strengthen his core. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, he says the mental strain of knowing that at any moment your race may be over that something you do or how your horse responds may force you to retire was the most challenging element. Anna Boden and one of the horses that helped her win the race (Kathy Gabriel) Anna agrees. The toughest part is keeping mentally upbeat all the time; you have such highs and such lows, she says. One of the highs for her was staying in ger, and she says that the kindness and hospitality that welcomed riders at these stops was one of the things that kept her going. Michael says that, for him, being pushed to these limits was a spiritual, almost religious experience. He explains: There are just so many things that can go wrong, and if you focus on those things youre just wracked with anxiety all the time, so I started praying constantly and asking God to help me. Ive never done anything like that in my life and I found it incredibly powerful and spiritual. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Mongol Derby has been running for a decade, but the idea for the race harks back to 1224, when Genghis Khan set up the worlds first long-distance postal transmission system. The Mongol ruler and legendary warrior developed a network of morin urtuu that would allow his men to travel on horseback from the capital Kharkhorin to the Caspian Sea in just a matter of days, transporting messages. The diminutive Mongol horses are known to be the toughest in the world, living in temperature extremes from -40C in winter to 30C in Mongolian summers (Kathy Gabriel) Horses are the lifeblood of Mongolia and are revered in the community. Horsemanship is an important part of the culture, with the animals used for transport and racing, and Michael explained that respecting your steed was key to winning the race. The horses are semi-feral and riders are often thrown from the animals or struggle to control them through certain stages, but at no point can that respect between horse and rider be lost. They're sacred here and theyve been scared in my life as well, he adds. Rather unusually for a horse race, the Mongol Derby allows joint winners, which is how four riders crossed the finish line at the same time this year. Michael says: For all of us to be competing together and to gain the level of respect that wed rather walk in together than see anyone lose who doesnt deserve it is really beautiful. Im really, really honoured to have been part of it. Aug. 22---- Triggered by expectations of large renewable energy development, has been working for a year to update its ordinance governing wind, solar, and now also battery storage projects. A public hearing on a brought forward by the county's showed that the winds of change remain turbulent. An estimated 105 people attended the hearing Tuesday in the Benson High School Performing Arts Center. A majority of those speaking voiced concerns about wind and solar development, with some asking for greater setbacks and other requirements. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At the hearing's end, the Planning Commission agreed to move the draft ordinance in its current form to the for consideration, but with a caveat added by member Roger Schmidt: The draft ordinance goes forward without a recommendation for its adoption. The dilemma for the county was summed up by Eric Rudningen, chair of the Swift County Board and also a member of the Planning Commission, at the meeting's conclusion: "How do you weigh one landowner's rights against another landowner's rights?" While many of those offering comments at the hearing voiced concerns, there were those who support renewable energy. They cited climate change and the financial opportunities that renewable energy projects offer the county. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And, others in the county are showing support for renewable energy by signing leases to allow development on their properties. The county has developed a showing the land leases in the county for renewable energy, and it makes clear the widespread interest by landowners. There are currently 23,182 acres leased for wind projects and 3,640 acres for solar projects in the county. Much of the interest has surfaced since Otter Tail Power and Missouri River Energy Services began the permitting process to construct a 345-kilovolt transmission line through the western side of the county. The line is proposed to run from Since then, Apex Clean Energy has been working to sign up property in Swift County for what it calls the Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement project. It could include 88 turbines with a capacity to generate 400 megawatts of energy. is also in the midst of developing a 10-megawatt solar project on 77 acres of land adjacent to its ethanol facility in Benson. The proposed Swift County ordinance is aimed at the rules for developing projects under 25 megawatts in size. Projects larger than that size require a permit from the state Public Utilities Commission, Rudningen noted at the hearing. The draft ordinance increases the setbacks for turbines from residences as compared to the current ordinance. The proposed setbacks are calculated based on the rotor size of the turbines, with greater setbacks required as rotor sizes increase. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It also establishes a requirement for an escrow account or bonding against the future decommissioning costs of wind and solar developments. The amount is based on five times the projected costs for decommissioning a project. Some of those speaking cited specific concerns about how requirements are described in the ordinance. Larry Mahoney, a Swift County commissioner who farms north of Appleton, was among those who cited concerns about specific wording in portions of the ordinance. Another farmer, Jim Falk of Murdock, said he has concerns that the proposed ordinance may be too restrictive for small-scale, on-farm wind and solar systems. Most of those who addressed the Planning Commission voiced their objections to the prospect of large and multiple wind turbines, as well as the potential for expansive solar farms. "How many of these things are you going to build? Why do you need so many?" said Richard Reimann, of Appleton. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Corey Rode, of Benson, was among a number of speakers who cited their concerns that wind turbines can kill eagles. Theresa Mahoney Bachmeier, of rural Appleton, voiced that concern along with her concerns about the visual impact of turbines on the western prairie in the county. "Beautiful Swift County. That is why I relocated here," she told the commission. Others also voiced concerns that the arrival of renewable energy development has pitted neighbor against neighbor. "It's turned people against each other," said Duane Anderson, whose farm home in Grant County is within 1,320 feet of a large turbine. It's one of 10 turbines that were erected near his farm, he said. He experiences flickering in his home six months of the year, as if the lights were being turned on and off, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Anderson also charged that the turbines have degraded hunting and other recreational opportunities on his farm. Mark Hughes, of rural Danvers, voiced concerns about the potential loss of farmland, particularly to large-scale solar projects. Nathan Dull, representing the spoke to the right of landowners to earn income on their property with renewable energy. The statewide nonprofit organization is a proponent of "an all of the above energy future" in the state, according to its website. Dull also responded to the statements about eagle mortality due to turbines. Turbines are believed to cause 1.25 million bird deaths a year in the country, he said, adding that the figure should be put in perspective. He said house cats are believed responsible for anywhere from 1 billion to 3 billion bird deaths a year. County Board Chair Rudningen said the County Board members will begin discussions on the draft ordinance at the Sept. 16 meeting. National Review staff writer Caroline Downey urged MAGA to pump the brakes on their over-the-top outrage over Southern-themed restaurant chain Cracker Barrels changing its logo, telling her fellow conservatives that they need to stop labeling everything they dont like as woke. Downeys warning to Trump supporters came as prominent Republicans and right-wing media figures called for a boycott of Cracker Barrel amid its woke rebrand, with Rep. Byron Donalds going so far as to claim he gave my life to Christ in their parking lot while saying its time to Make Cracker Barrel Great Again. Following years of declining revenues and dropping stock prices, Cracker Barrel announced this week that it was going through a brand refresh, which included switching its iconic logo which featured a man in overalls leaning against a barrel to a more minimalist one. Instead, the new design simply has the name of the restaurant inside a gold-colored, barrel-shaped background. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our values haven't changed, and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel havent changed. And Uncle Herschel remains front and center in our restaurants and on our menu, the company said of its new logo. On top of that, the companys restaurants will be going through a remodel, which will offer customers a brighter, lighter experience and less cluttered spaces while still keeping some fan favorites, according to Cracker Barrels chief marketing officer Sarah Moore. Several of the restaurants have already undergone the transformation that replaces nostalgia with modernism. National Review columnist Caroline Downey called for MAGA world to quit abusing the term woke amid the Cracker Barrel backlash, adding that it's losing its meaning. (CNN) The backlash, especially within MAGA world, was swift and loud with many comparing the sterile corporate makeover to Bud Lights brief 2023 advertising partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which sparked a right-wing boycott of the beer. [W]e must break the Barrel, conservative activist Chris Rufo declared Thursday. Its not about this particular restaurant chain who cares but about creating massive pressure against companies that are considering any move that might appear to be wokification. The implicit promise: Go woke, watch your stock price drop 20 percent, which is exactly what is happening now. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At one point Thursday, share prices in Cracker Barrel plunged 15 percent, though the stock rebounded a bit before the markets closed leaving the company down about 7 percent for the day. During Thursdays broadcast of CNNs panel show NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip aired a clip of MAGA influencer Benny Johnson ranting about the Cracker Barrel redesign, which featured him claiming white people are about to right because they erased the white guy from the logo. Its getting sticky because the CEO of Cracker Barrel is as woke as they come. She is destroying a great American brand, Johnson added, referencing the chief executives past support for DEI initiatives. I dont know if this is satire or what, Phillip said about Johnson's tirade. Later, after noting that Cracker Barrel has been dealing with declining business in recent years, the anchor brought up Donalds criticism of the woke rebrand before turning to Downey. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Not everything is woke, Downey remarked. I think were abusing the term a little bit too much, where its losing its meaning, and thats really important because some things actually are woke and we should call it like it is. The National Review columnist, who penned an article last month titled The American Eagle Ad Is Not That Deep, went on to state that all appearances suggested that Cracker Barrel was merely trying to reboot a stagnant business even if it was poorly executed. Cracker Barrel has come under fire from MAGA politicians and influencers over its woke rebrand. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) However, in this case, from a marketing perspective, if revenues are declining you gotta switch it up, you gotta implement a new strategy, Downey stated. But who at that roundtable was thinking to themself, Ah yes, lets go back to the minimalism of five years ago that is sterile and bland and neutered, and lets rob this iconic, timeless company of all of its character and charm and fun history and country vibes. Thats not super smart. Maximalism is the moment. While the Trump administration is now raging that the Smithsonian is woke because the museums teach how bad slavery was, leading to a review of the institutions exhibits, conservatives have been tripping over themselves to use that term to deride anything that seemingly doesnt fit within the MAGA viewpoint. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For instance, even before the latest Superman reboot was released to theaters last month, several Fox News pundits and hosts complained that it was superwoke because director James Gunn had said the film explored pro-immigrant themes and centered on human kindness. Hes creating a moat of woke, enlightened opinion around him. Hes got a woke shield, Greg Gutfeld grumbled at the time. OCONTO COUNTY, Wis. (WFRV) Health officials in Wisconsin have confirmed and identified five additional cases of measles in Oconto County and are urging Wisconsinites to check their vaccination status. According to a release from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS), the additional cases are linked to the nine cases confirmed in the county on August 2. The new confirmations bring the total number of cases to 14. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Health officials urge Outagamie County residents to take precautions after bat tests positive for rabies The ongoing investigation indicates that measles is spreading locally, the DHSs release stated. DHS is working in coordination with Oconto County Public Health and surrounding local public health departments to identify and directly notify people with known exposures. It was noted that the investigation has not identified locations in public settings for which a full list of exposed people cannot be obtained. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. MADISON The case against two of President Donald Trump's attorneys and a former campaign aide will move forward in Dane County, with an Aug. 22 order from Circuit Judge John D. Hyland denying a motion to dismiss charges that the three participated in a scheme to submit false paperwork claiming Trump won Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony charges in 2024 against Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native and lead architect of the 2020 elector scheme; former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who represented Trump in Wisconsin during the 2020 election; and Mike Roman, a former Trump aide who allegedly delivered Wisconsin's slate of false elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman's staffer in order to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021. The three face 11 charges relating to felony forgery and forgery meant to defraud the Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump, even though Joe Biden won the state. Each of the 11 charges against the men carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison, in addition to a $10,000 fine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the complaint, most of the electors said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won the state without a court ruling saying so. The complaint also describes how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman allegedly created a fake document that said Trump won Wisconsin's 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver it to then-Vice President Mike Pence for certification. Federal prosecutors have said the fake electors plot originated in Wisconsin. " it does not matter that Troupis disagrees with the facts alleged in the complaint. Most criminal defendants do. Our system resolves these disagreements in a trial at his trial. Troupis may use history as a way to explain to a jury he never intended to commit forgery. What Troupis may not do, however, is use that history to re-write the criminal complaint," Hyland wrote in his order denying the request to dismiss. Former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, right, makes an initial appearance Thursday, December 12, 2024 in Dane County Court in Madison, Wisconsin. He is facing on felony forgery charges stemming from the alleged scheme to forward fake electors in an effort to overturn the 2020 elections. At left is his attorney Joseph Bugni. Biden beat Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden's win. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020. Troupis represented the Trump campaign in the case. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Less than an hour later, Democrats met in the state Capitol to cast the state's 10 electoral votes for Biden. At the same time, the Republican fake electors gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won. They submitted their filings to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and then-Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette. Chesebro was in the room during the meeting. Ten Wisconsin Republicans signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020 claiming to be electors for Donald Trump despite his election loss. At the time, the fake electors said they held the meeting only to ensure the state's electoral votes were cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the true winner of the state. In efforts to have the case dismissed, Troupis claimed the electors met and cast their ballot only to preserve their legal options, in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Trump the winner of Wisconsin, arguing no crime was committed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused with his preferred offense," Hyland wrote. More: Wisconsin fake elector tells 60 Minutes he was afraid of Trump supporters The 10 electors have not been charged criminally related to the fake documents. The group settled a lawsuit in 2023 filed by the real Biden electors against them over their role in the scheme. As a part of the settlement, the false electors acknowledged their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election. Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin judge refuses to dismiss charges in fake electors case MADISON, Wis. (AP) A Wisconsin judge Friday declined to dismiss felony charges against two attorneys and a former aide to President Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year. Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland rejected the motions to dismiss the 11 felony charges filed against the three defendants. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year. Jim Troupis, who was Trumps attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trumps director of Election Day operations in 2020, all were initially charged in June 2024. The case has stalled as the judge considered their attempts to have the charges dismissed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense, the judge said in rejecting the motions to dismiss. Attorneys for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment. The charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. Kaul is considering running for governor in 2026. He declined to comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and again last year but lost it in 2020 and tried unsuccessfully to overturn his defeat. The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023. Federal prosecutors who investigated Trumps conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin. Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which partys electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsins 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver the document to then-Vice President Mike Pence. They argued that the charges should be dismissed because no crime was committed in having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot to preserve their legal options in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trumps favor in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote. They also argued that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges cant legally be brought in state court. They further argued that the facts showed no crime was committed and also because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the states attorney general. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The judge rejected all of their arguments. Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme. The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith abandoned that case, saying that Trump's return to the White House precluded attempts to federally prosecute him. (The Center Square) A Wisconsin lawmaker has introduced a bill to prevent state and local governments from paying for health care services for undocumented individuals in the state. Rep. Alex Dallman, R-Markesan, pointed to Minnesotas expansion of MinnesotaCare to include undocumented individuals earlier this year as reasoning for the law, saying it will cost the state an additional $200 million over the next four years. I introduced AB 308 which will prohibit state and local taxpayer dollars from subsidizing health care for illegal immigrants, Dallman said in a statement. This bill will ensure hard-earned taxpayer money goes to Wisconsin citizens and not used to fund people here illegally. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Minnesota Rep. Jeff Backer, R-Browns Valley, said earlier this year that 17,396 illegal immigrants are currently enrolled in MinnesotaCare. Taxpayer funds should not be going to fund welfare for undocumented illegal immigrants, Dallman said in a statement. I look forward to moving this bill through the legislative process and ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent on hardworking Wisconsinites. Fiscal estimates on the bill say that the Department of Revenue does not have detailed expense data and the Department of Public Instruction also does not have a count of how many individuals between students, staff or teachers would be impacted by the bill. The Department of Corrections wrote that it was concerned about the bill conflicted with the Eighth Amendment in terms of providing health care. The 1976 Supreme Court case Estelle v. Gamble, established the deliberate failure to address medical needs of an inmate constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, the Department of Corrections wrote. In Fiscal Year 24, the Department's cost of providing healthcare was $7,700/person. This amount excludes salary and fringe benefit costs of healthcare personnel. A 44-year-old woman has been charged with drink-driving after a collision. She was also charged with driving without third party insurance following the crash on Tuesday between a car and motorcyle in Guernsey. The motorcyclist was injured and taken to hospital but has since been discharged. Guernsey Police is appealing for more information about the crash, which took place at the junction of Ruette Le Villocq and Route De Cobo. Follow BBC Guernsey on X and Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. Related internet links Shakia Jenkins stabbed a former friend in the head in Florida and bragged about the bloody attack in outrageous social media videos, authorities allege according to People. Troublemaking Texan Jenkins, 29, plunged a knife into her onetime pal after the women clashed at a club in Miami and faced off in a nearby convenience store parking lot, cops say. A criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime states that the injured gal, whose name was not publicly released, told police that during the physical altercation with Jenkins, she felt a sharp object stabbing her face. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The document further charges that the woman reported the alleged assault to Miami City police and showed them an Instagram Live video of Jenkins flashing a small black knife and citing horror movie villains as she crowed, I stabbed that ho, call me Chucky and call me Michael Myers. The complaint claims lawmen found more clips of the suspect tossing taunts and berating the alleged victim. Investigators say they also reviewed a TikTok video, in which Jenkins admits she tried to stab the woman in her motherf**king brain, and in another recording, she allegedly raged, I should have put a bullet in that hoe mouth. Jenkins is charged with first degree attempted murder, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and written or electronic threats to kill or conduct bodily injury. She has pleaded not guilty. MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. (WWLP) A Massachusetts woman with an active warrant was charged with trafficking methamphetamine. PHOTOS: Southwick police seek help in identifying chainsaw thief The Middleborough Police Department states that on Wednesday at 11:45 a.m., an officer learned that a guest at a hotel on East Clark Street had a warrant out for her arrest. Officers served the warrant to 49-year-old Olivia Noemi Folsom of Brighton, and she was taken into custody. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officers found 34 grams of methamphetamine, a small plastic bag containing crack cocaine, and drug paraphernalia during an investigation. Folsom was arrested and charged with: Trafficking in 18 Grams or More of Methamphetamine Possession of a Class B Drug She was arraigned on Wednesday and was ordered held on a $2,500 bail. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Police arrested a Boston woman on multiple drug charges Wednesday. 49-year-old Olivia Noemi Folsom, of Brighton, was charged with trafficking 18 grams or more of methamphetamine, and possession of a Class B drug. According to Middleborough Police, officers learned a guest at a hotel on East Clark Street had an active warrant for her arrest for failure to appear in Wareham District Court. Authorities served the warrant and found Folsom in the hotel. She was taken into custody without incident. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Officers on scene found about 34 grams of methamphetamine, a small plastic bag containing crack cocaine, and drug paraphernalia, according to investigators. Folsom was arraigned in Wareham District Court on Wednesday. She was ordered held on $2,500 bail. No further information was immediately available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A woman who suffered 27 seizures in one night said she was forced to set up her own support group because of a lack of understanding of her brain condition. Karla Rutherford, from County Durham, has functional neurological disorder (FND) which affects how the brain receives and sends information to the rest of the body. After her diagnosis in 2023, she said she spoke to a number of health professionals ''who didn't know anything'' about her condition, despite it not being rare. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement ''I didn't have the support when I was diagnosed and I know how my mental health suffered," the 39-year-old said. "I don't want anyone to feel they are on their own.'' She has now set up regular coffee mornings with a support group for people with the condition to share their experiences. They take place on the third Wednesday of the month at Chester-le-Street Community Centre from 11:00 BST. 'People question it' Symptoms of FND include seizures and weakness in the arms and legs. The neurological symptoms of paralysis, tremor and seizures, when not explained by stroke, multiple sclerosis, or epilepsy, are often indicative of FND. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jon Stone, professor of neurology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, said historically that led people to wrongly question if the condition was real. ''Patients are often accused of having symptoms that are all in their mind or that they have made up, when they clearly haven't,'' he said. Ms Rutherford said she suffers seizures every night and once had 27 in one night. ''I have weakness in my right side, I fall and sometimes I can't lift my right arm," she said. "I also get a droopiness in my face that makes me look like I've had a stroke.'' Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. More on this topic NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) A woman is dead, and her husband is badly hurt after police say a drunk driver crashed into them. It happened earlier this month in Antioch. Their heartbroken family is pleading with people to stay sober behind the wheel. A beautiful life was coming together for Raquel Lorena Sarabia Barajas and Marco Antonio Baez Del Angel. Have breaking news come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts They were always happy and smiling and dancing, Raquels brother, David Sarabia, said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The pair was driving down Bell Road at 3:30 a.m., and a person behind the wheel of a Maserati hit them head-on. Raquel died, and Marco is in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. I cannot describe this, Sarabia said. It is the worst pain you could ever feel. Metro police said the alleged intoxicated driver is Julio Ceaser Herrera Gonzales. Hes charged with vehicular homicide, DUI and driving without a license. Marcos sister, Melissa Baez, is at the hospital by her brothers side. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com Troopers said situations like this one are why they launch a Booze It or Lose It campaign each year near Labor Day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The family said Marco has serious brain trauma and dozens of fractures. Medical bills are adding up, so theyve set up a GoFundMe. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. CHICAGO (WGN) A woman is dead and a man is recovering in the hospital on Thursday morning after an overnight shooting on the citys West Side. According to police, the incident unfolded just before 11 p.m. in the 3900 block of West Gladys Avenue in Garfield Park. Officers said the victims, a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman, were outside in the area when an unidentified male approached on foot before he pulled out a gun and opened fire in their direction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Police say the woman suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was later pronounced dead at the hospital. The man was shot multiple times and was hospitalized in fair condition. Currently, it is unclear what led to the shootings and authorities have not yet identified anyone killed. While no arrests have been made in connection with the case, officers say an investigation is now underway. It was the second of two deadly shootings to unfold in the neighborhood overnight. Less than an hour before the incident, another shooting occurred about two miles away in the 300 block of South Maplewood Avenue in Garfield Park. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Officers said during that incident, the victims, two 38-year-old men, were standing outside when an unidentified male approached and opened fire. Both victims sustained multiple gunshot wounds and were later pronounced dead at the hospital. Authorities have not said whether the incidents are connected. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. The family of a man who was hit and killed by a drunk driver while leaving work at the Butler Eagle is getting justice. On Thursday afternoon, more than a dozen family members and loved ones of the victim filled a Butler County courtroom as a judge sentenced 27-year-old Kassandra Clyde to no less than three years in prison for a fatal DUI crash. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Family of Butler Eagle employee killed in DUI crash offers forgiveness to driver at plea hearing Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Clyde, a repeat offender, was driving with a blood alcohol concentration three times the legal limit when the collision occurred, according to police. In court, Clyde read a letter directly to the victims family, saying she wished it had been her who died that day and stating she takes full accountability for her decisions. Authorities said the crash happened on May 4, 2023, when Clyde was driving east on Route 422. She crossed over the solid yellow lines into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with the vehicle of 65-year-old James Barge, killing him instantly. Barge had just left his job at the Butler Eagle newspaper and was preparing to retire only days later. His family described him as a devout Christian, loving husband, father, and grandfather. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under Pennsylvania law, penalties for DUI-related homicide vary based on blood alcohol content and prior offenses. Homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence carries a mandatory minimum of three years, but judges may impose up to ten years. In Clydes case, the judge ordered a sentence of no less than three years and up to 10 years in prison. During sentencing, the judge told Clyde that she had an opportunity to learn from her first DUI offense but failed to do so. Barges family was too emotional to speak on camera, but his son shared a photo of him. The family said they know Barge would want them to forgive Clyde, even as they continue to grieve. Photo James Barge's son shared with Channel 11 After delivering her statement in court, Clyde was handcuffed and taken into custody to begin serving her sentence. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW A female-run charity that provides aid to women is organising family-friendly fundraising walks to support people in Gaza. Forgotten Women was set up after organisers said they found some women in vulnerable situations had been sexually exploited as they tried to seek aid. The charity now gives humanitarian aid directly to women in several countries, including Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. A spokesperson said: "With people facing starvation and millions more displaced, we cannot turn our backs." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The hour-long fundraising walks are taking place in Wolverhampton, Birmingham and the Black Country next month. Shreen Mahmood, from Wolverhampton, is a consultant and deployment lead for Forgotten Women, who has provided humanitarian aid from the front line in several conflicts and disaster areas. "Women tend to get exploited sexually while looking for aid, so this charity provides aid from women to women to counteract that," she said. "What I've also seen on the front line is women self-sacrificing food for men and children. We put them first." She said as a result the charity only deployed women in these areas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Forgotten Women normally works to distribute aid, the charity is having to work with partners to give help to the women and children of Gaza due to the dangerous conditions - including the death of aid workers. Forgotten Women provides aid boxes with food in them, as well as hygiene parcels, water and tents to people in need of aid - prioritising women and children. However, in Gaza, the charity was providing hot food instead of food parcels, as Ms Mahmood said the price of tins had soared to about 100 for five or six tins. "It's extortionate," she said. "Just because of the scarcity, there's no aid getting in." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which is used by governments and international bodies to identify hunger levels around the world, has raised its classification in Gaza City to Phase 5 - the highest and most severe. It said that more than half a million people across the Gaza Strip were facing "catastrophic" conditions characterised by "starvation, destitution and death". Ms Mahmood said it was important how nutrients were introduced to starving people. "Medical professionals are involved because it's a case of how to refeed them without shocking them into a heart attack," she said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The family-friendly fundraising walks are a way to combine advocacy and charity work, Ms Mahmood said. "It's bringing people together. People have really rallied around each other," she said. Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. More on this story Related internet links CLEVELAND, Ohio (WKBN) A man who worked for a company in Beachwood and was convicted of sabotaging his employers computer system was sentenced Thursday. Davis Lu, 55, of Houston, was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of supervised release for writing and deploying malicious code on his then-employers network. Investigators say Lu had been working as a software developer for a company headquartered in Beachwood for over a decade when a corporate realignment in 2018 reduced his responsibilities and system access. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was at that time that Lu began sabotaging his employers computer systems, and by August 2019, he had introduced malicious code that caused system crashes and prevented user logins. He also deleted worker profiles and implanted a kill switch that would lock out all users if his credentials in the companys directory were disabled. Lu was terminated in September 2019, and when his credentials were disabled, the code he had written impacted thousands of users globally. Lu named some of his code with words like Hakai, a Japanese word meaning destruction, and HunsShui, a Chinese word meaning sleep or lethargy. His actions cost his employer hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, prosecutors said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Luy was convicted of intentional damage to protected computers. The FBI Cleveland Field Office investigated the case. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. Former government employees who contracted cancers while working on Americas nuclear weapons are unable to get the government to review their medical claims in order to obtain compensation after the administration made rollbacks. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is composed of doctors, nuclear experts, former nuclear weapon employees, and others, who dedicate their time to understanding if a specific ailment is tied to a workers exposure to radiation and advising the Department of Health and Human Services about potential compensation. Their findings help determine whether former nuclear employees at U.S. facilities qualify for government compensation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the board has been effectively shut down because of President Donald Trumps plan to reduce the size of the federal government and streamline processes. That means those including Steve Hicks are left in limbo. The 70-year-old, who spent 34 years working as a nuclear mechanist at the Y-12 National Security Complex, which enriched uranium for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, is battling skin cancer and seeking compensation. Steve Hicks and other former nuclear weapons workers are seeking compensation for cancers they believe are tied to their government jobs (REUTERS) "I made a good living there, but I am not happy that I am this sick, Hicks told Reuters in an interview published Friday. And there are people who worked there that are sicker than me." Hicks is one of the thousands of former nuclear employees who suffer from cancers associated with radiation exposure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He previously had kidney cancer, which is one of the 22 cancers the government recognizes, and provides a $150,000 lump-sump payment and medical expense compensation. But skin cancer is not on that list. Hicks has spent a lot of time petitioning the government to provide coverage for his skin cancer treatment and for them to add the cancer to the Special Exposure Cohort which are cancers the government does compensate. The Special Exposure Cohort was established by a congressional act in 2000, to compensate former nuclear weapons workers who were diagnosed with cancer due to high radiation exposure. To qualify, an employee must have worked at least 250 days, before February 1992, at three gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky, Ohio, or Tennessee and have one of the 22 cancers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But to add another cancer to the list is an extremely arduous process and can take years. When it was first established, Congress had 13 cancers on the list and have added to it over the years through the petition process. "I've contacted politicians and the White House and haven't heard anything back, Hicks told Reuters. Tighter regulations around work in nuclear facilities were introduced in the 1970s and have since become stricter to prevent long-term health effects (Getty Images) But the process has now become virtually impossible because the board has been inactive since the start of the Trump administration. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health was in the process of reviewing eight petitions from former nuclear workers when HHS suspended its activities in January. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The board is supposed to meet six times per year, according to law. But its 10 members told Reuters that it has not met since December 2024. "Meetings of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health are currently paused due to outstanding administrative requirements, which the program is actively working to resolve," a CDC spokesperson told Reuters. The Independent has asked the CDC for comment. As of last year, the U.S. had given $25 billion in compensation and medical benefits to the more than 100,000 atomic weapons workers who made claims, according to the Department of Energy. But that could end for good soon because it has a statute expiration of September 2025. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unless the Trump administration chooses to renew the compensation program those former nuclear weapons employees who are hoping to receive assistance with their medical payments will no longer have the opportunity. "The board's suspension effectively stops the entire compensation process for nuclear workers, leaving many without the medical coverage and recognition they desperately need," Brad Clawson, a former nuclear fuel operator at the Idaho National Lab, told Reuters. "Thousands and thousands of people still haven't had their day to prove that they were injured by this." LITTLE ROCK, Ark. SNAP Benefit holders in Arkansas are left empty-handed as EBT theft runs rampant across the country. In July Alone, 1,500 Arkansans reported their benefits stolen with the Department of Human Services. Picture this. Youre on your weekly shopping trip. You go up and down the aisles getting everything on your list, but by the time you get up to the front to pay, your balance is zero. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DHS warns Arkansans about SNAP scams, encourages account security Mona Lord-Crouch says she was blindsided when she discovered $292 was stolen from her SNAP account. Criminals are always looking for an easy opportunity to steal, said Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin. The scheme has become increasingly popular, and in some cases nearly untraceable. The Arkansas Department of Human Services tallied more than 1,100 families in the state had their benefits stolen in 2024. There were 1,500 in the state this July alone. My brain is going like this, trying to figure out where it is coming from, who is doing it? And why wont they give us emergency funds? said Lord-Crouch. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities say the thieves are most likely stealing the funds using card skimmers. Its a device that goes on top of a regular card reader and can collect key information when you swipe. Right now, DHS is not reimbursing funds that have been stolen, leaving families out of money and out of luck. If a criminal activity has already occurred, theft, its very difficult to figure out where that is and who got it, said Griffin. Is it time for Arkansas to update its SNAP cards for better security? Other states have led special operations to try to catch these criminals in the act. Earlier this month in Georgia, agents with the USDA and U.S. Secret Service went store to store looking for card skimmers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Agents report they helped prevent more than a million dollars in fraud from confiscated devices. In Mississippi, four people were arrested in an operation called SNAP Trap. Authorities say these people took more than $131,000 in state funds. Working 4 You asked Griffin about any potential operations in the pipeline. Lets just say that we are very engaged on organized retail crime and financial fraud, said Griffin. I wont get into the details, but were always looking to arrest criminals. The USDA, which runs SNAP at the federal level, says California has implemented chip cards for additional security. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oklahoma, Alabama, New Jersey, and Maryland are in the process of switching over now. Arkansas Department of Human Services launches website to fight SNAP fraud Arkansas DHS tells Working 4 You the change is a possibility. DHS is looking into the possibility of chip cards, but its important to note that this is a long-term change that will require the issuance of new cards and upgrades in the technology platform used by retailers. To date, only one state in the country has issued chip cards and a handful of others have started the process. We are monitoring these efforts in other states and will work closely with USDA to determine best next steps in Arkansas. Mona Lord-Crouch says her monthly shopping trip looms over her like a dark cloud, unaware of what surprises are waiting for her at the end of the checkout line. I get nervous, I start sweating really bad, my blood pressure goes up, said Lord-Crouch. How do I know its not going to do it again this month? Just because I renewed a card doesnt mean anything. DHS says users can protect themselves from potential theft by: Setting a PIN that is only known to you and not commonly used Keeping the PIN a secret Checking EBT accounts regularly for unauthorized charges Checking card reading machine to make sure there is nothing suspicious overlayed or attached to the card swiper or keypad Never revealing the PIN to anyone. DHS will not reach out via email, social media message, or text to ask for a PIN Avoiding saving an EBT card as a payment method for online shopping Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If you have had your benefits stolen, you can report it directly to DHS through the agencys website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. A 16-year-old who collected his GCSEs said he felt the working world was the best option for him, instead of continuing to study. Lennon White, from Guernsey, is due to start his new role at a local finance company soon. He said when he started secondary school he thought he would continue with education "but getting older, going through school, I've realised that you don't really need Sixth Form as much as you think". Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chris Gnapp, managing director at Leapfrog Recruitment, said "more and more now we're seeing people go into the financial services or trainee roles within trades". In 2024, 15% of students in States' schools went in to employment or an apprenticeship. Over the past five years, three students from Elizabeth College went in to employment or an apprenticeship, and one pupil from Ladies College. Lennon will still be attending courses and doing exams as part of his new role. He said: "I did a few work experiences, and then I just realised finance or work was what I wanted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I can basically do my own thing now that I'm making my own money, got my own job, I can be myself." The school leaving age for children in Guernsey and Alderney is 16. Chris Gnapp said finance was a popular career choice for young people [BBC] In England, you must stay in full-time education, for example at a college or start an apprenticeship, or spend at least 20 hours a week working or volunteering, while in part-time education or training until you are 18. Deputy Paul Montague, the President of the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture, said it is definitely something the committee will need to review. Dont forget we were much later than the UK in raising the school leaving age from 15 to 16 and so kilter with this as well. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Montague added that before any changes were made a thorough analysis needed to be done. Mr Gnapp said "wanting to get money and kick-start on your career" are some of the main reasons 16 year olds go into employment. He mentioned most roles at that age offered some training and courses and "it's not necessarily the end of learning for them". Follow BBC Guernsey on X and Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. More on this story DES MOINES, Iowa The World Food and Music Festival is back this weekend, bringing the flavors and sounds from over 50 vendors from 25 countries. Beginning at 11:00 AM on Friday, vendors will be serving food and drinks from around the world in Western Gateway Park. Spark DSM is also partnering with several small businesses to help them make an appearance at the festival. Lincoln High School unveils $4.5 million track and field Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the Greater Des Moines Partnership, this is one of the largest festivals in Des Moines, drawing around 100,000 people a year. Music is also a big part of the festival, with two stages and free admission to the concerts and the festival itself. One unique part of the festival is the Nationalization Ceremony hosted by the U.S. District Court. The ceremony takes place right around when the festival begins on Friday morning, as several people from around the world become U.S. citizens. Vendors will have a variety of food items to choose from, including a $2 taste item. The taste item allows visitors to try as many foods as possible without getting too full or breaking the bank. Visitors to the festival are also able to park in the Nationwide garage for free. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The World Food and Music Festival will take place Friday and Saturday from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM and Sunday from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You can find more information on their website here. Metro news Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com. Aug. 22 (UPI) -- The top global hunger monitoring agency Friday declared a famine affecting more than half a million people in a part of Gaza that includes Gaza City as Israeli forces laid siege to the city in an effort to pressure Hamas ahead of negotiations to release hostages in exchange for a cease-fire. Famine had been confirmed with the number of people affected a little under 514,000, out of a total population of 2 million, with that number forecast to rise to 641,000 by the end of September, according to a report by the Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. People affected were facing "starvation, destitution and death." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The IPC's definition of famine is when at least 20% of households in a defined area are facing an extreme lack of food, acute malnutrition affects at least 30% of children and the daily death toll from starvation reaches a minimum threshold of two adults, or four children, per 10,000 head of population. However, the IPC said that, due to a lack of data, it had to use an alternate measure to arrive at its conclusion, which is met when 15% of children were suffering from acute malnutrition based on the circumference of their mid-upper arm, together with other underlying evidence. The IPC said it also projected conditions it described as "catastrophic" would spread southwards to the Deir al Balah and Khan Younis areas during the same timeframe if the humanitarian situation did not improve. "Famine is a race against time. An immediate cease-fire and end to the conflict is critical to enabling an unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian response to save lives," it added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israel denied there was a famine in Gaza and accused the IPC of faking the report, altering its methodology to suit its anti-Israel bias. Friday's announcement was only the fourth time the organization, which is backed by the United Nations and 19 other intergovernmental bodies and NGOs, had declared famine in its more than two-decade-long history. Humanitarian groups and global health agencies, including the United Nations, World Food Program and World Health Organization, said they had been expecting the news. "Just when it seems there are no words left to describe the living hell in Gaza, a new one has been added: 'famine'. This is not a mystery -- it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself," said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival. People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing," he said. Guterres said international law was absolutely clear on Israel's obligation to ensure food and medical supplies for the population. "A cease-fire is an absolute and moral imperative now. The world has waited too long, watching tragic and unnecessary deaths mount from this man-made famine," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. But U.S. and Israeli officials condemned the report, with the foreign ministry in Jerusalem alleging it was a "fabricated report to Hamas' fake campaign," while Mike Huckabee, the United States' Ambassador to Israel, drew attention to the starvation being endured by Israeli hostages. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Maybe the overfed terrorists could share some of their warehouse full they stole with hungry people, especially the hostages," he said. However, the World Peace Foundation told the BBC that the method to determine famine that the IPC used was accepted standard practice and was not a "lowered or new threshold." "Israel won't permit humanitarian data collection and then complains about the quality of the data," said WPF executive director Alex de Waal. Global leaders and humanitarian groups have said Gaza is facing a new phase of hell after a newly-published report from The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) concluded famine is taking place in Gaza City. It marks the first time that famine has been confirmed since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Famine is classified when 20% of households in an area face an extreme shortage of food, 30% of children are acutely malnourished, and there are between two-to-four deaths per 10,000 people each day, caused by starvation, according to the United Nations-backed IPC, who had warned in July that Gaza was facing a worst-case famine scenario. In the report published Friday, the IPC added that the situation in North Gaza appears to be even more critical than that in Gaza City, but limited evidence on the population status in this area has prevented food security body from confirming famine there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Urgent steps should be taken to allow for a full humanitarian assessment in this governorate, the IPC urged. The IPC also reported that the governorates of Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis are in the emergency phase, just one level below the famine determination. Per the IPC, famine is likely to occur in those areas by the end of September. Read More: The Malnutrition Crisis in Gaza Will Outlive the War, Experts Warn Israel has strongly rejected the IPC report, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office calling it an outright lie. Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation, read a statement from the office. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Israels Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said "the entire IPC document is based on Hamas lies laundered through organizations with vested interests, and claimed that the IPC had changed its global standard for determining famine by cutting the 30% threshold to 15% for this report only. The IPC has told TIME the Israeli Foreign Ministry's statement that the IPC changed its protocols is completely false. Per the IPC, the 30% threshold of malnutrition amongst children uses a measurement called Weight-for-Height Z-core (WHZ). However, a separate measurement, Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC), requires only a threshold of 15% and has been used for almost a decade by the IPC. In the absence of WHZ data (which is the case of Gaza) widespread acute malnutrition may be identified when at least 15% of children aged 659 months have a MUAC below 125 mm or oedema [swelling in the body's tissues], the IPC spokesperson told TIME in an emailed statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement TIME has reached out to the Israeli Foreign Ministry for comment. Israel is facing mounting pressure from organizations and world leaders over its military operations in the territory, with its plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip prompting widespread condemnation. In response to the IPC assessment, the World Health Organization (WHO) said: "More than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable death. An immediate cease-fire and end to the conflict is critical to allow an unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian response that can save lives. The U.K.-based non-profit Medical Aid for Palestinians shared testimony from its staff and contacts in Gaza in an email to TIME on Friday, citing particular concern over instances of malnutrition and starvation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have been working in intensive care units as a physiotherapist helping people to recover from complex and major trauma for 25 years, working both in the NHS [the U.K. healthcare system] and around the world in conflict zones, said Dr. Rachael Moses, a physiotherapist working in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. I have never seen as many patients so malnourished and starved as I have in Gaza's ICUsboth babies and adults. Amid escalating calls for a cease-fire, here is how some world leaders are reacting to the declaration of famine in Gaza City: Belgium Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said that the IPCs confirmation of famine in Gaza is not a surprise. It is the tragic consequence of what has been clear for months: an entire population is being pushed into starvation, destitution, and death, said Prevot. It is a disgrace that in the 21st century, children are dying of hunger because aid is blocked. In this case, famine is not a natural disaster, it is the result of choices. Denmark The Danish Foreign Ministry shared a statement from Foreign Affairs Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen, saying: Over half a million people are affectedmore will follow. We repeat: Israel must allow unimpeded, safe, and sustained access for aid and let U.N. and NGOs work. Ireland Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheal Martin called the famine declaration entirely predicated and preventable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The withholding of food and water from civilians is collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and is a war crime, Martin said, calling for a stop to Israels expansion of its military operations. Tanaiste Simon Harris (Irelands Deputy Prime Minister) said the heartbreaking and devastating scenes in Gaza cannot be ignored. It is sickening and despicable. People in Ireland and across the world will not turn a blind eye, Harris added, before calling for a review into trade agreements between the European Union and Israel. Read More: The Tragedy Unfolding in Gaza Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabias Foreign Ministry voiced deep concern over the IPCs report, stating that the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a direct result of the absence of mechanisms to deter and hold accountable the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Ministry went on to call the famine a stain on the international community. Slovenia Deputy Prime Minister Tanja Fajon referred to famine as the new phase of hell Gaza faces in this man-made catastrophe. Dying because of starvation is a harsh reality for people in Gaza This has to stop. We need an immediate cease-fire, release of all hostages and full, unimpeded humanitarian access, urged Fajon. United Kingdom U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the confirmation of famine in Gaza City is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. He called the humanitarian situation a moral outrage, citing the Israeli governments refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Israeli government must allow the U.N. and international NGOs to carry out their life-saving work without obstruction. Aid must reach those in need urgently and without delay, concluded Lammy. First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, also responded to the declaration of famine. Families and children are dying of starvation There must be an immediate cease-fire, urgent aid into Gaza, and sanctions on Israel, he said, referring to the situation as genocide in plain sight. United Nations U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the famine in Gaza a man-made disaster and a failure of humanity itself. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing. As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international lawincluding the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population, he said. U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk called Gazas famine a war crime and said Israel has unlawfully restricted the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance and other goods necessary for the survival of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The Israel-Hamas war The Israel-Hamas war started after Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Over 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, including 273 adults and 112 children that have died of starvation and malnutrition, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. In the absence of independent monitoring on the ground, the ministry is the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified by TIME. Contact us at letters@time.com. Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread across the enclave, a United Nations-backed global hunger monitor has said. On Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people, close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza, are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. This comes after 22 months of war, during which Israeli forces have destroyed infrastructure and bakeries, blocked the entry of aid into the besieged Strip, and targeted and killed desperate Palestinians seeking food. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group has predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month. Heres how global leaders and NGOs are reacting to the IPC report: United Nations UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gazas famine was a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself. Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival, Guterres said. People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has unequivocal obligations under international law, including the duty to ensure that food and medical supplies are made available to the population of Gaza. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has highlighted that months of warnings have fallen on deaf ears, but now that the famine is confirmed in Gaza City and the surrounding areas, it is time for political will to end it. We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity, he said. No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow it is now. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine has been openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war and called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the retribution and open Gazas crossings for unrestricted access. Israel Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the UN-backed declaration that famine was present in parts of Gaza. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The IPC report is an outright lie, Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. He added that Israel does not have a policy of starvation, citing the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip during the war. The controversial Israel- and US-backed GHF took over all food aid distribution in Gaza from the UN in May. Since then, Gazas Health Ministry says more than 2,000 aid seekers have been killed. Hamas Palestinian group Hamas called for an immediate end to the war and the lifting of the Israeli siege on the territory after the UN declared a famine in parts of Gaza. In a statement published online, the group called for immediate action by the UN and the security council to stop the war and lift the siege and demanded that crossings be opened without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water and fuel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The group went on to say that the declaration by the UN has confirmed the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and accused Israel of using starvation as a tool of war. Gazas Government Media Office Gazas Government Media Office says the IPC report and comments from UN officials confirm that famine in Gaza is now a proven fact that may amount to war crimes. The reality in Gaza is even more grave and catastrophic than depicted in the UN-backed report, the office said in a statement, calling on the international community to intervene. It said Israels own data on allowing several dozen trucks of aid into Gaza on average during the past weeks show that the volume going in is much lower than whats needed by the famine-stricken population in the enclave. The figures incriminate, not exonerate Israeli authorities, the office added. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The statement said the technical terms used in the IPC report indicate that famine is now a fact that cannot be manipulated by Israel or its allies, and that any state or organisation that turns a blind eye to this crime becomes complicit in its continuation and falls under the scope of international law. Palestinian Authority The Foreign Ministry of the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, said the IPC report closed the door to interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine. It has confirmed that what is required now, before it is too late, is the mobilisation of international influence in all its forms and dimensions to immediately halt the famine and the aggression against our people, it said in a statement on social media. It also urged the UN Security Council and the international community to address with utmost seriousness and concern the contents of the report. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This signifies that the Israeli occupation is proceeding to destroy all aspects and components of human life in the Gaza Strip and committing the crime of using starvation as a weapon in the war against Palestinian civilians. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia expressed concern after the IPCs famine report and said that the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza will remain a stain on the international community. The situation in Gaza is a direct result of the absence of deterrence and accountability mechanisms for the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It urged that the UN Security Council quickly intervene immediately to end the famine and stop the war of genocide and crimes committed by Israel against Palestine. Kuwait Kuwait has denounced the policy of starvation, oppression, and displacement pursued by Israel against civilians in Gaza. The countrys Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Israels policy is in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, as well as UN Security Council resolutions and in disregard of relevant international legitimacy resolutions. Kuwait also called on the international community and the Security Council to take action to allow the urgent entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, to halt the genocide being perpetrated against the brotherly Palestinian people, and to hold the occupying power accountable for the crimes it commits against humanity. Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, stressed the need for immediate action by the international community to pressure Israel to open the crossings and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza without restrictions. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In a statement on Friday, Albudaiwi pointed out that the official declaration of famine in the Gaza Strip by the IPC, which has reached catastrophic levels, clearly reflects the dangerous, inhumane, and illegal starvation policies pursued by the Israeli occupation forces against the brotherly Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. United Kingdom The UKs Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the famine in Gaza as a moral outrage and a man-made catastrophe, after it was declared by the IPC. The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable, Lammy said in a statement. The Israeli governments refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage. Amnesty International This famine is the direct consequence of Israels deliberate campaign of starvation in Gaza, Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnestys senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She said the IPCs famine declaration is a scathing indictment of the failure of states to press Israel into ending its genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip. The deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid, the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, and the direct killings of civilians are a clear manifestation of how Israel is inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza as part of its ongoing genocide, she said. History will never forgive us for standing by as emaciated children die, while food remains just miles away, yet blocked by Israel. Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross said Israel must meet the basic needs of Gazas civilians for food, water and medicine, following Fridays devastating and entirely foreseeable IPC report. Under international humanitarian law, Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met, using all the resources it has available, the ICRC said in a statement, adding that the famine declaration must serve as a catalyst for immediate and concrete action. Oxfam Oxfam said the IPCs declaration of a famine in Gaza City confirms what the charity and its partners have been witnessing for months, and has called for aid to be immediately allowed into the territory. The famine in Gaza is entirely driven by Israels near-total blockade on food and vital aid, the horrifying consequence of Israels violence, and its use of starvation as a weapon of war, said Helen Stawski, policy lead at Oxfam GB, the global poverty-focused NGOs British arm. Despite warnings in July that famine was imminent, Israel has continued to deprive Palestinians of food, denying almost every request from long-established humanitarian agencies, preventing them from delivering vital food and aid that could have stemmed hunger, malnutrition and disease. She said that Oxfam had more than $3.3m worth of aid, including high-calorie food packages, sitting in warehouses outside Gaza. Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever, she said. Islamic Relief The IPCs confirmation of famine in Gaza brings shame on the entire world, said humanitarian charity Islamic Relief. Every day our team there sees more people starving to death and children turning into living skeletons before our eyes, the NGO said in a statement. Many more will die unless the world acts now. CAIR The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Fridays findings of famine in northern Gaza must push US President Donald Trump and the US Congress to end Washingtons unwavering support for Israel. This famine is not a natural disaster it is the intended outcome of Israels brutal blockade, targeted destruction of food systems, and systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid. For months, international aid organizations have sounded the alarm, CAIR wrote on X. Mercy Corps The chief executive officer of the US-based aid group, Tjada DOyen McKenna, called the UN announcement of a famine in Gaza City absolutely horrifying, yet not surprising. This is the direct result of months of deliberate restrictions on aid, the destruction of Gazas food, health and water systems, and relentless bombardment. This is a man-made catastrophe, entirely preventable and entirely unconscionable, she said. McKenna said Mercy Corps staff were facing dire conditions. Were watching our own team members waste away. Theyre standing in food lines, skipping meals so their children can eat, and risking their lives daily just to find bread and water, she noted. On January 3, 1943, a miracle occurred over the skies of France. While on a daylight bombing mission over occupied Saint Nazaire, a B-17F named Snap! Crackle! Pop! with the 360th squadron of the 303rd bomb group, tossed its ball turret gunner out of the plane without a parachute. Amazingly, his story doesnt end there. For anyone else it might have ended there, but not for Alan Magee (U.S. Army) Saint Nazaire was home to a strategic U-boat base and dry dock, which were partially destroyed during Operation Chariot almost a year earlier. The bomber Snap! Crackle! Pop! which got its name from Capt. Jacob Fredericks, who flew the bomber from the States to its duty station. Before the war, Fredericks worked for the Kellogg corporation, the creators of Rice Crispies. Aboard the B-17 that day was Staff Sgt. Alan Magee. He had joined the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor and applied to be a pilot. He was passed over for pilot duty, but since he was 56 and weighed 155, he was a perfect fit as a ball turret gunner, and this would be his 7th mission. It was a daylight bombing run to destroy enemy torpedo stores located in a place known to the bomber crews as Flak City. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As the group approached the target, German flak batteries peppered the sky with steel, damaging Magees ball turret and rendering it inoperative. Magee left the turret and was heading to the radio room when a flak strike tore off part of the right wing, putting the bomber into a spin. He began to lose consciousness due to the lack of oxygen, and the force of the spinning bomber threw him out of the aircraft. Magee fell from an altitude of 22,000 feet more than four miles and crashed through the roof of the Saint Nazaire Train Station. Its a beautiful train station. It would be a shame if something happened to it. The glass roof absorbed much of the impact, and Magee was found alive, but badly injured. In total, he suffered 28 shrapnel wounds, a broken nose and eye damage, a punctured lung and kidney damage, a fractured right leg, and his right arm was nearly severed. He regained consciousness at a first aid station before transport to the hospital. I owe the German military doctor who treated me a debt of gratitude, Magee later said. He told me, We are enemies, but I am first a doctor, and I will do my best to save your arm.' Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Magee never learned the doctors name, but he did save Magees arm and took care of his other injuries. Magee and two other survivors were sent to Stalag Luft 17B, where they spent the rest of the war as POWs. The wreckage of Snap! Crackle! Pop! ended up in the nearby La Baule Escoublac Forest, and when the Germans located the bomber, they took a war trophy. The front right section of the fuselage, featuring the nose art, was cut off and displayed in the oceanfront villa used by the occupying German command staff. This could describe the sounds of so many things in this story. (U.S. Army) At wars end, the Germans threw their trophy over the cliff from their villa before surrender, which was later found on the rocks below, near the sea. Magee was liberated in 1945 and received the Air Medal and Purple Heart. He went on to earn his pilots license and worked in the aviation industry. Many of the locals of Saint Nazaire, however, were sent to concentration camps when they were caught aiding American aircrews. On Sept. 23, 1995, the people of the city dedicated a memorial to his seven crewmates killed in the crash. The townspeople were grateful to Magee, and they were all named Citizens of Honor by the citys mayor. After a mass, the entourage headed to the forest crash site where the memorial was uncovered and dedicated. The following day, Magee visited the U.S. military cemetery of St. James in Normandie to pay respects at the graves of his crewmates. During his visit, he visited the hotel where the German doctor treated him, as well as the submarine pens and the harbor. Finally, Magee traveled to the train station to see the glass roof that cushioned his fall over 50 years earlier and gave him a second chance at life. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alan Magee died in 2003 at the age of 84. atomic veterans atomic echoes blue chalk media World War II Atomic Echoes follows the stories of atomic bomb survivors 80 years after World War II By Shannon Corbeil Papa Jake Larson World War II D-Day veteran and beloved TikTok star Papa Jake Larson dies at 102 By Miguel Ortiz B-17 bombing World War II Harrowing photos show one B-17 bombing another B-17 in combat By Logan Nye Superman World War II Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Movies Superman vs. Hitler: How the Man of Steel helped fight World War II By Jos Joseph meatless tuesday world war II foods World War II The 9 worst creations Americans called food during World War II By Blake Stilwell Crown Point Bulldog Park: 183 S. West St. This years Awaken NWI event will take place at 4 p.m. September 14 at Bulldog Park. The event is a night of worship. For more information, visit: https://shorturl.at/wv2S4. CrossPoint Church: 214 Court St. CrossPoint Church will have an outdoor service at Bulldog Park beginning at 10:30 a.m. August 31. After the service, there will be bounce houses and a splash pad for recreation, and S&T Too Pizza, Damos Dogs, and Day Dreams & Ice Cream will be on site for purchase. For more information, visit https://www.crosspoint.family/events/outdoor-t9fyg-xtlb4. Lake County Fairgrounds: 857 Lake St. CrossPoint Churchs Womens Ministry will have its fourth Picnic and Play beginning at 10 a.m. August 27 at the Lake County Fairgrounds. Women of all ages are welcome to join with or without children. Those who would like to stay for a picnic are asked to pack a lunch. For more information, call 219-662-2211. Gary Marquette Park United Methodist Church: 215 N. Grand Blvd. All are welcome to worship at 11:15 a.m. Sundays at Marquette Park United Methodist Church. There will be refreshments to follow in the Fellowship Hall. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Peace Emmanuel Baptist Church: 1201 Chase St. Peace Emmanuel Church nurses ministry will host a Health and Wellness Fair from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on September 13. There will be screenings and information on mental health, sickle cell, cancer, fire prevention and more. The fair will also have a live DJ, fun activities, games, exercises and prizes. All are welcome to attend. St. Timothy Unity Church: 1600 W. 25th Ave. The church will have Gospel Extravaganza, presented by Urban League of Northwest Indiana, at 4 p.m. Sept. 14. VIP tickets are $75, and general tickets are $25. For more information, call 219-887-9621 or visit Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gospel-extravaganza-tickets-1353361313119. Hammond Faith United Church of Christ: 3030 175th St. Faith United Church of Christ holds its worship service at 10 a.m. on Sundays, followed by fellowship and coffee. Saint Joseph Catholic Church: 5304 Hohman Ave. Saint Joseph Catholic Church will have Donut Sunday on the final Sunday of every month after the 9 a.m. Mass. Free coffee and donuts are provided at the air-conditioned church hall. Hobart First Unitarian Church of Hobart: 497 Main St. Empty Circle Zen will have Meditation Practices at First Unitarian Church of Hobart at 7 a.m. on August 23. The event will feature evening bell chant, meditation, English Heart Sutra, and more. For more information, visit https://www.uunwi.org/events/empty-circle-zen-meditation18/2025-08-23. Portage St. Peter Lutheran Church: 6540 Central Ave. Services are held every Sunday at 10 a.m. To submit worship news, email cnance@post-trib.com. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Bursts of color can come in tiny packages. Illustrator and artist Scott Partridge of Charlotte welcomes the challenge of downsizing his wildlife-inspired work for a project that gives new life to the cigarette machines many might think are obsolete. Make a big impact in a little size, Partridge says, mounting his images of birds and other animals on blocks that fit in the palm of his hand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Put a sticker on the back, I like write my name on it, he explains. You might say, thats a wrap, as in cellophane. Then, the prints move on to the unconventional marketplace. They really like the surprise of kind of not knowing what theyre going to get, he told Queen City News. The inventory goes on to a gallery space in downtown Winston-Salem, but thats not the last stop. It might be hard for some to picture acquiring art from a vending machine that was once the vehicle to sell cigarettes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You can score everything from watercolor prints to itty-bitty portraits of actor Bill Murray. Or take home a mini painting of a North Carolina lighthouse. The Art-o-mat machines are located at hundreds of places all over the country in all 50 states. We found one at the Cain Center for the Arts in Cornelius and at Free Range Brewing in Charlotte. Each unit has different artwork available for an accessible five bucks. This machine is going to a coffee shop in Simpsonville, S.C., says owner Clark Whittington, who started Art-o-mat in his basement 28 years ago. The original Art-o-mat was based on a friend who would go to a vending machine upon hearing the crinkle of cellophane, he explains. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its become more than a wrappers delight. Enthusiasts also enjoy the quirky offerings and the sound of the sale. Ka-toom! exclaims Whittington, who owned a Charlotte art gallery in the 80s. Later, he moved to Winston. In 1997, a friend told him it was the perfect time for a smokin concept. Cigarette machines are being banned, theyre throwing away, scrapping them, his buddy told him. So, he hooked me up with a vending company, and the vending guys laughed at me, gave me the first Art-o-mat. He started out selling his own Polaroid photos. That grew into a movement thats involved thousands of creators. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It just kind of grew legs, said Whittington. Its a great way for artists to have the work in places they couldnt reach otherwise. The machines do have size limitations. The pieces must be roughly about two by three inches and just a hair under an inch thick. You know, the size of a pack of smokes. Studio manager Katelin Marie says art can be as addictive as nicotine. Theres so many types of art that show up; it amazes me the creativity, Marie said. You get a tee-tiny mini macrame, artist Pam Fish says, showing us her work sold via Art-o-mat. The audio-visual part of each transaction is what makes the project pop. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Youre able to pull and get a piece of art to kerplunk, and that youre able to get an original piece of art for five dollars, said Fish.I was kerplunking way before I became an artist. It was on my bucket list of what I really wanted to do. Graphic artist Zack Strain is also part of the network. His most recent batch includes a series of cards he describes as fantasy weaponry and magic items. That feeds the soul, Strain said of the opportunity. For the people that love little trinkets that collect things, I think the artists that submit to Art-o-mat have that in mind and have that love for them. The Pavlovian response reels people in, but its the big ideas in small boxes that keep folks coming. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement They might end up deciding to buy a larger piece later on, Partridge says.Its just such a good idea that is executed so well. We wouldnt be here if it werent for other people taking a little part of this project and making it their own, said Whittington. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. By Luc Cohen and Daniel Trotta (Reuters) -Kilmar Abrego, the migrant whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies, was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, reporters witnessed. Video posted hours later on X by WJLA television showed him arriving at a family home in Maryland where relatives greeted him with hugs and chants of "Yes we could!" in Spanish. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego, 30, was deported to his native El Salvador in March despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he not be sent there due to a risk of persecution by gangs. He was flown back to the U.S. in June to face criminal charges of transporting migrants living illegally in the country. His case drew attention as the Trump administration for months took no apparent steps to bring him back despite an official's acknowledgement that his deportation had been an "administrative error" and a federal judge's order to facilitate his return. Abrego may not be free for long. Once in Maryland, immigration officials could take him into custody and initiate deportation proceedings. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers have urged Nashville-based U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw to dismiss the charges, arguing prosecutors improperly targeted him in retaliation for filing a lawsuit challenging his deportation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement UGANDA NEXT? Crenshaw last month affirmed U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes' order for Abrego to be released from pre-trial custody, finding he was neither a danger to the community nor a risk of flight. But Holmes delayed Abrego's release for a month at Abrego's lawyers' requests. The defense lawyers were concerned that Abrego, once released from criminal custody, could be detained by immigration officials and swiftly deported to a country other than El Salvador. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is overseeing Abrego's civil lawsuit challenging the legality of his deportation, has since ordered that officials give his lawyers three days' notice before sending him to a third country, to give them the chance to challenge his removal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Abrego had been living in Maryland with his wife, their child and two of her children before his deportation. His lawyers have said they hired private security to take him to Maryland, where he is due to report to a pre-trial supervision officer and be subject to home detention with electronic monitoring. The U.S. government notified Abrego's lawyers that he would be deported to Uganda within days and he was asked to appear at a federal building in Baltimore on Monday, Fox News reported, citing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents. Neither ICE nor Abrego's attorneys responded to Reuters requests to authenticate the documents. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said he was still considered a criminal and an immigration violator, calling him a "monster" who was released by "activist liberal judges." "We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country," Noem said on X. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York, Bhargav Acharya in Toronto, Seth Herald in Cookville, Tennessee, and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Alistair Bell and William Mallard) Aug. 21A former Washington State University teaching assistant who drew national attention after he and another WSU associate attacked a student wearing a Donald Trump hat was sentenced Thursday to one week in jail and one year of probation. Patrick M. Mahoney, 34, pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault in Whitman County District Court in Pullman before Judge John Hart handed down the sentence recommended by the prosecution. "The court feels the state's recommendation is not just reasonable, but perhaps less severe than I may have thought before they made it," Hart said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Gerald W. Hoff, 24, was also facing a fourth-degree assault charge, but the Moscow-Pullman Daily News reported his case was resolved last month with Hoff avoiding jail time. The assault charge for the defendants stems from the night of Feb. 28, when Mahoney ripped 25-year-old Jay Sani's red "Trump 2024 TAKE AMERICA BACK" hat from his head and tossed it into the road outside The Coug, a popular college student bar just off campus, according to surveillance footage and a Pullman Police Department report. Sani, a junior electrical engineering student, then slung his bag of food toward Mahoney, and Mahoney and Hoff took Sani to the ground, each delivering a punch, according to the footage. Sani, who is also president of the WSU College Republicans, said the attack happened when he was walking back to Valhalla Bar and Grill, a block away from The Coug, after he realized the food he ordered from the restaurant was wrong. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mahoney admitted to police he hit Sani in the face, and Hoff said he struck Sani in the leg, according to interviews with the suspects recorded on police body camera footage. The defendants then left the scene on foot. Sani told officers Mahoney slammed his head onto the ground. "Some people might find it offensive, but it's 2025, man," Sani told officers. "It's just a hat." Sani said he did not interact with Mahoney in the moments prior to walking by each other on the sidewalk. Sani casually knew Mahoney, saying he and Mahoney were part of opposing political groups on campus, the police report says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mahoney and Hoff confirmed Sani's account that Mahoney grabbed and threw Sani's Trump hat and told Sani to go get it, according to body cam footage. Mahoney said he didn't want to fight, according to documents, but that Sani did and "got what was coming to him." "You wanna wear the hat, hey, there's gonna be a price to pay," Mahoney told police in reports. Hoff and Mahoney were arrested after their interviews on Main Street and taken to the police department, from where they were released within hours. Mahoney, a WSU graduate student, was "relieved of all teaching responsibilities," and Hoff, a "staff member," was terminated by the university, according to an email earlier this year from WSU. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Hoff told police he was a research assistant at WSU. Sani told the court Thursday that on paper, the assault might sound small, but the implications are "much bigger than it seems." "It's about the treatment and fairness of discussions regardless of what your beliefs are," he said. He asked Hart to impose the maximum punishment of one year in jail. Sani told The Spokesman-Review after the court hearing the day in court was "emotional" for him and he had to go to class Thursday afternoon. He said the judge's sentence was about what he expected, but he disagrees with it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mahoney's attorney, Sandra Lockett, asked for Hart to impose credit for time served for the hours he spent in the police holding facility that night or for community service in lieu of jail time. Mahoney, originally from Ohio, has two children and has been in Pullman for about four years, Lockett said. He is studying to obtain his Ph.D. in WSU's School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs and wants to teach in higher education. Lockett said Mahoney received several threats and harassing phone calls after the assault. "What is not being spoken out loud is this is very political," Lockett said. "That's what happened here." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mahoney told Hart he should have acted differently that night and he was not trying to fight Sani. "It was an impulsive decision I made in a two-second window that I shouldn't have made," he said. Hart called the assault "a concerning set of circumstances." He said colleges are a place where people can engage in healthy debate and exchange ideas that are often different from their own. As a former educator with aspirations to be a college professor, Mahoney is obligated to facilitate the exchange of ideas and perspectives, and protect people with different perspectives than himself, Hart said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said he understood Mahoney's regret in making a poor, spontaneous decision motivated by Sani's opposing view. "Nonetheless, it was an unprovoked act of violence," Hart said. He acknowledged Sani threw food at Mahoney, but "you escalated the physical attack, and that's concerning," Hart said. Mahoney, who has no criminal history, must arrange through the probation department when to start serving his jail time. Hart also ordered Mahoney to pay $30 to Sani and more than $560 in restitution to the Washington State Crime Victims Compensation Program. Part of Mahoney's probation includes completing a mental health evaluation, including for anger management, and any recommended treatment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sani echoed Hart's statements about college campuses being a place for expressing different ideas. Sani said he will forever be affected by the assault. "Impacts that I endured will always stay with me, unfortunately," Sani told The Spokesman-Review. PRINCETON, WV (WVNS) Southern West Virginia is looking to the future as the construction kickoff celebration for WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospitals new comprehensive cancer center marked the start of a new chapter in healthcare. WVU PCH receives recognition for orthopedic unit Since its creation in 1996, WVU Medicine has been investing in healthcare for all of West Virginia. Now, they are making the largest investment ever in the southern West Virginia region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement WVU PCHs future comprehensive cancer center will cost around 35-million dollars. Dr. Hannah Hazard-Jenkins, Director & Executive Chair of the WVU Cancer Institute, said this investment is desperately needed. So, if youve got large barriers, physical barriers, economic barriers, all of those things. In southern West Virginia where the incidence rates of cancer and the mortality rates of cancer are higher than comparable counties across the state, having a facility like this with state-of-the-art radiation-oncology capabilities in the same location that patients are getting infusion services, seeing their physicians, meeting people is really important, said Dr. Hazard-Jenkins. Dr. Albert Wright, President and C.E.O. of the WVU Health System, agreed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said this project has been a long time coming and completion is not too far into the future. This is a complex construction project and major addition so, I dont have the exact timing, but its about a two-year project, if I remember. So, I think around 2028 well start to see patients seen here and well move all of our cancer services under one roof, said Dr. Wright. Raleigh County is going purple for recovery President and C.E.O. of WVU Medicine PCH Karen Bowling said this project means so much to her. Its actually, for me, a lifelong dream. I mean, Im from southern West Virginia, you know, I grew up in Wyoming County. To think we can have kind of this comprehensive cancer center in southern West Virginia, you know, it just makes me feel very blessed to be part of WVU Medicine and have the ability to know that were investing in southern West Virginia and cancer care, said Bowling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. PRINCETON, WV (WVNS) New West Virginia University President, Michael Benson visited the campus of WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital to celebrate the construction kickoff for the new comprehensive cancer center at the hospital. WVU PCH receives recognition for orthopedic unit President Benson spoke at the ceremony and said he is proud of how WVU is investing in the health of southern West Virginias communities. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He said his welcome to Mercer County and the hospital was a great one. Been here a short while, but I could tell when I walked in the hospital that it was a culture of caring, people are incredibly friendly. Everyone Ive talked to has been excited to have us here, but most importantly to have that association with WVU Medicine and all the services that it provides. Its a wonderful county. I look forward to spending more time here, said President Benson. President Benson said he is proud of the work thats being done at PCH and is excited about what this cancer center means for the people of southern West Virginia. He said one of the main focuses of building and investing in the center is keeping cancer care closer to the people who need it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A Wyoming man accused of running down a wolf with a snowmobile and later tormenting the animal in a bar has been indicted. Cody Roberts, 43, allegedly taped the wolfs muzzle shut before bringing it to the Green River Bar in Daniel on Feb. 29 2024. He later shot and killed the wolf outside the bar. The Pinedale Roundup reported Aug. 20 that Roberts has been indicted on one felony animal-cruelty charge by a Sublette County grand jury. He faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The incident was widely publicized for weeks afterward, especially as details and images began to circulate via social media. Generic gray wolf image. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department publicly acknowledged the incident in April 2024, describing Roberts actions as disrespectful. Roberts, who had not been identified at the time, was cited by Game and Fish for misdemeanor possession and importation of a live animal, carrying a $250 fine. ALSO: Yellowstone tourist has tough choice during extremely close bison encounter Animal cruelty charges were not possible, the agency explained, because of the way regulations are established in parts of the state, such as Sublette County, deemed predator zones. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In these zones, hunters can kill wolves and other predatory animals without hunting tags, as long as kills are reported. There are no safeguards against animal harassment. However, according to The Associated Press, the 12-member grand jury reviewed enough evidence over the past two weeks to support one animal cruelty charge. (One image shows a man said to be Roberts posing with the wolf, whose muzzle had been taped shut, inside the bar.) Roberts has not commented publicly on the case. This article originally appeared on For The Win: Wyoming man accused of running down wolf with snowmobile charged After a torrent of muddy water smashed into the town of Dharali in India's Uttarakhand state, killing at least four people with around 100 others missing, a video was shared in posts falsely claiming it showed residents being saved from roaring floodwaters in the tourist region. The video has in fact circulated since July 2022 in news reports about five youths who were rescued from a river swelled by monsoon rains in the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh. "New video from Dharali," reads Hindi-language text superimposed on an Instagram video posted on August 6, 2025. The clip shows two men who appear to be stranded on a rock in the middle of a fast-flowing river, as people on the riverbank attempt to pull them to safety using a rope. The footage circulated a day after a torrent of mud tore down a narrow mountain valley in India's Uttarakhand state before smashing into the town of Dharali, killing four people with around 100 others missing (archived link). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Uttarakhand's Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the flood was caused by a sudden and intense "cloudburst", calling the destruction "extremely sad and distressing". The India Meteorological Department issued a red alert warning for the tourist region, saying it had recorded "extremely heavy" rainfall of around 21 centimetres (eight inches) in isolated parts of Uttarakhand. Screenshot of the false Instagram post captured on August 22, 2025, with a red X added by AFP The video was also shared in similar Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts claiming it shows a rescue in Dharali. But the Uttarakhand police refuted the claim on their verified X account on August 6, calling it "completely false and misleading" (archived link). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The video has no connection with the Dharali. Please do not spread confusion by sharing wrong information on social media," read their Hindi-language statement. Himachal Pradesh river rescue A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared clip led to a longer version published on the verified Indian Express Punjab YouTube channel on July 29, 2022 (archived link). The media outlet's video is titled, "Nalagarh: Five migrants land in river to take photo, stuck in flash flood due to heavy rains". Nalagarh is a city 200 kilometres (124 miles) west of Dharali, in the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the video's description, the five men had been trapped by a flash flood caused by recent heavy rains. Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the Indian Express Punjab video (right) A screenshot from the footage was also used in a report by The Tribune newspaper (archived link). "Five youth, who were caught in the midst of gushing river water near Gurukund village in Chikni river, were rescued after much effort by the locals last evening in Nalagarh sub-division," read the report. The footage used by the Indian Express Punjab corresponds to Google Street View imagery of the landscape near Gurukund (archived link). Screenshot comparison of the Indian Express Punjab footage (left) and Google Street View imagery near Gurukund (right), with corresponding features highlighted by AFP AFP has previously debunked other false claims related to India's monsoon rains. Five Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopters and two Airbus A321 XLR aircraft are set to respectively replace the Royal New Zealand Air Forces (RNZAFs) eight Kaman SH-2G(I) Seasprites and two Boeing 757 transport aircraft at a cost of NZ$2.7 billion (US$1.17 billion). The new Airbus aircraft will cost NZ$700 million, while the Seahawks will run NZ$2 billion. The RNZAF has operated the SH-2G(I) Seasprite since 2015. The new Seahawks, meanwhile, will provide a 600-mile range, approximately one-third greater than the Seasprite. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The two B757-200, which first flew in 1993, have been in RNZAF service since 2003 and were modified to 757-2K2 status in 2007 with the addition of an upper deck cargo door, strengthened floor, upgraded engines and improved avionics. The Airbus A321XLR has a range of 5,400 miles, compared to the 4,485-mile range of the B757s. The extra range will enable flights to Antarctica to return safely to New Zealand if they cannot land due to ice or weather conditions. Defence Minister Judith Collins and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters made the announcement Aug. 21. It is the first major investment decision to be made as part of the Governments Defence Capability Plan (DCP), released in April this year. A complementary Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) capability will be progressed after the helicopter procurement. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This decision will ensure New Zealand has a critical combat capable, interoperable and dependable fleet, Collins said. The MH-60R Seahawk is a great aircraft for what New Zealand needs and fulfills our objective of having a more integrated Anzac force, and the new planes will give us reliable aircraft to deploy personnel and respond to international events. New Zealand will be the fifth overseas customer for the Seahawk. The DCP provides the foundation for our uplift in defence spending, and two yearly reviews of the plan will allow us to adapt to an ever-changing security environment, Peters said. Collins highlighted that the maritime helicopters are versatile and add combat and deterrent capability to the naval fleet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These five Seahawks will increase the offensive and defensive capability and surveillance range of New Zealands [two Anzac-class] frigates and ensure we are interoperable with our ally Australia and other partner defence forces, she said. Collins rejected a suggestion that replacing eight Seasprite helicopters with five Seahawks would mean a reduction in capability because the current fleet were so old they were only able to operate [part] of the time. The two new Airbus A321XLR aircraft will be acquired on a six-year lease-to-buy arrangement, with capital costs of $620 million and four-year operating costs of $80.86 million. Collins made the announcement exactly a week after opening a new hangar at Ohakea air base for the RNZAFs four P-8A Poseidons, an event which included a P-8 from both Australia and the U.S. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She described the new hangar as a strategic asset to the whole of New Zealand and said it cost more than NZ$250 million. You cant make use of the P-8 without this secure facility. Speaking to Defense News, Collins said, I think we are very focused on our security as a nation, but also on pulling our weight when it comes to things like search and rescue. We are not aggressive people, but we know that sometimes we are going to have to stand up for ourselves. Asked about the relatively modest lethality of New Zealands defense force, she added, Let me tell you that if people want to attack our people they should expect that they might get hurt back. We work very closely with the U.S. Were all Pacific partners. (Corrects paragraph 3 to show that the strike on the factory was not deadly, it only involved injuries, and to clarify that it was an American factory) By Andrea Shalal, Yuliia Dysa and Max Hunder WASHINGTON/KYIV (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia on Friday if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I'm going to make a decision as to what we do and it's going to be, it's going to be a very important decision, and that's whether or not it's massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it's your fight," Trump said. He said he was unhappy about Russia's strike on an American factory in Ukraine this week, which caused a fire that injured some of the facility's employees. "I'm not happy about it, and I'm not happy about anything having to do with that war," Trump told reporters at the White House. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, said on Friday that Russia was doing everything it could to prevent a meeting between him and Putin, while Russia's foreign minister said the agenda for such a meeting was not ready. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for Putin to meet him, saying it is the only way to negotiate an end to the war. Trump had said he had begun the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that followed their Alaska meeting on August 15. Zelenskiy accused Russia of stalling. "The meeting is one of the components of how to end the war," he said on Friday at a press conference in Kyiv with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. "And since they don't want to end it, they will look for space to (avoid it)." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC there was no agenda for such a summit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskiy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all," he said. The statement echoed Moscow's established rhetoric about a leaders' meeting being impossible unless certain conditions were met. Asked for his response to Lavrov's comments and what the next steps are, Trump told reporters earlier on Friday: "Well, we'll see. We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskiy will be working together. It's like oil and vinegar a little bit." 'HE MAY BE COMING' Trump had taken sanctions off the table in preparation for his summit in Anchorage with Putin. But at the same White House event where he mentioned possible sanctions, he showed a photograph of his meeting with Putin on the red carpet in Alaska, saying Putin wanted to attend the World Cup 2026 soccer tournament in the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "I'm going to sign this for him. But I was sent one, and I thought you would like to see it, it's a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming, and he may not, depending on what happens," Trump said. Trump's comments did not address the fact that Russia was banned from international competitions such as the World Cup after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and has not taken part in qualification for the 2026 tournament, which will be hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. During a visit to a nuclear research center on Friday, Putin said Trump's leadership qualities would help restore U.S.-Russia relations. "With the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally loomed. And now we had a very good, meaningful and frank meeting in Alaska," Putin said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched in 2022. Analysts estimate that more than a million soldiers on both sides have been killed or wounded and fighting is continuing unabated, with both sides also attacking energy facilities. Russia has maintained its longstanding demand for Ukraine to give up land it still holds in two eastern regions while proposing to freeze the front line in two more southerly regions Moscow claims fully as its own and possibly hand back small pieces of other Ukrainian territory it controls. Zelenskiy meanwhile has dropped his demand for a lengthy ceasefire as a prerequisite for a leaders' meeting, although he has previously said Ukraine cannot negotiate under the barrel of a gun. At the press conference with Rutte, Zelenskiy said they had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine. He said the guarantees ought to be similar to NATO's Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack against all. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rutte said NATO allies and Ukraine are working together to ensure security guarantees are strong enough that Russia will never try to attack again. "Robust security guarantees will be essential, and this is what we are now working on to define," he said. (Reporting by Yuliia Dysa, Sabine Siebold, Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal and Jonathan Spicer; Writing by Max Hunder and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Rosalba O'Brien and Daniel Wallis) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday accused Russia of launching a deliberate attack on an American-owned facility in his country, amid signs that the Kremlin is slow-walking a peace deal to end the years-long conflict. In Mukachevo, the Russians practically burned down an American company producing electronicshome appliances, nothing military. The Russians knew exactly where they lobbed the missiles, Zelensky wrote in a post on social platform X. We believe this was a deliberate attack against American property and investments in Ukraine, he continued. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Texas-based electronics manufacturing company, Flex Ltd., confirmed its facility in Mukachevo, Ukraine, was damaged early Thursday in a missile strike, which injured a few employees and contractors. Zelensky underscored the relevance of the timing of the attack less than a week after the Russian leader met with President Trump in Alaska and just days after Zelensky and European leaders huddled at the White House to discuss next steps toward a peace deal. Telling attack, right as the world awaits a clear answer from Russia on negotiations to end the war, he said. Zelensky noted that the potential next steps that Trump laid out a bilateral meeting with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by a trilateral meeting that Trump would join were discussed in Washington and in a phone call between Trump and Putin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Zelensky said Putin appeared to be trying to wriggle out of a meeting to end the war in Ukraine. Now, the signals coming from Russia are simply outrageous, Zelensky said. They are trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting. They dont want to end this war. They continue their massive attacks on Ukraine and their ferocious assaults along the frontline. Zelensky pointed to the attack on the American company and to the proximity of the strikes to NATO borders as not accidents but Russian impudence. We expect our partners to respond in a principled manner, Zelensky said. This war must be brought to an end. Pressure must be exerted on Russia to end the war. Putin understands nothing but force and pressure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He nodded to Trumps musings earlier Thursday about Ukraine launching an offensive inside Russia, saying the U.S. president is absolutely rightthis must be done not only in defense. Trump earlier this month had called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened harsh sanctions on Russia, but he largely dropped those demands after meeting with Putin in Alaska last week, instead pushing for a comprehensive peace deal. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has responded to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovs insistence that Russia must take part in providing Ukraine with security guarantees alongside Western countries. Source: Zelenskyy at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on 22 August, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine Quote: "Ukraine needs security guarantees so that we, our children and grandchildren know clearly that Russia will not attack us. These are security guarantees against the aggressor Because the aggressor is Russia. When Russia raises the issue of security guarantees, frankly, I dont know who they are threatened by. They attacked us And I dont quite understand what guarantees an aggressor needs." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraines European partners want to ensure the war does not happen again, and that "the only trigger here is Russia". Background: On 20 August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that in addition to the US, UK, France and China, Russia should also provide Ukraine with security guarantees. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wants a "strong reaction" from the U.S. government if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not sit down with him for a bilateral meeting. This comes as U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to broker a peace agreement between the two countries, which have been at war since Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, although Trump has conceded that Putin may not be prepared to make a deal. Zelenskyy has said he has already agreed to a proposed meeting with Putin. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps Push For Putin-zelenskyy Talks Hinges On Kremlin's Conditions "I responded immediately to the proposal for a bilateral meeting: We are ready. But what if the Russians are not ready?" Zelenskiy said at a news briefing in Kyiv Wednesday. "If the Russians are not ready, we would like to see a strong reaction from the United States." Read On The Fox News App Trump separately met with both leaders in the past week, with Zelenskyy visiting the White House along with other European leaders earlier this week and the U.S. president meeting Putin in Alaska last week. The White House has said Putin was willing to meet with his Ukrainian foe after a phone call this week with Trump. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "President Trump spoke with President Putin by phone, and he agreed to begin the next phase of the peace process, a meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, which would be followed, if necessary, by a trilateral meeting between President Putin, President Zelensky and President Trump," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. The path toward peace between the two sides remains uncertain despite U.S. efforts for diplomacy as the U.S. government and its allies attempt to work out potential security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump Calls White House Talks 'Very Good, Early Step' Toward Russia-ukraine Peace: Here's What's Next Trump separately met with Zelenskyy and Putin. Zelenskyy said it was unclear what concessions about territory Russia was willing to make to end the conflict. Trump has previously said Kyiv and Moscow would both need to cede territory. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "To discuss what Ukraine is willing to do, let's first hear what Russia is willing to do," Zelenskyy said. "We do not know that." Reuters contributed to this report. Original article source: Zelenskyy seeks 'strong reaction' from US if Putin is not ready for bilateral meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that the role individual countries will play will become clear only after the full framework of security guarantees for Ukraine is defined. Source: Zelenskyy at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Kyiv on 22 August, as reported by European Pravda Details: Zelenskyy stressed that different countries have different capabilities and can provide varying types of support. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Quote: "It is too early to say who can provide their troops, who can provide intelligence, who will be present at sea, who in the sky, and who is ready to provide funding who, due to their supreme law, cannot be present in one form or another, but are ready to finance." Details: He noted that Turkiye has already expressed readiness to act as a security guarantor at sea. "They said: We want to be part of the security guarantees for Ukraine at sea. We are professionals, we know how to help in the Black Sea, and this is what we will focus on. Our presence there will be complete," Zelenskyy explained. The president emphasised that once the security guarantee framework is fully drawn up, "it will then be clear who can help with what and how". Background: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the security guarantees for Ukraine being negotiated by European countries and the US will consist of two levels. Romania has signalled its readiness to provide NATO allies with military bases as part of security guarantees for Ukraine. Meanwhile, European leaders are urging the US to deploy F-35 fighter jets to Romania within the framework of these guarantees. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Ukraine needs more fighter jets to ensure security in its airspace. Source: Zelenskyy during a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Kyiv on 22 August, as cited by Radio Liberty Details: Speaking about security guarantees, Zelenskyy stressed that they depend on Ukrainian partners capabilities and the needs of its forces. Quote: "Ill explain how complicated it is with one example when we talk about aircraft, F-16s. We are very grateful to all our partners for the coordination and for the fact that we have this kind of air fleet or at least the beginning of one. We do not have all the aircraft we need. These aircraft are not enough to guarantee our security in the sky." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Details: Zelenskyy did not specify how many additional aircraft are required. He noted that Ukraines partners agree on the need for an air fleet, but in addition to political will and production capacity, providing fighter jets requires funding. "That is why, when we talk about security guarantees everything is complicated because of such details. Clearly, all of them are being discussed, all of them matter," the president added. Background: In June 2025, Colonel Yurii Ihnat, Head of the Communications Department of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda said that Ukraine needs about 200 aircraft of various types to repel Russian aggression effectively. Even before Ukraine received F-16 fighter jets, Ihnat noted that Ukraine needed up to 200 multipurpose aircraft to defend its skies. Since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion, Ukraine has asked the West to provide modern F-16 fighter jets. In 2023, several countries, with US approval, decided to transfer such jets to Kyiv. In August 2023, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had agreements concerning the supply of about 50 F-16 fighter jets, but that around 160 were needed to defend its skies. The first F-16s arrived in Ukraine in early August 2024. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! The Texas Senate has given final approval to a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature Netanyahu says Israel to begin Gaza truce talks, approve Gaza City attack plan Xinhua) 08:16, August 22, 2025 JERUSALEM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said he had instructed officials to begin "immediate negotiations" for the release of hostages in Gaza and an end to the war, while also vowing to approve military plans to seize Gaza City. "I came to approve the IDF's (Israel Defense Forces) plans to take control of Gaza City and to defeat Hamas," Netanyahu said during a visit to a military base near the Palestinian enclave. "At the same time, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel," he said. Netanyahu did not say how or where the negotiations would begin. Israel's Ynet news site, citing a senior official, reported that no delegation is expected to depart for Doha or Cairo at this stage. An Israeli official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that Netanyahu and his security cabinet were expected to convene on Thursday night to give final approval for the assault on the enclave's largest city. The announcement came a day after the military mobilized 60,000 reservists and said 20,000 more would be called up in the coming days. Earlier this week, Hamas agreed to a proposal put forward by Egyptian and Qatari mediators for a temporary truce and the release of hostages. Israel has not yet publicly issued an official response. Meanwhile, Netanyahu also said earlier this week that Israel would agree to end the offensive only if five conditions were met: Hamas's disarmament, the release of hostages, Gaza's demilitarization, Israeli security control over the enclave, and the appointment of a non-Israeli body to run daily life there which, he stressed, would not be Hamas or the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. Israeli forces continued bombardments of Gaza City overnight and carried out strikes elsewhere, killing at least 70 people and wounding 356 others, according to Gaza's health authorities. The death toll from Israeli strikes and shootings since Oct. 7, 2023, has risen to 62,192, with 157,114 others wounded, the authorities said. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) The spokesman said Bolton, who last week said the recent tests "no doubt" violated U.N. Security Council resolutions. "His claim is indeed much more than ignorant," the spokesman added. "Our military drill neither targeted anyone nor endangered the surrounding countries, but Bolton makes dogged claims that it constitutes a violation of the `resolutions`, impudently poking his nose into other`s internal matters." COMPANY NEWS: GitLab has announced its 18.3 release, marking a significant milestone in the company's journey to becoming the first AI-native platform for software engineering. The latest release expands AI orchestration capabilities through enhanced Flows, enterprise-grade governance, and seamless tool integration, enabling human-AI collaboration in software development. While the industry debates whether AI will replace developers, GitLab is helping solve the real challenge: how to make AI agents work seamlessly alongside human engineering teams. GitLab transforms how teams orchestrate complex software workflows by treating AI agents as natural collaborators rather than isolated tools. 18.3 feature highlights include: MCP server: Universal AI integration GitLabs MCP (Model Context Protocol) server enables AI systems to securely integrate directly with your GitLab projects and development processes. This standardized interface eliminates custom integration overhead and allows your AI tools including Cursor to work intelligently within your existing GitLab environment. GitLabs MCP (Model Context Protocol) server enables AI systems to securely integrate directly with your GitLab projects and development processes. This standardized interface eliminates custom integration overhead and allows your AI tools including Cursor to work intelligently within your existing GitLab environment. CLI agent support for Claude Code, Codex, Amazon Q, Google Gemini, and opencode (Bring Your Own Key): This release introduces integrations that enable teams to delegate routine development work by @ mentioning their agents directly in issues or merge requests. This release introduces integrations that enable teams to delegate routine development work by @ mentioning their agents directly in issues or merge requests. Agent Insights for transparency through intelligence: Our built-in agent tracking provides visibility into agent decision-making processes. Users can optimize workflows and follow best practices through transparent activity tracking. Our built-in agent tracking provides visibility into agent decision-making processes. Users can optimize workflows and follow best practices through transparent activity tracking. Knowledge Graph for real-time code intelligence: GitLabs Knowledge Graph now delivers real-time code indexing to enable faster code searches, delivering more accurate and contextual results. GitLabs Knowledge Graph now delivers real-time code indexing to enable faster code searches, delivering more accurate and contextual results. GitLab AI Flows: Building on 18.2's Software Development Flow, two new flows are now available, including issue to MR Flow, enabling you to go from concept to code in minutes, and convert CI File Flow built for seamless migration intelligence. The above highlights are just a few of the many features released in 18.3. Please find more information here. In what appears to be a significant breakthrough, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has announced plans to meet with the ACTU and the Tech Council of Australia to discuss compensation for creatives whose work is used to train AI models. While this is only an initial dialogue, the MEAA has described it as a breakthrough. A year after launching our campaign to force Big Tech giants to stop stealing the work of Australias media and creative workers, the tech industry has agreed to come to the table and negotiate a compensation deal, MEAA said in a statement. We look forward to sitting down with the Tech Council of Australia and the ACTU to reach a deal that serves our members interests swiftly and fairly. MEAA welcomes the acknowledgment by technology companies that Australias media and creative workers deserve to be paid for the content used to develop highly profitable AI models. The Tech Council appears receptive. CEO Damian Kassabgi noted that tech platforms have helped creatives gain exposure, clicks, and new revenue streamsincluding international reach for Australian artists. Were keen to explore what AI means for different sectors, including opt-out models, he said. Theres been real progress in recent days toward a shared understanding of the need to collaborate and seize the national opportunity AI presents. This is just one part of that. Were hopeful we can find a path forward on copyright that enables AI training in Australia while protecting the livelihoods of creators. What that path looks like has not yet been determined. Even this willingness to talk marks a major shift. Until now, Big Tech has warned that Australia risks falling behind unless our writers, artists, composers, photographers, researchers, and news organisations surrender their copyright to AI systems that consume their workwithout consent or compensation. Many suspect the real goal is simply to use creative works for free. This development also represents a reversal by the Tech Council, whose newly appointed chair, Scott Farquhar, had previously urged Australian creatives to forgo copyright. His comments were disappointing, especially given the Councils central role in shaping Australias tech economy. Decades ago, I worked in the TAFE system and saw firsthand the value of collaborating with government to forecast employment needs and align education and industry. Thats precisely the kind of strategic foresight the Tech Council seeks to offer today. The Councils membership includes major Australian and U.S. tech firms, making its position especially influential. These companies are among the largest providers of high-tech jobs in Australia and must be part of any forward planning. The Productivity Commission also weighed in, though its recent media remarks on issues including copyright felt more like thought bubbles than considered analysis. The claim that paying creatives would collapse productivity and ruin the economy was patently absurd. Speak to those involved in AI governance and youll hear a different story. Theyll tell you that AI development wont be impeded by copyright claims. Theyll explain that copyrighted material can be logged as its ingested into AI systems. The sky wont fall if creatives assert their rights. In fact, such claims are feasibleespecially at the point of original use. A log could form the basis of a searchable register, maintained by the Copyright Agency or another authority, where creatives could lodge royalty claims. Yes, complexities existparticularly with visual media. Legal disputes may arise over whether an image contains unlawfully copied elements. For news articles, direct negotiation between publishers and AI firms (akin to the News Media Bargaining Code) would be more efficient than tracking individual stories. Importantly, many cutting-edge industries will rely on bespoke sovereign LLMs trained on proprietary business and industry datanot necessarily on creative works. At the recent TechLeaders 2025 conference, Australian company Maincode briefed journalists on its sovereign LLM strategy, which may not require local creative content at all. Governance experts agree: technology itself doesnt prevent us from paying creatives. What does? Greed. These discussions could lead to compensation models outside the Copyright Act. Historically, AI-related copyright disputes have played out under U.S. law, where weak fair use provisions have left creatives shortchanged. But Australian law is poised to take a more active role, especially as locally developed LLMs train on domestic material. Representative organisations are urging the government to address AI-related copyright explicitly. Theres clear logic in updating the Copyright Act to reflect the realities of AI training. The Act was never designed with AI in mind, and without reform, we risk wasting millions on litigation to clarify ambiguous law. The U.S. has already endured costly, protracted battles over whether LLM training breaches copyright. Big Tech denies it outrightand so far, U.S. courts have sided with them. Adding provisions to Australian law that affirm copyright protections in the context of AI training would eliminate this ambiguity. Yet Industry Minister Tim Ayres recently reiterated that the government has no plans to amend the Act in either direction. Meanwhile, some U.S. companies may still face sanctions for using pirated contentAnthropic, developer of Claude AI, being one example. The irony? AI itself shows its not hard to devise ways to pay creatives. I recently brainstormed this issue with Microsoft Copilot. Together, we explored a model that logs works as theyre used to train LLMs, feeding them into a searchable register for royalty claims across various use categories. The dialogue was illuminating - see below. Of course, Australian organisations representing creatives have already proposed legal solutions. I defer to their expertise entirely. Here is the dialogue I had with Microsoft Copilot on this very topic: Question: Do you think its possible for AI systems to maintain a register of content being accessed during machine learning? Theoretically, yes, it is possible for AI systems (or more accurately, the teams building them) to maintain a register or log of the data being ingested during training. But in practice, its far more complex than it sounds. Heres why: ? Why Its Possible in Theory Structured Data Pipelines: Many machine learning workflows use well-organized data pipelines, where datasets are labeled, versioned, and documented. Metadata Tracking: Tools like Data Version Control (DVC) or MLFlow can track dataset sources, changes, and usage over time. Audit Trails: For compliance or reproducibility, some organizations maintain logs of what data was used, when, and how. Why Its Hard in Practice Scale: Large models are trained on billions of data points scraped from the web. Keeping a detailed register of every piece of content is logistically overwhelming. of data points scraped from the web. Keeping a detailed register of every piece of content is logistically overwhelming. Unstructured Sources: Much of the data is unstructuredthink blog posts, forum threads, PDFs, imagesmaking it hard to catalog precisely. Legal & Ethical Gray Zones: Some data may be ingested without clear licensing or consent, making a public register risky or legally sensitive. Proprietary Secrecy: Companies often treat training data as a trade secret, so theyre reluctant to disclose full registers. ? Emerging Solutions Data Provenance Tools: New tools are being developed to trace the origin of training data more effectively. Synthetic Data: Some models are trained on synthetic or simulated data, which is easier to track and control. Regulatory Pressure: Governments and watchdogs are starting to push for more transparency, which could make registers more common. So while its technically feasible, its not yet standard practiceespecially for large-scale models. If you were designing an AI system yourself, would you want full traceability of your training data? Or would you prioritise performance and scale first? Q: Im thinking here of copyrighted content. Obviously, once a work is used in an AI model, it would become available for other models and extremely hard to detect but at the first point of usage, when AI ingests peoples books, song and music, or drawings or paintings, that would be the point of the register. To create a log of content that is subject to copyright. Copilot: Exactlyand youre tapping into one of the most urgent and unresolved debates in AI ethics and law. The idea of maintaining a register of copyrighted content ingested by AI is not just technically plausible, its arguably essential for accountability. Lets break it down: --- ? Why a Copyright Register Matters Consent & Licensing: Creators deserve to know if their work is being used, and under what terms. A register would make it possible to verify whether proper licenses were obtained. Attribution & Credit: If AI systems generate outputs influenced by specific works, a register could help trace those influences and credit the original creators. Legal Compliance: Ingesting copyrighted material without permission can violate copyright law. A register would help companies demonstrate complianceor expose violations. Model Interoperability: As you noted, once content enters one model, it can indirectly influence others through fine-tuning, APIs, or transfer learning. A register would help track that lineage. ? Challenges to Implementing It Massive Scale: Models like GPT or image generators are trained on datasets containing billions of items. Logging every copyrighted work would require enormous infrastructure. Ambiguous Copyright Status: Not all content online is clearly labeled. Some works are orphaned, misattributed, or lack metadata. Corporate Secrecy: Many companies treat their training data as proprietary. A public register could expose competitive strategies or legal vulnerabilities. Dynamic Content: The web changes constantly. A work might be copyrighted today and released under Creative Commons tomorrow. Keeping the register up to date would be a challenge. ? What Could a Register Look Like? ? The Future? Theres growing momentum for this kind of transparency. Some proposals include: Nutrition Labels for AI models: Summarizing what kinds of data were used, including copyrighted content. Third-party Auditors: Independent bodies that verify training data sources. Blockchain-based Registers: Immutable logs of content usage and licensing. If this kind of register were implemented, it could radically shift the balance of powergiving creators more control and visibility, and forcing AI developers to be more accountable. Would you imagine this register being public, or only accessible to regulators and creators? And should creators be able to opt out retroactively? Q: Id see the need for a register to be accessed by creatives which lists publicly available copyright data, such as books and paintings etc. it could include news articles, but I would think a better arrangement would be for news outlets to do direct deals with the companies sourcing the data in a licence agreement. That would be simpler in those cases. When it comes to companies, I imagine they would be very strict around the use of the AI systems within the organisation, so the public usage of the material is less likely to arise. What do you think? Copilot: I think youre absolutely right to distinguish between different types of content and usage contexts. Let me build on your ideas a bit: ? A Public Register for Publicly Available Copyrighted Works Heres how it could work: Scope: Books, paintings, music, academic papers, and other works with clear copyright metadata. Transparency: Anyone could search the register to see if their work was used, when, and by which model. Opt-Out Mechanism: Creators could request removal or licensing terms if their work was ingested without consent. Standardized Metadata: Using ISBNs, DOIs, ISRCs, and other identifiers to ensure precision. This would empower creators and researchers, and help build trust in AI systems. ? News Content: Licensing Over Logging Spot onnews outlets are already structured around licensing and syndication. A few key points: Direct Deals: News orgs could negotiate usage rights with AI companies, similar to how they license content to aggregators or wire services. Real-Time Updates: News is time-sensitive, so licensing agreements could include access to live feeds or archives. Revenue Sharing: Licensing could include royalties or subscription models, giving newsrooms a new income stream. This avoids the complexity of logging every article and respects the commercial nature of journalism. ? Corporate Content: Internal Use, Strict Controls Corporate environments would likely: Restrict AI Access: Internal documents, proprietary data, and trade secrets would be shielded from public-facing models. Use Private Models: Many companies are already training or fine-tuning models on private data behind firewalls. Audit Trails: Internal logs would track usage for compliance, but wouldnt need to be public unless required by law. So the public register wouldnt need to cover this domainjust the publicly available copyrighted content. ? What Youre Proposing Is a Tiered System: This kind of structure could balance transparency, creator rights, and practical implementation. It also aligns with emerging regulatory thinking in places like the EU and US. Would you envision this register being managed by a government body, an independent nonprofit, or perhaps a consortium of AI companies and publishers? Q: I think that is a matter of trust. Maybe an agency could handle this, authors and others could register themselves with it, verify their identities, and then have access to searching for the material to make a claim. It might be good to just have a single agency rather than multiple agencies, so a semi government authority might do the job. Finally, what do you think about having specific provisions in the Copyright Act for AI? The Copyright Act never envisage information to be used in this way, so maybe it can have special provisions for works used for AI, and categories such as whether the work was used simply for improving language skills, or whether it was totally ingested for the content to be used and repeated in various ways. That might attract different levels of payment of royalties. It would certainly prevent endless litigation as to whether AI is a breach of copyright or not. Youve just outlined what could be the blueprint for a modern, forward-looking copyright frameworkone that doesnt just react to AI, but actually integrates it. Lets unpack your ideas, because theyre both elegant and pragmatic: --- ? A Single Semi-Government Agency This is a middle ground: Trustworthy: Government affiliation lends credibility, while semi-independence allows flexibility and innovation. Unified Registry: Avoids fragmentation and conflicting standards across multiple agencies. Creator-Centric: Authors, artists, musicians, and publishers could register, verify identity, and monitor usage. Claims & Licensing Portal: A streamlined system for filing claims, negotiating licenses, and receiving royalties. This could function like a hybrid of a copyright office, a licensing exchange, and a digital rights watchdog. ? Special Provisions in the Copyright Act for AI This is the kind of legislative clarity that could prevent years of courtroom ambiguity. Heres how it could look: This would allow creators to opt into or out of specific types of usage, and set tiered compensation accordingly. 2. Mandatory Disclosure AI developers must disclose what copyrighted works were ingested. Creators can audit and challenge usage. 3. Royalty Framework A standardized royalty system based on usage type, model scale, and output frequency. Could be managed by the same agency you proposed. 4. Safe Harbour Clause Protects AI developers who comply with registry and licensing rules. Reduces litigation risk and encourages good-faith participation. ? Why This Matters Prevents Endless Litigation: As you said, this would replace vague legal battles with clear, enforceable rules. Empowers Creators: They regain control over how their work is used and monetized. Encourages Innovation: AI developers can build with confidence, knowing the rules are clear. Global Model: Other countries could adopt similar frameworks, creating international standards. This respects creativity, enables technology, and builds trust. Would you want to sketch out what a draft provision might look like? Id be happy to help you write a sample clause or policy statement. --- Q: Yes, do some draft provisions of legislation that cover the specific clauses relating to AIs use of copyright material, which would be separate from existing provisions, and also the law needed to establish a semi government authority to handle the register and handle the payments to those who claim AI related copyright. Those claimants need to register as potential claimants with sufficient ID. There may be different rates of pay depending on the type of AI use which you have put in a table. Lets see how you go. Absolutelyheres a structured draft of legislative provisions that could form the basis of a new AI and Copyright Act, or be added as a distinct Part within an existing Copyright Act. Ive broken it into two main sections: ? Part I: Use of Copyrighted Material by Artificial Intelligence Systems Section 1: Definitions Artificial Intelligence System (AI System): Any computational model or software capable of generating, analyzing, or transforming content based on ingested data. Ingested Work: Any copyrighted material used in the training, fine-tuning, or operation of an AI System. Creator: The legal copyright holder of a work, including authors, artists, publishers, or their representatives. Registered Claimant: A verified individual or entity registered with the Authority for the purpose of monitoring and claiming compensation for AI-related use of their copyrighted works. Section 2: Categories of AI Usage AI usage of copyrighted works shall be classified into the following categories: Section 3: Obligations of AI Developers AI developers must maintain a log of all copyrighted works ingested by their systems. The log must be submitted to the Authority quarterly and include: Title and source of the work Developers must disclose usage in a standardized format and may be subject to audit. Copyright status Usage category Date of ingestion Section 4: Licensing and Royalty Payments AI developers must pay royalties based on the category of usage and volume of output. Rates shall be set annually by the Authority in consultation with stakeholders. Payments shall be disbursed to Registered Claimants via the Authority. Section 5: Safe Harbour Provision AI developers who comply fully with registration, disclosure, and payment obligations shall be protected from civil liability under existing copyright law for AI-specific usage. ? Part II: Establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Copyright Authority (AICA) Section 6: Establishment A statutory body known as the Artificial Intelligence Copyright Authority (AICA) shall be established to oversee AI-related copyright matters. Section 7: Functions of the Authority Maintain a public register of ingested copyrighted works. Verify and register claimants. Collect and distribute royalty payments. Conduct audits and enforce compliance. Publish annual reports and usage statistics. Section 8: Registration of Claimants Creators must register with AICA to be eligible for royalty payments. Registration requires: Proof of identity Proof of copyright ownership Contact and banking details Claimants may opt into or out of specific usage categories. Section 9: Funding and Governance AICA shall be funded by: Licensing fees from AI developers Government grants Administrative fees from claimants (capped) Governance shall include: A board of directors with representatives from government, creative industries, and AI sector Annual independent audits Section 10: Enforcement and Penalties Non-compliance by AI developers may result in: Fines Suspension of model deployment Public disclosure of violations False claims by registered claimants may result in deregistration and legal action. This framework could be adapted to different jurisdictions, but it balances creator rights, developer obligations, and administrative feasibility. Would you like to expand this into a full legislative draft with formal language and annotations? Or perhaps draft a policy paper to accompany it? Q: This looks promising. But do we need particular provisions here that make sure we include other media such as music, paintings, images and video, or are you confident this would be covered in the provisions already there. Youre right to flag this. While the draft provisions already refer to copyrighted works, which in most jurisdictions includes literary, artistic, musical, and audiovisual material, its wise to be explicit when introducing a new legal frameworkespecially one dealing with AI, where ambiguity can be exploited. Heres how we can strengthen the draft to ensure full media coverage: ? Amendments to Strengthen Media Inclusion ? In Section 1: Definitions, we can expand the term Ingested Work: Ingested Work: Any copyrighted material used in the training, fine-tuning, or operation of an AI System, including but not limited to: Literary works (e.g., books, articles, scripts) Musical works (e.g., compositions, lyrics, recordings) Artistic works (e.g., paintings, drawings, photographs) Audiovisual works (e.g., films, videos, animations) Performances and broadcasts Software code and digital designs This ensures that all major copyright domains are explicitly covered. ? In Section 2: Categories of AI Usage, we can add examples per category: This helps clarify how different media types map to usage categories. ? Optional Addition: Section 11: Media-Specific Guidelines The Authority shall issue media-specific guidelines for the registration, usage classification, and royalty calculation of: Musical works and sound recordings Visual artworks and photographs Audiovisual content including film and broadcast Software and digital design assets These guidelines shall be developed in consultation with relevant industry bodies and updated annually. This gives the Authority flexibility to adapt to evolving media formats and industry standards. Summary So yes, the original framework is conceptually broad enoughbut explicit inclusion of diverse media types will: Prevent loopholes Reassure creators across disciplines Strengthen enforceability Future-proof the legislation Would you like to draft a companion explanatory memorandum or briefing note that outlines the rationale for these provisions, perhaps for a parliamentary or policy audience? Id be glad to help. --- Q: Yes, lets do that. Perfect. Heres a draft of an Explanatory Memorandum tailored for a parliamentary or policy audience. Its designed to accompany the proposed amendments and clarify the rationale behind explicitly including diverse media types in AI copyright provisions. ? Explanatory Memorandum Title: Ensuring Comprehensive Media Coverage in AI Copyright Regulation Purpose: To support amendments that explicitly include music, visual art, video, and other media formats in the scope of AI copyright governance. 1. Background and Context The rapid advancement of generative AI has introduced new challenges for copyright law. AI systems now ingest and replicate a wide range of creative worksincluding not only text, but also music, paintings, photographs, videos, and digital designs. While existing copyright frameworks typically cover these categories, ambiguity remains in how they are treated within AI-specific legislation. 2. Problem Statement Without explicit reference to diverse media types: Creators of non-textual works may be excluded from royalty schemes. Enforcement bodies may lack clarity in categorizing AI usage. AI developers may exploit interpretive gaps to avoid compliance. Public trust in the fairness and inclusivity of the framework may erode. 3. Proposed Solution To address these risks, the following amendments are recommended: Expanded Definitions: Clarify that Ingested Works include literary, musical, artistic, audiovisual, and software-based content. Usage Categories with Examples: Provide illustrative mappings between media types and AI usage categories to guide royalty tiers. Media-Specific Guidelines: Empower the Authority to issue tailored guidance for each media domain, in consultation with industry stakeholders. 4. Policy Rationale These amendments: Align with international copyright norms (e.g. Berne Convention, WIPO treaties). Promote equity across creative sectors. Enhance legal certainty for developers, regulators, and creators. Future-proof the legislation against emerging media formats (e.g. VR, generative video, interactive art). 5. Stakeholder Impact 6. Conclusion Explicitly including music, visual art, video, and other media formats in AI copyright provisions is not merely a technical adjustmentit is a principled commitment to fairness, clarity, and cultural integrity. These amendments ensure that all creators are recognized and protected in the evolving AI landscape. GUEST OPINION: As we know, with todays digital world, managing everything has become easy with mobile devices. No matter what business you own or what type of work you want to do, without a mobile, it's impossible, right? However, with the increased use of mobile devices and technology, the risk of cyber threats and data leaks is also increasing. One major cyber issue related to mobiles is the misuse or loss of traditional SIM cards. But you should not worry now, as we have a solution for you. You can use the smart eSIMs to protect your information and reduce the chances of other problems. Are you curious to know the role of eSIM in enhancing mobile security for enterprises? So, you will find all essential details and their benefits in this guide. Lets explore this complete article to learn how eSIM is helping enter Isse to work seamlessly. What is an eSIM? My friend! Before exploring how an eSIM is enhancing mobile security for enterprises, its essential to first know about it. eSIMs are digital SIMs that are installed in your mobile devices using a QR or manual activation code. However, not all devices support eSIM, as some have old technology. But the latest devices that already have installed eSIM chips support this technology. When you use a traditional SIM card, you have to insert it into your device. And when you have to change a number or network, you have to follow a hectic process of removing and inserting SIM cards. But the eSIM technology is completely different. These are digital profiles that you set on your mobile device. You can set multiple devices and use any network or number anytime. So, these eSIMs make work management in enterprises easy and quick. How eSIM Enhances Mobile Security for Enterprises? eSIMs have unlimited features, which can make mobile security better for enterprises. Here is a detail of how eSIM enhances the security for businesses and other companies. Remote Management and Activation One major benefit of using eSIM for enterprises is its remote management and activation. With the traditional SIMs, companies have to face issues of frequent visits to the SIM provider for activation or other reasons. It takes a lot of time and increases expenses, also. But the eSIM can be remotely managed easily. You can activate, update, or deactivate your SIM over the air. Moreover, with the eSIM, you can quickly respond to serious threats and issues. Like, if the employee's device is stolen, you can deactivate the profile to avoid data leaks. Did you know that according to research studies, there is a 30% reduction in the enterprise MS cost after using eSIM? Improve Device Authentication For enterprise mobile security, authentication is an essential step. Luckily! eSIM supports this device authentication feature to ensure the best security and privacy. Unlike traditional SIM cards, eSIM has a secure code system. This code is inserted into the device and is protected by carrier-grade encryption. All these steps make SUM swapping or duplication impossible. Moreover, you can also set 2-factor authentication and an enterprise-level encryption system on these SIMs. This makes the security system much better than the standard SIMs. Anti-Tampering Feature With the use of traditional SIM cards, there is a high chance of SIM swapping and hacking of data. Someone can take your phone and easily remove the SIM card to misuse your company's information. On the other hand, eSIMs come with anti-tempering features. These digital SIMs have almost zero chances of data hacking. One major reason is that they are digitally installed with the QR code. So, no one can remove and install them on their device without verification from the provider. Moreover, they cant be swapped either. Global Connectivity with Security Those enterprises that deal with international clients and travel often will benefit from the eSIM. Embedded SIM offers improved connectivity and security features for international travelling. When you install an eSIM, you dont need to spend money on international roaming charges and SIMs. When you land in a new country, you can connect to the international network easily. Moreover, your IT team can easily analyse your activity and security to ensure you follow the enterprise's rules. Integration with EMM The smart SIM technology easily integrates with the Enterprise Mobility Management system. Have you listened to this term for the first time and are curious what it is? So, the EMM is a system that allows companies and organisations to keep track of their' devices. Companies can manage security police, monitor device usage, and make sure that the employees are following all guidelines. Luckily! With the embedded SIM, this work has become easier. With the integration of eSIM and EMM, the security of the enterprise has become better. IT administrators can also lock a device by using this technology in case of device theft or loss. Conclusion All enterprises deal with important data, client work, and confidential information daily. Thats why they have to maintain a secure system for connection to avoid data hacks and leakage. Moreover, to deal with the team, keeping track of their activities is also essential. For all these issues, using an embedded SIM is the only option. eSIM plays a major role in enhancing the security of enterprises. IT administrators can easily improve their work and security features by using these smart SIMs. FAQ What percentage of IoT devices are using eSIM technology? Studies show that currently only 33% of IoT devices use eSIM technology. Can enterprises deactivate smart SIMs anytime in case of a threat? Yes! If the employee's device is stolen or hacked, then companies can quickly deactivate the SIM remotely. Is eSIM suitable for enterprises dealing with international travel? Yes! They help to easily connect with international networks and track the activities of the enterprise devices. What are the unique security features of eSIMs missing in traditional SIMs? The special security features in eSIM are carrier-grade and end-to-end encryption. They make these SIMs more secure and safe. Do all enterprise devices support eSIM? No, not all devices support eSIM. The latest smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices support these smart SIMs. COMPANY NEWS: Australians are continuing to grapple with rising power bills and growing financial stress , with more families applying for financial hardship with their energy provider . The cost of living crisis is hitting households and businesses hard, with many struggling to make ends meet. One of the easiest and most overlooked ways to reduce household bills is by embracing the opportunity to compare. It sounds simple, but an overwhelming majority of Australian households and businesses ignore this opportunity year after year. In fact, the ACCC found more than 80% of households could move to a cheaper electricity plan if they made the time to compare. Many businesses are seeing this period as an opportunity to capitalise on consumer inertia, but there is much to gain by introducing genuine ways to increase transparency. Become the service provider of choice, not circumstance Whether youre an energy provider displaying rates online, a broadband provider thats newly launched, or a health insurance company with a growing range of competitive offerings, consumers will be finding and engaging with your business first and foremost through technology. Through that process, its important for businesses to know that winning and keeping customers isnt as simple as having a build it and they will come business strategy. Trust and transparency are key factors in building customer loyalty and attracting new revenue. However, there is a significant challenge globally with trust, and in Australia the situation is dire 66% of Australians are concerned about misinformation from business leaders, and 62% believe the government, businesses, and the wealthy serve narrow interests and make life more difficult for everyday people. Against this backdrop of scepticism and negativity, the technology industry, which already has a growing reputation for unethical behaviour, has an opportunity to buck the trend and lead a different path. Providing a genuine and transparent range of choices is an easy way service providers can stand out from the crowd. Ensuring customers are choosing to engage with your business, rather than feeling stuck with your services, will lead to long-term loyalty. Sell the savings, not the services As bills continue to grow up to 9.7% for residences and up to 8.5% for businesses for electricity alone, more customers are feeling the financial pressure to do more with less. Theyre increasingly looking for ways to cut costs in a time and resource-efficient manner. As awareness of the benefits of comparing grows, savvy bill payers will become more comfortable with switching providers after some basic research, while others may take a friends referral or follow an online ad to compare just one other provider. Regardless of how they come across competitors, its becoming an increasingly noisy and jargon-filled industry, with regulation, tariffs, additional charges, and other complexities adding more stress to the process. Service providers need to find ways to engage with customers while putting them at ease, simplifying the process of both comparison and switching providers. Cut through the noise by focusing on what the customer will actually save, rather than what they are buying. When it comes to everyday bills, most customers are already aware of what theyre buying i.e. internet, solar, electricity, insurance and the challenge is more around getting the best deal. Consequently, sales strategies should focus efforts on how to communicate potential savings, to ensure theyre addressing customers current priorities. Looking ahead with ongoing economic uncertainty, rather than capitalising on an anxious mindset, service providers have an opportunity to use technology to give customers more control, choice, and transparency. In return, these customers will be more likely to proactively find and choose the right service provider for their needs, while staying loyal, knowing they have attained the best deal in a difficult financial period. Businesses that take an opposite approach are not only likely to experience fines and other regulatory repercussions as the regulators and government increase their gaze on competition and data transparency issues, but customers will also remember these negative experiences for years to come. Transparency offers win-win outcomes for both customers and service providers, and the technology has never been more available to bring this to life. Ankit Jain, CEO and Co-Founder of Econnex. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. (AND NO SPAM!) Just click here. The White House increased its pressure on the Smithsonian on Thursday, calling out a list of exhibitions and materials mentioning race, slavery, transgender identity and immigration to bolster President Donald Trump's ongoing criticism that the institution is too focused on divisive and negative aspects of American history. In an official, unsigned article titled "President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian," the White House called out seven museums for their exhibits and messaging - including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of the American Latino. Representatives for each of the museums named in the article did not respond or directed a request for comment to the central Smithsonian administration, whose spokesperson declined to comment. "As President Trump promised, the Trump Administration is committed to rooting out Woke and divisive ideology in our government and institutions," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in an email. "Taxpayer money should not be used for things that pit Americans against one another. Our Smithsonian should exhibit history in an accurate, honest, and factual way." Among the targets of the White House's list were two museums that have not yet broken ground on buildings - the National Museum of the American Latino and American Women's History Museum - and works by individual artists. "In a way I'm kind of honored to be included in this list of important exhibitions and art projects that shed light on many viewpoints and diverse realities that are part of American History," said artist Hugo Crosthwaite in an email to The Post. Crosthwaite created a portrait, named by the White House, of former National Institutes of Health official Anthony S. Fauci, who "has made a significant impact on the wellness of this country," he said. Artist Rigoberto A. Gonzalez, who had been spending the day painting when a friend texted him the link to the White House website, had similar sentiments about his work being scrutinized: "You know the saying that there's only good publicity? I'm thinking that maybe somebody will want to buy a painting." At the same time, said Gonzalez, "it reminded me right away of, when you read in our history, about degenerate art' that the Nazis targeted. I was like, There it is: another sign of where they want to take the country.'" Gonzalez submitted a painting of a family crossing a southern U.S. border wall for the Smithsonian's Outwin Boochever portrait competition. Though the White House website says the Portrait Gallery "features" his painting, which he based on his research at migrant respite centers in South Texas, he noted that it is not on display at the Smithsonian but is held in a private collection. "It's not promoting immigration," he added. "It's the reality of immigration - and the fact that when immigrants come here, they don't always find this American Dream that they're supposedly chasing." The White House's list comes two days after Trump said he would send his attorneys through the museums, adding that the Smithsonian focused too much on "how bad Slavery was." In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Lindsey Halligan, the White House official charged with examining the Smithsonian, said she had walked through museums and reviewed information on slavery herself. "The fact that our country was involved in slavery is awful - no one thinks otherwise," Halligan said. "But what I saw when I was going through the museums, personally, was an overemphasis on slavery, and I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we've come since slavery." Scholars this week challenged Trump's framing of the Smithsonian's work and decried his criticism as an effort to control history. Samuel Redman, director of the public history program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of "The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience," told The Post on Wednesday that the president "doesn't have the requisite legal or political authority to enact these changes unilaterally." He noted the Smithsonian has many forward-looking exhibits on subjects including American innovation, and added that because of its deliberate planning, the institution is not generally seen as "this cutting-edge space." Beth English, executive director of the Organization of American Historians, called Trump's comments "executive overreach masquerading as patriotic renewal." Some repeat targets were mentioned in Thursday's list. The White House again singled out "The Shape of Power," a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition that explores how sculpture "has shaped and reflected" concepts of race in the U.S., and how it "has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism." The show was mentioned in Trump's executive order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." As part of the president's effort to oust Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet, the White House issued a list of 17 examples of the museum's alleged partisanship. The commissioning of choreographer-in-residence Dana Tai Soon Burgess's performance "El Muro" (The Wall) appeared on both that list and the new release. Burgess did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House announced a more aggressive review of Smithsonian materials last week. The institution is conducting its own internal review. Other exhibitions and artifacts seem to have newly caught the White House's attention. One of the listed exhibitions is a temporary, ground-floor show in the American History museum about the history of Title IX and women in sports. The White House took issue with its references to transgender athletes. The document also criticized the National Museum of American History for mentioning Benjamin Franklin's status as a enslaver in an exhibition about his scientific legacy, and for its inclusion of the Immokalee Statue of Liberty, a papier-mache statue holding a tomato instead of a torch, used in demonstrations by immigrant farmworkers with the message, "I, too, am America." (COMMENT, BELOW) I like quails. They resemble sparrows but are slightly larger. Quails are relatively quiet and easy to keep since they cannot fly much, unlike sparrows. They have a good lifespan as well. Since childhood, I have raised many quails, and I currently have two that I bought in 2023. The quails have aged significantly, and the male has plucked many feathers from the females body. As a result, there are bald patches on her skin, and she resembles a hedgehog due to the pointed remnants of the plucked feathers. I had greyish-black hair and dyed it around the same time I bought my quails. My hair started falling out, and being the lazy person that I am, I saw strands everywhere around my house. If my hair had been black, it would have been unrecognizable and difficult to determine which lady in the house it belonged to, since we all had similar hair colors. But now, everyone knew that those brown strands were mine. One of my quails had gotten a strand of my hair wrapped around one of her toes. I didnt notice it at first, but one day I saw that the toe had turned black. By the time I realized what had happened, it was quite late. I tried to remove the hair, but it was tightly stuck, and the toe had become necrotic. Over time, the part of that toe with the nail fell off and was replaced by a healthy stump. I began to feel regret and guilt, as if she had lost her finger because of me. She still wanders around, often getting my hair tangled around her feet as she searches for food in the hidden corners of my house. Since that incident, I make it a point to check her feet regularly and remove any hair I find. As time went on, perhaps out of pity or guilt, I found myself loving and caring for her more than the male bird. I would feed her by hand and named her Choti, which means little one in Urdu. In our culture, the youngest girls in a household are often referred to as choti. Choti looks amusing and runs very quickly, but she struggles to maintain her balance with her tiny feet, one of which has one less toe than the other. Her skin has hairless patches, giving her a rather unusual appearance. If you saw her, you might not even think she resembles a bird; instead, she seems like an odd piece of flesh with a beak scurrying around here and there. The interesting thing is that she has such an unremarkable appearance and may not have much time left, as she has grown quite old and no longer lays eggs like she used to. However, she knows me and can sense my presence. Whenever I open the door and call out to her as Choti, she runs toward me to see what Ive brought her to eat. Even though she cant run properly because of a damaged foot, her excitement is clear. I am amazed to see that an old bird, who seems mindless and physically unwell, can sense the presence of love. She recognizes that I care for her and that I will feed her by hand. Whenever I get home, I usually check on her and go to my balcony to call for her, just to enjoy the sight of her running towards me. My friendship with Ahmed When we moved into this house three years ago, we became familiar with our immediate neighbors after some time. Opposite our flat lives a family of eight, which includes five girls and one boy named Ahmed, who is six years old. Whenever I went to the hospital or returned home, I would often see him playing outside or walking to the market while holding his dads finger. Over time, we started shaking hands and greeting each other, and eventually, we developed a friendship. Ahmed loves to eat junk food and snacks, just like I do. Whenever I buy sweets or chocolates, I usually share them with him. I make exceptionally good French fries, and I never knew he liked them so much. I would say our friendship developed because of those fries. One Sunday, I was making French fries and had just set a plate for myself. Ahmed came over to give us something his mom had cooked. I invited him inside, took him to the table where I was sitting, and offered him some of my fries. He loved them! While eating, he casually asked me, Wese tum aur kya kya bana leti ho? (By the way, what else can you cook?) I was amazed at how casually he spoke to me, as if I were his age fellow. But his next sentence was even more hilarious. While stuffing his mouth with my fries, he told me, Zara darwaze pe dekhna, Allah Dad to nahi aagaya? (Hey, look at the door and see if Allah Dad is here.) It was funny because Allah Dad is his father, who is at least 50 years old, and he was calling his father by his first name. After finishing all of my fries, he exclaimed, Ahh! Aaj maza aa gaya! (I really enjoyed it!) ADVERTISEMENT Over time, his parents and siblings helped him realize that I was not someone his age, and he started calling me Daman Aapi (Aapi refers to elder sister). Whenever I made fries, I always made it a point to share some with him. He would eagerly run to the door as soon as he heard my voice, knowing that I had come to give him my fries. He wanted to be the only one to receive them. I loved seeing the look on his face when his eyes lit up at the sight of me and my fries. He had four adorable little parrots that were very small, just like him. Whenever the family left for their village to visit relatives during Eid or any other occasion, they would leave their parrots with us to take care of them. I loved spending time with them and enjoyed playing with them. The parrots typically ate the grains that they were provided with, but I made a habit of feeding them whatever I was eating while sitting beside their cage. It brought me immense joy to see them enjoying the fruits, snacks, and bakery items I offered with my hands. I remember that whenever Ahmeds family returned home, he wouldnt go inside their house without his parrots. He always came to our house first while his family members were unlocking their door. He would insist, Mere totey de den (Give me my parrots). Once, I told him, Main nahi wapas karungi; mujhe achay lagte hain (I wont return them. I love them). I remember how the color drained from his face I couldnt stand to see him sad. So, I returned his parrots; I had just been teasing him. He smiled when I handed them back to him. Last week, I found out that Ahmed and his family are leaving our neighborhood because they are moving to a new house. I felt a little sad knowing that I wont see him anymore, as I used to see him almost every other day. I remember waving to him while leaving for work as he played in the street. Yesterday, when I returned from the hospital, my mother informed me that it was the last day for Ahmeds family in our neighborhood. He had come by earlier that morning asking for me. My mother told him that I was at the hospital, and he requested that she let him know as soon as I came back. I went to see him, and he came out holding a cage with two parrots (out of his four). He told me that those parrots were for me. Although he insisted, I didnt take them and explained that I would visit his home whenever I felt like playing with his parrots. I am truly amazed by his innocence and thoughtfulness. When he loved those parrots so much that the idea of me taking them away made him sad, the same Ahmed was still willing to give his beloved birds to me. Children have pure hearts, and we can learn so much from them. The meaning of childhood in Islam Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: I love children because of five things: First, they cry often. Second, they play with soil. Third: They fight without malice. Fourth: They do not store anything for the next day. And fifth: They build houses with sand and then ruin them. This hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) carries a deep meaning. Crying often signifies being honest about ones emotions, feeling remorse for past mistakes, and thus keeping the heart pure. Playing with sand represents enjoying simple pleasures, staying close to nature, and having a modest approach to life, which prevents greed. The act of fighting with one another but later reconciling demonstrates kindness, maintaining connections, and fostering a sense of community and care for one another. Not saving anything for tomorrow encourages living in the present moment, having faith in the Almighty for provision, recognizing the fragility of life, and seizing each day. Finally, building something from sand and then destroying it serves as a reminder that this life is temporary, and we must be prepared for the hereafter. Love makes us fearless. Love is truly an incredible emotion. It makes me wonder: Who teaches anyone how to love? Who guides animals, birds, babies, and children in understanding how to feel loved or how to love in return? Its fascinating to see how innocent creatures like birds and children effortlessly sense and express love. In contrast, many adults tend to hide their feelings, fearing vulnerability. They often wait for years, sometimes even decades, to gather the courage to express their love. Sometimes it isnt necessary anymore, and many times it is too late. Sometimes, I feel that love makes you fearless. Knowing that someone loves you provides a sense of safety and courage. You learn to trust them and feel secure in their presence. Its the courage derived from my love that allowed my quail to trust me, unlike the male quail, who may feel disappointed by my favoritism. If I hadnt loved her and called her with affection, she wouldnt come running to me every day without hesitation. Similarly, its love that enabled Ahmed to consider parting with his beloved parrots and gifting them to me to make me happy. Love makes us fearless, gives us the courage to express our feelings in return, and teaches us to trust others. Indeed, love is a miracle. Many times, being with children and birds makes me feel this is what it is to be happy. It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. Rabindranath Tagore Damane Zehra is a radiation oncology resident in Pakistan. Physicians joining private practices have a relatively new issue they should be aware of. As more practices are taken over by private equity, the traditional concerns of a physician joining a practice as an employee with the hope of becoming an owner are heightened. Traditionally, the physician would join the practice as an employee, work for a few years, and get the golden ring of ownership after a few years. Often the compensation as an employee is not great. The idea is that you pay your dues for a few years and then you make the big bucks as a partner. I have previously written about the concern that some practices appear to be leading physicians along with no apparent intention of making them owners. A select few practices I have dealt with over the years paid physicians poorly, then terminated them without cause shortly before they were due to be considered for partnership. These bad apples must be detected before the physician signs the initial employment agreement. However, with private equity purchasing practices, honest physicians who have spent decades hiring employed physicians and making them partners may inadvertently cause the same situation for physicians who have not yet become partners. Obviously, if these physician owners no longer own the practice, they will not be able to admit the employed physician to partnership after he or she has completed the expected years of employment. The upshot of this situation is the employed physician may have worked several years at below-median compensation, building sweat equity that can never be used. Perhaps even worse, the underpaying contract will be assigned to the new private equity owners. I was recently contacted by a physician about this exact issue. The physician had signed an employment agreement with a private equity practice that provided that ownership would be offered after one year. At that time, the practice would dispense several hundred thousand dollars to be used to purchase equity in the overall private equity entity. The employment agreement also provided that if the entity were sold before the physician was made partner, the physician would be paid a lump sum (mid-five figures). The firm was in the process of being sold to a bigger private equity concern. The physician who contacted me was aware that the current partners are each getting mid-six figures for their equity interests and inquired if there was anything that could be done. For physicians in this situation, all is not lost. The purchasing entity almost certainly based its purchase price on a multiple of the revenue from the practice. Importantly, that revenue included the revenue the physician in question is generating. The selling entity will be very concerned about the potential loss of revenue (and concurrent probable reduction in sales price) if the physician departs. A physician in that position should have considerable leverage in attempting to obtain a large signing bonus or other consideration. When negotiating physician employment agreements with a private practice (whether they are currently owned by private equity or not), I usually request a provision that if the practice sells to private equity, the employed physician will receive a bonus equal to the purchase price he or she would have received had they been owners at the time of sale. That provision is not always accepted by the practice, but it is a point well worth negotiating. As a compromise, the practice is sometimes willing to include a provision to the effect that if it is sold to a private equity concern, the employed physician will be paid a bonus equal to the lesser of the amount a partner receives for that partners equity, or $X. Obviously, the physician will want X to be as large as possible. There is no need to repeat all the horror stories that have been generated by private equity in health care (shorter patient visits, more patient contact hours, pressure to order unnecessary tests, etc.) Many physicians are extremely unhappy working for an entity that appears to value profits over patients. But it is important to realize that not all private equity firms are the same. I have represented physicians who were quite pleased with working for a private equity firm. Some physicians have reported that there is now money for the latest technology, for example. Technology can improve both quality of care and profits, but many independent private practices do not have the resources to invest in the latest gear. Physicians looking at employment by a private practice should not assume that a purchase by a private equity firm will be devastating to them. Without cause termination will still be available if things do not work out. At the same time, when considering private practice employment, physicians should protect themselves from the possibility that the practice will be taken over by private equity before they become partners. ADVERTISEMENT Dennis Hursh is a veteran attorney with over 40 years of experience in health law. He is founder, Physician Agreements Health Law, which offers a fixed fee review of physician employment agreements to protect physicians in one of the biggest transactions of their careers. He can also be found on YouTube and LinkedIn. Dennis is a frequent lecturer on physician contracts to residency and fellowship programs and has spoken at events sponsored by numerous health systems and physician organizations, including the American Osteopathic Association, the White Coat Investor, the American College of Rheumatology, the American Health Law Association, and the American Podiatry Association. Dennis has authored several published articles on physician contractual matters on forums such as KevinMD and Medscape. He is also the author of The Final Hurdle A Physicians Guide to Negotiating a Fair Employment Agreement, which is considered the go-to resource on physician contract negotiation. (Photo courtesy of Haps Magazine Korea) Planning a trip to South Korea with kids in tow? From dazzling theme parks to hands-on museums, South Korea offers a treasure trove of child-friendly adventures that promise to thrill everyone in the family. Whether your kids are young explorers or curious teens, heres how you can make your family vacation in Korea unforgettable, with activities everyone will love. Theme Parks That Spark Joy South Korea is a wonderland for theme park lovers. A must-visit for families is Everland just outside Seoul. As the countrys largest theme park, Everland features everything from zippy rollercoasters and parades to an animal safari where little ones can get close to giraffes and lions from the safety of a bus. For those in Seoul, Lotte World is a magical indoor-outdoor park filled with whimsical rides, skating rinks, and immersive adventure zones, a true hit on rainy days. Animal Encounters and Aquatic Delights Young animal lovers will be enchanted by Coex Aquarium in the heart of Seoul, where they can admire thousands of sea creatures, from playful otters to mysterious jellyfish. Head to Jeju Island for the famous Jeju Loveland (for older kids and teens, due to its quirky sculptures) or the child-friendly Jeju Aqua Planet, one of Asias largest aquariums with dolphin shows and hands-on touch pools. The island also features a captivating Teddy Bear Museum, where children of all ages can giggle at teddy bears dressed as famous characters from history and pop culture. Learning Made Fun at Interactive Museums South Korea turns learning into a hands-on experience. At the Seoul Childrens Museum, kids can experiment, play, and build in different science and imagination zones. The National Science Museum in Daejeon takes things up a notch, offering everything from planetariums to robot-building workshops. For families interested in history and tradition, the Korean Folk Village in Yongin lets you step back in time with interactive workshops including pottery, calligraphy, and folk games, often accompanied by lively performances. Outdoor Escapades and Natural Beauty South Koreas natural wonders provide the perfect backdrop for outdoor fun. Consider a serene bike ride along the Han River in Seoul, where youll find spacious parks, playgrounds, and pedal-boat rentals. If your family prefers a real adventure, explore the Seoraksan National Park hiking trails, many are gentle and suitable for children, with cable cars for when legs get tired. In autumn, Koreas forests light up in vibrant color, making even a simple walk an unforgettable visual feast. Festivals and Unique Local Experiences Some of the fondest family memories are made during South Koreas lively festivals. Kids will marvel at winters Hwacheon Ice Fishing Festival, which welcomes anglers of all ages to try their hand at catching trout. Spring and autumn bring flower and lantern festivals, packed with crafts, food stalls, andcultural performances perfect for curious minds. Food Adventures for Picky and Adventurous Palates Traveling in Korea means sampling street foods and snacks just as exciting for kids as adults. Try crispy hotteok (sweet pancakes), colorful tteok (rice cakes), or let them pick their favorite from endless flavors at an authentic Korean ice cream stand. Many family restaurants offer childrens menus and high chairs, so even the littlest diners are well-catered for. Final Tips for Hassle-Free Family Fun Most attractions are stroller-friendly, with amenities for families. Public transit is easy to navigate and safe, even with young kids. English information is widely available in popular tourist areas. Whether its your familys first trip or a return visit, South Koreas kid-approved attractions and welcoming culture ensure youll be making cherished family memories at every stop. > < 23:28 Teenager delivers five-month foetus on roadside in UP A teenager allegedly delivered a five-month-old foetus by the roadside in Bhadohi and fled, police said on Friday.According to officials, the incident occurred in the afternoon near Gyanpur, Gopiganj Road in the Gopiganj police station area, close to a private nursing home.The foetus... Read more > 23:26 FIR against Tejashwi Yadav in Maharashtra Police in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district on Friday registered a first information report (FIR) against former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav for tweeting an alleged objectionable post about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Milind Narote, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Gadchiroli, had... Read more > 22:52 Security dog bites 4-yr-old boy at Kolkata airport A sniffer dog belonging to a security agency allegedly bit a four-year-old boy at the Kolkata airport, forcing his family to cancel a trip to Malaysia, a police officer said on Friday.The child was attacked by the animal between the departure gates 4A and 4B on August 12, while a police complaint... Read more > 22:27 Plea in SC challenges sale of ethanol blended petrol A public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Supreme Court has challenged the nationwide rollout of 20 per cent Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP-20) alleging millions of motorists were forced to use fuel not designed for vehicles.The plea, filed by advocate Akshay, said millions of everyday... Read more > 21:22 Muslim man offers his kidney to Premanand Maharaj A 26-year Muslim man from Madhya Pradesh has offered to donate one of his kidneys to Hindu seer Premanand Maharaj, calling him a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity.The man, Arif Khan Chishti, has written a letter to Premanand Maharaj, a renowned religious and spiritual leader who is suffering from a... Read more > 20:36 Girl gang-raped on moving vehicle in Tripura, 2 arrested A girl was gangraped on a moving vehicle by two of her companions near Udaipur railway station in Tripura's Gomati district, police claimed on Friday.The two accused, identified as Mithun Debnath (24) and Bower Debbarma (24) of Maharani, have been arrested, police added.The girl, accompanied by... Read more > 20:15 Income Tax Act receives President's assent President Droupadi Murmu has given her assent to the Income-tax Act, 2025, which will replace the archaic Income Tax Act, 1961.The Income Tax Act, 2025, will come into effect from the next financial year, beginning April 1, 2026.The new Act will make tax laws simple and reduce wordage in the... Read more > 20:07 BSE Sensex: Top losers today From the Sensex pack, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, Tata Steel, ITC, HCL Tech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Adani Ports, Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank and Tech Mahindra were among the major laggards.However, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti, Bharat Electronics and Sun Pharma were among the... Read more > 20:06 Sensex dives nearly 1% Equity benchmark index Sensex fell sharply by nearly 1 per cent on Friday, snapping six-day winning streak, as investors turned cautious ahead of US Fed Chair Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole address amid growing global trade uncertainties triggered by Trump tariffs.Intense selling in market... Read more > 19:59 Got a call from US for ceasefire with India: Pak FM Pakistan was ready for a comprehensive dialogue with India to discuss Kashmir and all other pending issues, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday.Talks, whenever held, will be not just Kashmir but on all issues, Dar said while talking to journalists outside the parliament in Islamabad, where... Read more > 19:09 Air India Mumbai-Jodhpur flight aborts takeoff Air India flight flight from Mumbai to Jodhpur aborted takeoff and returned to the bay on Friday due to 'operational' reasons.Alternative arrangements were made to fly the passengers to their destination, Tata-owned Air India said in a statement, without sharing further details.Flight AI645... Read more > 18:37 FBI raids Trump's former NSA John Bolton's home John Bolton. Pic: Mike Segar/Reuters Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents raided the Maryland home of John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and former White House national security advisor, early Friday morning as part of a high-profile national security probe, the New York Post reported. A Trump... Read more > 17:58 Actor Raza Murad goes to police over "false death rumours" Actor Raza Murad filed an official complaint at Mumbai's Amboli police station on Friday, alleging that a false social media post about his death was circulated online, leaving him exhausted from repeatedly clarifying the rumours. The veteran actor said the rumour left him deeply disturbed... Read more > 17:29 Modi, Putin to attend SCO summit in China China on Friday said the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held in Tianjin later this month will be the largest in the bloc's history, with 20 world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attending it.The Tianjin meeting of the 10-member grouping from Aug 31-Sept 1 is... Read more > 17:06 5 grilled in Gujarat over attack on Delhi CM The Delhi Police is questioning five people in Gujarat's Rajkot for their alleged connection with the attack on Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, an official said on Friday.The officer said they have already seized the accused's mobile phone and are following leads that have emerged.A total of five... Read more > 16:08 India recorded 84 heatstroke deaths in 2025 summer: Study At least 84 heatstroke deaths were recorded across India between February and July this year, a new analysis has found. The report, Struck by Heat: A News Analysis of Heatstroke Deaths in India in 2025', by non-profit HeatWatch claimed that India's true heat toll is being masked by diagnostic... Read more > 16:05 Unable to support NDA's veep candidate: Sharad Pawar NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar on Friday said Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had called him up to seek support for NDA's vice-presidential candidate CP Radhakrishnan, but he expressed his inability. Talking to reporters in Mumbai, Pawar said, Opposition candidate B Sudarshan Reddy... Read more > 15:50 Won't be scared: Rekha Gupta in 1st public appearance after attack Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Friday asserted that she will never be scared and defeated, and will continue to struggle for the rights of Delhi, as she resumed official engagements two days after the attack. Addressing an event in Gandhi Nagar in the trans Yamuna area of the... Read more > 15:38 Kovind to be chief guest at RSS' Vijayadashmi event in Nagpur Former president Ram Nath Kovind will be the chief guest at an RSS event being held on October 2 at its headquarters in Nagpur to mark the hundred years of its foundation. The Vijayadashami Utsav, organised on the occasion of the centenary celebration of the founding of... Read more > 15:03 If jailed clerk can be suspended, why not PM: Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday charged the INDIA bloc with opposing moves aimed at rooting out corruption in higher echelons of power and steps taken to tackle threat posed to the nation's demography from infiltrators.The PM made indirect references to the Constitution (130th Amendment)... Read more > 14:30 Aadhaar valid for voter roll revision: SC Bihar voters challenging their exclusion from the electoral roll before an election later this year can present the Aadhaar as proof of residence, the Supreme Court said Friday afternoon, directing the Election Commission to add the government-issued ID to a list of 11 others, reports NDTV.The... Read more > 14:08 Lanka's former president Ranil Wickremesinghe arrested Sri Lanka's former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday for allegedly misusing the state funds, police said. Wickremesinghe, 76, has been accused of using public funds to travel to England to attend a convocation ceremony of his wife Maithree in September 2023, police said. The... Read more > 14:03 Progressive step: Rahul on SC order on stray dogs Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's recent decision related to stray dogs in Delhi NCR and called it a step toward balancing animal welfare. I welcome the Supreme Court's revised directions on stray dogs, as it marks a progressive step toward... Read more > 13:51 Did Yogi resign after...?: Siddaramaiah hits back at BJP Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said 20 stampedes took place in the BJP-ruled states, and blamed mass hysteria for the Chinnaswamy stadium incident in June that killed 11 people.Replying to a discussion in the Assembly on the June 4 stampede, the Chief Minister read out the list... Read more > 13:10 Payments Council of India Announces Leadership Changes The Payments Council of India (PCI) re-appointed Vishwas Patel and M N Srinivasu the chairperson and co-chairperson of the associationon Thursday.Patel is the joint managing director of Infibeam Avenues, whereas Srinivasu is the cofounder and director of BillDesk. Nalin Bansal was appointed... Read more > 13:02 Next Phase Of Infrastructure Growth: Gadkari, Sonowal Unveil Road Map Two top ministers overseeing key infrastructure portfolios -- Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbananda Sonowal -- on Thursday outlined the central government's broader vision to take infrastructure growth to the next level, driven by... Read more > 12:42 'USAID didn't receive funding for voter turnout in India' The US Embassy has said that USAID/India did not receive or provide funding of $21 million for voter turnout in India from fiscal years 2014 to 2024, nor has it implemented any voter turnout-related activities in India, the Centre has told Rajya Sabha. The government said this in a written... Read more > 12:36 20-year-old man scaling Parliament wall was mentally challenged In a security breach, a 20-year-old man attempted to scale a wall of Parliament on Friday morning but was caught by security personnel and handed over to police, police said. The man, identified as Rama, hails from Uttar Pradesh and appears to be mentally incoherent, they said. Around 5.50... Read more > 12:05 SC must define what is an aggressive dog: Maneka BJP leader Maneka Gandhi reacts to the SC ruling on stray dogs in Delhi-NCR. I am very happy with this scientific judgement. Relocation and fear are the only reasons for dogs biting. There is no question of releasing dogs infected with rabies. The court has not defined what an aggressive dog is.... Read more > 11:28 SC expands scope of stray dogs case to pan-India Stray dogs verdict: Expanding the scope of the matter pan-India, the Supreme Court bench impleaded all the states and Union Territories as parties in the matter and transferred to itself the pleas pending before different high courts on the issue of stray dogs. It posted the matter for hearing... Read more > 11:20 No public feeding of stray dogs allowed: SC The Supreme Court on Friday modified its earlier order of August 11 regarding the management of stray dogs in Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region), directing that the animals will be released back into the same area after sterilisation and immunisation. The court clarified that stray dogs... Read more > 11:02 Stray dogs in Delhi to be sterilised and released The Supreme Court on Friday stayed an earlier order to permanently relocate stray dogs from the streets to dog shelters in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) amid widespread protests.A three-judge special bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria stayed the directive... Read more > 10:47 The 18-Year-Old Taking Mental Health To Classrooms Vaikhari Sonawane tells us how she went from writing blogs about her therapy sessions to creating a nationwide student-led mental health network, writes Divya Nair. Read the story here. Read more > 10:17 Maid arrested in UP after video shows her peeing on vessels Police here have arrested a domestic help for allegedly urinating on utensils while cleaning them at a house in the Nagina area, police said on Friday. The incident came to light after a video of the accused, identified as Samantra, was circulated on social media.In the purported clip, she can... Read more > 09:43 Happy India, China moving forward on border: Ex-Army chief Former Army chief Gen M M Naravane (retd) has said that it is fortuitous that India-China ties are on the mend with a number of initiatives announced at political, diplomatic and military levels for the improvement of our engagements and relations going forward.In his address at an event here on... Read more > 09:40 PM Modi condoles Swraj Paul's demise Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed anguish at the death of Swaraj Paul, a leading UK-based businessman of Indian origin, and said his support for the UK's close ties with India will always be remembered. Lord Paul passed away in London on Thursday evening. He was 94. In a... Read more > 09:39 Suneeta Reddy May Sell Stake Worth Rs 1,395 Cr In Apollo Hospitals Chennai-based Apollo Hospitals promoter and Managing Director Suneeta Reddy is likely to sell her 1.25 per cent stake in the company worth Rs 1,395 crore via block deals, sources aware of the development said.Suneeta Reddy may sell 1.8 million shares in the company through block deals. The deal... Read more > 09:36 Wipro To Acquire Harman's DTS Biz For $375 Mn Wipro is buying the digital transformation solutions (DTS) business of audio products maker Harman for $375 million in cash to deepen its push into engineering research & development (ER&D) services.The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year and will need the US... Read more > 09:30 RBI Board To Meet Friday To OK New MPC Member The Reserve Bank of India central board will meet on Friday and, among other matters, approve a new member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). Executive Director, Monetary Policy Department, Indranil Bhattacharyya will replace Rajiv Ranjan in the MPC as one of the internal members.... Read more > 09:02 Friend of man who attacked Delhi CM held The Delhi Police on Friday detained a friend of Rajesh Khimji, who is accused in the Delhi CM Rekha Gupta attack case in Rajkot, police sources said. It is alleged that Rajesh's friend transferred money to him. The Delhi Police is currently tracking ten people who were in contact with... Read more > 08:37 Naxals kill man hoisting Tricolour in Chhattisgarh village Representational image A man who reportedly hoisted the Tricolour on Independence Day in a remote village in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district was killed by Naxalites after being accused of helping police, an official has said. The official identified the victim as Manish Nureti of Binagunda village under... Read more > 08:33 Road to peace runs through Delhi: White House Despite sharp criticism for purchasing Russian oil, White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro on Thursday (local time) praised India's leadership and highlighted its key role in bringing the Ukraine-Russia conflict to an end. The road to peace runs through New Delhi, said Navarro while calling... Read more > 08:27 Five families tried to end my political life: Tej Pratap Expelled RJD leader and elder son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav, alleged that five powerful families, without naming them, had conspired against him to destroy his political and family life. Five families together and in a broader conspiracy tried to end my political... Read more > 00:44 HP: Enraged over Rs 6.78 lakh 'inflated' power bill, Cong MLA Bali seeks enquiry Congress MLA R S Bali on Thursday took strong exception to an inflated electricity bill of Rs 6.78 lakh issued to him and sought an enquiry into the matter to ascertain whether it was an error or a conspiracy. When the matter was raised in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly during Zero Hour,... Read more > China has been expanding use of digital currencies as it promotes wider use of its yuan, or renminbi, to reflect its status as the worlds second-largest economy and challenge the overwhelming sway of the U.S. dollar in international trade and finance. However, restrictions on access to Chinese financial markets and limits on convertibility of the renminbi, or peoples money, are big obstacles blocking its global use. Still, Hong Kong already has stablecoin regulations and some Chinese experts are pushing for regulations to prepare for a possible stablecoin pegged to the yuan. Officials at the Peoples Bank of China and State Council Information Office in Beijing did not immediately respond to requests for comment on a Reuters report that the State Council, or Cabinet, is preparing to issue a plan for internationalizing the yuan that might include a yuan stablecoin. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has made cryptofriendly policies a priority for his administration. He signed a law, the GENIUS Act, last month regulating stablecoins. How stablecoins work Stablecoins are digital currencies whose value is linked to a specific currency such as the U.S. dollar. They can be used as a substitute in situations where currency transactions might be difficult or costly. They are different from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in that their only purpose is to be a means of payment, not an investment meant to be traded to gain value. Dollar stablecoins are typically bought and sold for $1 each. They are based on a reserve equal to their value, but are issued by private institutions, not central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve. Stablecoins are not Digital Central Bank Currencies, which are digital versions of currencies issued by central banks. They are based on blockchain-based distributed ledgers. They are stable in the sense that their value is anchored to the currency they are based on. Critics of stablecoins say that since they are essentially a proxy for ordinary currencies that can bypass banking systems and safeguards set up to manage traditional financial transactions they may be most useful for illegal purposes. China inches toward using digital currencies China launched its own digital yuan, the e-CNY issued by its central bank, on a trial basis in 2019, and McDonalds was an early participant in that project. Chinese regulators have banned mining, trading and other dealings in private, decentralized digital currencies like Bitcoin, while encouraging use of the digital yuan. The nearly universal use of electronic payments has facilitated use of the e-CNY in the Chinese mainland, with some cities using it to pay wages of civil servants. State media reported that as of July 2024, there were 7.3 trillion yuan worth of transactions using the currency in areas where it is being used on a trial basis. China has also been promoting use of e-CNY in Africa, as it expands business dealings on the continent. But e-CNY are not stablecoins. Experts say regulations are needed to safely manage use of stablecoins and to ensure they could be used smoothly with bank accounts and payment systems. Hong Kongs role in digital currencies Hong Kong, that has its own financial markets, currency and partly autonomous legal system, enacted a stablecoin law that took effect on Aug. 1. Aimed at attracting wealthy investors who want to use digital currencies and other financial products, it requires that a stablecoin linked to the Hong Kong dollar must be equal to the Hong Kong dollar reserves for that digital currency. As a global duty-free port and financial hub, Hong Kong has often served as a base for trying out paths toward liberalizing Chinese financial markets. But new regulations specifically governing yuan stablecoin would be needed if such a digital currency were issued for use in Hong Kong, Liu Xiaochun, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of New Finance, recently wrote in a report on the Chinese financial website Yicai.com. Chinas limits on cross-border dealings Chinas currency is not freely convertible in world financial markets and its stringent controls on foreign exchange are the biggest hindrance toward making the yuan a global currency, experts say. According to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, as of June, the yuan was the sixth most active currency for global payments by value, with a share of 2.88%. Its use peaked in July 2024 at about 4.7%. Its used more often in trade financing, where it accounts for nearly 6% of such dealings, according to that report. The lions share of yuan transactions take place in Hong Kong. The U.S. dollars share as a global payment currency was over 47% as of June, followed by the euro, the British pound, the Canadian dollar and the Japanese yen, the report said. ELAINE KURTENBACH, BANGKOK, MDT/AP Like this: Like Loading... The Macau Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM) is calling for enhanced protections and improved working conditions for civil servants amid ongoing public administration reforms. The appeal came during a recent opinion-collection meeting organized by the Macau Civil Servants Federation and its affiliated unions, attended by lawmakers and union leaders including Ella Lei, Lei Chan U, and Leong Sun Iok. At the recent meeting, the lawmakers highlighted recent legislative improvements for civil servants. Leong Sun Iok and Ella Lei noted that after advocacy and feedback from Macau trade unions and the FAOM council, the government has amended the General Regulations Governing the Staff of the Public Administration of Macao. As explained by the lawmakers, this adjustment now allows civil servants to obtain sick leave certificates from medical clinics partnered with the Health Bureau, such as community health centers, thereby expanding the types of institutions authorized to issue sick leave certificates. According to FAOMs press statement, this change eases civil servants access to healthcare while reducing strain on public hospitals. During the meeting, lawmakers also discussed ongoing efforts by the current administration to deepen public sector reform. Participants discussed optimizing the allocation of public sector functions, controlling staffing levels, and managing personnel transfers. They also called for a timely review of special and horizontal career paths to support civil servants career progression. However, staffing shortages in some departments were highlighted. Lawmakers cited evolving social needs and departmental adjustments as increasing workloads and pressure on civil servants. Concerns were also raised about the blurred boundary between work and personal time, as civil servants reported stress from receiving work instructions on mobile devices outside office hours, fearing criticism if they do not respond quickly. Participants called for department heads to adopt more humane management practices respecting employees well-being and encouraged organizing more activities aimed at relieving workplace stress in the future. Like this: Like Loading... The 33rd Macau International Fireworks Display Contest is slated to take place from September 6 to October 6, featuring a special showcase on October 1, Chinese National Day, with displays by Chinese and Portuguese teams. According to a press conference held yesterday, this years contest will feature fireworks companies from 10 countries, with teams from Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Portugal, and the UK making their debuts. The event will occur on September 6, 13, 20, and October 1 and 6, starting at 9 p.m. and 9:40 p.m. in the waters off the Macau Tower. According to the schedule, fireworks companies from Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Austria, the Philippines, Japan, China, Portugal, the UK, and Brazil will present performances lasting approximately 18 minutes each. Each performance will be broadcast live on public broadcaster TDM. This year, all 10 participating fireworks companies have extensive experience in competitions and performances, having won awards in various international fireworks contests. Among them, the fireworks companies from the Philippines and China have previously won top-three awards at the Macau International Fireworks Display Contest, said Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), in her remarks. Companies from Australia, South Africa, and Austria have also participated in the competition in Macau. [] We believe these high-quality fireworks companies will deliver 10 dazzling performances. Please stay tuned, she added. According to the tourism chief, this years budget is approximately MOP18.06 million, a slight decrease of 1.15% compared to last year. Of this amount, the citys six integrated resort (IR) operators are responsible for MOP18 million of the budget, meaning the government only has to bear approximately MOP60,000 for the entire event. The event period coincides with National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival, during which various extended activities will be held. These include the Fireworks Carnival next to the waterfront of the Macau Science Center from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on each fireworks evening, as well as the Photo Contest, Student Drawing Contest, and AI Generative Art Contest, co-organized by several local associations. Like this: Like Loading... To mark the 60th anniversary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the late Macau artist Lok Cheongs 100 original works are on display in a major exhibition at the Tibet Art Museum. Co-organized by the Tibet Art Museum and the Macao Museum of Art, the exhibition titled Ties to the Tibetan Heart: Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region An Exhibition of Lok Cheongs Works in Tibet was inaugurated on August 13 at the Tibet Art Museum. The exhibition features 100 pieces by the late Macau artist Lok Cheong, along with over 70 sketches, documents, photographs, and other priceless historical materials spanning more than half a century. Most artworks are from the collections of the Macao Museum of Art, while others are treasures from Lok Cheongs family and the Tibet Art Museum. This event highlights a new chapter in the 30-year artistic connection between the two regions. Loks classic paintings pay tribute to the snowfields of Tibet and honor his pioneering efforts in promoting cultural exchange between Macau and Tibet. The exhibition, with free admission until October 12, is divided into three sections: Love for the Motherland, Capturing the Character of Macao, and Portraits, reflecting Loks artistic development. For the first time, Lok Cheongs manuscripts from his 1994 trip to Tibet are being unveiled, accompanied by rare archival materials that vividly recount his cultural exploration of Tibet and the motherland. Loks paintings on Tibetan themes serve as an enduring testament to the friendship between the two regions. In 1991, Lok participated in the Snowfield Plateau Art Exhibition in Guangzhou, marking the beginning of artistic exchanges between Tibet and Macau. Since then, he has consistently fostered friendships between the two regions with his brushstrokes, organized multiple visits for Macau artists to Tibet, and contributed to the establishment of the first Hope Primary School of Macau in Nagqu. Times Reporter Like this: Like Loading... Macau was named Best Asian Meeting Destination at the M&C Asia Stella Awards ceremony held in Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this week. This marks the third consecutive year that Macau has received this honor. The organizers stated that Macau boasts Asias leading M&C hardware and software infrastructure, as well as regional advantages, making it a competitive and ideal M&C destination. Representatives of the China Merchants Investment Promotion Bureau accepted the award and organized a meeting with the Macau and Guinness MICE industry at the M&C Asia Connections 2025, a tailored event for the region. China Merchants Group, through exchanges with Thai companies that helped promote Macaus exhibition and business advantages, together with 10 Macau and Qinhuangdao institutions and enterprises, held more than 220 business negotiations with international exhibition buyers. Industry insiders stated that the event brought together buyers and suppliers from the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the United States, allowing them to reach target customers through customized matchmaking. They expressed their hope to collaborate with Cooperation Zone companies to expand into European, American, and Middle Eastern markets, enhancing the vision and international service capabilities of local companies. Times reporter Like this: Like Loading... A local man in his 50s, employed as a pawnshop manager, is suspected of embezzling HKD1.23 million in operating funds, most of which he reportedly lost through gambling. Judiciary Police said staff discovered missing cash from a safe in a pawnshop in ZAPE on Aug. 20 and suspected misuse of keys by the man. He was later intercepted while gambling in a casino. Police recovered HKD 171,000 in chips and transferred the case to the Public Prosecutions Office. Like this: Like Loading... The first-ever ZAPE Taste Jam market, which is set to conclude in two days, has attracted 36,000 visitors and generated sales of MOP200,000 far surpassing initial expectations though the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has confirmed that it will not extend the event at this time. The market, jointly organized by the authorities and the Association of Returned Overseas Chinese Macau, opened on August 15 and was originally scheduled to run for 10 days, though it was temporarily closed for one day on Sunday due to the hoisting of Tropical Cyclone Signal No. 3. MGTO earlier announced a budget of MOP4.6 million for the entire event, with the government covering MOP3.6 million. Speaking to the media yesterday, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of MGTO, reported that as of Tuesday, the data covered the first five days of participation, although the market operated for only four days, attracting approximately 36,000 visitors and averaging about 9,100 people per day. This figure far exceeds our original expectation of 4,000 visitors per day, she noted. The total revenue over these four days reached MOP200,000, with some stalls, including two from shops in ZAPE, achieving daily revenues of more than MOP10,000. She concluded, So overall, its a pretty good figure. According to the tourism chief, the event is expected to conclude as scheduled, with no extension of its duration. Some people have asked if there will be an extension, but even if there is, it would likely be on weekdays, and business volume would not be as high as on weekends. Therefore, after considering this, we have decided not to extend the event for the time being. However, she emphasized that the authorities will review the event after its conclusion and consider future event types and how to introduce such events to the area. Earlier, a social media post indicated that some merchants in the ZAPE area had not been invited to participate in the market. One of the organizers, the Association of Returned Overseas Chinese Macau, responded that it was unable to provide a clear answer, leading these merchants to feel neglected. Senna Fernandes addressed this by stating that, in addition to attracting foot traffic, the organizers, including her office and the Association of Returned Overseas Chinese Macau, had proactively engaged with nearby business operators to understand their situations. They found that these merchants had benefited from the increased foot traffic, with some even reporting business growth. She cited actual examples, noting that nearby shops took advantage of the increased foot traffic for promotional activities, attracting both tourists and local residents. This demonstrates that the benefits of the event extend beyond the 30-plus participating merchants, contributing to the overall commercial vitality of the area. She emphasized that in future events, it would be desirable to introduce more diverse types of businesses to enrich the areas offerings and promote its prosperity. Actually, when we plan each event, we dont just consider businesses in that particular area. We also aim to introduce new businesses or different types of products to make the area more vibrant. Sometimes, bringing in businesses or products from other areas can provide more choices. In the future, there may even be opportunities for businesses from other regions to set up shop here, the tourism chief emphasized, highlighting the need to strike a balance. Whether we continue to organize such events or explore new ideas, there are many options available. Our ultimate goal is to promote this area on one hand, to establish its reputation, and on the other, to attract both local residents and tourists to learn more about the area, thereby creating future business opportunities for the community. The authorities reaffirmed that the ongoing market event is just a pilot project and does not imply that the government will rely solely on this method. They emphasized that in the future, a variety of measures will be implemented to promote the development of the community economy. These may include intellectual property-themed events, consumer discount initiatives, and ticket-stub economy activities, among other composite measures, aimed at introducing various projects to different businesses in local neighborhoods. Like this: Like Loading... Paul Kalanithi died just a few weeks after his essay "Before I Go" was published in the spring issue of Stanford Medicine magazine, but he lived to see it appreciated by thousands. Since his death, his words have reached millions. On Feb. 24, the day after publication, Longreads.com posted an excerpt on its widely read blog and shared a link through Twitter, and over the next week the essay on the magazine's website got more than 75,000 hits. Letters to Kalanithi poured in, thanking him for writing, asking permission to use the essay in classrooms and wishing him well. Tweets and blog posts encouraged others to read it: "This should be mandatory reading for humanity: time warps for young surgeon w/ metastatic cancer," tweeted Harvard physician Neel Shah, MD. Sites from The Toast to Reddit praised the essay and the accompanying video featuring Kalanithi, and on March 4 the MSNBC news program "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" aired the video in a segment lauding Kalanithi's message. Other broadcast outlets followed, including ABC 7 (KGO-TV), NBC and KQED. The essay has been republished by many media organizations, including The Washington Post, where it has had more than 4 million hits; The Guardian in England; and the Huffington Post's German edition. The Washington Post distributed it on its wire service, resulting in republication throughout the world. "The comments are among the most affirming I've seen on any of the articles on our site," wrote The Washington Post's senior editor for social issues, Sydney Trent, in an email to Stanford Medicine's editor. "The story has moved and inspired people everywhere!" On Stanford websites, the essay has had more than 400,000 hits, his obituary has been viewed nearly 900,000 times and the video has been viewed about 184,000 times as of March 20. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Schematic illustration depicting (1) PIK3CA mutations in TA-UC and de novo UC (top two left subpanels; bars represent mutation frequencies; error bars reflect s.d. from the -distribution), (2) the in vivo mouse model (top right) with cell morphological changes from normal atrophic (no tamoxifen (Tam)) and normal proliferative (+E2) to increased number of ducts and cell hypertrophy (with tamoxifen) and normalized number of ducts and cell length (with tamoxifen and PI3K inhibitor), (3) the model of PI3K signaling induced by tamoxifen (middle right) and (4) the model of UC evolution for de novo UC and TA-UC (bottom). Credit: Nature Genetics (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-025-02308-w An international research team has identified a previously unknown mechanism by which the breast cancer drug tamoxifen can increase the risk of secondary tumors in the uterus. The study shows that tamoxifen directly activates a key cellular signaling pathway (known as PI3K) a central driver in the development of sporadic uterine cancers, thereby challenging previously accepted models of therapy-related cancer development. Since its introduction in the 1970s, tamoxifen has significantly improved survival rates for millions of patients with estrogen receptorpositive breast cancer. However, alongside its life-saving benefits, tamoxifen has also been linkedthough rarelyto an elevated risk of uterine cancer. Until now, the precise molecular cause of this effect has remained unclear. The new findings, published in Nature Genetics, reveal the mechanism: in tamoxifen-associated uterine carcinomas, mutations in the cancer-related gene PIK3CAwhich are very common in spontaneously arising uterine tumors and lead to the activation of the PI3K signaling pathwayoccur significantly less frequently. Instead, tamoxifen itself takes on the role of a signal activator of the PI3K pathway, making such mutations unnecessary. The research brought together Prof. Kirsten Kubler from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charite (BIH) with colleagues from Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Mass General Brigham and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "Our results show for the first time that the activation of a pro-tumor signaling pathway by a drug is possible and provides a molecular-level explanation for how a highly successful cancer drug can paradoxically promote tumor development in another tissue," explains Prof. Kirsten Kubler, research group leader at BIH. "Tamoxifen bypasses the need for genetic mutations in the PI3K signaling pathway, one of the key drivers of uterine cancer, by directly providing the stimulus for tumor formation." While the overall risk of developing uterine cancer during tamoxifen therapy remains very lowand the benefits of the drug far outweigh the risksthe findings open up new opportunities for further improving treatment safety. In addition to offering a biological explanation for this long-standing medical puzzle, the discovery lays the groundwork for personalized prevention and intervention strategies. In future projects, the researchers plan to investigate whether similar mechanisms may also play a role in the side effects of other medications. More information: Kirsten Kubler et al, Tamoxifen induces PI3K activation in uterine cancer, Nature Genetics (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-025-02308-w Journal information: Nature Genetics 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: Click-to-Reveal (Panel A) and Sudoku (Panel B) Tasks in Study 3. Note. Panel A contains a a partially completed 9x9 matrix of tiles, the click-to-reveal task. Panel B contains a partially completed 9x9 matrix of numbered tiles, the Sudoku task. In Panel A, as tiles were clicked, they faded to reveal the hidden image, a capybara, behind. In Panel B, as correct values were entered, the white background faded to reveal the hidden image, a capybara, behind. Credit: Communications Psychology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00292-9 Past studies suggest that how people spend their time outside of work or academic endeavors can contribute to their overall well-being and life satisfaction. Yet how humans perceive different leisure activities that they engage in and the extent to which they feel that these activities contribute to their life's purpose has not yet been extensively investigated. Researchers at the University of Toronto recently carried out a study aimed at exploring how effort, specifically in the context of leisure activities or pastimes, relates to meaning and purpose. Their findings, published in Communications Psychology, suggest that activities that require more effort, such as Sudoku puzzles or other mentally challenging games, are perceived as more meaningful than less demanding activities, such as watching videos on social mediayet they can be equally enjoyable. "The paper was inspired largely by some recent work from us and others looking at the seemingly paradoxical nature of effort," Aidan Campbell, first author of the paper, told Medical Xpress. "It's something people tend to minimize and almost universally experience as frustrating or unpleasant, but at the same time, many actively seek it out or view effort as this virtuous thing which enhances the value of one's actions. "We put out an initial paper suggesting effort might feel meaningful for a number of reasons, but this was only us theorizing. We released a follow-up paper this year that tested this assumption with some basic cognitive tasks (e.g., mental math) and found that when we give people these weird, artificial activities, they feel more meaningful when they are more effortful." The recent paper by Campbell and his colleagues builds on earlier evidence that linked effort to a sense of meaning. In their new study, the researchers focused on more realistic activities that many people engage in in their free time, to "recharge" their energy or unwind. "At the same time, our lab has had its eye on the explosion of AI and its impact on people. It motivated a study in our other effort-meaning paper, where we compared the experience of writing with AI assistance vs. on one's own," said Campbell. "There, we found that using AI to assist with one's work felt less meaningful than doing it manually. This is relevant because many anticipate that the automation of the workforce will continue, leading to many losing work time, and for better or worse, gaining more leisure time. We know that work can be a big source of meaning and purpose for many in their lives, so if we lose this big source of meaning, where might we be able to make it up? Our thought was effortful leisure." Campbell and his colleagues set out to explore the relationship between effort and meaning from a few different angles. Firstly, they conducted a survey among over 1,000 undergraduates at the University of Toronto, asking them to share their beliefs about various different activities that people engage in in their free time. Graph of daily activities rated by effort and meaningfulness. Credit: Communications Psychology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00292-9 "We also partnered with a puzzle-making company, Amuse Labs, to compare effortful leisure (e.g., Sudoku puzzles) against less effortful leisure (e.g., watching YouTube, less effortful games) in a set of experiments pitting the experience of less effortful vs. more effortful leisure against each other," explained Campbell. "In our final study, we digitally followed people through their day-to-day lives for about a week. We'd ask them a set of questions several times randomly throughout the day, such as 'What are you doing right now?'; 'How effortful is it?'; 'How meaningful is it?' and 'How enjoyable is it?' This lets us see, at an individual level, how people experience activities that are more or less effortful to themselves, but also how activities generally rated as more or less effortful feel to people, on average." When they analyzed the data they collected, the researchers found that effortful leisure activities were typically perceived as more meaningful than less effortful ones. Interestingly, however, they also observed that people are not always great at predicting the extent to which they will find effortful activities enjoyable. "We saw that play out in our real-life study. When the activity was less like leisure and more like work (e.g., a job, studying, chores), it felt more meaningful, but less enjoyable versus less effortful work," said Campbell. "However, people incorrectly anticipated that more effortful leisure would also feel less enjoyable. This didn't show up in either our experiments or our real-life study." The researchers found that effortful leisure often did not only feel more meaningful, but also equally or sometimes even more enjoyable than activities that required no or little effort. Overall, their paper thus highlights the potential advantages of regularly engaging in mentally engaging hobbies or diversions. "I think the big takeaway is that even though people tend to avoid effort in their leisure, we might be overestimating how bad it will feel, and it will likely end up making our actions feel more meaningful," said Campbell. "So, maybe when faced with the options between scrolling through TikTok or sitting and watching online videos for a couple of hours versus going out for a walk or doing a puzzle, the path of more resistance will feel more fulfilling." The recent work by Campbell and his colleagues could soon inspire other psychology researchers to explore how people feel when engaging in specific types of activities outside of their work or studies. In addition, the team's findings could potentially inform the creation or improvement of parenting guidelines or interventions aimed at improving people's well-being and sense of purpose. "The big looming question for us is likely the 'Why? Why does effort feel meaningful?'" added Campbell. "We haven't found a consistent answer to this question, and it may be that there isn't one good answer, but instead many. Effort can be a way for us to feel competent at what we do. It's also an instance of us investing ourselves fully into the activity that we're doing. Both these things can make an activity feel more significant to us. "We have also only looked at mental effort in our experiments, not physical effort. So, a reasonable way to follow-up would be to replicate these findings with other types of effort, like physical. It might also be the case that some people are particularly prone towards finding effortful, challenging tasks to be meaningful and others view them as simply a means to an end." Written for you by our author Ingrid Fadelli, edited by Stephanie Baum, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Eganthis article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly). You'll get an ad-free account as a thank-you. More information: V. Campbell et al, Effortful leisure is a source of meaning in everyday life, Communications Psychology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00292-9 Journal information: Communications Psychology 2025 Science X Network This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Authorities in Tennessee reported a rare and tragic death after a hiker was bitten by a rattlesnake. Fatal snakebites are extremely uncommon in the United States, with a nationwide average of about five deaths annually, according to the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The incident occurred on Aug. 8 in Savage Gulf State Park in Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee, a scenic area with some 60 miles of hiking trails that are home to various snake species, The New York Times reports. According to a witness, the man, who has not been publicly identified, picked up what is believed to be a timber rattlesnake and was bitten on his hand. Despite receiving immediate CPR from emergency medical workers who reached him about a half-mile along the trail, he later died at a hospital, according to the report. Why the hiker handled the snake remains unknown. Experts suspect the man's death was not due to the effects of the snake's venom, but owed rather to a severe allergic reaction. "Some people just may be plain allergic to snake venom," said William Sutton, an assistant professor of agricultural and environmental sciences at Tennessee State University in Nashville, who studies snakes. He noted that an allergic reaction to the venom could lead to anaphylaxis, a life-threatening condition that can cause the airways to narrow and blood pressure to drop. Timber rattlesnakes are usually gray, with a black, orange, brown, pink or yellow stripe down their back, and black coloring near their rattle. Their rattle shakes and makes a distinct warning sound when they perceive a threat. However, experts stress that snakes are generally not looking for a fight. "Generally, if you don't bother them, they won't bother you," Sutton told The Times. "They don't really want to have to bite you." Snakes would rather save their venom for prey that they can eat but perceive humans as a threat. Found mostly along the eastern half of the U.S., timber rattlers can grow 2 to 5 feet or more in length. Authorities and experts urge hikers to be mindful of their surroundings. "If you do come across a snake, give it a wide berth," Sutton advised, emphasizing the importance of always keeping an eye on the hiking trail and its edges. Snake bites can be treated. If bitten by a snake, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that you: Seek emergency care as soon as possible to start antivenom treatment, if needed. Have someone else drive you. Try to photograph the snake from a safe distance, which may help providers plan your treatment. Keep calm. Apply first aid while waiting for someone to take you to the hospital: Lie or sit down with the bite in a neutral position of comfort. Remove rings and watches before swelling starts. Wash the area with soap and water. Cover the wound with a clean, dry dressing. Mark the leading edge of tenderness/swelling on the skin and use a pen to write the time alongside it. More information: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more information about venomous snakes. 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: KDS12025 enhances hemoglobin's H2O2-decomposition, lowers oxidative stress, restores astrocyte and neuron health, and preserves memory and motor functiontransforming a vicious cycle into a virtuous one. Credit: Institute for Basic Science Hemoglobin, long celebrated for ferrying oxygen in red blood cells, has now been revealed to play an overlookedand potentially game-changingantioxidant role in the brain. In neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and aging, brain cells endure relentless damage from the aberrant (or excessive) reactive oxygen species (ROS). For decades, scientists have tried to neutralize ROS with antioxidant drugs, but most failed: they couldn't penetrate the brain effectively, were unstable, or indiscriminately damaged healthy cells. This new study, led by Director C. Justin Lee of the Center for Cognition and Sociality within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Daejeon, South Korea, set out to identify the brain's own defenses against a particularly harmful form of ROShydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ). The study has been published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. Using advanced imaging and molecular analysis, the team discovered that hemoglobin exists in the nucleolus of astrocytesstar-shaped brain cells critical for neuronal supportwhere it acts as a "pseudoperoxidase," breaking down H 2 O 2 into harmless water. "The key was to uncover hemoglobin's antioxidant potential in the brain and design a 'first-in-class' compound that could selectively enhance it. By boosting a natural defense mechanism rather than introducing an external antioxidant, we achieved strong and lasting protection across multiple disease models associated with oxidative stress," said first author Dr. Won Woojin. KDS12025 delayed disease onset, restored motor function, and extended lifespan from 140 to 168 days in an ALS mouse model the first drug to achieve all three. It also restored motor function in Parkinson's models and rescued memory deficits in Alzheimer's models to normal levels. Credit: Institute for Basic Science The team developed KDS12025, a small, water-soluble molecule capable of crossing the bloodbrain barrier. KDS12025 binds to hemoglobin's heme center and boosts its ability to decompose H 2 O 2 by nearly 100-fold, without disrupting its normal oxygen-carrying function. In disease-like conditions in astrocytes, KDS12025 sharply reduced harmful H 2 O 2 levels. In mouse models, oral administration through drinking water protected neurons, calmed reactive astrocytes, and restored brain function. In animal models, oral administration through drinking water suppressed neuronal death, normalized reactive astrocytes, and restored brain function. ALS model mice showed a delayed disease onset and lived more than four weeks longer than untreated controls. In Parkinson's models, KDS12025 restored motor function, while in Alzheimer's models, it recovered memory performance. In aging mice, the treatment extended the median lifespan from the typical two years to as long as three years. The drug also alleviated inflammation and joint damage in a rheumatoid arthritis model. The study also uncovered a damaging feedback loop: excess H 2 O 2 depletes astrocytic hemoglobin, weakening the brain's natural antioxidant defenses and accelerating degeneration. By boosting hemoglobin's levels and activity, KDS12025 reversed this trend, reducing oxidative stress, preserving neurons, and maintaining healthy brain function. No previous treatment has targeted astrocytic hemoglobin as an antioxidant system, nor demonstrated such broad protective effects. (Top) Hemoglobin is present in the nucleolus of astrocytes. When astrocytic hemoglobin is knocked down, KDS12025 loses its effect, confirming that the drug's antioxidant action is mediated through astrocytic hemoglobin. (Bottom) In Alzheimer's mice, astrocytes (green, GFAP) are atrophied and hemoglobin (purple, Hb) is reduced, whereas KDS12025 treatment restores astrocyte morphology and hemoglobin expression. Credit: Institute for Basic Science "This is a major step forward in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases. By enhancing the brain's own hemoglobin to combat oxidative stress, we are opening an entirely new therapeutic avenue," said Director Lee. The team now plans to further study the distinct roles of - and -globin in the brain, refine KDS12025 derivatives for potential human use, and explore its applications in other oxidative stressdriven disorders. This work transforms hemoglobin from a familiar oxygen transporter into a precision antioxidant defense system for the brain. It marks a potential paradigm shift in how scientists approach neurodegenerative diseases, age-related decline, and autoimmune conditions. More information: Hemoglobin as a pseudoperoxidase and drug target for oxidative stress-related diseases, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41392-025-02366-w 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 Psychologists could play a vital role in helping Australians navigate voluntary assisted dying (VAD), but new Edith Cowan University (ECU) research shows there are significant barriers preventing them from doing so. The study led by Master's student Dr. Vivienne Heng with Associate Professor Eyal Gringart is one of the first to explore Provisionally Registered Psychologists' (PRPs) views of VAD. The paper, "The Perspectives of Provisionally Registered Psychologists on Voluntary Assisted Dying in Australia: An In-Depth Qualitative Investigation" is published in the journal OMEGAJournal of Death and Dying. "Understanding the perspectives of PRPs on VAD is important in the early phase of VAD implementation in Australia to help address gaps in psychological support for key VAD stakeholders in VAD care," Dr. Heng said. In-depth interviews with 20 PRPs revealed they supported VAD for terminally ill patients and expressed the potential for its use with people living with dementia. However, they expressed little interest in engaging with VAD care because of the barriers faced. "The participants interviewed reported emotional strain, fear of litigation, a lack of education and professional exposure, unclear practice and ethical guidelines, and inadequate remuneration as key deterrents," Dr. Heng said. Dr. Heng said PRPs also reported being discouraged from participating in VAD care because of the "gag clause." "The gag clause is in effect in many states in Australia, with Victoria recently proposing amendments to repeal this clause," she said. "It prevents health professionals like doctors and psychologists from raising the topic of VAD." VAD demand rising, but future psychologists not engaged All Australian states and the ACT have now legalized VAD and most are in the implementation phase. NT is currently in the consultation phase. Dr. Heng said an aging population and a rise in chronic illnesses was creating an increasing demand for mental health support during end-of-life decisions. However, psychologists, who are uniquely qualified to assess mental capacity and help patients and families manage the emotional weight of such decisions, remained largely absent from the VAD process. "Despite their fit and relevance, psychologists are rarely involved in end-of-life care, and only about one percent self-report palliative care expertise," Dr. Heng said. Research findings could help inform curriculum reform for end-of-life care Associate Professor Gringart said, historically, psychologists have shown less interaction with and attraction to working with older adults and early training in that context has been proposed to increase their involvement. "However, VAD is a relatively new field in Australia and is still undergoing changes regarding laws and eligibility criteria," he said. "Psychology Masters students across all APAC accredited university programs in Australia are trained to provide mental health support around death and dying as well as grief. "VAD specific issues in Australia will be born out in research that could then inform curriculum." "Our findings are timely because, as VAD gains ground in law and practice, research into the psychological needs of all VAD stakeholders can inform end-of-life curricula and training of our upcoming psychologists." The role psychologists could play The study reinforces the vital role psychologists could play in supporting the well-being of patients, families and health care professionals during VAD through mental health care, grief and bereavement counseling, capacity assessments, and broader community education. "This is not just about ticking a box for mental capacity," Dr. Heng said. "It's about navigating life and death with compassion, providing inclusive, holistic and evidence-based care in an empathetic and non-judgmental waypsychologists are well-placed to help do that." More information: Ker-ni Vivienne Heng et al, The Perspectives of Provisionally Registered Psychologists on Voluntary Assisted Dying in Australia: An In-Depth Qualitative Investigation, OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying (2025). DOI: 10.1177/00302228251350511 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: Brain model of individual differences in music reward. Credit: Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2025.06.015 When I ask a lecture theater full of students how they would feel if they could never listen to a piece of music again, most are horrified. Many have been plugged into their headphones until the moment the class begins. But without fail, one or two will shyly admit that their lives would not change at all if music didn't exist. Psychologists call this "music anhedonia," meaning an absence of pleasure for music. And a new paper from neuroscientists in Spain and Canada suggests it is caused by a problem with communication between different parts of the brain. For many of us, apathy toward music seems unfathomable. Yet, for 5%10% of the population, this is their norm. I see it often in my own research and practice in people with memory loss, where I ask people to select favorite songs as a way of accessing significant memories. It has always fascinated me that some people look at me blankly and say, "I've never been that bothered by music." It is such a contrast to the majority who love to talk about their first record, or the tune played at their wedding. Recent evidence shows considerable variation in the depth of people's emotional response to music. Around 25% of the population are hyperhedonic, which is an almost obsessive urge to engage intensely and frequently with music. Research in this field typically uses the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ), which asks people about the significance of music in daily life: how often they listen to records, whether they hum along, and if there are songs that give them a shiver down the spine. Low scorers are classified as having music anhedonia and many researchers further verify this in the lab by measuring heart rate, sweat response and breathing while music is playing. For most of us, these physiological markers change dramatically during emotional songs. But in those with music anhedonia, there are often no physiological effects at all. One theory is that reduced enjoyment for music may reflect a more generalized anhedonia, an absence of pleasure for anything. Often, this is linked to disruption to the reward pathways in the brain, in areas such as the nucleus accumbens, orbitofrontal cortex and insula. It is a common feature of depression, which, along with other mood disorders, can correlate with a lack of response to music . However, this does not explain specific music anhedonia, where people happily enjoy other rewards such as food, socializing and films, but remain indifferent to music. An alternative possibility is that people with reduced interest in music simply don't understand it, perhaps due to difficulties with processing melody and harmony. To test this, we can look at people with amusiaa deficit in music perception, which affects the ability to identify familiar tunes or detect wrong notes. This occurs when there is reduced activity in key regions in the frontotemporal cortex in the brain, which handles complex processing of pitch and melody. However, some people with the condition have an extreme and obsessional love of music. In any case, other research shows that those with music anhedonia often have normal musical perception, with no problem recognizing songs or distinguishing major from minor chords. So, what is going on? The new paper provides a detailed analysis of all the research in this field to date. The researchers explain that while the brain networks underlying music perception and reward are both intact in people with music anhedonia, the communication between them is severely disrupted. There is little to no traffic between the auditory processing parts of the brain and the reward center. People with typical responses to music have significant activity in this pathway, which is higher for pleasant music than for neutral sounds. A 2018 study showed that you can increase music-induced pleasure by artificially stimulating these communication tracts using magnetic pulses. The new analysis may give scientists insights into clinical conditions where everyday rewards seem to be reduced or enhanced, for example eating disorders, sex addictions and gambling problems. These findings also challenge the common assumption that everyone loves music. Most people do, but not all, and the variation comes down to differences in the wiring of the brain. Sometimes it follows brain injury, but more often people are born this way, and a March 2025 study found evidence of a genetic link. Music is everywherein shops, gyms, restaurants, healthcare settingsand it can be incredibly powerful. But perhaps we should resist the urge to see it as a panacea and respect the fact that for some, silence is golden. More information: Ernest Mas-Herrero et al, Understanding individual differences to specific rewards through music, Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2025.06.015 Journal information: Trends in Cognitive Sciences This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwah has dismissed reports suggesting a rift between him and President William Ruto, urging Kenyans to treat the claims as fake news. In a statement posted on his social media account on Wednesday, August 20, the Kikuyu MP, one of the Presidents closest allies, said the reports were only meant to attract attention. Ignore all this fake news from the gutter press designed to generate followers for their media outfits. While the Constitution gives Parliament immense powers as the legislature, we DO NOT threaten anybody, let alone the President, who is our team leader, Ichungwah said. The Majority Leader described Parliament as very powerful but indicated that lawmakers have never threatened government officials, let alone the Head of State He stressed his commitment to working closely with the President to ensure the Kenya Kwanza administration delivers on its promises to Kenyans. We work independently but with complementary roles to deliver on our agenda. That is what we are focused on and respect William Samoei Ruto not just as the President but also as our team leader, he added. Ichungwah further acknowledged the importance of presidential oversight, noting that the President has the right to comment on matters involving the Legislature, Executive, or Judiciary. As the President, he has every right to state his views on any subject, including the work of the legislature, and call out what he may think needs to be rectified. That is the role he plays as President, Ichungwah explained. He emphasized that although Parliament has to play its oversight role, it also has the responsibility of protecting its integrity and dignity. We respect that as much as we appreciate our role in oversight of the other arms of Government, as a legislature, we also recognise the need to uphold the dignity and integrity of the institution of Parliament, as the President has stated, he noted. Narok County Governments Department of Tourism and Wildlife has responded to a viral video that showed tourists interfering with a wildebeest crossing at the Purungat (South) Bridge in the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The footage was posted online by wildlife activists Cheetah Guardians on Tuesday, showing tourists alighting from safari vehicles and thronging the riverbank, where they stood less than a meter from the animals. The incursion caused some wildebeests to plunge into the crocodile-filled river, prompting an outcry from members of the public. Warden Explains Circumstances Maasai Mara Chief Warden Stephen Minis clarified that the incident took place at a designated viewing area where tourists had briefly alighted because the bridge was temporarily closed. Vehicles had been halted after flooding and debris blocked the crossing. During this waiting period, guests alighted as is usual at this location. Unexpectedly, wildebeest gathered to cross the river, he said. He explained that rangers and himself immediately intervened. The situation was immediately addressed by myself and rangers on site, who promptly instructed all visitors to return to their vehicles. This was done within a minute, which is why the circulating video is brief, Mars added. No Harm and Disciplinary Measures Minis assured the public that no harm came to either the tourists or the animals during the brief disruption. He also dismissed unverified claims that some guests were asked to pay money for access but emphasized that if confirmed, such misconduct would attract disciplinary action. I have already engaged the guides who were present, and they committed to adherence to Reserve rules and to prevent a repeat of such incidents, he said. To reduce future risks, Minis revealed that the Department of Tourism and Wildlife is collaborating with county and national authorities to raise the Purungat Bridge above flood levels. This will reduce congestion and help prevent similar situations in the future, he noted. Ministry of Tourism Steps In Tourism Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano also weighed in, noting the necessity for greater control and enforcement of regulations. She said the ministry is working together with the Narok County Government and the Kenya Wildlife Service to strengthen compliance, especially at all key wildlife crossing points. She highlighted some of the key interventions, including increased enforcement of park rules, responsibility of tour operators, enhanced visitor safety, greater protection of wildlife, and joint monitoring alongside public sensitization campaigns. Kenyas tourism future is anchored in our ability to protect both visitors and wildlife, Miano said. We must act decisively to preserve the Maasai Maras integrity, uphold visitor safety, and demonstrate Kenyas unwavering commitment to conservation. Kenya Railways has completed the construction of the Mombasa Commuter Rail Service, easing traffic congestion and connecting Madaraka Express passengers directly to Mombasas city centre. The Ksh.4.2 billion project links the Mombasa Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) terminus in Miritini with the Mombasa Central Railway Station. In the course of construction, engineers built new passenger terminals at Miritini and Mombasa town, restored 16.6 km of metre-gauge railway track, and built a 2.3-kilometre Makupa Causeway bridge. Kenya Railways also intended to build two new stations in Changamwe West and Changamwe East. Transport Principal Secretary Mohamed Daghar confirmed that the line had undergone trial runs for testing to establish safety and that passenger operations would start soon. Our goal is to reduce commuting time, ease road congestion, cut carbon emissions, and provide safe, reliable, and affordable transport for all, Daghar said. Boosting Connectivity and Passenger Convenience The new service is expected to carry more than 1,000 daily commuters and will complement NairobiMombasa Madaraka Express passenger service. In addition to offering last-mile connectivity for Madaraka Express Passenger Service customers, residents living along the lines corridor will use the train in their daily movement, Kenya Railways noted. Previously, passengers arriving at the Miritini SGR terminus located about 15 kilometres from Mombasas city centre relied mostly on taxis for the last-mile connection. Kenya Railways announced that the Mombasa Commuter Rail Service will include a car park with space for over 100 vehicles to accommodate travellers. The project also includes a Park and Ride option where customers can park their vehicles and ride the train and the Drop and Ride option where public service vehicles can drop and pick up customers. The project began in September 2022 but stalled midway due to land acquisition disputes. To resolve the issue, the Ministry of Transport allocated Ksh.1.1 billion to the National Land Commission to compensate landowners along a 1.4-kilometre stretch required for the railway. Now complete, the Mombasa Commuter Rail Service is set to transform travel in the coastal city by cutting travel time, reducing road congestion, and improving access for thousands of passengers every day. The schedule has been aligned to ensure that every time the Madaraka Express Passenger Service train arrives, the link train will be on standby to offer the last mile connectivity into Mombasa town, said Kenya Railways Chairman Abdi Bare. This same link train will have brought passengers who will travel aboard the Madaraka Express Passenger Service train. Among Emory student orientation leaders, James Grant has a common story. When he first arrived on the Atlanta campus in 2022, the four years in front of him seemed exciting but daunting. He was energized by move-in day and enjoyed spending time with his orientation group. But, in a broader sense, he didnt know where or how to begin life as a college student. I was especially nervous, as someone from Kentucky, to meet all these people from all over the United States and the world, says Grant, a senior chemistry major. But orientation was a low-stakes, low-pressure environment where I could make connections with other people and learn about life at Emory. And I became an orientation leader because I wanted to replicate that feeling for others. Each year, orientation week at Emory is full of exciting events and time-honored traditions that welcome incoming students to their new communities on the Atlanta and Oxford campuses. The week kicks off with move-in day Friday, Aug. 22, for Oxford College and Saturday, Aug. 23, for Emory College and continues through the first day of classes on Aug. 27. Other highlights include a Coke Toast on the respective campus quads; Songfest, a beloved annual karaoke and dance contest among Emory College first-year students; and the Oxford Olympics, a field day of spirited competition among Oxford orientation groups. Orientation leaders spend months training to guide new students through these memorable activities and the many important moments in between. This will be Grants third year in the orientation leadership program and his first as one of nine coordinators who train the rest of the group. In all, this years team includes more than 100 leaders to assist Emorys largest-ever incoming class and their families. Kainat Mitha, associate director of orientation and transition programs in the Office of Student Involvement, Leadership & Transitions, runs the training courses. She says the energy that leaders and coordinators bring to orientation week is electric and that this years diverse group will help new students feel at ease and set up for success. We have a mix of introverts and extroverts, and they are each hardworking, humble and enthusiastic, she says. Our system is designed to welcome all different kinds of students coming to Emory. And thats coordinator Toluwanimi Olaleyes favorite part. "Orientation is special to me because I get to welcome students to a place that I truly love and enjoy, says Olaleye, a senior psychology major from Philadelphia. I get to see them expand and learn so much about a place that they'll soon grow to love and enjoy, too." Learning to lead Even orientation leaders need an orientation. A nesting doll of training sessions leads up to the big show itself. The coordinators started the process earlier this year with a spring semester course on leadership, taught by Mitha. That course kicked off with an overnight retreat at a small farm in Commerce, Georgia, about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta. At the farm, the coordinators participated in a number of team-building activities and workshops that encouraged them to explore their personal styles of leadership. Abby Brown, a senior creative writing major from Atlanta, says the training helped her learn the importance of developing a clear vision for leading. She balances that conviction and reliability with curiosity about others. Im a very energetic person, so I put my enthusiasm at the forefront, she says. What I aim to do is make people feel comfortable and take genuine interest in them, which I think is a great way to make friends. And I approach leadership the way I approach making friends. Its no surprise, then, that Brown says the retreat was the foundation for close friendships with many of her fellow orientation coordinators. One exercise involved reflecting on how impactful moments or people have shaped each individuals personal goals. Being able to hear all these stories and form this respect for each other was huge. It still permeates our relationships to this day, Brown says, adding that navigating a roomful of people with different experiences and backgrounds is itself a microcosm of the orientation experience. A short walk from the farmhouse was a fenced-off grazing area, where cows peacefully chewed on the stubble of winter grass. Each morning, several students would walk down for quiet reflection beside their bovine friends though Grant notes, with a sad smile, they were not allowed to pet the animals. Mitha says her favorite part of leading the trip was having her coffee on the back porch and watching the students through the morning mist, knowing that this years orientation would be in good hands. Passing the baton In August, each coordinator is assigned a small group of orientation leaders to train over the course of a week. Every day is a full nine-to-five shift, packed with chants, posters and conversations on how to make things as easy as possible for incoming students and their families. Training, Mitha says, comes with a thick binder of facts, scripts and resources for the leaders to learn inside and out. She calls the binder the students holy grail. Its detailed, but we dont want folks to be reading off the page because thats not engaging, she adds. So, they have to become experts in that content. Leaders spend a lot of time practicing with each other in their coordinator groups and then sharing feedback on how to improve. Orientation leaders also craft what Mitha calls involvement journey posters. These detail how students have navigated their time at Emory. We make sure its not just victories, because that can be intimidating to hear, Mitha says. We want to tell an honest but uplifting story about what involvement can look like. This year, Browns poster depicts a road with various stops along the way. It starts with the beginning of her journey on the Oxford College campus and follows her through struggles deciding on a major before finding a strong community in the English department. Brown was first a sophomore orientation leader on the Oxford campus in 2023. The following year, she decided to re-enlist as a leader for her new home on the Atlanta campus. She says the experience eased her transition to Atlanta. When youre training to be an orientation leader, youre with other students who really seek connection, she says. I felt welcome, and other Oxford continuees felt welcome. It definitely impacted my confidence when I went into other leadership roles at Emory and in Atlanta. I felt that I could put my best foot forward and create connections because I had such a positive experience. A highlight of the August training sessions is preparation for Songfest. Before the new students perform and a winner is announced, the orientation leaders and coordinators take the stage for a dance of their own. Getting the choreography together is always a delight, Olaleye says. She paints the picture: Just imagine 150 orientation leaders in the empty Emory Student Center, with the coordinators in the middle teaching dance moves over and over again. Its great to see everyone laugh, and to see people who can really dance and people who might need a little help. It just brings more community and gets everyones spirits up. For Grant, those are the moments that bring people together. He says the friends hes made through the program have introduced him to other parts of the university. Ive met probably half of my closest friends at Emory through the orientation leaders program, he says. Its remarkable. Youre able to connect with people youd otherwise never find. Making connections Once orientation week is off and running, Mitha says nothing is quite like it. I haven't seen another university pour this many resources and this much heart into orientation, she says. I think everyone should get really excited for how vibrant and energetic this years orientation week is going to be. Grant agrees: My favorite is always move-in day. Its the culmination of what weve been working for the last couple of months, all our training. Its exciting to go over to the residence halls, put on the music and welcome those first-year students and their families to Emory. Olaleye says she enjoyed connecting with her group of students during last years orientation and felt qualified to share advice, both from the training and from having been in their shoes herself. Speaking to someone whos been in the same position Ive been in gives me a sense of familiarity and calmness, she explains. At the same time, they know Ive experienced what theyre experiencing, and they can see how thats reflected in my own journey through college. Brown sees orientation week as an opportunity to help incoming students feel at home in their new community. Ive learned and gained a lot from my own path, and I wouldnt change it, she says. But I do wish I could tap first-year Abby on the shoulder and tell her, Dont doubt yourself. You can do it. She plans to convey that message to incoming students and as she does, to her younger self, too. Lunar basin formation period altered 08:25, August 22, 2025 By Li Menghan ( China Daily A researcher shows a lunar sample retrieved by the Chang'e 6 mission at the lunar sample laboratory in the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing, capital of China, Sept 24, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] A study of lunar samples retrieved by the Chang'e 6 mission has dated the formation of the Apollo basin to 4.16 billion years ago, meaning the onset of the late heavy bombardment occurred at least 100 million years earlier than thought. The finding offers new insights into the early dynamic evolution of the moon and the solar system. The late heavy bombardment refers to a period of lunar basin-forming epoch due to intense bombardments from small celestial bodies. The Apollo basin, where the Chang'e 6 mission sampled lunar soils, has a diameter of about 540 kilometers. As the largest crater within the moon's largest and oldest impact basin the South Pole-Aitken basin its formation might well indicate the onset of the late heavy bombardment. Through the analysis of samples from the far side of the moon, the study reveals that the late heavy bombardment initiated at least 4.16 billion years ago, which is 100 million years earlier than the previously suspected cataclysm between 3.8 to 4 billion years ago. This finding suggests that the lunar early impact flux is consistent with a gradual decline rather than an abrupt surge. According to the study published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Wednesday, the research team, led by Xu Yigang, an academician from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, examined three impact-melt fragments with sizes ranging from 150 to 300 micrometers. These fragments are a special type of lunar rock that formed through the cooling and crystallization of impact melts generated during impacts and are regarded as the most ideal "geological clock" for the impact records of the moon. Integrating remote sensing, geological, geochemical and petrological data, the study confirms that the Apollo basin formed around 4.16 billion years ago. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) (601766):CRRC ACTION PLAN FOR ENHANCING QUALITY, INCREASING EFFICIENCY AND EMPHASIZING RETURNS 20250822 20:43:36 : : :CRRC Action Plan for Enhancing Quality, Increasing Efficiency and Emphasizing Returns CRRCCORPORATIONLIMITED ACTIONPLANFOR ENHANCINGQUALITY,INCREASINGEFFICIENCY ANDEMPHASIZINGRETURNS CRRC Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as CRRC or the Company)has actively responded to the Shanghai Stock Exchanges initiative on the EnhancingQuality, Increasing Efficiency and Emphasizing Returns campaign among Shanghai-listed companies byformulating Action Plan for Enhancing Quality, IncreasingEfficiencyandEmphasizingReturns(hereafterreferredtoastheActionPlan),soasto earnestly fulfil its responsibilities of Improving the Quality of the Company whileEnhancing the Returns and the Sense of Gain for the Investors. The details are asfollows: I. CREATINGANINDUSTRIALPATTERNOFTWOTRACKSANDTWO CLUSTERSTOENHANCETHEOPERATIONALQUALITY Since its establishment, CRRC has focused on its principal responsibilities andmajor businesses, strengthened strategic leadership, deeply grasped opportunities,and actively responded to challenges. It has developed into the worlds leading,diverse rolling stock supplier with advanced technology, and received greatattention from leaders oftheParty andthestate. Theseries ofrolling stockequipment represented by Chinese standard high-speed MUs of China FuxingEMUsbecamethegoldencardofChinashigh-endequipmentgoingglobal.TheCompanystrivedtocreateanindustrialpatternofTwoTracksandTwoClustersfor the rail transit equipment business and clean energy equipment business.This will establish a system of graded layout, positive interaction, and clusterdevelopment, expediting theenhancement ofsystem solution capabilities andsolidifyingtheindustrialfoundationforhigh-qualitydevelopment.(1) Mapping out strategies, optimising layouts, strengthening theconstructionofnewbusinessmodels,andbroadeningpathwaysforhigh-qualitydevelopment Accelerating theupgrading oftherailtransitindustry. TheCompany closelyfollowsthedirectionofrailwaymarketreforminthecountry,withthegoalsof achievement of speed, heavy load, and digital intelligence, to establishanequipment system that meets the development needs ofthe modernrailway logistics system. We develop multi-mode, cost-effective solutionsfor medium-to-low-capacity urban transportation systems and promote theconstruction of a family-based vehicle platform. We accelerate the launchof integration of vehicles and the electromechanical system on the groundand full life cycle service plan based on the digital, intelligent and greenelectromechanical system, in order to enhance our capabilities in providingurbantransportationsystemsolutions. Intensifying the improvement of quality for strategic and emergingindustries. The Company strengthens the top-level design of its new energyindustrylayout,whiledeepeningitsfocusonkeyareas,andcoordinatingtheimplementation of industrial baselayout plans. We intensify the research onthetechnologiesandequipmentrequiredfornewpowersystemsanddevelopthe system solutions of power sources, networks, load and storage. Also,we continuously strengthen our simulation and testing capabilities, in orderto support the continuous improvement of product performance and qualityinstrategicemergingindustries. Expediting the cultivation of future industries. The Company fully leveragesCRRCs extensive application scenarios to develop system solutionsforthehigh-endequipment manufacturing industry, integrating intelligentequipment+intelligentfactories +intelligentservices,thereby fosteringthedevelopment of a digital and intelligent industry that integrates automatedoperation, lean management,green production, andintelligenttechnology.(2) Exploring new markets, expanding incremented volume, strengtheninganddevelopingnewmodels,aswellaslayingasolidfoundationforhigh-qualitydevelopment Precisely focusing on the market of rail transit equipment. The Companystrengthens communication and coordination with key customers, andproactively promotes the implementation of order procurement. Also, wefocus on the trends of digitalization, intelligence, and green development,and the Company will expedite the establishment of amodern logisticsequipment system for railways. Besides, wecontinue toleverage ouradvantages in the regional markets of urban rail transit, consistently expandProduct+ and System+ businesses, and speed upthe research andformulation of value creation model samples, in order to strive to developdemonstrativeandleadingprojects. Thoroughlyfocusingonthemarketofcleanenergyequipment.TheCompanyoptimises its strategic cooperation governance mechanism, and promotes itsstrategic market development and the implementation of key cooperationprojects. We seize opportunities in clean energy development, acceleratethe construction of market advantages in wind, solar, hydrogen and storage,enhance our industry presence, and strengthen our industry status. Also, westrengthen our capabilities in improving system solutions, while proactivelyexploring and promoting the integration oftransportation andenergy,inordertoexertcertaindemonstrativeeffects. Deeply focusing onthemarket ofinternational business. TheCompanyconsolidates and expands its market in those countries along the Belt andRoad Initiative, provides its services and supports, and follows uptheimplementation of various overseas projects. We steer the implementationand particular monitoring of DLS projects to ensure their smooth progressandeffective market expansion, strengthen ourmanagement capabilitiesand supply chain system construction for DLS projects, build up a value-oriented, digital, and green DLS 2.0 model and continue to strengthen theestablishment of ateam with talents specialized in comprehensive DLSbusinesses. Leveraging the layout in our advantageous regions, we promotethesynergistic development ofourtwo-trackstrategy forustogoingglobal. Focusing on nurturing the market of digital and intelligent industry. TheCompany promotes the business model featuring Product + and System+ supported by industrial digitalisation and intelligentisation. We establishan organization and coordination mechanism for the digital and intelligentindustry, accelerate the professional integration ofinternal digital andintelligent industry resources, and build up a synergistic market expansionsystemforthedigitalandintelligentindustry. II. ENHANCING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND ACCELERATING THEDEVELOPMENTOFNEWQUALITYPRODUCTIVEFORCES The Company has insisted on self-reliance in science and technology, vigorouslyimplemented the innovation-driven development strategy, deepened the reformof the science and innovation system, accelerated the construction of sources oforiginal technologies, continued to advance proprietary innovation capabilities toachieveamajorleapfromfallingbehindandcatchinguptotakingthelead.TheCompany will continue toprioritize technological innovation among allthe other tasks, adhered to the innovation-driven development strategy, focusedondeveloping new quality productive forces, and empowered high-qualitydevelopment through high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening.Focusing on the development of new quality productive forces, the Companywill reinforce the deep integration of technological innovation and industrialinnovation tobuild new industries, new business forms, and new models,expandingnewspacefordevelopmentandcultivatingnewdriversforgrowth.TheCompanywillfocusonimprovingtheinnovationsystem,maintainingahighlevelof technological investment, coordinating innovation resources, and concentratingefforts ontechnical research and project breakthroughs. The Company willoptimize the ecosystem for technological innovation, adhere to market orientation,leverage thirst-quenching policies, and continuously improve the efficiency oftechnologicaloutputs.Wewillstrivetoenhanceourinnovativecapacity,focusonthe construction of source of original technologies, and increase the investmentin original technology and research on the disruptive, frontier, common and basictechnologies. TheCompany will strengthen collaboration with upstream anddownstreamoftheindustrial chain,enhancethecoordinationofscientificresearchprojects, and deepen the modern industrial chain synergy actions for CRRCsrail transit equipment and clean energy equipment. We will focus on translatinginnovation results intopractice, accelerating theapplication oftechnologicalinnovation achievements, as well as grasping the trend of digitalization, greendevelopment, intelligence, modularization and platformization, and acceleratingwillbuildahigh-qualityteamoftalents,whileadheringtoacombinationoftalentintroduction and independent training, and continuously optimising all aspects oftalent selection, cultivation, management, deployment and training, in order tocultivate sufficient talented personnel with a reasonable structure and excellentqualities. We will strengthen the construction of teams of talents specialized inclean energy equipment, strategic emerging industries and international businesstobettersupportourcorporatedevelopment. III. STRENGTHENINGINVESTORCOMMUNICATION TOENHANCE MARKETRECOGNITION The Company strictly adheres tothe principles ofTruthfulness, Accuracy,Completeness,TimelinessandFairnessin thedisclosureofinformationtoensurethatallshareholdershavefairandequalaccesstoinformationandtosafeguardtheinterests of all shareholders, in particular the interests of small and medium-sizedshareholders. The Company sticks to proactive investor relations management andactively manages multi-dimensional interactions with investors, analysts, media,regulatory authorities and the public. With innovative models, the Companyhas diversified the promotion channels and deepened the roadshows and reverseroadshowstoenhancemutualunderstandingandtrust,andconveytheCompanysvalue.TheCompanysinformationdisclosureandinvestorrelationsmanagementhavebeenwidely recognized by the capital market, regulatory authorities and professionalorganizations. The Company will continue to proactively strengthen multi-dimensional,multilevel and multi-form investor communication and value management toenablethecapitalmarkettofullyrecognizetheCompanysintrinsicvalue.First,theCompanywillstrengthenthevaluepromotiontocontinuouslyenhancerecognitioninthecapitalmarket.TheCompanywillholdregularperformancebriefings,activelyorganizeexclusivepresentationsforinvestorsandanalystsontheannualresults,holdregularinvestorteleconferencesbyarrangingfortheparticipation in person ofthe Companys directors and senior management so astotrulyandaccuratelyinterprettheCompanysoperatingresults,sharebusinessachievementsandoverallstrategy, exchange keyinformation ondevelopment opportunities and businessplanning, and respond truthfully to investors questions and concerns. TheCompany will conduct high-quality performance roadshows,visitdomesticandinternationalinvestmentinstitutions,andengageinone-on-onecommunication withkeyinvestors.TheCompanywillorganizereverseroadshowsinaninnovativewaytofurtherconveytheCompanysvalueandstrengthenrecognitioninthecapitalmarket. Second, the Company will refine daily management to solidify theweekly capital market reports andpublic relations event analyses toprovidetimely and accurate information support to our directors and senior management.TheCompany will continue toupdate investor profiles, establish thecapitalmarket analyst database, and convey the Companys operation and managementphilosophy and strategic plans through visiting long-term shareholders andparticipatinginbrokersstrategyconferences,soastoenhanceinvestorstrustandunderstanding on the Company. TheCompany will prioritizedaily communicationwith investors, arrange for dedicated personnel responsible for answeringinvestors phone calls, receiving investors e-mails, paying attention to investorsquestions on the E-interaction platform, and responding patiently to questionsraised byinvestors. The Company will participate ininvestment educationactivitiestoremindinvestorstomakerationalinvestments. IV. EMPHASIZINGINVESTORRETURNSANDSHARINGOPERATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS Since its establishment, CRRC has implemented annual cash dividends,distributing acumulative total ofoverRMB50billion (taxinclusive) incashdividends to date. The average annual cash dividend distribution ratio exceeded40%, higher than the average level of the A-share capital market. The Companyhas increased the cash dividend to all shareholders per 10 shares from RMB1.5(tax inclusive) to RMB2.1 (tax inclusive), with the annual total cash dividendamount rising from RMB4.093 billion (tax inclusive) to RMB6.027 billion (taxinclusive), the proportion ofwhich tothe net profit attributable toordinaryshareholders ofthe listed company inthe consolidated financial statementsincreasedto49%. The Company will adhere to the Articles of Association and relevant provisionsofthe CRRC Corporation Limited Medium andLong-Term ShareholdersReturnPlan, emphasizing investor returns, conducting timely research on measures suchas the promotion of interim dividends to enhance the stability and sustainabilityofdividend distributions, aswell assharing operational achievements withshareholders. The Company will continuously uphold the philosophy of betterprotecting shareholder rights andcreating greater valueforshareholders. TheCompany will scientifically manage its market capitalisation, improve itsmarket capitalisation management system and mechanisms, enhance the qualityofinformation disclosure, actively strengthen investor relations, andstabiliseinvestorsexpectation on returns. It will earnestly fulfil its primary responsibilityformarketcapitalisationmanagementandmaintainmarketstability.V. OPTIMIZINGCORPORATEGOVERNANCEANDADHERINGTO STANDARDIZEDOPERATIONS Focusing onthe development ofamodern enterprise system with Chinesecharacteristics, theCompany hasimproved itscorporate governance system,forming abasic system that includes the Articles ofAssociation, Rules ofProcedure for Board of Directors, Information Disclosure Management Measures,and Investor Relations Management Measures, supplemented byspecializedsystems such astheTerms of Reference ofSpecial Committees of theBoardof Directors, Information Disclosure Implementation Rules, and MarketCapitalization Management Measures, thereby establishing a corporate governancemechanism that islegally defined, transparent, coordinated, and effectivelybalanced. The Company precisely manages theregulated operations, refinesthe governance bodies authority and responsibility, details the list of authorityand responsibility, promotes the reciprocity of authority and responsibility, andensures effective performance ofduties;theCompany accurately controls thequality ofboard proposals, establishes aproposal quality control procedure,and for important proposals, the Company establishes a joint mechanism withrelevant departments at headquarters to intervene in advance and provide adviceand recommendations on decision-making procedures and information disclosurecompliance. TheCompanywillcontinuetoadheretoitscompliance-orientedandefficientandstandardized operations, and will continue to improve its corporate governancestandards and effectively protect the interests of investors. The Company willfirmly refrain fromtouching theregulatory red lineand comply with the relevantrequirementsoftheCentralCommitteeoftheCommunistPartyofChina,theStateCouncil, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission oftheStateCouncil(hereinafterreferredtoastheSASAC)andtherulesgoverningthe listing of stocks in the listing places, focusing on matters such as relatedparty transactions, major investment and financing projects, external guaranteesand other matters. The Company will strictly adhere tothe bottom line ofcompliance, follow rules and exercise the functions and roles of each governancebody, especially the board of directors, in accordance with the rules, powers andresponsibilities. The Company will further improve its mechanism and system,continuously refine its corporate governance system, especially in aspects such asboard building, information disclosure and market capitalization management, andstrengthen the institutional support to ensure that compliance is integrated intothe process and mechanism, and that the system is adequately safeguarded andfunctioning. The Company will continue to optimize the relationship among thegovernance bodies, and persistently improve the corporate governance mechanismthat is legally defined, transparent, coordinated, and effectively balanced. TheCompany will comprehensively refine the management of the meeting process,focusing onthe communication with external directors, and optimizing theefficiencyoftheoperationoftheboardofdirectors. VI. STRENGTHENINGTHERESPONSIBILITYOFTHEKEYMINORITIES TheCompany maintains close communication with its actual controller, thecontrolling shareholder, shareholders holding more than 5%,directors andsenior management oftheCompany andothers inorderto convey regulatoryrequirements in a timely manner. The Company organizes the participation of itsdirectors and senior management in trainings hosted by the SASAC, securitiesregulatory authorities, and listed company associations to study and understandimportant policy documents andmeeting spirits oftheCentral Committee ofthe Communist Party ofChina and the State Council, grasp new regulatoryrequirements and corporate governance demands, and continuously improve policycomprehension, strategic insight, risk identification, and scientific decision-makingabilities. The Company will continue to enhance the sense of the responsibilityamong theKey Minorities and work together to promote their diligence. The Companywillorganizeitsdirectorsandseniormanagementtoparticipateinworkmeetings,training courses, andother activities organized byregulatory authorities andprofessional associations in strict accordance with regulatory requirements andactualneeds,enhancingtheKeyMinoritiesunderstandingofcapitalmarketlawsand regulations and professional business knowledge, and continuously improvingself-discipline awareness topromote high-quality development ofthe listedcompany. The Company will continue to evaluate the specific measures of the Action Planandfulfil itsinformation disclosure obligations inatimely manner.Investorsshould be aware that the forward-looking statements included in the Action Planinrelation tofuture plans anddevelopment strategies, among others, donotconstituteanysubstantivecommitmenttoinvestorsbytheCompany,andinvestorsshallpayattentiontotheinvestmentrisks. CRRCCORPORATIONLIMITEDACTIONPLANFORENHANCINGQUALITY,INCREASINGEFFICIENCYANDEMPHASIZINGRETURNSCRRC Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as CRRC or the Company)has actively responded to the Shanghai Stock Exchanges initiative on the EnhancingQuality, Increasing Efficiency and Emphasizing Returns campaign among Shanghai-listed companies byformulating Action Plan for Enhancing Quality, IncreasingEfficiencyandEmphasizingReturns(hereafterreferredtoastheActionPlan),soasto earnestly fulfil its responsibilities of Improving the Quality of the Company whileEnhancing the Returns and the Sense of Gain for the Investors. The details are asfollows:I. CREATINGANINDUSTRIALPATTERNOFTWOTRACKSANDTWOCLUSTERSTOENHANCETHEOPERATIONALQUALITYSince its establishment, CRRC has focused on its principal responsibilities andmajor businesses, strengthened strategic leadership, deeply grasped opportunities,and actively responded to challenges. It has developed into the worlds leading,diverse rolling stock supplier with advanced technology, and received greatattention from leaders oftheParty andthestate. Theseries ofrolling stockequipment represented by Chinese standard high-speed MUs of China FuxingEMUsbecamethegoldencardofChinashigh-endequipmentgoingglobal.TheCompanystrivedtocreateanindustrialpatternofTwoTracksandTwoClustersfor the rail transit equipment business and clean energy equipment business.This will establish a system of graded layout, positive interaction, and clusterdevelopment, expediting theenhancement ofsystem solution capabilities andsolidifyingtheindustrialfoundationforhigh-qualitydevelopment.(1) Mapping out strategies, optimising layouts, strengthening theconstructionofnewbusinessmodels,andbroadeningpathwaysforhigh-qualitydevelopmentAccelerating theupgrading oftherailtransitindustry. TheCompany closelyfollowsthedirectionofrailwaymarketreforminthecountry,withthegoalsof achievement of speed, heavy load, and digital intelligence, to establishanequipment system that meets the development needs ofthe modernrailway logistics system. We develop multi-mode, cost-effective solutionsfor medium-to-low-capacity urban transportation systems and promote theconstruction of a family-based vehicle platform. We accelerate the launchof integration of vehicles and the electromechanical system on the groundand full life cycle service plan based on the digital, intelligent and greenelectromechanical system, in order to enhance our capabilities in providingurbantransportationsystemsolutions.Intensifying the improvement of quality for strategic and emergingindustries. The Company strengthens the top-level design of its new energyindustrylayout,whiledeepeningitsfocusonkeyareas,andcoordinatingtheimplementation of industrial baselayout plans. We intensify the research onthetechnologiesandequipmentrequiredfornewpowersystemsanddevelopthe system solutions of power sources, networks, load and storage. Also,we continuously strengthen our simulation and testing capabilities, in orderto support the continuous improvement of product performance and qualityinstrategicemergingindustries.Expediting the cultivation of future industries. The Company fully leveragesCRRCs extensive application scenarios to develop system solutionsforthehigh-endequipment manufacturing industry, integrating intelligentequipment+intelligentfactories +intelligentservices,thereby fosteringthedevelopment of a digital and intelligent industry that integrates automatedoperation, lean management,green production, andintelligenttechnology.(2) Exploring new markets, expanding incremented volume, strengtheninganddevelopingnewmodels,aswellaslayingasolidfoundationforhigh-qualitydevelopmentPrecisely focusing on the market of rail transit equipment. The Companystrengthens communication and coordination with key customers, andproactively promotes the implementation of order procurement. Also, wefocus on the trends of digitalization, intelligence, and green development,and the Company will expedite the establishment of amodern logisticsequipment system for railways. Besides, wecontinue toleverage ouradvantages in the regional markets of urban rail transit, consistently expandProduct+ and System+ businesses, and speed upthe research andformulation of value creation model samples, in order to strive to developdemonstrativeandleadingprojects.Thoroughlyfocusingonthemarketofcleanenergyequipment.TheCompanyoptimises its strategic cooperation governance mechanism, and promotes itsstrategic market development and the implementation of key cooperationprojects. We seize opportunities in clean energy development, acceleratethe construction of market advantages in wind, solar, hydrogen and storage,enhance our industry presence, and strengthen our industry status. Also, westrengthen our capabilities in improving system solutions, while proactivelyexploring and promoting the integration oftransportation andenergy,inordertoexertcertaindemonstrativeeffects.Deeply focusing onthemarket ofinternational business. TheCompanyconsolidates and expands its market in those countries along the Belt andRoad Initiative, provides its services and supports, and follows uptheimplementation of various overseas projects. We steer the implementationand particular monitoring of DLS projects to ensure their smooth progressandeffective market expansion, strengthen ourmanagement capabilitiesand supply chain system construction for DLS projects, build up a value-oriented, digital, and green DLS 2.0 model and continue to strengthen theestablishment of ateam with talents specialized in comprehensive DLSbusinesses. Leveraging the layout in our advantageous regions, we promotethesynergistic development ofourtwo-trackstrategy forustogoingglobal.Focusing on nurturing the market of digital and intelligent industry. TheCompany promotes the business model featuring Product + and System+ supported by industrial digitalisation and intelligentisation. We establishan organization and coordination mechanism for the digital and intelligentindustry, accelerate the professional integration ofinternal digital andintelligent industry resources, and build up a synergistic market expansionsystemforthedigitalandintelligentindustry.II. ENHANCING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND ACCELERATINGTHEDEVELOPMENTOFNEWQUALITYPRODUCTIVEFORCESThe Company has insisted on self-reliance in science and technology, vigorouslyimplemented the innovation-driven development strategy, deepened the reformof the science and innovation system, accelerated the construction of sources oforiginal technologies, continued to advance proprietary innovation capabilities toachieveamajorleapfromfallingbehindandcatchinguptotakingthelead.TheCompany will continue toprioritize technological innovation among allthe other tasks, adhered to the innovation-driven development strategy, focusedondeveloping new quality productive forces, and empowered high-qualitydevelopment through high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening.Focusing on the development of new quality productive forces, the Companywill reinforce the deep integration of technological innovation and industrialinnovation tobuild new industries, new business forms, and new models,expandingnewspacefordevelopmentandcultivatingnewdriversforgrowth.TheCompanywillfocusonimprovingtheinnovationsystem,maintainingahighlevelof technological investment, coordinating innovation resources, and concentratingefforts ontechnical research and project breakthroughs. The Company willoptimize the ecosystem for technological innovation, adhere to market orientation,leverage thirst-quenching policies, and continuously improve the efficiency oftechnologicaloutputs.Wewillstrivetoenhanceourinnovativecapacity,focusonthe construction of source of original technologies, and increase the investmentin original technology and research on the disruptive, frontier, common and basictechnologies. TheCompany will strengthen collaboration with upstream anddownstreamoftheindustrial chain,enhancethecoordinationofscientificresearchprojects, and deepen the modern industrial chain synergy actions for CRRCsrail transit equipment and clean energy equipment. We will focus on translatinginnovation results intopractice, accelerating theapplication oftechnologicalinnovation achievements, as well as grasping the trend of digitalization, greendevelopment, intelligence, modularization and platformization, and acceleratingwillbuildahigh-qualityteamoftalents,whileadheringtoacombinationoftalentintroduction and independent training, and continuously optimising all aspects oftalent selection, cultivation, management, deployment and training, in order tocultivate sufficient talented personnel with a reasonable structure and excellentqualities. We will strengthen the construction of teams of talents specialized inclean energy equipment, strategic emerging industries and international businesstobettersupportourcorporatedevelopment.III. STRENGTHENINGINVESTORCOMMUNICATION TOENHANCEMARKETRECOGNITIONThe Company strictly adheres tothe principles ofTruthfulness, Accuracy,Completeness,TimelinessandFairnessin thedisclosureofinformationtoensurethatallshareholdershavefairandequalaccesstoinformationandtosafeguardtheinterests of all shareholders, in particular the interests of small and medium-sizedshareholders. The Company sticks to proactive investor relations management andactively manages multi-dimensional interactions with investors, analysts, media,regulatory authorities and the public. With innovative models, the Companyhas diversified the promotion channels and deepened the roadshows and reverseroadshowstoenhancemutualunderstandingandtrust,andconveytheCompanysvalue.TheCompanysinformationdisclosureandinvestorrelationsmanagementhavebeenwidely recognized by the capital market, regulatory authorities and professionalorganizations.The Company will continue to proactively strengthen multi-dimensional,multilevel and multi-form investor communication and value management toenablethecapitalmarkettofullyrecognizetheCompanysintrinsicvalue.First,theCompanywillstrengthenthevaluepromotiontocontinuouslyenhancerecognitioninthecapitalmarket.TheCompanywillholdregularperformancebriefings,activelyorganizeexclusivepresentationsforinvestorsandanalystsontheannualresults,holdregularinvestorteleconferencesbyarrangingfortheparticipation in person ofthe Companys directors and senior management so astotrulyandaccuratelyinterprettheCompanysoperatingresults,sharebusinessachievementsandoverallstrategy, exchange keyinformation ondevelopment opportunities and businessplanning, and respond truthfully to investors questions and concerns. TheCompany will conduct high-quality performance roadshows,visitdomesticandinternationalinvestmentinstitutions,andengageinone-on-onecommunication withkeyinvestors.TheCompanywillorganizereverseroadshowsinaninnovativewaytofurtherconveytheCompanysvalueandstrengthenrecognitioninthecapitalmarket. Second, the Company will refine daily management to solidify theweekly capital market reports andpublic relations event analyses toprovidetimely and accurate information support to our directors and senior management.TheCompany will continue toupdate investor profiles, establish thecapitalmarket analyst database, and convey the Companys operation and managementphilosophy and strategic plans through visiting long-term shareholders andparticipatinginbrokersstrategyconferences,soastoenhanceinvestorstrustandunderstanding on the Company. TheCompany will prioritizedaily communicationwith investors, arrange for dedicated personnel responsible for answeringinvestors phone calls, receiving investors e-mails, paying attention to investorsquestions on the E-interaction platform, and responding patiently to questionsraised byinvestors. The Company will participate ininvestment educationactivitiestoremindinvestorstomakerationalinvestments.IV. EMPHASIZINGINVESTORRETURNSANDSHARINGOPERATIONALACHIEVEMENTSSince its establishment, CRRC has implemented annual cash dividends,distributing acumulative total ofoverRMB50billion (taxinclusive) incashdividends to date. The average annual cash dividend distribution ratio exceeded40%, higher than the average level of the A-share capital market. The Companyhas increased the cash dividend to all shareholders per 10 shares from RMB1.5(tax inclusive) to RMB2.1 (tax inclusive), with the annual total cash dividendamount rising from RMB4.093 billion (tax inclusive) to RMB6.027 billion (taxinclusive), the proportion ofwhich tothe net profit attributable toordinaryshareholders ofthe listed company inthe consolidated financial statementsincreasedto49%.The Company will adhere to the Articles of Association and relevant provisionsofthe CRRC Corporation Limited Medium andLong-Term ShareholdersReturnPlan, emphasizing investor returns, conducting timely research on measures suchas the promotion of interim dividends to enhance the stability and sustainabilityofdividend distributions, aswell assharing operational achievements withshareholders. The Company will continuously uphold the philosophy of betterprotecting shareholder rights andcreating greater valueforshareholders. TheCompany will scientifically manage its market capitalisation, improve itsmarket capitalisation management system and mechanisms, enhance the qualityofinformation disclosure, actively strengthen investor relations, andstabiliseinvestorsexpectation on returns. It will earnestly fulfil its primary responsibilityformarketcapitalisationmanagementandmaintainmarketstability.V. OPTIMIZINGCORPORATEGOVERNANCEANDADHERINGTOSTANDARDIZEDOPERATIONSFocusing onthe development ofamodern enterprise system with Chinesecharacteristics, theCompany hasimproved itscorporate governance system,forming abasic system that includes the Articles ofAssociation, Rules ofProcedure for Board of Directors, Information Disclosure Management Measures,and Investor Relations Management Measures, supplemented byspecializedsystems such astheTerms of Reference ofSpecial Committees of theBoardof Directors, Information Disclosure Implementation Rules, and MarketCapitalization Management Measures, thereby establishing a corporate governancemechanism that islegally defined, transparent, coordinated, and effectivelybalanced. The Company precisely manages theregulated operations, refinesthe governance bodies authority and responsibility, details the list of authorityand responsibility, promotes the reciprocity of authority and responsibility, andensures effective performance ofduties;theCompany accurately controls thequality ofboard proposals, establishes aproposal quality control procedure,and for important proposals, the Company establishes a joint mechanism withrelevant departments at headquarters to intervene in advance and provide adviceand recommendations on decision-making procedures and information disclosurecompliance.TheCompanywillcontinuetoadheretoitscompliance-orientedandefficientandstandardized operations, and will continue to improve its corporate governancestandards and effectively protect the interests of investors. The Company willfirmly refrain fromtouching theregulatory red lineand comply with the relevantrequirementsoftheCentralCommitteeoftheCommunistPartyofChina,theStateCouncil, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission oftheStateCouncil(hereinafterreferredtoastheSASAC)andtherulesgoverningthe listing of stocks in the listing places, focusing on matters such as relatedparty transactions, major investment and financing projects, external guaranteesand other matters. The Company will strictly adhere tothe bottom line ofcompliance, follow rules and exercise the functions and roles of each governancebody, especially the board of directors, in accordance with the rules, powers andresponsibilities. The Company will further improve its mechanism and system,continuously refine its corporate governance system, especially in aspects such asboard building, information disclosure and market capitalization management, andstrengthen the institutional support to ensure that compliance is integrated intothe process and mechanism, and that the system is adequately safeguarded andfunctioning. The Company will continue to optimize the relationship among thegovernance bodies, and persistently improve the corporate governance mechanismthat is legally defined, transparent, coordinated, and effectively balanced. TheCompany will comprehensively refine the management of the meeting process,focusing onthe communication with external directors, and optimizing theefficiencyoftheoperationoftheboardofdirectors.VI. STRENGTHENINGTHERESPONSIBILITYOFTHEKEYMINORITIESTheCompany maintains close communication with its actual controller, thecontrolling shareholder, shareholders holding more than 5%,directors andsenior management oftheCompany andothers inorderto convey regulatoryrequirements in a timely manner. The Company organizes the participation of itsdirectors and senior management in trainings hosted by the SASAC, securitiesregulatory authorities, and listed company associations to study and understandimportant policy documents andmeeting spirits oftheCentral Committee ofthe Communist Party ofChina and the State Council, grasp new regulatoryrequirements and corporate governance demands, and continuously improve policycomprehension, strategic insight, risk identification, and scientific decision-makingabilities.The Company will continue to enhance the sense of the responsibilityamong theKey Minorities and work together to promote their diligence. The Companywillorganizeitsdirectorsandseniormanagementtoparticipateinworkmeetings,training courses, andother activities organized byregulatory authorities andprofessional associations in strict accordance with regulatory requirements andactualneeds,enhancingtheKeyMinoritiesunderstandingofcapitalmarketlawsand regulations and professional business knowledge, and continuously improvingself-discipline awareness topromote high-quality development ofthe listedcompany.The Company will continue to evaluate the specific measures of the Action Planandfulfil itsinformation disclosure obligations inatimely manner.Investorsshould be aware that the forward-looking statements included in the Action Planinrelation tofuture plans anddevelopment strategies, among others, donotconstituteanysubstantivecommitmenttoinvestorsbytheCompany,andinvestorsshallpayattentiontotheinvestmentrisks. The intended private capital expenditure (capex) for FY26 is significantly lower than the numbers of FY25, and may decline further amid the impact of US tariffs, according to a report by the State Bank of India (SBI). The report highlighted that while government spending has been driving growth, the economy now urgently needs private sector participation to sustain momentum. It stated "Data........ indicated that the intended capex for FY26 is significantly lower than the FY25 numbers" The report stressed that private investors must "hold the baton now," as muted private investment remains a major concern for sustainable growth. Based on a survey of 2,170 enterprises conducted in April 2025 across agriculture, manufacturing, IT and other sectors, SBI noted that the intended capex for FY26 is not only below FY25 levels, but also faces risks of further weakening due to global trade headwinds. According to the data in the report, actual private capex stood at Rs 3.9 lakh crore in 2021-22, rising to Rs 5.7 lakh crore in 2022-23, before declining sharply to Rs 4.2 lakh crore in 2023-24. In recent years, private capex has stagnated at around Rs 4.9-6.6 lakh crore. The intended investment for FY26 is pegged at Rs 6.6 lakh crore, but the report highlighted that this is still not very encouraging when compared to the scale required for higher economic growth. The report pointed out that while government capital expenditure has lifted the economy, private investment has not complemented or crowded in to the same extent. The peak elasticity of government capex to GDP stands at 1.17, suggesting that public spending has provided a push to economic activity. However, the muted presence of private investment is acting as a constraint, limiting the multiplier effect of government-led initiatives. "The somehow somber elasticity at 1.17 implies in the Indian context that government capital expenditure has been able to lift the economy to a higher trend. However, the muted presence of private investment is a clear constraint to push the multiplier to ever higher levels," the report stated. The report emphasized that since public investment has already done the heavy lifting in recent years, the next phase of growth can only be sustained through stronger private sector participation. (ANI) SMPL Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 22: Dialstar Digital, a leading programmatic advertising and media technology company with nearly a decade of expertise, has been honored as Top DSP for OTT Sync and CTV Advertising. The award was presented by Bollywood's Jannat-fame star Sonal Chauhan to Mr. Gaurav Awasthi, CEO of Dialstar Digital, in recognition of the company's advanced technology, innovation and consistent delivery of measurable brand outcomes. A Demand Side Platform (DSP) is a technology solution that enables advertisers to purchase digital advertising inventory across multiple platforms through a single interface, making campaign execution more efficient, targeted and data driven. "This award is a testament to our team's dedication and our commitment to redefining how brands approach OTT and CTV advertising in India," said Gaurav Awasthi, CEO and Founder of Dialstar Digital. With over two decades of experience in digital marketing, he has been at the forefront of helping global and Indian brands embrace data-driven advertising. "As audiences continue to shift toward streaming platforms, our goal is to offer advertisers a smarter, more measurable, highly targeted, and impactful way to engage them," he added. Dialstar Digital, with a strong presence across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore; has also ventured into Unified Frequency Video Advertising across OTTs, YouTube, Audio and other premium video environments, backed by its proprietary Integration Ecosystem. This AI-enabled model uses latent efficiencies and technology within an AI-based shared ecosystem to deliver impressive benefits in video advertising, enabling real-time transactions between advertisers and content creators. Dialstar's capabilities span OTT and Connected TV platforms helping brands reach the right audience at the right frequency with maximum impact; and thus making the whole process a customer-centric rather than channel-centric approach. The platform is already deployed across multiple agencies and brands like Samsonite, FabIndia, Dr. Reddy's Venusia, Medimix, Cordelia Cruises, Date Crown, Hansaplast, Metro Shoes, Himalaya Party Smart, Honda, Manyavar, Bhima Jewels and many more. Dialstar's model is fully audit-compliant and meets all legal prerequisites, making the platform trustworthy and credible. Dialstar Digital strengthens its edge with an in-house DSP integrated across 40+ SSPs & Exchanges and Dialstar AI, a next-gen creative suite for AI Videos, Creatives and Rich Media. Its Advanced TV Solutions and native partnerships, blend the reach of traditional TV with the precision of programmatic technology allowing brands to: * Deliver different ads to different households watching the same live or on-demand content * Unify customer engagement by habit and behavior, not just by platform With a growing portfolio of high-impact campaigns, robust platform integrations and AI-driven strategies, Dialstar Digital is firmly positioned as the go-to DSP partner for brands seeking premium visibility and performance in the fast-evolving OTT and CTV landscape. About Dialstar Digital Dialstar Digital is a Mumbai-based digital advertising leader specializing in programmatic media buying for OTT and Connected TV platforms. Founded nearly a decade ago, the company leverages advanced DSP technology, Unified Frequency Video Advertising and AI-powered targeting to help brands achieve precise audience reach, higher engagement and awareness via premium streaming environments. (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) PNN New Delhi [India], August 22: In the heart of Beverly Hills resides a remarkable force of global goodwill--Dame Dr. Munni Irone, widely hailed as the "Queen of Beverly Hills" and a leading figure in international philanthropy, diplomacy, and ethical commerce. In 2015, Dame Munni Irone founded the Art 4 Peace Awards, a non-profit organization sustained entirely through her dedication and efforts. She has never sought donations, choosing instead to personally sponsor and support all her projects. Hailing from a remarkably educated and accomplished family, Dame Munni Irone's early experiences--surviving 12 years of domestic abuse--became the wellspring of her inspiring mission to create safe havens for others. Art, Peace & Cultural Diplomacy By celebrating excellence across seven cultural disciplines--music, dance, cinema, culinary arts, martial arts, painting, and royalty--the awards champion heritage, pride, and mutual understanding across continents. The gatherings are far from political; instead, they invite global leaders and artists to "bring them to conscience, so they can be conscience leaders." Notably, her Art4Peace Awards events have drawn royalty, diplomats, and delegates from as many as 33 countries to Beverly Hills. In one memorable affair, she orchestrated an evocative olive tree planting ceremony attended by a diverse assembly united in symbol and spirit. In 2021, she extended the initiative to global reach--organizing Art4Peace in San Diego and driving outreach to Ghana, Haiti, and India, mixing exhibitions with fundraising for underserved communities. Philanthropy That Literally Moves Dame Munni Irone's benevolence spans continents. Her personal support reaches deep into underserved communities--from feeding homeless populations on Skid Row to supporting orphanages in Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. According to Good News Planet, she supports six charities around the world, including "The Nest" and "Calvary" in Nairobi and monthly Skid Row drives--acts she leads not from prestige, but from heartfelt service. Recognitions of a Lifetime of Service Dame Munni's enduring impact has earned her a string of prestigious honors. In April 2025, she was awarded the President's Lifetime Achievement Award for clocking over 6,000 hours of volunteer service. The accolade was presented during a gala cruise in New York, marking another milestone in a career already decorated with previous Presidential commendations and a Humanitarian Gold Award. Global Commerce: Gold, Integrity & Expansion Beyond her philanthropic endeavors, Dame Munni is a formidable business leader. As founder and CEO of Dame Munni Irone Trading Company, she has built a global trading empire specializing in gold, lithium, iron, sugar, and more--anchored by an unwavering commitment to transparency and ethical trade. "She wants to clean up corruption in the business of gold, lithium, iron, sugar, and ensure smooth transactions where agents don't have to get scammed." Her company opened its headquarters in Beverly Hills in February 2024, alongside operational offices in Dubai and India--signifying a strategic leap into key international markets and reinforcing its global leadership. Driven by Purpose--Not Investors Dame Munni does not wait for investors--she self-funds her entire portfolio. Whether it's humanitarian shelters, awards that unite continents, or trading ventures, she works tirelessly--typically 14 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week--to realize her mission of tourism, healing, peace, and economic development. Holistic Humanitarian Ecosystems At the core of her operations lies a desire to create holistic, sustainable ecosystems--business ventures that enable tourism, compassionate community healing, educational advancement, and global peace. Through Art4Peace and other initiatives, she merges creativity with cultural pride to drive social change. Empathy, Education & Economic Empowerment Her philanthropic model emphasizes empowerment. In Los Angeles, she's funded education, helping students launch manicuring salons, and expanded employment legislation for immigrant communities that improved lives. During the COVID-19 crisis, she collaborated with global leaders to create jobs internationally. Dame Dr. Munni Irone, the Queen of Beverly Hills, stands apart not for her titles or accolades--but for her mission, her action, and her heart. A survivor turned builder of peace through commerce and compassion. An entrepreneur who built empires not to amass wealth--but to spread stability, healing, and dignity across the globe. To call her work inspiring would be an understatement; she personifies purpose. (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) NewsVoir Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], August 22: BonV Aero, India's fast-growing deep-tech aerospace startup, has been awarded the prestigious Certificate of Merit by the Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) under the SME category for Excellence in Manufacturing. This recognition is a testament to BonV Aero's commitment to quality-driven production, its robust operational discipline, and its indigenous capabilities in building advanced aerial platforms for India's toughest terrains. From High Altitude Labs to Manufacturing RecognitionFor a company that began with a clear mission -- to transform aerial logistics in India's most inaccessible frontiers -- this award marks a significant validation. The ELCINA Awards, established in 1976, celebrate excellence in electronics and IT hardware manufacturing, pushing Indian firms toward global competitiveness. BonV Aero's inclusion signals not just compliance with quality standards, but a rising stature in India's electronics and defence manufacturing space. "This recognition validates our collective focus on manufacturing fundamentals," said Roshan Senapati, Head of Marketing, BonV Aero, who received the award on behalf of the team. "We continue to build. This supports our progress." The jury that recognised BonV Aero included some of the nation's most distinguished defence and manufacturing leaders -- Lt. Gen. AKS Chandele (Retd.), Mr. N. Ramachandran, Mr. V.V.R. Sastry, Col. K.V. Kuber, and Mr. S. Ullal-- underlining the weight of this endorsement. A Continuum of Manufacturing Excellence This is not BonV Aero's first nod for its manufacturing discipline. The startup was previously: - Recognised by the Indian Army for operational UAV deployments in remote forward areas. - Selected by the I2A Launchpad (US-India Defence Corridor) for dual-use UAV technology. - NITI Aayog's 2022 Coffee Table Book honoured BonV Aero as a leading example of Make in India innovation in aerospace - Acknowledged by STPI & MeitY as one of the emerging aerospace startups shaping India's drone future. Together, these honours reinforce BonV Aero's role as a manufacturing-led, engineering-first company shaping real-world impact. Built in Bhubaneswar. Proven on the Frontlines Headquartered in Bhubaneswar, BonV Aero is a pioneering OEM and UAV design house developing fully electric eVTOL platforms optimised for high-altitude logistics, disaster relief, and defence operations. In August 2023, the company created history by lifting a 30 kg payload at Umling La (19,024 ft AMSL) -- the world's highest motorable pass. In June 2025, BonV's GPR drone was deployed during the Sikkim landslide response, supporting terrain scanning operations in collaboration with the Indian Army. These real-life deployments reflect the rigour of BonV's design-to-manufacture process. Odisha: Future Hub for Drone ManufacturingWith a futuristic vision for India's aerospace future, BonV Aero has proposed developing an integrated UAV Drone Park in Khurda, Odisha, dedicated to drone research and development, full-scale manufacturing, and industry-led training. Backed by single-window clearance efforts, the initiative aims to put Odisha on the map as a national leader in aerial mobility and UAV innovation. BonV Aero -- Engineering India's Drone FutureThe ELCINA Certificate of Merit is more than an award -- it's a signal to the market that India can build world-class aerospace products from the ground up. For BonV Aero, this is not the finish line, but a milestone in its journey to power the next generation of defence and disaster-response systems -- proudly made in India. Learn more about our mission: bonvaero.com. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) PRNewswire Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], August 22: On the occasion of World Senior Citizens Day, Star Health and Allied Insurance Company Limited (Star Health Insurance), India's largest standalone health insurance provider, today announced a significant milestone in senior citizen healthcare protection, having successfully covered 30 lakh active senior citizens lives and settled claims worth over Rs. 11,500 crore over the past 18 years. It also celebrates its flagship Senior Citizen Red Carpet Policy, the industry-first health insurance specially designed for individuals aged 60 and over. - In last 18 years Star Health Insurance has settled over Rs. 11,500 Cr worth claims for senior citizens - Senior Citizen Policies issued cover 30 lakh active members across India - First to introduce specially designed plans for individuals aged 60 and above, with no pre-insurance medical tests required - Coverage now includes home healthcare services, outpatient consultations, and post-hospitalisation support to meet evolving senior healthcare needs - Elder Care Program offers a comprehensive service, designed to support elders in every aspect of their lives The Senior Citizen Red Carpet Policy was launched in 2007, and was one of the first in India to address the specific healthcare needs of those aged 60 and above. In a country where over 11 percent individuals are now senior citizens, Star Health has played a meaningful role in providing financial protection for health-related expenses for senior citizen during later years in life. The Company offers coverage for senior citizens across products namely Star Senior Citizen Red Carpet, Star Health Assure, Star Health Super Star, Star Comprehensive Insurance and Star Family Health Optima. An Elder Care program is available with Star Flexi a multi-rider add-on, which offers a comprehensive service, designed to support elders in every aspect of their lives. From managing emergencies and healthcare needs to participating in daily live engaging events and receiving concierge support for daily errands & host of other services. These claims range from planned surgeries and chronic illness treatments to emergency hospitalisations, reflecting the wide spectrum of healthcare needs in later life. With a wide network of over 14,500+ hospitals offering cashless treatment, and a simplified on boarding process, the company has helped ease access to quality healthcare for older adults across both metros and smaller towns. In a country where a large portion of seniors live with at least one chronic condition and healthcare expenses for the elderly are significantly higher, Star Health plans offers more than just financial coverage; it offers confidence and lifelong insurance benefits. With flexible sum insured options and a comprehensive set of benefits, including anywhere cashless facility, home healthcare services, outpatient consultations, and post-hospitalisation support, the policy is designed to empower seniors. The inclusion of home healthcare services under select plans is especially relevant today, enabling medical care such as nursing support, doctor visits, and physiotherapy to be delivered right at home. This is particularly beneficial for seniors recovering from illness or surgery, ensuring continuity of care without the strain of frequent hospital visits. Expressing his gratitude on World Senior Citizens Day, Anand Roy, MD & CEO, Star Health and Allied Insurance, said, "World Senior Citizens Day is a reminder of the respect and care we owe our elderly. At Star Health Insurance, we believe health insurance for seniors should offer more than coverage. It should provide confidence, dignity, and peace of mind. Our Senior Citizens plans are created with that purpose in mind, to make healthcare in later years accessible and stress-free. We have shaped it by listening to what matters most to seniors: timely support, simplicity, and trust." Key Features of the Senior Citizens Red Carpet Policy: -Entry age: 60 to 75 years (with lifelong renewals)-Sum insured options from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 25 lakhs-No pre-insurance medical screening required (except in certain cases)-Covers a wide range of day care procedures-Home healthcare support included-Outpatient consultations covered at network hospitals-Coverage for modern treatments and AYUSH systems (Ayurveda, Homeopathy, etc.)-Post-hospitalisation expenses covered (up to 7% of hospitalisation cost)-Second medical opinion facility available-Compassionate travel benefit for family during emergencies-Cashless hospitalisation across 14,500+ network hospitals-Premium payment flexibility: Quarterly, Half-yearly, Annual-Tax benefits under Section 80D of the Income Tax ActWith India's senior population set to grow rapidly in the coming years, Star Health remains focused on building insurance solutions that evolve with their needs. The Company continues to invest in customer support, driven by technology, medical innovation, and last-mile accessibility to ensure that the elderly feel protected, respected, and well cared for at every stage of life. About Star Health and Allied Insurance Star Health and Allied Insurance Co. Ltd. (BSE: 543412) (NSE: STARHEALTH) is a market leader in standalone health insurance in India. The Company commenced operations in 2006 and is India's first Standalone Health Insurance Company. Star Health Insurance provides Health, Personal Accident and Travel Insurance to customer. The Company has grown to emerge as one of the preferred private health insurance Company in India with several pioneering products and services to its credit. With customer-centricity at its core, the Company has superior and innovative product offerings, service capabilities and a seamless claims management process. Star Health offers tailor made products to cater to the needs of customers across cancer, diabetes, cardiac illnesses and senior citizen, women and children specialized suite of health insurance offerings Star Health is India's first health insurance Company to settle over 1 crore claims. Star Health Insurance has a strong multi-channel distribution network with 914 offices, with 14,500+ network hospitals, over 7,89,000 licensed agents, robust bancassurance and financial institution partners. In FY25, Star Health's gross written premium stood at Rs. 17, 553 Cr with its net worth at Rs. 8,668 Cr. For more information visit www.starhealth.in Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2401495/5471046/Star_Allied_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) Holidaymakers have been warned not to enter the sea in Spain amid killer blue dragons. Beach in Guardamar del Segura Swimming was banned along a seven-mile stretch of coast around Guardamar del Segura, north of Torrevieja, after one of the creatures was spotted. Blue Dragons - described as "the most beautiful killer in the ocean" - have a potentially fatal sting. Also known as Glaucus atlanticus - a type of sea slug that measures 3 cm - its sting causes symptoms, such as nausea, pain, vomiting and acute allergic contact dermatitis. The creatures - which are found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans - "swallow a little air bubble" so they can float on the ocean surface. After a red flag was given on August 20, Jose Luis Saez, the mayor of Guardamar del Segura, said in an X post: "Bathing is prohibited following the appearance on Vivers Beach of two specimens of Glaucus atlanticus, known as the Blue Dragon." He added that people "should stay away from this animal because of its sting". On August 21, Mr. Saez said the warning was now yellow - marking the end of the "special surveillance operation". VMPL Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], August 22: Royal Sundaram General Insurance Co. Limited, India's first private sector general insurer, today celebrates a significant milestone - 25 years of serving customers with protection, care, and innovation. From being the first private general insurer licensed in 2000 to becoming a trusted name for millions across the country, Royal Sundaram's journey reflects a consistent commitment to simplifying insurance and making it more accessible. Over the years, the company has introduced several industry-first initiatives, pioneered bancassurance partnerships, strengthened claims processes with speed and empathy, and embraced digital-first platforms to make every customer interaction seamless. In these two and a half decades, Royal Sundaram has protected more than 2 crore customers across motor, health, travel, home, and commercial insurance. Behind the numbers lies a simple promise: to stand by customers when they need protection the most. For many, Royal Sundaram means: * Trust and heritage - backed by the Sundaram Finance Group's values and Ageas's global expertise. * Simplicity - insurance that is easy to buy, renew, and claim when there is a need. * Care - transparent products designed to safeguard what matters most. * Digital convenience with a human touch - technology that empowers, supported by people who listen and respond. Voices from Leadership Mr. Harsha Viji, Vice Chairman, Sundaram Finance, said: "Royal Sundaram's 25-year journey reflects the values we at Sundaram Finance hold dear - trust, transparency, and long-term relationships. We are proud to see how the company has built on these values to become a preferred insurer for millions of Indians. As part of the larger Sundaram family, we remain committed to continuing to support our customers and policyholders with their Insurance needs." Mr. Filip Coremans, Managing Director (Asia), Ageas Group, said: "Ageas has been a proud partner in Royal Sundaram's growth story. Over the years, we have seen the company consistently innovate and adapt to customer needs in one of the fastest-growing insurance markets. Together, we look forward to continuing our shared mission of delivering protection and peace of mind to customers." Mr. Vedanarayanan Seshadri (Veda), Managing Director of Royal Sundaram, said: "This milestone is a celebration of the trust our customers, partners, and employees have placed in us. For 25 years, Royal Sundaram has stood for innovation, reliability, and care. We also acknowledge the pivotal role of regulator, whose steady guidance has supported the industry's progress and enabled us to serve our customers better. As we look ahead, our focus will remain on delivering customer-centric solutions powered by digital transformation and a human touch." Looking ahead, the next chapter of Royal Sundaram will focus on deepening its presence in retail and commercial segments, creating more phygital experiences that blend personal trust with digital convenience, leveraging AI and advanced analytics for personalized protection, and strengthening ESG initiatives that deliver lasting impact for communities we serve and the environment. About Royal Sundaram Royal Sundaram General Insurance Co. Limited, part of the Sundaram Finance Group with Ageas as its strategic partner, is one of India's leading general insurance companies with a legacy of 25 years. Its comprehensive portfolio spans motor, health, personal accident, travel, home, and commercial insurance. Guided by the vision to make insurance simple, accessible, and reliable, Royal Sundaram continues to redefine protection for the modern era. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) India's automobile sector displayed a patchy performance in the first quarter of FY26, with two-wheelers and tractors driving growth while passenger and commercial vehicles remained largely subdued, according to a report by Axis Securities. Two-wheeler exports jumped 23.2 per cent compared to last year. However, domestic volumes slipped 6 per cent due to affordability pressures, with motorcycles posting a 9 per cent decline. Still, the outlook for the segment remains positive, as the industry banks on premium launches, a prolonged replacement cycle, and possible GST relief in the coming months. Tractors also saw momentum, with domestic sales rising 9.2 per cent year-on-year, supported by pre-election schemes, healthy rabi output, and better monsoons. Exports, however, grew only 2.7 per cent, reflecting continued weakness in key overseas markets like the U.S. and Europe. Passenger vehicle exports rose sharply by 34.4 per cent, driven by newer model launches and OEM focus on Africa and South America. But domestic sales dipped 1.4 per cent, as saturation in the SUV segment and pressure in the entry-level category weighed on demand. Inventory levels will need close monitoring, though the outlook remains stable to slightly positive. Commercial vehicles also reported a split performance. While exports climbed 23.4 per cent year-on-year, domestic sales fell marginally by 0.6 per cent due to a high base effect and cautious fleet operators holding back amid subdued infrastructure activity after elections. The report noted that long-term prospects remain intact, supported by government spending on infrastructure, mining, and logistics. The report highlighted that overall revenue for auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) under coverage grew by 7 per cent year-on-year in Q1FY26, supported primarily by strong exports and recovery in certain segments. EBITDA, however, rose only one per cent during the same period, as higher operational costs and wage revisions weighed on margins. Profit after tax climbed 10 per cent year-on-year, aided by forex gains, though it dipped 4 per cent sequentially. The report added that potential GST cuts on two-wheelers and entry-level passenger vehicles, expected by September or October 2025, may provide a much-needed boost to revive affordability and consumer demand. (ANI) With India's steel sector responsible for nearly 350 million tonnes of CO emissions annually, industry leaders on Friday said the transition to low-carbon steel hinges on government creating demand through procurement mandates, besides providing financial support and policy certainty. Speaking at the PHDCCI Global Summit on Sustainability 2025, themed "Sustainability for the Hard to Abate: Action Plan for Oil & Gas, Steel and Cement", panelists warned that without assured demand, investments in green steel will not take off. Alok Sahay, Secretary General and Executive Head of the Indian Steel Association, said India's carbon intensity in steelmaking is 2.5 tonnes of CO per tonne of crude steel, compared to the global average of 1.9. The gap, he argued, stems from India's growth trajectory and reliance on coal-heavy routes due to limited scrap availability. Hydrogen-based steelmaking, he said, is not yet cost-effective in India, while the absence of affordable gas and a high-emission grid add to the challenge. "Who will buy the steel when we invest so much money," Sahay asked, pointing out that one Indian green steel producer could sell only two container loads to Europe. He argued that government must step in to generate demand by mandating purchase of low-emission steel, funding the cost gap, and jointly running decarbonisation projects with industry. Naveen Ahlawat, Head of Power-to-X, Green Hydrogen, Green Steel and CCUS at Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL), said the sector must cut its carbon intensity by 60-70 per cent to align with climate goals. Calling the current phase "a transition, not transformation", he warned that customers also expect lower Scope 3 emissions. "They will only be able to reduce their scope three emission because of us. We have to start doing the transition and then only enabling them," he said. Ahlawat pointed to three immediate levers, operational excellence in new plants, valorisation of coke oven gas to extract hydrogen, and greater penetration of renewable power into steel operations. With solar and wind costs now falling below thermal, he argued that shifting to fossil-free electricity alone could cut carbon intensity by up to 400 kg per tonne. (ANI) NewsVoir Gurugram (Haryana) [India], August 22: In a landmark step towards empowering underprivileged communities through education, the Nora Solomon Foundation (NSF), the CSR arm of Chintels India, has laid the foundation stone for a new school building at Government Senior Secondary School, Bajghera, Gurugram. The initiative, carried out in partnership with Chintels CSR, aims to provide free and equitable access to quality education and skilling opportunities for children from Bajghera and nearby areas. The foundation stone was laid in the presence of Shri Rao Narbir Singh, Hon'ble Industries and Forest Minister, Government of Haryana, who hailed the project as "a milestone in bringing quality education to underprivileged children." The upcoming building will house classrooms, a principal's office, a staff room, and other essential facilities, creating a holistic environment for learning. The school is designed to become a centre of hope and opportunity for hundreds of children who otherwise face barriers to quality education. Hon'ble Minister Shri Rao Narbir Singh underlined the larger vision behind the initiative, saying, "Education and skilling are the strong pillars of progress, and this school will be a foundation for hope, learning, and a better future, opening doors of opportunity for countless young minds. It will provide access to quality education and skillsets, thereby contributing to the holistic development of the community. True development is meaningful when it empowers the next generation while safeguarding our environment. I urge all citizens to support this cause by planting trees, refraining from the use of single-use plastic, and actively participating in nature conservation." For the Nora Solomon Foundation, which has long been working in education, healthcare, and social welfare, this project represents a continuation of its mission to create sustainable, long-term impact. "Through the Nora Solomon Foundation, we aim to make a meaningful difference in the lives of people around us. Building this school is our way of giving back to the community, and we believe it will create lasting value by empowering the next generation through education," said Mr. Ashok Solomon, Trustee and Chair, Nora Solomon Foundation. Echoing the sentiment, Mr. Prashant Solomon, Director, Chintels India, highlighted the company's vision of inclusive growth. "We believe that development should go hand in hand with social responsibility. We are proud to contribute to shaping a brighter future for the children of Bajghera. This school is a heartfelt commitment to ensuring that every child has the necessary tools to dream, learn, and succeed in life. Maybe one of these children will find a cure to dangerous diseases or invent a way to travel to Mars. Dreams are made into reality through hard work and opportunity. That is what I wish for the children of this school." Beyond this school project, NSF has consistently extended its support to local communities through initiatives such as sponsoring education, offering vocational training, supporting healthcare programmes, and partnering with charities and organisations in need. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) For the first time in its history, the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) will be hosted in India. Traditionally held in the United States, the 2025 edition of IMECE will take place at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC) from September 10 to 13, marking a milestone for the global engineering community. As per a press release, the event, organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), is expected to draw widespread participation from researchers, industry leaders, policymakers, and students. Organizers estimate that IMECE India 2025 will feature more than 600 research papers, 400 speakers, 15,000 delegates, and 100 exhibitors, making it one of the largest gatherings of engineers and innovators in the region. Speaking on the launch of the India edition, Madhukar Sharma, Director, ASME India Pvt. Ltd., said, "The launch of IMECE in India is a moment of great pride for ASME India and for the engineering community in India. Hosting this prestigious global congress in India for the first time demonstrates the growing importance of India as a hub for sustainable innovation and technological leadership." The sessions will cover a wide range of topics, from additive manufacturing and advanced materials to clean energy technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, and sustainable design practices. K. Subramanian, Congress Chair of IMECE India 2025 and Senior Vice President at Ashok Leyland, stated, "This conference will bring together global experts to explore advancements in Sustainability, Innovation, and Inclusivity, addressing key challenges in technology, AI, sustainable design, and the role of mechanical engineering in solving global issues." The congress will also see participation from distinguished figures such as Babasaheb N. Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge Group; N. Kalaiselvi, Director General of CSIR; Pawan K. Chandana, Founder and CEO of Skyroot Aerospace; and Thomas Costabile, CEO of ASME USA. These leaders will share insights on issues such as climate change, mobility, energy, and sustainable development. Beyond the technical presentations, the event aims to strengthen collaboration between academia, industry, and government bodies. Registrations for the event are now open to delegates, faculty, and students. (ANI) PNN New Delhi [India], August 22: Uttar Pradesh, the spiritual heartland of India, is witnessing a tourism boom unlike anything in recent decades. Unprecedented growth in religious tourism in Uttar Pradesh is driving both cultural revival and economic transformation. Particularly, the ancient cities of Ayodhya, Varanasi and Prayagraj have emerged as the epicentre in cementing the state's position in recent years. These destinations are experiencing an influx of pilgrims from the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi to the newly inaugurated Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and the confluence of rivers in Prayagraj. According to the recent reports, the number of tourists to these cities surged by over 30% in the past year along and tourism authorities believe the trend will continue upward in the coming years due to its position as the Spiritual Hub of India. Ayodhya, Varanasi, and Prayagraj Cementing Uttar Pradesh's Position Uttar Pradesh has always been a central stage for the spiritual narratives of India. It is home to countless ancient temples, ghats, monasteries and historical monuments linked with not just Hinduism, but Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam as well. However, in the present day, these three cities are driving a new era of growth, which is supported by extensive infrastructure development, cultural and religious promotions, and global media coverage. 1. Ayodhya: Ayodhya has become the country's most talked-about pilgrimage site following the January 2024 consecration of the Ram Mandir. Once a relatively small religious town, it is now a religious hub, owing to which, the city now has improved roads, modern hospitality infrastructure and an airport designed to handle international traffic. The temple's opening marked a turning point for the city's visibility, attracting billions of pilgrims in its first year. This put Ayodhya firmly on the global religious tourism map. Ever since then, the transformation of this city has been nothing short of dramatic. The city has been averaging more than 1.5 million visitors per month, according to local tourism officials. This surge has created ripple effects from job creation in hospitality and transportation to an increase in demand for guided spiritual Ram Mandir Ayodhya tours. Travel companies have responded by launching special Ayodhya Varanasi Paryagraj Packages. These itineraries blend temple visits with cultural experiences, allowing visitors to explore the spiritual core and the living traditions of Uttar Pradesh. 2. Varanasi: While Ayodhya is enjoying newfound fame, Varanasi continues to reign as the timeless phase of Indian spirituality. Often known as the oldest living city in the world, Varanasi continues to enchant with its riverfront ghats, ancient temples and vibrant Ganga Aarti. Pilgrims arrive to bathe in the Ganga, attend the evening Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat, and seek blessings at Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Thanks to the Uttar Pradesh Government, the redevelopment programs make the city more accessible while preserving its mystical charm. The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor has expanded temple access, while riverfront beautification has made ghats cleaner and more welcoming. New river cruises are allowing visitors to witness the city's magic while enjoying a serene boat ride. While the luxury hotels have sprung up to meet rising demand. International interest is also growing; tourists from Southeast Asia, the USA and Europe are increasingly booking the Golden Triangle Tour Packages with extension to Varanasi. 3. Prayagraj: Prayagraj's religious identity is deeply tied to Kumbh Mela, held in the city every twelve years, the largest human gathering on Earth. The sacred Sangam, where the Ganga, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati meet, Allahabad Fort and Anand Bhawan attract both devout Hindus and cultural enthusiasts. The ongoing development is positioning the city as a year-round pilgrimage hub. The city's improved connectivity, including better rail services and expanded highways, has made this Ayodhya Varanasi Prayagraj tour circuit more practical than ever before. Pilgrims can now visit all three cities comfortably in under a week. Speaking on Uttar Pradesh tourist boom, Kaushal Ramola, CEO of Traveloi Holiday India Pvt. Ltd., shared, "We are witnessing a golden era for religious tourism in India. Uttar Pradesh's strategic investment in infrastructure and cultural preservation is setting a benchmark for the rest of the country. For travellers, combining Ayodhya, Varanasi and Prayagraj is a tour that leads to spiritual awakening. This surge is not benefiting tourism operators like us, but also uplifting local economies and preserving the intangible heritage of India." With such strong endorsement from the travel industry, Uttar Pradesh is fast emerging as the undisputed leader in faith-based tourism. Impacts of Uttar Pradesh Tourism Boom On Different AspectsUttar Pradesh has become a leading tourist destination in India in the past few years. It is not just benefiting the tourism industry, but also some other aspects as well: 1. Cultural Renaissance The rise in visitors has also sparked a cultural revival. Traditional music, dance and artisanal crafts are gaining renewed attention as tourists seek authentic experiences. Festivals such as Dev Deepawali in Varanasi and Deepotsav and Ram Navami in Ayodhya are drawing record crowds. This showcases the perfect blend of devotional fervour with cultural celebration. Local artisans from Banarasi silk weavers to terracotta makers are finding new markets for their crafts. These small businesses are often helped by tourism companies, which incorporate craft workshops into their itineraries. Tourists visiting Uttar Pradesh not only accomplish a spiritual tour but also get lost in the culture and traditions of the city, and help to grow it. 2. Economic Ripple Effects The surge in religious tourism is a spiritual phenomenon and an economic engine. The Uttar Pradesh tourism department estimates that the state earned over 20,000 crore from pilgrimage-related travel in 2024. Small businesses, from street food vendors to handicraft sellers, are benefiting enormously. Hotels are running at near full occupancy during the peak season, and transport operators are expanding fleets to meet demand. In Ayodhya alone, hotel bookings have increased by 40% since the Ram Mandir opening and new hospitality programs are being fast-tracked. Varanasi's river cruise industry has doubled in size while Prayagraj's tour guide services have expanded to include multi-lingual options. 3. Infrastructure Upgrades The Uttar Pradesh government has been proactive in upgrading facilities in the state. The major highlights in the infrastructure that support Uttar Pradesh tourism are: * Ayodhya Airport: This newly designed airport is capable of handling direct flights from major Indian cities and planning international routes. * Road and Rail Connectivity: The city has well-maintained highways connecting Ayodhya, Varanasi and Prayagraj. They are wider, modernised and help in reducing travel time. * Riverfront Development: The government focuses on riverfront development that results in cleaner ghats, better lighting all around and improved waste management. * Digital Tourism Services: Visitors are facilitated by online ticketing facilities for temple visits and heritage sites from the government official portal, and can access real-time crowd management apps. Global Tourism Potential: The combined appeal of Ayodhya, Varanasi and Prayagraj has the potential to rival global pilgrimage circuits like Mecca, Lourdes and the Vatican City. With India promoting its spiritual tourism sector internationally, these cities could see a significant rise in foreign arrivals over the next decade. Already, there is evidence of interest from Southeast Asian Buddhist pilgrims who pair visits to Bodh Gaya with day tours to Varanasi, Ayodha and Prayagraj. Similarly, the Indian diaspora is increasingly returning home for faith-based travel, bringing along younger generations eager to connect with their roots. Uttar Pradesh Moment of Opportunity The surge in religious tourism of Uttar Pradesh is not a passing trend; it is a historic shift in how India's spiritual heritage is being experienced and celebrated. Ayodhya, Varanasi and Prayagraj are the heart of this transformation, offering an inspiring blend of faith, culture and modern comfort. For travellers, this is an unparalleled moment to witness living traditions in the settings that are accessible than ever. For Uttar Pradesh, it is the biggest opportunity to cement its place as a leading destination for spiritual journeys in India. (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) NewsVoir Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 22: Universal Sompo achieves two illustrious international certifications ISO 27001:2022 for Information Security Management Systems (ISMS), and ISO 22301:2019 for Business Continuity Management Systems (BCMS). This reinforces its commitment to global best practices in governance, operational resilience, and information security. These certifications are regarded worldwide as badges of quality and trust, achieved only after a rigorous evaluation of business processes and systems. The ISO 27001:2022 confirms implementation of a robust Information Security Management System, systematically designed to safeguard sensitive data, intellectual property, and financial information. It is the comprehensive auditable international standard that defines the requirements for ISMS, making it the most trusted benchmark for information security. Complimenting this, the ISO 22301:2019 establishes company's adherence to a strong Business Continuity Management System. This critical certification ensures the organization is fully equipped to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions whether caused by natural disasters, cyberattacks, or unforeseen events thereby maintaining uninterrupted delivery of critical business operations. This achievement also boosts the trust and confidence of its policyholders, making it a more reliable insurer in today's dynamic insurance landscape. Disclaimer The information contained in this electronic message and any attachments to this message are intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s) and may contain proprietary, confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately and destroy all copies of this message and any attachments contained in it. IT security Team Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) India's flagship semiconductor-focused event, Semicon India, is back. This year, it's happening from September 2-4 at Yashobhoomi here in the national capital. Briefing media on Friday, S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, said more than 30 countries are participating in this year's edition. Over 50 CXOs are participating, with 350 exhibitors and about 1100 booths in the event, the secretary said. Global Companies like Applied Materials, IBM, Infineon, LAM Research, Merck, Siemens, TSMC, and Tata Electronics, among others, will be participating, he said. This year, there will be six country-specific round tables. Last year, six states participated, and this year it will go up to nine states. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the SEMICON India event. The government has approved the Semicon India programme with a total outlay of Rs 76,000 crore for the development of the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in the country. It provides fiscal support of 50 per cent of the project cost on pari-passu basis for setting up of Silicon Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) based Semiconductor Fabs in India, fiscal support of 50 per cent of project cost on pari-passu basis for setting up of Display Fabs; fiscal support of 50 per cent of the capital expenditure on pari-passu basis for setting up of Compound Semiconductors / Silicon Photonics (SiPh) / Sensors (including Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) Fab/ Discrete Semiconductor Fab and Semiconductor Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) / Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facilities, the minister outlined. As of date, the government has approved 10 semiconductor manufacturing projects with a cumulative investment of more than Rs 1.60 lakh crore in 6 states - Gujarat, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh. India will see its first commercially made chips from new facilities before the end of this year, S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, said Friday. "By before the end of this year, we should be seeing the first Indian commercially made chips, which will come out of some of the facilities that are being built currently," the secretary said. The government is also shaping skilled manpower in the semiconductor design sector and providing EDA tools to design semiconductor chips. Semiconductors, also known as integrated circuits (ICs) or microchips, are essential components of our day-to-day lives due to their integral role in the fabrication of electronics like phones, computers, automobiles, planes, medical instruments, military weapons, home and kitchen appliances, solar cells, etc. (ANI) Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal, reviewed the functioning of the country's plantation boards, stressing the need for stronger export diversification, brand promotion, and collective showcasing of India's plantation products, as per a press release issued by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry. Goyal highlighted that India's plantation sector, ranging from tea and coffee to spices and rubber, holds vast untapped potential in global markets. He urged the Boards to expand their outreach by not only promoting value-added products but also ensuring the highest quality standards. He emphasized that India must maximize benefits from existing Free Trade Agreements (FTA) to push plantation exports to new destinations. Calling for a unified strategy, the Minister said that the promotion of brand 'India' should be undertaken jointly by the Boards in collaboration with the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF). He suggested that a 'Bharat Pavilion' be set up at all major international and domestic trade fairs to allow the Boards to collectively present their products under a single national identity. Additionally, he directed the Boards to give special focus on their Geographical Indication (GI) products, ensuring that 'India' is clearly reflected in their logos. The welfare of growers and workers also came up as a priority during the discussions. Goyal urged the Boards to ensure that families engaged in plantation sectors are supported through existing welfare schemes. He underlined the importance of skilling programmes for these communities, directing the Boards to work in coordination with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The Minister expressed satisfaction that several capacity-building initiatives were already underway, particularly those encouraging good agricultural practices, organic production, and better quality standards. Ease of doing business, Goyal stressed, must be at the heart of the Boards' outreach. He advised that stakeholders, including growers and exporters, should receive assistance through sensitization drives and simplified procedures. Looking ahead, the Minister encouraged the Boards to consider establishing a common incubation centre modeled on the Atal Innovation Mission. Such a centre, he said, would help promote research, innovation, and start-ups within the plantation sector, paving the way for new ideas and entrepreneurship. The comprehensive review, according to the Ministry's statement, is aimed at giving India's plantation exports a sharper competitive edge while ensuring that growers and workers benefit directly from government schemes and international opportunities. The meeting was attended by senior officers of the Department of Commerce along with officials from the Spices Board, Tea Board, Rubber Board, Coffee Board and the newly established Turmeric Board. (ANI) The availability of fertilisers has remained comfortable across Indian states during the ongoing Kharif 2025 season, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers said in a statement on Friday. According to the Ministry, against the pro-rata requirement of 143 LMT of Urea, the total availability stood at 183 LMT, of which 155 LMT has already been sold. In the case of DAP, availability was 49 LMT against the requirement of 45 LMT, with 33 LMT sold so far. For NPKs, availability was ensured at 97 LMT against a pro-rata requirement of 58 LMT, while 64.5 LMT has been sold. India has three cropping seasons: Summer, Kharif, and Rabi. Kharif crops, sown during June-July and dependent on monsoon rains, are harvested in October-November. Rabi crops, sown in October-November, are harvested from January, depending on their maturity. Summer crops are produced between the Rabi and Kharif seasons. The Ministry further underlined that "the availability of fertilisers has remained comfortable during the ongoing season so far" despite global disruptions in supply chains. It noted that Urea sales alone had increased by more than 13 LMT compared to the same period last year, but an uninterrupted supply was maintained by maximising domestic production and procurement through global tenders. To shield farmers from high international prices, the government said it has continued to extend subsidies. Urea continues to be made available to farmers at a statutorily notified MRP of Rs 242 per 45 kg bag (excluding neem coating and applicable taxes), the statement said. Similarly, DAP is being made available at Rs 1,350 per bag, with the government providing special support packages including reimbursement of additional costs, GST, and international price hikes. The Ministry also highlighted enforcement efforts to prevent malpractice in the distribution system. Since April 2025, authorities have conducted nearly two lakh inspections and raids, issued over 7,900 show-cause notices, cancelled or suspended 3,623 licenses, and registered 311 FIRs under the Essential Commodities Act. Despite challenges such as the Red Sea crisis and geopolitical tensions in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and Iran disrupting global supply chains, the government said it has secured long-term arrangements with international partners. These include a 25 LMT supply deal with Morocco and a five-year agreement with Saudi Arabia for 31 LMT of DAP annually starting 2025-26. According to the Ministry, these moves aim to ensure India's long-term fertiliser needs while strengthening Atmanirbharta (self-reliance). Over the past decade, the country has witnessed an unprecedented transformation in domestic fertiliser production and strategic global partnerships that collectively strengthen India's food security. Urea production has witnessed a robust increase from 227.15 LMT in 2013-14 to 306.67 LMT in 2024-25, marking an impressive growth of 35 per cent. Similarly, the production of DAP and NPKS fertilisers combined has grown from 110.09 LMT to 158.78 LMT during the same period - a 44 per cent increase, reflecting the Government's consistent efforts to enhance Atmanirbharta in the fertiliser sector. (ANI) Whether battling beasts and bureaucrats or serving as the internet's unofficial Hollywood heartthrob dad, Pedro Pascal somehow makes any role appear effortless. Pedro Pascal Following a blockbuster summer with appearances across the MCU, a love-struck New York and a disease-ridden New Mexico, here are some of Pedro Pascals most iconic roles ranked. Warning for spoilers!! 5: Silva (A Strange Way of Life) With only 31 minutes to tell what is in reality a very poignant battle between sexuality, conviction and relationships, Pascal placed a stranglehold on every second of this queer western number. Set in a stylised version of the American West, A Strange Way of Life' follows cowboy Silva (Pedro Pascal) on his journey back to Bitter Creek and into the arms of ex-fling turned town sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke). Despite its fair share of criticism, however, Pascals charming country character and carefully constructed emotional arcs earn this title a solid top-five slot. 4: Fink (The Wild Robot) A welcome break from his usual grim and hopeless character narratives, Pascal, as the voice of scheming yet sweet fox Fink, marks a rare gem in his career crown. With more going on beneath the fur than meets the eye, Fink lends himself as the perfectly reliable co-narrator, enhanced only by Pascal's memorable twang. Pascals Fink is a perfect blend of comedy and wit. Set against one of recent cinema's most stunning visual backdrops, and supported by newcomer Kit Connor (Brightbill) as well as film alumni Matt Berry (Paddler) and Mark Hamill (Thorn), his role in The Wild Robot left huge pawprints on all our hearts. YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Julia Roberts, Alicia Silverstone and Angela Bassett - Meet the Queens of the 1990s film industry 3: Harry (Materialists) Another branch of stoic heroes and questionable side pieces comes Pascal's role as Harry Castillo - a charming, wealthy and eligible bachelor. Stuck in a love triangle teetering on the class divide, Materialists sets out to establish whether just because a person ticks all the boxes, is it enough to make them lovable? Argumentative to his core and hiding behind a shockingly truthful appearance-altering surgery, Pascal brings just enough charisma without being smug. Despite many arguing that the film lacked complexity and had no true intention to make the character anything more than symbolic, praise for Pascal is cut short. 2: Reed Richard/Mister Fantastic (The Fantastic Four: First Steps) Stepping stretchy feet first into the role of Marvel's latest scientist turned tech genius, Pascals adaptation of Mr Fantastic was both bold and intriguing. Pascal chose to focus more on the beloved hero's wit and smarts than his ability to keep up with flashy action sequences and a complicated gym routine. Being in his 50s, many criticised Marvel's casting decision, claiming Pascal 'didn't look the part and was too old... but if you ask me, his gravitas and sensitivity to The Fantastic Fours iconic status drove his narrative performance to a new level. Bringing warmth, emotion and quiet power, Pascal makes Mister Fantastic feel like someone you could live next door to. 1: Joel Miller (The Last of Us) Marking the turning point in his career, Pedro Pascals raw, haunted and protective embodiment of Joel is a refreshing take on the video game character. Full of lived-in moments, grief-stricken journeys and silences that say more than dialogue ever could, The Last of Us season one led to Pascals nomination for several accolades. Racking up praise across the board as the series beating heart, his on-screen chemistry with TV daughter Ellie (Bella Ramsey) will forever be regarded as a shining example. Each different in nature, these five examples are just a few of many that set Pedro Pascal apart. MORE FROM KATIE RANSOME: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lady Gaga & One Direction - Six of the weirdest Celebrity products you won't believe exist The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) announced on Friday that the government may unveil two to three small semiconductor projects in the coming period, as the nation's ambitious semiconductor manufacturing program gains momentum. Secretary S Krishnan, responding to queries from ANI, revealed that leftover funds from the India Semiconductor Mission 1.0 could potentially accommodate these additional projects. The government's Rs 76,000 crore semiconductor outlay under Semicon 1.0 has been almost fully committed to existing projects, with Rs 64,000 crore allocated for chip fabrication facilities, Rs 10,000 crore for the Semiconductor Laboratory in Mohali, and Rs 1,000 crore for the Design-Linked Incentive scheme. The ministry is currently in discussions with the Finance Ministry and other stakeholders regarding the framework for Semicon 2.0, indicating the government's continued commitment to building India's semiconductor ecosystem. The announcement comes ahead of SEMICON India 2025, scheduled to be held from September 2-4 at Yashobhoomi, Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the event on September 2, underscoring the government's priority focus on semiconductor manufacturing. The scale of this year's event reflects the growing international confidence in India as a semiconductor manufacturing destination. With over 350 exhibitors already booked compared to fewer than 200 last year, the event has nearly doubled in size. All 1,100 booths at the Yashobhoomi exhibition hall have been filled, forcing organizers to turn away potential exhibitors due to space constraints. The international participation is particularly noteworthy, with delegates from 33 countries expected to attend, up from 30 countries last year. More than 50 CXOs will participate, and the event will feature six country-specific roundtables - a new addition from last year. State participation has also increased from six to nine states, demonstrating nationwide interest in semiconductor development. A significant milestone awaits the Indian semiconductor industry, with Secretary Krishnan indicating that the first commercially produced 'Made in India' chips should emerge before the end of this year from facilities currently under construction. Multiple companies are reportedly in a race to achieve this historic first. Global semiconductor giants including Applied Materials, IBM, Infineon, LAM Research, Merck, Siemens, TSMC, and Tata Electronics will participate in the event, bringing international expertise and potential partnerships to India's growing semiconductor ecosystem. The ministry expressed ambitious long-term goals for India's semiconductor sector. Secretary Krishnan noted that while established semiconductor events like Semi Europa (running for 50 years), Semi Con Southeast Asia (30 years), and Semi Con West (55 years) represent mature markets, SEMICON India is rapidly gaining stature. The ministry projects that India could reach the level of Semicon China within the next decade. (ANI) The Punjabi film industry has lost one of its most beloved comedians and actors, Jaswinder Bhalla, who passed away in Mohali on Friday morning at the age of 65. Soon after the news of his passing broke, several political leaders and public figures expressed grief over his sudden death. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann shared that Bhalla's "sudden departure" had left him deeply saddened. He wrote on X, "The sudden departure of Jaswinder Bhalla Ji from this world is extremely sorrowful. The heart is saddened by the silence of the jingle of Chhankatian. May Waheguru grant him a place at His feet. Chacha Chatra will always reside in our hearts." https://x.com/BhagwantMann/status/1958737686082331084 Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal also remembered Bhalla, calling him a "wonderful human being" who "ruled the hearts of Punjabis." "Hearing the news of the passing of Punjab's famous comedian and wonderful human being, Jaswinder Bhalla Ji, has caused great sorrow. With his exceptional artistry, he ruled the hearts of Punjabis. In this fast-paced life, Punjabis will always remember Bhalla Ji, who brought smiles to people's faces. May Guru Sahib grant the departed soul a place at His divine feet and give strength to the family and his millions of fans to accept this divine will," Badal wrote in Punjabi. https://x.com/officeofssbadal/status/1958739244425306318 Delhi Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa expressed how Bhalla's presence always brought laughter, saying there was "no Punjabi film" featuring the actor that did not make him laugh. https://x.com/mssirsa/status/1958732721158799527 He wrote, "There is no Punjabi film in which Jaswinder Bhalla Ji was present and I didn't laugh, and today his departure from this world has left us all in tears. Jaswinder Bhalla Ji made a huge contribution to the Punjabi industry and Punjabi comedy. His sudden departure is extremely painful. May Waheguru Ji grant him a place at His feet and give the family the strength to accept His will in this time of sorrow." The funeral will be held on Saturday, August 23, at 12 p.m. at the Balongi cremation ground in Mohali. Known for his flawless comic timing and satirical dialogues, Bhalla was a stalwart of Punjabi cinema who redefined comedy on screen. The actor was loved by audiences for his memorable performances in films like Gaddi Chaldi Hai Chhalla Maarke, Carry On Jatta, Jind Jaan, and Band Baaje. (ANI) Nicolas Cage may soon step into the world of HBO's crime drama 'True Detective,' as the Oscar-winning actor is in advanced talks to star in the show's upcoming fifth season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. According to the publication, Cage's role has not yet been revealed, but, like previous seasons, the story will likely revolve around a law enforcement officer facing a complex mystery. If confirmed, Cage would follow Jodie Foster, who led season four, 'True Detective: Night Country.' Foster's season received wide praise and revived the series after weaker earlier seasons. Showrunner Issa Lopez, who was behind Night Country, is expected to return for season five. HBO previously announced that the new story will be set in Jamaica Bay, New York, with a planned release in 2027. The casting comes at a strong point in Cage's career. In recent years, he has appeared in acclaimed films like 'Pig,' 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,' and 'Dream Scenario.' Cage's most recent releases include the psychological thriller 'Longlegs' and the action-horror film 'The Surfer.' Directed by Lorcan Finnegan, 'The Surfer' follows Cage's character as he attempts to surf with his son. However, a group of territorial locals warns him, "Don't live here, don't surf here," according to the synopsis, reported People. It hit theatres on May 2. (ANI) Actor-comedian Vir Das has welcomed the Supreme Court's modified order on stray dogs, which says that they must be released back into their neighbourhoods after sterilisation and vaccination, except those infected with rabies or showing aggressive behaviour. On Friday, Das took to his X account to react to the decision, emphasising the importance of sterilisation, vaccination, and giving dogs a "safe return" to their areas. The comedian further urged local authorities to act swiftly in creating dedicated feeding areas. He also suggested that municipalities collaborate with trainers and behaviourists for "behavioural modification" and better integration of dogs into communities. "Thank you to the Supreme Court of India for supporting the process of sterilization, vaccination, and a safe return of our community dogs to their neighborhoods. Hopefully, the municipality can act quickly in creating dedicated feeding areas and also work with multiple dog trainers and behaviorists in Delhi and nationwide for behavioral modification and community integration. It is nice to know our voiceless dogs can rely on your empathy and balance." https://x.com/thevirdas/status/1958771889406427248 The Supreme Court on Friday revised its earlier August 11 order on stray animals and ordered their release following sterilisation and immunisation. The Supreme Court clarified that stray dogs infected with rabies or showing aggressive behaviour will not be released back and will be kept separately. "Stray dogs will be released back to the same area after sterilisation and immunisation, except those infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour," the court ordered. The court ordered that no public feeding of dogs will be allowed, and dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs to be created. It ordered the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) to create feeding areas in municipal wards. The Court also noted that animal lovers can move an application before the MCD for the adoption of dogs. (ANI) Actor Raza Murad has filed an official complaint at Mumbai's Amboli Police Station on Friday, alleging that a false social media post about his death was circulated online, leaving him "exhausted" from repeatedly clarifying the rumours. The veteran actor said the "rumour" left him deeply disturbed and forced him to repeatedly clarify that he is alive. Speaking to ANI, Raza Murad claimed that someone had shared a social media post declaring him dead. He said the post even mentioned his date of birth and a "fake date of death," along with a tribute. "There are some people who, for reasons I don't understand, seem bothered by my existence. They posted about my death and even offered condolences. They wrote that I had worked for many years, but now no one is there to remember me. They even mentioned my birthday and a fake date of death in that post. This is a very serious matter," Murad said. The actor added that he has been worn out by the constant need to clarify the misinformation. "My throat, tongue, and lips have dried up from telling people that I am alive. This false news has spread everywhere. I am getting calls and messages from across the world. People are even sending me copies of the post," he said. Calling the incident "shameful," Murad criticised the person behind the rumour. "Whoever has done this must have a very bad mentality. He appears to be a very small person, someone who has never accomplished anything significant in his life. That is why he enjoys doing such cheap things," he added. Murad confirmed that the police are taking his complaint seriously. "They have accepted my complaint and are filing an FIR. They assured me that they will get to the bottom of this and catch the person responsible. Legal action will be taken against him," he said. He further urged action against those responsible for spreading such falsehoods. "This should stop now. It is not only about me. Celebrities are often declared dead while they are still alive. This is wrong, and whoever does this should be punished," he added. Raza Murad is widely recognised for his remarkable career spanning over 250 films in Hindi, Bhojpuri, and various regional languages since the 1970s. Renowned for his deep baritone voice, he is equally celebrated for his portrayal of both formidable villains and empathetic, brotherly characters. Murad has left an indelible mark in films such as 'Prem Rog' and 'Padmaavat.' (ANI) Actor Austin Butler revealed that he experienced temporary blindness for a few minutes before filming the movie 'The Bikeriders' directed by Jeff Nichols, reported Deadline. The Oscar nominee revealed that he experienced temporary blindness for a few minutes after he was awakened by a terrible migraine on a flight to film 'The Bikeriders', just as he was landing in Cincinnati, Ohio, to begin production on the Jeff Nichols film. "It felt like life was being sucked from my body. I suddenly felt a euphoric sensation, and I actually genuinely thought I was dying," recalled Austin Butler to Men's Health as quoted by Deadline. Chalking the episode up to a symptom of sleep deprivation, Butler noted his vision slowly returned, and he went to set, working the rest of the day, according to the outlet. Inspired by Danny Lyon's 1968 photo book of the same name, writer/director Nichols' The Bikeriders follows the founding of the Vandals MC, a fictional late '60s Midwestern motorcycle club that begins as a place for outsiders before evolving into a full-blown gang, according to the outlet. Butler said of acting, "For a long time, I felt that it had to be a tortured process and I would come out the other side broken." After taking on several dark roles, the Elvis star credited actress Laura Dern with "helping me more and more to see that you can come out the other side, and maybe bits of you have healed, and synthesised, and metabolised. It can be therapeutic, in a way." Recently, the actor also opened up about his viral dance moves after he attended 'Caught Stealing' co-star Bad Bunny's concert in Puerto Rico earlier this month. According to PEOPLE, Butler, in a recent episode of 'The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,' revealed what exactly happened that night. The 33-year-old actor explained that he was at the concert with 'Caught Stealing' director Darren Aronofsky. Butler thought they were going to be part of the audience, but instead, they ended up on a secondary stage during a part of the show. To make things more interesting, Butler said he was given an edible right before the concert. "I thought it was a good idea, but it was not," he said with a laugh. Butler, who says he doesn't like being the centre of attention, found himself torn. "So, suddenly I'm on stage with Bad Bunny, and the edible is working," said Butler. "It was wild. So it's like my brain is in two movies. One is like, 'Benito and I had lunch earlier in the day, I'm just like, so proud of him,'" he added. "I'm watching him, going like, 'Oh my God, look how much you mean to everyone here.' I'm like, falling in love with Puerto Rican culture and the dancing, and everybody is so sexy and amazing," he continued. "And then the other part of me is like, 'Don't dance, because you'll take attention away from him. This is his moment.'" As per PEOPLE, Butler, in the viral clip, can be seen swaying his hips with his arms crossed. He explained that every time he uncrossed his arms, he felt like he was drawing too much attention. (ANI) Bollywood stars Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor have been on a promotional spree for their upcoming film 'Param Sundari'. On Friday, the actors visited iconic places in Delhi and met with their fans. From indulging in famous rajma chawal and chole bhature at Jain Chawal Wale in Connaught Place to savouring cotton candy at India Gate, Sidharth and Janhvi immersed themselves in Delhi's culinary scene. After treating their taste buds to Delhi Ka Khana, the actors visited Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and offered prayers. A few days ago, Sidharth and Janhvi visited Lucknow and tried the famous chaat there. Sanjay Kapoor and Manjot Singh also have prominent roles in the film. The trailer for the film was unveiled recently, promising a perfect mix of romance, comedy, and action. The Tushar Jalota directorial marks Sidharth and Janhvi's first project together as co-stars, and their romantic chemistry in the trailer is captivating. What follows is a riot of fun and chaos when Sidharth, a Punjabi munda from Delhi, falls in love with Janhvi, a girl from Kerala. Sharing his experience working in the film, Sidharth said, "With Param Sundari, I feel like I'm revisiting the kind of romance I grew up loving, but telling it in a way that feels fresh and relatable. Param has that Delhi boy charm, with a love story that makes you cross worlds. We wanted it to look as beautiful as it feels, and Kerala's magic really made that happen. I hope the audience feels the same warmth and joy we felt while making it." Janhvi opened up about portraying 'Sundari', expressing how her character's deep connection to her roots resonated with her own South Indian heritage. "Sundari is deeply personal to me. Her grace, quiet strength, and love for her roots resonate with my own South Indian heritage. Shooting in Kerala, surrounded by such beauty, I felt an emotional connection to her world that I hope the audience will feel too," she shared. The film will be out in theatres on August 29. (ANI) Charlie Brooker, who has built his TV writing career with the series 'Black Mirror', which imagines ways in which technology will disrupt human life, has now voiced his anxiety about how AI can change the scriptwriting process in the future, reported Deadline. Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, as per Deadline, the British writer said he was not worried about being replaced by artificial intelligence, but that notes will start being generated from "AI animatics" of scripts. Brooker said the notion was suggested to him by another writer, who said scripts would be fed into a machine, which would produce a rough animated cut of the drama, from which changes could be suggested, reported Deadline. "That felt plausible to me, because basically the script becomes a prompt. That worries me," Booker told a packed audience of British television executives, as quoted by Deadline. Brooker stressed, however, that he felt there would always be a demand from audiences to watch stories born out of human experience. "I hope there's still a job for keeping keyboards warm with flesh," the writer said as quoted by Deadline. One of his AI riffs, which sounded like the beginning of a Black Mirror episode, was that cinemagoers could have their faces scanned as they enter a theatre and then see themselves as characters on the screen. Black Mirror is a British anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. Most episodes are set in near-future dystopias containing sci-fi technology, a type of speculative fiction. The series uses the themes of technology and media to comment on contemporary social issues. Most episodes are written by Brooker with involvement by the executive producer Annabel Jones. The seventh season of the series was released in April 2025. (ANI) Kajol, who is set to share the OTT screens with Kubbra Sait in the second season of legal drama 'The Trial', praised the actress for her positive attitude towards criticism and negativity. At the trailer launch of 'The Trial Season 2', Kajol lauded Kubbra's positive attitude, calling it one of the "rare" qualities of a person in today's life. While interacting with the media, Kajol said, "Kubbra is one of those rare people, actually, who handles criticism, witticism, but any sort of negativity with such a wonderfully positive attitude that it doesn't turn out to be that eventually. She turns it into something else. So I think that's something that I truly admire about her. Meanwhile, the makers of Kajol starrer web series 'The Trial' have finally released the trailer of its second season on Friday. Kajol, who essays the role of Noyonika Sengupta, a lawyer in the series, is back to tackle new cases and manage a detoriating marital relationship with her husband, Rajiv Sengupta, played by Jisshu Sengupta, after he was arrested for corruption and sex scandal in the first season. The two-minute and eleven-second trailer opens with Kajol throwing a photo frame of her picture with her husband Rajiv, signifying the tensions between their marriage. It was followed by their arguments, which led to Kajol asking for a divorce. It was followed by Kajol's powerful portrayal of a lawyer as she takes on new cases. The novel fact of the second season includes Jissu's entry into politics, which further creates challenges in his marital relationship with Kajol as the opposition tries to resurface his scandal to win the elections. At the end, Kajol is seen challenging a politician as a mother after her daughter was hospitalised due to their brutal schemes to win elections. The new season is set to stream from September 19, 2025. Directed by Umesh Bist and produced by Banijay Asia, the series also stars Sonali Kulkarni, Sheeba Chadha, Alyy Khan, Kubbra Sait, Gaurav Pandey, and Karanvir Sharma. (ANI) Kajol, who essays the role of Noyonika Sengupta, a lawyer in the series, is back to tackle new cases and manage a detoriating marital relationship with her husband, Rajiv Sengupta, played by Jisshu Sengupta, after he was arrested for corruption and sex scandal in the first season. The two-minute and eleven-second trailer opens with Kajol throwing a photo frame of her picture with her husband Rajiv, signifying the tensions between their marriage. It was followed by their arguments, which led to Kajol asking for a divorce. It was followed by Kajol's powerful portrayal of a lawyer as she takes on new cases. The novel fact of the second season includes Jissu's entry into politics, which further creates challenges in his marital relationship with Kajol as the opposition tries to resurface his scandal to win the elections. In a dramatic turn, Noyonika transforms into a fierce mother when her daughter is hospitalised after becoming collateral damage in the political crossfire. The trailer ends with her confronting a powerful politician, vowing to protect her family. The second season of The Trial is set to stream from September 19, 2025, on JioCinema. Streaming platform JioCinema shared the trailer on its official Instagram handle. https://www.instagram.com/p/DNqH8M5T29p/ Directed by Umesh Bist and produced by Banijay Asia, the series also stars Sonali Kulkarni, Sheeba Chadha, Alyy Khan, Kubbra Sait, Gaurav Pandey, and Karanvir Sharma. The Trial - Pyaar Kaanoon Dhokha is the Indian adaptation of the acclaimed American series The Good Wife, originally produced by CBS Studios in association with Scott Free Productions and King Size Productions. The format rights are licensed by Paramount Global Content Distribution. (ANI) Millie Bobby Brown has often spoken about her "wish to be a young mom". Millie Bobby Brown always wanted to become a mother The 21-year-old actress and her husband Jake Bongiovi recently adopted a baby girl, and Millie is now relishing the challenges of motherhood. A source told People: "She's so young, but so focused. And she has the biggest heart. There's no doubt that she's a great mom. Pretty much everything she sets her mind to, she crushes. "And they have really worked on creating this special family life in Georgia. She loves her farm it's going to be such a special place for the baby to grow up. Even before they were married, she often spoke about her wish to be a young mom. And Jake was always on the same page. They're in it together." Millie and Jake recently announced via social media that they've welcomed their first baby. The loved-up couple - who tied the knot in 2024 - wrote on Instagram: "This summer we welcomed our sweet baby girl through adoption. "We are beyond excited to embark on this beautiful next chapter of parenthood in both peace and privacy [tree emoji] "And then there were 3 "Love, Millie and Jake Bongiovi (sic)" Millie previously admitted that she was looking forward to the challenges of parenthood. The Stranger Things star - who began dating Jake in 2021 and got engaged to him in 2023 - has always dreamed of starting a family. During an appearance on the Smartless podcast, Millie explained: "My mom actually had her first child at 21, and my dad was 19. And you know, it's been my thing since before I met Jake. Since I was a baby, I told my mom, like, baby dolls. I wanted to be a mom just like the way my mom was to me. "And my nan, my grandmother is, she was a huge part of my life. And so, yeah, I mean, Jake knows how important it is to me and, of course, I want to focus on really establishing myself as an actor and as a producer, but I also find it's so important to start a family for me personally." Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and West Bengal BJP chief, Samik Bhattacharya, on Thursday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to West Bengal, where he will inaugurate seven projects, including the metro railway services. Bhattacharya extended an invitation to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to attend the event, emphasising that it's not about politics. "Tomorrow, PM Modi will inaugurate seven projects here. First, he will come to Jessore Road, where he will inaugurate the metro. Then, travelling in the same metro, he will go to the airport. Afterwards, he will return to Jessore Road. Following that, he will participate in another government program. Finally, he will speak at our party rally... We want the CM to come. This is not about politics. BJP does not believe in political untouchability... The CM should come...," Bhattacharya told ANI. PM Modi will be visiting West Bengal on August 22 and will flag off metro train services on the newly constructed sections in Kolkata at around 4:15 PM and undertake a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. Further, he will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore at Kolkata. He will also address the gathering on the occasion. Bhattacharya questioned the effectiveness of the West Bengal government's Shramshree Scheme, targeting Bengali-speaking migrant workers. He challenged the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to prove its support among Bengali-speaking people by saving their security deposit in the Bengali booth. Bhattacharya claimed that Bengali migrant workers are helping authorities identify Rohingya immigrants in other states. He criticised the TMC for allegedly supporting Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators. "How much are the Bengali-speaking migrant workers earning in Noida, Gujarat, UP, Haryana, Delhi?... I challenge the TMC to save their security deposit in the Bengali booth...Then only we will believe that the Bengali-speaking people are with the TMC...Bengalis are not beggars...," he said. Bhattacharya also urged Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers to vote against the TMC in the upcoming elections, emphasising the need to prevent West Bengal from becoming "West Bangladesh." "...I urge the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers, that during the upcoming elections, they should forget no vote to BJP, NOTA. This election is to ensure that West Bengal does not become West Bangladesh...They should also ensure that TMC is removed from power" he said. When asked about the Bill for removal of the PM, CMs, and ministers held on serious criminal charges, Bhattacharya questioned why the TMC is scared of it, implying that the party has something to hide. The Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025, seeks to remove a Central or State Minister who is facing allegations of corruption or serious offences and has been detained for at least 30 days. Union Minister Amit Shah tabled the Bill in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The proposed bill mandates the removal of any Prime Minister, Chief Minister, or Minister who is detained for 30 consecutive days on charges punishable with at least five years of imprisonment. If the arrested leader doesn't resign, their office will automatically fall vacant after 31 days. Interestingly, the bill allows for re-appointment post-release, providing a degree of flexibility. (ANI) On the attack on Delhi's Chief Minister Rekha Gupta during a public hearing, AAP State President Saurabh Bhardwaj on Thursday remarked that the CCTV footage of the attack on Delhi CM is not available, whereas attacks on Arvind Kejriwal were recorded and streamed everywhere. Speaking to ANI, AAP State President said, "Before this, several attacks have been made on Arvind Kejriwal... While we haven't seen CCTV footage of an attack on Rekha Gupta yet, attacks on Arvind Kejriwal were recorded and streamed everywhere." He further compared the two attacks and said that in Gupta's case, Delhi Police registered an 'attempt to murder' case and the accused was taken to police remand, whereas in Kejriwal's case, the matter was deliberately kept weak. "It was the duty of the police to register a case of 'attempt to murder' in such attacks earlier, and the accused should have been taken into police custody so that such activities do not happen again, as was done in the case of Rekha Gupta. But in Arvind Kejriwal's case, the matter was deliberately kept weak, security was lax, and whenever an attack occurred, it was said that the people of Delhi are angry...," Bhardwaj said. Bhardwaj also targeted Delhi Police for hiding the CCTV footage. He said, "We are glad that in Rekha Gupta's case, the police have an FIR, but I believe that the police are hiding the CCTV footage of the incident to cover up their failure..." He further highlighted the Delhi Police inefficiency by saying, "If the CM with Z security is being attacked and their CCTV footage is visible to the public, it will reveal to the public how the Delhi Police has failed and how their Z security is useless and ineffective. That is why very senior officers of Delhi Police have seized the CCTV footage, otherwise Delhi Police has its own record in such matters, they are the first ones to release the CCTV footage and first one to plant news, but everything is hidden in this case." On Wednesday, the Chief Minister was attacked during a public hearing at her official residence in Civil Lines. Rajesh Khimji, a resident of Rajkot, Gujarat, was arrested by Delhi Police yesterday. Meanwhile, Delhi Police are investigating the matter from all angles and are coordinating with Rajkot Police, sources said. Central agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), have also joined the probe. Meanwhile, the Central government has granted Z-category security cover by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to CM Rekha Gupta following the attack. Earlier today, the accused Rajesh Khimji was remanded to 5 days' custody. He was produced before the duty magistrate at his residence. Before being produced before the magistrate, Rajesh was taken to Aruna Asif Ali hospital for a medical checkup. Thereafter, he was referred to the LNJP Hospital by the Aruna Asif Ali Hospital. Duty magistrate Arvind Tomar granted a five-day custody remand after hearing the submissions of the Delhi police. He is to be produced before the court after the expiry of five days of police custody. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Bihar and West Bengal today. He will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar at around 11 AM, according to the Prime Minister's Office press release. He will also flag off two trains and address the gathering. Thereafter, he will visit and inaugurate the Aunta-Simaria bridge project on the River Ganga. The Prime Minister will flag off metro train services on the newly constructed sections in Kolkata at around 4:15 PM and undertake a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back, added the release. Further, he will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore at Kolkata. He will also address the gathering on the occasion. In line with his commitment to improving connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the 8.15 km long Aunta - Simaria bridge project on NH-31, including the 1.86 km long 6 lane Bridge on river Ganga, constructed at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore. It will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai, the release added. The bridge has been constructed parallel to an old 2-lane dilapidated rail-cum-road bridge "Rajendra Setu" which is in poor condition, forcing heavy vehicles to re-route. The new bridge will reduce the extra travel distance of more than 100 km for heavy vehicles travelling between North Bihar (Begusarai, Supaul, Madhubani, Purnea, Araria, etc.) and South Bihar areas (Sheikhpura, Nawada, Lakhisarai, etc.). It will also help alleviate traffic congestion in other parts of the region by reducing the detour that these vehicles were forced to take. It will boost economic growth in the adjoining areas, especially in North Bihar, which relies on South Bihar and Jharkhand for the necessary raw materials. It will also provide better connectivity to the famous pilgrimage place of Simaria Dham, which is also the birthplace of the famous poet Late Shri Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. The Prime Minister will also inaugurate the four-lane Bakhtiyarpur to Mokama section of NH-31, worth around Rs 1,900 crore, which will ease congestion, reduce travel time, and enhance passenger and freight movement. Further, improvement to the two-lane with paved shoulders of the Bikramganj-Dawath-Nawanagar-Dumraon section of NH-120 in Bihar will improve connectivity in rural areas, providing new economic opportunities for the local population, added the release. Strengthening the power sector infrastructure in Bihar, the Prime Minister will inaugurate Buxar Thermal Power Plant (660x1 MW) worth around Rs 6,880 crore. It will significantly enhance power generation capacity, improve energy security, and meet the growing electricity demand of the region. In a major boost to health infrastructure, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital & Research Centre at Muzaffarpur. The centre includes advanced Oncology OPD, IPD wards, operation theatres, a modern lab, a blood bank, and a 24-bed ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and HDU (High Dependency Unit). This state-of-the-art facility will provide advanced and affordable cancer care to patients in Bihar and neighbouring states, reducing the need to travel to distant metros for treatment, said the release. Furthering his vision of Swachh Bharat and ensuring Aviral and Nirmal Dhara of the river Ganga, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) and Sewerage Network at Munger constructed under Namami Gange worth over Rs 520 crore. It will help reduce pollution load in the Ganga and improve sanitation facilities in the region. The Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone for a series of urban infrastructure projects worth around Rs 1,260 crore. These include the STP and Sewerage Network at Daudnagar in Aurangabad, and Jehanabad; STP and interception and diversion works at Barahiya in Lakhisarai, and Jamui. Under AMRUT 2.0, he will lay the foundation stone of Water Supply Projects at Aurangabad, Bodhgaya and Jehanabad. These projects will provide clean drinking water, modern sewerage systems, and improved sanitation, thereby improving health standards and quality of life in the region. Boosting rail connectivity in the region, the Prime Minister will flag off two trains. Amrit Bharat Express, which will improve passenger convenience with modern facilities, comfort, and safety, operates between Gaya and Delhi. The Buddhist Circuit Train between Vaishali and Koderma will give a boost to tourism and religious travel across key Buddhist sites in the region. Grih Pravesh ceremonies for 12,000 rural beneficiaries under PMAY-Gramin and 4,260 beneficiaries under PMAY-Urban will also take place, with the symbolic handing over of keys to a few beneficiaries by the Prime Minister, thus fulfilling the dream of owning a house for thousands of families. In line with his commitment to world-class infrastructure and developed urban connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate metro railway projects in Kolkata. A 13.61 km-long newly constructed metro network will be inaugurated, and metro services will be launched on these routes. He will visit the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he will flag off the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road, added the release. In addition, through video conferencing, he will also flag off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. He will also undertake a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. At the public function, the Prime Minister will inaugurate these metro sections and a newly constructed subway at Howrah Metro Station. The Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service will significantly improve access to the airport. The Sealdah-Esplanade metro will reduce the travel time between the two points from nearly 40 minutes to only 11 minutes. The Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro section will play a crucial role in enhancing connectivity with the IT hub. These metro routes will connect some of Kolkata's busiest areas, bring a notable reduction in travel time, and strengthen multimodal connectivity, benefiting lakhs of daily commuters, added the release. In a significant boost to road infrastructure in the region, the Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone of the 7.2 km-long six-lane elevated Kona Expressway worth over Rs 1,200 crore. It will enhance connectivity between Howrah, the surrounding rural areas, and Kolkata, saving hours of travel time and giving a significant boost to trade, commerce, and tourism in the region. (ANI) Himachal Pradesh High Court has granted regular bail to Dhananjay Kumar, accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor under the POCSO Act, after noting that the trial had not begun more than a year after the filing of the charge sheet. Justice Sandeep Sharma, while allowing the bail plea, said that keeping the accused in custody for an indefinite period without trial would amount to "pre-trial conviction" and violate the fundamental right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution. Kumar was arrested on February 24, 2024, in connection with FIR No. 3/2024 registered at the Women Police Station, Baddi, District Solan, under Sections 363, 366, 376 of the IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act. Police allege he took a 14-year-old girl to Bihar on the pretext of marriage and sexually assaulted her. The girl was recovered from his residence in Jahanabad, Bihar, on February 22, 2024. The court noted that the challan was filed on April 18, 2024, and a supplementary challan on June 29, 2024, while charges were framed on October 25, 2024. However, not a single prosecution witness had been examined to date, despite Section 35 of the POCSO Act mandating that trials be completed within a year. Citing several Supreme Court judgments, Justice Sharma reiterated that "bail is the rule and jail is an exception" when trial delays infringe on constitutional rights. He observed that nothing remained to be recovered from the accused and that prolonged incarceration would be unjustified. Kumar was released on bail upon furnishing a bond of 1 lakh with one surety of the same amount, subject to conditions including regular court attendance, non-tampering with evidence, and not leaving India without permission. The court clarified that the observations in the order would not affect the merits of the case, and the prosecution could seek cancellation of bail if conditions were violated. (ANI) Union Minister Bhupender Yadav on Thursday emphasised the need for uniformity in voter lists, stating that it's crucial for fair elections. He was addressing a symposium on "One Nation One Election: Need of the Hour" organised by Lawyers' Voice. Yadav highlighted India's democratic strengths, including an independent judiciary and a fair Election Commission. Minister of State graced the occasion for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, Armed Forces Tribunal Chairperson Justice Rajendra Menon, Law Commission of India Jitesh Jain, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma, senior advocate Anil Soni, Rouse Avenue District Court Bar Association President Advocate Neeraj and others. Minister Bhupender Yadav said, "In our country, we have democracy. In some other countries, there is a monarchy, and some have a single-party system. We consider our constitution as our religion. In a country of 140 crore people, we follow a constitution-based democracy by adhering to the values outlined in our constitution. You are the biggest protectors of civil rights." Yadav stressed the importance of having a single voter list, which can be achieved by revising the current list. "We have a national election commission and state election commissions. In the same way, we have two voter lists. Uniformity of the voter list is most needed. It can be done by revising the voter list. Some people also have an objection to this. One voter list has also been brought under this amendment," Union Minister Bhupender Yadav said. He further said that we are admired for having an independent judiciary, a fair and neutral Election Commission. Yadav emphasised that elections should be a means to achieve the values outlined in the Constitution's preamble, ensuring social, political, and economic justice for all citizens. "An election is a means to achieve the values of the preamble of the Constitution. An even playing field should be there. There is a freedom to contest an election, allowing anyone to challenge the outcome," he added. On the issue of multiple elections and the model code of conduct, the Union Minister stated that the different model codes of conduct for multiple elections hinder development works. "We are proud to say that our country is the mother of democracy," Bhupender Yadav said. He also referred to people saying "Elections are quarter finals, semi-finals and finals in the context of Elections. He said Elections are not quarter final, semi final or final; elections are a system of achieving a mandate from the public." "Election should not be a means of distributing freebies," Bhupender Yadav said. The minister argued that simultaneous elections would facilitate smooth governance at both the Centre and state levels, reducing disruptions caused by frequent elections. Union Minister said that for a fair election. "It is essential that our voter list is also fair. Everyone should contribute to this exercise. This amendment should not be seen as a legal provision only. One Nation One Election will be a greater means to achieve the preamble of our constitution," the Union Minister said During the symposium, Minister of State for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal criticised those who claim the Government is in a hurry to introduce the One Nation One Election. He said that the Law Commission recommended One Nation One Election in 1982. Where is the hurry? With the Lok Sabha election 2029, all the state elections will be synchronised with the duration of the Lok Sabha. Thereafter, all elections of the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha will be held simultaneously, Meghwal said. He also said that the One Nation One Election will help to grow the GDP. "Niti Ayog has also said that one Nation One Election should be there," Meghwal added. Meghwal said that it is clear from the suggestion given by the public that it is also in favour of one Nation One Election. Hitesh Jain, a member of the Law Commission of India, also addressed the lawyers. He said that India is not new to simultaneous elections. Some of the earlier elections were held simultaneously. "The basic structure of the constitution is not attacked, but it is fortified. One Nation One Election is not about one leader, one party, it is about one nation," Jain emphasised. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma said that the multiple elections have overpowered us. These elections are a burden on us. The need for one Nation One Election is documented on 18000 pages. There are six reports on this issue. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Bihar today. He will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar at around 11 AM. Union Minister Nityanand Rai said, "Prime Minister Modi is arriving at the Magadh University ground in Bodh Gaya. Projects worth more than Rs 13,000 crore will be inaugurated and their foundation stones laid." Alongside this, the Janata Dal (United) MP Sanhay Kumar Jha, speaking in positive stride on the PM's arrival, said, "PM Modi is coming to Gaya tomorrow. Our leader, CM Nitish Kumar, will also be present. As you all know, tomorrow in Gaya, many initiatives will be announced for the whole of Bihar. PM Modi is welcomed in Gaya. " "Whenever he comes here, he performs many inaugurations and lays the foundation for numerous projects. Before this, he was in Motihari, Siwan and Madhubani, and now he is coming to Gaya. So, we all welcome him," Jha added further. In line with his commitment to improving connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the 8.15 km long Aunta - Simaria bridge project on NH-31, in Bihar. It will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai. The bridge has been constructed parallel to an old 2-lane dilapidated rail-cum-road bridge "Rajendra Setu" which is in poor condition, forcing heavy vehicles to re-route. Strengthening the power sector infrastructure in Bihar, the Prime Minister will inaugurate Buxar Thermal Power Plant (660x1 MW) worth around Rs 6,880 crore. It will significantly enhance power generation capacity, improve energy security, and meet the growing electricity demand of the region. The Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone for a series of urban infrastructure projects worth around Rs 1,260 crore. (ANI) The Delhi Police on Friday detained a friend of Rajesh Khimji, who is accused in the Delhi CM Rekha Gupta attack case in Rajkot, police sources said. It is alleged that Rajesh's friend transferred money to him. The Delhi Police is currently tracking ten people who were in contact with the accused through calls and messages. One of the suspects will be brought to Delhi by Friday evening. The Delhi police team is also recording statements from five other individuals in Rajkot, whose data was discovered on the accused's mobile phone. Delhi CM Rekha Gupta was attacked by Rajkot resident Rajesh Khimji at her Civil Lines residence on Wednesday during Jan Sunvai. The accused has been sent to a five-day judicial custody, and further investigation is underway into the matter. "Delhi police detained a friend of the accused Rajesh from Rajkot. He had allegedly transferred money to Rajesh. Delhi Police is tracking ten people who were in contact with the accused through calls and chats. One of the suspects will be brought to Delhi by evening today. Delhi police team in Rajkot to record statements of five others whose data has been taken from the mobile of the accused," the sources said. Meanwhile, on Thursday, CM Rekha Gupta reaffirmed her commitment to public service following an attack on her earlier this week, stating that she would continue to fight for the interests of Delhi despite facing "unexpected blows" and would never "abandon" the national capital. In a post on social media platform X, Gupta said women possess "double the strength" to overcome adversity and must pass numerous tests to prove themselves. She added that public hearings would now be conducted not only at her residence but in every assembly constituency across Delhi. Delhi Police is investigating the matter from all angles and are coordinating with Rajkot Police, sources said. Central agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), have also joined the probe. Following the attack, CM Rekha Gupta was accorded Z-category security cover of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The CRPF personnel reached the Chief Minister's residence on Thursday morning to take charge of her security from the Delhi police. Additional deployment has also been made in and around the CM's residence and office to ensure round-the-clock protection. (ANI) Jan Suraaj Founder Prashant Kishor commented on the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that it is of no "benifit". He noted that despite visiting Bihar several times over the past three to four months, he has still failed to address the real problems of Bihar, which include unemployment, floods, and the migration of youth for labour and work. Jan Suraaj Founder Prashant Kishor said, "Prime Minister Modi has visited Bihar three times in the last 3 to 4 months. On each of his visits, crores of rupees of Bihar's poor public were spent... How will unemployment in Bihar end? When will the migration from Bihar stop? When will Bihar's children no longer have to go to Gujarat for labour work? PM Modi has not spoken on these issues..." Stating that there is no benefit of PM's visit to Bihar, he further stated, "For the last 15 years, PM Modi has been the Prime Minister, but so far, he has done no work to stop migration from Bihar, nor has he found a solution to the flood problem. There is no benefit to Prime Minister Modi's visits here. The people of Bihar have made up their minds. The people of Bihar want change." This statement came following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming visit to Bihar and West Bengal today. He will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar at around 11 AM, according to the Prime Minister's Office press release. He will also flag off two trains and address the gathering. Thereafter, he will visit and inaugurate the Aunta-Simaria bridge project on the River Ganga. The Prime Minister will flag off metro train services on the newly constructed sections in Kolkata at around 4:15 PM and undertake a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back, added the release. Further, he will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore at Kolkata. He will also address the gathering on the occasion. In line with his commitment to improving connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the 8.15 km long Aunta - Simaria bridge project on NH-31, including the 1.86 km long 6 lane Bridge on river Ganga, constructed at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore. It will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai, the release added. The bridge has been constructed parallel to an old 2-lane dilapidated rail-cum-road bridge "Rajendra Setu" which is in poor condition, forcing heavy vehicles to re-route. (ANI) His visit comes ahead of the local body elections in the state. Speaking to ANI, Anoop Antony Joseph said, "The BJP is holding a state-level leadership meeting tomorrow in Ernakulam, to be headed by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Last month, he also visited Kerala and addressed ward-level members of BJP who are preparing for the upcoming local body elections. Tomorrow, he will be interacting with the workers from the district level to the state level." Amit Shah arrived at Kochi Airport on Thursday, where he was received by Kerala BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar and other party leaders. Sharing visuals of the Union Minister's arrival, Kerala BJP wrote on X, "Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah Ji was received by the BJP State President Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and other senior leaders at Kochi Airport." On Thursday, Amit Shah took to X to announce his Kerala and Tamil Nadu visits. The Union Minister said that he will attend a media conclave and interact with party workers in Kochi. While in Tamil Nadu, he will head the BJP's 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan'. "Leaving for Kochi. Will be in two states close to my heart-Kerala and Tamil Nadu, tomorrow. In the morning will attend the Manorama News Conclave and then will interact with karyakartas and leaders of @BJP4Keralam in Kochi. Later in the day, will travel to Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu and interact with BJP karyakartas of the state at the 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan'," Shah wrote. Tamil Nadu is set to undergo Assembly Elections next year; however, no official announcement has been made by the Election Commission of India regarding that yet. (ANI) Another school in Delhi received a bomb threat via e-mail on Friday morning, triggering a swift response from authorities. According to Delhi Fire Services, information about the threat was received at around 7:00 AM. The school is located in Dwarka, Sector 7. Teams from Delhi Police and the Fire Department immediately rushed to the spot to ensure the safety of students and staff. A thorough search operation is underway to verify the authenticity of the threat. Further details are awaited. This incident comes amid a series of similar hoax threats reported in schools across the national capital in recent months. Six schools across Delhi received bomb threats so far in a matter of days, prompting swift action from the Delhi Police and Fire Department. The schools include Andhra Education Society Senior Secondary School (Prasad Nagar), BGS International Public School (Dwarka, Sector 5), Rao Man Singh Senior Secondary School (Chhawla), Maxfort School (Dwarka, Sector 1), and Indraprastha International School (Dwarka, Sector 10). Delhi Police and the Fire Department arrived at the affected sites, including BGS International Public School, where visuals show emergency personnel actively managing the situation. Poonam Gupta, Principal of BGS International Public School, confirmed receiving the bomb threat email early morning, which also included a "threat of bloodshed." She said, "I received a mail on the school Email ID, where there was again a bomb threat and threat of bloodshed. As a precautionary measure, I immediately called the police, and everyone was here by 6:30 AM, including the bomb squad. I am not sending any child inside the bulding as a precautionary measure." This series of threats comes after over 50 schools have received another bomb threat mail in the national capital region in the early hours of Wednesday, police officials have informed. According to Delhi police, a group identifying itself as 'Terrorisers 111' sent an email to various schools, including DAV Public School, Faith Academy, Doon Public School, Sarvodhaya Vidyalaya, and others, demanding USD 25,000. The same group had allegedly demanded USD 5,000 in cryptocurrency after sending various bomb threats on August 18. The group sent a bulk email to the principals and administration staff of various schools, claiming that they have "breached their IT systems" and will detonate bombs within 48 hours across school premises. "We are the Terrorisers 111 group. We have planted explosives inside your building, and others across the city. Devices include high-yield C4 bombs and timed charges placed in classrooms, auditoriums, staff rooms, and school buses, designed to cause maximum casualties. We have breached your IT systems, extracted student and staff data, and compromised all security cameras. We are monitoring your actions in real time. Transfer 2000 USD to Ethereum address within 48 hours, or we will detonate the bombs," the email read. "Evacuate all schools and suspend operations immediately to avoid loss of life. Any attempt to contact authorities will trigger immediate detonation and public release of your sensitive data. Terrorisers 111 Group does not forgive or forget. Payment is your only option to prevent disaster. Act now," the email added. (ANI) Naomi Ackie has no plans move to Los Angeles because she's convinced actors work longer hours in the US. Naomi Ackie has no plans to leave London and move to Los Angeles The I Wanna Dance with Somebody star currently lives in London and flies across the Atlantic regularly for her movie projects, but she's refusing to move to the US full time to pursue her career in Hollywood because she fears she wouldn't be able to live a "normal life" when living inside the film industry bubble and she would have less time to go "to the pub". In an interview with The Times newspaper, she explained: "I love going there for work - although I get very nervous on flights - but in London you can live a normal life outside the industry, which you dont get in Hollywood. "And the hours are longer. My American actor friends laugh at me because in the UK we shoot from 6am until 6pm, but in America you just keep going. "I say its too long, I get tired, can we just go to the pub?" Naomi previously admitted she's not ready to settle down and have children yet because she doesn't own her own home and can't even keep her house plants alive. The 33-year-old actress confessed she can't see herself being ready to start a family until she's at least 40 years old. She told The Hollywood Reporter: "[I'm] not ready to have my own child until Im probably like 40 ... [It's] actually good to know ... that one day you can just look at a baby and think, I want you'." Naomi went on to explain she hopes to get married in the future but she wants to enjoy single life for a few more years before she decides to settle down and have a family. She added: "I know its bad the longer you wait, but I feel really intentional about wanting to be married for a few years before that happens. "And I dont own a home. I cant even look after a f****** plant, mate. And can I keep my house tidy? No. I didnt even make my bed before I left for L.A." The Delhi Police on Friday detained a friend of Rajesh Khimji, who is accused in the Delhi CM Rekha Gupta attack case in Rajkot, police sources said. It is alleged that Rajesh's friend transferred money to him. The Delhi Police is currently tracking ten people who were in contact with the accused through calls and messages. One of the suspects will be brought to Delhi by Friday evening. The Delhi police team is also recording statements from five other individuals in Rajkot, whose data was discovered on the accused's mobile phone. Delhi CM Rekha Gupta was attacked by Rajkot resident Rajesh Khimji at her Civil Lines residence on Wednesday during Jan Sunvai. The accused has been sent to a five-day police custody, and further investigation is underway into the matter. "Delhi police detained a friend of the accused Rajesh from Rajkot. He had allegedly transferred money to Rajesh. Delhi Police is tracking ten people who were in contact with the accused through calls and chats. One of the suspects will be brought to Delhi by evening today. Delhi police team in Rajkot to record statements of five others whose data has been taken from the mobile of the accused," the sources said. Meanwhile, on Thursday, CM Rekha Gupta reaffirmed her commitment to public service following an attack on her earlier this week, stating that she would continue to fight for the interests of Delhi despite facing "unexpected blows" and would never "abandon" the national capital. In a post on social media platform X, Gupta said women possess "double the strength" to overcome adversity and must pass numerous tests to prove themselves. She added that public hearings would now be conducted not only at her residence but in every assembly constituency across Delhi. Delhi Police is investigating the matter from all angles and are coordinating with Rajkot Police, sources said. Central agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), have also joined the probe. Following the attack, CM Rekha Gupta was accorded Z-category security cover of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The CRPF personnel reached the Chief Minister's residence on Thursday morning to take charge of her security from the Delhi police. Additional deployment has also been made in and around the CM's residence and office to ensure round-the-clock protection. (ANI) Faridabad Crime Branch arrested the accused involved in the firing incident outside the residence of Elvish Yadav in Gurugram on August 17. The apprehended individual was identified as Ishant, also known as Ishu Gandhi. The accused was arrested after and encounter with the Police. The accused allegedly fired over six shots from an automatic pistol at police, which led to his hospitalisation due to a gunshot wound in the leg. This incident underscores the ongoing efforts of law enforcement to combat crime in the area. On Sunday, YouTuber and actor Elvish Yadav's Gurugram residence came under gunfire from unidentified men in the early hours. Elvish's father, Ram Avtar Yadav, shared that they feel scared after the firing incident at the house. While talking to the media, Ram Avtar shared the details of the firing incident outside the house, stating that more than 15 bullets were fired at the house at around 5:30 in the morning. "We heard a sound around 5.30 in the morning. When we came outside and looked, we saw that bullets had been fired here. Then we immediately checked the CCTV. We found that there were two people involved for sure, and probably a third one too. We informed the police. These people fired more than 15 rounds," said Ram Avtar Yadav. When asked about Elvish's whereabouts and his reaction to the gunfire incident at his house, Ram Avtar said that Elvish usually stays away from the Gurugram residence due to work. "Elvish comes here rarely. Usually, he stays away due to his work. Elvish is fine, I spoke to him. May God give wisdom to the people who did this. Naturally, we feel scared," added Ram Avtar. Unidentified men opened fire outside the residence of Elvish Yadav in Gurugram's Sector 57 on Sunday morning, Police said. According to Gurugram Police, over a "dozen rounds" of ammunition were fired outside the residence of Elvish Yadav. The actor was not present at his residence. "Three masked miscreants opened fire outside the residence of YouTuber and Big Boss OTT winner Elvish Yadav in Gurugram's Sector 57. The incident took place at around 5:30 AM. More than a dozen rounds were fired. Elvish Yadav was not at his residence at the time of the firing," said Sandeep Kumar, PRO Gurugram Police. (ANI) Union Minister Chirag Paswan on Friday condemned RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's "Pind Daan" remark and stated that the Opposition should not use such language against the Chief Minister. Chirag Paswan asked the Opposition to raise questions at the policy level rather than indulging in such remarks. "This is wrong. What kind of language is this? You raise questions about the policies; you are making SIR an issue, which is fine. But to say "Pind Daan" and use such language against the Chief Minister, I condemn this," Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief told the reporters. He lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of his visit to Gayaji in Bihar and said that the state is a priority of the Prime Minister. The Union Minister said, "Bihar is a priority for PM Narendra Modi. His visit to Bihar time and again, I think this will be his ninth visit to the state in the last one year. His resolve for a 'Viksit Bihar' is a priority for him, and his frequent visits show this. Today as well, he will dedicate development projects worth thousands of crores to the people of Bihar." Paswan's criticism of Lalu Prasad Yadav comes after the RJD chief took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ahead of his Bihar visit and stated that he (PM) will perform the "Pind Daan" of Nitish Kumar's politics in the state. Sharing a video on X, slamming PM Modi for alleged "vote theft", the RJD chief wrote, "Prime Minister Modi ji is coming to Gaya today to perform the Pind Daan (a post-death ritual) of Nitish Kumar's politics and his party." With his "Pind Daan" jibe in the video, Lalu Prasad Yadav demanded action against alleged "vote theft", crime and unemployment in Bihar. Meanwhile, PM Modi will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gayaji. He will flag off two trains and address the gathering. In line with his commitment to improving connectivity, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the 8.15 km long Aunta - Simaria bridge project on NH-31, including the 1.86 km long 6 lane Bridge on River Ganga, constructed at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore. It will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai, a press release stated. (ANI) A miscreant sustained a bullet injury after the police shot him in retaliatory fire during an encounter in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad on Thursday night, police said. As per Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP) Indirapuram, Abhishek Srivastava, the police had set up a checkpost on Thursday night and saw a man approaching on a motorbike. He was asked to stop and cooperate with the police; however, the miscreant tried to flee and fired on the police team. He was later injured in retaliatory fire by the police officials and has been admitted to a hospital for further treatment. In a preliminary investigation, it was found that the miscreant was registered of theft and snatching cases in various police stations. "During a check post set up last night, the police saw a man approaching on a motorbike, who was asked to stop and cooperate in the security check. Instead of stopping, he fled. When the police went after him, he fired on the police team. In retaliatory fire, the miscreant sustained a bullet injury to his leg and has been admitted to the hospital for treatment. During interrogation, it was found that the accused had previous cases of theft and snatching in nearby Police Stations. A stolen motorbike and an illegal weapon has been recovered," ADCP Abhishek Srivastava said. On August 21, in a joint operation by Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and Fatehpur Police, a murder accused was injured during an encounter, police said. According to Superintendent of Police, Gramin Jhansi, Arvind Kumar, the murder accused has been identified as Deepak alias Pradeep. He was charged with a murder case and had a reward of Rs 25,000 on him. The police officials have recovered weapons from his custody, and further investigation is to proceed after interrogation. "In a joint operation by the SWAT team and Fatehpur Police, an encounter broke out with a miscreant. The miscreant sustained a bullet injury to his leg and has been hospitalised. His name is Deepak alias Pradeep. He was wanted in a murder case and had a reward of Rs 25,000 on him. Weapons have been recovered from him. Further investigation will proceed after interrogation," Arvind Kumar said in a statement. (ANI) In a tweet on X, the Pithoragarh District Police said, "Closed Road Routes - Thal - Munsyari route is closed, Munsyari - Milam route is closed. All other national/state highways are open. Stay alert in areas prone to rain and landslides." https://x.com/PithoragarhPol/status/1958728842560118958 Roadblocks due to landslides and falling stones are common in Uttarakhand, causing disruptions and leading to loss of life as well. Earlier, Munsiyari - Milam Road and 19 rural roads were closed in Pithoragarh due to falling stones and heavy rainfall, said the Pithoragarh Police, Uttarakhand. In a tweet, the Pithoragarh Police, Uttarakhand, said, "Road Update, Pithoragarh District Police Date: 19 August 2025, Closed Road Routes -Thal - Munsyari route is closed, Munsyari - Milam route is closed. In addition, 19 rural routes are closed." In Pithoragarh's Gram Devat area, a 12-year-old boy died, and four others were injured, after a boulder fell on a house, as per the Uttarakhand Police. The incident happened around 1:52 AM on August 19. Rescue teams from the fire department, police, and SDRF quickly reached the spot and pulled the boy out from under the debris. In a post on X, Uttarakhand Police shared, "On 19.08.2025 at 1:52 AM, a stone fell on a house in Gram Devat, Pithoragarh. Immediately, FIRE, police, and SDRF teams reached the spot and carried out rescue operations. A 12-year-old boy had died. He was extracted by the rescue teams jointly by removing debris and stones. Four people sustained minor injuries." Due to heavy rainfall and a sudden rise in the Ganga's water level, access to the ghats near Laxman Jhula and surrounding areas has also been completely stopped. Police have put up barricades and are patrolling the area to ensure public safety. Authorities have urged people to stay alert and away from the riverbanks ."Due to heavy rainfall and a sudden rise in water levels, access to Ganga Ghats is completely prohibited for safety reasons. Police have barricaded the ghats and are conducting continuous patrolling for public safety. Your vigilance is your safety," in another post, Uttarakhand Police shared. (ANI) The Kerala Education Department has announced that students will not be required to wear uniforms in schools on festival days. According to the new order, festivals such as Onam, Christmas, and Ramadan will now be exempted from the mandatory uniform rule, allowing students to attend school in traditional or festive attire. The order will help foster a festive spirit and respect for cultural diversity among children. Earlier, Kerala Education Minister V Sivankutty on August 10 announced the launch of 'Surakshamitram', a new initiative aimed at strengthening child safety across schools in the state. In a post on X, the minister said the programme, introduced by the General Education Department, will enable students to submit complaints anonymously through specially installed help-boxes in their schools. "'Surakshamitram' is a new initiative launched by Kerala's General Edu Dept to ensure children's safety in the state. It allows students to submit complaints anonymously via a help-box installed in their schools. The govt is committed to acting against atrocities against children," read the post. In July, a Zumba dance initiative was commenced in schools on Wednesday as part of the curriculum to promote physical fitness and mental well-being among students. This program is part of the anti-drug campaign in schools in Kerala, aimed at helping students manage stress through physical activity. However, the initiative has faced criticism for allegedly encouraging inappropriate intermingling of boys and girls. Speaking to ANI, Roma Mansoor, a certified International Zumba Fitness instructor, said, "I am happy to say that the Kerala government has taken initiative to promote Zumba in schools. It is a great initiative because nowadays children are addicted to many things that ruin their mindset. Zumba can help them relax their mind...It will help the children to increase their confidence. As it is a calorie-burning workout, it is a good move for weight management also..." (ANI) Prominent local figures, including Md. Shahwaz Aalam, Md. Raish Aalam, Khalid Sultan Rahmani, and Md. Islam Rahmani was present during the visit. Minority community voters in attendance voiced strong support for including All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi in the INDIA alliance. They warned that failure to include Owaisi could lead to significant electoral losses for the alliance. A substantial number of Owaisi's supporters were present in the crowd, emphasising that if AIMIM is excluded from the alliance, the minority community's support would shift decisively to Owaisi. The gathered crowd expressed frustration, stating that the minority community, which constitutes 20% of the population, is not being given due respect or representation within the INDIA alliance. They criticised the alliance for prioritising leaders like Mukesh Sahni, representing a smaller 2% voter base, while sidelining the concerns of the minority community. Earlier today, Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi arrived in Jamalpur on the sixth day of the 'Voter Adhikaar Yatra,' aimed at addressing concerns over alleged voter fraud. The 16-day yatra is aimed at raising awareness about alleged irregularities in the voter list and what opposition leaders are calling a case of 'vote chori' (vote theft). Covering over 1,300 km across 20 districts, the yatra is scheduled to conclude in Patna on September 1. The Yatra, continuing for the sixth day, reached Jamalpur earlier today. Leaders of the party, along with leaders of alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday participated in the 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar's Lakhisarai, protesting against the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming state elections. The Voter Adhikar Yatra is the latest effort by the opposition to highlight concerns over voter disenfranchisement and electoral transparency in the lead-up to the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. (ANI) According to officials, the operation was launched in the early hours of August 20 based on specific intelligence inputs in the general area of Saikhumpai, Champhai district. Multiple Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) were deployed, with columns moving from Vaphai to Saikhumpai. The troops maintained stealth and surprise while establishing domination along the Tiau River before commencing deliberate search operations. A thorough and systematic search of the area led to the recovery of weapons and war-like stores at Saikhumpai Xg Pt. The recovery included one Heckler and Koch G3 Assault Rifle, one magazine, nine 40mm grenades, one thermobaric RPG grenade, one hand grenade, one under-barrel grenade launcher and 36 rounds of .22 ammunition. The seized arms, ammunition and war-like stores were later handed over to the Police Department, Dungtlang, officials added. Additionally, on Monday night, Assam Rifles seized 6.86 Kg of Methamphetamine tablets valued at approximately Rs 21 crores from the general area Crossing point 4, Zokhawthar, Mizoram. Based on specific intelligence, Assam Rifles launched a search operation on August 18 in the general area crossing point 4, Zokhawthar, Mizoram. During the conduct of the operation, the team recovered 6.86 Kg (70,700 Tablets) of Methamphetamine tablets valued at approximately Rs 21 crore. The recovered narcotics have been handed over to the Narcotics Control Bureau, Aizawl. Earlier, Assam Rifles seized 466 bags of areca nuts, weighing 35,560 kg and valued at approximately Rs 2.48 crore at Champhai in Mizoram. The contraband has been handed over to Customs, Assam Rifles said in a press release. "Acting on specific and credible intelligence, Assam Rifles launched a well-coordinated operation in the general area Ruantlang, Champhai in Mizoram on August 11, 2025. The operation involved surveillance and area domination patrols to seize a suspected consignment of illegal Areca nuts. During the operation, the team recovered 466 bags of areca nuts, weighing 35,560 kg and valued at approximately Rs 2.48 crore," the Assam Rifles said. (ANI) Congress leader KC Venugopal expressed confidence in the Supreme Court delivering justice to Bihar, highlighting concerns over the voter list issues in Bihar. Speaking to ANI, Venugopal stated that during the yatra led by Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar, people have presented "solid evidence" of genuine voters being removed from the electoral rolls. "I think the Supreme Court will give justice to Bihar. This is the general sentiment. There are genuine issues relating to SIR in Bihar. As Rahul ji and Tejashwi ji do the yatra in Bihar, the people are complaining to them with solid evidence. We can see how many genuine voters have been removed. We are expecting justice from the Supreme Court," he said. Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited the Khankaah Rahmani Masjid in Munger, drawing a large crowd from the minority community. Rahul Gandhi arrived in Jamalpur on the sixth day of the 'Voter Adhikaar Yatra,' aimed at addressing concerns over alleged voter fraud. Prominent local figures, including Md. Shahwaz Aalam, Md. Raish Aalam, Khalid Sultan Rahmani, and Md. Islam Rahmani was present during the visit. Minority community voters in attendance voiced strong support for including All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi in the INDIA alliance. They warned that failure to include Owaisi could lead to significant electoral losses for the alliance. A substantial number of Owaisi's supporters were present in the crowd, emphasising that if AIMIM is excluded from the alliance, the minority community's support would shift decisively to Owaisi. The gathered crowd expressed frustration, stating that the minority community, which constitutes 20% of the population, is not being given due respect or representation within the INDIA alliance. They criticised the alliance for prioritising leaders like Mukesh Sahni, representing a smaller 2% voter base, while sidelining the concerns of the minority community. As the election is approaching in the state, the Congress party is conducting a 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra to raise awareness about alleged irregularities in the voter list, which opposition leaders are referring to as a case of 'vote chori' (vote theft). Covering over 1,300 km across 20 districts, the yatra is scheduled to conclude in Patna on September 1. The Yatra, continuing for the sixth day, reached Jamalpur earlier today. Leaders of the party, along with leaders of alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday participated in the 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar's Lakhisarai, protesting against the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming state elections. The Voter Adhikar Yatra is the latest effort by the opposition to highlight concerns over voter disenfranchisement and electoral transparency in the lead-up to the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. (ANI) The sources said that the man jumped the wall between TKR 2 - North Utility of Parliament gate and got into the Parliament complex Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) security personnel at Parliament caught the intruder immediately and questioning underway, Parliament Security Sources told ANI. The sources said that the man reached the Garuda gate of the new Parliament building by jumping over the wall from the Rail Bhawan side. On December 13, 2001 there was an attack on the old building of the Parliament by terrorists belonging to Pakistan based terrorist organizations Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). Fourteen people including fiver terrorists were killed in the attack. In December 2023, coinciding with the 22nd anniversary of the 2001 Parliament terror attack, two individuals jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors' gallery during Zero Hour and released yellow gas from canisters. They were heard shouting anti-government slogans. Simultaneously, outside the Parliament complex, two people were seen using similar canisters to release coloured smoke while chanting slogans. Six people were arrested in connection with the incident. (ANI) Tom Morello is convinced Ozzy Osbourne "knew" he was reaching the end of his life. Tom Morello believes Ozzy Osbourne knew the end was coming The Rage Against The Machine star was put in charge of organising the performances for the Back to the Beginning concert at Birmingham's Villa Park stadium in July which featured Black Sabbath's last ever performance together as well as a solo set by Ozzy just two weeks before his death - and Tom has now admitted he believes the veteran rocker agreed to the show because he was aware his time was running out. During an appearance on Chicagos Q101 radio station, Tom explained: "Ozzy Osbourne had lived on the edge for such a long time, the fact he lived as long as he did was a miracle. "The fact he lived to play and feel that love one more time, to do Paranoid, to do Crazy Train. If you have got to go and I wish Ozzy lived another 30 years if you've got to go out ... it felt like he knew." He went on to add Ozzy - who battled a number of health problems including Parkinson's disease - had been "frail for a while" but his death still came as a shock. Tom said: "Friends of mine saw him a week later [after the Back to The Beginning show] at another event in Birmingham. He wasnt on his deathbed. He was just sort of living his life. It [his death] was a terrible and tragic surprise ... " He added of the Black Sabbath reunion concert: "I laid out to make it a great show for fans and for them [Black Sabbath]. It is so unusual that those guys headlined. "They got to see all the work they had done and the great artists their music had created perform for them. They got to play and feel the love not just from the bands, the people in the stadium but from all over the world." The Back to the Beginning show took place on July 5 and Ozzy passed away two weeks later on July 22 at the age of 76. The concert raised almost $200 million for good causes with the proceeds being split between Cure Parkinsons, Birmingham Childrens Hospital and Acom Childrens Hospice. The Supreme Court on Friday modified its earlier order of August 11 regarding the management of stray dogs in Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region), directing that the animals will be released back into the same area after sterilisation and immunisation. The court clarified that stray dogs infected with rabies or showing aggressive behaviour will not be released back and will be kept separately. "Stray dogs will be released back to the same area after sterilisation and immunisation, except those infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour," the court ordered. The court ordered that no public feeding of dogs will be allowed, and dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs to be created. It ordered the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) to create feeding areas in municipal wards. The Court noted that animal lovers can move application before MCD for adoption of dogs. The court expanded the ambit of its proceedings on menace of stray dogs and issued notice to Secretaries of department of Animal Husbandry all states and Union Territories and sought their response on framing of national policy to deal with the problem. It also directed its Registry to seek information from all High Courts where petitions are pending on issue of stray dogs and orders that all such matters will be transferred to the top court. Hailing the top court's verdict in this matter, Supreme Court lawyer and petitioner Nanita Sharma called it a "balanced order." She stated that all matters regarding dog issues pending in all courts in all states will be brought under one court. "This is a balanced order. The court has involved all states in this case. All matters regarding dog issues pending in all courts in all states will be brought under one. They have said that regular dogs should be sterilised and aggressive dogs should be put in pounds/ animal shelters. The court has ruled that MCD will establish designated feeding areas for dogs..." Nanita Sharma told reporters. On August 11, the top court ordered that all localities in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad should be made free of stray dogs and there should not be any compromise; it also made it clear that no captured animal will be released back on the streets. In the detailed order it has clarified that its directive was not driven by "momentary impulse"; rather, it came after thorough and careful deliberation, and the concerned authorities have consistently failed for over two decades to effectively address a serious issue that directly impacts public safety. A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and R Madadev has said that it has decided to take the matter into its hands because of the systematic failure of the authorities over the past two decades to address an issue that strikes at the heart of public safety. The bench has said that the directions given by it, as a court which functions for the welfare of the people, are both in the interest of humans as well as dogs, and "this is not personal". (ANI) Chief Minister Stalin, along with his son, Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, presided over a special function organised by the Department of Health and Family Welfare at the Presidency College campus, Chennai. During the event, Chief Minister MK Stalin distributed appointment orders to 644 candidates selected through the Medical Services Recruitment Board and the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission for various posts across the Health Department. The appointments included 182 Assistant Medical Officers in the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, 48 Dentists in the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services, 324 Theatre Assistants in the Directorate of Medical Education and Research, and 1 Skilled Assistant Grade-II in the Tamil Nadu Health Transport Department, as stated in the release. Additionally, there were appointments of 18 Assistant Professors of Clinical Psychology and Medical Psychologists in the Directorate of Medical Education and Research, 17 Drug Inspectors in the Directorate of Drug Control, and 54 Block Health Statisticians in the Directorate of Family Welfare. (ANI) Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Friday left her residence to attend a program in Gandhi Nagar market. This is the first time that CM Gupta has left her residence since she was attacked on August 20. CM Rekha Gupta was attacked by Rajkot resident Rajesh Khimji during a Jan Sunvai program on Wednesday at the Chief Minister's residence in the national capital. He was detained by the police immediately and has been sent to a five-day police custody. Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj on Thursday alleged that the Delhi Police are hiding the CCTV footage of the attack on CM Rekha Gupta to cover up their failure. "We are glad that in Rekha Gupta's case, the police have registered an FIR, but I believe that the police are hiding the CCTV footage of the incident to cover up their failure," Saurabh Bharadwaj told ANI. Referring to the previous attacks on AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal, Bharadwaj claimed that his matter was kept "weak", the AAP leader said that whenever the attack happened on the former Delhi CM, it was said that the people were angry with him. "It was the duty of the police to register a case of 'attempt to murder' in such attacks earlier, and the accused should have been taken into police custody so that such activities do not happen again, as was done in the case of Rekha Gupta. But in Arvind Kejriwal's case, the matter was deliberately kept weak, security was lax, and whenever an attack occurred, it was said that the people of Delhi are angry," he said. The Delhi Police has intensified its probe into the attack, with investigators now seeking dump data from both her personal and official residences. Officials said the move is aimed at piecing together a clear picture of the accused Rajesh Khimji's presence and movements before and during the incident. According to senior police sources, dump data, which provides details of mobile tower locations, device signals and call records of all numbers active in a particular area, is being retrieved from telecom service providers for specific time windows. (ANI) Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh on Friday welcomed Supreme Court's revised decision on stray dogs in the NCR region stating that it is a very good decision. He stated that he had implemented the Supreme Court's order, noting that the dog lovers had requested the dogs be sterilised and then left. Raja Iqbal Singh pointed out that the aggressive dogs should be kept and treated. "We welcome the decision. This is a very good decision, and we will implement it 100%. The dog lovers and the NGOs also wanted the dogs to be sterilised and left. The corporation already did the same. Ferocious and aggressive dogs that have developed the habit of biting should be treated and kept. The public should not face any problem. We all love street dogs and we are all dog lovers, so this is a very good decision...," Raja Iqbal Singh told ANI. Animal rights activist Prateek Yadav said that Supreme Court's order is for the purpose of animal welfare stating that the order directs the authorities to focus on neutering and animal birth control. "Supreme Court order is for animal welfare. The order says the authorities need to focus on neutering and animal birth control. This is a very good decision and I am very happy with it," he said. Neighbourhood Woof founder Ayesha Christina Benn also agreed with the Supreme Court's order, stating that the setting up of feeding points should not remain limited to RWAs (Resident Welfare Association), and the opinion of all stakeholders and advice of experts should also be taken on the issue. "I agree with the SC order on creating designated spots for feeding of dogs, but this should not be left only on RWAs; but opinion of all stakeholders and advice of experts should also be taken on this. Feeding spots should be identified by mutual discussion...The definition of biting and aggressive dogs should be well defined," she said. Animal lovers and shelter home owners, who had been protesting against the court's previous directive, welcomed the decision and called it a "big relief" for stray dogs. The Supreme Court on Friday revised its earlier August 11 order on stray and ordered their release following sterilisation and immunisation. (ANI) SC, Supreme court, stray dog, order, modification. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar. Before inaugurating these projects, Prime Minister Modi also held a roadshow in the city. The Prime Minister was accompanied by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Sinha. Prime Minister Modi flagged off two trains - Amrit Bharat Express between Gaya and Delhi which will improve passenger convenience with modern facilities, comfort, and safety and Buddhist Circuit Train between Vaishali and Koderma which will give a boost to tourism and religious travel across key Buddhist sites in the region. The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for a series of urban infrastructure projects worth around Rs 1,260 crore. These include the STP and Sewerage Network at Daudnagar in Aurangabad, and Jehanabad; STP and interception and diversion works at Barahiya in Lakhisarai, and Jamui. Under AMRUT 2.0, he laid the foundation stone of Water Supply Projects at Aurangabad, Bodhgaya and Jehanabad. These projects will provide clean drinking water, modern sewerage systems, and improved sanitation thereby improving health standards and quality of life in the region. In a significant development for Bihar's infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Aunta-Simaria bridge project on NH-31. A 8.15 km long marvel that includes a 1.86 km long, 6-lane bridge over the Ganga River. Constructed at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore, this bridge promises to revolutionize connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai. The bridge has been constructed parallel to an old 2-lane dilapidated rail-cum-road bridge "Rajendra Setu" which is in poor condition forcing heavy vehicles to re-route. The new bridge will reduce this extra travel distance of more than 100 km for the heavy vehicles travelling between North Bihar (Begusarai, Supaul, Madhubani, Purnea, Araria etc) and South Bihar areas (Sheikhpura, Nawada, Lakhisarai etc). It will also help reduce issues of traffic jams in other parts of the region due to the detour which these vehicles were forced to take. It will boost economic growth in the adjoining areas, especially in North Bihar, which are dependent on South Bihar and Jharkhand for getting necessary raw material. It will also provide better connectivity to the famous pilgrimage place of Simaria Dham, which is also the birthplace of famous poet Late Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Prime Minister Modi also inaugurated the four-lane Bakhtiyarpur to Mokama section of NH-31, worth around Rs 1,900 crore, which will ease congestion, reduce travel time, and enhance passenger and freight movement. Further, improvement to the two-lane with paved shoulders of Bikramganj-Dawath-Nawanagar-Dumraon section of NH-120 in Bihar will improve connectivity in rural areas, providing new economic opportunities for the local population. Strengthening the power sector infrastructure in Bihar, the Prime Minister inaugurated Buxar Thermal Power Plant (660x1 MW) worth around Rs 6,880 crore. It will significantly enhance power generation capacity, improve energy security, and meet the growing electricity demand of the region. In a major boost to health infrastructure, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre at Muzaffarpur. The centre includes advanced Oncology OPD, IPD wards, operation theatres, modern lab, blood bank, and a 24-bed ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and HDU (High Dependency Unit). This state-of-the-art facility will provide advanced and affordable cancer care to patients in Bihar and neighbouring states, reducing the need to travel to distant metros for treatment. Furthering his vision of Swachh Bharat and ensuring Aviral and Nirmal Dhara of river Ganga, Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) and Sewerage Network at Munger constructed under Namami Gange worth over Rs 520 crore. It will help reduce pollution load in the Ganga and improve sanitation facilities in the region. (ANI) Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargav has ordered a legal action against a Congress councillor from Ward number 2 in the district for putting up signboards renaming streets without any permission and MIC (Mayor-in-council) proposal. The mayor further said that as soon as he received information about the matter, he immediately ordered the removal of those signboards. Additionally, he directed action against the officials who were involved in the installation of these boards at the councilor's behest. "According to our information, Councillor of Ward number 2 illegally installed signboards with new changed names in the streets of its ward without any permission or an MIC (Mayor-in-council) proposal. Upon learning of the issue, I immediately ordered the removal of those boards and to take action, filing an FIR against those involved in installing these boards because it is an illegal misuse of government property. I have ordered that legal proceedings will be done against the people involved," Bhargav told ANI. When asked about the councillor claiming it was installed by Municipal Corporation, the mayor said, "The councillor had told the municipal corporation. How were the signboards installed without the Councillor's permission? And if they were, why weren't they removed? I have directed to take action into the matter and also against the officials who were involved in the installation of these boards at the councilor's behest." Additionally, in a video message issued by the Mayor's office, he says that only MIC has the right to change names of streets, squares and installed statues. "Councillor of Ward 2, Fatima Rafiq Khan illegally put signboards with new names of the street in her ward with municipal corporation logo without any permission or tabling MIC proposal. When previously received information about it, we removed some boards and now again we received information about such signboards installed. I immediately ordered the removal of these illegal signboards and now they have been removed. I also directed legal action against the councillor for committing such an incident," Mayor Bhargva said. He further added that instructions were given that if any such illegal signboards were found or installed anywhere in the city, then that too should be removed and ensure that illegal signboards should not be installed at councillors' behest. (ANI) Animal rights activist and BJP leader Maneka Gandhi as welcomed Friday's Supreme Court's ruling that stray dogs in Delhi-NCR should not be rounded up permanently. She further supported the court's order to create designated feeding areas and also highlighted that, for the first time in 25 years, the government has allocated Rs 2,500 crore for this program, as stated in Parliament. Gandhi said, "I am very happy with this scientific judgement. Relocation and fear are the primary reasons dogs bite. There is no question of releasing dogs infected with Rabies. The court has not defined what an aggressive dog is. This needs to be defined...It is right (in order to create designated feeding areas). They (civic authority) also have to put up signboards for such designated areas...The court has stated that its ruling applies throughout the country...As per the order, the municipal corporations will have to set up proper ABC (Animal Birth Control) centres. For the first time in 25 years, the government stated in Parliament that it is allocating Rs 2,500 crores for this program..." Earlier today, the Supreme Court modified its earlier order of August 11 regarding the management of stray dogs in Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region), directing that the animals will be released back into the same area after sterilisation and immunisation. The court clarified that stray dogs infected with rabies or showing aggressive behaviour will not be released back and will be kept separately. "Stray dogs will be released back to the same area after sterilisation and immunisation, except those infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour," the court ordered. The court ordered that no public feeding of dogs will be allowed, and dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs to be created. It ordered the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) to create feeding areas in municipal wards. The Court noted that animal lovers can move an application before the MCD for the adoption of dogs. The court expanded the ambit of its proceedings on the menace of stray dogs and issued notice to Secretaries of the Department of Animal Husbandry, all states and Union Territories, and sought their response on framing a national policy to deal with the problem. It also directed its Registry to seek information from all High Courts where petitions are pending on the issue of stray dogs and ordered that all such matters will be transferred to the top court. Hailing the top court's verdict in this matter, Supreme Court lawyer and petitioner Nanita Sharma called it a "balanced order." She stated that all matters regarding dog issues pending in all courts in all states will be brought under one court. "This is a balanced order. The court has involved all states in this case. All matters regarding dog issues pending in all courts in all states will be brought under one. They have said that regular dogs should be sterilised and aggressive dogs should be put in pounds/ animal shelters. The court has ruled that MCD will establish designated feeding areas for dogs..." Nanita Sharma told reporters. On August 11, the top court ordered that all localities in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad should be made free of stray dogs and there should not be any compromise; it also made it clear that no captured animal will be released back on the streets.(ANI) Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Friday terminated two government employees for terror links by invoking Article 311 (2) (c) of the Constitution. The investigation clearly established that a teacher in Karnah, Kupwara and an Assistant Stockman in Keran, Kupwara, were working for terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taoiba and law enforcement and intelligence agencies had collected incriminating material evidence against them. Earlier this year, in June, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha sacked three government employees allegedly working for terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM). Since taking office in August 2020, Manoj Sinha has prioritised weakening terrorism's infrastructure by targeting both active terrorists and their support networks, including overground workers (OGWs) and sympathisers embedded in government institutions. Sinha has ensured aggressive counter-terrorism operations, with security forces neutralising hundreds of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir between 2020 and 2024 and termination of more than 70 OGW/Terror associates from government jobs under Article 311(2)(c) of the Indian Constitution. The step comes a month after the devastating Pahalgam terror attack, where terrorists killed around 26 civilians, mostly tourists, in the Baisaran valley of Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier on July 28, the three terrorists were killed in an intense firefight with security forces in the Harwan area near Dachigam National Park of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had confirmed that three terrorists who were involved in the killing of civilians were eliminated by the security forces during Operation Mahadev. Shah said this as he began his address in Lok Sabha amid the ongoing debate on Operation Sindoor and informed that those who killed our citizens in the ghastly Pahalgam terror attack have been killed. "In a joint Operation Mahadev, the Indian Army, CRPF, and J&K Police have neutralised three terrorists who were involved in the Pahalgam terror attack," Shah said while addressing the lower house. "Innocent civilians were killed in front of their families by asking their religion. I condemn this barbaric act. I express my sympathies to the families who lost their loved ones," he added. Meanwhile, following the Pahalgam terror attack, the Indian Armed Forces launched precision strikes deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir at nine terror launch pads. (ANI) Tamil Nadu Minister and senior DMK leader K N Nehru on Friday slammed Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) leader Vijay for referring to Chief Minister M K Stalin as "Uncle" during a public conference in Madurai, terming the remark disrespectful. Speaking to reporters, Nehru criticised Vijay's comment, stating it showed arrogance and belittled a leader with over four decades of political experience. "That shows his level. To criticise a Chief Minister who has been in politics for over 40 years, and a leader of a major party, by someone who just entered politics recently, is a low-standard comment. People will give a fitting reply. We, too, will respond appropriately in the elections. There is no change in that. Just because 10 or 50 people gather and say anything, it doesn't mean it's right. It is not right," he stated. Earlier on Thursday, TVK chief and actor Vijay addressed a conference for TVK party workers in Madurai. The TVK president held the party's second state conference in Madurai, marked by a massive show of strength as party workers gathered in large numbers to participate in the rally. Speaking at the event, TVK Chief accused Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of being in a secret alliance with the BJP The actor-turned-politician lambasted Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin over the law and order situation in the state. "Uncle Stalin, if you have a conscience, please answer the questions we are asking. In the government you are running, is there honesty? Is it free from corruption? Is law and order being maintained properly? Are women and the general public safe? Tell us, my dear uncle, tell us," Vijay said. "DMK government is secretly maintaining ties with the BJP. When DMK is in the opposition, they shout 'Go back Modi!' but once they are in power, (they) welcome Modi. DMK has a secret alliance with the BJP. Does drama as if they are opposing the BJP," he added. Vijay intends to present his party, TVK, as a third front in Tamil Nadu politics, an alternative to both the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). (ANI) Addressing her first public event after the attack, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, on Friday, said she will not be afraid and will not get tired till the people of Delhi get their rights. Addressing an event organised by the Association of Wholesale Readymade Garments Dealers in Gandhi Nagar Market, Shahadra, Rekha Gupta said, "I assure you that your Chief Minister Didi will not be afraid, will not get tired, will not lose. Till Delhi gets its rights, she will keep fighting with you. It is my vow to continuously fight with you." This comes after Rajkot resident Rajesh Khimji attacked CM Rekha Gupta during a Jan Sunvai program on Wednesday in the national capital. He was detained by the police immediately and has been sent to a five-day police custody. Addressing the event in Gandhi Nagar Market, the Chief Minister said that the government will place 'Yamunapar' at the forefront of Delhi's development. She said, "We will once again place 'Yamunapar' at the forefront of Delhi's development. I congratulate the brothers and sisters of Yamunapar for the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway built by Prime Minister Modi, as it will make our lives and daily routines much more convenient." She assured the public that the River Yamuna would be cleaned and said that it would appear better with time. "A very large number of people live on this side of the Yamuna in Delhi and are waiting for Mother Yamuna to be cleaned... Mother Yamuna will start appearing better and more beautiful with time," the Chief Minister said. Further, she gave assurance for water and sewer lines, parking lots and public toilets in the 'Yamunapar' region of the national capital. CM Rekha Gupta said, "There will be water lines and sewer lines all across the Yamunapar. Wherever there is no water pipeline, water pipelines will be laid there. Wherever there is a problem of parking, multiple parking lots will be built. Wherever there is no toilet, toilets will be built there." Earlier today, Rekha Gupta left her residence for first time since she was attacked on August 20. (ANI) A cheap blood pressure pill already taken by millions could help protect women against one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer, scientists have revealed. Researchers Experts from Monash University in Australia say beta blockers - a medication that lowers blood pressure and heart rate by blocking stress hormones - could slow the spread of triple negative breast cancer. The link between the drug and the aggressive disease first emerged in 2023, but it was not clear why. Now researchers have discovered that beta blockers can switch off a gene called HOXC12, which fuels tumour growth, slowing the progression of the cancer. They said the breakthrough means doctors may soon be able to identify which patients could benefit most from beta blocker therapy. Senior author Associate Professor Michelle Halls from MIPS said: "Our colleagues previously found that beta blockers are associated with a significant reduction in mortality in people with triple negative breast cancer. Now we have a much better grasp on why this could be the case." Mr Terrance Lam, a pharmaceutical PhD candidate and co-author of the study, added: "Our collective research strongly suggests that HOXC12 is a potential new indicator for when triple negative breast cancer patients could respond to beta blocker targeted interventions. Triple negative breast cancer is an aggressive cancer which can be especially challenging to treat and identifying new treatment pathways are important." Triple negative breast cancer accounts for around 15% of all breast cancers. It usually affects women under 50 and is more common among African and African-American women. Symptoms are similar to other forms of breast cancer and can include a lump in the breast, armpit or collarbone area, changes in size or shape, discharge, nipple sores or crusting and tenderness or pain. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that the increasing population of illegal immigrants in the country is a matter of concern and to tackle the danger he has proposed a demographic mission, which will begin its work shortly. He further alleged that the Congress and the RJD wanted to take away the rights of the people of Bihar and give it to illegal immigrants as part of their appeasement policies to further their vote bank. Addressing a gathering in Gaya Ji, the PM assured that the "double engine" NDA government will not let illegal immigrants take away the opportunities meant for Indians and decide the future of the country. Referring to his Independence Day speech, PM Modi said, "From the Red Fort, I have talked about the danger of infiltrators. Bihar is facing the danger too. The increasing population of intruders in the country is a matter of concern. In the bordering areas of Bihar, demography is rapidly changing. The NDA government has decided not to let illegal immigrants decide the future of our country. We will not let immigrants take away the jobs meant for the people of Bihar. We will let illegal immigrants rob the rights of the Indians." Referring to newly launched 'High-Power Demography Mission', Prime Minister Modi said that the mission will begin shortly and the government will "throw out every illegal immigrant" from the country. He also targeted opposition Congress and RJD, accusing them of "appeasing" immigrants just to increase their vote bank. The Prime Minister said, "To tackle this threat, I have proposed to start a demographic mission. This mission will begin its work shortly. We will throw out every immigrant... People of Bihar need to beware of the supporters of these immigrants in the country... Congress and RJD want take away the rights of the people of Bihar and give them to these immigrants for appeasement and to increase their vote bank..." On 79th Independence Day, Prime Minister Modi, from the ramparts of Red Fort, announced the launch of a 'High-Power Demography Mission', citing concerns over demographic changes in border areas and said that it is a threat to national security. Addressing the nation on the Independence Day, PM Modi warned against infiltrators affecting the livelihoods of Indian youth, targeting the sisters and daughters, and misleading tribal communities to seize land. The Prime Minister cautioned the nation about a conspiracy aiming to change India's demography and said, "I would like to alert the nation about a concern, a challenge. Under a well-thought-out conspiracy, the country's demography is being changed, and the seeds of a new crisis are being sown. Infiltrators are snatching away the livelihood of the youth of my country. Infiltrators are targeting the sisters and daughters of my country. This will not be tolerated. These infiltrators mislead innocent tribal and capture their land. The country will not tolerate this." He further noted that changing democracy is a national threat and said, "When demographic change takes place in border areas, it causes a threat to national security...No country can hand it over to infiltrators...So, I would like to say that we have decided to start a 'High-Power Demography Mission'..." (ANI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday carried out searches at nine locations in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with land-grabbing and corruption cases linked to custodian land property belonging to evacuees from Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), officials said. ED's Jammu unit carried out the searches at the nine locations, including eight in Jammu and one in Udhampur. According to officials, the searches were conducted against Pranav Dev Singh, Patwari; Rahul Kai, Patwari; Akeel Ahmed, Naib Tehsildar; and several others allegedly involved in the case. The probe stems from a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (Central), Jammu and Kashmir Police, in 2022. Investigators suspect large-scale irregularities in the transfer and illegal occupation of custodian land in the Jammu region. Jammu and Kashmir Anti-Corruption Bureau had extracted one of the major land scams in Jammu and Kashmir, wherein custodian land in Asarwan, Mishriwala and Bhalwal area of Jammu district was found usurped by the land mafia in connivance with the officers, officials of the custodian, revenue and police departments. Inputs were then received that custodian land in thousands of Kanal situated at Asarwan, Mishriwala and Bhalwal Jammu fraudulently grabbed by the land grabbers and gangsters in connivance with the revenue and police officers. The revenue records have been tampered with and land has been sold to many. ACB had conducted a formal verification wherein it was found that in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy, FORM 3-A (Form Alf) along with power of attorneys (POAs) were obtained from various POK Refugees, alluring them of additional lands and providing them instant money ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 by the conduits of land grabbers, and thereafter insertions and additions regarding additional chunks of custodian lands were made in the revenue records by the officials of the revenue and custodian department by sheer abuse of their official positions, and these lands were sold by the conduits and attorney holders to various persons including their own gang leaders and members, by resorting to fraudulent means, thereby causing a huge loss to the government. Owing to the establishment of, prima facie, nexus of the criminal elements and land grabbers and the revenue, custodian officers and officials in alienation of custodian land through fraudulent means, ACB has registered five formal case FIRs in Central Jammu and Kashmir for investigation under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and fraud. (ANI) In a post on X, Tagore criticised Rijiju for sharing a video featuring a woman, claiming she was "lured" to attend a political event by Rahul Gandhi in Bihar. Tagore labelled Rijiju's actions as a descent from a Union Cabinet Minister to a "common troll," accusing him of diverting attention from the "Vote Chori" allegations raised by Gandhi. He further alleged that Rijiju was avoiding questions on the "Vote Chori" issue and instead posting "fake videos with misinformation" to undermine Gandhi's campaign. https://x.com/manickamtagore/status/1958742758426038459?s=08 Tagore's post stated, "Unparliamentary Affairs Minister @KirenRijiju is busy spreading fake news about the Leader of Opposition. From a Minister of the Union Cabinet to a common troll -- see how low he has stooped for cheap publicity. Instead of answering questions on Vote Chori and protecting democracy, Rijiju is posting fake videos with misinformation. This rattled response shows only one thing People's leader Rahul Gandhi's #VoteChori movement is shaking the Modi regime. Leader of Opposition @RahulGandhi is fighting to protect the voting rights of the poor, Dalits, OBCs, minorities and the marginalised. And the BJP's Minister behaves like a troll to divert attention. This is the level of fear in Modi Sarkar! #MinisterToTroll" Meanwhile, earlier today, Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi arrived in Jamalpur on the sixth day of the 'Voter Adhikaar Yatra,' aimed at addressing concerns over alleged voter fraud. The 16-day yatra is aimed at raising awareness about alleged irregularities in the voter list and what opposition leaders are calling a case of 'vote chori' (vote theft). Covering over 1,300 km across 20 districts, the yatra is scheduled to conclude in Patna on September 1. The Yatra, continuing for the sixth day, reached Jamalpur earlier today. Leaders of the party, along with leaders of alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). The Voter Adhikar Yatra is the latest effort by the opposition to highlight concerns over voter disenfranchisement and electoral transparency in the lead-up to the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. (ANI) National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) candidate for the post of Vice-President and Maharashtra Governor, CP Radhakrishnan, on Friday met Union Minister Nitin Gadkari at his residence in the national capital. According to a statement from Gadkari's office, the Union Minister welcomed Radhakrishnan and conveyed his best wishes for the upcoming election. BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde was also present during the meeting. Radhakrishnan, a senior BJP leader from Tamil Nadu, was announced as the NDA's Vice-Presidential nominee. Before this, Radhakrishnan was felicitated at Union Minister Pralhad Joshi's residence. Various Union Ministers and BJP MPs, including Anurag Thakur, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Kangana Ranaut, Rekha Sharma, Kiran Chaudhary, and Kamaljeet Sehrawat, felicitated the NDA's VP candidate for the upcoming elections. Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed confidence that he will be an "outstanding" Vice President. "Along with Ministers, Party colleagues and NDA leaders, accompanied Thiru CP Radhakrishnan as he filed his nomination for the post of Vice President of India. The NDA family is confident that he will be an outstanding VP and will enrich our journey towards national progress," PM Modi wrote on 'X'. CP Radhakrishnan on Wednesday filed his nomination papers for the Vice Presidential elections in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda, Kiren Rijiju and Arjun Ram Meghwal were also present at the occasion. Radhakrishnan filed his nomination in the presence of about 20 proposers and 20 supporters. Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, who has been the Maharashtra Governor since July 31, 2024, had earlier also served as the Governor of Jharkhand, Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. Radhakrishnan, who served as the two-time MP from Coimbatore, was born on October 20, 1957, in Tamil Nadu's Tirrupur. The BJP stalwart from Tamil Nadu has achieved a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and became the state committee member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP's precursor, in 1974. Before the Jan Sangh, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).In the year 1996, Radhakrishnan was appointed as the BJP Tamil Nadu secretary, following which he was elected as a Lok Sabha member from Coimbatore in 1998 and reelected again in 1999. The Election Commission had earlier announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election would take place on September 9, with counting of votes scheduled for the same day. The last date for filing nominations was August 21, while candidates can withdraw their nominations until August 25. The Vice Presidential post fell vacant after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 21, citing health reasons. (ANI) Having successfully used them to strike Pakistani air bases and terrorist's headquarters in Pakistan, the Indian Air Force is in the process of placing orders for a big number of Rampage air to ground missiles from Israel. The Rampage, which is known as the High Speed low Drag-Mark 2 missile in the Indian Air Force, is already integrated with the Su-30 MKI, Jaguar and MiG-29 fighter aircraft fleet. The missiles are being acquired in large numbers by the Indian Air Force under the fast track procedures and orders are likely to be placed very soon, defence sources told ANI. The missiles were used with very high precision to take out the terrorist headquarters in Pakistan's Muridke and Bahawalpur in Punjab province of Pakistan, they said. The Rampage is a very high-speed air-to-ground missile, which India first acquired in 2020-21, Galwan clashes with China by the Indian Air Force. After the splendid performance by it during the Op Sindoor, where it was fired in a big way from the Su-30 MKI against Pakistani positions in their hinterland. The orders are being placed for all the fleets with which it has been integrated, while the force is exploring the ways of putting it on other fleets as well, the sources said. The successful integration of the Rampage missiles with the Su-30 MKI has significantly enhanced the Russian aircraft fleet's firepower. This integration allows for the firing of multiple long-range air-to-ground missiles, including the BrahMos supersonic missiles with a strike range of over 400 kilometres. Furthermore, the IAF is considering the possibility of producing the Rampage missiles under the Make in India program, potentially leading to their large-scale induction. In addition to the Rampage missiles, the IAF last year tested the ROCKS (Crystal Maze-2) missile in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory. (ANI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday attended the BJP Kerala State Leadership Meet in Kochi in Kerala's Ernakulam district. Kerala BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar and other senior leaders felicitated Amit Shah at the meeting. The meeting comes ahead of the local body elections in the state. Earlier today, Amit Shah attended a media event in Kochi. On Thursday, BJP Leader Anoop Antony Joseph told ANI, "The BJP is holding a state-level leadership meeting tomorrow in Ernakulam, to be headed by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Last month, he also visited Kerala and addressed ward-level members of the BJP who are preparing for the upcoming local body elections. Tomorrow, he will be interacting with the workers from the district level to the state level." Amit Shah took to X to announce his Kerala and Tamil Nadu visits. The Union Minister said that he will attend a media conclave and interact with party workers in Kochi. While in Tamil Nadu, he will head the BJP's 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan'. "Leaving for Kochi. Will be in two states close to my heart-Kerala and Tamil Nadu, tomorrow. In the morning will attend the Manorama News Conclave and then will interact with karyakartas and leaders of @BJP4Keralam in Kochi. Later in the day, will travel to Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu and interact with BJP karyakartas of the state at the 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan'," Shah wrote. Meanwhile, extensive security arrangements have been made in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli as Union Minister Amit Shah will participate in the BJP booth committee members' southern regional meeting. The police, led by Tirunelveli City Commissioner of Police Santosh Hadimani, have made comprehensive security arrangements in the city, at the helipad, at the Armed Reserve Police Grounds and at the venue of the meeting. BJP's National Co-Incharge in Tamil Nadu, P Sudhakar Reddy, said that Amit Shah will give directions to the party workers for their booth-level campaign. Sudhakar Reddy told ANI, "Our 'Abhinav Sardar Patel' Amit Shah is coming today. He will give the direction, and they (workers) will carry that forward with their booths. This will be a grand success under the leadership of Tamil Nadu BJP President Nainar Nagendaran. First of its kind in a systematic manner." He added that the party workers will campaign in five Parliamentary and 28 Assembly segments in the State. "Five Parliamentary segments and 28 Assembly segments have been selected; above 45000 delegates are expected. Our aim is to strengthen the polling booths and highlight our Central government schemes through a door-to-door campaign. And also expose the misdeeds and anti-people policies of DMK-Congress government in Tamil Nadu," the BJP leader said. The BJP has planned to organise seven regional meetings for the booth agents to roll out its preparations for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections in 2026. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a visit to Gujarat, where he will dedicate a series of Railway projects worth over Rs 1,400 crore to the Nation on August 25, a release from the Gujarat Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said on Friday. These projects are poised to particularly benefit the districts of Mahesana, Patan, Banaskantha, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad in North Gujarat. Together, they will enhance regional connectivity, spur industrial development, improve logistics efficiency and create new avenues for employment. The projects to be dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister include: doubling of the 65 km Mahesana-Palanpur Rail Line at a cost of Rs 537 cr., gauge conversion of the 37 km Kalol-Kadi-Katosan Road Rail Line at a cost of Rs 347 cr., and gauge conversion of the 40 km Bechraji-Ranuj Rail Line at a cost of Rs 520 cr. With the addition of broad-gauge capacity, these projects will ensure smoother, safer and more seamless connectivity, especially for Mahesana, Banaskantha and Patan districts. This will significantly ease travel for daily commuters, tourists and businesses, while promoting regional economic integration. The doubling of tracks will also enhance line capacity, making it possible to run higher-speed trains on the Ahmedabad-Delhi corridor. This will allow the introduction of more passenger services and bring a marked improvement in the efficiency of freight operations, thereby infusing fresh momentum into Gujarat's economic activities. The gauge conversion of the Bechraji-Ranuj Rail Line has been carried out in alignment with the National Logistics Policy and the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan for Multimodal Connectivity. Its primary objective is to reduce logistics costs and further strengthen Gujarat's position in the national Logistics Performance Index. This initiative is expected to accelerate the socio-economic progress of North Gujarat while setting a benchmark in India's logistics and railway sectors. Further, the flagging off of passenger trains between Katosan Road & Sabarmati from Kadi will provide improved access to religious destinations, benefit daily commuters in the region, and stimulate economic activity at the grassroots level. The car-loaded freight train service from Bechraji will enhance connectivity to the state's industrial hubs, strengthening the logistics network and generating employment opportunities. Both services represent sustainable, environmentally friendly, and high-speed transport options that will reduce travel time, attract new investments and drive regional industrial growth. All these Railway projects will pave the way for a Viksit Bharat through Viksit Gujarat. (ANI) Various political parties on Friday expressed happiness and welcomed the Supreme Court's revised order, stating that the previous order was not only "inhumane" but also "against the humanitarian cause". Shiv Sena (UBT) Priyanka Chaturvedi emphasised the importance of neutering stray dogs, immunising them, and providing designated feeding areas. "I welcome the Supreme Court's order, noting that the previous order was not only inhumane but also against the humanitarian cause that everyone believes in...It was a conflict...It is important that they (stray dogs) are neutered, immunised, and have designated feeding areas. I am sure everyone will agree with this. The Supreme Court has corrected a wrong judgment given earlier," Priyanka Chaturvedi told ANI. Aam Aadmi Party Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj hit out at Delhi government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi over the issue. He welcomed SC's decision stating that it is MCD's responsibility to catch the stray dogs and immunise them. He said that the MCD has not immunised dogs on time. "The remark made by the Supreme Court is very important; the MCD did not do its work. The MCD has to do its work. It is MCD's responsibility to catch the stray dogs and immunise them. The Delhi CM and Mayor, both coming from the BJP, have to work on this... The immunisation of the dogs has not been done by the MCD on time," Bharadwaj told ANI. Congress leader Abhishek Dutt also thanked the Supreme Court over the decision and said that during his tenure in the MCD he used to raise the issue in the house. He mentioned that MCD spent crores of rupees in the name of dog sterilisation; however, it ended up in a "scam". "Many thanks to the Supreme Court for giving a very good judgment and this was also the rule... During my tenure at the Municipal Corporation, we would raise the issue in the House: how could the MCD sterilise stray dogs without staff? In the last 12-14 years, MCD has spent crores of rupees in the name of sterilisation - it was a very big scam," Dutt told ANI. He noted that aggressive dogs infected with rabies should be handled accordingly. Dutt further said that if the apex court had not taken an interest in the matter, then there would have been many problems in Delhi. The Congress leader further demanded investigation into the procedure of the MCD doing sterilisation, stating that they inject "water". "The dog that has rabies or is aggressive should definitely be removed. But the one is not doing anything to anyone, where will you take them?... If the Supreme Court had not taken an interest in this, there would have been so many issues in Delhi. The police picked up the protesters and beat them in the last 14-15 days and tortured the women... The MCD, which sterilises by injecting water, should also be investigated to find out how many crores of rupees these officers have swindled in the name of these innocent dogs. Very strong action should be taken on that too," the Congress leader said. Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Nirupam also lauded SC's directive and mentioned that he welcomes the sentiments of the people who love dogs. He said that the stray dogs are a cause of problem for the people. "We welcome the Supreme Court's order regarding stray dogs. We also welcome the sentiments of people who love dogs, but stray dogs roaming the streets often cause a lot of trouble for people... To protect people from aggressive dogs, the Supreme Court has said that such dogs should be vaccinated, sterilised and then released back," Sanjay Nirupam said. The Supreme Court on Friday modified its earlier order of August 11 regarding the management of stray dogs in Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region), directing that the animals will be released back into the same area after sterilisation and immunisation. The court clarified that stray dogs infected with rabies or showing aggressive behaviour will not be released back and will be kept separately. "Stray dogs will be released back to the same area after sterilisation and immunisation, except those infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour," the court ordered. The court ordered that no public feeding of dogs will be allowed, and dedicated feeding spaces for stray dogs to be created. It ordered the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) to create feeding areas in municipal wards. The Court noted that animal lovers can move application before MCD for adoption of dogs. The court expanded the ambit of its proceedings on menace of stray dogs and issued notice to Secretaries of department of Animal Husbandry all states and Union Territories and sought their response on framing of national policy to deal with the problem. It also directed its Registry to seek information from all High Courts where petitions are pending on issue of stray dogs and orders that all such matters will be transferred to the top court. Hailing the top court's verdict in this matter, Supreme Court lawyer and petitioner Nanita Sharma called it a "balanced order." She stated that all matters regarding dog issues pending in all courts in all states will be brought under one court. "This is a balanced order. The court has involved all states in this case. All matters regarding dog issues pending in all courts in all states will be brought under one. They have said that regular dogs should be sterilised and aggressive dogs should be put in pounds/ animal shelters. The court has ruled that MCD will establish designated feeding areas for dogs..." Nanita Sharma told reporters. On August 11, the top court ordered that all localities in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad should be made free of stray dogs and there should not be any compromise; it also made it clear that no captured animal will be released back on the streets. (ANI) The rising water level of the Ganga River has caused a flood-like situation in several villages of Kanpur. Earlier, on Tuesday, the increase in the Ramganga river water level also created a flood-like situation in nearby areas, destroying crops in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad, leaving farmers in distress and waiting for compensation from the government. Sugarcane and paddy fields were submerged, causing heavy financial losses to the farmers. The exact estimate of the loss is yet to be calculated. Moradabad Divisional Statistical Officer of the Horticulture Department, Harjeet Singh, said that farmers who have insurance under Fasal Beema Yojna will be compensated accordingly. He said, " We don't have an exact estimate of the loss yet. If the farmers have insurance under the 'Fasal Beema Yojana', they will be insured accordingly. The government will decide the compensation for the farmers...We are helping and guiding the farmers as much as we can. "He noted that the administration is actively assisting and guiding affected farmers. Sanjay, a farmer whose paddy and sugarcane fields were destroyed, expressed the financial problems he will face and said, "There was sugarcane, there was paddy... everything was destroyed in the floods... When the water level decreases, I will have to replant all the crops. There would have been a loss of Rs 20,000. The government should think about this. I will have to take a loan again..."Several regions are experiencing heavy rainfall, cloudbursts, flash floods, and landslides, causing loss of life and property. The water level of several rivers has crossed the danger mark. Earlier, all the 18 gates of Hathinikund Barrage were opened after 1.78 lakh cusec of water came into the river due to heavy rainfall, resulting in a rise in the water level. (ANI) Amid the row over reciting the RSS anthem in the Karnataka Assembly, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Friday denied the speculations of joining hands with the BJP and RSS. "I am a genuine Congressman. A Congressman by birth. I will remain a Congressman as long as I live. My life, my blood is all for Congress. I am now leading the party. I will stand as its pillar," Dy CM DK Shivakumar said firmly while responding to media queries at Vidhana Soudha. When asked if there is a discussion about joining hands with the BJP and RSS, Shivakumar replied, "I have no intention of joining hands with them in any way, directly or indirectly. I am a genuine Congressman. I am doing research on the Janata Dal and the BJP. I have also learned about RSS." He added that RSS is investing in building educational institutions in every district of the state. "I have done my own research on every political party. I know how the RSS built its organisation in the state. The RSS is taking educational institutions under its wing everywhere, including every taluk and district. It is investing a lot of money. It is working to reach out to children," he said. On reciting the RSS anthem in the Assembly, Shivakumar said that one should notice "good qualities" in others. "Politically, we may have differences. As a political person, don't I need to know who are my friends and who are my enemies among my political opponents? That is why I have learned the history of the RSS. In some cases, there are some good qualities in some organisations. Shouldn't we also notice them? It is our nature to speak directly and boldly. We should notice the good qualities in others, and that is what we have done," he told the reporters. "Each of you (media) also has a quality. There is a quality that slips when you try to catch it. There is also a good quality. Shouldn't we notice them?" he added. When asked about the BJP's Dharmasthala Yatra, he said, "BJP is a customer of this. What they are doing is politics. The investigation team, led by senior officer Mohanty, is doing its job neatly." Amidst a debate over the M Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede in the Karnataka Assembly on Thursday, Dy CM DK Shivakumar broke into the RSS anthem during his exchange of words with BJP MLA R Ashoka. Meanwhile, defending BJP National General Secretary BL Santosh against the allegations by Timarodi, he said that the allegations should be based on evidence. Shivakumar said, "The person who made allegations against BJP National General Secretary BL Santosh (Mahesh Shetty Timarodi) has been kicked out and put inside. What record does he have to make allegations? We may have a lot of political differences, but we are not happy that he talks about our opponents." "Those who spoke about him today will also talk about us tomorrow. In the past, false allegations have been made against the Chief Minister and me. We should work so that no one's self-respect is hurt in this state. Let's do politics, let's make political allegations. But let's make allegations based on evidence," he said. When asked about the demand of the like-minded forum that the hundi money collected in Dharmasthala should be accounted for, he said, "The Income Tax Department is there to look into this." (ANI) Oasis have released Bring It On Down (Live from Edinburgh, 9 August 25). Oasis have released a live recording of Bring It On Down from their Edinburgh gig The live recording is from the band's second of three sold-out nights at Edinburghs Murrayfield Stadium, where the Britpop legends wowed 204,000 fans with their monumental reunion show. The latest live cut follows Slide Away (Live from Cardiff, 4 July 25), Cigarettes and Alcohol (Live from Manchester, 11 July 25), and Little By Little (Live from London, 2 August 25). The band have also released the limited-edition Oasis Complete Studio Album Collection box set including all seven studio albums plus iconic B-sides album The Masterplan on vinyl and CD formats. The (Whats The Story) Morning Glory? Deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition collection will also be released on October 3, with limited-edition formats featuring new unplugged versions of classic tracks. The North American leg of the Oasis Live '25 Tour is fast approaching with two nights at Torontos Rogers Stadium on October 24 and 25, before further dates in the US throughout August and September. After two nights in Mexico City on September 12 and 13, Oasis will return home for the tours final UK performances, their sixth and seventh nights at Londons iconic Wembley Stadium on September 27 and 28. They will then head to Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Brazil, with the final date set for November 23 in Sao Paulo. Oasis have made a triumphant return to the stage with their tour this summer as Liam and his older brother Noel Gallagher have put an end to their long-running feud and the Supersonic band are said to have been offered the chance to continue their reunion into 2026 with four shows at Knebworth. The proposed dates would mark the 30th anniversary of the band's seminal concerts at the Hertfordshire venue in 1996, but those close to Oasis stress that nothing has been finalised yet. A source told The Sun newspaper's Bizarre column: "They've seen the speculation, they've heard about the offers and they know what the fans want. "It's ultimately up for them to decide. The Oasis reunion hasn't just been concerts. You can see that it's been a cultural movement. Nothing comes close in recent history to Oasis' shows. "It's a question of whether Noel and Liam want to draw a line in the sand and close the door on this chapter, knowing they capture the zeitgeist. Or do they strike it up again and keep the magic going? It's a difficult decision to make." Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar held an important meeting on Friday with senior state officials. In this meeting, it was announced that this year's Ganesh Festival will be celebrated as a "Mahayuti Government's State Festival." This year, the Ganesh Festival will be celebrated with greater enthusiasm, with all state departments working in full capacity. In Pune, metro services will run from 6 AM to 2 AM during the festival. On the final day of immersion, the metro will remain operational throughout the day. Special planning will be done to guide devotees of the "Manacha Ganpati" (prestigious Ganesh idols) on which stations to board and alight. Discussions are underway regarding Ganesh mandal immersion processions, with emphasis on starting the processions early in the morning while maintaining the honour of the Manacha Ganpati. Positive discussions are also taking place about the number of traditional drum troupes (Dhol-Tasha Pathaks) and overall arrangements. The Pune Grand Challenge Tour will see participation from the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporations, the Zilla Parishad, and various other government bodies. The official logo for the program has also been unveiled. The state government has decided to move ahead with the Purandar Airport project. Notices have been issued for land acquisition of 1,285 acres across certain villages, and implementation will begin soon. While some opposition has been raised, the government will attempt to resolve it through dialogue. Families whose houses are affected will be compensated appropriately. Regarding the rainfall situation in Western Maharashtra, water levels at Manikdoh dam are reported to be low, although most other dams are filled. The danger of a red alert has been avoided, and the overall situation is under control, Pawar assured. Orders have been issued to carry out crop damage assessments (panchnamas) in areas where farmers have suffered losses. The Chief Minister himself is closely monitoring the situation, and citizens need not fear. Heavy rainfall in recent days caused some traffic congestion, but new bridges and flyovers are gradually being inaugurated. The Sinhgad Road flyover will also be opened for public use soon. On the question of Guardian Minister appointments, Ajit Pawar clarified, "This is the Chief Minister's prerogative. There is no issue in Raigad or Nashik. Flag-hoisting ceremonies are being conducted smoothly." He also praised recent disciplinary action against a bureaucrat, endorsing the decision of dismissal. (ANI) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday reached out to Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and NCP-SC leader Sharad Pawar, seeking their support for the NDA's Vice Presidential candidate, CP Radhakrishnan. While Thackeray said he would consider the request and respond after discussions, Pawar indicated that his party would back the Opposition's nominee. Speaking to reporters, CM Fadnavis said, "I spoke to Uddhav Thackery ji and Sharad Pawar ji and requested them to support Maharashtra Governor's (CP Radhakrishnan) candidature for Vice Presidential elections. Uddhav ji told me that he will discuss and let me know. Sharad Pawar ji said that he will have to go with the candidate fielded by the Opposition." Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that Radhakrishnan would serve as an "outstanding" Vice President. "Along with Ministers, Party colleagues and NDA leaders, accompanied Thiru CP Radhakrishnan as he filed his nomination for the post of Vice President of India. The NDA family is confident that he will be an outstanding VP and will enrich our journey towards national progress," PM Modi's post on social media X read. CP Radhakrishnan on Wednesday filed his nomination papers for the Vice Presidential elections in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, who has been the Maharashtra Governor since July 31, 2024, had earlier also served as the Governor of Jharkhand, Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. Radhakrishnan, who served as the two-time MP from Coimbatore, was born on October 20, 1957, in Tamil Nadu's Tirrupur. The BJP stalwart from Tamil Nadu has achieved a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and became the state committee member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP's precursor, in 1974. Before the Jan Sangh, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).In the year 1996, Radhakrishnan was appointed as the BJP Tamil Nadu secretary, following which he was elected as a Lok Sabha member from Coimbatore in 1998 and reelected again in 1999. The Election Commission had earlier announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election would take place on September 9, with counting of votes scheduled for the same day. The last date for filing nominations was August 21, while candidates can withdraw their nominations until August 25. The Vice Presidential post fell vacant after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 21, citing health reasons. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, during a rally in Bihar's Gaya Ji, launched an attack on the "corrupt" Opposition and criticised the rule of previous governments of the RJD and the Congress in the State. The Prime Minister took a swipe at the RJD's governance in Bihar as "an era of darkness." "Remember the condition here during the rule of lantern (RJD). This region was in the clutches of red terror. Cities like Gaya Ji were in darkness during the rule of 'lantern' (RJD)... They had pushed the entire state into darkness. There was no education or employment. So many generations were forced to migrate. RJD considers the people of Bihar only as their vote bank. They want nothing to do with their life, sorrows, or respect." Further, PM Modi also took aim at the Congress, stating that no one can forget Congress's "hate" for the people of Bihar. "A Congress CM had said that he will not let people of Bihar enter his state. No one can forget Congress' hate for the people of Bihar. Despite seeing the Congress' misbehaviour with the people of Bihar, the RJD were in deep slumber. Bihar's NDA government is giving answers to hateful campaign of Congress and RJD. NDA is working hard so that the youth of Bihar can get employment here in their state, so that they get respect and they are able to stay with their parents," the Prime Minister stated. PM Modi pointed out that Bihar's fast development is the priority of NDA-led Central government. "Bihar is moving forward on the way of development. Over the few past years, solutions for old problems and ways for new development were also carved out," he said. The Prime Minister also alleged that the parties such as the Congress, the RJD and the Left were opposing the 130th Constitution Amendment Bill, which seeks the removal of any Prime Minister, Chief Ministers and Ministers who have been under arrest for 30 consecutive days and asked why people holding key posts should be allowed to function from jails. "I firmly believe that in the fight against corruption, no one should be above the law if we are to see it through to its logical conclusion. If a government employee is imprisoned for 50 hours, then he loses his job automatically, be it a driver, a clerk or a peon. But a CM, a minister, or even a PM can enjoy staying in the government even from jail..." "Some time ago, we saw how files were being signed from jail and how government orders were given from jail. If leaders have such an attitude, how can we fight corruption..." PM Modi said in an apparent reference to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal's arrest during his term as Delhi chief minister. "NDA government has brought a law against corruption, and the Prime Minister also comes under its purview...," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister further said, "RJD and Congress leaders, some are out on bail, some are running around courts in the 'Rail ke khel', and those roaming free on bail are today opposing this law..." The Prime Minister was apparently referring to RJD supremo Lalu Yadav who is entangled in two key railway-related cases: the Land-for-Jobs scam, where he allegedly exchanged land for railway appointments during his 2004-2009 tenure, and the IRCTC scam, involving alleged irregularities in awarding hotel contracts for land parcels. The PM added that "they think that if they go to jail, all their dreams will be shattered. They are so rattled that they are opposing a law which is in the public interest." He added that these parties fear scrutiny "as they have committed wrongs and fear the consequences." Notably, the assembly elections in Bihar are expected to take place between October and November, however, the dates for the polls have not been announced yet. (ANI) Criticising RJD chief Lalu Yadav over his remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Bihar's Gaya Ji, BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain on Friday said that such "undiginified" statement shows how "rattled" former Bihar Chief Minister is with PM Modi visiting the state here. The remarks came after RJD supremo said that PM Modi is visiting Bihar to perform "pind daan" of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's political career and JDU. Speaking to ANI, the BJP leader said, "Lalu Yadav is giving an undignified statement. It shows how rattled he is. When PM Modi visits Bihar, all the leaders of the Mahagathbandhan tremble. To say that the PM is coming for 'pind-dann' is unfortunate. This time, people of Bihar will do 'pind-daan' of Mahagathbandhan as NDA will win more than 200 seats." Earlier today, Union Minister Chirag Paswan condemned RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's "Pind Daan" remark and stated that the Opposition should not use such language against the Chief Minister. Chirag Paswan asked the Opposition to raise questions at the policy level rather than indulging in such remarks. "This is wrong. What kind of language is this? You raise questions about the policies; you are making SIR an issue, which is fine. But to say "Pind Daan" and use such language against the Chief Minister, I condemn this," Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief told the reporters. In a post on X, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav wrote, "Prime Minister Modi ji is coming to Gaya today to perform the Pind Daan (a post-death ritual) of Nitish Kumar's politics and his party." Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth Rs 12,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar today. The Prime Minister offered salutations to Gaya ji, the sacred city of knowledge and liberation and extended greetings to all from the glorious land of the Vishnupad Temple. PM Modi remarked that the land of Gaya ji is a land of spirituality and peace. He highlighted that this sacred soil is where Lord Buddha attained enlightenment. "Gaya ji's spiritual and cultural heritage is both ancient and immensely rich," PM Modi said. (ANI) Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President N Ramchander Rao on Friday alleged that he was detained by the Moinabad Police while en route to the Secretariat to protest against the State government over various public issues in Greater Hyderabad. Rao, who was reportedly touring Chevella, said he was detained while heading towards the protest site. He also shared images from the protest on the social media platform X. "In the context of calling for a siege of the Secretariat over public issues in Greater Hyderabad, the police arrested me at Moinabad while I was on a tour in Chevella," Rao said. The BJP leader hit out at the Congress-led State government, accusing it of failing to address key civic problems. "This is merely an attempt to suppress questioning on public issues. The drainage system under @GHMCOnline jurisdiction has completely collapsed. Roads are riddled with potholes, traffic control is nonexistent, and colonies have become a living hell due to the stench of garbage. Drinking water shortages, electricity issues... these are the daily struggles of the people. The recent incidents in Ramanthapur and Old City areas, where innocent lives were lost, are all outcomes of government negligence," he said. He also took aim at Chief Minister Revanth Reddy over his frequent visits to Delhi, rather than "serving the people". "@revanth_anumula, as Chief Minister, is confined to Delhi tours rather than serving the people. As the Municipal Administration Minister, his priority is not public service but commissions," he added. Slamming the Congress government further, he said, "A Congress government that cannot solve problems, plays with people's lives, and suppresses democracy is not needed in Telangana!" He added that the BJP state unit would continue its fight on every issue. "@BJP4Telangana state unit - will fight alongside the people on every issue, in every street," he vowed. The police also detained scores of other BJP leaders during their protest. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on Friday inaugurated the Aunta-Simaria bridge project constructed over the River Ganga on National Highway 31 in Begusarai. Bihar Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Union Minister Giriraj Singh, and Deputy Chief Ministers Vijay Sinha and Samrat Choudhary also attended the inauguration ceremony. The 8.15-km-long project includes a 1.86-km-long six-lane bridge, built at a cost of over Rs 1,870 crore. The bridge is expected to significantly reduce the extra travel distance of more than 100 km for the heavy vehicles moving between North Bihar districts such as Begusarai, Supaul, Madhubani, Purnea, and Araria, and South Bihar areas including Sheikhpura, Nawada, and Lakhisarai. The bridge will also help decongest traffic in other parts of the region caused by the earlier detour these vehicles had to take. Prime Minister Modi also held a roadshow and greeted the public during his visit to Begusarai, Bihar. Speaking to ANI, Begusarai District Magistrate (DM) Tushar Singla termed the day historic for the region. "Today is a very big day not only for Begusarai but for the whole of Bihar. It is a matter of pride for the people of Begusarai as PM Modi arrived here...The bridge has been inaugurated by PM Modi...The bridge will provide direct connectivity between Mokama in Patna and Begusarai...This is a very big engineering project..." he said. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for several development projects in Bihar's Gaya district. Addressing a public rally in Gaya Ji, Prime Minister Modi launched a scathing attack on the "corrupt" Opposition, further criticising the rule of previous governments of the RJD and the Congress in the State. "Remember the condition here during the rule of lantern (RJD). This region was in the clutches of the Red Terror. Cities like Gaya Ji were in darkness during the rule of 'lantern' (RJD)... They had pushed the entire state into darkness. There was no education or employment. So many generations were forced to migrate. RJD considers the people of Bihar only as their vote bank. They want nothing to do with their life, sorrows, or respect," the Prime Minister said. Prime Minister Modi also flagged off the Amrit Bharat Express from Gaya to Delhi. Speaking at the launch, the Prime Minister said the Amrit Bharat Express is the third modern train introduced in the country after the Vande Bharat and Namo Bharat trains, adding that this "tri-power" will transform Indian Railways. The Amrit Bharat Express is a new-generation train offering state-of-the-art facilities at an affordable cost. A total of nine Amrit Bharat trains are currently operational across the country, including on routes such as Darbhanga-Anand Vihar Terminal, Saharsa-Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Rajendranagar Terminal-New Delhi, Bapudham Motihari-Anand Vihar Terminal, Darbhanga-Gomtinagar, Malda Town-Gomtinagar, Sitamarhi-Delhi and Malda Town-Sir M. Visvesvaraya Terminal Bengaluru. This indigenous train strengthens the spirit of self-reliant India, whose identity is rooted in three key aspects, including passenger convenience, energy saving, and environmental awareness. Amrit Bharat Express is also very safe from a technical point of view. Equipped with the Kavach system, this train has been fitted with a semi-automatic coupler, a crash tube and an EP-assisted brake system, so that immediate braking can be done in case of emergency. (ANI) Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday interacted with the women officers of 15 countries alongside India, who are participating in a nearly two-week-long United Nations Women Military Officers Course (UNWMOC-2025) being held at Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi. According to the Ministry of Defence, the course organised by the Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of External Affairs, and scheduled from August 18 to 29, 2025, aims to strengthen the professional capacity of women military officers for effective participation in multidimensional UN missions. Addressing the officers at South Block, Raksha Mantri stated that, as the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, India has been a strong supporter of women's participation & their integration into these missions. Through initiatives such as UNWMOC, it prepares women officers for complex peacekeeping environments. "We are strengthening policies to encourage women's participation in our Armed Forces and peacekeeping contingents, ensuring they have equal opportunities to lead & serve. We will continue to work with the UN and troop-contributing countries to advance gender parity, foster inclusive leadership, and create a world where peace is not just sustained but thrives through diversity and equality," added Rajnath Singh. UNWMOC-2025 has brought together participants from Armenia, DR Congo, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uruguay and Vietnam, alongside 12 Indian women officers and five interns, making the course a vibrant international platform for training and exchange. Defence Minister described the presence of officers from 15 countries as a reflection of a microcosm of the UN and its enduring spirit of unity & cooperation. You are the torchbearers of change. Your dedication strengthens not only peacekeeping but also the very fabric of global security. India stands with you, proud of your contributions and steadfast in its commitment to support your journey," he told the officers. On the vision of the UN to increase the participation of women officers in peacekeeping missions, Shri Rajnath Singh stated that this commitment stems from the recognition that women peacekeepers are essential to making missions more effective, inclusive, and sustainable. "Women officers bring invaluable perspectives and approaches to peace operations. They are often able to foster deeper trust with local communities, particularly with women and children, whose voices are vital in rebuilding societies torn by conflict. Their presence has been shown to help prevent sexual violence, improve access to humanitarian assistance and increase gender equality on the ground. Moreover, women peacekeepers serve as powerful role models, inspiring local women and girls to see themselves as active participants in peace and security," he said, adding that India's own journey in peacekeeping reflects this very belief in the power and potential of women officers. During the event, Raksha Mantri also unveiled the UN Journal 2025 - 'Blue Helmet Odyssey: 75 Years of Indian Peacekeeping' - a Platinum Jubilee edition which captures India's legacy, innovations, and future vision in UN Peacekeeping. Reflecting on the blue colour of the helmets, he stated that, like the sky, the UN Peacekeepers offer protection and a sense of security, and like the oceans, they build connections across borders and cultures. Chief of the Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi and other senior officers were present during the interaction. The curriculum of UNWMOC-2025 includes key aspects of modern peacekeeping, such as International Humanitarian Law, Refugees and Internally Displaced People, Protection of Civilians, Conduct and Discipline, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Child Protection in conflict. Distinguished speakers from the United Nations, the Ministry of External Affairs, international organisations and senior Indian Army veterans are addressing the participants. A field demonstration by an Infantry Battalion nominated for the UN will further enhance practical understanding. (ANI) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) on Friday launched a sharp attack on the Congress-led Telangana government, blaming it for the alleged "severe urea shortage" affecting farmers across the state. In an official release, KTR accused the government of administrative incompetence and warned that the "downfall" of the present rulers, who have pushed farmers "to their limits," has begun. He alleged that farmers across Telangana were facing immense hardships "because of an incompetent government" lacking governance expertise. KTR said the people of Telangana now realise the value of "true leadership and effective governance" that marked former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's tenure. He stated that the farmers' plight is a result of "petty politics" and the rule of incompetent leaders who have no understanding of governance. Drawing a comparison, he pointed to what he described as a clear difference between "Delhi-based leaders who are all talk and no action" and KCR, whom he referred to as "the personification of a hundred-year vision." He claimed that this distinction had become "clear to the four crore people of Telangana." He detailed the robust planning and extensive groundwork undertaken by former Chief Minister KCR to ensure a timely urea supply. KTR recalled how KCR would hold a series of meetings with agriculture officials and submit detailed requests to the Centre well before each season. Furthermore, he would dispatch state officials to ports in Andhra Pradesh to monitor the supply. "For urea transportation, KCR himself would directly call South Central Railway officials and make special requests for 25 dedicated goods trains", as per the release. KTR highlighted KCR's proactive approach, which included directly coordinating with transport ministers of neighbouring states to prepare a fleet of up to 4,000 trucks if needed. He explained that a strategic distribution plan was devised to ensure urea was transported directly from ports to mandals, guaranteeing timely delivery to every farmer. "Elaborate arrangements were made to supply urea directly in villages to prevent any shortage anywhere in the state" KTR concluded by alleging that the current government's lack of foresight and efficiency, a stark contrast to KCR's leadership, is "why farmers are suffering". He emphasised that the Congress government lacks the experience and clarity in administration that KCR possessed, and "this is the root cause of the farmers' distress". (ANI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday took to X to share a post detailing her contribution to Kolkata's metro expansion on the same day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Kolkata to flag off new services. The Chief Minister did not attend the Prime Minister's unveiling of infrastructure projects, including three Metro services in Kolkata. Her post on X read, "Allow me to be a little nostalgic today. As the Railways Minister of India, I was fortunate in planning and sanctioning a series of Metro Railway corridors in metropolitan Kolkata. I had drawn the blueprints, arranged the funds, initiated the works and ensured that the different ends of the city ( Joka, Garia, Airport, Sector V, etc) were connected by an intra-city Metro grid. Later, as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, I had the additional privilege of taking part in the execution of the projects." "From the State, I arranged free land, paved roads, arranged rehabilitation of displaced people, removed impediments, and ensured all help in the execution of projects. Our Chief Secretaries successively held a series of coordination meetings to ensure the integration of the execution agencies. My planning as Railways Minister got fulfilment in my participation in execution. Expanding Metro infrastructure has been a long journey for me. Allow me some nostalgia today," the West Bengal CM posted. The Trinamool chief had held the railway portfolio in the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee between 1999 and 2001, and during the Congress-led UPA-2 from 2009 to 2011. Meanwhile, PM Modi visited the Jessore Road Metro Station in Kolkata, where he flagged off the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road. In addition, through video conferencing, he also flagged off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. At the public function, the Prime Minister inaugurated these metro sections and a newly constructed subway at Howrah Metro Station. The Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service will significantly improve access to the airport. The Sealdah-Esplanade metro will reduce the travel time between the two points from nearly 40 minutes to only 11 minutes. The Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro section will play a crucial role in enhancing connectivity with the IT hub. These metro routes will connect some of Kolkata's busiest areas, bring a notable reduction in travel time, and strengthen multimodal connectivity, benefiting lakhs of daily commuters. (ANI) He visited the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he inaugurated the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road Metro Station and Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. In addition, through video conferencing, he flagged off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. He also undertaken a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. The Sealdah-Esplanade metro will reduce the travel time between the two points from nearly 40 minutes to only 11 minutes. The Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro section will play a crucial role in enhancing connectivity with the IT hub. These metro routes will connect some of Kolkata's busiest areas, bring a notable reduction in travel time, and strengthen multimodal connectivity, benefiting lakhs of daily commuters, added the release. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister also visted Bihar and laid the foundation stone and inaugurate multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya. He flagged off the Amrit Bharat Express running from Gaya to Delhi. Speaking at the inauguration, the Prime Minister said the Amrit Bharat Express is the country's third modern train after the Vande Bharat and Namo Bharat trains. He added that this "tri-power" of trains would transform the Indian Railways. Prime Minister along with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today inaugurated the Aunta-Simaria bridge project constructed over the River Ganga on National Highway 31 in Begusarai. Bihar Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Union Minister Giriraj Singh, and Deputy Chief Ministers Vijay Sinha and Samrat Choudhary also attended the inauguration ceremony. (ANI) Michelle Obama has revealed that President Barack Obama found the couple's youngest daughter, Sasha, more difficult to parent. Michelle and Barack Obama The former First Lady of the United States spoke about life raising Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, inside the White House on her podcast IMO, which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson. Chatting with guests Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade, Michelle recalled how the children responded very differently to their father during his years in the White House between 2009 and 2017. Michelle said: "I'd say this to Barack when it comes to [our] oldest Malia, she is going to figure out who you are and what you like and discuss it." She added that Malia would make a point of spending time with her father before heading out for the evening. "When Malia was a teenager, it wasn't that she was going out any less or doing anything differently, [but] she would tell me: 'I'm going out this weekend, but I'm going to go in and give dad like 15 minutes'." Michelle recalled her daughter slipping into the treaty room and saying "'tell me about Syria?'" before swiftly making her exit. "Then she'd be like 'ok, well I'm gone'." "Barack would come out of the treaty room going, 'I just had an amazing conversation with Malia,' and I'm like 'ok'." But when it came to Sasha, Michelle said the younger daughter could not have been more different. She told listeners that Sasha was "like a cat" and was never keen on pleasing her parents. Michelle explained: "She's like, 'don't touch me, don't pet me, I'm not pleasing you, you come to me'. "Barack's like, well, 'she's difficult', and I was like 'no, the first one was a pleaser, right?'" Justice Alok Jain directed that the call detail records (CDRs) and tower location data of the complainant (wife), her parents, and two alleged mediators from Panchayat meetings be preserved separately. The Magistrate has been tasked with verifying the accessibility of the data and ensuring it is stored with the required certificate under Section 65-B of the Evidence Act (now Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023). Importantly, the Court ordered that the data remain sealed and not be disclosed to either side at this stage. The order came on a petition filed by the husband, who faces charges under Sections 323, 406, 498-A and 506 IPC. His wife had left the matrimonial home in August 2023 and lodged a complaint almost ten months later. He argued that the alleged Panchayat meetings cited to explain this delay never took place, and mobile records from August 2023 to July 2024 could prove it. While the trial court had dismissed the plea as a "roving inquiry," the High Court took a more balanced view. It recognised the urgency of preservation before telecom companies deleted the data, while also safeguarding privacy by keeping the records sealed until the appropriate stage of trial. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Ministry of Law and Justice, the Delhi government, and others on a petition filed by Vikas Yadav, convicted in the 2002 Nitish Katara murder case, seeking statutory remission of his 25-year sentence. Justice Ravinder Dudeja directed the respondents, including Nitish Katara's mother Neelam Katara, to file their replies before the next hearing on September 2. Vikas Yadav, 51, who has been in prison for over 23 years, also sought interim bail on the ground that his marriage has been fixed for September 5. He further submitted that he needs time to arrange the fine amount of Rs 54 lakh imposed at the time of sentencing. Yadav's counsel pressed for an early hearing in view of his personal circumstances, but the court scheduled the matter for September 2. Senior Advocate N Hariharan, appearing for Yadav, argued that the denial of remission violates his fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. He pointed out that the Supreme Court, by its order dated July 29, 2025, had dismissed Yadav's writ petition but granted him liberty to approach the High Court on the remission issue. The top court had also extended his interim bail until August 26, allowing him to remain out of custody for the time being. Opposing the plea, Neelam Katara, mother of the deceased, argued that the petition is not maintainable and should not be entertained. She has consistently opposed any relief to the convicts in the case, maintaining that the heinous crime warrants no leniency. The case dates back to 2002 when Nitish Katara, a young business executive, was kidnapped and murdered by Vikas Yadav, son of former MP DP Yadav, along with his cousin Vishal Yadav and others. The Delhi High Court in February 2015 had modified its punishment, awarding a fixed term of 25 years without remission, which was later upheld by the Supreme Court in October 2016. Yadav and the other convicts were found guilty under Sections 302, 364, 201, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In 2022, Yadav approached the Supreme Court claiming that the denial of remission curtailed his statutory rights under Sections 432, 433, and 433A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). He asserted that remission is an executive function vested with the state and cannot be barred by judicial orders. The Supreme Court, however, in its July 2025 ruling, refrained from deciding on the merits and left him free to raise the issue before the High Court. In his present petition, Yadav has contended that the High Court exceeded its jurisdiction by barring remission while imposing a fixed-term sentence. He maintained that, having served more than 23 years of incarceration, he is statutorily eligible to seek remission, and denial of the same without due process amounts to a violation of his fundamental rights. (ANI) Advocate Vikas Verma on Friday submitted a formal representation to key government authorities including the Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary (Home) of the Delhi Government, the Secretary of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), and the Director of Prosecution raising strong objections to a recent recruitment notice for Public Prosecutors. The notice, issued by the Directorate of Prosecution, Government of NCT of Delhi (GNCTD), invites applications from retired prosecutors for contractual appointments. It has been widely circulated in print media and published on the Directorate's official website. Verma's representation denounces the notification as unconstitutional, arbitrary, and discriminatory against young legal professionals. He contends that the move circumvents the established recruitment process through UPSC or other statutory bodies, effectively enabling a backdoor entry for retired officials. Verma cited landmark Supreme Court rulings State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (2006) and Renu v. District & Sessions Judge, Tis Hazari (2014), which underscore the necessity of transparent and competitive recruitment for public posts. He argued that the number of positions advertised exceeds the sanctioned strength of Public Prosecutors, referencing a Delhi Government affidavit submitted in Court on its Own Motion v. State (NCT of Delhi) in July 2025. The advocate alleged that the notification was issued with malafide intent, favouring a select group of retirees while sidelining thousands of qualified young advocates. Verma emphasised that the recruitment process violates Articles 14, 16, and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, which guarantee equality before law, equal opportunity in public employment, and the right to practice a profession, respectively. He also invoked Article 51A(j), which calls on citizens to strive for excellence in professional life, an ideal he believes is undermined by non-merit-based appointments. The notification, he argued, excludes SC, ST, and OBC candidates by limiting eligibility to retired prosecutors, thereby bypassing reservation policies and judicial mandates. Verma criticised the Directorate for ignoring Delhi High Court directives to conduct recruitment through UPSC, opting instead for an interview-only process restricted to retirees--raising concerns about favouritism and lack of transparency. He noted that the Bar Council of Delhi and other stakeholders were not consulted, violating principles of natural justice. Hiring retired prosecutors who already receive pensions, he added, would impose unnecessary financial strain on the state, whereas regular recruitment would promote institutional continuity and efficiency. Verma warned that allowing such appointments could set a precedent for arbitrary hiring across government departments, eroding fairness in public employment. He urged the government to align its actions with the Directive Principles of State Policy, referencing State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024) to advocate for evolving affirmative action frameworks. In conclusion, he demanded the immediate withdrawal of the notification, a formal inquiry into its issuance, and a halt to any appointments made under its provisions. He also called for future recruitments to be conducted exclusively through UPSC or other legally constituted bodies, ensuring merit-based and inclusive selection. (ANI) Lawyers affiliated with the Delhi District Court Bar Associations on Friday observed a strike against the Lieutenant Governor's notification on police depositions. Lawyers are on a two-day strike on this issue. Due to the abstention of lawyers, the hearing in several cases was adjourned on Friday. Delhi Riots larger Conspiracy case arguements on the charge were also adjourned till August 27. On Thursday, the Coordination Committee of All District Bar Associations of Delhi announced a complete abstention from work across all district courts on 22nd and 23rd August, 2025, in protest against the recent notification issued by the Lieutenant Governor, which allows police depositions to be recorded from police stations instead of courts. The decision came after an urgent meeting held on Thursday evening, where the Committee expressed strong resentment against the move, terming it "arbitrary, unlawful, and against the fundamental principles of justice". Earlier, on August 20, the Committee had submitted representations to the LG of Delhi, the Union Home Minister, Union Law Minister, Chief Minister of Delhi, and Delhi Home Minister, strongly objecting to the notification. It highlighted that the order conflicts with a July 15, 2024, circular issued by the Union Home Secretary. The Committee urged immediate withdrawal of the notification and warned that failure to do so would compel lawyers to protest. Despite the representation, the notification has not been withdrawn. Consequently, the Bar bodies have unanimously resolved to paralyse court functioning for two days. "No advocate shall appear before any court, either physically or virtually. Strict action will be taken against those who defy the call," the resolution stated. Tarun Rana, Secretary of the New Delhi Bar Association (NDBA) and Additional Secretary General of the Coordination Committee, said, "This directive is not only anti-lawyer but also anti-justice and against the larger public interest. Recording depositions at police stations would seriously obstruct the trial process and undermine judicial independence." The Committee further announced that it will convene again on August 23, 2025, to assess the prevailing situation and decide the future course of action, hinting at a possible escalation if the government does not withdraw the notification. Advocate Tarun Rana on Friday said that the strike was successful. "We have approached the LG through representation. We will wait for the response." (ANI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday took a dig at Pakistan Army Chief over his "India is a shining Mercedes" remark and said he did not consider Asim Munir's statement as "mere troll material" but a "confession" that Pakistan is a "dumper" state. Singh said that everyone acknowledged that India has bulit a "Ferrari-like economy" and Pakistan is still in a "dumper state". "I would like to draw your attention to the statement given recently by Pakistan's Army Chief General Asim Munir. He said, 'India is a shining Mercedes coming on the highway like a Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?' India's economy is like a Mercedes and a Ferrari running on the highway. He (Munir) said, I am not saying. Pakistan's economy is like a dump truck full of debris" "Now you people know the answer to this. Now, Asim Munir was trolled a lot for this statement both inside Pakistan and all over the world," Rajnath Singh noted. Rajnath Singh said this while addressing The Economic Times World Leaders' Forum 2025 in the national capital. Singh also said that India is economically growing much faster due to "right policies" than Pakistan, even though both countries gained Independence at the same time. "Everyone said that if two countries got independence at the same time and one country built a Ferrari-like economy through hard work, right policies and foresight and the other is still in a dumper state, then it is their own failure. I consider this statement of Asim Munir as a confession. I do not consider his statement as mere troll material..." "If we do not pay attention to the historical indication behind this serious warning, then it can become a matter of concern for us. And yes, if we pay attention to this and prepare for it, then India is capable of giving a befitting reply to such warnings," he remarked. (ANI) Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who recently became the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station as part of the Axiom-4 mission, met President Droupadi Murmu on Friday here at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. President Murmu expressed her best wishes to Shubhanshu Shukla for being the first Indian to return from the International Space Station (ISS). Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair and Group Captain Punyashlok Biswal, along with Chairman, ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space, Dr V Narayanan and Director, Human Space Flight Centre, Dinesh Kumar Singh, were also present. The President extended her best wishes to the entire team for future endeavours, especially for the Gaganyaan Mission. After meeting with the President, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla shared his experiences in space. In a post on X, the President said, "Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair and Group Captain Punyashlok Biswal, along with Chairman, ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space, Dr V Narayanan and Director, Human Space Flight Centre, Shri Dinesh Kumar Singh, called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla shared his experiences in space with the President. The President extended her best wishes to the entire team for future endeavours, especially for the Gaganyaan Mission." https://x.com/rashtrapatibhvn/status/1958791496918073693 Earlier, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla shared detailed insights about the experience and its significance for India's ambitions in human spaceflight, emphasising the invaluable knowledge gained from being in space itself. Speaking at a press conference, he underscored the pride and profound perspective gained by viewing Earth from orbit. He said, "Bharat aaj bhi Antariksh se saare jahaan se achha dikhta hai." He explained that the true benefit of executing a human space mission goes far beyond rigorous training, referencing India's upcoming space endeavour Gaganyaan. "The supplementary knowledge we get just by being there is invaluable. All the information I have collected in the past year will be extremely useful to us for our own missions, Gaganyaan and Bharatiya Antariksh Station. Very soon we shall send someone from our capsule, from our rocket and from our soil," he added. Shukla, who returned to Earth on July 15 after completing NASA's Axiom-4 (AX-4) space mission, landed in Delhi on August 17. (ANI) Speaking to the reporters, Andhra Pradesh CM expressed happiness over the NDA's selection of CP Radhakrishnan as the Vice President candidate. "We are very happy that NDA has selected CP Radhakrishnan as a candidate for the post of Vice President of India. He is the best suitable candidate. We are very happy to extend our support to him. TDP joined the NDA before the elections. Both governments in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh have an NDA government. Apart from that, he is a gentleman. He is also very patriotic. He is going to bring pride to our nation...We are together," CM Naidu said. Earlier on Wednesday, Radhakrishnan filed his nomination papers for the Vice Presidential elections in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda, Kiren Rijiju and Arjun Ram Meghwal were also present at the occasion. Prime Minister Modi on Wednesday expressed confidence that Radhakrishnan will be an "outstanding" Vice President. "The NDA family is confident that he will be an outstanding VP and will enrich our journey towards national progress," PM Modi wrote on 'X'. On Thursday, former Supreme Court Justice B Sudarshan Reddy filed his nomination for contesting the Vice Presidential elections and pledged to discharge the role with impartiality, dignity, and a steadfast commitment, if elected. Reddy filed the nomination in the presence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi. The Election Commission has announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election will take place on September 9, with counting to take place the same day. (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai on Friday said that although the BJP and actor-turned-politician Vijay are ideologically opposite, his political entry is welcomed. Speaking to reporters, Annamalai acknowledged the popularity of Vijay, who leads the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), but questioned whether he could sustain political engagement for a full term. "As far as Vijay is concerned, people may come today and applaud him when he comes for a rally. But people will think while voting. Can he effectively engage in politics for five years? People will think a lot when it comes to votes. All political parties claim that their main enemy is DMK, which reflects the prevailing mindset of the people. Although we welcome Vijay's political arrival, we are ideologically opposite," Annamalai said. He further claimed that the BJP, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has gained increasing public support in the state. "The leaders of the National Democratic Alliance are united with us. The public has accepted the BJP as a powerful party. People voted for the National Democratic Alliance by 18 per cent in the last election. As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, people have placed immense faith in the BJP and the Prime Minister," he said. The BJP leader also highlighted the Union government's efforts to secure the release of Indian fishermen and criticised Vijay for not speaking out earlier on the Katchatheevu issue. "The BJP government is continuously rescuing imprisoned fishermen. Does Vijay know? The government is taking tickets for the rescued fishermen and bringing them home at their own expense. Does Vijay know that the number of fishermen who have died in gunfire has decreased since Modi took over as Prime Minister?" "Vijay kept acting in the film. He even played a fisherman's friend. He didn't talk about Katchatheevu at that time. He is talking about it now, after 50 years of not talking about it..." Annamalai added. Earlier on Thursday, TVK chief and actor Vijay addressed a conference for TVK party workers in Madurai. The TVK president held the party's second state conference in Madurai, marked by a massive show of strength as party workers gathered in large numbers to participate in the rally. Speaking at the event, TVK Chief accused Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of being in a "secret alliance" with the BJP. The actor-turned-politician lambasted Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin over the law and order situation in the state. "Uncle Stalin, if you have a conscience, please answer the questions we are asking. In the government you are running, is there honesty? Is it free from corruption? Is law and order being maintained properly? Are women and the general public safe? Tell us, my dear uncle, tell us," Vijay said. "DMK government is secretly maintaining ties with the BJP. When DMK is in the opposition, they shout 'Go back Modi!' but once they are in power, (they) welcome Modi. DMK has a secret alliance with the BJP. Does drama as if they are opposing the BJP," he added. Vijay intends to present his party, TVK, as a third front in Tamil Nadu politics, an alternative to both the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). (ANI) Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's revised directive on the humane treatment of stray dogs, specifically, their feeding in designated areas, followed by sterilisation and immunisation, affirming that the state government will ensure its proper implementation. "We will work according to the SC order and ensure it is implemented in the state," Pathak told ANI. Furthermore, addressing comments from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Yadav concerning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Gaya in Bihar, Pathak characterised remarks from both the RJD and Samajwadi Party as stemming from frustration. He asserted confidently that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would form the next government in Bihar. "Parties like the RJD and the Samajwadi Party are in frustration. NDA will form the government in Bihar," he stated. The remark followed Lalu Yadav's quip that PM Modi was in Bihar to perform the political "pind daan" of JDU's and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's political careers. Earlier in the day, PM Modi, during a rally in Gaya Ji launched an attack on the opposition and criticised the rule of the previous governments of RJD and Congress in the state. The Prime Minister took a swipe at the RJD's governance in Bihar as "an era of darkness." "Remember the condition here during the rule of lantern (RJD). This region was in the clutches of red terror. Cities like Gaya Ji were in darkness during the rule of 'lantern' (RJD)... They had pushed the entire state into darkness. There was no education or employment. So many generations were forced to migrate. RJD considers the people of Bihar only as their vote bank. They want nothing to do with their life, sorrows, or respect," he said. Further, the Prime Minister further targeted Congress, citing its historical disdain for the people of Bihar. "A Congress CM had said that he will not let people of Bihar enter his state. No one can forget Congress' hate for the people of Bihar. Despite seeing the Congress' misbehaviour with the people of Bihar, the RJD were in deep slumber. Bihar's NDA government is giving answers to the hateful campaign of Congress and RJD. NDA is working hard so that the youth of Bihar can get employment here in their state, so that they get respect and they are able to stay with their parents," the Prime Minister stated. Notably, the assembly elections in Bihar are expected to take place between October and November. However, the dates for the polls have not been announced yet. (ANI) Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-SCP chief Sharad Pawar on Friday said he has turned down Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' request to support NDA's vice-presidential nominee CP Radhakrishnan, noting that the candidate does not align with his party's ideology. Speaking at a press conference, Pawar said, "Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis urged us to support the NDA's VP candidate, CP Radhakrishnan, as he is the Governor of Maharashtra. It is not possible as he does not align with our ideology." NCP-SCP supremo claimed that CP Radhakrishnan, while holding the position of Jharkhand Governor, had misused his power during the arrest of Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren in 2024. "Also, CP Radhakrishnan was the Governor of Jharkhand. Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren was arrested during his visit to the Raj Bhavan by central agencies. CM requested that he should not be arrested in Raj Bhavan. He will come out and surrender. But his request was not considered. This is how the power was misused. Thus, we cannot support those who do not believe in democracy," Pawar said. On Thursday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis reached out to Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and NCP-SC leader Sharad Pawar, seeking their support for the NDA's Vice Presidential candidate, CP Radhakrishnan. While Thackeray said he would consider the request and respond after discussions, Pawar indicated that his party would back the Opposition's nominee. Speaking to reporters, CM Fadnavis said, "I spoke to Uddhav Thackery ji and Sharad Pawar ji and requested them to support Maharashtra Governor's (CP Radhakrishnan) candidature for Vice Presidential elections. Uddhav ji told me that he will discuss and let me know. Sharad Pawar ji said that he will have to go with the candidate fielded by the Opposition." Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that Radhakrishnan would serve as an "outstanding" Vice President. "Along with Ministers, Party colleagues and NDA leaders, I accompanied Thiru CP Radhakrishnan as he filed his nomination for the post of Vice President of India. The NDA family is confident that he will be an outstanding VP and will enrich our journey towards national progress," PM Modi's post on social media X read. CP Radhakrishnan on Wednesday filed his nomination papers for the Vice Presidential elections in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, who has been the Maharashtra Governor since July 31, 2024, had earlier also served as the Governor of Jharkhand, Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. The Election Commission had earlier announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election would take place on September 9, with counting of votes scheduled for the same day. The Vice Presidential post fell vacant after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 21, citing health reasons. (ANI) Lewis Cope has joined this year's Strictly Come Dancing line-up. Lewis Cope will star on the BBC show The actor - who is best known for playing Nicky Milligan on Emmerdale - is set to star on the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, and Lewis is already looking forward to the challenge, revealing that he's a long-time fan of the BBC show. Lewis - who was nominated for the Rising Star gong at the 2023 National Television Awards - said: "I'm so excited to be swapping the Dales for the dance floor and joining this year's Strictly Come Dancing. I've always been a fan of the show and cannot wait to get started!" Lewis will compete on the BBC show alongside Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Dani Dyer, Alex Kingston, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Balvinder Sopal, George Clarke, La Voix, Chris Robshaw, Ellie Goldstein, Thomas Skinner, Vicky Pattison, Stefan Dennis, Ross King and Karen Carney. The soap star has been hired after Kristian Nairn was forced to withdraw from the upcoming series of Strictly. The actor and DJ previously revealed that he was withdrawing from the show on medical grounds. Kristian said in a statement: "With a heavy heart, I have to step back from this season of Strictly Come Dancing due to unexpected medical reasons. "I was truly looking forward to the journey, and Im deeply sorry to disappoint anyone who was looking forward to seeing me on the dance floor. "Thank you all for your support, and I will be back on my feet very soon, in every sense. Love to all, Kristian." Sarah James, the executive producer of BBC Studios, also expressed her disappointment and wished the DJ a speedy recovery. Sarah said: "Weve absolutely loved getting to know Kristian in this short time, and he has all the makings of a brilliant Strictly Come Dancing contestant. Were incredibly sorry to lose him from this years series and we all wish him a speedy recovery." Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said the Opposition cannot expect the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to support any candidate other than the NDA's nominee in the Vice Presidential election. Naidu's remarks came after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday urged political parties from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to vote for B Sudarshan Reddy, the INDIA bloc candidate for the Vice Presidential elections, citing his Telugu identity as a matter of pride for people of both states. Speaking to reporters in Delhi after meeting NDA Vice Presidential candidate CP Radhakrishnan, along with TDP MPs, Naidu said, "How can they (opposition) expect? We are in an alliance; how can it be expected that we will support another candidate? Telugu Desam Party is for the Telugu community. That is a different issue. We are in alliance. Our party has ethics and credibility. We have built this credibility over a period of five decades. You know my stand from the beginning, not now. " The Chief Minister also praised Radhakrishnan, calling him "the best candidate" and added, "If anybody compares candidature-wise, he (CP Radhakrishnan) is the best candidate everybody has to support. If the majority is there, it is a very dignified post. Why did they (opposition) bring another candidate now? Is it necessary? That is their politics. But we are not playing politics here," he said. CM Naidu also expressed confidence in Radhakrishnan's win in the VP elections. He said, "We are having the majority, we are going to win comfortably." On being asked if the NDA high command ordered Naidu to come and meet Radhakrishnan today, CM Naidu replied, "It is my duty. I came to Delhi and I want to meet him. I want to extend my support...These relations are not from today; they are not new relations. I know him from the beginning." Earlier in the day, speaking to the reporters, Andhra Pradesh CM expressed happiness over the NDA's selection of CP Radhakrishnan as the Vice Presidential candidate. "We are very happy that NDA has selected CP Radhakrishnan as a candidate for the post of Vice President of India. He is the best suitable candidate. We are very happy to extend our support to him. TDP joined the NDA before the elections. Both governments in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh have an NDA government. Apart from that, he is a gentleman. He is also very patriotic. He is going to bring pride to our nation...We are together," CM Naidu said. On being asked that the INDIA Bloc candidate B Sudarshan Reddy is Telugu and the CM being from TDP, should support him, the Chief Minister replied, "Telugu pride, all these things, it won't happen here. Even sometimes, we have supported even long back PV Narasimha Rao, a Telugu man as MP, he became PM, but we supported him as MP, that is a different issue. Here, we are an alliance, how can you expect that we can support other candidates...." On Wednesday, CP Radhakrishnan filed his nomination papers for the Vice Presidential election in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda, Kiren Rijiju, and Arjun Ram Meghwal were also present. On Thursday, former Supreme Court Justice B Sudarshan Reddy filed his nomination in the presence of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi. The Election Commission had earlier announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election would take place on September 9, with counting to take place the same day. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Friday directed that persons excluded from the draft electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in poll-bound Bihar can submit their applications for inclusion through online mode, and physical submission of forms is not mandatory. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said that an individual person, at their own or with the assistance of booth-level agents (BLAs) of a political party, is entitled to apply online and does not need to submit the application in physical form. The bench also instructed the 12 recognised political parties in Bihar to direct their booth-level agents to assist voters in their respective booths with the submission of forms. Expressing surprise, the bench noted that despite there being around 1.6 lakh BLAs in Bihar, only two objections have been submitted by them. The court further observed submissions from some parties alleging that officials were not acknowledging objections raised by BLAs. The bench said all 12 political parties in Bihar shall issue specific directions to party workers to assist people in filing and submission of requisite forms with any 11 documents in Form 6 or Aadhaar Card to get themselves included in the voters' list. It said BLAs of all political parties are directed to make an endeavour that approximately 65 lakh persons not included in the draft rolls are facilitated, except those who are dead or have voluntarily migrated, in submitting their objections by the cutoff date of September 1. The court also impleaded the 12 registered political parties in the case. The top court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the poll panel's move to conduct SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar. The Election Commission has also filed an affidavit stating that the list of names and details of 65 lakh electors in Bihar who were not included in the draft roll published on August 1 has been posted on the websites of all 38 District Electoral Officers in the state. The list also contained the reasons for their non-inclusion, including death, shifting of ordinary residence or duplicate entries, ECI told the apex court. ECI has stated that physical copies of the list are displayed in Panchayat Bhavans, block development offices, and Panchayat offices in villages across Bihar, allowing people easy access and enabling them to make enquiries. Advertisements about the online availability of the lists had also been issued in major newspapers, on radio and television and posted on social media, said the poll panel. ECI filed an affidavit in compliance with the August 14 directions of the Supreme Court directing it to publish an enumerated, booth-wise list of approximately 65 lakh electors not included in the draft electoral roll during the ongoing SIR exercise in poll-bound Bihar. ECI also informed the apex court that its public notices have expressly mentioned that copies of Aadhaar cards can be submitted along with their claims by voters aggrieved by non-inclusion in the draft Bihar electoral roll. The top court was informed that approximately 65 lakh names were dropped from the draft roll despite the fact that their names had featured in the voters' list prepared after a summary revision in January 2025. The petitions challenging the ECI decision were filed by RJD MP Manoj Jha, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), PUCL, activist Yogendra Yadav, Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, and former Bihar MLA Mujahid Alam. The petitions sought direction to quash the ECI's June 24 directive that requires large sections of voters in Bihar to submit proof of citizenship to remain on the electoral rolls. The petitions also raised concerns over the exclusion of widely held documents like Aadhaar and ration cards, stating that this would disproportionately affect the poor and marginalised voters, especially in rural Bihar. (ANI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the nomination of Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan as the NDA's candidate for Vice President is a matter of pride for Tamil Nadu and reflects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment to honour Tamil culture, language, and leadership. Speaking at the booth committee members' convention in Tirunelveli, Shah expressed regret for not being able to address the gathering in Tamil and thanked PM Modi and BJP president JP Nadda for their support to Radhakrishnan. "I have come to tell the people of the state that after assuming the post of Vice President, Tamil Nadu's son CP Radhakrishnan is going to become the Chairman of Rajya Sabha. Earlier, the NDA had also given this honour to APJ Abdul Kalam ji by making him the President of India. Narendra Modi ji has always worked to glorify Tamil Nadu, Tamil language and Tamil culture," Shah said while addressing the gathering. On Wednesday, CP Radhakrishnan filed his nomination papers for the Vice Presidential elections in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, who has been the Maharashtra Governor since July 31, 2024, had earlier also served as the Governor of Jharkhand, Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. Radhakrishnan, who served as the two-time MP from Coimbatore, was born on October 20, 1957, in Tamil Nadu's Tirrupur. The BJP stalwart from Tamil Nadu has achieved a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and became the state committee member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP's precursor, in 1974. Before the Jan Sangh, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).In the year 1996, Radhakrishnan was appointed as the BJP Tamil Nadu secretary, following which he was elected as a Lok Sabha member from Coimbatore in 1998 and reelected again in 1999. Furthermore, while intensifying his attack on the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Amit Shah strongly defended the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, 2025, which mandates the resignation of any Chief Minister or Prime Minister who is sent to jail. Shah said, "PM Modi ji has presented the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha. The entire opposition started protesting. What is the Constitution Bill? If any CM or Prime Minister goes to jail, they will have to resign from their post. The opposition is asking, What is the need for this bill? Senior DMK ministers K Ponmudy and Senthil Balaji were in jail for eight months. They did not resign. Tell me, can you run the government while being in jail? These DMK people call the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill a black bill. Stalin Babu, you have no right to call this bill a black bill because you are a Chief Minister who does black deeds." On Thursday, the Rajya Sabha agreed to refer three key legislations, the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill, the Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill, 2025, and the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2025, to a Joint Committee comprising 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha, nominated by the Speaker and Deputy Chairman respectively. The Union Home Minister also invoked national security, recalling the terrorist attack in Pahalgam and the Centre's response under Prime Minister Modi's leadership. "Pakistani terrorists killed our innocent citizens in Pahalgam. Modi ji had promised that we will teach a lesson to the terrorists and their masters and by permitting Operation Sindoor, we destroyed their terrorist bases," he said. (ANI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the national capital on Friday. The Chief Minister sought financial assistance from the centre for several developmental initiatives being undertaken in Andhra Pradesh. He submitted a representation seeking an additional allocation of Rs 5,000 crore for pending capital projects in the state. The memorandum also requested necessary orders on the proposals submitted by the State Government for the release of Rs 250 crore under the Single Nodal Agency (SNA Sparsh) incentive scheme guidelines for the financial year 2024-25. He highlighted that so far, the state has received Rs 2,010 crore under the Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI) scheme. Welcoming the Purvodaya scheme announced by the centre for the integrated development of eastern states, the Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh would greatly benefit from it. He urged the centre to finalise the modalities for implementing the scheme at the earliest. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, along with Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs, met NDA Vice Presidential candidate CP Radhakrishnan in Delhi on Friday Speaking to the reporters, Andhra Pradesh CM expressed happiness over the NDA's selection of CP Radhakrishnan as the Vice President candidate. "We are very happy that NDA has selected CP Radhakrishnan as a candidate for the post of Vice President of India. He is the best suitable candidate. We are very happy to extend our support to him. TDP joined the NDA before the elections. Both governments in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh have an NDA government. Apart from that, he is a gentleman. He is also very patriotic. He is going to bring pride to our nation...We are together," CM Naidu said. The Election Commission has announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election will take place on September 9, with counting to take place the same day. (ANI) Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that he will join Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's 'Voter Adhikar Rally' in Bihar on August 29. "Rahul Gandhi ji took out a yatra in Bihar. I am going to join it on 29th August," CM Siddaramaiah told reporters here. The Chief Minister also announced that International Booker Prize 2025 winner Banu Mushtaq will inaugurate the world-famous Dasara Mahotsav on September 22, 2025. "Winner of the International Booker Prize 2025, Banu Mushtaq. will inaugurate the world-famous Dasara Mahotsav on 22nd September 2025. Vijaya Dashmi will be celebrated on 2nd October. He (Union Minister Rajnath Singh) has also been invited," he added. Meanwhile, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi arrived in Jamalpur on Friday as part of the sixth day of the ongoing 'Voter Adhikar Yatra', which seeks to raise concerns over alleged voter fraud. CPI (ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the yatra is focused on addressing issues of vote theft and the alleged inaction of the Election Commission, despite submission of evidence pointing to fake voter entries. "We presented several proofs of fake voters, but the Election Commission has taken no action despite numerous complaints. The way the SIR [Special Intensive Revision] is being conducted, it will definitely reduce voter numbers. Around 65 lakh votes have already been excluded. Imagine how many more voters will be deleted once documentation is completed. This yatra is focused on addressing vote theft," Bhattacharya said. Indian Youth Congress National President Uday Bhanu Chib also alleged foul play, saying, "The BJP's 'chor sarkar' must be removed. Rahul Gandhi has exposed their fake vote tactics with proof. With the support of the youth, the BJP has no option but to resort to jailing opponents." The 16-day yatra aims to raise awareness about alleged irregularities in the voter list, which opposition leaders have termed a case of vote chori (vote theft). Covering over 1,300 km across 20 districts, the yatra is scheduled to conclude in Patna on September 1. The Yatra, continuing for the sixth day, reached Jamalpur earlier today. The Voter Adhikar Yatra is the latest effort by the opposition to highlight concerns over voter disenfranchisement and electoral transparency in the lead-up to the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. (ANI) Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Friday launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her remarks on the Kolkata Metro expansion, terming her "nostalgia" was nothing but a "desperate attempt" to steal credit for the projects that languished under her watch. In a post on social media platform X, Adhikari alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led government had tried to derail the Sealdah-Esplanade stretch of the East-West Metro and accused her administration of non-cooperation and inefficiency. "Your 'nostalgia' is nothing but a desperate attempt to steal credit for projects that languished under your watch. As Railways Minister in the corrupt UPA era, you may have got some blueprints sketched, but they collected dust for years due to the UPA Government's infamous delays, and the non-cooperation of the WB Govt since you became Chief Minister," Adhikari posted. "Land acquisition failures and outright non-cooperation by your Administration have plagued the timely execution of these projects. Remember the Sealdah-Esplanade stretch of the East-West Metro, how your Govt tried to botch up the project completely? It was stalled repeatedly because of your Administration's inefficiencies and non-cooperation, turning what should have been a progressive transportation model into a decade-long embarrassment for West Bengal," the post further read. Citing a recent example, the LoP further stated that the No Objection Certificate (NOC) required for temporary traffic diversion at Chingrighata Junction under the New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor is still pending with the state government. "I would like to remind you about a most recent example of non cooperation:- On New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor (Orange Line), launching of viaduct at Chingrighata Junction is required and all arrangements for temporary traffic diversion have been made in consultation with Kolkata Police, but the NOC from the Govt. of West Bengal for executing this stretch is still pending for months," Adhikari wrote. He added that, "not even a personal letter from the Hon'ble Railway Minister, Shri @AshwiniVaishnaw Ji, in this regard, has been able to persuade you." Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, Adhikari said railway funding for West Bengal had significantly increased, helping revive and complete key projects. "Fast forward to the era of the @narendramodi Govt:- Railway funding for West Bengal has been tripled from an average of 4,380 crore under UPA to 13,955 crore this year alone, which is aiding the revival and completion of these vital projects at record speed. At present, works of Rs. 83,765 crores are in progress in West Bengal," he said. The BJP leader further said that while PM Modi was delivering world-class connectivity, Mamata Banerjee had "hidden behind excuses" and "boycotted" the inauguration like a "sore loser". "Hon'ble PM is delivering world-class connectivity, including the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar, Sealdah-Esplanade, and Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay routes, while you hide behind excuses and boycott the inauguration like a sore loser. Your contribution? A big fat zero. You have suddenly woken up from your slumber, realising that today onwards Kolkata is going to witness World Class Metro Connectivity, which will be compatible with the Kolkata Circular Railway and enhance connectivity & convenience of the commuters trying to reach the Airport and the major Railway Stations," Adhikari added. Adhikari further stated in his post that West Bengal deserved a better government than the one that made "false claims." "Bengal deserves better than your false claims, Bengal deserves Modi's vision and action," he wrote in his post. His remarks came after West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee posted on X earlier in the day, highlighting her past contributions to the expansion of the Kolkata Metro. The post came on the same day Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kolkata to inaugurate three new metro services in the city. Furthermore, the CM also did not attend the Prime Minister's unveiling of the infrastructure projects, including the three metro services in Kolkata. (ANI) BJP Council Party leader from Kozhikode Corporation in Kerala, Navya Haridas, on Friday said that there have been several more allegations against Congress MLA Rahul Mamkootathil who has been accused of obscene conduct by writer Honey Bhaskaran and model Rini Ann George. The Mahila Morcha State President alleged that many women and even transgender persons have levelled sexual harassment complaints against the Palakkad MLA. "There are many allegations against the current Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil. It's not a complaint from one woman; there are so many women complaining against him on the basis of sexual harrasment," Haridas told ANI. "More shocking events are coming when that list includes the transgenders as well. Today morning, we have also witnessed the case. So, these are not baseless allegations against Rahul; all these allegations are coming with proof, with a chat history, with voice messages and everything." The BJP leader has called for Mamkootathil's resignation. "Mahila Morcha is planning many protests in Palakkad district as well as in all the 30 districts of Kerala against this issue," she said. On Thursday, the Congress MLA Mamkootathil resigned from his position as the State President of the Youth Congress. Palakkad MP V K Sreekandan, however, said that no decision has been made regarding Mamkootathil's resignation from his MLA post. Sreekandan further noted that when the allegations surfaced, the party leadership had promptly asked Mamkootathil to resign which he had complied with voluntarily. "It has not been decided that Rahul Mamkootathil will resign from the MLA post. It is the party leadership which will make a decision. First of all, the complaint is vague. When such remarks came out, the party leadership asked him to resign, and he did voluntarily. The party has decided to conduct an inquiry, based on its report, further action will be taken. At present, we don't know whether it was any fault on his side. If there is anything serious from his side, the party will inquire and take strong action," he said. Meanwhile in view of protests against Mamkootathil, the State police have deployed heavy security outside his house in Adoor in Pathanamthitta district and barricaded the road leading to his house. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated multiple metro railway projects in Kolkata on Friday and emphasised that India now has the third largest metro network in the world. The Prime Minister said the projects showed that the government is working for the development of every city as India is moving towards becoming the third-largest economy. He said the projects reflected the government's commitment to urban development and green mobility. Addressing the gathering after the inauguration, PM Modi said, "Today, when India is moving towards becoming the third largest economy, the role of Dum Dum, Kolkata, increases further... This program is a proof that today's India is working for the development of every city. Green mobility efforts are being made in every city; the number of electric charging points and electric buses is being increased... The metro network is being expanded and everyone is proud that India has the third largest metro network in the world." The Prime Minister also congratulated the people of Kolkata for these development projects. "Today once again I got the opportunity to accelerate development in West Bengal...Everyone is happy that Kolkata's public transport has progressed...I congratulate the people of Kolkata for these development projects," the Prime Minister said. PM Modi was also felicitated by Union Ministers Ravneet Singh and Shantanu Thakur. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today flagged off the various metro railway projects in Kolkata in line with his commitment to world-class infrastructure and developed urban connectivity. He visited the Jessore Road Metro Station, where he inaugurated the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road Metro Station and Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. In addition, through video conferencing, he flagged off the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro service. He also undertook a metro ride from Jessore Road Metro Station to Jai Hind Bimanbandar and back. The Sealdah-Esplanade metro will reduce the travel time between the two points from nearly 40 minutes to only 11 minutes. The Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay metro section will play a crucial role in enhancing connectivity with the IT hub. These metro routes will connect some of Kolkata's busiest areas, bring a notable reduction in travel time, and strengthen multimodal connectivity, benefiting lakhs of daily commuters. Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today took to X to share a post detailing her contribution to Kolkata's metro expansion on the same day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Kolkata to flag off new services. The Chief Minister did not attend the Prime Minister's unveiling of infrastructure projects, including three Metro services in Kolkata. https://x.com/MamataOfficial/status/1958843279530693092 Her post on X read, "Allow me to be a little nostalgic today. As the Railways Minister of India, I was fortunate in planning and sanctioning a series of Metro Railway corridors in metropolitan Kolkata. I had drawn the blueprints, arranged the funds, initiated the works and ensured that the different ends of the city ( Joka, Garia, Airport, Sector V, etc) were connected by an intra-city Metro grid. Later, as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, I had the additional privilege of taking part in the execution of the projects." (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched an attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, stating that the state's progress has remained stagnant due to the corruption and misrule of the Trinamool Congress Addressing a rally in Kolkata, the Prime Minnster called on the people to elect Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to ensure that the benefits of central government schemes reach everyone. He said so long as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is not removed from power the development of West Bengal will not be possible "...It is necessary to elect the BJP in West Bengal to ensure that the benefits of central government schemes reach the people. It is certain that TMC will be removed from power and BJP will be elected." The Prime Minister criticised the ruling TMC government and alleged that crime and corruption had become the identity of the TMC government. He said the condition of the state had worsened under its rule. Over the past 11 years, the BJP government at the Centre has provided every kind of support for the development of West Bengal, the Prime Minister said. He added that most of the money sent to the state government for Bengal gets "looted" by TMC cadres. "That money is spent on TMC cadres. As a result, Bengal lags behind other states in the country in many schemes for the welfare of the poor," the Prime Minister said. PM alleged that the state government had created hurdles in the implementation of central welfare schemes. PM Modi said that people in West Bengal deserved access to schemes related to housing, healthcare, education, and employment without political interference. "So long as the TMC government is in power, the progress of the state will remain stalled. TMC jaabe, tabhi asaol parivartan ashbe (TMC will go, only then real change will come)," PM Modi said while addressing a public meeting in Kolkata. The Prime Minister highlighted the importance of the current time, saying, "In the 21st century, 25 years have passed. In the coming years, like for the country, it is very important for Bengal. We should not fritter away this time." He stressed that Bengal needed "saccha parivartan, asol parivartan, not in slogans" but change that would ensure jobs for sons and daughters, safety for women, fair prices for farmers, and an end to corruption. The Prime Minister also asserted that only a BJP government could bring this transformation in the state. He said his party was determined to reach every corner of Bengal with the message of change. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi today laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore in Kolkata. The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone for the six-lane elevated Kona Expressway. He extended heartfelt congratulations to the people of Kolkata and all citizens of West Bengal for these multi-thousand crore rupee projects. (ANI) The National Commission for Women (NCW) organised its programme 'Shakti Samvad' in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on Friday. NCW Chairperson Vijaya Kishore Rahatkar said the programme is held every four months to discuss issues related to crimes against women, including domestic violence, sexual harassment at the workplace, and implementation of the POSH law. Speaking to ANI on the occasion, NCW Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar said, "The National Commission for Women has put a strong effort into all the states that have their own women's commissions. By involving them, we meet with their representatives regularly. The program is called 'Shakti Samvad', and we hold it every four months. This time, we conducted Shakti Samvad in Mumbai... If you work with the State Women's Commission, issues that cause pain to women, such as domestic violence, sexual harassment at the workplace, and the implementation of the POSH law, can be addressed easily... So, we organised such common programs and saw positive results from this...". On July 30, on the occasion of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, a renewed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and NCW in the presence of Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw. The Union Minister, sharing the development on social media, stated that the MoU aims to strengthen the capacity of RPF personnel to effectively prevent the trafficking of women and children, as well as other crimes against women. The MoU was signed by Shivani Dey, Deputy Secretary, NCW, and S. Sudhakar, DIG/Projects, RPF. Vijaya Rahatkar, Chairperson of NCW, underscored the seriousness of the issue by stating that human trafficking continues to be one of the gravest human rights violations, with women and girls being the most frequent targets. She emphasised the pivotal role of the RPF in early detection and intervention. She also appreciated the painstaking nationwide efforts of the RPF in rescuing trafficked and lost/runaway children from across the country, which have led to the rescue of more than 65,000 such children over the past four and a half years. On this occasion, a special booklet on anti-human trafficking, prepared by the NCW, was also released. (ANI) V-Day parade a show of ability and will to defend peace, justice 08:50, August 22, 2025 By LI YANG ( China Daily Participants take part in a training for the upcoming V-Day military parade in Beijing, capital of China, Aug 12, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua] China's V-Day military parade, scheduled for Sept 3 in Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, will be the first of its kind since China embarked on a new journey to advance Chinese modernization on all fronts. A total of 45 formations and echelons will be involved in the grand parade. During the march-past, foot formations, battle flag formations, armament columns and flag-guarding aerial echelons will pass through the square in order, while fly-pasts are conducted overhead, according to the People's Liberation Army officials presiding over a news conference on Wednesday. The parade will provide the world with a rare chance to see the achievements of the PLA's modernization endeavors in recent years, which have created a new system of services and arms. The four services are the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Rocket Force, and the four arms are the Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force and the Joint Logistics Support Force. The Army now accounts for less than 50 percent of the total active-duty personnel; noncombat units have been cut by nearly two-fourths; and the officer corps has been reduced by 30 percent all to streamline the military and improve its combat capabilities, according to the news conference. With a high level of informatization and intelligence, the weapons and equipment to be displayed are expected to demonstrate the strong adaptive capability of the Chinese armed forces in response to the transformative sci-tech developments and the evolution of war forms. The parade will not only showcase a series of new-generation armaments but, more importantly, that under the leadership of the Party, the country and the armed forces have grown stronger and have the ability to win wars. In 2014, the country designated Sept 3 as Victory Day of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). The parade will showcase that the great spirit of the Chinese people in that war lives on. The international community should recognize the fact that China made a major contribution to the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War by tying down and fighting the bulk of Japanese forces, and wiping out more than 1.5 million enemy troops. In 1945, after 14 years of resistance, China achieved victory at a tremendous cost of 35 million military and civilian casualties, accounting for one-third of the total casualties suffered by all countries in World War II. Japan surrendered on Sept 2,1945, signing the Instrument of Surrender to China and other Allied powers. China celebrated the victory the following day. China's victory in the war 80 years ago was a triumph of justice over evil, light over darkness, and progress over reaction. China was the first country to fight against fascist aggression. With huge national sacrifice, the Chinese people held their ground in the World Anti-Fascist War's main theater in the East. While demonstrating the Chinese military's strong ability to safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, the parade is also a signal that the country upholds peace and will firmly defend international fairness and justice. With the rise of the hegemony and unilateralism of some countries that seek to define the world order according to their will, the international community should stand united to jointly defend the postwar international order. A country committed to peace and stability, China will work together with peace-loving countries and people across the world to uphold and advocate the correct historical view of World War II, resolutely safeguard the postwar order, firmly defend international fairness and justice, staunchly oppose all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Wildfires have so far ravaged more than one million hectares (2.5 million acres) in the European Union in 2025, a record since statistics began in 2006, according to an AFP analysis of data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Surpassing the annual record of 988,524 hectares burnt in 2017, the figure reached 1,015,731 hectares by midday Thursday, representing an area larger than Cyprus. This calculation is based on a total compiled by AFP from estimates by country by EFFIS, at a time when Spain and Portugal are still battling wildfires. Four countries in the European Union -- Spain, Cyprus, Germany, and Slovakia -- have already experienced their worst year in two decades of existing data. Spain is struggling with numerous fires in the west of the country, which have claimed four lives. By far it is the most affected EU country by fires, with more than 400,000 hectares burnt, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the EU total. Portugal, which holds the EU record of 563,530 hectares burnt in 2017, is the second-most affected EU country. It has never had an area of this size (nearly 274,000 hectares) burnt as of August 21. Romania follows with 126,000 hectares while in France, 35,600 hectares of forest have been reduced to ashes, mostly in the Aude region, which was ravaged by a massive fire in early August. These calculations by EFFIS, a component of the European climate monitor Copernicus, only take into account fires that have burnt areas of at least 30 hectares. As per official data, the wing collected Rs 1.10 crore in compounding fees between April and July this year, marking a 121 per cent increase over the Rs 49.68 lakh collected during the corresponding period in 2024. Inspections have also doubled, with 11,035 conducted this year against 5,753 last year. Similarly, cases registered rose sharply from 587 to 1,531. In terms of verifications of commercial establishments, 42,733 were carried out this year compared with 41,625 last year. Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak, while reviewing the department's performance at Anaj Bhawan, lauded the hard work of the officers and urged them to continue working with greater dedication. He also directed officials to submit detailed proposals for the restructuring of the wing and procurement of modernised equipment to strengthen its functioning. The minister was informed that the Legal Metrology Wing currently operates standard laboratories at Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Patiala, with new labs proposed at Sirhind and Khanna. Highlighting the importance of the wing's work, officials noted that its primary objective is to safeguard consumer interests by ensuring that goods sold in the market are accurate in quantity and volume as claimed. The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Rahul Tiwari, Additional Secretary, PUNGRAIN, Kamal Kumar Garg, and Controller of the Legal Metrology Wing, Manohar Singh. (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State President and MLA B Y Vijayendra Yediyurappa on Friday stated that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who once forced a complainant in the Dharmasthala issue to wear a mask, are now in a situation where they themselves must run around wearing masks. Speaking to the media in Bengaluru on Friday, the State President remarked that after digging several pits and finding nothing, both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are now visibly nervous. "The complainant's mask has already fallen off, and now the CM and DyCM are struggling to cover their own faces," he said. Vijayendra further declared, "We have already announced our agitation. We will wage a Dharma Yuddha (battle for Dharma) to protect our faith." He further alleged that Siddaramaiah, under pressure from specific Leftist forces, had ordered an SIT probe into the Dharmasthala matter. "We welcomed the investigation. The Chief Minister imagined that by digging pits, some big scandal would be unearthed. But even after digging 15-16 pits, they found nothing," he said. Vijayendra accused the Congress government of acting "irresponsibly with the sole intention of hurting Hindu religious sentiments." "The government is not taking any action against the complainant or the evil forces behind him. For the past 15-20 days, malicious propaganda is being spread on social media against the Dharmasthala temple, yet no inquiry has been initiated. On the other hand, if Hindu activists post anything online, they are arrested within 24 hours," he charged. He recalled that during the COVID-19 crisis, 36 people had died in Chamarajanagar district due to oxygen shortage. "At that time, Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, along with Rahul Gandhi, politicised those deaths during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. They even promised government jobs to the families of the deceased. It has been more than two and a half years since Congress came to power, yet have those jobs been given?" Vijayendra questioned. Referring to the stampede tragedy at Chinnaswamy Stadium during the RCB victory celebration, where 11 lives were lost, Vijayendra said, "I expected the Chief Minister to address the Assembly with seriousness and emotion. Instead, he chose to narrate a 'Harikatha' (storytelling) filled with unrelated statistics of deaths worldwide. The BJP does not politicise deaths. But it is the Congress that has a history of doing so." He further alleged, "Isn't it true that to cover up their own failures in the stadium tragedy, the government made an innocent police officer the scapegoat? Isn't that an insult to the entire police department?" Vijayendra accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of preemptively holding RCB, KSCA, DNA, and police officials responsible for the stampede. "In this entire episode, the real accused No. 1 is Siddaramaiah himself, followed by D K Shivakumar. To cover up their blunders, they resort to dramatic speeches," he alleged. Taking a dig at the Chief Minister's earlier initiatives, Vijayendra said, "You had even planned a victory celebration near Vidhana Soudha. At that time, did you not know how many Kannadigas were actually in the RCB team? You and your family happily posed for selfies with them. Now, suddenly, you are questioning the team's representation of Karnataka? These double standards are laughable." (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday met Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari in the national capital and sought central assistance for the repair and reconstruction of roads and bridges damaged due to recent rains and natural disasters in the state. During the meeting, CM Dhami apprised the Union Minister about the extensive damage to infrastructure, particularly in the Dharali area of Uttarkashi district, following heavy rainfall and a cloudburst earlier this month. The Chief Minister requested central cooperation for the early restoration of roads and bridges in the affected areas. He also provided details of damage in other parts of the state and urged the Centre to extend timely support for recovery efforts. Responding to the appeal, Union Minister Gadkari assured CM Dhami of all possible assistance from the Centre. Earlier this month, a massive mudslide struck Dharali village in the Kheer Gad area near Harsil, triggering a sudden flow of debris and water through the settlements on August 5. The cloudburst led to flash floods in the high-altitude villages of Dharali. Several houses were reported to have been swept away. Relief and restoration work is currently underway under the direct supervision of CM Dhami. Uttarkashi District Magistrate Prashant Arya is monitoring the situation on-site and is overseeing the rehabilitation efforts in Harsil, Dharali, and areas along the Gangotri National Highway. The District Magistrate also inspected landslide-prone sections of the Gangotri Highway and directed BRO, PWD, and other concerned agencies to ensure safe and smooth movement by taking appropriate preventive measures. All the arrangements of food grains, electricity, water, health, and communication are being continuously provided by the government, and all necessary steps are being taken to restore the lives of the people. Earlier, the Uttarkashi district administration said that critically ill patients from Dharali and other border areas affected by the devastating cloudburst were sent to the district hospital via MI-17 helicopter. (ANI) Founder-Chancellor of Lovely Professional University (LPU), Ashok Kumar Mittal, has issued a statement warning the United States to revoke the 50 per cent tariff hike on Indian goods by August 27, failing which, all American soft drink and beverage companies would be banned from the LPU campus. The statement, issued on the occasion of India's 79th Independence Day, noted that the university, one of India's largest private institutions catering to over 40,000 students, would take this step as a mark of protest. The development follows an open letter written by Mittal to US President Donald Trump on August 7, in which he termed the tariff hike as "unfair" and urged the United States to return to the path of dialogue. In the same letter, Mittal questioned, "What if 146 crore Indians initiate a strategic restriction of U.S. businesses?" The statement claimed that this remark has triggered a wider conversation, with several youth organisations and educational institutions considering similar measures. "With momentum growing on the ground, Mittal has once again underlined the importance of cooperation over coercion," the statement read. "India's economic dignity cannot be compromised. My decision to ban American beverage companies from LPU is not targeted at any single brand but is a symbolic assertion of India's rising role in global affairs. India is no longer a passive participant in international trade but a rising force to reckon with, that holds self-respect at its core. Hence, a hike that is imposed on India as a penalty for trading with Russia while the USA continues to do the same is completely unacceptable. America WILL HAVE to RETHINK and REVOKE!'," said the LPU Chancellor. Mittal's remarks came days after a reported meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, post which two things are clear: pressure on the White House is mounting, and there is growing compulsion to recognise India as the world's fourth-largest economy that cannot be subjected to unfair trade diktats. "Any imbalance of trade with India would deal a far greater blow to the U.S. than to India," Mittal said, calling on world leaders to move beyond "zero-sum tactics" and to resolve trade issues peacefully. "The real test of diplomacy lies not in rhetoric but in achieving breakthroughs that benefit all sides," he added. As per the statement, "With his firm stance against tariff hikes and repeated call for constructive global dialogue, Ashok Mittal has positioned himself as a strong voice for India's economic dignity on the global stage. His message remains clear: India welcomes cooperation, but its dignity is non-negotiable." (ANI) Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday visited the cloudburst and flood-affected areas of Janglote and Ghatti in Kathua district to assess the situation and meet the families impacted by the natural calamity. He also distributed relief material to the affected households. Speaking to media persons, Union Minister Singh said, "...We have come here and assessed what actions will be taken to provide immediate relief... Today, the DC has arranged for rations at all the relief centres... We have also distributed relief materials on our part..." "Keeping climate change in view, we have initiated a National Mission through the Department of Science and Technology to preserve the Himalayan ecosystem. While this initiative will work effectively, we also need to contribute at a societal level. Rainfall can be forecasted, but cloudburst incidents occur due to local factors, so keeping that in mind, we can take some preventive measures..." he added. Dr Jitendra Singh added that the Government is making every effort for the rehabilitation of affected families. He said that a plan is being chalked out to rehabilitate them and provide appropriate compensation. Speaking to the Media, Dr. Jitendra Singh expressed serious concerns over the sudden cloudburst and flood-like situation in Kathua. He said that the Government is serious about the situation that has arisen due to natural disasters in Jammu and Kashmir recently. He alerted the people about such natural disasters. Earlier on Tuesday, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary said that the Union Territory is on high alert for natural calamities, and everyone needs to take care of them. Natural calamities are a result of global warming. "The government stands shoulder to shoulder with the affected families in this hour of crisis. Every possible measure will be taken to ensure their immediate relief and long-term rehabilitation," the Deputy Chief Minister said. During the visit, the Deputy Chief Minister also inspected the nearby bridge connecting the adjoining villages of Ghatti, which was damaged in the incident. He directed the concerned authorities to take up immediate restoration work. On August 17, a devastating cloudburst and flash floods struck Kathua district, resulting in significant damage and disruption. Following the incident, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the Central government was closely monitoring the situation and assured all possible support. In a post on X, Shah wrote, "Spoke with the Lieutenant Governor and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the cloudburst in Kathua. Relief and rescue operations are being carried out by the local administration, and NDRF teams have also been rushed to the site. Assured of every support from the Modi government. We stand firmly behind our sisters and brothers of J&K." Even as rescue efforts continue across Kathua, additional Army resources remain on standby to tackle emerging challenges. (ANI) India's drug regulator has alerted on the theft of multiple drug products of Novo Nordisk during transit. According to the notice issued by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), Dr Rajeev Raghuvanshi, "Mis Novo Nordisk has informed about a theft of its products, as mentioned below, during transit from its Bhiwandi Hub to milk route (Nagpur, Raipur, Cuttack, and Kolkata)." The DCGI has also mentioned in the notice that the quality of the injectables is required to be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius; if not handled properly, storage quality might be compromised. "The products under consideration are rDNA origin injectables, which are required to be stored at 2-8 C. The quality of the products may be compromised if the products are not handled in proper storage conditions, since the formulations are supposed to be maintained at 2 C to 8 C, failing which would impact the quality of the product and, in turn, impact the safety of the patients. The matter is currently under investigation by the Police," the DCGI said. These products are of Batch NO. 1 Insulin degludec/ Insulin Aspart (r-DNA origin) solution for injection RT6GY9G (RyzodegM FlexTouch 2, Insulin aspart (-DNA Origin), solution for injection Fiaspe Penifill) RR726A8 3. Insulin aspart (r-DNA Origin), solution for injection (Fiasp@ FlexTouch@) RP5P640 4. Semaglutide Injection 0.5mg (r-DNA Origin), solution for injection RP5S233 (Wegovye FlexTouch@) 5. Semaglutide Injection 0.25 mg (r-DNA Origin), solution for injection RP5S232 (WegovyR FlexTouche) 6. Semaglutide Injection 1 mg (-DNA Origin), solution for injection RP5S210 (WegovyR FlexTouchR) "Doctors and Healthcare professionals should carefully prescribe and educate patients to report any Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs). Patients and consumers are to be careful and procure the above products from authorised sources only and with a proper invoice," the DCGI stated. The notice has been issued to the regulatory authorities of all state/UT Drugs Controllers and Zonal/Sub-Zonal offices of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO). (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has directed Secretary, Disaster Management and Rehabilitation, Vinod Kumar Suman, to coordinate with the district administration and take appropriate steps for channelisation to drain out the water from the lake formed due to debris in the Syanachatti area of Uttarkashi district. According to an official release, the Chief Minister instructed officials to take effective and precautionary measures to ensure the safety of local residents. He also directed to ensure the availability of food, cooking gas, medicines, as well as petrol-diesel and other essential commodities for the residents of Syanachatti, as well as those living in safe places. Secretary Disaster Management informed that efforts are on to open the lake formed due to debris in Syanachatti of Uttarkashi district. Public Works Department, SDRF, Irrigation Department and other related agencies are engaged in opening a part of the lake. "The water level of the lake has decreased by about 2 feet in the last one hour." He further informed that water is currently being drained from a part of the river, though full channelisation has not yet been achieved due to swamp conditions. "Channelisation has not been possible yet due to the swamp. Other options are also being considered by the relief and rescue team," as per the release. He appealed to the local population to remain calm and not pay attention to any kind of rumours. As per the release, teams from SDRF, NDRF, the fire brigade and the irrigation department have reached ground zero using rafts. District Magistrate of Uttarkashi, Prashant Arya, is present at the site, and drones are being used to monitor the entire area. Teams from the Health, Revenue, and Food Supply Departments are also on standby at ground zero. District Magistrate Arya urged residents of Syanachatti not to panic. "The lake water will be drained out soon. All necessary safety measures are being taken by the administration," he said. (ANI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday hit out at the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, saying the "days of the corrupt, atrocious and dynastic government are numbered". Shah said the people are determined to uproot the DMK government and bring the NDA to power in the state. https://x.com/AmitShah/status/1958912446749454602 In a post on X, Shah wrote, "The days of the corrupt, atrocious, and dynastic DMK government are now numbered. People of Tamil Nadu are determined to oust the DMK government and establish an NDA government. Glimpses from the 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan' in Tirunelveli." Earlier today, Shah accused Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin of doing "black deeds" and termed the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government as the "most corrupt" in response to the opposition protests over the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill brought by the Centre in Parliament. Addressing the 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan' in Tirunelveli, Shah said, "Modi ji has presented the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha. The entire opposition started protesting. What is the Constitution Bill? If any CM or Prime Minister goes to jail, they will have to resign from their post. The opposition is asking, What is the need for this bill? Senior DMK ministers K Ponmudy and Senthil Balaji were in jail for eight months. They did not resign. Tell me, can you run the government while being in jail? These DMK people call the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill a black bill. Stalin Babu, you have no right to call this bill a black bill because you are a Chief Minister who does black deeds." He also exuded confidence that the NDA allies will form the government in the 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly elections. "In the coming days, a government of the BJP, AIADMK and NDA allies is going to be formed in Tamil Nadu. The DMK government is the most corrupt government in the country. They have done many scams. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, our NDA alliance got 18 per cent of the votes. Our ally AIADMK got 21 per cent votes. If we add all of them, then about 39 per cent of the votes are of NDA," Amit Shah said. Amit Shah also highlighted the contribution of Prime Minister Narendra Modi towards "glorifying" the Tamil culture and referred to CP Radhakrishnan, NDA pick up for Vice Presidential election scheduled for September 9, as "Tamil Nadu's son". "I have come to tell the people of the state that after assuming the post of Vice President, Tamil Nadu's son CP Radhakrishnan is going to become the Chairman of Rajya Sabha. Earlier, the NDA had also given this honour to APJ Abdul Kalam ji by making him the President of India. Narendra Modi ji has always worked to glorify Tamil Nadu, Tamil language and Tamil culture," he said. The Election Commission has announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election will take place on September 9, with counting of votes scheduled for the same day. The Vice Presidential post fell vacant after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 21, citing health reasons. (ANI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin of doing "black deeds" and termed the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government as the "most corrupt" in response to the oppostion protests over the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill brought by the Centre in Parliament. Addressing the 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan' in Tirunelveli, Shah said, "Modi ji has presented the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha. The entire opposition started protesting. What is the Constitution Bill? If any CM or Prime Minister goes to jail, they will have to resign from their post. The opposition is asking, What is the need for this bill? Senior DMK ministers K Ponmudy and Senthil Balaji were in jail for eight months. They did not resign. Tell me, can you run the government while being in jail? These DMK people call the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill a black bill. Stalin Babu, you have no right to call this bill a black bill because you are a Chief Minister who does black deeds." He also exuded confidence that the NDA allies will form the government in the 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly elections. "In the coming days, a government of the BJP, AIADMK and NDA allies is going to be formed in Tamil Nadu. The DMK government is the most corrupt government in the country. They have done many scams. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, our NDA alliance got 18 per cent of the votes. Our ally AIADMK got 21 per cent votes. If we add all of them, then about 39 per cent of the votes are of NDA," Amit Shah said. Amit Shah also highlighted the contribution of Prime Minister Narendra Modi towards "glorifying" the Tamil culture and referred to CP Radhakrishnan, NDA pick up for Vice Presidential election scheduled for September 9, as "Tamil Nadu's son". "I have come to tell the people of the state that after assuming the post of Vice President, Tamil Nadu's son CP Radhakrishnan is going to become the Chairman of Rajya Sabha. Earlier, the NDA had also given this honour to APJ Abdul Kalam ji by making him the President of India. Narendra Modi ji has always worked to glorify Tamil Nadu, Tamil language and Tamil culture," he said. The Election Commission has announced that polling for the Vice Presidential election will take place on September 9, with counting of votes scheduled for the same day. The Vice Presidential post fell vacant after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 21, citing health reasons. (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday spoke over the phone with the family of Jitendra Kumar, a resident of the Pauri Kotwali area who allegedly died by suicide, after reportedly posting a video on social media accusing certain individuals of duping him of money, as per an official release. Following the incident, Uttarakhand Police took swift action and arrested several individuals, including the main accused, Himanshu Chamoli. District Magistrate of Pauri, Swati Bhadoria, along with the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), also met the bereaved family and briefed them on the progress of the investigation. Chief Minister Dhami assured the family of a fair and thorough probe and said strict legal action would be taken against those found guilty under the relevant sections of law. He also directed the police to expedite the investigation and ensure that justice is delivered at the earliest. Meanwhile, on August 20, CM Dhami also spoke to Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini regarding the recent murder of Uttarakhand youth Sahil Bisht in Ambala. Dhami requested the immediate arrest of the culprits and ensured strict punishment. On this, Nayab Singh Saini assured that the criminals will not be spared at any cost, and clear instructions have been given to the police to take immediate action. He said that the Haryana government will take every possible step in this entire matter. Expressing deep condolences to the victim's family, Chief Minister Dhami said that the Uttarakhand government is with them in this fight for justice and all possible assistance will be provided to the family. On August 13, Sahil Bisht, a 30-year-old resident of Tisriyada village panchayat in Patti Basar, Balganga Tehsil of Bhilangana block, was brutally murdered in Ambala, reportedly during a robbery. On Tuesday, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami presented the supplementary budget in the Assembly session held at Bhararisain (Gairsain). Speaking of the supplementary budget, the Chief Minister said that the supplementary budget of Rs 5,315 crore had been prepared by imbibing the mantra of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas'. (ANI) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is pushing for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to purchase, own and operate its own fleet of airplanes to carry out deportations, according to a new report. The move would mark a shift from ICE's longstanding reliance on chartered aircraft and could significantly increase deportation capacity. The agency has typically chartered eight to 14 planes at a time for deportation flights. Jason Houser, who served as ICE chief of staff from 2022 to 2023, told NBC News that under the Biden administration the agency deported roughly 15,000 people per month using charter planes. He estimated that if the Trump administration seeks to reach 30,000 to 35,000 removals monthly, "you would need to double the number of planes" or purchase about 30 planes. Acquiring its own planes would free ICE from competing with other clients for charter availability, but would also mean taking on responsibility for pilots, medics, security staff, and aircraft maintenance. According to aviation experts cited in the report, commercial airliners can cost $80 million to $400 million each. Buying 30 could cost between $2.4 billion and $12 billion. ICE has chartered just over 1,000 deportation flights through July this year, according to flight tracker Tom Cartwright. Each flight costs about $25,000 per hour, covering aircraft, crew, medical and security staff. Officials consulted by NBC News noted that ICE sometimes pays $100,000 to $200,000 per charter. The Trump administration has pledged to deport one million undocumented immigrants annually. Internal data cited by shows 100,000 to 150,000 people were removed or self-deported in Trump's first six months in office. Estimates of the total undocumented population remain in the millions. The push for an air fleet comes amid a broader expansion of immigration enforcement infrastructure. An internal planning document obtained by The Washington Post over the weekend outlines ICE's intent to expand detention capacity to more than 107,000 beds by early next year, including the opening or enlargement of 125 facilities. The plan emphasizes large "mega-detention" centers and temporary structures, extending ICE's reach into at least five new states. Congress has allocated $45 billion for detention expansion and $30 billion specifically for deportation operations through what the administration has called the "big, beautiful bill." Originally published on Latin Times Factionalism within the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) spilled into the open on Friday as the party's 'vote chor, kursi chhor' campaign launch in Shimla turned into a noisy show of strength between supporters of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and PWD Minister Vikramaditya Singh. The meeting, held at the Rajiv Bhawan party headquarters to galvanise support for the nationwide Congress campaign, was attended by AICC in-charge Rajni Patil, HPCC chief Pratibha Singh, Chief Minister Sukhu, Deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri, ministers, MLAs, municipal board chairpersons, vice-chairpersons, senior leaders, and former ministers. What was intended to be a display of party unity quickly descended into chaos as rival groups of workers raised slogans in support of their respective leaders for nearly 10 minutes, despite repeated appeals for calm by senior leaders. AICC co-incharge Chetan Chauhan attempted to lead chants of "Sonia Gandhi-Rahul Gandhi Zindabad", but the sloganeering continued with both camps asserting their presence. The high-voltage drama forced HPCC president Pratibha Singh to halt her speech briefly. She later told party workers, "This kind of enthusiasm should be visible in the future as well. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has exposed the vote theft. The BJP indulged in electoral malpractices during the Lok Sabha elections, and the Congress will take this issue to every village," she said. Singh also acknowledged that the slogan-shouting was a "show of strength" from both the Chief Minister's and the PWD Minister's supporters. Earlier in the day, Rajni Patil chaired a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party to strategise for the campaign, which will include a signature drive down to the block level. However, the meeting was dominated by demands for organisational reconstitution. Several MLAs raised concerns over the delay in reorganising the state unit, which has remained defunct since November 6, 2024, when party president Mallikarjun Kharge dissolved the HPCC along with district and block units. Pratibha Singh, whose term ended in April this year but who continues as state president, has urged the high command not to ignore the legacy of six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh. Some leaders have pushed for an "experienced and senior leader" as HPCC chief, while CM Sukhu is reportedly in favour of either a Scheduled Caste leader or a sitting cabinet minister. The rally also saw signs of poor coordination, with journalists walking out after Gagret MLA Rakesh Kalia told them, "This is a Congress programme, not a programme for the media." Traffic congestion was reported on Cart Road and Combermere Bridge, where VVIP and police vehicles were parked in no-parking zones. The 'Vote Chor, Kursi Chhor' campaign is part of the AICC's nationwide protest against alleged electoral malpractices by the BJP during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hit out at the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government and Congress for the "appeasement" politics and said they are "encouraging infiltration only for the greed of power." Addressing a public gathering in Kolkata, PM Modi urged people to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the assembly polls next year to get rid of infiltrators. He said the BJP will not allow infiltrators to take away the jobs and torture women. seeks to remove the Prime Minister or Chief Ministers who are facing allegations of corruption or serious offences and have been detained for 30 consecutive days. PM Modi also criticised the Opposition parties for attempting to dismantle the 130th Constitution Amendment Bill in Parliament, which seeks to remove the Prime Minister or Chief Ministers who are facing allegations of corruption or serious offences and have been detained for 30 consecutive days. "We have seen that even when the Chief Minister is in jail, they run the government. This is a disrespect to the Constitution and democracy. I cannot see this happening...Whether it is a minister, Chief Minister or Prime Minister, everyone comes under the purview of this stringent law...TMC leaders tried to tear this bill apart in Parliament...They protect the corrupt..." PM Modi said. The prime minister was addressing the people after inaugurating multiple metro railway projects in Kolkata, and emphasised that India now has the third-largest metro network in the world. The Prime Minister said the projects showed that the government is working for the development of every city as India is moving towards becoming the third-largest economy. He said the projects reflected the government's commitment to urban development and green mobility. "Today, when India is moving towards becoming the third largest economy, the role of Dum Dum, Kolkata, increases further... This program is a proof that today's India is working for the development of every city. Green mobility efforts are being made in every city; the number of electric charging points and electric buses is being increased... The metro network is being expanded and everyone is proud that India has the third largest metro network in the world," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister also congratulated the people of Kolkata for these development projects, saying, "Today once again I got the opportunity to accelerate development in West Bengal...Everyone is happy that Kolkata's public transport has progressed...I congratulate the people of Kolkata for these development projects," the Prime Minister said. PM Modi was also felicitated by Union Ministers Ravneet Singh and Shantanu Thakur. (ANI) As per an official, "The incident occurred when Madhav, driving from Sasthamangalam towards Vellayambalam, confronted Vinod, who had taken a U-turn and was approaching from the opposite direction. Due to a lack of space, an argument broke out, with Madhav seen in a video blocking Vinod's vehicle and engaging in a heated exchange." Police arrived at the scene and, based on witness accounts, detained both for questioning. While a section of bystanders alleged Madhav was under the influence, police tests confirmed he was not intoxicated. Madhav, in turn, alleged that Vinod was using his phone while driving. "Both sides were asked if they wished to file complaints, but later chose not to pursue the matter. They were released after being counselled," the Museum Police said. Vellayambalam Sasthamangalam Road is a crowded place. Following the argument, traffic was affected as people gathered there. Meanwhile, people identified the young actor Madhav from his two newly released movies in the theatre. (ANI) After facing backlash from all over the country, the Supreme Court on Friday modified its earlier order regarding the management of stray dogs in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), directing that the animals be released back into the same area after sterilisation and immunisation. The apex court clarified that stray dogs infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour will not be released and will instead be kept in confinement. "Stray dogs will be released back to the same area after sterilisation and immunisation, except those infected with rabies or exhibiting aggressive behaviour," the court said in its revised directive. The Court further ordered that public feeding of dogs would not be permitted, directing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to establish designated feeding areas in each municipal ward. The bench also noted that animal lovers may apply to the MCD for the adoption of stray dogs. Welcoming the order, animal rights activists and shelter operators termed the decision a "big relief" for stray dogs and those working for their welfare. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi hailed the ruling and stated, "I am very happy with this scientific judgement. Relocation and fear are the primary reasons dogs bite. There is no question of releasing dogs infected with rabies. The court has not defined what an aggressive dog is--this needs to be clarified. It's right to create designated feeding areas. For the first time in 25 years, the government has stated in Parliament that 2,500 crore is being allocated for this program." The BJP leader also stressed the need for properly functioning Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres across the country, as mandated by the court. Sonali Gaba, the owner of a dog shelter, echoed this sentiment and said the court had acknowledged the importance of behavioural assessments. "We are happy that the SC has ruled on creating designated feeding areas. If dogs are aggressive, they will be confined and monitored. If they are not rabid, they should be released after vaccination," Gaba told ANI. Political leaders across parties also reacted positively to the court's direction. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the ruling "a step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety." "I welcome the Supreme Court's revised directions on stray dogs, as it marks a progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety. The approach is both compassionate and rooted in scientific reasoning," he posted on social media platform X. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak stated that the order would be implemented in full across the state. "We will work according to the SC order and ensure it is implemented in the state," he told ANI. However, tensions flared in Delhi after Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was attacked during a public grievance hearing, 'Jan Sunvai', at her Civil Lines residence by a dog-lover reportedly upset over the removal of stray dogs from the streets. The accused, identified as Rajesh Khimji, is a rickshaw driver. His mother, speaking to ANI, said he had become distressed after watching social media videos of stray dogs being taken away. "He did not eat after seeing those videos. He left home saying he was going to Ujjain, but ended up in Delhi. He is a devotee of Mahadev," she said. In another incident from Udaipur on August 14, a five-year-old child was attacked by three stray dogs. The incident sparked concerns among local residents about growing dog attacks. "I heard his scream and ran towards him. I saw three dogs on top of him. He has multiple injuries. Animal Aid came the next day but didn't take the dogs immediately," the child's mother, Preeti Sahu, told ANI. The boy's father, Dinesh Sahu, said the incident left children in the locality afraid to go outside. "The Supreme Court should consider such incidents. I hope dog lovers who protest these rulings see these videos to understand the extent of the problem," he said. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also welcomed the judgment, calling it a correction of a "wrong" earlier decision. "I welcome the Supreme Court's order. The previous order was inhumane and against the humanitarian cause. It is important that stray dogs are neutered, immunised, and given designated feeding areas," she said. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi President Saurabh Bharadwaj criticised the MCD for its failure to vaccinate stray dogs in a timely manner. "The responsibility lies with the MCD. They failed to immunise the dogs, and that is the real issue," he told ANI. Supreme Court lawyer and petitioner in the case, Nanita Sharma, described the verdict as a "balanced order." She added that all pending dog-related cases in courts across various states would now be clubbed and handled centrally. The Supreme Court's revised directive has been widely viewed as a step towards a more humane and pragmatic approach to managing the stray dog population. By balancing public safety with animal welfare, the order seeks to address long-standing concerns while emphasising sterilisation, vaccination, and accountability from civic authorities. (ANI) The Border Security Force (BSF), in a joint operation, has seized narcotics assessed at over Rs 75 crore in the illicit market and arrested eight persons, busting an international racket. The achievement followed a special joint operation conducted on August 21, acting on specific intelligence developed by the BSF and meticulously planned and launched in close coordination with the Narcotics Control Bureau's (NCB) Aizawl unit and the Excise and Narcotics Department of Mizoram. The joint team successfully intercepted four suspected vehicles on the Aizawl-Champhai National Highway (NH-6), between Keifang and Seling villages, approximately 60 kms from Aizawl. "A total of eight individuals were apprehended along with four vehicles," said the BSF in a statement. During the search, the border guarding force said three plastic bags containing fifty packets, each weighing about one kilogram, filled with approx 10,000 pinkish tablets suspected to be Methamphetamine (Yaba) were recovered. "The total weight was found to be approximately 50 kilograms, amounting to 5,00,000 tablets approximately. In addition, three soap cases containing 36 grams of Heroin were also recovered. The combined value of the seized narcotics is assessed at over Rs 75 crore in the illicit market," it said. This major success highlights the synergy and seamless coordination between the BSF, NCB, and the Excise and Narcotics Department, Mizoram, whose joint efforts ensured the disruption of a significant narcotics trafficking attempt along the vulnerable Mizoram-Myanmar corridor. "The operation reaffirms the resolute determination of security and enforcement agencies to combat the menace of drugs, safeguard society, and protect the youth from falling prey to narcotics smuggling networks," said the BSF, which is mandated to guard India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders. The BSF said it reiterates its unwavering commitment to the war on drugs in close collaboration with sister agencies and assures that such coordinated actions will continue with greater intensity to deliver decisive blows against organised drug trafficking syndicates operating in the region. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Mamata government and Congress for the "appeasement" politics and said they are "encouraging infiltration only for the greed of power." PM Modi urged people to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the assembly polls next year to get rid of infiltrators. Addressing a public gathering in Kolkata, the Prime Minister said the BJP will not allow infiltrators to take away the jobs and torture women. PM Modi also criticised the Opposition parties for attempting to dismantle the 130th Constitution Amendment Bill in Parliament, which seeks to remove the Prime Minister or Chief Minister facing allegations of corruption or serious offences and have been detained for 30 consecutive days. "We have seen that even when the Chief Minister is in jail, they run the government. This is a disrespect to the Constitution and democracy. I cannot see this happening...Whether it is a minister, Chief Minister or Prime Minister, everyone comes under the purview of this stringent law...TMC leaders tried to tear this bill apart in Parliament...They protect the corrupt..." PM Modi said. The prime minister was addressing the people after inaugurating multiple metro railway projects in Kolkata, and emphasised that India now has the third-largest metro network in the world. Soon after the inauguration, he took a metro ride and interacted with school students and construction workers involved in the metro projects. In a post on X, PM Modi wrote, "14 km of network expansion. 7 new stations added to the metro network. Important stations like Howrah and Sealdah added to the metro map. Connectivity to the airport enhanced. Truly a day of gladness for Kolkata today!" https://x.com/narendramodi/status/1958922778674930091 The Prime Minister also urged people to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) once, as it will remove the infiltrators completely from the states. He criticised the TMC and Congress for succumbing to the "politics of appeasement" and said he will not allow those infiltrators who are taking away the jobs of youth and torturing women. "Vote for us and the infiltrators will run away... We will not allow those infiltrators who are taking away the jobs of our youth and torturing women to stay in India... Some parties like TMC and Congress have succumbed to the politics of appeasement. They are encouraging infiltration only for the greed of power..." the Prime Minister added. PM Modi launched a sharp attack on the Mamata government, stating that the state's progress has remained stagnant due to the corruption and misrule of the Trinamool Congress. He called on the people to elect Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to ensure that the benefits of central government schemes reach everyone. He said so long as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is not removed from power, the development of West Bengal will not be possible. "...It is necessary to elect the BJP in West Bengal to ensure that the benefits of central government schemes reach the people. It is certain that TMC will be removed from power and BJP will be elected." The Prime Minister alleged that crime and corruption had become TMC's hallmark. He said the condition of the state had worsened under its rule. Over the past 11 years, the BJP government at the Centre has provided every kind of support for the development of West Bengal, the Prime Minister said. He added that most of the money sent to the state government for Bengal gets "looted" by TMC cadres. "That money is spent on TMC cadres. As a result, Bengal lags behind other states in the country in many schemes for the welfare of the poor," the Prime Minister said. PM alleged that the state government had created hurdles in the implementation of central welfare schemes. PM Modi said that people in West Bengal deserved access to schemes related to housing, healthcare, education, and employment without political interference. "So long as the TMC government is in power, the progress of the state will remain stalled. TMC jaabe, tabhi asaol parivartan ashbe (TMC will go, only then real change will come)," PM Modi said. He stressed that Bengal needed "saccha parivartan, asol parivartan, not in slogans" but change that would ensure jobs for sons and daughters, safety for women, fair prices for farmers, and an end to corruption. The Prime Minister said the projects showed that the government is working for the development of every city as India is moving towards becoming the third-largest economy. He said the projects reflected the government's commitment to urban development and green mobility. Union Ministers Ravneet Singh and Shantanu Thakur also felicitated PM Modi. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi today laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore in Kolkata. The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone for the six-lane elevated Kona Expressway. He extended heartfelt congratulations to the people of Kolkata and all citizens of West Bengal for these multi-thousand-crore-rupee projects. Earlier in the day, PM Modi laid the foundation stone and inaugurated multiple development projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore at Gaya in Bihar. PM Modi, along with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, inaugurated the Aunta-Simaria bridge project constructed over the River Ganga on National Highway 31 in Begusarai. He also flagged off the Amrit Bharat Express running from Gaya to Delhi. (ANI) Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and MoS PMO Jitendra Singh, who also oversees the Space Department said on Friday that India is now standing on equal footing with other top countries of the world in regards to International Space Mission. "India is standing in the row of the world's top countries. We are an equal partner with other countries on the International Space Mission," the Union Minister said. The remarks were made by the Union Minister as Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who recently became the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station as part of the Axiom-4 mission. "Shubanshu Shukla has performed very unique experiments out there which are related to life sciences, health. Like I said yesterday, experiments were performed by Indian; even kits to perform those experiments were Indian, but the entire mankind will benefit. Shubhanshu Shukla is the symbol of Vishwabandhu," he added. Earlier today, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla met President Droupadi Murmu here at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. President Murmu expressed her best wishes to Shubhanshu Shukla for being the first Indian to return from the International Space Station (ISS). Meanwhile, Union Minister Jitendra Singh also visited the cloudburst and flood-affected areas of Janglote and Ghatti in Kathua district to assess the situation and meet the families impacted by the natural calamity. He also distributed relief material to the affected households. Speaking to media persons, Union Minister Singh said, "We have come here and assessed what actions will be taken to provide immediate relief. Today, the DC has arranged for rations at all the relief centres. We have also distributed relief materials on our part. Keeping climate change in view, we have initiated a National Mission through the Department of Science and Technology to preserve the Himalayan ecosystem. While this initiative will work effectively, we also need to contribute at a societal level. Rainfall can be forecasted, but cloudburst incidents occur due to local factors, so keeping that in mind, we can take some preventive measures." Jitendra Singh expressed serious concerns over the sudden cloudburst and flood-like situation in Kathua. He said that the Government is serious about the situation that has arisen due to natural disasters in Jammu and Kashmir recently. He alerted the people about such natural disasters. On August 17, a devastating cloudburst and flash floods struck Kathua district, resulting in significant damage and disruption. (ANI) Following heavy rainfall in Porbandar for two consecutive days and subsequent waterlogging, the situation became normal on Friday. District Collector SD Dhanani said that one woman lost her life after she was struck by lightning. Speaking to ANI, SD Dhanani said, "This year, the start of the monsoon was good. But on 19 and 20 August, Porbandar faced heavy rains..Due to these situations, waterlogging developed. From the state government, we got four additional dewatering pumps. Yesterday, a woman lost her life because she was struck by lightning. No other lives were lost. Yesterday evening, 46 children were stuck in a school. With the help of NDRF, they were safely evacuated. A tanker flipped today, and it had 13 people on board. We sent the NDRF team to the scene. The situation is normal now. Rain has stopped since yesterday." Earlier, Raval village in Devbhoomi Dwarka district of Gujarat was flooded on Thursday following heavy and continuous rainfall, leaving roads and low-lying areas completely submerged. Connectivity between Raval and the nearby Kalyanpur village has also been cut off due to the flooding. The Meteorological Centre (Met Centre), Ahmedabad, issued a nowcast warning of extremely heavy rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms, lightning and squalls for 10 districts, including Devbhoomi Dwarka, Porbandar, Junagadh, Surat and Valsad. Parts of Gujarat have been battered by incessant rainfall over the past few days. The IMD said several places reported heavy to very heavy rainfall, with isolated instances of extremely to exceptionally heavy rainfall (>=30 cm) in Saurashtra and Kutch, and south Gujarat on Wednesday. The IMD has forecast that till August 25, heavy rainfall is anticipated over parts of the central Arabian Sea and adjacent areas, including portions of the south Arabian Sea and northeast Arabian Sea, along with the coasts of Gujarat, Konkan, and Goa. (ANI) Senior AAP leader and Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday said that the BJP has become the most "dangerous party" in the nation. "BJP is stealing the data of our people. This means that whatever data they collect, they will manipulate it and commit fraud digitally. When fraud happens, they blame the state. BJP cannot collect data because the Government of India has enacted the Data Protection Act, which states that no one can access anyone's data. We won't let this happen in Punjab. Whoever does this, strong action will be taken against them," a senior AAP leader said to ANI. On Lok Sabha LoP and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's vote theft allegations against BJP, Minister Cheema said, "First, they stole the data, then they deleted their votes, a vote theft happened. To stop this, AAP even went to the Supreme Court. BJP has become the most dangerous party for our democracy. BJP has become a 'vote-chor' party." Earlier today, Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi arrived in Jamalpur on the sixth day of the 'Voter Adhikaar Yatra,' aimed at addressing concerns over alleged voter fraud. The 16-day yatra is aimed at raising awareness about alleged irregularities in the voter list and what opposition leaders are calling a case of 'vote chori' (vote theft). Covering over 1,300 km across 20 districts, the yatra is scheduled to conclude in Patna on September 1. The Yatra, continuing for the sixth day, reached Jamalpur earlier today. Leaders of the party, along with leaders of alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). The Voter Adhikar Yatra is the latest effort by the opposition to highlight concerns over voter disenfranchisement and electoral transparency in the lead-up to the 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. (ANI) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, on Friday, said that he attended the event at Chinnaswamy Stadium on the request of the Police Commissioner. Following the Royal Challengers Bengaluru's IPL victory, a stampede occurred during the celebration ceremony on June 4, which led to the death of 11 people and left several injured. "The Police Commissioner appealed to me to direct RCB management to end the programme at the Chinnaswamy stadium in 10 minutes. Hence, I went to the stadium and directed the RCB management accordingly," he said. During a discussion in the Legislative Assembly on the Chinnaswamy stadium stampede, the Leader of the Opposition questioned why the DCM attended the stadium event despite the government not having given permission. Replying to the question, the DCM clarified, "The KSCA President and Secretary were feeling helpless as they could not go to the stadium after the event at Vidhana Soudha. The Police Commissioner appealed to me to ensure that the stadium event ended in 10 minutes. It is true that I went to the stadium and congratulated the RCB players. But I also gave them instructions to close the programme in 10 minutes. I have told the same to the Cunha committee. I went to the stadium due to appeal from the police to end the programme quickly." Meanwhile, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara reiterated that the stampede was very painful and cannot be taken lightly. Speaking in the Assembly, he extended his condolences and prayed that the grieving families get the strength to bear the pain. G Parameshwara said, "Such an incident has never happened in the sporting history of Karnataka. The entire country witnessed what took place at Chinnaswamy Stadium. Eleven people lost their lives due to the stampede. This is a very painful matter. Society cannot take this lightly. On the very first day itself, we expressed condolences to the families of the eleven who died. Even now, we extend our condolences and pray that the grieving families get the strength to bear this pain. Perhaps our prayers will not bring back those who died, but they may give some courage to the families, and for that, we have prayed to God." (ANI) The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela has urged American citizens and those residing in the country to refrain from traveling to the South American country due to a series of risks as the Trump administration deploys troops off its coast. In a social media post, the embassy said those linked to the U.S. in the country face "grave risks of illegal detention, torture while in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, unfair police actions, violent crime and civil unrest." NO VIAJAR El Gobierno de los Estados Unidos advierte a cualquier ciudadano de los Estados Unidos o que tenga cualquier tipo de residencia en los Estados Unidos, que no viajen ni permanezcan en Venezuela debido a los graves riesgos de detencion ilegal, tortura durante la pic.twitter.com/UFaZJoI4v4 Embajada de los EE.UU., Venezuela (@usembassyve) August 21, 2025 The deployment of U.S. forces near the Venezuelan coast is completely dominating the conversation in the South American country. On Wednesday, Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's regime-friendly Legislative Assembly, said all people who enter the country unlawfully will be arrested. "Whoever it may be. Foreigners who enter the country unlawfully can come in, but won't come out. They'll stay here. In prison," Rodriguez said during an Assembly session, a statement greeted by applause from those present. Also on Wednesday, authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro called on friendly countries to "unite" to defend its "right to sovereignty, peace and self-determination." Speaking at an extraordinary ALBA-TCP summit, Maduro began with a call to "the national unity of all Venezuelans to guarantee peace with sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination of the peoples." He then addressed the group's countries, saying "I dare, brothers of Latin America and the Caribbean, to call for the union of all rebel people, social movements, to defend Venezuela's right to sovereignty, peace, self-determination and its own development." "Our union is what has made us strong," Maduro told representatives of Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and St. Lucia. The group then published a press release condemning the U.S.'s "imperialistic and destabilizing policy, which, through unilateral coercive measures, diplomatic blackmailing and media campaigns, seeks to undermine the region's peace and sovereignty." Reuters reported that the U.S. has ordered an amphibious squadron to the region as part of the deployment. Concretely, the USS San Antonio, USS Iowa Jima and USS Fort Lauderdale will carry 4,500 service members, including 2,200 marines. They could arrive as early as Sunday. Originally published on Latin Times The discussion on the rain-related disaster situation under Rule 67 concluded on the fifth day of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly's monsoon session with high drama, as the Opposition staged a walkout before Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi could respond. As soon as Negi rose to reply to the debate, Opposition MLAs quietly walked out of the House, accusing him of using "unparliamentary language" inside and outside the Assembly. The Opposition also announced that they would neither ask questions nor listen to any answers from the minister during the session. Speaking to reporters outside the Assembly, former minister and BJP MLA Vipin Singh Parmar accused the Revenue Minister of disrespecting Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur and insulting disaster-affected people. Parmar said the government failed to provide immediate relief to the worst-hit areas, particularly Mandi and Seraj in Mandi district, and that citizens themselves came forward to distribute aid. "After God, the government is the only hope for people in distress, but the Chief Minister is not serious and the Revenue Minister harbours malice," said Parmar, adding that the government's approach was insensitive. Parmar also targeted the Congress party over its "Vote Chor, Kursi Chhod" programme, alleging that the party had looted the country for years and was now questioning the BJP. He said the event in Shimla exposed Congress's internal factionalism, with slogan-shouting and pushing between two groups in front of the party's state in-charge. "The Congress has been wiped out across the country and will also vanish from Himachal due to its own policies," Parmar said. The Opposition, however, boycotted Negi's reply and refused to return to the House for the conclusion of the debate. Inside the House, Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi hit back, holding the previous Jai Ram Thakur government responsible for the scale of the disaster. He alleged that between 2018 and 2022, Seraj lost around 23 percent of its forest cover due to indiscriminate tree felling, with 56 cases under investigation. He said the deforestation case in Shikari Devi was pending in the High Court. Negi further alleged that the previous government favoured certain people who, in turn, funded Jai Ram Thakur. "Blank cheques were taken to distribute money among BJP supporters. Jai Ram Thakur should submit a white paper within seven days with the names of the beneficiaries," the minister said. (ANI) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has expressed disappointment over the restoration of statehood, saying that all expectations have been dashed. However, Abdullah emphasised that his government will continue working towards restoring Jammu and Kashmir's statehood. A section of National Conference leaders had expected the Centre to announce the move during the Monsoon Session. "All our expectations (of restoring statehood) have been dashed...We were hopeful that the promises that were made to us would be fulfilled. We will continue to work for it," stated Abdullah on Friday. His remarks came during the celebration of the 56th Raising Day in Sainik School, on Friday in Nagrota, where he inaugurated the girls' hostel. On 5 August 2019, the Centre scrapped Jammu and Kashmir's special status and bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir (with a legislature) and Ladakh (without a legislature). The Supreme Court of India, on August 14, 2025, heard a plea seeking directions to the Centre for the restoration of statehood to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The Court noted that the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be ignored while granting statehood and said that the events in Pahalgam cannot be overlooked. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said the government had assured statehood after elections, but there is a peculiar situation there. He said the assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir as promised to the Constitution bench that had upheld the abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories. "This is not the time for petitioners to muddy the waters," he further said. Mehta sought eight weeks to take instruction from the government on the issue. Speaking on he bill for removal of the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, and ministers held on serious criminal charges, Omar Abdullah expressed concerns about its potential misuse. He noted that so far, only opposition leaders have been targeted under such laws and feared that the BJP might use this law against others when they're out of power. "Till now, only opposition leaders have been targeted. What has been the impact of the efforts made by the government led by Prime Minister Modi since 2014 to eradicate corruption? No law is wrong in itself; however, they are often misused. I fear that this law will be misused... BJP will not remain in power forever. The law which they are using against others today, the same law may be used against them tomorrow...," said J-K CM. Home Minister Amit Shah tabled the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, 2025, on August 30. The bill was introduced along with two other bills and was later referred to a Joint Committee of Parliament for further scrutiny. The Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, 2025, proposes that any minister, including the Prime Minister or a Chief Minister, would automatically be removed from office if detained for more than 30 consecutive days on serious criminal charges. (ANI) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday (local time) said that he is going to approve the military's plan to take over Gaza City, while instructing them to begin negotiations for the release of all hostages, Times of Israel reported. Netanyahu delivered the statement in a pre-recorded message filmed outside the Israel Defence Force's Gaza Division headquarters, where he was meeting with defence officials, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, to approve the proposal. "I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the defense minister for taking control of Gaza City and for defeating Hamas," Netanyahu said. "At the same time, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and for ending the war under conditions acceptable to Israel," he added. The announcement by Netanyahu came several days after Hamas said it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would see half of the hostages released and kick off talks to end the war and free the rest. Though the framework was previously approved by Jerusalem, Netanyahu has since said that Israel will only agree to stop fighting as part of a comprehensive deal for all 50 remaining captives. It was unclear whether his Thursday comment marked any significant change in the state of talks. Netanyahu's statement came several days after Hamas said it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would see half of the hostages released, Times of Israel reported. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office told Times of Israel that there were no immediate plans to dispatch an Israeli delegation, while a senior official later clarified that envoys would be sent once a venue for the talks was decided. It was also not clear if Netanyahu's comments were coordinated with Arab mediators engaged in ongoing ceasefire discussions. The deal pushed by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, would commit the terror group to release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 of the slain hostages in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. It was proposed that during the ceasefire, talks would begin for a permanent end to the war and the release of the remaining 22 hostages, Times of Israel reported. Israel had earlier approved a similar framework but has yet to respond to the offer. Netanyahu has not rejected the framework leaving open the possibility of both a negotiated settlement and a military escalation. (ANI) The recent agreement between India and China to develop a trade route along the Lipulekh pass has heated up Nepal's House of Representatives, which has brought the opposition and ruling parties together. During Thursday's session of the House of Representatives, lawmakers from both the opposition and ruling parties drew the attention of the government to the latest agreement signed between India and China. Gagan Thapa, a parliamentarian from Nepal's largest political party, the Nepali Congress, objected to the unilateral move by India and China, calling it unacceptable and objectionable. "Our two neighbours- India and China made an agreement regarding our land, in our absence, we read it, listened to it, and knew about it. The Nepali Congress Party expresses its serious disagreement with this behaviour of our two neighbours. This is objectionable, unacceptable," Thapa, also the General Secretary of the Nepali Congress (NC), said. India and China have agreed to reopen border trade through Lipulekh Pass, a point located 56 kilometres inside Nepal's western frontier in Limpiyadhura. The agreement was made during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to India earlier this week. Both countries agreed during a meeting between the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Point nine of the joint communique mentions the resumption of border trade. "Both sides agreed to the re-opening of border trade through the three designated trading points, namely Lipulekh Pass, Shipki La Pass and Nathu La Pass." Addressing the parliamentary session, Mahesh Bartaula, the Chief Whip of CPN-UML (Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist), also objected to the agreement between India and China via the Nepali land without any consultation. "The CPN-UML parliamentary party would strongly oppose the agreement reached between them (China and India). We want to express our disagreement with it. A country can be small or big in terms of geography, economy and population. But it cannot be small or big in terms of self-respect, independence and sovereignty of the country. If there is an activity that affects the freedom and independence of our country, we will oppose and counter it," Bartaula, the chief whip of the UML led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, said. Similarly, CPN-Maoist Centre chief whip Hitraj Pandey drew the government's attention, saying that the agreement between China and India is hurting Nepal. He objected by saying that the Maoist centre has drawn serious attention to the agreement on border trade without even informing Nepal. "We express our objection to this agreement, which was made without even informing our country about the lands mentioned in the constitution, Lipulekh, Kalapani, and Limpiyadhura. We oppose it," Pandey said. The agreement comes ahead of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's visits to India and China--he will first attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China from August 31 to September 1, then proceed to India for an official visit starting September 16. Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday objected to the agreement of India and China to open a trade route via Lipulekh, asserting a claim over the land. Issuing a statement, the Ministry asserted claims over the land, objecting to the unilateral move by China and India. Meanwhile, India on Wednesday rejected Nepal's territorial claims over Lipulekh Pass, stating that the claims are "neither justified nor based on historical facts and evidence". The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) emphasised that India remains open to constructive interaction with Nepal to resolve outstanding boundary issues through dialogue and diplomacy.MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal reiterated that India's position on the issue remains consistent and clear, emphasising that border trade between India and China through Lipulekh Pass has been ongoing since 1954. The ministry said that the claims made by Nepal are neither justified nor based on historical facts and evidence."Our position in this regard has been consistent and clear. Border trade between India and China through Lipulekh pass had commenced in 1954 and has been going on for decades. This trade had been disrupted in recent years due to Covid and other developments, and both sides have now agreed to resume it," said Jaiswal. "As regards territorial claims, our position remains that such claims are neither justified nor based on historical facts and evidence. Any unilateral artificial enlargement of territorial claims is untenable. India remains open to constructive interaction with Nepal on resolving agreed outstanding boundary issues through dialogue and diplomacy," he added. Notably, in 2023, China released a new map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani, and Limpiyadhura as part of India. Nepal maintains that Lipulekh, including Kalapani and Limpiyadhura, belongs to Nepal according to the Sugauli Treaty of 1816. India's position is that the Kalapani region, including Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, is part of its territory. This claim is based on India's interpretation of the Sugauli Treaty of 1816, which defined the border with Nepal based on the Kali River. India maintains that the river originates at the Kalapani village, while Nepal argues it originates further north, at Limpiyadhura. This difference in interpretation leads to the disputed territory. (ANI) A report of a gunman at Villanova University on Thursday (local time) was confirmed to be a hoax, the New York Times reported, citing officials. The false alarm, however, triggered widespread panic among students and families on the campus near Philadelphia, coinciding with the first day of orientation. Students were instructed to barricade themselves inside classrooms and dormitories as armed police officers rushed onto campus with weapons drawn after the university received an anonymous report of an "active shooter" at its law school. "It's a little crazy," said Ethan Westaway, 18, a freshman from Massachusetts who sheltered with his parents inside the campus bookstore, the New York Times reported. Police methodically cleared buildings across campus while urging people to remain sheltered until officers could escort them to safety. No gunman or weapon was discovered, according to school officials, and no injuries were reported. Folding chairs were left toppled across a lawn and sidewalk as students and parents scrambled from an orientation event after the false gunman report at Villanova University, The New York Times reported. "I know today's events have shaken our entire community," Villanova President Peter M. Donohue said in a statement, expressing particular regret for the impact on new students and their families. "This is not the introduction to Villanova that I had hoped for you." Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro denounced the incident as a "cruel swatting incident" and said he had directed state police to "use every tool at our disposal" to track down whoever made the threat. Swatting refers to false reports that send police rushing to a location, creating panic and fear. "I know today was every parent's nightmare, and every student's biggest fear," Shapiro wrote on social media. "I'm profoundly grateful no one was hurt, and thankful to all members of law enforcement who ran toward reports of danger." (ANI) Osaka [Japan], August 22 (ANI/WAM): The UAE Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, has proudly welcomed a record three millionth visitors, marking another key milestone in its journey as one of the most visited and admired national pavilions at the Expo. Since opening in mid April 2025, the Pavilion has become a space of storytelling, connection, and discovery. With its theme Earth to Ether, it offers an immersive experience that bridges the UAE's rich heritage with its forward-looking vision for global progress. The Pavilion team marked the milestone by taking the opportunity to connect with visitors and reflect on the journey so far. Visitors arriving on the day were welcomed with the same warmth and openness that have made the Pavilion a favourite for many. The Pavilion's Youth Ambassadors along with the wider team, have played a central role in this journey. They have brought stories to life, fostered conversations, and created moments of genuine cultural exchange. Their energy, insight and hospitality have helped shape the Pavilion experience and have been key to reaching this remarkable milestone. Shihab Alfaheem, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Arab Emirates to Japan and Commissioner General of the UAE Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, said: "Reaching the three million mark is a huge milestone for the UAE Pavilion. It is a cherished achievement, and speaks to the global resonance of the UAE's story and our shared aspirations for the future. Every visitor who walks through the Pavilion brings their own voice to our collective journey. Together, we are shaping a narrative that crosses borders, embraces diversity, and accelerates progress. With two months remaining, we want more guests to experience our pavilion." Designed by the Earth to Ether Design Collective, a consortium of UAE, Japanese and other international partners, the Pavilion has earned widespread praise for its architectural vision, sustainable construction, and powerful storytelling. The Pavilion's 90 columns, formed from agricultural palm waste and inspired by the date palm, reflect a design philosophy rooted in shared purpose, creative exchange, and the pursuit of progress for all life. Inside, visitors journey through five thematic zones that highlight the UAE's bold steps in space exploration, healthcare innovation, sustainable technologies, and cultural heritage. The Pavilion's sensory design, interactive installations, and narrative flow have contributed to a deeply engaging guest experience. In addition to its architecture and exhibits, the Pavilion has emerged as a vibrant cultural hub at the Expo. Its daily programming includes expert talks, creative workshops, Emirati food showcases, and artistic performances that attract both visitors and fellow Expo participants. The Pavilion has seen many visitors return for a second or even third experience, a testament to the lasting impression it leaves and the connection it fosters across cultures. These events continue to draw enthusiastic crowds, reinforcing the Pavilion's role as a space for dialogue, creativity, and human connection. With Expo 2025 running until October 13, 2025, the UAE Pavilion continues to welcome the world with open arms, inviting every visitor to explore the UAE's enduring values and its vision for a shared, flourishing future. (ANI/WAM) India's Ambassador to the United States, Vinay Mohan Kwatra held talks with US Rep Josh Gottheimer on balanced, fair and mutually beneficial trade ties between US and India. He shared the latest developments in bilateral energy cooperation, including trade in oil and gas. Sharing the details in a post on X on Thursday, Kwatra said, "Appreciated my conversation today with @RepJoshG, Ranking Member of the National Security Agency & Cyber Subcommittee @HouseIntelDems. Shared updates on the latest developments in bilateral energy cooperation including two way trade in oil and gas and balanced, fair and mutually beneficial trade ties." https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1958537032562516114 Kwatra, on Wednesday (local time), discussed with the Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus, Senator John Cornyn from Texas, focusing on strengthening bilateral trade and cooperation in hydrocarbons, particularly between the US state of Texas and India. In a post on X, Kwatra expressed gratitude for Cornyn's consistent support for the India-US relationship and highlighted the importance of trade engagement rooted in mutual respect. Ambassador Kwatra also held a conversation with Congressman Andy Barr, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions & Monetary Policy and Vice Co-Chair of the India Caucus in the House of Representatives. The engagement comes amid economic concerns over US President Donald Trump's imposition of additional tariffs on India due to New Delhi's purchase of Russian oil. Later on Thursday (local time), in what is perhaps the sharpest attack on India regarding Russian oil purchase, the White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro claimed India of "perpetuating" the Ukraine War by purchasing discounted Russian crude oil. Alleging that India has been acting as a "laundromat for the Kremlin," Peter Novarro said India's purchase is allowing Russia to fund its war efforts in Ukraine, while New Delhi is reaping profit from the transactions. "India doesn't appear to want to recognise its role in the bloodshed. It's cosying up to Xi Jinping (Chinese President). They (India) don't need the (Russian) oil. It's a refining profiteering scheme. It's a laundromat for the Kremlin. I love India. Modi is a great leader, but please, India, look at your role in the global economy. What you're doing right now is not creating peace. It's perpetuating the war," the White House trade advisor said. Notably, his statements come after Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, emphasised the importance of treating India as a "prized free and democratic partner" in the global effort to counter China's growing influence. In her opinion piece on Newsweek, she warned that damaging the 25-year momentum in US-India relations would be a "strategic disaster." She urged Donald Trump to "reverse the downward spiral" and hold direct talks with PM Modi. "The sooner the better," she said. Haley believes that India is the only country that can serve as a counterweight to Chinese dominance in Asia, making it crucial for the US to maintain a strong partnership. Moreover, renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs has strongly criticised the US administration's decision to impose steep tariffs on India, calling them "bizarre" and "very self-destructive of US foreign policy interests." (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed condolences on the demise of Swaraj Paul, whose contributions played a significant role in areas like philanthropy and public service in the United Kingdom. He also hailed Paul's role in commitment towards closer India-UK ties. In a post on X, PM Modi also fondly recalled several of his interactions with Swaraj Paul and offered condolences to his family and admirers. "Deeply saddened by the passing of Shri Swaraj Paul Ji. His contributions to industry, philanthropy and public service in the UK, and his unwavering support for closer ties with India will always be remembered. I fondly recall our many interactions. Condolences to his family and admirers. Om Shanti", PM Modi wrote on X. https://x.com/narendramodi/status/1958729445038334047 Swaraj Paul, who was the Chairman of Caparo Group, was born in Jalandhar in 1931. As per the official website of the Caparo Group, he laid the foundation of the group in the United Kingdom in 1968. A British businessman and Philanthropist, Paul was conferred with the prestigious civilian award Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1983. Swaraj Paul also founded the Indo-British Association in 1975 so as to promote a better understanding between India and Britain and served as its Chairman, as described on the official website of the Caparo Group. The UK has a large Indian diaspora of 1.864 million as per 2021 Census, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). It forms about 2.6 per cent of the total population of the UK, which is estimated at 68 million (in 2022). MEA had observed in a previous statement that, according to a report, 'India in the UK: The diaspora effect' prepared by Grant Thornton and FICCI in March 2022, there are over 65,000 companies owned by the Indian diaspora. (ANI) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Russia from August 19-21, during which he called upon President Vladimir Putin, held meetings with Deputy First PM Denis Manturov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. As per an official statement by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the external affairs minister held wide-ranging discussions on several issues, such as terrorism, and regional developments such as those in Ukraine, West Asia and Afghanistan. EAM also co-chaired the 26th session of India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). As per the MEA, during the visit, Jaishankar also interacted with prominent scholars and think tanks. During his call on President Putin, the external affairs minister conveyed personal greetings of PM Modi and discussed key issues of the bilateral agenda and contemporary global issues of mutual interest, including the developments related to Ukraine. On August 20, EAM co-chaired the 26th Session of the IRIGC-TEC with First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. It was emphasized that addressing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, removing bottlenecks in logistics, promoting connectivity, effecting payment mechanisms smoothly, timely finalization and execution of the Programme of Economic Cooperation till 2030, the early conclusion of the India-Eurasian Economic Union FTA, whose terms of reference were finalised, and regular interaction between the businesses of the two countries, were among the key elements for timely achievement of the revised bilateral trade target of USD 100 billion by 2030, the MEA statement said. The importance of sustaining energy cooperation through trade and investments was also highlighted. The issue of mobility of Indian skilled workers, especially in IT, construction, and engineering, was also discussed. Following the conclusion of the Plenary Session, the Co-Chairs signed a Protocol for the 26th Session of IRIGC-TEC. As per the statement, EAM and Manturov spoke at the India-Russia Business Forum which followed the IRIGC-TEC meetings. The Forum saw participation from a wide range of stakeholders, including officials as well as representatives from businesses and industries from both sides. It was considered to have a coordination mechanism between the Business Forum and the different Working Groups of the IRIGC. "On August 21, EAM met Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and undertook a comprehensive review of the entire gamut of India-Russia bilateral relations, including in sectors like trade and economic cooperation, various connectivity initiatives, political, defence and military-technical cooperation, fast-tracking of opening of two new Indian Consulates in Kazan and Yekaterinburg. On global and multilateral cooperation, both sides reaffirmed their shared commitment to reform of global governance, and collaboration in G20, BRICS and the SCO. EAM underlined the imperative to expand and energise the UN Security Council to reflect contemporary realities", the statement said. Significantly, regional developments such as those in Ukraine, the Middle East, West Asia and Afghanistan were discussed. Jaishankar reiterated India's approach to emphasise dialogue and diplomacy as essential to resolving differences. The EAM also raised the issue of Indians serving in the Russian Army and hoped for an expeditious resolution of the pending cases. On the front of terrorism, both sides resolved to fight jointly against all forms and manifestations of terrorism. EAM conveyed India's strong resolve to adopt a zero-tolerance policy against terrorism and its sovereign right to defend Indian citizens against cross-border terrorism. The statement said that both sides discussed preparations for the forthcoming Annual Summit between the leaders, including its key deliverables and outcomes. Jaishankar invited Lavrov to pay a visit to India at a mutually convenient date to continue their dialogue. (ANI) Government has extended privileges and immunities to the International Big Cat Alliance and its officials under the United Nations (Privileges & Immunities) Act, 1947, Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav said on Friday. The minister said that this step reaffirms India's commitment to international cooperation for big cat conservation. He highlighted that with these privileges and immunities, IBCA gets the necessary empowerment to function effectively as a global platform to foster collaboration, knowledge exchange, and capacity building for the conservation of big cats worldwide. A Gazette Notification issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on August 8 formalised the development. The Union Minister wrote on X, "Glad to share that the Government of India has issued the Gazette Notification extending privileges and immunities to the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives, and officials under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947. The significant step reaffirms India's steadfast commitment to strengthening international cooperation for big cat conservation. The conservation of big cats is also instrumental in preserving and protecting their ecosystems and hence the well-being of our Planet." https://x.com/byadavbjp/status/1958740680286904811 Thanking the Government of India, the IBCA noted in a post on X, "By according these privileges and immunities, the Government of India has further empowered IBCA to function effectively as a global platform dedicated to fostering collaboration, knowledge exchange, and capacity building for the conservation of #bigcats worldwide." https://x.com/IBCA_official/status/1958498804468191359 A Gazette of India notification dated August 8 noted that that India had signed the Host Country Agreement with the IBCA for establishing it in India. As per Article X, Host Country Agreement provides for privileges and immunities of the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives and officials. It stated, "the Central Government considers it expedient to extend the necessary privileges and immunities provided under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947 (46 of 1947) to the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives and officials in accordance with Article X of the above mentioned Host Country Agreement". It thereby exercised the powers conferred by section 3 of the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947 (46 of 1947), the Central Government hereby declares that the provisions of section 1 of Article I, provisions under Article II, section 9 of Article III, sections 18 and 20 of Article V and sections 22 and 23 of Article VI of the Schedule to the said Act shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to the International Big Cat Alliance, its representatives and officials. The International Big Cat Alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental organisation conceived by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and officially launched on April 9, 2023, during the 50th-anniversary celebrations of Project Tiger. Its mandate covers the conservation of the seven big cats of the world - Tiger, Lion, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Cheetah, Jaguar, and Puma - through collaboration with partner nations. The IBCA is a multi-country, multi-agency coalition comprising of 95 big cat range countries, non-range countries with an interest in big cat conservation, conservation partners, scientific organizations engaged in big cat research, as well as business groups and corporates committed to supporting big cat conservation efforts. Its objectives include facilitation of collaboration and synergy amongst the concerned stakeholders, consolidation of successful conservation practices and expertise to achieve conservation of big cats around the globe. The IBCA seeks to lead by example, bringing together range countries and other stakeholders onto a common platform to champion the cause of big cat conservation on a global scale. (ANI) Actor Ahn Hyo-seop has weighed in on the possibility of his character Jinu returning in a potential sequel to Netflix's hit animated film "K-pop Demon Hunters," despite the character's tragic fate at the end of the movie. The 30-year-old Korean actor, who voiced the 400-year-old demon-turned-idol Jinu, expressed his own enthusiasm for seeing the character return while acknowledging the narrative challenges. "I mean, Jinu gave his soul, so, like, I never really imagined how he would come back. As someone who loves Jinu as a fan too, of course I would love to see him come back. But it's not up to me," Ahn said. Jinu's fate became a major talking point among fans after the character sacrificed himself to save demon hunter Rumi and humanity in the film's climactic moments. The bittersweet ending has sparked widespread calls for a sequel that would give Jinu and Rumi another chance at happiness. Ahn revealed his personal investment in the characters' relationship, saying, "I stan them too," referring to Jinu and Rumi. "I think it's about the pain and the agony that they had. I feel like it's about the company, like you can't solve your problems alone. You have to have somebody beside you, and they had the biggest connection." The animated film has achieved remarkable success since its June 20 Netflix debut, earning a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and becoming the platform's second most-viewed movie ever. The soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking a significant achievement for K-pop music in film. While Netflix has not officially announced a sequel, industry observers note the high likelihood of at least one more film given the international success. The movie will also receive theatrical releases in select U.S. theaters on August 23-24, with many locations offering sing-along experiences. Ahn is not alone in wanting Jinu's return. Co-star Arden Cho, who voices Rumi, has also expressed hope for the sequel to bring back the beloved character. The fan devotion has even extended to real-world tributes, with people leaving flowers at Namsan Tower in South Korea, the site of Jinu's fictional demise. Looking forward, Ahn expressed his broader hopes for the franchise's impact. "I hope that this franchise continues to inspire people to embrace their shadows and their flaws and be able to still move forward," he said. "I'm a big fan too now, so I'll be waiting and cheering like everyone else." Pakistan's Minister of Commerce Jam Kamal Khan and Bangladesh's Adviser for Commerce Sk Bashir Uddin held in-depth discussions in Dhaka on Thursday to advance economic cooperation, mutual investments and strengthen bilateral trade ties, officials said on Friday. The two countries are in the process of establishing a Joint Working Group on Trade to enhance the economic ties and foster greater cooperation in trade between the two countries. Both sides agreed to re-activate the Joint Economic Commission (JEC) forum to work out a comprehensive strategy for promoting trade, investment and economic collaborations. The last meeting of the JEC was held in 2005. It was also agreed to form a Joint Trade Commission, which would present a roadmap for building on the existing bilateral trade relations, set goals for future commercial ties and define steps to achieve those targets, they added. The Minister and Adviser discussed sectors including agricultural modernisation, renewable energy, steel industry, green ship breaking, ship building, dates, minerals, construction aggregates, halal trade, sugar, leather, rice, dehydrated fruits and agro-processing. It was noted that connectivity and logistics for trade should be improved and economised for cost-cutting, officials said. Matters related to the reduction of tariffs and duties and preferential access to certain Bangladeshi products to the Pakistani market also came under discussion, they said. Both sides underscored that there was a vast untapped potential of bilateral trade and people of our two countries were all set to benefit from those opportunities. The two governments should build on the existing momentum and swiftly move to create a more conducive environment, they said. The Minister of Commerce for Pakistan, Jam Kamal Khan, also held a meeting with Bangladesh's Adviser for Food, Ali Imam Majumdar, in Dhaka on the same day to discuss possible collaborations in food security, the officials said. Both sides expressed satisfaction at the MoU on rice between Trading Corporation of Pakistan and the Directorate General of Food, Bangladesh - signed in January 2025, under which Pakistan has successfully delivered 50,000 MT of rice. It was agreed that the MoU will work as a gateway for regular exchanges of delegations on both government-to-government and business-to-business levels for enhancing trade of essential commodities, they said. The Minister also noted that the upcoming 3rd International Food and Agricultural Exhibition (FoodAg), which is being held in Karachi on 25-27 November 2025, provides an opportunity for Bangladeshi businesses and government officials to have an in-depth understanding of Pakistan's agricultural landscape, they said. The Adviser and the Minister stressed the need to enhance the yield of crops by improving agricultural practices to meet the growing demands of food commodities in both countries. The meeting concluded with the commitment to build on the present collaboration through multiple stakeholder engagement and joint efforts, they said. (ANI) Sit-in demonstrations by families of missing Baloch persons and detained members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) continued outside press clubs in Islamabad and Karachi on Thursday, according to a report by The Balochistan Post (TBP). In Islamabad, the sit-in against enforced disappearances and political arrests reached its 37th consecutive day. Protesters complained of ongoing police harassment and obstruction throughout their demonstration. Their demands include the unconditional release of all detained BYC activists and an immediate end to the practice of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. "The state hopes the Baloch will eventually surrender out of fatigue, but it fails to understand that our resistance is rooted in centuries of struggle," participants said. "A nation that has endured abductions, extrajudicial killings, and systematic repression will continue fighting for its rights until its final breath," TBP reported. The BYC, in its statement, said five months had passed since the "illegal" detention of its leader, Dr. Mahrang Baloch, along with other senior figures. The group accused the state of using abductions, arrests, and violence to stifle dissenting voices in Balochistan, further alleging that the judiciary had shown "open bias" by neither releasing the leaders nor proving charges against them. According to the statement, even while imprisoned, Dr. Baloch and her colleagues remained "symbols of defiance and resilience." The organisation also urged international actors and human rights groups to intervene, warning that global silence would only perpetuate abuses. Meanwhile, in Karachi, the parents of Zahid Ali Baloch have been holding a sit-in for 17 days outside the Karachi Press Club despite heavy rainfall. Speaking to reporters, Zahid's father, Abdul Hameed Baloch, said he had pursued both legal and protest avenues. Following a petition to the Sindh High Court, police were ordered to register a First Information Report (FIR). "If there are any allegations against my son, he must be produced before a court as per the law and Constitution," he said, as quoted by TBP. The family vowed to continue their protest under all circumstances until Zahid's release. Zahid Ali Baloch was allegedly picked up by Pakistani security forces in Karachi on July 17, 2025. Since then, his parents have been staging nonstop demonstrations to demand his recovery, TBP reported. (ANI) Citing officials familiar with the matter, Newswire reported that the former Sri Lankan president was arrested after appearing before the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Colombo. As per Newswire, his arrest is linked to allegations of using state funds to cover the expenses for a private visit to London, where he had attended a university graduation ceremony. It was further reported that the investigators claim the trip, which formed part of a wider overseas tour, was not an official engagement but was financed with government money. As per Newswire, earlier in August, former presidential secretary Saman Ekanayake and former private secretary Sandra Perera were questioned over their roles in arranging the visit. Ranil Wickremesinghe, had served as Sri Lanka's president from 2022 to 2024. As per reports, he is the most senior political figure to face arrest in recent years. The detention of Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to intensify scrutiny over the use of public funds by top officials. According to newswire, the court proceedings and formal charges are expected to follow. Ranil Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister, assumed office as Sri Lanka's interim president in July 2022 following Gottabaya Rajapaksa's removal. He lost the Presidential Elections to Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of National People's Power in September 2024. (ANI) According to a report by Dawn, the Auditor General of Pakistan's report for 2023-24 has raised audit objections amounting to Rs 28.62 billion concerning the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The audit report also noted considerable public discontent with the NDMA's performance regarding its awareness initiatives, preparedness, and relief operations. This conclusion was drawn after the Directorate General Audit (Climate Change and Environment) carried out an audit of the NDMA in Islamabad, utilising a public questionnaire to collect feedback on its effectiveness, as reported by Dawn. A large number of participants demonstrated limited or partial awareness of natural disasters (72 per cent combined), while familiarity with the NDMA as an organisation was also restricted, with 72 per cent having some knowledge. A total of 76 per cent either disagreed or remained neutral when asked if the NDMA effectively prepared communities for potential disasters; only 36 per cent agreed. Most respondents (76 per cent) were either dissatisfied or neutral regarding the speed of the NDMA's relief efforts, with merely 24 per cent expressing satisfaction. Overall satisfaction ratings for performance were also low, with 84 per cent feeling dissatisfied or neutral, while only 16 per cent were content. The Auditor General pointed out in the report that unauthorised spending from the National Disaster Management Fund (NDMF) occurred during the fiscal year 2023-24, as cited by Dawn. The NDMA spent Rs 21.677 billion from the National Disaster Management Fund Account on acquiring relief supplies, civil works for the National Emergency Operation Center building, salaries for project employees, and civil works related to the Karachi Transformation Plan (KTP), including the reconstruction and enhancement of major stormwater drains in the city during the 2023-24 financial year. "The audit stated that the expenses made from the National Disaster Management Fund Account, without an approved and recognised national authority from the federal government, were unauthorised," said the report. Additionally, the audit report pointed out unauthorised expenditures from the NDM Fund for event management services worth Rs 23.254 million, inflated contract awards to state-owned entities related to Gujjar and Orangi nullah projects totalling Rs 5.674 billion, and the "mis-procurement of family tents based on pre-qualification rather than open competitive bidding," which led to a loss of Rs 4.829 billion. The audit report indicated that procuring tents without a technical evaluation resulted in an extra loss of Rs 2.58 billion. It was determined that the acquisition of winterised and shelter tents from suppliers violated the PPRA Rules. The audit recommended that the issue be investigated and accountability established for the breach of PPRA Rules, as reported by Dawn. (ANI) By Rajnish Singh New Delhi [India], August 22 (ANI) Prevention against attack on BSF personnel and Indian civilians by Bangladesh-based miscreants, trans-border crimes, and construction of a single row fence are among over half a dozen issues set to be raised by India in the DG-level biannual Border Co-ordination Conference starting from Monday in Dhaka. Action against Indian Insurgent Groups (IIGs) in Bangladesh, issues related to border infrastructure, joint efforts for effective implementation of the Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP), Confidence Building Measures (CBM), and other issues will also be raised in the four-day conference being held from August 25 to August 28. The co-conference between India's Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) will be organised by the BGB at Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. During this conference, the BSF delegation, led by BSF Director General Daljit Singh Chawdhary, will meet the BGB delegation, headed by its Director General, Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui. Officials in the BSF told ANI that the conference is being organised to discuss the "border-related issues and for better coordination between both border guarding forces." The last BSF-BGB Border Co-ordination Conference was held from 17th to 20th February 2025 at New Delhi. The Joint India-Bangladesh guidelines for Border Authorities - 1975 envisage that there should be frequent contacts between the border authorities of the two concerned countries to discuss the matters of immediate administrative concern. An Indian delegation under the leadership of Ashwani Kumar, former Director General of BSF, and the Bangladesh delegation under the leadership of Major General Quazi Golam Dastgir, former Director General BDR (now BGB), met at Kolkata on December 2, 1975, for the first time to discuss mutual border problems. Since then, the meetings between DG BSF and DG BGB were held annually alternatively in India and Bangladesh till 1993. During discussions between the Home Secretaries of India and Bangladesh that were held at Dhaka (Bangladesh) from Oct 7th to 9th, 1993, it was agreed that the Director General-level meetings between BSF and BGB were to be a bi-annual event. In the agreed summary of discussions during the said meeting, it was emphasised that problems in the areas of mutual interests and concerns could be progressively resolved through close contacts and continuing meaningful dialogue at various levels. Accordingly, DG BSF and DG BGB have been holding Border Coordination meetings twice a year alternatively at Delhi and Dhaka, and a joint record of discussions of these meetings is forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs after each such meeting. (ANI) The Netanyahu government has approved the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) plans to "defeat Hamas in Gaza," Defence Minister Israel Katz said, as the military prepares to push into Gaza City in a new offensive, the Times of Israel reported. "The gates of hell will soon open over Hamas murderers and rapists in Gaza -- until they agree to Israel's conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament," Katz said. He further warned that if Hamas does not capitulate, Gaza City "will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun" -- two cities that have already been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment, according to the report. Reinforcing this stance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday (local time) that he will approve the military's plan to take over Gaza City, while simultaneously directing the forces to open negotiations for the release of all hostages, the Times of Israel added. Netanyahu delivered the statement in a pre-recorded message filmed outside the Israel Defence Force's Gaza Division headquarters, where he was meeting with defence officials, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, to approve the proposal. "I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the defence minister for taking control of Gaza City and for defeating Hamas," Netanyahu said. "At the same time, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and for ending the war under conditions acceptable to Israel," he added. The announcement by Netanyahu came several days after Hamas said it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would see half of the hostages released and kick off talks to end the war and free the rest. Though the framework was previously approved by Jerusalem, Netanyahu has since said that Israel will only agree to stop fighting as part of a comprehensive deal for all 50 remaining captives. It was unclear whether his Thursday comment marked any significant change in the state of talks. Netanyahu's statement came several days after Hamas said it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would see half of the hostages released, Times of Israel reported. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office told Times of Israel that there were no immediate plans to dispatch an Israeli delegation, while a senior official later clarified that envoys would be sent once a venue for the talks was decided. It was also unclear whether Netanyahu's comments were coordinated with Arab mediators engaged in ongoing ceasefire discussions. The deal pushed by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, would commit the terror group to release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 of the slain hostages in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. It was proposed that during the ceasefire, talks would begin for a permanent end to the war and the release of the remaining 22 hostages, Times of Israel reported. Israel had earlier approved a similar framework but has yet to respond to the offer. Netanyahu has not rejected the framework, leaving open the possibility of both a negotiated settlement and a military escalation. (ANI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met UN women officers here on Friday and hailed their role in the global peace and security architecture. He highlighted India's longstanding role in peacekeeping, which reflects the power and potential of women officers. During the event, Defence Minister Singh said the presence of officers from countries across the globe reflects the microcosm of the United Nations and its enduring spirit of unity and cooperation. "Like the sky, they (UN Peacekeepers) offer protection and a sense of security. Like the oceans, they build connections across borders and cultures. The blue helmet symbolises not only the authority of the United Nations but also its commitment to peace, equality, and shared humanity. It is a colour", he said. Calling the peacekeepers a beacon of hope, Singh highlighted how the United Nations has set clear targets to increase the participation of women officers in peacekeeping missions. He highlighted that this commitment stems from the recognition that the women peacekeepers are essential to making missions more effective and inclusive. "Women officers bring invaluable perspectives and approaches to peace operations. They are often able to foster deeper trust with local communities, particularly with women and children whose voices are often unheard in the rebuilding of societies torn by conflict. Their presence has been shown to help prevent sexual violence, and increase gender equality on the ground. Moreover, women peacekeepers serve as powerful role models inspiring local women and girls to see themselves as active participants in peace and security", Rajnath Singh highlighted. He brought to attention India's peacekeeping journey. India, as the largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping missions, has been a strong supporter of women's participation and their integration into the missions. "Our legacy began in the 1960s with the women medical officers in Congo and today we continue to take concrete steps to bridge gender gaps." https://x.com/rajnathsingh/status/1958796252465795229 Rajnath Singh said that initiatives like these prepare women officers for complex peacekeeping environments. Calling them torchbearers of change, Singh hailed their dedication to not only strengthening peacekeeping but also the very fabric of global security and said that India stands with them, proud of their contributions and journey. (ANI) A Thai court has dismissed a high-profile royal defamation case against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, citing insufficient evidence, Al Jazeera reported. "The case was dismissed," Thaksin, 76, told reporters with a smile as he left the court following the verdict on Friday. His lawyer, Winyat Chatmontree, added, "The court dismissed the charges against Thaksin, ruling that the evidence presented was insufficient." According to Al Jazeera, the criminal court in Bangkok later confirmed that it had dropped the case due to a lack of evidence. The case related to allegations that Thaksin had violated Thailand's strict lese-majeste laws in a 2015 interview with foreign media, where he commented on the 2014 coup that ousted his sister Yingluck Shinawatra. Supporters gathered outside the courthouse erupted in cheers after hearing the judgment. Many wore red shirts, the campaign colour of the party Thaksin founded. "The court has done its job properly, but I don't think we can relax yet," said 66-year-old food vendor Kamol Orahanta, among roughly 150 supporters present. Thailand's interim Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai welcomed the decision but emphasised it was strictly a judicial matter. "It will have no political impact, as it was an independent judicial process," he told reporters. He added that the ruling Pheu Thai Party, founded by Thaksin, continues to have "high morale" despite the ongoing legal challenges faced by the Shinawatra family. As reported by Al Jazeera, Thaksin still faces further legal hurdles. Next week, the constitutional court will deliver a ruling on his daughter and current Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was suspended from office over an alleged ethics violation stemming from a leaked telephone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen. In addition, the Supreme Court will hear in September whether Thaksin's six-month hospital detention, served before his parole release in 2024, should count as time served for earlier convictions related to abuse of power and conflict of interest. If ruled against him, the 76-year-old could be required to return to prison, Al Jazeera noted. Thaksin, who denies wrongdoing and has consistently pledged allegiance to the monarchy, spent 15 years in self-imposed exile before returning to Thailand in 2023. His case was among more than 280 prosecutions filed in recent years under the lese-majeste laws, which critics argue are used to suppress dissent, while royalists defend them as essential to safeguarding the crown. (ANI) At the sixth trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China held in Kabul, the three sides stressed the need to enhance cooperation against regional terrorist organisations, including Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Tolo News reported. Pakistan's special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, said the three countries reached an understanding to step up efforts against terror outfits. "The three sides committed to strengthen joint efforts against terrorist organisations including TTP, BLA, ETIM and other regional and international terrorist outfits," he stated. According to Tolo News, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar also addressed the matter during a joint press conference with his Chinese counterpart in Islamabad. "These mechanisms reflect our shared determination to promote regional peace, stability, prosperity, and to share the benefits among Pakistan, China, and friendship with other regional countries and beyond," he said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi highlighted the significance of economic cooperation, particularly under CPEC. "China and Pakistan are pioneers in implementing the Global Development Initiative, and the expansion of CPEC has not only benefited the people of both countries but has also extended to other countries including Afghanistan," he noted. Although no joint statement was issued after the Kabul meeting, the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan said the discussions focused on enhancing relations among the three countries in political, economic, and transit sectors, Tolo News reported. Experts, however, expressed mixed views on the significance of the gathering. Military affairs analyst Kamran Aman remarked, "Pakistan is playing a dual game with us through China to achieve its objectives via Afghanistan. On one hand, it tries to show the world that we support TTP and the Baloch separatist groups, providing evidence of it. On the other hand, it's about capital, trade, and investment. We are witnessing that our trade with Pakistan has decreased by 28% compared to last year." Political analyst Mohammad Aslam Danishmal also weighed in on the outcomes of the talks. "The trilateral meeting between Afghanistan, China, and Pakistan creates some opportunities in terms of political engagement and expanding connections, but there are also some negative aspects," he said, as quoted by Tolo News. Tolo News further reported that both Pakistan's and China's foreign ministers arrived in Kabul to attend the meeting, which was hosted at the Presidential Palace. (ANI) Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), General Upendra Dwivedi, is scheduled to undertake an official visit to Algeria next week, the Indian Army said on Friday. It will be his first overseas visit after the triumph in Operation Sindoor, underscoring the Army's growing role in strengthening India's strategic engagements abroad. Operation Sindoor, a punitive and targeted campaign to dismantle the terror infrastructure across the Line of Control and deeper inside Pakistan, was initiated on May 7 in the aftermath of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 innocent civilians were killed in the name of religion. The visit also follows the recent tours of President Droupadi Murmu and the Chief of Defence Staff to Algiers, which laid the foundation for deeper cooperation, according to a statement from the Indian Army. "The Indian Army Chief is expected to discuss strengthening Army-to-Army ties, expanding training exchanges, and enhancing capability development initiatives. With Algeria operating predominantly similar equipment, India is well positioned to share operational expertise, provide maintenance and training support, and promote collaboration in defence technologies. The two sides are also expected to explore opportunities for defence industrial partnership, particularly in areas of modernisation, logistics, and equipment support," the Indian Army said. "General Dwivedi will also share India's strategic vision of zero tolerance for terrorism and exchange perspectives on regional and global security challenges. These deliberations are expected to contribute to building trust, interoperability, and practical cooperation between the two militaries," the statement added. On Thursday, COAS Dwivedi met with Ambassador P Harish, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, and Ambassador Abhay Thakur, India's envoy to Myanmar. "Ambassador P Harish, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in New York and Abhay Thakur, Ambassador of India to Myanmar, called on Chief of Army Staff Gen Upendra Dwivedi," the Army said. "Their discussions focused on the present role & contributions of the Indian Army to various peacekeeping missions, geostrategic developments in South East Asia, strengthening India-Myanmar ties and promoting peace & stability through military and diplomacy," it added. Earlier on Thursday, Dwivedi launched two web applications to improve the operational efficiency of the Military Engineering Services (MES). The two apps, MES Integrated Monitoring and Management Software for Arbitration (MIMAMSA) and Electronic Measurement Book (e-MB) have been developed by the Indian Army in collaboration with Settlez ADR Institute Pvt Ltd and ILEX Softhub Pvt Ltd. (ANI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said that Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir's recent remarks comparing India and Pakistan's economic conditions amount to an admission of failure and display the "robber mentality" of Pakistan. Addressing the Economic Times World Leaders' forum 2025, Singh said Munir's remarks attempting to compare India with a luxury car and his own country with a dump truck was nothing but a confession of Pakistan's failure. The Union Minister said that after Operation Sindoor, such a doubt should never have arisen in Pakistan. "The Chief of the Pakistan Army, knowingly or unknowingly, has pointed towards a robber mentality, which Pakistan has been a victim of since its birth...We must break this delusion of the Pakistani Army. Due to 'Operation Sindoor,' such a delusion should not have arisen in their minds in the first place," he said. Singh said that the spirit of defending India must never die. "But we must ensure that alongside India's prosperity, our culture, and our economic prosperity, our defence capabilities and the spirit to fight for our national honour remain equally strong. We must ensure that in our civilisation, in our nation, that fighting spirit remains alive," he said. Singh said that if the statement were a warning from Pakistan, then India is prepared to give it a befitting reply. "I consider this statement of Asim Munir as a confession. I do not consider his statement as mere troll material... If we do not pay attention to the historical indication behind this serious warning, then it can become a matter of concern for us. And yes, if we pay attention to this and prepare for it, then India is capable of giving a befitting reply to such warnings," he said. "I would like to draw your attention to the statement given recently by Pakistan's Army Chief General Asim Munir. He said, "India is a shining Mercedes coming on the highway like a Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?" India's economy is like a Mercedes and a Ferrari running on the highway. He said, I am not saying. Pakistan's economy is like a dump truck full of debris. Now you people know the answer to this," Singh said. He further said that this statement by Munir backfired as people questioned him that if India and Pakistan gained independence at the same time, why does India manage to be a 'Ferrari' but Pakistan was just a dumper truck. "Now, Asim Munir was trolled a lot for this statement both inside Pakistan and all over the world. Everyone said that if two countries got independence at the same time and one country built a Ferrari-like economy through hard work, right policies and foresight and the other is still in a dumper state, then it is their own failure," Singh said. Earlier on August 14, India hit out at Pakistan over recent nuclear war threats by its Army Chief, cautioning that any misadventure would have "painful consequences" as demonstrated in the past. "We have seen several statements and reports regarding the continuing pattern of reckless warmongering and hateful comments from Pakistani leadership against India," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during the weekly briefing. (ANI) Prime Minister of the Republic of Fiji Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka, accompanied by his spouse, Suluweti Rabuka, will visit India from August 24 to 27, the Ministry of External Affairs said. The visit will begin in New Delhi, where the Prime Minister Rabuka will be received at IGI Airport, after which he will have a meeting with a Cabinet Minister. On August 25, Rabuka will lay a wreath at Rajghat before meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House, which will be followed by an exchange of MoUs and press statements. He will then call on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Continuing his engagements, on August 26, the Fijian leader will deliver a lecture at Sapru House, organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs. The visit will conclude with his departure from Delhi on August 27. The upcoming engagement also followed recent high-level exchanges between the two countries. In May, Union Minister of State of External Affairs and Textiles, Pabitra Margherita, had called on Prime Minister Rabuka after attending the 146th Girmit Day celebrations in Fiji as the Guest of Honour. The two leaders had held discussions on the deepening of ties and cooperation across key sectors. In a post on X, the MoS had said, "Honoured to call on H.E. @slrabuka, Prime Minister of Fiji, in Labasa following the Girmit Day celebrations. Had meaningful discussions on deepening India-Fiji bilateral cooperation across key sectors." He had also shared several engagements he was a part of during his visit to Fiji. In his address at the celebrations, MoS Margherita had paid tribute to the enduring legacy of the 'Girmitiyas'--whose resilience, sacrifice, and spirit laid the foundation for a vibrant and inclusive Fiji. "Honoured to join the 146th Girmit Day celebrations in Fiji as Guest of Honour, alongside Chief Guest H.E. @slrabuka, Hon. @FijianPM. In my address, I paid tribute to the enduring legacy of the Girmitiyas -- whose resilience, sacrifice, and spirit laid the foundation for a vibrant and inclusive Fiji." (agreement) Along with PM Sitiveni Rabuka, he had also presented awards to the descendants of Girmityas and thanked the Government of Fiji for recognising their contributions by declaring Girmit Day a National Holiday. He had further virtually participated in the inauguration of the Yoga Centre in Seaqaqa, representative of the strong historical and cultural ties of India and Fiji and aimed at promoting holistic health and wellness. He had also interacted with members of the Indian diaspora. MoS Margherita had been on a visit to New Zealand and Fiji from May 8-12, as noted by the Ministry of External Affairs in an earlier statement. India's links with Fiji commenced in 1879 when Indian labourers ('Girmitiyas') were brought there under the indenture system to work on sugarcane plantations. Between 1879 and 1916, around 60,553 Indians were brought to Fiji. Beginning in the early 20th century, Indian traders and others had also started arriving in Fiji. In 1920, the indenture system was abolished. Before Fiji's independence in 1970, India had a Commissioner since 1948, who was later upgraded to High Commissioner after independence. (ANI) The interim government of Bangladesh on Friday warned of legal action against media outlets broadcasting the speech of the country's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. "The broadcasting and promotion of audio of Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina, a convicted criminal and a fugitive accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, on television, news and online outlets in Bangladesh is a serious violation of the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Act", the Bangladesh interim government said in a statement. "Moreover, in December last year, the International Criminal Tribunal banned the broadcasting of hate speech against the former dictator", it added. Further, the interim government noted that "some media outlets, ignoring the law and court orders, broadcast a speech by the ousted dictator on Thursday in which he made false and provocative statements." "We are warning media officials involved in such criminal propaganda and firmly stating that immediate legal action will be taken if anyone publishes Sheikh Hasina's statements in the future", the statement said. The Bangladesh interim government also highlighted the "serious allegations" faced by Sheikh Hasina, and affirmed, "We cannot risk creating unnecessary confusion at this crucial moment in our nation's history. It is important to remember that Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh after facing serious allegations, such as ordering the massacre of hundreds of peaceful protesters during the July uprising." "The International Criminal Tribunal has found him guilty, and he is currently on trial for crimes against humanity. Furthermore, according to the laws of Bangladesh, the activities of the Awami League have been banned, and according to the same Anti-Terrorism Act 2009, there is a provision for taking legal action against any person or organisation who promotes, publishes or broadcasts the activities or speeches of their leaders", the statement added. The statement futher noted that the "interim government, led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, is working to guide Bangladesh towards a future based on justice, accountability, and democratic integrity. The people of Bangladesh are preparing for the first truly free and fair elections in generations." "We, at such a time, call on the media to exercise caution and responsibility in broadcasting Sheikh Hasina's audio and her speeches, which are intended to create instability and incite violence in Bangladesh. The dissemination and re-dissemination of her comments, speeches and any of her provocative statements risks undermining the stability of Bangladesh's democratic transition. It only serves to mislead the public. In this case, any media outlet that violates the restrictions will be subject to legal accountability under Bangladeshi law", the statement added. (ANI) The Parliamentarians Commission for Human Rights (PCHR) has urged renewed efforts at a national level, where individuals from all faiths and backgrounds can equally engage in society, according to a report by Samaa TV. PCHR stressed that social unity and national advancement can only be achieved when no one is marginalised. The media briefing featured remarks from Shafique Chaudhry, Executive Director of PCHR, Naeem Yousaf Gill, Director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, and esteemed human rights advocate Tanveer Jahan. During the briefing, Tanveer Jahan highlighted the ongoing discrepancies between commitments and actual practices, emphasising that minorities continue to be systematically marginalised from fair opportunities. She noted that the 5 per cent job quota in the public sector allocated for minorities largely goes unfulfilled, with over 70 per cent of the designated positions remaining vacant. Many minority individuals, she continued, find themselves relegated to sanitation jobs despite their qualifications, with some job postings explicitly limiting them to low-level positions, as reported by Samaa TV. Concerning education, Jahan pointed out that almost 60 per cent of minority students report experiencing discrimination, including refusal of enrollment, segregation in classrooms, and being forced to study religious subjects irrelevant to their beliefs. In Sindh, 44 per cent of minority children are out of school, compared to the national average of 27 per cent, which she described as a stark illustration of systemic exclusion. Further, she mentioned that the university quota seats designated for minorities often remain underutilised due to financial obstacles, lack of awareness, and ineffective enforcement mechanisms, thus blocking minorities from pursuing higher education and professional progress. "These statistics," Ms. Jahan concluded, "highlight the immediate necessity for concrete actions to transform equality and inclusivity from mere constitutional promises into tangible realities," as noted in the Samaa TV report. (ANI) The speakers also expressed worries about the repeated incidents of violence against minorities. Referencing the 2023 attack on a church in Faisalabad, they remarked that such events exacerbate the political alienation of minority groups and diminish their trust in state institutions. "The only way to rectify this trust deficit is through prompt, transparent, and unbiased investigations, alongside holding perpetrators accountable," the speakers asserted, according to Samaa TV. Advocates called for immediate actions to enforce the 5% job quota and ensure dignified employment opportunities. They emphasised the need for inclusive education policies that allow minority children to learn in safe and respectful settings. The implementation of the Supreme Court's significant 2014 ruling was highlighted, particularly the requirement for curricula that foster religious tolerance and inclusivity. Promoting interfaith dialogue, youth leadership, and education for peace was also stressed. There is a call to enhance affirmative action initiatives, such as specialised preparatory programs, to help minority candidates gain access to higher education and professional paths. Furthermore, they urged parliamentarians, policymakers, civil society leaders, and media representatives to prioritise inclusivity as a national objective, as reported by Samaa TV. (ANI) The Australian government is looking into whether the new AUD 1 billion (USD 650 million) development agreement between Nauru and a Chinese corporation violates an existing bilateral security accord, The Epoch Times (TET) reported. This agreement, established in December 2024, mandates that Nauru obtain Australia's approval before forming any third-party security alliances, including those related to critical infrastructure such as telecommunications or banking. This exclusivity requirement is intended to prevent a recurrence of the 2022 security pact between the Solomon Islands and Beijing, which grants the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) the authority to deploy armed forces and naval ships in the area. In exchange for the Nauru contract, Canberra has committed to support the fragile banking system of the small nation, providing USD 100 million in budget assistance and contributing USD 40 million toward policing efforts. Pacific Minister Pat Conroy confirmed that Australian officials are in discussions with Nauru to assess whether the August 5 agreement with the China Rural Revitalisation and Development Corporation (CRRDC) violated treaty stipulations, according to TET. "This treaty is extremely significant for us, positioning us as Nauru's preferred security partner," Conroy stated in Brisbane on August 19. The Nauru-CRRDC agreement, which was announced on August 11, was signed by Nauru's Foreign Minister Lionel Aingimea and CRRDC chairman Zhang Yong. The first phase of the three-part project is valued at AUD 1 billion and encompasses multiple sectors, including renewable energy, phosphate production, marine fisheries, water management, and agriculture. As is often the case with public contracts signed with Beijing, additional details were not disclosed. "A scoping team from CRRDC is scheduled to arrive in Nauru in October to engage with key local ministries and stakeholders for developing a successful roadmap," a statement quoted by TET noted. "The consultation and implementation phase is also expected to create more job opportunities, enhance trade possibilities, and foster cultural exchanges among people." Minister Conroy emphasized that Canberra does not oppose development assistance from other countries. "We believe other nations should contribute their fair share and invest in the Pacific; this benefits the region," he remarked, as highlighted by TET. "What we have made very clear is that every nation in the world must respect the perspectives of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the consensus of its leaders, which asserts that PIF member countries should maintain security." This development arises as the Solomon Islands gears up to host the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in September, with China, Taiwan, and the United States not being invited, as mentioned by TET. Over the past decade, Australia has intensified its Pacific strategy through security agreements and high-level visits, emphasising its efforts to curtail the CCP's sway in the region. In recent years, Canberra has concluded a series of security pacts with Pacific countries, many of which include exclusivity clauses. A new treaty with Papua New Guinea (PNG) clearly prohibits any CCP security presence and will enable PNG citizens to join the Australian Defence Force. The official signing is slated to take place during PNG's 50th independence celebration in Port Moresby this September, as reported by TET. (ANI) A drone attack targeted a convoy of 16 trucks carrying urgently needed food to Sudan's famine-hit North Darfur region, the United Nations confirmed, as warring parties traded blame for the strike, Al Jazeera reported. UN spokesperson Daniela Gross told reporters on Thursday that all drivers and personnel travelling with the World Food Programme (WFP) convoy were safe. It remains unclear who carried out Wednesday's attack, marking the second incident in the past three months preventing a UN convoy from delivering aid to North Darfur, according to Al Jazeera. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) accused the Sudanese army of hitting the convoys as part of a drone strike on Mellit market and surrounding areas. The army, however, dismissed the allegation as "a fabrication to distract from what it termed the RSF's crimes," Al Jazeera reported. In early June, a convoy from the WFP and the UN children's agency, UNICEF, was attacked while awaiting clearance to proceed to North Darfur's besieged capital, el-Fasher, killing five people and injuring several others, according to Al Jazeera. Edem Wosornu, of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said that some 70 trucks of supplies were waiting in the RSF-controlled city of Nyala to reach el-Fashir, but security guarantees were needed as humanitarian workers were coming under attack. The strike comes amid growing international concern, with countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Egypt voicing alarm at the worsening hunger situation in war-torn Sudan and calling for pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid through. The conflict in Sudan began in April 2023, when violence erupted between the country's military and the paramilitary RSF in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including western Darfur. UN agencies report some 40,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million displaced, with nearly 25 million facing acute hunger. In late June, the RSF and their allies announced the formation of a parallel government in areas under their control, mainly in the vast Darfur region, where allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity are being investigated. The RSF has encircled el-Fasher, the only Darfur state capital not under their control, leaving an estimated 300,000 residents under a long siege amid fighting, Al Jazeera reported. Last year, a famine was declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, with the risk now spreading to 17 areas across Darfur and the Kordofan region, west of Khartoum. WFP spokesperson Gift Watanasathorn urged all warring parties to "respect international humanitarian law". She added, "Humanitarian staff and assets must never be a target." (ANI) Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) detected 22 sorties of Chinese military aircraft and five Chinese naval vessels operating around its territorial waters as of 6 am on Friday (local time). As per the MND, of the 22 sorties, nine crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern and southwestern ADIZ. In a post on X, the MND said, "22 sorties of PLA aircraft and 5 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 9 out of 22 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern and southwestern ADIZ. We have monitored the situation and responded accordingly." https://x.com/MoNDefense/status/1958695618429542554 Earlier on Thursday, the MND detected 22 sorties of Chinese aircraft and five Chinese Naval vessels. In a post on X, MND said, "22 sorties of PLA aircraft and 5 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 15 out of 22 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern and southwestern ADIZ. We have monitored the situation and responded accordingly." https://x.com/MoNDefense/status/1958333234431004678 Regular inspections are set to begin next year to address the issue of military personnel, civil servants, and public-school educators possessing Chinese citizenship or household registration, according to a report by Taipei Times citing the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). Article 9-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area states that Taiwanese individuals who obtain Chinese household registration or a Chinese passport will lose their Taiwanese citizenship and be barred from working in the military, public service, or public education, as reported. In order to identify and prevent the unauthorised employment of individuals holding Chinese ID cards or residential permits, systematic inspections will be implemented starting on January 1 of next year, the council indicated, as noted by Taipei Times. Recruits or transferred military personnel, civil servants, and public-school instructors must comply with these inspections. Failure to do so may result in the suspension of their qualification assessments and employment or reassignment, as per the regulations and their employment agreements, it was explained. Considering the size of the civil service and the diversity of its personnel, the regular inspection procedure will be introduced gradually, the council stated. In the initial phase, only essential personnel from the military, civil service, and public education institutions will undergo regular inspections, while others will be exempt, according to the report from Taipei Times. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan and China from August 29 to September 1, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. At the invitation of the Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, Modi will travel to Japan from August 29-30 to participate in the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit. This will be Modi's eighth visit to Japan and his first summit with Ishiba, the MEA added. During the visit, the two leaders will review the Special Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan, covering defence and security, trade and economy, technology and innovation, and people-to-people exchanges. They will also discuss issues of regional and global importance. The visit is expected to reaffirm the longstanding bond of friendship between the two countries, the MEA said. In the second leg of his visit, at the invitation of China's President Xi Jinping, Modi will travel to China from August 31 to September 1 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin. On the sidelines of the Summit, the Prime Minister is expected to hold bilateral meetings with several leaders attending the Summit. India has been a member of the SCO since 2017 and held the presidency of the Council of Heads of State of the organisation during 2022-23, the MEA noted. In a continuation of ongoing engagement, earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and handed over a message and an invitation from President Xi Jinping for the SCO Summit in Tianjin, China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to India from August 18 to 19. Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Wang Yi, Member of the Politburo of the Communist Party and Foreign Minister of China. "Mr. Wang Yi handed over a message and an invitation from President Xi to the Prime Minister for the SCO Summit being held in Tianjin. He also shared his positive assessment of the bilateral meeting with EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar and the 24th Meeting of the Special Representatives, which he co-chaired with NSA Ajit Doval during his visit," Prime Minister Office stated in a release. Prime Minister emphasised the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border, and reiterated India's commitment to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question. Prime Minister thanked President Xi for the invitation to the SCO Summit and conveyed his acceptance. He expressed support for China's Presidency of the SCO Summit and said that he looked forward to meeting President Xi in Tianjin. PM underlined that stable, predictable, and constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional and global peace and prosperity, an official statement issued by PMO read. (ANI) Punjab Minister Aman Arora on Friday expressed disappointment over the United States' decision to pause the issuance of worker visas for foreign commercial truck drivers. The reaction came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States would temporarily halt issuing worker visas to commercial truck drivers, citing concerns related to road safety and job protection for American truckers. "Effective immediately, we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," Rubio announced in a post on X. Reacting to the announcement, Arora told ANI, "This is very unfortunate. If someone goes there, they are going to earn a livelihood through hard work. Despite this, the way these individuals are being treated is unfair." He further urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ministry of External Affairs to intervene in the matter. "The Prime Minister and the Ministry of External Affairs should pay attention to this issue," Arora added. Rubio's announcement comes shortly after the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lodged an arrest detainer for Harjinder Singh. DHS, citing the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Singh, an illegal alien, on August 12 attempted to make an illegal U-turn through an "official use only" access point, which blocked all lanes of the highway with his truck and resulted in a wreck, causing 3 deaths. In a post on X on August 18, Secretary Noem said that her team is working to "root out and prevent illegal aliens from obtaining these licenses from sanctuary jurisdictions that put American drivers and passengers in danger." According to The Hill, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy confirmed that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has launched an investigation into the Florida highway crash. Earlier, in April, US President Donald Trump had issued an executive order requiring all commercial truck drivers operating in the United States to be proficient in English. He had designated English as the country's official language in a separate executive order in March. (ANI) The death toll from a massive fire and explosion at a warehouse in Karachi rose to four on Friday with 33 people also injured, rescue officials said, Dawn reported. The incident took place in a densely populated area near the city's Taj Medical Complex on MA Jinnah Road. Rescue 1122 confirmed that the number of fatalities from the incident had climbed to four, Dawn added. Police surgeon Summaiya Syed told Dawn, "One of the victims had died from suffocation, while two others had also suffered 'multiple crush injuries'." She added that the fourth victim's autopsy had not yet been done. Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaanul Haseeb Khan told Dawn that the warehouse was located in the basement of a three-storey commercial and residential building in Saddar. "Raw material used for the preparation of firecrackers was stored [in this facility]," Khan said. "During the initial probe, it was suspected that a short circuit triggered a fire in the store, and a huge explosion took place because of the presence of highly inflammable material." However, Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) senior official Raja Umer Khattab told reporters that the facility contained explosive material, not raw material for fireworks, Dawn reported. "CTD had seized two tons of explosive material in this area in the recent past," he said, noting that the raw material in fireworks could also be used in bombs. Khan added that the building's pillars and walls were damaged, while thick concrete blocks had fallen on parked vehicles nearby. Windows in surrounding buildings were also shattered, Dawn reported. Fires frequently break out in buildings across Pakistan due to poor infrastructure, weak enforcement of safety regulations, and widespread negligence. Many structures lack proper fire exits, alarms, and emergency protocols, while faulty wiring and overloaded power systems increase the risk of electrical short circuits, according to Dawn. Earlier this month, a massive blaze at a factory in the Karachi Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) near Landhi injured eight people and damaged at least three other factories. The fire was brought under control after hours of efforts, Dawn added. (ANI) Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, provided all issues relating to the settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev are thoroughly worked out, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. Lavrov told RT on Thursday, "The Russian president repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Zelensky, if there is an understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level have been worked out thoroughly" by experts and ministers. Following his recent talks with Putin and Zelensky, US President Donald Trump suggested that the Russian and Ukrainian leaders should next meet one-on-one before a potential trilateral summit with him, RT reported. Zelensky, who visited Washington on Monday, claimed he is eager to negotiate with Putin. Lavrov said the Ukrainian leader is pushing for a swift meeting with Putin to remain in the spotlight, adding that Zelensky is concerned the international community's attention towards him is declining. The foreign minister also highlighted that Zelensky had previously rejected any talks with Putin and had signed a decree in 2022 banning such negotiations, which he has not yet cancelled. "Clearly, his activity in relation to staging a summit with the Russian leader also has a goal of displaying his supposedly constructive focus on the settlement process, but in reality, it is simply about replacing the serious, hard, difficult work on agreeing the principles of a sustainable resolution of the crisis... with special effects and tricks in the style of KVN and Kvartal 95," Lavrov said, referring to shows in which Zelensky appeared during his time as a comedian, RT reported. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, during their phone call on Monday, Putin and Trump supported the idea of continuing direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, which restarted in Istanbul in May, and discussed the option of raising the level of officials participating in them. (ANI) Tel Aviv [Israel], August 22 (ANI/TPS): Israel's Population and Immigration Authority announced that Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni was denied entry upon arrival around midnight between Friday and Saturday. The decision, coordinated with the Foreign Ministry and National Security Council, was made under the Entry to Israel Law. (ANI/TPS) President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine does not need security guarantees from China, which "did not help us stop this war from the very beginning," RT reported. Speaking to reporters, Zelensky commented on potential security guarantees Kiev could receive from its partners once hostilities with Russia end. He emphasised that he does not want China to be among the guarantors upholding peace. "First, China did not help us stop this war from the very beginning," Zelensky said, adding that Beijing "did nothing" to prevent the secession of Crimea, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a public referendum in 2014. He went on to accuse China of sitting back when the conflict escalated in 2022. "That is why we do not need guarantors who did not help Ukraine then, when it was truly necessary after February 24 [2022]," he said, RT reported. His remarks follow comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who suggested that Moscow supports robust security guarantees for Ukraine, while not ruling out that they could be provided by members of the UN Security Council, including Western countries and China. Lavrov stressed that these guarantees should be "equal" and never aimed against Russia, RT added. China has maintained a neutral stance in the Ukraine conflict and has refused to join sanctions against Russia. Beijing has called on both sides to hold peace talks and suggested NATO expansion as one of the reasons for hostilities. In 2023, China released a 12-point memorandum calling for a ceasefire, resumption of peace talks, protection of civilians, nuclear safety, and an end to unilateral sanctions. Following the recent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska, China said it "supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the [Ukraine] crisis," adding that it "is glad to see Russia and the United States maintaining contact, [and] improving relations," RT reported. (ANI) Officials in Kandahar said that since last year, they have seized 13,332 kilograms of narcotics being smuggled into the country through Spin Boldak from Pakistan, Tolo News reported. During a public burning of the seized drugs in Spin Boldak district, officials stated that the confiscated substances included opium, hashish, opium derivatives, tablets, crystal meth, and chemicals used in drug processing, Tolo News reported. Esmatullah Yaqub, director of the Counter-Narcotics Department of Kandahar Police Command, said, "The drugs being burned in front of you today total 13,332 kilograms, most of which were brought from across the Durand Line," Tolo News reported. Asadullah Jamshid, spokesperson for Kandahar Police Command, added, "Over the past year, narcotics including mainly opium, hashish, and opium derivatives were seized in Spin Boldak by the counter-narcotics department," Tolo News reported. Officials said 30 people have been arrested in connection with these drugs. Citizens have called on security officials to increase efforts to eliminate narcotics from society. Bahram, a resident of Kandahar, said, "Our children have been ruined by these substances, and the new generation is becoming addicted. It's a good step to burn them. We must work on creating job opportunities and increase support for people." Another resident, Sayed Mohammad, said, "These drugs enter through the Spin Boldak gate. It's a good initiative by the authorities to ban and now destroy them. We are happy." According to officials, with the eradication of drug cultivation in Kandahar, drug trafficking has significantly decreased, Tolo News reported. This development comes as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China, at their sixth trilateral meeting of foreign ministers in Kabul, stressed the need to enhance cooperation against regional terrorist organisations, including Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), highlighting that controlling the drug trade is a key part of tackling terrorism and ensuring regional security, Tolo News added. Pakistan's special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, said the three countries reached an understanding to step up efforts against terror outfits. "The three sides committed to strengthen joint efforts against terrorist organisations, including TTP, BLA, ETIM and other regional and international terrorist outfits," he stated. According to Tolo News, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar also addressed the matter during a joint press conference with his Chinese counterpart in Islamabad. "These mechanisms reflect our shared determination to promote regional peace, stability, prosperity, and to share the benefits among Pakistan, China, and friendship with other regional countries and beyond," he said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi highlighted the significance of economic cooperation, particularly under CPEC. "China and Pakistan are pioneers in implementing the Global Development Initiative, and the expansion of CPEC has not only benefited the people of both countries but has also extended to other countries including Afghanistan," he noted. Although no joint statement was issued after the Kabul meeting, the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan said the discussions focused on enhancing relations among the three countries in political, economic, and transit sectors, Tolo News reported. Experts, however, expressed mixed views on the significance of the gathering. Military affairs analyst Kamran Aman remarked, "Pakistan is playing a dual game with us through China to achieve its objectives via Afghanistan. On one hand, it tries to show the world that we support TTP and the Baloch separatist groups, providing evidence of it. On the other hand, it's about capital, trade, and investment. We are witnessing that our trade with Pakistan has decreased by 28% compared to last year." Political analyst Mohammad Aslam Danishmal also weighed in on the outcomes of the talks. "The trilateral meeting between Afghanistan, China, and Pakistan creates some opportunities in terms of political engagement and expanding connections, but there are also some negative aspects," he said, as quoted by Tolo News. Tolo News further reported that both Pakistan's and China's foreign ministers arrived in Kabul to attend the meeting, which was hosted at the Presidential Palace. (ANI) Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Friday emphasised the importance of rebuilding the US-India relationship to counter China, saying, "Unlike Communist China, the rise of a democratic India does not threaten the free world." "Partnership between the US and India to counter China should be a no-brainer. It would serve America's interests to help India stand up to China," she said. In an opinion piece co-authored with Bill Drexel of the Hudson Institute, Haley recalled, "In July 1982, President Ronald Reagan welcomed Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to a state dinner at the White House. Toasting the friendship between our 'two proud, free peoples,' he said: 'although our countries may travel separate paths from time to time, our destination remains the same.'" Haley highlighted that the US-India relationship is currently at a "troubling inflection point" and stressed that "few objectives are more critical than getting US-India relations back on track" to achieve the Trump administration's foreign policy goals, including outcompeting China and achieving peace through strength. She said, "Trump is right to target India's massive Russian oil purchases, which are helping to fund Vladimir Putin's brutal war against Ukraine. India has also traditionally been among the most protectionist economies in the world, with an average tariff rate more than five times the US average in 2023. But India must be treated like the prized free and democratic partner that it is--not an adversary like China..." Haley underlined India's strategic role, stating, "In the short term, India is essential in helping the United States move its critical supply chains away from China... India stands alone in its potential to manufacture at China-like scale for products that can't be quickly or efficiently produced here, like textiles, inexpensive phones, and solar panels." She further said, "When it comes to defence, India's expanding military ties with the United States, Israel, and other American allies make it a crucial asset to the free world's security, and a rapidly growing market for US defence equipment and cooperation... And India's location at the center of China's vital trade and energy flows could complicate Beijing's options in the case of a major conflict." Haley noted India's long-term significance, adding, "Home to more than a sixth of humanity, India surpassed China as the world's most populous country in 2023, with a young workforce that contrasts with China's ageing one. It is the world's fastest-growing major economy--soon to eclipse Japan as the world's fourth largest... Simply put, China's ambitions will have to shrink as India's power grows." She stressed, "India and China are unfriendly neighbors that have conflicting economic interests and ongoing territorial disputes, including a lethal skirmish over contested borders as recently as 2020. It would serve America's interests to help India stand up to its increasingly aggressive northern neighbour, both economically and militarily... The sooner the better." Haley called for direct engagement, saying, "The most urgent priority should be to reverse the downward spiral, which will require direct talks between President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi... The United States should not lose sight of what matters most: our shared goals. To face China, the United States must have a friend in India." She and Drexel emphasised that "decades of friendship and good will between the world's two largest democracies provide a solid basis to move past the current turbulence... Navigating challenging issues like trade disagreements and Russian oil imports demand hard dialogue, but difficult conversations are often the sign of a deepening partnership." (ANI) The passenger, identified as Abdul Samad, was detained after his name appeared on the immigration manual watchlist, the officials stated. Samad was being held for a murder case in Khairpur and was trying to flee to Jeddah on a Saudi Airlines flight SV-705 during the night between August 12 and 13, as per ARY News. Despite being handcuffed, Samad managed to escape during the night shift, taking advantage of the heavy passenger traffic. According to reports, no other security agency intervened to stop him, even as he left the premises still wearing handcuffs. According to ARY News, the incident has raised serious concerns about security lapses at the airport. After the incident, a female sub-inspector and a head constable have been suspended for negligence and instructed to report to the zonal office. Further, an inquiry has been launched against the suspended FIA officials for negligence. Earlier, the FIA arrested a man involved in a bank fraud case in Faisalabad. According to official sources, Hassan Raza was wanted by the FIA in connection with a fraud amounting to Rs 36.2 million. He was apprehended from the Hasanpura area of Faisalabad. Two co-accused, Usman (Branch Manager) and Shahzad (Relationship Manager), are already in FIA custody. In addition to the bank fraud charges, Hassan Raza is also implicated in eight separate dacoity cases. The accused, in collaboration with the bank manager, had withdrawn USD 128,000 from a citizen's account. An FIA spokesperson stated that fake accounts were created at the Bank's Gatt Wala Branch, from which the funds were withdrawn. Hassan Raza participated in the crime as a joint account holder. (ANI) US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) said that he is going to take a "very important decision" in the next two weeks on Russia-Ukraine war, suggesting that he might impose "massive sanctions or tariffs" on Kremlin or tell Kyiv that it's not Washington's war. Trump said that his decision is dependent on what happens in the next two weeks and pushed for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Speaking to the reporters at the Oval Office, Donald Trump said, "In two weeks, we are going to know which way I am going because I'm going to go one way or another. It's going to be very important decision. I'm gonna decide whether it's not massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both or do we do nothing and say it's your fight." "It takes two to tango. I wanted to have a meeting with those two. We'll see if they don't have a meeting, then why it was so, after I told them to have a meeting," he added. When asked about a US factory reportedly hit in Ukraine during recent Russian missile attacks, Donald Trump said, ""I'm not happy about it and I'm not happy about anything about that war. I've settled seven wars and you think about pre-wars, that'll be three so 10 wars. Not happy at all. Over the next two weeks we are going to find out which ways it's going to go." Trump again claimed that he stopped a 'potential' nuclear war between India and Pakistan and six other wars, and 3 potential ones. "I've settled seven wars, and you think about pre-wars, that'll be three, so 10 wars. Not happy at all. Over the next two weeks, we are going to find out how it's going to go. We solved what could've been a nuclear war with India and Pakistan. It was getting ready to be a nuclear war." Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Vladimir Putin is ready to meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, provided all issues relating to the settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev are thoroughly worked out. Lavrov told RT on Thursday, "The Russian president repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Zelensky, if there is an understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level have been worked out thoroughly" by experts and ministers. (ANI) Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) principal secretary and Trichy MP Durai Vaiko has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking urgent intervention for the safe repatriation of Indian nationals who he said have been forcibly conscripted into the Russian military and are in "extreme distress" in the war zone. Vaiko highlighted the case of Kishore Saravanan, a medical student from Tamil Nadu, whose parents received a communication on August 16 stating that he was being taken towards active conflict zones in Bakhmut and Kostyantynivka. "His family is in unbearable agony as each passing day increases their fear of losing their son," Vaiko said in the letter. He also pointed to the case of Om Chandrakant Nerkar, a young Indian from Pune who travelled to Russia in March 2024 and has since gone missing. "He is now listed as missing by both the Indian Embassy and Russian authorities. His family strongly believes he remains in that location, but their efforts have yielded no relief," the MP said. Vaiko further cited inputs from Nerkar's family representing 14 other missing Indians from across the country, noting that "these cases, taken together, point towards a deeply troubling pattern that suggests thousands of Indians may have been forcibly conscripted into the war." Referring to a newspaper report dated August 21, he also mentioned the case of G Rajapandi, a 24-year-old from Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu, who fell victim to a Russia-linked job fraud. "Promised lucrative employment abroad, he waited for months in Delhi, hoping to travel to Russia. Unable to secure the promised job and under severe distress, he died of cardiac arrest on August 13, 2025," Vaiko wrote, adding that this incident highlights the "fraudulent recruitment network that continues to prey on vulnerable Indian youth." Urging immediate action, Vaiko said, "The plight of these young men highlights a larger problem where Indian nationals, particularly students and workers, are being coerced into vulnerable situations in Russia, conscripted to the warfront. Families are living in unimaginable trauma, not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead." He appealed to the Prime Minister to take up the matter directly with the Russian authorities for the safe return of Saravanan, Nerkar, and others. "This matter is not only about protecting innocent lives but also about upholding India's solemn responsibility towards its citizens abroad," he stressed. The letter enclosed a list of 14 Indian nationals missing in Russia. (ANI) The Consul General of Israel to Midwest India, Kobbi Shoshani, expressed "surprise" after the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) decided to suspend Israel from participating in future events during its ongoing 18th edition in Mumbai. He also highlighted the lack of awareness in India regarding the decision, stating, "I think nobody in India is aware of this decision, and I believe the organisation made it without obtaining any permission..." "I was quite surprised that such a decision was made with all this radicalism taking influence from all over the world into India. It's not obviously about India but about an international organisation...," Shoshani told ANI. He further added, "We are, like India, ancient people with a very strong connection to physics and science. Not being a part of it is only a political decision coming from a very specific country..." Expressing concern over politicisation in academic spaces, he said, "I don't think that it's the right thing for India to allow such radical groups into their universities. They are promoting politics, not science or a professional approach." On Monday, the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) withdrew recognition of Israel's national team and prohibited its participation in upcoming competitions, citing the country's ongoing military campaign in Palestine. While Israeli students will still be allowed to compete individually, the country will no longer have any representation as a national team in upcoming IOAA events. Alongside his concerns in the academic space, Shoshani has also been active in strengthening cultural and community ties in India. Recently, he inaugurated two synagogues in Alibaug in Maharashtra's Raigad district, where he was seen sharing heartfelt moments and interacting warmly with those present at the ceremony. While speaking to ANI during the event, Shoshani said, "I have been in India for four years already. I am about to go back home to Israel. I think this is one of the most amazing countries that I have been to in my life; a part of my heart is going to stay here. This is not my first time in Alibaug. Today we inaugurated two synagogues." He added, "This is a history of Jewish people in Alibaug... They first time came here two thousand years ago. They lived here without any fear, persecution." Linking the cultural connect with history, Shoshani had also emphasised during the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Mumbai the long-standing bond between the Jewish and Indian communities, noting that Jews have lived in India for over two millennia without experiencing discrimination. (ANI) US President Donald Trump said on Friday (local time) that he was open to a fourth extension of the deadline for when TikTok had to be separated from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the US, The New York Times reported. The popular short-form video app has until mid-September to find a new owner under a federal law that requires the company to change its ownership structure to resolve national security concerns. That's after its deadline was extended first in January, then in April and later in June. The administration has "very substantial American buyers" lined up to acquire the firm, Trump said on Friday, echoing comments that he had made in June. But, he said, a deal, which would require China's approval, may not be reached in time for the deadline next month, as per The New York Times. Congress approved a US ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second term -- with the next one coming up on Sept. 17. "I haven't spoken to President Xi about it -- at the right time, I'll do it," Trump said, referring to China's leader, Xi Jinping. "In the meantime, until the complexity of things works out, we just extend a little bit longer. But we have buyers." The first extension was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban -- approved by Congress and upheld by the US Supreme Court -- took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump's tariff announcement. The delays involving the law, which passed with broad bipartisan support and originally called for a sale by January, have raised serious questions about the limits of presidential power and the rule of law in the United States. Some legal experts opined to The New York Times that the actions represent an alarming expansion of presidential authority. Trump did not indicate who might be interested in buying TikTok, which has 170 million users in the United States. This year, officials in Washington had coalesced around a plan to bring on a group of new US investors that included private equity giants and venture capital firms. Another extension would clash with some recent comments from Trump administration officials, who have suggested taking a harder line on TikTok. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said last month that the app would "go dark" if China did not approve a deal for TikTok. Lawmakers and intelligence officials have argued for years that TikTok poses a national security risk under Chinese ownership, because Beijing could use the app to seek sensitive data on Americans or to spread propaganda to advance its policy goals. TikTok has pushed back, saying it has safeguards in place to prevent such tampering. Trump made the comments on Friday at a museum run by the White House Historical Association. https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1957937708057211300 Earlier, on August 20, the White House joined TikTok. (ANI) New York, US (PANA) - Libya's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Taher El-Sonni, on Thursday stressed that the country is going through a critical period that requires concrete and serious steps to end division and restore legitimacy through an inclusive electoral process, warning against a loss of confidence in the political process due to persistent failures in the past In a post on X, Chhattisgarh CM informed that he held a meeting with the CEO of NTT Ltd, Kayo Ito, and discussed digital and advanced IT and tech-driven investments in Chhattisgarh. "Upon arrival in Tokyo, I met Ms. Kayo Ito, CEO of NTT Ltd Japan, a global leader in IT infrastructure and digital solutions with $90B revenue. Discussions were held on digital and advanced IT and tech-driven investments in Chhattisgarh," Vishnu Deo said. https://x.com/vishnudsai/status/1958865779924804012 He also attended a dinner hosted by Indian Ambassador to Japan Sibi George and discussed boosting Chhattisgarh's industries with Japan's technology and advancing sustainable Indo-Pacific trade. "Joined the dinner hosted by the Indian Ambassador to Japan, Shri Sibi George. Discussed boosting Chhattisgarh's industries, leveraging Japan's Technology and advancing sustainable Indo-Pacific trade," Vishnu Deo Sai said. According to Chattisgath CMO, Vishnu Deo Sai is leading a high-level delegation for an official tour of Japan and South Korea on the invitation of the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), Government of India. The objective of this visit is to establish Chhattisgarh on the global investment map. In Tokyo (August 22-24), the delegation will participate in investor connect sessions and business meetings with Japanese industrialists, trade associations and investors. CM Sai will head to Osaka on August 25 to attend World Expo 2025 and discuss investment opportunities in Chhattisgarh with various stakeholders. The last leg of the tour will be in Seoul (August 27-29), where investor roundtable meetings, meetings with top Korean companies and trade associations and sector-specific dialogues will be organised, Chhattisgarh CMO stated. Chhattisgarh's rich heritage, culture of innovation and emerging future-oriented sectors will be showcased to a global audience through the Chhattisgarh Pavilion under Bharat Mandapam at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka. CM Sai will use the occasion to attract investments in sectors such as steel, mining, clean energy and startups. (ANI) The ban on TikTok has not been lifted, government sources clarified on Friday after several users reported that they could access the website of the China-based video streaming platform. "Government of India has not issued any unblocking order for TikTok. Any such statement/news is false and misleading," Government sources clarified. The clarification came after several users reported that they can access the website of TikTok, however, they were unable to log in to watch videos on the China-based platform. The app of the video-streaming platform was not available on the app stores. India banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including the widely-used social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, and Helo within view of the threat to the nation's sovereignty and security after the Galwan Valley clashes in 2020. The majority of the apps banned in the June 29, 2020, order were red-flagged by intelligence agencies over concerns that they were collecting user data and possibly also sending it "outside". The government had stated that the applications are engaged in activities "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state and public order." However, India and China have taken constructive steps to smooth the relationship recently with the resumption of trade border trade through the three designated trading points, namely Lipulekh Pass, Shipki La Pass and Nathu La Pass. Both sides have also agreed to resume direct flight connectivity between the Chinese mainland and India at the earliest, and finalise an updated Air Services Agreement. They also agreed on the facilitation of visas to tourists, businesses, media and other visitors in both directions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China from August 31 to September 1 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin. On the sidelines of the Summit, the Prime Minister is expected to hold bilateral meetings with several leaders attending the Summit. (ANI) US President Donald Trump said on Friday (local time) compared the challenge of arranging a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to mixing "oil and vinegar" at The People's House Exhibit. Oil and vinegar don't mix well due to their differing chemical properties; oil is hydrophobic (water-repelling) while vinegar is hydrophilic (water-attracting). Trump expressed his desire to see the two leaders work together to end the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has resulted in significant loss of life, with an estimated 7,000 people, mostly soldiers, being killed per week. Trump, during his gaggle with the press, said, "We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together. You know, it's like oil and vinegar a little bit. They don't get along too well for obvious reasons, but we'll see. And then we'll see whether I need to be there. I'd rather not. I'd rather they have a meeting to see how they can do. But in the meantime, they continue to fight and they continue to kill people, which is very stupid because they're losing 7,000 people. I used to tell you five, now they're losing 7,000 people a week. Think of that, they're losing 7,000 people on average a week. Mostly soldiers," he said. Trump has expressed his willingness to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, stating he has stopped seven wars in the past and is determined to end this conflict. "So, we want to see if we could stop it. I've stopped seven wars. I want to make this one I thought would have been in the middle of the pack in terms of difficulty, and it's turning out to be the most difficult," he said. Trump has accused both sides of not being sincere or ready to negotiate in good faith, with Putin questioning Zelenskyy's credibility and legitimacy as a leader. Trump warned that if a deal isn't made and he thinks Russia is at fault, he'll impose secondary sanctions on Russia, including a 25-50% tariff on Russian oil. Putin has expressed readiness to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss a possible deal to end the war, provided there's a proper agenda for the session. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said there is no agenda for a potential summit between Putin and Zelenskyy and that there is no plan for such a meeting, Al Jazeera reported. Lavrov said on Friday that Putin had made clear he was ready to meet Zelenskyy to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine, provided there was a proper agenda for such a session, something he said was lacking for now. Both Russia and Ukraine are trying to show US President Donald Trump that they are ready to try to strike a peace deal, something the US leader has said he wants to broker, while accusing the other of not being sincere or ready to negotiate in good faith, as per Al Jazeera. (ANI) US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) announced Sergio Gor as the next US Ambassador to India, and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs. Announcing on Truth Social, Donald Trump said, "I am pleased to announce that I am promoting Sergio Gor to be our next United States Ambassador to the Republic of India, and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs. As Director of Presidential Personnel, Sergio and his team have hired nearly 4,000 America First Patriots across every Department of our Federal Government in RECORD time -- Our Departments and Agencies are over 95% filled! Sergio will remain in his current role at the White House until his confirmation." Addressing Gor as a "great friend," Trump expressed his complete trust in him while noting his contributions to the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. "Sergio is a great friend who has been at my side for many years. He worked on my Historic Presidential Campaigns, published my Best Selling Books, and ran one of the biggest Super PACs, which supported our Movement. Sergio's role as Director of Presidential Personnel has been essential to delivering on the unprecedented Mandate that we received from the American People. For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Sergio will make an incredible Ambassador. Congratulations Sergio!"Trump wrote on Truth Social. Sergio Gor will replace Eric Garcetti, who served from May 11, 2023, to January 20, 2025. Before Garcetti, Kenneth Juster held the position from November 23, 2017, to January 20, 2021. Since Garcetti's departure, the US Embassy in India has been led by interim Charge d'Affaires Jorgan K. Andrews, who took over on January 20, 2025 In his final weeks, Ambassador Garcetti delivered a series of speeches celebrating the historic progress the United States and India have made together, for the planet, for prosperity and for peace. Sergio Gor's appointment as US Ambassador to India comes at a time when New Delhi is dealing with 50 per cent of trade tariffs, including a 25 per cent penalty for the oil purchases from Russia. (ANI) New York, US (PANA) - Recent elections in Libya are a sure sign of the peoples desire to choose their own representatives, the UN Secretary-Generals Special Representative for the country said in the Security Council on Thursday The United Nations has lauded the generosity of King Mohammed VI, Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee, following the dispatch of significant additional humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. We commend the generosity and decision of HM King Mohammed VI to send significant humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, told MAP. In this regard, he emphasized the beneficial impact of the aid ordered by the Sovereign, given the catastrophic conditions currently endured by the inhabitants of Gaza. The people of Gaza lack everything food, medicine, shelter, Dujarric regretted, stressing the necessity for the international community to spare no efforts to improve the humanitarian situation of Palestinians. The spokesperson also urged pressure on the parties to accept an immediate ceasefire. The latest humanitarian aid ordered by the King consists of approximately 100 tons of foodstuffs and medicine, specifically intended for vulnerable groups, particularly children and infants. The King, Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee, insisted that this humanitarian aid, like the previous ones, be transported by air and delivered urgently and directly to the Palestinian beneficiaries. Actually, the humanitarian aid arrived quickly in the Gaza Strip thanks to the great respect enjoyed by the King on the international stage and the geopolitical weight of Morocco, as put by Director General of Palestine TV, Mohammed Al-Barghouti. Al-Barghouti emphasized that the Kingdom has leveraged its global geopolitical influence and the high esteem it enjoys to ensure that this aid was delivered urgently and directly to vulnerable populations in the Gaza Strip. Once again, he continued, this aid demonstrates the Kingdoms major role and political and diplomatic weight in ensuring the urgent delivery of this aid to the Palestinian people. Other Palestinian officials and dignitaries have hailed the Royal initiative as a ray of hope for Palestinians in Gaza and a message to freedom-loving nations around the world to launch similar initiatives. This aid translates the Kings tireless efforts and his steadfast and uninterrupted endeavors in support of the Palestinian People, they said, underlining that the moves are part of the constant efforts made by the Al-Quds Committee and Bayt Mal Al-Quds Acharif Agency. This noble initiative, which comes at a time when the suffering of civilians in Gaza is worsening, reflects the profound human dimension of Moroccos position on the Palestinian issue, they noted, expressing deep gratitude for this generous gesture, which reinforces values of solidarity and brotherhood among peoples of the Arab-Islamic Ummah. This initiative clearly portrays Moroccos unwavering support that is translated into concrete humanitarian actions that strengthen resilience and alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in the most difficult times. The ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD-9) exposed the growing diplomatic isolation of Algeria in its campaign to force the participation of the Polisario Front in international events. Despite not being officially invited, the self-declared SADR representative- using Algerian travel documents like all Polisario separatists- attempted to place a nameplate at the conference table. Japan, which does not recognize the polisario, swiftly reaffirmed its position and clarified that no invitation had been extended to the separatists. The move was widely seen as a breach of protocol and a deliberate provocation. The SADR figure had entered the venue as part of Algerias official delegation, a tactic increasingly used to circumvent host countries restrictions. Analysts say this reflects Algerias strategy of forcing Polisario participation through backdoor channels, often in defiance of international norms. However, TICAD-9 underscored the limits of this approach. The SADRs presence was rejected, and the episode drew attention to Algerias diminishing influence in shaping global narratives around the Sahara issue. Similar sidelining of the Polisario has occurred at other major summits, including the Africa-Russia Summit and the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, where organizers chose to engage only with internationally recognized governments. It has become clear that Algerias objective in pushing for Polisarios participation through backdoors is not genuine diplomatic engagement, but rather the creation of photo opportunities to circulate among disillusioned supporters. These staged appearances, often lacking any formal recognition or participation, are used to project an illusion of legitimacy and international support, masking the growing isolation on the global stage of Algeria and its Polisario puppet. Jacob Zuma, former South African president and current leader of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, has intensified his support for Moroccos territorial sovereignty over the Sahara during a high-profile lecture at Ghanas University of Professional Studies in Accra, reported the news platform Morocco World News. Speaking this week to an academic audience, Zuma directly challenged the African National Congresss foreign policy stance while praising Ghanas recent endorsement of Moroccos Autonomy Plan. His remarks emphasized opposition to what he characterized as Africas artificial fragmentation serving external interests rather than continental unity. Africa must not be divided for outsiders convenience. The era of balkanizing Africa to serve foreign agendas has ended, Zuma was quoted by mwn.com as saying. He thus positioned Ghanas support for Morocco as exemplary Pan-African leadership that prioritizes stability and integration over separatist movements. The MK Party leader highlighted flourishing South Africa-Morocco bilateral relations, citing over twenty cooperation agreements spanning trade, defense, agriculture, and information technology sectors. He specifically commended Ghanas January withdrawal of recognition from the Polisario entity and its June affirmation that Moroccos 2007 Autonomy Plan represents the sole realistic basis for resolving the dispute. Zumas intervention follows his July visit to Rabat, where he met Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, triggering controversy when South African and Moroccan flags were displayed together. Despite ANC criticism, diplomatic documentation confirmed the visits official coordination through South Africas embassy in Rabat. Ghanas policy reversal joins over 120 countries supporting Moroccos territorial integrity, with 46 nations withdrawing recognition from Polisario since 2000. This shift includes thirteen African states and major international powers including the United States, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, reflecting growing consensus around Moroccos sovereignty claims while isolating Algerias separatist project. IBA Group, a multinational software service provider and Berexia payment, a leading technology services company, have joined efforts to launch SoftPOS solution in Morocco in cooperation with Al Barid Bank and Royal Air Maroc (RAM). SoftPOS, or Software Point of Sale, is a software-based solution that turns any NFC-enabled smartphone or tablet into a secure payment terminal without the need for additional hardware. SoftPOS enables merchants to accept contactless card payments directly on a mobile device using only an app. Sami Metwali, Head of Products & Solutions at Berexia payment, said: We integrated tapXphone SoftPOS solution to create a secure and flexible payment service that meets the needs of both travellers and airport staff. In July 2025, Royal Air Maroc and Al Barid Bank announced a partnership to improve the travel experience and enable passengers to make secure contactless payments by tapping a bankcard or a smartphone on a tablet-equipped terminal. Al Amine Nejjar, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Al Barid Bank, said: We are proud to put our expertise in digital payments at the service of this pioneering initiative with Royal Air Maroc. The digital payments market in Morocco is witnessing a remarkable surge, driven by a young tech-savvy population and e-commerce growth. Moroccos National Railway Office (ONCF) has secured a $225 million loan from German development bank KfW to modernize Casablanca region railway network. The German funding follows a $350 million loan approved by the World Bank in June, both supporting the Service Intra-metropolitain Rapproche (SIR) program. The SIR seeks to establish an electrified passenger rail service, connecting the urban center with suburban areas such as Zenata, Mohammedia, Nouaceur, and Bouskoura. The program will utilize a 73-kilometer brownfield right-of-way to expand track capacity and enhance existing rail infrastructure, including electrical systems and signalling, with a focus on climate resilience. This effort aims to alleviate congestion on existing lines and boost freight capacity to the port of Casablanca. By June 2031, the SIR program is expected to deliver substantial benefits, including improved access to sustainable transport infrastructure for over 560,000 residents. It will also enhance job accessibility, with a seven percent increase in workplace locations reachable by passenger rail services within 45 minutes. The upgrade ill also improve access to critical services, with a 7.3 percent increase in service locations accessible within the same travel time using passenger rail services. France has formally suspended a bilateral agreement with Algeria that had allowed holders of diplomatic and service passports to enter French territory without a visa. The decision was published in the official bulletin on August 19, marking the definitive end of a 12-year-old diplomatic privilege and signals a new phase of hardened relations between Paris and Algiers. The 2013 agreement, signed in Algiers and enacted by decree in 2014, was originally intended to facilitate high-level exchanges and cooperation between the two governments. However, the political climate has shifted dramatically. On May 11, Algeria unilaterally ceased applying the agreement. France responded five days later by suspending the visa exemption on its side, citing the principle of reciprocity. The formal notification and legal finalization of the suspension came into effect on August 7. The French governments move follows a directive from President Emmanuel Macron, who earlier this month urged Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to adopt a firmer stance toward Algeria. In a letter, Macron called for more firmness and determination in response to Algerias repeated diplomatic obstructions and refusal to cooperate on migration and security matters. Since Paris recognized Moroccos sovereignty over the Sahara territory in July 2024, Algiers took a series of hostile acts. It recalled its ambassador to Paris, declined to repatriate its nationals involved in law violation in France, took economic retaliatory measures, engaged in anti-French rhetoric in its media and sacked dozens of French diplomats. Paris complains in particular of Algerias refusal to readmit its nationals subject to deportation orders under Frances OQTF regime, the detention of Franco-Algerian intellectuals, and the countrys growing hostility toward French interests. Macrons letter also instructed Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot to notify Algeria of the suspension and tasked Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau with coordinating with Schengen partners to prevent Algerian diplomats from circumventing the restrictions via third countries. With the suspension now official, the Franco-Algerian relationship enters a new chapter, defined less by cooperation and more by confrontation. The visa exemption had symbolized a privileged channel of dialogue between elites. Its removal sends a clear message: France is no longer willing to accommodate Algerias unilateralism and diplomatic brinkmanship. Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has disclosed that there was a rocket attack near its compound in Tripoli during a press briefing by Special Representative of the Secretary-General Hanna Tetteh at the Security Council in New York on Thursday evening After concerns were raised in May that graves at a historic Opelika cemetery could be found outside the boundary and in a residential development, staff with the Lee County Cemetery Preservation Commission confirmed that no graves were found outside of the cemetery. For the past few months, members of the Lee County Cemetery Preservation Commission have been providing updates to the Opelika City Council on cleaning up the historic Hodge-Dozier Cemetery, located in Opelika just off of Lafayette Parkway. Mac Morris with the commission said BSI Engineering, which has worked with the developer of the Blackberry Reserve Subdivision, used a ground penetrating radar to canvas the area and found just one anomaly outside the boundaries of the cemetery. "Everyone there, both the representatives, the Lee County Cemetery Preservation Commission, felt like that was not a major concern to us," Morris said. "I think everyone's working together, talking to people on different parts of the spectrum on what we ought to be doing." The Hodge-Dozier Cemetery was deemed historical by the Alabama Historic Commission, and according to the Alabama Historic Preservation Map, the cemetery has graves spanning from 1851 to 1986 and 414 in total. Morris told the council in July that approximately 200 graves have been discovered as the commission has been working to clear trees and brush around the cemetery. Tiffany Hillyer, president of the Genealogical Society of East Alabama and the Lee County Cemetery Preservation Commission, said the cemetery includes the graves of veterans from the United States Civil War, World War I, World War II, slaves, Hodge family members and members of Saint Mark AME Church and Union Hill Church. The concerns raised by Hillyer at a May meeting were regarding possible encroachment on the cemetery by the Blackberry Reserve Subdivision, which received approval in 2021. Construction of the subdivision remains ongoing. Hillyer's initial concern was that the plat for the cemetery defining the boundaries was over 100 years old, and there was a chance graves could be outside the boundaries. After Blake Rice with BSI provided the radar, Hillyer and Morris said there are no graves outside of the boundaries, but Hillyer's concerns have not ended there. An unenforceable 100-foot buffer Hillyer said that while there are no graves outside of the borders of the cemetery, and the development is not cutting into those boundaries, she is still concerned about how close the development is to the cemetery. Hillyer said she "can put one foot on a grave and one foot on" the subdivision's property line, which she thinks is too close. The cemetery will be surrounded by developments, and the close proximity means it will be next to someone's backyard, Hillyer said. Additionally, Hillyer is concerned about water run-off and other things of that nature affecting the cemetery. She said a 100-foot buffer is recommended. "It is too close to the current line. The Alabama Historical Commission recommends a 100-foot buffer. However, even though they're the agency responsible for all cemetery-related permits, historic designation, and they are the authority on Alabama cemeteries, they can only recommend the buffer. They cannot enforce the buffer. That is the problem. There's no one to enforce anything when it comes to this." City honors parks and rec director As the growth of pickleball continues around the City of Opelika, the Opelika City Council is honoring the man who the city said has championed the development and promotion of pickleball courts around the city. The Opelika City Council voted unanimously to name the Player Experience Pavilion at the Opelika Sportsplex Pickleball Courts after Sam S. Bailey, Jr., the current director of Opelika Parks and Recreation. Bailey has held the position since 2011 and has served in the role "with exceptional dedication and distinction," according to the resolution in the council's agenda packet. The city has constructed 24 covered, individually fenced pickleball courts at the Opelika Sportsplex during Bailey's tenure, and Opelika is currently constructing nine additional outdoor pickleball courts as well as the new Player Experience Pavilion, according to the resolution. The pavilion will now be called the "Sam Bailey Pavilion." Bailey, who was present at the meeting, was recognized before the meeting was adjourned, and said he was very stunned and humbled by the decision from the council. Other city council business The city council approved the following: Approving the bankruptcy plan and settlements with Purdue Pharma L.P., a leading manufacturer of opioids and specifically OxyContin. According to the resolution, the City of Opelika "joined with thousands of local governments across the nation to file lawsuits against Purdue to hold the company accountable for its role in fueling the opioid crisis." Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy, which "stayed the litigation against Purdue and the Sackler family defendants." Now, settlements have been reached under the bankruptcy plan, where the company and members of the family will pay approximately $7.4 billion to settle opioid claims across the country. This effectively opts the city in to receive funds from the settlements. Participation in the Alabama Secondary Opioid Manufacturer Settlement Agreement. City Attorney Guy Gunter said the Alabama attorney general has reached eight separate agreements with secondary manufacturers of opioids, and through those settlements, approximately $11.7 million will be paid to the state of Alabama and its local entities. A special retail events alcohol license to JMB Service and Supply LLC, doing business as Haulin Toasts, for an event on Sept. 26, 2025. A downtown street closure on Sept. 18 for a Red Clay Bike Night event. Approval for the Lee County Life Chain event, an anti-abortion event, to take place on Oct. 5 in the right of way by the Regions Bank at the intersection of Gateway Drive and Frederick Road. An agreement with Motorola Solutions Inc. for the company to monitor, maintain and update the City of Opelika's 800 MHz communication system, which was manufactured by Motorola, and provides continuous support to public safety and to other mission critical users. The agreement is for five years and will cost a total of $657,496. A mutual aid agreement between the Opelika Police Department, the Lee County Sheriffs Office and Southern Union State Community College to create an efficient response to law enforcement emergencies or disasters. The recount procedures for the municipal elections. According to the resolution in the council's agenda packet, within 48 hours after the official canvass of the election and the city councils declaration of the results of said election, which will be on Sept. 2, "any registered voter of the City may file with the Opelika City Clerk a written request to recount any or all of precinct returns for the election of candidates of any office." A right-of-way acquisition agreement to clear the way for the construction of Bridgewater Boulevard, extending from Columbus Parkway to the southwest for a distance of approximately 900 feet, near Logan Drive. A right-of-way acquisition agreement that clears the way for the extension of Hi-Pack Drive for the Brookwood Subdivision. The plan is to extend the road approximately 900 feet, according to the resolution. A right-of-way acquisition agreement which clears the way for constructing an extension of Hi-Pack Drive from the proposed extension for Brookwood Subdivision for a distance of approximately 800 feet to Cunningham Drive, with a roundabout at the intersection of Hi-Pack Drive and Cunningham Drive. Appointing Levale Speigner to the Opelika Industrial Development Authority for an existing term that expires on March 8, 2026. Appointing Apryl Mullins to the Opelika Industrial Development Authority for a new term that expires on Aug. 19, 2029. Appointing Todd Shackett to the Opelika Industrial Development Authority for a new term that expires on Aug. 19, 2029. In a notably quiet week, holiday-thinned liquidity kept ICE Brent range-bound at $65.80$67.90/bbl despite a steep U.S. stock selloff. August 22nd, 2025 In one of the least eventful trading weeks of 2025, ICE Brent has been trading within a narrow bandwidth of $65.80-67.90 per barrel as the end of summer holidays dragged trading volumes notably lower than usual. The huge drop in US stocks and several refinery upsets across the country (such as the Whiting outage) couldve triggered a more important pricing reaction, however low liquidity kept daily changes minimal. Trump Signs Off on New Iran Sanctions. The US Treasury Department added 13 commercial entities in Hong Kong, China and the UAE to its list of Iran-related sanctions, simultaneously banning 8 vessels and two China-based port operators in Qingdao and Yangshan, further tightening its pressure on Iran. Kazakhstan Eyes Reparations from Oil Majors. Kazakhstans Ministry of Environment Protection informed oil companies operating in the country that they have 40 days to pay a $4.4 billion fine for sulphur pollution in the country, mostly coming from the offshore Kashagan field in Atyrau region. US Probes Wind Turbine Imports. The US Commerce Department opened a national security investigation into the countrys imports of wind turbines and components, gauging the impact of foreign subsidies on the competitiveness of the US wind industry, slapping a 50% tariff on wind turbines earlier this week. Venezuela Opens the Door for Chinese Investors. Chinese private oil firm Concord Resources has agreed to invest more than $1 billion in two Venezuelan oilfields, aiming to produce 60,000 b/d by the end of next year from the Lago Cinco and Lagunillas Lago projects after years of underinvestment. Ukraine Targets Russias Pipelines. For the second time this week, Ukrainian armed forces have bombed the Unecha pumping station on the Russia-Ukraine border, once again halting transportation along the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia and stranding some 210,000 b/d of exports. Seoul Forces Petchem Sector to Shrink. Guided by the Seoul government, ten South Korean petrochemical companies have agreed to cut their naphtha-cracking capacity by 25%, equivalent to 3-3.5 million tonnes per year, to improve profitability amidst industry-wide overcapacity and low margins. Indian Refiners Resume Russian Oil Imports. Whilst Indias private refiners never really stopped importing Russian crude, the South Asian nations government-controlled companies resumed purchases after a two-week hiatus, as confirmed by company officials of IOC and Bharat Petroleum. Iraq Welcomes US Oil Majors Back. The Iraqi government signed an agreement in principle with US oil firm Chevron (NYSE:CVX) on the Nassiriya project, comprising four exploration blocks in the southern province of Dhi Qar as well as several producing oil fields, seeking to reach 600,000 b/d within 7 years. China Doubles Down on Overcapacity Curbs. Chinas Industry Ministry organized another meeting with solar industry representatives to discuss ways to curb overcapacity, saying producers themselves should promote the decommissioning of outdated capacity to avoid low-price disorderly competition. Kurdish Production Is Coming Back. Norways upstream firm DNO (OSL:DNO) reported that it had restarted oil production at the Tawke and Peshkabir fields in Iraqi Kurdistan, halted a month ago due to repeated drone strikes carried out by Iraqi militias, ramping up output to 55,000 b/d on a test basis. Conoco Locks in Key LNG Contract. US oil major ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) agreed to purchase 4 million tonnes of LNG per year from Sempras Port Arthur LNG 2 over a 20-year term on a free on board (FOB) basis, having already bought a 30% stake in Port Arthur 1 with an expected commissioning in 2027. Syria Marks Full Return to Oil Markets. Syrias Ministry of Petroleum issued a sell tender for at least one cargo of Syrian Heavy crude, the countrys first official attempt to sell its oil since 2011 as the new government in Damascus seeks to ramp up production from 50,000 b/d, one-sixth of its former output. Norway Finds Even More Oil. Norways largest untapped crude project, the 120,000 b/d Yggdrasil developed by Aker BP, saw the discovery of a huge deposit next to its initial find with the Omega Alfa well tapping into 100-130 MMboe of new hydrocarbon reserves, taking the total to 700 MMboe. By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Israels push to seize Gaza City, complete with a fresh reservist call?up and heavy strikes on the outskirts, plays into Gulf red?line management: Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have treated Israeli latitude as transactional, not open?ended. The political price inside the Gulf rises when the operation looks like an occupation or when casualty optics dominate regional media cycles; thats when Riyadh slows the normalization narrative down and Abu Dhabi tightens the valves at the working level (permits, high?profile joint events, finance?compliance scrutiny), but without blowing any deals up. The signaling is already visible in the regions news flow: coverage emphasizing a looming Gaza City takeover and a new reservist surge sits alongside Arab statements that place full responsibility on Israel for the humanitarian catastrophe, language that gives Gulf capitals room to keep their normalization track intact, while warning that tactical indulgence isnt a blank check. Watch for two concrete gauges of patience: whether Saudi officials allow any new process optics to move in public while bombardment intensifies, and whether Emirati ministries let routine, mid?tier engagement with Israeli counterparts proceed on autopilot or begin to drag. Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Israels push to seize Gaza City, complete with a fresh reservist call?up and heavy strikes on the outskirts, plays into Gulf red?line management: Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have treated Israeli latitude as transactional, not open?ended. The political price inside the Gulf rises when the operation looks like an occupation or when casualty optics dominate regional media cycles; thats when Riyadh slows the normalization narrative down and Abu Dhabi tightens the valves at the working level (permits, high?profile joint events, finance?compliance scrutiny), but without blowing any deals up. The signaling is already visible in the regions news flow: coverage emphasizing a looming Gaza City takeover and a new reservist surge sits alongside Arab statements that place full responsibility on Israel for the humanitarian catastrophe, language that gives Gulf capitals room to keep their normalization track intact, while warning that tactical indulgence isnt a blank check. Watch for two concrete gauges of patience: whether Saudi officials allow any new process optics to move in public while bombardment intensifies, and whether Emirati ministries let routine, mid?tier engagement with Israeli counterparts proceed on autopilot or begin to drag. The much-awaited Trump-Putin summit and talks with Zelensky failed to deliver on ceasefire expectations. In Anchorage, Trump and Putin met with minimal fanfare around Ukraine but, behind the scenes, a seismic shift was underway in Russias oil sector. On the same day as the summit, Putin issued a decree greenlighting ExxonMobils return to the Sakhalin-1 project, a major state-linked venture shelved in 2022 under sanctions (keep in mind, its a pathway to return, not a return itself). Exxons re-entry is conditional on helping roll back those very sanctions. This isnt just corporate re-entry; its a political signal that Washington may be open, quietly, to leveraging energy firms as sanctions lifelines, which is exactly what traders were banking on. The revival of Exxons Sakhalin-1 involvement lays the groundwork for deeper economic reintegration, funding Russias oil expansion and infrastructure that suffered post-2022. Ukraine gets relegated to the talking points, while oil and energy firms, long sidelined by sanctions, become back channels for geopolitical recalibration (completely transactional geopolitics, which we are seeing elsewhere, as well, including in Libya. Elections in Guyana and troop movements off Venezuelas coast are converging into a single fault line for the southern Caribbean. Georgetown is heading toward its September 1 vote with a new wildcard candidate, Azruddin Mohamed, whose gold-trading dynasty has been sanctioned by Washington for smuggling and tax evasion. His run under a freshly minted party is unlikely to deliver power, but even a small parliamentary bloc would inject sanctioned capital into the legislative process just as Guyanas oil wealth transforms its economy. Across the border, Caracas is flexing hard: Maduro has mobilized millions of militia members in response to a U.S. task force of warships and 4,000 troops deployed off Venezuelas coast. The choreography on both fronts matters. Guyana risks entangling its oil boom in sanctioned networks at the very moment it needs investor confidence, while Venezuela is doubling down on sovereignty theatrics to turn U.S. naval presence into domestic consolidation. This week has seen a quiet but vital turning point in Baghdad?Erbil relations. Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government have taken a significant step toward reviving northern crude exports. A formal mechanism has now been agreed: the KRG will retain a modest 50,000 bpd for local consumption, while the remainder will be channeled through SOMO for export. The agreement clears the federal checklist; what remains is the final hurdle, which is getting Ankara on board to reopen the pipeline. Yet the arrangement is only as real as Turkey allows it to be. Ankara still controls the tap, and until it agrees to reopen the pipeline, Baghdad and Erbils accord remains aspirational. Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions Black Hills (BKH) and NorthWestern Energy (NWE) agreed to merge in an all-stock deal creating a $15.4B regulated utility, one of the largest U.S. utility tie-ups this year. NorthWestern holders will get 0.98 BKH shares each, valuing NWE at $3.6B, with BKH shareholders owning 56% of the new company. The combined firm, headquartered in Rapid City, SD, will serve 2.1M customers across eight states, boosting planned capex beyond the $7.4B earmarked through 2029. Management projects EPS growth of 57% post-close in late 2026, up from the prior 46%, as AI-driven data centers and higher demand from crypto and households fuel grid investment needs. Peabody Energy (BTU) has scrapped its $3.78B bid for Anglo Americans (AAL) Bowen Basin coking coal mines, after trying and failing to cut the price following an April fire at Moranbah North. Peabody says the blaze triggered a material adverse change clause, a claim Anglo flatly rejects. The setback slows Anglos push to shed non-core coal assets after last years failed BHP takeover. Allgas Energys Queensland gas network has been put up for sale for about A$600M. The system stretches over 13,000 km of pipelines and supplies roughly 120,000 customers, making it one of the largest privately owned networks in the country. Macquarie Capital is running the process, and early signs point to plenty of interest given the steady cash flows. Owner APA Group is looking to slim down its portfolio and free up cash for other projects Santos (STO.AX) warned that ADNOCs $18.7B takeover bid wont hit its August 22 deadline, with the consortium asking for at least four more weeks to secure approvals. The delay rattled investors, knocking Santos shares down 3.5% to A$7.68well below the A$8.89 per share offerhighlighting persistent skepticism. If completed, the deal would value Santos at A$36.4B enterprise value, the largest all-cash buyout in Australian history, but faces hurdles with regulators in Australia, PNG, and the U.S. The biggest sticking point remains Canberras Foreign Investment Review Board, which is unlikely to wave through Middle Eastern ownership of critical gas assets without scrutiny. Discovery & Development Aker BP (AKRBP.OL) and partners Equinor (EQNR.OL) and Orlen (PKN.WA) hit one of Norways biggest oil finds in a decade, uncovering 96134 million boe at the Omega Alfa prospect in the Yggdrasil area. The discovery spans three licences, with Aker BP holding up to 47.7% and Equinor 40%. CEO Karl Johnny Hersvik called it a major commercial find, and the group plans to chase further upside nearby. The result materially boosts resources at Yggdrasil, one of the North Seas most active development hubs. Iraq inked an agreement in principle with Chevron (CVX) to develop the Nassiriya project, covering four exploration blocks plus producing fields. The deal marks a turnaround as Iraq improves contract terms to lure back majors after years of retreat. Recent reforms have already pulled in TotalEnergies (TTE) and BP (BP.L) with more than $50B committed. Nassiriya could eventually produce up to 600,000 bpd, making it one of Iraqs most ambitious oil developments in years. Putin signed a decree reopening the door for ExxonMobil (XOM) to reclaim its former 30% stake in Sakhalin-1, three years after Moscow seized the project. The move coincided with Trumps Alaska summit with Putin, where sanctions relief and new U.S.Russia investment were key agenda points. Exxon had written off $4.6B when it exited Russia in 2022, and any return would hinge on Western sanctions being lifted plus new commitments like equipment supply and capital transfers. The decree also makes clear that foreign investors must actively support easing sanctions if they want back in, underscoring the political strings tied to Russias top Far East oil project. ExxonMobil (XOM) signed a massive deepwater exploration deal with Trinidad & Tobago, covering more than 2,700 square miles east of the island in waters 6,500 feet deep. The agreement comes after six months of negotiations and could lead to as much as $21.7B in spending if sizable reserves turn up, with seismic work due to start soon and drilling to follow. Exxon is aiming to mirror its Guyana play, leaning on shared infrastructure across the basin. Port of Spain, meanwhile, is pushing to revive its energy sector, with PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar stressing oversight while insisting the country wont hold back on developing its resources. Saudi Aramco struck an $11B lease-and-leaseback deal with a BlackRock-led Global Infrastructure Partners consortium tied to its massive Jafurah unconventional gas project. The package includes gas processing and NGL facilities, but Aramco will still run the assets. Jafurah is estimated to hold 229 tcf of gas and 75 billion barrels of condensates, making it one of the worlds largest unconventional gas fields. The deal gives Aramco fresh capital while underpinning long-term growth from its biggest gas play. The abrupt reversal in tone shifted market sentiment sharply, providing key support to crude prices that had been drifting lower on peace However, momentum for diplomacy unraveled midweek. Both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of derailing negotiations. Russia launched a major air assault near the EU border, and Ukraine responded with a strike on a Russian refinery. With no ceasefire in sight, the geopolitical risk premium began to build again. Analysts at Ritterbusch and Associates noted that some geopolitical risk premium is slowly being pumped back into the market, while others warned of renewed speculation around tighter Russian sanctions. Crude began the week trading cautiously, weighed down by hopes that a diplomatic breakthrough in the Ukraine-Russia conflict could ease global supply constraints. Talks involving former U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the prospect of including Russia in a trilateral summit had traders pricing in the possibility of sanctions relief on Russian crude. Light crude oil futures rose for the week, closing Thursday at $63.52, up $1.54 or +2.48% from last Fridays close, as geopolitical tensions, bullish inventory data, and renewed demand optimism drove a shift in market sentiment. The recovery followed two weeks of selling pressure and marked a return of bullish interest as supply-side risks reentered focus. Light crude oil futures rose for the week, closing Thursday at $63.52, up $1.54 or +2.48% from last Fridays close, as geopolitical tensions, bullish inventory data, and renewed demand optimism drove a shift in market sentiment. The recovery followed two weeks of selling pressure and marked a return of bullish interest as supply-side risks reentered focus. Peace Talks Collapse, Rebuilds Geopolitical Risk Premium Crude began the week trading cautiously, weighed down by hopes that a diplomatic breakthrough in the Ukraine-Russia conflict could ease global supply constraints. Talks involving former U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the prospect of including Russia in a trilateral summit had traders pricing in the possibility of sanctions relief on Russian crude. However, momentum for diplomacy unraveled midweek. Both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of derailing negotiations. Russia launched a major air assault near the EU border, and Ukraine responded with a strike on a Russian refinery. With no ceasefire in sight, the geopolitical risk premium began to build again. Analysts at Ritterbusch and Associates noted that some geopolitical risk premium is slowly being pumped back into the market, while others warned of renewed speculation around tighter Russian sanctions. The abrupt reversal in tone shifted market sentiment sharply, providing key support to crude prices that had been drifting lower on peace hopes earlier in the month. U.S. Inventory Drawdown Signals Demand Strength A major catalyst for the weeks rally was the unexpected draw in U.S. crude inventories. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), commercial crude stocks fell by 6 million barrels for the week ending August 15well above the consensus forecast of a 1.8 million-barrel draw. Earlier in the week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) had also reported a decline of 2.42 million barrels, reinforcing the bullish tone. The draw brought total crude inventories down to 420.7 million barrels, signaling potential tightening in U.S. supply-demand balances. Although some analysts pointed to increased refinery runs and strong exports as possible drivers behind the draw, the headline number reflected enough strength to warrant a bullish response from the market. A secondary bullish factor came from operational disruptions at BPs 440,000 bpd Whiting, Indiana, refinery, one of the largest in the Midwest. Flooding from severe storms limited output, supporting refined product margins and, by extension, crude demand. Indias Russian Crude Trade Sparks U.S. Tariff Action In a separate but related development, the U.S. moved to impose 25% tariffs on Indian goods, effective August 27, in response to Indias continued imports of discounted Russian crude. India currently sources roughly 35% of its total oil imports from Russia, bypassing traditional supply channels and diluting the effectiveness of Western sanctions. Peter Navarro, a senior adviser to Trump, called India a global clearinghouse for Russian crude, a sharp criticism that heightened concerns about potential secondary sanctions. While the tariffs do not directly target Indian oil flows, they signal growing U.S. frustration and willingness to apply pressure on nations helping to sustain Russian oil revenues. The geopolitical implications of this policy shift kept traders alert to further retaliatory or enforcement measures that could impact trade routes, shipping availability, or future demand from Asian buyers. Market Drivers Realign in Support of Higher Prices This week marked a clear shift in trader positioning and sentiment. After two weeks of bearish price action driven by diplomatic optimism and weak technical structure, crude found renewed support from a tightening U.S. supply picture and revived geopolitical tension. The market also absorbed comments from analysts cautioning that sanctions relief remains speculative and that the conflict in Ukraine is far from resolution. At the same time, speculative short positioning in WTI remained elevated heading into the week, according to recent CFTC data. That set the stage for a short-covering rally once the bearish narrative began to unravel. The result was a 2.48% weekly gain, with prices climbing back above the $63 handle by Thursdays close. Weekly Light Crude Oil Futures Trend Indicator Analysis The main trend is down, according to the weekly swing chart. Last weeks trade through $61.87 changed the trend. Taking out $69.69 will change the main trend to up. According to the 52-week moving average at $63.36, the market is showing signs of strengthening. Light crude oil spent two straight weeks below it before traders recaptured it this week. The move suggests the presence of buyers or the lack of sellers. The markets relationship with the long-term 50% level at $64.56 is still leaning toward the downside. Given these three scenarios, it looks as if the long-term pivot at $64.56 is the price level to watch. Weekly Technical Forecast The direction of the Weekly Light Crude Oil Futures market the week ending August 29 is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the 52-week moving average at $63.36 and the long-term pivot at $64.56. Bullish Scenario A sustained move over $64.56 will signal the presence of buyers. If this creates enough upside momentum, we could see a near-term rally into the resistance cluster at $68.70 to $69.69. Bearish Scenario A sustained move under the 52-week moving average at $63.36 will indicate the presence of sellers. This could lead to a quick test of the minor bottom at $61.12, followed by Fibonacci support at $60.26. The latter is a potential trigger point for an acceleration to the downside. $56.09 is the first target. Neutral Outlook Look for a choppy, two-sided trade if prices get trapped between the 52-week moving average and the long-term pivot. Oil Prices Forecast: Bullish Bias as Fundamentals Reassert Control The balance of risk has shifted in favor of the bulls. A stronger-than-expected inventory draw, renewed geopolitical pressure surrounding Russia, and tightening refined product supply from U.S. refinery issues have collectively improved the short-term outlook. While the global macro picture still includes headwindsespecially around 2026 demand projectionstraders this week focused on immediate physical tightness and elevated risk factors. Outlook: Bullish With crude futures up 2.48% on the week, the market has absorbed recent bearish catalysts and is now reacting to tightening U.S. supply and unresolved geopolitical risks. Continued focus on diplomacy failures and inventory trends could push prices higher into next week. With the fundamentals slowly shifting to the bullish side of the equation, traders should look for support at the 52-week moving average at $63.36 and a potential breakout over the long-term pivot at $64.56. On the flip side, a sustained move on the weak side of the 52-week moving average will mean buyers didnt bite on the potential breakout and sellers regained control. On the other side of this divide, the UAEs influence in Sudan has flowed through Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and the paramilitary RSF. The RSFs funding streams, tied to the gold trade, run through Dubais markets. The RSFs ability For the Saudis, of course (who back the Sudanese military), this is welcome news. The Saudi position has always been that a unitary Sudanese state, however brittle, is preferable to an archipelago of militias. The Kingdoms Red Sea security calculus requires a stable counterpart in Port Sudan to protect shipping lanes and cooperate on defense. A Burhan-led SAF that appears disciplined and centralized gives Riyadh a stronger partner and vindicates its decision to back the army rather than flirt with local warlords (unlike the UAE). The SAF is now likely to get Saudi money out of this. Sudans civil war is moving into a new phase, triggered by a reshuffle in Khartoum. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has moved loyalists into critical command slots and pulled an array of forces (regular army units, Darfur rebels aligned with the state, tribal auxiliaries, even Islamist brigades) into a unified chain of command. The step looks bureaucratic on the surface, but represents an attempt to close the gaps that allowed the RSF to grow into a rival military power. A tighter command structure means fewer competing fiefdoms, fewer opportunities for external patrons to cultivate their own clients, and a more coherent face to present to foreign capitals. Sudans civil war is moving into a new phase, triggered by a reshuffle in Khartoum. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has moved loyalists into critical command slots and pulled an array of forces (regular army units, Darfur rebels aligned with the state, tribal auxiliaries, even Islamist brigades) into a unified chain of command. The step looks bureaucratic on the surface, but represents an attempt to close the gaps that allowed the RSF to grow into a rival military power. A tighter command structure means fewer competing fiefdoms, fewer opportunities for external patrons to cultivate their own clients, and a more coherent face to present to foreign capitals. For the Saudis, of course (who back the Sudanese military), this is welcome news. The Saudi position has always been that a unitary Sudanese state, however brittle, is preferable to an archipelago of militias. The Kingdoms Red Sea security calculus requires a stable counterpart in Port Sudan to protect shipping lanes and cooperate on defense. A Burhan-led SAF that appears disciplined and centralized gives Riyadh a stronger partner and vindicates its decision to back the army rather than flirt with local warlords (unlike the UAE). The SAF is now likely to get Saudi money out of this. On the other side of this divide, the UAEs influence in Sudan has flowed through Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and the paramilitary RSF. The RSFs funding streams, tied to the gold trade, run through Dubais markets. The RSFs ability to capture territory and operate autonomously fit neatly with Abu Dhabis pattern elsewhere: cultivate proxies that can secure resource corridors, hold ports, and offer leverage independent of the capital (much like in Yemen, where this strategy produced the Southern Transitional Council and a series of local security partners). In Sudan, it has been the RSF, with its grip on Darfur and access to gold mines. Burhans consolidation disrupts this. An SAF that can bring its disparate elements under one roof threatens to sideline the RSF as a legitimate negotiating partner. It dilutes the value of Emirati investments and narrows Abu Dhabis options to either double down on clandestine resupply or search for an accommodation with Burhan himself. The reputational risks are rising too: international NGOs and think tanks continue to trace arms and materiel to RSF channels linked to the Emirates, even as official investigations tread cautiously. Each new massacre or atrocity attributed to the RSF hardens perceptions that Abu Dhabi is fueling a war criminals campaign, a narrative that sits uneasily with the UAEs broader effort to market itself as a humanitarian hub and mediator. The immediate risk is that the RSF, sensing its space closing, escalates attacks on infrastructure. Port Sudan has already been struck by RSF drones. A more coherent SAF may harden its defenses, but each attack serves to remind Riyadh that its shipping lanes and energy flows remain exposed as long as Hemedti retains striking capacity. That is the lever the RSF and, indirectly, the Emiratis still hold. Should Burhan continue to consolidate, the likelihood increases that the RSF will lash out at Red Sea targets to maintain relevance. What we are watching, then, is less the end of Sudans war than its evolution into a contest where Gulf rivalries are sharper, the risks to Red Sea commerce greater, and the echoes of Yemen more insistent. A unified army in Khartoum is a strategic win for Saudi Arabia. For the UAE, it is the beginning of a strategic dilemma: accept diminished influence in Sudan, or escalate support to a proxy whose atrocities and battlefield setbacks make it a steadily riskier investment. Private Chinese firm China Concord Resources Corp (CCRC) is developing two oilfields in Venezuela, from which it expects to produce 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude by the end of next year, thanks to a planned investment of $1 billion, an executive involved in the project told Reuters on Friday. Private Chinese operators are a rare sight in Venezuela, where Chinese state-held majors have developed oilfields in the past. Yet, CCRC has signed a 20-year production sharing contract with Venezuela and is already producing 12,000 bpd from the two oilfields, Lago Cinco and Lagunillas Lago, the unnamed executive told Reuters. The Chinese companys plan entails pumping as much as 60,000 bpd from the two fields by the end of 2026 by reopening mothballed wells and developing new ones. The light crude from the fields would go to Venezuelas state oil firm PDVSA, while the heavy crude is set to be shipped to China, according to the executive. Chinas state firms have stopped buying oil from Venezuela after the 2019 sanctions under President Trumps first term in office. But independent Chinese refiners are key customers of Venezuelas crude and have continued importing it through the years. Large companies are also staying away from Venezuela, which has opened the door to private firms such as CCRC. Because of the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector, no big-name companies would dare operate there, handing opportunities to small companies like Concord, the executive told Reuters. U.S. supermajor Chevron is a rare Venezuelan presence among the biggest international oil firms, now that its license to operate in the country holding the worlds biggest crude reserves has been reinstated. At the end of July, the Trump Administration granted Chevron a sanction exemption for its operations in Venezuela but only on the condition that no money from these operations would go to the Venezuelan government. Last week, Chevron dispatched the first two Venezuelan crude cargoes to the U.S. since Washington restored its license. The Mediterranean Voyager and Canopus Voyager left Venezuelan waters at the end of last week loaded with Hamaca and Boscan heavy crudes, bound for the U.S. West Coast and Port Arthur, Texas, respectively. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Chinas Sinopec has made two significant discoveries of shale gas in central-southwestern China containing over 100 billion cubic meters, the company has said, as quoted by the South China Morning Post. Sinopec called the discoveries proof that the deposit, called Hongxing, had strong resource potential and would contribute to national energy security. The company added that the geology at the sites was challenging, with the reserves at depths between 3,300 and 5,500 meters. Despite the challenges, Sinopecs test well at one of the sites had achieved daily rates of over 300,000 cubic meters, up from 89,000 cubic meters initially. The news follows an announcement by Sinopec from late July, when the company said it had certified 147 million barrels in oil reserves at another shale deposit, in southwestern China. The Fuxing shale oil and gas field is in the Sichuan basin, and was the first successful predominantly oil play discovered in Sichuan, where companies have been mostly finding natural gas. Earlier in the year, Sinopec announced the certification of another 1.3 billion barrels in reserves at two fields in eastern China. As with the new gas discovery, those reserves were at considerable depths. China has substantial shale resources, especially in natural gas, but extracting them is a challenge, unlike in the United States, due to the complex geology of the local shale formations. Even so, shale oil and gas exploration is an important part of Chinas push to boost its reliance on domestic oil and gas production in a bid to reduce its significant exposure to foreign hydrocarbon resources. At the start of the year, Chinas National Energy Administration said the country aimed to achieve crude oil production of over 200 million tons for the full 2025, while at the same time maintaining a stable pace of expansion in natural gas production. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com A pediatric association broke federal guidelines set by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by recommending COVID-19 vaccines for young children. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released its latest vaccine recommendations on Aug. 19 that break from the federal agency's protocols. COVID-19 Vaccines for Young Children The AAP and many other professional medical associations decried Kennedy Jr.'s announcement in May that the COVID-19 vaccine would no longer be part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women. That move went against previous expert guidance and also bypassed the normal scientific review process. The AAP released a statement on June 26, saying that it would "continue to publish its own evidence-based recommendations and schedules," noting that this was because the creation of federal immunization policy is "no longer a credible process." The situation started after Kennedy Jr. drew widespread criticism after he fired all 17 original members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. This was the committee that provided guidance on vaccine use to the CDC, according to USA Today. He then replaced the members with individuals who many critics claim are not qualified to be on the committee. Some of them, including Kennedy Jr., have a history of anti-vaccine advocacy and are involved in anti-vaccine groups. The AAP's schedule lists which vaccines kids should be getting at certain ages and also provides updated guidance in influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 immunizations for children and adolescents from birth to age 18. The vice chair of the AAP infectious diseases committee, Dr. James Campbell, said that their opinion is that they need to make the right choices for kids in order to keep them safe. The association is now strongly recommending children aged six to two years to get COVID-19 shots, NBC News reported. Vaccinating Young Kids Furthermore, shots are also advised for older children if their parents want their kids to be vaccinated against the disease. This is in contrast to the HHS' recommendation of not giving healthy children of any age the COVID-19 shots. The AAP said that it has continued to review the most recently available data regarding COVID-19 risks in children, as well as the safety and effectiveness of available vaccines. It said that it was clear that the shots are very safe for all populations. One of the reasons that the association moved from a risk-based recommendation is the fact that the hospitalization rate for young kids and children with underlying medical conditions is still high, as per KATV. The United States has sanctioned a Greek shipping entrepreneur, a network of his companies, and two Chinese crude oil terminal and storage operators as the Treasury is taking additional actions to disrupt Iranian oil exports and the shadow fleet enabling them. The U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Greek national Antonios Margaritis, his network of companies, and nearly a dozen vessels involved in Irans shadow fleet. Margaritis has leveraged his decades of experience in the shipping industry to illicitly facilitate the transportation and sale of Iranian petroleum, the Treasury said. Several other vessels and operators are also being designated today for their role facilitating Iranian oil exports, which generates revenue that contributes to Irans advanced weapons programs. In addition, the U.S. Department of State expanded sanctions to increase the so-called maximum pressure on Iran, by designating China-based crude oil terminal and storage operator in the Dongjiakou Port Area of Chinas Shandong Province, the largest entry point for Iranian crude oil into China by volume. The Department also sanctioned Yangshan Shengang International Petroleum Storage and Transportation Co., Ltdanother China-based crude oil terminal and storage operator, in the Yangshan Port Area of Chinas Zhejiang Province. The two Chinese crude oil terminal and storage operators have facilitated the import of millions of barrels of Iranian-origin oil onboard multiple U.S.-designated tankers, the State Department said. The latest designation is the Departments fourth round of sanctions targeting China-based terminal operators, which continue to play a vital role in the Iranian crude oil supply chain. Earlier this year, the U.S. started targeting Chinese oil terminals and several independent refiners, the so-called teapots, for their imports of Iranian oil. Despite the U.S. crackdown on Chinese entities involved in the imports of Irans crude and products, China continues to buy large volumes of Iranian oilit is actually Tehrans main customer, buying 90% of its exported oil. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Summer can be a quiet time in Central Asian capitals, but this August officials in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have launched initiatives designed to get a handle on water-related challenges threatening the region. Uzbekistan has unveiled a three-year water-management program that strives to promote conservation via the modernization of the countrys vast irrigation network. Under the plan, antiquated equipment will be replaced on over 2,500 kilometers of canals and other hydraulic systems, covering 1.4 million hectares of farmland. Drip technologies will be introduced on 300,000 hectares, and digital systems will manage water flows across the network, the program envisions. Pumping stations will be powered by renewable energy sources. Once implemented, the modernization is projected to reduce soil salinity and bring 460,000 hectares of land back into cultivation. According to initial projections, overhauling the network will save 10 billion cubic meters of water during the first year of the program, and up to 14 billion cubic meters by 2028. Uzbek officials have not put a price tag on the modernization initiative. A statement released August 12 by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced the creation of a water-management training center that will help ensure state personnel make the most efficient use of the new technologies. A public awareness campaign will also be developed to encourage better water-conservation habits among the population. Kazakh officials, meanwhile, are allocating 305 million tenge (about $566,000) to expand the national Caspian Sea Research Institute. The seas level has declined by roughly two meters over the past two decades due to global warming-related factors, and some projections show the shrinkage will accelerate so that by the end of the century the sea may lose up to a quarter of its surface area. The upgrade to the Kazakh institute will facilitate research aimed at gaining a better understanding of the factors driving the decline, while also helping develop effective restoration measures. The funding will additionally enable experts to broaden efforts to measure fish stocks and search for the causes of mass seal deaths. A more immediate concern for Kazakhstan is an extremely dry summer that has caused a water shortage. The Syr Darya River is running at up to 40 percent below its normal water level for this time of year, threatening crop yields in the Turkestan and Kyzylorda regions. Reservoirs are also recording worryingly low levels. Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev announced that Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have agreed to allocate 600 million cubic meters of water to Kazakhstan to alleviate the shortfall over the near term. The Uzbek and Kyrgyz supplies are expected to start flowing into Kazakhstan by the end of August. Local media also report that Kazakh officials are exploring a deal with an American firm, Dynamic Aviation, to confront yet another water-related hazard flooding. Authorities are eager to avoid a repeat of the widespread flooding in 2024 that displaced tens of thousands of citizens and caused millions of dollars worth of property damage. On August 12, company officials met with Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, Kazakhstans minister of water resource management, to discuss potential projects on flood forecasting and mitigation. Virginia-based Dynamic Aviation also bills itself as a leading company specializing in oil spill response. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan is trying to catalyze a multilateral response to the Caspian Sea-level issue. The Trend news agency reported August 12 that Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov has circulated a blueprint outlining possibilities for collective action and is seeking commitments from other regional states to convene a summit of Central Asian leaders devoted specifically to preserving the seas ecological integrity. At an August 14 meeting of the Central Asian Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC), a forum that brings together officials and experts from all five regional states, Bozumbayev, the deputy Kazakh prime minister, sounded an alarm, asserting that dwindling water resources are insufficient to meet growing agricultural needs. He also acknowledged that the ICWC to date has been ineffective in creating a viable resource-management system. The times require more dynamic [action] from us, Bozumbayev said, according to a government statement. It is necessary not only to discuss and plan, but also to take specific measures. Officials from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have convened multiple meetings in August, striving to develop more efficient water distribution and management systems covering the Amu Darya and Syr Darya river basins. By Eurasianet More Top Reads From Oilprice.com By Taxpayers Association of Oregon OregonWatchdog.com U.S. Senator Ron Wydens homepage on his website has a link for federal employees that are being laid off. We think this is admirable and it is nice to see elected officials trying to help. But why stop there? Intel has laid off thousands. NIKE and Fred Meyer are both laying of nearly a 1,000. Do politicians only offer extra help to government employees over everyday Oregonians? We hope not. Following Senator Wydens link is another link to a site on how to appeal and fight your termination. Is this the role of government officials to block government from reducing the workforce like every other business in the world? Remember, then President Bill Clinton reduced the workforce by nearly 700,000 employees. lastly, as Wyden makes a sincere pitch to help Federal workers not be laid of, it must be remembered in the context of Senator Wyden voting to stop the 2025 tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill. That bill stopped the 2017 tax cuts from expiring. Wyden voted against no tax on tips, Wyden voted against giving tax relief for seniors and overtime workers. Here is the tax savings that Wyden voted against when he voted NO on the Big Beautiful Bill. Simply put, by his own vote Senator Wyden favors sky-high taxes for low income, middle class and small businesses owners at the same time he is trying to block a reduction in the Federal workforce. Wyden answer to the $30+ trillion debt is to not reduce spending but to stick everyday taxpayers with a higher tax bill. Will Wyden be open to reductions if the debt hits $40 trillion? $50 trillion? As said, we dont have any issue with Wyden helping Federal Employees we do have issue with his priorities and taxes. By the way, Governor Kotek prioritized government jobs over private ones this year: Was this helpful? Contribute online at OregonWatchdog.com (learn about a Charitable Tax Deduction or Political Tax Credit options to promote liberty). Last spring, I wrote about a serious allegation of discrimination at the University of Oregon Law School. Here is an update from Professor Ofer Raban: In February this year the University of Oregon received a complaint charging unlawful discrimination at the University Oregon Law Review. The Review rejected an article by an Israeli professorwho also teaches in the U.S.because she is a faculty member at Tel Aviv University. The editors sense of impunity was such that the discriminatory decision was put in writing. When another editor raised the alarm about the legality of the action, a high-ranking member of the law school administration was consulted and then approved the discrimination. Today, six months after the University received the complaint about this discriminationwhich allegedly violated a slew of laws and regulationsno known adverse action has been taken against anyone involved, and the high-ranking official is still holding her prominent position at the law school. Moreover, in response to my most recent inquiry, the Universitys Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance informed me that the results of the investigation will be kept secret because The outcome of the process implicates confidential employee information that we are typically prohibited from sharing. Is that so? In 2016, when the University of Oregon opened an investigation into a blackface episode involving a law school professor (who in fact ineptly advocated for racial equality), the University released the full report of its investigations, issued public condemnations, and publicized its punitive actions against the professorall while explaining that academic tenure protections prevented her firing. In sharp contrast, the University of Oregon is presently engaged in a pattern of stonewalling and refusals to address complaints of unlawful anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli harassment and discrimination on campus. This may be unsurprising, given that University of Oregon officials are often themselves the perpetrators of such acts. Maybe silence is all well get on this one, unless it goes to court. Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there. (file photo) By Taxpayers Association of Oregon OregonWatchdog.com Americas Border Czar, Tom Homan, made a surprise visit to Portland, Seattle and San Diego. Here is his announcement he made on X: This week I visited the sanctuary cities of San Diego, Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma to speak to the men and women of ICE and CBP and let them know that President Trump and I have their six we will not negligently ignore the laws that Congress has enacted nor will we turn our backs on U.S. communities when criminal illegal aliens are plaguing their streets. Every crime that has been committed by an illegal alien was a preventable crime. God bless the victims of this lawlessness. Sanctuary cities are only sanctuaries for criminals, PERIOD. Efforts to impede immigration enforcement operations and protect public safety threats are beyond shameful. They are abhorrent and make no sense. What is wrong with state and local leaders when they refuse to work with federal law enforcement to remove dangerous people from their streets, and even better, from this country??? Nobody wants public safety threats in their neighborhood and that is why President Trump is prioritizing ICE enforcement actions in those communities. President Trump has committed to holding these lawless communities accountable. He is also committed to a zero tolerance stance on anyone that assaults, intimidates, or interferes with our law enforcement personnel, or otherwise violates 18 U.S. Code 111. You cross that line, and you will be arrested and prosecuted under the Trump Administration. We have already seen a record number of prosecutions. President Trump promised to American voters that he will make our country safe again, and that is exactly what we are doingwith honor and without apology [end] - Speaking of harboring illegal criminal migrants. This drug kingpin below operated out of Oregon and was part of the largest fentanyl drug bust in U.S. history this summer. A few weeks after that we had another epic drug bust outside of Eugene. There have been other international crime ring stories from Oregon: (link to article) (link to article) (link to article) (link to article) (link to article) (link to article) (link to article) Was this helpful? Contribute online at OregonWatchdog.com (learn about a Charitable Tax Deduction or Political Tax Credit options to promote liberty). China's "Avatar" city Zhangjiajie rises as a global tourism magnet Xinhua) 08:58, August 22, 2025 Tourists visit Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central China's Hunan Province, Oct. 3, 2024. (Photo by Wu Yongbing/Xinhua) CHANGSHA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- For his first trip to China, Park Jun-min from the Republic of Korea (ROK) headed straight to Zhangjiajie, the "Avatar" city known worldwide for its dreamlike landscape. "It is incredible! I thought I was prepared after seeing photos and videos, but being here in person, surrounded by soaring peaks and mist-shrouded cliffs, felt like stepping into a wonderland," Park marveled while visiting the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. Nestled in the mountainous northwest of central China's Hunan Province, Zhangjiajie is a renowned tourist city and the real-life inspiration for the floating mountains in the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar. Though landlocked and far from China's borders, it has risen as a popular gateway for international travelers, spurred by China's expanded visa-free entry and eased transit policies. Walking through the bustling streets of Zhangjiajie, visitors can hear languages from around the world. Korean barbecue restaurants, Japanese eateries and Western-style cafes line the sidewalks, while signs in multiple languages appear in attractions and hotels. At local markets, even stall owners have picked up a few foreign phrases to welcome international customers. In the first seven months of 2025, the city received 722,000 international visitors, who spent a total of 380 million U.S. dollars, representing year-on-year increases of 14.2 percent and 16.4 percent, respectively. Despite a permanent population of fewer than 1.5 million, more than 300,000 people are employed in tourism-related sectors during peak periods. Among Zhangjiajie's inbound visitors, tourists from the ROK are particularly numerous. For a long time, the country has been the city's largest source of foreign tourists. In July, comedian Kim Won-hyo was appointed as a promotional ambassador for a scenic area in Zhangjiajie. Local authorities said they intend to tap into the influence of Kim and other Korean public figures to further develop the tourism market from the ROK and deepen cultural and tourism exchanges between the two countries. Having visited Zhangjiajie several times, Kim has witnessed a change in the city's visitors. "Young Koreans used to send their parents to the city as a sign of filial piety. But on my recent trips, I've been delighted to see more young Koreans visiting the scenic spots themselves," Kim said. Zhangjiajie now draws visitors from well beyond the ROK. In 2024, the city welcomed tourists from 183 countries and regions, 50 more than its previous record. Emerging markets such as Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Europe, the United States and the Middle East are contributing to its growing international appeal. "Each quartzite sandstone peak rises like a pillar, one after another," said Liu Yang, deputy secretary-general of the Zhangjiajie tourism association. He noted that the city's unique, fairyland-like scenery embodies the poetic landscapes many foreigners imagine when they think of China. With an expanding range of tourism products and improved services in recent years, even this small inland city can now offer international visitors a rewarding travel experience. At a local souvenir shop, Filipino visitor Ezekiel Santos paid with GCash, a mobile wallet from his home country. "I used to exchange currency at a bank before traveling abroad. But now in China, I can simply scan and pay with the same app I use at home. It is fast, convenient, and the exchange rate is favorable," he said. In recent years, Hunan Province has rolled out a series of policies to make travel easier for inbound visitors, covering entry procedures, payments, transportation and shopping. In January 2025, 18 provincial departments jointly issued 12 measures to further boost inbound tourism and ensure a smoother, more enjoyable experience for international travelers. "The steady rise in inbound tourism has pushed us to raise the bar in areas such as infrastructure, service quality, and talent development," said Tian Hongman, deputy director of Zhangjiajie's bureau of culture, tourism, broadcasting, and sports. "Zhangjiajie is embracing the world with greater professionalism and openness, and we hope every visitor can feel at home here," Tian added. (Web editor: Huang Kechao, Liang Jun) Texas police arrested a man who shot teenagers inside a car after the latter attempted a "ding dong ditch" prank at the shooter's home. The incident happened on July 28 on Scottsdale Way, where Frisco police were dispatched to reports of a person who heard gunshots. During an official investigation, law enforcement personnel learned that the shooter, 58-year-old Damon Wolfe, left his home after he heard a loud bang on his door. Texas Man Arrested for Shooting at Teenagers' Vehicle The Texas man then fired several shots at a passing car because he thought that the people inside were the ones involved. The Frisco Police Department (FPD) responded to a call later that evening that a vehicle had been shot at. Police said that the driver of the car and two passengers initially claimed that they were shot at while on a different street. Following several interviews, they then admitted to doing a "ding dong ditch" prank in a random neighborhood, according to People. The FPD arrested the shooter on Aug. 3 on three counts of aggravated assault, one count for each person who was in the vehicle he shot at. The charges against the suspect carry a potential sentence between two and 20 years in prison as well as a $10,000 fine. Frisco Police Chief David Shilson said that what started out as a prank turned into something that could have had deadly consequences, particularly for the teenagers. He added that they found the vehicle shortly after the ordeal, noting that the juveniles did not want to report it because they were doing the pranks. Shilson also advised parents to talk to their children regarding the dangers of participating in these types of pranks or TikTok challenges. He noted that the teenagers involved in the latest case are very fortunate not to have been killed by Wolfe, USA Today reported. Ding Dong Ditch Prank Goes Bad The police chief urged homeowners to avoid "running outside and shooting at a vehicle fleeing the scene" and to understand the potential legal and criminal consequences of doing so. Shilson said that the bullets fired could have easily struck neighbors' houses and hurt innocent people. Some of the neighbors of the arrested Texas man also talked about the incident, including Medina Wong, who said that it was usually quiet at night in their area. She and her family live on the block where the incident occurred. Shilson said that Wolfe went too far trying to defend his home when he ran out into the street and fired at the teenagers' vehicle. He said that these pranks are not worth that kind of response, as per CBS News. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Graphical abstract. Credit: Journal of the American Chemical Society (2025). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c04004 A qubit is the delicate, information-processing heart of a quantum device. In the coming decades, advances in quantum information are expected to give us computers with new, powerful capabilities and detectors that can pick up atomic-scale signals in medicine, navigation and more. The realization of such technologies depends on having reliable, long-lasting qubits. Now, researchers have taken an important step in understanding the rules necessary for the design of useful, efficient qubits. Using advanced computer modeling, the researchers came up with a way to accurately predict and fine-tune key magnetic properties of a type of device called a molecular qubit. They also figured out which factors in the material that the qubit sits in affect this tuning the most and calculated how long the qubits can live. Their predictions matched what experiments see. "I think this work will open new venues for the simulations of molecular qubits from first principles, and I see it as a real starting point for many new investigations to come, especially on the assembly of molecular qubits," said Giulia Galli, who led the team. Galli is a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the Liew Family professor of electronic structure and simulations in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. The group's work is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Designing qubits to spec A molecular qubit is made of a molecule sitting inside a larger crystal. Galli's team focused on chromium-based systems. Traditionally, scientists build molecular qubits by creating different materials, testing them and measuring their performancelike raising buildings of different materials and, once built, testing their stamina in different weather conditions. It's a valid approach. But the team wanted to give direction on how to design molecular qubits to spec. Chromium-based qubits gave the research team an opportunity to develop a computational method that could predict how key qubit features would respond to different design choices. "From a design perspective, we wanted to come up with rules to engineer different properties of qubits that are beneficial to our specific application, whether that's quantum communication, quantum sensing or quantum computing," said Argonne postdoctoral researcher Michael Toriyama. "Through our work, we developed a fully computational method to figure out these engineering principles." Split and spin The star of the molecular qubit is something called "spin." It's a feature of every atom. Just as Morse code uses dots and dashes to carry messages, a molecular qubit uses spin to encode quantum information. The spin of a chromium center can split into three magnetic energy levels. It's a phenomenon called "zero-field splitting," or ZFS. The energy levels change depending on how the atom is situated in the crystal. (The "zero" refers to the absence of outside electromagnetic fields.) Scientists need to know the energies of each level to control the qubit precisely. Without knowing the ZFS values, controlling the qubit would be like trying to tune a radio without knowing a station's frequency. The ability to set the ZFS is especially helpful in big quantum systems with many qubits, which need to have predictable, controllable energy differences to avoid unwanted interference. Controlling the ZFS also enables longer qubit lifetimes, or coherence timesmore time for the qubit to process information before it disintegrates. "We can predict the coherence time from the ZFS using our methods, enabling better design principles to extend the coherence of a qubit," Toriyama said. "It's like we're figuring out how to build better armor around the qubit to protect it." The group's computational protocol for predicting the ZFS gives scientists a way to take full advantage of the molecular qubit's best asset: its tunability. "In other qubit types, like diamond, for example, there are limited possibilities for modifications, whereas with molecules there is a lot you can do. You can tune properties to the application you need," said Diego Sorbelli, an assistant professor at the University of Perugia in Italy and a former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. "It's kind of like using Lego blocks: Figure out which blocks go together and then get the final product with properties that you want," Toriyama said. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matterdaily or weekly. Qubit collaboration How do you tune the ZFS of a molecular qubit? The Galli team highlighted two important dials for setting the ZFS just where it's needed: the geometry of the crystal surrounding the chromium center and the electric fields that arise from the crystal's chemical makeup. The team's work is the first not only to provide a computational method for accurately predicting ZFS in chromium molecular qubits, but also the first to identify that ZFS can be controlled by manipulating the host crystal's electric fields. "We give new design rules for modifying the composition of the environment to actively manipulate these spin structures, which we can accurately predict," said Lorenzo Baldinelli, first author of the paper, a graduate student at the University of Perugia, and a former visiting graduate student at the University of Chicago. "So now, using our protocol, we can account not only for the electronic and spin properties of the qubit, but also of its surroundings." It wasn't easy to do. "These properties are extremely complicated to predict from first principle," Sorbelli said. But the strong cross-disciplinary collaboration within Galli's groupchemists, materials scientists and physicistshelped tease out the most important dials in the chromium qubit's complex chemistry. "I remember this was bugging me. How do we predict the zero-field splitting? What are the ingredients we need to be able to do this? Can we do this? I was very stubborn about it. And then Lorenzo came along, and we teamed up, eventually bringing Michael into the fold. From that point it was a steep learning curve, but it was also pretty smooth," Sorbelli said. "Not too many groups are equipped to compute coherence properties of qubits. We leveraged the tools that our group has developed through years and years of research," Toriyama said. "This was really a testament to how successful collaborations can be and how versatile our group is." More information: Lorenzo Baldinelli et al, Design Rules to Engineer the Spin Structure of Cr4+ Molecular Qubits via Matrix Modularity, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2025). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c04004 Journal information: Journal of the American Chemical Society This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Schematic illustration of the data and workflow. Credit: Nature Sustainability (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-025-01615-8 An open-source artificial intelligence model to accurately map the carbon emissions of buildings across multiple cities could become a powerful new tool to help policymakers plan targeted and equitable decarbonization strategies. The model, developed by researchers at the College of Design and Engineering (CDE) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), offers city planners a detailed picture of how building carbon emissions are distributed and what drives them, with a view to helping authorities design smarter, fairer strategies to cut emissions. The model is the result of research led by Assistant Professor Filip Biljecki from the Department of Architecture at CDE. The team's findings were published on 15 August 2025 in the journal Nature Sustainability. "Our model estimates operational carbon emissions of individual buildings at the scale of entire cities," said Department of Architecture Ph.D. student Winston Yap, lead author of the study. "Unlike previous approaches that rely on proprietary data, our open approach is designed to be transferable across cities, including those with different data availability conditions." Applied to data mapping over half a million buildings in five citiesSingapore, Melbourne, New York City (Manhattan), Seattle and Washington DCthe researchers say their model explained up to 78% of the variation in emissions. The results revealed significant differences in how emissions are distributed within cities and identified key factors that influence building energy use, including urban form, planning history, and income levels. Department of Architecture Ph.D. student and Lead Author Winston Yap (left) with Asst Prof Filip Biljecki (right) who led the research. Credit: College of Design and Engineering at NUS "Building emissions are not just about size or density, they're deeply shaped by the unique context of each city, from its planning legacy to climate and economic conditions," said Asst Prof Biljecki. "By using only open data, we've built a flexible framework that cities around the world can use to better understand their carbon footprint and plan more effective responses." One of the key insights from the study is the complex relationship between building density and carbon emissions. While taller buildings tend to be more energy-efficient per unit area due to economies of scale, dense urban cores may also experience higher cooling demands due to urban heat island effects. Suburban areas, typically associated with detached low-rise buildings, were found to be significant contributors to total emissions, sometimes rivaling those of city centers. The research also uncovered stark inequalities. In most cities studied, wealthier neighborhoods were found to have disproportionately high per capita emissions. In Manhattan, for example, more than half of total building emissions were attributed to just a handful of large buildings. "Uniform carbon pricing or blanket regulations risk placing an unfair burden on lower-income communities that may already be struggling with older, less efficient infrastructure," said Asst Prof Biljecki. "Our findings highlight the need for place-based strategies that take both emissions intensity and socioeconomic vulnerability into account." The framework integrates diverse data sources including satellite imagery, street view photos, population maps, road networks, and local climate data using graph neural networks, a form of deep learning that captures spatial relationships between urban elements. By making their approach entirely open, the researchers say they want to support global efforts to reduce emissions from the built environment and to help cities meet their climate targets. "This work demonstrates the potential of open science and AI to accelerate urban sustainability," said Asst Prof Biljecki. "It's not just about understanding where emissions come from, but also ensuring that climate action is both effective and fair." More information: Winston Yap et al, Revealing building operating carbon dynamics for multiple cities, Nature Sustainability (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-025-01615-8 Journal information: Nature Sustainability This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A scanning electron microscope image of a micrometeorite impact crater in a particle of asteroid Bennu material. Credit: NASA Asteroid Bennuthe target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return mission, led by the University of Arizonais a mixture of materials from throughout, and even beyond, our solar system. Over the past few billion years, its unique and varied contents have been transformed by interactions with water and the harsh space environment. These details come from a trio of newly published papers based on analysis of Bennu samples delivered to Earth by OSIRIS-REx in 2023. The OSIRIS-REx sample analysis campaign is coordinated by the U of A's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) and involves scientists from around the world. LPL researchers contributed to all three studies and led two of them. "This is work you just can't do with telescopes," said Jessica Barnes, associate professor at the U of A's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and co-lead author on one of the publications. "It's super exciting that we're finally able to say these things about an asteroid that we've been dreaming of going to for so long and eventually brought back samples from." Bennu is made of fragments from a larger "parent" asteroid that broke up after it collided with another asteroid, likely in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The parent asteroid consisted of material with diverse originsnear the sun, far from the sun, and from other starsthat coalesced more than 4 billion years ago as our solar system was forming. These findings are the subject of a paper, published in Nature Astronomy, jointly led by Barnes and Ann Nguyen with the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Bennu's parent asteroid may have formed in the outer parts of the solar system, possibly beyond the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn," Barnes said. Jessica Barnes examines a vial containing sample particles at the Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory for Astromaterials Analysis, located at the University of Arizona. Credit: Chris Richards, University of Arizona "We think this parent body was struck by an incoming asteroid and smashed apart. Then the fragments re-assembled and this might have repeated several times." By looking at the samples returned by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, Barnes and her colleagues were able to get the most comprehensive snapshot of its history to date. Among the findings was an abundance of stardust, material that existed before our solar system formed, Barnes said. The discovery of these most ancient materials was made possible, in part, by the NanoSIMS instrument at the U of A's Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory for Astromaterials Analysis, which can reveal a sample's isotopesvariants of chemical elementsat nanometer scales. The tiny grains of stardust are identifiable by their unusual isotopic makeup compared to materials formed in the solar system. "Those are pieces of stardust from other stars that are long dead, and these pieces were incorporated into the cloud of gas and dust from which our solar system formed," Barnes said. "In addition, we found organic material that's highly anomalous in their isotopes and that was probably formed in interstellar space, and we have solids that formed closer to the sun, and for the first time, we show that all these materials are present in Bennu." Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matterdaily or weekly. The chemical and isotopic similarities between samples from Bennu and a similar asteroid, Ryugu, which was sampled by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission in 2019, and the most chemically primitive meteorites found on Earth suggest their parent asteroids may have formed in a shared region of the early solar system. Yet the differences researchers are observing in the Bennu samples may indicate that the starting materials in this region changed over time or were not as well-mixed as some scientists have thought. The analyses show that some of the materials in the parent asteroid survived various chemical processes involving heat and water and even the energetic collision that resulted in the formation of Bennu. Jessica Barnes working in the Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory for Astromaterials Analysis at the University of Arizona. Credit: Chris Richards, University of Arizona Nevertheless, most of the materials were transformed by hydrothermal processes, as reported in a second paper, published in Nature Geoscience. In fact, that study found, minerals in the parent asteroid likely formed, dissolved and reformed over time due to interactions with water. "We think that Bennu's parent asteroid accreted a lot of icy material from the outer solar system, which melted over time," said Tom Zega, director of the Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory who co-led the study with Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian. The team found evidence that silicate minerals would have reacted with the resultant liquid water at relatively low temperatures of about 25 degrees Celsius, or room temperature. That heat could have either lingered from the accretion process itself, when Bennu's parent asteroid first formed, or was generated by impacts later in its history, possibly in combination with the decay of radioactive elements deep inside it. The trapped heat could have melted the ice inside the asteroid, according to Zega. "Now you have a liquid in contact with a solid and heateverything you need to start doing chemistry," he said. "The water reacted with the minerals and formed what we see today: samples in which 80% of minerals contain water in their interior, created billions of years ago when the solar system was still forming." The transformation of Bennu's materials did not end there. A third paper, also published in Nature Geoscience, reports microscopic craters and tiny splashes of once-molten rock on the surfaces of Bennu particlessigns that the asteroid has been peppered by micrometeorite impacts. These impacts, together with the effects of solar wind, are known as "space weathering" and occur because Bennu does not have an atmosphere to protect it. This weathering is happening a lot faster than conventional wisdom would have it, according to the study, which was led by Lindsay Keller at NASA Johnson and Michelle Thompson at Purdue University. As the leftover materials from planetary formation 4.5 billion years ago, asteroids provide a record of the solar system's history. But many of these remnants may be different from what meteorites recovered on Earth would suggest, Zega said, because different types of meteors (fragments of asteroids) may burn up in the atmosphere and never make it to the ground. "And those that do make it to the ground can react with Earth's atmosphere, particularly if the meteorite is not recovered quickly after it falls," he added, "which is why sample return missions such as OSIRIS-REx are critical." More information: Barnes & Nguyen et al., The variety and origin of materials accreted by Bennu's parent asteroid, Nature Astronomy (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-025-02631-6 Zega & McCoy et al., Mineralogical evidence for hydrothermal alteration of Bennu samples, Nature Geoscience (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01741-0 Keller & Thompson et al., Space weathering effects in Bennu asteroid samples, Nature Geoscience (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01745-w Journal information: Nature Geoscience , Nature Astronomy 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: Powerful nodes for quantum networks. Credit: Harald Ritsch, Universitat Innsbruck Researchers at the University of Innsbruck have created a system in which individual qubitsstored in trapped calcium ionsare each entangled with separate photons. Demonstrating this method for a register of up to 10 qubits, the team has shown an easily scalable approach that opens new possibilities for linking quantum computers and quantum sensors. The work is published in Physical Review Letters. Quantum networks are often described as the future of the internetbut instead of transmitting classical information in bits, they send quantum information carried by photons. These networks could enable ultra-secure communication, link together distant quantum computers into a single, vastly more powerful machine, and create precision sensing systems that can measure time or environmental conditions with unprecedented accuracy. To make such a network possible, so-called quantum network nodesthat can store quantum information and share it via light particlesare needed. In their latest work, the Innsbruck team led by Ben Lanyon at the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck demonstrated such a node using a string of 10 calcium ions in a prototype quantum computer. By carefully adjusting electric fields, the ions were moved one by one into an optical cavity. There, a finely tuned laser pulse triggered the emission of a single photon whose polarization was entangled with the ion's state. The process created a stream of photons, each tied to a different ion-qubit in the register. In the future, photons could travel to distant nodes and be used to establish entanglement between separate quantum devices. The researchers achieved an average ionphoton entanglement fidelity of 92%, a level of precision that underscores the robustness of their method. "One of the key strengths of this technique is its scalability," says Ben Lanyon. "While earlier experiments managed to link only two or three ion-qubits to individual photons, the Innsbruck setup can be extended to much larger registers, potentially containing hundreds of ions and more." This paves the way for connecting entire quantum processors across laboratories or even continents. "Our method is a step toward building larger and more complex quantum networks," says Marco Canteri, the first author of the study. "It brings us closer to practical applications such as quantum-secure communication, distributed quantum computing and large-scale distributed quantum sensing." Beyond networking, the technology could also advance optical atomic clocks, which keep time so precisely that they would lose less than a second over the age of the universe. Such clocks could be linked via quantum networks to form a worldwide timekeeping system of unmatched accuracy. The work demonstrates not only a technical milestone but also a key building block for the next generation of quantum technologies. More information: M. Canteri et al, Photon-Interfaced Ten-Qubit Register of Trapped Ions, Physical Review Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1103/v5k1-whwz Journal information: Physical Review Letters Maintenance of Way Workers Represented by BMWED Secure Key Benefits NOVI, Mich., Aug. 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Thousands of maintenance of way workers at Union Pacific (UP) have voted to ratify a strong new contract. They are represented by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) of the Teamsters Rail Conference. The contract victory comes as Union Pacific recently proposed a merger with Norfolk Southern. If approved, it would create the largest railroad in American history. "Sitting on the bargaining committee was an eye-opening experience one that I am happy to have contributed to and had a voice in," said Lee Ziegler, a member of the Union Pacific bargaining committee and BMWED Lodge 899. "I'm glad that together we were able to come to a resolution that advances our wages and benefits." The new five-year agreement guarantees raises of 18.5 percent for the 6,600 Union Pacific Teamsters, as well as improved vacation policies, and health and welfare benefits. "On behalf of the entire BMWED, I would like to congratulate all 6,600 of our brothers and sisters for securing such a strong contract," said Tony Cardwell, President of the BMWED. "Especially with the proposed merger, it's more critical now than ever that our members' voices are heard and reflected. This agreement ensures this, and because of their hard work and unity, they will enjoy substantial improvements for years to come." Between the BMWED and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, over 23,000 Teamsters railroaders have ratified new labor agreements since the start of this year. Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents over 1.3 million hardworking people in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit Teamster.org for more information. Follow us on X @Teamsters and on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters. Contact: Maura Drumm, (215) 510-3735 [email protected] SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: David Rourke operating a piece of farming equipment on his property. Credit: University of Manitoba As the global conversation around climate change intensifies, the agricultural sector is emerging as both a contributor to the problem and a potential part of the solution. In this interview, we explore the concept of "net positive" carbon grain farming with Ph.D. graduate, David Rourke, through his thesis. Rourke is a seasoned grain farmer and researcher who focuses on the Northern Great Plains. Drawing from his experience in Zero Till farming, a deep commitment to climate responsibility, and a passion for leaving a better world for his grandchildren, Rourke offers a grounded yet innovative perspective on how farmers can lead in the fight against global warming. What exactly is 'net positive carbon grain farming' and why is it important? "Net positive," or "NP" carbon grain farming is the ability to drastically lower emissions and increase carbon sequestration to the point where sequestration is larger than emissions. While many countries and companies have a target of Net Zero in place for 2050, grain farmers [are sought] due to the ability to sequester atmospheric [carbon] into the soil. This helps increase the productivity of the fields at the same time as it sequesters the extra carbon. This makes farming quite unique. Why does your research focus on the Northern Great Plains? While most of my work is in Western Canada, the term Great Plains also includes the western plains of the U.S. Three of my participants were from North and South Dakota. The Great Plains are a semi-arid to sub-humid growing region, making them distinctly different from the humid soil zones of Eastern North America where 40 inches of rain is normal, whereas the Great Plains would have 10 to 20 inches of annual participation. Some "best management practices," or "BMPs" that work well in a place like Guelph fail when tried in the Great Plains areaunless there is irrigation. What is your background like, and how has it influenced your approach to this work? First, I am an active grain farmer in the Great Plains and have experienced the effects of limited rainfall and occasionally excessive precipitation. My MSc looked at crop residue management in Zero Till. I have been using Zero Till to limit erosion, increase water use efficiency and fertilizer efficiency since 1980. Although from time to time I have ventured off the path looking for something better, repeatedly a Zero Tillbased production system gives the best results. However, my general rule is that when something becomes the preferred system of production and is used continually, nature finds a way to leverage those vulnerabilities. Zero till's vulnerability is herbicide resistance; we must be vigilant in this regard. What methods of analysis have you found most instrumental in your studies, and why? My study used narrative research based on in-depth qualitative interviews. Using a number of sources and connections I was able to identify 16 participants who I considered to be interested in and, in some cases, successfully active in developing NP practices on their own farms. Dr. Debra Davidson, in a 2019 study conducted in Alberta, found up to 90% of the farmers surveyed did not believe the climate was changing or did not believe the 100 million barrels of oil equivalents that the world uses every day could possibly have any effect on the climate. Thus, to find these 16 participants that believe in anthropogenic global warming, or "AGW," and want to be part of the solutions makes them innovative and unique. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matterdaily or weekly. Can you expand on your journey as a student, and what led you to studying at the Natural Resources Institute? When I first looked for a project, a university, and an advisor to do the Ph.D., I looked at several quantitative projects at North Dakota State University, University of Saskatchewan, University of Guelph as well as UM. After a discussion with Dr. Martin Entz about a project where I would interview farmers on their innovative practices, he suggested I talk to Dr. Iain Davidson-Hunt at the Natural Resources Institute at the UM. This was the right choice for the project and for me. COVID was a blessing for me and my project. I took all my courses online and did all my interviews on Zoom. It was efficient and low carbon. I perhaps did not have as much collegial interactions as would 25-year-old on-site students, but being an active farmer and living 250 km from the UM, [along with] COVID and on-line technology made the project feasible. While my scientific experience in the 45 years leading up to my Ph.D. study was in quantitative science (small plot replicated research), I was looking for a new system; a system developed by farmers who were already trying to address AGW. And at the same time looking to record their successes, enablers, as well as failures, or at least the gaps and barriers that limited their ability to move the needle. I developed the BERT/E adoption rating score allowing me to characterize the strength of BMPs that were being promoted in Western Canada to tackle AGW. The interdisciplinary approach used at NRI was an excellent fit to this type of qualitative discovery. You've mentioned your grandchildren as a key factor in your motivation behind your work. Could you expand on how they inform your research? There is a saying, if you were born in Canada, you have won the lottery of life. I have had a blessed life, I have been privileged, not that I come from a rich family or was given a large sum of money to start life. I was privileged to be encouraged and enabled to go to university, to find a life partner when I was only 17, being given a chance to rent 300 acres to farm as a start and over time able to buy 6,000 acres, completing a M.Sc. degree and then using all of that to leverage many opportunities, including the development of the largest independent field research service company in Western Canada. The point is, for the last 100 years, the world has grown in an unbelievable way based on the ignorance of negative externalities caused by our fossil fuel-based societies. It is "payback time" if we have any hope of our descendants to have anywhere close to the blessed life our generation has had. Pope Francis in his "Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality," states that man has created this climate change problem and it is not right to pass it on to the next generationwe must take responsibility now. I have nine grandkids who depend on us to make the right decision and actions now. Have you noticed any challenges or pushback from other farmers? What opinions have you encountered? I developed the language and an approach for my research so that my conversations with farmers and others working in western agriculture were a step in the evolution of best management farm practices (BMPs). Fortunately, the ways to become NP are also ways to increase profitability and resilience on many Western Canadian farms. I use [terms] such as No Regret BMPs, Neutral BMPs, Sacrifice or even Dead End BMPs to sharpen the point of the readiness of specific BMPs to be taken up by western grain farmers in their farming operations. Being a commercial grain farmer helps me to consider language that will speak to farmers in their assessment of BMPs to move towards net positive for their farms. Unless the BMPs can make farm practice either more profitable, faster, or easier to do, they are not likely to be adopted by farmers. This is not theoryit is reality on my farm as it is on all farms. I have found some people that get quite excited believing that AGW is not a real thing. We need to find the common ground focusing on BMPs that are good for the farmer, society, and the environmentI believe my research is a step towards that goal. What's next for you and your work? I am looking for opportunities to use my findings to help move the needle. I have made presentations to Agriculture and Agri-food Canada's agriculture policy advisors, to conservation NGOs, and to farm groups who believe in Net Positive. I have an extensive quantitative field research program on soil health, biological nitrogen replacement products and a Zero Till project on dry beans, which can be tricky to get just right. My field tour was July 29th, 2025 at Minto, Manitoba. The plot work is supported by Living Labs, (Manitoba Association of Watershed and AAFC), Scotiabank, MB Forage and Grassland Association, MB Pulse and Soybean Growers, MB Crop Alliance, and MB Canola Growers. I am also pursuing the development of a NP Farm Network and NP Community of Practice. The NP Network would be a think tank and information-sharing network but could also be valuable as a unique interface to connect with what I call the Science-Based Target Initiative (SBTi) companies who have set Net Zero by 2050 pledges and are looking for Net Zero or NP supply chains. This would help identify gaps and solutions, and in the end, help demonstrate new No Regret BMPs. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Graphical abstract. Credit: ACS Catalysis (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.5c03512 Compared with the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, renewable energy-driven electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction (NO 3 RR) provides a low-carbon route for ammonia synthesis under mild conditions. Using nitrate from wastewater as the nitrogen source and water as the hydrogen source, this route has the potential to produce ammonia sustainably while mitigating water pollution. Copper (Cu)-based catalysts show a good performance for NO 3 RR to ammonia. However, they suffer from issues including high overpotential, competing nitrite (NO 2 ) formation, and low overall energy efficiency. In a study published in ACS Catalysis, a team led by Prof. Bao Xinhe and Prof. Gao Dunfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with Prof. Wang Guoxiong from Fudan University, proposed hydroxyl (*OH) adsorption as a selectivity descriptor for ammonia synthesis via NO 3 RR over Cu catalysts. Using a size- and shape-selected Cu nanocube model catalyst, researchers investigated how electrode potential and NO 3 concentration affect NO 3 RR product distribution. They found that more negative potentials and lower NO 3 concentrations can improve ammonia selectivity over NO 2 formation, which is an effect strongly correlated with weakened *OH adsorption. Moreover, researchers proposed *OH adsorption as a descriptor for product selectivity, as it controls the availability of surface adsorbed hydrogen (*H) generated during water dissociation. They demonstrated that using *OH adsorption as a descriptor can guide the design of both catalysts and electrolytes to lower NO 3 RR overpotentials. "Our work underscores the importance of *OH adsorption as a selectivity descriptor for designing more efficient systems towards ammonia electrosynthesis from nitrate," said Prof. Gao. More information: Yi Wang et al, Hydroxyl Adsorption as a Selectivity Descriptor for Electrocatalytic Nitrate Reduction over Cu Catalysts, ACS Catalysis (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.5c03512 Journal information: ACS Catalysis This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The synergistic interactions between 4VA and PAN across multiple levels facilitate locust attraction and aggregation. Credit: Prof. KANG Le' Lab In the natural world, animals rely on perceiving a range of signals to surviveand for insects, olfactory cues are particularly critical. These scents guide them to vital resources like mates, food, and egg-laying sites, yet they also include a mix of attractants and repellents, creating a complex sensory landscape to navigate. For the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria), this complexity becomes even more pronounced at high population densities. When numbers surge, the insects form massive swarms while releasing two key chemical signals: the aggregation pheromone 4-vinylanisole (4VA) and the aposematic compound phenylacetonitrile (PAN). 4VA draws locusts together to form swarms, while PAN deters fellow locusts to prevent cannibalism and repels potential predators. This raises a critical question: How do locusts reconcile the conflicting behaviors of aggregation and repulsion when they detect both compounds at the same time? To solve this behavioral puzzle, a team from the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), led by CAS member Prof. Kang Le has conducted research and discovered that migratory locusts achieve a delicate balance between swarm formation, predator defense, and cannibalism avoidance through precise neural modulation of these two opposing olfactory signals. Their findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers analyzed three core aspects: the release dynamics of 4VA and PAN, their distinct effects on locust behavior, and the neural mechanisms that govern how the insects perceive these signals. Their experiments showed striking differences in when and under what conditions the two compounds are released. When locusts were subjected to the same duration of crowding, 4VA was emitted at significantly lower population densitiesjust four to five locustscompared to PAN, which required a denser group of 16 to 17 solitary locusts. Even at equivalent population densities, 4VA release began earlier: it was detected after 24 hours of crowding, while PAN emission started only after 48 hours. Over time, however, PAN gradually became the dominant component as the aggregation process progressed. Despite PAN eventually reaching higher emission levels than 4VA, the locusts consistently showed a preference for the blend of the two compounds, regardless of changes in their relative proportions or overall concentrations. A key observation emerged: adding increasing amounts of 4VA to PAN could counteract PAN's repellent effects. Notably, the reverse was not trueadding more PAN to 4VA did not override 4VA's attractant properties. To understand why 4VA dominates the locusts' behavioral response to the mixture, the team measured electrophysiological activity in the insects' antennaethe primary organ for olfactory detection. They found that neurons in the antenna that respond to 4VA actively suppress the activity of neurons sensitive to PAN. Further investigation into the locusts' antennal lobethe brain region that processes olfactory informationrevealed another crucial detail: the spatiotemporal response patterns of projection neurons (PNs) to the 4VA-PAN blend were far more similar to the patterns triggered by 4VA alone than by PAN alone. The researchers then identified the root cause of this dominance: the conduction velocity of these projection neurons. Unlike other neural properties, the speed at which these neurons transmit signals drives the locusts' overall attractive response to the mixture. This study offers new insights into how animals make behavioral decisions when faced with conflicting sensory inputs. More information: Qiaoqiao Yu et al, Locusts employ neuronal sensory prioritization to reconcile two conflicting olfactory signals while aggregating, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2501490122 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The IceCube laboratory is located near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. This is, for example, where the computers that record the data are located. Credit: Felipe Pedreros, IceCube/NSF Researchers hope to use neutrinos to find the sources of cosmic radiation. New algorithms out of Bochum are aiding in the search, and have also eliminated a few candidates. Since 2009, an international research team has been using the IceCube neutrino detector at the South Pole to search for the source of cosmic radiation. New algorithms developed by the Bochum-based group of Professor Anna Franckowiak increase the likelihood of discovery. With these algorithms, the energy and direction of the particles measured by IceCube can be determined in real time, allowing telescopes around the world to search for the origins of the particles. The team is also using the new algorithms to re-evaluate archived data, and recently had to reject several candidates for the sources of cosmic rays. Three publications have come out of this research. One is published in The Astrophysical Journal and two papers are posted to the arXiv preprint server. Cosmic radiation continuously bombards Earth in the form of various particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrinos, yet their origin is unknown. Neutrinos can penetrate space and matter over vast distances without interacting. This makes them ideal candidates for searching for the sources of cosmic radiation because they travel a more or less direct path from their source to Earth. There, they can be detected by IceCube. Quickly and precisely determining neutrino trajectories Anna Franckowiak's team's algorithm for analyzing neutrino trajectories works with speed and precision. "We need 30 seconds to calculate the energy and direction of a neutrino, and immediately disseminate the information worldwide," explains Franckowiak, lead of the Research Group for Multi-wavelength and Multi-messenger Astronomy. She is also a member of the Collaborative Research Center "Cosmic Interacting Matter," coordinated in Bochum. The team then uses a slower algorithm to refine the first, instant result and updates the original neutrino information. Calculation of the trajectory is now four to five times more precise than with previous methods. Telescopes around the world use the neutrino alerts to scour the region of the sky that the neutrino came from to search for any particularly energy-rich objects that could have emitted the particle. "These celestial objects might only light up very briefly, so it's crucial that our system works in real time," says Franckowiak. Still no sources Once a potential source for the neutrino has been found, the calculations resume. "Then we determine how likely it is that, when we look in the direction the neutrino came from, we see such a celestial object light up that has nothing to do with the neutrino," Franckowiak explains. The researchers had considered tidal disruption events as emitters of neutrinos. "These occur when a star comes too close to an inactive black hole that is not swallowing up any matter, but stretches the star because of its strong gravity. The side of the star facing the black hole is pulled further than the other side, which can tear the star apart," says the physicist. Over the years, IceCube had discovered three neutrino events that may have been attributable to tidal disruption events. However, "After we improved our algorithm for trajectory reconstruction, we analyzed the events again and the neutrino paths don't match the positions where the tidal disruption events occurred," says Franckowiak. More information: Giacomo Sommani et al, Two 100 TeV Neutrinos Coincident with the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7469, The Astrophysical Journal (2025). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/adb031 Giacomo Sommani et al, Improvements in the Reconstruction of IceCube Realtime Alerts, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2507.06957 Angela Zegarelli et al, IceCat-2: Updated IceCube Event Catalog of Alert Tracks, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2507.06176 Journal information: Astrophysical Journal , arXiv This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Icebergs in Disko Bay (West Greenland) discharged by the Jakobshavn Isbrae, one of the fastest moving outlet glaciers in the world. Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has contributed nearly 2 cm (three quarters of an inch) to global sea-level rise over the past three decades. (Photo by Torbjorn Tornqvist). Credit: Torbjorn Tornqvist/Tulane University Global sea-level change has now been measured by satellites for more than 30 years, and a comparison with climate projections from the mid-1990s shows that they were remarkably accurate, according to two Tulane University researchers whose findings were published in Earth's Future. "The ultimate test of climate projections is to compare them with what has played out since they were made, but this requires patienceit takes decades of observations," said lead author Torbjorn Tornqvist, Vokes Geology Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. "We were quite amazed how good those early projections were, especially when you think about how crude the models were back then, compared to what is available now," Tornqvist said. "For anyone who questions the role of humans in changing our climate, here is some of the best proof that we have understood for decades what is really happening, and that we can make credible projections." Co-author Sonke Dangendorf, David and Jane Flowerree Associate Professor in the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering, said that while it is encouraging to see the quality of early projections, today's challenge is to translate global information into projections tailored to the specific needs of stakeholders in places like south Louisiana. "Sea level doesn't rise uniformlyit varies widely. Our recent study of this regional variability and the processes behind it relies heavily on data from NASA's satellite missions and NOAA's ocean monitoring programs," he said. "Continuing these efforts is more important than ever, and essential for informed decision-making to benefit the people living along the coast." A new era of monitoring global sea-level change took off when satellites were launched in the early 1990s to measure the height of the ocean surface. This showed that the rate of global sea-level rise since that time has averaged about one eighth of an inch per year. Only more recently, it became possible to detect that the rate of global sea-level rise is accelerating. When NASA researchers demonstrated in October 2024 that the rate has doubled during this 30-year period, the time was right to compare this finding with projections that were made during the mid-1990s, independent of the satellite measurements. In 1996, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published an assessment report soon after the satellite-based sea-level measurements had started. It projected that the most likely amount of global sea-level rise over the next 30 years would be almost 8 cm (three inches), remarkably close to the 9 cm that has occurred. But it also underestimated the role of melting ice sheets by more than 2 cm (about one inch). At the time, little was known about the role of warming ocean waters and how that could destabilize marine sectors of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from below. Ice flow from the Greenland Ice Sheet into the ocean has also been faster than foreseen. The past difficulties of predicting the behavior of ice sheets also contain a message for the future. Current projections of future sea-level rise consider the possibility, albeit uncertain and of low likelihood, of catastrophic ice-sheet collapse before the end of this century. Low-lying coastal regions in the United States would be particularly affected if such a collapse occurs in Antarctica. More information: Torbjorn E. Tornqvist et al, Evaluating IPCC Projections of Global SeaLevel Change From the PreSatellite Era, Earth's Future (2025). DOI: 10.1029/2025EF006533 Journal information: Earth's Future 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 While the majority of states require public school students to take at least one sexual education course, a patchwork of state-level provisions that mandate inaccurate, outdated, or politically motivated curricula may inhibit students from receiving essential information for their sexual health and well-being. Despite overwhelming evidence of the health benefits of school-based sexual education, no federal law requires schools in the United States to teach this subject. As a result, the decision to provide sexual education to students falls to states or local school districts, leaving a patchwork of inconsistent, inequitable, and often inaccurate instruction that could leave students ill-equipped to make informed decisions about their sexual health, relationships, and well-being. A new study that aimed to better understand and assess current sexual education laws in the US found that while 42 states require public school students to take a sexual education course that covers at least one topic within this subject between kindergarten and high school, only 19 states mandate that this instruction be medically accurateand 5 of those states only require medical accuracy for specific topics. Led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher, the study found that 34 states that mandate this education require instruction on abstinence, a method that has consistently proven to be ineffective or harmful to adolescent sexual health, but continues to be embraced and funded by the federal government. Thirty-four states also allow parents to opt their children out of receiving any sexual education instruction, while five states require parents to opt in for their children to receive this instruction. The findings were published in the American Journal of Public Health. Adolescents are at a disproportionate risk of experiencing sexual health conditions, including sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, as well as unwanted pregnancies, and unhealthy relationships. Many states have amended their sexual education laws over the five years, and researchers hope this new insight will spur additional policy changes that expand adolescents' access to comprehensive, inclusive, and age-appropriate education and improve their sexual health and well-being. "While many students in the US are required to get some form of sexual education, our study shows that substantially fewer students are likely to be getting the comprehensive sexual education that public health and medical associations recommend," says study lead and corresponding author Dr. Kimberly Nelson, associate professor of community health sciences at BUSPH. "Only 58% of students reside in a jurisdiction that requires sexual education to be medically accurate, and many jurisdictions have content mandates that extend only to a few topics. This means that many US students are living in jurisdictions where they are unlikely to receive the accurate and comprehensive information that we know will help them make informed, healthy choices about their sexual behaviors and relationships." For the study, Dr. Nelson and colleagues from BUSPH, Cornell Law School, and Florida International University identified and analyzed state statutes, administrative regulations, and state court decisions that mandated sexual education in public schools in every US state and Washington, D.C., and also examined sexual education content requirements and parental notice and consent policies. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matterdaily or weekly. These state mandates varied by region, with all Northeast states requiring school-based sexual education for at least one topic, followed by 88% of states in the South, 83% of states in the Midwest, and 62% of states in the West. In addition to abstinence, 34 states mandate school instruction about HIV, while 32 states require education about STIs, and 31 states mandate instruction on child abuse prevention. While less common, 27 states require instruction about healthy relationships, 24 states require education about sexual assault, and 21 states require instruction about dating violence or intimate partner violence. Only 20 states require instruction about contraception, and even fewer mandate instruction about sexual orientation (12 states), condoms (11 states), and consent to sex (9 states). Two of the 12 states (Oklahoma and Texas) that mandated instruction about sexual orientation also required the use of stigmatizing or otherwise negative messaging, such as the idea that same-sex activity is "primarily responsible" for AIDS exposure. The researchers note that more studies are needed to understand the extent to which parental opt-in and opt-out policies, as well as parents' rights to review or receive advance notice of sexual education curricula, limit the effect of state sexual education mandates. But they acknowledge that these policies likely serve as political compromises that may be difficult to reverse. "Because policy decisions about sexual education curricula happen at the state-level, state-level sociopolitical forces exert substantial influence on sexual education," Dr. Nelson says. These forces also help explain why sexual education in school still embraces abstinence-only instruction, versus more comprehensive approaches, she says. "In states where sociopolitical forces and vocal advocacy groups push an abstinence-focused approach, that approach is likely to be seen as politically advantageous and be adopted." More information: Kimberly M. Nelson et al, The State of Sexual Education: State Laws and Regulations Mandating Sexual Education in the United States, American Journal of Public Health (2025). DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2025.308199 Journal information: American Journal of Public Health 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: Biology professor Justin Fay and members of his lab collect yeast from bark, soil, fungus, and moss in Pennsylvanias Allegheny National Forest to study the genetic basis of evolutionary change, including how organisms adapt to heat. Credit: University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster As global temperatures rise, scientists are turning to an unexpected sourcethe same yeast that makes bread rise and beer fizzto uncover what allows some lifeforms to survive extreme heat while others cannot. In a study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, University of Rochester biologist Justin Fay and his colleagues compared two closely related species of yeast to understand how organisms cope with heat and why some species manage it better than others. Proteinsthe molecules responsible for most of a cell's essential tasksare especially sensitive to heat, and if they lose their shape, cells can fail. The researchers found that survival depends not only on how sturdy proteins are but also on the cellular environment that supports them. These insights could reshape how we think about evolution, disease, and life in a warming world. "We studied yeast, but the findings are likely broadly relevant because mechanisms of protein stability are shared across many organisms," says Fay, a professor in the Department of Biology. "These insights are also important for understanding evolution and how human pathogens evolve, since growth at body temperature requires similar adaptations." The proteins behind heat resistance The researchers compared Saccharomyces cerevisiae (commonly known as baker's or brewer's yeast) and Saccharomyces uvarum. Although these two yeast species are closely related, Saccharomyces cerevisiae can tolerate heat about 8 degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees Fahrenheit) better than Saccharomyces uvaruma considerable difference in microbial terms. Fay and his colleagues used a technique called thermal proteomic profiling, which involves treating proteins with heat and measuring which proteins remain soluble (folded). They found that 85% of the proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae were more heat-stable than their counterparts in Saccharomyces uvarum. Fay collects yeast samples in old-growth Allegheny forests, which yield diverse yeast lineages instrumental to his research on evolutionary genetics. Credit: University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster How cells give proteins an assist However, the researchers found that protein design wasn't the only factor contributing to an organism's heat tolerance. The team created a hybrid yeast with genetic material from both Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces uvarum and discovered that even the more heat-sensitive proteins held up better inside the hybrid cell's heat-friendly environment. In other words, cells don't leave proteins to fend for themselves; they enlist other molecules, adjust chemical conditions, and use specialized "chaperon proteins" to help proteins keep their shape and function even under heat stress. The findings suggest that both protein structure and the cellular environment matter for survival, and species may be able to adapt to higher temperatures in more than one way. "Because the cellular environment is also important, there may be ways in which organisms can evolve some tolerance without changing all their proteins," Fay says. Mapping adaptation The work builds on Fay's ongoing research: combining protein-level analysis with genetic approaches to map the step-by-step genetic changes that make heat survival possible; uncover why certain species adapt more easily than others; and identify how these adaptive steps differ between species. Ultimately, these insights could reveal not only how yeast strains evolve to survive heat but also the broader rules that govern how life adaptsor fails to adaptto changing environments. More information: Nilima Walunjkar et al, Pervasive Divergence in Protein Thermostability is Mediated by Both Structural Changes and Cellular Environments, Molecular Biology and Evolution (2025). DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaf137 Journal information: Molecular Biology and Evolution Six-day event, organised by the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council (SASC), will showcase latest innovations in smart mobility, autonomous systems and robotics Taking place between 10-15 November 2025 , the event lineup includes the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Summit, DRIFTx, RoboCup Asia-Pacific, and A2RL ABU DHABI, UAE, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Abu Dhabi will host the inaugural Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week (ADAW) from 10-15 November 2025, bringing together global leaders in smart mobility, autonomous systems, and advanced robotics. Abu Dhabi to Host Inaugural Autonomous Week to Showcase the Future of Smart Mobility Organised by the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council (SASC) - the body tasked with shaping policies, fostering collaboration, and setting the strategic direction for Abu Dhabi's smart and autonomous technologies sector, Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week will convene global innovators, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders to discuss, collaborate and showcase, the latest developments in AI, robotics, smart mobility, and autonomous technologies. The Council's work has already enabled a number of autonomous milestones in Abu Dhabi, with public electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) passenger aircraft demonstrations, and level 4 autonomous shuttle vehicle trials, just two of the most recent projects taking place in the emirate. Abu Dhabi is also home to the Smart and Autonomous Vehicle Industries (SAVI) cluster, launched in October 2023 by the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) and the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO). Located in Masdar City, SAVI establishes the emirate as a global hub for smart and autonomous mobility, spanning applications across autonomous vehicles, eVTOL aircraft, maritime systems, and robotics. The launch of Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week supports the UAE capital's work in progressing the future of smart and autonomous systems technologies, while leading the global development of the sector, and building an integrated innovation-driven ecosystem. With government backing, world-class infrastructure, and a progressive regulatory framework, the emirate is already rapidly accelerating the use of autonomous transport systems, including Robotaxis and autonomous buses, across land, air, sea, and industrial applications, enhancing efficiency, safety, and sustainability in the process. Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week Event Line-Up 10 November - Autonomous Summit The six-day programme begins with the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Summit, where industry pioneers, policymakers, and investors will convene to take part in high-level dialogues that will define the next chapter of intelligent mobility. 10-12 November - DRIFTx Exhibition Across three days, DRIFTx will showcase smart and autonomous mobility solutions across land, air, sea, and robotics in a live, interactive exhibition. 10-15 November - RoboCup Asia-Pacific Running concurrently from 10-15 November, RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2025, hosted by Khalifa University and held for the first time in the MENA region, will bring together top international teams to compete in AI-driven autonomous robotics challenges. 15 November - Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) ADAW will conclude with the second edition of Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League, A2RL, a motorsport display demonstrating the cutting edge of autonomous racing technology. Organised by ASPIRE and Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), the event will feature a US$2.5 million prize pool and be attended by elite research teams from 10 countries. For more information on Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week 2025, please visit http://www.autonomous.abudhabi. About the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council (SASC) Established in 2024, the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council (SASC) is responsible for setting the strategic direction of Abu Dhabi's smart and autonomous technologies sector. Driving policy, regulation, investment, and innovation through collaboration with government entities, global innovators, and industry stakeholders, SASC is shaping a world-class ecosystem that positions Abu Dhabi at the forefront of future technologies and as a leading global hub for intelligent mobility and autonomous systems. About Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week (ADAW) is the emirate's flagship platform for advancing smart mobility and autonomous systems across land, sea, air, and industry. Organised by the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council (SASC), the inaugural edition brings together global industry leaders, policymakers, innovators, and investors to connect, collaborate, and accelerate the future of autonomous technology. Commencing with the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Summit, the week's flagship event for high-level dialogue and partnerships, the programme is further strengthened by initiatives such as DRIFTx, RoboCup Asia-Pacific (RCAP 2025) and Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL), reinforcing Abu Dhabi's role as a global hub for innovation, investment, and the safe, sustainable deployment of autonomous technologies. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2756082/Abu_Dhabi_Autonomous_Week.jpg SOURCE Abu Dhabi Media Office A motion to alter the conditions of Jamison Fisher's bond in his Scott County drug case has been approved that will allow Illinois officials to take him into custody for hearings on his murder indictment in connection with the disappearance of Trudy Appleby. Scott County Attorney Kelly Cunningham filed a motion in Scott County on Friday, saying that she was advised by Rock Island County State's Attorney Dora Villarreal that "there are certain timelines that have to be met based on statutory provisions in Illinois relative to the holding of an arraignment for the defendant." Cunningham asked that Fisher's bond be modified from $50,000 cash-only to release on his own recognizance so Illinois authorities could take custody of Fisher. District Judge Jeffrey McDaniel approved the motion on Friday. As of Friday afternoon, Fisher, 50, was being held in the Scott County Jail. Authorities said he will still need to sign a waiver of extradition to Illinois. Fisher had been living in a Davenport rental home when he was arrested by Davenport police on July 23 on a Class B felony possession with the intent to distribute meth, which carries a prison sentence of 25 years. He also is charged in that case with two Class D felonies, possession with the intent to deliver marijuana, and violating Iowa's drug tax stamp law, each of which carries a prison sentence of five years. Fisher also is being held without bond for violating his parole in a vehicle theft case. He was serving an enhanced sentence as a habitual offender, according to Iowa Department of Corrections electronic records. Fisher was to have been on parole until May 21, 2027. He was last released from prison on July 22, 2024, and was placed on work release. He was removed from work release and placed on parole Jan. 23, 2025. An interstate detainer out of Illinois was added after he was indicted for Trudy Appleby's murder. Fisher is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of concealment of a homicidal death in connection with the Trudy Appleby case. Henry County State's Attorney Catherine Runty has said the charges allege Fisher strangled Trudy and then concealed her death. Trudy was 11 years old when she disappeared Aug. 21, 1996, 29 years ago. She was last seen climbing into a silver or gray four-door car in the driveway of her Moline home with an unknown man in his 20s. Since that time Moline police have continued their effort to learn what happened to Trudy. Over the years, authorities have conducted hundreds of interviews, served numerous search warrants, seized a boat and excavated the site of an old home on Campbell's Island in an effort to find Trudy's remains or learn what happened to her. There have been vigils for the girl in which police have begged anyone with information to come forward. In 2017, police identified William Ed Smith as a person of interest in the case and said he may have been the last person seen with Trudy. Smith died in December of 2014 at the age of 72. In 2020, Moline police issued a news release calling Fisher, then of Silvis, and David L. Whipple, of Colona, persons of interest in the case. Whipple died in 2022 at age 61. The excavation performed by police at a home on Campbell's Island on Oct. 2, 2017, had belonged to Whipple, who was Smith's son-in-law. The house was razed by Rock Island County in 2004. Fisher is a lifelong family friend of the Smiths. A witness saw Smith on the day of the disappearance in a vehicle near his Campbells Island residence, police said. There was a girl in the passenger seat the witness thought was Trudy. The witness knew Trudy, and the vehicle passed within a couple of feet. It was the last time Trudy was seen. Another witness reported seeing Trudy earlier on Aug. 21, 1996, near her home, police said. She was getting into the passenger side of an older model, gray vehicle. That witness did not know the driver. At the time of Trudy's disappearance, Smith had access to a vehicle that fit the description, according to police. Investigators think the vehicle may have been scrapped shortly after Trudy went missing. Whipple, who was a registered sex offender, had long denied any involvement in Trudys disappearance, telling the Quad-City Times in 2012 that on the day of Trudys disappearance, he was living on Campbells Island, and he was watching his children. His wife was at work, and they had one car, he added. In 2018, Moline police rented two billboards in East Moline, one at 19th Street and Fifth Avenue and the other on Illinois 5 near Barstow Road, in an effort to get someone to talk about Trudy's case. In 2023, Moline police served a search warrant in the 600 block of Eighth Street in Colona but found no evidence of Trudy. Her body has not been found. "Report Highlights Daily Use of Anesthesia and Respiratory Devices in Surgeries and Respiratory Therapies, with Market Growth Driven by High Demand for Machines, Masks, and Disposables Amid Competitive Industry Dynamics" BOSTON, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the latest study from BCC Research, the "Anesthesia and Respiratory Devices: Global Markets" is expected to grow from $51.9 billion in 2025 to $74.8 billion by the end of 2030, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6% during the forecast period of 2025 to 2030. This report offers a comprehensive analysis of the global market for anesthesia and respiratory devices. It segments the market by product types and regions, including North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and the Middle East and Africa, with a focus on key countries. The study explores market drivers, challenges, the vendor landscapes, ESG developments, regulatory frameworks, and emerging technologies. It concludes with a competitive analysis, ranking major companies and providing detailed profiles of leading manufacturers in the industry. This report is especially relevant now due to the growing demand for affordable and effective pain management solutions, as well as the increasing prevalence of chronic respiratory conditions like COPD and asthma. These conditions often require long-term, high-cost treatments. The report highlights recent advances, including AI-integrated devices and FDA-approved product launches in 2025, offering insights for patients, physicians, and industry stakeholders into innovative technologies that could improve care and reduce costs in the near future. The factors driving the market's growth include: More Surgeries: As the number of surgeries rises globally, the need for anesthesia machines and related devices increases to ensure safe and effective procedures. Sleep Disorder Treatment: Conditions like sleep apnea are becoming more common, boosting demand for devices like CPAP machines that help people breathe better during sleep. Air Pollution: Poor air quality leads to more respiratory problems, increasing the need for devices such as inhalers, nebulizers, and oxygen concentrators. Rise in COPD Cases: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects millions and requires long-term respiratory support, driving demand for advanced respiratory devices. Request a sample copy of the global market for anesthesia and respiratory devices report. Report Synopsis Report Metric Details Base year considered 2024 Forecast period considered 2025-2030 Base year market size $48.4 billion Market size forecast $74.8 billion Growth rate CAGR of 7.6% for the forecast period of 2025-2030 Segments covered Product Type, and Region Regions covered North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and the Middle East and Africa Countries covered U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Spain, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, and Argentina Market drivers Rapid increase in the number of surgical procedures performed. Demand for devices for sleep disorder treatment. Negative impact of air pollution on respiratory health. Increase in prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) cases. Interesting fact: Philips, a major manufacture of respiratory devices, has withdrawn its products from the U.S. market after the FDA's notice. New technology with respiratory devices has been successfully launched in countries such as South Korea , Japan , and China by performing surgery using robotics, smart anesthetic devices, and video calling from anywhere. Emerging startups: Predictheon: Spanish startup Predictheon offers artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms and predictive analytics for healthcare professionals. The startup's software platform, Sedation Pack, provides clinicians with real-time patient information regarding the effects of anesthetic medication. Owlstone Medical: The company develops noninvasive breath-based diagnostics for cancer and infectious diseases. Its proprietary technology is a microchip that uses Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS) coupled with software to detect desired biomarkers in a patient's exhaled breath. Somnus Scientific: UK-based startup Somnus Scientific provides real-time continuous anesthesia monitors. The startup's sensor-based monitoring system aids in measuring blood propofol concentration in blood without invasive blood sampling or withdrawal. Somnus addresses the real-time blood concentration monitoring gap and allows physicians to adapt to total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) rather than volatile or gaseous anesthetics. The report addresses the following questions: 1. What are the projected size and growth rate of the global market for anesthesia and respiratory devices? The global market for anesthesia and respiratory devices was valued at $48.4 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach $74.8 billion by the end of 2030. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2025 through 2030. 2. Which market segments are covered in the report? The global market for anesthesia and respiratory devices is segmented based on: Product Region 3. Which product segment will be dominant through 2030? Respiratory devices are anticipated to dominate the market over the forecast period. 4. Which product market is growing the fastest? Anesthesia disposables are the fastest-growing product segment. Market leaders include: ADVACARE PHARMA AMBU A/S B. BRAUN SE BD DRAGERWERK AG & CO. KGAA. F. HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE LTD. FISHER & PAYKEL HEALTHCARE LTD. GE HEALTHCARE ICU MEDICAL INC. KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V. MASIMO MEDTRONIC MERA RESMED TELEFLEX INC. Purchase a copy of the report direct from BCC Research. For further information on any of these reports or to make a purchase, contact [email protected]. About BCC Research BCC Research market research reports provide objective, unbiased measurement and assessment of market opportunities. Our experienced industry analysts' goal is to help you make informed business decisions free of noise and hype. Contact Us Corporate HQ: 50 Milk St., Ste. 16, Boston, MA 02109, USA Email: [email protected] Phone: +1 781-489-7301 For media inquiries, email [email protected] or visit our media page for access to our market research library. Any data and analysis extracted from this press release must be accompanied by a statement identifying BCC Research LLC as the source and publisher. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2183242/BCC_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE BCC Research LLC The Phase I/II CLINCH study of ATG-022 (CLDN18.2 antibody-drug conjugate) demonstrated promising results, showing robust clinical efficacy and a favorable safety profile in patients with gastric/gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma across high, low, and ultra-low CLDN18.2 expression levels. Supported by these results, ATG-022 was granted a Breakthrough Therapy designation by the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). The Phase I/II STAMINA study of ATG-037 (Oral CD73 small molecule inhibitor) is progressing smoothly. The latest data show particularly encouraging efficacy in the CPI-resistant melanoma subgroup, with an objective response rate (ORR) of 36.4%, a disease control rate (DCR) of 100%, including 1 CR and 3 partial responses (PRs). In the CPI-resistant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) subgroup, the ORR was 21.4%, the DCR was 71.4%, including 3 PRs. Expanding its pipeline's therapeutic area to autoimmune diseases , Antengene released the preclinical data of ATG-201, a CD19 x CD3 TCE with steric hindrance masking technology. In non-human primate (NHP) models, repeated dosing of ATG-201 surrogate at 1mpk, 3mpk, and 6mpk was well tolerated and associated with very low cytokine release. ATG-201 is expected to enter clinical development in Q4 2025. In the first half of 2025, XPOVIO generated a revenue of RMB 53.2 million , which rose sharply by 70.6% period-over-period. In addition to the rapid revenue growth, the company's operational efficiency continued to improve, with sales and administrative expenses declining by 34.0% and 32.8% year-over-year, respectively. SHANGHAI and HONG KONG, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Antengene Corporation Limited ("Antengene", SEHK: 6996.HK) today announced its interim results for the period ending June 30, 2025, along with an update highlighting some of its recent achievements. Dr. Jay Mei, Antengene's Founder, Chairman, and CEO, said, "In the first half of 2025, Antengene delivered a series of milestone achievements. Our core mid/late-stage clinical asset, ATG-022, was granted a Breakthrough Therapy designation by the NMPA based on its outstanding clinical data that demonstrated efficacy across all CLDN18.2 expression levels. This underscores ATG-022's distinctive characteristics as a potential backbone therapy for the treatment of gastric cancer. Moreover, ATG-037 has also exhibited compelling best-in-class potential in clinical studies, with encouraging efficacy data in patients with CPI-resistant melanoma and NSCLC. During the reporting period, we disclosed the preclinical data of ATG-201 (CD19 x CD3 TCE with masking via steric hindrance) in NHP models. ATG-201 is being developed for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and is expected to enter clinical development in Q4 2025. On the commercialization and operational front, XPOVIO delivered a robust 70.6% period-over-period revenue growth, while sales and administrative expenses declined significantly year-over-year, validating the effectiveness of our two-pronged strategy that centers around innovation and operational efficiency. Looking ahead, we will strive to accelerate the development and commercialization of our key assets, in efforts to deliver breakthrough therapies to patients worldwide and generate sustainable long-term value for our investors." Business Updates 1. Key Clinical Assets ATG-022 (CLDN18.2 Antibody-Drug Conjugate) Updated Data from the Ongoing Phase I/II CLINCH Study: ATG-022 demonstrated significant clinical efficacy and a favorable safety profile in patients with gastric/gastro-esophageal junction adenocarcinoma across high, low, and ultra-low CLDN18.2 expression levels. In patients with moderate-to-high CLDN18.2 expression (IHC 2+ > 20%), the 2.4 mg/kg dose cohort achieved an objective response rate (ORR) of 40% (12/30), including 1 complete response (CR), with a disease control rate (DCR) of 90% (27/30), a median progression-free survival (mPFS) of 6.97 months, a 6-month PFS rate of 51.1%, a 9-month overall survival (OS) rate of 82.7%, and a 12-month OS rate of 66.2%. The 1.8 mg/kg dose cohort achieved an ORR of 40% (10/25), including 1 CR, and a DCR of 84% (21/25). Low and ultra-low CLDN18.2 expressors (IHC 2+ 20%) who were treated at the efficacious dose range of 1.8-2.4 mg/kg achieved an ORR of 33.3% (6/18), including 1 CR, and a DCR of 50% (9/18). To date, three patients in the study have achieved CR during treatment, with one case of CR observed in each of the three cohorts (i.e., both dose levels in the CLDN18.2 moderate-to-high expressor cohorts and the CLDN18.2 low and ultra-low expressor cohort). ATG-022 demonstrated significant clinical efficacy and a favorable safety profile in patients with gastric/gastro-esophageal junction adenocarcinoma across high, low, and ultra-low CLDN18.2 expression levels. In patients with achieved an objective response rate (ORR) of 40% (12/30), including 1 complete response (CR), with a disease control rate (DCR) of 90% (27/30), a median progression-free survival (mPFS) of 6.97 months, a 6-month PFS rate of 51.1%, a 9-month overall survival (OS) rate of 82.7%, and a 12-month OS rate of 66.2%. achieved an ORR of 40% (10/25), including 1 CR, and a DCR of 84% (21/25). achieved an ORR of 33.3% (6/18), including 1 CR, and a DCR of 50% (9/18). (i.e., both dose levels in the CLDN18.2 moderate-to-high expressor cohorts and the CLDN18.2 low and ultra-low expressor cohort). Breakthrough Therapy Designation: ATG-022 was granted a Breakthrough Therapy designation by the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for the treatment of patients with CLDN18.2-positive, HER2-negative unresectable or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who have received at least two prior lines of therapy. ATG-022 was granted a Breakthrough Therapy designation by the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for the treatment of patients with CLDN18.2-positive, HER2-negative unresectable or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who have received at least two prior lines of therapy. Advancing Clinical Development in Gastric Cancer Across First- to Third-Line Settings: Antengene is currently conducting a Phase II dose-expansion study of ATG-022 in the Mainland of China and Australia . The company will continue to advance the clinical development of ATG-022 in gastric cancer in first- to third-line settings, including first-line treatment with ATG-022 in combination with pembrolizumab and chemotherapy (CAPOX/FOLFOX); second-line treatment with ATG-022 in combination with pembrolizumab; and third-line treatment with ATG-022 monotherapy. This strategy covers patients with a wide spectrum of CLDN18.2 expression levels, including moderate-to-high expressors (2+ >20%) and low and ultra-low expressors (2+ 20%). In addition, the ongoing clinical study includes a basket trial cohort including multiple tumor types. In preliminary data from patients with a certain subtype of gynecologic tumor, all 7 evaluable patients achieved tumor shrinkage, indicating significant clinical potential of ATG-022 in other CLDN18.2-positive tumors. Currently, this cohort continues to enroll patients. ATG-037 (Oral CD73 Small Molecule Inhibitor) Updated Data from the Ongoing Phase I/II STAMINA Study: Following the initiation of a global clinical collaboration with MSD, Antengene is evaluating ATG-037 in combination with the anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in patients with checkpoint inhibitor (CPI)-resistant melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). As of July 24, 2025 , data from 25 evaluable patients (11 with melanoma and 14 with NSCLC) showed an ORR of 28% (7/25) and a DCR of 84% (21/25). The melanoma subgroup with majority of patients with double resistance to both anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 antibodies demonstrated particularly notable efficacy, with an ORR of 36.4%, a DCR of 100%, including 1 CR and 3 partial responses (PRs). In the NSCLC subgroup, the ORR was 21.4%, the DCR was 71.4%, including 3 PRs. It is worth noting that the responses demonstrated impressive durability, with 1 patient in CR demonstrated durable response and has been on the trial for over 32 months, 2 patients with durable PR and has been on the trial for over 15 months, and 1 patient with stable disease (SD) has been on the trial for over 28 months. These data highlight the durable antitumor activity of this combination regimen in CPI-resistant patients. The Phase II STAMINA dose optimization and dose expansion study is currently progressing smoothly in China and Australia . ATG-031 (CD24-targeting macrophage activator) Ongoing PERFORM study: ATG-031 is the first-in-class humanized anti-CD24 monoclonal antibody that has entered clinical trials for cancer treatment in the U.S. ATG-031 works by blocking the CD24-Siglec10 pathway and enhancing macrophage-mediated phagocytosis of cancer cells. Key study sites of ATG-031 include MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas , University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), University of Colorado , and Yale Cancer Center, four renowned cancer centers in the U.S. The Phase I PERFORM study is progressing in the U.S. 2. The TCE Platform and Preclinical/Pre-IND Assets A TCE Platform Featuring Steric Hindrance Masking: AnTenGager TCE is a proprietary "2+1" TCE technology platform featuring "2+1" bivalent binding for low-expressing targets, steric hindrance masking, and proprietary CD3 sequences with fast on/off kinetics to minimize cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and enhance efficacy. These characteristics support the platform's broad applicability across autoimmune diseases, solid tumors and hematological malignancies indications . Antengene is seeking a range of collaborations with its global partners for AnTenGager TCE, through platform access, co-development, and out-licensing to accelerate the development of TCE therapeutics and maximize the value of the technology platform. AnTenGager TCE is a proprietary "2+1" TCE technology platform featuring "2+1" bivalent binding for low-expressing targets, steric hindrance masking, and proprietary CD3 sequences with fast on/off kinetics to minimize cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and enhance efficacy. These characteristics support the platform's broad applicability across . Antengene is seeking a range of collaborations with its global partners for AnTenGager TCE, through to accelerate the development of TCE therapeutics and maximize the value of the technology platform. ATG- 201 (CD19 x CD3 TCE): ATG-201 is a novel "2+1" CD19-targeted T-cell engager developed on the AnTenGager TM TCE platform for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Preclinical data showed that in NHP models, the repeated dosing of ATG-201 surrogate at 1mpk, 3mpk, and 6mpk dose levels was well tolerated and associated with very low cytokine release. Furthermore, this surrogate antibody can mediate complete B cell depletion in peripheral blood, spleen and lymph nodes. ATG-201 is poised to enter clinical development in the second half of 2025. ATG-201 is a novel "2+1" CD19-targeted T-cell engager developed on the AnTenGager TCE platform for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Preclinical data showed that in NHP models, the repeated dosing of ATG-201 surrogate at 1mpk, 3mpk, and 6mpk dose levels was well tolerated and associated with very low cytokine release. Furthermore, this surrogate antibody can mediate complete B cell depletion in peripheral blood, spleen and lymph nodes. ATG-201 is poised to enter clinical development in the second half of 2025. Antengene will continue to advance the development of other preclinical programs, including ATG-106 (CDH6 x CD3 TCE) for the treatment of ovarian cancer and kidney cancer, ATG-110 (LY6G6D x CD3 TCE) for the treatment of microsatellite stable (MSS) colorectal cancer, and ATG-112 (ALPPL2 x CD3 TCE) for the treatment of gynecologic tumors and lung cancer. 3. Commercialized Product Mainland of China : In July 2025 , XPOVIO received approval for its third indication in the Mainland of China , bringing a new treatment option to patients with multiple myeloma (MM) who have received at least one prior therapy. Among the three approved indications of XPOVIO, two have already been included in China's National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL), including XPOVIO monotherapy for the treatment of relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (R/R DLBCL) and XPOVIO in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of R/R MM. In , XPOVIO received approval for its third indication in the Mainland of , bringing a new treatment option to patients with multiple myeloma (MM) who have received at least one prior therapy. Among the three approved indications of XPOVIO, two have already been included in National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL), including XPOVIO monotherapy for the treatment of relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (R/R DLBCL) and XPOVIO in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of R/R MM. Taiwan Market: In February 2025 , XPOVIO received national reimbursement approval in Taiwan market, making it the fifth APAC market to secure reimbursement coverage after mainland of China , South Korea , Australia , and Singapore . In , XPOVIO received national reimbursement approval in market, making it ASEAN Markets: In March 2025 , XPOVIO was approved in Indonesia . To date, XPOVIO has been approved for multiple indications in ten countries and regions across the APAC region. Highlights of Financial Results 1. Revenue From Product Sales Rose Sharply by 70.6% Period-over-Period With the steady expansion of its commercial footprint across the Asia-Pacific markets, XPOVIO generated a sales revenue of RMB 53.2 million in the first half of 2025, which rose sharply by 70.6% period-over-period. Along with the rapid revenue growth, the company's operational efficiency continued to improve, with sales and administrative expenses declining by 34.0% and 32.8% year-over-year, respectively, demonstrating excellent cost control. 2. Strong Cash Reserves Securing the Execution of Long-Term Strategies As of the end of the reporting period, the company held RMB 794 million in cash and bank balances, which is sufficient to support existing key programs to the proof-of-clinical-concept stage, securing the execution of the company's long-term strategies. To learn more about the 2025 interim financial results, please see the full announcement in the "Investor Relations" section on the company's website. About Antengene Antengene Corporation Limited ("Antengene", SEHK: 6996.HK) is a global, R&D-driven, commercial-stage biotech company focused on developing first-in-class/best-in-class therapeutics for diseases with significant unmet medical needs. Its pipeline spans from preclinical to commercial stages and includes several in-house discovered programs, including ATG-022 (CLDN18.2 ADC), ATG-037 (oral CD73 inhibitor), ATG-101 (PD-L1 4-1BB bispecific antibody), ATG-031 (CD24-targeting macrophage activator), and ATG-042 (oral PRMT5-MTA inhibitor). Antengene has also developed AnTenGager, a proprietary T cell engager 2.0 platform featuring "2+1" bivalent binding for low-expressing targets, steric hindrance masking, and proprietary CD3 sequences with fast on/off kinetics to minimize cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and enhance efficacy. These characteristics support the platform's broad applicability across autoimmune diseases, solid tumors and hematological malignancies indications. To date, Antengene has obtained 31 investigational new drug (IND) approvals in the U.S. and Asia, and submitted new drug applications (NDAs) in 11 Asia Pacific markets. Its lead commercial asset, XPOVIO (selinexor), is approved in the Mainland of China, Taiwan China, Hong Kong China, Macau China, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. Forward-looking statements The forward-looking statements made in this article relate only to the events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this article. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, 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. You should read this article completely and with the understanding that our actual future results or performance may be materially different from what we expect. In this article, statements of, or references to, our intentions or those of any of our Directors or our Company are made as of the date of this article. Any of these intentions may alter in light of future development. For a further discussion of these and other factors that could cause future results to differ materially from any forward-looking statement, please see the other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2024, and the documents subsequently submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. For more information, please contact: Investor Contacts: Donald Lung E-mail: [email protected] Mobile: +86 18420672158 PR Contacts: Peter Qian E-mail: [email protected] Mobile: +86 13062747000 SOURCE Antengene Corporation Limited Criminal gang members from Puerto Aventuras responsible for Playa del Carmen mall shooting Playa del Carmen, Q.R. Drug dealing is the current line of investigation in a parking lot shooting early Friday. According to authorities, one man died and another suffered gunshot wounds after being attacked by three individuals who arrived at shopping mall in a taxi. Police are seen here collecting evidence from the early morning shooting that left one man dead. Initial investigations indicate that the gunmen arrived at the scene when the victim left a casino located inside the mall and headed toward the parking lot. The victim was in the company of a second person when three armed men approached him and opened fire. After the attack, two of the gunmen fled on motorcycles that were waiting for them while the third boarded the taxi they arrived in. According to police the victim was taken to a nearby establishment for safekeeping by his friend however, upon arriving, he died. Police say that the deceased, who has not been identified, was a suspected member of a rival criminal group operating in Puerto Aventuras. The current motive for the murder may be related to drug dealing. Authorities reported that during the parking lot shooting early Friday morning, an innocent bystander was hit by stray bullets. The injured man was taken to a hospital where his condition is reported to be stable, police said. The targeted attack happened when the man left the shopping mall casino early Friday morning. They said the Quintana Roo Federal Executive Office (FGE) has solid information that allows it to identify the attackers and their transporters, who are part of a violent criminal group dedicated to drug dealing in the Puerto Aventuras area. Jalisco kidnapping and murder suspect arrested inside Cancun airport from international flight Cancun, Q.R. A suspect in the murder of a Jalisco man has been arrested inside the Cancun International airport. Jose Juan N was taken into legal custody by National Guard Wednesday night for his alleged participation in the July 19 murder. His arrest came approximately one month after a young Jalisco man was kidnapped and killed. The state prosecutors office of Jalisco confirmed the arrest of Jose Juan N through an inter-institutional operation involving National Guard and the Attorney Generals Office. Jose Juan N was wanted for aggravated homicide and disappearance of persons. According to the Jalisco investigation, on July 19, the victim was at a home in the Guadalajara metropolitan area with two people, one of whom was Jose Juan N. After an argument, Jose Juan N allegedly shot the young man, killing him at the scene. Later, with the help of another companion, he reportedly transported the body to the municipality of El Salto where it was found on July 27. Jose Juan N immediately left Mexico for Colombia. Authorities tracking the movements of Jose Juan N were notified of his August 20 arrival at the Cancun airport from an international flight arriving from Colombia. He was arrested inside the airport and transferred to Jalisco where he will face charges. Tulum mayor amends General Laws to ensure free beach and natural area access Tulum, Q.R. Tulum Mayor Diego Castanon has met with Ricardo Monreal for a draft decree reform. The pair are working on reforming various areas of the General Law on National Properties and the General Law on Ecology to ensure free and open beach access. The reform will mean free beach and natural area access Castanon met with the Federal Chamber Deputy Thursday regarding free and open access to beaches and natural protected areas. A decree based on the provisions of Articles 71, Section II and 73 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States and by Articles 6, numeral 1, section I and 77 of the Regulations of the Chamber of Deputies, were submitted for consideration. The General Laws have been amended regarding free and open access to beaches and protected natural areas in accordance, in part, with the following: Mexico is a privileged nation due to its natural resources and its extensive coastline that covers more than 12,000 kilometers in length, providing the country with an incalculable ecological value that in many areas is protected through the figure of Protected Natural Areas made up in part of beaches, coastlines and areas adjacent to them. This legal concept has been extremely effective in defending and protecting national assets, however, in recent years, some of these areas have abused environmental protection by denying access to beaches that should be public or establishing entry fees. In practice, thousands of people, both national and foreign, face restrictions and fees that violate their constitutional rights to use and enjoy these spaces under the pretext of protecting spaces that, while subject to special conditions, do not fully demonstrate the relationship between the resources obtained through access fees and environmental preservation. This trend, which has been replicated throughout the National Protected Areas that include coastal zones, has led to social exclusion affecting the most vulnerable sectors of the population. This initiative aims to correct this operational distortion. It proposes a reform to the General Law on National Assets and the General Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection, with the aim of reinforcing the principle of free and open access to beaches, without arbitrary exceptions, even within Protected Natural Areas, by introducing the following elements: A. Expressly prohibit the imposition of fees for simple access to maritime beaches. B. Require authorities to guarantee at least one functional and safe public access per coastal section. C. Ensure that all Protected Natural Areas have at least one free access day per week for the general public, giving preference to weekends and holidays. The objective is for the principle of universal access to national assets to become a tangible reality, for environmental conservation measures not to become exclusionary barriers, and for the enjoyment of the countrys natural heritage not to be a privilege subject to payment, but a right accessible to all. On Thursday, Mayor Castanon said I am very pleased to join Dr. Ricardo Monreal A., President of the Political Coordination Board of the Chamber of Deputies, who will present an initiative that will transform the way we enjoy our beaches. Tulum Mayor Diego Castanon left, met with Ricardo Monreal, right, Thursday. If approved, each person will be entitled to one day of free access which can be on weekends or holidays, to beaches and natural areas. This means more opportunities to socialize, enjoy and remember that the sea and nature belongs to everyone. I thank our Governor Mara Lezama for supporting this effort that puts families first. Sometimes a filmmaker you love makes a movie so bad it forces you to question your whole reality. Im not talking about your run-of-the-mill misfire. Movies are complicated and fragile organisms, and even the best director cant control for all the variables that can turn a potential masterpiece into a noble failure. (When I first started writing about movies, I couldnt understand why there were so many bad ones. Now, I think its a miracle that any of them are good.) But there are failures and then there are catastrophes, movies so dire it doesnt seem as if they could possibly have been made by the same person. Technically, Ethan Coen is only half of the Coen brothers, and the easiest read on the movies he and his brother Joel have made since going their separate ways after 2018s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is as an indication of what each brought to their formeror, more optimistically, temporarily pausedpartnership. Joels The Tragedy of Macbeth is a stately, honorable Shakespeare adaptation, but it lacks the impish spark that enlivens the Coens best movies, and doing Shakespeare allowed him to skirt the necessity of writing an original script on his own. Ethans movies still have that impishness. But they lack almost everything else that made the Coens some of the most vital American filmmakers of the past 40 years. Ethans Drive-Away Dolls was a loopy lesbian crime caper, tonally shaky and almost flagrantly pointlessimagine a Hitchcockian road movie in which the MacGuffin is a suitcase full of dildosbut it had the chaotic energy of a movie its maker had to get off his chest, an explosion that had built up too long to be fully controlled. His new movie, Honey Dont, doesnt even have that going for it. On paper, it sounds like more off-kilter fun, the story of a sultry, self-assured private eye, Honey ODonahue (Margaret Qualley), whose investigation of a womans murder puts her on the tail of an unscrupulous preacher played by Chris Evans. But in practice, almost nothing about it works. The writing is shapeless, the performances are miscalibrated when theyre not merely indifferent, and the whole thing culminates in a plot twist so arbitrary it feels like it was pasted in from an entirely different script. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It might be tempting to blame Tricia Cooke, who co-wrote Honey Dont and Drive-Away Dolls and has edited all three of Ethans solo movies, including the baggy, amateurish documentary Jerry Lewis: Trouble in Mind, which feels like spending 73 minutes surfing through YouTube clips with a moderately knowledgeable fan. And it feels safe to assume that at least some of the movies overwhelming interest in lesbian sex comes from Cooke, who identifies as queer, and has used the press cycles around their work to come out about the fact that she and Ethan, who have been married since 1993, are in an open relationship. But creative collaborations, especially ones entangled in long-standing personal relationships, arent simply a matter of doing the math: Honey Dont = (Ethan + Joel) Joel + Tricia. Sure, you can look back at the Coens films and see hints of the sensibility that prevails over Ethans movies. Its easier now to understand how their misbegotten remake of The Ladykillers, the universally agreed-upon choice for the Coens worst movie, came to be, or, more fairly, to see the roots of The Big Lebowskis slapstick noir and Burn After Readings murderous morons. But unless you want to theorize that Joel has just been dragging Ethan around like a vestigial limb for several decades, you cant just treat their individual film careers like theyre assets divided up after a divorce: One takes the screwball humor, the other gets custody of the long-running inquiry into the nature of evil. If anything, it would make more sense to look at Ethan and Joels solo movies as an index of what they didnt contribute to their partnership, the things theyre able to fully express once they no longer have to run their impulses past another person. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That would explain, among other things, why Ethans movies are so sexually charged. Love plays a role in the Coens collective universe, but sex almost never does, and when their characters give in to their animal instincts, they tend to regret it. (Think of Barton Fink finally getting to sleep with the woman of his dreams, then waking up next to her eviscerated corpse.) Ethans movies, by contrast, are gleefully horny. The morning after one sexual encounter, we see Honey casually washing her sex toys in the kitchen sink, and when shes lying in bed after having sex with Aubrey Plazas beat cop, Coen composes the shot so that Plazas pierced nipple rests just above the bottom of the frame. Related From Slate Everyone Thought They Knew the Amanda Knox Story in 2007. But a New Show Proves We Had No Idea. Read More Given the relative chasteness of contemporary movies, this playful randiness would be a welcome development if Honey Dont were enjoyable at all. But half a dozen or so good jokes notwithstanding, the movie is a slog, shockingly bereft of even the Coens baseline virtues. As a con-artist preacher at a church called the Four-Way Templea gag that pays off exactly as dirtily as you think it willChris Evans has the hot-guy idiocy of Brad Pitts venal fitness instructor from Burn After Reading, but his character never develops beyond that initial impression; as a director, Coen gets nothing out of him but volume and a slick grin. The Coens always excelled at making actors memorable in the smallest of rolesthink the unlucky gas station attendant in No Country for Old Men, or the Minnesota-nice sex workers in Fargobut despite still working with the legendary casting director Ellen Chenoweth, Ethan seems unable to coax much of anything from his day players. They just take up space. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ethan has said that the brothers never made a deliberate decision to stop working together, and he and Joel have already co-written a new horror movie that I hope we get made at some point. But he also says that the two are currently out of sync, and whatever anyone might think of Ethans recent movies, he seems to be having a blast making them. He and Cooke are still planning to complete their lesbian trilogy with a film called Go, Beavers!, and a new Joel movie was reported to be shooting this summer. The brothers might still get back together somedayin a world in which Oasis is on tour, anything is possiblebut for now, theyre on their own, and so are we. New research led by the Institute for Iterative Thinking (IFIT) and co-authored by Fresh Tri CEO Dr. Kyra Bobinet reveals a unique, measurable psychological framework that supports sustainable wellbeing and behavior change. PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Fresh Tri, a neuroscience-backed behavior change company, has just announced the publication of a research paper in the peer-reviewed journal, Behavioral Sciences, detailing key findings and a validated measure of the Iterative Mindset. Co-authored by Fresh Tri CEO Dr. Kyra Bobinet, Dr. Jeni Burnette and Whitney Becker (University of North Carolina), and Mallory Rowell (Director of Research Strategy, Institute for Iterative Thinking), the study introduces a new, validated proprietary psychometric tool, the Iterative Mindset Inventory (IMI). The IMI measures the strength of a person's Iterative Mindset, or the degree to which an individual utilizes iteration as a key component of their personal growth. By psychologically neutralizing failure, an Iterative Mindset allows for the development and sustainability of behavior change through repeated practice, habit formation, and iterative sustained effort over time. In this open access paper, titled " Personal Growth and Wellbeing: An Iterative Mindset Assessment and Perspective, " Bobinet and her team sought, in the study, to establish and codify a new framework for personal growth and evaluate its relationship to other psychological constructs as well as its potential effect upon sustainable behavior change. They introduce a unique concept, the Iterative Mindset, defined as a dynamic, three-part psychological process that encompasses three components: iterate, practice, and assess. Fresh Tri calls these components, coordinated together, the Iterative Mindset Method. In two adult samples (N = 871 and 345), the authors found that the Iterative Mindset is in fact distinct from other well-known mindsets (e.g., growth mindset), and has strong validity when compared to personality traits (e.g., The Big Five). As such, disseminating these findings presents an opportunity to measure and evaluate the power of iteration across a variety of contexts. Most importantly, using the IMI, the authors discovered that Iterative Mindsets predicted two key health outcomessuccess in long-term weight management and wellbeingmore powerfully than growth mindsets, personality traits (e.g., optimism), or even grit. Higher Iterative Mindset scores were also associated with improved self-efficacy and lower stress and burnout. These findings suggest that understanding an individual's degree of Iterative Mindset using the IMI may help explain why some other behavior change models fail to create sustainable changesbecause they are not based on or do not take into account the Iterative Mindset. Iteration may present a path to long-term success. The Iterative Mindset provides a new foundation for designing interventions that prioritize progress over perfectionan approach reflected in Fresh Tri's platform and workplace wellbeing solutions. The IMI provides a new way to evaluate the impact of these interventions on individuals under this new paradigm. About Fresh Tri Fresh Tri is a behavior change company that empowers individuals to build lasting healthy habits through a science-backed habit building app, mindset coaching, and neuroscience-based design. The Fresh Tri platform is used by employers, health systems, and individuals to promote sustainable health change, reduce burnout, and improve outcomeswithout relying on shame, endless tracking, rigid goals or perfectionism. SOURCE Fresh Tri Could things get any worse for Prince Andrew, the late Queen Elizabeths second son, whose infamous Newsnight interview in which he claimed to be unable to sweat and refused to renounce his association with the now-dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein saw him stripped of his royal duties and more or less shunned wholesale from public life? Apparently, yes. Last week, a new biography of the Duke of York called Entitled, by the historian and author Andrew Lownie, was released in the U.K. Its a joint portrait of Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, once the Duchess of York, and its become a No. 1 bestseller here. As Lownie puts it at the start of the book, in an understatement so huge as to be laughable, the Yorks would have preferred this book not to have been written. No doubt. This is the kind of book you can write about a member of the royal family only after they have been thoroughly disgraced, and it is not usual that a member of the royal family has fallen so decisively. (Lownie previously wrote a book about Andrews great-uncle Edward VII called Traitor King.) So that in itself makes Entitled an interesting document. When the jig is as entirely up as it is now for Andrew, how many people are willing to dish the dirt on a royal despite that not being the done thing? Plenty, it seems. Lownie reportedly approached about 3,000 people for this book, of whom he says only a tenth replied, but that is enough. And what these peopledrawn from Andrews love life, his professional life, his staff, and his sometime friendshave to say about him is damning beyond belief. Here follows just some of the claims Lownie makes about Andrew, all of which are backed up by testimony from people who know or knew the prince, but still just allegations, I suppose: He had a member of the royal staff moved from his job for wearing a nylon tie, and another because he had a mole on his face. He had 40 women brought to his hotel room in Thailand over a five-day visit. Aged 26, he had dozens of stuffed animals on his bed, one of which wore a vest that read Its tough being a prince. He missed his daughters 12th birthday party to hang out with Epstein at his Miami beach house. He ran up a bill of 325,000 on helicopters and planes in 2005 alone. He let a Libyan gun smuggler pay for a holiday he took to Tunisia and accepted a present of a bugged MacBook Pro from an attractive woman who turned out to be a Russian spy; he later tried to get himself a free Faberge egg on an official Kremlin tour. In his role as a special representative for the United Kingdom, he earned, in the diplomatic community, the nickname His Buffoon Highness by refusing to follow his briefs and perhaps even read them in the first place. Once, driving his 80,000 Range Rover to Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park, he found that the gates sensor was broken, so, rather than taking a 1-mile detour, he rammed them open, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Name an undesirable trait a person might have, and this book will demonstrate Andrew having it. He is, supposedly, in addition to being a sex offender, cruel, easily enraged, stupid, boring, naive, attention-seeking, unfunny, childish, arrogant, and out of touch, as well as a misogynist, a liar, a thief, a bully, a pervert, a bad lover, a bad husband, a bad father, a brat as a child, a brat as a teenager, and a brat as an adult. Just when youre thinking that surely every possible slight has been leveled at the prince, and that there can surely be no greater depth to which your opinion of him can sink, Lownie relates that staff at Buckingham Palace used to have to clear away collections of soiled tissues in his bedroom. Character assassination feels too light a term for what Lownie has done here. Apart from anything else, Andrews character has been dead and buried for a while now. This is taking a thousand daggers to a corpse. There is truly no stone left unturned here under which something denigrating to Andrews reputation might be found. You come away from reading Entitled convinced that Prince Andrew is not only the most hideous member of the royal family but perhaps even the worst person in the British Isles. There can be no coming back from this for Andrew, no return to public life, no reinstatement of royal duties. Im not sure how the man will leave the house. Advertisement Advertisement The books title likely references the fact that Andrew seems to think he was untouchable in the Epstein scandalthat he had no need to apologize, as he famously did not, during the infamous Newsnight interview. But what comes across most consistently and most infuriatingly in the book is his sense of entitlement when it comes to money. Listen, I cant recommend anybody actually read Entitled, unless you have a burning need to know the precise amounts Prince Andrew has spent on private jets each month over the course of his lifetime. The bombardment of pound sterling figures and luxury holiday destinations visited and high-end purchases and debts outstanding does have a cumulative effect, however. These were not people who splashed some cash a little too lavishly and made a few dodgy investments here and there. Practically every one of its 400-odd pages includes a reference to the way they wasted and wasted and wasted money. I felt actively pissed off by the time I finished, which is no accident. Terms like cost to the taxpayer and public money come up over and over, hammering home the fact that much of Prince Andrews lifestyle has been funded by, well, me, and every other person paying taxes in the United Kingdom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The biography is a double portrait of Andrew and his ex-wife, Ferguson, who doesnt come off much better, particularly in terms of her spending. She allegedly does things like demand a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet each night, but then touch almost none of it, defraud charities, travel with 51 pieces of luggage, spend thousands of pounds consulting psychics and flog hair straighteners in royal purple on QVC to cover enormous debts shed racked up on, for instance, designer clothes and stays at ski chalets. Of course, everyone in Britain knows that our taxes pay for much of what the royal family has. But to see it laid out like this, in pound amounts, again and again and again, packs a punch. What people who read this book or read about this book will take away from it anew isnt the details about Andrews connections with Epstein and his alleged sexual involvement with underage girls, because that has already been pored over in the public eye. It will be the money. Advertisement Lownie doesnt explicitly call for abolition of the monarchy anywhere in the book, but Entitled as a whole offers a pretty conclusive argument for it. One would be hard-pressed to come away from reading this feeling well disposed toward the institution. Near the end, Lownie quotes one former Buckingham Palace employee on what would happen if the true extent of Andrews alleged involvement with Epstein, for instance, came out: If the unconditional truth is ever released I think the British public would try to impeach the Royal Family. For what its worth, I dont think the British public would ever have the guts. But a girl can dream. Just when we thought we were finally done with the whirlwind saga of the alleged 2019 hate crime against Empire actor Jussie Smollettwhirlwind, of course, being a reference to the shocking twist that Smollett might have been lying about the whole thingNetflix, in customary fashion, has come a knockin. A new documentary, The Truth About Jussie Smollett?, which premiered on Friday, seeks to answer its own titular question once and for all. The documentary retells the erratic epic from two perspectives: that of those who maintain, like the Chicago courts decided, that Smollett definitely lied about being attacked by white men in the streets of Chicago, and those who have found so-called evidence that may prove the contrary. Below, I present to you a breakdown of the initial alleged hoax and all of the ways the new documentary is pushing against what we all thought we knew (or what we had forgotten because it was way too confusing to follow at the time). Before we even begin to get into this new documentary, can you give me a brief rundown of the initial saga? It was so confusing! On Jan. 29, 2019, Jussie Smolletta Black, openly gay actor who had risen to popularity while on the hit Fox drama series Empirefiled a police report stating that he was the victim of a homophobic and racist hate crime while in downtown Chicago. He alleged that, as he was approaching his residence at around 2 a.m., two masked men, one of whom he said he believed to be white, had shouted racial and homophobic slurs at him, poured an unknown substance (which Smollett can be seen identifying as bleach in police bodycam footage that was released much later) on him, and tied a noose around his neck. Upon follow-up questioning, Smollett additionally alleged that the assailants had made references to Trumps Make America Great Again slogan. Around this time, it was also revealed that the FBI was investigating a letter that had been sent to Foxs offices in Chicago prior to the alleged attack. The letter was purportedly targeted at Smollett and contained an unidentified white powder. After news of the attack broke, Smollett received a large outpouring of support from fans and fellow notable figures, including Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who both condemned the reported act as an example of an attempted modern-day lynching. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Chicago PD began investigating the report as a possible hate crime but failed to find significant photo or video footage of the incident, despite the area having a plethora of surveillance cameras. Early skepticism began to emerge online as people questioned Smolletts recounting of events and cast suspicion upon his initial refusal to submit his cellphone to authorities. (He eventually did submit redacted phone records.) Despite the early doubters, Smollett maintained in his first statement after the alleged attack that he had been cooperating with the authorities and remained 100 percent factual and consistent. In a live performance staged the day after his statement, Smollett thanked his supporters before infamously, and inexplicably, stating, Im the gay Tupac. Oh, riiiiight. I do remember thatthough I still dont know what it means. Neither does anyone else. Still, the skepticism never fully subsided, especially not when the authorities detained two persons of interest: Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, brothers of Nigerian descent. It was soon revealed that Smollett personally knew at least Abimbola, who had been hired for a stint as Smolletts personal trainer and, along with Olabinjo, had been an extra on Empire. The brothers reportedly told investigators that Smollett had paid them to stage the attack after feeling that the threatening letter sent to Fox hadnt inspired enough alarm. Smolletts lawyers acknowledged that Smollett knew at least one of the brothers via the aforementioned personal training services but denied the trainers involvement in a larger statement refuting Smolletts own involvement overall, stating: It is impossible to believe that this person could have played a role in the crime against Jussie or would falsely claim Jussies complicity. Advertisement Advertisement On Feb. 20, Smollett was charged by the Cook County States Attorneys Office with a felony disorderly conduct charge in relation to his filing a police report. Meanwhile, CBS News Chicago journalist Charlie De Mar had tracked down surveillance footage of the Osundairo brothers buying materials believed to be linked to the alleged assault. The following day, Smollett was officially arrested by Chicago PD, who alleged that the actor had orchestrated his own assault because he was hoping the notoriety would help boost his salary on Empire. The authorities claimed that Smollett had sent the aforementioned threatening letter to himself and that he had paid the Osundairo brothers $3,500in the form of a check made out to Abimbolato orchestrate the attack. (The check was reportedly labeled as being for a five-week nutrition/workout program in preparation for an upcoming music video Smollett was planning to shoot called Dont Go.) On March 8, a grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 counts of disorderly conduct. Smollett pleaded not guilty. In a surprising turn that angered both the mayor and police department, on March 26, the prosecutors dropped all charges, not because they found Smollett innocent, but because Smollett had reached a deal to forfeit a $10,000 bond payment and perform some community service in exchange. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Related From Slate Netflixs Most Popular Movie in Years Has Now Birthed a No. 1 Song Read More You said the prosecutors dropped the charges, but didnt Smollett serve time? A full six days of it! But before we get to that, we need to talk about the civil suit. Following the dropping of the charges, Chicago police ordered Smollett to pay $130,000 to cover the cost of the police investigation (including overtime) into his report, but the actor refused. On April 12, 2019, the city of Chicago filed a civil suit against Smollett, which was met by Smollett with a countersuit. The civil suit was settled in May of this year, six years after the legal battle started, with Smollett agreeing to make a $50,000 donation to a Chicago-based nonprofit. (Separately but surely pointedly, Smollett also promised to make an additional $10,000 donation to the Chicago Torture Justice Center, which aids victims of abuse at the hands of Chicago law enforcement.) In June 2019, the Chicago PD released the bodycam footage of the initial officers responding to the call. In it, Smollett is shown with the makeshift noose still around his neck, telling the officers that he kept it on because he wanted them to see it. This struck some following the case as an odd and unlikely choice for a Black man who has just been attacked, and would become a sticking point for Smolletts disbelievers. In August 2019, a special prosecutor was assigned to independently investigate, at the behest of a Cook County Circuit Court judge, the initial charges against Smollett and the prosecutors eventual decision to drop those charges. After more than a full year of investigating, on Feb. 12, 2020, Smollett was eventually indicted again by a grand jury, this time with six counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly lying to the police. The special prosecutor claimed that sufficient factual evidence was found supporting the notion that the states attorneys office was wrong for dropping the charges. Smollett once again pleaded not guilty. The trial began over a year later in November 2021, and on Dec. 9, 2021, the jury found Smollett guilty of five of the six counts. Smollett was sentenced to 150 days of jail time, 30 months of probation, and ordered to pay $145,000 in a combination of fines and restitution to the Chicago PD. However, the actor only ended up serving six days of his sentence after his legal team launched an appeal. Notably, Smollett maintained his innocence throughout the entire ordeal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, on Nov. 21, 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned Smolletts conviction. Wait, what?! What does that mean? It is common for convictions to get overturned because of legalities, not necessarily because of a change in evidence or the jurys verdict. Smolletts lawyers worked on an appeal for years, arguing that their client shouldnt have been charged again after the states attorneys office dropped its charges in exchange for community service and a bond. Illinois judges agreed that, even if the special prosecutor decided that the prosecutors shouldnt have dropped the charges, it doesnt change the fact that they did drop those charges, making it unfair for the court to not honor that earlier agreement to resolve the matter without jail time. I feel caught up now, for better or for worse. Regardless, lets move on to the new information in the Netflix documentary. Im assuming it makes some sort of argument to exonerate Smollett? Advertisement Yes and no. The Truth About Jussie Smollett? presents two schools of thought when it comes to the actor. The documentary, directed by Gagan Rehill (best known for the Netflix doc Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal), begins primarily with talking-head interviews from two people formerly involved with the case: Melissa Staples, the former chief of detectives for the Chicago police, and Eddie Johnson, former superintendent of the Chicago police. Johnson casts doubt upon Smolletts story with questions were already familiar with, like, for example, why would Smollett keep a noose around his neck? Or, why was Smollett so reluctant to hand over his phone? Additionally, if Smollett had been walking home from a Subway restaurant when he was allegedly attacked, then why was the Subway bag in his hand still in pristine condition? Furthermore, Staples walks the audience through the various methods that detectives used to firmly place the Osundairo brothers at the scene, from tracking down surveillance footage to subpoenaing taxi and ride-share records. Johnson brings up Smolletts bombshell Good Morning America interview shortly after the purported attack, during which Smollett stated that the two figures caught on the surveillance cameras were definitely, without a doubt, his attackers. However, Smollett also maintained that the Osundairo brothers had nothing to do with it. The polices stance is that those two figures were undoubtedly the Osundairo brothers. Johnson says that Smollett inadvertently identified two guys to the whole country. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Osundairo brothers are also present in the doc to tell their side of the story, claiming that Smollett asked them to beat him up, with the end goal of posting the surveillance footage caught by his buildings security to social media. And whats the evidence presented that suggests Smollett might have been telling the truth? Smollett counters some of the classic points of skepticism early on in the documentary. He alleges that he wasnt sitting around with the rope around his neck, but that he had put it back on because we wanted to show them what was happening. Smollett also acknowledges that he didnt want to hand over his phone to the police not only because of the sensitive information on it related to other notable figures, but also because the large thing that he didnt want disclosed was his drug use. I had to explain every single eccentricity of mine, Smollett explains in the doc. It was like playing whack-a-mole with rumors, with lies but at a certain point its just too many and you cant catch them all. Smollett explains that he was making great money, and wasnt dissatisfied with his pay (which is the polices assumed motive). He further clarifies a text he sent to Abimbola, in which he wrote, May need your help on the low, by stating that he was referring to an herbal steroid that was illegal here in the U.S. that could be gotten in Nigeria and is used to lose belly fat. Advertisement Advertisement The biggest focus of the documentary involves two more witnesses who corroborate Smolletts side of the story: Anthony Moore, a security guard who was working at a nearby Sheraton hotel that evening, and Rebecca Bell, a neighbor of Smolletts who was walking her dogs just over an hour before the attack was supposed to have taken place. Both Moore and Bell state that they saw white men in the area that evening. Bell explains that she saw a white man in the neighborhood with what looked to be a little bit of rope sticking out the back of his jacket around 12:45 a.m. Moore, who says he flashed his light in the face of one of the assailants near the time of the alleged attack, claims that, though the man was wearing a ski mask, he was clearly a white male. The security guard also notes that the police investigating the case only ever showed him a lineup of exclusively Black men. Advertisement Advertisement Two figures feature heavily in the last third of the documentary, presenting potential evidence that they believe exonerates Smollett: Abigail Carr, a documentary producer, and Chelli Stanley, a freelance journalist. (Both are listed in this films credits as consultants.) Carr and Stanley cast enormous doubt upon the Chicago Police Department. Carr states that she did her own investigating and found that there was no hard proof connecting the Osundairo brothers to the crime, from eyewitnesses to forensics. For her part, Stanley says she looked into the law enforcement team handling the case and found that the 38 detectives and supervisors assigned to the case had a combined 563 misconduct allegations formerly filed against them by the citizens of Chicago, ranging from criminal sexual misconduct to shooting people and selling drugs. She also states that one of the first people that showed up on the scene was accused in a formal complaint of homophobic hate speech against a Black man, though its worth noting that Smollett has never mentioned any wrongdoing on the responding officers parts when they answered the call. Carr also casts doubt upon Johnsons integrity by revealing that he was later fired for misconduct for lying and saying he was having a medical episode after officers found him asleep at the wheel in a parked police vehicle, when footage actually showed he had been drinking for a few hours beforehand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Additionally, the documentary frames the saga within Chicagos poor history with, as Stanley puts it, tampering with and hiding evidence. The doc uses the case of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old boy whose murder at the hands of a Chicago police officer in 2014 was misrepresented as justified by law enforcement until video of the shooting, released to the public, disproved the preliminary internal police reports. Though the murder happened in 2014, it remained a hot-button issue nationally and within Chicago, pointing at a growing mistrust of local law enforcement at the time of Smolletts incident. (The implicated officer in the McDonald case was sentenced in January 2019.) The documentary posits, via various talking-head interviews from journalists, that the Chicago Police Department, under a mountain of scrutiny at the time due to the McDonald case, wanted a win. Advertisement While that may be culturally significant in terms of the climate at the time, it does feel a little weird that they use McDonalds murder so heavily within this documentary about a celebrity who was found guilty by a jury of his peers for staging a fake hate crime. Do they present any other evidence? Advertisement Stanley and Carr discuss two further pieces of evidence that they believe prove Smollett was telling the truth. The first is a segment of surveillance footage, which appears to be visually brighter than the rest of the footage shown, and which Carr and Stanley claim shows white men at the scene. The second is a video of a conversation between Gloria Rodriguez, the Osundairos lawyer, and Olabinjo. In that conversation, Rodriguez is explaining to Olabinjowho was already a convicted felon and was potentially in some hot water when firearms were discovered at his home during the raidthe difference between an expunged record and a sealed record, specifically telling him, an aspiring actor, that directors, agents, and the like cant find sealed records. To Carr and Stanley, this conversation is proof that the Osundairos hammered out a deal with law enforcement to claim they were at the scene. However, Rodriguez states that Olabinjos record is neither expunged nor sealed, and explains that the police dont have the authority to seal somebodys record, making the assertion, in her words, ridiculous. Advertisement The documentary ends with Smollett maintaining that he didnt fabricate a hate crime hoax. And, to cast further doubt, the production team shows the lighter-toned surveillance footage to some of the interviewees and asks them to describe what they see. Both Staples and Johnson say they see an unmasked Black man, both Carr and Stanley say they see a white man, Rodriguez says that she also sees a white man, and Moore says that he sees a Black man. Advertisement Related From Slate Everyone Thought They Knew the Amanda Knox Story in 2007. But a New Show Proves We Had No Idea. Read More I still have so many questions. Totally. Smollett claims he never changed his story and, from what I can tell, this is true. However, there are many discrepancies that someone has to answer for. If the Osundairo brothers werent involved, what were they doing at the scene? If the argument is that they werent at the scene, how would the local police know to get a warrant to search their homes to get the so-called leverage of the firearms to then coerce them into giving a false statement? While the focus on the specific video footage in the documentary is interesting, what does it matter if Olabinjos documents are neither sealed nor expunged, and if the docs own interviewees cant come to a consensus about the racial identity of the two men in the surveillance footage? Many questions falling on Smolletts side still stand, too: Why would you hire two Black men to allege you were attacked by white men? All in all, The Truth About Jussie Smollett? seemingly leaves us with the same questions weve had for, at this point, more than half a decadeyears worth of legal back-and-forth that already ended up in a guilty conviction. And that leaves us with just one question: Why make the documentary at all? This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live. We were sitting smack-dab in the middle of Arches National Park, which welcomes about 1.5 million visitors each year. Specifically, we were in front of Delicate Arch, an attraction so famous its featured on the Utah license plate. But, on a morning in August, my boyfriend and I practically had the place to ourselves, watching golden hues slowly cascading over the smooth red rocks of the Utah desert with just a handful of other park visitors. What sorcery allowed us to beat the crowds in peak season? All it took was an alarm clock. Since the pandemic, Americas great outdoorsand its national parks in particularhave received an unprecedented amount of attention from domestic and foreign travelers alike, with a record 331.9 million recorded visits to national parks in 2024. Those visits typically crest in the summer months, which has led the busiest parks to implement a reservation system during peak season. In addition to paying your entrance fee, youll need to nab a timed-entry permit just to get into the park. These systems work to combat the crush of crowds the parks were seeing, but theyve made planning a national parks getaway a logistical high-wire act. (Dwindling budgets for the National Park Service in the DOGE era have almost certainly made this problem worse in many high-profile locales, and at entrance gates to popular parks, Ive seen epic car lines this year.) Its enough to make many outdoor enthusiasts I know begin to renounce the national parks altogether, bemoaning that they are no longer worth visiting. Yes, there are a multitude of equally worthy state parks and other federal land worth checking out. But theres really no need to abandon the national parks as long as you do them right. And thats where the alarm clock comes in. The early bird gets the worm, and the early national parks visitor gets a hassle-free experience. Even where reservations are required for entry, you can usually enter freely as long as its before 6 a.m. (or sometimes even 7!check your local park regulations). That means you are going to have to get up early, especially if you are staying far away from the park, but the reward is more than worth it. Related From Slate This New Travel Trend Is Absurd and Exhausting. You Might Want to Give It a Try. Read More While you are still required to pay an entrance fee, rangers generally arent manning the booths that early, so its on the honor systemand you can just cruise by without waiting for a long line of people to pay in front of you. (A quick side note on entrance fees: I recommend getting the America the Beautiful pass; it costs just $80 and covers access for all national parks and most day use of federal land for a full year from the time you purchase it. A day pass is usually almost half of that anyway. If youre 62 years or older, its a total no-brainer to get the lifetime pass, which is also just $80, and will last, well, the rest of your life. And if you happen to have a child in fourth grade, the pass is free.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Once youre in the park, enjoy a prime parking spot at the trailhead as you have yourself a nice Jetboild coffee or oatmeal while you get ready for your day ahead. That morning at Arches, wed jumped immediately from our tent into the car, so I put in my contacts, brushed my teeth, and ate breakfast at the trailhead. By 5:30 a.m., wed already started the 3-mile roundtrip hike to Delicate Arch, using headlamps to guide our way. The hikes accessibility and the archs fame are huge draws, so we were passing solid crowds on the way back downbut by then wed already had our magical moment at the top. Then, by 7 a.m., wed started out on a longer hike that moved us away from the masses. We swung back in the evening to check out other popular viewpoints (reservations arent needed after a certain time, so if youre a die-hard night owl, you could also try that route). So, if youre squeezing in one last trip before schools back in session, do not despair at the crowds and chaos youve seen in the news and on social media. Get in early, and youll still have a good time. And if all else fails, plan your next trip for the offseason. Visits start to dip down in late fall into winter, and many things are still openjust research the weather. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Back when Masum Momaya was a curator at the Smithsonian, she would occasionally leave her office and take the short walk over to the National Museum of Asian Art for a quick break. Strolling the quiet galleries in awe, Momaya was particularly drawn to an exhibition of pottery from Afghanistan. Created by Afghan women, the pottery was delicately painted and shaped into bowls and plates, painstakingly preserved during the United States decades-long occupation of the country. It was invoking centuries-old traditions of art, craftsmanship, and design that had been preserved and passed down across generations, she told me. It showed beauty, resilience, and complexity of a specific culture that we often had a very univision of, based on coverage of conflict. Artifacts like this offer a window into history that Americans wont find in their local newspapers or nightly news shows, but is something Smithsonian museums are world famous for. Yet, if President Donald Trump has his way, many of these relics could be yanked out of display cases for being too woke. Just as he has attacked colleges and universities, Big Law, public broadcasters, and diversity initiatives, the president is now fixated on the Smithsonian Institution. Like many of the White Houses policy decisions, it started with an executive order accusing the museum of pushing a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House sent Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch a letter demanding insight into how the museums are managed, from public-facing text on exhibitions to internal curatorial processes. On Tuesday, Trump took to Truth Social to accuse the Smithsonian of only focusing on how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been. By Thursday, the White House put out a list of specific exhibitions it takes issue with. The Afghan pottery wasnt on the initial list, but that does not mean its safe. In targeting the Smithsonian, Trump is targeting knowledge itself, and any exhibit could be next. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whats on the walls is not somebodys opinion. It is something that is very much grounded in scholarship, Momaya, now the director of narrative change at the Asian American Foundation, said. From 2012 to 2016, Momaya was a Smithsonian curator, focusing on Asian Pacific American studies. She worked on numerous exhibitions and public programs across the National Museum of Natural History and Museum of American History. Smithsonian exhibitions are the culmination of years worth of work. Curators pitch exhibition ideas that require extensive archival research and visits to local communities to fully understand the nuances and complexities of different histories. If a pitch is accepted, the concept still faces layers of vetting, with numerous museum committees reviewing every word and object to consider factual accuracy and potential bias. Each Smithsonian museum has its own unique curatorial process, allowing the experts helming the work to shape it as they see fit. Advertisement Related From Slate One Judge Has a Clever New Way to Overcome the Supreme Courts Trump-Fueled Chaos Read More Since it was created by Congress nearly 180 years ago, the Smithsonians work has been grounded in the increase and diffusion of knowledge, which curators view as an invitation for museumgoers to join a conversation about history, art, and science, arming them with research and artifacts. The Smithsonian has become the worlds largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums, 14 education research centers, and the National Zoo. It employs many of the worlds top scholars, who have dedicated their entire professional careers to becoming subject-matter experts on a range of topicsSmithsonian jobs are also not easy to land, requiring significant credentials, a history of publication, and even teaching experience. Advertisement A current Smithsonian staffer, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of losing their job, told me the Trump administrations recent moves criticizing the museum have resulted in contentious internal debate over how to move forward. Museum leaders are reckoning with the reality that over half their funding comes from Congress, and jeopardizing it by challenging the party in power could risk a funding halt that could gut the institutions mission. Weve already seen the devastation that Republicans in Congress and Trump have wrought upon the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which announced this month that it would be forced to close due to federal budget cuts after nearly 60 years in business. Some projects at the Smithsonian have already been put on hold and others are actively being restructured, the staffer told me. Advertisement Advertisement In a message sent to all museum staff on Wednesday, which was shared with Slate, Bunch reiterated the Smithsonians commitment to intellectual honesty and integrity while subtly conceding that the institutions collections may evolve to reflect new discoveries and insights and that the institution cannot know what future critiques will hold. According to reporting and what my sources told me, thats already taking place. In July, for instance, the National Museum of American Historys exhibit on democracy removed a placard referencing both of Trumps impeachments under pressure from the White House. Though the placard was eventually replaced, the new one includes the word alleged when describing the actions that resulted in Trumps first impeachmenthe was charged by the House in 2019 with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. More changes like this are expected, with the Smithsonian staffer predicting anything about race that isnt white, anything thats about queers, Democrats, anything critical of the president and conservatism could likely be removed. The staffer also noted that, in this context, critical could mean simply just describing it, even. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One former Smithsonian curator, who remains a federal employee and asked to be kept nameless out of concern for losing their job, told me the reality is that curators must act more strategically. They may still be able to exhibit important historical discoveries and moments, but will need to play it safe. If you want to fight a battle that youre going to lose, sure, do it now, they said. But if you want to be strategic and buy time because you want to do a show about the first Black inventor who happens to be a woman and gay, now is not the time to do that show. They predict that museums like the National Portrait Gallery will be hit the hardest, as curators focus on crafting biographies that lean heavily on peoples identities. Plus, biography can be subjective, creating space for disputable facts that the Trump administration can take issue with, as it did this week with a portrait of a family crossing the U.S. southern border. The White House criticized the National Portrait Gallery for describing the border as exclusionary, failing to mention that the full caption states the Mexico-U.S. border is a space that is transnational, one that is both inclusive and exclusionary. In 2022, this portrait was a finalist in the gallerys Outwin portraiture series. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Other museums, like the National Museum of Natural History, may not face as many hurdles, since it features many aspects of physical history, including some undisputed assets, like the Hope Diamond. To Momaya, its obvious that the Trump administration is attempting to erase history, as it takes issue with exhibits focused on explaining white privilege, LGBTQ+ experiences, and even the simple fact of slavery. Removing exhibitions that focus on these issues flies in the face of the Smithsonians purpose, and museumgoers will suffer the consequences. Certain pieces of artwork will inevitably be taken down, placards explaining historical moments will be watered down, and entire exhibitions will not come to lifefor now. While Trump is in office, some of the Smithsonians rich expertise of scholarship will have to recede into the background long enough for this current political season to pass. In the meantime, museum staff will face tough decisions: Stand up for their work, which could incite a vindictive administration that controls their livelihoods, or compromise their values to protect themselves. They dont want to be named on Truth Social or be targeted by the mob that sometimes gets unruly, the former Smithsonian staffer said. Again, these are federal workers, who are everyday people. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unlike many other American museums, the Smithsonian is free for all, and often a visit is someones first exposure to a particular style of art, snippet of history, or piece of science. Its one of the few places where a diversity of scholarship can be found in just one place, making the institution a more serious and well-respected authority. Its a really precious resource, Momaya said. In 2026, the U.S. will commemorate its 250th anniversary, but under the Trump administration, the Smithsonian may be barred from showcasing the complexity of how this country began, the bloodshed, the Smithsonian staffer said. Whatever patriotism might be inherent in the semiquincentennial commemoration of this nations founding, ignoring simple historical facts like slavery and the displacement of native populations is a disservice not only to the scholars dedicated to studying these topics, but also to the public, who deserve to understand the full breadth of our nations past. We wont be able to even explain that or make it understandable, the staffer noted. If were reluctant to talk about, understand, and comprehend how we got here today, were never going to make it to the future. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Many Americans assume that the criminalization of pregnancy is limited to red states with aggressive anti-abortion prosecutors and draconian bans on reproductive health care. But it isnt. In reality, prosecutors in blue states have also deployed the concept of fetal personhood to punish women for their pregnancy outcomes. When women experience a miscarriage or stillbirth, they are vulnerable to investigation and arrest if the state suspects they had an unlawful hand in their pregnancy loss. And even in deeply Democratic states, these probes can lead to severe criminal charges, including first-degree murder. In this weeks episode of Amicus, Mark Joseph Stern spoke about one such case, Akers v. Maryland, with Karen Thompson, legal director of Pregnancy Justice. A preview of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity. Mark Joseph Stern: Can you tell us about the prosecution of Moira Akers? Because I know I was not the only person who was really surprised to see this going on in a Democratic state. Karen Thompson: And a state that has really strong protections for reproductive rights and against fetal personhood. In this case, Moira Akers had a stillbirth at home. She endured a traumatic labor and delivery. Her husband found her bleeding profusely and called 911 to take her to the hospital. That set off a chain of events that ultimately led to her arrest and prosecution. A nurse told the police: Go check her house to see whats going on. And when the police arrived, they found the fetal remains. Ms. Akers said she had a stillbirth, and she didnt know what to do. And state prosecutors charged her with first-degree murder. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The prosecutors claimed she gave birth to a live baby and then murdered it? Yes. And what is so unique in this case is that, to prove its case, the state relied on Ms. Akers prior internet search history around abortion. That was seven months prior to her giving birth at home, very early in her pregnancy. Prosecutors also relied on her decision to forgo prenatal care and her decision to keep her pregnancy privateas well as something called the lung float test, which is exactly as it sounds. Its a relic from the 17th century thats being used by medical examiners as a way to determine whether a child was born alive or not, and its not effective. But they relied on all of these things to prove that Ms. Akers had an intent to commit murder. So the mens rea that was being floated was that she had the audacity to look up abortion, and somehow that behavior seven months earlier was enough to show that she had intent to kill a live-born child. Advertisement Related From Slate One Judge Has a Clever New Way to Overcome the Supreme Courts Trump-Fueled Chaos Read More Googling abortion early in her pregnancy and forgoing prenatal care, if I understand correctly, are not illegal in Maryland at all, right? Yet those were presented to the jury as proof that she was guilty of murder. Advertisement One hundred percent. And she was convicted of murder. Then the Maryland Supreme Court overturned her conviction in February. But she is currently incarcerated because the state is deciding whether or not to retry her. Why did the Maryland Supreme Court overturn the conviction? The Maryland Supreme Court really doubled down on the protections of Marylands reproductive justice framework. The majority said that Maryland law recognizes the fundamental difference between a fetus and a baby and rejects the concept of fetal personhood. They were very clear that a states use of a pregnant womans decisions made during pregnancy to prosecute her for the alleged murder of a live child is a violation of Maryland law. And they rejected this idea of fetal personhood as a legal precept that could be used to justify criminalization. Advertisement Advertisement This decision was a real rebuke. It feels very powerful to see the recognition of pregnant womens bodily autonomyand also, there are not two. There is one woman who is pregnant, and she has the jurisdiction and dominion over her own pregnancy and her own body. So gendered beliefs about what makes a good mom cannot be a legislative or legal strategy. Advertisement Advertisement And yet you said Ms. Akers is still behind bars because prosecutors are deciding whether they want to retry her without the evidence that the Maryland Supreme Court forbade? Yes. And the court didnt actually kick out the lung float test because it wasnt at issue in the appeal. So thats still good evidence if they retry her. Of course, we can try once again to make the arguments about why this test should not be used and how junky the science behind it is. But its still out there. And its up to the state to decide whether or not they think theres still enough evidence to go forward in this case. Its pretty alarming that a deep-blue state may retry a woman for homicide because she experienced a stillbirth, and use discredited junk science to prove its case. If we say the fall of Roe is something that only impacts people in red statesand we assign the dangerous nature of fetal personhood only to red stateswe do so at our own peril. Because we ignore how these essential questions of both bodily autonomy and the creep of fetal personhood are impacting people all around the country. https://sputnikglobe.com/20250822/druzhba-oil-pipeline-attacked-again--slovak-economy-minister-1122660071.html Druzhba Oil Pipeline Attacked Again Slovak Economy Minister Druzhba Oil Pipeline Attacked Again Slovak Economy Minister Sputnik International The Druzhba pipeline near the Belarusian border has been targeted again, said Slovakias Economy Minister, Denisa Sakova. 2025-08-22T07:17+0000 2025-08-22T07:17+0000 2025-08-22T07:17+0000 world russia slovakia oil pipeline druzhba pipeline hungary ukraine peter szijjarto vladimir putin federal security service https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e9/01/10/1121437119_0:449:2842:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_d22314b33d6d3c8f32921c088046cc1d.jpg The Druzhba pipeline near the Belarusian border has been targeted again, said Slovakias Economy Minister, Denisa Sakova. On Wednesday, Slovakias Economy Ministry reported that oil deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline, halted after an attack linked to Ukraine on Monday, had resumed. Russian oil supplies to Hungary had also been suspended earlier this year following the Ukrainian militarys attacks on the pipes key distribution station "Unecha" in Russias Bryansk region.Expressing gratitude to Russia for the swift repairs, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto added that Hungary considers strikes on energy infrastructure an attack on its sovereignty.The attacks come as Ukraine has been desperately attempting to jeopardize the peace process, which gained momentum after the historic PutinTrump meeting in Alaska.A Ukrainian terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge has been prevented, according to Russias Federal Security Service (FSB).Russian anti-drone systems intercepted an attempted drone attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on a nuclear power plant in Russia's Smolensk region. https://sputnikglobe.com/20250818/ukraine-ramps-up-provocations-to-sabotage-peace-efforts-1122643702.html russia slovakia hungary ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2025 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International druzhba pipeline near the belarusian border targeted again, slovakias economy minister, ukraine's attacks on druzhba oil pipeline https://sputnikglobe.com/20250822/russian-strike-on-flex-plant-wrecks-critical-node-in-ukraines-high-tech-arms-production--analyst-1122661540.html Russian Strike on Flex Plant Wrecks Critical Node in Ukraines High-Tech Arms Production Analyst Russian Strike on Flex Plant Wrecks Critical Node in Ukraines High-Tech Arms Production Analyst Sputnik International The Flex planta key maker of custom circuitstransforms standard electronics into specialized systems used in drones, cruise missiles, and other precision weapons, military expert Alexey Anpilogov told Sputnik. 2025-08-22T13:55+0000 2025-08-22T13:55+0000 2025-08-22T13:55+0000 analysis ukraine russia volodymyr zelensky drones military drones electronics https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/1d/1119179168_0:76:3150:1847_1920x0_80_0_0_b5a32f3e6ce6bd5f0ccc64dbd79b939a.jpg The Flex planta key maker of custom circuitstransforms standard electronics into specialized systems used in drones, cruise missiles, and other precision weapons, military expert Alexey Anpilogov told Sputnik. This blows apart Zelenskys claim that the US-owned Flex plant was an ordinary civilian facility that produced household items, such as coffee machines." Blurred Lines Between Civilian & Military Production Civilian industries in Ukraine, including Flex, are increasingly militarized, the analyst notes. The plant likely served as a logistics hub for storing munitions, military equipment, or explosives, which could explain the prolonged fires and secondary explosions observed after the strike, the pundit says.High-tech Arsenal Takes a Hit Integration of Western digital equipment into Ukrainian systems with direct military use is a critical stage of final weapon assembly needing expert skills not easily replicated elsewhere, the nuclear expert underscored. Ukraines Smoke & Mirrors Strategy The neo-Nazi regimes hurried denial of military activity at Flex likely has several aims, said the expert:If Russian intelligence confirms any lingering military potential, more strikes on Flex are likely, the analyst added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20250812/russian-forces-hit-ukrainian-drone-production-and-training-facilities-1122597684.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2025 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko russia demolishes ukraine's flex plant, what is ukraine's flex electronics plant, who owns ukraines flex electronics plant, russias latest crushing wave of strikes on ukrainian attack drone enterprises. https://sputnikglobe.com/20250822/ukrainian-suspect-arrested-in-italy-investigated-for-february-tanker-explosions--reports-1122659895.html Ukrainian Suspect Arrested in Italy Investigated for February Tanker Explosions Reports Ukrainian Suspect Arrested in Italy Investigated for February Tanker Explosions Reports Sputnik International The Genoa Prosecutor's Office has requested information regarding a Ukrainian arrested on suspicion of the Nord Stream pipelines attack to determine his possible involvement in the February explosions on an oil tanker in the Italian port Savona, Italian newspaper La Stampa reported on Thursday. 2025-08-22T03:08+0000 2025-08-22T03:08+0000 2025-08-22T03:08+0000 world malta nord stream nord stream 2 europe sabotage terrorist terrorist attack terrorist state terrorist group https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/08/01/1083503246_63:0:3704:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_589d14f882bd1941baecbbdb3c14b532.jpg Earlier in the day, the German prosecutor's office said that Ukrainian citizen Sergei K., who is suspected of coordinating sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in 2022 was detained in Italy. The prosecution is interested in the "similarities and suspicions" between the Nord Stream terrorist attack and the attack on the Malta-flagged oil tanker Seajewel in the port of Savona in February: a hole was formed in the ship's hull due to the explosion of two magnetic mines, one of which was later found on the seabed, the report said. According to Italian media, the attack targeted the so-called "shadow fleet" under foreign flags, which allegedly transports Russian-origin oil in violation of sanctions. On February 18, Italian media reported that two explosions occurred on board the Seajewel tanker in the port of Savona, producing a hole in the hull of the vessel with traces of external impact. The crew of the Malta-flagged ship reported the incident on February 15 during the unloading of oil. The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were hit by explosions in September 2022. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has opened an investigation into it as an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested data on other countries' investigations into the explosions, but never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20250821/ukrainian-suspect-in-nord-stream-sabotage-arrested-in-italy--german-prosecutors-1122658387.html malta Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2025 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International terrorist attack, nord stream, explosion, perpetrator, suspect, detained, arrested, nord stream 2, investigation, explosion investigation, german investigation, ukrainian lead, sbu, ukrainian terrorists With the news that the City of Surrey has chosen to enact its lease recapture clause on the land currently occupied by Fraser Downs, the harness racing industry in British Columbia wants answers. Now. In a letter dated Aug. 22, 2025 and addressed to a number of MLAs in the Surrey, B.C. area, Kelly MacMillan, the President of Harness Racing B.C. called for government intervention in order to protect the families and jobs affected by this sudden and shocking development. "Immediate action is required by Surrey MLAs and the Provincial Government to stop the dismantling of Fraser Downs and to uphold the public commitments that tied casino operations to live horse racing," said MacMillan. "Allowing an American corporation to shutter racing while continuing to profit from the casino breaks that bargain. Until those commitments are enforced, including funding mechanisms that sustain the industry, City and Provincial officials must halt redevelopment and protect Surrey families from the economic, social, and human fallout of this closure." The full letter from MacMillan is available below. For more on the recent news concerning the announced closing of Fraser Downs, click here. To: Amna Shah, MLA Surrey City Centre Jagrup Brar, MLA Surrey Fleetwood Jessie Sunner, MLA Surrey Newton Garry Begg, MLA Surrey Guildford Trevor Halford, MLA Surrey White Rock Mandeep Dhaliwal, MLA Surrey North Brent Chapman, MLA Surrey South Elenore Sturko, MLA Surrey Cloverdale Linda Hepner, MLA Surrey Serpentine River CC: Premier David Eby Hon. Mike Farnworth, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Hon. Niki Sharma, Attorney General Hon. Nina Krieger, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Denise Praill, Member, Horse Racing BC Gary Johnson, Member, Horse Racing BC Subject: Fraser Downs Crisis: Immediate Action Required to Protect Surrey Jobs and Families Dear MLA Shah, Halford, Dhaliwal, Chapman, Sturko, Brar, Sunner, Hepner, and Begg, Immediate Action is Required by Surrey MLAs Immediate action is required by Surrey MLAs and the Provincial Government to stop the dismantling of Fraser Downs and to uphold the public commitments that tied casino operations to live horse racing. Allowing an American corporation to shutter racing while continuing to profit from the casino breaks that bargain. Until those commitments are enforced, including funding mechanisms that sustain the industry, City and Provincial officials must halt redevelopment and protect Surrey families from the economic, social, and human fallout of this closure. The abrupt closure of harness racing at Fraser Downs is not a minor operational change. It is a crisis for families, workers, and businesses in Surrey, and it is a breach of the public trust on which expanded gaming in this province was built. People are losing their jobs and their homes. Small businesses built around racing have lost their anchor. Some individuals are already on suicide watch. Meanwhile, Great Canadian continues to operate the casino at Fraser Downs and collect revenue, despite the fact that the casino was only ever approved because it was tied to live racing. This decision did not fall from the sky. It was enabled by choices at both the City and Provincial level, choices that are now leaving hundreds of Surrey residents without income or security. And it raises urgent questions that you, as Surrey MLAs, must answer. The Original Commitment When Fraser Downs was approved for slot machines in 2004, Surrey Council explicitly linked those approvals to the existence of live racing. The Council report (R054) tied the Host Financial Assistance Agreement, which delivered 10 percent of net gaming income to the City, to the racetrack site itself. At the same time, the Province earmarked a share of slot revenue for horse racing. By 2012, 25 percent of net slot revenues at racetrack casinos were dedicated to purses and industry support under the Horse Racing Industry Management Committee (HRIMC). These were not side deals or afterthoughts. They were the foundation on which gaming expansion was justified to the public. So the first question is: How can it possibly be justified that the casino continues to operate while racing has been terminated, when both Surrey and the Province approved that facility on the explicit understanding that racing and gaming were tied together? A Broken Bargain The City now claims that its only legal relationship is with Great Canadian as the leaseholder, and that it has no contractual relationship with the racing industry. That may be legally convenient, but it ignores the spirit and intent of Councils approvals. So the second question is: Do you accept that the City of Surrey can benefit from 10 percent of gaming revenues that were premised on a racetrack-casino partnership, while disclaiming any responsibility to the people and businesses harmed by shutting racing down? The Province, likewise, has long promised that slot revenue at racetracks would sustain the industry. Families built their lives on that assurance. Now, the 25 percent allocation remains on paper, but the industry it was meant to support is being dismantled in practice. So the third question is: Do you believe it is acceptable for the Province to continue collecting revenue from slots at Fraser Downs while the very industry those revenues were meant to protect is destroyed? Human and Equine Consequences This is not an abstract debate. Hundreds of workers, men and women, who cared for horses, cleaned stalls, drove, trained, bred, and managed races, are unemployed today. Families that relied on Fraser Downs for their livelihood have lost their income overnight. Some have already lost their homes. Others are in such despair that they are under suicide watch. Surrey families are bearing the full weight of a policy reversal that benefits only Great Canadian and its shareholders. And it is not only people who are suffering. With no income to sustain their care, the future of the horses themselves is at risk. Horses require daily feeding, stabling, veterinary treatment, and training. Without a racing operation to anchor that investment, owners and trainers face impossible choices. What will become of these animals, some bred for years specifically to race, if the infrastructure of their care is pulled away? The government must account not only for the human cost, but also for the equine welfare implications of closing Fraser Downs without a plan. So the fourth question is: What responsibility do you accept, as MLAs for Surrey, to the families who are facing homelessness because of this closure? The fifth is: How do you explain to your constituents that government will enforce a lease recapture clause for a casino operator, but not enforce the commitments made to workers and families who relied on racing? Provincial Responsibility The Gaming Control Act is clear: the Minister has the authority to issue directives to BCLC on matters of policy. BCLCs service agreements govern facility operations. That means the Province does have the power to insist that racetrack casinos cannot operate without racing, or at minimum that the revenue flows continue to sustain the industry. So the sixth question is: Why has the government not used its authority to ensure that Fraser Downs casino cannot operate independently of racing? The seventh: Will you call on the Minister to issue a directive under the Gaming Control Act tying casino operations at racetrack sites to racing or enforceable replacement funding? If not, why not? Historical Commitments When the Province introduced slots at racetracks, it was to stabilize horse racing in the face of expanding gaming. When the Province converted annual grants into a fixed 25 percent allocation in 2010, it was still on the assumption that racing would continue. Every government since has affirmed that racing and gaming are linked. So the eighth question is: Do you believe that government commitments, repeated over two decades, mean nothing when an American corporate operator decides it wants a casino without a racetrack? The ninth: If you believe those commitments still matter, what steps will you personally take to see that they are upheld? Surreys Future The City points to redevelopment of the Cloverdale Fairgrounds as justification. But redevelopment was never meant to replace racing, it was meant to build on it. To proceed with redevelopment while allowing the casino to remain is not modernization; it is a betrayal of the public bargain struck in 2004. So the tenth question is: Do you believe Surrey residents should simply accept redevelopment profits for Great Canadian while losing the jobs, traditions, and community benefits of racing? And the eleventh: What will you do to ensure that redevelopment does not proceed on the backs of displaced workers and broken promises? And why, less than a week after this shocking notice, is the lighting at the track surface already being dismantled? What possible urgency exists when there is no approved plan in place, and redevelopment remains years away? The City seems determined to rush ahead, tearing down barns and dismantling facilities without any replacement or clear future use. Why create an idle, vacant site now, while destroying peoples livelihoods, when no actual redevelopment plan has even been introduced? The Bottom Line The Fraser Downs casino was never meant to stand alone. It was created for the express purpose of sustaining horse racing in British Columbia. The City benefits from revenues justified by that purpose. The Province benefits from revenues justified by that purpose. Great Canadian benefits from revenues justified by that purpose. The only ones who are losing are the workers and families who were promised stability and protection. So I leave you with this: Will you stand with Surrey families and the commitments made to them, or will you stand with Great Canadian, an American-owned corporation now sending its profits south of the border, at the expense of Surreys workers, traditions, and community? This is not just a question of racing. It is a question of whether public commitments matter more than corporate interests, and whether Surrey families can count on their elected representatives to defend them. Sincerely, Kelly MacMillan President, Harness Racing BC Member, Horse Racing BC Cell: (250) 801-5189 (HRBC) WEST ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Great Bay Insurance Group (the "Group"), the leading provider of coastal homeowners' insurance in New Jersey, today announced that Timothy J. Byrne, Sr., Chief Executive Officer of the Group, has been award the Company Person of the Year by the PIANJ at its annual conference. This award is given to individuals who foster a strong working relationship with agents and brokers, and who exemplify a commitment to professionalism and service. Great Bay is a coastal Homeowners writer in New Jersey with plans to expand into other products and States. Great Bay is known for its ease of doing business, prompt fair claims handling and most of all for providing a stable market. Mr. Byrne, Sr., a founding member of the Group in 2019, has over 40 years of broad industry experience in various leadership capacities. Mr. Byrne began his career at 14 years old working summers in his father's retail agency founded by his grandfather John J Byrne in 1959, The J Byrne Agency of Cape May County NJ, working nine summers while attending Wildwood High School, Rutgers College and a post-graduate degree in Insurance from what is now the St. John's School of Risk Management, Insurance & Actuarial Science. Mr. Byrne joined the agency full-time in June of 1983. In 2003 Mr. Byrne, having identified the need for a Coastal Homeowners option, founded Coastal Agents Alliance ("CAA") ultimately placing over $50,000,000 in surplus lines homeowners' business in eight northeast states. In 2015 he sold CAA to Gryphon investors who merged CAA with Orchid Underwriters out of Vero Beach FL. After three years at Orchid Underwriters, Mr. Byrne left to form Great Bay Insurance Group, which began operations in August of 2019. In Mr. Byrne's acceptance speech, he highlighted his love of independent agents and how IAs were the key to his success. Between his time at CAA and Orchid he claimed he has probably visited more independent agencies than any other person alive. "Few can do what independent agencies can do," Mr. Byrne told the audience of independent agents. "From the threat of 'captive agents' in the 1970s to the 'banks-forming-insurance-agencies' of the 1990s to the current AI and the internet cutting out the middleman, agents have survived. Weathering the coastal HO crises post Andrew or KRW, or the wildfire crisis post-California fires, IA's have not only survived but thrive in challenging environments. Other outlets of distribution pack up and go home," said Mr. Byrne. Contact: Investor Relations Brian Schleider 609-434-2000, x102 [email protected] SOURCE Great Bay Insurance Group 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: Shipping Nvidia's H20 chips to China was "great" for Beijing and Washington and not a security threat, the tech giant's chief Jensen Huang says. Shipping Nvidia's H20 chips to China was "great" for Beijing and Washington and not a security threat, the tech giant's chief said Friday. The California-based company produces some of the world's most advanced semiconductors but cannot ship its most cutting-edge chips to China due to concerns from Washington that Beijing could use them to enhance military capabilities. Nvidia developed the H20 -- a less powerful version of its AI processing units -- specifically for export to China. That plan stalled when the Trump administration tightened export licensing requirements in April. The H20 was "not a national security concern," Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei, describing the chip as "great for America" and "great for the Chinese market." Huang insisted there were "no security backdoors" in the H20 chip allowing remote access, after China summoned company representatives to discuss security issues. "We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors, there are no such things, there never has, and so hopefully the response that we've given to the Chinese government will be sufficient," Huang said. He sidestepped a question about reports that Nvidia would pay the United States 15% of its revenues from the sale of H20 chips to China, which US President Donald Trump confirmed last week. Instead, Huang expressed gratitude to the Trump administration for allowing the chips to be shipped to the Chinese market. "The demand I believe is quite great and so the ability to ship products to, H20s to China, is very much appreciated," the CEO said. Huang also said Nvidia is in talks with the US government about a new chip for China. "Offering a new product to China for the data center, AI data centers, the follow on to H20, that's not our decision to make. It's up to of course the United States government, and we're in dialog with them but it's too soon to know," he said. Huang met with Trump at the White House this month and agreed to give the federal government the cut from its revenues, a highly unusual arrangement in the international tech trade, according to reports in the Financial Times, Bloomberg and The New York Times. Investors are betting that AI will transform the global economy, and last month Nvidia -- the world's most valuable company and a leading designer of high-end AI chips -- became the first company ever to hit $4 trillion in market value. The firm has, however, become entangled in trade tensions between China and the United States, which are waging a heated battle for dominance to produce the chips that power AI. It comes as the Trump administration has been imposing stiff tariffs, with goals varying from addressing US trade imbalances, wanting to reshore manufacturing and pressuring foreign governments to change policies. A 100% tariff on many semiconductor imports came into effect this month, with exceptions for tech companies that announce major investments in the United States. 2025 AFP This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Near-body flow field perception for intelligent robots. (A) The scorpion-inspired hexapod walking platform equipped with four BPPSs. Credit: Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady5008 Nature, the master engineer, is coming to our rescue again. Inspired by scorpions, scientists have created new pressure sensors that are both highly sensitive and able to work across a wide variety of pressures. Pressure sensors are key components in an array of applications, from medical devices and industrial control systems to robotics and human-machine interfaces. Silicon-based piezoresistive sensors are among the most common types used today, but they have a significant limitation. They can't be super sensitive to changes and work well across a range of pressures at the same time. Often, you have to choose one over the other. Nature got there before us However, nature has already solved this problem through millions of years of evolution. So to play catch-up and design better sensors, Pinkun Wang from the Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education) at Jilin University in China and colleagues studied the highly sensitive mechanosensory systems scorpions use to detect environmental changes. The researchers developed a way to mimic the scorpion's pressure-sensing apparatus. These are tiny, hair-like structures known as trichobothria and the flat slits on their shell with mechanosensory neurons called slit sensilla. The study is published in the journal Science Advances. High-precision pressure sensor inspired by the mechanical sensilla of scorpions. (A) Somatosensory system of the scorpions. (i) Trichobothria sensilla. (ii) Slit sensilla. (iii) H. petersii scorpion. Scale bar, 1 cm. Credit: Wang et al., Sci. Adv. 11, eady5008 They built tiny stress traps to mimic the slits and flexure suppression units to act like the hairs. When placed on top of a computer chip, the stress traps greatly improved the sensor's ability to detect even the slightest pressure. Meanwhile, on the bottom of the chip, the flexure suppression units improved sensor accuracy. To test their concept in the real world, the researchers integrated the sensor with a deep learning network and attached it to six-legged robots. The robots were able to mimic the scorpion's ability to sense its surroundings by detecting tiny changes in the air pressure around them. These scorpion-bots rapidly escaped from looming cardboard boxes once they sensed the advancing objects as large "predators" and quickly moved toward small boxes they detected as "prey." Movie shows trichobothria's hypersensitivity perception of weak airflow. We use a high-speed camera to observe the weak air flow response of the trichobothria on the fresh scorpion's pedipalp. As the hands are slightly agitated, the weak airflow caused can be sensitively sensed by the trichobothria. Credit: Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady5008 Describing their work, the researchers wrote, "This work underscores the potential to leverage key design concepts inspired by living insects for improved sensing performance and offers structural insights for other high-precision sensors." These scorpion-inspired sensors are a major step toward creating more intuitive and adaptive robots. They could give intelligent robots a much better sense of their surroundings, improving collision avoidance and allowing them to work in conditions where vision is limited, such as in the dark or where there's lots of smoke and dust. The technology also has implications for health monitoring, allowing for more precise detection of pressure signals from the body, such as a weak heartbeat or faint pulse. Written for you by our author Paul Arnold, edited by Gaby Clark, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Eganthis article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly). You'll get an ad-free account as a thank-you. More information: Pinkun Wang et al, Hypersensitive pressure sensors inspired by scorpion mechanosensory mechanisms for near-body flow detection in intelligent robots, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady5008 Journal information: Science Advances 2025 Science X Network This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Conceptual overview of the vision-based ProTac sensing technology. ProTac can actively switch between proximity and tactile sensing modes, relying on input images captured by inner cameras and a soft functional skin with controllable transparency. Credit: Van Anh Ho from JAIST. Robots are becoming increasingly integrated into everyday environmentsfrom homes and hospitals to factories and farms. However, safely operating around humans requires more than strength or speed. Robots must also sense their surroundings, detect physical contact, and respond quickly. Conventional sensors, especially those embedded in soft materials, often fall short when it comes to real-time, large-area tactile and proximity sensing. To address this challenge, a research team led by Professor Van Anh Ho and Dr. Quan Khanh Luu from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Japan, developed ProTac, a novel vision-based soft sensing skin for robots. The study was published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Robotics on July 28, 2025, and presents a scalable approach to multimodal robotic perception. At the core of ProTac is a polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) layer that can switch between transparent and opaque states when voltage is applied. When transparent, embedded cameras can "see" through the skin to detect nearby objects. When opaque, those same cameras track how the skin deforms, allowing the robot to sense touch, pressure, and the location of contact. This dual-mode sensing enables real-time environmental perception using a single soft layer, eliminating the need for complex embedded electronics. "This innovation with sensor design simplicity allows robots to perceive both contact and nearby obstacles across a large-area skin in real time, which is difficult to achieve with conventional electronic skins," Prof. Ho explained. To validate the design, the team developed a prototype called the ProTac link, a cylindrical robot arm segment wrapped in a soft sensing skin and equipped with stereo cameras at both ends. This prototype can detect approaching objects from multiple angles, estimate distance, and recognize multiple touch points with high accuracy. It also supports adaptive behaviors such as proximity-based speed adjustment and reflexive contact avoidance. Left: A collaborative robotic arm equipped with ProTac detects proximity and contact regions during interaction with a human co-worker. Right: A service robot with ProTac-enhanced arms operates safely in dynamic environments, using proximity sensing to avoid collisions and tactile sensing for delicate object manipulation. Credit: Van Anh Ho from JAIST. "ProTac can be applied to dexterous robotic manipulation in various domains where safety and delicate physical interaction are critical," says Dr. Luu. The researchers envision broad applications across collaborative robotics, assistive devices, and soft robotic systems in agriculture or domestic care. In factories, ProTac-equipped robots could slow or stop when a human worker approaches. In elder care, service robots could provide physical assistance while maintaining safe, responsive contact. In the long term, ProTac could contribute to the development of full-body sensing systems for humanoid robots. "In the long term, this research lays the groundwork for intelligent general-purpose humanoid robots equipped with full-body multimodal soft sensing skins, especially those with a sense of touch," said Dr. Ho. Alongside the skin, the team developed learning algorithms and control strategies that convert sensor data into robotic actions, enabling responsive and autonomous behavior in dynamic environments. Designed with simplicity, modularity, and scalability in mind, the ProTac system can be integrated into both new and existing robotic platforms. To accelerate progress in the field, the researchers have made their design files, models, and software open source. By combining mechanical simplicity with multimodal perception, ProTac brings robots a step closer to understandingand safely interacting withthe complex, tactile world around them. More information: Quan Khanh Luu et al, Vision-based Proximity and Tactile Sensing for Robot Arms: Design, Perception, and Control, IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2025). DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2025.3593087 Journal information: IEEE Transactions on Robotics Kayla Krug Irelan, D.O., an Internal medicine physician from Medical Clinic of Houston gives patients the option for more time, service and exclusive one-to-one connectivity ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y., Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Concierge Choice Physicians (CCP), the nation's leading full-service concierge medical service provider, announces today that Medical Clinic of Houston (MCH) internal medicine physician Kayla Krug Irelan, D.O., is the latest physician to now offer CCP's Hybrid Choice, a unique healthcare program that gives patients the option of a more comprehensive, convenient and personal form of medical care. Dr. Irelan is one of a growing number of physicians affiliated with large medical groups offering a hybrid membership model of care through Concierge Choice Physicians. The model is unique because it allows Dr. Irelan to continue to care for all her patients. Membership is not required, it is simply an option for those patients who want more time, enhanced service, medical advocacy, and the support that comes from having a close doctor/patient relationship. "I decided to join many of my colleagues at MCH to launch a Concierge Choice program after seeing how well it was working," said Dr. Irelan. "Patients are getting the connectivity and support they feel they need, and I get to practice a style of medicine I truly enjoy. It's a wonderful option for my patients." Specific program benefits include : same-day or next-day appointments that are scheduled for longer duration so patients never feel rushed; the ability to schedule appointments with Dr. Irelan each time, rather than another available provider, greater connectivity with a direct members-only phone line at the office, convenient email Doctor communication, after hours support via Dr. Irelan's private cell number; enhanced medical advocacy with outside health providers and specialists, and a comprehensive annual exam with customized screenings for each patient. "Medical Clinic of Houston is dedicated to providing the highest level of support and service to the Houston community, and CCP is proud to support that effort," says Keith Elgart, Chief Executive Officer from Concierge Choice Physicians. "We welcome Dr. Irelan and look forward to working together." Membership in the Hybrid Choice is limited so that Dr. Irelan can serve both members and nonmembers. The Hybrid Choice is available for an annual membership fee. For more information on the program or to join, contact Concierge Choice Physicians at (877) 888-5590. About Kayla K. Irelan, D.O. Dr. Irelan is board certified in Internal Medicine. After graduating Cum Laude in Biology from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, Dr. Irelan completed her medical degree, receiving her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of North Texas Health Science Center and her internal medicine residency at University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. With a strong interest in outpatient, preventive care, Dr. Irelan focuses on her patients' general well-being, as well as the management of multiple and complicated diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure, and cholesterol. About Concierge Choice Physicians (CCP) Dedicated to providing real options for patients and physicians, Concierge Choice Physicians is the largest private provider of the full range of concierge programs available todayHybrid and FullFlex. The company provides innovative, flexible and affordable models proven to work in medical practices of any sizefrom solo physicians to large medical practice corporationsboth independent and affiliated with hospitals or health systems. Headquartered in Rockville Centre, NY, the company has worked with more than 500 physicians in 29 states. For more information, please visit www.ccpmd.com. SOURCE CONCIERGE CHOICE PHYSICIANS BEIJING, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Anti-Fascist War was a just war waged in the 1930s and 1940s by the Allies together with all anti-fascist forces worldwide against the aggression of the Axis powers - Germany, Japan and Italy - and their satellite states. The United Nations (UN) was founded on the great victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and stands as the common achievement of the Allied nations. It plays an important role in maintaining international peace and advancing global governance structures forged in the post-war era. As a principal Allied power, China took part in the entire process from the UN's preparation to its establishment. In January 1942, China joined the US, the Soviet Union and the UK in leading 26 nations to sign the Declaration by United Nations in Washington, DC, cementing the global anti-fascist coalition. In October 1943, China, the US, the Soviet Union and the UK signed the Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security at the Moscow Conference, jointly calling for the creation of a "general international organization" (later named the UN) to maintain international peace and security, with China as one of the original signatories facilitating its adoption. From the Cairo Conference and the Dumbarton Oaks Conference to the Yalta Conference, China actively participated in establishing the fundamental structure of the UN and its Security Council. From April to June 1945, the Chinese delegation participated in the UN Conference on International Organization, signed the UN Charter, and in October the UN was officially founded. China has contributed many concepts and proposals with distinctive Chinese characteristics, which are rooted in its historical traditions and development practices. Notably, it has consistently championed the interests and aspirations of smaller and vulnerable nations. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, proposed by China, evolved into a "guiding framework" for implementing the UN Charter's purposes. These principles established practical guidelines for resolving international disputes and advancing greater democratization of international relations. More profoundly, China's participation gave the UN greater universality and representativeness and strongly promoted decolonization and modernization globally. China has continuously enriched the content of the UN Charter through its actions, upheld the international system with the UN at its core and opposed unilateralism and hegemonism. In safeguarding world peace and security, China has dispatched more than 50,000 personnel to 30 UN-authorized peacekeeping missions worldwide. It steadfastly advocates political solutions, promotes dialogue among equals and opposes the use of force or sanctions bypassing UN Security Council authorization. Significantly, China's Belt and Road Initiative and the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity have both been written into UN General Assembly resolutions, serving as a connectivity platform benefiting 172 countries and international organizations, and as a key pathway to addressing global governance challenges. China has significantly advanced South-South cooperation through dedicated funds benefiting over 60 countries and 30 million people. The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank further delivers vital financial support to developing economies, accelerating regional prosperity. In global climate governance, China has pledged to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. The country has also promoted the implementation of the Paris Agreement and taken the lead in driving a global green transition. Remarkable progress has been made in poverty reduction, with China becoming the first nation to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. The country met the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development's poverty reduction target 10 years ahead of schedule. Its contribution to global poverty reduction exceeds 70 percent. Moreover, China is the second largest contributor to the UN regular budget and peacekeeping assessments, and its China-UN Peace and Development Fund has supported nearly 180 projects benefiting over 100 countries, making solid contributions to world peace and development. Over the past eight decades, the world has witnessed profound changes. From the blood-stained Eastern battlefield of the World Anti-Fascist War to being the first country to sign the UN Charter; from championing national self-determination for emerging countries to fully supporting the sustainable development of developing nations; and from breaking the zero-sum mentality for easing regional conflicts, to advancing the Global Security Initiative for safeguarding the post-war international order - China, as a responsible major country, has always stayed true to its original aspiration. It has made important contributions to safeguarding world peace, promoting common development and addressing global challenges. Today, China continues to pursue its modernization to foster shared global prosperity, inject certainty into a turbulent world and contribute wisdom and strength to the cause of human peace, progress and development. SOURCE Global Times The minivan after it was removed from its resting place in rhe ruble of the business place. A number of commuters travelling to Kingstown from the Campden Park area and bystanders at Gibson Corner are counting their lucky stars. This, after a minivan on its way to Kingstown crashed into a business place, located on the very curve at Gibson Corner, at the entrance to what used to be referred to as Grantsville. An unconfirmed number of passengers were injured, extensive damage was done to the business place, and the vehicle was a wreck. According to a police press release, the accident occurred on Tuesday 19th August, at approximately 3:13pm. The police confirmed that the incident involved a Toyota minivan, registration number H8476, owned by Senard Adams a resident of Campden Park, and driven by Keith Joseph, aka Grenadian or South, a 49-year-old resident of Edinboro. Joseph sustained serious injuries to his face and both legs. One of the minivans door had to be completely removed in order to release him from a pinned position. He is currently receiving treatment at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) Intensive Care Unit (ICU). In addition, a bystander and several passengers who were in the vehicle sustained varying degrees of injury, ranging from fractures to serious lacerations. They were treated at the MCMH. Senard Adams, the owner of the minivan and son of businessman Adolphus Famo Adams, was not on scene, when THE VINCENTIAN arrived, to give any information. However, a number of witnesses said the van appeared to have suffered a brakes failure. Proprietor of Barrys Building Home Services, Barry Edwards, said his business place took a direct hit. He noted that no one was inside the business place when the accident took place. He described his business as a small hardware that also sells bottled gas (LPG). "We supply items for the community, so somebody could have a hinges, they could have a lock, fix a pipe that burst, we have stop corks, we have every fitting to help our community so they could maintain their home especially during the weekend, said Barry, adding, "I am in good condition a reference to him being okay despite the setback. Barry confirmed the removal of the minivans door explaining that the process took at least half an hour to be completed. Police said that investigations are ongoing to determine the full circumstances surrounding the accident. Gasroy DJ Swagga Fergusson was once employed with HOT 97.1. FM before he joined BOOM 106.9 PM, where he carved out a listening niche for himself. A black car took a right turn just above SVG General Services Ltd., commonly referred to as "Flys, catching a number of men who frequent that block in Pauls Avenue by surprise. What ensured thereafter, added up to the last time DJ Swagga, known for his role on BOOM SVG 106.9, was to be seen alive. Gasroy DJ Swagga Fergusson, a 32-year-old resident of Largo Height, was shot and killed while he was hanging out with some friends a short distance from his work place in Pauls Avenue, during the wee hours of According to a resident of Pauls Avenue, a group of people were liming outside a shop when a vehicle pulled up "and people began to scatter after dey hear gunshots. Swagga and a brown skin boy got hit. Swagga try run but the gunman went over him and start to fire at his head. Then they went out Gaymes Bookstore side, said the source. Whatever the details, DJ Swagga was pronounced dead on the sport. The other male injured during the shooting, was taken to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital for treatment. Indications are that the DJ was shot multiple time to the head and also ibn the leg. The source said that they knew Swagga from seeing him in the community. "He uses to just chill and sell his high leaf when he not deejaying. His high leaf, we call blend, was nice. But I dont believe they came for him specifically he just happen to be there. I am just saying, I could be wrong. But from knowing him, he was a cool guy, said the Pauls Avenue resident, adding that "the situation with killing in the country is overbearing. This needs to stop! Boom 106.9FM paid tribute to the fallen employee, by, among other expressions, placing a floral display at the entrance to the radio station in Pauls Avenue. A number of the segments on air was dedicated in his honor. In an official statement, the station said: "We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague and friend, Gasroy Dj Swagga Fergusson. "Gasroy was more than just a member of the Boom 106.9 family, he was a vibrant spirit, a dedicated talent, and a true friend whose presence lit up every room. Our hearts are heavy as we remember the joy he brought to so many through his music, humor and extroverted energy. "We extend our deepest condolences to his family, loved ones, and all who mourn this devastating loss. Rest in peace, Swagga. You will forever remain part of the Boom 106.9 family. Albert Warren speculation runs rife about his death but the police has cautioned against jumping to conclusions. The death of an elderly man, a resident of Lowmans leeward, has left many in that community puzzled. Albert Warren, said to be in his 60s, was found dead on August 18, 2025, at approximately 9:00 P.M. He was said to be a farmer and well-known in the community. Police said they were alerted to the discovery of a male body in some bushes close to a residence in Lowmans Hill. The body was later identified as that of Albert Warren. Report had first surfaced that Warren was discovered with injuries to the body. However, the police dismissed the allegations, stating that "no apparent injuries were observed at the scene. The District Medical Officer (DMO) attended the scene and pronounced Warren deceased. A post-mortem examination will be conducted to determine the exact cause of death. The Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF) further advises the public to await the outcome of the post-mortem examination before drawing conclusions about the nature of the death. The investigation is ongoing, and the police is urging anyone with relevant information to come forward. All information given to the police will be kept confidential. On Friday, August 15, 2025, another eleven persons successfully completed a Novice/Technician Class amateur radio course here. The course was jointly organized by the Climate Change Resilience Network CCRN, and the Youlou Amateur Radio Association YARA, with sponsorship from the NTRC and Venezuelan Institute. The one-week course covered areas that included but not limited to antenna theory and construction, Ohms Law, frequency allocation for radio amateurs and basic electricity. During the practical session the students made, erected and tested a 40-meter loop antenna and received outstanding reports from stations in Trinidad and Biabou, confirming that the students followed instructions accurately. Some of the students who never had an opportunity to speak on the HF frequencies were able to briefly chat with other regional and local licensed radio operators. Of the 18 persons who took the test with an 80% pass mark, 11 were successful in achieving 50% and over with two persons scoring 100%. Tashanna Williams a CCRN volunteer and Litonya John, a Coast Guard Officer received a dual band handheld radio for their outstanding performance in the multiple choice test. These gifts were provided by Herbert "Jeff English J85E, a Vincentian Ham currently residing in the US. The Directors of YARA wish to publicly commend these young ladies for their remarkable achievement and Mr. Jeff English for providing the gifts as encouragement to the new radio amateurs. Nine year old Keandre Moore who attends the Stubbs Primary school is now the youngest male in SVG to achieve the 80% pass mark for a Novice/Technician Class amateur radio license. During the closing ceremony the Director of YARA, Donald De Riggs J88CD who was the main instructor, thanked sponsors for their input, including the NTRC who printed the handouts with the course material, as well as test papers, and who also provided a member of staff as invigilator during the exam. De Riggs also thanked the Venezuelan Institute for the use of their facilities for the training as well as other YARA members who provided daily support during the training activities. Venezuelan Ambassador HE Francisco Perez Santana, and his wife were also in attendance. Also making brief remarks and commending the successful participants was Dr. Andrew Simmons founder of the GEMS progressive community organization and CCRN board member, Ms. Urania Yearwood. The local Chairperson for CCRN, Ms. Denise Stephens J88NLS coordinated the logistics for this training course. Amateur Radio Operators, also known as Hams, use wireless radio to promote goodwill and peace as well as provide important Emergency Communications (Emcoms) services, before, during and in the aftermath of major natural disasters. Hams have historically been deployed to disaster zones to provide back-up communications services if and when conventional telephone services have been rendered inoperable. Emcoms teams have been deployed. A joint Medical and Emcoms team from SVG was deployed in Dominica following the devastation by hurricane Maria in 2017; in St. Lucia following Tomas; in Grenada in 2004 following hurricane Ivan; and more recently in Canouan, Mayreau and Union island following Beryl in 2024. Submitted by: Donald De Riggs Petty Officer (PO) 780 Sasha Martin occupies a special place in the annals of the local Coast Guard Service. (Editors Note: The following is a release from the Royal SVG Police Force. It is carried verbatim) History was made in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Coast Guard Service (SVGCG) when Petty Officer (PO) 780 Sasha Martin became the first female to be certified as an Officer of the Watch. PO Martin achieved this milestone after graduating from the Caribbean Military Academy in Jamaica, completing the Bridge Watchkeeping Course (BWKC) 01/2025 with an impressive academic average of 89%. The training, which began on January 13, 2025, brought together officers from six nations Barbados, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Jamaica. To take part in the course, PO Martin was temporarily promoted to the rank of Sub-Lieutenant. The BWKC is designed to strengthen participants theoretical knowledge and practical skills essential for effective watchkeeping duties aboard vessels, in alignment with international maritime standards. The course was delivered in four (4) phases: 1. Theoretical Training Core maritime subjects including First Aid, Navigation Fundamentals, Tides, Astronomy, Meteorology, Relative Velocity, and International Collision Regulations (COLREGs). 2. Officer of the Watch Developing advanced competencies in navigation and vessel command. 3. Simulator Exercises Full-mission bridge simulations under varied operational conditions, such as reduced visibility, traffic separation schemes, port approaches, and emergency responses. 4. STCW Programme International Standards for Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping. Participants also completed Basic Safety Training (BST) and Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS) at the Caribbean Maritime University. This included survival at sea, firefighting using breathing apparatus, and safety protocols aboard vessels. Reflecting on her achievement, PO Martin said: "Completing the Bridge Watchkeeping Course has been a significant step in my career as a Coast Guard Officer. The combination of rigorous theoretical instruction and hands-on simulation has not only deepened my maritime knowledge but also enhanced my practical competencies as an Officer of the Watch. I look forward to applying these skills operationally and continuing my development in the service of maritime safety and defence. PO Martin expressed gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the course and encouraged greater access for her colleagues: "I strongly recommend advocating for sponsorship and funding from the Canadian government to support similar training opportunities for members of the SVG Coast Guard. Canadas ongoing commitment to capacity building in the Caribbean region presents an ideal opportunity to establish long-term training partnerships. The Commissioner of Police, the Commanding Officer of the SVG CGS, and all ranks and members of the organization extend their congratulations to PO Martin on this historic achievement, which highlights the organizations dedication to professional development, gender equality, and operational excellence in maritime safety and defence. NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In the heart of New York City, under the towering skyline and amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life, Trice Contracting Inc. made its mark on the community with the launch of their highly anticipated "Raising Roofs, Building Trust" event. This event wasn't just about showcasing their top-notch roofing services but also about solidifying Trice Contracting's commitment to the Big Apple's residents - ensuring their homes and businesses are protected from the harsh elements, with expert care and reliability. Event Overview: It was a cool, crisp Saturday morning when Trice Contracting Inc. rolled out the red carpet at their flagship event at a local community center in Manhattan. A large banner hung across the entrance: "Protect Your Home, Protect Your Investment." Local residents, small business owners, and even some of New York's top architects gathered, eager to learn more about roofing services that had been making waves across the city. The event kicked off with a welcome speech from Mohammed Rafiq Trice, the company's founder and CEO, who's known for his down-to-earth approach and unwavering passion for quality. "We've been serving New York for over a decade, but this event marks a new chapter for us," Rafiq said. "We want to not only fix roofs but build lasting relationships with the people we serve. The trust we build today will protect the homes of New Yorkers for generations to come." Key Highlights of the Event: Closing Remarks: As the sun set behind the iconic skyline, the event wrapped up with a closing speech by Mohammed Rafiq Trice. "We're not just about putting roofs over heads. We're about creating a lasting relationship that helps build and protect the very foundation of our communities. Today, we've built more than roofs - we've built trust." With new relationships forged, roof consultations booked, and hearts full of appreciation, the "Raising Roofs, Building Trust" event marked a milestone in Trice Contracting's commitment to New York. For more information about Trice Contracting Roofing services, visit www.tricecontracting.com or contact their office at 718-278-6000. SOURCE Trice Contracting Inc. Priest Jah Winston is on a quest to fulfil a calling to free up the have nots. A Vincentian born man is calling for more attention to be paid to Ethiopia. That man is Honorable Priest Jah Winston, recognized as the ambassador of the Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress, also known as the Bobo Shanti, one of the strictest Mansions of Rastafari. That institution is registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and among its guiding pillars of operation is representing the plight of poor people. Jah Winston asserts that his Bobo Shanti calling is for the "poor and have nots. He adds that the demand for repatriation with compensation is priority on the agenda. Jah Winston is scheduled for a trip to Ethiopia in time for the commemoration of His Majestys Coronation, November 2. He accepts, "I have to do this work, for to him there is a "mystique that surrounds Ethiopia, and he advocates for more studies about that nation. He describes Ethiopia as the "purest land, and endorses the plea to "go home. For him, it is time for the liberation that the poor and have nots have been denied since slavery. Jah Winston is guided by teachings of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, and His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I. He lectures to students at educational institutions done with local administrative compliance. Troumaca Ontario Secondary School, Buccament Bay Secondary, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Grammar School, Girls High School, Central Leeward Secondary School, and the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College will be bases of his presentations. With high temperature hovering around 83 degrees, Vincentians from all walks of life, as well as Caribbean and other nationals, on Saturday, Aug. 16, converged on the picturesque and expansive Heckscher State Park in East Islip, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York for the 13th Annual Vincy Day Picnic. Nationals trekked from as far as Canada and Miami, as well as from their homeland for the Extravaganza, in the mix of which they met and greeted relatives and friends many of whom they had not seen in years. The event featured, among other things, pulsating Vincentian and Caribbean soca, calypso and reggae music, and steel pan and gospel music, and a potpourri of Vincy dishes. Amidst a kaleidoscope of colors including the Vincentian national colours, green, gold (yellow) and blue. Interspersed with DJ music, the Magma Band, led by renowned Vincentian keyboardist Adrian Bailey, backed up several soca, calypso and reggae artistes, and provided hypnotic rhythms to the frenzied party crowd at the main stage on the eastern corner of the grounds. The Run-of-Show featured, among others, Alyssa Seales, and Timmi Straker and Super K on steel pan; Hymm Legendary singing reggae, R&B and soca music; Brother Don and Evangelist LaFleur Durrant Sprott singing gospel music; Gregory Olive, Jose Juan and Dennis Bowman doing calypso and soca joined in the latter generate by Prezzi Don, Skarpyon and Rondy "Luta McIntosh (Consul General the United States). After revving up the party crowd with "Busy Tone, "Tight Spot and "Bad Mind, McIntosh told THE VINCENTIAN that he was delighted to see nationals coming together to celebrate their "Vincyness with our Vincy cuisine, Vincy beverages and Vincy colours, along with our Vincy culture, that keep us true to our roots and our identity. "I urge all Vincentians living in the Diaspora to reserve one day of the year to join us at Heckscher State Park for this grand reunion, where our culture comes alive, he added. "May God bless our people and keep us true to our identify and that we may not forget where we came from! Vincy to the bone! Belair native Mylene Matthews, who trekked from North Carolina, said she brought along her family for the showcase. "This is good, she said. "I love it. All my family is here my son and my three grand kids. As she swayed to Skarpyons "Hammer, Brooklyn resident Desree Quashie, said she was excited to be part of the festivity. "Its a better package than last year, she said, flanked by Daphne James, a registered nurse and follow villager from South Rivers. "Therere hardly any empty areas like last year. "Ive been coming regularly, Quashie added. "Youve seen a lot of improvements since COVID. Still, she said: "A lot of people stayed away because of ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement). There could have been more people. Terrance Edwards, an Old Montrose, Kingstown native, who helped promote the book, "The Story of Paulene Bramble, by his cousin Dr. Richard A. Byron-Cox, said the picnic was very nice. "Everybody is just getting together, picnicking, celebrating, he said. "Everybody is enjoying themselves no bad activity. Its one of the best Vincy Days Ive seen. McKies Hill, Kingstown, native Gary "Tunka Edwards, co-stage manager, commended the Vincy Day Committee, stating that they are "doing a tremendous job in bringing the community together. "Its one of the biggest day-gatherings in North America (for Vincentians), he said. "Buses came from Canada and Boston; people came from Miami. Were looking for bigger and better. Raymond Otis Lewis, chair of Vincy Day USA, Inc., who hails from Kingstown, said that the Annual Vincy Day, which is usually held on the third Saturday in August, is "unrivalled. "Vincy Day brings families together, he said. "It gives you one day to decompress. "Its time to enjoy yourself, Lewis added. "So, thats the reason behind what we do. We do this without fear or favor. Acting Superintendent of Prisons Dwayne Bailey gave a detailed report on the Prison Population at the closing of the Assizes, highlighting the number and ages of as large number of repeat offenders. Almost 90 percent of the 209 inmates of the prison system here who had attended a secondary school, dropped out of school in Form 2 and 3. This is according to Acting Superintendent of Prisons Dwayne Bailey, during a recent conversation with THE VINCENTIAN. The prison population statistics presented at the close of the High Court Criminal Assizes last week, showed that 209 of the 396 inmates currently housed at His Majestys Prisons (HMP) and the Belle Isle Correctional Facility, had attended a secondary school, representing 52.8 percent of the prison population; while 167 representing 42.2 percent of the prison population, attended Primary School and 17 are receiving a tertiary education. Bailey revealed that several inmates had also dropped out of primary school, but he did not have those statistics at hand. He further revealed that many of the inmates with an academic background, whether primary, secondary or tertiary, were in prison for very serious offences, including murder and gun-related offences. A significant part of the prison population is between the ages of 16 and 35. Eleven males are between the ages of 16 and 21: five having been sentenced by the Magistrates Court, four awaiting trial and two on remand. Only one female in this age group is currently incarcerated. There are 40 males between the ages of 22 and 25: 14 sentenced by the Supreme Court, 15 by the Magistrates Court, three awaiting trial and eight on remand. Two women in this age group remain imprisoned. Fifty-three males are between the ages of 26 and 29: 25 sentenced by the Supreme Court, 16 by the Magistrates Court, five awaiting trial, and seven on remand. Two female prisoners are in this age group. Seventy-eight males are between the ages of 30 and 35: 46 sentenced by the Supreme Court, 17 by the Magistrates Court, six awaiting trial and nine on remand. There are no female prisoners in this group. Fifty-two are between the ages of 36 and 39: 36 sentenced by the Supreme Court, 11 by the Magistrates Court, and two awaiting trial, and 3 on remand. There are no female prisoners in this age group. Eight-six males are between the ages of 40 and 49: 55 sentenced by the Supreme Court, 21 by the Magistrates Court, five awaiting trial and 5 on remand. No females are counted in this group. There are no female prisoners in the over 50 group but there are sixty-one males: 40 were sentenced by the Supreme Court, 19 by the Magistrates Court and two are on remand. There is no inmates, male or female, under the age of 16 currently housed at the prisons. Three hundred and eighty-three (383) males are repeat offenders, including: 137 first time offenders; 51 who repeated between 4 to 6 times; 44 between 7 and 12 times; 14 between 13 and 20 times and 1 who repeated between 21 and over years. There are 5 female repeat offenders behind bars: 4 first timers and 1 who repeated between 1-3 years. One hundred and one (101) inmates are behind bars in connection with offences of murder: 64 sentenced by the Supreme Court, 22 awaiting trial and 15 on remand. This number represents the highest for any single offense. The wars in Ukraine and Palestine highlight one of the most striking contradictions in international politics: the selective application of the principle that land should never be taken by force. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and later launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western governments responded with sanctions, military aid for Kyiv, and strong declarations that borders cannot be redrawn through aggression. Ukrainian resistance has been praised as both legitimate and heroic. But Palestinians have long argued that their land, too, has been taken by force, through settlement expansion, displacement, and occupation. Their resistance is rarely described as legitimate. Instead, it is often condemned as terrorism, while Israel continues to enjoy extensive military, economic, and political support from Western allies. Double Standards on Display This contrast has not gone unnoticed. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged European leaders to avoid double standards in their responses to Gaza and Ukraine. Analysts such as Shada Islam have suggested that Europes muted action on Israel, compared to its robust sanctions on Russia, reflects deeper structural biases and historical legacies. Public commentary has echoed the same concerns. Writers like John Wight in the Morning Star and Mustafa Akyol in Middle East Eye have argued that the West risks undermining its credibility by insisting on international law in one case while appearing to ignore it in another. A Mirror Effect? Some observers have even suggested that Moscow may be using its demands on Ukraine to highlight these contradictions. By pressing for territorial concessions, Russia forces Western leaders into a position where they cannot accept land being taken by force. Yet this is precisely what Palestinians have been asked to accept for decades. If land concessions are unacceptable in Ukraine, how can they be promoted as a path to peace in Palestine? The inconsistency raises uncomfortable questions about whether international norms are applied universally, or only when they align with strategic interests. The Cost of Inconsistency The credibility of the so-called rules-based international order rests on consistency. If defending ones homeland against invasion is legitimate for Ukrainians, then the same principle should logically extend to Palestinians. Applying international law selectively not only deepens mistrust in the global South but also erodes Western moral authority. As the conflicts continue, the test for the West is not just about Russia or Israel. It is about whether it can uphold the principles it claims to defend without exception. Moldovas ambitious plan to restore its ravaged forests makes progress, yet much more needs to be done. Vasile Tintari is very enthusiastic about trees. He slams on the brakes of his car at barely a moments notice, jumps out into the fierce Moldovan summer sunshine, and strides among the flourishing saplings that he helped to plant a year and a half ago. Young, light green Robinia pseudoacacia trees a hardwood with small oval-shaped leaves commonly known as black locust stretch for hectares of rolling countryside around. In the distance, a more mature forest cuts a darker green trail across the horizon. The heat is getting worse and worse, says Tintari, the 61-year-old mayor of Copceac, a village in the southeast of the country, a short walk from the border with Ukraine. But at least the situation is better here. We have the trees. Disappearing Forests Copceac is one of the leading lights in Moldovas grand national plan to bring back its once-sprawling forests. Back in the mid-19th century, Czar Alexander I commissioned a wide-ranging inventory of the Russian Empire, and found that about a third of what is modern day Moldova was covered in forest. But over the decades, this once magnificent green mass has gradually disappeared for reasons including population growth, industrialization, mass logging, and the transformation of forests into agricultural and pastoral land. By 2020, Moldova had less than 12% forest cover one of the lowest levels in Europe. (The average in the European Union was 39.8% that same year.) Today, partly as a consequence, Moldova is one of the European countries most vulnerable to extreme climate events. To give one example, when one of the most severe droughts in two decades struck the country in 2020, agricultural production fell by 26%. Restoring the countrys lost forests was beginning to seem like an urgent need, far more than a green buzzword. So in 2023, Moldovas President Maia Sandu launched the National Reforestation Project, a 10-year initiative aimed at transforming the countrys landscape into a greener shade to reap the rich rewards of tree-led ecosystems. The government pledged to plant 110,000 hectares of new forest and to rehabilitate 35,000 hectares of degraded forest. These steps would take the total to 15% forest cover. The long-term ideal target for Moldova, the authorities estimate, is 25% forest cover. Vasile Tintari The Reforestation Solution Moldovas forest restoration efforts are aimed at bringing multiple benefits, such as boosting biodiversity, regulating and storing carbon, preventing erosion, restoring degraded land, providing green spaces to support citizens mental health, and even representing a source of sustainable income for rural communities through timber. The value of forests are multiple, says Maitane Erdozain Ibarra, a researcher at the Forest Science and Technology Center of Catalonia in Spain. More and more we need them in order to help deal with the multiple crises we are facing. In Copceac, there are currently about 800 hectares of forest including 100 hectares that have been planted since 2011, when Tintari was first elected mayor. It is one of the most successful districts in Moldova when it comes to reforestation. Under the new national campaign, Copceacs efforts have received a further boost, providing lessons for other regions as they scale up their reforestation. A number of global reforestation and nature restoration initiatives are encouraging those efforts. The Bonn Challenge, set in 2011, is a global goal to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030, the Convention on Biological Diversity aims to restore 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030, and the EUs European Restoration Regulation has set binding legal targets to restore 20% of EU land and sea territory by 2030. The most successful examples of reforestation have been when theres integration and consultation, when they put all the stakeholders around the table, says Erdozain, who co-authored a 2024 study of forest restoration efforts in 18 European countries. That vital buy-in has been evident during the new reforestation program in Copceac. On a bitter winters day in December 2023, dozens of residents gathered to plant 22 hectares of black locust trees, the equivalent of about 75,000 seedlings. Tintari was among them. I think Moldova has the capability to do this reforestation very fast,says Tintari, a local resident who was a forestry expert for years before he was elected. Whats more remarkable about Copceacs transformation is that until the reforestation efforts began, much of its land was degraded. According to Tintari, until the 1990s, only thorny bushes grew, not even grass, meaning that livestock could not feed. After heavy rains, deep ravines would often form in the easily eroding soil, in turn causing landslides that endangered the households in the village. So in 2015, with support from UNDP Moldova, Copceac started work to bring back its forests. In the first two years, about 36 hectares of trees were planted and 25 hectares of pasture were rehabilitated and sown with grassy crops to prevent soil degradation and erosion. Ever since, Copceacs reforestation efforts have taken root and the effects are being felt. Tintari claims that in Copceac its raining more now something he attributes to the precipitation created by the swathes of forest. Birds, rabbits, and wild boar have begun to return, too. The forest is our life, says Tintari, who as a young boy would climb trees in the hills around the village. This plantation of black locust trees in Copceac is one small piece of Moldovas national reforestation plan. 10,000 Hectares of New Forest In the past, reforestation initiatives in Europe were largely reactive to natural disasters or timber shortages, according to Erdozains research. While these projects were effective in combating erosion and boosting timber production, the ecological benefits were often limited due to monoculture plantations and short-rotation systems (which involve cultivating fast-growing tree species on relatively short rotations for biomass production). But recently, as in Moldova, theres an increasingly holistic approach. There has been an evolution of the context and what the needs are across Europe, says Erdozain. Theres a recognition that forests can be multifunctional. Moldovas national efforts also include the creation of the National Center for Forest Genetics and Seeds, which will provide research to aid progress, and the launch of three regional centers to produce timber for industrial use, as well as measures against poaching, illegal logging, and fires. A new Forestry Code, passed in 2024 to replace the old law from 1997, has established new woodlands, introduces key concepts like biodiversity conservation, afforestation of degraded lands, and forest certification for the first time. The code also allows forests to be classified as having either a special protection function or as dual-use, protective and production land. Since 2023, about 10,000 hectares of new forest have been planted and about 5,000 hectares of forest rehabilitated, the equivalent of more than 36 million trees, says Iulian Mamai, deputy head of Moldsilva, the national forestry agency. The survival rate is 67% nationwide, even though it is too early to assess the long-term health of the trees, which requires five years for more robust data. We have made good progress so far we know how important it is, says Mamai. The overall cost of implementing the decade-long program is expected to be 739 million euros, supported by a 200-million euro loan from the European Investment Bank. For comparison, the Environment Ministry estimates the value of ecosystem services generated by the countrys forests at around 60 million euros a year. The World Bank, which is providing technical support to the Moldovan authorities, forecasts that these forest restoration activities will provide nearly 14,000 jobs to rural communities. Challenges Ahead But some clear obstacles lie in the path of Moldovas reforestation. While the countrys progress is significant to date, the number of tree plantations falls short of Moldovas objective of about 14,500 hectares per year so far only about half of this rate has been achieved. My expectations were higher than the achievements so far, Mamai admits. Lack of rain has hindered tree growth in some areas, whereas floods in other regions have made it difficult to carry out the planting, he adds. Shortages of qualified personnel resulting from the limited training available, and of laborers to actually plant the trees because of competition with farmers during peak seasons have also slowed the rollout. The farmers pay higher wages than Moldsilva can. There have also been difficulties obtaining sapling and seed supply, particularly for oak trees that only flower once every seven years, and a lack of equipment. Moldsilva wasnt ready when it began. We couldnt get enough saplings, Tintari says. Facing those shortages, about 15 residents of Copceac have taken matters into their own hands, paying privately for saplings. One of them, Ilie Lazarev, says he planted a hectare of trees after buying seedlings sourced from the north of Moldova. For me, its very interesting to have trees here, for the climate, but also to use the timber, he says. Daria Orghian, a 50-year-old woman in the villages grocery store, echoed that popular support for reforestation. The air will get better, the forest attracts rains, says Orghian, whose relatives helped with the tree planting in 2023 and 2024. If there is any possibility to do it, then why not? But while black locust is readily available and fast-growing, some critics say that Moldovas emphasis on planting that type has limitations. Monocropping, for example, is much less beneficial for biodiversity even if some trees are better than no trees. Aurel Lozan, a Moldovan forestry and biodiversity expert, said that while the non-native, invasive black locust species can be useful, particularly as it can quickly help rehabilitate degraded land, the government has also planted the species in unsuitable areas such as steppes or meadows. There have been examples of incorrect site and species selection, he says. Moldsilvas Mamai said that the agency was attempting to introduce a broader mix of species including maple, ash, and oak while he also emphasized black locusts value in rehabilitating land. We must take into account that many lands are degraded, and the black locust is helping with this, he says. In the meantime, some areas have already succeeded in diversifying their forests. Near Copceac, the district of Causeni is home to a 14-hectare nursery that grows 40 species of trees, including pedunculate oak, common ash, and Japanese sophora. Climate change is affecting us, so heat-resistant trees, native to southern Moldova, are grown in the nursery, said Nicolae Munteanu, head of the Causeni forestry district. The nursery will disperse about 3 million seedlings for planting this fall. Last year, the Environment Ministry also provided Moldsilva with 14 tractors, 14 mulchers, and 14 rotovators to improve the speed and efficiency of reforestation. Iordanca-Rodica Iordanov, executive director of EcoContact, an environmental nonprofit, and a former environment minister, said that lessons had been learned from previous reforestation efforts, when key issues like legislative reforms, engagement with local communities, and long-term monitoring were ignored. These mistakes were made before, she says. We do not want them to be repeated. Now Moldsilva has an army of about 1,300 employees, including foresters and engineers, who visit tree plantations to check on how saplings are growing, as well as nearly 10,000 additional seasonal workers. Back in Copceac, those efforts continue apace as the need becomes ever more urgent. The village council has already ratified a proposal to plant 50 more hectares of forest in the coming months. The national plan is a really good program, says village mayor Tintari. It will bring us more trees. Peter Yeung is an award-winning freelance journalist who covers climate, global health, migration, human rights, and other topics, often through a critical, solutions-orientated lens. Georgeta Carasiucenco is a freelance journalist in Moldova. She writes about environmental issues, womens rights, agriculture, infrastructure, and other social topics. THE week saw 18,038,406 shares traded on the First Tier Market, an increase of 636.87% on the previous weeks total of 2,447,969 shares crossing the floor. The value of the shares traded was up 272.12% to $76,633,818.45 from the previous weeks value of $20,593,956.82. Massy Holdings Ltd (MASSY) was the volume leader for the week with 96.77% of the market activity or 17,455,994 shares traded, followed by Angostura Holdings Ltd (AHL) with 0.99% of the market activity or 177,759 shares traded.